One Night Hand Stand

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Case

I am surrounded by incredibly pissed off people.

But none of them is Sarah.

Who, by the way, still hasn’t answered my text.

“Prakash doesn’t know we’re here, right?” Yolanda asks, glancing at the ceiling, scanning for what I assume are cameras she fears.

“Absolutely not,” I assure them all. It’s lunchtime, and four workers from HQ are all in my office right now, three women and one nonbinary employee. It’s Rory, Yolanda, Dori, and Fix.

Each person is a palpable combination of terrified and angry.

And each person has been sexually harassed by Prakash.

“We have to trust Case,” Dori tells the others.

“But you’re selling your studios to Prakash,” Fix says, sharp brown eyes accusing me through enormous red-framed glasses. “You have a financial interest in this story not getting out.”

“The deal closes in two and a half weeks,” I tell them.

“I know.” They wave dismissively at me. “I’m the one in finance getting all the paperwork together. Maybe you just want us to stall.”

“Absolutely not,” I say quickly and firmly. Part of the reason for this meeting is to help them. With no specific plan, I feel clueless and inept, but after everything that happened yesterday with Sarah, I have to act on this, plan or no plan.

Prakash can’t get away with hurting all these people.

“Then why did you call us here?” Yolanda insists, suspicious and wary.

“I want to help. But frankly, I have no idea how.”

“At least he’s honest,” Fix mutters to Dori, who frowns. “Clueless, but honest.”

“Sarah’s helping. She’ll handle the journalism side. Get him exposed. Make people see the truth.” Dori’s words send a rush of emotion through me, skin tingling against the cloth of my suit. Of course Sarah’s in contact with them. Not only because she’s investigating this story.

Because she’s a good person who wants to help.

“And when that happens,” Yolanda adds, “no way will he buy your studios.”

“He should be in jail, not buying more yoga studios,” Rory says, mouth twisted in disgust.

Yolanda’s eyebrows shoot up. “Dang. Some family you got there.”

“I’m not the only one in the family who can’t stand Uncle Prakash.”

“Don’t tell me he – that he harasses – you know - ” Dori sputters.

“God, no. Nothing like that. But he’s a smooth operator. When my grandma died back in India, and everyone went home for the funeral, he stayed here because he had to run the business. When we got back, he’d cleaned out all her American bank accounts and sold her condo.”

“That’s illegal!” Fix gasps.

“He was co-owner on everything. Told her it would make everything ‘easier’ because she lived half the year there and half the year here. But Prakash is the one who convinced her to buy the condo in the first place. She was happy staying with us. We have a little suite for her above the garage. Prakash told her it would be an ‘investment.’”

“Then he stole all that inheritance,” I say with a sigh.

“Yeah.”

“If someone did that in my family, they’d be iced out,” Fix declares. “You don’t do that with old people’s money.”

“No kidding, right?” Rory replies. “But one of my aunts forgave him, and then the pressure for everyone to forgive him kicked in, because now half of my generation works for him. We need our jobs.”

Everyone nods in understanding.

“He’s a serial user,” I say, everyone looking at me. “In business and in his personal life.”

“Most people don’t compartmentalize. The asshole leaks over into everything,” Fix says.

“I’m tired of asshole all over me,” Yolanda announces. “Now that we’ve just said what we all know, that Prakash is the problem, what are we going to do about it?”

“Sarah’s gathering stories and evidence about him,” Dori interjects. “Barbi’s on the record, as all his victims are so far, and there are a few more.”

“Evidence? Sexual harassment evidence ?” I choke out, wondering what that looks like.

“Mmm hmm,” Dori says, nose crinkling. “Dick pics.”

“Prakash sent me one,” Fix explains. “Asked me for one back. I sent him a duck penis and he said, ‘I can work with that.’”

“You have all of this on your phones?” My temper’s hard to control suddenly. Years of frustration dealing with shady characters who treat human beings like pawns rises up in me, all of my ire focused on the guy I went into business with.

And the guy who is about to ruin me because he can’t keep his dick in his pants and his hands off people who don’t want him.

“Some of us do. Sometimes it’s emails.”

“I have an actual note,” Yolanda says, reaching into her purse, then handing me a folded piece of copy paper.

Prakash’s familiar scrawl is all over it at the top.

“He put that on my windshield. Didn’t sign it, of course, but you know his handwriting.”

Wear the low-cut purple v-neck tomorrow. You have the best titties , it says.

