Author: Momo Chan

1 On April Fool’s Day, the entire office decided to target Helen, the new hire, for a prank. “We’ll pretend she won the Employee of the Month award,” the manager said, pointing to a metal bucket hanging from the ceiling. “The moment she steps onto the stage, someone pulls the cord, and she gets drenched.” But the joke took a dark turn. The rope snapped, and the heavy iron bucket tore free, hurtling down along with the water. Before everyone’s eyes, the bucket struck Helen hard on the head. She collapsed in a heap, a pool of crimson blooming around her on the floor. Nora, the receptionist, knelt down and tentatively checked Helen’s pulse. A second later, she let out a piercing scream. Helen was dead. Suddenly, every single person in the room was an accomplice. “We have to call the police! Right now!” My hands shook so violently I could barely hold my phone. “Someone is dead!” “Call the cops?” Andrew, the manager, grabbed my wrist in a vice grip. “Are you out of your mind? You want to spend the rest of your life behind bars?” His roaring voice left me stunned, staring at him blankly. Around us, the room descended into panic. “What do we do? I’m too young for prison!” “My kid starts college next year! Who’s going to pay his tuition if I’m locked up?” The sudden tragedy broke everyone’s composure. “Damn it!” Andrew cursed, kicking a desk hard. “How is she already dead? It was just a stupid bucket!” “It was a heavy iron bucket filled with water, and it was hung way too high,” Nora sobbed, her voice trembling. “It was a horrible accident.” Refusing to accept reality, Andrew suddenly ran onto the stage like a madman. He pinned Helen down, slapping her cheeks repeatedly. “Get up! Quit playing dead! Get the hell up!” Drops of blood splattered onto the back of his hand. Nora covered her mouth, screaming, while the others shrank back in horror. “Stop it!” I couldn’t watch any longer. I rushed forward and shoved Andrew away. “Stop touching her! She’s gone!” Swallowing the rising bile and terror in my throat, I slipped off my cardigan and gently covered Helen’s face. Andrew sat on the floor, panting heavily, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I used to be a nurse,” Nora wept. “I checked. She really isn’t breathing. She’s dead.” Brenda, one of the senior employees, suddenly stood up and pointed an accusing finger at Andrew. “This was your sick idea. You killed her! You’re the one who should take the blame!” The room went quiet for a beat, and then everyone quickly turned on Andrew. “She’s right! Andrew set up the stage. I had nothing to do with it.” “I never liked these pranks anyway. He forced us to participate.” “Andrew always had a grudge against Helen. What if he did this on purpose?” “Shut your mouths!” Andrew snarled, his cold gaze sweeping across the room. “You think you can just pin this on me?” He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and slammed it onto a desk. “You were all brainstorming in the group chat. Now you want to play innocent?” I peered at the screen. There was indeed a private chat group. Everyone had been eagerly discussing how to humiliate Helen for April Fool’s. The worst part was, I had never even been added to that group. Brenda braced herself and kept arguing. “So what? We were just talking! Nobody expected you to actually go through with it.” “Exactly. It’s on him.” “The security cameras must have caught everything. He did it.” I looked at Helen’s lifeless body, a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. “Let’s just call the police,” I said, reaching for my phone again. “Whatever the consequences are, we should face them together.” “Face them?” Andrew kicked my hand. The phone flew across the room, smashing against the wall, its screen shattering into pieces. I gasped, falling back onto the floor. He pulled a pocket knife from his trousers and drove it deep into the wooden table. The hilt vibrated with a low hum. “My son is applying for the police academy. I cannot have a record! I am not going to prison!” Andrew stared at the crowd, his eyes wild. Everyone cowered like frightened rabbits. No one dared to speak. “If this gets out, none of you are walking away clean,” Andrew hissed. “You’re all accomplices. Even if you don’t do time, the public backlash will destroy your lives. What will the headlines say? ‘Office bullies coworker to death on April Fool’s.’ Good luck ever finding another job.” Nora curled up on the floor, weeping hysterically. Brenda’s voice trembled. “Then… what do we do?” Andrew stared at the dark stain on the stage, silent for a long moment. “Unless…” “Helen tripped and fell.” 2 The room fell into a stunned silence. Andrew lowered his voice. “The security cameras broke a week ago, and we never got around to fixing them. What happened in this room is only known to us.” Brenda’s eyes lit up. “You mean… we stage the scene?” “There was water on the floor. Helen slipped, lost her footing, and fell off the stage. The platform is high enough that she struck her head on the edge of the steps, causing instant death.” As if grasping a lifeline, the others began nodding eagerly. “Yes, exactly. That’s how it happened.” “Just a tragic accident.” “We didn’t touch her. She fell on her own.” My head throbbed. “No!” I cried out. Everyone turned to stare at me. My voice shook, but I forced the words out. “Are you all insane? We made a mistake. We pay the penalty. A human being is dead because of us!” Andrew stared at me for a couple of seconds, then walked over. The slap was loud and stinging. My cheek burned. “I am so sick of your self-righteous attitude,” he spat. “If your family didn’t have money, you’d be the one lying on that stage today.” Holding my bruised cheek, I couldn’t speak. A painful realization washed over me. Helen had always been the office scapegoat. She did all the grunt work while others took the credit. She was excluded from every social outing, yet always expected to chip in for the bill. At lunch, she always sat alone in the furthest corner. She had done nothing wrong. She was just a quiet, unassuming girl with nobody to protect her, making her the perfect target for their cruelty. My eyes welled with tears. “You can’t do this to her. She has a family. People who love her.” “I think she only has an elderly grandmother,” Nora murmured softly. Brenda slapped her thigh. “An old woman is easy to handle. We tell her it was a slip-and-fall, and she’ll believe us.” “The company will offer a small settlement,” Andrew added. “She’ll probably be grateful for the cash.” “Yes, let’s do that!” I couldn’t listen to another word. Watching for a moment when they were distracted, I bolted toward the reception desk where the landline was. “Stop her!” Andrew yelled. “She’s trying to make a call!” Before I could lift the receiver, someone grabbed my hair from behind and threw me to the floor. Several hands pinned me down, crushing the breath out of me. Brenda knelt beside me and slapped my face twice. “Stop being difficult! We are trying to save you as much as ourselves!” she hissed, her saliva spraying onto my face. “Do you want to destroy all of our lives?” Wiping the blood from the corner of my mouth, I looked up. The familiar faces of my colleagues now stared down at me with cold, warning eyes. Their message was clear: Don’t ruin this for us. A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “You’ve all lost your minds. Helen was a real person, and you killed her. Don’t you feel any guilt at all?” Brenda stood up, brushing off her skirt. “Guilt is one thing, but our future is another. If this gets out, we’re finished. How will our families look at us?” Andrew walked over, holding a severed electrical cord. “Stop wasting time on her. Tie her up.” They dragged me to the corner, pulling my arms behind my back and binding my wrists tightly. The thick cord cut deep into my skin. “Get to work,” Andrew ordered. The office became a flurry of activity. Some grabbed rags to scrub the bloodstains, some rearranged the chairs, and others hung the bucket back up on the ceiling. Helen’s body was lifted and placed carefully at the base of the stage. They positioned her head right against the sharp edge of the step, spilling water next to her so it pooled realistically beneath her torso. I lay in the corner, watching them piece together the lie. Within minutes, the room looked perfectly normal. Helen lay on the floor, her posture arranged so naturally that she truly looked like she had just slipped. Andrew nodded in approval. “Good.” Brenda let out a sigh of relief, sinking into a chair. Just then, Nora let out a sharp gasp. 3 Beneath Helen’s desk sat a large box filled with neatly arranged cupcakes. There were exactly thirty of them, matching the number of employees in our office. A card lay beside them, written in neat handwriting: Thank you all for taking care of me. I am so glad to have been your colleague. A heavy silence fell over the room. Nora covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. “Helen was actually really sweet. When I sprained my ankle last month, she fetched water for me every day and helped me to the restroom.” Another colleague’s eyes went red. “She was from my hometown. She brought me some of her grandmother’s homemade beef jerky just last week because I mentioned I missed the taste of home.” Brenda’s expression softened slightly, her voice tight. “She was a good girl. We… we really were too hard on her.” I let out a cold laugh. “Now that she’s dead, you all suddenly have a conscience?” I mocked. “If you really feel sorry, tell the truth! Call the police!” Brenda’s face flushed with anger. “Stop acting so superior! You might not have joined in on the pranks, but you never did anything to help her either!” I opened my mouth, but no words came out. She was right. My silence had made me a coward. Andrew banged on the desk. “Enough! Save your tears. We need to align our stories right now so we don’t mess up when the police arrive.” The group nodded in grim agreement. Nora picked up a pink cupcake, took a small bite through her tears, and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Helen.” Andrew rolled his eyes. “Pathetic.” Nora took another bite, but suddenly began to cough violently. She clutched her stomach, her knees buckling as she sank to the floor. Brenda frowned. “What’s wrong?” Nora’s face twisted in agony. She tried to speak, but a thick stream of dark blood spilled from her mouth instead. Brenda screamed. Nora collapsed entirely, thrashing on the carpet as blood covered her chin. “Help me… my stomach… it hurts so bad…” Everyone stood frozen in terror. No one dared to step close to her. Looking at the dropped cupcake on the floor, the truth hit me. “The cupcakes! They’re poisoned! Don’t touch the cupcakes!” The staff scrambled away from the box, their faces pale with horror. Nora lay on her side, gasping for air, her eyes wide and glassy. “Call an ambulance!” I screamed, pulling against my bonds. “Are you going to let another person die?” One colleague reached for their phone with trembling fingers. Andrew lunged forward, snatched the device, and threw it against the wall, shattering it. His face was flushed, veins bulging on his forehead. “Are you idiots blind? Helen brought these! She wanted us dead! She hated every single one of us and wanted to take us all down with her!” “If she hadn’t died first, we would all be corpses right now!” “If you call the police now, what are you going to say? That we bullied her, so she tried to poison us, but we accidentally killed her first?” His furious words silenced the room. Brenda collapsed onto the floor, weeping. “Then what do we do? We might have covered up Helen’s fall, but how do we explain Nora?” Andrew looked around the room, his eyes cold and calculated. “I have a plan.” He paused, letting the silence stretch. “If they never find the body, they can’t prove a crime.” A shiver ran down my spine. “No! You can’t do this!” I thrashed wildly on the floor. “She’s still breathing! Please, don’t make this worse! Save her!” “I’m begging you!” Tears poured down my face. “Please, just stop this!” Brenda seemed to crack under the pressure. She grabbed Andrew’s arm, her voice shaking. “Let’s just confess. I’ll take the blame. We did a terrible thing to Helen, just like we did to Jenna…” “Shut up, you fool!” Andrew slapped her hard, knocking her to the ground. “Confess? Who’s confessing? And don’t you dare mention that girl’s name!” Jenna… The name echoed in my mind. Some of my colleagues looked deeply uncomfortable, while others looked entirely blank. It was a familiar name, but I couldn’t place where I had heard it. But there was no time to think about that now. Nora was fading fast. She lay on the carpet, tears streaming into her hair, her lips moving silently. A wave of self-loathing washed over me. I hated myself for not standing up for Helen sooner, and for not fighting harder when they planned the prank this morning. Andrew’s face was dark, devoid of any humanity. “I’ll take care of Nora’s body. None of you need to get involved. I will take full responsibility.” “But,” he warned, pointing a finger at them, “you must all stick to one story. Nora never came to work today.” “I have a way to make sure the police never find her,” Andrew added quietly. The colleagues who had been wavering fell silent once more. Those who had reached for their phones put them back into their pockets. I closed my eyes in utter despair. An entire room of people stood by and watched as Nora’s chest stopped moving. The second body. My mind shattered under the weight of the horror. Let out a ragged scream, I felt the rush of blood to my head, and the world went completely black. When I finally regained consciousness, I was surrounded by pitch darkness. The space was tight and cramped, bouncing slightly. I could hear the faint, muffled sound of car horns in the distance. I was in the trunk of a car. Reaching out in the dark, my hand brushed against something soft and warm. A human body. A gasp caught in my throat, and I was about to scream when a hand firmly clamped over my mouth. “Shh, don’t make a sound. It’s me.” I froze. The voice belonged to Nora.

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I’m blind. Yet I have a billion-dollar fortune and a husband I’ve loved for years. I thought this was heaven’s blessing. But on our third wedding anniversary, my guide dog — dead for a week — spoke to me. Master, don’t go near the pool. He removed the electrical breaker. The water is live. He spiked your champagne. He and that woman in the red dress want everything you have! Our third wedding anniversary. A dinner banquet on a cruise ship. The sea breeze hit my face, sharp with salt and moisture. I held Arthur Sterling’s arm, listening to the guests around us lavish their praise. “Arthur is so devoted to Scarlett. A dinner cruise — how romantic.” “Scarlett may not be able to see, but a husband like Arthur? She must have done something right in a past life.” I kept a polite smile on my lips. Inside, something bitter stirred. A week ago, my guide dog Atlas was killed — struck by an out-of-control car while we were out on a walk. He had been my eyes for five years. “Scarls, are you tired?” Arthur’s voice was warm and smooth. His palm settled gently over the back of my hand. “Let me take you to the outdoor pool on the upper deck. Get some fresh air — it’s quieter up there.” I was about to nod when a bark cut through the noise — familiar, yet impossible. Master, don’t go! He removed the pool’s electrical safety breaker. The water is live with high-voltage current! My whole body went rigid. My blood ran cold. That voice… Atlas? I told myself it was grief. That I’d been missing him so badly my mind had started playing tricks. “What’s wrong? Is the wind too cold?” Arthur noticed the change in me. With practiced care, he slipped off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders. He’s lying. His jacket still smells like her perfume. The woman named Vanessa is standing at your ten o’clock right now — red dress, and your mother’s diamond necklace around her neck. Atlas’s voice was sharp and furious. Every word cut straight through me. Vanessa. My personal assistant. The person I trusted most in the world. My grip tightened around my white cane. My knuckles went pale. After a stunned silence, I turned to Arthur — who was already steering me toward the pool — and said, “Arthur, my stomach’s bothering me. The champagne was probably too cold. I need to use the restroom.”

