Author: Momo Chan

A sudden fire broke out in the underground archives. My boyfriend of three years, Alfred, kicked away the fire extinguisher I was using to prop up a heavy steel bookshelf—all just to protect Vivian, an intern who had only sprained her ankle. “It’s just a stupid metal can. Don’t let it trip Vivian.” He carried Vivian in his arms, rushing out of the raging fire without once looking back. He left me pinned under a shelf weighing hundreds of pounds, suffocating in the thick, black smoke. I dragged myself out of the fire and spent three days and nights fighting for my life in the ICU. Meanwhile, he posted a photo on Instagram of Vivian eating imported organic cherries in a luxury private hospital room. The caption read: “A false alarm. Thank God I protected my girl.” He even stole the core architectural blueprints I had stayed up for three months to draw, using them to kiss up to the global architectural giant, “Asterion Group.” My coworkers mocked me, calling me a pathetic charity case with no family backing who deserved to be abandoned. Looking at the painkillers scattered all over the floor, I smiled coldly. They had no idea. The Asterion Group—the ultimate powerhouse they were all desperately trying to claw their way into—was actually owned by me.

The air in the underground archives was as thick and hot as boiling asphalt. An electrical fire had sparked an explosion. Within minutes, the narrow aisles between the bookshelves became a sea of flames. Choking black smoke clawed at my throat, making it impossible to breathe. I was pinned to the concrete floor by a row of collapsed heavy steel bookshelves. Hundreds of pounds of metal crushed my chest. Every single breath sent a sharp, agonizing pain through my broken ribs. The intense heat blistered my skin, and I could smell the sickening scent of my own hair burning. Less than ten feet away, through the shimmering waves of heat, I saw Alfred. For him, I had worked three jobs at once just to pay for his master’s degree. I had stayed up countless nights drawing blueprints to pave his career path, single-handedly turning him into a rising star in the architecture world. But right now, he didn’t even look at me. His entire attention was focused on the woman clinging tightly to his neck. Vivian, the new intern at our firm. She was the type who always wore innocent white dresses and spoke in a sweet, helpless voice. “Alfred… I’m so scared. The fire is too big. My ankle hurts so bad…” Vivian buried her face in Alfred’s chest, crying like a helpless victim. I could see her ankle. The one she claimed was “sprained” didn’t even have a scratch on it. But her tears completely wiped out any logic Alfred had left. “Don’t worry, Vivian. I’m here. I’ll get you out of here right now.” Alfred’s voice carried a tone of panic and tenderness I had never heard before. He swept Vivian up in his arms, cradling her like she was some priceless treasure. “Alfred…” I squeezed a broken, raspy plea out of my throat with the last of my strength. I reached out with a hand covered in black ash and blood, blindly searching the hot floor. I needed leverage. If I could just prop the shelf up by a few inches, I could crawl out. My fingers brushed against a cold, cylindrical object—a dry chemical fire extinguisher that had fallen off the wall. This was my only lifeline. I grit my teeth, ignoring the blinding pain, and slowly dragged the heavy red canister toward the edge of the shelf. “Alfred… help me…” I coughed up a mouthful of bloody phlegm, looking desperately at his back. Alfred heard me. He turned his head. For a split second, I thought he finally saw me. I thought he would put Vivian down and rush over to lift this damn shelf off my chest. But he only frowned. His eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated annoyance. Vivian followed his gaze, saw me, and suddenly let out an exaggerated, dramatic shriek. “Oh my God! Alfred! That red thing is blocking the way! I’m scared it’ll trip us!” Alfred looked down at the fire extinguisher I was desperately clutching—the tool that was supposed to save my life. He didn’t see a dying partner who had sacrificed everything for him. He only saw an obstacle that might trip the delicate little bird in his arms. Without a single second of hesitation, he raised his foot. He was wearing the custom leather shoes I had spent three months of my salary to buy him. Thud! Alfred kicked the fire extinguisher with full force. The red canister slipped from my fingers, rolling heavily across the concrete floor before disappearing into the deep flames. “It’s just a stupid metal can. Don’t let it trip Vivian. Useless trash.” Alfred threw those cold words over his shoulder, tightened his grip on Vivian, and stormed toward the emergency exit. He didn’t look back. Not even once. The fire extinguisher was gone. My leverage was gone. My only lifeline was cut off by the man I had loved for three years. The flames greedily licked the paper files around me, making a terrifying crackling sound. My vision began to blur. The oxygen in my lungs was completely gone. Right before I lost consciousness, I didn’t cry. I just stared blankly at the direction where Alfred had disappeared, carving his cold, heartless face deep into my soul. Alfred, if I, Valerie Padilla, survive today… I will make sure you taste what real hell feels like.

When I finally opened my eyes, the first thing that hit my ears was the sharp, rhythmic beeping of an EKG monitor. I squinted against the blinding, cold white light of the room. My throat felt like it was lined with razor blades. Every breath was excruciating. I was hooked up to multiple IV drips, and my chest was wrapped in thick, heavy bandages. I was alive. The hospital room was completely empty, smelling strongly of bleach and antiseptic. Alfred wasn’t there. A nurse pushed the door open. Seeing me awake, she let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, Miss Padilla! You’re finally awake! You suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning and multiple fractured ribs.” “You were in the ICU for three whole days. We even had to use the defibrillator on you. It’s a miracle you’re alive.” Three days and nights. I pulled the oxygen mask off my face, my voice sounding like sandpaper. “Who… brought me here?” The nurse looked at me with deep pity. “The firefighters. They found you pulled under the debris after they put out the fire.” “You weren’t breathing when they got to you.” It wasn’t Alfred. He hadn’t even called 911 to tell them someone was still inside. He hadn’t sent anyone to look for me. He had truly left me in that fire to die. “My phone…” The nurse took my cracked phone out of a plastic bag on the nightstand. I plugged it in and turned it on. Countless notifications flooded the screen, but not a single missed call or text was from Alfred. I opened our work group chat on WhatsApp. Rachel, a senior designer at the firm, had sent a voice note. Her tone was dripping with venom. “Honestly, we are so unlucky. Valerie is always so careless. How do you manage to start a fire just by looking for files in the basement?” “She almost got Alfred and Vivian killed!” Another coworker, Chris, immediately chimed in. “I know, right? I heard Vivian was traumatized. Her ankle is still swollen.” “Thank God Alfred risked his life to carry her out.” “As for Valerie, she made her bed, now she has to lie in it. She’s probably hiding in some corner too embarrassed to show her face.” I stared at the screen, my dry, cracked lips curling into a mocking laugh. I started the fire? I’m hiding because I’m embarrassed? I closed WhatsApp and opened Alfred’s Instagram. His latest post was from yesterday afternoon. The photo showed a luxurious VIP room in a private hospital. On the nightstand were expensive imported organic cherries and a massive bouquet of pink roses. Vivian’s hand, featuring a fresh, expensive manicure, was in the frame, holding a cherry. The caption read: “A false alarm. Thank God I was able to protect my girl when it mattered most.” “As for those who only cause trouble, I hope they learn to reflect on themselves.” My girl. Those who only cause trouble. A sharp, stabbing pain hit my chest—far worse than my broken ribs. But it lasted for only a second before it was entirely consumed by a cold, burning hatred. Three years. For three years, I worked three jobs, ate expired bread, and spent every penny to enroll him in the most expensive architecture seminars. I ruined my eyesight rewriting his blueprints so he could be the star of the firm. And in the end, my life wasn’t worth Vivian’s fake ankle pain. Suddenly, the door to my room was pushed open. Rachel and Chris walked in, carrying a cheap, sad-looking plastic fruit basket. Seeing me awake, surprise flashed across their faces, quickly replaced by their usual arrogant disdain. “Oh, look who’s awake. Valerie, you really are like a cockroach, aren’t you? Still alive.” Rachel slammed the fruit basket onto the nightstand and crossed her arms. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” “Do you know how many priceless paper archives the firm lost because of you?” I stared at her coldly, saying nothing. Chris rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at us like that.” “Alfred hasn’t slept in days because he’s been taking care of Vivian.” “Vivian has nightmares and cries every night because of you! And here you are, hiding in the hospital playing the victim.” “Playing the victim?” My voice was incredibly raspy. I slowly raised my arm, which was covered in IV lines and nasty red burn marks. “You call this… playing the victim?” Rachel sneered. “Cut the drama, Valerie. The doctor said you just inhaled a little smoke.” “Alfred said that once you’re discharged, you need to write a formal apology letter.” “You also have to publicly apologize to Vivian at the next all-hands meeting. Otherwise, consider your career in this industry over.” Apologize to Vivian? I stared at Rachel’s smug face. Suddenly, I snatched the cheap fruit basket from the nightstand and hurled it at the door with all my strength. Crash! The plastic basket shattered, and bruised apples and oranges rolled all over the floor. “Get out.” I stared at them, my eyes completely dead and cold. Rachel shrieked and jumped back, pointing a shaking finger at me. “Valerie! Have you lost your mind?!” “You’re just an orphan living off Alfred’s charity! How dare you tell us to get out?” “Alfred can get you kicked out of Los Angeles with a single phone call!” “I won’t say it again,” I said, my voice completely devoid of warmth. “Get. Out.” Maybe the sheer hatred in my eyes scared them. Rachel and Chris swallowed hard, shut their mouths, and slammed the door as they left. The room fell silent again. I leaned back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The naive, pathetic Valerie who begged for love had died in that thirty-nine-degree basement fire. The Valerie who survived was going to burn their lives to the ground.

It wasn’t until I was moved to a general ward the next day that Alfred finally showed up. He was wearing a perfectly tailored designer suit, his hair styled flawlessly. He still smelled faintly of the sweet, cloying perfume Vivian always wore. He stood by my bed, looking down at me. His brow was furrowed. There wasn’t an ounce of guilt in his eyes—only annoyance. “Stop acting so weak now that you’re awake,” he said. His first words were like poison. “The doctor said you’re out of danger. You made such a scene, Valerie. It’s embarrassing.” I looked at the face I used to adore, and a wave of intense nausea hit me. “A scene?” I asked quietly. “I was pinned under a steel shelf in a burning building. I spent three days in the ICU. And you call that a scene?” Alfred tugged at his tie impatiently. “Can you stop being so dramatic?” “The fire was huge, and Vivian sprained her ankle. Of course I had to save the weaker person first.” “Aren’t you always boasting about how tough you are? Why couldn’t you just climb out yourself?” “You had to stay inside and play dead. Are you trying to guilt-trip me into proposing to you?” He actually thought I stayed in the fire to force a proposal out of him. “Alfred,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. My voice was as quiet as a whisper. “When you kicked that fire extinguisher away, were you thinking the same thing?” Alfred’s face instantly froze. His pupils dilated, and he quickly raised his voice to cover his guilt. “What fire extinguisher? I didn’t see anything!” “The smoke was so thick! How could I see what was on the ground?” “Valerie, don’t you dare try to pin this on me!” “Really?” I picked up my phone and opened a video file. “The security cameras in the archives sync directly to the cloud in real-time.” “The camera eventually burned, but the high-definition footage from the first five minutes of the fire was saved perfectly.” Alfred’s face went dead white. He took a sharp step back. “You… you watched the footage?” His voice started to tremble. “I didn’t just watch it. I backed it up,” I said coldly. “I saw everything. I saw you look at me while I was pinned under the shelf. I saw you kick away the fire extinguisher I was trying to reach. And I saw you carry Vivian away without a single backward glance.” “The audio is very clear too, Alfred. Especially when you called me ‘useless trash’.” Alfred completely panicked. He rushed to the bedside, trying to grab my hand. “Valerie… it wasn’t like that… I was terrified.” “I didn’t realize you were trapped! I thought the canister was empty…” “Don’t touch me. You disgust me.” I slapped his hand away. I sat up, staring at the pathetic, hypocritical man before me. “Alfred, we’re done. We are over.” I thought saying those words would break my heart, but in this moment, I felt nothing but pure, intoxicating relief. Alfred stunned. A few seconds later, the panic on his face vanished, replaced by a arrogant, mocking sneer. “Over? Valerie, did the smoke damage your brain?” He shoved his hands into his pockets, returning to his usual condescending self. “You’re breaking up with me? You’re an orphan who had to take out massive student loans just to get through school. Without me, do you think you can even survive in LA?” “The only reason you have this job is because I fought the partners to get you onto the project team. You think you got here on merit?” He truly believed he was my savior. “And another thing,” Alfred leaned down, his eyes gleaming with greed and ambition. “Asterion Group’s ‘Sky City’ bidding process is about to wrap up. My design has already been selected as the number one finalist.” “Vivian’s father is a massive venture capitalist. He’s already agreed to invest ten million dollars in my startup.” “Once I land this multi-billion-dollar project, I’ll be made a senior partner immediately.” He pointed a finger at my face. “When that happens, even if you beg me on your knees, I won’t give you a second glance.” Sky City? I repeated the name in my mind, a dark smile playing at the corners of my lips. That design was mine. I had spent six months, pulled countless all-nighters, and rebuilt the model over a hundred times to perfect it. I had planned to give it to him on his birthday as a gift to help him get his foot in the door of the elite world. But while I was fighting for my life in the ICU, he had hacked my encrypted laptop, stolen my life’s work, and put his own name on it. “Great,” I said, looking at him like he was already dead. “I can’t wait to see you land ‘Sky City’.” Alfred sneered. “Crazy bitch.” He turned and strode out of the room, his posture radiating the confidence of a man who thought he was about to conquer the world. Once the door shut, I pulled out my phone. I dialed a number at the very bottom of my contact list—a number I had blocked for three years. It rang only once before a trembling, highly respectful voice answered. “Miss Padilla.” “Arthur,” I said, looking out at the glittering Los Angeles skyline. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “Send a car to pick me up. Also, notify the board of Asterion Group. My leave of absence is over. I am taking full control of the company tomorrow.” “Yes, Miss Padilla! But… how is your health?” “I’m not dead yet,” I replied, closing my eyes. “Have the legal department prepare a lawsuit against Alfred Miller for intellectual property theft and corporate espionage.” “And one more thing. I will personally chair the final bidding meeting for ‘Sky City’.”

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After my grad school application failed, my hands started shaking. My stomach burned with a constant, dull ache, and I couldn’t sleep for weeks. My boyfriend, Julian, told me I just needed to stay busy. He pushed me to apply for jobs. I lost twenty pounds before I finally landed an offer. But the night before my first day, Julian gave my job opportunity to his first love, Emily. “If Emily’s parents hadn’t given me the seed money for my startup, I’d still be broke,” Julian reasoned. “I would’ve never been able to help pay for your college tuition.” “We both owe her. Just let her have this one, Georgina.” From that day on, my emotions spiraled completely out of control. Sometimes I would laugh hysterically for no reason; other times I would sob until I couldn’t breathe. Later, I picked up my paintbrushes again. Only when I buried myself in colors did I feel like I was actually alive. Today, Julian walked up to me again, his face cold. “I called you for dinner three times. You ignored me every single time.” The noise in my ears began to screech. My chest tightened. I habitually reached out to grab my brush and paintbox, but my hands met empty air. He looked at me with an annoyed sigh. “Looking for that trash again? I threw it out. I burned your paintings too.” “Emily is the employee of the month now. She just won first place in sales, and she needs space for her trophy. She’ll throw a fit if there’s no room.” “Don’t be so dramatic. Once I’m done with this busy season, I’ll take you on a trip.” With trembling hands, I pulled open the cabinet. There were only faint stains of acrylic paint left. It was completely empty. Three years. Over a thousand paintings. All gone. At that moment, I felt something deep inside my soul die.

“Why do you look so awful?” Everything around me felt like it had been blurred a thousand times. I hesitated for a long time, only snapping out of it when Julian called my name for the third time. I forced a smile that felt more like a cry. “Oh. What’s wrong?” Julian frowned and reached out to touch my forehead. “Well, at least you don’t have a fever.” “The doctor told you to get out more. You just lock yourself in the house all day painting, and your depression isn’t getting any better.” I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton. So you burned my only lifeline in the name of ‘helping me’? “Look at Emily. She never overthinks things. That’s why she’s always happy.” “Cheerful girls always have good luck. You’re just too timid and weak.” A bitter wave washed over my heart. Someone like Julian, who had always sailed smoothly through life, would never understand. Without a loving family or a healthy body, how hard it was for someone like me to just survive. Seeing my eyes turn red, he threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. My bad. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” “Anyway, some friends and Emily are coming over for dinner tonight. A crowded house will be good for you.” After all these years together, Julian never remembered that I loved quiet. He never cared that I hated when he brought strangers into our home. Or maybe he did remember. He just didn’t care about me enough to bother. I opened my closet and picked out a faded dress. It was the most decent piece of clothing I owned. The doorbell rang, and plates of food were brought to the table. Emily, wearing the latest designer dress, sat right next to Julian at the head of the table. She laughed as she stabbed a wing with her fork. “These spicy Buffalo wings are amazing!” I sat in the farthest corner, quietly chewing on a small piece of dry bread. I was severely allergic to spicy food. Julian knew this from the day we met. Yet, for Emily, he still made a whole table of spicy dishes. After a few drinks, the conversation turned casual. “Emily is such an overachiever. She had straight A’s in college, and now she’s killing it at work.” “She’s already so successful, yet she still works so hard. How are ordinary people like us supposed to compete?” Emily smiled, raising her glass in mock modesty. “You guys are exaggerating. I just got lucky.” My heart was ripped to shreds. That job was supposed to be mine. Emily and Julian had literally stolen my life. “By the way, how is Georgina doing lately?” Emily suddenly looked at me, the mockery in her eyes barely concealed. “I remember back in school, your grades were always at the top of the class too.” Dozens of eyes focused on me like burning magnifying glasses. My mind went completely blank. “I… I…” Julian took over the conversation with a sigh. “Georgina is just resting at home. She’s sick.” He went into the kitchen and brought out a small plate, pushing it toward me. “I made baked potatoes just for you. No spice. Eat up.” Before I could even take a bite, I heard him sigh. “She worked so hard to get into a good college, but now she just lies around all day. I even have to bring her food to her face.” “She used to be so full of life. Now… I feel sorry for her.” Emily let out a dramatic, pitying sigh, her eyes lingering on my faded collar. “I remember Georgina used to love dressing up. Why are you dressed so… simple now?” Julian looked over, his voice laced with annoyance. “Seriously. Don’t I give you enough allowance every month? Why don’t you take care of yourself?” Before my condition got this bad, I had wanted to buy a new dress with the money I saved from my freelance work. But Julian had only given me a cold look. “You don’t even go out. There’s no point in buying pretty clothes. Save the money. We’ll need it later.” And now, he was embarrassed by me. My stomach churned violently. I grabbed my stomach and stood up abruptly. “I don’t feel well. Excuse me.”

