Coralyn refused to believe that. “That’s not true. You can’t
mean that. You can’t possibly be that mean.”
This time, the flicker of pain on Giana’s face was more than
just a shadow. It was very real. “You clearly don’t know me
very well, then.” She paused, as if the words had just sunk in
for her. “Alright. I believe that what you did was a spur of the
moment decision. That you hadn’t researched it ahead of time.
It’s clear you’re intelligent, I’ll give you that. You didn’t come
to my office with malicious intent, and you weren’t maniacal
after, when you could have had anything. You put the necklace
back. You could have taken anything in here. Maybe what you
did is even understandable, in a way.” Coralyn started to hope,
but that was crushed immediately. “But none of that actually
matters. You’re leaving right now. You’ll answer when I call
you. Until we fix this, I own you. I own your silence and your
time and your decisions. You’ll accept whatever punishment I
decide to give you. Tell me that you understand and that you’ll
obey.”
It was the worst possible thing she could have said. The
most humiliating. The most controlling. She wanted to
dominate every single aspect of Coralyn’s life. She was
without the least amount of pity, even though she did seem to
understand. Was her heart really that black? It reminded
Coralyn of the Giana in her office, and it made her angry all
over again. She’d forgotten her rage in the face of the kindness
that Giana showed her after. Now, she was doing this on
purpose to scare and intimidate Coralyn, and it was working.
“I understand.”
As she fled out into the night, to her shitty thousand-dollar
car parked in front of a multi-million-dollar house, Coralyn