Author: Momo Chan

My roommate, my brother, always went for the sweet, girl-next-door type. I was always drawn to the strong, sophisticated woman. We used to joke that we’d never end up as rivals in love. But three years after my girlfriend vanished, I saw her again. She was at my roommate’s wedding. She was the bride. I was the best man. A friend clapped me on the back, laughing as he recounted their love story. “Her company went bankrupt back then, and she was about to jump off a roof. I was the one who saved her. I heard some other guy was clinging to her at the time, but I took her abroad to start fresh.” “Pretty smooth, right, Liam?” Leo was still talking, beaming, but I couldn’t hear a word. My mind went white. Three years. Over a thousand days and nights. The love of my life had been hidden away for three whole years by the man I saw every single day. 1 I listened to my friend’s words, my legs feeling like they were about to give out. A tremor started in my hands and spread through my whole body. Leo noticed my pale face and quickly helped me into the bridal lounge, his voice laced with concern. “Liam, what’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?” For three years, I had searched for Ava. I’d traveled to countless cities, questioned hundreds of people, plastered up missing person posters, filed police reports, and scoured the internet. Even her own family had given up, convinced she was truly gone. I was the only one who believed she was still alive, the only one who never stopped looking. I don’t know how many nights I spent standing on the edge of a rooftop, contemplating an end to the crushing despair. And now, it was all a joke. I looked down at the network of faded white scars that crisscrossed my forearms. A bitter sting filled my eyes, and my heart felt like it was being shredded. Leo sighed. “You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you? Let it go, man. It’s been too long. You need to move on. You could find a great girl, just like I did, and start over.” “I’ll get everyone together soon,” he added, trying to cheer me up. “I’ll have Ava introduce you to some of her friends.” Just as he finished speaking, Ava walked in. She was wearing a magnificent wedding gown, her figure as stunning as it was three years ago. The only thing that had changed was the way she looked at me. Before, her eyes held only me. Now, she gave me a fleeting glance before turning to adjust Leo’s suit. Her bridesmaids followed behind her—the same friends who used to call me their brother-in-law. I remembered it all so clearly. When they saw me, their eyes were filled with unspoken words, a flicker of pity and guilt. A moment ago, I might have been able to delude myself into thinking she’d lost her memory in the fall. But every one of her friends standing there was a silent testament to the truth. She hadn’t forgotten. She remembered everything. She just didn’t love me anymore. Leo gazed at Ava with pure adoration. “Honey, tell your friends not to leave tonight. We’ll have a big party, celebrate properly.” He shot me a meaningful look. Ava gave a noncommittal nod, her eyes fixed on Leo. She never looked at me again. It was as if we were complete strangers. I slowly closed my eyes, the feeling of a giant hand squeezing my heart, crushing it, then tossing it into a fire. The pain… it was unbearable. I stumbled into the bathroom, my back sliding down the cool tile wall as a wave of agony washed over me. My chest heaved with a pain so deep it felt physical, and a choked sob escaped my lips. “Ava, how could you leave me…?” 2 As I walked out of the bathroom, I overheard one of her friends asking her in a hushed tone, “Ava, are you sure about this? You really don’t love Liam anymore?” Her reply was flat, devoid of emotion. “He’s just some broken relic from the past. You can have him if you want.” “…” The ceremony began. Leo, sensing my state, found someone else to stand in for me at the last minute. Ava watched with a serene expression as Leo knelt before her, waiting for him to slide the ring onto her finger. I stood in the furthest corner, watching her smile and say, “I do.” A bitter jealousy surged through me. I wanted to rush the stage, to stop them, to scream at Leo and ask him why he’d stolen my girlfriend. Why did he hide her away? Why did he let me search for three agonizing years? And I wanted to ask Ava why she was pretending not to know me. Why didn’t she come find me when she returned? Why did everyone keep this secret from me? I wanted to burn the whole wedding to the ground. But I didn’t. I just sat in my corner and, after they exchanged their vows, I was the first to applaud. I clapped so hard that people nearby turned to stare. I didn’t care. I just held Ava’s gaze when she looked out at the crowd. Our eyes met. My nose stung, and the tears I’d been holding back finally broke free. Ava’s expression flickered for a fraction of a second before her gaze slid away, her dark eyes as cold and empty as ice. My fingernails dug into my palms. I think I was going insane. I pulled out my phone and sent her a text. [Ava, I don’t wish you a happy marriage.] [I hope you never find the one you love. I hope you spend the rest of your life searching!] The moment I hit send, I felt like a fool. The man she loved was already her husband. My curse was meaningless. I left before the reception ended. If I stayed any longer, I was afraid I’d lose control completely. Over a year ago, after another long stretch with no news of Ava, I had tried to kill myself. But I failed. My neighbor found me and I was rushed to the hospital. When I woke up, Ava’s mother was holding my hand, her face streaked with tears, begging me to live. For her daughter. But a world without Ava was just darkness. It was too much to bear. We had grown up together, started dating right after middle school. We were just about to pick a date to get married after graduating from college. Then her company collapsed, leaving her with a mountain of debt. She couldn’t take it. She jumped. And then she was gone. I went to the police station countless times, questioned every single person who was there that day. The story was always the same. No one saw her. Now she was back. But she didn’t love me anymore. 3 I fell into a restless sleep. When I woke up, I checked my phone. Besides a string of missed calls from Leo and a comforting message from Ava’s mom, there was one other notification that stood out. A single, cold reply from her. [Get lost.] A bitter laugh escaped my lips. The connection I had clung to so desperately was nothing more than a joke to her. Suddenly, my gaze fell upon my wrist. A thin red thread was tied around it, a gift from Ava three years ago. The color had long since faded, but I could never bring myself to take it off. Before our engagement, she had gone to a temple on a mountain. She had climbed ten thousand steps to get this one precious thread from a master artisan. She’d been in a car accident on the way back, but she had protected the thread, holding it tight against her chest. The first thing she did when she woke up in the hospital was tie it around my wrist. “Liam,” she had said, her voice full of earnest love, “I found our destiny. We’ll be together forever.” Her clear, serious voice still echoed in my ears, but everything was different now. My eyes burned. I yanked the red thread from my wrist, threw it in the toilet, and flushed. In seconds, it was gone. Ava, from this moment on, we walk different paths. After a long, hard cry, a strange clarity settled over me. I resigned from the orchestra. The paperwork would take a week. I booked a flight to leave the city for good, one week from today. That day happened to be the tenth anniversary of the day Ava and I started dating. Fitting. Where it began, it would also end. I shut myself away for seven days. Other than leaving to handle my resignation, I spoke to no one. My phone was off. On the day I was set to leave, Leo showed up at my door with Ava in tow. He rushed in and hugged me, then tried to drag me to the hospital. I knew what he was afraid of. I pulled my arm away, my expression blank. “I’m fine, thanks,” I said, my voice polite but distant. I didn’t know how to face him. Should I hate him? Should I wish him well? I knew I couldn’t do either, so my instinct was to push him away. He didn’t seem to mind my sudden coldness, assuming I was just in a bad mood. Leo let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Can you please answer your phone from now on? Do you have any idea how worried I was?” “We came to get you. It’s your birthday, did you forget? We’re throwing you a party tonight, introduce you to some new people.” “And you can’t say no. No is not an option!” His expression was stern, his tone leaving no room for argument. He was always so cheerful and warm-hearted. It was easy to see why people liked him. Easy to see why Ava would fall in love with him. I looked past him to the woman standing in the doorway. Her gaze was frigid, her eyes like frozen pools, as if she were looking at a stranger. I don’t know if it was my inability to refuse his concern, or some selfish part of me that wanted to see her one last time. It was still early. I let them in. This apartment was supposed to be our marital home. After she disappeared, I had decorated it exactly to her tastes. The furniture, the layout—everything was just as she would have wanted it. Leo’s eyes widened. “Wow, Liam, your taste is… something else. Why is everything so dark? It’s kind of depressing.” “It’s all black and dark gray. Not a single pop of color.” Because there was no color left in my world. “My ex-girlfriend liked it this way,” I said quietly. “So I decorated it for her.” 4 Leo clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “You should have your own style, man. Why do you have to listen to her on everything?” “With our place, my wife lets me handle all the design choices. It looks great. I even make her sleep on pink bedsheets every night.” I didn’t say anything, my mind drifting back to three years ago, when we first lived together. I had loved the color pink, bought everything in pink. Even her underwear. She never wore it. The sheets, too. She would rather sleep on the floor than in the bed. I finally gave in and bought dark gray sheets, and only then did she come back to bed. I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Really? And she doesn’t just sleep on the floor?” Leo snorted, glancing at Ava. “She wouldn’t dare.” “Even her underwear is pink now.” Ava’s lips twitched. She gently tapped his head, a silent plea for him to stop. “What’s wrong with pink sheets?” he continued, oblivious. “If your girlfriend refuses to sleep with you over something like that, it just means she doesn’t love you enough.” “And to think you spent all those years looking for her. What a bitch.” After a long silence, I nodded slowly. “Yeah. You’re right.” “Maybe she really didn’t love me enough.” The moment I said it, I felt Ava’s gaze sharpen, raking over me. Her voice was cold. “In that case, Mr. Evans, you should know when to back off.” “Don’t disturb other people’s lives. And if you can, it would be best if she never had to see you again.” “Your self-pity is just pathetic to everyone else.” Her words were direct and brutal. Self-pity… so that’s all it was… My eyes turned red, and my voice trembled. “Are you so familiar with her because you’re just the same?” “You like to disappear, to make people wait, to crush every last bit of their hope without so much as an apology. And then you have the nerve to call their pain self-pity. All I ever wanted was an explanation. Do my three years just count for nothing?” Ava’s brow furrowed in anger. “No one asked you to wait. Love and hate are choices. You chose to wait, so you have to bear the consequences!” “Or what? You think just because you waited three years, she owes you something? That she should be grateful and marry you?” Her words were merciless, absolute. I stood there, stunned. The last flicker of hope in my heart was extinguished. Tears streamed down my face. Every word she spoke was a knife, twisting in my gut. She was right. Love and hate are choices. No one forced me. No one asked me to wait. The outcome was mine, and mine alone, to bear. A love that had once felt so unbreakable had become a hollow lie. “Fine,” I choked out. “I’ll make sure she never sees me again.” Leo, sensing things were escalating, quickly stepped in, pulling Ava into another room. I heard his warning, his voice just loud enough for me to hear. “Are you trying to get punched? You know Liam has depression, and you’re still talking to him like that?” “Stop provoking him. Do you hear me?” Ava’s cold laugh drifted back, dripping with scorn. “He’s just putting on a show.” I stood there, numb, for a long time. After a while, Ava left on her own. I couldn’t stop myself from asking Leo, “Where is she going?” “She hasn’t been back in the country for over a year, right? She has a lot of work to catch up on at the office.” I froze. “Ava came back a year ago?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. Why didn’t I know? “Yeah. To plan our wedding.” My mouth fell open. The light in my eyes died. My mind, numb and slow, could only process one phrase, over and over. She came back. She came back. An icy chill spread through me. I wanted to scream, but the words were lodged in my throat. Leo’s casual remark was like a slap across the face. “Come on, let’s go! My wife’s done for the day. Go change, we’re heading to the club.” He grabbed my arm, trying to pull me out the door. “You go ahead. I’ll clean up and meet you there.” “Okay, but be quick!” He left without a second thought. As I watched his car drive away, I took out my phone and made a call. “I’ve decided to come home. Please arrange for me to meet my fiancée.” An excited voice came from the other end. “Brother! You’re finally willing to come back! The family has been so worried about you being in Northwood all alone. We just want you home…” The dam inside me broke. Tears streamed down my face. I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll come home. And I’ll try to get to know the woman you’ve chosen for me. I won’t make you worry anymore.” My sister, Grace, was overjoyed. “Oh, Liam, that’s wonderful! Just tell me when you want to meet her, and I’ll set it up.” “Whenever. I’ve booked a flight for tonight. I’m coming home today.” I grabbed my suitcase and left for the airport. Before the plane took off, I blocked everyone connected to Ava. I turned off my phone. As I watched the lights of Northwood shrink below, I made a silent promise. Goodbye, Ava. Forever.

