Chapter 8 - The Fall of the Boutique
Three days later, Briggs Communications ceased to exist.
The State Ethics Board issued a formal revocation of her business license, citing multiple counts of vendor fraud, falsification of public records, and illegal commingling of personal and corporate capital. Her municipal accounts were assigned to competing agencies, her line of credit was frozen by her bank, and her landlord served her with an eviction notice for her sleek downtown studio.
At two o'clock on Thursday afternoon, I drove my car to her studio.
I didn't go to gloat. I went to collect the twelve thousand dollars her agency still owed Caldwell Events for the Arts Council gala catering contract—a debt that had been secured by a personal guarantee she had signed in my office three weeks ago.
When I walked into the studio, the space was empty.
The velvet sofas were gone, repossessed by the leasing company. The neon sign that read CREATE THE FUTURE had been unhooked from the wall, leaving jagged dark wire holes in the drywall. Cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly across the floor.
Tanya stood behind her glass desk, wearing sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, packing high-end makeup samples into a plastic tote bag.
When she heard my heels against the concrete floor, she turned around.
Her face was swollen, her eyes red-rimmed, her skin pale and blotchy. She looked ten years older than she had on the night of my engagement party.
She looked at me, and her eyes filled with a mixture of raw, burning hatred and profound, terrifying awe.
“Are you happy now, Renee?” Tanya spat, her voice raspy, dropping a stack of notebooks into a box. “You burned my entire life to the ground. Is that what you wanted?”
I walked slowly across the empty studio, stopping on the other side of her glass desk.
“I didn't burn your life down, Tanya,” I said calmly, pulling a legal folder from my bag. “You set the fire yourself when you decided my fiancé was part of your business expansion plan. I just let the wind blow.”
Tanya laughed—a bitter, jagged sound that bounced off the bare walls.
“You played me,” she said, pointing a trembling finger at my face. “You came into my office, brought me pastries, acted like my sister, while you were handing evidence to the state ethics auditors!”
“You sat in my living room for twelve years, drank my wine, let me pay your bills, and held my hand while sleeping with the man I was going to marry,” I replied, my voice perfectly level, without a hint of anger. “Don't talk to me about playing people, Tanya. You were an amateur playing a game with someone who does this for a living.”
I laid the legal folder on her desk.
“What’s this?” she hissed.
“That is a formal demand for payment for twelve thousand dollars,” I said. “For the catering services provided by Caldwell Events at your gala. You signed a personal guarantee, Tanya. If the funds are not in my account by five o'clock tomorrow, my attorney will attach a lien to your personal vehicle and your bank accounts.”
Tanya stared at the folder as if it were a scorpion.
“I don't have twelve thousand dollars, Renee!” she cried out, her voice breaking into a pathetic, desperate whine. “I don't have anything! The bank froze my accounts! My landlord took my deposit! Even Damon won't answer my calls!”
“Damon is currently living in his brother’s spare bedroom trying to avoid federal process servers,” I noted mildly. “I wouldn't rely on him for financial support.”
Tanya dropped into her chair, covering her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Renee, please...” she wept, looking up at me through her fingers, her mascara running down her cheeks. “We were best friends for twelve years. Please... don't do this to me. Give me time. I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
I looked down at her—this woman who had hugged me at my engagement party, who had smiled in my face while holding my fiancé’s hand in a dark hallway.
I felt no hatred. I felt no pity. I felt only the quiet satisfaction of a job well done.
May you like
“We weren't best friends, Tanya,” I said softly. “You were just a bad vendor I took too long to replace.”
I turned on my heel, walked across the empty concrete floor, and stepped out into the bright autumn sunshine, leaving her weeping alone in the ruins of her studio.
