1 The day I ended things with Austin, the final text I ever sent him read: I’m sorry. I’m with someone else. He never texted back. Within an hour, every trace of me had been scrubbed from his life, blocked on every platform we shared. Two years later, on New Year’s Eve, I was pushing my father’s wheelchair through the frozen courtyard of the Birchwood Memory Care Pavilion. We were watching the municipal fireworks erupt over the city skyline. I turned my head and saw Austin standing less than ten feet away, holding a high-end specialty grocery bag. Beside him stood a girl with a soft, round face and a blunt bob, peering curiously at my father. Austin’s eyes found the wheelchair first, lingering on the way my father’s head tilted slackly against the headrest, before slowly drifting up to my face. “Hannah.” It had been seven hundred and thirty days since I’d heard him say my name. He took a slow step forward, looking down at the droop on the left side of my father’s mouth. “Is this the man you traded me for?” My knuckles went white against the rubber grips of the wheelchair. I said nothing. A short, dry laugh escaped his throat—sharp, like a blade dragged across plate glass. “I at least expected him to be young. Or handsome.” Right then, my father let out a wet, guttural whimper. A string of saliva slipped past his lips, dripping down his chin. I dropped to my knees on the freezing asphalt, pulling a tissue from my pocket to wipe his face. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The girl beside Austin gently tugged his cashmere sleeve, whispering, “Austin, please. Let’s just go.” He sneered, turned on his heel, and walked away. Above us, a shell exploded into a shower of falling gold. I buried my face in the wool blanket draped over my father’s lap, shivering. This was probably the last time I would ever watch fireworks with him. Come next month, I wouldn’t even have the money to pay for my chemotherapy. “What are you doing, Hannah? Playing dead?” A harsh voice cut through the damp air above me. I didn’t lift my head from the blanket. A pair of custom Italian leather oxfords came to a halt on the path, the toe of one shoe nudging the front tire of my father’s wheelchair. “Austin just came to visit Tessa’s grandmother,” Brad Miller said with an ugly smirk. “Ran into you, did he?” Brad had been Austin’s college roommate. Back when Austin and I were together, Brad was the one always crashing on our futon, calling me his favorite sister-in-law. The week after I left, he had posted a screenshot of our apartment keys on Instagram, calling me an opportunistic gold-digger who traded love for a trust fund. I sat back on my heels, smoothing the blanket over my father’s knees. “Move.” Brad kept his hands jammed in his shearling coat pockets. “Still acting like you have leverage? Word is, your father’s room and board here lapses at the end of the week. What happened? Did your sugar daddy go belly-up?” My grip on the handles tightened. “None of your business.” I wheeled my father around him, but Brad’s voice trailed after me like dirty exhaust. “You really don’t know, do you? Apex Holdings bought this entire healthcare network last week.” He laughed quietly. “And Austin Reed is the CEO.” My heart skipped a beat, stumbling in my chest. A familiar, grinding spasm knotted in my upper abdomen. Swallowing down the cold sweat prickling my hairline, I hurried toward the sliding glass doors of the wing. Inside the ward, the floor supervisor was waiting outside room 114 with a manila folder in her hands. “Ms. Cole. I was hoping to catch you.” She handed me a printed statement. “Your father’s memory care bed, his dedicated aide fee, and your specialized outpatient infusion co-pays are due by tomorrow morning.” I glanced at the bottom line. $53,000. My checking account held two hundred and eighty dollars. “Can you give me a few days?” I asked, my voice barely audible above the hum of the fluorescent lights. The supervisor sighed, her eyes softening with genuine pity. “It’s not my call, Hannah. Central management issued a revised policy this morning. Zero tolerance on overdue balances. If the ledger isn’t cleared, the bed is forfeit.” “What about the hardship charity endowment?” I looked up at her. “The social worker told me the application was complete. It was supposed to clear next week.” She looked past my shoulder. “The board altered the qualification criteria under the new acquisition terms. Your father no longer qualifies.” “Why?” “There isn’t a why,” she murmured, her tone turning guarded and rigid. “New ownership, new rules.” Silence settled like lead. Austin. He was cornering me. The gnawing pain in my stomach sharpened into a serrated edge, carving through tissue. I swallowed the metallic tang rising in the back of my throat. “I understand,” I said. I folded the invoice in half and slid it into my coat pocket. “I’ll have the money tomorrow.” Once she