2026-08-04 20:25:30Adrian was still on the floor when he looked up at the nurse with blood on his lip from where he had bitten it on the way down.
"You don't understand. My wife arranged everything. She promised to pay all the bills while I was gone. There has to be a record. Check the system, please."
The nurse folded her arms and tilted her head like she was watching a dog do a trick that was not impressive.
"Your wife?" She let out a short laugh. "Let me tell you something, sweetheart. Not a single cent has been paid to this hospital in over a year. Not one. Your mother has been lying in that bed eating our food and using our medicine out of pure charity because the old doctor felt sorry for her."
Adrian's stomach dropped. He shook his head slowly, like the motion itself could make the words untrue.
"That's not possible. She promised me. She looked me in the eye and promised."
"Well, she lied." The nurse shrugged like it was not her problem. "And now charity is over. We are not running a shelter for stray dogs and their puppies."
Adrian pulled himself up off the floor, his legs shaking under him. He grabbed his phone and dialed Chloe's number. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then someone picked up, but the voice on the other end was not hers.
"Well, well. If it isn't the jailbird."
Adrian's blood went cold. He knew that voice. He had spent three years in a cell because of that voice.
"Julian. Where is Chloe?"
"Chloe is in the shower right now." Julian's tone was slow and lazy, the kind of voice a man uses when he is lying on silk sheets and the whole world belongs to him. "We had quite the celebration after I proposed. You saw the pictures, didn't you? She looked beautiful on her knees, crying with joy. You should have seen how happy she was, Adrian. Truly."
Adrian's hand squeezed the phone so tight his knuckles turned white. The lobby noise faded. Everything faded except Julian's voice dripping into his ear like poison.
"I need to talk to her. She was supposed to pay my mother's medical bills. They are throwing my mother out of the hospital right now."
"Oh, that." Julian let out a bored sigh. "Yeah, about that. Why would we waste good money on a woman who is already halfway in the ground? Your mother is a bottom feeder, Adrian. Just like you. Bottom feeders don't deserve expensive hospital beds."
"You gave me your word. Both of you. That was the deal."
"The deal?" Julian laughed, and it was the ugliest sound Adrian had ever heard. "The deal was that you were stupid enough to go to prison for me, and I was smart enough to let you. There is no deal anymore. Chloe belongs to me now. Her money belongs to me. Her future belongs to me. Everything she has, everything she is, it's all mine."
Adrian's vision blurred. Not from tears. From something hotter, something that burned behind his eyes and crawled down his spine.
"You can't do this."
"I already did." Julian's voice dropped lower, quieter, like he was sharing a secret. "You want my advice? Take your sick old mother, find a nice corner on the street, put a cup in front of you, and start begging. That is where dogs like you belong. On the street. With a cup."
The line went dead.
Adrian stood there with the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to silence. Behind him, his mother coughed, a wet broken sound that echoed through the lobby.
He turned back to the nurse, and whatever was left of his pride, he swallowed it whole.
"Please. Give me a few days. Just a few days and I will have the money. I will pay everything. Every single cent. Just don't throw her out on the street. She will die out there."
The nurse looked at him the way people look at something they are about to step over on the sidewalk.
"A few days?" She put her hand on his chest and shoved him backward. "You don't have a few hours. Get out of my lobby before I call security and have them drag both of you out by your collars like the mutts you are."
Adrian stumbled but did not fall this time. His back hit the wall and he stayed there, breathing hard, his ribs pressing against his skin with every breath. He had nothing. No money, no help, no way out.
Then the television mounted on the lobby wall caught his eye. A breaking news banner was running across the bottom of the screen, and the volume was loud enough for the whole floor to hear.
"Breaking news this morning. Skyward Technology, the startup that was widely dismissed as a scam just one year ago, has just unveiled a groundbreaking AI technology that experts are calling a decade ahead of its time. The company's market valuation has exploded past one hundred billion dollars overnight."
A few people in the lobby stopped to watch. Even the nurse turned her head toward the screen.
The anchor continued, her voice sharp with excitement. "What makes this story even more remarkable is the ownership structure. Three years ago, when Skyward was struggling to survive, they offered eighty percent of their equity through crowdfunding. After two years with no results, nearly every investor pulled out. But one single shareholder held on. That one person now owns eighty percent of a hundred billion dollar company. The question on everyone's mind tonight is simple. Who is this mystery billionaire?"
The lobby buzzed with whispers. Someone near the vending machine whistled low and shook their head.
Adrian felt something strange in his chest. A memory. Faint, almost forgotten. Three years ago, before the trial, before the prison, before everything fell apart, he had put money into a small tech startup that nobody believed in. It was cheap. It was desperate. Just like him.
His fingers trembled as he opened the stock trading app on his phone. It had not been touched in three years. The loading screen spun for what felt like forever.
Then the numbers appeared.
Skyward Technology. Ownership stake: 80%. Current value: $87,900,000,000.
Adrian blinked. He read it again. Then again. His mouth opened but nothing came out. He had been locked in a cell for three years, eating cold food off metal trays, sleeping on a mattress thinner than cardboard. He never had the chance to sell. He never even knew.
