"You can't be seriously considering this."

Vanessa's hand was shaking slightly. She pressed it flat against her thigh to still the tremor.

"Amara," she said, her voice carefully controlled. "You can't be seriously considering this."

Amara set the phone down on the towel, screen facing the sand. She reached for her empty cocktail glass, then seemed to remember it was empty, and set it back down with a soft clink.

"I'm considering it," she said simply.

"Why?"

"Because it's a lot of money."

"Money isn't worth—"

"Money is always worth something," Amara interrupted, her voice sharper now. "You know that. I know that. Don't pretend you don't."

Vanessa flinched.

It was true. They both knew it was true. The whole reason they were here, on this beach, with these signs and these menus and these exposed bodies, was money. The whole reason the LV-7 economy existed was money. Desperation. Opportunity. The blurry line between the two.

But this—

This was different.

"His wife," Vanessa said, stressing the word. "On her knees. Thanking you. For what? For letting her husband drink your milk while you hold him down?"

Amara was quiet for a moment.

"I don't know what she'd be thanking me for," she admitted. "That's between them. That's their thing."

"It's degrading."

"Maybe. To her. Or maybe it's exactly what she wants. You don't know their marriage."

Vanessa wanted to argue. Wanted to say that no healthy marriage involved one spouse kneeling and thanking a stranger while the other spouse watched a recording of it later, alone.

But she couldn't.

Because the world had changed.

Because LV-7 had rewritten the rules of intimacy and transaction in ways that no one fully understood yet.

Because she had seen stranger things herself, in the past year alone, and had learned to stop being surprised.

Still.

Still.

"This is how people get hurt," Vanessa said quietly. "This is how boundaries get crossed. This is how—"

"This is how I pay my rent," Amara interrupted. "This is how I afford groceries. This is how I send money to my mother so she can see a doctor who won't dismiss her symptoms because she's 'just getting older.'"

Vanessa's mouth snapped shut.

She knew about Amara's mother. Everyone knew. It wasn't a secret.

Don't make this about the money, she wanted to say. Don't make me the villain for caring about you.

But the words wouldn't come.

Because the money mattered.

It always mattered.