Author: Momo Chan

Even after eight years of marriage to William, I was still a ghost in his family home, forbidden from sitting at the dining table. It was all because of a promise he had made to his deceased fiancée, Victoria. He had sworn that the seat of the matriarch of the family would eternally belong to her. During his father’s sixtieth birthday gala at the country club, a hurried waiter bumped into me. I stumbled, losing my balance, and landed right in the empty chair that had been meticulously reserved for Victoria. William’s face instantly darkened. He marched over, grabbed my arm with bruising force, and yanked me out of the seat. “How can you be so calculating?” he hissed, his voice low but sharp enough for the surrounding guests to hear. “Deliberately sitting in Victoria’s chair in front of everyone—are you really that desperate to replace her?” “Why are you trying to compete with a dead woman?” his mother added, her eyes cold with disdain. “Check your jealousy, Isabel. It’s pathetic.” His father joined in, calling me shameless and telling me to get out of the venue immediately. I stood there, blinking back tears, trying to ignore the sharp, throbbing pain in my sprained ankle. I opened my mouth to explain, but my eight-year-old son, Toby, cut me off, his little face twisted in embarrassment. “You’re so embarrassing, Mom,” Toby spat, looking at me with pure disgust. “If Victoria were here, she would never stoop to your level. I wish she were my real mother.” That night, William locked me in the windowless basement study. Through the heavy wooden door, I could hear him introducing Victoria’s memory to the guests as his one true wife. Later, I heard Toby telling a family friend that I was nothing more than his nanny. Something inside me went cold. The final ember of my warmth died out. When William finally opened the door the next morning, he looked down at me, his expression a mixture of irritation and cold charity. “You went too far last night,” he said. “Go to Victoria’s grave. Stay there and reflect on what you did.” He thrust a bouquet into my arms. It was yellow chrysanthemums—Victoria’s favorite, but the one flower that triggered my severe pollen allergy. The last time I was near them, I had gone into anaphylactic shock. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply looked at him, my voice flat and empty. “William, let’s get a divorce.” 1 William froze. Then, a mocking laugh escaped his lips. “All this because I made you spend one night in the study? You really are made of glass, aren’t you?” He stepped closer, his shadow looming over me. “Victoria and I were betrothed since childhood. She is the only daughter-in-law my parents will ever recognize. Even if you carved your name onto that chair, you couldn’t change that. I’m telling you this for your own good, Isabel. You need to know your place.” I had heard variations of this speech a thousand times over the last eight years. In the past, because of my love for him and my devotion to Toby, I had swallowed every insult. I told myself that the dead deserved respect, and so I let myself be pushed into the shadows. But my silence had only invited more cruelty. This time, I was done retreating. I threw the bouquet of chrysanthemums onto the floor. The yellow petals scattered across the cold hardwood. I looked up and met his eyes. “If she was so irreplaceable, why did you marry me? Why did you have a child with me? Why didn’t you just remain celibate for the rest of your life to honor her?” I asked, my voice rising. “The truth is, your grand, tragic love is a sham. It’s completely worthless.” The air in the room seemed to solidify. William’s face turned an ugly, dangerous shade of red. “Isabel, you are being utterly irrational.” He took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. “I know how much you’ve done for this family over the years. I see it. If you just go to Victoria’s grave, kneel, and apologize, I will finally arrange a proper wedding. We can make our marriage public.” There it was again. That patronizing, charitable tone. When we first spoke of marriage, I knew Victoria was an insurmountable mountain in his parents’ minds. They refused to accept any other woman. So, William and I agreed to a private commitment ceremony, keeping our union a secret until his parents came around. For eight years, I woke up before dawn to prepare three meals a day. I cleaned, I ironed, I managed the household like an unpaid servant, all to prove that I was worthy. But every time I brought up a legal marriage or a public wedding, William had an excuse ready. “I’m too busy with the firm right now. Let’s talk about it later.” “My parents still grieve for Victoria. You’ve only been here a few years—you can’t expect them to change overnight. Just wait.” “Why are you so materialistic? Are you that desperate to show everyone you married into wealth?” So I waited. I waited until the hope in my chest dried up and turned to dust. And now, when I no longer cared, he was offering it to me like a treat thrown to a dog. “I don’t want a wedding,” I said, my throat tight, the first waves of the allergy beginning to make my eyes itch. “Just give me the divorce. I’ll have the paperwork ready.” Without waiting for his response, I brushed past him and walked out. But as I hurried down the hallway, the itching in my eyes grew unbearable. Red, angry hives began to bloom across my arms, itching fiercely. The pollen from the chrysanthemums had already done its work. I rushed into the living room and grabbed the medical kit from the shelf, desperately searching for my antihistamines. Just as I managed to pop the blister pack, a violent force shoved me from behind. I crashed onto the floor, my temple striking the sharp edge of the coffee table. A blinding pain shot through my skull. I looked up, clutching my bleeding forehead, and saw Toby standing over me. His small face was twisted in disgust. “Are you blind?” Toby yelled, pointing at the table. “You put that stupid medical kit right on top of Victoria’s handkerchief!” “You’re so clumsy and malicious. How did someone like you give birth to me? It’s humiliating.” Dizzy and shivering, I looked down. Beneath the plastic box was a small yellow silk handkerchief. It was Victoria’s. William had given it to Toby as a keepsake, and Toby treated it like holy relic, forbidding anyone—especially me—from touching it. My eyes were swelling shut, and my vision was tunneling. I could barely see the pills in my hand, let alone a tiny handkerchief on a cluttered table. But Toby didn’t care about my pain. He carefully picked up the handkerchief, blew the nonexistent dust off it, and then snatched the packet of allergy pills from my trembling fingers. “Victoria is gone, and you still try to ruin everything she left behind,” the boy said coldly. “You need to learn a lesson.” With a vicious flick of his wrist, he threw my medication out the open window, deep into the thick, thorny hydrangea bushes below. “No…” I gasped, curling into a ball on the floor, my fingers desperately clawing at my burning, itching skin. Toby didn’t even look back as he strolled out of the room. 2 Watching his small, retreating back, a tear slipped down my cheek, hot against my swollen skin. Toby hadn’t always hated me. When he was two, he was a deeply insecure child. He cried whenever anyone else tried to hold him. Once, when William tried to pick him up, Toby had scratched his father’s face until it bled. Back then, I was his entire world. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. On our fifth anniversary, William stood me up to go to an auction to buy a rare collection of sketches Victoria had loved. Toby had gone on a hunger strike for an entire week, demanding his father apologize to me. But William’s parents blamed me for “corrupting” the boy. They forcibly took Toby away to their estate and barred me from seeing him. I knelt outside their iron gates for three days and three nights in the rain. Finally, they relented, allowing me to visit Toby once a month, for no more than ten minutes at a time. Over those isolated years, Toby’s love for me faded, replaced by a carefully manufactured devotion to a woman he had never met. The anaphylactic reaction was peaking. My throat felt as though it were closing, and my consciousness began to slip away. Through the haze, a muffled, frantic voice echoed in my ears. “Isabel!” Before darkness took me, I saw a flash of sheer terror on William’s face. When I opened my eyes, the stark white ceiling of a hospital room came into focus. The room was empty, but the door was slightly ajar. From the hallway, familiar voices drifted in, their words sharp and clear. “If she wants a divorce, let her leave,” my mother-in-law said, her voice dripping with contempt. “It’s not like your marriage certificate is real anyway. She can’t touch a single penny of our estate.” My heart stopped. “She’s just throwing a tantrum to force your hand for a wedding,” she continued. “Delusional girl. A charity case from the slums thinks she deserves to carry our family name?” William’s father chimed in, patting his son on the shoulder. “I’ve seen her type a thousand times. She’s social climber. We tested her for eight years, and she still couldn’t control her greed. You should have thrown her out long ago.” William was silent for a long moment. “I know,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to worry about this. I’ll handle her.” It felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck my chest. The blood in my veins turned to ice. For eight years, I had worked myself to the bone for this family. I had believed that even if his parents despised me, William’s love for me was real. But it was all a lie. Our marriage wasn’t even legal. He had exploited my body, my heart, and my labor for nearly a decade, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. Rage, pure and hot, surged through me. I pulled the IV line from my hand, swung my legs out of bed, and threw the door open. “How could you do this to me?” I demanded, my voice trembling with a mixture of fury and betrayal. The three of them jumped, their faces turning pale and awkward. William’s eyes flickered with a brief flash of guilt before hardening into his usual mask of irritation. “Why are you out of bed? Were you eavesdropping? Is that how you behave now?” I let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Are you angry because I finally know the truth?” “Ten years, William. We knew each other for ten years. We lived together for eight. I never even asked you for a ring. How could you play with my life like this? What did I ever do to deserve this?” William frowned, his voice dropping into a cold, defensive tone. “You brought this on yourself. When we were supposed to get married, you made a scene. My parents were worried that if we registered the marriage immediately, you would become arrogant and tarnish our family’s reputation. It was a precaution.” His words dragged me back to my twenty-first birthday. William had promised me a beautiful birthday dinner. But when I arrived at the venue, the party had been transformed into a somber memorial service for Victoria. The balloons I had spent hours picking out were popped. The banner wishing me a happy birthday was shredded in the corner. My cake had been tossed into the trash. His parents had screamed at me: “You haven’t even married into this family and you’re already trying to assert dominance? Today is Victoria’s death anniversary! How dare you celebrate your birthday on this day?” “Kneel and apologize to Victoria, or you will never enter our doors!” I had never felt so humiliated. I broke up with William on the spot. But he pursued me relentlessly for six months, begging for forgiveness, promising he would protect me. Foolishly, I believed him. I agreed to a private ceremony, thinking he was standing by my side against his parents. Now I realized the chase hadn’t been about love. It had been about control. It was a punishment. “If you had just apologized to Victoria back then, none of this would have happened,” William said, looking down his nose at me. “You publicly embarrassed my parents. This was your consequence.” “But now that you know, we can put it behind us. Once you’re discharged, we will go and register the marriage properly.” Slap. My hand struck his cheek before he could finish the sentence. The sound echoed down the sterile hallway. “You disgust me,” I whispered. “I will never sign a single piece of paper with you. We are finished.” William’s expression darkened, his jaw tightening. “Are you serious? If you walk away, you will never get custody of Toby.” I looked him dead in the eye, my voice devoid of emotion. “A child who doesn’t love me? You can keep him.” Without another word, I turned and walked toward the exit. I took a cab back to the house to pack. Behind me, the sound of hurried footsteps followed. William had chased me all the way from the hospital. Ignoring him, I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. But as I reached the living room, I froze. A young woman was sitting gracefully on the sofa, sipping tea. When she saw me, she offered a sweet, practiced smile. “Hello,” she said softly. “I’m Victoria. William’s fiancée.” 3 William pushed past me, his eyes wide, his entire body trembling as he stared at the woman on the couch. “Victoria… is it really you?” Victoria’s eyes welled with tears. Before she could speak, Toby ran out from the kitchen, throwing his arms around her waist. “Yes, Dad! Victoria isn’t dead! She’s back!” Toby looked at me, his eyes flashing with triumph. “She’s even prettier than her pictures. No wonder you don’t love Mom. I wouldn’t either if I had Victoria.” My hands clenched into fists, the nails biting into my palms. My heart felt as though it were being slowly torn to pieces. Victoria looked up at me, her gaze lingering on my faded clothes. “And this is…?” William cleared his throat, his eyes darting away from mine. “Just… someone who helped take care of the house. To keep things running.” He paused, casting a quick glance at me to gauge my reaction. When I remained silent, he let out a subtle sigh of relief. Victoria let out a soft gasp of feigned realization. “Oh, I see. I honestly thought she was the housekeeper.” The words felt like physical blows. Victoria’s skin was flawless, her long dark hair falling like silk over her shoulders. She looked like a painting. I, on the other hand, was three years younger than her, but years of sleepless nights, endless chores, and emotional neglect had left my skin dull and my eyes hollow. Standing next to her, I looked like a servant. No wonder his family always said I couldn’t compare to a single hair on her head. Victoria looked at me with a flicker of smug satisfaction before turning back to William, her expression melting into delicate sorrow. “I’m so sorry, William. I didn’t mean to disrupt your life,” she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I just wanted to see you. After the traffickers took me all those years ago, I managed to escape, but the trauma caused me to lose my memory. I lived in a remote mountain village, completely lost. As soon as my memories returned, I ran to find you… I didn’t know you had moved on.” William’s face filled with a deep, consuming tenderness. He reached out, gently wiping her tears away. “It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “As long as you’re back, the place of the mistress of this house is yours. It always has been.” Victoria blinked in surprise. “But… what about her?” William hesitated, but before he could speak, I stepped forward. “We aren’t married,” I said, my voice steady. “He is single. You don’t need to worry about me.” William looked at me, stunned by my coldness. I ignored him, walked upstairs, and began packing my suitcase. Thirty minutes later, I dragged my bag down the stairs, only to find Victoria standing at the landing, blocking my path. The sweet, victimized look was gone, replaced by a cold, mocking sneer. “You’re smarter than I thought, knowing when you’ve lost,” she whispered. “But I still don’t like the fact that you lived in my house for eight years, sleeping in my bed. That belonged to me. I think you owe me some interest.” Before I could react, she reached over to the hallway table, grabbed a heavy crystal vase, and threw it onto the hardwood floor. It shattered into a hundred jagged pieces. Then, she fell to her knees, clutching her head, screaming in terror. “No! Please, don’t hurt me! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she wailed, shrinking into the corner. “Please don’t hit me! I’m scared!” Within seconds, a hand grabbed my shoulder and shoved me violently against the wall. William rushed past me, throwing his arms around Victoria. “Victoria! I’m here, I’m here. You’re safe.” Victoria sobbed hysterically, burying her face in his chest. “William, she… she hates me. She thinks I’m stealing you away. She knew about my trauma, she knew the sound of breaking glass triggers my memories of the traffickers… she threw the vase on purpose to torture me!” I straightened up, rubbing my bruised shoulder. “I didn’t touch it. Check the security cameras if you don’t believe me.” Crack. Before I could finish, William’s hand struck my face, sending me sprawling onto the floor. He lunged forward, his hands wrapping around my neck, his eyes wild with rage. “You monstrous woman! Victoria barely survived that hell, and you dare to torment her? Do you think I won’t kill you?” Toby ran over, kicking my leg with all his might. “Bad woman! You don’t deserve to be my mother! Go away and die!” Looking at the two of them—the father and the son I had loved with every fiber of my being—I felt the last shred of my pain dissolve into numbness. In eight years, they had never once defended me like this. I used to tell myself they were just emotionally detached, that it was their nature. But they weren’t cold. They were capable of fierce, protective love. They just didn’t love me. From the corner of the room, Victoria watched me, a tiny, triumphant smile playing on her lips. I took a deep, steady breath, looking directly into William’s furious eyes. “Go ahead then. Kill me,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “But if you do, you’ll never find out who Victoria really is.”

