Author: Momo Chan

When my boyfriend found out I wasn’t going to grad school, he was so furious he slapped me. “Is it because I told your sister to apply to the same program as us?” I didn’t say anything, which he took as a yes. He laughed, a bitter, angry sound. “Fine. Just fine. I’m trying to help you two mend fences, and you’re throwing away your future out of spite!” “From now on, don’t you come crawling back to me!” I watched him storm out, a small, secret smile on my lips. He had no idea. I had been accepted into a top-secret, highly classified Ph.D. program in aerospace engineering. The one that builds missiles for the government. It was an eight-year, fully immersive, off-the-grid commitment. I was leaving in ten days. And he was right. I was never coming back. * 1 “Why do you have to be so stubborn? She’s your sister!” Outside, the sky was a canvas of bruised, angry clouds. Inside, Mark’s face was a mirror of the storm, all impatience and frustration. “Let’s break up,” I said again, my voice flat. He just arched an eyebrow. “Chloe, do you really think you can threaten me like this?” I was taken aback. “I’m not trying to threaten—” “Enough,” he cut me off. “I don’t have time for your games. You need to cool down and think about this. I’m doing this for both of you. Ashley understands what I’m trying to do. Why can’t you?” A wave of exhaustion washed over me. “Whatever you say. But as of today, we’re done.” I turned to leave. We were in the library, and our argument was already drawing annoyed looks from the other students. But of course, that’s when Ashley appeared. She was holding a stack of books, and she looked at Mark with a wide, innocent smile. “Mark, I’m getting ready for my program interview, and there are a few things I’m not sure about. I was hoping you could help me.” I let out a short, humorless laugh and started to walk away. But Ashley’s hand shot out and grabbed my arm. “Little sister, you’re not still fighting with Mark because of me, are you?” Her face was a perfect picture of concerned helplessness. “You’re a grown-up now, Chloe. You should be more mature. We’re sisters. We’re family.” The word “sisters” was a lit match to the gasoline of my anger. “Sisters? I have no intention of being sisters with the daughter of a homewrecker.” Ashley’s face went white. “How could you say that? Even if you don’t like me, Mark is your boyfriend. He’s trying so hard to fix things between us. You should at least appreciate his efforts.” Mark shot her a look of pure, unadulterated gratitude. “Ashley, don’t waste your breath on her. She’s always been selfish. The only person she cares about is herself.” I laughed. “Oh, I’m so selfish. So selfish that when I was in the hospital with a heart condition, I actually hoped my boyfriend would come visit me instead of going on a trip with another woman. So selfish that when my boyfriend drained my bank account, I actually hoped he’d leave me enough money for food instead of spending it all on gifts for someone else. And so selfish that when I decided to go to grad school, I actually wanted to go to a good school, in a field I was passionate about, instead of listening to my boyfriend and applying to a worse school in a completely unrelated major. I’m just the worst.” Mark froze. He frowned. “Those are all minor things. Why are you so hung up on the past? Ashley is your family too. As your boyfriend, it’s my job to care about your family.” I stared at him, my voice a low, dangerous growl. “I will never, ever, consider the bastard child of the woman who killed my mother ‘family.’” “Okay, okay, it’s all my fault,” Ashley said, her voice full of a tragic, self-sacrificing drama. “I’ll stay away from you two from now on. Don’t let me ruin your relationship.” She turned and walked away, her shoulders slumped in defeat. Mark’s face was a mask of fury. “Look what you’ve done! I’m telling you, Chloe, after what you just said, you could get on your knees and beg, and I would never take you back.” He turned and ran after her. I just stood there and laughed. Take me back? Don’t worry, Mark. I’m never coming back. 2 I went back to my dorm and packed my books. A few minutes later, a picture from Ashley appeared in the family group chat. In the photo, she and Mark were sitting close together, their heads touching as they looked at the same book. The caption read: “Every single second I get to study with you is a treasure.” My relatives, who had no idea what was going on, started commenting. “Is this Ashley’s new boyfriend? He’s so handsome!” “They make a beautiful couple!” “Ashley is just like her mother. So charming. All the boys must be in love with her.” That last comment seemed to cast a spell. The chat went silent. A few minutes later, another message from Ashley appeared. “Oops, wrong chat! My bad. I can’t delete it now, so just pretend you didn’t see it. Mark and I are just friends.” I fought the urge to leave the group chat and just turned my phone off. But the screen lit up again. It was a message from Mark. *If you really don’t want to go into Ashley’s field, you can just apply again next year. To whatever you want.* I just laughed and blocked his number. I was exhausted. All I wanted was to sleep. But of course, that wasn’t going to happen. It was the end of the semester, and everyone was going their separate ways. It was a never-ending parade of goodbye dinners and parties. Tonight was the last meeting of the kickboxing club. 3 When I walked into the private room at the restaurant, it was already packed. The air was thick with the smell of beer and loud chatter. I found a quiet corner and sat down, partially hidden by a large plant. No one noticed me. And no one noticed that I could clearly hear the conversation from the booth next to ours. It was Mark. He sighed dramatically. “I really tried my best.” “When I found out she didn’t get into any grad programs, I was so worried. I even texted her and told her to try again next year. And she just blocked me.” A few sympathetic sighs from his audience. A girl’s voice piped up. “Mark, you’re just too nice. She doesn’t deserve you. She’s the one who didn’t try hard enough, and she’s taking it out on you. So ungrateful.” Mark’s voice dropped even lower. “Maybe it was the way I said it. But still, I was just trying to help her. I was trying to mend her relationship with her family, to plan for her future. And she just threw it all back in my face.” I squeezed my glass, my knuckles turning white. I should have known this was a bad idea. I stood up, ready to say a quick goodbye and get out of there. But as I took a step, someone stumbled into me. It was Ashley. She was holding an empty wine glass, a look of fake surprise on her face. “Oh, little sister! You’re here!” she said, her voice loud enough for everyone to hear. The wine from her glass had soaked the front of my white dress. She looked at the stain, then laughed. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t see you. But I’m sure you don’t mind, right? You bought this dress for your grad school interviews, and since you didn’t get in… it’s not like you’ll need it anymore. When you finally do get in, I’ll buy you a new one.” A few people snickered. I looked down at the spreading stain. “I do mind,” I said, my voice as cold as ice. “This dress was six hundred dollars. Cash or Venmo?” The smile on Ashley’s face froze. “We’re sisters. You don’t have to be so petty, do you?” She put on that familiar, cloying smile. “I’ll buy you a new one. Next time Mark and I go shopping.” I knew she never would. It was her signature move. Ever since she’d moved in with my dad, she’d “accidentally” broken countless things of mine, always promising to replace them. But when I’d ask, she’d just raise her voice. “Are you still hung up on that? You’re so petty. You’re just like your mother. And you know what happens to petty people like her? They die young.” Her words still echoed in my ears. I pulled out my phone and opened my Venmo app. “Now. Six hundred dollars.” Ashley’s face finally crumbled. “Do you have to be like this? It’s just a dress…” Just then, Mark appeared, stepping between us. He looked at me with a profound disappointment. “Do you really have to make a scene? Ashley said she’d replace it. Why are you being so aggressive? And besides, your mother left you plenty of money. Why are you so obsessed with Ashley?! Chloe, don’t take it too far.” He frowned, his face a mask of righteous indignation. The same expression I had once found so charming. Now, it just made me sick. I looked at the two of them, standing side by side. “So, she ‘accidentally’ bumps into me and ruins my dress, and I’m the one who’s supposed to just take it?” Mark faltered. “That’s not what I’m saying… but can’t you just be the bigger person?” Behind him, Ashley was smiling a triumphant little smile. 4 Suddenly, Matt, the president of the kickboxing club, was at my side, his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, we’re all friends here. Let’s not fight over something so silly.” He turned to Ashley. “Ashley, you did ruin her dress. You should pay for it.” Then he gave me a look. “Chloe, just calm down.” Ashley reluctantly took out her phone and scanned my Venmo code. “Six hundred dollars. Sent. Are you happy now?” she said, her voice full of a sullen resentment. I looked at the notification on my phone, then at Mark’s disapproving face. I felt no satisfaction at all. How had we ended up here? He used to be so different. He used to love me. He used to put me first. My sophomore year, he’d spent a whole day driving all over the city just to find a signed copy of my favorite author’s book. He’d said my eyes lit up when I read, and he wanted to protect that light. He hated ballet, but because my mother had been a dancer, he’d sat through countless performances with me, just to help me feel close to her. We had made so many plans, so many promises. And then… he met Ashley. The signed book was “accidentally” ruined by a spilled glass of water. Mark had stopped me from getting angry. “She didn’t mean to. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” For our group project, he’d added Ashley to our team without even asking me. She’d changed my data, and we were disqualified. Half a year of my work, gone. Mark just told me to be more understanding. “She was just trying to help. She had good intentions.” He’d promised to go to a ballet with me, but then Ashley called, saying she had a stomach ache, and he’d rushed to the hospital, leaving me waiting in the rain for three hours. Later, I saw them outside the hospital, arm in arm, laughing and eating ice cream. When he saw me, he’d just frowned. “Are you following me? Ashley wasn’t feeling well. Can’t you be more considerate? You can watch a hundred ballets, it’s not going to bring your mother back to life. What’s the point of watching all that depressing stuff anyway?” The memories flashed through my mind, each one a fresh wave of ice in my veins. I turned and walked out of the restaurant without another word. Mark called after me. I didn’t turn back. And he didn’t follow.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “385212”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I’m a massage therapist. And my only clients are young women. For every session, I wear compression leggings. The look on their faces when they see the outline of my body is always the same. A flicker of shock, a blush of shyness, and then… the unmistakable spark of desire. But the client today, her face was a mask of pure terror. And in that moment, a wave of relief so profound it almost buckled my knees washed over me. Because the one I’ve been waiting for, for three long years, had finally walked through my door. 1 My hands, slick with aromatic oil, moved with steady, powerful pressure across her pale, delicate skin. The woman on the massage table let out a series of low, suppressed moans that filled the quiet room, but my expression remained a perfect blank. When the session was over, I meticulously wiped the excess oil from her body. Her face was flushed, her eyes darting constantly toward my lower body. As she was leaving, she bit her lip and gave her phone a little shake in my direction. “Want to add me? We could grab a drink tonight?” I shook my head, declining. Her gaze fell one last time, disappointed, to the front of my leggings before she turned and left. I let out a long sigh and wrote a number in my notebook. 1000. Then I scratched it out with a single, heavy line. After carefully sanitizing the massage table, I dimmed the lights in the studio. I lit a stick of incense, the smoky scent of sandalwood curling into the air, and put on a playlist of melancholic classical music. Then, I pressed the buzzer on the wall. A soft chime echoed, and the door to the studio swung open. The woman who entered made me catch my breath. Long dark hair, a short skirt, exquisitely fine features, and skin so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light. I gestured toward the massage table, indicating she should lie down. But she didn’t move. Her eyes were locked on my lower body, a tremor running through her entire frame. Seeing that expression of raw terror on her face, I clenched my jaw, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it felt like it might stop. Three years. My one-thousand-and-first client. The one I was looking for was finally here. 2 My name is Noah, and I’m a massage therapist. If you want to book a session with me, you have to follow two rules. First, I only work on women under the age of twenty-three. Second, I must wear compression leggings during the massage. When I first opened my studio, people assumed the worst. That the rules were just a pretext, a way for me to take advantage of my clients. People gossiped, saying my business would fail within a month. But a month later, not only was my studio still open, business was booming. Clients had to book a month in advance to get an appointment with me. There were three reasons for this. One, I am exceptionally good at what I do. I studied under a master therapist, but I also taught myself holistic medicine, combining ancient acupressure techniques with modern massage. I create my own proprietary blends of herbal-infused oils and aromatherapy sachets that not only rejuvenate the skin but can also soothe the chronic pain of old injuries. Two, I am… gifted. The leggings leave little to the imagination, and my physique is an undeniable distraction. Once women look, they find it hard to look away. Some have even offered me obscene amounts of money to spend a night with them. I’ve refused every single one. Three, I have a face that people tend to trust. I was born with fine features and fair skin. On top of that, I understand women. I know what they want to hear, what makes them feel seen. Almost every client becomes a repeat customer. They recommend me to their friends, creating a steady stream of new business. When my story eventually made its way online, I became the object of envy for men everywhere. They were jealous that I could make good money while being in such intimate contact with beautiful young women. But they have no idea. I have no interest in any of them. I’m doing all of this to find one person. And today, I finally found her. 3 Looking at the woman trembling with fear before me, I took a deep breath and managed a gentle smile. “What’s wrong?” I asked softly. “Are you not feeling well?” She finally spoke, her voice shaking. “Could you… could you maybe change into some looser pants?” I shook my head. “That’s my rule. I can’t change it.” She hesitated for a long moment before finally, with a look of grim determination, she slowly closed the door behind her. “I heard your technique is incredible for old injuries,” she said. “I have a lot of them. I’m counting on you.” I nodded and directed her to the changing room to put on the shorts and tank top I provided. When she emerged, she followed my instructions and lay face down on the table. I brought over a basin of steaming water, a fragrant herbal bath. I wrung out a towel that had been soaking in it and draped it over her back. As I worked, I kept my voice calm and professional. “First, we use a gentle heat to open up the pores and promote circulation. It makes the skin more receptive,” I explained. “You have to prep the canvas before you can create the art. This will allow my work to be much more effective.” “I’ve also added some calming herbs to the water. You’ll likely drift off for a little while,” I continued. “When you wake up, your body will be in its most relaxed state. That’s when the real massage begins.” Once the warm towels covered all of her exposed skin, she gradually closed her eyes and drifted into sleep. I looked down at the beautiful, vulnerable form on my table, and the corner of my mouth twitched into a small, cold smile. 