walked away, I cleaned my father’s face with a warm washcloth, tucked him into bed, and hummed until his breathing turned heavy and regular. Outside, the last of the fireworks had died out. The sky was an empty, bottomless black. I pulled out my cracked phone, scrolled down to a number I hadn’t dialed in over two years, and hit call. It rang once. Twice. I wasn’t blocked anymore. He had been waiting for this call. “Yeah?” His voice drifted through the receiver, lazy, detached, and bitterly cold. “It’s me,” I said, my fingers cramping around the phone. A heavy pause stretched between us, followed by the metallic click of a lighter. “What do you want?” “Why did you freeze my father’s hardship subsidy?” I asked directly. Austin let out a quiet, mirthless chuckle. “Hannah. Is that how you ask someone for a favor?” “What do you want from me?” “You had plenty of backbone two years ago,” he said, the detachment dropping away to reveal the raw malice underneath. “You told me he could give you the life I couldn’t. Where is he now?” “He’s dead,” I lied, keeping my voice deadpan. There was a hitch in his breathing on the other end. “So you hit a wall, and now you come crawling back to me?” “Austin, I just need the bed for one more month,” I said, closing my eyes against the dizziness washing over me. “Consider it a loan.” “I don’t need your money,” he replied. “And why the hell would I lend a cent to a liar?” The pain in my gut flared so violently that my knees buckled. I caught the edge of the windowsill, my nails scraping against the drywall. “What will it take for you to sign off on the endowment?” He stayed silent for so long I thought the line had dropped. “Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. The Penthouse Lounge at the St. Regis,” Austin said, his tone dripping with imperial disdain. “Come find me.” “Okay.” “Don’t be late.” Just before he hung up, a soft, honeyed voice filtered through the speaker: Austin, honey, who was that? The line went dead. I sank slowly onto the linoleum floor, clutching my stomach as a violent wave of nausea surged upward. I clamped both hands over my mouth, my whole body convulsing in the dark, shivering so hard my teeth rattled. The next evening, I put on the only decent wool coat I owned, buttoning it up to the collar to hide the faded, paper-thin hospital scrubs underneath. The elevator opened onto the top floor of the St. Regis. When I pushed open the double doors of the private suite, the laughter inside ceased. Through a haze of cigar smoke, Austin was sitting centered on an oxblood leather sofa. Tessa sat pressed against his side, pouring vintage bourbon into his glass. Brad was slouched in an armchair off to the right, twirling an unlit cigarette, watching me like I was a freak in a sideshow. “Well, well. Look who decided to grace us,” Brad exhaled, shaking his head. “Didn’t think you’d actually show.” I ignored him, walking straight up to the marble coffee table in front of Austin. “I’m here,” I said, staring into his dark, shuttered eyes. “Sign the paper.” Austin slowly raised his eyelids, his gaze skimming across my bloodless face, lingering on the frayed hem of my winter coat. He lifted his tumbler, swirling the amber liquid with a gentle flick of his wrist. “You want the funding?” He nudged a heavy, unopened bottle of cask-strength rye to the edge of the marble table. “Drink this. Every drop. And I’ll sign.” My eyes fell on the bottle. I was in stage-four gastric adenocarcinoma. My oncologist had warned me that even spicy broth could cause a fatal perforation, let alone eighty-proof liquor. If I drank that, it would shred what remained of my stomach lining. “I don’t drink,” I said, my voice dry and scratchy. “You know that better than anyone, Austin.” His gaze darkened instantly. Of course he knew. Back in college, my alcohol intolerance triggered severe hives and vomiting; he wouldn’t even let me order dishes cooked with white wine. Whenever his frat brothers tried to hand me a cup of punch, he’d snatch it away and drink it himself. He used to kiss my forehead and tell me his girl would never have to play those degrading games. Now, he leaned back against the leather cushions, his lips curling into a cruel sneer. “That was then. What makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate with me now?” 2 “If she can’t drink it, I’ll do it for her,” Tessa said abruptly. She reached toward the heavy crystal bottle, her eyes wide with a gentle, unpracticed pity. Austin caught her wrist before her fingers could touch the glass. “Your asthma flairs up with alcohol. Don’t touch that.” His tone was soft, layered with the kind of exasperated tenderness that only comes from deep affection. I stared at their overlapping hands. The fire in my gut seemed to crawl up into my chest, wrapping around my heart. It was strange, watching him care about someone else’s fragile body. “Hannah, drink it or