22. Callie

“Idid it.”

The words were heavy and hollow, seeping into the empty space just beneath my ribs. Like ash, they stained my tongue and I couldn’t get the acidic taste out of my mouth even after the confession.

“Oh, chick.” Bianca’s sorrowful voice in my ear was the last straw.

I came to a stop in the middle of the street and cried. The crumbling dam I had held in place for the rest of my work shift could no longer stand against the pressure behind my eyes. Knees together, one hand pressed over my eyes and my shoulders hunched forward, I sobbed.

“Callie…” Bianca tried to soothe me but it didn’t work. The guilt was going to eat me alive, no matter how often I told myself that it would be worth it in the long run.

“I—.” Sobs smothered my words and my damp hand slid from my eyes to my mouth. Tears poured, and passersby looked on curiously. Thankfully, no one cared enough to stop and ask me if I was okay.

“Deep breaths,” Bianca soothed the best she could over the phone. “Just take a few deep breaths for me, chick.”

They were more like haggard gasps but I did it. Fat tears rolled down my flaming cheeks, and my lower lip wobbled so violently that each breath was reminiscent of a child’s wet sobs.

“I did it,” I gasped out, choking slightly. “I stole everything I could find. I sent it in an email to myself and I feel… horrendous.”

“I’m sorry chick. I really am. Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come with you to see Eli?”

Moving out of the middle of the pavement, I hugged the wall of a nearby shop and slowly started to walk again.

“No. I have to do this by myself.”

“You don’t.” Bianca sighed softly. “Are you sure you even want to go through with this? It’s eating you up, chick. This can’t be the only answer.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” I wept. “The alternative is losing everything and supporting my mother on my own while gaining an insane amount of debt from Eli and we both know I can’t afford that. If I could, I wouldn’t even be in this mess.”

Bianca didn’t have an answer, and more guilt piled on that I’d snapped at her. Sniffling, I did my best to wipe my tears as I walked.

“I’m sorry, I just… I feel so trapped and smothered and I don’t understand how I even got here.”

“I know, chick.” Her words dripped with sympathy as if she could reach right through the phone and hug me tight. That really would have broken me.

“I just… I do this and I get the security I need about my mother and then everything else will just… be.”

“Are you sure you need to do this alone? I’m worried about you.”

“I’ll be okay.” With each step, the tears lessened. “I have a doctor’s appointment right after because the stress is making me so ill. With any luck, he’ll give me something that knocks me right out, and we’ll be good.”

“A few Xanax, maybe. Well, I’ll come collect you from the doctor’s after and I’m not taking no for an answer.” Her light chuckle lacked humor, unable to hide the concern in her tone. “I love you, chick. Please be careful.”

“I will be.”

The cafe Eli chose to meet was sickeningly quaint. The scent of coffee and sugar made my stomach roll, and nausea climbed up the back of my throat the moment I stepped inside. I had to swallow continuously to keep the bile at bay, although it rose like a surging surf when my eyes landed on Eli.

He sat at a table in the middle, angled to the side with one leg crossed over the other. He had a small cup in his hand, and when our gazes locked, he took a very slow sip of its contents.

The cup lowered and a disgustingly pleasant smile spread across his thin lips.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said smoothly. His eyes darted all over my face. “Bout of hay fever, hmm?”

After all that crying, I didn’t even want to think about what my face looked like, so I ignored the comment and slid into the wooden chair opposite him. Perching on the edge, I clutched my bag to my abdomen.

“Are we doing this or what?”

“Straight to business.” Eli set his cup down. “No small talk? I thought it might be nice for us to get to know each other.”

“I know more than I ever cared to about you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” My words were tight, spat past bitten lips in order to keep my nausea firmly down in my gut. “You use people. You trick them and manipulate them into corners where they feel forced into making a decision. But really, there’s only ever one choice to make.”

“And what’s that?” Eli purred, slowly stroking the outside of his cup as he regarded me.

“There’s only the choice that you want. Nothing more.” My voice rose enough that a few people at neighboring tables looked up but Eli was completely unphased.

“Don’t act all high and mighty with me, Callie. You have a choice here, and you’re making it. So own it. No one is forcing your hand.”

“Bullshit,” I spat. “Having my mother slip back into ill health isn’t a choice, it’s a?—”

“But it is,” Eli cut in sharply. “Maybe you should have been more on top of your bills or flirted with your boss for a pay rise. There’s an infinite list of things you could have done to prevent this situation but you didn’t.”

My frustration rose and heat prickled up my spine as he spoke. How could he sit there and talk like he hadn’t orchestrated every little thing?

“You’re a snake,” I hissed.

“And yet, out of all the men in your life, I’m the only one who has tried to help you and your mother. How about that?”

Frustration gave way to anger and my pounding heart became a blur of sensation in my chest. If I sat here any longer, I was going to end up in handcuffs for a very poor attempt at murder.

“Whatever. I didn’t come here to chat.”

