Todd's Face
Chapter 03 - Todd's Face
For a long moment, nobody in the hallway moved.
Todd's eyes darted between Grace and the scattered boxes, clearly trying to recalculate every assumption he'd walked in with that afternoon.
"This is a joke," he said finally, though his voice lacked the confidence to fully commit to the claim. "You don't own a building. You're three days late on rent, for God's sake."
"I was three days into the grace period explicitly stated in my lease," Grace said evenly. "Which you'd know if you'd actually read the leases you're supposed to be enforcing."
Todd's jaw tightened.
"I don't believe you," he said, though something in his eyes suggested he was already starting to.
Grace pulled out her phone again and showed him the confirmation email from her attorney, the transaction details visible enough to remove any lingering doubt.
Todd stared at the screen for a long moment, color draining slowly from his face as the reality settled in.
"I want you to know," he said, some of his earlier bravado returning as a defensive crouch, "I was just doing my job efficiently. Ashford Group has strict policies about late payments. Nothing personal."
"You threw a woman's dishes into a hallway and called her sweetheart in front of her neighbors," Grace said. "That's not policy enforcement, Todd. That's cruelty you've apparently enjoyed getting away with."
*Flashback: eighteen months earlier, saving her first few hundred dollars toward the building purchase in a separate account Todd knew nothing about, working extra shifts at the hospital, turning down small luxuries she'd wanted for years, driven partly by a growing, specific need to protect this building and the people in it from exactly this kind of treatment.*
Todd's composure cracked further.
"I'm sure we can discuss appropriate compensation for today's misunderstanding," he said, voice shifting into something almost pleading now. "This doesn't need to affect my position here."
"It absolutely does," Grace said. "I'll be reviewing your employment formally, along with the building's entire tenant complaint history, starting immediately."
Todd's face went through several rapid transformations, disbelief, panic, and finally something like desperate calculation.
"You can't just fire someone with fifteen years of property management experience over one bad afternoon," he said.
"We'll see," Grace said simply, already turning to help Diane gather the scattered belongings from her hallway floor.
As Todd retreated down the hallway, muttering something about needing to "sort this out properly," Grace crouched down and began collecting her things, hands steady now despite the chaos of the last twenty minutes.
Diane knelt beside her, helping fold a scattered sweater.
"Are you all right, dear," Diane asked quietly.
"I think so," Grace said. "Better than I expected to feel, honestly."
"That man," Diane said, glancing down the now-empty hallway, "has needed someone to stand up to him for a very long time."
Grace looked at her neighbor, something in Diane's tone suggesting there was considerably more history there than Grace had ever been privy to.
"What do you mean," she asked carefully.
Diane hesitated, then seemed to reconsider whatever caution had kept her quiet until now.
"Why don't you come have tea with me," she said. "Once you've got your things settled back inside. I think there's quite a lot you should probably know now, given everything that just happened."
Grace nodded, curiosity and something like protective instinct already stirring in her chest.
May you like
*This isn't just about my humiliating afternoon anymore. This is bigger than that.*
*I can feel it.*
