Author: Momo Chan

I’m going to die. But no one cares. So I’ll wish for no afterlife. Let’s never meet again. 1 When Lucas Thorne walked out with his suitcase, I was a small, shivering bundle, swallowed by my overcoat as I curled up on the sofa. He paused, his back ramrod straight, and glanced over his shoulder just once. In the silent, sterile light of the afternoon, he offered no final words. He just left. And I… I never even lifted my head. The door clicked shut. My head remained bowed for a long, long time before I finally found the strength to look up, to face the light pouring in from the window. It felt like the whole world had abandoned me. My own husband didn’t want me anymore. He, too, believed I was rotten to the core. And he was right. I didn’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness. My hand, trembling, found its way to my stomach. Just a week ago, a tiny, four-month-old baby was nestled here. But it slipped away, silent and unseen. I was so lonely. All I ever wanted was a little baby of my own. I would have taught him to read, to sing, to say ‘Mama.’ But that dream was gone now. The title of Mrs. Thorne was never meant for me. This was my punishment, wasn’t it? For stealing a role that belonged to someone else. I slumped against the arm of the sofa, a hollow laugh escaping my lips. “I think… I think I’m really out of strength.” After sitting there for what felt like an eternity, I slowly rose and walked to the console table. I picked up the silver picture frame and laid it face down. Some say love is forever. But for me, love was over. 2 My hand was steady as I flicked the lighter, the tiny flame dancing as I held it to the corner of the heavy curtain tassel. Then, the phone rang, shrill and insistent. I turned my head, hesitating for a second, but I let it ring. It didn’t stop. It just kept calling, a relentless demand. Finally, I picked it up. “Hello?” “Why didn’t you answer?” The voice was cold, impatient. My mother. I watched the flame catch, a small orange flower blooming on the fabric. “Is something wrong?” “Stella’s liver… they’re saying there’s a problem. You need to go to the hospital and get tested as a match.” I coughed, a dry, racking sound. “Are you even listening to me?” I nodded, though she couldn’t see. The smoke was getting thicker, clawing at my throat. I coughed again, harder this time. “I understand.” “What’s with that cough?” “Too much smoke,” I rasped. “Something’s burning.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I dropped the phone, grabbed the small fire extinguisher from the kitchen, and blasted the nascent flame until it was nothing but a charred, ugly smudge. When the fire was out, I tossed the extinguisher aside and collapsed onto the scorched corner of the sofa, gasping for air. Finally, my hand moved to rest over my liver. My liver? Fine. If this was one last way I could help Stella, then maybe… maybe it would be enough to atone for my sins. 3 When I arrived at the hospital, my parents were already waiting outside her room. “What took you so long?” my mother snapped, her foot tapping impatiently on the polished floor. My gaze was flat, lifeless, as I took in the two people who had given me life but never a home. My father eventually placed a restraining hand on her arm. “That’s enough,” he murmured. He led the way into the hospital room. My eyes immediately found the bed, but the first person I saw wasn’t my sister. It was Lucas. My gaze dropped to the floor, deliberately ignoring the flicker of shock in his eyes. “I have to get to the office,” he said, rising to his feet. He gave my parents a stiff nod. For a man who was always so composed, he seemed almost flustered as he brushed past me. I lifted my head and stared out the window. Of course. He had never kept vigil at the hospital for me, not during either of my miscarriages. I had told myself it didn’t hurt anymore. But in that moment, a familiar sting pricked my eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came. My eyes were dry again. 4 The person on the bed was pale and still, lost in a deep, colorless sleep. I raised my hand. “What do you think you’re doing?” my mother’s voice was a harsh command. My hand simply settled on my sister’s head, gently smoothing a few stray strands of hair. Only after I was done did I turn to face them. “The compatibility test. When does it start?” My father seemed momentarily taken aback by the dead, cold calm in my voice. Just then, the doctor walked in. “Is she here?” he asked, before his eyes landed on me. He froze for a second, his professional demeanor faltering. 5 “You’re not a suitable candidate for this test.” I said nothing. “Nora, are you deaf?” my mother hissed. “Go home.” “I can do it,” I said, my voice quiet but firm, directed at the doctor. “Please.” With that, I turned and walked out of the room. “You—” the doctor started, following me into the hallway. “You just had a miscarriage a few days ago. Are you trying to kill yourself?” I paused at the door, my back to him. “It’s just a test. It won’t kill me.” Behind me, I heard him let out a long, weary sigh. 6 The number of tests they ran was endless. I ended up staying at the hospital for three days, figuring it was a good enough place to rest and recover. Finally, on the third day, it was over. I made my way up to the fifth floor, to the premium private suites. The sight of the perfect little family unit—father, mother, and daughter, all gathered together—made me stop in my tracks. It was my father who saw me first, beckoning me over. I nodded and stepped inside. “Dad, Mom. Stella.” “Well?” my mother asked immediately. “Are the results back?” “Not yet.” “I’m heading home now,” I said. My eyes met Stella’s for a fleeting second. She looked away almost instantly, her gaze dropping to her lap. “Fine, you can go,” my mother said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. I nodded again. Just as I reached the door, my father called out. “Nora. I think Lucas must have dropped this. Could you take it to him?” I turned. He was holding out a small, intricately carved silver locket. It hung from a delicate chain, catching the light. I stared at it, frozen. “We found it the day Lucas was here.” My eyes instinctively flickered to Stella and my mother, then back to the locket. Reluctantly, I reached out and took it. “Okay.” As the door closed behind me, I heard their hushed voices. “What are you doing? Are you afraid she won’t get to see him enough?” “Something is wrong between them. I’m afraid they’re not going to make it.” I walked down the silent corridor and didn’t look back. 7 Thorne Enterprises. I waited for half an hour before Lucas finally finished his meeting. He strode into his office, and the moment he saw me, a frown creased his forehead. I drained the last sip of cold tea from the cup in my hand and stood up, holding out the locket. “I just came to give you this.” His eyes fell to the object in my palm, and his frown deepened with impatience. He didn’t take it. Was it because my hands had touched it? Was I that repulsive to him now? I turned and placed the locket on the polished surface of his massive desk. I gave a small nod, ready to leave. “Wait.” He walked towards the desk as I walked towards the door. I stopped. “Is there something else?” He gestured to the sofa. “Sit.” I stood there, motionless, for a few seconds. He took off his suit jacket but didn’t speak, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. I decided to break the silence. “Are you here to ask if the test was a success?” I was about to say the results weren’t back yet, but my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out. At the same moment, his phone buzzed on the desk. I understood. He had been monitoring the results from the hospital all along. A small, bitter smile touched my lips. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go home. I should rest up, make sure I’m in the best possible condition for the surgery.” I was about to pull the door open when he spoke again, his voice strained. “Nora, after the transplant… let’s try to make this work. For real.” My hand froze on the doorknob. What… what did he just say? Was he finally willing to accept me? To accept the woman he had called the most wicked, manipulative person he knew? But… I don’t want to make it work with you anymore, Lucas. I’m so tired. So, so tired. I didn’t answer him. I just opened the door and walked away. 8 Back home, I put a whole chicken on to simmer and then left the kitchen. Adrift and empty, I turned on the television, the noise a meaningless buzz in the background. Eventually, I drifted off, a half-eaten bowl of soup on the coffee table, the TV screen flickering in the dark. When I woke the next day, I was still on the sofa. The house was silent, save for the soft rustle of sunlight filtering through the curtains. This place was too big. Too empty. I should get a cat. The thought was a sudden impulse. I grabbed my phone and started scrolling through pictures of kittens from a local shelter. I even picked one out, a little calico with big, curious eyes. Then I closed the app. A cat? No. A pet is a commitment for life, not a momentary whim to fill the silence. 9 A week before the surgery, I was admitted to the hospital. My mother came to visit. She sat for a long time, and we didn’t exchange a single word. She didn’t speak, and I had nothing to say. “I’m sorry,” she finally mumbled, staring at the floor. “All the private rooms on the fifth floor were taken. Otherwise, your father and I would have booked one for you.” I just nodded, turning my head to look out the window. “You used to be such a sweet talker when you were little. I don’t know what happened to you.” She sighed and stood up. “Well, I’m going back upstairs. I’ll come see you again later.” “Okay.” She left. My gaze drifted to the chair where she had sat, and to the basket of fruit she had left on the floor beside it. A small, humorless smile played on my lips. The way she had clutched the basket, shifting her weight awkwardly before scurrying out—it was almost comical. She felt guilty? Was that even possible? I really couldn’t understand her. Couldn’t she have just left the fruit upstairs with Stella and then come down to see me? But no. She detested me. Why would she ever make a special trip just for me? 10 Today was the last round of pre-op checks. The surgery was tomorrow. I returned to my room, clutching a folder full of my medical reports. The room was as cold and empty as ever. I sat on the edge of the bed, my mind adrift. Why was it so quiet? Oh, right. Lucas. Didn’t he say he wanted to “make things work”? He never came home during the days I was recovering. He hadn’t visited me once during the week I’d been in the hospital. Was this his idea of trying? No. He said after the surgery, we’d make things work. I knew what it really meant. It wasn’t about love. It was about debt. He felt he owed me, and he was willing to pay with the rest of his life. As long as Stella was healthy, he would have nothing left to wish for. 11 The day of the surgery. Just as Stella and I were about to be wheeled into the operating theater, Lucas arrived, rushing down the hall. “Dad, Mom, I’m so scared,” Stella whimpered. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay,” my mother cooed, adjusting the surgical cap on Stella’s head. “Just think of it as taking a nap. The doctor said you’ll be perfectly healthy when you wake up.” “Are they going in now?” Lucas asked, breathless. “Yes.” Stella pulled her hand from our mother’s grasp and reached for Lucas. He instinctively moved to take it. But then, she drew her hand back, offering a weak smile instead. “Lucas, you came.” His hand froze in mid-air. He glanced at me, then quickly retracted it. “Yes. It’s a very advanced procedure now. Don’t be afraid.” “Okay.” She smiled again. “You should say something to Nora. She’s been waiting for you.” Lucas nodded and turned to me. But his lips seemed sealed, weighed down by a thousand unspoken words. He just stared. The surgical team, scrubbed and masked, moved in. “Alright, it’s time to go. Family, please clear the way.” The gurneys began to roll. In that last moment, fear finally broke through Stella’s composure. She reached out again, her voice a desperate whisper of the name that was always on her lips. “Lucas.” “Don’t be afraid,” he said, his hand briefly touching the rail of her gurney as she was wheeled past him. My gurney was in the lead. I watched the whole scene unfold with a strange, detached calm. Quietly. Peacefully. The heavy doors of the operating room began to slide shut, slowly eclipsing Lucas’s tall, solitary figure. I closed my eyes. Just as the anesthesia began its cold creep through my veins, I heard a soft voice beside me. “Thank you, Nora. For being willing to do this for me.” As consciousness faded, I managed a final whisper. “You’re welcome.” 12 A long, numb dream. It was a kaleidoscope of fractured images and muffled sounds. I felt like I was blindfolded, wandering through an empty corridor. A voice seemed to echo from nowhere. If you had known this life would be like this, would you still have chosen to come? I turned towards the voice, but there was nothing there. The scene shifted. I was floating above an operating room. Doctors were huddled, their voices low and urgent. “Why did they take so much?” “The consent form said seventy percent, didn’t it?” “Seventy? That’s insane. Can the donor even recover from that?” … Wasn’t I still alive? Why did I feel so light, like my body was drifting away? I floated further, watching the scene below. There was so much blood on the operating table. So much. “They’re sisters, you know. But the mother clearly favors the older one. It’s like she wanted them to take more, just to be sure.” “And the younger one didn’t object?” “She just looked at the form, then stared out the window. Didn’t say a word.” “God, I just wanted to go over and hug her.” I didn’t know where I was drifting. I just kept floating away. 13 Four days later. I slowly opened my eyes. My limbs felt like they were nailed to the bed, heavy and without sensation. Only my eyes could move, darting around the stark white room. “You’re awake.” A young nurse leaned over me, her face breaking into a kind smile. I managed a small nod. “Would you like some water? I can help you.” “Thank you…” I rasped. She poured a small cup of water and placed a straw to my lips. The simple act of swallowing sent a searing pain through my entire body. “Easy does it,” she said gently. “Just sip slowly.” After two small sips, she took the cup away. “My sister,” I whispered, “she…” “Stella Hayes? She woke up yesterday. Already moved out of the ICU.” Good. That was good. I nodded again, relieved. “Um…” the nurse started, then hesitated. I slowly turned my gaze to her. She seemed to be steeling herself. “Are… are you two really sisters?” I let my eyelids fall shut. “And that handsome man… is he your husband? Or… your sister’s?” Her voice was a mixture of curiosity and pity. I could guess what had happened in the ICU over the past few days, while both Stella and I lay unconscious. I didn’t answer. I just let the heavy darkness pull me back under. 14 Two days later, I was moved out of the ICU. There was still no private room available. I used my phone to hire a private care aide to help me with medications and errands. Most of the time, I just slept. My body was overwhelmed by a profound exhaustion. Logically, I should have been getting stronger each day. But I just couldn’t seem to wake up. I wanted to go home, but I didn’t even have the strength to get dressed. I didn’t want to be a burden on the hospital’s resources, so I just prayed for the day I’d have enough energy to leave. One afternoon, my mother came to see me. She had brought soup. The aide was setting up my tray table for dinner when my mother dismissed her. She opened the thermos, and the rich aroma of fish broth filled the air. “Don’t eat that hospital food,” she said, her head bowed as she poured the soup. “It has no nutrition. Drink this.” For the first time, I felt something other than contempt from her. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t look at me; it was that she couldn’t bear to look at me. I knew what I must look like. So thin my chin had become a sharp point. I reached for the spoon, but my hand, bruised and swollen from countless IVs, trembled violently. She took the spoon from me, lifted the bowl, and brought a spoonful to my lips. “Here.” I stared at her for a long moment, then opened my mouth and sipped the warm liquid. One spoonful after another. She fed me with a quiet, tireless patience. That afternoon, even the sunlight streaming through the window felt warm. When the soup was gone, she closed the thermos and sat for a while longer. “Is there anything else you want to eat?” I shook my head. “I’m full.” She nodded and continued to sit in silence. I noticed a few strands of silver in her dark hair. The hospital vigil must have taken its toll. “Well, I’m going back,” she said finally. “I’ll come see you again.” I nodded. As she walked around the foot of the bed, a wave of anxiety washed over me. “Mom,” I called out, my voice weak. “Is Stella… is she doing better?” She nodded. “She’s recovering very well. She’s already been dischar—” She stopped abruptly, realizing her mistake. I froze. Stella was already home. My mother’s face flushed with embarrassment. But I just smiled. “That’s good. I’m glad.” She nodded quickly and hurried out of the room. As her footsteps faded down the hall, a desperate urge to see her one last time seized me. I pushed myself up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, and shuffled out into the corridor. I watched her retreating back grow smaller and smaller. Will you really come back next time? No. Probably not. But that was okay. Don’t come back. I was being discharged soon, too. Her figure disappeared around the corner. And the tears finally fell, silent and slow. It was just like when I was a child, abandoned at the amusement park. I had watched that same back walk away, growing smaller and smaller, no matter how fast I ran. No one knew. I was lost at three. I didn’t find my way back to the Hayes family until I was thirteen. And no one, no one knew that in those ten lost years, I had endured countless beatings, been tricked and betrayed more times than I could count. And when I finally came home, nobody liked me anyway. They said my eyes looked greedy. Selfish. That I was a bad seed. None of that ever really hurt me. The thing that broke me, the thing I carried like a stone in my heart, was the truth I finally confirmed. It was never about getting lost. It was about being left. Mother, that year, you abandoned me on purpose.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389006”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day I was fired, the HR manager, Jen, stopped me at my desk, pointing at my laptop. “That’s company property. Leave it.” I scoffed and slapped a receipt from my drawer onto the desk. “Read it and weep. Thirty-two hundred dollars, in my name.” With that, in front of everyone, I packed it up and walked out. Half an hour later, the police showed up at my door. The company had reported me for theft. I showed them my evidence. The way the cops looked at Jen, you’d think she was a complete idiot. By the next day, the entire tech park knew. My former employer, in a desperate attempt to score a free laptop, had earned itself the title of “Stingiest Company of the Year.” 01 After the police left, a dead silence fell over the office. It was a silence more piercing than any noise, making your eardrums ache. Every pair of eyes was a spotlight fixed on Jen’s face as it cycled through shades of red, green, and finally, a ghostly white. She stood frozen, like a cheap wax figure on the verge of melting. I clutched my cardboard box, which held three years of my life and a $3,200 laptop, and walked step by step through the suffocating air. I didn’t look back. I didn’t say goodbye. The last shred of dignity between me and this company had been pulverized the moment they decided to call the police. The elevator doors slid shut, sealing off the complicated stares behind me. Reflected in the mirrored wall was a woman with black-framed glasses and a blank expression. That was me. Lynn. Back at my rental, I tossed the box in a corner without a second glance. The tension that had held me together finally snapped, and a tidal wave of exhaustion washed over me. I threw myself onto the sofa, not wanting to move, not wanting to think. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A message from my best friend, asking how I was. I replied, “Job’s gone, don’t worry,” and switched to airplane mode. I needed quiet. I needed to process the sheer absurdity of it all. The next morning, I was woken by my phone vibrating incessantly. I turned off airplane mode, and a hundred messages flooded in. There were cautious condolences from former colleagues. There were links to the office gossip from friends at other companies. Our company’s name, paired with the headline “Called the Cops to Steal a Laptop,” was exploding across the tech park’s internal forums and anonymous message boards. The comment sections were a festival of schadenfreude. “LMAO, Mr. Collins’s cheapness has finally gone viral.” “I feel bad for the HR lady. Her performance review is going to be brutal. Not only did she fail to save the boss money, she got him the headline of the year.” “Don’t feel too bad for her. That HR manager is no saint. They call her ‘Jen the Hatchet-Woman’ for a reason.” “Am I the only one curious about the specs on a $3,200 laptop? That girl is a legend!” I stared at the screen, but the expected rush of vindication never came. Instead, I felt hollow. Almost sad. For a company to become famous this way… how pathetic. And I was the star of this farce. I clicked on a link to an article on the tech park’s news blog. It was a vivid, detailed account of yesterday’s events. My name was omitted, but phrases like “stood up to HR,” “slapped down the receipt,” and “vindicated by the police” had turned me into the campus’s most mysterious new legend. The phone’s glow illuminated my impassive face. I bet Mr. Collins’s office was a lively place right now. Sure enough, that afternoon, a former colleague who was still employed there sent me a secret message. “Lynn, Collins is losing it. He just smashed a mug in his office.” “Jen got screamed at so hard she cried her eyes out.” “He said at the meeting that the fallout from this is too damaging and he refuses to let it go.” I stared at the words, my fingers tapping the screen. “What’s he going to do?” “No idea, but he told Jen to find out who leaked the story. He also said he’s going to teach you a ‘lesson,’ that this kind of insubordination can’t be tolerated.” A lesson? Insubordination? A chill shot up my spine. They made the mistake, they suffered the humiliation, and somehow, I was the one in the wrong. I didn’t reply. Putting down my phone, I opened a job search app and started updating my resume. Whatever happened, life had to go on. I needed a job. I sent my resume to a few companies I’d been interested in for a while. With my portfolio and project experience, getting an interview should have been easy. But the entire afternoon passed in silence. Nothing. Only the cold, automated “Application Submitted” status. A sense of foreboding crept over me. That evening, I opened a recruiting app and saw that for one company I’d applied to just that morning, my status had already changed to “Not a Fit.” That was too fast. Abnormally fast. Normally, it took HR at least a day or two to screen resumes. It felt as if my name had been flagged. As if the moment it appeared, the system automatically rejected it. I turned off my phone, and the room plunged into darkness. The city’s neon glow seeped through the cracks in the curtains, casting a mottled web of light on the ceiling. Mr. Collins’s words, “teach you a lesson,” echoed in my ears. Rage, like a vine growing wild in the dark, coiled tightly around my heart. I understood. The real war was just beginning. 02 The next few days were a bizarre, soul-crushing loop. Apply. Rejected. Apply. Rejected. The headhunters who had once eagerly courted me now seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Their social media feeds went silent, and my messages were met with a digital void. My meticulously crafted resume had become worthless, tossed into the internet’s trash bin without even earning me a single interview. It was as if the entire industry had slammed its doors in my face. It felt like I was drowning in the deep sea, surrounded by icy water, flailing desperately but unable to reach the surface. The feeling of suffocation was overwhelming. I knew Mr. Collins’s “lesson” had arrived. He was using the network he’d built over a decade to weave a massive, invisible net, intending to blacklist me completely. I wouldn’t accept it. I found a small but promising startup whose work I admired and submitted my application. To my surprise, I got a call for an interview the next day. I walked into their office building feeling like I was on a pilgrimage. The interview went exceptionally well. From the department head to the company partner, everyone seemed genuinely impressed with my skills and past projects. During the final round, the partner closed my resume, looked at me, and his expression turned to one of regret. “Lynn, we are very impressed with your abilities.” “However… we won’t be able to extend you an offer.” My heart plummeted. “May I ask why?” My voice was steady, betraying none of the turmoil inside. The partner hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Your former employer… when we did a background check, we heard some… unfavorable things.” “They said you weren’t trustworthy. That you had professional conduct issues. That you were fired for theft of company property.” A switch flipped in my brain. Blood rushed to my head. So, that was the crime they had pinned on me. How vicious. How precise. For a professional, it was a death sentence. “I suggest,” the partner said, his eyes filled with sympathy, “that you look into this. Clear your name. Otherwise, you’re going to have a very hard time in this industry.” I stood up and gave him a deep bow. “Thank you for telling me.” Walking out of that building, the midday sun was so bright it hurt my eyes. I stood on the bustling street, feeling like a ghost. Rage, humiliation, helplessness… a storm of emotions raged inside me, threatening to tear me apart. Mr. Collins. Jen. You weren’t just trying to block my path. You were trying to destroy me. I pulled out my phone, my fingers white from gripping it so tightly. I called a friend who worked as a recruiter in the industry. “Do me a favor. Ask around. Find out what Mr. Collins at Innovate Solutions has been saying about me lately.” My friend got back to me quickly. The reality was even worse than I’d imagined. In Collins’s telling, I was a malicious, petty employee who had been caught red-handed trying to steal from the company. The laptop was spun as a premeditated act of theft, and the police incident was twisted into a spiteful act of retaliation after I was caught. He even embellished the story, claiming I was a divisive force in the office with a terrible work ethic. “Lynn, that guy is a real piece of work,” my friend fumed over the phone. “He’s trying to bury you.” I hung up, my chest heaving. A peaceful resolution? Not anymore. When I’m backed into a corner with nowhere left to go, I have only two choices: jump, or push them off with me. I went home, drew the curtains, and the world went dark. I sat in the blackness for a long time, until my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then, I opened my $3,200 laptop. The desktop was a minimalist design I’d created myself. I opened a heavily encrypted folder. Inside was a complete record of my three years at that company. Every instance of overtime, with timestamped screenshots of my clock-ins and clock-outs, accurate to the minute. Audio recordings of every meeting where Mr. Collins made empty promises and gaslit his employees. Every email chain where I was asked to perform tasks far outside my job description. Copies of every unpaid expense report. A detailed breakdown of every withheld bonus. I’m a pack rat by nature, conditioned to save and document everything. I never trusted verbal promises, only what was in black and white. I thought these files would never be needed, that they were just a way to soothe my own anxiety. Now, I saw them for what they were. My only weapons. I sorted the files, meticulously organizing and labeling each one. Every file was a piece of a puzzle. When assembled, they would reveal the ugly, greedy, and cruel reality hiding behind Mr. Collins’s benevolent mask of “family culture.” By the time I was finished, night had fallen again. I stared at the screen, at the dense grid of folders, my gaze cold and resolute. You think you can use your power to define who I am, Collins? I’ll use your own evidence to show the world exactly what you are. You may have started this war. But I will be the one to end it. 03 This wasn’t enough. This evidence could prove Collins was a terrible boss and would give me the upper hand in a labor dispute. But it wouldn’t be enough to destroy the company he was so proud of. It wouldn’t be enough to wash away the filth he’d thrown on my name. I needed a sharper sword. One that could pierce his armor and strike a fatal blow. I thought of someone. Alex. The former god-tier developer from the tech department, a classic tech geek. He’d been fired a month before me. The official reason was “insubordination and refusal to follow management’s direction.” The real reason was laughably absurd. Mr. Collins’s wife had bought a new phone and couldn’t figure out how to transfer her data. Collins had simply ordered Alex to go to his house and do it for her. Alex, who was in the middle of cracking a difficult technical problem, had replied flatly, “I’m not your personal butler, and this is company time.” The next day, Jen called him in for a meeting, and he was out the door. He was one of the few people in the company who had dared to stand up to Collins. I had a feeling he wouldn’t just let it go. I found Alex’s contact info and sent him a message. “You free? We need to talk.” He replied almost instantly. “Always. Send me the address.” We met at a loud barbecue joint. The sizzle of the grill and the roar of the crowd were the perfect cover. Alex looked the same as always: plaid shirt, slightly messy hair, but his eyes were bright. He walked over with two beers and set them on the table. “Heard about what happened. The whole campus is talking about it.” He twisted the cap off one and handed it to me. “Badass.” I clinked my bottle against his and took a long swig of the cold beer. “You too,” I said. Alex laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. “I was just being stubborn. You were actually strategic.” “So what’s the situation now?” he asked. I told him everything: the fruitless job hunt, the smear campaign Collins was running. When I finished, Alex slammed his skewer down on the table. “That old bastard! He’s a real piece of work!” His anger was raw and immediate. I knew I’d found the right person. “I’m not letting this go,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “He wants me dead and buried, professionally. I’m going to make sure he’s the one who goes down first.” Alex’s eyes lit up. It was the excitement of meeting a worthy opponent, the thrill of finding an outlet for his own pent-up rage. “Count me in,” he said without a second’s hesitation. “I’ve been wanting to take him down for a while.” “What do you need me to do?” “I need an opening,” I said. “Something that will cripple him. A labor dispute is just a slap on the wrist for him.” Alex went quiet, turning his beer bottle over in his hands, thinking. The smoky air of the restaurant, thick with the smell of grilled meat, hung around us. After a long moment, he looked up and lowered his voice. “I might… have something.” My heart skipped a beat. “What is it?” “Do you know who makes the core software our company’s business relies on?” I shook my head. I was in marketing; I didn’t know much about the tech side. “It’s the flagship product from Stellar Dynamics. A single commercial license costs one hundred fifty thousand dollars.” “Our company,” Alex said, a cold smile touching his lips, “is using a pirated copy.” I froze. I knew Collins was cheap, but I thought it was limited to nickel-and-diming employee benefits and cutting labor costs. I never imagined he would risk the company’s entire operation on something like this. “How do you know?” I asked. “Because I was the one who had to install and maintain that pirated copy,” Alex said, his voice laced with scorn. “When Collins told me to find a cracked version, I warned him. I told him using it for commercial purposes was a huge risk. If we got caught, the fines would be astronomical.” “Guess what he said?” “‘Risk is just another cost of doing business. We’re a small company; we have to control costs. If nobody talks, who’s going to know?’” “If nobody talks, who’s going to know?” I repeated the words, the irony thick in my throat. “When he fired me, I took some precautions,” Alex leaned closer, his voice even lower. “I backed up everything from my computer. All the server logs showing the use of the pirated software, the internal IP addresses, the specific version information.” “It’s a complete chain of evidence.” “All we have to do is deliver this evidence to the legal department at Stellar Dynamics…” Alex didn’t need to finish. I understood. My breath caught in my chest. This wasn’t a sword. This was a battle-ax. An ax powerful enough to shatter the fortress of Innovate Solutions. “Good,” my voice trembled with excitement. “This is where we start.” In the middle of the noisy restaurant, we clinked our beer bottles together. The sharp sound of glass on glass was like a battle cry. A two-person alliance was forged. 