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After my dad’s ninety-ninth business venture went down in flames, he announced his next big plan: conquering the internet. He had been scrolling through social media, obsessed with the viral plastic Natasha doll trend, and insisted he was going to get head-to-toe plastic surgery to look exactly like her. I tried to warn him. “Viral fame is a flash in the pan, Dad. Plastic surgery is a permanent scar.” He chickened out and gave up. But his childhood buddy went through with it instead, became a massive internet sensation, and made so much money his entire family relocated to a tax haven in Europe. My dad, consumed by the belief that life-changing wealth had been stolen from him, spiraled into a bitter rage. One night, he slipped rat poison into my dinner. When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting at the dinner table on the exact day he first brought up the surgery. 1 “If a plastic Natasha doll can pull in millions in sales, the real-life version—me—is bound to make billions!” At the dinner table, my dad’s face was flushed red, slurring his words as he bragged to his friends. I lifted my head and looked at him. The realization hit me slowly: I had actually gone back in time. Back to the night he announced his plan to reconstruct his face into the likeness of that creepy viral doll. In my past life, after yet another failed business, my dad had invited his best friend over for drinks to drown his sorrows. During the dinner, his childhood buddy, Chuck, pulled out his phone and showed us a TikTok of the viral Natasha doll. “Greg, listen to me,” Chuck said, leaning in close. “Our last project—opening a drive-thru vape lounge by the highway—was just rushed. We didn’t do market research, that’s why we lost money.” “This time, I asked ChatGPT. As long as we lean hard into the Natasha meme and sell gourmet hot dogs on the boardwalk, we’ll make a killing!” Lean into it? Like cosplay? My jaw twitched. I felt entirely numb. But my dad was already clapping frantically, his eyes shining with manic excitement. “Yes! That’s brilliant! Chuck, you’re a genius!” “But buying those realistic masks and costumes is expensive, and anyone can copy us… What if I just get plastic surgery to look exactly like the doll?” “I mean, look at those women who get filler to look like Kim Kardashian just to bag a billionaire!” His buddies slammed their fists on the table, cheering and howling like they’d already hit the jackpot. But my chest tightened with panic. My dad was a high school dropout who had never held a real job but was completely obsessed with being a “CEO.” Pet speed-dating, construction-site crossfit, custom adult novelty urns, silent disco funeral services… whatever trended online, he fell for it. To fund his “startups,” he had already mortgaged two of our properties and drained every penny of our savings. The Natasha doll was a creepy, uncanny-valley novelty toy. Actually reconstructing a human face to look like that would be horrific. Plus, our family was completely broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. I begged my mother to stop him, but she just scoffed. “What do you know? A psychic in Vegas told me your father was destined for greatness, like a king. I’m just waiting to take my place as his queen.” My Nana chimed in from her rocking chair. “Kids shouldn’t meddle in grown-up business. After dinner, go search for the best plastic surgeons in the city.” Desperate, I had looked up dozens of graphic, botched-surgery photos to show him. I told him: “Viral fame is a flash in the pan, Dad. Plastic surgery is a permanent scar.” He was thoroughly disgusted by the videos. He hesitated, lost his nerve, and backed out. But Chuck didn’t. Chuck went ahead with the surgery, became a viral sensation overnight, and made so much money his family relocated to a tax haven abroad. My dad blamed me. He believed I had robbed him of his destiny. One night, he slipped rat poison into my pasta. “I was one step away from making it big, and you ruined my entire life!” he screamed as I lay dying on the floor. “I’m ruined, and you don’t deserve to live either!” After I died, my soul lingered. I watched my mother and Nana, and neither of them shed a single tear. Instead, they spat on my memory. “Good riddance,” my mother muttered. “If she hadn’t stopped my sweet husband from getting that surgery, I’d be living in a mansion by now!” “She was always a nosy little brat,” Nana grumbled. “I should have left her in a dumpster the day she was born.” Fine. You think I meddled too much? This time, I won’t stand in the way of your fortune. If my dad wants to turn himself into a plastic freak—hell, even if he wants a sex change—I will support him unconditionally. 2 I started to slide away from the table, but suddenly, every eye in the room locked onto me. Apparently, my dad had already polled everyone else. Now it was my turn. He held up a photo of the Natasha doll next to his face, grinning like an idiot. “Emily, you’re the college kid. You know how the internet works. Do you think I’d go viral if I looked like Natasha?” I forced a wide, supportive smile and gave him a big thumbs-up. “No one on the internet has actually gotten the surgery to look like Natasha yet, Dad. You’d be the absolute first. The views and followers would be insane.” “You’re my father. Of course I support you.” My dad lived for flattery, especially when he had a few beers in him. “Go find out which clinic has the best surgeons,” he ordered, his chest puffing out. “I want to book the consultation tomorrow!” He immediately Venmoed me $200. In my entire life, my dad had never given me a dime. Even when I was working part-time to pay off my student loans, he would hit me up for cigarette and beer money. He was dead serious about this. Once the party cleared out, I washed the dishes alone, not crawling into bed until 1:00 AM. Just as I started to drift off, my bedroom door slammed open. My heart jumped into my throat. My mother stood over my bed, her face twisted in a cold sneer. She snatched my phone off the nightstand. Venmo Notification: $200 received. She immediately transferred the money to her own account, then hard-pinched my arm, digging her nails into my skin. “Bitch! Why are you taking my husband’s money? Emily, are you trying to play his little side-chick?!” The sheer absurdity of her words nearly gave me a stroke. But I forced myself to stay calm and explain. “Mom, you know he only has eyes for you. That $200 is just for the clinic consultation fees.” Her gaze didn’t soften. She stared at me, eyes burning with paranoia. “I saw the way you were smiling and batting your eyes at him at dinner. Don’t lie to me.” “I’m warning you, Greg is my man, and my man only. Don’t you dare try to steal him.” I had to raise my hands and swear to God to keep her from losing her mind. My mother was a textbook codependent, deeply insecure woman. She lived by the twisted logic that daughters are their fathers’ “past-life lovers,” treating me like a romantic rival since I was a child. Actually, she treated every female on the planet as a threat. A few years ago, when one of my dad’s businesses briefly showed promise, a female client had a professional dinner with him. My mother tracked them down, burst into the restaurant, and beat the woman so badly she put her in the hospital. It cost us over twenty thousand dollars in legal fees, and the business went under. My mother didn’t care; she was just proud she had “defended her territory.” She smirked at my panicked explanations, clearly enjoying the toxic sense of superiority. Then, as if remembering something, she let out a dry chuckle. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. You won’t have the chance to tempt him much longer. Old man Roy next door asked about you. He’s offering a forty-thousand-dollar cash settlement, and he already gave me a ten-thousand-dollar deposit. We’re getting the papers signed this weekend.” My blood ran cold. “Mom! Roy is a violent sociopath!” She shrugged, completely unfazed. “He did time, sure, but he’s out now.” “He’s a real man—built like a tank. You can smell the testosterone on him from a mile away. You should be grateful a man like that wants you.” 3 Hearing the envy in her voice made me want to scream. Roy was a monster. He had beaten his first wife to death on their wedding night and served a ten-year sentence. Since his release, the police had been called to his house dozens of times. Everyone avoided him like the plague, yet my mother was practically throwing me into his cage. In my past life, I had fought my father on the surgery, which made my mother despise me even more. This time, because I had agreed with my father, her “threat radar” had gone off. If I married Roy, he would kill me. For a split second, I wanted to burn the whole house down with them inside. But it wasn’t time yet. I had to play along. I forced a sycophantic smile. “Mom, Roy might be a man, but he doesn’t compare to Dad. Nobody does.” “But plastic surgery is a massive procedure. There are so many shady clinics, and his face could literally rot if it’s done wrong. Do you or Nana know what a rhinoplasty or cheek implants entail? I’m younger, I can talk to the doctors and make sure they don’t screw up.” I looked at her perfectly manicured hands, which had never done a day of hard labor in her life. “Besides, after the surgery, he’ll need constant, intensive care during his recovery. If I’m married off, who’s going to look after him? You don’t want to be doing heavy lifting and cleaning up after him every day, do you?” At the mention of physical labor, my mother hesitated. “Fine. We can wait a bit. Your father’s face is the priority.” “But you make sure you grill those doctors. If anything happens to your dad, I’ll make your life a living hell.” I nodded eagerly, promising to treat him like royalty. Just as she opened her mouth to say more, a violent, retching sound echoed from the living room. My mother instantly forgot about me and scrambled out. “Oh, my sweet baby! I told you not to drink so much! Look at you, you’re hurting!” “Let mommy make you some hangover soup.” The baby talk made my stomach turn. But what followed was even worse. My dad slurred, “Silence, woman! Who do you think you’re talking to?” My mother giggled in a high-pitched, childish voice. “It’s your queen, my lord.” “Ah, my queen. Come here.” “Oh, stop it~ You’re so bad~” The neighbor started pounding violently on the shared wall, screaming at them to shut up. Meanwhile, my Nana opened her bedroom door just a crack, watching them with a proud, beaming smile. “That’s my boy. Still as virile as ever! God bless, hopefully we’ll get a grandson out of this!” I put on my headphones to drown out the noise, the urge to escape this madhouse burning like acid in my chest. I spent the rest of the night researching plastic surgery clinics. Finally, I found a listing and sent a photo of the Natasha doll to their inbox. I want a one-to-one replication. Price is not an issue. Recovery is not an issue. Just make him look exactly like this doll. 4 My mother’s toxic devotion to my father was entirely based on one thing: in his youth, he looked strikingly like a 90s Brad Pitt. If that face disappeared, would her devotion survive? Not a chance. When I was in middle school, my dad went to South America for six months to sell counterfeit sunscreen. During that time, I saw my mother bring different men home constantly. Back then, Nana didn’t have her pension yet, so she spent her evenings rummaging through neighborhood recycling bins for extra cash, which is why she never caught her. But eventually, my mother caught an STD. The physical symptoms were so obvious that Nana figured it out. Nana beat her raw in the living room until my mother wept and swore on her life she’d never stray again. If my dad’s face was ruined, my mother would run. And Nana would lose her mind. It would be an absolute bloodbath. The thought made me giddy. I requested a week of paid leave from my job first thing the next morning. I pretended to go to work but spent the day wandering around the mall. If they knew I had time off, they’d have me scrubbing floors at a local diner to bring home extra cash. To them, I wasn’t a daughter; I was a draft horse. I expected my dad to call me by 2:00 PM about the surgery. But by the time I had to go home, my phone hadn’t buzzed once. Had he changed his mind? Panicked, I hurried back, only to find an unexpected guest in the living room: Chuck. And next to him sat a slick-looking man in a designer suit and gold-rimmed glasses. I recognized him instantly. He was the chief surgeon and owner of Aesthetic Edge. During my late-night research, Aesthetic Edge had stood out because of its horrific track record. Botched surgeries, necrosis, and thousands of active lawsuits. The place was a notorious chop shop, and its reputation was completely shot. I looked at Chuck, then at the doctor. A classic kickback scheme. My dad looked up at me, holding a pen over a contract. “Emily, Chuck brought over this specialist. You’re the smart one—take a look at this paperwork for me?” My dad was clever in his own petty way. He wanted to shift the blame to me if things went south. But I wasn’t going to play his game this time. I gave a polite, apologetic shrug. “Honestly, Dad, cosmetic surgery isn’t really my area. Maybe you should call around and get a second opinion?” Chuck jumped in, visibly sweating. “Greg, come on! We’re closer than brothers. You think I’d screw you over?” The doctor gave me a slow, predatory look that made my skin crawl. Sensing danger, I excused myself to the kitchen to “start on dinner.” Through the door, I heard Chuck making grand promises. “Man, I’ve been with you through thick and thin. I’d never snake you. If I’m taking a kickback on this, may God strike my family dead!” He was a childless bachelor; he’d swear on anything. My dad still looked hesitant. But then my mother chimed in. “Honey, internet trends move fast. If we wait, the Natasha craze will be over.” That did it. My dad signed the contract. As the guests were leaving, I walked out of the kitchen with a plate of food. I caught my mother lingering by the door, tugging lightly at her bra strap while looking at the slick doctor. Her eyes were practically dripping with lust.

