Cost Of His Cruel Billionaire Game

d their biological daughter, my eighteen years

for $12.4 million in back child-rearing costs, demandin

acrifice something real if you want to

tance, banished me to a table by the kitchen doors

ed that it was

od memories, feel the sting of their discipline

resource to be squeezed, that every hug, every lullaby,

exactly what

ry of them permanently extracted. The family and the man I

pte

ee

thousand dollars. That is what you have owed th

o the mahogany desk. The thick edge of th

hteen years did not look at the blood seeping from m

the asset transfer agreement. Before the gala tonight,

y knuckle and dropped beside

ed dow

The cleaning and insurance premium on the couture gown from my eighteenth birthday coming-of-

ng window. He held a bone china coffee cup and looked at me the way a man looks at an overpriced piece of old furniture

point of cruelty. "You have no real assets in your name, but the Memory Bank pays very well for premium memori

n. "Tonight is Breann's official welcome gala. I do not want a single whisper

I did not burst into tears

from my suit pocket, wiped the blood off my

registered directly under Breann's name. The consideration was stated with perfect cl

iently selling off a few inconsequential memories and lingering at

the document away. My voice wa

ifference. "The appraiser is waiting downstairs. He will have a car take you to the Memory

own Manhattan. The Memor

nfluence. They believed he would mechanically skim off a few painless scraps of memor

he doors of the Memory Bank, I went straight t

pushed his rimless glasses up and examined the classif

ve. "Under the Federal Memory Asset Settlement Act, data resold to research institutions is permanently anonymized. But to guarantee the legal validity of the de

ll be stripped from your mind and permanently, irreversibly erased. But in legal terms, every s

," I said, sitting straight,

ffset a debt of this size? Twelve mi

and signed my name on the final

f the eighteen years

embled behind his eyes. He pressed the intercom

At eight thirty tonight, at the climax of the