The Hidden Empire of Harvey Kane

Chapter 007: The Visit

Jane kept her eyes on the road, but her mind was nowhere near the traffic lights or the late-evening Manhattan streets.

The stranger’s voice still echoed in her head.

Harvey must not appear in court… maybe he’ll finally tell you everything.

Everything?

She tightened her grip on the wheel.

The stranger had only made it clear that Harvey was keeping secrets from her. The thought sat totally wrong in her chest.

Harvey? No way.

They had only been married a year, but she had known him for three.

She knew he was a cybersecurity expert who had graduated near the top of his class at MIT. She knew he still consulted for several companies, keeping their systems locked down and clean.

She knew he had spent a full decade in Korea after school before coming back to the States. She knew there had been two girlfriends before her, and that he hadn’t been a virgin when they met. She even knew the ugly part—his parents’ divorce after his mother’s friend had tried to take advantage of him when he was still a minor.

She knew all of that, and the list kept looping through her head until she had to bite down hard on her lower lip and shake her head, as if she could physically push the crazy thoughts away.

Harvey would never lie to her. That was the one thing she was certain of. He simply wasn’t built that way.

So what the hell had the stranger meant by Harvey finally telling her the truth?

What was he possibly hiding that she didn't know already?

And what kind of damage could a lawsuit do to a man who had always seemed so pure and loving?

"There’s only one way to find out," she muttered under her breath as she took the last turn that led to the district station.

---

Harvey sat on the narrow bench inside the holding cell, elbows on his knees, staring at the scuffed floor.

The fluorescent light overhead hummed steadily. He had already counted the cracks in the concrete twice.

Then the cell door clanged open as a uniformed officer stepped in.

“You’ve got a visitor.”

Harvey’s head lifted.

“Jane,” he muttered, almost under his breath as he got to his feet.

He followed the officer down the short corridor and into the visitation room.

The moment he saw her seated at the small metal table, something in his chest loosened and tightened at the same time.

"Darling," Jane gasped, rising the second their eyes met.

She was in his arms the very next moment. The hug was tight and fierce, the kind that tried to make up for every hour they had been apart since the cuffs went on.

“I’m sorry,” Harvey whispered against her hair.

“I understand,” she answered in a voice thick with emotions. "I understand."

They finally pulled back and sat across from each other.

Jane reached across the table first. “I’m sorry I didn’t come right away.”

Harvey shook his head, a small tired smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

“It’s fine. I’m the one who’s sorry. Our whole day… everything we planned… it all went to shit.”

Jane’s fingers closed around his hand and squeezed. “It’s alright. What matters is getting you out of here. That’s what I’m working on.”

He smiled properly then, the real one she knew, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze back. “Thank you.”

But as he said it he noticed the way her eyes slid away from his. The smile on her face thinned a fraction at the edges.

Harvey’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

Jane turned back to him and forced a small, careful smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Harvey didn’t buy it. He leaned forward across the narrow metal table. “I know when my baby is worried. Talk to me."

He paused, then closed both of his hands around hers.

“Tell me Jonathan didn't do something stupid after I was whisked away.”

Jane shook her head once. “No.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, before asking gently, “Did you really hit Kyle?”

On hearing that, Harvey went completely still. The faint hum of the fluorescent lights suddenly felt louder.

For several seconds he didn’t answer. Then he slowly looked away from her, jaw tightening, and eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Kyle really got on my nerves that morning after you left. I only shoved him away before I walked out of the house and drove to Harvax.”

Jane studied his face, reading the regret that sat plain in the set of his mouth.

Then she nodded once, the motion small but certain. “I understand.”

She drew in a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. Her eyes drifted away from his toward the blank cinder-block wall, as if looking at him would make the next words harder to say.

“My mother threatened to file a lawsuit against you for battery.”

The second the sentence left her mouth, everything changed.

Harvey pulled his hands free of hers as if the table itself had burned him. He sat back hard in the metal chair, eyes widening in a way Jane had never seen before—raw, almost hunted, the calm he always wore stripped clean away.

Panic flared in her chest. She leaned toward him at once, voice rising. “What’s wrong?”

But Harvey stood so fast the chair scraped loudly against the concrete floor and nearly toppled. He took a half-step back, both hands lifting slightly as though he could push the words themselves away.

“No… no, no, no. No, she cannot do that. Please… no.”

Jane rose with him, the panic climbing higher, and her own chair scraping back.

“What’s wrong, Harvey? Talk to me—what is it?”

He only turned toward her and shook his head. “No… please… she must not do that. Please.”

Just then, the door opened with a heavy metallic click and a uniformed officer stepped in, already glancing at the clock on the wall. “Time’s up.”

But Jane’s eyes never left her husband. “Harvey—talk to me!”