4 When the woman woke up, I placed my phone on a tripod and started a livestream. I’d built up a decent following by posting short videos explaining different massage techniques. As soon as the stream went live, over a thousand people flooded in. The chat immediately exploded. WTF, is he really going live with a client like this? Damn, that woman on the table is a work of art! That skin, those legs… I can’t look away! Bro, you call that a massage? Let a real man show you how it’s done! I smiled at the screen. “Hello, everyone, and welcome. The purpose of today’s stream is to demonstrate a few techniques for all of you at home.” “Let’s get right to it.” I placed my hands on her back and began to knead the muscles. As I worked, I kept an eye on the chat. God, I would kill to be that massage table right now. Wait a second, you guys… does that woman look familiar to you? OH MY GOD, THAT’S THE INFLUENCER ARIA! HOLY SHIT, IT IS! I’m so jealous of this dude right now! Even though I don’t follow influencers, I’d heard of Aria. She had tens of millions of followers, earning tens of thousands of dollars in donations every time she went live. I never imagined she would become a mega-influencer… I had to bite down hard on my jaw to suppress the bitter jealousy that rose in my throat. Aria’s body is insane. Better than most celebrities. Never seen her from this angle before. This is a blessing. Look closer, guys. Look at all those scars on her body. Whoa, what the hell happened to her? Faint, silvery scars crisscrossed Aria’s skin, a dense network that looked almost like a monstrous tattoo. Looking at them, memories I had locked away deep in my mind began to stir, to rise, to surface. I froze for a moment, biting my lip until I tasted blood to bring myself back to the present. I shook my head, trying to force the memories back down. Pouring more oil onto my hands, I let my palms glide over her skin, which was now flushed pink from the heat. From her shoulders down to her ankles, until every inch of her was slick and gleaming. I began to apply gentle pressure to her lower back and both of her knees. With each press, she let out a sharp, stifled cry of pain. I spoke, my tone casual. “You have significant chronic injuries in these three areas.” “Looks like they were caused by some kind of severe impact, right?” When Aria nodded silently, I increased the pressure. “For years, these injuries must have caused you unbearable pain every so often,” I said. “I understand that kind of pain, because I have old injuries of my own.” “And when the pain comes, the memory of how you got the injury comes flooding back, doesn’t it? Which only makes the suffering worse.” Aria’s body went rigid. She said nothing. I gave a faint smile. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take very good care of you.” 5 My touch became gentler, and Aria’s body slowly began to relax completely under my hands. Feeling the give and take of muscle and skin beneath my fingertips, I glanced back at the screen. “I imagine this is getting a little boring for some of you,” I said to the camera. “So, why don’t I tell you all a story? Something I did a long time ago that I regret to this very day.” “Even though it’s been years, every time I think about it, I’m filled with remorse.” My fingers continued their dance across Aria’s back as I began to speak. “A lot of you probably envy my job. You think I get to look and touch beautiful women all day.” “But it’s not like that at all.” “You see, I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria when I was young. My body is male, but my mind, my identity, has always been female.” “To put it simply, for those of you in the chat, I’m gay.” “So, no matter how beautiful a woman is, my body doesn’t react. At all.” As I said this, I felt Aria’s body give a distinct, sharp shudder. In the chat, some people offered support, while others spammed homophobic slurs. I smiled faintly, ignoring them. “Growing up, I always got along better with girls,” I continued. “I was part of their circle, we were incredibly close. Several of them became my best friends.” “The guys were all jealous. They’d mock me and call me names behind my back.” “I pretended it didn’t bother me, but inside, it hurt. A lot.” “Because there were a few guys I had crushes on, but I had to bury those feelings deep down. I knew that if I ever let it show, I’d be treated like a freak, an outcast.” The chat went quiet. It seemed everyone was listening intently. Thanks to Aria’s fame, people were sharing the stream. The viewer count was climbing steadily. I went on. “My senior year of high school, I turned eighteen.” “The hormones of adolescence were like a volcano erupting inside me, melting away all my reason. I wanted to be in love like a normal person. I wanted someone I could confide in, someone whose arms I could fall into.” “And so… I made a decision that I will regret for the rest of my life.” 6 As I spoke, Aria’s body began to tremble more violently. At the same time, I slowly increased the pressure of my hands. “I downloaded a dating app and started pretending to be a woman online.” “I never played sports and didn’t spend much time in the sun, so my skin was already fairer than most girls’. My bone structure is small, too. If you only saw my hands or my legs, you wouldn’t guess I was a boy.” “So, I learned how to do my makeup. I bought a wig and a set of prosthetic breasts and put on a dress.” “With the help of some beauty filters, the person in the photos and videos I took was, for all intents and purposes, a beautiful woman.” “I posted them on my profile, and guys started messaging me immediately. I scrolled and scrolled, filtering through them, looking for my type.” The chat, which had been silent, came alive again. What a fucking creep. This is wild. First time I’ve ever heard a gay guy’s confession live. Keep talking! What happened next? The number of viewers kept rising, the stream’s popularity soaring. I moved to a new position and began working on Aria’s calves. Just as I was about to continue, a faint noise came from the storage cabinet in the corner of the room. Aria lifted her head, her eyes narrowing suspiciously at the cabinet. I offered her a reassuring smile. “It’s an old building, we have a bit of a mouse problem. I had an exterminator in, but it looks like one of them got away.” I stomped my foot hard on the floor, and the noise from the cabinet stopped. I nodded, satisfied, and continued my story. “Soon, I was talking constantly with one guy. He was exactly my type. We had the same taste in movies, music, books… we just clicked.” “He was seventeen years older than me, but I didn’t care about the age gap. In fact, I was drawn to the mature, stable presence he had, so different from the awkward boys at my school.” “But as we got closer, a sense of dread started to build inside me. I knew my entire identity was a lie. No matter how beautiful I looked in my pictures, it didn’t change the fact that I was a boy.” “And just as my anxiety reached its peak, the thing I feared most finally happened.” “He asked if we could meet in person.” 7 I could feel the muscles in Aria’s body tightening, all the previous relaxation gone. The chat was in a heated debate. LMAO, I can’t even imagine that guy’s reaction. Guarantee you the storyteller got his ass kicked. So disgusting. Deceitful gay men are the worst. I wiped the oil from my hands, picked up a small massage roller, and began to slowly work it over the areas of Aria’s old injuries. “Heh, anyone who’s ever dated online knows that when you want to meet someone, the urge is impossible to resist,” I said. “I imagined the meeting a thousand times. He would be disappointed, angry, furious at my deception…” “He might even scream at me, or hit me.” “But in the end, I decided to go.” “I was tired of hiding behind a screen. I wanted to see him in real life.” “I prepared for that meeting for weeks. I practiced my voice and the way I walked, trying to seem more feminine. I got a full-body wax, bought the highest quality wig and prosthetics I could find. I would get fully dressed and made up and walk around outside for hours, until I was certain that no one could tell I was a boy.” “Finally, the day we had agreed to meet arrived.” “It was May twenty-fourth. A Sunday.” “There were fourteen days left until my final exams.” “That date… I don’t think I will ever forget it for as long as I live.” As I said the date, fragmented memories flashed through my mind. My heart seized in my chest, and the roller almost slipped from my grasp. Seeing me fall silent, the chat went wild. ???? What happened?? Tell us! This dude isn’t a masseuse, he’s a storyteller. He knows how to leave a cliffhanger, damn. Can you focus on the massage? Our Aria is in so much pain she’s gripping the sheets! I glanced at Aria. The veins on the back of her hands were bulging as she gripped the white sheet. But I knew the truth. I was barely applying any pressure at all. 8 “That day, I met the man I’d been dreaming of in a park.” “He was tall, and even more handsome than in his photos. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he hadn’t seen through my disguise. In fact, he seemed very pleased.” “For the first time in my life, a man held my hand.” “My heart was pounding so fast I could barely speak…” At this point, the chat was in an uproar. Ugh, that’s just sick. Is it sick? I dunno, I’m kinda shipping this. So what happened between you two?? I continued. “The man’s voice was gentle, he was well-spoken, and his clothes and cologne were expensive and refined. We sat on a bench in a quiet corner of the park, his arm around me, as he whispered sweet things in my ear.” “In that moment, I wished time would stand still.” “Eventually, he suggested we go back to his place. I wanted to spend more time with him, so I agreed. I got into his luxury car, and we drove to his villa in the suburbs.” “My family was working-class. Seeing his wealth only made me fall for him harder. Once we were inside the villa, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and started kissing me.” “It was my first kiss. The strange, new feeling was intoxicating.” “The next thing I knew, we were in his bedroom. And he had taken off all my clothes.” “He stared at my male anatomy and the prosthetic breasts. His expression turned terrifyingly dark.” “In that instant, it felt like I’d been plunged into ice water.” 9 I cleared my throat. The chat was now mostly filled with mockery. Hahaha, if that was me, I would’ve beaten him half to death. For real! So gross, anyone would lose their mind. You play with people’s feelings, you deserve to get beat. Wait, is it just me, or does the guy sound like the real problem here? Yeah, a man in his thirties online dating an 18-year-old? That’s predatory. Just as I was about to continue, Aria spoke. Her voice was a thin, trembling whisper. “Can you… please stop talking…?” I ignored her and kept going. “In that moment, my mind went completely blank. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. Looking at the expression in his eyes, I knew it was over between us.” “Just as I was about to offer a sincere apology, he walked toward me.” “His face had changed. It was sinister, twisted, horrifying…” “I was terrified. It hit me all at once that I was in a strange, isolated room with a powerful, unfamiliar man. Before I could even think about what to do, his hand flew out and he slapped me across the face.” “He used all his strength. I slammed against a wardrobe and crumpled to the floor. My face burned, and my head was ringing. Before I could even get the words ‘I’m sorry’ out, he kicked me hard in the stomach.” “The pain was so intense I nearly passed out. It felt like my insides were tearing apart. As I lay on the floor, gasping in agony, I saw that the wardrobe door had been knocked open when I hit it.” “And in that instant, all the physical pain seemed to vanish, replaced by a bottomless, soul-crushing terror.” “Do you want to guess what I saw inside that closet?” 10 Bang. The cabinet in my studio rattled again, much louder this time. I stood up and started walking toward it. Halfway there, the sound stopped. The chat, meanwhile, was buzzing. Okay, now things are getting interesting. HOLY SHIT! He was just talking about a closet, and the one in his room made a noise? I’m getting scared… I thought this was just a boring catfish story. It’s turning into a thriller. Stop dragging it out, just tell us! I took a deep breath, fighting to control the emotions churning inside me. “The wardrobe had two levels, separated by a wooden shelf. From where I was on the floor, my line of sight was level with the bottom shelf.” “There were three enormous glass jars.” “And floating in a clear, colorless liquid were the severed heads of three young women.” “Three pairs of wide-open eyes were staring right at me.” “My heart stopped.” By now, a tidal wave of comments had completely flooded the screen. WTF, is this story even real? Obviously fake. He’s making it up for clicks. Everyone report this loser, let’s get him banned. Feeling Aria’s body grow even more rigid, I didn’t bother explaining myself to the viewers. I just continued the story. “The intense fear jolted my memory. I remembered a news report from a few weeks earlier. Three high school girls had gone missing, one after another. They were still gone…” “The man in front of me… he was their killer.” “Chatting with me online to lower my guard, meeting me in a secluded park, bringing me to his isolated villa… he had used the same tactics on the other three girls.” “Looking at the torture instruments gleaming on the top shelf of the closet, at the marks on the girls’ heads, it wasn’t hard to imagine the horrors they had endured. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what this man, feeling deceived and enraged that I was a boy, would do to me.” “I struggled to sit up. I saw the man was now holding an axe, and he was walking slowly toward me.” Just then, one comment made me pause. I remember this. Three years ago, in that ritzy suburban area between my city and the next one, something big happened. There were cops everywhere, but you can’t find anything about it online now. The story was suppressed. What this streamer is saying… could it be real? A wave of “Holy shit” and “WTF” comments scrolled by. I continued. “In that moment, I couldn’t see any way out. No way to survive. No matter how I fought, I was no match for a large man with a weapon. But the will to live, it’s a powerful thing. Staring into the abyss, I managed to claw out a path.” “And that path was…” Before I could finish, Aria shot up from the massage table. She scrambled to the floor and fell to her knees in front of me, slamming her forehead against the hardwood with a sickening thud. Again and again. The skin on her forehead split open, and blood began to stain the floor. She looked up, her face a twisted mask of blood and tears, her voice sharp and trembling. “I’m begging you, please, don’t say any more!” 11 In less than a minute, the pristine influencer had been reduced to this pathetic, broken state. The livestream chat detonated. “?????????” “What the hell just happened to Aria?” “This has to be staged, right? It’s a script.” “I don’t think so, that wound and the blood are real!” “Aria definitely has some connection to this guy. Maybe she’s a character in his story.” I crouched down, looking directly into Aria’s eyes, and gently helped her to her feet. “You know that once a story has begun, it can’t be stopped.” “Let’s remember what happened that day, together.” Aria wrenched her hand from my grasp and scrambled for the door. She twisted the handle frantically, but the door wouldn’t budge. What is this guy trying to do? From Aria’s reaction, it seems like she doesn’t want him to finish the story. Should we call the cops…? I turned to the camera and held up my hands. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt her. If you want to call the police, you might as well hear the end of the story first.” The chat urged me to go on. I smiled. “The only way I could think of to survive was to offer the man a new target.” “As I said before, I had a lot of female friends. One of them, a girl named… let’s call her ‘Sarah.’ She and I were especially close. We told each other everything. We were like sisters.” “She was the only person I had ever told that I was gay.” “She was the only one who trusted me completely, without reservation.” “And she was the only one who would come to this secluded villa with just one phone call from me.” “So, as the man stood over me with the axe raised high, I played my only card.” “I said: ‘Don’t kill me. I can be your slave. I can find new prey for you. I can call a girl right now. She’s beautiful, tall… exactly your type.’”

