She stood a couple of feet from the bars, glaring at Charlotte. That was smart of her. Charlotte wasn’t to be underestimated and clawing at Cassidy was something I wouldn’t put past her.
“I thought I would come to see how you were holding up,” she said.
“Haven’t you done enough to me already?” Cassidy asked. “You’ve already won. I’m out of the picture like you wanted. Why gloat? It doesn’t become you.”
“This is just something I like to call just deserts,” Charlotte said. “I warned you. You didn’t listen. As unfortunate as this is, you are a lesson that needed to be taught.”
She shook her head. “What happened to you?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Charlotte asked. She was playing coy. I caught the familiar sound of it in her voice. But as I stood back and studied the interaction over the surveillance screens, it took everything in me not to leave the room and ring the woman’s neck.
“What made you this way?” she asked.
“The world made me this way,” Charlotte said, approaching the bars.
“So, you decide to take advantage of women? Of me? I don’t have a lot of money. I had spent months saving up for this vacation. I did nothing to you.”
“You did plenty,” Charlotte spat.
Cassidy took a step back and shook her head. “Like what?”
“You took my men away from me,” she nearly shouted.
“I took no one from you. I didn’t ask them to hang around me. I didn’t know there was some sick and twisted rule that prevented them from sleeping with me. I had no idea that you even played me the way you did until they told me about it.” Cassidy’s voice cracked from the emotion in her words.
“Pitty,” Charlotte said. “So much for loyalty.”
“What?” Cassidy asked.
Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose I’m going to have to punish them now. Thank you, however, for your honesty.”
“Just tell me why you picked me,” Cassidy asked. “And Leave the men out of this.”
“Because you looked like the easiest gullible victim that walked into that lobby,” Charlotte said.
I held my breath. This might be the moment we have been waiting for.
“I didn’t do anything to you,” Cassidy sniffed.
Charlotte laughed. “Oh honey, none of the women I robbed did anything to me except walk into my trap. That’s the beauty of the scheme. I take in the women who have the same weak, pathetic look in their eyes. The ones who are beaten down by their realities and I take everything I can from them because that is how this world works. And I refuse to be a victim.”
I let out a breath and blinked at the screen.
“That’s it,” Spencer said. “We got what we need. Move out.”
I couldn’t believe it. She had admitted to the scam she had been running. That was enough to put her away for a very long time.
A group of men charged into the picture less than a minute later.
“What is the meaning of this?” Charlotte shrilly spoke. “Unhand me now.”
The head detective in charge of the arrest read Charlotte her rights and placed cuffs on her. As she was led away, the detective turned and faced Cassidy.
“You are really brave to have done what you did,” he said.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“No,” he said. “Thank you. Without your help and the help of your men, we wouldn’t have been able to do this.”