Chapter 12: The Master Manipulator
I looked at the flash drive. Then I looked at the pathetic, broken woman standing before me.
She was trying to sell the woman she had destroyed to the woman whose life she had ruined.
"Let me get this straight," I said slowly. "You helped ruin my marriage. You tried to trap my ex-husband again. And now, you want me to pay you two million dollars to stop my ex-mother-in-law from ruining me?"
"It's a bargain!" Vanessa begged. "With this evidence, you can lock Eleanor away forever!"
I picked up the flash drive. I rolled it between my fingers.
Then, I dropped it into my half-empty cup of hot coffee.
Vanessa shrieked, lunging forward as the plastic device sank into the dark liquid, bubbling and short-circuiting instantly.
"What are you doing?!" she screamed, her eyes wide with horror. "That was my only leverage!"
"I don't need leverage against Eleanor," I told her, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "She is already a ghost. She has no money, no power, and no influence. Her little conspiracy to frame me would have died the second it hit a courtroom because she has no capital to fund a legal battle."
Vanessa stared at me, her entire body shaking.
"You came here thinking you could play a game of chess," I said, standing up from my desk. "But you are not a player, Vanessa. You are a pawn. And you have outlived your usefulness."
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"But my debts!" Vanessa sobbed. "They'll kill me!"
"Then you better start running," I replied. "Security."
