Elara
The fluorescent lights of the clinic hummed a low, irritating tune that matched the throb in my temples. It was 9:45 PM. My last patient, a construction worker with a jagged rebar laceration, had finally stumbled out ten minutes ago. I was alone, surrounded by the scent of antiseptic and the ghostly silence of a closed building.
I was scrubbing the surgical tray when the bell over the front door chimed. I didn't look up. "We're closed. If it's an emergency, Mercy Hospital is six blocks east.""It's an emergency, Elara. But not the kind they fix with stitches."I froze. That voice. It was raspy, aged by cheap bourbon and a lifetime of bad decisions. I turned slowly. My father, Arthur, stood in the doorway. He looked smaller than he had a month ago. His expensive wool coat was stained, and his hands—the hands that used to shuffle cards with surgical precision—were shaking uncontrollably.
Dad? What are you doing here?" I dried my hands on a paper towel, my stomach twisting into a familiar knot. "I told you, I'm not giving you any more money. My rent is three weeks late as it is.""It's not about the money this time," he whispered. He didn't come closer. He stayed near the door, looking over his shoulder like a man expecting a ghost. "I went to the Underground. The high-stakes room at The Gilded Lily."My heart dropped. The Gilded Lily was Vane territory. You didn't go there unless you had a death wish or a god complex. "Tell me you didn't.""I thought I could win it back, Elara! Everything I lost when the Commission kicked me out. I had a full house, and then—""And then the house won," a new voice interrupted
The sound was like velvet dragged over gravel. It didn't come from my father. It came from the shadow behind him. A man stepped into the clinical light, and suddenly, my office felt like a dollhouse. He was massive—not just in height, but in presence. He wore a charcoal suit that looked like armor, his dark hair pushed back from a face that was terrifyingly handsome and entirely devoid of warmth.Silas Vane. The "Prince of Ash." The man who ran the city's enforcement with a silencer and a smile that never reached his eyes."Mr. Vane," I breathed, my lungs suddenly forgetting how to function.
Dr. Rossi," he replied. He stepped around my father as if he were a piece of discarded furniture. He walked toward me, his eyes—the color of a storm-tossed sea—scanning my face, my white coat, the stethoscope around my neck. "Your father is a very poor gambler. He owes my family three million dollars. Money he doesn't have."I looked at my father, who was now weeping silently. "Three million? Dad, how?""He didn't have the cash," Silas continued, stopping just inches from me. He smelled of expensive sandalwood and something metallic. "So he offered a different kind of collateral. An asset. A Rossi legacy to merge with a Vane future."I backed up until my hips hit the cold metal of the exam table. "I'm not an asset. I'm a person. This isn't the Middle Ages."
Silas reached out. I flinched, but he didn't strike me. He tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind my ear, his leather glove cold against my skin. "In this city, Elara, it is whatever age I say it is. Your father sold his debt to me. And I've decided to collect.""What do you want?" I whispered."I want a wife," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "My father wants a PR miracle. A saint to balance my sins. You're going to be that saint. You have forty-eight hours to pack. On Saturday, you become a Vane. Or on Sunday, you become a coffin-bearer for your father."He turned on his heel, leaving the scent of impending doom in his wake.