The dining room immediately filled with whispers. “Is that the scholarship girl, Georgina? I heard she used to be the star student.” “Life is cruel. Such a bright girl, ending up like this.” Someone looked at Julian, trying to be kind. “Georgina must be really anxious. Julian, you should comfort her more. Make her happy.” “Yeah, the job market is brutal right now. Just let her rest for a while…” Julian frowned, slamming his fork onto his plate. “What? You guys think I’m treating her badly?” “No, that’s not what we meant—” He took a gulp of wine, his face darkening. “Since Georgina lost her job, she’s been home. I’m the one taking care of her, paying her medical bills, and taking her on trips to clear her head.” “I know how to love my wife. I don’t need you guys to tell me what to do.” “Today is Emily’s celebration dinner. Let’s not talk about other things.” Even strangers could see my worth and understand my pain, but Julian couldn’t. I let out a bitter laugh and closed my bedroom door. The laughter and noise from outside slowly swallowed me whole. When I opened my eyes again, Julian was shaking me awake. He snatched the pill bottle from my nightstand, shaking it. When he felt how light it was, his face turned pale with rage. “How many times do I have to tell you? Do not take this many sleeping pills at once!” “Do you really not care about your life at all?!” The angrier he got, the harder he kicked the nightstand. “You want to die that badly? Do you really think my heart won’t break?!” In all our years together, I had rarely seen him lose control like this. It felt like my childhood all over again—being screamed at, being helpless. My vision blurred, my body shook uncontrollably, and I couldn’t squeeze out a single word. Seeing me like this, Julian seemed to realize his mistake. “I’m sorry, Georgina. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” He went to the kitchen. Half an hour later, he came back with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. “This is your favorite. Eat slowly.” He blew on a spoonful of soup to cool it down, then fed it to me. “I was just so worried about you. Your health has been so bad, and taking that many pills… I was scared…” Looking at the guilt on his face, my heart ached with a dull pain. Julian’s love was like a wet wool coat. Wearing it made me freeze, but taking it off made me cold. I swallowed the soup, but I couldn’t taste a thing. “I’m fine. There were just too many people yesterday. I wanted a good night’s sleep.” He pulled me into a tight hug. “Emily was spoiled growing up, she doesn’t think before she speaks. I apologize for her.” “Tomorrow, once I wrap up my work, I’ll take you on a trip. Just the two of us. We’ll relax.” The next day, after we got off the plane, Julian covered my eyes. He said he was taking me to a beautiful place. My memories drifted back to the past. In college, he used to do this too. He was always bringing me good food and little gifts, giving me surprises. But when he took off the blindfold and I saw what was in front of me, my excitement shattered. “Georgina, don’t you love roses?” “We made it just in time for the rose valley bloom. This will make you happy, right?” I let out a hollow laugh. “Julian, we’ve been together for so many years. Have you ever once bought me a rose?” He froze. I was allergic to roses. The one who loved roses was Emily. “I’m sorry. I forgot.” He scrambled to explain, but I didn’t have the energy to listen. That suffocating, familiar wave of panic rushed over me again. My chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant fist. Julian reached out to hold me, but his phone rang. “Julian? I saw your Instagram post. Are you in town too?” He instantly pulled his hand back, his voice turning professional and polite. “Yes, Mr. Wilson. If you’re free, can I buy you lunch?” “Sure. I have a new project coming up, and I was thinking of giving it to you.” “Let’s meet at the downtown cafe at three this afternoon.” Then, the voice on the other end changed its tone. “By the way, how is that sick wife of yours?” “You used to take so much time off work just to nurse her.” “Take it from me, Julian. Emotional men don’t make it far in business. A burden like that… you should drop her when you need to.” Julian shot me a frustrated look. “Yeah, she is a drag. But what can I do? I love her, so I spoil her.” My brain was buzzing. In everyone’s eyes, because I was sick, I was a burden, a piece of societal trash. But no one saw how hard I tried to exercise every day, how much I read, how hard I tried to keep up. My entire struggle against my fate meant nothing to them. To Julian, it was a joke. All my bottled-up emotions exploded. I spoke up, my voice shaking. “Mr. Wilson, you might be a successful businessman, but that doesn’t give you the right to erase my hard work or show off your superiority over someone who is sick.”

Julian grabbed my shoulder hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? This is my client! Apologize to Mr. Wilson right now!” “Mr. Wilson, I’m so sorry. She has mental issues, please don’t mind her…” I wiped my tears and looked straight at Julian. “Julian, I have a mental illness, but that doesn’t mean I am useless.” “You work hard every day, but I’ve been running my online shop and doing freelance work too.” “I am contributing to our home!” “Why do you have to call me a burden?” The man on the other end of the line lost his patience. “Forget it, Julian. You can’t even manage your own wife. Don’t bother showing up for this project.” “You two can sort out your own mess. Don’t come this afternoon.” Julian tried to speak, but the call went dead. His eyes were terrifyingly red. He suddenly pushed me away with immense force. When I fell to the ground, he panicked and reached out to help me, but I flinched away. My knees were scraped, and blood was oozing out. But the pain in my chest was ten thousand times worse than my knees. Julian’s chest heaved. He finally pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you have any idea how many all-nighters I pulled for this project? How much overtime I worked? And you ruined it with one sentence.” He pointed at me, his voice piercing my ears. “Who hasn’t struggled? Emily drank three cups of coffee a day during exams. I lived on instant ramen when I started my business.” “Why didn’t we get depressed? You’re just drama!” “Don’t try to scare me with suicide anymore. Next time you want to die, do it somewhere else. Don’t dirty my house!” After that, Julian and I entered a cold war. He came home very late every day. He went straight to the study without even looking at me. On the coffee table in the living room lay a credit card. That was my monthly allowance. Other than that, we lived in two different worlds. No connection. Two weeks later, he stopped coming home altogether. During those days, my headaches grew worse. When people spoke, it sounded like they were shouting through thick glass. I even started forgetting what I had just read. A few times, I wandered to abandoned buildings, half-conscious, wanting to just jump and end it all. The day I stood outside the safety railing, a black-and-white stray cat ran over. It wrapped its tail around my leg. I thought, Maybe it doesn’t want me to die. So, I brought it home. I named him Phoenix. With Phoenix around, the days didn’t seem so unbearable. One day, Emily showed up at our house again. “Julian has been in a horrible mood lately.” “He won’t even reply to my texts. Did your pathetic, depressing self do this to him?” I ignored her insults and kept stroking Phoenix’s fur. She suddenly leaned in closer. “Have you ever wondered why you’ve tried everything for years but could never get pregnant?” “The supplements Julian gives you every month? They’re birth control pills. He’s terrified you’ll pass your crazy genes down to a kid.” My head went numb. I instinctively snapped back, “That’s impossible. Julian loves kids. Stop trying to mess with my head.” “Impossible? If you don’t believe me, go to the hospital and get tested. See if you can ever have kids in this lifetime.” The last bit of my self-delusion shattered. Seeing my pale face, Emily smiled triumphantly. “What was the point of getting good grades in school, Georgina?” “You’re still a nobody. Living like a piece of trash.” Before she could say another word, Phoenix suddenly pounced on her. “Get off me, you filthy beast!” Emily screamed, clutching her bleeding arm. Just as I picked Phoenix up, Julian walked through the door.

He had a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. Emily immediately threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “I was worried Georgina was depressed. I came to check on her, but she let her stray cat attack me!” “What if I get rabies?!” Julian already hated pets. Hearing this, his face darkened instantly. He snatched Phoenix out of my arms. “Georgina, I came back hoping to make things up to you.” “I didn’t realize you were this malicious. I am completely done with you.” “No wonder you failed your grad school application. People like you deserve to fail!” He raised Phoenix high above his head and threw him hard against the floor. A sickening splash of red and a sharp, choked cry exploded in front of my eyes. I watched Phoenix twitch, his little body slowly going completely still. It felt like my last thread of connection to this world had snapped. I stood frozen for a few seconds. Then, a huge rush of warm blood poured from my mouth. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Julian rushing toward me in a panic. “Georgina! Georgina, what’s wrong?!” “Call 911! Now!” When I woke up again, I was in the hospital. The whispered conversations around me made me feel like I was buried in ice. “She actually woke up. How does someone like that still have the nerve to live?” “Exactly. Real mental illness isn’t like this. She’s just faking it for sympathy. It’s disgusting.” With shaking hands, I pulled my phone from my pocket. It took three tries to type my passcode. I opened Instagram. #Abuser Georgina# #Faking Depression As A Fashion Trend# #Bipolar Or Just Evil# Several tags were trending. I clicked on the top post. Emily had posted my photo with a long caption. “This is my high school classmate, Georgina. She has always been paranoid and hostile.” “Lately, her behavior has been extreme. She abused her pet cat and drove her husband out of the house.” “She claims she has bipolar disorder because she failed her exams, but we all know she’s just a toxic person.” The attached photo was Phoenix lying in a pool of blood. The comment section had thousands of replies. “She’s giving actual depressed people a bad name. Can she just die?” “How could she do that to a cute little cat? Monster!” I wanted to defend myself, but my hands shook so badly I couldn’t even type. The screen blurred. Everything around me felt stretched out. What finally snapped me back to reality was a medical chart being slammed onto my bed. “Dr. Lucas, please calm down. Don’t waste your energy on someone like her.” “Calm down? I was the one who diagnosed her!” Dr. Lucas hissed, glaring at me with pure disgust. “I can’t believe I actually helped such a monster. I feel sick.” My phone kept buzzing. Emily had posted photos of my pill bottles, videos of my manic episodes, and all my personal information in the comment section. Soon, I was completely doxxed. People made memes out of my photos, and someone found my old school. My email was flooded with hate, and my DMs were a swamp of slurs. A text from an unknown number came through: “Julian knows about all of this.” “He told me to teach you a lesson. Don’t think just because you’re ‘sick,’ everyone has to bow down to you.” “Since you loved that beast so much, why don’t you go join it?” Looking at the words on the screen, a smile slowly spread across my face. She’s right. At 3:00 AM, I dragged myself to the hospital’s utility closet, a blind spot for the security cameras. I slowly pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills from my pocket. I opened it and poured all of them into my mouth. The pills, which used to taste bitter, now tasted sweet. As I closed my eyes, I thought I heard a faint meow. Phoenix, I’m coming to find you.

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Wayne and I had been fighting our divorce in court for a grueling six months. We had gone from the city’s golden couple—young, ambitious, and deeply in love—to a cautionary tale of bitter resentment. Thirty minutes before our third hearing was scheduled to begin, Wayne asked to meet. He was rubbing his temples, exhaustion etched into every line of his face. “It’s time to end this circus, Gwen. Cheryl can’t wait any longer.” “Name your price. Whatever it is, I’ll sign.” Before I could even open my mouth, his phone began to ring, shrill and demanding. He answered it, and a softness crept into his face—a gentle warmth he probably didn’t even realize was there. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. It’s just a matter of writing a bigger check.” “I’ll wrap this up soon. Wait for me at home, sweetheart.” I stared at the face that was once my home, now so utterly foreign. In that single, quiet moment, all the fight drained out of me. “Don’t worry about it.” “We’re done, Wayne. No more lawyers. I’ll sign the papers.” 1. The six-month legal battle ended not with a bang, but with a quiet surrender. The sudden settlement shocked everyone. After all, Wayne and I had been married for seven years. Fighting in court for half a year made people think we were just two stubborn souls who couldn’t let go, weaponizing the law because we couldn’t stop caring. The press had a field day. Wayne issued a perfectly polished, PR-approved statement: “I apologize for the distraction our personal matters have caused. While Gwen and I have officially finalized our divorce, we remain friends. I wish her nothing but the best in her next chapter.” My eyes lingered on the word “friends” for a long time. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. For Cheryl’s sake, Wayne had torn me to shreds more times than I could count. We could never be friends. We hadn’t even managed to salvage our dignity. Today was the kindest he had been in six months. After I gave him my answer, he sat on the plush leather sofa of the courthouse conference room for a long time, slowly stacking the negotiation folders he had prepared to use against me. “Since we’re settled, I’ll have my team draw up the final agreement,” he said. “I’ll leave you with twenty percent of the company’s shares as a settlement. And the penthouse downtown is yours.” He paused, running through a mental checklist to see if he had missed anything. Then, he stood up. Perhaps even he felt the negotiation had been jarringly fast. When he reached the door, he stopped and looked back. “Take care of yourself, Gwen.” I closed my eyes, offering him nothing but silence. Later that afternoon, my lawyer emailed over the settlement papers. A brief text followed the files: “The opposing counsel cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the grounds. A mutual, uncontested split. Under the terms, aside from the assets he personally transferred, the remaining marital property will be divided down the middle.” “Irreconcilable differences.” What a beautiful, sanitized way to package betrayal. I had still underestimated Wayne’s talent for keeping up appearances. My phone buzzed. A photo and a voice note appeared, sent from Wayne’s number. The photo showed my old desk at the office, all my personal belongings swept onto the floor. The voice note, however, belonged to a woman. “Hey, Gwen. I heard you’re finally leaving. Just thought I’d help you clear out some of this trash.” Cheryl. Her voice was sweet and melodic, with a lingering, childish lilt. It was the kind of voice men found impossible to resist. I tapped the microphone icon and replied, my voice deadpan and steady: “I may be resigning from my position, Cheryl, but I am still the largest individual shareholder of this firm. If I want to, I can have you thrown out on the street along with that trash.” The chat remained quiet for several minutes. When the next message popped up, it was Wayne’s voice, with Cheryl’s soft whimpering audible in the background. “Gwen, she didn’t mean any harm. Stop attacking her.” I didn’t bother to reply. I gathered my files, stood up, and walked out of the courthouse. As I got into my car, two more messages from Wayne flashed on my screen. Attached was a photo of a silver frame resting back on my desk. “The other stuff was old anyway, but I put this back. You should keep it.” Inside the frame was a photograph of the Northern Lights dancing over an arctic landscape. Years ago, during our first grueling year of building the business, he had printed it out and promised me: “The second we make it, Gwen, I’m taking you to the Arctic. We’ll take a photo just like this together.” Seven years had passed. Wayne had risen from a broke, struggling designer to the CEO of one of the city’s most talked-about public companies. Wealth and power were at his fingertips. But the trip to the Arctic was a promise he had buried long ago. Wayne was right about one thing, though. Old things belonged in the trash. Instead of replying, I tapped his profile and blocked his number. 2. I went to the office to finalize my exit paperwork with HR. As I reached for the brass handle of the office door, the voices of colleagues passing by stopped me cold. “Seven years of marriage, and she just walks away? What is Gwen acting so high and mighty about?” “Weren’t there rumors that someone cheated? Maybe it was her.” “Definitely. She probably got caught doing something behind Wayne’s back, which is why she settled so fast today.” “I heard Wayne even let her keep a chunk of shares. Honestly, he’s too good to her…” I stared down at my shoes, motionless. The HR director gave me an awkward, pained look. “Gwen… ignore them. They don’t know what they’re talking about.” I knew exactly what they were talking about. And I knew exactly who had planted those seeds. To pave a clean path for Cheryl’s arrival, to shield his precious little girl from public scrutiny, Wayne had thrown me to the wolves. He had made me the villain in his narrative. Sensing my silence, the HR director tried to soften the blow. “Everyone knows how much you loved Wayne. You built this company with him from the ground up when you guys had nothing. We all used to talk about how perfect you two were. They’re just gossiping. I’ll make sure their manager has a word with them.” I fell into a deeper silence. I had been willing to endure the lean, exhausting years with Wayne because he used to love me fiercely. Back then, he would insist on buying me the finest winter coat while refusing to replace his own tattered jacket. He remembered every milestone—our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, even the small, silly monthly anniversaries—while consistently forgetting his own birthday. Our wedding had been a modest affair in our small hometown, but he had spent every penny he had to make it beautiful. He always gave me the absolute best of whatever he had to offer. That was why, on our last anniversary, under the dim, romantic restaurant lights, as he stared at the little sugar figurines kissing on top of the cake and asked, “Gwen, do you honestly think this life we’re living is still worth it?”—the blow had been so crippling. I had refused to let go. I had wagered our entire history on the belief that he still loved me. I played that losing hand until we dragged each other down, turning into bitter strangers who couldn’t stand the sight of one another. I held on until he started trying to buy my exit with checks and stock options. Only then did I let myself face the truth. Pulling myself out of the memory, I shook my head at the HR director and threw open the door. The whispering employees xinstantly froze, lowering their heads in a rush of panic. But their terror wasn’t directed at me. They were looking past my shoulder, down the long corridor, where Wayne and Cheryl were walking side by side. 3. Cheryl walked a half-step behind Wayne, a brand-new ID badge pinned to her chest: “Creative Director.” The very title I had resigned from only an hour ago. She held a thick portfolio, flipping through the pages with obvious awkwardness. Wayne leaned in occasionally, patiently explaining the terms of the project to her. Oliver, Wayne’s executive assistant, walked behind them. Though he maintained a polite smile for Cheryl, the sheer exhaustion and irritation in his eyes were barely concealed. When he saw me, he froze. “Gwen.” At the sound of my name, Wayne stopped and looked up, the words dying on his lips. Cheryl immediately shrank back, her eyes welling with tears as if on cue. “Oliver, I know you don’t like me,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “But Gwen has officially resigned. It’s really not appropriate to address her that way anymore, is it? Besides, wasn’t her departure due to her own personal choices? Taking your frustration out on me is really unfair…” She emphasized “personal choices” with delicate spite. The gossiping employees exchanged knowing looks, their suspicions instantly validated. Oliver stood there, open-mouthed, utterly speechless. I folded my resignation slip and slipped it into my pocket, my tone perfectly conversational. “Oliver was just being polite, Cheryl. Why the dramatic reaction? And for the record, I never stated my reasons for resigning. Your creative little rumors are actually quite bothersome to me.” Cheryl’s face paled, and she opened her mouth to shoot back, but Wayne stepped in front of her, gently but firmly cutting her off. He looked at me, his eyes scanning my face. “It’s my fault,” he said quietly. “Let me know when you’re free. I’d like to host a proper farewell dinner for you. You’ve given years of your life to this place. Your contribution matters.” I smiled, a cold, empty thing. “Don’t bother. If I’d known anyone off the street could do this job, I wouldn’t have worked myself to the bone for seven years.” Wayne’s expression tightened. I didn’t care to watch the regret settle on his face, so I turned and walked away. Outside, a light drizzle was falling. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, a sudden wave of memory washing over me. It had been on a rainy afternoon just like this one that the last threads of our marriage had finally snapped. I had been working at my desk until 1:00 AM, my blood sugar crashing so hard I was shaking. I called Wayne, hoping he could bring me a sandwich. But when the call connected, a woman’s voice answered. That was the first time I tore down the polite facade I had fought so hard to maintain. I screamed into the phone, my voice cracking. “Why is she answering your phone? How dare you let some girl humiliate me like this? Wayne, what is wrong with you?” A long, agonizing silence stretched across the line before his voice finally came through—not with an apology, but with a heavy, exhausted sigh. That sigh froze the blood in my veins. “I’ll have Oliver drop off some food,” he said, sounding infinitely tired. “Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, we need to talk about a divorce.” I sat in the darkened, empty office, shivering from the cold and the shock. “On what grounds, Wayne? Don’t you dare forget that we built this firm together. You don’t get to—” He cut me off with quiet, brutal efficiency. “Gwen. If it weren’t for me, no agency in this city would have ever hired a designer with a black mark on her record.” The breath left my lungs. Every word died in my throat. Years ago, a prominent industry figure had accused me of copying his work after our concepts overlapped. My agency at the time fired me to save face, cementing my reputation as a plagiarist. I was blacklisted overnight. With nowhere to go, Wayne—who was actively pursuing me back then—stepped in. He told me he believed in me, that genius shouldn’t be stifled by industry politics. I had fallen for him completely, naive and desperate enough to believe he would always be my savior. Over the six months of our divorce proceedings, my authority at Vanguard was systematically stripped away. The designers I had mentored and trained were reassigned. The Creative Director position wasn’t just handed to Cheryl; Wayne had to clear-cut my entire department to build a path for her. My resignation hadn’t been a choice; it was an eviction. “Gwen!” Oliver’s voice broke my thoughts. He had run out after me, holding an umbrella. He offered it gently. “Wayne wanted you to have this. The steps are slick. Get home safe.” I smiled at him, but shook my head, stepping past the umbrella and directly into the cold, gray rain. I had survived hurricanes with Wayne. A little drizzle wasn’t going to break me. 4. To my surprise, a video of our hallway confrontation leaked online that very evening. Within hours, threads dissecting the tension between Cheryl and me began trending on social media. Initially, the speculation leaned toward Cheryl being the homewrecker who ruined my marriage. But by midnight, a highly polished “analysis” video alleging my own infidelity went viral. It laid out a terrifyingly detailed timeline of my daily movements, social circles, and meetings over the past six months. The level of detail was intimate and precise. Instantly, the public narrative flipped, and a tidal wave of vitriol crashed over me. I watched the video from start to finish. The timestamps and locations were accurate, but the commentary was pure, malicious fiction. There was only one person in the world who had access to my schedule with that kind of terrifying accuracy. I dialed Wayne’s personal cell, but it wasn’t his voice that answered. “Still calling your ex after the papers are signed? You really have no shame, do you, Gwen?” Cheryl spat, dropping her sweet act entirely. “Is the internet not dragging you hard enough? Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Her venomous tone was a far cry from the fragile girl she played in front of Wayne. “I’m recording this call, Cheryl,” I replied, my voice completely flat. “And since you’re so fond of public fabrication, look out for a defamation suit.” “You—” I hung up before she could finish. I checked the forums again. The frenzy was building. I clicked on the profile of the anonymous account that had posted the analysis video, and sure enough, thirty minutes after my call with Cheryl, they posted an update. This time, they painted me as a pathological liar and a serial cheater. They dredged up the decade-old plagiarism scandal, exposing the black mark on my career to the entire internet. The comment section became a feeding frenzy. “Oh, she’s that plagiarist from back in the day. Once a thief, always a thief. First she steals art, now she’s sneaking around behind her husband’s back.” “She owes her entire career to Wayne, and this is how she repays him? Talk about ungrateful.” “You can see it in her face. If she’s dishonest enough to steal work, she’s dishonest enough to cheat.” Reading the comments, I felt a familiar, cold dread, dragging me back to the helpless girl I had been ten years ago. With shaking fingers, I opened my messaging app, found the pending contact request Wayne had sent two days ago, and accepted it. I typed: “Did you leak my schedule to that account, Wayne?” His reply came almost instantly. “Gwen, you’re the largest shareholder of Vanguard now. You have more than enough money to disappear and live comfortably. Cheryl is just starting out here. I cannot let her reputation be ruined before she even begins.” I took a ragged, trembling breath. “You know damn well I never plagiarized that work.” The blinking dots appeared and disappeared for a long minute. Finally: “Nobody cares about the details of a ten-year-old rumor, Gwen. Let it blow over. Stop being so bitter about it.” Ten years ago, Wayne had held me in his arms and whispered, “Even if the whole world turns its back on you, I will always believe in you.” Today, he told me the truth didn’t matter. Staring at his words on the screen, the final, pathetic shred of hope I had been harboring withered away. Right then, my doorbell rang, sharp and relentless. Looking through the peephole, I saw a crowd of reporters packing the hallway, cameras aimed squarely at my door. Their voices muffled through the wood: “Gwen! Wayne just released a statement denying any involvement with Cheryl. Do you have a comment?” “Are the cheating allegations against you true?” “Gwen, can you address the rumors regarding your past plagiarism scandal?” A notification banner popped up on my phone—a massive wire transfer from Wayne’s personal account, captioned simply: “Settlement.” I took a long, deep breath and locked my phone. I reached for the door handle and pulled it open. The hallway erupted into a blinding storm of camera flashes. I stepped right into the glare, forcing a calm, polite smile onto my face. “Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Gwen.”

