All Chapters of Two Hundred Debts, One Final Goodbye: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

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 st

Chapter 2

Apple pie.To most people, it was only a family dessert. To me, it was a six-year punishment.I first made it for Mom’s fortieth birthday. I was twelve, and she often talked about the apple pie my grandmother used to bake in Sicily.I practiced with our cook for a week. I peeled so many apples that I cut my fingers twice, and hot sugar blistered my hand. Following my grandmother’s recipe, I added a little lemon juice to keep the apples from browning.When I carried the pie into the dining room, Mom’s face lit up.She had just lifted her fork when Camilla said softly, “It smells wonderful. My dad used to make apple pie for my birthday.”The dad she meant was Marco—the man who had died protecting our family.Mom immediately pushed the untouched pie toward her.“Then it’s all yours tonight.” She stroked Camilla’s hair. “Whenever you miss something from your old life, you can tell me.”The gift I had spent a week preparing became proof that Camilla belonged in our family.Mom never tasted

Chapter 3

I had no desire to explain again. I turned toward the front doorSomething shattered behind me.Dad hurled a crystal decanter at the floor near my feet. A shard grazed my calf, and blood appeared.“Audrey DeLuca, if you walk through that door, don't expect this family to pay another cent for you!” Vincent's face was dark with rage. “You have signed enough promissory notes over the years. Repay every one by next week. If you don't, I will turn them over to our family attorney. Neither the collection action nor an investigation into the food money you stole will disappear merely because your name is DeLuca.”Mom looked at the blood on my leg and seemed ready to approach. Camilla gently caught her arm.“Uncle Vincent, please don't be angry. Audrey was just discharged. She may be acting impulsively.”Her plea only made Dad regard her as more considerate.“Do you hear her, Audrey? Even now Camilla is defending you. Marco died saving us, and you refuse to accept even the small responsibility

Chapter 4

To repay the debt within a week, I took three jobs.At dawn, I stocked shelves in a bakery. In the afternoon, I entered accounts for a small business. At night, I served drinks at a casino club aboard a private yacht.After selling my laptop, camera, and remaining jewelry and adding five days’ wages, I had raised six thousand dollars.I still needed twelve thousand.Dad had forbidden every DeLuca-connected business from hiring me. This club belonged to an out-of-state organization, catered to high-stakes gamblers, and paid its staff daily. Four more nights might have been enough.When I entered a VIP lounge carrying bourbon, Nick was seated at the center of the card table.Camilla leaned against him, the DeLuca ruby bracelet glittering around her wrist.It should have passed to me on my eighteenth birthday.Nick stood the instant he saw me.“Audrey? What are you doing here?”“You ordered bourbon.”I set down the tray and turned away. He caught my wrist.“You disappeared for five days.

Chapter 5

Nick lunged toward the shattered rail. His fingers caught the corner of my apron, but the sea tore it from his grasp.Freezing water closed over my head.The last thing I saw was Nick kneeling in the rain, his face white with terror....Nick jumped before anyone could stop him.Freezing water closed over him, and the current dragged him against the yacht. He surfaced once, shouting my name, then dove where I had disappeared.There was nothing beneath him but black water.Crew members threw out life rings. Two deckhands pulled Nick aboard when he began losing strength. He fought them until the captain struck him.“You go back in there, we lose two people.”Nick collapsed beside the broken railing, coughing seawater. One fist remained closed around a piece of wet black fabric torn from my apron.“Turn the yacht around,” he ordered.“The Coast Guard is already responding.”“Then call them again.” Nick seized the captain's jacket. “Tell them Audrey DeLuca is in the water. Tell them the Ma

Chapter 6

Three days after the search ended, my parents entered my room together.Mom stopped in the doorway.She had not been inside for years. Until that moment, she seemed to have forgotten how narrow the converted storage room was, or that its only window faced a brick wall.The bedroom she had promised to return to me still belonged to Camilla.Dad opened the wardrobe. It held six dresses, two winter coats, and several empty hangers. There was no hidden suitcase and no evidence that I had planned somewhere else to go.“She took almost nothing,” Mom whispered.On the desk, they found the envelope I had left behind.Dad emptied it.Two hundred promissory notes spread across the cracked wood.Tuition. Textbooks. School uniforms. Dental treatment. The medication I needed after pneumonia. Every ordinary cost of raising a child had been dated, signed, and preserved.The final note was for three thousand dollars.[Emergency fracture surgery. Repayment due after Audrey DeLuca reaches adulthood.]My

Chapter 7

Camilla confessed before midnight.She had hidden the designer handbag in my closet. She had spent the lunch money on gifts for new friends, then skipped meals so no one would discover it was gone.“I was ten,” she sobbed. “I had just lost Dad. I was afraid that if Audrey stayed your perfect daughter, you would send me away.”Mom stared at her: “And the next eight years?”Camilla had no answer.Being ten explained the first lie. It did not explain every accusation that followed, or why she had knowingly left me alone in a hospital on our eighteenth birthday.“You always chose her when she cried,” Camilla finally whispered. “I only wanted to make sure you kept choosing me.”Dad's face seemed to age as she spoke.For eight years, my parents had called their treatment of me strength, discipline, and family honor. Camilla had simply learned how to turn those beliefs into weapons.Dad ordered her to return the DeLuca ruby, the Maserati, and the keys to the Manhattan apartment.Camilla looke

Chapter 8

Three years later, I was a junior studying forensic accounting in Boston.My apartment was small enough that I could stand in the kitchen and reach the living-room bookshelf without taking more than four steps. The windows faced an alley, the radiator complained all winter, and the upstairs neighbor practiced trumpet at midnight.I loved every inch of it.Nothing inside had been selected to represent a family name. I chose the yellow dishes, the secondhand couch, and the ridiculous blue curtains covered in tiny lemons.No one could give my room away because someone else had a nightmare.My leg had healed, although it ached after long days. I no longer hid the slight limp. It was not evidence that I was weak or dramatic. It was proof that I had walked away from the sea.At first, college frightened me in ways I had not expected.Whenever my roommate, Maya, brought me coffee, I asked how much I owed her. When friends shared pizza, I calculated my portion down to the cent. I kept receipts

Chapter 9

My parents arrived twenty minutes early.The meeting took place in a university conference room. Leah attended by video, and a counselor sat near the door. Mom and Dad had agreed to every condition.When I entered, Mom rose so quickly that her chair struck the wall.“Audrey.”She looked older. Silver threaded her hair, and the hand covering her mouth trembled. Dad stood beside her with the rigid posture he used when emotion threatened his control.Neither tried to touch me.I sat across from them and started the timer on my phone.“You have forty-five minutes.”Dad placed a folder on the table. Inside were the formal cancellation of all two hundred promissory notes, the deed to the Manhattan apartment, and documents for an irrevocable trust.Mom set down a velvet box. The DeLuca ruby lay inside.“These always belonged to you,” she said.“The debt cancellation did,” I replied. “The rest doesn't.”Dad's jaw tightened, but he did not argue.“The notes should never have existed. Most of th

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