“What the hell?” I look at Yolanda and hand the paper back. “That bastard. He has no right to do this to you.” My breathing is harder to control, and a rush of disgust-fueled adrenaline makes my arms and legs tense up, ready to fight.

“You look pissed,” Fix says drolly. “Good.”

“I want to go straight to HQ and confront him.”

Their expressions change, going softer somehow. Less defensive.

“We can fight our own battles,” Rory says. “You don’t have to take over.”

“I never said anything about taking over. I just – this shit is bananas. He thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants without consequences.”

Sounds of agreement fill the air.

“And because he’s acting this way, I’ll be ruined!”

“You’re collateral damage, Case. Just like us. The guy does whatever he wants, thinks he can get away with it, and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the wake of it all,” Fix says, uncrossing their legs and leaning forward, elbows on thighs. Their eyes bore into me from behind those big red frames. “The world is his playroom. He’s a toddler who wants whatever he wants and doesn’t care about the mess.”

“Ever seen him go into a rage when someone tries to say no?” Rory pipes up, then shudders.

Yolanda’s face goes blank and vacant, until I realize the light is shining on her face and tears fill her eyes.

“Yeah,” she whispers, the sound barely audible. “He lost his shit on me once, when I ordered the wrong copypaper weight. Screaming, telling me I was worthless, how I was lucky to have a job here because no one else would ever hire such a stupid bitch.”

I grip the back of my chair. “He what ?”

Fix lets out a snort. “You are so cute, Case. Na?ve, even. You didn’t know any of this?”

“I know he’s a jerk and can be abrasive, but nothing like this.”

“Where have you been living all these years? In a hole?”

Rory stops Fix with a hand up. “Don’t go there, Fix. Case has had his own shit to deal with for a while.”

“Like what? The dry cleaners take an extra day for his cashmere suits?”

The sarcastic jab doesn’t hurt, but it tells me a lot about how they see me.

I’m the enemy.

I’m in a business relationship with Prakash, one I can’t easily untangle if these scandals revolving around him hit the press. Hell, if Prakash knew about all the behind-the-scenes scuttle revolving around him, he’d do whatever it took to ruin everyone involved.

Collateral damage is just a necessary byproduct of Prakash’s very existence. He doesn’t see it. It’s like carbon dioxide. We all breathe it out, but we don’t think about it.

All the hurt he causes to other people isn’t on his radar because it’s just who he is.

And Sarah’s right in the thick of this walking piece of shit’s minefield of hurt victims.

“What does Sarah say about all this?” I ask them, their expressions so varied I want to tap an imaginary pause button and talk to them, one by one. Rory looks down. Fix stares at me. Yolanda starts scratching her arm.

And Dori speaks first.

“She says there are two huge stories here, and she’s not sure which one needs to be written and published first. When she started talking to Barbi about the books and financial stuff, we weren’t sure whether she needed to know about the harassment. But then we were worried that if the shady accounting got into the press, Prakash would hurt us.”

“You were worried about physical abuse?” I’m wondering if I have to bring the police into this somehow. There’s a hostile work environment, which Prakash has clearly created, and then there’s escalating to actual physical violence.

“No. I can outrun that little fucker. More like fire us. Make our lives hell. Tell other people in the industry not to hire us. I have a kid,” Dori says. “I’m three semesters away from a bachelor’s degree, and then I can get out of C123 and find a better job. Maybe even move out of my parents’ house. You just suck it up, right? Avoid the prick and hope he goes on a big international PR blitz and is gone. He keeps hiring more people and that made me hope I could avoid him more.”

“We’re just living day by day, Case,” Rory says earnestly. “We’re not like you and Sarah.”

Hearing us both mentioned in the same sentence makes my heart jump.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not strategic like you guys. You think big, and you think ahead.”

“You’re selling yourselves short.”

Fix looks at me, head tilting, waiting.

“Prakash has done a toxic waste dump number on all of you. Convincing people they are lesser so he can feel better about himself. Have power over you. Control you. It’s sickening.”

“Try living it,” Fix mutters. “And try finding another job when you can’t get a good reference from him.”

“I’ll be your reference,” I announce. “All of you. Any employee at Chakroga123 who has dealt with his shit and who wants to apply for other jobs, give them my name. I’ll vouch for you.”

Surprise, then delight, fills their faces.

“You’d do that?”

“Of course. It’s the least I can do!”

“But you’re about to lose your deal,” Yolanda points out.

