Two Hundred Debts, One Final Goodbye

When I returned to the DeLuca estate after leaving the hospital, no one was home.

My parents had taken Camilla to the Caribbean for her eighteenth birthday, and the staff had been given the day off after spending a week preparing for the celebration.

The house was dark. Supporting myself against the foyer wall, I listened to each limping step echo across the marble.

I had expected the silence.

It still hurt.

My injured right leg barely supported me, and every step pulled at the sutures. Gripping the banister, I climbed to the smallest room at the end of the hall.

My bedroom.

Eight years earlier, when Camilla’s nightmares kept her awake, I had given her the bright bedroom beside my parents’ suite and moved into this converted storage room.

Mom had kissed my forehead.

“Audrey, you are the most understanding daughter a mother could ask for.”

Dad had said a DeLuca should always be kind and strong. They promised I could have my room back once Camilla recovered.

Eventually, her nightmares stopped.

Their promise was never mentioned again.

My room held only a narrow bed, an old wardrobe, and a wooden desk with cracked edges. I owned so little that packing would not take long.

I opened the desk drawer.

Inside were all the promissory notes I had signed since I was ten.

Dad said Marco’s death meant our family owed Camilla a lifetime of care. I was different. As a DeLuca by blood, every dollar spent on me was considered part of my heir training—an obligation I would repay once I turned eighteen.

Tuition. Textbooks. School uniforms. Medical expenses.

I removed the notes one at a time.

One.Two.Three.

Including the one I had signed for my surgery, there were exactly two hundred.

The largest was for three thousand dollars. The rest ranged from a few dozen dollars to several hundred.

Altogether, I owed eighteen thousand dollars.

Less than the diamond bracelet Camilla had worn to her birthday party.

I stacked the notes and placed them in my canvas bag.

As I started downstairs, the front door opened.

My parents and Camilla had returned.

“Dad, I’m craving Audrey’s apple pie,” Camilla said, linking her arm through his. “Will you ask her to make one for me?”

Vincent patted her hand.

“If your sister were half as thoughtful as you, she wouldn’t have deliberately missed your birthday celebration. When she finally comes home, I’ll have her bake it for you.”

I stood on the landing and almost laughed.

After the accident, I had called them more than a dozen times. When they finally answered, I told them I needed emergency surgery at the county hospital.

They decided I had invented the accident because I was jealous of Camilla’s yacht party.

Dad had scolded me over the phone.

“Marco will never see his daughter become an adult. Why can’t you let Camilla have this one day?”

They had forgotten that Camilla and I shared the same birthday.

She was not the only one who had turned eighteen.

Mom entered the foyer first and noticed me on the stairs. Her smile faltered as she took in my pale face and the hand gripping the banister.

“Audrey?” She stepped toward me. “Why are you so pale?”

Before I could answer, Camilla lowered her eyes.

“She must still be angry about my party. This is my fault. If I hadn’t celebrated my birthday, she wouldn’t have disappeared.”

Mom stopped.

The concern in her eyes faded into resignation.

“Audrey, we already explained this. Camilla’s eighteenth birthday meant something to the entire DeLuca family because Marco could not be here to see it. You are our biological daughter. We will have plenty of other occasions to celebrate you. Why must everything become a competition?”

Dad saw me clinging to the banister but mistook my silence for defiance.

“Enough. Camilla wants your apple pie. Go make it, and we’ll put this nonsense behind us.”

To him, it was only a dessert.

If I obeyed, Camilla would be happy and peace would return.

No one thought the request was unfair.

I was their biological daughter—a DeLuca.

That meant I was always the one expected to give way.