Chapter 2The Baby I "Killed"

With no money and no insurance, my only option was a back-alley clinic in a part of town I’d only ever driven through.

My luck held true to form. I started hemorrhaging on the table. For a few minutes there, I almost died.

When I woke up, my little sister, Paige, was asleep in a chair beside the bed, her face tear-stained.

I stroked her fine, blonde hair. “It’s okay, sweetie,” I whispered. “I’m okay.”

I said it for her, but a cold fear was still coiled in my gut. If I had died, what would have happened to Paige?

It was just the two of us now. We only had each other. I had to live. I had to find a way to raise her.

Making money, I learned quickly, was brutal.

The only real skill I had was dancing. I’d trained my whole life. But the car crash four years ago—the one where I’d swerved to shield Rhys’s side of the car with my own—had shattered my leg. It had healed, but not perfectly. A slight, almost imperceptible limp remained. You had to be looking for it to see it, but it was there. An echo of the break.

I could never dance professionally again.

After weeks of dead ends, I decided to start a food cart. Grilled cheese and tomato soup.

I’d grown up with private chefs, clueless in a kitchen. But Rhys had loved grilled cheese, a simple comfort food from a childhood he never talked about. I had taught myself to make it for him, perfecting the golden crust, the perfect cheese pull.

I never imagined that stupid skill would one day become the only thing keeping my sister and me from starving.

The business was surprisingly good. I worked late into the frozen nights, my fingers swelling with chilblains until they were raw and cracked, but I never complained.

I just never expected Rhys and Brooke to appear in the warm glow of my cart’s lights.

They were a vision of wealth and glamour, arm in arm, a perfectly matched set. Their presence made my own worn coat and exhausted face feel like a costume for poverty.

Brooke looked me up and down, a hand flying to her mouth in mock surprise. “Wow. Who would’ve thought the great Sadie Miller, the debutante of the year, would end up looking like she sleeps on the street?”

I had a line of customers. I didn’t have time for this. “If you’re not buying, please move,” I said, my voice flat.

Brooke immediately crumpled against Rhys’s arm. “Rhys, see? She’s still so mean to me!”

Rhys, ever the protector, shot me a look of pure ice. “I’d advise you to be polite to Brooke,” he warned, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Otherwise, I can’t guarantee this little… venture… of yours will still be here tomorrow.”

It was a naked threat. And with the power he wielded in this city, I knew it was one he could effortlessly enforce.

I clenched my fists inside my coat pockets, biting the inside of my lip until I tasted blood. I said nothing.

Seeing my submission, Brooke’s smug smile returned.

Rhys looked down at her, his voice softening. “You said you wanted soup. Are you still hungry?”

“Starving,” she chirped.

A sale was a sale. I needed the money more than I needed my pride.

I took a deep breath and pointed to the Square reader taped to the counter. “It’s fifteen dollars. You pay first.”

A moment later, the transaction pinged on my phone. I turned to the griddle and began to cook.