Author: Momo Chan

My best friend, my fellow struggling actress, turned out to be the long-lost heiress to one of New York’s old-money families. The day she left our tiny walk-up in Queens, she swore she’d pull me up with her into the good life. Two months later, she blocked my number. Fueled by a white-hot rage, I chased her to the city, arriving just in time for her wedding to the son of a titan of industry. Ava, that ungrateful snake. The second she got a taste of the high life, she forgot all about me. For the sake of appearances, I swallowed my anger, stuffed some cash in an envelope as a final goodbye to our friendship, and prepared to walk away. But when I looked up, I saw the woman in the wedding portrait wasn’t my best friend. It was Chloe, the Davenports’ adopted daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport, the same couple who had once plastered their tear-streaked faces all over national television, begging for their daughter’s return, now spoke of Ava with utter disgust. “That morally corrupt creature has been thrown out of this house. From this day forward, Chloe is our only daughter!” “She’s just a no-name extra who learned all her dirty tricks from TV. Since she loves acting so much, we decided to let her star in her own horror show—naked and screaming.” I just stood there, stunned, the world tilting on its axis. On the day of that wedding, I brought the Davenport empire to its knees. A no-name extra? Hardly. I am Jade, the Crown Princess of Starlight Entertainment, the largest media conglomerate in Asia. And my best friend? She is destined to win an Oscar. 1 The woman next to me on the flight to New York had been talking for the last hour about the wedding of the decade: the union of the Davenport heiress and Carter Sterling, son of the real estate magnate. “Twenty custom Rolls-Royces, circling Central Park twice,” she’d gushed, scrolling through a gossip blog on her phone. “The gown was designed in Paris, took a year to hand-bead. And the party favors? The new Hermès Kelly. For everyone.” She sighed, a cloud of envy. “That Davenport girl, she hit the lottery. Disappeared for twenty-three years, and the moment she’s found, she’s wrapped in cotton wool. Parents who adore her, in-laws who basically own the Eastern seaboard… God, I’d wake up laughing in my sleep.” I gripped the cheap airline blanket bunched in my lap, my knuckles white. Ava. That ungrateful, forgetful… friend. She’d sworn on the day she left our shoebox apartment that she’d bring me with her, that we’d finally live the life we’d always dreamed of. Two months later, my number was blocked. Now she was handing out designer bags like party mints while I was still counting my tips to make rent. I took a cab straight from JFK to the Sterling family’s sprawling Long Island estate. The sheer opulence of the place, with its manicured gardens and fountains that glittered like diamonds, should have made me angrier. Instead, a strange calm settled over me. I pulled all the cash I had from my wallet—a couple hundred dollars—and stuffed it into a wedding envelope. A final transaction to close the account on our friendship. As I walked toward the entrance, I glanced up at the massive, elegantly framed portrait of the happy couple. And I stopped dead. The bride smiling in the photograph wasn’t Ava. It was Chloe, the Davenports’ adopted daughter. A cold dread washed over me. Something was terribly wrong. I pushed past a confused-looking usher and stormed into the bridal suite, searching for any sign of Ava. Inside, Mr. and Mrs. Davenport were fussing over Chloe, their faces beaming with pride. They looked up, annoyed by my intrusion. The moment I said Ava’s name, their expressions curdled. “That morally bankrupt creature has been thrown out,” Mrs. Davenport said, her voice dripping with disdain. “From now on, the Davenports have only one daughter: Chloe.” She gave me a dismissive once-over. “If you’re here for the wedding, have some champagne and find your seat. But if you’re here to make a scene on that little tramp’s behalf, you’ll find we are not nearly as polite as our staff.” My heart sank to the floor. The way she spat the words “little tramp,” referring to her own flesh and blood… “I’m here to find Ava,” I said, my voice dangerously steady. “Where is she? Why is her phone off?” Chloe, who had been watching me with a look of curated curiosity, suddenly shrank back, clutching her mother’s arm. “Dad, it has to be her! I bet Ava sent her! She’s still furious that I won Carter’s heart, and now she’s trying to hurt me again!” she cried, her voice trembling. “Mom, you have to protect me!” The Davenports’ eyes narrowed, instantly protective and hostile. I let out a short, cold laugh. This whole damsel-in-distress act was so pathetically outdated. If she wanted to play the victim, I’d be happy to give her a reason. I snatched a bottle of champagne from a silver bucket on the table and, in one smooth motion, dumped the entire contents over her perfectly coiffed head. “Aaaah! My dress! You’re insane!” Chloe shrieked. “Mom, my wedding is ruined! It’s ruined!” Mrs. Davenport lunged at me with a scream, her manicured nails like claws. I sidestepped and slapped her, hard, across her powdered cheek. The sound echoed in the silent room. “You… you hit me!” she gasped, her hand flying to her face. As I raised my hand again, Mr. Davenport quickly pulled his wife and daughter behind him, his eyes boring into me with pure hatred. “You really were sent by that monster to destroy Chloe’s day!” he snarled. “Security! Get this woman out of here! She’s trespassing!” Two large men in black suits started toward me. I didn’t move. Instead, I crossed my arms, sank into a velvet armchair, and casually crossed my legs. “Inform the guests,” I said, my voice calm and clear, “the wedding is cancelled.” The head of security, a man with a jaw like a cinder block, stopped in his tracks, gave me a short, respectful nod, and said, “Yes, ma’am.” The expressions on the three Davenports’ faces shifted from outrage to utter confusion. For the security of the Sterling Estate to obey me, a complete stranger, meant something they couldn’t comprehend. “Who… who in God’s name are you?” Mr. Davenport stammered. 2 “You don’t need to know who I am,” I said, my gaze locked on him. “You just need to know that I’m Ava’s friend. And if you want this wedding to happen, you will bring her to me. Now.” The security team formed a loose circle around the three of them, a silent, intimidating wall. Chloe stomped her foot, her champagne-soaked dress squelching pathetically. “If you’re her friend, why are you doing this to us? Everyone who’s anyone in New York is out there! Ava isn’t just embarrassing me; she’s making a mockery of the entire Davenport family!” “That viper! That ungrateful snake!” Mr. Davenport’s face was turning a blotchy, furious red. “By tomorrow, this will be all over the society pages! The Davenports will be a laughingstock!” He turned on his wife. “I told you we should have just left it alone! People lose children every day, it’s fate! But no, you had to go looking!” “What good does saying that now do?” she shrieked back. “If I’d known she was this much trouble, I would have preferred she’d died out there! A gutter-born animal with no manners, after all the money I wasted on her!” The story of the lost Davenport heiress had been national news. They had poured millions into a TV drama about missing children, a vanity project designed to find their daughter. Every episode began and ended with Mr. and Mrs. Davenport, weeping into the camera, pleading for her return. Ava had been hesitant, unsure about re-entering their world. But they’d gone on talk shows, they’d sworn to the entire country that they would spend the rest of their lives making up for the years they’d lost. Their performance had convinced me. It was I who had encouraged Ava to go back to them. Two months. How had their hearts turned to stone in just two months? My jaw tightened. I pulled out my phone and tried Ava’s number again. Straight to voicemail. My patience evaporated. I held out my hand, and the captain of the security detail, as if anticipating my need, placed a long, thin riding crop into my palm. “Tell me where Ava is,” I demanded, the leather tip tapping against the marble floor with a sharp crack. Just then, a man pushed through the security cordon and strode into the room. “What the hell is going on? Why was my wedding cancelled?” The Davenports lit up like they’d seen a savior. “Carter, darling, you’re finally here!” Mrs. Davenport cried. “Mr. Sterling, this girl cancelled your wedding without your permission! You have to stop her!” “Carter!” Chloe wailed, running to him. “Look what she did to my dress! She’s just some nobody extra Ava used to know! She’s here to cause trouble, to disrespect your family, to disrespect you!” She looked up at him, her beautiful face streaked with tears and mascara, a perfect picture of wounded innocence. “All our guests are watching! You have to put her in her place!” A thunderous look crossed Carter’s face. “Who the hell did this to my wife?” he boomed, scanning the room. “Who thinks they can come to New York and screw with the Sterling family? You got a death wish?” Whispers erupted from the onlookers who had crowded the doorway. “That’s Carter Sterling! His family practically built this city. They’re old-world power, serious political connections.” “No wonder the Davenports kicked out their real daughter. The adopted one landed the biggest fish in the sea.” “Carter’s family is untouchable in this town. It doesn’t matter if this girl is right or wrong, she’s about to get flattened.” As the crowd waited for the fireworks, I flicked my wrist. The riding crop sliced through the air and struck Carter across the chest. I’d spent six months in intensive training with a world-renowned stunt coordinator for a role. My technique was flawless. Even with only a fraction of my strength, a bright red welt blossomed instantly on his white tuxedo jacket. “Who the hell hit me?” he roared, stunned. I took a step forward. “Do I need an appointment?” Carter clutched his arm, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fury. Then, recognition dawned. “You! What are you doing here?” “Is that any way to greet your elders?” I gestured with the crop toward Chloe. “I thought you were marrying the Davenport heiress. Who’s the impostor?” A flicker of guilt—or maybe fear—crossed his face. “I saw you last on a film set in Vancouver. This is my business. Stay out of it.” Your business? A humorless smile touched my lips. “Kneel.” Carter’s jaw clenched, his eyes burning with defiance. Chloe scoffed from behind him. “He’s Carter Sterling! Why in the world would he ever kneel to a nobody like you?” I didn’t even bother to look at her. With another sharp flick of my wrist, I struck the back of Carter’s knee. His leg buckled, and he fell to the ground with a grunt of pain, landing heavily on one knee. “Jade,” he choked out, his face pale. “I thought you said you were too busy to come to the wedding.” 3 A wave of gasps rippled through the onlookers. “What did he just call her?” “She can’t be more than a few years younger than him… How is she his… elder?” The Davenports just stared, their mouths hanging open, unable to process what they were seeing. I ignored the murmurs and pointed the tip of the crop at Carter’s chin. “Tell me where Ava is. Were you involved in this?” “Hmph. I’m not telling you anything,” he spat, his neck muscles straining. “That woman is nothing but a conniving snake. I personally saw her push Chloe down a flight of stairs. She spread the most vicious rumors about her! She deserves everything she’s getting!” “You little fool,” Carter growled, trying to get up. “I call you Jade out of respect for my grandfather, but you better not push it. This has nothing to do with you.” I laughed, a sound devoid of any warmth. What had Chloe done to these people? It was like they were all under a spell. I looked at the four of them—the gullible fiancé, the social-climbing fake, the cruel, heartless parents. “You,” I said, my voice cutting through the air as I addressed the Davenports, “were supposed to be her parents. You didn’t raise her for a single day, and in the eighteen years she was lost, did you ever once try to understand her? To trust her?” I turned back to Carter. “And you. Your grandfather arranged a match with the Davenport daughter, not some imposter you picked. You knew her identity was a lie and you said nothing to your family. You have no honor.” With that, I began to strike them, the crop landing with sharp, punishing cracks. They cried out, trying to scramble away, but the security team moved in, holding them firmly in place as they howled. “Ava was born bad! We don’t have a daughter like that!” “Do you know who you’re messing with? The movie star Seraphina Roche is Chloe’s god-sister! Her fans will eat you alive!” “Don’t think because my grandfather respects you that I’m afraid of you!” Carter yelled. “You’re not blood! Without the Sterling name, you’re nothing!” Just as he said it, a new commotion started at the door. “It’s Marcus Sterling! The man himself is here!” “Mr. Sterling, you have to see what’s happening to your son! He’s been beaten!” A distinguished, middle-aged man in a tailored suit strode forward, his face a mask of authority. “What is the meaning of this circus? Everyone, stop this instant!” I lowered the crop, my breathing heavy. Seeing his father, Carter immediately scrambled over. “Dad, it’s Jade! She’s lost her mind! It’s my wedding day, and look what she’s done to me!” Chloe rushed forward as well. “Mr. Sterling, thank God you’re here! This woman not only ruined our wedding, she attacked my parents! They’re not young, what if she seriously hurt them?” Marcus Sterling looked from his battered son to the weeping bride, to the cowering Davenports, his mind clearly struggling to catch up. I cleared my throat softly. His head snapped in my direction. “Jade! Why are you here? If I had known you were coming, I would have sent a car for you myself!” The Davenports’ jaws dropped so low they nearly touched the floor. They looked utterly, hopelessly stupid. “Let’s skip the pleasantries, Marcus,” I said. “We need to talk about your son. My father, before he passed, arranged for Carter to marry the Davenport heiress. So you tell me why he’s marrying this… replacement. And where is my real niece-in-law?” The color drained from Marcus’s face as he finally understood. “He’s right. Where is Ava? And you,” he said, pointing at Chloe, “you’re the adopted one. Why are you in the wedding dress?” Carter had clearly planned to get the ceremony over with, forcing his father to accept Chloe in front of all their guests. Now, his plan was in tatters. He just stammered, unable to form a single coherent sentence. “Speak up! Where is Ava?” Marcus roared. The room fell deathly silent. Chloe peeked out from behind her parents. It was Mrs. Davenport who spoke, her voice shrill. “That Ava girl is no good! Chloe may not be our blood, but we raised her to be a perfect lady!” “That’s right!” Mr. Davenport chimed in. “That little stray can’t compare to our Chloe! She isn’t worthy of the Sterling family!” “The woman our family chooses is not for you to approve or disapprove of!” Marcus thundered. “Now if you don’t tell me where she is, I will personally ensure the Davenport name is erased from this city by morning!” I was done wasting time. In a single, fluid motion, I stepped toward one of Marcus’s bodyguards, pulled the handgun from his hip holster, and turned, pressing the cold muzzle against Chloe’s forehead before anyone could react. “Where. Is. Ava?” Carter, seeing the look on his father’s face—a look that offered no help—finally broke. He whispered three words, his voice trembling. “Blackwater Street… the warehouse.” For a second, the world went silent, and then my mind exploded.

