Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-five
All evening Iris had been anticipating a male threat, and yet here she faced the most insidious enforcer in Wolff’s predatory pack.
Marilyn bared her teeth in a smile. “Sorry, hon, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Iris dropped quickly to grab her phone and sprang back up, retreating until her shoulder blades hit the wall. “Get the fuck away from me.”
“Oh my God, Iris. I’m here as a friend.”
“You are not my friend. Did you follow me here? Do you have people tailing me full time now?”
“Let’s calm down, okay? You’re upset, understandably, but it’s making you paranoid—”
“Paranoid!” Iris scoffed.
“I said I understand your emotion right now, but you’re not thinking straight. Hear me out. No one is tailing you. I heard you mention to your old Candela colleague that you’d be here tonight, and then I saw you during the fireworks. I just wanted to talk to you—outside the office.”
“The office of your criminal enterprise? Jonathan snatched me off the street and blackmailed me over dinner, all while someone else broke into my apartment and trashed the place. So if you’re suggesting the danger is confined to the office, you’re wrong.”
“Jonathan would never touch your home.”
“So one of his guys did, what’s the difference? As if the rest is fair game, but he’d draw the line at breaking and entering. He didn’t draw it at murder !”
The last word silenced them both with its weight.
Iris stared her down. “Or maybe you just don’t know as much as you think you do about what goes on at Wolff Development.”
“I know about everything.” Marilyn said it like it was something comforting instead of intimidating. “And I want to talk to you in a different way than Jonathan did. I want to talk to you woman to woman.”
“Yeah, you’re a real girl’s girl, Marilyn. You happily oversaw Jonathan inviting me and my boyfriend to his house so that he could film us without my consent, make a sex tape to blackmail me—”
“Not blackmail— insurance .” Marilyn pointed a manicured finger.
“Don’t forget you were the aggressor here.
Snooping behind our back, investigating, manipulating Jonathan’s own lawyer to give you evidence that compromises the company.
It looks more like you were positioning yourself to extort him than the other way around. ”
“Extortion and whistleblowing aren’t the same thing. You killed those people to get a deal through.”
“That was an accident, no one was supposed to be there. You might remember reading that someone on the first floor called maintenance to report a smell of gas well before the explosion, but the janitor on duty didn’t bother to check it. Who do you think placed that maintenance call?”
Iris eyed her suspiciously.
“That’s right. Me. We wanted everyone to be evacuated, that’s how it was supposed to go.
I called as soon as the Dante valve was removed, there was time to save everyone.
But the very problems we are seeking to address were in full force that day, and that neglect resulted in tragedy.
If not for that Patterson girl, the broken system would’ve claimed more victims.”
“That community looks out for itself against the wolves.”
“We all have to look out for ourselves, Iris. That’s the most important lesson a woman can learn.
No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.
” Marilyn looked at her with an expression that was at once patronizing and full of sympathy.
“I see you taking care of everyone around you. Using your leverage with Jonathan to bargain for the Pattersons’ apartment—they signed the paperwork today, a family you’re not even related to.
I see you using your work contacts to get that very handsome but very unserious boyfriend of yours a real job.
I see it because I see myself. I used to be like you.
Doing for people to show that I’m good, I’m worthy.
To make them love me—or at least, to make them stay. ”
The sincerity of her tone compelled Iris to listen.
“It’s just a different kind of blackmail, Iris, an emotional one.
Love without trust is only a transaction.
A deal. And you’re getting the short end of the stick.
But when it comes to the deal Jonathan is offering you, my sincere advice to you is this: Take it.
Jonathan isn’t the monster you think he is.
But even if he were, you’re not going to get a better deal in your life than working with us, not against us in this moment.
This is a turning point in your life.” Marilyn surprised Iris by taking her hand; more surprisingly, Iris let her.
“Choose yourself. It’s not selfish, it’s self-preservation.
Choose your future child. You’re pricking yourself every day, suffering for that baby.
And you’re smart, you’re not waiting for a man.
You think Gabe is gonna be the provider type?
He’s still struggling to parent himself, like most men.
It will all fall to you. Trust me, I raised a child on my own.
I know how hard it is, especially broke.
I couldn’t have done it without this job.
A woman has only one lookout beyond herself, and that’s when she’s a mother.
Let me be a mother to you now and protect you from making the biggest mistake of your life. ”
Iris broke from her grasp. “Protect me like you protected Patrick?”
“Yes.” Marilyn cocked her head in confusion. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
Iris took a slow step around her, and Marilyn mirrored it, like two magnets locked in attraction and repulsion. “You looked the other way while that man used your son to do his dirty work, because, why? Because he pays you?”
“What?”
“You didn’t protect Patrick from him, you served him up on a silver platter. You groomed him for Jonathan. You let Jonathan ruin his life before it even began, ruin his innocence, ruin his fucking soul!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s Patrick on that tape at the Hendricks projects. He’s the one who sabotaged the Dante valve on the gas pipe. It could’ve been anybody, but Jonathan used your son to hurt those people, used your kid to commit a heinous crime.”
Marilyn shook her head. “No. You’re wrong. Pat would’ve told me. It couldn’t have been him.”
“Yes, it was! Jonathan didn’t show you the tape, did he?
You didn’t fucking know!” Iris scoffed in surprise at Jonathan’s cunning.
“He recruits your only child and he doesn’t even let you in on it.
Of course, because that way, he traps you both—Jonathan gets Patrick’s silence and loyalty because Patrick doesn’t want to let his mom down, and he guarantees yours because you’d never implicate your own son.
” Iris gathered strength like a forming tornado and advanced on Marilyn, backing her up with every step.
“See it now? When you made a deal with Jonathan, you made a deal with the devil. And after twenty years, he fucked you. Because he did this to Patrick right under your roof. Under your nose. You sacrificed your only child for money, for security, for status—”
“No, I did everything for him!”
“—Before his life even got started, he did the worst thing he’ll ever do. And he only did it because you told him to trust Jonathan like a father, you told him Jonathan would take care of him, just like you’re telling me. But it’s a lie. Jonathan is evil, and you let him into your house!”
Marilyn stopped abruptly as the mezzanine railing dug into her back. Her face was full of fear, not of falling, but of the truth.
“Wake up!” Iris raged at Marilyn, incensed with an anger that had smoldered inside her since her own parents had missed the signs.
“It doesn’t matter if you knew or not, either way, you failed Patrick.
You didn’t protect him. He’s trying to protect you .
He is keeping this secret for you, to spare you .
And trust me, even if you all get away with it, the secret is going to eat him alive. ”