He stared at the screen, and the number stared back at him.
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Chapter 10 part-2
“You mentioned an arranged marriage. With someone named Julian.” Adrian watched her face carefully. “Do you know his full name?”The change was instant. Her whole body went rigid, like someone had pressed a knife against her spine. Her nostrils flared and her lips pulled into a thin, hard line. The cold indifference cracked open for a moment, and underneath it was something hot and furious.“Why do you want to know?”“Just tell me his full name. That’s all I’m asking.”“Julian Malcolm.” She said the name the way someone spits out food that has gone bad. “The most worthless piece of garbage walking on two legs in this city. A leech who feeds off his family’s money and treats every person beneath him like dirt on his shoe.”Adrian’s stomach dropped. The same Julian. The same voice that had called his mother a bottom feeder. The same man who told him to put a cup on the street and beg.“You know him well?”“I know enough.” Her voice was low and tight, controlled but burning underneath. “
Chapter 10 part-1
Adrian's whole body went still. Julian. The name landed in his chest like a stone dropped into deep water, and the ripples spread outward through every nerve in his body.The woman snapped two short sentences into the phone, her voice clipped and final, and hung up without waiting for a response. She tossed the phone onto the crumpled sheets and exhaled through her nose. Then she looked down.Her eyes moved over her own body, the bare shoulders, the sheet twisted loosely around her waist, and the realization hit her all at once. Her lips pressed together and color flooded up her neck and into her cheeks."What are you looking at?" The words came out sharp and loud, more bark than sentence. She yanked the sheet up to her collarbone and glared at him like he had committed a crime by existing in the same room."Nothing. I wasn't looking at anything.""You were staring.""I just woke up. My eyes were open. That's not the same thing as staring.""Get out."Adrian held up both hands and bac
Chapter 9 part -2
“I do not care what his family offered. I do not care how much money they have or how many buildings they own or how many people think he is some kind of golden prince.” Her tone did not rise. It stayed level, almost bored, like she was reading items off a list she had already thrown in the trash. “I have met Julian Ashford. I know exactly what kind of man he is.”Adrian’s stomach tightened. He turned to look at her fully now, and she must have felt his eyes on her because she glanced at him again, brief and dismissive, before returning her attention to the phone.“You want to know what kind of man Julian is?” She stood up and walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to let in a thin blade of light. “He is the kind of man who smiles at you while he is counting the money in your pocket. He is the kind of man who calls other people dogs when they are down and then goes to church on Sunday like his hands are clean. He treats anyone below him like garbage on the street,
Chapter 9 part -1
Adrian's eyes opened to a ceiling he did not recognize.The light was wrong. Too soft, too clean, filtered through curtains that smelled like lavender instead of prison bleach. His head was pounding, a slow heavy drum behind his temples that made the room tilt when he tried to sit up. His mouth tasted like something had crawled inside it and died.He blinked twice and pressed his palm against his forehead. Fragments of last night came back in pieces. The bar. The whiskey he had no business drinking after three years of nothing stronger than tap water. A woman's laugh somewhere in the haze, low and careless, like she had heard a joke that was only half funny. Her hand on his arm. The taxi. This room.A phone was ringing.Adrian turned his head and saw her. She was lying on her side with the sheet pulled up to her shoulders, her dark hair fanned across the pillow. Her face was still, almost severe even in sleep, the kind of face that did not soften easily. Her brow furrowed at the sound
Chapter 8 Part 2
The tall man looked at them. Then at the car. Then back at them. Whatever calculation was happening behind his eyes, the answer came quickly. He put his hands in his pockets, lowered his head, and walked away without a word. The other two followed like dogs called to heel.The second bodyguard turned toward the shadows where Adrian was hiding, and his voice softened."Mr. Adrian. We're here. Please come with us."Adrian exhaled and stepped out of the gap, still carrying the unconscious woman in his arms. The bodyguard opened the rear door and helped him set her down gently on the back seat before Adrian climbed in beside her. The car pulled away from the curb in silence, smooth as water."Where are we going?""The Grand Meridian. A suite has been prepared for you on the top floor. Miss Sarah arranged it.""What about her?" Adrian looked at the woman beside him. Her face was pale under the passing streetlights, but her breathing had steadied."We will have a medical team on standby at
Chapter 8 Part 1
The night air hit Adrian's face the moment he stepped outside the apartment building. Cold and sharp, the kind of cold that cuts right through your clothes and sits on your skin like a second layer you cannot take off.He walked. No direction. No destination. Just one foot in front of the other, moving away from the place he used to call home and the two people inside it who had carved out everything he ever believed in and replaced it with nothing.Three years. He had spent three years in a concrete box for a woman who never married him. For a man who called his dying mother a bottom feeder. For a lie so well constructed that he had lived inside it without ever seeing the walls.But it was over now. All of it. The lie, the marriage, the woman. His heart felt like a house after a fire. Still standing, but hollow, and everything inside it burned to ash.He found himself standing in front of a bar. The neon sign buzzed overhead, throwing red light across the wet sidewalk. Music leaked t
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