“My suit,” he said softly, “is worth more than you earn in six months.”
“I’m so sorry, sir—it was an accident,” I stammered, heat churning in my chest.
“Apologies are for people who can afford to accept them,” his friend snickered.
Dominic ignored him. Instead, he pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and dropped it onto my trembling tray.
“This covers the dry cleaning.”
Then he reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew something else—something that made my heart stop.
A silver electric razor.
“And this,” he murmured, “covers the lesson. Choose, Harper. I can call your manager right now and have you fired… or you accept your punishment. Right here. Tonight.”
Phone cameras lifted. Faces turned. My palms went cold.
My family needed my income. Rent depended on it. And humiliation was cheaper than unemployment.
Tears blurred everything as I nodded.
He didn’t hesitate. The razor buzzed to life.
I didn’t feel the cold metal—only the burn of humiliation. I kneeled while he ran the blade over my scalp, slowly, deliberately, as people laughed. Hair fell in soft piles around me. Each lock was a piece of my identity disappearing into the carpet.
