Author: Momo Chan

When Liam Sterling and I were in our honeymoon phase, we could go through thirty condoms in a single day. After we were both completely exhausted, he would always pull me tightly into his arms and ask if I would ever leave him. But later, it was also him who forced me to be his new lover’s nude body double when I was driven into a corner, desperately trying to raise money for my mother’s medical bills. Mimicking the adult film actresses, I swallowed my pride and filmed three humiliating scenes. Just when I thought my mother was finally saved, he casually remarked: “I’ll wire the five million in six months.” I whipped around in panic. “Didn’t we agree you’d pay me as soon as we wrapped?” Without the money, the hospital would pull the plug tomorrow. Liam carelessly tossed the script onto the table. “My liquid capital went into Mia’s new female-led blockbuster. It’s her first time carrying a major studio film; we have to make sure the production value is top-tier.” He thought I would throw a tantrum and beg like I used to. But this time, I was truly exhausted. …… “You’re going out like that?” Liam raised an eyebrow, looking at the sheer, skimpy costume I was wearing, then glanced toward the door. I knew he was reminding me that the entire film crew was right outside. But I had just been gawked at while filming even more degrading scenes in front of the cameras. What was left out there that I couldn’t face? I numbly walked toward the exit, but Liam grabbed my wrist. “Have you no shame?” I turned to look at him calmly and asked, “Have you ever left me with any?” He fell silent. We both knew the truth. From the time he picked me up from the local drama school when I was nineteen, he put me on a pedestal. He helped me win an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award, making me the brightest star in Hollywood. He used to say he loved my pride, loved the confident way I stood at the pinnacle of the industry. But the moment my family went bankrupt, he was the first to turn his back on me. And it was all because the newly rising starlet, Mia Vance, whispered: “Liam, the way Chloe looks at me… it scares me.” With that, he personally broke my wings, dragged me down from the clouds, and stomped me into the dirt. Seven years of love couldn’t compete with a few tears from a newcomer. He had initiated a breakup seven times, and every single time, it was because Mia needed a better role or a brand deal. Even now, knowing perfectly well that my mother was lying in the ICU racking up astronomical daily fees, he simply didn’t care. My eyes suddenly stung. I asked him, “How much money did you put into her movie?” He answered nonchalantly, “Fifty million.” Fifty million dollars. It felt like a giant hand was squeezing my heart, the pain making it hard to breathe. All I needed was five million. Just a fraction of that fifty million would have been enough to save my mother’s life. I had been with him for seven years, and I wasn’t even worth the production budget of Mia’s movie. I didn’t argue further and pushed open the soundstage doors. A few PAs and crew members were laughing outside. When they saw me, they abruptly went dead silent. They looked at me awkwardly. I don’t know who let out the first dry chuckle. “Chloe, all done shooting?” They exchanged knowing glances and started to snicker under their breath. I ignored them and pushed past the heavy velvet curtains. I immediately ran into a group of overweight, sleazy studio investors. They stared at me, and someone let out a low whistle. “Well, if it isn’t our Best Actress. You guys finish your business in there?” The group erupted into boisterous laughter. Liam threw a heavy glass ashtray out from inside the studio. It smashed onto the floor right at their feet. Shards of glass exploded outward. I didn’t dodge. A piece sliced into my calf. Blood trickled down my pale skin, but I felt nothing. Liam stared intently at my bleeding leg, his brows knitting together. After a long pause, in front of everyone, he tossed his tailored suit jacket over my shoulders. “I said six months. It’s not like I’m not paying you. Who are you putting on this stubborn act for, huh?” He didn’t button it. He just draped it over me casually, putting on a show for the outsiders. I took a long, deep look at the man I had loved for seven years. I always thought that if I was just a little more obedient, a little more humble… He would remember how good I used to be. People always say that when you love someone, you feel their pain. But in his eyes, there was only the cold indifference of someone looking at a toy. The moment I stepped out of the studio lot, all the strength drained from my body, and my legs trembled uncontrollably. As tears fell without my permission, I heard their lively conversation resume behind the heavy doors. Someone asked Liam: “The Adams family was definitely set up this time. Liam, are you really not going to help her?” Liam’s indifferent voice drifted out: “I was the one who set the trap. Mia said Chloe humiliated her in public when she first debuted. She’s been holding onto that grievance for years. I had to help her vent.” “Aren’t you afraid she really won’t come back this time? She’s an Oscar winner, after all. She’s got pride in her bones.” Hearing this, Liam actually laughed out loud. “Stop joking. I’ve known her for eight years, and she’s been with me for seven. Every single time I call, she comes running.” “If she could actually leave me, I’d respect her a lot more.” I leaned against the brick wall, biting down on the back of my hand so hard I drew blood, just to keep myself from making a sound. My family’s bankruptcy, my Hollywood blacklist… it was all Liam’s doing. Simply because Mia Vance felt wronged a few years ago. My wet clothes clung to my open wounds, tearing at my flesh with every movement. Thinking of my mother hooked up to all those tubes, thinking of the doctor saying they would turn off the life support if I didn’t pay the bill… I slapped myself across the face, hard. “You idiot. It’s because you fell in love with him that you and your mother are in this dead end.” I never imagined my romance would end like this. Sterling Media controlled the entertainment industry with an iron fist. A single word from Liam Sterling could dictate the life or death of any artist’s career. If he was determined to get revenge for Mia, no one in the entire industry would dare help me. I stood on an overpass, on the verge of a breakdown, watching the endless stream of headlights below. I almost wanted to jump. But I didn’t dare. If I died, what would happen to my mom? “Right. Mia Vance.” I suddenly remembered her. At an awards ceremony years ago, I had just won Best Actress. She was an obscure newcomer. Backstage, an intoxicated investor grabbed her hand and refused to let go. I happened to walk by and helped her out of the situation. At the time, I was giving Liam the cold shoulder because of rumors between him and another actress. He didn’t indulge my temper. Instead, he chuckled mockingly: “So only our Best Actress gets to play the hero? That newcomer—Sterling Media is buying out her contract.” I never expected that to be the beginning of our twisted three-way entanglement. I don’t know when Liam actually set his sights on Mia. He gave her top-tier resources, hired the best acting coaches in the world for her, and put her on the hottest talk shows. To ensure she wouldn’t be bullied by industry veterans, he flat-out bought a global ambassadorship for a luxury fashion house and handed it to her. Whenever Mia suffered the slightest grievance, I didn’t even need to ask to find out. Because Liam would preemptively break up with me, then take my movie roles and brand deals to apologize to her. He used to say, “Mia is pure. She can’t handle the dirty side of this industry.” She couldn’t suffer grievances, so I had to suffer instead. I rushed to the private club in Beverly Hills where they were throwing Mia a wrap party. But the security guards blocked me at the door. “Sorry, Miss Adams. Mr. Sterling gave strict orders. No one is allowed to interrupt Miss Vance’s celebration.” This was the club Liam and I used to frequent all the time. Now that I was blacklisted, no one gave me the time of day. The cold night wind pierced my body, tearing my wounds open again. The pain made my lips tremble. “Let her in.” I looked up. Liam was standing by the entrance, looking down at me. A flash of pity crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by coldness. “Who are you putting on this pathetic act for? Don’t you know you get a high fever when you stand in the rain?” It was true. I had a weak immune system; the rain always made me sick. During the peak of our relationship, he would frantically wrap me in his trench coat whenever it drizzled, terrified I’d catch a cold. I lowered my head. “I want to talk to Miss Vance.” Liam frowned, a sneer tugging at his lips. “You really haven’t changed at all, Chloe.” He was afraid I would cause trouble for Mia. After all, I had a track record. When I first found out Mia was calling Liam in the middle of the night, claiming she was “afraid of the dark” and couldn’t sleep… I stormed directly onto her movie set and threw her phone into a prop fountain in front of everyone. While the entire crew was watching Mia make a fool of herself, Liam marched over and slapped me across the face. The entire crew gasped in shock. I stubbornly held my ground, declaring my territory: “You are my boyfriend! Not some stray dog that anyone can call in the middle of the night!” Liam just glared at me coldly, shielding the weeping Mia behind him in front of everyone. “Look at yourself right now. What’s the difference between you and a lunatic?!” He left me standing there, being pointed and whispered at by the crowd. Because of that incident, Mia was handed the lead role in an international director’s film—a role I had spent six months negotiating. And I was locked in the basement of his mansion to “reflect” on my actions. Mia cried for a few days, so I was locked up for a few days. Without a drop of water or a bite of food. Liam coaxed her for a full week before she agreed to go home. Worried that the public backlash would affect her, he outright bought a boutique production company and gifted it to her. I shook my head, forcing out a smile that looked worse than crying. “I just want to explain to her that we’re already broken up.” The utter disbelief on his face still managed to make my heart ache. I admit, I still loved him. Knowing he was the heir to the Sterling empire, a man with immense pride, I had never once defied him. I was always terrified that a single expression or word might hurt his ego. But I never imagined he would be this ruthless to me. To actually bankrupt my family and destroy my career just to help Mia blow off some steam. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him anymore. It was that I didn’t dare to. Once the grievance took root in my heart, it grew wildly like vines. Tears fell before I could stop them. Liam frowned. “If you have something to say, say it. Why are you crying…” Just as he raised his hand, a figure ran out from inside the club. Mia was wearing a haute couture gown. Her flawless makeup and the diamonds dripping from her neck exuded pure wealth. She looked nothing like the timid newcomer she used to be. Compared to me, she looked like the true Queen, held tenderly in Liam’s palm. “Why did you come out here?” Liam took off his jacket and affectionately draped it over her bare shoulders, his voice incredibly soft. She looked up, the corners of her eyes turning slightly red, which immediately threw Liam into a panic. He leaned down, coaxing her gently. “What’s wrong? Who upset our Mia?” Mia finally broke into a smile, playfully punching Liam’s chest before whispering: “I heard Chloe was here, so I came out to see.” “Well, you’ve seen her now. Are you satisfied?” He asked Mia, but his eyes were fixed on me. I guessed she probably was satisfied. The Oscar-winning actress who had rescued her at that awards ceremony was now standing before her in torn clothes, her wet hair plastered to her face. I looked as pathetic as a person could possibly look. How could she not be satisfied? I wanted to scream, to demand answers, but I didn’t dare. If I angered Mia, my mother wouldn’t even survive the night on the ventilator. I forced myself to paste on a fawning, desperate smile. “Mia. Long time no see.” She was much more casual than I was. “Chloe, you really didn’t have to come in person. I’ve already forgiven you.” I looked up at her. Forgiven me? Forgiven me for throwing away the phone she used to seduce someone else’s boyfriend? Or forgiven me for being an obstacle in her Hollywood career? For a moment, I couldn’t process it. I just stared at her blankly. But Liam suddenly flared up. “Mia is being incredibly generous. Shouldn’t you say thank you?” Heartbreak was an understatement. I fought back my tears. Those two words rolled around my mouth over and over. I bit my tongue so hard the taste of blood flooded my mouth before I stuttered them out. “Th-thank you…” Liam pulled his gaze away from me, pulled out a black Centurion card, and handed it to Mia. “There’s five million in here. You decide if you want to give it to her.” My eyes lit up instantly. As long as I got that money, my mom could be saved. I looked at Mia with desperate hope, only to see her slowly close her fingers around the card. Mia pouted playfully. “Chloe made me a laughingstock in front of the whole crew back then, and almost caused a huge misunderstanding between you and me, Liam. I don’t want to just give it to her.” Liam chuckled fondly and tapped her nose. “Whatever you want.” Panic seized me entirely. My mother was waiting for this money to save her life. I had drained all my savings trying to fill the black hole of my family’s debts. I was penniless, constantly hounded by paparazzi and debt collectors. My mother had a weak heart, and the shock of it all had put her in the ICU. My last hope was right in front of me. I begged: “Mia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You can punish me however you want, just please, help me.” Mia pretended to think about it, tapping her chin with her finger before suddenly acting cute: “How about this? Sister Chloe, if you do that dance you did on set for me right here, I’ll give you the card. Okay?” She smiled sweetly, but her words were more venomous than a viper. “You know, the one where you crawl on the floor like a dog. A lot of people said you performed it brilliantly.” Liam remained silent. He stood behind Mia with his hands in his pockets, tacitly endorsing her cruelty. “Not willing, huh…” She sighed in fake disappointment and moved to put the card into her designer purse. I panicked completely. “I’ll do it!” At that, her smile bloomed brightly. Her eyes curved into crescents as she lifted her chin, waiting for me to move. I glanced at the stone-faced Liam, then slowly bent my body. It was just a physical movement, but I felt like my soul was being executed a thousand times over. Thud. My knees and palms hit the cold, wet pavement. I collapsed onto all fours, my fingernails digging ruthlessly into my palms as my hands shook. “Woof… woof…” I barked like a dog, crawling on the ground in front of them. The humiliation made my vision go black. Mia laughed with total satisfaction, stomping her feet in delight. “Oh my gosh, Chloe! I was just joking! You actually did it!” I didn’t move. I stayed kneeling on the pavement before them. “Well…” Mia sighed melodramatically, then tossed the black card onto the ground in front of me. I reached out and picked it up. Tears splattered one by one onto the gold-embossed plastic. I could save my mom. Liam Sterling, I would never dare to love you again. I stood up and muttered a quiet: “Thank you.” Liam’s face looked like a thunderstorm. He shoved Mia’s arm away and stormed back into the club. “Liam…” She called out, but he didn’t look back. Frustrated, Mia glared at me. “Are you still here? Get lost!” I turned and left the club. Behind me, as Mia fumed, her socialite friend who had just returned from Europe walked out and exclaimed: “Mia, you really are Liam Sterling’s girlfriend! His family is basically Hollywood royalty!” Mia’s annoyance vanished in an instant. She lifted her chin smugly. “I told you, but you didn’t believe me.” Her friend squealed excitedly, but then looked confused. “But that Chloe girl earlier… she clearly had a deep history with Liam. You just gave her five million dollars for nothing? You let her off way too easy.” Mia’s eyes darkened, and a cruel smile curled her lips. “Who said I gave it to her for nothing? I’ve already had someone anonymously leak the video to TMZ and the blogs.” “What video?” Mia laughed. “Oh, nothing. Just a little clip of the great Oscar-winner Chloe Adams… crawling and barking like a dog outside a club.” I left Beverly Hills and rushed to the hospital as fast as I could. Once my mom had the surgery, I would go with her to a new city and start over. As for Liam Sterling, we were done. Forever. The hospital wasn’t far. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, feeling a peace in my heart I hadn’t felt in months. Mom, I’m going to pay for the surgery right now. I’m taking you away from here. The ICU was on the seventh floor. I could see the lights were still on, shadows moving quickly around the nurse’s station. I waved the card in my hand. “Doctor! I’m here to pay the bill!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I wanted to shout the good news to the whole world. But when the elevator doors opened, I walked into pure chaos. Several doctors and nurses were pushing a hospital bed toward the resuscitation room at full sprint. “The patient went into cardiac arrest after seeing a highly triggering news broadcast!” I didn’t quite understand. I just rushed straight to the billing window and slapped the black card on the counter. “Payment. Hurry. For Evelyn Adams in the ICU.” The billing clerk looked at me, then looked at the rushing hospital bed, her eyes filled with absolute pity. She didn’t take my card. I froze. The person lying on that rushing bed… was my mother. Pure terror seized me. My heart skipped a beat! “Mom!” So this is how death arrives. Silently. I chased after the bed but was locked out by the heavy doors of the resuscitation room. Sirens wailed in the streets below, approaching, then fading away. The hospital corridor suddenly became loud. “Look at the news! Best Actress Chloe Adams crawling like a dog in public!” “Oh my god, what happened to her?” People around me started pulling out their phones. I couldn’t move my legs. Every drop of blood drained from my body. I went insane, pounding my fists against the doors of the resuscitation room. But all I could see through the glass window was the straight line on the monitor. “Mom! Mom!” My entire world went black. I couldn’t understand. I had the money. Why was my mother gone? That flat, unwavering line lay quietly on the screen. “Mom!” I sobbed until I felt like my soul was tearing apart. “Why didn’t you wait for me?! I got the money! I got it!” I plastered the black card against the glass door, babbling incoherently. “Look, Mom, look! I got the money! You’re going to be saved!” I cried. I screamed. But that line never peaked again. I shattered completely. I couldn’t understand why, when hope was right in front of us, this had to happen. “You toxic curse!” My Aunt Sarah burst out of the crowd. Her fists rained down on me, beating me with every ounce of strength she had. “Look at what you’ve done!” “Why would you do this?! Your mother would rather die than see you humiliate yourself like this!” Sobbing uncontrollably, Aunt Sarah threw her phone at my chest. The video was still looping on the screen. It was me, crawling on the ground outside the club, barking like a dog. Then, Mia’s voice rang out: “Sister Chloe performed brilliantly.” Followed by my own voice. I said: “Thank you…” The video played on an endless loop. Right outside my mother’s resuscitation room. Unable to take it for another second, I smashed my fist into the phone. Again and again. My agonizing screams echoed down the hall. The screen shattered into pieces, but the audio still glitched and stuttered out of the speakers. I smashed it like a madwoman. My hands bled profusely. The blood mixed with the dirt on the hospital floor. I don’t know how long I smashed it, but the phone finally went silent. Trembling, I looked up at Aunt Sarah. “It’s okay. It’s gone. It’s gone. It won’t play anymore.” But the only response I got was the heavy doors of the resuscitation room opening. The doctor walked out, looking exhausted, and pulled down his surgical mask. “I’m sorry. We did everything we could.” In a single night, I truly understood what it meant to lose everything. I kneeled on the floor, my eyes completely empty. The doctor asked me to sign the death certificate over and over. The morgue called repeatedly to ask about the timeline for handling the body. I kneeled on the floor, praying to the heavens: “If there are gods in this world, please, save my mother. Let all the karma fall on me.” I don’t know how Liam heard the news, but he rushed over. He was always so aristocratic, every step he took radiating the composure of an apex predator. But now, ignoring the stares of everyone around him, he was running frantically down the hall. “Chloe.” “Chloe, I just found out…” He tried to hug me, his eyes filled with shock and panic. “Don’t be afraid, Chloe. You still have me.” I stared at him blankly. For the sake of love, exactly what price had I paid? I used the wall to pull myself to my feet. He quickly reached out to steady me. “Liam.” “I’m here.” Liam spoke rapidly, “I’m right here, Chloe.” I looked at him. His face was the face I loved most in the world, yet I felt like I was staring at a living, breathing demon. My lips trembled as I whispered my plea: “Kill me.” He looked as if he had heard the most horrifying thing in the world, shaking his head. “Chloe, don’t scare me.” Liam pulled me tightly against his chest. I could clearly feel him trembling. Why was he shaking? Wasn’t this his masterpiece? The morgue doors opened, and a nurse walked out. I held my breath, terrified to see that cold, lifeless face. Liam stepped in front of me, blocking my view. “Chloe, don’t look. I’ll handle everything.” I lost all my strength. I collapsed onto the floor. And wailed into the sterile air. Liam crouched down in front of me with great difficulty, stroking my hair as he promised: “Don’t worry, Chloe. I’ll give your mother the grandest funeral possible.” It took a long time before my mind came back to me. I looked up at him and asked: “Are you satisfied?” He looked stunned. “What?” I asked, “Are you satisfied now, Liam?” Liam desperately grabbed my hands to defend himself. “Chloe, I didn’t know this would happen. I just wanted to teach you a lesson! On the very last day, I swear I was going to pay the hospital bill for you.” I let out a bleak, hollow laugh. I reached into my bag and pulled out the knife I had prepared for myself. Without a shred of hesitation. I plunged it brutally into Liam’s chest. Warm, sticky liquid coated my hand. Liam looked down at the wound, then spoke gently: “Chloe, if you’re still angry, you can stab me again.”

