Author: Momo Chan

It all started because my six-year-old son tripped and fell in the garden, crushing a single rose bush. For that, Ethan, my husband, flew into a rage. He ordered our son, Leo, locked inside the garden’s wrought-iron gates, demanding he plant 999 new roses as penance. What he didn’t see was the bee that stung Leo’s leg. He didn’t see our son collapse onto the manicured lawn, his small body convulsing. I screamed, pounding my fists against the cold iron bars, my voice tearing itself raw. “Ethan, for God’s sake, open your eyes! A bee stung Leo! He’s allergic! Open the gate, or he’ll go into shock—he could die!” Ethan stood on the veranda, his arm wrapped around Tessa, his high school flame. He stared down at me, his face a mask of cold disappointment. “Leah, I’ve told you. This is my garden, built for Tessa. It’s not a playground.” His voice was calm, which made it crueler. “You let Leo run wild, and now you can’t handle a little bee sting? This allergy nonsense is just another thing you’ve coddled into him.” Tessa, nestled against his chest, rolled her eyes with theatrical boredom. “Honestly, Leah. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Your son has destroyed dozens of my flowers. A little lesson in consequences is long overdue.” They turned and walked back into the house, their silhouettes merging into one. I grabbed a rusted garden spade and slammed it against the lock, again and again, the metal screeching in protest. But it was too late. Through the bars, I watched the red welts bloom across my son’s skin. I saw his frantic struggles grow weaker, smaller, until they stopped completely. The terrible silence that followed was louder than my own screaming. I collapsed, my pleas turning to dust in my mouth. I begged him to wake up, to say “Mama” just one more time. He never did. An hour later, the lock finally shattered. I stumbled through the gate. At that exact moment, my phone buzzed. A notification. Ethan had posted on Instagram. It was an ultrasound photo. The caption read: One more precious life to protect. @Tessa, my hero. My heart didn’t break. It just turned to ash. I walked back inside the cold, silent house, found the divorce papers I’d drafted months ago, signed them, and left them on his desk in the study. Then, I arranged for the funeral home. And under his post, I tapped out a comment and hit send. 【May your little miracle have a long and happy life.】 1 A second later, my phone rang. Ethan’s voice, incandescent with rage, exploded into the solemn quiet of the funeral home. “Leah, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” The sound was a desecration in this quiet, sterile place. “Tessa and I have history. It’s my duty to take care of her. You know that!” he bellowed. “And what did you do to the garden? You break the gate, you drag Leo out, and then you stomp holes all over the lawn? What is wrong with you two? Is destruction your only purpose?” He took a breath, his fury gathering steam. “Don’t think for a second I’m letting this go. You get Leo and you bring him back here to plant every single one of those roses, or you can forget about ever setting foot in this house again!” I looked down at my hands, swollen and red from battling the gate. The pain was a dull, distant throb, a faint echo of the gaping wound in my chest. Across the room, the mortician was gently removing the stinger from my son’s small, still body. The very thing that had stolen his life. “Ethan,” I said, my voice hollow. “Leo is dead. And I will never set foot in your house again.” There was a pause. Then, a short, sharp laugh of disbelief. “Wow, Leah. You’ve really taken this whole victim act to a new level, haven’t you? Cursing our own son to death just to win an argument?” Then I heard it. A soft, feminine gasp in the background, cutting off whatever I might have said next. The ultrasound photo flashed in my mind. He had a new child with his new love. He didn’t actually care if our son was alive or dead. I let out a long, shuddering breath. “Ethan, the divorce papers are on your desk. I’ve already signed them. Sign them, and you can be with your childhood sweetheart forever. No one is stopping you.” Just as I finished speaking, the doors to the viewing room swung open. Two stooped, elderly figures hurried in, leaning heavily on their canes. Ethan’s grandparents. “Where’s my Leo?” his grandfather demanded, his voice trembling. “What is this nonsense? What happened?” Seeing their faces, etched with genuine love for my son, the dam inside me finally broke. The tears I’d been holding back streamed down my face as I collapsed into Grandma Blackwell’s arms. “It’s my fault,” I sobbed. “I’m a terrible mother. I couldn’t protect him. He was in so much pain.” She wept with me, holding me tight. Grandpa Blackwell, his face pale, forced himself to walk to the small casket. He stood there for a long moment, his shoulders shaking, before two lines of tears carved their way down his wrinkled cheeks. “I had every beehive on this property removed!” he rasped, his voice thick with grief and rage. “I hired men to patrol the grounds! Where did this bee come from? It was that bastard’s private garden, wasn’t it!” A bitter smile touched my lips. Ethan knew. Of course, he knew Leo was deathly allergic. Years ago, after the first bad reaction, Ethan had torn up the entire estate, poured concrete over every flowerbed, terrified that a stray bee might find its way to our son. But that was before Tessa came back. After she moved in, everything changed. Ethan didn’t just allow her to replant the gardens; he let her install beehives, calling it a “return to a natural symbiosis.” When I’d come to him, holding Leo, his face swollen from another, milder sting, Ethan had barely looked up. “Fine,” he’d said with an annoyed sigh. “I’ll have a fence put up. That way Leo can’t get in, and he’ll be safe.” A fence. As if an iron fence could stop something with wings. The image of Leo’s final moments flooded my mind again. His body twitching on the grass. My desperate, useless assault on the gate. His big, beautiful eyes, wide with a final, lingering look at a world he didn’t want to leave. I had begged the mortician to cover the marks, the horrifying welts and rashes. As if hiding the evidence of his pain could somehow bring him back, as if the sweet boy who whispered “Mama” would just wake up from a bad dream. It was all a fantasy. The mortician covered the last red mark on his cheek and set down his brush. He walked toward me, his expression full of a gentle sorrow. “Ma’am,” he said softly. “The young master is ready. He’s at peace now.” It was only then I realized the line was still open. Ethan’s voice, dripping with sarcasm, crackled through the phone. “Are you serious, Leah? You’re really putting on a show. Dragging my grandparents into your little melodrama wasn’t enough? Now you’ve hired an actor to talk about him being ‘at peace’? What, are you guys actually at a funeral home?” I was too tired to fight anymore. “Yes, Ethan. Our son is at the funeral home. If you come now, you can see him one last time.” He scoffed. “Leah, have some damn self-respect! It was a bee sting. If he had a reaction, you take him to the emergency room. It’s not a death sentence. Do you think I’m that stupid?” He wasn’t finished. “Like mother, like son. No wonder Leo’s become such a liar lately. So needy.” That was it. Grandpa snatched the phone from my hand. “You bastard!” he roared. “Are you still with that little tramp? You get your ass over here right now!” He’d barely gotten the words out before he clutched his chest, gasping, and the phone crashed to the floor. “Arthur!” Grandma cried, rushing to his side, but he pushed her away, his face contorted in agony. “Our family is cursed!” he wailed, tears of rage and sorrow streaming down his face. “The grandson you raised… he just told me… he said it doesn’t matter if Leo is dead. He said that tramp has another one in her belly, a better one! That animal!” Grandma froze, her own tear-filled eyes wide with shock. She turned to me, her voice a desperate plea. “Leah, don’t you listen to him. Don’t you dare. You are our family. Leo is our only grandson.” She squared her shoulders. “Your grandfather and I are going home right now. We’re throwing that witch out on the street, and we are going to drag that boy here to get on his knees and beg for your forgiveness!” A sourness rose in my throat. I shook my head. “Grandma, it’s okay. Ethan’s heart is somewhere else now. It’s better for Leo and me to just go.” I looked at them, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m so tired. It’s time to go.” They stared at me, their faces a portrait of helpless grief. There was nothing left to say. The three of us stood before the cremation chamber all night, a silent, heartbroken vigil, until a technician handed me a small, heavy box. I held it tight, hailed a taxi, and went home. Leo’s things were still in that cold house. I would be damned if I was going to leave them for the father who didn’t love him. But when I pushed open the front door, I was hit by a wall of sound and light. It was a party. “Whoa, Tessa, you’re amazing! A little princess for our man Ethan!” 2 The entire house was draped in pink. Ethan and Tessa’s friends were raising champagne flutes in a toast. One of them was waving my signed divorce papers in the air. “Hey, Ethan, this charity case wife of yours has some nerve. Divorcing you, and she’s even walking away with nothing.” “She’s insane,” another laughed. “A broke single mom? Does she have any idea what she’s getting into?” “Hey, if she wants to take the kid, let her,” someone slurred. “That little brat was always so… common. An embarrassment to the Blackwell name.” “Exactly! Cheers to Tessa! Let’s hope the next one’s a boy—a real Blackwell heir!” The room erupted in laughter. I pushed the door fully open and stepped inside. The noise died instantly. Ethan glanced at me, his eyes cool and dismissive, then tightened his arm around Tessa, deliberately turning away. “Heir, princess, what’s the difference?” he said to the crowd, pretending I wasn’t there. “My daughter will be brilliant. Tessa and I are starting her education in the womb.” He picked up a small model airplane from the coffee table and held it against Tessa’s slightly rounded belly. My breath caught in my throat. It was Leo’s favorite toy. The first model Ethan had ever built with him. I had bought him dozens of newer, more expensive toys since, but Leo insisted on sleeping with that little plane every night. Because, he said, it smelled like Daddy. And now, his beloved father was giving it to another woman’s child. Something inside me snapped. I lunged forward, my voice a raw scream. “Ethan! Our son’s body isn’t even cold! How could you do this to him?” The air around Ethan dropped ten degrees. His hand flew out, and the crack of his palm against my cheek echoed through the room. “Leah, what did I tell you about the theatrics? Hasn’t this ‘dead son’ act gone on long enough?” My head snapped back, hitting the sharp corner of the console table. A warm trickle of blood slid down my neck. And the model airplane, Leo’s most precious treasure, fell to the floor. Ethan brought his heel down on it, crushing the delicate wings into splinters. “It’s just a toy! What’s the big deal about giving it to his sister? Is this how you raised him? To be selfish?” He sneered, his face ugly with contempt. “He didn’t plant a single rose, just left a mess of holes in the lawn. And now you two think you can defy me?” Looking at his face, all I could see was the agony on my son’s. A wave of hatred so pure washed over me that I wanted to drag him by the hair and force him to kneel before Leo’s ashes. But then, my son’s voice from that terrible afternoon echoed in my ears. He had been holding a tiny rose seedling, his eyes puffy from crying, trying to comfort me. “Don’t cry, Mama. Don’t be mad at Daddy. It’s my fault. I can do it.” “He was a little mean, though. He didn’t even hug me when I fell, he just yelled. If he does it again, I’m not going to talk to him anymore.” “Mama? Can we not talk to him together?” I closed my eyes, forcing down the tidal wave of grief. When I opened them, my voice was steady. “You’re right. I’m not fit to be a mother. And I’m not fit to be a Blackwell. Just sign the papers. Then we are done with each other, forever.” A cruel smile twisted Ethan’s lips. “You want me to sign? Fine. Get on your knees. Apologize to Tessa. Tell her you’re sorry for letting your son ruin her garden. Tell her you’re sorry for ruining her party.” He leaned in, his voice a venomous whisper. “When she’s satisfied, I’ll sign.” At his words, Tessa straightened up, a smug, triumphant look on her face. The other guests leaned in, their eyes gleaming. Someone started placing bets. “A hundred bucks says she won’t do it. She really thought she could drive Tessa away. Idiot.” “Nah, she’ll be bawling in a minute, begging Ethan for forgiveness. Maybe that kid she’s hiding will come crawling back, and they can plant the roses together.” The next sound was the soft thud of my knees hitting the floor. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice flat. “I was wrong.” I bowed my head, and my forehead struck a shard from the broken airplane. A sharp, searing pain, and then more blood. I didn’t feel it. I began to crawl, moving toward them, bowing my head to the floor with each movement. But it was a game. As I moved forward, Tessa would take a laughing step back, leading me around the room like a dog on a leash. The mood in the room shifted. The drunken jeers turned to nervous murmurs. “Ethan, man… maybe that’s enough. She’s bleeding a lot. This is getting out of hand.” “Yeah, look at her face, she’s white as a ghost. What if something really happens?” “Just sign it, man. She wants to leave, let her leave. It’s time you made things official with Tessa anyway.” I paused, glancing behind me. A long, dark smear of blood trailed behind me on the polished floor. It looked shocking, even to me. I ignored it and prepared to bow again. But this time, a foot shot out, and Ethan kicked me onto my side. The signed divorce papers fluttered down onto my face. “Fine! It’s signed!” he snarled. “Stop playing the martyr. You think I was afraid to do it?” “Get out,” he spat. “Take your kid and get out! But you remember this: the second you walk out that door, your son forfeits every penny of his inheritance. Don’t ever come crawling back to me.” 3 I’d lost too much blood. The room spun as I struggled to my feet, clutching the papers in my hand. Ethan’s eyes were locked on me, daring me to break. I just opened the document to the last page, saw his signature, and smiled. “Good,” I said. “Now I’m going to pack Leo’s things.” I turned and walked to my son’s room. The moment I closed the door, the noise of the party vanished. I sagged against the wood, a film of tears blurring my vision. Leo’s little quilt was still rumpled on his bed. The fairy tale book we were reading was on his nightstand, open to the page we’d left off on last night. It felt like at any second, he would leap out of the closet, pretending to be a ghost, trying to scare me with his giggles. Wiping my eyes, I pulled a suitcase from his closet and began to pack. His clothes, his toys, his books, the little clay animals he made in preschool. I cried and I smiled, placing each precious item inside, until my fingers brushed against a small, glass bottle. Inside were slips of faded paper. I tipped them out, my hands trembling. They were IOUs, written in two different hands—one a man’s elegant script, the other a child’s clumsy scrawl. It was from when Leo was three, when he was so attached to me that he refused to sleep anywhere but in my bed. Ethan, frustrated, would sneak into the room in the middle of the night and carry me back to ours. “This is ridiculous,” he would mutter, half-joking. “I gave birth to my own rival.” “I miss my wife,” he’d whisper. “Can’t you spend a little time with me?” But our little boy would wake up, toddle after us, and pummel Ethan’s legs with his tiny fists, calling him a “Mama thief.” So they made a deal. They would take turns. If one of them wanted an extra night, he had to write an IOU to the other. Ethan, with his charming, silly arguments, always managed to convince Leo, and soon, he had a thick stack of IOUs from his son. Then Tessa came back. The nights I spent in Leo’s bed grew more and more frequent. I thought he would be happy to have me all to himself, but instead, a shadow fell over him. “Mama,” he’d asked one night, his voice small. “Did you and Daddy have a fight? He hasn’t come to see me in a long time.” He took my hand and led me to the master bedroom, knocking softly on the door. He told me he would write an IOU to Daddy, so I could sleep with him. When the door opened, Tessa was on the bed, her face flushed, her body languid. The memory of that night, a new and different kind of pain, stabbed at me. I shook it away, my hands fumbling with the last slip of paper from the bottle. It was from Leo. The crayon letters were wobbly and huge. 【I want Mommy and Daddy to take me to Disneyland to see the fireworks!】 