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Something shifted in my girlfriend after she started working at the private movie theater. The day shifts left her sullen and drained, but for the night shifts, she’d get excited, slipping into a new mini-skirt and garter stockings. She’d come home breathless every time, her blouse and skirt a mess of wrinkles. But the strangest moment came when I told her my promotion was a sure thing. I told her she’d soon be able to live the life she’d always wanted, a life of leisure, and she wouldn’t have to work at that theater another day. Her face hardened. Her eyes flashed with a look I’d never seen before as her voice shot up, sharp and cold. “It’s tiring, sure, but the work… it’s satisfying. I get a real thrill out of it. If you have a problem with that, we can just end things right now.” The word “thrill” hung in the air between us. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, so I dropped it. But a seed of suspicion had been planted, and my interest in this so-called private theater grew. After all, I’d never heard anyone describe a job with a word like “thrill.” It wasn’t until my best friend invited me out for a “movie night” that I finally understood. After a night of complete indulgence, I had to admit—he was right. The thrill was undeniable. 1 Lately, Stella had been working almost exclusively night shifts. The theater, a boutique place called Eclipse, was in a remote part of the city. I hated the thought of her coming home alone in the dead of night, so I made a habit of driving to pick her up. Tonight, I saw her staggering toward my car from a distance, and a knot of worry tightened in my stomach. I got out to meet her. “Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good.” “I’m… I’m fine.” Her voice was a strained whisper. She clutched the hem of her skirt, her body tensed as if she were holding something back. “Let’s just go home,” she urged, her voice low. “It was a long night.” Instead of sliding into the passenger seat like she always did, she opened the back door and collapsed onto the rear seat. “I’m just going to try and sleep. Wake me when we’re home.” “Sure thing,” I said, but as I glanced in the rearview mirror, my heart skipped a beat. She was curled into a tight ball, her eyes unfocused, hazy, like a sky clouded over. Something was deeply wrong. I’d been against her taking this job from the start. Call it a man’s intuition, but anything with the word “private” attached to it felt like a red flag. And a six-figure salary for being a theater “attendant”? It sounded too good to be true. But Stella had just laughed, wrapping her arms around my neck and melting my resolve with a kiss. “Oh, Liam, you worry too much. It’s a totally legitimate place. You can come visit me anytime you want, see for yourself.” So I’d caved. I watched her walk away that first day in her little skirt, and I’d felt a pang of something I couldn’t name. That very same night, at my own company’s awards dinner celebrating my team’s success, a few of my drunk colleagues cornered me, nudging me to join them for a second round of celebrations. They grinned slyly. “How about a movie?” I was confused. “What’s open this late?” They snickered, pulling out a phone and showing me a dimly lit video. “Not a normal movie, man,” one of them whispered conspiratorially. “We’re talking about a private screening. They have attendants who show you how to watch the movie. That’s where the real fun is.” The video was dark, but I could make out a young woman in a uniform, kneeling on a plush carpet. She was smoothing out her wrinkled skirt and adjusting a loose bow on her collar. Before the clip ended, she looked at the camera, bowed with a practiced smile and said, “If you were satisfied with your experience, please leave a five-star review. I hope to see you again soon, sir.” My colleagues were howling with laughter. “This is how adults watch movies, man. Way better than some multiplex.” “And the soundproofing is top-notch,” another added. “Once that door closes, who knows what you’re really watching in there?” At the time, I’d just shaken my head and called them idiots. But now, seeing Stella in this state, a cold, unnameable feeling crept up my spine. When we got home, she went straight to the bedroom, collapsing onto the bed with a series of low moans. I pulled the duvet over her, wanting to make her comfortable. But as I leaned in to tuck her in, a faint, rhythmic buzzing sound started, seeming to come from directly beneath her. 2 “Can you wash my clothes for me, babe?” Stella mumbled, struggling to pull her top off before tossing it at me and sinking back into the pillows. Maybe it was my imagination, but as she moved closer, the buzzing seemed to grow louder. I kept my voice even. “What about the skirt? Should I take it off for you?” “No, babe, it’s fine. The skirt’s not dirty.” She shot up, stopping me as I reached for the waistband, and offered a weak, placating smile. “Just let me rest for a bit, okay? Last night was insane. The customers just kept coming, one after another. No breaks.” She sighed dramatically. “I could barely stand by the time I clocked out…” I watched the forced smile on her face, and a dull ache started in my chest. Seven years. We were supposed to be getting married. I didn’t want to doubt her. I closed my eyes for a second, then forced a smile of my own. “Okay. You get some rest. I’ll do the laundry.” As I went to toss her top into the washing machine, my fingers brushed against something sticky and damp on the fabric. I paused, my blood running cold. I turned the shirt inside out. A patch on the back was soaked with a strange fluid. A siren went off in my head. My hand holding the shirt began to tremble. Stella had complained before that the owner of Eclipse was a cheapskate who refused to run the air conditioning, even in the summer. She said she was always drenched in sweat by the end of her shift. It was why she always insisted on showering and doing laundry the second she got home, no matter how exhausted she was. But this… I never knew this was the kind of “sweat” she was talking about. My eyes scanned the wrinkled top, and the video my colleague had shown me flashed through my mind. The attendant in the video, her uniform was wrinkled too, though not as badly as Stella’s. And his words echoed in my ears: Once that door closes, who knows what you’re really watching in there? The answer was staring me right in the face. But I couldn’t accept it. Four years of college sweethearts, three years of building a life together after graduation. We were on the verge of marriage. Both our families adored each other. If it weren’t for this promotion I’d been working my ass off for, we’d already be husband and wife. I remembered our first kiss, how it tasted of strawberry candy. Stella had been trying to be smooth, mimicking a scene from a movie we’d watched. She’d popped a Jolly Rancher in her mouth before leaning in. “There,” she’d whispered, her cheeks flushed. “Now every time you taste strawberry, you’ll think of me.” She’d tried to act so cool and confident, but her ears were bright red as she’d turned and practically run away. That sweet, shy girl… how could she possibly be involved in something like this? “Babe? Is the laundry done yet?” Stella’s voice, lazy and satisfied, pulled me from my thoughts. She’d changed into her pajamas and was standing in the doorway. With a completely straight face, she took the balled-up skirt from her hand and tossed it into the machine with the top I was still holding. “My mom called earlier,” she said, wrapping her arms around me from behind, her tone suddenly shy. “She wants us over for dinner this weekend.” She rested her chin on my shoulder. “She asked when we were planning on getting married and having kids. I told her we’ve been… practicing a lot lately, and that we wouldn’t let her down.” My mouth was dry. I managed a quiet, “Okay.” Practicing? With who? The customers? A bitter cold spread through my chest, and a sardonic smile touched my lips. We hadn’t slept together in over a year.

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Lately, something has been off with my wife. I’d come home to find her lying on the bed, face flushed, her body rising and falling in a gentle rhythm, the sound of soft, shallow breaths filling the quiet of the room. Every time I asked, she was evasive. She’d murmur something about just finishing her yoga routine before slipping into the bathroom to shower. The knot of suspicion in my gut tightened with each passing day. I started searching the house while she was in the shower, my heart pounding against my ribs. But I never found him. There was no trace of the phantom lover I was so sure existed. Did he leave just before I got home? That had to be it. Stella could track my car’s location on her phone. Of course. The bastard was clearing out just minutes before I pulled into the driveway. This Wednesday, I took a half-day off. I left my car at the office and took a cab, determined to finally catch them in the act. 1 The entire ride home, my heart hammered a frantic, sickening beat against my chest. My mind was a cinema of betrayal, playing and replaying scenes of Stella tangled in the arms of another man. I had the driver drop me at the corner. I crept to my own front door like a thief, pressing my ear against the wood. And there it was. The sound I’d been dreading. A woman’s breathless moans, the kind of sound that was pure, unadulterated ecstasy. A hot wave of rage washed over me, obliterating all reason. I punched in the security code, threw the door open, and charged inside—only to find Stella in the living room, alone, moving through a yoga pose on her mat. I didn’t stop. I stormed through the house, a man possessed, flinging open closet doors, checking under beds. I even scanned the narrow ledge outside the window where the AC unit sat. Nothing. No one. Stella, seeing the frantic look in my eyes, rushed over to me, her voice a sweet, confused melody. “Ethan? What’s wrong? What are you looking for?” “That sound! I heard you from the door! What the hell were you doing in here?” I yelled, my voice raw with the fury of a man who couldn’t find the evidence he was desperate to discover. Her expression shifted from confusion to a deep, wounded hurt. Her perfect, cherry-pink lips trembled, and fat tears began to spill from her eyes, tracing paths down her cheeks. She looked so utterly broken that it almost took my breath away. She unlocked her phone and handed it to me. “This,” she whispered. On the screen, a Japanese porn film was playing. The sounds were so explicit I felt a blush creep up my neck. “Why are you watching this in the middle of the day?” My anger began to recede, replaced by a dull throb of embarrassment. “The other night… you seemed so distant,” she said, her voice barely audible. “You weren’t… interested in me. I thought, maybe if I learned a few new things… I could make it more exciting for us.” It all clicked into place. The fire in my veins turned from rage to a different kind of heat. I looked at her—this beautiful, vulnerable woman, her body lean and toned from her workout, her eyes full of a desperate need to please me—and my anger dissolved completely. I pulled her down onto the yoga mat, my guilt and suspicion consumed by a sudden, overwhelming desire. Afterward, as she lay curled in my arms, looking like a dew-kissed flower, a wave of shame washed over me. I opened my banking app and transferred thirty thousand dollars into her account. She squealed with delight and covered my face in kisses. 2 I’m a vice president at a publicly-traded firm. As long as my wife is happy, that kind of money is nothing to me. Stella used to be the receptionist at my company. Young, gorgeous, with a body that could stop traffic. I was obsessed with her from the moment I saw her. After a year of relentless pursuit, she finally agreed to marry me and become a full-time wife. Lately, I’d been putting in long hours at work, and I’ll admit, our sex life had suffered. I’m also seven years older than her, a fact that feeds a constant, low-grade fear in the back of my mind that she’ll one day leave me for someone younger. But after this whole misunderstanding, that fear vanished. I was sure, deep in my bones, that Stella would never betray me. Until a month later. I was working late, bored, and scrolling through some online forums. A thread with a shocking title caught my eye: “Giving My Cuckold Husband Someone Else’s Baby.” I clicked on it. It was a cesspool of pixelated, obscene photos and posts that read like mission logs. “Today’s Task: Make Master come three times, let the hubbie have one. Let’s see whose lottery ticket hits next month.” “Today’s Task: Let Master have his fun twice, then make the hubbie do the dishes tonight.” “Today’s Task: Following Master’s orders. Taking the little devil out to dinner with the hubbie. Must not get caught.” The posts were accompanied by selfies from various housewives, the most explicit parts blurred out. The sheer depravity of it all made my stomach churn. I slammed my laptop shut. A familiar panic seized me. I quickly opened the security app on my phone. The truth is, after the last incident, I’d secretly installed hidden cameras in the house. For a month, they’d shown me nothing but a perfect wife: Stella binge-watching shows, doing chores, cooking my meals. She was the picture of domestic bliss, and my spying felt increasingly pathetic and sordid. But tonight, when I opened the live feed, the house was empty. No sign of her in the living room or the bedroom. Was she in the shower? Just as I was about to call her, a man’s voice echoed through my phone’s speaker. “Feel good? Was I good this time?” It was followed by a woman’s sharp, ecstatic gasp. Of course. The cameras had blind spots. The front door and the area right around the couch. Those two bastards. This time, I had them. 3 I grabbed a cab, my mind racing. My office was close to home; I was there in under twenty minutes. I burst through the door and found Stella lounging on the sofa, a face mask on, casually watching a TV show. Impossible. The sounds I heard on the feed… they were just getting started. There’s no way they could have finished that quickly. Stella looked up at me, her expression a mask of pure confusion. She blinked her wide, innocent eyes. “Ethan, you’re home! I thought you were pulling an all-nighter.” I scanned the living room. The sofa was pristine, not a single cushion out of place, no sign of a frantic struggle or a passionate encounter. Stella was fully dressed, her demeanor calm. There was no hint of deception. But I heard what I heard. The filthy sounds were burned into my memory. This constant back-and-forth was fraying my nerves, turning my mind into a battlefield of suspicion and doubt. My work was suffering. I was making stupid mistakes. But looking at Stella, so perfectly composed, the rage simmering inside me had nowhere to go. It was like punching at smoke. “Ethan? Why are you ignoring me?” She rose from the couch and coiled around me like a beautiful, slender snake. I didn’t answer. I pushed her away, the frustration too much to bear, and walked out, heading back to the office. I found Kevin, one of our IT guys, still at his desk. He was a wizard with anything network-related. “Kev, can I ask you something?” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Mr. Hayes, of course.” He stood up respectfully. “Why would a home security camera suddenly start picking up… strange noises?” “Oh, that? It happens sometimes. Signal interference, network cross-chatter. You can get audio bleed from a neighbor’s baby monitor, or even from another Wi-Fi network if the channels overlap. It’s a weird glitch, but it’s not uncommon.” He gave me a long, technical explanation that slowly untangled the knot of anxiety in my chest. I thanked him and went back to my office. My phone was lit up with missed calls and a string of texts from Stella. “Ethan, what’s wrong?” “You seemed really off.” “Are you okay? Is work stressing you out?” “I can give you a massage when you get home tomorrow?” “Honey, why aren’t you picking up?” Reading her words, I felt like a complete bastard. A wave of self-loathing washed over me. Here was this loving, devoted woman, and I was treating her like a criminal, my mind poisoned by paranoia. I texted her back, lying that I’d forgotten a file and was in too much of a rush to talk. I promised to make it up to her. 4 The next day, I took the day off and took Stella on a shopping spree to make amends. She wore a slip dress of emerald green silk that clung to every curve. Every person we passed, man or woman, turned to look. She was, without question, a work of art. We walked into the Louis Vuitton store, and she immediately collided with a woman holding a little girl’s hand. “Watch where you’re going,” Stella snapped. I noticed her shift her weight uncomfortably, her posture suddenly stiff. “Daddy!” a small, familiar voice cried out, and a little girl launched herself into my arms. It was my ex-wife, Amelia, with our daughter, Lily. Yes, I was married when I started chasing Stella. She wouldn’t agree to be with me until I was divorced. I was so bewitched by her that I did everything I could to force Amelia into a separation, even giving up primary custody of my own daughter. I adored Lily, so I still saw her secretly whenever I could. In her innocent world, her parents weren’t divorced; we were just living apart for a little while. I looked at Amelia and barely recognized her. Before the divorce, Amelia was a full-time mom who wrote novels in her spare time. After Lily was born, she’d struggled with her weight and never seemed to find the time for herself. She breastfed Lily until she was three because our daughter had a sensitive stomach, and she refused to diet for fear of affecting her milk. She’d become… frumpy. Overweight, tired-looking. I grew to resent her for it. The woman standing before me now was a different person entirely. She was dressed in a chic, tailored LV suit, holding a matching handbag. Her skin was flawless, her figure was slender and strong, and her hair fell in expensive-looking waves. She exuded an aura of quiet power. To get the divorce, I’d given Amelia two-thirds of my assets—a settlement of nearly twenty million dollars. It looked like she was putting it to good use. “Ethan, control your little girlfriend,” Amelia said, her voice dripping with ice as she lifted Lily from my arms. “Before she makes a scene.” “Who are you calling a dog!” Stella shrieked, lunging forward, though her movements seemed strangely restrained. “Ethan, she’s attacking me!” Stella turned to me, her eyes wide with fabricated victimhood. “Amelia, for God’s sake, can you just be civil?” I snapped at my ex-wife. “Oh, the bitch is hurt, so the stud comes running,” Amelia scoffed, her eyes filled with a disdain that cut me to the quick. That was it for Stella. She flew at Amelia, grabbing a fistful of her hair. The movement was so abrupt that something small and pink fell from under her dress and skittered across the polished floor. Before I could get a good look at it, Stella had snatched it up and stuffed it into her purse. In that split second of distraction, Amelia slapped Stella hard across the face. Stella tried to retaliate, but the store manager had already summoned security. They grabbed Stella and me, escorting us firmly toward the exit. Amelia, however, was treated with the utmost deference and invited into a private lounge. Stella’s humiliation turned to rage. “She started it! Why are you kicking us out? I was going to buy a ten-thousand-dollar bag today! What could she possibly afford? You’re all just a bunch of snobs!” The manager gave Stella a withering look. “Ma’am, that woman is one of our V.I.C.s. Her total spending at this boutique has exceeded two million dollars.” Stella froze. I froze. Two million? I’d only given her twenty. Had she gone insane and spent it all on handbags? Or had she found someone else? A billionaire? The drive home was a blur. Stella was sobbing hysterically, demanding to know how much money I’d really given Amelia, accusing me of hiding assets from her.