Arthur stopped. “Your stomach? I’ll come with you.” There was a faint edge in his voice beneath the concern. “You can’t come into the women’s restroom.” I kept my voice level. “Let Vanessa take me. She should be close by.” “Vanessa… she went to check on the dinner schedule for me.” Arthur’s hand tightened slightly around mine. “I’ll walk you to the door.” Master, that woman is standing right across from him. They were just looking at each other. She’s smiling! I took a slow breath, pulled my hand free, and let my white cane tap against the deck. “Okay.” The corridor to the restroom was quiet. Only the tap of my cane broke the silence. Arthur held my arm — tighter than usual, as if afraid I might slip away. “Scarls,” he murmured near my ear, “after tonight, we’ll be together forever.” Once, I would have thought those were the most beautiful words I’d ever heard. Now they made my skin crawl. At the restroom door, I felt for the handle and pushed it open. “I’ll wait out here.” Arthur let go. I stepped inside, locked the door behind me, and leaned against it, chest heaving. Master, don’t drink anything he hands you. He put a heavy dose of sleeping pills in your champagne. He wants you to “slip” at the poolside and fall into the water — make it look like an accidental electrocution. Atlas’s voice came from somewhere near my feet. I looked down. Everything was black, as always. But I could feel it — I was certain of it — his soft, warm head pressing gently against my leg. “Atlas… is that really you?” I whispered, somewhere deep inside my mind. It’s me, Master. I didn’t move on. I’m staying to protect you. The driver who hit me — Arthur paid him. He hired someone to kill me. Because I bit Vanessa when she snuck into your study. They were afraid I’d ruin everything. Tears broke free and slid down my face. This ten-billion-dollar fortune was what my parents left behind to protect me. And Atlas — we had lived side by side for years. He was my eyes. He died under someone else’s wheels because he was protecting me. How much pain was he in, at the end?

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water against my cheeks, forcing myself to calm down. I couldn’t let this blow up. Not yet. We were on a cruise ship in international waters. If I provoked him, he might do something desperate. I had to get off this ship alive. I felt my way through touching up my makeup, then pushed open the bathroom door. “Feeling better?” Arthur stepped toward me, his voice back to that sickeningly gentle tone. “Still not great. Arthur, I want to go back to the room and rest.” I pressed a hand to my stomach, brow furrowed, putting on a show of weakness. Arthur went quiet for two seconds. 【Master, he’s clenching his jaw. He’s furious.】 “Alright. If you’re not feeling well, we’ll head back to the room. I’ll have someone clean up the pool area.” Arthur gave in and guided me toward the cabin. The VIP suite was thick with the scent of expensive incense. “Scarls, lie down. I’ll get you some hot water.” I leaned against the headboard, listening to his footsteps as he walked toward the mini bar. 【Master, he put a white powder in the water! It’s a hallucinogen! He wants you to lose your mind and jump overboard!】 My heart seized. I gripped the bedsheets with both hands. “Here’s your water. It’s a little hot — drink slowly.” Arthur placed the glass in my hands. The warmth from the glass made my blood run cold. “Arthur, I want something sweet to settle my stomach. Could you go to the restaurant and get me a slice of Black Forest cake?” I cradled the glass, keeping my voice soft and sweet. “Well…” Arthur hesitated. “What’s wrong? You don’t want to?” I lowered my head slightly, letting a hint of hurt creep into my voice. “Of course I do. Wait here — I’ll be right back.” The moment the door clicked shut, I threw back the covers, felt my way to the bathroom, and poured the spiked water down the toilet. I flushed it away. Then I refilled the glass with tap water and made my way back to bed.

A few minutes later, Arthur returned with the cake. “Scarls, cake’s here.” I picked up the glass and, right in front of him, drank the “water” down in one go. “Thank you, honey.” I took the cake and nibbled a small bite. “It’s so sweet.” Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, watching me in silence. I could feel his gaze crawling over my face like a snake — slow and sticky. “Scarls, do you feel dizzy at all?” he asked, probing. “No, why?” I played dumb. 【Master, he’s checking his watch. He’s timing it.】 I yawned and rubbed my temples. “Though, I do feel a little sleepy.” “Then sleep. You’ll feel better after some rest.” Arthur helped me lie down and tucked the blanket around me. I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and pretended to be fast asleep. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before the room door was quietly pushed open. Heels moved across the carpet — soft, but to my sharp ears, it might as well have been thunder. “She’s asleep?” It was Vanessa’s voice, barely above a whisper. “Yeah. The drug should be kicking in by now.” There was a trace of satisfaction in Arthur’s voice. “This blind woman is surprisingly hard to kill. We almost had her on the deck.” Vanessa let out a cold laugh. “So what now? Just throw her overboard?” “No. The ship has cameras everywhere. If she goes over now, the police will investigate.” Arthur’s voice turned cold. “Once we dock tomorrow and get back to the villa, I have plenty of ways to make her ‘accidentally’ die.” “Then you’d better move fast. That old man has been auditing the accounts like crazy lately. If he finds out we’ve been siphoning funds, we’re done.” “Relax. Once this blind woman is dead and the will kicks in, the entire Sinclair Group is ours.” 【Master, that woman is kissing him. They’re holding each other!】 Under the blanket, my hand dug hard into my thigh. I used the pain to hold back the urge to leap up and kill them both.

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Jessica was losing her mind in the family SnapChat group, bragging that she was about to marry into a billion-dollar dynasty — and then had the nerve to demand I hand over the old mansion my parents left me as her wedding gift. Her mother Barbara piled on, sneering that I was a twenty-nine-year-old woman destined to die alone, that no one would ever truly love me, and that I deserved to rot in the gutter for the rest of my life. What they didn’t know was that I had just officially registered my marriage to the man who runs that entire empire. I watched the mother-daughter duo lose their minds in the group chat, then turned and leaned back into my husband’s arms. “Honey,” I said, “your son’s yacht is too loud. Take it away from him.” The next day, at Jessica’s billion-dollar engagement party, I slowly raised my left hand. The diamond on my ring finger blazed under the lights. “Be a good girl.” I said. “Call me Mom.” The family group chat was blowing up, with messages flooding in at ten per second. My cousin Jessica had posted several sets of photos. In the pictures, she was wearing a couture gown, standing on the deck of a luxury yacht, surrounded by champagne, roses, and a foreign band playing violins. [Girls, Julian absolutely insisted on throwing me some yacht bachelorette thing. The rental alone is over a million a day. He’s so extra.] The relatives swarmed in like sharks smelling blood. The screen filled with shameless flattery. [Oh my gosh, Jessie is so lucky! That’s the Sterling family — the richest family in the east city!] [Jessie was always gorgeous. She was born to be a trophy wife!] [Once Jessie becomes the mistress of Sterling family, don’t forget to scoop us poor relatives up!] Barbara was absolutely high on herself. [Everyone celebrate! Our Jessie’s engagement party is at The Peninsula Hotel next week — come soak up some of that Sterling family’s luck!] Then Barbara tagged me directly. [@Katherine — Kate, your little cousin is marrying into a billion-dollar family and you can’t even be bothered to say a word?] I was in the middle of examining a set of architectural restoration blueprints when my phone started buzzing nonstop. I glanced at it. Before I could respond, Barbara’s next message popped up. [Actually, I need to talk to you about something. Jessie’s marrying into the Sterling family, and her wedding gift can’t be cheap. That old mansion your parents left you — the one downtown — you need to sign it over to Jessie. The Sterling family have high standards. Jessie needs assets in her name to hold her ground in that family.] I stared at the screen and laughed despite myself. That mansion was the only thing my late parents left me. Why on earth would I give it away as a wedding present? I typed two words. [In your dreams.] The group went silent for exactly one second. Then Jessica jumped in, dripping with condescension. [Kate, why are you so selfish? If I marry well, I can take care of you too, you know. You’re already twenty-nine — you’re going to die alone with nobody loving you. You don’t even have a real job, just messing around with old bricks and broken walls all day. My mom set you up with that village mayor’s disabled son the other day and you actually turned him down?] Barbara followed up immediately, her tone pure acid. [Exactly! Who do you think you are, some kind of princess? That mansion is wasted on you. Give it to Jessie so she has something to stand on. You’re almost thirty, and you’re going to die alone — no one will ever truly love you. Stop being so picky! You’ll never even get close to a family like the Sterling family in your lifetime!] I read the words on the screen, cold and utterly unmoved. What they didn’t know was that I hadn’t just gotten close to a family like the Sterlings. I had walked straight through the front door — and welded it shut behind me. I turned off the screen and sighed. A pair of hands — lean, with defined knuckles — reached from behind me and wrapped around my waist. Arms folded me into a warm embrace that smelled faintly of cedar. “What’s with the sigh? Who upset my wife?” His voice was deep and unhurried, with a lazy edge to it. I leaned back into him and held the screen up so he could see it. “Your son,” I said. “He’s throwing a party on your yacht to impress his girlfriend. It’s giving me a headache just looking at it.” Edward Sterling. The richest man in the east city. The true power behind Sterling Group. He was also my legal husband—we had just registered our marriage yesterday. He scanned the photos on the screen, then let out a short, cold laugh. “Using my stuff to show off. Pathetic.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Walter — dock the Victoria. Send it in for maintenance. Right now.” He hung up, then dipped his head and pressed his lips lightly to my ear. “Done. I fly to London tomorrow for a merger meeting. Back in three days. While I’m gone — if anyone gives you trouble, throw money at them. It’s on me.” The warmth of his breath made me tuck my chin down instinctively. “Got it, Boss Sterling.”

The next day, I had no intention of going to Jessica’s engagement party. Then I got a call from the nursing aide at the hospital. Grandma had taken a turn for the worse. She’d been asking for me. Grandma was the only family member I had left in this world — and the only person in the Cole family who had ever genuinely loved me. I threw on a white button-down and jeans, grabbed my bag, and rushed to the hospital. When I got to her room, her bed was empty. The bed was empty. The aide was in a panic. “Ms. Katherine — Barbara came with a few people and forced her out. Said something about an engagement party. Your grandmother still had her IV line in!” My head rang like a struck bell. A white-hot surge of fury shot straight to the top of my skull. Grandma had a serious heart condition. She couldn’t handle any kind of stress or exertion. Had Barbara completely lost her mind?! I called Barbara immediately. It rang for a long time before she picked up. Behind her voice was the thump of music and the buzz of a crowd. “Hello? Katherine, finally.” Barbara’s voice was dripping with self-satisfaction. “Where is my grandmother? Where did you take her?!” I demanded. “Oh, keep your voice down. She’s Jessie’s grandmother too, you know. Of course she had to be here for her granddaughter’s engagement. We’re in the VIP lounge at the top of The Peninsula.” Barbara let out a dismissive snort. “You want to see her? Fine. Bring the deed to that mansion. You sign it over today, or you don’t see her. That’s the deal.” “You’re using Grandma as leverage?!” “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m doing this for the good of the family. Now hurry up — Julian is about to arrive!” The line went dead. I stood there gripping my phone so hard my knuckles went white. The Peninsula Hotel. A top property of Sterling Group. I took a slow breath, flagged down a cab, and headed straight there. The entrance was packed with luxury cars. A red carpet stretched out for dozens of feet, with security so airtight not even a fly could slip through. I made it as far as the lobby before a guard stepped in front of me. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The top floor has been reserved exclusively by Sterling Group today. May I see your invitation?” I didn’t have one. I was reaching for my phone to call Edward’s assistant when a sharp voice cut through from the elevator bay. “Well, well. If it isn’t our family’s prim little old maid. Can’t even get through the front door?” I looked up. Jessica swept across the lobby in an obscenely ornate diamond-studded gown and four-inch heels, flanked by a cluster of bridesmaids. She looked me up and down, her eyes full of contempt. “Tsk tsk. This is a Sterling engagement party, and you showed up looking like that? Someone might think you’re here to collect recyclables.” Her bridesmaids burst into muffled laughter behind their hands. I looked at her flatly. “Where’s Grandma?” Jessica rolled her eyes. “What’s the rush? Mom’s with her upstairs. Did you bring the deed?” “I’ll ask one more time.” I stepped forward, my voice sharp as a blade. “Where is Grandma?” Jessica flinched slightly at my tone, then puffed herself back up with wounded pride. “Katherine, what exactly are you so high and mighty about? You think you’re still the straight-A golden girl who used to outshine me? Let me tell you something — after today, I’m the mistress of the Sterling family. Crushing you would be like stepping on an ant!” “Is that so?” I sneered. “The mistress of the Sterling family? You sure have a big imagination.” Just then, a ripple of excitement spread through the lobby. “Julian Sterling is here! Julian Sterling!” Jessica’s whole face lit up. She shoved past me, gathered her skirts, and fluttered toward the entrance like a butterfly chasing a flame. “Julian!” I turned. Julian Sterling — Edward · Sterling’s only son — walked in through the doors in a tailored suit, surrounded by a team of bodyguards. He was handsome, no question. But standing next to his father, Edward, who carried thirty years of power and hard-won authority in every line of his face — Julian still had a long way to go. Jessica hooked her arm through Julian’s, practically pressing her entire body against his. “Julian! What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for you forever.” Julian patted her hand absently, his eyes sweeping the lobby. When his gaze landed on me, it stopped.

