Chapter 4 - My Sister Was Forty-Eight Thousand Dollars Behind
Vanessa’s salon looked successful.
Beautiful furniture.
Imported products.
A two-month appointment wait.
Perfect photographs online.
The numbers told another story.
I didn’t have access to her private accounts.
But Vanessa eventually gave me part of the truth herself.
She came to my house.
I did not let her inside.
“You’re destroying my business.”
I stared at her.
“You livestreamed yourself cutting my daughter until she bled.”
“She moved.”
“Don’t.”
Vanessa stopped.
“What was forty-eight thousand?”
Her face changed.
“Nothing.”
“Lily saw it on your phone.”
She folded her arms.
“Business taxes.”
That was only partly true.
Vanessa had fallen behind on payroll taxes, supplier payments, and rent.
A second salon location she opened eighteen months earlier had failed.
She closed it quietly.
Then carried the debt into her original shop.
“Why not tell me?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“So you could save me?”
“I might have helped.”
“That’s exactly why.”
I didn’t understand.
“You love being the successful one.”
There it was.
Something older than Lily.
Vanessa and I had always competed in ways I barely noticed.
I went to college.
She stayed home and trained in cosmetology.
I bought a house first.
She opened a business first.
Our mother praised whichever one of us was doing better that year.
I thought we had grown out of it.
Vanessa had not.
Then I asked about the livestream donations.
She denied stealing anything.
“The campaign is real.”
“Where are the wigs?”
“They take time.”
“Thirty-seven thousand dollars takes how much time?”
No answer.
“And the buyer?”
She looked away.
“What buyer?”
“The man on the recording.”
That frightened her.
Not embarrassed.
Frightened.
Then she said:
“Daniel, stay away from him.”
“Who?”
Silence.
“Vanessa.”
She stepped toward her car.
“Just stay away from that account.”
Hearts4Hair wasn’t simply a fake charity name.
May you like
Apparently someone behind it had been funding Vanessa directly.
And my sister was afraid of him.
