Chapter One:SAVING HER MOM!

"Damn you, Richard! Just because I am now bankrupt!" Mr. Jones's voice echoes in the dimly lit room on the phone. "I'll never submit to your stupid, evil terms. I'd rather get a loan from the bank than choose you." Mr. Jones's declaration was loud and menacing.

Oh really? Anyways, if you agree to my terms and conditions, you know where I am.” Richard Grey spoke sternly. “Ha-ha-ha!” He mused jokingly at the receiving end before the call ended on a beeping tone.

Richard Grey, a billionaire and the CEO of GREYSONS COMPANY LTD, a manufacturing company in New York. Additionally, a best friend and business partner to Mr. Jones Asher. As Mr. Jones stood upright in front of a mini bar at the left corner of his rusty bungalow, his face was embraced by anger. He took a glass cup and a bottle of French wine, poured some into the cup, took a sip, and let out his deep thoughts into the empty air.

"My darling, I'll do anything to make sure you survive this sickness." Mr. Jones uttered In a low but disturbing tone, his eyes filled with tears streaming down his face. "Richard, you'll go to hell for demanding such a thing before you assist me." He stared into his wine glass as if it could drown his guilt.

“I should have known it would come to this,” he muttered to himself.

Richard wasn't just a friend - he was a kind of man, who never gave without taking twice as much .

Years ago, he'd helped Jones out of a mess. A mess Jones never repaid. Now the debt has a name: Emily.

He smashed his hand on the wooden table of the mini bar, which shook the bottles and cups dangling at each other.

Meanwhile, a soft, cracky footstep was fast approaching him, but he was overshadowed by anger and didn't notice it.

"Dad!" A tiny sweet voice pierced into his ears, and he was jolted back to reality.

Emily Asher, a young, beautiful angel, about 5’6 tall, in her 20s, endowed with long, dark hair, her eyes framed with medium, natural eyebrows, dressed in a short blue gown, and putting a small cream Louis Vuitton bag across her left shoulder, matching her white shoes.

"Emily!" He called his only daughter's name, and the shock hadn't left his voice.

"Dad, I heard what you just said right now. Who's ready to help Mom?" Emily asked, her voice barely above a whisper yet serious.

"Never mind, I was lost in thought." He replied bluntly and swung his eyes elsewhere.

However, Mr. Jones doesn't want her to know about what he discussed with Richard Grey; eventually, she overheard part of it as she came in but not actually the main details.

What if Richard Grey could actually help her sick mom? Who has been diagnosed with a deadly kidney disease for over a month now and has been receiving treatment?

What if she's the only one that can talk to him? Because she's been the one going front and back since a month after graduation from New York City University as a manager.

"Don't bother your mind with that; it's personal!" Mr. Jones said and tried to divert the question, "Have you been granted the loan?" Mr. Jones refused to divulge what he was whispering before she came in; instead, he stood up from the mini-bar, walked up to his sofa, faced his 60-inch TV hung on the wall, took the remote, and switched it on.

But Emily remained hesitant. She dropped her Louis Vuitton bag on the chair and walked up to him. "Don't even try to avoid my questions, Dad! You understand what I mean, so don't even dare!" Emily's voice increased from a low dose to a high overdose voice. Mr. Jones knew his daughter; he knew her anger mode was activated.

"Are you trying to command your father or what? ... Girl, you need to watch your mouth when speaking. I am your father, you get that!" Mr. Jones uttered, and he clenched his fist in anger.

Emily's two eyes began to get filled up by the tears that had been waiting too long to stream down her face. Her anger was weakened by her emotional depth; she went deeper into her painful multiverse, bringing out the pain and anguish she had seen Mrs. Jane Jones, her mother, experience every single day in the hospital.

"It's unfair to see her moan in pain whenever I go there, even though she tries to hide it when I'm around her."

But beneath the tears and pity lay a different kind of pain - a silent scream.

Why does saving someone always mean losing myself?

Everytime she tried to hold her family together, she felt herself slipping further away.

