Chapter 3 - The Shadow from Fort LauderdaleBefore I could process Arthur's incredible confession, a harsh, nasal voice boomed from the terrace entrance behind us.
"Well, well, well. Look at the high society queen!"
My body went stone-cold. The blood drained from my face so fast the world tilted slightly.
Walking across the sunlit deck, wearing an expensive designer polo shirt, a heavy gold watch, and a sneering, arrogant expression, was Richard Miller—my late husband’s older brother.
Beside him walked two heavy-set men in dark suits, looking like enforcement muscle for a loan shark.
Richard was a cold, predatory real estate speculator from Fort Lauderdale who had spent two years trying to force me to surrender the title of my late husband’s modest mechanic shop—a shop he claimed Mark owed him three hundred thousand dollars for in unpaid secondary debts.
"Richard...?" I gasped out, pushing my chair back as terror seized my chest. "What... what are you doing here?!"
"I’ve been tracking your bus pass usage, Anna," Richard smirked coldly, stopping three feet from our table, his greedy eyes scanning the buttered lobster shells and expensive champagne glasses on our table. "You told me last week you didn't have fifty dollars to pay off the interest on Mark's debt! You told me you were living on canned beans! And here you are, living like royalty in Miami Harbor on my dead brother's money!"
"That money is not Mark's!" I shouted, standing up, my posture straight, my hazel eyes flashing with fiercely defensive motherly rage. "Mark never owed you a single cent, Richard! You fabricated those loan papers after he died!"
"I have your signed signature on the secondary promissory note, Anna!" Richard sneered, pulling a crumpled document from his jacket pocket, stepping closer to my face. "You owe my firm three hundred thousand dollars! And if you don't hand over the deed to the mechanic shop by noon tomorrow, I’m filing an emergency foreclosure and taking your apartment!"
Arthur Vance sat quietly in his chair, taking a slow, deliberate sip of his water, his dark gray eyes narrowing as he studied Richard's sweat-slicked face.
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"Who is this loud man, Anna?" Arthur asked softly, his baritone dropping into a low, velvet register that dropped the deck's temperature below freezing.
Richard turned his head toward Arthur, letting out an arrogant, mocking scoff. "Who am I?! I'm her family, pal! Who the hell are you?! Her sugar daddy?!"
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