The Billionaire's Blood Price

Selina Moreau sat on the edge of a splintered plastic chair, the cold seat pressing into her thighs through the thin fabric of her jeans. The hospital room buzzed with a low, steady hum that filled her ears like a weight she couldn’t shake off. It was relentless. Ethan lay stretched out on the narrow bed beside her, his breathing shallow and uneven, covered only by a thin, worn-out blanket. Tubes ran from his thin arms into beeping machines that filled the room with a dull, steady rhythm. Her little brother, only sixteen, looked so small against the stiff white sheets. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, shining faintly under the weak fluorescent lights.

In her lap, she clutched a crumpled wad of dollar bills. They were tips from her shift at the dive bar on 12th Street, and she’d counted them three times already in the past hour. Still, the total didn’t change. It wouldn’t be enough to cover the newest bill pinned to the clipboard at the side of Ethan’s bed. Thirteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-two dollars. Her fingers trembled. Her nails were bitten down to the quick, so she pressed her hands into her palms until it hurt. It grounded her for a moment, a tiny piece of pain that gave her something to hold onto in the middle of the storm inside her chest.

She was twenty-four, but she felt so much older. Worn out. Like a dried-up husk that life had thrown around until it cracked. "I'm sorry," she whispered to Ethan, though she didn’t expect him to hear. Her voice was so soft it barely stirred the air. The ventilator hummed louder than her words. She didn’t let herself hope. Hope was a luxury she didn’t have. It was like a cruel trick, always dancing just out of reach, and she couldn’t afford to fall for it again.

The room smelled like antiseptic and something worse, something like despair. It clung to her nose and coated her throat with a bitter taste. The walls were a chipped, lifeless beige, scratched up from gurneys and years of bad news. The small window was smeared with grime and offered no view, just a faint reflection of the flickering lights above. They blinked like a tired heartbeat. Her bar apron was draped over the arm of the chair, once blue but now faded and stained with grease, a symbol of the endless hours she’d put in. She had worked back-to-back shifts all week. Ten-hour days spent dodging drunk customers and cleaning sticky tables until her hands split open. And still, it wasn’t enough. It never was.

Her sneakers were worn thin, the soles sticking slightly to the old floor. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep, but she didn’t cry. Crying wouldn’t help. Crying wouldn’t pay for medicine or keep machines running or make Ethan better. She looked at his face again. His mouth hung open slightly, and every breath wheezed out of him like it took all the strength he had. His cheekbones were sharp, his eyes sunken, and Selina tried to remember what his face used to look like. The way it lit up when he laughed. He had always been the one good thing in her life. The only clean, honest part of it. The reason she kept going, through all the debt, all the jobs, all the empty promises and long nights.

She had promised their mother she’d protect him. Six years ago, standing over a cheap pine casket, she swore it. That promise hung heavy now, like a chain around her neck. The machines beeped on, marking every second she was failing.

Her phone buzzed suddenly on the armrest beside her. It snapped her out of her thoughts. The cracked screen lit up with a message from Grace Kensington. The words stung her tired eyes: "You there? We need to work this out. Ethan deserves better." Selina’s stomach clenched. Grace had those sharp green eyes and a drive that never quit. Always pushing, always asking questions, always believing there was a solution. Selina admired that, even envied it. Grace moved through the world like a force of nature. Selina felt more like someone swept along by the current.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard before she typed out a lie: "I’m fine. Don’t worry." It wasn’t true, not even close, but she couldn’t bring herself to face Grace right now. Not when all her focus had to be on keeping Ethan breathing. She set the phone back down without replying again. The silence in the room returned, thicker than before.

She looked at Ethan again. His breath hitched slightly, and she clenched her jaw. "I’m trying," she whispered, the words catching in her throat. She wanted to scream, to smash something, to make someone hear how unfair this all was. But the hospital was too quiet for that. It pressed down on her until she felt like a shadow, barely there.

The door creaked open and her heart jumped. She turned, and there stood Dr. Patel, white coat clean and sharp against the tired room. He held a clipboard at his side. Selina stood automatically, even though her legs felt like lead. She kept her eyes on Ethan. She couldn’t look the doctor in the eye. Not yet.

“Miss Moreau,” he said. His voice was steady, practiced, polite. She knew what was coming. “Ethan’s condition is getting worse. The infection is spreading faster than we’d hoped. Without the treatment…” He paused, adjusting his glasses. He didn’t need to finish. She understood what he meant. They were running out of time.

Selina felt her throat tighten. Her fingers gripped Ethan’s blanket, twisting it in her fists. She wanted to ask the usual questions. How much? How fast? What could she possibly do about it? But nothing came out. She only managed the tiniest nod. The doctor sighed, like a man who had delivered this kind of news too many times. He scribbled something on his clipboard, then walked away. His footsteps echoed down the hallway, fading like hope.

Selina reached for Ethan’s hand. It was cool and thin in hers. And then the tears came. Quiet, hot, and unstoppable. She pressed his hand to her lips and held it there, tasting the salt and all the guilt that came with it. The machines beeped on, unbothered, counting out the time she didn’t have. She had failed. She was failing. Her promise to their mother felt like a curse now. The kind that pulled people under no matter how hard they fought.

The hospital bill glared back at her from the clipboard. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished it all away. Wished for everything to vanish except the feel of Ethan’s hand in hers. She couldn’t lose him. He had always been her light. The boy who used to charge around their apartment with a plastic sword, laughing until they both fell over on the rug. That boy was somewhere beneath the wires and monitors, and she couldn’t reach him.

Her phone buzzed again. She picked it up, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Another message from Grace: "I’m coming tomorrow. We’ll fix this." Selina stared at the screen. Her chest tightened again. Fix it? She didn’t see how. Her pockets were empty. Her voice was too small. Her whole life had been stitched together with the kind of thread that snapped under pressure. Grace didn’t understand how wide this gap was. How deep. But Selina could almost see her, marching into the hospital with that fierce look, dragging her into some wild plan that terrified and tempted her all at once.

She didn’t reply. Just let the phone fall quiet again.

Ethan’s fingers moved in hers. Just a little. A twitch. Her heart jumped, and she turned to his face, searching for anything more. But his eyes stayed closed. His breathing didn’t change. Still, she held on to that tiny twitch like it meant something. Like it was a thread pulling her back from the edge.

“I’ll fix it,” she whispered, though the words felt thin. Her sleeve was damp from wiping her face, sticking to her skin now. She slid back into the chair, pulling her knees up to her chest, trying to disappear into herself. She couldn’t fight like Grace. But she could keep surviving. That much she knew. For Ethan, she would keep breathing. She would keep scraping by. She would stay in the dark and try not to fall apart. That was what she had always done, ever since their mother’s cough had stopped and they’d been left to figure out life alone.

The clock ticked past midnight. March 20, 2025. Selina hadn’t moved from her seat. Her whole world had shrunk to the rise and fall of Ethan’s chest. To the pulse she could still feel in his wrist. To the machines counting out a life she couldn’t afford to save. She didn’t let herself think past this moment. Just Ethan. Just now.

“I’ll fix this,” she whispered, voice breaking.

She didn’t know how. But she’d tear the world apart before she let him go.