Chapter 3 - The Father
Dominic read the message without touching my phone.
“Graham Hale.”
Preston’s father.
“You know him?”
“We’ve done business.”
“How much business?”
“Enough that he thinks this conversation will help him.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
He showed the number to Officer Ruiz, then stepped several feet away.
I could still hear him.
“No.”
A pause.
“No, Graham. You don’t get to describe what happened before I’ve heard my wife finish describing it.”
Across the room, Preston watched his father’s name glow on Dominic’s screen.
For the first time, he looked twenty-seven instead of untouchable.
Paramedics cleaned the shallow scrapes along my scalp. One asked permission before moving my collar.
That simple question nearly broke me.
Permission.
A word nobody at that table had bothered with.
Mia sat beside me while Ruiz photographed my arms.
“I hit the security button,” she said. “Twice.”
The head of security looked away.
“What’s your name?” Ruiz asked him.
“Martin Shaw.”
“Did you receive an alert?”
“I was handling another situation.”
“What situation?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Dennis did.
“We had a guest issue near the elevators.”
Mia’s hands closed into fists.
“There was nobody near the elevators.”
Ruiz wrote that down.
Dominic returned.
“What did Graham say?” I asked.
“He wants to meet tomorrow.”
“To apologize?”
Dominic’s silence answered.
An officer separated the men and began taking statements. Their stories changed within minutes.
A birthday joke.
A misunderstanding.
Something I had agreed to.
Then Preston said the sentence that made Mia stand.
“She was laughing.”
Mia pointed toward the floor.
“She was screaming.”
Every head turned.
Her voice shook, but she didn’t stop.
“You could hear her from the service station.”
Ruiz asked Mia to come with her.
Dennis caught Mia’s wrist as she passed.
“Mia, remember your position here.”
Dominic moved.
I caught his sleeve.
The officer was faster.
“Sir. Let go of her.”
Dennis released Mia.
By midnight, I was in a hospital examination room, wrapped in a thin blanket.
Dominic sat beside the bed, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone pale.
“I should have been there earlier.”
“You were coming at ten.”
“I should have—”
“Dom. Don’t make their choice your failure.”
He looked down.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Mia.
They fired me.
May you like
A second message followed.
They said you were next.