get the hell out,” Brad called out, leaning forward with a smirk. “Austin’s doing you a massive courtesy just letting you stand in this room. Stop acting like you’re too good for it.” I looked at the bottle. Fifty-three thousand dollars. It would buy my father another month of warm meals and clean sheets. It would buy me enough time to settle his affairs before I died. I took a deep breath, reached out, and closed my hand around the neck of the bottle. The cold glass burned my palm. Austin’s pupils contracted slightly. He had expected me to plead, to break, to beg on my knees like I used to when we argued. I didn’t reach for a glass. I ripped off the wax seal, popped the cork with my thumb, tilted my head back, and shoved the mouth of the bottle between my lips. The liquid hit my throat like battery acid, a torrent of liquid fire cascading straight into an open wound. The agony was instantaneous, a white-hot detonation in my abdomen. My vision washed out into blinding gray static, my knees threatening to give way. Don’t stop. If I stopped, they would wheel my father’s bed into the snow tomorrow morning. I clamped my jaw around the rim, swallowing convulsively, forcing the burning poison down. Half of it poured into my throat; the rest spilled over my jaw, soaking through my collar, staining my faded undershirt. “Stop it!” Austin suddenly snapped. The command came out strained, cracked with an undercurrent of panic he couldn’t entirely mask. I lowered the bottle and slammed it onto the marble. The room spun wildly, the pain so blinding that my spine refused to straighten. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, using the sharp physical bite to keep the blood from spilling out of my mouth. “Sign it,” I whispered, sliding the folded grant application across the table toward him. Austin didn’t look at the paper. His eyes were locked onto my face, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles jumped beneath the skin. “Is money really all that matters to you?” “Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “You’d kill yourself for a check?” He stood up, towering over me, his shadow blotting out the ambient light of the suite. “Yes.” I held his gaze. “Didn’t people treat you like garbage when you were broke, Mr. Reed?” I aimed straight for the scar tissue. When his first tech startup went under, leaving him buried in debt, his own family had called him a worthless failure and cut him off. I had worked three jobs—sixteen-hour days, four hours of sleep on a broken box spring—funneling every single tip and paycheck into his server costs and rent. And when his breakthrough finally came, my biopsy came back malignant. I could never let him know. I could never let him spend his hard-won fortune keeping a corpse breathing, or let him live with the crushing guilt that my sacrifices had killed me. Austin’s face drained of color. The last trace of humanity in his eyes froze into absolute, arctic malice. “Fine.” He grabbed a Montblanc pen from the tray and scrawled his signature across the authorization line, pressing down so hard the nib tore through the paper fibers. He picked up the sheet and threw it at me. The crisp edge whipped across my cheekbone, leaving a stinging red line. “Take your blood money and get out.” I bent down, my fingers grazing the plush rug as I gathered the paper. My vision was swimming in black spots. Carefully, almost reverently, I folded the torn document and tucked it deep inside my coat pocket, against my ribs. “Thank you, Mr. Reed.” I turned around and took a step toward the door. With every stride, it felt as though someone were twisting a serrated trowel inside my organs. Just as my hand touched the heavy brass handle, I heard Tessa’s hesitant voice behind me: “Austin… she looks really sick. Shouldn’t we call someone?” “Let her die,” Austin said, his voice flat, vacant, and completely void of warmth. I pulled the door shut, locking the sound of his voice away. I only made it five yards down the carpeted hallway before my knees buckled. I braced one shoulder against the wall, bent in half, and vomited a thick stream of dark, coagulated blood onto the hotel’s cream-colored runner. I gasped for air, wiping my chin with the frayed sleeve of my coat. An elderly housekeeping attendant turned the corner with her supply cart, letting out a muffled shriek at the sight. “Oh, sweetheart! Sweetheart, are you okay? Should I dial 911?” “I’m fine,” I croaked, my voice shredded. “I’m sorry… about the carpet. I’ll pay for it.” “Forget the damn carpet, look at your face! You’re white as a sheet, you need an ER—” I shook my head. I couldn’t afford an emergency room visit. An ER bill would wipe out the money I just won. Leaning heavily against the wainscoting, I dragged myself into the elevator. When I stumbled out through the revolving doors, the sleet hit my face like needles. An Uber was out of the question. I limped