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My best friend posed as a clinic nurse during my husband Wyatt’s annual physical, stole his genetic material, and successfully impregnated herself. She did it all for one reason: the dying words of our family patriarch, Charles Stafford. On his deathbed, the multi-billionaire had declared that whichever woman bore his first great-grandson would inherit his entire ten-billion-dollar empire. But I had severe fertility issues. Three years of marriage, endless hormone injections, and failed IVF cycles had left my body bruised and my womb empty. Miranda, my closest friend, had spent those years comforting me, brewing holistic teas and praying over my belly. Then, she turned around, checked herself into the hospital suite directly adjacent to Charles’s hospice room, and gave birth to a baby boy right there. “Fiona, I did this for your own good,” she had told me, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “The Stafford legacy has been passed down through single sons for generations. I couldn’t let the line end with you.” “And besides, I’m a traditional woman. Wyatt took my innocence that night, so he needs to take responsibility.” “As for you… if you agree to walk away from this marriage with nothing, I might still let the baby call you Aunt Fiona.” Her face had been alive with triumph as she slapped the prenatal DNA test report directly onto my face. I stared at the paperwork scattered across the floor, my eyes catching the bold, undeniable print: The genetic markers confirm a biological father-son relationship between Wyatt Stafford and the male infant. Everyone in the room expected me to shatter. But as my eyes drifted to a small, easily overlooked line of text in the bottom corner of the report, a slow smile crept onto my face. … The DNA report fluttered to the ground, scattering across the polished marble floor. At Grandpa Charles’s funeral, the atmosphere was heavy with grief. Everyone wore stark, somber black, except for my former best friend, Miranda. She stood in the center of the room in a vibrant, blood-red designer dress, cradling a baby boy who was barely a few days old. Her smile stretched so wide it nearly reached her ears. She looked less like a mourner and more like a woman who had just won the lottery. “Once the pregnancy was confirmed, I moved straight into the Stafford estate to rest,” Miranda said, her voice carrying across the quiet room. “You shouldn’t blame Wyatt, Fiona. After all, the boy in my arms is the only male heir to the Stafford legacy. It’s only right that he claims his birthright.” The air grew deathly still. The mourning guests turned their heads, their eyes darting between us, waiting for my tears, my rage, my collapse. Instead, I looked at the tiny font in the bottom corner of the page and smiled. Suddenly, Miranda’s phone chimed. She picked it up, putting it on speaker. My mother-in-law, Beatrice, squealed with delight from the other end. “Miranda, darling! Is it true? The Stafford line is secured? I have a grandson?” Miranda cast a smug, lingering look in my direction. She spent several minutes cooing about how beautiful and perfect her son was before hanging up with an arrogant tilt of her chin. I looked at her, my voice entirely flat. “That child will never inherit a single dime of the Stafford estate.” Miranda let out a sharp, mocking laugh, clearly assuming I was just grasping at straws. “Fiona, have you let your jealousy drive you mad?” “The DNA test is right there. It proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Wyatt is Dylan’s biological father.” “According to the terms of the trust, Dylan is the sole legal heir. If you pack your bags and leave quietly now, I might still let him recognize you as his godmother.” An hour later, Beatrice burst through the doors of the memorial service, her coat half-falling off her shoulders in her rush. The moment she saw the infant’s face, she let out a breathless gasp. “He looks just like him. Oh, he looks exactly like Wyatt did as a baby.” Anxious that I might snap and harm the child, Beatrice quickly gestured for two security guards to stand between me and the baby. “This child is our crown jewel,” Beatrice declared, her eyes watering. “We must protect him at all costs.” She turned to Miranda, taking her hands with a warmth she had never once shown me. “Miranda, sweetie, you’re still recovering. Sit down, don’t strain yourself. I’ve already summoned the family estate lawyers. We are going to transfer the trust into your name immediately!” Then, she cast a cold, venomous look in my direction. “Unlike some people, who couldn’t even manage to produce a single egg in three whole years.” “If I were you, Fiona, I’d pack up my things and slip out the back door before we have you thrown out. Save yourself whatever dignity you have left.” But I didn’t move. My gaze remained fixed on the infant cradled in the nanny’s arms. “Don’t bother calling the lawyers,” I said softly. “Because she isn’t getting a dime.” Miranda looked me up and down, her expression turning into one of pitying disgust. “Fiona, accept reality. You’re barren because of your own bad karma. Back in college, you practically threw yourself at Wyatt. You walked around in those tight slip dresses—what kind of respectable woman dresses like that? It’s no wonder your body is broken.” “Only a decent, traditional woman like me is fit to carry the Stafford bloodline.” The guests whispered among themselves, their eyes lingering on my clothes, my face, my posture. This was a multi-billion-dollar empire at stake. The sheer scale of the inheritance made everyone in the room hungry for a piece of the drama. “This is a funeral. What is going on here?” My father-in-law, Richard Stafford, strode into the hall. The moment his eyes fell on Miranda, his stern face softened into a warm, patriarchal smile. “Miranda, you made it. The lawyers will be here shortly to finalize the trust transition.” He signaled to a server. “Bring over the bird’s nest tonic I had prepared for her. Drink up, dear.” “Yes, yes, you are the savior of our family,” Beatrice chimed in, hovering over her. “We need to build your strength back up. Once the paperwork is signed, we’re sending you to a private recovery villa in Aspen for six months.” Beatrice lovingly spooned the warm tonic, holding it up to Miranda’s lips. Watching the three of them play happy family was almost sickening. “Richard, Beatrice,” I spoke up, my voice cutting through their domestic bliss. “Lest you forget, Wyatt and I are still legally married. Aren’t you popping the champagne a bit early? What if she doesn’t qualify for the trust?” Miranda choked on her drink. She pushed Beatrice aside, clutching the baby tightly to her chest as she glared at me. “So what if you’re married? The Staffords would never keep a barren, loose woman in the family. Who knows what you’re doing when you stay out until ten tonight? You probably ruined your own body with your lifestyle.” “When my son grows up, I’ll make sure he never associates with women like you.” Beatrice helped Miranda sit down, sneering at me. “This baby is a Stafford, through and through. Look at those eyes. He’s the spitting image of Wyatt.” Miranda’s confidence flared up again. “Fiona, I get it. You’re bitter because I gave Wyatt a son. But lying to yourself like this? You’ve clearly lost your mind.” Every word out of her mouth was a calculated, baseless lie, but it was enough to catch the attention of the extended Stafford relatives standing nearby. “Did Wyatt really marry a woman like that? No wonder they couldn’t conceive.” “Thank God Miranda stepped up, or the Stafford name would have died out.” “But wait, why is Fiona so confident? Is there a chance the baby isn’t actually his?” Hearing the whispers, Miranda’s eyes welled with tears. She grabbed Beatrice’s arm, looking utterly helpless. “Mom, if anyone doubts me, they can look at his face. But if it makes everyone feel better, I’ll happily do another DNA test right now. I just want Wyatt’s family to have peace of mind.” She looked so fragile, as though she might faint from the sheer weight of the accusation. Beatrice’s face contorted with maternal fury, her voice rising to a screech. “I dare anyone to make my grandson go through that again! Look at his nose, his brow—he is Wyatt’s child! We don’t need any more tests. This child is a Stafford, and that is final!” I had loved Beatrice like my own mother. For three years, she was the one who held my hand after every negative pregnancy test, whispering that we would find a way. Now, her eyes held nothing but cold, transactional disgust. Richard had finally had enough. He gestured to the security guards. “Get her out of here. She has done nothing but upset a recovering mother since she walked in.” “Get your hands off her.” I took a deep breath, looking directly at my in-laws. “You really think Miranda’s son is going to inherit the estate? I’m telling you, even when the lawyers get here, she won’t get a single penny.” The room fell into a dead silence. Richard slammed his cane against the marble floor, his face flushed with rage. “Get her out! I don’t want to see this lunatic in my sight ever again!” The two guards stepped forward, grabbing my arms. I felt a surge of adrenaline, twisting my body and pulling away with a fierce, quiet intensity. “Don’t touch me. I’m pregnant.” Reaching into my designer bag, I pulled out a folded piece of paper and laid it flat on the table. There it was, in clear, clinical black and white: Gestation: 12 weeks. Richard and Beatrice exchanged a brief, stunned look before bursting into cold laughter. Miranda snatched the paper from the table, scanning it quickly before letting out a sharp giggle. “So what if you’re pregnant?” “You’re barely three months along. You don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl. How do you expect to compete with Dylan? My son is already here.” “Today, I am going to make sure you see exactly what is written in that trust.” Thirty minutes later, the family estate lawyer stepped out of a black sedan and walked into the hall. Every eye in the room was locked onto his leather briefcase. He unzipped the bag, pulled out the official trust documents, and read the crucial clause aloud to the gathered family. “In accordance with the late Charles Stafford’s final wishes, being of sound mind and body… the entirety of the Stafford trust shall be transferred directly to the biological mother of Wyatt Stafford’s firstborn son.” Miranda practically tore the document from the lawyer’s hands, shoving it in my face. “Did you hear that, Fiona? The mother of his firstborn son! Even if you somehow manage to carry a boy to term, he’ll be nothing but a shadow to my Dylan!” Beatrice and Richard glared at me as if I were a stain on their pristine floors. “I heard it. Loud and clear,” I said, my voice steady as I looked at the phrase mother of his firstborn son, and then shifted my gaze to Miranda’s pale face. “Let’s see how long you keep that smile when you realize you don’t qualify.” Beatrice wrapped a protective arm around Miranda, while Richard’s finger practically poked my nose. “You are a bitter, spiteful woman. You can’t have your own, so you try to curse Miranda’s child?” “Do you want our family line to end with you? This is a binding legal trust, Fiona! Not a game!” Wyatt’s older sister, Evelyn, stepped forward, her voice dripping with artificial sweet sympathy. “Fiona, we ignored your little side-adventures while Wyatt was away, but this is a family matter. You can’t just throw tantrums. No matter how jealous you are of Miranda, this behavior is beneath you.” With a few sentences, they had painted me as a loose, envious wife who was desperate to cling to power. The murmurs from the relatives grew louder. “I knew it. She probably knows Wyatt’s heart isn’t with her anymore.” “The Staffords treated her like royalty, and this is how she repays them?” “She should just sign the divorce papers and spare herself the embarrassment.” My hands clenched into tight fists, my knuckles turning white. I took out my phone and dialed the family’s private physician. “Dr. Fletcher, I need you to bring your diagnostic equipment to the Stafford memorial hall immediately. Run a full physical panel on Miranda’s baby.” Before I could finish, Richard swung his hand, knocking the phone out of my grip. It clattered against the marble, the screen shattering instantly. “What diagnostic panel? My grandson is perfectly healthy!” Richard roared. “How can you be so malicious? Wishing illness on a newborn baby!” My hand throbbed where his cane had brushed my wrist, but I kept my voice perfectly calm. “Once Dr. Fletcher runs the panel, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.” Richard’s face was dark with fury. “Fine! Let’s let Dr. Fletcher do his job. But I swear to God, Fiona, if that baby is healthy, you are finished.” Thirty minutes later, Dr. Fletcher arrived, flanked by two medical assistants carrying portable diagnostic cases. I pointed directly at the infant in Miranda’s arms. “A complete, head-to-toe clinical evaluation. Don’t miss a single detail.” Beatrice anxiously grabbed the doctor’s sleeve. “Dr. Fletcher, there’s nothing wrong with his heart or lungs, is there?” Dr. Fletcher didn’t answer immediately. He took the baby gently from the nanny, placing him on the portable sterile table as his assistants set up the monitors. The room was so quiet you could hear the hum of the medical equipment. Finally, Dr. Fletcher removed his stethoscope. “His cardiovascular and respiratory functions are perfectly normal. There are no signs of distress.” Miranda let out a long, theatrical sigh of relief. “I knew it,” she gloated, looking around the room. “During my pregnancy, I followed an elite holistic regimen. I drank organic paternal alkalizing enzymes every single day to ensure his health. Richard even helped by maintaining a strict alkaline hydration diet for his own biological output. We spared no expense for this child.” Beatrice clutched her chest, letting out a massive sigh of relief. Richard turned on me, his hand swinging fast and hard. Slap! The force of the blow sent a ringing sound echoing through my ears. “Fiona! I have tolerated your presence out of respect for your three years in this family, but you have pushed me too far!” Richard spat. “My grandson is healthy. If you dare utter another curse against him, the Stafford family will ruin you.” He threw a set of divorce papers onto the table. “Sign them. And get out.” My cheek burned with a sharp, throbbing pain, but the coldness in my chest was far worse. “I won’t sign,” I said, holding his gaze. “Not until we run another DNA test.” Beatrice lost her temper completely. “You lunatic! The baby has Wyatt’s eyes, Wyatt’s nose—do you think I don’t know what my own son looked like?” Miranda’s eyes flashed with venom. She lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders with a iron grip. “You think I faked the DNA test? You think everyone is as manipulative as you are?” she hissed. “Fine. If you want to play this game, let’s play.” She turned to Dr. Fletcher, her voice trembling with rage. “Run the test. Right now!” Then, she leaned in close, whispering in my ear like a demon. “But when the results come back and confirm Dylan is Wyatt’s son… you will abort that mistake in your belly, sign the papers, and disappear from this city forever.” None of the Staffords raised a single objection. The physical pain on my face was nothing compared to the deep ache in my chest. I looked at these people, realizing that if I backed down now, Wyatt would return to find his life completely stolen, bound to a child who couldn’t even inherit the legacy they were fighting for. Before I could say another word, Evelyn grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the adjoining private medical room. “Let’s go. I want to see your face when the truth comes out.” Dr. Fletcher, sensing the volatile atmosphere, quietly gathered the samples. A security guard rushed to Wyatt’s private quarters to retrieve his toothbrush for the paternal swab. The wait was agonizingly quiet. The Stafford elders sat in a row, staring at me as if I were a criminal awaiting sentencing. Wyatt’s aunt leaned forward, a cruel smirk on her lips. “I hope you have your bags packed, dear.” Finally, the diagnostic machine let out a sharp, cold beep. The printer began to hum, spitting out pages of data. Dr. Fletcher picked up the primary report. At the very top, the text read: Paternal match confirmed: 99.9% probability of relationship between Dylan Stafford and Wyatt Stafford. Beatrice snatched the paper from his hands before he could even speak. Seeing the results, she let out a loud, triumphant laugh. “Look at this! This is my grandson! The true heir!” She paraded the document around the room, showing it to every relative. Richard beamed, cradling the infant and rocking him back and forth. Evelyn grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward the door. “The car is waiting. We’re going to the clinic to get rid of that baby of yours right now.” “Let go of me!” I struggled, twisting my wrists to break her grip. This was the baby I had prayed for over three long years. I wasn’t going to let them touch him. “You insulted the savior of our family,” Evelyn sneered, her grip tightening. “An abortion is the least you can do to apologize.” I lunged forward, biting down hard on Evelyn’s arm. She shrieked, releasing her hold. “His child isn’t what you think!” I screamed, turning toward Dr. Fletcher. “Look at the bottom of the page, Dr. Fletcher! The additional findings!” “Keep quiet!” Miranda yelled from behind me, shoving me hard. My head clipped the edge of the car door frame, and my vision blurred. But I ignored the pain, keeping my eyes fixed on Dr. Fletcher. He was my only hope. Dr. Fletcher looked at me, seeing the absolute desperation in my eyes. Slowly, he reached down and picked up the discarded pages of the medical report. As his eyes scanned the text at the bottom of the sheet, his breath caught. “Wait! Stop!” he yelled, his voice cracking with panic. “Don’t touch her!” He ran toward the car, banging on the window. “We cannot abort this pregnancy! This baby is our only hope!” “Nobody leaves!” The driver put the car in park. Richard walked over, his brow furrowed in annoyance. “Dr. Fletcher, you ran the test yourself. What could possibly be the issue?” “Dylan is the sole heir to the Stafford legacy!” Dr. Fletcher swallowed hard, his face completely pale as he handed the report to Richard. “I think you should read this before making any decisions, sir.” Richard snatched the paper with a scoff. “Let’s see what ridiculous excuse she’s come up with now.” But the moment his eyes hit the bottom of the page, his expression froze.