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As I was adjusting the flow rate on a patient’s IV drip again, I noticed she was scrolling through TikTok. The video playing on her screen showed the very IV bag currently hanging above her. The caption read: “The nurse is all dolled up. She probably has a hot date tonight.” “So I purposely turned the IV drip down to the slowest setting. Slow and steady. I’m in no rush.” “Hahaha, looks like she won’t be making that date after all.” 1 While I was hooking up her IV, the patient suddenly asked: “Hey sweetie, how old are you?” I glanced at her. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, with a deep tan and high cheekbones. She was wearing a red dress with lace trimming that had frayed beyond recognition. I smiled politely. “Twenty-three.” “So young,” she said, looking me up and down. “Got a boyfriend?” Working in a hospital, I deal with a lot of patients every day. Many of the older ones love to chat to pass the time. I was used to it, so I replied: “Not yet.” The patient stared at me for a moment before suddenly giggling. “Well, look at you, wearing a full face of makeup to work. You’re pretty good at it, too. All dressed up—got a hot date later?” I wear makeup to work because it makes me look and feel more awake and professional. I like how it looks. But for some reason, the tone of this patient’s voice rubbed me the wrong way. It felt subtle, but off. “No.” I didn’t want to explain further and focused on inserting the needle carefully. “You’re in for pneumonia, right? You have three bags total. When this one is empty, hit the call button and I’ll come swap it out.” I specifically warned her: “Do not mess with the flow rate dial. If you see a little blood backing up into the tube, that’s normal, don’t panic. If anything hurts, use the call button.” “Oh, okay, okay, got it. Go ahead and get back to work.” She kept that smiling face, making me wonder if I had just imagined the uncomfortable vibe she gave off. The night shift was brutal, so I quickly forgot about the exchange and went to change IV bags for other patients. After finishing my rounds, I finally had a second to breathe. I found a chair at the nurse’s station and massaged my legs, which ached from standing so long. Thinking about having tomorrow off, I couldn’t help but smile. Just as I was wondering if I should text a friend to hang out, my call bell rang. It was the woman in the red dress. “What’s wrong?” I asked, walking over. “I don’t feel good. Ugh, I feel sick.” Startled, I immediately checked her chart and the IV bag. “Are you absolutely sure you’re not allergic to penicillin?” She nodded. “I’m not allergic. I’ve had it before.” The medication was correct, and there were no allergies. Concerned, I asked: “Where exactly does it hurt? Can you describe how you feel sick?” “I just don’t feel good,” she frowned. “I don’t know how to explain it. Oh, wait, I think I’m fine now. It stopped.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Just as I turned to leave, I noticed the drip chamber. It took forever for a single drop of medication to fall. The flow rate had been dialed down to the absolute minimum. I frowned. “Did you touch the dial?” “Yeah, why? It was going too fast, it made me feel sick.” I looked down at the patient, exasperated. “There are strict protocols for IV flow rates. You cannot adjust it yourself. If you feel uncomfortable, you need to tell me.” I reached out and adjusted the dial back to the standard rate. Remembering she said she felt sick, I tweaked it to be slightly slower than standard. “I’ve slowed it down for you,” I warned her again. “Do not touch the dial. If you need something, ring the bell.” “Okay, okay. Sorry for being a bother, my bad.” 2 Her attitude seemed fine, but she was incredibly needy. Every time I sat down to catch my breath, her call bell would ring. “Hey sweetie, do you guys have any portable chargers? My phone is dead.” “No, the hospital doesn’t provide portable chargers, but there’s an outlet over there,” I offered helpfully. “If your phone is dead, I can plug it in for you.” “Nah, never mind. Thanks anyway.” Not long after, the bell rang again! I dragged myself up and walked over. “What’s wrong?” “Sweetie, this IV fluid is so cold. It’s making my whole arm freeze. It’s really uncomfortable.” I thought for a second. “I can get you a warm compress to put over your arm.” “Forget it, it’s fine. Sorry to bother you again.” “It’s no problem,” I waved it off. But the second I sat back down, she rang the bell again! Resigned to my fate, I went over. “Ma’am, what’s wrong now?” The woman had a huge grin on her face. She pointed toward the nurse’s station. “Sweetie, are you sure you don’t have a date later? I saw you smiling over there a minute ago.” I had been running around all night, and the only reason I smiled was because I remembered I had tomorrow off! Irritation flared in my chest, but I kept my voice professional. “I don’t have a date. Please only use the call button if you need medical assistance.” “Okay, okay, sorry. I was just curious.” The woman’s smile didn’t waver. “I was just thinking, a pretty girl like you, how could you not have a boyfriend?” “You must have guys lining up, right? Look at your skin, so pale, big eyes, and your makeup looks so good.” She scrutinized my face. “Your makeup is really detailed. That must take an hour or two, right? What time do you have to wake up in the morning?” I was completely annoyed. But looking at her, sitting in the hospital alone late at night with no one to keep her company… it was kind of sad. Maybe she was just lonely and wanted someone to talk to. “It doesn’t take that long. Just five or ten minutes.” I was about to politely tell her to stop ringing the bell for no reason, when I realized an hour had passed. Her first bag should have been empty by now. I looked up. The IV bag was still more than half full. It was barely dripping. She had turned the dial down again! This time, I was genuinely angry. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch the flow rate? You have three bags. At this speed, you’ll be here all night and still won’t finish. “I already slowed it down for you earlier. Stop touching it!” As I spoke, I reached up to fix the dial. My intention was to prevent her from being stuck here forever. The hospital chairs are cold and uncomfortable. It’s better to finish the treatment and go home to sleep. But to my disbelief, the woman kept that same giggly smirk. “Oh my, am I going too slow? Is it going to make you late for your date? I’m so sorry!” I was furious. I didn’t want to say another word to her. I fixed the dial and stormed back to my desk. Thankfully, she didn’t ring the bell again after that. I let out a sigh of relief, did a round of the room, and went to the back room to prep medications. Just as I finished, the Charge Nurse came in for her rounds. She walked through the IV room. “Any issues tonight?” “No,” I shook my head. “Everyone is hooked up, and I’ve double-checked all the meds. Everything is fine.” “Good.” The Charge Nurse checked my charts. “Out of all the new hires, you’re the most detail-oriented. Good job.” She turned to leave, but the call bell rang again! I looked toward the sound, and my vision practically went dark. It was the woman in the red dress again! This time, the other patients were getting annoyed. A guy trying to sleep in the chair next to her ripped his jacket off his head and snapped: “Are you ever going to stop?! How many times have you hit that bell tonight? If you need something, say it all at once! Are you trying to keep everyone awake?!” The woman shrank back a little and mumbled, “I feel sick. Am I not allowed to say I feel sick?” The Charge Nurse walked over. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?” She checked the IV bag. “The medication is fine—wait, why is the flow rate so slow?” “It was going too fast, it made me sick.” The woman shot me a look. “That nurse keeps turning it up. I must be making her late for her date.” “Hehehe,” she snickered. “Young people have such active nightlife, right? A pretty girl like her must have lots of guys after her. I understand she wants to get to her dates. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it going fast so I don’t keep her here.” I was so angry I saw stars. I raised my voice: “I did not turn it up! I set it to the standard rate! And I even slowed it down slightly for you earlier. If you feel sick, tell me. I do not have a date. Stop making things up!” The guy next to her chimed in: “The nurse has been over here like five times already. You said you felt sick, she slowed it down. What the hell is your problem? Why do you keep messing with her?” “Who am I messing with?!” the woman played the victim. “I feel sick, am I not allowed to complain?! “You’re only taking her side because she’s young and pretty! You trying to hit on her or something?!” The guy rolled his eyes. “You’re psychotic.” The Charge Nurse spoke sternly: “This flow rate is way too slow. You still have two bags left. If you keep it like this, you won’t finish by morning. Don’t you want to go home?” “Exactly what is hurting? Do you want me to swap out the medication?” “No, no, it’s fine,” the woman waved her hands frantically. “Maybe she just didn’t put the needle in right. I asked her, she’s only 23. She’s right out of nursing school, right?” “She’s an intern, right? Oh, you know, these young college girls don’t have any experience. It’s normal to mess up an IV. It’s fine, I’m not picky. I totally understand.” I know for a fact my IV placement was perfect! It’s a basic IV line! I practiced constantly, not to mention the hundreds of patients I’ve treated here. I have never blown a vein! I suppressed my rage. “You say the needle isn’t in right. What exactly is wrong with it?” “Oh, how should I know? I’m not a professional. It just hurts. Look, there’s blood backing up.” She pointed to the back of her hand. The IV tubing was completely clear. There wasn’t a single drop of blood. “Where?” I asked flatly. “There was some a second ago. Maybe it went away.” The woman shrank back. “Don’t get mad, sweetie. I won’t say anything next time. I just don’t know medical stuff, so I get scared. I didn’t mean anything by it.” The Charge Nurse inspected her hand closely: “The IV is perfectly placed. There’s no blood backing up. And even if there was, a little backflow is completely normal. Don’t worry about it.” “Oh,” the woman chuckled awkwardly. “I guess I saw it wrong. I feel much better now. You can adjust the dial. Everything’s fine.” The Charge Nurse adjusted the flow rate. “Our nurses are very responsible. Their shifts end at a specific time; they do not leave early. You don’t have to worry about that. If you have a real problem, tell a nurse immediately.” “Hehehe.” The woman offered a fake laugh. …… When her first bag finally emptied, I went over with a blank expression to hang the second one. The woman’s cheeks bunched up in a huge, fake smile. “Sorry about that, sweetie. It’s my first time coming to the hospital alone, I was just a little scared. Don’t take it personally.” I took a deep breath. “If you have an issue, let me know, and I will check it. I am not leaving early for a date. Even when my shift ends, another nurse will take over. There are staff here 24/7. You do not need to worry about any of that.” “Okay, okay, okay. You go back to work. So sorry! I’m totally fine now.” This kind of stuff happens all the time in hospitals. I couldn’t stay mad forever, so I quickly moved on to prep meds for the next patient. When I finally finished and walked back past the woman, her back was to me, and she was on her phone. I caught a glimpse of her screen out of the corner of my eye and froze. She was posting a TikTok. The video was a close-up of the IV bag I had just hung. The caption read: “The nurse is all dolled up. She probably has a hot date tonight. So I purposely turned the IV drip down to the slowest setting. Slow and steady. I’m in no rush. Hahaha, looks like she won’t be making that date after all.” I looked up at her IV. My ears started ringing. She had dialed the flow rate down to zero again! 3 In my time working here, I’ve seen plenty of weirdos. But I have never met someone this infuriating. Pure malicious stupidity. I didn’t want to fight with her. Arguing was pointless and could get me reported. The woman shifted, noticing me standing there. She panicked, quickly locking her phone screen and giving me a tight smile. I walked past her with a completely blank face. I had tried to keep the flow rate steady so she wouldn’t have to suffer in an uncomfortable chair all night. I never imagined there were people in the world capable of holding such bizarre, unprovoked hostility toward a total stranger. People with no real power, and apparently no intelligence, who go out of their way to make life difficult for others just because they can. She probably didn’t realize we work in shifts. I was handing over my section to my coworker in exactly thirty minutes. If her time was that worthless, she could sit here and rot all night for all I cared. …… Thirty minutes later, my coworker arrived to take over. “Crazy night, huh? Go home and get some rest. If you leave now, you can still catch a late dinner.” She smiled at me. “It’s Valentine’s Day. No big plans?” It was Valentine’s Day? I checked my phone. It really was. I had been so busy working I completely forgot about the holiday. But right now, the word “date” was giving me PTSD. I waved my hands frantically. “No, no, no. I’m out of here. Have a good shift!” The female patient watched me pack up my bag, and her expression instantly changed! “You…” she stuttered. “You’re leaving?! I’m not done yet.” “Yep. What’s wrong?” I asked, flashing a bright, customer-service smile. “We work in shifts. Didn’t you know?” “I feel sick!” she blurted out. “I don’t feel good. You have to check my IV. I think something is wrong with it. Ugh.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be in pain. I kept smiling. “I’m so sorry, my shift is over. But my coworker is right here.” “If you need anything, tell her. She’s taking the first half of the night, and another nurse will relieve her later. There’s no rush.” “Slow. And. Steady.” The woman’s face contorted into something incredibly ugly. She forced out a twisted smile. “Oh, is that so? “Wow, your job is so easy! You only work for a few hours a day?” “It’s not bad,” I beamed. “So please, please don’t worry about keeping me late. “Even if you sit here for the rest of the week, it won’t delay my schedule by a single second. Don’t worry about me. When I clock out, my time is my own. You couldn’t delay me if you tried.” The woman’s face turned black as thunder. Her hands clenched into fists on her lap. The guy sitting next to her burst out laughing. He didn’t even try to hide it as he said loudly: “What an idiot.” I couldn’t be bothered with her anymore. I turned and walked past her. Through the glass doors of the lobby, I could see her staring daggers into my back. Her face was ashen, her expression pure poison. 4 I had barely reached the parking garage when I got a text from another coworker. It was a TikTok link. “I just saw this on my local FYP. Is this you?!” I clicked on the link and nearly died of pure rage! The woman had posted another video, and this time, my face was clearly visible! The caption: “Being a nurse must be so nice. You just put on a ton of makeup, don’t do any real work, clock out after a few hours, and go out on dates.” “Some people are just born lucky. Wish that was me.” I had let the first video slide because it only showed the IV bag. But this one had my face front and center! She had zoomed right in on me! Worse, the video had somehow hit the local “For You” page, and the comments were flooding in. “The nurse is gorgeous! Drop her IG!” The woman replied: “She’s already taken. I’m just trying to get my IV, but she turned it up to the max because she was mad I was making her late for her hookup. Guess I’ll just chug the medicine next time.” She added a giggling emoji. Some people in the comments defended me. “Nursing is a brutal job. They work insane hours and constantly do night shifts.” She replied instantly: “So brutal! Look how perfect her makeup is. Wonder what time she woke up to do that? And she still has energy for a date tonight. So busy! Haha.” The person fired back: “If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?” “They only hire young, pretty girls. Nobody wants an old hag like me. Don’t know why hospitals need beauty queens anyway. Just makes the male patients stare. Sigh.” Someone else chimed in: “You should report her to the hospital!” She replied with a toothy grin emoji: “Nah, she’s definitely a nepo baby. Reporting her wouldn’t do anything.” Then, she sneakily replied to her own comment with a zoomed-in screenshot of my face. My hospital ID badge, showing my full name and employee number, was clearly visible. How could someone be this vile?! I saw red. I stomped all the way back up to the infusion room. The woman was furiously typing on her phone. When she saw me march in, the fake smile immediately plastered itself back onto her face. “Sweetie! Why are you back? Did you forget something?” My hands were clenched into fists. “What gives you the right to film me?! Do you have any idea you’re violating my right to privacy?! “And I never sped up your IV! I wasn’t rushing to leave for a date! What gives you the right to spread lies about me online?!” The woman played dumb. “I didn’t post anything! You must have the wrong person.” I shoved my phone screen right into her face. “This isn’t you?! I can see your other videos right here!” Her profile was filled with videos of her wearing cheap, revealing clothes, trying to look seductive in front of what looked like a rundown trailer. Or heavily filtered lip-syncing videos. But it was undeniably her. Seeing that I had hard proof, she shrank back slightly and gave a nervous laugh. “I was just playing around! It’s just a joke! Why are you taking it so seriously? “I just thought you were pretty, so I couldn’t help but take a video! It’s not a big deal!” She even reached out and tugged on my scrubs. “Come on, look how pretty you look. Who would believe you aren’t going on a date? Your boyfriend is a lucky guy, bagging a girl like you.” She turned to the guy next to her. “Right?” The guy ignored her completely. The woman looked awkward and shut her mouth. I slapped her hand away from my scrubs and enunciated every word: “I will say this one last time. I followed every single standard medical protocol while treating you. If you think I did something wrong, you can file a formal complaint with the hospital. But you cannot slander me on the internet.” She seemed surprised that I wasn’t backing down. She quickly pulled out her phone, that sickening smile still glued to her face. “Okay, okay, don’t get mad! I was just joking! If you don’t like it, I’ll delete it!” She said that, but she made no move to actually delete the video. “Fine. You won’t delete it?” I had lost all patience. “Then I’m calling the police. Filming and posting someone without their consent is a violation of privacy. I’m done talking to you. You can talk to the cops.” “It’s not that serious,” she waved me off dismissively. “Stop trying to scare me.” A younger girl sitting across the room spoke up: “She’s not scaring you. Fabricating facts to damage someone’s reputation and spreading them online… if a post gets over 5,000 views or 500 shares, it officially qualifies as criminal defamation.” She pointed at the woman’s phone. “You could be looking at up to three years in prison. And if you get a felony record, good luck to your kids or grandkids ever trying to get a government job or security clearance.” I looked at the girl gratefully. The woman blustered, trying to look tough. “Don’t try to scare me! How do I know you’re not just making that up to trick me?! I just posted a video, how is that going to send me to jail?!” But her face betrayed her panic. The girl smirked and pulled up a picture of her Bar Association card on her phone. “Ma’am, if you’re uneducated, try reading a book. Why would I trick you? What do you even have that I would want?” She looked at me. “Hey, if you decide to sue her, call me. I’ll give you a 20% discount on my hourly rate.” The mention of a lawsuit terrified the woman. Her fake smile melted into something greasy, desperate, and absolutely repulsive. She mumbled: “I was just making a joke. Why are you taking it so seriously? Young people these days are so sensitive. You can’t even say anything anymore.” Seeing my expression remain completely stony, she forced the smile wider. “Don’t be mad, sweetie! Don’t take it personally! “Is it really worth calling the cops and lawyers over something so small? I’m just an uneducated woman from a trailer park, I don’t know any better! I just filmed you because you’re so pretty!” “I swear I didn’t mean any harm! Ask anyone back home, everyone knows I’m a good person! If you don’t like it, I’ll just delete it!” With that, she finally opened TikTok and deleted the video right in front of me. “Are we good now?” She put on a wildly exaggerated expression of victimhood. “I’m just a hick from a small town. I don’t have a fancy education like you guys. I know you all look down on me and think I’m annoying.” An older woman sitting nearby rolled her eyes dramatically. “Stop giving small-town people a bad name. Being from a small town doesn’t give you an excuse to act like a complete psychopath.” The woman glared viciously at the older lady, but the older lady wasn’t having it. She stood up and pointed a finger right in her face. “What are you looking at? You wanna keep staring at me?” The woman quickly looked down at her lap, too scared to say a word. I gave her a cold warning: “I am going to monitor your account and every other platform. If I catch you posting my face or spreading rumors about me again, we will handle this at the police station.” The woman ground her teeth but didn’t dare talk back. I didn’t want to waste another second on her and turned to leave. I could still hear her muttering behind me: “Looking like that, how could she not be going on a date. Liar…”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391180”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Ethan Vance threw the checkbook at my face, demanding I kneel and apologize to Mia Harper for the ninth time. “A hundred grand per bow.” Calculating the remaining balance for my mother’s medical bills in my head, I kept my face completely blank and slammed my forehead against the floor ten times. The moment my fingers closed around the check, the System’s voice pinged in my ear. “Congratulations, Host. You have accumulated the required funds. Would you like to initiate extraction from this world?” Feeling a wave of absolute liberation, I slumped onto the floor. Seeing me on the ground, Ethan sneered and tossed a sheer black lace dress at me. “Not enough?” “Then dance for us, darling. A striptease. Fifty grand a minute.” The moment he finished speaking, Mia, leaning against his shoulder, let out a tearful giggle. The circle of trust-fund brats around them started jeering and throwing cash at me. “Look at her, Manhattan’s biggest gold digger, Chloe Adams, selling her dignity again! Since Ethan’s paying out, I’ll book the first ten minutes!” Watching the green bills flutter down around me, I let out a bleak laugh and took a step back. Then, right before Ethan’s suddenly panicked eyes, I turned and threw myself off the yacht, plunging straight into the icy waters of the Hudson River. This time, the gold digger Chloe doesn’t want your money anymore. 