28
Bianca lounges on a deck chair, sips an iced coffee, and pretends to be hungover.
Next to her, Sydney lolls in the shade, her skin pale, droplets of sweat on her forehead and upper lip.
Syd had stumbled out to the pool a few minutes ago, had dropped onto the chair with a mumbled “Morning.” Bianca can practically smell the alcohol in her perspiration, even from here.
Bianca feels fine. She’d ordered plain tonic water for herself and double gins for Sydney. Last night was all by design.
The nightclub had been their grand finale, the ultimate step in Curtis Lowe’s emotional torture.
If Sydney hadn’t been so wasted, they would have taken it further.
Bianca isn’t attracted to Syd—she’s too meek, too much of a victim, not to mention too thin—but to hurt Curtis, Bianca would have seduced his wife, shared her with Damian to add salt to the wound.
Their make-out session last night was enough to make Curtis want them gone.
He will ask them to leave today; Bianca’s sure of it.
She’d like nothing more than to get away from their poisonous host and his idiot wife, but their mission is not accomplished.
Yet. Damian has stalled and delayed. Why?
To extend the holiday? To avoid hurting Sydney?
Bianca’s not blind. She knows he’s gone soft on the attorney. Now Damian’s hand will be forced.
When she first found out what Curtis had done, Bianca had wanted to kill him.
It would have been a crime of passion; a jury would have gone easy on her.
Even if they hadn’t, she was sure the satisfaction of ending Curtis Lowe’s life would be worth any sentence.
It was Damian who calmed her down, who convinced her to be more strategic.
“There are other ways to destroy a man,” he’d counseled. “Ways that won’t send you to prison.”
“Like what?” she’d asked, unconvinced. Curtis Lowe deserved pain and torture, a slow, excruciating death.
“We hit him where it hurts,” Damian suggested. “He’s a rich, arrogant prick, so we’ll ruin him financially and destroy his reputation. And then we’ll find out what he cares about most and take it from him.”
The idea was appealing. They would take everything from him, then force him to continue existing with the guilt, shame, and pain.
So they’d begun their research. Curtis Lowe had sold his company, fled New York, and was living a private life with his wife in Spain.
His social media presence was negligible, but his profile page included his alma mater.
Posing as a writer for their alumni journal, Damian had contacted Curtis’s old frat brothers.
They’d happily reminisced about their debaucherous college days, but no one had heard from Curtis in years…
except for Simon Waters. The pair had started a property management business together straight out of grad school.
Damian had called the office, pretending to be a potential client, but Simon had abruptly ended the call when Curtis’s name was mentioned. Clearly, there was bad blood there.
Curtis was an only child whose father had passed away six years earlier.
He had no relationship with his mother, who’d sounded bitter and resentful when Bianca called pretending to be an old friend looking for his contact details.
Curtis’s most marked attribute was his fierce devotion to his wife.
He had given up everything for her, stealing her off to Spain so she’d never find out the truth about him.
“The wife’s a public defender,” Damian said. “Her online bio says she’s passionate about helping marginalized and low-income people get appropriate legal advice and representation.”
“How noble,” Bianca had sniped. “And yet she’s married to that sick fuck.”
“She’s his good girl,” Damian concluded. “She makes him feel like a decent human being by association.”
“When we tell her what he’s done, she’ll leave him. And he’ll be destroyed.”
“Exactly,” Damian said. “But first, we’ll make him pay to keep us quiet.”
Bianca didn’t care about the money, but Damian convinced her it would kill two birds with one stone.
They’d bankrupt Curtis and destroy his marriage (obviously they’d tell Sydney the truth once the funds were transferred).
Her boyfriend had assured her that she would feel better once Curtis Lowe’s life was in ruins, with no financial means to rebuild it.
And a significant sum of money would go a long way to soothe her pain.
And then Damian had made a suggestion. “We should go to Spain,” he’d said. “Confront Lowe in person.”
Bianca had balked at the idea. Wasn’t blackmail carried out through anonymous emails all the time?
Or they could go old-school, send a note with letters cut from magazines.
But Damian had insisted that messages could be traced, that Curtis had the money and resources to track the source of their missives.
Or Curtis might panic, concoct a story for his wife, convince her to flee to some remote island.
If they met Curtis in person, extorted him verbally, they could keep an eye on him.
And there would be no proof. It would be Curtis’s word against theirs.
“We’ve always wanted to travel,” Damian cajoled her. “And finally, we can.”
And so they’d booked this trip on credit, confident they could pay it off once Curtis gave them their money.
They would only stay for a few days, just long enough to make Curtis twist and suffer, but Damian had fucked it all up.
He’d had the perfect opportunity to tell Curtis what they wanted and what they knew when the two men drove to Girona to investigate fuel pumps.
But when Damian returned, he’d pulled Bianca into the van.
“He’s got a burner phone,” Damian whispered. “He’s hiding something.”
“We already know what he’s hiding,” Bianca hissed. “That’s why we’re here.”
“If he’s still involved, there could be more leverage. And more money.”
“This isn’t about money for me,” she snapped. “This is about destroying him.”
“I know, babe, and we will. We’ll make sure he loses everything he cares about. He’ll never recover.” He touched her cheek tenderly. “But if he’s hurting people, we need to stop him.”
The thought of what Curtis Lowe had done made Bianca’s throat close, her eyes well.
Even as she recalls it now, her vision mists behind her sunglasses and her chin wobbles.
But she inhales through her nose, digs her nails into her palms. There is no room for emotion.
She came here to destroy Curtis Lowe’s life, and she will.
Sydney stirs next to her. “I’m too hot,” she mutters. “I need to go in.”
“Drink some water. And take some electrolytes if you have them,” Bianca says sweetly.
She has always been able to mask her true feelings, paste on a smile when she’s hurt or angry.
It’s a skill she learned growing up in a home with a narcissistic mother and her revolving door of boyfriends.
Bianca mastered the art of compliance, made herself small and benign.
It was a survival mechanism that she employed until she finally escaped her mother’s grip. It’s proven useful.
Sydney drags herself out of the chair, then looks down at Bianca. “Do we need to talk?” Her cheeks are pink under her deathly pallor. “About last night?”
Bianca has been expecting this. “Nothing to talk about, babe.” She grins, peers over the rim of her shades. “We got carried away. I’m sorry if we crossed the line.”
Syd smiles, clearly relieved, but an undercurrent of concern flits across her brow.
She’s tormented by last night’s passion, distressed by how close she came to infidelity.
She’s been trying to work on her marriage, and in one drunken moment, she’d nearly blown it all up.
Syd considers herself so virtuous, so decent, but she’s not.
She’s as morally weak as her husband. Sydney shuffles toward the house, looking frail and older than her years. Bianca could almost pity her.
But she doesn’t. She hates her.