He’d been asking since the beginning of the year. But Ethan always had an excuse, always something to do with Tessa, and we never went. And now, he never could. Swallowing the regret that burned in my throat, I booked a flight for the following afternoon and closed the suitcase. On impulse, I lay down on my son’s little bed, pulling his quilt up to my chin, trying to breathe in the last trace of his scent. Exhaustion washed over me, a deep, pulling tide, and I fell asleep. I was woken hours later by a rhythmic rocking. I opened my eyes, my mind thick with sleep. And saw Ethan and Tessa, kissing, on my son’s bed. “Ethan,” Tessa purred, noticing I was awake. “I thought we were just looking at how to redecorate this room for our little princess. You’re being naughty.” I shot upright. Ethan met my gaze with a defiant smirk and didn’t stop kissing her. Tessa’s eyes gleamed with malice. “Don’t be mad, Leah. We just want Leo to get used to the idea of having a little sister. After all, they’ll be growing up together.” Her voice was sickly sweet. “Can’t we all just be one big, happy family?” They were on my dead son’s bed, defiling the last sacred space I had, and a violent nausea rose in my throat. Seeing me tremble with rage, Ethan pulled back, not with guilt, but with accusation. “Leah, I had my assistant check. Leo was never admitted to any hospital for an allergic reaction. Where are you hiding him?” He scowled. “This has gone far enough. If you keep this up, I swear to God, I will be done with both of you for good.” I couldn’t hold it back any longer. A wretched, guttural sound escaped my lips, and I vomited all over them. Ethan froze. Tessa’s face twisted in disgust, and then, suddenly, she clutched her stomach, her expression contorting in pain. “Ethan,” she gasped. “My stomach… it hurts… it hurts so much…” Instantly, Ethan was all frantic concern. He scooped her into his arms, knocking me aside as he rushed for the door. “If anything happens to this baby, I’ll make your son pay with his life!” he yelled over his shoulder. And then I was alone again. I stood up, took the handle of the suitcase, and walked out of the house. The sky was still dark. The streets were empty. A cool night wind snaked under my collar, making me shiver. Every step sent a wave of dizziness through me from the blood loss, but I didn’t stop. By the time the sun rose, I had reached the cemetery. The plot I’d bought for Leo held an empty coffin. I knelt beside it, opened the suitcase, and began to place his favorite things inside, one by one. When I was finished, only one space remained, a spot for the small box I held in my hands. I cradled the urn, as if I were holding my son one last time. “We’re going to see the world, baby,” I whispered. “And when we’re done, we’ll come back here to rest. Okay?” At the hospital, Ethan paced anxiously while Tessa underwent a battery of tests. It was only after the doctors confirmed the fetus was unharmed that he finally let himself breathe. He sank onto a chair outside her room, rubbing his temples. The vomit on his clothes had dried, but the foul smell lingered. Normally, he would have dragged me back by my hair to clean it up, but in that moment, for some reason, he felt a flicker of fear. He’d seen the empty closets, the packed suitcase. He’d seen the bottomless grief in my eyes. Just then, Arthur, the long-time family butler who looked after his grandparents, hurried down the hall. Ethan waved a dismissive hand. “Arthur, if you’re here to sell me the same story about my son being dead, you can save your breath. I don’t believe it.” A complicated, sorrowful expression crossed Arthur’s face. He gave a slight, formal bow. “Sir, this isn’t about Master Leo. It’s your grandparents. They’ve both been hospitalized with heart trouble. They’re asking for you.” Ethan rushed to the cardiac wing. The second he pushed open the door to his grandfather’s room, a water glass flew through the air and shattered against the doorframe. His grandfather, a breathing mask strapped to his face, glared at him with pure hatred. “You animal,” he rasped, his voice weak but full of venom. “You killed your own son, and you have the nerve to show your face here? Get out!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “385050”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was Asher Blackwood’s canary, kept in a gilded cage. My performance in bed was, to put it mildly, uninspired. A few minutes in, and I’d start complaining, my voice a delicate whine about aches and pains. But when it came to shopping? I was an Olympic sprinter, my mission to bleed his bank accounts dry. It was a good gig, until the day the text appeared. Not on my phone, but in my vision, a string of text hanging in the air like a glitchy subtitle in my own life: 【THE TOXIC SIDE PIECE’S REIGN IS ALMOST OVER. THE BELOVED HEROINE IS ABOUT TO MEET THE MALE LEAD.】 【SHE WILL TRY TO SABOTAGE THE HEROINE AT EVERY TURN, EARNING HIS DISGUST.】 【BEFORE HE CAN EVEN DUMP HER, SHE’LL DRAIN HIS ACCOUNTS AND RUN OFF WITH A FAKE HEIR. HE’LL TAKE EVERYTHING, HAVE HER GUTTED FOR HER ORGANS, AND LEAVE HER TO DIE IN A ROACH-INFESTED APARTMENT.】 【SHE DESERVES IT! ONLY A KIND, PURE-HEARTED WOMAN LIKE THE HEROINE DESERVES THE BILLIONAIRE’S LOVE!】 I had no intention of losing my fifty-thousand-dollar-a-month job. So I stopped coasting. I became a dynamo in bed, a woman possessed, leaving absolutely no room—not a single opening—for some other woman to slip in. Asher watched me with a smirk playing on his lips. “Are you trying to kill me in bed so you can inherit everything?” 1 Asher had a thing for bunny costumes. He wanted me in one, in the middle of the afternoon, sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse. He wanted me to do this, and then he wanted me to do that. A job is a job, even the good ones have their tedious moments. I draped myself over his chest, my breath a practiced whimper. “My back hurts, Asher. I’m so tired I can’t even lift a finger.” His hand clamped down on the small of my back, his thumb pressing hard into the dimple there. He loved leaving his marks on me—fingerprints, bruises from his lips, the faint imprint of his teeth. “You seem to manage just fine when you’re sprinting through Bergdorf’s,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble. “No complaints then.” He gave up on waiting for me to take the lead. In one fluid motion, he flipped me onto my back, reversing our positions. The rhythm became harder, faster, more demanding. Later, sated and slick with sweat, Asher rose and began to dress. I saw my chance. His mood was always pliable after sex. I crawled across the silk sheets and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek against the warm skin of his back. “Asher,” I cooed, “I saw this bag online… you’ll get it for me, won’t you?” I slyly held up my phone. Without even looking, Asher cleared my entire online shopping cart. I stared at the twenty-six “order confirmed” notifications, a giddy thrill shooting through me. I leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You’re the best boss in the world. Thank you!” I don’t know what I said wrong. The faint smile on his lips vanished, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. I watched him, my own smile freezing on my face. “You’re coming with me to the gala tonight,” he said, his voice clipped. “Oh. Okay.” The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. That was my cue to push my luck. I pressed closer, pulling him into a deep, lingering kiss that left us both breathless. And that’s when it happened again. The text, shimmering in the air right in front of me: 【THE TOXIC SIDE PIECE’S REIGN IS ALMOST OVER. THE BELOVED HEROINE IS ABOUT TO MEET THE MALE LEAD.】 【SHE WILL TRY TO SABOTAGE THE HEROINE AT EVERY TURN, EARNING HIS DISGUST.】 【BEFORE HE CAN EVEN DUMP HER, SHE’LL DRAIN HIS ACCOUNTS AND RUN OFF WITH A FAKE HEIR. HE’LL TAKE EVERYTHING, HAVE HER GUTTED FOR HER ORGANS, AND LEAVE HER TO DIE IN A ROACH-INFESTED APARTMENT.】 【SHE DESERVES IT! ONLY A KIND, PURE-HEARTED WOMAN LIKE THE HEROINE DESERVES THE BILLIONAIRE’S LOVE!】 A violent shiver racked my body. “Cold?” Asher asked. I clung to him, burying my face in his chest. “Yeah. Just… hold me.” He did. But as his arms wrapped around me, all I could see were those terrifying words, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. 2 With my arm looped through Asher’s, I stepped into the grand ballroom. The first thing I saw was a woman’s back, her spine a perfect, elegant line in a shimmering gown. Every eye in the room was on her. “I thought Chloe was a showstopper,” someone whispered nearby. “She is, but compared to Seraphina Hayes, she just… fades.” “I’ve never seen anyone wear a dress like that. Pure old Hollywood.” They were all captivated. And just like that, I was the drab “before” photo to her radiant “after.” A bitter sound escaped my lips, a quiet hiss of displeasure. The woman turned, and as her face came into view, the text appeared again, sharp and clear: 【THE MALE AND FEMALE LEADS ARE ABOUT TO DRINK SPIKED WINE, LEADING TO A NIGHT OF PASSION.】 【FROM THIS NIGHT ON, HE WILL BE ADDICTED TO HER, NEVER TOUCHING THE TOXIC SIDE PIECE AGAIN.】 So, this Seraphina was the heroine. Asher’s soulmate. I couldn’t lose this job. Not the fifty grand a month, not the surprise six-figure bonuses he’d drop whenever the mood struck. I had to change the script. Seraphina moved toward us with an air of refined grace, lifting two glasses of red wine from a passing waiter’s tray. “Mr. Blackwood, hello.” Her voice was like honeyed silk. “I’m Seraphina Hayes, the director of Crimson Dusk. I can’t thank you enough for investing in my film. I’d like to propose a toast.” Those were the glasses. The spiked ones. They couldn’t drink them. “I’ll drink for him,” I said, stepping forward and taking the second glass. Then, feigning a stumble on the hem of my gown, I lurched forward, crashing into Seraphina. Both glasses tumbled from our hands, shattering on the marble floor. There. Mission accomplished. But somehow, Seraphina lost her footing. For someone who looked so delicate, she was surprisingly strong. She grabbed onto my arm as she fell, pulling me down with her. I saw her hand heading straight for a shard of glass. In a split second, I shoved her sideways. My own left hand landed squarely on the broken glass. A sharp, searing pain shot up my arm. Blood, dark and slick, began to well from a deep gash in my palm. My expression, my posture, the way the tears welled in my eyes—it was all a carefully choreographed performance. I looked up, my voice trembling with manufactured fragility. “Seraphina… I don’t understand. We’ve never even met. Why would you push me onto broken glass?” She was speechless, her mouth opening and closing like a frightened rabbit. “I didn’t… It was you! You fell on purpose!” I angled my head just so, looking up at Asher with the most beautiful, tragic expression I could muster. But his eyes were like chips of ice. He was angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. Had he fallen for her already? After a single glance? I held up my bleeding hand for him to see. “Asher… it hurts.” He strode forward and scooped me into his arms. Seraphina reached out, grabbing his sleeve. “Mr. Blackwood, you can see what she did, can’t you?” He didn’t even break his stride. Her hand fell away. He ignored her completely, his long legs carrying us swiftly toward a private lounge. Over his shoulder, I shot her a triumphant little smirk. Seraphina just stood there, utterly lost. A doctor arrived with a medical kit and began cleaning my wound. Asher, a man who rarely showed emotion, was radiating a silent fury. When he got like this, you knew someone was about to pay, dearly. “You’re not getting your allowance next month.” Fifty thousand dollars. My world tilted on its axis. “Why?!” “So you’ll learn your lesson.” His voice was low and dangerous. “If you didn’t want me drinking with her, you could have just said so. You didn’t need to hurt yourself.” Of course, he’d seen right through me. He was a survivor of brutal family wars, a man who’d clawed his way to the top. My little theatrics were child’s play to him. But if Seraphina had drunk that wine, the script would have taken over. They would have ended up in bed together, one way or another. A wounded hand in exchange for derailing their first night? Worth it. My throat felt raw as I launched into my most pathetic, wheedling plea. “Asher, please~~ How about just twenty thousand?~~” He didn’t bother to answer, just turned and walked out. I scrambled to follow him. I couldn’t let him out of my sight, not with the heroine lurking. But I had underestimated the power of the story. The wine had been spiked by Marco Ricci, an underworld princeling and the story’s obsessive, dangerous secondary love interest. He was trying to force Seraphina into his bed. In the main hall, Marco was threatening her, demanding she leave with him. But Seraphina had a spine of steel. She smashed a wine bottle over his head. Then she ran straight to Asher, pulling an antique pocket watch from her purse. “Mr. Blackwood, do you remember this? Seven years ago, you were badly injured. I was the one who saved you.” She held out the watch. “You left this with me. You said I could ask for one favor, anything at all.” She took a deep breath. “Mr. Blackwood, I need to stay at Blackwood Manor.” I was about to protest. “Fine,” Asher said. With that one word, he was publicly declaring her under his protection. Marco, clutching his bleeding head, could only watch in fury. He couldn’t touch someone Asher Blackwood had decided to shield. New text popped into my vision: 【THE HEROINE MOVES INTO THE MANOR. THE TOXIC SIDE PIECE USES EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK TO HARM HER, BUT THE HEROINE CLEVERLY THWARTS THEM ALL.】 【ASHER FINDS HIMSELF FALLING FOR SERAPHINA DURING THEIR TIME TOGETHER.】 My hand clenched into a fist, sending a fresh wave of pain through my palm. Blood seeped through the white gauze. Fine. Let the games begin.

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All the children born to Arthur Croft’s girlfriends had something wrong with them. Only the daughter from his first marriage was perfect, and he adored her for it. The son I bore him—the sweet, challenged boy I loved—was thrown to his death by that same daughter. Then, she stabbed me, her voice a venomous whisper in my ear. “So what if you had a son? He was a defective. He was never going to be a Croft.” Now, I’m back. Reborn in a moment before the end, and this time, I’ve woken up with something new. A power I’ll call the Legacy System. The System allows me to conceive with ease. More than that, it lets me choose the sex and the intelligence of my children. This time, I will give Arthur Croft a litter of brilliant, perfect sons. 1 I returned to find my son’s body on the polished marble floor. Sophie, Arthur’s daughter, stood over him, a triumphant smirk on her face. “It’s what he deserved,” she said, her voice chillingly casual. “A defective thing like that has no place here.” I collapsed, gathering my little boy into my arms, the sheer force of my hatred a physical blow. The crack of my palm against her cheek echoed in the cavernous foyer. In the life that was stolen from me, this girl, Sophie, was the one who ended me with a knife. This time, I would settle that debt. She struggled against my grip, her arrogance melting into a child’s panicked tears. “Dad, help me! This psycho is attacking me!” Arthur appeared in seconds, his tailored suit unruffed, his expression unreadable. He saw our son, lifeless in my arms, and his face showed no flicker of pain. His first instinct was for her. “Are you all right, Sophie?” Arthur is my husband. He was always kind to me, in his own distant way. I was, after all, the only woman who had ever given him a son. The fact that the boy had developmental issues, that he could never inherit the Croft empire, was a constant, unspoken tragedy between us. “What’s going on? Who is bullying my granddaughter?” His mother, Mrs. Croft, swept into the room. Seeing me on the floor, she marched over, her hand raised to strike. I caught her wrist, my grip like iron. “She killed my son. Don’t I have the right to touch her?” In my last life, I was a doormat. I absorbed every slight from Sophie, every backhanded comment from her grandmother, and said nothing. Not again. “He’s dead, so he’s dead. He was a defective,” Mrs. Croft said, her voice utterly devoid of warmth. “Sophie was just… cleaning house. Culling a useless person from the Croft line.” I looked at Arthur. He remained silent. Sophie, emboldened, jutted out her chin. “Grandma’s right. Useless things should be disposed of. I’m the future heir to the Croft legacy. I have the right to make these decisions.” She turned her angelic, deceitful face to her father. “Dad, since this woman can’t give you a smart child either, why don’t you just get rid of her?” My heart seized. I couldn’t leave. The Crofts were titans in this city, their fortune woven into its very foundations. To be cast out was to be erased, to be left with nothing. “Arthur,” I said, my voice shaking but clear. “I can give you a brilliant son.” His head snapped toward me, his eyes wide with disbelief. Even his mother paused, her cold fury replaced by a flicker of intense curiosity. Arthur had been with many women, fathered many children. All of them, save Sophie, were born with severe cognitive or physical disabilities. He’d had them all… taken care of. Quietly institutionalized and erased from the family record. He dreamed of a healthy son to carry on the family name, a tradition of male primogeniture that stretched back generations. His generation was the first to falter. But now, I had the Legacy System. Just moments ago, a voice had bloomed in my mind: [Host, you have been activated. If you use the Legacy System to bear Arthur Croft four children, your mission will be complete. You will be granted infinite wealth.] [Furthermore, you can use this system for vengeance. You may bear as many children as you desire, and you may determine their sex and level of intelligence at will.] I had agreed without a second’s hesitation. I would have my revenge, and I would complete my mission. 2. “Dad, don’t listen to her,” Sophie pleaded, rushing to his side. “How could she possibly guarantee a smart son? That’s not something you can just decide to do.” Arthur’s brief flicker of hope died. He looked at me, his expression hardening. “You already gave me a son with problems. That suggests any others would be the same.” He sighed, a gesture of finality. “But you were always the most obedient of my wives, and the only one to give me a boy at all. I’ll give you two million dollars. It’s time for you to leave.” He turned to walk away. I scrambled forward and wrapped my arms around his leg, looking up at him with every ounce of conviction I possessed. “Trust me one more time. I promise you, I can do this. If I fail, if the child isn’t perfect, you can throw me out then. It won’t be too late.” “You manipulative bitch,” Sophie spat, trying to kick me away. But Arthur stopped her. He looked down at me, his voice a low murmur. “You’re sure?” “I swear it.” My certainty caught his mother’s attention. A flame of desperate hope ignited in her eyes. “If you can actually do it,” she said slowly, “then I will finally accept you as my daughter-in-law.” Arthur was swayed. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll try.