Chapter 7 7

The hospital breakroom was suffocatingly small, smelling of stale coffee and industrial cleaner.

Flora sat at the chipped plastic table, her fingers gripping a freshly printed bank statement. The paper crinkled under her tight grip.

Her coworker, Sarah, burst into the room, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Flora! The private clinic on the Upper East Side just posted an opening for a lead health consultant," Sarah practically yelled. "The salary is triple what we make here. You have to apply."

Flora's heart leaped into her throat. This was it. This was the exact opportunity she had been praying for to launch her career.

She opened her mouth to say yes.

But then, an image flashed in her mind. Josiah, sitting on the edge of that terrible bed, scratching his arms until they bled. Josiah, eating those cheap noodles without a single word of complaint.

Flora looked down at the bank statement in her hands.

"I can't," Flora whispered.

Sarah stopped smiling. "What do you mean you can't? Are you crazy? Is this about that broke guy you married?"

Flora bit her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. She stood up, her legs feeling like lead. "I just can't right now."

She walked out of the breakroom, ignoring Sarah's shocked gasps.

During her lunch break, Flora walked three blocks in the freezing wind to the local bank branch.

She sat in the hard plastic chair in front of the teller's window.

"I need to withdraw everything," Flora said. Her voice shook, but she forced herself to look the teller in the eye. "All of it. Transfer it to a cashier's check."

The teller typed on her keyboard. "That's fifty thousand dollars, ma'am. Are you sure?"

It was every single penny she had saved for the last five years. It was her blood, her sweat, her future.

Flora thought about Josiah's empty eyes. She thought about giving him a reason to live again.

"I'm sure," Flora said.

She walked out of the bank holding a thin piece of paper. Her phone buzzed. A text from the bank confirmed her new balance: $84.12.

Her knees buckled slightly, but she locked her joints and kept walking. Her spine was straighter than it had been in years.

When Flora unlocked the door to her apartment, the smell of cinnamon and butter hit her face.

Josiah was sitting at the small table, staring at a blank laptop screen.

Flora walked over. She pulled the cashier's check from her pocket. She grabbed a yellow sticky note, wrote Startup Fund on it, slapped it onto the check, and slid it across the table.

Josiah looked down. He saw the number. $50,000.

His heart stopped beating. The air in his lungs vanished.

"This is the money I saved for my consulting business," Flora said. Her voice was calm, completely devoid of regret. "I'm loaning it to you. Use it to get back on your feet."

Josiah's hand hovered over the paper. His fingers trembled. He, a man who moved billions of dollars with a single phone call, was terrified to touch this piece of paper.

"Flora," Josiah said, his voice cracking. "This is everything you have. I can't take this. It's too much of a gamble."

"I'm not gambling on a business," Flora interrupted, her eyes blazing with fierce determination. "I'm gambling on you."

The words struck Josiah like a physical blow to the chest. The impact shattered the last remaining wall around his heart.

No one in his entire life had ever looked at him without seeing his money. This woman was handing him her literal survival, expecting nothing but his effort in return.

Josiah slowly picked up the check. He looked at Flora, his dark eyes swirling with an emotion so intense it made Flora take a step back.

"Thank you," Josiah whispered.

He swore to himself, right then and there, that he would return this money a million times over.

That night, Flora boiled plain pasta. There was no meat, no sauce, just butter and salt.

Josiah ate the bland noodles like he was dining at a Michelin-star restaurant. He cleaned his plate.

After dinner, Josiah walked up to the roof of the apartment building. The cold wind whipped his hair.

He pulled out his encrypted phone and called Milo.

"Check Flora Sawyer's accounts," Josiah commanded, his voice vibrating with suppressed emotion. "Set up a shell company. Call it J-Ventures. Inject capital into her consulting business immediately. Make it look like a venture capital grant."

He hung up the phone, staring out at the glittering skyline of Manhattan. He was going to give her the world.