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Just before college graduation, I asked my girlfriend a half-joking question. “What if my family went bankrupt? Owed a million dollars? Would you still marry me?” The light in her eyes flickered out. She made a flimsy excuse and left. The next day, she called me to a café to end things. “I asked around,” she said, her voice hard. “People are calling about your debts. You’re drowning, and you want to pull me under with you? In your dreams.” “We’re done. And I want half a million dollars. That’s my price.” Her best friend, sitting beside her, added a sympathetic hiss. “Don’t blame her, Ethan. If you really loved her, you wouldn’t want her to suffer, would you?” I looked at the scene they’d so carefully staged, and I almost laughed. Who told them it was my family in debt? It was her father’s loan shark. And his calls were coming to my house. 1 In a sterile downtown coffee shop, Isabelle had shed every last bit of the woman I thought I knew. Her voice, usually soft and melodic, was a raw, ugly thing. “Ethan! Are you deaf?” she shrieked, her voice turning heads at nearby tables. “Five hundred thousand dollars! Not a penny less! That’s what you owe me for the years I wasted on you! You will pay it!” I just stared at her, silent. Four years. I thought what we had was unbreakable. Turns out, it couldn’t even withstand the phantom menace of money. Our entire relationship, evaporated by a single, hypothetical question. Before I could even form a response, she leaned in, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Don’t even think about walking out of here until I get what I’m owed.” Just then, my phone vibrated violently on the table. The caller ID flashed: Sharon Vickers. Isabelle’s mother. I hit the speakerphone button. The voice that came through was even more shrill than her daughter’s, stripped of the sugary sweetness she usually reserved for me. “Ethan! Izzy told you, right?” “Let me be clear. Our Isabelle’s time is not free! You’re not just walking away after all these years!” “I know you have that condo in your name. Sell it. Get the money and give our Izzy her severance package!” The sheer, unadulterated entitlement of it all left me speechless. A hot surge of anger shot up my spine. To keep them from worrying, the only people who knew about the success of my startup were my parents and my best friend, Mark. To the world, and to Isabelle, I was just a regular guy with a decent nine-to-five. That condo—the one she was demanding I liquidate—I’d bought it with my own money. Paid in full. It was meant to be our first home together after we got married. Now, it was just an asset to be stripped. And the supposed million-dollar debt? A complete fabrication. A few days ago, a text message had come to my work phone. It was a collections notice, filled with graphic threats of broken limbs. The debtor wasn’t me. It was Richard Vickers. Isabelle’s father. He had forged my company’s corporate seal and used it to get a massive loan from a shark. One million dollars, principal. With the vig, God only knew what it was now. Isabelle and her mother had clearly gotten wind of the debt collectors and jumped to the conclusion that my business had failed, that I was the one facing financial ruin. My little joke had simply been a test to see how they’d react. The results were… clarifying. “Our Izzy’s youth is priceless! You have to pay!” Sharon’s voice grated through the phone’s speaker. I forced down the fury churning in my gut, carefully lacing my voice with exhaustion and defeat. “You’re right, Sharon. I understand.” “It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry for what I’ve put Izzy through.” “I’ll go home and get the money together right now. We can meet and settle this in person, okay?” Hearing me fold, Sharon’s tone instantly softened. “Well, it’s about time. At least you have some decency left.” “Be at our house. Seven o’clock. Bring the money and the settlement papers.” The call ended. I looked up at Isabelle. A triumphant smirk played on her lips, but her eyes were filled with nothing but contempt. “Glad you finally see things clearly,” she said. I nodded slowly and walked out of the coffee shop. The moment the door closed behind me, I dialed Mark. “Mark, I need a favor.” “I need everything you can find on a loan Richard Vickers took out using my company’s name. I need ironclad proof he signed the papers.” “And one more thing. I need you to put together a little gift package for me. I’m going to see my future in-laws tonight.” Mark’s voice was calm and steady on the other end. “Consider it done.” I hung up. I couldn’t wait to see just how far they were willing to take this performance. 2 At seven o’clock sharp, I was standing on the Vickers’ doorstep. The door was opened by Isabelle’s best friend, Jenna. Her eyes scanned me from head to toe, her disdain practically dripping from her eyelashes. “Oh, you actually showed up. You got the money?” I ignored her and walked straight into the living room. The Vickers clan was assembled on the couch like a royal tribunal. On the coffee table in front of them was a sea of new luxury handbags and jewelry boxes, the price tags still attached. It seemed they’d already started spending my “severance.” Sharon’s face fell when she saw my empty hands. “Ethan. Where is the money?” She slid a document across the table. The title was printed in an obnoxious, bold font: SEPARATION AND COMPENSATION AGREEMENT. In cold, hard print, it stipulated that I was to pay Isabelle a one-time lump sum of five hundred thousand dollars for “emotional distress and wasted time.” Rick, Isabelle’s father, sat beside her, sighing dramatically, his brow furrowed with fake concern. “Ethan, son, I hate to say it, but how did you let your business get this bad? Izzy’s really had a rough time, sticking by you.” Isabelle’s eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying for hours. “Ethan, darling, I didn’t want it to come to this,” she whispered, her voice catching. “But I can’t chain my future to a failure. My parents worked so hard to give me everything. I can’t let them suffer because of your mistakes.” She delivered the lines with such conviction, she almost seemed to believe she was the victim. Jenna chimed in from the side, her voice dripping with venom. “Izzy is just too nice. If it were me, I’d be asking for a lot more than five hundred thousand.” “I mean, a grown man who can’t even support himself, dragging a woman down with him? Pathetic. You should be grateful she’s letting you off this easy.” My gaze drifted from their faces to Rick’s wrist. He was wearing a limited-edition Patek Philippe. I recognized it. I’d seen the same model at an auction last month. It went for just under a million dollars. So that’s where the loan money went. Seeing me hesitate, Sharon grew impatient. She tapped a manicured finger on the agreement. “Sign it! Sign it, and go get the money!” “Oh, and that BMW of yours. You’ll sign the title over to Izzy. Think of it as a little bonus.” “Don’t tell me you don’t have it. The car is still in your name, isn’t it?” Unbelievable. This wasn’t a breakup settlement. This was a shakedown. They wanted to bleed me dry. I kept my mask on, letting my face crumple into a mask of anguish and despair. “Sharon… Izzy…” I stammered. “The company… it’s gone. It’s all gone. I don’t have fifty thousand, let alone five hundred thousand.” “I have nothing left. Not a single penny.” As the words left my mouth, I saw it. A flicker of pure, animal panic in Rick’s eyes. He was scared. He was terrified that if I couldn’t pay, the fire he started would finally burn its way back to him. Oh, this was getting good. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they finally learned the truth. It was going to be spectacular. 3 “No money?” Sharon’s lips curled into a vicious sneer. “You have no money? What about your parents?” “I remember Izzy telling me they have that old house in the city. It’s got to be worth two, maybe three million by now!” “You’re their only son. The house is going to be yours eventually anyway. What’s the big deal about selling it now to fix your mess?” I stared at her, my mind reeling. Did she really just suggest that I go to my parents and demand they sell the home they’d spent their entire lives paying for—their nest egg, their only security—just to fund her daughter’s shopping sprees? Was she even human? I looked at Isabelle, desperately searching for a sign of protest, a flicker of shame. There was none. She nodded, her expression earnest. “Ethan, Mom’s right,” she said softly. “I’m sure your parents want me to be happy and secure, right? Just… for my sake. Go talk to them. I know they’ll understand.” In that moment, whatever was left of my affection for her finally, irrevocably, died. My parents were my line in the sand. No one crossed it. When my mother was in the hospital last year, I’d begged Isabelle to come with me, just for an hour. She’d claimed she already had plans to go shopping with Jenna. She never came. Not once. And now she was sitting here, looking me in the eye while casually plotting to liquidate my parents’ retirement. My voice was ice. “My mother was in the hospital after her surgery. You never visited. Not once. Do you remember that?” The color drained from Isabelle’s face. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Rick, sensing the shift in the room, quickly jumped in to play peacemaker. “Hey, hey, let’s not bring up old stuff. We’re all family here. What’s important is solving the problem at hand. We need to figure out how to pay off this debt.” I just laughed, a cold, empty sound. Sharon, thinking my silence was a sign of capitulation, decided to lay all her cards on the table. “Alright, Ethan, let me spell it out for you,” she said, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “You give us the half-million today. Your company is bankrupt, right? Perfect. You give us the cash, and then you can declare personal bankruptcy.” “That way, all your other debts get wiped out, and our Isabelle has a nice little nest egg to start her new life! It’s the perfect plan!” My entire worldview tilted on its axis. They wanted to use my parents’ life savings to secure their daughter’s future, while simultaneously having me declare bankruptcy to make her father’s loan shark debt disappear. I looked at the three of them, at their greedy, expectant faces, and I couldn’t find a word in the English language to describe the profound ugliness I was witnessing. 4 I stared at the three of them, a wave of nausea washing over me. Slowly, I leaned back against the sofa cushions. The desperate, defeated look on my face began to melt away, replaced by a cold, thin smile. “And what if I don’t?” The atmosphere in the room froze. Jenna was the first to snap. She leaped to her feet, pointing a finger at my face. “Don’t you dare try to back out of this, Ethan! You think you can just walk away?” “I’m warning you, if you don’t pay up, we will send a full account of how you ran your company into the ground and abandoned your pregnant girlfriend to every single person in your industry! We’ll post it everywhere! You’ll be ruined! No one will ever hire you again!” Sharon held up her phone, the screen glowing with a pre-written social media post. The headline read: Heartbreak and Betrayal: My Four Years with a Deadbeat Loser Who Left My Daughter with Nothing! The post itself was a masterpiece of fiction, painting me as a manipulative, social-climbing monster who had used her daughter and then tossed her aside. Their plan was to destroy me with public opinion. Isabelle, seeing me “cornered,” finally dropped her victim act. She turned to Jenna, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “The moment the money comes through, I’m going to the dealership and buying that MINI I wanted!” Jenna rushed to her side, and the two of them began plotting. “Totally! And then a month in Europe to de-stress.” “Yes! I’m going to buy so many bags in Paris, and that necklace we saw…” “Izzy, your new life is finally beginning!” They chattered on, divvying up my money as if I wasn’t even in the room. The sight of it was physically sickening. Sharon, seeing that I hadn’t moved, shot me a venomous look. She lunged forward and snatched my phone from my hand. She scrolled through my contacts, quickly finding my dad’s number. “Stop wasting time! Call them now!” she barked, shoving the phone back into my face. “Tell your parents you got some girl pregnant and you need money for an abortion! They’ll have to pay!” I froze. “Sharon, that’s… that’s not right.” “What choice do you have?” she snapped. “Your parents adore you. They’ll do anything to avoid a scandal. Tell them the girl wants a huge settlement. They’ll believe it.” Isabelle nodded eagerly. “She’s right, Ethan. Your parents love you so much. They’ll do anything to protect your reputation.” I looked from mother to daughter, a new level of fury building inside me. What were these creatures made of? “Make the call!” Sharon urged. “Tell them you need half a million, wired immediately!” Jenna chimed in, “Yeah, it’s going to be your money eventually anyway. What’s the big deal?” Just then, a frantic ringing cut through the tension. It was Rick’s phone. He fumbled it out of his pocket. When he saw the name on the screen—RHINO—his face went as white as a sheet. He shot a panicked look at us, scrambled to his feet, and stumbled out onto the balcony. “Hello… Rhino…” his voice trembled. “The money… I’m working on it… Just give me a couple more days…” I knew it was time. I stood up slowly and straightened my jacket. Sharon and Isabelle were still glaring at me, their eyes filled with menace. I just smiled at them. “You want your money so badly? Fine.” I took out my own phone, ignoring their confused looks, and pulled up a video file. Then, I turned the screen toward them. “But first, let’s watch a little movie.”

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He was at the college reunion, a success story with a beautiful girlfriend on his arm. She said, “If you hadn’t let go back then, you’d be Mrs. Prescott right now.” He sat across from me, his arm around his girlfriend, his expression cool. “That’s all in the past.” The crowd, sensing drama, started to hoot and holler. Under his gaze, I quietly covered the scar on my wrist and forced a smile. “That’s right. We… we have nothing to do with each other anymore.” 1 “I remember it was Audrey who did the breaking up, right?” While his girlfriend was in the restroom, the gossip started to fly. Audrey. That’s me. Elliot Prescott sat across the table, a faint smile on his lips, but his eyes were glacial. This was the first time we’d seen each other in the six years since the breakup. It felt like an ambush. I only came because the reunion organizer said Elliot wasn’t coming. I never expected to see him here. The Elliot of today was the man everyone expected him to become: accomplished, a celebrated young entrepreneur, an Ivy League grad who’d made a fortune. He wore a tailored suit, his features sharp and handsome. The watch on his wrist alone was worth more than my car. Everyone in the room fawned over him, hanging on his every word. And then there was me. A shadow of my former self. “It’s true. She ended it.” Elliot’s voice was calm, answering their unspoken question. You could almost hear the gears turning in their heads, everyone writing their own version of the story. The consensus was obvious: I was a gold digger who couldn’t handle the struggle. I’d bet on the wrong horse and lost everything. “Audrey, I heard that guy you left him for ended up in prison, right?” “And left you with all his debt? You’re not here to hit us up for money, are you?” Through the cascade of snide remarks, Elliot’s deep, quiet eyes remained fixed on me. He said nothing. I offered a strained laugh, giving no answer. The door swung open and his girlfriend, Isabelle, returned. Sensing the strange atmosphere, she smiled. “What did I miss?” The silence from Elliot vanished. He took her hand, his voice softening. “Nothing. Just catching up.” She settled gracefully into her seat, her gaze landing on me. A dimple appeared at the corner of her smiling mouth. “Elliot’s told me about you. If you hadn’t let go back then, you’d be Mrs. Prescott right now.” Gleams of schadenfreude appeared in more than a few eyes around the table. Back in college, my family was prominent. Everywhere I went, I was the center of attention. That kind of envy doesn’t fade with time; years later, it just becomes a reason for them to kick you when you’re down. Elliot broke the suffocating silence, his voice cool and final. “That’s all in the past.” The table went quiet. They understood the man at the head of the table didn’t want to continue the conversation, so they quickly changed the subject. Isabelle raised her glass to me. “Thank you for letting him go. You have to promise you’ll come to our wedding.” I silently covered the scar on my wrist, my voice wooden. “Congratulations.” 