One Year With You

The rain in East London didn’t fall. It attacked.     It hit the corrugated roof of James’s garage like bullets, and dripped through the cracks onto the concrete where he stood.   The sound was constant. A drumbeat that never stopped. Puddles were forming by the door, running toward the drain that never worked right.     €50,000. Gone.      He stared at his phone screen until his eyes burned. The debit alert was still there. _ACCOUNT DEBITED: €50,000. RECIPIENT: THOMAS CARTER._   The bank logo was at the top. Official. Final.   His thumb hovered over it like if he pressed it enough it would disappear.     His father.      James’s hands were shaking. Not from the cold. The garage was freezing but he didn’t feel it. This was rage. From the kind of tired that sits in your bones after working 16-hour days for 8 months straight.   Tired from lifting engines. From turning down dates. From lying to his mom about how “we’re almost there.”     The workbench behind him was covered in tools. Wrenches, sockets, an oil-stained rag. Next to it, a coffee mug with cold sludge at the bottom. He’d been here since 5am. He had 2 more cars to finish tonight.     “James!” His mother’s voice from the flat above. Thin. Worried. “Dinner’s getting cold!”     He didn’t answer. He just leaned against the rusted workbench and closed his eyes.   The metal was cold through his shirt. Above him, he could hear her moving around. The limp she’d had since the chemo.      Three months ago his mother had cancer. Stage 2. The surgery cost €80,000. His father took a loan from the bank. When the bank came calling, Thomas Carter told his son, “You’re the man of the house now. Pay it.”     The words had been quiet. Ashamed. But they landed like a sentence.     So James sold everything. His PS5. His bike. The small savings he had for university.   Quit school.   Opened this garage. Borrowed his uncle’s name to get the lease.   Worked on Lamborghinis and Volkswagens and everything in between. 14-hour days. Sometimes 16.   He’d almost saved enough. €50,000 left to go. He had it written on a piece of tape above the register. Crossed off week by week.     And now it was gone.     He kicked the tire he was working on. It rolled across the floor and hit the wall with a dull thud.   Then another. And another. Until his shin hurt.     The door opened. His father.      Rain came in with him. Thomas Carter was soaked. He wasn’t wearing a coat. His hair was plastered to his forehead.   “Son,” Thomas said. He looked 10 years older than he was. Gaunt. Sick with worry. The same worry James saw in the mirror.   Lines around his eyes. Shoulders caved in.     “Don’t,” James said. His voice was flat. “Just don’t.”     “I had to,” his father said. He stepped inside and shut the door. Water pooled at his feet. “The cupboards were empty. Your mother—”     “My mother is sick because of stress!” James shouted. The words echoed in the garage. Bounced off the metal walls. “And I was going to pay your debt! I was €50,000 away!”     He gestured at the phone still in his hand. At the screen.   Thomas flinched. Like he’d been hit.   “I have a way to fix it. A way to make all the money back. Twice as fast.”     James laughed. Bitter. It came out wrong. Like glass.   “Yeah? You gonna rob a bank?”   He was 22. He shouldn’t be this tired.     “Better,” Thomas said. He pulled off his wet jacket. Underneath, his shirt was thin. Too thin for November. “I met someone. A man. He says there’s a job. One job. €200,000. We do it, we’re clear. The debt, the hospital, everything.”     James stared at him. “What kind of job, Dad?”   Thomas didn’t answer right away. He looked at the floor. At the tire James had kicked.   “The kind I don’t want to talk about,” he said finally.     James thought about saying no. About telling his dad to go to jail instead.   But then he thought about his mom upstairs. The way she’d smiled yesterday even though the painkillers made her sick.   “Don’t do anything stupid,” James said. “I’ll figure it out.”     Before Thomas could answer, headlights swept across the garage door.   A car pulled up. Expensive. Low.      Across the city, the rain hit different on Kings Road.      Here it hit marble. It slid down 12-foot windows and pooled in fountains guarded by men with guns.   The water was lit blue from underneath. It looked clean. Controlled. Nothing like East London.     Inside, the house was warm. Too warm.   Chloe sat in her father’s bedroom and didn’t cry. She was done crying.   