Paying for Her Every Word

When the System pulled me back into this world for the second time, I was already infamous. I was the ultimate charity case, the gold-digging husband who had married hopelessly out of his league.

But I was done acting like a madman over my wifes wandering eye. I was done shedding tears because my own daughter had started calling another man "Dad."

Instead, I instituted a new rule in our sprawling Virginia estate.

Every time they mentioned Tristans name, they had to transfer five thousand dollars into my bank account.

In just fifteen days, I had amassed a quarter of a million dollars.

I did it because the System had whispered to me upon my return: Your target mortgaged thirty years of her own lifespan to drag you back. But rest easythis time, you only need to survive twenty days.

In these twenty days, my only goal was to save enough money to secure a peaceful retirement for my adoptive parents.

At dinner, Victoria was chatting casually with our daughter. Inevitably, Tristans name slipped out.

The atmosphere at the mahogany dining table froze instantly. I simply reached across the linen tablecloth, my palm face up.

"Five thousand. Venmo or Zelle?"

Mia, my daughter, finally snapped. She slammed her silver fork down, the clatter echoing in the cavernous dining room.

"Is money the only thing left in your pathetic brain? Youre not even worth one of Tristans fingernails!"

I didnt argue. I just extended my hand a fraction closer to her.

"Ten thousand. You just said it again."

Mia stared at me, her young face contorted in sheer disbelief.

My expression didn't shift. I kept my voice flat, hollowed out.

"Transfer the money first. Don't make me ask twice."

"Simon, is this a joke to you?!"

Victoria violently pushed her plate away, the porcelain shattering against the marble floor. Her eyes were dark, swirling with sudden, explosive anger. "I know you're holding onto resentment. Thats why Ive turned a blind eye for the past two weeks. I traded half my soul, half my life to wake you from that coma, because I wanted to build a real life with you! Why do you have to be so petty?"

I lowered my eyes, my tone maddeningly even.

"I wouldn't dare be petty. But you are the CEO of Vanguard Defense. A woman of your word. You agreed to the rule; surely you won't back out now."

Victoria lunged forward, grabbing my hand and pressing it hard against her chest, right over the jagged, ugly scar hidden beneath her silk blouse. It was the physical toll the System had extracted from heran open-heart procedure she endured just to reboot my timeline.

Her face contorted in pain, and her voice softened into a desperate plea. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought him up in front of you. Please, Simon, don't be angry, okay? Don't call me CEO. Im your wife. We are supposed to be forever."

Years ago, I would have killed to hear her admit she was wrong. I would have dreamed of her calling me her husband with that kind of raw vulnerability.

Now, the feeling of her heartbeat against my palm just made stomach acid rise in my throat. I felt physically sick.

I pulled my hand back, wiping my palm against my slacks.

"You just said his name again. That makes it fifteen thousand."

The color drained from Victorias face in a sickening rush.

"Fine. Fine." Her voice trembled with a terrifying, glacial rage. "You really never cease to amaze me, Simon. I want to see exactly how long you can keep up this pathetic, money-hungry charade."

She yanked a black Centurion card from her blazer, hurled it at the floor, grabbed Mia by the wrist, and stormed out. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind them.

Standing by the sideboard, a young security detail whispered to a maid. "He doesn't get it. The boss is tough, but she loves him. The six months he was gone, she lost her mind. She almost let the entire company go under. She just sat in the dark, clutching his photo until sunrise."

I raised a hand, dismissing them both. When the room was empty, I bent down and picked up the black card.

I didn't care where they went. I didn't care about Victorias supposed grief.

Five more days. That was all I had left before I vanished from this timeline forever. Having finally seen the absolute zero of Victorias heart, my only tether to this world was securing my adoptive parents' future.

I called one of the junior guards and ordered him to pack up every luxury watch, cufflink, and designer suit in my closet and take them to a high-end pawn broker in the city.

While I was stripping the room, I caught sight of the platinum wedding band on my left hand. I gripped it, ready to pull it off and toss it into the sell pile.

Before I could clear my knuckle, my wrist was seized in a vice grip.

Victoria was standing there, her eyes bloodshot and wild. "You're trying to sell our wedding ring?"

I looked up at her, finding the entire situation profoundly absurd.

