"If you don't sign, we pull the plug. You brought this on yourself. Don't blame anyone else."
As he spoke, he walked behind the desk and reached beneath a decorative piece, pulling out a small, delicate Censer.
He rummaged through the ash with a look of revulsion, fishing out the other half of the Holy Cup.
"This piece of junk gives me a headache just looking at it. Take it back."
Bertram let out a cold laugh and hurled the Holy Cup to the ground like a piece of trash.
"Who exactly were you trying to curse with this thing?"
Then he raised his foot and brought it down hard, grinding his heel into the Holy Cup.
The wood groaned and cracked under the pressure.
"No!" I scrambled across the floor on hands and knees, throwing myself over the Holy Cup, shielding it with both hands.
"You're still protecting this piece of garbage?"
Tamara strode over, building momentum, and drove the point of her heel straight into the back of my hand.
A soft, wet puncture.
The stiletto pierced clean through my skin and sank into the flesh.
Searing agony ripped through my entire body.
I screamed. Blood dripped steadily, falling onto the cracked surface of the Holy Cup beneath my hands.
When the pain reached its peak, I stopped struggling.
I lowered my head and watched my blood soak into the fractured half of the Holy Cup until it was stained completely red.
In that instant, I heard something snap in the void, a brittle, resonant crack that existed beyond the physical world.
Somewhere in the unseen space between fate and consequence, the heavy Karmic Thread that had bound me to Delgado Group for three years shattered completely.
The divine closed its eyes. Fortune was reclaimed.
Bertram felt an inexplicable surge of panic. The unease clawed at him, making him irritable. "Stop wasting time with her. Just press her thumbprint on it!"
I gathered the bloodstained fragments of the Holy Cup, piece by piece, and tucked them against my chest.
Then, with my uninjured left hand, I reached inside my jacket and pulled out the private phone Kevin had given me earlier.
Tamara assumed I was calling the police. She threw her head back and sneered without a shred of restraint.
"Go ahead, call the cops! Even if you do, you're the one running a cult and scamming people. Let's see who they arrest."
"This is my turf. You could call God himself today and it wouldn't make a difference."
I ignored the clowns entirely.