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“Sign it.”
“Fuck you!”
He grabbed the back of my hair and shoved my head down to the paper, sticking the pen in my face.
I growled, pushing myself away from the table.
“Sign it, and you’re free,” he bit out as I backed up to the glass, my eyes burning. “You don’t have to feel guilty. I mean, what’s on those videos is only a small fraction of what they’ve done, Emory. How they’ve taken advantage of the people here. Let their money and family names save their asses time and again.”
I whipped around, staring at Will still sitting at that table. Where was his lawyer?
I won’t…I won’t hurt you. I shook with sobs. I’ll never hurt you again.
“Just think of all the women he’s had,” Martin pointed out. “All the life he’s wasted as a burden on his family, never doing or living for anything important. For anything larger than himself. He’s taken, Em. All he does is take. He fucks and screws and forgets about you.”
I closed my eyes, about to cover my ears.
“They deserve some consequences. You know I’m right. They did commit crimes.”
No. If it happened, it happened, but I wouldn’t help Martin send them to jail.
“Those videos weren’t the only ones on that phone, you know?” he pressed. “If they were poor, they would’ve been in jail a dozen times by now.”
I stopped, my pulse ringing in my ears.
Phone…
“That’s what they used to document their pranks, right?” he asked. “A cell phone?”
I looked over at him, my cheeks wet with tears.
He shrugged, feigning sympathy. “If more videos were to surface….” He tsked, continuing, “Arson, assault, robbery, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, sexual deviances… I can only imagine the videos lurking out there somewhere that haven’t been posted yet.”
My stomach sank, and I rose, standing up straight as I gaped at him. The vomit churned, and I almost dry-heaved.
No.
Pulling something off the table, he handed me one more piece of paper, and I read the check for over thirty-seven-thousand dollars made out to me.
“The balance of what’s left,” he told me. “And you have the power of attorney transferred to you. All you have to do is sign. You can take her, and we never have to see each other again. You’ll be able to pay for top-notch care. And they won’t even know it’s you in the photos. Your full face isn’t in them anyway, and it won’t be on the unofficial statement I take to them.”
I stared at the check.
He was giving me what I wanted. I could move my grandmother to somewhere close to me, pay for her care for however long she had left, and my education wouldn’t be interrupted.
I set my palm on the glass, feeling warmth where everything else was cold.
He had a point, right? I’d heard that Will was messing up. Even his last year in high school, I heard he was getting high all the time. Would he clean up his act unless he were forced to?
I just wanted to go to school and take care of my grandma. I deserved for good things to happen, I’d f
ought long enough, and if I didn’t give in and agree to this, he might go to jail anyway and for longer. What if Martin knew who uploaded the videos? What if he were telling the truth, and he could get them to upload more?
I clutched the thin piece of paper, everything I wanted one signature away.
One signature I’d never make.
“I want you to die,” I whispered.
