I think of how close I am to losing it.
“What’s the interest?” I ask.
They tell me.
It’s brutal. But survivable. If nothing goes wrong. Something always goes wrong.
“And this is…” I hesitate. “Ashford?”
“Yes,” the woman says. “Ashford Capital.”
The name lodges in my chest like a stone.
I sign.
Not because I trust them. Not because it feels good. Because sometimes survival looks like agreeing to terms, you’ll spend years resenting.
The money hits the account two days later. The oven gets replaced.
The mixer gets fixed.
The doors stay open.
And every month after that, I send a check to Ashford Capital. Every month, I feel the invisible hand at my back. Not steering. Not controlling. Waiting.
The flashback snaps shut.
I’m back in my bakery.
Leo Ashford is standing in front of me, smiling like his last name doesn’t carry weight. Like it isn’t printed on checks I’ve written with clenched teeth. Like it didn’t save this place and haunt it at the same time.
My jaw tightens.
“The investor,” I repeat, more to myself than him.
He brightens so fast it’s almost physical, like someone turned on a light behind his face.
“Yes! That’s me.” He smiles, awkward, hopeful, a million-dollar reflex. “I wasn’t sure you’d…”
“You’re here to work,” I cut in. If I let him fill the air with whatever he’s about to say, I’m going to do something that gets me featured in a true crime podcast.
My voice comes out dangerously quiet. “Why?”
He has the decency to look embarrassed. I’ll give him that. He rubs the back of his neck, his crisp white sleeve crinkling with a sound that can only be described as new money. He looks like he’s never done a manual task in his life without someone documenting it for a magazine spread.
“It’s, uh…” He winces, searching for an entry point into this conversation like it’s a locked door and he’s trying random keys. “It’s a bit of a story. You might have seen it? A livestream? ‘Midnight Mavericks’? No? Ok.” He swallows. “Well. There was a wheel. And a dare.”
A dare.
My expression, which has been hovering around lukewarm contempt, drops into absolute, glacial zero.
This isn’t just ignorance. This isn’t even just rich-person cluelessness, the kind I’ve learned to expect from people who can’t tell the difference between flour and powdered sugar because both arrive at their homes in identical white bags carried by other people.
This is poverty tourism.
This is a game.
My life, my stress, my bakery, my spreadsheets, my 4 a.m. mornings and eighteen-hour days, is a stop on his bored, rich-boy amusement park ride.
