Author: Momo Chan

1 My parents pitied my cognitively disabled twin Tina, so they secretly swapped our memories. My research papers became hers, my restored antiques hers. Tina basked as the city’s celebrated prodigy while I was stripped of intellect, reduced to a babbling idiot. They patted my head, cooing, “Even if you are a dummy, we love you.” That lie held until Tina accidentally burned a priceless tapestry at the museum. Facing millions in damages and decades in prison, they dragged me to the clinic. “Take her memory of the arson and implant it into Sophie. Let her rot. Don’t ruin Tina’s future.” The procedure was flawless. Under intense neural rewriting, even Supreme Court lie detectors couldn’t detect a glitch. As freezing electrodes pressed to my temples, I saw my parents’ eyes brimming with worry, but only for Tina. The truth pierced my fog: they only ever loved her. But this implanted memory would become the weapon that sent them straight to hell. … “Mom, are you guys being serious right now? You want me to go to jail for Tina?” I stared at the woman in front of me in pure disbelief. The unconditional love she had just promised me crumbled like wet paper. Faced with my questioning, a flash of annoyance crossed my mother’s face. She impatiently waved her hand, signaling the orderlies to pin me down. “Who let you out of your room. Whatever, this saves me the trouble of tricking you into coming down here.” “This is about our family’s survival. Your sister is absolutely not going to prison.” I was shoved onto the cold steel operating table. Heavy leather straps buckled around my wrists and ankles. I could only watch in horror as the technicians prepped the neural override machines. Just mentioning Tina made my mother tear up. She turned to my father to complain. “Tina is already pitiful enough with her condition. As the older sister, Sophie should be begging to take the fall. Instead, she has the nerve to talk back to me. I raised an ungrateful brat.” “Stop crying Martha,” my dad soothed her. “Once the memory swap is done, all evidence of Tina doing it will be wiped clean. She will be perfectly fine.” A piercing, agonizing pain drilled through my skull. My vision whited out. The last thing I saw was the immense satisfaction in my mother’s eyes. It was a look that stung more than the needles in my scalp. In all my life, I had never seen her look at me with such absolute approval. The roaring flames from the museum erupted deep within my mind. I stood shivering in the middle of our living room, tears spilling out of my eyes uncontrollably. My mother glared at me, her voice dripping with disgust. “Sophie Davis, do you have any idea how much I have sacrificed to raise you? And how do you repay me?” “You burn down a national treasure. You drag your sister’s name through the mud and get her slammed by the press. You made this mess, so you are going to take the punishment.” I stared at her blankly. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. A tiny voice in my head screamed that this was wrong. But under my mother’s disappointed glare, my body just nodded mechanically. I asked her in a childish, broken voice. “Mom, am I going to jail? Can I eat seafood then?” Every time Tina won an award, Mom would order a massive seafood feast. Huge Boston lobsters, fresh oysters, the works. But she never let me have a single bite. She always said it was Tina’s special day and I had already eaten enough junk food. I was not allowed to steal my sister’s thunder. But I had no memories of my own left. I literally did not know what seafood tasted like. Going to prison sounded like a big deal. I figured it was finally my turn to celebrate. Seeing the genuine yearning in my eyes, my mother froze for a second. She turned around, walked into the kitchen, and brought out a plate of rotting, foul smelling raw oysters. My dad frowned. “Isn’t that Tina’s leftovers from last week? It is completely spoiled. She can’t eat that.” “This is the seafood she has been begging for,” my mother replied coldly. Like a starved animal, I grabbed the slimy meat and shoved it into my mouth. It was putrid. Bitter. Disgusting. It tasted absolutely nothing like the delicacy I had imagined. Seeing me slow down, my mother scowled and snapped at me. “You are the one who wanted it. You finally have the guts to demand your sister’s food, so you better lick that plate clean.” “Or you will never eat another meal in this house again.” Terrified, I choked down the rest of the rotting sludge. The vile stench made me gag violently. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and forced a pathetic, eager smile for my mother. Neither of them cared that halfway to the police station, my breathing turned into ragged wheezes. Angry red hives exploded across my neck and arms. The itching was absolute torture. I opened my mouth to beg for help. My mother grabbed my collar and shoved me out of the parked car onto the concrete. She looked at my thrashing body with pure revulsion. “Are you done putting on a show?” “You know you have a severe seafood allergy and you still shoveled it down. You just love making our lives a living hell. Do you have any idea how much trouble your little arson stunt has caused Tina?” “You have been a burden for twenty years. We are sick of tolerating you.” I sat paralyzed on the pavement, gasping for air. “I am sorry Mom. I didn’t know.” Mom was mad. I ruined things for Tina. I needed to apologize. “I am sorry Tina. I shouldn’t have started the fire.” I messed around at the museum. I burned the tapestry. It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone to the exhibit. But wait. Why was I at the museum on Tina’s birthday. I was never allowed to leave the house on her birthday. The conflicting memories began tearing my brain apart. I clutched my head, crying and babbling apologies to no one. My screams drew a crowd. A few relatives of the people injured in the museum fire recognized me. Their faces twisted with rage as they swarmed me. They cursed at me, spitting venom, venting all their grief and fury on my fragile body. I looked up helplessly at my mother standing by the car. But all I saw in her eyes was relief. She was glad I was the one taking the hits. I tried to crawl toward her, but the angry mob blocked my path. My struggling only made them madder. Someone shoved me hard. I fell backward, and my skull cracked violently against a sharp fire hydrant. The physical trauma acted like a sledgehammer to the mental barricades. The locked memories flooded my brain like a broken dam. Blood pooled on the gray pavement. The crowd stepped back in panic. “Oh my god, she is bleeding. Is she going to die? Someone call an ambulance.” “Relax. She is a total psycho. She is way tougher than her genius sister. She won’t die.” My mother remained rooted to her spot, watching me bleed out with the cold detachment of a bystander. Blood dripped down my face, mixing with my tears. While I was being beaten and humiliated, her first instinct was not to protect me, but to celebrate that her plan was working. She did not love me. Not even a fraction. When I opened my eyes again, the hospital room was dead quiet. The violent blow to my head had somehow realigned my fractured neural pathways. Everything was crystal clear now. The groundbreaking thesis that earned Tina her Ivy League spot was written by me. I spent three months running on black coffee to finish it. The shiny trophies lining Tina’s bedroom shelf were bought with my deteriorating eyesight and endless nights of studying. Simply because Tina was born slow and needed extra padding in life, my sweat and tears became the stepping stones my parents casually placed under her feet. My chest hurt so much I could not breathe. Tears streamed down my face in absolute silence. I scared the hell out of the nurse walking in. My mother followed right behind her. Seeing my tears, her face darkened instantly. She pointed a manicured finger at me and started screaming. “You have some nerve crying.” “If your little arson scandal hadn’t blown up on the news, Tina wouldn’t have been harassed by reporters today. Get your ass out of that bed and pack your things. We are leaving.” The stitches on my scalp throbbed with a dull ache, but I suddenly lost the energy to argue. When I was seven, a pot of boiling water spilled on me. My entire back was covered in hideous burns. But my parents cared more about Tina twisting her ankle on the stairs. They said Tina was a fragile genius. She needed to be pampered. I was just the family idiot. A few scars on my back didn’t matter. I looked at my mother, who was currently stressed out of her mind over Tina, and asked her in a raspy voice. “Mom. Why did I leave the house on the day of the fire?” She froze. A flicker of guilt crossed her eyes. “How should I know? If you hadn’t sneaked out like a maniac, our family wouldn’t be dealing with this nightmare.” Ice water ran through my veins. I stared her dead in the eye and spoke slowly. “But that day was Tina’s birthday. You and Dad strictly forbade me from ever stepping outside on her birthday. You said letting the neighbors see my face would embarrass her.” Under my mother’s expanding pupils, I continued. “Tina has already stolen my entire life. Is it still not enough?” A stinging slap landed squarely on my cheek, leaving my ear ringing. The nurse had already slipped out. My mother glared at me with absolute righteous indignation. “That is your sister’s life. I know you are bitter.” “But Tina is the recognized prodigy now. She cannot go to jail. You are the older sister. Throwing yourself on the sword for her is your duty.” “I already paid people to wipe the security footage of Tina starting the fire. Sophie, do not make this harder than it has to be. You are taking the fall for this, whether you like it or not.” I sat on the sterile hospital bed, laughing and crying like a maniac. I was grieving for myself. How could a mother be this biased. To protect one daughter, she was willing to bury the other alive. She looked at me with a complicated expression. “I already called the precinct and told them you are ready to confess. They will be here any minute. Be a good girl, Sophie.” “Your father and I will be waiting for you when you get out.” The door swung open just as she finished her sentence. Four uniformed officers walked in with handcuffs. I looked at my mother in horror and started screaming. “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.” She completely cut off the officers’ hesitation. “She is the one who did it, officers. Please make sure you interrogate her thoroughly.” Thanks to my parents’ enthusiastic cooperation, I was subjected to grueling interrogations for days. Under the extreme psychological pressure, my newly restored memories clashed violently with the implanted ones. My brain short-circuited. I started speaking in pure gibberish. The lead detective couldn’t bear to watch it anymore. Soon after, the police knocked on my family’s front door with a medical envelope. “Based on our psychiatric evaluations, Sophie Davis is suffering from severe trauma induced psychosis. We cannot proceed with a standard interrogation.” “If you can provide proof of a pre existing mental condition, the judge can commute her sentence to a medical facility.” I stared blankly at the scene playing out in my living room. A tiny spark of hope flickered in my chest, only to be ruthlessly extinguished by a firm voice. “We do not have any medical records. Please punish Sophie according to the maximum extent of the law.” My mother stood there. The smile on her face was as warm as a spring breeze, yet it drove a spike of solid ice right through my heart. She glanced at me coldly. “If a standard interrogation won’t work, then put her on the Neural Tribunal.” The detective was stunned. He asked her to repeat herself. “Are you absolutely sure, ma’am? The Neural Tribunal extracts memories by force. The brain damage is completely irreversible. It often leads to permanent vegetative states.” My mother waved him off like he was bothering her with trivia. “It is fine. She has always been resilient. We have to give the angry public the truth, right?” As the police left, the detective gave me a look of profound pity. I suddenly wanted to burst out laughing. Of course she wasn’t worried. The memories of the fire were sitting right inside my brain, and Tina’s tracks were perfectly covered. She was cutting off every single escape route I had. Memories truly do not lie. I let a tear slip down my cheek. I only hoped that when the truth finally came out, my parents would be able to pay the price. The Neural Tribunal was scheduled three days later. I was released on bail and followed my mother back home. The house was filled with joyous laughter, which died the second I stepped through the door. Tina was sitting at the dining table, eating premium crab legs that my dad was carefully shelling for her. My mother caught me staring at the food and smirked. “You want some? Just plead guilty on that stand, and I will buy you all the crab you want.” I felt like I was five years old again. I had simply asked Dad to pass me a piece of braised beef. Instead, I got a thirty minute screaming lecture. They called me greedy, spoiled, and completely selfish. They made me grovel and apologize before I was allowed to eat plain rice. But Tina could demand the moon and never pay a dime. The disgust on my mother’s face vanished the second she looked back at Tina. It was replaced by pure, unfiltered adoration. Tina threw her fork on the table and started whining loudly. “Why is she back. Do you guys not love me anymore. Are you trying to send me to jail.” Because of one tiny tantrum, both my parents rushed over to coddle her. My dad pushed a mountain of sweet crab meat in front of her and patted his chest. “Daddy loves you the most, sweetheart. Stop crying. Once this blows over, Daddy will go buy you that Porsche you wanted, okay?” My mom quickly chimed in. “Mommy loves you too. If you are stressed out, I will take a month off work and we can go vacation in Paris. How does that sound?” I stood frozen in the hallway like an unwanted trespasser. Tina could shed two fake tears and get a hundred thousand dollar sports car. When I was sixteen, I asked for a five dollar ice cream and got called a financial leech. My mother, who always claimed she was too busy to talk to me for even one minute, was suddenly ready to drop everything for a month in Paris. I thought my heart was entirely numb to their blatant favoritism. But it still felt like it was being fed through a meat grinder. Hearing their promises, Tina finally gave a condescending nod. She glared at me. “Get her out of my sight.” Because of that one sentence, my mother grabbed me by the hair and dragged me into the basement storage room. Right as she was closing the heavy metal door, I begged her. “Mom, I am sorry. Please do not lock me in here, please.” Absolute pitch black darkness swallowed the room. My body began to violently tremble. A suffocating wave of pure panic crushed my lungs. I slammed my fists against the door, screaming at the top of my lungs. My mother’s voice filtered through the steel, cold and utterly devoid of empathy. “Stop acting crazy. Sit in there and think about what you did. Do not ruin your sister’s mood.” It felt like I was going to cry out every drop of blood in my body. Because Tina was born with severe nyctophobia and fear of the dark, they had doctors extract that fear and dump it into my brain when I was only three years old. I was so young that the trauma multiplied a hundredfold. They were the ones who gave me this crippling phobia. But they conveniently forgot about it, treating my terror as a nuisance. I screamed and scratched at the walls in the dark until my throat bled, but no one came. Faint sounds of a comedy show playing on the upstairs TV drifted down to the basement. I curled into a ball, my mind flashing through the last twenty five years of hell. Because of the constant memory swaps, my life was entirely fractured. One second, I was weeping tears of joy over a breakthrough in genetic sequencing. The next second, my brain would be wiped clean, and I would become a drooling idiot who forgot how to use a fork. I survived in a fog, stuffed full of memories that did not belong to me, until I couldn’t even tell who I was anymore. But a vessel can only hold so much trash before it breaks. During those years of induced idiocy, I endured the abuse of hired nurses, the cold violence of my parents, and the mockery of our entire neighborhood. I was obsessed with seafood because of a memory that wasn’t mine. But eating it meant actual death. Every tragedy in my life was orchestrated by the two people who brought me into this world. Just as my consciousness began to fade, a bucket of freezing ice water was dumped over my head. “Time is up. Stop playing dead. We have a trial to get to.” The icy water dripped down my eyelashes, splashing onto the concrete floor. I couldn’t tell the difference between the water and my tears. I looked up at her, my voice completely hollow. “Why do you treat me like this.” My mother froze. A brief flash of panic crossed her eyes. But a second later, she squared her shoulders and looked at me with righteous fury. “Are you blaming me?” “Sophie, I put a roof over your head and food in your stomach. Without me, you would have died in a gutter. What right do you have to judge me?” “I raised you for twenty five years, and you do not have an ounce of gratitude in your body.” Gratitude. I was supposed to be grateful. Grateful that she hollowed out my brain for twenty five years. Grateful that she ruined my future. Grateful for the endless emotional torture. It was beyond absurd. I remained dead silent as they shoved me into the car. I didn’t snap out of it until we arrived at the steps of the Federal Neural Tribunal. A massive crowd of protesters and journalists had already swarmed the plaza. The moment I stepped out, cameras flashed like strobe lights, and microphones were shoved into my face. “Sophie. Do you feel any remorse for destroying a piece of national history.” “Your sister Tina is a literal genius and a charity ambassador. Why did you turn out to be a sociopath? Are you jealous of her?” “We heard you were raised by your grandmother when you were young. Did her toxic parenting make you like this?” Hearing my grandmother mentioned, a surge of pure rage ignited in my chest. I opened my mouth to yell back, but Tina’s soft, victimized voice echoed from behind me. “Maybe that is the case. I grew up in the city with Mom, receiving proper tutoring. But Sophie… she spent too much time in the countryside. I guess she picked up some bad habits.” I turned around, staring in disbelief at the monster wearing my face. She was smiling smugly for the cameras, and even turned to look at our mother, who gave her an encouraging nod. It was true. I was raised by my Nana when I was a toddler. In this entire mess of fake and stolen memories, the warmth of my grandmother was the only real thing I had left. When my intellect started fluctuating wildly, Nana was the only one who didn’t abandon me. She constantly took me to different clinics, begging for answers. And for that, Tina endlessly framed her, pulled cruel pranks on her, and accused her of abuse. Eventually, my dad used it as an excuse to lock Nana away in a miserable nursing home. I lunged forward, wanting to grab Tina by the throat and demand to know why she was dragging Nana into this. But my mother stepped in, shoving me back with brutal force. A sharp slap cracked across my face. She looked at me with absolute loathing. “What is wrong with you.” “We are in front of the whole country, and you are still trying to bully your sister.” Tina cowered behind our mother perfectly, but her eyes locked onto mine, shining with vicious delight. “Is my sister mad because I mentioned Grandma?” “But Sophie, if you actually cared about her, why didn’t you even show up to her funeral?” “Besides, Grandma died because of you.” I froze. A freezing, venomous dread wrapped around my spine. “Because of me…?” “Yeah,” Tina nodded innocently, projecting her voice for the microphones. “Grandma saw the news about you burning down the museum. It gave her a massive heart attack. She died in the hospital, completely alone. It is all your fault.” I looked at my mother in sheer horror. Despair crashed over me like a tidal wave. Violent, heavy tears poured out of my eyes. I cried until the capillaries in my eyes burst, bleeding crimson tears down my cheeks. Like a dying riverbed bleeding out its last drop of mud. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. I threw myself at my mother, screaming like a wounded animal. “Why didn’t you tell me. You knew the truth. Why didn’t you tell her it wasn’t me.” She was the only person in this godforsaken world who actually loved me. And she died thinking I was a monster. I am so sorry, Nana. I am so sorry. The outraged crowd began throwing garbage and half full coffee cups at me. Two massive court bailiffs grabbed my arms and dragged me up to the transparent Tribunal stage. The sour stench of spilled coffee soaked my clothes, but I didn’t care. I just kept my eyes locked onto the mother and daughter standing in the front row. The neural extractors were clamped onto my skull. A massive surge of electricity ripped through my nervous system. Total paralysis hit instantly. My organs felt like they were being roasted on an open fire. My head felt like it was going to split open. But the physical agony was nothing compared to the gaping hole in my chest. Down in the audience, Tina was smiling brightly, looking like a total winner. Until the colossal holographic screen suspended above the courtroom suddenly flickered to life. Tina’s smile died instantly.