04 Alex and I moved quickly and quietly. We were like spies, communicating only through encrypted channels. He sent me the evidence in a heavily secured email. It was a massive compressed file containing detailed server logs, every startup record of the pirated software, the internal IP addresses that used it, and the specific information of the cracked version. The evidence was more thorough than I could have imagined. Alex, ever the professional, had even timestamped every file in a way that couldn’t be altered, anticipating it might be used in court. Looking at these files, I could picture Collins’s smug face, proud of saving over a hundred grand, completely oblivious to the time bomb a casually dismissed employee had planted for him. My job was to light the fuse. I didn’t go to the police or any government agency. The process would be too slow, and it might tip him off. I wanted Innovate Solutions to be judged by its victim. I spent a full day drafting an anonymous tip, my tone calm to the point of being cruel. I stripped out all emotion and simply laid out the facts: how Innovate Solutions had been using pirated Stellar software for commercial gain for years. I attached Alex’s technical evidence, listing each piece of the chain. At the end of the letter, I wrote: “Your company’s intellectual property is being shamelessly stolen, and the thieves are profiting handsomely from your hard work. As a loyal user of the Stellar software suite, I cannot stand by and let this happen.” I reread it. Every word was coated in ice. Using a newly created, untraceable email address, I sent the letter and its attachments to the public email address of Stellar Dynamics’ legal department. To be absolutely sure, I also burned all the materials onto a disc and mailed it anonymously from a remote postbox to their CEO. Once it was all done, I deleted every trace of the sent files and local copies. As if nothing had happened. All that was left was to wait. Every day of waiting was agony. I refreshed Stellar Dynamics’ website and industry news feeds constantly. Alex was even more on edge than I was, messaging me every hour to see if there was any news. I told him to be patient. A shark always comes when it smells blood in the water. Two weeks later, on a quiet Wednesday afternoon, Alex sent me a photo. It showed several people in black suits, exuding an air of authority, standing at the reception desk of Innovate Solutions. The man in the lead wore a pin on his lapel: the Stellar Dynamics logo. Alex’s text followed: “They’re here.” My heart leaped into my throat. He sent another photo. It was Mr. Collins, face plastered with a sycophantic grin, bowing and scraping as he led the group into a conference room. Alex’s live commentary began. “They just served him with a court investigation order and a letter from their lawyers.” “They’re inspecting the company servers now.” “Collins’s face has gone green.” “The tech department guys were called in. I bet they can’t delete the logs I left behind.” “LOL, Collins is on the phone now, looks like his dog just died.” I watched the messages roll in, my palms sweating. I was nervous, but also morbidly thrilled. An hour later, Alex sent one last message. “Caught red-handed. The lawyer just announced they’re filing a lawsuit against Innovate Solutions. They’re seeking damages of… five hundred thousand dollars.” Five hundred thousand dollars. I let out a long, slow breath. For Innovate Solutions, which was already struggling with cash flow, that amount was a death blow. You tried to save a hundred fifty thousand, Collins. Now you have to pay five hundred thousand. I wonder what your calculating mind thinks of that. That evening, Stellar Dynamics posted an official statement on their blog. The language was severe, explicitly calling out Innovate Solutions for its infringement and declaring they would pursue legal action to the fullest extent. The story blew up. The article’s reach was far wider than the “laptopgate” incident. After all, this involved an industry giant. What was once a local tech park joke had now become a cautionary tale for the entire industry. I could almost hear the sound of the “respectable” reputation Collins had spent years building shatter into a million pieces. It was a crisp, satisfying sound. But this was just the appetizer. The main course was yet to come.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389005”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 Five years after we broke up, my ex-boyfriend was on a livestream, asking for advice on how to get me to refund the $650 he’d spent on me during our relationship. “Host, my ex is a total gold digger,” he whined into the camera. “She had to have a special bowl of collagen porridge every morning. A hundred bucks a bowl! I could buy enough bread to last me three years with that money.” “My sister had a miscarriage, and when I asked her to help with the hospital bills, she said no. But then she went and bought her own mom a Chanel bag.” “Isn’t my sister’s health more important than some designer purse?” “Then my sister got into a little trouble and just needed a hundred grand to sort things out, and she actually broke up with me over it.” “It’s all her fault I’m still single. Host, you gotta help me. Help me get my $650 back.” If I remembered correctly, Ethan Lowe had never bought me so much as a bottle of water. Where in the hell did he get the figure $650? I immediately requested to join the livestream to confront him. … Listening to Ethan’s litany of lies, I was shaking with rage. I had dated Ethan for five years. In that time, I bought him Air Jordans, a Rolex Submariner, and took his entire family on a vacation to Europe. I gave him a ten-thousand-dollar monthly allowance and paid for his sister’s private maternity nurse and hospital bills when she had her baby. I even paid the breakup fee he owed his previous girlfriend. The real reason I dumped Ethan was because his sister had an affair, got pregnant, and he demanded I pay for her abortion. When I refused, he gave me the silent treatment for a month. Then, on my birthday, he suddenly reached out. I thought he wanted to reconcile. Turns out, he wanted me to give his sister’s much younger boyfriend a hundred thousand dollars in hush money to appease him. That was the moment the fog in my brain finally cleared. Why on earth should I pay off my boyfriend’s sister’s side piece? I might have money, but I wasn’t a fool. After the breakup, I kicked him out of my apartment. I never expected that while I was away on a business trip, Ethan would come back and clean the place out. He took everything. Even the toilet. It was because he’d demanded “emotional distress compensation” and I’d refused. He’d told me if I wouldn’t give it to him, he’d take it himself. I was going to call the police, but his mother got on her knees and begged me, saying her son had just had a moment of confusion and asked me to forgive him. I felt sorry for her, and since I wasn’t short on cash, I let it go. I never dreamed that five years later, he’d be on a livestream demanding reimbursement for dating expenses, doxxing me in the process. In the few minutes I’d been watching, I’d already received over thirty calls from unknown numbers all over the country. I typed in the comments: [Host, this is Scarlett Vance, the ex-girlfriend of “Man_on_the_Rise.” I’d like to join the stream and set the record straight.] The host’s face lit up. “Man on the Rise, your ex is here! Are you willing to go live with her?” Ethan stammered, “Uh, maybe not. Scarlett has a really bad temper. I’m afraid she’ll just yell at me. Can’t you just tell her to send me the money?” The chat immediately filled with messages of support for Ethan. [No wonder he was cheap with her. His ex is a psycho.] [I’d slap a woman like that three times a day and wouldn’t spend a dime on her. $650 over five years is generous.] I responded by dropping ten “Carnivals,” the most expensive gift on the platform. [Host, let me on with Ethan, and I’ll drop ten more.] The chat exploded. [Damn, that’s like three grand in one go! This woman is a queen!] [Someone who drops ten Carnivals without blinking is worried about $650? Yeah, right.] The host practically leaped out of his chair and patched me into the stream. The second my face appeared on screen, I let him have it. “Ethan, have you ever spent a single penny on me? Where did you even come up with the number six-fifty?” “Show me the receipts.” Hearing me deny it, Ethan flew into a rage. “See, Scarlett? I told everyone you were a gold digger! You spend my money, block me, and then pretend it never happened, is that it?” A troll in the chat egged him on. [Bro, post the receipts and shut her up! That’s over six hundred bucks! You could cater a whole table at a wedding with that kind of money!] Ethan, completely missing the sarcasm, immediately sent the “receipt” to the host. “Host, do me a favor and display this for everyone to see.” The host opened the file and burst out laughing. “Sorry, everyone! I’m usually very professional, unless I literally can’t help it!” The moment the receipt appeared on screen, the chat went wild. [You have got to be kidding me. Is this guy for real?] [And he calls that her spending his money? I’d be too embarrassed to even admit this happened.] Ethan’s breathing grew ragged, his voice a little weak. “Well, if Scarlett hadn’t broken up with me without giving me a breakup fee, would I have tripped and fallen while I was at her apartment taking what I was owed?” “I got a huge gash on my leg! It needed three stitches! The pain was excruciating!” “I called Scarlett from the hospital to ask her to pay the bill, but she’d already blocked me.” I laughed out loud. What a shame he didn’t break his neck. “Ethan, let me get this straight. You hired a locksmith to illegally enter my home, stole my furniture and appliances, and then you accidentally hurt yourself during the robbery and you’re blaming me? Does that sound like the logic of a sane person?” “If you’d just given me the hundred grand I asked for, would I have fallen in the first place?” he shot back, completely shameless. “Because you were so stingy, I’ve been living in poverty for years.” “Just pay up. If you don’t, this won’t be about just six hundred and fifty dollars anymore!” That whole incident with the furniture five years ago left a disgusting taste in my mouth. My moment of pity had haunted me. If I gave in to him now, I’d never forgive myself. I snorted. “I’m not giving you a single cent. What are you going to do about it?” Suddenly, a young woman’s voice piped up from Ethan’s side. “Listen here, you old hag! I’m Ethan’s fiancée. You have to give him his money back. How else is he supposed to pay for my dowry?” I frowned, certain I must have misheard. “Honey, how much is Ethan paying for your dowry? How can it possibly come down to a measly six hundred and fifty bucks?” “He’s giving me $1,314,” she said proudly. “It’s to show he’ll love me for life.” I was floored. “$131,400? Ethan is that cheap? He’s actually willing to spend that much on you?” “Not one hundred thirty-one thousand,” Ethan corrected her quickly. “It’s one thousand, three hundred and fourteen dollars. It symbolizes that I’ll love Cindy forever.” I couldn’t help it; I roared with laughter. The chat was on fire. [What century is this? A $1,314 dowry payment? That’s more insulting than giving nothing at all.] [If that was my daughter, I’d drag her home and break her legs if she didn’t listen.] But Cindy was shameless. “What do you people know? You can’t put a price on love. My boyfriend may not have a lot of money, but he’s willing to humble himself and get back all the money he spent on his exes just to marry me. That’s true dedication.” I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. So I wasn’t the first victim? There were others? Trying to stifle my giggles, I asked, “So, Ethan, how much have you managed to raise so far?” “I just need your six hundred and fifty,” he announced proudly. “Once I have that, I can officially go to Cindy’s family and propose.” The host spoke up, his voice full of pity. “Young lady, take some advice from an older brother. Go home. If you marry a man like this, you’re signing up for a lifetime of misery.” From her voice, Cindy sounded about the same age as my younger sister. A wave of sympathy washed over me. “Sweetie, you’re young. You don’t know what real love is. Ethan is not a good person. By not giving him this money, I’m saving you.” Cindy wasn’t having it. “You shameless old witch! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t want me to marry him because you’re still in love with him! Well, you can forget it! Ethan told me you have that old lady smell, and if it wasn’t for your money, he wouldn’t have looked at you twice!” I was so furious I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle him. Yes, I was three years older than Ethan, but I was in my early thirties. I worked out daily, had a meticulous skincare routine, and could easily pass for someone in their early twenties. Old lady smell? And he was the one who relentlessly pursued me, claiming he loved older women because they made him feel secure. I had made it crystal clear from the start: I was twenty-seven and dating for marriage. If he wasn’t serious, he shouldn’t waste my time. He swore on his entire family’s lives that if he didn’t marry me, they would all suffer a lifetime of misfortune. Only then did I agree to date him. I laid down the law. “Ethan, I’m not giving you a dime. If you want it so badly, sue me.” He shot back with his own threat. “You just wait, Scarlett. I’ll be at your place in ten minutes. I’m gonna beat the crap out of you!” “Fine,” I snarled. “If you don’t show up, you’re not a man.” With that, he disconnected. The host looked worried. “Scarlett, you need to call the police right now. A broke man like that has nothing to lose. He might do something crazy!” I just smiled. He wanted to play tough? I knew people a lot tougher than him. “Host, mind if I run a little ad on your stream?” “Anyone local who can get to my apartment complex within ten minutes, come on down. No limit on numbers. I’m paying a hundred bucks a head for your time. I need people who can curse creatively. The filthier, the better.” “Also looking for some tough-looking guys with neck tattoos, maybe some local heavy-hitters. Name your price.” I dropped my address in the comments, and the host pinned it to the top. The chat was a blur of messages. [Lady, I don’t need the money. I just love drama.] [Sis, me and my dorm mates are three minutes away. We’ll protect you!] [Honey, my mother-in-law has been undefeated in arguments for thirty years, and we live in the same complex. We’re on our way down.] [Damn it, why do I live so far away? I want in on this!] The host was practically vibrating with excitement. “This is killing me! I want to be there so bad! I can’t imagine what that guy and his girlfriend will do when they see a whole crowd waiting for them. Scarlett, please, you have to livestream it.” I’m a businesswoman. I would never pass up an opportunity for this much free publicity. I sent a message to my work group chat: “Team, time for some overtime. Grab the new product samples and promo materials and get to my apartment complex ASAP. Everyone gets a thousand-dollar bonus, plus reimbursed travel. You can take tomorrow morning off.” I shook my husband awake. “Get up! Get the camera! The viral moment of a lifetime is here!” He was groggy. “What’s going on?” “My ex-boyfriend is on his way over to extort me. We’re going to the front gate to meet him.” That woke him up instantly. “I’m calling my buddies. If that punk lays a single finger on you, I’ll break him.” I smiled. “No need. I have reinforcements.” When I got to the front gate of my complex, I was stunned. Did these people teleport? There were already over a hundred people gathered, with dozens of phones set up on tripods, all streaming. A neighbor waved. “Scarlett, we’re all here to protect you!” When the strangers realized I was the main character, they all started cheering and waving. A few huge, muscular guys came over. “Ma’am, we don’t want your money. We just want a word with this little punk.” A dozen older women were cracking their knuckles excitedly. “Honey, just give the signal. We’ll drag his ancestors out of their graves and curse them all over again.” I thanked everyone, gave the building security a heads-up, and immediately got to work hanging up my company’s promotional banners. Within eight minutes, my entire team had arrived. They started handing out samples and brochures to the crowd, setting up ad displays along the sidewalk. Twenty minutes later, Ethan and Cindy pulled up on a single shared rental bike. Ethan was holding a small switch he’d broken off a tree. He saw the sea of people and froze. “It’s midnight,” he muttered. “Why are there so many people here?” Cindy yelled, “Ethan, let’s go! If Scarlett doesn’t pay up today, we’ll do what we did last time and empty her apartment!” I waved. “Ethan! Over here!” He strutted over, twig in hand, a smug look on his face. “Scarlett, did you come out here just to meet me? You miss me that much?” Cindy looked alarmed. “I admit you’re kind of pretty, Scarlett, but if you try to steal Ethan from me, I’ll fight you!” I made a gagging sound. “Please, Ethan, don’t