two blocks to the municipal bus shelter and slumped onto the frozen metal bench. Freezing rain mixed with wet snow, settling on my lashes. I tightened my coat, pressing my forearm over the folded grant form in my inner pocket. With this, my father had thirty more days of safety. As for me… the oncologist had told me two months ago that even with the experimental therapies, my body wouldn’t last past spring. A sleek black Maybach pulled up to the intersection ahead, idling at the red light. The tinted passenger window slid halfway down. I could see the sharp profile of Austin’s face in the amber glow of the dash. Tessa was leaning toward him, whispering something with a gentle smile. I ducked my head into my collar, pressing my face into the worn fabric, desperate not to let him see me sitting there like a stray dog. The light shifted to green. The car surged forward into the night, its heavy tires kicking up a wall of freezing slush that splashed across my shins, soaking through my thin denim. At eight the next morning, I stood before the accounts desk at Birchwood. The billing manager took the document, adjusted his glasses, looked at Austin’s signature, and then tapped his keyboard. “Ms. Cole, this voucher has been flagged as void.” The air left my lungs. “What do you mean?” “An executive directive came down from Apex corporate this morning,” the manager said, sliding the form back across the counter. “All non-profit endowments and charitable exemptions have been suspended pending internal audit.” “His signature is right there!” My voice cracked, the paper trembling in my hands. “He signed it last night!” “The signature is authentic, but the administrative freeze takes precedence,” the man replied impassively. “If the outstanding balance isn’t wired into our account by five o’clock today, we will have to discharge your father.” I stood frozen, a high-pitched ring deafening my ears. He had lied to me. He just wanted to watch me debase myself. He wanted to see me choke down fire, swallow my pride, and tear myself apart for a check—only to crush the hope beneath his heel the moment I turned my back. I turned, rushed out of the administration wing, and dialed his private line. He picked up on the second ring. “Austin, what the hell is this?” Despair and fury tore through my chest, stripping my words raw. “You gave me your word! You signed the paper!” His voice came through smooth, unbothered, and terrifyingly cold. “Did I break my word?” he said. “I promised to sign it. I never promised the accounting department would cut the check. Did you really think I was still the same pathetic fool who let you walk all over him two years ago, Hannah?” “Austin!” Tears finally broke through, scalding my cold cheeks. “Please. I am begging you. My dad cannot survive out on the street. He doesn’t even know what year it is!” “Begging me?” He let out a dark laugh. “A phone call doesn’t sound very sincere.” “What do you want?” “I’m in the main lobby of Apex Tower,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, cruel purr. “If you can get on your knees at the revolving doors and crawl all the way across the lobby to my private elevator, I might just toss you that fifty grand. You have thirty minutes.” The line clicked dead. I looked down at the dark screen. Down the corridor, through the open doorway of room 114, my father was sitting by the window, clapping his hands softly at a sparrow perched on the bare branches outside. He didn’t know his own name anymore. But every single afternoon, he would take the small red apple from his lunch tray and tuck it under his pillow, saving it for when ‘Hannah came home from school.’ I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and walked out the door. Apex Tower stood at the center of the financial district, fifty stories of smoked glass and steel. It was noon. The lobby was packed with junior analysts, hedge fund partners, and corporate couriers rushing to beat the lunch rush. I pushed through the revolving glass doors and stepped onto the mirrored Italian marble. A security guard stepped forward, hand resting on his radio. “Ma’am, do you have a security pass?” I looked down at the polished stone, reflecting the soaring vaulted ceiling. Then, I let my knees drop. Crack. The impact echoed across the cavernous lobby. The chatter cut out instantly. Dozens of eyes turned, pinning me to the floor like an insect under a spotlight. 