Chapter 33 · Undercity Broker - Chapter 33: She Collects My Debt

My mother's eyes are open but they're not hers.

She's looking at me the way you look at an invoice. Like I'm numbers on a page she's been waiting to close out. Her hand comes up slow, reaches for my face, and I step back before I can stop myself.

"Three million," she says. Her voice is flat. "Plus interest. Fifteen years compounding daily. You know what that comes to?"

I can't breathe. The curse mark on my arm is burning cold, writhing under my skin like it's trying to crawl up to my shoulder. Su Jin told me to come back as a man. I'm standing in front of the woman who used to cut my hair and I don't know what the hell she is.

"Mom." The word comes out broken. "What are they doing to you?"

"They?" She tilts her head. The movement's wrong. Too smooth. "Lin Mo, I'm not a hostage. I'm the creditor."

The floor drops out.

She stands up from the chair they had her in. No stumble. No weakness. She was never sick. Never dying.