make me sick. I was young and dumb enough to take a few bites of shit, and the memory still turns my stomach. I have no desire to even look at shit anymore.” His face flushed with rage. “How dare you be so vulgar, Scarlett? You’re the shit!” He wanted to curse me out? Fine. Let him face the full might of the nation’s most formidable fighting force: angry grandmas. I temporarily paused my own stream and gave the aunties a subtle nod. They immediately swarmed Ethan and Cindy, unleashing a verbal onslaught. The barrage of profanity was so intense that none of it was broadcastable. I could hear other streamers nearby groaning that their accounts were getting banned. Ethan and Cindy spun around, trying to fire back, but their voices were completely drowned out by the sonic wall of insults. The sheer volume of spittle flying from the aunties’ mouths was enough to give them a shower. Ethan snapped and tried to get physical. But the moment he raised his little switch, one of the tattooed guys grabbed his arm. “You even think about touching one of them, little man, and you won’t see tomorrow’s sunrise.” “There are cameras everywhere!” Ethan shrieked, pointing at the security cameras. “You hit me, and I’ll call the cops! I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got!” “Yeah!” Cindy chimed in. “We’ll sue you blind!” The tattooed guy just picked Ethan up and tossed him into the crowd. A swarm of people immediately closed in. When they parted, Ethan was on the ground, his face bruised and his glasses shattered. Cindy, who had been so aggressive just moments before, was now silent as a mouse. “You just wait,” Ethan whimpered, holding his jaw. “I’m calling the police! I’ll have you all thrown in jail for life!” I held up my phone. “Already did that for you. They’ll be here any second.” When the police arrived, Ethan ran to them like they were his long-lost family. “Officers, you have to arrest Scarlett and all these men! They assaulted me! Execute them!” I calmly explained the situation to the officers, who then reviewed the security footage. I hadn’t touched Ethan. The aunties, while verbally abusive, hadn’t caused any physical harm, which wasn’t illegal. Plus, they were all over sixty-eight. Good luck prosecuting them. “What about the guys who hit me?” Ethan whined. “You have to arrest them!” But the crowd had been packed so tightly that the cameras couldn’t see who had thrown the punches. Ethan couldn’t identify his attackers either, so the matter was dropped. Someone in the crowd yelled, “Get out of here before we give you another round!” Ethan shot me a look of pure hatred. “Fine, Scarlett, I’ll go. But you have to reimburse me for the shared bike fee.” The crowd erupted in laughter. Ethan seemed oblivious, holding his hand out expectantly. One of the guys couldn’t take it anymore, pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, and threw it at him. “I’ll pay it for her. Now get lost before you embarrass yourself any further.” Ethan glared at me one last time, then grabbed Cindy and stormed off. As they left, I faintly heard him say, “Don’t worry, Cindy. I swear I’ll get that thirteen-hundred-and-fourteen-dollar dowry for you.” What a mess. How could any girl be so clueless? I had my team continue handing out gifts and paid the promised appearance fees, spending about three thousand dollars in total. I wasn’t short on money. I just refused to give that parasite the satisfaction. The incident was a marketing miracle. My social media account gained a million followers overnight, and I quickly got it verified. The people who had tried our samples that night flooded the comments with rave reviews. The new product line sold out the moment it launched. Business owners from all over the country started messaging me, asking for exclusive distribution rights. Ethan, of course, showed up in my comments section: [Scarlett, you owe me. All this traffic came from me. You have to give me half of your profits.] I didn’t block him. I just let him rave. The more outrageous his claims, the better my engagement numbers got. When he saw I was ignoring him, he posted one last threat: [You wanna be heartless, Scarlett? Fine. Don’t come crying to me when things go wrong.] I didn’t take him seriously. He was broke and pathetic, all talk and no action. But a week later, my factory was in trouble. Big trouble.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389004”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On New Year’s Eve, my fiancée’s ex posted a photo online showing her with wine spilled on her dress, along with the caption: “Her trembling was the prize of the night.” My hands shook as I called Elara. After a long silence, she answered, breathless. “Sean… I was drugged. Aiden helped me. But I’m still clean for you.” I tried to believe it was just a terrible accident. Three months later, at our wedding, Elara threw a positive pregnancy test at my feet. “It only happened once,” she said, “but you can still be this child’s father.” I laughed coldly. “Get rid of it, or get out of my life.” As I walked away, I took out my phone. “I accept the marriage proposal to Gudenrath Corp.” [1] The Gudenrath family moved with ruthless efficiency. Two hours later, Seraphina Gudenrath and I were officially married, her dowry a portfolio worth two hundred million dollars. She signed the papers and immediately flew to an international conference. I stood there, holding our marriage certificate, feeling dazed. Five years of my life, all for a betrayal so complete it felt like a dream. My phone buzzed relentlessly in my pocket. I sighed and finally answered. “Sean, aren’t you always the most understanding person? I’m having a baby. Shouldn’t you be happy?” “I swear to you, you will be the only father this child has.” Elara’s voice was urgent, but there was no trace of apology in it. “Right. I understand,” I replied, my voice flat. “Is there anything else?” There was a moment of silence on her end, and I could faintly hear the sound of a man’s suppressed sobs in the background. She must have realized my calm was unnatural. Her tone softened. “Why don’t you come home first?” “Aiden is emotionally unstable right now. He just keeps crying. I can’t just leave him.” “There’s no need,” I cut her off. Her voice instantly turned to ice. “Sean Croft! What is your problem?” “Aiden was kind enough to help me, and you publicly humiliated him! Isn’t that enough for you? What more do you want?” My heart clenched, a sharp, stabbing pain. I suppressed the turmoil rising in my chest and said, word by word, “Elara, we’re over.” The air seemed to freeze. Her breath hitched, and then she exploded. “Are you insane?” “I got pregnant, that’s all! It’s not like I’m refusing to marry you! Why are you being so aggressive?” I let out a self-deprecating laugh but didn’t answer. Her patience ran out. “Fine! Be that way!” she spat. “Don’t come crying back to me later!” The line went dead. [2] I didn’t go home. I drove to the old Morris estate. Even though Elara had been unfaithful, her parents had always been kind to me. It was only right to end things with them face-to-face. But as I pushed open the grand doors, the scene inside plunged me into an icy abyss. Elara was sitting with her parents, Aiden’s arm linked with hers. She carefully ladled soup for him, even bringing the spoon to his lips with a tenderness in her eyes I hadn’t seen in years. Her mother watched them with a pleased smile. “Look at you two,” she teased her husband. “About to be parents and still acting like newlyweds.” A perfect, happy family of four. I had once dreamed of a moment like that. In the past, when I would put food on her plate, she would smile sweetly and say, “Thank you, darling,” only to discard anything I had touched the moment I looked away. She was the cherished only daughter of the Morris family, an untouchable flower on a high peak. She even flinched away from my kisses. And now, she was pregnant with Aiden’s child, doting on him like a loving wife. Elara caught sight of me from the corner of her eye and sneered. “I knew it. Impossible to shake him off.” Her father cleared his throat, trying to smooth things over. “You’re here. Come, sit and eat. Elara’s pregnant. Don’t upset her.” I stared at them, numb. “No, thank you.” Aiden spoke to the maid with an air of familiarity. “Sean, you should have called ahead. The staff didn’t set an extra place for you.” His hair was perfectly styled, his clothes expensive. He looked nothing like the down-on-his-luck intern from three months ago. Clearly, life at the Morris estate suited him. I ignored him and handed the gift I’d brought to the butler. “Stop right there!” Elara slammed her hand on the table, her face dark with rage. “Didn’t you hear Aiden speaking to you? Don’t you even have the decency to say thank you? You have no manners at all!” I turned slowly, a cold smile spreading across my face. “Thank him for what?” “Thank him for knocking up my fiancée and making me a cuckold? Or should I flip this table and scream at him in front of your parents for being a shameless homewrecker?” Elara’s face flushed, and she covered her mouth, gagging. Aiden patted her back, his voice choked with emotion. “Elara, are you okay?” He turned to me, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “Sean, it’s all my fault. Please don’t upset her anymore.” “I’m only staying here because I’m worried about the baby. I’ll leave as soon as it’s born, I swear! I won’t get in your way!” He then placed a hand on Elara’s stomach and began to sob. “Baby, I’m so sorry. Daddy loves you, and he doesn’t want to abandon you, but Daddy did a bad thing. Our family was never meant to be.” “As long as you and Mommy are happy, I’ll do anything.” With that, he collapsed, crying, into Elara’s arms. Her mother had seen enough. She threw down her chopsticks and pointed a trembling finger at me. “How dare you! It’s just a child! How can you be so petty? You are not fit to be a son-in-law to this family!” Any last shred of guilt Elara might have felt evaporated. She glared at me with pure hatred. “You ungrateful bastard!” I let out a cold laugh and turned to leave. My indifference seemed to enrage her further. With a wild scream, she grabbed the nearest bowl and hurled it at my head. A searing pain exploded in the back of my skull. Warm liquid trickled through my hair. My vision went black, and I collapsed. [3] My head was ringing, the sharp pain spreading like a tidal wave. I forced myself to my feet. Aiden rushed over, his voice dripping with false concern. “Sean, are you okay? My sister is pregnant, she’s so weak. How could you pretend to faint like that?” “Get away from me,” I said coldly, not even bothering to raise a hand to him. But he suddenly let out an exaggerated gasp and stumbled backward, crashing heavily into the coffee table. “Ah! Sean, I was just trying to help you…” he whimpered, his lower lip trembling as his eyes welled up. Elara panicked, rushing to his side. She turned on me, her eyes blazing. “Sean, are you insane? How dare you touch him!” Her parents looked on with disgust, as if I were something vile. “He fell on his own!” I choked out, the words catching in my throat. Elara’s eyes were merciless. She slapped me hard across the face. “Still lying! Get to the family chapel and kneel. Don’t even think about coming out until you’ve begged for forgiveness nine hundred times!” Before I could protest, two security guards stormed in, roughly bound my hands and feet, and dragged me away. I thrashed on the floor, screaming, “Let me go!” Her only reply was a cold command: “Reflect on what you’ve done!” The heavy doors slammed shut, plunging me into silence. I struggled desperately, the rough rope cutting into my wrists, my skin scraping raw against the stone floor. Finally, exhausted, I slumped onto the icy ground, a bitter sting in my nose. Through the door, I could hear their voices clearly. “Elara, isn’t this a little too harsh? He’s still your fiancé, after all.” “You’re too kind, Aiden. After how he treated you, you’re still defending him.” Elara’s voice was sharp with disdain. “If I don’t teach him a lesson and curb that temper of his, how is he supposed to take care of our child?” Aiden hesitated. “Sister, are you doing this because you don’t like him? Then why are you still marrying him?” Sudden silence. I held my breath, my heart pounding, desperate to hear her answer. If she hated me this much, why wouldn’t she let me go? After a moment, Elara let out a small laugh, her voice turning frigid. “It’s for the Croft family resources, of course. They’ve been very useful over the years.” “Marrying him is the only way to get full control of Croft Industries. Why else would I tie myself to such a useless piece of trash?” The truth was a razor-sharp knife, plunging straight into my heart. My blood ran cold. So that was it. She had never loved me. She only ever wanted my family’s name and power. In a daze, I remembered the car crash five years ago, when I had been severely injured while saving her. She had knelt by my hospital bed and sworn she would never marry anyone else. Even when the doctors told us I could no longer have children, she had just cried and said, “It doesn’t matter. Without children, I can love only you with my whole heart.” How pathetic. I had actually believed her clumsy lies. I had pulled every string I could, used every Croft connection to pave her way to success. And all along, she had been playing me for a fool. There is no greater sorrow than a dead heart. A despair colder than the stone floor settled over me, and I drifted into a fitful sleep. The chapel doors didn’t open until the next day. I was curled in a ball, my lips blue from the cold. Elara frowned at my pathetic state. “Useless waste. You kneel for one night and you look like this. How pathetic.” I slowly looked up, a grim smile on my face. “Sorry to disappoint you.” She looked away in disgust. “Aiden wants seafood congee. Go make it for him. And remember, no ginger. He doesn’t like it.” My nails dug into my palms, but I felt nothing. I forced the words through my teeth. “And what if I don’t?” [4] A dangerous glint appeared in Elara’s eyes. She suddenly kicked me hard in the chest. “Do you really think you’re the young master here? If it weren’t for Aiden, you would never have a child in your life! You should be on your knees thanking him, and you have the nerve to refuse to cook him a meal?” The feeling of bone cracking sent a wave of blackness over my vision. I coughed, spitting up a mouthful of blood. I wiped my mouth and slowly pushed myself up. “Elara, we’re done.” “You have no right to order me around.” A cold draft swept through the chapel. She stared at me for a second, then scoffed. “Are you trying to play hard to get? Don’t you find that disgusting?” Aiden appeared at her side, draping a coat over her shoulders. “Elara,” he whispered, “don’t get upset with him on my account. It’s not good for the baby. I just won’t eat. A lowly person like me doesn’t deserve to have Sean cook for him anyway.” He was wearing my silk pajamas, his chest covered in love bites. His eyes were full of triumphant provocation. But I no longer cared. “Move. You’re in my way,” I said, my voice distant. Elara suddenly grabbed my wrist, her nails digging into my skin and drawing blood. “You’re not going anywhere without my permission!” she shrieked. I yanked my arm free. “Ah!” The momentum sent her staggering backward, and she collapsed onto the floor. “You animal!” Her parents came running at the sound. Her mother cradled her pale-faced daughter while her father swung a fist at my face. I couldn’t dodge in time and took the full force of the blow. The taste of rust filled my mouth. Aiden wrapped his arms around Elara, his voice trembling. “It’s all my fault. If I weren’t here, you two wouldn’t be fighting.” He looked at me, his eyes brimming with tears. “Sean, if you’re angry, take it out on me. Please, just don’t hurt Elara and the baby…” Elara clutched her stomach, her eyes bloodshot. “Sean! Aiden went through so much to get me pregnant with this child! If anything happens to my baby, I’ll kill you!” Her father flew into an even greater rage. He grabbed me by the neck and slammed me onto the altar. The candlesticks toppled over, hot wax splashing across my back and instantly raising a swath of angry red welts. I arched my back, gagging, but only managed to spit up more blood. The marriage certificate slipped from my jacket pocket, its bright red cover a startling contrast against the grey stone floor. When she saw the names on it, Elara’s face changed, her arrogance vanishing. “You… to spite me, you actually married someone else?” she stammered in disbelief. I struggled to my feet, using the wall for support, and met her eyes again. “I gave you a choice.” In the dead silence of the room, Elara screamed, “That’s impossible! This has to be a fake! Who else would marry a defective man like you?” Just as the words left her mouth, a cool, clear female voice cut through the air. “I would.” Everyone turned. There, standing silhouetted against the light, was Seraphina Gudenrath, dressed in a stunning red gown.