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Melody’s mother stole my father, and in doing so, she killed my mother. Years later, history decided to repeat itself. The boy I grew up with, the one who had been by my side for eighteen years, lied to my face. Behind my back, he spent his evenings helping Melody with her college applications, even gifting her the limited-edition vintage vinyl I had begged him to find for me. And when Melody hacked into my college portal and withdrew my Ivy League acceptance, replacing it with a local community college, he actually defended her. “Melody didn’t mean any harm, Caroline,” he pleaded. “She was just playing a practical joke on you.” But there was nothing funny about it. 01 Just days before the final college decision deadline, I experienced a violent, inexplicable tear in time. I was hurled ten years into the future. I saw myself. I saw a girl who had scored a 1550 on her SATs now limping on a shattered right leg, her hair unwashed and tied back with a fraying rubber band, busing tables at a greasy diner. Meanwhile, my stepsister Melody had graduated from an elite university, married my childhood sweetheart, Connor, and given birth to a picture-perfect pair of twins. I remember the blood draining from my face. “How did this happen?” My twenty-eight-year-old self offered a hollow, broken laugh. “Melody changed my college portal. By the time I found out, the deadline had passed. It was too late.” “Dad and Connor both took her side. They said she didn’t do it maliciously, that it was just a prank, that I needed to take a joke.” “But I couldn’t swallow the injustice. I confronted her. We fought at the top of the stairs, and she threw herself backward, framing me. Dad… Dad wanted to teach me a lesson. He hired the best prosecutors to press aggravated assault charges and let me rot in a juvenile detention center for six months.” “Connor promised he’d wait for me. But the day I got out, I found them tangled up in his bed.” “I snapped. I grabbed a kitchen knife. I hurt them both.” “That time, Connor hired the most ruthless defense attorney in the state to ensure I got the maximum sentence. Five years.” Her words were like lightning striking the base of my skull. My whole body went rigid. I heard my own voice trembling as I fought back: “No. That’s impossible. Connor and I grew up together. He loves me. He promised he’d protect me for the rest of my life.” “He knows how much I despise Melody and her mother. He would never help them destroy me.” The older version of me stared back, her eyes rimmed with red. She looked down at her ruined, asymmetrical leg. “Why wouldn’t he? People change, Caroline.” “Even this leg… Connor paid off one of the guards in lockup to look the other way while an inmate took a metal pipe to my knee.” She jerked her head up, her gaze fierce and desperate. “Caroline, listen to me. If you don’t want to lose your future, if you don’t want to become a convicted felon scrubbing grease off diner tables, wake the hell up! Stop letting Connor play you for a fool!” The sheer magnitude of the information hit my brain like a physical blow. The world tipped on its axis. The next second, I collapsed onto the hardwood floor. When I opened my eyes, the sterile, chemical scent of hospital bleach flooded my lungs. “Caroline, thank God, you’re awake!” Connor was sitting by the edge of my hospital bed. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around my left hand, his dark eyes wide with unfeigned panic and concern. “You passed out in your room last night. You scared the life out of me!” 02 I lay there, perfectly still, just looking at him. Unbidden, a memory surfaced. Eighth-grade field trip to the state park. I had wandered off the trail and gotten hopelessly lost. It was Connor who spent three hours searching for me in the dying light. His shins were sliced up by thorny brambles, but he still insisted on carrying me on his back the whole way down the mountain because I was too paralyzed by fear to walk. I thought of my fourteenth birthday. My father had thrown a massive, catered backyard gala for Melody—who happened to share my exact birthdate—and completely forgot about me. I had hidden in the darkness of my closet, clutching a framed photograph of my mother to my chest, crying until I couldn’t breathe. It was Connor who opened the closet door. He was holding a lopsided, home-baked cupcake with a single lit candle, looking at me like a knight who had finally found his charge. “Happy birthday, Caro.” “Don’t be scared. You’re not alone. I’ll be here for every birthday, for the rest of your life.” I thought of all the times Melody had tried to insert herself into his orbit. In the dead of winter, she had spent weeks knitting him a gray scarf. Connor hadn’t even given it a second glance before tossing it into the cafeteria trash can. Melody’s eyes had welled up with those trademark tears, but Connor’s voice was like ice: “Don’t waste your time. I will always stand with Caroline.” “You and your mother destroyed her family. That makes you my enemy, too.” Then, another memory. Melody’s mother, Valerie, ‘accidentally’ knocking my mother’s vintage Cartier watch off my dresser, shattering the delicate glass face. Blinded by grief and rage, I had thrown a glass of ice water right in Valerie’s face. Valerie was a master of the victim act. She instantly collapsed into my father’s arms, weeping. “I was just trying to help Caroline tidy her room. I didn’t mean to bump the dresser. She misunderstood… she thinks I did it on purpose.” “Richard, please, don’t be mad at her.” Her calculated retreat only made my father more protective of her. He turned to me, his eyes devoid of any paternal warmth. “Caroline Ellis, who taught you to act like such a savage? Apologize to your mother, right now!” I tipped my chin up, my throat tight. “I only have one mother. Valerie is just a cheap homewrecker.” The slap echoed through the hallway. My father struck me so hard my ears rang. “I have spoiled you for too long. You have zero respect!” As punishment, he forced me to stand in the freezing mudroom for twelve hours. No dinner. No water. No sitting down. My legs shook. I was lightheaded from hunger. It was Connor who shimmied up the trellis and crawled through the mudroom window, pulling a bag of warm, sugar-dusted apple cider donuts from his jacket. I ate them through my tears, and he wiped my cheeks with his thumbs, his own face twisted in sympathetic agony. “Don’t cry. Once we graduate, we’re going to college in Boston. We’ll get as far away from them as possible.” “I’ll be your family from now on. I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you.” It never surprised me that my father chose Melody over me. But Connor? Connor, who looked at me like I hung the moon? How could he ever betray me for her? I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe the vision of my twenty-eight-year-old self was just a stress-induced nightmare. I tried to self-soothe. But reality was waiting to deliver its own slap to the face. 03 Before we checked out of the hospital, Connor ran down to the pharmacy on the first floor. I watched him walk back into the room, holding a small paper bag. “Are you getting a cold?” I asked, confused. He froze. A heavy silence stretched between us before he hesitated, shifting his weight. “It’s not for me. It’s for Melody.” “She texted a few minutes ago saying she was running a fever, so she asked me to pick up some meds.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. The terror of my nightmare flooded my veins, making my skin prickle. I couldn’t stop the barrage of questions. “Why are you buying medicine for Melody? Since when do you two text? Since when are you close?” “Do you have feelings for her? When did this start?” Seeing my escalating panic, Connor quickly set the bag down and reached for my shoulders. “Caro, stop overthinking. How could I ever like Melody?” “You’re the only one I care about. But Melody… Melody saved my life. I’m just repaying a debt.” I recoiled. “She saved your life? When? Why don’t I know about this?” Connor finally confessed the secret he had been keeping for months: “Two months ago, I was walking back from a party. I was crossing the street, and a drunk driver blew a red light. I didn’t see it coming.” “If Melody hadn’t shoved me out of the way, I would have been the one with a shattered femur.” I knew Melody had been injured. Of course I did. But I had no idea she had broken her leg saving Connor. Suddenly, everything clicked. It made sense why, despite missing the final two months of senior year and being confined to a hospital bed, Melody had seemed completely unfazed. She was constantly posting bubbly updates on her Instagram stories. Her favorite captions were always: “My favorite private tutor is here again! I’m so spoiled! <3" "Look at the limited-edition vinyl my tutor hunted down for me! Best day ever!" I had never visited her in the hospital, so I had never seen this "tutor." I assumed my dad had hired some grad student to keep her grades up. But looking back, during that exact same period, Connor had stopped walking me home from school. "Caro, my grandma isn't feeling well. I have to go to the estate and check on her. I can't walk you home today." I knew how much Connor loved his grandmother. I never questioned it. I even bought her expensive teas and sent them with him. Was it all a lie? Hot tears welled in my eyes. I looked at the boy I thought I knew better than anyone. "So... the 'tutor' was you. And the person who gave her that vinyl record was you. Wasn't it?" I had wanted that record for a year. It was nearly impossible to find. I had begged Connor to help me track it down. He had tapped his chest confidently and said, "Leave it to me. Have I ever let you down?" Two weeks later, he handed me a generic, newly pressed album. "I'm sorry, Caro. The vintage one is completely sold out. I called every collector I know." But he had found it. He just gave it to Melody instead. 04 Seeing my tears, panic flared in Connor’s eyes. He scrambled to explain himself. "Caro, please don't cry. I swear to you, I'm only nice to her because I owe her my life." "I know how much you hate her. I was terrified that if you found out, it would mess with your head right before finals. That's why I asked everyone to keep it a secret." I fought to keep my voice from shaking. "If you were going to lie to me, why couldn't you just keep lying?" He looked miserable, rubbing the back of his neck. "Melody... she wants to apply to the same colleges in Boston as us." "She’s timid. She’s terrified of being in a new city where she doesn't know anyone and getting bullied. She thinks if I’m there, she’ll have someone to look out for her." "She literally took a car for me, Caro. I couldn't say no..." "Just... do it for me, okay? Can you just try to co-exist peacefully with her from now on?" He couldn't say no to Melody, so his solution was to demand that I compromise. The audacity was suffocating. "Valerie drove my mother to an early grave. And you want me to play nice with the daughter of my mother's replacement? Do you hear how insane you sound?" I was thirteen when my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Valerie couldn't even wait for the body to get cold. She showed up at our front door, dragging Melody behind her. The sickest part? Melody was born on the exact same day, in the exact same year, as me. That was how my dying mother found out my father had been living a double life since the day I was born. The betrayal broke what little spirit she had left. She coughed up blood and passed away less than a month later. Three months after the funeral, my father moved Valerie into the master bedroom. Connor knew all of this. He held my hand through the funeral. And yet, here he was, twisting himself into knots to defend Melody. "You can't choose how you're born, Caroline. The sins of the parents aren't Melody's fault." "She's not like her mother. She's sweet. She's kind." "She has never once tried to hurt you. She’s always bending over backward, trying to get you to like her." "You need to learn to let things go. You can't live in this toxic bubble of hatred forever." As I watched Connor advocate for Melody, the warmth in my chest died out, inch by agonizing inch. The image of my twenty-eight-year-old self—limping, wiping down a greasy table, dead-eyed and broken—flashed behind my eyelids with terrifying clarity. Suddenly, the boy standing in front of me felt like a stranger. A dangerous stranger. I instinctively took a step back. "I need to be alone. Do not follow me." I needed space to think. Of course, Connor didn't listen. He followed me out of the hospital, but perhaps sensing my absolute disgust, he maintained a strict fifteen-foot distance all the way back to my house. 05 I walked through the front door of my house and pushed open the door to my bedroom. There was Melody, sitting in my desk chair, typing away on my laptop. The words from my future self—Melody changed my college portal—screamed in my head. My pulse spiked. I lunged forward and shoved her away from the desk. "Who gave you permission to touch my computer?" Melody stumbled and fell gracefully to the carpet, immediately playing dumb. "Sister, you're misunderstanding. I would never mess with your applications!" "My laptop crashed, and I just needed to look up some research material." She lowered her eyelashes, a perfectly timed tear slipping down her cheek. "I'm sorry. I forgot how much you despise me. I promise I'll never touch your things again." I didn't have the energy for her Oscar-worthy performance. I slid into the chair, pulled up the Common App portal, and checked my submissions. Thankfully, I had walked in just in time. She hadn't managed to alter anything yet. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. But when I looked up, Connor was standing in the doorway, helping Melody up from the floor. He was glaring at me with open disapproval. "Her leg is barely healed, Caroline. How could you be so aggressive?" "You're out of line. You owe her an apology." I stared at him, incredulous. "She was sneaking onto my laptop without asking. If she falls, she deserves it." Connor’s brow furrowed deeply. "Why are you being so bitter? It's like I don't even know who you are anymore." His reflexive instinct to protect her over me was the final nail in the coffin. It confirmed everything. Last night wasn't a hallucination. It was a premonition. In the not-so-distant future, Connor would absolutely destroy me for Melody’s sake. But I wasn't going to stick around and play the naive victim. I swallowed the sharp, acidic ache rising in my throat and met his gaze. "I am bitter. If you don't like it, then let's break up." His face drained of color. He looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Are you seriously throwing a tantrum and threatening to break up just because I called you out?" Melody clung to his arm, pretending to be the peacemaker, though she was clearly pouring gasoline on the fire. "Sister, please. Connor loves you so much. He does everything for you." "Every time you two fight, he's always the one who swallows his pride to apologize." "If you shed a single tear, he beats himself up for days." "You might be throwing a tantrum, but you shouldn't use your relationship as a weapon. Aren't you afraid of breaking his heart?" Connor looked at me, a profound disappointment settling over his features. "You're acting like a spoiled brat, Caro." "Just because I usually let you get away with murder doesn't mean I don't have my limits." "Let's just take some space. Don't call me until you've calmed down and realized how ridiculous you're being." With that, he wrapped his arm around Melody’s waist and helped her out of my room. Watching his retreating back, a profound wave of sorrow washed over me. My future self was right. People change. No matter how much Connor used to cherish me, Melody was now the priority. From this day forward, we were on different paths. I blinked back the stinging in my eyes, turned to my computer, and made a calculated, cold decision. I logged in and changed my binding enrollment from Boston to UC Berkeley in California. If he wanted to play house with Melody in Boston, he could have her. I was officially opting out. To ensure she couldn't try anything again, I changed my portal password. I had always used Connor’s birthday—it was entirely possible Melody had guessed it. Finally, I pulled a suitcase from my closet and began packing. I booked a room at a boutique hotel downtown. I refused to spend another night under the same roof as Melody. Who knew what kind of sociopathic stunt she’d pull next? This time, I wasn't going to prison. I was escaping the Ellis family. I was starting over. 06 Carrying my suitcase downstairs, I had to walk past Melody’s bedroom. The door was left ajar. Inside, she was sitting on the edge of her mattress, her skirt hiked up to her knees. Connor was kneeling on the floor in front of her, gently massaging her calf muscles. "Is that feeling any better?" he asked softly. Melody’s ears flushed pink. She nodded shyly. "The pain is fading. Thank you." Connor smiled, a soft, indulgent expression I used to think belonged only to me. "You don't have to thank me. You took that hit for me. It's the least I can do." Melody looked down, her expression steeped in manufactured guilt. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault you and my sister fought." "Maybe I should just go to a state school here. I don't want to be the reason your relationship falls apart." "If I get bullied in college, well... that's just my fate. I'll endure it." Connor squeezed her knee comfortingly. "You're not changing your plans. I promised I'd look out for you, and I keep my promises." "None of this is your fault. Caroline is just being irrational." "I guess I spoiled her too much. She thinks the world revolves around her." "Maybe Wyatt was right. I need to leave her out in the cold for a while so she learns how to behave." Wyatt. Connor’s arrogant, old-money best friend. Wyatt had always hated me. If Connor helped me with a project, Wyatt called me lazy. If we went to a diner and I meticulously picked the green onions out of my soup because I loathed the taste, Wyatt called me high-maintenance. If Connor lost track of time playing video games and missed my call, and we argued about it, Wyatt called me a controlling bitch. He was constantly in Connor’s ear, telling him he could do better, urging him to dump me. But back then, Connor would always shove him and shoot back: "Shut the hell up. Caro isn't high-maintenance, she knows what she likes. It's cute." "If she's mad at me, it's because I messed up. It's not her fault." "You're just a miserable single guy who’s jealous of what we have. Stay out of it." That Connor—the fiercely loyal, deeply devoted boy who would fight anyone who spoke ill of me—was dead and gone. The Connor sitting on the floor was Melody’s knight in shining armor. It was impossible not to grieve. We had shared eighteen years of life. Eighteen years of inside jokes, shared trauma, and quiet promises. Detoxing from him was going to hurt like hell. My nose burned. I forced myself to look away, gripped the handle of my suitcase, and walked out the front door without looking back. 07 I lived in the downtown hotel for two weeks. I didn't hear a word from Connor. But I saw plenty of him on Melody’s Instagram. He took her to the summer carnival, riding the vintage carousel—my favorite ride. He went shopping with her to pick out a dress for graduation. He stood in line for two hours outside Rosenberg's to buy her a fresh, warm box of pastries. He even took her to our spot. The stargazing hill overlooking the valley. Whenever the grief over my mother became too much, Connor would drive me up there, roll out a blanket, and we’d watch old movies on his iPad under the stars. In the photo Melody posted, a romantic comedy was playing on a tablet. Connor was leaning back against the hood of his car, looking relaxed. Melody was leaning into his space, pressing a kiss to his cheek. So this was his version of "repaying a debt." I stared at the photos. I scrolled through them obsessively, almost masochistically, etching the reality of their intimacy into my brain. It was a form of exposure therapy. And it worked. The agonizing, breathless pain in my chest slowly dulled, hardening into a cold, flat indifference. ... Once I felt like I could breathe again, I texted a friend and agreed to meet up at a lounge downtown. I was walking down the dimly lit hallway toward the restrooms when someone bumped roughly into my shoulder. I stumbled, my heels catching on the carpet, and nearly went down. A hand shot out and caught my elbow, steadying me. "Thanks," I muttered, looking up. I froze. Connor was standing there, looking down at me with an amused, patronizing smirk. "See? You still need me to catch you." His tone was incredibly casual, as if the last two weeks of silence and betrayal had never happened. "Admit it, Caro. You can't survive without me." My face remained entirely impassive. I pulled my arm out of his grip. "Don't flatter yourself. I'd be perfectly fine without you." Connor raised an eyebrow. "You're seriously still holding a grudge? Two weeks later?" "Caro, why are you so stubborn? Would it physically kill you to just back down once?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling heavily like a weary parent offering a truce. "Fine. You win. I surrender." "Let's just say I was wrong, okay? Let's make up. Stop giving me the silent treatment." "We've never gone more than a week without seeing each other since we were kids. I actually missed you." He reached out to pinch my cheek, a fond, easy smile spreading across his face. "I don't know why you're fighting this. You look like you've lost weight since I stopped coming around." "When you're done here, I'll drive you to that late-night diner. We'll get pancakes." It was painfully obvious. He hadn't taken my breakup seriously at all. He genuinely believed this was just an extended pout. I slapped his hand away. My voice was glacial. "Do not touch me. We are broken up." "I lost weight because it's ninety degrees outside and I haven't had much of an appetite. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. Stop being so narcissistic." Seeing that his charm offensive was failing, Connor’s smile vanished, replaced by a cold edge. "Caroline, enough is enough." "I'm handing you an olive branch. How much longer are you going to drag this out?"

