Chapter 275

“You think that fixes it?” Cailin looked at him, eyes glassy with pain. “You brought her into our lives. You let her near my daughter. This is on you, Hilliard. All of it.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I will spend the rest of my life making up for it.”

“You don’t get the rest of my life,” Cailin whispered.

The room spun. The floor rushed up to meet her.

Hilliard caught her before she hit the ground. He lifted her into his arms, ignoring the strain pulling through his own body. She was so light.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Hilliard whispered into her hair as he carried her out of the room. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

Monday morning in the boardroom of Holloway Enterprises was usually a quiet affair.

Not today.

Hilliard sat at the head of the table. He hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. He was wearing a fresh suit, but his eyes were dark, dangerous tunnels.

On the massive screen at the far end of the room, a video feed showed Gregg English, Charla’s father. He looked disheveled, panic radiating off him in waves.

“Hilliard, please,” Gregg begged. “Charla is sick. She needs help, not prison. We can settle this — I’ll pay whatever you want.”

Hilliard tapped a pen against the table. Click. Click.

“I don’t want your money, Gregg. I have more than God.”

“Then what? What do you want?”

“I want you to feel what it’s like to be helpless,” Hilliard said. He turned to Gavin. “Execute.”

Gavin typed a single command.

“What are you doing?” Gregg shouted from the screen.

“I just dumped forty percent of English Holdings stock onto the market,” Hilliard said. “And I’ve instructed every supplier in the tri-state area that if they do business with you, they don’t do business with me.”

The board members murmured among themselves. This was financial suicide — it would cost Holloway Enterprises millions in broken contracts.

“Sir,” the CFO spoke up. “This will tank our Q3 earnings.”

Hilliard looked at him. “Do I pay you to worry about my earnings, or do I pay you to do what I say?”

The CFO closed his mouth.

“Hilliard! You can’t do this — we’re family friends!” Gregg screamed.

“We were,” Hilliard said. “Then your daughter tried to freeze my child to death.”

He cut the feed. The screen went black.

“Short it,” Hilliard told the room. “Drive it to zero. I want the English name to be synonymous with bankruptcy by Friday.”

Across town, Cailin woke up.

She was no longer in the ICU. She was lying in a bed dressed with Egyptian cotton sheets, sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows.

She sat up, gasping as her incision pulled sharply.

She looked around. It was the Presidential Suite on the top floor of the hospital.

She tried the door.

Locked.

She pounded on it. “Let me out!”

The door opened. A massive bodyguard filled the frame.

“Mr. Holloway’s orders, ma’am. For your safety. You are not to leave the floor.”

“This isn’t safety,” Cailin said. “This is prison.”

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