Chapter 3

The end of everything.

A week before her due date.

I never found out where she heard it.

She shoved open the door to the private room upstairs at the postpartum center.

I froze, a cigarette between my fingers, my arm around a model.

The music cut off.

I looked at her, awkward.

“Maya……”

She didn't say a word.

She crossed the room in long strides.

And slapped me hard across the face.

“Ma'am, please calm down!”

The salesperson rushed over.

She slapped that salesperson hard across the face too.

“So this is the top-tier service you people talk about!

“Running this kind of business upstairs at a postpartum center! Can't you make a living any other way? Don't you have any conscience left?”

This salesperson was also Maya's midwife.

Maya's eyes were red.

The model I'd picked shrank into my arms, terrified.

Maya pointed at her, eyes red.

“Do you even know what kind of place this is?

“Do you know the men you're servicing are all about to become fathers?

“Do you have any shame at all?”

She grabbed a fistful of the model Lena's hair.

The room fell into chaos.

A liquor bottle tipped over on the floor.

The whole room was full of her crying and cursing and the models' shrieks.

Cut through by the salesperson's frantic pleading.

I closed my eyes.

I grabbed Maya's arm.

“Are you done making a scene?”

“Me? Making a scene?”

Maya's eyes were full of tears.

“Leonard, tell me the truth. When you booked this place, you already knew, didn't you?”

I said nothing.

“You book a place like this and you still have the nerve to say I'm making a scene?”

She twisted my collar into creases.

Something impatient rose in me.

I pushed her off.

“Then book one yourself, with your own money!”

She went rigid.

“Go ahead! Book a postpartum center with no girls in it! Go on!”

Her hands shook as she cupped her belly.

“I'm pregnant. Where am I supposed to earn the money to book one?”

I was getting annoyed.

“Learn from them, then.”

She froze.

She swallowed.

Her voice came out rough.

“What did you say?”

“Learn from them.

“They can do it. Why can't you?”

The tears nearly spilled over.

She bit down hard and held them back.

“Leonard, are you even human?”

Watching her shake, unable to get the words out.

Something in me twisted too.

So I turned my head away.

And spoke like a man digging in.

“If you've got no money, go back down.

“Rest up downstairs.

“Don't worry, I won't actually do anything with them.”

“Leonard, you animal!”

Maya lunged at me.

I reached out on instinct to stop her.

But her swollen feet gave out first.

“Thud!” She hit the floor.

The salesperson.

Who was also her midwife.

Stepped in and caught her.

Looking at the fluid spreading across the floor beneath her.

The salesperson cried out.

“Ma'am! Your water broke!”

I stood there, stunned.

“Sir, she needs to be taken to the delivery room right now.

“The fee is three thousand. Please settle it first.”

Maya clutched her belly.

She lifted her head to me with effort.

Tears still stood in her eyes.

But her voice had turned to pleading.

“Honey……help me……”

I turned around.

I took three thousand in cash out of my wallet.

“Don't you not know how to earn money?

“Kneel.

“Then the money's yours.”