Chapter 1 - THE DEBT THAT WASN’T HERS
For the first time, Gabriel Moretti’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Something closer to disbelief.
“You think I intend to hurt you?”
Paige’s back pressed against the office door.
“The men calling me are your associates.”
“Yes.”
“They say Kevin left my name as collateral.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought me to the top floor.”
Gabriel looked around his enormous office.
Then back at her.
“That is apparently more sinister than I realized.”
Paige did not laugh.
His expression hardened slightly.
“Sit.”
“I’d rather stand.”
A pause.
“Fine.”
Interesting.
He was not accustomed to being refused.
Gabriel set his drink down and opened the blue folder again.
Not the shipping manifests.
Another folder beneath it.
Paige’s name was written across the front.
“Kevin Mercer borrowed thirty thousand dollars from a man named Dominic Rusk.”
Paige knew the name only from the calls.
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Rusk occasionally finances people associated with our docks.”
“Loan shark.”
Gabriel ignored the terminology.
“He claimed Kevin listed you as guarantor.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know.”
She froze.
Gabriel slid a photocopy across the desk.
Promissory note.
Thirty thousand principal.
Twenty percent monthly penalty after default.
Her stomach turned.
At the bottom:
PAIGE WINSLOW.
A signature.
Almost hers.
Almost.
But the P curved the wrong direction.
“My signature is forged.”
“Yes.”
“You already knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are they calling me?”
Gabriel’s eyes went cold.
“Because Rusk knows it too.”
Silence.
Paige stared.
“What?”
“He knows you never signed.”
“Then why—”
“Because Kevin disappeared.”
Gabriel leaned back against the desk.
“And Rusk decided the frightened girlfriend was easier to collect from than the missing borrower.”
Paige felt something hot rise behind her eyes.
Six months.
Four hundred dollars here.
Eight hundred there.
Rent postponed.
Meals skipped.
Buster sent to Ohio because she could not afford pet rent.
All for a debt nobody believed was legally hers.
“I paid them almost nine thousand dollars.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“How much?”
“Eight thousand six hundred.”
Something changed in the room.
Nico, standing outside the door, was suddenly called in.
Gabriel’s voice became terrifyingly calm.
“Dominic Rusk collected eighty-six hundred from her.”
Nico stared at Paige.
Then at Gabriel.
“He told us the account was untouched.”
Gabriel nodded once.
That was clearly bad.
Paige wiped her eyes angrily.
“I want my money back.”
Both men looked at her.
Not what they expected.
She continued:
“I don’t want someone beaten. I don’t want a favor. I want the money I paid on a fraudulent debt.”
Gabriel’s gaze stayed on her.
“Reasonable.”
“Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Legally?”
She crossed her arms.
“That would be refreshing.”
For the first time, his mouth almost moved.
Then Nico said:
“There’s another problem.”
Gabriel looked over.
“What?”
Nico placed his phone on the desk.
Security image.
A grainy photograph taken outside Moretti Logistics that morning.
Kevin.
Paige stopped breathing.
Same narrow shoulders.
Same brown hair.
Same jacket he wore the week before disappearing.
Alive.
Looking directly at the glass tower.
Timestamp:
7:42 a.m.
Paige’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
“He was here today?”
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
“Yes.”
Then Nico enlarged the image.
Kevin was not alone.
A man stood beside him.
Moretti Logistics executive badge visible at his belt.
Gabriel’s face went cold.
Paige recognized him too.
Martin Vale.
Chief financial officer.
The man whose office was three doors down from Gabriel’s.
Kevin had not merely returned to Manhattan.
May you like
He had returned to Moretti Logistics.
And someone inside the company had been hiding him.
