THE MIDNIGHT CONTRACT

A letter from a ghost

Chapter 3

Isadora's POV

Two days had passed since Stone & Associates came and took almost everything.Two days of sleepless nights, two days of eating almost nothing, two days of staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how to survive with exactly four hundred, seventy-two thousand dollars to my name.I hadn't gone to work. Couldn't. My head wasn't right, my body wasn't cooperating and somewhere in the middle of all of it I'd made the mistake of believing I had a little more time before everything caught up with me.I was wrong.I'd called everyone I could think of. Friends from art school, old classmates, people I'd helped move flats and stayed up with through bad breakups and lent money to when they were short. Most didn't pick up. The ones who did had reasons. Excuses dressed up in sympathy, soft voices explaining why right now wasn't a good time, how they wished they could help, how things were tight for everyone.I stopped calling after the seventh one.I knew I’d messed up by skipping my shifts at Luxe Noir for two days, but somehow I still managed to drag myself to the bar—tucked along a side street, off the Royal Mile.I’d been working there as a bartender four nights a week for the past two months. The money was good, the tips were better, and the manager left you alone as long as the numbers kept coming in.I pushed through the staff entrance and saw the manager, Mr. Clifford immediately, moving down the long back corridor."Mr. Clifford." I called out.He didn't slow down."Mr. Clifford, please, I just need a minute."He kept walking, but I followed him. Down the corridor, past the stockroom, past the staff lockers, my footsteps, quick against the concrete floor just to keep pace with him."Sir, please, if you could just—"He stopped so abruptly I almost walked into him. Turned around. Looked at me with eyes that had already finished this conversation."Why are you here now?" "I wanted to explain about the shifts I missed. There were circumstances. Serious ones, debt collectors came to my flat and they removed everything including my phone and I had no way to contact anyone for the first day and then I was dealing with agencies trying to sort out the—" "Enough." He cut me off before I could finish the lie. They hadn’t taken my phone, but it was the only excuse I had.I stopped."Do I look like I care about your personal life?""No, but if you'd just let me—""Go straight to the point," he snarled. "Don't stand in my corridor giving me a story. You missed two shifts. Yes or no.""Yes, but—""Did you call?""My phone was—""Did you call? Yes or no."I closed my mouth."That's what I thought." He turned to leave."Mr. Clifford." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "Please. I need this job. I have no other income right now, everything else fell through, and the debt on my father's accounts is compounding every week. I am asking you, please, just give me another chance. I will work every shift. I'll cover other people's shifts. I'll do whatever you need, I just—"He turned back around slowly.For one moment I thought I saw something shift in his face. Something that might have been human."You're fired," he said."Mr. Clifford—" I gasped."Don't." He held up one hand. "Don't speak further. Don't beg. Don't tell me about your f*****g debts or whatever else is happening in your life. I've got twelve other girls who show up when they're supposed to. I don't need one who disappears for two days and turns up with a speech.""I'm not giving you a speech, I'm explaining—""I said don't." His voice dropped, not unkind exactly, but absolute. "Collect whatever you have in your locker. Leave your lanyard at the front. Don't make me ask security to walk you out."He was already turning away as he finished the sentence."Mr. Clifford…""We're done here." He didn't look back. "Get out of my corridor."His door closed.I stood in the empty hallway and stared at it for a long moment. Then I slowly moved to the locker like a robot, took out the two hair ties, the lip balm, and the phone charger that were the only things left in there. I walked out through the staff entrance and back into the grey Edinburgh evening.There’s a bench outside, tucked against the wall of Luxe Noir. I sat down on it.I hadn't planned to. My body just made the decision independently, the way it does when it has absorbed one too many things in a short space of time and simply refuses to keep moving.I sat there with my bag in my lap, looking at the street. People walked past. A woman with a pushchair. Two men in suits talking too loudly about something that wasn't interesting. A delivery driver struggling with boxes. Everyone, going somewhere. Everyone with the next thing. I had no next thing.Three jobs, two gone. One by one, each for its own specific reason, but the result was the same; no pay. I pressed my fingers to my eyes and told myself very firmly that I was not going to cry on a bench outside the club that had just fired me, because some lines, once crossed, are very difficult to come back from.I was still telling myself this when someone sat down beside me.I didn't look up immediately. There were plenty of benches. People sit on any one of their choices. It wasn't unusual.Then a voice said, "Isadora Benson."Not a question. Not a greeting. My name, stated with the flat certainty of someone who knew me.I looked up. He was perhaps thirty, neatly dressed, deliberately unremarkable. The kind of face you'd forget the moment you looked away. Dark jacket. No tie. He was holding an envelope."Who are you?" I asked.He didn't answer, instead he held an envelope out. After a minute, he set it on the bench beside me when I didn't take it, stood up, and walked into the afternoon crowd without a single word or a backwards glance.I watched until he disappeared around the corner. Then I looked at the envelope. What's this?I stared at the envelope for a long moment before opening it. Inside was a letter on heavy cream stationary with a letterhead I didn't recognize. Voss Meridian Group.The message was brief:Miss Isadora Benson,I have a business proposal that may interest you. Please meet me at my office tomorrow at 2 PM to discuss.Nikolai VossCEO, Voss Meridian Group.An address was printed at the bottom. A building on Charlotte Square, New Town, Edinburgh.I read it three times, trying to understand. Who was Nikolai Voss? What kind of proposal? And how did he know my name?……….That night, I used free wifi at a coffee shop to research him.Nikolai Voss is a billionaire. One of the richest men in the country. His company, Voss Meridian Group, dealt in technology, real estate, and private security. But there was almost no information about the man himself. No interviews. Barely any photographs. The few images I found showed a tall man in expensive suits, always photographed from a distance or with his face partially hidden.He was a ghost. A phantom who controlled billions of dollars but lived completely out of the public eye.What could someone like that possibly want with me?❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️