I stared at my phone, the “call ended” message a stark confirmation of Officer Miller’s dismissal. The heat of frustration prickled behind my eyes, but I forced it down. Crying wouldn’t solve anything.
“I told you,” Elias said softly, his voice full of regret. “Miller won’t touch anything that links back to Lucas. Not if it makes Lucas look bad.”
“So, what do I do?” I asked, looking at the ledger in my hands. The physical proof of Lucas’s fraud felt useless if the local police wouldn’t even look at it.
Elias ran a hand over his face. “Knox… he’s not like the police, Clara. He plays by different rules. He hates being lied to more than anything. Lucas told him *you* took the missing money.”
My head snapped up. “He what?”
“Yes,” Elias confirmed, his voice barely a whisper. “Lucas made it seem like you were the one who diverted the funds into your business account and then used it to pay Knox. He covered his tracks by claiming you were trying to use Knox’s network for some kind of ‘expansion capital.'”
A cold wave washed over me. Lucas hadn’t just framed me for embezzlement. He had put me directly in the crosshairs of Arthur Knox.
“That’s why Knox has been sending his men around your shop, Clara,” Elias continued, his gaze distant. “Asking about ‘missing payments.’ I heard one of his crew saying something about ‘repossessing her property if she doesn’t pay up.'”
My seamstress shop. My only livelihood, now empty of my savings and threatened by a syndicate boss because of Lucas’s lies. The padlocks that Evelyn Montgomery would place on it suddenly made horrifying sense. It wasn’t just a social lockout; it was a threat backed by Knox’s reputation.
“Knox doesn’t forget a debt,” Elias warned, his voice grave. “And he *especially* doesn’t forget being played for a fool. Lucas isn’t just in debt to him for $65,000; he’s also made Knox look weak by using his name in this scheme.”
I looked down at Lily, her soft hair brushing against my cheek. I had flown away to protect her, to escape the suffocating gossip. But now, staying away meant leaving myself vulnerable to Knox’s wrath, allowing Lucas to continue his destruction unopposed. It meant giving up everything.
“I have to go back,” I said, my voice steady now. The fear was still there, a knot in my stomach, but it was overshadowed by a grim determination.
Elias’s eyes widened. “Back to Oakhaven? Clara, are you sure? It’s dangerous.”
“It’s more dangerous to stay away,” I replied, standing up. “Lucas has dragged Knox into this. And Knox thinks I’m the one who owes him. I need to set the record straight, directly.”
I checked the flight board. A flight back to Oakhaven via a short connection was boarding in an hour. My original plan to escape to a new city, to rebuild a life free from Oakhaven’s judgment, was gone. It had been an illusion.
The solution wasn’t in running away, but in confronting the source of the rot. And Lucas’s rot ran deep, all the way to the powerful, ruthless heart of Oakhaven’s underworld.
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