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“When it was time to bring the operation home, I was the one who snapped the cuffs on his wrists. He tilted his head back, looking up at me from his knees. The flashing blue and red lights painted his face in strobing color. “”Ava,”” he asked, his voice low and steady despite everything. “”Did you ever love me? Even a little?”” A smile found my lips. I leaned down and patted his cheek, the metal of the cuffs cold against my knuckles. “”Not for a second.”” I straightened up. “”Enjoy the food in federal prison, Sebastian. My own personal Medal of Valor.”” … The next day, the man who had taken half the city’s police force and a six-month surveillance operation to catch, escaped from custody. 1 The news broke while the ink on my commendation paperwork was still drying. The transport van heading to the East End correctional facility was hit by an IED. Nine officers dead, one critically wounded. Sebastian Vale, the target of a multi-agency task force, the man we’d spent two years hunting, hadn’t even had time to get used to the feel of a prison bench before he was gone. I stood on the scorched asphalt, the ghost of smoke still acrid in the air, staring at the blackened blast pattern on the road. And to make a catastrophic situation worse, the consensus back at the precinct was clear. As the undercover officer who had spent two years by his side, who had not only played with his heart but had driven the final knife into his back, I was now, without a doubt, his number one target. 2 “”You don’t look too happy, Agent Reed.”” …Nobody’s happy when their Medal of Valor goes on the run. Twenty-seven hours after Sebastian Vale’s escape, we had nothing. Fifteen drones, nearly every K-9 unit in the state, and a city-wide lockdown had turned up zero trace of him. He hadn’t just vanished; he’d left a message. Scrawled in the blood of a dying officer on the overturned door of the transport van were four words: I’ll recapture my rose. Who was the “”rose””? Every head in the briefing room swiveled to face me. “”You can all stare,”” I said, crossing my arms and shrugging. “”But the only thing this proves is that Sebastian Vale is a sucker for a love story.”” What else could explain it? A man with the world crashing down around him, and his last question is whether I ever loved him. It was pathetic. Of course I didn’t. My job was stressful enough without adding real feelings to the mix. 3 In the back of the squad car, my partner, Mark, handed me a tablet. “”We tracked a call Vale made from a public payphone after the breakout. The location might look familiar.”” I looked down at the photo on the screen. An old brick apartment building in the warehouse district. “”Yeah,”” Mark said, reading my expression. “”It’s the place you two shared.”” After we’d made the “”relationship”” official, Sebastian and I had lived there for quite a while. Stepping inside, the first thing I saw was a pair of women’s slippers next to a pair of men’s boots by the door, a staged tableau of domesticity that felt like a lifetime ago. Everything looked untouched, except for the ashtray on the coffee table. It was filled with fresh ash. “”Lab report on the cigarette butts came back. It’s Vale’s brand, alright,”” Mark said, walking into the bedroom. He let out a low whistle. “”Guy’s got balls. Hiding out here just hours after the escape. Playing the ‘hide in plain sight’ card.”” Crime scene techs were dusting for prints, their cameras flashing, but I was somewhere else entirely. This was the first place Sebastian and I had called home. He was the first kingpin I was ever assigned to. 4 Right after graduating from the academy and inheriting my father’s badge number, I was tapped for the undercover operation targeting Sebastian Vale. The reasons were simple: I looked like a college student, my eyes had a disarming clarity, and I had been the most ruthless hand-to-hand combatant in my graduating class. Back then, Sebastian wasn’t the head of the largest narcotics syndicate on the West Coast. He was just an ambitious number two, but his youth and rapid ascent had put him on our radar. To take down the whole organization, we had to plant a fuse deep inside, and I was that fuse. My cover was a cashier at the 24-hour bodega on the ground floor of his apartment building. Every night, usually between eleven and midnight, he’d come down for a pack of cigarettes. He had this intense gaze, deep-set eyes, and always wore a black tactical jacket. The first time I saw him, I was surprised. For a rising drug trafficker, he was beautiful in a way that was almost jarring—skin so pale it was nearly luminous, with features that seemed carved from cold marble. To avoid spooking him, I waited two weeks before saying more than “”have a nice night.”” I finally made my move, a simple comment as I handed him his change. “”You know, you buy a pack of these every night. You should try to cut back.”” He raised an eyebrow, his cool gaze sweeping over me for a fraction of a second before he grunted a noncommittal “”hmph.”” After that, I used that tiny opening to exchange a few sentences with him every night. Honestly, after weeks of this, I felt like I could have charmed a statue into bloom, but Sebastian remained completely unmoved. Thankfully, my backup team decided to accelerate the timeline. They orchestrated a small-scale bust on a lower rung of the supply chain. It wouldn’t hurt the organization’s core, but it was designed to wipe out a few minor crews, including the one Sebastian was affiliated with. Letting him escape, bleeding and barely alive, was part of the plan. It was my cue to “”find”” him in a dumpster-filled alley nearby. He was covered in blood when I got to him, the crimson stark against his pale skin. Even then, on the verge of collapse, his guard was up. I played my part perfectly—the terrified bodega girl. When he rasped, “”No hospitals,”” I took him back to my place. He stayed with me for the next few weeks, recuperating. Everything was meticulously staged. The location of his room, the way my towel “”accidentally”” slipped when I walked out of the bathroom, the unavoidable physical contact as I changed his bandages. I was bubbly, cheerful, doing everything I could to make him smile. I made him curry with the rice shaped like a teddy bear and tied his bandages into neat little bows. And yet, even with a man and a woman alone in a small apartment, he kept his distance for weeks. Night after night, I’d feel his eyes on me, dark and unreadable. The Captain kept telling me to be patient, but there were moments, watching him watch me, that a cold dread washed over me—the fear that I’d already been made. Then one night, after a late debrief with my handlers, I came home to a dark apartment. That was unusual; he always left a light on. “”Sebastian?”” I called out tentatively as I slipped off my shoes. No answer. As my hand fumbled for the light switch, a gentle touch grazed the back of my neck. In a split second, I fought down the instinct to spin around and throw him over my shoulder. Instead, I froze. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his breath warm against my ear. My body went rigid. The feeling of being controlled by this stranger, this target, sent every nerve ending screaming in protest. But I had a mission. I knew what I had to do. Slowly, deliberately, I forced my body to relax, to melt into his embrace. His lips found the side of my neck, his kisses tender and searching. … I had to be the naive girl, looking at him with wide, trusting eyes. Even after we were officially a “”couple,”” Sebastian remained quiet, watchful. His suspicion was a wall between us. That wasn’t good enough. He had no idea the lengths I’d gone to for him. The things he liked, the things he hated, his subtle tells—the way his brow would lift almost imperceptibly when he liked a meal I cooked, the way the corner of his mouth would twitch into a half-smile when I wore a certain dress. I cataloged every detail, replaying them in my mind each night. Slowly, it started working. He began to laugh when I’d get spaghetti sauce on my nose. He’d gently stroke my hair when he found me asleep on the couch, waiting for him to come home. One night, he knelt in front of me, looking up with a soft expression. “”Sunshine,”” he murmured, “”why are you still up?”” In that moment, I knew. Phase one was complete. I had won. But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t part of his future; I was a girlfriend he could discard at any moment. He never told me about his deals, his locations, or what exactly he was moving. Then, my opportunity arrived. I was targeted by one of Sebastian’s rival syndicates. They snatched me off the street on my way to the farmers’ market. Their goal was simple: use his girlfriend as leverage. They tied me to a chair and set up a camera. The man across from me laid it all out—told me my loving boyfriend was a ruthless drug lord, detailing Sebastian’s cruelty, painting a picture of a monster. My mind was racing. I had to appear terrified, but not useless. Heartbroken, but not weak. I had to be a woman who was resolute, brave, and above all, utterly devoted to Sebastian. Eleven hours later, Sebastian walked into that dusty factory. He was born to wear black; it was the color of the shadows he commanded. My eyes, wide and tearful, locked onto his. But the man I had been sleeping next to for months just gave me a single, dismissive glance. “”The terms,”” he said, his voice clipped and devoid of emotion. “”Your three main suppliers,”” the man holding me said, pressing the barrel of a gun to the back of my head. “”And fifty kilos of the new product.”” There was a long pause. Then, a cold, sharp laugh from Sebastian. “”You really think she’s worth that much?”” He gave me one last look, a look of pure contempt, and turned to walk away. I watched his tall frame disappear into the darkness. In that moment, I truly believed I was going to die. But then, the gun at my head moved, shifting its aim toward Sebastian’s retreating back. “”LOOK OUT!”” The instant before the trigger was pulled, I threw my entire body weight backward, knocking the gunman off balance. The shot went wide, but the momentum was uncontrolled. A bullet, meant for Sebastian, tore through the flesh of my arm. I’d been shot before, but always while wearing a vest. The searing pain blanked out my vision for a second. When it cleared, the men around me were being cut down in a hail of gunfire. Of course. Sebastian hadn’t come alone. He had a fire team hidden in the shadows. He walked over to me, his face unreadable. The pain on my face was real. I stumbled toward him and collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He stiffened for a moment, surprised by the embrace. Then, after a long second, I felt his hand gently stroking my hair. “”Why?”” he whispered, his voice rough. “”I abandoned you. Why would you still save me?”” Because your backup would have Swiss-cheesed him before the bullet even left the chamber, I thought. But what I said was, “”I… I just reacted. It was just… instinct… to protect you.”” In the darkness, I heard his voice soften. “”You don’t care what I do?”” I shook my head against his chest. Sebastian Vale, I thought, the pain in my arm a searing promise. One day, you will be the shiniest medal on my uniform. 5 “”What’s on your mind?”” A hand holding a lit cigarette pulled me from my thoughts. The smell of tobacco was foreign; it had been a long time. Many of my colleagues chain-smoked when they were stressed. But Sebastian didn’t smoke. And to maintain my “”good girl”” image, neither did I. “”So, after this Medal of Valor comes through, they’ll put you on desk duty, right?”” Mark and I were sitting on the steps of the precinct’s back entrance. He ran a hand through his messy hair as he flipped through a case file. I nodded. For people like us, no matter the outcome, we were meant to fade away, to become ghosts in the system. “”What do you want to do? After you retire.”” “”Teach English,”” I answered without hesitation. He raised an eyebrow. “”I think… I think I’d be a good teacher.”” … Sebastian had never finished high school. So I was the one who taught him English. Maybe I really did have a talent for it, or maybe he was just that smart. The same man who once struggled to say “”You are mine,”” could now declare war on the entire police department in perfect, taunting English. Because that’s what this was. A declaration of war. A way to force me out into the open. By brazenly returning to our old apartment and leaving a trail, he was sending me a message: I will find you. No matter how many cops are protecting you, you can’t run from me. … “”That’s why I don’t think holing me up here is the right move,”” I said, leaning against the doorframe of the cheap motel room they’d stashed me in. Mark sighed, his shoulders slumping. “”He’s coming for me, Mark. You should let him.”” “”Don’t talk like that,”” he said tiredly. “”Nobody’s life is expendable. We don’t sacrifice our own unless there is absolutely no other choice.”” When I didn’t respond, he stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “”Ava, you know better than anyone what these monsters do to undercovers who are burned.”” … Bright sunlight sliced through a gap in the blackout curtains, a single, dancing line of dust motes in the dim room. Of course I knew. My father had been the captain of the Westbridge City Narcotics Division. A foreign cartel put a million-dollar bounty on his head. I was still at the academy when my uncle, also a cop, found his body. I should thank my father. He gave his daughter one last, brutal lesson. Because in my entire life, I have never seen a corpse more mutilated than his. After that day, nothing I saw on the job could ever shake me. My dad always told me that for a narcotics detective, a Medal of Valor is something you usually get after you’re dead. I decided then and there that I was going to get one while I was still alive, just to show him, wherever he was. … Day three of Sebastian’s escape. The department’s criminal profiler was grilling me for details again. As the person who had been closest to him, every insight I had was priceless. After I took that bullet for him, Sebastian had slowly started to let me in. And I discovered something crucial: he was starved for love. It was the perfect vulnerability. He’d had almost no romantic contact with women his entire life. He was an orphan, raised by human traffickers. He was smart and charming enough to avoid the fate of the other kids—maimed and sent to beg on the streets—but his childhood was a wasteland of cruelty and pain. He probably didn’t even realize how desperately he craved a gentle, kind soul to love him. Sebastian was a natural criminal: decisive, calm, obsessive, and brutal. But as a lover, he was a fool. He was too eager to drown in affection, desperate to please the person he cared about. He tried to act indifferent, but his micro-expressions betrayed him every time. So, even though I was no expert in romance myself, I used every psychological tactic I’d learned at the academy to reel him in. It was clumsy at times, but I got him. The final step was to embed a hook in his heart so deep he could never remove it. What’s more powerful than a lifetime of devotion? A lifetime of devotion that is suddenly, violently snatched away. As Sebastian climbed the ladder of his organization, women naturally started to gravitate toward him. They knew about me, the official “”girlfriend,”” but that didn’t stop the butterflies from flocking to him. The most dangerous of them was a woman named Ruby. Ruby was her business name, I assumed. She was stunning, a completely different style from me. If I was sunshine and innocence, she was a beautiful, poison-tipped needle. And she had her sights set on Sebastian, and my position. On paper, she was the owner of a chain of local nightclubs. In reality, she was the biggest independent distributor in her territory. If she and Sebastian teamed up, it would be a power merger, and I’d be out of the picture. She saw me as a naive little student, someone she could crush without a second thought. At the time, my relationship with Sebastian had hit a plateau. He was still good to me, doting even, but he never explicitly rejected Ruby’s advances. And I thought, Perfect. The hero, the villain, the other woman. It was the setup for a perfect tragedy. If I played my part right, he would never, ever forget me. …The stage was a corporate yacht party. Publicly, it was the annual gala for some shell corporation. In reality, it was a summit for the region’s top traffickers. We had assets on board, hidden among the crew. The whole night was a powder keg. I was there as Sebastian’s girlfriend. But Ruby pushed, relentlessly. First, she tried to humiliate me during the reception, then she brazenly flirted with Sebastian right in front of me. He didn’t stop her. And right there, I knew something was wrong. Even if he was losing interest, he wouldn’t disrespect me so publicly, not when I was known to everyone as his girl. Later that night, I walked into his stateroom after a shower. He grabbed my wrist and slammed me against the doorframe. “”Ava,”” he said, his voice dangerously low. “”Swear to me. Swear you’ve never lied to me.”” For a second, my blood ran cold. I saw my entire mission, my life, crumbling. I had already pictured my triumphant return, but now I wasn’t even sure I’d make it back in one piece. But he’d said “”swear.”” Swear. That meant he had no proof. It was just a suspicion, probably planted by Ruby. He was trying to decide if I was a cop. He wasn’t sure. I couldn’t be too defensive, but I couldn’t be too calm either. “”I have never lied to you,”” I said, meeting his gaze, repeating his words back to him like a sacred vow. He let go of my wrist. “”Sebastian, I—”” I reached for him, but he pulled away. “”I didn’t lie to you…”” My voice trembled, a perfect performance of hurt. “”Go back to your room, Ava,”” he said, his tone softening slightly, but the command was absolute. I didn’t move. I reached for his hand again. He pushed me away, not hard, but enough to make me stumble back. I just stared at him, my eyes wide with disbelief. “”Ruby was right,”” he said, his dark eyes boring into me. “”Maybe you are just a very, very good actress.”” I watched him, incredulous. “”You’d rather believe her than me?”” … The only answer I got was the solid click of the door shutting in my face. The tears that welled in my eyes vanished the second I was alone. Sebastian’s instincts were sharp. I didn’t think it was just Ruby. It was his own gut, his seventh sense, telling him something was off. With a man like that, no matter how perfect my cover was, suspicion was always a risk. And once the seed of doubt was planted, it was only a matter of time before it grew into a conviction. I needed to do something drastic. And thanks to Ruby, I had the perfect stage. 6 I had always told Sebastian I was afraid of the water. In truth, I was the captain and gold medalist of my high school swim team. The pieces you put on the board early in the game sometimes come in handy when you least expect it. There was another undercover officer on the yacht, disguised as a crew member. He’d told me that a specific spot on the edge of the top deck was perfectly covered by a security camera. According to the ship’s route, we would be passing a small, uninhabited island about half a mile off our port side. The sea was calm that night. By 2 a.m., the deck was deserted. I stood in the exact spot we’d planned, perfectly framed by the camera. The wind whipped my white dress around my legs. I typed out a text message to Sebastian. I know I’m not as smart as her, or as powerful. But maybe this… …maybe this will prove I never lied to you. Then I jumped. … The drama of faking a suicide to prove your love and innocence is amplified a thousand times when the target is a man starved for affection. I won’t bore you with the details of that night: how I navigated half a mile of open ocean with only a compass and the glowing dial of my sports watch; how I collapsed on a sandy beach, fighting off birds that thought I was a corpse, while waiting for my contact. It was the kind of harrowing experience you could write a novel about. Eventually, an officer picked me up in a small inflatable boat, and I spent the next few weeks hiding out and recovering in a fishing village on a different island. The ordeal had left me with more than a few injuries. During that time, I heard that Sebastian was tearing the ocean apart looking for me. Even with the security footage clearly showing his “”non-swimmer”” girlfriend leaping into the sea to prove her devotion, he refused to believe I was dead. Witnesses said they’d never seen him so unhinged, commandeering dozens of fishing boats for the search. He found me on a day when the setting sun bled across the water. I was sitting on a small stool outside a fisherman’s hut, my hair in a single braid, watching the light fade. I had calculated the angle. From where he would first see me, my profile would look tragic, beautiful, and devastatingly fragile. All that effort paid off. He stumbled toward me, his steps unsteady, and pulled me into an embrace so tight I thought my ribs would crack. Men. They’re all the same. They crave a woman who will destroy herself for them, a woman who asks for nothing in return. I could feel myself being absorbed into him. I parted my lips, my voice deliberately soft and hoarse. “”Sebastian,”” I whispered. “”You could have just let me go.”” “”I’m okay.”” “”If you want to be with her, just let me go.”” “”Just… just tell me to my face,”” I choked out, “”that you don’t want me anymore…”” I felt his body go rigid. His fingers threaded gently through my hair. This was different from before. This time, it was real. Sebastian was hooked. He was the one who couldn’t leave me now. I rested my chin in the crook of his neck. If jumping into the ocean was a gamble, then in that moment, I knew. I had won the whole damn pot. “”So, where do you think he’d go? Now that he’s out.”” “”He’s a madman, Mark. How am I supposed to know what a madman is thinking?”” In the office, the ceiling fan spun lazily. Light filtered through the blinds, striping the room where my exhausted colleagues were hitting one dead end after another. No tips, no sightings. He’d vanished. And yet, we all knew he would surface again. Sebastian Vale was not the type to let things go. “”Ava’s family is secure, right?”” the captain asked the room. “”She’s burned. We can’t rule out the possibility that Vale will retaliate against her relatives,”” Mark said, rubbing his temples as he looked over at me. He was right. Now that my identity was compromised, my entire family was under 24/7 police protection. Everything should have been fine. But my right eye had been twitching all day. I’m not superstitious, but some of the older guys on the force are. They have little rituals, like eating their favorite meal before a big bust to see if the taste is off—a “”tell,”” they call it. My breakfast this morning tasted like ash. I sat at my desk, my head down. This mission was supposed to be my ticket to a quiet desk job. I was already planning my vacation. It felt like the universe was playing a cruel joke. The door to the briefing room burst open. A uniformed officer rushed in, his eyes wide with panic. When his gaze landed on me, my stomach dropped. “”Agent Reed,”” he panted. “”It’s your nephew.”” … “He was found at nine this morning, near the East Maple Road market.” I sat in the car, a thick fog filling my head as the officer recited the report. “”Multiple injection sites. Upper arm, wrist, inner thigh. Prelim tox report shows a massive, repeated overdose of heroin.”” “”He’s at First General. In surgery now.”” “”…”” Sebastian’s revenge… had begun. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. A buzzing filled my ears. Stay calm, stay calm. What did I need to ask? What was the question? “”He had a protection detail, didn’t he? How the hell did this happen?”” Mark’s voice was sharp, cutting through my haze. “”The kid’s a senior in high school. Finals are coming up,”” the officer explained, looking miserable. “”His mom said he couldn’t miss any more school. So they scaled back the detail to just escorts to and from.”” “”Somehow, they still got to him…”” … I remembered. I’d promised my nephew, Leo, that if he got into a top-tier school, I’d buy him a top-of-the-line gaming PC. Now, he was in an operating room, and I was standing outside it. My cousin’s raw, guttural sobs echoed in the sterile hallway, hammering against my eardrums. In my hand, I clutched an evidence bag containing a small, folded piece of paper. They’d found it in Leo’s pocket. A message from Sebastian. His handwriting was messy, but sharp, just like him. It said: Don’t you dare not love me.”