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “512306”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Taking my three-year-old daughter to the office. I thought the biggest disaster would be her smashing a coworker’s coffee mug. Instead, a coworker snapped a photo of her next to our billionaire CEO and dropped it in the company group chat. Three hundred employees. Three seconds of dead silence. And then, absolute chaos. To make matters worse, my daughter threw herself into the CEO’s arms and cheerfully yelled, “Daddy!” Meanwhile, my actual husband was at home scrolling through his phone. You want to guess what he reached for first? The carving knife, or the rolling pin? 1 My name is Laura, and for the last three years, I’ve been a marketing coordinator at Apex Group. Just your average corporate drone: a modest paycheck, one husband, one daughter, and a mortgage that keeps us on a tight budget. Life was modest, but it was ours, and it was peaceful. Until today. Out of nowhere, the daycare sent an emergency alert. A water main had burst, and they were shutting down for at least three days. My husband, David, was working an on-call shift he absolutely couldn’t get out of. My parents live halfway across the country, and his parents were out of state. I turned the options over in my head until I ran out of them. There was no backup plan. Gritting my teeth, I realized I had only one choice: I had to bring our three-year-old daughter, Zoe, to the office with me. Before we left the house, I knelt down, looking Zoe straight in her big, trusting eyes. “Zoe, listen to Mommy. We’re going to Mommy’s office today. You have to be a good girl. No running. No screaming. No touching things that aren’t yours. Can you do that for me?” Zoe stared back, her eyes wide, and nodded with immense enthusiasm. “Yes!” I believed her. God, I was so naive. We arrived at the office at 9:10 AM. When the receptionist, Amber, saw me walking in with a tiny toddler in tow, her face lit up. “Oh my gosh, Laura! Is this your daughter? She is absolutely precious!” “Yeah, daycare had a plumbing disaster. No choice,” I smiled, giving Zoe’s curly hair a gentle pat. Zoe actually behaved, offering a sweet, “Hi, pretty lady!” Amber beamed, immediately reaching into her desk drawer to hand her a cherry lollipop. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. So far, so good. We took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor. The moment I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the marketing department, the entire floor erupted. “No way, Laura brought her kid?” “Oh my god, let me see!” “She’s so tiny! I want to squeeze her!” My coworkers swarmed us like bees to honey. Zoe, startled by the sudden crowd, hid behind my leg, clutching my slacks. But she adapted quickly, peeked out, and flashed them a heart-melting grin. Tiffany was the first to squat down, offering a high-five. “Hey there, little one. What’s your name?” “I’m Zoe! I’m three!” Zoe proudly held up three fingers. Tiffany laughed. “You are absolutely gorgeous. Look at those big eyes, and those dimples—” Her voice trailed off. Her smile froze mid-expression. “Wait,” Tiffany murmured, tilting her head to study Zoe. Then she tilted her head to look toward the end of the open-plan office, where a large framed photograph hung on the wall. It was the official company portrait from last year’s gala. Standing dead center, radiating power, was our billionaire CEO, Richard Harrington. Tiffany looked at Zoe, then at the photo. Then back to Zoe, then back to the photo. She slowly stood up, her face twisting into an expression that was hard to read. “Laura…” “Yeah?” “Your daughter…” “What about her?” “Doesn’t she look… a little…” Tyler wandered over, following Tiffany’s gaze to the wall, then down to Zoe. His jaw dropped. “Holy crap,” he muttered under his breath. And then, the entire marketing department fell dead silent. It was a bizarre, suffocating kind of quiet. No one said a word. Dozens of eyes just bounced back and forth—from Zoe’s face to the portrait on the wall, and back again. I was still blissfully out of the loop. “What are you guys staring at?” Tiffany swallowed hard, pulled out her phone, and opened the company directory. She pulled up the official corporate headshot of CEO Richard Harrington—high-definition, professional lighting. She slid the phone right next to Zoe’s face. An adult man’s face. A three-year-old child’s face. The exact same almond-shaped eyes. The exact same slight upturn at the bridge of the nose. The exact same deep dimple on the right cheek. Even the slight arch at the tail of their eyebrows looked like a copy-paste job. The entire marketing department let out a collective, sharp intake of breath. Tiffany slowly turned her head to look at me. I will never forget that look. It wasn’t judgment. It wasn’t mockery. It was pure, unadulterated awe. “Laura…” “Don’t you dare say a word,” I said, my head suddenly spinning. “I haven’t even said anything!” “Your eyes just wrote a ten-thousand-word fanfiction!” I snatched the phone from her hand. The moment I saw the side-by-side comparison, a cold shiver ran straight down my spine. It was uncanny. It wasn’t just a passing resemblance; it was the kind of match where if they walked down the street together, a stranger would assume Richard was her biological father without a second thought. My mind raced. My husband, David, is soft-featured, has floppy hair, wears glasses, and is handsome in a completely average, boy-next-door way. Richard Harrington? Sharp-jawed, immaculately tailored, with an aura of untouchable power. They looked absolutely nothing alike. Yet my daughter looked like Richard’s miniature clone. How on earth was I supposed to explain this? I couldn’t. I opened my mouth, but the air in the room felt too thin to breathe. And then came the sound that made my blood pressure instantly skyrocket. Ping! It was Tiffany’s phone. A group chat notification. I looked down. It was the company-wide Slack channel—all three hundred employees. Tiffany—that absolute menace—had already uploaded the side-by-side photo. Her caption read: “Attention all departments, we have a major development. Marketing’s own Laura has brought in her daughter, who apparently shares a face with our CEO, Mr. Harrington. Visual evidence attached. Any geneticists in the house want to weigh in?” My entire body went numb. 2 The notifications didn’t stop. They kept rolling in, one after another, a relentless barrage of pings. ‘???’ ‘Are you kidding me? They’re identical!’ ‘Wait, is this Photoshopped?’ ‘Tiffany, you have a death wish, lmao.’ ‘I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I rubbed them three times.’ ‘Is there a chance… she’s actually Mr. Harrington’s?’ ‘Laura! You’ve been hiding a massive secret!’ My fingers flew across my keyboard as I desperately tried to damage-control. “Everyone, please stop spreading rumors! This is purely a coincidence! Doppelgängers exist!” I hit send. There was a brief two-second pause. Then Tyler replied with a passive-aggressive smiling emoji. Tiffany reacted with a thumbs-up. Deborah from Marketing chimed in: “Coincidence? Oh, sweet summer child.” My eye twitched. Then came the killing blow. Kevin from Admin dug up last month’s keycard logs and dropped a screenshot into the chat. “May 12th: Laura from Marketing worked until 11:00 PM. CEO’s office light stayed on until 11:00 PM.” “May 19th: Laura worked until 10:30 PM. CEO’s light stayed on until 10:30 PM.” His caption: “Interesting.” My brain short-circuited. We were finalizing the quarterly campaign last month! Staying late was a necessity for me, and Mr. Harrington was notorious for being a workaholic who practically lived in his office. We were the last ones in the building because my proposals had to go directly to him for final approval! But trying to explain that now felt like trying to put out a forest fire with a water gun. Panic setting in, I typed frantically: “That was for the quarterly launch! The entire marketing team knows this!” There were six people on my immediate team. Not a single one of them typed a word to defend me. Tiffany was literally eating a bag of chips at her desk, her face lit up like she was watching an Oscar-winning drama. Tyler pretended to be deeply engrossed in a spreadsheet, though his smirk was so wide it almost touched his ears. I whipped around to face them. “Seriously? None of you are going to back me up?” Tyler gave me a lazy shrug. “Look, Laura, we want to help. But we also like having jobs. If Mr. Harrington actually turns out to be our secret brother-in-law, we’d rather stay on his good side.” “Shut up, Tyler.” Right then, my desk phone rang. I picked it up with a trembling hand. A smooth, deep voice drifted through the receiver. It was calm, measured, and entirely terrifying. “Laura.” “Mr… Mr. Harrington!” “Come up to my office.” “Sir, I can explain—” “I said, come up.” Click. The line went dead. The entire office was so quiet you could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. Every eye was locked on me. Tiffany whispered, “If you have any last words, Laura, now’s the time.” I ignored her. Clutching my hands into fists, I looked down at Zoe. She was sitting happily on the carpet, folding my project files into paper airplanes, completely oblivious to the fact that her mother was standing on the precipice of total social ruin. “Zoe, honey, let’s go upstairs.” “Where are we going?” “To… to meet someone.” “Yay!” She jumped up and grabbed my hand. The walk to the elevator felt like a march to the gallows. Behind me, the collective gaze of the marketing department pinned me like a butterfly on display. I could hear their hushed whispers fading as the distance grew: “Do you think he’ll admit it?” “Shh, keep it down!” The moment the elevator doors slid shut, I took three deep, ragged breaths. This was it. I was done for. The eighteenth floor. The executive suite. I pushed the door open. Justin, the CEO’s executive assistant, was sitting behind his desk in the lobby. He looked up, his expression a mix of absolute curiosity, intense scrutiny, and a distinct look of I knew it. “Mr. Harrington is waiting for you. Go on in.” Then his eyes drifted down to Zoe. He froze. He stared at her face for a full five seconds. Then he quickly lowered his head, pressing his lips into a tight line, his shoulders visibly shaking. He was trying, and failing, not to burst out laughing. Ignoring him, I scooped Zoe into my arms and pushed open the heavy oak door to the inner office. Richard Harrington sat behind his massive mahogany desk. Dark suit, pristine white shirt, every hair perfectly in place. In front of him, his monitor was turned slightly toward the room. Displayed on the screen was the Slack post—the side-by-side comparison of his face and my daughter’s. My knees felt weak, but I forced my posture straight. “Mr. Harrington, this is a massive misunderstanding, I—” “Sit,” he said, his voice level. I sat. Zoe wriggled out of my lap and began to wander around the spacious office, her eyes wide. Richard didn’t say a word. He slowly stood up, bypassed the desk, and walked over to where Zoe had paused by a leather armchair. The steady click of his leather dress shoes felt like a countdown in my chest. He knelt down. He leveled his gaze with Zoe’s. Zoe tilted her head to the left. Richard tilted his head to the left, too. Same angle. Same expression. Honestly, in that split second, even my own conviction wavered. It was uncanny. It was terrifying. “What is your name?” Richard asked, his usually cold tone softening just a fraction. “I’m Zoe!” “And how old are you, Zoe?” “Three!” She held up three chubby fingers. Richard stared at her, his eyes losing focus for a brief moment. I opened my mouth to say something—anything—to break the stifling silence. But Zoe beat me to it. She reached out with her small, chubby hand and gently patted Richard’s cheek. Then, in the clear, incredibly loud voice of a three-year-old, she squealed: “Daddy! You have nice new clothes! So handsome!” The air in the office instantly froze. Richard froze. I froze. Outside the door, a sudden shatter echoed as Justin dropped his ceramic mug, splashing coffee all over the entryway floor. Seeing no response, Zoe yelled even louder: “Daddy! Hug!” She threw her arms wide and launched herself directly into Richard Harrington’s chest. Richard’s arms moved mechanically, catching her out of sheer instinct. He slowly lifted his head, his piercing gaze locking onto mine. Looking back, there is only one way to describe that look: a total reckoning. “Laura.” “Mr. Harrington, I swear on my life—” “Does she call every man she meets “Daddy”?” “Well… no, of course not. But she’s young, and when she sees handsome younger men—” “Handsome younger men?” Richard’s voice was completely flat, but I could feel the cold edge of a guillotine hovering over my neck. “So what you’re saying is, your daughter regularly encounters “handsome younger men” and addresses them as her father?” “No! Mr. Harrington, that’s not what I meant at all!” “Then what exactly do you mean?” I had absolutely no answer. Behind us, the sound of Justin wiping up the coffee stopped. He was listening. Hanging on every single syllable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his other hand slipped into his pocket, his thumb frantically moving. He was texting. It was over. By now, the entire company would know. Laura’s daughter just called the CEO “Daddy” to his face. 3 Everyone experiences embarrassment at some point in their lives, but I never expected mine to be broadcasted live to a corporate audience of three hundred. Justin’s updates were lightning fast. Before I could even step foot out of the executive suite, my phone was practically vibrating itself off my lap. The main Slack channel was in absolute meltdown: ‘Did I hear correctly? Laura’s kid called Mr. Harrington “Daddy” to his face???’ ‘Confirmed! Justin saw the whole thing!’ ‘The kid has instincts. Recognized her own flesh and blood instantly.’ ‘Laura has been keeping this quiet for three years. Respect.’ ‘No wonder all her marketing proposals get approved. She has a direct line to the top.’ I wanted to hurl my phone out the window. But Zoe was the one who truly pushed me over the edge. She refused to let go of Richard. Her small arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, her head resting on his shoulder with absolute contentment. Richard looked like he was holding a live grenade. His arm was frozen beneath her lower back, his other hand hovering awkwardly in the air, completely unsure of where to place it. “Laura. Remove your daughter.” “Zoe, come to Mommy.” “No!” Zoe clung tighter. “Daddy smells good! Just like home!” My soul left my body for approximately three seconds. Just like home? What did that even mean? Richard’s brow arched. “The same smell?” He looked at me, his gaze narrowing. “What kind of shampoo does your husband use?” “What… excuse me?” “I asked you what brand of shampoo your husband uses.” “I… I don’t know, whatever’s on sale at the grocery store—” “So you don’t even know what shampoo your husband uses, yet your daughter claims I smell exactly like him. Laura, does that strike you as normal?” I didn’t know if it was normal, but I knew I was about to have a psychotic break. Steeling myself, I reached out and physically pried Zoe out of Richard’s arms. Zoe immediately puckered her lower lip, her eyes pooling with tears. “No! I want Daddy!” “He is not your daddy!” I snapped, my voice rising a little too loud. Richard raised an eyebrow. Zoe went from crying to delivering a direct physical blow to my sanity. She pointed a chubby finger at a framed photo on Richard’s desk—a profile shot of him from a major business magazine feature last month. “Mommy, you’re a liar! Daddy’s picture is right there! This is Daddy’s office!” Richard glanced at his own portrait, then back at Zoe, and finally at me. A faint twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t a smile. It was the face of a man desperately biting back a sarcastic comment. I felt my entire life crumbling to dust in real-time. “Mr. Harrington,” I gasped, making one final, desperate bid for my survival. “I swear to you, we have never even had a proper conversation before today. I have a husband. His name is David. He works a regular job. We’ve been married for four years, and our daughter is three. This is just a crazy, bizarre coincidence. Truly.” Richard stared at me for ten seconds. Those ten seconds stretched out like a decade. Finally, he exhaled. “Fine. Go back to work.” Feeling like a pardoned death-row inmate, I scooped Zoe up and practically bolted. Just as my hand touched the brass doorknob, his voice stopped me. “Laura.” “Yes, sir!” “Control your daughter. Control your coworkers’ mouths. And clean up that Slack channel.” “Understood!” I scrambled out of the executive suite. The second the elevator doors closed behind me, I leaned against the wall and let out a long, sheltering breath. I looked down at Zoe. The little monster was happily licking a gourmet lollipop she had somehow swiped off Richard’s desk. “Zoe.” “Hmm?” “He is not Daddy.” “He is Daddy! He looks just like him!” “No, he isn’t. He’s Mommy’s boss. Do you know what a boss is?” “What’s a boss?” “The person who can make Mommy lose her job.” Zoe tilted her head, considering this. “Then Daddy is a boss too.” I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. There was no flaw in her toddler logic. Back on the sixteenth floor, I wished I could tape a ‘Do Not Ask’ sign directly to my forehead. But it wouldn’t have kept the sharks away. Tiffany was waiting for me, practically vibrating with excitement. “Laura! What did he say? Did he admit it?” “Admit what?” “Oh, come on, don’t be like that. Honestly, the whole office has your back.” “My back for what?” “Well, the marketing team has a pool going that you’re his secret mistress. Three-to-one odds. HR is betting you’re his high school sweetheart—five-to-one odds. Finance went wild and is betting Zoe is an IVF baby. Ten-to-one odds.” “You guys are… betting on my personal life?” “Don’t worry, I put twenty bucks on the mistress angle for you. If we win, I’ll split the payout.” I clenched my fists, taking slow, deep breaths to restrain myself from committing a felony. Not because I possessed incredible poise, but because at that exact moment, my phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down. A text from my husband, David. Just two words: “Laura Callahan.” My heart rate spiked. Then came a second text: an image. It was the side-by-side photo. And then a third: “Care to explain?” My fingers shook as I typed a furious response: “Honey, listen to me, it’s a complete fluke! A total coincidence! There are people who look alike all over—” Before I could hit send, a fourth text popped up: “Don’t bother.” And then a fifth: “I’m coming down to see for myself.” My mind went completely blank. I knew David. When he said “don’t bother,” it didn’t mean he was letting it go. It meant the trial was over, the verdict was guilty, and he was heading out to carry out the sentence. I frantically hit call. Ring… ring… ring… Nothing. I tried again. ‘The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently busy…’ He had blocked me. I stared at the screen, my mind spinning. From our apartment to the office was a twenty-minute drive. If he took the highway, fifteen. If he was driving in a blind rage— A sudden draft swept through the office as Gregory walked in. A balding, forty-something man who lived to make my life miserable, he immediately targeted me with a smug, oily grin. “Well, well, Laura. Quite a lively day we’re having.” My stomach plummeted. Gregory had never liked me. I wrote the marketing copy, he took the credit. I pulled the all-nighters, he accepted the bonuses. Now that I was in the middle of a massive scandal, there was no way he wasn’t going to stick the boot in. Sure enough, he cleared his throat and addressed the room. “Everyone, let’s remember this is a place of business, not a rumor mill. However, if certain personal indiscretions start affecting the company’s professional reputation, I will have no choice but to report it to HR.” He turned his eyes on me, dripping with false concern. “And Laura, you need to get that kid out of here. It’s a distraction.” “Gregory, the daycare had—” “That’s a personal issue. The office is not a daycare.” He spun on his heel and walked away. Tiffany leaned over, lowering her voice. “Laura, Greg is totally trying to get you fired.” I knew that. But Gregory was the least of my worries right now. My mind was completely occupied by a singular, terrifying image: David standing in our kitchen, holding our heavy-duty German kitchen knife. The one he insisted on buying for over a hundred bucks because “good steel makes a better chef.” It was sharp. Extremely sharp. I stared out the window at the bright blue sky, thinking to myself: It’s a beautiful day to die. 4 I called seventeen times. Every single one was forwarded straight to voicemail. I sent twenty-three texts. All of them met with a red exclamation point. David had blocked my number and my social media. In our four years of marriage, this was a Level-One Emergency. The last time he did this was when I accidentally spilled coffee on his custom-built gaming PC. He hadn’t spoken to me for three days. This time? I looked down at the comparison photo. Three days felt highly optimistic. Thirty years was more like it. I sat at my desk, staring blankly at my screen, unable to process a single word of copy. I had set Zoe up in an empty chair next to me with some scratch paper and crayons. She was coloring diligently, her little hand gripping a green crayon as she concentrated. I leaned over to look at what she was drawing. I nearly had a stroke. She had drawn three figures. One in a dress, labeled ‘Mommy.’ One tall figure, labeled ‘Daddy.’ And another equally tall figure, carefully labeled in messy toddler handwriting—’Handsome Daddy.’ The three of them were holding hands, and she had drawn a massive red heart right between them. Tiffany peeked over my shoulder. ‘Pfft—’ She immediately whipped around, pulling her collar up over her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently as she convulsed with silent laughter. “Give me that,” I hissed, snatching the paper away. “No!” Zoe immediately started to wail. “That’s my family!” “We do not have a “Handsome Daddy,” Zoe! You only have one daddy!” “But Handsome Daddy is upstairs! He is my daddy too!” The marketing department went dead silent once again. Everyone pretended to be typing furiously, but I knew twelve ears were pinned in our direction. I stuffed the drawing deep into my desk drawer, taking three deep breaths. Just then, the receptionist’s voice crackled through the office intercom: “Laura, there’s someone here to see you on sixteen.” My heart stopped. “Who is it?” “A gentleman. He didn’t give a name.” A pause. “He… well, he’s carrying something. Security tried to stop him, but he claimed it was a specialty food item from home. Honestly, it doesn’t look like food.” “What shape is it?” “Long, flat. Wrapped in newspaper.” My blood pressure hit an all-time high. The entire team exchanged terrified glances. The smile finally vanished from Tiffany’s face. She swallowed hard. “Laura… is that…?” Tyler’s voice shook. “Should we call 911?” “Why would we call the police? That’s my husband!” “Is there a difference between a husband with a knife and a stranger with a knife?!” I stood up, my legs feeling like jelly. “Everyone, relax. He just has a short fuse. I’ll handle it.” Before I could take a step— BAM!