3 “Is she insane?” “Call building security, what is she doing?” Whispers rippled through the crowd, rising like the tide. I kept my chin down, flattening both palms against the ice-cold marble. The shock of the stone against my raw kneecaps sent a jagged bolt of agony straight up my spine. I dragged my right leg forward. The security guard stood frozen, his mouth half-open, completely thrown off script. Slowly, inches at a time, I crawled toward the private executive elevators on the far side of the lobby. The agony in my stomach roared back to life. The high-proof whiskey from the night before had stripped away whatever defenses my lining had left; with every forward shift of my weight, the jarring motion yanked at the frayed nerves in my abdomen. Cold sweat pooled on my brow, dripping onto the clean, waxed floor. Fifty yards. Thirty yards. Ten. The silver doors of the express elevator slid open with a soft chime. Austin stepped out, flanked by half a dozen vice presidents and attorneys, his charcoal bespoke wool coat tailored to perfection. He stopped dead, his gaze sweeping down to where I knelt on the floor. The crowd instinctively parted, creating a wide, suffocating circle around us. I dragged myself to a halt three paces from his polished shoes. Slowly, I lifted my head. His face was a mask of cold porcelain, looking at me as if I were a piece of discarded trash that had blown in through the doors. “Mr. Reed,” I rasped, my throat raw and torn. “I made it. Can I have the money now?” Austin didn’t speak. Behind him, Brad pushed through the knot of executives, letting out a sharp, derisive snort. “Jesus, Hannah. You really have zero shame, don’t you?” Brad stepped forward, the toe of his shoe catching me under the chin, forcing my head up. “Crawling on your knees in public for fifty grand. How much did that old bastard give you back then to completely hollow out your spine?” I slapped Brad’s foot away. “Get away from me.” My eyes never left Austin’s face. “You gave me your word, Austin.” Austin gave a slight flick of his fingers. His executive assistant stepped out from the flank, unzipping a leather folio, pulling out a thick brick of hundred-dollar bills bound with heavy paper straps. Fifty thousand dollars in cash. Austin took the bundle. He looked down at me, and though he had orchestrated every second of this humiliation, there was no victory in his eyes—only an abyss of suffocating, toxic rage. “You really threw your entire dignity away for this?” He crouched down, placing the thick stack of bills on the marble floor between us. “Where’s that high-and-mighty girl from two years ago, Hannah? Where did all that pride go when you threw my keys in my face?” I stared at the paper band. That money was my father’s shelter. It was his dignity, even if mine had to be ground into dust. I reached out, my fingers trembling with exhaustion. Just as my fingertips brushed the edge of the top bill, Austin’s heavy leather oxford came down, pinning the stack under his heel. My hand froze in midair. “This money feels too clean for you,” Austin whispered, staring into my hollow eyes. “If you want it, pick it up with your mouth.” A collective gasp rippled through the circle of onlookers. Even Brad’s smirk faltered. “Austin… that’s a bit much, man—” “Shut up,” Austin cut him off, his voice flat and dead. He pressed his weight down on the bills, watching me like he was waiting for the final snap of a dying soul. A violent heave tore through my diaphragm. A mouthful of warm, thick blood welled up in my throat. I clamped my molars together, swallowing the iron liquid back down into the fire of my chest. The taste of rust coated every inch of my mouth. Slowly, I lowered my upper body. My cheek pressed against the freezing, dusty floor. Under the collective gaze of fifty strangers, I parted my lips and clamped my teeth down on the edge of the banded currency beneath his shoe. Austin’s entire frame went rigid. He yanked his foot back as if he had stepped on live current, stumbling half a step backward, his face turning an ash-gray shade of horror. I kept my teeth locked around the bundle, using my trembling forearms to push myself up, before reaching up with both hands to take the cash from my mouth. The gray dust from his sole clung to the green paper. I shoved the brick into my coat pocket, wrapping both arms around my ribs to keep it pinned against my heart. “Thank you, Mr. Reed.” Using the elevator railing for support, I dragged myself upright. My legs were numb, dead weight, the thin fabric over my kneecaps blooming with dark patches of blood. I didn’t look at him again. I turned around and began the long, limping trek toward the revolving doors. The moment the winter wind struck my face outside, my body finally gave out. I collapsed against a municipal trash bin around the corner, my ribs heaving as I expelled a massive clot of bright crimson onto the curb. It looked horribly vivid against the dirty snow. I leaned back against the brick wall of the alley, gasping for breath, my fingernails digging into the stack of cash in my pocket. Dad. I got the money. I closed my eyes, letting the tears track through the dried blood on my chin. Back at Birchwood, I dropped the cash on the accounts desk. The supervisor stared at the battered stack, then looked up at my hollowed-out face with a complicated mixture of dread and sympathy. “Ms. Cole… you