She’d done all her crying at 16, when her brother Adam didn’t come home. At 19, when her mother had her first breakdown. At 21, when she took over a company she didn’t ask for.     Josh Carter — Don of the New Mafia Era — was dying.      Not from a bullet. Not from betrayal. From cancer. From a body finally giving out after 30 years of war.   The machines around him beeped. An IV ran into his arm. His skin was gray, but his eyes were still sharp.   They missed nothing.     On the table beside him: a will. 40 pages. Bound in leather. And a death sentence from the doctors. _3 months. Maybe 4._   Chloe had read it. Every word.      “Sign it,” Maria, her mother, said. Her voice was soft. Broken. She’d been crying for weeks.   Maria was sitting in a chair by the window, a blanket around her shoulders. She looked smaller than Chloe remembered.     Chloe didn’t look at her. She looked at her father.   He was propped up on pillows. Oxygen tube under his nose.   “You want me to marry a stranger,” Chloe said.      It wasn’t a question.      “I want you to live,” Josh said. His voice was still a Don’s voice. Low. Commanding. Even with tubes in his arm. It filled the room. “The company I put in your name — Kensington Design Group — it’s clean. It’s what keeps the other businesses from being seized. If you don’t marry before I die, it goes to Marcus. And Marcus is an i***t. And Chris...”     He didn’t have to finish.      Chris. Her uncle. The man with the gold watch and the dead eyes.   The man who had her older brother Adam lured into an alley and shot. Because Adam was supposed to inherit. Because tradition said the son gets the empire.   They found Adam with 3 bullets and a note in his pocket. _This is what happens to traitors._      Now there was no son.      So it was her.     Chloe picked up the pen. Heavy. Montblanc. Her hand didn’t shake.   “One year,” she said. “That’s what the lawyer said. I have to be married for one year or the company reverts.”     “Then find a husband,” Josh said. “Tonight.”   He coughed. Maria jumped up to get him water.   “Tonight,” Josh repeated. “Before I change my mind. Before Chris does something.”     That night, Mark came to the garage.     The Lamborghini idled outside. Black. Low. Rain sliding off it.   Mark worked for her father. He wore a suit that cost more than James made in 3 months. And he drove a Lamborghini.   He didn’t get out right away. He sat there for 2 minutes. Watching.      Then he knocked.      James was under a car. He slid out. Grease on his face. On his arms. There was a cut on his knuckle he hadn’t noticed.   “Mr. Carter,” Mark said. He didn’t offer his hand. “My boss needs a husband.”     James was too tired to be impressed. “Your boss can find one on Tinder.”     “She’s not looking for love,” Mark said. He held out a folder. Inside: photos, documents, a contract. “She’s looking for survival. €100,000. Your father’s debt. Gone. In exchange, you marry her for one year.”     James stared at the photo Mark held out.      Chloe.   Blonde. Cold blue eyes. A black suit. Standing in front of a building that looked like it owned half of London.   She wasn’t smiling. Her chin was up.   She looked nothing like him.   Grease-stained hands. Rented garage. Debt.   And that was the point.     “What’s the catch?” James asked.   Because there was always a catch.     “No catch,” Mark said. “Except... her family has enemies. Once you’re married to her, you’re a target.”   He said it like he was talking about the weather.      James thought of his father. Prison.   His mother’s hospital bills. The €50,000 that was gone.   The way his mom said “dinner’s getting cold” like everything was normal.     He thought about saying no.   He didn’t.      “Fine,” he said. “One year.”   He signed where Mark told him to. His signature looked wrong next to the printed name.      He didn’t know that 20 minutes away, Chloe was signing the same contract.   In her father’s bedroom. With her mother crying and her father watching.   Same pen. Same terms.      And he didn’t know that in a dark office across town, Chris was getting a phone call.   A desk made of mahogany. A glass of whiskey. A window that looked over the whole city.      “She’s getting married,” a voice said.   Chris smiled. Slow.   “To who?”     “Some mechanic. Nobody.”   The voice on the phone sounded bored.      Chris put down his whiskey. The ice clinked.   “Then we kill the nobody. And then we kill her.”   He said it like he was ordering dinner.      The rain kept falling.   On East London. On Kings Road. On both of them.   Two signatures. One contract.   And a year that was going to cost them everything.