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Dating Jack for seven years meant living by his rules. Everything was split 50/50. Dinner, utilities, rent—even Valentine’s Day gifts had to be balanced down to the penny against the receipt. If he bought me a forty-dollar lipstick, I had to find a tie that cost exactly forty dollars to give him in return. If there was a two-dollar difference, he’d Venmo me the balance with the memo: “Adjustment.” My friends used to joke that my boyfriend was a walking spreadsheet. For seven years, I defended him: “That’s just who he is. He’s fair to everyone.” Until Prime Day, when I saw his childhood friend’s Instagram post. A nine-photo grid. Screenshots of her cleared-out shopping cart, totaling $4,200. Her caption: “Thank you, Jack. Clearing my cart every Prime Day for five years straight. You’re the best!” And underneath, a like from Jack, with his comment: “Told you, don’t worry about it.” I scrolled back through her profile. Last Prime Day. The year before. The year before that. Every single year. A nine-photo grid. Cleared-out cart. Thanking Jack. I stared at my phone, remembering my trip to urgent care last month when my stomach ulcers flared up. He had slid the bill across the counter to me at the discharge window: “Pay it first, and you can Venmo me half when we get home.” Seventy-three dollars and twenty-five cents. He wouldn’t even let the copay slide. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. I didn’t demand an explanation. I simply opened my work email and signed the contract for the corporate transfer to Singapore. 1 “Why hasn’t your signed relocation agreement come through yet?” “I just signed it. It should be in your inbox now.” I hung up with HR and slowly turned over the framed photo of Jack and me on my desk, facing it down. The front door clicked open. Jack walked in, carrying a cheap plastic bag from the corner bodega containing two pre-packaged tuna sandwiches close to their expiration date. “Dinner,” he said, tossing the bag onto the coffee table. “BOGO deal. Six bucks total. Send me three.” Without saying a word, I pulled out my phone, scanned his QR code, and Venmoed him three dollars. Jack stared at his screen for a second, his brow furrowing slightly. “No memo today? Don’t you usually write ‘Dinner 50/50’?” “Forgot,” I said quietly. “Try to remember next time. It messes up my end-of-month reconciliation.” He pulled out his chair at the dining table and opened his laptop, with practiced ease pulling up the spreadsheet titled Relationship Fund. It was his masterpiece—the thing he was proudest of. Over our seven years together, every single expense had been tracked in this spreadsheet, calculated down to the decimal. “For your urgent care visit last month, I covered seventy-three twenty-five.” His long, slender fingers tapped rhythmic patterns on the keyboard. “Plus the three dollars from tonight, you owe me forty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents.” “Sure. I’ll send it now.” I kept my head down, navigating the app, clearing my debt to him dollar by dollar. Right then, his screen lit up. Phoebe sent a voice memo. It played automatically, her voice loud, bright, and sweet in the quiet room. “Jack! I saw that new Dyson Airwrap online, but it’s so expensive… You said you’d get me something big for my birthday this year. Does that still stand?” A soft, genuine smile spread across Jack’s face. It was an expression I rarely saw anymore—one he never used when staring at his spreadsheets. He picked up his phone, holding down the microphone button. “Of course. Send me the link.” Within thirty seconds, Phoebe sent a screenshot. Five hundred and forty-nine dollars. Without a moment’s hesitation, Jack authorized the payment, his thumb tapping the confirmation screen with practiced speed. He didn’t search for a coupon code. He didn’t ask if there was a sale. I watched his fluid, effortless movements, and then looked down at the dry, cheap tuna sandwiches on our table. A five-hundred-dollar hair styler, paid in full, without a second thought. Meanwhile, my urgent care copay of seventy-three dollars had to be sliced down the middle, exacted to the penny. “Is it Phoebe’s birthday?” I asked, my voice flat. “Yeah, next week.” He didn’t look up. “You’re spending that much on her. Do you expect her to pay half?” Jack’s fingers froze over the keyboard. He looked up, his eyes flashing with a familiar, weary irritation. “Iris, are you trying to pick a fight again?” “I’m just curious about how you define fairness.” “Phoebe is practically my little sister. What’s wrong with buying her a birthday gift?” His brow pinched, his tone sharp with the annoyance of being interrupted. “Why do you have to compete with her? You and I split things because we are equal, independent adults. I respect your independence.” I respect your independence. He had used that phrase like a shield for seven years. In the beginning, I believed him. I thought he was progressive, modern, treating me as an equal partner rather than a dependent. Now, it just made me feel hollow. “Right. I’m not competing,” I said, putting my phone away. “Then why the attitude?” “My stomach is still acting up. I’m going to bed.” I didn’t wait for his reply. I turned and walked into the bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I pulled my suitcase out from under the bed and opened the closet. My wardrobe was sparse. Any purchase that went beyond bare-minimum necessities would be flagged in red on Jack’s spreadsheet at the end of the month, followed by a lecture on “lifestyle inflation.” But I knew for a fact that the designer bags and expensive perfumes he bought Phoebe had never touched a single cell of those spreadsheets. From the living room, Jack’s voice drifted through the door. “Hey babe, tomorrow’s the weekend. We should go put down the deposit on the wedding venue. It’s two thousand dollars. Make sure you have your thousand ready.” I folded my last winter coat, pressing down the creases. “I’m busy tomorrow. Go ahead without me.” “You need to be there to sign. Otherwise, you’ll complain about the layout.” “Whatever you choose is fine.” “What is wrong with you today?” 2 When Jack pushed the bedroom door open, I had just slid the suitcase back under the bed. He leaned against the frame, his eyes scanning the half-empty closet. “Why are you packing up your clothes?” “Donating stuff I don’t wear anymore,” I lied easily. He didn’t question it. In his mind, I was a permanent fixture in his life. I would never leave. “We’re doing the venue walkthrough tomorrow. Phoebe’s coming too.” He walked over to the dresser, rummaging for his pajamas. “Why is she coming?” “She offered to help us coordinate. Plus, she wants to pick out her maid of honor dress while we’re there.” He said it so casually. I watched him from behind. “And who’s paying for her dress?” He paused, turning around to face me. “It’s a couple hundred bucks. I’ll just cover it. Do we really need to split hairs over this, Iris?” “I thought you believed in clean accounts.” “Are you seriously going to be this petty about everything?” His patience was gone. “Phoebe is trying to help us. Can you please just be the bigger person?” “I am being the bigger person,” I said, taking a step back. “Which is why you two should go ahead without me tomorrow.” The next morning, I went to the leasing office alone. I cancelled the application for the townhouse we had spent the last month touring—the one we were supposed to sign the lease on next week. The leasing agent looked at me in disbelief. “Ms. Campbell, you and Mr. Davis have been looking at this place for weeks. I thought you were putting down the deposit today?” “We changed our minds.” “Is it the security deposit? We might be able to work out a payment plan…” “No, thank you. The wedding is off.” I signed the cancellation form and walked out into the crisp morning air. The sun was blinding. My phone buzzed in my hand. It was a photo from Phoebe. She was standing in front of a mirror at a high-end boutique, wearing an incredibly intricate, beaded champagne gown. In the background, Jack sat on a velvet sofa, staring down at his phone. Her text read: Do you like this one, Iris? Jack says it makes my skin tone pop, but it’s a little pricey… I zoomed in on the photo. The price tag was hanging off the sleeve, partially visible. $1,800. A maid of honor dress that cost more than the budget we’d allocated for my entire bridal look. I didn’t reply. I muted her notifications. Thirty minutes later, Jack called. I answered. “Where the hell are you? Phoebe and I have been waiting for an hour.” His voice was tight with frustration. “I’m running some errands.” “What errand is more important than our wedding venue? Phoebe has a Pilates class at two.” “If she’s that busy, you two should just make the decision.” “Iris, if you’re going to throw a tantrum, at least choose a better time.” Jack took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice. “Fine. If you’re not coming, I’ll handle it. Phoebe found a dress she loves. It’s eighteen hundred. I think it’s a bit much, but she really has her heart set on it.” There was a brief pause on the line, as if he was waiting for me to object. I said nothing. “Here’s what we’ll do: we’ll put it under the general wedding budget.” He laid out his solution. “So, we’ll just split it. Nine hundred each.” I laughed. A sharp, physical laugh that made my stomach ache. “She likes it, you’re buying it, and I’m supposed to pay half?” “She’s our maid of honor! It’s a wedding expense!” He sounded entirely justified. “I don’t need a maid of honor, and I don’t need an eighteen-hundred-dollar dress.” “You are being completely unreasonable.” Jack let out a cold, bitter laugh. “I’m not going to argue with you on the phone. I already paid for it. Just Venmo me the nine hundred when you get home.” “I’m not paying you, Jack.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “Exactly what I said.” 3 Jack didn’t come home for dinner that night. He texted saying he was going out with some colleagues from work. I sat on the living room floor, sorting through the clutter in the drawers. At the bottom of one, I found an old smartwatch. I had saved up for weeks to buy it for his birthday during our third year together. He wore it for three days before taking it off. His excuse was that the band wasn’t breathable and irritated his skin when he worked out. A month later, Phoebe bought him a vintage watch. He had worn it every day for the last four years. I tossed the smartwatch into the trash bag and kept digging until my fingers brushed against a cold, metal ring. It was Biscuit’s collar. Biscuit was a stray Golden Retriever we had found shivering behind our apartment complex two years ago. When we first brought him in, he had parvo and was on the verge of death. I stayed up for three nights straight at the 24-hour animal hospital, spending over two thousand dollars of my own savings to keep him alive. Jack had told me then: “You’re the one who wanted to save him. The vet bills are on you.” And I accepted it. Biscuit was the sweetest dog. He seemed to know he was rescued, never barking, always gentle. Every time Jack came home from work, Biscuit would be waiting at the door with his slippers in his mouth. Eventually, even Jack warmed up to him, patting his head and buying him cheap treats. Until six months ago, when Phoebe came over. The moment she saw Biscuit, she screamed and jumped onto the kitchen counter. “Jack, I can’t do big dogs! What if he bites me?” Jack had quickly locked Biscuit out on the balcony. “Don’t worry, he’s harmless.” “But his fur… I can’t breathe when there’s pet dander in the air. I think I’m having an allergic reaction.” She clutched her chest, wheezing dramatically. That very night, after she left, Jack gave me an ultimatum. “Get rid of the dog.” “Why? Biscuit is perfectly trained.” “Phoebe is allergic. How is she supposed to visit us if we have dog hair everywhere?” I stared at him, stunned by his casual disregard. “This is my home too. Biscuit is part of our family.” “Are you seriously choosing a dog over me?” His brow furrowed. “I already talked to a guy who has a farm upstate. He’s coming to pick him up tomorrow.” “Don’t you dare.” It was the first time in seven years I had screamed at him, my eyes burning with tears. But he didn’t care. When I got home from work the next day, the balcony was empty. Only a solitary water bowl remained. I spent a week searching, even driving up to the acquaintance’s place upstate. The man told me the dog had slipped out of his truck at a gas station along the highway. He didn’t know where he went. I sat on the gravel driveway that night and sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. When Jack called, his voice held nothing but mild confusion. “It’s just a stray dog, Iris. Why are you acting like you lost your mind? If you want a pet that badly, we can get a hypoallergenic cat later.” Just a dog. To him, nothing I loved was ever worth keeping. I gripped the cold metal of the collar, my fingers tightening until they hurt. The front door swung open. Jack walked in, smelling of whiskey and stale smoke. Seeing me on the floor with the collar in my hand, his face darkened instantly. “Are you seriously still holding onto that old junk?” He kicked off his shoes and stepped closer. “It’s late. Go wash up and go to sleep.” I looked up at him. “Jack, when Biscuit went missing, did you actually look for him at all?” He blinked, caught off guard by the sudden question. “Why are you dragging up ancient history again?” “I just want to know.” “Yes, I looked. I drove around the block once, didn’t see him, and came back.” He pulled off his tie with an irritated yank. “It’s been six months. Can you stop obsessing over this?” I stood up, slipping the collar into my pocket. “You’re right,” I said softly. “It’s time to let go.” He let out a sigh of relief, assuming I was yielding, just as I always did. “There’s a group dinner tomorrow night. Phoebe’s coming too.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked toward the bathroom. “Tyler and the guys said they haven’t seen you in ages. Get ready early, and wear something nice.” “I’m not going.” “Iris, seriously, what is your problem?” He stopped, turning back to face me. “You’ve been walking around with this miserable face for days. I’ve had just about enough.” 4 It was my last day before the move. My flight to Singapore was scheduled for three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I finished checking out at the office, handed in my credentials, and returned to the empty apartment. Over the last week, I had slowly, quietly packed away my life. Piece by piece, like an army of ants, I cleared out my existence from the space. Even my toothbrush was gone from the bathroom sink. I pulled my single suitcase to the entryway, leaving it by the door. Then, I sat down at the dining table and opened Jack’s spreadsheet on my phone. Seven years. Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days. I went through every single expense he had ever logged. After deducting the money he owed me, I owed him exactly four hundred and sixty-eight dollars and twenty-three cents. I opened my banking app and transferred the exact amount to his account. In the payment description, I wrote: Paid in full. Moments after the transfer went through, my phone rang. “Why did you just send me money?” Jack’s voice was nearly drowned out by the thumping bass of a bar in the background. “I thought we liked keeping clean accounts.” “Look, stop being dramatic,” he said, his voice softening slightly. “We’re at the lounge. Grab an Uber and get over here. Everyone’s asking for you.” “I’m not coming. I’m tired.” “Iris, Phoebe wore her new dress tonight. Everyone’s talking about how great she looks.” His voice dropped, suggesting he had stepped away from the crowd. “Just come out for my sake. Put in an appearance, and we can forget about you splitting the cost of the dress. How about that?” A bribe of nine hundred dollars to swallow my dignity while Phoebe flaunted her dress in front of our friends. Seven years of this cycle: a slap in the face followed by a cheap peace offering. “Jack,” I said quietly. “Yeah?” “I hope you and Phoebe get exactly what you deserve.” There was a long pause on the line. “What the hell is wrong with you?” his voice turned freezing cold. “Phoebe and I are friends. You’re seriously going to make a scene in front of everyone because of your jealousy?” “Believe whatever you want.” “Fine. Don’t come. Stay home and think about how you’re acting.” He cut the line. I stared at the black screen, feeling absolutely nothing. Thirty minutes later, my rideshare arrived downstairs. I took one final look at the apartment where I had lived for five years. He had chosen the dark gray couch cushions; I had hated them. Phoebe had suggested the sage green curtains; they had always given me a headache. There was nothing of me left here. I pulled the door shut behind me, leaving it unlocked. I slid the key under the doormat. The highway to the airport was empty under the night sky. Sitting in the backseat, watching the streetlights bleed past the window, I opened my phone. I blocked Jack’s number. I left every group chat we shared. And then, I popped out the SIM card I had used for seven years and dropped it into the rideshare’s small trash bin. I slid in the new international SIM card my company had issued me. — At eleven that night, Jack stumbled into the apartment, smelling of alcohol. “Iris, have you finally gotten over yourself?” He called out to the bedroom, expecting the usual silence of a cold shoulder. Nothing. As he kicked off his shoes, he glanced at the entryway rack. My everyday flats were missing. He frowned, walking straight to the bathroom. The cup on the vanity was empty. My toothbrush was gone. His brows knit tighter as he marched into the bedroom and yanked the closet doors open. My side was completely bare. Not even a wire hanger remained. The alcohol flushed out of his system instantly. He grabbed his phone, searched my name, and typed a message. Where did you move your stuff to? He hit send. A red exclamation mark popped up immediately. Message could not be delivered. You are no longer connected with this contact.

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Just before the green flag dropped at the Pacific Crest Rally, my fiancé, Wade, stepped in front of my machine. “Keira, we’re putting Daisy in the primary seat today. You’re going to run block for her.” The world went completely silent around me. I stared at him, my hands frozen on the handlebars. Wade knew. He knew better than anyone that this was my retirement race. It was my final ride before we were supposed to get married. It was also my shot at a historic sixth consecutive world title—the one that would cement my legacy as the greatest female rider in the sport’s history. Six years ago, Wade’s family garage, Caldwell Racing, was on the verge of bankruptcy. I was the one who dragged them out of the red. I took the titles, secured the sponsors, and turned an obscure, struggling crew into a global powerhouse. And now, they wanted me to step aside for a rookie who had barely survived her qualifying runs. I didn’t blink. “This is my race, Wade. I’m not stepping aside.” His brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. “Daisy needs this win. You already have five titles under your belt, Keira. A sixth won’t change your life.” His voice hardened, dropping into that clinical, managerial tone I’d grown to hate. “It’s a board decision. If you don’t fall in line, you know what happens.” A dry laugh escaped my throat. “What, you’re going to fire me?” Wade didn’t look away. He didn’t deny it either. Behind him, the mechanics and crew members—men who had celebrated five world championships by my side—suddenly found the dirt on their boots incredibly interesting. None of them looked at me. In that quiet, devastating flash of clarity, I realized it wasn’t about Daisy needing the trophy. It was that they believed they didn’t need me anymore. Slowly, I unclipped the team badge from my chest. Then, I pulled the diamond engagement ring off my left ring finger. I slid them both across the metal tool bench, leaving them right in front of him. “If that’s how it is,” I said, my voice shockingly steady. “Then you can keep the team. And you can keep the ring.” … I turned on my heel and walked toward the pit lane, my boots heavy against the asphalt. But when I reached my bike, Daisy was already sitting on it, wearing a pristine, custom-tailored leather suit. She looked up as I approached, offering a timid, wide-eyed gaze as if she’d just realized she was trespassing. “Oh, Keira… I’m so sorry. But Wade told me this machine is mine to ride today.” A high, ringing noise filled my ears. I spun around, grabbing the lapels of Wade’s jacket, yanking him toward me. “What is this?” My voice cracked, the raw panic leaking through. “You gave her my bike? On what authority? That is “my” machine! You have no right!” My eyes burned as I stared at him. “I built that machine’s legacy over six years of blood and sweat,” I hissed. “Three hundred races. Broken collarbones, concussions, endless nights working side-by-side with the engineers to shave off milliseconds. That data belongs to “me”.” “It took me to five world titles. And it was…!” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, swallowing the threat of tears. It was also the very first bike Wade had ever built from scratch. It was his promise to me. I still remembered the humid summer evening he pushed it out of the workshop, his cheeks flushed with nerves, asking if I’d partner with him to conquer the racing world. “Keira,” he had whispered then, “racing is a lonely, dangerous thing. Out on those tracks, you’re entirely on your own against the clock and the terrain. But I want this machine to be my hands, keeping you safe when I can’t be out there.” And now, he was handing that sacred piece of our history to a stranger. Wade calmly reached down, peeling my fingers off his jacket. His voice was entirely devoid of heat. “The bike is registered under Caldwell Racing,” he said. “Every custom modification was paid for through the team accounts.” He looked at me, his eyes cold. “Didn’t you just say you were done with the team? Done with me?” “Since you’re resigning, you no longer have access to team assets. Why shouldn’t I give it to our lead rider?” His words felt like a physical blow, knocking the wind out of me. I stared at him, feeling a profound, bone-chilling cold settle deep into my chest. Six years ago, when this team couldn’t even afford the track rental fees, I was the one who poured every single cent of my prize money back into the garage. I ran back-to-back races, slept in airport terminals, and begged sponsors just to keep the lights on. But because those millions went through the team’s accounts, it was no longer mine. I didn’t even have the right to ride the machine I bought with my own bones. Daisy gently reached out, tugging at Wade’s sleeve. “Wade… maybe we should just forget it. Keira is a veteran of this team. If she’s this upset because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.” She turned her soft, pitying eyes toward me. “Keira, please don’t be angry with him. A rally of this intensity is grueling. You’re thirty now. He’s only thinking of your health.” I let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. But Wade was already turning away from me, his attention fully captured by her. “Let’s check your safety harness.” He dropped to one knee, lifting her boot onto his thigh, carefully tightening the straps. Daisy’s cheeks flushed pink, her eyes darting to me with a carefully crafted look of innocence. “Wade, people are watching… is this okay?” He let out a low chuckle. “Of course it is. You’re the future of this team. Today, nobody matters more than you.” It felt like a slap to the face. The surrounding crew members crowded around them, letting out easy, good-natured laughs. They started running through the wind-shear reports, the track conditions, and the rival telemetry with her. I stood alone in the center of the pit. Nobody looked at me. Nobody even handed me a radio headset. All that was left for me was a dusty, outdated backup bike in the corner of the garage—a model we’d decommissioned a year ago. They were freezing me out. They wanted me to beg, to realize that without a support crew, I couldn’t survive a single lap. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms until they nearly drew blood. Right then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Adrian Ward, the manager of Aether Motorsports, our biggest rivals. Attached was a highly detailed, real-time track and wind analysis. “I heard the shouting in the garage,” the text read. “Keira, my doors are always open to you. Let me know.” “Still throwing a tantrum?” I hadn’t heard Wade walk up. I locked my phone and looked up at him. He acted as though nothing had happened, holding out an iPad with the latest course telemetry. “The wind shifted. There’s a heavy crosswind coming off the ridge after checkpoint three. I had the engineers highlight the safe lines. Take a look.” I didn’t reach for the screen. Wade’s brow twitched. He let out a soft sigh, crouching down to perform a cursory check on my old backup bike. “By the way,” he said, his voice light and conversational. “Weren’t you asking me to visit your parents? I know I’ve had to cancel every time because of team emergencies. Once this race is over, I’ll clear my schedule. We’ll go together.” A heavy, suffocating knot tightened in my throat. I didn’t know when the Wade who used to worship the ground I walked on had turned into this calculating stranger. Whenever he needed me to sacrifice something for his benefit, he would freeze me out until I broke. And if I didn’t break, he’d offer a tiny, effortless olive branch, expecting me to fall back into line and pretend the hurt never happened. I looked down at the concrete. “We’ll see,” I whispered. Wade’s hand paused on the bike frame, clearly caught off guard by my lack of enthusiasm. But my mind was already drifting back to all the times I had begged him to come home with me. Every time, my parents would spend days preparing. My mother would wake up before dawn to bake his favorite pies; my father would spend hours manicuring the lawn. They would set a beautiful table, warming up dinner hour after hour, only to receive a text saying Wade had a “pressing engagement.” They tried so hard to hide their disappointment, offering me tight, reassuring smiles. “It’s fine, sweetheart. A young man has to build his business. We can always do it next time.” But “next time” never came. Suddenly, my phone vibrated with a social media notification. It was a post from Daisy’s public account. I had never followed her, but in that moment, a sick curiosity took hold. I tapped the screen. My hand began to tremble. None of the “emergencies” that kept Wade from my family were real. The night he claimed he was meeting with a crucial title sponsor, he was photographed carrying shopping bags for Daisy in Beverly Hills. The day he said he had a critical board meeting, he was pictured at Disneyland, holding Daisy’s cotton candy. And the weekend he claimed the wind-tunnel data was corrupted and required his overnight presence in the lab, there was a photo of him sitting at Daisy’s parents’ dining table, smiling over a home-cooked roast. In the comments, Daisy’s relatives joked about “the future son-in-law” and asked when the wedding was. Wade had liked every single comment. My chest grew so tight I could barely breathe. I scrolled to her latest post. It was a close-up of a racing bike. My bike. The caption read: “He said he wanted to give me a lucky charm for my golden year. From today on, Caldwell’s legendary ‘Vow’ is officially rechristened ‘Little Bell’.” I stared at the image. The hand-carved letters of my name, “Keira”, which Wade had painstakingly engraved into the alloy frame years ago, had been ground away. In its place was a shiny, laser-etched silver bell. The realization hit me like cold water. The swap wasn’t a last-minute tactical decision. My demotion wasn’t temporary. He had planned this weeks ago. I raised my head, holding the phone up to his face. My voice was dangerously thin. “How do you explain this?” Wade glanced at the screen, his expression unchanged. “It’s just a PR stunt to build her brand, Keira. You can be mad at me, but don’t start spreading cheap rumors about a young girl.” “And the bike?” I pressed, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Why did you grind my name off?” Wade finally stopped working and stood up to face me. There wasn’t a trace of guilt on his face—only a calm, infuriating rationality. “Keira, you’re thirty. Any other elite garage would have forced you out two years ago. I’m the only reason you’re still holding a primary seat.” I froze, the cruelty of his words leaving me numb. “You’re getting married next year,” Wade continued, as if he were explaining a simple business transaction. “You’re going to settle down and start a family soon anyway. The machine needs to be passed to the next generation, and this race is the perfect stage to launch Daisy’s career. What’s the issue here?” He reached out, his voice softening into a patronizing pat. “Be reasonable, Keira. Don’t make a scene.” A strange, absolute calm washed over me. I looked at him, nodding slowly. “I understand.” I turned and began pushing the heavy backup bike toward the starting grid. Wade let out a visible sigh of relief, clearly assuming I had surrendered. But he didn’t know that just seconds earlier, I had replied to Adrian’s message with a single word: “Yes.” When I lined up on the starting grid with a dusty, outdated machine, the grandstands erupted. Spectators stood up, pointing and shouting. “What the hell is going on? Why isn’t Keira on the primary?” “Is that her championship bike? Why is a rookie riding it?” “Putting a five-time champion on a scrap heap and giving the custom build to a novice? Has Caldwell Racing lost their minds?” Angry voices boomed from the front rows, directing their fury toward our pit. “Give Keira her machine back!” But their cries were ignored. The starter pistol cracked, and twenty high-performance engines screamed to life, tearing down the tarmac. The old backup bike was a beast. It lacked the smooth handling of my custom build; the engine ran incredibly hot, the heat radiating through the frame and scorching my inner thighs. But I didn’t care about the pain. My mind narrowed to a single, burning focus. Ride. Faster. I threw the bike into the corners, skimming centimeters from the rocky cliffs, leaning so low my knee sliders scraped the asphalt. Through the track speakers, the announcer’s voice grew increasingly frantic. “Keira is making a move! On a decommissioned machine!” “Oh my god, she’s slicing through the pack! She’s in the top five!” “Second place! Keira has taken second!” Meanwhile, on my championship bike, Daisy was collapsing under the pressure. She had started near the front, but as the technical mountain passes stretched on, she began to slip. Fifth. Seventh. Soon, she was swallowed by the mid-pack. The official track broadcast picked up the audio from her team radio. “Daisy is in tears! She’s crying in her helmet! The pressure is clearly too much for the rookie!” I tuned it all out. My eyes were locked entirely on the tail of the lead bike. Just one final climb, one sharp chicane, and I would take the lead. Suddenly, my comms channel crackled to life. Wade’s voice cut through, tight with suppressed rage. “Keira, that is enough. Slow down.” “Drop out of the lead pack.” “Fall back immediately and pull Daisy through the crosswinds.” I gripped the throttle, leaning into the wind. “No,” I said. The radio went silent for a beat. When Wade spoke again, his voice was deathly quiet. “Keira.” “Do not forget who owns your contract. If you disobey a direct team order, I will terminate you. You’ll be blacklisted from the sport, and I will sue you for every penny of the liquidated damages.” He paused, his voice dropping to a low threat. “And our wedding—if you keep acting like a child, I will seriously have to reconsider our future.” I watched the gap between me and the leader shrink. “I told you,” I said, my voice perfectly steady over the roar of the engine. “I don’t want the team. And I don’t want you.” “Wade.” “You have nothing left to threaten me with.” “My legacy is mine to keep.” The comms went silent. Wade didn’t yell. When he spoke, he sounded chillingly calm. “You’re going to regret this, Keira.” My stomach lurched. A fraction of a second later, the front forks began to shake violently. The steering dampener gave out completely. The handlebars whipped left and right, threatening to throw me off. Panic seized me as I realized what had happened. The bike had been sabotaged. I gripped the bars with everything I had, fighting the death wobble, forcing the machine toward the finish line. Even if I crashed, I was going to cross that line. But the speed was too high, the machine too broken. The front wheel caught a rut, and the bike high-sided, launching me into the air. The sound of metal slamming against rock echoed through the canyon. I hit the ground hard, rolling repeatedly until my body slammed into a boulder. Warm blood flowed down my forehead, blurring my vision. As my consciousness began to slip away, a faint whisper came through my helmet earpiece. “Keira,” Wade sighed, his voice laced with a strange, pitying sadness. “Why couldn’t you just listen?” Then, the world went completely black. I woke up late that evening in a sterile hospital room. The only person beside my bed was a young intern from the garage, a girl named Fiona. Fiona’s eyes were red, and the moment she saw me stir, she burst into tears and ran to call the doctor. The diagnosis was grim. My right femur was shattered in multiple places, and the skin on my right thigh had suffered severe third-degree burns from the overheating engine block. Even with the best surgeries, I would likely walk with a permanent limp. As for racing… My career was over. I stared blankly at the ceiling tiles, a suffocating weight crushing my chest. I couldn’t even find the voice to cry. Fiona buried her face in the edge of my mattress, sobbing. She was a young mechanic who had joined the garage simply because she idolized me. She never expected our first real interaction to be her watching me get wheeled out of an operating room. “It’s not fair,” she wept, her voice shaking with anger. “You were broken on the track, and Wade wouldn’t even ride in the ambulance with you. He stayed at the VIP tent to help Daisy handle the reporters.” “She finished fifth, and he’s throwing her a massive afterparty at the hotel. He hasn’t called once to check on you.” My throat was dry, my voice barely a whisper. “Did I… did I cross the line?” Fiona’s tears flowed faster. She hesitated for a long time before whispering, “No.” “You went down ten yards short. You didn’t get a time.” I closed my eyes, letting the tears slip quietly into my hair. The door clicked open, and Wade’s personal assistant walked in with two security guards. He told me Wade had ordered them to bring me to the press conference. Fiona jumped up, furious. “The doctor said she needs absolute rest! She’s severely injured, where do you think you’re taking her?” The assistant didn’t answer her. Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed Wade on speaker. Wade’s voice filled the room. “Keira. The press is already spinning a narrative that Daisy stole your seat and that the team forced you out. It’s damaging her brand.” “I need you to show up and clear the air. Tell them you decided to retire due to old injuries, and that you fully support Daisy as the future of Caldwell Racing.” Fiona was trembling with rage. I looked down at my heavily bandaged, immobilized leg. After a long silence, I spoke. “I’ll do it.” “But I want a full release. An immediate, mutual termination of my contract with no financial penalties.” Wade’s tone instantly dropped. “Are you still trying to negotiate with me, Keira?” “My leg is shattered, Wade,” I said, my voice dead. “I will likely never ride a bike again. I’m useless to your team. Letting me go is the easiest way to clear your books. I just want to ensure you don’t use those liquidated damages to hold me hostage.” The line went silent for a long moment. Finally, he uttered a single word. “Deal.” Thirty minutes later, I was lifted onto a wheelchair and wheeled into the hotel ballroom. Daisy was standing in the center of the room, wearing a stunning cocktail dress that matched the deep navy of Wade’s suit. She was laughing, sipping champagne with a group of major investors while Wade introduced her to the sport’s power brokers. When he saw me enter, he gave me a brief, unreadable glance before gesturing for the security team to wheel me onto the stage. In front of the blinding flashbulbs, Wade announced my official retirement due to health concerns, naming Daisy as the primary rider for the upcoming season. A reporter in the front row stood up. “Miss Mercer, what caused the crash today? There are rumors online that the backup bike’s telemetry was altered to ensure the rookie’s victory. Is there any truth to that?” The room went dead silent. All eyes turned to Daisy, whose lower lip began to tremble. Wade gently placed a hand on her shoulder, stepping up to the microphone. “There was no foul play,” he said smoothly. “Keira suffered a rider error due to the physical limitations of her age. The incident had nothing to do with the machinery or the team.” I sat in my wheelchair, my fingers curling tightly around the armrests, and kept my head bowed. Before the press conference even concluded, the online smear campaign had already begun. Articles flooded the web, claiming I was a washed-up veteran who refused to hand over the reins to younger talent. They painted me as a bitter loser trying to blame my own mistakes on the garage. Meanwhile, Daisy was hailed as a rising star who had shown immense promise by finishing fifth in her debut. Some blogs even posted photos of Wade and Daisy from her social media, calling them the ultimate power couple, noting how much better they looked together than Wade and a “weathered” racer like me. At the end of the night, Daisy, slightly tipsy, clung to Wade’s arm, whispering that she was too tired to drive home. Wade looked down at her with a soft, indulgent smile I hadn’t seen in years. “Alright. I’ll drive you.” Then, as if suddenly remembering I was there, he glanced at me in my wheelchair. “You can make your own way back to the hospital, right?” I looked at him and nodded quietly. Without another word, he walked out, guiding Daisy through the lobby doors. I sat alone in the empty, littered ballroom. “Let’s go,” I whispered to Fiona. But as we reached the lobby, a sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb. The door opened, and Adrian Ward, the manager of Aether Motorsports, stepped out. He walked up to my wheelchair, offering me his hand. “Keira,” he said softly. “Let’s go. I’m going to help you take back everything they stole.”

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The Mojave Rally was swallowed by a sudden, blinding wall of desert dust, cutting visibility to absolute zero for every driver on the track. I pressed my headset tighter against my ear. Through the static, the voice of my fiancé, Garrett, came through—steady, warm, and reassuring. “Don’t panic, Ellie. You’ve got five hundred yards before Dead Man’s Curve. You can floor it here, push past the car next to you to shave off 0.7 seconds. Then it’s a hard right-three into a left-two.” Blindly trusting Garrett’s pace notes, I slammed my foot on the gas, the sand battering my windshield. He was my co-driver, my navigator, and the only man I trusted with my life. But three seconds later, a soft, mocking chuckle crackled through my earpiece. “Ellie, babe? Honestly, Dead Man’s Curve is actually a right-two into a left-three. But if Chelsea doesn’t win the championship this year, she’s going to throw another tantrum.” “You’re already a three-time champion. Giving her this one won’t kill you.” “I’ve already got an ambulance waiting at the bottom of the ridge, and I had them lay down some crash mats. I’d never let anything seriously happen to you. Just close your eyes, sweetheart. It won’t hurt as bad if you don’t look.” With a soft click, Garrett cut the feed. He wanted to spare his ears the sound of my car tearing through the guardrails and plummeting off the cliffside. But he forgot one thing. I had run this track for five years. Even with my eyes closed, I knew every single inch of this dirt. … “Garrett!” I screamed his name, my knuckles turning white against the steering wheel. But the headset remained dead. Silence, heavy and suffocating, filled the cabin. Sweat soaked through my racing gloves. My foot was glued to the floor, the engine roaring as we pushed past 120 miles per hour. At this speed, lifting off wouldn’t save me in time. The dust storm completely covered the windshield, and the tires screamed as they spun over loose gravel. Dead Man’s Curve—the most brutal stretch of the Mojave—was right ahead, and I was flying blind. My brain scrambled to process Garrett’s words. “Did he really just feed me fatal pace notes just to hand Chelsea the trophy?” Dead Man’s Curve was named that for a reason. Countless racers had been broken by this mountain. The road was narrow, the turns sharp, and the drop-off was a sheer cliff. A single miscalculation meant free-falling into a ravine. Best-case scenario: a dozen broken bones and a shattered career. Worst-case: a body bag. Yet Garrett spoke of crash mats like he was tucking me into bed. Was he insane? He had been in the car with me the last time we flipped. Five years ago, during our very first trial run here, Garrett had been so terrified of me getting hurt that he secretly paid the track crew to line the ravines with high-density rescue pads. But my nerves got the better of me. I panicked, slammed the pedal to the floor, and missed the turn entirely. Garrett was in the passenger seat next to me. As the car rolled over, his immediate instinct was to throw his body over mine, shielding my head. Even with the safety pads, the impact sent us spinning into the rock face. I lay there shivering in his arms, and despite the agonizing pain of his fractured wrist, he stroked my hair and whispered, “It’s okay, baby. You’re the best driver out there. You’re safe.” I spent the next two years driving myself to the bone, running lap after lap under the scorching sun, just to win the championship. Because under rally rules, the champion’s co-driver had the option to stay in the air-conditioned command center, away from the dust and the danger. I won the title for him. I took the microphone in front of thousands of fans, and when they asked if I wanted prize money or endorsements, I shook my head. “I just want my co-driver to never have to risk his life in the passenger seat again.” I did it to protect him. And this was my reward. “Right-three into left-two.” The moment he said it, I knew it was wrong. But I was already committed, flying blind in a storm of dust. Suddenly, Garrett’s voice patched through the main rescue channel. “Search and rescue! Car number seven, Ellie Ross, has gone over at Dead Man’s Curve! Dispatch immediately! We need to save her!” My heart turned to ice. He was so sure I was going to crash. Already, the clueless media would be drafting headlines: “Three-time Mojave Queen Falls from Grace.” He was clearing the path for Chelsea. I couldn’t let them have it. “Just close your eyes, sweetheart. It won’t hurt as bad.” Garrett’s hollow words echoed in my mind. I closed my eyes. But not to surrender. I closed them to remember. Eighteen seconds had passed since his last correct note. At my current speed, that meant… I had it. I knew exactly where I was. Even with the sand blotting out the world, the map in my head was clear. I feather-touched the brakes, dropped the gears, and prepped the wheel. Then, a roaring engine behind me. Someone was catching up. Not just one car—two. Three yards. Two yards. Now! I yanked the wheel to the inside, hugging the cliffside blindly. It was a suicidal gamble, but my only choice. “CRASH!” A deafening impact rattled my teeth. Chelsea’s car clipped my rear quarter panel, the sheer force of her momentum spinning my car through the apex. I slammed hard against the canyon wall, the car tilting sideways and wedging into the rocks. But I made the turn. Behind me, a sickening crunch and a scream of metal echoed down the ravine as the third car missed the turn entirely. My heart beat so hard it felt like it would break through my ribs. As I sat there shivering in the tilted cabin, I noticed my collar was torn. The silver St. Christopher medal—the one Garrett had given me for my twenty-first birthday—had shattered against the steering wheel. Only the frayed red cord remained around my neck. “It’s not tacky,” he’d insisted back then, kissing my forehead. “It’s a protector. As long as you wear it, it’s like I’m right there with you, Ellie. You’re going to be the first queen of the Mojave.” I ripped the remaining cord from my neck, leaving a thin, burning welt. I stared at the broken silver pieces and threw them to the floorboards. It had kept me safe, I suppose. But some things stay broken forever. Suddenly, static hissed in my helmet. Because of the impact, my receiver had glitched and crossed onto Chelsea’s private radio channel. “Garrett, babe… if you’re this good to me, aren’t you worried Ellie will be furious?” Chelsea’s voice was a soft, calculated purr. “Worried? She’s hogged your spotlight for three years. It’s your turn to be queen. Besides, she’s probably unconscious in a ravine right now. By the time she wakes up, she won’t remember a thing.” The sheer cruelty in his voice made me shake. Along with his words, a wave of physical pain finally hit me. The car was tilted at a ninety-degree angle, trapping me inside. Every breath sent a sharp, stabbing pain through my left shoulder. Within minutes, the rescue crew arrived, hauling the car back onto four wheels. “Ellie Ross! Can you hear us?” “Get the stretcher! The driver has a suspected collarbone fracture and head trauma!” The paramedics removed my helmet, but the audio feed in my earpiece kept playing. “I tapped her car on the way past,” Chelsea giggled. “That loud crash down the cliff… that had to be her.” “You’re brilliant, sweetheart,” Garrett replied. “I’m taking you out for oysters tonight. Your favorite.” Oysters. I had spent years suffering through high-end seafood bars with Garrett, popping allergy pills and hiding my hives, just because I thought “he” loved it. I realized now he was taking Chelsea’s favorite meals and feeding them to me. The realization burned away the pain. I pushed past the paramedics, climbed back into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door shut. “Ellie! Stop! You’re injured! You need to get to a hospital!” I ignored them, threw the car into gear with my right arm, and roared back onto the track. Chelsea, Garrett… you want to take my crown? Not in this lifetime. By now, I was far behind the pack. The live broadcast commentators were already eulogizing my career. “We’ve just received word from the track. Three-time champion Ellie Ross has suffered a major crash near Dead Man’s Curve. It’s a devastating turn of events for the crowd favorite.” “It really is. Fans were hoping to see Ellie and her fiancé, star navigator Garrett, make history today. But the crown is up for grabs now, and Chelsea, who has played bridesmaid for three years, is currently leading the pack.” My left arm hung uselessly at my side. I grabbed a spare harness strap and bound my arm tightly to my chest to keep it from jarring. Everything relied on my right hand. As the dust storm cleared, the track ahead became visible. I didn’t need pace notes anymore. I knew every turn. “Chelsea is entering the final stretch!” the commentator screamed. “She’s almost at the finish line!” At the finish line, Garrett was already standing near the barrier, holding a massive bouquet of red roses next to a giant banner that read: “TO MY QUEEN, CHELSEA.” Reporters swarmed him. “Garrett! The race isn’t over, and Ellie is reportedly injured. What is this?” He smiled smoothly for the cameras. “My queen has worked hard for this. I wanted to make sure she had a proper celebration.” “But Ellie—” “Only a true queen of the Mojave deserves my heart. I’ve waited five years for this moment.” Suddenly, the crowd gasped. “Wait! Look at the track! An orange car has just blasted into the final straightaway! It’s number seven! Ellie Ross is still in the race!” I squeezed the wheel with my right hand, gritting my teeth through the pain, and drove straight at Chelsea’s blue car. I didn’t lift. I rammed her—a metal-on-metal screech that sent both our cars crossing the finish line in a cloud of burning rubber. “I see it! It’s number seven, Ellie Ross! She’s done the impossible!”

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Just because I ate an extra tub of the company’s Greek yogurt, the new intern reported me for embezzling company property. My fiancée, who was the CEO, called me out in front of the entire company at our weekly all-hands meeting. She suspended me on the spot and had the intern lead a full investigation—even tracking how many squares of toilet paper I used. Two weeks later, the intern rolled out a forty-foot-long invoice, claiming I owed the firm ninety-three thousand dollars in damages. I looked at my fiancée. She was staring at him with pure admiration. “Pay up, Wade. It’s strictly business. No one gets special treatment.” I nodded. “Fine. Strictly business.” Then I unrolled a hundred-and-fifteen-foot-long invoice of my own. “Helena, before I pay your ninety-three thousand, I’m going to need you to settle this bill for sixteen million, eight hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars.” The entire room went dead silent. … As the weekly staff meeting was wrapping up, Helena suddenly looked my way. “Wade, there’s one last item to add to the agenda. Someone has reported you for abusing company resources for personal use, causing significant financial loss to the firm.” The conference room fell dead silent. I froze. “Abusing company resources? When?” Dustin, the administrative intern who’d only been with us for two months, stood up. “Wade, the catered afternoon snack bar. We get one tub of Greek yogurt per person, right?” I stared at him. “But you take two every single day.” The kid flipped open his notebook. “This brand retails for six-eighty a tub. Even wholesale, it’s four-fifty. Five days a week, you’re taking five extra tubs. That’s ninety dollars a month. You’ve been with the company for seven years. On yogurt alone, you’ve pocketed seven thousand five hundred and sixty dollars of company property.” A wave of muffled snickers rippled through the room. Dustin wasn’t finished. “And it’s not just the yogurt. You charge your personal phone, tablet, and laptop at your desk every day. You treat the office electricity like it’s free. You have a personal mini-fan on your desk that runs from morning till night, five months out of the year. You drink three Nespresso capsules a day when the standard limit is one. You load a case of company-provided bottled water into your car every single week. And worst of all, you use the restroom four or five times a day, using three times as many paper towels and toilet paper squares as the average employee. Individually, these are small expenses. But compiled over seven years? It’s a massive bleed on our bottom line.” More people started laughing. I felt a hot, burning flush creep up my neck. “Dustin, you’ve been here two months. How do you even know my daily routine? Do you actually do any work, or do you just spend your day stalking me?” Dustin squared his shoulders. “As an administrative assistant, auditing resource allocation is literally my job. Identifying waste and reporting it is standard procedure.” He turned to Helena. “Helena, I recommend we place Wade on immediate unpaid suspension pending a full audit.” I looked at Helena. She was my fiancée. We were supposed to sign our marriage license at City Hall in less than two weeks. She knew me. She had to know how absurd, how utterly petty this was. Helena tapped her fingers twice against the mahogany table. “Wade, I am incredibly disappointed in you.” “Being my fiancé doesn’t give you a free pass to exploit this company. If everyone behaved like you, we’d go bankrupt in a month.” “Effective immediately, you are suspended pending investigation. Dustin, you will head the audit committee and trace every single discrepancy.” “You got it, Helena. I’ll make sure we get to the bottom of this,” Dustin replied, practically beaming. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words died in my throat. Out of the hundred-plus people in that room, not a single one spoke up for me. Helena stood up. “Meeting adjourned.” I sat frozen in my chair. Dustin strutted past me, packing up his notebook with a bounce in his step, looking like he’d just won the lottery. What these people didn’t know—but Helena knew perfectly well—was that the afternoon snacks, the yogurts, the pastries, and the fruit baskets were all provided entirely free of charge by my eldest sister Fiona’s catering conglomerate. Because I loved that specific premium brand of Greek yogurt, she always instructed the delivery team to leave extra cases. I wasn’t “stealing” company yogurt. I was eating my own family’s food. It was one thing for a new kid like Dustin to be clueless. But Helena knew. And yet, she hadn’t said a single word to defend me. I stood up, unplugged my personal laptop, my tablet, and my desk fan, and shoved them into my backpack. Near the exit, I ran into Dustin. He was leaning against the hallway wall, a smug grin plastered across his face. “Don’t take it personally, Wade. Just doing my job.” He lowered his voice. “But a word of advice—don’t be so cheap next time. It always catches up to you.” I stared him down. “Just get your audit done quickly.” He pulled out his phone, ignoring me, and hummed a mindless tune as he walked away. When I got home, I called Helena three times. No answer. The next morning, Pete texted me. Pete had worked under me for six years; I’d hired and trained him myself. He knew my work ethic better than anyone in the office. Hey Wade, Helena just transferred the Atlas Fabrics account to Dustin. I stared at the screen, stunned. Atlas Fabrics was my biggest account of the year. I had spent three months nurturing the relationship, and we were scheduled to sign the final contract next week. And she was hand-delivering it to Dustin? Whose idea was that? I texted back. Dustin told her he could handle it, and Helena greenlit it. I replied with a simple Got it and tossed my phone onto the couch. That afternoon, Pete sent another message. Wade, Dustin just copied all your client files. He claimed it was necessary for the audit. An audit for personal use of office supplies? What do my clients have to do with that? Pete didn’t reply. On the third day, I ran into Toby from the marketing department near my apartment complex. “Wade, people at the office are talking. It’s getting ugly.” “What are they saying?” Toby hesitated. “Some people are saying you weren’t just stealing yogurt. They’re saying you’ve been taking side consulting gigs under the company’s name and pocketing the commissions.” “Who started that rumor?” “I don’t know, but it’s spreading like wildfire.” “What about Helena? What did she say?” Toby looked down. “She said… ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ and that the audit committee would verify the truth.” I let out a dry laugh. Where there’s smoke. She wouldn’t even offer a basic denial. She was letting them tear my reputation to shreds. I wanted to clear things up face-to-face. I dialed her number six times, getting nothing but a busy signal. On the seventh try, she finally picked up. “What?” her voice was clipped. “Helena, do you actually believe Dustin’s nonsense? You know exactly where the afternoon catering comes from.” “Wade, we are in the middle of an active investigation. Nothing has been finalized, so don’t get defensive.” “Besides, as the subject of an active audit, it’s highly inappropriate for you to be involved in company business. Just stay home and wait for our decision.” “Wait for your decision? What about my clients? Atlas Fabrics is signing next week—” “Dustin will handle it.” “Dustin? The kid’s resume is thinner than a sheet of printer paper. What is he going to handle?” “Your bias against Dustin is showing. He might be young, but his work ethic is impeccable. Honestly, you could learn a thing or two from him.” The line went dead. I stood by the window, staring down at the street below for a long time, the silence of my empty apartment pressing in on me. Day five of my suspension. I received a call from an unfamiliar number. “Hello, Mr. Lu? This is the account manager from Harvest Table Catering. We handle the afternoon snack deliveries for Summit Crest Brands. I wanted to verify some details regarding our ongoing agreement.” I recognized the voice. It was a customer service representative from my sister’s company. “What details?” “A Mr. Dustin contacted us this morning. He stated that Summit Crest is requesting to transition the complimentary catering into a formal commercial contract, and he wanted to settle the ‘outstanding balances’ for the past seven years. He mentioned you were aware of this.” I leaned back in my chair, a bitter smile touching my lips. Dustin was more ambitious than I gave him credit for. “You haven’t signed anything, have you?” “No, the paperwork is still pending. We wanted to clear it with you first.” “Don’t sign it. He doesn’t speak for me.” Not five minutes after I hung up, Fiona called me directly. “Wade, what’s going on at your office? Someone just called my billing department trying to convert our free catering into a commercial contract. They’re talking about back-paying ‘unbilled balances’?” “Fiona, don’t worry about it for now.” “Did something happen at work?” “Nothing major. I’ll have it sorted in a few days.” She didn’t press, but before hanging up, she added, “Alright, but if anyone is giving you a hard time, you tell me.” “I will,” I said. I sat back and thought about Dustin. He’d only been at the company for two months. There was no way he could have known the specifics of the catering arrangement, let alone track down the exact contact information for Harvest Table and initiate a contract, unless he had been digging through my personal files. This wasn’t the intuition of an eager intern. What was he really after? Two weeks later, Dustin texted me. The audit was complete, and I was required to attend a meeting at the office. When I arrived that afternoon, the main conference room was packed. It felt like the entire staff had gathered to watch a show. Dustin met me at the door, holding a massive roll of continuous feed paper. In front of everyone, he unrolled the paper. A forty-foot-long invoice stretched from one end of the conference table to the other, cascading off the edge and pooling onto the carpet. “Wade, this is the audit committee’s comprehensive log of your unauthorized use of company assets during your tenure,” Dustin announced, gesturing to the top of the roll. “Item one: one extra tub of Greek yogurt daily. Over seven years, that totals seven thousand five hundred and sixty dollars.” “Item two: charging personal electronic devices. Based on average power consumption over seven years, that’s eleven thousand three hundred dollars.” “Item three: personal desk fan drawing company power over seven years, totaling four thousand two hundred dollars.” “Item four: excessive consumption of pantry coffee pods…” He read the list item by item. It took him seventeen agonizing minutes. Finally, he stepped back and cleared his throat. “According to our calculations, you owe the company ninety-three thousand four hundred and seventeen dollars and fifty-six cents in damages. Here is the itemized breakdown, backed by concrete data.” He looked at me, his chest puffed out. “If you refuse to settle this debt, I will have legal counsel initiate immediate litigation.” I turned my gaze to Helena. “Did you look at this?” “I did,” Helena said smoothly. “Dustin was very thorough. Every item is fully documented. This is what real diligence looks like.” She patted Dustin on the shoulder. “Excellent work. I’ll make sure HR adds a substantial bonus to your check this month.” Dustin beamed, practically glowing. “Thank you so much, Helena!” I pointed a finger at him. “He’s an administrative intern. On what grounds is he getting a bonus?” “Besides, this list is absolute fiction. Take the charging costs—I brought in my own laptop and tablet because the company-issued computers were constantly freezing. I submitted three hardware upgrade requests, and administrative services rejected every single one. How was I supposed to pitch clients without a functioning computer?” “And the desk fan? It was a prototype the product team asked me to beta-test. It wasn’t even mine.” “As for the coffee—” “Enough, Wade,” Helena interrupted, waving her hand dismissively. “Anyone can make up excuses. None of that changes the fact that you’ve been draining company assets for years.” I pointed to myself. “Me? Draining company assets?” “Ninety-three thousand dollars, Wade. Look at the numbers. And that’s just what we managed to track down,” Helena said, tossing a printed copy of the invoice onto the table. I felt a cold numbness spreading through my chest. For seven years, I had been the top sales producer, bringing in over twenty million dollars in closed contracts. And yet, my boss—the woman I was supposed to marry—was demanding ninety-three thousand dollars over an intern’s fabricated report. Seeing my silence, Helena frowned. “Why are you just standing there? Pay it. Yes, you’re my fiancé, but this is strictly business. No exceptions.” I stared at her face. Really stared at it, as if seeing her for the first time. Around us, my coworkers watched. Some looked sympathetic, some looked amused, but most kept their heads down, pretending to be invisible. “Fine,” I said quietly. “Strictly business. Then let’s make sure we settle every single account.” Dustin brushed some dust off his hands. “No need to recalculate, Wade. I’ve double-checked every line. The math is perfect.” “You calculated what you think I owe. I’m going to calculate what this company owes me.” Dustin laughed. “Helena, has the company ever missed a paycheck for Wade?” Helena smiled thinly. “Your salary has been paid on the first of every month, Wade. Trying to deflect now is pointless. Pay the invoice, and we can talk about putting you back on the schedule.” I walked to the corner of the room, sat down, and opened my laptop. It was an older model and took its time booting up. Dustin scoffed. “Are you trying to stall, Wade? Is ninety grand too much for you to pull together?” He whipped out his phone and dialed. “Yes, hello? I’d like to report a case of embezzlement. An employee has stolen over ninety thousand dollars in company property and is refusing to return it.” Hanging up, Dustin sauntered over and waved his phone in my face. “I’d suggest writing that check before the police get here. Once we go down to the precinct, a civil settlement isn’t going to save you.” I ignored him, my eyes fixed on the loading screen. The spinning cursor seemed to take an eternity just to open Excel. Within twenty minutes, two police officers arrived. Dustin practically flew to the door to let them in, looking like a civic hero. “Officers, right this way. He’s the one. He’s embezzled over ninety thousand dollars from the firm and refuses to make restitution.” He lifted a section of the long paper roll. “Here’s the itemized evidence, and the entire office is our witness.” One of the officers walked over to my desk. “Sir, I’m going to need you to come down to the station with us to answer some questions.” Helena sighed, her voice dripping with artificial pity. “Wade, why must you be so stubborn? If you had just paid the money, we wouldn’t have to do this. You’re making a scene.” I stood up and closed my laptop. “I’ll cooperate fully, officer.” Helena’s face hardened. “Do you have any idea how busy my schedule is today? I have three executive meetings, and now I have to waste my afternoon giving a statement at the precinct. You are such a headache.” I stared directly into her eyes. “You’re the one who started this, Helena.” We were taken to the local precinct. After hours of statements and paperwork, the duty officer remained strictly neutral. “We need to verify the corporate records and the nature of these expenses. In the meantime, you’ll need to remain in holding.” In plain English: I was spending the night in a cell. Helena and Dustin finished their paperwork first. As an officer escorted me back toward the holding cells, I caught a glimpse of them through the glass partition of the lobby. Dustin muttered something, and Helena laughed—a light, musical sound that I used to find beautiful. I spent the night on a cold metal bench. I was released the following morning with instructions to return for follow-up questioning, and a firm warning that civil disputes of this scale could quickly escalate to formal charges if not resolved within fifteen days. Standing outside the precinct, the morning sun was so bright it made my eyes water. I checked my phone. Seven missed calls. All from Helena. I dialed her back. “Where the hell have you been?” Helena’s voice exploded through the speaker before I could even say hello. “Did you forget what today is? We were supposed to be at City Hall at nine to sign our marriage license! I’ve been waiting here all morning. If this is how little our marriage means to you, then the wedding is off.” “Helena,” I said, my voice dead and empty. “What?” “I was in a holding cell all night because you and Dustin called the police on me. Did you forget?” “Well, whose fault is that? If you had just paid what you owed, you wouldn’t have been in there. Did you really need to spend a night in jail just to learn your lesson? Honestly, Wade, sometimes you act like a child.” She slammed the phone down. I stood on the sidewalk, holding the dead phone. After a long moment, I walked into a print-and-copy shop in the alley adjacent to City Hall. The owner, Henry, was an old friend of mine, and his shop’s security camera pointed directly at City Hall’s main entrance. “Hey, Henry. Can you pull up your front camera footage from this morning?” “Sure, what’s up?” “Someone told me they spent the morning waiting for me on those steps. I just want to see if she was there.” Henry pulled up the feed and let me sit at the terminal. I held down the fast-forward key, scanning the footage from 8:00 AM to noon. People walked up and down the concrete steps of City Hall. Couples holding flowers, lawyers carrying briefs. But no Helena. Not for a single second. I closed the window, thanked Henry, and walked out into the cool air. I stopped at the corner of the block, pulled out my phone, and opened a group chat. The name was The Golden Boy and His Sisters. Six participants. I typed out a message: Fiona, Charlotte, Beatrice, Maeve, Regina—Helena let her new intern accuse me of theft over office snacks. They demanded ninety-three thousand dollars. When I refused, they called the cops. I just spent the night in a holding cell. I’m out now, and Helena just called to tell me the wedding is off. Within three seconds, the chat erupted. Fiona: “What? That miserable woman dared to do what? Has she forgotten who owns the lease on her office building?” Charlotte: “So that’s why some intern was trying to get my property management group to sign a new lease agreement. They’re trying to play us.” Beatrice: “I wonder how clean her company’s tax records are for the last seven years. Let’s find out.” Maeve: “An intern? Some two-month hire put my baby brother in a cell? Helena has officially lost her mind.” Regina: “Where do I send the legal summons? And how much time do we want to give them to respond?” Fiona called me immediately. “Wade, where are you? We’re coming to pick you up. We are going to her office right now.” In the background, I could hear Maeve’s sharp voice: “Does she actually think she can touch a member of this family and walk away?” “Don’t go over there yet, Fiona,” I said quietly. “Let me compile the invoice first.” “What invoice?” “She wanted to play accountant and count every single square of toilet paper. I’m going to return the favor. Every single thing she and her company have taken from us over the last seven years, I’m putting it on paper.” There was a brief silence on the other end. “Do it,” Fiona said, her tone icy. “Whatever records you need from my catering company, they’re yours.” After hanging up, I went back to my apartment, opened Excel, and started a new spreadsheet. Helena’s name flashed on my screen again. I picked up. “Wade, since you’re out of jail, why aren’t you at your desk?” she snapped. “The client from Atlas Fabrics is breathing down our necks. They refuse to sign with Dustin; they keep asking for you. You need to get down here and close this deal.” “I’m busy.” “Busy? You’re suspended, Wade. If you don’t show up to transition your accounts, it counts as job abandonment. Three consecutive days of unexcused absences and you’ll be terminated for cause—no severance, nothing. Think carefully.” “Do whatever you want,” I said, and hung up. I went back to my spreadsheet. The next morning, she called again, sounding more frantic. “Wade, are you seriously quitting? Fine, but you still have to complete a formal handover. You need to hand over the client strategies, the active proposals, and the vendor contacts to Dustin. And another thing—why did your sister’s company stop the daily snack deliveries? There was nothing in the pantry today, and the staff is complaining.” I let out a soft, cold laugh. “Dustin is an intern who excels at making spreadsheets, Helena. You really think he can manage enterprise clients? Atlas Fabrics only works with Summit Crest because of my relationship with them. Now that I’m gone, they won’t even take his calls. And the snack bar? My sister provided that for free for seven years because of me. Why on earth would she keep feeding your employees when you put her brother in a holding cell?” There was a long, stunned silence on the line. “What is that supposed to mean?” “It means,” I said, “it’s strictly business.” I hung up and added her number to my block list. Over the next few days, other colleagues from Summit Crest tried to reach out—some out of curiosity, others acting as messengers for Helena. I ignored and blocked every single one. These were the same people who had snickered and watched the show during the all-hands meeting. A week later, the invoice was complete. I printed the spreadsheet on a continuous paper roll. When it finished, I pulled out a tape measure. One hundred and fifteen feet. I dialed Fiona. “It’s ready, Fiona.” She answered with just two words: “Let’s go.” That afternoon, my five sisters met me at the entrance of Fairview Plaza. We walked into Summit Crest Brands together. Once again, an all-hands meeting had been called. When I stepped into the conference room, Dustin was sitting in my old chair, scrolling through his phone. He looked up and smirked. “Well, look who decided to show up. Ready to settle your tab, Wade?” I didn’t say a word. I placed the heavy roll of paper on the edge of the long conference table. One by one, my sisters walked in, lining up behind me like a wall of sheer quiet authority. Helena sat at the head of the table. Seeing the five women behind me, her brow furrowed. “Wade, what is the meaning of this? Why did you bring your family?” “You said it yourself, Helena,” I replied. “Strictly business.” I pressed the end of the roll onto the table and gave it a firm push. The heavy cylinder rolled down the entire length of the mahogany surface, tumbled off the edge, and uncoiled along the carpet all the way to the glass doors of the room. The room went so quiet you could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. I looked directly at Helena. “Helena, before I pay your ninety-three thousand dollars, I’m going to need Summit Crest to settle this bill for sixteen million, eight hundred and thirty-one thousand.” Regina stepped forward, placing a thick, official document in front of Helena. “This is a formal demand letter. If your company fails to clear these outstanding debts within the designated timeframe, we will initiate immediate asset seizure proceedings.” Dustin scoffed, jumping to his feet. “Sixteen million? Are you insane? Who owes you that kind of money?” Helena’s lip curled in disgust. “This is a joke. You’re a sales manager, Wade. You think you can extort sixteen million dollars from me with a roll of paper?” I pointed to the unrolled sheet. “Read it yourself.” Helena leaned forward and glanced at the first line. Her face froze.