Page 5 of Scarlet Thorns

Nothing.

Not a fucking thing.

“No record.”

Stanley’s face flushes deep red, the color of a man whose blood pressure is spiking toward dangerous territory.

“Bullshit. Complete fucking bullshit. I set up the placement myself. Wealthy couple in Connecticut, pre-screened through my contacts at the country club. They paid in full, upfront.”

“Who’d they pay?” I frown.

“You, supposedly. Through the usual fucking channels.”

I close the portfolio and place it back in the drawer, my movements deliberately calm and controlled. Stanley’s attitude is filling my pristine office like a bad smell. The kind of tension that leads to mistakes, and in our business, mistakes lead to prison sentences… or graves.

“Henderson delivery— where are the medical records? Birth certificate? Melor’s paperwork?”

Stanley runs both hands through his hair, further destroying what’s left of his professional appearance. “I don’t know. That’s your fucking department, isn’t it?”

“My department is operations. Yours is clients and payments. You set up placement, took payment— you should have records.”

“I do have fucking records.” Stanley pulls out his phone, scrolling frantically through what I assume are messages or financial files. His fingers are shaking slightly— a detail I file away for future reference. “The payment went through our usual Bitcoin wallet. Nine hundred and fifty thousand, exactly as we agreed.”

“Show me.”

He hesitates. That moment of hesitation tells me everything I need to know about the truthfulness of his claims.

“I don’t have the phone with me,” he says finally. “It’s at home on my other fucking device.”

Liar.

Fucking liar.

I’ve been in this business long enough to recognize deception in all its forms— the slight delay before answering, the unnecessary details, the convenient excuse. Stanley is either monumentally incompetent or he’s trying to run a con on me. Given his recent behavior— the mood swings, the increasingly erratic decision-making, the personal issues bleeding into our professional relationship— I’m leaning heavily toward the latter.

“Stanley,” I say quietly, my voice dropping to the tone that makes grown men reconsider their life choices, “are you accusing me of stealing?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m asking where my fucking money is.”

“Same thing,mudak.”

The room falls silent except for the soft hum of the city thirty floors below us. Boston sprawls outside my office windows— a maze of old money and new opportunities, historic brownstones and gleaming skyscrapers. From up here, everything looks manageable, controllable. People are just moving pieces on a chess board, and I’ve always been very fucking good at chess.

But Stan Morrison is becoming a liability I can’t control, and uncontrolled liabilities have a way of destroying carefully constructed empires.

Our business arrangement works precisely because it’s built on military-level precision and clearly defined roles. We deliver orphaned or disadvantaged babies to affluent people who desperately want children. Dr. Igor Shiradze provides the medical connections and client credibility— he’s the respectable face that desperate couples trust with their need for families. Melor handles the legal maze, turning black market transactions into seemingly legitimate adoption proceedings that will stand up to government scrutiny. Radimir manages our digital footprint, ensuring that payments remain untraceable and communications stay encrypted beyond the reach of federal investigators.

Stanley was supposed to handle the wealthy client base— the couples with more money than morals, the ones willing to pay premium prices for healthy infants with no questions asked. His job was to identify prospects, vet their financial capabilities, and facilitate the initial payments.

Each of us takes our agreed-upon cut. Each of us follows the established rules. And the first rule, the most sacred rule, is simple: no one skims without the others knowing.

“Listen carefully,” I continue, leaning forward slightly in my chair. “If I owed you money, you would have it. I don’t cheat partners. Cheating partners leads to dead partners. Bad for business. Very bad,mudak.”

Stanley’s expression darkens, his earlier panic shifting toward something more dangerous— anger mixed with desperation. “Maybe you should ask your precious fucking Dr. Shiradze about that philosophy.”

The comment makes me frown. “What does that mean?”

“It means maybe your faith in the good doctor is misplaced. Maybe he’s been making some private fucking arrangements that don’t include the rest of us.”