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1 The third time Damien and I stood before the courthouse, it was because he’d given my top spot as Metro News Network’s lead weather anchor to the new girl. He leaned against his car, lighting a cigarette, his handsome features twisted with impatience. “Is all this drama really necessary? She takes your spot, you get a nice long break at home. What’s the problem?” He took a drag, smoke curling from his lips. “Besides, I just gave her the position to keep her happy for a bit. Can’t you just suck it up for my sake?” I stared straight ahead, my voice a flat, emotionless thing. “Let’s go inside.” That night, I saw Damien with his arm around the new girl, laughing with his friends. “Hey, what if Clara actually goes through with the divorce this time?” someone asked. Damien scoffed and took a swig of his drink. “She loves me too much. She’d never do it for real.” It wasn’t until he saw me in the backseat of someone else’s wedding limousine that the slow, dawning horror hit him: I wasn’t playing games anymore. … Walking out of the courthouse, Damien shoved the divorce decree and other legal papers into my arms. “There. Happy now?” he asked, a smirk playing on his lips as he lit another cigarette, his eyes raking over me. I carefully folded my copy of the papers, tucked them into my purse, and then slapped his copy against his chest. I didn’t say a word, just turned to get in my car. Before I could open the door, his hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. He slammed me against the car, trapping me. That sickly sweet rose perfume—the one he wore for her—filled my lungs, making me want to gag. Damien’s grip was like iron, his eyes blazing with a barely controlled fire. He spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s just a job! You’re giving me this attitude over a stupid job?” “I already told you, I’m just letting her play anchor for a few days to keep her happy! Once she gets bored of it, you’ll get it back!” “Do you have to drag me to the courthouse threatening divorce over every little thing?” “Clara, have you lost count of how many times you’ve pulled this? I have my limits, you know!” Our breaths mingled in the cold air, and a bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Damien, you have the audacity to talk to me about limits?” We were childhood sweethearts, married for six years. A week ago, Damien had brought Rachel into our home. Without a word, he got on the phone with the station director, right in front of me. He announced a two-million-dollar investment in the network, with one condition. He glanced at Rachel, who was beaming with anticipation, before his heavy gaze landed on me. His words, spoken with deliberate, cruel precision, sent a shard of ice through my heart. “The condition is, Clara’s out. Rachel takes her place.” He met my look of utter disbelief and sealed my fate. His bodyguards held me down, clamping a hand over my mouth to stifle my protests. “Yeah, she knows,” he said into the phone. “She’s fine with it.” “Great. I’ll have Rachel come in tomorrow to get started. You can show her the ropes.” That day, I screamed at him. I broke everything I could get my hands on in our house. I slapped both him and Rachel across the face. “Damien! What gives you the right to make my decisions for me? I never said I wanted to quit my job!” “The right? I’m your husband! That’s my right! And this is final!” he’d roared back. “You’re out, Rachel’s in! You get to relax, she gets to try something new. It’s a win-win, isn’t it?” I screamed at them to get out. Damien wrapped a protective arm around Rachel, glaring at me with contempt. “You’re insane,” he spat. No one knows what I went through that week. Fearing I’d go to the station and cause a scene, Damien locked me in our villa. I spent my days and nights in our room, trapped in a cycle of weeping and hollow laughter. I had spent six years clawing my way up to become the lead weather anchor, the most beloved and trusted face at the network. Damien knew exactly how much I’d sacrificed for that position, how much that job meant to me. But he didn’t care. Or rather, for Rachel, sacrificing my reputation and my career was a small price to pay. After all, for Rachel’s sake, he’d once been willing to sacrifice his own child. The memory brought a fresh sting to my eyes. My tears seemed to startle him for a second, and in that moment of hesitation, I slapped him with all the strength I had left. “You don’t get to talk to me about limits!” I screamed, my voice raw. “Damien, listen to yourself! What do you mean, ‘when Rachel gets bored of it’? You sound like you’re offering me scraps! Do I need your charity? I earned that position myself!” “One slap and then a piece of candy to make it better. That’s always been your style, hasn’t it, Damien!” I shoved him away and pulled a gift bag from my car, throwing it at his feet. It was the expensive handbag he’d bought to “compensate” for my job. I hadn’t even opened it. We parted in anger. Our two cars, which once drove side-by-side, now sped off in opposite directions. Just like our marriage, an arrangement by our families, had finally shattered after years of loving and fighting. That evening, a text from Rachel summoned me to a private lounge. Through a crack in the door, I saw Damien, his arm draped around her on the central sofa, holding court with his friends. “Hey, what if Clara actually goes through with the divorce this time?” Damien just scoffed. “She loves me too much. She’d never do it for real.” From across the room, Rachel shot me a smug, triumphant glare, a silent warning to just sign the papers and disappear. I turned and walked away. Damien didn’t come home for two weeks. I didn’t care. A persistent drizzle seemed to have settled over the city. On TV, Rachel, in a smart blazer and skirt, her hair perfectly styled, was delivering the forecast in a stiff, robotic tone. “Over the next few days, a cold front will cause a significant drop in temperatures across the country. For example, in the Northeast…” Her smile was plastered on, looking unnatural. She stumbled over the more complex meteorological terms, her delivery faltering. That’s when Damien walked in. He brought the damp chill of the rain with him. He tossed a towel at me and then leaned in close, expecting me to dry his hair for him. I looked down, unmoving. Rainwater dripped from his hair onto my silk nightgown, staining the fabric dark. Seeing my expression, Damien’s mouth opened, then closed. He snatched the towel and started drying his own hair. His eyes caught the TV, and a proud grin spread across his face. “That’s Rachel’s first official broadcast. What do you think? Not bad, right?” The pride in his voice was thick and undisguised. I had no energy to play along. I simply got up and went to the bedroom. Damien followed, his gaze falling on the damp spot on my thigh. A flicker of desire ignited in his eyes. Before I could react, he pushed me onto the bed, his mouth covering mine, his kisses frantic and sloppy. “Clara… it’s been so long. Don’t you miss me?” A humorless laugh bubbled up inside me. The image of him and Rachel tangled together on the living room sofa flashed in my mind, and a wave of nausea rose in my throat. I tried to push him off, but he pinned my wrists behind my back. Our eyes locked, and I decided to wound him. “What’s wrong? Rachel’s at the office now, so there’s no one to get you off?” He was busy unbuttoning his shirt, and he just raised an eyebrow. “Why would that be a problem? I still have you, don’t I?” I never imagined he would sink this low just to spite me. As his hot breath washed over my face, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I gagged, a dry, retching sound. Damien recoiled as if he’d been burned, his face a mask of disgust and fury. When my heaving subsided, he grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks. “You find me that repulsive? I thought you loved me. What, you can’t even pretend anymore?” A tear escaped and trailed down my cheek. He flinched and let go as if my tear was acid. I managed a small, tired smile, my heart feeling strangely calm. “I don’t love you anymore, Damien. A cheating man is like rotten food. Disgusting and foul.” His face paled. He opened his mouth to argue, but seeing the genuine sickness in my expression, he snapped it shut. “Don’t talk nonsense! God, I must owe you something in a past life! What a buzzkill!” With that, he grabbed a change of clothes and stormed into the bathroom. Fighting the bile in my throat, I went to the kitchen and downed a glass of water. The tears I’d been holding back finally broke free, blurring my vision. Damien was right. He did owe me. The weather forecast had ended. Outside, the rain was coming down harder, drumming a relentless rhythm against the windows. My phone buzzed. It was a string of texts from Rachel. She sent me screenshots of large money transfers from Damien, peppered with his complaints about me. “I can’t stand her anymore. That long face all day, like I owe her the world.” “She has zero passion! Every time things get good, she pours cold water on it. It’s boring!” “Are you off work yet? Get changed. I’m coming over.” Then, a voice message. Rachel’s voice, sickly sweet and mocking. “Did you watch my show, Clara? It was my big debut! Damien said I was so much better than you! He sent me five hundred thousand dollars to go shopping for luxury bags!” “Oh, and Damien told me you’re all upset about losing your job? I just wanted to tell you not to be so angry, sister. Stress causes wrinkles! And you’re already twenty-six… you can’t compete with a twenty-year-old girl like me.” I closed my eyes. I was used to Rachel’s provocations. But this time, I was done enduring. I opened my eyes and pulled up the chat with my brother, Liam. A year ago, he had sent me an application for an internal transfer to a lead position at NBN, the national network. But back then, I still wanted to give my marriage one last chance, so I’d turned him down. Now, that hope was gone. Utterly extinguished. I had given Damien and me three chances. My job, my child, my dignity. He had taken them all. My love for him had been bled dry. I typed: “Brother, that application you sent me last year… is it too late to submit it?” He replied almost instantly. “It’s not too late.” A pause, then: “Have you… figured things out?” I wiped the tears from my face. “Yes. I’ve figured it out.” “…And that other thing I asked you about… have you thought about it?” I held my breath. After a long moment, I heard my own voice, barely a whisper as I typed the words. “Yes. I’ve thought about it… and I accept… Liam.” Though Liam was adopted, our father, before he passed, had always hoped he would become his son-in-law. I knew if my parents were still alive, they would approve of my decision. As for Damien and me, it was time to cut the cord. Our love, our marriage—it all ends here. When Damien came out of the shower, he didn’t say a word. He just grabbed his coat and left. He moved in with Rachel after that, and for the next ten days, she bombarded me with photos of their happy life together. On the day the divorce was to be finalized, I didn’t show up. I was on a plane, and I fell asleep and dreamt. I dreamt of a time before everything soured between us. Our marriage may have been arranged by our families, but for the first three years, we were good to each other. We respected one another. And the most important thing was, I loved him. We grew up together. From the moment I understood what a crush was, it was him. That was why I never fought the arranged marriage. Damien, on the other hand, had resisted fiercely. He’d pleaded with me to join him in refusing the union. But out of my own selfish love, I hadn’t. Then, one day, he just… accepted it. In the beginning, our marriage was polite, like two roommates sharing a life. But over time, I started to believe he was falling for me, too. He’d bring me little surprises every day—a bouquet of flowers, my favorite dessert. He’d hold me tight every night as we fell asleep. I remember once, someone left a comment on the station’s website asking for my contact information. Damien was so consumed with jealousy he kept me in bed for an entire week. He clung to me like a lost puppy, begging me not to look at any other man. He even carried me to the bathroom. That was the fourth year of our marriage. Then, I heard from our families that his first love, his high school sweetheart, had gotten married and had a child. And that’s when Rachel appeared. She had the same innocent, pure look as his first love. It was around that time that Damien found the notes app on my phone. It was filled with years of my secret feelings for him, from my teenage diary entries to my thoughts after we were married. And Damien… he snapped. He became convinced that I had conspired with our families to drive his first love away. The truth was, I never even knew he had a girlfriend. I had no idea he was in love with someone else. But he wouldn’t listen. From that day on, he made it his mission to hurt me. The first year Rachel was in the picture, she was exposed as a homewrecker. The scandal was everywhere. Despite photos, videos, irrefutable proof, Damien forced me to go on record and clear her name. Because of that, the public labeled me a “doormat,” a “pathetic wife.” The ratings for my segments plummeted. The second year, by some accident, I got pregnant. Rachel threw tantrums, staged dramatic goodbyes. Damien’s heart softened. It reminded him of being forced to leave his first love. In a moment of cruel vengeance, he forced me to take pills that would induce a miscarriage. My health was already fragile; the doctor had told me the pregnancy was high-risk. The potent dose sent my body into shock. I was bleeding uncontrollably. Damien just stood there, watching the life drain out of me, a crimson flower blooming on the floor beneath me. His voice was laced with poison. “Does it hurt? When she and I were forced apart, it hurt a thousand times more than this! A million times!” “You’re such a good actress, Clara. No wonder you never fought the marriage.” “You’re pathetic. You owe me this. Now suffer.” I passed out from the pain. Only then did he show a sliver of mercy and take me to the hospital. The doctor said if he’d waited any longer, I would have died. And the third year, this year, he took my job. … I didn’t see the two missed calls until I landed that night. They were from Damien. I opened his voice message, and a sneering, sarcastic voice filled the air.

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1 My BBQ joint, “The Corn-Fired Grill,” uses dried corn kernels for fuel. It’s cleaner than charcoal and more sustainable. Until today, when a young girl showed up and, through a flood of tears, threatened to report us. “I’m a farmer’s daughter! The one thing I can’t stand is people wasting food!” “When crop prices are low, farmers starve! You’re all just vile capitalists!” she declared, her face set in a look of fierce determination. I nodded, apologized immediately, and promised I would no longer buy corn from her town. Then I went to the next town over. But this year, the rains came and didn’t stop. When all the corn in her town rotted in the fields, unsold, the farmers came knocking, asking why I hadn’t come to buy their harvest. … The girl showed up on a busy night, the restaurant packed. She was sobbing as if she’d suffered a terrible injustice. At first, seeing how young she was, I tried to explain. “Listen, sweetie, corn doesn’t have to be eaten to be useful.” Before opening, I’d done my homework. Using corn as fuel wasn’t a whim. Only a small fraction of all corn grown is for human consumption; the rest is used for animal feed or industrial purposes. You can ferment it into ethanol and put it in your car’s gas tank. Why couldn’t I put it in a furnace? I thought a little education would clear things up. But she only cried harder, her lip trembling. “I don’t wanna hear it! Corn is cheaper than charcoal, so you’re just doing this to make more money!” “There’s no such thing as an honest businessman! You can’t talk your way out of being a heartless monster!” I had to explain again. “You’re right, using corn is more cost-effective. But I buy all my corn at market price from local farmers. Whether it’s old, stale, or just won’t sell, I take it all. This is corn that’s so dry and hard, it’s been sitting in silos for years. No one would ever eat it. Normally, it would just rot. Now, they get extra income, and I save on costs. It’s a win-win.” Wasting food isn’t about how it’s used; it’s about failing to realize its value. A customer at a nearby table chimed in. “The farmers are happy, the owner’s happy. What’s it to you?” Seeing she had no allies, the girl’s face flushed with anger. She stormed into the grill and grabbed a carton of eggs. Then, she started throwing them. Everywhere. Slimy, disgusting streaks of yolk ran down the walls. Splatters hit other customers, the raw, fishy smell clinging to their clothes. She acted as if she were a revolutionary, holding an egg aloft like a banner. “You’re not burning corn! You’re burning the sweat of our farmers!” she screamed. “A farmer’s daughter will not allow this!” Unbelievable. She was accusing me of waste, claiming to be a voice for the farmers. Yet, in less than a minute, she had smashed over twenty eggs. Who was the one being wasteful now? Who was speaking for the poor hens that worked so hard to lay those eggs? Her tantrum spent, she straightened her shoulders and marched out, wrapped in a shroud of self-righteousness. I wanted to chase after her, but the restaurant was in chaos. Customers were leaving in droves, complaining that this random disaster was worse than finding a hair in their food. I had no choice but to stay and manage the fallout. I promised everyone their meal was on the house and that I’d cover their dry-cleaning bills. As for the girl, from the look of her clothes, her family didn’t have much. Even if I caught her, she wouldn’t be able to pay for the damages. I let it go. In business, you have to pick your battles. The world is full of fools; I’d just have to count this as a lesson. The next day, I opened up as usual, only to be ambushed by a pack of reporters shoving cameras in my face. “Do you have a response to the allegations online?” That’s how I found out I’d gone viral. Someone had posted a video exposing my “wasteful” use of corn. But it didn’t stop there. The video spun a vile rumor. “A woman owning a business? She must have slept her way to the top.” “I bet some sugar daddy paid for this whole place.” At first, people were skeptical. Then the original poster dropped a photo of me in the comments. In the picture, there was a sticky, white puddle in the middle of my skirt. Paired with the suggestive captions, it was designed to make people’s