Page 95 of Billionaire’s Ruin

17

Kai

I woke up sometime after the last injection Lucy gave me—or at least I thought I did.

Time didn’t exist in here.

No clock.

No sunlight.

No sound except the faint rhythm of my breath and the distant hum of whatever machine kept this place running. The walls didn’t even cast shadows. It was just me, the bed, and the thick, suffocating quiet.

For all I knew, I could’ve been out for minutes… or days.

But something was different this time. The fog in my head—usually thick enough to smother every thought—had finally thinned. The world sharpened at the edges. My thoughts didn’t slip away when I reached for them; they stayed, shaky but intact.

Finally, I could think.

The spinning had stopped. The numbness had eased. My brain, my own damn brain, was waking up again.

What the hell was she planning?

Drugging me, keeping me docile—it wasn’t random. Nothing that woman ever did was random. She played people the way other people played instruments. Every note, every move, every trap was deliberate.

But strapped to this bed like a violent criminal, locked in this windowless box, I couldn’t see the whole board. I didn’t know her endgame.

Money.

All of it came back to money.

Money and appearance—the only two things she’d ever truly loved.

My stomach twisted. Was that how Lucy got dragged into this? Did she need cash? Was her family threatened? My mother knew exactly how to manipulate desperation. She collected broken people and dusted them off like trophies.

Was the girl just another pawn?

Or had she chosen this?

Whose side was she really on—mine or my mother’s?

The question spun in my skull, sharp as a blade.

If Lucy was working with the evil woman, why fake the injections? Why whisper apologies when she thought I couldn’t hear? Why look at me like she hated herself for what she was doing?

Was it guilt?

Fear?

Or was it just one more manipulation in her endless arsenal?

I wanted to believe Lucy. God, I wanted to trust someone in this nightmare. But trust cost too much now. It was a luxury I couldn’t afford—not when the person who birthed me was the one locking me here.

The hinges clicked.

The entrance swung open.

Same sound.