“You really should have called me earlier,” Crawford drawls to Salinger. “He’s out of control.”
“Me?” I gesture to Jenna, who’s blinking back tears, her brown eyes shiny, her nose red. “She tanked my company.”
“Youjust lost a fight on Redwood Avenue.”
“Why does everyone think I lost? This is not what losing looks like.”
“I told you that you needed security.” Jenna, though teary-eyed, is clearly not going down without a fight.
Perfect. I love it when they struggle on the hook. Makes it fun.
“I’m so sorry, Salinger.” Jenna sniffles. “I’ll be putting in my resignation notice, and I’m sure the CEO of Prism PR consulting will do whatever is in his power to make it right, including paying you back for the dinner.”
She digs in my pocket.
“Hey! You see what you subjected me to?” I ask my brother.
Jenna hands Salinger his credit card. He accepts it wordlessly
“What? I thought you weren’t letting anyone use your credit cards,” Faulkner complains.
“Shut up, Faulkner. There’s nothing you can do to make it right, Cupcake.” I lean forward into her personal space. “This is even worse than when you got engaged to the loser parade. This is a monumental fuckup, Cupcake. You let everyone down—your clients, your boss, your coworkers, yourself, Nathan.Truman.” I’m digging the knife in at this point.
Some might say it’s cruel.
I say that’s the point.
“I really didn’t mean to. I don’t know what happened.” She clutches Truman in his pink quilted bag to her chest, her shoulders heaving from the effort to hold back tears.
Crawford looks mildly alarmed. I’m unmoved, not even when she starts crying, sobbing, really.
“Embarrassing.”
“McCarthy, you made her cry.” Fitz is shocked.
“So? Who cares? I’m the victim here. She’s the one who screwed up. She’s manipulating you.”
Faulkner hurries to hand Jenna a box of Kleenex.
“Since when are you moved by female tears? Let her sit in her failure; that’s the only way she’ll learn.” I sprawl in the chair across from my little brother.
“Now,” I say to Salinger. “I’m going to need fifty million dollars to prop up the hole Jenna blew in my company this morning.”
“Fifty million dollars?” Jenna wails. “This is horrible.”
Crawford stands up to help her into a chair.
“Don’t waste your tears on him. He’s a spoiled little rich boy.” My brother narrows his eyes at me.
“I grew up in the same cult you did.”
“I don’t know why”—Crawford addresses Salinger—“you’re even bothering to try and fix this.” He motions to me. “You should just put a bullet in his head and be done with it. Give RDC to Faulkner. He’s nuts enough to run a defense company.”
“You can’t run my company without me. The ship needs a steady hand to steer through the wreckage that Jenna caused.”
Truman’s licking her teary face.
“Please,” Salinger finally says, crossing his arms. “You were orchestrating a stock buyback as soon as you saw her plan. You wanted your stock to go down temporarily so that you could profit. If I thought it would make you clean up your act, I’d call the feds on you myself so they could nail you to the wall for insider trading.”