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and tightened my grip on my son’s cooling body. Don’t worry, my love, I thought. Mommy will make them all pay. Sophie threw a tantrum. “Dad, you can’t believe her! She’s lying to you!” “Sophie,” I whispered, my voice trembling with practiced vulnerability. “I know you’ve always been afraid a brother would challenge your position as heir. Don’t worry. I would never let him compete with you.” I saw a flash of pity in Arthur’s eyes. He bent down and pulled me into his arms, then looked coldly at his daughter. “That’s enough!” he snapped. “Whether she can do it or not is not for you to decide. We will find out soon enough. And if it is a boy, and if he is healthy… he will be the Croft heir.” The color drained from Sophie’s face. She opened her mouth to argue but choked on the words, silenced by her father’s authority. I hid a smirk against Arthur’s chest. You want the inheritance so badly, Sophie? I will make sure you never see a single dime. 3. My promise to produce an heir transformed my status overnight. Arthur’s demeanor toward me softened, and he even arranged a lavish funeral for our son. At the cemetery, Sophie glared at me, her eyes burning with a hatred so intense it was almost palpable. I ignored her, tightening my grip on Arthur’s arm. In my mind, I whispered to my lost child: Rest now, my sweet boy. Mommy’s work is just beginning. “Darling,” I said to Arthur as we walked back to the car. “Let’s start trying again. Tonight.” A slow smile spread across his face. “All right, Vivi. I’ll trust you this one time. If you can really give me a high-IQ son, I’ll give you the world.” “I will,” I promised. Later that day, I found Sophie waiting for me in the rose garden. Her expression was venomous. “Don’t get too comfortable. When you fail to produce a boy, my father will throw you out so fast your head will spin. And you will fail. After all, it’s his genes that are defective.” “If his genes are defective,” I said, stepping closer until we were inches apart, “then how are you so perfect?” Panic flared in her eyes. She stammered, “I… I misspoke.” In that instant, everything clicked into place. The cold, brutal truth of it settled in my gut. Of course. That was why all of Arthur’s other children had problems. His genetics were flawed. And if Sophie was perfectly healthy… it meant she wasn’t his daughter at all. I said nothing more and walked away, leaving her flustered and exposed. That night, Arthur and I were together. I asked him about the genetic issue, and he admitted he’d been undergoing treatments for years. He believed the problem was likely resolved by now. It didn’t matter to me. Even if his genes were still a mess, the System would correct for it. Afterward, as I lay in the dark, the System’s voice echoed in my mind: [Host, a fertilized egg has implanted. You may now select its sex and intelligence level.] Without hesitation, I gave my command. Boy. High intelligence. I had already lost one son. This next one, and all the ones to follow, would have the world at their feet. They would live the life their older brother never could. 4. A month later, the test was positive. I was pregnant. Arthur was ecstatic. He lifted me up and spun me around the living room, laughing with pure, unadulterated joy. “This is it, Vivi! I love you! The Croft heir is on his way!” “I hope it’s a boy,” he murmured against my hair. “Dad, aren’t you afraid she’ll just pop out another defective one?” Sophie’s voice cut through the moment like a shard of glass. She turned to her grandmother. “Grandma, you know Dad has genetic problems. That’s a fact. So this baby of hers is guaranteed to be a defective, too!” “But if Arthur’s genes are the problem,” I asked softly, “how did you turn out so perfectly normal?” I couldn’t believe she’d be foolish enough to fall into the same trap twice. The expressions on Arthur and his mother’s faces soured as the same realization dawned on them. The air grew thick with suspicion. Just as Arthur was about to speak, his ex-wife, Eleanor, swept into the room. “The doctors explained this years ago,” she said smoothly, coming to her daughter’s rescue. “They said that even with Arthur’s condition, there’s a small chance of a child being born without any issues. Sophie was just our miracle.” She shot a sharp, warning glance at Sophie. Sophie quickly caught on. “Right! Besides, I look just like Dad. How could I not be his daughter?” She rounded on me, her voice dripping with accusation. “I see what you’re doing, Vivian. You’re trying to drive a wedge between us!” “No, I’m not,” I whispered, shrinking back into Arthur’s arms. “Arthur, you believe me, don’t you? I would never.” I knew my husband’s weakness: he had a savior complex. He was drawn to fragile women. As expected, he tightened his hold on me, his protective instincts kicking in. He glared at Eleanor and Sophie. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear another word about my genes in front of her. I have faith that Vivi’s baby will be perfectly healthy.” But later, in the privacy of our bedroom, his confidence wavered. I saw the worry etched on his face. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my voice a soothing balm. “Don’t worry, Arthur. This child is perfect. I have a friend who’s a doctor, a specialist with cutting-edge equipment. She already ran some preliminary tests for me.” His eyes lit up. “Really?” “Of course,” I lied smoothly. “It’s a healthy baby.” Relief washed over him. He pulled me close, kissing me again and again, his eyes wet with grateful tears. He cared so much about this child. I would use that devotion to control him completely. The Croft fortune, the Croft legacy—everything would belong to my sons. The next morning, Sophie brought me a glass of milk. She was smiling, a saccharine, unsettling expression. “Aunt Vivian, I’m so sorry for how I’ve been acting. Please accept this as an apology.” I looked at the milk. Does she really think I’m that stupid? I knew it was drugged. But I smiled back at her, thanked her, and drank every last drop. Minutes later, a searing pain ripped through my abdomen. Blood streamed down my thighs. I collapsed onto the floor, screaming for help. Sophie stood over me, spitting on the floor beside my head. “There goes your precious baby,” she sneered, her voice full of laughter. “Hahaha! Let’s see how you win my father’s favor now.”

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The day I was brought to the Redwood house, I was a secret made flesh. And Owen, my half-brother, shattered every piece of furniture he could get his hands on. “My mother has been dead for three days! And you bring this… thing into her house?” “A sister? I don’t have a goddamn sister!” Shards of glass from a shattered vase nearly sliced my eye open. The shock of it all stole my voice, clamping my throat shut until not a single sound could escape. My father had brought me here, but that was the extent of his involvement. He never looked at me, never spoke to me. Owen hated me, which meant he ignored me completely. Later, when the Redwood fortune crumbled and our father was gone, I was the only family he had left. Owen grabbed my tiny arm, ready to throw me out onto the street. The tears I had held back for so long finally broke free. I clung to his leg, my sealed lips finally parting, forcing out broken, clumsy words. “Owen… I’ll be good. Please… don’t throw me away…” 1 Owen Redwood hated me. I learned this on my very first night in his house. I was sitting on a velvet sofa, my small hands turning over the brand-new Barbie my father had bought me. Owen walked in, his school backpack slung over one shoulder, his face a mask of indifference. The first time he saw me, his voice was flat, lifeless. “Whose kid are you?” I scrambled off the sofa, suddenly self-conscious, hiding the doll behind my back. “Dad brought me,” I whispered. Owen tilted his head, repeating the word without any inflection, as if it were foreign. “Dad?” Just then, my father’s voice drifted down from the second-floor landing. He was wearing a silk robe, a placid smile on his face. “Owen, you’re home. Come meet your sister. She’s only four. Her name is Poppy. From now on, we’re all a family. You’re the big brother, so you need to take care of her.” My eyes widened with a cautious sort of wonder. Before this, I’d lived with a nanny in a small town down south. Dad didn’t visit often. The nanny rarely fed me enough and always called me the child of a homewrecker. She said my mother was Dad’s mistress, that she’d used my existence to squeeze a fortune out of him. The neighborhood kids would point and shout names at me—dirty little secret, bastard child. I didn’t understand all the words, but I understood the feeling behind them. I was a child who was meant to be hated. Then, yesterday, Dad had shown up out of the blue and said he was taking me to a new home. I peeked at the boy in front of me, a tiny bud of happiness blooming in my chest. I have a brother. I bit my lip and took a hesitant step forward, my hand reaching out to take his. “Hi, Owen.” He stared at me for a long moment, and then a strange, brittle laugh escaped his lips. As he laughed, his eyes slowly filled with red. He dropped his backpack, jerked his hand away from mine, and snatched a water glass from a side table. With a furious roar, he hurled it toward the second floor. “My mother has been dead for three days! And you bring this… thing into her house?” “A sister? I don’t have a goddamn sister!” It was like a dam had broken inside him. He was gasping for breath, his chest heaving. He kicked a chair over, sending it crashing into the wall. A vase. An ashtray. Anything within his line of sight, he grabbed and smashed onto the floor. He screamed like a caged animal, his rage directed at our father, who watched from the landing with an unnerving calm. I was frozen, paralyzed by the storm of his fury. Then, an explosion of sound erupted right next to my ear. A sliver of broken glass shot past my face, so close I felt its wind. My mouth fell open. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. A wave of pure, absolute terror washed over me, and from that moment on, I couldn’t speak another word. 2 “Poppy, go tell your brother it’s time for dinner.” My father sat at the head of the long dining table, his tone gentle but firm. I clutched my little bowl, glanced at him nervously, and shook my head. I was afraid of Owen. After his rampage, a doctor had come to the house. He said I had selective mutism. After many tests, he concluded it was a psychological issue. My father’s gaze sharpened, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. “Poppy, Owen is your brother. Your own flesh and blood. Where’s the deep-seated hatred in that?” He set down his chopsticks. “I have some business to attend to, so I won’t be home much for a while. You need to learn to get along with your brother.” My head drooped. I pushed myself off my chair, my body feeling heavy and numb. I had been in this house for nearly a week. I’d learned a few things in that time. My mother and Owen’s mother weren’t the only women in our father’s life. There were countless other pretty ladies. Which meant he had countless other homes. Holding a small bowl of soup, I shuffled to Owen’s bedroom door. My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Dad told me to get along with him. I sniffled and knocked softly on the door. As expected, there was no answer. I sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall with the soup in my lap, and waited for him to wake up. I hadn’t been sleeping well. The exhaustion was a heavy blanket, and sitting there in the quiet hallway, my eyes fluttered shut. A shadow fell over me. I rubbed my eyes and looked up. Owen was standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets, looking down at me with that same blank expression. I scrambled to my feet and offered him the bowl of soup. Owen. Dinner. A cold smirk twisted his lips. He slapped the bowl from my hands. The clatter of shattering ceramic on the hardwood floor made my scalp tingle with fear. My lower lip trembled, and I wanted to cry, but I held it in. I wanted to go home. But I didn’t know where home was anymore. 3 The Redwood’s housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, was kind. She would make me a soft, creamy custard and sit by my bed at night, patting my back until I fell asleep. I adored her. I followed her around the house like a little duckling. One evening, she was leaving earlier than usual. A lump formed in my throat, and I wrapped my arms around her leg, refusing to let go. Mrs. Gable sighed, then scooped me into her arms. She pointed toward Owen’s room. “Poppy, you need to remember, your brother is your family now. You have to make him like you,” she whispered. “He just seems cold, that’s all. A sweet girl like you… he’ll come around. He will.” I looked toward his closed door, my vision blurry with tears. Her reassuring gaze gave me the strength to loosen my grip. My father never came back. Owen was eighteen and about to graduate high school, so he was rarely home either. Most days, I was alone, curled up on the sofa with my doll. At nine-thirty, Owen finally came home from school. I watched him, my eyes wide and hopeful. Even though I was scared of him, even though I knew he hated me, some broken part of me still clung to him. I had no one else. This house was so big, and besides Mrs. Gable, no one ever spoke to me. As usual, Owen acted as if I were invisible. He dropped his bag and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I trailed behind him slowly, my head bowed, not daring to meet his eyes. When he finished his water, he found me blocking his path back to his room. “Move.” I scurried out of his way. But then I followed him, step for step, up the grand staircase. Owen stopped on the landing. “Stop following me. My mother only had one child. I don’t have a goddamn sister.” The words were like a slap. Humiliation stung my eyes, and tears began to fall. My throat felt tight and raw. I wiped my eyes and ran. 4 Owen’s final exams were approaching. Mrs. Gable told me this was a very important time for him. The memory of his harsh words faded, replaced by a surge of childish purpose. I sat at the kitchen table, drawing with a box of crayons. When Owen came downstairs the next morning, his expression as cool as ever, I was waiting for him by the front door, holding up my drawing. On it, I had written in big, wobbly letters: GOOD LUCK OWEN. YOU ARE THE BEST BROTHER. I HOPE EVERYTHING GOES WELL. I hid my face behind the paper, peeking over the top with hopeful eyes. Owen glanced at it as he walked past. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even break his stride, but after the front door clicked shut, I jumped up and down with pure joy. He saw it! He saw it! … For three straight mornings, I waited by the door to see him off. On the evening of his last exam, he came home. I ran toward him excitedly, then stopped a safe distance away, a hopeful smile on my face. But Owen just walked past me in silence and went straight to his room. He didn’t even come down for dinner. Later that night, I crept out of my room for a glass of water. As I passed his door, I heard a sound—a choked, stifled sob. I instinctively moved closer and pushed the door open a crack. In the moonlight streaming through the window, I could see Owen tossing and turning in his sleep. Tears stained his cheeks, and his lips moved, as if he were trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t escape. I held my breath, then tiptoed over to his nightstand, pulled out a tissue, and clumsily reached out to wipe the tears from his eyes. That’s when I heard him whisper. Over and over, his voice was small and lost, full of a pain I didn’t understand. He was calling for his mom. He said he was grown up now, so why couldn’t she have waited for him just a little longer? Is my brother missing his mom? My hand trembled as I touched the tissue to his face. The movement startled him. His eyes snapped open. The instant our gazes met, I spun around and bolted from the room, terrified that his anger would erupt all over again. 5 After that night, the fragile tension between us seemed to ease, just a little. He started letting me sit at the same table with him for meals. I was so happy I ate an extra half-bowl of everything. Just when I was beginning to think that this was how we would live, together, a single phone call shattered the fragile peace. Our father was dead. I watched Owen take the call, saw him rise from the sofa, his brow furrowing into a tight knot. I stood up too, clutching my doll, my mind a complete blank. It happened so fast. Moments later, a group of strangers burst into our home. They started grabbing things, smashing things. I scrambled into a corner, shaking. A burly man grabbed Owen by the arm, his voice gravelly and mean. “You’re the Redwood kid, right? Last month, your old man’s company had some structural issues. To get a controlling stake, your dad borrowed a hefty sum from us. He promised to pay it back this month, but now I hear his partners took the money and ran.” The man flicked ash from his cigarette onto our marble floor and sneered. “We went to his office to have a talk, but he took a leap off the damn roof instead. The old man can run, but the kid can’t. So, you tell me. How are you gonna make this right?” Owen looked stunned, but he collected himself quickly. “Let’s all calm down. I’ve already contacted my father’s lawyer and his assistant. If he truly owes you money, I will pay back every cent, as long as it’s within legal bounds.” It was as if Owen’s slender frame suddenly grew taller, stronger. His calm, steady demeanor actually made the burly man raise an eyebrow. “Big words from a kid who hasn’t even started shaving.” The man took a step forward, ready to issue another threat, but he was suddenly shoved backward, stumbling. I stood there, my face pale, my small hands trembling as I pushed him with all my might, planting myself in front of Owen. You will not bully my brother anymore! 6 Soon, a team of lawyers arrived. After a tense standoff, a final resolution was reached. Our father’s company would be liquidated. The mansion, several other properties, and a fleet of luxury cars would be auctioned off. It was just enough to cover the debt. Owen let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for days. “We’ll be out by tomorrow. Thank you for your assistance.” The lawyers gave Owen a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and left with the group of thugs. Silence descended upon the house once more. I sat close to Owen, unable to help in any way. I don’t know how much time passed before he finally moved, rolling his stiff neck. His eyes swept over the grand, empty room, and finally, they landed on me. I pressed my lips together, about to offer him a small smile. But Owen suddenly shot to his feet, grabbed my arm, and started pulling me toward the door. I stumbled along behind him as he dragged me outside. He pushed me out onto the porch and his voice was as cold as ice. “The Redwood name is gone. Go back to wherever you came from.” He pulled a few crumpled bills from his pocket and threw them on the ground. “Find a cop. They’ll know what to do with you.” He turned to shut the heavy oak door. The finality of it shocked me back to life. I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around his leg and shaking my head frantically. I won’t go. But Owen was surprisingly strong. He pried my hands off, his own eyes now red and raw as he roared at me, “Go! This was never your home! How long are you going to freeload here? I never accepted you as my sister! You’re nothing but a burden! A leech! Get out!” My face crumpled. The tears I’d held back for so long finally streamed down my cheeks. I lunged for him again, clinging to his leg with all my strength. He’s all I have left. My mouth opened, and a broken sound finally escaped my dry, tight throat. “O-Owen!” The sound was hoarse, unfamiliar. “I’ll be… good! I’ll be so good! Please… don’t throw me away.” “You’re all I have. Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.” I was sobbing now, great, heaving cries, clinging to him as if he were the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. I just want my brother.

