The billionaire's Contract

POV: Glory The alarm screams at 5:30 AM, and I slap it silent before it wakes my mother. The sound echoes off the thin walls of our Queens apartment, bouncing between the faded wallpaper and the cracked ceiling. I lie still for a moment, staring at the water stain shaped like a cloud above my bed, and I count the things I can't afford to fix. The window rattles. The radiator hisses. The medicine bottles on the nightstand glow like little green soldiers in the morning light. I push myself up, my knees aching from the cold. I'm twenty-seven years old, and I feel seventy. My body remembers gymnastics, the falls, the fractures, the moment my Olympic dream shattered on a balance beam at nineteen. That was the first time I learned that life doesn't care about your plans. It just keeps moving. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and grab my phone. The screen glares at me like an accusation. Bank balance: $412.73. My stomach drops. My mother's next chemo treatment is due in three days. It costs $8,400. I don't have $8,400. I don't even have $8,400 in my dreams. "Glory?" My mother's voice drifts through the thin walls, soft and fragile like paper. "Is that you, baby?" I force a smile into my voice before I even open my mouth. "It's me, Mama. I'm up. Go back to sleep." "I was already awake," she says, and I hear the creak of her bed as she shifts. "The pain is bad today. Could you bring me my pills?" I'm on my feet before she finishes the sentence. That's what I do. I move. I fix. I carry. I've been doing it since I was twelve and my father's construction business started crumbling like a sandcastle at high tide. I've been doing it since the gymnastics scholarship fell through and I had to find another way. I've been doing it since my mother got sick and the world became a series of bills and doctor's appointments and impossible choices. I walk to the kitchen, my bare feet cold against the linoleum. The floor is cracked in three places. The cabinets are stained. The faucet drips. Everything in this apartment is broken except my mother's smile, and even that's starting to fade. I pour a glass of water from the filter pitcher, the one I bought with my last commission check, because the tap water makes her nauseous. I pull her pills from the cabinet, three white, one yellow, one blue. I know them by color now. I know them by shape. I know them by the way they make her sleep too much or not enough, the way they steal her appetite and leave her hollow. I walk into her room, and my heart cracks open the way it does every morning. She's lying in the narrow bed, propped up on pillows that used to be white but have yellowed with time. Her hair is thin now, almost gone. Her face is pale, her eyes sunken. She's fifty-four years old, but she looks eighty. The cancer has been eating her for three years, and I've been fighting it with every dollar I can scrape together. "Good morning, my beautiful girl," she whispers, and her smile is still there, still warm, still the only thing that keeps me going. "You look tired." "I'm fine, Mama." I sit on the edge of the bed and hand her the glass. "Here. Take these. Then I'll make you some oatmeal." She takes the pills slowly, her hands trembling. "You don't have to make me breakfast. I can manage." "You can manage, but I want to." I brush a strand of hair from her face. "That's what daughters do." She looks at me with those tired eyes, and I see the worry swimming behind them. She knows. She always knows. "Glory, I heard you on the phone last night. With the hospital." I freeze. "The treatment," she continues, and her voice cracks. "We can't afford it. I know we can't afford it. I know you're working yourself to the bone. Bright told me. He said you're taking on extra clients, working nights, barely sleeping." "Bright talks too much." I force a laugh. "I'm fine. I have it handled." "Glory." She reaches for my hand, her fingers cold and thin. "I don't want you to sacrifice your life for me. I've lived my life. I've loved your father. I've raised you and Bright. I've had a good life. If it's time for me to go, I'm ready." Something hot and sharp stabs my chest. I yank my hand away, not because I'm angry. I'm never angry at her, but because I can't let her see me cry. If I cry, she'll know how scared I am. She'll know I'm losing. "Don't say that." My voice comes out harder than I mean it to. "Don't ever say that. You're not going anywhere. I won't let you." "Glory" "No." I stand up, my hands shaking. "I'm going to make your oatmeal. You're going to eat. And then I'm going to work, and I'm going to figure this out. That's how it's going to work." She watches me with those sad, knowing eyes. "You're so stubborn. Just like your father." I almost smile. "I learned from the best." I leave the room before she can say anything else. I make it to the kitchen, lean against the counter, and let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. My hands are shaking. My heart is pounding. I feel like I'm drowning, and the water just keeps rising. The door to the apartment creaks open, and my brother Bright stumbles in, still wearing his bartending vest from last night. His eyes are red. His hair is a mess. