My gaze settles on Taylor’s friend again and I realize I still don’t know her name. “What’s your name?”

She hesitates, like she’s weighing the consequences of being cordial and responding to me. “Mei. But not like the month.”

That’s not what I was expecting. I thought she’d have a more severe name, something with more edge that would match her demeanor. Mei sounds sweet, too sweet.

I want to ask how she found out where I live, how she knew when I’d be leaving, but she speaks before I can. “We’ll go to Barneys. On me.”

She pats the space she’s made for me next to her.

I almost tell her no, shut the door and walk away.

But some part of me can’t resist. It’s not my fault she, Taylor and that other guy were planning to murder an innocent man loud enough for people to overhear. I didn’t ask for any of this. If anything, they are the ones who owe me. And it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone anyway. I can’t. I already have a ten-thousand-dollar muzzle around my mouth. If she wants to spend her money on me, then who am I to stop her?

As soon as I step into Mei’s car, my phone buzzes with a text. The second weird thing. I don’t recognize the number.

It’s Jared I’m a friend of Taylor’s. U free today?

I don’t know a Jared. I have no idea how this person got my number.

Then I figure it out. It must be the guy who was in that room upstairs, the third person. They must have all planned this, the three of them, to each come after me with separate bribes to keep me quiet, hoping I’d say yes and forget everything.

I text him back.

He wants to know a good time to pick me up later to spoil me, whatever that means. They’re all the same, thinking money can solve all their problems. It definitely won’t solve mine, but it’ll make life a little more fun, at least for now, and as long as they’re offering, I don’t see the harm in taking. Especially not when it’s their fault I no longer have a job.

I tell him when I’ll be free. At the same time I can’t help but wonder what Nate would say.

He wouldn’t like it. He wouldn’t like any of this.

My phone buzzes again. Jared asking me for my address. Which completely throws me off.

So they didn’t plan this together, then? Mei got my address somehow, so why couldn’t he have gone to her for it? I guess it doesn’t really matter, so I send it to him.