Emily began to speak in a low yet pitiful tone. "I was watching her closely from her ward window. She was screaming in pain. Immediately I went out this morning. I just..." She couldn't complete her words as tears washed over her face, sending a shiver down Mr. Jones's spine.

"It's alright, darling, I know how you feel," Mr. Jones tried to patronize her.

"You don't, Dad!" She claimed In a harsh tone, "If you do, you'll do everything in your power to ensure she survives, including meeting the name I heard." Emily asserted firmly, leaving Mr. Jones's jaw dropped.

"What name did you hear?" He asked,

"Richard, yes, I heard the name Richard!"

She knew something was wrong - and worse, she knew her father was keeping it from her.

Was her life just another debt waiting to be traded?

The thought of being passed around like a transaction made her chest tighten.

Emily dropped the bombshell, ascertaining that truly she heard the name but didn't hear the details that brought about the name.

"What!" Mr. Jones is a pretender, but not to his only daughter, who has lived her entire childhood with him.

Without hesitation, Emily stood up from the sofa and didn't utter any words to her dad. Mr. Jones even increased the volume of the television set, .

"Ahh! Thank God she's off my neck." He sighed in relief, and he focused on the news program.

"THE GREYSONS COMPANY LTD. IS LAUNCHING THEIR NEW CARS NEXT MONTH," he tuned it away from there in annoyance and disagreement he had with Richard Grey, the acting CEO.

"Hiss!" Mr. Jones displayed irritation at the news.

After a few seconds gone, Emily came back with a small bread knife in her right hand, her eyes blazing with anger and determination, as she pressed the sharp part of the knife on the soft skin of her left hand. "I'll cut myself right now and bleed to death if you don't tell me what we need to save my mom!" She screamed at the top of her voice, with the knife still glued to her hand, slowly cutting through.

Mr. Jones hurriedly stood up and gently calmed her down. "Please, Emily, don't do that." He lowered his voice and slowly walked up to her with his two hands stretched forward. "I give up; I'll tell you." He promised, and gradually Emily unpressed the knife from her hand and dropped it on the marble-tiled floor. Without hesitation, he picked the knife up.

"I'm all ears," she muttered and fixed her gaze directly at her father.

Mr. Jones's facial expressions changed. "Richard Grey, my best friend, can help us with the 100 thousand dollars for your mom's operation and to pay for the donor, but..." He said and paused, then took the knife away from Emily and placed it on the wooden platform at the small mini-bar.

"That's great news. I know I heard his name but didn't know he's ready to help us," Emily's voice was laced with excitement, unlike 30 minutes before.

"There's a problem." Mr. Jones's words sounded saddened and suspicious.

"What's the problem, Dad? We shall do anything to save my mom," she reassured him in a low tone, and this time, she was serious and determined.

"He's willing to give us the loan, but in return he gets to marry you!" He dropped the rock into the ocean, and the water splashed on Emily's face.

"What the fuck! Me?... Never... How?... " Emily's excited tone darkened and became harsh.

"A CONTRACT MARRIAGE BETWEEN BOTH OF YOU!"

Mr. Jones bowed his head, facing the marble-tiled floor. He never wanted her to go into a contract marriage; he was trying to protect her.

“Wait… you're not telling me everything.“

Emily narrowed her eyes. “Why do you look more scared than angry, Dad?”

Mr. Jones sighed, then turned his back. “Because Richard gave me a choice.”

Emily's heart skipped. “What choice?”

“He said the marriage must be your decision. Voluntarily. Otherwise…” He hesitated.

“Otherwise he would choose someone else. Someone worse. And I won't have any say in it.”

“Someone else?” Emily's voice cracked. “Who?”

Mr. Jones didn't answer. His silence was more than words.

His mind reeled on the possibility of what would happen to her if she agreed to marry a freak, womanizer like Richard Grey.

Will she go through with it? What is she planning?

Emily stared at her father in horror, then whispered, “What kind of game is this man playing?”

Emily clenched her fists, silently.

If I have to save mom, I will. But if Richard thinks I'm just a pawn, he's in for a surprise.

She wiped her tears, her mind already calculating.

This isn't just about sacrifice, it's about strategy.