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I was Aidan Blackwood’s fixer. When he confessed his love to the scholarship kid, I was the one leading the applause. When they had a secret rendezvous, I was the lookout. After graduation, she went abroad to chase her dreams. And I became Aidan’s placeholder girlfriend. He said I’d step aside the moment she came back. But I waited. And waited. I went from his girlfriend to his fiancée, and from his fiancée, I nearly became his wife. Finally. Right before the wedding. Aidan flew halfway across the world and brought her back. I slipped the ring off my finger and breathed a sigh of relief. On my way out, I even thoughtfully closed the door behind me. 1 I wasn’t surprised when I heard Aidan had chartered a private jet on a moment’s notice. This was about Isabelle, after all. When my best friend found out, she was furious. “You two are getting married in a month! Has he lost his mind?” He hadn’t. Isabelle Valois was the fashion world’s new darling, a designer on a meteoric rise. It was also an open secret that she was the first love of Aidan Blackwood, the CEO of Blackwood Industries. Reporters had tried to confirm it with her once. “It doesn’t matter who was whose first love,” Isabelle had said, her voice cool and crisp as winter air. “I got to where I am today on my own merit. Please focus on my work, not on tabloid gossip.” But last week, that work became the center of a scandal. A dazzling, starlit gown she’d designed was suddenly at the heart of a plagiarism accusation. And the original creator was a complete unknown, an amateur who went by the name “Sirius.” The story blew up. In response, Isabelle posted a single, cryptic message on her Instagram story: Are you all trying to drive me to my death? That morning, Aidan had been glued to his phone during breakfast. We had a crucial meeting scheduled about a new partnership, a deal he had casually promised my father’s company. When Aidan ghosted the meeting, his VP took the opportunity to award the contract to a cousin’s firm. My father called me ten times in a row, each call a fresh wave of fury. I tried Aidan’s cell. No answer. On the third try, it went straight to voicemail. His phone was off. The next time I saw him was eleven o’clock that night. He texted me an address—a vacant penthouse he owned on the Upper East Side. A place I’d never been. The moment I stepped out of the elevator, I was hit by the scent of hundreds of pink roses filling the foyer. They were the same flowers Aidan had once given Isabelle—a flashy, extravagant gesture, his sports car’s trunk overflowing with them the day he first told her he loved her. The decor wasn’t his style, either. None of his sterile, minimalist-chic nonsense. This was all her. As I neared the master bedroom, I heard a woman’s soft sobs. The scene inside was exactly what I’d imagined. Isabelle, pale and fragile, sat on the edge of the bed, a pristine white bandage wrapped around one wrist. She was crying, a perfect, tragic portrait. Aidan, tall and powerful, stood beside her, looking completely helpless. His impeccably tailored suit, usually a suit of armor, was wrinkled and rumpled. The only thing holding the look together was a face that could have been carved from marble. I couldn’t figure out why he’d called me here. Postmates delivers, after all. He turned and saw me, and for a second, his eyes lit up with relief. I knew that look all too well. It was the same look he’d given me in high school when the dean nearly caught him and Isabelle making out in the woods behind the football field. Isabelle’s too shy for this, his eyes had pleaded. Take the fall for her. It was the same look he’d give me when he couldn’t decide what gift to buy her, or when he’d done something to piss her off and needed me to fix it. Usually, I was no help. We’d both end up getting kicked out, Isabelle scolding Aidan for thinking his money could solve everything and calling me his pathetic little lapdog. I’d just shrug. “I prefer ‘personal assistant.’ It sounds better on a resume.” That had made Aidan laugh. In the end, though, Isabelle always took his money. She had a dream of being a designer. In high school, if he bought her an expensive birthday present, she’d insist on working for three months to buy him something of equal value. Not me. I took whatever he offered, practically checking his pockets for loose change. Then, Isabelle bombed her SATs. She climbed to the roof of the school, threatening to jump. Aidan stood on the lawn below, tears streaming down his face, begging her to come down, promising he would make her dream happen. And he did. He sent her abroad. The Blackwoods were wealthy. Not old-world, untouchable royalty, but wealthy enough to bend the world to their will. Behind his family’s back, Aidan accessed the trust fund that became available to him when he turned eighteen. He spent millions to get Isabelle into a prestigious design school in London. Honestly, I’d always suspected she was only with him for the money. But then again, so was I. The difference is, a girl with a crush does it for free. A girl with a job sends an invoice. 2 The year his family found out, all hell broke loose. Aidan was cut off and forced into an engagement with a girl from a suitable family. His grandfather, a terrifying patriarch of the old school, laid down the law. “You will marry a woman of your own class!” But Aidan didn’t want anyone but Isabelle. So he came up with a truly terrible idea. He brought me to his grandfather’s imposing estate, orchestrating a scene where a maid would “accidentally” walk in on us exploring the mysteries of our youth. He’d cornered me in a guest room, urgently pulling me toward the bed. My heart hammered against my ribs. For a dizzying, stupid moment, I, barely eighteen myself, thought maybe he actually wanted me. A few minutes later, the door banged open. A crowd of servants and family members stood in the doorway, their faces a mixture of shock and disapproval. I yanked the duvet up to my chin, my own face burning with a shame so absolute it felt like drowning. But the humiliation of that moment was nothing compared to what Aidan said next. He looked at the crowd, a triumphant smirk on his face. “Chloe is my girlfriend,” he declared. “She’s a Rhodes. Chloe Rhodes.” Then he delivered the killing blow. “She started it. She’s the one who took my shirt off.” I’ve always been a quick study. If I weren’t, I never would have been the only one of my father’s illegitimate children he bothered to bring home. In that instant, I understood Aidan’s entire pathetic little scheme. He was using me as a shield. Not only that, he was using me to make Isabelle look like a saint by comparison. See? he was saying. This is the kind of girl you want me to marry? From a good family? Look at what she does the moment she’s in your house. It worked. Later, he spoke to me as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “Chloe, you know who I love.” “When Isabelle comes back, you’ll leave. Don’t worry,” he’d added, a king bestowing a favor. “I’ll make it worth your while.” A girl’s reputation was a small price to pay for his epic love story. So I sold mine. For cash. I nodded. Aidan looked pleased, almost relieved. “See? This is why I like you, Chloe,” he’d said with a sigh. “You’re so practical.” And now, it seemed, my final invoice was due. 3 It all made sense now. That’s why Aidan had wired five million dollars to my account this morning. And here I was, thinking it was an early anniversary gift. Our fifth “anniversary” was in three days. After accepting the money, I’d actually felt a pang of guilt. I hadn’t gotten him anything, and I couldn’t exactly wire him cash in return. Not that he needed it. And okay, fine, I’m not that generous. So instead, I’d made a reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I booked the entire place. I was even putting together a slideshow to project on the wall. I was juggling several massive projects at work, so I’d stayed up all night to finish the presentation. I’d just emailed the final version to the restaurant when Aidan’s text came, summoning me here. The slideshow was a collection of our five years together. College. Me, signing him in for attendance and answering questions in lectures while he slept beside me. When the professor called me out, I’d said, completely deadpan, “I’m his future wife. We’re a team. My answer is his answer.” The whole lecture hall had erupted in laughter. Travel. He loved extreme sports—skydiving, heli-skiing in treacherous terrain. His circle of trust-fund friends were all too precious to risk their necks, so I was the one who always went with him. Afterward, I’d be shaking so badly I could barely stand, my legs trembling as he’d catch me, pulling me into a steadying embrace. Living Together. Well, sort of. We watched TV together, shopped for groceries together, cooked together… Correction: I cooked, he ate. Aidan hated having maids or housekeepers around. And somewhere along the line, he started doing the dishes without being asked. My trip down memory lane came to a screeching halt. As I wondered if it was too late to get a refund on the restaurant, Aidan’s voice cut through my thoughts, sharp with irritation. “What took you so long?” I’d barely slept in two days, and my head was swimming. Isabelle looked up at me, her eyes puffy. “You’re… Chloe?” I managed a polite smile and a nod. She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m so sorry you have to see me like this,” she whispered. “Aidan said you’re very good at taking care of people…” I glanced at Aidan. He looked completely unfazed. “Take care of her,” he ordered. “She hasn’t eaten in two days. Make her something. And that dress is too thin, go buy her some clothes to change into…” He rattled off a list of demands, and I just kept nodding. Yes. No problem. On it. I’ll go right now. My complete and total compliance seemed to throw him off. He stopped talking abruptly. I was busy typing notes into my phone and, hearing the silence, I looked up, confused. “Is that everything, A— Mr. Blackwood?” A slip of the tongue. “Aidan” was the name he’d instructed me to use back when we had to put on a show for his grandfather. We’d had to perform so often that the name just stuck. But now, with Isabelle back in the picture, calling him that felt like stepping on a landmine. One jealous glance from her, and Aidan would have my head. His gaze darkened. Seeing that he was done, I turned to leave. “Chloe, stop right there!” he suddenly barked. I jumped, startled by the force in his voice. I spun around, my most helpful expression plastered on my face. “Yes, Mr. Blackwood? Is there something else?” His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles twitching. The words seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth. “Don’t you have anything to ask me?” Ask him what? He glared at me, his cheeks puffed out slightly in anger. It made him look like a handsome, furious bullfrog. I thought for a moment. “What size are Miss Valois’s clothes?” I could already tell, of course. She was a size zero. She was even thinner than she’d been in high school, either from catering to the fashion industry’s brutal standards or because life hadn’t been kind to her. Maybe both. Not me. I ate well and slept better. I was a good thirty pounds heavier than I was back then. When my friends told me to lose weight, I’d tell them it was the look of prosperity. I’d been poor, and I was terrified of ever being hungry again. I liked myself this way. If I got any thinner, the male models I sometimes hired for an evening would be getting the better end of the deal. Aidan laughed, but it was a cold, sharp sound. “You’re really something, Chloe.” “Hey, thanks, boss!” I said with a cheerful salute. 4 I bought an entire wardrobe from Chanel. Everything from lingerie to outerwear, top to bottom. Then, I called the restaurant. When they confirmed that my six-figure deposit was non-refundable, I almost choked. “You can’t even refund half?” I pleaded. “I’m sorry, madam. That’s our policy.” “Okay, new plan,” I said, thinking fast. “I won’t be coming tomorrow night. Can you just make the food now and deliver it?” I gave them the address to the penthouse. “Don’t go crazy, but, you know, don’t be cheap about it either.” With food and clothing sorted, I did a final mental check. Was I missing anything? Ah. Of course. Basic human needs. I opened an app and ordered a pack of 0.01mm condoms. The size was a complete guess. I chose the smallest they had. Hope it fits. Not my fault if it doesn’t. It’s not like he ever showed me. When I got back to the penthouse, Isabelle seemed to have cried herself to sleep. Her eyes were closed, her hand clutching the sleeve of Aidan’s jacket like a lifeline. He was standing in the exact same spot as when I’d left, a silent, motionless guardian. As I pushed the door open, I saw him lean down, about to steal a kiss from Isabelle’s sleeping lips. Seriously? Couldn’t he wait until she was awake? Was he that desperate? The thought was so jarring it scrambled my syntax. I froze, then quickly backed out. After a moment’s thought, I tiptoed back in and quietly placed the essentials on the floor just inside the bedroom. Then, I gently pulled the door shut. Before I left, I sent Aidan a text. Me: Mr. Blackwood, the clothes and the dinner are in the living room. I’ve left them on the main console table. Me: You can get them whenever you two are finished. As I sent the message, my eyes fell on our previous conversation from earlier in the day, back when he was at the office. He’d been complaining about the old guard at the company, the board members with his last name who made his life hell. Then he’d turned playful, trying to convince me to go bungee jumping with him again. He’d said we should go to Nice in a few days to see the ocean, and then Switzerland at the end of the year to ski, to “wash the office stink off.” Maybe it’s because the future is so uncertain that we love to plan it. I’d replied with a simple: [Received.] That had annoyed him. He sent back an angry cat emoji. I scrolled through my own emojis for a long time before finding one of a hand petting a cat’s head, and sent it to him. Afraid he was genuinely upset, I’d followed up with: [What do you want for dinner tonight?] But by then, he must have seen Isabelle’s social media post. He never replied. The conversation just… stopped. A fitting preamble to the end of our entire relationship. It had started my freshman year of high school and ended two years after college graduation. I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of nostalgia. Aidan was bossy, childish, selfish, and foolish. But I couldn’t deny he was also decent, in his own way. And very generous. At our engagement party, he’d had a little too much champagne and said, his voice thick with arrogant affection, “Chloe, I’m officially permitting you to stay with me forever.” For a while, I’d actually let myself believe we would get married. Clearly, I’d misunderstood. But the cold, hard number in my bank account was doing a remarkable job of warming my spirits. I twisted the engagement ring off my finger and placed it gently on the living room table. As fate would have it, though I’d told the restaurant to just throw something together, they’d kept one item from my original order. The cake. Written across the top in delicate script were the words: Happy 5th Anniversary, A. I left my engagement ring right beside it. 5 Aidan’s lips stopped a millimeter from Isabelle’s. For some reason, the desire to kiss her vanished. This was the woman he had thought about for years, right here in front of him. He told himself it was out of respect. Isabelle wasn’t that penniless scholarship kid anymore. For the past four years, Aidan had flown to London for every one of her birthdays. He’d celebrated with her, introduced her to influential people. But nothing ever happened between them. Back then, Isabelle had told him plainly that she wasn’t coming back to the States and didn’t want to hold him back. “Who said I’m waiting for you?” Aidan had retorted, his pride stung. “I’m with Chloe now!” Isabelle had just smiled. “I’m glad she’s with you. It puts my mind at ease.” Then she’d added, “She’d do anything for you. She’ll take good care of you.” “Aidan, even if we can’t be together, you should know that I want you to be happy more than anyone else in the world.” His anger had evaporated instantly. This was what love was, wasn’t it? The beautiful tragedy of it. You couldn’t be together, but you were still number one in each other’s hearts. Isabelle deserved to soar. He had to set her free. She was like a rose he had cultivated himself. She had fought her way out of the mud, and now she deserved to bloom for the whole world to see. He couldn’t keep her trapped by his side. He should only be there when the rose needed watering. This was the truth he had slowly come to accept. He only needed someone like Chloe by his side—a woman who was greedy, practical, and transactional. He couldn’t give her his heart, but he could give her a marriage, money, and status. That’s how these things worked in their world. It’s why he’d sent her the five million for their anniversary. His friends told him to make it $5.2 million—a number that sounds like “I love you” in Chinese—but he’d found the idea too sentimental, too cheesy. Chloe didn’t even deserve to carry Isabelle’s shoes. She should be grateful for what she got. Thinking of Chloe, a strange irritation pricked at him. Even though nothing had happened between him and Isabelle, wasn’t Chloe even a little bit jealous? No. She was definitely angry. That’s why she was being so formal, calling him “Mr. Blackwood.” His friends always joked about how utterly obedient she was. “Man, Aidan, you’ve got her trained. My wife goes ballistic if I even look at another woman.” “I bet when Isabelle comes back, Chloe would even agree to be the other woman.” “The other woman? More like the maid. If Aidan booked a hotel room, she’d be the one to show up and deliver the condoms!” Aidan had never corrected them. Because it was true. Just then, his phone buzzed. A text message. It was from Chloe. She’d come and gone. He glanced casually toward the bedroom door. And then he saw it. A small, square box on the floor. Aidan shot to his feet and strode over to it, snatching it up. He stared at it in disbelief, his hand crushing the small cardboard box out of shape. Chloe had even thought of this for him. It was the exact scenario his friends had joked about. But now that it was actually happening, Aidan felt a sudden, sharp surge of fury. A suffocating tightness filled his chest. Isabelle stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She saw the box in his hand. A blush crept up her neck, but a flicker of triumph flashed in her eyes. “Aidan, please don’t,” she murmured. “When I asked you to get me out of there, I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry if I gave you the wrong impression…” Before she could finish, she watched him toss the small box into the trash can. Isabelle’s expression froze. “Do I look like some kind of animal to you?” Aidan snapped. She let out a quiet breath of relief. So, he wasn’t rejecting her. He was respecting her. “Besides,” Aidan continued, “you have a career to build back in Europe. How could I possibly stand in your way?” For a moment, an ugly look crossed Isabelle’s face. She tested the waters. “What if… what if I wasn’t planning on going back?” Aidan cut her off. “Don’t lie to me. I know you better than that. You’re meant to chase your dreams. You’re not like all those other women who just want to get married and have kids.” Isabelle swallowed the words she was about to say. Aidan brought in the clothes Chloe had bought. Isabelle looked at the shopping bags, and her face soured. Aidan glanced at the brand names and understood immediately. He pulled out his phone and texted Chloe. [Isabelle doesn’t like this designer’s aesthetic. She won’t wear their clothes. Go buy something else.] Next, they went to the living room. Seeing the lavish spread of food from the restaurant, Isabelle frowned again. Aidan texted Chloe again. [Isabelle doesn’t eat food like this, it’s too fattening. And she doesn’t want Western food right after coming back. Go to that Cantonese place I like and pick up a new order. Bring it here.] Isabelle put on a gracious expression. “It’s fine, really. I can eat this.” Aidan looked at her pale face, his heart aching for her. He thought for a moment, then sent one more text. [Isabelle’s not feeling well. I’m taking her out of the city for a few days to get some fresh air. We’ll be back before the anniversary.] He waited. The person who usually replied in seconds was silent. Annoyed, Aidan tried to call Chloe. The call went straight to voicemail. Did she block me? Suddenly, his eyes landed on the cake sitting on the console table. The inscription made him pause. Why would she have the anniversary cake delivered here? Then, a flash of light caught his eye. Next to the cake, sat her engagement ring. 6 The weather was clear and bright. A perfect day for a trip, or a move. With a five-million-dollar severance package in my bank account, I made a clean and efficient exit. I wanted to be long gone before Isabelle woke up. I checked into an executive suite at The St. Regis and immediately passed out. Before I did, I posted a vague, melodramatic Instagram story hinting at a breakup, officially announcing my split from Aidan. When I woke up, my phone was dead. I plugged it in, and the moment it turned on, it began to vibrate uncontrollably, a relentless stream of notifications. Dozens of missed calls and messages from Aidan. I scrolled through them, my eyes flying across the screen. [Chloe, what the hell is this? Are you throwing a tantrum now?] [Are you mad because I asked you to take care of Isabelle?] [She was in a bathtub trying to kill herself when I found her. Do you have any compassion at all?] He’d also sent a picture. My engagement ring, tossed into a wastebasket along with the five-year anniversary cake. My eyes stopped on the last message. [You have the nerve to do this? Fine. Don’t even think about coming back!] Oh. Okay. So he wanted me to not come back. Feeling entirely justified, I ignored his calls. But it didn’t take long for me to see his activity on social media. The story of Isabelle’s plagiarism had followed her from London to New York. The amateur designer she’d allegedly stolen from, Sirius, was apparently an American citizen of Chinese descent. And, just hours ago, he had landed back in the country. A blurry paparazzi shot from the airport flashed across my screen. A man with dark hair and striking green eyes, six-foot-two at least, so handsome he didn’t look real. The photo was deleted almost as soon as it went up, suggesting he was someone important. At the height of the scandal, Aidan posted a single, arrogant sentence on his X account: [The ants always rejoice when the swan stumbles.] The comments were a bloodbath of mockery, with a few of their die-hard “shippers” mixed in. Thankfully, sane people still seemed to rule the internet. Then, Sirius himself posted something. [The blind man plucked the moon from the sky, but didn’t know how to cherish it.] [So, I’ve come to chase the moon once more.] It was cryptic and poetic, and no one knew what to make of it. People guessed it had nothing to do with the plagiarism case. After all, he wasn’t the one who had posted the original proof that Isabelle had copied his design. This felt different, like a declaration of intent from someone coming to win back a lost love. One commenter asked: [Did you come back to pursue someone you love?] The author liked the comment. Immediately, internet sleuths discovered that years ago, the Sirius account had posted from a location tag that matched Isabelle’s old high school. The speculation exploded. [Wait, is he so magnanimous that the person he’s chasing is ISABELLE?!] The shippers went wild. [Sirius: I did all this just so you would finally see me!] [So we’ve been dragging this plagiarist for weeks, and it turns out it was just some kind of weird lover’s game?!] The comments section devolved into chaos. Sirius remained silent. But Isabelle, who had been hiding for days, suddenly emerged. She posted: [You cannot force love. To grasp at the moon in the water is only to push it further away.] Suddenly, dozens of new accounts popped up, all pushing the same narrative: The “moon” Sirius was talking about was Isabelle. The starlit dress was designed for Isabelle. Sirius had used the plagiarism accusation as a twisted way to get her attention. And so on. It was at that exact moment, as I stood in the hotel lobby scrolling through this mess, that someone called my name.

