The $50,000 Check

Fifty thousand dollars for one dinner. I was on my way out of my brother's restaurant when the manager stopped me. "Excuse me, ma'am.

You haven't settled your check." I looked at the unfamiliar face and figured she was new and didn't know who I was, so I explained politely. "Just put mine on your owner's tab.

He knows about it." The manager gave me a scornful onceover. "Ma'am, this is a threeMichelinstar restaurant. We don't run tabs. We never have." Then she held out a printed check.

I glanced down at it. Flatware Luster Preservation Fee, three thousand. Dedicated Air Purification Fee, five thousand. VIP Emotional Serenity Service Fee, ten thousand.

And a pile of other nonsense under that. I hadn't known my brother was running a ripoff joint like this. I laughed right there, out of sheer anger. "Your Mr.

Stanhope is my brother. If there's a problem, he can take it up with me at home." She wasn't having it. "If you can't afford it, why put on an act?

Now you're namedropping the owner?" I sent one text to my assistant: [Tell my brother, either he fires this woman or I pull my money out.] Chapter 1 "Ma'am, don't waste everyone's time.

Pay the check." Her tone was certain and cutting, like she had already filed me away as a vain gold digger looking for a free meal.

A few people at the other tables had turned to watch. I frowned. I had no interest in wasting my time on something this stupid, so I took out my phone and called my brother.

All I got was the cold recorded voice of his voicemail. I called again. Same thing. It was a weekday. What was that brat doing?

I lowered the phone, looked that pushy woman straight in the face, and said it again, one word at a time. "One more time. My name is Evangeline Stanhope.

I'm the sister of your owner, Ronan Stanhope." "He isn't picking up. You can go pull up the house account in his name.

My name is on the authorizeduser list, with my ID information." I thought that was the most direct, most effective way to end it.

But the manager heard my name and didn't check a thing. Instead she let out a shrill, grating laugh. She laughed until her shoulders shook, and it turned more heads.

Then she leaned in sharply and dropped her voice so only the two of us could hear it. "Still playing dumb?

I saw that face of yours ages ago, in the photos on my man Ronan's phone." "You shameless bitch, sneaking around, trying to steal my man." "And now you walk right into his restaurant and try to charge it to him.

Where do you get the nerve?" For a second I just stood there. Then I looked at the name tag on her chest—Natalie Salerno—and I was speechless.

The girlfriend Ronan had been hiding, the one he wouldn't even show me a picture of. This was her. This stupid, vicious woman. How could his taste be that bad?

So tonight's fiftythousanddollar check wasn't a misunderstanding at all. It was a humiliation she had been planning for a long time.

Before I could say anything, she ran out of patience. "Since this lady intends to walk out on her check, we'll have to hold her here until the police arrive!" She waved a hand behind her, and the two big security men who had been standing off to the side came forward at once.

One clamped a hand over my mouth. The other wrenched both my arms up behind my back, twisting them like he was wringing out a rag.

Chapter 2 I fought hard, but they were men and simply too strong. Nothing I did mattered.

They ignored the fury in my eyes and the horrified stares of the other diners and dragged me roughly toward the back of the kitchen.

Then they threw me down hard into the drystorage room off the kitchen, where the air smelled of bleach and sour garbage.

The door shut and cut off every bit of light and sound from outside. In the dark, the manager didn't say a word. She lifted one highheeled foot and drove it into my gut.

The pain folded me in half. My stomach heaved. "That's for spending my man's money." "That's for going after him." She was screaming, her voice warped by jealousy and rage.

She stood over me and gave the two big men an order. "Hit her. Beat her half to death." The guards were clearly her own people. They didn't hesitate for a second.

Fists and boots came down on me like rain, and it never let up. I clenched my teeth and swallowed every cry and every groan.

It felt like my bones were being broken piece by piece, like my organs had been knocked out of place. Her screaming kept going. "You think you're something?

You're nothing, just a cheap piece of trash throwing herself at him." "I told you, I'm his sister. If you don't believe me, ask Ronan.

Call him right now and let me talk to him." I forced the words out. The woman in front of me didn't hear a syllable of it.

Only when the room started to swim did she raise a hand and call them off.

She set the heel of her shoe on my shoulder and smiled down at me. "You'd better settle that dinner check tonight like a good girl.

And then hand over another fifty thousand." "That's what you get for going after my man and spending his money." "And don't think I'm scared of somebody ending up dead.

Ro has ways of making things go away for me." The pain had me curled in on myself. I got the words out anyway, barely. "That was my own money.

I told you, if you don't believe me, ask him." Her face changed. She kicked me again, and the two guards took the cue. The fists and boots started up again.

Nothing I said was going to get through to her. If this kept going, I really might die in that room.

After one blow brought up a mouthful of blood, I used the last of my strength to feel around on the floor for my phone. "Stop… I'll… I'll pay." She seemed satisfied with the surrender.

She signaled the guards to stop, crouched down, and patted my swollen cheek. "See how easy that was? You could have done this the easy way.

You picked the hard way." "A hundred thousand. Not a dollar less." I lay facedown on the cold floor, dragging in air, my lungs burning with every breath.

I ignored her and called my best friend, Tessa Rosales. She picked up fast. "Tess.

Bring two hundred thousand dollars to my brother's restaurant." "I need it now." There was a beat of silence on the other end, and then she caught it. Something was wrong. "Evie?

What's going on? Your voice—" "Don't ask. Hurry." I cut her off and hung up. Natalie heard 'two hundred thousand,' and her eyes lit up. Greed flashed across them and was gone.

She probably thought the beating had frightened me into raising the number myself, begging for mercy.

She couldn't hide how pleased she was anymore. "Smart girl." Tessa was frighteningly fast. Not long after, the storeroom door was shoved open from the outside.

