01: The price of a Daughter

( Mia POV)

I stood across from my father in the dim hallway, his words hanging in the air like smoke I couldn't breathe through. The wallpaper behind him was peeling at the corners yellowed and water-stained from the leak we could never afford to fix.

"What do you mean?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

"You have no choice, Mia. You must marry him."

The walls pressed closer. My lungs forgot how to work properly. The faint smell of cigarettes and stale beer clung to his clothes, mixing with the must of our too-small house.

"Listen to me." His voice softened, but he still wouldn't face me. "He's not as bad as you think."

"I don't want to get married." The words scraped out of my throat. My whole life was tilting sideways, furniture sliding toward an edge I couldn't see. I was twenty years old. I had a degree from Harvard. And now I was being sold like livestock.

"My life depends on this." He finally turned, and I saw something in his face I'd never seen before, fear that looked almost like shame. His hands trembled at his sides. "Maybe this is the last thing I'll ever ask of you. After everything I've done. But please. Let me live."

His voice cracked on the word "live," and for a split second, I saw the man he might have been before the gambling, before the drinking, before he became the thing that drove Mom away.

He walked away before I could respond, his shoulders hunched like a man carrying something too heavy.

I wanted to scream that he'd never been my father. Not really. But the words stayed locked behind my teeth.

---

Inside the living room, Robert Lud sat in our threadbare leather chair like he owned not just the furniture but the entire room, the whole house, maybe even me. His suit was charcoal gray—the kind that cost more than six months of our rent. Dark hair slicked back without a strand out of place. Brown eyes that caught the lamplight and held it, steady and calculating.

When he looked at me, his mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. More like satisfaction. Like a gambler who'd just drawn the winning card.

The contract papers lay on the coffee table between us, white and crisp and final. My death certificate, legally binding.

"Sign it." His voice was low, rough at the edges like gravel under velvet.

I stared at the black lines, the legal words that blurred together. "Marriage duration: Until debt is satisfied. Cohabitation required. No consummation clause—at husband's discretion." My hands shook. For a second, I thought my heart might actually stop beating and just give up entirely.

His hand covered mine.

The touch was warm. Gentle, even. It made everything worse.

I jerked back, glaring at him hard enough that he pulled away. His jaw tightened just a flicker of something beneath the polished surface before he straightened his jacket and looked away.

"I'm sorry." He didn't sound sorry. But his voice had changed. Dropped lower. Almost uncertain.

I signed anyway. What choice did I have? Dad's gambling debts weren't going to disappear. Two billion dollars. That's what I was worth. That's what he'd lost at Robert Luds' underground poker games, and Robert Lud had bought the debt like he was buying a car.

"Be ready in two hours. Someone will pick you up." He stood, buttoned his suit jacket with precise movements, then paused at the door. His hand rested on the frame. "For what it's worth... I'll make sure you're taken care of."

He left before I could ask what that meant.

---

I slammed my bedroom door hard enough to rattle the frame. Dad tried to say something from the hallway, but I didn't want to hear it. Couldn't hear it over the sound of my own crying.

My reflection stared back from the cracked mirror, my dark curly hair a mess, my eyes red and swollen, the same heart-shaped face Mom used to cup in her hands. I looked like someone drowning.

The photo of her still sat on my nightstand. Her smile frozen in time, before everything broke.

Then the memory hit me like a fist.

---

Mom's screams pulling me from sleep. The sound of something breaking downstairs. I was twelve, running toward the noise even though every instinct told me to hide.

Dad had her by the hair, dragging her across the living room floor. Her hands were already bruised purple and yellow and sick-looking. She whimpered, begging him to stop, but he was drunk and past hearing anything.

I threw myself at him, trying to pull Mom free. He shoved me so hard I flew backward into the wall. My head cracked against the plaster. Everything went bright and sharp, then warm and wet.

Blood!

Mom screamed louder when she saw it dripping down my face. Dad didn't even pause. He raised his fist again, and I saw in his eyes that he wasn't my father anymore he was something else entirely.

I grabbed the vase from the side table the blue ceramic one with white flowers that Mom loved and swung with everything I had.

He dropped like someone had cut his strings.

Mom rushed to me, touching my head with shaking fingers, ignoring her own split lip and swelling eye. She cleaned my wound in the bathroom while Dad lay unconscious on the floor, and neither of us spoke about what we'd do when he woke up.

That night she slept in my bed, curled around me like she could protect me from what we both knew was coming.

"Here." She pressed cash into my palm the next morning, bills she must have been hiding for weeks. "For your school fees. And a little extra. Use it carefully."

"Mom, we should call the police. He can't keep doing this."

"Your father isn't a bad man. He just drinks too much." But her voice wavered. Like she was trying to convince herself.

"That's what you always say." My throat hurt from trying not to cry. "If he loved us, he wouldn't hurt us."

She pulled me close, holding me so tight I could feel her trembling. Her tears soaked into my hair. "Shh, baby. I love you. Always remember that. No matter what happens, I love you."

But when I woke up the next morning, she was gone.

Not at work. Not coming back late. Just gone.

Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her toothbrush still sat by the sink. But Mom had vanished like smoke, and Dad never reported her missing. Never even looked for her.

Days became weeks became months became years of nothing. No calls. No letters. No explanation.

Just me and Dad and the empty space where she used to be.

---

A knock yanked me back to the present. I wiped my face and opened the door.

A woman stood there, smiling like this was the happiest day of anyone's life. Black blazer, white silk shirt, tablet in hand. Blue eyes bright and sharp, the kind that missed nothing. Blonde hair cut short in a sleek bob. Red lipstick perfect and poised.

"Hi! I'm Emily Vins. I'm here to help you get ready for your special day." Her smile faltered when she saw my swollen eyes. Something flickered across her face, sympathy, maybe, or discomfort before the professional mask snapped back into place.

Special day. Like I'd chosen this. Like I wanted any of it.

I nodded because I couldn't find words.

She gestured to two men in black suits waiting down the hall. They moved past me into my room and started packing my things, what little I owned, into expensive leather boxes that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

Outside, a Lamborghini SUV sat at the curb, black and sleek and completely out of place on our cracked street where Ms. Chen's laundry still hung on the line and the Rodrigues kids played basketball with a rim that had no net.

Emily guided me toward the car with a hand on my elbow, gentle but firm. "Everything's going to be fine," she murmured. But she didn't meet my eyes.

The leather seats were cool against my legs. The interior smelled like new car and expensive cologne, Robert's, probably. The men loaded my boxes into the trunk with practiced efficiency.

Through the windshield, I saw Dad standing in the doorway. His face was wet. He was crying.

Actually crying.

His hand pressed against the doorframe like he needed it to hold him up. His mouth moved *I'm sorry* but I couldn't hear him through the glass.

I watched him wipe his cheeks as the car pulled away, and I couldn't understand it. He'd just sold me to pay his debts. Used me as collateral like I was property he could trade. So why did he look like the one being taken? Why did he look like a man who'd just lost everything?

The question followed me all the way down the street, unanswered and burning.

Emily's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then at me. "Mr. Lud wants you to know that your father's debts are cleared. He's safe now."

Safe. The word tasted bitter.

Dad was safe.

And I was driving toward a man I didn't know, to marry him in a contract that gave him control *at his discretion*, to live in his house and sleep in his bed and become Mrs. Robert Lud.