He Said I Was Greedy, I Showed Him The 500 Transfer Chapter 04

By year three, I owed $1.16 million in medication alone.

The ledger was thick enough to prop open a door.

Every time Ms. Hart brought it for me to sign, she’d start with the same line.

“Mr. Hastings’s orders.”

I never questioned it.

Because Callum hated me.

He took my ID and passport. Killed my job. Locked me inside Ridgeview Estate.

I asked for medicine; he said I was faking.

I asked for two hundred more dollars; he called me greedy.

All Ms. Hart had to do was say his name, and every door slammed shut.

The third time a doctor told me I needed to be hospitalized, I asked him something.

“What happens if I don’t get treated?”

“Right now we can still manage the pain. You keep putting it off, and eventually painkillers won’t touch it.”

“How much is the deposit to be admitted?”

He told me.

I checked my phone.

Forty-two dollars and sixty cents.

I texted Ms. Hart asking for an eighty-dollar advance to buy medicine.

Half an hour later, she replied.

[Mr. Hastings says you’ve asked for too much this month. He wants you to learn to manage with what you have.]

I stared at the words until my vision blurred. Then I laughed, the kind that hurts worse than crying.

On my way out of the hospital, an ad for a two-for-one urn bundle popped up on my phone.

Eighty bucks off.

I had just picked up the cheapest one, child-sized, when a reporter ambushed me.

“Your husband just hit the billionaire list. Why are you buying urns on a bundle deal?”

“To save eighty dollars.”

“Is eighty dollars really that important?”

I held up my phone.

“Callum gives me five hundred a month.”

“Guess he figures I won’t take up much room once I’m dead. Kid-sized should do it.”

The clip went viral that night. Callum, who hadn’t set foot in this house in three years, kicked the front door open.

He slammed the child-sized urn onto the coffee table.

The lid rolled to my feet.

“Have you lost your mind, Mira?”

“Careful.”

I picked up the lid.

“Break it and you’re paying for it.”

He grabbed it out of my hands and hurled it into the trash.

“You’d really drag your own death into the spotlight just to force me home?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Hastings.”

I picked up the urn.

“Me dying has nothing to do with you coming home.”

Callum yanked off his tie and shoved his phone in my face.

“The entire internet is laughing at the Hastings name.”

“You live in my house, eat my food, use my things, and then you go on camera and tell people I give you five hundred a month?”

“Don’t you?”

“You’re lying through your teeth!”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.

“You played me for thirty million back then. How much are you trying to squeeze out of me with a cheap urn this time?”

His grip burned around my wrist.

But the laugh building in my chest was worse than his anger.

“You finally asked what it costs.”

“The urn is six hundred eighty. The bundle knocks off eighty.”

“I’ve got forty-two dollars and sixty cents left this month. I genuinely can’t afford it.”

Callum threw my hand down.

“Are you done with the show?”

I hit the corner of the table, and the pain in my stomach jackknifed.

The pill bottle rolled out of my pocket.

One pill left.

Callum looked down at it.

“Medicine again.”

“Three years and all you’ve got is the sick act?”

I grabbed the bottle and threw it at him.

It hit his chest and shattered on the floor.

“You want receipts? I’ve got receipts.”

I yanked the ledger out of the drawer and slammed it into his face.

Pages flew everywhere.

“Medication. House calls. Errands. $1.16 million.”

“Didn’t you want me to pay you back?”

“Go ahead. Do the math.”

Callum picked up one of the pages.

“Eight hundred bucks for two painkillers?”

“You’re asking me?”

I jabbed a finger at him.

“Didn’t you have someone tracking every cent I spent?”

“You said I had to pay back every dollar.”

“When did I ever say you had to pay for medicine?”

“Then why do I owe $1.16 million?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. So he deflected.

“Because you’ve never known when to stop spending.”

“I put a roof over your head, food on your table, everything you need. What more do you want from me?”

“Everything I need?”

I yanked open the cabinet next to me.

Unopened gift boxes crammed every shelf.

“Every one of these has my name on it. I still need permission to open them.”

“The press says you bought me an island. I can’t even walk out the front gate.”

“They say you gave me jewelry. I go into debt for two painkillers.”

“Is it enough yet, Callum? Have you had enough?”

“No.”

He stared at me. His eyes were red.

“The day you walked out with that thirty million, you should’ve known this was coming.”

“I want you to wake up every single day remembering what you threw away.”

The pain rolled through me in waves.

I gripped the table and looked him dead in the eye.

“Fine.”

“Then hear this.”

“My biggest regret isn’t taking that thirty million.”

Callum’s face went blank.

I didn’t blink.

“My biggest regret is saving your life.”

He flipped the coffee table.

Glass exploded across the floor. The urn went flying.

“Say that again.”

“I said I regret saving you.”

Callum grabbed my shoulders.

“Stealing my deal and destroying my company. That’s what you call saving me?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Then tell me. What don’t I know?”

He closed the gap between us.

“That you’ve been living off my money this whole time while playing the victim?”

“What money? When have I ever seen a cent of yours?”

“Ten million. Every month.”

The room went dead quiet.

I forgot to pull away.

“How much?”

Callum released me and pulled up his bank records.

“Look at this, Mira.”

“Ten million. Every single month.”

I unlocked my phone and opened three years of bank statements.

“Then look at mine.”

“Five hundred. Every single month.”

Two phones, side by side on the shattered coffee table.

One said ten million.

The other said five hundred.

Callum stared at both screens. The fury on his face cracked, then went still.

The front door clicked open.

Ms. Hart walked in carrying a brand-new Hermès bag.

She saw the two phones on the table and froze.

Then, in one smooth motion, she tucked the bag behind her back and delivered her usual line.

“Mrs. Hastings, you’ve already gone through this month’s five hundred. Don’t forget to log the medication.”

“If you need medicine, I’ll still have to ask Mr. Hastings for you.”