Part 2
Death Sentence, Unpaid

The service corridor smelled of citrus cleaner and cold air from a loading door left cracked. A guard had her by the upper arm, not cruel, not careful. Another walked Catherine a few paces ahead, red hem snapping, mouth open on a protest that was not landing.

“You set it up,” Catherine said over her shoulder, voice too bright. “Ravi, this is absurd. She took money. I was joking.”

No one behind them answered. Diane’s wrist still held the print of his hand. The five thousand sat in the apron like a stone.

“She owes me the rest,” Diane said, and hated how small it sounded. “I haven’t even—”

The guard glanced down. “Lady, forget the other half. You don’t spend money you’re not alive to collect. That’s Ravi Greedy. People who put their mouth on him without an invitation don’t get a payment plan.”

The name fitted the silence in the ballroom better than Catherine’s bored-rich-man lie ever had. Diane’s stomach dropped through the sum she had done in the kitchen. Rent. School. Teeth. None of those numbers had included a man who ran the city and a room full of witnesses.

The exit door opened on wet asphalt and idling cars. Catherine was already talking to her friends by text, thumbs shaking. Diane stopped on the threshold.

“I have a sister,” she said. “She’s ten. She’s home. If you’re going to do something, she didn’t kiss anyone.”

The guard’s face shifted, not into kindness. Into the look of a man who had heard worse bargains. Before he could answer, the inner door opened again.

Ravi came through alone. Jacket ʙuттoned. No rush. The guards stepped off Diane as if a line had been redrawn on the concrete. Catherine went quiet so fast it was almost a bow.

He looked at the apron. “Show me.”

Diane took out the bills. He did not touch them.

“Catherine paid you to humiliate me with a stranger’s mouth,” he said. “You took it because someone is hungry or someone is late. I don’t care which until I decide what you owe me for the kiss.” His eyes moved to Catherine. “You laughed in a room I had already corrected you in. You will not laugh about this one.”

Catherine found a shred of the red-dress voice. “She agreed. She’s not innocent.”

“No,” he said. “She’s poor. That isn’t the same thing, and it isn’t a defense.” He turned back to Diane. “Harper. You walk out of here with that five thousand tonight, you spend it, and by morning I know where you live anyway. Or you come back inside, sit where I can see you, and tell me the exact bill you were willing to risk me for. Those are the two doors. Pick.”

Wind cut across the loading dock. Somewhere behind the H๏τel her sister would be asleep with crooked teeth and no idea the ballroom had gone silent. Diane closed her hand around the cash until the paper hurt.

“I’ll come back in,” she said. “But if your men go near my sister, the money doesn’t matter. I’ll scream this address to every guest still holding a glᴀss.”

Something almost like interest moved in his face. Not forgiveness. Not yet a sentence.

“Then walk,” Ravi Greedy said. “And start with the dentist.”