Julian’s brow drew together slightly. Something shifted in his expression — confusion, and something close to shock. He stared at me for a solid five seconds. Jessica followed his line of sight and went pale. She dug her fingers into his arm, her voice going shrill. “Julian, why are you looking at her?!” Julian shook her off without a word and walked straight toward me. Every pair of eyes in the lobby swung in our direction. “Have we met somewhere before?” His tone was unusually polite — almost careful. Jessica came barreling after him, shoved herself between us, and pointed a finger at my face. “Katherine! Have you no shame?! Did you seriously dress like that just to seduce my fiancé?!” “You’re twenty-nine, completely unlovable, destined to die alone — and you’re going after your own cousin’s future husband?! Do you have any decency at all?!” The lobby erupted in sharp intakes of breath. Whispers raced through the crowd. “Did she really come here to go after her cousin’s fiancé?” “She looks so sweet. Hard to believe she’d pull something like that.” “Twenty-nine and still single — she’s probably just desperate for money.” I looked at Jessica’s face, twisted with jealousy, and found it almost funny. “Jessica,” I said calmly, “do you have some kind of paranoia? The man you think is such a prize? He’s nothing to me.” “You dare talk back to me?!” Barbara must have rushed out of the elevator at some point. She came charging straight at me, raising her hand to slap me across the face. I grabbed her wrist and shoved it back, hard. Barbara wobbled on her heels and went down. “Help! She hit me!” Barbara wailed from the floor, making a scene for anyone who would watch. “This pathetic, loveless old woman just assaulted me!” “Security!” Jessica was screaming now, pointing at me like I was a fire that needed to be put out. “Get her out of here!” Two broad-shouldered guards closed in from both sides. “Ma’am, you need to leave the premises. If you resist, we will remove you by force.” I ignored the guards. My eyes stayed locked on Barbara. “I’ll ask one last time. Where is my grandmother?” Barbara dragged herself off the floor, seething. “You want the old woman? Fine. She’s in a storage room on the top floor. You don’t sign, you don’t see her.” My blood ran cold. A storage room. Grandma’s heart couldn’t take a room with no ventilation. What was Barbara thinking?! I turned and lunged for the elevator. Both guards grabbed my shoulders and pinned me back. “Let go of me!” I struggled. “Throw her out!” Jessica shrieked. “Don’t let her trash the Sterling family’s space!” Julian stood off to the side, frowning, visibly torn about whether to step in. “Hold on,” he finally said. “Julian! You’re taking her side?!” Jessica’s eyes filled with tears on the spot. Julian didn’t look at her. He looked at me. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you’re making a scene at my engagement party. That’s not okay. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” I stared at him — at that cool, effortlessly superior expression — and suddenly I smiled. I stopped struggling. Smoothed out my shirt where it had been grabbed. “Julian,” I said. “Are you sure you want to throw me out?” His jaw tightened when I used his name directly. “I don’t care who you are. Nobody causes a scene on Sterling family. Security — escort her out.” “Alright,” I said quietly. “Fine.” I raised my left hand slowly and held my ring finger inches from his face. “Open your eyes and look carefully.” The diamond caught the lobby lights and threw brilliance in every direction. The room went dead silent. Julian looked down. And froze.

It was an enormous diamond ring. The cut was flawless — it fractured the lobby lights into a thousand tiny shards of fire. And along the inside of the ring, engraved in clean letters, were two names. Edward. Katherine. The color drained from Julian’s face. White, then gray, then a sickly green. He couldn’t stop staring at the ring. His lips trembled slightly. “This… this isn’t possible…” Jessica hadn’t read the engraving yet. She’d just watched Julian’s face collapse. She lunged forward and grabbed for my hand. “Oh, please, Katherine — where’d you get a fake ring? Did you seriously think this little stunt would get Julian’s attention?!” Barbara crowded in beside her. “Has to be a fake! What kind of woman would go this far just to claw her way up? What are you all standing around for — get her out of here!” Julian reached out and pushed Jessica away from me. Hard. Hard enough that she stumbled and fell. “Julian—” Jessica stared up at him from the floor, disbelief all over her face. He didn’t look at her. With both hands trembling, he lifted my left hand and brought it close, eyes fixed on the names engraved inside the ring. He read them for what felt like a full minute. Then he looked up at me, and there was nothing in his expression but shock and complete bewilderment. “You… you…” He couldn’t get a sentence out. I looked down at him, my voice cool. “Can’t read anymore?” I stepped closer. “Legally speaking, I’m your father’s wife.” I let that land. “Which means I’m your stepmother.” “So.” I tilted my head. “Do you still want to throw me out?” The lobby detonated. The collective gasp was ten times louder than anything before it. “She married Edward?!” “The Edward Sterling? That ruthless, untouchable man?!” “That’s not possible — how is that possible?!” Jessica, still on the floor, let out a shriek. “That’s a lie! Absolute lie! You’re a fraud, Katherine! Where did you get that fake ring?! Why would Chairman Sterling ever look twice at a woman like you — some loveless, lonely nobody?!” Barbara found her voice too. “She’s trying to sabotage Jessie’s wedding! Showing up with a prop ring! You could go to prison for this!” She spun toward Julian. “Call the police! She’s delusional!” Julian didn’t respond to either of them. He pulled out his phone. His fingers were unsteady. The lobby held its breath. The call connected. “Alfred…” Julian’s voice came out dry and hollow. “Did my father… get married?” Whatever Edward’s personal assistant said on the other end, Julian’s face went completely bloodless. His hand dropped slowly to his side. “It’s true,” he murmured. “What?” Jessica scrambled up and grabbed his arm. Julian turned to look at her. His eyes were unreadable — complex and faintly disgusted. “She is, in fact, my father’s lawfully wedded wife.” Jessica went rigid like someone had cut her strings. Barbara’s jaw went slack, her eyes wide and glassy. I didn’t have time to enjoy any of it. I pushed Julian out of my way. “Move. If anything happens to my grandmother because of this, I will make every single one of you pay.” I shoved into the elevator and hit the top floor button. As the doors closed, I heard the lobby erupt behind me — louder than anything that had come before.

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Have you ever wondered if the person sharing the bed with you every night—the one you’ve been passionately tangled with—isn’t actually who you married? On our tenth wedding anniversary, Nathan pressed me against the floor-to-ceiling windows. His burning lips traced my collarbone, his calloused hands gentle yet commanding as they stole the breath from my lungs. “Happy tenth anniversary, baby.” But my body wouldn’t stop trembling, my stomach turning inside out. Because just one hour ago, I had discovered something: the back of his neck bore no trace of Nathan Jarvis’s signature maroon birthmark. The night was ink-black, the city’s brilliant neon lights glittering beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. I could feel the warmth of his palms through the thin silk of my nightgown, searing into my waist. They were calloused hands—rough, marked by years of writing and working out. But the real Nathan—that privileged rich man who’d never done a day of physical labor in his life, who could barely peel an apple without cutting himself—how could he have hands like these? “Elena, you’re shaking?” He paused, pulling back half an inch, his dark eyes locking onto me through the dim light. I bit down hard on my lower lip, forcing back the scream clawing its way up my throat. “I’m fine. The AC is too cold.” I forced a smile, wrapped my arms around his neck, and buried my face against his chest—so he couldn’t see the terror in my eyes. His heartbeat was strong and steady. This body—I had held it for three thousand six hundred and fifty nights, knew it so well I could trace every inch with my eyes closed. But now my mind kept pulling me back to an hour ago, when I’d been tidying his discarded suit and found something in the most hidden inner pocket: a silver pendant—crescent-shaped, its edges crusted with dried dark-brown blood. That pendant had been around Nathan’s neck the night of his car accident, ten years ago. When the police cleared the scene, it had vanished. Everyone assumed it had been destroyed in the explosion. “Let me turn the temperature up then.” He laughed softly, pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and turned to grab the remote. The moment he turned away, I caught the light streaming through the windows and stared—hard—at the back of his neck. Smooth. Bare. Nothing. The real Nathan Jarvis had a maroon birthmark on the back of his neck, one he’d been born with. I had traced it with my fingertips countless times after we made love. He’d always laugh and pull away, saying that spot was too sensitive. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror: eyes red, lips trembling. I looked away fast. That night was the longest of my life. I moved like a hollow puppet, going through every expected motion. But the rational part of me kept cycling through one suffocating thought: If he isn’t Nathan Jarvis, then who is he? And more importantly—where is my Nathan?

The next morning, his car rolled out through the estate’s gate. I didn’t fall apart. I went straight to the study. On the top shelf of Nathan’s bookcase sat a combination lockbox holding all of his college-era belongings. After the accident, he’d never opened it again. He said he didn’t want to force memories that wouldn’t come back. I tried Nathan’s birthday: wrong code. I tried my birthday: wrong code. I stopped. I thought back to the day he proposed, ten years ago: “Elena, the day I met you was the day my life began again.” That day was September 12th. With trembling fingers, I pressed 0912. Beep— The lockbox opened. Inside were several journals, some yellowed photographs, and a college yearbook. The real Nathan had beautiful handwriting—precise and elegant, carrying the quiet confidence of someone who lived in his own mind. I pulled out the journals and the yearbook and went through them page by page. The last page of the yearbook held a photo. Nathan and another guy, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, grinning easily. The other guy looked about seventy percent like Nathan—but his eyes were dark and brooding, nothing like Nathan’s warmth. My finger stopped on that face. I had seen those eyes somewhere before. I flipped the photo over. Two lines of writing on the back. The top line, in Nathan’s handwriting: “My best brother, Kevin Prescott.” The bottom line, scrawled in a rushed, messy hand: “If something happens to me, find Andrew Nelson.” Andrew Nelson. That name hit me like a bolt of lightning. Andrew, now one of the top lawyers in the city, was Nathan’s college roommate. After the accident, “Nathan” had gradually pulled away from him, citing personality differences — something I hadn’t thought much of at the time, but which now sent a chill down my spine. Why would the real Nathan leave behind those words in advance? “If something happens to me” — he had already sensed something, before the accident even happened. I pulled out my backup phone and dialed the number for Andrew Nelson’s law firm. “Hello, I’m Elena Jarvis. Nathan Jarvis’s wife.” There was a full thirty seconds of silence on the other end. I almost thought he was going to hang up. “Mrs. Jarvis, I’m listening.” His voice was low and calm. “Andrew, there’s something I need to tell you in person. About Nathan.” “Three o’clock this afternoon. The abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. Don’t drive your own car. Don’t bring any device with GPS tracking.” He didn’t ask what I’d found. He didn’t ask why I was being so careful. It was as if he had been waiting for this call for a very long time.

The abandoned factory on the outskirts of town was surrounded by overgrown weeds. The air smelled of motor oil and rust. Andrew was standing beside a rusted oil drum in a black trench coat, a half-burned cigarette between his fingers. When he saw me approaching, he crushed it out. “Mrs. Jarvis, you’re sharper than I expected.” “You knew?” My voice trembled. “I’ve suspected for ten years.” He didn’t turn to look at me, his gaze fixed on the grey sky in the distance. “A week before the accident, ten years ago, Nathan came to me. He said Kevin Prescott was obsessively impersonating him — wearing the same clothes, using the same cologne, copying the way he walked, the way he talked. Everything.” He paused. “I told him to relax. Said it was probably just a coincidence. A week later, the accident happened. When the man who woke up in that hospital looked at me with those unfamiliar eyes, I knew. He wasn’t Nathan.” I handed him the pendant and the photo. Andrew stared at the pendant, his fingers tightening around it. He didn’t say a word. “He kept it,” I said. “Why?” Andrew slowly shook his head. There was a flicker of confusion in his expression — the kind he didn’t even seem aware of. “That’s his biggest mistake. And the one thing I’ve never been able to figure out.” He handed the pendant back to me, his voice returning to its usual calm. “Mrs. Jarvis, we can’t go to the police yet. Kevin Prescott has control over the entire Jarvis Group. Without ironclad evidence, making a move now will only tip him off. You need to keep playing the devoted wife. Stay close to him. Find the proof from back then.” “Can you do that?” I closed my eyes. I thought about last night. About those calloused hands. “Yes.” I opened my eyes. “But you haven’t answered one of my questions.” “What question?” I looked at him. “Nathan — is he alive or dead?” Andrew’s expression faltered for just a fraction of a second. Less than a second. But I caught it. “I don’t know,” he said. I held his gaze and said nothing more.

Back in that gilded cage of a mansion, I began the most grueling — and most nauseating — performance of my life. Kevin Prescott was a remarkably sharp and suspicious man. Ten years of living as Nathan Jarvis without a single slip — that took the kind of near-obsessive caution and need for control that bordered on pathological. I had to bury every ounce of hatred, fear, and disgust deep inside me, and meet him with the most perfect smile and the sweetest voice I could manage. “Honey, you’re home.” That evening, when Kevin pushed open the front door, I was already there to greet him — wearing his favorite silk slip, holding a warm bowl of soup I’d spent the afternoon making, a bright smile fixed on my face. His gaze lingered on me for a few seconds. It was the kind of look that searched and dissected, like he was trying to see straight through me. My heart leapt into my throat, but I kept my smile perfectly in place. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?” I asked, touching my cheek with a playful pout. He smiled suddenly. The suspicion in his eyes receded like a tide, replaced by that familiar, hollow tenderness. “No. I just think my wife looks especially beautiful tonight.” He reached out and wrapped an arm around my waist, pressing a kiss to my forehead. I swallowed back the nausea rising in my stomach and held the bowl out to him. “Drink it while it’s hot.” In the days that followed, I was like a dancer on a razor’s edge — moving carefully, doing everything I could to keep this fragile, false peace intact. During the day, I play the role of the wife of the Jarvis Group’s CEO, accompanying him to social events, putting on a show of the loving couple we’d supposedly been for ten years. At night, once he fell asleep, I’d slip into the bathroom and use the encrypted phone Andrew had given me to exchange messages with him. Andrew was quietly digging through the files from the car accident ten years ago, searching for overlooked clues. Meanwhile, I was hunting obsessively through Kevin’s daily life for any crack in his armor. I started deliberately testing the real Nathan’s weak spots. The real Nathan had a severe allergy to mangoes — even touching one would break him out in hives. When Kevin first “woke up,” he’d refused to go near mangoes, careful not to blow his cover. But as time passed, his guard seemed to have slipped. On the weekend, I cooked myself and put together a full spread, including a mango dessert. “Honey, try this — I just learned how to make it.” I cut a small piece and held it out to him. Kevin looked at the golden-yellow dessert, and a slight frown crossed his face. “Elena, did you forget? I’m allergic to mango.” His voice carried a faint note of reproach. I covered my mouth in exaggerated surprise. “Oh no, how did I forget that! I’m so sorry, my memory has been terrible lately. But…” I paused, locking my eyes on his, the ghost of a cold smile playing at the corner of my lips. “But honey, I could’ve sworn I saw you eating a piece of dried mango in the study the other day while you were going through documents. I actually thought maybe the accident changed your body somehow, and the allergy just went away.” The air seemed to freeze. The expression on Kevin Prescott’s face went rigid. His pupils contracted sharply, and something ice-cold and terrifying flashed through those eyes that usually looked so warm. He was studying me. Calculating whether what I’d just said was an innocent slip — or a deliberate test. My palms were drenched in cold sweat, but I held his gaze without flinching, keeping my expression wide-eyed and confused. “Is that so?” After a long silence, he suddenly laughed. The sound of it echoed through the empty dining room in a way that made my skin crawl. “I must have been so absorbed in those documents that I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating. Though, allergies are funny things — maybe you’re right. Maybe my body really did change.” He picked up the plate of dessert, grabbed a spoon, scooped up a large bite, and put it in his mouth without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s good.” He swallowed and smiled at me. I watched him finish every last bit of that mango dessert, and I felt no triumph at all — only a bone-deep chill. He was terrifying. To cover his tracks, he was willing to risk an “allergic reaction” just to keep the act going perfectly. He had already figured out I was testing him. From that day on, I could clearly feel Kevin’s surveillance ratcheting up. My car was bugged. My phone was showing unexplained data usage. Even the route I took every day to buy groceries was being tracked by someone in the shadows. I was like prey caught in a spider’s web — the more I struggled, the tighter it pulled. But I couldn’t stop. I told Andrew about Kevin eating the mango. “He’s sending you a warning.” Andrew’s voice sounded unusually heavy through the encrypted phone. “Elena, you’re taking too many risks. Kevin is the kind of person who will do absolutely anything to protect what he has. You need to be more careful.” “I know.” I spoke through clenched teeth, hatred burning in my eyes. “But I have to push him until he slips up. Andrew — that woman who’s been playing Nathan’s mother, Morgan Palmer. What have you found out about her?” The real Nathan’s parents had died when he was young. He’d only had a distant aunt. After the accident, Kevin had brought this woman in and introduced her to the world as Nathan’s adoptive mother, claiming he was letting her live out her remaining years in comfort. But both Andrew and I suspected that Morgan Palmer wasn’t who she claimed to be at all — she was Kevin’s accomplice. “I found it.” Andrew’s voice carried a hint of excitement. “This Morgan Palmer is no distant aunt. Her real identity is the cousin of Kevin Prescott’s biological mother. Ten years ago, she racked up massive gambling debts, and Kevin paid off every last cent — on one condition: that she play along with his little act.” I let out a cold laugh. Birds of a feather. “Next month is Morgan Palmer’s sixtieth birthday, and Kevin is throwing her a huge party at The Jarvis Manor.” A sharp gleam flickered in my eyes. “That will be our perfect chance to tear off their masks.”

