Page 31 of The Birthday Girl

Tahlia’s lips curved, but there was no smile. “Then I’ll give them tears.”

Her phone buzzed on the table, the screen lighting with Heather’s name, so Tahlia tapped the speaker.

“Ms. Banks,” Heather said, her voice tight with nerves. “Reporters are blocking the doors. Some of them are live. They’re demanding your presence now.”

Tahlia’s eyes cut to Ezra, unblinking. “Then it seems my performance begins sooner than expected.”

Ezra’s thumb skimmed across the tablet screen as he refined the draft with nervous speed. When it was complete, he extended the tablet with both hands, his palms slick with sweat. Tahlia took it without a word and scanned the draft, her eyes moving steadily across the lines he had prepared.

When she finished, she set the tablet down on the conference table. “This will do. Remove the word prays. I don’t pray. Everything else stays. Deliver it exactly as written.”

Ezra nodded quickly, relief flashing across his face as he took the tablet back.

Tahlia straightened the hem of her blazer and collected her clutch from the table before gesturing toward the door with the flick of a hand. “Let’s go.”

The corridor outside the boardroom was lined with silent employees, each one careful to press themselves flat against the wall as she passed. No one spoke, and no one met her eyes.

The private elevator at the end of the hall opened, and Tahlia stepped in first, Ezra following with a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Heather squeezed in last with her phone glued to her ear.

The ride down passed in silence, the only sound the faint whir of cables and the shallow rhythm of Ezra’s breathing.

When the doors parted, the lobby roared to life. Reporters crowded the exits, their cameras flashing, voices tangled in overlapping demands. Security strained to hold them back, but the tide was pressing forward, relentless and hungry.

Tahlia adjusted the strap of her clutch and stepped out, and the media immediately began to bombard her with questions.

“Ms. Banks, is it true you were the last person seen with Tyriq Lawson?”

“Are you cooperating with the investigation?”

“Do you deny being involved in his disappearance?”

The barrage washed over her without breaking her stride, so Ezra hurried to her side.

Security forced a narrow path through the chaos, positioning themselves as a wall between Tahlia and the press.

She stopped in the center of the lobby’s marble expanse, chin lifted, her expression sculpted into controlled detachment.

Ezra stepped forward and cleared his throat, stealing a glance at Tahlia before beginning. “Ms. Banks has asked me to read a prepared statement.”

The crowd hushed, cameras angling tighter.

“First, Ms. Banks wants to acknowledge the public’s concern for Mr. Lawson. She understands the shock and pain this news has caused. However, she also wants to be clear: she has had no involvement in his disappearance. Any suggestion otherwise is false, defamatory, and deeply hurtful.”

Flashes from cameras popped like gunfire as Ezra pressed on, his voice steadier now. “This morning’s circulation of a single photograph, stripped of context, is an attempt to humiliate her while the man she loves is missing. She, too, learned of his disappearance when the article broke.”

Tahlia forced tears from her eyes, dropping her head in her palms, and sobbing quietly.

“Despite the pain and humiliation Mr. Lawson caused my client, the love she has for him never went away. Ms. Banks asks the public to see this for what it is, an effort to smear her name when the focus should remain on finding the love of her life.”

Ezra lowered the tablet, his final words hanging in the air. For a heartbeat, the lobby was silent except for the stutter of camera shutters. Then, a voice cut through the crowd.

“She’s lying!”

The reporters surged, and microphones jerked toward the sound. Danielle shoved her way forward, her hair wild, mascara streaking down her cheeks. Her sobs broke into ragged cries as she pointed a trembling finger straight at Tahlia.

“She killed him! She killed Tyriq!”

Gasps rippled across the press pool, the cameras whipping from Danielle’s tear-streaked face to Tahlia’s icy stillness.

“My baby’s father is gone!” Danielle’s chest heaved as she fought for breath, grief and rage spilling into every word. “Don’t let her fool you with her crocodile tears and her fancy speeches. Tyriq is missing because of her. Everybody who gets close to her ends up dead!”

