Author: Momo Chan

The moment Jessica shoved past me into the convenience store, rattling off that all-too-familiar string of numbers, I knew. She’d been reborn, too. In my previous life, just before graduation, Jessica and I both landed final interviews at the same Fortune 500 company. There was only one spot. On the day of the interview, I bought a lottery ticket on a whim. That single decision made me miss my slot. Jessica, of course, got the job. But then my ticket hit the jackpot: fifty million dollars. After graduation, I retired before I even started, living comfortably off the interest. Jessica’s dream job, on the other hand, turned into a nightmare. The pay was garbage, she was bullied relentlessly, and eventually, she took all her rage out on me. She cornered me on the roof of my penthouse and sent me plunging to my death. After I was gone, my own boyfriend, Leo, helped her cover it up. He told the police I’d become mentally unstable from having too much time on my hands and had jumped myself. The two of them built an empire on my corpse, becoming celebrity influencers with millions of followers, monetizing my tragedy and raking in a fortune. Now, I’ve opened my eyes again. I’m back on the day I bought that ticket. … “I need a lottery ticket, quick!” Jessica darted around me, rushing into the store. As she breathlessly recited the numbers etched into my memory, my suspicions were confirmed. She knew. With the ticket clutched in her hand, Jessica turned, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. “Sorry, Sophie. I bought this one.” I shrugged, a perfect mask of indifference. “I wasn’t planning on buying one anyway.” She didn’t believe me for a second. With a cold snort, she tucked the ticket safely into her purse. “How could you not? This ticket is the reason…” She stopped herself, catching the words before they spilled out. I knew exactly what she was about to say. In our last life, this ticket was the reason I missed the bus, the reason I was late for the interview. The reason she landed that coveted offer from a Fortune 500 company. But it was also the ticket that won me fifty million dollars. While she slaved away at her new job, I was at home, living a life of leisure. Her life at the company spiraled—low pay, constant harassment, utter misery. And in a fit of bitter jealousy, she had murdered me. Jessica’s eyes glinted with smug satisfaction. “You know what? I don’t think I’ll go to the interview. Since you love being a corporate drone so much, the spot is all yours.” I just nodded. Fine by me. The fifty-million-dollar ‘jackpot’ is all yours, too. Without a moment’s hesitation, I turned, boarded the bus, and headed for my interview. That evening, when I got back to the dorm, I found Leo with his arm wrapped possessively around Jessica’s shoulder. I’d been so blind in my last life. Only in death did I realize they’d been plotting behind my back all along. Seeing me, they didn’t even flinch. Their faces were masks of pure provocation. Leo’s expression soured into one of disgust as he looked at me. “Sophie, the person I really love is Jessica. I was only with you for those two rundown apartments your family owns.” He pulled Jessica closer. “But things are different now. My Jessie just won fifty million dollars. We’re rich. I don’t have to compromise for money anymore. I don’t have to stomach being with someone as gross as you.” My fists clenched, my nails digging into my palms. So that’s how it was. Jessica and Leo both came from small, rural towns with nothing to their names. One was my best friend, the other my boyfriend. I’d never been stingy with them, always happy to share what I had. Only now did it click. They weren’t my friends; they were leeches, sucking me dry. If fate has given me a second chance, I’ll make you pay back every drop of blood you took from me—a thousand times over. Jessica let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Sophie, I used to let you have things because your family was a tiny bit better off than mine. But now? I’ve won fifty million. I’m financially free. How could you possibly compete with me?” She gestured dismissively at me. “You’re destined to be a miserable wage slave for the rest of your life. But Leo and I,” she said, her voice dripping with condescension, “we’re about to travel the world. A life you can only dream of.” They packed their bags and moved out of the dorm right then and there. As I watched their retreating backs, a cold smile touched my lips. Fools. Did you really think a windfall like that would ever fall into your laps? My interview had been a success. I nailed every question and secured the offer from the Fortune 500 company—the absolute pinnacle for someone with my degree. The office was far from my parents’ house, so after talking it over with them, I decided to buy a condo nearby. I was at the sales gallery for a new high-rise, looking at a few units with an agent, when a familiar, brash voice cut through the quiet atmosphere. “Someone get over here! Show us the best places you’ve got!” I turned to see Leo, his arm slung around Jessica, swaggering in like he owned the place. When they spotted me, they made a beeline in my direction, their faces twisted in derision. “Sophie, what are you doing here, playing pretend?” Leo sneered. “You can’t afford a place like this.” “I’ve already checked,” Jessica added, chiming in. “Even if you sold both of those little shoebox apartments your family owns, you wouldn’t have enough for a down payment in the city center.” At their words, the sales agent, who had been bubbling with enthusiasm just moments before, visibly cooled. I fired back, “I can’t afford it? And you can?” Jessica threw her head back, her chin held high. “Of course. I won fifty million. I could buy several of these in cash.” The agent’s eyes lit up, and she immediately gravitated towards them. “Ma’am, how can I help you?” Jessica pointed a perfectly manicured finger at a model of the penthouse suite. “That one looks… acceptable.” The agent beamed. “An excellent choice, ma’am! That unit has the best location and the most breathtaking views in the entire building. For someone like you, the price is certainly no issue. It’s a mere two million dollars.” “Two million!?” Leo and Jessica froze, their jaws dropping in unison. They hadn’t imagined a 1,000-square-foot apartment in the city could be so outrageously expensive. “Of course, if that feels a bit steep, you could always finance it,” the agent offered smoothly. Jessica’s face flushed with embarrassment. She stiffened her neck and snapped, “Finance? I won fifty million. I’m paying in cash, obviously.” The agent’s smile returned, wider than before. “Of course! If you’d like to secure the unit, you can put down a hundred-thousand-dollar deposit now. If the lottery winnings haven’t cleared yet, we can help you arrange a short-term bridge loan from the bank.” Leo and Jessica exchanged a hesitant glance. I chose that moment to cut in, my voice laced with impatience. “I’m starting to doubt you even won anything. Are you two just here to waste everyone’s time? If you can’t afford it, stop holding things up and get out.” My words hit their mark. Leo’s face turned crimson with rage. “Shut your mouth! Jessie won fifty million, I swear! The money just hasn’t come through yet.” I waved a dismissive hand at them. “Whatever. Just get out of the way. I’ll take this unit.” That sent them into a panic. Jessica, biting her lip, blurted out, “I want it! I’ll get a loan from the bank for the deposit right now!” For the next few days, Jessica and Leo’s social media was a non-stop parade of their world travels. Every photo was a carefully curated tableau of luxury brands and five-star resorts. It was clear that on top of the mortgage, they had taken out a mountain of other loans. Let them fly high. The fall will be that much greater. They even sent me a flood of pictures directly, which I promptly ignored before blocking both of them. I spent those days buried in work. A Fortune 500 company was no joke. I hadn’t even officially started, but my team lead had already sent over piles of material for me to get up to speed on. Then came the day of our graduation party. Jessica, as the class president, sent a message to the group chat. 【Everyone, please be at the designated restaurant by 11:30 AM sharp for the graduation party.】 After sending it, she specifically tagged me. 【@Sophie, you have to be there.】 I replied immediately: 【Okay.】 A few people grumbled in the chat, asking why she’d chosen a restaurant so far from campus. But I knew why. The restaurant was right next door to that fateful convenience store. At 11:30, with all the students and professors assembled, Jessica finally made her grand entrance, arm-in-arm with Leo. The entire room fell silent. They were transformed, dripping from head to toe in an aura of extravagant wealth. Jessica handed out a small, sought-after designer toy to every single classmate. “Everyone,” she announced, her voice ringing with authority, “order whatever you want today. It’s all on me!” Most of our classmates just stared, as if watching a pair of clowns. Some even whispered that the toys she’d given out were probably fakes. Unfazed, Jessica pulled the lottery ticket from her purse and waved it in the air for all to see. “I won the fifty-million-dollar grand prize.” The announcement hit the room like a bomb. “Fifty million!” “Did I hear that right? Jessica is that lucky?” “Oh my god, I’ll never make that much in my entire life.” As if that wasn’t enough, she had a massive banner hung across the restaurant wall. 【CELEBRATING JESSICA’S $50 MILLION LOTTERY WIN!】 One of the professors, looking skeptical, asked, “The drawing hasn’t even happened yet, but you have the ticket. So where did all this money come from?” Jessica waved a dismissive hand. “The money will be in my account soon enough. I’m just enjoying it a little early.” Someone in the crowd muttered, loud enough for others to hear, “Wait, wasn’t Leo dating Sophie? How did he end up with Jessica?” Faced with a sea of questioning eyes, Leo remained utterly shameless. He squeezed Jessica’s hand and addressed the room. “Everyone knows you climb the ladder of success, right? It’s only natural.” He gestured toward me with contempt. “After graduation, Sophie is just going to be another cog in the machine, a miserable little wage slave. But Jessie… Jessie is different. Besides,” he added with a shrug, “my true love was always Jessie.” His speech left many of our classmates speechless. One girl finally stood up for me. “But Sophie got an offer from a Fortune 500 company. That’s the best offer anyone in our class got.” Jessica burst out laughing, tears welling in her eyes. “The best offer? So what? Will she ever make fifty million in her entire lifetime? In today’s world, what does a good job even mean? It just means you’re a well-dressed slave in a fancy cage, treated worse than an animal!” She then turned her venomous gaze on me. “Sophie, you’re not even worthy of shining my shoes. But if you serve me well, maybe I’ll be merciful and toss you a few scraps.” Her words made others blush with shame and anger, but no one dared to argue. Some of the more opportunistic students were already starting to suck up to her. “Jess, I always knew you were destined for great things! I just never imagined your luck would be this incredible!” “Yeah, don’t forget about us when you’re on top!” “Exactly! Give your old classmates a hand up!” They knew her words were vile, but they couldn’t deny the truth in them. No matter how good a job they landed, earning fifty million dollars was a pipe dream. The mood shifted, and soon others were piling on. “Jessica’s right. So what if Sophie got a fancy job? She’ll just be working herself to death for someone else. She can’t compare to Jessica.” I just smiled faintly. The truth was, the company’s benefits and culture were excellent. The only reason Jessica had crashed and burned in her past life was because she’d tried to seduce her boss the moment she walked in the door, making herself an office pariah and a target for everyone’s scorn. Finally, the meal ended, and it was time for the main event. Jessica touched up her makeup, smoothed down her designer dress, and stepped onto the small stage at the front of the restaurant. At the same moment, a dozen influencers suddenly swarmed in, cameras and ring lights at the ready. She gave them a subtle nod. It was all planned. Jessica held up the lottery ticket again. She leaned into a microphone, her voice broadcasting to thousands of viewers online. “To all my followers, I’ve just graduated from college, and I’ve already won a fifty-million-dollar lottery. From now on, I am financially free. I can travel the world while the rest of you pathetic drones slave away at your miserable jobs.” Her voice dripped with malice. “You’ll get pennies for pay, you’ll be trampled on by your superiors, stripped of your dignity, and you’ll stare down a long, bleak road to a meaningless end.” She shot a pointed look in my direction. The live chat exploded with angry comments, but Jessica ignored them completely. She pointed a finger at me, her tone imperious. “Sophie, the store where I bought this is right next door. Go get the owner. Tell him to come here and verify my ticket, live.” I didn’t move. Leo stepped forward, his face a mask of annoyance. “Sophie, are you fucking deaf? What are you waiting for? Jessie is honoring you by even asking. At your level, you’re not even fit to carry her shoes. You should be grateful she’s giving you a task. Serve her well, and maybe she’ll throw you a bone.” A few classmates couldn’t stand it anymore, whispering behind their hands. “This is disgusting. A sudden fortune, and she acts like this? She won’t hold onto it for long.” “She was supposed to be Sophie’s best friend, then she steals her boyfriend and has the nerve to order her around? Who does she think she is?” When I still didn’t budge, Jessica’s voice turned threatening. “Sophie, I suggest you wake up. Given the gap between us now, I could crush you with a single word.” I just glanced at my watch. “Let’s wait five more minutes.” Jessica looked confused, unsure what game I was playing. She scoffed. “Fine. We’ll wait five minutes. But let me tell you, Sophie, even if we wait fifty minutes, it won’t change the fact that I’ve won fifty million dollars.” A cold smile played on my lips. Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Her words had barely faded when a woman burst through the restaurant doors. She stormed toward the stage, screaming at Jessica. “Are you out of your mind, you little brat? That lottery ticket is mine!”

