Page 41 of Reasons We Break

She speaks before thinking, only realizing she’s interrupted a conversation when they all stop. “There’s something off about these calculations.”

“Bullshit,” Rory scoffs immediately.

“I can show you.”

“Listen, you little bitch—” Rory surges toward her, and she jumps a little. But Nick grabs the back of his jacket.

“Rory, shut up.” Nick hauls him back and glances at Simran. “Explain.”

Trying not to let her hand shake, she taps the page. “I assume these calculations are all about the same product?” She takes the silence as a yes. “The proportion of wrapping paper to product weight is different between these two recorders. With the old recorder”—she flips to several weeks ago—“wrapping paper for the same amount of product weighed significantly less than it does now. Either you’ve started double-wrapping your product, or there are...roughly twenty kilos unaccounted for.”

Dead silence meets her words. Simran finally looks up to find that the whole configuration of the room has changed.

Nearly everyone has a gun drawn. Nick isn’t looking at her anymore. His focus, along with his gun, is directed at Rory.

“So, Rory,” he says, “making a little money on the side, are we?”

Rory glares, but his hand has drifted to his waistband, too. “Are you seriously gonna believe this bitch over me?”

“I don’t know.” Nick nods to the Rolex on Rory’s wrist. “But your expensive tastes are starting to speak for themselves.”

He cocks the gun.

Simran stands without meaning to. “Wait!”

She hadn’t meant to speak so loud, but everyone’s heads swivel to her. A few guns, too. She holds her hands up, heart beating furiously. “I don’t think he’s—skimming. It could’ve been an honest mistake.”

Zohra scoffs, and Simran can’t blame her. She knows how naive she sounds. But she wasn’t trying to cause whateverthisis. She was just excited to find a mistake in the ledger.

Nick ignores her. He speaks over his shoulder, to the others. “Search his car.”

Nick’s men advance on Rory. For one wild moment, Simran thinks they’re going to kill him right in front of her, and she squeezes her eyes shut. All she hears is flesh hitting flesh, grunts, the screech of shoes against tile, and a slam against the wall. Then silence. When she opens her eyes, a disheveled Rory is pushing off the wall, breathing hard and looking furious while the men retreat, one holding a ring of keys.

Zohra takes the keys and heads out the door. Nick remains, keeping his gun on Rory, whose nose is bleeding from the scuffle.

This is a nightmare. “Nick.” Simran can’t keep the desperation from her voice. “Please put the gun down.”

Nick doesn’t even look her way. “I knew there was something off about you, Rory.”

Rory is beginning to pale. “Itwasan honest mistake,” he says. “She’s right.”

“A minute ago she was a stupid, untrustworthy bitch. What changed?” Nick raises an eyebrow. “You were so reluctant to hand over the ledgers today. I wonder why.”

Rory’s jaw works.

“Please,” Simran says. “I—I wasn’t trying to—”

The store door opens again. Zohra, lips thin, tosses something at Nick. “Just this.”

A bundle of cash.

Nick turns it over in his hand, expressionless.

“You can’t prove where that’s from!” Rory’s eyes dart around. “And your shitty weighing scale wasn’t calibrated. I had to correct the number at the end after figuring it out.”

Nick’s lip curls, like he’s enjoying this a little. “Really, Rory? Why didn’t you say that before?”

Rory makes a break for it. He gets two steps before the Lions close in on him again. There’s another violent-sounding scuffle. Grunts. A flash of a knife, and Simran covers her face. She can’t watch, yet she can’t stop peeking from behind her fingers.