Cardenas warned me it would not be simple.
Christian had money, lawyers, and a machine built to make any woman who crossed him look exactly like the unstable person his file already described.
“We wait,” she said, “until we have documents his team cannot wave away.” And then, as if he had heard her, my phone rang from a number I didn’t know.
“I know you’re awake, Genevieve,” Christian said, smooth as ever.
“And I know you’re hiding.” I said nothing.
“Think very carefully about your next move,” he went on, and the gentleness in his voice was the same gentleness that had convinced me for five years that I was only safe when I let him decide things for me.
“I can make the entire world believe you’re unwell and bitter and confused.
I’ve already made them half-believe it.
No one will listen to a word you say.” “You spent a year and a great deal of money trying to convince the world I’m falling apart,” I said.
“And here I am, on the phone, clear-headed, telling you no.
I’d think about your next move, Christian.” And I hung up, and shook for twenty minutes, and did not call him back.
That phone call taught me the exact anatomy of his power, and once I saw it, I was never as afraid of him again.
Because his threat was not really a threat to do something.