Five years ago, she had taken her own wedding band to a jeweler to melt it down, using the cash to buy a vintage Rolex for Tristan. If she could sell hers, why couldn't I sell mine?

I wrenched my arm free and tossed the ring toward the guard. "Its a heavy platinum setting. It should fetch a decent price."

"I said, don't touch it!" Victoria screamed, snatching the ring out of the air. She glared at the guard with a look that promised violence. "Get out!"

The moment the door clicked shut, she lunged at me, crashing her mouth against mine.

It wasn't a kiss of passion; it was a desperate, aggressive claiming. I shoved her away with everything I had. My lip tore against my teeth. I instinctively wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

When I looked up, Victoria was staring at me in utter devastation.

"You... you're disgusted by me?" Her voice broke. "Are you still punishing me because I let him touch me?"

If this were five years ago, seeing her look so shattered would have broken me. I would have pulled her into my arms and forgiven everything.

But now, I just held out my hand, my palm steady.

"You just brought him up again. Thats five thousand."

Victoria swayed on her feet like shed been struck.

I watched her, completely numb. I remembered looking at her with that exact same agonizing desperation.

Years ago, when Vanguard Defense was still a fledgling contractor, her convoy was ambushed overseas. She took three bullets to the chest and abdomen. I was the combat medic who refused to call time of death, dragging her back from the brink of the grave.

She defied her wealthy, aristocratic family to marry me. The first two years were magic. We built a life. We had Mia.

But four years in, she moved her recently divorced childhood best friend, Tristan, into the compound. She introduced him as a "consultant," but gave him the run of the estate. He was the golden boy shed never quite gotten over.

I fought. I cried. I begged. But she would just look at me with exhausted irritation. "Tristan has no one else, Simon. Whats wrong with me looking out for him?"

Slowly, methodically, he poisoned my home. Even Mia, the daughter I had stayed up nights rocking to sleep, began to drift into his orbit. You dont understand anything, Daddy. Tristan is so much cooler.

A sudden, sharp pain in my ribs snapped me out of the memory. Mia had charged into the room, shoving me hard.

"What are you doing?!" she shrieked, pointing at the half-empty closet. "I already promised Tristan he could have the East Wing for his birthday! You emptied it all out! How am I supposed to explain this to him?"

She glared at me, her eyes filled with a vitriol no child should possess. "Why did you even come back? Why couldn't you just stay dead?"

I froze, the air knocked out of my lungs. I couldn't form a single word.

This room, the East Wing master suite, was the one Mia had helped me decorate when we first built the estate. She had painted a small, lopsided heart inside the closet door. I want Daddy to have the safest harbor in the whole world, she had said.

Victoria clearly remembered that memory, too. A flicker of genuine guilt crossed her sharp features. "Mia, stop. You don't mean that."

Mia yanked her arm away from her mother, her glare fixed on me. "Yes, I do! Why are you here?"

"I said, shut up!" Victoria snapped, her voice turning to ice.

But when she looked back at me, her eyes darted away, unable to hold my gaze. "Don't listen to her. Simon... about Tristan and me. We were just... I had too much to drink that night. I thought he was you."

I listened to the silence ring in my ears. My chest felt tight, filled with a dense, suffocating ache.

Six years. Six years, and she couldn't even be bothered to invent a new lie.

I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms that the skin broke, forcing the moisture back from my eyes.

"You just referenced him four times. Plus the previous one. That's twenty-five thousand dollars."

Victoria stood completely still for thirty agonizing seconds.

Then, she exploded. She kicked the heavy, solid-wood nightstand, sending a designer lamp crashing to the floor.

"Fine! You are unbelievable!" she screamed, her chest heaving. "You want money? Ill give you money! In fact, I have a very lucrative job for you. Are you taking it or not?"

I looked at her. Her lips curled into a cruel, calculated smirk.

"Tristan is sick. It's a severe stomach bug, very debilitating. You used to be a medic. Youre going to be his personal, live-in nurse." Her voice dripped with venom. "Make him comfortable, and Ill write you a check for half a million dollars."

"No." I didn't expect her to stoop to this level of humiliation. My voice was thick with suppressed rage.

Victorias expression hardened into a mask of pure sociopathy.

"You don't have to agree. But if you don't, Ill just have my security team bring your adoptive mother here to do it. She was an award-winning head nurse before she retired, wasn't she? I'm sure shed love to help."

