When I Became the House’s Chip

Dante looked down at me.

He held the diamond between his fingers, and his thumb moved slowly back and forth across one of its edges. Once. Again. He didn't stop.

"Caught in the act."

He kicked a small chip of diamond out of his way.

"A million-dollar necklace. What are you going to pay with?"

I lifted my head. My eyes went past his shoulder to the clock on the wall.

Forty minutes until the hospital pulled her off the tube.

I let go of his trouser leg.

I turned and dropped onto my knees on the concrete.

I touched my forehead to the floor. Again. Again.

The sound was a dull thud.

The blood on my forehead left smears on the concrete.

"Dante, this is all on me! All of it!"

I was shouting. My throat was full of iron.

"I'm begging you. Let me go to the hospital first. Let me put down that three million."

"My daughter's waiting for the money. She's two years old."

I reached for the toe of his shoe.

"As soon as she's out of surgery I'll come back. I'll owe you my life. Cut me, kill me, whatever you want—I'll take it."

His fingers curled.

Sabrina was clutching her throat, sobbing harder.

"Dante, don't let her play you!" she cried. "You got that paternity test with your own two hands. Official seal from the hospital—that kid isn't yours!"

"Now she's conjuring up a daughter because she's got her back to the wall. You really can't see through that?"

Dante's jaw locked. The veins in the back of his hand stood up.

He gave the order.

"Strip her of anything worth money."

He pointed at the hand I had folded against my chest.

"That three-million card. Confiscate it."

"And those busy little hands of hers—break them. Then throw her out."

In his eyes, those were the hands that had been around Sabrina's throat. The hands that were guarding the card.

"No—!"

I shrank back and jammed the card between my teeth, deep into my mouth.

Two of his men moved in and pinned me down on either side.

They pried my jaw open and dug the bloody card out.

I fought. I bit at their wrists.

"Filthy bitch. Still biting—"

One of them cursed me and grabbed my right hand. He forced it flat against the edge of a step.

He lifted his foot—a hard dress shoe—and brought it down on my fingers.

Crack.

My index and middle finger bent ninety degrees backward.

Cold sweat soaked through my clothes.

The bloody card was put into Sabrina's hand.

She held it up and smiled at me.

I dragged my broken fingers along the floor. A red streak followed me.

I crawled toward Dante's back.

"Dante… that's Emily's life…"

I was begging.

"Give it back. Please give it back…"

I stared at the back of him.

Every time he used to walk away from me, he'd turn his head after a few steps and look for my eyes. If I was still there, he'd keep walking.

This time he just kept walking. He didn't turn around.

I didn't move either.

I just watched him go.

As he stepped through the fire door—

The phone on the floor a few feet away lit up.

A message came through with the hospital's highest-priority alarm.

The screen read, in one clean line:

County General Hospital, Hematology. Patient account in arrears, treatment suspended. Patient Emily Moretti, age 2, suffered cardiopulmonary collapse at 14:02 today. Resuscitation unsuccessful. Clinical death declared. Please come to claim the remains.

I braced my left hand on the floor and pushed myself up.

I stared at his back. He'd gone rigid where he stood.

I started to laugh.

"Hahahaha…"

The stairwell was empty. My laugh echoed off the concrete.

I looked at him and spoke one word at a time.

"Dante. Congratulations."

"You just confiscated the last money that could have saved your own daughter's life."

"You killed her. With your own hands."