1 When I opened my eyes, Ethan immediately leaned over, closely inspecting me. “You’re awake? Does anything hurt? Should I call the doctor?” At the same time, the System’s voice grumbled in my ear. “Host, you are way too impulsive!” “I just asked if you wanted to initiate extraction, I didn’t say we could leave immediately! Detaching your consciousness from this body takes seven days.” Fine. Seven days it is. Just enough time to say goodbye to the people in this world who actually matter. Ethan reached out and grabbed my hand. A second later, I yanked it away. Dead silence filled the hospital room. “Jumping into the river just like that? Your stunts are getting dramatic,” he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “I won’t hold it against you this time. Take the card.” “Mia was terrified by your little stunt last night. She’s in the hospital too. I need to go stay with her.” A sleek, black Centurion card gleamed against the stark white hospital sheets. I offered a weak, exhausted smile. Of course. Even when I nearly died right in front of him, he still thought this was all just a negotiation tactic for more money. When I first arrived in this world on a mission, my goal was to earn three million dollars to pay for my mother’s life-saving surgery back in my original reality. I actually hit that goal right before I married Ethan. I told the System to pay the hospital and planned to stay here, living out the rest of my life quietly by Ethan’s side. But on our wedding night, the System apologetically informed me that the exchange rate between the two dimensions had plummeted to ten-to-one. I needed to raise thirty million, or my mother would die immediately. The very next morning, Ethan saw paparazzi photos of me hawking my own jewelry on the news. His face turned to ice. “Ethan, I can explain…” “Save it. Since I married you, whatever kind of person you are, I’ll accept it.” He said it so casually, acting like he didn’t care at all. I foolishly let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t until he started bringing women home that I understood what his “acceptance” actually looked like. From the guest bedroom, the sounds of a couple going at it echoed down the hall. “Ethan, you’re so bad… aren’t you afraid your wife will get mad?” Ethan’s voice was utterly dismissive. “Mad? She’s exactly the same kind of woman you are. What right does she have to be mad?” “Actually, she’s much worse than you. After all, she scammed her way into the title of Mrs. Vance.” I spent that entire night leaning against the wall in the hallway, crying until I had no tears left. From that day on, the name Chloe Vance became infamous in New York’s elite circles. The rumor was that every time Ethan brought a woman home, he paid his wife a million dollars. If I laid out the condoms for them, that was a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus. If I personally held an umbrella and walked his mistresses to their Ubers in the rain, another three hundred thousand. Every single time, I shamelessly took the money. And every single time, Ethan’s disgust for me deepened. But I still held onto a tiny shred of hope. I thought, if he just knew the truth, maybe he’d believe me. Until Mia Harper showed up. She was an Ivy League graduate, a self-proclaimed idealist. The young girl despised the way Ethan threw money at his problems, and mocked me for being a useless, parasitic gold digger. Yesterday on the yacht, after she “accidentally” stepped on and tore my couture gown, she pulled a thick stack of ten-dollar bills out of her beat-up tote bag and told me to count it. When I refused to count her petty cash, she clenched her fists, her eyes welling up with stubborn tears. “Mrs. Vance, what is this supposed to mean? Are you looking down on me?” “I’m not like you. I might not have money, but at least I have a spine.” Ethan looked at her with pure, undisguised admiration. To coax a smile out of her, he physically forced me to my knees on the yacht’s deck and ordered me to bow. “Chloe, don’t you love money more than anything?” “Keep bowing until Mia laughs. If she’s happy, I don’t care how much it costs.” My gaze drifted back to the black card on the bed. My face was completely devoid of emotion as I tossed it back at his chest. “Keep it.” 2 Ethan’s face darkened instantly. “Only women who are actually loved by their husbands get to throw tantrums.” “Do you really think you have the right to give me attitude?” I gripped the blanket tightly, forcing out a smile that felt worse than sobbing. He always knew exactly where to twist the knife. He was right. I had no right. But what use does a dying person have for money? The hospital TV suddenly flashed to last night’s local news. “Billionaire’s Wife Takes a Midnight Swim: Highly Educated Mistress Plays the Ultimate Power Move.” Ethan’s brow furrowed, and he whipped out his phone. I, however, found the tabloids’ dramatic headlines genuinely amusing. I let out a bitter chuckle looking at the paparazzi shot of me plunging into the water. Seeing my reaction, Ethan raised an eyebrow. “I should have known. Just another one of your tricks.” “You put on this whole ‘jumping into the river’ spectacle just so you could tip off the press and slander Mia, didn’t you?” “Chloe, risking your own life just to secure a slightly bigger payout… you really are the lowest of the low.” He spun on his heel and stormed out of the hospital room. But I realized something surprising. My heart didn’t ache the way it usually did. For my last seven days, I refused to waste any more tears on this drama. I texted Maya, asking her to meet me at the little coffee shop where Ethan and I had our very first date. I figured, since everything started here, it was only fitting that everything ended here too. Maya grabbed my hands across the table, her eyes red. “Chloe, how did you get this thin after only six months of marriage? Look, let’s just go back to the West Coast. Leave the Vance family and all this toxic garbage behind.” I shook my head and laid everything out for her—the System, the money, the imminent departure. She sat in stunned silence for several minutes, but ultimately, she chose to believe me. But a second later, Maya’s eyes flared with pure, unadulterated rage. I followed her gaze. Right across the street, a trendy new artisan coffee shop was having its grand opening. The owner was Mia Harper. Ethan was standing right beside her, looking at her with an incredibly soft, indulgent expression. I should have been used to it. Last week it was a boutique clothing store. The week before that, a luxury pet spa. Whatever the girl wanted, Ethan personally bankrolled it. But why did they have to open this one right across the street from here… “That little homewrecker goes around telling everyone you’re a gold digger, while she’s literally having her life funded by your husband?! Oh, hell no. I’m going over there!” I scrambled to catch up with Maya. But I was too late. Ethan saw her coming and shoved her backward hard. “Chloe! Put your rabid dog on a leash!” Hearing that, my grip on Maya’s hand tightened. Before I could even process what I was doing, I slapped Ethan Vance hard across the face. The world went dead silent. The only thing I felt was the stinging heat in my palm. “You’re a parasite living off Ethan’s money! What gives you the right to hit people?!” Mia pointed her finger right in my face, screaming. Her shrieking drew a massive crowd of onlookers. Ethan radiated dark, violent fury. Maya immediately stepped in front of me, shielding me. “Do you have any idea your wife suffers from severe anxiety and depression?! And it’s all thanks to you and your little side piece! You practically drowned her yesterday, and now you want to hit her?!” I tugged at Maya’s sleeve, just wanting to escape. As I turned, a strong hand clamped down on my arm. “Chloe… is what she said true?” Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his voice sounding strangely tight. Mia suddenly let out a bubbly laugh, stepping around Maya as if they were old friends. “Wow, what a coincidence, Chloe! I’m getting my master’s in psychology. Why don’t I give you a free evaluation?” Maya shoved her shoulder. “Who knows what kind of garbage you’d make up? Back off.” Ethan’s gaze shifted to Mia, his tone instantly turning protective and fond. “Mia is a graduate student at Columbia. She earned her place through hard work and intellect. You can trust her professional opinion.” It was laughable. Why on earth would I trust his mistress? Mia tilted her head, putting on a perfectly rehearsed look of concern. “The thing is, the most obvious symptom of clinical depression is a total loss of the will to live.” “But Chloe’s survival instincts are incredibly strong. Especially her instinct to acquire wealth. That totally contradicts the diagnosis…” Ethan raised an eyebrow and let out a scoff. “Hah. She could lose everything in the world as long as she doesn’t lose a dollar. Depression? Hilarious.” “Chloe, you’re pretty clever, getting your friend to put on this little theatrical performance. I almost fell for it.” “Playing the tragic, misunderstood victim in the hospital, and now this? Tsk. You’re really working overtime to keep my attention.” My expression remained completely flat. Maya looked like she was going to pass out from pure rage. Ethan pulled Mia into his side, looking us up and down with mocking pity. “You and your friend should take some notes from Mia. Have your own ambitions and careers. Stop spending every waking hour scheming for a payout. Women need to value their self-respect.” He guided the girl into his waiting Maybach and sped off. Maya stood on the sidewalk, screaming curses into the exhaust fumes. I sighed. “Come on, let it go. I’m leaving anyway. What’s the point of arguing with them?” Maya burst into tears and threw her arms around me. “I swear to God, Chloe, after you leave, that bastard is going to regret this for the rest of his life!” 3 I had no idea if Ethan would regret it. I only knew that he didn’t come home that night either. To bury the negative press surrounding Mia’s little club incident, he organized a massive, high-profile charity street race, donating all the proceeds in Mia’s name. But for some reason, while he was behind the wheel, my completely unbothered, indifferent face kept flashing in his mind. Chloe has been acting so strange these past few days… In that split second of distraction, his sports car slammed into a concrete barrier. He survived without major injuries, but photos of him instinctively shielding Mia during the crash went viral on Twitter and Instagram. The next morning, he wired me three million dollars. We had an established rule: every time he was caught by the paparazzi with another woman, I got a three-million-dollar “inconvenience fee.” I used to desperately need that money, and he seemed to enjoy the transactional humiliation of our arrangement. I closed out of the news app, my thoughts drifting back to a long time ago. This was only the second time Ethan had ever street raced. The first time was for me. Back then, a rival syndicate of the Vance family had kidnapped me and dragged me up to a cabin in the Catskills. The Vance family had already arranged for professional fixers to deliver the ransom, but Ethan refused to wait. He insisted on going himself. The kidnappers had barricaded the mountain roads. Their real target was always Ethan. That night, he drove like a madman, ramming his car through the barricades. By the time we made it back to the Vance estate, he was battered and bleeding, looking like he’d been through a warzone. But I, sitting in the passenger seat, didn’t have a single scratch on me. I sat by his bedside, taking care of him for seven days and seven nights. When Ethan finally woke up, the very first thing he did was look for me. He pulled me tightly into his arms, his voice hoarse. “Thank God my Chloe is safe. If they had touched you, I would have killed every last one of them.” “If anything ever happened to you, I promise I wouldn’t survive it.” My heart had trembled, melting into absolute devotion. It was in that moment I decided I was going to stay by his side for the rest of my life. Now, years later, I stared at the three-million-dollar wire transfer notification on my phone… and hit “Decline.” A second later, my phone started buzzing violently. I just powered it off and went to sleep. Five days left. The second thing I needed to do was say goodbye to Lily. She was the very first girl I sponsored when I moved to New York. Last month, she finally got her acceptance letter to NYU. The moment I walked through the doors of the youth center, I ran right into Ethan. He was holding Mia’s hand, presenting an oversized novelty check from the street race to this exact facility. Wow. What a coincidence. A gentle breeze ruffled Mia’s hair. She looked like an angel as she offered words of encouragement to the kids. “I’m here to help you today, but what I really hope is that you learn from my example. You have to rely on yourself to find your value in this world.” The kids gathered around her, cheering and clapping. Ethan watched her, his eyes overflowing with adoration. But my eyes were fixed on what she was holding in her hand—the black Centurion card Ethan had tried to give me two days ago. Lily’s eyes were red. “Chloe, why are you suddenly leaving?” “Back before you even married into the Vance family, you worked three jobs just to pay for my schooling. I haven’t even had a chance to pay you back yet…” I reached out to ruffle Lily’s hair, but before I could comfort her, a voice cut in. “Ethan, look! Isn’t that your gold-digger wife? Ugh, she’s stalking us again!” Ethan scowled and marched over to me, grabbing my arm and dragging me into a corner. He lowered his voice, his tone sharp. “Go home. Are you seriously throwing a jealous fit here?!” “Today is a big day for Mia. Do not cause a scene!” Lily was startled but quickly ran over to defend me. “Chloe is my sponsor! Excuse me, sir, but you need to show some respect!” Ethan froze. “Since when have you been sponsoring kids? Why didn’t I know about this?” I answered flatly, “I started before we were married. I don’t need to report every detail of my life to you.” Ethan’s face turned a darker shade of anger. “You’re certainly generous when it comes to strangers.” After a long pause, a look of realization dawned on his face, and he eyed me with suspicion. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always been greedy. You want the glamorous title of a billionaire’s wife, but you also want the saintly philanthropist image to go with it.” “Did you bribe my secretary for my itinerary today, or did you just guess I’d be here from the news? Chloe, your little schemes are endless.” Mia marched over, puffing out her cheeks in self-righteous anger. “Exactly, Mrs. Vance! True charity shouldn’t be done for fame!” “Running all the way over here just to show off to Ethan… you’re only making him look down on you even more!” They were living in their own delusional reality. I had completely lost the desire to explain myself. “Sure. Whatever you guys say.” I checked my phone. It was getting late. Ethan grabbed Mia’s hand and roughly shoved past me. “Let’s see how long she can keep this act up.” Watching them walk away, Lily looked incredibly confused. “Chloe, is that really your husband? Why would he say those things? Doesn’t he know you’re leaving?” My expression was calm. “Lily, as you grow up, I hope you develop the ability to see through the surface of things. Don’t be fooled by appearances, and always protect your own heart.” … Ethan didn’t come home for the next three days. My departure date was rapidly approaching. During those days, the only contact I had with him were the wire transfer notifications. As usual, I rejected every single one. In the early hours of my second-to-last day, my bedroom door was violently shoved open. A man reeking of scotch pinned me to the mattress and crushed his mouth against mine. Smack! “Ethan Vance, what the hell is wrong with you?!” 4 He forcefully gripped my jaw, his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot. “You won’t take my money, and now you won’t even let me kiss you, huh?” “Chloe, aren’t you obsessed with money? What kind of game are you playing now? Or did you find yourself a new sugar daddy?” I shoved him away with all my strength, pulling a pillow against my chest to protect myself. “Why do you suddenly care what I do?” “You have your pure, morally superior little mistress. If you’re horny, go find her. Don’t come in here looking for a fight.” Those words seemed to snap Ethan back to reality. He stopped struggling and stared intensely at my face, as if trying to decipher some hidden meaning. But the cold, detached look in my eyes only seemed to agitate him further. Something had fundamentally shifted. I fully expected him to storm out and head to Mia’s apartment. But the next morning, I found him asleep on the living room sofa. He looked strangely peaceful. My phone rang, breaking the silence. I looked away and walked back to my room to answer it. “What’s wrong, Maya?” “Chloe, I’m moving back to LA. That little bitch Mia used Ethan’s name to threaten my boss. I got fired…” A heavy weight crashed down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. No matter how much I endured, my toxic marriage was still dragging my friends down with me. Maya tried her best to keep her voice light. “It’s fine, honestly! I was thinking about moving back anyway. With you leaving, there’s no point in me staying in this city…” After hanging up, I frantically opened my jewelry box and started emptying it. Thank God. I still had a few pieces of solid gold jewelry I hadn’t pawned yet. Gold prices were high right now; the cash from these would be enough to cover Maya’s living expenses for a few years. I found a pawn shop in Brooklyn, far away from the Upper East Side. But the second I walked through the door, I knew I had walked into a trap. Mia’s voice drifted from behind me. “Ethan, you’re just too naive. You actually believed this woman suddenly stopped caring about money.” “See? A dog always goes back to its vomit. She’s here pawning the jewelry you bought her.” Her eyes gleamed like a hawk locked onto its prey. I slowly clenched my fists, my entire body shaking. This young girl, who constantly preached about her “moral purity,” had gotten Maya fired, stalked me to a pawn shop, and orchestrated this entire confrontation! I tried, weakly, to explain. “Ethan didn’t buy these. I saved up for them myself. And if you hadn’t ruined my friend’s life, I wouldn’t have to pawn them…” Crash! The jewelry box was violently smacked out of my hands by an ice-cold Ethan. The gold chains and rings scattered across the dirty tile floor with a loud clatter. Swallowing every ounce of my pride, I dropped to my knees and desperately started gathering them up. I couldn’t lose a single piece. Every ring was Maya’s rent money. I already owed my friend too much. I couldn’t let her suffer anymore. Ethan planted his expensive leather shoe down on one of the gold rings, staring down at me with absolute disgust. “Chloe, you are truly repulsive.” “When you stopped taking my wire transfers, I actually thought you had changed. Playing hard to get to my face, while sneaking around pawning my gifts behind my back. If Mia hadn’t warned me, I might have actually felt sorry for you.” I didn’t even look up. I just carefully handed the gold I had gathered to the pawnshop owner. “It’s all 24-karat. Can you weigh it? I only want cash.” “Anyone who buys her gold is declaring war on the Vance family!” The owner’s hand froze awkwardly in mid-air. I looked up at Ethan in absolute disbelief. “Don’t cross the line! I bought these with my own money!” Ethan leaned down, gripping my chin, his eyes completely devoid of warmth. “Chloe, do people like you even have ‘personal property’? What do you have that wasn’t paid for by me?” I let out a harsh, bitter laugh. Tears spilled over my lashes, completely out of my control. “If you don’t trust me, why are we still doing this dance? We can just get a divorce.” Divorce meant nothing to me now. But maybe I just wanted to hear his answer. Just how deeply did he hate me? Ethan’s pupils contracted sharply, and his grip on my jaw loosened. Mia panicked. “Ethan, are you actually going to believe a woman who has done nothing but lie to you?” “If you believe her, then I’ll leave! Let’s just pretend I framed her today!” Ethan grabbed the girl’s arm as she turned to run, pulling her close and resting his nose against her temple. He coaxed her gently. “Don’t be silly. How could a sweet, innocent girl like you ever frame anyone?” When he looked back at me, his eyes had turned back to ice. “Notify every jeweler and pawn shop in the tri-state area. No one is to do business with Chloe Adams.” After they left, I clutched the jewelry to my chest and walked for a very, very long time. I walked until my legs were completely numb, finally arriving outside Maya’s apartment building. I handed her the gold and told her she’d have to find a way to pawn it herself. Maya accepted it through her tears. The final, heaviest stone in my heart was finally lifted. Tonight, after midnight, I would finally be free.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391179”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Carter Hayes pursued me for seven years. On his 99th proposal, he sank to the bottom of the tank at the city aquarium, dancing with a beluga whale in front of hundreds of cheering tourists. Deeply moved, I smiled and nodded yes. That very afternoon, he told me he was taking me to meet his parents. Instead, he drove me to a cemetery. In front of their headstones, I was pinned to the ground by countless hands, completely paralyzed. The next day, flyers plastered with naked photos of me covered the city streets. My phone blew up with thousands of vile, harassing calls. Driven to despair, I tracked Carter down. My voice choked with tears. “Why are you doing this to me?” Carter leaned in, his voice a soft, terrifying whisper against my ear. “Did you notice the date of death on my parents’ headstones?” “It’s the exact same day your father committed that hit-and-run.” He bound my hands and feet and threw me into an enclosed whale tank. “You love being with the whales so much, right? Enjoy.” Thank God the beluga I had trained slammed her body against the gate until she bled, alerting the staff who pulled me out. But I had been underwater too long. The oxygen deprivation caused severe brain damage, requiring extensive physical therapy just to function again. Months later, after discovering the horrific truth behind the accident, Carter held my trembling hand, his own hands shaking violently. “Chloe, please… will you give me one more chance?” 1 I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve faced this foam therapy ball. The moment my fingertips brushed the surface, a sharp spike of pain shot up my nerves, hammering right into my temples. “Try to grip it. That’s it, slowly apply pressure.” The physical therapist gently guided my fingers. I gritted my teeth. It was the simplest movement in the world, yet it required every ounce of energy in my body. Finally, my fingertips barely curled around the edge of the ball. Before I could even exhale, a wave of intense vertigo hit me. The ball slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a smack, rolling far away. I slumped back into the therapy chair, letting out a heavy, defeated breath. But the moment my muscles relaxed, I froze. Through the glass window of the door, I saw a familiar pair of eyes. Those eyes radiated a cold, malicious indifference—an expression I had never seen on him before the cemetery. But this… this was the real Carter Hayes. Seeing someone enter, the therapist took a step back. “Mr. Hayes. Unfortunately, we aren’t seeing much progress in today’s session.” Carter picked up the ball from the floor, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. “You can leave us. It seems she’s just not being obedient.” Seeing the look on his face, goosebumps erupted across my arms. I looked at the therapist, my eyes begging him to stay. But he was paid to do a job. He let out a quiet sigh and walked out of the room. “Chloe, why are you always so stubborn? Let me help you with your therapy.” “Here, grab the ball.” I tried to clench my fist, but I had absolutely no strength left. My hand didn’t move an inch. “Get out!” Carter looked at me, his eyes narrowing in displeasure. “Why are you being so uncooperative?” “Chloe, remember: if I can throw you into a whale tank, I can throw your hit-and-run murderer of a father in there right next to you!” My head snapped up. “Carter, don’t you dare touch my dad!” Carter’s eyes turned into dangerous slits. He lifted the ball again, dangling it right in front of my face. “Then shouldn’t you be a good girl and do your therapy?” “Fine.” I clenched my jaw and painstakingly raised my hand toward the ball. Just as my fingertips were about to brush the foam, Carter chucked the ball all the way across the room. He tilted his head, his gaze lazy and sadistic. “Chloe, go fetch the ball. Good girl.” My face burned hot red as a wave of utter humiliation crashed over me. But remembering his threat against my father, I slowly, agonizingly started to wheel my chair forward. Carter smiled with dark satisfaction. “Such a good dog.” I fought back my tears. Just a little further. Almost there. If I just get the ball, it’ll be fine. Struggling to control my damaged motor skills, I kept one hand on the wheelchair rim and reached out with the other to grab the ball from the floor. Suddenly, the wheelchair was violently yanked backward. I pitched forward, crashing clumsily onto the hard linoleum. My face slammed into the therapy ball, sending it bouncing away again. Carter let go of the wheelchair handles, his voice dripping with ice. “Chloe, you really need to be more careful.” “Look. The ball got away again.” I stared up at Carter, feeling like I was truly seeing him for the first time. Perhaps my glare triggered something in him. He stepped forward and planted his expensive leather shoe directly onto the back of my hand. “Chloe, I said… go fetch the ball.” The crushing pain radiating from my hand made me curl up instinctively. Carter looked down like he had just made a fascinating scientific discovery. “Well look at that, Chloe! Your body still reacts to pain!” With that, he ground his heel down harder. The skin on the back of my hand tore under the sole of his shoe, and I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. Carter’s face went deadpan. “Chloe, moaning like that… maybe I should just pimp you out. You’d make a fortune on the streets.” My mind violently snapped back to six months ago. The memory of the vile, filthy things the men he hired had said to me flooded my nervous system. I clutched my ears, breaking down completely. “Please… please stop, please don’t say that.” Carter scoffed, looking at me with pure contempt. “You’re only getting exactly what you deserve. If you want someone to blame, blame your father for killing my parents!” “And because he did that, I am going to inflict every ounce of that pain onto his precious daughter.” 