All Chapters of The Price Of Her Mercy: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

121 Chapters

Sweet to sour

Broken glass

JACKSONI speak coldly to Aurora as I hold her hands and slowly take them off my cheek. My heart aches at the sight of the tears running down her cheek.She pulls out a soft piece of tissue that sits atop the dressing table and slowly wipes it off.She gets the message.“Sam will drive you home,” I add with a cracking voice, looking away.I dread the thought of being robbed of the chance to fight this fire with a bigger inferno, but according to Jerry, it’s for my own safety.“Jerry! Where to now?”“Urh! Your coastal estate, the one at Sunrise Bay.”“Sunrise Bay? That place is… remote, and filled with local people. The area is so dry, and most parts are undeveloped. I’d be surprised if you had any internet over there.” Her tone reeks of disgust and distaste. Of course, it doesn’t fit her lifestyle.“Can I at least have a few things packed up?” I question Jerry, who’s standing at the door, tapping his foot consistently with folded fists.“I’m afraid not. Every second matters. I’ll leav

Dramatic!

MIRAOf course, it’s morning again!” I grumble as I sit up and turn off the alarm, which screams like it hates me. 6 a.m., same as every day.The alarm is old. So old that I have to remove the battery before it can go off. Who knows how long Aunt May had it before me?I swing my legs out of bed slowly, praying I don’t doze back off, but I wince when the cold floor hits my bare feet.For some moments, like always, I just sit there in the dim room, head in my hands, elbows on my knees, wondering what I did in my previous life to warrant such punishment in this one.No one should live like this, I think.“Mira?” her tiny little voice drifts from the other room.My spine straightens up as fast as possible. “It’s okay, nugget,” I called back, forcing brightness into my voice.“Go back to sleep, hun, I’m just getting up to prepare for work.” I whisperShe gives out a sleepy murmur, and then silence.I push to my feet, and the floorboards creak as I take each step away from my room to the ki

Flying solo.

MIRAI hate that I have to smile through all that because I need the paycheck, and most of all, I hate that I can’t afford to quit; it’s my only way of balancing the bills.By 10 a.m., my back aches, like I’m carrying the whole world around, and my patience is already as slim as a sewing thread.Hank asks me to re-mop the entire kitchen floor even though it’s already neat, just because he catches me leaning against the counter for a few seconds. It’s as if he’s always after me. I don’t know.“I don’t pay you to rest,” he snaps. “I pay you to work!”Jason whispers, “Fuck him! I think he’s competing for something.” I let out a soft laugh, but the laughter doesn’t fix the exhaustion. It doesn’t fix the fact that my pay envelope is too thin, and it also doesn’t fix the fact that my paycheck isn’t coming in a week.I scrub the mop across the tiles till my shoulders ache, trying not to shed a tear because I know that when I start, I won’t stop that easily. Besides, I’d rather walk home, eve

Solitude.

JACKSONI feel hollow, like my insides have been scooped out, and only a man-shaped shell in expensive clothing is left. Who prepares for situations like this? I think.Jerry goes back and scrolls through updates on his laptop.I lean back and shut my eyes as I anticipate what awaits ahead at sea and whether I’m ready to face it.By the time the jet lands, we walk out, and for the first time, there are no flashbulbs, no cameras, no questions waiting for me.As the SUV turns onto the coastal road hours later, the world feels quieter—too quiet, even.“We’re here!” Jerry says, alerted, as he closes his laptop with a snap.Sunrise Bay is exactly as I remember it. Isolated, nothing but cliffs for a while, the woods, and the drive that curls down into the estate.The mansion appears suddenly, all pale stone, its windows dark, and it looks less like a refuge and more like something that’s been abandoned by time itself.The house hasn’t changed, not a bit.The scent of dry wood, sawdust, and

