My Don Mistook Survival for Greed Chapter 05

My Don Mistook Survival for Greed Chapter 05

I fell back into my old routine.

Busy working my way through college, grinding to keep my GPA high.

Payday came.

Added it all up-2,700 dollars.

I paid 2,500 dollars toward my debt, 500 dollars for rent and utilities, and still had $1,500 left for

living expenses.

Enough to buy a new dress.

Back when we were dating, Dante had complained.

“How come you only ever rotate between the same few dresses?”

So after that, I’d gotten into the habit of buying myself one new dress every payday.
But this was the first new dress I’d bought since the breakup.

I slipped it on, put on light makeup, and looked at myself in the mirror.

Beautiful.

Turned out I could take good care of myself just fine on my own.

But why, when Dante confessed to me, staring at me with that loving gaze, did I ever get it into my head that I needed to depend on him?

Probably because life was so hard back then.

I thought love was sweet.

| Itasted it.

Turned out it was just life wrapped up in a layer of sugar.

Once the sugar was gone, I went right back to how I was before.

I washed the new dress by moonlight,

and hung it out to dry in the first-floor yard.

The evening breeze blew, carrying the scent of flowers and laundry detergent straight to my nose.

I stared at the moon for a long time.

Tomorrow was my day off.

After a full sleep, I’d be Renee again. Unbreakable.

One day off.

I put on my new dress and headed for the Marino villa in Lincoln Park.

My beat-up Ford got stopped halfway.

Blocking the road was a loan shark who’d been haunting me for over ten years, since elementary

school.

He brought two goons with him.

Scarface-that was what I call him-stood right in front of my hood.

Because the scar across his cheek twisted as he grinned.

I tried to walk around him, but one of the goons blocked my path.

“Renee, it’s time to pay up.”

But I already sent the agreed 2,500 dollars this month.

They were only here because they’d blown through that money and wanted to force more out of me

this month.

Several times before, I’d borrowed money from Dante to cover the extra.

Sometimes it was three or four thousand a month, sometimes seven or eight.

But now, I couldn’t pull that much money out of thin air.

I spread my hands helplessly.

“Twenty-five hundred a month is already my limit. Where else do you expect me to get money?”

Scarface smirked, the movement pulling his scar into a terrifying, gnarled shape.

“That’s what you always say! If I go blockade you a few more times at the UIC gate, you’ll find the

money.”

I had no reply.

When you were at your lowest, you didn’t want anyone to see you like that.

You didn’t want pity.

But too much pride made you easy to spot.

Scarface knew exactly how to work me.

Scarface had me right where he wanted me.

His goons backed him up, echoing his words.

“Be careful, we’ll go block the entrance of your school again…”

The goon’s unfinished sentence got drowned out by the roar of a sports engine.

The sound got closer and closer.

The window rolled down, revealing Jason’s cocky, annoying face.

“Well, well. Look who it is. Gold digger Renee?”

Why was it him?

I didn’t want anyone to see how desperate I was, so I stepped forward, blocking his car window.

“Just leave right now!”

But Jason was never one to do what he was told.

His gaze,

hidden behind his Ray-Bans, swept over the three debt collectors, finally landing on me.

“Well, what’s going on? Got cornered for debt? I always said you were up to no good. You fooled Dante before, and now you’re targeting my mom? You really know how to play this game, Renee.”

He leaned hard out the car window, fumbling to pull out his phone to record.

I snatched it out of his hand before he could.

“This is my privacy! None of your business, Jason. I’ve never wronged you, you don’t have to go out

of your way to make things hard for me.”

Jason just laughed.

“Renee, I just hate people like you. You borrowed from loan sharks and still got the nerve to act tough?”

“Who

you calling a loan shark?!” Scarface jumped in, more offended than I was. “We’re a licensed private lending institution.”

Two of his goons nodded along.

Jason got out of the car and shrugged indifferently.

“Whatever kind of loan. I’m just asking what you spent all that money on. Hermes bags?”

Before I could react.

Scarface beat me to it.

“Hermes my ass! Does anything she’s wearing add up to more than three hundred bucks? This debt was borrowed by Renee’s parents before they died. They’re gone, so it’s her problem to pay it

back…”

As Scarface spoke, fine sand carried on the wind blew toward us.

A sparrow cut through the air. Light. Free.

But I couldn’t.

The secret I’d buried so deep-it was stripped naked in this afternoon sun.

It took all my dignity with it.

Shattered.

How would Jason mock me now?

Would he say it made sense I was a gold digger? Or that a gold digger deserved this fate?

But the mockery I expected… never came.

Jason’s smirk faded. His face went still.

Silence.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried something he couldn’t hide.

“How much does Renee still owe?”

He repeated, “How much does she still owe?”

“Owed 580 grand. With interest, 700. She’s paid 600. A hundred left.” Scarface sidled up to Jason, sycophantic. “You big shot… thinking of covering her tab?”

Maybe a hundred grand was just pocket change to a rich kid like him.

Jason opened his phone. Tapped a few times. Solved the nightmare that had been strangling me almost my whole life.

The debt agreement my parents had signed-Scarface handed it to me.

“There you go sweetie. We’re square.”