2 I lay paralyzed on the floor, muttering uncontrollably. “That’s not what happened… it’s not…” “My dad didn’t… he didn’t hit them and run. He was framed!” Just then, Carter’s cell phone rang. “Mia,” he answered. The way his lips formed her name sent my heart plummeting straight into the abyss. “Mhm, I love you too. I’ll be home a little late.” Watching him hang up the phone with such a tender expression, memories of our past surged up, bringing a dull, throbbing ache to my chest. “Carter, please just let me go.” He suddenly grabbed my jaw, his fingers digging into my cheeks. “Let you go? Do you think becoming a pathetic cripple cancels out the fact that your father murdered my family?” “Keep dreaming!” He leaned in to kiss me. I quickly jerked my head away. “You have a new girlfriend. How can you do this to her?” He stroked my long hair, almost like he was petting a stray dog. “She doesn’t know you exist. And don’t you dare try to get her attention.” “Get better. Then, you can receive your next punishment.” When the therapist returned and saw me lying on the floor, he hurriedly rushed over to help me back into my wheelchair. Once I was settled, he spoke quietly. “Chloe, your father called. He said Pearl isn’t doing well.” “He asked if you wanted to go back and see her.” My heart dropped. Pearl was the beluga whale I had trained for years. She was the one who had bashed herself against the steel grate until she bled, alerting the staff to save me from the tank. Three years ago, Pearl had started showing signs of severe depression. She was deeply attached to me, but I could never go back to her. I couldn’t even reach out a hand to pet her without exhausting myself. After a long silence, I couldn’t ignore the knot of anxiety in my stomach. “I… I want to go see her.” “I’ll have to ask Mr. Hayes for permission,” the therapist replied. I let out a cold laugh. Why do I have to ask Carter for permission just to leave the building? During the darkest moments of my life, it was Pearl and my father who kept me alive. Back then, I had just been pulled off life support. I had to relearn how to blink. I thought my life was completely, utterly over. I lay in my hospital bed, refusing to eat or drink. It was my dad who snuck me out, dodging the nurses, and wheeled me into the aquarium after hours. Pearl swam frantically to the edge of the pool, pushing her large, bulbous head against my legs through the glass. After a while, she seemed to realize I couldn’t move. A thick, heavy tear rolled out of her massive eye. She just stayed there with me. Because she was partially out of the water for too long, her skin started to dry out and crack. The caretakers gently pushed her back into the water, but she violently thrashed her way back up to the ledge, refusing to move, just staying right by my side. After the third time they pushed her back in and she stubbornly forced herself back onto the concrete, I finally broke down and cried. “Pearl, don’t worry. I promise I’ll stay alive.” Only then did she seem to relax, sliding back into the deep water. Just like she used to do a hundred times before, she flipped her tail at me, splashing water against the glass. That was the day Carter tracked me down and dragged me away again. This time, he hid me somewhere much more secure. “You are serving a sentence for your father!” “Why do you always try to escape me?” I tried to explain, over and over again, but he never believed a word. Seeing Pearl again. Her emaciated frame made me almost afraid to recognize her. I sat hidden in the crowd, watching her perform her routine, over and over, looking utterly exhausted. It felt like someone was slicing my heart open with a scalpel. “Chloe, I didn’t think you’d actually have the guts to show up here.” The familiar voice sneered from beside me. I started trembling uncontrollably. Carter stood there with his arms crossed, looking down at me like a god judging a mortal. Beside him stood a stunningly beautiful woman. “Chloe, I can’t believe you dared to come back to the city.” “What, looking to get back into your old line of work?” “How much do you charge for a night now? I could have a few of my buddies throw some business your way.” The sheer contempt in her voice triggered a violent flashback. When Carter had his men strip my clothes off, they had used that exact same tone. “Look at yourself, Chloe. This is exactly what a murderer looks like.” “All the pretty packaging in the world can’t hide how rotten you and your father are on the inside.” “If my parents could see the daughter of their killer looking this pathetic, they’d be thrilled.” Time and time again, Carter’s words pierced straight through my heart. I didn’t answer. I just stared anxiously at Pearl in the water. Carter sneered. “Chloe, don’t tell me you’re still trying to save this stupid fish?” “You couldn’t even do it when you had a functioning body. Do you think you can do it now as a cripple?” I clenched my jaw, fighting to control my emotions. Since the severe brain trauma, extreme emotional distress could trigger seizures. “I’m going inside.” I don’t know how much time passed before the crowd erupted into cheers. A mermaid performer was being proposed to. The bright red letters on the waterproof sign were impossible to miss. [CARTER, I LOVE YOU.] Carter used his arms to form a massive heart back at her. “That’s my girlfriend, Mia.” The same woman who had just mocked me to my face. They were together. “Look how beautifully she swims. Just like a real mermaid, right?” “Oh, I almost forgot. You used to be the best trainer they had.” 3 Carter’s words hammered heavily against my chest. The heartache was so intense I briefly dissociated. Time seemed to rewind. I remembered when Carter secretly spent three months learning to free-dive, and I had no idea. A coworker eventually told me. They said he was terrified of the water and wouldn’t even get in the pool at first. Once, he even passed out from sheer panic after diving in. But he gritted his teeth and kept practicing, insisting he had to give me the perfect underwater proposal. When my coworker told me the story, her eyes were practically glowing with envy. Who could have ever imagined that the man who looked at me like I hung the moon and the man who shoved me into the abyss were the exact same person? Looking at the scene playing out before me, a storm raged in my eyes, but in the end, I just offered a quiet: “That’s nice.” “I’ve seen enough. I want to go back.” I turned to maneuver my wheelchair away, but Carter indignantly blocked my path. “Chloe, how the hell are you so at peace with yourself?!” “You deserve to be spat on by thousands! You deserve to be cursed by millions!” His eyes were bloodshot, looking like a rabid animal. Suddenly, he laughed—a wild, unhinged cackle. “Chloe, you really care about this whale, don’t you?” “Then I’m going to make you watch her die in absolute despair!” My heart seized. I panicked. “Carter, what are you doing?!” Carter looked down at me with his usual arrogant superiority. “Oh, now you’re panicking, Chloe? Where did all that calm indifference go?” “Can’t bear it? If you get down on your knees, I’ll let her go.” After a beat, he scoffed again. “Oh, I forgot. Your broken body can’t even kneel anymore.” “Chloe, what makes you think a cripple can save her?” He tapped a few buttons on his phone. The massive jumbotron above the performance pool suddenly switched from the live feed to a video of countless wild belugas swimming and leaping freely in the open ocean. Pearl was captivated by the screen. She stopped her performance entirely. I could see the raw, desperate longing for freedom in her eyes. But then, the video abruptly cut. Footage of hundreds of whales being electrocuted, hunted, and violently hauled onto slaughter ships flooded the massive screen. I screamed in absolute terror! “No! Stop!” “Carter, I’m begging you, turn it off!” As a professional trainer, I knew exactly what this would do. A highly intelligent creature trapped in a tiny, claustrophobic glass box cannot handle that kind of psychological shock and overstimulation. On the stage, Pearl began to thrash and emit agonizing, high-pitched shrieks. I stared at Carter, pleading with everything I had. But he just stared back at me with dead eyes, completely expressionless. It was as if he was punishing me for my earlier indifference. Sitting trapped in my wheelchair, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I could only cover my eyes in sheer despair. I couldn’t bear to look at Pearl. My fingertips were trembling violently. Finally, breaking down completely in the midst of the silent tremors, I screamed at Carter: “When are you going to stop this insane revenge crusade?! My father NEVER committed a hit-and-run!” “You have been completely, fundamentally wrong this entire time!” Carter froze for a split second, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes. “Chloe, you are just as disgusting as your father.” “To protect a stupid fish, you’d actually spew a lie like that?” “Your whole family is nothing but shameless liars! Murderers!” His eyes were blood-red, looking like a man refusing to hear an unacceptable truth. But… I was telling the absolute truth. He just couldn’t handle it. He refused to believe it. I slumped back into my wheelchair, the world spinning sickeningly around me. That night, I received a call from the aquarium director. “Chloe… Pearl… she killed herself.” 4 The phone slipped from my hand. Thinking of Pearl’s emaciated body, tears fell silently down my face. Maybe it’s better this way. She’s finally free. Pearl, in your next life, I hope you get to swim in the endless ocean. Never cross paths with me again, and never, ever cross paths with another human. That night, consumed by severe depression, I sat by the open window, letting the freezing wind whip against my face for a long time. Just then, the door opened. I turned around in terror, only to lock eyes with my father. He had disguised himself in a lab coat to sneak into the private care facility. “Chloe, Dad’s here.” He looked at my skeletal frame, holding my face in his hands, his voice breaking. “Dad’s taking you home.” I sobbed and nodded. We dodged the security cameras and managed to slip into his truck undetected. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I never thought that animal Carter would hide you away again!” I stayed hidden in our old family home for a long time. The walls were covered in photos of me and Pearl during our training days. After Pearl died, I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. If I hadn’t shown up, if I hadn’t gone back… Pearl wouldn’t have been triggered by the video Carter orchestrated. Carter’s revenge had worked perfectly. I lay awake night after night, drowning in guilt and self-hatred. My father just watched me, sighing heavily. There was no longer a Pearl to pull me out of the abyss of despair. In my childhood bedroom, there were still so many things tied to Carter. The small white-noise machine on my nightstand—he had scoured the entire city to find it. Just because I casually mentioned, “I always sleep so well when it rains.” The projector in the living room—he installed it himself. Just because a movie I wanted to see was pulled from theaters. When he finished setting it up, his smile was so bright. “See? Now my Chloe never has to worry about missing a movie again!” The drawers full of hand cream—he hoarded them for me whenever he traveled for work, just because I loved this specific brand. Piece by piece, these memories had turned into toxic thorns buried in my heart. Even breathing hurt. Until I received a text message. The sender was Mia. Pearl’s new trainer. The text was a photograph. I immediately recognized it as Pearl’s feeding bucket. The fresh fish had been replaced with a sludgy, rotting meat paste. Two lines of text accompanied the photo. [Your whale was pretty tough, surviving on garbage like this for three years before finally dying.] [She screamed at your picture every single day. Too bad she never got to see you before she went.] The blood in my veins turned to ice. A freezing chill seeped into my bones. My heart felt like it was going to explode with pure, unadulterated rage. How dare they! How could they treat my Pearl like that! Physical pain ripped through my chest. Unable to withstand the violent surge of emotion, my vision went completely black. In my coma, I thought I saw Pearl. She was swimming aimlessly in the tiny, cramped tank. Then she breached the surface, wailing mournfully at the photo of us taped to the concrete wall. When I opened my eyes, I was back in a hospital bed. In just one day, my father seemed to have aged a decade. Seeing me wake up, the man who had always been a pillar of strength burst into tears. “Baby, please… can you please stop torturing yourself like this?” Looking at my father’s graying hair, my nose stung. “Dad, I’m so sorry.” My father held me, his tears soaking my hospital gown. “Oh, sweetie… it’s all my fault. I failed to protect you.” How could it possibly be his fault? Just like Pearl, he had never done anything wrong. “Dad. I want to call the police.” My father gently patted my back. “Okay. Dad will make the call.” At the precinct, I handed my phone with the text message to the detective. “Officer, please, you have to investigate this thoroughly.” The young detective sitting across from me nodded solemnly. My eyes flicked to his nametag: Liam Sterling. What a nice name. Mia was quickly summoned to the precinct. When she saw me, her eyes went wide. “Chloe, how dare you call the cops?” “Don’t forget, your father is a hit-and-run murderer!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391178”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I am the top cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Luke’s Medical Center. But after I single-handedly secured tens of millions in sponsorships, my husband, Ethan, suddenly went back on his word. He gave the Vice-Chair position he had promised me to Mia. He even swapped me out as the attending physician for several VIPs I had just dragged back from death’s door, handing them over to her. His excuse was that I needed to rest my body to prepare for IVF. But behind my back, he joked with his friends. “That old man Bennett is still lying in a coma! Chloe has no backing anymore… If it weren’t for her family doing mine a favor, and my old man forcing me to marry her on his deathbed, the Clarke family’s daughter-in-law would only be Mia!” “Divorce? Impossible. We have an understanding… If she throws a tantrum, I’ll just pacify her with some of Mia’s old jewelry! Isn’t that what we’ve always done?” I laughed. At the board meeting the next day, I slammed my leave slip right in front of Mia. “The two months of PTO I’ve saved up? I’m starting it today.” —— 1 “Leave?” The woman chased me into my office in her stilettos, running so fast her makeup was smudging. “I don’t approve!” I didn’t even bother looking up, continuing to pack up the patient files I needed to hand over. “The former Chairman of St. Luke’s said that I can bypass anyone for time off… This slip is just a notification, not a request.” “Don’t you dare!” Mia slammed her hand on the leave slip on my desk. “If you dare to take leave, I’ll fire you.” She regretted the words the second they left her mouth. As the ace of St. Luke’s cardiothoracic surgery department, the hospital would grind to a halt without me. Let alone the Wall Street billionaires who only invested here because they trusted my surgical skills. “Fine by me…” I smiled, raising my eyes. “I’ll just treat it as an extended vacation! I’ll leave all these complex, life-or-death cases in your capable hands, Vice-Chair Scott.” I shoved a heavy box full of medical records into Mia’s arms. As I turned to leave, she violently grabbed my arm. “You are not allowed to leave!” She was anxious and furious, her manicured nails digging painfully into my skin. “Old Mr. Clarke is dead. Ethan gave me control of the board. I am the one calling the shots at St. Luke’s now!” Before she could finish her sentence, I slapped her hard across her left cheek. The blinds in my office were wide open. The passing doctors and nurses saw everything clearly. An angry, flushed red crept from Mia’s neck all the way to her eyes. I should have delivered this slap six months ago, the day I found out about her and Ethan. But back then, my dad had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was at the most critical stage of his treatment. He had held my hand, begging me to live a good life with Ethan. He said that way, he could die in peace. Ethan had apologized and sworn, like every other cheating man, that he would cut her off completely. More importantly, he had made me a promise. Only by becoming the Vice-Chair of St. Luke’s could I fulfill my father’s lifelong dream: rolling out AI-driven emergency medical robots in public spaces nationwide. Ultimately, Ethan needed my surgical skills, and I needed his administrative power. The familiar sound of leather dress shoes approached faster than expected. “Why did you hit her?!” Along with the roar came a tearing pain in my right wrist. Ethan pulled Mia into his arms with one hand, glaring at me furiously. “You know exactly what your father promised me.” Three years ago, St. Luke’s was hit by an unprecedented nursing strike. Staff resigned in droves, and hospital operations completely paralyzed. I wished I could clone myself a dozen times over, sprinting from the ER to the maternity ward, eventually collapsing from severe myocarditis. I nearly died. Ethan’s father—the former Chairman of St. Luke’s—bowed deeply to me in front of a room full of patients. “This is a debt that I, and St. Luke’s, owe you! From this day forward, ask for whatever you want!” I struggled to free my wrist, but his grip was iron. “Since Ms. Scott is the Vice-Chair now, she inherits the debt St. Luke’s owes me.” “Forget about slapping her…” I raised an eyebrow coldly. “Even you, the Chairman—I could slap you right now if I wanted to!” “Chloe!” The veins on the man’s temples throbbed. “Don’t push it!” Agonizing pain shot from my wrist straight to my chest. I forced out a cold sneer. “If you squeeze any harder, you’re going to have to find a new chief surgeon for St. Luke’s.” The threat worked. I massaged my aching wrist and let my gaze sweep over Mia. I smirked and turned to walk away. Just as I reached the elevators, the woman shouted down the hall. “Chloe Bennett, you’re nothing but a barren hen!” “A woman who can’t produce a Clarke family heir will never secure a place in this house!” 2 My footsteps abruptly halted. I glanced back. Ethan’s face was completely emotionless. He just crossed his arms, looking like he was enjoying the show. Without hesitation, I walked right back and stopped in front of Mia. The woman, who was half a head taller than me, stared down at me with smug provocation. She was young, pretty, and a decent doctor. Most importantly, her womb worked. Six months ago, she had given birth to Ethan’s baby boy. “Has Ms. Scott ever wondered why, six months later, you still haven’t been allowed to step foot inside the Clarke family estate?” I tapped a finger against her flat stomach, smiling sweetly. “Want me to ask him for you? Ask if he’ll ever let you and your bastard cross the threshold?” Mia’s face instantly drained of color. Ethan’s chest heaved slightly, his brows furrowed as he glared at me. I stepped up to him and placed my hand over his heart. Leaning in close, the familiar yet foreign warmth made me space out for a fraction of a second. Thankfully, it was only a second before I snapped back to reality. “You were the one who wronged me first, Ethan.” “So keep your dog on a leash, or I have plenty of ways to make your Wall Street backers pull their funding.” I took the crumpled leave slip from Mia and tucked it neatly into the breast pocket of his tailored suit. “When I come back in two months, you’d better pray no major medical emergencies happen while I’m gone.” When I looked up, Ethan’s face was black as thunder. I bent down, unbuckled my designer heels, and dangled them in front of his face. “I don’t like second-hand goods. You can have them back.” —— I didn’t feel the sharp, stinging pain in the soles of my feet until the Uber was miles away. I lifted my feet; they were bleeding heavily. The driver looked back in the rearview mirror, concerned. “Ma’am, should I take you back to the ER to get that treated?” “No, keep driving to LAX.” There was only one direct flight to Paris a day, and I wasn’t going to miss it. I expertly dug out the first-aid kit from my bag, but an ultrasound photo slipped out of my wallet. As I bent down to pick it up, scalding tears splashed onto the back of my hand. I hated crying. Crying was the most useless thing a person could do. Over the years, I had only cried twice: the night my dad fell into a coma, and the day I learned my eight-month-old fetus had died in my womb. It was at the absolute peak of the COVID pandemic. Every hospital in Los Angeles was overflowing. Medical staff were getting infected and dropping like flies. I was already on maternity leave, but Ethan literally begged me to come back and take the helm. I worked back-to-back shifts for over two weeks, eventually caught the virus, and was forced to terminate the pregnancy. When I heard the news, I locked myself in a hospital bathroom and wailed until I lost my voice. I had known Ethan for twenty years. My dad was once St. Luke’s top cardiothoracic surgeon, a brother-in-arms to Ethan’s father. I had buried all my teenage, girlish love for him beneath the guise of a strategic business marriage. He knew full well that losing that baby was my deepest trauma. Yet he personally handed the knife to Mia. —— When I landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I turned my phone back on to a flood of missed calls and texts. Even my work inbox was maxed out. Buried in a pile of frantic emails from St. Luke’s was an invitation from a man I hadn’t seen in years. I opened it, read it, and replied with three words. We’ll see. During my twelve-hour flight, Ethan had been looking for me like a madman. Just as I predicted, the VIP ward had gone up in flames. First, a New York Senator’s cardiovascular stent reclogged; he needed the old one removed and a new one installed. Then, a Silicon Valley tech CEO’s aortic aneurysm suddenly expanded, risking an imminent rupture. Unfortunately, both of these powerful men were in terrible overall health. No one else dared to take on the surgical risks. In other words, I was the only person alive who could save St. Luke’s from a massive PR disaster. Mia, the newly minted Vice-Chair, simply didn’t have the risk tolerance or skill to handle it. Ethan was only willing to swallow his pride and beg me because he was trying to protect her. I turned my phone off. I sat on a bench in a Parisian park, sipping a coffee as I watched a breathtaking sunset. Ethan and I had our wedding at a cathedral here in Paris. Every white dove in the square had witnessed our half-fake, half-real happiness. And my genuine heart, which had loved him for ten years, hidden behind corporate interests. But ironically, it was also here in this city that he bought a luxury villa for Mia to safely carry out her pregnancy. My phone rang abruptly. It was the old friend who had sent the email. “I’m back stateside.” “Have you thought about coming to my hospital? Whatever St. Luke’s can’t give you, I can.” “No,” I smiled softly. “I’m still wearing the title of the Clarke family’s wife. It wouldn’t be right.” After hanging up, I checked my watch. It was time for my daily video call with the private nurse taking care of my dad. But the panicked face on the screen told me something was terribly wrong. “Dr. Bennett, your father is gone… Someone came to the facility an hour ago and took him.” Without a second thought, I dialed Ethan’s number. “You took my dad, didn’t you?” He paused, but didn’t even try to hide it. “I miss you. Let’s meet.” 3 The meeting place was set in Paris, in the exact private suite of the hotel where we held our wedding reception. Outside the window was a sea of roses; inside, the atmosphere was freezing. “Why did you take my dad?” “Take? That’s an ugly word,” the man said, picking up his espresso and leaning back lazily. “I just felt bad that my father-in-law has been bedridden for so long. I wanted to take him out to sea to relax.” “Out to sea?” My heart dropped. The sudden click-clack of high heels was especially grating. Mia walked in wearing the exact same haute couture gown I had worn on my wedding day, resting her head lightly against Ethan’s shoulder. “Yes, out to sea…” She picked up Ethan’s phone from the table, unlocked it easily, and handed it to me. “Ethan specifically picked out his most luxurious yacht.” The video feed on the screen was violently rocking back and forth. On the yacht’s deck, lying on a starkly out-of-place hospital bed, was my father, in his vegetative state. Because of the crashing waves, his ventilator and heart monitor were violently shaking. I stared at the fluctuating vitals on the screen, my eyes turning red. “My dad is a critical patient! How could you take him out into the wind and freezing spray?” Ethan smirked. “I am the Chief of Neurosurgery. I know my father-in-law’s condition better than anyone.” “The sea breeze will stimulate his cerebral cortex. If I say he’s fine, he’s fine!” “Ethan!” I slammed my hands on the table and stood up, losing control of my emotions in a rare break of composure. My mother had died of an illness when I was very young. After my miscarriage, my father was my only living blood relative. “If anything happens to my dad on your boat, it’s involuntary manslaughter!” “Oh, now you’re panicking?” Mia stood up and slapped me hard across the face with a cold scoff. The ring on her finger cut my lip, drawing blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of panic in Ethan’s eyes. But he quickly regained his cold composure. “Based on the timeline, the yacht is already in international waters… If something happens in international waters, US federal law can’t touch me.” The video only showed the vast, endless ocean. He wasn’t lying. Even if he ordered his men to throw my dad overboard right now, it would be incredibly hard to convict him. Watching my dad’s precarious ventilator, my nails dug so hard into my palms they drew blood. “What exactly do you want?!” “Cancel your leave and fly back immediately to do the surgeries.” Ethan reached out and looped his arm around Mia’s neck, absently playing with her earring. “From now on, you cannot take leave without Mia’s approval, and you are never to mention the debt the Clarke family owes you again.” He slapped a legal agreement onto the table. If I signed it, it meant I would be trampled under Mia’s feet for the rest of my life. “And if I refuse?” Ethan tapped his phone. “The breeze on the deck isn’t strong enough. Let my father-in-law experience something a bit more thrilling.” Before I could process what was happening, two men in black suits appeared on the video feed. They tied my father’s hands with rope and hoisted him up, suspending him over the yacht’s railing. The massive waves crashing against the hull instantly soaked him to the bone. Though his oxygen mask was still strapped to his face, it looked like it could be ripped off by the wind at any second. “If you keep stalling, I’ll have them turn off the oxygen…” Before Ethan could finish his sentence, a dark red stain blossomed across his shoulder blade. I gripped my dessert fork and violently drove it another half-inch deep into his flesh. “If my dad dies, I’m taking you to hell with him!” The man’s dark eyes were suddenly filled with monstrous hatred. Mia shrieked and ordered his guards to pull me off him. The moment the fork was ripped from my hand, I was slammed face-first into the table. Mia grabbed a knife, looking like she was about to gouge my eye out. “Enough.” Ethan ripped his shirt open; the puncture wound was gruesome. “The pillar of St. Luke’s cardiothoracic department can’t be blind. We still need her reputation to secure funding.” He bit down on a piece of gauze, his eyes freezing cold. “Make a call to my father-in-law’s old friend.” I froze instantly. “The family of the cartel boss he refused to operate on eight years ago… they just got deported back to the States.” “No!” When I realized what he meant, a guttural, desperate scream tore from my throat. “That’s no different than sending my dad to his death!” “Ethan!” I tasted iron in the back of my throat, my eyes bloodshot. “If you hate me this much, why don’t you just divorce me?!” “Divorce?” Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he grabbed my jaw tightly. “In your dreams! So you can divorce me and take half my assets, including my shares in St. Luke’s?” “Don’t think I don’t know your dad’s lifelong dream was to push his AI emergency tech nationwide! Isn’t that the whole calculated reason you married me?” The metallic scent of blood flooded my nose, and my heart stopped. He had calculated every single possible motive, except the one that mattered: love. The boy who once praised my steady hands, who told me I was better suited for a scalpel than a paintbrush. The Ethan who smiled and said he hoped we could fight side-by-side in the OR at St. Luke’s. He never knew I was terrified of blood. He never knew the sheer willpower it took for me to drop out of art school and throw myself into the medical field. The “genius surgeon” everyone praised? I was just a clumsy bird who forced down her nausea and practiced suturing through the night until my fingers bled. Something shattered completely in my mind. Looking at the massive breach-of-contract penalty in the agreement, Ethan had hit my only weakness. “I’ll sign.” 4 My dad was safely brought back. I immediately transferred him to Mt. Sinai Hospital and gave strict orders that absolutely no one but me was allowed within fifty feet of his room. After performing back-to-back grueling surgeries on the Senator and the Tech CEO, I was so exhausted I could barely stand. Yet Mia still ordered me down to the ER to take in new trauma patients. Walking past the VIP ward, I heard the Senator heavily praising Mia, the “newly appointed Vice-Chair,” for her bold leadership. She deflected the praise with fake humility, casually dropping hints about her “special relationship” with Ethan. I didn’t have time for gossip. The ER had just been flooded with victims from a massive wreck. A Greyhound bus had collided head-on with a semi-truck. The truck driver died on impact. The bus was carrying a senior citizen tour group. The ER was instantly at maximum capacity. I did a pericardiocentesis for a collapsed lung, then grabbed the defibrillator to literally drag a man back from the grim reaper. I survived the entire day on a single black coffee. I was starving, dizzy, and seeing spots. I had barely sat down when an emergency call came from the Obstetrics ward. “Eight months pregnant. Shattered ribs punctured the heart. Massive blood loss causing fetal hypoxia.” “We need an emergency open-chest surgery immediately.” It was a race against the clock, yet staring at the pregnant woman’s swollen belly, I couldn’t move. Cold sweat opened like floodgates, soaking through my scrubs. Why did it have to be eight months pregnant? “I don’t feel well.” “The surgery is straightforward, have another cardiothoracic attending do it!” The charge nurse stammered, “Today is Thanksgiving. Vice-Chair Scott gave most of the senior attendings the day off… The closest surgeon is Dr. Miller, and even with sirens, he’s thirty minutes out…” Thirty minutes. Both the mother and the baby would die. I suddenly remembered my previous panic attacks in the OR. The only way I had forced myself through them was by having Ethan stay on the line and talk me through it. “Quick, dial Dr. Clarke.” “Ethan.” I panted heavily. “The ER just brought up a pregnant woman with massive blood loss. I’m having a…” But the sound of a baby crying on the other end froze me in place. “Ethan, did you hear that? Did he just say Dada?” Mia’s voice was vibrating with excitement. “Our Tommy is talking at only six months! He definitely inherited your genius genes!” The man shushed her affectionately. “Chloe, what were you saying about a pregnant woman?” “Nothing… Happy Thanksgiving to your family.” I hung up the phone. The world went dead silent in my ears. I picked up the scalpel again. “Let’s begin.” When the OR doors finally opened two hours later, my legs completely gave out, and I slid down the wall to the floor. The surgery was a success. Mother and baby were safe. I let out a massive sigh of relief. Stumbling against the wall, I headed toward the vending machines to buy a stale sandwich so I wouldn’t pass out. As I passed the breakroom near the maternity ward, I heard two nurses whispering. “Swapping Dr. Bennett’s fertility injections for birth control shots all these years… isn’t that just pure evil?” “What are we supposed to do? Orders from the top. Her husband is the one who doesn’t want her getting pregnant. It’s marital drama, let’s just keep our mouths shut!” My brain violently buzzed. Every ounce of pain, suffering, and humiliation I had endured… it was all orchestrated by Ethan. The bone-deep exhaustion of working non-stop hit me all at once, and my vision went black. I collapsed—straight into a man’s warm embrace. “Is your previous offer still on the table?” “As a condition of the exchange, I’ll go negotiate the transfer paperwork with those VIPs.”

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After dying of exhaustion from endless overtime, I was reborn. And I woke up with an unexpected superpower: a one-way sensory link with my terrible boss. It was 1:00 AM, and the paperwork on my desk was piled high as a mountain. Meanwhile, from the boss’s office, I could hear the muffled giggles of him and my coworker, Chloe. It was exactly like my past life. During the day, my boss squeezed every ounce of productivity out of me. At night, I was stuck working overtime to finish the tasks Chloe shoved onto my plate. For three years after I was hired, I worked like a literal pack mule, 24/7. Until one night, during a grueling overtime shift that stretched until 3:00 AM. My heart seized, I started foaming at the mouth, and I died right there at my cubicle. Thinking back on it now, my blood boils. Why did I have to carry the weight of the world while they lived their best lives?! Given this second chance, I’m going to be the light of justice and teach these two a lesson they’ll never forget! Just as I was getting pumped up, vulgar sounds drifted from the office. A wicked smile curled my lips. I stood up, aimed my crotch squarely at the corner of my desk, and slammed into it as hard as I could. …… 1 At the exact same moment. A scream like a slaughtered pig erupted from the boss’s office. My boss, Mr. Henderson, burst out the door with his pants hanging around his knees, clutching his crotch as he scrambled away in a panicked sprint. “Mr. Henderson! Mr. Henderson, what’s wrong?!” “We were just getting started! Come back!” Chloe ran out of the office, stomping her feet in frustration as she watched him disappear down the hall. I had seen enough of the show and was getting ready to slip away. But Chloe, having nowhere else to vent her frustration, grabbed my arm. “Who said you could leave?! It’s only 1 AM, and you’re trying to clock out?” “Have you finished my work yet?!” I yanked my arm out of her grip and gave her a side-eye. “If you’re so worried about it, you can do it yourself.” She let out a contemptuous laugh and looked me up and down. “The company doesn’t pay you to do nothing. This is your job!” “Besides, you should feel honored to help me. It shows I value your abilities!” With that, she shoved past me and strutted away. The next day, Mr. Henderson didn’t show up at the office. But the rumors were flying among the staff. People were saying he and Chloe went too hard and he threw his back out—or worse, that he might be permanently out of commission. But Chloe didn’t miss a beat; she was quickly back to throwing her weight around. “Get back to work, everyone!” “Gossiping like a bunch of housewives! Keep it up, and I’ll have Mr. Henderson dock your pay!” As she spoke, she marched over to my cubicle and tapped the stack of files on my desk. “You better do a good job on the work I gave you. If you try to slack off, I’ll make you regret it.” The day after that, Mr. Henderson showed up looking slightly green to attend an important client pitch meeting. Chloe was brimming with confidence. She assumed I had done the work for her, just like always. However, when she booted up the computer and saw a completely blank PowerPoint presentation, she froze. She stammered for a few minutes, unable to string a single coherent sentence together. “Mr. Henderson, what is wrong with your employee? If you’re not prepared, don’t waste my time!” The client slammed his hand on the table, clearly annoyed. Chloe scurried over to Mr. Henderson and immediately started blaming me, claiming I sabotaged her on purpose. The useless idiot of a boss didn’t even try to salvage the pitch; he just immediately took her side and threw me under the bus. “Samantha! What the hell is wrong with you?! I told you to… AHH!” I bit down hard on my tongue. Mr. Henderson shrieked in pain. The client, startled by the outburst, grew even more irritated. “If your company isn’t serious about this partnership, we’re done here!” With that, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him. “Mr. Henderson, look at her! She ruined the project and humiliated me,” Chloe whined, putting on a sickly-sweet, victimized act. Ignoring his bleeding tongue, Mr. Henderson pointed a finger right at my face. “You useless piece of—” I pinched my thigh with everything I had. His face contorted. “—piece of trash, you always—” I pinched harder. “If you can’t do the job, get the hell out of my—” I grabbed the inside of both my thighs with both hands and twisted as hard as I could. “Ooh! Yow!” Unable to take it anymore, Mr. Henderson rubbed his thighs frantically and bolted from the room. Not satisfied, Chloe raised her hand and slapped me across the face. From down the hall, Mr. Henderson let out another wail of pain. Chloe panicked and rushed out after him, making sure to shove me hard on her way. I lost my balance and tripped over my own feet, falling to the floor. Simultaneously, a horrifying scream echoed from the company stairwell. Mr. Henderson had tumbled down the stairs. He emerged with a bloody face and was immediately rushed back to the hospital. I picked myself up in the conference room, dusted off my pants, and laughed until my sides hurt. That night, an anonymous post appeared on the company’s internal forum. It claimed I was protected by divine spirits. Anyone who bullied me caused the boss to suffer terrible luck. 2 A few days later, Mr. Henderson returned to the office covered in bruises and called me into his office. “Samantha! Did you post this nonsense?!” “You better keep your head down and focus on your work. Cut out this voodoo crap before I—” “Oh, Mr. Henderson, who made you so angry?” Chloe sashayed into the room, her hips swaying exaggeratedly. She leaned down, whispered something in his ear, and a sleazy smile spread across his bruised face. “Sam, about that project falling through… you share some of the blame.” “Normally, I’d fire you on the spot. But I’m a forgiving boss.” “I’m going to give you one last chance.” “Our janitor called in sick today. To make up for your mistake, you’re going to clean the bathrooms for the day.” I agreed without a second thought and practically skipped out of his office. Even though I was mentally prepared, when I opened the bathroom door, the smell almost made me gag. I held back my nausea. While I mopped the floor, I plotted how I was going to use this opportunity to teach those two a lesson. Of course, Chloe had to pick that exact moment to waltz in and harass me. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. A college grad scrubbing toilets. How pathetic.” “Cross me again, and next time I’ll make you drink from the bowl!” Chloe jabbed a finger with bright red nail polish into my forehead, leaving little crescent-shaped marks. I glared at her heavily made-up face. I wanted nothing more than to shove the dirty mop straight down her throat. But I knew she was only acting tough because she had the boss backing her up. If I wanted to put her in her place, I had to deal with the root of the problem. “I have two expense reports due today. Make sure you get them done after you’re finished playing janitor.” “I’m cooking a romantic dinner for Mr. Henderson tonight. This is my big chance to finally lock him down!” With that, she turned on her heel and sashayed away. An idea sparked in my mind. I packed up my cleaning supplies and quietly pocketed a bottle of industrial toilet bowl cleaner. At 7 PM, Chloe video-called me. On the screen, I could see a table set with steaks and romantic candlelight. “Sam, you’re just destined to be a workhorse for the rest of your life.” “If tonight goes well, my status is going to completely change. If I were you, I’d just quit now.” In my past life, I could never figure out why she targeted me so relentlessly. In this life, I still couldn’t figure it out. A few seconds later, Mr. Henderson appeared in the frame. He sat down at the table with a lecherous grin, giving Chloe’s backside a squeeze with his stubby fingers. Just as he was about to put a piece of steak into his mouth… Without a second of hesitation, I cracked open the toilet bowl cleaner and took a massive swig. Gulping down half the bottle, I felt a little bloated, but nothing else. Mr. Henderson, however, was not so lucky. On the video call, his face drastically changed color. He violently hurled the steak back onto his plate. “Chloe! If you don’t know how to cook, why the hell did you say you could?!” “Do you have any idea how expensive this steak was?! It tastes like literal chemicals!” “You think you can marry me with skills like this?! Do I look like a… URGH!” The next second, he projectile-vomited all over Chloe. Then he started foaming at the mouth and collapsed face-first onto the table. Seeing Chloe covered head-to-toe in vomit, I nearly snorted with laughter. Mr. Henderson didn’t come to the office for several days after that. Chloe also called out sick for two days. When she finally returned, her face was swollen like a balloon. During lunch, my work bestie, Lily, excitedly spilled the tea. “Everyone’s saying the boss got food poisoning from Chloe’s cooking!” “When his mom found out, she went straight to Chloe’s apartment and slapped her like twenty times!” “Honestly, I’m starting to think that post on the forum was real.” “They made you clean the toilets, and immediately got hit with massive karma!” I just kept chewing my chicken cutlet, smiling silently. A week later, Mr. Henderson was discharged from the hospital. I thought he might finally lay low for a bit. But when he came back, he brought a literal priest with him. 3 The priest was draped in all sorts of random, clinking talismans. He walked a couple of laps around the office floor. Then, stroking his fake beard, he declared that the company was cursed by an evil spirit. “Foul demon! How dare you wreak havoc in the mortal realm!” He shouted while pulling a thick stack of obviously mass-printed yellow paper talismans from his sleeve. He started slapping them everywhere. “Priest! Priest! Samantha is the weirdest one! Every time I get near her, something awful happens!” “Put extra talismans on her desk!” The priest didn’t hesitate. He licked his thumb, grabbed a talisman, and slapped it right onto my forehead. Then he lit a bundle of incense and started waving the smoke in circles around me. Despite the thick smoke, I didn’t react at all. But the choking, burning sensation transferred perfectly to Mr. Henderson. He started coughing violently, hacking like he was trying to cough up a lung. The priest’s face dropped. He immediately scrambled over to the boss. “Aha! The demon possesses you, you scoundrel!” With that, he repeated the process, slapping a talisman directly onto Mr. Henderson’s forehead. I reacted quickly. While no one was watching me, I grabbed a lighter from my desk and sparked it near my own forehead. “WAAAHHH! HOT! HOT! HOT! I’M BURNING!” Mr. Henderson screamed in agony. The talisman fluttered to the floor, and a massive, angry blister bubbled up on his forehead. “Demon! Face my blade!” The priest drew a wooden sword and swung it with all his might, chasing the boss around the office, hacking and slashing. Mr. Henderson scurried around like a rat, screaming for his life. Chloe saw this as her chance to prove her loyalty and threw herself in front of Mr. Henderson to protect him. But the priest was too deep into his roleplaying, and he started wailing on her, too. “You foolish woman, step aside! Humans and demons cannot coexist! This will only end in tragedy!” With that, he smacked her right across the face with the wooden sword. Chloe clutched her face, wailing. The entire office was plunged into absolute, chaotic hilarity. My coworkers, who had long suffered under the tyranny of this awful couple, were absolutely loving it. Everyone secretly pulled out their phones to record the disaster, stifling their laughter. Lily leaned over to me while filming the carnage. “Sam, be honest with me. Do you actually have powers? Did you put a hex on them?” “I’d be careful if I were you. What if he fires you over this?!” I feigned shock and covered her mouth. “Don’t talk nonsense.” “What powers? The only thing I know about is labor laws, not black magic!” The mayhem lasted a solid thirty minutes before security finally ambled in and dragged the priest away. Mr. Henderson’s shirt was shredded by the wooden sword, his beer belly completely exposed. His face was swollen and battered. Chloe didn’t fare much better. Her previous bruises hadn’t fully healed, and now she had fresh, angry red welts across her cheeks. “Maybe it really is karma. Everyone knows Mr. Henderson brought that guy here just to mess with Samantha!” “Seriously! I think there’s definitely something supernatural going on with her!” The whispers of the staff made Mr. Henderson so angry he stormed out of the office. Chloe was left standing there, puffing up with anger like an angry toad. “Samantha! Whatever trick you’re playing, you’re going to pay for it!” “You better start figuring out how you’re going to carry on your ‘demon romance’ with Mr. Henderson!” She stomped her foot furiously, grabbed a massive stack of folders from her desk, and shoved them into my chest. “Don’t get cocky!” “We have a major client dinner tomorrow. If you mess this up, I promise I’ll make you regret it!” That night, I intentionally stayed awake all night. At 3 AM, I did five hundred burpees and ran up and down the stairs of my apartment building twenty times. 4 The next morning, I bumped into Mr. Henderson by the elevator. He looked like a walking corpse—pale, stumbling, completely drained of life. I knew my midnight workout hadn’t been in vain. Once I got to my desk, I played the part of the obedient employee and handed over the completed presentation to Chloe. But to my surprise, Mr. Henderson actually told me I had to attend the client dinner that afternoon. Just as I was wondering if this was some sort of trap, Chloe started complaining. “Shut up! Who knows what kind of sabotage she’ll pull if we leave her alone at the office?!” “Keeping her where I can see her makes me feel safer.” Confirming they weren’t plotting anything insidious, I secretly cheered. Bringing me along just made it easier for me to torture him. At the dinner, Chloe hadn’t bothered to prepare at all. So even though the presentation I wrote was crystal clear, she stumbled through it, stuttering and making constant mistakes. Seeing the client growing visibly annoyed, Mr. Henderson quickly tried to change the subject. I used the awkward pause to slip away to the restroom. Surprisingly, Chloe followed me. “Did you make that presentation overly complicated on purpose?!” As she yelled, she raised her hand to slap me. I didn’t dodge. In fact, I leaned into it slightly. When her hand connected, I threw myself onto the floor, bending my wrist at an impossible, painful angle. “You’re just incredibly stupid! How is that my fault?!” “A single-celled organism has a higher IQ than you! What do you actually do besides wiggle your ass in front of the boss?!” “You’ve been wiggling for years and you’re still not his wife! Seems to me like you’re a failure at everything!” I provoked her relentlessly. Exactly as I planned, she turned beet red with fury. She straddled me on the floor and started raining slaps down on my face. The harder she slapped me, the more excited I got. I grabbed her collar and slammed my forehead directly into her nose. “Ahhh! You bitch! I paid twenty grand for this nose job! How dare you headbutt me?!” Chloe lost her mind, viciously yanking my hair. Just as our brawl peaked, another coworker came rushing into the restroom. “Why are you two fighting?! Stop it! Something’s wrong with Mr. Henderson—he looks like he’s possessed!” I kicked Chloe off me and sprinted happily back to the private dining room. Mr. Henderson’s horrific state made me want to slap my knee and cackle. His face was swollen tight and shiny, making him look like a bloated pufferfish. His toupee had come loose and was dangling precariously off the back of his head, swaying with every movement. The client’s face was dark as thunder, and he stormed out in disgust. At that moment, Chloe limped into the room, looking like a disaster. Ignoring the ruined deal, she started sobbing about how I had assaulted her. Seeing me standing there looking perfectly fine, Mr. Henderson’s rage boiled over. “I knew you ruined the project on purpose! What the hell did you do to me?!” “How is this my fault?! I went to the bathroom to pee! How could that hurt you?!” “Samantha! I am your boss! How dare you speak to me like that!” “You might be my boss, but you’re barely human!” “You expect one person to do the work of eight, but you haven’t given us a raise in years!” “You’re a cheapskate even when it comes to holiday bonuses!” “The Thanksgiving turkeys were spoiled! The Christmas gifts were expired! The one time you gave us gift cards, they required a $500 minimum purchase to save ten bucks!” “You skim off our hard-earned money just to spoil your little mistress!” I screamed out every ounce of resentment I had built up, feeling incredibly refreshed. Mr. Henderson trembled with pure rage, but his swollen face couldn’t even form a coherent expression. “Fine! Fine! Samantha, you’re fired!” He roared at the top of his lungs. I took the opportunity to spit right in his face, grabbed my purse, and walked out without looking back… A week later, however, Mr. Henderson showed up at my front door, pounding frantically. “Please! I’m begging you! Come back to work!”

