Chapter 5 His Offer
The next day came fast. Too fast.
Eleanor was already at the hospital by 7:12am. She hadn’t slept. The apartment was still dark and the water was still cut off when she left.
She found Mrs. Nico sitting on the plastic chair outside her mum’s room, holding two paper cups of coffee.
“She’s resting,” Mrs. Nico said, standing and handing one to Eleanor. “She was up all night.”
Eleanor took the coffee. It was bitter and warm. She didn’t drink it.
“Can I see her?”
“Five minutes. Then let her sleep.”
Through the glass, her mother looked smaller. The machines were beeping. The pale that wasn’t just tiredness anymore.
Outside in the hallway, Mrs. Nico pulled Eleanor to the side.
“Eleanor, don’t worry about her. I’m here. I’ll sit with her today and onwards. You just… do what you can to raise the money.”
“And if I can’t?”
Eleanor’s voice cracked on the last word. It sounded like someone else had said it. Like she’d already given up.
Mrs. Nico pulled her into a hug.
It was tight. It smelled like soap and the menthol rub she used on her joints.
Eleanor needed it.
She sobbed into Mrs. Nico’s shoulder. Not quiet crying. The ugly kind. The kind that had been building since the doctor said ‘2.5 million’.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she choked out.
She sniffled.
Mrs. Nico didn’t say anything. She just patted Eleanor’s back. Like she did when Eleanor was 18 and got bullied at school.
After a while, Eleanor left.
She walked Madrid with a notebook and her phone at 4%.
Café. Boutique. Cleaning company. Call center. A flyer for dog walking.
“Sorry, we filled the position.”
“Do you have experience?”
“We need someone who can start full time.”
Anyone that didn’t involve being groped. Anyone that paid more than 900 euros a month.
None.
By 8pm her feet hurt and her hope was gone.
She took the stairs to her apartment.
The door was ajar.
She stopped. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
She ‘knew’ she’d locked it. She always double-checked.
From the box by the door she pulled out the plastic baseball bat. It was from when Mrs. Nico’s grandson visited. Not much, but it was something.
She pushed the door open with her foot and stepped in slow.
The tiny living room was not empty.
Three men.
Two stood by the window, arms crossed. Suits. Earpieces.
The third sat in the middle of the room.
On a chair.
A black leather armchair. Low. Expensive.
She didn’t own a chair like that.
Her eyes peeled open.
No.
He looked at her.
Mr. Russo.
He looked straight at her.
She stood in her grey hoodie. Crop tank top underneath. Wide-leg jeans folded at her ankles. Messy brunette hair. Blue eyes. Fair skin. Plum lips pressed into a flat line.
She looked straight at him too. He looked nothing like the cold man in the suit from last night. Now He looked younger. Tired. And furious.
Eleanor stood frozen in the doorway, bat still in her hand.
“You?”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked at her. Hoodie. Jeans. No makeup. Hair in a messy bun.
Like he was comparing her to the girl in the leather dress.
She scoffed, noticing the chair. “You brought your own furniture?”
“What are you doing here?”
“How did you find my home?”
“Huh?!” One of the men by the window shifted.
He finally stood. He was tall. Taller than she remembered. He came around the chair slowly, like he didn’t want to spook her.
He looked at her like she was something he couldn’t figure out.
“Eleanor Alejandro,” he said.
“Don’t call me that.”
He kept a cold expression.
“It is your birth name. Yes?”
She looked away. Her grip tightened on the bat.
“Get rid of the bat.”
She glared.
“I won’t ask again.”
She tossed it. It hit the floor with a plastic thud.
“You haven’t answered me. What are you doing in my home?!”
He said. His voice low. “I’m not here to buy your body.”
She laughed. Sharp and humorless. “Good. Because I’m not selling it.”
He cleared his throat. “Miss Alejandro. If I wanted someone’s body, I could have any woman I wanted. Tonight. I wouldn’t have to come to a fourth-floor walk-up in Vallecas.”
He stared at her for a long second.
“I came with a proposal.”
“Proposal?”
“Yes. You heard right.”
One of the men stepped forward and held out a black folder.
Eleanor looked at him, then snatched it out of his hand.
She flipped it open standing there.
The first page:
RELATIONSHIP CONTRACT
Between Matteo Russo and Eleanor Alejandro’
“What is this?”
“Keep reading.”
He walked to the window. Hands in his pockets. Back to her.
She scanned. Her eyes went wide. Payment schedule. Public events. Housing. Medical coverage. Clause 4 circled: ‘No physical intimacy without mutual written consent.’
Clause 9: ‘4 million EUR to be deposited within 24 hours of signature.’
“You’re fucking joking.”
“Unfortunately, no,” he said to the window. “I tracked you down in four hours. Ran a background check. Hospital. Debt. Your mother’s diagnosis. Your father. So no, i am not fucking joking.”
She walked up to him and threw the folder at his back. It hit and fell.
“I’m not going to be any toy of yours! Mr. Russo.”
“Now leave my apartment. I won’t ask again!”
She walked past them toward the bathroom door. Her hands were shaking.
“Your mother.”
His statement made her stop. Mid-step.
“She needs a transplant. 2.5 million euros. And judging by your financial background, you can’t meet that even if you worked five jobs a day.”
His words hit her hard. She gulped. Her back was still to him.
“The contract I just offered you is worth more than what you need. Enough to clear your debt. Cover her bills. Private hospital. The best surgeon from Switzerland. With terms and conditions as well.”
“What makes you think I’d take help from a man like you,” she said, still not turning.
“You don’t know me.” He said.
“I don’t. But I know men like you. And you’re all the same.”
Silence filled the room.
“Very well,” he said finally. “I’ll let you be. But the folder stays here.”
She heard him gesture. The two men moved toward the door.
“My contact is in it as well,” he said before leaving. “The offer stands until this time tomorrow.” "I'd think it through wisely if i were you." He concluded.
She heard receding footsteps. Then the door clicked shut.
She stood there panting. The apartment was quiet again. Too quiet.
She looked over her shoulder at the folder on the floor. Black. Heavy.
She turned. Walked to it. Squatted.
Her nails gripped into the leather as she picked it up.
4 million was the advance payment. It could save her mother’s life.
Clear their debts.
Outside, a car started and drove away.
In the car, Mr. Russo held his phone in his hand...
On his phone screen was a lady... She had brown eyes and Eleanor's face.