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On our tenth wedding anniversary, my husband and I were walking downtown when a girl stopped us. Her eyes were bright, sparkling with a youthful shyness. She didn’t dare look directly at Liam, turning instead to me. “Ma’am,” she said, her voice a nervous flutter, “I just think your son is super cute. Would you mind if I, like, got his number?” It wasn’t the first time a woman had hit on Liam. It was, however, the first time one had mistaken me for his mother. Usually, Liam would lean in and kiss me, a performative display of affection. “Sorry,” he’d say, “but my heart is already taken.” Today, he hesitated. Just for a beat. Then he said, “No, I’m with someone.” I froze, my hand still linked in his arm. He hadn’t said that the someone he was with was me. Standing right beside him. I looked at him, at the face that had somehow defied the last decade while mine had dutifully recorded every second of it, and for a sliver of a moment, a cold dread washed over me. Did I make a mistake? Was I wrong all those years ago, ignoring everyone who told me not to be with him? He was nineteen when he loved me most. A nineteen-year-old with a thirty-one-year-old woman could, with some effort, earn a few reluctant blessings. But a twenty-nine-year-old man with a forty-one-year-old woman? It just sounded wrong, a mismatch of seasons. One was in his prime; the other, to put it bluntly, had one foot inching toward the grave. And in the years we’d been together, he had gained everything. Not yet thirty, and already a titan in his field. There was a never-ending line of young, beautiful girls ready to throw themselves at him, their eyes full of adoration. The only thing I had to hold onto was the fact that he loved me. But that night, when a private investigator delivered the evidence of Liam’s affair into my hands, I realized I was wrong. The man who took my money thought I was Liam’s mother, bowing his head obsequiously. “Ma’am, five million is a bargain for proof of your son’s infidelity.” I opened the video file. Liam’s voice, laced with a dark, mocking humor, filled the car. “Audrey’s old. We walk down the street and people think she’s my mother. In bed, she can’t even keep up with me anymore.” “I was crazy in love with her back then, I’ll admit it. But the family business needs an heir, and Sierra is young. When she has the baby, we’ll let Audrey raise it.” “That’s the least I can do for her, right?” On the passenger seat, a pregnancy diagnosis lay still and white. My hand went to my stomach as I dialed the number for the clinic. 1 I hung up the phone after scheduling the appointment. The video was still playing on the tablet in my lap. A group of them, packed into the leather booth of some dark, expensive club, the air thick with smoke and liquor. “Liam, my man,” one of his friends slurred, “that old lady of yours… she’s gotta be what, forty now? And you’re not even thirty. It’s just not right!” Liam, holding court in the center of the sofa, let out a low chuckle and corrected him. “Forty-one.” “I threw her a fortieth birthday party last year,” he continued, his voice smooth. “She’s exactly twenty years older than Sierra.” Sierra, all sharp angles and coltish limbs, leaned against him to light his cigarette, her hand tracing a lazy circle on his chest. “Oh my god,” she cooed. “Doesn’t that mean she’s getting, like, age spots? Liam, baby, how can you even stand to touch her?” Liam exhaled a plume of smoke, his expression unreadable in the dim light. “She was a knockout back in the day, I’ll give her that. But even a goddess gets old. The other night, I was in the mood for a second round. I took a shower, and by the time I came out, she was fast asleep.” “She can’t keep up with me,” he said, a note of finality in his tone. “And that’s now. Imagine a few years from now, when my parents start getting sick. I’ll be stuck taking care of three senior citizens.” The recording went silent for a second before the booth erupted in raucous laughter. Another friend piped up. “But was Audrey ever really that hot? I mean, hotter than Sierra?” Sierra looked at Liam, her eyes wide with expectation. He casually lifted her chin, blowing a stream of smoke into her face. A strange, nostalgic look flickered across his own. “Our Sierra is… average, in most respects. Except for her eyes…” He paused, his voice softening. “They’re really beautiful.” Sierra turned her head, a shy smile playing on her lips. In that instant, I saw her face clearly. The eyes—a mix of defiance and pleading—were a five-out-of-ten copy of my own. Or rather, a copy of my younger self. “Just focus on a healthy pregnancy,” Liam said, his tone uncharacteristically gentle as he gazed into those eyes. “As long as it’s a boy, I’ll take good care of you.” A blush crept across Sierra’s young, pretty face. She touched her belly and nodded obediently. 2 I sat in the car, a deep, cellular cold spreading through me. On the dashboard were two small clay dolls, a birthday gift from Liam five years ago, which he’d made himself. A boy doll for him, a girl doll for me, their painted smiles pressed happily together. I could never bring myself to put them away. There were twelve years between us. I had just divorced my first husband when we met. A failure in love, a success in business. Our paths crossed while competing for a major real estate development. I was thirty-one then, at that specific age critics call a woman’s prime, a vintage of confidence and grace that younger girls, for all their taut skin and bright eyes, couldn’t yet possess. It was love at first sight for Liam. He pursued me with a single-minded, almost manic intensity for an entire year. He even bought the contested property at an exorbitant price, only to sign it over to me, no strings attached. He told me I was wearing a black fishtail dress the day he first saw me. He said that until that moment, he’d never known a simple piece of clothing could look so stunning, so impossibly elegant. No one dislikes a compliment, and Liam was young, handsome, his features alive with the kind of reckless confidence that I found undeniably magnetic. From dating to marriage, everything moved at lightning speed. To marry me, he leveraged his entire future against his parents’ wishes. He dropped out of grad school. He walked away from the family company. He even threatened that if they didn’t let him marry me, he would renounce the family name and tell them to have another son. His father was hospitalized from the stress of it all, but in the end, they couldn’t stand against their only child. They consented. For two years, the tabloids were filled with stories about us. The entire city of New York was convinced of Liam’s undying devotion. For that one year, at least, no one doubted how much he loved me. And now, this video sat in my hands. A stark, cruel contrast. Ten years. You could get attached to a dog in ten years. To say my heart didn’t ache would be a lie. It felt like it was tearing itself apart. Running on the last fumes of my strength, I drove home. The moment I pushed open the door, the rich aroma of braised short ribs filled the air. Liam was at the stove, an apron tied around his waist. He turned off the heat and smiled when he saw me. “Working late again? Leaving me all alone here.” I calmly slipped off my coat and changed my shoes, stumbling slightly as I stepped into the living room. Liam rushed to my side, steadying me. “You look awful. Did someone at the office give you a hard time? Tell me who it was, I’ll take care of them tomorrow.” I looked down. The hand on my arm was young and strong. In contrast, my own skin, no matter how much money I poured into maintaining it, was inevitably losing its fight against time. A wave of utter exhaustion washed over me. I pulled my arm away. “Who were you with tonight?” Perhaps it was my expression, or perhaps it was Liam’s own deeply suspicious nature. He was quiet for two seconds, then his face changed. A humorless smirk twisted his lips as he tossed the serving spoon onto the counter with a clatter. “So you know? What exactly do you know?” I looked up at him. “Should I know something?” He slowly, deliberately, rolled down his sleeves. His voice was terrifyingly calm. “Sierra isn’t half the woman you are. No family, no education, she’s crude. But she’s twenty-one. And she has your eyes.” He reached out and touched my cheek, but there was no tenderness in his gaze. “I never had you at twenty-one. Back then, you were still sleeping with your ex-husband, having his baby. Doesn’t that seem a little unfair to me?” A violent tremor ran through me. So, after all these years, he still couldn’t let go of Elliot. He suddenly laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. He forced me down onto a stool at the kitchen island, my body trembling uncontrollably. “You should have just pretended you didn’t know. I didn’t want to hurt you.” “If you can live with it, we can stay married. If you can’t…” He trailed off. “If I can’t?” I pressed. When Liam smiled, he had these boyish canine teeth that I used to adore. Now, he smiled as he delivered the cruelest words I’d ever heard. “If you can’t, you’ll learn to. At your age, who else is going to want you? Some sixty-year-old who can’t even get it up?” He leaned in closer. “You have such a high sex drive. You think they could satisfy you?” I couldn’t take it anymore. My hand flew up and I slapped him. Hard. He licked his lips, a slow, chilling smile spreading across his face as he pushed me back onto the stool. “Even though you’re old, we have ten years between us. There’s a history there. I won’t let Sierra replace you. I can even promise you that her child will call you ‘Mother’.” “That,” he said, his voice dropping to a confidential whisper, “is my promise to you.” After Liam left, I sat alone in the kitchen all night. The pot of rich, fragrant soup grew cold on the stove, a greasy, opaque film congealing on its surface. A wave of nausea rose in my throat, and I retched. 3 The investigator double-crossed me. The next morning, the story of Liam’s affair was all over the internet. Page Six, TMZ, every gossip blog imaginable. My phone vibrated nonstop. I forced myself to read two of the articles. Every hateful, humiliating word from that video was laid bare for the world to see. In the boardroom, I was known for being decisive, even ruthless. But maybe I really was getting old. I was starting to fear the whispers, the comments sections filled with the kind of casual cruelty that felt like a thousand tiny knives. I knew, without looking, how vicious the words would be. I used to hate avoidance, but now it was all I could do. I turned off my primary phone, leaving on only the private number that only family knew. My parents had passed away a few years ago. The number of people who had this line could be counted on one hand. An entire day passed. Liam never called. No comfort, no explanation. The phone sat on the nightstand, its silence a cold weight in the room. I hadn’t eaten all day. I was shuffling toward the kitchen, my mind a fog, when the phone suddenly rang. I answered, dazed. The other end was silent. There was only the sound of steady, even breathing. Familiar, yet distant. It wasn’t Liam. I glanced at the caller ID. It was a string of numbers I could recite from memory, even without a name attached. It was my ex-husband, Elliot, whom I hadn’t spoken to in years. I assumed he was calling to gloat. After all, during the worst year of our divorce, I had deliberately terminated his child’s pregnancy, and he had been merciless to me in the business world. I braced myself for the verbal assault. Instead, he asked, his voice low and even, “Are you okay?” Just three words. And my eyes burned with tears. I wasn’t. Elliot and I had a marriage of convenience, an alliance of two powerful families. We were the same age, from the same background. We looked perfect together. But our personalities clashed like fire and ice. His family was old money, a dynasty. At the height of their influence, it was a twenty-minute drive from their front gate to the main house. No matter how polite he was, he had an aristocrat’s pride woven into his very bones. And when I was young, I was even worse, demanding that the world revolve around me, unable to tolerate a single criticism. In the beginning, we managed a polite, respectful coexistence. Then, I misread a situation with his assistant, convinced he was having an affair. In a fit of rage and pain, I had an abortion and filed for divorce. He didn’t try to stop me. His signature on the divorce papers was as calm and steady as always. He never remarried. The media speculated for years that he was waiting for me. Only I knew that was impossible. He had to hate me. I didn’t answer his question. He didn’t hang up. We stayed on the line in silence, until the front door to my penthouse was kicked open with a violent crash. I gasped, the phone tumbling from my hand and sliding under the bed. The call was still connected as Liam, his face contorted with rage, stormed in and yanked me to my feet. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked at me as if I were his mortal enemy. “Did you leak this to the press? Was it you?!” He held me by the collar of my robe, his grip choking me. “Our stock is plummeting! Sierra got hounded by reporters and had to drop out of college! Are you satisfied now?” I choked out a cough, and he finally let go, letting me slump to the floor. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking slightly. He watched me for a long moment, then sneered. “Why bother? Even if you force my hand like this, it won’t make me desire this old body of yours.” He stubbed out his cigarette on our wedding portrait that hung on the wall, grinding the embers into the white silk of my dress. “Fix this,” he snarled. “That’s my advice to you.” I stared at the black smudge on the photograph for a long time. When I finally picked up my phone, I realized the line was still open. My most humiliating, vulnerable moment, laid bare for the one person I never wanted to witness it. I forced myself to bring the phone to my ear. The breathing on the other end was heavier now, almost ragged. For a second, I thought I heard a choked sob, but maybe I was imagining it. But the next words were perfectly clear. “Don’t be afraid, Audrey.” His voice was a low anchor in the storm. “Divorce him. Come home.” 4 I didn’t have time for self-pity. Liam’s scandal was dragging my company’s stock down with his. I had to contain the damage, and the fastest way was a press conference. It took three days to prepare. In that time, I went to the hospital for the procedure. It was a private, expensive clinic. As I was walking to the surgical suite, I saw Liam and Sierra in one of the consultation rooms. “Doctor, is there a high chance it’s a boy?” Sierra was asking, one hand protectively on her stomach. “If it’s a girl, is there any way to… you know… change that?” The doctor’s face twitched. “It’s too early to tell the sex for sure, but we can see it’s twins. The probability of at least one being a boy is very high.” Sierra burst into happy tears. Liam stood beside her, stroking her hair with a look of soft, doting affection. Just then, my nurse walked over. “Mrs. Hale, what are you still doing out here? It’s time for your surgery.” I forced myself to turn away. “Okay. Let’s go.” There was a complication during the procedure. I have a notoriously low pain tolerance, so I had requested to be put under general anesthesia. It wasn’t until the cold, metal instrument entered my body that I realized they hadn’t given me anything. A searing, violent pain shot through me, so intense it felt like I was being torn in half. I grabbed the nurse’s wrist, my grip so tight it startled her. “Why… no… anesthesia?” I gasped. “We need restraints in here! Now!” she yelled to someone outside. Only after I was strapped tightly to the table, enduring a pain that felt like torture, did the nurse explain. “Your husband’s assistant called. He said you have a severe allergy to anesthesia and that we were to proceed without it.” Her voice was strained. “Just hold on. It will be over soon.” Liam? My consciousness began to fade from the pain. Just before I passed out, I thought I saw a familiar face in the crack of the doorway. It was Sierra. I was forced to stay in the hospital for observation due to excessive bleeding. I hadn’t told anyone about the surgery. But on the day of my discharge, a bouquet of white lilies was delivered to my room. There was no name on the card, but I knew who sent them. I had always loved flamboyant, fire-red roses. For ten years of marriage, Liam had given me roses on our anniversary. Only one person had ever told me I was like a lily. My ex-husband, Elliot.

