Chapter20:

Silvie was back at Lunaris the following Monday. Two days after agreeing to the deal, she met Kyle and his lawyer in his office. The terms were simple: he would cover all her mom’s surgeries and hospital care, and in return, she would come back to work for him. Even then, the whole situation still felt surreal. Her life had been steeped in so much hopelessness that the idea of it finally changing seemed impossible. But as she watched her mom being carried on a stretcher into the emergency room, silent tears rolled down her cheeks. This moment was too vivid, too real, to have been a mere dream. And deep down, she couldn’t deny the gratitude she felt toward Kyle. “Miss Bates, would you please get these files over to the Records department for archiving?” Kyle handed her a stack of freshly prepared files destined to collect dust for years. She noticed the way he’d used "please" for the second time since she returned to Lunaris. The first had been outside her apartment the previous week, w