Chapter 1: The Offer You Can’t Refuse

My old mentor used to say, “You’ve only got 49 movies in you, Ben. Try for a 50th, and you’re tempting fate.” So after my 49th, I hung up my hat and walked away. I thought I was done—until, five years later, my only son got sick. His treatment ate up everything we had. We finally got a call that a matching organ was available, but by then, I was tapped out.

Funny how you think you’ve got control of your story, only for life to laugh in your face. I’d spent years pretending to die on camera, chasing fake scares, but nothing in all those scripts prepared me for the real fear of watching my son fade in a hospital bed. Every beep of those machines just twisted the knife. The bills stacked up faster than I could count, and in the quiet moments between doctor updates, I’d pace the kitchen, hospital bills fanned out on the table, running numbers I didn’t want to see. I needed a miracle, but none came.

That’s when a stranger who called himself a producer found me. He offered me a way out: come back and shoot a new film, and he’d wire $150,000 to my account the moment I signed. I didn’t hesitate—I made my choice, deciding right there to trade whatever I had left for my son’s life.

It all went down in a faded diner off I-80. The place smelled like burnt coffee and fried onions, and the neon sign outside flickered so hard it looked ready to give up. Ace—his name, or at least his nickname—slid a contract across the sticky Formica table, a ballpoint pen waiting on top. I stared at the numbers; they looked fake, like something from Monopoly. My hands trembled as I signed, remembering those hospital bills spread out on the kitchen table, the decision becoming gut-deep and real. I thought about Danny, my boy, small under that hospital blanket. If this was the cost, I’d pay it.