“I’ll still have my studios if the sale doesn’t go through,” I say slowly, hating the words. This is part of the problem: I intentionally forced myself not to think about negative outcomes. Playing the “what if” game regarding the deal falling through was a waste of mental energy, so I shut it down.

Prakash’s malevolence forces me to think of the unthinkable.

And it’s not as bad as I’d feared.

Cashing out would have been the preferred choice, but when I analyze it, this isn’t an unmitigated disaster.

My seven studios are profitable.

I can rebrand and rename.

I own my condo outright and can still sell it and make a tidy profit.

Some of that money can help Jared and the kids.

No, I won’t be able to retire. And no, I can’t wipe out all of Stacey’s debt and fully fund the kids’ college.

The reality staring me in the face, eight eyes on me right now, was unfathomable to me two days ago.

Adapting to new truths is hard.

Denying them is even worse.

A tap on my door makes us all look.

It’s Barbi.

“Hi?” Her voice is squeaky, like a balloon animal being twisted. Almost my height, she’s wearing very tall high heels, but walks like she’s in hiking boots, solid and confident. In her arms she juggles two large binders. “Is this where we’re plotting the coup?”

Yolanda waves her in. “ Shhh . First rule of the Destroy the Prick Club is we don’t talk about it.”

I subconsciously flinch at those words.

The thunk her files make on my desk makes us all stare at the pile.

“What’s that?” I ask.

She beams at me. Absolutely glows . “Financial records proving he’s been money laundering.”

“Whoa.”

“Holy shit.”

“He’s going down.”

Everyone reacts as I process what she’s saying.

“It was the cancellations, wasn’t it?” I ask her, Barbi’s eyes going wide as we both realize we know more than we assumed.

“Yes!” she gasps. “You knew?”

“It was the first hint something was wrong. All those cancellations for events at the studios. So many retained ‘cancellation fees.’”

“Can someone explain?” Yolanda pipes up. “What does that have to do with money laundering?”

“Our Events department has a sliding scale deposit program. If someone wants to rent a studio, or even the entire HQ building, they pay a deposit,” Barbi begins.

“Sure. That’s standard,” Yolanda replies with a shrug.

“Prakash was taking a ton of bookings. People came in and booked the place using cash. At first, it was a few. Then it was a lot. About fifty percent coming in and dropping $10,000, $15,000, $25,000 in cash.”

“Some people prefer to pay cash?” Yolanda said.

“Some do. But they weren’t booking online. And it started to be the same three or four people. Then they came in with Euros.”

“Euros?”

“Yep. Ori – one of the booking agents – asked Prakash about it and got screamed at, in front of the whole office. He said all these foreigners coming in worked in cash and it was a cultural thing, and she was a racist for even questioning it.”

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“Right. Once he did that, no one wanted to question anything.” Barbi frowns.

“All these people came in with suitcases of cash and no one stopped it?” I ask, mind boggled.

She shrugs. “He’s the boss. He said it was fine. And it wasn’t breaking any laws. No one noticed the pattern for like three years, until we had to do taxes. One of the CPAs asked why we had seven figures in retained cancellation fees, half of it paid in cash.”

“Was Prakash keeping the cash?” I ask.

Barbi smiles. “No. Deposited everything.”

“He wasn’t skimming?”

Yolanda interrupts. “It was a way to launder the cash. Someone who needed to turn their illegal money from drugs or guns or whatever.”

“I’m confused,” Fix says. “Laundering is about taking cash from illegal sources and making it ‘legitimate,’ by getting it into a bank somehow. The people bringing cash into Prakash’s company wouldn’t benefit. Only Prakash would.”

“That’s just it,” Barbi says, tapping the folders. “He returned about eighty percent of the amount of the cash deposits in the form of a check.”

I let out a long whistle. “That would do it.”

“He kept twenty percent as some kind of fee?” Fix asks.

“Yes. And he didn’t return deposits for people who paid with a credit card if they cancelled. So he treated the cash payers differently.”

“And all the proof is in there?” I nod toward the folders. “Because if he did that, he was a broker.”

“Broker?” Yolanda asks.

“It’s a term for someone who helps launder money. It means someone else with a huge cash operations – guns, drugs, sex-trafficking, whatever – goes to Prakash and pays him a percentage to turn the money from cash into a check that can be deposited into a legitimate bank account.”

“That, and more,” she chirps. “He defrauded the IRS, too.”

