Betrayed ✔️

Chapter 12: "Blackmail"

ADA

"WHERE DID YOU get that?" Naomi hissed. Her chest rose and fell with each laboured breath she took, her voice weary and skin pale as if she'd just witnessed a spectre rising from the grave.

I waited for the door to click shut before dropping my act.

I took a seat and propped my left leg on the chair, resting my elbow on top of it. "If I'd known that was all it would take to make you talk, I'd have opened the meeting with it."

"Where did you get that?"

I tsked and tiled my head back. "So many questions, my God! People must've hated you back in the day."

"Answer me! Or I'll–"

I chuckled darkly, my mouth dropped and my eyes widened in mock surprise. "Are you threatening me? Do you really think you're in a position to threaten me?"

Naomi drew back and inhaled sharply like I'd struck her. A hot flush crept up her neck and flooded her cheeks. "I know who you are. I can destroy you, Adelaide."

I whistled lowly and chuckled. "Adelaide, huh? Damn, I haven't heard that name in a long time."

Naomi pushed on eagerly, naively thinking she had found my weak spot. "Yes! I know everything about you. I can destroy your entire–"

"Stop." I pressed my fingers against my temple. "Your voice is giving me a migraine...this information you have about me, did you check to see how recent it is?"

Naomi's eyebrows furrowed and she tilted her head to the side. "What?"

"Did you check how recent the information is?" I repeated, a slow smile spread across my face. "You would only have found things from until...four years ago, correct?"

Naomi paled and pushed herself away from the desk. "What- what are you talking about?"

I sighed and laughed quietly. "I know that you visited the Information Guild and tried to get information on me, or to be specific, on Analyst Ada Wilson, right?"

Naomi's eyes darted around the room and she drew into herself. "H-how did you know? The Guild wouldn't betray its customers like that!"

"Yeah well." I tugged my shirt collar down, revealing a small tattoo nestled underneath my collar bone. "I'm kind of a regular there."

To the untrained eye, this tattoo wouldn't be remarkable. An intricate butterfly with half of its wing dyed a deep red and the other half filled with impossibly tiny detail filled inside. It looked like the sort of thing a deep, soulful person would get- possibly to commemorate the loss of a loved one.

But Naomi instantly recognised it.

"Now then," I said, my voice as soft as the finest silk. I leaned forwards. "You're going to tell me everything I need to know or everything you own and everything you hold dear–" I gestured grandly to her office. "–will disappear with a snap of my fingers." I clicked my middle finger and thumb together. The sound cracked the silence in two equal halves.

Naomi flinched and recoiled away. It was an amusing sight. She had been so confident that she could beat me. It was honestly borderline disrespectful. She rushed into things too quickly, not taking the time to properly do her research. And look where that got her, huh?

Naomi clenched her fists and then relaxed them, her head hung aside in plain defeat. "What- what do you want?"

I giggled, unable to help myself. She sounded and looked like a petulant child who, after much whining and begging, had resigned themselves to their elder's wishes.