His Heartless Plan, Her Bitter End

ost of her emergency surgery, the overnight stay, the morgue fees-it was a mountain of debt I had no way to climb. David's threat from the day

the fake sympathy from yesterda

e," he lied, his voice a low, urgent hum over the phone. "We need cash, Sarah. Now. To pay for

pressure as a weapon to get what he wanted. He thought I w

r burning my lungs. I thought about the lie h

" I

silence on the oth

he asked, his voice

nge sense of power flowing thro

teeth. "Don't be stupid, Sarah. You

ur 'illness' took a bad turn. You needed a special treatment, one that wasn

reathing catch. He

wed the eighty thousand dollars from a man who promised to break my legs if I missed a single payment. I worked four jobs for a year to pay

e memory of my sacrifice, now cast in the l

artment? Fine. But not for us. For me. You will transfer five hundred thousand dollar

m I supposed to get half a million do

f your 'innovations.' Ask your girlfriend Emily. I'm sure her family has deep pockets. You have until fi

ought I was making an emotional, irrational demand. He didn'

medical bills were crippling her family. My mother's last wish, something she had told me just last week, was to be able to help her sister.

ckmail, Sara

ly. "It's restitutio

up th

dull throb compared to the gaping wound in my soul. I stared at the ceiling, my decision a

e buzzed. It was a te

firmation:

s for his fake illness, bought us a beautiful home, funded my art career. He could have given us

the final, brutal p

steady. As the notary left, the adrenaline that had been coursing through me vanished, leaving a profound, bone-deep exhaustion in

call button, but my arm felt impossibly heavy. The world fade