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week, and I know he hasn't. "Glory? You're up early." "Couldn't sleep." I grab the oatmeal from the cabinet. "You just getting home?" He drops his keys on the counter and rubs his face. "Bartending shift ran late. Then I had to tutor that kid in calculus. He's struggling, Glory. I think he's going to fail." "Then fail him. You can't save everyone." "Like you save everyone?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're one to talk. I saw your bank statement on the table yesterday. You've got less than five hundred dollars." "Bright" "Mom's treatment is due in three days." He walks toward me, his face hard. "I know. I'm not stupid. I know you're killing yourself to pay for it. I know you've been skipping meals, working extra hours, doing God knows what for those rich athletes of yours. And I know you haven't slept through the night in months." I want to argue. I want to tell him to mind his own business. But my voice won't work. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of pretending. "What do you want me to say, Bright?" My voice cracks. "That I'm scared? That I'm terrified? That every night I lie awake wondering how I'm going to pay for the next treatment, the next rent, the next electric bill? That I look at Mom and I see her slipping away, and I can't do anything to stop it?" "You're doing everything," he says, and his voice softens. "You're doing more than anyone could ask." "It's not enough. It's never enough." I grab the oatmeal box and tear it open. "I'm supposed to fix this. I'm supposed to take care of you and Mom. That's what I do. That's who I am. But I'm failing, Bright. I'm failing, and I don't know what else to do." He wraps his arms around me, and for a moment, I let myself fall into him. He smells like whiskey and sweat and exhaustion, but he's here. He's solid. He's the only one who understands. "We'll figure it out," he whispers. "We always do." "Bright, you're working two jobs. You're in architecture school. You're barely surviving yourself. I can't ask you to do more." "You're not asking. I'm offering." He pulls back, his face determined. "I'll quit school. I'll work full-time. I'll help pay for Mom's treatment." "No." My voice is sharp. "Absolutely not. You're not sacrificing your future for this. You've been dreaming of becoming an architect since you were five years old. I won't let you throw that away." "Glory…" "I said no." I turn back to the oatmeal, dumping it into the pot. "I'll figure it out. I always do." He stands there for a moment, watching me. Then he says, quietly, "Your phone rang earlier. Some woman named Diamond. She said you have to call her back. Something about a gala tonight." I groan. "I forgot about that. Diamond wants me to go to the Met Gala. She says there will be wealthy athletes there, potential clients. She thinks I can network my way into new business." "You should go." "I can't. I have to work on the Henderson contract." "Glory." He grabs my shoulders and forces me to look at him. "Go to the gala. Get some clients. Do something. Because right now, you're drowning, and you're too stubborn to let anyone throw you a life raft." I stare at him. He's right. I hate that he's right. "Fine." I sigh. "I'll go. But you're coming with me." "I can't. I have to work the bar." "Then at least promise me you'll sleep tonight." He smiles, the first real smile I've seen on his face in weeks. "I promise. Now go. Get dressed. Look rich. Act rich. Make them believe you're one of them." "I'm not one of them." "You can be. For one night. Then you can come back to Queens and complain about the subway with the rest of us." He squeezes my shoulder. "Go. I'll make Mom her oatmeal." "You hate oatmeal." "I hate watching you drown more." He gently pushes me toward the door. "Go, Glory. Be the brilliant, fierce woman I know you are. Show them what they're missing." I walk to my room, my heart heavy and light at the same time. I pull out my phone and call Diamond. "Glory!" Her voice is bright, too bright, like she's been waiting for this call all morning. "Tell me you're coming tonight. Tell me you're not going to make me go to this gala alone." "I'm coming," I say, and I can hear the surprise in my own voice. "I'm coming. But I need to borrow a dress." "Say no more. I'll have one sent over. You're going to look amazing, Glory. You're going to walk in there and own the place. Trust me." I laugh. "I own a $400 dress from Zara. I don't know how to own a gala." "You don't need money to own a room. You just need that fire of yours. The one that makes men's heads turn and women's jaws drop. That's what you've got, Glory. That's what they're going to see." I hang up, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror above my dresser. I see a tired woman with dark circles under her eyes. A woman who hasn't slept in months. A woman who is drowning and clawing her way back to the surface. But somewhere beneath the exhaustion, I see the fire Diamond was talking about. I see the fighter. The survivor. The woman who doesn't know how to give up. I grab my phone one more time. I check the bank balance again. $412.73. And I whisper to myself: "Tomorrow. Tomorrow you'll find a way. Today, you survive." I pick up a dress from Diamond's assistant an hour later. It's deep red, bold, expensive. It's not me. But tonight, it has to be. I step into it and I look at myself in the mirror. I don't recognize the woman staring back. She looks powerful. She looks ready. She looks like someone who has nothing left to lose.