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My father-in-law was dragged for a mile by a drunk driver on his way home from his late-night walk. By the time I got the call, he was already in the morgue, his face unrecognizable. After the police showed me the surveillance footage, I was shaking with a rage so pure it felt like ice in my veins. I swore I would get justice for him. The next day, my husband, Ethan, asked me to meet him at a bistro. He slid a folder across the polished table, the sound sharp in the quiet restaurant. “Ava, what’s done is done. Your father is gone, but Nikki is only twenty-one. She has her whole life ahead of her. You can’t be so vicious as to demand she sacrifice her future for a dead man.” He tapped the folder. “Sign the settlement agreement. Fifty thousand dollars. It’s a fair compensation for your father. We drop the case, and this all goes away.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low threat. “Or I’ll make sure you don’t see a single cent.” I didn’t sign. And Ethan, true to his word, made sure I didn’t get a penny. But he never could have imagined that he would be the one kneeling on the courthouse steps, bashing his head against the concrete until it bled, begging for the case to be reopened. 1. “What… what did you just say?” “Fifty thousand? To settle?” I stared at Ethan, the words failing to connect in my brain. The man lying in the morgue right now was his father. His. Ethan had a rough childhood. His mother, unable to handle the poverty, had left when he was just a baby. It was his dad, Bob, who raised him, working two jobs, never complaining, never remarrying because he didn’t want his son to ever feel second best. “What? Is it not enough?” he asked, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. I opened my mouth, my voice trembling. “This isn’t about the money, Ethan.” I took a breath, trying to soften the blow I thought he was too grief-stricken to process. “The person… the man who died… it was our dad.” I’d braced myself for his breakdown, chosen my words with surgical care. Instead, he glanced at his watch, a frustrated frown creasing his brow. “I know. You don’t have to keep repeating it.” He waved a dismissive hand. “So if it’s not about the money, just sign the damn thing. Don’t waste my time, I have a meeting.” Numbly, I opened the folder. My eyes scanned the legalese, my mind a fog, until a single sentence snapped everything into sharp, horrifying focus. It described my father-in-law bending down to tie his shoe as a deliberate act of “staging an accident for insurance fraud.” It claimed that because of his attempted scam, the driver, a Miss Nicole Sanders, who was feeling unwell at the time, was understandably distracted and failed to notice the “minor impact.” It was a complete and utter fabrication. A desecration. My fingers tightened on the thin sheet of paper. “Did you watch the surveillance video at the police station?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. He sighed, took a loud sip of his iced tea, and leaned back in his chair. When he spoke, his voice was a notch too loud. “Watch what? You want me to watch your father trying to scam some poor girl? For Christ’s sake, Ava, he’s a grown man trying to shake down a college kid. Aren’t you embarrassed? Because I am.” “He wasn’t scamming anyone!” “Ethan, he raised you for thirty years. You know him better than anyone. Don’t insult his memory with this… this garbage.” Heads began to turn in our direction. I pushed the folder back toward him. The terror and grief that had been strangling me for twenty-four hours were slowly being replaced by a cold, sharp clarity, an awareness that was chillingly sober. “What ‘raised me’? That was your father, Ava. Are you losing your mind?” I thought I had been perfectly clear, but it was like he was speaking a different language. He glared at me, his patience worn thin. Then, as if remembering something, his expression softened, shifting into a mask of strained compassion. “Look, Ava,” he said, his voice now gentle, patronizing. “I know you’re upset about your father’s passing. It’s a shock. That’s understandable.” “But think about it logically. The man was old. He wasn’t contributing anything to the family anymore. If we’re being honest, he was a financial burden on you. On us.” He shrugged. “If he were alive, do you think he could ever earn another fifty thousand dollars? Or even five? We have to be realistic, honey. If you really think fifty is too low, then name your price.” In that instant, something inside me clicked. A terrible, sickening understanding. I lifted my head, and the smile I gave him was brittle. “So when someone gets old, when they stop earning money, they become a burden? Their life can be slandered, bought off for fifty thousand dollars…?” I held his gaze. “Is that what you think of your own father, too, Ethan?” “Shut up.” He snapped. Like a firecracker, he was on his feet, grabbing his glass of iced tea and throwing the contents in my face. Cold liquid and ice cubes dripped down my chin onto my blouse. “Ava, why do you have to be so goddamn difficult?” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you, and you sit here and attack my dad? What kind of daughter-in-law are you?” “So you’re not signing it? Fine. I’m telling you right now, you take this to court, you won’t get a dime.” He snatched the settlement agreement off the table and stormed out of the restaurant. My eyes followed him, watched his rigid back as he pushed through the glass doors and disappeared onto the street. The answer was so obvious now. And so pathetic. My parents didn’t have jobs. That’s true. They had worked for the city for over twenty years before a round of budget cuts forced them into early retirement. But between their pensions and their savings, they were more than comfortable. I’d begged them to travel, to enjoy themselves. They refused. Instead, they lived modestly, saving every extra dollar to help us. To help our family. Ethan didn’t have a mother. So for years, my parents were the ones who watched our son, Leo. They were the ones who picked him up from school, who stayed with him when he was sick so we wouldn’t have to miss work. When Ethan wanted to start his own law firm, it was my parents who sold their large family home, downsized to a small condo, and gave him the money to make his dream a reality. He remembered none of it. And in his mind, my father’s life wasn’t even worth fifty thousand dollars. After twelve years of marriage, I saw it with perfect clarity for the first time. Ethan didn’t love me. Because when you love someone, you love the people who are a part of them. And when you resent someone… that resentment bleeds over, too. When I walked out of the bistro, Ethan’s sleek black BMW was still parked at the curb. A young woman in a bright red dress sat in the passenger seat, pouting playfully as he leaned over to carefully apply her lipstick. He finished, and she rewarded him with a laugh and a long, slow kiss. I stood there, watching them through the windshield. As Ethan pulled back, he saw me. The smile vanished from his face, but there was no guilt in his eyes. Only cold annoyance. The girl’s curious gaze followed his, landing on me. Ethan immediately started the engine and peeled away from the curb. It had rained that morning, and a dirty puddle had collected by the steps. The tires hit it at speed, sending a wave of greasy brown water splashing all over my legs and shoes. I walked home in a daze. When I opened the door, my son, Leo, ran toward me, his arms outstretched for a hug. He stopped short. “Mommy, what happened? Did you fall down?” A fist squeezed my heart. I knelt and pulled his small, warm body into my arms, burying my face in his hair. My mom heard his question and hurried out from the living room. She came back from the bathroom a moment later with a damp washcloth. “Weren’t you having lunch with Ethan? How did you get so filthy?” My throat was thick with unshed tears, but I forced a smile for her. “I just tripped on the way home. It’s nothing.” After I’d cleaned myself up, she pulled me aside, her voice low. “So, about your father… what is Ethan planning to do?” Remembering Ethan’s parting words, the answer felt like swallowing glass. “He… he said we should take it to court.” “Good,” my mother said, nodding firmly. “That’s the right thing to do. Your father deserves justice.” She reached into her pocket and pressed a check into my hand. “This is some money your dad and I have saved up. This process will be expensive. Take it. If you need more, you tell us.” “Mom, I…” “I’m heading home now,” she said, cutting me off gently. “Your father’s waiting for me to make him dinner.” She patted my hand and walked out the door, the soft click of the lock echoing in the sudden silence. The check in my hand felt like a burning coal, searing every nerve. I wanted a divorce. But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell my parents that all their years of love and sacrifice meant absolutely nothing to the man they had treated like a son. And that the person he considered worthless… included me. That night, Ethan didn’t come home. I didn’t sleep in our bed. I curled up next to my son in his small twin bed, holding him tight, and stared into the darkness until dawn. The sky was just beginning to lighten when I got up to make breakfast. Just as I was putting out the plates, the front door opened. It was Ethan. He scanned the apartment, and seeing that Leo wasn’t around, he sat down at the kitchen table. He tapped his fingers on the wood. “We need to talk.” My gaze caught on a smudge of bright red lipstick just inside his collar. I sat down opposite him without a word. He cleared his throat, a faint flush on his cheeks, and pulled two folders from his briefcase, pushing them toward me. One was a divorce agreement. The other was yesterday’s settlement. “You saw us yesterday, so there’s no point in hiding it anymore,” he began, all business. “Her name is Nikki. We’ve been seeing each other for a while.” He took a breath. “I wasn’t planning on a divorce, Ava. But she’s pregnant. And the doctor said… with her condition… she can’t terminate the pregnancy.” Nikki? Nicole Sanders? My hand, reaching for the divorce papers, froze. I stared at him. I had just heard that name at the police station two days ago. The lipstick. The red dress. The fifty thousand dollars. The lies about the accident. It all crashed together in my mind with a sickening, surreal force. Was it possible? Had Ethan gotten his father’s killer pregnant? Seeing my silence, Ethan’s tone softened, becoming almost pleading. “Ava, she’s just twenty-two. For the sake of the sixteen years we had together, please, can you just let this go? Let her go?” “If you sign the settlement, I’ll give you the house, the cars, everything. I’ll add another fifty thousand to the compensation. One hundred thousand. Please.” It was almost funny. In sixteen years together, it was the first time he had ever spoken to me with such humility. And he was doing it for the woman who killed his own father. I picked up the divorce papers and flipped through them to the last page. I held out my hand. A wave of relief washed over his face. He thought I’d agreed. He scrambled in his briefcase for a pen and placed it in my palm. I signed my name, then pushed both folders back to him. “The divorce, I agree to. As for the settlement… I don’t have the right to sign that.” I was speaking the simple truth. But to Ethan, it sounded like a deliberate provocation. His face darkened. He slumped back in his chair, his chest heaving. He couldn’t hold it in. He grabbed the pen and threw it at me. “Ava, I was trying to be nice about this because of our history, but don’t think for a second that I’m begging you,” he snarled. “He was your father. If you don’t have the right, who does?” “When it comes down to it, you just won’t let Nikki go. You’re vicious. Your whole family is vicious.” “What did you say?” I clenched my fists, a hot rage finally boiling over. He could say whatever he wanted about me, but how dare he insult my family, again and again? He slammed his hands on the table and stood up, leaning over me. “I said your whole family is vicious, and your father deserved to get hit by a car!” Crack. The sound of my hand hitting his face echoed in the kitchen. I had used every ounce of my strength. His head snapped to the side. He was stunned for a second, then his eyes narrowed with fury. He lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of my hair. “You bitch. I gave you a chance.” He raised his other hand to strike me. “Daddy, don’t hit Mommy!” Leo stood in the doorway of his room, his little feet bare on the cold floor, his eyes wide with fear. Ethan’s hand froze in mid-air. He looked at our son, then back at me, his jaw tight. With a final, guttural curse, he shoved me away. I stumbled backward and fell to the floor. “You’re going to regret this, Ava.” The front door slammed shut, shaking the walls. I pulled Leo into my arms, holding him tight, my body trembling. I bit down on my lip to stop its quivering and whispered to the empty room. No, Ethan. You’re the one who’s going to regret this. The video of Ethan’s father’s accident went viral. His aunt Carol showed up at my door, her phone in her hand, her body shaking with rage. “Those monsters! My brother died in such a horrible way, and they’re smearing his name like this? Are they even human?” I poured her a glass of water and took the phone. The video trending online was heavily edited. It wasn’t the clear, raw footage I’d seen at the station. This version was grainy, the angle cleverly manipulated to hide the fact that he was tying his shoe. They had slowed down the footage, adding captions that framed his movements as the “preparations of a seasoned insurance scammer.” If I hadn’t seen the real video, I might have believed it myself. No wonder the comment section was a cesspool of vitriol. It’s not that old people turn bad; it’s that bad people grow old. You can tell he’s a pro. Look at that technique. Trying to score one last payday for his kids before he kicks the bucket. What a great dad. He got what he deserved. I should have been heartbroken. But knowing that Ethan was likely behind all of this, all because he thought the dead man was my father, I felt a strange, cold detachment. Aunt Carol slapped her thigh, her voice rising. “Ava, call Ethan right now! Tell him to send a cease and desist, to sue these soulless pigs!” I didn’t tell her that the soulless pig she was referring to was very likely her own beloved nephew. Before I could put my phone down, it rang. It was the police department. “Mrs. Miller? I’m calling to follow up. Have you and your husband decided whether to press charges in your father-in-law’s case? You mentioned you needed to discuss it with him.” I was about to tell the officer to contact Ethan directly when his aunt snatched the phone. “Charges? Of course we’re pressing charges! You go arrest her right now!” she yelled into the receiver. “What is this world coming to? She kills a man and then gets to slander him online? Unbelievable!” “Ma’am, may I ask who is speaking?” the officer asked, taken aback. “I’m the victim’s sister! His flesh and blood! And what I say goes for my nephew, too!” After she hung up, Carol grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door. “Come on. We’re going to Ethan’s office.” When we arrived at the firm, Ethan’s assistant saw me and rushed forward, her expression panicked. “Mrs. Miller, he’s in a meeting…” Carol shoved her aside without breaking stride. “Get out of the way. Do you have any idea who I am? I’m his aunt, and this is his wife. Are you trying to get fired?” Before the poor woman could respond, Carol threw open the door to Ethan’s office. Ethan was in his large leather executive chair. And perched on his lap, straddling him, was the girl, Nikki, feeding him a cookie from her mouth to his. Carol froze for a single second, then a warrior’s cry escaped her lips. She lunged, grabbing Nikki by the arm and yanking her off Ethan’s lap. “You shameless homewrecker! Seducing a married man!” “Ah! Ethan! Ethan, help me!” the girl shrieked, scrambling away as Carol raised her hand to slap her. Before the blow could land, Ethan caught his aunt’s wrist. “You dare stop me?” Carol sputtered, incredulous. “Do you have any idea what’s going on right now? At a time like this, you’re in here messing around with this… this trash?” Ethan shot a venomous glare in my direction, clearly believing I had orchestrated this entire scene. “Carol, this is my personal life,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “Don’t you think you’re overstepping?” “What did you say?” His aunt stood frozen, unable to believe the words coming from the nephew she had always adored. “Fine. Fine! My mistake. I shouldn’t have bothered to care.” She turned on her heel and stormed out. I started to follow her, but Ethan’s voice stopped me. “Ava. If it weren’t a conflict of interest for me to represent you in court, I would personally take Nikki’s case and I would destroy you.” I paused, a cold curiosity taking hold. “I have to ask, Ethan. Why are you treating me like the enemy in all this?” He tilted his head, leaning forward so I could see the faint red mark still on his cheek from my slap. “This? I will never forget this.” I nodded slowly. There was nothing left to say. With the intense media scrutiny, the case was fast-tracked. Less than two weeks later, we were in court. I didn’t hire a lawyer. I sat alone at the plaintiff’s table. Ethan sat in the gallery, catching my eye and giving me a smug, triumphant smirk. As friends and relatives filed in, one of them asked him, “Ethan, why is your wife up there? Shouldn’t that be you?” He waved it off with the air of someone explaining a complex matter to a simpleton. “One of my firm’s lawyers is representing the defendant. You can’t have two lawyers from the same firm on opposite sides of a case. It’s a conflict of interest.” The relative stared at him, confused. “You… you had one of your own employees defend the person who killed your dad? Are you insane?” Ethan didn’t even bother to look at him. “So what? As lawyers, our duty is to justice. Even if it’s family, if they’ve done something wrong, they have to face the consequences.” Such noble words. I allowed myself a small, cold smile from across the courtroom. I wondered if he would still feel that way in about five minutes. The judge’s gavel struck the bench, the sound echoing through the silent room. The clerk began to read the case details aloud. “The court is now in session for the case regarding the vehicular incident on August 29th on Sunnyside Avenue. The deceased, Robert Miller…”