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For half a million dollars, I sold myself to the most notorious pervert on Wall Street. When I was forced to go up to the penthouse suite to deliver on that deal, the elevator malfunctioned mid-ride and locked up completely. Trapped in that suffocating little box, wearing nothing but a thin, sheer red dress, I stabbed at the emergency call button in despair. The elevator doors were wrenched open by hydraulic cutters. Blinding light flooded in. The man leading the rescue — the owner of the club — was Roman Cross. My ex-boyfriend. The one I’d ruthlessly walked away from three years ago for half a million dollars. He stood there in a bespoke suit, looking down at me from above — disheveled, barely covered, shaking like a leaf. The manager beside him wiped sweat from his forehead in a panic. “Mr. Cross, the woman inside… she’s here as a paid escort—” Roman snatched the tool out of the man’s hands. His eyes dropped to the hem of my dress, dark and unreadable. His jaw was tight. “Chloe Bennett.” His voice came out through clenched teeth. “Where’s the old man who paid for you? What — did he send you up here to play games alone in an elevator?”

“I didn’t—!” The words burst out of me before I could stop them. It felt like being thrown into an icebox. The air inside the elevator cabin was thin enough to choke on. The malfunction had hit without warning. The cabin lurched violently, the heel of my pump snapped, and I’d gone down hard onto the cold metal floor. The red spaghetti-strap dress my stepmother had forced me into didn’t leave much to the imagination to begin with. When I fell, one strap slipped off my shoulder. A wide stretch of pale skin was now fully exposed under the glare of the emergency floodlights. I yanked at the hem, trying desperately to cover myself. But the more I panicked, the worse it got. The broken strap was caught around my arm and wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I pulled. Cold. But nowhere near as jarring as the sight of Roman’s face on the other side of those doors. He wore a black bespoke suit, perfectly cut. His tie was half-loosened, collar open, the sharp line of his collarbone visible beneath. He held a heavy hydraulic pry bar in one hand. Every inch of him radiated a keep-away kind of danger. Three years. He was more striking than I remembered. And colder. “Didn’t?” Roman let out a short, humorless laugh. He leaned one hand against the edge of the forced-open elevator door. His gaze moved over me like something with edges — scraping slowly across my tangled hair, my half-fallen dress, the redness creeping into the corners of my eyes from fear. “So you came up here alone, to an enclosed space, just to admire yourself?” “Having fun playing dirty, don’t you?” Every word landed like a dull blade. Slow. Deliberate. Meant to hurt. Beside him, the security manager — Bruno — had gone bright red in the face. He held up a flashlight, pointedly keeping his eyes away from the inside of the elevator, and stammered through his words. “M… Mr. Cross… the cabin is stuck between two floors. We need to get her out now. If the cable snaps—” Roman didn’t turn around. He kept his eyes on me. His voice dropped to something that felt like ice. “All of you. Get out.” Bruno blinked. “Mr. Cross? protocol says we can’t leave — if something goes wrong, if someone gets hurt—” “I said. Go wait in the lobby.” Roman still didn’t raise his voice. The chill in those words was enough. Bruno flinched, then quickly ushered the rest of the security team out of the stairwell. The elevator shaft fell silent. Just the two of us. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding like it wanted to break out of my chest. Roman turned the pry bar over in his hand once. Then he dropped it. It hit the ground with a heavy, echoing clang that made my whole body seize up. He didn’t reach for me. He just stood there, looking down. “I asked you a question.” His voice was low. Measured. The way a predator sounds when it’s already close enough. “Where’s the old man who paid half a million for you?” “What — he sent you up alone and didn’t even bother to make sure you got there alive?” My eyes burned. My stomach turned over. My whole body felt hollow with shame. Because three years ago, I was the one who threw a check for half a million dollars in his face and told him I was done — that I wanted money, not him. “Roman.” My voice came out wrecked, thick with tears I was barely holding back. “Can you just pull me up first—” “My ankle. It really hurts.”

The hand Roman had braced against the door frame went rigid. The tendons in the back of his hand stood out, one by one. His jaw was locked so tight the line of it could have cut glass. “Hurts?” A short, sharp scoff. His eyes were full of something that looked a lot like contempt. “Three years ago, when you threw money in my face — did you ever stop to think that it hurt?” He stood above me, backlit. I couldn’t make out the emotions churning in his eyes. All I could feel was the crushing weight of his presence. Then— He bent down suddenly. His long arm reached into the elevator cabin. And grabbed my wrist. His grip was so tight I thought my bones would snap. “Ah!” I cried out. Before I could process what was happening, he yanked — hard — and pulled me straight out of the suspended cabin and into the air. The world spun. I slammed into a broad, solid chest. A familiar scent wrapped around me all at once. Cool cedar. A faint trace of tobacco underneath. Roman’s scent. Unmistakably his. Three years ago, I had buried my face in this same chest more times than I could count, falling asleep to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. But now, those arms held nothing but a bone-deep chill. “On your feet.” He said it flatly, then released me like he was dropping a piece of trash. A sharp pain shot through my ankle. I lost my balance and went straight down. My knees hit the concrete. Hard. The skin broke. A thin line of blood seeped through. Roman looked down at me, his expression completely flat. “What’s the matter — that old man of yours never teach you how to stand up straight in front of a real man?” The humiliation hit me like a wave. I bit down on my lip, fighting back tears, and pressed my palms to the ground, trying to push myself up. But my ankle had swollen to the size of a tennis ball. I couldn’t get any leverage. While I was still struggling— A black suit jacket — still warm — came down over my head. It covered my bare shoulders and exposed thighs completely. “Put it on.” Roman turned away, his back to me. His voice was tight with barely controlled irritation. “Then get up.” “I still need the incident report from the club’s security team, Chloe. You’d better start thinking about how you’re going to explain yourself.” “What are you doing up on the rooftop in the middle of the night, dressed like that, waiting for someone.” Chapter 3 I wrapped Roman’s jacket around myself and limped after him. It was long — it fell past my thighs. It was saturated with his scent. Overwhelming. Invasive. Crawling into my nose whether I wanted it to or not. We walked through the club’s top-floor corridor. All marble and low lighting and the kind of quiet that costs money. Along the way, every server and security guard we passed dropped their eyes and stepped aside. “Mr. Cross.” “Good evening, Mr. Cross.” Not one of them dared to breathe too loudly. Not one of them dared to glance at me. I watched Roman’s broad, straight-backed figure move ahead of me. Something complicated twisted in my chest. Three years ago, he was a broke kid getting beaten bloody in underground fight clubs — couldn’t even scrape together a few hundred dollars for medical bills. Now he owned this place. One of the most exclusive, most expensive clubs in the city. On Wall Street, they called him “Mr. Cross” and said it like a prayer. He’d made it. Just like he’d promised. Right at the top. The only difference was — the person standing beside him wasn’t me anymore. Bang. Roman kicked open the double mahogany doors at the end of the corridor. His private office. He walked in without turning on the main lights. Just clicked on the desk lamp. “Come in.” He turned and looked at me — still frozen in the doorway — with cold, flat eyes. I pressed my jaw together and walked in, dragging my injured foot. The doors swung shut behind me with a heavy, automatic click. The room sealed itself. The office was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed Vespera’s glittering skyline. Roman stopped in front of the leather sofa, pulled off his tie, and tossed it onto the coffee table without looking. Then he pointed at the seat across from him. “Sit.” I didn’t dare argue. I lowered myself carefully onto the edge of the sofa. The moment I settled, a first aid kit landed at my feet. “Handle it yourself.” He crossed to the bar cart, poured a glass of whiskey, and drank it in one go. I looked down, opened the kit, and took out the antiseptic and some cotton swabs. My ankle was a mess. My knee had dried blood crusted over the scrape. I soaked a swab and touched it to the wound. The sting hit me like a blade. “Ssss—” Roman’s hand paused on his glass. He turned his head. His gaze dropped to my knee. His expression was unreadable. “Funny,” he said. “Three years ago, you had such a high pain tolerance.” He walked toward me, wine glass in hand, looking down at me like I was nothing. “You walked away with half a million dollars and didn’t even glance back. And now you can’t handle a little scratch?” I gripped the cotton swab tighter. My fingertips went white. “Roman, can we just… not talk about the past?” “Not talk about it?” Roman laughed like he’d just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world. He suddenly bent down and grabbed my chin, forcing my head up, making me look him straight in the eyes. “Chloe, you think saying ‘let’s not talk about it’ can just erase everything you did to me?” His fingers were ice cold. His grip hurt. “Do you even know how hard it was raining the day you left?” “I stood under your building the entire night, begging you not to go.” “And what did you say?” Roman’s eyes slowly turned red. His voice came out rough, like gravel. “You said you were sick of struggling alongside me. You said that old man could buy you limited-edition bags. Could give you a mansion to live in.” “You threw that half-million-dollar check in my face and told me that’s exactly what my life was worth.” I closed my eyes. The tears finally broke free. They landed on the back of his hand. Hot. He flinched like he’d been burned and suddenly let go. “Why are you crying?” He straightened up, a cold smirk spreading across his face. “Having regrets now? Figured out that old man can’t satisfy you, so you came crawling back to use me as your fallback?” “Chloe, what exactly do you think I am to you?” Chapter 4 I bit down hard on my lip, refusing to let myself sob out loud. “I didn’t come back for you…” My voice was shaking. “Today… this was an accident.” “An accident?” Roman scoffed. “You accidentally ended up at my club? Accidentally dressed like that? Accidentally got stuck in the elevator?” “And that old bastard Richard — he’s up in the penthouse suite waiting for you, isn’t he?” My head snapped up. I stared at him, stunned. “You… how do you know that?” Roman’s eyes went dangerous in an instant. He leaned in, both hands braced on the back of the sofa, trapping me completely in his shadow. “This is my place. Is there anything that happens here I don’t know about?” “Chloe, you just keep sinking lower and lower.” “Three years ago, at least that old man you found was a legitimate businessman. But this Richard? He’s nothing but a loan shark who clawed his way up from the gutter. A fat, disgusting creep.” “For money, you’ll really stoop that low? Even with someone like him?” Every word hit like a slap across the face. My dignity crushed under his heel. “Yes!” I finally broke. I screamed at him. “I’m exactly that pathetic! I’ll do anything for money!” “Happy now? You’re the great Mr. Cross. Seeing me like this — doesn’t it just make your day?!” I grabbed the first aid kit beside me and hurled it at the floor. Gauze and antiseptic bottles scattered everywhere. “You’ve had your laugh. Now let me go! I still have to get upstairs!” I struggled to my feet and pushed toward the door. But I forgot about my ankle. The moment I took a step, pain exploded through me and I pitched forward. The impact I was bracing for never came. Roman caught me around the waist and yanked me hard into his chest. “Get upstairs?” He repeated those words through gritted teeth. His arms locked around me like iron bands, squeezing so tight it felt like he might crush me. “Chloe, don’t you dare go to him!” His eyes blazed with a rage that looked like it could devour me whole. “I swear — if you walk out that door today, I will have someone break your legs!” “You have no right to tell me what to do!” I fought back with everything I had, pounding my fists against his chest. “We broke up! Let me go!” In the struggle — Thud. The worn little pouch I’d been clutching in my hand fell to the floor. Its contents spilled out. A cheap lipstick. A travel pack of tissues. And a small clear plastic bag that slid all the way to Roman’s feet. Inside it lay a tiny plastic star, folded crookedly. Its edges had gone yellow with age, worn down from years of handling. The entire room went dead silent. Roman froze. He stared at the small sealed plastic bag on the floor, his breathing suddenly ragged. Three years ago, on his birthday, I had folded that for him out of candy wrappers. Back then, we were so broke we couldn’t even afford a cake. I pressed the little star into his palm and smiled. “Roman, this is my lucky star. I’m giving it to you. You’re going to make it big someday, I just know it.” His eyes had gone red. He pulled me into a tight hug and said, “Chloe, when I make enough money, I’ll buy you a real star right out of the sky.” Three years. I’d kept it with me every single day. Even today—on the most humiliating day of my life—I’d hidden it in my bag, the one thing keeping me going. Roman slowly let go of me. He bent down and picked up the sealed bag. His long fingers trembled slightly. His thumb pressed hard against the clear plastic, as if he could reach through it and touch something from the past. “What is this?” He looked up at me. His voice was shaking so badly it barely held together—fragile in a way that broke something inside me.

