After three Years in Prison, I Became a Billionaire

Chapter 7: Someone closer

CHAPTER 7: Someone Closer

Chloe's chin came up fast. "I've been paying the hospital. Andrews handles it every month. What exactly is the problem?"

Francis let out a short laugh, no humor in it, and pointed a lazy finger at Andrews. "You let this man handle my mother's bills?"

"It's not just the bills." Chloe's voice sharpened, defensive now. "Andrews is CFO of my company. Every expense goes through him. That's how it works."

Francis said nothing for a moment. A CFO sat closer to a company's blood than almost anyone. You didn't hand that seat to a stranger. You handed it to someone you trusted with everything, someone whose hands you'd let touch the numbers that kept the whole thing breathing.

He thought, briefly, of the accounts he'd built quietly over the years, the ones Chloe had never once asked to see. It was strange, realizing now how little curiosity she'd ever shown about the parts of him that didn't serve her directly.

"Interesting," he said finally. "Three years ago you wouldn't let me look at your quarterly reports. Said it wasn't my place. Now a man who's been sleeping over for broken pipes gets the keys to the vault."

"That's different." Chloe's jaw tightened. "You never wanted to be part of the company. Andrews understands the business."

"Andrews understands opportunity," Francis said. "There's a difference, though I imagine it looks the same from where you're sitting."

"You've been out of prison for six hours," Andrews said, voice light, though something underneath it had gone brittle. "Already lecturing people about business. Must be exhausting, knowing everything from inside a cell."

"You'd be surprised what a cell teaches you." Francis's tone didn't shift at all. "Mostly patience. And how to recognize a con from across a room, since half the men in there were running one when they got caught. You've got the same tell as most of them. You smile the widest right before you ask for something."

Andrews's smile flickered, then held, though it took visible effort now. "I haven't asked you for anything."

"Not yet." Francis shrugged. "Give it time."

Chloe's eyes went sharp between them, sensing the ground shifting under a conversation she thought she'd been steering. "Can we not do this tonight? I've had a long week."

"A long week," Francis repeated, almost gentle. "Three years, actually, if you're counting properly. But sure. Let's call it a week. Saves you the trouble of doing the math."

Andrews's smile had gone thin around the edges, the practiced ease from earlier starting to slip. "You say that like it's an insult."

"Take it however you'd like. Vultures don't get offended when you call them vultures. They just circle a little higher and wait." Francis shrugged, unbothered. "Efficient animals, really. No wasted energy on shame."

Something in his face must have shown through, because Chloe's anger cracked, just slightly, into something closer to guilt. "I'll go see her tomorrow," she said, quieter now. "And the payments never stopped, Francis. I trust Andrews completely."

"You keep saying that word. Trust." Francis tilted his head, studying her the way a man studies a crack in a wall he already knows is going to spread. "You trusted him with the company. Trusted him with my mother's bills. Trusted him enough to marry him on paper while your real husband was still doing time for a crime you never once asked him about." A pause. "I'm starting to think trust just means whoever's standing closest when you need someone to blame later."

Chloe flinched, actually flinched, and for a second Francis thought she might say something honest. She didn't. She never did, not when honesty cost her something.

He didn't feel like arguing anymore. There wasn't a point in arguing with a wall that had already decided which way it wanted to lean.

"Doesn't matter," he said, voice flat, almost bored. "Our marriage certificate was never real. Which means there's nothing here to end." A dry, humorless smile touched his mouth. "I came back tonight thinking I had something to close. Turns out there was never anything open."

He stood, pushed the chair in with more care than the moment deserved. "Lucky, really. If we'd actually been married, half of Skyward would belong to you right now. You'd have made a fortune off a man you couldn't be bothered to visit in prison. There's a kind of poetry in missing out on that."

Chloe's mouth opened, no sound coming out. She watched his back as he walked toward the door, something twisting low in her chest that felt, unwelcome and unfamiliar, like regret.

It surprised her, that feeling. She'd spent the whole evening rehearsing anger, rehearsing the version of tonight where she came out justified, and none of it had prepared her for how quiet the room suddenly felt with him halfway out of it.

"Francis—"

Andrews's phone buzzed on the table before she could finish. He glanced at it, and whatever had been sly in his face a moment ago dropped away completely, replaced by something close to disbelief.

"Chloe." His voice cracked with an excitement too loud for the room. "Look at this."

She crossed to him fast, forgetting Francis entirely, forgetting the sentence still hanging in her throat like it had never mattered at all. That was the thing about Chloe, Francis thought, watching from the doorway. Money always won. It just needed to be loud enough to drown out whatever else was happening in the room.

Francis didn't turn around. He heard the phone change hands, heard Chloe's sharp intake of breath.

"Skyward Technology," she read aloud, disbelieving. "A press conference. One month from now. Right here in this city." Her voice climbed, sharpened with something greedy. "The mysterious boss behind the scenes is finally going public."

Francis's hand paused on the door handle for exactly one second. Then he kept walking.

Behind him, Chloe had already forgotten he existed. She gripped Andrews's hands, breathless, already calculating. "We need to get ahead of everyone. If we can get his contact information before the conference, before anyone else even knows who he is—"

"We could take the company somewhere no one's dreamed of," Andrews finished for her, eyes bright with the particular hunger of a man who smelled money before anyone else in the room.

Neither of them noticed the door close.

Andrews's smile, once Francis was gone, settled into something quieter and far more satisfied. Chloe wouldn't think to check on Francis's mother now. Wouldn't think about medical bills or unpaid accounts or anything at all outside the number glowing on his screen.

Everything, for once, was going exactly according to plan. He'd spent months building this exact moment, feeding Chloe small doses of ambition until she couldn't see past them, and watching Francis walk out that door felt like the last loose thread finally cutting itself off. One less complication. One less witness.

He didn't know yet how wrong he was.

His phone buzzed again in his pocket, once, sharp against his hip. He almost ignored it. Instead, some old habit made him check.

Not Chloe this time. A number he didn't recognize, a single line glowing on the screen.

*Everyone at the hospital is talking about you, Mr. Cole. So is someone else. Watch your back tonight.*

Outside, the elevator doors closed on Francis with a soft, final chime. He leaned back against the mirrored wall, closed his eyes for exactly three seconds, and let himself feel the full weight of the night settle into his shoulders. Not sadness, exactly. Something quieter. The particular tiredness of a man who'd just watched the last piece of his old life finish dissolving, and found, to his own surprise, that he didn't much miss the shape of it.

By the time the doors opened onto the lobby, his face had gone smooth again, unreadable, the same careful stillness he'd worn walking out of the prison gate that morning. Whatever came next, he'd meet it the same way he'd met everything else since. Quietly. Without giving anyone the satisfaction of watching him break.