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“A hundred million dollars or your dad’s smile—which would you choose?” It was after school at the preschool. A local reporter was standing near the gate, interviewing the kids. I chose the hundred million dollars. My twin brother, Mason, chose Dad’s smile. Dad, who had just stepped out of the car, overheard my answer. He flew into a rage, stormed over, and slapped me hard across the face. “You’re both my flesh and blood, but your brother actually cares about me. Where is your heart, Toby? Did you leave it in the gutter?” “If I’d known you’d turn out to be such an ungrateful, money-hungry brat, I would have never had you!” I stood there, clutching my burning, swollen cheek, tears streaming down my face as I tried to explain. “Dad is always sick and taking medicine. I wanted the money so I could cure you.” But Dad was convinced I was just making excuses. As we drove past a massive billboard—a wealthy family offering a million-dollar reward for their missing child—he slammed on the brakes, dragged me out of the passenger seat, and pointed at the address. “You love money so much? Go find those rich people. See if they’ll take you in. Don’t you dare come back home!” Mom tried to plead with him, telling him not to let his anger get the better of him, but he just sneered. “I’m teaching him a lesson. If he cares about me as his father, he’ll run after the car.” I scrambled up from the gravel, but before I could take a step, a hand clamped tightly over my mouth. A strange woman had appeared from the shadows. Muttering words like “fresh cargo” and “easy payday,” she shoved me into the dark trunk of her sedan. Through the crack before the heavy lid slammed shut, I watched Dad take Mason’s hand and walk away. The trunk was pitch-black and stifling hot. The air grew thick, and soon, my lungs couldn’t draw in enough breath. Then, slowly, my body felt weightless, floating up and away from the metal cage. Dad, I’m sorry. I was wrong. But the car kept driving, further and further, to a place from which I could never return. … The car jolted down the highway, my small, lifeless body curled up in the back. But my spirit remained, watching. I remembered how my hands had trembled as I clutched my toy smartwatch, desperately typing out messages to Dad. Dad, Mrs. Kelly said money can buy anything in the world. I wanted the hundred million to buy your health back. I’m sorry, Dad. It’s so dark here. I’m so scared. But the little loading wheel just spun and spun. No signal. Instead, the rustling caught the attention of the woman in the back seat. She popped the trunk, ripped the watch off my wrist, and tied it to the collar of a stray dog barking near the curb. Then she threw a heavy canvas sack over me, growling at me to shut up. The trunk slammed shut again. Darkness. No light, no breeze, just suffocating heat. My chest tightened, my breaths growing shallower and weaker until they stopped altogether. When I opened my eyes again, I was weightless. I didn’t feel the heat or the pain anymore. My first thought was to find my parents. I drifted back toward the school and found their sedan parked three blocks away. He did forgive me! He’s waiting for me! Warmth flooded through me. I floated toward the window, ready to lean into his arms, but then I saw Dad hurl his phone into Mom’s lap. “Look at this! His watch tracker is moving further and further away into the wealthy suburbs, and here we are, sitting like idiots waiting for him. He’s probably glad to be rid of us!” Panic seized me. No, Dad! I didn’t leave! The bad lady threw my watch on a dog! But my voice was nothing but a sigh of wind against the glass. Mom frowned, her fingers tapping anxiously against the steering wheel. “Let’s give him a little more time. Toby is usually so good. Maybe he just got distracted playing.” Dad sneered as he gently peeled a grape for Mason. “We’ve been sitting here for forty-seven minutes. Mason’s stomach has growled three times. I’ll give him thirty more seconds. If he isn’t here by then, I don’t have a son.” He set a timer on his phone. The numbers ticked down mercilessly to zero. The rearview mirror remained empty. Furious, Dad buckled Mason’s seatbelt. “We’re going home! I see him clearly now. Barely five years old and already obsessed with money. A heartless, ungrateful child.” Even Mom, who had been defending me, looked defeated. “We’ve only been struggling with your medical bills for the last couple of years. We never let him go hungry. I can’t believe he’d turn his back on us…” Dad slammed his foot on the gas. I flew alongside the window, screaming my explanations, following them all the way to our driveway. As the sky bruised into twilight, my panic spiked. Night was falling, and Dad’s pain was about to start. The moment we crossed the threshold, Dad locked himself in his room. Through the door, I could see his neck erupting in angry red hives. He clawed at his skin, his voice cracking with tears. “If it weren’t for those two boys, I wouldn’t have contracted this miserable skin condition. It claws at me every night. I can’t sleep, I’m constantly running to the clinic, it ruined my career, and now it’s dragging this whole family down.” Mom let out a long, heavy sigh. “Honey, please hold on. Once my quarterly bonus comes in, I’ll take you to the specialist hospital downtown for the treatment.” Mason crept to the door and slid a crayon drawing under the crack. “Don’t cry, Daddy. Look, I drew a family portrait. In my heart and Toby’s heart, you’re the best-looking dad ever.” Dad glanced at it, then coldly tore my figure out of the drawing. “Don’t mention that ungrateful boy in this house!” “I suffer in silence every single day. He is the reason I got sick in the first place, and yet he’s the one who turns up his nose at our empty pockets? If he doesn’t want to come back, then he can stay gone forever!” I waved my arms frantically. Dad, I’m right here! I’m staying right here beside you! But Dad was too far gone. He threw open the door, determined to purge every trace of me from the apartment. Mom tried to hold him back. “Stop it, Daniel! He’ll be devastated when he comes back and sees this.” Blind with rage, Dad wouldn’t listen. He stormed into my tiny bedroom, grabbing my clothes and backpack, hurling them onto the floor. As the backpack hit the linoleum, a small notebook slipped out. In it, in my clumsy, childish handwriting, was a list: Bubble machine: $2.00 Action figure: $5.00 Backpack keychain: $1.00 The silver bracelet from Dad: $57.00 Dad’s lips turned pale, his fingers trembling as he picked it up. “I knew those toys were disappearing for a reason! Toby sold them behind our backs! The toys are one thing, but that bracelet was his birthday present! He threw away my gift for cash. What a beautiful son we raised!” He spat the words out like venom. I hung my head, my ghostly fingers touching my bare wrist. I loved those toys, Dad. And I loved that bracelet more than anything. But I needed the money to ask my teacher to order that special soothing cream for you. The one that would let you sleep peacefully at night. Mom picked up the notebook, her eyes clouding with confusion. “Why would a five-year-old need all this cash?” Dad let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “Why else? He never spent it here, so he must have hoarded it. You didn’t see the greedy look on his face during that interview when he chose the hundred million without a second thought. For all we know, he’s probably cozying up to some wealthy folks right now.” With that, Dad scooped up the last remnants of my presence and shoved them into the trash bin, retreating back into his room. Looking at the chaotic living room, a cold ache bloomed in my chest. Dad, you really got it all wrong. No one slept that night. The silence in the apartment was heavy, suffocating. Dad lay in bed, endlessly scrolling through his phone. I floated beside him and froze when I saw the picture on his screen. It was the rusty silver sedan the strange woman drove. The headline read: Police dismantle child abduction ring near local preschools; body of young boy discovered in vehicle trunk… I pointed at the screen, a childish spark of hope lighting up my spectral heart. Mom, that’s me! I’m in that car! Please come and bring me home. In the other room, Mom suddenly sat up. The rustle of her throwing on her coat woke Dad. “Where are you going at this hour?” “I’m going to find Toby,” she said, her voice tight with a sudden, clawing panic. “The news says kidnappers have been operating around the school. He’s only five, Daniel. What if something happened to him?” Dad didn’t even look up from his phone. “Stay right where you are. Even a dog wouldn’t run away because its owner is poor. A greedy brat like him isn’t worth the effort.” “He’s our son, Daniel!” Mom’s voice cracked. “How can we leave him out there in the dark?” Her words reignited the embers of his rage. Dad shoved his screen in her face, pointing at the tracking app. “Open your eyes and look! Your precious son is sitting in the middle of the wealthiest zip code in the city, living the high life. He doesn’t need your pity!” Mom took the phone, her hand shaking as she stared at the glowing blue dot. The tracker pinned the watch in a lush, gated community. The app’s status indicator, synced to my “daily mood” feature, read Elated. Mom’s face crumbled. The panic in her eyes gave way to a cold, crushing disappointment, mixed with a deep, aching guilt. “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I couldn’t give him the life he wanted.” I sobbed, trying to grab her hands. No! The watch is on a dog! Toby isn’t there! But they were deaf to my cries. Dispirited, Mom walked over to the balcony and sat staring into the dark until the first gray light of dawn broke over the horizon. “Go to sleep,” she said quietly to Dad. “I’ll take you for your checkup tomorrow. Once we get your health sorted out, we’ll go bring Toby back.” The next morning, Grandpa Sam came over to help watch us. Finding only Mason in the living room, he frowned. “Where’s Toby? Why is Mason playing by himself?” Dad kept his eyes on his coffee, while Mom stammered out a hasty lie. “He… he’s spending the weekend at a friend’s house.” Mason opened his mouth to say something, but Dad shot him a warning look that silenced him. I missed Grandpa so much. I threw my arms around his waist, but my body passed through him like a cool breeze. Grandpa sighed, pulling two crumpled tickets to the local amusement park from his pocket. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to take both my boys out today. I guess this old man will just have to make two trips.” I stared longingly at the bright yellow tickets. Ever since Dad got sick, Mason and I would watch the other kids go to the carnival while we stayed behind. We used to whisper to each other under the blankets: Let’s wish for Dad to get better. Once he’s cured, we’ll all go together. I didn’t realize Grandpa had overheard our little secret. He had saved up to make our wish come true. But I would never get to sit on the carousel horses with Mason now. I trailed after them all day, watching the bright smiles on their faces. It wasn’t until the park gates closed at nine that Mason finally let Grandpa lead him home. On their walk back, they passed the local police precinct. Under the dim streetlights, Mason’s eyes caught a sliver of faded red fabric poking out from the trunk of a silver sedan parked in the impound lot. His eyes lit up. He tugged hard on Grandpa’s sleeve. “Grandpa, look! That’s Toby’s shirt!” It was dark outside the station. Grandpa glanced at the car briefly, but quickly scooped Mason into his arms, hurrying past. “Don’t talk nonsense, buddy,” he murmured, patting his back. “Your brother is having fun at his classmate’s house. There are too many strange cars out tonight. Let’s get you home.” Sunday evening, Mom and Dad returned from the clinic. Before Grandpa left, he slipped the remaining amusement park ticket into Dad’s palm. “The doctor will find a cure, Daniel. When things settle down, take some time to be with the boys. Especially Toby. That kid worries about you so much. He kept asking me how much money he could get for recycling plastic bottles, saying he wanted to help pay for your treatments.” A flicker of emotion crossed Dad’s face, but he quickly masked it with cold indifference. “Well, I haven’t seen a single cent. He’s always been good with sweet talk.” Grandpa froze, blinking as if he had misheard. Dad quickly ushered Grandpa out the door. Inside, Mom was staring at the fresh stack of medical bills, her shoulders slumped in despair. She pinched Mason’s cheek, her voice filled with quiet apology. “Mason, sweetie… I know I promised we’d go to the beach for your birthday next week, but we might have to push it back a bit.” Mason shook his head, offering a bright smile. “It’s okay, Mom. Toby and I already got Dad a present anyway.” Mason unzipped his backpack and pulled out a cherry lollipop, holding it out to Dad with both hands. “This is from me. If you eat something sweet, Daddy, your heart will feel sweet too, and you’ll smile more.” Dad managed a soft smile, ruffling Mason’s hair. “Thank you, buddy. I love it. But as for your brother… let’s not make any more excuses for him.” Mason opened his mouth to protest, but Dad waved him off dismissively. “Go on, it’s past your bedtime. School starts early tomorrow. And let’s not talk about him anymore.” The next morning, Dad dropped Mason off at preschool. As he turned to leave, Mason’s teacher, Mrs. Kelly, called out to him. “Excuse me, Daniel. I have something for you. I was supposed to give it to you on Friday, but things got so hectic with the class that it slipped my mind.” She reached into her bag and placed a small, premium tube of imported medicated cream into his hand. Dad stared at it, bewildered. “Mrs. Kelly, what is this?” She smiled warmly. “Toby asked me to import this for him using his allowance. He talked about it every day, saying his daddy was in pain and he wanted to make him better. You’re incredibly lucky to have such a thoughtful little boy, Daniel.” Dad’s eyes scanned the price tag on the packaging. He gasped, his voice cracking. “One hundred and twenty dollars? Where on earth did he get this kind of money?” Mrs. Kelly reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small notebook—identical to the one Dad had thrown in the trash. “He sold his favorite toys to his classmates. He also helped us tidy up the classroom after school, and we’d give him a few dollars here and there as a reward. Please don’t feel bad about accepting it, Daniel. This cream was bought with his hard work, driven entirely by his love for you…” Mrs. Kelly’s voice faded into a dull hum in Dad’s ears. He flipped through the little pages of the notebook. Sweeping the floor. Arranging the cots. Selling my toy robot… Every cent had been accounted for. His hands shook so violently he could barely hold the paper. He stumbled out of the school lobby, frantically dialing Mom’s number. “We’re going to get Toby,” he choked out, tears finally spilling over. “Right now.” Their sedan tore through the streets, following the GPS tracker deep into the affluent suburbs. Dad slammed the brakes in front of a sprawling brick estate. His eyes were glued to the blue dot on his screen. “This is it!” He bolted out of the car, pounding on the heavy oak door. “Toby! It’s Dad! I’m sorry, Toby! I’ve come to take you home!” The door swung open to reveal a young couple looking thoroughly confused. In the woman’s arms was a scruffy, rescued stray dog. “Can we help you?” she asked. Dad’s eyes dropped to the dog’s front paw, where a familiar blue smartwatch was loosely strapped. His face went entirely bloodless. “My… my son’s watch… why is it on your dog?” Before either of them could speak, Mom’s phone rang in her pocket. She answered it, her face freezing into a mask of pure terror. “Hello? Yes, this is the Medical Examiner’s Office. Are we speaking with the parents of Toby Vance? We apprehended a trafficking ring over the weekend, and… we have recovered the body of a young boy who fits your son’s description. We need you to come down immediately to identify him…”

