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Chapter 52
"Sophia," Beverly said again.The old woman was bent over her cane, breathing hard from the steps. Her pearls had slipped sideways. Behind her, on the steps of Elm Ridge, half the city stood with their glasses in their hands and watched."Grandma begs you," she said. "You are the director. I should never have listened to that boy. Please. Call Mr. Charles. Tell him the chair is yours. Otherwise this family is finished."Nobody on the steps made a sound.Sophia stood up slowly from the stones under the ivy, with Alexander's jacket still round her shoulders. She looked at her grandmother for a long time. Then she wiped her face with the back of her hand."I'll take it," she said. "Because I won it, Grandma. Not because you're begging."Beverly's mouth opened. Then it closed, and she nodded, once, the way she nodded to bankers.Sophia turned to her husband. He shrugged."Told you they'd beg," Alexander said. "Look at your face. You're all smudged."She gave a wet, shaky laugh and took ou
Chapter 51
Charles took the microphone from Beverly the way a man picks up a tool he knows well."Good evening," he said. "Before anyone asks. That young man is not our owner."A long breath went out of the whole room. Somebody laughed. Brenda put a hand on her chest as if her heart had stopped for a moment and only now remembered to start again."He did our owner a small favour once," Charles went on. "Tonight he met him at the gate, and he brought me his word. Our owner will not be coming in.""So he carries messages now," Evan said to the table, smiling, just loud enough. A few people laughed with him.Up at the front, Carter laughed loudest of all. "A delivery boy! Grandma, did you hear? He's a delivery boy!"Charles waited until the laughing stopped."And the word is this," he said. "From tonight, Evergrande Group ends all its work with the Cavendish firm. The river tower contract is void."For one second, nobody breathed.Then the room exploded. Chairs scraped back. Voices rose on every si
Chapter 50
The next evening, Brenda bought a cake with cream and a paper crown on top, and set it on the fold-out table like a new car."My daughter," she said. "Director. Now listen. From your first month, seventy percent of your pay goes to your mother. Young people waste money."Danny looked up from his slice. "Seventy?" he said. "Can I have the other thirty?""You can lick the plate."Sophia laughed. "All right, Mom. Seventy. But no more 'fruit boy.' Not here. Not at Elm Ridge. Not ever."Brenda looked at Alexander, washing the knife at the sink, and pressed her lips together. "For you," she said, "I'll try."The next night, Elm Ridge was lit up like a ship.Cars lined the drive all the way to the gate. In the long dining room, extra tables had been carried in round the long one, under the crystal chandelier. Among them stood every big name in the city: bankers, builders, the woman who owned the biggest hotel in town.They had all come for the same thing. Every few seconds, someone glanced a
Chapter 49
Sophia stood on the narrow stairs with the wooden box in her arms and waited for an answer.Below them, the first washing machine of the morning began to turn. The box smelled of earth and roots. Alexander looked at it, and then at his wife.The truth was right there. One sentence, and it would be out on these stairs, between the soap smell and the peeling paint."If I told you Vincent Hale is afraid of me," he said, "would you believe me?"Sophia looked at him for a long moment. At his wrinkled shirt. At his old shoes. At the hands he kept tucked under his arms, as if he were still cold from somewhere."Afraid of you." She shifted the box. "Alexander, I think all those old newspapers you never read have finally driven you mad.""Maybe.""He knelt at the Silver Crown because of Grandpa. Everybody knows that." But she said it slowly, like someone reading a sign she was not sure of any more. "Why would a man like that be afraid of you?""Ask me again when you're the director.""You said
Chapter 48
On the third floor of the Heron House, Hunter's foot stopped in the air."Who said that?"Every head turned to the window. Alexander was still standing there with his back to the room. He was looking out at the river, as if the lights on the water were the only interesting thing in the building.Hunter put his foot down slowly.He had seen this young man when he came up the stairs. He had not looked twice. But a man who could watch all of this and then open his mouth was either a fool, or something else. Hunter had not lived through ten years abroad by guessing wrong about that."Well, Mr. Hale?" Alexander said, still to the window. "Do we have a deal?"Vincent stared at the young man's back from his knees. Master Joseph had failed. Two men with guns had failed. Twelve men before them had failed. And now a young man in a wrinkled shirt wanted a box of weeds to save him. It was madness.But a drowning man does not choose what he grabs."Deal!" he cried. "Yes! Anything! Every herb in th
Chapter 47
On the third floor of the Heron House, Vincent's two gunmen pulled their guns out of their pockets.They never got to point them.Hunter did not even turn round. He picked two chopsticks off the broken tea table and flicked his wrist, once. There were two wet sounds, and two screams. Both men stood staring at their own hands. A chopstick stuck right through each one. Their guns dropped onto the carpet.Ten minutes. That was all it had taken. Ten minutes since Hunter had walked up those stairs, and every man Vincent had paid for was on the floor, or bleeding, or both.Only two people in the room were still untouched.One was the big man in the sling, pressed into the corner. The other was Alexander, standing at the window with a cup of tea in his hand.He poured himself another cup. Somebody had to enjoy the tea Vincent had paid for.But his eyes never left Hunter's fists. Twelve men, a student and a master, and the scarred man had not once had to guard himself. Alexander's weak body h
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