Page 39 of Old Money, Deadly Secrets

“No, sweetie. Mr. Will is back in Boston,” Margaret said, stepping into the room. “He’s very busy with his work.”

“He was nice,” Charlie added, pulling his laces tight. “He told me he had a brother who liked to break things, and he was the one who had to fix them.”

Margaret’s heart gave a painful hitch. Barkley. The man who thought he was broken beyond repair.

Leaving the children in Mike’s capable hands, Margaret retreated to the small office in the back of the house. She had coordinated a secure VTC with Will. When the screen flickered to life, she saw the same sharp jawline and piercing eyes she had seen in the meadow, but Will’s were shrouded in the sophisticated cynicism of the corporate world.

“The federal audit is moving at a snail’s pace, Margaret,” Will said without preamble. “Because of the Faisal connection, the DOJ is treating every Winslow asset like a landmine. You have zero liquidity. Legally, you’re the widow of a billionaire, but practically, you can’t buy a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t want his money, Will. I told you that.” Margaret reached into the pocket of her borrowed cardigan and pulled out a velvet roll. She spread it on the desk.

In the dim light, the gems glowed with an inner fire. A river of sapphires, a heavy gold cuff encrusted with rubies, and a pair of diamond teardrop earrings.

“These were never registered in the Winslow pre-nup,” Margaret said, her voice dropping into the cool, tactical register she had learned from fifteen years of social warfare. “They are Fletcher family heirlooms. They are clean, they are mine, and they are worth enough to put a roof over that scorched lot in Monterey.”

Will leaned closer to his camera, genuinely impressed. “You’re serious. You want to fund the rebuild yourself.”

“Barkley thinks he’s done. He told me he’s half a man, Will. He’s up there in Boston staring at the river, waiting for someone to tell him he’s still an operator,” Margaret said. “Well, I’m not an operator, but I am a mother. And I know that the only way to stop a man from pouting is to give him a job to do. I’m going to build the Blue Ridge Urgent Care Center. I’m going to expand it exactly the way he envisioned after the fire. And I’m going to do it while he’s busy feeling sorry for himself.”

A slow, predatory grin spread across Will’s face. “And when he finally decides to come home?”

“When he comes home, he’ll find a state-of-the-art facility waiting for a Chief of Medicine,” Margaret replied. “He can decide then if he wants to be Dog the soldier or Emery the healer. But he won’t be able to say I’m a liability anymore.”

“I can move these through a private auction house in London,” Will said, already typing. “We’ll call the parent company Nonna’s Legacy. The funds will be in a Monterey construction account by the end of the week. No one, not the FBI, and certainly not my brother, will trace the source.”

“Thank you, Will.”

“Margaret?” Will paused, his gaze softening. “He’s a stubborn idiot. You know that, right?”

“I’ve dealt with worse men than Barkley Berkshire,” Margaret said. “At least your brother has a soul worth saving.”

Margaret ended the call and stood up. Walking to the mirror, she pulled her hair back into a tight, functional ponytail. After trading her silk blouse for a heavy flannel shirt bought at the Monterey hardware store, she stepped into her work boots.

Barkley wanted space? She was going to give him an entire town’s worth of it.

But as she reached for the keys to the truck, her mind rolled back to the Maine meadow. She didn’t think of the Barkley who had snarled at her in the hospital. She thought of Emery, the man who had kissed her knuckles and told her she wasn’t decorative.

She still hoped that man existed somewhere under the anger and the bandages. She hoped he would come back to her, not because he had to protect her, but because he finally realized she was the only one who could help him carry the weight.

Until then, she would build him a temple of healing. One brick at a time.

27 - DOG

Eight weeks. Fifty-six days. Thirteen hundred and forty-four hours.

Dog had spent years measuring time in tactical windows and extraction countdowns. Now, he measured it in the slow, agonizing ossification of his own trauma. Two months of the same million-dollar view of the Charles River. Two months of smelling expensive lilies along with the sharp, underlying tang of surgical-grade antiseptic.

The prosthetic sat on the stainless-steel cart like a high-tech insult. It was a transtibial carbon-fiber blade, a sleek, J-shaped leaf spring designed for high-impact movement. It had no toes, no skin, and no forgiveness.

“The vacuum suspension is ready, Barkley,” Sarah, the physical therapist, said. She was a small woman with the endurance of a marathon runner and a threshold for his bullshit that was currently being tested. “Let’s get the liner on.”

Dog stared at the residual limb, the left leg that had been his undoing. “The volumetric changes in the soft tissue haven’t stabilized yet, Sarah. If the socket pressure exceeds the capillary refill threshold, we’re looking at a secondary ischemic event. I’m not putting that thing on until the edema is fully resolved.”

Sarah sighed, frustration clear but her tone steady. “You can throw all the medical jargon you want at me, but the truth is, you’re scared to take the next step. This isn’t going to get any easier if you keep dodging it.”

Dog’s jaw tightened, tension radiating down his shoulders. He shot a frustrated glance toward Jake, who was quietly cleaning his tactical knife in the corner.

Sarah caught the look and gave Jake a pointed raise of her eyebrow.