Page 44 of Freedom’s Inferno

Chuck

The rain hammered the gravel in sheets, cold and relentless. I ducked my head under the umbrella, stepping in close enough to share breath, water dripping off the brim onto my shoulder.

Elliott didn’t move to accommodate me further. Generous to a point, and that point was precisely measured.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

His gaze raked over me like he was taking inventory, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“Who is she?” he asked, eyes cutting to the Lexus, Lana’s silhouette visible through the rain-streaked glass.

“Lana Blackwell.”

Elliott’s hand moved to his lapel, smoothing it flat with two fingers. “Richard’s widow? What are you into, Chuck?”

The rain filled the space between us. A gust moved through the pines at the edge of the property, scattering a loose volley of drops across the gravel.

“Richard’s debt,” I said. “I’ve inherited it.”

“How much?”

“Twenty million.”

Something moved behind his eyes. He looked down and adjusted his cuffs, left cuff first, then the right. The gold cufflinks caught what little light filtered down through the clouds.

“I need a house painter,” I said.

His chin jerked up, sharp. “Chuck‒”

“I know you work with serious people,” I said, wincing as an icy drop slid from the umbrella down my neck. “I need a house painter. Before my house gets painted.”

The umbrella shifted in his grip. He glanced toward the tree line, jaw working. “Who?”

I adjusted my weight, digging the toe of my boot into the gravel. “Damian Costa.”

“No,” he said.

“Elliott‒”

“No,” he said it again, quieter. His hand moved to his chest, fingertips skating his buttons—top, second, third—and then again, like the first pass hadn’t taken. “Find somebody else.”

“There isn’t anybody else, Elliott. You owe me.”

He laughed, more breath than anything. His free hand dropped to his side, then came back up, fingers finding the buttons again. Top. Second. Third.

I’d watched him do that sequence ten thousand times over the years, in the back of a caseworker’s car, in the school cafeteria, in the hallway outside a courtroom when he was twelve and the world was trying to decide what to do with him. Whatever was going on inside his head right now, it was loud.

“You know what you owe me,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Don’t make me spell it out.”

He grimaced. “Chuck‒”

“You were ten years old when you joined me in that hell hole.”

Elliott’s knuckles turned white where he gripped the umbrella handle, his gaze glued to the ground.

“Two years,” I said. “Two years I made sure his hands never found you. You know what that cost me.”