The Hidden Empire of Harvey Kane

Chapter 008: A Secret Worth Protecting

Jane left the station more confused and panicked than she had walked in only minutes earlier.

She had never seen Harvey like that. Not once in the three years she had known him.

The way he had yanked his hands free of hers as if the table itself had burned him, and the raw panic in his voice as he begged, “No… please… she must not do that,” still echoed louder than the traffic on the street.

She reached her car on unsteady legs, slid into the driver’s seat, and immediately pulled out her phone.

Her thumb found the unknown number from earlier and hit call. It rang severally, but there was no response.

She tried again, pressing the phone harder to her ear as if sheer will could force the stranger to pick up. But she got the same result.

After a third attempt, she let the phone drop into her lap and stared out through the windshield at the station's glowing entrance.

Tired, exhausted, and suddenly very alone, she turned away and started the engine.

As she joined the traffic, her mind refused to quiet.

She reached for the phone again. This time she pressed record and left a voice message, her voice low and tight with the effort of holding herself together.

“You were right. Whatever you meant earlier… you were right. My husband is in a great deal of trouble. I saw it in his eyes the second I told him about the lawsuit. He looked… broken. Terrified in a way I’ve never seen."

She paused, heaving a sigh. "I love him more than anything, and I don’t want him spending one more day behind bars. Please—call me back. I need to understand what’s happening.”

She ended the recording, set the phone on the passenger seat, and drove straight to the apartment she shared with Harvey. Not the Ross family house with its polished floors and cold silences.

But, home. Their home. The place where the furniture still smelled faintly of the new paint they had chosen together, where his coffee mug still sat in the sink from that morning, and where the life they were building felt real.

If only she hadn't rushed to her family house that morning, she thought.

The apartment was dark when she unlocked the door. She dropped her keys on the side table with a soft clatter, kicked off her shoes, and sank onto the couch without turning on a single light.

The moment she shut her eyes, the day’s weight pressed down hard—Harvey in cuffs under the lobby lights, Jonathan’s polished smile as he claimed credit for the restored power, her mother’s venomous laughter over the phone, and the stranger’s urgent warning still ringing in her head like a second heartbeat.

Her phone rang.

Jane’s eyes instantly snapped open. She lunged for it, heart already racing as she hoped it was the unknown number.

But Elena’s name lit the screen instead.

Jane sighed and answered on the second ring, forcing her voice steady even as disappointment cut through her. “Elena?”

“Jane. How are you, child? Did you go see him?”

Jane leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes. The darkness behind her lids felt safer than the empty apartment. “I did. He’s… he’s fine.”

The lie sat bitter on her tongue. He had not been fine. Not after she mentioned the lawsuit. He had looked like a man watching the ground open beneath his feet.

A long silence stretched before she spoke again, softer this time, the words spilling out before she could stop them.

“How can my family be so cruel to the man I love and married? He has never been anything but good to me. He pulled me back when I was ready to disappear. And this is how they repay him—on our anniversary?"

Elena remained silent for a few seconds before responding gently. “Everything is going to be all right, my dear. You have to believe that.”

At that, Jane let out a short, humorless breath that was almost a laugh. “How? Tell me how, Elena. I don’t even know if Harvey will be granted bail. My mother is more than willing to fetch the best lawyers in the city for this little case. She wants him buried under charges and paperwork until there’s nothing left of him. She said it herself—this is the perfect time for me to divorce him.”

"It is tough," Elena replied. "I know it is. But you—”

Just then, another call intercepted the line with a sharp double-beep. Jane pulled the phone away from her ear and checked the screen.

Unknown number.

Her pulse jumped so hard she felt it in her throat.

“Elena, I’ll call you back.”

She cut the first call without waiting for a reply and answered the second, sitting up straighter on the couch as if the stranger could see her.

The same low, urgent voice from before filled her ear, cutting straight to the point. “How did the visit go? Did Harvey reveal anything to you?”

Jane’s free hand curled into a fist on her thigh. She forced herself to speak clearly. “He didn’t. He wouldn’t tell me anything. But the second I mentioned the lawsuit… everything changed. He pulled away from me. Stood up so fast the chair nearly fell. He kept saying no, that she cannot do that, that she must not. I’ve never seen him look like that. Not once. It was pure panic.”

A short pause followed, the kind that felt deliberate, as if the man on the other end was weighing every word before he spoke.

“That’s because he knows exactly what a lawsuit will do,” the stranger said at last. “Harvey must not, under any circumstances, be brought forward to trial. Do you understand me? He cannot appear in court. Not for a hearing. Not for a deposition. Not for anything that puts him under oath in front of a judge. The moment that happens, everything unravels—and not just for him.”

Jane’s grip on the phone tightened until her knuckles ached.

The stranger was still speaking when the thought that had been forming since she left the station finally solidified into something sharp and clear.

“I have an idea,” she cut in. “And I desperately hope it works.”