“Let her hear. I raised you by myself your whole life. Your father left when you were three. I worked two jobs, and now you marry this cold piece of work and you can’t even help me properly.”
Darius mumbled something unintelligible.
“We have to act,” Ms. Sterling hissed. “Do you understand? Otherwise, we won’t get anything. She’s not stupid. Look how she twisted things. ‘Sell your condo,’ she says. Easy for her to say. She has everything.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
A pause.
Kiana held her breath.
“I was thinking maybe you can get the PIN for her card,” Ms. Sterling said. “You have access to her purse, right? Check it. The card is in there. Then I’ll withdraw the money quickly tonight before she even notices. And in the morning, we’ll say the card was stolen on the bus or at the grocery store, for example.”
Silence so thick that Kiana could hear her own heart beating.
“Are you serious?” Darius’s voice was tense, but not indignant—more like intrigued.
“Absolutely. Listen, she won’t even notice right away. It’s not like she keeps tabs on it. She’s got over a hundred and twenty thousand. What’s the big deal if we take some? We’ll split it later. Half for you, half for me. That’s fair, right?”
Another pause.
“I don’t know, Mom. That’s risky.”
“Risky? What risk? She won’t even figure it out. And if she does, so what? You’ll say you didn’t know anything. A hacker compromised the account. That happens all the time.”
“What if she calls the bank?”
“So what? The bank will shrug. Security failure. But the card was on her. No one but her knew the PIN. She’ll blame herself for not being careful. Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
Kiana slowly closed the door.
Everything inside had frozen solid.