Tessa came in quickly, two bodyguards behind her. Chapter 3 The blood at the corner of my mouth, the state of my clothes, the way I was curled up on that floor—it shook her badly.

She came straight over and got me up. I shook my head to tell her not to speak. Then I took the debit card out of her hand, PIN still stuck to it, and threw it at the woman.

The woman took the card and let it go at that. She flicked a hand at us. "If that card's no good, I have ways of finding you.

Now get out." Every step went through me like a needle, but I held it in and limped out of that sickening place on Tessa's arm. At the door I thanked her. "Thank you, Tess.

I'll pay you back as soon as I've dealt with this." She looked me over, worried. "It's nothing, forget the money.

What happened to you?" I laughed once. "My brother picked himself a hell of a girlfriend.

Time he and I settled up." I took out my phone and found the number for the restaurant's general manager. He was the man who actually ran the place.

I had recruited him myself, and he was loyal to me. He picked up. I didn't waste a word, and there was nothing in my voice. "You have ten minutes.

Fire a manager named Natalie Salerno." "If you don't, the Stanhope Group pulls every dollar it has in that restaurant.

Every dollar." The second he heard my voice, the man was scared out of his mind. He must have heard how weak I sounded, heard that something was wrong.

He agreed, over and over, and didn't dare ask why. I hung up, didn't stop for a second, and called a car to the precinct.

To the officer who received me, I laid out everything that had just happened, in the clearest, coldest order I could put it in.

I gave a full formal statement at the precinct, then went to an emergency room and had my injuries documented.

With those few thin pages of medical records in my hand, the fury of betrayal flared like a fire doused with oil. It burned higher. I needed an explanation.

I needed Ronan to give it to me himself. My assistant tracked him down at his own house.

My driver and my bodyguards were there, and we drove straight out to the mansion in the suburbs. That house was another thing I had given him.

What met me when I arrived was deafening heavy metal. And the noise of a crowd, men and women both, coming through the doors and windows. He was actually throwing a party.

That explained why he hadn't picked up. The front door was standing ajar. For some reason I couldn't name, I didn't push it open right away.

A moment later I heard a woman's voice I knew, thick with crying. Natalie.

She was sobbing out her story to the whole room, casting herself as the poor girl bullied by a brazen homewrecker and then blamed for it on top of that. "…all I did was ask her to settle her check, and she threw a hundred thousand dollars in my face and got somebody to fire me…" "Ro, she went way too far.

She has no respect for you at all." "She just wanted to humiliate me.

She wants us to break up." Around the room, Ronan's pack of hangerson chimed in, full of outrage on her behalf.

Ronan was loudly soothing Natalie in his arms, his voice full of tenderness and indulgence. "Nat, don't worry.

I am not letting anyone do that to you." Then, as if to prove he meant it, he made a promise to the whole room. "When I get hold of that woman, I'll have her on her knees apologizing to you." The trustfund kids kept backing her up, shouting over each other about how they'd make me pay.

Chapter 4 "Ro, say the word and we'll go drag her out right now." "Yeah. Let her find out who's in charge around here." I'd heard enough.

I lifted a hand, and my bodyguard kicked the front door open. The music stopped dead. The laughing went out of the room in an instant.

Dozens of startled eyes swung to the doorway at once. "No need to drag anybody. I'm right here. Who wanted to teach me a lesson?" The air seemed to freeze.

The only sound left was the crisp click of my heels on the floor. Step by step, I walked toward the couple holding each other in the middle of the living room.

The look on Ronan's face was something to see. Shock first. Then fear he couldn't hold down, and the color went out of his face.

He let go of Natalie without thinking about it, like he meant to stand up. Then his eyes touched her tearstreaked face and he hesitated, caught.

In the end the fear gave way to a ridiculous, bluffing hardness. He stayed in his seat and stared at me, as if that could cover the panic underneath.

Natalie went rigid the instant she saw who it was. But she recovered fast. This was Ronan's house, and it was full of his friends.

So she pushed further into his arms and cried louder. "Ro, that's her… that's the one who did it to me…" She cried, and over his shoulder she looked at me, spiteful and pleased with herself, daring me.

As if to say, see, he still protects me. I ignored her. My eyes stayed on my dear brother. "Ronan Stanhope.

I'm asking you a question." "Weren't you just saying you'd put me on my knees to apologize to your girlfriend?" Ronan swallowed hard.

His lips were shaking and nothing came out of them. He was afraid of me. He always had been, since we were children. He knew who had the final word in that family.

His friends traded looks, plainly not following any of it.

One trustfund kid with his hair bleached platinum stepped up, probably wanting to look good in front of Natalie. "Who are you, talking to our boy Ro like that?" "If you know what's good for you, you'll apologize to Natalie right now.

Otherwise—" He didn't get to finish. My bodyguard had taken one step forward and put himself between us, expressionless.

The menace coming off him shut the platinumhaired kid's mouth instantly.

I went around him, crossed to Ronan, and looked down at him. "So you're not going to explain yourself." Ronan finally worked up the nerve to stand, chin out.

He pulled me off to the side and lowered his voice, half pleading, half impatient. "Sis, what exactly do you want?" "Do you have to make me look like this in front of my friends?" "Nat didn't mean anything by it.

She's just blunt. Can't you let it go this once?" I looked at him, and it struck me as absurd. Let it go?

After she had her men beat me half to death, after she extorted a hundred thousand dollars out of me, he wanted me to let it go? "Ronan Stanhope." I used his full name. "Is this a joke to you?" "I—" He had nothing, and his eyes slid away from mine.

And that was when the sirens came, out beyond the house, rising as they got closer. The