2 “Why didn’t you just tell him the truth?” On the phone, my best friend Maya was practically vibrating with indignation on my behalf. The reunion ended early. I stood in the biting wind, my coat wrapped tight around me, watching my breath turn to smoke. “He has a girlfriend.” The other end of the line went silent for a beat. “A girlfriend?” Maya’s voice was laced with disbelief. “Mmmhmm.” Groups of two and three drifted away from the restaurant. The streetlights cast a shattered-glass glow on the fresh layer of snow. “But you finally saw him. After you’ve worked so hard for so long—” “Maya, nobody waits forever.” Some things, if you don’t say them in the moment, are pointless to say later. They just leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. The wind made my eyes sting and I blinked against the burn. “I’m giving up.” Even after all these years of fighting my way out of the mud, trying to find the most dignified way to see him again… it was too late. “Okay,” she said softly. “Just come home.” The pre-Christmas chill had dropped the temperature below freezing. Getting a rideshare was impossible. I stood there for just a few minutes before my hands went numb. My phone screen glowed: Finding your ride. The sharp clack-clack of heels on pavement approached from behind, followed by a woman’s melodic voice. “Elliot, the snow is so beautiful.” “It’s cold out here. Go wait in the car, I’ll be right there.” Elliot’s voice was unmistakable. “Don’t be long.” As the woman passed me, she shot me a look loaded with meaning. She walked to a black sedan parked a few feet away and pulled open the door. The movement was perfectly calculated to show off the bracelet on her wrist, a flash of diamonds that seared my eyes. It was the Prescott family heirloom. It used to be on my wrist. When we broke up, I had a friend return it to him. So, she wasn’t just his girlfriend. She was his fiancée. The crowd had thinned until it was just the two of us. My car still hadn’t arrived. Elliot stood behind me, not saying a word. We were two silent figures under a streetlight, our shadows overlapping on the snow. My mind drifted back to the night we broke up. Elliot had been in a car accident on his way to see me. His best friend had called, his voice raw with anger. “Elliot’s in the hospital.” “Is it life-threatening?” “So you won’t come if it’s not?” “Please, just take care of him.” “Audrey, he got the London scholarship. He’s going to make it, you know he is. Why couldn’t you wait? Are you that desperate for money? After everything he’s done for you, things you could never repay in a hundred lifetimes, have you forgotten all of it?” He was practically screaming at me through the phone, one step away from calling me a heartless bitch. Then, the phone was snatched away and slammed down. You could say I abandoned him. It was only natural that he hated me. “How much do you owe?” Elliot’s cold voice pulled me from my thoughts. “It has nothing to do with you.” I sucked in a breath of frigid air. It scraped against my throat, raw from the wine, and I burst into a fit of coughing. It felt like my windpipe was tearing apart. I bent over, clutching the lamppost for support as the wine churned in my stomach. The coughing forced tears from my eyes. Elliot stood beside me, watching impassively. A car finally pulled up. The driver leaned over from the inside. “Ride for The Atherton Estates?” “Yes.” I pushed myself up from my knees, took a breath, and reached for the door. A hand clamped around my arm, yanking me back. I stumbled into Elliot’s chest. “What are you doing there?” he demanded. The Atherton Estates was where the city’s old money lived. They didn’t just let anyone through the gates. I tried to shove his hand away, but he caught my wrist, his grip like iron. The heat of his skin burned straight through to my heart. I struggled again, but it was useless. I looked up at his face, dark and unreadable in the dim light. “What is it you want to say, Mr. Prescott?” His lips thinned into a hard line, his black eyes deep and still, betraying nothing. The wind howled, whipping my hair across my face. I pulled my lips into a smirk, voicing the thought I knew was in his head. “You think I’m making money on my back, don’t you? Just like everyone else.” “Fifty thousand a month. Is that enough?” Elliot’s voice cut through mine, sharp and cold. “What are you talking about?” A sneer finally touched his lips. “You need money, don’t you? Fifty thousand. A hundred. Name your price.” My hand flew up. The sharp crack of the slap echoed in the night air. A perfect red handprint bloomed on his cheek. In the distance, I heard a woman’s gasp. The car door opened and Isabelle rushed out. “Live your life, Elliot. And stay out of mine.” I left him with those words and got in the car. 3 “You hit him?” Maya handed me a mug of hot water. “Yeah. He offered to make me his mistress.” I curled up on the sofa, trying to breathe through the waves of pain cramping my stomach, and slowly sipped the water. A minute later, I bolted for the bathroom and threw it all up. Maya rubbed my back. “You can’t drink when your stomach is this bad.” I gasped for air, rinsing my mouth and wiping the water from my lips. My esophagus burned. “Was it worth it? Loving him for all those years?” I met my own eyes in the mirror. My lashes were wet, my dark hair stuck to my forehead, my face pale. Maya’s grumbling seemed to come from far away, muffled and indistinct. “If you hadn’t been so ruthless and broken up with him, he wouldn’t be where he is today…” My thoughts turned to Isabelle. She had a brightness about her, a radiance that I remembered once having myself, a long, long time ago. But I had fallen too hard, and by the time I managed to crawl out of the gutter, everything had changed. After Maya finished her housekeeping shift at the Atherton Estates, we walked hand in hand back to our small apartment. My phone rang. It was Elliot’s best friend, Ryan. “Audrey, if you’re in trouble, I can get you a job.” I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. “They’re getting married next month. Isabelle is a good person, her family’s well off. You should…” “I won’t bother him again. You don’t have to worry.” He paused, then offered a lame explanation. “We just want Elliot to be happy.” “I know.” Every single one of our old friends had, without exception, sided with Elliot. When I hung up, Maya’s eyes were red. “They don’t know anything.” “It doesn’t matter.” Since I had to stay in town for a while, I found a job not far from our apartment. During the interview, the HR manager asked hesitantly, “It says here you have a history of depression?” “That was a long time ago. I’m fine now. I have a doctor’s note to prove it.” Several other companies had rejected me during the background check because of it. This company was smaller, and that same evening, I got a call with a job offer. I thought the reunion would be the last time I ever saw Elliot. I was wrong. Three days later, he appeared at my new company. He was my new boss. And my desk was moved to the spot right outside his office door. “I refuse.” “Fine.” Elliot didn’t even look up from his papers. “Submit your resignation to HR.” A humorless laugh escaped my lips. “You’re firing me because I won’t move my desk?” His pen stopped moving. He finally graced me with his attention. “I’m merely providing you with an option. Or did you think I was after something?” His words caught in my throat. I thought of Maya arguing with our landlord last night over a small rent increase, and I forced a smile. “Of course not, Mr. Prescott. You’re a man of integrity.” Elliot gave a slight nod. “Thank you. Close the door on your way out. And turn your chair so it faces away from my office. I don’t want to look at your face.” “…” The days that followed passed with almost no interaction between us. A week later, the company held a team-building dinner. As the new girl, I was an easy target for round after round of drinks. “Come on, Audrey, if you don’t drink, it might come out of your paycheck.” “Don’t worry, we’ll get you home if you get too drunk. We’re all women here, what’s there to be afraid of?” My manager smiled encouragingly. Amid the jeers of the others, I downed my last glass of the night and collapsed onto the table, unconscious. The next morning, I woke up in a king-sized bed. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows, making it impossible to open my eyes. I pushed myself up, and the duvet slipped down, revealing that I was wearing a soft hotel bathrobe. I froze for a second, then got up and walked out of the bedroom. In the spacious living room, Elliot sat with his legs crossed, reading the morning paper. He was also wearing a hotel robe. When he saw me, he lifted his eyes and gave me a lazy glance. “You’re awake. Breakfast is on the table. Eat something and then go back to sleep.” A cold dread washed over me. My face went white. “Did we…?” Elliot tossed the paper onto the coffee table. He tugged his robe open slightly, revealing an angry-looking mark on his collarbone. “Unfortunately for you, you were the one who initiated it.” I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. My memory of the night was a complete blank. “That’s impossible.” Elliot placed a contract in front of me. My thumbprint was stamped on the bottom. The text was simple: I would be his lover, and he would pay me one hundred thousand dollars a month. “There’s no way I signed this…” “Really?” Elliot let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Are you sure about that?” Faced with his steady, unnervingly calm gaze, my mouth opened, but no words came out. He ignored my panic and produced a small digital recorder. “I accidentally recorded a little monologue of yours last night. Care to hear your own filthy thoughts, Audrey?” A violent shiver ran through me. I was plunged into an icy bath of shame. To have those thoughts was one thing; to have them spoken aloud, recorded, and held as evidence against me felt like a crime. Elliot’s eyes were hooded, his expression unreadable. “Lusting after an engaged man… tsk, tsk. What do you think would happen if I played this for them, Audrey?” My hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms. “Are you doing this for revenge?” “Yes,” he answered simply. “You never wanted me to have an easy life. Why should I grant you one?” “You have two choices.” “Either you fulfill the contract, or I release this recording to the world.” The ticking of the clock on the wall echoed in my ears, each tick a hammer blow against my eardrum. My lips were dry and cracked. I looked up at him, my voice numb. “Then release it.” Under his cold, hard stare, I spoke again, my voice flat. “Elliot, I will not be the other woman.” He stared at me for a long moment, then smiled. “Audrey, who do you think you are?” “Do you really think you have a choice?”

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He sent our five-year-old twin daughters away because they upset the woman he could never get over. All it took was one unhappy comment from her, and he had them enrolled in a behavioral modification academy. The school’s “escorts” stormed our home to take them. My daughters, my little girls, clawed at the door of the black SUV, their voices shrill with terror as they screamed for their father. I was on my knees on the driveway, the sharp gravel digging into my skin. “They’re only five, Ethan,” I begged, my voice shredding. “They’re just babies. A place like that will break them. It’s my fault, I’m their mother, I’m the one who failed to teach them. Punish me…” But Ethan just stood there, his arm wrapped around her, watching the three of us with cold, detached eyes. “If you hadn’t coddled them, they wouldn’t have turned into such entitled brats,” he spat. “I’m their father. If you can’t discipline them, I will. Do you really think I would ever let any harm come to them?” The next day, when his sister and I finally reached the academy, we were met with the sight of our daughters’ small bodies, covered in deep purple bruises. They were no longer breathing. And my husband? He was on Instagram, celebrating the fact that his high school sweetheart was pregnant with his child. My eyes, empty of everything, turned to my sister-in-law. “My babies are dead,” I whispered, the words feeling like sand in my mouth. “I have nothing left. Please, Sophie. Just let me go. I don’t want anything.” 1 By the time we got them to the hospital, there were no signs of life. They didn’t even make it to the emergency room; they were wheeled straight to the morgue. Sophie looked at me, her gaze thick with a pity I couldn’t bear. She tried to find words of comfort. “It’s going to be okay, Reagan. I promise. Grandfather and I are on your side. Ethan was wrong, completely wrong. I’ll make him come and apologize, and you two can…” Her voice trailed off as I held my phone up to her face. It was Ethan’s Instagram post from two hours ago. The caption read: “Before you even entered this world, Mommy and Daddy already loved you.” The picture was an ultrasound. The name at the top was clear: Victoria Reed. Six weeks pregnant. Victoria. The one he’d always wanted. Sophie’s words choked in her throat. A moment later, her face flushed with rage. “I’m calling him right now. I swear to you, Reagan, the Lockwood family will make this right…” A dry, bitter laugh escaped my lips. I hit dial on Ethan’s number myself and put it on speaker. He answered on the second ring, his voice already laced with irritation. “Are you calling to cry about the girls being ‘mistreated’ again? They’re Lockwoods. Who would dare lay a hand on them? Stop playing the victim. I sent them to a school to learn some discipline. Is that a reason to blow up my phone every five minutes?” He paused, then delivered the final blow. “You make me sick, Reagan.” He hung up before I could say a single word. The silence in the sterile hospital hallway was absolute. Every one of his cruel words had landed, sharp and clear, in Sophie’s ears. Her face was as white as the walls around us. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She had no more reassurances to offer. I forced a smile that felt like cracking glass, and the tears I’d been holding back finally fell, hot and heavy. “Please,” I whispered again. “I have nothing left. Let me go. I can’t do this anymore.” Just as Sophie opened her mouth to reply, two police officers approached us. “Are you the family of the deceased?” one of them asked, his voice gentle. “The administrators from the academy have been taken into custody. We need you to come down to the station and give a statement.” The moment I walked into the precinct, I saw them—the men who had dragged my screaming children from our home the day before. Something inside me snapped. A guttural scream tore from my throat as I launched myself at them, my grief turning into a blind, animalistic rage. “You monsters! You’re monsters! They were five years old! How could you do it? How could you!” Hands grabbed me from all sides, pulling me back. Sophie wrapped her arms around me, holding my collapsing body. “Reagan, please,” she sobbed. “Let the police handle this. They’ll get justice, I swear. With the Lockwood name behind this, those bastards don’t stand a chance.” The men, startled by my frenzy, huddled in the corner. One of them muttered with a sneer, “Not our fault the mother didn’t raise them right.” Another one chimed in. “It’s how we teach all the kids. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Who knew these two were so fragile? Just our bad luck…” My hand, trembling violently, pointed at them. The fire in my chest was about to consume me. I wanted to rip them to shreds. A metallic taste flooded my mouth. I coughed, a spray of dark blood staining the linoleum floor, and then the world went black. When I woke up, I was in a bedroom at the Lockwood estate. Sophie was beside the bed, her eyes red and swollen. “Reagan, you’re awake. Don’t worry, we’re handling everything with the police. We will make sure those animals pay for what they did.” My eyes were fixed on the ornate ceiling, seeing nothing. “Please, let me go,” I said, the words a hollow echo. “I have nothing left…” 2 I knew the truth, of course. Those men at the academy were monsters, yes. But they were just the final instruments. The one who had personally delivered my daughters to that hell was Ethan. The true architect of their deaths wasn’t a stranger. It was their own father. Sophie’s shoulders slumped. After a long moment, as if making a monumental decision, she whispered, “Okay. I’ll go talk to Grandfather.” As I watched her leave, a sob finally broke through the numbness, a raw, ragged sound that carried all the pain of the last seven years. I cried until there was nothing left inside me. I came to the Lockwood estate when I was eight, the same age as Ethan. My grandfather and his, Arthur Lockwood, had served together in Vietnam. My grandfather saved his life on the battlefield, forging a bond of blood and honor between them. After my parents died in a car crash when I was a baby, my grandfather raised me. When he passed away eight years later, Arthur Lockwood brought me here, into his home. To his credit, he and Sophie had always treated me like family. They were kind, generous, and loving. They made me feel like I belonged. It was because of them that I stayed. For seven years of marriage, no matter how Ethan treated me, no matter how much of a bastard he was, I stayed. I built a home for him, bore his children, and managed his life. I had accepted that he would never love me. But I thought that with my two beautiful daughters, my life would still have meaning. Now, all of it was gone. I don’t know how much time passed before Sophie returned. “Grandfather wants to see you.” When I entered his study, Arthur Lockwood was sitting in a heavy wooden chair by the window. The look in his eyes was one of profound sorrow. “My dear girl,” he said, his voice raspy with age and emotion. “You are a good girl. Sophie told me everything. You’ve suffered too much these past years.