Charity gasped, her face draining of color, "N-No… no! That isn't t-true!"

"Don't try to lie! I know it for a fact!" he snapped. "Now… our hung-up society doesn't like that sort of thing… and one word from me… and they'd be coming to take you away from that lewd and unsavory environment… and you know where they'd put you…? In Juvie!"

Dear God… how could he know? Nobody would know… unless… u-unless D-Donnie told…!

Unbidden tears began to flow unchecked. "N-No… no… oh, my God… n-no!" she sobbed, her heart breaking once again with the realization that, somehow, she had been betrayed, yet another time by someone she loved dearly. "I-It's impossible! Donnie w-wouldn't do that…!"

"What?" Ray shot back. "Lay you?"

"N-No… t-tell anybody… about it…?" she murmured.

"Then… he did! You just admitted it, yourself!" he pursued, relentlessly.

Suddenly, she realized his entrapment of her. She had been so confused, her thinking twisted and her emotions so turned inside out that she had fallen, innocently, into his snare.

"N-No… that's…" she stopped, aghast, her mind a turmoil. Dear God! What could she do?

"It's no good, baby doll! I've got you right where I want you!" he rasped. "Now, by God… we'll play by my rules! You know what I want… don't you…? And, if I don't get it I drop a few hints to the fuzz!"

All of her resources of resistance seemed to drop away from her. She couldn't fight back, any more. There seemed to be nothing but the bleak prospect of doing as he demanded. Her body slumped into a pose of abject defeat.

Then, as if to clinch his argument, Ray added, "… Of course, they'll pick Don up, too… and it's bound to get into the papers!"

"I-I don't believe y-you…" Charity said, forlornly, trying, again, to find some chink in his argument.