Chapter 4
four
. . .
Alice
The medical bills fan across our kitchen table like a losing hand at poker. I've been staring at them for so long the numbers have started to swim, merging into one massive, unpayable sum that pulses like a second heartbeat in my temples. Mom's breathing is labored from the next room, the familiar rattle in her chest a constant reminder of why I'm even considering the business card burning a hole in my pocket.
Alexander Grant.
Even his name feels heavy, weighted with power and the indecent proposal he whispered against my ear last week when I served him coffee at the diner.
Our apartment smells like soup and medicine, the two scents permanently embedded in the peeling wallpaper. The single window in our living room lets in anemic light that does nothing to brighten the stack of unpaid notices on the counter or the worn-through patches on our secondhand furniture. I hear Toby's video game sounds leaking from the earbuds he refuses to remove lately. At fourteen, he's retreating into digital worlds where problems can be solved with cheat codes and extra lives. I don't blame him.
I pick up Mom's newest prescription—the one the insurance won't cover—and turn the bottle in my hands. One month's supply: $427. Might as well be a million.
"Alice?" Mom calls from her bedroom, voice threadbare. "Did you eat something?"
"Yes," I lie, placing the bottle down with trembling fingers. I've been subsisting on diner leftovers and coffee for days now. "Do you need more water?"
No answer means she's drifted back to sleep. The silence lets me continue my mental calculations, the same ones I've been running obsessively since Alexander slid his business card into my apron pocket seven days ago.
The memory of his fingers brushing against my hip still makes my skin tighten.
Now, staring at the impossible mountain of bills, I understand what he meant by practical. It's not a choice between right and wrong anymore. It's a choice between drowning and grabbing the only lifeline in sight, even if it's attached to the devil himself.
The doorbell rings, making me flinch so hard I knock a glass of water onto the bills. As I'm frantically trying to blot them dry, the bell rings again, more insistently this time. Probably the landlord, coming for the rent we're already ten days late on.
When I swing the door open, it's not the landlord. It's worse.
"Your building's security is abysmal," Alexander Grant says, stepping past me into our apartment without waiting for an invitation. He fills the tiny entryway like a storm cloud, darkening everything with his presence. His cologne—something expensive and subtle—displaces the medicinal smell, and suddenly our apartment feels even smaller, shabbier, more desperate.
"I haven't called you yet," I say, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
"No." His eyes drift to the wet bills on the table, taking in the prescription bottles, the past-due notices, the general decay of our lives. Something like satisfaction flickers across his face. "But you were about to."
I want to deny it, to throw him out, to preserve some illusion of choice. But my hands are still wet from trying to save the waterlogged bills, and the truth is waterlogged too—soggy and falling apart.
"You don't know that," I whisper, but there's no conviction in it.
He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. He's not a large man in the conventional sense—he's lean, precise, contained—but his presence is massive, sucking all the oxygen from the room.
"Your mother needs the new medication. Your brother needs stability. You need to stop working yourself to death." He says it all without emotion, just listing facts. Then his voice drops lower. "And I need you, Alice."
The way he says my name—like he's tasting it—sends an electric current down my spine that has no business being there. This isn't about attraction. This is about survival.
"My boss at the diner gave me an advance," I try, one last desperate lie.
"Three hundred dollars. Two weeks ago." His mouth curves slightly. "It's already gone."
My knees nearly buckle. How does he know these things? What else does he know?
"What exactly would this arrangement involve?" I ask, hating how my voice trembles.
"Everything." The word hangs between us, weighted with implications. "You live with me. Your time is mine. Your mother gets the best medical care. Your brother gets a proper education. Your debts disappear."
"And in return?"
His eyes darken. "You belong to me."
I should feel disgusted. I should throw him out. Instead, I feel a shameful, treacherous relief washing through me—the relief of someone who's been treading water for too long finally glimpsing the shore.
"I need to think," I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know I've already decided. The medical bill on the table has decided for me.
"Of course." His tone makes it clear he knows it too. He reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws a check. Places it on the countertop. I don't look at the amount, but from the casual way he sets it down, I know it's more money than I've ever seen at once.
"For immediate expenses," he says.
And then he just stands there and stares at me expectantly.
"I'm ready," I whisper. "I'm being practical."
The triumph in his eyes is almost unbearable. He doesn't smile—I'm not sure Alexander Grant knows how to smile properly—but satisfaction radiates from him like heat.