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “The cremation is tomorrow. After it’s done… you should go. That boy of mine doesn’t deserve you. He shouldn’t be allowed to waste another day of your life.” I said nothing. I simply walked before him and bowed deeply from the waist. As I held the bow, tears dripped from my face onto the polished hardwood floor. I was grateful, so deeply grateful, for the twenty years of shelter and kindness this family had given me. But I could never, ever forgive Ethan. I could never forgive the man who had murdered my children. When I returned to my room, Ethan was already there, waiting. A smirk played on his lips. “Well? Didn’t take you long to run to Grandfather and tattle, did it? Reagan, do you honestly believe that just because you have him and Sophie wrapped around your finger, I’ll ever want to be a real husband to you?” The sight of him ignited a hatred so potent it was suffocating. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to send him straight to hell. But then, I heard their voices, soft and sweet in my memory. “Mommy, I love Daddy so much. He’s the most handsome dad in my whole preschool.” “Mommy, we miss Daddy. Is he coming home to see us today?” “We love you the most in the whole world, Mommy. And we love Daddy second most.” Even in their last moments, as I held their broken bodies at that godforsaken school, the last thing they whispered to me was: “Mommy… don’t be mad at Daddy because of us. It was our fault. We were bad…” I took a sharp breath and walked past him to sit on the edge of the bed, saying nothing. My silence seemed to infuriate him. He grabbed me, throwing me back against the mattress and pinning my wrists above my head. “What’s this new act?” he sneered. “You had Sophie call me, begging me to come home. And now you give me the silent treatment?” He lowered his face to kiss me. I couldn’t break his grip, so I did the only thing I could. I bit down on his lip, hard. He yelped in pain, releasing me and scrambling back. “Reagan! Are you out of your goddamn mind?” He wiped a smear of blood from his mouth. “This pathetic act is exactly how you manipulate Grandfather, isn’t it? Beg me to come back and then play these stupid games. It’s pathetic.” He stood up, his face a mask of disgust. “It’s because of this fake, innocent bullshit that the girls are so…” “The girls are dead,” I said, my voice quiet and steady, cutting through his tirade. I could taste my own blood where I’d bitten the inside of my lip. 3 Ethan froze, his expression hardening. Then, he let out a short, contemptuous laugh. “Reagan, you’ll say anything, won’t you? Is this because you found out about Victoria’s pregnancy today? Are you really that desperate?” Without another word, he turned and stalked towards the door. He paused in the doorway, his back still to me. “You’re the one who wanted me to come home,” he said coldly. “Don’t go crying to Grandfather that I’m neglecting you. It only makes me hate you more.” The door clicked shut, and the room was silent again. I stumbled into the bathroom and scrubbed at my teeth, trying to erase the ghost of his touch from my lips. There was a time when Ethan and I were in love. On my eighteenth birthday, he stood before me, the tips of his ears bright red with shyness. “Reagan,” he’d stammered. “I want to take care of you. I don’t want to just be… like your brother anymore.” The young man’s cheeks were flushed, but his eyes held a conviction that was intoxicating. In that moment, my heart melted. For the next few years, he treated me like I was made of glass. And I loved him with everything I had. Then, when I was twenty-two, his grandfather summoned us to his study. “You’re both of an age to marry,” Arthur had said, smiling warmly. “Reagan, my dear, your grandfather saved my life. I couldn’t bear the thought of you marrying into another family. What do you think of my boy, Ethan?” From that day on, everything changed. Ethan’s affection, the tender intimacy we shared, it all vanished overnight. I never understood what happened. He would never give me a reason. A year into our marriage, I became pregnant with the twins. After that, he was barely home, spending his nights out, shamelessly parading Victoria around town. I tried to fight, to argue. But he would just look at me with that same coldness, as if I were a hysterical stranger. “You got what you wanted,” he’d say. “You’re Mrs. Lockwood. You’ve given the family an heir. What more could you possibly be crying about?” Then, the final twist of the knife: “Stop acting like a victim in front of me. It’s disgusting.” After that, I stopped asking for a reason. I accepted the reality. Ethan didn’t love me, and he didn’t love our children. I focused all my energy on the girls. They were sweet, smart, and well-behaved. I thought that was enough. I thought watching them grow would be my happiness. But now, even that has been taken from me. The next morning, the cremation was quick and sterile. I stood outside the funeral home, holding two small, light boxes. They were so tiny when they were born, sleeping peacefully in my arms. How is it that after five years, they’ve become even smaller, even lighter? A burning sting filled my eyes, but I bit down hard on my lip, refusing to let another tear fall. Sophie stood beside me, her expression etched with worry. “If you need to cry, Reagan, just let it out. Don’t hold it in.” I didn’t answer her. My gaze was fixed on Mr. Lockwood as he prepared to get into his car for the drive to the cemetery. “Grandfather,” I said, my voice clear and firm. “The girls won’t be buried in the Lockwood plot. And I’m changing their last names. They aren’t Lockwoods. They are my daughters. Reagan Scott’s daughters.” Arthur Lockwood stared at me, his eyes ancient and weary. Then, a sudden fury overtook him. “That worthless son of mine!” he roared. “On a day like today, where the hell is he?” Sophie flinched beside me and mumbled, “His phone is off. I can’t reach him.” Arthur closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again, his gaze was clear. “You carried them for nine months and brought them into this world through hell. It will be as you say.” I immediately sank to my knees before him and pressed my forehead to the cool pavement three times. My debt of gratitude to this man was immeasurable. But that debt had nothing to do with my children. I would not allow them to suffer any further indignity, even in death. After his car pulled away, Sophie gently helped me to my feet. “Reagan…” she began, her voice cracking. I gave her a small, sad smile, then hailed a cab, clutching the two boxes to my chest. I was going back to the house. I had to pack up their things. That house was never a home, and I wouldn’t leave a trace of them in that cold, empty place. But when I pushed open the front door, the sound that greeted me was the sordid noise of a man and a woman, tangled together. “Oh, stop,” a woman giggled. “I’m pregnant. The doctor said we need to be careful.” 4 The man’s voice was rough with lust. “I’ll be gentle. It’s fine. Shh, baby. I would never do anything to hurt our little one.” A moment later, the unmistakable sounds of their lovemaking echoed through the house. They were in our bedroom. I couldn’t go in to pack. So I just stood there in the foyer, frozen, torturing myself by listening to every obscene sound. I don’t know how long passed before they finally emerged. The moment Victoria saw me, a look of undisguised triumph flashed in her eyes. “Oh, Reagan, you’re back! You were so quiet, we didn’t even know you were here. It’s all Ethan’s fault,” she purred, clinging to his arm. “I told him no, but he just insisted. You know how he is.” Ethan stood beside her, his hand possessively on her waist. “Why are you explaining anything to her? She’s a nobody.” He leaned down and kissed Victoria’s temple. “Come on, let’s go. We have that appointment with the OB-GYN. We need to make sure our baby is healthy and safe.” Throughout it all, Ethan never once looked at me. His world contained only Victoria. I stepped aside, calmly clearing a path for them to the door. As he passed me, his gaze finally fell on the two small boxes in my arms. “What is that garbage?” he said with a frown of disgust. “It’s filthy. Throw it out.” With that, he wrapped his arm around Victoria and walked out the door. I looked down at the boxes in my arms, my vision blurring. “He wasn’t talking about you,” I whispered to them. “Don’t be sad. You’re Mommy’s treasures. You are not garbage.” After carefully placing their ashes on the table, I began to pack. Clothes, toys, dinnerware, crayons. When I got to the small desk in their playroom, I found a framed picture. It was a family photo, but only the three of us were in it. There was no Ethan. With a trembling hand, I removed the photo from its frame. On the picture, one of my daughters had drawn a stick figure of a man. Next to it, in the clumsy handwriting of a child, were three words. Daddy loves Mommy. Next to the words, she had drawn a tiny heart. That’s when I finally broke. I clutched the photograph to my chest and wailed, the sound raw and broken. In the five years I had raised them alone, no matter what passed between Ethan and me, I had never said a single bad word about him in front of our daughters. But children are perceptive. They knew. They saw that their father did not love their mother. It was dark by the time I finished packing. I watched as the moving company loaded the last of the boxes onto their truck. “Is that everything, Ms. Scott?” the mover asked. I shook my head, turned, and walked back inside. On the coffee table, I placed the divorce papers I had already signed. As I left the house for the last time, I held the two boxes close. A strange sense of peace settled over me. After a moment of silence, I took out my phone, removed the SIM card, snapped it in two, and tossed the pieces out the car window. Meanwhile, at the Lockwood Medical Center, Arthur and Sophie had arrived, having tracked down Ethan and Victoria during their appointment. The moment Ethan saw his grandfather and sister, his face darkened. “Does Reagan have no shame?” he muttered to Victoria. “Plays the saint at home and then calls them to chase me down at the hospital. She’s disgusting…” Before he could finish, Arthur’s hand cracked across his face with a sound that echoed in the corridor. “You degenerate!” the old man bellowed, his voice shaking with fury. “You murder your own children and you have the nerve to bring your mistress here for a checkup? How did my family produce something so heartless, so rotten to the core?” Ethan staggered back, stunned. “What… What did you say?”

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For three years, Ethan and I were bound by the “Fifty-Fifty Couple” System. When we went out to eat, I paid for my meal, he paid for his. Movie tickets were split down the middle, and the popcorn was divided kernel by kernel. Then he was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. He needed a new kidney. The System chimed in: [Surgical procedure estimated at $500,000. Host Audrey is required to pay fifty percent.] I had five thousand dollars in my bank account. Lying in his hospital bed, Ethan squeezed my hand gently. “Audrey, it’s okay if you don’t have the money.” “I looked it up. A kidney on the black market goes for about two hundred and fifty thousand.” He gazed at me, his eyes full of a terrifying tenderness. “You love me that much, don’t you? Of course you do.” I looked into his devoted eyes and smiled. So this was it. The grand finale of the three-year-long marital obedience test. 1 A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my mind, sterile and sharp. [Detecting a required kidney transplant for partner Ethan Vance. Total cost: $500,000.] [In accordance with the Fifty-Fifty principle, Host Audrey Miller must contribute fifty percent of the total, amounting to $250,000.] [Please complete the payment within seven days, or the penalty protocol will be initiated.] I stared at my banking app. The balance—$5,321.80—seemed to mock me, my fingers growing numb and cold. Three years. Three years since Ethan and I had gotten together. We’d met in college. He’d asked me out right after graduation, his confession full of earnest, soulful promises. He told me he was searching for a love that was pure, perfectly equal, untainted by the vulgarity of money. And then it appeared: the “Fifty-Fifty Couple” System. It bound us together the moment I said yes. At first, I thought it was a sign, a testament to our progressive, modern love. Rent was split exactly in half. Utilities were calculated down to the cent. The electric razor I bought him for his birthday cost $89.99. The lipstick he gave me for mine was $94.50. I had to Venmo him the $2.26 difference. I used to think it was charming, a quirk of our relationship. Only now did I realize it wasn’t a quirk. It was a cage. Ethan lay propped against the sterile white pillows, his face pale, but his smile was as gentle as ever. He took my hand, his palm warm and dry against my own icy skin. “Audrey, don’t be scared.” “It’s okay if you don’t have the money.” I lifted my head, my gaze falling into the same deep brown eyes I had once drowned in. “I looked it up,” he said, his voice soft. “A kidney on the black market goes for about two hundred and fifty thousand.” My heart stopped. Just for a second, it simply ceased to beat. He reached up, stroking my cheek with his thumb. His tone was intimate, full of the tender persuasion I knew so well. “You love me that much, don’t you? Of course you do.” He said it so matter-of-factly, like he was asking if I wanted pasta or pizza for dinner. I stared at him, and a slow, cold smile spread across my face. So that’s what this was. This wasn’t about some bullshit principle of equality. This entire three-year, meticulously calculated relationship had been one long, elaborate obedience test. And the final exam had just been handed out. He wasn’t asking for my money. He was asking for a piece of my body to prove that I loved him. 2 “Ethan, are you serious?” My own voice was a tremor, and I couldn’t tell if it was from rage or fear. A small frown creased his brow, a flicker of annoyance at my question. “Audrey, we’ve been together for three years. My life is literally in your hands.” He let out a soft, pained sigh. “Was it all a lie? Everything we had?” He began to cough, a weak, theatrical sound, leaning back against the pillows as if another question from me might just finish him off. Just then, the hospital room door flew open. Ethan’s mother, Carol, blew in like a storm front. She didn’t even glance at me, rushing straight to the bedside to grab Ethan’s other hand. “Ethan, honey! How are you feeling? What did the doctor say?” “I’m fine, Mom.” He patted her hand, but his eyes darted toward me. “It’s just… Audrey. I don’t think she’s willing.” Carol’s gaze snapped to me, sharp and venomous. “Audrey, what is your problem?” she hissed. “Ethan is dying, and you’re hesitating?” “It’s only two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Do you have any idea how much time and effort my son has invested in you over the past three years? How do you even begin to calculate that?” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Carol, we split everything fifty-fifty. He hasn’t spent an extra dime on me.” “Bullshit!” Her voice was shrill. “He let you cook and clean for him! That was a privilege, a chance for you to prove your worth!” “He let you move into our building and only charged you half the rent! Do you know how many women would kill for a chance to pay to be near him?” She jabbed a finger in my direction, her face contorted with fury. “My son is a catch! Being with you was the biggest blessing of your life!” “And now, when he needs you to save him, you drag your feet! What’s one kidney? You women have two of them! You won’t die if you lose one!” she shrieked. “We’ve taken care of you for three years. Think of it as repaying a debt!” Repaying a debt? I was the one who rushed home from my job every single day to shop, cook, and clean for the two of them. I was the one who served Ethan his dinner while he sat on the couch, controller in hand, screaming at a video game. Carol had never so much as washed a single dish, accepting my unpaid labor as her royal due. This was the “debt” they spoke of. Watching the two of them, one playing the victim, the other the aggressor, their routine so perfectly rehearsed, it all finally clicked into place. I wasn’t Ethan’s girlfriend. I was a pre-ordered organ donor. A live-in, unpaid housekeeper. And it was time for them to collect. Ethan, ever the gentle manipulator, added his soft appeal. “Mom, don’t say that. Audrey’s just having a hard time processing.” He turned back to me, his eyes filled with a carefully measured dose of disappointment and pleading. “Audrey. Please, just do this for me. For us.” I watched his performance, a sheet of ice forming around my heart. I took a deep, steadying breath. Then, I looked at him, at his mother, and gave them the brightest, most brilliant smile I could muster. “Okay.”

