The girl at the front desk nodded, her eyes rimmed red. “That's exactly what she said at the time……”
I opened my mouth to explain, but the evidence was airtight.
Had I lost my memory? Had I really brought the duck for her?
But why couldn't I remember a single thing about it?
Right then, Freya's husband Tyler Dickerson came charging into the hotpot house.
He wore a rumpled jacket, dark circles under his eyes, and the second he was through the door he threw himself down beside Freya. “Babe! What happened to you!”
Something startled flickered in Freya's eyes, and her lips trembled. “Honey……weren't you away on a work trip……how are you back……”
But the next second she was crying even harder. “Our baby's gone……it's all my fault, I didn't protect him……it was Cora……”
Hearing that, Tyler whipped his head around and glared at me, his eyes shot through with red.
He grabbed a chair beside him and was about to hurl it when two male customers pinned him down hard.
“You bitch! My wife's pregnant, and you still bring her out for the spiciest hotpot? You did it on purpose, didn't you?”
“Now my son is gone! Either you pay up, or you pay with your life!”
He roared, veins bulging at his temples.
Freya clung to her husband, weeping like a willow in the rain. :
“It's not entirely Cora's fault……that box of braised duck, her parents made it with their own hands……and it killed our son……”
Tyler bellowed, “Then her parents can go to the grave with him!”
The fury of everyone around us caught fire completely.
“This is murder! A poisonous friend like her deserves to rot in hell!”
“That hotpot house her parents run needs to be looked into too! What kind of decent person could a family like that ever raise!”
“I know the address! I looked it up! Let's go over right now and trash the place!”
Someone actually pulled out a phone and started up the directions, ready to go wreck the restaurant.
Someone else got ready to livestream the whole thing.
I watched it all unfold, my hands and feet going cold.
I'd switched restaurants, I'd prepared for everything, so why had it still come to this?
Cradled in her husband's arms, a faint, almost imperceptible flash of triumph crossed Freya's weak face.
She looked at the diners around her holding up their phones to livestream the spectacle, and at the patrol car outside, its lights flashing, its siren growing clearer by the second.
I suddenly smiled, and walked up to Freya.
She shrank back warily. “What are you trying to do? I even begged my husband to go easy on you……”
I said nothing. I just reached out and unpinned the little silver brooch from her chest.
It was a brooch shaped like a butterfly.
I'd pinned it onto her hoodie with my own hands earlier today when I picked her up, telling her it was a souvenir I'd brought back from my trip.
The moment Freya saw it was a designer piece, she'd been over the moon.
What she didn't know was that there was a pinhole camera set inside that brooch.
From the moment she got in the car until now, every image and every sound had been recorded.
Including exactly where that box of duck had come from.
In fact, even Tyler, this testosterone-fueled brute who owed a million in online loans and beat Freya every single day, had been quietly brought here by someone I'd sent.
His wife was about to put on a big show at the hotpot house tonight, so as her husband, how could he not be present?
And his arrival was the biggest variable in Freya's plan.
In this life, I would never again let him become the blade in Freya's hand that killed my parents!
I held the brooch up in my palm, displaying it to the crowd, then opened the monitoring app on my phone. :
“Everything that really happened is recorded right here. Does everyone want to see it?”
At those words, the color drained from Freya's face in an instant.
Heedless of how weak her body was, she lunged forward and grabbed my wrist. :
“Don't! Cora, I'm begging you!”
Tyler stalled for a beat, then flung her hand off him. "She killed our son. I'm not letting her off! What are you scared of? Let her play it!"