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1 When Ross was up for Associate Professor, a violent patient shoved me down, causing a hemorrhage and miscarriage. He told me to suck it up because he could not afford a scandal during evaluations. After surgery, my uterine lining was dangerously thin and I was still bleeding. I just wanted a prescription to recover, but he looked at me with irritation. I have a waiting room full of critically ill patients, he said coldly. If I bypass the system for you, what will people think? So I was forced to wait at the very end of the general admission line. Behind me, two nurses gossiped with envy. Chloe is so lucky. She hangs around Dr. Sullivan all day and gets personal consultations without booking. Chloe was a scholarship student from a rural town, the only female student Ross had ever publicly mentored. She had been in his office for over an hour. Through the door crack, I heard her ask, Kerry did not look happy out there. What exactly is your relationship? Ross sighed softly. We are just friends. The prescription ticket crumpled in my fist. He had promised that once he made professor, he would go public with our three-year secret relationship and marry me. Now he was letting another woman sit in his personal chair, handing her a hot water bottle for her cramps. His strict boundaries only applied to me. Standing in the crowded hallway for my IV drip, the fight drained out of me. I did not want to hold on anymore. I did not want him anymore, either. … An hour later, Ross finally noticed me leaning against the cold hallway wall with an IV needle in my hand. He frowned in confusion. “Why are you getting your IV out here? Are there no beds available?” “There are. But I gave mine up.” I looked up at the ceiling. Honestly, I wasn’t just giving up a hospital bed. I was giving up the three years I had spent happily eating dirt just to support his career. In the past, I would have cried and demanded an explanation. “Why is it okay for you to give your female student special treatment, but you treat me like absolute garbage?” But now, I was just too tired to ask. “Are you done playing these games?” Ross impatiently loosened his tie and snatched the paper ticket out of my hand, slamming it onto his desk. The edge of the paper was soaked with condensation, wrinkling and tearing. Much like our shattered, pathetic three-year relationship. “Kerry, you are purposely putting on this pitiful act just to guilt trip me. You think throwing your past sacrifices in my face will make me bend the rules for you?” “Well, it won’t happen.” He slammed his coffee mug down hard enough to spill it. “I told you, we have to keep our distance at work. Half the board is watching my every move. If I show favoritism to you even once, everything I have killed myself to achieve will be gone.” It felt like a knife twisting in my gut. Bending the rules for me would ruin his career. But bending them for Chloe required no boundaries at all. She could freely waltz in and out of his office and occupy his desk for private consultations. Writing free prescriptions for personal use was a massive violation of hospital policy. Yet, whenever Chloe felt the slightest bit unwell, she would head straight to the pharmacy to grab whatever she needed. Ross saw it, knew it, and intentionally turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, when I was doubling over from post-op abdominal pain and took a single painkiller from the staff reserve, he publicly berated me. “If everyone acted as unprofessionally as you, this hospital would be shut down in a week.” I was forced to grit my teeth and endure the pain, eventually passing out during clinical rounds. Instead of helping me, he used my collapse to solidify his “iron-fisted, impartial” persona in front of the entire medical staff. “As an assisting resident, failing to report your physical condition beforehand and delaying the ward rounds shows a complete lack of responsibility.” “Mark it down. Deduct her entire attendance bonus for the month. If it happens again, you are off my rounds permanently.” When I confronted him with red, teary eyes, asking him why he was being so cruel, he looked at me like I was being unreasonable. “Rules are rules. If everyone was as irresponsible as you, the hospital’s discipline would be a joke. What is the point of having regulations?” When a colleague tried to defend me, Ross instantly turned on him in front of the whole department. “If you have a problem with how I run my team, you are free to leave. Question my authority again, and I won’t be so polite.” “Fine. It won’t happen again.” I pulled a tissue from the box and quietly wiped up the coffee he had just spilled on his desk. I didn’t look at him once. My sudden, eerie obedience made Ross freeze. It was like he hadn’t expected me to be this calm. He was used to me fighting back. But then he just scoffed. “Instead of throwing these cold tantrums, you should learn a thing or two from Chloe. She knows how to protect my reputation in public, and she is sweet and knows her place in private.” “She would never act as petty and calculating as you.” “Would she also abort her baby for you?” I looked him dead in the eye, genuinely curious about what kind of answer he would give. “Kerry… don’t push it…” Click. Before he could finish his sentence, he reached for his pen, and a sleek tube of lipstick fell out of his coat pocket. Givenchy. For my birthday, I had stood at the makeup counter for half an hour, staring longingly at that exact shade. Ross had told me that the color didn’t suit me, and that a luxury brand like that didn’t match my skin tone or my “status.” I had walked away empty-handed. And now, here it was, falling out of his pocket. “It is a gift for you.” His explanation was painfully awkward. His eyes darted around, refusing to meet mine. “You stared at it for a long time at the mall, remember? I was waiting for the right moment to surprise you, but I guess it fell out first.” I let out a bitter, mocking laugh. “That is the weakest lie I have ever heard. You are gifting me used makeup?” I casually popped the cap off the lipstick. “No luxury gift box? No velvet pouch? Not even the basic plastic seal from the store?” Ross’s face lost all its color, inch by inch. I stared at him. “If you tell enough lies, even you stop believing them, don’t you?” Last month, the hospital managed to secure a few highly coveted spots for the state’s top medical symposium. It was a massive networking opportunity. I was thrilled. I asked him if he could bring me along just to audit and take notes. Without a second thought, he frowned and rejected me. “This forum has an extremely high barrier to entry. It is strictly for licensed attending physicians and enrolled grad students. You haven’t passed your boards yet. You don’t have the credentials.” I believed him. I put my head down and studied harder for my exams. Just three days later, I saw a photo on the hospital’s official news page. Sitting in the very first row, looking incredibly attentive, was Chloe. She wasn’t a grad student. She wasn’t a licensed physician. In terms of credentials and basic medical knowledge, she was miles behind me. Yet, she felt perfectly entitled to sit in the front row. Faced with my ruthless dismantling of his lies, Ross was left completely speechless. The pale shock on his face instantly morphed into an ugly, defensive gray. “Are you seriously going to hold onto this trivial crap and not let it go? You are just looking for a fight.” Seeing me just stare at him in silence, his tone grew even more self-righteous. “Fine. Yes, Chloe used it.” “At the symposium, I noticed she looked a little pale, so I let her borrow it to touch up. But I bought it for you. It is just a tube of lipstick. She used it once, so what? Why do you have to be so damn dramatic about everything?” Looking at his utterly absurd justification, the very last shred of warmth I had for him turned to ice. She just borrowed it? When it came to Chloe using my things, it was no big deal. But last week, when I casually flipped through a notebook on his desk for two seconds, he screamed at me in front of four other doctors. “Do you have any concept of boundaries? Touching someone else’s personal property without permission is absolutely disgraceful. Do you have no common decency?” I found out later that the notebook belonged to Chloe. Every single clinical note inside was written by him, staying up all night to personally outline key concepts for her. “Ross.” I looked at him with absolute calm. “I originally thought we hadn’t reached the point where we needed to completely tear each other apart.” “I thought, at the very least, out of respect for the three years we spent together, and out of respect for the child that briefly existed between us, you would leave some dignity for both of us.” “I thought you wouldn’t let those three years become a complete joke.” My throat tightened for a second. “But clearly, I was overthinking it. I let my emotions make me stupid.” I grabbed the crumpled prescription ticket, threw it in the trash, and turned away, not giving him another glance. On the day of my abortion, lying on that freezing surgical table, I asked myself a question. If this baby had been born safely, would Ross have finally dropped the act? Would he have finally seen all my sacrifices and the indignities I suffered? Would he have looked me in the eye and sincerely said, “I want to marry you”? Looking back now, losing the baby was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. “Kerry, you never know when to back down. You always obsess over the smallest, most petty details. If you walk out that door, do not bother coming back.” “Deal. I won’t.” A gust of wind blew in as I opened the door. The heavy scent of gardenias immediately caused a dense rash to break out across my forearms. I was deathly allergic to the flower. Even the slightest exposure caused severe swelling and unbearable itching. Yet, this hospital was practically overflowing with them. My original plan was to build up enough clinical experience, apply for a fellowship abroad, and leave this place for good. But for Ross, I forced myself to stay here, suffering through it for three years. “Excuse me, I am looking for Professor Davis. I am a former student of hers. My name is Kerry.” After walking out of Ross’s office, I didn’t go straight home. Instead, I headed toward the senior professor’s office. Back in college, I won the gold medal in a national medical competition with a solo research paper. My unique analytical perspective caught the attention of many senior professors in the department. Of course, that included Ross. Back then, he was just a low-level teaching assistant. He had no title, no tenure, and zero authority to lead his own students. Yet, he waited for me outside the library every single day. He told me I was the most gifted student he had ever seen, practically begging me to give him the chance to work alongside me. Seeing the pure, unfiltered ambition in his eyes, and his worn-out, faded shirts, my heart softened, and I agreed. For countless nights after that, we squeezed into tiny, cramped study rooms, cracking impossible medical cases. We traveled to endless medical seminars together. We stayed up until 3 AM, splitting a single cup of instant ramen. On the rare occasions we finished early, we would catch a movie at a rundown, cheap theater off-campus. The days were simple, but they were the best years of my youth. Eventually, his professional admiration morphed into something more. After a movie one night, he suddenly grabbed my hand and confessed. “Kerry, I like you. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the one. I want to be with you.” “Please give me a chance. Let me take care of you for the rest of my life. Please say yes.” We kissed in the fading glow of the movie screen, sealing our relationship. But Ross was always paranoid about his lack of a solid foundation. He constantly reminded me that it wasn’t the right time to go public, asking me to wait until he got his promotion so we could announce it properly. I believed him. I willingly buried our relationship in the dark. And that wait lasted three grueling years. “Are you absolutely sure about applying for the direct Ph.D. program overseas? If you leave, you won’t be able to come back for five whole years. Does Ross know about this?” Professor Davis looked up at me, her tone laced with careful testing. “He doesn’t know, but my mind is made up. Professor, I want to go out and build my own career. You once told me that no matter what I decided, you would support me.” “I would like this to stay our little secret.” No one understood my talent and potential better than Professor Davis. When I graduated with my bachelor’s, she immediately secured a spot for me in the graduate program, promising me the best research resources available. But Ross’s sudden intrusion brought my entire future to a screeching halt. “Alright. We leave in two days. Go home and pack your things.” When I got to my dorm, the door was wide open. My clothes, my bedding, and my personal belongings were scattered all over the floor like garbage. Chloe was sitting on my bed, lazily flipping through one of my textbooks. Surrounding her were two or three female interns. They were giggling and dividing up my snacks and expensive skincare products. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Hearing my voice, Chloe slowly looked up. Scanning my exhausted, disheveled face, she didn’t show a single ounce of guilt. In fact, she looked incredibly arrogant. “Your room? Is your name painted on the wall?” “If I recall correctly, this room was assigned to Professor Sullivan. You have been mooching off his space for years. How do you still have the nerve to loiter here?” She leaned lazily against my headboard, kicking my meticulously annotated graduate prep manuals and journals onto the dirty floor. “You aren’t a licensed doctor, and you aren’t legally registered as a faculty dependent. You are just wasting a staff housing quota. Have you no shame?” “Yeah,” the two interns quickly chimed in, eager to watch the drama unfold. “We heard you gave up grad school just to chase after Professor Sullivan.” “But he has already explicitly rejected you, and you still refuse to let it go. Kerry, how can you be this pathetic?” My heart skipped a beat. Explicitly rejected? We had never even publicly announced our relationship. Where did a rejection come from? Before I could ask, Chloe pulled out her phone and shoved the screen in my face. It was the pinned, top post on the hospital’s internal forum. Posted by Ross Sullivan. “Declaration on Maintaining Professional Boundaries and Rejecting Inappropriate Harassment.” “As an Associate Professor of this department, I have always strictly adhered to hospital regulations and maintained clear boundaries with my students. However, recently, I have been subjected to frequent harassment by an intern who is attempting to forcefully insert herself into my personal and professional life.” “This public notice serves as a strict warning to end all such boundary-crossing behavior. I urge all students in this institution to focus on their professional development and maintain an appropriate distance from faculty members.” Attached at the bottom of the post were several photos of me. The photos I had sent him, full of tender, loving words from a girlfriend. Now, under his pen, they had been twisted into evidence of my psychotic stalking. “See that? You are the laughingstock of the entire hospital now. If I were you, I would have packed my bags and disappeared ages ago. How do you still have the face to stay here?” As Chloe spoke, she lifted her foot and ground her shoe into my pillow. The pillow my mother had hand-stitched for me the night before I left for college. “Get off my bed.” “Ahhh.” Caught off guard, I shoved her, and Chloe tumbled backward onto the mattress. Ross happened to walk in at that exact moment. Without a second thought, he violently shoved me back. My forehead slammed into the metal bed frame. Blood began oozing from the cut. He didn’t even glance at me. His entire focus was on pulling Chloe into his arms. And Chloe, who was just acting like a tyrannical bully two seconds ago, instantly masked her viciousness. She stood up timidly from the bed, nervously gripping the hem of her shirt. “Professor Sullivan, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have temporarily moved into Kerry’s room. She… she really seems to hate me. She said some awful things to me and even pushed me. I… I should just go.” Her shoulders trembled as she cried, giant tears rolling down her cheeks. She took a step toward the door. Ross quickly grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She is the one in the wrong.” I stared at him in utter disbelief. “Chloe has highly sensitive skin. With the heavy rains lately, her dorm wall got moldy, and she broke out in a terrible rash. She isn’t like you. You are healthy and tough. You can sleep anywhere.” The blood rushed to my head, making me so dizzy I could barely stand. No one knew the significance of this dorm room better than I did. This was the room Ross fought tooth and nail to secure for me during his first, most financially unstable year as a teaching assistant. It was the only premium single room in the entire building. It was soundproof, had great natural light, and was perfectly insulated. Most importantly, it was the room closest to his own quarters. Back then, he had gently promised me. “I am giving you the best, most convenient room so you can study in peace, without anyone ever bothering you.” And now, with one casual sentence, he was handing it over to Chloe. “Fine. She can have the room. But you have to sign a written agreement with me right now.” “An agreement stating that as soon as her dorm airs out, you will return this room to me.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the early graduation approval form I had prepared days ago, shoving it in front of him. Because I was still technically registered under him as a student, I needed his signature to formally withdraw and graduate early. But Ross was so entirely focused on comforting Chloe that he didn’t even bother reading the paper. He just scoffed, thinking I was being incredibly petty and childish for making a fuss over a dorm room, and aggressively scribbled his signature at the bottom. But Ross, by signing this paper, you just ensured we will truly have absolutely nothing to do with each other ever again. “Kerry.” Ross frowned, standing in the doorway. “Why can’t you just understand me? I had my reasons for doing this.” “Right. Posting our private texts and photos on the hospital forum, and publicly framing me as a crazy stalker, was also just you having your reasons.” Ross’s self-righteous expression froze for a second. He remained silent for a long time before muttering a defense. “I admit I handled that poorly, and I am sorry. But the hospital is currently heavily promoting financial aid for underprivileged students. If rumors started spreading about us, it would ruin her chances at the scholarship and her academic future.” “And?” “Anyone with eyes can see that our relationship isn’t normal. If I didn’t post that statement, they would keep gossiping about us. Eventually, not just Chloe, but both of us would be dragged down by the scandal.” “Okay.” The seven years of confusion, resentment, and desperate hope I harbored were completely flatlined in this instant. I didn’t want to hear another word of his pathetic excuses. The next day, the final make-up exam list was posted. Everyone in the department knew that Chloe was the one constantly showing up late, leaving early, and failing the attendance requirements. But her name wasn’t on the list. Instead, mine was. Ross had personally gone into the system and tampered with my attendance and clinical practicum records, slapping me with a completely fabricated truancy penalty. Even though my overseas Ph.D. program didn’t require my domestic transcripts. This was about my final shred of dignity. I blocked Ross’s path in the hallway. “I had perfect attendance. I scored a hundred on my practicals. My thesis was rated outstanding. On what grounds did you mark me as truant?” Ross looked up at me, his eyes filled with nothing but impatience and disgust. “It is just a truancy mark, it is not a big deal. Kerry, stop obsessing over these tiny things and acting like a lunatic.” So, “Do you care more about your title, or about Chloe?” He didn’t answer, but his silence told me everything I needed to know. The students crowding the hallway, fueled by the narrative on the forum, started pointing fingers at me. “She fails her own classes and blames the professor. How shameless can you get? If I were her, I would have dropped out by now.” “She has a rotten attitude and is just trying to find a shortcut. So embarrassing.” The crowd pushed closer. In the chaos, a hand suddenly shot out and shoved me down the concrete stairs. Caught entirely off guard, I tumbled down and slammed onto the cement landing. Ross didn’t even turn his head. It wasn’t until I sent him one final text. “Ross Sullivan, we are done. I hope I never see your face again for the rest of my life.” That his phone call finally came through. But I was already boarding my flight.

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At my welcome-home gala, as the three-tiered cake was cut, Mona, the adopted golden child, grabbed my hand with tears in her eyes. “Rachel, could you please move out for a while?” The ballroom fell silent. Guests exchanged glances. Mona trembled, claiming she lived in terror of being thrown out. Eleanor pulled her close, eyes red. Nate shot me an icy look. Glowing phantom text appeared: [Do not agree! You are the real heiress! Tear her apart! Cry and throw a fit!] In my past life, I obeyed. I smashed my glass, screamed for them to choose, and caused a scene. High society branded me a feral brat. Mona framed my adoptive parents, driving them to death. I burned alive in a warehouse. This time, I let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Sure. Since you are so terrified, I will pack my things tonight.” 1 Mona’s theatrical sobbing paused for a fraction of a second. She stared at me blankly, as if she had misheard. Nate furrowed his brow. The self-righteous lecture he had queued up on his tongue was suddenly stuck in his throat. The crowd was a mix of pity and pure entertainment. A few socialites had already discreetly pulled out their phones, waiting to record the “feral true daughter” going insane. Instead, I reached out and gently straightened Mona’s crooked pearl hair clip. “You are used to living in the master estate. Do not stress yourself out. I will move out.” Eleanor let out a massive, visible sigh of relief. Then she realized how terrible that looked. She quickly reached for my hand. “Rachel, sweetheart, that is not what I meant. You just got home. How can we let you live outside?” Mona leaned heavier against Eleanor’s chest, fresh tears spilling over. “Mom, I don’t want to chase my sister away. I am just… I am just so scared.” Nate immediately lowered his voice to coax her. “No one is blaming you, Mona.” I smiled. “Then let’s do exactly what she asked.” The phantom text in my vision was going absolutely ballistic. [Are you out of your mind? She told you to get lost, and you are actually leaving?] [This is a billionaire family drama, not a charity show!] [If you take a step back now, she will step all over you forever!] I lowered my eyes, watching the glowing words fade. In my past life, I thought the exact same thing. I felt that eighteen years of my life had been stolen. I felt that coming back meant I deserved at least a bedroom, a hug, and a little bit of favoritism. So I fought. I forced Mona to move out of the master suite. I forced my parents to publicly label her as nothing more than a foster child. I forced Nate to fulfill his engagement to the true Harrington heiress. And the result? Mona faked a midnight fever, and Eleanor cried until she passed out. Nate publicly humiliated me, stating that bloodline wasn’t a free pass to act like a monster. Relying on her fragile health and endless tears, Mona became the ultimate victim in everyone’s eyes. In the end, my adoptive mother was killed in a hit-and-run on a rainy night while trying to deliver evidence to save me. My adoptive father died of a broken heart, branded as a con artist who tried to extort a billionaire family. Right before he flatlined, he held my hand and asked if I was happy at the Harrington estate. I didn’t have the face to answer him. In this life, I wasn’t going to fight over a bedroom. A bedroom wasn’t worth my life. Nate stared at me with heavy suspicion. “Rachel, you better not be playing some twisted mind game.” I looked up at him and sneered. “Do not worry, Nate. I am not going to fight for you, either.” His face paled instantly. Mona gripped Eleanor’s hand tight. “The marriage pact between our families has always been maintained by you and Mona over the years. Since she is the only one you recognize, you two should keep it.” I raised my champagne flute. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried perfectly across the silent ballroom. “I wish you and Mona a very long, very happy life together.” A collective, muffled gasp rippled through the guests. Mona’s face drained of color. She wanted me to lose my temper, not give her my public blessing. Once the blessing was out in the open, she and Nate were shoved squarely into the spotlight. The romance was theirs, but the heavy corporate responsibilities of the engagement were now theirs, too. After the banquet wrapped up, the head butler asked if I wanted to rest in the main house for the night. I shook my head. “Book me a hotel suite. I am leaving right now.” Eleanor panicked. “Rachel, please do not do this. It breaks my heart to see you leave.” I looked her dead in the eye. “Mom, Mona is the one who said she was scared.” She choked on her words. Standing at the top of the grand staircase, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, Mona watched me leave. A faint, triumphant gleam hid in the depths of her eyes. 2 The hotel suite was dead quiet. I unzipped my suitcase. I didn’t have many clothes. At the very bottom lay an old, weathered manila envelope. It was a gift from my adoptive father, Arthur. He and my adoptive mother, Martha, ran a tiny, rundown pharmacy in a small town. Growing up, I shadowed them, learning how to read prescription labels, check batch numbers, and audit inventory logs. When the Harrington family finally found me, the socialites whispered that I smelled like cheap rubbing alcohol and dust. Only Martha had taken the time to carefully fold my faded shirts. “Rachel, wealth does not matter,” she had told me, her hands shaking. “Just do not let anyone treat you like garbage.” I pulled the documents out of the envelope. Inside was a photocopy of a yellowed accounting ledger, and a heavily scuffed employee ID badge. The badge read: “Harrington Pharmaceuticals – Old Factory.” The serial number ended in a seven. It was the exact style of the logistics pass used at the old factory the year I was abducted. In my past life, I only found out right before I died that my disappearance was never an accident. I pulled out my phone and texted my adoptive brother, Noah. “Put the original factory badge in a bank safe deposit box. Tell Mom and Dad not to go out alone for a while. Record all calls from unknown numbers.” Noah replied instantly. “Are those rich snobs bullying you?” Looking at the screen, my nose stung. The people who genuinely cared about my safety in the very first second were never the ones who shared my blood. “No. I moved out.” He sent back a string of exclamation points. “Did they kick you out?” I smiled slightly and typed back. “I agreed to it.” I had to step outside the Harrington family to truly see the rot inside it. Early the next morning, my biological father’s executive assistant picked me up from the hotel. He said the Dowager wanted to see me. Madam Harrington lived in the historic north estate. She was the widow of the pharmaceutical empire’s founder, and she held the master key to the family trust. In my past life, I sat in her study crying about how unfair everything was. She only asked me one question. “Besides crying, what exactly are you good for?” Eventually, she became completely disgusted with me. In this life, I walked straight into her mahogany study and slid three legal documents across her desk. “A request for a secondary DNA verification.” “A request to access the archives of the old Harrington factory.” “An asset boundary confirmation agreement.” The old woman raised her sharp, hawk-like eyes. “You just got found, and you are already trying to divide the family assets?” “I am drawing clear lines. Mona can keep living in the main house. She can keep playing the Harrington princess, and she can keep using the family’s resources. But the authorization needs to be on paper.” Madam Harrington narrowed her eyes. “Why?” “Because feelings can be blurry, but accounting cannot.” The study descended into a heavy silence. Suddenly, the old woman chuckled. “You do not look like the pathetic, easily bullied girl from last night’s banquet.” I let out a cold smile of my own. “There were too many people last night. It was not the right place to talk about ledgers.” She flipped through the agreement. The real estate, luxury cars, private drivers, PR teams, and high-end jewelry that Mona enjoyed were all explicitly listed as “borrowed assets authorized by the Harrington Trust.” They were not her natural inheritance. She would also retain her title as the Executive Chairwoman of the Harrington Charity Foundation. However, every single project grant, facial recognition approval, digital signature, and public statement had to be archived and legally traced back to her. The Dowager put down her fountain pen. “Is this you giving her a dignified exit?” “This is me giving the Harrington family an insurance policy.” She stared at me for a long, calculating minute before finally signing her name. “Take this to your father.” That afternoon, in the Harrington estate’s main living room. When Mona saw the agreement, the color drained slightly from her face. Eleanor didn’t understand corporate liabilities. She just thought I was causing unnecessary drama. “Rachel, Mona already got you to move out. Why do you have to write up all these aggressive documents?” I kept my tone perfectly even. “It is exactly because I moved out that this needs to be crystal clear. This prevents the tabloids from saying the Harringtons abuse their adopted daughter, and it prevents anyone from claiming I am plotting to steal her life back.” Nate picked up the contract and scanned it. “So this just guarantees that Mona can stay and use her usual resources?” “Yes.” His tense shoulders relaxed a bit. My biological father, Richard, also nodded in approval. “Sign it, Mona. It is a good way to manage public relations.” 3 Mona had absolutely no excuse to refuse. With tears welling in her eyes, she signed her name. As the pen tip hit the paper, I noticed her knuckles turning stark white. Perfect. She had just personally accepted the first key to the gates of hell. I lived in the hotel for two weeks. Ironically, the Harrington family contacted me far more often than they did in my past life. Richard had his driver deliver racks of designer clothes. Eleanor brought me homemade soup. Every time she dropped something off, she looked like she wanted to say something, but held back. “Rachel, please do not hold a grudge against Mona. Her health has always been fragile. She cannot handle emotional stress.” I took the thermos from her hands. “I know.” “Then when are you going to move back home?” “Whenever she stops being scared.” Eleanor was left completely speechless. I didn’t move back to the estate, but I did start spending my days in the Harrington corporate archives. The Dowager had granted me temporary clearance. The company’s most critical asset was called Project Lumina. Twenty years ago, Harrington Pharmaceuticals dodged bankruptcy thanks to a breakthrough drug for a rare disease. They eventually rolled all new R&D lines into Project Lumina. The media always spun the fairy tale that the moment Mona was adopted into the family, the crucial FDA approvals came through. From then on, she was branded as the family’s lucky charm. And she milked that persona for everything it was worth. Charity galas, hospital visits, promotional videos for sick children: she always placed herself right in the center, looking like an absolute angel. But down in the archives, I dug up an old email. The sender was Arthur, my adoptive father. In the email, he documented a severe adverse reaction to that exact drug, which he had observed at his grassroots pharmacy. He strongly advised Harrington Pharma to alter their warning labels and clinical submission data. The company took his advice. That was the only reason the approval passed. I stared at the printed email, my fingertips turning ice cold. Her so-called “lucky charm” status was built entirely on my adoptive father’s professional brilliance. Just then, Mona pushed open the archive door. She walked in holding a tray of coffee, flashing a sickly sweet smile. “Rachel, I heard you have been buried in files all week. I brought you a hot latte.” I didn’t take it. Her eyes immediately turned red. A few corporate employees walking past the glass door noticeably slowed their pace to watch the drama. I reached out, took the coffee, and set it on a far desk. “Thanks.” Mona glanced at the vintage clinical data near my hand. “Project Lumina is incredibly complex. Since you just got involved, it must be so exhausting for you. Grandpa always used to say that a pharmaceutical company’s true value is built on trust and companionship.” I looked up. “So you think the project should be handed over to you?” She shook her head frantically, looking incredibly wronged. “That is not what I meant at all.” “Good.” I handed her the itinerary for the upcoming corporate anniversary. “The company’s anniversary gala is next month. You will continue to be the keynote speaker for the charity foundation. The internet loves hearing you tell the Harrington family story. Make sure you talk extensively about Project Lumina.” Her eyes lit up for a fraction of a second before she forced them back into a look of hesitation. “Is that appropriate? You just got back…” “Your public image is rock solid. The media loves you. You are the perfect fit.” The phantom text exploded across my vision again. [Are you stupid? She is going to use this stage to cement her status as the heir!] [Do not give her the spotlight!] [Fight her for the microphone!] I didn’t even blink. Without a high stage, how could she suffer a fatal fall? That night, Noah texted me a photo. “Rachel, the factory manager linked to that old badge ID is Victor Harrington. He is currently the Executive VP.” Mona’s favorite uncle. In my past life, when I was framed for leaking corporate secrets, he was the very first person to hand fake evidence to the police. I replied. “Stop digging. Stay safe.” “I am not an idiot.” Looking at his text, I smiled softly. I hoped that in this life, we could both be smart about our revenge. 4 A week before the gala, Mona started dominating the trending topics. #HarringtonsLuckyCharm #EighteenYearsOfLove #TheAngelOfHarringtonCharity The PR accounts spun a narrative that could make anyone weep. They claimed the company was on the brink of death until Mona’s adoption reversed their karma. They praised her for accompanying the Dowager on charity missions since she was thirteen. They quoted the late grandfather, claiming he called her the absolute light of the Harrington family. The comment sections were a frenzy of praise. [The real daughter had to move to a hotel the second she got back. Clearly, the family knows who the better child is.] [Mona actually acts like a billionaire heiress. The other one is probably feral.] [Bloodline means nothing. Contribution is what matters.] Richard looked at the public sentiment reports, his face grim. “Mona, these articles are going way too far.” Mona lowered her head, looking utterly apologetic. “Dad, I had no idea the PR team would write things like this. If Rachel is upset, I will have them taken down immediately.” Nate instantly jumped to her defense. “Taking them down will just make us look guilty. Mona has poured her heart into charity for years. She deserves a little public praise.” Eleanor nodded in agreement. “Exactly. Rachel is not a petty girl. She won’t mind.” Everyone turned to look at me. I was casually scrolling through the charity foundation’s digital approval backend on an iPad. “The engagement metrics are great. We need the traffic for the anniversary gala anyway.” Richard paused, surprised. “You really do not mind?” “Would minding change anything?” He fell silent. I slid the iPad across the coffee table to Mona. “Since the media is going to grill you on our charity initiatives, you need to personally verify and sign off on this quarter’s three major medical relief partnerships tonight.” Mona’s finger hovered over the screen. “Doesn’t the foundation’s secretariat usually handle the final legal sign-offs?” “You are the Executive Chairwoman,” I reminded her calmly. “Your PR literally says you are hands-on with everything. You cannot have someone else forge your digital signature.” Nate frowned. “Rachel, there is no need to make things difficult for her over corporate red tape.” “When you take over your family’s empire, Nate, are you going to let your secretary sign legally binding financial documents for you?” His face darkened. Mona had no choice but to pick up the iPad. Facial recognition. Digital signature. Project confirmation. One after another. By the time she finished, her face was deathly pale. I was in a fantastic mood. On the night of the Harrington anniversary gala, the lights in the grand ballroom were blindingly bright. Partner hospital directors, regulatory advisors, board members, legacy media, and financial influencers were all present. Mona wore a stunning white gown, standing in the spotlight like a delicate, meticulously cultivated greenhouse flower. Nate stood proudly by her side. When he saw me, he lowered his voice. “Rachel, do not cause a scene tonight. Mona prepared for a long time.” I laughed. “Relax. I want to see her full performance more than anyone.” He frowned, clearly uneasy. Once the event kicked off, Mona took the stage to deliver the foundation’s keynote address. Her voice was soft, her pacing immaculate. “I may not share the Harrington blood, but this family gave me a name, and they taught me the true value of human life.” Thunderous applause echoed through the hall. The massive LED screen behind her flashed photos of her hospital visits. Sterile wards, smiling children, bouquets of flowers, warm hugs. The imagery was as flawless and pure as a commercial. Then, the host seamlessly transitioned the topic to Project Lumina. Mona’s eyes glistened with perfectly timed tears. “Grandpa solemnly entrusted this project to me. He believed in me, and I swear I have not let him down.” The exact moment those words left her mouth, the massive screen behind her went pitch black. A grainy, old video suddenly began playing. On the screen, the late grandfather lay in a hospital bed, his voice incredibly weak but distinct. “Project Lumina… must never, ever be handed over to Mona…” The ballroom erupted into chaos. Richard bolted up from his chair.

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Every month, I secretly paid Mary’s health insurance. My husband teased me for having too much money and a bleeding heart. I never explained. Mary was a chatterbox but incredibly observant. I knew she had a bad hip and struggled with bills, so I covered her premiums. What he didn’t realize was that Mary had access to every office, boardroom, and hallway. She saw people, heard whispers, and knew secrets better than HR. Over eight years, she’d come to see me as family. Last week, she slipped into my office, shut the door, and whispered, “Victoria, please don’t be mad. It’s about the new intern, Lexi. She and Mr. Foster sneak off to the breakroom. Yesterday, her blouse was unbuttoned and he had red lipstick on his collar.” Seeing her hesitate, I poured her water and told her to continue. She pulled out shredded paper taped together. “I fished this from Mr. Foster’s private trash.” It was a drafted Equity Transfer Agreement. 1 The name on the receiving end: Lexi. She was the underprivileged student I had personally sponsored three years ago. Lexi grew up in a dirt-poor rural town. Her father was paralyzed, and her mother was chronically ill. During her junior year of college, she couldn’t afford tuition and was on the verge of dropping out. The university sent a list of students needing financial aid to my charitable foundation, and her tragic essay caught my eye. I paid her tuition. I covered her living expenses. When she graduated, she called me, crying tears of gratitude, saying she wanted to stay in Seattle to work hard and repay my kindness. My heart softened, and I pulled some strings to get her an internship at my husband’s company. I still remember Richard wrapping his arms around my waist that night, kissing my cheek. “My wife has the biggest heart in the world. You don’t see young kids with that kind of loyalty and gratitude anymore.” I actually believed him. Looking at it now, I had invited a viper straight into my own home. Seeing all the color drain from my face, Mary reached into her pocket again and pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen and slid it across my desk. It was a video taken from the corner of the hallway, right outside the breakroom. Lexi and Richard walked out, one after the other. Lexi was fixing her messy hair. Richard casually reached out and squeezed her backside. The way they looked at each other, the practiced ease of their touches, it wasn’t a one-time mistake. That fifteen-second clip took my twelve-year marriage, along with my self-righteous charity, and smashed it into pieces. I locked the phone screen and slid it back to her. “Mary, this dies with us. Do not say a word to anyone.” Mary wiped a tear from her wrinkled cheek. “You’ve been an angel to me, Victoria. I couldn’t just stand by and watch them do you dirty like this.” When I got home that evening, the smell of roasted chicken filled the kitchen. Richard plated dinner and handed me a glass of wine, playing the perfect, attentive husband. “You look exhausted, honey. Long meetings today?” I stared at his face. Years ago, when his first startup went up in flames and left him drowning in debt, I drained my entire savings to bail him out. My father provided his first round of seed money to start this current company. During our toughest year, when the company was barely staying afloat, I was four months pregnant. I flew cross-country with him in the dead of winter to court investors. I sat at dinners, matching arrogant executives drink for drink just to secure the contracts we desperately needed. On the cab ride back to the hotel, the bleeding started. I lost the baby. The doctors told me the tissue scarring was severe, and my chances of conceiving again were practically zero. After years of agonizing IVF treatments, we finally got our miracle baby, our daughter Lily. Richard had dropped to his knees right there in the hospital room, crying like a child, swearing on his life that he would spend every breathing moment treating us like queens. A man’s oath is truly the cheapest thing on earth. I took a sip of my wine. “How is Lexi doing at the office?” His hand paused halfway to his mouth. Not a muscle in his face twitched. “She’s doing great. You know how rookies are. Give them a little room to run, and they surprise you.” Right as the words left his mouth, his phone lit up on the kitchen island. A text notification popped up on the lock screen. It was a selfie of a woman wrapped in a towel, shoulders bare. [Rich, just got out of the shower. Thinking of you.] He snatched the phone so fast he nearly knocked over his water glass, slamming it face-down on the marble counter. He let out a nervous chuckle. “Stupid group chat spam.” I forced the corners of my mouth into a smile. “Right.” The guiltier the dog, the louder it barks. 2 First thing the next morning, Mary slipped into my office under the guise of emptying the trash. She locked the door behind her. Her eyes were red and swollen. Seeing my pale face, her expression twisted with pure pity. “Victoria, I stayed late last night,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she leaned over my desk. “I heard Mr. Foster pacing in the stairwell on his phone.” She took a shaky breath. “He said he’s going to use the shareholder meeting next Wednesday to pin the entire thirty-million-dollar deficit from the Southside project on you. He’s planning to force you to resign in front of the whole board.” Tears spilled over her lashes, and her rough, calloused hands reached out to grab mine. “You look so tired, sweetheart. Please don’t let this ruin your health. I look at you, and I see my own daughter. You have a heart of gold. How did you end up with a monster like him?” A lump formed in my throat. I squeezed her hands back firmly. “Don’t worry, Mary. I am not going to sit back and let them slaughter me.” Next Wednesday. I had a few days. It was more than enough time for me to silently transfer the company’s actual core assets and intellectual property. Once you rip the bandage off a rotting wound, the infection underneath can’t stay hidden for long. On Saturday morning, Richard claimed he had an emergency site visit at our regional branch and rushed out the door before breakfast. Mary called me an hour later. “Lexi didn’t show up to work today,” she reported. “I was cleaning the pantry and heard some of the girls gossiping. They said Lexi is pregnant.” I told Mary to keep her ears open and hung up. Before I could even process the news, my front door clicked open. My mother-in-law, Eleanor, had let herself in with her spare key. She walked into the living room, her face immediately scrunching up in disgust. My sweet Lily was sitting on the plush rug, building a massive spaceship out of Legos. Eleanor didn’t even offer her a polite hello. “What is a little girl doing playing with boy’s toys? You’re raising her with zero manners,” Eleanor sneered. Lily flinched, dropping a plastic brick, and scrambled to hide behind my legs. I swallowed the fire burning in my chest and shielded my daughter. “Eleanor, what a surprise. Richard isn’t home.” “I’m not here for him. I’m here for you.” Eleanor marched over and claimed the center of the designer sofa. She crossed her arms, her chin tilted up in absolute arrogance. “Lexi called me yesterday.” My hand froze on the pitcher of water I was holding. Lexi? First-name basis already. How cozy. Eleanor’s eyes gleamed with a sickening, triumphant joy. “She is eight weeks along. I had a private specialist look at the ultrasounds. It is a boy. A confirmed male heir. Richard is a very successful man now, Victoria. You can’t honestly expect him to die without a son to carry on the family legacy, can you?” The living room fell into a deathly, suffocating silence. Lily looked up at me, her big brown eyes welling with tears. “Mommy, does Daddy not want us anymore?” My heart felt like it was being run through a meat grinder. “Go to your room, sweetie. Mommy needs to have a grown-up talk with Grandma.” I watched the nanny hurry Lily down the hall. The second the door clicked shut, the polite, accommodating daughter-in-law mask melted right off my face. I stared dead-eyed at the pompous old woman on my couch. “Eleanor, your son is committing adultery, and you came to my house to brag about it?” “So what if he is? Men have needs, and successful men have options!” Eleanor slammed her hand on the coffee table, entirely unapologetic. “You can’t give him a son. Are you going to block someone else from doing it? If you have half a brain, you’ll let Lexi have this baby and step aside gracefully. Do that, and you get to keep living like a rich housewife. Fight us, and I’ll make sure my son throws you out on the street with absolutely nothing!” I looked at her, truly amazed by her delusion. It was like watching a clown perform at a circus. “Eleanor, is the dementia kicking in early? Have you completely forgotten who the majority shareholder of this company actually is?” Eleanor laughed, a harsh, grating sound, looking at me like I was the punchline of a joke. “Victoria, you really think you’re untouchable, don’t you? The entire company answers to Richard now. Without him, you are a nobody!” “Alright,” I nodded, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. “Tell him to try me.” 3 Monday morning. The moment I stepped off the elevator, Mary was buffing the floor in the corridor. She saw me and immediately power-walked over, keeping her voice to a harsh whisper. “Victoria, watch your back. Mr. Foster called the senior board members into his office first thing this morning. Lexi was in there too. They just wrapped up, whispering and looking real smug. They’re setting a trap.” I gave her a reassuring nod. “Let them dig the hole. The deeper they dig, the harder they fall.” I walked into my private executive office and buzzed my secretary, telling her to send Lexi in immediately. Lexi walked through the door wearing a custom-tailored Chanel suit, a limited-edition Birkin bag draped over her forearm. If you didn’t know her background, you’d think she was a trust-fund heiress, not a girl who was eating ramen for dinner three years ago. “You wanted to see me, Victoria?” Lexi stood there, trying to look timid, but her eyes were darting around the room, assessing her future territory. I didn’t invite her to sit. I picked up a file folder and tossed a stack of printed real estate records onto the desk. It was the deed to a ten-million-dollar luxury penthouse in Bellevue. Lexi glanced down. All the color instantly drained from her face. “A fresh graduate, entirely debt-free, paying cash for a ten-million-dollar penthouse. Lexi, your earning potential is truly inspiring,” I said, leaning back in my leather chair, a cold smile playing on my lips. Her knees buckled. She knew I had found out everything. She dropped to her knees right there on the expensive carpet, the tears flowing like a broken faucet. “Victoria! Please, you have to understand, I didn’t mean for this to happen!” She sobbed, playing the sickeningly sweet victim act to perfection. “I was just so grateful to Mr. Foster for mentoring me. I couldn’t control my feelings! I never wanted to ruin your family. I just wanted to look up to him from the shadows.” Listening to this textbook manipulative garbage made my stomach churn. “Lexi, drop the pathetic act.” I stood up, walked around the desk, and used the tip of my stiletto to force her chin up. “You want to sleep with a married man? Fine, that just makes you trash. But your fatal mistake was coming after my money. I paid for the degree you hold. The clothes on your back, the bag on your arm, and even that little bargaining chip growing in your stomach, it was all bought with my money.” She froze, her eyes wide with sheer terror. She clearly hadn’t expected me to know about the pregnancy. Just then, my office door violently swung open. Richard stormed in, his face red with fury. He rushed over and pulled Lexi off the floor, shielding her behind his back. “Victoria! Have you lost your mind? Throwing your weight around to bully a junior employee?!” I looked at the tragic star-crossed lovers and felt a hysterical urge to laugh. “This is the garbage you’re falling on your sword for, Richard?” Richard took a deep breath. The mask was fully off now. He helped Lexi over to the sofa, then pulled a thick red folder from his briefcase and slapped it hard onto my desk. “Since we’re laying all our cards on the table, I’ll keep it brief. We are prepping for an IPO, and I’ve restructured the equity distribution.” He looked at me with cold, uncompromising entitlement. “Lexi is carrying my child. She is giving my family a future. I am taking fifteen percent of the shares under your name and transferring them to her. Consider it a trust fund for the kid.” I actually let out a laugh. Taking my equity to fund his illegitimate child. He really thought I was a spineless pushover. “And if I refuse to sign?” Richard smirked, his voice dripping with venom. “You’ve been out of the daily operations for years. The clients, the supply chains, the board, they all belong to me. If you don’t sign, I have a hundred ways to bleed this company dry and turn your shares into worthless toilet paper. Be smart about this, Victoria. Let’s keep it civil.” I stared into his eyes for a long, heavy moment. Slowly, the corners of my mouth curled up. “Alright,” I said, closing the red folder. “Since this is for the good of the company, let’s do it right. We’ll sign the transfer officially this Wednesday at the all-hands shareholder meeting, right in front of the entire executive board.” Richard blinked, stunned by my easy surrender. Then, a sickening, victorious grin spread across his face.