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It happened right after I liked my husband Ryan’s latest photo on Instagram. The whispers from my coworkers started instantly, a ripple of quiet hisses spreading through the office. In his new post, there he was: Ryan, the man who claimed washing a single dish was beneath him, now dressed in an expensive Patagonia jacket, diligently pruning grapevines in some rustic, sun-drenched vineyard. But it was the caption that really sealed it. He’d written, so proud of himself: A real man can close a deal in the boardroom and handle a shovel in the backyard. This morning, before he left, he told me he had to fly out of state for an urgent project meeting. Apparently, the “project meeting” was at his female colleague’s family home. I stared at the smug, self-satisfied look on Ryan’s face in the photo, and I felt… nothing. A perfect, serene void. I quietly liked the post, then locked my phone. I didn’t know what kind of storm was about to break, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty. We were finished. 1. It didn’t take long for his call to come through. His voice was a mixture of post-manual-labor exhaustion and a sharp edge of anger. “Alice, what the hell? We’re all colleagues here. What’s with the passive-aggressive crap online for everyone to see?” “Jenna’s family is struggling. So what if I came back to her hometown to help out? You wouldn’t get it. A princess like you, who’s had everything handed to her, what do you know about how hard life is for people in the country?” “Delete the comment right now. Stop making a fool of yourself in front of the whole office. If you’re not embarrassed, I am!” “Next holiday, I promise, I’ll take you to see your parents. Okay?” Next holiday. I’d heard that empty promise a thousand times. My heart was numb to it now. Besides, there wasn’t going to be a next holiday for us. Because the day after Thanksgiving, our divorce waiting period would be over. I was about to tell him not to bother when I heard a sudden yelp on his end of the line, like he’d tripped over something. He hung up in a hurry. I frowned, set my phone down, and tried to focus on the project proposal in front of me. A few minutes later, my phone started buzzing relentlessly, like a death rattle. I opened it to see that Jenna had tagged me in the company-wide Slack channel. She’d screenshotted my “like” on Ryan’s post and was demanding an explanation, her words dripping with faux outrage. “@Alice, what is this supposed to mean? If you have a problem with me being from a small town, just say it. Don’t hide behind these petty, sarcastic jabs.” “Ryan was kind enough to put aside his pride and help me prune grapevines, and all you can do is sit behind a screen and mock people? What kind of woman does that?” The channel exploded. People I knew, people I didn’t, all chiming in to support Jenna, their words sycophantic and eager to please the boss’s new favorite. Then, the unbelievable happened. Ryan himself jumped into the chat. “Alice, I expect you to apologize to Jenna immediately. If you don’t, consider yourself suspended for two weeks.” His favoritism was blatant, shameless. What stung more was that the colleagues I’d considered friends, the ones I shared lunches and inside jokes with, were all silent. Not a single person spoke up for me. It was like they’d all made a pact. The arrows were all pointing at me. Someone even accused me of being a snob who “discriminates against people from rural areas,” calling me petty and jealous of the new girl. I let out a cold, humorless laugh. I couldn’t be bothered to argue. If this was how Ryan wanted to fire me, it would actually be doing me a favor. After all, three months ago, he’d already signed the divorce papers with his own hand. 2. It was a normal Friday. When I handed him the papers, I was still clinging to a sliver of hope. I thought he might at least glance at them, maybe even ask why. But Ryan took the folder without ever looking up from his phone, scribbled his signature in a few quick strokes, and handed it back as if he were approving a routine expense report. I just stood there, frozen. I looked down at his messy, illegible signature, and a pain so sharp it felt like a physical blade twisted in my gut. I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Did you even read it?” His brow furrowed in annoyance, his thumbs still flying across his phone screen. “It’s a document from Jenna. What could possibly be wrong with it? If there’s nothing else, you can go.” My fingers, still clutching the papers, turned white. An invisible hand was squeezing my chest, making it impossible to breathe. So that’s what I was to him. Not even worthy of a second of his attention. The only person he trusted was Jenna. I glanced down and saw the tension in his face melt away, replaced by a soft, gentle smile. He looked like a teenager with a crush. I risked a peek at his screen. Even though they were in the same building, he was texting Jenna. Flirting. The messages were intimate, full of inside jokes. They were making plans for drinks at some trendy cocktail bar tonight. A phone ringing violently yanked me back to the present. It was Ryan again. Probably calling to force me to issue that public apology to Jenna in the Slack channel. I ignored it. But he called seven, eight times in a row. Finally, a colleague walked over and held her phone out to me, whispering, “It’s Mr. Henderson. He says it’s urgent.” I took the phone, my voice flat and cold. “What is it?” “Alice, you’ve got a lot of nerve, don’t you? Ignoring my messages, my calls? You really want to go against me?” He launched into a tirade, his tone that of a CEO reprimanding an insubordinate employee. “What do you want, Ryan?” He scoffed. “I just got a call. Someone from the county clerk’s office, saying they wanted to schedule our final divorce mediation. Do you know anything about this?” My breath caught in my throat. Had he finally remembered? 3. But his next words rained down on me like a hailstorm. “Alice, I thought you had some class, but I never imagined you’d stoop this low.” “Hiring someone to impersonate a government official? Threatening me with a divorce? You’ve really outdone yourself.” I was stunned into silence. I could hear Jenna’s voice in the background, a slow, sweet drawl. “Take it easy, Ryan. She’s probably just worried about you working so hard at my family’s place. She just wants you to come home sooner.” Ryan laughed, a cruel, cutting sound. “Her? Worried about me? If she gave a damn about me, she wouldn’t have thrown a fit and kept me up all night when I was exhausted and just trying to get some rest!” I laughed too, a hollow sound that chilled me to the bone. I remembered that night. He had been with Jenna at a gallery opening. He came home reeking of champagne, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in the middle of a severe allergic asthma attack, wheezing so badly I was on the verge of passing out. What he called “throwing a fit” was me, gasping for air, desperately dialing 911. When he heard the knock on the door, he didn’t even ask if I was okay. He stormed out, screamed at the paramedics for making a racket, and slammed the door in their faces, locking it. The next day, when he found me too sick to get out of bed, he complained that I was going to ruin his focus for the week. He packed a bag and went to “stay” at Jenna’s apartment. I was alone in that apartment for six days, surviving on leftover inhalers and medication. The illness finally subsided, but it left me with a permanent tightness in my chest whenever the air got damp. He didn’t remember any of that. All he remembered was that I had disturbed his peace. “Alice, what I said in the channel stands. You’re suspended for two weeks. Do you have a problem with that?” “You can fire me, or I can quit. Either works.” Ryan seemed taken aback by my response. He paused, then his tone softened, clearly mistaking my decisiveness for surrender. “Look, it doesn’t have to come to that. Since you’re showing a little remorse, we can change the punishment.” “Jenna said she’s willing to forgive your little online outburst. But from now on, your project commissions will be transferred to her as compensation for emotional distress.” “Now, aren’t you going to thank Jenna for giving you a second chance?” 4. I had to laugh at the sheer audacity. They were the ones who had publicly humiliated me, yet somehow, they had twisted it to make it my fault. Ryan was a master at this kind of gaslighting. Like the time Jenna missed a client proposal deadline and insisted I never told her the date. Or the time she got drunk at a client dinner, smashed the client’s phone, and nearly got us sued. Ryan didn’t blame her. He chewed me out in front of the entire company for not “training her properly.” I was so done with this life. So I replied calmly, “Thanks for the generous offer, but I think I’ll just quit. It’s better for everyone.” I hung up before he could respond. My coworkers shot furtive, gossipy glances my way. I met their eyes, and they quickly ducked their heads back down, pretending to be busy. Just then, an unknown number called. “Hello, this is the county clerk’s office. We’re calling for a final confirmation. Do you and Mr. Henderson require divorce mediation services?” “No, that won’t be necessary.” “Very well. You can come to the courthouse to pick up your final divorce decree on any business day next week.” I hung up the phone and let out a long, slow breath. This seven-year relationship was finally, truly over. I finished up my pending tasks, typed out my resignation letter, and took it to HR. Ryan wasn’t in the office, so I had to leave it with them to process. I didn’t want to spend another second in that building. As I passed the HR manager’s desk, my eyes caught on a small decorative object on her shelf. A gilded magnolia flower, now covered in a thin layer of dust. It was a memento from seven years ago, back when Ryan and I had just gotten together. He had given one to every employee in the company. He’d spent days choosing it, settling on the magnolia because, he said, it symbolized our love: pure and enduring. I can still remember him holding my hand, smiling. “Alice,” he’d said, “we’ll be like this magnolia. We’ll never wilt.” Now, the flower was forgotten in a corner, collecting dust. Just like our love, eventually replaced by time and someone new. The HR manager noticed me looking. She sneered. “Don’t bother staring. It’s not yours anymore.” “Your paperwork is processed. You can go now.” I snapped back to reality and gave a bitter smile, saying nothing. Leaving her office, I went back to my desk to pack my things. I found it buried under a mountain of trash. Wastepaper, empty soda cans, snack wrappers. All of my personal belongings—my photos, my favorite mug—had been thrown on the floor. I looked around. My coworkers watched me with smirks on their faces, enjoying the show. They must have figured that since I was officially on the outs with Ryan and leaving the company, they didn’t have to pretend to be civil anymore. The coldness of human nature, on full display. I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me break. I swept the entire pile of garbage off my desk and onto the floor with one clean motion, clapped the dust from my hands, and walked away without looking back. The moment I was out of the building, I called a real estate agent. I put the apartment we lived in on the market. Then I went and applied for a passport. Seven years ago, I gave up my dream of traveling the world to stay in this city for Ryan. Now that I was free, it was time to get my dream back. 5. I used to tell Ryan I wanted to travel, to hold his hand and see every corner of the globe. But he never took me on a single proper vacation. He was always busy with a project, always putting it off. I felt sorry for him, for how hard he worked. So I stayed, working as his assistant for seven years. Everything changed when Jenna arrived. Ryan started pushing all his work onto me while he took Jenna on trips all over the country. At first, I believed they were business trips. Until Jenna started posting photos of them together on her social media. In every picture, they were smiling, intimately close, with famous landmarks in the background. Her captions were filled with romantic, suggestive undertones. My sympathy had just been his excuse for betrayal. Just like now. Knowing she had Ryan’s full support, Jenna was flaunting their relationship all over Instagram. Ryan, who never cooked, was personally making fruit wine for Jenna’s family, laughing like a teenager by the fire pit. Ryan, who was always so aloof, was humbly serving coffee to Jenna’s relatives, even sharing a cup with her as they all cheered. Ryan, who was so picky about beds he could never sleep anywhere but home, was now pictured sleeping peacefully in a hammock in Jenna’s backyard, his head resting on her shoulder. I was smarter this time. I just liked the posts, no comments. Then I blocked both of their accounts. Out of sight, out of mind. I spent a few days exploring a nearby city. As soon as the divorce decree was in my hands, I would start my trip around the world. The day I picked it up, I felt calm, almost euphoric with relief. But when I got back to the apartment and pushed open the door, I heard voices inside. “Ryan, I know that Jenna girl is from the country, but she seems a lot more dependable than Alice.” “She doesn’t have any bad habits, either. Just a little drink now and then, but she’ll grow out of that once she has a baby.” “Mom, what are you talking about? Alice and I are married!” Ryan’s voice was laced with a smug tone, but there was an undercurrent of dismissal. I sneered. I don’t drink. I have no bad habits. But in his parents’ eyes, I was somehow not woman enough. “So what if you’re married? You can get a divorce!” “That Jenna seems like a good, solid girl. Much better than Alice, who’s just been living off you all these years!” Ryan’s father’s voice cut in, dripping with contempt. It was clear they had already accepted Jenna as their future daughter-in-law. They had completely forgotten how, seven years ago, they had praised my master’s degree and my potential to help Ryan build his career. I couldn’t listen to any more. I pushed the door open and walked in. 6. All three of them turned to look at me, their expressions shifting rapidly from surprise to annoyance. Ryan was the first to react, pointing a finger at me, his voice booming with authority. “Alice, you finally decided to come home? Disappearing for days without a word, are you trying to end this marriage?” “You pull another stunt like this, and I swear I’ll lock you out for good!” I froze, looking up at his arrogant, self-righteous face. It seemed he hadn’t processed the fact that we were already divorced. In the past, whenever I did something that displeased him, he would lock me out of the apartment. It didn’t matter if it was freezing cold or scorching hot, or what I was wearing. One time, just because I used a little less tea than Jenna preferred when I made her a cup, he flew into a rage and told me to get out. He and Jenna then spent the entire night alone in the apartment, their laughter seeping through the crack under the door, each sound a needle in my heart. Right on cue, as if summoned, Jenna herself emerged from the master bedroom. She was wearing a pair of loose pajama pants and rubbing her eyes, as if she had just woken up. She glanced at me, her voice thick with annoyance. “What’s all the shouting about? Just throw her out. What’s she going to do about it?” Hearing her, Ryan hesitated for a split second. But his parents immediately jumped in. “Exactly! What right does a useless woman have to stay here?” “Ryan, you’re just too soft on her. A freeloader like Alice would never dare to actually defy you.” Goaded on by his parents, the flicker of doubt in Ryan’s eyes was extinguished, replaced by pure irritation. Finally, he turned his head and waved a dismissive hand at me, like shooing away a stray cat. “Just go. I need a few days to cool off. Jenna will be staying here with me for a while.” “And if you don’t learn to behave, by the time I actually decide to divorce you, it’ll be too late for tears!” A cold laugh escaped my lips. “You don’t have to wait.” Under their stunned gazes, I pulled the two copies of our official divorce decree from my bag and slapped them down on the coffee table. “As you wished. We’re already divorced.” The four of them stood there, mouths agape, staring at the documents on the table, utterly speechless. Jenna eyed me suspiciously, then snatched one of the papers and examined it closely. “A pathetic woman like you? You’d willingly give up your meal ticket? This has to be fake.” Ryan’s expression relaxed slightly, and he glared at me. “Alice, why do you always resort to these cheap tricks? Didn’t I tell you to stop? Do I have to call the cops to get you to act like a sane person?” He made a show of reaching for his phone, as if expecting me to break down and beg for forgiveness. But I remained perfectly calm, a slight smile playing on my lips. Ryan’s brow furrowed. He sensed something was wrong. “What are you smiling at?” “I’m smiling because you can’t even remember the divorce papers you signed.” “When did I ever…” Ryan started, but his words died in his throat. His face went pale as a sheet, as if he was finally remembering the document I’d handed him three months ago. 7. To my surprise, he didn’t look relieved. He looked panicked. A flicker of disbelief crossed his face as he mumbled, “No… that’s not possible… I never meant for us to actually…” Hearing this, Jenna realized the papers were real. A flash of triumph lit up her eyes, but she quickly masked it, adopting a scornful tone. “Well, at least you have some self-awareness. Leaving Ryan is the best thing for both of you.” “But,” she added, her eyes narrowing, “Ryan barely glanced at those papers. Who knows what kind of tricks you pulled with the division of assets?” And then it clicked. Ryan wasn’t panicking about the divorce itself. He was panicking about his money. In his world, his fortune would always be more important than me. Realizing this, I felt a wave of exhaustion. There was no point in arguing. I turned to go pack my bags. But Jenna stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “What’s the matter? Feeling guilty? Trying to run away?” “Let me give you some advice. Be smart about this. Sign another agreement waiving your right to any assets. Pay back everything you owe Ryan for these past few years. If you don’t, things are going to get ugly.” I glanced at Ryan, who stood silent, and for a moment, I saw a complex emotion in his eyes. It looked like… regret. Or maybe disappointment. He probably believed it too. That I was the kind of person who would resort to cheap tricks. He was the one who had betrayed our marriage, yet here they were, trying to paint me as the villain and send me away with nothing. The injustice of it was staggering. Ryan’s parents snapped out of their shock, grabbing the divorce decrees and throwing them at me. “Jenna’s right! Either you walk away with nothing, or we’ll see you in court for fraud!” “Enough! All of you, shut up!” It was Ryan. He spoke before I could, his voice sharp and loud, cutting through their tirade. The three of them stared at him, stunned. Their aggressive posture deflated. “Ryan, we’re just looking out for you…” his mother stammered. “What if this woman took advantage…” “Alice is not that kind of person!” Ryan cut Jenna off, his voice so firm it surprised even me. But when he turned to face me, his expression softened into one of sorrow. “Alice,” he said, his voice low, “I don’t care about the money. But can you just tell me why? Why did you have to do this?” “Just because I went to help Jenna at her family’s vineyard instead of going to see your parents with you… is that really enough to end us?” “I won’t hold it against you that you tricked me into signing the papers. We can go back to the courthouse right now and undo this. Whatever you want as compensation, I’ll give it to you.” 8. His voice was as gentle as it used to be. Every time he and Jenna had crossed a line, he would use this same sweet, placating tone to win me over. Once, I had been so fed up I had actually dragged him to the courthouse. But he had become uncharacteristically tender, holding me close and whispering apologies, promising he would change. And like a fool, I believed him. I abandoned the idea of divorce. He knew. He knew I couldn’t bear to throw away seven years of our life together. He used my love as a shield, pushing my boundaries again and again. But not this time. I wasn’t going back. Seeing my silence, Ryan must have thought I was wavering. A blush crept up his neck as he stepped closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Come on, haven’t you been wanting me home more? I’ll clear my schedule. I won’t go anywhere for the next few days. I’ll stay right here with you…” I let out a cold laugh and took a step back, putting distance between us. “No, thank you. You should go build a family with Jenna. Didn’t you say you two wanted a baby? I’m just setting you free.” Ryan’s eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. A flicker of triumph crossed Jenna’s face, but she saw Ryan’s resolve faltering and quickly jumped in to play peacemaker. “Alice, Ryan and I are just colleagues. What’s this about a baby? Why don’t we all just sit down and talk this through? I’m sure there’s a better way to solve this.” She reached out, trying to take my arm. I recoiled, disgusted by her touch. But Jenna was quick. She grabbed my wrist and then violently pulled my hand toward herself, stumbling backward and throwing herself to the ground. Her head hit the corner of the coffee table with a sickening thud.