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “512301”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In the middle of the scorched-earth apocalypse, the impossible happened: I got a video call from myself, ten years in the future. “When does this end? Are Mom and Dad going to make it back with the water? What about Toby? Is my brother safe?” The questions poured out of me, desperate and breathless. But the face staring back at me from the screen didn’t look like mine. It was a nightmare. He was covered in weeping, infected sores, his scalp entirely bald and raw. His eyes, sunken deep into a hollow skull, were yellowed and threaded with dark purple veins. He was so gaunt he looked like a skeleton draped in graying skin. “Apocalypse?” My future self let out a rasping, bitter laugh. “There is no damn apocalypse, Sean. This is a cage. An underground tomb your parents custom-built just to appease their golden boy, Toby.” My breath hitched. “For ten years, they’re going to bring you a single piece of moldy, expired bread every day, and you’re going to wag your tail like a dog, crying with gratitude. To stay alive, you’ll drink your own filtered urine. When the hunger gets too sharp, you’ll gnaw on the wooden frame of your cot…” He leaned closer to the screen, his skeletal face filling my vision. “And Toby? He isn’t missing. While you’re down here on your knees, licking condensation off the filthy concrete, he’s sitting in the air-conditioned mansion directly above your head. He’s drinking iced sweet tea, holding your fiancée, and whispering with your parents about how many more heating elements they can install to make your life a living hell.” I froze, my mind completely short-circuiting. He pulled his cracked lips back into a agonizing, hollow smile. “I traded my last breath to get this call through to you, Sean.” “They forgot to lock the heavy bulkhead door today. If you don’t believe me, push it open. See for yourself. The apocalypse only exists for you.” … The call cut out, leaving a wall of dead static. My hands shook so violently that my phone slipped from my grasp, clattering onto the cold concrete. All I could see was the reflection of my future self—broken, ruined, stripped of any humanity. “No… it can’t be…” I looked up at the reinforced skylight. Through the thick glass, I could see the desolate street. Scorched, skeletal trees. Cars melted into puddles of metal. Not a single living soul. The world outside was supposed to be a blistering, 120-degree wasteland. Ignoring my trembling knees, I scrambled on all fours toward the heavy bulkhead door. The door was lined with state-of-the-art thermal insulation. To ensure my “safety,” my mother had stuffed every seam with fireproof stripping. My father, a renowned meteorologist, had told me himself that the surface temperature had surged past critical levels. He said the streets were crawling with desperate, murderous scavengers. He warned me that without a tactical hazmat suit, I would burn to death within ten minutes. This door was the only barrier between me and a living hell. I placed my palm against the heavy brass handle. It was supposed to be scalding, hot enough to sear my skin off. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and braced myself for the pain as I twisted my wrist. I barely had to apply any pressure. The door swung open. There was no blast of white-hot air. No suffocating heatwave. Instead, a cool, gentle breeze washed over me, carrying the faint, sweet scent of rain-soaked gardenias. Soft drops of summer drizzle fell onto my parched, cracked face. I stood there, paralyzed. A cold dread pooled in my stomach, making my knees buckle. My brain refused to process the sensory reality of the world before me. There was no apocalypse. It was a meticulously crafted stage play, designed by my own parents, just to soothe Toby’s bruised ego. This basement wasn’t a fallout shelter. It was my coffin. “Toby, sweetheart, come eat some of this chilled watermelon I just sliced.” The familiar, warm voice of my mother drifted through the air. A violent shiver ran down my spine. I instinctively shrank back, slipping behind the shadow of the villa’s brick siding. The house was beautifully, freezing cold. My mother, who supposedly had been missing for three days on a perilous run for canned goods, was sitting on the plush sofa. She had her arm wrapped around Toby, sipping a glass of cabernet while they watched a talk show. My father walked over, gently placing a piece of perfectly seared ribeye into Toby’s mouth with a fond smile. “Our sweet boy,” my father said softly. “Right now, Sean is either weeping over your photograph or staring at his skylight in despair.” “He still doesn’t realize you didn’t run away because of some stupid argument. He actually believes the sky is falling. He has no idea that skylight is just a high-definition LED screen.” “That boy had the nerve to embarrass you at school and try to steal your girlfriend. He deserves to learn what happens when he crosses you.” Embarrass Toby? Steal his girlfriend? I had done none of those things. But my parents had taken a handful of Toby’s venomous whispers and used them to sentence their own flesh and blood to ten years of psychological torture in a dark hole. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, dripping onto my hands. Just ten minutes ago, I had forced myself to drink half a cup of stagnant, yellow water to save a single moldy crust of bread for my parents. I had starved myself so they could live. I had truly believed that if I just endured, if I was just strong enough, our family would make it to the other side of the end of the world. I caught my reflection in the patio glass. My knees gave out, and I nearly collapsed onto the wet grass. My lips were split and bleeding. My skin was yellowed with dirt, and my hair was falling out in clumps near my temples. I looked like a gutter rat. And according to the video call, this was just the beginning. I was going to get so much worse. I was going to die down there, believing their lie until my very last breath. I bit my own arm, squeezing my eyes shut to stifle the sob clawing its way up my throat. On the living room wall, a new family portrait hung in a gilded frame. I wasn’t in it. In my place stood Toby, flanked by my parents, with his golden retriever sitting at their feet. “Ah.” I swallowed the suffocating grief, turning silently toward the garden hose lying in the flowerbeds. I grabbed the nozzle and let the cool, clean water gush into my mouth. Over the past year, my parents would occasionally bring back half a plastic bottle of lukewarm, brackish water. Drinking a single capful of that felt like a gift from heaven. I had been pampered for twenty years; I never knew plain tap water could taste so sweet. But the image of my future, skeletal self remained burned into my retinas, cold and unyielding. My hand trembled against the plastic hose. “Fine.” “You want a post-apocalyptic wasteland?” “Since you went to all the trouble of building this beautiful stage… I’m going to make sure you get to play your parts to the very end.” I slipped quietly back into the basement. I pulled the heavy bulkhead door shut, sealing myself back in. The stifling, stagnant air of the cellar instantly wrapped around me, threatening to suffocate me. The cool rain outside felt like a dream I had already forgotten. I crawled back to my spot in the corner, pressing my face against the thumb-sized ventilation pipe, and watched the simulated red dust swirl on the LED skylight until sleep finally claimed me. In my dreams, I lived those ten years. I dreamed of the simulated “deaths” of my parents during a scavenge run. I dreamed of surviving on their meager, pre-staged rations. The hunger and thirst were constant, gnawing monsters. The basement walls in my dream were covered in desperate messages written in my own blood. Several times, I had tried to throw myself open to the “scorched air” outside just to end the misery. But the bulkhead door’s handle had been rigged to run scorching current, searing my flesh whenever I touched it. It was locked from the outside. And even then, in my madness, I had believed my parents locked it to protect me from the savage survivors outside. I dreamed of the day the food ran out. I was eating dirt and splinters. Then, the door opened. Toby stood there, looking down at my broken body, howling with laughter. “You absolute moron! You actually believed the world was ending?” Behind him stood his wife—Bridget, my former fiancée—looking at me with profound disgust. “How pathetic. He looks like a hairless mole rat. Is this really the great heir of the family?” My father grabbed me by the few remaining strands of my hair, dragging me out into the light. “Stop playing dead. The rations I left were more than enough to keep you alive!” “If you hadn’t bullied Toby, we wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths…” “Slap!” The sharp sting across my cheek snapped me awake. I opened my eyes to see my father looking down at me, his expression tight with irritation. He was wearing a heavily scuffed, spray-painted hazmat suit. Fresh, synthetic blood was smeared across his shoulder. “Sean! Why do you have a fever?” Perhaps it was the sudden intake of clean water, but my body had gone into shock. My forehead was burning. My father looked exhausted, his eyes performing a perfect imitation of paternal despair. “Sean, your mother and I are putting our lives on the line out there just to bring you a single bite of food.” “It’s a wasteland out there! A literal wasteland!” “Because you fought with your brother and drove him out of the house, he missed his chance to get to the shelter. We can’t even find his body! I’m begging you, stop making things harder for us, okay?” If this were yesterday, I would have wept with guilt. I would have fallen to my knees, begging for his forgiveness. Now, looking at his sweat-streaked, theatrical makeup, I felt nothing but a cold, heavy disgust. “You love acting so much?” “Let’s see how well you perform.” I lowered my head, letting my shoulders slump in manufactured shame. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to get sick. Maybe… maybe I should go out there with you next time. I can help scavenge. I can help keep us alive.” My father’s face went stiff for a fraction of a second. He quickly masked his panic with a heavy, theatrical sigh. “The survivors out there are desperate beasts, Sean. You wouldn’t last five minutes.” “Besides, we only have two functional suits. If anything happens to you, your mother and I wouldn’t be able to go on.” “Get some rest. I’ll go see if I can find some fever reducers in the ruins.” He stood up, turning his back on me without another word, and heavy-handedly shut the thick bulkhead door. “Click.” The tiny piece of sheet metal I had wedged into the strike plate earlier rattled softly. I crept over, carefully manipulating the metal shim to keep the latch from fully engaging, and pulled out the small garden trowel I had hidden down my trousers earlier. I pried the door back open. I crept up to the glass pane of the back patio, moving like a shadow. Inside, my father was peeling off the stiff hazmat suit with a look of deep revulsion. He grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, scrubbing his hands raw. “Useless brat,” he muttered, spitting his words. “How did I end up with a son like Sean?” “Always causing problems, always a burden. I swear, he needs another ten years down there to finally fix that rotten attitude of his.” Toby stepped up, affectionately wiping the dark theatrical grease from my father’s cheek. He wrapped an arm around my father’s shoulders, cooing playfully. “Dad, you’ve worked so hard!” “It looks like Sean still hasn’t learned his lesson. We should seal up his main ventilation pipe. If he has a fever, he can just sweat it out!” “Or we can turn up the heating rods. Let’s see how cocky he is when it’s 104 degrees down there.” “Oh, and we should add some zombie-dog sound effects to the LED sky screen! We can just tell him the virus mutated and the infected are roaming the streets.” Toby gushed about his plans to torture me, his eyes gleaming with excitement. My parents hesitated for a moment, but then nodded with indulgent, doting smiles. The blood in my veins turned to ice. If it hadn’t been for that video call, I would have been subjected to these monstrous cruelties for ten agonizing years. My mother turned on the television, pulling Toby down to sit beside her. She handed him a bowl of freshly peeled grapes, her eyes warm and tender. “We’ll take it one step at a time,” she said softly. “This isn’t just about making you feel better, Toby. It’s about correcting his character.” “Your father and I have calculated his rations perfectly. He won’t starve, but he won’t have the strength to act out. Until he learns how to be a proper, humble brother to you, we cannot afford to be soft-hearted.” “Brother?” I would never be a brother to a parasite. Toby was my mother’s favorite student. After his own parents passed away, she had brought him into our home. In the beginning, I had been happy to welcome him. I wanted to share my family. But he had repaid me with a campaign of systematic ruin. He framed me for burning his school projects, claimed I orchestrated his bullying at school, and accused me of hiring thugs to assault Bridget just so I could “possess” her. At the mention of my name, my mother’s expression hardened. “Once he’s broken and goes back to being the obedient, quiet boy he used to be, we’ll let him out.” She tapped a button on the smart remote, but as she glanced at the security feed, her brows knit together. “Where did that boy go? Why isn’t he on the camera?” My heart leaped into my throat. Toby leaned closer, gasping. “You’re right! He’s completely gone from the main feed!” “Did he… did he figure it out? Did he escape?” Cold sweat broke out across my back. I gripped the wooden handle of the trowel tightly. But my father let out a dismissive snort. “Escape? The master key is in my pocket. How could he get out?” “Besides, that insulated door gets hot enough to peel his skin if he tries to tamper with it. He’s far too soft to even touch it.” “He’s probably crying in the blind spot of the bathroom.” My father swiped the screen, bringing up yesterday’s footage. “Remember how picky he used to be? Yesterday, I threw him a half-eaten piece of dry salami, and he bolted it down like a stray dog.” “Your plan is working beautifully, Toby. He’s nearly tamed.” My mother pinched her nose in disgust, as if she could smell the stench of the cellar through the screen. “Tamed? He looks like an animal. No dignity at all. It’s embarrassing.” I let out a silent, cold laugh. What was I to them? A dog to be trained? Toby rested his head on my mother’s shoulder, sighing softly. “Since Dad told everyone I was lost in the wasteland, I wish I could go down there and see his face myself.” His eyes gleamed with sadistic anticipation. Naturally, my parents couldn’t bear to deny him. “That’s easy enough,” my father said warmly. “Put on a respirator mask. I’ll tell him you’re a survivor who helped us forage for his fever medicine. He’ll be weeping with gratitude at your feet.” “We can even bring Bridget along. Let her see what a pathetic worm her former fiancé has become. It’ll give her peace of mind.” To please their adopted darling, my parents were willing to utterly destroy me, body and soul. My initial instinct was to call the police. But now, I had a better plan. I was going to give them the exact apocalypse they had built. I slipped backward, quietly returning to the dark of the basement. I needed to be ready before they arrived. I had spent months studying the bulkhead door. My father had installed an emergency safety latch on the exterior—a standard heavy-duty fallout door mechanism. I remembered reading the manual in his study when I was younger. Once the manual override lock was engaged from the outside, no key, no electronic code, and no amount of physical force could open it from the inside. Come on down. Since you built the trap, you might as well see how it feels to be the prey. I dragged myself into the dirty bathroom corner, curling my body into a tight, shivering ball. Suddenly, the LED skylight flickered, displaying a horrifying image of a mutated golden retriever with half its skull exposed, clawing frantically at the glass. Before I could react, the alarm system blared, and the entire basement began to shudder violently under a simulated blast wave. The heavy door was thrown open. My parents, accompanied by two figures in bulky hazmat suits, came tumbling into the room in a state of orchestrated panic. My father frantically ripped off his respirator, his back drenched in sweat. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of dry dog kibble, and shoved it into my trembling hands. “The fallout is spreading! The surface is crawling with mutated beasts! The neighbor’s dog turned and slaughtered its owner!” “This is all the food we could salvage. Your mother and I had to eat wild rats to survive out there. Keep this dog food—it’ll keep you alive!” The dry kibble was covered in dried saliva. I recognized it instantly; it was the leftover food from Toby’s dog bowl. When I didn’t move, my mother’s temper flared. She snatched a crushed, dusty tablet from Toby’s hand and forced it past my lips. “Eat it! Sean, you aren’t some delicate prince anymore! We are in the end times; you don’t have the luxury of being squeamish!” “These two saviors risked their lives to bring you this medicine. Eat it!” “I raised you to show gratitude. Once you swallow it, get on your knees and thank them for saving your miserable life!” Even behind the heavy plastic visor of the hazmat suit, Toby’s eyes danced with sadistic glee. Bridget looked down at my filthy, skeletal frame and visibly gagged. I watched their performance in absolute silence. Then, with a cold smirk, I spat the pill onto the dirty floor. “Dad, Mom… it’s a lawless wasteland out there. How can you trust strangers so easily?” “What if this is poison? What if they followed you to steal our bunker?” The room went dead silent. Bridget was the first to react. She snatched the discarded pill off the floor with her gloved hand, turning toward the exit. “Ungrateful trash. We shouldn’t have bothered.” My mother, humiliated and furious, raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap across my face. The crack echoed off the concrete walls. “You spiteful, arrogant little monster! I swear, you are utterly irredeemable! You deserve to rot down here—” She caught herself, cutting her own words off as she realized she had almost broken character. Toby stepped forward, picking up the pill and grabbing my hand, forcing it into my palm. “The surface pharmacies are gone. We salvaged this from a frozen warehouse; it’s the last dose. Survival is all that matters, Sean.” But as he spoke, his grip suddenly tightened on my arm. With a sharp, sudden jerk, he threw himself backward, crashing heavily against the sharp iron frame of my cot. He let out a sharp cry, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes. “You… you tried to push me onto the exposed bolts?” “I risked my life to save you, and you try to murder me?” Before I could even speak, my father’s massive hand gripped my collar. He hoisted me off the floor and threw me violently into the bathroom corner. “I knew you hadn’t changed!” “Stay in there and rot! Don’t you dare come out until you’re ready to beg for forgiveness!” “Slam!” I was thrown into the shallow pool of grey water on the bathroom floor. The stench of stagnant waste filled my nose, making my stomach heave. My fever made my skull feel like it was cracking open. But my mind had never been clearer. The bathroom was the closest point to the exit. Through the cracked door, I could see Toby holding up his phone, snickering as he took photos of my pathetic state. My parents and Bridget stood by, their faces filled with doting amusement. “Now.” “This is the moment.” Adrenaline surged through my veins, hot and electric. With every ounce of strength left in my starved body, I lunged from the floor and bolted toward the bulkhead door. A furious, stunned roar shattered the quiet behind me. “Sean! What the hell are you doing?!”

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