I grind my jaw and turn to my men.
Keller sent his daughter to a meeting he knew the nature of. Either the man lost his mind entirely or he was communicating something specific, and either way, it was unacceptable. Eight months of avoidance and now this. He wanted to play games with my time and my patience and apparently with his own child.
Fine.
"Bring her back," I say.
Costa looks at me. "Boss?—"
"She is going to be my collateral." I reach into my jacket for my cigarettes. "Since my dear friend Keller wants to play, I'll give him something to play for."
They nod and move and I listen to their footsteps disappear down the corridor.
I sit back down and light a cigarette and draw from it slowly and look at the empty chair across from me where she had been sitting with her folded hands and her prepared answers. Keller was going to pay for this.
Chapter Four
Nathalie
Why am I so stupid?
I make it back to the hotel with my heels in my hand.
I don't care about the looks, the few people I pass who clock the heels dangling from my fingers, and the state of my face. I have nothing left to perform for anyone tonight.
The elevator ride to my floor takes four years.
I get into the room, drop my heels by the door, and slide down the wall until I am sitting on the floor with my back against the bed frame and my knees pulled up and my eyes fixed on the middle distance.
I sit there for a while then my phone rings.
I look at the screen. It's Alana, close my eyes for exactly three seconds, wipe my face with the back of my hand, and answer.
"Gerald asked about you." Her voice shows she is enjoying this but pretending to find it burdensome. "I covered for you but I want to be clear, Nathalie, I do not want any trouble coming back to me. If he asks again I'm going to have to?—"
"I'll be back tomorrow," I say.
I end the call.
I toss the phone onto the carpet and drag both hands through my hair and pull until my scalp protests and then I tip my head back and I say it to the ceiling.
"Why does everyone mock me?"
My voice echoes slightly off the walls.
"I am trying to help. I am genuinely, actually trying and nobody — not one single person — can see that."
The ceiling offers nothing.
I press my fingers against my eyes. The man's face surfaces immediately behind them, green eyes and a jaw like architecture and a brand of contemptuous ease.
Buy some shoes. Be a good girl.
Why was he so cruel about it? He didn't know me. He knew nothing about me and he looked at me across that table and decided in ninety seconds what I was worth and had communicated it.
And why did I cry?
I never cry. That is not an exaggeration or a point of pride, it is simply a fact of my life that I have internalized so completely it barely registers anymore. There is no one to cry to. My mother has been gone for twelve years and my father looks through me and Alana is Alana and somewhere along the way my body had simply learned that the release wasn't worth the aftermath when there was no one to absorb it.
