Chapter 5

Chapter 5 DENISE I took the train home because my car was still totaled from the accident that i had suffered days ago and Dante had not, in four days, once mentioned arranging a replacement for me. Like he had conveniently forgotten about that little tidbit of information, and i was not going to be the one to bring it up to him. The burgundy bag sat beside me in its box. I didn’t feel guilty about what I was going to do with it. I’d earned it, by trading myself for the money, my purpose, and usefulness to him, in order to feed my family. When i got home, I photographed it on my kitchen counter before I’d even changed out of my shoes. Good lighting, white surface, close-up of the hardware and stitching. I uploaded everything to the resale account—the one registered to a name that didn’t exist anywhere connected to me, with a payout linked to a separate account I’d opened two years ago at a credit union on the other side of the city. Asking price: forty-eight thousand. I’d take forty-five without negotiating. I wrote a short listing description, tagged the authentication certificate that came with the purchase, and posted it. Then I closed the app and put my phone face-down on the counter. The children at St. Mira’s needed winter coats. They needed them by November, and November was six weeks away, and the orphanage director, Mrs. Adeyemi, had told me three weeks ago that the heating system needed repair before the cold came. She’d said it apologetically, like she was ashamed to tell me, like she didn’t know I would’ve given her my last fifty dollars without hesitation if it meant those kids didn’t go cold. I’d grown up at St. Mira’s. I’d slept in that building through a lot of winters, huddled under thin blankets with three other girls, telling each other stories to stay awake because staying awake felt warmer than sleeping because the cold was too much, we were scared that if we slept, we wouldn’t be able to wake up again. Besides I knew exactly what it felt like to put on your school shoes and feel the cold come up through the soles. Forty-five thousand dollars could fix the heater and buy every child in that building a proper winter coat with enough left over for something else—new beds, maybe, or books, or the field trip to the nature reserve that Mrs. Adeyemi had been trying to fund for two years. Dante saw my account statements occasionally, when he was bored or when he was transferring money or checking that the card hadn’t been flagged. He’d see the bag purchase. He’d think that was the end of it—Denise spent her fifty thousand on a handbag like a good girl, as expected, manageable and predictable. He wouldn’t see the resale. He wouldn’t know about St. Mira’s because I’d never told him about St. Mira’s. Some things I’d kept for myself, protected from his reach without ever announcing that I was protecting them. I stood in the shower for a long time after, letting the water run hot until the bathroom filled with steam. Tomorrow was the 13th. Moonlight Manor. Kieran Nightshade. I need to be careful tomorrow. Kieran was powerful in ways that were different from Dante. he was a lot quieter, strategic and patient than most which had helped him a lot in his business. I also knew that Kilian proposing to me was something that he planned to gain not that he loved me. Maybe he knew about the arrangement that i had going on with Dante behind closed doors and wanted to lord it over him. The arrangement he’d proposed wasn’t charity. He wanted something from me. I didn’t know exactly what yet, but I was clear-eyed enough not to pretend it was admiration or that he had fallen for me, he barely knew me. Men like him didn’t sponsor omega girls out of the goodness of their hearts or because they were touched by their pathetic sob stories. There was always a price to be paid. A very hefty one, that cost more than the favor he was doing. The question was whether his price was one I could live with. I turned off the water and reached for a towel, already running through what I owned that was appropriate and suitable to wear to see him tomorrow. I was still deciding on what to wear tomorrow when I heard the front door. It wasn’t a knock on the door, or the buzz of an intercom but my front door opening directly, like the person who was opening it, had the right to do so. I froze. There was only one person who had a key to this apartment. I’d never asked for it back because I’d never truly believed I would need to. I pulled on my robe and walked out of the bathroom, and there he was. Dante stood in my living room looking exactly the way he always looked, polished, cold and untouchable. “Why did you resign?” My heart was doing something complicated and unhelpful in my chest. I ignored it. “Alpha.” I kept my voice even, pulling the robe tighter. “You didn’t call first.” “Why did you resign?” he repeated, like I hadn’t spoken. HOw did he even know that i had resigned, was he expecting it or it just happened to be a coincidence that he stumbled upon it, and then decided that his ego was more important than my safety and dignity. He needed me functional and around him, while he pleased Elena, and made me watch. I opened my mouth to answer him, to give hima piece of my mind but he kept talking, not even waiting for an answer, already assuming any answer that i gave him was not worth it. “I’ve already spoken to Lyra. She won’t touch you again.” He said it with the finality of someone closing an argument and was not interested in opening it anymore. “I’ve also spoken to HR. They’ve been instructed to give you a few days of paid leave, and your resignation has been cancelled.”