The lobby descended into chaos as reporters shouted over one another, the feeding frenzy ignited.

“Ma’am, what proof do you have?”

“Ms. Banks, do you deny this?”

“Are you saying Ms. Banks killed Tyriq Lawson?”

“Direct your questions to me.” Ezra’s voice rose over the crowd with conviction.

“The woman standing there is Ms. Banks’s older sister.

She carried on an affair with Mr. Lawson behind her sister’s back and bore his child.

Her credibility is nonexistent. A woman willing to betray her own blood is capable of anything.

For all we know, she may be the very reason Mr. Lawson has vanished. ”

Danielle sobbed harder, clutching her stomach as if it would tear her open. “What about my friends? Mercedes, Tremaine, Jimmy—they’re all gone. Every last one of them! She murdered them, and she murdered Tyriq, too. She doesn’t deserve to breathe free air.”

Tahlia, flawless in her silence, didn’t so much as flinch. Her expression remained carved from stone, her hands steady at her sides. Tears no longer flowed down her cheeks, and rage bled through her eyes.

“These are baseless accusations from a bitter mistress who bore a child from a man who would never claim her in public. As I previously stated, Ms. Banks is innocent—” Ezra’s voice cracked like a gavel, but Danielle’s sobs drowned him out, feeding the cameras everything they needed.

Her outburst had been gasoline on the inferno.

The clamor swelled until security lost control of the mob, and the lobby took on the trappings of a mob trial.

The crowd surged forward, their camera lenses glinting like predatory eyes, each one hunting for the slightest crack in Tahlia's composure.

News drones hovered above the shouting, cameras pivoting to catch the drama from every hungry angle.

In the midst, Ezra found himself physically shielding Tahlia, his heart thundering as he anticipated high explosives, emotional or literal, to strike any second.

Tahlia’s mind, however, was a monolith amid the tempest. Every instinct screamed at her to annihilate Danielle, to step forward with the facts that would cut the girl to ribbons.

Instead, Tahlia let her face soften, only slightly, and blinked once, slowly, as if holding back the world’s most tragic tears.

She allowed the rawness of Danielle’s pain to frame her stillness, allowing herself to be, just for a moment, the second victim in Tyriq’s abrupt vanishing.

She stood, shoulders squared, chin trembling, as the cameras gorged on the spectacle.

She was the maligned woman stoic against the world, writhing with loss.

At that instant, every flashbulb and every cell-phone livestream was a weapon she turned deftly to her own advantage.

Tahlia’s tears didn’t fall, but her eyes shone, luminous and unfathomable.

The crowd caught it, and even those who wanted to jeer or hiss found themselves questioning, if only for an instant, if Tahlia was the true victim.

Heather hovered beside her, trying to calculate whether she should call for someone or simply dissolve into the wall. Ezra, still sweating, scanned the faces of the press, his hands fluttering at his coat buttons.

As the lobby devolved into a courtroom of public opinion, Tahlia’s internal calculations never stopped. The more Danielle wailed, the more pitiful and desperate she seemed. Soon, the audience would tire of her melodrama and crave a new twist.

In a day, a week at most, she would be a meme, her grief filtered through hashtags and soundbites, her wild-eyed accusations obsolete in the churn of outrage. What would remain was the image of Tahlia, persecuted but serene. Under siege but refusing to break.

Tahlia did not so much as shift her weight.

She was permanence itself, a black hole in an expensive suit, devouring every accusation, never letting the photons escape.

Years of broken promises, retracted affections, and whispered betrayals had welded her for this moment.

However, she possessed a talent for suffering slander with a martyr's grace, and she weaponized it until it was time to make Danielle pay.

Half an hour later, Tahlia slid into the back seat of her custom limo, the soft Italian leather welcoming her like an old ally.

She crossed one leg over the other, smoothing the hem of her skirt with deliberate precision.

