Chapter 4 - Severing the Wire
"You ruined her life!" Leona screamed, her nails flying at my eyes.
She was completely unhinged, all pretense of elegance shattered. But an enraged, middle-aged socialite moving across a dining room is practically stationary to someone who has cleared mud compounds in the dark.
I didn't strike her. I simply pivoted on my right heel, caught her forearm by the wrist, and applied three pounds of downward pressure against the joint.
Leona let out a sharp yelp and found herself pinned against the edge of the mahogany table, her cheek pressed against the spilled water and melting ice.
"Let go of her!" Felix shouted, rushing forward, his fists clenched awkwardly like an accountant who had never thrown a punch in his life.
I didn't even look at him. I simply leveled my free hand, palm open, fingers rigid, stopping him dead in his tracks six inches from my chest.
"Take one more step, Felix," I whispered, "and we will test whether civilian emergency rooms in Chicago are faster than field hospitals in Kandahar."
Felix froze. His chest heaved beneath his cheap Men’s Wearhouse suit. The cowardice that had defined his entire adult life—the spineless compliance that let his wife run roughshod over his children—pulled him back like a dog on a leash. He stepped back, his hands trembling.
I leaned down close to Leona’s ear. Her breath smelled of sour chardonnay and terror.
"Listen to me very carefully," I said, my voice dropping so low Simone had to strain to hear it through her sobs. "Tonight was the last time. Do you hear me?"
"You're a monster," Leona hissed against the wood. "You’re an unnatural, hateful monster. After everything I sacrificed for you—"
"You sacrificed nothing," I cut her off, twisting her wrist just enough to make her gasp. "Grandma Miriam gave me eight hundred dollars and told me to be a woman. You gave me a forged loan application and told me to be your status symbol. For ten years, I let you bleed me because I thought it was keeping Miriam safe in that facility. But I called the nursing home this morning before I came here."
Leona’s eyes widened in sudden, visceral horror.
"Yes," I murmured. "I spoke to the director, Leona. The facility costs eighteen hundred a month. I was sending you thirty-five hundred. Where did the other seventeen hundred go every month, Mom? Did it go to Simone’s laser hair removal? Did it go to your country club dues?"
"Nora, please," Simone sobbed from the floor, where she had collapsed against her chair. "Please, stop. We’re your family."
"Family covers your six," I said, finally letting go of Leona’s arm. I stepped back, adjusting my cuffs. Leona pushed herself off the table, clutching her wrist, her chest heaving as she stumbled into Felix’s arms.
"As of twenty minutes ago," I continued, pulling my phone back into my pocket, "the joint account has been frozen. I submitted the affidavit of unauthorized financial access through USAA. Every penny of my military allotment will now route directly to a private trust managed solely by me."
"We can't pay the mortgage!" Felix cried, his voice breaking into a pathetic whine. "Nora, the interest rate adjusted last winter! We’re three months behind! If you cut us off, the Carver house goes into foreclosure!"
I looked at my father. I looked at the man who had sat at the kitchen table ten years ago and complained that my service would embarrass him at his office.
"Then you’d better start scrubbing toilets, Felix," I said coldly. "I hear it builds character."
I turned on my heel and walked toward the door.
"Nora!" Simone wailed, crawling a few inches across the patterned carpet. "What am I supposed to tell my friends? What am I supposed to tell everyone about Julian?"
I stopped at the heavy oak doors. I didn't turn around. I simply looked back over my shoulder, my face as blank and unyielding as the granite memorials at Arlington.
"Tell them the truth, Simone," I said. "Tell them the janitor took out the trash."
May you like
I pushed through the doors and walked out into the cool, clean air of the Chicago night.
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