The door swings open under Bimbo's hand, and she freezes. "David!" He doesn't even jump. He just turns his head slowly, like she's the one who walked in at the wrong time. Renata is pressed against the wall behind him, her blouse open, his hand still resting on her stomach. "Get out," Bimbo says to Renata. Her voice shakes, but the words come out hard. Renata grabs her jacket and runs past Bimbo without looking at her. Her footsteps fade down the hall. David straightens his shirt like nothing happened. "Bimbo-" "Don't Bimbo me." She raises a hand. "Don't say my name like I'm the one who did something wrong." "It's not what it looks like." "It's exactly what it looks like." She laughs, but there is no humor in it. "Three years, David. Three years of you barely looking at me. Now I know why." He steps toward her. She steps back quickly. "She's pregnant," Bimbo says. It's not a question. She saw where his hand was. David's jaw tightens. That's answer enough. Bimbo covers her mouth. Her legs feel weak. "Say something," she whispers. "What do you want me to say?" "The truth. For once." David rubs a hand over his face. When he speaks again, his voice is calm and cold, the same voice he uses in meetings when he's already made up his mind. "The truth is this marriage was never real. You know that. I know that. We got married because it kept your father's company safe and kept my board happy. That's all this ever was." "It wasn't all it was to me." She hates herself as soon as she says it. Something crosses his face, but it's gone before she can understand it. "I want a divorce," she says. "No." "That's not your choice." "Actually, it is." He crosses his arms. "Your father's on the transplant list at Calder Health Network. His doctors, his medicine, his hospital room. All of it is paid through accounts with my name on them. Walk out that door, file those papers, and I pull every bit of it within the week." Bimbo stares at him. "You wouldn't." "Try me." Her father's life. Her father's treatment. He is using all of it to keep her trapped. "He's dying, David. He needs that transplant." "Then stay married to me." He says it like it's the easiest thing in the world. "Nothing changes. We keep up appearances. You keep his care. I keep my board happy. Everyone wins." "Everyone but me." "You'll survive it. You always do." Her hands curl into fists. She wants to grab the wine glass from the table and throw it at his head. She doesn't move. She doesn't trust herself to. "I hate you," she says softly. David doesn't answer. His face stays still, and she doesn't care enough to wonder what he's thinking. She turns and walks out. She doesn't look back. She doesn't cry until she's inside her car, her hands gripping the wheel so hard her knuckles turn white. Then the tears come fast, blurring the city lights through the windshield. Her phone buzzes. A text from Camila. *How's the anniversary dinner? Tell David I said happy 3 years lol* Bimbo laughs, but it turns into a sob. She types with shaking fingers. *He was kissing his secretary against the wall. She's pregnant. I want a divorce and he says no because of Dad's treatment.* Three dots appear right away. *WHAT* *Where are you?* *Car outside the restaurant.* *Don't move. I'm coming.* Bimbo drops the phone into her lap and stares at the restaurant. Warm light shines through the windows. Laughter comes from somewhere inside, faint and distant. Somewhere in there, David is probably still in that private room, his tie straightened, acting like nothing happened. She rests her forehead against the steering wheel and breathes. In. Out. In. He can't win this, she tells herself. He can't just keep everything. Fifteen minutes later, headlights flash behind her. Camila's car pulls up fast and stops crooked at the curb. She's out before the car is even fully in park, running across the lot in heels she clearly wasn't planning to run in. Bimbo rolls the window down. Camila leans in, takes one look at her face, and doesn't ask a question. She opens the passenger door, climbs in, and pulls Bimbo into a hug across the console. "I'm going to kill him," Camila says against her shoulder. "I mean it. I know people." Bimbo laughs through her tears. "You don't know people." "I know a guy who knows people." That gets another laugh out of her. It's small, but it's real. Camila pulls back and takes Bimbo's face in both hands. "Okay. Talk to me. All of it. Start from somewhere." So Bimbo does. She tells her everything: Renata against the wall, David's cold voice, the threat about her father's treatment, and the divorce he refuses to give her. Camila's face goes from shocked to angry, then becomes calm and focused. "He can't use your dad's life to control you," Camila says. "That's not a marriage. That's a hostage situation with a wedding ring." "I know." Bimbo wipes her face with the back of her hand. "But I can't lose him, Camila. Dad, I mean. I can't lose Dad too." "You won't." Camila squeezes her hand. "We'll figure it out. We always do." Bimbo nods, even though she doesn't believe it yet. David's calm voice is still in her head, telling her what will happen if she refuses to play along.

