Page 96 of I Will Ruin You

“Wondered if you’d like it back.”

“How would we go about making that happen?”

“We set something up,” the man at the other end said. “A handoff.”

“That... would be greatly appreciated.”

“I’m guessing what’s in this is worth a lot of money.”

Andrea made a face, like she’d been waiting for this.

“What are you proposing?” Gerhard asked.

“I’ll sell it back to you. Got to be worth, what? A million? Two million?”

“I’m afraid that’s a little out of our price range.”

“I’m not looking for that. Just, like, a finder’s fee.”

“I see. What were you thinking?”

“A hundred.”

Gerhard looked ready to laugh, but Andrea raised a cautious finger. For the first time, she spoke. “We can offer you fifty.”

“Who’s this?”

Andrea ignored the question. “Fifty. You’ve got five seconds to decide. One... two—”

“Okay,” the caller said. “Fifty.”

Andrea said, “Done.”

Gerhard gave her a look, as if to say, Are you kidding me?

“I’ll get back to you on when and where,” the caller said. And then he was gone.

Gerhard said, “You got fifty grand up your ass?”

“I don’t have fifty fucking cents,” she said.

She’d already figured out how this would have to be handled. They’d get the bag back from this guy and kill him. But what was really on her mind was Gerhard’s backup plan, that the two of them would run off together to Germany and start new lives.

That was never gonna happen.

Forty-Four

Richard

“I went there,” Bonnie said.

“To Billy Finster’s,” I said.

Bonnie nodded.

“It was stupid, I know. I was so angry, so... enraged by this shit he was pulling, what he was doing to you after you’d already been through so much. You didn’t deserve that. So I... I went there to confront him.”

She sighed. “Even while you were telling me what happened, I knew I was going to do it. Threaten him. Tell him who my sister was. That if he didn’t stop this, I’d see that he got arrested.”