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“My twin sister and I were canaries for Caleb Hayes for five years. A perfect little arrangement in his gilded cage. She slept with him, I handled the money. We had our roles. The night we graduated from Columbia, my sister, Zoe, was draped over some male model with an eight-pack at a downtown speakeasy. She looked up from his abs, suddenly thoughtful. “Chloe,” she said, “the wedding. Are you going, or am I?” I swirled the ice in my drink, grabbing a pair of dice from a nearby table. “Let’s roll for it. Loser goes.” Before we could settle the bet, a familiar, deep voice cut through the noise behind us. “Bro, how was she? My little canary.” “Serviceable,” another voice, identical, replied. Staring at two faces—the exact same face—Zoe and I froze. We spoke in perfect, horrified unison. “Which one of you is Caleb?” 1 We ducked behind a velvet curtain, peeking at the VIP booth, our minds racing. “It’s the one on the right,” I whispered. “No, the left,” Zoe shot back. I stared at her. “You’ve been sleeping with him for years. You can’t tell them apart?” “I don’t exactly look at his face when we’re in bed. And anyway, they’re identical!” she hissed, chewing on a fingernail. “Unless he dropped his pants right now, I’d have no clue.” She had a point. It was an impossible situation. Before we could solve the riddle, we saw the man we knew as Caleb—let’s call him Caleb One—smirk. The smirk was a lazy, cruel curve of the lips. He turned to his twin. “So, bro,” he drawled, his tone dripping with mockery. “The wedding. You going, or am I?” His brother—Caleb Two—paused for a fraction of a second. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, he picked up the dice from the table. “Let’s roll for it. Winner takes the prize.” “Deal.” Caleb One grinned, picking up his own shaker. Their booth erupted in laughter. “Better bring your A-game, Caleb,” one of his friends shouted. “Roll snake eyes and you’re the one walking down the aisle.” “Hell, why don’t you both go?” another slurred. “Give Chloe a real surprise.” “Can you imagine her face on the wedding day?” a third chimed in, his voice laced with venom. “When she finds out she’s been passed between the two of you for the last two years? Priceless.” A woman perched on Caleb One’s lap giggled, covering her mouth. “That Chloe girl is so lucky, having two Hayes brothers fighting over her. I’m almost jealous.” The whole table howled at the jab. Caleb One took a sip of his whiskey, then tilted the woman’s chin up and passed the liquor from his mouth to hers. He laughed softly. “What, you want in on the action? Maybe my brother and I could take care of you, too.” She melted against him, a puddle of feigned desire. “Oh, no,” she cooed, “I only have eyes for you, Caleb.” Zoe and I locked eyes. The disgust was mutual. But beneath it, in her gaze, I saw a flicker of something else. A quiet, heartbreaking disappointment. 2 “You lose, bro.” The dice shaker was lifted. Caleb One had rolled a six. He didn’t seem bothered. He glanced at the woman in his arms and smiled. “This little thing wants to see the Northern Lights. I’m taking her to Iceland. The wedding’s in five days. You hold down the fort. I’ll be back before the big day, I promise.” Caleb Two just gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. A few minutes later, someone in the group yelled, “Let’s go race the cars.” Caleb One stood, clapping his friend on the back. “Anyone who loses better have a fat check for me on the wedding day. Chloe loves counting her money.” No one caught the strangeness in his tone. They all just laughed and agreed. “You got it, man. We’re ready.” “Solid. Let’s roll. Bro, you coming?” Caleb One asked his twin. The group started to get up, but Caleb Two remained seated, staring into space. When he heard his brother’s question, he seemed to snap out of a trance. “Nah, I’m good. Gotta go home and… keep up the act.” Keep up the act. We all knew what that meant. After Caleb Two had also left, Zoe and I finally emerged from our hiding spot, both letting out a breath we didn’t realize we’d been holding. The dice sat on the abandoned table, a relic of a decision we no longer had to make. It seemed our little dilemma had been solved for us. After some quick analysis, we figured it out. The loud, playful, life-of-the-party one was the younger brother, Caleb. The quiet, gentler, more reserved one was the older brother, Connor. “Well, with the economy the way it is, I guess this particular freelance gig is over,” Zoe said grimly. I thought for a long moment. “So, we run?” She nodded, her eyes hard. “You run, I run.” 3 That night, we split up. Zoe went to a clinic for a full check-up, and I went back to the penthouse to pack our severance. On the way, I called a friend from my hometown in Maine and had her rent a secluded house for us on the coast. I booked two one-way bus tickets for five days from now. The same day as the wedding. When I got back to the apartment, I ran right into Connor. He was fresh from the shower, a towel slung low on his hips, his dark hair still dripping onto his shoulders. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, toying with a small, velvet box. He saw me and beckoned with one finger. I walked over, and in the next second, he pulled me into a tight embrace, resting his head against my chest. A cold, thin band of platinum slid onto the ring finger of my left hand. Then he took my right hand, lifted it to his lips, and placed a soft kiss on the bare ring finger there. He smiled. “Baby, in five days, we’re getting married. And I’m going to put the most beautiful pink diamond in the world right on this spot. Okay?” I crushed the heavy feeling in my gut and nodded numbly, unable to speak. He reached out to pull me closer, but his phone buzzed on the nightstand. When he saw the caller ID, his expression shifted, just for a second. He answered, a simple, “Okay,” into the phone. “Are you going out?” I asked. He stood and kissed my forehead, his voice a warm, gentle whisper. “Something came up at the office. I have to take care of it. You be good and get some sleep. Don’t wait up for me.” He disappeared back into the bathroom to dry his hair. The phone on the nightstand buzzed again with a text notification. I picked it up. The passcode, for both their phones, was my birthday—a detail meant to be a sweet part of their charade. They both knew I’d never check. This would be the first and last time. Two messages from someone named “Ash.” Ash: Connor, darling, I heard you’re getting married to that Chloe girl. A show like that? You know I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Ash: I’m back. Come pick me up. Waiting for you xo. Ash. The name echoed in my mind, and then it clicked into place. Ashley Davenport. The queen bee of the New York social scene, Caleb’s childhood sweetheart. The one he’d worshipped, followed around like a puppy, until she left for Oxford after high school. Of course. It all made sense. Connor came out of the bathroom, dressed in a sharp suit. He saw me lying in bed and leaned over me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. “I’m leaving now, baby.” I forced a smile. “Okay.” “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he murmured, his eyes fixed on my lips. I tilted my head up, and our lips met in a brief, feather-light kiss. Satisfied, he lingered, kissing me again and again as if he couldn’t bear to leave. Finally, he pushed himself up. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.” The roar of his car’s engine faded into the night. I wiped my mouth, as if touching something unclean. Then I swung my legs out of bed. Sleep? Not a chance. The walk-in closet full of bags and jewelry wasn’t going to pack itself. An opportunity like this only comes once. I had to hand it to them, Caleb and Connor were generous. The designer bags were all limited editions. The necklaces and rings were either emeralds or diamonds. My mouth practically watered as I looked at a flawless, emerald-cut diamond the size of a pigeon’s egg. Pack it. Pack it all. 4 While I was clearing out the closet, I found the crimson-colored stationery where we had written our vows. I opened it. The handwriting inside was a messy, joyful scrawl. I spread the paper on the floor and, with a blank expression, took a black marker and drew a thick, final line through my name. I had to remind myself. A promise, like a heart, once it’s cracked, can never be repaired to look like it was never broken. After packing everything, I put the voided vows back in the safe. It was where Connor kept his most precious things. Suddenly, a different box caught my eye. On impulse, I pulled it out. It was filled with letters, none of them addressed. The envelope simply read: For Ashley. “Ashley, how’s London? Are you okay?” “I heard you cried over your thesis. Don’t cry, my Ashley. Your beautiful eyes should only shed tears of joy.” “I found it. The pink diamond you always wanted.” “You said you wanted a wedding dress that looked like it was made of stars. I’ve already designed it.” “When you walk down the aisle, I should be the first one to take your hand, right?” “Ashley, I miss you so much. I’m lying. I’m not trying to pressure you to come back.” After reading them, our own vows felt like a sickening joke. I was about to put the letters back when my phone buzzed. Three screenshots from Zoe. The first was a photo of a girl holding a bouquet of roses. In front of her, a man was on one knee, holding a ring box. I stared at the back of the kneeling man for a long time. It was the same suit Connor was wearing when he left. The next two photos were close-ups of two different diamond rings, each one breathtaking. The caption read: “Pink or white, girls? I think the white is so basic. Help me choose!” Followed by another post: “No surprises, no drama. Just my childhood sweetheart, back with the pink diamond he promised me. He proposed! Wish me luck! #blessed #isaidyes” I looked at the simple platinum band on my own finger and laughed until tears started to stream down my face. I pulled it off and placed it on top of the crossed-out vows. I searched for her Instagram profile and scrolled through it for a while. Then I liked the post and left a comment: Congratulations. Just then, a message from Connor came through: Baby, so much to do tonight. I’m not coming home. Love you. The man who had just proposed to another woman was now, as if nothing had happened, calling me baby and telling me he loved me. For a second, I wanted to ask him. Connor, does it ever get tiring, playing this devoted character? But in the end, I swallowed the words, deleted the text, and replied with a simple: Okay.”

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“My husband was keeping a girl. She was young, fresh, and uninhibited in bed, giving him experiences he’d never had before. He’d remind her to take her pill, and she’d pout, joking that she wanted to have his baby. He would warn her, dead serious, that if she ever got pregnant, she’d get an abortion and a goodbye. He would only allow his wife to bear his children. It sounds almost romantic, in a twisted way. So, I told him: “”I’m pregnant.”” He just fell silent. Because we hadn’t slept together in five years. 1 “I cheated on you.” I expected Harris to be completely unfazed, to ask me with a smirk if I’d had a good time. Instead, his brow furrowed. He stared at me for a long moment, saying nothing. Did he not believe me? Oh, right. I’d tried this bluff once before, five years ago. The hatred in my heart had been a living thing back then, but at the last possible second, a sliver of clarity broke through. Ruining myself just to get back at him wasn’t worth it. I pushed Leo, Harris’s best friend, away and got out of the bed. Still, I let my malice guide me. I covered my skin in marks, went home, and told Harris I’d had an affair. “Let’s get a divorce,” I’d said. For a split second, his eyes turned red. But that was the extent of it. The moment I found out about his affair, the elegant, composed woman I was supposed to be shattered. A panic attack seized me, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my fingers curling into rigid claws. I thought I was dying. Harris, ever the pragmatist, calmly found a paper bag for me to breathe into. He calmly explained. He calmly made promises. “Sloane, we’ve been married for five years. I’m a man with needs. Anyone would get tired of eating the same meal every day.” “I’m under a lot of pressure at work. Sometimes I need an outlet for my stress, but you’re my wife. I have to respect you.” “I can give you everything you want. Everything except total physical fidelity.” I looked at him through a blur of tears, the question burning on my tongue. Do you still love me? But I didn’t say a word. He was sleeping with someone else. Love was no longer part of the equation. 2 I washed my face and demanded a divorce. Harris wasn’t surprised. He told me to calm down, to think it through. Of course. Since I’d discovered his infidelity, he had remained perfectly composed, managing the situation with unnerving stability. Even after I slapped him with all the strength I could muster, his gaze remained steady, as if he were watching a child throw a tantrum. When I raised my hand to strike him again, he caught my wrist easily. The chasm of strength between a man and a woman was absolute; I couldn’t break free. Instead, he pulled me into an embrace that had once been my sanctuary but now felt like a cage of ice. He urged me to reconsider. My parents urged me. Even my best friend urged me. And why wouldn’t they? In everyone’s eyes, including my own parents’, I was no longer in Harris’s league. I had simply gotten in on the ground floor, weathering the toughest years of his startup. I was an early-stage venture capitalist who had hit the jackpot. He was a titan of industry, and I was reaping the rewards. A divorce? The sunk costs were too high. The public humiliation would be unbearable. And when three people tell you you’re a tiger, you start to believe it. Back then, I hesitated. To win me back, Harris spared no expense. Gifts arrived in a relentless stream. Beyond the jewelry, he bought me a yacht and a private island in the San Juans, complete with a glass-walled villa and a full-time caretaker. He even cleared his schedule for two weeks to sail there with me, just the two of us. We watched the sunrise over the Pacific and ate sashimi from tuna caught an hour before. We walked along the beach, the sky painted with the brilliant colors of sunset. He was more attentive, more tender than he had been even when we first started dating. For a moment, I allowed myself to be swayed. Until the dead of night. Harris emerged from the shower, his warm body, still damp, wrapping around me from behind. My mind, a traitor, instantly flashed to the chat logs on his phone. The girl’s endless stream of flirty messages and life updates, which he never responded to. But then she’d asked him to pick a style of lingerie for her to wear. He had replied. Just one word. A claw seemed to seize my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. “Do you kiss her when you’re with her?” I asked, my voice cold. Harris’s hand on my waist went rigid. I tore his arm away and ran to the bathroom. The exquisite dinner we’d shared ended up as a pool of sick in the toilet bowl. The two-week vacation was over in two days. 3 After that, I became a detective, obsessively searching his clothes for a clue, a trace of her. A smudge of lipstick on a collar, the lingering scent of perfume. Nothing. His shirts were always pristine. I found nothing. But the string inside me, pulled tighter and tighter with each late night he came home, finally snapped. After one particularly vicious, hysterical fight, he resorted to the silent treatment. The moment I realized I had become a shrew, a bitter nag, panic set in. And then, the cruelest irony of all: I discovered I was pregnant. This should have been the happiest news of my life. I wanted a child more than anything, but we’d struggled for years. We went to clinics. There was nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with him. It just never happened. We had started the IVF conversation. I’d already endured hundreds of injections, my body a pincushion of failed hope. In the emotional wreckage of his affair, I had been bleeding intermittently, too consumed by misery to pay it much mind. I never imagined that this little life I had longed for would choose to arrive now, when all my hope was gone. I didn’t tell Harris. I went to the clinic alone and had the abortion. When I woke up from the anesthesia, I felt a profound, soul-crushing emptiness. That’s when Harris appeared. His face was pale, his eyes filled with a deep, cutting disappointment. “Sloane, is this your revenge? The baby was innocent…” “That’s why I couldn’t bring it into this world. How tragic is a child who isn’t born into love?” “Harris, let’s get a divorce,” I repeated, my voice flat and numb. “No. No divorce.” His resolve was even stronger than mine. 4 Five years passed. We were strangers living under the same roof. The women in Harris’s life came and went. I heard the latest one was a student from a prestigious dance academy. A girl full of life, lithe and supple. He must have really liked her; she’d been around for over six months. The last time I saw him was a few days ago. The circumstances were pure melodrama. A fender-bender on the freeway. His car rear-ended mine. He was clearly taking the girl for a day trip, maybe to the coast. She wore a floral sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She didn’t know who I was. The moment she got out of the car, she rushed over, her face a mask of panic. “Ma’am, I am so, so sorry. It was my fault. I was trying to feed my boyfriend something—he gets an upset stomach if he skips breakfast, and we were in such a rush this morning… I distracted him.” She bit her lip, glossed in a shade of cherry pink. Her cheeks were flushed with a healthy, youthful glow. She was so vibrant, so beautiful, it was hard to look away. “It’s fine,” I said. My gaze shifted to Harris, and I offered him a small smile. “Our tenth anniversary is next Thursday. We should have dinner.” Harris’s expression was unreadable, but the girl’s face went white. She glanced at me, then back at him, her body instinctively pressing closer to his for support. A perfect picture of damsel in distress. Harris, however, subtly shifted away from her touch. “I’ll drive you home,” he said to me. “No need. I have somewhere to be. I wouldn’t want to ruin your plans.” The impact hadn’t been severe, but the seatbelt had jerked tight across my stomach. I was worried about the baby. I got back in my car. Just as I was about to shut the door, a hand stopped me. A shadow fell over me. “Sloane,” Harris said, his voice low as he looked down at me, his eyes dark and turbulent. “Is there nothing you want to say to me?” “Like what?” I replied, my tone laced with irony. “Did you expect me to fly into a rage and attack your mistress?” I let out a short, humorless laugh. “Don’t mistake me for someone so naive. The amount of money you give me is more than enough to buy your peace and quiet.” “Alright, then. We’ll talk next week.” Harris didn’t move. He kept his hand on the door, his gaze locked on mine, a storm brewing beneath the surface. I met his stare calmly. Finally, he pulled his hand away. I hit the gas, merging back into traffic. At the next exit, I took it, leaving the congested freeway behind. The road ahead opened up, wide and clear. Five years of marriage to Harris, and I could never get pregnant. Once I changed the father, it turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. It seemed fate had decided it for us. Our paths were always meant to diverge.”

