Victor's text hit Elara's phone at 9:47 PM.
*Final notice. 48 hours or we seize the house.*
She read it three times in the bathroom stall of the Thorne Dynamics ballroom, her hands shaking hard enough to nearly drop the phone into the toilet. Outside, two hundred of New York's elite celebrated another record quarter.
Inside this stall, Elara's life was collapsing.
Seven figures. That's what the debt had become over ten years. Medical bills from Leo's leukemia. Her mother's cancer treatment. Her father's gambling addiction. Numbers that had stopped feeling real and started feeling like a life sentence.
The fire stairwell was empty. She kicked off her heels, and sat on the concrete steps. Sipping the remaining champagne, it was the 5th glass she's had, pulling her knees to her chest, her expensive navy dress bunching around her thighs.
Professional. Composed. That's what she'd been for three years as Marcus Thorne's executive assistant, you have to be, if you work for Marcus you'll know he's the Devil in Dior.