Chapter 5: Aunt Marie

"What do you mean you can't?"

Dr. Brennan's voice drops. He sounds exhausted. Apologetic. "Administration has flagged her account. Her insurance lapsed last month. The surgery is high-risk, specialized. We need a down payment of fifty thousand dollars. Cash or wire transfer. Right now."

Fifty thousand.

I don't have fifty dollars.

"I don't have that." My voice breaks. Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and fast. "I have nothing. Please, just save her. I'll sign anything. I'll work for free. I'll—"

"I'm sorry, April. Hospital policy. No funds, no surgery. It's out of my hands." He pauses, and I hear the pity in his silence. "You have thirty minutes before we lose her."

The call doesn't end. I just drop the phone.

It hits the car floor with a clatter, the screen cracking.

Thirty minutes. The woman who raised me, who worked double shifts to keep me fed, who sacrificed everything so I could go to college—she's going to die because I'm broke.

A sound rips from my throat. It's guttural, animalistic. Pure agony. I curl in on myself, my nails digging into my arms, my whole body shaking with sobs.

"Pathetic."

The word is a whip crack.

I look up through blinding tears. Tyler is watching me with zero sympathy. Just cold calculation. Like I'm a problem he's solving. A business transaction.

"Get up," he says.

"She's dying," I sob. "She's dying and I can't—I don't have—"

"I said, get up."

The command slams into me. My wolf forces me upright, even as my human mind screams to stay curled up and hidden.

Tyler takes a drag of his cigarette, exhaling a plume of grey smoke. "Money," he says, his tone almost bored. "That's all it is. Green paper. Digital numbers. You're crying over arithmetic."

"I need fifty thousand dollars," I whisper. Desperation makes me bold. Makes me beg the devil himself. "Please. I'll do anything. I'll work for you. I'll clean your floors. I'll—please, help me."

Tyler drops the cigarette and crushes it under his polished boot. He leans forward, his massive frame filling my vision. His elbows rest on his knees, fingers steepled.

"I don't need a maid, April. I have hundreds."

He pulls out his phone. The screen glows against his sharp features, casting shadows under his cheekbones.

"I can transfer two hundred thousand dollars to St. Francis right now." His thumb hovers over the screen. "The best surgical team. The VIP recovery suite. Private room. She lives."

My breath catches. "You would do that?"

"I'm a businessman. I don't give handouts." His eyes scan my body in a way that makes me feel stripped naked. Assessed. Priced. "I make investments."

He leans back, studying me like I'm livestock at an auction.

"I have a problem," he continues, his voice detached. Clinical. "The Council is threatening my position. They say I'm too unstable. Too violent. Too unpredictable." He tilts his head, studying me. "They're not wrong."

He takes another drag from a fresh cigarette, and the ember glows red in the darkness.

"My stepbrother is circling like a vulture. The Council of Elders watches every move I make, waiting for me to slip. They want an excuse to remove me." His jaw tightens. "I won't give them one."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Everything." He leans forward. "I need a leash. A pretty wife to parade at galas and charity events. Someone to smile at the camera and make the old men think I've been domesticated." His eyes are cold, calculating. "Someone to prove I can maintain a stable relationship. That I'm not the rabid dog they think I am."

He pauses, and his gaze drops to my stomach in a way that makes my skin crawl.

"And I need an heir. A son to secure the Raven legacy. To prove my line continues."

My blood runs cold.

"What?"

"A son," he says, like he's discussing the weather. "A blood heir to secure the Raven legacy. You give me a year. You wear my ring. You warm my bed." His eyes lock onto mine. "You give me a son."

I can't breathe.

"You want to buy my body?" I step back in horror, hitting the car door. "For a baby?"

"I want to rent your womb," he corrects cruelly. "The rest of you is just packaging."

He holds up his phone. His thumb still hovers over the transfer button. The screen shows a banking app, a ridiculous sum of money ready to be sent.

"Twenty-eight minutes, April. Tick tock."

I stare at the phone. At him. At the truth of my situation.

My aunt is dying. I have no money. No options. No choice.

This monster is the only chance she has.

"Why me?" The question comes out broken. "You could have anyone. Models. Actresses. High-born wolves who would kill for this."

"My wolf is a picky bastard," Tyler says. There's frustration in his voice now. Anger, even. "He won't tolerate the scent of another woman. He wants you." He leans in closer, and I smell smoke and rain and that earthy pine scent that makes my wolf whine. "So here we are."

His face is inches from mine now. I can see every detail—the slight scar through his eyebrow, the perfect straightness of his nose despite it being broken before, the cruel curve of his mouth.

"Sign the contract with your body, and she lives. Refuse, and you can plan a funeral. Choose."