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The night before I found out I was the long-lost daughter of a wealthy family, my adoptive mother crept into my room with a kitchen cleaver, ready to end my life. Too bad for her, I wasn’t in my bed. I was under it. When I first arrived at the Ashton estate, the entire family looked like they’d seen a ghost. Which made sense. They had just received news that the car sent to pick me up had exploded. The fake heiress, their darling Olivia, asked me with a gentle, honey-sweet voice, “Sophie, why weren’t you in the car?” I answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Why would I ever get into a car with a stranger?” “A stranger could kill me. A car could kill me.” I scanned the opulent room and the stunned faces before me. “And for the record, I’m still convinced you all want to kill me, too.” Later, my mother, Eleanor, thinking I was being overly cautious, personally ladled a bowl of soup for me. I smiled, then produced a silver needle and dipped it into the broth. The needle turned black. Eleanor stopped smiling. 1 When I walked into the Ashton family’s grand living room, everyone’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. My birth mother, Eleanor, was a mess of tears and snot, wailing about how tragic my fate was. Seeing their state, I cleared my throat. The butler had led me in, and I stood before them, my worn-out backpack and duffel bags a stark contrast to the marble floors. “Hello,” I said. “I’m Sophie.” The three of them—my mother, my father, and their son—just stared, frozen. After all, not ten minutes earlier, they had received confirmation of my death. The car sent to retrieve me had exploded en route. There were no survivors. It was the fake daughter, Olivia, who recovered first. Her voice was as soft as silk. “Sophie, why weren’t you in the car?” I gave a slight shrug. “Why would I get into a car with a stranger?” I said flatly. “Strangers are dangerous. What if he decided to pull out a knife and gut me? And cars are dangerous. What if we got into an accident? A stranger and a car? I can think of at least a hundred ways to die.” I let my gaze drift over each of them, my expression blank. “Of course,” I added, “I’m still convinced you people want to hurt me, too.” My parents, Richard and Eleanor, exchanged a look, utterly lost for words. My brother, Ethan, stepped forward. “What are you talking about? You’re our family. Why would we want to hurt you?” “Is that so? Good,” I replied, my eyes already mapping the layout of the mansion, plotting fire escape routes. The rooms were too big, with too many places for someone to hide. The house was crawling with butlers and maids; keeping a safe distance would be a chore. Eleanor must have noticed the tension in my posture. She spoke in a soft, soothing tone. “Don’t worry, Sophie. You’re home now. We won’t let you suffer anymore.” As she spoke, she reached out, intending to stroke my hair. Her hand was halfway to my head when I instinctively recoiled, putting a good ten feet between us. From this distance, if she lunged, I’d have a head start. Eleanor froze, awkwardly retracting her hand. “It’s alright,” she said, her smile a little strained. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.” I just stared at her, saying nothing. Ethan couldn’t hold back his frustration. “Sophie, Mom is just trying to be nice to you! She’s not going to attack you.” Olivia seized the opportunity, her voice dripping with manufactured concern. “Sophie… don’t you want to be here with us?” “That’s right,” I said, my directness wiping the sweet expression right off her face. “I don’t. I never wanted to come back.” “What… what do you mean?” she stammered. I smirked and pointed a finger at her. “What do I mean? I mean, you can thank your precious birth mother for that.” I let the words hang in the air. “Last night, she came at me with a kitchen cleaver. If I hadn’t already been hiding under the bed, I’d be dead right now.” A dead silence fell over the room. I turned my gaze to my biological parents. “As for why I came here,” I continued, “it’s because you’re civilized people. I assume your methods of murder will be a little more… sophisticated. Physical attacks test my reflexes, and frankly, I’m too malnourished to outrun anyone.” 2 Ethan’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? Olivia’s birth mother is your adoptive mother. Why would she try to kill you?” Olivia’s face went pale, and her voice cracked. “Yes, Sophie, how could you say that about Mom? She raised you for over a decade.” Watching their little performance, I reached into my backpack, pulled out the official police report receipt, and tossed it onto the mahogany coffee table. Then I took out my phone and played a video. On the screen, a middle-aged woman hacked at an empty bed with a cleaver, striking it over and over again. When she realized no one was there, she began frantically searching the room. The next clip was shaky footage of her chasing me down the street, cleaver in hand, for block after block. When the video ended, Eleanor’s eyes were welling up again, but this time, she kept her distance. My father, Richard, just frowned, lost in thought. Olivia sat on the sofa, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. “Is that… real? Not from a movie?” Ethan exclaimed. “It’s real,” I said calmly. “So, if you two are feeling charitable, could you get me a lawyer?” Richard finally spoke, his voice raspy. “Yes. I’ll hire the best. Is there anything else you need?” I thought for a moment. “I want you to let me stay here, safely, until I finish my final exams.” “Done,” he said without hesitation. “And rest assured, we will protect you. You are our daughter. You can ask for anything.” I put my phone away, my voice devoid of emotion. “That won’t be necessary. I have no expectations of you.” Eleanor’s lips parted as if to say something, but she just offered me a gentle, sad smile instead. Ethan looked like he was about to argue, but a sharp glance from his father silenced him. Richard changed the subject, suggesting he show me to my room. When we got there, Eleanor looked at me expectantly. “Sophie, I had a designer decorate this room just for you, based on what we thought you might like. It has great light and a small balcony. What do you think?” I ignored her and the view she was pointing to. The moment the door opened, I started methodically searching the entire space. The smile on Eleanor’s face froze. “Sophie, what are you looking for?” “Just checking to see if anyone’s tampered with anything.” “Sophie, are you insane?” Ethan had followed us in and was now scowling as he watched me take apart an electrical socket. “This is our home! Who would bother trying to harm you here?!” I ignored him, continuing my sweep, checking every corner, every fixture. Ethan kept muttering under his breath until I placed the three pinhole cameras I’d found on the pristine white bedspread. He fell silent, his eyes wide with shock. “What… what are those?” “Cameras.” Eleanor’s face paled. “That’s impossible,” she stammered. “How could there be cameras in here?” “Can I have a different room?” I asked, looking around at the overly lavish decor, wondering what else was hidden within the walls. Richard arrived a moment later. He took one look at the cameras, didn’t ask a single question, and told me to pick any room I wanted. I did a full circuit of the mansion and chose a modest room on the ground floor, right next to the main entrance. 3 After I’d settled in, the butler called me for dinner. I grabbed my backpack and went to the dining room. Olivia smiled sweetly as I approached. “Sophie, you’re finally here.” I didn’t answer. First, I walked a full circle around the massive dining table. I checked my chair for any strange liquids and glanced up to ensure there were no precariously hanging chandeliers directly overhead. Only then did I sit, placing my backpack on my lap where I could easily reach inside. Eleanor offered me a bowl of rice. I shook my head and pulled two cans of beef stew and a vacuum-sealed sausage from my bag. “No, thank you. I brought my own.” A troubled look crossed her face. “You don’t like rice?” “It’s not that. This just feels safer.” I inspected the seals on the cans before popping one open. Canned food was infinitely more trustworthy than anything on this table. Eleanor leaned closer, her eyes filled with concern. “But you’re a growing girl. You can’t live on canned food.” “Unhealthy is better than dead,” I said without looking up, scooping a spoonful of stew into my mouth. Ethan slammed his chopsticks down. “Sophie, don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” he snapped. “The staff prepared this food. What could possibly be wrong with it? You’re acting like a cornered animal. Isn’t it exhausting?” I ignored him and continued eating my stew. Eleanor, her heart clearly aching for me, personally ladled a bowl of chicken soup. “Sophie, I made this myself. Just have one sip, please? I promise, there’s nothing in it.” I stared at the bowl for a two full seconds, then reached into my backpack and pulled out a long, thin silver needle. Pinching the end, I slowly dipped the tip into the soup. “Sophie, what are you doing?” Olivia put her chopsticks down, her eyes fixed on me. “Surely you don’t think your own mother would poison you?” Ethan was about to chime in, but before he could, the tip of the silver needle turned a deep, unmistakable black. Eleanor stared, her eyes wide with disbelief. Before I could speak, Richard said soothingly, “Silver needles aren’t always accurate. The soup might just contain some natural sulfides.” Eleanor nodded eagerly. “That’s right, Sophie! It’s probably just a mistake.” “We’ll see if it’s a mistake,” I said, cutting her off. I reached deep into my backpack and pulled out a small, palm-sized wire cage. Cowering inside was a small gray mouse I had caught specifically for this purpose. I’d been keeping it in my bag for poison testing. “Where did you get a mouse?!” Ethan shot up from his chair, his face contorted in disgust. “Sophie, have you lost your mind? You brought a rodent into the house!” I ignored him, used a small spoon to scoop up a bit of the chicken soup, and offered it to the mouse through the bars of the cage. The mouse crept forward, licked the spoon twice, and then, a few seconds later, it began to twitch violently before falling over, stiff as a board. 4 The air at the table froze solid. Eleanor’s face went chalk-white, her lips trembling too much to form words. Olivia, sitting beside her, showed a brief flash of panic before her expression returned to normal. “Dad, Mom… maybe the mouse was already sick.” Ethan, staring at the dead rodent, nodded in agreement. “Yeah, maybe Sophie is just trying to scare us.” I looked up at my brother and gave him a pitying smile. Then, I reached back into my bag and pulled out another, perfectly healthy, wriggling mouse. “You have another one?” Ethan stared at my backpack as if it were a portal to another dimension. I picked up the spoon and offered another taste of the soup. Soon, there was a second dead mouse on the table, its demise as swift and silent as the first. This time, nobody said a word. Richard’s face was like thunder. He ordered the butler to clear the table and throw everything out. I went back to my canned stew, silently contemplating the fact that this pristine mansion was probably devoid of wild mice for me to catch. Maybe I’d have to start breeding my own. They seemed easy enough to raise. Later that afternoon, I was hungry again. I took out a self-heating pack to boil water for some instant noodles. Ethan walked in and scoffed at the sight. “Are you serious, Sophie? There’s a gas stove and an electric kettle right there, and you’re using that little contraption to cook?” He shook his head. “So inefficient.” “It’s safe,” I said without turning around, sprinkling the seasoning packet over the dry noodles. “Safe my ass. I think you just don’t know how to use a real kitchen, so you’re putting on a show.” He came over and snatched the self-heating container from my hands, placing it on the counter. “The noodles that thing makes are barely edible. Just wait. I’ll make you a proper bowl. It’ll take ten minutes and taste a hundred times better.” “I don’t need you to,” I said, reaching for the container, but he pulled it away. He raised an eyebrow, full of misplaced confidence. “I’m your brother. You think I’m going to hurt you?” I frowned, looking at him seriously. “I just don’t think the kitchen is safe. What if someone tampered with the gas line? What if it explodes?” “You think way too much. I bet the soup thing was just a weird fluke. I had two bowls of it at lunch and I’m fine.” He turned and headed for the kitchen. As I watched him go, alarm bells screamed in my head. I quickly backed away to a safe distance. “Will you stop it already?” he said, glancing back and rolling his eyes at me. “I’m just making instant noodles. Wait right there.” I watched him walk into the kitchen. A second later, there was a deafening BOOM. By the time the butler and my parents came running, black smoke was already billowing out of the kitchen doorway. The ambulance arrived quickly. As they loaded Ethan onto a stretcher, he looked over at me, his face smudged with soot, and mumbled, “It must have been… an accident. When I get back… I’ll make you those noodles…” I watched the ambulance drive away, then quietly went back to making my noodles with the self-heating pack.

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After the redemption story ended, my husband grew tired of me. We’d been married for eight years, the kind of couple everyone else pointed to as proof that true love existed. The model pair. But then, the story’s leading lady came home. That’s when he started to drift. I’d catch him staring into the middle distance, lost in a world that didn’t include me. He started coming home late, his clothes carrying the faint, sweet ghost of a perfume I didn’t own. The third time I found them together, their bodies angled toward each other in a way that was more than just conversation, I looked at him, my heart a placid lake on the surface and a maelstrom underneath. “Let’s get a divorce.” As we walked out of the city clerk’s office, the papers signed and filed, he spoke in a low voice, “You can’t go back, you know. I’ll give you a generous settlement… we can still be friends.” “No, thank you,” I said, not looking at him. “This is goodbye.” 1 I came into this world for one reason: to save the beautifully broken man who was destined to be the tragic second lead. My mission was to redeem Ethan Thorne. I arrived in his life long before the story’s true heroine, Claire, ever could. I was there through the brutal boarding school years, a constant presence, the one who smoothed his jagged edges and fought his demons alongside him. When his father, in a drunken rage, took a belt to him, I was the one who threw myself over his bleeding back, shielding him. I was the one who stitched him up in my tiny apartment, my hands shaking but steady. To break through the fortress of paranoia he’d built around his heart, I told him the absolute truth. “I am here for you. My only purpose in this world is you.” When my mission was officially complete, when he was healed and whole, he begged me to stay. On his knees, he pleaded. So I stayed. We got married. The turbulence of his past gave way to the quiet, steady rhythm of domestic life. The endless, mundane, beautiful trivialities of a shared existence. And he started to resent me for it. “You know,” he said one evening, sprawled on the sofa, the words tossed off like a joke, “if I’d known you were a lifer, maybe I wouldn’t have rushed into marriage. Could have played the field a couple more years.” He must have seen the flicker of pain on my face because he immediately sat up, his playful demeanor vanishing. He reached for me, his grip tight, almost desperate. “Ava. That’s not what I meant. You know what you mean to me. You know it.” I didn’t answer. My heart felt like it had been dropped into a vat of acid, the burn of it sharp and suffocating. “Goodnight,” I murmured, pulling away. “I’m a little tired.” I walked into our bedroom, closed the door softly behind me, and burrowed under the covers. Only then, in the silent dark, did I let myself cry. 2 “You’ve got all these gorgeous young things throwing themselves at you. You could have a little fun on the side. I mean, your wife’s not getting any younger, man.” “Don’t talk like that again. Ava… she’s amazing. It’s just…” Ethan was in his study with a friend, their voices low and relaxed, joking the way men do when they think no one is listening. I stood outside the door, a tray of sliced fruit in my hands, my feet cemented to the floor. I had once analyzed Ethan’s psyche with the precision of a surgeon. His childhood was a black hole of cold, oppressive darkness, and it had left him with a voracious appetite for the extreme. He craved the jagged peaks of emotion, not the comfortable plateau of contentment. This was a man who would kneel in a torrential downpour all night just to beg the woman he loved not to leave. This was a man who once scaled the outside of a six-story building to close a deal because the elevator was broken. His entire being was wired for risk, for the thrill of the chase. And the life I had built for us—our peaceful, stable, loving life—was beginning to bore him to death. He was just waiting for the right excuse to shatter the beautiful, fragile thing we had created. 3 I came home from work to find the table set for one. Our housekeeper was plating the salmon. I looked at the empty chair across from me. “Ethan’s not coming home for dinner?” “Mr. Thorne called. He said he has a business dinner. A late one.” I nodded, not saying a word. I ate my meal in silence, the cavernous quiet of the dining room amplifying the sound of my fork against the plate. Later, lying in our king-sized bed, sleep was a distant country I couldn’t reach. The “business dinners” were becoming more frequent. The alien scent of that perfume on his blazers was becoming more pronounced. It was sharp and cloying, an olfactory insult. I watched the numbers on the clock glow in the dark, marking time, each minute an eternity. It felt like a century had passed before I heard the soft beep of the keypad at the front door. I sat up, ready to go out to the living room, to feign sleepiness and ask him how his night was. But then I heard his voice, soft and low. “Claire, this is as far as you should go. You’ve had a bit too much to drink. I’ll have my driver take you home.” And then her voice, laced with a fragile, almost tearful joy. “Ethan… I can’t believe you never deleted my fingerprint.” A pause. A heavy, loaded silence. “I was just trying it… on a whim. I didn’t think it would actually work… I’m sorry.” I slumped against our bedroom door, the wood cold against my back. The words were a physical blow, a tidal wave crashing over me, leaving me breathless and drowning. Silence stretched for a few minutes outside. Then, Ethan spoke again, his tone carefully neutral. “You should go. It’s very late.” “Ethan, please,” Claire’s voice was broken, expertly so. It was a sound engineered for sympathy. “I’m so scared. Every time it gets dark, I just… I remember all of it. The bad things. Can I please just stay here for one night? Just one.” She let out a small, wounded sound. “You used to promise you’d always keep a room for me in your home. Is that… is that still true?” Anyone would have felt a pang of pity hearing her. Especially a man like Ethan, his senses softened by alcohol. He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was thick. “I’m married, Claire.” It was a standoff. I could feel the tension through the door. Then came the sound of quiet weeping, growing steadily louder. It was a masterful performance. Ethan let out a heavy sigh. “Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Ava… That room… yes, I kept it for you.” “Oh, thank you… thank you, Ethan.” The undisguised happiness in her voice sent a fresh wave of bitterness through me. I remembered when we were designing this house. I’d asked him why the guest room was the exact same size as the master suite. He’d given me a plausible, loving explanation about wanting our parents or our closest friends to be comfortable when they visited. He had lied. So easily. Tears I didn’t know I had left began to slide, hot and silent, down my cheeks. Outside, the man I had saved was delivering the final, devastating blow. “Go on up,” I heard him say. “Ava doesn’t usually get up until eight. I’ll wake you at six. You’ll be gone before she’s even awake. You two won’t run into each other.”

