Chapter 7 - The Ruin of the Hartwells
The arrest of Arthur and Vivian Hartwell was the largest corporate scandal in the history of the Great Lakes shipping industry. By Friday evening, the financial channels were running non-stop coverage of the federal vehicles parked outside the Hartwell mansion in Gold Coast, their lights casting red and blue reflections across the limestone pillars.
Inside the secure penthouse on Wacker Drive, Chloe sat on the terrace, watching the city below light up like a field of small diamonds. The pain in her ribs had faded to a dull, manageable ache, her compression vest holding her steady against the cool autumn wind.
The glass door behind her slid open, and Gabriel walked out onto the terrace. He had removed his jacket and tie, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a bottle of champagne and two glasses held in his hand.
"The Swiss banks just called," he said, setting the bottle down on the stone table beside her chair. "They’ve withdrawn the default notice. They’re offering to extend the credit line for another five years at zero percent interest in exchange for the first right of refusal on the Hartwell logistics assets."
Chloe looked up at him, her blonde hair catching the amber light of the terrace lamps. "So you won. You saved the fleet, Gabriel. You saved the six thousand families."
"We won, Chloe," Gabriel said, pouring a small amount of champagne into each glass and handing one to her. "Without that mirror server log, I would have been sitting in a federal cell by noon today. You gave me the keys to the kingdom."
"I didn't give them to you to save your business, Gabriel," Chloe said, setting her glass down without drinking. "I gave them to you because... because I couldn't sit in that room and watch them destroy the man I loved three years ago. Even if that man doesn't exist anymore."
Gabriel went perfectly still. He set his own glass down, walking over to the edge of the stone railing, staring out at the dark waters of the Chicago River where it met the lake.
"Three years ago, my father called me into his room at the clinic," Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly vibration that Chloe hadn't heard before. "He was hooked up to four separate machines, his heart failing, his mind clearing for only ten minutes at a time. He told me that Arthur Hartwell had bought forty percent of our debt from the London banks. He said if I didn't marry Vivian, Arthur would liquidate the fleet before his body was even cold."
He turned his head, his gray eyes filled with a sudden, raw vulnerability that made her heart skip a beat. "I didn't send you to London because I didn't love you, Chloe. I sent you to London because I knew Arthur would use you as the leverage to force my hand. I thought if you were across the ocean, if you hated me enough to never come back, you’d be safe from the mess my father left behind."
May you like
"You should have told me," Chloe whispered, her eyes filling with hot, silent tears as she stood up from her chair, her ribs aching as she moved closer to him. "You let me think I was nothing to you. You let me think you were just another cold-blooded Wren who cared more about his ledger than his life."
"I am a cold-blooded Wren, Chloe," Gabriel said, his hand finally rising to touch her cheek, his thumb brushing away a single tear with a tenderness that made her whole body tremble. "But the ledger was always empty without you."