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Ethan broke up with me without any warning. I stared at the words on my phone, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. “Being with you is exhausting.” “I thought love was enough to make it to the end, but I’ve realized… I’m just not interested anymore.” There was no cheating, no big fight. Seven years of my life, erased by the simple, brutal need for something new. My thumbs hovered over the screen. I typed and deleted a dozen frantic paragraphs until only one word remained. “Okay.” 1 It was raining the day I moved out of our apartment. Ethan didn’t answer my calls. He just sent a text: “Just take your stuff. Leave the key in the usual spot. I’m not coming back.” He’d ended it last night. I’d thought maybe it was because I’d been so buried in work lately, that I’d neglected him. But scrolling back through our messages, I saw the truth. During all those days I was drowning in deadlines, he hadn’t just been quiet; he had been absent. The silence had been growing for weeks. I’d sent a flurry of texts. Playful ones, apologetic ones. All of them were met with a wall of silence, until finally, five words appeared. “We should break up.” The message hit me like a physical blow. I didn’t understand. Just a few days ago, we were curled up on the couch watching a movie. We were laughing, teasing each other, loving each other like we always had. Now, we were strangers. This had to be a joke. “Did I do something to upset you?” I typed, my hands shaking. The three little dots appeared and disappeared for a long time. “No.” “It’s me,” Ethan wrote. “I’m stuck.” “I tried to get the feeling back, I really did. But our conversations… every day just feels so draining.” “I think we’ve just reached the end of the line.” A heavy pressure built in my chest. I fought back the lump in my throat, trying one last time to salvage us. “Maybe it’s just a rough patch. That doesn’t mean the love is gone.” “Is that all it is?” he texted back. “At first, I thought so, too. But then I realized.” “Sophie, I’m not in love with you anymore.” My fingers froze over the keyboard. I looked at that final line from him, then methodically deleted the long, pleading paragraph I’d been composing. All that was left was a single word. “Okay.” 2 The summer air was thick and sticky. I stood on the sidewalk with my suitcase, watching the cars hiss by on the wet pavement. Ethan and I met in college. He pursued me for a solid year, bribing my roommate with coffee and concert tickets to engineer moments for us to be alone. He planned elaborate surprises, never forgot a birthday or an anniversary. We even survived two years of long-distance before finally ending up in the same city. Our friends always joked that when we finally got married, they’d better be on the guest list. Ethan would just grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he pulled me tighter. “Of course,” he’d say, his voice full of certainty. But even the most certain promises crumble under the weight of the seven-year itch. In the face of time, commitment is fragile. Rain pattered against my umbrella. My eyes started to burn. I picked up my suitcase to cross the street, but a car sped through a puddle, sending a wave of grimy water arching through the air. I couldn’t move fast enough. A dark, muddy spray splattered across my white sneakers. I looked down, staring at the stain. I remembered when I first bought these shoes. I treated them like treasure, carefully stepping around any potential scuffs or smudges. I was terrified of someone stepping on them. But after a while, I stopped caring. They got dirty, they got old. You just throw them out. To Ethan, I was that pair of shoes. My phone buzzed. It was my best friend, Maya. “Soph? What do you mean you’re moving your stuff to my place? Since when does Ethan let you out of his sight?” My throat tightened. I forced the words out. “We broke up.” She laughed, a loud, disbelieving bark. “You broke up? No way. Ethan would have a full-blown meltdown if you even joked about that.” I cut her off, my voice coming out colder than I intended. “He dumped me.” The other end of the line went silent. Maya let the weight of it sink in. “The key code is the same,” she finally said, her voice soft but firm. “I’ll be back from my business trip in a week. When I get home, we’re going out.” 3 In the week after Ethan and I broke up, we didn’t speak. It was a mutual, unspoken agreement. We vanished from each other’s lives as if we had never met. I went to work, ate my meals, went to the movies, all by myself. I was slowly, painfully, getting used to the quiet. He went on a trip to the mountains in Colorado with a new group of friends. His Instagram told the whole story. A nine-photo grid. A group shot of six people, three guys and three girls, all beaming. The caption: Got my joy back. The irony was a physical ache. Breaking up with me had brought him freedom, happiness. The only time he was unhappy, apparently, was when he was by my side. I buried my face in my pillow. It was raining again. A week later, Maya came home. The second she walked through the door, she dropped her bags and just wrapped me in a hug. She didn’t say anything for a long time. “You’re so damn lucky,” she finally whispered into my hair. “You’re lucky you saw his true colors before you married him.” A laugh escaped my lips, but it quickly choked into a sob. There hadn’t been a dramatic fight, no cheating scandal, no earth-shattering betrayal. It was just… over. Like a train pulling into its final destination. We both got off and walked away in different directions. It was painfully, crushingly, ordinary. “Come on,” Maya said, wiping a tear from my cheek with her thumb. She pulled back, a fierce grin spreading across her face. “We’re going for a drink. I’m introducing you to some hot guys.” The bar was loud, the lights strobing and overwhelming. But the deafening music was a relief. It filled up all the empty spaces in my head, leaving no room for my own thoughts. Maya was scrolling through her phone while nursing a vodka soda. “Hah,” she scoffed, taking a long drink. “Look at him, living his best life. Hiking, climbing… He’s really been set free, huh?” She kept scrolling, but then her brow furrowed. Her expression shifted. “He’s in a relationship.” My hand, holding my glass, froze mid-air. I tried to hide the tremor, bringing the glass to my lips and taking a huge gulp. I feigned indifference. “Oh, really?” Ethan was handsome. A strong jaw, a great physique. Girls were always after him in college. It wasn’t surprising that he’d moved on so quickly. But still… how could he let go of me, of us, so easily? “Wait a minute,” Maya said, squinting at her screen. “This girl… isn’t she the one from that Colorado trip? That was just a few days ago, and now they’re together?” In the photos, Ethan had his arm around the girl’s shoulder, planting a shy-looking kiss on her cheek. There was a shot of them silhouetted against a sunrise, locked in a deep embrace. Another one on a mountain peak, gazing into each other’s eyes. Holding hands, hugging, kissing. Everything that was once mine, he had given away to someone else without a second thought. I pulled out my phone and opened Ethan’s contact. His profile picture had been changed. His feed, once filled with pictures of us, was completely blank. A clean slate. “He blocked me.” “Are you sure?” Maya leaned over to look. She scrolled up and down my screen. “Maybe he just… deleted you?” she suggested, her voice uncertain. “Try sending him a dollar on Venmo.” I navigated to the app and tried to send the payment. As expected, a notification popped up: This user is not on your friends list. Maya had no words. A bitter laugh escaped me. “Guess he doesn’t want the new girlfriend to get the wrong idea.” I navigated back to his contact, found the ‘delete’ button, and pressed it without hesitation. Maya watched me, then a slow smile spread across her face. She clinked her glass against mine. “He’s got a new life, Sophie. Now it’s time for you to get one that’s a hell of a lot better.” The glasses chimed. We looked at each other and smiled. I have to live better than him. 4 I poured everything into my work. I hustled, I saved, and I finally moved out of Maya’s place and into my own apartment. My proposal for a new ad campaign got approved, and I was made the lead on the brand’s biggest fall athletic line project. My life was becoming full again, one day at a time. Then, one morning, a new hire started at the office, fresh out of college. My boss, wanting to get her acclimated, assigned her to me as her mentor. I looked at the sweet, smiling girl and my world tilted on its axis. I wasn’t mistaken. She was Ethan’s new girlfriend from the Instagram post. Lexi. “Hi, I’m Lexi,” she said, beaming at me. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m really looking forward to working together.” I just stood there, frozen. It took a nudge from my boss for me to stiffly extend my hand. “Hi. Sophie.” “Sophie?” Her eyes widened with delight. “Wow, what a coincidence! We have to stick together!” I forced a tight-lipped smile and mumbled a few pleasantries before making a quick escape. Lexi fit in at the office immediately. She was young, energetic, and everyone seemed to gravitate toward her. Ethan was like that, too. Always buzzing with an infectious energy, pulling me into new adventures, trying new things. Until he wasn’t. I took a deep breath, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. Stop thinking about him, I told myself. Ethan has a new life. But seven years of love doesn’t just disappear. It grows roots deep in your soul. I couldn’t just rip it out like he had. I could only try to untangle it, one painful inch at a time.

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He always cherished me, swearing that his only birthday wish, year after year, was for us to have a child. For our fifth anniversary, I clutched the positive pregnancy test in my purse and slipped aboard the same yacht, melting into the masked ball I knew he was hosting. I was going to give him the ultimate surprise. Instead, I found him on the starlit deck with another woman, wrapped in an embrace that screamed honeymoon, not a business gala. My world tilted. I stumbled, knocking over a tower of champagne flutes. The crash echoed in the sudden silence. His brow furrowed in annoyance. He didn’t recognize me behind the Venetian mask and elaborate makeup. He snapped his fingers, and his security team materialized from the shadows. “Get this damn trash out of my sight,” he snarled, his voice a low thunder that vibrated through the deck. “She’s ruining the surprise honeymoon I planned for my wife.” He then turned to the woman in his arms, his voice softening to a caress. “Sweetheart, you’ve always wanted to see sharks up close, haven’t you? We’ll give them a little taste. Bleed her, and draw them in.” I dropped to my knees, the words catching in my throat, ready to beg, to tell him I was pregnant. But he just sneered, his polished Italian shoe connecting with my stomach in a brutal kick. “Oh, look at that,” he drawled, a cruel smirk playing on his lips as I gasped for air. “A pregnant bitch. Even better. My girl gets to see what a live feeding looks like.” Then, he pressed the cold muzzle of a pistol to my knee. “Break her legs first. I don’t want her spoiling the show.” 1 “Damn it, she’s a tough one, isn’t she?” Damien Blackwood’s voice was a blade of ice from somewhere above me. The kick had sent me flying, my back slamming against the ship’s railing with a sickening crack. A supernova of pain exploded from my spine, shooting straight to my skull. I curled into a ball on the cold teak deck, my hands instinctively shielding my abdomen. Our baby. The child Damien and I had prayed for, for five long years. Thick, theatrical makeup, meant for the masquerade, was now a grotesque, colorful paste streaked with cold sweat and tears. I tried to speak, to scream his name, but a rough hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back. He shoved my face into a towering anniversary cake on a nearby table. Buttercream and sugary frosting clogged my nose and mouth. The cloying sweetness mingled with the primal terror of suffocation, and I began to thrash wildly. And the architect of this nightmare was my husband of five years, Damien. I heard a woman’s saccharine voice. “Darling, don’t you think this is a bit much?” Damien chuckled, a cold, empty sound. He pulled her waist possessively against his. “Baby, you’re too kind. This piece of trash ruined our honeymoon. She doesn’t get to walk away so easily. You wanted to see sharks? I’m giving you a front-row seat.” My blood ran cold. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. This vicious, terrifying monster was the same man who had worshipped the ground I walked on. We met in college, a whirlwind romance that led to the altar. In the five years since, he had carved my name into the city’s list of untouchables, a name whispered with fear and respect in circles both legal and not. Even the corner hustlers would change direction if they saw me carrying a latte. The day he slipped the ring on my finger, a new file appeared in his office safe: the deed to every asset, every company, every shell corporation, with my name signed as the sole beneficiary. And now, the man who built a fortress around me was the one tearing me apart. Before I could process the whiplash, Damien snapped his fingers. Two of his men hoisted me up by my arms. “Bleed her,” he ordered, his tone as casual as if he were ordering dinner. “Lure them in.” My voice, when it finally came, was a raw, ragged shriek. I clawed at the guards, my nails digging bloody furrows into their forearms. The next second, a leather shoe ground down on my fingers, a pain so sharp and absolute it felt like a thousand needles driving into the bone. I heard the distinct crack of my own knuckles breaking. This wasn’t a threat. This was real. Primal survival instinct took over. I swallowed my pride, the agony, everything. I shuffled forward on my shattered knees, my hand trembling as I grabbed the cuff of his tailored trousers. Tears mixed with the frosting smeared across my face. “Mmph…” I tried to speak, but my throat was still blocked with cake. I clutched my stomach as a violent cramp seized me, sharp and terrifying. “Ah!” A strangled cry escaped my lips. I collapsed, and a river of crimson flowed down the inside of my thighs, staining the pristine deck a shocking, lurid red. The violent movement dislodged a folded piece of paper from my dress pocket. It fluttered to the deck, landing right in Damien’s line of sight. My name at the top was obscured by a fold, but the words [CONFIRMED PREGNANCY] were stark and clear under the moonlight. He glanced down, his gaze colder than the ocean itself. “Well, would you look at that,” he said, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face. “A pregnant bitch. Perfect. Now my baby gets to see what it looks like when you feed a fetus to the sharks.” I lay twisted on the deck, my body a raging fire of pain. The blood pooled around me. No! I shook my head desperately, trying to crawl, to move, to do anything. The cramping in my abdomen was so intense it was stealing my thoughts. Damien watched me from above, that monstrous smile still playing on his lips. Then, he leveled the gun at my knee again. “Break her legs,” he repeated, his voice dangerously soft. “I don’t want her thrashing around and ruining the main event.” 2 I forced my heavy eyelids open, seeing only the merciless silhouette of my husband against the moon. In that instant, despair consumed me whole. A deafening BANG ripped through the night. The bullet tore through my kneecap. I tried to scream, but they had stuffed a rag in my mouth, turning my agony into a muffled, pathetic whimper. Blood gushed from the wound, spreading across the deck in a warm, sickening tide. Through a haze of excruciating pain, I finally got a clear look at the woman’s face. It was Hannah. A university student Damien had recently sponsored through a new charity initiative. She stood beside him in a pure white sundress, looking like some fragile, innocent blossom. But her eyes, fixed on me, were glittering with a rabid excitement. She was devouring the sight of my suffering. “Darling, look at all that blood!” she cooed, feigning fear as she burrowed into Damien’s chest. The corners of her mouth, however, were twitching, fighting a triumphant smirk. Damien stroked her back soothingly. “Don’t be scared, baby. Filth like this isn’t worth your sympathy.” My heart felt like it was being ripped to shreds. Three months ago, Damien had his arm around me, telling me he wanted to set up a scholarship for underprivileged students. He’d asked me to help him vet the candidates. I was the one who chose Hannah’s file. Parents deceased, supporting herself on academic scholarships. The girl in the photograph had such clear, innocent eyes. Damien had even praised my choice. You have a good heart, Ava. The irony was a blade twisting in my gut. “Hoist her up,” Damien commanded, nudging my blood-soaked chin with the toe of his shoe. “The blood is more effective if it drips into the sea, one drop at a time.” As the cold iron chains were fastened around my wrists and ankles, the party on the other side of the deck continued, the sound of popping champagne corks a festive counterpoint to my torture. They suspended me upside down over the side of the yacht. The sea wind whipped my hair, carrying the coppery scent of my own blood into my nostrils. The bullet hole in my knee throbbed, a relentless fountain of heat that trickled down my leg, over my foot, and dripped into the dark water below. Each drop bloomed into a dark flower on the navy-blue surface of the ocean. “Darling, look!” Hannah suddenly shrieked, pointing. In the moonlight, several dorsal fins sliced through the waves. The sleek, gray-blue skin of the sharks glinted with a cold, dead light as they circled below. The pain was making my vision swim, but I could still clearly see one of Damien’s men—a man who usually called me “Mrs. Blackwood” with a respectful nod—plunge a dagger into my abdomen and twist. A guttural, animalistic sound tore from my throat. Suddenly, the first shark breached the surface, its jaws gaping. Rows of serrated white teeth were less than two feet from my stomach. A foul, fishy spray coated my chest. “Time it,” Damien said, toying with a lock of Hannah’s hair. “Cut the baby out of her. Let’s see how long the bitch lasts after that.” My world turned crimson. One of Damien’s men grinned grotesquely as he thrust his hand into the open wound in my belly. His fingers were like icy iron tongs, churning inside me. My body convulsed in a violent spasm of agony, but I couldn’t make a sound. My throat was already shredded from screaming. “You stupid bitch,” he whispered in my ear, his breath hot and foul. “You should have known better than to cross the boss.” Then, with a savage tug, he ripped something vital from my body. A gush of warm liquid, and a profound, hollow emptiness. The man held up my bloody uterus, a gruesome trophy in the moonlight. My child. The child Damien and I had wanted for five years was now a prop in a blood sport. “Throw it in,” Damien commanded, lighting a cigar with an indifferent flick of his wrist. My womb was tossed into the sea, trailing an arc of blood through the air. The water below erupted into a frenzy. The gray-blue fins churned the ocean into a froth of white water and blood. The sound of tearing flesh was sickening, visceral, and it echoed in the sudden, dead silence of my soul. “The sharks still look hungry!” Hannah chirped, tilting her head with a look of angelic innocence. “Darling, is there anything else we can feed them?” Damien gestured towards me with his cigar. “We’ve still got one right here, don’t we?” 3 Hannah covered her mouth, a perfect portrait of feigned shock. “Oh, can we really? I’m still a little scared.” Damien exhaled a plume of smoke, pinching her cheek with fond indulgence. “Whatever you want, baby. I told you, you can play however you like. I’ve always got your back.” My blood-soaked body was hauled back onto the deck. Hannah, in her pristine white dress, approached me, the sea breeze making her skirt blossom around her like a flower. She leaned in close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper only I could hear. “How does it feel, Ava? To be tortured by your own husband?” My pupils constricted. A strangled, rattling sound escaped my throat. She knew. She knew who I was the entire time. Her fingers, tipped with baby-pink nail polish, traced the wound on my knee before she jabbed a nail deep into the raw flesh. “Aaargh!” A hoarse scream finally tore from my raw throat. My vision went black for a second. “The position of Mrs. Blackwood,” she murmured with a soft laugh. “I’ve wanted it for a very, very long time.” She smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry. After you’re dead, I’ll take very good care of Damien for you.” The cold glint of the dagger flashed before my eyes. My costume was ripped open, and the blade traced a line across my skin. First the cold, then a searing, fiery pain. Beads of blood welled up, merging into a thin red stream. “Did you forget to eat breakfast?” Hannah scolded the guard, her voice as sweet as melting honey. “Put some muscle into it. I want the cuts deeper!” Then I was hanging over the edge again, and this time, they plunged me into the ocean. The shock of the frigid, salty water was absolute. It flooded my nostrils, and the sting of the salt in my countless wounds felt like a thousand steel needles piercing every inch of my body. The sharks began to circle closer, their rough skin grazing my toes, the chilling promise of their teeth a palpable presence in the dark water. They hauled me up again, soaked and shivering. The seawater had washed away the layers of cake and makeup. A cold wind howled, and my wet hair was plastered across my face, obscuring my vision. Suddenly, one of the younger guards stumbled back, his voice trembling. “Holy shit! Doesn’t this woman… doesn’t she look exactly like the boss’s wife?!” Another guard laughed dismissively. “Are you crazy? What would Mrs. Blackwood be doing here?” But as he spoke, a fierce gust of wind swept across the deck. It caught the folded pregnancy report, sending it tumbling through the air. It danced on the breeze before finally settling beside the polished leather of Damien’s shoe. As if guided by some unseen hand, he glanced down, an air of casual annoyance on his face. He looked at the paper. And then, his entire body went rigid. His pupils contracted to pinpricks. “That’s impossible!” He bent down, his fingers snatching the paper, clutching it so tightly his knuckles turned white, threatening to shred it. On the pregnancy report, washed partially clean by the sea spray but still terrifyingly legible, was my name. Ava Blackwood. Pregnancy: 6 Weeks. A sound ripped from his throat, something animal and broken, a roar of pure, unadulterated agony that tore through the night. “GET HER UP!!!”

