He stared at the blood on my cuff for three seconds in absolute, terrifying, un-blinking silence.
Then he reached into his blazer pocket, pulled out an unsealed corporate envelope stamped with the gold-embossed seal of **The Holbrook-Vance Maritime Trust**, and dropped it flat through the two-inch opening of my window:
*FLUTTER.
*
The envelope landed on my passenger seat.
“Inside that envelope, Sebastian,” Carter said softly, every word an iron rivet driven straight through my windshield:
“Is a cashier’s check for **fifty thousand dollars**.”
“Drawn on the Northern Trust of Chicago.”
“It is a severance bonus from my private family office.”
I stared at the paper.
“A severance bonus?
I don’t work for you, Carter.”
“You don’t work for anyone now, young man,” Carter Holbrook said, his voice dropping into an arctic, un-forgiving whisper that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up like copper wire:
