The Blind Box That Cost Me Everything Chapter 01

The Blind Box That Cost Me Everything Chapter 01

Three days after my daughter was born, I asked Gavin Ellison for money to buy formula. He showed up with a stack of mystery boxes instead.

“Draw one.”

Throughout our three years of marriage, my allowance had always come down to whatever I pulled from a mystery box.

The best I’d ever drawn was a hundred and eight dollars.

It started on our engagement day. My dad was supposed to accept the agreed-upon hundred-and-eight-thousand-dollar wedding settlement. Instead, he walked in carrying a box of mystery envelopes.

He was grinning.

“Let’s make it interesting! Whatever you pull is what you get.”

I couldn’t move.

Gavin drew 1.88 million dollars.

He paid every cent. Then he threw me a wedding the whole city talked about.

Everyone said he was crazy about me.

The day after our wedding, he dumped a whole box of mystery envelopes at my feet.

“Your family loves this game so much, right? Then let’s keep playing. From now on, this is how you get your allowance.”

Some months I got nine dollars and ninety cents. On a good month, a hundred and eight.

I told myself it would change once the baby came.

All I wanted was a can of formula for my daughter. He set a mystery box in front of me like always. Nine dollars and ninety cents.

That’s when my younger sister, Bianca Halstead, posted on Instagram. She’d just had a baby too.

A screenshot of a bank transfer. Nine hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

[Thank you, Gavin, for the baby gift.]

I stared at it until the screen went dark. Then I picked up the phone and dialed an international number.

“You told me once you’d be a father to my child. Did you mean it?”

“I did.”

“Then come get me. Seven days.”

…

I tore open the mystery box. The nurse leaned in, curious.

“Oh wow, is that from your husband? That’s so sweet!”

She eyed the pile of boxes like they were something to be jealous of.

Then she saw the slip. Nine dollars and ninety cents. Her face went blank.

Gavin didn’t flinch. He told his assistant to take the rest of the boxes away, his voice flat.

“Rules are rules. Having a baby doesn’t change them.”

The nurse’s mouth opened, then closed. Something shifted behind her eyes.

She probably wanted to ask what kind of husband makes his postpartum wife draw from a mystery box for nine dollars and ninety cents.

But where would I even start?

How could I explain that my parents swapped the wedding settlement for rigged mystery boxes so they could pocket the difference for Bianca’s wedding fund and her house?

How could I explain that when I confronted my mom, she grabbed my arm and hissed, “You breathe a word of this to Gavin, and I swear I’ll throw myself off this balcony.”

How could I explain that the Ellisons had blacklisted me from every company in the city, and mystery boxes were the only income I had left?

I looked down at my daughter. Her face was all wrinkled up, her breathing slow and even.

“Gavin, can I at least get her a sleep sack? Newborns can’t regulate their own temperature.”

“You’re using the baby to squeeze more money out of me now?” He cut me off. “The hospital has blankets.”

The door closed.

His shoes clicked down the hallway, getting fainter with every step.

The nurse disappeared without a word. She came back a few minutes later carrying a small blanket.

“This one’s extra from the nurses’ station. It’s clean. It should keep her warm for now.”

She tucked the blanket around my daughter so gently. She was more careful than Gavin had ever been.

I said thank you. I meant it more than she’d ever know.

She paused at the door. “I’m sure he cares,” she said quietly. “Some men just… don’t know how to show it.”

I gave her a smile that said nothing.

Bianca posted again that evening.

A VIP maternity suite. Every baby product money could buy.

The caption: [Nothing but the best for our little one, he said.]

A string of likes sat underneath.

Gavin. My mom. My dad. All three of them.

I read those words over and over. Nothing but the best.

Years ago, Gavin told me, “If we have a girl, I’m going to spoil her rotten. She’ll be the happiest little princess alive.”

He’d meant it, too. I could see it in his eyes.

Now that light was shining on somebody else’s baby.

I folded the nine-dollar-and-ninety-cent slip and tucked it into my wallet.

Last month’s slip was already in there. Six dollars and sixty cents.

And the month before that. Five dollars and thirty cents.

Gavin was standing in the doorway. I hadn’t heard him come back.

He watched me fold the slips. Something flickered across his face, but he only said one thing:

“Focus on the baby. And stop trying to nickel-and-dime me.”

He stepped into the hallway and made a call.

I heard every word through the door.

“Told you. She didn’t make a scene.” He laughed. “A woman like her would never walk away from being Mrs. Ellison. Especially now that there’s a kid.”

I leaned back against the headboard and closed my eyes.

My phone rang.

It was the international number.

A beat of silence on the other end.

“Tickets are booked. Seven days, and I’m there.”

I didn’t say anything.

His voice softened. “Wait for me, Maren.”

I looked at my daughter beside me. Still asleep. Her tiny fingers curled tight around mine.

“Okay.”