I sit at the table while she washes dishes, listening to the water run, trying to hold myself together. The email is burned into my mind.We've decided to go in a different direction.How many more directions will my clients decide to go? How long before there's nothing left?
My eyes drift to the business card sitting next to the dahlia. I've been avoiding looking at it, avoiding thinking about it, but it's always there. That heavy cream stock, those embossed letters.
Gabriel Ambrose.
Triple my usual rate, he said. For private events. Exclusive affairs.
My skin crawls at the thought. Working for him. Being in his orbit, his presence, his control. Exactly where he wants me.
But what's the alternative? Watch my business collapse piece by piece until I can't afford rent, can't afford food, can't afford to exist? My savings won't last more than a few months. My mother can't help—she has nothing to spare. And Bea, for all her fierce loyalty, isn't in a position to support me financially.
I have no safety net. No backup plan. No options except the one he's offering.
Is that intentional? Is he creating this desperation, engineering this collapse, so that his outstretched hand becomes the only lifeline?
Of course it is. Of course he is.
The serpent doesn't chase the flower. It simply removes everything else, until there's nowhere left to go except into its coils.
Bea finishes the dishes and comes back to the table, drying her hands on a towel.
"Come on," she says, pulling me to my feet. "Couch. Movie. No arguments."
I let her lead me to the living room, let her pick something mindless and colorful on the television, let her sit beside me with her shoulder pressed against mine. The warmth of her presence is a small comfort in the cold landscape of my fear.
But even as I pretend to watch the screen, my mind keeps circling back to that card. That offer. That impossible choice.
Keep hiding, keep watching everything crumble, keep waiting for him to take the next piece and the next and the next until there's nothing left.
Or pick up the phone. Dial the number. Step willingly into the trap.
Neither option is survivable. Neither option is acceptable.
But one of them is inevitable.
And I'm starting to realize which one it's going to be.
Bea stays until evening, filling the silence with chatter, forcing me to eat soup, keeping the worst of the darkness at bay. When she finally leaves—extracting another promise that I'll call if I need anything—the apartment feels emptier than ever.
I lock the door behind her. Deadbolt, chain, knob. Push the bookshelf back into place.
Then I return to the kitchen table and sit down across from the dahlia.
The flower is still alive, still beautiful, its dark petals catching the dim light. Next to it, the card waits.
I pick it up. Turn it over in my fingers. Feel the weight of it, the smoothness of the expensive paper.
Gabriel Ambrose.
He's taken my clients. My sleep. My sense of safety. My ability to function in the world.
What else is he willing to take before I give him what he wants?
And what exactlydoeshe want?
I think you know.
I set the card down carefully, precisely, next to the flower.