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My cousin Cassie always had my best interests at heart. Or so she said. When she married my billionaire fiancé, she told me she was doing it for me—that the richer a man is, the more twisted he becomes, and she was selflessly diving into the fire to save me. When she sold his spare condo behind his back, she told him I’d taken it over to stash my boy toys. When she maxed out his black card, it was to pay off my gambling debts. When she had an affair with her husband’s own brother, got pregnant, and hemorrhaged after a clandestine meeting, she told everyone I’d been hosting an orgy with a group of male models, that she’d tried to intervene, and that I’d pushed her down the stairs, causing her to miscarry. Ultimately, her husband sent me to the Philippines to atone for my sins. There, her lover had me tortured and dismembered. When I open my eyes again, I’m back on the day of my cousin’s affair and her convenient miscarriage. 1 Every time Cassie went to meet her lover, she told her husband, Donovan Pierce, that she was with me. The excuses were a rotating carousel of chaos. Either I was the other woman in an affair and had been beaten up by the wife, needing comfort and a place to hide. Or I was being chased by loan sharks over gambling debts. She even used the excuse that I’d gone to a clinic for a hymen restoration surgery and needed her there for emotional support. If Donovan hadn’t shown up on my doorstep in my last life, his face contorted with rage as he listed my transgressions, I would have never known my life had been so incredibly… eventful. Right now, my phone is vibrating off the hook with his name. The second I answer, Donovan’s voice explodes in my ear. “Sienna, it’s late. What the hell are you still doing with Cassie?” “I have tolerated you for long enough. Cassie is your cousin, not your mother. You’re a grown woman, for Christ’s sake, stop leeching off her!” “She’s a married woman, and she’s pregnant. Can you have an ounce of shame and stop bothering her with every little thing? Do you have any idea how much of a burden you are?” “Is this about me? Because I broke up with you? Is this some pathetic revenge, trying to destroy my family? Cassie is a good, simple person. If you keep using her like this, don’t blame me for what comes next. Now, send her home. Immediately!” Donovan sounded like he was at the end of his rope, the verbal assault making my ear ache. Back when we were dating, I actually thought he was a gentle, kind man. A true gentleman. But every time he was good to me, Cassie would show me articles about husbands who murdered their wives, dismembered their bodies. She’d warn me, her voice filled with feigned concern, that men were masters of deceit. The more perfect they seemed on the outside, the more dangerous they were on the inside. Then, during a period when Donovan and I were giving each other the silent treatment, she slid into his life as a sympathetic friend, a shoulder to cry on. While she was busy defending him, she was also conveniently, and not-so-subtly, weaving a tapestry of lies about me. With Cassie’s “help,” Donovan and I drifted apart for good. If I hadn’t accidentally seen a piece of Cassie’s lingerie at his house, I would have still been patting myself on the back, grateful for such a clever cousin who helped me dodge a bullet. Soon after, they were married. I made a conscious effort to keep my distance from both of them after that. But Donovan didn’t see it that way. I’d get these calls, full of rage and accusations. My life became a cycle of working and then explaining Cassie’s whereabouts to her husband. The truth was, I never knew where she was. I just repeated the lines she fed me, swallowing the pressure and the insults. It wasn’t until the day Donovan stormed into my apartment, his eyes burning with fury, and had his men stuff me into a sack and ship me to the Philippines, that I finally understood. I had been her scapegoat. Her fall guy. Remembering Donovan’s revenge, remembering the way Cassie and her lover had disposed of me… a cold fire ignites in my gut. Donovan, tonight you’re going to be the one to rip the ugly truth of your perfect family wide open. A chilling smile touches my lips. I speak into the phone, my voice deceptively calm. “Cassie’s busy. Plumbing issues, you know. Can’t be reached for a while.” Then, my expression hardens. I end the call and switch off my phone, refusing to hear another word from him. Moments later, a heavy knock rattles my front door. The instant I turn the lock, the door is thrown open with such force that I stumble backward. Before I can even register what’s happening, several large bodyguards have me pinned, my arms twisted behind my back. Donovan strides into my apartment, his heavy footsteps echoing on the floorboards as he violently searches for Cassie. He tears through my two-bedroom apartment like a hurricane. He finds nothing. “You said she was dealing with plumbing. Where is she?” he snarls, his face flushed with anger as he gets in my face. Seeing him like this, a thrill of vengeance courses through me. I raise an eyebrow, my voice slow and deliberate. “I only said she was dealing with plumbing. I didn’t say it was my plumbing. Have you checked your brother’s place?” A dangerous glint enters Donovan’s eyes. He grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back. “Stop playing games,” he hisses, his voice low and menacing. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Where are you hiding her?” 2 Cassie was always secretive about her movements; I was just the cover story. I had no idea where she actually was. Wincing from the pain shooting through my scalp, I state the simple truth. “She’s a grown woman with arms and legs. How am I supposed to control where she goes? I’m not her mother!” This wasn’t the answer he wanted. Donovan’s eyes turned cold. He lets go of my hair only to swing his hand, the open palm cracking against my cheek. The force of it makes my head ring. I can feel the fire in my own veins rising to meet his. This is it? This is all the anger you have? The thought is exhilarating. Oh, Donovan. The real storm hasn’t even hit you yet. Seeing the defiance in my eyes, he starts tapping my bruised cheek with his fingertips, a condescending, rhythmic pat. “You think because you’re stubborn, I can’t get what I want?” With that, he fishes my phone from my pocket, powers it on, and uses my face to unlock it. He scrolls through my contacts. When he sees my emergency contact, a cruel smirk spreads across his face. He presses dial. “Honey? What’s wrong?” The voice on the other end is my husband, Mark. As always, it’s soft and gentle. I try to scream, to warn him, but one of the bodyguards clamps a hand firmly over my mouth, silencing me. “Are you Sienna’s husband?” Donovan asks, his tone dripping with contempt. “Who is this?” Mark’s voice sharpens instantly, laced with alarm at hearing a strange man on my line. Donovan looks directly at me, his eyes full of malicious intent. “I’m Sienna’s ex,” he says. “But don’t worry, I’m a married man now. I have zero interest in her.” Mark is silent for a beat. “Then why are you calling me from her phone?” “No reason, really. Just thought you should know a few things about your lovely wife.” “Her private life is… a disaster. When we were together, she was constantly sneaking around behind my back with other men.” “It disgusted me, so I broke it off.” “For years now, she’s been surviving by sucking my wife dry. She ‘borrows’ our condo to cheat, she’s addicted to gambling, and she makes my wife max out my credit cards to pay her debts.” “You probably don’t know this, but your wife also moonlights as a homewrecker. She got beaten up by the other woman just last month.” “And last week? She went to some back-alley clinic for a… tune-up. Hymen restoration surgery. Had my wife sit with her in the hospital. Now, you tell me, why would a married woman need to ‘restore’ her virginity? Which one of her lovers is she planning to give that ‘first time’ to?” “Doesn’t it embarrass you, being married to someone so filthy?” “Honestly, it’s pathetic for a man to live like you do. All those green hats you’re wearing every day must be heavy. If I were you, I’d have killed myself by now.” Donovan’s verbal barrage is relentless, grinding my reputation into dust. On the other end of the line, there is only a long, heavy silence from Mark. Mark and I had a good marriage. He’s an honest, kind man, always gentle and patient with me. No matter how big our fights were, he would always be the one to soothe things over, to talk it through. But this time, it seems Donovan’s words have struck him dumb. He doesn’t have a single thing to say. Donovan hangs up, a triumphant look on his face. “Well? Are you going to tell me where Cassie is now?” The bodyguard removes his hand from my mouth. “Breaking and entering, false imprisonment, assault, slander… those are all crimes, you know,” I spit out, glaring at him. I wish my eyes were daggers; I would have torn this fool to shreds. My defiance only fuels his rage. “Crimes? I’ll show you what a real crime looks like!” He turns to his bodyguards. “Trash this place!” On his command, they begin to systematically destroy my apartment. Within minutes, my neat and tidy home is a wasteland of splintered wood and shattered glass. Not a single thing is left intact. I bite down hard. “Donovan, you act like you’re above the law. Do you really have no fear of consequences?” He scoffs, his face a mask of disdain. “The only one facing consequences here is a gold-digging leech like you. Do you have any idea how much money you’ve conned out of Cassie over the years? Everything in this apartment was bought with her money. I’m just breaking my own things. What’s the problem?” He speaks with such conviction, as if he’s not committing a felony but righteously punishing a sinner. I glance at the time. Less than half an hour until Cassie’s miscarriage. The show is about to begin. Suppressing my own fury, I look at Donovan with a playful smirk. “Why don’t we wait a little longer? I have a feeling your wife will be in touch with you very soon.” My nonchalant attitude infuriates him further. “Still trying to be clever? Fine. Today, I’ll make sure your name is ruined forever!” “Take her outside!” His men drag me out of my apartment and down to the building’s main entrance. The commotion quickly draws the attention of neighbors and passersby. Seeing a crowd gathering, Donovan seizes the opportunity. He begins to loudly broadcast my supposed ‘sins’ for all to hear. In moments, I am surrounded by a circle of pointing fingers and judgmental stares. “That’s just disgusting. A grown woman, sucking her pregnant cousin dry. She’s practically trying to kill her! That cousin must be a saint to put up with it. If it were me, I’d have kicked her to the curb years ago!” “She’s the classic vampire relative. Can’t stand to see you poor, but hates it when you’re rich. Lazy, greedy, just takes and takes. My wife’s cousin was just like that, ran her into massive debt. She’s still on antidepressants.” “That kind of woman is a parasite. Whoever gets close to her is doomed!” “And she’s dirty! She has a husband, but she’s out sleeping with models and breaking up marriages. Living in the same building as a public bus like her is just bad luck.” The crowd’s vitriol flies at me from all directions, painting me as a monster. Donovan looks down at me, a sneer on his face. “Well? Are you going to keep being stubborn?” He thinks he has me, that he’s broken me. He’s just waiting for me to beg. I let out a cold laugh. “Is this the best a billionaire can do? A few neighbors yelling at me? What’s that going to accomplish? I can just move. If you really want to ruin me, you should call some influencers, get me on a livestream. That’s how you make someone infamous.” Donovan’s face darkens, his jaw clenching. “Fine. You asked for it.” He pulls out his phone and makes another call. My heart beats faster, not with fear, but with anticipation. Go on. Make a scene. Make it as big as possible. I want the whole world to watch when the scandal of your perfect little family finally breaks. 3 Donovan’s influence was undeniable. Within minutes, a swarm of influencers and livestreamers descended on the scene, each holding a phone up to my face. “You guys are not gonna believe this! The woman you’re looking at right now, she might look simple on the outside, but inside, she is completely rotten!” “For years, she’s been living like a parasite on her cousin. When she needs money, she just asks. Her cousin is pregnant, but this woman still treats her like a personal servant, making her run errands, go shopping, even pick her up from bars when she’s blackout drunk.” “And does she show any gratitude? No. She just spends more and more, making her cousin pay for everything. She scammed money from her, took over their condo to entertain her boy toys, and even maxed out her cousin’s credit card to pay off her own massive gambling debts!” “But that’s not the worst of it. This woman’s personal life is a cesspool. She has a husband, but she’s constantly cheating. Besides the guys she keeps in the condo, she has countless others on the side. She has no conscience. She knowingly became a homewrecker, and even after getting beaten up by the wife, she went to a clinic to get a ‘virginity restoration’ surgery so she could pretend to be innocent and trick more men. I heard she’s been treated for syphilis no less than ten times. I have never seen a woman so filthy; it’s like she’ll die if she goes a single day without a man.” The streamers embellished and exaggerated, piling on fabricated sins until I was buried beneath them. The live chat feeds scrolled furiously with hate: “OMG, her cousin and husband are so unlucky to have this shameless bitch in their lives!” “Jesus, you can’t even call her a woman. She’s a walking plague!” “Seriously, people like her are just a menace to society.” The story went viral. In an instant, my face was all over the internet. “The Vampire Cousin,” “The Toxic Leech,” “Public Bus”—these became my new names. Fueled by the streamers’ sensationalism, the mood of the crowd grew uglier. They started throwing eggs and rotten vegetables at me. Someone from a nearby restaurant hurled a beer bottle that shattered at my feet. I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter, standing in a pile of garbage, enduring a storm of insults. Suddenly, a figure pushed through the dense crowd. It was Mark. Seeing his familiar face, my lonely, besieged heart felt like it had finally found a safe harbor. For me, Mark had always been my rock. No matter what troubles I faced outside, he was the one who would patiently comfort me, who would solve all my problems. He was my husband, but more than that, he was my sanctuary. In that moment, all I wanted was to collapse into his arms. I let down all my defenses and walked toward him. But just as I reached for him, he shoved me away, hard. Caught off guard, I lost my balance and fell backward onto the ground. The shards of the broken beer bottle dug deep into my palms and legs. A sharp, searing pain shot through me, but the pain in my heart was a thousand times worse. Even Mark… even he didn’t believe me? “Sienna, I can’t believe you’re this kind of person,” he said, his face a dark mask of disappointment. “For all the years we’ve been married, I treated you like a treasure. I gave you everything you wanted. I never once lost my temper with you, never let you suffer a single moment of hardship.” “When you were sick, I learned to cook nourishing meals to nurse you back to health. I made sure you were warm, made sure you were safe. I was so afraid of you ever being unhappy.” “And what did you do?” “You went behind my back to drain your cousin, to gamble, to throw away your own dignity and our reputation!” “The body I worked so hard to care for, you threw it into the gutter with those disgusting, filthy acts!” “Sienna, you’re not just debasing yourself, you’re trampling on our marriage!” Mark, who had always been so gentle, was completely unhinged. He was screaming, every word dripping with profound disappointment. Seeing him like this twisted something inside me. I pushed myself up, ignoring the pain. “Mark, I…” Before I could finish, he slapped me across the face. “Shut up! Don’t you dare say my name. You don’t deserve to!” With that, he twisted the wedding band off his finger and threw it at my face. “I want a divorce!” His cold, merciless rejection was the final blow. That single slap shattered the last pillar of faith I had. I stood there, frozen, feeling like my soul had been ripped from my body. Donovan took the opportunity to sneer at me. “How does it feel, Sienna? To be utterly disgraced? A greedy, filthy woman like you who only knows how to seduce men doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. And you certainly didn’t deserve Cassie’s kindness.” “Thank God I saw you for what you are and got away from a disgusting parasite like you. The fact that I ever dated you is the greatest shame of my life.” “The only good thing you ever did was bring a wonderful woman like Cassie to me. Now, you can enjoy the rest of your life being despised by everyone. I’ll make sure Cassie never speaks to you again. Let’s see how you survive without her!” Donovan’s words resonated with the crowd. The live chats, the onlookers, the streamers—they all erupted in a fresh wave of condemnation. The weight of a thousand accusations is a terrifying thing. Even though I had prepared myself for this, I could feel myself starting to break. Just then, Donovan’s phone rang. The caller ID read: Cassie. He answered, and through the speaker, we all heard Cassie’s broken sobs. “Honey… I… I lost the baby!” Donovan’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot. “What happened?” Cassie’s voice was hesitant. “It was Sienna! She was messing around with a bunch of male models. I just tried to talk some sense into her, and… and she pushed me. She made me lose our baby!”

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