Years ago, you took a chance and helped my mother. Because you did, I am alive today.
       I’m grateful.
       No, no, I get it.

Your reluctance is valid. But you should know, I’m not my mother. Nor am I here to beg. I’m going to tell you a story, and when I’m done, you’re going to help me.
 Five months ago, mum died.
I’m sure you can appreciate the drastic turn my life took following her death.
Save your platitudes. You didn’t see fit to offer condolences then. I promise you, there’s no need for them now.  
Besides, I knew it was coming. Shit, I braced for it, like I was on a runaway train heading for a cliff.
At the time, losing her was the single worst thing that had happened to me. It had always been us two against the world, and now the world has taken her too.

In her last days I was barely functioning, swinging from a state of numbness to jumping out of my mind into nightmarish panic attacks. Worse there was no one to blame but the disease itself, and it’s not like I could run it through with my blade.
Watching the one you love more than your own life die was lonely as fuck. Anyone I could have called in the past I’d long since pushed away.
What do you say to someone losing their only parent?
Was ‘sorry’ going to pay the mortgage, feed us, or cover her medical bills? The prayer warriors came in droves but after a while their visits trickled from weekly to once a month.  The mantra became “keep your head up” and “God will see you through” as if their empty words held power, and I just needed to believe.

Not one of those assholes was there to wipe the sick from her chin when she could barely lift her head. All the prayers in the world did not stop the bills from pilling up, but those same vultures trampled through our home at her wake and ate up the last of our food, crying she’ll be missed. I can’t tell you how many times I caught one eyeing and cataloguing her things before her cold body was in the ground.
Shit. Forgive me. I get worked up when I stop long enough to think about it. To be frank I’m not in the best headspace right now. I suffered a loss tonight, I didn’t see coming.
But this is not why I’m here.
Mum’s gone and damn if I don’t miss her. She was the better of the two of us, calm where I was a hothead itching for any excuse to cut a motherfucker. I wish I could say her passing mellowed me, gave me perspective on the importance of thinking before I act.
If it did, I wouldn’t be here.
Anyway, while I was prepared for her untimely death, I was sure as hell not prepared for Him.
I’m sure you know who I’m talking. After all you’ve been watching, keeping tabs.
I suppose we could pretend you know none of this. Yes, let’s that; while I ‘convince’ you, it’s in your best interest to help me.
On a random Thursday evening the stranger came. I was in my living room, sitting in the dark. For hours I’d done nothing but stare at the walls. On the coffee table lay a one-way ticket to a place I’d never been. I hadn’t touched it since I set it down. The chime of the doorbell cut through the quiet of my home, dragging me from the bottomless pit I’d crawled into.
At first, I didn’t move, couldn’t think of a damn soul I wanted to see, much less why anyone would be ringing my door at seven in the evening.
A lot of shit was on my mind, mainly the dread of leaving the only home I’d known. I didn’t know what I wanted. But it sure as hell wasn’t to live at the mercy of mum’s friend—an ‘aunty’ I’d probably spoken to once as a child. The fact she couldn’t be bothered to spend more than five minutes on the phone when she offered me a room said enough about the kind of environment I was heading into.
I’d zoned out and forgotten about the doorbell, content to do as I’d been doing all day. Nothing. The shadow on the other side of the frosted glass apparently had nothing better to do either. Determined bastard switched between ringing the bell and knocking, straight fucking with my one good nerve.
I pushed to my feet and shuffled down the entry hall, with every intention of turning whoever it was away. Unlocking the door, I cracked it open enough to level a scowl at the well-dressed stranger staring back at me with drowsy brown eyes.
We stared at each other for far too long to go unnoticed. The man blinked, the corners of his mouth tugged up into a smile as if there was a puppeteer at his back pulling his strings.
The white of his teeth gleamed against his dark skin under the dull light casting its warm glow over my front porch.
Have you ever looked at a person and every inch of them screamed money? My unannounced friend wore the hell out of a two-piece chocolate brown suit, tailored to fit his trim frame. Compared to him I looked like a beggar in the ratty grey sweats I’d been moping around the house in for days.
If I had any bit of shame, I might have felt a way about it. Instead, I turned my face into the soft spring breeze wafting through the door, carrying the smell of someone’s burnt dinner. It was the first fresh air I’d smelled in a good while.
The sky had begun its transition from day to night, swatches of deep grey, punctured by brilliant orange and weak yellow, stretched across the horizon. Mum would’ve said it was a nice evening for a walk.
“Hollis? Hollis Emery?” he didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m Anthony Barat, an associate of your father, Hollis Knight.”
Silence continued to fill the space between us. Don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t trying to be rude. But I’d been functioning on autopilot and barely had the bandwidth to process anything beyond the basic will to live.
So, imagine my fucking surprise; days after mum passed, a stranger shows up at my door claiming he was there on behalf of my daddy, who had been dead my whole damned life.
And did you hear the name he causally dropped at my feet? Yeah, the Hollis Knight. The rich motherfucker who owns half the city.
Did you laugh? Me too. I roared, because honestly, it was either laugh or cry.
I’d cried. Been crying. I didn’t have any more tears left. After I’d finished laughing, forcing the man to step back and eye me warily, one thought struck. Why the hell not? Might as well go along with the lunacy and hear him out. My whole world had been tossed upside down. What did I have to lose? By the end of the week, I’d be forced to leave my home forever, everything I owned condensed to a carry-on and one suitcase. 
I didn’t have an earthly clue what to do next with my life. Ever felt stuck, so deep in the trenches, you stop moving, stop talking? You’re just there, breathing.
Bleak as things were, I hadn’t lost hope. But for the moment, my plans went no further than putting one foot in front of the other.
“I tried reaching out to you by phone,” the man said, settling into the armchair across from me.
I curled deeper into the loveseat, one foot tucked beneath me, fingers drumming the armrest.
He’d spent the entire walk back to my front room disclosing his credentials as an attorney retained by Hollis Knight but also the nature of their decades-long friendship.
My fingers stilled. “Mr. Barat.” I hadn’t spoken to a single person in days, and my voice was as coarse as sandpaper. “My father passed before I was born.”
“I know what you were led to believe, Ms. Emery. But I can assure you, Hollis Knight is very much alive. He believes it’s time you and he had an official introduction.”
You know, up until then I never questioned why mum named me after my ‘father’ yet chose not to give me his last name. And of course, I never would have guessed or equated my namesake to the tycoon who owned Hakon Industries.
Barat’s words were a hammer striking a blow, creating fissures of doubt in my foundation.
I straightened, jaws locking. He didn’t get to rattle me. Nah. For the first time in weeks, I had a purpose.
Oh, don’t get too excited. This isn’t some feel-good story of a girl reuniting with a long-lost parent. I was an angry, grief-stricken bitch out for blood.
Weeks later, with a brand-new pair of fangs, I’m left wondering if I’d been luckier for letting Barat in or worse off.