Liora's POV
The pen felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as I finally let it go. It rolled across the desk with a tiny, metallic clicking sound. I stared at the paper. My name looked messy. It looked like a scream caught in ink. It was official...I had just traded my life for a heart that was still beating in a hospital three miles away.
Darian didn't waste a second. He didn't offer me a tissue for the tear that had ruined his paper. He didn't say he was sorry. He just reached over my shoulder and snatched the folder away.
He picked up the phone on his desk.
"Wire it," he said. No greeting. No "please." Just a command. "The Hayes account is under Volkov protection now. Tell the surgeons they have the green light. I want a status report every thirty minutes."
He hung up.
Just like that, the world shifted. I felt a strange, hollow relief in my gut. The debt was gone. The landlord couldn't touch us. The hospital wouldn't kick her out. But as I stood there, shivering in my wet pink uniform, I realized that the reason those things couldn't hurt me anymore was because I wasn't Liora Hayes anymore.
I was a Volkov asset...
I was a ghost with a price tag.
"It's done," Xavier said. He stepped forward and handed me a small, thick wet-wipe in a silver packet. Then he held out a bottle of water. The label was fancy. The glass was frosted.
I took the water. My hands were so weak I couldn't even twist the cap.
Xavier took it back, opened it with a crisp click-pop, and handed it back to me. "Drink. You're dehydrated."
The service had begun. It was weird. Ten minutes ago, I was a "piece of trash" blowing in through the vents. Now, I was something that needed to be maintained. Like a vintage car.
Or a thoroughbred horse. They weren't being nice; they were protecting their investment.
I took a sip. The water was cold and tasted like nothing. It was the most expensive thing I'd ever tasted.
"Check the hospital feed," Darian said to Xavier.
Xavier tapped a few things on his tablet and then turned the screen toward me. It was a live video feed. It was grainy and blue-tinted. I saw a hallway. I saw a gurney being pushed through double doors by four people in scrubs.
They were moving fast. They were moving like she mattered.
"Is that her?" I whispered. I leaned closer to the screen, my breath fogging the glass.
"That is the transport to the surgical theater," Darian said. He was standing right behind me again. I could feel the heat of him. "She is in surgery. She has the best cardiovascular team in the country. They don't lose patients, Liora. Not when I'm paying them."
I watched the doors close on the screen. I felt a sob building in my throat, but I pushed it down. I couldn't break now. Not in front of him.
I turned around to face him. Darian was a head taller than me.
In the dim light of the office, his shadow stretched out across the dark wood floor, swallowing me whole. He looked down at me with those frozen eyes. There was no warmth there.
Just a cold, dark satisfaction.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now, we clean you up," Darian said. He looked at my matted hair and the mustard stain on my collar.
He looked at me with a disgust that was so casual it hurt worse than a slap. "You look like a disaster. I can't have a disaster living in my West Wing."
"I have my things," I said, clutching my father's satchel. "In the car. My notebook. My... my clothes."
"Your clothes are being burned," Darian said.
I blinked. "What?"
"Everything you brought with you is being disposed of. You won't need it. You will be provided with a new wardrobe. New toiletries. A new life. The only thing you keep is that bag, and only because Xavier says it has sentimental value."
He said the word 'sentimental' like it was a disease.
"You can't just burn my clothes," I said. My voice was small. I didn't even like those clothes. They were old. But they were mine.
"I can do whatever I want, Liora. Read the contract again if you've forgotten. Page twelve. Personal property rights."
I looked at the floor. He was right. I had signed it. I had signed away the right to own a t-shirt.
"Xavier will take you to the estate now," Darian said. He turned away and sat back down at his desk. He started typing on a keyboard that didn't make any noise. "I have meetings. I expect you to be settled by the time I return tonight."
"Tonight?" I asked. My heart skipped a beat.
Darian stopped typing. He didn't look up. "The first medical evaluation. The doctors need to map your cycle. We don't have time to waste."
I felt a chill go through me. This was it.
"Go," Darian said. It was a dismissal. He was done with me.
Xavier touched my elbow. It was a light touch, but it was firm.
He led me back toward the elevator. I felt like I was walking in a dream. We stepped into the black velvet elevator. The doors slid shut, and the penthouse office vanished.
"He's very direct," Xavier said as the elevator began to drop.
"He's a monster," I said.
Xavier didn't argue.
He just looked at the digital floor counter.
70... 60... 50...
When the doors opened at the bottom, the lobby was still full of perfect people. We walked out into the rain. A different car was waiting. It was bigger. Blacker. The windows were so dark I couldn't see inside.
Xavier opened the door for me. I stepped into the leather interior. It smelled like new car and expensive silence.
As the car pulled away, I looked back at the glass tower. It looked like a giant blade. And I was the one who had walked right onto the edge.
"How far is it?" I asked. My voice sounded weird in the quiet car.
"About forty minutes," Xavier said. He was sitting in the front, looking at his tablet. He wasn't looking at me. "The estate is outside the city. It's private."
I sat back. The leather was cold against my wet uniform. I looked at the window. The city lights were blurring. The neon signs for coffee and movies and cheap shoes were passing by, and I realized I might never see them again. I was leaving the world.
I clutched my father's satchel. It was the only real thing left.
We drove through the rain. The streets got darker. The buildings got smaller.
Soon, there was nothing but trees and the occasional flash of a streetlamp. It felt like we were driving into a hole.
I thought about the "medical evaluation" tonight. I thought about doctors I didn't know looking at me like I was a science project. I felt a surge of panic. I wanted to open the car door and jump out. I wanted to run back to the diner and pretend this was all a nightmare.
But then I saw the tablet screen in the front. Xavier was looking at a heart monitor. Beep. Beep. Beep.
It was her. It was Mom.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cold glass.
"Welcome to the family, Liora," Darian's voice echoed in my head. "Don't bother looking for the exit. You won't find it."
I didn't doubt him. The car kept moving, deeper into the dark, carrying me toward a house that was going to be my whole world.
