But I did not cry. My heart rate, which had spiked when the phone was snatched from my hands, slowed to a calm, steady rhythm. The suffocating heat of the catering kitchen no longer bothered me. A profound, absolute coldness washed over my entire being. The pathetic attempt at intimidation did not break me.
It merely bored me. I raised my hands slowly. I did not reach for the dirty plates. Instead, I gripped the cuff of the thick yellow rubber glove encasing my right hand. With a smooth, deliberate motion, I peeled the wet rubber away from my skin. It made a sharp snapping sound as I dropped it onto the metal counter.
I did the same with the left glove, letting it fall beside the first. Brenda frowned her triumphant smirk, faltering slightly at my calm defiance. I told you to wash those dishes, she snapped. I wiped my bare, damp hands on the front of the stained catering apron. I looked at the dark soapy water where my device had sunk to its watery grave.
Then I lifted my gaze and locked eyes with my mother. ‘You have fundamentally misunderstood the situation,’ I said, my voice resonating with the chilling authoritative cadence I used to silence hostile defense attorneys. I took a single step forward, forcing Brenda to instinctively step back. The phone you just threw into that sink was not a personal device.
I stated, enunciating every syllable with lethal precision. It was a secure encrypted mobile terminal issued directly by the New York State Judicial System. You just destroyed federal government property and that temporary line of credit you both keep dismissing. That is aggravated identity theft and federal wire fraud.
It is a class C felony. You are looking at a minimum of 20 years in a federal penitentiary. I let the weight of the legal statutes crash down upon them. Brenda stared at me, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to process the magnitude of the words I had just spoken, but the delusion was too deep.
She let out a loud mocking scoff, throwing her head back in forced laughter. A class C felony, Brenda mocked, clapping her hands together. Listen to you throwing around legal jargon like you are some kind of hotshot lawyer. You are a clerk, Caroline. a miserable, underpaid secretary.
You do not have the power to send anyone to prison. Do you really think anyone in the federal government is going to listen to a nobody like you over wealthy business owners like us? I did not smile, but a dark sense of anticipation settled deep within my chest. They had no idea. They had absolutely no idea that the trap had already been set and they had just locked themselves inside it.
