THE PRICE OF BLOOD
The new laptop laid untouched on the edge of Tessa’s office desk, sleek and expensive, almost too beautiful to touch. Beside it lay the car keys to the black Mercedes parked in her assigned director’s space. She should have felt like a winner , but all she felt was the hollow echo of a life she didn’t choose.
The words Blake had hurled at her yesterday still rang in her ears like gun shots.
“You’re good for nothing, Tessa.”
Now she sat in the director’s chair, clutching her handbag and staring blankly at the hospital bill in her inbox. Her mother’s surgery wasn’t supposed to be delayed anymore—it was a necessity. The doctors had confirmed she had less than two weeks before the complications became uncontrollable.
She didn’t have the money. Not even the littlest penn