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“My son, Leo, loved the stupid horror mask. He’d sit in my passenger seat, a cheap piece of plastic pulled over his face, and wait for a car to pull up alongside us at a red light. Then he’d turn, slowly, and watch them jump. It was his masterpiece, his little slice of internet content. This time, his prank went too far. The woman in the silver sedan shrieked, her hands flying off the wheel. Her car swerved, tires screaming, narrowly missing a telephone pole. The rage that surged through me was tidal. I didn’t think; I just reacted. The slap was loud, a crack in the quiet afternoon air. His head snapped back. For a second, there was just shock in his eyes. Then it curdled into something else. Something ugly. “You hit me?” he snarled, his voice a stranger’s. “I’m twenty-five years old. You don’t get to put your hands on me!” He lunged for the steering wheel. The world went sideways, a blur of green and gray. Then, a brutal impact, the shriek of metal, and darkness. When I opened my eyes again, the world was a cramped, dark box. The coppery taste of blood was on my tongue. Duct tape, sticky and suffocating, was plastered across my mouth. My wrists and ankles burned, bound tight with coarse rope. I was in the trunk of my own car. Muffled sounds came from the driver’s seat. It was Leo’s voice, artificially casual. “Hey, man. Need some work done. Money’s not an issue, just need it fast.” “The trunk won’t open, though,” he added, a little too quickly. “Got a baby goat back there for my cousin’s farm. Thing’s a runner.” 1 “Leo, honey, your mom’s not picking up. Can you tell her not to forget your sister?” My husband Mark’s voice, tinny through the car’s speakers. Leo mumbled a reply, his voice sullen. After he hung up, I heard him talking to himself, a low, urgent whisper. “It’s not my fault. She shouldn’t have hit me. If she can’t take a hit, that’s on her. The car’s fine, I’m fine. See? Even God’s on my side.” The car drove for a while, then stopped. A moment later, the rear door opened and the car dipped with new weight. My daughter’s voice. Maya. “Where’s Mom? She was supposed to pick me up.” Through a tiny crack near the taillight, I could see a sliver of the backseat. Leo, impatient, laid on the horn. “Does it matter who picks you up? Mom had to go out. Get in or get out.” Maya pouted, climbing into the back instead of the passenger seat. I heard the familiar tap of her fingers on her phone screen. A moment later, a muffled ringing started. My phone. Then, the automated voice: The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Another sound, the digital chime of a FaceTime call. It rang and rang before cutting out. “That’s weird,” Maya said, her voice closer now. “She never ignores my calls. Something feels wrong.” Hope, sharp and painful, pierced through my terror. My daughter, my clever, intuitive daughter, knew. She was just on the other side of the seat. If I could just make a sound, a single, loud sound. But it was impossible. The space was so tight I felt fused to it, wedged between the spare tire and the frame. I was a part of the car. “Hey,” Maya’s voice again. “I feel a vibration back here. Can you drive a little smoother, Leo?” Leo’s reply was a low growl. He knew. He turned onto a rougher road, one of the old, unpaved service roads by the reservoir. Each bump, each pothole, was a fist slamming into my body. Pain blossomed behind my eyes, sharp and blinding. My teeth rattled in my skull. By the time the car stopped, my clothes were soaked in sweat, and every breath was a struggle in the hot, stale air. “Mom’s not home to cook and Dad’s working late,” Leo announced. “Let’s get some pizza.” “Okay!” The engine cut out. I lay in the suffocating darkness, counting the seconds, which stretched into an eternity. They came back, smelling of pepperoni and garlic, and started the drive home. My body was beginning to fail me. A faint, metallic smell filled my nostrils. With a surge of horror, I realized what it was. My head. The wound on my forehead from the crash was still bleeding. A slow, steady drip. If it didn’t stop, I would die in here. “You know,” Leo said, his voice weaving its way into my fog of pain, “you’re almost done with your driver’s ed. Dad and Mom aren’t here. Want to take a spin?” “I don’t know, Leo… I’m not supposed to drive without an adult.” “I’m an adult. Come on, I won’t tell.” The car stopped. Doors opened and closed. Maya was in the driver’s seat. The car lurched forward, then stopped. Forward, then a sudden brake. Each movement was a fresh wave of agony. She took a turn too fast, and my head slammed against the wheel well. Stars exploded behind my eyes. Forgetting the pain, I started rubbing my face against the rough carpet of the trunk, trying to create any noise, any friction that might be heard over the engine. But the sound of my own skin burning was nothing compared to the groans and rattles of my novice daughter’s driving. Clang! She’d hit a speed bump without slowing down. For a weightless second, I was airborne. Then I crashed down, my spine screaming in protest. A sharp turn. A sudden stop. Another speed bump. Blood, warm and sticky, trickled into my eyes, gluing my eyelids shut. It felt like invisible fists were pummeling me from all directions, breaking me apart piece by piece. My taped mouth couldn’t scream, couldn’t even whimper. Silent tears of pure, desperate agony streamed down my temples. The tape, already a torture device, shifted with the impacts. A corner of it was pushed upwards, forming a small, hard ridge that blocked one of my nostrils. My breathing became a desperate, ragged gasp. Then, one last, violent stop. A sharp, acidic pain shot through my nose. A gush of warmth. A nosebleed. The last of the air was gone. The darkness behind my eyes consumed everything. 2 Maya parked the car at the curb in front of our house, flushed with the thrill of her illicit drive. “That was… intense,” she said, her voice breathless. “I was a little scared, honestly. I almost hit the curb a few times. I think I put a few new scratches on the bumper.” Leo laughed, a sound completely devoid of humor. “Did you get out and check? Did you check the trunk?” Maya shook her head. “Why would I? No one rear-ended me. Is there something in there?” She sniffed the air. “Ugh, what’s that smell? Smells like… old pennies.” She fanned the air with her hand. Leo draped an arm over her shoulder, steering her toward the front door. “Come on, let’s go up. Dad will be home soon. And you have to listen to me now, got it? Otherwise, I’ll tell him you took Mom’s car for a joyride.” “What? You can’t do that! You said you wouldn’t tell!” The threat worked. Maya forgot about the strange smell and scurried up the walkway and into the building. Leo’s eyes flickered to the trunk. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, the excuses forming. She drove too. It wasn’t all my fault. If there’s blame, it’s shared. He rested a hand on the trunk lid, his fingers inches from the release latch. “Don’t move!” He jumped back, startled. It was Maya, returning from the building. “What is wrong with you?” he hissed. “I told you to go inside!” Maya shrank back, clutching her phone. “I’m just worried about Mom, Leo. She’s never had her phone off for this long. What if something happened to her?” Leo’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He fumbled in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, his hands shaking slightly as he lit one. “You’re overthinking it,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “She’s just pissed. We’re growing up, we don’t need her hovering over us 24/7. She’s got this crazy control thing, and she can’t handle that we’re not her little robots anymore. She’s probably just off somewhere sulking.” He took another drag, leaning in conspiratorially. “Or maybe… there’s another possibility.” Maya’s eyes widened. “What?” “Think about it,” he said, his voice low and slick. “Mom and Dad have been… distant. What if she’s finally had enough? What if she’s leaving us? Found someone else.” The idea hit Maya like a physical blow. Her face crumpled, her voice trembling. “No…” Leo saw his opening. He put an arm around her, a parody of a comforting brother, and led her away from the car and back toward the house. The next time I woke, the pain found me first. The wound on my head had scabbed over, pulling the skin tight. My bones felt like chalk, ready to crumble. I took a reflexive breath and felt the familiar blockage, the suffocating pressure. The terror came rushing back. My body was as stiff as a board. If Leo didn’t come back soon, I would die. For real, this time. The fear of death was a powerful motivator. My survival instinct took over. I twisted my head, rubbing my face against the abrasive trunk liner again and again. Millimeter by millimeter, I worked a corner of the duct tape loose. Hundreds of repetitions, my skin raw and bleeding, pushing with my tongue from the inside. Finally, a section of my mouth was free. I gulped at the stale, hot air. After a moment, I tried to scream, to call for help. But the trunk’s insulation, a feature I’d once praised for its quiet ride, was now my prison wall. My voice was a hoarse, broken croak. It was the ultimate irony. I had bought this car. This quiet, safe, family car. My own cocoon had become my coffin. The blood from my nose had run down my throat. My mouth was coated in a vile, sticky film. Every breath was a mix of rust and rot that made my stomach heave. And the person responsible for it all was my son. The thought broke me. Sobs wracked my stiff body. The tears, at least, were useful. They lubricated my crusted-over eyes, allowing me to blink them open. Screaming was useless. But I could still move my head. I gathered what little strength I had left and slammed my head backwards into the trunk lid. Again. And again. Maya’s bedroom window overlooked the parking spot. After what felt like a hundred impacts, a piercing electronic shriek split the night. The car alarm. I saw her silhouette appear in the window. She rubbed her eyes. “Is that our car?” I heard her faint voice. “There’s no one around. Who would have hit it?” She went to knock on Leo’s door, but he was already passed out. The noise of her knocking finally roused him. He emerged, his face a mask of groggy anger. “Maya, our car alarm is going off.” “It’s not,” I heard him slur. My movements were getting weaker, my head a dull, throbbing weight. I couldn’t trigger it again. “You’re imagining things,” Leo snapped, his voice rough with sleep. “It was probably just some kids messing around. Go look if you’re so worried.” He gave her a shove. “And lay off the fantasy novels. I let you drive today, don’t push your luck. You bother me again and I’ll lock you in the car for a night.” His threat landed. Maya stared down at the silent car for five long minutes. Not a soul was in sight. A shiver ran down her spine. “Maybe I did imagine it,” she whispered to herself. “Maybe I was just too stressed from driving.” 3 At ten-thirty, Mark came home carrying a bottle of bourbon and a bag of takeout from the deli. His daily reward for a long day. He was exhausted. Seeing that both kids were in their rooms, he didn’t bother them. But after two sips of his drink, a sudden stillness registered. Normally, I would have complained about him drinking on a weeknight before relenting. Tonight, the house was silent. And the light in our bedroom was off. He knocked on Maya’s door, then Leo’s. “Leo, where’s your mother? I forgot to ask you earlier. She wasn’t answering her phone. I thought she was with you.” Maya appeared in her doorway, her eyes misty. She repeated the theory Leo had planted in her head. “Dad… what if Mom left us? What if she found someone else?” Mark’s face hardened. He poked her gently on the forehead. “What kind of nonsense is that? Your mother and I argue sometimes, sure. But we’ve been married for almost thirty years. Stop reading that garbage online. Your mother has a good head on her shoulders.” He turned to Leo. “What did she say to you today?” Leo shifted his weight. “Just… that she had to go out of town for a bit. Urgent business. A friend picked her up. Said you’d take care of us.” Maya’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t what he had told her. Mark, however, looked relieved. He ruffled Maya’s hair. “See? It’s fine. Her phone probably died. She’s probably on a plane by now. Try calling again in an hour.” He went back to his bourbon, and the kids retreated to their rooms. Thirty minutes later, the car alarm blared through the neighborhood again. “Shut that thing up!” someone yelled from a window above. “Seriously! People have to work tomorrow! One more time and I’m calling the cops!” Mark grumbled along with them. “Whose car is that? So obnoxious.” He sighed. “Your mother would be out there giving them a piece of her mind right now. I wonder who she went to see. She must have been in a real hurry not to even text. I’ll have to get the full story when she gets back.” Mark and I, we were a story that started in college. The daily grind of life hadn’t eroded our foundation, but it had built walls. We still shared the little things, the trivial annoyances and victories of the day. But as the kids got older, we’d become more ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ than ‘Claire’ and ‘Mark.’ It’s hard to let that guard down once it’s up. He finished his drink and started cleaning up the table. Down below, the alarm finally sputtered into silence. Maya burst out of her room, staring down at the street. “Dad! It’s our car! I wasn’t wrong!” she exclaimed. “It went off two hours ago, too. Either someone is messing with it, or something’s broken!” Mark rubbed his temples, a headache forming. “Alright, alright. I’ll go check it out. Can’t have one night of peace without your mother around.” He started for the door. “You two stay put.” A bead of sweat trickled down Leo’s temple. “Dad, wait!” he called out. “You’ve been drinking. I’ll go. You’ve got work tomorrow. Don’t want you catching a cold out there.” A flicker of warmth crossed Mark’s face. “Okay. Thanks, son. That’s good of you.” Leo grabbed his jacket and was out the door before Maya could say a word. 4 I didn’t know what was happening outside, but triggering the alarm a second time had filled me with a desperate, renewed hope. I had rested. I had strength now. Maybe this time, I could pop the trunk open. Freedom was right there. I heard the soft crunch of footsteps on the pavement approaching. Joy surged through me. Someone was finally here. I adjusted my position, using my back for more leverage. I coiled my body and pushed. The alarm shrieked, a beautiful, beautiful sound. The footsteps stopped right behind the car. “Help…” I rasped, the word a mangled sob. “Help… me…” The next sound made my blood run cold. The chirp of the car being unlocked. The alarm cut off abruptly. I heard Leo’s voice call up towards our apartment. A moment later, I could just make out Maya waving back from her window. I took a deep breath, but the hot, stagnant air only made me colder. I knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that it was Leo. And he wasn’t here to let me out. “Mom,” his voice was a strained whisper, right outside the trunk. “Can you promise you won’t tell anyone?” “I… promise,” I croaked, trying to pour every ounce of sincerity I had into the broken word. I prayed it would be enough to reach whatever was left of my son. He didn’t answer. Instead, I heard the power-on chime of my phone. The tap-tap-tap of his thumbs on the screen. Then, a bitter, humorless laugh. He read the text aloud, his voice dripping with false sentiment. “‘Mark, don’t look for me. I’ve found someone new. Our life together… it’s become so predictable. I can’t do it anymore. Forgive me. Raise our children well. I know this is hard, but I don’t have the courage to face you. Let’s just say goodbye.’” My body went rigid. Every word was a nail in my coffin. I saw flashes of my life—Leo as a baby, his tiny hand wrapped around my finger. How had that innocent child become this monster? Click. The trunk popped open. I gasped, sucking in the cool night air. A dark silhouette loomed over me, blocking out the stars. “You see, Mom,” Leo said, his voice shaking, “I’m scared. After what I did… you’d call the cops. My whole life would be ruined.” He glanced around, his movements jerky and paranoid. “And you hit me first! I’m twenty-five! I have a right to be respected! This is on you. This is karma.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another roll of tape. This one was wider, thicker. Industrial. His face was a twisted mask of fear and fury as he leaned over me.”

