Anger.
Not at me. Not yet.
At herself.
At the trap she walked into.
At the fact that she can’t brute-force her way out with pride and a spine of steel.
I take a breath, force my tone down a fraction. Still hard. Still controlled. But not cutting her for sport.
“Why?” I ask. “Why would you do this? What? For fun? Some kind of fantasy shit?”
Her mouth trembles once, and she presses it tight, like she’s trying to keep the truth from spilling out.
“No, sir,” she says, and the words scrape out of her. Then her voice drops so low, she might as well be talking to herself. “I needed the money.”
I step back, time to compose myself.
“For what? How much?”
“Twenty thousand.” Her shoulders lift on a shaky breath. “My dad’s sick.”
Twenty-thousand. Less than I have in a throwaway account at any given time.
“Twenty,” I repeat, flat. “And you ended up here.”
Her eyes flash again, defensive even now. “You don’t get to judge me.”
It intrigues me how she drops the “sirs” when she’s got her spine back.
“I’m not judging you,” I say, and it’s the closest thing to honesty I’ve given anyone tonight. “I’m thinking about how much money I could’ve saved if you’d come to me first.”
I throw that thought aside and keep locked into the problem.
She looks at me like I’ve just told her the sky is green.
Her eyes are wide, fixed on my face, and for a second, all the fear drains out of her expression and leaves only disbelief so pure it’s almost insulting.
“You’d have… loaned me money?” she says.
I have to clamp down on the laugh that wants to come out—not because it’s funny, but because it’s absurd. Because she’s saying it like I’m her bank manager and she’s asking about interest rates.
Loaned her money.
That’s kind of what we do in my line of business.
I keep my face flat.
“Yes,” I say.
Her throat works as she swallows. She glances away like she needs a second to keep herself upright. Her arms tighten around her body again, white fabric shifting with the movement. She stares at the carpet as if the pattern might give her answers.
I can see it in her posture—the exact moment her brain tries to rewind and rewrite every decision that got her here.
If she’d come to me first.
If she’d knocked on my office door and told me her father was sick and she needed money.