minds go straight to the gutter. The comments section exploded with filth. “Pop quiz: If she’s using the kernels for fuel, what do you think she’s using the cobs for?” “Now we know the real reason she’s buying all that corn.” I laughed, a bitter, angry sound, and clicked on the poster’s profile. Dozens of selfie videos confirmed it. It was her. I sent her a private message. “You know exactly where that picture came from.” It was just egg yolk from when she’d pelted me last night. I thought she was just having a meltdown, but this was a different level of vicious. And from another woman, no less. She didn’t even bother denying it. Her reply was instant. “Hehe, a farmer’s daughter has to defend her crops!” I told her what she was doing was illegal. Slander. She didn’t care. She just kept repeating the same childish taunt. “Aww, did I strike a nerve? U mad?” Fine. Let the video ferment. Once it crossed the viewership threshold for criminal charges, we’d see who was really mad. Thanks to the online mob, not a single customer came in all day. Instead, I got a visit from the police, the fire marshal, and the health department. It turned out the girl had filed a full suite of complaints against me, a tactic she’d learned online. My conscience was clear. I told them to inspect whatever they wanted. I wasn’t worried about that. But one thing bothered me. Why was she so obsessed with me? If she was truly outraged about using corn as fuel, my grill wasn’t the only one doing it. Her actions were clearly meant to destroy me, personally. I couldn’t think of any time I might have crossed her. What could she possibly gain from all this? Something wasn’t right. The grill was forced to close pending the inspections. With the unexpected free time, I decided to drive out to the countryside and sign my contracts for the fall harvest. I’d made a promise to support the local farmers, and I wouldn’t back out, even if my restaurant stayed closed for the rest of the year. The drive out was rough. Recent rains had turned the country roads into a muddy mess, and my car bounced and slid the whole way. When I arrived, I had to wait a long time before the town’s mayor, an old man named Hemlock, finally came out to see me. He looked sour. I remembered my first year buying from them. The whole town had thanked me with tears in their eyes. They said I had saved them, giving them enough money to have a proper holiday season. Seeing their joyful faces was what made me decide to come back every year. “Sarah. You’re here again,” Mayor Hemlock said, sitting down and taking a sip of tea. Maybe he was just having a bad day. I didn’t let his attitude bother me. I wasn’t doing this for thanks. I handed him the contract. “Same as last year. You know the drill.” He didn’t take it. He set his teacup down with a deliberate clink. “I’ve been thinking. This one-dollar-a-pound rate… feels a little low, don’t it? The cheapest charcoal is four dollars a pound. Why shouldn’t you give us that three-dollar difference?” He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “We’re simple country folk, Sarah. We don’t take kindly to being cheated.” This was bizarre. Suddenly everyone was an expert on my corn procurement. “Mayor, you’re misunderstanding,” I said calmly. “First, the contract clearly states that I’m buying your low-grade, unsellable corn. The market price for that is fifty cents a pound. I’m offering double that. Second, I have to cover all the transportation costs myself. When you factor that in, my total expense is about the same as buying charcoal.” The town was tucked away in the hills. A single trip for a truckload of corn cost me thousands in gas alone, not to mention the time and effort. That’s why no other buyers ever came out here. It’s why, for years, their corn sold for pennies on the dollar, if it sold at all. Most of it just sat in their barns and rotted. And there was another thing. I’d noticed they liked to mix small rocks into the corn sacks to add weight. I figured they were just trying to make ends meet, so I always turned a blind eye. I never called them on it. The mayor seemed to waver, maybe convinced by my logic, or maybe just remembering how desperate things were a few years ago. He sighed and finally decided to sign. “Ah, fine. Take your profits, then.” His words stung. He made it sound like I was begging him. I wanted to just get up and leave. But I thought of the other families in the village who were counting on this, so I swallowed my pride. The mayor put on his reading glasses and scrutinized the contract, reading it over and over. Finally, just as he was about to put pen to paper, a hand shot out and knocked the pen from his grasp. “Mayor! She’s ripping you off! Don’t sign it!” I looked up. It was the girl from my restaurant. “I went to the city and did my research,” she announced. “This woman is sucking our blood, paying a dollar a pound for our corn!” “Do you know how much a corn tart costs in the city? Eighteen dollars! She can make three tarts from a single ear of corn that she buys from us for pennies!” The girl’s name was Jenna, and this was her hometown. She puffed out her chest and launched into her grand vision. “I’ve already figured it out. We’ll all pool our money and open our own dessert shop in the city. We’ll process the corn ourselves and sell it at a huge markup! We’ll make a thousand times more than we would selling to this crook!” I almost burst out laughing. So that was it. She wasn’t mad that I was “wasting” their corn; she was mad that I was buying it at all, getting in the way of her get-rich-quick scheme. All that righteous talk was just a cover. But what she didn’t seem to realize was that gourmet products like corn tarts and corn bread are made from premium, sweet corn. This village, with its poor, alkaline soil, could never produce that kind of quality. Besides, fad foods like corn tarts were already past their peak. The novelty had worn off, and no one was paying those inflated prices anymore. But Jenna was lost in her own fantasy business empire. “Mayor! We have to keep this wealth in our community!” she urged. “We just need to raise fifty thousand dollars to open the shop. I promise, I’ll make this whole town rich! We won’t have to bow to greedy capitalists ever again!” Fifty thousand dollars. Split among the families in town, that was a couple of thousand each. For most of them, that was a huge chunk of their annual income. But the mayor didn’t even hesitate. He agreed on the spot and called a town meeting. Everyone was dazzled by the potential profits, scrambling to invest. They turned to me, their faces twisted with indignation. “You witch! Preying on honest farmers! You’ve been getting rich off us for years, haven’t you!” “She knew one ear of corn could be worth fifty bucks, and she cheated us because she thinks we’re all uneducated hicks!” As they worked themselves into a frenzy, someone’s eyes turned red with rage. He grabbed a nearby sickle and swung it at me. Before I could react, a sharp pain seared across my arm. Then another. This wasn’t just about business anymore. They were attacking me. I had tried to do something good, never asking for anything in return, and this was how they repaid me. My consideration, my turning a blind eye to their petty cheating, it was all a joke. I saw another blade coming down. There was no time to dodge. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the impact. The pain never came. Someone had grabbed the man’s wrist, stopping the blade inches from my face. “Assault with a deadly weapon is a felony! I’ve already called the police!” The word “police” sobered the mob. They shuffled back, suddenly timid. My rescuer was a man named Miller. He was from a neighboring town. He had approached me before, asking if I could buy their surplus corn too, but my grill’s demand was limited. I’d had to turn him down. He was just passing through today and saw that my deal had fallen through. He made his offer again. “If they don’t want to sell, we do!” But after being betrayed like this, I was hesitant to get involved again. “Don’t worry,” he said, seeing the look on my face. “We’re not like them. We’re not ungrateful.” “We know our corn isn’t top quality. We’ll take whatever you think is a fair price. And we’ll split the transportation costs with you, fifty-fifty.” Hearing this, Jenna scoffed. “A low price? Fifty cents a pound? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how much that’s worth once it’s processed? You should invest with me.” Mr. Miller just shook his head. “We’re not looking to get rich quick. We just want an honest, steady income.” I thought it over. His offer was more than fair. I wasn’t the type to let one bad experience scare me off forever. If he was sincere, I was willing to give his town a chance. I drew up a new contract and signed it with him right there. “I’ll be back with the trucks after the harvest.” Jenna watched the whole exchange, her laughter growing louder and more mocking. “Fine, fine. Have it your way. Throw your lot in with the crook. But when you see us rolling in cash, don’t come crawling back, begging for a piece of the pie.” As I got in my car, I took one last look at her.

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On the eve of my wedding, my best friend, Stella, told me she was getting me a huge wedding gift. To afford it, she was swamped with gigs, working herself to the bone. My fiancé, Ethan, was getting busier too. Our dates were constantly cut short by last-minute work emergencies. I didn’t think much of it at first. Not until one late night, scrolling through my feed, I saw a clip Stella had posted of her gig at a downtown bar. The camera panned across the audience, and a silhouette of a man, head bent to light a cigarette, made my fingertips go cold. Ethan. He was wearing the limited-edition shirt I’d bought him, his face a sharp, painful silhouette in the hazy, colored lights. When I asked him about it, he just said, “I was entertaining clients. The meeting happened to be there.” Stella, who was with us, chimed in with a laugh. “Yeah, Vivi, your man is a real rainmaker for the bar. He brings in a ton of business.” They played off each other perfectly, their reasonable explanations deflecting all my doubts. I even started to question myself. Was it just pre-wedding jitters making me paranoid and jealous? Then, the day before the wedding, a local clip popped up on my feed. And the last shred of hope I was clinging to vanished. 1 In a dimly lit alley, a man had a woman pinned against the wall, kissing her deeply. He was tall and well-built in a sharp suit; she was all curves in a wine-red minidress. They looked like they were made for each other. The comments section exploded. “The chemistry is off the charts!” someone wrote. The top comment read: “This tension is clearer than my life plan!” A reply below it said: “You can just feel the history there, that push and pull between two people who know exactly what they’re doing. They should cast them in the next big romance drama.” You couldn’t see their faces clearly in the video, but the glint of crushed diamonds on the man’s watch face was a knife in my eye. It was the watch I’d given Ethan for our fifth anniversary. And the woman he was kissing? Dangling from her purse was a little rabbit charm, one with a single red rose tucked behind its ear. A birthday gift I had hand-knitted for my best friend, Stella. In that single, soul-crushing moment, my twelve years of friendship with Stella and my eight years of love with Ethan turned to ash. Twelve years ago, I had run away from home with nothing but my ID. It was Stella who supported me through college, Stella who stood up for me when I was bullied. She’d used the same phone for three years but gave me the latest model she’d won without a second thought. She had even helped me get with Ethan in the first place. I would have done anything for Stella, just as she had for me. I would have emptied my own pockets to give her the world. If she and Ethan had just told me they had feelings for each other, I would have stepped aside. I would have let them be happy. But why did they have to play me for a fool? Was the thrill of a secret affair just too good to pass up? I wiped the tears from my face and pulled up Stella’s profile. When I was a broke, recent graduate, she was already a well-known singer on the local circuit. Every time she posted a video or an update, she’d tell me to like and comment, and she’d pin my comment to drive traffic to my page, helping me build my career as an illustrator. Once my commissions started rolling in, she stopped linking our profiles together. Her last post was from a bar event three days ago. The video was shaky, but aside from her on stage, the frame captured a man in a white shirt on the right, only his forearm visible. I didn’t need to look closely to know. It was Ethan’s arm. Three days ago, Ethan had told me a shipment at work had run into problems. He had to work late. How convenient. One minute he was “working,” the next he was at her gig, staying out all night. September 11th. Ethan was “working late” again. But in the reflection of the TV in Stella’s video, I could see his silhouette. They were in a hotel room, and in the heat of the moment, they were still wearing the matching watches we’d bought as a couple. September 1st. The bar owner opened a new branch out of town, and Stella went to perform for the opening week. Ethan went on a “business trip” for five days. He came back with a small bandage on his temple and scraped knuckles that hadn’t quite healed. He said he’d seen a drunk harassing a girl and had gotten into a fight. Today, Ethan was “working late” again. I started to laugh through my tears, then cry through my laughter. The past and the present collided in my mind, a brutal, chaotic crash. I wanted to believe I was delusional, that I was inventing all of this, anything but face the truth. We were supposed to get married tomorrow. My wedding dress was hanging in the closet. The hair and makeup artists were scheduled to arrive in eight hours. The bouquet was sitting perfectly on my vanity. I had even practiced the bouquet toss eight hundred times, determined to make sure Stella would be the one to catch it. Everything was ruined. They say that after you shatter, you become colder, more rational than ever before. I opened my laptop and started drafting an email to cancel the wedding, but my eyes kept drifting to my phone. Should I call them? Demand an explanation? Listen to them spin more lies until they were cornered, then finally admit their sordid little secret, only to turn it all around and blame me? Just then, my phone screen lit up. A notification from our shared credit card. I tapped it open. A charge from a hotel. The suite they’d booked, at $11,888 a night, was the hotel’s luxury romance suite. The only time Ethan and I had been there was the night he proposed. He really knew how to spare no expense. The thought of ending things with dignity flickered in my mind for a split second before being incinerated by a blaze of pure rage. I wasn’t one to just let things go. They did this to me. And I was going to make them pay. 2 I deleted the email draft and walked into my studio. If they were so in love, then fine. I would give them my blessing. A stack of unused invitation jackets, nearly half the original order, sat in the corner. I found a template online, typed in the guest names, and printed out a thick new stack. It was far less work than the ones I had painstakingly designed and painted by hand. As I slipped the new inserts into the beautiful outer shells, a sharp pain twisted in my stomach. The names on the paper blurred. It was love at first sight for me with Ethan. He was on stage in a crisp white shirt and silver-rimmed glasses, giving the freshman welcome speech. His voice was calm and steady, and he had this cool, untouchable vibe that just made you want to be the one to break through it. The line of people trying to win him over stretched from the main hall to two miles off campus, from high school girls who’d known him before to seniors about to graduate. I was just another face in the crowd, completely unnoticeable. My art program was so demanding that I spent twice as much time as anyone else on coursework, leaving me no time to engineer a “chance encounter.” I could only follow his life through campus forums. But you can’t hide a crush from your best friend. The day after Stella found out, she cornered Ethan in an alley near campus as he was heading back from his tutoring job. With a lollipop sticking out of the corner of her mouth, she had this cocky, playful swagger. “My girl here wants to get to know you,” she’d said. “Give her your number?” Ethan’s gaze landed on me, and he let out a resigned sigh. My hand was trembling as I scanned his code to add him. He held his phone out for me, then turned his arm towards Stella. “What about you?” Stella just shoved me forward slightly and sauntered away. “Don’t have a phone.” When did they exchange numbers? I sealed the last invitation, clutching my stomach as I curled over the desk, the pain intensifying. Every single moment Ethan and Stella had shared replayed in my mind. The way he’d tilt his head when she laughed, how he’d play along with her jokes, go shot for shot with her at the bar, and drive her home. And I, like a fool, thought it was just him being kind to my best friend for my sake. Once the pain subsided, I grabbed my wedding dress and took a cab to the hotel where the ceremony was supposed to take place. That wedding was my dream, the culmination of all my fantasies. I’d spent a year and a half designing every detail, overseeing every vendor, crafting a perfect moment. Ethan hated all that stuff, and I never asked him to get involved, only consulting him on the invitations and the wedding favors. Now, I was about to tear that dream down with my own two hands and face the ugly reality. I had all the photos of us taken down, leaving only our names at the entrance, stark and bare. I whispered his name, “Ethan,” and felt the knot of rage in my chest begin to loosen. But as much as I hated Ethan, I hated Stella more. 3 The way Stella and I met was a total cliché. As a quiet, average student with parents who couldn’t care less about me, I was practically invisible at school. People like me are easy targets for bullies. But I got lucky. The very first time I was cornered in an alley, Stella was there. She was two years older than me and had stopped school after vocational high. Her family was a pack of leeches, so she’d moved to the city and started working as a hostess at a shady bar, hustling drinks from sleazy customers. The day I met her, she’d just been kicked out by her manager to “cool off” after telling off a customer. She chased away the girls who were bullying me. She was so stunningly beautiful that I couldn’t help but