Chapter 12: The Mistress's Bargain
On Thursday evening, I received a text message from an unknown number.
“Please. I know things. I can help you. I just need money to go home.”
It was Mia.
I didn't reply immediately. I let her sweat for two hours before sending an address to an upscale, discreet coffee shop downtown and a time: 8:00 PM.
When I arrived, Mia was already sitting in a back booth. She looked terrible. The confident, sneering mistress from my master bathroom was entirely gone. She was pale, shaking, and wearing the same faded sweatshirt she had worn when I threw her out.
I slid into the booth across from her, ordering a black coffee from the waiter. I didn't offer to buy her anything.
"You look tired, Mia," I noted, my voice devoid of sympathy.
"Beatrice left," Mia blurted out, her hands trembling around a paper napkin. "She took what little cash Julian had left and took a Greyhound bus back to Boston. Julian is losing his mind. He screams at me all day. He blames me for the newspaper article. He drinks cheap vodka and punches the walls."
"A tragic love story," I replied dryly. "Why are you here, Mia?"
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small, silver USB flash drive. She placed it on the table, keeping her hand clamped firmly over it.
"Julian wasn't just planning to take your house," Mia whispered, glancing around nervously. "He was planning to ruin your business. A month ago, he told me to sneak into your home office while you were at work."
My eyes narrowed. "Go on."
"He told me your password. He had watched you type it in. He made me download your entire proprietary client database. The VIP lists. The vendor contracts. The franchise expansion blueprints."
A cold spike of fury drove itself straight into my chest, but I kept my face entirely impassive. "Why?"
"He was going to sell it," Mia confessed. "He had a backdoor deal with your biggest competitor, Serenity Wellness. He was going to hand them your entire blueprint so they could undercut your new locations. He said once you started losing money, you would be stressed and vulnerable, and it would be easier to declare you unfit to manage your own assets."
I stared at the girl. Julian wasn't just a parasite. He was an active poison, willing to burn my entire life to the ground just to warm his hands by the fire.
"I made a copy of the drive," Mia said, her voice shaking. "Before I gave it to him, I put a copy in my bag. I don't know why. I think... I think part of me knew he was a snake."
"How much?" I asked, cutting straight to the point.
"Ten thousand," Mia pleaded, tears welling in her eyes. "Just enough for me to get back to Kentucky, put a deposit on a cheap apartment, and disappear. I swear to God, Mrs. Caldwell, you will never see me again."
I opened my purse, pulled out my checkbook, and wrote out a check for exactly $10,000. I slid it across the table.
Mia gasped, her hand releasing the flash drive to snatch the check.
"There is one condition," I said softly, picking up the silver drive and slipping it into my pocket.
"Anything," she cried, clutching the paper like a lifeline.
"You are going to take that money, you are going to get on a bus tonight, and you are going to leave this city," I ordered. "But before you do... you are going to block Julian's number. You are going to leave him in that filthy motel room with no explanation, no goodbye, and no warning. You are going to let him wake up entirely alone."
Mia nodded frantically. "I will. I promise. I hate him."
"Good." I stood up, smoothing the front of my trench coat. I looked down at the twenty-one-year-old girl who had thought she could steal my life.
May you like
"You sold yourself for a jacuzzi tub and a cheap diamond, Mia," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Take this money and learn how to build your own life. Because if I ever see you near my city again, I will crush you."
I turned and walked out of the coffee shop, leaving her weeping into her hands.