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1 Running the campus confession page for three years taught me much about human nature. Tonight was the deadline for college applications. I planned to moderate the page one last time before shutting it down for good. At 11:50 PM, an anonymous user messaged my inbox. He said he had hacked his childhood best friend’s portal and altered her entire application list. “It has been three years. I know she has a massive crush on me, but she always acts superior when she tutors me and the girl I actually like. Now, she applied to the exact same universities as me, while the girl I love bombed her SATs and got rejected everywhere. I deleted her safety schools so she gets rejected too. She can take a gap year and keep the girl I love company at community college. That is not too much to ask, right?” I stared at the glowing screen. My heart hammered against my ribs, and my fingertips turned ice cold. The typing bubble appeared again. “But we have been neighbors for eight years. I still care about her. Whisper, post this to the main page for me. If she happens to see this in the next ten minutes, she still has time to log in and change her schools back to the West Coast. If she misses it… then it is just fate.” I took a deep, shaky breath, fully intending to hit the block button. Then he sent a custom meme. It was a poorly drawn cartoon cat throwing a punch. I had drawn it myself on my iPad. I had only ever sent it to two people in the entire world. My best friend, and my childhood neighbor. … The anonymous user was Noah. My stomach violently dropped, replaced by a dense, suffocating pain spreading through my chest. I scrambled to open a new tab, loading the Common App portal with trembling hands. My customized list of West Coast safety and target schools, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Washington, had been entirely wiped out. In their place sat three new names. Harvard. MIT. Princeton. They were all Ivy League or elite East Coast universities. I stared at the screen, my blood turning to ice. “Whisper, are you still there? Are you going to post it?” The anonymous chat box pinged again. I gripped my phone, my knuckles turning white. The digital clock in the corner of my screen ticked forward. 11:51 PM. Nine minutes until the national submission portal locked permanently. I did not reply to him. My fingers flew across the keyboard, switching back to the admissions portal. The three seconds it took to load felt like three agonizing years. I stared at the pristine, updated list. My guaranteed acceptance to UW was gone. My target spot at UC Berkeley was gone. The three elite East Coast giants sat there, mocking me. Noah had completely severed my safety net. He knew my academic stats inside and out. I ranked sixth in our graduating class. My GPA was high enough to secure a spot at Berkeley, maybe even push for Stanford if I got lucky. But Harvard and MIT? He was deliberately throwing me to the wolves. He wanted me to get rejected across the board so I would be forced into a gap year. Another message popped up. “Whisper?” “I figured you of all people would understand. You have run this page for three years, you have seen how toxic people can be. Some girls are just too arrogant, thinking high grades entitle them to everything.” I stared at the text, feeling a thick knot of cotton forming in my throat. The childhood best friend who “acted so superior” when tutoring him. That was me. The girl who harbored a secret crush on him for three years. That was me. The girl who supposedly needed to step aside and sacrifice a year of her life for the girl he actually loved. That was me, too. And he had absolutely no idea he was confessing his crime directly to the victim. 11:52 PM. I took a desperate breath and clicked the edit button. I highlighted Harvard and hit delete. A security prompt popped up on the screen. Please enter the 6-digit verification code sent to your registered mobile device. I clicked send. I waited ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. No text arrived. I clicked resend. A red error message flashed across the screen. This phone number has reached the maximum number of verification requests for the next 24 hours. When Noah logged into my account to change my schools, he intentionally spammed the verification button to max out the security limit. 11:53 PM. I scrambled to the manual appeal page. The system prompt read: Manual security overrides require a photo of a valid government ID and a live selfie. Processing time is 24 to 48 hours. Twenty four hours. I only had seven minutes left. The anonymous messages kept rolling in. “Whatever, Whisper. You do not have to post it.” “It does not really matter if she sees it or not. I just wanted to give her a fighting chance.” “Eight years is a long time, after all. I am not completely heartless.” A wave of pure, unfiltered nausea washed over me. It was not physical sickness. It was a freezing chill seeping out from the very marrow of my bones. Noah actually thought he was being merciful. He destroyed my future, set me up to fail, and then tossed a vague hint into a campus rumor page. If I miraculously saw it and fixed it in the final ten minutes, he could wash his hands of the guilt. If I missed it, it was just the universe deciding my fate. 11:55 PM. I tried a third option, dialing the national admissions support hotline. An automated busy signal buzzed against my ear. Nobody was staffing the lines at midnight. I dropped my phone on the desk and stared blankly at the ceiling. My mind was entirely chaotic, yet terrifyingly clear. When Noah intentionally burned through my verification codes, he knew his plan was foolproof. He knew me too well. He knew I wouldn’t run out to an internet cafe in the middle of the night. He knew I wouldn’t wake my parents up to borrow a phone. He knew I would be completely paralyzed in those final ten minutes. His only wild card was the confession page. He gambled on the tiny chance I might be scrolling through it. But he never could have guessed that I was the one pulling the strings behind the curtain. A final message lit up the chat box. “Whisper, one last question.” “Do you think a girl who secretly pines after a guy for three years, never confessing, just hovering around him under the guise of tutoring him…” “Do you think she is a little pathetic?” 11:57 PM. I did not type a single word in response. I aggressively searched for the manual override codes for the West Coast universities. Only spam links and dead ends loaded on Google. I clicked the appeal portal one last time, refusing to give up. 11:59 PM. 12:00 AM. The screen auto-refreshed. A grey banner locked the page. The application submission window is now permanently closed. I covered my face with both hands and finally let the tears fall in the silent, dark room. 2 At exactly one in the morning, a text from Noah popped up on my phone. “Isabel, you asleep yet?” I stared at my name on the screen. He always called me just Isabel, never using a nickname, never adding my last name. It was a familiar marker, a habit he assumed would simply never change. I did not reply. Another text followed right behind it. “Did you finalize your portal? You said you wanted to stay near the ocean, so UCLA is pretty much a lock for you.” His tone was incredibly casual, even capping it off with a smiley face emoji. It was as if nothing had happened. As if he had not just spent the last hour hiding behind an anonymous avatar, confessing his sabotage to my alter ego. As if he had not personally condemned me to three elite universities I supposedly had no chance of entering. I stared at that smiley face for a very long time. Three years ago, Noah transferred to our high school in Seattle and moved into the house right next to mine. On his very first day, he figured out my wifi password, memorized my birthday, and learned my cat’s name. By his second week, he was treating my house like his own. He played games on my iPad, watched shows on my Netflix account, and printed his essays on my printer. By the end of his first month, the entire junior class treated us like an inseparable pair. I did like him. From the day he moved in, all the way until tonight. But he would never know that. Because starting from his very first year, he had his eyes entirely on Sarah. Sarah sat directly behind him in calculus. Her voice was breathy and soft. She took forever to solve a simple equation, and she looked like a fragile porcelain doll. Noah’s excuse for asking me to tutor was simple. “Isabel, can you break this formula down for her? She never understands it when I explain it.” So I taught Sarah math. After a year of tutoring, her grades crawled from the brink of failure to slightly above average. Noah was thrilled. He bought me a matcha latte as a reward. During our junior year, Sarah’s English grades tanked. Noah came to me again. “You have the highest AP English score in the district. Help her out, will you? She wants to take advanced literature with me next semester.” I helped her. Then came our senior year, the final brutal stretch of college prep. Noah leaned against my locker. “It is the last semester. Can you run through the AP Physics curriculum with Sarah? Her foundation is terrible. I am terrified she will not even get into a state college.” I tutored her for six exhausting months. Three times a week, two hours a session. Sarah never once said thank you. Instead, at the end of every session, she would turn to Noah with wide, teary eyes and say, “Noah, Isabel was acting so mean to me again.” And Noah would invariably tap on my bedroom window later that night. “Isabel, can you try to be a little gentler? It is not her fault she struggles with the basics.” I was never mean to her. The closest I came to being harsh was telling her “We went over this exact formula yesterday” when she made the exact same mistake for the fourth time in a row. But the truth did not matter. In Noah’s eyes, Sarah was a delicate flower requiring constant protection. And me? I was just the smart, self-sufficient girl who didn’t need anyone looking out for her. My phone vibrated against the desk. It was not Noah this time. It was my best friend, Brooke. I answered the call, my throat tight. “Why are you still awake?” Brooke’s voice buzzed through the speaker. “Isabel, did your portal lock in? I just submitted mine and I am way too wired to sleep.” “It locked.” “UCLA, right? I committed to USC. We can totally take road trips down the coast together!” I sat in silence for a moment. “Brooke.” “Yeah?” “If someone secretly hacked into another person’s college portal and altered their applications, what kind of legal consequences would they face?” The line went dead silent for two full seconds. “What are you talking about? Whose portal got hacked?” I opened my mouth, desperate to tell her it was mine. But I forced the words back down. I had absolutely no proof. Noah used an anonymous account. The core architecture of Westwood Whispers guaranteed total privacy. The backend did not log IP addresses, nor did it publicly bind to a real identity. I had coded those privacy rules myself three years ago to protect vulnerable students. Now, those same rules were a rope binding my own hands. “Nothing,” I whispered. “I was just reading a thriller novel. Made me curious.” I hung up the phone. I lay in bed, staring blankly upward with wide eyes. The amber glow of the streetlamp painted shadows across my ceiling. Noah lived exactly one wall away from me. Right now, he was probably sleeping soundly. Dreaming his perfect dream, where I happily sacrificed a year of my life for the girl he loved, staying behind to keep him in my orbit. 3 Early the next morning, the doorbell rang. I opened the door in my oversized sleep shirt. Noah stood on the porch, holding a brown paper bag from my favorite bakery. “Morning. Got you a blueberry scone.” He brushed past me, walking inside with the practiced ease of someone entering his own kitchen. He dropped the bag on the dining table, pulled out a chair, and casually picked up my iPad, scrolling through my open tabs. Everything was perfectly, sickeningly normal. I stood by the front door, staring at the back of his head. “Noah.” “Yeah?” “What time did you go to sleep last night?” He didn’t even look up. “Around eleven thirty. Passed out right after I submitted my portal. You?” “About the same.” He turned his head and offered a bright, easy smile. “You locked in UCLA, right? I checked the data. With your GPA, you are a guaranteed admit. Stop stressing.” I did not say a word. He went back to swiping on the iPad. “Oh, by the way, Sarah’s application got messed up.” My heart skipped a painful beat. “She only put down one safety school, and left the rest blank. Her mom does not understand the system, and Sarah is just so clumsy with paperwork. I am really worried she won’t get matched anywhere.” He said the words “won’t get matched” with the casual tone of someone discussing the morning weather. I forced my voice to stay even. “And what does that have to do with me?” Noah looked up, a trace of practiced helplessness in his smile. “I never said it had anything to do with you. Just venting, that’s all. You know her family does not have a lot of money. If she really slips through the cracks, her parents can’t afford private tutoring for a gap year.” He spoke with total calm, his tone warm and reasonable. As if he were discussing a perfectly natural tragedy. Suddenly, his anonymous message from last night echoed violently in my head. “She can take a gap year and keep the girl I love company. That is not too much to ask, right?” He genuinely believed it wasn’t too much to ask. He truly felt justified. “Isabel, why aren’t you eating your scone?” “Not hungry.” “Let me heat it up for you. It tastes like cardboard when it’s cold.” He stood up and walked toward the kitchen. As he passed me, he casually reached out and patted the top of my head. “Stop looking so miserable. College applications are over. Time to relax.” The exact second his hand rested on my hair, my entire body went rigid. It wasn’t a flutter of teenage romance. It was a profound, nauseating sense of absurdity. These exact same fingers had typed away in the dark last night, systematically deleting my entire future. And now, they were patting my head, soothing me like a well-trained, obedient pet. The microwave buzzed to life. Noah leaned against the kitchen doorframe, scrolling through his phone. He casually glanced up. “By the way, wasn’t your anonymous confession page shutting down yesterday?” My pulse spiked dangerously. “Yeah.” “Can I take a look at the backend database? Just curious to see all the insane gossip you collected over three years.” He smiled naturally, posing it as an innocent question. But my eyes caught the slight hesitation in his thumb hovering over his phone screen. “No,” I replied smoothly. “The rule is strict anonymity. Even I don’t read the archived logs.” “Fair enough,” Noah said, looking away. “You always were a stickler for the rules.” The microwave beeped loudly. He pulled the warm scone out, set it on a plate in front of me, and even placed a napkin neatly to the side. “Eat up. I’m meeting Sarah at the school later to pick up our senior yearbooks. Do you want to tag along?” “No.” “Suit yourself.” He grabbed his keys and phone, heading for the front door. He paused in the entryway, looking back at me with genuine concern. “Isabel, did you sleep terribly last night? You have massive dark circles under your eyes.” I forced the corners of my mouth up. “Binge-watched a show until three.” “Get some rest.” The door clicked shut. I sat alone at the dining table, staring blindly at the steaming blueberry scone. He remembered my favorite pastry. But he conveniently forgot that my absolute dream was to stay on the West Coast. Or perhaps he did remember. He just decided my dreams were not important. I picked up my phone and reloaded the Common App portal. The banner remained aggressively grey. This application cycle is officially closed. Black text on a white background. Like a signed death warrant. 4 By late afternoon, the senior class group chat was exploding. Mr. Davis, our homeroom counselor, posted an announcement. Mandatory graduation assembly and final transcript confirmation tomorrow morning at 9 AM. All seniors must attend with their student IDs. A flood of messages immediately followed. People were sending screenshots of their college lists and panicking about acceptance rates. Sarah sent a voice memo, her tone breathy and laced with anxiety. “Does anyone know if we can still edit our portals? I think I forgot to list my backup state schools.” Noah replied instantly. “Don’t panic. We can ask Mr. Davis tomorrow. If worst comes to worst, we can appeal to the community college board.” The rest of the class immediately jumped in to comfort her. “Don’t worry Sarah, your GPA is fine!” “Yeah, with Noah looking out for you, you’re totally safe.” Not a single person asked about me. And not a single person knew that the only student whose portal was actually sabotaged was quietly reading every single message. I exited the chat and opened an incognito browser. How to report a maliciously altered college application. The legal advice forums all gave the exact same answer. Call the police. But filing a police report required hard evidence. What did I actually have? A screenshot of an anonymous chat box. The sender had no name, and the server didn’t track IP addresses. A screenshot of an ugly cat meme. I had sent it to Noah and Brooke, but anyone could have easily saved it to their camera roll if they glanced at Noah’s phone. A phone number permanently locked out by spamming verification codes. The server logs only showed that the limit was reached, not who pushed the button. Logically, I knew it was Noah. Legally, I could not prove a damn thing. Unless he confessed to it in person. I reopened the Westwood Whispers admin dashboard. The anonymous chat log from last night was still sitting there. The final timestamp was 12:01 AM. “Never mind, Whisper. Time is up. Let it be. The universe has made its choice for her. Goodnight.” I took a screenshot and saved it to an encrypted folder. Then I opened the user directory source code. When I coded the page, I tied every anonymous account to the last four digits of a student ID to prevent bot spam. However, I applied a heavy cryptographic hash to those digits to ensure absolute privacy. Even as the admin, I only saw a string of randomized characters. Unless I intentionally cracked my own encryption algorithm. I stared at the scrambled code for five long minutes before closing the laptop. Not yet. Brooke barged into my house right before dinner. She threw her backpack onto the couch the second she walked in. “Isabel, I need to show you something, but promise you won’t get mad.” “Show me what.” “Sarah was running her mouth in a side chat this afternoon.” She pulled out her phone and shoved it into my hands. It was a private group chat I wasn’t invited to, obnoxiously titled “Senior Trip Vibes.” Sarah’s message read: “Noah said Isabel applied to the same West Coast schools as us! We can totally still hang out on weekends in college!” A guy in the chat replied: “If Isabel tags along, it’s just going to turn into a mandatory study hall lmao.” Noah’s response: “That is just how she is, you guys are used to it by now. Just don’t say it to her face, she’s super sensitive about it.” Brooke locked her phone screen, looking at me carefully. “You did lock in UCLA, right? Nothing changed?” I stayed completely silent. “Isabel?” “It changed.” “What do you mean? Changed to what?” “Harvard. MIT. Princeton.” Brooke’s jaw dropped. “Are you out of your mind? Your GPA is amazing, but nobody gets into those without insane extracurriculars!” “I know.” “Then you are basically guaranteed to get rejected everywhere! Who the hell changed your portal?!” “I don’t know.” Brooke watched the dark expression on my face, and the horrific realization slowly dawned on her. “Wait. Was it… Noah?” 5 I didn’t nod, and I didn’t shake my head. Brooke sat in stunned silence for a very long time before finally whispering, “What are you going to do?” “I’ll figure it out at school tomorrow.” “But what if there is nothing the counselor can do? Isabel, with your grades, even if you do late admission, you can easily get into a decent local college.” “Late admissions for the West Coast quota are already full.” I cut her off. The UC system didn’t take late appeals for our district. I had already checked the statistics. If my portal couldn’t be rolled back, I only had two paths left. Beg a random, lower-tier college in the Midwest to accept me on probation. Or, take a gap year. Exactly what Noah wanted. Brooke sat beside me and squeezed my hand hard. “I am coming with you to Mr. Davis’s office tomorrow.” “Okay.” By the time she left, it was past nine. I sat alone at my desk, the glow of the monitor illuminating the dark room. I pulled up the cryptographic source code. I didn’t care if it took me all night, or an entire week. I was going to brute-force crack the encryption on that anonymous user ID. It was the only tangible proof I had. At four thirty in the morning, the decryption script finally finished executing. I stared at the four digits flashing in bright green text on the terminal. It was the exact ending of Noah’s student ID. I took a screenshot, saved it to the secure folder, and leaned back in my chair, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. My phone screen suddenly lit up in the dark. A text from Mr. Davis. “Isabel, please stay behind after the graduation assembly tomorrow. We need to have a private meeting regarding your admissions status.” Admissions status. The portals literally just closed. No college releases decisions in twelve hours. What status? Before I could type a reply, another notification slid down the screen. It was Noah. At 4:37 AM, he sent a text. “Isabel, dress nicely for the assembly tomorrow. I hired a photographer to take grad photos for us.” A second text quickly followed. “Oh, by the way, Sarah asked if you could tutor her over the summer for the community college placement exams. Think you can help out?” The graduation assembly was held in the main school auditorium. When I walked in, the first three rows were already packed. Noah waved at me from the second row. “Isabel, saved you a seat.” Sarah was sitting right next to him. I ignored him completely, walking straight to the back corner of the auditorium and taking an empty seat in the last row. Noah froze, his hand dropping awkwardly. He forced a smile but didn’t follow me. Sarah turned around, glanced at me, and whispered something into Noah’s ear. They both laughed. The ceremony dragged on forever. The principal gave a speech, the dean of students gave a speech, the valedictorian gave a speech. I didn’t hear a single word. I was just waiting. Waiting for the assembly to end so I could march into the counselor’s office. That text from Mr. Davis last night felt like a splinter buried deep in my brain. Admissions status. What the hell did that mean? Finally, the principal leaned into the microphone. “Congratulations, seniors. You are dismissed.” The crowd erupted into cheers. Students spilled into the aisles. Noah navigated through the folding chairs, heading straight for me. “Isabel, want to grab lunch? I booked a table at—” “No. Mr. Davis needs to see me.” I bypassed him entirely, walking briskly toward the administrative wing. Noah’s footsteps hurried behind me. “What for? Do you want me to come with you?” “No.” The door to Mr. Davis’s office was wide open. There were three people sitting inside. Mr. Davis, the school principal, and a middle-aged man wearing a sharp suit I had never seen before. “Isabel, come in. Have a seat.” Mr. Davis pointed to the leather chair across the desk. I sat down. The stranger in the suit slid a crisp, silver-embossed business card across the table. Arthur Vance. Director of Elite Admissions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Isabel,” Mr. Vance started, lacing his fingers together on the desk. “Let’s confirm a few details first. Your final unweighted GPA is a 4.0, correct?” “Yes.” “And you won the gold medal at the National Physics Olympiad last year?” “Yes.” “State champion in the Chemistry Decathlon?” “Yes.” “And you are the lead author on two peer-reviewed papers published in the Journal of Applied Physics?” I hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Yes.” Mr. Vance opened the thick manila folder resting in front of him. “Isabel, based on MIT’s Elite Scholar Direct Admit program, evaluating your Olympiad medals, your published research, and your perfect academic record, you rank in the top three candidates nationwide.” He paused, looking directly into my eyes. “We just need verbal confirmation from you. Your absolute top choice on the portal is MIT, correct?”

