Chapter 7 - The Library War
The library of the Alpine estate was forty feet long, lined with floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves containing four thousand books that had never been read by anyone living in the house.
At the far end, beneath a stone fireplace that was large enough to roast an ox, sat two leather wingback chairs facing each other across a Persian rug worth more than the Maybach parked outside.
On the left sat Augustus Carver. He had taken off his wool coat, sitting in his white dress shirt and dark trousers, a glass of amber scotch resting on the small mahogany table beside his elbow. He looked completely relaxed, his long fingers resting flat on the armrests, his gray eyes fixed on the man sitting six feet away from him.
On the right sat Frank Rainer.
Frank was sixty-four years old, built like a concrete block with a thick, red-veined neck that spilled over his starched collar, a heavy square jaw, and thin grey hair that was slicked back with lavender pomade. He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit that looked slightly tight across his massive chest, and his hands—large, calloused, with thick yellowed fingernails from forty years on the docks—were clamped over the arms of his chair like iron clamps.
Behind Frank stood two men in dark leather jackets, their arms crossed over their chests, their faces completely blank.
Behind Augustus stood no one.
When the heavy double oak doors of the library opened, all four men turned their heads.
Claire walked into the room.
She did not look like Charlotte Carver, the heiress to an eighteen-room estate in Alpine.
She wore her Fulton Street black trousers, her frayed white dress shirt, her navy canvas apron tied securely around her waist, and her cheap black oxfords with the flaking toe box. Her hair was pulled back into a simple knot at the base of her neck, exposing the swollen, dark-crimson tear on her lower lip and the faint yellow-red bruise across her left cheek.
The room went dead silent.
Frank Rainer’s eyes widened slightly as he took in her appearance. He looked at her Fulton Street shoes. He looked at her navy apron. He looked at the split lip that was clearly visible beneath the bright chandelier light.
"Frank," Augustus said smoothly, without moving from his chair. "You know my daughter, Charlotte."
Frank swallowed hard, his thick neck shifting against his collar. "Augustus... Dominic told me—"
"Dominic told you he gave her a slap," Claire said, her voice carrying across the forty-foot room with razor-sharp clarity.
She didn't stop near the door. She walked straight down the center of the Persian rug, stopping three feet from Frank Rainer’s chair.
"He told you I was a waitress who stole his mother's platinum Audemars Piguet," Claire continued, looking down into the older man's red-veined face. "He told you he searched my bag, found nothing, and hit me because he didn't like the way I looked at him."
Frank looked up at her, his square jaw tightening. "Charlotte... my nephew is an idiot. Everyone knows he's an idiot. He has a hot temper and he drinks too much rye on Thursday nights."
"He's not an idiot, Frank," Claire said softly. "He's a coward. He hit me because he thought I had no father, no brothers, no money, and no name. He thought I was worth seven dollars in crumpled tips and a three-dollar subway card."
Frank leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on his knees. "Your father took his building tonight, Charlotte. He took fourteen million dollars' worth of real estate because of a split lip."
"He didn't take it because of my lip, Frank," Claire said, gesturing toward Augustus with a slim, pale hand. "He took it because he could. He took it because your nephew gave him an excuse to do what he's wanted to do to your family since 2018."
Augustus’s gray eyes narrowed slightly, but he did not interrupt her.
"And now you're here," Claire said to Frank, "threatening to block his concrete trucks in Newark and strike at the South Amboy terminal because your nephew lost his coat."
Frank stared at her. "He's my blood, Charlotte."
"He's a fool, Frank," Claire spat, her voice dropping into a register that sounded terrifyingly like her father's. "And if you bring ninety union stewards to Newark tomorrow morning, my father is going to release thirty years of receipts to the federal prosecutor in Brooklyn. You know what happens then? You don't lose a club on 54th Street, Frank. You lose your shipping terminals. You lose your house in Elizabeth. You lose your eldest son to a federal pen in Pennsylvania for twelve years."
Frank Rainer went very quiet.
The fire in the stone fireplace crackled loudly, a shower of red sparks shooting up into the soot-blackened chimney.
Frank looked at Augustus.
Augustus sat motionless in his leather wingback chair, his long fingers still resting flat on the armrests, his face completely unreadable.
"She speaks well, Augustus," Frank said softly, his voice dry as paper. "She sounds like you did twenty years ago."
"She is smarter than I was twenty years ago," Augustus said flatly. "Because she spent seven years sweeping floors while I was sitting in this chair."
Frank turned back to Claire. "What do you want, Charlotte? You want my nephew on his knees in front of you? You want him to apologize in front of the club?"
"I don't want his apology," Claire said. "I don't want his money. And I don't want this building."
She pulled the gold pen—the one Augustus had used to sign the deed three hours ago—out of her apron pocket, where she had taken it from the parlor writing desk before coming downstairs.
She tossed the heavy gold Montblanc onto the small mahogany table between the two old men.
It rolled twice and stopped against Augustus’s scotch glass with a soft clink.
"Give him back his seventy percent of the Marlowe Club," Claire said to her father.
Augustus didn't touch the pen. "Why?"
"Because if you keep it, every time I look at a dining room in this city, I'm going to remember that my name was used to steal a club from a two-bit thug," Claire said. "I don't want his property, Dad. I don't want to be your excuse for taking over the West Side."
She looked back down at Frank Rainer.
"Give him back the deed, Frank," Claire said. "On one condition."
Frank narrowed his eyes. "What condition?"
"Dominic Rainer resigns as general manager tomorrow morning," Claire said. "He sells his remaining thirty percent to Peter Wallace for one dollar. He leaves Manhattan by noon, and if he ever sets foot in a restaurant where I am working again... my father won't call a lawyer. He will call Miller."
Frank looked at the gold pen on the table. He looked at Augustus.
Augustus sat silently for three long seconds, his gray eyes measuring his daughter's face, searching for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of fear, any residual softness from the girl who had left his house seven years ago with a cheap canvas bag.
He found none.
Augustus picked up the gold pen.
"You heard my daughter, Frank," Augustus said softly. "Draw up the papers tomorrow morning. Dominic leaves by noon. Or the trucks go to Newark."
Frank Rainer stood up slowly from his leather chair, his knees making a dry cracking sound under his heavy frame. He looked at Claire for a long moment, then nodded once—a short, bitter drop of his chin.
May you like
"He'll be on a plane to Florida by ten o'clock, Charlotte," Frank said quietly.
He turned and walked out of the library, his two guards in dark leather jackets following him out into the cold night, the heavy double oak doors shutting behind them with a low, final thud.