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389003”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Postpartum depression engulfed me. All I wanted was to die. Eddy pulled me back from the edge, crying, “I’ll get you through this, Annie.” He worked days hunting killers and nights feeding our son. Every morning he drove me to therapy, his eyes hollow from exhaustion, but he never quit. One evening he came home to the baby screaming. I was in the corner, cutting my arm with a knife. He slapped me hard. “If you can’t be a mother, why have him?” he shouted. “You want to die? Here—” He pressed his service pistol under my chin. I just waited. Then the baby cried “Mama,” and something stirred in me. I reached for him. But another woman was faster. She held him gently. “Ma’am, maybe you shouldn’t be near the baby right now.” That’s when I met Eddy’s protégée — vibrant, capable, and natural with our son. Eddy looked at her the way he once looked at me. They were the family now. It was time for me to go. 1 Our son, Leo, had a fever. My mind was a fog all day. I hadn’t even managed to keep him properly covered. When I tried to check on him, Eddy pushed me away. “Just take care of yourself,” he said, his voice flat. He and his protégé, Ava, moved around the apartment like a well-oiled machine. One dressed Leo while the other packed a bag. They worked in perfect sync. I was the outsider. I stood there, invisible, as they walked out the door, went down the stairs, and drove away. There was no anger between them, just efficiency. Ava was a much better mother than I could ever be. If I died, Eddy could be with her, couldn’t he? Wouldn’t his life be so much easier? I remembered the bottle of sleeping pills. Eddy, afraid I’d swallow them all, had locked them in the highest cabinet. I dragged a stool over and started trying combinations for the lock. I vaguely recalled it was a birthday. Mine. Incorrect. Eddy’s. Incorrect. Leo’s. Still incorrect. I hesitated for a moment. Then I typed in Ava’s. It clicked open. But inside, there wasn’t a bottle of sleeping pills. It was a small vial of clear liquid. A poison. Next to it was a note in his friend’s handwriting: Three minutes to death after ingestion. The cause of death will look identical to a sleeping pill overdose, but it will be agonizing. Think carefully before you use it. I laughed. A hollow, broken sound. So… Eddy had been planning to kill me for a while now. But… why couldn’t I bring myself to hate him? For the past six months, I had watched him suffer, and my heart had ached for him. A star detective, a man who outwitted monsters, was now trapped fighting a different kind of battle at home. He had to care for a newborn and stop his wife from killing herself. I wanted to help him, to share the burden. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fight the illness, the impulse. The only things keeping me alive were his tearful pleas and the sound of my son calling me “Mama.” Now, he didn’t want me alive anymore. And when Ava held him, Leo stopped crying. I could finally die in peace. Eddy, I hope you two will be happy. I swallowed the contents of the vial and lay down on our bed. A thought flickered through my dimming mind: dying here would traumatize them. I tried to get up, to move somewhere else, but my body wouldn’t respond. I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to keep the blood from staining the sheets. Through the haze, I heard the front door open again. It was Ava. “I just came back for some of Leo’s clothes,” she called out, presumably on the phone with Eddy. “You focus on the case, sir. I’ve got him.” My muscles went completely slack. 2 Eddy didn’t come home until the next day. He was carrying a small box from my favorite bakery. “Annie?” he called out as he took off his shoes. Silence. He called my name again. Still nothing. The detective in him sensed something was wrong. He bolted to the cabinet and saw the open lock. “Annie…” His hand trembled as he reached for the door. “No… please, no…” He swung the cabinet open. The bottle of sleeping pills was sitting right there. Floating in the air above him, I froze. Sleeping pills? But I was sure it had been the vial of poison. He emptied the bottle into his palm and counted. Two were missing. He walked into the bedroom and saw the lump under the covers. A wave of relief washed over his face. He put the cake in the fridge, then collapsed onto the sofa, exhausted. I watched him and a strange, sad smile formed on my spectral lips. Maybe Eddy had wanted to kill me. But at some point, he must have changed his mind and swapped the poison back for the pills. The poison… Ava must have switched it. And then yesterday, when she came back for the clothes, she must have put the sleeping pills back, creating the perfect illusion. But… Why wasn’t I angry with her? I knew I was a terrible mother. A burden of a wife. All I did was cause trouble. If someone else could take care of the people I loved, I could only be grateful. I just hoped that when they had a new baby of their own, they wouldn’t forget mine. 3 Eddy had only been asleep for a little while when a call from the precinct jolted him awake. By the time he finished with his case and came home, it was already eight in the evening. Mrs. Gable, the old woman who ran the corner market, was pacing anxiously at the bottom of our apartment building. “Mrs. Gable?” he asked. Her face lit up with relief. “Oh, Eddy, thank goodness you’re back! Annie didn’t come by for groceries today. She’s not answering her phone or her texts.” She clutched her basket. “Is she… having another episode? I can’t get into the building. You have to go check on her!” “It’s okay, ma’am,” Eddy said, a relaxed smile on his face. “She’s not sick.” His next words hit me like a physical blow. “Her depression, it’s all an act.” “What?” I whispered, watching them. Mrs. Gable tightened her grip on her basket. “But she told me… she said she’d come by every day, and if she ever missed a day, I should come check on her.” Eddy took the grocery basket from her and paid for the contents. “She fooled us all, Mrs. Gable. Her medical records were forged. If my rookie hadn’t stumbled upon the original file while working a case, I’d still think she was seriously ill. She just doesn’t want to take care of the baby. From now on, you don’t need to worry about her.” I laughed, a silent, bitter laugh, as tears I could no longer shed streamed down my face. So that’s why. That’s why he’d said those awful things to me. As if I’d abandoned our child on purpose. As if my depression was my fault. It was because… He thought I was faking it. Eddy, couldn’t you see the scars on my body? Couldn’t you see the despair in my eyes? But… I closed my spectral eyes. It didn’t matter anymore. Ava just wanted Eddy. And I was just a weight dragging him down. Let him think I was pretending. As long as you can be happy, Eddy. As long as you both take care of our son. Mrs. Gable still looked hesitant. “But she didn’t seem like she was…” “It’s because we had a little fight,” Eddy interrupted smoothly. “I took on a new protégé, and she’s feeling jealous. Just acting out.” Mrs. Gable finally relaxed. She offered a few words of advice about how young couples should work through their problems and then left. Eddy walked inside. “Mrs. Gable brought today’s groceries. What do you feel like eating?” No response. “Leo’s stable at the hospital, by the way. You don’t have to worry.” Still no response. “Annie.” His tone sharpened. “Can you stop pretending? If you don’t want to raise him, I will. You can do whatever you want, I won’t stop you. Just stop torturing me and our son with this fake depression!” Silence. The grocery basket creaked in his tightening grip. “And don’t worry. As long as you’re not running off to meet a lover, I don’t care what you do!” The apartment remained deathly quiet. “Annie, have you lost your mind?!” He threw open the bedroom door. I was huddled under the covers. He seemed to remember I’d taken the sleeping pills. He slammed the door shut with a cold scoff. His phone rang. This time, it was Ava. “Sir, the power’s out at my place… I’m a little scared…” The anger vanished from Eddy’s face, replaced by a gentle smile. “A detective who’s afraid of the dark?” His tone was so tender. It was the same tone he used to use with me. I was afraid of the dark, too. I always needed him by my side during a blackout. Ava’s voice trembled slightly. “It’s not just the dark… I’m worried your wife might do something like last time… mess with my wiring and try to hurt me…” I stared, stunned. When had I ever done something like that? I looked at Eddy. He should know. Even before I got sick, I would never have done such a thing. But the way his hand tightened around his phone told me everything. He believed her. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice soft. “She took some sleeping pills. She’s out cold. I won’t let her hurt you again.” “But…” Ava sounded shy. “I’m still a little scared of the dark. Sir, could you… could you come over?” Eddy chuckled. “For a reason like that? Of course.” He went to change his clothes. I smiled, a bitter, hollow expression. It’s okay. I know I’m just a source of trouble for everyone. Ava was just saying what she needed to say to get me out of the way. And I was already gone. Eddy just hadn’t found out yet. As long as they take care of my son after they get married, then none of this was in vain. Eddy came back into the bedroom. He was carrying a bowl of warm oatmeal. The room was dark. He placed it on the nightstand. So… he was worried I’d be hungry when I woke up. A sad smile touched my lips. But I’m never waking up, Eddy. All you have to do is pull back the covers. Then you’ll see my body, soaked in its own blood. No. I shook my head violently. That would be too horrible. It’s better if he never finds out. 4 I knew Eddy wasn’t just going to Ava’s place to keep her company. The look in his eyes when he was with her was the same one he’d once saved only for me. Still, watching her lean into his embrace sent a pang of something through my non-existent heart. In the dim light of her apartment, Ava pressed herself against his chest. “Sir… the truth is, I became a cop because of you.” Eddy, a man who always kept a professional distance from other women, wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tight. “Thank you, Ava. Without you, I would have been trapped in her lies forever, never able to breathe.” “Then why don’t you divorce her?” Eddy’s body stiffened. He gently pushed her back a little. “I’m afraid she’ll hurt you.” “I don’t mind getting hurt.” “But I do!” In the darkness, their eyes met. Ava started to cry, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face in his chest. A bitter smile formed on my lips. Don’t worry, Eddy. I approve. You have my blessing. The next morning, Ava left early. She arranged for a car to pick Leo up from the hospital. But she didn’t bring him home. I understood. How could I possibly take care of a child? And Ava had to work. So she took him to a relative’s house. As Eddy was leaving for work, he asked her, “How’s Leo?” “Don’t worry, he’s doing great at the hospital. Just a few more days and he’ll be ready to come home.” My head snapped up. Eddy smiled. “Thank you for taking care of him these past few days.” Wait… Didn’t she just pick him up? I tried to grab Eddy, to stop him, but my ghostly form passed right through him. “Eddy! Leo isn’t at the hospital! She took him!” I screamed, trailing helplessly behind him. “Eddy, just go to the hospital, you’ll see!” But Eddy just reached out and gently brushed Ava’s hair. “This new case is a tough one, I can’t look after Leo properly. I’m so glad I have you. I can really count on you. Once we crack this illegal drug manufacturing case, I’ll take you out to dinner.” “Oh, sir,” Ava said, patting his hand. “You know I’m not doing it for a dinner.” Eddy’s breath hitched. They were both adults. They knew what she meant. But he didn’t pull away. I was practically weeping. “Eddy! She’s lying! Go find our son!” As her car pulled away, I saw Ava’s sweet smile curdle and disappear. As soon as Eddy got to his office, the phone rang. It was the hospital. My eyes widened. “Is it about Leo? Are they calling to say he’s missing? Eddy, pick up! You need to know!” “Hello?” he answered. A familiar voice came through the line. “Mr. Hayes, Mrs. Hayes has missed her follow-up appointment for the second day in a row. With her severe suicidal tendencies, I’m worried. Is she alright?” “Doctor, she’s faking it.” The doctor paused. “That’s impossible.” “Doctor, please, can you stop helping her deceive me?” Eddy sighed, sitting in front of a mountain of case files. “My people found the original copy of your diagnosis. I have no intention of pressing charges for bribery or falsifying medical records, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped helping her cause trouble for me.” “Mr. Hayes, you’ve misunderstood. We gave the diagnosis directly to you. Your wife’s condition is—” “Are you testing me? Do you think I won’t have you arrested?” That shut the doctor up. After a moment of hesitation, he asked tentatively, “So… Mrs. Hayes is alright?” “She took some sleeping pills. She’s sleeping it off,” Eddy snapped. The doctor sounded relieved. “Oh, good.” I stared at the phone, waiting desperately for the pediatrics department to call. But the call never came. Not all day. An unseen force bound me to Eddy, pulling me along wherever he went. I followed him home. When he opened the door, the trash was still there from the day he took Leo to the hospital. Maggots were squirming in the bag, and a foul stench filled the air. The apartment was covered in a layer of dust. His face contorted with rage. “Annie! You’re not sick! Why are you still pretending? You can’t even be bothered to take out the trash?” Silence. He angrily gathered the trash and threw it outside the front door. I didn’t appear. “Annie, do I have to shove your real diagnosis in your face before you’ll stop this charade?” The bedroom remained silent. “What, are you mad that I didn’t come home last night? You lied to me, made me run around like an idiot, terrified you were going to kill yourself. I gave up a promotion for you, and I haven’t blamed you for that. What right do you have to be mad at me?” Still nothing. “Annie!” He threw the bedroom door open. The bowl of oatmeal on the nightstand was dried up, untouched. “Annie?” A terrible premonition began to creep into his heart. He ripped the covers off the bed. His pupils shrank to pinpricks. I stared at the bed, and a gasp I couldn’t make escaped me.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389002”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day I found out I was the switched-at-birth heiress, I didn’t waste a second. I went straight to the Garver estate to claim my life. There was no cliché drama. After a quick DNA test, my biological parents, the Garvers, announced my return to the world. Even the fake heiress, Stella, didn’t cause any trouble. In fact, she did everything she could to help me adjust to my new, opulent life. But I wasn’t satisfied. I made a habit of turning the house upside down, my anger a constant storm. It finally came to a head when I slapped one of the maids. My mother, Mrs. Garver, exploded. “What is it you really want, Zoe?” I pointed a trembling finger at the maid. “She’s always comparing me to your other daughter,” I spat. “She says I’m stupid, that I’m ugly. An ugly duckling.” Then, my finger swung towards Stella. “Everything she is, everything she has, she stole from me. Why should I have to live under the same roof as her, a constant reminder of what I lost? Get her out, or I’ll keep tearing this house apart.” My parents exchanged a look, then tried to reason with me. “Zoe, the switch wasn’t Stella’s fault.” No, it wasn’t her fault. But was it mine? “I refuse to share the role of ‘good daughter’ with her,” I declared. “It’s one or the other. Either she goes, or I do.” 1 “Zoe, please…” My mother reached for me, her voice softening, ready to smooth things over like she always did. I slapped her hand away without a second thought, my glare venomous. My father’s voice boomed. “What is that attitude? Is that any way to treat your mother?” I grabbed my hair, my voice rising to a hysterical shriek. “She’s not my mother, and you’re not my father! You’re Stella’s parents. What am I? Some intruder who crashed your perfect family? You probably wish I’d just died out there, don’t you?” My eyes darted to the source of my latest tantrum: a box of strawberries on the coffee table, not quite fresh. I snatched the box and smashed it on the floor. With the heel of my shoe, I ground each berry into the marble, the sweet juice splattering like blood. “In this house, your precious daughter is a princess, and I’m a beggar! She wants strawberries, the maids get her the freshest, most expensive ones from Japan. I want some? I get the week-old rejects that are starting to rot! When have you ever treated me like your real daughter? Why does everyone here look down on me?” I’d always heard the staff whispering. I’d ignored it, swallowing my pride because, in a way, they were right. I knew if I caused too much trouble, I’d wear out my welcome. But my restraint was met with their scorn. “A phoenix without its feathers is no better than a chicken,” I’d overheard one of them sneer. “What does she know about fine food? Those strawberries are a hundred dollars a box. Even the rotten ones are too good for her.” That’s when I realized the big, juicy strawberries I’d been happily eating were Stella’s leftovers—the ones she’d tasted and deemed not good enough. Her trash. Why? I was the real daughter of this house. I screamed and cried until I was hoarse. But my parents just offered placating words. “We’ll fire her immediately. You want strawberries? We’ll take you to the market right now, buy the very best.” Stella bit her lip, her voice calm. “I didn’t know about any of this. I…” She took a step towards me. I shoved her, hard. “Don’t you pretend to be the good guy, you thief! You stole my life and you still walk around here acting so high and mighty.” Stella stumbled backward, her head cracking against the corner of the table. Blood gushed from the wound. I froze, horrified. My mother crumpled to the floor, a strangled sob escaping her lips. Pain flashed across my father’s face. Seeing their reaction, a fresh wave of hatred washed over me. Without thinking, I bolted for the balcony and threw one leg over the railing. 