Consent (The Loan Shark Duet 2)

Michael questions the wisdom of my moves, but he does send more candidates for the CFO position my way. After the twentieth interview, I finally meet an MBA graduate who’s willing to take the plunge. Simon Villiers is clever, optimistic, and energetic––all the qualities I want in a man who is about to start his first job with barely enough money to make ends meet and twenty-five percent of––for the moment––worthless shares.

The spikes in the wheel are Rhett and Quincy, as usual. As shareholders, I need their agreement to employ Simon. I can almost see how Rhett’s head is working as he studies the attractive blond man sitting at the opposite side of my desk.

Rhett gives Quincy a small shake of his head. “Too attractive. Did he look at her in that way?”

“I think he did,” Quincy says.

Simon shoots them a puzzled look.

“You’re in?” I ask Simon, eager to draw his attention away from the sideline comments.

“I’m in.”

Rhett hooks his thumbs in his belt and takes a step forward. “Hold on a second. This interview isn’t over. My turn.”

I sigh inwardly.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Rhett asks.

“What?” Simon’s face scrunches up. “What does that have to do with my competency?”

“Just answer the question,” Quincy says.

“It’s discriminative,” Simon retorts. “You’re not allowed to ask me that.”

“Well, guess what, cupcake?” Rhett advances more. “Whoever is going to fill that chair,” he points at the desk next to mine, “is going to become part of the family, so excuse me for wanting to understand how your family is mapped out.”

“All right.” Simon gives Rhett a dashing smile. “Actually, I’m gay.”

The looks on Rhett and Quincy’s faces are priceless. All I can do is sit back and enjoy their reaction.

“Oh.” Rhett glances at Quincy. “In that case, he’ll do.”

Quincy, who sits on the sofa in what we call our relaxing corner, pushes the stroller over the carpet with a gentle kick and reels it back in with a rope he tied to the handlebar, his invention of putting Connor to sleep. “Yeah, definitely.”

“How about you, Rhett?” Simon asks in a seductive voice, getting his own back. “Are you single?”

“I’m … uh … yeah. I’m straight.”

“Okay.” Simon turns his attention back to me. “Where do I sign?”

I would’ve hired him from the way he handled Rhett alone. “Here.” I push the paper over the desk to him. “Welcome to the company.”

Slowly but surely, with Simon’s help and the Harris investments, the money starts coming in. We’re relying on legal loans with reasonable interest rates and make our profit through clever investments. It’s exactly like running a bank. The business is not my passion, but it pays for what becomes my passion––finding Gabriel.

I don’t tell my business partners or friends about my search. They don’t believe Gabriel is alive, and I’d risk getting locked up in an asylum for insisting he is, so I keep my mouth shut. When there’s enough money in the bank to pay for the roof over our heads and the food on our table without going into overdraft, I use what I can from my income to hire a private investigator. We start with checking passenger lists at the airports and finding a match for Gabriel’s description. With his physique, it would be hard to go unnoticed. For months, nothing turns up. I go as far as endorsing Captain Barnard’s efforts to clean up the areas of the city where we have branches so that he pulls all the street surveillance tapes of the day on which the explosion took place. I want to be sure I missed nothing. The tapes show Gabriel entering the building, the blast, and nothing else, but there’s a blind spot at the back of the building where the cameras don’t reach. With no exit at the back, he would have had to either go over the roof or underground. Barnard gets me the blueprints of the building from the municipality, but that only shows the structure. No secret passages. No sewerage or drain systems. No fire escapes from the roof.

I’m starting to lose the last thing I have left. My hope.

19

Gabriel

Staging my death was easy. After climbing through the trapdoor in the ceiling, all I had to do was move the roof tile above the hole I made beforehand and scurry over the roof and down the back of the building where the street cameras aren’t angled before setting off the explosives via remote. The blast wiped away my tracks as well as all evidence that could have incriminated me or endangered Valentina’s life. Rhett, who was keeping watch in the street, didn’t know about the body I recovered in Hillbrow the previous night and stored in the bathroom at the back. I placed the corpse close to the explosives, knowing the explosion wouldn’t leave fingerprints or dental records, and fit my wedding ring on the dead man’s finger. The fire would wipe out any identifiable traces, but not the platinum band that betrothed me to Valentina for life.