Page 54 of The True Garza

Trent exhales a long-suffering sigh. “Have a seat, Bridge.”

“Not until I know what this is about.”

Defiance toward the male species is innate for me, superior or not. Yet, if it were his twin who ordered me to sit right now, how swiftly my traitorous body would’ve obeyed.

Trent watches me like I’m a pain in his ass, then flicks his wrist. “Fine. Two of your colleagues reported that you were sexually harassed by our client’s eldest son while on duty last week. Is that true?”

Those little rat-bastard turds. “I don’t recall.”

“Why wouldn’t you report something like that, Bridge?”

“Have you ever had a report like that from any of your workers before now?”

“No, but—”

“That’s why,” I say. “I’m already the only female on the team, that you didn’t even want to hire in the first place. I didn’t wanna start causing trouble or make people uncomfortable.”

“And you believe we’d think you’re ‘causing trouble’ by reporting that the client’s son tried to grope you while on duty?” he asks in disbelief. “That’s what you think of us here?”

Why’s he making a big deal out of this? “I’m fine. I put the fucker to sleep to teach him a lesson. What does it matter?”

“It fucking matters, Bridge! What thefuck?!” he explodes at me. He pauses, takes a breath as if to calm himself, then says, “We dropped the client—”

“What? No. You don’t need to—”

“We dropped the client,” he talks over me. “But he’s a longtime client who’s come to rely heavily on us, so he came in this morning. As you know, he was absent that day and appears deeply apologetic about the entire thing. But what happens next is up to you. He’s offering you 200K as an apology offering. You take the cash, we keep him on as a client. You don’t take the cash, we drop him.”

“What, is that supposed to be hush money or something?”

“No, there’s no contract or strings. You can tell whoever the fuck you want that his son is a piece of shit. He’s only offering the money so we don’t drop him. For us, he has to pay one way or another. How he pays is up toyou.”

Wow. When that smarmy dipshit cornered me and tried to grope me, I simply handled things how I usually do—which was everything short of breaking his fucking fingers. Then moved on with my life. Sexual harassment is something I’ve become immune to at this point. I honestly didn’t want to make any more waves here. And from past experience working in a male-dominated field, when female colleagues make harassment claims, they tend to get treateda lotdifferently by their male counterparts afterward.

In a workplace so high on testosterone, I never would’ve imagined my teammates to blow the whistle on something like this. Or that management would be pissed at me fornotreporting it. So I’m stumped on how to even respond in this moment.

“Can I think about it?”

Trent nods. “Sure, take your time.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“While you think about it,” he says when I turn to leave, “I’d like to ask a favor.”

Favor? I turn back around. “Me?”

“There’s an annual meeting with some important clients in Nevada this weekend. Usually, attending this meeting is my job. But, at the moment, we’re stretched a bit thin, and Ihaveto stay here and oversee some things, so….” He trails off and rubs his temple as if what he needs to say is painful. “So True will be attending this year. And I need you to accompany him.”

Aw, hell no. “What? Why me? I just started working here. Plus, he’s…”

“He’s what?”

I shake my head. Lift my chin. “Why can’t he go by himself? And why does it have to be me?”

Trent drums his fingers on the desk, as if debating something. While Guy has a slight slant of amusement on his lips.

Something’s up. I pull out a chair and take a seat. Cross my arms. “This is afavoryou’re asking me, right? Not something Ihaveto do as part of my job?”

“Correct.”