Page 13 of Golden Burn

I run my fingers through her fur, the motion settling the anxiety festering in my chest. “It’s Etta, actually. No one calls me Harriet.”

“Of course. And call me Dom.” He smiles softly, then his gaze flicks to Ford. “Can you sit? There’s no need to be hostile.”

Ford grunts in response and takes a seat, though he keeps his focus trained on me. Without looking away from my face, he reaches across the coffee table and shoves a whole muffin into his mouth. I watch, enrapt, as he chews and swallows it in seconds. Then, as if to make matters even more weird, he throws me a wink.

Dom sighs, exasperated. “There are a few things I need to inform you of.”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “What happened to my clinic? Is it still running?” I feel myself start to ramble, panic rising. “It’s my family’s clinic. It was my mother’s, now it’s mine. I own it. I need—”

“Your clinic is being taken care of. Two new experienced veterinarians have been employed to run the practice in your absence.”

“What do you mean? I had… I—” My mouth clamps shut, tears spring along my bottom lashes. How do I explain that I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt under my name? That the last few months have been some of the darkest, most soul crushing I have ever endured.

My mom suffered a fatal heart attack while working at the back of the clinic, checking on the animals recently recovered from surgery. She diedso quickly the ambulance officers said the CPR conducted by the vet nurses did nothing.

The phone call I got from the head vet nurse, the sounds that came out of me, still haunts my dreams.

I was thrust into the primary role at the clinic. I was doing well for the first few weeks. The work kept me busy, kept me focused. Until I discovered a problem, a very big, costly problem.

My mother’s business, her pride and joy, was in serious debt. And she never told me. Never gave me any cause to think so.

In the span of two years, three veterinary clinics opened within a few miles of ours. Open twenty-four seven with shiny new facilities, it didn’t take long for our patients to cross over. Then the economy started to dip and people couldn’t pay their rent, let alone fork out the money for their pets surgeries. So, one unpaid bill led to another unpaid bill, which led to thousands of dollars that weren’t coming in anymore. It spiraled, clearly, but mom kept it all to herself.

And because I inherited my pride from her, I decided I couldn’t let the business fail so quickly after she died. I couldn’t fathom shutting the doors on the place that I felt her presence in the most. She tried to save it the right way, the hard way, but I knew that was going to be impossible.

So I did it the easy way.

But I can’t discuss that with these strangers. I’m not discussing it with them, period. I don’t owe them an explanation for what I have done.

Still, it surprises me when Dom confirms, “All debts have been paid in full. The practice is flourishing, and all patients are receiving the right care.”

My mouth hangs open. “What do you mean, all debts have been paid?”

“All debts have been paid by the Bolt group. Your mortgage, too, has been paid and your belongings put into storage.”

I’m speechless. My mouth flutters open as I comprehend what I’m hearing.

“But… why?”

Dom opens the manila folder he showed me earlier and pulls out a single white sheet with black typed writing.

“The man in the clinic was, in fact, your biological father. Gregory Lombardo.” A shiver runs down my arms when I hear his full name. A ghost. In both my memories and in the present.

The shake in my hands only intensifies when I glance over at Odin and notice he’s still ignoring us.The man who killed him is standing in the same room as me.

I take the paper from Dom’s hand. It’s my birth certificate. There, in neat, bold letters, is his name and my mother’s name. Their jobs, their ages and their signatures, too.

I see my birthdate and suddenly can’t breathe.

Harriet Lombardo. Born 6:25 a.m. October 20, 1997.

The one that I have in my desk only has my mother’s name on the certificate, and a totally different last name—Lewis. No partner, no husband. Just my single, brave mother.

Surely, this is a fake.

Dom pulls out another document, this time a photo. Greg is the sole person in the picture. Young and fit with a determined glint in his eyes. He’s standing on a deserted street, wearing a tailored pinstripe suit, a cigarette smoking in his hand. His hair is as black as mine. “Your father worked for the Lombardos, a large, organized crime syndicate that has a nasty history with the Bolt group.” Dom passes me another document, this one a contract with too many tiny words and impossible legal jargon.

“Odin’s father, Alistair Bolt, ran a very large company that owned several dozen smaller companies. He was a high-ranking businessman who worked closely with the top one percent of the world. But he wasn’t exactly clean. No one at his level is.”

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