My heart seized. A cold, familiar terror washed over me.

This was the same dead-eyed expression she wore five years ago when she ordered her private security to ruthlessly purge corporate spies from her company. She destroyed lives without blinking.

I couldn't gamble with my mother's safety. My jaw tightened until my teeth ached.

"Fine. I'll do it."

A guard escorted me down to the industrial kitchen. Mia trailed behind us, her arms loaded with ridiculously expensive, holistic supplements.

"These are imported truffles, and this is organic bone broth," she dictated, dumping them on the stainless-steel counter. She looked at me like I was a stray dog that had wandered into her house. "Don't think you can pull anything, Daddy. Im going to watch your every move. You are not going to poison Tristan."

I just stared at her, feeling a profound, echoing emptiness.

A second later, two raw, whole chickens were violently thrown onto the counter in front of me.

The cloying, metallic smell of raw poultry hit my sinuses, and my stomach violently rebelled. I gagged, gripping the edge of the sink.

Since I was a child, Ive had a severe, documented psychosomatic aversion and contact allergy to raw poultry. Just touching it causes my skin to erupt in painful, burning hives. It was a trauma response from a childhood incident, and both Victoria and Mia knew exactly how bad it was.

But Mia just rolled her eyes.

"Tristan only likes fresh chicken soup. Just deal with it, okay? Besides, Mom told me to make sure you do it."

I snapped my head up. Victoria was standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

There wasn't a shred of pity on her face. Her voice was clinical. "Tristan has a weak constitution and a refined palate. He can only stomach your recipe." She crossed her arms. "You grew up on a dirt-poor farm, Simon. Stop pretending you have the delicate sensibilities of high society. Make the soup and bring it up to him."

My hands were already breaking out in a furious, raised rash just from being near the raw meat. I shook my head, my breathing shallow. "I can't. I"

"If you don't," Victoria cut in, her voice slicing through the air, "I'll have your mother brought in from the city to pluck and gut them."

The last remnants of my pride crumbled into dust.

My adoptive mother was nearly seventy. Her heart couldn't take the stress of Victorias armed guards dragging her here.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, swallowed down the suffocating humiliation, and nodded.

By the time I carried the heavy ceramic bowl of boiling soup up to Tristans quarters, my hands and forearms were covered in weeping, agonizing hives. I was running a fever, my legs shaking so badly I could barely stand.

Tristan sat propped up against a mountain of pillows. He took a tiny, theatrical sip from the spoon, then grimaced.

"It's too greasy. I can't keep this down."

Mias face instantly twisted in fury. She whirled on me, screaming. "Are you deaf? He doesn't like it! Go back down and make a new batch right now!"

I stood completely still, my vision blurring from the pain in my arms.

Mia lost her temper and shoved my shoulder, trying to push me toward the door.

Victoria stepped forward and caught Mias arm. Her tone softened, just a fraction, as she looked at my inflamed skin. "If youre willing to just apologize to him, you don't have to make another"

"It'll cost extra."

The rest of Victoria's sentence died in her throat.

Silence stretched through the room. Finally, she ground the words out through her teeth. "Fine. I will pay you extra."

I turned, walked back down to the kitchen, and spent another agonizing hour making a fresh bowl.

When I brought it back, I handed it toward Tristan. As he reached for it, his hand "slipped."

He violently jerked his wrist, and the entire bowl of boiling, greasy broth splashed directly onto my thighs.

The pain was instantaneous and blinding. Tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them.

Before I could even react, I was shoved hard against the wall. Victoria and Mia practically dove over me, frantically checking Tristans blankets to see if a single drop had touched his skin.

Tristan shot me a smug, triumphant look over Victorias shoulder, while his voice trembled with engineered panic. "I'm so sorry! I'm fine, but Simon looks burned. Should we call the estate doctor?"

Victoria didn't even look up from wiping Tristans hands.

"No need. Men who are this obsessed with money are cockroaches. He won't die."

She pulled a checkbook from her blazer pocket, scribbled on it, and threw it. The paper fluttered through the air and landed in the pool of spilled soup at my feet.

"Half a million. Take it." She finally looked at me, her eyes filled with revulsion. "Ill have the maids handle Tristan from now on. Im sick of looking at you. Every time you open your mouth, its about a payout. Its pathetic."