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Just because a dish went out one minute late, the owner’s daughter accused me of slacking off. “Twenty-two minutes for the roasted short ribs? With this kind of efficiency, are you sleeping in the kitchen?” “The commissary kitchen down the street does it in five minutes, at half the cost.” Right then and there, the owner made the call. He was putting her in my spot. I turned off the burner, wiped my hands, and said absolutely nothing. She didn’t get it. She wasn’t improving kitchen efficiency; she was just accelerating the restaurant’s funeral. 1 The lunch rush had just wound down when a small army marched into the kitchen. Leading the pack was Evelyn, the owner’s daughter. An Ivy League grad, her vocabulary consisted entirely of corporate buzzwords like “standardization,” “supply chain optimization,” and “SOPs.” Ever since she’d climbed aboard, she spent her days trailing an entourage of suits through my kitchen, finding non-existent flaws under the guise of “surprise audits.” “Nina, I timed it,” Evelyn said, checking her diamond-encrusted wristwatch with an affected, sweeping gesture. Her tone carried a sharp, mocking edge. “Your red-wine roasted short ribs took twenty-two minutes today. That’s a full minute slower than your average. What makes you think our guests have that kind of patience?” She leaned against the stainless-steel prep table, her arms crossed. “With this kind of efficiency, are you sleeping in the kitchen?” The air in the kitchen instantly turned brittle. My hand froze on the gas knob of the range. Behind me, Cody, my apprentice, quietly set his spatula down. Every eye in the room locked onto me. Evelyn continued, tapping on her iPad to display a sleek, brightly colored infographic. “I’ve done the research. All the major restaurant groups are moving to commissary kitchens. Their proteins are pre-cooked, vacuum-sealed, and shipped directly to the location. All the kitchen has to do is reheat them. Five minutes, and it’s on the table.” Frank, her father and the owner of The Brass Lantern, squinted at the screen, his eyes gleaming with immediate interest. I finally spoke up. “Frank, this dish is all about the reduction. If you rush it, you ruin the soul of the dish.” Cody jumped in to defend me, his face flushed. “The beef we got this morning had too much silver skin. It took extra prep. You won’t find a faster chef in all of Bay Harbor than Nina.” Anyone who actually cooks knows that braising short ribs is a delicate dance of heat and timing. One minute too long and the fat renders into mush; one minute too short and the meat stays tough as leather. Trimming the silver skin, searing the edges, simmering the mirepoix, and slowly reducing the Cabernet glaze—it took fourteen years of muscle memory and precise knife work for me to condense that elaborate choreography into twenty-two minutes. And she was standing there telling me she could do it in five. “That’s because you aren’t utilizing modern technology,” Evelyn said, her expression dripping with the smug condescension of youth. “Every major culinary hub is adopting commissary kitchens. If The Brass Lantern doesn’t adapt, we’ll be left in the dust.” The floor manager immediately chimed in, eager to please. “She’s right about the speed. Just yesterday, the wait times were so long that a couple of customers lost their tempers. They had the servers in tears.” The chief financial officer nodded in agreement. “Evelyn has a sharp head for business. Based on the budget projections she shared with me, this could slash our kitchen labor costs in half.” I opened my mouth to counter, but Frank cut me off with a low, dry cough. “Nina, maybe it’s time we started listening to the younger generation.” With that single sentence, the writing on the wall was clear. “Understood, Frank,” I said. My voice sounded flat, hollow—almost unrecognizable to my own ears. Frank patted my shoulder, offering a patronizing smile. “You’ve worked hard all these years, Nina. Take a breath. Let Evelyn handle the staffing, the inventory, the logistics. You just focus on the line. Starting tomorrow, we’re implementing her system on the first-floor dining hall. I’ll need you to cooperate.” With a few casual words, I’d been stripped of my title. I was no longer the head chef. I was just a line cook. Outside, the afternoon sun cut across the prep station, glinting off the stainless-steel counters. The glare was so sharp it made my eyes water. Fourteen years. I’d started in this kitchen as a prep cook, scrubbing sheet pans and working my way up to executive chef. I’d watched this place grow from a cramped, drafty storefront into the most respected restaurant in the city. I remembered the night we hit our first major milestone, how Frank had looked me in the eye, his voice thick with emotion, and said, “Nina, I’m putting the heart of The Brass Lantern in your hands.” Now, he was telling me to fall in line. Once the entourage cleared out, Cody edged closer, keeping his voice low. “Chef, they’re trying to squeeze you out. You see that, right?” I didn’t answer. I stepped up to my cutting board. My knife flashed, slicing a bundle of fresh scallions into perfectly equal sections. My hands moved with a fluid, silent grace—trimming, sorting, preparing. This speed, this absolute precision—I had spent fourteen years of blood, sweat, and burns refining it. And now, some girl with a degree and an iPad was telling me my life’s work was obsolete. It was almost funny. I tossed the scallions into the hot pan. Sizzzzzle. A plume of fragrant, aromatic steam billowed up, filling the kitchen with the rich, deep scent of toasted alliums. That steam, that life—no commissary kitchen on earth could ever replicate it from a plastic bag. 2 Evelyn moved fast. By the next morning, my main prep station had been cleared out to make room for two massive commercial combi-ovens. She paced around them, admiring the stainless-steel towers before snapping her fingers with a triumphant grin. “Chef Nina, the kitchen’s a bit tight with the new gear. Mind stepping back a bit?” “Oh, and since the main dining room is moving to high-turnover seating, we’ll keep the second-floor private dining rooms as a slower service. They only book a few tables a night anyway—much lighter workload. Since you’re the fastest chef in Bay Harbor, I’m sure you can handle that section all by yourself.” With those marching orders, the line cooks who used to take my direction turned and followed her downstairs. Only Cody remained behind. He checked the tablet. “Chef, we’ve got four private dining rooms booked tonight. Parties of ten or more.” I tied my apron, my jaw set. “Let’s cook.” Evelyn was trying to break me. She was waiting for me to beg for help, to admit her automated, pre-packaged system was superior, or to get so overwhelmed that I’d abandon my standards just to survive the night. But I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. By the third day, half of our traditional ranges had been uninstalled. In their place were cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling, filled with vacuum-sealed plastic bags. Downstairs, the dining hall was packed, but the crowd was different now. Dozens of twenty-something food influencers sat under portable ring lights, lapel mics clipped to their collars, repeating identical, hollow compliments to their cameras. Cody told me Evelyn was paying them over a thousand dollars a video, not including their free drinks and high-end plates. Cody wiped down our remaining three burners, casting a nervous glance at the towers of boxes. “Chef, are we still prepping fresh ingredients?” “Yes.” “How much?” “Same as always.” Cody nodded and headed to the cold room. I stood before the blue flame of my range, letting the dry, intense heat wash over my face. The real battle was just beginning. On the fourth day, Evelyn fired four of our veteran line cooks and replaced them with four new hires. They were all in their early twenties, wearing custom white chef coats emblazoned with a loud, redesigned restaurant logo. They wore makeup, smelled of expensive cologne, and stood in a rigid, perfect line as Evelyn gave them her morning pep talk. “Remember, no plate takes more than six minutes,” she lectured, pacing like a corporate drill sergeant. “The portions are pre-packaged and color-coded. No seasoning, no sautéing, no pan-flipping. You load the tray, slide it into the combi-oven, and press the start button. Memorial Day weekend starts tomorrow, and the city will be packed. I need speed.” During their trial run, one of the new kids dumped a bag of pre-cooked short ribs onto a metal tray. He didn’t even bother peeling the plastic film entirely off before shoving it into the combi-oven and slamming the door. Four minutes later, the oven chimed. Ding. A plate of steaming, glistening roasted short ribs was ready. I watched him slide it onto a plate. A sudden wave of memory hit me—my first year of culinary school, spending three straight months doing nothing but dicing potatoes. If they weren’t translucent and perfectly uniform, I wasn’t allowed near a burner. Now, a career was defined by pressing a digital button. I let out a slow, quiet breath and walked back to my corner to prep. Friday morning of the holiday weekend arrived, and Evelyn launched her new system with absolute confidence. By eleven, the doors opened, and the dining room filled instantly. Evelyn stood by the host stand, hands in her pockets, watching her well-oiled machine run. The kitchen staff downstairs worked like high-speed factory workers. Within an hour, they had turned the tables twice. The dining room was buzzing with superficial praise. “The food is so fast here! We’ll actually make our afternoon movie on time,” one diner gushed. “Saw this place on TikTok,” another whispered, pointing to their screen. “Give us whatever this influencer ordered.” Evelyn whipped out her phone, snapped a photo of the packed dining room, and fired it off to the staff group chat. First battle won! Thanks for the hard work, team. Average ticket time is under twenty minutes—which, if you remember, used to be the time it took our former head chef to make just one dish. The chat flooded with thumbs-up emojis. Evelyn is a genius! one of the new cooks texted. So much faster, and the plating looks cleaner than what the old-school chefs do. Seriously, my station was a breeze this morning, another added. Cody stared at his screen, his jaw tight with worry. “Chef, they’re basically spitting in your face in the group chat. Aren’t you even a little angry?” I ran my knife cleanly down the belly of a fresh red snapper. “Why would I be angry?” “Because they’re going to fire us!” he burst out. I spooned a delicate glaze over the fish. “We are going to leave, Cody. But on our own terms.” His eyes went wide. I knew exactly what Frank was doing. Evelyn was young and reckless, but Frank wasn’t stupid. He wanted her cheap, high-margin model to work, but he was too cowardly to take the heat if it failed. So he hid in the shadows, letting her do the dirty work. He knew my reputation kept the regulars coming, but if her plastic-bag empire succeeded, he’d happily hand me a severance check and point me to the door. I patted Cody on the shoulder. “Remember when you asked me if I ever thought about opening my own place?” Cody stared at me for a beat. Then, a slow, knowing grin spread across his face. 3 By the third day of the commissary rollout, the first-floor revenue had doubled. Evelyn handed out cash bonuses to the new staff. Up on the second floor, however, the atmosphere was thick with resentment. The servers who used to trail behind me, calling me “Chef” with reverence, had suddenly found their claws. “Nina, the party in Room Three has been waiting thirty minutes. Can you pick up the pace?” “Is the pork belly still not ready? The kid downstairs already pushed out five tables.” “The guests canceled their remaining order. Evelyn said the food waste is coming directly out of your paycheck.” Cody snapped back at one of them and was slapped with a written warning by the end of the shift. Reason: Failure to cooperate with team members. I pulled out my phone and sent him two hundred dollars. “Patience, Cody. Soon enough, she’ll be begging us for help.” During Monday’s staff meeting, Evelyn projected a glossy slide deck onto the screen. “First-floor revenue is up fifteen percent year-over-year. Production efficiency has increased by two hundred percent, and customer satisfaction is holding steady at ninety percent.” I stared at that “fifteen percent growth” and felt a grim smile tug at the corner of my lips. The spike was artificially inflated by a promotion she was running—a free appetizer for every table, coded as a “marketing expense.” But that ninety percent satisfaction rate? It had an expiration date. “The new system is incredible,” the lead dishwasher piped up, clapping enthusiastically. “No grease, no heavy scrub pans. Cleanup takes half the time.” “And because the food is instant, guests leave Yelp reviews before they even pay. Our rating went up to 4.8,” a server added. “Technology is the future of dining. It’s about time we caught up.” Evelyn soaked up the praise, basking in it. She strolled over to where I sat, tapping her manicured nails on the table. “Chef Nina, you always talk about technique, soul, and experience. But what does any of that actually buy us?” she asked. “We live in a fast-paced world. Nobody wants to wait. Efficiency is king. It’s nice that you like to play artist, but you need to face reality.” Her voice hardened. “Taking twenty-two minutes for a single dish? Let’s call it what it is: slacking.” Slacking. The word stung like a physical slap, ringing in my ears. I slowly raised my head to look her in the eye. “You’re saving minutes, Evelyn, but you’re losing people,” I said softly. “The Brass Lantern didn’t survive fourteen years on first-time tourists. It survived on regulars. You’re burning our reputation for cheap, fast cash. Once they realize they’re eating reheated garbage, they won’t come back.” She let out a dry, dismissive click of her tongue. “Modern customers don’t care about that. Fast, pretty, and edible is more than enough. Your culinary philosophy is for food critics. We are running a business.” “A business?” “Yes, a business. My dad put me in charge to make a profit, not to worship your cast-iron pans.” I stopped arguing. You can’t explain flavor to someone who only tastes margins. “If your ticket times don’t meet our company standard by next week, we’ll start deducting it from your pay,” she warned, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “This isn’t a retirement home.” A wave of snickers went through the room. Back in the kitchen, I cut open one of her vacuum-sealed short rib bags, heated it, and drizzled the gelatinous red-wine reduction over it. I handed a fork to Cody. He took a bite, chewed, and frowned. “Chef… this is terrible compared to yours.” “Explain it to me,” I said. “It’s just… dead. The meat is mushy, and the sauce tastes like cornstarch and chemicals. They aren’t cooking together; they’re just on the same plate.” I knew that taste. It was the flavor of commercial mass production. The meat was chemically tenderized, the sauce stabilized with xanthan gum to give it a glossy shine that melted into water the second it hit your tongue. Did they really think the diners wouldn’t notice? I scraped the plate into the trash can, letting fourteen years of sweat, pride, and loyalty slide into the garbage bag with it. That night, after I got home, I dialed my real estate agent. “Is that corner lot on the east side still available?” “It is. Honestly, Nina, the foot traffic there is a bit light, and you’ve looked at it four times now. If you’re serious, I can try to squeeze the landlord on the lease.” I looked down at the notification on my phone. It was my digital paystub from finance. Deduction for insubordination: $500. Deduction for ticket time non-compliance: $1,200. Inventory waste charge: $2,500. Net pay: $412. Fourteen years as an executive chef, and my paycheck was lower than a dishwasher’s weekly wage. I took a deep, steadying breath. “Draw up the paperwork,” I told the agent. “I’ll sign it tomorrow.” Thank you, Evelyn, I thought. Thank you for finally pushing me out of the nest. 4 The Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend, the first-floor dining room fell apart. A loud slam echoed through the restaurant as a middle-aged man banged his fist against his table. “What the hell is this?” he roared. “This tastes completely flat! And the short ribs are half the size they used to be!” He poked at his plate. “The meat is cold in the middle. Did you guys fire your chef?” Evelyn, seeing a scene brewing, hurried over, putting on her best customer-service smile. “Sir, I assure you, our recipe standards haven’t changed. Perhaps your palate is just a bit sensitive today—” “Don’t give me that corporate garbage,” the man snapped, standing up. “I’ve eaten here weekly for eight years. You think I don’t know what Nina’s food tastes like? Get her out here right now.” Evelyn’s smile froze. “Chef Nina is currently managing our private dining rooms on the second floor. The main dining room has transitioned to our new, standardized menu—” The man scoffed. “Standardized? You think I’m an idiot? This is frozen, reheated airline food!” At the neighboring tables, diners began setting down their forks. An elderly woman frowned. “I knew something was off. When I asked them to hold the pepper, the server told me the kitchen couldn’t make any modifications.” “And this chicken pot pie,” another diner called out, “the meat is perfectly uniform cubes. There’s no bone, no texture. It’s industrial.” “Charging fifty bucks a plate for frozen food? Refund!” someone else shouted. Beads of sweat broke out on Evelyn’s forehead, but she tried to salvage the situation. “Our ingredients are prepared in a state-of-the-art facility under strict quality controls,” she raised her voice over the din. “I will have the kitchen remake your dishes immediately. Please, sit down.” She practically kicked the kitchen door open, her face pale with fury. She marched straight to my station. “I told you to adjust the seasoning on the short ribs! Why didn’t you do it? Do you have any idea how angry the customers are out there?” “Frank said the main dining room was your project, Evelyn. I only handle the private events,” I said, not looking up as I seasoned a rack of lamb. “Besides, the meat in those bags hasn’t even been properly trimmed of gristle. No amount of salt can fix bad prep.” “Are you going to cook for them or not, Nina?” she hissed. I finally looked up. “Get me fresh prime beef. Let me sear it by hand, let me reduce my own stock for three hours. If you give me the real ingredients, I’ll fire up the range right now.” Evelyn lost her mind. She swept her arm across my workstation, knocking my cutting board, prep bowls, and chef’s knife clattering to the tile floor. One of the line cooks rushed in, face white. “Evelyn, those tables are refusing to pay. They’re demanding full comps, and other guests are starting to film it. It’s going viral on local Facebook groups.” “Comp them!” Evelyn snapped, her voice trembling as she adjusted her blazer. “Just get them out before the local news crew gets here for the weekend feature.” She glared at me, her eyes spitting poison. “Every single dollar of those comps is coming out of your pocket. Starting tomorrow, you’re suspended. I’ll deal with my father myself.” The moment the door swung shut behind her, Cody spat on the floor. “Power-tripping brat!” He looked at me, awe in his eyes. “Chef, you called it. You knew she’d come crawling to you the second things went south.” I picked up my knife from the floor, washed it thoroughly, and went back to slicing. “During the holiday, the dining room was full of tourists,” I said, throwing the ingredients into Cody’s hot pan. The flame roared. “They came for the aesthetic and the convenience. Even if the food tasted off, they had flights to catch and itineraries to follow. They didn’t have the energy to complain. But our regulars? They know what my food tastes like. The tongue doesn’t lie, Cody. You can cheat a lot of things in this life, but you can’t cheat flavor.” Cody nodded, processing it. “But what about the money she docked from your pay? That’s thousands of dollars.” I adjusted the flame. “Don’t worry. She’s going to pay me back every single cent.”

