2pac Autopsy Photo

On the night of New Year's Eve, I wake up in a hospital ward with an IV drip connected to the back of my hand. A nurse passes me the hospital bill. "It's 300 dollars in total, including the emergency treatment fee and the cost for a bottle of glucose drips." When I turn on my phone, I feel my heart sinking. I only have 29.01 dollars left in my bank account. The wallpaper of my phone is a countdown of my family contract's app. Today is the date when I have to renew my family contract for the year. In order to accumulate enough money to go home, I've been working as a staff member in concert venues. Earlier, I had collapsed backstage, so I was quickly sent to the hospital. The dial tone keeps beeping for a long time. Finally, my mom answers my call in what seems to be a noisy background. "Mom, I'm at the hospital right now. I need 300 dollars to pay the hospital bill." "You're at the hospital?" Mom's voice turns shrill immediately. "Why did you visit the hospital during the holidays? You really are a jinx!" "I fainted earlier. I was working at a concert venue—" "What? So, you refused to do chores at home during the holidays! Instead, you decide to work at a concert venue?" Mom interrupts immediately. "I don't have 300 dollars on me! You'd better come up with a way to pay that bill of yours!" "Mom…" My hand tightens around my phone. "Today is the last day of my family contract's renewal period. I'll renew the contract once I pay the bill." "Renew the contract, huh?" Mom just sneers at me. "That's a part of your duties! How dare you use it against me! Helena Lambert, if you don't renew the contract today, you can forget about calling me 'Mom'!" After that, she ends the call. I can only grip my phone to the point that my fingers turn white. After that, I tap on a social media app in hopes that I can borrow money from my friends, only to see the latest post on the social media feed. My younger sister, Hannah Lambert, has posted a photo collage there. "I'm here with my parents to watch my favorite singer's concert! Snagging tickets to the first-row seats is definitely worth it!" The background of those photos is the same concert venue where I work part-time at. It's the most expensive venue in town. Apparently, tickets cost 2,900 dollars each.

Cecilia Laurent’s husband, Lyon Melville, was known across North Ameria’s underground circles as the biggest womanizer. As the current Don of the Melville family, the women who wanted to get close to him would line up from New Yorke to Rondon. He never turned anyone away from his bed. Cecilia had been married to Lyon for five years. The taunting messages and intimate photos from his mistresses were enough to fill the storage on three of her encrypted phones. Cecilia showed no mercy. After the photos of Lyon in the car with a model were made public, she had the sports car dismantled completely. When he went out to sea with an actress to watch fireworks, she had the yacht blown to nothing. She blacklisted every woman who tried to cling to him. She overturned tables at family banquets. She risked every bit of dignity she had as the Melville family’s Donna in the hope that he would come back to her. Lyon allowed it. He let the rumors spread without denying anything. For five years, Cecilia was the joke of the family and the entire underworld. When the New Year came around, Cecilia received her first “gift” of the year. It was an intimate photo of Lyon in bed with another woman. At nearly the same time, a headline broke across New Yorke’s social media and tabloids. [Don Melville Meets Superstar Gianna Moretti Late at Night.] Inside the banquet hall of the family estate, the band continued to play. The champagne tower reflected a cold light. Everyone was waiting for her to blow up. Her assistant expertly pulled up the PR department’s number and held the phone out to her. “Donna Melville, the PR team is waiting for your instructions. Do you want us to make this bigger, like last time?” Cecilia looked at the man in the photo. Ten minutes ago, he had held their daughter on the balcony and watched the fireworks together. She suddenly smiled. “Take it down,” she said. “I don’t want to see this on the front page in two hours.” Everyone in New Yorke knew that the Melville family’s Donna loved like a madwoman. She could lose her temper just as easily. But this time, she did not lose control. She wanted a divorce.

