Chapter 12 · Tita Corazon's Dinner

"Sit." Corazon Tan-Velasco didn't look up from her wine glass. "Not her. She stands."

The dining room went quiet except for the AC humming somewhere behind the silk curtains. Jae had one hand on the back of the chair he'd pulled out for me, and now his hand just hung there, useless.

"She's my translator for tonight," he said. "She sits, or I go over the numbers myself, badly, in English you don't trust."

"Translators eat in the kitchen, Mr. Min." Corazon set the glass down without a sound, which was somehow worse than if she'd slammed it. "This isn't a negotiation. This is my house."

I still had the ledger in my bag, strapped across my body like it might grow legs and run off without me. Rosa Santos. First wife. The words had been sitting behind my eyes since the vault, since Jae's face went the color of old paper when I read the line out loud, and now here I was in a dress that wasn't mine, standing behind a chair I wasn't allowed to touch, three