“Ms. Summerlin, that’s not—”
“No, no.” Bianca held up a finger. “I’m not finished.”
Cheyenne took a deep breath. She wanted to grin at the dumbfounded expression on Sir’s face, but she held off.
Bianca Summerlin’s on a roll now. You picked the wrong woman to mess with.
“Seeing as Cheyenne has everything she needs and handles it on her own without help from me but with my full support, I imagine the leverage you and your organization used to extort this verbal agreement from my daughter was of a physical nature. Most likely holding her somewhere against her will, if I had to guess.
“Because Cheyenne is also incredibly skilled with negotiating terms of any agreement, verbal or contractual in nature, which is one more of the many things I instilled in her at a very young age, she managed to mold that verbal agreement with you into something that was fair and beneficial to both parties despite the unfair circumstances under which that agreement was made, namely under duress. Cheyenne?”
The drow halfling wiped the hint of a smirk off her face when she looked at her mother and raised her eyebrows.
“Did your end of this verbal agreement include not tampering with the prepaid cell phone these men provided you?”
“No.” Cheyenne bit her lip.
“Did this verbal agreement contain anything along the lines of these men inserting a tracking device into your physical person if you tampered with or otherwise disabled the phone provided to you?”
“No.”
“At any point, were you informed of the tracking device inside the phone they provided you?”
“Nope.”
“Those are very clear-cut answers.” Bianca lifted the Scotch to her lips, set the glass down after another large sip, and took a deep breath. “In your own words, Cheyenne, can you describe the terms laid out by both parties in this verbal agreement?”
Oh, good. Looks like the time of being talked about like I’m not sitting here at this table is up. My turn.
Cheyenne nodded and looked into Sir’s burning eyes. “We agreed that I had to keep the prepaid cell phone on me at all times. That I would be on-call day and night, and as I remember it, ‘even in the shower.’ That I had to answer the phone every time it rang and do exactly what Sir or Rhynehart or whoever was calling me at that number told me to do.”
“Was this the final agreement, or were there any amendments?”
Sir leaned forward in the chair. “Ms. Summerlin, I didn’t come out here to—”
“My daughter deserves the opportunity to answer these questions, Sir. We’ve spent quite enough time already speaking on her behalf.” Bianca looked at her daughter and nodded.
“Yeah. I added a term to that agreement.” Cheyenne caught Sir’s gaze again. “I told them that as long as they didn’t send anyone after me, as long as they didn’t follow me or try to find me without my knowledge, I’d keep the phone and answer it every time it rang. But if I had a feeling they’d sent someone to watch me, I’d get rid of the phone, and they wouldn’t be able to find me again after that.”
“Mm. Did they agree to your terms as well?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Cheyenne.” Bianca nodded and turned to gaze at Sir. “That clears up the situation. Now, to be fair, and because I have a personal interest in this entire affair, can you tell me, Sir, to the best of your ability, if anything my daughter said is untrue?”
Sir licked his lips, his eyes darting between mother and daughter until Cheyenne thought it would make her dizzy. “No. I can’t say that.”
“Would you agree that all of it is true?”
“Uh-huh.”
There he goes, diving right back into regular Sir speech. She’s got him eating out of her hand now.
“Excellent.” Bianca sat back in her chair and nodded. “So now I’ll summarize the rest of it to be sure we’re on the same page. Because clearly, some people have assumed that a clear and mutual understanding isn’t a very high priority. You and your organization lied to my daughter—by omission, admittedly, but that is still considered a lie—and manipulated her into accepting the terms of this verbal agreement that had no business being made, whatever the circumstances were that put my daughter in that situation to begin with. You agreed to her additional terms because you were well aware that you didn’t need to send someone after Cheyenne in person since you’d be tracking this prepaid phone. But you also clearly had no idea what my daughter is truly capable of, and I’d venture to say that that’s still the case. Cheyenne found that tracking device and got rid of it, and you lost your bargaining chip.
“My next conclusion is that you and your organization manufactured a scenario in which the opportunity to insert a second and unrevealed tracking device into my daughter’s person without her knowledge would be provided. Which, let me remind you, breaks more than enough laws than I have the time to recite to you right now. If you’d like me to provide you with a transcript of those laws, however, I’d be more than happy to pull them up for you. But rest assured, included in those potential charges are kidnapping, false imprisonment, and extortion. Have I left anything out?”
Sir expelled a long, irritated sigh. “No. That about sums it up, Ms. Summerlin.”
“Yes. I thought it