2 Hands grabbed me, pulling me back. My parents. I fought them, trying to throw myself over the edge. “Let me go! Either I die, or she leaves!” Only one thought consumed me: get rid of Stella. Get rid of the thief, the robber who had stolen everything from me. My mother was weeping hysterically, but she never once said the words. She never agreed to make Stella leave. In the end, it was Stella herself. Clutching her bleeding head, she walked to the balcony and slowly sank to her knees before me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, blood smearing her face, making her look utterly pathetic. “I’ll go now. I’m sorry for taking your place for so long.” She looked wretched, but I knew it wasn’t an act. She had wanted to move out for a while. It was my parents who wouldn’t let her. This time, my father didn’t try to stop her. He just let out a long, defeated sigh. My mother, however, clung to Stella, both of them sobbing in a heart-wrenching embrace. That night, Stella vanished from the house. A massive weight lifted from my chest, replaced by a giddy sense of triumph. I didn’t care about the strange looks the maids gave me. In fact, right in front of them, I marched to the refrigerator, pulled out every single box of strawberries, and dumped them in the trash. “I hate strawberries,” I announced to the room. “From now on, I don’t want to see a single strawberry in this house. In fact, I don’t want to see anything that belonged to Stella. Get rid of it all.” The staff didn’t dare cross me again. They cleared out Stella’s belongings with record speed. It was a victory. Ever since I’d arrived, they’d looked at me with mocking eyes, whispering behind my back that I could never measure up to Stella. They jumped to do her bidding, but treated my requests as an afterthought. After Stella was gone, I reveled in my freedom for a while. But seeing the joy drain from my parents’ faces, a slow, creeping anxiety began to set in. So, I tried to win them over. I started mimicking Stella. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. If I had grown up here, I would have been the one doing all those things anyway. I thought I could replace her. And I worked tirelessly at it. I learned the complex art of tea ceremonies that my father loved, and the elegant flower arranging my mother adored. On top of that, I had my regular studies. I was sleeping less than six hours a night. But it was all a pathetic illusion. An illusion shattered by a property deed. Since my return, I had acquired a host of enemies. The other debutantes looked down on me, their insults a constant barrage of thinly veiled contempt. Stella’s old rival was the worst. “I never liked how stuck-up Stella was,” she’d sneered at me, “but compared to a piece of trash like you dragging down our social circle, she was a damn queen.” I had been furious. So after I kicked Stella out, the next time the girl came at me, I threw it in her face. “No matter what, a fake is still a fake. You really think some cuckoo in the nest is better than the real thing?” She just laughed. “Oh, you poor, stupid girl.” Then she told me the truth. My parents had bought Stella a sprawling luxury apartment downtown. And all those nights they claimed to be busy with work, they were at that apartment, playing happy family with her. “You idiot. You thought you kicked her out, but all you did was gift her a multi-million dollar condo. You got one of those? Oh, that’s right, you don’t even have parents anymore. They’re off building a new family without you.” 3 I didn’t want to believe it. But a cold knot of dread in my stomach told me it was probably true. When I found the property deed in my father’s study, signed over to Stella Garver, my reason snapped. I stormed over to the address like a wife catching a cheating husband. When Stella opened the door, I shoved past her and burst inside. And there they were. My parents, who had told me they were on a business trip, sitting in the warm, cozy living room. My elegant mother was wearing an apron, carrying a platter of steaming food. My father was on the sofa, watching the evening news. The moment they saw me, their faces changed. I gritted my teeth. “Sorry to interrupt your little family reunion.” The sense of betrayal was a tidal wave, drowning me. “A multi-million dollar apartment. How generous! I thought you said she was going back to where she belonged.” My father cleared his throat, his expression turning grave. “We had no choice, Zoe. You lived in that place for sixteen years. You know what it’s like. For Stella to go back there… it would be like sending her to hell.” Hell? A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “That’s because she was born in hell. What’s that got to do with me? I know, you think I’m not as graceful or as kind as she is. I’m calculating, petty, selfish—I have all the ugly traits of someone who clawed their way out of poverty. But did I ever have a chance to be like her?” My adoptive parents—Stella’s biological parents—were the laziest couple in our town. They never worked, never earned a cent, just leeched off their own parents. When their kids got old enough, they started leeching off us. By the time I was four, I was out with my older sister, scavenging for scrap metal just to have enough to eat. A few years later, I was in a factory, my small hands working day and night. I learned to fight over every last penny, to never let anyone take advantage of me. I’m sixteen now, but I’m barely five feet tall. I only just got my first period. The family doctor said I was severely malnourished, my growth permanently stunted. “You feel sorry for her, for being sent to hell?” My voice cracked. “Why don’t you feel sorry for me? The place you call hell is where I spent sixteen years of my life!” Even if they had sent Stella back, she would have had it better than I did. They would have given her money. She was old enough now, she could have endured it for a couple of years, gotten into college, and escaped those parents for good. Stella just stood there, biting her lip, murmuring, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” My mother finally broke. “What more do you want? Yes, yes, you suffered! But whose fault is that? Do you think I wanted my child to grow up in poverty? Do you think I enjoyed raising someone else’s daughter? Fate played a cruel joke, letting you be born from my body only to live a life of misery. Maybe… maybe you were just born into the wrong fate. Stella was destined for a good life, and you were destined for…” She trailed off, her lips trembling. I finished her sentence for her. “To be worthless?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389001”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 It was the second year of Jason’s supposed return to our family, two years after I’d first discovered his affair. The shattered bones in my right hand, the hand of a surgeon, had finally started to knit back together. I was cleared for duty, back within the sterile, familiar walls of Metropolitan General Hospital. But on my very first day back, I ran into her. Bella. The woman who had fractured my marriage. She was lowering herself awkwardly from an ultrasound table, her belly swollen, ripe with a full-term pregnancy. The moment the curtain was pulled aside, my eyes locked with Jason’s. His hand, steadying Bella, froze for a fraction of a second. His gaze darted away, unable to meet mine. Without a word, I turned and walked out. I went straight to the admissions desk and scheduled a procedure for myself. Termination of an early-stage pregnancy. This twisted, tangled mess of years… it was time to finally cut the cord. … I stood there, a statue in a white coat, my chest tightening until I could barely breathe. My mind was a blizzard of white noise. My first instinct was to flee, but Jason’s voice, sharp and loud, stopped me in my tracks. “Ava!” At the sound of my name, Bella let out a startled cry and crumpled to the floor. “Jason… something’s wrong… my stomach…” The hand he’d started to reach out to me snapped back. He rushed to her side, all frantic concern. I watched, a cold, detached observer in my own life’s wreckage. “What kind of doctor just stands there?” a voice muttered from the growing crowd. “Look at her, frozen like a statue. A pregnant woman is on the floor, and she’s not lifting a finger.” The commotion drew a small crowd, phones already emerging to capture the drama. Jason shielded Bella with his body, her pale, tear-streaked face pressed against his back. “Ava… it’s not what you think… I didn’t…” he started, his voice a low plea. Bella peeked around him, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Dr. Ross, it wasn’t his fault, I swear. It was me. I couldn’t leave him alone. Please… don’t blame him, please?” A sharp pain lanced through my head, but with it came a chilling clarity. I walked toward them, each step deliberate, and slapped her across the face. The sound was a clean, sharp crack in the hospital corridor. “Is screwing another woman’s husband some kind of addiction for you, Bella?” I asked, my voice dripping with the venom I’d suppressed for years. She staggered, grabbing my hand, refusing to let go, her lips forming pleas for forgiveness. That’s when Jason finally snapped. He yanked me away from her and shoved me, hard. I slammed onto the cold, unforgiving tile floor. “Ava! Have you lost your mind? Can’t you see she’s pregnant, about to give birth?!” he roared, his face a mask of fury. “Where’s your humanity? Where’s your goddamn compassion? The baby is innocent!” My head hit the ground with a sickening thud, the world ringing in my ears. Warm blood trickled from my forehead, catching in my eyelashes, staining my vision crimson. But the years of hatred and rage coalesced into a single, burning point of focus. I gritted my teeth, pushing myself up. “You want to talk about time and place?” I spat, the words tasting of blood. “Did you think about ‘time and place’ when you were tearing the clothes off this slut? Did you think about my feelings every time you swore you’d changed, every time you promised our family came first?” I staggered to my feet, a phantom ache flaring up in my right hand, the one he had already broken. This sham of a marriage should have ended long ago. It should have ended three years ago. The day he shoved me down a flight of stairs—costing me our first child—just so Bella could steal the credit for my research paper. It should have ended when he used my ruined hand as leverage, forcing me to perform surgery on Bella’s mother. It should have ended when he desecrated my parents’ final resting place, scattering their ashes to the wind just to get me to pull some strings for her mother. I remembered the surgeon’s words after my tenth operation, the phrase seared into my memory. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ross. It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever hold a scalpel again.” I should have filed for divorce right then, in the depths of that living hell. I regret not doing it sooner. My whole body trembled. My back, my chest, and now a dull, heavy ache in my lower abdomen. The sight of me, bloodied and shaking, seemed to finally penetrate Jason’s rage. He reached a hand out, then let it hover in the air, uncertain. He couldn’t look me in the eye. His tone softened, an old, familiar attempt to placate me. “Ava… why do you have to be like this… so… dramatic?” “I promise you,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Once the baby is born, I’ll never see her again. Okay?” “It’s my fault. I just… I didn’t know you’d be at the hospital today.” He knelt, trying to help me up. The guilt in his eyes looked almost real, but Bella’s staged sobs in the background were a constant, grating reminder of the truth. He had cheated. Again. My right hand drifted to my stomach, a sudden, damp warmth spreading through my clothes. He didn’t know. The next patient scheduled for an ultrasound was me. It was my fault. My fault for believing a man like him could ever change. My fault for being so foolish as to conceive a child in the ruins of our life. Tears I didn’t know I was holding back streamed down my face. “We’re getting a divorce,” I said, my voice hollow. “And you will leave with nothing.” Meeting Jason had been an accident. His family’s empire had crumbled overnight, leaving him with nothing but his parents’ debts. He’d been stabbed by loan sharks, left for dead in a filthy alley, crawling his way onto the street when I found him. No one in the city would touch him. No one dared. But I was a doctor. My oath was to save lives. So I saved his. He called me his savior, the only light in his world. And then, with the life I’d given back to him, he rebuilt everything, creating a new empire from the ashes of the old one. When I wanted flowers, the entire hospital would be filled with them the next day. When I wanted love, he tattooed my name over his heart and filled the sky with drones spelling out his devotion for 520 consecutive days. When I wanted his time, he dropped everything, cancelled meetings, even skipped the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. Then came a car accident. Bella became his private nurse. And somehow, she moved from his hospital room right into his heart. Betrayal was just that simple. When I first found out, he fell to his knees before me. “Ava, she looks so much like you. I was coming out of anesthesia… I thought she was you!” Their on-again, off-again affair dragged on for a year. It started with secret meetings in hospital rooms after faked injuries and escalated to him bringing her into our home. It all came to a head when security footage caught her pushing me from a second-story balcony. I was five months pregnant. I lost the baby. Bella went to jail. And Jason, finally, came back to me. Or so I thought. It was clear now they’d never really been apart. … After scheduling the abortion, I left. It took a long time sitting in my car in the parking garage to still the shaking in my hands. Finally, I picked up my phone and called my lawyer. “Cole, that divorce petition you drafted for me last year? Let’s proceed.” “The grounds are the same. Adultery. We can prove cohabitation. And per the postnup he signed, I want everything. I want every single dollar he spent on his mistress back.” “Have the papers on my desk in three days.” As the car wound its way out of the garage, the cramping in my abdomen grew sharper, a relentless tide of pain. Maybe I wouldn’t need the surgery after all. Maybe this tiny, unformed life was already slipping away. I looked up just in time to see headlights. A deafening roar of metal on metal. The airbag exploded against me, but the force of the impact was too great. I was thrown from the car. “Help… someone…” I gasped, the world spinning. Before the shock could even register, another car, a pearl-white sedan, screeched to a halt, its tire inches from my head. My terror was a beat too slow. The car lurched forward. The tire rolled directly over my right hand. “AHHH!” The agony was instantaneous, absolute. I curled into a ball, but through a haze of pain, I saw her face in the driver’s seat. Bella. Her expression was a mask of triumphant fury. Her lips formed two words. “I win.” … I was bundled onto a stretcher like a broken doll, rushed from the ambulance to the OR. Through the fog, I could hear a frantic, weeping voice. “Jason… what do I do? What do I do?” “I was just trying to catch up to her! I just wanted to explain!” “I’ve screwed up so bad! Jason, you’ll protect me, won’t you?” “Jason, I can’t go back to jail! Our baby can’t grow up without a mother! Save me!” And then, cutting through the wail of the sirens and Bella’s desperate sobs, I heard Jason’s voice, deep and steady. “Don’t worry.” “I’ll handle everything.” For a moment, the physical pain vanished, replaced by the chilling echo of those two sentences. Jason. All these years… what a fucking joke. My life flashed before my eyes, a chaotic, nonsensical nightmare. But the cold sting of the anesthetic and the glint of the scalpel told me this was real. This was just one more cross I had to bear. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ross,” the surgeon told me later. “The chances of you regaining enough function to operate are now virtually zero. We’ll have to discuss alternative positions for you at the hospital.” “And… about the pregnancy… the trauma from the impact was too severe…” Before he could finish, Jason walked in, holding two documents. One was a liability waiver. The other was a statement, promising I would not press charges against Bella. I stared up at him, a sense of profound absurdity washing over me. I was fresh out of surgery, and he was already here, running interference for the woman who tried to kill me. He didn’t even have to speak. I snatched the papers from his hand and, ignoring the searing pain, tore them into confetti. “She did this to me, Jason! She deserves to pay for what she’s done!” “You want me to just let it go? Not a chance in hell!” I watched his expression shift from annoyance to cold, hard authority. His hand cracked across my face. The IV stand beside me wobbled and crashed to the floor. “Ava, why can’t you ever learn?” he snarled. “Bella has already apologized. Why can’t you just leave her alone?!” “She’s already been to prison once because of you! Are you trying to destroy her completely!?” “Do you have any decency? Any empathy?” “You’re just like them,” he spat, his voice filled with a sudden, chilling venom. “You’re just like the loan sharks who left me for dead in that alley. So self-righteous. So determined to burn everything to the ground.” I snapped. The last thread of my sanity broke. A year ago, after I’d saved his life, I’d been harassed by his creditors, kidnapped three times, and once, almost gang-raped. I had risked everything for him. And now he was comparing me to them. I launched myself at him, grabbing a shard of the broken IV bottle and swinging it at his head. But he was too strong. He caught my wrist, twisted my arm, and slammed me against the wall, his hand closing around my throat. “Your hand is already useless,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “You have no future as a surgeon.” “Let Bella go, and I won’t divorce you.” Security guards, nurses, and Bella herself rushed into the room, drawn by the commotion. Bella threw herself into Jason’s arms, sobbing. “Jason… don’t fight. Please don’t fight because of me. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to our baby!” Her crying grew more frantic, more hysterical. “I’ll go,” she wailed. “I’ll leave. I’ll disappear from your life forever. I’ll raise the baby on my own, I won’t take a single cent from you, just please, please don’t fight with her, don’t divorce her…” Whether it was a performance or a genuine breakdown, I couldn’t tell. Suddenly, she dropped to the floor and began slamming her head against the tiles, the rhythmic thudding echoing in the tense silence. Jason’s resolve crumbled. He looked completely undone. With a choked cry, he grabbed a piece of the shattered glass from the floor. He gritted his teeth, and in one swift, horrifying motion, he slashed his own arm, severing a tendon. Blood sprayed across the white walls, a constellation of crimson. The room erupted in chaos. “Ava,” he gasped, clutching his bleeding arm. “Bella’s mistakes… I’ll pay for them. I’ll carry her burden.” “But I will not let you hurt her again!” For a second, I was lost in a memory, the image of him shielding me from harm two years ago overlapping with the monster standing before me. I stared blankly at the scene. A nurse shrieked. A pool of blood was spreading on the floor beneath Bella. The call button buzzed incessantly. Bella was screaming, clutching her stomach. Jason, panicked and on the verge of becoming a father, was shouting for help. The room felt like a scene from hell, a cacophony of pain and fear. A gurney finally arrived and wheeled Bella away, leaving my room in a sudden, ringing silence. It was a relief. Except for Jason’s parting threat, thrown over his shoulder as he left. “If anything happens to Bella or my child, I swear to God, you will pay!” Through the light slanting in from the hallway, his face was a blur of rage. My own bandages were already soaked through with fresh blood. A doctor rushed in, his face grim. He said I needed a second surgery, immediately. As the anesthetic began to work its magic, my mind drifted back to the last time our marriage had shattered. Just after they’d released me from the psychiatric hospital Jason had committed me to. I remembered standing in the bright, sterile living room of our villa, feeling small and fragile. “Ava, dear, just apologize to Jason, and he’ll apologize to you. Then we can all put this behind us,” my mother had said, casually admiring an expensive gift he had bought her. Jason stood by the window, tapping ash from a cigarette. “Ava, I was wrong. I sent Bella overseas. I swear I’ll never have contact with her again.” He slid a document across the table. “This is my guarantee to you. If I ever cheat again, everything I own becomes yours. Just be good now, okay?” I had hesitated. Maybe it was because I still loved him. Maybe it was the terror of being sent back to that place. In the end, I agreed. I chose to try and salvage what was left of our broken marriage. … The second surgery was quick. The moment I was wheeled out of the OR, a shadow fell over me. It was Jason. He grabbed my newly bandaged right hand and hauled me up from the gurney. His face was contorted with a rage that bordered on madness. “Ava!” he roared. “Why can’t you ever learn? Why did you get to have your surgery before Bella?” “It’s your fault! You caused her to go into premature labor! It’s your fault there’s something wrong with my baby!” The pain was so intense I couldn’t even scream. Cold sweat drenched my body. “Ja…son!” I gasped. “Let me go!” I struggled against his grip, but it was useless. There was a sickening snap. I felt the fragile bones in my hand give way, my wrist bending at an unnatural, ninety-degree angle. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? My baby—our baby—is in the NICU!” he bellowed. “If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened!” He dragged me off the gurney and began slapping me, over and over. The hospital corridor was full of people, but no one moved. No one dared to intervene. I started to laugh. A raw, gurgling sound. My mouth filled with blood, spilling from my lips and gums. The sound was horrifying, inhuman. A true vision of hell. My laughter seemed to startle him. His face twisted in disgust. “You’re pathetic! You’re completely insane!” After one final, ringing slap, a nurse came rushing up to him. “Mr. Croft, your baby is type AB. The mother is type A. We need to test your blood type. The blood bank is critically low, and the baby is in danger!” Jason, still breathing heavily from his assault, froze. The color drained from his face. “I’m… I’m O-negative.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389000”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

After my family declared bankruptcy, I was sent off to marry into the Thorne family to clear our debts. On the very first day of our marriage, my new husband threw a black card onto the table and told me that the only thing he could give me was money. Not only that, he seemed to despise me. He would rather do all the housework himself than let me touch a single thing in the house. After three years of this cold treatment, I wanted a divorce. I walked to his study, divorce papers in hand. But just as I reached the door, I heard the distinct sound of sobbing coming from inside. “Three years! I’ve been waiting on her hand and foot for three years! I transfer a million dollars to her account every month, I cook dinner for her every single night, and she still doesn’t care about me!” Then, his best friend’s angry voice cut through the air. “I told you not to be so dramatic back then! You’re a total house-husband, why the hell did you brand yourself as a playboy?” 1 My family went bust. As a result, I was engaged to Sterling Thorne. The Thorne family is old money—deep ties in both politics and business. Their foundation is rock solid. Logically speaking, a family like that shouldn’t have looked twice at a bankrupt heiress like me. But, as fate would have it, their second son, Sterling Thorne, was a disaster. He was the city’s most notorious playboy. The number of girlfriends he’d had was uncountable. Because of this, any decent socialite with a bit of family wealth who had the luxury of choice wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Sterling’s parents were desperate. When they heard about my family’s financial collapse, they immediately sent a proposal. They told my parents that as long as I married Sterling, they would wipe out our debt. Although we were broke, my background was clean. I graduated from an Ivy League school, I was reasonably attractive, and I had a reputation for being gentle and well-mannered. I was exactly the kind of docile daughter-in-law they wanted. My parents looked at me with guilt. Despite the tempting offer, they knew exactly what kind of man Sterling was. I, however, just nodded. “No problem. I can get married anytime.” My reasoning was simple: rather than struggling and potentially ending up with a broke jerk later, I’d rather marry a rich jerk now. 2 I had heard plenty of rumors about Sterling Thorne, but the day we signed the marriage license was the first time I actually met him. He didn’t look like the playboy I had imagined. He was wearing a soft, light blue cotton shirt. The top button was undone, offering a glimpse of his collarbone. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that gave him a scholarly, almost refined air. He looked elegant. Sophisticated. It was hard to believe this man was the wildest player in the city. You really can’t judge a book by its cover. Sterling didn’t seem to like me much. During the signing at City Hall, he kept a poker face and didn’t say a word to me. But when he took the marriage certificate, he paused. The hand holding the document trembled slightly. Maybe even he couldn’t believe that a free spirit like him had actually gotten married. We didn’t have a wedding ceremony. After getting the license, I moved directly into Sterling’s villa in the Hamptons. That same day, he handed me a bank card. “I’ll wire a million dollars into this account every month. You can spend it however you like. “I have nothing else to offer you. The only thing I can give you is money.” I accepted it calmly. We were a business merger, after all. There were no real feelings involved. He was upfront about it, and he was generous with his money. I had nothing to complain about. I nodded and started dragging my luggage toward the guest bedroom. I’d heard Sterling often brought women home. I figured I should be a considerate roommate. 3 Sterling’s expression stiffened for a second. He called out to me. “Harper, where are you going?” I looked at him, confused. “I heard that… your villa gets a little lively at night. So, I prepared the guest room for myself.” Sterling looked like he didn’t understand. “Are you worried about noise? I had the butler install soundproofing in the master suite. You don’t need to sleep in the guest room.” I decided to be more direct. “No, I mean… I heard you often bring female friends back to the villa. I don’t want to disturb you.” Sterling’s face suddenly turned bright red. “No… that’s just…” But seeing my knowing look, he awkwardly nodded. “Right. Yes. I do… sometimes bring female friends home. You know, a guy with my reputation, I have to keep up appearances. “I’ll sleep in the guest room. You take the master bedroom. Don’t worry, I won’t let them bother you.” I raised an eyebrow. Them? Sterling really played the field. While I was still processing this, Sterling grabbed my suitcase, carried it into the master bedroom, and started unpacking for me. He hung my dresses in the closet. He organized my skincare products on the vanity. He even folded my socks into perfect little squares. Watching his practiced movements, I couldn’t help but marvel. Is the competition among playboys this fierce nowadays? They have to be domestic gods too? 4 It wasn’t until Sterling had organized all my belongings that he seemed to realize what he was doing. He froze. We looked at each other, silence stretching between us. “I didn’t expect… you to be so thoughtful,” I said. Sterling’s eyes darted around the room. “No… don’t misunderstand. I just…” “I get it,” I said, nodding understandingly. “You have a lot of relationship experience, so it’s a habit. I won’t read into it.” Sterling paused, then nodded firmly. “Right… exactly. That’s it. I’ve had a lot of ex-girlfriends. I got used to serving them. Don’t mind me.” I waved my hand. “No, I don’t mind. Everyone has a past.” Sterling suddenly checked his watch, as if remembering something urgent. “I have a meeting at four. Can I come back at five to make you dinner? What do you want to eat?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re coming back… to cook for me?” Sterling froze again, but he recovered quickly. “Sorry, I was just using my watch to text a friend. I promised her I’d cook this afternoon. You don’t mind, do you?” I gave the sensible answer. “Not at all. I understand.” However, as he walked away, I stared at the Patek Philippe on his wrist with confusion. Since when can a mechanical watch send text messages?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “388999”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I transmigrated into a dark romance novel with a single mission: capture the heart of Alistair Vane, the city’s most reclusive, sanctimonious billionaire. He was cruel, numb, cold-blooded, and untouchable. And he killed me exactly nine times. The first time, he flayed me alive, tanning my skin to bind his personal bible. The second time, he cut me open to remove the unborn child, turning the fetal skull into a sacrificial chalice. The third time, he carved my flesh into “purified” relics, crushed my 206 bones into dust, and scattered them over the Rockies for the eagles to feast on. … Every time I died, the world reset, and my progress bar dropped back to zero. I crawled over broken glass to pray for him until my knees were ruined. I suffered seventy miscarriages in a single year. When he called me “filthy,” I ate mud for three years just to prove my penitence. But he still killed me. It wasn’t until the ninth attempt, when my soul was already riddled with holes, that I realized the truth. Alistair Vane didn’t have a heart. I begged the System to end the mission, but it was undergoing an update and couldn’t respond. However, the glitch delayed the reset. Floating as a ghost, I watched him gently caress the memorial photo of his dead fiancée, Seraphina. His eyes held a tenderness I had never seen directed at me. “Be patient, my angel. Just one more time. Once I kill that wretch again, we can go back to the moment before you took your own life.” “If she hadn’t drugged me, you never would have walked in on us.” “That was supposed to be my wedding, but it became your funeral.” The truth hit me like a bullet. He wasn’t affected by the reset. He remembered everything. He wasn’t a stone I couldn’t warm up. He was a man who had hated me to the bone since the moment Seraphina died. My mission had failed from the very start. My spirit followed Alistair toward a heavy oak door covered in Latin verses. What I saw inside stopped my spectral heart. The room was filled with silicone casts of Seraphina’s lower body, arranged in neat, obsessive rows. Alistair, the man who preached abstinence and cold detachment for nine lifetimes, picked up one of the molds and kissed it with feverish devotion. He looked more pious than he ever did in church. Then, stripping off his clothes, he began to use the mold like a man possessed. I watched, suffocating in shock. For nine lifetimes, except for the first time when I used drugs, he had refused to touch a woman. In the fourth loop, when I lost control and kissed him, he felt so defiled that he poured boiling oil over himself to “cleanse” his skin. That was the only time the world reset because the target died. Since then, I never dared to touch him. But now? He was groaning, sweating, losing his mind over a piece of silicone. I looked at his ecstatic face, then at my own ghostly hands—hands that had been bleached white from scrubbing his floors with harsh chemicals. The irony was crushing. It wasn’t about piety. He just thought I was dirty. Suddenly, the System came back online. [Host death detected. Initiating reset.] 