stare. A cigarette dangled from her lips. “Hey,” she said, smoke curling around her face. “Go home. What are you gawking at?” I have asthma. The smoke was fine from a distance, but as soon as she got close, my chest seized up. I collapsed, struggling to breathe. I kept pointing frantically at my backpack, where my inhaler was. But Stella, bless her heart, was an idiot. She didn’t understand and started performing some clumsy version of CPR that nearly broke my ribs. One emergency surgery later, my medical bills had wiped out Stella’s entire savings. My parents weren’t around, and there was no cash at home. Luckily, Stella wasn’t expecting me to pay her back. She just muttered something about her bad luck and left the hospital. From that day on, I was determined to repay her. A few thousand dollars—I could earn it back over time. I started making a point to walk by that alley every single day, just hoping to see her. At first, it was hit or miss. Then, she started waiting for me. And soon after that, she’d always have a small cupcake or a piece of pastry for me. Just like that, Stella became my protector, and I became her loyal sidekick. No one at school ever dared to mess with me again. Stella was always watching her figure, so she never ate any of the treats. All the “protection money” I offered her seemed to end up in my own stomach. We were like that for a year. Then, my parents came home. 4 They demanded I cut ties with “the wrong crowd,” or they’d pull me out of school and make me get a job. I refused. I packed a bag, and at seventeen years old, I ran away from home. I didn’t have an umbrella and got caught in a downpour, ending up completely soaked. Stella called me an idiot, yelling at me for fighting with my parents. I just smiled like a fool and said, “Stella, you’re the best person to me in the whole world.” And it turned out, I was right. She quit smoking because the smell triggered my asthma, and she’d change her clothes before meeting me. She gave up spicy food because I couldn’t eat it, sneaking out at 2 a.m. to get her fix at a barbecue stand. Little things like that, too many to count. She covered our rent, the utilities, our living expenses, and my tuition. I wanted to drop out and get a job to ease her burden, but she tore into me, unleashing a torrent of words so harsh I’d never heard her speak that way. And in her anger, she was putting herself down. “Vivian,” she’d snarled, “do you want to end up like me? Having people point at you and call you a slut behind your back?” I didn’t. “Don’t worry,” she’d said, her voice softening just a little. “I can take care of you.” I remember her expression, the sound of her voice, so clearly. I had long since come to see her as the closest family I had. My stomach churned, and a wave of nausea washed over me. How did we end up here? I spent the entire night on the top floor of the hotel, just sitting. The first hint of light reflected off the polished floor. I pulled back the curtains and saw the sky was already bright. In the ballroom next to ours, the family of another couple was bustling around, checking the decorations, their faces beaming with joy as they prepared for their children’s big day. I looked down at my own shadow. I was used to being abandoned, to being given up on. Being alone wasn’t so lonely after all. At nine o’clock, the wedding cars pulled up to the hotel entrance. The other bride, the one getting married on the same day as me, was surrounded by her loved ones, walking towards her future, towards happiness. I glanced in the direction the cars had come from and saw him, tucked away in a corner. Ethan. He was chain-smoking in the shadows, one cigarette after another, until another hand snatched the last one from his lips. Stella ground the cigarette out with her high heel. She slapped him across the face, her voice sharp and unforgiving. “Ethan, don’t you dare make me lose respect for you.” 5 Like a guilty child, Ethan grabbed her arm. “Don’t go. I just want a little more time with you.” They clung to each other, a desperate, intimate embrace, as if trying to fuse their bodies into one. It made me look like the villain who was tearing them apart. A laugh escaped my lips. I had been so considerate of his demanding job, cutting out most of the tedious wedding formalities. All he had to do was show up, say his vows, exchange rings, and let our friends and family witness our happiness. I never imagined he’d use that free time to whisper sweet nothings to another woman. I waited for them to slip inside the wedding hall. Then, without another moment of hesitation, I turned and went downstairs. Just as I’d instructed, a large trash bin was placed by the entrance where they had just been. Next to it was a box of new invitations. On every single one, the name “Vivian” had been replaced with “Stella.” Knowing them, they were probably holed up backstage, whispering their tragic confessions to each other. There was no way they’d come back out. The thought brought a sliver of satisfaction. Vengeance really was the best therapy. The staff followed my orders, collecting the original invitations from the arriving guests, tossing them into the trash to be destroyed, and handing out the new ones from the box. A confused murmur rippled through the venue. Ethan’s face was a mask of thunder. He had no idea what was happening; he was just an unwilling star in a show he didn’t want to be in. That’s fine. I was about to make it a day he would never forget. The time had come. The lights dimmed. I stood at the podium where the officiant should have been, dressed in my pure white wedding gown, and raised the microphone to my lips. As Ethan and Stella stared at me in horror, I began. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming. Welcome to the wedding of Ethan Blackwood and Stella Monroe.” A spotlight hit Stella. She looked as if she’d been expecting it, a bitter smile gracing her lips. “Vivi…” Ethan snapped out of his shock and lunged for my microphone. “Vivian! This isn’t funny! Stop it!” I pulled out a second microphone. My voice dripped with sarcasm. “Let’s take a walk through their incredible love story and witness their beautiful romance.” Stella grabbed my wrist, her eyes pleading. “Vivian! You—” The massive screen behind us lit up with the photo of them kissing in the alley, followed by the unedited video of their embrace just moments ago. Ethan froze. In a split second, his shock turned to rage. “That’s photoshopped! You’re lying!” I smirked. “Let us all wish them a lifetime of happiness together!” Ethan scrambled to do damage control. “Everyone, I am so sorry. My fiancée… she’s been under a lot of creative pressure lately. She’s not… well.” The grip on my wrist loosened. I pushed the microphone into Stella’s hand and whispered, my voice for her ears only, “Stella. We’re done.” Not plastering this all over the internet and destroying everything she had was the last act of mercy I would ever show her. As for Ethan… I’d invited his managing director and his wife. If I played my cards right, his career was over. Stella’s expression was a storm of conflicting emotions. “Vivi, I’m so sorry.” Then, her tightly clenched fist opened. A single piece of paper fluttered from her palm, drifting on the air and landing at the feet of a guest in the front row. She raised the microphone and looked directly at Ethan. “I’ll tell you what that is,” she announced, her voice ringing through the silent hall. “It’s an invoice for an abortion!”

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For my mom’s birthday, I bought her a sports car. That night, I overheard the housekeeper complaining to my boyfriend. “It’s my birthday today, too, but she only gets a gift for her mom, not me. When you two are married, you can’t let her keep funneling money to her family like that!” The driver chimed in, “Exactly! What’s an old broad like her need a car like that for? She should’ve given it to me! Son, you should just get her pregnant sooner rather than later!” But I remembered my boyfriend telling me he was an orphan, that he would love and cherish my mother as his own. The next day, I watched on the security camera as he swapped my daily vitamins for folic acid. 01 My mom has a thing for fast cars, so for her birthday, I got her a custom sports car. Before I could even say anything, our housekeeper, Brenda, jumped in, her eyes wide with disapproval. “Valerie, why would you buy a car like this! It’s all flash, completely impractical. You should return it before it’s even been driven. Don’t waste your money!” The celebratory mood instantly evaporated. Everyone else went quiet. But Brenda didn’t seem to notice. She snatched my phone off the table and shoved it into my hand. “Well, what are you waiting for? Call them! What if they won’t take it back later? You young people just know how to spend, you have no idea how to be frugal!” My expression soured. Anyone would be furious if a housekeeper overstepped her bounds and trashed a gift you’d carefully chosen for your mother. But it was a special day, and I didn’t want to upset my mom. I simply slipped my phone into my purse. “Mom, here are the keys. Go ahead, take it for a spin. See if you like it.” My mom, bless her, played along and got into the car. Only then did I turn to face Brenda’s face, which was as dark as thunder. I was about to lay into her when Rick, our driver, staggered over, reeking of alcohol, his face flushed red. I glanced at the table and saw that the bottle of expensive wine I’d bought specifically for the celebration was already open, more than half of it gone. Rick waved his hand dismissively, acting more like the lord of the manor than I did. “Valerie, Brenda didn’t mean it like that. She only says these things because she sees you as family. But she’s got a point. A big purchase like a car, that’s something a man should have the final say on. Did you even discuss it with Jason?” Jason was my boyfriend. But it was my money that paid for the car, and my name, Valerie Hayes, on the paychecks that paid their salaries. I don’t pay people to walk all over me. “That’s enough!” I cut him off, my brow furrowed. “It’s my money, and I’ll spend it how I please. Brenda, you should stick to your duties as a housekeeper and not cross the line. And Rick, you’re a driver. Should you be drinking on the job? And for that matter, that was my bottle of wine. Did you have permission to open it? If this happens again, you’ll be paying for it in full!” I lowered my voice, but my tone was steel. “Today is my mother’s birthday. If anyone else forgets their place, they can leave immediately.” I’ve always been generous, paying top-tier salaries with excellent benefits. At my words, the rest of the staff nodded in agreement. Only Brenda and Rick stood frozen, their faces burning with humiliation. I knew I’d wounded their pride, but if I didn’t put my foot down now, they’d inspire the others to act the same way. Just then, my mom returned from her test drive, beaming. “Thank you, sweetie. I absolutely love it! Let’s go inside and eat, I’m starving.” She gently took my arm, completely ignoring the two statues standing by the car. My mom is sharp; she knew exactly what I was doing, but she always respected my decisions, whether at home or in the office. After that incident, Brenda served the dinner quietly, a stark contrast to her usual chatty self. The expensive wine was replaced with a bottle from our own cellar. The only sounds were the soft clinking of silverware and the murmur of conversation between my mom and me. “Valerie, Mrs. Hayes, sorry I’m late.” My boyfriend, Jason, arrived, presenting my mom with a gift and a bouquet of flowers before sliding into the seat next to me. Jason came from a poor background. He was an orphan, he’d told me, but he never let it define him. We’d been classmates since middle school. I wanted to help him, so he often came over to my house to eat and do homework. Our relationship had blossomed naturally from there. “Not at all, dear. Sit down, have some soup. Work has been crazy lately, hasn’t it?” Mom adored Jason, and had long since considered him part of the family. Jason accepted a bowl of soup from Brenda and immediately noticed her strange mood. “Brenda, is everything alright? If you need help with anything, just let me know. I’ll do what I can.” That was Jason. Kind, warm, and able to get along with everyone. Brenda shook her head, but her eyes were red-rimmed, and her voice trembled with a sob. She glanced at my mom, then at me, looking for all the world like she was the victim. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Jason. I’m fine.” I frowned inwardly. She was done at the end of the month. A housekeeper overstepping because she “feels like family” is one thing; I can give a warning for that. But I would not tolerate someone who actively tried to stir up trouble in my home. At the same time, I was watching Jason’s reaction. “Is something wrong at home?” he asked gently. “If so, you can take a couple of days off. Work is important, but so is your life outside of it.” He took a few sips of soup, then seemed to have a sudden realization. He cut a large slice from the birthday cake on the table and handed it to Brenda. “I just remembered, it’s your birthday today too, isn’t it? Happy birthday.” I had baked that cake for my mom myself. It was decorated with all her favorite fruits. Giving a piece away wasn’t the issue. The issue was that my mom hadn’t even sung “Happy Birthday” or made a wish, and the cake was already carved up, its perfect shape ruined. “Oh, my! You shouldn’t have! Thank you so much, Mr. Jason. I’ve never had such a fine cake before!” Brenda had been there the whole time. She knew the cake had just been brought out. But instead of asking my mom or me, she accepted it from Jason with beaming gratitude. The unease in my gut tightened into a hard knot. I could barely contain my anger. My mom gently patted my hand. “Take the whole thing, Brenda. I’m trying to watch my figure anyway. Valerie and I will just bake another one in a few days. It’ll be even better for the good luck.” “Oh, that would be wonderful! In that case, I will. Thank you, Ma’am. Thank you, Miss Valerie.” I thought that was the end of it. Next month, Brenda would be gone. But when I woke up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, I saw a light on in the kitchen as I reached the top of the stairs. Brenda’s voice, sharp and clear, drifted up to me. “Did you see that! How much do you think that sports car cost? It’s just a birthday! Does she have to be so wasteful?” So, I had let it slide, and she was still gossiping behind my back? I was about to storm down and fire her on the spot when her shrill, venomous voice cut through the air again. “It’s my birthday today, too, and what do I get? A slice of cake? What am I, a beggar? I don’t care! When you two are married, you can’t let her keep funneling money to her family like that!” Rick, the driver, chimed in. “That spendthrift. She’s just like her mother, wasting money.” “What’s an old broad like her need a car like that for? She should’ve given it to me! Son, you should just get her pregnant sooner rather than later!” A tidal wave of shock crashed over me. We always had a rotation of live-in staff. Brenda being here was normal, but why was Rick still in the house? And what did he mean, son? What did he mean, get her pregnant? A sickening thought swirled in my mind, and as if to confirm my worst fears, a familiar, gentle male voice sent an icy dread washing over me, plunging me into an abyss. “I’m already planning the proposal. It’s just a matter of time. Don’t rush it.” Jason’s last name was Miller. Brenda’s was Miller. Rick’s was Miller. I had never connected them. Rick was so overbearing and patronizing; I couldn’t imagine him letting his son take his wife’s name. But now that I knew, all the little things that had seemed slightly off suddenly clicked into place. No wonder. No wonder Brenda and Rick knew all our likes and dislikes from the moment they started. I thought it was just professional experience. It turned out someone had been feeding them information. No wonder Brenda played the victim in front of Jason. She was complaining to her own son. My face must have been a mask of horror. My hand tightened around the water glass until my knuckles were white. I knew Jason was secretly planning to propose. I’d been pretending not to know to avoid ruining the surprise. But it wasn’t a surprise. It was a conspiracy. “What if she says no?” Rick’s voice was a cold hiss, like a snake coiling around my feet. “Hmph. I think we need a backup plan. If she’s pregnant, she’ll have to marry you.” “Mm, I know,” Jason replied. Hearing his answer, my heart sank to the floor. After all these years, I thought I knew him. But now, all our sweet memories felt like slaps across my face. He wasn’t an orphan. He had smuggled his own parents into my home, right under my nose. If he told me he didn’t have an ulterior motive, I wouldn’t believe him for a second. Taking a deep breath, I crept back to my room. I would see. I would see if he would actually do it. If this was just him placating his parents, I could give him a chance to come clean. But if he really went through with it… then I would have to assume he had approached me with malicious intent from the very beginning. And I would show him no mercy. The next morning, Brenda was all smiles, as if yesterday’s confrontation had never happened. “Valerie, come eat! I’m telling you, a girl can’t be too skinny. It’s not good for having children later on!” I sat down but didn’t touch the food. I have a habit of working out on an empty stomach. Brenda had never commented on it before. Was she already playing the part of my mother-in-law, now that she thought my marriage to Jason was a done deal? “Brenda, your employment is terminated at the end of the month. I’ll pay your salary and severance according to the contract.” “On what grounds!” she shrieked, the flesh on her face trembling. “Is-is it because of yesterday? I won’t do it again, I swear! Please, just give me one more chance!” I shook my head, easily seeing the hatred simmering beneath her pleas. “Employment is a two-way street. After this period, I’ve concluded that you are not a good fit for our household. I will be hiring someone new next month. This is a notification, not a negotiation.” With that, I left the dining room and headed out for my morning run. Once I was a safe distance away, I pulled out my phone. We’ve always had security cameras in the house. Only my mom and I knew about them. With staff always around, we’d never had a reason to check the footage. I never thought the first time I did, it would be because of Jason. In the video, Brenda went upstairs and knocked on Jason’s door. The two of them went out onto his balcony. I put in my earbuds, and their voices came through, crystal clear.

