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“You want to talk about the case, right?”
Well, if she’s going to get right into it, so am I. “Why are you backtracking, Patricia?”
She plops down on her twin sized bed, clasping her hands together. “Andries, I’m on the cusp of being poor. Karl’s lawyer contacted me and offered me fifty thousand euros to drop the case. That’s more money than I’ve ever had at one time. If I go to court, I might lose and then end up with nothing. It’s a better deal than I ever could have hoped for.”
“I don’t understand. Patricia. To Karl, fifty thousand is nothing. Plus this isn’t just about money, anyway. You’re doing it so things like this don’t happen to any other girls.”
“I know, I know, but I also have to look out for myself.” She pauses as she thinks something through before her attention returns on me. “Why do you care so much about this, anyway?”
I hate having to talk about this for the second time in twenty-four hours, but there is no help for it. “Because not too long ago, I was visiting a country where sexual survivors didn’t matter. Here your voice counts, so you have to use it.”
Patricia looks stricken, her eyes misting over. She quickly looks away from me and out the dorm window, most likelyruminating over my words, but she purses her lips and shakes her head. “I don’t have a choice, Andries.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll pay you the fifty thousand.”
She jerks her gaze back to me, and I can tell she doesn’t believe me until she sees the sincerity in my gaze. “You’re serious?”
I nod. “What happened to you could happen to any other girl. I want to stop that if I can.”
“I…” she lets her words trail off, collecting her thoughts. “I never would have expected this. If I want to take your deal, what do I need to do?”
“Just call your lawyer and tell him you want to go through with the case.”
As if on autopilot, she pulls her phone out and makes the call on speakerphone. The lawyer answers, sounding glad to hear from her, until she tells him why she’s calling, causing him to bluster in disbelief.
“Patricia, that settlement is an extraordinarily generous offer! You should accept it.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “But I have to do what’s right.”
He still sounds flabbergasted, but the lawyer quickly collects himself. “Mr. Townsend wants this case gone more than anything. I’m confident I could get double the offer. Would you drop it for a hundred thousand?”
Patricia’s glance flicks over to me and then back to her phone screen. “Hold on one second,” she tells the lawyer, hitting mute so he won’t be able to hear the two of us.
“Can you do a hundred thousand?” she asks bluntly. The words could have knocked me out of my chair. They shocked me so much.
I can’t say anything at first. This entire time, Patricia had been purely a victim in my mind, but with this one question, she has telegraphed that she values money over justice… even whenit’s justice for herself. Suddenly, I can see why she’d have taken that escort job and asked for more. For her, it’s money above all and I was just too naive to see it through.
Still, what choice do I have? Karl being put in jail means the safety of countless other women, which means I have to support Patricia and her case no matter what. Stomach churning, I nod. “I can, but you have to do something for me.”
She looks bewildered. “What?”
The idea had been in the back of my mind for a while as a last-ditch effort, but now that she was going to try and manipulate me even when I wanted to do the right thing, I decide that I can push her a little further.
“I want you to do a TV interview with a reporter I know. About the dark side of escorting. What do you think?”
She chews on her lip while she considers it. “Going on TV, might open some doors,” I add.
Finally, she nods once. “Okay, fine.”
I explain that she’ll get twenty-five thousand from me after she signs a contract drawn up by my own lawyer that guarantees she won’t back out, another twenty-five thousand once the interview is finished, and the rest once the case is settled. She agrees, bringing her phone back up to her mouth and turning the mute off.
“It’s non-negotiable. I want to go through with the trial.”
The lawyer, clearly pissed about being left on hold for so long and being dragged around by Patricia’s mercurial wants and needs, is short with her. Once she’s off the phone, Patricia looks shell-shocked, but also excited. It’s easy to see why; after a single phone call, she had guaranteed herself double the money she had been previously expecting.
I feel ill as I leave her dorm, questioning everything from Patricia's intentions to the thing I’m about to do. Nothing canever be easy or consistent. It always has to be as complicated as possible, and I feel like I’ll never have any peace from all of this.
My phone feels like a grenade in my hand, and once I make this call, the pin will have been pulled. Still, what else can I do? Following my plan, I’ll not only get Karl on trial, but I’ll also expose the dark side of escorting to the world like I’ve always wanted. It had to be done.
