Chapter 1: Rock Bottom
The slap echoed around the restaurant louder than the bottle did when it crashed to the ground.
My cheek stings along with my eyes as my head is snapped sideways by the impact, the tray tilting in my hand. My glossy eyes stayed on the glass and wine that's spread across the marble floor like a stain I can't take back. I catch the tray before it drops too.
Small mercy.
"You clumsy little witch!" The woman snapped, her hands still raised like she was about to deliver a second strike. Diamonds flashed from her wrists and neck every time she moved. "Do you know what that bottle cost?"
I bit my inner cheek, not giving her an answer, my jaw clenched so tight it ached. If I open my mouth right now, nothing good would come out of it, so I stayed still and quiet.
"Mrs. Whitfield, I am so sorry, so sorry—" My manager cuts through the crowd in a panicked frenzy. For one stupid second, I thought he might defend me.
But he didn't even look at me once. Who was I kidding?
"She wasn't watching where she was going," he explained nervously, bowing so low he might as well have kissed her shoes. "This won't happen again, I promise you."
"It better come out of her pay." Mrs. Whitfield's mouth curls in spite. "People like her need to learn a lesson."
People like her. I clenched my teeth harder.
I want to tell them the truth. That her elbow caught my arm before the tray even tipped.
That none of this is fair. But my manager is already turning to me, and his face tells me exactly how much that truth is worth here.
"That's coming out of your check," he says. "All of it."
My heart plummeted. "Please…." My voice breaks, "I need that money. I have bills. My brother's school fees are due. Please, it wasn't my fault."
"You should've been more careful." He gritted out, eyes narrowed at me.
A phone flashed behind me, then another, before I realized all this was being recorded.
Whispers rippled through the room, table to table, nobody bothering to lower their voice.
"Wait. Isn't that the Hart girl?" Someone whispered—or what he thought was a whisper.
"No way. The heiress? That's her?"
"Look at her. A waitress."
"I heard they lost everything. Every last cent." One snickered.
My trembling fingers fisted on the restaurant's apron I was wearing.
"How the mighty have fallen." Another lady scoffed, nudging her friend. "Guess money doesn't last when your father's a thief."
I kept my eyes on the glass at my feet, unshed tears stinging my eyes. If I look up, I'll see the phones raised, the pity dressed up as entertainment.
These were faces that used to smile at me in ballrooms, now they smiled at me like this instead.
Five years, and they still find new ways to gut me.
There was a version of me who would've laughed off two thousand dollars, fallen asleep in penthouse suites, and complained when the private jet felt small.
My father built an empire out of nerve and instinct, and for a while, I got to live inside it like it would never end.
Then it ended. Everything crashing down.
The headlines, handcuffs, and a trial that stripped us bare while the whole country watched. My father had died in a cell before the appeal ever got a court date, then I stopped being an heiress.
I became this— apron-wearing, name-tagged person kneeling on a restaurant floor picking up shards of glass with my bare hands while my manager watched me shake.
How am I supposed to cover the house bills now? How am I supposed to cover Jace's school?
I was still crouched there, sweeping shards into a dustpan, Mrs. Whitfield watching like it's her dinner theater, when my phone buzzed against my hip. I took it out of my pocket, glancing at the screen.
JACE'S SCHOOL.
My stomach dropped before I even answered. They never call. Not for anything but grades and bake sales, and this wasn't the month for all those.
Dear lord.
"Hello?" I answered with a shaky voice.
"Ms. Hart!" The woman on the other end rushed, her breath coming out unevenly, and my chest went cold before I heard her next words. "It's Ms. Delgado, Jace's homeroom teacher. He collapsed during gym class. We called an ambulance. He's at Mercy General right now. They're saying it's his heart. You need to come immediately."
The dustpan slipped from my hand, and the already-picked glass scattered across the floor again.
This time, I didn't hear it break. I was already out the door, leaving behind the screeching Mrs Whitfield and my manager.
The doctor at Mercy General had kind eyes and a voice that tried too hard to be gentle, but somehow that made it worse.
"Your brother has a severe congenital heart defect that's gone untreated for years," he said sympathetically, watching me over the top of Jace's chart like he's bracing for me to fall apart right there in the hallway. "He needs surgery. Immediately. Within thirty days, or the risk of complete cardiac failure becomes extremely high."
"Okay, okay." I nodded too fast, the way I do when my body needed to move before my mind caught up. "Okay. W-what does that cost?"
The next words he mumbled out to me sounded so underwater.
I've heard a number like that before, once, a lifetime ago, attached to a hotel acquisition my father debated over breakfast like it was nothing.
Back then, it was a rounding error.
Now it's a death sentence with my brother's and my name on it.
Thirty days to find a way out of it. I sat in that hallway long after the doctor walked away, running the same math over and over, and it never added up.
I was numb. No savings. No family left to call. No name that opened doors anymore, only one that slammed them shut before I even finished saying, Jack.
I've got thirty days to raise two million dollars.
The numbness evaporated from me, and tears streamed down my face. I have nothing.
Nowhere left to turn.
