The Billionaire From Philly

“I can’t believe you,” she said. “You’re getting me involved with this shit—with money laundering—against my will, and you don’t even feel bad about it.”

“If your boy loves you so much, it isn’t like he can’t keep you out of prison,” Sam pointed out.

“You shouldn’t want me to be at risk for going to prison in the first place!” Danielle couldn’t take it anymore. She had gotten—she hoped—enough. She couldn’t be around the man who had endangered not just her career, but her freedom and basic safety, all under the guise of getting even with her on not being upfront enough about her personal life. All to punish her. How could she have ever believed that he loved her as a sister at all?

“You wouldn’t be going to prison, stop being dramatic,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“I sure as hell would if I got caught up in this,” Danielle told him. She rose to her feet. “I’m done talking to you. In fact, I don’t want to see you again. Lose my number.” She turned to leave and made it a few steps before Sam stopped her.

“You’re my sister,” he said, his voice harsh. “You can’t just cut me out like that.”

“I would have thought as your sister that you couldn’t put me out on a limb like that,” Danielle told him. “I would have thought you would have been more careful with someone you claimed to love.”

“So this is why you wanted to do this in public, huh?” Sam shook his head and Danielle pushed him away from her, heading for the exit to the cafe. She could feel her eyes burning and knew that she would begin crying at any moment—she definitely didn’t want Sam to see that and think that her resolve was weakening.

He followed her out of the building. “Go away, Sam,” Danielle said, barely keeping control over her voice.

“I just wanna know: why couldn’t we talk about this in private?” Danielle rolled her eyes.

“Because I didn’t want to risk you flipping the fuck out on me when I accused you of what turned out to be exactly what was going on,” she told him.

“I would never, ever hurt you,” Sam protested.

“No—you’d just risk me getting hurt by people in prison, and never being able to get a decent job for the rest of my life,” Danielle retorted.

“You were never going to go to prison, shut up,” Sam said dismissively. “Stop being so dramatic.”

“Do you really think I don’t know how this works?” Danielle stopped and turned to face her brother. They were almost to the intersection at Filbert Street, where Danielle had parked. “Someone catches the money laundering going on, finds out that Victor contributed to the charities, and then it comes down on me because everyone in law enforcement knows what family you belong to, and they know I’m your sister.” She shook her head. “We might be siblings by blood but you’re treating me worse than someone in a whole different family.”

“You keep me out of your life, and don’t tell me anything about what you have going on, and then you don’t even give me a chance to get a piece of the big fish you’ve reeled in and you’re going to be mad at me?” Sam scowled.

“I’m mad at you because after everything I’ve done to help you, after making it clear to you that I don’t want to have anything to do with Bey business, you brought me into it without even asking me,” Danielle told her brother. “All to punish me for not telling you about my new boyfriend? About my new job? You’re willing for me to get arrested and have that on my name for the rest of my life, all because I didn’t tell you about those things?”

“I wanna know why you couldn’t just ask me over the phone,” Sam said. “Why do this in public?”

“I told you,” Danielle said. “And considering that there’s probably a good four or five requests for your phone records going on in different cop files, would you have wanted me to ask over the phone? Really?” She kept walking, wanting more than anything to get in her car and get to Victor’s place. She needed him to comfort her.

“Since when are you so smart about law enforcement?” Sam kept pace with her.

“Since my brother started doing things likely to get him thrown in jail,” Danielle replied.

“Why is this pissing you off so much?” Danielle stopped again and turned to face her brother.

“Because you obviously—obviously—don’t care about my safety, or my happiness,” Danielle replied. “And I loved you and cared about you all my life. More fool me, I guess.” She took a deep breath and Sam looked her over, stunned. But then his gaze came to a stop on the front of her shirt.

“What the hell is that?” She must have shifted the recorder somehow in the process of moving around so much; Sam’s gaze was right on the spot where she’d hidden it between her jacket and her shirt. It hadn’t been visible in the cafe, but Danielle was certain it was visible to her brother’s gaze.

“Why the hell are you staring at my tits?” Danielle resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest, as much to hide the recorder as from discomfort itself at her brother’s gaze on her.

Before she could react, he’d reached out and pushed past her jacket, to find the little device. “Fucking nice,” Sam said, his face transforming into rage. “All this about how I should care about you and how I betrayed you and you’ve got a fucking wire?” He threw the device down on the ground and then stomped the pieces into smaller ones, looking at Danielle in disgust. “Fuck you.” He turned on his heel and walked away fast, and Danielle didn’t even bother to say anything to try and stop him. She turned the corner and walked up Filbert Street, headed for her car. Even more than before, she wanted to be with Victor again.

*

“I’m glad you agreed to come over, Brad,” Victor said as he led his attorney down the hall to his apartment.

“I wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, give you a chance to decide how to take care of it,” Brad said. Even off-hours, he was dressed to the nines, Victor noted; the lawyer was in a pair of tailored dress pants and a button-down shirt with a bow tie—not exactly casual, but at the same time not the same level of formality that came with his usual nine-to-five uniforms.

“So, tell me what you found out,” Victor suggested as he went into the kitchen to pour them both a drink. Blocks away, not even on the other end of the city, Danielle was—he hoped—meeting with her brother, getting him to give her information that Brad would be confirming, one way or the other.