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1 Always quick to forgive, I lived by my “King’s Theory.” A King, in a moment of great joy, grants absolute amnesty to his kingdom. So when my fiancé Julian abandoned me at our engagement party after a panicked call from my stepsister Kelly, making me Seattle high society’s laughingstock, I forgave him. He just had to hand me a slice of strawberry mousse cake the next day. When I was rushed to the ER with a violent fever on a stormy night and he hung up on my desperate calls because he was busy watching fireworks with her, I forgave him too. A handwritten apology note the next morning was all it took for me to pretend my heart hadn’t broken. But this time, everything changed. Kelly drove drunk and committed a hit-and-run. To protect her, Julian manipulated the timeline and made me the prime suspect at the police precinct. Standing outside the holding cell, I watched them huddle together in the dim corridor. Kelly’s eyes were red. “Julian, Grace is taking the fall for me. When she gets out, she’s going to hate me. What if she never speaks to me again?” Julian nonchalantly wiped a tear from her cheek. “Relax. You know how she is. Grace never holds a grudge. She’s got a short memory. She’s the easiest person in the world to coax. Once the dust settles, I’ll just buy her that designer necklace she’s been looking at, say a few sweet words, and she’ll completely forget this ever happened.” I leaned quietly against the cold concrete wall. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just felt that warm, beating place in my chest slowly freeze over, inch by agonizing inch. I was a King. I had granted them amnesty countless times before. But they forgot one crucial detail. A King possesses the mercy to grant pardons, but also holds the absolute power to strip everything away. From this moment forward, my world would never issue another pardon for either of them. … Forty-eight hours later, I walked out of the precinct. Julian’s Maybach was idling at the curb. Seeing me emerge, he pushed the car door open, his brow slightly furrowed. I slid into the passenger seat, my stomach violently spasming. I had spent two nights in a freezing, pitch-black holding cell. I hadn’t had a drop of water or a bite of food, and my chronic stomach ulcers had flared up with a vengeance. A velvet box was casually tossed into my lap. “The new Van Cleef release.” “My lawyer already handled the paperwork.” “I’ve got people pulling strings for the rest of the legal process. This won’t leave a mark on your permanent record. Consider the matter closed.” He paused, glancing at me before adding one last command. “When we get home, do not give Kelly attitude.” “She has been so guilty she hasn’t eaten in two days. You know how fragile she is, don’t scare her.” I looked down at the expensive jewelry box resting on my knees. It was exactly word-for-word what he had promised her in the corridor. One necklace, a few smooth words, and he thought he could buy out the injustice of me taking the fall for a crime I didn’t commit. He thought he could buy out forty-eight hours of sheer terror. I didn’t speak. I didn’t put the necklace on and ask him how it looked, like I would have in the past. I just calmly shoved the box into my purse. Julian watched me from the corner of his eye, his jaw tightening slightly. When we pushed the front door open, the smell of roasted chicken and warm soup filled the foyer. Kelly was walking out of the kitchen, carefully holding a large porcelain bowl of hot soup. Seeing me, her eyes immediately welled with tears. “Grace, you’re back.” When I just stood in the entryway staring at her, Julian kicked off his shoes and frowned. “What are you just standing there for? Kelly spent the entire morning cooking to welcome you home. Go wash your hands and sit down.” The agonizing cramps in my stomach were shooting up my spine. My fingertips were completely numb from the pain. “I’m not hungry. I just want to sleep.” My voice was incredibly light. I bypassed them both, heading straight for the staircase. “Grace!” Kelly suddenly took two quick steps forward, blocking my path. She held the boiling hot bowl of pork rib soup, looking at me with wide, pitiful eyes. “Grace, I know you blame me, but I swear it was an accident. Please.” “Just take one sip of the soup. If you drink it, that means you forgive me, right?” She stepped uncomfortably close. The scalding steam from the broth hit my face. “Move.” I frowned, reaching out to lightly push her wrists aside so I could pass. I barely used any force at all. Kelly suddenly let out a sharp gasp, her wrists twisting dramatically. “Ah!” More than half of the boiling, thick soup cascaded directly over my left hand and forearm. The heat was so intense my entire body locked up. I couldn’t even force a scream out of my throat. “Kelly!” Julian’s furious voice exploded from behind me. He took two massive strides forward, violently pulling Kelly behind his back to shield her. “Grace, have you lost your mind?!” Julian gripped Kelly’s wrists tightly, checking her for burns. “Are you determined to turn this house into a warzone?!” The back of my hand and my forearm were already blistering, turning a sickening, angry red. But Julian didn’t even glance at me. His eyes were entirely focused on the two pathetic tears rolling down Kelly’s cheeks. “I told you, I already handled the police! I bought you the damn necklace! What more do you want from us?!” Julian’s voice was dripping with exhaustion and bitter disappointment. “Just because you had to sit in a police station for two days, you think you have the right to take your rage out on a little girl?!” He didn’t know that the police hadn’t given me a single cup of warm water. He didn’t know I nearly died in that cell from a gastric hemorrhage. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t look at Kelly cowering like a frightened rabbit behind his broad shoulders. Without a single word of defense, I turned on my heel, walked into the downstairs bathroom, and locked the door. Outside, I could hear Kelly’s suppressed, theatrical sobbing. “Julian, she hates me. I know she hates me!” “I swear I didn’t mean to, the bowl was just so heavy, I lost my grip…” “It’s okay.” Julian’s voice was remarkably gentle as he comforted her. “She is just throwing a temper tantrum because she was stuck in lockup. She is using you as a punching bag. Let her cool off overnight, she will be fine tomorrow.” Using her as a punching bag? I looked at my ghostly pale face in the bathroom mirror and let out a dry, broken chuckle. I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. I had been freezing and starving for two days. I tore through my bedside drawer, desperately looking for my prescription ulcer medication. The drawer was completely empty. The pain was so blinding I didn’t have the strength to stand up. I curled into a tight ball on the bedroom rug, pressing my hands brutally into my stomach just to breathe. When dawn finally broke, I leaned heavily against the wall and dragged myself out of the bedroom. Kelly was arranging pastries on the dining table. When she saw me, her eyes darted away guiltily. I ignored her entirely, walking straight toward the kitchen trash can. At a glance, I spotted my white prescription bottle resting quietly at the bottom of the bin, covered in coffee grounds. “Grace…” Kelly walked over, her voice mousey and small. “I was cleaning your room last night. I saw that bottle didn’t have a label on it. I thought it was just expired vitamins, so I threw it out.” “I warmed up some milk for you. You should drink it.” Drinking milk on a completely empty stomach would only severely aggravate my bleeding ulcers. I didn’t say a word. I bent down to fish the bottle out of the trash. There were exactly two pills left inside. I needed them to survive the morning. “Grace, the trash is dirty!” Kelly suddenly lunged forward, grabbing my left wrist with a vice grip. She grabbed the exact spot where the boiling soup had melted my skin yesterday. Even through the fabric of my long sleeve, her nails dug in. The bone-piercing agony blacked out my vision for a second. Pure survival instinct took over, and I violently yanked my arm back to break her grip. “Ah!” Kelly screamed, stumbling backward. As fate would have it, she knocked over the glass of hot milk on the coffee table. The glass shattered across the floor. She threw her hands down to catch her fall, pressing her palm directly into the broken shards. Blood immediately pooled on the hardwood. “Grace!” A vicious roar echoed from the top of the stairs. Julian sprinted down the steps, aggressively shoving me aside, and dropped to his knees to help Kelly up. “Julian, it wasn’t Grace’s fault…” Kelly’s eyes were red, sucking in sharp breaths of pain as blood dripped from her hand. “I lost my balance. She was just trying to dig her pills out of the trash, and I didn’t want her to get her hands dirty…” Julian looked at the unlabeled, dirty plastic bottle in my hand. Then he looked at Kelly’s bleeding palm. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his eyes dark with fury. “A bottle of expired melatonin. You threw a fit over melatonin?” Melatonin. So in his eyes, the nights I spent writhing in agony, relying on medication just to stay conscious… he thought I just had mild insomnia. I stared down at him. “I didn’t push her. She grabbed my burn.” Julian’s gaze flicked to my left arm for a fraction of a second. “She was just trying to stop you from digging through the garbage. Even if she bumped you, you’re the older sister. Can’t you show a shred of grace?” Julian took a deep, stabilizing breath, trying to reign in his temper. “Grace, I know you took a hit for Kelly, and you’re traumatized.” “That is why I fixed the police issue. That is why I bought you the jewelry.” “Your record is clean. I thought we were past this.” “But ever since you walked through that door last night, you have been acting like a martyr.” “And now, over an empty pill bottle, you take your rage out on Kelly and shove her into broken glass.” “When did you become so vicious?” Vicious. The word slipped from the mouth of the man I had loved for seven years. It dropped like an anvil onto my chest. I didn’t argue. If this had happened a month ago, I would have smashed the pill bottle against the wall. I would have thrown my medical diagnosis papers right in his face. I would have rolled up my sleeve and forced him to look at the weeping, infected blisters on my arm. I would have screamed at him, asking how he could be so incredibly blind. But now? That place in my heart that used to ache at his misunderstandings… It was completely, utterly numb. The misunderstandings, the blatant favoritism. None of it mattered anymore. “You’re right.” I looked at him calmly, brushed the coffee grounds off the two pills, and swallowed them dry. “I am vicious.” Julian froze. He clearly hadn’t expected me to admit it so easily. The long, disappointed lecture he had prepared died in his throat. It was like he had thrown a knockout punch into a pillow. “Good. Glad you realize it.” He offered a stiff, awkward reply. “There is an industry gala this afternoon. Go change your clothes, you’re coming with me.” “There are a lot of rumors circulating about your arrest. We need to make a public appearance to shut them down.” He was so used to my compromises. He was used to the fact that if he offered me even the slightest sliver of a ladder, I would obediently climb down and resume playing the role of the perfect, understanding fiancée. Just like a King expects his subjects to fall to their knees in gratitude when he issues a pardon. I picked up my trench coat from the sofa and walked toward the front door. “I’m not going.” “Grace!” Julian barked my name from across the room. “How long are you going to keep throwing this tantrum?” I pulled the heavy oak door open. The blinding morning sunlight rushed in, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. “It’s not a tantrum.” I didn’t look back. I just spoke with terrifying clarity. The King has revoked all pardons. Julian, I am done playing your game. After leaving the house, I drove straight to the downtown trauma center. I registered, waited in line, and walked into the burn unit. When the doctor used trauma shears to cut the sleeve of my shirt open, he let out a sharp hiss. The fabric had completely melted into my skin. “How did you let a burn get this bad? The blistering is severe and the tissue is already necrotic. Why are you just now coming in?” The doctor frowned deeply, scolding me as he prepped the surgical tray for debridement. “The wound bed is extremely deep. Are you sure you can handle this without local anesthesia?” I looked at the sterile tray, visualizing the dead tissue that was about to be scraped away, and shook my head. “It’s fine. Just do it. I’m used to it.” The pain was so intense it felt like my nerves were being electrocuted with every breath. But compared to the persistent, hollow freezing sensation in my chest, the physical agony actually felt grounding. It felt real. After scraping away the dead skin and heavily bandaging my arm, the doctor told me to go to the first-floor pharmacy to pick up heavy antibiotics and proper ulcer medication. I was shivering violently from the shock. As soon as I stepped into the main lobby, I stopped dead in my tracks. Julian was standing near the pharmacy windows. He was holding a paper cup of perfectly lukewarm water, handing it gently to Kelly, who was sitting on a waiting bench. Kelly had a small, waterproof band-aid placed delicately over the center of her right palm. The ghost of a tear still clung to her eyelashes. “Does it still hurt?” “Dr. Lin personally checked it. No nerve damage. It won’t affect your piano recital next week. Just keep it dry for a few days.” I stood in the middle of the crowded hospital lobby, quietly watching the scene unfold. So he was capable of being attentive. When I was locked in the holding cell, burning up with a terrifying fever, I begged a sympathetic officer to let me use the phone. When I called Julian, begging him to bring me some medication, he just sighed impatiently into the receiver. “Grace, can you please stop fighting for attention right now?” “Kelly was so terrified by the police taking you away that she spiked a fever. I am at the clinic with her while she gets an IV. Drink some hot water and tough it out.” And then, he hung up on me. You see, he knew exactly what true heartbreak and worry looked like. He just never wasted those emotions on me. Kelly spotted me first. She practically jumped off the bench, the water sloshing in her cup. “Grace… what are you doing here?” Julian whipped his head around. He took long, aggressive strides toward me, his eyes locking onto the plastic pharmacy bag in my good hand. “Are you stalking us?” He looked down at me, his voice saturated with absolute disgust. “Grace, just because I didn’t coddle you over an empty pill bottle this morning?” “You felt the need to fake an illness and track us to the hospital just to play the victim?” “I wasn’t stalking you.” My throat was parched. I didn’t have the energy to argue. I stepped to the side, trying to walk past him toward the exit. “Stop right there.” Julian shot his hand out, clamping his fingers like a vice directly around my left forearm. He grabbed the exact spot where the doctor had just finished scraping the dead flesh from my burn. My survival instinct kicked in, and I violently wrenched my arm away. “Do not touch me!” I stumbled backward, slamming heavily into the cold marble wall. Julian froze, staring at his empty hand, clearly shocked that I had forcefully rejected his touch. Then, he let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Your temper is really getting out of hand.” Kelly hurried over, her eyes immediately welling with fresh tears. “Grace, please don’t be mad at Julian.” “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have come to the hospital for a little cut.” “But Julian insisted. He said since I play the piano, my hands can’t have any scars, so he forced me to see the chief specialist…” Julian stepped forward, shielding Kelly behind him again, glaring at me with eyes like daggers. “Did you hear her?” “Kelly is a pianist. Do you have any idea how valuable her hands are?” “You pushed her this morning on purpose. If she hit a nerve on that glass, what would you have done?!” I stared at Julian—the man whose face had once made me willing to sacrifice absolutely everything—and felt nothing but profound absurdity. Right. I was an architectural designer. My hands drew blueprints. My hands built careers. But he had completely forgotten that. His entire universe revolved around Kelly’s piano recital next week. He had completely forgotten that I had a massive, career-defining solo design exhibition next month. An exhibition I had spent three years preparing for. He had forgotten that the centerpiece of the entire exhibition… Was the custom wedding band set I had designed for us. The pain radiating from my arm was sapping the last of my strength, making my vision blur. “Julian, just let it go…” Kelly whispered, clinging to his sleeve. “Grace looks really pale. Maybe she actually is sick?” Julian swept a cold, dismissive look over me, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “What could possibly be wrong with her? It’s the same routine every time. Play the victim, give me the silent treatment, and wait for me to grovel.” He checked his Rolex, his patience entirely exhausted. “Grace, I am telling you this one last time.” “You are attending the gala with me this afternoon.” “Go home and change your clothes. Now.” Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and walked toward the hospital exit, Kelly scurrying close behind. I leaned against the marble wall, watching their perfectly matched silhouettes disappear through the sliding glass doors, before slowly sinking onto a waiting bench. A single drop of fresh blood seeped through my black sleeve and splattered onto the pristine floor tiles. I didn’t call out to him. I didn’t cry out in pain. I didn’t even turn my head to watch him leave. I just leaned my head back against the wall, closed my eyes, and pulled out my phone. I dialed my lawyer. “Mr. Williams. I need you to draft a formal dissolution of engagement contract immediately.” I stared at the drop of blood on the floor. My voice was so calm, so devoid of emotion, that it didn’t even sound like my own. When I got back to the house, I packed a single suitcase. Before walking out the door, I sent Julian one final text message. “I will not be attending the gala today.” “I wish you both nothing but the best.”

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I sat behind the mahogany desk in the board chair’s office, flipping through our third-quarter financial report. When Veronica knocked and stepped inside, a shadow of hesitation flickered across her face. “Ma’am, there’s something you need to see.” I looked up from the ledger. “Speak.” She extended her phone toward me. Displayed on the screen was a screenshot of a social media post. I recognized the background instantly. It was my home study. Hanging on the wall behind the subject was our family portrait, taken last Christmas. Garrett and I sat in the front row, our son standing proudly behind us. Everyone in the picture was smiling with practiced elegance. That wasn’t what caught my breath, though. It was the girl standing in front of it. Rita. A twenty-four-year-old intern who had joined our firm just three months ago. She was posed in front of the mirror in a tight gym tank top, taking a post-workout selfie. In my private study. Right in front of my family portrait. I stared at the glowing display. 1 Veronica lowered her voice to a near whisper. “It was posted last night, ma’am.” “Who sent this to you?” “Someone forwarded it into one of the company group chats. I took a screenshot before it got taken down.” I gave a slow nod. “Understood.” Veronica lingered by the desk, waiting for a breakdown, a scream, an order. I didn’t lose my temper. I didn’t demand explanations. I simply handed the phone back to her. “Get back to compiling the Q3 metrics.” “Ma’am…” “Go on.” When the door clicked shut behind her, I turned my chair toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. The reflective glass cast back a sharp image of my face. Calm. Almost icy. Garrett had told me last night that he was pulling an all-nighter at the office. He said the Q3 merger required his personal oversight around the clock. I had believed him. After fifteen years of marriage, he was the chief executive, and I was the chairwoman of the board. Together, we had transformed Ashford Holdings from a mid-sized venture into an industry titan. To the outside world, we were the ultimate power couple. He commanded the spotlight; I steered the ship from behind the curtain. A flawless partnership. Yet now, an intern was taking gym selfies in my private sanctuary, posing beneath my family portrait. I pulled out my own phone, opened the screenshot, and zoomed in. Rita’s smile was radiant. Fresh out of an Ivy League university, her resume had been spotless. Three months ago, Garrett had personally conducted her final interview. He praised her drive, claiming she was a rare talent worth grooming. I hadn’t given it a second thought back then. Looking at the picture now, every detail screamed a different story. I locked my phone without calling Garrett. Some things don’t require confrontational questions. They only require verification. At seven in the evening, a text popped up from Garrett. Running late. Still stuck in meetings. I glanced at the screen and sent back a single word. Okay. Then I opened our home security portal. The live feed in the study showed pitch darkness. The living room was equally deserted. I switched to the subterranean garage feed. His reserved spot was empty. I waited another thirty minutes before sending a follow-up text. Where are you meeting? His reply arrived almost instantly. At the office. Which conference room? A pause of several seconds. Room Three. I didn’t reply again. I knew for a fact that Conference Room Three had no bookings scheduled for tonight. I stood up and walked to the glass edge. Below, the metropolis hummed with blinding neon lights. The flagship tower of Ashford Holdings was built brick by brick through our joint effort. Fifteen years ago, we signed our very first merger agreement in a cramped conference room. Garrett had been sharp, brilliant, and fiercely ambitious. That relentless drive was precisely what drew me to him. After we married, we scaled the enterprise together. He handled external relations; I mapped out corporate strategy. Everyone called it a match made in heaven. And now, he believed I was blind. I dialed a private number. “Look into someone for me.” “Name the target, Audrey.” “Rita. An intern at Ashford.” “What am I looking for?” “Everything.” After hanging up, I sat back down. The framed portrait on my desk showed our twelve-year-old son, the spitting image of his father. Garrett and I rarely argued. Whenever friction arose, we resolved it behind closed doors. I had spent fifteen years assuming our marriage was built on bedrock. It turned out I was the only one building. The next morning, I walked straight into the CEO’s suite. Garrett was signing documents. Seeing me enter, he looked up, surprised. “What brings you up here?” “Just passing through.” I strolled to his desk, letting my eyes sweep over the paperwork. It was Rita’s permanent employment conversion form. In the signature block, his crisp signature was already inked. “How’s this intern performing?” I asked casually. His expression remained entirely unbothered. “Quite well. Exceptional potential.” “In what aspect?” “Strong execution and quick on her feet.” I nodded slowly. “I heard you’ve been mentoring her personally.” He closed the folder and raised his gaze to mine. “Is there a problem?” “Not at all. Just asking.” A soft smile touched his lips. