Chapter 2 The Cold Room

The security guards arrived in under two minutes.Three of them. All massive. The kind of men hired specifically to be intimidating. They took one look at me on the floor with pasta sauce in my hair and Ryan standing over me and their faces went blank. Professional. Like this was just another Tuesday.

"Thank god you're here," Ryan said. Her voice had changed. Shaky now. Scared. Playing a role. "This woman forced her way past reception. She's been making threats. Claiming she's pregnant with Mr. Maxwell's baby."

"That's not true!" I scrambled to my feet. "I didn't force my way anywhere. I'm his wife. My name is Rebecca Maxwell. Please, just check my ID..."

One of the guards stepped forward. Older. Shaved head. Dead eyes. "Ma'am, you need to calm down."

"I am calm! I just need someone to listen..."

"We're listening. And what we're hearing is that you're trespassing."

"I'm not trespassing! This is my husband's company!"

Ryan held up her phone. "I have everything on video. Her admitting she's trying to trap Mr. Maxwell. Her showing me fake documents."

What video? She hadn't been recording. Had she?

"Please," I said. Looking at each guard. Trying to find something human in their faces. "Please just call James. That's all I'm asking. One phone call and this whole thing gets cleared up."

The younger guard looked uncomfortable. "Maybe we should..."

"Should what?" Ryan cut him off. "Interrupt a two hundred million dollar deal because some random woman showed up with a fake pregnancy test? You want to explain that to Mr. Maxwell?"

The younger guard went quiet.

"Check my phone," I said desperately. "It has pictures of us. Our wedding photos. Everything..."

"Your phone?" Ryan walked over to where my purse contents were still scattered on the table. Picked up my phone. It was in a blue case. Matching the one James had. We'd bought them together as a stupid couple thing that made us laugh.

Ryan saw the matching case. Her jaw tightened.

She dropped the phone on the floor.

And stepped on it with her heel.

The screen shattered. She ground her heel down harder. Plastic cracking. Glass breaking.

"No!" I lunged for it but the guards held me back. "That had everything... all our photos..."

"Burner phone," Ryan said to the guards. "They use them to catfish wealthy men online. Probably stole Mr. Maxwell's information from social media."

She destroyed it completely. Ground it into pieces under her expensive heel until there was nothing left worth saving.

Two years of photos. Every text message. Every voice memo James left me when he was traveling. Our entire life together. Gone.

"You bitch," I said. Couldn't help it. The word just came out.

Ryan's smile was thin. Sharp. "Is she getting violent? Because it sounds like she's getting violent."

"I'm not..."

The older guard twisted my arm behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulder. I screamed.

"Resisting will make this worse," he said in my ear.

"I'm not resisting! I'm just..."

"Take her to server room C," Ryan said. "Let her cool off for a while."

Server room C. I knew what that meant from the building tour James had given me last year. The server rooms were kept cold. Really cold. To protect the equipment.

"No. Please. You can't..."

"Actually I can," Ryan said. "I'm Chief of Staff. Mr. Maxwell left me in charge while he's away. Which means I make the calls about security threats."

The guards started dragging me toward the door. I tried to fight. Tried to pull away. But they were too strong and I was too small and nothing I did made any difference.

"Please!" My voice cracked. "I'm pregnant! You can't put a pregnant woman in..."

"You're not pregnant," Ryan said. Each word flat. Final. "You're a liar. And liars need to learn consequences."

They pulled me out of the conference room. Down the hallway. Past the reception desk where that woman who didn't believe me was watching with wide eyes. Past offices where people looked up from their desks and then quickly looked away.

Nobody helped.

The service elevator took us down. Not to the lobby. Lower. To the sub-levels where the mechanical rooms were.

The hallway down here was different. Concrete floors. Flickering fluorescent lights. Everything smelled like machinery and cold air.

Server room C was at the end of the hall.

The older guard unlocked it. Cold air rushed out. Like opening a freezer.

"Wait," the younger guard said. "How long are we..."

"Until she admits the truth," the older one said. "Ms. Chen's orders."

They shoved me inside.

The door slammed shut.

The lock clicked.And I was alone in the cold.