1 In a blur, I was back in the center of the wedding hall. Alistair was holding the ring, about to put it on my finger. The reset point had jumped forward again. Seraphina stormed onto the stage, tears streaming down her face, a knife pressed to her wrist. “Alistair, are you really going to marry her?” Alistair’s eyes darkened. He reacted instantly, shoving me hard. I crashed into the champagne tower. Shards of crystal embedded themselves into my back. Alcohol seeped into the open wounds. Every breath was agony. But Alistair didn’t even glance at me. He rushed toward Seraphina, grabbing the blade with his bare hand, tears in his eyes. “Angel, don’t do this!” He… was crying? For nine lifetimes, I thought his emotions reset with the world. I endured his cruelty because I thought I could fix him. If the System hadn’t lagged, I never would have known he was faking it all. “The wedding is off,” he announced coldly, holding Seraphina close. I staggered to my feet. “What?” His face twisted into a mask of disgust. “Elara, did you really think drugging me and crawling into my bed like a whore would force me to marry you?” The guests gasped. “Oh my god, she looks so innocent, but she’s trash.” Seraphina sobbed into his chest. “Alistair, when I heard you two that night… I couldn’t take it…” He wiped her tears with infinite gentleness, then turned that gaze onto me like a weapon. “Your cheap tricks make me sick.” He grabbed my wrist and dragged me across the broken glass. “You think I don’t know? Every single time, you…” He stopped himself abruptly. My pupils dilated. I stared at him. “Every single time… what?” Say it. Admit you know everything. But he just released me, letting me tumble down the marble stairs. Blood from my forehead blinded me. He stood above me, looking like a vengeful god. “Stop trying to seduce me. I will always despise a slut like you.” The pain was blinding. Flashes of my nine deaths played like a slideshow. The searing heat of being flayed. The hollow agony of being cut open. The sharp pecking of eagles eating my bones. The System seemed to malfunction, dumping the sensory pain of all nine past lives onto me at once. Meanwhile, he kissed Seraphina, not looking back once. The guests surrounded me, spitting on the floor near my face. “Home-wrecker.” “Deserved it.” Suddenly, a group of hotel security guards rushed out. At his subtle signal, they began to tear at my dress. I heard his whispered command to the head guard: “After you’re done with her, use a champagne bottle to ruin her insides. Make sure she can never carry a bastard child.” Lying in the wreckage, I laughed. “Alistair Vane, you’re a hell of an actor…” He looked back, his eyes cold. “What did you say?” I wiped the blood from my lip. “I said… I hope you two rot in hell together.” Internally, I screamed at the System. “I forfeit the mission.” [Host has forfeited. Extraction from this world will occur in 15 days.] 2 It was a stormy night when the guards finally threw me out the back door of the hotel. My body was broken. Blood wouldn’t stop running down my legs. My heels had snapped, so I walked barefoot on the asphalt. I looked up and saw Alistair’s bodyguard in the shadows, his phone pointed at me. “Don’t block the camera. Mr. Vane wants to watch the livestream.” The bodyguard smirked. I straightened my spine as much as I could and limped to a convenience store. Counting the change in my pocket, I had just enough for a roll of bandages. The cashier looked at my bruised face and sneered. “Aren’t you that desperate girl who drugged Mr. Vane?” I kept my head down. The TV behind the counter was looping the wedding chaos. SHOCKING: Billionaire exposes bride’s drug scandal at altar! The screen cut to a close-up of Seraphina weeping in Alistair’s arms. The cashier turned up the volume. “Look at that necklace on Miss Seraphina. It’s made from the ashes of Alistair’s own finger bone. That’s true love!” Ashes… bone… I took the bandages, my hands shaking. In the fifth loop, he had burned me alive to make “relics.” Phantom pain shot through my skeleton. I ran out into the rain, realizing I had nowhere to go. Alistair had seized all my assets, including my small apartment. The rain intensified. I found a dry spot under an overpass and curled up in a discarded cardboard box. My fever spiked. In the haze, I saw the ghost of my sixth life, bleeding out right here on this pavement. I saw the third life, where homeless men attacked me in this exact spot. Every memory overlapped. Hunger gnawed at my stomach. I stumbled toward a nearby dumpster. I found an unopened sandwich, but before I could grab it, a stray dog lunged, sinking its teeth into my arm. I cried out, but stifled it quickly. The dog let go. The wound was deep. Just then, three men approached. “Are you Elara?” The leader held up a phone. Alistair’s cold voice rang out from the speaker: “Do whatever you want. The money will be wired when you’re done.” “Mr. Vane said we could have some fun,” the man grinned, grabbing my hair. “He said you’re durable.” I struggled. “Get off me!” But I was too weak. A fist to the stomach. A blow to the face. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I curled into a ball, instinctively trying to protect my back—my back that had been flayed in the first life. Ribs cracked. Just as blackness began to take me, sirens wailed in the distance. The thugs scattered, kicking me one last time for good measure. I lay in the mud, letting the rain wash the filth away. At dawn, a street sweeper found me. “Another junkie found in the trash.” Then, hurried footsteps. “Yes, Mr. Vane. We found her.” It was his assistant. I heard Alistair’s voice on the phone. “Is she alive?” I opened one swollen eye. The sweeper whispered, “Is that the girl from the news? The one who tried to off herself?” Silence on the other end, then the sound of glass shattering. “Suicide? Impossible! She…” His voice cut off. She what? She can’t die? I looked at the grey sky and smirked. You think you can still control the narrative, Alistair? Keep dreaming. 3 I woke up shivering uncontrollably. I was locked in a walk-in freezer set to -4°F. My wounds had been bandaged, but the cold made them ache deep in the bone. The room had been set up like a chapel. In the center was a desk made of ice. I trembled, remembering the seventh life. He had bled me dry in a chapel to use my blood as ink. “Copy the Bible. Kneel.” Alistair stood at the door, his voice colder than the air. He remembered everything, yet he conveniently forgot that I had absorbed snake venom for him in a previous timeline—venom that flared up when exposed to cold. “And if I say… I can’t?” He sneered. “I thought you loved kneeling for forgiveness?” I laughed bitterly. “Since I met you, I have never prayed to a god.” That was the last timeline. I had kneeled for eighty-one days to pray for his health. My words seemed to glitch him. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes. “You said it yourself. You’d endure anything for me. Forgotten so soon?” “Kneel for another eighty-one days. Prove you won’t harass Seraphina again.” Seraphina again. In the first timeline, before she died, he didn’t even look at her. He called her a boring, clingy stalker. He publicly declared me the love of his life. But once she died, she became a saint. The cold venom activated. It felt like thousands of ants eating my marrow. The scabs on my knees split open. Blood stained the ice. I passed out.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “388998”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The old man made it clear: if I could get pregnant, there would be a fifty-million-dollar bonus waiting in my trust fund. On my wedding night, I stared at the man on the bed. He was completely ignoring my sheer lingerie, devoting all his attention to a Captain Galaxy action figure. I was furious. I snatched the toy out of his hand and shoved it down the neckline of my dress. I smirked at him, wiggling a finger. “You want it? Come and find it.” 1 Sterling Vance’s brain might be broken, but his body was certainly top-tier. He had broad shoulders like a linebacker and a tapered waist. His muscles were defined, sharp, and eye-catching. He looked like he could do some serious damage in the bedroom. Unfortunately, that prime physique was currently being piloted by a damaged processor. All he cared about was his action figure. I tugged at my dark crimson lace nightgown. The neckline was dangerously low, my skin glowing under the warm light. And yet, he didn’t even glance at me. I’m Blair Montgomery. I turn heads wherever I go. When have I ever been ignored like this? I grabbed the toy and stuffed it against my chest. The hard plastic dug into my skin, but I didn’t care. “You want it?” I crooked my finger, smiling wickedly. “Come get it yourself.” Sterling finally looked up. His lashes were thick and dark, his eyes innocent like a golden retriever’s. His gaze dropped, locking onto my neckline. God, he was hot. “Can’t find it,” he mumbled. I leaned forward intentionally, letting the fabric gape open. “Look closer.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. His gaze drilled downward. My breath hitched, my chest rising and falling. “See it yet?” “Red.” His cold face spat out the word. It was unexpectedly sexy. My knees almost gave out, but I held my ground to tease him. “Wrong. It’s pink.” He frowned, looking deadly serious. “Captain Galaxy’s combat mode is red.” … I wanted to beat him until he turned red. But looking at his tempting physique, and thinking about the fifty million dollars… I calmed down. “Since you’ve seen it…” I lowered my voice, guiding his eyes with my fingertip. “Don’t you want to take it out with your own hands?” I stepped closer across the plush carpet. The hem of my nightgown swayed. Sterling’s eyes were dark and heavy. I didn’t know if it was because of me or that stupid toy. But as he walked toward me, I actually felt jealous of an action figure. He got closer. Sterling leaned down, his pitch-black eyes staring straight at my chest. His warm breath hit my collarbone. It tickled. His fingers were long and clean, knuckles defined, hovering just an inch away. He was about to touch me. I held my breath, my heart hammering— Then, this jerk suddenly turned around, opened the nightstand drawer, and pulled out another Captain Galaxy figure! Are you kidding me? Back when his brain worked, he ignored me to annoy me. Now that he’s regressed, he’s inventing new ways to torture me! Fine, Sterling. Just you wait. For fifty million, I have no morals. Tonight, I’m getting what I want, even if I have to do all the work myself. 2 The Vance and Montgomery families go way back. Sterling and I were basically childhood frenemies. But this man always hated my lifestyle. I was the trust-fund party girl; he was the serious heir. If I was dancing on tables, he was frowning in the corner. If I was laughing in a crowd, his face was black as thunder. Pft. Who needs his approval? The line of guys wanting to date me stretches to Paris. When the merger marriage was announced, I wasn’t surprised. Energy giants merging. Standard operating procedure. I didn’t like anyone else anyway, so why not? But I made sure to look miserable about it, just to annoy him. I didn’t expect him to go nuclear. At the engagement dinner, he stood up to his father. “I won’t agree to this marriage. Don’t force it.” He said hurtful words, but his posture was so straight, so defiant… it was annoyingly sexy. Fine. You’d rather tear the family apart than marry me? Sterling had his own tech company, so he didn’t need his daddy’s money. He had the capital to rebel. If he hadn’t crashed his McLaren and scrambled his brain, this wedding would have been delayed until I hit menopause. The doctors said once the hematoma cleared, he’d be back to normal. Mr. Vance was desperate. He pulled me aside and whispered, “Blair, while he’s… confused… get pregnant. Fifty million, wired immediately.” With Sterling’s face? His body? Sleeping with him is a win. Getting paid for it is a jackpot. Most importantly… imagine the look on his face when he wakes up and realizes I had my way with him. Just thinking about it made me laugh out loud. 3 Sterling was by the cabinet, posing his toy. “Is that thing really that fun?” I narrowed my eyes and shimmied two steps closer. He didn’t look up. “Yes.” I closed my eyes. Patience. I deliberately slid my strap down half an inch. “Do you… want to play something more exciting?” He looked up, eyes innocent. “Like what?” Now! I opened my arms and lunged at him like a hungry tiger. He side-stepped. Smoothly. Then he started doing parkour around the room. He ran, I chased. I was seeing stars. This guy has the stamina of a marathon runner and he’s using it to play tag in the master suite! He ran me in circles for twenty minutes. I didn’t even touch the hem of his shirt. I was panting, hair sticking to my sweaty face, my dress twisted. “S-stop… running…” I wheezed, holding my waist. He stood six feet away, clutching the toy. “Stop chasing.” … Hard power won’t work. Fine. A battle of patience? I threw myself onto the bed, pulled out my phone, and started playing a MOBA game. “First Blood!” My phone blared. He glanced at me, fingers still adjusting Captain Galaxy’s pose. Unbelievable. Other newlyweds are burning the sheets; we’re playing video games and dolls. This marriage is truly one of a kind. 4 Two hours later. Gurgle. The sound ripped through the room. I looked up. Sterling was clutching his stomach. Right. The idiot hadn’t eaten all day. My anger faded. Looking at that handsome face and that tight waist, my ulterior motives returned. Idea. I sprinted to the mini-fridge, grabbed a yogurt, and locked the fridge door with a satisfying click. “Hungry?” I shook the yogurt, slowly peeling the lid back. Sterling was definitely hungry. He stared at the cup. He swallowed. The jerk. He didn’t gulp for me, but he gulped for Greek yogurt. “It’s so good~” I licked the spoon. “Want a taste?” He nodded, eyes wary. “Come here. I’ll feed you.” “Don’t trust you.” He took a half-step back. I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Fine. You stand on that side of the bed, I’ll stay on this side. I’ll feed you across the mattress. Deal?” He tilted his head, thinking. Finally, he shuffled to the edge of the bed. I leaned over the mattress, stretching my arm out, offering the spoon. “Say ahhh.” Sterling leaned down, opening his mouth to catch the spoon. His thin lips parted, a flash of tongue swept out. White yogurt landed on his tongue. It was… inexplicably erotic. My best friend Sloane’s voice echoed in my head: “Sterling is the repressed type. When he finally kisses someone, he’s going to devour them.” I stared at his mouth. I swallowed, too. I kept feeding him like a machine. One bite. Another. Sterling lowered his guard. He kept his eyes down, playing with his toy while opening his mouth on command. He didn’t notice when I switched the spoon for my finger. He instinctively wrapped his lips around my fingertip, his tongue grazing the sensitive pad. A jolt of electricity shot down my spine. I almost moaned. Excellent. Next step: pants. He was still oblivious, sucking on the yogurt. With every bite, I crawled further across the bed, inching closer in a very unladylike manner. Victory was two feet away. Sterling was right there. The focused way he ate was so pure, yet it made my mouth go dry. I stared at his throat moving as he swallowed. Time to undo the belt. The cup was almost empty. I dipped my finger in the last bit. As he lowered his head to lick it, I jerked my hand back. Reflexively, he lunged forward to follow it, lost his balance, and collapsed right on top of me. Jackpot! My legs instantly wrapped around his waist, locking him down. My hands scrambled for his belt buckle. What kind of designer buckle is this? I can’t open it! Afraid he’d bolt, I tightened my legs. “Don’t move,” Sterling said, his voice huskier than a “fool” should sound. Before I could react—Click. He undid the metal buckle with one hand. Yes! He pulled the belt off and threw it aside. Then he leaned his weight onto me. That familiar, oppressive aura… it felt like the old Sterling was back. Is it happening? I closed my eyes, nervous anticipation flooding me. Suddenly, Sterling clamped my wrists. His grip was iron. I panicked. “Hey, easy…” Before I could finish, he crossed my wrists above my head and wrapped the leather belt around them. Tight. Bondage? Since when is he into this? My eyes went wide. I watched him reach down, grab my ankles, and forcefully pry my legs off his waist. “Sterling Vance!” My voice trembled. He didn’t even look up. He straightened my legs, turned around, and walked away. He left. He actually left. He left me tied up on the bed, dress hiked up to my thighs, cleavage out. Is he even human? He grabbed a pillow, picked up Captain Galaxy, and walked straight into the bathroom. I struggled against the belt, the leather burning my wrists. “You jerk… just you wait!” It took me twenty minutes to wiggle free. I jumped off the bed and charged the bathroom. Locked. “Sterling! You coward! Open the door!” I twisted the handle until my hand cramped. Nothing. In a rage, I kicked the door. Thud. … Ow. My toe.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “388997”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel