Chapter 2
1261 Words
Three weeks.
For twenty-one days, Amelia jumped at every shadow. Every time the ER double doors banged open, she expected a cartel of men in dark suits to carry in the dead body of the monster she had saved. Or worse—she expected him to walk through those doors, looking for her
But nothing happened. The alley stayed empty. The blood washed away.
By week three, the phantom of the tattooed man was starting to fade. The very real nightmare of her father's debt, however, was breathing right down her neck.
Amelia dragged her feet up the three flights of stairs to her apartment building. The hallway smelled of burnt garlic and cheap bleach. She dug her keys out of her pocket, her eyes half-closed with exhaustion.
She pushed the key toward the lock, but the door just... swung open.
Amelia’s stomach dropped to the floor. The wood around the deadbolt was splintered.
She pushed the door open an inch further. Her tiny, cramped apartment was completely destroyed. The cushions of her thrift-store couch were slashed open, stuffing scattered across the floor like dirty snow. Every drawer in her kitchen was pulled out, plates shattered. They had even torn her mattress off the bed frame.
"Look at that. The Florence Nightingale of the slums finally clocks out."
Amelia froze. The voice came from the dark corner of her kitchen.
A heavy boot struck a match. The small flame illuminated a man sitting at her tiny dining table. It wasn't the usual street-level thug her father dealt with. This guy was wearing a cheap leather jacket, smelling heavily of stale smoke, and tossing a switchblade end over end into the scarred wood of her table.
"Your dad is officially a ghost, Amelia," the enforcer said, blowing out the match. "Which means his debt of fifty grand? It just rolled over to his closest living relative."
He stood up, kicking a broken plate out of his way, and walked slowly toward her.
"You've got forty-eight hours to get the money," he smiled, his teeth yellow in the dim hallway light. "Or we stop breaking your plates, and we start breaking your bones. Maybe take a few organs. I hear a healthy kidney goes for a lot these days."
Amelia swallowed the lump of pure terror blocking her throat. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt her ribs.
"I'll get it," she lied, her voice cracking before she forced it steady. "I'll find the money. Just get out of my apartment."
The enforcer chuckled, a wet, ugly sound. He stepped closer, closing the distance until she was backed flat against the doorframe. He smelled like stale beer and cheap grease.
"Fifty grand is a lot of money for a little nurse," he murmured, looking her up and down. He reached out, his grimy, calloused fingers hooking a strand of her damp hair. "Maybe we can work out a different kind of payment plan. Knock a few thousand off the top if you're—"
Adrenaline spiked, hot and violent.
Amelia violently slapped his hand away and ducked. She dropped to one knee, her fingers blindly scraping across the ruined floor until they wrapped around a massive, jagged shard of a shattered dinner plate. She stood up fast, the sharp porcelain pointed directly at his throat.
"Get out," she breathed. Her hand was shaking so violently the shard vibrated, slicing a tiny cut into her own palm, but she didn't drop it. "Get out right now."
The man stopped. For a second, his eyes narrowed, calculating if she had the guts to actually stab him. Then, he threw both hands up in a slow, mocking surrender. A nasty smirk stretched across his face.
"Hey, crazy. Relax," he laughed, taking a step backward into the hallway. "I like 'em fiery anyway. But the clock is ticking." He pointed a finger at her. "Forty-eight hours, Florence. Don't try to run."
He turned and sauntered down the stairwell, his heavy boots echoing in the quiet building.
Amelia slammed the splintered door shut and threw her weight against it. She stood there listening until she heard the heavy front door of the building click shut three floors down.
Then, the adrenaline vanished.
The jagged porcelain slipped from her bleeding fingers, clattering against the floorboards. Amelia slowly slid down the wood of her door until she hit the floor. She pulled her knees tight against her chest, buried her face in her arms, and completely broke down. Heavy, choking sobs tore out of her throat. She was utterly exhausted. She had no money. She had nowhere to run. She was going to die.
She didn't remember falling asleep. She just remembered the cold floorboards and the exhaustion dragging her into the dark.
She woke up with a stiff neck, the morning sunlight cutting harshly through her un-curtained window. She was still slumped against her splintered front door. She shifted her weight to stand up, but her knee brushed against something smooth.
Sitting on the floorboards, pushed exactly halfway under the gap of her front door, was a thick, matte-black envelope.
Whoever left it had been standing right on the other side of the thin wood while she slept.
Her hands shook as she broke the wax seal. Inside was a single black card with sharp, silver handwriting.
Amelia Quinn,
Fifty thousand dollars is a heavy burden to carry for a deadbeat father. You have forty-six hours left. You don't have the money. I do.
I have an employment opportunity that will clear your ledger by midnight. Pete’s Diner on 4th Street. 8:00 PM. Come alone.
Amelia dropped the card onto the floor like it was burning her fingers.
Her mind immediately spun into a dark, terrifying spiral. Come alone. That was exactly how people disappeared.
Was it a human trafficking ring? A rival loan shark looking to use her as bait? Or maybe the enforcer from last night was just playing a sick psychological game to get her out of the building before he kidnapped her.
For hours, she paced the tiny strip of un-ruined floor in her kitchen. She looked at her phone, debating whether to call the police. But what would she say? Someone slipped a piece of fancy paper under my door? The cops didn't care about the slums, and they definitely didn't care about the daughters of deadbeat gamblers.
She thought about running. She could pack a single bag, run to the bus station, and just disappear. But to where? She checked her bank app. She had fourteen dollars and twelve cents to her name. She wouldn't even make it across state lines.
She stopped pacing and looked down at the jagged porcelain shard still lying on the floor from last night.
If she stayed in this apartment, the enforcer would come back and carve her up. That was an absolute certainty.
If she went to the diner, she might be walking straight into a murder trap... but there was a one percent chance it was real. A one percent chance she actually survived the week.
It was a choice between guaranteed death and a trap.
She picked the trap. Pulling her oversized rain jacket tighter around her chest, Amelia walked out of her ruined apartment and into the dark.
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