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In my last life, to please his first love, my scumbag CEO husband locked me in a freezer at twenty below zero and let me freeze to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he forced me to donate a kidney to his first love. I was about to slap that blind bastard across the face when a “Destiny Script” suddenly popped up in front of me: [Say yes to him! In two years he’ll die in a plane crash. As his only legal wife, you’ll inherit his hundred-billion-dollar empire!] I looked at the fifty-million-dollar check in front of me and forced my raised hand into a smile instead. So what if I have to “donate a kidney”? For a hundred billion dollars, I’ll play along! “Sign the papers, and the fifty million is yours.” A cold, condescending voice rang out in the VIP hospital room. I snapped my eyes open, gasping for air, my lungs still aching with the bone-deep cold of that freezer at twenty below zero. Cold. So cold. In my last life, Liam Hayes’s first love, Lily Sinclair, had taken a little fall on the stairs and scraped her skin. Liam had flown into a rage, convinced I’d pushed her. To get revenge for Lily, he’d had someone throw me into an abandoned freezer warehouse on the outskirts of the city. “Let her sit in there and think it over for the night. Let her feel what Lily felt.” That one sentence of his had ended my life. I’d pounded on that steel door in the dark and the freezing cold until my fingers bled, until my mind finally went blank. And now, somehow, I’d been reborn. Reborn six months earlier, on the day Lily was diagnosed with kidney failure — the day Liam forced me to give her my kidney. I looked up and stared hard at the man standing at the foot of my hospital bed. Liam. Dressed in a tailored designer suit, his features cold and severe, looking down at me like I was some disposable part waiting to be removed. “Vera Pierce, my patience has a limit.” Seeing I hadn’t said anything, his brow furrowed with impatience as he tossed a surgical consent form and a check onto my face. “Lily’s condition can’t wait any longer. Your blood type’s a perfect match for her. Consider it an honor.” “It’s just one kidney. You won’t die. Fifty million is more than enough for a woman like you to live off for the rest of your life.” An honor? I looked at the papers scattered across the blanket, and hatred bloomed in my chest like poison ivy. I’d loved this man for three years. I’d been his secret mistress for three years, on call whenever he wanted, groveling in the dirt for him. And in return, he wanted to carve out my kidney for another woman. I let out a cold laugh and reached out to grab the check, ready to tear it up and throw it in his arrogant face. Then, hovering in midair, a line of golden text appeared. [Destiny Script loading…] [Host, pay attention! Whatever you do, don’t refuse! Sign the consent form and use it to force him into marrying you!] [Script hint: In two years, Liam will die when his private plane crashes into the sea, his body never recovered! Become his legal wife now, and in two years, the Hayes Group’s hundred-billion-dollar fortune — the mansions, the yachts, everything — will be yours!] [Lily will have spent her whole life scheming, only to watch you walk away with the entire inheritance and a string of boy toys. Sign it, quick!] My outstretched hand froze in midair. A hundred billion dollars? Dead in a plane crash? I stared at those glowing golden words and felt my heart rate spike. Of course I wanted revenge for what happened to me last life. But if I could get revenge AND walk away with a hundred billion dollars, wasn’t that so much better? Just turning around and storming off would let these two trash people off way too easy. I wanted the money. I wanted them dead. And I wanted them to wish they’d never been born! I took a deep breath, swallowed the murderous look in my eyes, and turned my wrist, pinching the fifty-million-dollar check between my fingers. “Fine. I’ll sign.” I looked up and put on my most pitiful expression. “But Liam, I have one condition.” A flicker of contempt crossed Liam’s eyes, like he was laughing at how greedy I turned out to be. “Name it. As long as it doesn’t involve hurting Lily, I’ll give you whatever you want.” I looked him dead in the eye and said, word by word: “I want you to marry me.”

The air in the hospital room froze solid. Liam looked at me like he’d just heard the world’s biggest joke, and then his expression turned venomous. “Vera, are you trying to threaten me?” He leaned in fast, grabbing my chin so hard I thought my bones would crack. “Who do you think you are? You think you deserve to be Mrs. Hayes?” I bit back the pain and let my eyes fill with tears, letting them hover right on the edge of falling, playing “devoted and pathetic” for all it was worth. “Liam, I know I don’t deserve it. But… if I lose a kidney, my body’s never going to be the same. I have nothing left. I just want a title. Even if it’s just on paper.” “If you marry me, I’ll go into surgery right now. Otherwise…” I closed my eyes and let the tears fall. “You can kill me, and I still won’t sign that consent form.” It was a gamble. A bet on exactly how much weight Lily carried in his heart. Sure enough, murderous intent churned in Liam’s eyes as he stared me down for a full minute. Finally, he yanked his hand back from my face and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe it off in disgust. “Fine. I’ll agree to it.” His voice was cold as ice. “Tomorrow morning, the marriage registry office. Vera, you’d better pray Lily’s surgery goes well. Otherwise, I’ll show you what it means to wish you were dead.” With that, he turned and strode out of the room. The moment the door shut, the tears on my face vanished instantly. I grabbed a tissue off the table and scrubbed hard at the spot on my chin where he’d touched me. Disgusting. I picked up the surgical consent form, a cold smirk tugging at my lips. Donate a kidney? Keep dreaming. You think my kidney is something trash like you two deserve? That night, I slipped past the bodyguards outside, snuck out of my room, and knocked on the office door of the attending physician, Dr. Ian. Ian was one of the country’s top kidney specialists, and the surgeon set to perform tomorrow’s operation. He looked startled when I walked in. “Vera, you’re having surgery tomorrow. What are you doing out of bed?” I walked over, locked the door behind me, and slapped a bank card down on his desk. “Ian, there’s twenty million in here.” Ian jumped, leaping to his feet. “Vera, what is this supposed to mean?” “It’s simple.” I pulled out a chair and sat down, fixing him with a sharp stare. “Tomorrow’s surgery goes ahead as planned. But my kidney stays exactly where it is, in perfect condition.” Ian’s face went pale. “Are you out of your mind? This is medical fraud! If Mr. Hayes finds out, he’ll kill me!” “If he doesn’t kill you, I’ll ruin your reputation myself.” I pulled out my phone and played a recording. It was Ian flirting with some woman, and him discussing a massive kickback from a pharmaceutical rep. Ian broke out in a cold sweat instantly, collapsing back into his chair. “How… how do you have this?” “If you don’t want people to know, don’t do it in the first place.” I put the phone away and looked at him coldly. “Ian, you’re a smart man. Liam won’t be standing in the operating room watching you cut. All you have to do is make a small incision on my side, just for show. As for Lily, find some pig kidney on the black market or whatever low-grade kidney you can get your hands on, just enough to fool the early rejection tests.” “Twenty million, plus your career. A fake surgery in exchange for all that. Do we have a deal?” Ian was shaking all over, sweat soaking through his white coat. A full five minutes passed before he gritted his teeth and picked up the bank card with trembling hands. “Fine… I’ll do it.”

The next morning, I got my hands on that marriage certificate. Liam stayed stone-faced the entire time, not even glancing at me once he finished signing, before shoving me straight into the car headed to the hospital. That afternoon, the red light above the operating room came on. I went under anesthesia and slept right through it. When I woke up, I was already back in the VIP room. A sharp pain throbbed in my side — Ian had cut a long incision, just to make it look convincing. I weakly opened my eyes. Liam was standing by the window, on the phone. He turned at the sound of movement, his eyes still cold as ever. “You’re awake?” I let out a faint “mm-hm,” putting on a pained expression and clutching my side. “Liam… is Lily okay?” “The surgery was a success.” Liam walked over to the bed, looking down at me, his tone carrying not a trace of gratitude — only warning. “Vera, now that you’re Mrs. Hayes, behave yourself. I’ve transferred this downtown condo to your name. You’ll live here from now on. You’re not to show your face around Lily without my permission.” He dropped a set of keys and walked out without looking back. I watched him go and let out a cold laugh. Not show my face? Don’t worry. I’ll have both of you begging to see me before this is over. Over the next two weeks, I used “post-surgery recovery” as an excuse to comfortably settle into the condo, running up charges on Liam’s supplementary credit card without any shame. Hermès bags — I bought ten at a time, rotating through the colors. Designer gowns — I had the sales reps come straight to my apartment for fittings. Jewelry — anything with diamonds, I swiped the card without blinking. My phone buzzed constantly with bank notification texts. Liam saw it all, of course, but he didn’t say a word. In his eyes, this was just a vain, greedy woman cashing in her “payment” for the kidney. The more he looked down on me, the less he’d see me coming. But the gaudy bags and watches weren’t the point at all. I resold every piece of luxury I bought, converting it all to cash. Add that to the remaining thirty million from the original fifty-million-dollar check, and I had a serious amount of liquid capital building up fast. I was going to use that money to plant a time bomb right at the heart of Liam’s business empire. Two weeks later, my “wound” had “healed.” And Lily had “recovered” and been discharged. To celebrate Lily’s new lease on life, Liam rented out the most luxurious yacht in the city and threw a massive charity gala. As Liam’s secret wife — the one he kept hidden in the shadows — I wasn’t supposed to show up. But I was going to show up anyway.

The yacht deck shimmered with silk and champagne, the air thick with chatter and clinking glasses. Lily, dressed head to toe in a pristine white designer gown, looked like a delicate little flower nestled against Liam’s side, soaking up everyone’s well wishes. “Lily really is blessed. After such a serious illness, and look at her, glowing already.” “Right? It’s all thanks to Mr. Hayes. He searched the entire country to find a matching donor.” I walked into the ballroom in a low-cut red gown that turned every head, champagne glass in hand, ten-inch heels clicking against the deck with every confident step. The moment I appeared, every pair of eyes in the room locked onto me. Liam’s face darkened instantly. He stormed over and hissed under his breath, “Vera! Who let you in here? Get out!” I blinked innocently, pitching my voice just loud enough for the people nearby to hear. “Liam, we’re legally married, aren’t we? You’re throwing Lily a recovery party — how could your own wife possibly miss it?” The room erupted into murmurs. Everyone stared at us, stunned. Liam was married? And not to Lily? Lily’s face went rigid for a split second before she composed herself, her eyes welling up as she walked over, the picture of fragile grace. “Vera… no, Mrs. Hayes. I know you must resent me for taking Liam from you, but today is supposed to be my happy day. Please, don’t make a scene. Okay?” [High alert! The bitch is about to pull a move!] [She’s going to fake-fall into the pool and frame you for it! Host, get ready!] The golden text floated into view again. I looked at Lily’s pitiful, innocent face and let a knowing smirk tug at the corner of my mouth. Fake-falling into the water? So predictable. Just as Lily moved closer, getting ready for her “accidental” stumble, I gasped loudly and grabbed her wrist first. “Watch out, Lily!” I gripped her wrist with all my strength and let my own foot catch on something at the same time. A loud thud. It wasn’t Lily who went into the pool — it was the two of us, crashing hard onto the deck together! And I was the one underneath, taking the full impact! My side slammed directly into a raised edge on the deck. “Ahh—!” I let out a piercing scream, clutching my side, my face going white as a sheet, cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. The whole room went dead silent. Liam’s eyes blazed with rage. He shoved Lily aside and scooped me up into his arms. “Vera! Are you okay?!” I trembled as if I were in agony, pointing at Lily, tears streaming down like rain. “Liam… it hurts so much… my stitches must have torn open… it was her… she pushed me…” Lily stared at me, dazed, sitting on the floor in disbelief. “I didn’t! Liam, I never pushed her! She tripped on her own!” “Enough!” Liam roared, and for the first time, the look he gave Lily was sharp and cold. “Lily, Vera just donated a kidney to save your life. And you push her, now, of all times? I am so disappointed in you.” Lily had no defense, bursting into hysterical tears. I rested against Liam’s chest, eyes closed, looking utterly weak — but at an angle no one else could see, my lips curled into a wild, triumphant grin. You want to play the innocent flower with me? Sweetheart, I wrote that playbook.

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I used to think Oliver’s “baby syndrome” was just his way of showing how deeply he loved me. We sent over two hundred SnapChat messages a day, and he insisted on eating my home-cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He would FaceTime me for a kiss whenever he was exhausted from working overtime, and he’d act clingy at parties, begging me to feed him fruit. I got used to this for three years. But right before our wedding, his childhood friend Vivian found me. She looked at me with a patronizing, pitying smile. “Do you honestly believe a CEO actually has ‘baby syndrome’?” “I came up with that for him. It was just a test to see if you were suitable to be his wife.” “But you two can’t get married. Because the spot next to him belongs to me in the end.” As it turned out, it was all just a test he set up for me. I sat frozen for a long time, then called my best friend, Chloe. “Chloe, I don’t want to get married anymore.” “Well, thank God you finally woke up. Stop talking nonsense and get back to your bed. Your IV drip is almost done,” Chloe grumbled over the phone. I looked down at the cold food container in my lap, my eyes stinging. Half an hour ago, Oliver had texted saying he wanted my homemade lasagna. At the time, I had fainted from low blood sugar while planning the wedding and was rushed to Urgent Care for an IV drip. Afraid I wouldn’t make it in time, I begged the doctor to let me go home to cook. Chloe had scolded me furiously for being a doormat, staying at the clinic just to make sure I didn’t sneak out. Just as I was about to speak, Oliver’s notification popped up. 【Hey baby, who are you on the phone with? I’m meeting an old friend for lunch today, so don’t wait up for me.】 My throat tightened. Before leaving, Vivian had glanced at the container in my bag. She raised an eyebrow and said, “I haven’t told Oliver I’m back yet. I want to surprise him. Sorry about your food.” My nails dug into my palms, my body trembling with rage. I wanted to scream at her, to tell her she knew nothing about our relationship. Oliver never missed a meal with me. He used to say these cozy moments were too precious to lose. Even after late-night business dinners, we’d sit at the table to share a mug of sweet hot cocoa. But now, his text felt like a slap in the face. Leaving me utterly speechless. After giving Chloe a vague reply, I texted Oliver back: 【Is the old friend Vivian?】 Oliver didn’t reply. He probably hadn’t seen it. I was on his “favorites” list; he used to reply to me within seconds. And normally, he would have asked me in shock how I knew. After all, for the past three years, he had never once mentioned Vivian’s existence. Unable to bear the thoughts, I grabbed my bag and caught a cab back to the clinic. When I pushed open the door, I saw my mom and Chloe surrounding a pile of cardboard boxes. I looked around, and seeing my expression, my mom sighed. “Don’t bother looking. Your dad was so furious with you that he refused to come.” My dad had never liked Oliver. He always said, “Are you dating a man, or are you raising a son?” But I had stubbornly believed that since Oliver was a high-powered CEO at work, his child-like dependence on me at home was just his unique way of showing love. My dad had ignored me for a long time, but a few days ago, he suddenly brought a long list of wedding demands for Oliver. Oliver had just nodded agreeably. “Just discuss this with Stella, Dad. Don’t worry about the money.” My dad’s face had darkened instantly, and he walked out. Oliver had wrapped his arms around me, his eyes red with grievance. “Does your dad hate me? Will I still be able to marry you?” My heart had ached for him, and I even called my dad afterward, accusing him of being unreasonable. My mom set down some wedding favor boxes and pulled my hand. “Your dad was just worried you’d be exhausted. He’s just bad with words.” Now that I had calmed down, I finally understood. I was the one handling the catering, the venue, and even the guest favors. Oliver only had to deal with the invitations. My mom had come to celebrate, but she ended up doing all the heavy lifting for me. How could my dad not be angry? Chloe tried to change the subject, pulling over an insulated bag. “Stella, you’re so lucky. This smells amazing. Your dad’s cooking gets better and better.” My eyes welled up as I smiled, tossing my cold container into the trash. Once I was back on the IV and eating, I finally asked, “How did we get this private room anyway?” Chloe coughed guiltily, her tone annoyed. “Oliver arranged it. He said he was busy and asked me to take care of you. Honestly, why are you the one stressing over everything? It’s not like you’re the only one getting married…” I interrupted her sharply. “When did you call him?” “About half an hour ago.” I froze. My heart sank into an icy abyss. Oliver knew I was sick, yet he still chose to have lunch with Vivian. He even took Chloe’s call but ignored my text. My mom’s smile faded at Chloe’s words, but she patted my shoulder gently. “A one-sided relationship doesn’t last, sweetie. Marriage requires communication. We just want you and Oliver to be happy.” I nodded bitterly. At the very least, I needed to hear Oliver’s explanation with my own ears.