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As the spring internship cohort wrapped up their onboarding, I was showing three new interns around the office when a strange, disembodied voice suddenly echoed in my mind. [The chat feed says this woman is the male lead’s ninth canary. Doesn’t that make her the villainous rival standing in my way?] [Locked away in an asylum in the end… classic villainess fate.] [Wait, my first meeting with the male lead is about to happen. She better not ruin it for me.] My steps faltered for a fraction of a second. I turned back, offering a polite smile to the three interns. “You girls might want to tie your hair back,” I said softly. “The CEO hates it when women leave their hair loose.” Ruin it for her? Far from it. I’d gladly hand over every single one of my benefactor’s quirks and preferences on a silver platter to this self-proclaimed “heroine.” After all… nobody wanted the arrival of the tenth canary more than I did. 1. Hearing my advice, the three girls paused, immediately reaching up to tidy their hair. One of them, a girl named Daisy Campbell, kept her eyes lowered. The tips of her ears flushed a faint pink, and she offered a shy, polite smile. “Thank you, Ms. Nancy.” Her voice was soft, sweet, and entirely unassuming. She looked like a girl who didn’t have a single scheming bone in her body. Yet, her inner voice crashed into my mind with crystal clarity: [What’s with the sudden kindness? There’s got to be a catch.] [The chat says she’s the classic villainess. Always playing dirty behind people’s backs. I can’t let her play me for a fool.] [Thank god I have this live feed, or she’d have me wrapped around her finger.] I kept walking, the smile on my face fading slightly. I didn’t bother to reply. A quiet amusement settled in my chest. Let her think what she wanted. I had no intention of hurting her; I just wanted her to secure her place quickly so I could finally be replaced. As we approached the main office floor, Daisy’s mental voice grew increasingly frantic and unhinged. [What is going on? Why does every single female employee have their hair up?] [In the hallways, the breakroom, the cubicles… not a single loose strand.] [Ugh! Why is the chat feed only telling me now that the CEO despises loose hair? She was actually helping me!] She instinctively reached up, running her fingers through her loose, long hair, her eyes darting around in a panic. A moment later, she scrambled to pull a hair tie from her bag, hurriedly weaving her hair into a messy side braid. I caught the movement in my peripheral vision and let my lips curl into a faint, silent smile. We entered the elevator, ascending to the executive suite. At the end of the long corridor was the CEO’s private office. Addison Pierce stepped out just as we arrived. Impeccable in a tailored black suit, he stood tall and imposing. His features were cold, sharp, and carried an oppressive weight that warned anyone against getting too close. His gaze swept over the group, finally lingering on Daisy. The look in his eyes was entirely different from the way he usually looked at me. There was a spark of undeniable, predatory interest. Daisy froze, her fingers clutching the hem of her blazer. Her cheeks burned red, and she ducked her head, looking very much like a startled fawn. Mentally, she was screaming: [It’s happening! Our first official frame together! He’s looking at me! He really is!] [The feed was right. We are absolutely destiny!] Addison didn’t linger. He turned to me, his tone characteristically cool. “Once you’re done showing the new hires around, come to my office.” I nodded. “Of course.” For the rest of the day, I guided the three interns through the standard procedures- introducing the departments, explaining the corporate policies, and outlining the daily routines. Daisy remained quiet and cooperative throughout, but she kept gravitating toward me, her eyes drifting toward the executive suite whenever she thought I wasn’t looking. Her mind was buzzing with excitement: [An easy start. Favorability maxed out. Success is just around the corner.] [Easier than the feed said. He’s practically mine already.] Listening to her, I could only find it tragic. The young always believed the world was simpler than it was. That evening, I returned to the estate. Addison arrived shortly after. He didn’t wrap his arms around me as he usually did, nor did he ask if my day had been exhausting. There was no touch, no warmth. Instead, he sat on the leather sofa, turning an unlit cigarette between his fingers, acting entirely casual. “That new intern, Daisy Campbell. What do you think of her?” Here it comes. I kept my face perfectly blank, taking a slow sip from my glass of water. “She seems sweet. Quiet. Unspoiled.” “Unspoiled?” He looked up, his gaze probing my face. “That’s all?” I lowered my eyes, my fingers tracing the rim of the glass. I let my voice soften, injecting a faint, carefully measured note of hurt and insecurity into my tone. “What else do you want me to say? She’s fresh out of college, young and vibrant. Unlike me. I’ve been with you for years, Addison. I’m sure the novelty wore off a long time ago.” A flash of irritation crossed Addison’s eyes, fast and cold. “Go get some rest,” he said, his voice dropping several degrees. Without another word, he stood up and walked upstairs, never looking back. I sat in the quiet living room, watching his retreating figure with absolute indifference. Perfect. The more annoyed he was with me, the faster this transition would go. Over the next few days, the shift in Addison’s behavior became glaringly obvious. He stopped requesting my presence for lunch, choosing instead to eat at the corporate cafeteria. And, “by sheer coincidence,” Daisy always seemed to cross paths with him there. Sometimes she would sit across from him with her tray, acting clumsy and flustered; other times she would bring a notebook to ask for professional advice, her demeanor perfectly balancing innocence and eagerness. With every encounter, her mind practically sang with triumph: [Too easy! He’s coming to the cafeteria every day just to see me.] [The feed is right. He’ll throw that old woman away soon. I’m the only one he sees.] [Poor thing, she’s like a discarded toy. I almost feel bad for her.] Whenever she passed my desk, Daisy would cast a lingering look in my direction. It was a look of unshielded amusement, laced with a patronizing pity. She kept repeating the same thoughts like a mantra: [So sad. She’s about to be discarded.] [Why did she have to stand in my way? Look at the miserable end she’s heading toward.] I kept my head down, ignoring her completely. Soon enough, she would realize who the pitiable one really was. 2. As the weeks bled into one another, Addison’s fascination with Daisy became public knowledge. The office rumors spread like wildfire. There wasn’t a soul in the building who didn’t know that the new intern was receiving special attention from the billionaire CEO. The gossip was discussed in the breakrooms, the elevators, and the private group chats. Naturally, I was dragged into the company-wide group chat as well. The messages flashed across my screen in rapid succession: – What’s Daisy’s deal anyway? She hasn’t even been here that long and she’s already got the big boss running to the cafeteria every day. – Who knows. She plays the innocent card well, but she clearly knows how to climb. – @Nancy, you’ve been with him the longest. Any inside scoop? – Yeah, Nancy used to be the only one who had his ear. What’s the vibe now? Everyone knew I was the ultimate legacy hire, brought into the firm solely because of my relationship with Addison. I looked at the screen, my fingers tapping out a cold, distant reply: – I have no idea. He doesn’t discuss those things with me. The chat fell dead silent immediately. No one sent another message. I assumed they had simply migrated to a separate, private channel to talk about me behind my back. It didn’t matter. I locked my phone and returned to my spreadsheets. A few days later, the real bomb dropped. HR issued a formal announcement: Daisy Campbell’s probation period was waived, and she was promoted to a full-time position effective immediately. But the real shocker was her new assignment. Addison had personally instructed HR to transfer her to the executive suite as his personal assistant’s aide. The news sent shockwaves through the office. A waiver of probation was rare enough, but a direct appointment to the executive suite was unheard of. All eyes naturally turned to me. Some looked with curiosity, others with pity, and a few with naked amusement, waiting for me to shatter. On the day Daisy moved her things to the executive suite, she made a conscious detour to pass my desk. She wore a pristine designer blazer, her hair tied back neatly. She offered a modest smile to the surrounding staff, but her eyes remained locked on me, heavy with silent mockery. Her mind was practically screaming in triumph: [Look at that. I’m in the executive office now. One step closer.] [The feed is spot on. She’s getting dumped.] [Eventually she’ll lose her mind and end up in a psych ward. Perfect villainess ending.] [Look at her trying to act calm. Hilarious.] The colleagues around us stole glances at me, their faces painted with varying degrees of sympathy. I sat straight in my chair, keeping my expression neutral as I organized my files, my fingers tightening slightly on the paper. None of them knew the truth. I wasn’t grieving. In fact, my chest was tight with an excitement so intense I could barely breathe. I was finally, finally reaching the end. I was finally going to be free of Addison Pierce. 3. Once Daisy settled into the executive suite, her relationship with Addison accelerated at an alarming pace. Many of the events and high-profile meetings that used to be my exclusive domain were now handed to her. High-level negotiations, exclusive galas, private board meetings- she was always by his side, quietly taking notes, pouring his drinks, and acting with perfect, calculated discretion. The only exceptions were the late-night business dinners where heavy drinking was required. Addison still insisted on bringing me. The reason was simple: I could hold my liquor, and Daisy couldn’t. Daisy didn’t mind this arrangement. In fact, she saw it as a sign of her own elevation. Her inner thoughts grew sweeter, more confident by the day: [He can’t live without me now. He consults me on everything.] [The feed says I’m his lucky charm, that I’ll help him reach new heights.] [Once I secure my place, that woman is history.] Armed with the “spoilers” from her mental feed, she began subtly advising him on upcoming projects, steering him toward lucrative municipal contracts before they even went public. Within months, the entire company was singing her praises, calling her Addison’s indispensable partner. Addison’s satisfaction with her was absolute. His visits to my estate grew sparser, until eventually, they ceased altogether. He either stayed late with Daisy or retreated to his private penthouse downtown. The sprawling suburban villa he had bought for me became nothing more than a quiet, empty cage. I welcomed the silence. The less I saw of him, the safer I felt. On Valentine’s Day, the city was practically dripping with manufactured romance. Social media was flooded with bouquets, jewelry, and luxury getaways. Daisy was in a state of high anxiety and excitement all day. Her mind kept looping the same thought: [The feed says he’s proposing tonight! I can’t wait!] [After all this preparation, the day is finally here!] [What kind of ring did he get? I’m going crazy!] That evening, Addison indeed took Daisy to the city’s most exclusive rooftop restaurant. I was there too, sitting alone in a dim corner, slowly nursing a glass of Cabernet. From across the candlelit room, I watched Addison sink to one knee, retrieving a velvet box from his pocket. He murmured something to her. Daisy’s eyes welled with tears as she nodded frantically, throwing her arms around his neck. They kissed as the surrounding patrons erupted into polite applause. I watched from the shadows, my fingers tightening around the stem of my glass. The cold glass sent a chill straight to my chest. If he had proposed, then my sentence was served. I could leave. But that night, Addison seemed to have forgotten my existence entirely. I waited in the corner until the restaurant closed, receiving nothing. The next morning, Daisy floated into the office, her face glowing with a sweet, arrogant pride. She walked past my desk, her gaze brushing over me with casual disdain. [Just a harmless villainess. She doesn’t even deserve my attention.] [Since she didn’t actually manage to hurt me, there’s no need to destroy her.] [I’ll just have Addison fire her, give her some severance, and send her on her way.] Sure enough, that very evening, Addison brought Daisy to the villa. He stood in the center of the living room, looking sharp and untouchable in his designer suit. His voice was flat, devoid of any warmth or history: “There’s a black card on the table. The balance is more than enough to ensure you never have to work again. Hand in your resignation tomorrow and leave the city.” There was no negotiation, no lingering affection. I looked at him, forcing a look of quiet heartbreak and submission onto my face while my chest hammered with absolute joy. “Okay. I understand.” Daisy stood beside him, her eyes narrowing as she watched me with sharp suspicion. [Is she planning something? The feed says she’ll pretend to agree but stab me in the back.] [That’s how villainesses are. Obedient on the surface, poisonous underneath.] She couldn’t help but speak up, her voice laced with warning: “You’d better not try any tricks, Nancy. Don’t think about revenge, or things will get very ugly for you.” I looked up, letting my gaze rest on her face for a moment before giving a small, weary smile. “Don’t worry. I don’t have the stomach or the courage for that.” “If it makes you feel safer,” I added, “I’ll pack my bags and buy a ticket tonight. You can watch me go through security.” Daisy blinked, clearly caught off guard by my compliance. She calculated the risks quickly in her head, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s do that.” I didn’t waste another second. I packed a single suitcase and drove straight to the airport with them tailing close behind. Under their watchful eyes, I purchased a ticket for the nearest outbound flight and walked through the security gates. Daisy let out a visible sigh of relief, wrapping her arm around Addison’s as they turned to leave. [Perfect. The villainess is gone. My happily ever after begins!] I watched their retreating figures through the glass. Once they disappeared into the crowd, I took a deep breath, walked to a ticketing kiosk, and booked a flight to a completely different destination.

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The Dominic betrothal gala. Caroline, my fiancée, had just been caught in the act of betraying me with Dustin, the struggling spa assistant I had charitably helped get on his feet. Yet, facing my confrontation, her expression remained entirely cold, almost bored. “Even the finest dish gets bland if you eat it every day,” she said, her voice smooth and untroubled. “You’ve been great to me, Gavin. But the kind of thrill I need—only Dustin can give me that.” “I’m planning to give him the co-chair seat at Dominic Enterprises. If you’re willing to accept that, you can stay on as my lover. I’ll give you everything you could ever want—except my name.” “And if you don’t agree, I’ll undergo chemical sterilization. Since Grandfather won’t let us marry because Dustin is sterile, then I’ll make sure I never carry a child that isn’t his.” In my past life, I had let pain blind me. I had made a scene, dragging the whole sordid affair in front of Grandfather Charles, who stepped in just in time to stop Caroline from ruining herself. Shunned and humiliated for his infertility, Dustin had left a dramatic, blood-written suicide note before taking his own life. Caroline had buried him quietly in an unmarked grave. She went through with our arranged marriage, pretending to still love me. We lived in what I foolishly believed was domestic bliss. But the moment Grandfather passed away and Caroline fully seized control of the family empire, the first thing she did was throw me into the city’s worst red-light district. I was subjected to horrific abuse, eventually contracting an agonizing disease that left my body rotting away. As I lay dying, she whispered in my ear that this was my punishment for tearing them apart. So, when I opened my eyes to find myself back in this moment, listening to Caroline present the exact same choices, I felt no shock. I didn’t argue. I didn’t try to stop her. Because she had no idea. Grandfather Charles and I had once sworn a solemn blood oath in the Dominic family chapel. From the moment I saved his life, the rule was set: whoever I chose to marry would inherit the Dominic dynasty. 1. The familiar ultimatum echoed in my ears once more. Even the willow branches swaying outside the window looked exactly as they had in my previous life. I looked at the two of them, their skin still marked with the unmistakable flush of their betrayal. This time, there was no disbelief, no desperate urge to understand why the person I loved had stabbed me in the back. There was no self-pity, no sorrow. There was only a deep, burning hatred that settled into my bones. I clenched my fists, letting my nails dig into my palms as I took a slow, steady breath. “Then I wish you two a long and happy life together.” It clearly wasn’t the response Caroline had anticipated. Her brow furrowed slightly. “You’re not angry?” In the past, my jealousy would have flared, driving me to scream and demand answers. I forced a small, polite smile. “Love can’t be forced. If he’s the one you want, I respect your decision.” A flicker of guilt finally crossed her face, quickly replaced by a patronizing softness. “I’m glad you’re finally growing up. Don’t worry. Even though he’ll be my husband, it’s not like my feelings for you have completely vanished. You won’t lack for anything he gets.” “As long as you accept your place as my lover and show him the respect he deserves, things can go back to how they were.” Watching her bask in the smug satisfaction of having her cake and eating it too, I realized for the first time how brutally time can strip away a person’s facade. There was a time when Caroline, having been drugged at a high-society gala, chose to burn her own arm with a lighter rather than let another soul touch her. She used to tell me that love was sacred and exclusive. She said she only had room in her heart for me. Now, she was no different from any other spoiled, entitled heir who believed everything in the world was hers for the taking. Dustin leaned back against her chest, a picture of fragile, triumphant innocence. “I’m so sorry for taking everything from you, Gavin,” he murmured. “But Caroline and I are truly in love. Please don’t worry. In public, I’ll be her husband and you’ll be her companion, but at home, you will always be the older brother I look up to.” Caroline reached up, tenderly stroking his cheek. They flirted shamelessly right in front of me, completely unbothered. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and turned to leave. “Gavin, wait,” Caroline called out, pointing to the bespoke suit I was wearing. It had taken over a month of meticulous fittings to complete. “I actually had that suit altered to his measurements after it was finished. Since you’ve agreed to the arrangement, take it off and give it to him.” I froze. Suddenly, it all made sense. I remembered telling her I was allergic to the specific coral embroidery she wanted on the lapel, yet she had insisted, telling me I just had to endure it for the sake of the aesthetic. I remembered how perfectly it had fit during the early stages, only to feel terribly tight and awkward when I put it on today. It was never meant for me to keep. 2. Out in the grand ballroom, Grandfather Charles was scanning the crowd. When he saw me walking toward him alone, his expression darkened. “What’s going on? Where is Caroline? The announcement is about to start, and she’s nowhere to be found.” I clenched my fists at my sides, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Grandfather, is your promise still good? The one about whoever I choose becoming the heir to the Dominic estate?” He looked at me, his eyes softening with immediate concern. “We swore it before our ancestors in the chapel, Gavin. Of course it stands. But what’s wrong? Did that girl do something to you?” Before I could reply, Caroline walked over, practically supporting Dustin, whose legs seemed too weak to carry him. “Grandfather, there’s no need to proceed with the betrothal announcement,” Caroline said, her voice ringing out clearly. “I know you wanted me to marry Gavin because he saved your life, and you wanted to repay that debt. But during our years together, I’ve done my duty. Now I’ve met the man I truly love, and I hope you will give us your blessing.” The surrounding crowd erupted into hushed whispers. Judgmental, gossiping stares locked onto us. They looked at us as if Grandfather and I were the villains, trying to force an arranged marriage and tear apart two young lovers. But the truth was, Caroline had pursued me first. She had claimed she was madly in love with me, swearing to Grandfather that she would cherish me forever. It was only to secure my future comfort within the Dominic family that Grandfather had reluctantly agreed to groom her as his successor. Yet, in just a few short years, her arrogant, self-serving nature had begun to bleed through. In reality, the Dominic family had plenty of capable heirs. Caroline had never been irreplaceable. Grandfather frowned, his gaze shifting from her determined face to Dustin’s flushed, disheveled appearance. He understood the situation instantly. