Chapter 2 - The Story He Told First
The police officer spoke to Sadi separately.
Roman didn't answer for her. When she asked him to wait near the entrance, he went, although she could tell he disliked every step away from her.
Trevor watched him go with visible relief.
It lasted until the second officer approached Trevor.
Sadi gave her name, explained their previous relationship, and described the kick. She told the officer about the attempted shove and the way Roman had stopped it.
“Do you want photographs taken of the injuries?” the officer asked.
“Yes.”
“And medical attention?”
She almost said she was fine.
The sentence had served her for years. Fine meant she could finish a shift. Fine meant nobody had to stop what they were doing because something hurt.
Her knee throbbed beneath her jeans.
“Yes,” she said again.
Across the store, Trevor began explaining his importance to somebody who hadn't asked.
Sadi looked away.
Arthur came over after the officer finished.
“I'm sorry,” he said quietly.
She looked up.
“The kick happened before we understood who he was. When you told us to wait, I should have come closer anyway.”
“I wanted him to stop making me feel small.”
Arthur glanced toward Trevor.
“You don't have to let him get another chance at hurting you to prove that.”
She considered the words.
Then she nodded.
At the clinic, the adrenaline finally abandoned her.
She sat on an examination table while Roman waited beside a cabinet full of tongue depressors. Her calf ached. The cut on her knee stung after it was cleaned. The clinician found bruising and a sprain that would require follow-up if it didn't improve.
Nothing sounded dramatic enough to match what her body was doing.
She began shaking hard enough that Roman rose from the chair.
“Sadi?”
“I know. It's ridiculous.”
“It isn't.”
She covered her face.
“I stood there like I wasn't scared.”
“You don't have to keep doing that now.”
He sat when she reached for his hand.
Her calm in the store hadn't been the absence of fear. It had been an old habit of postponing fear until there was somewhere safer to put it.
At home, Roman brought her water and the soft gray blanket she preferred to the expensive one Louise, their housekeeper, kept trying to make her use.
He placed her phone beside her.
“Do you want me here?”
She nodded.
He stayed while she slept.
By evening, Trevor's story was online.
Former girlfriend confronts newly promoted attorney at luxury mall. Wealthy husband intervenes. Altercation follows.
The attached clip began after Sadi was already on the floor.
It showed Roman holding Trevor's wrist. It didn't show the kick.
The caption described her as unstable.
Sadi sat up too quickly and winced.
Roman took one look at the screen.
“Arthur has confirmed that the full store footage has been preserved for police.”
“Then why are people sharing this?”
He didn't pretend evidence traveled faster than a lie.
“Because this is the version somebody gave them first.”
Her phone rang.
DELLA.
Sadi answered before Roman could ask whether she wanted to.
“Tell me you're all right,” Della said.
“I am.”
There was a pause.
“Try again.”
Sadi closed her eyes.
“I'm bruised. I'm angry. I didn't think hearing his voice could still do that to me.”
“There you are.”
Della Brooks had owned a diner on Mercer Street for twenty-nine years. She had hired Sadi when she was nineteen, fed her when paychecks ran short, and refused to call the meals a favor.
“Nobody earns breakfast more than the person making everybody else's,” she used to say.
Now her voice had a tired edge.
Sadi heard it beneath the concern.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need tonight.”
“Della.”
A long silence.
“We got another notice about the building.”
Sadi pushed the blanket aside.
The diner occupied the ground floor of a brick apartment building where she had once rented a room so narrow the bed blocked half the closet. Most of the residents had lived there longer than she had been alive.
For months, a developer had been trying to empty it.
“What does the notice say?”
“That the last deadline is Friday. The lawyers say the building's too dangerous to keep occupied.”
“Maya was challenging that.”
“Maya is still challenging it. But the letter came in a courier envelope, and Mrs. Alvarez upstairs thinks that means the police will be here Friday morning.”
“Send me a picture.”
Della protested once, then sent it.
Sadi opened the photograph.
At the top of the page was the name of a law firm.
Langford, Pierce & Cole.
At the bottom was a signature.
Trevor Hale, Partner.
Her stomach tightened.
“He knew,” she whispered.
Roman looked at her.
“Who knew what?”
“Trevor knew where I used to live. He knew Della. He ate there without paying half the time.”
She passed him the phone.
He read the letter.
On the attached financing summary, a company name appeared beneath the developer's.
DeLuca Capital.
Sadi watched Roman reach the line.
The change in his face was immediate.
“Tell me,” she said.
He read it again before answering.
“One of our investment companies acquired part of that project's debt.”
For a moment, the room felt very large.
Sadi looked at the blanket, the clean glass of water, the quiet rooms that had made her feel safe.
Then she looked at the notice ordering the people who had once kept her alive to leave their homes.
“Did you know what they were financing?”
Roman set the phone down carefully.
“I knew it was redevelopment. I didn't know the residents were being told this.”
May you like
She held his gaze.
“Then we need to find out.”