At ten in the evening, Oliver finally came home. He paused when he saw me, rolling up his shirt sleeves as he came over to hug me. I stiffened but didn’t pull away. He leaned in to kiss my ear. “Hug me, baby. Why aren’t you asleep yet? Have you eaten?” I shook my head, frowning. His clothes reeked of smoke, alcohol, and a familiar perfume I had smelled earlier today. It seemed he had a wild time with Vivian. Oliver pulled out his phone, looking worried. “It’s so late. Are you feeling sick?” He opened a food delivery app, but I pressed my hand over his. “Oliver, make me some sweet hot cocoa.” He blinked, then laughed helplessly. “You know I don’t know how to cook, baby. Let me order it for you.” I pulled my hand back, disappointed. In the past, whenever he cutely claimed he couldn’t learn to cook, I would always spoil him. But now, suspicion was like a thorn, piercing through my self-deception. Oliver had once learned how to play chess overnight just to impress a client, even playing them to a draw. He was perfectly capable of learning. After ordering the food, Oliver said he was going to take a shower. I called out to him. “Why didn’t you reply to my text today?” Oliver froze, then tugged at his collar and sat down beside me. “I wanted to explain Vivian’s situation to you in person.” “Stella, if she told you anything about some bet we had, that’s all in the past.” I clenched my fists, instinctively wanting to block it out. “She’s just a girl from next door. I did like her once, and when she moved abroad, I was bitter. That’s why I agreed to that stupid ‘baby syndrome’ test. But later, I genuinely fell in love with you. I really do rely on you.” I kept my lips sealed and said nothing. Oliver rubbed the back of my hand. “Do you have any other questions?” …No. How honest, how comprehensive. A perfectly prepared answer. If I pushed further, I would look like the unreasonable one. Oliver let out a sigh of relief. “Actually, there’s something else I want to discuss. I want to change our wedding venue to the mountain resort.” “What?” I stared at him, dumbfounded. Oliver didn’t notice my shock. “Vivian’s parents aren’t in good health, and they’re currently recuperating at that resort. Since they’re our elders, it’s just easier for them.” I was utterly speechless. It had taken me half a month just to choose the hotel. From the theme down to the floral arrangements, I had reviewed everything five times before finalizing it. And he wanted to change it just like that! Noticing my terrible expression, Oliver explained gently, “Baby, my parents already agreed to it.” I swallowed the suffocating lump in my throat. “Fine.” As a future daughter-in-law, I had to keep the peace with his parents. Oliver kissed my cheek, satisfied. “I knew you loved me. I’m going to shower. Grab my pajamas for me, baby.” I stared at his retreating back, taking a deep breath. My parents were running themselves ragged, yet he told me to handle them. But when it came to Vivian, he was more than eager to be thoughtful and accommodating.

The next morning, I was awakened by a delicious aroma. Last night, I used the excuse of being unwell to sleep in the guest bedroom. Oliver had tried to cling to me, bringing his work files to keep me company, but I had shut him out. Yet when I woke up in the middle of the night to grab a glass of water, I heard laughter coming from the master bedroom. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” Oliver asked, busy frying eggs in the kitchen as he glanced at me. I snapped out of my daze and forced a smile. “You managed to wake up on your own.” In the past, he always insisted I wake him up. I figured this breakfast had a very special destination. Just as I thought this, Oliver placed a plate in front of me. “Try it. Is it good?” I blinked in confusion. “For me?” Oliver grinned. “Of course. Don’t be mad about the hot cocoa last night, baby.” My heart flooded with a sudden wave of bitterness. I couldn’t help but feel my eyes grow hot. Oliver hugged me from behind. “I have to run. Lunch together today?” I nodded, watching him leave. But my smile froze when I saw an insulated lunch bag sitting near the entrance. I rushed into the kitchen. Sure enough, the trash can was filled with food scraps meant for three portions. I stood there for a long time, then sat back down and finished my breakfast in silence. Returning to the living room, I noticed a bag on the coffee table. It contained the wedding invitations. He must have forgotten them on his way to print them. But as I flipped one open, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The names were already written in elegant cursive: Groom Oliver, Bride Vivian! The warmth from earlier felt like a cruel joke. We had agreed to handwrite the very first copy together as a keepsake. It should have been done long ago, but Oliver kept delaying it, claiming he was too busy. It turned out he was just waiting for Vivian… Why was I still playing the fool of a bride? I drove straight to the hotel banquet hall. My dad was discussing something with the staff. Seeing me, his face hardened. “This banquet hall is too small. It makes me look cheap giving away my daughter.” I didn’t say a word. My dad looked displeased. “Fine, we’ll just add a few more dishes. After all, Oliver is…” I interrupted him quietly, telling him about Oliver’s decision to change the venue. My dad stared at me in stunned silence for a few seconds before erupting in fury, marching toward the exit. “Who does he think he is?! I’m going to have a serious word with his parents right now…” I hurriedly called my mom to stop him. The venue coordinator was also flabbergasted when I told her. “Miss Stella, all the materials have been prepared. You want to change it now?” I remained silent for a long moment, making my final decision. “We’re not changing it. We’re canceling it.”

After handling everything, I went straight to Oliver’s office. He seemed to have just finished a meeting, collapsing into his chair with a confused look. “Did you forget to bring my lunch, baby?” I replied flatly, “I didn’t cook.” Oliver stiffened, assuming I was still feeling unwell. I stared blankly at the fresh roses sitting next to his bookshelf. He had already ordered takeout for us. I didn’t sit down. I just said calmly, “Oliver, let’s break up.” Oliver snapped his head up, pausing for a moment before letting out a soft laugh. “Stop playing around. Are you still mad about Vivian?” “I’m serious—” Oliver cut me off helplessly. “I told you, that’s all in the past. Besides, once I’m done with these next two busy days, I’m taking some time off to help you prepare for the wedding.” He thought I was just throwing a tantrum. I kept my mouth shut. Oliver pulled me down to sit. “Not mad anymore? Feed me a bite.” Just as I lifted the fork, a knock sounded at the door. Vivian stood there. Her face paled, and she turned and left immediately. A faint smirk played at the corner of Oliver’s lips. The very last shred of affection I had for him shattered into dust. We never finished the meal. Both Oliver and I received calls from our respective mothers. He rushed out in a panic, and I guessed it was because of my dad. As soon as I got into a cab, I called my parents. The other end of the line was a chaotic mess of crying and shouting, and then my dad roared angrily, “Get back here right now! Your mother is crying her eyes out. Is marrying this guy really that important to you?!” “…Dad,” I choked out. “I’m not marrying him. I canceled the wedding.”

My mom had followed my dad to meet Oliver’s parents. They had intended to discuss things calmly. But Oliver’s parents were businesspeople. They didn’t say anything outright nasty, but every word subtly reminded my parents of a daughter-in-law’s “duties.” My dad held back his anger, but my mom couldn’t. She wept as if her world had ended. When she heard I canceled the wedding, she immediately wanted to rush back and apologize to them. Yet, my resolve only grew stronger. “I’m the one who decided this, Mom. I don’t want to degrade myself anymore. Dad, Mom… I want to go home.” They didn’t say another word. After a long silence, a look of pure relief washed over their faces. That evening, Oliver came over with a grim expression, demanding to talk. His very first words were full of blame: “Stella, if you didn’t want to change the venue, we could have talked. Why did you have to send your parents to make a scene? It’s going to be so awkward for me to face them after we’re married.” I stared at him. “Then let’s not get married.” Oliver’s face darkened, his voice laced with suppressed anger. “Stella, I just want you to apologize and smooth things over with them. Isn’t that what you always do?” I wanted to laugh. Oliver didn’t understand. In the past, I humored his parents out of love for him. But things were different now. “Oliver, let’s call off the wedding.” Just as the words left my mouth, his phone began to ring. The apartment was quiet, and I could faintly hear the voice on the other end crying, “Oliver, Vivian is missing!” Oliver’s body tensed instantly. He muttered a quick reply and got up to leave. “Stella, the dress and the rings are already made. Stop messing around. Something happened to Vivian, I have to go.” The moment Oliver left, I went straight to my room and began packing my bags. I still had to deal with the rings, since I paid for half of them. Oliver didn’t return all night, nor did he send a single text. For the first time in years, I slept peacefully. I woke up, finished packing, and headed to the jewelry studio. The sales associate warmly handed me our custom rings, complimenting how beautiful they looked. I offered a polite smile, took them off, and handed them back. “I’d like to refund these, please.” The associate was taken aback, pausing for a few seconds before going to find the manager. Oliver was the one who signed the contract, so getting a refund myself would be tricky. Hearing footsteps, I forced a smile onto my face. But when I turned around, I froze. “Julian?” We hadn’t seen each other since graduation. He was the class genius, and everyone always teased him for skipping reunions. Seeing him now didn’t feel awkward at all. Julian looked equally surprised. After some brief small talk, he asked seriously, “Are you not happy with the rings?” I waved my hands awkwardly. “No, it’s just… the wedding is off.” Julian was clearly shocked, but he didn’t pry. “According to the policy, I need Oliver’s consent to process this for you.” By the time he dialed the number, I was ready to give up. Julian quickly stated the reason for the call: “Hello, Oliver. Stella is here to return the rings—” Before he could finish, Oliver interrupted irritably. “Fine, whatever she wants. Just do it.” Before the call disconnected, I clearly heard a woman whimpering in the background. It seemed Oliver was still busy comforting Vivian and had no time for me. Julian looked at me with pity. But I actually burst out laughing, tears streaming down my face. I booked the earliest flight home and called my parents. After processing the refund, Julian handed me a small, elegant box. Inside was a beautifully crafted sunflower brooch. “Consider this a freebie. Congratulations on your freedom.” A wave of warmth rushed through me as I accepted it. Time flew by. Even as the plane touched down, I still felt like I was in a dream. Just as I walked out of the airport, Chloe called. “Stella, Oliver came to corner me. He refused to take the bill and the credit card you left.” I looked at my parents’ backs and the sky of my hometown. My heart felt incredibly peaceful. “Let him be. Either way… it’s completely over.”

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In New York’s elite circle, everyone knew Vivian Vance was a ruthless, legendary defense attorney. She had never lost a single case, and she was too cold-blooded for anyone to dare cross. No one knew she had a sensory soulmate of ten years—the weak, easily bullied young heir of the Sterling family, Asher. If he was slapped, her cheek would burn for hours. If he was kicked, she would hold her side in pain for a week. If he was publicly humiliated and broken, she would literally spit blood at the most elite corporate negotiation table. Everyone mocked Asher as a spineless orphan whom anyone could step on. Only Vivian stood fiercely in front of him. Anyone who touched him paid with their life. “If he chooses to bow his head, that’s his business. But if anyone dares force him to bow, I will make their life a living hell.” Someone didn’t believe the rumors. At a charity gala, he publicly stepped on Asher and forced him to live-stream an apology to the world. A thousand miles away, Vivian watched the live stream. The sheer vicarious agony made her body spasm. She immediately boarded her private jet and flew back overnight. That night, dozens of black Maybachs blocked off half the city. Vivian stepped on the offender’s face, her voice bone-chilling: “The foot you used to step on him? You won’t be needing it anymore.”

