Chapter 12 - The Secret Behind the Gambling Debt
Victor didn’t stay.
The shot had been another warning.
Dawson survived.
Barely.
At the hospital, under police protection, he finally talked.
Victor had found him eighteen months earlier.
He knew Dawson gambled.
He encouraged it.
Extended credit through intermediaries.
Then demanded repayment.
The price wasn’t money.
It was Corrine.
“Not to kill her,” Dawson said.
Corrine stood behind the glass, listening.
“To get close to Butler.”
Louis’s expression hardened.
Dawson continued.
“I was supposed to find out what she knew.”
“And when she knew nothing?” the detective asked.
“I kept pushing.”
“For money?”
Dawson looked down.
“For everything.”
Corrine walked away.
Louis followed.
Outside, she leaned against the wall.
“So none of it was real.”
“What?”
“The debt. The emergencies. Every time I gave him money—”
“Your fear was real.”
Corrine looked at him.
“That matters more.”
She began crying.
Quietly.
Louis didn’t touch her immediately.
He waited.
Then she stepped toward him.
That was permission.
His arms closed around her.
She pressed her face against his chest.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Finally, Corrine whispered, “I hate him.”
“You’re allowed.”
“I hate myself too.”
Louis pulled back.
“No.”
“I stayed.”
“You survived.”
“I lied to everyone.”
“You survived.”
“I gave him money.”
“You survived.”
Each time she offered an accusation against herself, Louis gave her the same answer.
Eventually she stopped arguing.
Then Louis’s phone rang.
His security chief.
Victor had released information to the press.
Documents.
Photographs.
Claims that Louis Butler still controlled his father’s criminal empire.
And one more thing.
A recording.
Louis listened.
His father’s voice.
Then his own.
From ten years earlier.
A younger Louis saying:
“If Victor won’t leave, make him.”
Corrine looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Louis’s face went pale.
Because he remembered that night.
May you like
And he knew exactly how Victor intended to make the world interpret those words.
As an order to kill.
