Chapter 1
Part 2: Victor stared at him.
“Potential penalties.”
“For what?”
“For the irregularity.”
“What irregularity?”
The room seemed to shrink around them.
Nathan had spent enough time negotiating mergers to recognize panic hiding beneath aggression.
Victor no longer looked annoyed.
He looked trapped.
Nathan calmly capped the pen.
“I’m not signing.”
Victor’s face changed.
It happened quickly.
The smooth banker disappeared.
What remained underneath was something colder.
“I strongly advise you not to make this difficult.”
Nathan almost laughed.
“My money is difficult for you?”
Victor leaned forward.
“You people always do this.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
“You people?”
Victor seemed to realize he had gone too far.
But instead of apologizing, he doubled down.
“Customers who don’t understand financial systems. You get nervous, you question every paragraph, and then when something goes wrong, you blame the institution.”
Across the lobby, Leah’s face went pale.
Nathan felt an old memory rise so sharply it almost hurt.
His mother sitting in that bank office.
Her wrist in a cast.
Her voice small.
I’m sorry.
He looked at Victor Hale and saw the same kind of man.
Not the same face.
The same certainty.
The belief that authority gave him permission to humiliate anyone beneath him.
Nathan folded his hands.
“I want to speak with compliance.”
Victor stood.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I think it will.”
“We don’t have a compliance representative onsite.”
“Then call one.”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“Mr. Miller, I’m going to ask you one last time to sign this authorization.”
“And I’m going to tell you one last time that I want an independent explanation first.”
Victor turned.
“Security.”
Leah stared at him.
“Mr. Hale—”
“Not now, Leah.”
Two guards near the entrance began walking toward them.
Customers turned.
Nathan remained seated.
Victor adjusted his jacket.
“This gentleman is refusing to cooperate and is creating a disturbance.”
Nathan looked around the silent lobby.
“I’m sitting in a chair.”
One customer snorted.
Victor’s face reddened.
The older security guard stopped beside Nathan.
“Sir, we need you to leave.”
Nathan looked at his badge.
FRANK.
“Frank, did you hear me threaten anyone?”
Frank shifted his weight, his leather duty belt creaking under the strain. He looked at Nathan, then glanced at Victor Hale, whose polished face had set into the hard lines of a man accustomed to having his orders carried out without question.
“Didn’t hear any threats, sir,” Frank said, his voice low and raspy with thirty years of working retail floors and bank lobbies. “Just heard loud talking.”