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Grandfather asked, his voice deadly calm. “There are no second chances in this life.” Caroline nodded firmly. “I am sure. I only want to be with the man I love. I won’t regret it.” Grandfather let out a quiet, heavy sigh. “Then so be it.” He turned to me. “Gavin, I have other granddaughters. Take your time, look around, and see if any of them suit you.” Before I could speak, Caroline cut in quickly. “Grandfather, even though I’ve found someone else, Gavin and I have been together for a long time. He’s still deeply attached to me. Please don’t rush him into finding someone else just yet.” Grandfather’s brow furrowed, and his voice cut through the ballroom like ice. “If you know you’ve done something shameful, then keep your mouth shut! I am still alive, and the Dominic estate is not yours to command!” Ever since we had started dating, whenever Caroline made a mistake or fell short, Grandfather had always guided her gently, solely out of respect for me. He had never humiliated her in public like this. Her face burned crimson. Suddenly, Dustin dropped to his knees on the polished floor. “It’s all my fault,” he sobbed, looking up with tears in his eyes. “I’m of humble birth, and I know I don’t belong here. It’s only natural that Gavin would hate me and want to embarrass us. Grandfather, please blame me. This is all my fault.” Caroline’s expression hardened, and she glared at me with pure venom. “I knew you were behind this! Did you honestly think that by making a scene and turning our wedding into a joke, you could force me to marry you?” “Dream on! Don’t think you can manipulate Grandfather just because you saved his life. Don’t forget where you are, Gavin. You are, and always will be, an outsider in this family.” With that, she helped Dustin up and swept out of the room. Grandfather let out a cold snort, gently patting the back of my hand. “An outsider? You are the one person who could never be an outsider here.” “I will make sure your future is taken care of.” Meeting his deeply meaningful gaze, a sense of peace washed over me. As I looked around the room, my eyes inadvertently locked with Beatrice, the fourth cousin of the Dominic family. The memories of my past life rushed back to me. 3. When I was being tortured to the brink of death in that horrific red-light district, Caroline had visited to gloat over my misery. She had even brought her wealthiest, most sadistic clients to use me. But Beatrice had quietly followed them. When I was dragged back to a private room, she had secretly slipped me a blade to defend myself. Though I was eventually caught again, Beatrice had paid a devastating price for helping me. Caroline had her legs broken and confined her to the family estate. Yet, three days after my death, Beatrice used the covert resources she had built up over the years to strike back. During a federal investigation into Caroline’s businesses, Beatrice delivered a fatal blow, forcing Caroline into a desperate flight that ended with her car careening off a cliff. Beatrice went on to inherit the Dominic empire, restructuring the entire corporate structure and rising to become a major player in government-commercial alliances. Later, she had visited my grave, holding a bouquet of my favorite flowers. It was only then that I realized a simple, kind word I had once spoken to defend her when we were younger had driven her to tear down the world for my sake. Looking at her now, seeing the quiet, guarded hope in her eyes, I made my decision. “The fourth child. Beatrice,” I murmured to Grandfather. Grandfather raised an eyebrow, a small, approving smile tugging at his lips. “She is indeed a far better choice than Caroline. I trust your judgment, Gavin.” I felt a weight lift from my chest. Now that Caroline was marrying someone else, it was time for me to move out of her penthouse. I left behind everything I had bought during our relationship, taking only my personal toiletries. But as I was heading toward the front door, the handle turned, and the newlyweds walked in, hand-in-hand. Seeing the house keys in my hand, Caroline sneered, letting out a sharp laugh. “Are you really trying to play hard to get because of what happened at the gala? Do you think this silent treatment is going to make me chase after you?” She stepped forward and snatched the keys from my hand. “Look, I was just angry. You don’t need to take it so seriously. I already told you, you’re still my lover. Put your bags down. We’re still going to live together.” With the love completely gone, I could see her clearly for what she was: an insufferably arrogant woman. I reached out to grab my keys back. “Who said I wanted—” “Caroline,” Dustin suddenly whimpered, clutching his stomach. “I’m hungry. Can we have some of that seafood risotto?” He looked at me with a lazy, triumphant smirk. “The kind Gavin used to make for you.” My heart went cold. The last time I had made seafood risotto for Caroline was six months ago. They had been sleeping together far longer than I had ever suspected. Suppressing the disgust rising inside me, I turned to walk away. But Caroline grabbed my arm with surprising force, shoving me toward the kitchen. “Dustin wants your cooking. Be a good boy and make it for him. This is your chance to show some goodwill. If he’s happy, he might let me spend more time with you.” My brow furrowed, and I slammed my hands against the sliding glass door of the kitchen. “Let me out! I don’t need your damn time!” I managed to slide the door open an inch. Slam! Caroline shoved the glass door shut with brutal force, catching my fingers in the frame. The sound of my fingernails splitting was sickening. The agony was instant. I sank to the floor, tears springing to my eyes as blood began to pool beneath my hand. Caroline frowned, stepping closer but making no move to slide the door open. “You’re not the future master of this house anymore, Gavin. You need to drop the attitude. If you want to be a lover, you have to learn to take a few bruises. Stop whining and make the risotto.” She locked the sliding door from the outside. Then, she walked back to the living room, giggling as Dustin pulled her onto his lap. With my hand trembling and blood dripping from my fingertips, I reached into my pocket with my good hand and called Grandfather. Twenty minutes later, the front door was kicked off its hinges. Grandfather marched in, flanked by the family’s security team. Taking one look at my bloodied, mangled hand, he swung his arm back and delivered a ringing slap to Caroline’s face. “With dozens of chefs and maids on the payroll, you lock my savior in a kitchen to cook for this absolute parasite? Have you lost your mind, or do you simply have zero respect for me?” Grandfather immediately ordered his men to dismiss every single staff member in the penthouse. Before leaving, he glared at her with pure disgust. “Since you don’t seem to need professional help, you can clean up your own mess from now on!” Caroline stood frozen, her eyes burning with resentment, clearly believing I had put on a show just to get her in trouble. 4. The moment we left, my phone buzzed with a text from her. I didn’t realize you were still so blind to your own position. Once Grandfather steps back and leaves the business to me, I’ll make sure you learn how to behave. I blocked her number and shut off my phone. Grandfather insisted I stay at the main estate to recover. A week later, Caroline and Dustin held their wedding. Given Dustin’s background, Grandfather refused to allow a grand, public affair. He insisted that only Caroline’s close friends and immediate family be invited, explicitly forbidding the elders of the family from attending. But when Caroline found out, she went behind his back and sent invitations to every major business partner in the city, desperate to elevate Dustin’s social standing. At the reception, Grandfather’s face turned pale as he looked around at the prominent figures whispering in the corners. “Isn’t that the boy from the spa? I had no idea Charles Dominic was so progressive. Letting his heir marry a masseur… that takes a level of tolerance most of us don’t possess.” Hearing the snickers, Grandfather clutched his chest, staring at Caroline on the stage with cold fury. Without saying a single word of blessing, he turned and walked out. The guests exchanged knowing glances, and several prominent partners quietly slipped away shortly after. Instead of reflecting on her actions, Caroline blamed me for the humiliation. The very next morning, she transferred a major corporate account—one I had been cultivating for three months—directly to Dustin. “Dustin is the husband of the heir now,” she said, tossing the paperwork onto my desk. “He needs a high-profile win to establish himself in the company. You’re just a companion now, Gavin. There’s no need for you to be in the spotlight anyway.” I had spent a month drafting the proposal, enduring countless late-night dinners and drinking myself sick to secure the client’s trust. Caroline had seen every bit of that effort. She had even held me when I was exhausted, telling me to stop pushing myself so hard. I stared at her, my voice low and dangerous. “And if I refuse to hand it over?” She tapped her fingers on the mahogany desk, calling HR into the office. “I run the day-to-day operations of Dominic Enterprises now. If you don’t like it, you can leave. Besides, with you out of the office, Dustin won’t feel so insecure.” That afternoon, she personally took Dustin to meet with the client to finalize the contract. But the client was insulted by the sudden bait-and-switch. They called Grandfather directly, stating that Dominic Enterprises was treating them like a joke, and pulled their multi-million-dollar account effective immediately. Grandfather didn’t hesitate. He stripped Caroline of her title and duties on the spot. “Get out of the office and go home,” he barked over the phone. “Beatrice is taking over your division!” Caroline dragged a weeping Dustin back to the family estate to plead her case, but Grandfather had security lock the gates, refusing to let them set foot on the property. I spent the next several hours on the phone, utilizing my personal relationships to salvage the client’s trust and win back the contract. The moment I stepped out of the office building, Caroline intercepted me, grabbing my coat. “I knew you were behind this! You set Dustin up to fail just so you could swoop in and look like the hero!” “How dare you even show your face here? You are going to apologize to Dustin right now! Tell Grandfather that you deliberately sabotaged the meeting, or I swear to God, I will never touch you again!” I laughed, a cold, mocking sound as I brushed her hand off my coat. “You might enjoy rescuing trash from the gutter, Caroline, but I have no interest in getting dirty.” Her face turned a deep, furious crimson. “After all the times he told me you saved his life, it turns out you’re just as elitist as the rest of them! You look down on him, yet here you are, trying to take the easy way out by clinging to Beatrice!” “Just wait until I take full control of this family. The first thing I do will be making you crawl on your knees to apologize to him!” She was still clinging to her delusional dream of absolute power. I didn’t bother shattering her illusions. I adjusted my cuffs and headed to the luxury auction house. Grandfather had told me to select whatever pieces I wanted for my upcoming wedding. I had barely taken my seat in the VIP section when Caroline and Dustin walked in. Her brow furrowed the moment she saw me. “What are you doing here? This auction is strictly reserved for family heirs and their spouses.” “Don’t go using my name to sneak into places you don’t belong. My husband is Dustin now.” I gave her a bored look. “This has nothing to do with you. Do us both a favor and stay away.” 5. Caroline was left speechless, her expression twisting with annoyance. Before she could speak, Dustin wrapped his arm around hers, pointing excitedly at the digital catalog on the screen. “Babe, look at that set. I love it. Can we get it?” Caroline’s expression softened instantly into doting indulgence. “If you like it, we’ll buy it. Anything to make you happy.” Dustin glanced at me, a smug smirk playing on his lips. “Gavin, you used to pity me. But look how things change. Don’t be shy—if you see something you like, just let us know. Consider it an early advance on your allowance as our companion.” I ignored the childish provocation. The first few lots were standard diamond sets—the kind of jewelry the Dominic vaults were already overflowing with. But Dustin, desperate to prove a point, kept raising his paddle. Caroline happily signed off on every purchase, basking in the attention of the room. Until the final lot of the night appeared on the stage. It was a jade pendant. My late mother’s heirloom. The moment it was announced, I raised my paddle. Dustin immediately raised his. “Eight million!” I turned to him, my eyes narrowing. “That belongs to my family. Why are you bidding on it?” Dustin tilted his head, a malicious glint in his eyes. “Because I want it, Gavin.” Caroline chimed in, her tone dismissive. “It’s just a piece of old jade, Gavin. Let him have it. I’ll buy you a diamond set to make up for it. Don’t make a scene here by fighting with Dustin.” I stared at her, my voice cold as ice. “Not happening. That pendant is coming home with me.” Caroline sneered. “Keep throwing your tantrum. Let’s see how far you get without my money.” With a flourish, she raised her paddle. “I’m placing an open-ended bid!” I stared at her in disbelief. “Have you lost your mind?” Dustin let out a delighted laugh. “I’m sorry, Gavin. Caroline just loves me too much. But tell you what—if you apologize to me properly and pour me a cup of tea, I might let you borrow it for a couple of days once I’m bored with it.” I took a slow breath, a cold smile spreading across my face. “You have to actually buy it first.” Caroline’s brow furrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?” “It means,” I said quietly, “that you don’t have the money.” A moment later, the auctioneer cleared his throat, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “Ms. Dominic, I’m terribly sorry, but this card has been declined. It appears to be frozen.” The quiet room immediately erupted into a flurry of whispers. “Did he say declined? The Dominic family’s black card?” “Is there trouble with the estate?” Caroline’s face drained of color. Flustered, she snatched several other cards from her purse and shoved them at the attendant. “Check these! Now! One of them has to work!” She tried to maintain her composure, confident it was just a technical glitch. But as the clerk shook his head after running the third card, her confidence shattered. “How is this possible?” she whispered, her hands starting to shake. “Your machines must be broken! Run them again!” Before the clerk could respond, the heavy double doors of the auction hall swung open. “There’s no need to run them again,” a calm voice announced. Beatrice walked into the room, a cool smile on her face. “I had all of your accounts frozen, sister.”

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The sound of a champagne flute shattering on the red carpet drowned out the wedding march. Everyone thought I was just overcome with emotion. Only I knew that face had been etched into my very being for five years. My best friend pushed me onto the stage to give a speech. I smiled through the blessings, only to be yanked into his arms. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You’ve lost weight.” During the toasts, he slipped a note into my hand: “She forced me to break up with you. Meet me on the rooftop tonight.” I looked up, meeting Serena’s meaningful smile. The note in my palm was drenched in cold sweat. Tonight’s wedding, who was the real bride? The sound of a champagne flute shattering on the red carpet drowned out the wedding march. Everyone thought I was just overcome with emotion. Only I knew that face had been etched into my very being for five years. My hands trembled, and shattered glass scattered at my feet. A server quickly came to clean it up. My best friend, Serena, rushed over, holding up the hem of her wedding dress, a bride’s sweet smile on her face. “Autumn, what’s wrong?” I forced a smile. “Nothing, just slipped.” She linked her arm through mine, her grip so tight my wrist ached. “Good. I thought you were too excited seeing the groom.” Her words were a sharp jab right behind my eyes. I looked up, meeting her curved, smiling eyes. Serena was my best friend of ten years. From high school to college, we were inseparable, shared everything—secrets, clothes, even a dorm room. When I had my heartbreak five years ago, she stayed up with me until 3 AM every night for three months. But her expression now sent a chill down my spine. The groom stood still, impeccably dressed, his gaze fixed directly on me. That look was all too familiar—five years ago, whenever he waited for me outside school after classes, that was the look he had. Liam. I silently repeated the name in my heart, my tongue feeling as if it had been burned. “Autumn, why don’t you come up and say a few words?” Serena pushed me forward. “You’re my best friend.” She guided me to the microphone. Dozens of tables of guests watched me. Liam stood to my left, close enough for me to catch the faint scent of pine from him. “I wish you both…” My throat tightened, my voice wavering. “I wish you a lifetime of happiness, and may your hearts always be one.” A round of applause filled the room. Serena smiled contentedly, linking her arm through Liam’s and resting her head on his shoulder. I turned to step off the stage, but a hand suddenly pulled me back. Liam pulled me into his arms, a motion so forceful it was almost like he was snatching me. He lowered his head, his lips almost touching my ear, and whispered in a voice only we could hear, “You’ve lost weight.” I froze. His embrace was still as wide and strong as I remembered, his chest still as solid. But this hug should have belonged to his bride. Serena stood right beside us, her smile unwavering, as if this were all a pre-arranged part of the ceremony. “The groom is just too enthusiastic!” the MC quickly smoothed over, chuckling. “It seems the bride’s bridesmaid is simply too stunning, even the groom couldn’t resist a hug!” The guests burst into laughter. I pulled free from his embrace, practically fleeing off the stage. I grabbed a glass of champagne and gulped it down. The icy liquid burned a path down my throat, but the fury in my chest only intensified. During the toasts, I hid in a corner, hoping to slip away unnoticed. “Autumn.” Liam was suddenly behind me, holding two glasses of wine. He handed one to me, his eyes holding something I couldn’t decipher. I took the glass, my fingers brushing his, and recoiled as if I’d been shocked. “You shouldn’t have come,” he whispered. “Your invitation had my name on it,” I retorted, a cold laugh escaping me. “What, afraid I’d cause a scene?” He didn’t speak, just quickly slipped a piece of paper into my palm. His movement was so swift that none of the surrounding guests noticed. “10 PM tonight, rooftop.” I looked down at the words on the note, my palm instantly drenched in cold sweat. When I looked up, Serena stood not far away, holding a glass of red wine, and gave me a meaningful smile. That smile was too perfect, so perfect it sent shivers down my spine. I crumpled the note, my nails digging into my flesh. This wedding, from the moment the champagne glass shattered, was destined to be anything but a normal celebration.