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At sixteen, my world was the size of a cornfield in Pennsylvania. My future was supposed to be a straight line from shucking corn to a quiet, early grave. Then he showed up. He pulled up in a vintage Porsche, the engine a low growl that scared the crows. A city boy, all sharp angles and restless energy, lighting a cigarette with a hand that trembled with rage. He was on the phone, shouting at his girlfriend. “Are you serious? You’re really ending it?” Her voice, tinny and cruel even through the speaker, shot back. “Dead serious. I was only with you to get to your brother, you idiot. Did you really think anyone could ever love you?” He kicked the gravel, a cloud of dust rising around his expensive loafers. His eyes, wild and hurt, scanned the fields and landed on me. He beckoned with a sharp flick of his wrist. He was making a bet with the universe, and I was his chip. “Hey. You,” he called out, his voice laced with a bitter, reckless challenge. “I’ll pay for your school. I’ll buy you clothes, a car, a life. You’ll never have to worry about money again. All you have to do is love me. How about it?” I didn’t hesitate. “Okay.” That was seven years ago. A lifetime ago. Now, he was asking me for something else. “I need you to go after my brother,” he said. “Make him fall for you. It’s the only way Chloe will finally give up and come back to me.” 1 I didn’t say yes right away. In seven years, I had been completely remade. Leo Fordham had kept his promise. He had molded me, polished me. He paid for my education, hired tutors, funded any class or hobby my heart desired. He was a master sculptor, and I was his clay. When I graduated last year, he bought me a penthouse apartment and a new Mercedes. I remember learning to drive that summer, the city air thick and hot. He sat in the passenger seat day after day, endlessly patient, never once complaining as I lurched through traffic. No one calls me a farm girl anymore. They whisper that I’m the girl the younger Fordham heir keeps tucked away in his pocket. His charity case. His Pygmalion project. His, for all intents and purposes, future wife. After all, he had spent seven years cultivating a single flower. Now that it was in full, brilliant bloom, who would believe he’d ever let someone else pick it? But no one had counted on Chloe Astor coming back. She had left for London shortly after their breakup, cutting ties with everyone. Last month, she returned, armed with a new degree and an old obsession. The first thing she did was confess her love to Alex Fordham, Leo’s older brother. He turned her down, of course. Chloe’s infatuation with Alex had always been a ghost in their relationship, a secret no one spoke of. After his rejection, with nowhere else to turn, she called the one person she knew would answer. She called Leo. “Leo,” she’d sobbed into the phone. “I’m back.” That one sentence was all it took to unravel him. She called him again and again, every time Alex’s silence cut her a little deeper. And every time, Leo was the one who went to her, the one who patched her back together. He was caught in a terrible trap—aching for her, furious with her. How could she not see him? He had offered her his entire world, but her eyes were still fixed on his cold, distant brother. I never thought he’d resort to a scheme this desperate. From what I knew of Alex Fordham, he was a man carved from ice. He wasn’t the type to fall for any woman, let alone one sent by his brother. But Leo was persistent. He started pleading with me daily. Flowers arrived at my office, followed by Celine boxes and Cartier bags. Money flowed toward me like a river, a desperate, glittering tide. My colleagues noticed. “He’s definitely trying to propose,” my friend Maya said, admiring a bouquet of roses so large it barely fit on my desk. “The way he looks at you… it’s not just a friendship. He’s rich, he’s crazy about you. Just say yes, Ava. And make sure we’re invited to the wedding.” I managed a weak smile, saying nothing. Yes, he was so good to me. It was a debt I could never repay. My phone buzzed. It was him. “Get the flowers?” His voice had that familiar, careless charm. “You like them?” “I did,” I said. He sighed, a rare note of defeat in his voice. “Look, I’ve been thinking… if you really don’t want to do this, I won’t force you. I’ll figure something else…” “I’ll do it.” The line went silent. Then, “What?” “The plan. With your brother. I’ll do it.” He was quiet for a long moment before a relieved laugh burst from him. “Okay. Great. Just… give it a shot. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’ll still take care of you forever, you know that.” He paused, then added, as if trying to convince himself, “My parents have thrown a hundred girls at Alex over the years, maybe more. He hasn’t looked twice at any of them… but you’re different. He’s always been… I don’t know, nicer to you.” “I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choice,” he finished softly. I watched the moon hang pale and distant in the city sky. After a long moment, I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Okay.” I heard the distinct flick and crackle of a lighter. He was smoking again. He said my name, his voice muffled by the smoke. “Ava.” “Yes?” “I never asked you.” “Asked me what?” “Is there anyone you like? Anyone you’re… in love with?” My gaze fell to the crimson roses on my desk, their petals impossibly perfect. I’d heard he used to fly in flowers for Chloe from halfway across the world, each stem costing more than a month’s rent for a normal person. My lips felt dry. “No,” I lied. “That’s not important.” “It is,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. “If there’s someone else, I can’t ask you to do this. I won’t ruin your life.” I pressed my fingers against the cool glass of my office window. “There’s no one.” 2 I lied to Leo. I was in love with him. I had been since that first day in the cornfield. But for all these years, his heart has only ever held a space for Chloe. A few days later, Leo threw a welcome home party for her at an exclusive downtown club. I received an invitation, a thick card with my name in elegant script. He told me Chloe had insisted on meeting me. “The girl from the cornfield? You actually brought her back with you, Leo?” she’d apparently said, laughing. “She was so… scrawny. All elbows and dirt. I thought you were joking. I’m dying to see what she looks like now.” I had a prior engagement and declined. Leo’s texts started flooding in. One after another, until the final one. [Alex will be there. You haven’t forgotten your promise, have you?] Reading the words, a familiar weight settled in my chest, heavy and suffocating. His request had been phrased as a choice, but it was never a choice at all. To refuse would be to prove I was ungrateful. A parasite. I couldn’t let him think that. When I arrived, they were all crowded around a poker table. The moment I walked in, the easy chatter died. A few people who used to greet me with warm hugs and call me “Miss Sheng” suddenly found the ceiling fascinating. Before, they’d fawned over me for Leo’s sake. Now, it was clear to everyone that the tide had turned. I was no longer the heir apparent to the Fordham fortune. I approached the table. Chloe was the only one winning, a smug little smile playing on her lips. Leo was a shark at cards, but tonight, I could see him folding good hands, letting her win. After a few minutes, Chloe finally looked up and saw me. Her eyes widened in performative shock. “Wow,” she breathed, covering her mouth with a perfectly manicured hand. “You look… so different. I remember you being so…” She trailed off with a dismissive little tsk, then pushed her chair back. “Here, you play. I’m tired.” She stood, immediately pulling out her phone. I was close enough to see the name on the screen: Alex Fordham. It was a one-sided conversation, a long stream of her messages met with absolute silence. I took her seat. The moment I sat down, Leo’s expression hardened. He picked up his cards with a new, aggressive impatience. The stakes were high, and no one was going easy on me. Within an hour, I was down over ten thousand dollars. 3 Chloe, who had been watching from the sidelines, spoke up, her voice dripping with faux concern. “Oh, my God, you guys. Why are you letting her lose so much? Where is she going to get that kind of money? Can she even afford this?” Nate, Leo’s best friend, threw his cards down on the table. He looked at me, his eyes cool and indifferent. “What’s the big deal? Leo will cover it.” He wasn’t wrong. That’s how it had always been. Chloe’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Really?” Leo grunted in affirmation, already pulling his phone out to make the transfer. But I spoke first. “That’s okay. I’ve got it.” Leo’s head snapped up, his eyes dark. “Ava, don’t be stupid.” “It’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “I can’t rely on you forever.” Over the years, with the resources Leo provided, I’d learned how to make my own money. I was a good investor. I had savings. I even had a separate bank account he knew nothing about, where I deposited money every month—a fund I’d started with the intention of one day paying him back. Pulling out my phone, I transferred the money to each of them. Leo’s winnings were the largest. He stared at the transaction notification on his screen for a long time, his jaw tight. Finally, he hit ‘accept’ with a sharp tap. “Well, look at you, Ava Sheng. All grown up.” A little while later, I excused myself to go to the restroom. On my way back, I heard their voices from a secluded balcony down the hall. Leo and Chloe. Arguing. “You said Alex was coming! Where is he?” “Something came up. What, are you still obsessed? You’ve been chasing him for months, has he even sent you a single text?” “So what? It’s my choice!” Chloe’s voice sharpened. “And why do you still have her around? That… Ava girl. Why are you still paying for her life?” I heard Leo shift his weight. “Are you jealous?” “No! I just can’t stand women like that. Freeloaders. Living off someone else’s money like a leech. God knows how much of your money she’s spent over the years.” A pause. Then Leo’s voice, low and rough. “It was a bet, remember? I did it to piss you off. If you’d just give up on my brother and come back to me, I’d cut Ava off tomorrow. I’d never speak to her again.” The dim hallway lights blurred. I stood frozen in the shadows, my heart turning to a block of ice in my chest. I didn’t wait to hear more. I turned and walked in the opposite direction, breathing in the stale, conditioned air until the burning in my lungs subsided. When I finally returned to the private room, it was empty. I walked out of the club and into a torrential downpour. Nate was just leaving, propping up a drunk girlfriend. He’d been sick in the bathroom. He saw me and blinked. “You’re still here? Oh, right. Leo left to take Chloe home.” He looked out at the sheets of rain. “Damn. This is bad. And this place is in the middle of nowhere. I’m heading in the opposite direction, or I’d give you a lift…” He hesitated. “I can call Leo, tell him to circle back for you?” I shook my head. “Don’t bother.” Nate just sighed, giving me a sympathetic look before bundling his date into his car and speeding off. I hated myself for not driving. I pulled out my phone, trying to get an Uber, but no cars were available. I checked the map. There was a bus stop about a mile away. It was my only option. Taking a deep breath, I stepped out from under the awning and into the deluge. I hadn’t made it more than a few feet when an umbrella suddenly appeared over my head, shielding me from the rain. Then, a low, calm voice spoke from behind me. A voice that was exactly as the world described it: cold, steady, and devoid of warmth. “Ava.” 4 That night, it was Alex Fordham who drove me home. The rain hammered against the roof of his car, a relentless, deafening rhythm. Halfway there, his phone rang. He answered it, the caller ID glowing with his brother’s name. The connection was clear. I could hear every word Leo said. “Hey, man. We all took off. Don’t bother coming to the club if you’re done with your meeting.” Alex’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t mention that he had already been there, that he had seen the empty room. “You said it was urgent. You ran off before I even got there. What was so important?” “Ah, it was Chloe. You know how she is. She wanted to see you. I can’t say no to her.” A flicker of something—annoyance, maybe—crossed Alex’s face. “Is that right? You’ll give her anything she wants? Even sell out your own brother?” Leo’s laugh was careless, unbothered. “Of course.” “You know I’ve loved her since we were kids. I’d do anything for her. I’d give up anything for her.” “Besides,” Leo continued, “it’s your own damn fault for never dating anyone.” He paused, and I heard him curse under his breath. “Shit. I forgot about Ava. I gotta go, man.” Alex glanced at me for a fraction of a second. “Right,” he said into the phone, and hung up. How kind of Leo to remember me eventually. Alex said nothing. I turned my head, focusing on the distorted city lights blurring past the rain-streaked window. My phone was in my purse. The old me would have snatched it out, desperately checking to see if Leo had called, if he was worried. But tonight, I felt nothing but a profound exhaustion. I left it in my bag. The screen remained dark, the ringer silent. It occurred to me then that I’d put it on vibrate for a meeting that afternoon and never changed it back. The rest of the drive passed in silence. When we finally pulled up to my building, I felt a wave of relief. The rain was still coming down hard. He reached into the back seat and handed me an umbrella. “Thank you,” I said, my voice quiet. I reached for it, but when my fingers closed around the handle, he didn’t let go. I looked up, confused. “Mr. Fordham?” His gaze was steady, focused on me. It felt like he was seeing straight through the sophisticated shell Leo had built, all the way back to the girl in the cornfield. After a long, unnerving moment, he finally released his grip. “If you’re hurting,” he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle, “it’s okay to show it.” He paused. “And if you need help with anything, you can come to me.” He added, “I won’t tell anyone.” My heartbeat stuttered. I realized then that my hands, hidden in my lap, had been trembling ever since his brother’s phone call. I’d give up anything for her. Wasn’t that me? Wasn’t I the “anything”? I clenched my fists, trying to still them. I looked into Alex Fordham’s calm, serious eyes, and a wild, self-destructive impulse bloomed in my chest. I deliberately changed my tone, my address. “Alex,” I began, my voice a stranger to my own ears. “What if I said… I wanted to be with you?” His brow furrowed. He gave me a single, cool glance. “That,” he said flatly, “is not an option.”

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I spent three years building Leo Vaughn. I was there when he was a nobody, a brilliant ghost haunting the fringes of the design world. I was there, by his side, all the way to the top, to the deafening roar of his success. We had a plan. A pact. Seven years together, and then a ring, a wedding, a lifetime. But on the eve of that seventh year, all I got was his contempt. I was standing in a CVS aisle, the small, chalky bottle of his favorite stomach meds cool in my hand, when my phone buzzed with a text from a friend. A video. Leo, holding court in a private lounge, drunk and loud and laughing with his friends. Laughing about me. “An old woman, man. I’m over it,” his voice slurred through the tiny speaker, laced with a cruelty I’d never heard before. “Honestly, the thrill is gone.” A pause, a swig from a bottle. “Besides, I paid my dues. She got what she wanted for the last few years.” 1 I pushed the door open. The booming laughter in the private room died instantly, replaced by a thick, suffocating silence. “What are you doing here?” Leo’s voice was sharp with irritation. He took a drag from his cigarette, the smoke curling around his head like a shroud, momentarily obscuring his face. Then, as if remembering some long-forgotten rule, he quickly stubbed it out in a nearby ashtray. That’s when I saw the girl curled up in his lap, fast asleep. He moved with a tenderness I hadn’t seen in months, gently draping his suit jacket over her, shielding her face from view. He shot a glare at his friend. “Put that out,” he snapped. “You’ll choke her with that smoke.” A bitter, acidic taste filled my mouth. I watched the scene, a silent movie of my own irrelevance. Finally, his friend, Rick, decided to play the diplomat. “Clara, hey! This is just my little sister, Annie. She’s wiped, poor kid. Couldn’t even make it to midnight before passing out.” He tried to sell me that pathetic excuse, as if I were some clueless investor he was trying to scam. I didn’t say a word. The silence stretched, and Leo’s patience snapped. “What do you want, Clara? What is the point of this?” I took a deep breath, the stale air of the lounge filling my lungs, and walked toward him. His arm tightened instinctively around the sleeping girl. I saw his friends tense, their eyes tracking me as if I were a predator closing in on their kill. It was almost funny. In the space of a single evening, I had become the monster in their story. I stopped a few feet away from him, a safe distance. “I’m here to end this.” If the room had been quiet before, it was now a vacuum. I could hear the faint hum of the ice machine in the corner, the soft whisper of someone’s breathing. Leo’s brow furrowed in confusion, a silent question in his eyes. You? Are you being this generous? You’re just letting this go? God, I hated myself in that moment, for knowing every flicker of emotion that crossed his face, for being able to read him like a book I had written myself. “Clara, come on, don’t talk like that,” Rick stammered, still trying to patch the gaping hole in the evening. “Leo was just looking after my sister for me. It’s not what you think.” They had no idea I’d been standing outside the door, that I’d heard everything. They thought this was just a simple, garden-variety fit of jealousy. The noise seemed to stir the girl in Leo’s arms. She shifted, murmuring something in her sleep. He immediately softened, his voice a low, soothing hum. He gently patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Go back to sleep. You’ve had a rough couple of days.” My own emotions felt raw, exposed. I couldn’t deny it. In that moment, watching him, I envied that girl with an ache so sharp it felt like a physical blow. “If you’re done with your scene, you should go,” Leo said, his eyes still fixed on the girl in his lap. “Don’t you have that big board meeting tomorrow? Can’t have the great Clara Sutton, the titan of industry, losing her composure over nothing. It would be bad for your brand.” His friends mumbled in agreement, their voices low. “Yeah, Clara, we’re all here. We’ll keep an eye on him for you.” I stood there for a long time, the silence my only response. “I’ll have my lawyer calculate the market value of your shares in The Sutton Group,” I said, my voice flat and steady. “As for the Aperture Designs partnership, I’ll be handing it off to my subordinate. I’m giving you what you want, Leo.” You’re free now. You can be with whoever you want. A new kind of understanding slowly dawned on their faces. They started to realize this wasn’t about jealousy. You don’t liquidate a shared life over a simple misunderstanding. This was a demolition. Leo finally grasped it. But his pride, his arrogance, wouldn’t let him accept it. He still thought it was a tactic. “Don’t think this little drama is going to work on me, Clara,” he scoffed. “You can play your games all you want.” He sneered. “And if I really wanted to be with someone else, I wouldn’t need you to graciously ‘bow out.’ I don’t need your charity.” He didn’t believe me. He couldn’t. He saw my gaze linger on the sleeping girl, and his expression hardened. A fierce, protective glare. “You lay a hand on her, you so much as look at her wrong, and I swear to God, I will make your life a living hell.” It wasn’t a shout, but the threat hung in the air, a low growl that vibrated in my bones. He truly believed I would stoop so low as to hurt a child. But I have my own pride. He had already called me old, boring, a thrill that was gone. Why would I subject myself to any more of this? “Ma’am, weren’t you here to bring Mr. Vaughn his medication?” my driver asked softly from the doorway, reminding me of my original, pathetic mission. I looked at the man I had loved, cradling another woman. It was clear now. A gesture of care from me was no longer a gift. It was just another piece of trash he had to deal with. I closed my eyes. Back in the car, I tossed the bottle of pills onto the back seat. This year, spring felt like it was holding its breath. 2 The next morning, Leo arrived at the office for the signing, trailing the stale scent of last night’s liquor. My assistant, as she always did, moved to leave the seat beside him open for me. I stopped her with a small gesture. “I won’t be participating in the signing today,” I announced to the room. “Just bring the finalized contract to my office when it’s done.” Leo’s face went cold. “Decided to become a silent partner now, Clara?” The sudden chill from the usually easygoing Mr. Vaughn sent a ripple of anxiety through the junior staff in the conference room. My assistant tugged nervously at my sleeve, her eyes pleading with me to smooth things over. For her sake, I relented, taking a seat near the door to at least be present. “Don’t be ridiculous, Leo.” She let out a slow, quiet breath of relief. The young woman distributing the documents was unfamiliar, but I recognized her immediately. It was the girl from last night. Annie. Perhaps it was the intensity of my gaze, but she finally looked up, meeting my eyes. “Ms. Sutton? Is there a problem with the documents?” I hadn’t noticed last night, but here, in the bright morning light of the conference room, I could see how truly lovely she was. A delicate face, a soft, sweet voice. I could understand the appeal. How could I, a woman carved from years of boardrooms and battles, ever compete with that? I smiled faintly and shook my head, a silent signal for her to continue. But as she turned away, the hem of her dress caught the edge of a mug, sending scalding hot water cascading across the table. “Ah—!” she cried out. Leo, who had been watching us with a hawk’s intensity, was on his feet in an instant. He rushed to her side, pulling her into his arms. “Annie, are you okay? Are you hurt?” The raw, undisguised panic on his face was something I’d never seen before. It was a revelation. I never knew he was capable of that kind of emotion. I glanced down at my own arm, splashed by the wave of hot tea. Yes, that did sting a bit. “Did you forget what I told you last night?” After settling Annie down, Leo turned on me, his face a mask of fury. The atmosphere in the room crackled, suddenly charged with his anger. “I told you. I told you if you touched her, I would make you regret it,” he snarled, his voice low and menacing. “Did you really think I wouldn’t do it?” He remembered every word he’d said about her, but not a single one I’d said about us. He grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. The pressure was intense, even through the fabric of my blazer. “Leo! Are you insane? That’s Clara!” his friend, Rick, hissed, rushing to his side. “Think about what you’re doing! Think about everyone who works for you! Are you trying to throw away everything we’ve worked for?” The last part was whispered directly into Leo’s ear, but in the tense silence, I heard it perfectly. Everything we’ve worked for? A cold, uneasy feeling began to spread through my chest. Seeing that Leo was beyond reason, Rick turned his attention to me, trying to appeal to my sense of decorum. “Clara… we’re in the office. In front of everyone. Let’s not give them a show, okay? How about we all just take a step back?” I let out a dry, humorless laugh and pried his hand from my wrist. “I think Mr. Vaughn is mistaken,” I said, my voice carrying across the silent room. “We terminated our relationship last night. What possible reason would I have to harm Ms. Sullivan?” Rick’s face froze, his peacemaker smile turning to stone. Leo just looked confused. “When did we break up?” he demanded. “Clara, you don’t have to make up excuses like that to save face.” Rick, the only other witness to last night’s conversation, just stood there, paralyzed and unwilling to intervene. A profound weariness washed over me. It was like arguing with a wall. There was nothing I could do. “Leo! You’ve got it all wrong! It was my fault, I knocked it over!” Annie came rushing back from the restroom, dabbing at her arm with a wet paper towel. She was out of breath. “Let go of her! You’re hurting her! Ms. Sutton got burned, too!” The girl’s voice seemed to pull him back from the brink. The rage in his eyes flickered, replaced by confusion. Seeing how easily she could calm him, a familiar acidic sting rose in my throat. He released my arm, his eyes falling to the damp spot on my sleeve where his hand had been. He still looked suspicious. He replayed the scene in his mind, trying to find a motive, a reason for me to have done it, and coming up empty. He immediately turned back to Annie, fussing over her, checking her arm from every angle, terrified that she might have been hurt while he wasn’t looking. Then he turned his cold gaze back to me. “You know, Clara, you always have this look. Like you’ve just screwed someone over and have no idea how it happened. That innocent act,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “Stop pretending. I know what you are. You’re a liar.” 3 A liar? What had I ever lied to him about? I glanced at the security camera in the corner of the room. I couldn’t be bothered to waste company resources pulling the footage to prove my innocence in such a petty squabble. “If that’s what you believe,” I said, my voice devoid of emotion, “then tell me. How should I compensate Ms. Sullivan for her trouble? Since it was, after all, my fault.” I gave my assistant a slight shake of the head, warning him not to argue on my behalf. My employees didn’t need to get dragged into my personal messes. Leo’s breathing was still ragged, but the worst of his rage had passed. “Annie has always admired you,” he said, his voice flat. “She wants to work with you. I want you to take her on, let her work by your side for a while.” A collective, silent gasp went through the room. Even the employees from Aperture Designs were stunned by the audacity of the request. So that was it. He wanted to plant a spy. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t seriously be agreeing to this!” Maya slammed her hand on my desk later that day. “You know he’s just trying to tear your company down from the inside!” I dropped my head into my hands, the fight draining out of me. “I don’t have a choice, Maya…” In a strange way, having her here, where I can see her, might actually buy me some time. As soon as I’d felt that cold dread in the meeting, I’d had my team start digging into our business dealings from the past six months. It turned out Leo had started laying the groundwork for this a year ago. He was planning a hostile takeover. He wanted to rip my own company out from under me. I spent three sleepless nights reviewing every transaction, every contract, every move he’d made. I recognized his strategy. It was a mirror image of everything I had ever taught him. But I had woken up too late. The damage was already done. The financial bleeding was getting worse. I couldn’t figure out where he’d found such a catastrophic vulnerability, how he was able to move so fast, to pin me to the butcher’s block and start carving me up. How could he be so cruel? Did he really hate me this much? One by one, my projects started to collapse. Long-term suppliers began pulling out, choosing to pay enormous breach-of-contract penalties rather than continue working with me. It was a cascade of disasters, and I was drowning. Finally, the day the investigators showed up at my office, I knew I had to surrender. I knew I had to face him. I found him in his office, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I broke the suffocating silence between us. “Leo,” I asked, the question tearing at my throat. “Does it have to be this brutal?” He leaned back in his chair behind his massive desk, the picture of casual arrogance. He had been waiting for this moment, for me to come crawling to him. “Kneel,” he said softly. “Kneel for me, right here, and I might consider letting The Sutton Group live.” His words made it sound as if I’d committed some unspeakable crime against him. “What did I do wrong?” A look of pure, unadulterated disbelief washed over his face. He laughed, a short, sharp, ugly sound. “You have the audacity to ask me that? After you stole my design portfolio? After you paid people to sabotage my first company? You really have no shame, do you, Clara?” He shook his head. “I always knew you were a performer.” No one knew better than me how much blood, sweat, and tears Leo had poured into his work to get where he was. And all I had ever done was try to lighten his load, to handle the things that drained his energy so he could focus on what he did best. I remembered that period, right before his company went public. He was running on fumes, completely exhausted. To give him the space he needed to focus on the new product line, I quietly took over all the schmoozing, all the late-night dinners and glad-handing with investors, just to clear his path. It was true that his design portfolio had almost been stolen back then. But what he never knew was that I was the one who discovered the plot. If I hadn’t intervened, Aperture Designs would have imploded before it ever began. The idea that I would steal from him was insane. He blew a cloud of smoke directly into my face. I couldn’t help but choke on it. He looked at me, his eyes cold and distant. “With you,” he said, “I think I’ve been far too soft.” 4 Annie was installed as my new assistant. Her work ethic wasn’t exactly stellar, and she had a knack for causing small, inconvenient disasters. But I had to admit, she had a creative spark. She’d come up with wild, out-of-the-box ideas that my most seasoned employees, people who’d been with me for years, would never have dreamed of. “Clara!” she chirped one evening, her eyes shining with genuine enthusiasm. “Can I please take you to dinner tonight?” I hesitated, looking at her bright, eager face. Could this girl really be a willing participant in Leo’s plan to destroy me? But the moment we sat down at the restaurant, my phone rang. It was my head of security. “Ms. Sutton, it’s just as you suspected. Someone broke into your office right after you left with Ms. Sullivan,” he said, his voice grim. “They’ve leaked the evidence from the old Williamson antitrust case. The authorities are on their way to seal the building.” And just like that, in a single evening, the empire I had spent more than a decade building was about to be burned to the ground by the man I loved. I knew he was capable of this, but the sheer, brazen arrogance of it still sent a chill down my spine. “Annie, I thought you loved spicy food,” a voice said from behind me. “Why did you order all this bland stuff?” As if on cue, Leo appeared at our table, a radar-like precision to his timing. He took the menu from her hand and flagged down a waiter, ordering several notoriously fiery dishes. “Today is a day for celebration,” he announced, placing a small, elegantly wrapped box on the table in front of her. “Happy birthday, Annie.” Of course. He’d chosen her birthday to deliver the final, crushing blow. He always knew exactly how to hurt me the most. I watched him, and beneath the smooth, charming facade, I could see it—the deep, triumphant glee of a man who had finally won. Annie gasped as she opened the expensive gift. “Wow, I’ve never gotten anything this nice before! Thank you, Leo!” The sight was like a shard of glass in my eye. Perhaps buoyed by his good mood, Leo magnanimously served me a piece of fish from one of the new dishes. “You have to try this, Clara!” Annie urged, oblivious. “This place is famous for it. It’s insanely, unbelievably spicy!” Leo just smiled and patted her head, a gesture of pure affection. “Are you happy now, Leo?” I asked, my voice raspy. “Now that you’ve pushed me into a corner?” He raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise at the hoarseness of my voice. “Actually, Clara, you should be thanking Annie. If she hadn’t been so eager to work with you, your company wouldn’t have lasted this long.” I managed a weak, disappointed smile. He was so young, still so naive in his cruelty. Just then, Leo’s phone buzzed. A message. I saw his face darken as he read it. The court had dismissed his anonymous tip regarding the Williamson case. The reason given: case invalid, already adjudicated. He immediately blamed me. “You lied to me again.” The same old accusation. I stared blankly at the bubbling red oil in the hot pot. If I hadn’t preemptively submitted the real evidence of Mark Williamson’s corporate espionage years ago, I would be completely ruined right now, just as he had wished. Numbly, I ate the piece of fish he had served me. I slowly, deliberately, raised my eyes to his face. There it was. The familiar cold indifference, now mixed with a fresh wave of anger. So, he really had forgotten. He’d forgotten that I couldn’t eat anything spicy. As the burning sensation began to crawl its way up my esophagus, a searing pain spreading through my stomach, I calmly took out my phone and dialed 911. Leo watched me, a contemptuous smirk playing on his lips. “What’s this? What kind of pathetic act are you putting on now? That trick doesn’t work on me anymore, Clara. I’m not going soft on you ever again.” His voice started to fade, the edges blurring into a dull roar in my ears. Even as the paramedics loaded me onto the gurney, his vitriol didn’t stop. The last thing I heard as my consciousness began to slip away was his voice, dripping with venom. “Liars like you deserve to go to hell. You’d better make this one convincing. In fact, it would be best if you never woke up at all.”

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I’m Hollywood’s resident Ice Queen, the beautiful statue who can’t act her way out of a paper bag. My agent, in a stroke of what she called “brand expansion genius,” shoved me onto a live-streamed celebrity survival show to, in her words, “boost my relatability.” Nobody expected the show’s engineered crisis—a mechanical wolf meant to add a dash of drama—to malfunction. Nobody expected it to hunt me with single-minded, metallic fury. And certainly, nobody expected me, under the unflinching eye of a dozen drone cameras, to snap a branch from a dead tree, sharpen it on a rock in three fluid motions, and pin the machine to the forest floor with one clean, powerful thrust through its synthetic heart. Later, staring blankly into a drone lens, I offered my only explanation. “I grew up in the country.” A pause. “We had a hog farm. You learn a thing or two about butchering. It’s practical, right?” 1 The day I retired, my handler—Director K—placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. His voice was as gravelly and devoid of emotion as ever. “Spectre,” he said, using my call sign. “You’ve lived up to the name. For years, you’ve been the sharpest point of The Blade. You’ve earned your rest.” He stared at me with those piercing gray eyes. “The organization will grant you one request for your new life. Anything.” A thrill, the first I’d felt in years that wasn’t followed by the scent of blood, shot through me. My eyes, I’m sure, lit up with visions of a life I’d only ever seen in movies. “My new life?” I leaned forward, my voice practically buzzing. “I want it all. The glamour, the scandal, the mindless decadence. I want to burn through money, dance until dawn, and be utterly, gloriously frivolous.” Director K’s perpetually grim face twitched. It was the closest I’d ever seen him come to a smile. He nodded slowly, the picture of managerial solemnity. “Understood,” he said. “You want to experience the rewarding, hands-on labor of a federal penitentiary. An excellent choice for personal growth.” I blinked. A week later, the organization unceremoniously dropped me into the glittering cesspool of Los Angeles. According to K, it had all the glamour and decadence I’d asked for, but the paychecks were, technically, legal. Three years later, my unblinking stare and an acting ability so wooden a director once famously declared me “splinter-proof” had cemented my status as Hollywood’s Ice Queen. While the gossip blogs and internet trolls debated which powerful producer I was sleeping with to maintain my career, no one could possibly guess the truth. That I was Spectre, the top field operative for The Blade, a clandestine organization that operated in the shadows to protect national interests. That I held the standing record for a solo infiltration: thirty elite hostiles neutralized in under five minutes. A record that remained unbroken. If The Blade was the ghost that guarded the country, I was the ghost that other ghosts feared. Back then, they had a saying in the underworld: “A glimpse of the Spectre is the Reaper’s kiss.” 2 “Declan, don’t look back!” I woke with a gasp, the words torn from my throat. The air in the cheap production tent was humid and stale, and cold sweat slicked my forehead. Outside, a voice dripped with saccharine poison. “Well, well. Some people really think this is a vacation, don’t they?” The voice belonged to Isabelle Vance, Hollywood’s reigning sweetheart and a rising star known for her girl-next-door charm and fiercely loyal fanbase. “An ice queen with nothing to offer but a pretty face, having nightmares in broad daylight. How unlucky for the rest of us.” She let out a fake little laugh. “And shouting a man’s name? Desperate for a little attention, are we?” Isabelle and I were at the same agency, but we were oil and water. Being cast on the same show was a carefully engineered ratings ploy. It was working. The phantom heat of the explosion still clung to my skin, my heart hammering against my ribs. It took me a few seconds to focus on the swaying palm trees and the painfully bright sunlight outside. A few seconds to remember. Declan was already dead. The man who was all easy smiles and infuriating charm, the one who always managed to shield me in the moments when death felt certain, had been vaporized in that firestorm. There was nothing left to bury. Only then did her words fully register. I pushed open the tent flap, squinting against the light. “What did you say? About a man?” Isabelle crossed her arms, her eyes raking over me with disdain. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you. I’m talking about Mr. Scott, of course. The mysterious heir to the Sterling-Scott fortune.” She leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper meant for the hidden camera I knew was clipped to a nearby tree. “A piece of advice? A blank slate like you could never hope to catch the eye of a man like Dylan Scott. So don’t even try.” She smiled, a triumphant, venomous little thing. “I, on the other hand, am the only actress who received a personal invitation to his charity auction next month. It’s being held on The Stratos, his private jumbo jet. I hear Mr. Scott will be there personally.” Her smile widened. “I have a feeling he and I will find we have a great deal in common.” “As for you,” she finished, with a dismissive flick of her wrist, “you couldn’t even get a ticket to the airport.” I watched her, this preening, posturing fool, and felt the ghost of a real smile touch my lips. It felt foreign. “You should probably get some more Botox before you go,” I suggested, my voice flat. “The crow’s feet around your eyes are deep enough to lose a dime in. You wouldn’t want to scare Mr. Scott away.” I let my gaze drift over her. “And for the record? When you’re born with a face like this, you don’t have to try. You wouldn’t understand, but I don’t blame you.” 3 After my little chat with Isabelle, I tracked down the show’s director and demanded the use of his satellite phone. He stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. To be fair, less than an hour ago, I had twisted the head clean off his thousand-pound mechanical wolf. I just stared back. Three seconds later, he was handing me the phone like a holy relic. The moment the call connected, I didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Jenna! That charity auction next month, the one on The Stratos. You have to get me in.” The line went silent for a full thirty seconds. The only sound was the wind rustling through the jungle canopy. Just as I was about to lose my patience, my agent’s weary voice came through. “Sweetheart. You mean the auction that sent you a gilded, hand-delivered invitation three weeks ago? The one you immediately ran through the office shredder because, and I quote, ‘attending a pointless social gathering is a criminal waste of my finite existence’?” Right. That had happened. At the time, the idea of sipping champagne and making small talk with a bunch of billionaires sounded less appealing than a root canal. Besides, Isabelle’s PR team had already flooded the blogs with stories about her being the “exclusive celebrity guest.” I had no desire to play second fiddle and give her a free publicity boost. I cleared my throat, my tone shifting from demanding to syrupy sweet. “Right. About that. I know I was wrong, Jenna, you know I’m impulsive! Please don’t be mad.” I took a breath. “Out of curiosity, what was the appearance fee they offered?” Jenna’s sigh was heavy enough to be felt across continents. “One million dollars.” I didn’t hesitate. “A waste of my existence? Who cares! For a million bucks, I’d sell my soul and do a little dance while I’m at it! Jenna, you’re the best. Make it happen!” Jenna… Declan Shaw… Dylan Scott… I knew the odds of it being a coincidence were astronomical. I knew it was impossible. But deep inside me, in a place I thought had long turned to ash, a tiny, stubborn ember flickered back to life. Even if there was only a one-in-a-billion chance. I had to see for myself. 4 Jenna, being the miracle worker she was, pulled a string so obscure even I was impressed and secured me an invitation at the eleventh hour. As the most exclusive private aircraft in the world, The Stratos hosting a gala for the global elite was a media frenzy. The live streams were pulling in millions of viewers before the first guest even stepped on board. [Holy crap! It’s finally happening! I’ve never seen a plane this insane!] [An auction in the sky. Rich people are a different species.] [Look! It’s Isabelle Vance! That white dress is stunning. A true goddess!] [Did you guys hear the rumor? A major mystery guest is supposed to be on board!] [Yeah, I heard that too! The head of some secret global conglomerate or something…] [It’s gotta be for Isabelle! They’d be the ultimate power couple!] [Ugh, why is Ava Sterling there? She probably bribed her way on. So tacky.] I leaned against the curved window, scrolling through the comments on my phone with a profound sense of boredom. The hate was just background noise at this point. Suddenly, a quiet, powerful voice spoke from behind me. “I never thought I’d have the pleasure of seeing you again.” The voice was old, but the tone was firm. “Miss Spectre.” 5 I had heard the soft tread of his expensive shoes approaching, so the voice wasn’t a surprise. I turned slowly and gave a slight nod of my head. “Mr. Peterson. It’s good to see you looking so well.” The man was Marcus Peterson, a titan of industry and a true patriot. Over the decades, he’d funneled billions from his tech empire into national interests, from scientific research to infrastructure. His personal motto was famous: “The nation is the foundation; business is just the scaffolding.” As his influence grew, he’d become a target for foreign powers. At one point, a consortium of his rivals had pooled their resources and hired one of the world’s top ten mercenary guilds to put a kill order on him. My mission had been to provide close protection. In one month, I made sure that mercenary guild ceased to exist. He was the only person outside of The Blade who knew my real identity. Before we could say more, a flurry of motion and camera flashes interrupted us. Isabelle Vance, flanked by a gaggle of reporters and assistants, swept toward us like a queen holding court. One reporter shoved a microphone forward. “Isabelle, the internet is buzzing that you’re here tonight as a special guest of honor. Can you confirm a personal relationship with the mysterious Mr. Scott?” Isabelle didn’t answer directly, offering instead a shy, demure smile. “I think we should all focus on the wonderful charity this event is supporting. It’s better to keep a little mystery in life, don’t you think?” A wave of knowing murmurs and excited gasps rippled through the press pool. I had to physically restrain myself from laughing out loud. Her non-denial-denial was a masterclass in PR manipulation. I was willing to bet her own team had planted the rumors online. After all, no one in the world could have possibly traced my invitation back to me. Perhaps my smirk was a little too obvious. Isabelle’s gaze snapped to me, her eyes narrowing. Then she saw who I was standing with. Her entire demeanor shifted. Her eyes lit up with craven opportunity. She glided over, high heels clicking on the polished floor, the cameras trailing her like pilot fish. “Ava Sterling. You are just everywhere, aren’t you?” she said, her voice loud enough for every microphone to catch. “I thought you turned down the invitation. What happened? The moment you heard Mr. Scott would be here, you came crawling back?” She gestured towards Marcus. “And now you’re harassing Mr. Peterson? Honestly, your methods are so predictable. Some of us in this industry try to maintain a little dignity.” Just like that, she’d painted me as a desperate, social-climbing harpy. As she intended, the live stream chat exploded. [OMG I’m cringing so hard. Ava is so pathetic!] [First she’s a bad actress, now we know she has no morals either!] Having successfully trashed me, Isabelle turned a dazzling smile on Marcus Peterson and extended a perfectly manicured hand. “Mr. Peterson, it is such an honor. I’ve admired your work for years. I’ve always hoped for a chance to meet you.” Marcus Peterson was a legend. A few soundbites with him, caught on camera, would elevate Isabelle’s brand from mere celebrity to a serious public figure. A brilliant move. Except for one small problem. Marcus didn’t even glance at her outstretched hand. He simply stared at her as if she were a mildly interesting insect, his expression utterly flat. “I doubt that,” he said, his voice cold enough to freeze champagne. “My own company’s CEO has to book an appointment six months in advance to see me. Who, exactly, are you?” Isabelle’s face went from pristine white to a blotchy, mortified crimson. The silence in the cabin was so absolute you could hear the hum of the engines. Into that silence, Marcus turned back to me. With the deep, formal respect a knight might show a queen, he made a slight bow. “Miss Spectre,” he said, his voice resonating with warmth. “Would I have the honor of buying you a drink in the lounge?”

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My girlfriend hired male escorts, and I booked the venue. My girlfriend went on a “friends” trip with another guy, and I bought the plane tickets. My girlfriend hooked up with some pretty boy, and I had condoms delivered to their hotel. They called me a simp, a doormat, the king of cuckolds. I didn’t care. Because I was bound to a system. A bizarre, cosmic contract. If I spent ten million dollars on her—as the ultimate doormat—I would be rewarded with nine quadrillion dollars in wealth. And I was almost there. 1 When I finally delivered the absurdly expensive fusion tacos I’d stood in line for three hours to get, Chloe was holding court in the VIP lounge, sharing the secrets of my training with her friends. “Leo? Oh, he’d literally lick the dirt off my shoes if I asked,” she said, a lazy smile playing on her lips. “You think there’s a line he wouldn’t cross?” I walked in as if I hadn’t heard a thing, placing the still-warm box on the table in front of her. I kept my head down, my face a blank mask. “I got the food. You should eat it while it’s hot.” Chloe raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, then grinned at her entourage. “You guys wanted to see what a real simp looks like in his natural habitat, right? How about a live demonstration?” The group of them, all sharp angles and designer labels, started to whoop and cheer. A cold knot formed in my stomach. Chloe stood up slowly, deliberately, and placed one stiletto-clad foot onto a velvet ottoman. The slit in her dress fell open, revealing a long, pale thigh. The view was breathtakingly deliberate. She crossed her arms, her expression a perfect portrait of icy, aristocratic boredom. “Leo,” she commanded, her voice clear and cutting, “crawl over here. On your knees. Then crawl under my leg. Just like you do when you’re begging me not to leave you.” A ripple of shock went through the lounge. Murmurs broke out. “Holy shit. Leo’s family has money, right? He’s gonna do this?” “Didn’t you hear Chloe? She said this is, like, their Tuesday.” “No way. I don’t believe it. Unless he’s literally her pet.” I stood frozen, the noise of the room fading to a dull hum. Chloe extended a single, manicured finger and crooked it, beckoning me closer. The gesture was unmistakable. It was the way you’d call over a dog. I took a deep breath, the air burning my lungs, and bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. Just one hundred thousand dollars left, I chanted to myself, a mantra against the rising tide of shame. Spend this last hundred K, and the system pays out. Nine quadrillion dollars. For a number so big it broke the calculator app… My knees hit the plush carpet. The room erupted in a symphony of jeers and laughter. “The King of Simps, for real!” “Damn, Chloe’s a goddess! She has him completely broken.” “He’s not even a man anymore. He’s just her dog!” I swallowed the humiliation, crawling slowly across the floor until I was at her feet. The laughter was a physical thing, sharp and stabbing at my eardrums. After I passed under the arch of her leg, I rose to my knees again, holding up the box of tacos with both hands. “Chloe,” I said, my voice steady. “Your tacos. You should eat them.” A smirk touched the corner of her mouth. She took the box with two fingers, as if it were contaminated. Then, she placed it on the coffee table. “You know,” she announced to her friends, “these would be perfect for a little game. Let’s play fetch.” She turned her cold eyes back to me. “Leo, you have to catch it. With your mouth. We wouldn’t want my friends to have a bad time, would we?” Before I could process what she meant, a taco hit me square in the face, guacamole smearing across my cheek. One of Chloe’s friends, a woman built like a linebacker in a silk dress, pouted. “Chloe, your pet is misbehaving. He didn’t even try to catch it like a dog! Now I have to take a penalty shot.” The displeasure was evident on her fleshy face. Chloe clicked her tongue. “Don’t worry, sweetie. A dog that doesn’t listen just needs to be disciplined. You love putting a bad dog in its place, don’t you? Go on.” The woman’s eyes lit up with a disturbing excitement. She stomped over to me, and her heavy, ring-laden hand swung through the air, connecting with my cheek in a brutal slap. The force of it sent me sprawling to the floor, my head ringing. Before I could recover, she grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me up and shoving my face into her suffocating cleavage. The cloying scent of cheap perfume and sweat filled my nostrils, making me gag. Her other fist began to rain down blows on my back, each one a dull, sickening thud. When she was finally done, she dropped me. I collapsed in a heap at Chloe’s slender ankles, every muscle screaming. She nudged my face with the pointed toe of her stiletto, pressing down until it felt like she was trying to bore a hole through my cheekbone. “Pathetic,” she hissed. Then, she dropped a leather collar onto the floor beside me. “Put it on,” she ordered. “Then go kneel outside the door. Wait there until we’re done playing, then you can take care of the bill.” 2 I wiped a smear of blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and did as I was told. As I knelt in the hallway, collar fastened around my neck, a procession of male escorts, all smiles and sculpted abs, filed into the suite. Soon, the sounds from inside became a chaotic blur of shrieks, pulsing music, and the rhythmic slap of cards against a table. It wasn’t until three in the morning that the party wound down. The escorts stumbled out, looking exhausted. A few moments later, Chloe emerged, supported by her friends. Her face was flushed, her neck a canvas of angry red marks. You didn’t have to be a detective to know what had happened in there. “Leo, go pay,” she slurred, not even looking at me. “Then go to the market. Get some top-shelf caviar and the freshest uni. My mother called. She said you’re coming over at dawn to talk about… our future. The whole family will be there. Don’t you dare embarrass her.” “The best caviar,” she repeated, her voice hardening. “And the best uni. Got it?” I said nothing. Chloe and her friends didn’t have the energy to notice. As they staggered towards the elevator, I could still hear them talking. “God, to live like that… so pathetic.” “Who cares? As long as he’s willing to burn his money on Chloe, we get to play with the fire.” “Did you see him glare at me earlier? I swear he did. Next time I see him, I’m gonna gouge his eyes out. See if he ever looks at me like that again.” Just then, the bartender, Marco, walked over, his face a mask of pity. He gently helped me to my feet. “Man,” he said softly, “why do you do this to yourself? Paying for your own misery?” “There are so many good women out there. Why are you so hung up on… on her?” “She does this right in front of your face, over and over. Doesn’t it make you angry? Not even a little?” Seeing my lack of reaction, he just shook his head and sighed. “Look, your girlfriend ran up another tab. A hundred and six thousand. I talked to the owner, told him your situation. He said to knock off the six grand. You just owe a hundred thousand.” A hundred thousand dollars. My eyes lit up. A sudden, hot wetness blurred my vision. Marco flinched back. “Whoa, man, why are you looking at me like that?” Finally. I was finally going to spend this last hundred thousand. A full year of this subhuman torment was finally coming to an end. I didn’t even bother to wipe the tears streaming down my face. I fumbled for my phone, my hands shaking, and transferred the final ten thousand dollars of my ten-million-dollar sentence. The instant the payment went through, a voice echoed in my mind, crisp and digital. “Ten million dollar ‘Simp Fund’ depleted. Nine quadrillion dollars has been transferred to the host’s account.” The voice faded, and I saw it. On my banking app. A number that was so long it looked like a glitch. Zeroes. So many zeroes. A one, then a comma, then a string of them that defied comprehension. Nine. Quadrillion. Dollars. It was real. A sob escaped my lips, and the tears fell freely now. Marco panicked. “Hey, man, don’t cry! Just leave her. Please, just walk away from her and you’ll never have to feel like this again.” I grabbed his sleeve, unable to speak through my weeping. He grew even more concerned. “Sir, look, I’ll refund you the money. I’ll have my boss collect from your girlfriend! He’s… connected. He’s good at collecting debts.” “No!” I managed to choke out, shaking my head frantically. “No, don’t. I’m just… I’m just so happy. These are tears of joy.” Marco just stared at me. 3 That night, I didn’t sleep. First, I called the real estate agent who’d been patiently showing me properties for months. I bought ten penthouses in the city’s most exclusive high-rises. All cash. Next, I called the luxury car salesman who always treated me with a polite, pitying deference. I ordered a McLaren in every color of the rainbow. Seven of them. Finally, I checked into the Emperor Suite at The Meridian Grand. I spent an hour just rolling around on the ten-foot-diameter bed. I clutched my phone, alternating between manic laughter and fits of relieved crying as I stared at my new bank balance. I finally drifted off to sleep just as the sky began to lighten. I was jolted awake by the shrill ring of my phone. It was Chloe’s mother, Brenda. “Leo Hayes, where are you? Weren’t you supposed to bring the seafood for the brunch? Are you dead somewhere?” “This is the day we discuss your future with Chloe! Her uncles are here, everyone’s here, and we’re all waiting to eat!” “Get your ass over here right now! Don’t make me tell Chloe to break up with you for good! You’ll never get the chance to worship the ground she walks on again!” Click. She hung up. On pure, conditioned instinct, I threw on my clothes and grabbed a cab to Chloe’s family home. It wasn’t until I was standing on her doorstep that the reality of my new life crashed back into me. I didn’t have to do this anymore. As I turned to leave, the door swung open. Brenda was standing there, holding takeout bags from a nice hotel. She shot me a look of pure disdain. “Here.” She shoved the bags into my arms. “Useless.” Then came the verbal assault. “I ask you to do one simple thing, and you can’t even manage that. What good are you for anything?” “You’re lucky you have money. Without it, you’d be absolutely worthless.” “The thought of my Chloe marrying a moron like you… it makes me sick. She deserves so much better.” She pushed past me into the house. The living room was filled with Chloe’s relatives, all of them eyeing me like a piece of meat. I stood there for a long moment, taking deep breaths, wanting nothing more than to walk away. But as I placed the takeout bags on the dining table, Brenda barked at me again. “Forget the food, we don’t need you for that. Come over here and let’s get this dowry conversation over with. Then you can go to that Michelin place downtown and pick up some of their tasting menus. Your uncles want the Wagyu and the sea urchin. Just looking at your pathetic face is ruining everyone’s appetite.” I pressed my lips together. This was it. Time to set the record straight. But before I could speak, Chloe’s eldest uncle cleared his throat. “Alright, let’s talk numbers. Chloe is the only girl in our family, the eldest of her generation. She has three younger cousins, my boys, who are all unmarried. Traditionally, her marriage should help secure their futures. I won’t beat around the bush. My oldest is twenty-eight. His girlfriend wants a half-million-dollar ring, a house, and a car. Three million should cover it.” The second uncle chimed in. “My son is still in college, also has a girlfriend. A nice girl, doesn’t want a dowry, but they’ll need a condo downtown and a luxury car. That’s probably five million, easy.” The third uncle sighed dramatically. “My boy’s only in elementary school. But if you factor in private school, college, a trust fund for a house and car, plus a seed fund for him to study abroad… ten million should be a safe bet.” The total came to eighteen million dollars. Brenda nodded approvingly. “Her uncles are being very reasonable, just thinking about your future together. I’m sure this amount is no problem for you, Leo. Then, of course, Chloe’s father and I will need a small fund for our retirement. Global travel, you know. A million a year should suffice, we can do it in installments. And Chloe, well, she’s accustomed to a certain lifestyle. A five-thousand-square-foot penthouse and a million-dollar sports car, both in her name only. That’s about it. You can handle the deed and title transfers as soon as she wakes up. You can wire us the rest of the money now.” As she spoke, the uncles all pulled out their phones, ready to show me their QR codes for the transfer.

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After the girl he loved fell to her death, my stepbrother hated me for ten years. Even after I used the most despicable means to make him completely mine. He never truly forgave me. Not until I fled the country in a fit of pique, only to get caught in a riot. And still, without a moment’s hesitation, my brother shielded me. He took a bullet and died. The last words he ever spoke, cradled in my arms, were: “I’m the one who spoiled you.” “I truly regret… ever becoming your brother.” Everyone said I was a monster. That I had ruined him—my brother, who had been so decent, so full of integrity his entire life. So I knelt on the long stone steps of a temple for fifty years. Begging for a chance to do it all over again. This time, I would let him have his perfect life. All I ask is that he lives a life of peace and happiness. 1 “Stella, look at this. Just look at the things you’ve written. Doesn’t it make you sick?” “How could you… feel this way about your own brother?” That voice. A voice I’d ached to hear for a lifetime. My eyes fluttered open. I saw Asher holding my journal, his face flushed crimson with fury. Inside that journal, I had poured out all of my— Desire. For him. But in that moment, I felt none of the shame of being exposed. Instead, a sob of pure relief broke from my lips. I was really back. I had been reborn into the moment of my first real fight with Asher, the day he discovered my forbidden feelings for him. Seeing him there, so vibrant and alive, sent a tremor through my entire body. Thank God. He’s alive. Asher must have noticed something was wrong. The fire in his eyes died down, replaced by a flicker of confusion. He pointed to the floor. “Take all of this… and burn it.” In my past life, those words had sent me into a hysterical frenzy. I had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and kissed him. The shock on Asher’s face, the way he’d fled from me… that was the beginning of the distance that grew between us. And for me, that desperate, defiant kiss shattered the last of my restraints. It made me hate her—Lila Vance, the girl who stole my brother’s heart—even more. It was the catalyst for every tragedy that followed. So this time, I scrubbed the tears from my face with the back of my hand. I gathered the box filled with my journals. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll burn them.” 2 Those journals held a decade of my life with Asher. My mother and his were best friends, inseparable. But my mom had a weakness for love, and she fell for the wrong man—a monster who used his fists to speak. She died in a hospital bed when I was five. My father, a lifelong alcoholic, stumbled into a ditch and died on his way to turn himself in. Asher’s mom, my Aunt Clara, took me in. She passed away from cancer when Asher and I were just starting middle school. And just like that, in the sprawling, empty mansion, it was just us, and a handful of staff who were rarely seen. Asher was only a few months older than me, but it felt like a lifetime. I was a walking disaster, and he was the stoic little adult who followed behind me, cleaning up my messes. Aunt Clara was always working. The housekeepers and nannies had days off. When I had a stomach flu, Asher stayed up with me all night, holding my hand while the IV dripped into my arm. When I got into fights at school, he was the one who stood up for me. When thunderstorms terrified me, he would drag his pillow and blanket into my room and build a fort with me on my bed. Even after Lila fell, a tragedy he blamed entirely on me. Even when he hated me to his very core. When the chaos of the riot erupted around us, he still threw himself in front of me without a second thought. My brother was perfect in every way. Except for one thing. His love for me was the love of family. My love for him was a crime of the heart. In our last life, when our housekeeper, Maria, heard the news of Asher’s death, she collapsed, weeping. Our driver, Sam, had pointed a trembling finger at my face. “You’re a curse, Stella! A goddamn black hole. You won’t be happy until you’ve destroyed everyone around you, will you?” I remembered Asher’s final words. “I’m the one who spoiled you.” “I truly regret… ever becoming your brother.” He regretted it. And so did I. There was a monastery, north of the city, that was said to work miracles. I went there to pray that in the next life, Asher would never have to meet me. But my sins were too great. The abbot refused to see me. So I knelt. Year after year. The worn stone steps are stained with my blood, each mark a prayer from a bowed head. My hair turned from black to silver. Finally, when I was frail and close to death, the abbot granted me an audience. He said, “What has happened cannot be undone. But a new beginning may yet be possible.” “You are the calamity in his fate. If you do not resolve it, your efforts will be in vain.” He pressed a small, silk pouch into my wrinkled hand. “This will guide you, when the time for rebirth comes.” And when I woke up, the pouch was still clutched in my hand, proof that it wasn’t all a dream. This life, I won’t make the same mistakes. I will pay any price, as long as my brother can live in peace. 3 The next morning, on the way to school, neither of us mentioned what had happened. The silence in the car was thick enough to choke on. It wasn’t until we pulled up to the school that Asher finally broke it. “You need to apologize to Lila today for what you did a few days ago.” His tone was clipped, formal. He was clearly expecting a fight. But I just gave a small, quiet nod. “Okay.” Asher shot me a look of surprise. But in the end, he didn’t say another word. During lunch, I went to find Lila, just as I’d promised. It took me a while, but I finally found her. She was with Asher. The afternoon sun cast a warm, hazy glow over the bustling quad. Lila was laughing, playfully tapping her fist against Asher’s chest. The next second, she saw me. The laughter died on her lips. She flinched and scurried behind Asher, clutching the bandage on her hand as if I’d just appeared with a knife. Asher instinctively moved to shield her. “What are you doing here?” His words were laced with a cool distance. He’d already forgotten he was the one who sent me. I couldn’t really blame him for being on edge. I was, after all, a monster. My possessiveness over Asher was a suffocating, all-consuming thing. He was handsome, kind, and popular. There was never a shortage of girls interested in him. And I had driven every single one of them away. I had always interpreted Asher’s silent permission as something more, a sign that deep down, he felt the same way. That he wanted me. It was the same delusion that led me, in my past life, to drug his drink. To force him across a line that should never be crossed. He had fought against my touch, but even through his broken, ragged breaths, I convinced myself I heard pleasure. I ignored the fact that it was nothing more than an involuntary, physical reaction. But Lila was different. She was special to him. Even ten years after her death, Asher had never forgiven me. I forced down the acid bile of jealousy rising in my throat and took a deep breath. I walked over and gave Lila a deep, formal bow. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you the other day, and I never should have humiliated you in front of everyone. It was cruel and unacceptable.” I looked up, my voice trembling slightly. “Can you… can you forgive me?” Lila glanced nervously at Asher. When he remained silent, she finally answered. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I forgive you.” I straightened up, and my eyes met Asher’s. They were swirling with an emotion I couldn’t decipher. 4 In my past life, there was another reason I despised Lila. I’d seen her, more than once, getting a little too close to Ethan Carter, the school’s resident bad boy. Ethan was Asher’s sworn enemy. He was a malicious jerk who lived to make my brother’s life miserable. I was convinced Lila was a plant, sent by Ethan to mess with Asher’s head. That’s why I went after her so relentlessly. This time around, whatever the truth was, I had to find out. I needed to get the two people who were supposed to be together back on track. So, I started following Lila around, telling her how guilty I felt, how much I wanted to be her friend. She was wary at first. But when she saw I was being genuine, she slowly let her guard down. I started probing, trying to be subtle. “So… what do you think of my brother?” A blush crept up her neck. “Asher… he’s helped me so much. And he’s amazing with animals. He’s always feeding the stray cats around campus, he even raised money to get them all spayed and neutered.” She looked down, a soft smile on her face. “I think he’s a really kind person.” Of course. They were perfect for each other. And Lila really was a great person. She didn’t come from money, but she was smart and driven, attending our expensive private school on a full scholarship. The classic beautiful, resilient girl from the wrong side of the tracks. My brother was handsome, top of our class, and had a massive trust fund left to him by his mother. Anyone could see they were a perfect match. Even knowing this, my stomach churned with a bitter, acidic jealousy. That night, for the first time in what felt like forever, Asher knocked on my bedroom door. He didn’t come in. The last time he’d burst into my room without asking was when he’d found my journals. I spoke first, to put him at ease. “I’m just looking at college applications. There’s nothing else in here…” Ever since I’d been reborn, I could feel Asher pulling away, creating a careful distance between us. Even without the kiss, he couldn’t stomach the idea of the little sister he raised being in love with him. And even without the kiss, I couldn’t let him go. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Why haven’t you been coming home with me lately?” I was surprised. I didn’t think he’d even noticed. Because I have to learn how to live without you. The thought was a silent scream in my mind. Even now, I was looking at schools as far away from him as possible. He and Lila were both brilliant; they’d end up at the same Ivy League school, I was sure of it. Me? I just needed to be as far away as I could get. I fabricated a quick excuse. “Oh, Lila and I have been getting along really well. We decided to walk home together so we can hang out more.” The lie felt flimsy even to my own ears. Asher’s gaze was intense, drilling into me until my skin prickled. I lifted my chin defiantly. “Are we getting in your way?” He frowned and flicked me on the forehead. “What are you talking about? It’s not like that.” He ran a hand through his hair, a flash of frustration in his eyes. “Forget it. It’s… probably a good thing for you to make more friends.” 5 A few days later, I was walking home with Lila as planned. She had started to open up to me, and I felt I was getting closer to understanding the real reason she had died in our past life. Everyone thought I pushed her. Even Asher. After all, I had a history. But I didn’t. I never laid a finger on her. She had just… jumped. Sobbing. I wondered if something terrible was happening at home, something that would drive her to such desperation. “Lila,” I said, my voice earnest. “If anything is wrong, you have to tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll help you. I promise.” She froze, and then her eyes welled up with tears. She knew. Something was definitely wrong. She opened her mouth to speak. But before she could, a group of guys materialized from a side alley. They were trouble. They were carrying metal rods, the legs of disassembled school desks. I’d taken some self-defense classes when I was younger, and I managed to hold my own for a minute. But Lila wasn’t so lucky. I saw a pipe swinging towards her head. I didn’t think. I just moved. I shoved her out of the way and took the blow myself. The world exploded into blackness. When I came to, a searing pain shot from the back of my head down my spine. I was covered in mud, but the scene in front of me was so horrifying I barely registered my own state. Lila was lying on the ground next to me, naked. “Lila? Hey, Lila, what happened?” My voice was a raw, trembling whisper. I scrambled for my phone, my only thought to call Asher. But the screen was shattered, dead. Suddenly, a blinding light hit my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, recoiling. The sound of police sirens and Asher’s enraged voice blended into a chaotic roar. A powerful force shoved me backwards, my head cracking against a concrete step. “Stella! I actually thought you’d changed! Were you just waiting for the perfect moment to pull something like this?” Asher’s eyes were bloodshot, blazing with a fury I’d never seen before. It took me a second to understand. He thought I did this. “Ash, no… it wasn’t me.” He scooped Lila into his arms, wrapping his jacket around her. “You’re holding a phone, don’t tell me it wasn’t you! Delete those pictures right now. We’ll deal with this when we get home.” I watched, stunned, as he walked away, his back a rigid line of condemnation. Tears blurred my vision. “It really… wasn’t me…” My strength gave out, every muscle in my body turning to water. The world faded to black once again. 6 I dreamed of the last life, of another time Asher had been this furious with me. It was after Lila’s fall, when the police were questioning me. Asher slapped me. The first and only time. The sound of it echoed in the sterile interrogation room. “How could you do something like this?” “I am so… disappointed in you.” “I wish you were never my sister.” His eyes held a sorrow so deep it had become numb, a terrifying calm. I couldn’t blame him. On the rooftop that day, it had just been me and Lila. No one would believe that a brilliant student with a bright future would just randomly jump off a building. But even though Asher believed the worst of me, he still hired the best lawyers. There were no cameras on the roof. No direct evidence that I had pushed her. My fingerprints weren’t on her. But the possibility that I had coerced her, bullied her into jumping, remained. In the end, her death was ruled an accident. Asher paid a huge settlement to Lila’s mother. But she still showed up at school every day, screaming my name, calling me a murderer. So, Asher pulled us both out of school. I really did ruin his life. If it hadn’t been for me, what a brilliant future he would have had. It didn’t matter what the world thought. For Asher, the simple, devastating truth was that his sister had killed the girl he loved. From that day forward, nothing was ever the same. I woke with a gasp, the dream clinging to me like a shroud. I was in my own bedroom. Asher was asleep in the chair beside my bed. He looked exhausted, with dark, bruised circles under his eyes. As my eyes fluttered open, his shot open too, a flicker of light returning to their depths. And then he was holding me, his arms wrapped around me in a crushing embrace. 7 It turned out Lila had woken up before me. She told them everything. That I had been knocked out trying to save her. That the group of guys had taken pictures of her and run off. Asher held me, his body trembling uncontrollably. He kept murmuring the same words over and over again. “I’m sorry, Stella. I’m so sorry.” “It was my fault. I misjudged you.” “I didn’t protect you, and then I accused you without even listening. You should hit me, you should scream at me…” His shaking was so violent, so palpable, that a hot wave of tears started to burn my own eyes. All the fear and hurt from the past few days came pouring out. I buried my face in his shirt, my sobs and tears soaking the fabric. “No, Ash! It’s all my fault!” “If I hadn’t been such a monster before, you wouldn’t have had a reason not to trust me!” I shook my head wildly, desperate for him to believe me. “I was wrong, I was so wrong. I’ll never cause trouble for you again, I swear!” “I won’t… I won’t think about you that way anymore. I just want to be your sister. Forever.” I felt his body stiffen for a split second. Then, his hand began to gently pat my back. We stayed like that for a long, long time. It felt as if the chasm that had opened between us might finally be closing. Asher eventually pulled away and brought over a bowl of soup from my bedside table. “Here. Eat something.” He gently tied my hair back and draped a robe over my shoulders. “I’m going to go out and get you those cream puffs you love, from the bakery downtown. To make it up to you.” He paused at the door, his expression serious. “When I get back, there’s something important I need to tell you.” I watched him go, a strange feeling settling over me. Something about him had shifted. It was as if he’d finally made up his mind about something monumental. But I waited for a long time, and he didn’t come back. Instead, a text message from Lila lit up my phone. [Stella, please, I’m begging you. Meet me on the school rooftop.] [You have to come alone.] [Please…]

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Clara’s prized protégé, Leo, loved to brag he could crack a chest one-handed. When his performance failed, he stared at the patient’s unclosing thoracic cavity, dropped the bone saw with a clatter, and ran. I got the call in the dead of night. I was the one who rushed to the hospital and, against all odds, saved the man’s life. In the aftermath, Leo was crucified online, his career facing total annihilation. Clara, my girlfriend, wanted to defend him, but I held her back, my grip tight on her arm. “If you speak up for him now, at this exact moment,” I warned, my voice low, “you can kiss the Whittaker Grant goodbye. And they won’t just come for him. They’ll come for you, too.” Leo couldn’t handle the vitriol. He threw himself into the river. His suicide note was a testament written in blood and tears, each line a furious accusation against Clara for not taking his side. Clara said nothing. She simply held the note to a flame and watched it turn to ash. In the years that followed, she ascended. From the Whittaker Grant to a full fellowship, she became a titan in the medical world, a name spoken with reverence. The day of my own surgery, she insisted on being the one to wield the scalpel. She did it one-handed. As I lay there, my own chest gaping open, she angled a mirror so I could see the reflection of my own undoing. “See?” she whispered, her voice a cold, smooth stone. “A chest can be opened with one hand. “Why did you have to make it so hard for Leo? “If I had just stopped you that night, he would be the one standing here right now. Not me.” A surge of rage and betrayal choked me. I felt a final, hot burst in my chest, and then, darkness. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the day of Leo’s disastrous performance, watching Clara ready herself to charge into the fray for him. What she didn’t know, what she couldn’t possibly understand, was that the man on the table was Arthur Richmond. And his sister, the matriarch of the Richmond family empire, was protective of her brother to a terrifying, absolute degree. 1 The moment I realized I had returned to the day of Leo’s one-handed stunt, the very first thing I did was turn off my phone. I slept until the sun sliced through my blinds. The next morning, I powered it on. Ninety-nine-plus missed calls, just as I expected. In my last life, the second Leo knew he’d screwed up beyond repair, he’d blown up my phone, begging me to come clean up his mess. And I did. Despite having just finished a triple-header of surgeries, despite having slept for less than an hour, I had dragged myself out of bed. I’d driven through a blizzard, racing back to the hospital to spend the entire night wrestling a man back from the brink of death. I saved his life. And because I did, his sister—Sloane Richmond, the iron-willed CEO of one of the country’s most powerful private equity firms—showed a sliver of mercy. She didn’t obliterate Leo. She simply allowed him to face the standard medical board review and disciplinary action. If Leo had just weathered that storm, he could have eventually returned to his post, maybe even salvaged his career. But he had spent his entire life sheltered and adored by Clara. He’d never known real hardship. The tidal wave of online hate was more than he could bear. He jumped. This time, when I walked into the hospital, the scene was one of controlled chaos. Leo was slumped against the wall outside the OR, his face a mask of vacant horror. My colleagues were a blur of motion, their scrubs stained crimson. “This is on you!” one of them hissed at Leo, his hands trembling with adrenaline and rage. “We told you it was reckless! A one-handed crack? Are you insane?” “Just because Dr. Pierce fast-tracked you into this residency doesn’t give you the right to play God!” another snapped. “Well, look where it got us! We’ve barely got a thread of a pulse. He’s circling the drain. If he dies on our watch and his sister finds out, none of us—none of us—will ever work in this city again!” An alarm shrieked from inside the operating room, a high, flat-lining keen. One of the nurses sank to the floor, her face ashen. “It’s over… We’re all done for…” A younger resident, fresh out of med school, started to openly sob. “Why wasn’t Dr. Hayes on call last night? If he were here, he’d know what to do…” “It’s too late now. It’s over.” Leo’s head shot up. His eyes, vacant moments before, locked onto me. A flicker of something predatory sparked in their depths. “It was him!” he shouted, pointing a shaky finger. “I was calling him all night! Over and over! But his phone was off! We’re not the ones who killed this patient! He is! The man who could have saved him but deliberately shut his phone off!” Every head whipped in my direction. “Dr. Hayes!” “Lucas… is that true? Was your phone really off on purpose?” “Of course it was!” Leo scrambled to his feet, shoving his call log in everyone’s face. Ninety-nine calls. He stalked toward me, his eyes red-rimmed and wild. “Dr. Hayes, a life was on the line. We’re doctors. Our phones are supposed to be on 24/7. You knew there was a major cardiothoracic surgery scheduled for last night. You knew you’re the best we’ve got. To turn your phone off at a time like this… Lucas, what the hell were you thinking?” Crack. The sound of my hand striking his cheek echoed in the corridor. I stood over him, my voice ice. “Have you lost your mind, Leo?” The commotion had drawn staff from other departments. They were gathering, watching. I raised my voice, ensuring they could all hear. “The on-call roster is posted in black and white. Last night’s surgery was your responsibility, Dr. Sterling. Not mine. Yes, it seems my phone died. But the person who signed the chart, the person ultimately responsible for that man in there, is you.” Leo’s face went pale. “You can’t hide behind a schedule when a man is dying! Your phone is never off. It was only off yesterday. You were targeting me, weren’t you, Lucas? That’s fine. But you don’t get to gamble with a patient’s life to prove a point!” He was so righteous, so utterly convincing, that some of the patients and families lingering in the hallway began to murmur. They were buying it. They were starting to believe I’d intentionally left a rookie to fail just to watch him burn. Before I could speak, one of my colleagues stepped forward. “Shut up, Leo! Just shut your damn mouth! Do you have any idea that Dr. Hayes performed three back-to-back marathon surgeries yesterday? He survived on two bites of a protein bar and a bottle of glucose water!” “Exactly!” another chimed in. “While you’re sitting in the resident’s lounge complaining about paperwork, he’s putting in the hours. He didn’t get home until after midnight. Forgetting to plug in a phone that’s been running nonstop for 36 hours isn’t a conspiracy, it’s called exhaustion!” Family members of a patient I had operated on yesterday nodded in agreement. “Besides,” the first colleague added, his voice firm, “Dr. Hayes fulfilled his duties during his shift. Last night was his time off. He wasn’t on call. This wasn’t his responsibility.” The murmuring crowd fell silent. The truth settled over them. Even the residents who had been in the OR with Leo looked away, unable to meet my gaze. “He’s right, Leo. This one’s on us. We just got dealt a bad hand.” Leo staggered back, slumping to the floor again. His lips were white. “What is all this commotion!” The hospital director, Dr. Wallace, appeared at the end of the hall, her voice sharp with authority. Behind her, her face a mask of cold fury, was Clara. I started to speak, but she walked straight past me without a glance. She went to Leo, kneeling down and helping him gently to his feet. “It’s okay,” she murmured, just for him. “I’m here. I’ll find a way to fix this. You’re going to be okay.” Dr. Wallace’s glare dispersed the crowd. Then, she jerked her head toward her office. I followed her. The second the door closed, her stern facade crumbled. Panic flooded her eyes. “Lucas! I know you’re not officially involved, but you have to save him! You have to! That man is Arthur Richmond. If he dies in our hospital, Sloane Richmond will burn this place to the ground, and every single one of us, you included, will be caught in the fire!” I let out a slow breath. The truth was, the only reason I’d dared to turn off my phone was because I knew my team. They were good. They were good enough to keep a patient stabilized, to keep him alive long enough for me to get a full night’s sleep. Long enough for me to arrive this morning with leverage. I looked Dr. Wallace dead in the eye. “The responsibility for what happened today doesn’t just fall on Leo. It falls on Clara, too.” The director stared at me, confused. I slid a document across her desk. It was a formal proposal for an experimental surgical technique. At the bottom was Clara’s signature, authorizing Leo to perform it. “Leo’s one-handed showboating,” I said calmly. “Clara personally approved it. We are all shouldering an insane amount of risk to pay for their arrogance. So, yes, Director, I can clean up this mess. But Leo can’t be the only one who faces consequences.” I leaned forward, my hands flat on her desk. “If you don’t handle Clara, something like this will happen again. And next time, I’m not sure I’ll be able to save this hospital.” Dr. Wallace’s expression hardened. Clara was her star, the protégé she had mentored since medical school. But the hospital’s survival, its very existence, was on the line. And right now, she needed me to save Sloane Richmond’s brother. “That arrogant little…!” She slammed the signed proposal down on the desk. “After everything I’ve done for her, she pulls a stunt like this!” She looked up at me, her eyes flinty. “Don’t you worry. Her application for the Whittaker Grant? It’s dead on my desk. Her promotion track? Canceled. From now on, she’ll be handling basic consults and paperwork. She will never be trusted with a core surgical position in this hospital again.” A slow smile touched my lips. I picked up the pen. With that single action, the glittering path that had led Clara from the Whittaker Grant to medical stardom in her past life had just been severed. It was a long day. From morning until well past nightfall, I worked. Slowly, painstakingly, Arthur Richmond’s vitals began to stabilize. My scrubs were soaked through with sweat. The moment I stepped out of the OR, my legs gave out and I collapsed. A colleague forced a bottle of glucose into my hand and I drank it down, the sugar slowly bringing the world back into focus. The same residents who had been in the OR with Leo gathered around me, their eyes filled with tears of gratitude. “Thank you, Dr. Hayes,” one of them choked out, gripping my hand. “Without you… I don’t know what we would have done.” “It’s true,” another added. “Sloane Richmond is ruthless. If her brother had died… she might have gone after our families.” I reassured them as best I could. Finally, I was free to go home, to fall into bed. I was in the underground parking garage when a footstep behind me made the hairs on my neck stand up. I spun around. Nothing. Just rows of cars and concrete pillars. Muttering to myself, I turned back toward my car. A cloth clamped over my face, and the world went black. A sweet, chemical scent flooded my senses as my consciousness faded. When I woke, my right hand was chained to a heavy steel table. In the dim, flickering light of a single bare bulb, I could just make out the silhouette of the person standing over me. “Clara!” The hand holding me down flinched. I was bound to a chair, and I thrashed against the restraints. “Clara, it’s you! I know it’s you, isn’t it? Whatever you’re planning, we can talk about it! Please… just let me go! I saved him! For you, I saved Leo’s ass!” The figure paused. When she spoke, her voice was a ghost of a sigh. “No, Lucas. You saved him from Sloane Richmond’s immediate wrath. But you still let him be cast as a villain, a reckless, incompetent doctor. You left him to face the world alone.” Her voice hardened. “I’m sorry. If you truly want to help him, there’s only one way. You have to lose a hand.” My blood ran cold. “That way,” she continued, her tone unnervingly calm, “no one will believe you performed the surgery. They’ll credit the miracle to Leo. I’ll talk to the other residents. I’ll delete the surgical logs. Lucas… this time, you have to help him. For real.” My eyes widened in disbelief. “Clara!” A heavy cleaver, glinting in the dim light, was raised high above her head. I bucked against my restraints, a primal scream tearing from my throat. “I’m a surgeon! My hands… how will I live without my hand?!” The cleaver paused mid-air. The yellow light caught a flicker of something—pity? regret?—in her eyes. “I’ll take care of you for the rest of your life, Lucas.” “Wait!” I yelled, my voice cracking. “If you do this, you’ll never practice medicine again either! They’ll find out!” She shook her head slowly. “Dr. Wallace is my mentor. She would never let it come to that. Don’t worry. I have the power to stay in this world, to protect you forever.” “She’s already abandoned you!” Her body went rigid for a second, then she let out a small, dismissive laugh. “No. She wouldn’t.” CRUNCH. “AAGGHHH!”

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The day I defended my dissertation, Aubrey, the woman who’d spent four years trying to steal me, apologized. She apologized for hiring a parade of men to hit on my girlfriend, Clara. Every single one of them had been shot down. Aubrey rubbed the bridge of her nose, a failed strategist assessing a lost battle. “Okay, so the methods were a little low-rent,” she admitted. “But look on the bright side. It proves Clara’s a keeper.” “I’ll be sure to send you a wedding invitation,” I said, my voice dry. I was about to let it go when Aubrey waved her phone. “Right, about that. The eighteenth guy I sent just crashed and burned. Apparently, Clara really lost her temper with him.” She gave me a look that was equal parts mischief and plea. “You should probably head back and smooth things over. Maybe… explain my part in this?” I sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion, and agreed. I booked the next Acela home. On the way from the station, I stopped to pick up a slice of that ridiculously expensive cheesecake from the bakery Clara loves and her favorite oat milk latte. But when I opened the door to our apartment, the first thing I saw was the wreckage. A vase, a stack of mail, a framed photo—all of it scattered across the floor as if thrown in a rage. I knelt to pick up the pieces. And as I looked up, my eyes caught on the sliver of a view through the half-open bedroom door. Two pairs of feet, one overlapping the other. 1 The air in my lungs turned to ice. It wasn’t until the sharp, digging pain of my own fingernails biting into my palm that my mind rebooted. The clock on the wall kept ticking. Methodical. Uncaring. Its hands swept past 11:30. I remembered scrolling through Instagram as I got out of the elevator just minutes before. The cake box was awkward, so I’d shoved my phone in my pocket to free a hand for the keys. The lock had clicked open. The screen had shown 11:23 PM. It only took a minute to get from the front door to where I was now. Which meant I’d been squatting here, completely paralyzed, for six minutes. I tried to stand, but my legs were numb, refusing the command. I tipped backward, landing hard on the floor with a dull thud. The sound wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t silent, either. The people in the bedroom gave no sign they’d heard. This was our home, Clara’s and mine. She had moved to Boston for me, quitting her job and facing the daunting prospect of starting over in a new city just shy of thirty. She’d done it without a second thought, just to be with me while I finished my program. I’ve never wanted marriage or kids, and Clara always said she felt the same. Her parents, however, did not. So, in a move of brilliant defiance, she’d bought this one-bedroom apartment herself. It was a clear message to them: You can visit, but you can’t stay. You can worry, but you can’t interfere. After a few futile attempts to change our minds, they finally backed off. The day they left, defeated, Clara had slammed the door, thrown her arms around my neck, and pressed her face into my chest. “We did it, babe!” she’d whispered, her voice giddy with victory. “It’s perfect. On weekends, you can put on your jazz records in the living room, and I’ll be right here in the kitchen making your favorite pasta. We can just… talk. All the time. Imagine how happy we’ll be.” And we were. The open-plan kitchen flowed into the living room, a single, shared space. I could be reading on the couch and murmur a thought, and she’d answer from the stove. Even if I was in the bedroom, as long as the door was open, she could hear me. That was the benefit of a small apartment. So I knew. I knew with absolute certainty that she could hear the sound of me falling. As surely as I could hear the slow, steady rhythm of two people breathing—his and hers—drifting from the bedroom and wrapping around me in the quiet of the living room. 2 My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from Aubrey. Leo, did you explain? So sorry, today was a mess. I’ll take you and Clara out for a proper apology dinner soon! Promise! My thumb hovered over the screen, tracing the cool glass, but I couldn’t form a single word. Maybe it was the text, the intrusion of the outside world, that finally broke the spell. My sense of reality came crashing back. My gaze moved from the phone to the pristine cake box on the counter, to the shattered frame on the floor, and back to the sliver of the doorway. To the two pairs of feet. The legs on top of Clara’s were tattooed. A thorny, blue rose, stark and aggressive against his skin. It was vivid. Piercing. The image stabbed straight through the fog in my brain. In an instant, every hair on my body stood on end. The pain was no longer an illusion; it was a physical certainty. There was no escape. Clara was ruined for me. My hand still ached from where I’d braced myself, but I got to my feet and walked to the bedroom door. I stopped just outside. Inside, Clara was sleeping peacefully. Her long dark hair was fanned out across the pillow and a bare, muscular arm that was draped over her chest. The arm with the blue rose tattoo. For a moment, I thought I could smell it. A cloying, artificial fragrance emanating from his skin, filling the small room. I hesitated. Go in and wake her up? Or just turn around and walk out? Was I angry? Of course. The approved, masculine response would be to storm in, maybe throw a punch. But I knew, deep down, that what I felt most intensely wasn’t anger. It was a profound, hollowing grief. I lowered my eyes, took two steps back, and pulled out my phone. Then I sat down on the couch. And I called her. Years later, after she had tried and failed to win me back countless times, Clara would break down and scream at me, asking why I didn’t just confront her then and there. By that time, someone else had already answered the question for me. But I never told Clara the truth. The truth was this: from the moment I stood in that hallway and saw everything, my world had already redrawn its borders, and she was no longer inside them. She just didn’t know it yet. 3 Her personal ringtone—a silly, upbeat melody—played twice before she answered, her voice thick with sleep. “Hey, babe? What’s up?” In stark contrast to her lazy tone, I heard a sudden, frantic rustling from the room behind the wall. I had no energy for games. “Come out,” I said, my voice flat. Clara stammered, fumbling over the words as if she didn’t understand them. “Come… come out where? Babe, don’t mess with me. Oh, did you order food for me?” “I’ll be right there to get it—” “Come. Out.” A muffled yelp from the bedroom, then a low male voice complaining. “Shit, I hit my head…” The line went fuzzy as Clara covered the receiver. But the wall was thin, and I could hear her hissing at him to be quiet. She came back on the line, her voice artificially bright. “Babe, I’m actually out right now. Can I just grab it when I get home?” I didn’t say a word. I just raised my phone, switched to a video call, and aimed the camera at the shattered picture frame, the mess on the floor, the whole damning scene. Clara went silent. For several seconds, the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator. I repeated my command, my voice low and steady. “Come out. To the living room.” Clara always had a strong sense of accountability. It was one of the things I’d loved about her. In college, when our senior project went completely off the rails, she was the group leader. Without consulting any of us, she took the full blame. I stayed late with her, trying to help fix the mess, but it was a lost cause. Later, she found me on the athletic field, staring into space, and handed me a warm can of coffee. “It’s okay,” she’d said, her voice soft. “Don’t stress. Worst case, I’ll go back to the professor and take the hit. That’s what two shoulders are for, right?” Throughout our relationship, she was always the first to tackle a problem, to initiate the difficult conversation. Which is why I was so completely unprepared for the sight of her emerging from the bedroom, physically shielding the man behind her. I just stared. My heart, which had been numb, suddenly seized. A bitter, acidic wave of nausea and hurt washed through me. “Leo,” she said, her voice a fragile whisper. I didn’t answer. Seeing my gaze fixed on them, she instinctively moved to block him more completely, a mother animal protecting her young. The tall, lanky figure behind her was almost completely obscured. “He just drank too much,” she pleaded. “Don’t blame him.” “Leo, listen to me. Nothing happened. It was just…” Her voice twisted and warped, fading in and out as if I were hearing it from underwater. She was still trying to explain, to manage the situation, to fix it. All I felt was a violent surge of revulsion climbing from the pit of my stomach. I doubled over— And vomited all over the floor. 4 “Gross…” The guy flinched back, pulling at the leg of his jeans where some of the mess had splattered. He wrinkled his nose and complained to Clara. She had been reaching for me, but her hand froze in mid-air. She immediately turned her back on me, knelt, and began wiping his pants with a tissue she’d had in her hand. A dry, humorless laugh escaped my lips. I looked around for the tissue box. It had been moved. I finally spotted it on the far corner of the coffee table, near where she was kneeling. Out of my reach. I was about to get a napkin from my briefcase when the box slid across the table toward me. “Here.” The guy was leaning over Clara, one hand braced on her shoulder, his torso pressed against her back. He pushed the box in my direction. He pointed a single finger at my face. “You should wipe your mouth. Got some on your collar, too.” A smirk played on his lips, his eyes glinting with a clear, goading challenge. For a second, I couldn’t tell if he was this committed to fulfilling Aubrey’s mission, or if this was just who he was. A sudden yelp from him answered my question. He’d lost his balance, his lean frame toppling forward. Clara broke his fall, collapsing onto the floor with him landing squarely on top of her. To steady him, one of her hands gripped his shoulder, while the other pressed flat against his lower abdomen. I saw Clara’s lips part, her long lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. It took her a long moment to remember I was even in the room. When she finally pushed him off, a perfect, five-fingered imprint was visible on the taut muscles of his stomach. “It’s still dirty,” he whined. Clara scrambled to her feet and nudged him toward the bathroom. “Go on, wash it off.” He glanced from her to me, then bit his lip and reluctantly disappeared into the bathroom. Clara’s eyes followed him until the door clicked shut. Only when the sound of the shower started did she finally turn to me, rubbing her temples. “We need to talk,” she said. 5 “He was drunk.” Clara sighed, a heavy, exhausted sound. On the coffee table, a little yellow roly-poly toy wobbled back and forth, its painted smile mocking the silence. I waited, but she said nothing else. My eyes drifted to the exposed skin of her neck, to the bright red mark blooming just below her ear. I felt the corner of my mouth pull into a sneer. “And that’s your explanation?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. “He was so drunk that your hands were tied and you couldn’t push him away? So drunk that your mouth was glued shut and you couldn’t call 911?” I took a step closer. “He gets drunk, and you lose all ability to function?” “Clara,” I said, the name feeling like poison on my tongue. “If you slept with him, just say it. Stop with the performance.” Her face went rigid, a mask of sallow gray. Veins pulsed in her forehead. “Leo! We didn’t sleep together! Nothing happened!” she finally spat out, her voice raw. “Why do you always have to assume the worst in people?” Her stare was hot enough to burn holes in me. I laughed. “You mean, why do I see others as I see myself? That I’m the disgusting one, and you two are the saints here? Is that it?” “That’s not… that’s not what I mean.” Her voice faltered as the sound of the shower cut off. She propped her head in her hands and let out a long, shuddering breath. “He was heartbroken over a breakup. He drank way too much… and we only have one bed, so I let him sleep there.” “He started thrashing around in his sleep, so I was just sitting on the edge of the bed looking after him. I must have fallen asleep. I probably just rolled onto the bed by habit.” “Clara,” I interrupted, my voice devoid of all warmth. “There’s no couch in this apartment?” “And who the hell is he to you? So important that you have to personally tuck him in?” Just then, my phone buzzed again. It was Aubrey. She’d sent a video. The thumbnail showed her smiling next to a handsome, rugged-looking guy. As my thumb hovered over the play button, Clara finally answered. “He’s my cousin.” My head snapped up. “I’ve told you about him before. Ethan.” 6 The warm coffee cup touched the back of my hand, and I looked up to see Aubrey’s apologetic smile. At five-foot-three, she had to tilt her head up to meet my eyes. Her hair was curled softly, framing a face with delicate, willow-leaf brows and wide, sincere eyes. She looked completely harmless. “I’m sorry, Leo. The whole ‘testing your girlfriend’ thing was a bad idea.” I took the coffee, poking the straw through the lid. The rich scent of hazelnut filled the air. As I took a sip, Aubrey spoke again. “So, about that video I sent last week… Did Clara see it?” She paused, her eyes searching mine. “She wasn’t too mad, was she?” It took me a second to realize which video she meant. The one she and Ethan had sent as a joint apology. In it, he had raised a glass to the camera, looking envious. “Dude, a girl who turned down eighteen guys for you? You marry her! Girls like Clara are a rare find these days!” he’d said, a row of silver studs in his earlobe glinting under the bar lights. He winked. “My cousin’s a trust fund kid who likes to break things, but she hit a brick wall this time, haha. Don’t you pay her any mind, man!” In the video, Aubrey had just smiled sheepishly and admitted defeat. “She kicked a professional model out before he could even finish his sentence. I was starting to think she was allergic to men.” She’d shrugged. “Tall, short, fat, skinny… I tried every type. I’m out of ideas. Maybe she really is just crazy about you.” She’d raised her own glass. “A love like that is rare. I can admit I can’t compete. I wish you two a long and happy life.” My phone hadn’t been on silent that night. Every word had been perfectly clear to both of us. The video had started playing the second after she’d said the man in our bed was her cousin, Ethan. The look on her face had frozen instantly. Her expression shifted from defensiveness to a kind of horrified, contemptuous disbelief. “So, those men… you sent them to test me?” she’d whispered, her eyes narrowed. “No wonder. No wonder you were so upset.” She’d taken a breath, her composure returning as she found her angle of attack. “Don’t you have any fault in this? For doing something so invasive, so disrespectful? Were you ever once angry for me?” The irony was suffocating. I remembered all the times her friends had made crude, boundary-crossing jokes at my expense. When I’d mentioned it to her later, she’d just smiled placatingly. “Did they do anything really out of line?” she’d asked. And when I couldn’t point to a specific, egregious act, she’d shrugged. “That’s just how people are. We’re adults. Sometimes you just have to let things go.” I’d adjusted. I’d learned to believe it wasn’t a big deal. And now she was throwing the same accusation back at me. When I didn’t respond, she let out a quiet, sharp scoff. The tension in her shoulders vanished. “You’re disappointed, aren’t you, Leo?” she’d said, her voice dripping with scorn. “Disappointed you didn’t actually catch us in the act.” In that moment, a feeling even worse than nausea washed over me. It was a cold, alienating disgust. My jaw tightened. “So you think you and your cousin sleeping in the same bed is nothing?” Clara didn’t speak, but her expression screamed, Obviously. What else would it be? “Admit it, Leo,” she’d said, pressing her advantage. “Sending people to test me was wrong. The original sin was yours.” This time, it was my turn to be silent. The silence stretched until the clock on the wall struck midnight, and the custom alarm Clara had recorded for me years ago filled the room. Hey, genius! Midnight! Time to rest. You can’t change the world if you’re asleep at your desk! She’d recorded it in her dorm room back in our senior year, worried I was spending too many nights in the lab. For a split second, the woman before me vanished, replaced by the ghost of the girl who had shyly handed my phone back to me all those years ago, a secret smile on her face. The aluminum volume button felt cold against my thumb. I slowly lowered my head and turned the alarm off. When I looked up again, the clock read 12:01. I looked at Clara, my expression calm, and told her we were over.

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