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My husband insisted I take my car to a specific luxury auto shop for maintenance every week. Since then, my car started having frequent malfunctions. Once, it almost caused a fatal crash. When my husband found out, he just coldly replied, “You didn’t die, did you? Is there a need to make such a big deal out of it?” Until yesterday, when I asked him to pick up the car for me. He got into an accident on the way back. When I rushed to the hospital, a young girl with red, swollen eyes screamed at me: “What gave you the right to make Ethan pick up your car? If you weren’t so lazy, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt!” “Do you have any idea he fractured his leg and broke his ribs?” Her tone was incredibly self-righteous, like she was scolding a servant who had done wrong. It wasn’t just me; all the friends and family who came to visit Ethan Vance were stunned. Ethan gave her a doting look, then turned to coax me: “She’s just a young girl fiercely defending a client. She speaks her mind, don’t take it personally.” It was only then that I realized: Ethan had bought that auto shop and given it to her. Chapter 1 I stared calmly at the crying, tear-stained girl until she exhausted herself and stopped. “Are you done? My turn.” “How many times has your dealership made this kind of amateur mistake? If you don’t give me a reasonable explanation, you can explain it to the NYPD and the Vance family’s legal team.” The girl’s face went pale. She looked helplessly at the man on the hospital bed. Ethan’s expression shifted. “Victoria, it was my own driving error. It has nothing to do with her. I’ve already handled the accident.” “Your driving error?” I raised an eyebrow, looking straight at him. “How is it?” Ethan coughed. “I’m fine. Besides a fractured tibia and a mild concussion, there’s no need to…” I cut him off. “I was asking about the car.” Stung by my coldness, the girl’s voice pitched up again. “Ethan is hospitalized, and you only care about a car?! Do you have a conscience?!” “You must be Lily Dawson, right?” I crossed my arms slowly, looking at her without a trace of emotion. “First, that car is worth eighteen million dollars. It’s a global limited edition.” “Second, Ethan is my legally wedded husband. Is there a problem with him picking up my car?” “And finally…” I paused, my gaze dropping to her hand tightly gripping Ethan’s hospital gown. “You are just a college student Ethan sponsored. In what capacity are you standing here interrogating me?” Lily flushed bright red. She instinctively let go but still tried to defend herself. “I… I just feel bad for Ethan!” “You could have easily picked up the car yourself, but you forced him to make the trip. Now that he’s in an accident, you don’t even have a single word of concern…” I glanced at a text message my assistant just sent me and let out a cold laugh. “You should probably save that pity for yourself.” “The damage assessment is out. The estimated repair cost is upwards of three million dollars. Will that be cash or card?” Lily’s knees gave out, and she swayed, glaring at me with a mix of defiance and grief. “Th-Three million? That’s extortion!” She then looked pitifully at Ethan. “Ethan…” Ethan propped himself up. The movement pulled at his injuries, and he rubbed his temples in pain. “Victoria, she just graduated. She’s still a kid. Where would she get three million? Stop scaring her.” “It was my mistake anyway. I’ll pay you for the repairs.” Lily’s eyes lit up instantly, a smug curve appearing at the corner of her mouth. I looked at him, mocking, “You really are a knight in shining armor. Wasn’t buying her a luxury dealership enough?” Ethan clearly didn’t expect me to know about that. His expression froze. Lily lost her previous bravado. Biting her lip, she explained, “Victoria, if you’re angry, take it out on me. Don’t blame Ethan. He only helped me out of pity.” Ethan sighed and waved Lily off. “This has nothing to do with you. Go home for now.” Lily kept her head down, looking back at Ethan every three steps as she walked to the door. Just before leaving, she quickly rushed back. She pressed a beautifully decorated glass jar into Ethan’s palm. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening and pitiful, radiating a sticky, undeniable affection. Anyone with eyes could tell they were sleeping together. Lily pursed her lips and reluctantly left. As she passed me, she whispered an explanation: “Victoria, it was my oversight. I let Ethan drive the car away before the inspection was fully complete, and that’s why the accident happened.” “Please don’t misunderstand. That jar is full of origami lucky stars I folded myself, praying for his leg to heal quickly.” The inspection wasn’t complete? But the shop had literally called to tell me the car was ready for pickup. That time my brakes failed… was that an “incomplete inspection” too? Chapter 2 “Victoria, I’ve been meaning to find a time to tell you about the dealership.” Ethan’s voice pulled me back to reality. It was just the two of us in the room now. He put on a smile, carefully set the glass jar aside, and reached out for my hand. “She just graduated, and it was her birthday. It was just a gift. Don’t tell me my CEO wife is actually jealous?” He said it so casually, as if he had just given away a cheap stuffed animal. I stepped sideways, avoiding his touch. “Is this your type now?” A sudden silence fell over the room. Ethan’s face changed slightly, and he rubbed his brow. “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d overthink it.” “Lily and I are completely innocent. We…” “I don’t care.” I cut him off dismissively. “I didn’t catch you in bed, true. But I, Victoria Vance, do not tolerate sand in my eyes. Ethan, you better drop whatever inappropriate thoughts you’re entertaining, or I will tear this marriage apart.” Ethan looked up, staring at me in disbelief. “You don’t trust me?” I looked down at him, my eyes completely dead. My silence was the most direct answer. He wanted to say more, but his phone on the bedside table rang right on cue. The name “Lily” flashing on the screen was glaringly obvious. Ethan hesitated before answering. Lily’s soft, fragile voice immediately floated out: “Ethan, is Victoria giving you a hard time? Even if she’s angry, please don’t fight with her, okay?” “I ordered some bone broth from that Michelin restaurant you like. I was afraid Victoria might misunderstand, so I didn’t bring it up myself.” In just two sentences, she managed to act like the sweet victim while sneakily reminding me of her intimacy with my husband. I stood frozen. Ethan caught a glimpse of my face and quickly hung up. I sneered internally, too exhausted to keep playing these fake games with him, and turned to walk out of the ward. “Victoria!” Ethan called out frantically. “Are you really mad?” “I promise I’ll stay far away from her from now on. I’ll never contact her again. Just please don’t be so cold to me.” “My leg hurts…” I turned my head slightly, my voice dropping below freezing. “If it hurts, call a doctor. I have a company to run. Get some rest.” Stepping out of the hospital, the cold New York wind hit my face, slightly suppressing the violent rage building in my chest. I pulled out my phone and called my assistant. “Do a deep background check on Lily Dawson. I suspect my last brake failure is connected to her.” The last time I got my car serviced there, the brakes failed on the highway. I had to crash into a median just to avoid a fatal pileup. That night, on Ethan’s orders, the regional manager of a high-end jewelry brand personally brought dozens of priceless pieces to our penthouse for me to choose from. “Mr. Vance treats you so well. Having a husband this devoted is truly enviable.” I glanced over the diamonds, feeling nothing but irony. “Didn’t you know? The night a man cheats, he’ll tell his wife ‘I love you’ a hundred times just to alleviate his own guilt.” Ethan thought I was just throwing a tantrum. He thought I was like those upper-east-side socialite wives who cry and scream when they catch their husbands cheating, only to be bought off with a Birkin bag and some diamonds. But he forgot. I am Victoria Vance. The sole heir to the Vance corporate empire. I took over the family business at eighteen and carved out a bloody path on Wall Street by twenty-two. I married him at twenty-five in a strategic business alliance—not because I couldn’t live without him, but out of respect for our fathers’ friendship. And because he promised me a lifetime of absolute loyalty. The hilarious part? It only took five short years for him to completely throw those vows out the window. Chapter 3 The next day, I received a friend request from Lily on WhatsApp. The note read: “Victoria, I want to explain what happened with your car’s maintenance.” I was incredibly busy that day. After back-to-back meetings, I had to fly to Chicago in the evening for my uncle’s birthday banquet. It wasn’t until I got off the plane that I accepted her request. Lily immediately sent a voice memo. The gist of it was that the mechanic who serviced my car was a temp who had abandoned his post, and they couldn’t reach him. I didn’t reply. As I backed out of the chat, my finger slipped and opened her social media feed. Her latest post was from half an hour ago. The photo showed Ethan sitting on the sofa in our Hampton villa, drinking soup. In the background, I could clearly see the oil painting I bought at auction for a fortune, and the custom-made Italian rug. What burned my eyes most was that Lily was wearing my favorite silk pajamas and slippers. She was leaning intimately against him, smiling brightly, holding up a peace sign for the selfie. The caption: “Finally get to take care of you while you’re sick! Even though I’ve been misunderstood, the truth will speak for itself. Made you this bone broth from scratch. Hope you get better soon! ❤️” I took a screenshot and sent it to Ethan: “Staying in my house, wearing my clothes, getting cozy with my husband. Is this your definition of ‘completely innocent’?!” Ethan replied instantly: “Victoria, Lily spilled some soup on her clothes while cooking, so she just borrowed yours temporarily. She’s just trying to be kind, don’t overthink it.” I sneered and typed back: “Kind?” “More like the soup is an excuse to sneak into my house and steal my husband. Wearing my clothes to play the good little wife. What? Does she think playing cuckoo bird will make her the lady of the house?” “Can you stop being so bitter?” Ethan’s tone shifted. “You’re never around. She went out of her way to take care of me. Can’t you be a little more tolerant?” “Victoria, you never used to be like this. When did you become so overbearing and heartless?” Staring at the screen, I laughed out of pure anger. Overbearing? Heartless? When the Sterling Group’s supply chain snapped, I was the one who ruthlessly led my team through a month of sleepless nights to secure the critical funding he needed. When his father was dying, I—the “heartless” one—dropped a billion-dollar M&A deal to sleep on a cot in his hospital room for two weeks. He used to say my decisiveness and ruthlessness in the boardroom were the things he admired most about me. Now that he has a sweet, gentle little angel by his side, I’m suddenly too overbearing and bitter? Because my aunt insisted I stay a bit longer, I didn’t catch a flight back until the morning of the third day. The smart lock hadn’t been replaced, but my fingerprint had been deleted. I stood at the door and rang the bell. The person who opened it was Lily. This time, she was wearing Ethan’s button-down shirt. The hem barely covered her thighs, and her hair was wet, like she had just stepped out of the shower. “Victoria?” She sounded shocked. “Why are you back? Ethan is still sleeping…” I cut her off. “I can’t return to my own house?” “Move!” “I didn’t mean it like that.” She stubbornly blocked the doorway. “But Ethan is resting, and you look like you’re in a bad mood. I’m afraid you’ll disturb him…” I didn’t have the patience for her garbage. I shoved her hard out of the way. “Get out of my way!” The commotion woke Ethan. He came out of the master bedroom on crutches. Seeing the explosive tension, he frowned. “What’s going on here?” Chapter 4 Before Lily even opened her mouth, the tears started flowing. “Ethan, I’m sorry. You were so tired last night, I just wanted to let you sleep a little longer. I didn’t mean to offend Victoria.” She sobbed, her shoulders hitching, looking like a brutally bullied little bunny. Yet the tips of her ears were conspicuously flushed red. Ethan turned his head and coughed twice before speaking: “Victoria, you’re really misunderstanding Lily. Apologize to her.” I ignored him and sat down on the sofa. I looked up and noticed that the framed photo of Ethan and me on the display shelf was gone. In its place was the glass jar filled with Lily’s origami lucky stars. Lingerie that definitely didn’t belong to me was scattered across the coffee table. “No wonder you tried to block the door. You two have been busy, haven’t you, Ethan?” Lily scrambled crying to pick up the underwear. “These are mine. I… I washed them, I was just letting them dry here…” “Drying them in the living room?” I scoffed. “Can Ethan even satisfy you with a broken leg?” Lily’s face burned crimson. She stammered: “Victoria, you… you really misunderstood. Ethan and I haven’t done anything.” “Enough!” Ethan glared at me impatiently. “Victoria, do you have to use such filthy language to humiliate her?” “She’s just an innocent young girl. She’s not like you, with a head full of endless calculations!” I raised my eyes to him. “What exactly am I calculating?” “You’re calculating how to embarrass her, how to ruin her reputation, how to make me your obedient dog, revolving around you and only you forever!” Ethan grew more agitated as he spoke. “Yes, I let her stay here! But absolutely nothing happened between us!” “She took care of me, and I’m grateful to her. It’s that simple! Why do you always have to assume the absolute worst of people?” “I don’t care how dirty your heart is.” I pulled a document from my bag. “What I do care about is the fact that six months ago, you used corporate funds and resources to open a luxury car dealership for her. A twenty-million-dollar investment labeled as a ‘charitable grant.’” “Ethan, did the board of directors approve that? How does ’embezzling corporate funds to keep a mistress’ sound as a headline?” Ethan’s face turned ashen. “You investigated me?! She is not my mistress!” “Then what is she?” I stood up and walked over to Lily. “Ms. Dawson, why don’t you tell us? What are you?” Lily bit her lip. “I… I just admire Ethan. I’m so grateful for everything he’s done for me, so I came to take care of him for a few days…” “Admire him enough to wear my clothes and sleep in my bed?” I pointed at the master bedroom door, which was left slightly ajar. “Ethan, I saw you both come out of the master bedroom with my own eyes. How do you explain that?” Ethan gritted his teeth. “Believe what you want. Lily slept on the floor to keep an eye on me. We didn’t do anything!” “I really don’t care if you slept together or not.” I put away the financial document and dropped a divorce agreement onto the coffee table. My tone left absolutely no room for negotiation. “Ethan, revoke her ownership of that dealership, sign this divorce agreement like a good boy, and we’ll split the assets according to our prenup. We can end this with some dignity.” “Otherwise, I will sue you for embezzlement and marital infidelity, and I’ll report you to the board. Do you want to bet whether those old foxes will use this excuse to kick you out of your own company?”

