Chapter One
Erica
The dress is the color of sparkling champagne, and it barely qualifies as fabric.
I keep tugging at the hem as if I can convince it to grow another two inches, but it only slides higher on my thighs and reminds me that I’m wearing something designed to make men look at me like a purchase.
Which is… the point.
My hands go still on the silk and I force myself to breathe through my nose. In. Out. Slow. The mirror above the vanity shows a girl who looks like she belongs in a different life—hair curled too perfectly, mouth painted a deeper red than I ever wear, lashes thick and dark like I’m trying to hide behind them.
My eyes are the same, though. Blue. Wide. Too honest for what I’m about to do.
I turn my face a fraction to the side and study the line of my jaw, the hollow beneath my cheekbone. The makeup artist downstairs called it “soft glam.” I call it armor.
The room they’ve put me in is not a hotel room like any I’ve ever been in before. It’s a suite with a living area bigger than my apartment, a sitting room with two velvet couches that probably cost more than my car—each—and a bar stocked with crystal decanters that look untouched—like even the alcohol is only there to be on display.
A quiet knock taps at the door to the hallway.
I freeze.
“Five minutes, Erica,” a woman’s voice calls through the wood. Smooth. Businesslike.
My throat tightens. “Okay.”
The sound of her heels fades, sharp against the hardwood. I wait until it’s gone before I let out the breath I’m holding.
Five minutes.
My stomach rolls like I’ve swallowed seawater.
On the vanity sits a glass of water I haven’t touched, a little plate with strawberries I definitely won’t eat, and my phone face-down like it’s too heavy to look at. I flip it over and the screen lights up with the same message I’ve had open all day.
Unknown Caller.
Tonight. 9:00. Suite level. Come alone. Bring ID.
No emojis. No smiley faces. No “LOL.” Just instructions.
It feels safer when people are direct. It feels safer when there’s no pretending.
I stand and pace from the vanity to the window, then back again. The suite is on a high floor, high enough that the city looks like someone scattered lights across black velvet. Somewhere down there, real people are living real nights. Eating dinner. Laughing in cars. Watching TV. Arguing about nothing.
My dad is probably asleep in his recliner, because he gets tired so quickly now. He’ll wake up at midnight and pretend he wasn’t sleeping. He’ll ask me if I’ve eaten. He’ll smile like I’m still thirteen and he’s still the kind of man who can fix anything.
At first, he just began getting winded and losing some weight. When suddenly, last week, he couldn’t even make it up the stairs. One CT scan later, and they’ve diagnosed a kidney mass.
I hate being away from him for even one night, but I have to.
The doctor said the surgery is his only real shot, and he needs it now.
Not next month. Not next week.
Now.
And not a miracle. Not a guarantee. A shot. That’s all.
Twenty thousand dollars, and that’s just the upfront cost.
