10. Bankrupt

10. Bankrupt

Sophia sat in the estate kitchen the next morning while one of her hired men gave his report.

“Caleb shot him,” the man said. “The other guy. Dead before he hit the ground.”

Sophia’s hand tightened around her coffee cup. She hadn’t expected Caleb to go that far, not over Tania.

“Get out of the country,” she told the man, sliding an envelope of cash across the counter. “Today. Don’t come back.”

Once he left, she called her father instead, her voice shaking as she painted Caleb as the villain in her own story.

She thought back, unwillingly, to the night that started all of this. A work party a year ago. Too much champagne. A version of Caleb who wasn’t thinking straight either, and a morning after neither of them ever spoke about out loud. When the pregnancy test came back positive, Caleb had simply accepted it, the way he accepted most consequences he felt responsible for.

The baby started crying in the next room. Sophia ignored it, letting the maid handle it instead, until the woman came in to say Sia needed her bottle.

Sophia’s hand cracked across the maid’s face before she’d even finished the sentence.

 

• • •

 

The orthopedic doctor left Caleb’s arm in a sling, the dislocation from his fall the night before now strapped tight against his chest. He glared at Tania the entire time the doctor worked, pain and fury fighting for space on his face.

“This is your fault,” he said, the moment the doctor stepped out.

“You were sleepwalking, Caleb. I didn’t know.”

“I’ll deal with you once this heals.”

“If you’re not worried about your injury,” Tania said, arms crossed, “please, come at me now.”

He opened his mouth to answer just as Marcus knocked and let himself in with a stack of files, and whatever fight had been building between them dissolved into silence instead.

With Caleb confined to bed and dozing off from the pain medication soon after, Tania finally had a few uninterrupted hours. She opened her laptop and finished three new designs, forwarding them to the jewelry company before he woke.

“Tania.” His voice, groggy, calling from the bedroom.

She didn’t answer. She kept working instead, and let the silence say what she didn’t have the energy to say out loud.

 

• • •

 

Cecile messaged her that afternoon. Get out of that house. Come see me. I’m worried about you.

Tania was due for a physical exam anyway, one Dr. Jeff had been asking her to schedule for weeks. She slipped out while Caleb was still asleep and met Cecile near the hospital.

They didn’t get far before a familiar voice called out from across the street.

Norman jogged over before either of them could turn away, his smile faltering slightly at the sight of Cecile’s expression.

“Leave her alone,” Cecile said flatly, stepping in front of Tania. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

“I just want five minutes,” Norman said. “Alone. Please, Tania.”

Tania shook her head, already stepping back. “I can’t, Norman.”

She and Cecile walked away together, leaving him standing on the sidewalk, and neither of them looked back before they reached the hospital doors.

 

• • •

 

Tania spent the better part of the day at her uncle’s bedside, holding his hand, talking quietly about nothing important.

“I wonder what kind of life she really lived,” she said softly, meaning her mother. “I wish you could just wake up and tell me.”

She promised him, the way she always did, that she’d do whatever it took to help him wake up. Then she sat a while longer, remembering smaller things. His shop. The smell of sawdust on his hands. The way he used to sneak her extra dessert when her father wasn’t looking.

She and Cecile stopped by the jewelry company on the way out. The manager met them at the door, grinning.

“Your last collection,” he said. “It’s taking off. We’ve had orders from three new retailers this week alone.”

Cecile whooped loud enough that people turned to look. They celebrated at a bar afterward, Tania allowing herself, just for one night, to feel like someone with a future worth planning for.

She went home well past midnight, pleasantly drunk, humming to herself in the elevator, unaware of what was waiting for her upstairs.

 

• • •

 

Caleb was waiting in the living room when she got home, his jaw tight, his sling still strapped across his chest.

“You ignored me all day.”

The alcohol had loosened something in her that usually stayed carefully locked away, and before she could stop herself, the whole day spilled out of her at once. The good news. Her designs. The company that finally saw something in her worth investing in.

Caleb listened without saying much, his expression unreadable.

The next morning, Tania woke with a pounding head and found him strangely calm at the kitchen table, waiting. She made him breakfast without either of them speaking, and he ate it in silence, watching her the entire time.

She opened her laptop afterward to check in with Cecile, and a news headline stopped her cold.

Jewelry startup collapses overnight amid sudden investor withdrawal.

Her company. Bankrupt. Gone, seemingly overnight, with every contract, every dollar, every ounce of the future she’d just started to believe in.