Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the Valleti Debt
The room went so quiet Paige could hear the low hum of the air conditioning unit near the window.
Corbin didn't shout. He didn't slam his hand on the desk. He simply stared at Paige for ten agonizing seconds, analyzing her face, her eyes, her posture, searching for any sign of a lie.
He saw none.
"Monica?" Corbin whispered, the name falling from his lips like broken glass.
"She used her left hand to open the clutch while her back blocked the sightline from your table," Paige explained, her training as a nursing student allowing her to describe the physical mechanics with precise accuracy. "She tilted her right hand above the plate marked L. It took her less than three seconds."
"I knew if I said something right then, your mother would have eaten it while you argued. So I moved the plate."
"I didn't know she would convince Tristan to eat his first."
Corbin slowly stood up, walking to the window that overlooked the rain-slicked streets of the city below.
"Monica’s father owes forty million dollars to a secondary offshore gambling syndicate," Corbin said, speaking more to himself than to Paige. "My mother refused to bail her family out three weeks ago."
"If my mother died tonight," Corbin continued, turning back around, "Tristan would have inherited her primary trust control immediately—and Monica controls Tristan completely."
He looked at Paige with a completely different expression—the suspicious hostility gone, replaced by a cold, calculating respect.
"You saved my mother's life," Corbin stated flatly.
"I just did what was right," Paige replied, rubbing her tired eyes. "I know what it’s like to watch a mother die in a hospital room, Mr. Valleti. I wasn't going to let someone cause it on purpose."
Corbin walked back to the desk, picked up his suit jacket, and pulled a sleek leather wallet from his interior pocket.
He pulled out a heavy, black metal card embossed with an encrypted corporate crest and placed it in Paige's hand.
"You aren't going back to wiping tables tonight, Paige," Corbin said, his tone carrying an absolute authority that admitted no argument. "My private security team is escorting you to a secure suite at the Grand Alabaster Hotel."
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"Why?" Paige asked, looking down at the card.
"Because Monica knows the poison hit the wrong person," Corbin answered coldly. "And right now, you are the only witness who can put her behind bars forever."
