I don’t know. I still don’t trust her. She has the ten grand, but she could still talk. It’s risky.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jared says. “She won’t tell.”

I frown and hand him the bulky Nikon. “What makes you so sure?”

“You said she didn’t take the money, so I showed her a good time.”

“Meaning?” I ask, impatient.

“Got her the works at the spa and then snagged some Balmain.” He shrugs. “Figured it’d keep her mouth shut.”

Mei makes a sour face. “Before or after I bought her two fucking Chanel bags?”

My head is already shaking. “Tell me you’re joking.”

They both stare at me, waiting.

“I ended up giving her the ten thousand dollars to cover her tuition,” I tell them.

Jared hands the camera back to me. “Okay, Miss Overachiever. You win. Now, can we do some with me climbing out the water? Got this cool caption about a phoenix I’ve been dying to use.”

Mei laughs. “The phoenix emerges from ashes, not water, you—”

“Will you two focus? I said code red.” My blood feels so hot in my veins, like burning flames. “That bitch. Who the fuck does she think she is? Do you know what I had to do to get that money?”

“You?” Jared gapes at me. “I went over my limit on all my credit cards and you know my situation right now.”

No one says anything else for a while.

Mei takes a long drag of her cigarette and lets the smoke out of her nose.

“We could get rid of her, too,” she says after a moment, looking directly at me. Her eyes flash with something deliciously dark that makes my heart skip a few beats. “Keeping this chick quiet obviously isn’t working.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “What are we, serial killers now?”

“You’re not a serial killer until you kill three people.”

He just stares at her, maybe waiting for a just kidding like I am, but it never comes.

“It’s true,” Mei says with a shrug instead and takes another draw from her smoke. “We need to get her off our backs before this gets out of control and she starts making demands.”

“You really think she’d do that, though?” Jared asks. “She was kinda cool.”

“This is what people do. They get greedy. We’re all milked dry already. What do you think she’s gonna do when we don’t have anything left to give?”

“Okay, we can’t kill her, Mei,” I snap, a lick of frustration in my voice.

That would be messy and stupid.

Mei rolls her eyes. “So what are we gonna do?”

I swallow, running my hand through my blowout, mind churning.

Jared studies me. “Can’t you get Nate to straighten her out?”

I pause. Then fight to keep my voice level, detached. “It won’t work. He’s in love with her.”