Page 89 of Healing Conviction
“They didn’t know anything to implicate anyone important, I suppose. And as for Calianne… Calianne was very sick. Her mind was broken and her sister had to institutionalize her in a mental hospital several times before the party occurred. I was surprised she even showed up. Although I don’t know what happened to her, I doubt she lasted long after attending.”
The room was silent again until Gail sighed. “I wish… I wish I’d known what they’d been shipping inside our containers before it was too late.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’?” Nora asked. “It was never ‘too late.’ Why didn’t you report everyone as soon as you found out? Get your PR team to go to bat for you? You would’ve been able to survive it with the right spin. Shit, you could’ve gone to the authorities way before you found out there was human trafficking going on, right? Like you said, small, bad decisions? You could’ve reported any one of those.”
“If I’d gone pulling that thread, it would’ve undone everything I’d worked so hard for. This company, my name, my family, the good the company does still. I didn’t want all that to get slung in the mud. One small scandal can destroy a world of enormous good.”
“A scandal.” Nora snorted. “Wow, that’s a generous word for it, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was my job, what I felt was best for the company, but most importantly, what was best for myfamily. If that required me not to look closely at things, at least I wasn’t a part of the worst of it.”
Draco felt his jaw drop. “Shit, you really believe that, don’t you?”
“Gail, babe, sitting back and doing nothing is still ‘a part of it’. Evil thrives when good men do nothing, and all that. It’s Philosophy 101.”
“I just don’t see it that way.”
“You didn’twantto see it that way, you mean,” Nora accused.
Her eyes closed before she opened them again to speak. “All I knew was if I let this scandal get out, all of what we’ve worked for would be tainted. Since that stupid meeting, I’ve been barely holding my head above water to make sure this company doesn’t drown in the blood the parasites have sucked from it.”
“Scandal. There you go with that word again. At what point do you think a scandal becomes a crisis? And at what point do you think evil starts to outweigh the good? Maybe the first woman who was kidnapped? Raped? Tortured? What about the first woman who was killed? Was it a crisis then or just a scandal? Was one death on your conscience not enough for you? How about the tenth? The hundredth? How many evil things have snowballed in the name of you saving face? And now, let me guess. It’s more than your company at stake, right? Now they’re coming for your sweet family?”
Tears began to fall down Gail’s face at Nora’s rapid-fire questioning, joining the small beads of sweat forming as she nodded.
“You might’ve done some good with your company, Gail. But it doesn’t absolve you from the evil it caused too. If you want recognition for the good, you also have to take accountability for the evil, even if that accountability requires you to suffer the consequences.”
“I’ve always believed that, too. But I’ve found it’s easier to solve problems when they’re not your own.”
Nora sucked in a breath, like she’d been caught off guard. Draco didn’t dare look away from his target, but the anger vibrating from Nora shifted in the room as she stood up.
“No. It’snoteasy, and that’s the whole point. Being good, righteous, upstanding, that’shard. It’s why we admire the people who have the cleanest slates, because they somehow got through this shitty world without sullying themselves like the rest of us. But your slate isn’t clean, Gail. Far from it. And you’re gonna have to answer for the dirt you’ve smeared on it. You can’t paint over shit and sell it as art, baby doll. Now you’ve waited so long that your consequences are going to hurt more than just the people who deserve it.”
Silence filled the room, and the air became thick with tension while Nora obviously waited for Gail to crack. A somber laugh huffed out of the woman.
“I let down someone recently. I valued her as a friend. I didn’t realize how much her perception of me would matter. Until… until she called me a pawn. At the time, I thought she was arrogant and didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. But maybe she was right. I told her justice is a fairy tale. But I suppose that as long as there are heroes to keep villains in line, there’s hope for justice to be the winning side after all. Maybe in letting this get out of control, I became an easy piece to manipulate.”
“The thing about manipulators is when you’re no longer useful to them, they discard you without a second thought. Let’s hope whoever you’re working with doesn’t think the same way about you.”
Nora’s words made Draco’s lungs constrict. Was that a confession? A warning? He silently hoped there wasn’t more subtext in his little manipulator’s observation.
Movement sounded behind him and he thought he heard Nora gather her things. “I think I have all I need. It’s been an unpleasant—but enlightening—chat. Let’s not do it again, shall we?”
“Wait!” Gail’s objection made both Draco and Nora pause. “Those… those computers, they don’t have anything. We don’t keep the, um,importanttransactions on our own servers. But our laptops are different. It’s in that bag. And um, if you were looking for something, or someonein particular, you might be interested to see what’s in the warehouse. Two lefts and straight through the double doors at the end.”
“Got it… thanks for the tip, Gail.” Nora began to move but stilled again when Gail began to speak.
“Uh, by the way… you won’t have to worry about our security anymore, although I can’t say the same for the one who ordered your attack. It’ll take them a while to figure out what to do with you after tonight, so you’ll probably be safe, at least for a little while. After that, though, it would be best to stay low with whoever you’re working with. The person who’s in charge has a wide reach and eyes and ears everywhere.”
Nora nodded. “We’ll keep that in mind.”
“Also, um. I-I’m calling the police. There’s been a break-in and I’ve been held at gunpoint. The police will search for the suspect, but there are still places they won’t search without a warrant. Just… make sure you’ve done everything you need to do before then.”
“You’re calling the police?” Draco asked, unable to keep his mouth shut. “If you stay, you’ll get caught.”
Gail sighed. “There won’t be much of a chase.”
Nora apparently had the same question he did. “So you’ll wait for them, but you won’t tell us who you work with or for? You do know what happened to those attorneys in Ashland, don’t you?”