A Winter Dream(8)

“He stole it,” Judd said.

I looked at Ben. “How much did you take?”

He looked at me through tear-filled eyes. “Thirty-six thousand.”

“Thirty-six thousand?”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said.

Rupert slowly shook his head. “Four years ago we could have just swept this under the rug and let Dad discipline him.”

“Not that he would,” Simon interjected.

Rupert looked at him, then continued. “But that’s four years ago. Today we’re a publicly traded company. We’re going to have to act on this.”

“Act?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to prosecute him,” Simon said.

I looked around at them in astonishment. “You can’t prosecute your own brother. They’ll send him to prison. He’s family.” They were unmoved by my plea. “He’s your brother.”

“Our brother stole from us,” Dan said.

“He’s your brother,” Gage said.

“You can’t send him to prison,” I repeated.

“What would you have us do?” Rupert asked.

I looked at them. As much as they had always disliked Ben and me (“Rachel’s spawn,” they secretly called us), they had pretty much left Ben alone, which I had always assumed was because Ben didn’t receive as much attention from Dad as I did.

“How much of the money do you have left?” I asked Ben.

He grimaced. “None.”

“What did you do with that much money?” I said.

“Little Benny has a gambling problem,” Simon said.

I just stared at Ben for a moment, then I took a deep breath. “I can get the money.” I had some and I knew my mother would help, which, indirectly, meant my father would be helping pay back the money stolen from his own company.

“It’s not that simple,” Simon said. “A crime has been committed. You want us to just cover it up?”

“You’ll have the money,” I said. “No harm, no foul.”

“No harm?” Levi said. Up to that point he had been sitting back with his arms crossed at his chest. “Really, that’s your answer? Benny put us all at risk. He risked our agency’s reputation and especially Dad’s. Had he not been caught by one of us, he would have been caught by the auditors, then it would have hit the fan. Rupert probably would have been fired and we all would have been guilty by association.” He looked spitefully at Ben. “He needs to be punished.”

Ben looked even more terrified.

“There’s got to be something we can do,” I said.

The room fell silent and I noticed that several of the brothers looked toward Simon. After a half-minute or so, Simon said, “There might be a deal to be made.”

Simon glanced over at Rupert, who was looking more upset than the others. “Ben, leave the room,” Rupert said.

Ben looked up, his eyes darting back and forth between his accusers.

“Go,” Simon said. “The men need to talk.”

He glanced at me fearfully as he walked out. Gage shut the door behind him.

Rupert said, “Before we called you and Ben in, we took a vote. Nine voted to turn Ben in to the authorities. But Simon had an idea.” He gestured to Simon. “Simon . . .”

Simon turned to me with thinly veiled hostility. “Here’s the deal, brother. Someone’s got to pay. You want Ben saved—you pay the price. You quit the firm, move out of town, we’ll sweep this under the rug and little Ben keeps his freedom.”

I looked at him in disbelief. Then the others. They all wore the same grim expression. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Dead serious,” Judd said.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“I have a contact with an agency in Chicago,” Simon said. “They’ve agreed to give you a shot.”

“You already found me a job? Premature, aren’t you?”

“You tell us,” Simon said.

I didn’t know how to answer. After a moment I asked, “What about Dad?”

“We’ll take care of Dad,” Dan said. “The deal is, you’re not allowed to speak to him or your mother.”

Simon said, “We’ll tell Dad that you wanted to spread your wings and took a job with a big-city firm.”

“What if I refuse?”

Simon shook his head. “We make the call, little Ben goes to jail. Who knows, the judge might be lenient. Maybe he’ll just get a few years in a medium-security facility. Not too bad for what he did, except you know how fragile little Benny is. I give him a fifty-percent chance of surviving prison. But even if he does, he’s a man with a record.”