Chapter 3

3.

She tapped the file, and a low, suggestive sound filled the whole room in an instant.

I lunged forward and grabbed Raymond by the collar.

"You recorded it?"

Raymond stayed perfectly calm.

"Natalie isn't always with me. To make her feel secure, I had a recorder built into the earpiece."

"That way she can know what I'm doing anytime she wants."

The noise on our side drew the manager over.

After a short struggle, they had me pinned.

In the chaos, the hearing aid dropped to the floor.

I was shoved down, and from where I lay I saw a shoe come down on it.

That hearing aid, the one I'd traded countless hours of part-time work for, was ground into a scatter of fragments right in front of me.

Natalie kept pushing.

"Manager Dickerson, an employee with conduct like this, you're really going to keep her on?"

"Anyone who didn't know better would think this was some shady place you're running here."

Manager Dickerson hedged, mumbling that he would certainly discipline me severely.

"Fire me. I have no problem with that."

"But these trumped-up charges today, I won't be admitting to any of them."

I finished and turned to leave, but Natalie blocked my way.

"This isn't over yet. Where do you think you're rushing off to?"

She pointed at the scratch on her leg.

"My legs are insured for fifty million. You hurt my leg, so how are you going to pay for that?"

I looked at the nearly healed cut on her leg, and without thinking I turned toward Raymond.

"That wasn't me..."

Natalie planted herself in front of him.

"You want him to plead for you? Take a look at what you are first."

"You were a bet, nothing more. You don't even rate as my stand-in."

Raymond wrapped an arm around Natalie as if to soothe her.

"We were together three years, after all. I don't want to make this hard on you."

"Kneel down and apologize to Natalie, and we'll call it done."

Two bodyguards stepped out from the corner and pressed me to the floor.

Raymond's friends laughed and held up their phones, countless cameras aimed at my bloodless face.

"Come on. Apologize to the camera."

When I wouldn't open my mouth, Natalie slapped me across the face.

"Give her too much kindness and she starts thinking she's somebody."

"Fine. Then we'll open your mouth another way."

She glanced at Raymond. He held up his phone, and on the screen was a photo of my grandmother.

"Bianca, that hospital where your grandmother's being treated? I own a few shares in it too."

I heard the threat in his voice.

"You know full well Natalie set me up on purpose!"

Raymond rose to his feet, expressionless, looking down at me.

"Nat doesn't need a reason for anything she wants to do."

"For her, I can give up on being reasonable."

He stroked the top of Natalie's head, gentle about it.

"Don't be impatient. Whatever she owes you, she'll pay back sooner or later."

"It won't be long before I have her begging to apologize to you."

Raymond lifted a hand, signaling the bodyguards to let me go, then walked off with Natalie on his arm.