SIGNING THE BILLIONAIRE'S DEAL

ALLISON'S POV "Oh God!" The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate, as I sank into the chair beside my mother's bed. The room felt suffocating, the silence pressing against my chest, broken only by the rhythmic beep of the machines. Each beep, each passing second, felt like a countdown. I wiped my face, but my hands shook too violently. Tears fell faster than I could catch them. My body seemed to betray me, spilling emotions I hadn't allowed myself to feel. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd let myself cry, but now... the tears have come without warning, without permission. "Mom," I whispered, my voice barely above a whisper. "What do I do now?" Her face was so pale, so still. The beeping mocked me“–” each second a reminder of how little time we had. The doctors had warned me about the surgery: too risky, too expensive. Even if I found the money, I knew that they had all given up on her. But I believed in her, I wasn't ready to lose her. I glanced at the empty chair across from me. My brother, the one who should've been here, nowhere in sight. Too busy with his life, probably. And my stepfather... I hadn't seen him sober enough to care in years. I was alone in this. A buzz from my pocket jolted me. I pulled the phone out, expecting it to be some irrelevant distraction, but it was Mrs. Jenkins-the woman who ran the shop near mine. Her voice quivered on the other end. "Ally, something's happened." I stood up, my knees feeling too weak to hold me. "What? What happened?" I choked out, Every word is heavy with panic. "They... They broke into your store. Everything's gone, Ally. Your groceries. The money. Everything." My breath caught. I couldn't take it in. Not now. Not with everything else hanging by a thread. "No... no, you're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking…" My voice cracked, desperation seeping through every syllable. "Who would do something like that?" "I'm... I'm so sorry…" The floor seemed to disappear beneath me. My knees buckled and gave way, and I crashed back into the chair, clutching my mother's cold hand like it might stop the world from falling apart. "No... How could that happen? No,"I whispered, shaking my head. "It can't be." But it was. The words were sharp and final, reality crashing in with all the force of a freight train. My store. The one thing I had left. Gone. Stolen. "I'm so sorry, Ally," Mrs. Jenkins' voice cut through the fog in my brain."I don't know what to say. It's all gone." I closed my eyes, trying to know if the pain would go away, but it didn't. How could I keep going? How could I keep fighting when everything I had worked for, everything I had left, was just... gone? The phone slipped from my fingers, landing with a dull thud on the floor. I didn't pick it up. My hand trembled, hovering just above my lap, unsure where to go, and what to do. The air in the room seemed thick, pressing down on me, suffocating me with the weight of the world. My chest ached, and each breath felt like I was inhaling shards of glass. My stomach twisted, sharp and unrelenting, as if something inside I had been torn apart and was now slowly unraveling. I tried to steady myself, but the tears came anyway, hot and burning, blurring my vision until everything was nothing but a gray haze. "Hello...hello? Her voice rang out from my phone on the floor, "Are you there?" I quickly picked it up, tears dropping from my eyes and blurring my vision, "Y-yes... I'll be there as soon as I can," I rasped, barely hearing my own voice. I hung up, my fingers numb as I shoved the phone back into my pocket. Everything in me screamed to stay with my mother, but I couldn't. I can't sit here, helpless. I had to do something. I didn't know how I made it out of the hospital. My legs felt like lead, my thoughts spinning in a chaotic blur. Each step seemed heavier than the last like the weight of the world had settled on my shoulders. The hospital lights buzzed above, distant and cold, the silence wrapping around me, suffocating. I reached the street, and then somehow made my way to my store. But when I saw it, everything stopped. The metal shutters -those that I'd locked every night were bent and twisted, hanging off their tracks. The door stood wide open. Inside, the shelves were bare, the counters stripped clean. The emptiness echoed in my chest. My store. The last piece of anything I'd ever had. I staggered inside, my legs giving way beneath me as I collapsed to the floor. My breath came in ragged gasps, tears blurring my vision. The emptiness around me felt like a suffocating fog, thicker than the hospital room, thicker than my mother's fading presence. This was my collapse. I sat there, staring at the hollow walls, my hands trembling. The place that once felt like home now felt like a cruel joke. I tried to make sense of it, to convince myself it wasn't real. But it was. A soft ringing, distant but insistent, broke through the fog. My phone. I fumbled for it, too numb to feel the cold metal in my hand. I answered without looking at the Screen. "Hello?"I croaked, wiping my face with the back of my hand, trying to ignore the wetness on my skin. "Miss Alison?" A crisp, businesslike voice on the other end. "This is the loan company. We've been trying to reach you. You need to come to our office. Immediately." My heart gave a mad jump in my chest. The loan company. The money my father owed. The money I had no way of paying. "What... What do you want from me?" My voice barely more than a whisper. "What's this about?" "You need to come quickly. I'm afraid there's bad news.