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1 The day before our wedding, my fiancé Kevin demanded I buy him a Mercedes. “You’re pregnant and won’t be working,” he said with feigned helplessness. “I need a car to support us.” My mom gave me her funeral savings to help. Three months later, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I begged Kevin for help, only to find his bank account held just three hundred dollars. He accused me of trapping him and forced me to have an abortion. “Plenty of women want to have my child,” he sneered. I worked desperately, but couldn’t save my mom. Leaving the crematorium with her ashes in a simple box, I saw Kevin at a car dealership with another woman. “I thought Avery was different,” he told her, “but she’s just another poor schemer. Pick any car—I lost the bet.” As I turned to leave, he suddenly fell to his knees, begging me to stay. … “I told you from the start, poor people don’t have a genuine bone in their body! I just feel bad for my poor brother, getting his feelings played with like that. She couldn’t even keep up the act for long. Three months and her true colors are already showing. So boring.” The woman next to Kevin preened, rubbing against his shoulder. I couldn’t see his face, only the cold, detached way he swiped his credit card. “A bet’s a bet. I guess I misjudged this one. But whatever. Avery’s pretty, great body. I’ll just think of it as hiring an escort for two years. No real loss.” The woman couldn’t hide her glee. She pulled Kevin into a brand-new car. I knew this dealership all too well. During the months my mom was sick, I had worked here as a part-time mechanic, taking on the dirtiest, most grueling jobs I could find. I had only come back today to pack my things and quit. As the limited-edition Ferrari sped away, a flamboyant streak of red, I slowly walked towards the entrance. The salesman who had just made the sale was still buzzing. “That’s the son of the richest man in the city! Drops millions on a luxury car like it’s nothing. I swear, I don’t even want to work anymore. Just find me a sugar daddy and I can skip ten years of struggle!” I stood there for a long time, clutching the cookie tin that held my mother’s ashes. My manager came out and settled my final wages, sighing as he patted my shoulder. “I added a bonus. My condolences. If you ever want to come back, the door is always open.” Less than two thousand dollars in cash. Not even enough to cover half a day of my mom’s medical bills. Now, it was all I had to my name. I stumbled home in a daze, only to find my landlord waiting for me at the door. “Avery, you’re two months behind on rent. The security deposit isn’t going to cover it for much longer.” I forced a smile, my hand clenching and unclenching around the cash in my pocket. “Sir, I’ve had an emergency. I can’t pay. I’ll move out as soon as I can.” His eyes held a hint of amusement. “Bought a new place? I saw your husband come home in a fancy car the other day. You two are full of surprises.” I lowered my head, a bitter smile on my lips, unsure how to explain. Just then, Kevin stepped out of the elevator. He saw me and let out an impatient sigh, tossing his bag at me without a care. The landlord addressed him directly. “You know, if you break the lease, you don’t get the deposit back. And you still owe for these two months. You don’t look like you’re short on cash. Don’t make things difficult for me.” At his words, Kevin’s gaze turned icy as he looked at me. “You haven’t paid the rent? Is that why you’re waiting for me? Avery, do you have to be so damn pathetic? Your scheming is so obvious it’s practically hitting me in the face. Is a little bit of money really worth all this?” The word escaped my lips before I could stop it. “Yes.” The fifty thousand dollars my mom had saved her entire life, a sum that meant nothing to him, had cost my mother her life. He sneered, pulling a thick wad of cash from his bag and slapping it against my face. “Here. How much do you want? I’ll give it to you!” Red bills scattered across the floor. A few days ago, I would have scrambled to pick them up, dignity be damned. But now, they were useless to me. I counted out the amount for two months’ rent, handed it to the landlord, and let myself into the apartment. Kevin and I had lived in this place for two years. It was filled with the traces of our life together. My eyes fell on a photo on the wall. The two of us, looking a little shy, leaning against each other, our smiles bright and genuine. It was the first picture we ever took together. We had just graduated. We met in the breakroom of the company where we were both interning. He told me he was an intern from another department. I remember the way his eyes curved when he smiled, how they sparkled as he said he didn’t know anything and asked me to show him the ropes. I couldn’t forget that innocent, boyish charm. He had pursued me, and I couldn’t help but fall for him. I had wanted so badly to build a future with him. I worked my ass off, fighting to get a permanent position, trying to make a place for us in this city. For two years, we supported each other, comforted each other, slowly building our story in this apartment. Now, it was all gone. My dreams for the future were just part of some rich kid’s role-playing game. A wave of absurdity washed over me. Kevin, oblivious to my turmoil, dropped onto the sofa. “Satisfied, Avery? You finally got your money. You must be thrilled.” “This money-grubbing version of you is disgusting. How did you become like this? You used to have so much pride.” “Just think about it. How many times have you asked me for money these past few months? It was just one Mercedes, and it exposed your true nature. Were all those things you said about working hard, about our future, just empty words?” I looked up at him. He was different now. Dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, his hair impeccably styled. It seemed he was done with the act. The disappointment and exasperation in his eyes were like tiny needles pricking my skin. I didn’t answer his accusations. I just said, my voice flat, “Let’s get a divorce, Kevin.” A strange silence stretched between us before he burst out laughing. “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? To get me to pay back that fifty thousand, you even made up a story about your mom having cancer. You know how much I hate being lied to! Two years together… I was so wrong about you. If we’re getting a divorce, I’m the one who gets to initiate it.” His voice was laced with anger. He pulled a piece of paper from his bag and signed it with a flourish. “Get over here and sign. Let’s get this over with. I don’t have time to waste on you.” So, he’d been prepared for this all along. I carefully placed the cookie tin of ashes and my mother’s framed, face-down photo on a shelf, then walked towards him. I picked up the pen and signed my name without a moment’s hesitation. In my peripheral vision, I could see him looking me up and down. A wave of disgust and weariness washed over me. After I signed, he snorted and threw a bank card on the floor. “Your money is all in there. I didn’t touch a cent. Consider it my parting gift for two years of my life. I was wrong about you.” I turned and gave him one last, long look. I remembered a few days ago, when my mom was on her deathbed. She had whispered that she wanted to see Kevin, that she wanted to know we were okay. By then, he had lost all patience with me because of my constant begging for money. But for my mom, I swallowed my pride and called him. I called all night before he finally picked up, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let me guess, you need more money? What’s the excuse this time?” I choked back my anger, my voice a small plea. “My mom… she’s dying. Could you… could you just come see her? Just so she knows we’re okay. That’s all.” A loud, mocking laugh erupted from the other end of the line. “Wow, you’ve really upped your game. You think that’ll make me feel sorry for you? Make me believe you and send you money?” “I’m not a fan of this particular drama. You should rehearse it some more. Come up with something more heart-wrenching next time. Maybe then I’ll be soft-hearted enough to fall for it.” He hung up. When I tried to call back, I was blocked. He never came. Not even after she passed. I’ll never forget the last words my mother said to me. “When you have the baby, I won’t be there to help you. The first month after childbirth is so important for a woman. I wanted to tell him to take good care of you.” “When two people build a life together, they have to understand each other. He’s a good boy. You two need to make it work.” Even at the very end, she wanted us to be happy together. But what my mom didn’t know was that the day after I begged Kevin for money, he dragged me to a clinic for a forced abortion. He said he wouldn’t be threatened by a child, that he would crush any ideas I had of trapping him. Right after the procedure, with no time to rest, I was hounded by hospital bills and forced to work day and night. And what was he doing then? Was he out partying with other women? Was he complaining to his friends about how I had tried to manipulate him? I couldn’t even muster the energy to be angry anymore. All I felt was a deep, hollow sadness. I picked up the card. It held my mom’s life savings. It was her money, and I was taking it back. As I bent down, Kevin scoffed, as if my actions were beneath contempt. I ignored him, put the card away, and started to pack. Fifty thousand dollars. It was enough to buy my mom a decent urn and a proper burial plot. At the thought, a sharp pain pierced my heart. I’m not a crier. I didn’t cry while taking care of my mom. I didn’t cry when she died. I just kept telling myself that if I tried a little harder, maybe things would turn around. But the grief was just delayed, hitting me now with the full, crushing weight of reality. My mom was gone. Tears streamed down my face, my hands trembling as I packed. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Kevin went to open it. I looked over. The woman was familiar. It was the girl from the dealership. She smiled at Kevin. “Brother, I was worried she might do something crazy, so I came to protect you. Poor people can get really scary when they’re desperate. Did you get the papers signed? I’m here to take you home.” Kevin’s expression softened instantly. “You’re always so thoughtful.” The woman smiled demurely, then her gaze shifted to me. “A pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from Kevin. I thought you might be different from the other low-class people, but it turns out you’re just a bad actress and a liar. Such a ‘devoted daughter.’ Now that you have your money back, you can drop the act. Go on, bring your mom back to life. Wouldn’t want all those ominous words to come true, would we?” Her mocking tone, her dismissive eyes… the rage simmering inside me finally boiled over. She could say whatever she wanted about me. But not about my mom. On pure instinct, I lunged forward and punched her square in the face. As Kevin roared my name, she crumpled to the ground. “Avery, are you insane? Did I hit a nerve? Do you have any idea who you just touched?” Did it matter who she was? I had nothing left to lose. I ignored his threat, dragged the woman to her feet, and slapped her hard across the face. But before I could release any more of my fury, several large men in black suits burst through the door and pinned me to the floor. The woman scrambled up, crying, and ran into Kevin’s arms. “Brother, I’m okay! I provoked her on purpose! I recorded the whole thing on a micro-camera. Now I can sue her!” I was forced to my knees, unable to move, my teeth gritted in silent rage. She pulled a tiny camera from her collar and gave me a sinister smile. “I’ve got it all on tape now. Brother, you have to make her pay for hitting me!” Kevin looked at me, his face grim. He took off his shoe and slapped it against my cheek, then swung his hand hard. The pain was sharp and immediate. Tears sprang to my eyes. A flicker of pity crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced by disappointment. “I never thought we’d end up like this. You were so close, Avery. You were so close to passing my test. But you had to go and show your true colors at the last minute.” “We had two years together. I really did love you. This slap is for Sarah. Let’s just go our separate ways. You and I were never meant to be.” The woman, Sarah, still seemed unsatisfied. “Kevin, you’re just too soft. That’s why this gold-digger was able to fool you for so long. Look at her, she’s not even sorry. I bet if she knew who you really were, she’d be on her knees begging you to take her back.” Kevin looked down at me, his eyes filled with a pity that felt like a slap in the face. In the two years we were together, he had never once given me a gift. In fact, I was the one who was constantly trying to satisfy his demands. Perhaps that was another part of his “test.” But when it came down to it, I didn’t owe him a thing. My voice was cold and detached. “Does it amuse you to play with people’s hearts? In this relationship, I have never wronged you. I may not be good enough for a rich heir like you, but you have no right to insult me.” “From the very beginning, you were the only one who was ever in the wrong.” The words were barely out of my mouth when another angry slap came down. “I was in the wrong? I wasted two years of my life on you! Do you really think those cheap gifts you gave me can make up for two years of my youth? You know I’m a rich heir. Do you have any idea how valuable my time is? A person like you could never understand.” Kevin’s face was flushed with anger. Sarah, the woman beside him, laughed as if enjoying the show. “See, Kevin? Didn’t I tell you? People like her never learn. You try to be nice, and she takes advantage of it.” “She needs to be taught a lesson. Once she’s scared enough, once she knows she’s wrong, then she’ll apologize.” Sarah leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper. “Devoted daughter, your apology isn’t enough. Now I want you to drag your liar of a mother out here and have her apologize to my Kevin. Don’t make me go get her myself. Things could get ugly, and an apology won’t be enough to fix it then.” Kevin smiled coldly. “That’s right. Since you won’t accept my kindness, I don’t have to be kind to you.” “When you do something wrong, you have to admit it. Even if it’s your mother, even if she’s an elder, there are no exceptions! And to think I was actually sincere with her. I can’t believe she was in on your scheme. Like mother, like daughter.” “I bet it was your mother who taught you to use a pregnancy to control me, to make me devoted to you. You thought I’d be scared of the baby in your belly, that I’d have no choice but to give you whatever you wanted.” As he said this, his eyes turned red. “And you still dare to say you never wronged me?” A storm of grief and rage erupted within me. I couldn’t control it anymore. With all my strength, I broke free from the bodyguards’ grasp and lunged for Sarah, grabbing her by the collar. They could hit me, they could insult me. I had been a fool to trust them. But my mom had done nothing wrong. I would not let anyone tarnish her memory. I swung my fists blindly, completely out of control. The bodyguards reacted quickly, shoving me hard to the ground. The force of the push sent me crashing into the shelf. The cookie tin and the framed photo toppled over. The photo hit the floor with a sickening crack, the glass shattering. The lid of the tin flew off, and my mother’s ashes spilled across the floor. Everyone froze. Especially Kevin. He stared at the mess on the floor, muttering to himself. “This… this is impossible… Sarah investigated. Your mom wasn’t really sick. How can there be ashes and a memorial photo?” He looked at me, his whole body trembling. “How… how could this happen?”