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It was Friday night. My husband, the regional sales director, was trying to suck up to a major client. To seal the deal, he took a photo of our 18-year-old daughter’s period-stained underwear and posted it to a business networking group chat with over 300 men. “Look, the little money-drain I’ve been raising at home is finally ripe,” he typed. “This is what we call ‘seeing red for good luck.’ I guarantee we’ll sign that contract tonight!” The group chat immediately exploded with jeers and crude jokes. “Hey Mark, that’s an untouched, mint-condition model! You’ll be able to ask for a massive dowry for that one later, huh?” My hands were shaking violently as I read the messages. My daughter, hiding in the bathroom, sent me a single voice memo. “Mom, I don’t want to live anymore.” For years, I had swallowed my pride and endured his drunken embarrassments just to save his face. But this time, he had raised his butcher’s knife against my daughter. I turned around, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed the freshly sharpened boning knife. I slipped it into my purse. Twenty minutes later, I kicked open the heavy double doors of the private VIP room at the luxury hotel where he was hosting his “celebratory banquet.” …… The deafening crash of the doors hitting the wall made the crystal glasses in the room rattle. A suffocating wave of cigar smoke and stale liquor hit my face. The men’s loud, raucous laughter died instantly. In the center of the room, Mark was holding up his phone, his face flushed red with alcohol, fawning over an obese man sitting at the head of the table. “Mr. Lewis, look at how vibrant that color is! An eighteen-year-old, totally untouched! This is a genuine good omen. If you sign this contract, your business will definitely boom!” The man called Mr. Lewis, his face practically melting with fat, narrowed his beady eyes at the phone screen. A mixture of drool and whiskey dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “Mark, you’re a real player! This is a fantastic omen. So damn spicy!” The surrounding group of “elite” salesmen started cheering him on. “Nobody does it like Director Mark! Willing to put his own daughter on the line for the sake of the numbers! Now that’s a man who gets things done!” My eyes bypassed all of them, locking dead onto the photo that was currently being AirDropped to a large iPad on a side table. It was my eighteen-year-old daughter, Mia. She was suffering from severe period cramps for the first time and had curled up in bed, crying as she sent me that photo asking for help. That pair of pink cotton panties, stained with bright red blood, was now being paraded around like a sick joke, nakedly displayed in front of this room full of disgusting men. A cold, terrifying numbness spread down the back of my neck. “S-Sarah?” Mark finally realized who had kicked the door open. The sleazy smile froze on his face, quickly twisting into embarrassed rage. “You crazy bitch! Who told you to come here?! Can’t you see I’m entertaining important clients?! Get the hell out!” He slammed his phone face-down on the table and stood up, moving to shove me out the door. “Delete the photo.” My hand was locked around the handle of the knife in my purse. “What did you say?” Mark acted like he had just heard a hilarious joke. He turned to his pack of sleazebag friends and laughed. “See? This is what they mean by ‘women have long hair but short sight’! Typical female soft-heartedness!” He turned back to me, jabbing a thick finger hard against my forehead. “Sarah, let me spell it out for you. That photo is the key to unlocking this deal tonight! I raised Mia. She eats my food, she lives in my house. Shouldn’t she contribute a little surplus value back to me? As long as Mr. Lewis is happy, forget a photo of her underwear—if I told her to come down here right now and pour his drinks, she should consider it a blessing!” “Yeah, come on, Sarah.” A younger subordinate wearing glasses chimed in from the side. “Director Mark is doing this for the family. This is a five-million-dollar contract. What’s a little sacrificed privacy compared to that?” “Sacrificed?” I stared at Mark’s greasy, sweaty face. “Why don’t you post your own filthy, disgusting secrets to the group chat and sacrifice those? That is your biological daughter! She’s only eighteen!” “So what if she’s eighteen? Eighteen makes her a legal adult!” Mark was losing his patience, his voice rising to a shout. “College girls these days will take out loans using naked photos as collateral just to buy a designer bag! I just borrowed one little picture. It’s not like she lost a piece of flesh! But look at you—standing there looking like a hanged ghost. You’re bringing bad luck to my table! Get out!” At the head of the table, Mr. Lewis was starting to look annoyed. He slammed his whiskey glass down heavily. “Mark, are we drinking or what? If you can’t even keep your own woman in line, maybe we shouldn’t be signing this contract after all.” “No, no, no, Mr. Lewis, please!” Mark panicked instantly, spinning around and bowing apologetically. “I’ll handle it right now! I’ll handle it! The old ball-and-chain is hitting menopause, her brain isn’t working right!” With that, he turned back to me. His face contorted with dark malice. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face with everything he had. “You ungrateful bitch! I said get out!” The entire left side of my face swelled up instantly, five bright red finger marks burning into my skin. The private room erupted in cheers and applause. My head was thrown to the side by the force of the blow, my messy hair falling over my eyes. My phone vibrated in my purse. It was a voice memo from Mia. I played it. There was no talking. Just the sound of muffled sobbing and running water. I whipped my head back around. My right hand shot into my purse and ripped out the boning knife with lightning speed. A flash of cold steel. “AHHHH!” Before Mark could pull his hand back from slapping me, I drove the knife straight through it, pinning his hand violently to the solid wood dining table! “AHHHH! MY HAND! MY HAND!” His blood-curdling screams drowned out the cheers in the room. Mark convulsed in agony. The blade had sliced through flesh and bone, embedding itself deep into the wood. The slightest movement sent blinding, excruciating pain shooting up his arm. Blood quickly soaked the pristine white tablecloth. “She’s trying to kill him! Murder!” The “elite” salesmen who had just been cheering were now terrified out of their minds. The young guy with glasses fell backward onto his ass, a dark wet stain spreading across the crotch of his pants. Mr. Lewis dropped his glass, it shattered on the floor, the fat on his face trembling violently. “She’s insane! You’re all insane! Call the cops! Call 911!” The room dissolved into absolute chaos, but I ignored it all. I stepped forward, grabbed Mark by the hair, and forced his head up to look at me. “Does it hurt?” I asked him, my voice barely above a whisper. “When you posted Mia’s photo for these animals to fantasize over, did you wonder if it hurt her? Did you ever stop to think how she’s supposed to face the world after this?!” “Sarah! I’m going to kill you! I’ll kill you!” Mark’s eyes were bulging from the pain, his facial features contorted. “You dare touch me?! I’m the Regional Director! I’m the pillar of this family! You eat my food, you drink my water! You’re nothing but a dog I keep on a leash!” “Well, today I’m going to show you what it feels like to be bitten to death by a dog.” I yanked the knife out of the table. Blood splattered across my face. Mark let out an even more agonizing howl, clutching his mangled hand as he rolled onto the floor. I raised the knife, fully intending to stab him again, but several hotel security guards burst into the room and tackled me, pinning me hard against the floor. I watched as Mark was helped up. He was screaming in pain while simultaneously roaring at me like a madman. “Lock this crazy bitch up! Let her rot in prison! I’m going to make her wish she was dead!” I didn’t cry. I just kept my eyes locked onto the iPad screen. Mia’s photo was still there. Half an hour later, I was handcuffed to a chair in the local police precinct. Mark’s hand was bandaged up like a mummy. He stood in the mediation room, spit flying from his mouth as he yelled. “Officer, this was attempted murder! I’m the victim here! She used a ten-inch boning knife! That crazy bitch was trying to kill me!” The officer taking the statement looked at my stained maternity shirt, then at the baby pacifier sticking out of my purse, and frowned. “A domestic dispute triggered by severe emotional distress does not meet the threshold for attempted murder.” The older officer tapped his pen on the desk. “However, Mrs. Sarah, the fact that you assaulted him with a deadly weapon is undeniable. Based on the medical evaluation, this qualifies as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. If the victim refuses to drop the charges, you are going to prison.” “I refuse!” Mark roared viciously. “I absolutely refuse! I’m not just going to send her to prison, I’m going to sue her for every dime of my medical bills and lost wages! This hand is the hand I use to sign million-dollar contracts! It’s ruined now! Who’s going to compensate me for my lost commissions?!” Just then, the door to the mediation room opened. A woman in a sharp business suit walked in. It was Chloe, the legal counsel for Mark’s company—and the “close confidante” he spent an awful lot of time flirting with. “Director Mark.” She didn’t even glance at me. She walked straight over to Mark and whispered something in his ear. Mark’s expression shifted, and a dark, venomous smile crept across his face. “Fine. Let’s put the prison talk on hold for a second.” He walked over and looked down at me, waving his bandaged hand. “Sarah, I won’t press charges. But I have one condition.” “That contract fell through, and Mr. Lewis is furious. You are going to go to his hotel right now, drop to your knees, and kowtow three times. Then, you’re going to have that brat Mia go to his room, have dinner with him, and apologize personally. If you do that, we’ll call it even.” I snapped my head up, staring daggers at this absolute monster. “In your dreams.” “Dreams?” Mark sneered. He pulled out his phone and tapped on a video he had just received. “Take a look for yourself. This isn’t a dream.” The video was from a hospital. Mia was lying on a gurney, her wrists covered in blood, being rushed into the ER resuscitation room. That photo of her had already been frantically forwarded by the men in that group chat. Someone had even posted it to her college’s anonymous forum. The caption was vile. [The supposed ‘pure’ campus beauty’s explicit photos leaked. Turns out she’s just a cheap slut.] “Your sister called the ambulance. But I cut off the medical payments.” Mark leaned down, his voice an evil whisper in my ear. “Sarah, you can try to be tough. But your daughter doesn’t have the time. Without my signature, all your credit cards are frozen. The ER fees, the ICU bills, plus all those nasty rumors on the internet… how are you going to fix any of that?” “You’re nothing but a useless housewife who only knows how to chop vegetables.” “Without me, you won’t even have the money to pay for your daughter’s funeral.” I slumped in the chair, my body completely devoid of strength. Mark and Chloe turned to leave. “You have until 8 AM tomorrow to think it over. Either agree, or get ready to bury that brat, and then rot in a cell yourself!” The police officers looked at me with pity, but procedure dictated they keep me in a holding cell for the night. It wasn’t until 3 AM that my younger sister managed to scramble enough bail money together to get me out. “Sarah, what were you thinking?!” My sister’s eyes were bloodshot as she drove, crying and scolding me at the same time. “Was it worth throwing your life away over that piece of trash?! Mia is in the ICU right now! They stopped the bleeding, but she hasn’t woken up yet. The doctors said she lost so much blood her organs are failing. She needs transfusions, she needs rehab… it’s going to cost thousands of dollars a day!” “The money…” I opened my mouth, my voice cracked and hoarse. “I’ll find a way to get it.” “Where are you going to get it?!” My sister sobbed in frustration. “Your cards are frozen! Mom and Dad’s savings are locked up because that bastard Mark tricked them into putting it into some long-term mutual fund! They can’t touch it! I only have twenty grand in my checking account, and I already spent ten grand just paying the deposit for the ER!” The city streets blurred past the window, illuminated by the sickly yellow glow of the streetlights. For the past five years, for the sake of this family, so that he could focus on his career, I had resigned from my position as a Design Director making $150,000 a year. I willingly traded my career for an apron. He had said: “I’ll handle the outside world, you handle the home. You are my rock.” And this is how he repaid me. He trampled my dignity behind my back, used my daughter’s privacy as a cheap bargaining chip, and treated all my sacrifices like worthless garbage to be exploited. When we arrived at the hospital, they wouldn’t let us into the ICU. Through the thick observation glass, I saw Mia. She looked so fragile and pale, thick bandages wrapped around her wrists, like a broken doll completely devoid of life. Her phone had been placed in a plastic belongings bag outside the room. The screen was lighting up non-stop. It was flooded with abusive text messages from her classmates, and screenshots of that photo being maliciously shared by countless strangers. [I always knew that innocent act was fake.] [How much for a night? Looks pretty intense.] [I heard your dad pimped you out? You guys have some sick family dynamics.] Every single word was designed to tear her eighteen-year-old soul to shreds. I covered my mouth and crouched in the corner of the hospital corridor, shaking uncontrollably as I wept. My sister had gone down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. I was alone in the hallway. Suddenly, the sharp click of leather shoes echoed against the marble floor. I looked up and saw Mark walking toward me. He had changed his clothes. His arm was in a sling. Behind him was Chloe, and two massive, intimidating bodyguards. “Have you thought it over?” Mark kicked me hard in the shin. “Mr. Lewis is willing to compromise. If you go over to his hotel right now and show him a good time, he’ll cover half the medical bills upfront.” “And once Mia wakes up, she can go over there too!” I didn’t move. I just stared dead at him. “She is our daughter. Even a tiger won’t eat its own cubs.” “She’s a money drain! And she’s not my blood anyway!” Mark suddenly exploded in rage, pointing a finger at the ICU. “What’s the point of raising her?! Look at this pathetic psychological resilience—she tries to kill herself over one stupid photo?! I spent a fortune putting her through art school so she could marry into a wealthy family and get me business connections! And now look at her! You want me to waste my money saving a defective product?!” “Chloe, give her the paperwork.” Chloe stepped forward and handed me a folder. “Sarah, just sign it. It’s a transfer of guardianship agreement and an assumption of debt form. Director Mark is feeling generous. If you take on all his personal debts and leave the marriage with nothing, he won’t press charges for aggravated assault. He’ll even lend you ten grand for the hospital bills.” I stared at the blood-soaked documents in my hands. So this was it. He wasn’t just trying to pimp out his daughter; he was trying to bleed me dry and leave me drowning in debt for the rest of my life. “I won’t sign.” I used the wall to pull myself up, swaying unsteadily on my feet. “Mark, you’ll have to kill me first.” “You want to do this the hard way?!” Mark shot a look at the two bodyguards. “Grab her! Mr. Lewis likes his women a little unhinged anyway. I think she looks just miserable enough to suit his tastes right now! Drag her out of here!” “What are you doing?! This is a hospital! Help! Somebody help me!” The two massive men lunged forward and grabbed my arms. My sister, returning with a bag of bagels, saw what was happening and screamed, sprinting toward us. “Let go of my sister! You animals!” “Get the fuck out of the way!” Mark kicked my sister in the stomach, sending her sprawling across the floor. The two bodyguards wrenched my arms behind my back and started dragging me toward the elevators. Absolute despair swallowed me whole. This was the VIP wing. It was isolated, and Mark had clearly used his connections to get the nurses to clear the floor. Staring up at the harsh white fluorescent lights, in that moment, I just wanted to drag them all to hell with me. But Mia hadn’t woken up yet. If I died, Mia would fall into the hands of this monster, and her fate would be even worse. I couldn’t die. Not only could I not die, I needed to live better than any of them. I needed to make these animals pay. My hand desperately gripped the small business card hidden deep in my pocket. It belonged to the man I had ruthlessly abandoned on a rainy night, six years ago. Right as they shoved me toward the elevator doors, I summoned every ounce of strength I had and bit down viciously on Mark’s wrist. He yelled in pain and let go. I used my head to smash the elevator call button, pulled out my phone, and dialed the number I had memorized long ago. It rang exactly once before it was answered. “Who is this?” I sucked in a lungful of air that smelled like blood and screamed his name into the receiver. “Liam. It’s Sarah.” “They’re trying to kill my daughter.” “Please… please save us.”

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My hopelessly romantic daughter insisted on marrying a gold-digging freeloader. To prevent him from bleeding our family dry, my husband and I demanded that their second child take my maiden name, Vance. Later, my daughter announced in our family group chat that she was pregnant with her second baby. I immediately wired her $10,000 as a congratulatory gift and casually replied: “The Vance family finally has a legacy.” My daughter accepted the money in a second, but her reply was dripping with sarcasm: “Mom, you’re honestly so shameless.” “Sure, we agreed to it back then, but I’m having a boy! Making my son take his mother’s maiden name—isn’t that completely emasculating my husband?” “Oh, and just to let you know, my husband is planning to move me and his parents to Europe. Get $1,000,000 ready for us, and transfer the deed to that villa in Tuscany into our names.” Before I could even process the audacity of her words, she coldly added: “If you give us the money, maybe my husband will spare you a smile when you’re old and fly back to visit occasionally. If you don’t… well, good luck.” “But I suggest you look on the bright side. I’m your only daughter. Just consider it me spending my inheritance in advance!” I stared at the word “inheritance” and let out a laugh. The next second, I tagged my husband in the group chat: “Call the fertility clinic. I want to have a second child.” 1 The moment I sent that message, the group chat went dead silent. Then, my daughter Chloe’s messages started rolling in like rapid fire. “???” “Have a second child?! Mom, are you insane? You’re fifty-five! You hit menopause years ago, what kind of geriatric medical miracle are you trying to pull?” “If you aren’t embarrassed, I am! I’m absolutely disgusted! How am I supposed to look my mother-in-law in the eye? She’s two years younger than you and she’s already playing with her grandson!” Every word of her interrogation was laced with thick sarcasm and disbelief, as if I had committed the ultimate cardinal sin. I was just about to reply. But my husband, Arthur, tagged me first. “Yes, honey. I’ll arrange the best doctors and the top private clinic immediately.” Arthur’s unwavering support completely ignited Chloe’s fury. “Dad! Are you going crazy with her?! What are you two trying to do? Just because I won’t let my son take your last name, you’re going to literally manufacture a kid to steal my inheritance?!” Hearing her say that, the relatives who had been quietly lurking in the chat couldn’t sit still anymore. “Chloe, when you married Liam, your parents gave you a penthouse, luxury cars, and a massive trust fund. This was their only request, and you both promised the second child would take the Vance name. We were all witnesses.” “Exactly! Now that you’re having a boy, you go back on your word, and you still have the nerve to demand a million dollars and a villa? That’s really crossing the line.” “Your mom has worked so hard her whole life, and she’s given you everything you ever asked for…” The relatives’ attempts to mediate only poured gas on the fire. Chloe aggressively interrupted them. “Enough! You’ve all been brainwashed by my parents’ hypocrisy!” “You only see the penthouses, the cars, and the cash they threw at me, but do any of you know what kind of life I actually lived?” “At parent-teacher conferences, my seat was the only empty one in the classroom! When I had a 102-degree fever and begged my mom not to leave, she walked right out the door to fly across the country for some stupid contract! To her, money has always been more important than my life!” “I don’t need their money! Can money buy love? Can it buy the warm glass of milk my husband makes for me every night?!” 