Chapter 4
“Warren is moving fast,” he said. “He’s calling a council tomorrow night. He’ll tell them I’m unstable, drugged out, missing, unfit to lead. If I don’t appear with proof, he takes everything.”
Emily stared at him. “That sounds like your problem.”
“It was,” Nathan said. “Until Warren’s men saw you at the club.”
That evening, Emily went to the Sapphire Room anyway. She needed her wages. She needed Lily’s medicine. She needed normal life to exist for a few more hours.
The manager met her at the back entrance.
His eyes would not meet hers.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said. “You’re done here.”
Her hands went numb. “Done?”
“Orders from above.”
“I’ve worked here five years.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never missed a shift without calling.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
He shoved an envelope of cash into her hand. “Please don’t make this harder.”
Outside, a black Lincoln pulled to the curb.
The window lowered.
Silas Ward smiled from the back seat.
“Miss Harper,” he said. “Women with sick little sisters should be careful what they bring home.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Silas tapped ash from a cigar into a silver tray.
“Lose the dangerous object,” he said softly, “before losing a job becomes the least painful thing that happens to you.”
Then the window rose, and the car glided away.
Emily stood on the sidewalk with her last wages in her hand and Lily’s name burning in her chest.
For the first time since she had saved Nathan Cole, she wondered if kindness had been the most selfish mistake of her life.
Three days after Emily lost her job, Lily collapsed in the bathroom.
There was no dramatic warning. No movie-like cry for help. Emily simply heard the toothbrush hit the tile, then a small thud that turned her blood to ice.
She found Lily on the floor, lips pale, fingers curled weakly against the bathmat.
At the hospital, the fluorescent lights made everything look unforgiving. Nurses moved quickly. A doctor asked questions Emily answered badly because her brain kept snagging on one thought: please, please, not her.
Hours later, Dr. Patterson sat across from her in a small consultation room and folded his hands.
Emily knew before he spoke.
“Lily’s kidney function has worsened,” he said. “We have a surgical window, but it needs to happen soon. Very soon.”
“How soon?”
“Within days would be best.”
Emily nodded, as if nodding could keep the world from falling apart.
Then he explained the cost.
Even after charity applications, payment plans, emergency grants, and hospital assistance, the number left over was so impossible that Emily almost laughed. It belonged to another universe. A universe with savings accounts, rich uncles, health insurance that did not reject claims, and people who could write checks without calculating groceries.
Emily walked out of the hospital into cold afternoon wind with a folder in her hands and a soundless scream inside her chest.
A black Lincoln waited by the curb.
May you like
This time Warren Vale himself stepped out.
Emily had seen him only once from a distance at the Sapphire Room. In person, he looked like a gentleman from an old money portrait: silver hair, tailored navy coat, soft leather gloves. His smile was almost kind, which made it worse.
