She unleashes fury and frustration on shower doors, glass partitions, and glass fireplaces before moving on to the windshields. Employees come running at the sound of glass breaking, but the man holds them back and tells them not to call the police like one suggests. I cross my arms over my chest and watch Lydia work, admitting how far she’s willing to go to protect those she cares about.
Glass crunches under her red-bottomed heels, and Lydia points the tip of the baton under the man’s chin. “You owe me nine hundred dollars.”
Nodding in quick succession, he rushes to the cash register and plucks every bill from the tray. “I’m sorry, okay? Tell Vera I’m sorry.”
Lydia pockets the money but thinks better of it. “Actually, I think I’ll charge you double. My overhead just got very fucking expensive.”
Things change very fast.
Security is upped significantly at the Ridge & Sons building. Instead of the single guard at the front entrance, there’re now multiple guards posted around the perimeter, in the parking garage, and a team who goes up and down the elevators all day. I’m forbidden from traveling anywhere alone, even home. Unless I want a security detail hanging out with me in the living room after my day is done, I have to spend my afternoons with Lydia and Talent at the office indefinitely.
The lack of privacy during the last week has been unnerving, but there has been one improvement. Lydia bought us cell phones. Not the boring, out-of-date burner phones we use for Hush, but actual smartphones with internet access and fun stuff like video calls and mobile games. And real emojis.
This is Lydia’s time to shine!
“Don’t ever use this for business,” she said a couple of days ago as she handed me a whole new world. “If you do, I’ll shatter it with a hammer.”
She claims the only reason she finally caved and put us on a real cell phone plan is because of the location services. Our phones are always tracking us. With the mafia lurking around, that’s one more level of protection we lacked before. A swipe of her thumb is all it takes for Lydia to see where I am twenty-four hours a day. We’re little green dots on a map.
Like right now, my dot is at the office with Lydia’s and Talent’s. Wilder’s is at the airport because he’s arriving home today from his weeklong business trip.
We haven’t talked since the day after my birthday party. He accepted my request to track his location, and I accepted his. His number is programmed into my new cell phone, and I’m sure he saved my phone number. There’s nothing I’d like more than to send him an invite to play Words with Friends, or video call all day long, but it feels out of obligation on his part.
Especially after what I saw online this morning.
The headline on some gossip site read:
Grand Haven’s Wilder Ridge Spotted with Mysterious Brunette in New York.
The piece includes a picture, and sure enough, Wilder had dinner with some girl who probably didn’t grow up locked in a closet and isn’t a high-end prostitute like me. She was sipping white wine, and he was drinking a beer. They ate steak and skipped dessert.
A source at the restaurant said, “You could tell they’re really into each other. Their chemistry was off the charts.”
Their chemistry was off the charts?I think to myself bitterly some hours later, fighting the urge to pull up the article for the hundredth time. I’m lying on the couch in Lydia’s office, trapped in a vicious cycle of torture. I came in here to watch puppy videos until we leave for the evening, but I can’t get over the photo of Wilder with a woman who isn’t me. Triggering the need to check his location and search him on the internet like a stalker.
“Have you ever googled Talent?” I ask, obsessing over Wilder’s green location dot. He’s on the highway now.
“Many times,” Lydia says absentmindedly. For someone who spent years pretending not to be interested in technology, she sure does have her nose in her phone a lot. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s impartial to makeup tutorials. “Is something bothering you? Does it have anything to do with that picture floating around of Wilder out to dinner with a stranger?”
“No,” I lie. We sit in silence for one, two, three seconds before I say, “I just find it funny that—”
“Camilla, don’t read into it.” She sets her phone down. “She’s probably a client’s daughter, or niece, or mistress. It’s business.”
I’ve always known there are two sides to Wilder Ridge. There’s the moody, defensive, racketeering version of himself that runs with gangsters, only speaks when he has something important to say, and has the ability to make me feel like the most important person in the world. I thought I knew the lawyer version, but after what I’ve seen online, I’m not sure I do.
He’s important to Grand Haven, but Grand Haven shares him with the entire world. There are pictures of him inside fancy boardrooms in countries I can’t pronounce on yachts near islands I didn’t know existed, and courtside at basketball games with high-profile friends, millionaires, billionaires, and actors. He’s on the covers of magazines, written about in esteemed financial publications, and Ridge & Sons is pegged to be the fastest-growing law firm in the country.
How do I compete with that? How do I stand out or expect him to choose me when Wilder’s been with the most beautiful women in the world, around the world? And how do I know which version is real?
“I knew they were a big deal, but I didn’t know it was like this,” I say.
“None of it is real,” Lydia says, like she can read my mind. “Half of those people he’s photographed with aren’t his friends. They’re photo opportunities. It’s marketing. It’s networking. The public puts a spotlight on them because they’re young, rich, and sell magazines. And their industry whores them out for the same exact reasons. It’s not much different from what we do.”
“Why do they do it?”
“Why do you do it?” she counters. “Because it feels good to be on top. Because money doesn’t buy happiness, but it makes life a hell of a lot more tolerable. Because if they don’t, someone else will. This lifestyle has its drawbacks, but we know what it’s like to live on the other side. And I will choose this every single time. All of it.”
“I understand. It just surprised me.”