2 The group chat fell dead silent again. It was a silence born of absolute, speechless shock at her sheer delusion. But Chloe mistook the silence for victory, assuming she had swayed the audience. She continued: “It wasn’t until I joined Liam’s family that I finally learned what it meant to be cherished!” “I have a sensitive stomach, and my mother-in-law makes me homemade soup every single day. When I get leg cramps at night, my husband massages my calves for fifteen minutes straight!” “And what about you two? You ignored me when I was a kid. When I grew up and found true love, you fought tooth and nail to stop me from marrying Liam. And now you’re trying to force my son to take your last name! Your need for control is genuinely terrifying!” Looking at her tearful, dramatic accusations on my screen, it felt like someone had sliced my chest open. Growing up, whenever I wasn’t working, I spent every available second with her. Every birthday gift after she turned ten was either Louis Vuitton or Hermès. And that time she had a fever? My company was on the absolute brink of bankruptcy. If I secured that contract, the company would survive. If I failed, our entire family would go bankrupt and be buried in millions of dollars of debt. I only boarded that flight after confirming with the pediatrician that it was just a viral cold and ensuring Arthur was by her side the entire time. When my business eventually stabilized and flourished, the very first thing I did was buy her a five-million-dollar penthouse in Manhattan, fully paid in cash. That is a lifestyle most people couldn’t achieve in ten lifetimes. But Chloe never mentioned any of that. She only remembered the one time I couldn’t sit by her bed. Now, her mother-in-law makes her soup using the imported organic truffles and premium ingredients I have shipped to their door. Her husband massages her legs using the $2,000 custom Swiss massager I bought for them. In her eyes, this cheap, performative “care” was infinitely more valuable than the millions of dollars and two decades of blood, sweat, and tears we poured into raising her. I let out a cold scoff and typed my reply: “Since that’s how you feel, starting this month, your $10,000 monthly allowance is cut off. Every supplementary credit card under your name will be permanently frozen.” “Furthermore, since you find my ‘need for control’ so terrifying, I am letting go. Have your kids, move to Europe—I won’t ask a single question. You want freedom? You have it.” “Finally, since you think your mother-in-law’s soup is warmer than two decades of my devotion, I hope you enjoy every drop. Have a nice life.” 3 Less than three seconds after I hit send, my perpetually quiet son-in-law, Liam, tagged me in the chat. His tone was perfectly calculated. “Mom, please don’t be angry. Chloe is just spoiled and doesn’t know when to bite her tongue. But she has a pure heart; she didn’t mean any of it.” “Honestly, I don’t care whose last name the second baby takes. But Chloe felt that if the first grandson of the Miller family doesn’t carry the Miller name, my parents would be utterly humiliated back in their hometown. They’ve worked hard their whole lives, and Chloe just couldn’t bear to break their hearts.” Then, he smoothly pivoted. Sounding like a peacemaker, he sneakily tried to back me into a corner: “Besides, Mom, do you know how high the mortality rate is for a pregnancy at your age? You wouldn’t just be knocking on heaven’s door; you’d have one foot inside. You’re just saying these angry things to force Chloe to back down, right?” “Chloe, hurry up and apologize to Mom. Mom would literally die for you, how could she not love you?” I don’t know what Liam texted her privately, but ten minutes later, my daughter tagged me. “Mom, I was wrong.” “I shouldn’t have said those hurtful things. You’re my mom, you’re the closest person to me in the world.” “I thought about it, and no matter the last name, the baby is still my flesh and blood. Don’t worry, when the baby is born, he will absolutely take the Vance name.” Her words were earnest, a complete 180 from her hysterical rant just moments before. Arthur quickly sent me a private message: “Eleanor, Chloe knows she messed up. Since we’re flying into Boston tomorrow to sign that contract anyway, let’s swing by and pick her up. We can bring her back to New York for a few days and clear the air face-to-face.” I stared at Arthur’s message and fell silent. At the end of the day, she was my own flesh and blood. I had poured my heart and soul into raising her for twenty-something years. Completely severing ties felt like taking a dull saw to my own heart. I sighed and typed back, “Okay.” 4 The next day, our business negotiations in Boston went incredibly smoothly. After signing the contract in the afternoon, Arthur drove our car, heading toward Chloe and Liam’s townhouse in the suburbs. No one could have predicted what happened next. Shortly after we merged onto the highway, a sports car swerved aggressively across two lanes, slamming violently into our rear bumper! CRASH! A deafening explosion of metal. I was sitting in the backseat. The massive impact launched me forward, and my forehead smashed brutally against the back of the front seat. Blinding pain shot through my skull, and warm liquid instantly blurred my vision. “Eleanor! Eleanor, are you okay?!” Arthur’s panicked voice rang in my ears. He immediately dialed 911. Remembering that Chloe lived nearby, he frantically called her number. “Chloe! Your mother and I just got rear-ended on the highway!” “Your mom has a huge gash on her head, she’s bleeding everywhere, and she’s severely dizzy! Which hospital around here has the best trauma center?! We don’t know the area well…” The other end of the line went dead silent for a moment before Chloe’s evasive, hesitant voice came through: “Oh? A car crash? Is Mom… is it really bad?” “But I… Liam and I aren’t in Boston right now. We’re in a neighboring town… running some errands. Don’t panic, we’ll head back right now!” Arthur urged, “Hurry! Drive safe! We’re going to the ER!” 5 The ambulance arrived quickly. Although my face was covered in blood and looked terrifying, the scans showed I was incredibly lucky—just a severe laceration and a mild concussion. After getting stitched up, Arthur supported me as we walked out of the emergency room. “Eleanor, let me get you a cab to Chloe’s place so you can rest. I need to go to the Highway Patrol station to handle the accident report, then I’ll come pick you up,” he said, looking heartbroken at the thick gauze wrapped around my head. I nodded, leaning heavily against him. My gaze drifted aimlessly across the street. Right at that moment, I spotted two familiar figures. My daughter was affectionately linking arms with her mother-in-law, Susan. And in Susan’s arms was a plump, gray British Shorthair cat. The two of them were chatting and laughing as they walked straight into a brightly lit, high-end veterinary clinic. In that instant, the blood freezing in my veins turned to ice. “Don’t call the cab yet,” I said, my voice shockingly calm. “Help me walk over there.” 6 The pet hospital smelled strongly of antiseptic. Chloe and her mother-in-law were standing in a corner near the isolation ward where pets received injections. Arthur and I stood hidden in the shadows behind a tall display rack of pet food. They were so engrossed in their conversation they didn’t notice us at all. Chloe was watching a vet tech administer a shot to the cat, her eyes welling with dramatic tears. “Mom, Shadow is so brave. He isn’t even crying during the shot. It breaks my heart to watch.” Susan replied fondly, “I know. I’ve had him for six years, he’s always been a good boy.” After a moment, Susan hesitated before speaking: “Chloe, maybe… maybe you should go check on your mother?” “Your dad just said on the phone that she was bleeding heavily…” Chloe immediately tightened her grip on Susan’s arm and whined playfully: “Mom! But I promised yesterday that I would come with you and Shadow to the vet!” “You’ve raised Shadow for so long, he’s basically your family. And your family is my family!” “I treat you like my real mother, that’s why I couldn’t bear to break my promise to you!” Susan hesitated. “But she is your biological…” “Mom!” Chloe cut her off, a twisted sense of vindictive satisfaction in her voice. “When I had a 102-degree fever as a kid, she abandoned me to go sign a contract. If she can do that to me, why can’t I do it to her?” “Besides, I know my dad. He loves her more than his own life! If she was actually in critical condition, he’d be losing his mind. He wouldn’t have had the bandwidth to calmly remind me to ‘drive safe’.” She scoffed and rested her head on Susan’s shoulder. “Mom, ever since she tried to force my son to take her last name, you are the only mother I have left in my heart.” Standing behind that shelf, every last ounce of strength was drained from my body. Every single word my daughter spoke was like an ice-coated needle driving directly into my heart. So, while I was lying in an ambulance bleeding from the head, my daughter was busy crying over a cat. My safety and my life were worth less than her mother-in-law’s pet. Beside me, Arthur’s fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. He was about to storm out and confront them. I grabbed his arm firmly and shook my head. Not because I held any lingering hope for this daughter. But because I wanted to see exactly how utterly soulless the child I had treasured for thirty years could truly be. The thought had barely crossed my mind when I saw a flicker of unmistakable, mocking contempt flash through Susan’s eyes, quickly masked by a heavy layer of exaggerated emotion. She patted Chloe’s hand, looking deeply moved. “Oh, you sweet girl. Liam is so blessed to have married you. Our family must have accumulated good karma for eight lifetimes.” “It’s just… about the baby’s last name… your mother’s demand…” Chloe immediately soothed her: “Mom, don’t worry. Liam and I already figured it out. We’re just going to pretend to agree for now. Once we get all their assets, the penthouses, and the corporate shares transferred into my name…” “Forget about changing his last name back. When they get old and their health fails… whether we hire a cheap nurse to look after them or just dump them in a state-run nursing home… won’t that be entirely up to us?” BOOM. The very last string of affection in my brain snapped. The world spun violently, my vision went black, and I lost consciousness completely. “Eleanor!” Arthur’s desperate, trembling voice cried out my name. Chloe instinctively began to turn her head toward the sound. But just then, the vet popped his head out of the back room: “Shadow’s owners? You can come back and get him now!” Her attention instantly snapped back to the vet. She never looked behind her. 7 When I woke up again, I was staring at a hospital ceiling. Arthur refused to take any chances. He insisted I stay under observation for two days. Only after the doctors confirmed I was completely out of the woods did he take me back home to New York. During that time, my daughter called exactly once to ask how I was doing. Arthur answered and coldly said, “Your mother is fine.” She didn’t contact us again. The day after we returned to New York, Arthur and I visited the most prestigious private fertility clinic on the East Coast. After running a full panel of tests, the results were more optimistic than expected. The head specialist looked over my chart, his tone objective. “Mrs. Vance, both you and your husband have maintained exceptional health. Your biological age is significantly younger than your chronological age.” “However, I must be brutally honest. A pregnancy at your age is considered extremely high-risk. The dangers during gestation and delivery are significantly elevated.” I took the report from him. “Doctor, I’ve been a businesswoman my entire life, and I believe in one core principle—” “High risk yields high rewards.” “When my company was on the verge of collapse, I bet my entire net worth on a single opportunity. Now, for the future of the Vance family, I am more than willing to take this risk.” The doctor nodded, continuing with his professional advice: “We can start you on a hormone and wellness regimen to attempt natural conception first. If we don’t have good news in six months, we will initiate the IVF protocol.” “Perfect. Let’s do it.”

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When Carter and his secretary crossed the line, I hadn’t even left the house yet. They were so intensely engaged they completely lost themselves. Right up until the end. When Carter finally noticed me, he offered a careless apology: “Sorry, didn’t know you were still home.” He looked down, cleaning himself up, then suddenly glanced back at me. “Listening for that long, you must be feeling it too, right? “How about you help me finish cleaning up? And I’ll… “Fulfill you?” 1 Whoosh. A wave of sheer humiliation rushed from my head straight down to my feet. I tried to push him away, but he grabbed my chin, squeezing so hard tears sprang to my eyes. In the bathroom, the steam was thick. Carter leaned down. “Staying behind on purpose… you just wanted to hear how I am with other women, didn’t you? “Now that you’ve heard it, you’re unhappy?” It wasn’t like that! I was originally heading out. But I realized I forgot the lipstick Carter had given me. So I came back. Before I could even find the lipstick, I heard Mia’s giggles. “Why did you call me over at this time?” I wanted to say something. To let them know I was still here. But before I could even push the door open, I didn’t know who pushed who, but they slammed against the bathroom door from the inside. I was trapped. I could only bite my lip as hard as I could. To avoid the utter humiliation… Mia asked him, “Why do you still call me over when your wife is back?” He let out a low groan, but still managed to answer her. “She’s dirty.” Tears of pure degradation broke through the dam. I forced myself to stand up straight, staring directly at Carter. “Those men never touched me… I am not dirty, Carter. My body is clean.” Before I could finish. Mia walked back from washing up in the other room, her eyes meeting my red, tear-filled ones. Her gaze slowly dragged down to the lipstick tube I was clutching so tightly. She gave a slight, mocking smile. “Oh, does the missus really like that lipstick? That’s a shame. Carter bought me a designer bag, and the store threw that in as a free sample.” 2 I froze in place. I couldn’t believe what Mia was implying. This lipstick… It was clearly brand new. It was sitting at home in its perfect, unopened packaging! I… I thought Carter had finally realized the truth. That he had given it to me as a peace offering, a chance to mend our relationship. That’s why I was heading out to carefully pick out a return gift for him… Mia seemed to see right through my confusion. Smiling brightly, she turned around and dropped her towel right in front of me. “Since the missus likes it so much, I’ll just give you all my free samples from now on. “I’m a bit picky anyway. “Free samples… they just feel so dirty to use.” Dirty?! That word again?! The string of sanity in my head snapped violently. I charged at her, using every ounce of strength I had to rip at her hair, dragging her and slamming her against the wall. Mia never expected me to get physical. She screamed in agony. Her smooth forehead instantly swelled where I smashed it against the drywall. It didn’t stop until Carter ripped us apart. He shielded her behind him, looking at me in absolute disbelief. “Chloe, are you insane?!” Yeah! I was insane! What kind of woman could just stand there and watch her husband sleep with another woman?! I glared at him. A wave of overwhelming, crushing sorrow surged up my throat. “I was kidnapped and dragged out to the middle of nowhere because of Mia! I was never touched by those men… “Carter, how many times do I have to say it before you believe me…” I couldn’t stop the sob from escaping. A flicker of emotion, maybe guilt, flashed in his eyes. But Mia suddenly yanked on his arm, her voice trembling. “Stop lying. “When Carter and I burst in there to save you… “Your legs were literally spread apart by those men!” Carter froze. That brief flicker of emotion instantly vanished. He picked Mia up in his arms, his expensive shoe crushing the lipstick tube on the floor. “Chloe, you are truly disgusting.” 3 The water in the bathtub submerged my head entirely. Just ten minutes. Clinical death… then there’s no saving me. I closed my eyes. The darkness, the suffocation, it felt exactly like three years ago. Carter had disappeared without a word. Unreachable. His whole family was frantic. When we finally managed to get a hold of his secretary, Mia, she told me in a panic: Carter had gone to a rural county for a project. His signal was lost deep in the mountains! She suspected… I called the police, but I was so terrified I followed the GPS pin Mia sent me myself. A heavy blow to the back of my head. When I opened my eyes again, I was tied up. A man who only knew how to let out a sickening, guttural laugh was tearing at my clothes, muttering, “Rich man’s wife… so pale… gonna make a great breeder.” I struggled. I fought like a madwoman. They brutally snapped my leg. I was barely breathing. My clothes were in shreds. I felt the cold air against my exposed skin. His filthy, reeking hand clamped over my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe… Just a little bit more. Just a little bit… Splash—! I violently sat up from the water, like tearing myself away from a years-long nightmare. My ears were ringing. Why? Why should I be the one to die? I was the victim! It was Carter who refused to believe me! It was Carter who wanted revenge against me. For a whole month, I lay alone in the hospital. No matter how I explained that no man had touched me, he wouldn’t believe it! He only wanted to believe what he saw! He decided I ran off to the mountains and got myself kidnapped just to spite him. He thought I was using my body to manipulate him. But I was incredibly stupid. Even while trying to “manipulate” him, I let those disgusting men take advantage of me! My leg was tortured until it broke. The only time I saw him, Carter stared at me coldly. “Played too hard and got burned. Are you satisfied now? “You reap what you sow. Absolutely idiotic.” Then he left. He ignored every single one of my calls. Desperate to explain, I checked myself out of the hospital early, only to come home and find him in bed with Mia! She was panicked. He didn’t even try to hide. The pristine white sheets were stained with red blood. Carter leaned against the headboard, lazily narrowing his eyes. “No need to look so upset. “At least the person I found is cleaner than the ones you found.” 4 I squeezed my eyes shut, waking up from one unbearable memory after another. My lungs felt like they were going to explode. I was coughing violently. I decided I didn’t want to die. I drove straight to the nearest emergency room. Fighting through the pain, I parked the car, only to see Carter and Mia walking out. She had a fresh bandage taped to her forehead. Her eyes were brimming with tears, looking incredibly wronged. “Carter, maybe I shouldn’t go to your place anymore. Chloe… I don’t know what she’ll do next time, I’m scared…” She didn’t finish. Carter tilted her chin up. Even though I wasn’t that close, I could clearly see the soft, affectionate look in his eyes. “Scared of what? If she won’t let you come over, I’ll just go to your place.” Mia fell silent. She meekly lowered her head. “Then why don’t you… just divorce her?” Carter’s smile faded slightly. “I’ll buy you a new condo in a few days.” Mia pouted slightly. When she looked up again, she met my eyes. Her face drained of color. “Chloe…” Carter frowned. “You followed us here? Chloe, do you really have to pull these pathetic, stalker stunts?!” I walked toward them, step by step. The feeling of water in my lungs made my chest feel like it was cracking open. “Get out of my way!” 5 They didn’t move. I shoved them hard. Carter’s face went cold as he grabbed my arm. “What the hell are you doing?!” My chest felt like it was ripping apart. I coughed uncontrollably. Carter frowned deeper. “Faking an illness now?” Mia looked at me, then gently shook his arm. “I understand Chloe, really. If I were her, and I came up with a stupid plan that ended up getting me violated by other men, I’d try everything to win you back too… “Carter, why don’t you…” She bit her lip, looking pitiful. “Why don’t you just go home with her for now.” Carter reacted like he had touched something filthy. He forcefully threw my arm away, an expression of utter disgust on his face. “I truly didn’t expect you to still be acting at a time like this. Chloe, you’ve hit a new low!” The force of his shove nearly made me pass out. I couldn’t catch my breath. Cold sweat poured down my body. Just then, a man in a white doctor’s coat rushed out and quickly caught me. “Chloe!” He sounded furious, scolding me: “I told you to let the ambulance go get you! Near-drowning is no joke! Thank God I came out to look for you!” By the elevators, two nurses ran out to help me onto a gurney. Carter suddenly grabbed Dr. Arthur Miller’s arm. “Drowning? You’re helping your stepsister lie and scam people now?!” Arthur glanced at Mia standing next to him, his expression completely detached: “Before this moment, I had no idea you were hooking up with this woman again!” 6 Perhaps it was because I finally saw someone I could trust. My consciousness quickly slipped away. Everything went dark and blurry. It felt like I was back a long, long time ago, when the Miller family finally claimed me. Everyone said my grandmother was worried my mom would be despised by the Millers for giving birth to a girl. So she secretly swapped me out for a baby boy and sent me away. That boy was Arthur Miller. He grew up in my house, forming a deep, unbreakable bond with my biological parents. When they found me, they decided to keep us both. But I grew up in a poor, rural town. When I returned to the Miller estate, I realized they had strict etiquette for everything, even eating. I couldn’t learn it. I felt helpless and deeply ashamed. With so many people at the dining table, Carter was the only one who gently held my hand and softly guided me. “Use your left hand first, then apply pressure with your right…” That night, at the banquet celebrating the return of their biological daughter. I, the actual daughter, hid in an unnoticed corner and quietly blushed. Dreams. Fragmented and broken. It felt like ever since I returned to the Miller family, everyone knew how I felt about him. They silently allowed me to follow Carter around like a shadow. Back then, the term ‘simp’ didn’t exist yet. Everyone just said the Miller’s biological daughter was throwing herself at him. Only Arthur warned me to stay far away from Carter. Because everyone knew… Carter already had a “moonlight” in his heart—an untouchable first love. So, when I heard they broke up, I waited by Carter’s side, overjoyed. So, when Carter got drunk, he gave me a chance… The next morning, holding a cigarette, he said: “I’ll marry you.” But I waited for the clouds to part, forgetting that storms can roll in without warning. Mia suddenly appeared in our lives. I realized with sheer terror: Mia only looked a tiny bit like his first love, but Carter was absolutely determined to keep her by his side. We engaged in cold wars, we fought bitterly. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to find him to make peace… and was tricked by Mia into going to that remote mountain village. Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Arthur’s voice sounded next to me. “Since you’re awake, start thinking about your future.” 7 I sniffled. “No wonder they love you so much. Nothing gets past you.” Arthur paused. He handed me a tissue. “Mom and Dad never expected you to fall so deeply for Carter.” I wanted to laugh, but I lacked the energy. Some things, the beneficiaries will never understand. My expression must have been too obvious. Arthur frowned. “Chloe, you need to understand, Mom and Dad didn’t have to bring you back.” True. To the Miller family, a daughter’s use value was basically zero. Arthur wanted me to know my place and be grateful. He was also reminding me that without the Miller family, I never would have even had the chance to get close to Carter. I closed my eyes. Feeling the suffocating frustration churning in my chest. “Once I divorce him, I’ll be of absolutely zero use to the Miller family.” “Divorce?” “Divorce?!” Two male voices echoed in the hospital room simultaneously. Unlike Arthur’s shock. Carter’s voice carried a distinct, icy edge. He marched straight in, his gaze locking onto me. “Chloe, what did you just say? You want to divorce me?” This time, Mia wasn’t with him. His sharp eyes bore into mine, looking down at me from his towering height. “Plan A failed, so you’re moving to Plan B? “What kind of crazy act are you putting on this time? Who’s your male lead? Your stepbrother?” He shifted his gaze to Arthur’s face. “What do you think? “Isn’t Chloe your sister? You’re going to get inside her? Doesn’t the very thought of it make you sick?!” “Carter!” I couldn’t take it anymore and screamed his name! The next second. Arthur grabbed his collar and delivered a vicious, bone-crushing punch. The sickening thud of fist meeting flesh. The two men tangled together, neither holding back. “You animal!” Arthur’s eyes were bloodshot as he hoisted Carter up by his collar. “If we knew you were capable of this kind of bastard behavior, our family never would have let Chloe marry you!” They fought until they were both panting heavily and finally separated. Carter looked at me. There wasn’t a shred of apology in his eyes. “What happened with Mia and me just makes us even. Don’t try to threaten me with divorce. “Chloe. “You cry wolf too many times, and eventually, nobody believes you.” 8 I stared quietly at this man. My gaze slid over his sharp, familiar features. I offered a silent smile. “Okay. I understand.” Carter looked momentarily bewildered, staring at me blankly for a long time. “I hope you actually have the self-awareness you’re projecting right now.” Carter left. My phone buzzed with a $50,000 transfer notification. This was an incredibly rare occurrence. The only time anyone got compensation from Carter was when he felt genuinely guilty. Arthur looked at me. His expression was incredibly complicated. I told him, “I suddenly realized something. Regarding that kidnapping… even if I had been violated, what right does Carter have to punish me for it? “This obsession with ‘purity’… it’s just adopting the moral standards of the criminals who kidnapped me. “Don’t you agree, brother?” Arthur’s face went completely blank for a second. He asked, belatedly: “What did you just call me?” I didn’t elaborate. Arthur took a deep breath. “Chloe, whether you believe it or not, Mom, Dad, and I… we all love you very much.” 9 I used to hate Arthur. I hated him for taking my place, for enjoying the love of my parents. He was the reason that even after returning to the Miller family, I remained a child starved for affection. Because I was starved for love. The moment Carter showed me that tiny shred of kindness. I fell hard. I tried so desperately to find proof that I was loved in that relationship. But I forgot that Carter’s kindness toward me was nothing more than an accidental, fleeting act of charity. I suddenly remembered something. After I was rescued, Mia had stopped me and said: [Did you really think I could fool someone as smart as Carter?] [He just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about you, and he doesn’t care about your marriage.] [After all, when he wasn’t answering your calls, we were just about to…]

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