“ Pfft, ” Fix says. “Of course he did. How much?”

“At least seventy million, from what I can see,” Barbi says softly.

The whole room deflates in shock.

“That’s across about seven years,” she explains.

“HOW?” I bark out.

“We would need a team of forensic accountants to explain,” she says, tapping the folders again. “But it all centers on his ‘software company’ in India.”

“You mean his big wellness app platform?” I ask.

“Yes. Payroll records started to get wonky. One day, a bank account for an employee was shut down, and we went to contact the guy. They never replied. This is someone living in India, working for C123, making five grand a month on the books and they just… didn’t reply. We wondered if they died. Did some investigating. It turns out this person did not exist.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, then the light bulb goes off. “Holy shit. He invented employees? Took their wages for himself?”

Barbi nods. “He didn’t just invent employees. He invented a whole company out of thin air, Case. As far as we can tell, Prakash’s 120-member software company in India is really three IT guys he overpays to keep the shell game going.”

“He’s in venture capital fund rounds for that app! Raising eight figures!”

“The bigger the man, the bigger the con,” Fix says in an acid tone.

Barbi flips a folder open. “And we have way more records. Someone needs to get a bunch of professionals to comb over the books. It’s all a mess. He has double books somewhere. The cash-cancellation policy grift and the software team in India is just the beginning.”

“Who do you go to with a mess like this? Which authorities?” Yolanda asks.

As they all start talking, I fade out a bit, the implications of this hitting me. Thank God I’m a franchisee, my books completely uninvolved in his.

More important: Sarah dumped me because she thought I lied to get her to stop this story from breaking. Or to delay it, at least. But this is too big, such a juggernaut I can’t control. Like it or not, this financial scandal is erupting, and my business deal is done.

Over.

Fini.

And so is my relationship with her.

A part of me wants to laugh, another part wants to cry, but somewhere in the middle there’s a third part that just wants her . To have her reply to my text. To invite her over to my place and curl up on the couch, drink wine and eat donuts, and talk. Talk it through. Talk it out.

Talk it away.

Because if I could just talk this through with Sarah, it would feel less like I’m being sucked into a giant black hole.

“Sarah already told us, Yolanda,” Barbi says, her eyes sad. “She said if we wanted to report all of this right away, she understood.”

“What do you mean, understood?”

“If we report, her story isn’t the first thing out there about this. What’s the word she used?” Barbi asks Dori.

“Scooped. We’d be scooping her.”

“And she told you to go ahead? Even if it blows her story publication?” I choke out, shocked.

Barbi and Dori nod. “She said how we felt was more important than any career issues she had.”

Ouch.

Big ouch.

“Sarah’s smart. Really kind, too,” Fix adds, running their hands up and down their arms, a show of anxiety that cuts through their sarcastic, tougher exterior. “I told her how I’m the primary caretaker for my twenty-eight-year-old disabled brother and that’s why I didn’t just quit. She asked me if I knew about a Massachusetts program that would help pay for a personal care attendant to come to our house and help with him.”

“Is Sarah a social worker?” Dori asked.

Fix shakes their head. “No. She said she did a big story on adult disabled children and how their parents struggle to get resources for them. She even sent me a printout full of information and offered to help me cut through the red tape. I have him on social security disability benefits but didn’t know about a ton of other resources for him.”

“She’s a really weird mix of sweet and kind and determined as fuck to get Prakash,” Yolanda says in an admiring tone.

“Yeah. First time I met her – that day you showed up at the opera coffee place, Case – I told her she didn’t seem cutthroat enough. I was wrong.”

They all chuckle.

I struggle with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

And a weight pulling my heart down into my shoes.

When your entire world crumbles around you, you don’t have time for perspective. Stacey’s death was slow and agonizing, but filled with so much grasping. Trying this doctor, that therapy, another research trial – anything to give her, and us, hope that she could beat Stage 4 breast cancer. We all lost sight of the big picture:

Love.

It was love that drove us to do all those things, the rocket fuel that motivated our desperation. But we also burned through that fuel, using it up to keep her alive, forgetting to save some to enjoy the time she did have left.

With Sarah, now I see how both of our ambitions got in the way of, well… love.

Yes, love .

Do I love her? Can you feel love for someone when you’ve barely known them, and had such a big blow-up with each other over a massive clash of priorities?

I don’t know. Isn’t “love at first sight” a myth?

