Chapter 5

I closed the laptop lid and looked at Jules. The blue glow from the screen still flickered in the dim room, reflecting off her nearly naked skin—just a thin black thong and her tits out. My heart was still pounding hard, not from what I’d just done on the live stream, but from her silence. A tense, heavy silence. I didn’t know if I was about to get chewed out or if she was waiting for me to speak first. My head was spinning. I hadn’t done anything wrong. She wanted me to jump into this gig with her, but I didn’t. And now this vibe was suffocating me.

“Jules, say something.”

My voice came out low, pissed off.

She didn’t say a word. Just held out her phone to me.

She’d taken way too long in the bathroom, and now I got why. While I was holding down the live stream alone, she was texting our aunt—the one who never wanted us around. The short message on the screen hit me like a punch to the gut.

“Your dad had a hemorrhagic stroke. He’s in the hospital. Condition is serious.”

The floor seemed to drop out from under me.

I was always the favored daughter, but Jules… Jules was the golden child. He wanted a son, and somehow he projected that onto her. Now, standing there, still half-naked, she looked like a statue—blank stare, lips parted, breaths short.

“Juliette, stay calm. I’ll find out what happened.”

She didn’t move. Just stood there, face frozen, like her brain had short-circuited. I knew she couldn’t handle shit like this.

Me, on the other hand? I could.

I threw on my shirt and grabbed my phone to look up the hospital address. If she couldn’t snap out of it, I’d drag her ass with me. The live stream was done for both of us today.

We called an Uber and rode in silence. On the way, Jules stared out the window, lost, but not showing any real emotion. The hospital was cold, overly lit, with that strong smell of disinfectant mixed with stale coffee hanging in the air. As soon as we got there, she wandered off without a word and headed straight for a vending machine, punching the buttons like it was the most important thing in the world.

Meanwhile, I filled out the forms, signed papers, tried to figure out what the hell was going on. After a long wait, a young doctor called us into his office. He had that rehearsed tone of someone who’d delivered bad news a hundred times.

“Your dad had a severe hemorrhagic stroke. We stabilized him, but he’s lost partial movement on his left side. His case requires surgery and a long rehab period.”

I nodded, taking it all in with the seriousness it demanded. Jules, though… well, Jules wasn’t absorbing shit. In fact, she was busy exchanging looks with the doctor, that sly little smile playing on her lips.

“Juliette! Seriously?”

I snapped, in disbelief.

She blinked, playing innocent.

“What?”

The doctor tried to play it off, but he was clearly flirting back. My blood boiled. I got up from the chair and stormed out of the office before I caused a scene.

As soon as I hit the hallway, a woman in business attire approached. She was from billing, by the looks of it. Her tone was polite but firm.

“Can we talk for a minute?”

I followed her to her office and sat across from her desk, not even imagining the bombshell that was coming. She pulled up a file on her computer and showed me the numbers.

“So far, just the emergency care has cost $16,000. The surgery he needs will go over $80,000, not counting the hospital stay, meds, and rehab. In the best case, the total will be around $120,000 plus meds and extras.”

My fingers gripped the chair arms. I swallowed hard.

“Ma’am, I… I can’t pay for that!”

She stayed calm and started explaining options. Some costs could go on my dad’s credit card as debt, but the best move was to transfer him to a public hospital ASAP. He didn’t have health insurance, just a policy that covered the initial care, but it didn’t come close to what’s needed for the full treatment.

The weight of reality crashed down on me. $120,000. Where the hell was I supposed to get that?

Transferring my dad to a public hospital could sentence him to death or a lifetime of disability. He’d always been an active guy, full of energy, and the thought of seeing him bedridden, dependent on everyone for everything, twisted my gut. I couldn’t let that happen.

We still got money from him, so he must have some savings. But would it be enough? My aunt and grandma lived on a shitty pension; they couldn’t help. Deep down, I knew the answer, but I had to try.

I grabbed Juliette, who still seemed checked out from reality, and shoved her into the car. The next day would be all about one thing: getting cash.

It was Monday. Between breaks at work, I talked to my boss the dentist, and from there, I started making calls.

My aunt was straight up:

“I only have $10,000 saved. That’s all I can do.”

My poor grandma didn’t even have that. And it fell to me to break the news to her.

That afternoon, I got off work to sit with my dad in the ward room where he was. He didn’t respond to any stimuli. It was like a body trapped there, breathing, but empty. The anguish was choking.

I stared at that devastating scene right in front of me and felt the suffocating weight of helplessness. Money problems had always seemed distant, but now they were here, crushing my throat, burning my chest like fire. I wanted to scream, cry, run from this reality eating me alive from the inside, but all I could do was hold back the tears with everything I had, while my eyes burned and my breath hitched.

My dad was sick, maybe never work again. If he ended up bedridden, me and my grandma would be on our own. She couldn’t handle caring for him, and I couldn’t keep our apartment on just my receptionist salary at the dental clinic. It was way too little for all that responsibility. Desperation dragged me like a current toward the only path that seemed possible right then. It was inevitable; fate was shoving me straight into that forbidden, dangerous, but insanely tempting solution.

I took a deep breath, feeling adrenaline rush through my body, before grabbing my phone and dialing the number with shaky hands. No more time for doubts.

“Sis? Hey…”

“Hey, Justy, you okay?”

I didn’t give her room for more questions. My words came out firm, with a certainty I didn’t even know I had.

“Call Patricia. Get things rolling with her ‘cause we need to jump into this together and make some serious cash.”

I hung up without waiting for a reply. My heart was racing, out of control, and I felt this weird chill in my stomach. What the hell was I doing? My sister was already okay with this world, had taken the first step, and maybe now it was my turn. Maybe it was the only way to save my dad, to keep everything around me from falling apart.

For a second, morality tried to scream inside me, argue again that this was wrong, that it could destroy our reputation, our dignity, our family. But my conscience was beat, tired of fighting. I needed to act, not think. I was set. Nothing could be worse than watching my dad waste away without being able to help, or losing the little I’d built.

I hung up the phone without waiting for my sister’s response. My heart still hammered in my chest, echoing the decision I’d just made. No turning back. And if to save my dad, I had to expose myself, give in to this life that scared the shit out of me, then so be it. I’d do whatever it took, even if it meant crossing every line I’d sworn never to touch.

Even if it meant sharing a kind of intimacy with my sister that I’d never imagined facing. But I’d do it. I’d do anything for my dad.