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“You asshole! Listen to me, hear these words I’m about to say to you. You can hit me. You can break my bones and point a gun at my head. You can pull the trigger and blow out my brains, but you do NOT TOUCH MY WIFE.” The last bit comes out in an enraged shout, a deafening roar that rattles the windows and my bones.
The silence that descends is sticky, pulling like tar.
The man gestures to the phone in his hand. “Go ahead, Jade. This one’s all yours.”
“I’m fine, Cam. Honestly.”
“Babe, do not listen to this guy. He is lying to you, I swear. None of that stuff he told you was true. I didn’t take anything from—”
“Uh-uh-uh,” the man interrupts, his mouth millimeters from the microphone. “Yet again, you think everything is about you, but I’m here to tell you, Cam. This is aboutme. About all the myriad ways my life is screwed up because of you. And I hate to tell you, but now your daughter knows, too. She knows the kind of shitty man her father is.”
“This has nothing to do with them, Sebastian. This is between you and me. Let my family go.”
Sebastian.That’s his name, the almost-partner, the lawsuit instigator.Sebastian.
He holds the phone inches away from his face. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. When you reneged on our deal, you took away my ability to protect my family, which means this? This right here, right now? It’s also about yours.”
“So, what—an eye for an eye? Is that what this is?”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s karma.”
“Oh come on. That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re not the only one who lost money on Oakhurst. I lost out in that deal, too, remember?”
“Let me tell you the difference,Cam.” Sebastian makes a face when he says the name, spits it through an ugly curled lip. “You lost what’s for you pocket change while I losteverything. I lost my savings, my livelihood, my house, my wife, the shirt off my back and my daughter’s. I had to declare bankruptcy, and you know what happens to your chronically sick kid when you do that? You get to swap out your health insurance with Medicaid. How do you tell your little girl that they won’t approve the lung transplant that’s supposed to save her life because you can’t afford the medication she needs to make those new lungs stick? This money you’re bringing me, it’s what you took from me plus interest, plus all the medical costs, which thanks to you, my shitty insurance doesn’t cover.”
“That...that’s absurd. What do you think the hospital is going to say when you hand them a bag of cash? You don’t think they’ll start asking questions?”
“They can ask as many questions as they want, but at least my baby will get her new lungs.”
“Sebastian, they’re going to catch you. You know that, right?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m trying tohelpyou.”
“Oh, like you helped me before?” he scoffs, and his tone darkens with disgust, with fury. “Sorry, Cam, but that shit don’t fly. Your promises hold no credibility with me anymore. Zero. Not after what you did last time I came to you with a problem. Tell everybody here what you said.”
There’s a long stretch of patchy air, and then: “I’m not... I don’t remember what I said.”
But it’s a lie. Camdoesremember, I can tell from the pause, the way his voice went wobbly. He knowsexactlywhat Sebastian is talking about. He just doesn’t want to say it with me and Beatrix listening.
“Look, I’ll call the contractor and explain,” Cam says, dropping back into businessman mode. Problem solver, go-getter, get-’er-done achiever. “I’ll tell him this whole thing was my fault. I’ll get him a check first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll deliver it to him personally.”
“Don’t bother, he already got his cut from my bankruptcy attorney, and it was a hell of a lot less than the hundred grand you and I were supposed to pay him. But let’s get back to the subject at hand. We still haven’t heard the last words you said to me.”
Sebastian’s brows disappear behind the mask, expectant, and he’s got my full attention. My eyes stay trained on the phone, and I lean forward on the recliner, waiting, barely breathing. I hear Beatrix licking her lips, the creak as she shifts on the leather chair. Otherwise the room is silent.
“I...” Cam pauses to puff a frustrated breath, to clear his throat. “You have to understand. Two of my shops were bleeding cash. I had to pump every cent I owned into keeping them afloat. And it wasyourname on the deed,yourname on the contract. I wasn’t legally bound to pay either of you a penny.”
“Let’s ask Jade what she thinks, shall we?” Sebastian stretches his arm, holding the phone between us like an offering. “Let’s say a man shakes on a business deal and assumes his partner is operating with the same honor, so he dives into an expensive renovation, fronting the costs out of his own pocket. Only the partner isn’t honorable, and he’s a no-show when it comes time to sign the partnership agreement, leaving the man with a half-finished building and a stack of unpaid bills. Shouldn’t that partner have to share the burden of the costs?”
Cam’s voice fills the room. “Not according to the law, he—”
“Shut up, Cam. I’m not talking to you. Jade?”
I inhale. Nod. “Yes. Yes, I think he should.”
I know this is what Sebastian wants to hear, but it’s also the truth. If that’s indeed what Cam did, walking away after promises were made and costs accrued, abandoning ship might be legally sound, but morally? Ethically? There’s a reason I haven’t heard any of this from Cam.