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My husband’s ‘one that got away’ is hooked into some kind of hustle-culture cheat code, and all the exhaustion from her relentless ambition gets funneled directly into my body. She once worked for seven days straight without sleep to land a multi-million-dollar deal, becoming a legend in their field. Meanwhile, I was rushed to the emergency room with heart failure. When I tried to explain the impossible connection to my husband, he looked at me with pure disgust. “You’re just lazy,” he spat. “You’re jealous that she’s so young and successful, so you’ve invented this crazy story to curse her.” After that, every all-nighter she pulled chipped another piece away from my health. It escalated from nervous exhaustion to organ failure, until I was on the brink of death. The doctors could find no physical cause; they gently suggested I was suffering from persecutory delusions. Then came the final push for their company’s IPO. She locked herself in the office for two solid weeks. While she was doing that, I died in our home from exhaustion-induced cardiac arrest. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. It was the night of her very first all-nighter. This time, I locked the bedroom door and took out a full blister pack of sleeping pills. “Sweetheart,” I whispered to the empty room. “It’s time for bed.” 1 A phantom hand squeezed my heart, a violent, crushing grip that stole my breath and shot me upright in bed. Cold sweat soaked through my pajamas in an instant. I gasped for air, my eyes darting around the familiar shadows of our bedroom. I wasn’t dead. A glance at the clock confirmed it. I was back. Back to the night it all began, the first night Chloe pulled an all-nighter. In my first life, that night was the start of a slow, deliberate execution. Chloe was Ethan’s ‘one that got away’—the brilliant college friend turned business partner. She was a natural-born workhorse, the hustle-culture queen worshipped by everyone at their startup. She could go seven days without sleep to land a multi-million dollar deal, then stand in the spotlight, radiant, soaking in the applause. And I, Ethan’s wife, was the one who ended up in the emergency room after every one of her manic sprints. First, it was crushing anxiety. Then heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and finally, congestive heart failure. I tried to explain the bizarre connection to Ethan. He dismissed it as petty jealousy. “Ava, can you be an adult for once?” he’d said, his voice dripping with disappointment. “Chloe is killing herself for our future. The least you could do is be supportive, not fake an illness for attention.” His eyes were cold, full of a contempt that cut deeper than any illness. “If you’re jealous, just say so. Don’t resort to these pathetic little tricks.” From that day on, every late night Chloe worked was another nail in my coffin. My health deteriorated. Insomnia bled into heart palpitations, which led to a constant struggle for breath. Every hospital visit was the same: batteries of tests that revealed no physical cause. My doctors eventually suggested I see a psychiatrist, gently implying I was suffering from a persecutory delusion. And Ethan’s disgust for me grew. In his eyes, I had become a lazy, spiteful shrew who couldn’t stand to see another woman succeed. The end came just before their company’s IPO. Chloe locked herself in the office for two weeks, a final, brutal push to the finish line. And I died. Quietly, alone, from exhaustion-induced cardiac arrest in the home we had once filled with love. My soul lingered, a spectator to my own tragedy. I watched Ethan hold Chloe, pressing a reverent kiss to her forehead. “We did it, Chloe,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “Once the company is stable, I’ll divorce that lazy woman and give you the wedding you deserve.” And now, I’m back. The familiar, suffocating pressure returned to my chest. I knew, with chilling certainty, that somewhere across town, Chloe was burning the midnight oil. If her exhaustion transfers to me, I thought, then what happens if I go to sleep? Does she have to sleep, too? This time, there was no panic. No desperate calls for help. I calmly walked to my dresser and took out a full blister pack of sleeping pills. As a therapist, I’d gotten them for a research paper on insomnia. I popped out every single pill. Without a moment’s hesitation, I swallowed them all with a glass of water. The drug hit my system quickly, a heavy, syrupy wave of drowsiness. I lay down, closed my eyes, and just before the darkness consumed me, I whispered into the silence. “Good night, Chloe.” 2 I expected to sleep until morning, but a spike of pain, sharp and blinding, ripped me from the darkness in the middle of the night. It felt like someone was driving steel needles into my temples, twisting them again and again. Pain. It was a pain that went bone-deep. I fought my way into a sitting position, my body trembling. I’d been asleep for hours, yet I felt more exhausted than before I’d taken the pills. The medication hadn’t worked. I had forced myself to sleep, but it hadn’t stopped the transfer of fatigue. In fact, the sedatives had only heightened my senses, amplifying the agony and weariness tenfold. Just then, Ethan’s phone lit up the nightstand. A new post from Chloe. It was a photo of her at her desk, bathed in the glow of a lamp, pen flying across a page. The caption read: Burning the midnight oil for the dream. This is when the magic happens. In the picture, her eyes were bright, electric. Not a hint of sleepiness. And in the comments, the first like and reply were from Ethan: Go get ’em, my girl. So proud of your hard work. My hands shaking, I grabbed my own phone, found Chloe’s contact, and hit the video call button. She answered almost immediately. Her face, crisp and clear, filled my screen. “Ava? It’s late. What are you still doing up?” I fought through the searing pain in my head, my eyes locked on hers. “Chloe, what did you do to me? Why does it hurt me when you work late?” She was silent for a few seconds, and then a small, cruel smile played on her lips. Her soft laugh was undisguised mockery. “What on earth are you talking about, Ava? Did Ethan praise my work ethic again? Did that make you jealous? I have to say, for a grown woman, your jealousy is really something else.” “I’m just built different,” she continued, her voice syrupy sweet. “I have more energy than most people. It’s a gift. You can’t learn it, and you certainly can’t fake it.” “Stop lying! You know exactly what’s happening!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat. “Please,” I begged, my voice breaking as the pain crested. “Stop. I’m begging you…” My grip on the phone was failing. “You’re just pathetic, Ava.” Her voice turned sharp as ice. “But what can you do? You’re useless. You do nothing but hold Ethan back.” “Oh, and by the way,” she added, her eyes glinting. “I’m planning on pulling an all-nighter tonight. I’m going to finish this whole proposal in one go. You better hang in there, Ava.” Before I could say another word, she ended the call. I stared at the black screen, a roaring sound filling my ears. The world tilted, went dark, and the phone slipped from my grasp. I tumbled from the bed and knew nothing more. 3 When I woke up, it was to the sterile smell of a hospital VIP room and the cold, rhythmic beeping of machines. Ethan was sitting by the bed, his face a mask of irritation and disgust. He didn’t ask how I was. He didn’t offer a word of comfort. He launched his attack the moment my eyes opened. “What the hell is your game now, Ava? Do you enjoy pulling these stunts in the middle of the night?” My heart still ached with a thousand tiny needles. Every breath was a chore. “I…” “You what?” he snapped, cutting me off. “The doctor said you’re suffering from exhaustion and stress. I told you to just stay home and relax. What could you possibly be so stressed about?” “It’s Chloe…” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “It’s always Chloe!” Ethan shot to his feet, looming over me. His eyes burned with disappointment. “Can’t you just be happy for her for once? The company is at a critical stage, and she is carrying the whole thing on her back! Instead of encouraging her, you’re here pulling this childish, manipulative crap!” He leaned in closer, his voice a low threat. “I’m warning you, Ava. Stop using these disgusting tactics to go after her. She is the most important partner I have. If you do anything to ruin her, I swear to God, I will make you regret it.” I was discharged after three days. During that time, Chloe hadn’t pulled any more all-nighters, and my body had started to recover. I used Ethan’s phone to send Chloe a text, perfectly mimicking his tone. I told her he wasn’t feeling well and needed her to swing by the house to pick up an urgent file for him. She didn’t suspect a thing. Half an hour later, she was at our door. She was dressed in a sharp power suit, her makeup flawless, radiating energy. The contrast with my own pale, fragile state was stark. “Ava. The file?” she asked, her tone polite but distant. I ignored her question and handed her a glass of water instead. “You must be thirsty. Have some water. You look like you were rushing.” Chloe hesitated for a moment, then took the glass and drank. I had dissolved a mild hypnotic I used in my therapy practice into the water. The air in the room was already filled with the calming scent of sandalwood, another part of my preparation. I began to speak in the low, soothing cadence I used with my clients, guiding her toward the sofa. “Chloe, look at my eyes.” “You’re so tired. You just want to sleep…” Her gaze started to soften, to lose focus. Her breathing steadied. “Tell me,” I pressed, my voice a hypnotic whisper. “Why do I feel your exhaustion when you stay up all night?” Her lips parted, and just as the truth was about to spill from them, the front door crashed open with a deafening bang. Ethan stormed in, his face contorted with rage. He shoved me aside and rushed to Chloe, frantically checking if she was okay. “Ava! You psychotic bitch! What are you doing to her?!” He spun around, his eyes bloodshot, glaring at me as if he wanted to tear me apart with his bare hands. “I should have known! You’re just jealous! You can’t stand that she’s better than you, so you resort to this… this witchcraft to destroy her!” He had pushed me so hard I stumbled backward, the corner of the coffee table digging sharply into my hip. “That’s not…” “Don’t you dare lie to me!” He rifled through my purse, pulling out the empty blister pack of sleeping pills. His face was a mask of fury. “You say you’re tired? I think you’re just bored! Since you love sleeping so much, I’ll help you get all the sleep you want!” He lunged at me, grabbing my chin in a vise-like grip. He brutally forced the remaining pills from the pack I’d left in my purse into my mouth, then grabbed the glass of water and poured it down my throat. “Swallow! Swallow it all!” Icy water and bitter pills flooded my airway. I choked, coughing violently as tears streamed down my face. He watched my desperate struggle without a flicker of pity. “If you ever touch a single hair on her head again,” he snarled, “I will make you disappear from this world.” He then lifted the still-drowsy Chloe into his arms as if she were a priceless treasure and carried her out. The door slammed shut, sealing me in. I collapsed to the floor, jamming my fingers down my throat, forcing myself to vomit up the pills he’d tried to kill me with. My stomach heaved, but I ignored the searing pain. With the last ounce of my strength, I crawled to the front door, unlocked it, and collapsed onto the welcome mat, surrendering to the encroaching darkness. 4 I woke up in a hospital bed. Again. A nurse told me a neighbor had found me unconscious in the doorway. They’d pumped my stomach, but the overdose had kept me in a coma for three days and three nights. I lay there, feeling weightless, boneless. But even after all that sleep, the bone-deep exhaustion was still there, a constant companion. My chest was tight, every breath a dull ache. Ethan never came. Good. Lying in that sterile room, I raised a weak hand to block the harsh fluorescent light. And then, I saw it. I shot up in bed, ignoring the nurse’s protests as I ripped the IV from my arm. Of course. That was the truth. That was how she was siphoning the life out of me. I finally understood. A few days later, I checked myself out of the hospital. I didn’t go home. I took a cab straight to my grandfather’s wellness clinic. My grandfather was a renowned acupuncturist and herbalist. When I was a child, my health was fragile, and he was the one who nursed me back to strength with his traditional remedies. The clinic smelled of dried herbs and earth, a scent that always calmed me. He took one look at my ghostly pale face and his own grew grim. He took my pulse, his brow furrowed. “My dear girl, how did you let yourself get into this state? Your energy is scattered, your pulse is weak… this is a severe depletion of your vital essence. If this continues, it could be life-threatening.” I didn’t explain. I just begged him to help me. He sighed and wrote out a long, complex prescription of herbs to nourish my blood, calm my spirit, and strengthen my body. Besides the foul-tasting teas, he taught me a series of gentle movements. “Tai Chi,” he said. “Practice every morning and every evening. It will rebuild your foundation, slowly bring back the energy you’ve lost.” He performed acupuncture, and as the silver needles found their points, a warmth spread through my limbs. For the first time in months, the hollowed-out feeling of exhaustion began to recede. For the next few weeks, I lived with my grandfather. My days were simple: I drank my herbal brews, practiced my movements, and let the needles work their magic. I blocked all calls and texts from Ethan and Chloe, vanishing completely from their world. I needed to conserve my strength. I was waiting for the perfect moment to watch the show. So, Chloe. You’re the queen of the grind, are you? You love to burn the candle at both ends? Let’s see how long you can last on your own.

