"Ryan was with me. We were up very late." Her smile sharpened. "He says you're like a block of wood in bed. Five years, and you still can't keep his interest."
I met her gaze. Ice cold.
"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
Sandra's smile froze, then twisted into something uglier. "My mother only taught me to take what I want."
She stepped closer, her voice dripping with venom. "Do you really think your dead father's little sacrifice—using his own life to guilt-trip Ryan—will keep him by your side forever?"
Dad's death is a wound I can never touch.
"Say that again." My voice came out low. Dangerous.
Sandra didn't flinch. "Your father, that pathetic ghost, deserved to be run over."
"If he hadn't stuck his nose where it didn't belong, Ryan and I would've been together years ago. He traded his worthless life to chain Ryan to you—to make him marry you out of guilt, to torment his conscience forever!"
Crack.
I was on my feet before I knew it, my palm connecting with her face.
Sandra clutched her cheek, eyes wide with disbelief. "You hit me?"
I backhanded her.
"You're damn right I did."
"Sandra, five years ago you killed my father. Now you stand here and spit on his memory." I stepped toward her. "Did you really think the law couldn't touch you?"
Hatred flickered in her eyes. "Nothing happened to me five years ago. What can anyone do now? Ryan will protect me. He'd never let me go to prison."
Then—like flipping a switch—her expression crumbled. Tears welled up as she dropped to her knees at my feet.
"Ms. Perez, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have fallen in love with Ryan."
"You've already won. This job is all I have left to survive. Why won't you just let me go?"
The commotion drew a crowd. Whispers rippled through the onlookers.
"Isn't hitting someone a bit much...?"
"She's already on her knees. Show some mercy."
Someone raised a phone to record.
Sandra knelt there, trembling, tears streaming down her face. "Ms. Perez, please... I'm begging you..."
The door burst open.
Ryan shoved me aside without a glance.
My stomach slammed into the corner of the table. Pain shot through me, doubling me over.
He helped Sandra up with infinite care, his thumb brushing gently over the red marks on her cheek.
She collapsed into his arms, sobbing harder. "Ryan, I was so scared..."
He turned to look at me. His eyes were winter.
"Noreen, why do you have to be so vicious?"