Pulling back, watching the situation from a thousand miles up, I see something Sarah and I missed:

We’re both better people than we realize.

And we really, really care about building a world that is fair and kind.

Or, at least, stopping people from being cruel.

“Whoa,” Yolanda says, standing suddenly. “Lunch hour’s almost done. We need to get back to HQ. Prakash is coming in this afternoon and he’ll get nasty if we’re all gone.”

“He micromanages you on that level?” I ask, more deeply disturbed as each detail comes out.

“Not so much micromanage. More like he finds whatever little thing he can to pick on you,” Barbi says, though her hand caresses the top folder she brought in. “We’ve got him, don’t we? All this proof has to lead to something.”

Inquiring eyes meet mine, pleading for an answer that makes the world just.

I wish I could tell her yes.

As they all stand and mill about, slowly headed toward my office door, I pull out my phone and stare at the text stream between me and Sarah. My last missive to her remains unanswered.

I really, really need to talk to you. It’s urgent , I send to her.

Setting aside our professional conflict is important here. This story is too big now for either of us to put our individual needs ahead of the larger picture. Prakash Shanti is causing too many people pain.

No one should be allowed to do that.

Bullies on the playground and in school need to be stopped. Apparently, when they aren’t, they just get older and more powerful.

Time to end Prakash’s reign.

“Can we meet again on Monday or Tuesday?” I ask them. “I think we all need a little time to let this digest, talk to some trusted people, and then regroup.”

A murmur of assent goes through them.

“And I’m going to meet with my lawyer and some finance people to see if I can create positions here with my studios and bring you four over here.”

A collective gasp goes through the group.

“No promises,” I say in a hushed voice, mind running through my profit and loss statements, knowing I’m making a promise, though. Finding good people on staff is always hard.

These are good people.

“Hey, man,” Yolanda says, as Dori’s hand goes to my forearm. “Thank you for helping us. Job or no job, you’re making all this easier.”

Dori comes in for a hug. “Thank you. Sarah was right about you.”

I jolt. “Sarah said something about me to you?”

“Yeah. In an email. She said you’re someone who really cares about family. And Rory said you treat staff like family here in your studios.”

“Huh.”

“Which made me wonder why you’d sell out, but whatever,” Fix says, back to being sarcastic.

They all leave. I shut my office door, back against it, my sigh so deep, so long, so loud in my ears it might as well be a train whistle.

What in the bloody hell am I supposed to do now ?

Prakash. The same goddamn arsehole who built an extraordinary yoga empire I was able to capitalize on is the one who will be my downfall. It’s not so much that I ever trusted him. I’m not na?ve. It’s more that I saw the juggernaut he was and took his idea, polished it, improved it.

Made it more human.

My seven studios gross more per location than his by a good forty percent. Patron retention is eighty percent higher. On paper, I’ve created a business that outperforms anything HQ is producing, not counting Prakash's fake app and the money laundering.

But I’m also attached to the Chakroga123 name, which is about to become horseshit. All my locations will be tainted by his scandal.

Worse – I will be lumped in with him. My financial records are about to be audited so hard I’ll require lube for it.

And my personal reputation will be tarnished as his sexual harassment will lead to a thorough investigation into every encounter I’ve ever had with employees as well.

None of this scares me.

But it sure does piss me off.

I can weather it all. The people he’s systematically harassed are bearing the scars, every single one unfair.

I start pacing in my office, steps growing in length and intensity, the short distance back and forth giving me a rhythm that helps block out emotion just enough to find the signal in the noise.

Sarah .

Her name rushes into the void, all signal, nothing but a pounding beacon drawing me to her.

Because that’s the worst part about all this. The single biggest blow Prakash has dealt me.

Losing her.

He cannot get away with this.

“I have to get ahead of this,” I mutter to myself, stopping at my window, hands pressed hard against it as I look out at the city, the Pru in the distance, horns honking, orange cones like obedient pets standing next to police officers guiding traffic.

A pad of paper on my desk and a pen are my next tool, mind dumping a list of next steps.

1. Call lawyer.

2. Call CPA and CFO and conference.

3. Try Sarah again.

And then I realize there’s one option that might solve everything. I groan as I realize I’ve wasted precious time not thinking of it.

Prakash.

Call Prakash and push him to move the sale up. Two and a half weeks isn’t long in finance-world time. Asking him to hurry the sale is risky. He’ll be suspicious.

I know how to throw him off.

Just make it look like I’m a dumbass.

