I can’t speak. Whatever Icouldsay would be wrong to say in front of Maisie. She’s sleeping, but I don’t want to wake her, and if I say what I’m thinking, I’ll just get louder and louder until I get myself thrown out of the hospital altogether.
Eva waits, patient as a cat watching its prey. When I stay silent, she smiles.
Smirks, really.
“Ten million dollars,” she says at last. “For another thirty days. Return with me to the castle.”
From Adrian, I hear a sharp gasp as he rises to his feet. “What?”
She can’t be serious. She can’t be.
“Five million up front,” she says without even glancing at Adrian. “The rest on completion of the contract.”
Enough to pay for Maisie’s treatment a hundred times over. Enough to send Alicia to college, to buy Dane whatever future he wants, to ensure Adrian never has to worry about keeping our family together again.
Enough to save everyone I love.
But the cost…
“There isn’t enough money in the world,” I say flatly, “to take me away from my sister right now.”
This is my baby sister, who still seems so much younger than her age. Who still sleeps with a stuffed rabbit, who draws me pictures of flowers and rainbows, who told me once that when she grows up, she wants to be a doctor so she can help other kids who feel scared in hospitals.
I won’t abandon her. Not for Eva, not for ten million dollars, not foranything.
Adrian shifts in the corner, arms folded tightly across his chest. I can see the conflict written across his face as clear as words on a page—confusion and curiosity and shock battling with desperate worry for Maisie. His eyes flick from our sister’s pale face to Eva’s black-clad figure. “Who is this?” he asks me quietly.
“She’s no one.”
“I’m the producer of the reality show your sister recently starred in,” Eva says, and now I glare at her. “I mean it,” she says. “Ten million. You should discuss it with your—brother, is it?” She casts a cold smile at Adrian.
“Get out of here,” I hiss at her. How dare she? How fucking dare she stroll in here and throw numbers at me, as though ten million dollars is pocket change she’s willing to write off just to watch me squirm again?
“Robin,” Adrian murmurs. “We should—seriously, we should talk about it. Like she says.”
My brother doesn’t understand. You can’t bargain with the devil without losing your soul. But it’smyfault he doesn’t understand. I left details of the “reality show” as vague as I could, and just said that I got voted out earlier than I hoped.
Eva takes a step closer, and I catch the scent of her perfume. The memories it brings are unwelcome and immediate: the warm light of the fireplace licking over my skin along with Eva’s tongue…
“I’ll cover Maisie’s treatment upfront,” Eva says quietly, her voice never changing pitch or tone. “Right now. She could gointo surgery within the hour. I’ll pay for whatever she needs—here, or at the best hospitals in the world.”
My fingers tighten again around Maisie’s hand. She can’t do this to me. She can’t waltz back into my life and dangle salvation in front of me like this.
But Maisie?—
God, Maisie deserves everything. She deserves the best doctors, the most advanced treatments, a real chance at a normal life. She deserves to wake up tomorrow and the day after that and every day for the next seventy years. She deserves to grow up and become that doctor she dreams about, to help other scared kids the way I wish I could help her.
Damn Eva Novak. Damn her for always making me choose between my pride and my family.
Eva’s shadow is falling over me where I sit. Her presence is suffocating and magnetic at the same time, impossible to ignore. She knows exactly what she’s doing—knows that she’s offering me the one thing I can’t refuse, no matter how much it might cost me.
But then I see her smoothing her jacket carefully down her front. The gesture is smooth, unconscious, but there’s something underneath it—a tension that suggests she’s not as calm as she appears.
“You have until this evening to decide,” she says coolly. “After that, you will never see me again.”
With that, she slips back out of the curtained-off area.
“Robin,” Adrian says quietly, his voice tight with emotion he’s trying to hide. “Please. I don’t understand why…” He takes abreath. “Tell me what the problem is, and we’ll find a way around it. You don’t want to be away from Maisie? She’ll understand. I’m here. Dane and Alicia are here. Please.”
