The Billionaire's cruel obsession

Sleep never came that night.

I lay awake on the thin mattress in my small, dim apartment, listening to the soft hum of traffic outside and the occasional bark of a stray dog echoing through the alley. My phone screen glowed faintly beside me, no messages, no missed calls, no good news. Just silence.

My mind refused to rest. It kept replaying the interview: the sharp gazes of the panel, the polite smiles that hid judgment, the cold air that smelled faintly of power and rejection. I had walked out smiling, pretending confidence, but deep down, I knew the truth. Hope and fear were at war inside me, and neither was willing to surrender.

I turned on my side, hugging my pillow as if it could keep the memories away. But they came anyway, slow and relentless.

Because before there was this woman desperate, trembling, praying for a job there was a little girl.

A little girl who had nothing but a dying mother and an impossible dream.

Our house on Willow Street wasn’t really a house. It was a patchwork of survival wooden planks patched over rusted iron sheets, a roof that groaned when the rain fell, walls that sighed with every gust of wind.

The paint had long peeled away, replaced by stains of time and dampness. The kitchen was no more than a corner with a single kerosene stove, and every meal smelled faintly of smoke and struggle.

But my mother called it home.

And somehow, she made it feel like one.

I remember her hands most of all small, rough, and endlessly busy. They smelled of thread, soap, and exhaustion. Every day, she sewed clothes for neighbors and strangers alike. Her old Singer machine rattled through the night, its rhythmic hum lulling me to sleep more faithfully than any lullaby.

When she was tired, she’d sit by the window, watching the city lights in the distance. I’d climb into her lap, my skinny arms wrapping around her waist.

“Why are you looking at the city again, Mama?” I’d ask, tracing the fading stitches on her apron.

She’d smile faintly, that sad kind of smile that tried to hide a lifetime of weariness.

“Because, my little bird,” she’d whisper, “someday you’ll live there. You’ll have big windows and warm food. You won’t have to count coins to eat.”

At ten years old, I believed her with all my heart.

But the truth had already begun to show in her cough.

At first, it was soft, an occasional clearing of her throat. Then deeper. Harsher. Until each one sounded like it tore something inside her.

She hid it from me as long as she could. But one night, I saw her lean over the sink, her hand trembling as she wiped away the red stains from her lips.

“Mama?” I whispered, frozen in the doorway.

She turned quickly, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Just tired, Becca. Go to bed.”

I went to bed that night, but I didn’t sleep. I could hear her crying softly through the thin wall, the sound of the sewing machine covering her pain.

When you’re poor, hunger becomes a kind of companion, a cruel one that never truly leaves.

There were nights when the only thing in our pot was water and a few grains of rice. Mama would pretend she wasn’t hungry, insisting she’d eaten earlier. But I knew she hadn’t.

So I’d push my bowl toward her, forcing a grin. “I’m not hungry either.”

She’d shake her head and stroke my hair. “Liar. Eat while you can.”

I did. But the food always tasted like guilt.

I started working odd jobs after school cleaning porches, carrying groceries, watching over kids while their mothers went to work. I’d come home with sweaty hands clutching coins that jingled like salvation.

Mama would always smile when I handed them over. “My brave girl,” she’d whisper. “You’ll survive this world.”

When I was sixteen, the sickness finally won.

Mama collapsed one afternoon while hemming a client’s dress. I ran barefoot through the streets, screaming for help, my voice breaking through the noise of car horns and market chatter.

The hospital smelled of bleach and hopelessness. The nurse’s eyes were kind but tired, her words carefully chosen. “She’s very weak. We’ll need money for tests.”

Money. The word that ruled our lives.

I worked double shifts at the diner after that, wiping tables, washing dishes, anything that would buy her a few more days. My classmates went to parties. I went to work. My teachers stopped asking about homework because they knew the answer would be the same: I didn’t have time.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

One evening, I came to the hospital and found her weaker than ever, her body trembling with every breath. The room was too bright, too clean, too cruel.

She reached out her hand thin, trembling. “Don’t cry, Becca.”

“I’m not,” I lied, wiping tears that wouldn’t stop.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Promise me something.”

I nodded, afraid of what she’d ask.

“Promise me you’ll finish school. That you’ll fight. You won’t let this world harden you. Promise me you’ll live a life that makes all this pain worth it.”

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. “I promise.”

She smiled faintly, broken and then her hand slipped from mine.

That was the last time I saw her alive.

After the funeral, everything blurred. The landlord came for the rent. The neighbors offered condolences that sounded like pity. I packed Mama’s clothes into a box I couldn’t carry and sold her sewing machine to pay off her hospital debt.

I rented a single room in a building that smelled of mold and despair.

And then I started surviving again.

Waitressing by day. Cleaning offices by night. Studying in the stolen hours between exhaustion and dawn.

I learned to wear a smile like armor, one that fooled the world into thinking I was fine. I laughed at jokes that weren’t funny. I said “I’m okay” when I wanted to scream.

Some nights, I’d sit by the window of my tiny room, staring at the same city lights Mama used to dream about. And I’d whisper, “I’m trying, Mama. I’m still trying.”

Years passed. Rejection letters piled up too many to count. Each one chipped away at something inside me. But each morning, I still woke up and tried again.

Because quitting would’ve made her death meaningless.

I got used to hearing “we’ll call you” that never came. To walk home in shoes with torn soles. To pretend I didn’t see the pity in people’s eyes.

But I never stopped believing that one day, something would change.

And then it did.

The phone rang one afternoon when I was folding laundry. I almost didn’t answer, thinking it was another bill collector.

“Miss Rebecca Harris?”

“Yes?”

“This is the Willson Group. You’ve been shortlisted for an interview.”

I froze.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The name Willson Group carried a weight I’d only heard in newspapers, in stories of people whose lives turned overnight.

My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor, clutching the phone like it was holy.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Thank you so much.”

When the call ended, I cried quietly at first, then harder, until my chest ached. Not because I had the job, but because someone had finally seen me.

That night, I ironed my blouse three times, polished my shoes until they shone, and practiced my smile in the cracked mirror.

And before I went to bed, I lit a small candle beside Mama’s photo, the one where she was laughing, her eyes alive with dreams she never lived to see.

“Wish me luck, Mama,” I whispered. “I’m finally going to the city.”

Now, lying in the dark after the interview, the ceiling above me blurred through the tears in my eyes.

“I kept my promise,” I whispered to the silence. “I didn’t give up.”

Outside, the wind rattled the windows, carrying the faint hum of the city Mama wanted me to conquer.

Tomorrow will decide everything.

Whether I’d stay trapped in the cycle I was born into

Or finally step into the life I’d fought for all these years.

And even if the world wasn’t kind even if it tried to break me again I’d be ready.

Because I had already survived worse.

Because somewhere out there, I knew my mother was still watching.

And for her

I would keep fighting.