His Lesson Killed My Mother Now He Will Pay Chapter 02
The assistant kept pressing.
“Appointments at City Hall are hard to get. Mr. Graham postponed a foundation meeting for this. You can’t just throw this away because you’re upset—”
I hung up and went to a jewelry store.
The clerk held the diamond ring under the light and quoted me eight thousand dollars.
It had never been a real proposal.
During a coaching session, Sloane had mentioned that high-value symbols of commitment could “stabilize a relationship.” The next day, Graham slipped the ring onto my finger and told me to spend less time with my mother and more time on his family’s foundation.
He’d said it was proof of our shared future.
Now, it was just enough to cover my mother’s funeral.
After the sale, I had a little over a thousand dollars to my name.
I had just stepped out of the funeral home when a FaceTime call from Graham came through.
He was standing outside City Hall in the dark gray suit I’d picked out for him, his face a thundercloud.
“Where are you?”
“Handling my mother’s funeral arrangements.”
“That’s not what I asked. Why aren’t you here?”
A soft laugh came from somewhere behind the camera.
Sloane stepped into the frame. She was wearing a sharply tailored suit, and in one hand, she held my passport, my Social Security card, and a stack of my other personal documents.
The night before, I’d gone back to our penthouse to get my ID, only to find the door code had been changed.
Graham had told me that until I learned to “manage my crisis-oriented thinking,” I wasn’t fit to come and go from the home we’d decorated together.
I stared at the papers in Sloane’s hand.
“Why does she have my documents?”
Graham’s tone was breezy.
“Sloane’s holding them for you. She was on the way. Better than you losing them somewhere in a fit of hysterics.”
“Tell her to give them back. Now.”
Sloane lifted the stack of papers slightly. “Nora, what you need right now isn’t your paperwork. It’s to stop manufacturing crises.”
I looked at Graham. “Bring them to the funeral home. You have ten minutes.”
“Come here and apologize first.”
“That’s my property.”
“The apartment is *our* property,” he shot back, his expression turning cold. “And right now, you don’t have the right to enter it.”
I said, each word a block of ice, “Graham. Give me back my documents.”
He stared at me for a beat, then raised a hand and ended the call.