Blend in

JACKSON Ding ding! I press the little bell on the table in my room. I’ve drained the tub, wrapped myself in the white towel. My hand, still bleeding, leaves trails of blood as I step into the silence of the room. My eyes squeeze, my brows curl at how fast the response comes. It’s like someone is waiting just outside my door in case I need anything. I turn toward the door. “It’s open!” I yell. “Yes, sir,” she says softly as she comes inside the room. “Were you outside my room?” “No, sir, but I came as soon as I heard the bell. We’re obligated to meet your every need till you leave. Oh, shit! sir, your.. your hand is bleeding. Let me quickly get that for you.” “Yes, that’s why I called for someone, but before you begin, pour me a drink.” I gesture at the drink with my finger, pointing to the table to ensure she knows what I want. “What’s your name?” “Faye, sir,” she responds under her breath. “Let me ask you, Miss Faye,” I lick my lips as I say in a flirty manner, looking rig

Dim lights and sticky floors

MIRABy the time my shift finally crawls toward evening, my feet throb like someone’s driven hot nails into them, and my shoulders ache from lifting trays, cleaning, and mopping.My brain buzzes with exhaustion, and I have to blink numerous times to keep my vision from going blurry. Jase is right. I need at least one drink to numb my pain.Just when I think the day’s over, a man in a cheap suit leans back in his booth with a grin that puts me on edge, like he owns the place, but I see weird faces every day; it’s part of the job.“Soooo, Mira, huh? You got a boyfriend?”I sigh as I set down his burger.“You got an appetite?”“Ha!! Feisty, I love that,” he says, laughing out loud, like he’s trying to impress me.“Here’s my card. Call me anytime. I’m sure we can make things work,” he whispers and winks.I slap my forehead with my right hand, my cheeks squeezing as I walk away, his words icks me out.By the time Hank barks, “Clock out!” My whole body aches like it’s been through a meat

Whispers from your soul

JACKSONPathetic. That’s what I feel like. A loser. I’m a man with the world at his feet, and billions in the bank. Still I’m reduced to chasing after a woman who’s probably already moved on to the next party, the next photo op, the next trophy.I stare at the phone for a while. It sits in my hand, the black screen reflecting my own tired face back at me. My chest tightens. I squeeze it hard in the delusion that it might break, but it doesn’t.I shove it into the drawer and close it a little too hard. The sound echoes through the room. I tell myself that it’ll all be okay eventually.A part of me believes it, the other part, not so much. I keep inhaling and exhaling as I squeeze the edges of the drawer, so tight that I can feel my veins trying to escape my skin. Face down.I can still hear Aurora’s laugh in this room, faint but clear. The high, lilting sound she makes whenever she wins something. An argument, a bet, or my attention. She loves to tease me for eating too slow. She says

That stranger

MIRAI push open the creaky front door very carefully, as quietly as I can. I feel like shit. I’m so late, in fact, the latest I’ve ever been.I carried the weight of my whole body so it wouldn’t make the floorboards creak so much as I went into Nora’s room to check on her. “Mira?” she said softly “It’s me nugget, go back to sleep.”I whisper, running my fingers through her hair. I kiss her forehead and watch her fall back to sleep peacefully. I carefully cover her body with her pink blanket, making sure she stays warm. She’s such a sweet girl. If only life cared about that. I slowly enter my room, dropping the bag I brought home on the floor close to my desk. I pull off my clothes, and the cold breeze hit me like it hated me.I quickly collapse into bed, and the springs moan under my weight. I was familiar with that one. I quickly put the batteries back into the alarm, since that was the only thing I trusted to wake me up, the way it did. I barely got enough sleep as it was. I

Karma

JACKSON The bourbon was cheap; it’s the kind that burned through going down and leaving smokes in my chest. Smoke came out of my ears and nose and I welcomed the burn.I pour it down my throat, one glass after another, and line them up like girls on the counter. One, two, three, four, and by the fifth, my eyes were already glassy. The world had almost faded. It softened up enough that I could now pretend. Pretend I wasn’t the headline of a false scandal. Pretend I wasn’t alone in emotional turmoil. Pretend Aurora’s silence wasn’t an answer in itself.The jukebox pours out another country ballad about trucks going bad and heartbreaks again, the same chords keep cycling on repeat. It’s torture. I hate country music. Always had. I felt it was sung out of true experience, which made it too earnest, too bare. But tonight, as it cut me open, I let myself bleed. It sounded like the truth, and I was a little too tired to argue with the truth. Or anything else.I rubbed my bandaged hand ove

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