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The day my husband was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure, I walked out of my office, told my boss I was taking an indefinite leave, and dedicated my life to the antiseptic-smelling halls of Saint Jude’s Hospital. My world had shrunk to the size of his hospital bed. Until one afternoon, when the weight of it all finally crushed me. I ducked into a concrete stairwell, the heavy fire door sighing shut behind me, and let the sobs I’d been swallowing for weeks rack my body. That’s when I heard their voices from the landing below. His voice, and the voice of another woman. “Are you sure that bitch has no idea you’re faking it?” the woman’s voice was a low, conspiratorial murmur. “She watches you like a warden. We can’t even get a minute alone. The baby’s starting to miss his daddy, you know.” And then, his voice. My husband’s voice. The one that whispered my name in the dark. “Relax. She’s an idiot. You could walk in there, tell her to her face this is all an act, and she wouldn’t believe you.” A low chuckle. “Right now, she’s probably calling her mom, getting ready to sell their house to raise the money for me. The second that three hundred grand hits our account, I’m divorcing her. Then it’s just you, me, and the baby. You know you’re the only one for me. Just hang in there a little longer.” My nails dug so deep into my palms that I should have bled, but I felt nothing. When I walked back into the room, I arranged my face into a mask of weary devotion and played my part. On the day of the surgery, however, he was the one on his knees, weeping in front of me. 1 I was floating in a fog of exhaustion when I got back to the room. Mark wasn’t there. I stood blinking in the pale afternoon light until the door clicked open and he walked in. He immediately wrapped his arms around me, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. His voice was thick with a carefully crafted sympathy. “Anna, sweetheart. I can’t stand seeing you like this. So run down. I know you’re trying to pull the money together, but you can’t destroy yourself doing it. Maybe we should just hire a private nurse? You’ve lost so much weight this week.” I said nothing, keeping my head bowed so he couldn’t see the hollowness in my eyes. He took my silence as an invitation, pulling me tighter against his thin hospital gown. As if he couldn’t bear the thought of losing me. If I hadn’t heard that conversation with my own ears, I would have gone to my grave believing this man, my husband of five years, was my devoted partner. The depth of his deceit was a canyon at my feet. I shifted, avoiding another kiss, and buried my face in his chest. “It’s my duty,” I murmured into the fabric. “You’re my husband. You worked so hard for us, for our home, for five years. That’s why you got sick. I’d sell the shirt off my back to make you well.” I pulled back just enough to look at him, my eyes shimmering. “We’re still short on the surgery fee, so a nurse is out of the question. Every penny counts. I don’t mind being tired… I just don’t want to have any regrets. If something were to happen to you…” Two perfectly formed, treacherous tears slid down my cheeks. It worked. His face crumpled with what looked like pain. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it,” he whispered, crushing me to him again. “Having a wife like you… God won’t be cruel to us. We have so many good years left. After I get better, we’ll have a baby. Everything is going to be okay.” We were tangled in this pathetic embrace when the door swung open again. It was Jess, clipboard in hand. “Whoa, guys, get a room! Some of us are trying to work here,” she teased, a broad smile on her face. “My shift is hard enough without having to watch all this PDA. Save it for when he’s discharged.” Jess is my best friend. My maid of honor. She is also Mark’s attending physician. From the day he was admitted, Jess had used her position to ensure he got the best of everything, all for my sake. She’d even pulled strings, calling in a favor with the top surgeon in the state to have him lead the operation. Mark’s cheeks flushed a little, and he loosened his grip. I saw it then—a flicker of a glance between them. Swift, silent, and full of meaning. I pretended not to notice, stepping away to pour them both a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand. Jess did her routine checks, murmuring that Mark’s condition was stable, but she never offered specifics about his labs or his prognosis. Odd, for a doctor who was also my best friend. I’d spent hours online, poring over medical journals and patient forums. The symptoms of uremia—the swelling, the nausea, the constant fatigue—Mark had none of them. A chill snaked up my spine. One second Jess was saying he was stable, and the next she was sighing dramatically, her face a mask of concern. “You two have been through so much to get here. It’s just so unfair…” She looked at me, her eyes soft with pity. “How’s the fundraising going? You know the hospital has its policies, I can’t bend the rules too much. But if you’re short, just tell me. I’ll figure something out.” A slow smile spread across Mark’s face. He reached for my hand, his grip proprietary. “Don’t you worry, Jess. I have the best wife in the world. She’ll get the money for me.” He squeezed my hand, turning his gaze on me. “Right, honey?” I felt their eyes on me, twin lasers of inquiry. I smiled back, a bright, brittle thing. “Of course. I’ve already got a realtor working on selling the condo. It should be quick.” I added another detail for good measure. “And my mom managed to borrow from some relatives. She has fifty thousand for us.” The relief that washed over both their faces was instantaneous and profound. 2 “Oh, that’s fantastic news,” Jess breathed out. “That’s great. The surgery is in three days, so we need to move fast. Everything else is in place. We’re just waiting on you.” If this were yesterday, I would have thought she was sharing my burden, my best friend worried sick for me. We’d been like sisters since kindergarten. But now, having heard the truth, I understood. The “everything else” she was talking about wasn’t medical preparation. It was their plan. Watching them chat, so casual and relaxed, with no trace of the anxiety that should precede a life-or-death operation, I saw my opening. “Jess,” I began, my voice wavering just enough. “I’ll have to be gone for most of the next two days, dealing with the closing paperwork for the condo. Mark… could you please keep an extra eye on him? You know I can’t afford a private nurse, and I don’t know anyone else here.” Before the words were fully out of my mouth, she was nodding eagerly. Her eyes flashed with a joy she couldn’t quite conceal. “Of course, Anna, don’t even worry about it. Mark is your husband, which makes him my brother-in-law. I’ll check on him every half hour. And I’ll tell the floor nurses to be extra attentive. You go do what you have to do. Call me anytime if you need anything.” I feigned overwhelming gratitude, bowing my head and thanking her profusely. Then I turned and walked out of the room. I didn’t go far. I slipped into the shadows of a recessed doorway down the hall. Ten minutes later, I crept back, my sneakers silent on the linoleum. As I neared the door, I heard it. The low, unmistakable sounds of desperate, hurried passion. “That idiot really bought it,” Mark’s voice, rough with arousal. “We were just complaining about not having time alone, and she walks right out. It’s like the universe is on our side.” “Mmm, Jess, I’ve missed you so much… I’m dying for you. We could… right here in the hospital…” “Mark, you’re awful,” she giggled, but there was no protest in her tone. “Gently, okay? Don’t let a nurse walk in. And be careful of the baby… he can’t take too much of a rough ride.” The wet, sloppy sounds of their mouths meeting echoed through the thin wood of the door. My own body threatened to fold. I fled, my retreat a clumsy, stumbling disaster. I made my way to the nurses’ station. I found the one Jess was always complaining about, a stern, older woman named Brenda who, I now suspected, was probably just a person of integrity. Under the guise of a worried wife, I asked her if she could pay special attention to my husband while I was away. I told her I had a bad feeling. She agreed immediately. But when I tried to slip her a folded hundred-dollar bill, she pushed my hand away gently. “Not necessary, dear. I’ll keep an eye on him.” I got her number and, armed with a copy of Mark’s medical file that I’d requested earlier, I left the hospital. Their plan was meticulous. But they’d missed one crucial detail. Mark wasn’t faking his illness. He was genuinely sick. Just not with kidney failure. It was stage four liver cancer. I’d been hiding the truth from him, terrified the diagnosis would shatter what little hope he had left. My plan had been to tell the lead surgeon right before the procedure, to have them re-evaluate everything. But after what I’d seen today, I’d decided on a different course of action. I was going to help him on his way. I called the realtor and told her to accept the first lowball cash offer we received. With the power of attorney Mark had signed over to me, his signature wasn’t needed. I signed the contract on the spot. As soon as the wire transfer cleared, I moved every last cent from our joint accounts, plus the money from the sale, into my mother’s name under the designation of “filial support.” Her phone showed a balance of over three hundred thousand dollars. A moment later, she called me, her voice frantic. “Anna, honey, was this a mistake? Mark has his surgery coming up! Why did you send all this money to me?” “I’m sending it back right now, you need to pay the hospital. His condition… you can’t delay this!” My mother is a good woman. Kind, trusting, and completely fooled by Mark for the last five years. I told her everything. The affair. The fake illness. The plan to fleece me and my family. There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line. Finally, she sighed, a sound brittle with disappointment. “That boy… I never would have… well. What you kids do is your own business.” Her voice firmed up. “You leave the money with me. It’s safe here. When you’ve dealt with the divorce, I’ll transfer it right back to you.” She spent another ten minutes calming me down before we hung up. I looked up at the sky. It was a brilliant, cloudless blue, but all I could feel was a suffocating gloom. This marriage was over. 3 I called my lawyer and had him draw up divorce papers. With no shared assets left, the division was simple. By the time I was done, night had fallen. A stream of messages had come in from Brenda, the nurse. Jess had been in Mark’s room almost constantly. They were keeping their voices low. A few times when Brenda had entered to check his vitals, they’d both jumped, looking flustered. I smiled grimly and texted her my thanks. For the next two days, with me absent, they grew bolder. Jess would stroll into his room, her white doctor’s coat barely concealing a black lace teddy. She’d stay for hours. Once, Brenda noted, she came out looking flushed, her legs unsteady. The nurse saw what was happening. She texted me several times, gently suggesting I should come back to the hospital. I politely declined each time. It wasn’t time to show my hand. I wasn’t idle. I hired a private investigator to dig up every wire transfer, every gift, every hotel stay Mark had ever paid for on Jess’s behalf. Evidence for the lawsuit to come. On the morning of the surgery, the hospital’s finance department noted the bill was still unpaid. That’s when Mark’s composure finally cracked. My phone blew up. “Anna, where are you? The surgery is this afternoon. Did you get the money?” “Why aren’t you answering? Is there a problem with the sale? Don’t try to handle it all alone, I’m here for you. If it doesn’t work out, then we just forget the surgery. My life isn’t worth you suffering like this.” “When I’m gone, find a good man and remarry. I won’t blame you.” I stared at the screen, a fresh wave of cold fury washing over me. A masterclass in manipulation. This wasn’t a man preparing for his death; this was a con artist afraid his mark was about to walk away. Jess was less composed. She called, again and again. Each time with a new, frantic story. Mark was coughing up blood. Mark had slipped into a coma. The hospital had issued three separate critical condition alerts, all of which she had heroically intercepted on my behalf. I answered the last call, my voice calm. “I’m on my way.” I heard her exhale in relief. And just before she hung up, I heard Mark’s triumphant laugh in the background. Laugh all you want, I thought. After today, you won’t have the strength to cry. The private investigator had found more than just financial records. He’d delivered an unexpected little bonus. When I arrived at the hospital, Mark’s mother was already there, holding court with a flock of relatives outside his room. The moment they saw me, they swarmed. “Anna, you poor thing, you’ve been through so much,” his mother gushed, grabbing my hands. “I only just heard Mark was in the hospital! Thank you, thank you for not abandoning him. Having a daughter-in-law like you is the greatest blessing our family could ask for…” Jess pushed through the crowd, her face a perfect portrait of anxious urgency. “You’re finally here! The doctors are saying if we wait any longer, it’ll be too late! Thank god you made it. Go pay the fee, quickly! I’ll get the surgical team prepped right now!” Mark’s mother shot Jess a subtle glance. When she turned back to me, her eyes were instantly red-rimmed and brimming with tears. She grabbed my arm and began pulling me toward the billing office. “Let’s go, hurry. Mark is waiting.” The look that passed between her and Jess confirmed it. She was in on it, too. Of course. It explained why she’d been conveniently absent until the very day the money was due. I always thought Mark was just trying to spare her the worry. Now I saw it clearly. The three of them were a pack of wolves, and my mother and I were the prey they intended to devour. Surrounded by the expectant faces of his family, I stopped in my tracks. I pulled my arm free and held up my empty hands. “What surgery fee?” I said, my voice clear and steady. “I couldn’t get it. I don’t have any money.” 4 His mother’s face transformed. The grief vanished, replaced by sheer disbelief. “What?” her voice screeched, echoing down the sterile corridor. “You don’t have any money? Anna, what kind of joke is this?” “You’ve been gone for three days selling the condo! My son gave you power of attorney! We paid over two hundred thousand for that place, how can you have no money?” The relatives, sensing a shift, closed in. “That’s right, that condo was in the city’s hottest neighborhood! Even if you didn’t get two hundred, you must have gotten one-eighty, one-ninety! How can you say you have nothing?” “He’s your husband, Anna! What are you hiding from him? He needs that money to live!” “Don’t forget the fifty thousand dollars your family gave as a wedding gift! Even if the condo sale fell through, you should have that!” The mention of the wedding gift hardened my expression. “A gift that was supposed to be for our future, you mean? The gift he ‘borrowed’ fifteen thousand from a month after we were married because he said his mom was sick? That, plus his expenses these past few weeks, is long gone.” “My family paid the lion’s share of the down payment on that condo. What are you all implying? That I’m lying?” I let my voice rise, matching their outrage. “I told you, there’s no money! If you can’t pay for the surgery, then it doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s just his fate to die!” The words were barely out of my mouth before his mother lunged, the flat of her hand cracking against my cheek. “You bitch! How dare you say that? It’s a son’s duty to care for his mother!” “Are you blaming me for getting sick? Or blaming him for helping me? For a married couple, you certainly keep close track of your money! Fine, I’ll write you an IOU! I’ll pay you back!” she shrieked. “Now stop this nonsense! My son is dying!” My cheek stung, a hot bloom of pain, but my heart felt like a block of ice. “Nonsense? Think whatever you want. I told you, I don’t have the money. I just came today to say my goodbyes.” Her eyes darted around, and then she did something theatrical. She threw herself onto the floor, slapping her thighs and wailing at the ceiling. “Oh, the injustice! God in heaven, everyone come and see! My daughter-in-law is letting my son die! She won’t pay for his surgery! She’s just going to watch him die!” “My poor family! How did we end up with such a venomous woman! Somebody, please, tell me what’s right! My son is on his deathbed and she’s murdering him!” “If my son dies, I’ll die with him! What has this world come to? Once money is in a wife’s pocket, you can’t get it back! Everyone look! Look at this heartless monster!” Her performance was flawless. Passersby stopped to stare. Hearing her version of events, they turned on me, their faces etched with disapproval. “Young lady, how can you be so obsessed with money? That’s your husband in there! You can’t buy health! You’ll regret this for the rest of your life!” “You look like such a nice girl, but your heart is so ugly. Is a surgery fee really more important than a human life? God is watching. You have to live with your conscience!” “Exactly! Look at your poor mother-in-law, she’s a wreck! Do you want her to have a heart attack right here in the hospital? We just heard them say it! You can save his life by selling your place. We don’t have that kind of money, but you do! To have the money and not use it… you’re no better than an animal!” One of the aunts whispered something in the mother’s ear. In a flash, she was on her feet, launching herself at me and kicking me hard in the shin. “You liar! You already sold the condo! Where is the money? Half of that belongs to my son! You have no right to take it all!” Her words were gasoline on the fire. The crowd’s murmurs turned into a roar of condemnation. Through it all, my expression remained eerily calm. “The money? I wired it to my mother. My cousin is getting married and needs a down payment for a house, so I loaned it to him. In any case, I don’t have it.” Mark’s mother was trembling with rage, her finger jabbing at my face. “She’s lying! Only an idiot would loan that kind of money to a cousin! Hold her down! The money has to be on her!” Rough hands grabbed my arms and legs, pinning me to the floor. His mother began frantically patting me down, her hands like spiders all over my body. She found my debit card in my pocket. She thrust it at a billing clerk who had come to see what the commotion was about. “Try this!” The clerk swiped it. Once. Twice. The machine beeped. Insufficient funds. In an instant, I was drowning in a sea of insults. The dark lenses of cell phone cameras were pointed at my face, broadcasting my humiliation to the world. Jess finally arrived, pushing through the crowd. She saw the scene and her eyes went wide with alarm. She knelt beside me, her voice a stage-whisper of urgent persuasion. “Anna, Mark is fading. You told me you were selling the condo these past three days. You haven’t spoken to your cousin in two years, you wouldn’t lend him money. Where is it? Are you really going to stand by and watch Mark die?” Before I could even get to my feet, a nurse rushed over, her face pale. “It’s bad! Mr. Evans also has late-stage liver cancer! The surgeons just discovered it during the pre-op scan! The original surgical plan is useless!” Jess’s face didn’t change. The nurse, seeing her confusion, added pointedly, “This time, for real.”

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