Indebted Book Novels & Stories

“And you showed yours nice.” Elara stepped back toward the bed. “You are the one behind the letter.” “The letter,” he repeated, sounding amused. “Such a simple thing. Words work when folks think they are watched.” “It rewrote itself,” she said. “Yes,” Varrek said easy. “Blood-bound ink. Old magic. It reacts to doubt.” Her stomach knotted up. “You wanted me to choose.” “I still do.” Elara’s fists balled. “You already lost.” Varrek’s smile dropped. “Did I.”

I looked up from the book, my hands trembling as I held it. "Don't even think about leaving early. We’ve only j ust begun to address your debt."

“Brandon, how many times do I have to prove myself to you?! You’d rather trust someone else than me! “Now that Poppy’s missing, the first person you’re suspecting is still me! I’ve been lying here in this hospital all along, how could I possibly leave to kidnap her?! Forget it, just do whatever you want!” After I said that, I calmed down.

" Page by page, I turned through it. The crowd gradually fell silent. "In this house, every bite of food I ate, every piece of clothing I wore, had a clearly marked price." I closed the notebook and looked straight into Brian's eyes. "Dad taught me this since I was a kid. Fair exchange. No free lunch. "So, tell me. Why should I pay for his medical bills now? What does his illness have to do with me? Is this something I consumed?" Brian's face changed. He stammered. "Th…that's still our dad! He raised you! That kind of debt is greater than anything!"

It was better than smelling like the expensive laundry soap Andreas bought for my suits. Every time I stopped moving, my mind went back to the ledger on the bed. Three million dollars. Two docks. I kept seeing the numbers in my head, written out in David's neat handwriting. I was an expense. I was a debt that Andreas had paid to keep a promise I never asked him to make. "Arthur." The voice was low and shaky. I stopped and turned around.

"Can you trace it?" "I can try," I said. But whoever made this did not wish to discover. "Do it," she said softly. I hesitated. My chest tightened. "If I do this, I can't unsee it." "You already can't," she replied. I swallowed and kept typing. The more I went in, the stranger it was. The node was disguised in three fake companies and two deceased investors. People who had died years ago. I checked the dates. My hands began to shake.

"Five years with my boyfriend. I worked four jobs to help repay his debt, but his family's debt keeps growing instead of shrinking. Today we were supposed to go home together for New Year's. He said something happened at the construction site and left again. I don't know when the debt will ever be paid off. Living on toast and pickles every day is really hard." When the train began to move, I hit "Post." I poured every cent I had taken from Anya's livestream into promoting the video. "Benjamin, every lie is a debt. From today on, you can repay it inch by painful inch. I won't stay to watch," I muttered.

Riven's Pov I kept my face neutral while Dex told me. He spoke in under thirty seconds, low and clipped, the tone he used when he needed information delivered fast and without framing. The name. The role on Caden's team. The method. Not ideological, Dex said, not even the kind of betrayal that came from divided loyalty. Just money. Council intermediary, clean channel, regular payments over a period of months. Just money. I held the name in my head and turned it over once, quickly, the way you turned something over when you did not have time to turn it over properly and needed to trust the first look.

Maybe enough to touch a tiny part of the debt that could make a difference from other days. I began to count the money I earned for the day, and while doing that, Derick came into the room and tossed a bag in front of me before saying coldly, "I wouldn't want to say much. You know what to do." "Please give me a minute to count the money so I can be sure of what I'm submitting," I pleaded, but Derick grabbed me by the neck, almost as though wanting to pull my head right off. And with a mocking sneer and a scoff, he said, "There's no need to count shit. You of all people know you won't be able to pay off the debt anytime soon—or ever. So stay chill and keep working like the slave you are.”

“Are you sure?” “Positive.” I flipped to the appendix. “And the debt—they have over five million in short-term liabilities that they didn’t even mention in the pitch deck. They buried it here, under ‘Other Current Obligations.’” He cursed under his breath, rubbing his hand over his face. “And this—” I tapped the bottom of the page. “They issued stock options to someone named Anthony Bezel.’’ I turned to look at him. ‘’Does the name ring any bells?”