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The fifth year I was the underworld kingpin’s secret lover, he lost everything and decided to eat a bullet. My immediate, gut reaction was to run. I was halfway through packing a bug-out bag when a line of text materialized in my vision, hovering like a translucent banner ad. 【Don’t worry, the male lead doesn’t die. He’ll make a comeback in six months, crush all his enemies, and the female lead is the little angel who redeems him.】 【As for the side piece who runs away? She dies. Horribly.】 In a heartbeat, I switched allegiances. Dropping the bag, I flew to the rooftop and threw myself at his legs, wrapping my arms around them and bursting into manufactured tears. “Cole, don’t! That ridiculous diamond you gave me? The one the size of a robin’s egg? I haven’t even had a chance to wear it yet.” The moment the words left my mouth, the comment feed exploded. 【Wow. She might as well pull the trigger for him.】 1 When Cole turned to look at me, his eyes were wide with shock. “Why are you still here?” I clutched the cuff of his pants, giving it a playful, desperate shake. “You promised you’d protect me for life. You wouldn’t let me leave when bullets were flying, so you can’t go back on your word now, can you?” The comment stream was still scrolling frantically across my vision, a semi-opaque curtain over the world. 【No wonder he’s so ruthless with her later. She deserves it.】 【He’s literally on a rooftop about to kill himself, and she’s still treating him like her personal ATM.】 【He’s only got one bullet left for himself. This is brutal.】 【Well, if the side piece wasn’t selfish and vapid, how would the main female character’s kindness shine through?】 【Just wait. He’ll pull the trigger, the gun will misfire, a passerby will take him to the hospital, and the female lead will show up with all her resources to save the day. Can’t wait for her entrance!】 My mouth twitched as I read the comments, but my arms only tightened around Cole’s waist. He used to be the kind of man who commanded respect and fear in every corner of the city, the kind of man whose word was law. I could still feel the hard ridge of the scar on his abdomen where he’d taken a bullet for me years ago, but now he was so thin I could feel the sharp edges of his hip bones. He stared out at the river of headlights flowing on the streets below, his forehead pressed against the cold steel of the gun. His voice was hollow. “I’m a ghost, Annie. The guns are gone, my network is dismantled, and I’m drowning in debt. I can’t protect you anymore.” He nodded toward the apartment. “There’s a card in the nightstand. It’s the last of my cash, five hundred thousand. The pin is your birthday. Take it and go.” I couldn’t see his expression, but it was the first time I’d ever heard that voice—a voice that had orchestrated a hundred high-stakes deals—sound so broken. Even at his absolute lowest, his first thought was creating an escape route for me. I tugged on his shirt, my tone suddenly shifting, becoming serious and unyielding. “No. If it comes to it… I’ll protect you.” At that, Cole’s head snapped around. His dark eyes were a vortex of complex emotions: surprise, disbelief, and a flicker of something deeper, a hidden panic. Before he could speak, I quickly added, “Today is our fifth anniversary. I got you a present!” The wind whipped harder across the rooftop, making his thin dress shirt snap and billow. Beneath the flimsy fabric, I could see the faint outline of bruises that hadn’t yet healed on his back, stretched over the solid muscle beneath… He stared at me for a long moment before his voice, now raspy, finally came out. “You got me a present?” In five years, Cole had given me a handgun encrusted with diamonds, a one-of-a-kind emerald necklace worth millions, and even a vintage muscle car I’d mentioned offhandedly, which he’d had sourced from a private auction overnight. But he had never received a single real gift from me. Back in the apartment, Cole stared blankly at the “gift” I presented. I held up a slinky, black slip dress from La Perla, pressing it against his broad chest and studying the fit with a critical eye. “Hmm, I think it’s a little small,” I said, my expression a perfect mask of sincerity. Then, with a sigh of feigned frustration, “And they have a strict no-return policy. What a shame. I guess I’ll have to wear it.” A dry, choked laugh escaped his lips. It was the first time he’d almost smiled all night. He turned and, without a word, started walking back toward the rooftop. He was gone around the stairwell corner before I could even react. I stomped my foot in frustration. “Cole! You petty bastard!” His deep voice echoed back from the hallway. “Forgot my phone out there. I’m just grabbing it.” That night, the black slip dress I’d “accidentally” bought in the wrong size ended up on me after all. It had also added another two thousand dollars to the mountain of debt now attached to his name. He never said a word of blame. He just quietly folded it and placed it in the closet. After his fall, the word went out from his enemies: no legitimate company was to hire him. To cover rent and our expenses, he started fighting in an underground fight club they called “The Cage.” But no matter how late he got home, or how battered he was, he always came back and cooked for me. A protein, a starch, a vegetable. Different every day. Curled up on the sofa of our cramped studio apartment, I watched him walk through the door. His hands were wrapped in bloody gauze, and a fresh cut split the skin over his left eyebrow, beading with blood. The first thing he did was tie on an apron and start methodically chopping vegetables in the kitchenette. Who would believe that just a few weeks ago, this was “King Cole,” the man who could crush a rival’s wrist with one hand and made every syndicate boss in the state nervous? The entire apartment was barely two hundred square feet. His old gun safe was bigger than this. I sat on the sofa, eating the slices of mango he’d prepared for me earlier, and discreetly pulled out my phone. The screen displayed my own bank balance: eight million dollars. All “pocket money” from Cole over the years. Under the bed, in a shoebox, was the emerald bracelet and the limited-edition watch he’d given me. Any one of those items could cover the rent on this place for a decade. A pang of guilt hit me, and I glanced over at him. He’d taken his shirt off at some point. All he was wearing was a cheap, pink floral apron tied over his bare torso as he cleaned. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a sheen of sweat highlighting the hard lines of his muscles. He looked like some kind of dangerous, domestic demon. My heart gave a stupid little lurch, and I kicked my foot out, stubbing my toe hard on the coffee table. I cried out in pain. Cole was there in a second, kneeling in front of me, his large hands carefully cradling my foot. “You don’t have to go through this with me,” he said, his eyes downcast, his voice muffled. “Take the money I told you about. Find somewhere safe, start over. Don’t let my mess drag you down.” I pouted, letting my lower lip tremble. “I haven’t complained that you can’t even afford to buy bullets anymore, and now you’re trying to kick me out?” His mouth opened, likely to explain that wasn’t what he meant, but I cut him off. “I get it! You’re mad that I use too much hot sauce on my food every night. It’s too expensive, isn’t it?” I leaned in, my voice rising with indignation. “What did you say when you saved me from those kidnappers down in Mexico?” I poked his chest. “You said you’d protect me for life. And now you want to dump me for some girl who can help you fight your battles, is that it? You’re a liar, Cole!” He looked completely out of his depth. He reached out and covered my mouth with his hand. The palm was warm and smelled of antiseptic. His Adam’s apple bobbed. It took him a long moment to form the words. “I just don’t want you to suffer because of me,” he finally rasped. “This apartment leaks when it rains, and you wake up cold. The strawberries I bought yesterday were on sale, and you took one bite and didn’t touch the rest. I can’t even buy you that perfume you like anymore.” He finally met my eyes, his own filled with a deep, aching pain. “Annie, you deserve a hundred times better than this.” Logically, when an underworld kingpin falls, the woman he’s been keeping is supposed to grab the cash and vanish. But after five years together, how could I actually leave him? He might have been a monster to the rest of the world, but he never let even the shadow of danger touch me. No matter how busy he was, he always remembered I hated onions. Even when his rivals cornered us at our front door, his first move was always to push me behind him and murmur, “Don’t be scared. I’m here.” I grabbed the collar of his apron, yanked him down onto the sofa with me, and leaned in to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, right next to the cut. Beneath the sting of the antiseptic, I could taste the familiar, cool scent that was uniquely him. “You promised me a lifetime of protection,” I whispered against his skin. “Not a day less, not an hour, not a minute. You’re stuck with me, Cole.” The comment feed flickered back to life. 【HOLY SHIT! Did she just pin him to the couch? This is the guy who used to be a crime lord!】 【OMG! His ears are turning red! He’s blushing? Where’s the ruthless bastard who broke a guy’s legs?】 【Don’t ship it! Don’t ship it! The female lead is about to make her entrance! The next plot point is him getting humiliated at the fight club, and she swoops in with her connections to save him. That’s the one true pairing!】 【The side piece is just cannon fodder. The plot is going to write her out sooner or later. If you ship this now, you’re just setting yourself up for heartbreak.】 I ignored them. My hands slid from his apron to tangle in his hair, and I deepened the kiss. Cole’s eyes fluttered shut, and the blush that started at his ears spread down his neck. As I pulled back for a breath, he seized the opportunity, pushing me away gently. He scrambled to his feet, his voice stumbling over the words. “I—I have to… the rice will burn. I have to cook.” Watching him practically flee into the kitchen, I couldn’t help but smile. So, even the most feared man in the city had a shy side. The comment feed went wild again. 【Ahhhh he’s so adorkable! Who can resist that contrast!】 【I’m a terrible person, I’m starting to think the side piece and the male lead are kind of cute together…】 【Hey now, let’s not let our morals get swayed by a pretty face (and abs)!】 【Don’t do it, girl. She’s destined to be killed off by the plot. You’re just drinking poison thinking it’s wine.】 I had started noticing these strange floating lines of text a long time ago. At first, I dismissed them as visual floaters, stress-induced hallucinations. But then, the things they predicted started coming true, one after another. I had no choice but to accept it. From their chatter, I learned that my world was a novel. And I was the disposable side character. My purpose was to serve as a catalyst in the main characters’ love story. Early on, I was the selfish foil to the heroine’s selfless virtue. Later, I was meant to be a cheap obstacle to thicken their romantic plot. After I understood, I tried to fight it, to change the script. But most of the time, I felt like a mindless NPC, my actions controlled by an invisible hand. Like the day Cole decided to end his life. The “plot” had taken over, and my only impulse was to pack my bags and run. He was already raising the gun. But at the last second, a comment appeared, jolting me back to myself. Seeing the feed mention the exact timing of the heroine’s appearance, a new plan began to form in my mind… In the following days, Cole continued to fight, coming home bruised but always with enough money for rent and food. I lay on the couch, happily eating a cupcake he’d just brought home for me. Then, a new comment appeared: 【Tonight’s the night. The villain is going to show up at the underground casino. The casino is owned by the female lead’s family, and she happens to be there tonight. She’ll save him, and it’s love at first sight.】 【My girl is finally making her entrance! I’m so excited to see the sparks fly!】 【Here comes the female lead. Time for Annie, the side piece, to make her exit.】 【I suddenly feel a little bad for her. The first thing he does with his winnings is buy her a cupcake. She probably thinks he’s madly in love with her, not realizing personal feelings get erased by the power of the plot.】 So, the day had come. After Cole left, I picked out my heaviest, stud-covered clutch. Inside, I tucked a bottle of military-grade pepper spray he’d given me years ago. I found the entrance to the underground casino easily enough. As I approached the door, I could already hear the sounds of jeering laughter and angry shouts from within. I pushed my way through the crowd and saw him immediately. Cole, surrounded in the center of the fighting pit. His shirt was torn, revealing a patchwork of old and new bruises on his shoulder. Standing opposite him was Griffin, his foot planted arrogantly on Cole’s discarded boxing glove. Griffin was the “villain” the comments were talking about. He and Cole had a history, and now that Cole was down on his luck, Griffin was here to twist the knife. “Well, well, Cole,” Griffin sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “You used to be such a big shot. Backed me into a corner so tight I almost threw myself off a bridge. Look at you now. Getting your face beat in for rent money?” He kicked the glove away. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you fifty grand. You get on your knees and let me beat on you for half an hour. After that, I’ll consider telling the house to pay you what you’re owed.” The crowd hooted with laughter. One of Griffin’s lackeys, a guy named Leo, sidled up to him and raised his voice. “Hey, Griff, you hear? Even in this state, his little girlfriend is still sticking around!” Another crony chimed in. “Yeah, can you believe it? Used to be dripping in diamonds, now she’s eating instant noodles with him. Girl must be brain-damaged!” Seeing Cole remain silent, Leo stepped closer, his face a mask of provocation. “How about this, Cole? You get on your knees and bow to Griffin three times. Then you call over your little piece of ass to have a few drinks with us. We’ll let you walk out of here. Deal?” Cole’s fists clenched so tight his knuckles went white. He swung at Leo, but he’d taken a beating the night before, and his movements were a fraction too slow. Leo’s men grabbed him, forcing him to the ground. Griffin strode forward and landed a vicious kick to Cole’s stomach. “You think you’re still King Cole? You can’t even protect your own woman now!” Cole gritted his teeth, a vein throbbing in his temple, but he still forced the words out. “Whatever you want, you do it to me. Don’t touch her.” The comments were on fire. 【What a scumbag! Using a woman to threaten someone!】 【This is it! He has to be thoroughly humiliated so that when the female lead saves him, he’ll fall for her instantly. She’ll become his guiding light.】 【Poor male lead. Why do they always have to torture the guy before giving him a crumb of happiness? Can’t people just fall in love normally?】 【Right?】 【That’s just how these stories work. Without the drama, what’s the point?】 The comment feed was arguing with itself. I let out a small breath of relief. If there was dissent, it meant there was a chance for change. Just as they were forcing Cole to his knees, and just before the destined heroine, Clara, could step out of the shadows and deliver her grand rescue, I tightened my grip on my purse and charged forward. The stud-covered clutch connected with the back of Leo’s head with a sickening thwack. “Try touching him,” I snarled. I stepped in front of Cole, hefted the clutch again, and swung it squarely into Griffin’s shoulder. “Kneel for your daddy, maybe,” I spat. “Griffin, when you used to see Cole, you barely had the nerve to breathe in his direction. Don’t get fucking cocky now that you’re playing king of the ashes.” Griffin winced in pain and lunged for me, but Cole surged up from the ground and shoved him back. He moved to stand in front of me, the cold fury in his eyes a terrifying echo of the man he used to be. The man who ruled this city. “Don’t. Touch. Her.” Leo, stunned for a second, broke into a cold laugh. “Cole, you can’t even save yourself. What makes you think you can save her?” I wasn’t worried. Leo and his goons didn’t have the plot armor of a main character; they couldn’t do anything to me. And as for the main characters, they weren’t allowed to break the law. Griffin couldn’t touch me either. I glanced down at the dent my clutch had made on his thick skull and then at the new scuff mark on my bag. A wave of regret washed over me. I should have put a brick in it. Leo was still rubbing his head, pointing a finger at me. “You bitch, you hit me—” Cole didn’t hesitate. He put his foot right in Leo’s chest. But there were too many of them. If a real fight broke out, Cole would lose. Badly. As I was trying to figure out a way out of this, the sound of a powerful engine and a sharp screech of tires cut through the noise. A black Maybach had pulled right up to the entrance. The tinted window lowered just an inch, revealing half a man’s face, wreathed in the smoke of an expensive cigarette. The man had a high brow bone and sharp lines etched at the corners of his eyes. He tapped a finger against the window frame, his gaze landing on me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher. Griffin’s furious eyes happened to catch sight of the car. He froze. A moment later, he was striding purposefully toward the Maybach. The comment feed went into a frenzy. 【He’s here, he’s here! That man is finally here!】 【The heir to the country’s biggest corporate empire! He’s so hot!】 【The big shot from NYC came all the way here to personally deliver an investment to Griffin. Griffin’s about to hit the big time! This is why he’s acting so arrogant.】 【Is it just me, or has the NYC big shot been staring at our little drama queen?】 【Yeah, that’s weird. Don’t tell me she’s his runaway heiress or something?】 My head slowly turned, and my eyes met the man’s dark, intense gaze. Oh, crap. It was Marcus. My heart hammered against my ribs. I grabbed Cole’s hand and started pulling him away. “Let’s go.”