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Audrey?” I offered a slight smile of my own. “Over an intern? Hardly.” He stood up, walked around the desk, and stopped close to me. “Dinner together tonight?” “Sure.” As he turned back to grab his briefcase, I watched his posture. After fifteen years, I knew him inside and out. The more relaxed and normal he tried to appear, the deeper the deception went. In the office, he had always maintained strict professional distance, never initiating physical proximity. Yet today, he deliberately closed the gap. Compensatory behavior. A classic psychological reflex. I knew the playbook by heart. At dinner that evening, his phone screen lit up repeatedly. He refrained from checking it in front of me, merely casting brief downward glances before flipping it face down. “Work messages?” I inquired. “Just the executive group chat,” he replied. I lifted my wine glass. “Busy lately?” “The merger negotiation is at a delicate stage.” “Need me to step in?” “No need. I have it under control.” I dropped the subject. When we returned home, he headed straight for the shower. I stepped into the study and booted up my laptop. The window faced the rear garden. The family portrait hung quietly on the wall. I stood before the picture, remembering Rita’s selfie. She had stood right here. How did she get inside? Did Garrett bring her here? When? I pulled up the electronic lock records for our front door. Over the past three months, Garrett had returned home during business hours seven times. On three of those occasions, he left less than thirty minutes later. Abnormal. Next, I checked the residential garage gate logs. His vehicle had entered between two and four in the afternoon on five separate dates. Times when he was supposed to be chairing executive meetings. I exported the data and saved it into an encrypted drive. This wasn’t definitive proof of a crime yet, but it was more than enough to launch a war. The following morning, I met with a private investigator. A veteran with two decades in the business, he took the dossier on Rita without raising an eyebrow. “Track her connection with Garrett,” I instructed. “What do you need?” “Evidence. Every single scrap.” “Timeline?” “As fast as possible.” He nodded, took the folder, and slipped away. Back in my office, I initiated my own line of inquiry. I pulled Rita’s HR onboarding file. Her resume was stellar, top university, impressive internships. But one entry caught my eye: her background was listed as “working-class family.” Yet the diamond bracelet on her wrist cost six figures. An intern’s stipend couldn’t fund that. I followed the money trail. Bank statements, luxury purchase histories, social networks. In high finance, secrets do not exist. It only depends on whether someone is willing to dig. Three days later, the first preliminary report hit my desk. Rita’s spending trail showed four hundred and seventy thousand dollars spent at luxury boutiques over the past quarter. None of it originated from her personal bank accounts. The payments were wired from an offshore shell account. And the ultimate beneficial owner of that account was Garrett. I stared at the numbers, tapping my index finger rhythmically against the desk. So it wasn’t just an affair. It was financial misappropriation. Veronica knocked and entered. “Ma’am, here are the surveillance logs you requested.” I accepted the flash drive. “Internal company feeds?” “Yes. Parking garage and executive elevators.” I plugged it in and launched the video files. The footage clearly showed Garrett and Rita arriving together in his vehicle. The time stamp read 11:00 PM. The building was deserted. They took the private elevator directly to the executive suite. Duration of stay: two hours. I closed the window. My face remained impassive. Veronica stood beside me, holding her breath. “Is there more?” “One more file.” She handed over a thick manila envelope. I opened it. Inside were hotel registration records. Garrett’s ID had been used three times at a five-star hotel down the strip. Same room, every time. Dates corresponding exactly to the nights he claimed to be working late. I sealed the envelope. “Who else has seen this?” “Only myself and the investigator.” “Keep it locked tight.” “Understood.” Once Veronica left, I sat alone in the quiet office. Outside, brilliant sunlight poured over the city skyline, yet inside, the temperature felt frigid. Fifteen years of marriage. He wasn’t just betraying our vows. He was funneling corporate capital to maintain an intern. This was no longer a personal heartbreak. This was a crime. That evening, Garrett returned home. Changing into comfortable lounge attire, he sank onto the couch to scroll through his phone while I reviewed legal briefs nearby. “HR cleared Rita’s full-time status,” he remarked out of nowhere. My hand paused over the paper for a fraction of a second. “Oh?” “What do you think?” “You’re the CEO. It’s your call.” He cast a quick look in my direction. “You seem less involved in company affairs lately.” “With you handling things, I can rest easy.” A subtle smile appeared on his face upon hearing that, carrying a subtle smugness I had never noticed before. He truly believed he was pulling the wool over my eyes. He believed I was still the naive, trusting wife. I resumed reading, keeping my expression neutral. Now was not the time to blow his cover. I needed more leverage. Not just proof of infidelity, but the exact trail of corporate funds. Garrett had signing authority as CEO. If he embezzled corporate funds, it constituted corporate theft and fraud. Infidelity is a moral failure. Embezzlement is a felony. I didn’t want a simple divorce. I wanted retribution. A week later, the investigator’s second dossier arrived. This one was far more thorough. The frequency of Garrett and Rita’s encounters: at least three times a week. Locations included boutique hotels, private clubs, and my own residence. Yes, my home. Garrett had brought her into our house while I was away on business trips. In the study. Under that very family portrait. I stared at the surveillance stills attached to the file, my knuckles turning white. The investigator had also unearthed Rita’s background prior to her hiring. She wasn’t from an ordinary background. Her father had run a small logistics firm that collapsed three years ago. Before filing for bankruptcy, the firm had entered into several contracts with Ashford. Contracts signed under Garrett’s sole authorization. The sums involved weren’t massive, but the nature of the transaction was corrupt. He had funneled business to her family long before she stepped foot in the company. Self-dealing. I closed the report and began drafting my final strategy. Capital never seeks emotional revenge. Capital settles accounts strictly by the rules. I was his wife, but I was also the chair of the board. The marriage could end. The crime had to be paid for in full. Veronica placed the quarterly audit review on my desk. “Audrey, accounting flagged several irregular disbursements.” I opened the file. “Which ones?” She highlighted three separate consulting fees totaling eight point two million dollars. The payee was an offshore advisory firm registered in the Caymans. “This firm was incorporated less than eleven months ago,” Veronica noted. “Scope of work?” “Market research, according to the contract terms.” “Deliverables?” “A five-page slide deck.” I shut the folder sharply. “Who signed off?” Veronica hesitated before answering. “Garrett.” I nodded slowly. At Ashford, the CEO’s independent authorization limit was capped at five million dollars. Anything exceeding that threshold required my co-signature. These three consulting fees had been split into three separate agreements, each just under three million dollars. Right under his independent threshold. Structuring transactions. A crude technique, but effective if no one looked closely. “Is there a link between the shell firm and Rita?” I asked. Veronica shook her head. “No direct paper trail found yet.” “Keep digging.” After she left, I called a former classmate who now served as a senior financial regulator. “I need an offshore account traced.” “What kind of case?” “Potential corporate asset diversion.” A brief pause on the line. “Audrey, are you going for blood?” “I need the complete paper trail first.” Hanging up, I leaned back against my leather chair. Eight point two million was no small sum. Garrett earned a six-million-dollar annual salary; he didn’t need to take felony risks for pocket change unless those funds were destined for a specific purpose. That afternoon, I walked down to the finance department. The Chief Financial Officer, Brenda, had been with me for fifteen years. As I closed her office door, she looked up from her spreadsheet. “Audrey.” “Pull every contract signed solely by Garrett over the past twelve months.” She blinked. “All of them?” “Every single one.” She hesitated, then unlocked the filing cabinet to retrieve a thick stack of binders. I examined them item by item. Most were legitimate transactions, but near the bottom, I uncovered more red flags. Beyond the eight point two million in consulting fees, two “brand promotion” contracts were issued to another newly formed entity. Total value: five million dollars. Authorized by: Garrett. I pulled those contracts from the stack. “Make copies of these for me.” “Audrey, if Garrett finds out…” “Do as I say.” She nodded quietly. The hum of the copy machine filled the quiet room. I stood by the window, watching the traffic far below. Garrett was currently chairing an executive meeting. He had no idea what was transpiring. He was accustomed to being in complete command. In the company, he was the undisputed chief. At home, he assumed I was still his dutiful partner. But once trust fractures, it cannot be mended. I returned to my office with the copies, spread the documents across my desk, and photographed every page. I messaged my personal attorney. Is this enough to build a case? His reply arrived swiftly. We need to complete the chain of evidence connecting the funds back to him. Send me a list of what’s missing. While waiting for his response, I tallied the numbers. Nearly fourteen million dollars. A sum more than sufficient for a major felony conviction. That night, Garrett messaged again. Working late again tonight. I typed a single word back. Okay. I opened the GPS tracker on my phone. His vehicle was nowhere near the corporate tower. It was parked outside a luxury hotel downtown. I locked the screen. I didn’t rush over to catch them in the act. Catching him in bed would merely destroy his reputation. Proving grand larceny would send him to prison. I chose the latter. Early the next morning, I convened a closed-door meeting with the heads of legal and internal audit. The curtains were drawn tight. I laid the questionable contracts on the table. “Starting today, launch a full internal audit on every contract signed by Garrett.” The two department heads exchanged stunned glances. “Audrey, the scope…” “Every contract over the past three years.” “Do we notify Garrett?” “No.” “If he inquires?” “Call it a routine governance review.” They nodded soberly. Shortly after the meeting adjourned, my attorney called. “Audrey, we traced those shell companies.” “What did you find?” “Classic fronts. Offshore registrations with dummy directors. But we traced the ultimate destination of the funds.” He paused. “After passing through three intermediary accounts, eight million dollars landed directly in a domestic personal account.” My hand holding the phone stayed rock steady. “Under whose name?” “Rita.” I stood up and walked to the window. The city sparkled bright under the sun, yet my office felt colder than ever. Eight million dollars. Funneled to an intern through my husband’s signature. This was grand larceny and corporate embezzlement. I took a deep breath, then dialed my father’s private line. As the former chairman of Ashford, he had retired to the advisory board years ago. “Dad, I need to tell you something.” I gave him a concise summary of the situation. A long silence followed on his end. “Are you certain?” “Absolute certainty.” Another pause. “What is your move?” “I’m handling this according to the law.” He offered no objection, simply remarking, “You are sharper than I ever was.” Returning to my desk, I watched the audit files pile higher as the evidence chain locked into place. And I still hadn’t confronted Garrett. He remained completely in the dark, believing he was playing a master stroke. That was his fatal flaw. He underestimated me, and he drastically overestimated his own cleverness. Later that afternoon, Garrett pushed open my office door. Dressed in a bespoke suit with impeccably styled hair, he looked every bit the polished executive. “I hear internal audit is digging through financial records?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. I didn’t bother looking up from my screen. “Routine audit.” “Why the sudden move?” “Board directive.” He stepped up to my desk. “What’s the scope?” “All executive signatures across the board. Not just yours.” His shoulders visibly relaxed. “I see. When will it wrap up?” “Soon.” He searched my face, looking for any crack in my posture. I gave him nothing. “Are you coming home for dinner tonight?” I asked calmly. He blinked. “I have client engagements tonight.” “Fine.” He turned and left. The heavy strike of his leather soles echoed down the corridor. He had no idea that internal audit wasn’t investigating “all executives.” They were auditing him alone. And I already possessed everything required to destroy him. A week later, the final audit report was completed. Over the past two years, Garrett had executed eleven fraudulent contracts using structured payment schemes. Total amount embezzled: twenty-three million dollars. The funds had been split into three streams: Rita’s personal account, her father’s company, and an offshore asset management account held by Garrett himself. The room was deathly quiet when I received the final binder. Veronica stood nearby, barely daring to breathe. “Audrey… what do we do with this?” “Contact the federal authorities.” She gasped. “You’re filing criminal charges?” “It is grand larceny and financial fraud.” “But Garrett is…” “He is the prime suspect.” Veronica took a deep breath and nodded. I picked up the phone and dialed the director of the financial crimes division. I knew the chief well from my previous service on the state economic advisory board. “I am filing a formal criminal complaint.” “State the charges, Audrey.” “Corporate embezzlement, fraud, and money laundering. The suspect is Garrett.” A brief silence on the line. “Do you have substantiating evidence?” “Complete paper trails, bank transfers, fraudulent contracts, and forensic audit reports.” “We are dispatching an investigation team immediately.” After hanging up, I stood at the glass wall. I remembered fifteen years ago when Garrett and I stood in this very spot. He told me we would build Ashford into an empire that would outlast us both. Back then, his eyes were full of ambition and light. Now, that light was extinguished. Not by me. By his own hand. Federal agents arrived swiftly. After reviewing the binder, their expressions turned grim. “Audrey, this evidence is airtight.” “What do you need from me?” “Maintain normalcy for now. We need to secure the assets before executing a warrant.” “Agreed.” When they left with the evidence files, I remained seated in my office, waiting for the trap to snap shut. Veronica re-entered. “Audrey, Garrett is losing his temper in the main conference room.” “Why?” “Auditors just seized his workstation.” “Let him rage.” She hesitated. “He might come straight here.” “Let him.” Less than ten minutes later, Garrett stormed into my office without knocking. “Audrey, what the hell is this?” he demanded, his voice raised. I raised my eyes from my desk. “What are you talking about?” “Internal audit seized my laptop and locked my access! They said it was on your direct orders!” “It was.” “Why?” “Routine governance review.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Don’t play games with me! This isn’t a routine review! They’re targeting me specifically!” I met his glare dead-on. “Is there a problem if they are?” The words were spoken softly, but they struck him like a physical blow. Panic flashed in his eyes before he quickly masked it. “What problem could there be? Every contract I signed was completely above board!” “Then you have nothing to fear from an investigation.” “Audrey…” “If your hands are clean, you shouldn’t be sweating.” He stared at me, his lips trembling slightly. In the end, he said nothing, turning sharply on his heel and exiting. This time, his heavy footsteps sounded desperate. He didn’t know that federal agents were already freezing his accounts, seizing property, and interviewing witnesses at Rita’s residence. I said nothing to warn him. A marriage can be dissolved quietly. A man can walk away. But twenty-three million dollars must be accounted for. That was my boundary as chairwoman. And that was his price as a felon.

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A catastrophic flood hit my hometown, trapping my parents on the second floor of their old house. I begged my husband to let me take the inflatable raft from his company’s equipment room. He sneered. “You’re a professional swim coach. Can’t you just swim through six feet of water? If you ruin an expensive raft, are you going to pay for it?” As I put on my waterproof gear, I overheard him on the phone in his study. “I’m bringing the jet ski over right now. Tell your parents to come down to the second floor and wait. Lives are on the line, so don’t stand on ceremony with me. If it gets damaged, it’s on my tab.” That call was for the widow of his late best friend. Her parents lived on the twelfth floor of a high-rise, far above any rising water. I froze at the doorway, my fingernails digging deep into my palms. Seeing me fully geared up without crying or throwing a tantrum, my husband nodded in approval. “That’s more like it. They’re your parents. Who else should be responsible for them if not you?” I nodded calmly. Watching him grab the jet ski keys and walk out the door, a sudden clarity washed over me. When a heart dies completely, even emotion feels like an unnecessary luxury. I pulled out the divorce papers I had printed long ago and signed my name, stroke by stroke. A hollow marriage where having a husband felt no different from being alone was a life I no longer wanted. 1 Justin came home at midnight. I was curled up on the sofa, my phone lying beside me with two read messages on the screen. My mother had written: Don’t worry, Evelyn. We have enough food and water. As long as the flood doesn’t rise any higher, we can hold out. My old classmate, Liam, who worked at the Emergency Management Bureau, had sent: I’m so sorry, Evelyn. All rescue teams have been deployed to the schools and high-risk zones. We can’t reach your parents right now. You’ll have to wait until outside reinforcements arrive. Justin barely cast a glance at me. “Why are you still up?” “My parents are still stuck in the flood zone.” “Didn’t you swim over to get them?” “My mother can’t swim, and my father is paralyzed. I could only help them climb to the neighbor’s third floor.” “Oh.” His tone was as casual as if we were discussing the weather. Taking off his shoes, he walked into the living room and slumped heavily onto the sofa. I looked at him as he stared down at his phone. Suddenly, my mind flashed back to earlier today. Typhoon Maysak had slammed into our county, triggering torrential rain. At noon, my mother called me in panic. “The flood reached the edge of the village at noon. Within an hour, it rose over twelve feet. The entire first floor is under water.” My mind went wild with fear. I begged Justin for a piece of water rescue gear from his firm. I told him, “Justin, if a motorboat is too much to ask, what about an inflatable raft? It costs barely a hundred bucks. Saving lives is what matters.” He scoffed. “Evelyn, can you be rational for once? A hundred bucks is a chunk of our monthly grocery budget.” We dated for five months and had been married for two years. Justin had always been like this. Every household expense was calculated down to the last penny. When I asked him why he had to be so stingy, he claimed every cent had to be spent where it counted most. Yet he turned around and drove his company’s most expensive jet ski straight to Serena. It turned out he didn’t hate spending money. He just hated spending it on me. I thought my heart was already numb. But after swimming for six exhausting hours to get back home, seeing his complete indifference made my chest ache as if my heart were being crushed to pieces. Justin finished scrolling through his phone, and his eyes finally landed on the papers on the table. “What’s this?” “Divorce papers.” “Evelyn, so your quiet act was just setting up for this drama?” I calmly pushed the signed document toward him. “I’ve already signed it.” He didn’t touch it. He just stared at the signature for a long time. “Earlier this year, you asked me to take time off to take your parents to the hospital. I refused, and you went back to stay with them for a month.” “Last month, you said you were ovulating, but I was busy and didn’t cooperate, so you banished me to the guest room for a week.” “And now, just because I didn’t give you a hundred-dollar raft, you want a divorce?” He wasn’t wrong about those events. Because my stay at my parents’ house forced him to come apologize, he developed a deep resentment toward them. Because I made him sleep in the guest room, he caught a mild cold and told everyone I was a nightmare to live with. Later, I saw on Serena’s social media feed that while my parents were sick, Justin was taking Serena’s parents for a comprehensive medical checkup. While I was ovulating, Serena caught a cold, and Justin stayed at her apartment for an entire week to nurse her back to health. Justin sneered. “Evelyn, I pinch pennies to build a future for us. Can’t you be a little more understanding?” I unlocked my phone, opened a text message, and slid it toward him. The notification read: System Alert: Routine maintenance identified damage to Jet Ski #005. Per contract terms, a repair fee of $1,500 has been deducted from your registered card. I looked into his eyes. “Fifteen hundred dollars for a single jet ski ride. Is this what you call pinching pennies?” “You changed the notification number on my bank account?” His immediate reaction wasn’t to explain the fifteen hundred dollars. It was to interrogate me on why I dared look at his financial statements. 2 Looking at Justin’s defensive face, a wave of regret washed over me. I should have handed him these divorce papers much sooner. He slammed his finger onto the document. “Greg was my brother! He died, and Serena is all alone in this city with no family or friends! What is wrong with me spending a little money to help her?” “Don’t you feel selfish?” I met his glare. “Justin, you’re helping another man’s woman.” “The people you are abandoning are the ones who called you son for two whole years.” He choked on his words, his tone finally softening a bit. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help.” “It’s just that you’re a swim coach. You can handle six feet of water easily. Why waste money on an expensive tool?” He leaned in, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Alright, stop being angry.” “Serena is different from you.” “She just lost her husband. She can’t handle losing another family member right now.” Perhaps realizing how terrible that sounded, he quickly added, “Tell you what. The warehouse has a batch of clearance inflatable rafts. I’ll get you one.” “But your parents need to transfer me that hundred bucks right now.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. So his agreement to help was still contingent on my parents paying him upfront. He wanted to exchange a defective piece of junk that should have been written off for a hundred dollars in cash from my parents. And he expected me to view it as an act of grand generosity. I pushed myself up from the sofa, leaning on the armrest. “Just sign it. We’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow morning.” Justin frowned, examining me as if I were throwing an unreasonable tantrum. “Do you really have to be this stubborn?” “I keep my professional and personal life separate. Asking your parents to transfer a hundred bucks for a life-saving raft is making things difficult for you?” Losing his patience entirely, he stood up. “If you insist on turning a minor detail into a divorce, there’s nothing I can do.” “But Evelyn, I’m the only person in this whole county who can get you a raft right now.” “If you don’t agree to my terms, what happens if your parents drown?” Those words were spoken casually, yet they cut deeper than any insult he had hurled before. My fists clenched tight, fingernails cutting into my skin. “I will take full responsibility for my own parents.” My response thoroughly enraged him. “Fine. You think you’re so capable.” “You’d better not come back crawling and begging me for help.” I turned and walked toward the bedroom. The moment the door shut behind me, Justin’s phone rang in the living room. I couldn’t hear who was on the other end, but his voice softened into a gentle murmur. “Don’t worry, I’m taking them to the emergency clinic right away.” “Don’t stand on ceremony with me. If the jet ski breaks, I’ll just grab another one.” “I’ll cover all the damages myself.” A sharp, agonizing pain suddenly tore through my lower abdomen, forcing me to double over. I slid down against the doorboard, sitting cold on the floor. My phone lit up with a text notification from the local clinic. Ms. Vance, due to the flood disaster, our staff was short-handed, and your blood work results were delayed. As you suspected, you are currently ten weeks pregnant. I stared at the glowing words. A single tear fell, hitting the glass screen. 3 Justin didn’t come home all night. I sat on the sofa from four in the morning until nine, calling him twenty times. He didn’t answer a single one. It wasn’t until half-past nine that he sent a quick voice message. “I’m swamped at work and can’t step away. If you really want a divorce, go file a lawsuit.” I locked my phone. Half the day was already wasted. I immediately changed into my waterproof suit. Before leaving, I called my mother. She told me the floodwaters were still rising, but they had enough food and clean water to hold out for two more days. I called Liam next. He told me the local rescue teams were prioritizing schools, leaving residential areas for later shifts. “Rain fell all night, and the inland flooding near your parents’ village is getting severe. The longer it drags on, the more dangerous it gets.” “Where can I buy a rescue raft?” I asked urgently. “The county government requisitioned all commercial gear, but some vendors might have kept a couple for personal use. Let me check around for you.” I thanked him profusely. After hanging up, I stood on the balcony, looking out at the county town submerged in murky, raging water. The anxiety in my chest reached a boiling point. My phone chimed with a social media update. It was a new post from Serena. A candid photo showed Serena in a white dress, leaning weakly against Justin’s shoulder. Justin was holding her, his eyes filled with intense worry and comfort, an expression I had never seen on his face in all our years together. The next two photos showed a jet ski. One was taken inside her residential complex, and the other showed them arriving at the hospital emergency entrance. Her caption read: When I felt completely isolated and helpless, I was lucky to have his unconditional support. A mutual friend commented underneath: Justin is so good to you! Rescue gear is so scarce right now, yet he used two different jet skis in a single day to move your family. That must have cost a fortune! Serena replied: Don’t talk nonsense. He’s just being a loyal friend. The friend instantly shot back: Justin might be loyal, but everyone knows how tight he is with money. Anyone can see you matter way more to him than his own wife does. I stared at that comment, a chilling numbness spreading through my chest. My phone rang again. It was Liam. “I tracked down a vendor who has an inflatable raft, but a model that usually costs fifty bucks is marked up to five hundred right now.” I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take it. I need it right now.” Hearing my absolute tone, Liam paused for a few seconds. “At that price, it might be a low-quality knockoff. Are you sure?” “As long as it can pull my parents out of that water.” I added softly, “Liam, I have no other choice.” After he sent me the address, I headed downstairs. The water inside the residential complex had already risen to waist height. Near the main gate, I ran right into Justin. He was riding a high-powered jet ski, cutting through the waves with an energized expression, holding a sheet of paper in his hand. “I managed to get approval from the company for an inflatable raft. I can sell it to your parents at wholesale price.” “However, it’s a clearance item, so the company takes no responsibility once it leaves the warehouse.” He reached out, trying to hand me a receipt. “Sign this receipt on their behalf first. You can transfer the money to me later.” I stared at the paper, refusing to touch it. He tossed it straight into my lap. “I’m a man of strict principle.” “Compromising this much for you is already incredibly generous. Don’t be ungrateful.” Without another word, he revved the engine and sped off into the floodwaters. I looked down at the receipt, picked it up, and let the murky water sweep it away. 4 My phone rang again. Liam’s voice was shaking with panic. “Evelyn! A section of the upstream dam just breached! A massive surge of floodwater is heading straight for the downstream villages!” My legs went completely weak. I had to grab a streetlight pole to keep from collapsing into the water. It took me three grueling hours to pull my parents out of the flooded village. The raft I bought was small, its buoyancy barely holding us afloat. Underwater currents whirled with debris. Suddenly, a massive surge hit us, causing the boat to tilt violently. My mother gripped the rubber edge tightly, her face pale. “Evelyn! The boat can’t take all three of us! Put me down and let me wait for a secondary team!” “You can’t swim! Stepping into this water means death!” I yelled back. My mother wanted to argue, but sheer terror locked her throat. I tightened my life vest and plunged straight into the freezing water. Using one arm to grip the raft and the other to kick and push, I dragged them forward through the torrent. Four hours later, we finally reached dry ground. The moment my feet touched solid earth, I collapsed onto the concrete, gasping for air. Liam pushed through the crowd, running toward me. “Why were you pulling them yourself?!” I managed a faint murmur. “My… husband…” I fell silent. The embarrassment at that moment cut deeper than needles. A hollow marriage where having a husband was no different from being a widow. “Your mother has a high fever, and your father’s bedsores are severely infected,” Liam said urgently. “Paramedics just loaded them onto a transport.” My heart dropped. “They were fine an hour ago!” “Your mom confessed they were already feeling terrible last night, but they hid it because they didn’t want you to panic.” I forced myself up to follow the gurney, but a sharp, tearing pain in my lower abdomen made cold sweat drench my back instantly. That night, I went back to our apartment to grab essential supplies for my parents’ hospital stay. Pushing the door open, the sound of a woman’s laughter drifted from the dining room. Serena was sitting at the table, a steaming bowl of chicken soup in front of her. She was wearing my house slippers. Seeing me, she immediately stood up. “Evelyn, you’re back! Come join us!” She reached out affectionately to take my arm, acting for all the world like the mistress of this house. My eyes drifted to the open refrigerator. The free-range chicken my parents had brought from their farm last week was gone. I had wanted to make soup with it back then, but Justin had stopped me. “Our anniversary is at the end of the month. Instead of spending extra money on meat then, let me save this chicken for that special day.” Now, that very chicken was sitting in Serena’s bowl. Justin emerged from the kitchen, tying off his apron and frowning at me. “Why didn’t you call before coming back?” “Do I need to report to you before entering my own home?” The smile froze on Serena’s face. Justin removed his apron, his voice cold. “Your parents were frightened by the flood, and Serena has been too anxious to eat anything for two days. I brought her here to make her something easy on her stomach.” My parents had nearly drowned in the flood zone, sick and feverish, yet he hadn’t asked a single question about them. Instead, he was at home simmering chicken soup for another woman’s stomach. Serena put on an expression of deep guilt. “Evelyn, please don’t misunderstand.” “Ever since Greg passed, I haven’t had an appetite. Justin was just worried about me, so he brought me here for a homemade meal.” As she spoke, she naturally tucked her hand into Justin’s arm, gently nudging him toward me. “Go on, comfort Evelyn.” I simply offered a faint, lifeless smile. Turning on my heel, I walked into the bedroom. Justin followed me inside, snatching my packed duffel bag and kicking it across the floor. “Who are you giving that attitude to?” “Greg is dead! Serena is gentle and hates asking people for favors! As Greg’s sworn brother, what is wrong with me showing her some concern?” I looked him dead in the eye. “Do you have any idea that my parents are in the hospital right now?” He stalled for a second, but his face quickly hardened again. “Can your parents’ situation even be compared to hers?” “She is from out of state, completely alone with no family left! Greg is dead, and she has nothing!” “You have me! I cover everything for you!” Cover everything for me? I had a husband, yet I lived like a widow. I picked up the duffel bag and walked past Justin without another word. Two minutes later, a social media notification popped up on my phone. Serena had posted a photo of two beer bottles. The caption read: Someone got upset today, so I’m keeping him company for a drink. For the past two years, I had acted like a pathetic investigator, constantly checking Serena’s updates to see what she posted about Justin. Looking at those posts now, my heart didn’t feel a single flicker of pain. I pulled out my secondary phone, opened Serena’s profile history, and screenshotted every single post she had ever made involving my husband. Then, I forwarded the entire folder to my divorce attorney. 