I didn't say a word. I slowly bent down, my scorched skin screaming in protest, and picked up the damp check.

The burn on my leg felt like it was chewing through muscle, but I didn't make a sound. I secured the check and limped out of the room.

This money. It was enough. My parents would be safe.

The next morning, I packed the cash, the pawn shop receipts, and the checks into a duffel bag, intent on delivering them to my parents.

But the moment I walked out the front doors of the mansion, I froze.

Standing just beyond the main security gate was my adoptive mother, Martha. She was trembling violently in the morning chill.

"Mom? What are you doing here?"

A sickening knot pulled tight in my gut. "Where's Pops? Didn't he come with you?"

Marthas eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She grabbed my forearms, her grip desperate. "Your father was taken this morning. A black SUV pulled up, said Victoria invited him to the estate for breakfast. I followed them in a cab because I was terrified, but they won't let me past the gate, and I haven't seen him!"

My heart plummeted into an icy abyss.

My adoptive father, Henry, had taken a bullet to the head for Victoria years ago during a corporate hit. He survived, but the severe traumatic brain injury left him permanently with the cognitive capacity of a seven-year-old child.

"Mom, stay right here. Don't move. I'll find him."

Before I could take a step, a blood-curdling, agonizing scream echoed from the back courtyards.

My blood ran cold. I broke into a sprint, ignoring the tearing pain in my burned leg, tearing through the manicured hedges toward the sound.

In the center of the stone courtyard stood Victoria, her face an unreadable mask of dark fury. Mia was huddled behind her, looking spooked. Tristan stood off to the side, looking the picture of a traumatized victim.

And on the cold, hard concrete, my father was pinned facedown by two massive private security contractors.

When he saw me running toward him, his cloudy, confused eyes lit up. "Simon! My boy is here..."

"Shut him up!" Victoria barked. She stepped forward and kicked my father hard in the shoulder with her steel-toed boot.

I let out a raw, animal scream and threw myself over my fathers body, shielding his head.

"Victoria, what the hell are you doing?!"

She grabbed the collar of my jacket and violently hauled me backward. Her face was contorted in disgust. "Why don't you ask the old fool what he did?!"

Tristan stepped forward, his voice trembling perfectly. "I was just walking in the garden. This... this crazy old man just lunged at me. He was trying to strangle me! If the guards hadn't heard me scream, he would have killed me!"

"You're lying!" I roared, my voice tearing my throat. "His brain is ruined! He can't even tie his own shoes or feed himself! How the hell could he coordinate an attack? You set him up!"

Victoria let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

"Why would Tristan lie about something like this?"

She didn't look at me again. She turned to the captain of the guard, her voice devoid of any humanity. "Take him to the wall. Fifty strikes with the heavy batons."

"No!" I screamed, thrashing wildly against the guards who had grabbed me. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision. "Hes almost seventy years old! Fifty strikes from those batons will stop his heart! Victoria, look at him! Have you forgotten hes only like this because he took a bullet for you?!"

Victorias posture stiffened. For a fraction of a second, hesitation flickered in her eyes.

But Tristan immediately shrank back, clutching his throat. "Victoria... it's okay. If it makes you look bad, let him go. I can take the bruises..."

The guilt in Victoria's eyes instantly evaporated, replaced by absolute, blinding rage.

"Do it! If anyone intervenes, beat them too!"

Knowing Victoria was a lost cause, I dropped to my knees, practically crawling across the concrete toward Mia. I grabbed her designer skirt.

"Mia, please. Please. When you were little, Pops was your favorite person. He used to carry you on his shoulders. You know he wouldn't hurt anyone. Tell your mother! Tell her he didn't do it!"

Mia refused to look at me. A flash of profound hesitation crossed her face.

Hope flared in my chest. I gripped her skirt tighter. "Mia, speak up! Tell them hes innocent!"

She slowly lifted her head. She looked over at Tristan, who gave her a subtle, sad, imploring look.

Mia ripped her fabric out of my hands and shoved me backward.

"I saw him."

I felt like I had been struck by lightning. The blood in my veins turned to ice. "Mia... what are you saying?"

"I said, I saw him!" Mia shouted, her voice shrill, as if volume could make the lie true. "Hes a crazy old man! He tried to hurt Tristan, and he deserves to be punished!"