Camila drives fast, both hands on the wheel, her eyes flicking toward Bimbo every few seconds as if checking that she's still breathing. "Say something," Camila says. "You've been quiet for ten minutes. That's not like you." "I'm thinking." "About?" "The contract." Bimbo stares out the window as the city lights blur past. "He didn't just make up those threats tonight. It's all in there. Every clause. I signed it. I read it once and never looked at it again." Camila glances over. "You still have a copy?" "In my desk. I never touched it. Didn't want to." "Well." Camila turns onto Bimbo's street. "Looks like tonight's the night." They pull up outside Bimbo's building. Camila parks crooked and doesn't bother fixing it. She cuts the engine and follows Bimbo inside without asking if she's invited. Inside, Bimbo goes straight to the desk in the corner of her bedroom, pulls open the bottom drawer, and takes out a thick folder with a law firm's name printed on the front. Her hands aren't shaking anymore. They're steady now, cold and steady, the way they get when she knows she has to be strong. She spreads the papers across the kitchen table. Camila makes tea neither of them drinks and sits across from her. "Okay," Camila says. "Read it to me. What does it actually say?" Bimbo flips through the pages, scanning quickly. Years of reading research documents have made legal language easier for her to understand than it should be. "Five-year term," she reads. "Started three years ago. Two years left." She flips to another page. "Early termination by either party triggers full loss of Calder Health Network coverage for named dependents. Named dependents." She looks up. "That's my father. That's the whole clause. One line, and it decides whether he gets to keep his care." "That's disgusting," Camila says. "It's efficient." Bimbo's voice comes out flatter than she means it to. "That's the word David would use. Efficient." She keeps reading. Camila watches her face change with every line, her jaw tightening, her eyes narrowing as something harder takes over. "There's more," Bimbo says. "Public conduct clause. Neither party may engage in behavior that damages the other's public standing during the term." She almost laughs. "He gets to sleep with his secretary in a private room, and I'm the one who'd be in breach if I walked out that door screaming about it." "So report the double standard. Take it to a lawyer." "With what money, Camila? Every account I have ties back to accounts he controls. That was part of the deal too. I gave up separate finances when I signed this. It was supposed to make the marriage look real for the board." She sets the page down and presses her palms against the table. "I didn't think it would matter. I thought-I don't know what I thought. That it would just be paperwork. That we'd figure out something real underneath it eventually." "Bimbo." "I know how that sounds." "It doesn't sound stupid. It sounds like you hoped for something normal in an arrangement that was never normal." Camila reaches across the table and takes her hand. "That's not on you." Bimbo doesn't answer right away. She stares at the contract, at David's signature at the bottom of the last page. Sharp black lines. Confident. Like a man who never doubted he'd hold every card in this marriage. Her phone lights up on the table between them. David's name is on the screen. Camila's eyebrows shoot up. "You want me to answer that?" "No." Bimbo picks it up herself. She takes a breath and answers. "What." "We need to discuss terms," David says. His voice sounds exactly like it did in that private room an hour ago. Calm. Businesslike. Like nothing happened. "I'm reading the terms right now, actually." There's a pause on his end. "Good. Then you already know how this works." "I know you own my father's life because of a piece of paper. I know that much." "That's not how I'd phrase it." "I don't care how you'd phrase it." Her voice cracks a little, and she hates it. She hates that he can still do that to her. "You had a woman against a wall some hour ago. Pregnant. On our anniversary. And you're calling me to talk about terms." Silence. Long enough that she almost thinks he has hung up. "My lawyer will send an amendment tomorrow," David says finally. "Updated public conduct terms. Given tonight." "An amendment." Bimbo laughs, short and sharp. "You cheat on me and send paperwork." "What would you rather I send?" "Nothing from you. Ever again, if I had the choice." "You don't." His voice stays level, but something underneath it shifts. "I'll have the papers sent over in the morning. Goodnight, Bimbo." He hangs up before she can answer. She sets the phone down like it burned her. Camila stares at her, mouth slightly open. "An amendment. He's sending an amendment." "Apparently my husband processes cheating and lawsuits at the exact same speed." Bimbo drags both hands down her face. "God, Camila. What did I sign myself into?" "A cage with good lighting," Camila mutters, and despite everything, Bimbo lets out a real laugh, short and surprised. "That's exactly what it is." Camila squeezes her hand again, firmer this time. "Okay. New plan. Tonight you sleep because you look like you're about to fall over. Tomorrow, we read every single line of that contract with a lawyer who actually works for you and only you. Then we figure out how to protect your father's care without keeping you tied to a man who does this to you." "There's no clause for that." "Then we write one." Camila's eyes are steady and certain, the same look she's had since they were nineteen and Camila decided she'd fight anyone who came for Bimbo. "You're not doing this alone. Not the contract, not your dad, not any of it." Bimbo nods, her throat too tight to answer properly. She gathers the papers back into the folder, careful as she puts them away. Outside her window, the city keeps moving, lights and noise and a thousand lives that have nothing to do with hers. Somewhere across town, David is probably already asleep, his contract handled and his conscience clear enough to close his eyes. Bimbo doesn't sleep for a long time. She lies awake staring at the ceiling, running through every clause she can remember, looking for a crack, a loophole, anything. She doesn't find one that night. She doesn't know yet that the crack she needs isn't in the contract at all. It's somewhere much closer to home.

