The deadline on the administrator’s notice followed me through the next hour like a countdown.
Tomorrow. Midnight.
I pulled the IV from my arm and swung my feet onto the floor. My knees buckled immediately. I caught the bedside table, sending Darcy’s vase crashing onto the tile.
The ceramic shattered among the bruised daisies.
A Palmer security guard entered before I reached the door. “Get back in bed, Ms. Sterling.”
I picked up a jagged piece of the vase and held it against the side of my neck.
His expression changed.
“Take me to Felix.”
“Put that down.”
“Your employer wants control, not a corpse. Decide which one you are delivering.”
The guard touched his earpiece, spoke in a low voice, then stepped aside. “You are going to regret this.”
“I ran out of things to regret ten years ago.”
A car took us directly to Palmer Group headquarters. I wore a hospital gown beneath a borrowed coat, and my bare feet were shoved into disposable slippers. Every bump in the road sent pain through my pinned fingers.
The private elevator opened into Felix’s corner office.
He sat on a black leather sofa with his jacket removed and his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Darcy lounged beside him, winding his tie around one finger.
She looked at my bandaged hand and smiled. “The patient escaped.”
I crossed the room and dropped to my knees on the wool rug.
“Restore the guarantee,” I said.
Felix took a slow drink of water. “You broke into my office.”
“Your guard brought me.”
“You threatened him.”
“My grandmother will die.”
Darcy leaned against Felix’s shoulder. “People die every day.”
I looked only at him. “Take the studio. Take the Sterling shares. Take the licensing income. I will sign whatever you want, but authorize her surgery first.”
Felix set down his glass. “You still think you negotiate from a position of value.”
“I am offering everything I own.”
“You own what I permit you to keep.”
He rose and crossed the room. The toe of his shoe slid beneath my chin and forced my face upward. His gaze lingered on the reopened edge of my stitches.
“You are bleeding on my rug.”
“I do not care.”
“I know.” His mouth curved without warmth. “That is the problem.”
He moved to his desk and brought back a thick document packet. It landed in front of my knees.
The first section assigned my remaining Sterling assets to a Palmer-controlled trust. The second transferred all past and future licensing income from my legal artwork. The third granted Felix durable financial power of attorney. The final section recorded my agreement to enter Willow Creek for a thirty-day residential evaluation while his attorneys sought a temporary guardianship order.
I turned the pages with my left hand. “This would let you control every decision I make.”
“That is the point.”
“And if I refuse?”
“East District receives no payment.”
Darcy stood and walked behind me. “Maybe she needs help understanding.”
Her heel touched the back of my hospital slipper.
Felix held out a silver fountain pen. “Sign.”
I took it.
The nib reached the signature line.
Felix stepped on my left hand.
The pen snapped. Black ink sprayed over the contract and my fingers as his heel ground my knuckles into the floor.
I cried out and tried to pull free, but he increased the pressure.
“I did not give you permission yet,” he said.
My right hand was immobilized. My left hand burned beneath his shoe. I had no way to protect myself and no time to waste.
“What else?” I gasped.
Felix looked toward Darcy.
She had moved to the sofa, where one of her friends now held a phone at chest height. I had not noticed the woman enter. The camera lens pointed directly at me.
Felix removed his foot. “Darcy’s reputation was damaged yesterday. You will repair it.”
“How?”
“You will state, on camera, that the studio confrontation began because you attacked her.”
“That is a lie.”
“So is the story you intended to tell the police.”
“I have stitches in my face.”
“You fell against a broken easel.”
My stomach twisted. “No one will believe that.”
“They do not need to believe it. They need to doubt you.”
Darcy picked up a tablet from the coffee table and turned the screen toward me. A draft statement had already been prepared in my name. It accused me of obsessive behavior, claimed I had copied Darcy’s appearance for years, and described her as the frightened victim of an unstable former employee. Beneath it waited a release authorizing Palmer Group to distribute the recording to the press, the hospital, and any court reviewing Felix’s guardianship petition.
“You planned this before I arrived,” I said.
Felix’s expression did not change. “I plan for every likely outcome.”
“And if I refuse to perform?”
Darcy tapped the hospital portal open on the tablet. My grandmother’s account appeared beneath a red payment hold.
“The administrator is waiting for one call,” she said. “Felix can restore the guarantee, or he can confirm the withdrawal.”
I looked at the timestamp in the corner. Less than sixteen hours remained.
Felix crouched, bringing his face level with mine. “This is not about whether the statement is true. It is about whether you are finally willing to choose her life over your pride.”
He knew the answer before he asked.
Darcy crossed one leg over the other and extended her hand. Felix’s engagement ring flashed beneath the office lights.
“Apologize properly,” she said.
Felix placed a clean copy of the contract on the floor.
“Get on your knees,” he ordered.
“I am already on them.”
“Then crawl to Darcy, kiss her ring, and tell the camera three times that she is the real artist and the future Mrs. Palmer.”
The woman filming gave a delighted little laugh.
I looked from the ring to the contract.
Every instinct I had left demanded that I stand, spit in Felix’s face, and let the consequences come.
Then I remembered my grandmother’s chest rising beneath the ventilator.
Felix lowered the pen beside my injured hand.
“Humiliation first,” he said. “Her life second.”
Darcy stretched her fingers toward me.
“Come on, Aria,” she whispered. “Show everyone where you belong.”