I was born with an overactive tear reflex. Whenever I was wronged, my tears would fall before I could even explain. Because of this, people always called me a spineless coward. A guy who did nothing but cry. When I was a kid, my desk mate lost his eraser and accused me of stealing it. Before the teacher could even question me, my eyes were already red and I was shaking. So everyone pointed at me and said, “Look, he’s crying. He must be guilty.” Later, my dad, Arthur Sterling, was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder. Our relatives blocked the door of our cramped, run-down apartment, screaming at my mother, calling her a murderer’s wife who raised a little murderer. I clenched my fists, wanting to rush out and explain, wanting to scream that my dad was innocent. But tears flooded my eyes first. My throat felt like it was blocked by a wet sponge, suffocating any sound. They saw my tear-streaked face and grew even more certain. “See? The kid is just like his murderer father. He only knows how to play the victim to get sympathy.” For the last ten years, what I hated most was my own eyes that wouldn’t stop crying. Until Vivian Vance, the top defense attorney in the city, became my empathic soulmate. When I was falsely accused, the helplessness, fear, and desperation I felt would be magnified a hundred times in her. When I was called “the son of a murderer,” she would suddenly suffocate and lose her voice in the middle of a courtroom. When I was forced to bow my head and plead guilty, she couldn’t even finish a sentence of her defense, breaking out in cold sweat from the pain. Eventually, the entire legal and elite circle knew that the high-and-mighty, cold-blooded Vivian Vance had one absolute boundary. “He can cry.” “But he can never be forced to cry by you.” But in the beginning, I didn’t know any of this. I only knew that tonight was my last chance to get back my dad’s only heirloom. That night, the rain in the city was pouring, as if trying to drown the entire world. On the penthouse floor of the Grand Hyatt, a lavish charity gala was underway, filled with glittering gowns and expensive suits. I stood in the corner, wearing a cheap, rented suit, my eyes locked onto the auction stage. On stage, Julian Thorne stood in a bespoke tuxedo, displaying an old, vintage Omega watch with a smug smile. “This watch belonged to a heinous murderer. Today, we are auctioning it off. All proceeds will go to the victim’s family, as a way to atone for that monster’s sins.” Applause erupted from the crowd. But my heart felt like it was being brutally ripped apart. That was my dad’s watch. Ten years ago, my dad was convicted of first-degree murder. Everyone said he killed a passing wealthy businessman for money. But I knew he didn’t. That night, he was just passing by a dark alley and kindly saved a man covered in blood. The real killer escaped, but because my dad was covered in blood, he became the scapegoat. That vintage watch was the one he wore that day, and it was the only thing I had left of him. I grit my teeth and raised my crumpled bidding paddle. “Ten thousand dollars!” It was all the savings I had scraped together from working three part-time jobs for three years. The entire room’s gaze instantly locked onto me, filled with disgust, mockery, and disdain. Julian looked down at me from the stage, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “Oh, look, isn’t that the murderer’s son, Asher? What, trying to buy the watch back with the dirty money your dad stole?” I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms, drawing blood. “I earned that money myself! My dad didn’t kill anyone!” I wanted to scream back, to throw the truth in their faces. But the tears, betraying me as always, welled up in my eyes. My vision blurred. I stood there, trembling violently under their judging stares. Julian sneered and walked slowly toward me. “One hundred thousand,” he uttered casually. I stared at him. “Five hundred thousand,” he continued to raise the price, looking at me like I was an ant. “Asher, aren’t you trying to appeal the case? Didn’t you hire Vivian Vance as your lawyer?” Julian leaned in, his voice barely a whisper, yet every word stabbed like a knife. “Do you really think Vivian Vance would offend the Thorne family for a piece of trash like you?” With a sudden flick of his hand, he threw the vintage watch hard onto the floor. *Crack.* The glass shattered, gears and springs scattering everywhere. “Oops, my hand slipped,” Julian said, crossing his arms and watching coldly. My mind went blank. I threw myself onto the floor, ignoring the sharp shards of glass, desperately trying to gather the tiny gears. Glass sliced into my fingertips, and blood began to seep out. But Julian suddenly raised his voice. “My ring! My sapphire ring is gone!” His bodyguards immediately stepped forward, grabbing me by the collar and dragging me off the floor. “He was the only one near Mr. Thorne just now! He must have stolen it!” “Search him!” I struggled wildly, my eyes swimming with tears. “I didn’t! I didn’t steal anything!” “Let go of me! Let me go!” The overwhelming humiliation, injustice, and fear washed over me like a tidal wave. At that exact moment, thousands of miles away at the International Convention Center. A multi-billion-dollar merger negotiation was taking place. Vivian sat at the head of the table in a tailored black blazer dress, looking cold, sharp, and utterly dominant. But the second I was pinned down by the bodyguards and search-and-seized. The hand she used to hold her pen froze. An indescribable, agonizing pain, mixed with a suffocating wave of despair and humiliation, slammed into her body like a tsunami. Her heart felt like it was being crushed by a giant hand, and her breath caught in her throat. “Ms. Vance?” the foreign representative across from her asked, noticing her sudden change. Vivian’s face went deathly pale, veins popping on her temples as cold sweat drenched her forehead. She stood up abruptly, trying to speak, but a thick, coppery taste of blood welled up in her throat. The next second, under everyone’s horrified gaze. *Cough—* A mouthful of blood sprayed from her lips, staining the billion-dollar contract red. Her assistant, Luke, nearly lost his mind. “Ms. Vance! Call an ambulance!” Vivian gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white. She forced down the remaining blood in her throat, her eyes burning with a terrifying, murderous rage. “Find…” her voice was incredibly hoarse, sounding like sandpaper. “Find out where Asher is! Now!”

The drama at the gala was still going on. The bodyguard roughly tore open my cheap bag, dumping its contents onto the floor. A few crumpled bills, a pack of tissues, and the bloody pieces of the shattered watch. No ring. Julian’s face darkened, and he shot a look at the bodyguard. The bodyguard got the hint. He suddenly pointed at my suit pocket. “It’s in here!” He reached in and pulled out a glittering sapphire ring. The crowd gasped. “Oh my god, he really did steal it!” “A murderer’s son is bound to have sticky fingers!” “Call the cops! Throw him in jail so he can reunite with his father!” Vicious curses rained down on me from all sides. I couldn’t defend myself. I shook my head, crying hysterically. “It wasn’t me… you planted it on me…” My tears were completely out of control, and my stomach twisted in painful spasms. Julian looked down at me, a victorious smirk on his face. “Asher, people like you are meant to rot in the mud. Appeal the case? In your next life.” He lifted his foot and slammed his leather shoe down on the back of my hand, grinding it hard. “Ugh—” I gasped, a white-hot agony shooting up my arm. The pain made me break out in a cold sweat. Just then, a loud *crash* echoed through the room. The heavy double doors of the ballroom were kicked open from the outside. Dozens of men in black suits filed in, instantly taking control of the room. The crowd was forced to part, creating a wide path. Vivian Vance marched in. Her suit was slightly disheveled, a faint trace of blood still at the corner of her lips. Her face was as pale as paper, but her dark eyes held a bone-chilling coldness. She walked straight to me, looking at my hand pinned under his shoe and the blood on the floor. At that moment, I saw her body tremble violently, a flash of extreme agony crossing her eyes. “Get off him.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an undeniable, crushing authority. Julian froze, clearly not expecting Vivian to show up. “M-Ms. Vance? What are you doing here? This guy stole my ring, I was just teaching him a lesson—” “I said, get off him.” Vivian snapped her gaze to him, her eyes like ice-cold daggers. Julian was forced back a step by her gaze, instinctively lifting his foot. Vivian knelt, completely ignoring the expensive carpet, and gently cupped my blood-covered hand. Her hands were freezing, her fingertips trembling slightly. “Asher,” she said, her voice terribly raspy. “Did I not tell you to call me if anything happened?” I looked at her, my feelings of injustice reaching a peak. “Vivian… I didn’t steal it… It was my dad’s watch…” My eyes were filled with tears, my voice shaking uncontrollably. Vivian’s brows knitted tightly, her throat working hard as she swallowed down another wave of shared pain. She suddenly reached out, pulling my head gently against her shoulder. “Stop crying,” she whispered in my ear, her voice thick with suppressed agony. “If you keep crying, you’re going to kill me with this pain.” I froze, momentarily forgetting to cry. Vivian took a deep breath, took off her blazer, and draped it over my shoulders. Then, she slowly stood up, shielding me behind her. She turned to Julian, her eyes returning to a state of absolute, chilling indifference. “Mr. Thorne. Framing, public disturbance, and aggravated assault.” “Any of these is enough for me to put you behind bars for a few years.” Julian tried to maintain his composure. “Ms. Vance, what is that supposed to mean? He clearly stole my ring. Everyone saw it!” “Oh? Really?” Vivian sneered, turning her head to Luke. Luke immediately stepped forward, opening his tablet and connecting it to the ballroom’s massive projector screen. On screen, a crystal-clear surveillance footage began to play. It showed Julian, when I wasn’t looking, slipping the sapphire ring into my suit pocket. The room fell dead silent. Julian’s face went completely white, his lips trembling. “Th-this… wasn’t the camera broken?” Vivian looked down at him as if looking at a corpse. “Mr. Thorne, you probably didn’t know that this hotel is a subsidiary of the Vance Group.” “To touch my person on my property? You’ve got some nerve.” She leaned in slightly, her voice quiet but ringing clearly in everyone’s ears. “Today, you stepped on his hand. Tomorrow, I will make sure the Thorne family is wiped out of New York.”

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For ten years,I kept our promise to stay child-free.Then I found a family photo tucked under the pillow of my husband,Dante Moretti,the Don of the mafia. In the photo,he was holding a baby in one arm.With his other hand,he was holding the hand of his first love,Celeste Vale. My hands and feet went cold.Clutching the photo,I rushed to the Moretti family headquarters. But when I reached his office door,I heard the intimate sound of panting from inside. Celeste was sitting on Dante’s lap,her arms around his neck as she acted spoiled. “I’m already pregnant with our second child.When are you going to make Evelyn Snow get out?” I felt as if I had fallen into an ice cellar.Staring at the indulgent smile on Dante’s face,I heard the words he had said to me over and over through the years. “I hate children.” In the ten years I was married to him,I had been pregnant three times. Each time,Dante had used the same excuse,that he did not need an heir,and had made me terminate the pregnancy without hesitation. Before the third procedure,the family doctor said my body could no longer take it.If we continued,I might hemorrhage. I cried and begged Dante to let me keep the child. Even if the baby was never entered into the Moretti family records,even if the child could never call him father,I was willing. But he only looked at me coldly. “If you insist on having it,we end the engagement.” So Dante did not hate children. He only hated children born from me. I let go of the door handle.I did not rush in and question him.Instead,I booked a flight out for that night. … Clutching the photo,I walked out the front door in a daze. Rain came down in sheets.I was cold all over. Then I saw Dante’s assistant hurrying a little boy in a raincoat through the entrance,warning him anxiously. “Slow down,please.The steps are wet.Don’t fall.” The child looked back and smiled,his voice soft and bright. “I’m not afraid of falling.I can’t wait to see Daddy and Mommy.” My breath stopped. That face was almost a perfect copy of Dante as a child. Without thinking,I placed a hand over my lower abdomen. During my third pregnancy,the baby had already been five months along. The family doctor performed an ultrasound for me.I saw the tiny outline on the screen,the brows and eyes so astonishingly like Dante’s. I brought the report home and begged him,humbly,to let me keep the baby. But Dante did not even look at it.He moved straight into the study. After that,we were in a cold war for half a month. He treated me as if I were invisible. Even when morning sickness left me too weak to stand and I asked him to pour me a glass of water,he simply walked around me with indifference. I could not bear his cold violence and neglect,so I scheduled the procedure. At last,he was satisfied.He said his first words to me in half a month. “Good girl.I don’t like children.” I looked at the boy who was about to disappear into the rain. He must have been five already. And my fully formed child had been forced away three years ago. It turned out he had not wanted my child because he had already had an heir with Celeste. Tears blurred my vision.I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood before I forced down the urge to sob aloud. But when I turned,Dante happened to come out holding the child. There was nowhere for me to hide.Through the downpour,our eyes met. The child frowned and shook the extra umbrella in his hand. “Daddy,why is that lady standing in the rain?” “Can I give her the umbrella?She looks so pitiful.” The taste of blood filled my mouth. I did not miss the warning that flashed through Dante’s eyes. He had his assistant bring me the umbrella,then shielded the child as they got into the car. Celeste appeared after them with a little schoolbag in her hand.When she saw how wretched I looked,she laughed with pleasure. Faintly,I heard Dante coaxing the child in a gentle voice. “Nico,people who stand on the roadside in a storm staring into space are usually not right in the head.” “People like that are the easiest to lose control.If you see one in the future,keep your distance.Don’t go near.” The car rolled slowly past me,splashing muddy water across the ground. Through the window,I saw Dante and Celeste with their fingers intertwined. And the child sat beside them excitedly building with Lego. My phone suddenly vibrated.A message from Dante popped up. “Go back to the estate first.I’ll explain.”

I scrolled through our chat history. For an entire six months,it had been nothing but my one-woman show. “Dante,I made the beef bone soup you usually drink tonight.Will you come home for dinner?” He had not replied. “Dante,I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle.Could you pick up a bottle of pain relief spray from the pharmacy if you pass one?” Still no reply. With trembling fingers,I selected every conversation with Dante. It felt as if I were selecting the entire ten years of our relationship. Then I deleted them with one tap. At the same time,a new follow request appeared on my phone. It was from Celeste. I did not accept it,but as if possessed,I tapped into her Instagram. It was packed with photos of a family of three. As I looked at those familiar dates,tears kept falling. On the day of my first abortion,Celeste had posted a selfie with a peace sign. In the corner of the photo,the trash can was piled full of cigarette packs. “Starting to try for a baby.He quit smoking right away and said he wanted to be the best daddy in the world.” On the day of my second abortion,Celeste lay weakly in Dante’s arms,holding a wrinkled little newborn. “Mother and son are safe.He cried harder than I did outside the delivery room.” I looked at Dante’s reddened eyes in the photo and suddenly remembered many years ago,when I went with him to the docks to negotiate a dangerous deal. A gunfight broke out on the road,and the car window was shattered by bullets. Without hesitating,I threw myself over Dante to shield him. He was unscathed. But glass shards and fragments tore open my chest,leaving me covered in blood. Dante gripped my hand tightly.His eyes were anxious,yet the distance in them could not be hidden. Even at the edge of life and death,he still called me by my full name. “Evelyn Snow,don’t sleep.” I had thought he was born cold and did not know how to love. I tried for ten years to warm him. But it turned out I had never entered his heart at all. I could not tell whether the wetness on my face was tears or rain.I only wanted to call a car and leave at once. But I was soaked through,and several Uber drivers canceled on me. I had no choice but to walk all the way back to the estate. Halfway there,a young couple on the roadside seemed to be having an argument. The boy rubbed his forehead helplessly and reached out to take the girl’s hand. The girl shook him off in grievance and turned her face away. The boy had no choice but to crouch down and carry her on his back,coaxing her softly. “All right,princess.I know you’re tired from walking.I’ll carry you back,okay?” At last,the girl smiled. But I saw the boy’s lips move. “So troublesome.” My heart gave a violent tremble. I suddenly remembered the time after a family charity gala when Dante took me to see the hilltop winery he had just bought. On the way,I accidentally twisted my ankle. He glanced at my red,swollen ankle and asked coldly, “Can you still walk?” Everyone with us stopped to wait for me. I endured the piercing pain,unwilling to miss that rare chance to be close to him. But limping along,I still slowed everyone down. Then Dante suddenly turned back and picked me up in his arms. Back then,I thought he felt sorry for me,and I secretly smiled against his chest. Now that I thought about it,he had only disliked how slowly I was walking.He had only thought I was a nuisance. Tears ran down my cheeks. I took the wedding ring off my ring finger and threw it into the grass by the road. By the time I reached the estate,there were only three hours left before my flight. I shook my dizzy head and leaned against the wall as I entered the door code. The electronic lock vibrated and gave a shrill warning. “Incorrect password.” The next second,the door opened from inside. Celeste looked at my disheveled state with provocation in her eyes,smiling as if apologetic. “Sorry.I casually mentioned that I could never remember the code,so Dante changed the lock to my birthday.” I froze in the doorway. I saw the servants carrying out the furniture,ornaments,and photos I had personally chosen,box by box.

