Breaking The Rules

Chapter 9

Sandra's POV

“My parents have promised to get back to me. We have less than 98 hours left now.”

My voice sounded hollow, like it was floating up from the bottom of a dark well as I narrated the nightmare of Tony's collapsing company to Deborah. She had come straight around to the store, she always did when things got heavy, but today she had arrived early because she knew how desperately I needed to unburden my chest.

Midway through our conversation, my phone buzzed against the polished wood of the desk. I snatched it up and instinctively silenced the call. It wasn't that I was doing something illicit with him, but lately, every interaction with Harrison felt dangerous, something that needed to be locked away in a closed, suffocating space. Not after the vile, humiliating demand he made when I had gone to him begging for help.

I had sworn to myself, on everything holy, that I would never breathe a word of that encounter to a single living soul. I kept feeding myself hollow lies, whispering that we would somehow claw our way out of this debt, desperately trying to squash that persistent, venomous voice in the back of my mind reminding me that it was only a matter of time before Harrison finally claimed what he wanted.

“Who was that?” Deborah asked, her sharp eyes narrowing slightly.

“Who?” I deflected instantly, hiding behind a mask of forced ignorance.

“The person you clearly didn't want to take a call from,” she persisted, refusing to let it drop.

“Oh,” I hissed out a frustrated breath. “It’s just Stefan. He’s being impossible, and I am simply not in the mood to argue with him right now,” I lied, my heart stuttering against my ribs at how easily the deception rolled off my tongue.

“Hmm. Stefan is such a stubborn mule,” she remarked, shaking her head, thankfully buying the excuse.

Less than ten minutes ticked away into our strained silence before a sharp, intrusive ping pierced the air.

A notification.

A cold dread pooled in my stomach before I even touched the device. My instincts screamed warning bells, and the moment I swiped up the screen, they were confirmed.

Harrison.

Every rational thought in my head screamed at me to lock the screen, to throw the phone across the room and pretend I never saw it. But that morbid, paralyzed curiosity pulled me in, forcing my eyes to scan the words he had laid out like a trap:

Hey, baby girl. You really think ignoring my calls is going to freeze the clock? Your husband's time is bleeding out, second by second. I know you're sitting there taking comfort from that hypocrite you call a best friend. If you only knew what she’s been doing behind your back …

For one agonizing second, the entire room seemed to tilt on its axis. My heartbeat flatlined, then crashed wildly against my throat.

Hypocrite?

Deborah and I had history. Decades of it. We had weathered college dorms, heartbreaks, and life's cruelest storms together, transitioning from best friends to something much closer, sisters bound by blood and trust.

Yet Harrison moved like a phantom through this city. He possessed wealth that could bend reality, and secrets, so deep nobody could ever imagine them. That terrifying omnipotence was precisely what made my chest heave, every breath turning into a struggle for air.

“Why are you glaring at me like that?”

Her voice shattered the trance, dragging me violently back to the glaring fluorescent lights of my office.

“Deborah?” I breathed out, disoriented.

“You seriously need to look in a mirror right now,” she chuckled lightly, leaning forward. “You look like you've seen a ghost, completely frozen.”

How could she laugh? How could she sit there treating this like a lighthearted joke when my entire world was collapsing piece by piece?

How do I even start confronting her? What if Harrison is lying?

Yes. That had to be it. It was a calculated psychological tactic. He would tear down the pillars of my sanity, dismantling my support system one brick at a time, just to ensure I had nowhere else to turn but his bed.

God, my temples throbbed as if a vice were tightening around my skull. I was teetering on the edge of absolute madness.

“Sandra, are you okay? You have been acting utterly bizarre ever since that phone buzzed,” Deborah pressed, her voice laced with genuine concern. “Did something happen at home with Tony?”

Her relentless, caring questions, normally a comfort, felt like claws scraping against raw nerves. The sheer pressure of the lies, the clock ticking down, and the poison of Harrison's words snapped something inside me.

“Shut up!” I yelled, the sound tearing out of my throat before I could stop it.

She flinched back as if she’d been physically struck, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief.

“Yes. Just shut the f**k up!” I screamed, shoving my chair back and stumbling to my feet. “What is it with you? Why do you always have to pry into every single thing happening in my life?”

I saw the utter devastation and confusion fracture across her face. Part of me, a tiny, terrified fraction of my soul, screamed at me to swallow my pride, to bite my tongue and apologize. But the toxic stew of panic, betrayal, and Harrison's whispers kept the rage boiling over in my veins.

Let it all out, a dark voice urged. Break it all down.

“Are you seriously talking to me like this right now?” Deborah asked, her voice trembling slightly with hurt.

“Yes, I am! What’s the difference between you and everyone else tearing me apart? Tell me!” Tears burned hot and fast down my cheeks, blinding me.

“Sandra, what on earth is happening to you? Right now, you are not yourself, you need to calm down—”

“Don't you dare tell me to calm down!” I slammed my hands down on the desk, leaning over it. “I trusted you! I called you, my sister, I gave you everything!”

She stood up slowly, staring at me as if looking at a stranger, her expression locked in pure bewilderment. But my poisoned mind whispered that it was all an act, that whatever Harrison had dug up, whatever web he had spun, was real.

“Listen to me,” Deborah said, her voice dropping into a desperate, pleading register, stepping closer. “I don't know what kind of poison someone has poured into your ear about me, but jumping to conclusions without letting me speak is insane, Sandra. Our friendship survived things much worse than this. Come on”

The final word broke over me like a match to gasoline. My next statement dropped like a guillotine blade.

“So, indirectly . . . you’re calling me crazy?”

“No! Sandra, you damn well know that’s not what I meant …”

“Well, that’s exactly what you just threw right into my face!” My voice cracked, raw and jagged with hysteria.

“Sandra, please—”

“Get out of my office.”

The words weren't a request. They were an execution order.

“What?” Deborah let out a dry, disbelieving laugh, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Are you seriously kicking me out of your office, Sandra?”

Panic-stricken that I might fold, that I might break down and cry in her arms and undo everything, I hardened my

heart.

“Tiana!” I screamed toward the outer door.