Contracted to the Billionaire

Episode 2

My mom and I glanced at each other, confused. My dad left us years ago, when I was still fighting to beat leukemia, and now these men…

“I-I don’t understand. What do you mean by that? What money?” Mom questioned.

The man got off the couch and walked up to my mother, raising his hand and slapping her on the face so hard that I gasped and rushed towards her.

“Mom, are you okay?!” I asked, caressing the cheek that had just been slapped as she started to sob.

“I don’t know, Seraphine. I don’t know what they’re saying. What are they talking about? Your father left us a long time ago,” she rambled loudly, looking between me and the men as if she couldn’t tell which one of us she wanted to explain the situation to.

“Yes,” I helped her to confirm as I looked at the men. “My father abandoned us. If he’s owing you money, you should find him. We don’t have anything to do with him anymore.”

The man stepped forward, and – just like he had done to my mother – he raised his hand and slapped me as well, causing me to yelp in surprise and pain.

“Do you know how many years we have been tracking him down?” The man said, sitting back down on the couch and crossing his legs like he owned the place. “This is why I don’t make deals with people who gamble, but he begged. He swore on his life that he would return the money. You know, he said his daughter had cancer and he wanted to assist in treating her.”

His eyes travelled towards me, and his lips curled in a strange smile.

“You seem to be doing alright now, if you ever had cancer.”

I looked at my mother in shock and confusion. Dad never contributed any money to my cancer treatment, and these men were now telling us that he had borrowed some money from them.

“He never gave us any money for anything, I swear,” I told them, putting my hands together in a pleading gesture.

“Well, that doesn’t matter to me. If someone owes me money, and they have a family out there that I can get my hands on, the family will have to pay. Isn’t that how banks work?” He c****d his head to the side. “The only difference between me and banks is that banks will not necessarily beat the family up. Maybe your deadbeat father should have taken out money from the bank instead.”

“Please!” Mom went on her knees, crying loudly. “We really don’t have much. We’re already struggling enough as it is. We already owe a bank affiliate, we can’t afford to pay for him. You can always track him down, please. We have no relations with him anymore.”

The man got up from the couch and laughed as he looked at the other men who came with him. They c****d and aimed their guns at our heads, causing my mom and I to hug each other and cry out loudly.

“I don’t want to hear any of that bullshit about you not being related to him anymore. How much do you have with you right now?”

“I was paid today. I can give you my salary,” I admitted, standing up and raising my hands in the air as a form of surrender.

“Follow her,” the leader instructed one of his boys as I walked into the kitchen, heading straight for my purse and giving him the envelope with my salary in it. He led me back to the living room, where I was forced to go down on my knees beside my mother.

“Looks like your mother also got paid,” the man laughed, showing me the envelope that my mother must have given to him.

“This is not nearly enough, by the way. Your father owes me the sum of five hundred thousand dollars. Here,” he said as he dropped a small piece of paper on the coffee table in the middle of the living room.

“Take it,” he commanded me. With shaky hands, I picked up the paper and skimmed it. There was an address on top of the paper, and I looked back at him in confusion.

“You have exactly one month to pay up the five hundred thousand dollars in cash. You will put the money in a bag and take it to the address on the paper. Drop the bag, turn around, and never look back. If you decide to get the police involved, you will both be arrested for aiding in fraud since that’s what your father did.”

There was silence in the room. Soon, they all left. My mom ran towards the door and made sure to lock it, taking a deep breath as she slid down the door and started to cry.

“No, don’t cry,” I said softly, meeting her at the door and pulling her in for a hug, kissing her on the forehead as hot tears escaped my eyes as well.

“I can’t believe he did this to us. As if abruptly leaving us when things were hard is not depressing enough, he had the audacity to go borrow money from loan sharks and tell them that it was because of you? We need to find him, Seraphine. We can’t possibly get half a million in one month. We struggled enough before we could even get it in a year. These people do not work in banks, they could kill us at any time!”

“I know, I know. We could… we could give them something; anything. Maybe if we raise something substantial for the next one month, they can give us a little more time,” I suggested.

“I can’t do this, Seraphine. I just can’t!” She stood up and ran into her room, slamming the door as hard as she could. From where I sat in the living room, I could hear her crying, and I decided to give her some privacy as I cleared up the dinner table.

~

“You’re not going to work?” I asked, opening the door to my mom’s room the next morning.

“I already called in sick. I don’t think I’m ready,” she replied. Her voice was hoarse, and her eyes were swollen from the tears. She had cried through the night, and I hated that there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’m going out to look for a job. Maybe I could get another waiting job for mornings and afternoons before my evening shift at the restaurant. There’s some toast in the kitchen, if you’re feeling hungry.” I kissed her on the forehead and headed out of the house, going from restaurants to bars. All of their jobs seemed to be taken.

As I got to a restaurant, a woman who had bought takeout and had seen me trying to get a job approached me as I got out of the restaurant.

“You’re looking for a job, honey?” she asked softly, her tropical perfume caressing my nostrils and her voice smooth to the hearing.

“Yes,” I immediately answered, hopeful that she had one to offer.

“Come with me.” She walked off, not once looking back to see if I was following her. She walked as if she knew how desperate I was and how much power she had in her hands for giving me hope.

She stopped in front of a large building which rose to the sky, and she turned to me with a bright smile.

“Welcome to La Exotica; home to hundreds of women who know what they want and what the world around them wants,” she announced, taking my hand and dragging me along with her until we got into a large room with women walking around half naked and men indulging in their services.

My eyes widened as the woman grinned at me and said: “If you want to make money, there’s one of t

he best ways to do it; sell your body.”