A LIFE ON THE LINE
284 Words
Selena sat by the window, phone pressed to her ear, voice low.
“Please,” she whispered, “just tell me if he’s okay.”
The nurse on the other end hesitated. “Your brother’s stable for now. But the medication’s running low.”
Her heart dropped.
“But Luca said”
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said gently. “There’s been no payment this week.”
Selena ended the call and stared out at the sea.
Had Luca lied?
Or was someone withholding payment to keep her in line?
⸻
Later that day, she stormed into his office without knocking.
“Why hasn’t my brother’s hospital received payment?”
Luca didn’t even look up. “Because I wanted to remind you.”
“Of what?” she snapped.
He met her eyes then. Calm. Cold.
“That your comfort here is conditional. You obey the contract, your brother lives. You don’t… and I walk.”
Selena’s nails dug into her palms. “He’s just a boy. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Exactly,” Luca said. “And I don’t like innocent people caught in my world. So stop tempting fate.”
Tears threatened, but she refused to let them fall. “You’re cruel.”
He stood, walked around the desk, and stopped inches from her.
“I’m alive,” he said. “Cruelty is survival.”
⸻
That night, Selena wrote a letter to her brother just in case. She couldn’t say where she was. Couldn’t explain. Just that he should hold on. Get better. And believe that she’d do anything to protect him.
Even survive a marriage to a man who had none of his soul left.
- Writer
