Chapter 5: The Knock at the Door
The pounding on my door woke me from a dead sleep.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
I shot up in bed, my heart already racing. The clock on my nightstand said 6:47 AM. I'd only been asleep for three hours after finishing my night shift at the office building.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
"Lucia Santos!" A man's voice, deep and loud. "Open the door!"
My blood turned to ice.
I knew that tone. That wasn't the landlord. That wasn't a delivery person.
That was trouble.
I stumbled out of bed, my legs shaky. Maybe if I stayed quiet, they'd go away. Maybe they had the wrong apartment.
"We know you're in there, Miss Santos. Open the door, or we'll open it for you."
My hands were shaking as I walked to the door. I looked through the peephole and saw two huge men standing in the hallway. Both wore dark suits. Both looked like they could snap me in half without even trying.
One of them knocked again, so hard the door rattled in its frame.
"I'm coming!" My voice came out as a squeak.
I unlocked the door and opened it just a crack, keeping the chain lock on.
The bigger of the two men smiled at me. It wasn't a friendly smile. "Good morning, Miss Santos. I'm Tony. This is Marco. We work for Mr. Cross."
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
"What do you want?" I tried to sound brave, but my voice shook.
"We need you to come with us," Tony said. Still smiling that terrible smile.
"Why? What did I do?"
"You missed your payment."
The words hit me like a punch to the stomach. "That's impossible. I have thirty days. It hasn't been thirty days yet."
Tony pulled out his phone and showed me the screen. "Your payment was due yesterday. You're one day late."
"No." I shook my head. "No, the text said thirty days. I've been counting. It's only been—"
I stopped. Counted back in my head. The day I signed the papers. The day Mom started treatment. The days I'd been working non-stop, so exhausted I could barely think straight.
Had it really been thirty days already?
"I need to check my calendar," I said. "There must be a mistake—"
"There's no mistake." Marco spoke for the first time. His voice was even deeper than Tony's. "You owe eight thousand six hundred sixty-six dollars. You didn't pay. So now you come with us."
"Come where?" Panic was rising in my throat like bile. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Mr. Cross wants to talk to you." Tony's smile finally disappeared. "Now open this door and come quietly, or we'll make this difficult."
"I'm not going anywhere!" I tried to slam the door shut.
Marco's hand shot out and caught it. The chain lock snapped like it was made of paper. The door flew open, and I stumbled backward.
Both men stepped into my tiny apartment. They seemed to fill the entire space.
"Please," I backed away from them. "Please, I'll get the money. I just need more time. I've been working as much as I can, but—"
"Should have thought of that before you signed the contract." Tony looked around my apartment. At the ancient couch with springs poking through. At the empty refrigerator. At the stack of bills on the counter. "Doesn't look like you have eight thousand dollars lying around."
"I'll get it! I promise! Just give me another week—"
"The contract says if you miss a payment, you owe us more than money." Marco moved closer. "Did you read the contract, Miss Santos?"
I hadn't. I'd been too desperate, too tired, too scared. I'd just signed my name and grabbed the money and run.
"What does that mean?" My voice was barely a whisper. "More than money?"
Tony and Marco exchanged a glance.
"It means you work for Mr. Cross now," Tony said. "Until your debt is paid."
"Work for him? Doing what?"
"Whatever he tells you to do."
Images flashed through my mind. Movies I'd seen. Stories I'd heard. What did men like Dante Cross make people do when they couldn't pay?
"I won't do anything illegal," I said, trying to sound firm. "I won't hurt people or sell drugs or—"
"Nobody asked you to." Marco actually laughed. "You think Mr. Cross needs a ninety-pound teenager to run drugs? Come on."
"Then what does he want?"
"Like I said. He wants to talk to you. Now are you coming, or do we have to carry you?"
I looked at them. Looked at my apartment. Looked at my phone sitting on the counter.
If I screamed, would my neighbors call the police? Probably not. They never called the police for anything. This neighborhood was the kind where people minded their own business.
And even if the cops came, what would I tell them? That I'd borrowed money from a loan shark and now couldn't pay?
I'd probably get arrested too.
"Can I at least get dressed?" I was wearing pajamas—an old t-shirt and shorts.
"You've got two minutes." Tony crossed his arms.
I grabbed jeans and a sweatshirt from my room and changed in the bathroom, my hands shaking so bad I could barely button my pants. When I came out, Marco was looking at the photos on my wall.
"This your mom?" He pointed to the graduation picture.
"Yes."
"She doing better? The treatment working?"
The question surprised me. He almost sounded... kind.
"She's stable," I said quietly. "The doctors say she's responding well."
"That's good." Marco nodded. "That's real good."
Then his face went hard again. "Let's go."
They walked me out of my apartment. Tony locked the door behind us—with my keys, which he'd taken from the counter.
"You're keeping my keys?"
"Mr. Cross's property now," Tony said. "Just like everything else."
Everything else. Including me.
They led me down the stairs and out to a black SUV parked on the street. Marco opened the back door.
"Get in."
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
I climbed into the back seat. Tony got in beside me. Marco got in the driver's seat and started the engine.
As we pulled away from my building, I looked back at it through the rear window. My crappy little apartment that I could barely afford. At least it had been mine.
Now I didn't even have that.
"Hey," Tony said beside me. "Don't look so scared. Mr. Cross isn't going to hurt you."
"Then why does he want to see me?"
"Because you owe him money and he needs to figure out how you're going to pay it back." Tony pulled out his phone. "And because you did something stupid."
"What? What did I do?"
He showed me his phone screen. It was a photo. A photo of my mom's hospital room, taken from outside the window.
My mom was asleep in the bed, hooked up to all her machines.
Someone had been watching her.
"Mr. Cross wanted you to know," Tony said quietly, "that your mother's treatment continues as long as you cooperate. The hospital gets paid. The doctors keep working. She keeps getting her medication."
He put the phone away.
"But if you run, if you try anything stupid, if you go to the cops..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.
I understood perfectly.
They were holding my mother hostage.
Not with chains or locked doors.
But with medicine. With doctors. With the treatment keeping her alive.
"I'll cooperate," I whispered. "Just don't hurt her. Please."
"Nobody's going to hurt anybody," Marco said from the front seat. "As long as you do what you're told."
We drove through the city as the sun came up. Away from my neighborhood. Toward the fancy part of town where Dante Cross had his office.
Where I'd signed away my freedom thirty-one days ago.
I stared out the window and tried not to cry.
What was he going to make me do?
What had I gotten myself into?
And most terrifying of all—would I ever see my apartment again?
Or had I just been kidnapped by the man I owed fifty-two thousand dollars to?