Desperate Measures

The fluorescent lights in City General Hospital buzzed like angry wasps. Bianca Richardson sat in the hard plastic chair outside Room 304, watching nurses rush past with clipboards and medication carts. Her mother had been inside with Dr. Chen for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes that felt like twenty hours.

The door opened.

Dr. James Chen stepped out, his expression carefully neutral in that way doctors practiced when they had bad news. He was young for a kidney specialist—probably early forties—with gray streaking his black hair at the temples. Bianca had seen that look before. It never meant anything good.

"Miss Richardson." He gestured toward a small consultation room across the hall. "Let's talk."

Bianca's stomach dropped. She followed him on legs that felt like rubber, her worn sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor. The consultation room was barely bigger than a closet, with two chairs facing each other and a box of tissues on the small table between them. The tissues were always a bad sign.

Dr. Chen closed the door and sat down. He didn't reach for his tablet or pull up any charts. He just looked at her with tired, kind eyes.

"Your mother's kidney function has declined significantly in the past week," he said. "The dialysis isn't working anymore. Both kidneys are failing."

Bianca already knew this. She'd watched her mother turn yellow, watched her swell with retained fluids, watched her sleep twenty hours a day. But hearing it said out loud made it real in a way that terrified her.

"What are her options?" Bianca's voice came out steadier than she felt.

"She needs a transplant. Soon." Dr. Chen leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I've submitted her to the national registry, but the waiting list for kidneys is years long. She doesn't have years."

"How long does she have?"

"Two months. Maybe three if we're lucky."

The room tilted. Bianca gripped the arms of her chair, focusing on breathing. In, out. In, out.

"There is another option," Dr. Chen continued. "Memorial Medical Center specializes in finding living donors through their private program. They have connections, resources, the best transplant team in the country. But—"

"But it's expensive."

"Yes." He pulled a folded paper from his white coat pocket and handed it to her. "This is the estimate."

Bianca unfolded the paper with shaking hands. The number at the bottom made her vision blur.

$250,000.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

She might as well have been looking at a million. Or a billion. It was impossible either way.

"I don't have this kind of money," she whispered. "I work at Coffee Corner making nine dollars an hour. I have seventeen hundred dollars in savings. My credit cards are maxed out from the last hospital bill."

Dr. Chen's expression softened with sympathy. "I know. I'm sorry. But you asked for options, and this is the only real one I can give you."

Bianca stared at the number until it burned into her retinas. $250,000. Her mother's life, reduced to a figure she could never reach.

"Two months," she said numbly.

"I'll do everything I can with dialysis to buy you time. But Bianca—" Dr. Chen waited until she met his eyes. "Start preparing yourself. And talk to your mother. She should know."

---

Bianca sat in her car in the hospital parking lot for an hour after leaving. She couldn't make herself turn the key, couldn't make herself drive home to her mother who was counting on her.

$250,000.

The number kept spinning through her head like a slot machine that always landed on bankruptcy.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Sophie Park, her best friend since high school.

*Sophie:* *How'd it go with the doctor?*

Bianca's fingers hovered over the keyboard. How did you tell someone that your mother was dying and you were too broke to save her?

*Bianca:* *Bad. Can I come over?*

*Sophie:* *Always. I'll order Thai food.*

---

Sophie opened her apartment door before Bianca could knock. One look at Bianca's face and she pulled her into a hug without asking questions.

"Come on," Sophie said. "Food's already here. And I opened wine."

They sat on Sophie's worn couch with containers of pad thai and spring rolls spread across the coffee table. Bianca picked at her food while Sophie waited patiently. Finally, Bianca told her everything—the kidney failure, the two-month deadline, the impossible amount of money.

Sophie listened without interrupting, her dark eyes sharp with concern. When Bianca finished, Sophie set down her wine glass with deliberate calm.

"Okay," she said. "We need a plan."

"There is no plan, Soph. I'd need to make a hundred thousand dollars a month for the next two months. That's not possible."

"Nothing's impossible." Sophie grabbed her laptop from the side table and opened it. "What if you got a different job? Something that pays way more?"

"Like what? I dropped out of community college. I have no degree, no special skills—"

"You have plenty of skills," Sophie interrupted. "You're organized, responsible, great with people. You just need someone who'll pay you what you're worth." Her fingers flew across the keyboard. "There. High-paying administrative assistant jobs in the city."

Bianca leaned over to look at the screen. The salaries made her dizzy. Some listed $60,000 per year. One even said $80,000. But that was still nowhere near enough.

"Even if I got one of these miracle jobs," Bianca said, "I'd make maybe six or seven thousand a month. That's still not—"

"Wait." Sophie clicked on something, her eyes widening. "Holy shit. Look at this."

She turned the laptop toward Bianca.

*PERSONAL ASSISTANT WANTED*

*Luxe Noir Fashion House*

Seeking organized, professional assistant for high-level executive position. Must be discreet, flexible, and available for extended hours. Fashion industry experience preferred but not required.

*Salary: $15,000/month*

Bianca read it three times. Fifteen thousand dollars. Per month.

"That has to be a typo," she said.

"No typo. Look—it's linked to their official company website." Sophie clicked through to show her. Luxe Noir was a legitimate fashion company, one of the biggest in the city. Their headquarters was that massive black and gold tower downtown that looked like it belonged in Dubai.

"Sophie, I don't know anything about fashion."

"The posting says experience preferred, not required." Sophie grabbed Bianca's shoulders. "Listen to me. This is literally the answer. Two months at fifteen thousand a month is thirty thousand. Get them to give you a signing bonus, maybe an advance—rich companies do that all the time. You could actually do this."

Bianca stared at the job posting. Fifteen thousand dollars a month. It seemed obscene. Impossible. Too good to be true.

But it was there. Real. Posted four hours ago.

"What if I'm not qualified?" Bianca asked quietly.

"What if you are?" Sophie countered. "What's the worst that happens? They say no? You're already at no, Bianca. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

Bianca looked at her best friend's fierce, determined face. Sophie had always been the brave one, the one who pushed her to take chances. And she was right—Bianca had absolutely nothing to lose.

She pulled out her phone and opened the job posting, her thumb hovering over the "Apply Now" button.

Two months. $250,000. Her mother's life.

"Okay," she whispered. "I'll apply."

Sophie squeezed her hand. "You've got this."

Bianca pressed the button before she could change her mind. The application page loaded—a simple form asking for basic information and a resume upload. She filled it out with shaking hands, attached her thin resume that listed three years at Coffee Corner and two years before that at a grocery store.

When she hit submit, the screen changed to a new message:

*Thank you for your application. Due to the urgent nature of this position, qualified candidates will be contacted within 24 hours for an interview.*

Twenty-four hours. By tomorrow, she'd know if she even had a shot at saving her mother's life.

Bianca set her phone down and picked up her wine glass, draining half of it in one swallow.

"To desperate measures," Sophie said, raising her own glass.

"To desperate measures," Bianca echoed.

Neither of them knew just how desperate things were about to become.