5 My phone vibrated violently as Liam called again. “Evelyn, where are you?!” “The medical supplies at the local clinic were washed away by the flood! The facility isn’t equipped to handle this. Your parents need an immediate transfer to the City General Hospital!” My vision went black, and my knees gave out, causing me to crash onto the concrete steps outside. The abdominal cramps came in violent waves, each sharper than the last. By the time I rushed back to the local clinic, it was eleven at night. Liam ran up to meet me, his face pale. “They only have basic cold medicine left here!” “Your mother’s fever hit a hundred and four, and your father’s back infection is escalating fast. It might not look like an emergency on the surface, but dragging this out will be fatal!” I stared at the inflatable raft parked in the courtyard. The bottom rubber had been torn open by submerged branches during my push through the flood. I had used it to haul my parents three miles from the village to this clinic, wading through the surge for six straight hours. Liam’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, his expression shifting dramatically. “The emergency team needs me at the main dike right now! Evelyn, you have to find a way to transfer them immediately!” “I understand.” I knelt down, examining the torn raft over and over. The damaged section was worn thin. I didn’t know if it could hold air for another ten minutes. Biting my lip until I tasted blood, I pulled out my phone and dialed Justin’s number. The first call went unanswered. The second call rang out. On the twentieth attempt, Justin finally picked up. “What now?!” “I need to transfer my parents to the City General Hospital right now. Let me use the company jet ski. I will pay you two thousand dollars for it!” Justin let out a harsh laugh. “Evelyn, taking money out of our joint account to pay me back? Do you think I’m stupid?” He took a deep breath, his tone turning preachy. “I told you earlier, I could give you a hundred-dollar raft if your parents signed an IOU, but you refused.” “Now that raft has been reassigned to someone else, you come crawling back demanding a jet ski?” “Can you act like an adult for once and consider the consequences of your actions?” “Don’t expect me to make another compromise for you.” I squeezed the phone, trying to keep my voice steady. “Justin, I am your wife. I am the person you are supposed to care about!” “That doesn’t mean I have to pay for your childish tantrums,” he snapped back, raising his voice. “At first, I told you to swim over and carry them out. You swam over, but you came back alone.” “Then I told you to buy a raft for a hundred bucks, and you refused.” “I even compromised by letting you write an IOU on their behalf, and you still threw a fit!” Floodwaters were beginning to seep into the clinic’s ground floor. My parents desperately needed a transfer to save their lives, yet my husband was busy delivering a lecture on maturity over the phone. I asked softly, “Justin… what if the people in critical condition right now were Serena’s parents?” The line fell silent for a second. Then, over the speaker, I heard Serena’s tearful voice in the background. “Justin… water is pouring into the clinic! The doctor says we have to transfer my parents to the City General Hospital right away!” Justin’s tone transformed instantly, melting into pure urgency. “Don’t panic! I’m bringing the jet ski to get them right now!” My hand dropped to my side, fingers clenching into a tight ball. “Justin… you are using the jet ski right now to transport Serena’s parents, who are completely uninjured?” He gritted his teeth, speaking as if he were exercising extreme patience with me. “Serena lost her husband! She has no support in this city! As Greg’s brother, helping her is the right thing to do!” “I have a husband, yet I live like a widow. Who am I supposed to rely on?” “You’re actually cursing me now? You are completely unhinged!” A doctor hurried down the corridor and stopped in front of me. “Ms. Vance! Your father’s bedsore infection has turned severe! Any further delay risks septic shock!” “Your mother’s fever has been holding at a hundred and four for twenty-four hours! She needs immediate ICU intervention!” On the other end of the line, Justin was still lecturing me: “Fine, if your parents’ situation is so urgent, go handle it yourself!” The call disconnected with a sharp click. I stood frozen in the dim corridor, my arm hanging limp. My wedding band slipped from my slender finger, hitting the floor tiles. The crisp metallic clatter sounded like the final curtain call on our two-year marriage. It had finally hit rock bottom. 6 That day, twenty-four-hour rainfall reached a catastrophic twenty-eight inches. The surge swept through the valley, carrying mud and debris in an eight-foot wall of water. I gripped the edge of the damaged raft with one hand, kicking furiously through the current to push it forward. The raft was impossible to control. A sudden, violent wave slammed into us, flipping the rubber craft upside down. I heard my mother scream my name. I reached out frantically through the white water, but a powerful undercurrent swept past, ripping my parents’ clothes right out of my grip. “Ms. Vance! Ms. Vance!” Someone was shaking my shoulder vigorously. I forced my heavy eyelids open. A warm sensation spread across my lower body. Looking down, I saw my pants were soaked in dark crimson blood. I tried to sit up, my voice frantic. “My parents… I need to find my parents…” A nurse held me down firmly. “Don’t move! You’re bleeding heavily!” The doors to the emergency suite swung open, and an exhausted doctor stepped out, removing his surgical mask. “I am so sorry… we did everything we could.” “If they had arrived earlier, their conditions were manageable. But being trapped in the flood for three additional hours accelerated systemic failure. Please accept our condolences.” The doctor’s words hit me like a blunt blade, carving into my bones inch by inch. My vision flared dark, then bright, oscillating violently. “Ms. Vance! Stay with us!” “Don’t fall asleep! You need to stay conscious!” “You’ve lost a significant amount of blood, and the fetal tissue wasn’t fully expelled. We need to perform an emergency procedure right now!” The nurse scrambled through my belongings. “What is your husband’s name?! I need to call him immediately!” “I don’t have a husband.” The nurse cast a look of profound pity at me on the gurney. I stared up at the blinding, sterile white lights of the ceiling. As the double doors of the operating room closed, a frantic voice echoed from the main reception hall. “Doctor! Is there a patient named Evelyn Vance here with her parents?!” “Who are you?” “I’m her husband!” “Are you joking?! She was pulled from the flood after wading through it three times alone! She spent over eight hours in that water without a single soul helping her, and you claim to be her husband?!” “Poor woman… she dragged that leaking raft through the torrent, but her parents still drowned.” “When they brought her in, she left a trail of blood across the floor. Tragic… that poor baby never even got a chance to see the world.” A heavy thud echoed outside. It sounded like something heavy crashing against the floor. I couldn’t hear anything after that. As the anesthetic was pushed into my IV line, my entire world dissolved into total darkness. In that flood… I lost my unborn child. And I lost both of my parents.

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1 Always overthinking, I’d spiral from a glance into a melodrama and want to kick away the stool under a ceiling fan. Returning to my wealthy biological family, my adoptive sister Wendy spilled orange juice on my dress. She whimpered fake tears, “Please don’t be mad.” I stared at the sticky stain, my mind racing. Is she mocking my clothes? Calling my legs fat? Hinting I should die? Suffocating, I flung open the window to jump. The maid shrieked, grabbing my ankles. My father, rattled, made Wendy write a three-thousand-word confession. Days later, Wendy livestreamed, dabbing her eyes. “My sister just came back. She might not like me yet.” Watching thousands of hate comments, I spiraled for three hours. Is my posture stiff? Do I not smile? Does my blinking look like bullying? Before she finished, I’d unbuckled my belt and looped it over the chandelier. The butler dropped to his knees, begging me down, while Mother confiscated Wendy’s phone indefinitely. The third time Wendy saw me, she sprinted away. “I’m sorry!” she screamed. “I’ll stay out of your way! Just stop trying to kill yourself every day!” … “Wren, I got this custom designer dress for you,” Wendy said, holding up a sparkling, tight glitter gown that looked like a sausage casing. She offered a picture-perfect, innocent smile. “It’s one size too small, but I’m sure you can squeeze into it if you just hold your breath.” My mental alarm bells blared like a nuclear siren. Hold my breath? Is she saying I’ve been eating too much of the family’s food? Is she implying I don’t deserve to breathe their air? My chest tightened as panic choked me. Right. I didn’t deserve food. I didn’t deserve to occupy physical space. The best thing for everyone was if I shrank into nothingness. Without a word, I set the dress down and walked straight into the kitchen. Wendy called out behind me, “Wren, don’t you like it?” I ignored her, walking up to the massive French-door refrigerator and yanking open the deep freeze drawer. I cleared out the frozen steaks, stuck my entire head inside, and slammed my body against the cold steel. Freeze-drying. If I dehydrated myself into a crisp, I’d lose two pounds, and then I wouldn’t be a waste of space anymore. “Wren! What in God’s name are you doing!” My mother, Eleanor, walked in and let out a blood-curdling scream. She rushed over, grabbing my arms and trying to haul me out. I gripped the plastic drawers, shivering violently. “Leave me alone! Wendy thinks I’m fat! Freeze-drying will shave off a couple of pounds!” “You don’t understand!” I gasped, my cheeks turning blue. “Every cubic inch of space I take up is a crime against this household!” My older brother, Harrison, sprinted into the kitchen. He grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me out of the fridge with enough force to rattle my teeth. His face was twisted in pure disgust. “Wren, are you out of your mind!” he roared. “Wendy was just trying to do something nice for you! What kind of sick guilt trip is this!” He shoved me back against the counter, his eyes cold. Wendy appeared at the kitchen doorway right on cue, her eyes glistening with fresh tears. “Harrison, please don’t yell at her. It’s my fault.” “I didn’t know Wren had such a bad temper,” she sobbed softly. “If she hates the dress that much, I’ll just cut it up.” She grabbed a pair of sharp kitchen shears off the counter, holding them up against the fabric. Seeing the glinting metal made my brain go completely static. She’s holding shears. Is she going to stab me next? She thinks I don’t deserve nice things! She thinks a trash person like me shouldn’t even exist to pollute her sight! I leaped off the counter, snatched the shears out of her hands, and pointed them straight at my own head. Wendy shrieked, diving behind Harrison. Harrison went livid. “Wren! Put the scissors down right now!” “She’s right!” I screamed, clamping the blades over a thick hunk of my hair. “A disgusting monster like me doesn’t deserve anything! Not dresses, not hair!” Snip! I cut without hesitation. A huge clump of long hair hit the tile floor. Eleanor’s knees gave out. She collapsed onto the floor, wailing, “Wren! Stop it! You’re scaring me to death!” Snip! Snip! I hacked away recklessly, turning my hair into a ragged, butchered mess. “I deserve to die! I should have never come back!” Harrison lunged forward, ripped the shears from my grip, and slapped me hard across the face. The sharp crack echoed through the kitchen. “Have you had enough!” he yelled. “Look at yourself! You look like a complete lunatic!” I cupped my stinging, burning cheek, staring into his eyes. All I saw was revulsion. My heart sank to the bottom of an icy abyss. Behind him, Wendy hid her face, but I caught the small, triumphant smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Wren,” Wendy whimpered, her voice dripping with artificial pain. “Why are you doing this to us? Do you really want me gone that badly?” 2 “Doing this to you?” Holding my throbbing cheek, the thunderstorm in my brain hit category-five catastrophic levels. My brother hit me. He thinks I’m crazy. My sister says I’m forcing them out, which means my very existence is a cardinal sin. They are a real family, and I’m just an intruder ruining their peace. I can’t even breathe at the right frequency. Why am I still alive? I lowered my hand, staring at the three of them united against me. Eleanor sat on the floor, wiping her tears. Harrison stood like a protective shield in front of Wendy, glaring at me like I was his worst enemy. Wendy huddled behind him, trembling like a delicate white rose in a storm. “Right. I get it now,” I said softly, my voice completely devoid of emotion. I turned around and walked out. Harrison barked from behind me, “Where do you think you’re going! Haven’t you embarrassed us enough for one day!” I didn’t turn back. “To go die.” I walked straight out of the estate gates. Right outside was a busy six-lane intersection. Looking at the heavy traffic zooming past, every single speeding car felt like a welcoming haven. I walked right into the middle of the crosswalk. The pedestrian light turned red. I didn’t stop. I headed straight toward the fastest lane. Since they thought I was extra baggage, I might as well turn into street paint and give the asphalt some color. Tires screeched violently. “Are you insane! Find somewhere else to kick the bucket!” a driver screamed, leaning out his window. I closed my eyes and opened my arms, ready to embrace sweet relief. Suddenly, a massive force yanked me backward. I crashed hard into the roadside bushes, scraping my palms raw against the dirt. Harrison stood over me, panting heavily, his eyes bloodshot. “Wren! Just how long are you going to keep throwing these tantrums!” He grabbed my collar, hauling me up. “Do you have any idea how much damage this would cause the family name if you died here?!” “Wendy just offered you a dress! Was that really worth jumping into traffic over?!” I stared at his furious face, my internal pop-ups exploding again. Damage to the family name. That’s all he cares about. My life isn’t even worth their social status. If I die here, I’ll dirty the family reputation, so I have to find a cleaner place to end it. A laugh escaped my lips, sounding raspy and unhinged. “You’re right, Harrison,” I whispered. “Dying on the street isn’t eco-friendly. It’d get the poor driver’s license revoked.” “I’ll go find a quiet, abandoned corner and let myself starve to death.” Harrison froze, completely thrown off by my deadpan response. His grip loosened, and his voice softened a fraction. “Stop overthinking everything. Wendy had no bad intentions.” “There’s a socialite tea party tomorrow,” he added, trying to sound reasonable. “Go with Wendy. Make some friends. It’ll be good for your mental state.” A socialite tea party? My brain siren screamed again. Drag me out in public? To humiliate me in front of everyone? To use my ugliness to highlight Wendy’s grace? Look at my mangled hair! I look like a stray dog that got hit by a lawnmower. I’m going there just to be a laughingstock. I scrambled backward on the grass. “No! I’m not going! I’ll only bring shame to the family!” Wendy had crept up behind us. She reached out, timidly tugging on my sleeve. “Wren, please come with me. Those high-society girls can be so mean. I’m scared to go alone.” I yanked my arm away and sprinted straight toward a steel lamppost, slamming my forehead into it with all my strength. Crack! “I said I’m not going! Do you really have to drive me into a grave?!” Wendy screamed, covering her mouth. “Wren! Why are you hitting yourself! Stop it!” 3 To prevent me from actually cracking my skull open on public property, Harrison dragged me back home and threw me into the second-floor guest room. Not even the master bedroom. A guest room. Wendy lived at the end of the hall in the largest, sunniest suite in the entire mansion. I sat on the ice-cold hardwood floor, touching my butchered hair, as a massive black hole hollowed out my chest. The door handle clicked. Wendy walked in, carrying a small porcelain plate with a delicate pink macaron. She set it on the desk and looked down at me with condescending pity. “Wren, why do you keep doing this?” she sighed gently. “Harrison hates dramatic women who threaten to kill themselves. The more you act like this, the more he’s going to despise you.” She picked up the pink pastry. “Harrison drove across town and waited in line for two hours just to buy these for me.” “He said you were emotionally unstable and that sweet things might cheer you up, so he asked me to bring one in.” I stared at the pastry. Drove across town? Waited two hours in line? Harrison was always busy, yet he waited in line for two hours just to get her a dessert. And giving me a leftover piece was supposed to be a gift? No, it was a warning. A reminder that Wendy was his beloved sister, and I was just picking up her crumbs. That pink macaron looked like poison wrapped in sugar. “I’m not eating that,” I said coldly. Wendy’s eyes flashed with a hint of triumph, though her face instantly twisted into hurt. “Wren, are you still mad at me?” “I’m just looking out for you. You just got back from the countryside. You don’t know how things work, and you’re going to offend people.” She reached down to grab my hand. “Look at your palm, it’s all scraped up. Let me blow on it for you.” As her hand brushed against mine, I caught sight of a dark wooden beaded bracelet on her wrist. My breath hitched. That was the cheap wooden rosary the old orphanage director had put on my wrist before I left. It was the only item of personal value I owned. My only emotional anchor. I had accidentally left it in the bathroom last night. How did it end up on her wrist? I snatched my hand back, pointing accusingly. “Why do you have my bracelet?! Give it back!” Wendy pulled her arm back, her eyes darting around. “Wren, don’t be so aggressive. I thought it looked vintage, so I just borrowed it. Why are you being so stingy?” The last wire holding my sanity together snapped. “Give it back! That belonged to my director!” “Get off me!” Wendy shrieked, backing away dramatically. She tripped over her own heels and tumbled to the floor. Snap! During the scuffle, the elastic string snapped. Deep brown wooden beads scattered across the floor, bouncing in every direction. One bead rolled straight across the balcony threshold and plummeted down into the outdoor drainage grate below. I froze. My chest caved in as if someone had crushed my heart with a sledgehammer. Wendy sat on the floor, looking at the scattered beads, and burst into hysterical tears. “I’m sorry, Wren! I didn’t mean to!” “I just thought it looked pretty! I thought since we’re sisters, what’s yours is mine…” The door was kicked open. Eleanor and Harrison rushed inside. Seeing Wendy crying on the floor amidst the mess, Harrison didn’t ask a single question. He marched over and shoved me hard. “Wren! Are you insane! Why did you push her!” I stumbled back, my lower back slamming into the sharp edge of the desk. Pain shot through my spine, but I pointed at the floor with a shaking finger. “She broke my bracelet…” Eleanor rushed to scoop Wendy into her arms, checking her for injuries. “It’s just a string of dirty wooden beads! So what if she took it!” “Is the family short on money?! I’ll buy you ten gold ones tomorrow!” Dirty wooden beads. My entire world shattered into dust. To them, my most precious memory was just dirty wood. My past didn’t matter. My feelings were as cheap as garbage. If I had nothing left, why was I staying in this house? I slowly pulled myself upright, my eyes going completely hollow. “Right. You’re all right.” “I’m stingy. I’m ungrateful.” I turned around and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading out to the balcony. 4 Harrison barked impatiently from behind me. “What kind of episode are you throwing now!” I ignored him, pushing the sliding glass door open. The wind swept over the balcony, messily blowing my chopped hair across my face. This was only the second floor. Jumping off wouldn’t kill me. It would only break my legs at best. Unless I land headfirst. My internal calculator spun at lightspeed. The angle needs to be completely vertical to ensure the neck snaps instantly upon impact. I can’t hit the lawn. I have to target that concrete slab near the garden bed. That’s the fastest way. It won’t cause too much trouble for the cleaning staff either. I stepped onto the balcony railing, swinging one leg over the edge. Wendy let out a sharp shriek from inside the room. “Wren, don’t! It’s all my fault!” Eleanor’s voice cracked into an ungodly scream. “Wren! Get down from there! I’ll buy you the wooden beads! I’ll buy you a hundred of them!” Harrison sprinted onto the balcony, his face ghostly pale. “Wren, get your ass back over here! If you jump, I swear I’ll break your legs!” I looked at him, finding his threat almost hilarious. “You don’t have to break my legs, Harrison,” I whispered. “I’ll do it myself.” I closed my eyes and let myself fall forward into the open air. Weightlessness hit me instantly. Wind roared in my ears. CRASH! A violent force slammed into my back and shoulders, knocking the wind completely out of my lungs. Pain flared across my body, and my vision went dark for a second. But I didn’t hit the concrete. I opened my eyes and realized I had landed straight onto the heavy canvas awning extending over the first-floor patio. The metal support frames groaned and bent under my weight, leaving me dangling like a broken ragdoll in mid-air. Up on the second floor, Eleanor had collapsed onto the balcony tiles, weeping uncontrollably. Harrison leaned over the railing, his knuckles white as he gripped the iron bars. His eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated terror. Down below, the butler and house staff scrambled around in utter chaos. “Get a ladder! Get cushions!” “Call an ambulance!” … They hauled me down, and a private doctor arrived within twenty minutes to examine me. “Aside from some soft tissue bruising and a mild concussion, she’s miraculously fine,” the doctor muttered, wiping sweat off his forehead. He looked at me as if I were a wild animal. “However, her mental state is severely unstable. I strongly advise a full psychiatric evaluation.” Eleanor sat by my bed, clutching my hand while tears streamed down her face. “Wren, please… I’m begging you. Stop doing this to yourself. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Just stop scaring me.” Harrison stood at the foot of the bed, silent. The revulsion in his eyes had faded, replaced by a dark, uneasy dread. Wendy walked into the room carrying a mug of hot milk, her nose red from crying. “Wren, drink some milk to calm down.” She approached the bedside and handed me the mug. As she bent over, I leaned in and whispered so only she could hear, “Are you disappointed I didn’t die?” Wendy’s hand jerked, sloshing hot milk over the duvet. She snapped her head up, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “Wren… how could you say that about me?” she sobbed, backing away. “I was terrified! I truly want what’s best for you!” She spun toward Harrison, her voice trembling. “Harrison, does Wren think I’m some kind of monster?” “If me moving out will make her happy, I’ll pack my bags and go back to the orphanage right now.” A classic tactical retreat. She played the helpless victim effortlessly. Harrison frowned, stepping forward to speak. Before he could say a word, I whipped off the blanket, grabbed the glass mug from Wendy’s hands, and smashed it against the nightstand. SMASH! Glass shattered everywhere. I snatched up the largest, sharpest jagged shard and jammed it directly against my throat. The sharp edge bit into my skin, and blood immediately bubbled out, staining my collar. “Don’t leave, Wendy! I’ll leave!” I screamed. “I’ll die right now and give you back the title of the only daughter!”