look terrible. Let me call an ambulance to take you to the regional hospital.” “No need,” I managed a faint, brittle smile. “Just a chronic issue. I just need to rest.” I walked back into room 114. My father was sitting on the edge of the mattress, clumsily twisting his thumbs. When he heard the door click, his face broke into a broad, child-like grin. “Hannah! Apple!” He reached under his pillow, pulling out a bruised, slightly shriveled Red Delicious, holding it out like a prize. My throat closed up. I took the fruit, pressing it to my cheek. “Yeah, Dad. Hannah’s here.” Over the following month, I never went near Apex Tower again. I took a graveyard shift stocking shelves at an all-night bodega three blocks from my apartment. The pay was abysmal, but it covered my generic acetaminophen and over-the-counter antiemetics. As for the targeted cancer therapies, I stopped them entirely. There was no point. The oncologist had been clear: the malignancy had seeded into my pelvic bones. Every night, the pain tore through me with the force of an electric saw. When it became unbearable, I would shove a hand towel between my teeth and roll across the linoleum floor of my roach-infested studio until the sun came up. A month later, on a Tuesday afternoon, I was boiling oatmeal on the two-burner stove when my phone rang. “Ms. Cole! Your father is gone!” the floor nurse shouted over the line, panicked. “He was in the sensory garden, his aide stepped inside for two minutes to use the restroom, and he was gone!” The wooden spoon slipped from my hand, clattering against the grease-stained counter. “I’m coming!” I ran out into the sleet without a coat, scouring the four-block radius around Birchwood. My father’s dementia was so advanced he couldn’t remember his own birthday, let alone navigate an intersection. I searched for three hours, the winter dusk settling into freezing darkness. My phone vibrated in my pocket. A blocked number. “Hannah?” Brad’s voice came through, thick with smug amusement. “Your old man is making a scene at the security gates of Pullman Court. You better get your ass over here before the guards call the precinct.” Pullman Court. Austin’s gated brownstone community. How could my father have walked four miles in the freezing rain to get there? I flagged a cab, throwing my last twenty-dollar bill at the driver when we pulled up to the iron gates. Through the rain, I saw my father sitting in the slush on the pavement, clutching a battered cardboard pastry box to his chest like an infant. Three private security guards were trying to hoist him by his armpits, while Brad stood on the sidewalk, recording the whole thing on his phone. “Let go of him!” I threw myself forward, shoving the guard back, dropping to my knees to shield my father with my body. “Hannah,” my father breathed, his face lighting up the moment he saw me. He thrust the soggy cardboard box toward me. “For Austin. He likes them.” I looked down. Inside the box were four crushed, crumbling almond butter cookies from the German bakery on 4th Street. Years ago, when Austin was surviving on instant ramen and cold brew, that bakery was his single indulgence. Every time my father visited our tiny basement apartment, he’d bring a fresh box, laughing as Austin devoured them over his code. My eyes burned with hot, bitter tears. “Dad… let’s go home.” “Go home?” Brad slipped his phone into his pocket, his mouth twisting in a cruel sneer. “Your senile father just ran his box across the fender of Austin’s Maybach. Look at that scratch.” I turned. A long, faint scuff ran across the clear coat of the sedan’s rear quarter panel. “He didn’t mean to,” I said, shielding the soggy pastry box with my torso. “Tell me the body shop quote. I’ll pay it.” “With what?” Brad laughed. “You think Austin’s running on a shoestring budget like back in the day? A factory repaint on an AMG finish runs ten grand, minimum. Call the cops,” Brad told the guards. “Toss these two vagrants in the drunk tank.” “Who gave you permission to touch him?” A cold, clipped voice cut through the rain. Austin and Tessa walked out through the wrought-iron archway. He wore a cashmere lounge sweater, his gaze instantly dropping to the muddy bakery box in my father’s arms. For a fraction of a second, his pupils dilated with recognition. “Austin, look at your car—” Brad began. “Shut up,” Austin muttered, not looking at him. He walked over, stopping a foot from where my father sat shivering, his knees covered in road grime. Austin’s brows pulled into a deep, tight knot. It wasn’t remorse. It was pure, unadulterated disgust. “Hannah, do you really have to use your sick father to turn my stomach every time?” Austin’s voice was as cold and flat as a frozen lake. “The martyr act worked once. Using him as a prop just makes you pathetic. Apologize to my security, and get him off my property.”
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