Outside, cameras flashed against the tinted glass, but in here, the world was quiet, her own curated silence.

When the door shut, it wasn’t a seal of safety.

It was a throne room, and she sat at the center of it, untouchable.

Her phone buzzed against her thigh, so she unclasped her clutch and pulled it out. When “Mom” flashed across the screen, her nostrils flared in anger. In Tahlia’s mind, Tisha wasn’t shit. Tisha was an envious bitch who birthed jealous bitches like Danielle.

The cameras had captured her sister's betrayal framed in high definition for the world to consume, and now Tahlia's hatred burned like acid through whatever familial bonds remained.

Tahlia answered the call with the same detachment she'd use to flick dirt from her Louboutins. “I don't recall giving you permission to contact me.”

“Don’t play with me, Tahlia. Where’s Tyriq? People are saying he’s missing, and I know you had something to do with it. Just like your sister tells me, you murdered Tremaine, Jimmy, and Mercedes.”

A smile tugged at Tahlia’s mouth, brittle and humorless. She leaned back, her head tilting against the headrest as though the whole conversation bored her. “If I did, none of it would be your concern.”

“You’ve always been a selfish girl,” Tisha snapped. “You’re ungrateful and never satisfied with what you have.”

Tahlia’s eyes narrowed, her tone cool as ice. “Tell me something, Mother. Did you tell Danielle to sleep with my man?”

The pause on the line was long enough to confirm what Tahlia already suspected, what Mercedes had confessed before she met her demise.

“What?” Tisha asked, playing dumb.

“You heard me,” Tahlia snapped. “But in case you didn’t, I asked, did you tell Danielle to spread her legs for my man?”

Tisha exhaled like the truth was a burden she had carried too long. “That man wasn’t yours, Tahlia. You didn’t need him, and you sure didn’t appreciate him. So, yes, I told Danielle that if she wanted him, she could have him. At least she knew his worth.”

The words landed harder than a slap, and at that moment, Tahlia stopped seeing her parents as family. They weren’t guardians or protectors. They were traitors and enablers of betrayal.

The silence froze between them, quantum-cold, hostile, and immutable as Tahlia studied the black mirror of her phone screen, where her reflection displaced her mother’s voice.

“You miserable bitch,” Tahlia hissed, her voice low and venomous.

“You’ve hated me since the day I was born.

Now, every time you look at me, you see the woman you could never be.

I know that has to hurt. Is that why you convinced Danielle to crawl into my bed?

Does watching me hurt make you feel better about being nothing? ”

“Watch your mouth,” Tisha snapped, the pitch of her voice sharpening. “You think you’re somebody, but you ain’t shit either. You destroy everything you touch. Men, money, even your own sister. You’ve never been good for anyone.”

Tahlia let the insults hang, her pulse steady in an almost terrifying way.

“No, Mother. I’m excellent at destruction.

That’s the difference. You birthed something you could never control, and now you’re consumed by jealousy.

That’s why you spit my name with so much venom.

Just know I’ll finish you like I finish everyone else who crosses me. ”

“You won’t fuck with a baby picture of me.”

“Oh, but I would.” Tahlia’s voice dropped. “And I’ll make sure when your time comes, you remember this call. You chose sides, so when Danielle rots, so will you. Together.”

Tisha’s breath caught on the other end, but she covered it quickly with a scoff. “You’re sick, Tahlia. That’s all you’ve ever been. Sick in the head. I should have left you in the hospital when you were born.”

“Or maybe, I should’ve murdered you while you were pushing. You’d probably be a better mother in death than you were in life.” Tahlia giggled. The line went dead, but the silence after was anything but empty.

She lowered her phone into her lap, and her lips curved into a smile that wasn’t joy, nor relief. It was a promise of what was to come.

As the limo slid through the city, Tahlia stared through the tinted glass, seeing nothing. Danielle wasn’t the only one with an expiration date.

Her parents had just joined the list.