When Dante saw me drenched in rain,he frowned in displeasure. “The hall was just cleaned,and now you’ve dirtied it again.” My heart went completely cold. The tears I had barely managed to stop broke loose again. Cold wind drove rain through the crack of the door.Celeste gave a soft sneeze. Concern flashed instantly in Dante’s eyes.He took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. “Why haven’t you closed the door?What if Celeste catches a cold?” Numbly,I closed the door. When I walked,the soles of my feet hurt as if needles were stabbing into them,and watery blood left faint trails on the floor. But Dante did not spare me even a glance.He only ordered the servants to make hot tea. He carefully helped Celeste sit down,as if she were fragile porcelain. Celeste giggled and pushed his hand away. “I’m not that delicate.” Then,as if only now noticing the blood on the floor,she covered her mouth in surprise. “Dante,Evelyn’s feet are all torn up.Hurry and have someone bring the first-aid kit.” Dante then noticed my injured feet. His brows drew tight. Just when I thought he was about to have someone fetch medicine,and I was ready to refuse his belated kindness. He picked Celeste up in disgust and ordered the servants coldly,”Bring disinfectant.Wipe down every place she walked.” The servants hurried over with alcohol and disinfectant,pouring them over the places I had crossed. Alcohol splashed onto the wounds by my feet,like fine needles drilling into bone. But that pain was not even one ten-thousandth of the pain in my heart. Dante looked at me as if I were some contaminating germ,as if he wished he could drive me out of the house at once. After a moment of silence,that was exactly what he did. “Butler,pack a few clothes for Evelyn and send her to a hotel for now.” Celeste leaned smugly in Dante’s arms and stroked her slightly rounded belly. “I’m sorry,Evelyn.He’s only worried that with you this dirty,you might harm the child in my belly.” “You’ll have to suffer a little and move out for a few days.” I looked up at the estate I had once considered my home. Now it had become unrecognizable. The wedding photo on the wall had been torn up and thrown into the trash. The custom fridge magnets of Dante and me lay scattered in a mess on the floor. Even the white roses I had planted by hand on the terrace had been uprooted by someone. To make Celeste comfortable,Dante had personally erased every trace of me. When I saw the childish pair of couple mugs on the dining table,my heart felt as if it had been gripped by an invisible hand,aching so badly I could hardly breathe. After the induced labor of that five-month-old child,I asked a jeweler to seal the ashes he left behind inside a tiny star pendant. I wanted to carry it with me at every moment. As if he had never left me. That day,I hung the little star at the head of the bed and slept well for the first time in a long while. But when I opened my eyes again,the pendant was gone. I broke down and searched the entire room,yet I could not find a single trace of it. Dante came out of the study and said lightly, “That childish little trinket?I thought it was an eyesore,so I threw it away.” He thought it was childish. So without even telling me,he could throw away the last trace of my child. But now,he used childish couple mugs with Celeste,used childish stickers with her,and helped her and the child turn this estate into their home. I curled my lips in mockery and met Dante’s icy eyes. “No need to trouble the butler.” “I’ll pack my own things.” “I’ll disappear soon enough and never offend your eyes again.” I hurried upstairs.All I wanted was to take my documents,passport,and the relics my mother had left me. But when I reached the corner,a crisp shattering sound came from the bedroom.

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This was my eighteenth wedding to Don Luca Rossano. This time,my parents and my fiancé left with my adopted sister again. My parents only called me.Their voices were impatient. “Vera’s stomach is acting up again.We’re taking her to the hospital.The wedding is canceled.Handle it yourself.” My bridesmaid,Vivian,my best friend since childhood,questioned me with disgust. “Do you really think your wedding matters more than Vera’s health?She was in so much pain she almost passed out,and you still didn’t want us to take care of her.When did you become this vicious?” As for my fiancé,Luca,he did not even bother to call. He only sent one text:The wedding is canceled.We’ll talk next time. I stared at those few words over and over. He had brushed me off with the same line eighteen times. A cold laugh slipped from my lips. Only then did I realize I felt nothing at all. Eighteen times. Enough. I no longer wanted to beg people who had already made their choice. … I picked up the microphone and walked onto the wedding stage.The stage was covered in amethyst violets,Vera’s favorite flowers.My wedding was filled with the flowers my adopted sister loved most. “I’m sorry,everyone.Today’s wedding is canceled.” The guests exchanged glances. Not one of them looked surprised. “I knew it.Out of all these weddings,has a single one ever actually happened?If I were Isabella,I wouldn’t have the nerve to show my face.” “Their whole family revolves around that younger daughter.If I were Isabella,I’d just hand the man over to her and leave.At least she’d save herself some humiliation and keep a little dignity.” “What do you know?She’s like that girl in Just My Luck.Whatever she touches turns lucky,and everyone around her hits the jackpot. Every time Don Luca tries to cut things off with her,the Rossano family’s hidden port accounts blow open the next day.He’s tried several times and lost multiple cargo routes.If not for that,he wouldn’t still be with her.” I walked down from the stage under their stares. I heard every word. But this time,losing a few cargo routes would probably be the least of their worries. I changed out of my wedding dress and drove back to the Bellini estate,ready to take my things and leave. But the moment I reached the door,a large group of people came pouring in. Vera was in the middle of them,surrounded by everyone,all of them smiling as if she had just come back from the brink of death. The second they saw me,their smiles vanished. Luca’s eyes darkened. “Isabella,you canceled the wedding without even giving the guests a reason?Now everyone will think it was because of Vera again.You can take the blame for this yourself.” My father gave a cold snort,too lazy even to look at me. “You really made a mess this time,Isabella.Every time before this,you handled the public opinion yourself.We never had to worry. Now go tell everyone the wedding was canceled because you caused a scene.” Vivian had already taken out her phone. “I’ll have my contacts pass the line to a few street channels.Isabella can still apologize now.Then we’ll get a few street accounts to drag her for not knowing the rules,and no one will keep staring at Vera.” I did not answer any of them. I only stood there. Good. Very good. I’m fed up. Three days. I would give myself three days to cut every tie,then leave this life for good. “Isabella,are you even listening?I’m telling you,if you don’t clean this up,I can’t promise when the next wedding will be.” Luca stopped in front of me,his voice sharp and impatient. Just then,Vera finally spoke,her voice so soft it was almost inaudible. “It’s all my fault.I ruined Luca and Isabella’s wedding.Blame me.” “There are still a few good dates this month.The wedding can still…” Before she finished,she started coughing. Luca rushed to her side at once and patted her back. “It’s not your fault.Don’t overthink it.Your sister can’t live without me,so it doesn’t matter when we get married.” “You’re overthinking it.” Those were the first words I said after entering the house. Everyone froze. I lifted the bag in my hand. “I’m leaving.” The words had barely fallen. The next second,a crisp slap cracked through the air.

The slap rang through the entire living room. I turned my face aside and gave a bitter smile. The hand my mother had used to slap me was still trembling. “Are you done making a scene?The Bellini family has given you so much,and this is what you’ve become?A spoiled,ungrateful little ingrate?” “You want to leave?Where can you go?Do you want the whole city saying we abused you,slandering us for favoring Vera? Isabella,when will you stop acting out and embarrassing the Bellini family?God,I truly regret giving birth to you.Vera would never do something this rotten.” The taste of blood spread through my mouth. I ran the tip of my tongue over the corner of my lip. Yes. If this had been before,I would have screamed and fought. Because I did not understand. Why,when Vera broke the antique cigar box in Father’s study,it somehow became my fault. Why,when there was clearly surveillance footage,they still refused to believe I had not pushed Vera down the stairs. I also did not understand how buying a few flowers,which happened to trigger Vera’s allergy,became proof that I had deliberately tried to harm her. This was not the first time my mother had hit me. The last time was only two days ago,when I refused to let Vera wear my wedding dress. Then she fainted on the spot. Mother shoved me,then took scissors and cut apart the custom wedding dress I had waited six months for. Because of Vera,my mother and I had almost become enemies. Before,I would fight back.I would scream.I would force them to tell me I was not crazy. But this time,I did not want to make a scene. Because they needed me.I did not need them. I had always been the luckiest person in this family. The day after I was born,the Bellini family secured passage rights to the east docks.That deal dragged the entire family back from the guns of their creditors and made my father the most powerful Don in Aurelia Port. His stage-two liver cancer went into complete remission around the same time,for reasons the doctors could never explain. My friend Vivian had been an ordinary,forgettable girl before she met me. After we became inseparable in elementary school,she slowly grew into the kind of beauty people could not help turning to look at. She won every audition,took Best Actress,and became the country’s biggest box-office star. Later,even the mafia families called her”the princess who came out of the neighborhood.” And Luca. He used to be nobody.A man selling fake cigarettes and fake watches at the dockside night market,chased by cops and beaten black and blue by other crews. Until one night,he found me lost at a street market and brought me home. I fell in love with him on the spot. After that,everything he touched turned to gold. He took over his first gray cargo route,never lost a dock negotiation,and before he turned thirty,pushed the small Rossano name into the leading seat on the port committee. They doted on me for more than twenty years. Luca,too,once treated me as the center of his universe. But later,Vera was brought into the Bellini family. And everyone changed. Seeing me stay silent,Father’s voice turned cold. “You want to leave,Isabella?Then leave.This time,we will hold a family hearing and formally sever ties with you.From now on,you are no longer the daughter of the Bellini family,and you are no longer protected by this name.” “Take all her things away.Everything here belongs to this family.She doesn’t get to bring a single thing with her.” They did not even let me take a change of clothes before pushing me out the front gates. Luca sighed and quietly slipped a key into my hand. “Take it.It’s an apartment.You can stay there.Isabella,we’re all tired.This is where we end.” “I really wish the person I saved that night had been Vera,not you.” I let out a scoff. “Then marry her.” Luca released a long,exhausted breath. “Stop making a scene.I said I would marry you,and I will marry you.That won’t change.” “Vera is a good person,a truly kind person.I won’t let you talk about her like she’s something that can be thrown away.Don’t say that again.” After saying that,he turned and walked back up the steps. I threw the key on the ground and turned to leave. But Vera rushed over and grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go,Isabella.I overstepped.I wanted something that wasn’t mine.I don’t deserve any of this.” “You stay.I’ll leave.I’ll leave this house right now.” I knew exactly what she was doing. So I only stood there and let her clutch me while she cried her fake tears. But when she realized I was not pushing her away like before,she suddenly gasped for air and collapsed at my feet. “Vera!” “Call the doctor!Vera,my precious daughter!” Everyone rushed over and surrounded her. Luca’s hand closed around my throat,his eyes so dark he looked ready to kill. “You dared to push her?Do you really think I won’t lay a hand on you?” So this was what remained when anger reached its end:laughter. I had not even touched her. Yet in the end,I was still the one punished. “Luca,I hope none of you ever regret this.” No one took that sentence seriously. Father’s voice lashed over like a whip. “Someone lock her in the basement.No one lets her out without my order.”

The basement was damp and dark. This was my second time being locked in here. The memory of the first time was still as clear as if it had just happened. That time,I caught Vera sneaking into Luca’s bedroom in the middle of the night. I saw her in his bed. She cried and said it was sleepwalking caused by childhood trauma. She said she did not know why she had walked into Luca’s room. She only felt safe there. She had not meant to. My parents and Luca all believed her. Luca even told her gently that if she was scared in the future,she could come to him anytime. Back then,I was at the height of my obsession with Luca.I could not even tolerate a female assistant getting close to his private office. So I slapped Vera. Then my parents locked me in this basement. Seven days. Only half a bottle of water each day. They did not let me out until hunger had broken me completely and I agreed to apologize. This time,they clearly did not plan to merely starve me. Father walked in holding an old leather whip,with Luca behind him. “Thirty strikes would have been enough.But Vera pleaded for you and told me not to use a bat.So I switched to the whip.Fifty.” Crack. The first lash fell,and a bloody welt rose on my skin at once. He whipped me more than a dozen times. The swollen marks split open one by one. Every lash after that carried a numb,burning agony. No wonder Vera had begged him to use the whip instead. The whip had been soaked in something—chili water. “Are you going to apologize or not?” He never got the answer he wanted,so he struck harder and harder. After fifty lashes,my back and arms were covered in split wounds. Flesh curled open in strips.Blood ran down my spine and dripped onto the floor. Pain numbed me. I curled up in the corner,struggling to breathe. Father threw the whip on the ground and turned to leave. Before he walked out,he left one final sentence. “Stubborn bones.” Luca crouched in front of me. “Vera sent medicine and clean clothes for you.She has always been good to you,Isabella.You’re her sister,and I’m about to be her brother-in-law.We should be taking care of her.Why do you always have to make her out to be the villain?” “Apologize and end this.Stop letting the other families laugh at us.” He unfolded the clothes Vera had prepared and draped them over my back. When the fabric touched the open wounds,my whole body went rigid,as if a basin of salt water had been poured over me. I bent forward sharply and curled into a ball. “Really good at acting.Vera goes pale every time she’s in pain,and even she doesn’t exaggerate like you.” Luca stood up in disgust and walked out. The iron door closed behind him. Only then did I finally manage to draw a breath. Two more days. I only had to hold on for two more days.

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