At this time, Ryan pushed through the crowd and came to me.
There was a look of disgust and coldness on his face that I had never seen before.
A male teacher whom I was not familiar with patted Ryan on the shoulder.
"Ryan, you can't be soft on this kind of woman, just give her a good beating and she'll behave herself!"
Ryan's eyes stabbed into me like knives.
He raised his hand.
Bang!
A crisp sound.
My face was burning.
He hit me.
Ryan, my boyfriend of two years, slapped me in front of so many people.
Scarlett immediately started acting and pretended to hold Ryan's arm.
"Hey Ryan, why did you hit me? Let's talk it over nicely!"
As she spoke, she leaned close to my ear and whispered smugly in a voice that only the two of us could hear.
"Rose, for Ryan's sake, I'll give you a way out."
"Take out $20,000 now and forget about it."
I didn't have time to digest this blatant blackmail.
Ryan heard it and shook Scarlett's hand away.
He wasn't feeling guilty towards me, he was mad at Scarlett.
"Scarlett! Are you crazy?"
"She embezzled 100,000 from us, and you asked her to pay back 20,000?"
He stared at Scarlett as if he were a traitor.
"Where are you turning your elbow?"