My partner, Derek Crawford, calls himself a traditional man. On our tenth anniversary, I bought him a pair of his favorite AJ sneakers. Instead, he gifted me a bag of pastries. "Your cake is extremely tiny, and yet it costs you a few dozen dollars! Look at the pastries I got you—not only are they cheap, but they are also huge in quantity! Now this is what I call worth it!" After that, Derek tells me that he'll make it up to me by throwing an engagement party. He has also invited my parents and my relatives to the party. With anticipation brimming in our eyes, we arrive at the restaurant, only to see Derek serving us with store-bought pickles and dinner rolls. "I'm a traditional man, you see. I'm not used to fancy food and foreign cuisines. This, right here, is the basics of a traditional dinner. You don't see patriotic men like me nowadays!" My relatives' expressions change drastically on the spot. Meanwhile, my parents look very mortified. I can only smile awkwardly at them while doing everything I can to stop them from leaving. But as soon as I leave the hotel, I receive a notification from the bank that 200 thousand dollars have been deducted from my account via a supplementary card linked to it. At the same time, Derek's childhood sweetheart, Renee Young, posts a photo of her 12-layered luxurious cake on her social media account. "When I told Derek that I wanted to celebrate my birthday, not only did he buy me the most expensive strawberry cake, but he also reserved a dozen or so tables that are served with the grandest feast! "If your man loves you that much, he won't need any lessons in pampering you! Traditional men definitely know how to love and pamper their queens!" I tighten my grip on my phone. As I look back at Derek, who keeps claiming that he's a traditional man stuck to his traditional ways, I suddenly find it exhausting to continue being in a relationship with him.

Christmas Eve was meant to be the culmination of seven years of long-distance longing—the day Lorenzo finally slid an engagement ring onto my finger. Instead, a sudden emergency surgery chained me to the operating table. The patient wasn't just suffering from a premature delivery and catastrophic hemorrhaging; she was riddled with infections, the biological fallout of a reckless, hedonistic lifestyle. The girl on the table spat out orders with a venomous entitlement that made my blood run cold. "My husband is the head of the Corleone family. He’s second to none, and this entire city bows to him. If you can’t save my baby, you’re all dead." My mind went blank. There was only one head of the Corleone family: Lorenzo. "You’ve got the wrong man," I said, my voice wavering despite my frown. "The news said he’s already engaged to a woman from a rival family for a strategic alliance." The girl looked at me as if I’d just told a pathetic joke. She surveyed me with a mocking sneer. "Oh, he’s mentioned that woman. He said she’s like a cold corpse—that even touching her makes him sick to his stomach. She doesn't provide him a fraction of the pleasure I do." She smirked. "He heard something happened to the baby. He’s en route from Sicily right now with his personal detail." She flicked her phone screen open. There it was: a photo of her and Lorenzo, locked in a suffocatingly intimate embrace. I froze. A second later, a notification from Lorenzo vibrated against my palm. “Darlin’, something urgent came up tonight. I’m skipping the engagement dinner. I’ll make it up to you later.” Since they were so utterly in love, I decided to give them exactly what they wanted. I dialed a number that had been silent for three years—the number of the true mastermind of the underworld, Don Sebastian. "Does your proposal from three years ago still stand?"

After getting laid off, I come across a post when I'm looking for a new job. "What sort of job is the most lucrative these days?" There's a comment with the most likes in the comment section. "Find yourself a sugar daddy, duh! My sugar daddy is already the CEO of a company even though he's only in his 30s! He gives me 100 thousand dollars every month. Not only is he handsome and caring, but he's also amazing in bed! Hoo boy, we can keep going around seven times every night!" Someone asks the commentor, "How did you find such an amazing daddy?" "Last May, he was at a bar drinking his sorrows away after an argument with his girlfriend. I consoled him for a bit. That's how we ended up being together. "He kept complaining that his girlfriend was like dead fish in bed, so he was already sick of her a long time ago. You know what men are like, always going for excitement in life." My fingers curled around my phone slightly. Last May, I did get into a huge argument with my boyfriend, Brian Dicht. He never came home that night. The next morning, he returned while reeking of alcohol. I continue scrolling down the comment section, only to see the commentor posting a photo. "See? I was acting all cute and whiny to him just now by telling him that I cut my finger when I was preparing a meal for myself. He agreed to drop by my place to keep me company tonight." In the photo, there's a diamond ring adorning the ring finger that has a plaster wrapped around it. That ring looks exactly the same as the set of engagement rings Brian and I have. At the same time, my phone starts ringing. Soon, Brian's voice drifts from the other end of the line. "Bella, something came up in the company at the last minute. I'm not coming home tonight."