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My wife, Claire, is the picture of emotional stability. She never checks my phone, never questions where I’ve been. She trusts me completely. All my friends tell me how lucky I am, what a great wife I have—so easygoing, so in love with me. Until, by chance, I stumbled upon her secret blog: “Since it can’t be you, it doesn’t matter who I marry.” “I see it now. Calmness and passionate love can’t exist in the same heart. With you, I was never this calm.” “Thank God our daughter looks like me. That way, when the three of us travel, there’s no shadow of anyone else.” Then I saw the post from our wedding anniversary. The day she took our daughter on an overseas trip with her first love. The day she let our daughter call him “Daddy.” In the blog, she wrote that it was the only way she could pretend he was her husband. Someone in the comments called her story tragic. I thought so, too. So I handed her divorce papers. I told her she could have our daughter. For the first time in our marriage, she became hysterical, screaming at me, demanding to know what more I could possibly want. “Who has it better than you? No man has it this easy! Don’t you dare act like you’re the victim here!” I just looked at her left hand, at the stark, empty space on her ring finger, and my voice was quiet when I replied. “Someone else can have this bargain. I’m done.” “I don’t want a woman whose heart belongs to another man.” 1 My wife, Claire, has her emotions on lockdown. She never checks my phone, never asks where I’ve been. She trusts me completely. My friends all say I hit the jackpot. “An easy-going wife who loves you? You’re living the dream, man.” And I’d smile, a smile that never quite reached my eyes. Tonight was a prime example. One by one, my friends’ phones buzzed with texts from their wives, summoning them home. Mine remained dark and silent. Mark, the last one left, nudged me with his elbow. “Seriously, Ethan. You have no idea how lucky you are. A wife like Claire… most of us would kill for that kind of peace.” I just nodded and finished my beer. After they’d all cleared out, I sat there for a while, draining one last bottle, building up the courage to go home. The house is always dark when I get back, so quiet I can hear the soft, even rhythm of Claire’s breathing from the bedroom. My foot bumped against the recycling bin, sending a clatter of glass through the silence. I froze, holding my breath, hoping I hadn’t woken her. A moment later, the bedroom door creaked open. Claire emerged, shuffling in her slippers, her eyes clouded with sleep. “You’re home,” she said, her voice flat. “Get some sleep. You’ve been drinking, so I’ll go sleep in Maya’s room.” No annoyance. No anger. Not a ripple of emotion. Any other woman would have been furious—me coming home late, stinking of bourbon. Claire didn’t even raise her voice. It wasn’t the first time. I’ve dated other women, I know the little dramas, the playful arguments. Claire had none of that. Her emotional stability was so absolute, it was almost inhuman. But there wasn’t a word of concern, either. I stood there, rooted to the spot, as she walked toward our daughter’s room. The question I wanted to ask, the one I was too afraid to voice, swirled in my throat. It came out as a pathetic, desperate plea. “Claire? I feel a little sick. Could you… maybe make me some tea?” Her hand paused on the doorknob. She looked back over her shoulder, her expression as gentle, and as distant, as ever. “Just go to sleep, Ethan. You’ll feel better in the morning.” The door clicked shut, sealing off whatever else I might have said. The distance between us was more than just a single door. It was an ocean. 2 Claire and I met on what was supposed to be a blind date. Sort of. My actual date was running late. I was sitting at a small table in a crowded Chicago coffee shop when Claire walked up and sat down opposite me. We’d mistaken each other for our respective dates, but when I saw her, I felt a jolt. She was beautiful in a clean, understated way—a simple floral dress, a touch of makeup, nothing more. After a few minutes of confused pleasantries, she looked me straight in the eye and asked a question that short-circuited my brain. “What’s the absolute soonest you could get married?” Somehow, the words, “Whenever you want,” fell out of my mouth. I didn’t even think to ask her why she was in such a hurry. We met that morning and were at the courthouse by the afternoon. Before my brain had fully processed it, I was a married man. It wasn’t entirely crazy; my family had been pressuring me to settle down for years. Our marriage was… polite. We were like courteous roommates. I told myself it was fine, that we just needed time. In an age of swipe-right dating, horror stories of couples who dated for years only to break up were everywhere. I figured we were just doing it in reverse. But I waited. And waited. I waited until our daughter, Maya, was born. I waited for five years. Nothing changed. One night, a junior colleague from work—one who had a very obvious crush on me—texted me after midnight, asking for a ride home from a bar. Claire was lying right beside me in bed. She didn’t so much as stir. I hesitated, then nudged her, asking if she minded. Her answer was chillingly reasonable. “She’s a young woman out on her own. It can be tough. She wouldn’t ask you, a married man, unless she was really in a bind.” She was giving me permission. More than that, she was encouraging me to go. She knew about this colleague’s inappropriate texts. She’d seen them. But she didn’t care enough to even want an explanation. It was then that the cold truth finally settled in my bones. Claire didn’t love me. We could be married for a hundred years, and she would never love me. 3 I woke the next morning to an empty house. Claire and Maya were gone. I stood barefoot in the living room, looking around at the minimalist, grayscale decor. It felt less like a home and more like a showroom, devoid of warmth or life. Claire never cooked. We either ordered takeout or I ate at the office. For the first time, I asked myself if this was the life I really wanted. All I’d ever wanted was simple: a marriage that didn’t feel like a business arrangement, a partner I could argue with and laugh with. Claire wasn’t that person. Just then, my phone rang. It was work. I had to fly to Paris for an urgent meeting. It was a normal part of the job; our company did a lot of international trade. I sent Claire a text to let her know. Hours passed before a single word appeared in response: Ok. I scrolled up through our chat history. It was a long, one-sided monologue. Me sharing funny stories from my day, asking her questions. Her replies, when they came at all, were usually a single word answering only my last question. Once, when the silence had become too much to bear, I’d confronted her. “Why do you never text me back?” I can still picture her, holding a glass of water, her eyes as calm and still as a frozen lake. “We live together, Ethan. We see each other every day. What is there to talk about?” I was speechless. The truth was, she barely spoke to me at home, either. She only ever responded when my “nagging,” as she called it, became too much to ignore. I put my phone down and laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. As I was about to leave, I realized I’d forgotten my passport. I went to the study to look for it, opening the drawer of the old desk. Tucked away in the back, I found an old iPhone, a model from five or six years ago, preserved with meticulous care. Claire wasn’t a sentimental person; she didn’t keep old things. This was out of character. A flicker of curiosity turned into something heavier as I powered it on. The battery was full. She used this. She used it often. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. I opened the phone. The contacts list had only one entry: The One I Can’t Forget. My hand trembled as I opened the messaging app. There were thousands of texts, all sent from Claire to this number. The earliest was from before we’d even met. Leo, are you okay? I know you’ll never get this, but I have to send it somewhere. I got married today. He’s… a lot. He always wants things from me. Leo, I’m pregnant. It’s funny, isn’t it? We always talked about having a baby together. Another broken promise. There were more. So many more. The words blurred as the blood froze in my veins. I backed out of the messages, my thumb shaking. I didn’t want to see any more of how Claire had spent our marriage confiding in the ghost of her first love. To her, I was just an annoyance. My thumb accidentally tapped on a blog app. The account was anonymous, but the profile picture was a photo of two hands, fingers intertwined. I knew, with a certainty that hollowed me out, that the other hand wasn’t mine. Claire never took photos with me. Not even a simple snapshot of us holding hands. The blog posts were written in plain English, but they were a language I couldn’t comprehend. It was never going to be you. So it didn’t matter who it was. I’ve learned that true peace and true love can’t live in the same heart. With you, my heart was never peaceful. I thank God every day that Maya looks like me. That way, when the three of us are together, there’s no shadow of anyone else.

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The day Cole Donovan brought his ghost home, I was standing in the marble entryway, spatula in hand, about to ask if he wanted me to add another course to dinner. Then I saw her. The ghost. She pointed a trembling finger at me, her eyes welling with cinematic tears. “I knew it!” she cried, her voice cracking with practiced despair. “It’s always true, what they write in the novels! The second I go abroad, you find a replacement and install her in your house!” A replacement? 1 I glanced down at my stark white chef’s coat, the grease-resistant clogs on my feet, and the silicone spatula I was still holding. If this was a casting call for a stand-in, nobody had bothered to give me the script. Before I could process the sheer absurdity of it, the woman—Claire Sterling, I’d soon learn—doubled down. “No wonder you’ve been so distant these past few years, barely a word while I was away. You had a new toy to play with. You threw me away, your first love, like I was nothing.” Her voice rose to a dramatic crescendo. “And now that I’m back, you can’t even bear to send her away. Fine. If that’s how it is, I’ll leave. I’ll leave you two to your happiness!” Watching her, a fragile porcelain doll on the verge of shattering, I was utterly dumbfounded. What in the Lifetime movie was happening? Wasn’t I Charlotte Hale, the chef Cole Donovan had personally headhunted and offered a one-million-dollar annual salary to manage his gastritis with my culinary skills? How did I get promoted from private chef to home-wrecking doppelgänger? Cole himself looked pained, a deep furrow forming between his brows. “Claire, what on earth are you talking about? You were gone for three months, and I flew to Paris to see you every other week. How is that ‘barely a word’?” He gestured toward me, his hand slicing through the thick tension in the air. “And this is Charlotte Hale, my chef. She’s not… whatever it is you’re imagining.” “A chef?” A single, perfect tear traced a path down her cheek. “Since when are chefs young and… and look like that?” “I like to wear white,” she choked out, pointing at my uniform coat. “And she’s wearing white. If that’s not a sign, what is? Cole, darling, you don’t have to lie to me.” I looked down at my functional, double-breasted cotton coat, then at her ethereal white silk dress that probably cost more than my first car. The only thing they had in common was the absence of pigment. An involuntary twitch started at the corner of my eye. I sighed, deciding to intervene with logic—a futile weapon, I’d soon discover. “Ms. Sterling, I really am the chef. If you don’t believe me, you can come to the kitchen. There’s a chicken soup simmering on the stove right now.” She clapped her hands over her ears and stomped a stiletto-clad foot. “I’m not listening! I’m not! And even if there is soup, you probably just put it there to trick me!” Cole looked utterly exhausted. “Claire, what will it take for you to believe that Charlotte is just the chef?” “Get rid of her,” she said instantly, a triumphant glint in her teary eyes. “Then I’ll believe you.” She crossed her arms, looking like a detective who had just cracked a case wide open. “I’ve read this story a hundred times. The First Love and the Stand-In can’t coexist under the same roof. It’s only a matter of time before she schemes her way into my place. I won’t lose you, Cole. She has to go.” Hearing this, Cole’s frown deepened. He shot a hesitant glance in my direction. His gastritis had only just started to improve under my care; he was nowhere near ready to go back to takeout and bland protein shakes. But it was clear Claire wasn’t going to back down. After a moment that stretched into an eternity, he made his decision. He walked over to me, lowering his voice. “Charlotte, I know our contract is for a live-in position, but given the… situation, I’m going to have to ask you to move into my penthouse downtown.” My ears perked up. “I’ll cover the commute, of course—double the rate for your trouble. And I’ll add a three-month salary bonus as compensation for the inconvenience. How does that sound?” My eyes lit up like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. Cole’s downtown penthouse was a five-minute drive from the estate. Not only would I get a paid commute, but I’d also bank an extra quarter of a million dollars? Just for moving my suitcase? This was more than a win. This was a lottery ticket. I nodded so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. “No problem at all, Mr. Donovan. Do you need me to move out right now?” I already had my phone out, ready to call a moving service. Cole seemed taken aback, probably expecting me to put up a fight or burst into tears. A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face, but he just nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice flat. “That would be best.” The movers were surprisingly fast. As I directed them with my luggage, Claire sauntered over in her heels, looking down at me from her self-appointed pedestal. “See, Charlotte? You can sneak in while I’m gone, but it doesn’t matter. In the end, you’re the one being shipped out. In Cole’s heart, I’m the only one who matters. No matter how hard you try, a replacement will always be a replacement.” Just then, my phone buzzed. A notification from my bank. The seven-figure wire transfer for my “inconvenience” was shining on the screen. Suddenly, Claire’s face seemed almost angelic. She was my benefactor, the catalyst for this beautiful windfall. I smiled at her, a wide, genuine smile. “You’re absolutely right. You’re the most important person to Mr. Donovan. I could never compare.” She sniffed, mollified. “At least you know your place.” She turned and clicked away on her heels. In the distance, I heard Arthur, the house manager, asking where she’d like to stay. Her reply was loud and clear. “I’ll take the room Cole keeps locked, the one filled with my photos that he uses to remember me by.” Arthur sounded bewildered. “Ma’am, I don’t believe such a room exists.” Her voice shot up an octave. “How could it not? In the stories, after the First Love goes away, the CEO always keeps a locked shrine for her, a room no one is allowed to enter! If you don’t know about it, just say so. Don’t tell me it doesn’t exist!” Her voice faded as she walked further into the house. I just shook my head and offered a silent, two-second prayer for Arthur. He was going to need it. 2 Life in the penthouse was, for a time, blissfully quiet. My duties were simple: three times a day, Arthur would pick me up and sneak me onto the estate, steering clear of Claire’s line of sight, so I could prepare Cole’s meals. The rest of the time was my own. I felt my energy returning, the color coming back to my cheeks. Arthur, on the other hand, looked like he was wilting. Each day, the dark circles under his eyes grew more pronounced. One morning, during our clandestine hand-off, I couldn’t help but ask. “Arthur, is everything okay? You look like you haven’t slept in a week.” He let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world. “Don’t get me started, Ms. Hale. That Ms. Sterling is going to be the death of me.” He leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Her first day here, she demanded that Mr. Donovan fire me. The reason? Because I failed to inform her that she was the ‘first woman he had ever brought home.’” My eyebrows shot up. “Then, the next day,” he continued, “she asked me if it was true that Mr. Donovan ‘hadn’t smiled in the ten years’ since she left. I just showed her a press photo from his interview two days prior—he was smiling in it. She got so angry she threw my phone against the wall.” It was as if a dam had broken. Arthur unleashed a week’s worth of grievances, detailing every bizarre, novel-inspired demand Claire had made. Listening to him, a profound sense of relief washed over me. I had dodged a cannonball. If I had stayed, I would’ve been a cast member in her daily melodrama, and I was pretty sure that kind of stress shaves years off your life. But my relief was premature. My peaceful existence came to a screeching halt a few days later when my doorbell began ringing with the frantic, insistent rhythm of an alarm bell. I opened the door, and Claire shoved past me, storming into the apartment. She surveyed the space like a conquering general, her eyes sweeping over the floor-to-ceiling windows and designer furniture before landing on me with a triumphant sneer. “I should have known you’d leave so willingly,” she said, her voice dripping with accusation. “Cole had another house to hide you in all along!” A headache was already forming behind my eyes. I wanted her gone. “Ms. Sterling, I’m a chef. That’s it. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my employment contract.” I retrieved the document from my desk. Her eyes scanned the page, then widened in shock as they landed on the salary figure. “A million dollars?!” she shrieked. She snatched the contract from my hands and slammed it down on the coffee table with a laugh that was more of a sneer. “No chef makes that kind of money. This isn’t a salary, Charlotte. This is what he pays to keep you!” That was it. I earn my living with my own two hands, with years of training and skill. Her words were a direct insult to my professionalism. My patience snapped. I pulled out my phone and dialed Cole. “Mr. Donovan,” I said, my voice tight, “could you please come and manage your… First Love?” A heavy sigh came through the receiver. “She’s there? Put her on.” Claire took the phone, her face a mask of contempt. But as she listened, her expression began to shift. The color drained from her cheeks. She shot me a venomous glare, muttered a curt “I understand” into the phone, and hung up. Drawing herself up, she regained her haughty posture. “You got lucky today. But don’t think this is over. Cole might be blinded by you for now, but he’ll come to his senses soon enough. He’ll see that a cheap imitation can never compare to the real thing.” With that, she stormed out, slamming the door so hard the walls vibrated. I stood there, phone in hand, seriously contemplating billing Cole for emotional damages. To avoid another confrontation, I stopped going to the estate altogether. I prepared Cole’s meals in my own kitchen and had Arthur pick them up in insulated containers. A few days later, Arthur arrived not just with empty containers, but also with a thick, cream-colored envelope. It was an invitation to a welcome-home party for Claire. I stared at the gold-embossed calligraphy, and the throbbing in my temples returned. I was about to refuse when Arthur added the crucial detail. “Mr. Donovan said Ms. Sterling has been… insistent. He said if you attend, he’ll pay you ten times your daily rate for overtime.” He gave me a look that said, Some people have all the luck. My attitude did a complete 180. “Overtime pay? Don’t be silly. When Mr. Donovan needs me, I’m there for him. It would be my honor to attend.” The party was held at Cole’s estate. When I arrived, Claire was at the grand piano, bathed in a soft spotlight, looking for all the world like the ethereal ‘First Love’ she claimed to be. The moment I stepped into the room, several of the city’s most prominent figures—heirs to old money and titans of industry—left their conversations and gravitated toward me. “Charlotte, my dear! Does your presence here mean you’re catering tonight? My evening just got infinitely better.” “Are you considering any new offers, Charlotte? My mother has been practically begging me to poach you. Name your price.” The piano music stopped abruptly. Every head in the room turned toward Claire. She rose, picking up a microphone, her eyes blazing as she stared at the circle of influential people surrounding me. “For those of you who don’t know,” she announced, her voice amplified throughout the silent room, “I am Claire Sterling. Cole’s one true love. The woman you are all fawning over is nothing but a cheap, classless replacement.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “You’d be wise to choose who you associate with. Backing the wrong horse can be… costly.” A few people exchanged bewildered glances, but then, as if by some unspoken agreement, they turned back to me and resumed their pleasantries. Claire was seething. She clearly believed I had somehow brainwashed the city’s elite in her absence. But then, a new thought seemed to occur to her, and a cruel, mocking smile spread across her face. She glided over, her dress shimmering. Her voice was sickly sweet. “My performance was adequate, I suppose. But I’ve heard, Charlotte, that you are an even more accomplished pianist. Why don’t you play something for us? Unless, of course, you think you’re too good for our guests.”

