Chapter 2

Right up until the officers arrived, Abraham never gave me an answer.

That was answer enough.

Once all the statements were down, the officer turned to me one last time.

"Anything else you want to add?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing more about the loan."

But about why my family went bankrupt, I had a great many questions for the Whitney brothers.

"Officer, how can you say this isn't fraud?"

Mervyn couldn't help pressing again.

"If I didn't need the money, why would I have had her take out the loan, and why would I have made my own brother cosign?"

The officer heard that and laughed in disbelief.

"As a bank loan officer, do you understand that what you just said is itself illegal?"

"And I already asked and got a clear answer. Miss Henson never entered into any agreement with you."

"You admit that, don't you?"

Mervyn panicked, flushed red to the ears as he tried to explain.

"That's impossible. The two of us agreed to it, out loud."

"Do you have a recording?"

Mervyn went quiet.

The other officer, an older man, gave him a heavy, serious warning.

"The way you're thinking right now is dangerous. Do not do anything illegal."

"If you get other solid evidence proving Sophia Henson defrauded you, you can call us again."

"Any other questions right now?"

Mervyn shot me a resentful look, then shook his head weakly at the two officers.

"No."

After the officers left, Mervyn stayed planted on my sofa, refusing to go.

"My brother's on his way. You'd better figure out what you're going to tell him."

With that he ignored me completely, helping himself to beer and snacks from the fridge as if the place were his own.

The living room turned foul and smoky, and I looked right through all of it.

Abraham arrived fast. The moment he was through the door he jabbed a finger at me, furious.

"Sophia, what's the meaning of this?"

"My brother made it perfectly clear when he came to you. That money is for us to use. It has nothing to do with you."

I took out my phone and set it on the coffee table.

"Do you still remember my payment password? It's my birthday."

Abraham froze for a beat, then pressed on, his expression stiff.

"Don't change the subject. I'm talking about this loan right now."

"Transfer the five hundred thousand to my brother's account, right now, this instant, or I'm not done with you."

Abraham had been my classmate in college. From freshman year he chased me hard.

Junior year I agreed to see how things went, and the moment I did he announced it to everyone.

"Sophia Henson is my girl. I'll keep her happy for the rest of her life."

After that he never did anything out of line. He only grew gentler with me.

Until my internship, when he came to my family's company.

Abraham asked me for something for the first time.

"My brother's a top graduate in finance. Could you help get him into the investment department?"

Given how he'd behaved before, I didn't doubt him. I quietly had a word with HR.

Three months later, my father called me into his office. His face was grim as he asked me.

"Abraham is your boyfriend, and you're the one who slipped Mervyn into the company too, aren't you?"

The absurd thing was, at the time I thought my father meant the dating I'd kept from him.

"Abraham's a good person. What's wrong with his brother at the company?"