"Let’s go," he says as he reaches for me.
"But my mother—my brother?—"
"Are being taken care of as we speak." He checks his watch. "A private nurse is arriving within the hour. Your brother will find enrollment papers for Brighton Academy on his bed when he returns from school tomorrow."
Brighton Academy. The exclusive private school across town. The one with the state-of-the-art computer lab that Toby has talked about with reverent awe.
"How did you know I'd say yes today?" I ask, stunned.
Alexander's eyes flick to the medical bill on the table. "I've been monitoring your situation closely. The timing was...optimal."
The clinical way he says it makes my blood run cold, but there's no time to dwell on the implications. He's already pulling out his phone, issuing quiet commands to someone on the other end. Words like "transfer of funds" and "immediate occupancy" float through the air.
I move mechanically to my bedroom, pulling a small suitcase from under my bed. What do you pack when you're selling yourself? Clean underwear seems like a start. I add a few t-shirts, my one decent pair of jeans, the dress I wear to job interviews. Everything I own looks pathetic and childish as I fold it into the case.
I'm reaching for my toiletries when I feel him behind me. Alexander stands in my bedroom doorway, watching me with those penetrating eyes. His gaze catches on the meager pile of clothes in my suitcase, and a slight frown crosses his face.
"Leave it," he says.
I freeze, clutching a worn sweater. "What?"
"Don't pack anything. I'll provide everything you need."
There's something about the way he says it—like he's erasing me, like my few shabby possessions offend him—that finally breaks through my daze of desperate relief.
"I need my own things," I insist, continuing to pack.
His hand covers mine, stilling my movements. His skin is warm, dry, the nails perfectly manicured against my bitten-down ones. "Alice," he says, my name a gentle warning. "Part of our arrangement is that I take care of you. Completely."
"But—"
"Nothing from this life comes with us." His voice softens marginally. "Fresh start. Clean slate."
What he means is: no reminders of who I was before I belonged to him. No evidence of my independence, my separate existence. The rational part of me recognizes this as a classic control tactic. The desperate part of me—the part watching my mother waste away, watching my brother's future disappear—doesn't care.
"I need my photo of us," I say, reaching for the silver frame on my nightstand. "My mom, Toby, and me. From before she got sick."
Something passes across his face—compassion.
"One photo," he agrees. "But only because you'll see them regularly. I'm not separating you from your family, Alice. I'm improving their circumstances. And yours."
The photo frame feels heavy in my hands. It's the only thing I'll take from my old life into whatever awaits me in Alexander Grant's world. I should feel grief, or fear, or at minimum, anxiety. Instead, all I feel is a numb sense of inevitability, like I've been moving toward this moment from the first day he walked into the diner.
"Ready?" Alexander asks, though it's not really a question.
I glance around my small bedroom one last time—the faded posters, the books from the college classes I never got to finish, the dent in the wall from when Toby threw a baseball indoors despite my warnings. Twenty-three years of life, about to be left behind.
"Yes," I lie, clutching the photo to my chest.
Alexander's hand settles at the small of my back, five points of heat through my thin t-shirt, guiding me toward the door. Before we leave, he pauses at the kitchen counter and tears up the check he'd left earlier.
"You won't need this now," he says, letting the pieces fall like confetti. "Everything will be handled directly."
Outside, a sleek black car idles at the curb, drawing curious stares from the neighbors. Alexander opens the door for me, and I slide inside, enveloped immediately by the smell of leather and his subtle cologne. As he walks around to the driver's side, I press my face against the cool window, looking up at the apartment windows where my mother sleeps, unaware that I've just traded myself for her care.
Alexander settles beside me, his presence immediately filling the car's interior. He doesn't start the engine right away. Instead, he turns to study my face, his dark eyes cataloging every detail as if he's memorizing me—or maybe assessing his purchase.
"Second thoughts?" he asks, though his tone suggests he already knows the answer.
I clutch the photo frame tighter. "Would it matter if I did?"
His mouth curves in that not-quite smile. "You made the practical choice, Alice." He reaches out, brushes a strand of hair from my face with proprietary gentleness. "And in time, you'll find it was the only choice."
As the car pulls away from the curb, I don't look back at the apartment building. I keep my eyes fixed ahead, just like Alexander does. The future rushes toward us, sleek and dark and inevitable as the car eating up the distance between my old life and whatever waits at the end of this ride.
I've made the practical choice.
God help me.