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Before I married Grant Covington, his mother put me through a pre-nuptial obedience test. She made me kneel and serve champagne to the entire family. I knelt. She made me walk barefoot across the estate’s jagged gravel driveway to prove I had “grit.” I walked. She made me sign an iron-clad prenuptial agreement, stating that in the event of a divorce, I would leave with nothing. I signed. Grant stood by and watched it all, his face a mask of indifference. “It’s not a big deal, Chloe,” he’d said, his voice low. “Just get through it. These are just family traditions.” I smiled and nodded, a single tear betraying me as it traced a path down my cheek. The final part of the test came without warning: a sharp, stinging slap across my face from his mother, Eleanor. “If you want to marry into this family,” she hissed, “you need to learn your place.” I didn’t move. But upstairs, in his home office in the middle of a video conference with his board, Grant Covington suddenly coughed, spraying a fine mist of blood across his monitor. He clutched his own cheek, his eyes wide with a terror he didn’t understand, staring at me through the open doorway. [SYSTEM INITIATED: Empathic Link with Grant Covington is now active. All physical and emotional trauma inflicted upon the host will be experienced by the target at 100% intensity.] 1 The sting on my face hadn’t even begun to fade when Grant’s body went rigid, and he collapsed backward like a marionette with its strings cut. His handsome face, a face that had always been a canvas for arrogance and cool dismissal, was now twisted in a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. “Grant!” “Mr. Covington!” The Covington living room erupted. The symphony of chaos was immediate—screams, the frantic scrape of chairs, a table overturning with a crash. I stood frozen in the center of it all, watching as they scrambled to get Grant onto a stretcher, his body limp. The one who had started it all, his mother, Eleanor, stared for a single, stunned moment before her eyes found me. She pointed a trembling finger. “You!” she shrieked, her voice cracking. “You’re a curse! A goddamn black widow! My son is perfectly healthy, and the moment you’re in this house, he collapses!” I said nothing. I just lifted a hand to my own face, gently touching the raised, swollen flesh of my left cheek. It burned with a heat that felt strangely similar to the dying fire in my heart. The diagnosis from the hospital came back quickly: acute concussion with associated soft tissue damage to the face. Cause unknown. When Grant woke up, I was the only one in the room. He saw the perfect, five-fingered print blooming on my cheek—an exact mirror of the phantom impact he remembered—and the confusion in his eyes hardened into a familiar, chilling resentment. “Chloe, what did you do to me?” His voice was a raw rasp, thick with accusation. I looked at him, my expression unreadable. “I didn’t do anything. Your mother slapped me, and you collapsed.” “Absurd,” he scoffed, the sound sharp with contempt. “My mother hits you, and I start bleeding? Chloe, I knew you were desperate for my sympathy, but this is a new low. Are you really making up this kind of garbage now?” “It’s not garbage,” I said, my voice steady, each word a carefully placed stone. “A moment ago, we were bound by something called an Empathic Link. From now on, any pain I feel—physical or emotional—you will feel it, too. Perfectly.” Grant stared at me, his disgust a palpable thing in the sterile room. “Is this your new gimmick? I have to hand it to you, Chloe. The lengths you’ll go to just to get my attention… it’s almost impressive.” “You don’t believe me?” I asked. “I believe you’re insane,” he bit out. A small, broken laugh escaped my lips, followed by another traitorous tear. I wiped it away angrily. I looked at this man—the man I had loved with a fierce, unwavering devotion for ten years, a man whose heart remained a fortress of ice—and spoke in a tone so cold it startled even me. “Let’s make a bet, Grant.” “A bet about what?” He arched an eyebrow, looking at me like I was a particularly pathetic insect. “I bet,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper, “that I’m going to make you understand, in every nerve of your body, exactly how much this last decade has hurt.” He didn’t answer. He just turned his head away and buzzed for the nurse, his dismissal more eloquent than any insult. He found my very presence nauseating. I looked out the window at the inky black sky. “You’ll believe me,” I whispered to the glass. “You will.” 2 When I returned to the Covington estate, Eleanor was waiting for me, her face a mask of rage. “You have the nerve to show your face here? You gold-digging witch! My Grant has never had so much as a paper cut his entire life, and the day he marries you, he ends up in the hospital! You’re bad luck!” As she screamed, she ordered a maid to take down the decorative riding crop that hung on the wall of the study. It was braided black leather, oiled to a dark sheen. My heart seized as I looked at it. I remembered when I first met Grant. He was just like that crop—proud, wild, and untamable. I’d spent years chasing after him, believing that if I just ran fast enough, loved hard enough, one day I’d be able to stand beside him. Now, I was just another object in his house he permitted to be beaten. The large television in the living room was on, tuned to an entertainment news channel. “Tech mogul Grant Covington was rushed to the hospital today,” the polished anchorwoman said. “His high school sweetheart, beloved pop star Isabelle Vance, was seen rushing to his side. Sources say she hasn’t left him for a moment, fueling speculation that rumors of his recent marriage to a mysterious nobody were greatly exaggerated…” On the screen, Isabelle was tenderly tucking the corner of a blanket around Grant’s shoulder. And the way Grant looked at her… it was with a softness, a warmth, I had never once seen directed at me. So he wasn’t a man made of stone. He was just reserving all his warmth for someone else. And I couldn’t even earn a shred of his trust. A wave of grief so profound it felt like drowning washed over me. Crack. The first lash of the riding crop across my back was electric. The pain was so sharp, so immediate, that my knees buckled. It felt like my skin had split open. “I’ll teach you to seduce my son, you little tramp! I’ll beat the ambition out of you!” Eleanor was in a frenzy, bringing the crop down again and again. Just then, my phone rang. It was Grant. With a trembling hand, I managed to answer it. “Chloe!” His voice was a furious, pained roar through the phone. “What is this, some kind of self-harm stunt to get my attention now? I’m telling you, stop it! Whatever you’re doing, it’s pathetic, and it’s only making me hate you more!” His voice was loud enough for Eleanor to hear. She thought I was tattling on her. Her expression curdled into something even more monstrous. “You dare call him? You think he’ll save you?” She raised her arm high, putting the full force of her body into one final, brutal swing. “Aaargh!” The sound that ripped through the phone was not Grant’s angry shout, but a raw, piercing scream of agony. It was a sound of unimaginable pain, a sound that bypassed the ears and shot straight into the spine. Eleanor froze. On the other end of the line, Grant’s screams dissolved into tortured groans, each one more desperate than the last. Panic finally broke through her rage. She dropped the riding crop and snatched the phone from my hand. “Grant? Grant, honey, what’s wrong? Talk to Mommy, what’s happening?” His voice came back, choked and ragged. “Mom… my back… It feels like it’s on fire… God, it hurts…” “Your back?” Eleanor’s face was a canvas of confusion. She glanced down at me, collapsed on the floor, my back a mess of bleeding welts. “Don’t you worry, baby, I’m coming right now!” she said into the phone. “It must be that witch. She’s putting a curse on you!” She hung up and ran out of the house. At the hospital, Grant was drenched in a cold sweat, the pain in his back so intense he could barely breathe. He grabbed his mother’s hand the moment she rushed in. “Mom,” he gasped, his eyes filled with a terrifying new suspicion. “Did you… did you just hit Chloe?” Eleanor’s eyes darted away for a second. “No! Of course not! Why would I do that? She was throwing a fit at the house, crying and screaming. I just scolded her a bit, that’s all.” Isabelle, who had been sitting quietly by his side, immediately chimed in, her voice dripping with counterfeit concern. “That’s right, Grant. Eleanor has been so worried about Chloe. But Chloe… she was saying some very strange things on the phone. I think she really upset your mother.” She gently rubbed Eleanor’s arm as if to comfort her. Grant looked at his “wronged” mother and the “kind-hearted” Isabelle. Then he thought of my dead silence on the phone. The flicker of suspicion was extinguished, replaced by a wave of disgust. Even if this Empathic Link thing was real, he thought, she was clearly hurting herself just to manipulate him. The woman’s deviousness knew no bounds. 3 Grant was discharged the next day. Isabelle came back to the estate with him, under the guise of “taking care of him.” Eleanor was, of course, delighted. While Grant was in his office taking calls, Eleanor and Isabelle summoned me downstairs. A pile of shattered porcelain—what looked like an antique vase—was swept into the middle of the floor. “The floor is dirty,” Eleanor said, her arms crossed. “Kneel and clean it up.” Isabelle stood beside her, feigning sympathy. “Chloe, just do as she says. Eleanor is just trying to teach you how things are done here. Grant doesn’t like women who don’t know their place.” My knees were already a canvas of deep purple bruises from the riding crop. Kneeling on the sharp, jagged pieces of porcelain sent spears of agony shooting up my legs. Every tiny movement was like having needles driven into my bones. Upstairs, Grant leaned back in his leather chair, his eyes closed. Suddenly, a searing, drilling pain exploded in his knees. It was so intense he cried out, his eyes flying open. That feeling… it was exactly like the pain in his back. His heart hammered in his chest. He shoved his chair back and ran from the room, taking the stairs two at a time. He reached the landing just in time to see Isabelle holding a bucket of water. “Oh my!” she cried, pretending to trip. The entire bucket of ice-cold water sluiced down over my head. The shock of the cold made me gasp, and the water stung the open cuts on my knees, making me dizzy with pain. Seeing Grant, Isabelle immediately ran to him, burying her face in his chest, her body trembling with sobs. “Grant, darling, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! Chloe just stood up so suddenly, I lost my balance… Do you think she was going to use a piece of the porcelain to… to hurt herself and blame us?” Eleanor jumped in immediately. “That’s exactly what she was doing! This woman is poison, Grant! You can’t let her stay here, she’ll destroy our family!” Grant looked at my drenched, pathetic form, then at Isabelle, sobbing in his arms. The doubt in his eyes vanished, replaced once again by that familiar wall of contempt. “Tie her to a chair,” he commanded to the maids in a voice of ice. “Let’s see her try to hurt herself now.” Two maids grabbed me roughly, dragged me to a dining chair, and bound my arms and legs with thick rope, pulling it so tight it bit into my skin. I couldn’t move an inch. Grant shot me one last, cold look before turning and leading Isabelle upstairs. Back in his office, as soon as he sat down, a strange, suffocating pressure enveloped his entire body. His bones, his muscles, every joint felt as if it were being crushed by invisible ropes, making it hard to breathe. He understood instantly. Chloe was tied up, so he felt tied up. That ridiculous “Empathic Link”… could it actually be real? A terrifying thought began to form in his mind. He stood up abruptly. “Isabelle,” he said to her as she peeled an apple for him, “why don’t you and Mom go on a shopping trip? Get out of the house for a bit. I need some time alone.” To his mother, he added, “Go relax, Mom. Use my card.” They were thrilled at the prospect and left almost immediately. The moment the front door clicked shut, the suffocating pressure around Grant’s body vanished. He stood motionless, his face a storm of conflicting emotions. After a long moment, he walked slowly down the stairs and stood before me, still bound to the chair. I was soaked to the bone, water dripping from my hair and tracing paths down my face. It was impossible to tell if they were from the bucket or from my own eyes. He watched me in silence. For the first time, his gaze was free of that cold, cutting disgust. He crouched down in front of me, his voice rough with a vulnerability he himself didn’t recognize. “Did they… did someone actually hurt you?” 4 My lips parted. The words, a tidal wave of every injustice, every heartbreak, every shard of despair, were about to pour out of me. But at that exact moment, the front door clicked open. Eleanor and Isabelle were back. “Oh, we forgot the new limited-edition handbag that just came in!” Isabelle chirped as she walked in. She saw Grant crouched in front of me, and her smile froze. “Grant… what are you doing?” Eleanor saw it too. Her face hardened. She strode over and yanked Grant away from me. “What could you possibly have to say to this curse?” she spat, pointing at me. “Look at her, playing the victim! It’s all an act to manipulate you, my son. Don’t you fall for it! A woman like that has a heart as black as tar.” Grant stood up. The flicker of doubt that had been in his eyes was extinguished by their words, crushed under the weight of his lifelong loyalties. His gaze, when it met mine again, was as cold and impatient as ever. Without another word, he turned and went back upstairs. The tiny ember of hope that had sparked within me was doused with ice water. I watched his retreating back, and my heart, piece by piece, turned to stone. That evening, Grant had to leave for an emergency at the office. The moment his car was gone, the jealousy and hatred in Isabelle’s eyes were finally unleashed. She sidled up to Eleanor. “Eleanor, the way Grant was looking at her today… he’s going soft. We can’t let this go on. We have to teach her a lesson she will never, ever forget.” Eleanor nodded grimly. They exchanged a look, a silent, vicious agreement, and then they came for me. They untied the ropes, and before I could even process what was happening, they each grabbed an arm and dragged me up the stairs and into the second-floor bathroom. “You want to seduce my son? I’ll give you a taste of what you deserve!” Eleanor’s face was a grotesque mask of fury. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and, with all her strength, shoved my head into the toilet bowl. The icy, foul water filled my nose and mouth instantly. I thrashed, my hands clawing wildly, but Isabelle pinned them behind my back. The feeling of suffocation was absolute. My lungs burned, screaming for air. My mind went fuzzy as black spots danced in my vision. Just as I thought I was going to die, Eleanor yanked my head back up. I gasped greedily for air, coughing and sputtering, tears and snot and filth covering my face. “Please…” I begged, my voice a weak croak. “Please stop…” “Begging?” Isabelle sneered. She picked up the toilet brush and scraped its filthy bristles against my cheek. “Maybe a good scrub with toilet water will wash away your delusions. You think you’re worthy of a man like Grant?” Eleanor gave me no time to recover. She grabbed my hair again and plunged my head back into the water. The world dissolved into a maelstrom of cold, darkness, and pain. My lungs felt like they were ripping apart. My consciousness began to fray, the edges of my vision dissolving into a black tunnel. My struggles grew weaker. The shadow of death felt cold and real. As the last flicker of my consciousness was about to be extinguished, the bathroom door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges with a tremendous crash. I was yanked out of the water and dropped onto the floor, where I lay heaving and retching like a dying fish, coughing up water until my throat was raw. Through my blurred vision, I saw Grant. He stood in the doorway, his face a mask of a terror and fury I had never seen before. He shoved his mother so hard she stumbled and fell, then pulled me away from the toilet. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he spoke, his voice trembled with an uncontrollable rage, the voice of a demon clawing its way out of hell. “Mom! Isabelle! What the hell are you doing?! Were you trying to drown her?!” 5 Eleanor, sprawled on the floor, looked up at her son in disbelief. “Grant, you pushed me? For her?” Isabelle, snapping out of her shock, ran to him, bursting into theatrical tears. “Grant, you don’t understand! It was Chloe! She went crazy, screaming that she didn’t want to live anymore! She was trying to drown herself in the toilet, we were trying to save her!” “Yes! She was trying to kill herself!” Eleanor scrambled to her feet, latching onto the lie. “We were trying to stop her, and then you came in and…” She clutched her chest, pretending she was about to faint. Grant looked at the absurd scene, a migraine pounding behind his eyes. On one side, his hysterical mother and his sobbing first love. On the other, me, half-dead on the bathroom floor. He made his choice. He scooped me into his arms, carried me quickly into the master bedroom, and laid me on the floor. Then he walked out, and I heard the click of the lock from the outside. “Chloe, you stay in here,” his voice came through the door, exhausted and commanding. “Don’t go anywhere.” It wasn’t protection. It was imprisonment. I lay on the cold floor, listening to the muffled sounds of his family’s arguments and reconciliations, listening to Grant’s gentle voice as he soothed his mother and Isabelle. My heart died. It didn’t break; it simply ceased to beat with any warmth. I had thought he might apologize, that he might finally protect me. It was all a fantasy. In this house, I would always be the one who could be sacrificed. Despair, cold and absolute, washed over me. But this time, I didn’t cry. I pulled myself up from the floor and walked to the large mahogany desk. I opened a drawer. Inside was the pen Grant always used, a German-made Montblanc with a custom iridium nib, incredibly sharp. I gripped the pen. I looked at the pale, soft skin of my own left forearm. And without a moment’s hesitation, I dragged the nib across my flesh. I didn’t need a protector anymore. From this day forward, I would be my own weapon. A sharp, wet sound sliced through the silence of the room. Blood, dark and rich, welled up instantly, eager to escape. At that exact moment, in the top-floor boardroom of Covington Corp. Grant, having just placated his mother, was now attempting to salvage an important international video conference he had abruptly abandoned. He was addressing the foreign directors, his voice smooth and confident, when a sudden, razor-sharp pain shot through his left arm. He glanced down. A dark red stain was blooming on the sleeve of his expensive bespoke suit, spreading with impossible speed. The blood was pouring out of him as if from an invisible wound. “Ah!” In front of dozens of his top executives and the stunned faces of the international board members on the screen, their CEO let out a guttural, animalistic scream of pain. I looked at the deep, gaping wound on my arm, at the blood that flowed freely from it, and I smiled. Our bet, Grant, I thought. It’s just getting started. And now, I make the rules.

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