He brought his phone to her face. It was a picture of two people, Liza’s and Dorsey’s faces pasted on them. The man was vigorously fucking the woman from behind and whipping her with some sort of medieval contraption—while the woman shouted out, “Master!” Liza looked away, practically vibrating with shame.

“We have a cousin in the permit office,” she told WIC, her voice softened. “I’m sure I can get her to slow things down.”

“That should buy us some time to do more fundraising. How’s my proposal coming along?” WIC’s smile lit up the room. It was like she’d been kicked out of some enchanted garden. Everyone was having fun but her.

“It’s coming.” That was all Liza was willing to say. Her shame was transforming into a slow simmer. What did he mean to do by showing me that disgusting video?

WIC touched her shoulder. “Fine, be mysterious. You’re beautiful when you’re mysterious.” Liza saw Bev elbow Janae out of the corner of her eye. Liza was about to let them know she saw them, but she was stopped short when LeDeya walked out of the spacious hotel closet with a scarf around her head and thigh-high boots.

“Deya, what are you wearing?” Janae asked.

“It was in the boxes WIC brought up.”

“My gifts are better and you can wear them home,” WIC said, winking at Liza.

“You brought us head wraps?” Liza asked. She hoped to heaven this man was not thinking of converting her into any of this head-wrapping nonsense. She worked too hard laying her edges to see them go to waste.

“Modesty is the true source of beauty,” WIC said and winked at Bev.

“That’s why I always keep a modesty cloth over my knees for church,” Bev said. Liza bit the inside of her cheek. Bev was perhaps the most immodest person she knew.

“I also think that you all would be perfect faces for the movement. Janae, I know you can work your pageant magic to bring awareness to this fundraising campaign. Liza, your social media following is enormous, and Deya is even attracting a large following with her makeup tutorials.”

“You know about my tutorials?” LeDeya’s eyes were saucers.

WIC nodded. “You’re quite the businesswoman.”

LeDeya beamed, but Liza frowned. She was already spending a lot of her extra time writing a proposal. She also didn’t like that he had researched her sisters to rope them into the effort. Janae especially hated doing pageant work, trading her face to add value to a friend’s tire shop or a new grocery store chain. If he had researched them, why wouldn’t he have asked Janae, with her finance degree, to do this damn proposal? Not that she would have been fool enough to do any of this for free. Liza took a deep breath.