The last ounce of strength drained from my body. I collapsed onto the freezing concrete.

Victoria sneered down at me. "Even your own daughter saw it. Are you done spinning lies?" She gestured to the guards. "Commence."

"NO!"

My scream was entirely drowned out by the sickening, heavy crack of the solid polymer baton striking bone.

My fathers cries of agony echoed off the stone walls of the compound. He didn't understand what was happening. He just cried out for me.

"Simon... it hurts... Dad hurts..."

I fought like a madman, tearing my fingernails on the pavement trying to reach him, but the two guards had their knees dug into my spine, pinning me completely. I was forced to watch.

The heavy, rhythmic thwack of the batons. The blood pooling on the gray stone.

By the fiftieth strike, my fathers body went completely limp. He didn't twitch. He didn't breathe.

"Dad!"

My voice tore completely. The guards finally let me go, and I scrambled over the blood-slicked concrete, pulling his broken body into my arms.

His skin was already cooling. The light in his eyes was completely gone.

Victoria stood over us, looking down with clinical detachment. "Enough. He was a vegetable anyway. This is a mercy. Don't be too dramatic about it; I'll pay for a premium funeral."

I stared at the blood on my hands. The world had gone entirely silent.

Mia trotted over, looking annoyed. "Stop crying, Daddy. He tried to hurt Tristan. He brought it on himself."

She pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from her pocket and threw them. They fluttered down, landing in the pool of my father's blood. "Here. This is enough to buy him a nice spot in the cemetery."

Suddenly, a piercing, soul-shredding shriek cut through the air.

I snapped my head up. Martha had somehow slipped past the front gate. She was sprinting across the courtyard, her eyes fixed on the bloody heap in my arms.

She threw herself onto my fathers body, her hands trembling violently as she touched his face.

"Henry... Henry, wake up! How could you leave me? How could you leave me here all alone?!"

"Mom." I reached out a shaking hand to pull her back. Dad was gone. She was the only family I had left in the universe.

But before my fingers could brush her sleeve, she lunged upward.

With a guttural cry, she threw her entire body weight forward, driving her head headfirst into the sharp, granite edge of the decorative fountain.

"NO!"

I lunged, but my fingers only grazed the fabric of her coat.

A sickening crack echoed. She slumped to the ground, a dark pool rushing out from beneath her skull.

I knelt there on the stone. To my left, the beaten corpse of my father. To my right, the shattered body of my mother.

In my hands, I still gripped the blood-soaked duffel bag of cash I was supposed to give them for their retirement.

A terrible, suffocating pressure seized my chest. I doubled over, and a mouthful of dark blood violently expelled from my lungs, splattering across the concrete.

"Simon!" Victorias voice fractured. The icy facade broke, replaced by sudden, raw panic. She rushed forward to grab me.

But Tristan casually tugged on her sleeve. "Hes just playing the victim again, Victoria. He probably thinks we didn't give him enough cash. Remember a few months ago when he faked a coma? He always comes back."

Mia pulled out another stack of bills and threw them directly at my face. "Is this enough? Get over it, Daddy. Stop acting. Its annoying."

I looked at the scattered bills. I looked at the checks. I started to laugh. A broken, wet, horrific sound that clawed its way out of my ruined throat.

Victoria took a hesitant step toward me, her face pale, but Mia stepped in front of her. "He's just going to threaten to kill himself again. Let him do it. If he really dies this time, we won't even care."

I reached out and gently brushed my thumbs over my parents' open, sightless eyes, closing them.

Then I looked up at Mia.

"Okay. I'll die."

Mia smirked. She reached over to the guard standing next to her, unclipped the heavy Glock from his holster, and kicked it across the pavement toward me.

"Use this. It's faster."

I picked up the heavy, cold steel of the gun. I didn't say a word.

Seeing me holding it silently, Victoria let out a long sigh of relief, assuming the bluff was over. "Alright, Simon, enough of the tantrums. Put it down, come inside, apologize, and we can move past this..."

Before she finished her sentence, I pressed the barrel flush against my heart and pulled the trigger.

BANG.

The sound was deafening. A spray of boiling, crimson blood painted the side of Victorias face.

The relieved smile on her face froze. The color drained from her skin, leaving her looking like a wax corpse.

"SIMON!"