Page 111 of Settling the Score

Because I’m the boss.It was almost psychopathically self-assured.I call the shots. No one walks away from me until I’m ready to let them go.

It was damning; they’d heard enough. Blake stopped the recording.

‘There’s another twenty minutes of that,’ Aiden said.

Harvey was whiter than paper. He looked satisfyingly awful.

‘What the hell is going on?’ he asked when he was able to speak, some moments later.

‘You screwed with a very good friend of ours,’ Blake said. ‘Someone sweet and kind, who deserved a hell of a lot better than to cross paths with you.’

When Sienna looked at Paige, she saw her eyes were moist and the smile she shot back was wobbly.

‘She’s fine though. In fact, she doesn’t ever give you a moment’s thought, these days. But knowing you were out there, doing this to other women, she decided to act.’

‘And we decided to help her,’ Aiden added.

‘So, you set me up?’

‘Hell, yeah, and I’d do it again and again and again. It’s not even in the same ballpark as what you’re doing.’

‘Fuck you,’ Harvey said, storming towards the door.

‘You don’t want to meet the team?’ Blake asked, grinning.

Harvey looked like he was going to vomit or pass out.

‘Oh, you should know something,’ Aiden started, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Paige moving, a fire in her eyes that warmed Sienna’s belly and shot goosebumps over her skin.

Aiden, Blake and Harvey all sensed her at the same time, turning towards the motion in the corner.

Harvey blanched.

‘You should know something,’ she said, a little softly at first, so the three other women moved like a wall of support, coming to stand beside Paige without touching her. Just letting her know they were there. They literally had her back, and always would. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘That tape isn’t just for your ears.’

Harvey was frozen to the spot. Sienna could just make out a bead of perspiration forming on his brow.

‘Oh, no. Why waste such good filmmaking?’ she said, taunting him with a line he’d once thrown at her. ‘We made sure your mum got a copy, and your sister.’ She smiled serenely.

He went from white to grey.

‘But it really was too compelling to limit just to family.’

He reached for the doorjamb. ‘So, we also sent digital copies to your board, and just to be extra sure the message got out there, we sent it to the DA, and two national broadsheets.’

Paige’s smile was slow and half-manic, and Sienna couldn’t blame her. Finally, they had outmanoeuvred a guy who’d made it his life’s work to hurt women, to embarrass them in the most defiling, vicious way.

‘You picked on women who didn’t know what you were like. Women like me, whose only mistake was trusting an asshole like you. But you’re done with that now, Harvey. You’re going straight to hell.’

‘Pretty sure he’s going there by way of prison,’ Astrid whispered, pressing a hand to her basketball-round stomach.

‘Even better,’ Paige said.

‘Now, if you don’t mind, get your ass off the grounds.’

Harvey didn’t move. He couldn’t. He looked from one, to the other, to the other, gawping like a fish.

‘Get the hell outta here,’ Aiden said, taking a step towards him, and that did it. Harvey turned and stormed out of the room, and they all knew he wouldn’t get far. The walls were closing in for Harvey and there was no way he’d be able to escape the consequences – societal, legal and within his family – for his awful, demeaning actions.