Chapter 6 - The Notary’s Seal
The room smelled of damp plaster, old cardboard boxes, and uncirculated air. It was a windowless storage sub-basement three floors beneath Marsh’s North Side commercial properties, accessible only through a utility service elevator that required a heavy physical key.
Sloan sat on a metal folding chair with her hands bound loosely behind her back with plastic zip-ties. Her wrists were raw where the rough edges had bitten into her skin during the night. The gray wool sweater hung over her shoulders, but it offered almost no protection against the bone-chilling dampness rising from the concrete floor.
Across the small, dimly lit room, Gideon Marsh sat reading a leather-bound ledger under the glare of a single overhead bulb. Royce Nadau stood near the heavy steel door, his arms crossed over his chest, chewing slowly on a toothpick.
"You're making this entirely too difficult, Sloan," Marsh said without looking up from his ledger. "Preston has already posted the job opening. By Monday, no one at the firm will even remember you sat at that desk. You’ll simply be a former employee who moved out of state."
Sloan raised her chin, her voice raspy from hours without water. "Toby knows where I am. The hospital staff knows I was supposed to be there today."
Marsh finally closed the ledger, setting it down with a soft thud. He stood up, adjusting his gold cufflinks, and walked slowly across the concrete until he was standing just inches from her chair. He didn't look angry; his expression was one of mild, disappointed paternal indulgence.
"Your brother is a minor, living on state-assisted care and charity," Marsh said smoothly. "If the pediatric cardiology wing suddenly loses its primary corporate benefactor due to a... administrative restructuring... do you think the doctors are going to prioritize his file? Or do you think he’ll find himself moved to the bottom of the waiting list very quickly?"
Sloan’s breath caught. Her fingernails dug into her palms. That was the cruelty of men like Marsh—they didn't need to break your bones; they simply threatened the people you loved until you broke yourself.
Marsh reached into his overcoat pocket and pulled out a heavy stack of legal documents tied with a red ribbon. He dropped them onto the small wooden crate in front of her.
"These are land transfer titles and corporate proxy assignments," Marsh instructed softly. "Sign them. Use your notary stamp—I know you brought it in your purse, it’s right over there on the desk. Stamp every signature, execute the jurats, and make it legally bulletproof. Once that’s done, I’ll arrange for a car to take you to the hospital in time to say goodbye to your brother before his transfer goes through."
Sloan looked down at the documents. The top page bore the letterhead of a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands—an entity designed to siphon away millions from the public land allocations designated for the Riverline project. If she notarized those documents, she wasn't just signing away her freedom; she was validating an instrument of massive financial fraud that would implicate her in crimes she didn't even fully understand.
She looked up at Marsh, her eyes burning with cold, unyielding defiance.
"Go to hell," she whispered.
May you like
Marsh didn't raise his voice. He simply nodded slightly toward Nadau.
Nadau stepped forward, his face completely devoid of expression, and reached out to grab Sloan by the hair, yanking her head back sharply as she gasped in pain.