“What if I did?” Eli’s eyes narrowed. “If I have all the power like you claim, I could keep you here all afternoon. All night. Oh, the fun we could have when the sun sets.”

He could. We both knew it. My thoughts tumbled over one another, seeking a way to still get what I wanted while leaving here as quickly as possible.

“Lucky for you, perhaps, I do have a pending engagement.” Eli leaned forward, resting on his elbow on the table as he picked up his cup once more. “So, do you have it?”

I did. I downloaded the files I’d stolen onto a pen drive, and it was the singular item that weighed down my handbag like a rock.

“No, you first,” I stated firmly. My heart flew so fast that I was getting lightheaded, and Eli’s glinting eyes became two sharp pinpricks. “I want proof that my mother’s bills are paid for this month, and written proof that the bills will be taken care of until the end of her days.”

Part of me hoped that my demands would be too much and Eli would have to leave in order to give me what I wanted. As I spoke, he set down his cup and reached into the inside of his jacket, pulling out a rolled up wad of papers.

Unfurling them, he smoothed them out on the table.

“You’re asking for a lot, you know,” he remarked smoothly, his voice like butter. “Anyone would think I was made of money.”

“I’m risking a lot,” I snapped back. “But if you’re telling me that something like this is beyond you then, well that’s too bad. That’s the price.”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t,” Eli snapped back, finally showing something other than slimy cockiness. “Merely making you aware of what you stand to lose if you try to double-cross me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like you’re scared.”

“On the contrary,” Eli smirked. “I have a lawyer on a ten thousand dollar retainer so even if you did try to screw me over, Callie. I’d have you lost in the justice system just like that.” He snapped his fingers, his smirk turning cold, then he slid the papers past the sugar packet stand and onto my side of the table.

In truth, I didn’t know what I was looking at. There were several invoices, and the eye-watering amount of each monthly bill at my mother’s new facility was enough to make my nausea swell once more. I didn’t make that much in a year, never mind a month. There were several signatures, Eli’s and who I presumed to be his lawyers, all over the document. From the dates I could see, it looked legit.

“Are you happy?” Eli asked, drumming his fingers lightly on the table.

Maybe I should have brought my own lawyer. Taking the papers, I bundled them up and stuffed them into my bag.

“Sure.”

“And the patent?”

As I picked the pen drive out of my bag, it felt heavy, like a lead paperweight. How could something so small hold so much power to damage so many people?

“Here.” With a heavy heart, and a heavier conscience, I slid the pen drive across the table and into Eli’s waiting hand.

His face lit up like a child at Christmas, and he toyed with the device. He eyed me carefully.

“Everything I want is on here?”

I nodded. “Everything I could find.”

His smile widened, almost resembling a puppet with how it stretched from ear to ear. “A mighty find pleasure doing business with you, my dear.”

I stood, throwing my bag over my shoulder. “Whatever. I never want to see you ever again, do you understand?”

Eli looked up at me and merely smiled.

“Can you describe your symptoms for me?” The Doctor in front of me pressed another tissue into my hand, her face twisted slightly in worry.

The moment I walked into her office, the smell of antiseptic and sterilization turned my already churning stomach, and I threw up into the waste paper basket. She’d been gentle about it, giving me some water to wash out my mouth and a few tissues to dry the sweat clinging to my skin.

“Well,” I croaked, my throat burning with each word. “There’s the sickness. Sometimes it’s near-constant. I keep having hot flushes that I thought was just the summer heat but now I’m not so sure. I’m peeing a lot and my chest is really tight sometimes. I think it’s stress.”

She nodded along, typing into her computer as I spoke.

Behind her, white slatted blinds drifted in the light breeze coming in through the window. Each time they moved, I glimpsed Bianca’s car out in the parking lot. Just the sight of it brought me comfort and I ached to be in her arms. To cry about all of this and then drown in some wine.

“How are your eating habits?”

“Not great,” I murmured. “I’ve been off a lot of my usual foods but like I said, the work stress is piling on me.” And my mother. And Eli.

She nodded again, typing quickly. “I’d like to run a few tests if that’s okay?”

“Of course.”

My attention continued to drift to Bianca’s car as my doctor took some blood and measured my temperature. She was swift, asking a few other questions about muscle pain, how I was sleeping and if I had an active sex life.

I answered honestly, always linking it back to the stress I was under. Even now, as I sat watching my blood fill those tubes, a pained thought burst into my mind.

What if I’m really sick? Deathly sick with only a few months left to live?

That thought brought an odd sense of relief. To be free of the stress of Eli and the consequences of my betrayal. Maybe I should have made sure a death clause was written into that new form. So that my mother would remain taken care of even if something happened to me.

“Callie?” My doctor pulled me from my thoughts and when I focused on her, she smiled warmly.

“Do you have anything you can give me?”

“Not currently,” she replied. “I’d like to get the blood test results first but Callie, from everything you’ve told me and what you’ve described. I think there’s another test we can run that’s much faster.”

“Oh?” I lifted my brow. “Why, what’s wrong with me?”

“Callie, I think you could be pregnant.”