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My best friend, a food vlogger, was livestreaming when she turned on the family at the next table, using my name. “Shut up, especially that kid. Some people shouldn’t be parents.” She boasted, “I’m Mia, with 20 million followers. I earn more in a stream than you’ll ever see!” In my past life, my friend Ava borrowed my account to try vlogging. When a nearby family was talking, she used my identity to curse them, then threw a pot of boiling soup at their little girl, causing severe burns. At the hospital, Ava tossed them money, sneering, “The kid was plain anyway—think of it as free plastic surgery.” Driven to revenge, the family found me at my company. “That’s Mia! She ruined our daughter!” They poured boiling soup on me, then stabbed me to death. As I died, I learned the truth: Ava didn’t just take my account—she married my husband, Rick. It was all their plan. When I opened my eyes, I was back—back to the day Ava destroyed that girl’s life. 1 As I was dying, I could just make out Ava’s whisper, a venomous secret meant only for me. “Mia, my dearest friend, don’t you blame me. You’re the one who had to marry Rick. I wanted him, too. And now… he’s all mine.” I died in a storm of agony. The hatred was a physical thing, a fire in my soul. I had treated her like a sister, and she had orchestrated my public, brutal murder. Perhaps my rage was so strong it bent reality. Heaven, or whatever’s out there, gave me another chance. I was reborn, back in my apartment on the day the family came for their revenge. The familiar room swam into focus, and a thrilling, electric pulse of a second chance shot through me. It was 2:00 PM. In my previous life, I had two hours left to live. Right on schedule, my phone rang. It was Ava. “Hey, sweetie,” she chirped. “Are you back in town?” “Just got home,” I said, forcing the rage down, smoothing my voice into a calm river. She couldn’t suspect a thing. “Perfect! You have to get to the office right away. Rick is being all mysterious, planning some kind of surprise for you, and he won’t tell me what it is! Oh, and wear that pink dress I picked out for you! You know it’s his favorite.” “Okay,” I said, my voice sweet as poison. “I’ll be there soon.” “Hurry!” I hung up and stared at the pink dress laid out on my sofa. The exact dress Ava wore when she assaulted that family at the restaurant. That’s why they didn’t listen to my pleas. They saw the dress and saw a monster. Not this time. This time, I wouldn’t be so stupid. If she wanted my life, if she wanted to climb to the top over my dead body, she was about to find out if she had what it takes. 2 In my past life, Ava saw the success I was having as a content creator—the new apartment, the company I started—and she wanted a piece of it. Wanting to help, I offered to teach her how to start her own channel, how to build an audience. She whined that it was too much work and asked if she could just borrow one of my smaller, backup accounts. Ava was my best friend. Of course, I said yes. I genuinely wanted her to succeed. I never imagined she would use my name, my reputation, to act so monstrously. All because the family at the next table was talking, she shot up from her seat. “Would you peasants shut your mouths? Especially you, kid. Say one more word, I dare you. Guess you were just raised by wolves.” The father, stunned, fired back. “Who do you think you are? This is a public place. People are allowed to talk.” Ava shoved her phone in his face, my account glowing on the screen. “Who am I? Take a good look. I’m Mia. Twenty million followers. I make more from one livestream than you’ll make in your entire miserable life. Can you afford to compensate me for my losses?” She was wearing heavy cosplay makeup, making it impossible for anyone to tell us apart. The argument escalated in seconds. Then, Ava grabbed the bubbling hot pot and threw it. The scalding broth hit the little girl square on. She suffered second-degree burns. Her medical bills were astronomical, and the family was too busy trying to save her to press charges immediately. They had to start a GoFundMe. When Ava found out, she hunted them down at the hospital. She had exchanged thousands of dollars for coins and threw handfuls of them at the grieving parents. “Here’s a few grand for the medical bills. The kid was ugly anyway. Maybe this is a good chance for some plastic surgery. It’s not like me. Being beautiful makes everything so much easier.” After that performance, she just had to wait for me to return from my business trip. She told me to put on the pink dress, lied about a surprise from Rick at the office, and sent me on my way. The moment I stepped into my company, full of excitement, the family ambushed me. They ignored my frantic denials, threw boiling broth on me, and stabbed me over and over. Before I died, my reputation was in ruins. I lost millions of followers overnight. The comments all said the same thing: I deserved it. A monster like me had it coming. My body lay in the morgue for days, unclaimed. I was an orphan. The person who set me up was my closest friend. My own husband, Rick, only claimed my body because he was legally obligated to. Since fate has handed me a chance for revenge, I’m going to take it. I’d been at a brand partner’s headquarters for the past few days negotiating a deal. So, right there in my living room, I fired up a livestream and patched in the brand representative. Thousands of viewers flooded in. I had already made sure to block Ava from my viewers, then I spent the next hour talking animatedly about my business trip, showing off samples and discussing the new collaboration. I was establishing my alibi, making it crystal clear to my real fans that I hadn’t been anywhere near Riverbend for days. Then, slowly and deliberately, I called a car to take me to the office. 3 After my impromptu livestream, I arrived at the office building about fifteen minutes later than I did in my past life. I didn’t go up. Instead, I stayed in the lobby, keeping my stream running while I pulled up the office security feed on my phone. Right on cue, the girl’s family stormed in, flanked by several large, intimidating relatives. “Where’s Mia?” the father roared. “Get her out here now!” Ava emerged, feigning curiosity. She had deliberately worn no makeup today. The girl’s father grabbed her instantly. “Honey, look! Is this her?” Ava shrieked, tearing her arm away. “No, no! You’ve got the wrong person! I’m her friend!” she cried, playing the part of a terrified bystander. “What’s this all about? She’ll be back any minute. I’m sure we can talk this out!” By now, employees were creeping out of their offices, drawn by the commotion. The father’s voice was thick with rage. “That bitch! We were just having dinner, talking, and she threw a boiling hot pot on my daughter! Second-degree burns all over her body!” The mother collapsed to the floor, her body shaking with sobs. “And that’s not all! She followed us to the hospital to humiliate us! Just because we’re not rich and famous, does that mean she can treat us like dirt?” Whispers erupted through the office. “Oh my god, I can’t believe Mia would do something like that. She always seems so nice.” “You never know. These influencers are all two-faced, aren’t they?” I had anticipated this. I’d also arranged for the brand manager to meet me here to “finalize our contract.” The moment he arrived, we’d go up together. On the security feed, Ava was the picture of compassion, helping the weeping mother to her feet. “This is horrible. How is your little girl? Do you need money? We can help. Mia has gone too far this time. I promise, when she gets here, I’ll make her apologize.” My phone started ringing. It was Ava. After letting it ring a dozen times, I finally answered. “Mia, honey, you need to get here now! Something terrible has happened at the office!” “What? What’s wrong?” I injected panic into my voice. “I’m just downstairs! I’m on my way up!” I hung up abruptly. Just then, the brand manager, Mr. Evans, arrived. We headed up together. The second I stepped out of the elevator, Ava rushed me. “Mia! What have you done? This is unforgivable! I just heard you scalded a little girl at a restaurant a few days ago?” The girl’s father heard my name and lunged, his face a mask of fury. “There you are! I’ve finally got you, you bitch! Today, we’ll see who deserves to die!” He pulled out a knife. I dodged back as Mr. Evans, the brand manager, tackled him. “Sir! Calm down! Please!” Turns out, hiring an ex-military guy for brand management was a smart move. I put on my most innocent, confused face. “A few days ago? What little girl? I’ve been with Mr. Evans at his company’s headquarters on a business trip. I haven’t even been to a restaurant here. Sir, you must have the wrong person!” He spat on the floor. “Don’t play dumb with me now! You were the one in the restaurant shouting about being Mia, the famous streamer with twenty million followers, how crushing us would be like stepping on an ant! The whole staff heard you!” Mr. Evans stepped forward, his voice firm. “That’s impossible. Mia has been with our team at our facility for the last three days. She hasn’t been back in Riverbend. There’s no way she could have been at that restaurant.” 4 My phone was still streaming live. “Sir, if you don’t believe me, just ask my viewers. They’ve been watching my collaboration streams all week. They know my entire itinerary.” The father held up his own phone, displaying a chat history. “The account that sent us these messages is named ‘Mia’! Are you still going to deny it?” I took the phone. It was Ava, using my backup account to message them. The messages made my blood boil. [You peasants. So what if your daughter dies? I’m not apologizing.] [Go ahead, expose me. It won’t work. All I have to do is cry on camera, and my fans will forgive me for anything. Besides, my PR team doesn’t work for free!] [Bring it on. Come find me at my company!] Reading them, my own employees started shouting. “You’re a monster! You know what they say, what goes around, comes around!” “No wonder they came here with a knife! If someone did that to my kid, I’d kill them too!” “Who would want to work for a company like this? You could get caught in the crossfire and end up dead!” I turned to Ava, my eyes wide with feigned confusion. “Ava… isn’t this the account you borrowed from me a few days ago?” Panic flashed across her face. This was not how she had planned this. I wasn’t supposed to be anything but a corpse by now. “I… I didn’t! Mia, I know you’re scared right now, but you can’t just blame this on me!” “What’s going on here?” My husband, Rick, finally emerged from his office. Ava ran to him, clutching his arm pitifully. “Rick, Mia did something terrible, something unforgivable. She threw hot pot broth on a little girl… and now… now she’s trying to say it was me using her account.” Rick sighed, a picture of disappointment. “Honey, how could you? Why don’t you go to your office? I’ll handle this.” I’ll handle this. So certain it was me. So, Rick, you were in on it too. No wonder he was so reluctant to claim my body after I died. Thank God I kept my plan to myself this time. Seeing him and Ava acting so familiar, they must have been sleeping together for a long time. The girl’s father signaled to his relatives, who brought in a steaming pot of broth. “Your husband says it was you. Are you still going to lie?” “Today, you’re going to feel the same pain my daughter felt!” I grabbed the man’s arm, pleading desperately. “Sir, please, it really wasn’t me! I have witnesses, I have proof! Please, just… just try a video call to the account that messaged you! You’ll see who it is! You’ll know it’s not me!” The mother’s voice was ice. “You were wearing this same outfit that day. Don’t even try. You’re just trying to escape responsibility!” The office erupted again. “Wow, Mia is ruthless. Ava is supposed to be her best friend, and she’s throwing her under the bus to save herself.” “I heard she stole Rick from Ava in the first place. She’s just a terrible person.” “And to think, she has twenty million fans completely fooled.” “She was the one who taunted the family, told them to come to the office! Now look at her, trying to find someone else to blame!” Hearing this, the father’s rage reignited. “Throw it!” As the pot tilted towards me, I screamed, “If you get the wrong person, you’ll never get justice for your daughter!” Mr. Evans stepped in again. “Sir, please, just make the call. It will only take a second. Mia has truly been with us the entire time.” The father hesitated, then, half-convinced, he pulled out his phone and hit the video call button. Ava’s face went pale. She tried to object, but it was too late. A phone started ringing. From her pocket.

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1 The day I was finally whole again. Daisy squeezed me tight, her eyes rimmed with red, her body trembling with joy. “Oh, Harry,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “We can finally have a baby of our own!” Everyone said Daisy was crazy about me, that she’d do anything I asked. And I believed them. Until I saw the videos her first love sent me. Intimate, tangled, undeniable. I stopped her as she was setting up the crib we’d just bought. I walked right up to her, my voice steady, my heart a stone. “Let’s not have the baby.” I felt her entire body go rigid. I twisted the knife. “Daisy,” I said. “Let’s get a divorce.” The little wooden rattle in Daisy’s hand slipped from her grasp, landing on the plush carpet with a soft, muffled thud. She looked up at me, her face a mask of disbelief. “Harry.” She stepped closer, reaching for my hands. “Are you kidding me?” Her expression was so earnest, as if I were the center of her universe, so much so that I could feel the tremor in her fingers as she clutched mine. “This isn’t a funny joke.” “Harry, stop messing around.” She thought I was throwing a tantrum. A wave of bitter cold washed over me. “I’m not kidding.” My voice was flat. I gently pulled my hands from her grasp, pushing down the acid sting in my throat. “I’m dead serious.” “Daisy.” I held up my phone, open to the chat history, to the photos and videos the man had sent me. I watched the color drain from her face, her expression freezing over, her mouth opening to form an explanation I no longer wanted to hear. I cut her off. “You told him you wanted his baby,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You told him if it was a boy, you’d name him Caleb. A girl, Ryan.” I was trying, I really was, to keep myself together, to end this with some shred of dignity. Just like we’d promised each other when we started—if it ever ends, let’s make it clean. But then I looked at her face, and I remembered her whispering the same things to me, her lips brushing against my cheek in the afterglow of our own passion. I remembered her holding me, her voice full of breathless hope. “Harry, if we have a baby… let’s have a boy and a girl.” “We’ll call the boy Caleb.” “And the girl, Ryan.” I didn’t understand the significance of the names back then. I’d asked her why, but she’d just smiled and said she liked the sound of them. I didn’t push. They sounded nice enough to me. What a fucking joke. I stared at her, tearing her lies apart without a second thought. “It wasn’t because they sounded nice, was it? It was because his name,” I could feel my whole body start to shake, my jaw clenched so tight my words came out shuddering, “is Ethan Caleb Ryan.” “Your first love. The one you never got over.” “It’s not like that!” Daisy cried, her eyes flashing with panic as she reached for me. But the dam inside me broke. “IF YOU LOVED HIM SO MUCH, WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL ME?” I roared, my voice shredding raw. “I WOULD HAVE LET YOU GO!” “DID YOU THINK I’D CLING TO YOU? DID YOU?” In a blind rage, I snatched a stuffed animal from the crib and hurled it at her. But she didn’t flinch. She threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around me in a suffocating grip, holding on so tightly I couldn’t breathe. I was choking, drowning in her betrayal, and in a primal, desperate act, I bit down hard on the soft flesh of her neck. I heard her sharp intake of breath, a pained grunt, but she didn’t let go. “It’s not like that!” she sobbed into my shoulder, her tears soaking my shirt. “Harry!” “It’s not!” “I’m sorry, Harry! I’m so sorry!” “I was wrong! I know I was wrong!” 2 Honestly. I just wanted the divorce. I just wanted us to walk away from this without it getting any uglier. But Daisy called in the cavalry. She summoned both our families, and suddenly our spacious living room was cramped and suffocating, packed with every relative we had. They sat in a semi-circle, my parents and hers, staring at me as if I were a criminal on trial. They were here to pass judgment. I saw Daisy’s aunt looking me up and down, a sneer twisting her lips. “Look at him. Playing the stay-at-home husband has given you quite an ego.” She sniffed. “Daisy works herself to the bone so you can live a life of leisure, and this is the thanks she gets? An attitude?” Daisy’s mother chimed in, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “Harry, dear, Daisy is not the kind of woman who would cheat. Why else would she have married you? She truly loves you. She wouldn’t have asked us all to come here to talk sense into you if she didn’t.” She reached over and squeezed my own mother’s hand, and my mom immediately turned on me. “Harry Alexander Price! You stop this nonsense right now! You won’t find another woman as good as Daisy if you live to be a hundred! What more could you possibly want?” My father delivered the final verdict. “This is not happening. As long as Daisy doesn’t want a divorce, you won’t get one. If you dare bring this up again,” he jabbed a finger at me, “I’ll break your legs myself.” The two families, united as one, sat in judgment of me, the sinner. I sat in the middle, weathering the storm of their accusations, their anger, their disappointment. When the shouting finally died down, Daisy spoke. “Harry,” she said, her voice soft as she took my hand. “I have never, ever wanted to divorce you.” “I can explain. Just let me explain.” To prove her sincerity, she dialed Ethan’s number right there in front of everyone and put him on speaker. She demanded he vouch for her, for their “innocence.” “You’ve got my husband thinking I’m cheating, and now he wants to leave me!” she cried into the phone. “Tell him the truth, right now!” Ethan’s voice, slick and unconcerned, filled the silent room. “Jesus, I was just messing with him. Can’t he take a joke?” He then addressed me directly. “What’s your problem, man? So I dated your wife for a few years. Everyone has a past. What, you expected her to be a virgin? Are you?” Listening to his casual disdain, after the barrage from our families and Daisy’s pathetic theatrics, something inside me snapped. Before Daisy could stop me, I lunged, snatching the phone from her hand. “If you were so ‘innocent,’ you wouldn’t have added me and sent me that shit!” I yelled, my voice trembling with rage. “Ethan, is it? If you’re so damn clean, what do you call hitting on a married woman? Is it a hobby, getting off on wrecking marriages? Or is your own life so miserable you can’t stand to see anyone else happy—” Ethan’s voice exploded from the speaker. “What the FUCK did you just say to me?” “DAISY! Are you just going to let your husband talk to me like that? Are you just going to stand there and—” CRACK. The sharp, stinging impact of a palm against my cheek silenced him. I raised a hand to my face, staring at Daisy in stunned disbelief. Her eyes were wide with panic. “Harry, I didn’t mean to—” “Hahahaha, Harry!” Ethan’s mocking laughter echoed from the phone. “Got what you deserved, didn’t you?” “I’m telling you, Harry, I can say whatever I want because your wife gives me the power to! Daisy is wrapped around my little finger, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!”