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When I transmigrated into this beast-kin world and faced a mandatory matchmaking system, I couldn’t stomach the thought of human-animal intimacy. I bypassed all the muscular, half-beast suitors and chose a ordinary, limp-legged spider instead. I kept him as a pet for six months. Until one morning, right after waving goodbye to his fuzzy little legs before heading to work, my world turned upside down. I suddenly saw a floating wall of text glowing in the air. [Is this NPC crazy? She ignored all the fluffy, handsome beast-men and chose the ultimate villain as her husband!] [And she actually kept him locked in such a tiny terrarium. No wonder Gideon divorced her the second his wounds healed so he could go chase after the female lead.] [Poor cannon fodder. Before she could even taste the sweet life of a billionaire’s wife, the villain had her taken out.] As someone who worked a grueling nine-to-five and saved every penny just to retire early and do absolutely nothing, my vision went completely dark. I immediately called the Ministry of Marital Affairs to file for divorce, and then I promptly shipped the spider back to the wealthy family he belonged to. I thought I had cut all ties, ready to slip back into my quiet, average life as a corporate drone. But at the office, my boss, a man who was usually cold, distant, and serene with his subordinates, suddenly became a walking powder keg. He spent every day staring at me with bloodshot, furious eyes. According to the office gossip, his wife had walked out on him. “All those good looks wasted,” a coworker muttered in the breakroom. “He doesn’t even know how to seduce his own woman!” 1 My coworker looked completely exasperated. “What decent guy acts like that? He is constantly frozen over, never showing a hint of a smile. How is he supposed to keep his woman’s attention?” In the breakroom, Toby, the golden retriever beast-kin from the tech department, let his fluffy ears droop sadly. His long tail swayed slowly as his bright eyes remained locked on me. My fingers twitched. I had to restrain myself from reaching out to pet him, lest I get arrested by a police dog for workplace harassment. Three years ago, when I first crossed over to this world, the local administration immediately dragged me in for mandatory matchmaking. Female humans were incredibly rare in this world. Most male beast-kin were so desperate to marry that they were willing to offer their entire fortunes as a dowry just to marry into a woman’s household. The officer who found me, a German Shepherd with a sleek uniform and a high-ranking badge, had not even asked for my name or why I had suddenly appeared in the desolate wilderness of his patrol route. Instead, he simply flexed his muscles and kept showing me profiles of eligible bachelor candidates. He practically begged me to choose him too. To please a potential wife, the male beasts would show off their animal forms. The fluffy ones, of course, were the most popular. But as a pure-blooded human, looking at those suited cats and dogs did nothing for me. I wanted to pet them, not marry them. Committed to avoiding any beast-kin intimacy, I looked past the handsome models and pointed at a tiny, limp-legged spider that could not even take human form. Under the stunned stares of the registration officers, I took my newly minted ID card, the keys to my apartment, and a relocation fund of two hundred thousand credits. Then, I walked out, completely satisfied. 2 I kept my betrothed as a pet for six months. I had to admit, spiders in this world were surprisingly expressive. Before I left for work every morning, he would stare at me with his large, dark eyes, his fuzzy legs twitching slightly. I assumed he was waving goodbye. I would smile, look down at him, and whisper, “See you tonight.” Whenever I did, he would cover his eyes with his front legs, peeking at me through the gaps like a shy teenager. That routine lasted until last week, when those glowing bullet comments suddenly manifested before my eyes. [Wow, this cannon fodder is actually pretty, but her luck is terrible. She skipped the fluffballs and chose the big bad villain instead.] [She kept him locked in that tiny glass box too. No wonder he bolted the second he recovered.] [Later, when the villain wants to clear his past to pursue the heroine, he has this girl wiped out to erase his history.] Already exhausted by my morning commute, my mind went completely blank. I skipped work entirely. Under the spider’s curious gaze, I retreated to my bedroom and called the Ministry of Marital Affairs to demand a divorce. The officer on the line was Marcus, the German Shepherd who had first processed my arrival. He had apparently been promoted. When he heard my request, he did not ask any questions. He simply gave a soft, understanding, “Of course.” The divorce went through instantly, bypassing the usual bureaucratic nightmare. I packaged the little spider and sent him back to the prestigious family estate. He belonged to one of the wealthiest, most powerful clans in the country. Rumor had it their CEO had been missing for six months, yet no one had bothered to search for him, assuming he was just off searching for true love. While I felt a lingering twinge of guilt, I knew my dream of a quiet retirement could not be ruined by a hidden villain. I severed the bond cleanly. But the moment I returned to work, my icy, polite boss, Gideon, transformed. When I first applied to Aether Corp, I took a position as his secretary. Gideon, a brilliant and young general manager, had never minded that I relied on a translator. He had mentored me patiently, correcting my mistakes with clear instructions instead of anger. He had guided me through the rough transition of my new career. But when he returned from his recent leave, everything changed. It started with a meeting with our partner, David. David was thirty, unmarried, and a textbook billionaire bachelor. He was so eager to find a wife that he practically preened like a peacock whenever a woman walked by. In fact, his hair even had a few bright red feathers tucked into it. David and I were fairly friendly. Whenever I stood behind Gideon with a professional, expressionless face, David would secretly wink at me. But this time, Gideon stepped directly between us, his expression incredibly dark as he glared at his business partner. “If you have this much free time, David, it seems you aren’t serious about this merger. We will reschedule.” He turned on his heel and walked out. I followed him, utterly bewildered. Was this the same professional, unflappable boss I knew? Even worse, every time I went into his office to deliver documents, Gideon would look at me with profound sorrow. His beautiful eyes were swollen, as if he had spent hours weeping, and his gaze was that of a abandoned lover. The office gossip claimed his wife had left him. The younger bachelors in the company always joked that his cold demeanor would drive any woman away, but I had never taken those jokes seriously. Now, hearing Toby talk about Gideon’s red eyes, I shivered. Had his wife really run away? 3 Curiosity is a universal human trait. Even if it was unprofessional to gossip about my boss, I leaned closer to Toby, clutching my coffee mug. “Gideon is so handsome. Did his wife really leave him?” Toby’s fair skin flushed a soft pink. His tail wagged like a frantic fan. “Yeah. Allison, when you look for a husband, don’t pick someone like Gideon. A proper wife needs to be accommodating, but he looks like the possessive type who would hunt down a homewrecker and bury him in the backyard.” I nodded absently. “Good point.” I had no intention of marrying Gideon, or anyone in this beast world. The biological differences alone seemed daunting. Toby smiled warmly, stepping closer. To make office life easier, beast-kin usually remained in human form, though they kept a few animal traits. Toby’s long, fluffy tail was currently brushing against my legs, tickling the bare skin beneath my skirt. I smiled and gently nudged his soft ears, pushing him back slightly. “That tickles, Toby. You’re too close.” Toby’s eyes widened, turning glassy and soft like a typical puppy’s. He bit his lip, trying to hold back a happy whimper. “Right. Sorry.” The fluffy warmth receded as Toby suddenly excused himself, covering his face as he bolted from the room. Before I could wonder what had happened, the glowing text flashed again. [The dog looks calm, but his mind is completely blown right now.] [Classic golden retriever trait. The young master is barely holding it together. Look at his tight trousers, I won’t even spell it out for you.] [I’m so jealous. This cannon fodder really knows how to handle him. Let the dog out, let me in!] I rubbed my eyes, wondering if these comments were written in some bizarre online slang I couldn’t comprehend. Suddenly, a rustle came from the sofa behind the indoor plants. It sounded like a kettle coming to a boil. Realizing I had just been gossiping about my boss, I cautiously stepped around the greenery. To my horror, Gideon was sitting there. He slowly raised his head, a single tear slipping from his red-rimmed eyes. Beside him sat a crumpled, empty tissue box, his shirt looking just as disheveled. I offered a stiff, awkward smile. “Good afternoon, Gideon.” Who would have thought the untouchable general manager of Aether Corp would hide in the employee breakroom to cry? He was famous for his strict professionalism. His office was always spotless, his shirts buttoned to his throat, and his elegant hands were the only bare skin he ever exposed. He wore no jewelry, save for a simple silver band on his left ring finger. The female staff had discussed that ring before. “Gideon is so loyal, but that ring is so cheap. It looks like the standard issue from the Ministry. People with money usually upgrade theirs immediately. His wife must be a minimalist.” I had listened to those chats with amusement, vaguely recalling that the Ministry had given me a similar pair when I registered. I had left the spider’s ring in his terrarium, and I had no idea where I had tossed mine. Staring at Gideon’s bare ring finger, a cold sweat broke out down my spine. Oh, no. Did I just offend my boss? Is he going to cut my bonus? Gideon simply stood up, his wet eyelashes casting long shadows. He reached out and gently plucked a stray yellow dog hair from my shoulder. “You should change your shirt tomorrow,” he murmured softly. “This one is dirty.” “Right away,” I muttered, nodding quickly. No wonder everyone said he was a neat freak. His reputation was entirely justified. 4 I made it back to my apartment by ten past six, marveling at the incredible work-life balance of this world. Then, my phone buzzed with a message from the Ministry of Marital Affairs. [Dear Allison, since your previous marriage has dissolved, and in accordance with Article 3, Section 15 of the Marital Code, we have matched you with ten eligible bachelors. Please select your preferred method of contact.] I closed my eyes, my fingers hovering over the screen as I prepared a polite but firm rejection. Another text immediately followed. [Please note that if you decline to participate, the Ministry will initiate repatriation protocols, which include reclaiming your two hundred thousand credit relocation fund and the keys to your apartment.] I stared at the screen for two seconds. [Understood. I look forward to it. Let us start with online chatting.] I rolled my eyes and began scrolling through the sleek profiles. The candidates were exceptionally handsome, well-dressed, and wealthy. Any suitor presented to a human female was bound to be elite. But because they all retained animal traits, I felt less like I was choosing a partner and more like I was browsing a zoo directory. I lost interest quickly until I spotted the only profile without a photograph. The system labeled him as the “most difficult match.” All his personal records were classified, and there was no indication of his marital history. I smiled. I loved difficult cases. I could chat with him a few times, claim we were incompatible, and the Ministry wouldn’t be able to penalize me. But the moment our chat connection was established, the floating text reappeared. [Oh my god, what kind of cursed fate is this? The villain just got divorced and was supposed to match with the heroine, so why is he chatting with the cannon fodder again?] [Does this girl have a death wish? Someone give her a different man. The golden retriever boy would be perfect, he’d look so cute crying for her.] According to the comments, the villain’s online persona was cold and sharp, deterring most women. Only the original heroine would see past his icy exterior to the warm heart beneath, eventually healing him with her persistent, encouraging messages. As for my character, she would find him incredibly pretentious, mock his anonymity, and accuse him of hiding his face because of physical inadequacies. That insolence would seal her fate. I felt like I was holding a live grenade. Since I couldn’t throw it away, I decided to make myself completely unappealing. [I should warn you, I only practice Platonic love. If you can accept that, we can keep talking.] The comments erupted in laughter. [This is hilarious. Gideon becomes a total possessive maniac later. He literally breaks headboards, and she’s talking about Plato? Don’t make him laugh.] I bit my lip, hoping this would end it. A second later, a reply popped up. [That works for me.] What? 5 I was forced to keep chatting with the mysterious villain. He was incredibly clingy, almost suffocatingly so. He behaved as if he were constantly starved of attention, always finding ways to prolong our conversations. If I got distracted and stopped replying, my phone would buzz with massive wire transfer notifications. [You have received 50,000 credits… You have received 100,000 credits… You have received 100,000 credits.] When I opened the chat, he had sent a dozen pathetic spider emojis. Initially, he had sent some puppy emojis, but after I casually mentioned that golden retrievers were cute, he went silent for twenty minutes. When he returned, his profile was filled with custom-made spider stickers, complete with giant, watery eyes and adorable, pouty expressions. The local internet forums were losing their minds. [Did the official emoji store glitch? Why did they dump all the popular templates and replace them with spiders? Who actually likes spiders? Who approved this design?] The villain seemed quite hurt by the backlash. He sent me an emoji of a little spider rolling around on the floor, throwing a tantrum. I sent a lazy pet-on-the-head sticker. He perked up instantly, sending a brief voice note. His voice was low, raspy, and incredibly intimate. “Thank you for the pets, baby.” I nearly dropped my phone on my face. When Monday arrived, the office became incredibly busy. We were wrapping up a major merger, and the contract required endless legal and technical revisions. I spent my days running between departments and my nights sleeping like the dead, leaving no energy to check my messages. Gideon was also swamped, constantly staring at his phone between meetings. I certainly couldn’t slack off in front of him. Only during my lunch break did I leisurely scroll through the missed texts. I discovered the anonymous villain had sent a photo of his workout the previous night. In a dimly lit gym, he looked flushed from an intense session, beads of sweat rolling down his pale, chiseled chest, tracing the sharp lines of his lower abdomen before disappearing past the frame. His accompanying message was surprisingly shy. [I went to the gym last night. It was exhausting… (sad spider emoji)] I stared at the image, secretly pressing my fingers to my nose to check for a nosebleed. It was a delicate, perfect shade of pink. As an ordinary girl, I was entirely unprepared for this level of visual stimulation. I quickly saved the image to my hidden folder. “What are you looking at that’s making you smile like that?” Gideon’s cool voice suddenly sounded above me. I locked my screen in one fluid motion, stood up, and flashed my most professional smile. “Just chatting with a friend, Gideon.” His expression grew even more despondent. “What kind of friend makes you smile like that?” He looked miserable because I hadn’t replied to his texts, even though he had spent the entire night posing for that perfect gym photo, his heart racing the whole time. I kept my polite smile, too embarrassed to admit I was on a matchmaking app. Gideon shook his head, his voice soft and defeated. “Forgive me. That was intrusive. It is your private life.” He paused, looking down at me. “You’ve worked hard this week. Take the afternoon off, and I will double your quarterly bonus. Enjoy your weekend.” His deep-set double eyelids gave him a striking, romantic look. When he stared at you like that, it felt as though he were ready to fall in love. My heart hammered against my ribs, momentarily dazed by his generosity. What an incredibly manipulative executive. I eagerly packed my things, suddenly in the mood to reply to my mysterious spider. [Looks good. Keep them coming.] A loud thud echoed through the office. I looked up to see Gideon stumbling slightly, having bumped into the edge of his desk. When he noticed my gaze, he raised his head, his face flushed a deep crimson, his watery eyes filled with a mixture of embarrassment and desire. He looked like a ripe peach that would burst at the slightest touch. The word sensual almost escaped my lips, but I bit my tongue. My ears felt incredibly hot. What was Gideon doing? Where was his professional decorum? 6 On Sunday afternoon, the Ministry arranged a date for me at a private lounge. I took my time getting ready, applying light makeup and grabbing my bag. I expected to exchange a few polite words and leave. But the moment I walked into the private room, I froze, my professional mask slipping back into place. “Good afternoon, David.” The mature, thirty-year-old billionaire offered a low chuckle, gesturing to the sofa beside him. “You’re here. Come sit.” He wore a low-cut shirt that exposed his muscular chest, his long legs crossed casually, and his dark hair was styled with vibrant, elegant feathers. He possessed an aura so commanding it made people want to bow. David and Gideon had been classmates at Evergreen University, known as the legendary duo of their generation. But while Gideon was a freezing winter, David was a brilliant, blazing summer. His sharp features and charismatic personality allowed him to control every room he entered. Including this date. “Here, try this,” he said smoothly, offering a spoonful of delicate custard. “The chef here is decent. If you like it, I’ll take you to a better place next time.” I leaned in and took a bite. The simple dish tasted absolutely heavenly. David certainly knew how to live. Seeing my reaction, he curled his lips into a satisfied smile, resting his chin on his hand as he watched me. “Gideon kept you on such a tight leash. If you hadn’t gotten divorced, I would have stolen you away and hidden you from him.” David spoke of kidnapping as if it were a casual hobby. I stopped eating the food he offered, feeling a bit put off by his overbearing, possessive attitude. “Let’s just talk, David.” I wanted to finish the date and go home. David chuckled indulgently. “Of course. What would you like to know about me, Allison? My family fortune, my career, my height, or perhaps… other measurements? I am happy to share.” He kept leaning closer, invading my space. As a bird beast-kin, his body heat was incredibly intense. His pinky finger brushed against my wrist, and his red-soled shoes lightly tapped my ankle. He looked completely confident, as if I were already his prize. But my initial panic about dating a business partner had faded, replaced by cool calculation. The elite bachelors presented by the Ministry rarely had any relationship history, and despite David’s wealth, his aggressive personality had kept him single for years. His casual style today was actually meticulously planned, right down to his expensive cologne. He wanted to seem dominant, but his gestures were incredibly gentle, as if he were terrified of displeasing me. He had even fed me the exact dish my eyes had lingered on when I first sat down. Realizing this, I relaxed completely. Instead of pulling away from his close presence, I leaned forward, catching him off guard. Our breaths mingled. If David had not instinctively flinched, our lips would have touched. Even so, my lips brushed against his soft, flushed cheek. “What are you doing?” he gasped, recoiling slightly. His cool, confident mask shattered instantly, a dark blush spreading across his pale skin. He looked like a sheltered young man who had just been scandalized. “I heard bird beast-kin run very hot, sometimes even causing minor burns with prolonged contact,” I whispered, tilting my head. “I read that the base of your wings is the warmest spot. Can I feel it?” David’s eyes widened in utter shock, his face practically smoking. “Are you insane? You can’t just ask to touch a man there!” I shrugged, turning away. “Fine, if you won’t let me, this is boring. I’m leaving.” I knew I was teasing him, but his arrogance had annoyed me. As I stood up, a hand gently caught the hem of my jacket. David let out a soft, strained sound, his shoulders tensing. With a sharp rip of fabric, a pair of magnificent, flame-colored wings unfurled inside the private lounge. I leaned down, pressing my hands against his firm chest, my fingers sinking into the incredibly soft, downy feathers of his wing joints. “Good boy,” I murmured. David let out a small, helpless whimper as I thoroughly enjoyed petting his beautiful, warm feathers. On my way home, my phone buzzed continuously. I had muted it during the date to avoid distractions. [Baby, how is your weekend? Are you resting well?] [I went swimming today. Here is a photo from my workout.] [Allison, why aren’t you replying to me?] [Are you busy today? You didn’t… go see another man, did you? That’s impossible, right?] […Fine. It’s okay if you play around a bit, I will always be here waiting for you. Please reply when you can, I love you.] […Allison, did you really go?] [I’m going to die. (crying spider emoji)] He was incredibly intense, almost draining. But to keep the villain calm, I sent a quick reply. [The office had an emergency, so I had to work. I’m heading home now.] He replied within seconds. [I understand! Thank you for working so hard, baby. Here’s a little gift! (happy face)] [You have received 50,000 credits.] I sighed, realizing I was getting far too comfortable playing this role. But the men in this world were simply too skilled at temptation. At the exact same time, Gideon sat in his dark, empty office at Aether Corp, clutching his phone, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth nearly ground to dust.

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