I grab my phone, checking for a reply from Sarah. Nothing.

And then I call Prakash.

Who magically answers.

“Case! What’s wrong?”

“Why would anything be wrong, Prakash?”

“Because you never call me. Your lawyers call my lawyers and they bill us.”

“I thought I’d save us a few pennies.”

His laugh is rich and gravelly. “This is about money.”

“It’s about life. How are you doing? I saw that article in the Wall Street Journal about your wellness software platform. Killer app. You’ll be raking it in soon.” Stroking his ego always gets him to let down his guard.

“That is not life. That is business. And yes, business is good. Just secured another round of Series B investing. $34 million.”

“Congratulations.”

“Eh. Should have been more, but some chick with an AI-generated childcare observation app for overworried mommies fucked one of the VC guys and took some away from me.”

This is the kind of shit he says. Has said. Does say. All the time, and in the past, I just ignored it. The lens through which I view him has shifted.

Shifted hard .

“Maybe she built a good product and they see strong value,” I respond, unwilling to let it go.

“ Pfft . No wonder you’re selling your studios back to me, Case. You were always a little soft.”

“No one does business quite like you, Prakash.”

I can feel his smile through the phone.

“That is true.”

“Speaking of business, let’s talk about moving the sale date up.”

“Really? Why?”

Ever throw yourself under a bus? Here I go.

“Money,” I say bluntly.

“Is that the real reason you’re selling out to me? You’re broke?” His chortle makes my hands turn to fists.

“Business is fine and healthy. I just, uh,” I say, pretending to stumble, “made some bad personal choices. I need an injection of cash, fast.”

“You want an advance?”

“I want the whole sale to go through faster.”

The pause on the line makes me heat up, anger replacing all my other emotions. This prick is ruining so many lives and he has the audacity to think he has all the cards.

“I’d have to get a bunch of documents from my girls in accounting, run them to the lawyer, then get the banks on board, Case. I don’t know if the girls can do it that fast.” His voice drops. “The one with the nice titties doesn’t have anything up top, you know? Nothing but stardust inside that skull.”

Before I can call him out on that, he adds:

“Why don’t you do a last-minute push for events? You always underperformed there.”

“Events?”

“In fact, I can send some business your way. What the hell, right? They’ll be my studios in a couple of weeks. We have a lot of event business. People come in from all over the world to rent out HQ for enormous events. Film festivals, medical conferences, finance conferences. We make a lot of money from it. The deposits are immediate and you can have that on your books when our sale goes through.”

The word “titties” is still buzzing in my head like a mosquito caught in a tent.

What he’s suggesting is that I permit him to send money launderers over to my studios before the sale goes through, allowing them to dump five figures of cash at my registration desk, and have that on my books before I sell to him.

Which implicates me in fraud.

“That’s a great idea,” I lie. “But it doesn’t help me on the personal side.”

“Sure it does! I have Saudis and Russians coming in all the time. They pay deposits in cash. You take an owner draw and pay off your piddly little personal debts.”

“Maybe my debts aren’t piddly.”

Silence on the phone unnerves me.

“Not so goody two-shoes, Case? Let me guess. Gambling?”

“I’d prefer not to say.”

He snorts. “Now you’re getting all private? You call me and ask me to do you a favor, and then you shut me out? Fuck you, Case. You’re a bad businessman who comes crawling on your knees to me to sell out, and now you want to move up the sale date and you’re treating me like this? You’re lucky I even took your call.”

I’ve triggered Abusive Prakash.

“You know what?” he continues, louder. “I’ll reach out to my lawyer and my finance people. Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“Because I want to change our contract.”

“You do?”

“I want to buy your studios for less. If you’re this desperate, the price needs to be lower.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You call me and ask me to help you and reject my idea. You’ve always acted like you’re better than me but you’re just like everybody else. A faker. Fakers don’t get to sell at full price. Fuck off.”

And then he hangs up on me.

Depriving me of the chance to smack him down for that titties comment.

“That went well,” I mutter, laughing with a sick feeling. Second time this week someone told me to fuck off.

The sale was never going through anyhow, so I had nothing left to lose. Prakash was serious – I expect to hear from my lawyer in a few hours regardless, with an offer to lower the price.

None of that matters.

Everything has changed.

The option of moving the sale up is off the table, so all that is left is damage control.

I look at my phone again.

No reply from Sarah.

Some damage is too severe to repair.

But you never know unless you try.