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1 The moment my best friend, Sophia, learned my secret—that I possessed eternal life and boundless wealth—she conspired with a mystic to murder me. Their plan? To cast my soul into Hell and steal the perfect fate that was mine. On the windswept rooftop of a skyscraper, my pleas were torn apart by the wind. “Don’t kill me, Sophia, please! You can have all the money!” I’m terrified of dying. Truly terrified. Not just of the fall, but of what comes after. My ex—the one from down below—made a promise when I left him. If he ever saw me again, he’d throw me into a cauldron of boiling oil and slice my soul to ribbons. “Sophia, we’ve known each other for ten years! I’ve always been good to you, haven’t I? Please, let me go…” “You can have everything! All the money, I swear!” I was on my knees on the gritty concrete of the rooftop, dignity shattered, ready to smash my forehead against the ground if it would save me. Sophia’s lips twisted into a cruel smirk. The sharp point of her stiletto dug under my chin, forcing my head up. “I don’t just want your money, Elara. I want your endless life, too.” Her voice was a venomous whisper. “We’re best friends, aren’t we? What’s yours is mine. And since you care so much about me, you should just give it all to me.” With that, she shot a look at the dark-robed mystic beside her. He understood instantly. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me toward the ledge. Thirty-three stories high. Down below, directly under me, a ritual circle glowed faintly on the pavement—a trap they’d laid. The second I hit the ground and died, their ritual would be complete. My soul would be theirs. I wouldn’t even get the chance to be reborn. Sophia was making sure I couldn’t come back as a vengeful ghost; she was erasing me completely. The wind howled, a frigid blast against my face as I scrabbled desperately to pull myself back from the edge. Sophia’s greed, ignited by my secret, now burned like a wildfire. She lunged forward, and together with the mystic, she kicked me off the roof. The world became a blur of wind and city lights. Then, a sickening CRACK exploded in my ears as my body shattered against the concrete. When awareness returned, I was no longer flesh and blood. I was a spirit, floating in the dim expanse of the underworld. Two spectral reapers flanked me, thick, thumb-sized soul-chains clamped around my neck. A thick, grey fog clung to everything, but the screams of the damned ahead were terrifyingly clear. I knew this place. It was the entrance to the Gates of Hell. I had my darling ex-husband to thank for the tour. When I’d tried to leave him, he’d dragged me here in a blind rage, trying to scare me into staying. He never actually threw me in, but now, it seemed my time had come. I was about to be annihilated. I thrashed against the chains, my voice a desperate rasp. “This is wrong! I was murdered! I’ve done nothing to deserve this!” My struggle only earned me a sharp sting. One of the reapers, a wiry one with a thin mustache, lashed out with a barbed whip from his belt. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt, searing straight through to my very essence. I collapsed, too stunned to even scream. “Listen up, lady,” Moustache-Reaper sneered. “Doesn’t matter who you were. Now that you’re in our hands, you’re finished.” Still, anything was better than being erased. I had to take a chance. What if my ex still had a shred of feeling for me? A chance at reincarnation was infinitely better than oblivion. The thought gave me a sliver of courage. “I… I know your Lord,” I stammered, my voice trembling. “I know Kaelan! I demand to see him!” The two reapers exchanged a glance. Then another whip crack, this one so vicious it nearly split my soul in two, silencing me. Moustache spat near my head. “Who the hell do you think you are, saying the Lord’s name like that? I don’t care how you learned it. You’d better shut your mouth if you don’t want more of this.” Helpless, I was dragged forward like a sack of dead weight. The other reaper, who’d been watching quietly, sounded nervous. “Hey, what if she’s telling the truth? We could be in deep…” Moustache scoffed. “Get a grip. The mystic told us she’s some kind of anomaly, not even listed in the Ledger of Souls. So what if some freak knows the Lord’s name? Don’t be such a coward. No record, no problem. We got paid to do a job, so let’s get it done before something goes wrong.” It all clicked into place. They were in on it with Sophia and her mystic. Corrupt reapers, taking bribes to destroy a soul. The Gates of Hell loomed before us, a towering, monstrous structure that made my spirit tremble with primal fear. As the reapers chanted, the massive gates began to creak open, and my heart sank into an abyss of despair. Suddenly, a voice cut through the fog, drawing closer. “A new arrival? Has she been through Judgement?” It was Silas, the Black Watcher! He knew me! My eyes locked onto the figure emerging from the mist. “Silas…” I gasped. Before I could say more, a hand clamped over my mouth, and I was yanked aside. I watched in a panic as Moustache intercepted Silas, my hope slipping away. I struggled, earning another brutal kick to my lower back. Moustache pulled out a pack of cigarettes, his face plastered with a sycophantic grin. “Silas, hey! What brings you down to this dreary gate? Here, try one of these. Fresh from the mortal world. Got a real kick.” Silas brushed some dust from his official robes, his expression annoyed. “Cut the crap. I asked you a question. Has that soul been judged?” Moustache swallowed hard. “Yeah… yeah, of course. We wouldn’t dare skip the proper channels, would we? You and your sister are run ragged up there. You should take a break. Have a smoke.” Silas took the cigarette and lit it, falling silent. The fog was too thick for him to see me clearly. Fearing this was my only chance, I bit down—hard—on the hand covering my mouth. The reaper yelped in pain, his grip loosening. I scrambled towards Silas, but a leg shot out, tripping me. I fell flat, a boot pressing my face into the grimy dirt. The foul sand filled my mouth, choking me, silencing my cries. But the commotion had caught Silas’s attention. He took a few steps closer. “What’s going on over there?” The reaper whose hand I’d bitten pressed down harder, a petty act of revenge, threatening to crush my skull. “Nothing, boss. Just a feisty one. Still fighting, even at Hell’s door. You know how it is. The ones who end up here are never the good ones. Don’t want her filth to dirty your eyes.” Silas stopped. “Fine. Just be thorough. These types are the worst of the worst. We can’t afford any mistakes. Get her inside.” As Silas turned and vanished back into the fog, my heart died with him. After a final, groveling farewell to Silas, Moustache stormed over to me, venting his frustration with a series of vicious kicks. Unsatisfied, he raised his whip and began lashing me relentlessly. Soon, my spiritual form was a tattered mess of wounds, barely recognizable. Finally finished, he knelt and grabbed my chin. “You bitch,” he hissed. “You almost ruined everything. Don’t worry. Once you’re inside, I’ll be taking special care of you.” I was nothing more than a rag doll as they tossed me into the first circle of Hell. This was the Penance of a Thousand Needles. As far as the eye could see, countless platforms held tormented spirits, each impaled with thousands of shimmering needles, like grotesque pincushions. Their souls weren’t destroyed here, only tortured, and their unending screams echoed through the cavernous space. I drew a shuddering breath, using my last ounce of strength to force out the words. “I… really… know… Kaelan. When he finds out… what you did… he’ll destroy you…” It was a bluff, mostly. Kaelan wouldn’t care if I lived or died. He probably never wanted to see me again. Why else would he have granted me eternal life? To keep me wandering the mortal world, never aging, never dying. He was terrified I’d die and show up in his underworld, an unwelcome sight… Once we were inside the gate, the two reapers weren’t afraid of my threats anymore. Moustache tapped my cheek condescendingly, his smile pure malice. “Quite the imagination you’ve got. Been watching too many mortal dramas? You really think you’re worthy of our Lord’s attention?” My head lolled to the side. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I coughed up a cloud of nether energy. I felt my form grow even more transparent. They strapped me to one of the platforms. Moustache returned with a wicked grin, holding the instruments of torture: Soulthorns, each as long as my forearm. “You’d better hold on tight,” he purred. “There are seventeen more circles of Hell waiting for you. We’re going to have so much fun.” He lifted a Soulthorn and aimed it at my thigh. “Down here, even the most stubborn souls learn to break.” The tip plunged half an inch into my spirit-flesh. The agony was blinding, and an uncontrollable tremor seized my entire body. “Aaaargh—!” Just then, a figure hurried toward us. “Stop!” The needle was pulled out. Gasping for breath, I forced my eyes open to see who had come. It was the warden of this circle, a man I remembered. His name was Marcus. Back when Kaelan was trying to scare me, he’d been the one trying to calm him down. “My Lord,” he had said, “the young mistress is merely naive. There’s no need for such anger. You wouldn’t want to harm her.” Hope surged through me. I prayed that after all these years, he would still remember me. “Warden Marcus… it’s me… help me…” The journey here had left me utterly drained, my voice a broken, sandy whisper. But I knew he heard me. He stared, his eyes widening in recognition, then in absolute terror. He remembered. Before I could feel a moment of relief, he quickly looked away, his face a mask of indifference. “A message just came from above,” he announced coolly. “They want to witness this one’s final destruction personally. They’re on their way. You will wait.” I was stunned. Marcus… he was in on it, too? My last hope extinguished, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. Kaelan, oh Kaelan. Is this the underworld you rule? A place where your own underlings can deceive you, break every rule, and act with total impunity? I never imagined Sophia would come here herself. I didn’t know whether to call her bold or cowardly. Bold, for daring to step into the realm of the dead. Cowardly, because she was so afraid of me—of the loose end I represented—that she had to see me utterly destroyed before she could enjoy my money and my lifespan in peace. Soon enough, Sophia and the mystic appeared. To enter this realm, they had temporarily left their physical bodies behind, arriving as spirits. Sophia was terrified at first, clinging to the mystic like a shadow. But when she saw how chummy he was with the local reapers, her confidence returned. After all, she was the one with the money. She took a Soulthorn from one of the reapers and approached me, her eyes gleaming with manic excitement. “Elara, I have to thank you. If it weren’t for you, I would never have known the joy of being truly rich. They say money makes the world go ’round, and it’s true. With enough of it, I can even take a tour of Hell.” “You’ve lived long enough,” she cooed. “I’ll take over from here. You can rest in pieces. That way, I can finally have some peace of mind, too.” I looked at her, my gaze empty. “Was I not good to you?” I rasped. The question felt pointless as soon as I asked it. If she had a conscience, she never would have plotted this. Sophia burst out laughing. “Hahahaha… You think you were good to me? I was your glorified maid, wearing your hand-me-downs, always standing in your shadow. Do you really call that being good to me?” I didn’t argue. You can’t reason with a viper you’ve warmed at your hearth. The first time I met her, it was snowing, and she was shivering in a threadbare coat. She’d come from a poor village with nothing, unable to find work. I took her in. I didn’t need a maid; I was used to my solitude. But I felt sorry for her, so I gave her a job. I always treated her like a friend. I gave her anything she asked for, and I paid her far more than any other maid would make. But gradually, she stopped seeing herself as an employee. She began to demand more and more. I suppose I was too lenient. She started to think she was my equal… or that she could replace me. My mistake was trusting her with my secret. My silence only fueled her rage. “Nothing to say? So you admit it, don’t you? You never saw me as a friend. Now, die!” She aimed the needle at my heart. She really, really wanted me gone. The reapers nearby shifted uncomfortably, but none of them moved to stop her. The nether energy bled from my wounds, my form becoming dangerously translucent. My thoughts grew hazy. Sophia was still stabbing me, a frenzied attack, carving up my body, paying special attention to my face until it was a ruined mask. Through the fog of pain, I thought I saw him. Kaelan. Walking towards me. He was still as breathtakingly handsome as ever, more beautiful than any man I’d seen in my hundred years of life. His robes, dark as a starless night and embroidered with cloud patterns, spoke of absolute power. His ink-black hair framed a face of sharp, severe angles and deep, commanding eyes that could captivate a soul at a single glance. Was it a hallucination? It had to be… He never wanted to see me again. But why… why were all the reapers dropping to their knees? “My Lord! What brings you to this place in person?” Marcus was panicking, his body shaking like a leaf as he prostrated himself on the ground. He knew he was doomed. Taking bribes from mortals was a capital offense. Allowing them into the underworld? Unforgivable. And now he’d been caught red-handed. The mystic’s face went pale. He yanked the still-frenzied Sophia away from me, and they both fell to their knees. Kaelan’s gaze swept over them, each glance a physical blow. Behind him, his Chamberlain spoke, his voice high and sharp. “Insolence! If the Lord hadn’t come today, who knows what atrocities you traitors would have committed in his name!” The two reapers who had brought me here pressed their faces to the floor, not daring to breathe. I tried to speak, but my mind was a chaotic storm, and the sharp agony in my soul stole my voice. Would he recognize me? And if he did… what then? Would he save me from this nightmare? Or would he make good on his old promise—to throw me into boiling oil and slice me to ribbons? Either way, it didn’t matter. My soul was already fading… After a long, heavy silence, Kaelan finally spoke, his voice like cracking ice. “Marcus. I entrusted this first circle of Hell to your command. Is this how you perform your duties?” At the mention of his name, Marcus began banging his head on the ground, faster and harder than I had when I begged Sophia for my life. “I was wrong, my Lord, I was wrong! It was those two reapers who brought the mortals here! I knew nothing of it! I was just about to cast them out when you arrived!” The reapers, seeing Marcus throw them under the bus, were furious. Moustache shot back, “This is your domain! Mortals on your turf is your failure! How dare you try to pin this on us?” “You’re the ones who found a way to take money from the living!” Marcus snarled. “I was dragged into this!” I finally