Chapter Three (Hazel)

Chapter Three (Hazel)

The HR director was still talking, but I couldn't hear a word.

I signed my resignation form, left my badge on her desk, and turned toward the elevator.

Six years. All the nights I'd stayed up for Calloway Group, all the drinks I'd choked down, every guarantee I'd ever signed. And in the end, I hadn't even known that the shares in my own name had been handed to someone else.

Fine.

As of today, we were even.

I pressed the button for the lobby, and the doors slid shut. I leaned into the corner and opened my phone to book a car to JFK.

As the elevator passed the twenty-first floor, it jolted under my feet.

Then the lights went out.

In an instant, it was so dark that not a single sliver of light got through.

My breath caught.

I'm claustrophobic. When I was eight, I played hide-and-seek in the Calloways' wine cellar. The wind blew the door shut, and I was locked in there alone for forty minutes. By the time they found me, I'd cried until I couldn't make a sound.

Ever since then, I'd only ever stood right by the doors in elevators.

Grant knew. Brooke knew. On our first date, I'd told Sebastian too.

I lit up my phone screen. No signal.

I pressed the emergency call button. Once, twice, ten times. Nothing came through the intercom but a hiss of static.

The darkness was like a hand, slowly closing around my throat.

I crouched down, my back against the cold wall of the car, buried my face in my knees, and counted my breaths, over and over.

One, two, three, four, breathe in.

One, two, three, four, breathe out.

The bandages around my waist were soaked with cold sweat. The burns throbbed with every heartbeat. I dug my nails into my thigh and used that small pain to keep from passing out.

I didn't know how much time went by.

So long that I lost count of the breaths. So long I almost believed I'd be in there forever.

The light overhead suddenly came back on.

The elevator started moving down again.

With a ding, the doors opened onto the lobby.

I was slumped on the floor, squinting, blinded by the light from the lobby.

As my vision slowly cleared, I saw three pairs of feet.

Grant. Sebastian. Brooke.

They were standing right outside the elevator doors, looking down at me.

"Two hours." Grant glanced at his watch, his voice flat. "That should teach you something."

"Now go apologize to Brooke, and we'll call it even."

I opened my mouth. My throat was as dry as sandpaper. Not a single word came out.

Brooke crouched down and slipped her arm through mine, her voice soft, like she was talking to a child.

"Grant, Sebastian, don't be like that. Hazel didn't mean it."

She turned to look at me. Her mouth was smiling. Her eyes weren't.

"Hazel, we're still best friends, right?"

Before she'd even finished the sentence, the hand on my arm, from an angle the two men couldn't see, pressed hard through my shirt into the burn on my side.

The pain shot from my side to the top of my skull like lightning.

On instinct, I swung my arm and shoved her away.

Brooke fell back onto the marble floor with a scream.

Grant's face went cold in an instant. He strode over, grabbed my shoulders, and shoved me back hard.

"Hazel, how long are you going to keep this up?"

My lower back slammed into the elevator door frame.

The freshly dressed wounds felt like they'd been ripped wide open. My vision went white. Even my breathing shook.

Sebastian walked over, put a hand on my shoulder, and pushed down.

My legs were already weak. Under the pressure of his hand, my knees hit the floor, and I ended up kneeling right in front of Brooke.

"Apologize," he said.

I braced my hands on the floor and tried to get up, but I didn't have an ounce of strength left.

Grant looked down at me and sighed, like he'd finally run out of patience.

"Hazel, you made me do this."

He raised his hand and signaled to someone above.

The next second, something came drifting down from high up in the atrium.

One. Two. Dozens. Hundreds.

Like snow.

One of them floated down and landed beside my knee.

I looked down, saw what it was, and went rigid.

It was a photo of me.

In Grant's apartment. In Sebastian's bedroom. Me in my pajamas, hair loose, leaning against a pillow and smiling. The kind of picture only the people closest to you could ever take.

The face of the other person in each photo had been blurred out.

Only my face was perfectly clear.

On the second-floor balcony, someone was still throwing them down by the handful.

The crowd in the lobby kept growing. Calloway employees, visitors, delivery guys, all bending down to pick up the photos, looking at the photos, then looking at me, on my knees in front of Brooke.

The whispers rose like a tide.

"Isn't that Whitmore?"

"Wasn't she supposed to be getting married today? Why is she kneeling here?"

"Look at the pictures. With more than one guy... and she still has the nerve to steal someone else's..."

I don't know who threw the first iced coffee on me.

Then more people joined in. Someone threw photos in my face. Someone shoved my shoulder. Someone kicked over the bag at my feet.

The wounds on my back split wide open. Blood soaked through the gauze, staining my white shirt red, little by little.

I lifted my head and looked out through the gaps in the crowd.

Grant and Sebastian were walking Brooke out between them, one on each side, protecting her. They'd already reached the revolving door.

They didn't look back.

•   *   *

I don't remember how I got to the parking garage.

I held onto the wall and dragged myself forward. With every step, another bloody handprint appeared on the concrete behind me.

My parking spot was empty.

My phone buzzed a few times.

It was Grant.

Brooke wanted sushi, so I took the car.

Consider today a lesson. Think about what you did.

The wedding's moved to this Saturday. Go home and clean yourself up. I'll pick you up Saturday morning.

I looked at those three messages, and suddenly I laughed out loud.

I laughed so hard it pulled at the wounds on my back, and I doubled over from the pain.

Even now, he didn't suspect a thing.

He was still completely sure that no matter what he did to me, come Saturday morning, I'd be in my wedding dress, waiting obediently at the door.

I straightened up, scrolled to the very bottom of my contacts, and dialed a number.

My mother had saved it in my phone herself, before she moved to London. She'd said she hoped I'd never have to use it.

It rang once before someone picked up.

A steady male voice. "Ms. Whitmore."

I leaned against a cold concrete pillar and, with the last of my strength, said every word clearly.

"Before Saturday, I want Calloway Group gone from New York."