The Chubby Luna The Alpha Mock Rescued Him From Death

Chapter 5: Five Minutes

My hands shook as I lifted the second gift from the bag. The wrapping fell away to reveal a phone box, sleek and unmarked, the latest model I'd only ever seen in advertisements on the walls of the electronics shop I passed every morning on my way to work.

Nobody spoke. I heard my mother's breath catch somewhere behind me.

I unwrapped the third. A thick envelope, and when I peeled it open, stacks of neatly bound bills slid into my lap — more money than I had ever held in my hands at once. My fingers went cold around the paper.

"Is that—" My mother's voice cracked. "Count it. Count it, Mercy."

"Ten thousand," I whispered, my own voice sounding far away. "Ten thousand dollars."

I opened the fourth without being told this time. Gold caught the light from the ceiling bulb — a necklace, bracelets, earrings, all of it heavier and finer than anything I'd ever owned. And the fifth: a handbag with stitching so clean it looked untouched by human hands, and beside it, a pair of shoes in my exact size. A small card sat tucked into the bag. Wear this to work.

For a long moment, nobody in that dining room said a single word. My father's mouth had fallen open. My mother's hand pressed flat against her chest like she needed to hold her own heart in place.

Mary was the first to move. She reached across the table and picked up the necklace, turning it slowly in her fingers, her eyes wide with something between wonder and disbelief.

"Who is this?" she breathed.

"I don't know," I said, and it was the truth. "Whoever it is doesn't want to be known."

"Mercy." Mary's eyes narrowed, some old suspicion sharpening her voice. you're not secretly into some kind of hookup arrangement, are you?"

"Mary!"

"I'm only asking—"

"Mary," I snapped, before I could stop myself, "you better watch your tongue. If you're not into hookups, what makes you think I'd suddenly start?"

"Enough. Both of you." My father's voice cut through the room, and when he spoke again, his eyes had fixed on me with a different kind of hunger than curiosity. "Mercy. Listen to me carefully." He gestured at the gold, the money, the untouched shoes. "Even if you sold all of this, it wouldn't be enough. Not with the interest still counting against us every month. You don't need any of this right now." He leaned forward. "But we do. If we don't find a way to pay something toward that debt, the man will come and lock this house up around us. Do you understand what that means, my daughter?"

I looked at the gold in Mary's hands, the shoes I would probably never wear, the money that could disappear into a debt I hadn't created but had somehow inherited. And despite everything, I felt something soften inside me.

"Take it," I said quietly. "Sell what you can. Pay what you can."

My father's face broke into something close to relief, and I told myself that was enough. That this was what love from him looked like.

The next morning, going to work, I saw them before I'd even reached the door, the whole staff gathered outside the building, and Alpha Ethan standing at the center of them, arms crossed, jaw tight.

"Mercy." His voice carried across the parking lot the moment he spotted me. "Come here. Now."

I walked toward him, my stomach already twisting.

"The agreement file," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "signed by our most valued and influential client. It's missing from my office. I locked it myself the last time I left. Which means someone in this building took it." His eyes swept the crowd before landing back on me. "Every drawer will get checked. I'll do it myself."

"Sir, I can open mine right now." I stepped forward. "I didn't take anything. What would I even do with a company file?"

"You're not the only one under suspicion here." Delia's voice rang out behind me, sharp and eager. "We'll all open our drawers and prove our innocence. You can't just use words to defend yourself, Mercy."

"I've worked here longer than most of you," I said, turning to her. "Sir, you know that. You know I've never stolen anything."

"That's true," Ethan admitted, and something almost gentle passed behind his eyes before it vanished. "It's never been recorded that you've taken so much as a pen. But I can't check one person and skip the rest. Everyone's drawer gets opened. No exceptions."

The line began. One by one, drawers slid open under Ethan's careful eye, he checked the staff drawers and found nothing. When it reached the accountant, his hands trembled so badly he couldn't get the drawer to budge.

"What's wrong with you?" Ethan asked, watching him closely. "Is something the matter?"

"No, sir. I'm fine." But his voice shook worse than his hands, and for a moment I saw Ethan's brow furrow with something like suspicion, before he seemed to decide it was only nerves, and moved the man's drawer open himself. he found Nothing inside.

Delia's turn came next. She smiled at him, calm and easy, and opened her drawer without hesitation. Nothing there either.

Then it was mine.

The whole hallway seemed to hold its breath. I reached for the handle with fingers that had gone suddenly numb, and pulled.

The file sat right on top.

The room erupted. Gasps, then shouting, then Delia's voice rising above the rest, "Thief! She's a thief!" as I sank to my knees on the cold tile floor, my hands pressed together in front of me.

"Sir, please, I would never — I think someone did this to me, I swear I—"

"If you didn't do it, then who did?" Delia's voice sliced through my pleading. "I always knew you were pretending to be so innocent."

Ethan's face had gone hard as stone. "Whoever this file is found with," he announced to the room, "will be arrested and dismissed without compensation, unless their family can bring ten thousand dollars to settle the matter with the company." His eyes found mine, "You have five minutes to call someone."

My hands shook as I opened w******p, typing through tears and the thick congestion clogging my nose, sending the same desperate message to my mother, my father, my sister. Please. They think I stole a file at my work place. I need help right now.

Replies came fast, full of shock, full of promises. It'll be okay. We're coming.*

"Papa," I begged into the phone the moment he picked up, my voice breaking apart with every word, "please bring the ten thousand dollars I gave you yesterday. Please, if you don't come they're going to arrest me."

"I'm coming," he said. "I'm coming now, Mercy."

The minutes stretched past. I watched the door, watched the parking lot beyond the glass, and watched for a car that never appeared. I called again. His phone was switched off. My mother's, switched off. Only Mary picked up.

"Call Papa," she said flatly. "He already gave everything to settle something else. There's nothing left for you." you gave everything to Papa without giving me anything. so call him.

The phone slipped from my hand. Tears fell freely now, and I didn't try to stop them, kneeling there on the floor with every eye in the building fixed on me.

When I finally lifted my face, I saw the flash of blue lights through the glass doors, a police van pulling into the lot with speed.