understood. Kaelan wasn’t here for me. He was here because he’d discovered the corruption in his ranks. My presence was just a coincidence. I felt like a transparent bystander, watching them tear each other apart while the mystic and Sophia trembled at the center of the storm. Kaelan let out a cold snort. “Enough. The two mortals will not be returning. Detain them for judgment. As for the rest of you… you are sentenced to the Path of Beasts. You will be reborn as animals for all eternity, never again to be human.” The verdict struck Marcus like lightning. He collapsed from his kneeling position, his face ashen and numb. The two reapers had the same look of utter devastation. The reality of her situation finally hit Sophia. She was never going back to the mortal world. “No!” she shrieked. “My life isn’t over! Even your underworld has rules, doesn’t it?!” She couldn’t bear to lose the long life and vast fortune she had stolen from me. The mystic, terrified of being associated with her, tried to pull her down. She shoved him away and scrambled to her feet. “I’m leaving! Send me back right now!” The mystic wouldn’t dare. He just closed his eyes and played dead. Sophia grabbed his robes, shaking him violently. “What are you waiting for?! I paid you a million dollars! Do your job! I said I want to go back now!” She didn’t know one of Kaelan’s biggest triggers was loud, incessant noise. The next second, her spiritual form flew through the air like a broken kite. As if guided by fate, she landed squarely on the table of torture instruments, her backside impaled on a cluster of Soulthorns. The agonizing pain she had inflicted on me was now her own. Her face contorted in a mask of horror, and a piercing shriek tore from her throat. The Chamberlain waved a hand. Other reapers swarmed forward, gagging her and pinning her to the ground. With them dealt with, Kaelan finally turned his gaze to me. I could feel it—a cold, piercing stare. The Chamberlain stepped forward. “Who are you? State your name.” Marcus, already facing one death sentence, wasn’t about to risk another. He was terrified Kaelan would find out I’d been brought here without judgment, terrified he’d recognize me. He quickly interjected, “She’s just a newly deceased soul, my Lord. None who end up here are innocent… Please, don’t dirty your eyes with such filth.” Kaelan’s brow furrowed in annoyance. The Chamberlain snapped, “He wasn’t talking to you. Silence!” I opened my mouth, but only a dry, hissing sound came out. When no answer came, the Chamberlain approached to inspect my wounds. He shook his head grimly. “My Lord, this woman’s soul is on the verge of dissipating.” Kaelan, for all his fury, was a just ruler. “Check her identity,” he commanded. “If she does not belong here, have her healed. See if she can be returned to her body or sent for reincarnation.” The Chamberlain immediately sent for the Ledger of Souls. While we waited, Sophia continued to struggle against her restraints, her mind still fixated on the life of luxury she was losing. A moment later, a reaper returned with the great tome. The Chamberlain leaned close to me. “What is your name?” I summoned every last shred of my being and whispered two words, my voice as faint as the buzz of a mosquito. “Elara…” This Chamberlain was new; I’d never seen him before. He heard me and began to work his magic on the Ledger. As the seconds ticked by, a look of confusion spread across his face. “This… this can’t be right…” Kaelan’s patience, always thin, was wearing out. A dangerous aura began to emanate from him. “What is it?!” he demanded. The Chamberlain trembled. “My Lord… this person… she is not in the Ledger of Souls!” Of course not. That had been Kaelan’s doing. He had made me immortal, a wanderer in the mortal realm. Me on Earth, him in the Underworld. That way, we would never meet again. He clearly hadn’t made the connection. He must have assumed it was more treachery from his subordinates. He snatched the Ledger, his voice a low growl of fury. “What is her name?” “Elara,” the Chamberlain replied. The moment he heard my name, Kaelan froze. His entire demeanor shifted. His eyes, cold as glaciers, locked onto me, a flicker of disbelief in their depths.

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I ran into Alex, a scholarship student from my year, working a part-time shift at the campus mail center while I was picking up a package. We started chatting, and when he found out my Black Friday haul cost over twenty thousand dollars, he just snapped. “I’ve never even seen that much money in my entire life! And you just… spend it?” “Did your mother send you here to get an education or to blow her fortune?” He snatched the package out of my hand and physically blocked the exit. “You need to return all of it! Now! Kids like you have no idea how hard adults work for their money! If you’re this wasteful now, what man is ever going to be able to afford you?” His bizarre, accusatory tone was so absurd I had to laugh. “I’m spending my mom’s money. What’s that got to do with you?” “What’s it got to do with me?” he shot back, his face a mask of self-righteousness. “I’m dating your mother. And every cent you spend… is our future marital property!” I froze. But… isn’t my mom a lesbian? When did she start liking men? 1 Alex was still ranting, his voice rising with indignation. “I know you’re young, you don’t understand real hardship! But I’m not like you. I had to grow up fast, and I know better than anyone how tough your mom has it!” He took a step closer, spittle flying from his lips. “Twenty. Thousand. Dollars! Gone with a click of a button. Do you have any idea how many fake smiles, how many drinks, how many sleepless nights she endures to make that kind of money? The world doesn’t see the struggles of a single woman building an empire, but you’re her daughter! Can’t you have a little empathy?” Seeing his pained, heartbroken expression, I almost burst out laughing again. Never mind that the thirty thousand dollars I get every month is an allowance my mom practically forces on me. For my eighteenth birthday two years ago, I casually mentioned wanting a car that cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and she didn’t even blink before saying yes. My mom’s favorite line is, “Honey, I make money so fast I was worried I’d have no one to help me spend it. That’s why I had you, my little helper.” How we spend our money is our business. When did it become a stranger’s place to lecture me? “Pick it up.” I stared at the package Alex had thrown on the floor, my brow furrowed. “Willful destruction of property is a crime. If you touch my things again, I’m calling the police.” “Hah!” He wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. In fact, he doubled down. “You little brat. I try to talk some sense into you, and it goes in one ear and out the other, doesn’t it?” He lunged forward and grabbed my arm, his voice laced with menace. “I’m warning you! Your mom and I are getting married soon! Legally, I’ll be your stepfather! And as your parent, I am ordering you to return every last piece of this junk! Right now! Or else…” I scoffed, knocking his pointing finger away with my package. “You’re so eager to be my dad. Do you even know my mother’s full name?” Alex crossed his arms, oozing confidence. “Eleanor Vance. Chairman of the Vance Group. Made her fortune in fashion. Who doesn’t know that? And I also know your real father died young, and she raised you all by herself, through thick and thin! Eleanor told me all of this herself! What, you don’t believe me?” Believe him? Yeah, right. Everything he just said was the simplified, bullshit version of my life I’d scribbled on my school admission forms to save time. He must have seen it when he was helping our advisor organize student files. I’d invented the “dead father” story to avoid the endless questions that came with being an IVF baby. I never thought someone would use it against me. It was clear Alex’s delusion didn’t start today. Class was about to start, and I had no more patience for this. I bent down, picked up my package, and turned to leave. Behind me, I heard him on the phone. “Yes! It’s me! I want you to freeze all the bank accounts under Mia Vance’s name! That’s right, all of them! Let’s see if we can’t teach her a lesson today!” I rolled my eyes so hard I almost saw my brain. He’s watched one too many cheesy TikTok dramas and thinks he’s a CEO. The guy was losing his mind. But just as my foot was about to cross the mail center’s threshold, my phone buzzed violently in my pocket. A sense of dread washed over me. I pulled it out. Glowing on the screen was an urgent notification from my bank— 2 I tried to school my features, to hide the flicker of shock that shot through me as I read the “ACCOUNT FROZEN” notification, but Alex saw it. “So? You see what I’m capable of now?” he gloated. “I told you, Eleanor and I are very close! I don’t care if you’re her daughter. If you disrespect me, she won’t let it slide. How about this—” He paused for dramatic effect, then magnanimously waved his phone. “Apologize to me. Right here, in front of everyone. Admit you were wrong to talk back to an elder. Then, return everything you bought on Black Friday and transfer the refunds to my account. Think of it as a gesture of goodwill. A sign of respect.” “Do that, and I’ll have Eleanor unfreeze your accounts. What do you say?” The mail center was packed during the lunch rush, and our little drama had drawn a crowd. “Wow, so that’s what those female execs are into! That guy’s so lucky. Lands a sugar mama before he even graduates. He just skipped decades of the corporate ladder!” “Well, Alex’s poor, but he’s good-looking and knows how to talk. Maybe after all these years alone, that’s what Mia’s mom is into!” “But the girl looks like she has no idea what’s going on.” “That’s the point, isn’t it? Mom’s new boy toy is her daughter’s classmate. Of course she’d keep it a secret!” A guy who seemed to be friends with Alex nudged him, a sly grin on his face. “Nice one, man! Freezing your stepdaughter’s accounts just like that? You’ve got the power in that family! Guess we should start calling you Mr. Vance, huh?” Feeling the hostile, gossiping stares all around me, I let out a cold laugh and pointed at the loudest hecklers. “Slander and defamation are crimes. Do you need me to call the Vance Group’s legal team to come give you a little lesson on the law?” The chatter died instantly. The faces of the guys who’d been speaking went pale. Alex sighed dramatically. “Mia, I didn’t want to make a scene. But—” His tone shifted, becoming a lecture. “I can’t just stand by and watch you fall into the trap of consumerism! We’re about to be a family. You need to start thinking about—” WHAM! Before he could finish, the cardboard box in my hand connected squarely with his face. “Family? Get over yourself! My mother could be blind and she still wouldn’t look twice at you!” “Hey, what’s your problem? That’s too far!” “Even if you don’t like your stepfather, you can’t deny your mom the right to be happy!” My actions had reignited the crowd that had just been silenced. Just then, the warning bell for class rang. I pulled out my phone. “I didn’t want to have to prove anything, but I don’t have time for this! Everyone here who backed him up today, I’ll be holding every single one of you accountable.” Ignoring their sudden looks of alarm, I dialed my mom, who was on a business trip in Europe. Ring… ring… No answer. I hung up and dialed again. Still no answer. I frowned. The onlookers, who had been about to scatter, now hesitated. I tried a third time, but all I got was the cold, robotic voicemail prompt. Alex smirked, slowly pulling out his own phone. “Looks like Eleanor’s busy. No problem. I’ll give her a try. She told me she has a special alert for my number. She always picks up for me, no matter what.” With all eyes on him, he made the call. It connected instantly. He put it on speaker, and a woman’s slightly rushed voice came through the receiver. “Hey, Alex, what’s up? I’m in a meeting, make it quick.” 3 Even after my lecture ended, I was still replaying that phone call in my head. The woman’s voice and tone were eerily similar to my mom’s. Anyone who wasn’t intimately familiar with her habits would have been fooled into thinking it was Eleanor Vance, CEO of the Vance Group. But I knew better. When my mom is overseas, she answers every call in English. It’s an instinct ingrained from years of international business. That woman, however, had spoken English with a stilted, unnatural cadence, and she lacked the sharp, decisive energy my mom always has. So who was this woman Alex claimed he was going to marry? And was the sudden freeze on my accounts really connected to him? Back in my dorm, I forced myself to calm down and tried my mom’s number again. Still nothing. I ended up leaving her a long, rambling voicemail, explaining everything that had happened at the mail center and begging her to call me back as soon as possible. Agitated, I opened my laptop to work on my study abroad application, hoping to distract myself. But just as I logged into the university’s system, my phone rang. My heart leaped, but it wasn’t my mom. It was a campus number I recognized—Professor Davis, the advisor for my exchange program. “Mia,” she said, her voice tinged with confusion. “I just received a call. Someone claiming to be your father submitted a request to withdraw your application. I just wanted to check in with you, has something come up at home?” When I got to her office, I found a familiar, unwelcome figure already there. “Alex! What is wrong with you?” He just shrugged, completely unbothered, and addressed Professor Davis with a somber, righteous tone. “I’m currently dating Mia’s mother. That makes me her stepfather. I have the right to withdraw her application for the exchange program. My reason is—” He pulled out his phone and played a security video from the mail center, showing me hitting him with the box. “I believe my stepdaughter is emotionally unstable and is not currently fit to study abroad.” My vision tunneled. “Professor, don’t listen to him! He has nothing to do with me or my mother! My mom would never agree to this!” “Mia!” Alex turned to me, his face a picture of weary disappointment. “You saw it yourself this afternoon. I’m the only one who can get through to your mother. Why are you being so stubborn?” Professor Davis looked from me to Alex, her brow furrowed. “Mr. Alex, you claim to be Mia’s stepfather and to be representing Ms. Vance’s wishes. Do you have any proof? A marriage certificate, perhaps? Or a signed letter of authorization from Ms. Vance?” Alex’s smile faltered for a split second before he recovered. “Professor, Eleanor and I are about to get married. It’s just a matter of time. As her future husband, I’m concerned about her child’s well-being. Is that so wrong? We’ll provide the official documentation after the wedding.” “Without legal proof, based solely on your word, we cannot accept this request,” Professor Davis said, her tone firming. “Mia’s application process will continue as planned. And please, refrain from interfering in her academic affairs in a parental capacity again.” Alex’s face darkened. He shot me a venomous glare. “You’re just determined to do this the hard way, aren’t you? You’re going to regret this, Mia.”

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