Cindersmellya

As you can tell, this whole thing with Drake and Sloan has gotten me to the point where I am just done.

Seriously, I don't have any more fucks left to give.

Which is why I bring the hammer down hard.

"Let's just suppose that I was wearing such a toy—a bullet, actually—on a certain occasion when my mother came to visit me in my apartment," I say, and reach into my pocket and retrieve the tiny appliance.

"And let's just say that it was set to record any sort of sounds or speech that occurred near me," I say with a mischievous smile.

There's no more need to say anything. I push a button on my phone and hold the bullet close to the

microphone. There's a few seconds of static and then you can hear some rustling.

I fast forward to the point where I need to be.

You can now hear my mother's voice.

"Honestly, Natalie, I'm warning you," she says out loud. You remember this part right?

"If you don't get out of this filthy sex toy business, you're not going to be considered my daughter any longer," she screeches.

"And so what?" I shout back from the recording. "It's not like you were ever a mother to me!"

There's a sound of a slap.

"You ungrateful little bitch!" you can hear the yelling. "You better watch your back, baby girl. Because I'm about to destroy both you, your stepdad, and your stepbrother."

This is where I had drawn my breath at the anger in her eyes.

"I'll make the world hate you! To the point where they close your business down for you! And by the time I'm done destroying the three of you, they'll be wanting to make me a saint for putting up with you," Mom says. I'm lucky she was talking directly at me.

"You wouldn't," I say, shocked. "Not to your own family."

"I hate all three of you," she says. "And with the reporters I have in my payroll, you're going to watch Sloane and Drake suffer."

The sound of a door slamming shut comes out. That's where Mom left.

I turn off the bullet.

"Are you sure you're upset at the wrong people?" I ask with a smile.

There's a moment. A very brief moment of quiet.

And then ... chaos.

Flashes from cameras. People yelling questions. Shouting.

A few reporters who were yelling questions from the front are silent. They've gone a bit green.

No doubt they were working for Mom.

I watch them try to slink out. But the crush of the reporters and pedestrians who want to come closer is too much.

I'm about to take questions when I feel a hand on my back.

Drake is standing there. Sloane is smiling.

"You've done enough, Natalie," he says with a smile. "Let's leave them be and go upstairs."