Chapter 3 Elle

Chanel took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a second, visualizing a wall coming down between her emotions and her voice. She could not beg. Begging had gotten her nowhere with the assistant. She had to negotiate.

She dialed the number on the black card again.

Kurtis answered immediately, his tone annoyed. I told you-

Tell Mr. Montgomery I have a financial proposition regarding the Maldonado estate, Chanel said.

She didn't stutter. Her voice was steady, authoritative. She didn't know where the tone came from, but it felt natural, like muscle memory.

There was a silence on the other end. The mention of the estate had triggered a filter.

Hold, Kurtis said.

A click. Then, classical music played. It was heavy on the cellos. Ominous.

A new voice spoke. It was deep, baritone, vibrating with an authority that made the receiver tremble in her hand.

Speak.

Chanel's heart hammered against her ribs, but her mind was clear.

This is Chanel, she said. I need five thousand dollars to clear a hospital bill.

There was a pause. It stretched out, thick and heavy.

You called my private line for pocket change? Duke Montgomery asked. He sounded amused, but darkly so.

I am frozen out of my accounts, Chanel said. I will repay you with ten percent interest in thirty days.

She waited.

Duke was silent. Unbeknownst to Chanel, in a darkened office in Manhattan, Duke Montgomery was looking at a live feed on his tablet. The feed was from the Lenox-Montgomery Clinic, a 'charitable' acquisition his family had made a decade prior. It gave him access to certain... administrative privileges. He saw her posture. She was sitting rigid, her chin up, despite the hospital gown and the bruises. She didn't look like the weeping, desperate girl Beckham described. She looked like a soldier.

Make it twenty percent, Duke said. He was testing her.

Fifteen percent, Chanel countered automatically. That is the standard high-risk personal loan rate for unsecured debt.

She didn't know how she knew that. The numbers just appeared in her mind, solid and irrefutable.

Duke's lips twitched in his office. A rare, ghost of a smile.

Account details, he commanded.

Chanel read the wiring instructions from the bottom of the invoice the nurse had left.

Done, Duke said. His voice dropped an octave, becoming intimate and threatening all at once. Don't make me come collect, Ms. Maldonado.

The line clicked dead.

In his darkened Manhattan office, Duke Montgomery lowered the phone. On the tablet before him, the live feed showed the woman in the hospital bed. She looked frail but defiant. A ghost of a memory surfaced-a girl with the same fire in her eyes, laughing in a sun-drenched garden. He traced her outline on the screen with his thumb. "Elle," he murmured to the silence, the name a forgotten secret on his tongue.

Chanel stared at the phone. Seconds later, the nurse's computer let out a cheerful ping.

The nurse's eyes went wide. She stared at the screen, then at Chanel.

The bill... it's paid in full, the nurse stammered. Plus a tip?

Chanel exhaled. Her body sagged, the adrenaline leaving her limbs heavy.

She reached down and unhooked her IV. A bead of blood welled up on her hand, but she ignored it.

I'm leaving, she said.

She found her clothes in the plastic bag. It was a silk dress, torn at the hem and stained with mud and blood. She put it on anyway. She ignored the way the nurse watched her.

She walked out of the room, her head high. She passed the nurse's station without looking back.

In the corridor, she caught her reflection in a glass pane. Her hair was matted, her face pale. She looked like a wreck. But her eyes were fierce. They were the eyes of someone who had just survived the first round.

She exited the hospital into the bright, harsh sunlight of New York. Her phone buzzed.

A notification: Transfer Receipt - DM Holdings.