Bimbo barely sleeps. By six in the morning, she's up, dressed, keys in hand, driving to the hospital before the sun is even fully up. The dialysis unit is on the fourth floor. She knows the layout by heart now-the soft beeping of the machines, the rows of recliners, the smell of antiseptic that never quite leaves her clothes after a visit. Her father sits in his usual chair by the window, a tube running from his arm to the machine beside him, his skin pale, his ankles swollen under the hospital blanket. "There's my girl," Rafael says when he sees her, and his smile is real even though his voice sounds tired. "You look good." "Thanks, Dad." "I mean it with love." Bimbo pulls a chair close and sits, taking his hand carefully around the IV line. His grip is weaker than it was even a month ago. She hates seeing the difference. "Rough night?" he asks. "You could say that." "David?" She freezes. "How did you-" "You get a certain look." Rafael's eyes, tired as they are, still miss nothing. "You've had it since you married him. Last night it's worse. What happened?" Bimbo hesitates. Her father is hooked up to a machine, going through another dialysis session while waiting for a transplant that could still be a year or two away unless a living donor comes forward. He doesn't need her problems added to everything else. "Nothing you need to worry about," she says. "How are you feeling? Did the doctor say anything new?" "Bimbo." "Dad." "You're doing the thing where you change the subject." He squeezes her hand, weak but stubborn. "I raised you. I know the thing." Before she can answer, the curtain around the bay pulls back and Mateo walks in, coffee in each hand, dressed sharply even at seven in the morning, the way he always is. "There she is." He sets one coffee on the little table beside Rafael's chair and hands the other to Bimbo without asking if she wants it. "I figured you'd be here early. You always are after a bad night." "How do you know it was a bad night?" " Let's just say I've my ways and moreover you look stressed." Mateo taps under his own eye. "Same one Dad's got right now, minus the swelling." Rafael huffs out something close to a laugh. "Careful." "I love you, old man." Mateo leans down and kisses the top of their father's head, easy and familiar. "Somebody's got to say the things you're too polite to say." Bimbo watches the two of them together and feels some of the tension from last night ease. This is what family is supposed to feel like. This, at least, is real. "So," Mateo says, dropping into the chair on the other side of their father, "what did the golden boy do this time?" "Mateo." "What? I'm asking." He looks at Bimbo, eyebrows raised, waiting. Bimbo glances at Rafael, who's watching her with the same patient, knowing look he's had her whole life, the one that says he already knows something is wrong and won't stop asking until she tells him. "Fine," she says. "I walked in on him last night. With his secretary. Renata." Rafael's face goes still. "Walked in on him doing what, exactly?" "Dad." "Bimbo." "She's pregnant," Bimbo says quietly. The silence that follows feels heavy. Rafael's jaw tightens, and for a second she sees the man who built a company from nothing, the one who doesn't back down from a fight even while sitting in a dialysis chair with a needle in his arm. "That coward," Rafael mutters. "Dad, your blood pressure-" "My blood pressure can handle being angry at the man who's humiliating my daughter." He shifts in the chair, wincing slightly. "Did you file for divorce?" "I want to. He said no." "He can't say no. It's not his choice." Bimbo opens her mouth, then closes it. She glances at the machine beside her father's chair, at the slow movement of the dialysis line, the reason David's threat has any power at all. "He said if I file, he'll pull your care from Calder Health Network," she says finally. "Your doctors. Your medicine. Your place on the transplant list runs through their system, Dad. He knows that. He used it." Rafael goes very quiet. Mateo's face darkens, his jaw tight, his hands curling into fists on the arms of his chair. "He wouldn't," Rafael says, though his voice doesn't sound certain. "He would." Bimbo's voice cracks. "He already said it to my face like it was nothing." "That son of a-" Mateo stops himself and glances at their father before lowering his voice. "Sorry. But that's low, even for a Calder." "I have two years left on the contract," Bimbo says. "I looked at it last night. Every clause. There's no way out that doesn't put Dad's care at risk." Rafael reaches for her hand again, holding it tight despite the tube taped to his arm. "Don't you dare stay in that marriage because of me." "Dad-" "I mean it. I didn't raise you to trade your whole life for mine." "And I'm not going to lose you because I walked away too fast." Her voice comes out fierce, more certain than she feels. "I'll figure something out. I always do." Mateo watches them quietly, something unreadable behind his eyes for a moment before his usual warmth returns. "You know," he says, leaning forward, "maybe this is actually good timing. If David's willing to play dirty like this, maybe it's time we look harder at the Calders. All of them." "What do you mean?" "I mean, who's to say the breach at the office last night wasn't them too? Kessler's been sniffing around our research for years, and everybody knows David's had problems with their CEO since business school." Mateo shrugs. "Feels like a pretty big coincidence, doesn't it? Cheating scandal one night, break-in the same night?" Bimbo hadn't put those two things together out loud yet, but hearing Mateo say it makes the connection quickly. "You think David's family is behind the sabotage." "I think it'd be stupid not to look." Mateo glances at their father. "I've got a few contacts. People who owe me favors. I can start quietly digging on our end if you want." "Please," Bimbo says. "Anything that gets us answers." "Consider it done." Mateo squeezes her shoulder on his way to grab his food. "Family looks out for family. That's the one thing that's never changed around here."