The hospital calls me at six. Nobody calls at six with good news.
Nadeem is waiting by the nurses' station with a folder and the face he gets when he wants me to sit down first.
Nadeem: Her fund isn't run by the hospital. It's administered by a company called Marrow Medical.
I know that name. It's on the letterhead of every paycheck I've ever gotten from Bracken Tower.
Caleb: Say that again.
Nadeem: Marrow Medical is owned by Bracken Holdings. That's what the paperwork says. I don't know what it means for you.
It means the man who owns this tower owns her place in line.
Elsie is awake when I walk in. She has her hoodie sleeves pulled down over her hands like the room might be cold.
Elsie: You look like you've been sleeping in the elevator.
Caleb: I slept in a chair. There's a difference.
Elsie: How many days.
Caleb: Nine.
Elsie: It was fourteen on Tuesday.
Caleb: The fund moved it up. I'm handling it.
Elsie: Don't do anything stupid.
Caleb: I'm not going to do anything stupid.
Elsie: You're already doing the face.
She smiles, and it looks like it hurts. I smile back and it hurts the same way.
She is nineteen. She should be worried about a boy, not a deposit.
In the hallway I pull up the fund's paperwork on my phone and read it twice.
Marrow Medical. A subsidiary of Bracken Holdings. Which means her whole life answers to the man on the thirty-eighth floor.
I fish the black card out of my pocket. It gets me into any room in this tower. It gets me into his.
Forty thousand dollars is a number to him. It's her whole life to me.
I get in the elevator.
The camera in the corner blinks red. Let him watch.
The doors open on thirty-eight, and I walk down the private hall before I can talk myself out of it.
The penthouse door is open. He is at the desk with a laptop and a glass of water he hasn't touched.
Caleb: Your company controls my sister's transplant fund.
Caleb: You moved the date.
My name is Lucien. I have been at this desk since midnight, and he is the first real thing that has happened to me all day.
Lucien: Sit down.
Caleb: Answer the question.
My mother's voice is still in my ear from this afternoon. Settle it before the vote, or she settles it with Julien.
My phone lights up on the desk. One line from her. Well?
I turn it face down.
Lucien: Yes. Marrow Medical is mine. I found your sister's name in the fund four days ago.
Caleb: Four days.
Lucien: I could have stopped the date from moving. I didn't.
Caleb: Why the fuck not.
Lucien: Because I wanted you in this room.
His fists stay shut at his sides, and he does not swing. That is the most self-control I have ever seen in a man who wants to.
Caleb: You used her to get me up here.
Lucien: I used the truth. It was going to move whether I touched it or not.
Lucien: I don't give money away, Caleb. I sign contracts.
Caleb: What kind of contract.
Lucien: The kind where I pay the forty thousand and you owe me. Not in hours.
Lucien: In person.
Caleb: You want to buy me.
Lucien: I want to stop pretending we're not already standing here.
He could walk out. The door is behind him and I would not stop him.
He doesn't walk out.
Caleb: Show me the contract.
The folder lands on the wood between us, and the noise in my head drops to a hum. Not peace. Something that will pass for it tonight.
Lucien: Read it tonight. Don't sign anything you haven't read.
Lucien: You're the only person in this building who tells me no.
He takes the folder without a word. I look at the blank line where his name goes, and my pulse is steady for once.