Chapter 2 DESPERATE TIMES
Eli's POV
I spun around to confront the doctor, my own chest heaving like I'd run the whole city. She stood quietly in the doorway, clipboard gripped firmly in her hand, her own face bearing that detached mask doctors wear so they won't become involved.
"Please, ma'am." My own voice cracked before I could get it back. "You need to treat him right. He's going to die.".
I dabbed at my eyes with the back of my arm and glared at my thin, sleeping grandfather on the hospital bed. His chest rose and fell in shallow, straining breaths, wheezing like a clock losing steam.
“I’m sorry, Eli,” Dr. Victoria said gently. “Your last payment was months ago, and you’re already in serious debt. Without at least eighty percent of it being cleared, the hospital board won’t allow me to continue his treatments. We’d have to discharge him.”
Her words hit like a hammer, smashing every ounce of hope I’d been clinging to since the last round of chemo.
I head-shook vehemently, my throat tightening. "No. You can't do that. He's got stage three cancer, you can't just. just stop. He'll die. He won't make it."
Dr. Victoria came in, her voice authoritative but kind. "Eli, I've done everything I can for him. I've had him longer than the hospital asked me to, holding out for you to come up with a solution. But there's nothing I can do at risk of losing my job."
"That can't be it." My voice was bitter, frantic. "This can't be how it ends."
She took a step forward as if to rest her hand upon my shoulder, but retreated.
"Why don't you pay me in cash?" I spat out, hoping. "Not the hospital — you. I'll pay you back as soon as I can. You wouldn't have to tell. Just make sure that he gets through this next treatment and—"
She shook her head, and a refusal was even more discouraging.
"Not to do that, Eli. Sorry."
And then she was vanished, and I was left by myself in the room with only the gentle beeping of the heart monitor and the smell of disinfectant searing my nostrils.
I sank down into the plastic chair next to my grandfather's bed and buried my face in my hands. We were in debt for more than twelve grand. Twelve thousand dollars. I had less than twelve hundred to my name after rent.
My throat burned as the tears struck harder, quicker. I attempted to muffle the sound because Grandpa hated to see me cry. But I couldn't help it. My chest hurt from holding back the scream I desired to let out.
When I could sit no longer, I stood up and ran out of the hospital, the antiseptic smell and fluorescent lighting closing in on me.
When I got to the restaurant, the outside sky had turned to a brooding grey color. My shift ended hours earlier, yet the restaurant was still buzzing with the last of the dinner crowd.
The other waiters shot me disapproving sideways glances as I prowled through the staff door, mumbling to each other as if I'd brought the storm with me. I didn't care. I proceeded straight to Mr. David's office, my chest thudding.
"Please," I said when I was inside, my voice cracking. "I need your help."
He looked up from the papers on his desk, his face hard, unemotional.
You need my help?" he recurred, his voice laced with scorn. "After breaking my fine china and quitting at lunchtime? You're lucky I haven't fired you already."
"Sir, I implore you." I knelt down before pride could step in. "You don't understand. My grandfather — he… he's dying.".
"I've heard enough of your complaints about your sick grandfather," he said, standing up and reaching for a small envelope on the desk. "Here. This is what you're receiving for a week's wages. Get out of my office before I have security remove you."
I stared at the envelope like it was a joke. It wouldn't even cover half a week's worth of hospital medication.
Teardrops pricked my eyes once more, but these were fiery hot with shame. I stood there clutching the envelope, hoping — praying — that he would see reason, that he'd notice the pleading on my face and relent.
He didn't.
Instead, he flung the door open himself and more or less shoved me out.
The restaurant lights blurred around me as I stumbled out onto the street, the envelope still clutched in my hand. My knees were shaking, as if the city itself were bearing down on me.
I walked away with the slightest notion of where I was going, my sneakers splattering against the wet pavement as rain began falling. My hood stayed behind at the restaurant, however. The cold drops were almost pleasant, hiding my tears as I tried to devise an exit from this nightmare.
I had thought of all that. Pawnshops. Payday loans. Calling that cousin in Queens who I hadn't seen in years. None of it would get me twelve grand in twenty-four hours.
And then, like fate had been holding back and observing, a flyer stuck to the pavement by the rain on my feet.
I bent down to grab it. The logo read THORNE INDUSTRIES in flowing black letters. Everyone in New York knew that name.
Julian Thorne. The city's youngest CEO. The man who'd entered and expanded his father's business three times over in five years. Ruthless, cold-blooded, untouchable.
And if the whispers I'd heard on the tables were true, a man who made "loans" with strings you could never get loose from.
I looked down at the flyer as rain blurred the ink, soaking through so that it nearly disintegrated in my hands.
He was my only hope.
I didn't even consider.
I soon found myself standing in front of Thorne Industries' glass skyscraper, soaked and shivering. The skyscraper was intimidating — too antiseptic, too quiet — like it was silently judging me for even being there.
I pushed through the turnstile door, the warm air inside striking me like a wall. Every surface was shiny. The marble floor was so extremely polished that I could see my own white, rain-speckled self staring back at me.
The receptionist slumped behind a narrow white desk, not even glancing up as I approached. Suddenly, I felt small again, like a bad child.
I swallowed hard, forcing my voice to struggle. "Please," I stammered. "I… I have to see Mr. Julian Thorne."
Her exquisitely shaped brows rose higher on her face, but she didn't laugh.
She didn't tell me to go away.
She picked up the phone.
And that was when I realized that my life was going to change forever.