I clutched the note, feeling like I was holding a ticking time bomb. Serena walked over, red wine in hand, her heels clicking on the marble floor, each sound like a drumbeat in my chest. “Autumn, you don’t look so good.” She smiled gently, reaching out to touch my face. I instinctively took half a step back. Her hand froze in mid-air, her smile faltering for a second before returning to normal. “Are you drinking too much? Should I have someone bring you some water?” “No, thanks.” I tucked the note into my clutch, forcing a smile. “I’m just going to the restroom.” Serena nodded, but her eyes lingered on my face for a few seconds. That gaze was too sharp, as if trying to dissect me. I quickly turned and walked to the restroom, pushed open a stall door, and leaned against the wall, taking deep, gasping breaths. Five years ago, Liam disappeared without a word. I called him hundreds of times, sent countless messages, all of them vanishing without a trace. Finally, I received a single text: “Don’t look for me. We’re not right for each other.” Those eight words sentenced my five years of love to death. I cried for a whole month, losing ten pounds. Later, I heard he went abroad, and I forced myself to let go, to start a new life. But now? He was back, as my best friend’s groom. I unfolded the note. The handwriting was definitely his. I knew his script intimately; he’d written me countless love letters in college, every curve and line burned into my memory. “She forced me to break up with you. Meet me on the rooftop tonight.” That sentence was like a knife, plunging directly into the softest part of my heart. She forced him to break up? Serena? I crumpled the note, an unspeakable mix of anger and hurt churning in my chest. A knock suddenly sounded. “Autumn, are you in there?” Serena’s voice came from outside the door. I quickly tore the note into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. “Yes,” I took a deep breath and opened the stall door. Serena stood in front of the sink, touching up her lipstick in the mirror. She wore a custom-made wedding dress, her makeup perfect; she looked every bit the happiest bride. I walked over to wash my hands, catching her reflection watching me. “Autumn, I’m so happy you’re here as my bridesmaid.” She finished her lipstick, then turned and took my hand. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you these past few years, being on your own. Liam and I will take good care of you from now on.” “Take care of me?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course, we’re best friends, aren’t we?” She blinked, her expression impeccably sincere. I looked into her eyes. Those eyes were so familiar; we’d been crazy together, laughed and cried together. I even thought she was the person who understood me best in this life. But at this moment, her face suddenly felt alien. “Serena, are you happy?” I asked. She paused, then smiled brightly. “Of course I’m happy. Liam is wonderful to me.” “That’s good,” I pulled my hand from hers. “Congratulations.” With that, I turned and walked out of the restroom. Her voice drifted after me: “Autumn, you’ll be on stage to give a speech later, I’ve already arranged it all.” My steps faltered. A speech. She wanted me to give a speech at Liam’s wedding. When I returned to the banquet hall, the MC was warming up the crowd. Liam stood on stage, impeccably dressed, a polite smile on his face. I couldn’t make out his expression, only saw him glance in my direction. “Next, let’s invite the bride’s best friend and bridesmaid, Autumn, to the stage to offer her blessings to the happy couple!” Applause erupted. All eyes were on me. I took a deep breath and walked onto the stage. The microphone was handed to me, my palm slick with sweat. “Hello everyone, I’m Autumn, Serena’s best friend.” I heard my voice tremble. “Serena and I have known each other for ten years. She’s the most important friend in my life.” Serena waved to me from below, her smile radiant. “Seeing her find her happiness today truly makes me happy.” I paused, my gaze involuntarily falling on Liam. “The groom is wonderful, and they are a perfect match.” Liam watched me, expressionless. “I wish you a lifetime of happiness, and may your hearts always be one.” I raised my glass. “Cheers.” The guests below raised their glasses. I tilted my head back and gulped the wine, tears almost spilling from my eyes. The MC took the microphone, asking the bride and groom to embrace. Liam hugged Serena, then released her and walked towards me. “Thank you, bridesmaid,” he reached out and gave me a ceremonial hug. Just as he leaned close to my ear, I heard a low, husky voice: “You’ve lost weight.” I froze. That tone was too familiar, laced with tenderness, guilt, and something else I couldn’t quite place. I abruptly pushed him away, stumbling back two steps. The guests below chuckled, thinking the groom’s humor had amused me. But I saw a glint of tears in Liam’s eyes. Serena walked over and linked her arm through his, smiling at me. “Autumn, are you okay?” “I’m fine.” I set down the glass, almost running away. Reaching a corner, I pulled out my phone. A new message on the screen, from an unknown number. “Ten o’clock, rooftop. I’ll tell you all the truth.” I stared at the words, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst. This wedding, from the moment the champagne glass shattered, was destined to be anything but a normal celebration. This was a trap.

The toasts began. Serena walked table to table with Liam, smiling radiantly, showing no hint of a flaw. I stood in a corner, clutching my glass, my fingers white against the stem. That text message still lay in my phone, every word like a burning brand, scorching my palm. “Autumn.” Serena’s voice suddenly chimed. She pulled Liam over to me, her face alight with a sweet smile. “Why are you hiding here? I’ve been looking for you.” She offered me a glass of red wine. I took it, realizing my hand was trembling when my fingertips touched the glass. “A toast to you,” Serena raised her glass, her eyes bright and clear. “Today is the happiest day of my life, thank you for being my bridesmaid.” She finished speaking and drank it all in one gulp. I watched her throat move, the wine sliding down my stomach like a knife. “Drink,” Liam’s voice was low, I couldn’t discern his emotion. I raised my glass and took a sip. The wine was bitter, so bitter my eyes stung. Serena smiled again, reaching out to pat my shoulder. “You don’t look well, are you feeling sick? Do you want to go rest?” “I’m fine,” I forced a smile. “I’m just going to the restroom.” The moment I turned, my wrist was grabbed. It was Liam. His grip was tight; I couldn’t break free. “Liam?” Serena’s voice came from behind, laced with a hint of displeasure. “I need to speak with the bridesmaid,” Liam didn’t turn back, just looked at me, his gaze intense. “About some wedding details, I wanted to ask her.” “Then hurry up,” Serena’s tone was a bit cold, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to analyze it. Liam led me to a corner. The noisy chatter of guests surrounded us; no one noticed us. He released my hand and pulled a piece of paper from his suit pocket, quickly slipping it into my palm. “Read it and burn it,” his voice was hushed, so low only I could hear. “Ten o’clock tonight, rooftop.” Then he turned, walked back to Serena, and his smile returned to his face. I clutched the note, my palm drenched in sweat. I went to the restroom, closed the stall door, and opened the note. The handwriting was messy, but it was his familiar script. The love letters he wrote me five years ago, every single one had this handwriting. “She forced me to break up with you. Meet me on the rooftop tonight. I’ll tell you all the truth.” I stared at the words, my head buzzing. She forced me to break up. Five words, like five knives, one by one plunging into my heart. That night five years ago, he sent the breakup text, then vanished without a trace. I called hundreds of times, sent thousands of messages, all of them vanishing without a trace. I thought he was dead, thought something had happened to him, thought he had been kidnapped. Only Serena stayed by my side, hugging me, crying with me, saying, “Autumn, he must have his reasons.” How genuinely she cried back then. I thought she was the best friend in the world. The note was crumpled in my hand. I shoved it into my bag and pushed open the door. At the sink, Serena was touching up her lipstick. She saw me come out and smiled faintly. “Still don’t look well. Should I have someone take you to the hospital?” “No, thanks.” I washed my hands and looked up into the mirror. In the mirror, Serena and I met each other’s gaze. Her eyes were calm, as still as a ripple-less lake. But I always felt there was something hidden beneath that calm. “Autumn,” she suddenly spoke, her voice very soft. “Do you hate me?” I froze. “Hate you for what?” I asked. She smiled, finishing the last stroke of her lipstick and putting the tube back in her bag. “Nothing, just asking.” She turned, her heels clicking crisply on the tile floor. At the doorway, she paused, looking back at me. “Oh, by the way, the fireworks show starts at ten tonight, up on the rooftop.” “You might want to check it out.” With that, she pushed the door open and left. I stood alone in the restroom, the note in my hand drenched in cold sweat. Ten o’clock, rooftop, fireworks show. She had calculated everything. I pulled out my phone and looked again at the message from the unknown number. “Ten o’clock, rooftop. I’ll tell you all the truth.” Was it from Liam, or from her? I didn’t know. But I knew, no matter who was waiting for me on the rooftop tonight, I had to go.

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When Ryan Sterling pursued me, he knelt outside my house for an entire night. The heavy rain drenched him, and the next day, he was rushed to the hospital with a raging fever of 104 degrees, still calling my name. Everyone in our elite circle told me, Olivia Hayes, you’ll never find another man who loves you this much. Until he returned from volunteering in a disaster zone, bringing with him a timid female volunteer. The girl cried, claiming that Ryan had contracted a rare blood disease in the disaster zone, and only a bone marrow match from his spouse could save his life. Ryan grasped my hand, his eyes red as he pleaded, “Ellie, save me.” I didn’t say anything, just smiled at him. He’d had a full physical last month. His physique was better than a professional athlete’s; he didn’t even have mild anemia. I took the consent form and signed it right in front of him. The wild joy in his eyes hadn’t even fully faded when I slowly added, “Ryan Sterling, you’d better pray you actually survive with my bone marrow.” “Otherwise, I’ll show you what it means to wish you were dead.” **Chapter 1** In the living room, a humidifier puffed white mist. Ryan sat on the sofa, clutching the bone marrow consent form. His shirt cuffs were still stained with mud from the disaster zone, his face pale, looking as if he might collapse at any moment. Only his gaze towards me held a plea that was impossible to refuse. “Ellie, the doctor said this disease makes you wish you were dead when it flares up. The pain is unbearable…” He pulled up his sleeve, and indeed, his arm was covered in crisscrossing dark purple marks, a truly shocking sight. Sitting next to him was Chloe Davis, the volunteer he’d brought back from the disaster zone. Chloe wore a simple, plain dress with a small white flower clipped in her hair. Tears welled in her eyes as she called out to me with a choked voice. “Ms. Hayes, Ryan contracted this illness saving people in the disaster zone. Even though I’ve studied medicine, this disease is too dangerous; only a spouse’s bone marrow match can save him. If you don’t agree, Ryan… he might not make it through the month!” With that, she made to kneel before me. Ryan, quick-witted, grabbed her arm, his voice a pained growl. “Chloe! What are you doing! If anything happened to you, what would be the point of me living!” The words had barely left his lips when Ryan seemed to realize he’d let something slip. He snapped his head up to look at me, his eyes darting away. “Ellie, I didn’t mean it like that… Chloe has been taking care of me all this time, I just see her as a sister. You’re the only one in my heart.” I sat on the single armchair opposite them, looking down at this ‘tragic’ pair of lovers. Bone marrow match? I had congenital anemia, and my family had spent a fortune to finally bring some color back to my cheeks. Taking my bone marrow would cost me my life. Didn’t Ryan know that? He knew better than anyone. I played with the Cartier bracelet on my wrist, making it clink softly. “If she’s just a sister, why all the hugging?” My voice was calm, betraying no emotion. Ryan’s hand recoiled as if burned, instantly letting go of Chloe. Chloe stumbled, falling onto the carpet, looking delicate and boneless. But a flicker of venom flashed in her eyes. “Ellie, believe me. I’m really dying.” Ryan slid off the sofa, trying to grab my hand. I subtly shifted, avoiding his touch. “Leave the consent form. I’m tired.” Ryan froze, looking at me in disbelief. “Ellie, you won’t save me?” “I said, leave it.” I looked at him coldly. Ryan gritted his teeth, placed the consent form on the coffee table, and gave me a deep look. “Then get some rest, I’ll come back tomorrow.” Late at night. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the crabapple tree Ryan had personally planted for me in the yard. Years ago, to pursue me, he knelt in a downpour all night, falling into a coma from a high fever and being sent to the ICU. He pleaded with my father on his knees, his forehead practically raw from bowing, just asking my father to let him be with me. He said, “Sir, I’ll be Ellie’s bodyguard my entire life. I’ll never leave her, not even in death.” Back then, I believed him. “Ms. Hayes.” Liam, my assistant, quietly pushed open the study door and placed a stack of documents on the desk. “Did you find out?” Liam opened the file. “Yes. The marks on Ryan’s arm aren’t from an illness; they were drawn on with a chemical agent called ‘Uracil Toxin.’ The situation in the disaster zone was also brought under control long ago. For the past two weeks, he and Chloe have actually been staying at a nearby resort.” **Chapter 2** I took the documents, flipping through them page by page. “And what else?” Liam lowered his voice. “Chloe isn’t a volunteer. She and Ryan were college classmates and his first love. They were together before he even met you.” I scoffed, tossing the documents onto the table. “A fine ‘first love,’ a fine ‘bone marrow match’.” It wasn’t my bone marrow they wanted. They wanted me to gradually weaken on the operating table from blood loss and complications, eventually dying “legitimately” from a post-operative infection. That way, Ryan could, as the grieving fiancé, smoothly inherit everything from the Hayes family, and then marry his first love. “Ms. Hayes, should I send someone tonight to…” Liam’s hand rested on his phone screen, his gaze as cold as a knife. “No.” I turned around, my eyes utterly freezing. “Taking action now would be too easy for him. Since he likes to act, I’ll play a good show with him.” “I want him to watch everything he owns turn to dust, little by little. I want him to kneel on the ground, unable to live, unable to die.” The next morning, I had Ryan called to the study. When he arrived, his face was even paler than yesterday, his steps faltering. He had to lean on the doorframe to stand steady. “Ellie…” he called my name weakly. I sat behind the desk, a document laid out before me, my face equally pale. “Ryan, I thought all night yesterday. We’ve been together so many years, how could I watch you die?” Ryan suddenly looked up, his eyes exploding with wild joy, which he then tried desperately to suppress. “Ellie, you agreed? But your health…” I gave a bitter smile. “My health isn’t great to begin with. If I can use this life to let you live, it’s worth it. It’s just that Chloe said bone marrow transplants have high risks; a slight mishap could cause an accident.” “No, it won’t!” Ryan urgently rounded the desk. “Chloe studied medicine, she’ll make sure you’re safe!” “Is that so?” I looked at him steadily. “You trust her that much?” Ryan’s eyes flickered, and he quickly explained. “She was a top student at medical school, of course I trust her. Ellie, I just want to live so badly, I want to stay with you.” I lowered my eyelids, hiding the mockery in my eyes. “Alright. In that case, go call her. I’ll sign.” Ryan trembled with excitement, turning to run out, almost tripping on the threshold. Less than twenty minutes later, he rushed back with Chloe. Chloe carried a medical kit, unable to hide the smile on her lips. “Ms. Hayes, your generosity is truly great. I thank you on Ryan’s behalf.” I looked at her, speaking calmly. “Chloe, how exactly does this bone marrow transplant work?” Chloe opened the medical kit, pulled out a surgical consent form, her eyes glinting. “It only requires a small procedure in the operating room, just to extract a small amount of bone marrow. Ms. Hayes, rest assured, you won’t feel anything after the general anesthesia.” “Wait a moment.” I raised a hand, and Liam walked in from outside, holding two cups. One of water, one of milk. “Chloe, since you’re a medical professional, you wouldn’t mind tasting this milk for me, would you? My nutritionist just sent it. I’m afraid I might be lactose intolerant, so could you try it?” Chloe’s face changed, and she instinctively looked at Ryan. Ryan was also stunned. “Ellie, what do you mean?” I looked at them with a half-smile. “What? Chloe, you don’t even dare to drink a cup of milk? Could it be that there’s something in it?” Chloe forced herself to be calm. “Ms. Hayes, you’re joking. I’ll drink it.” She picked up the milk cup, closed her eyes, and drank it all in one gulp. However, as soon as the milk went down, her face instantly turned deathly pale. She clutched her stomach and writhed on the floor in agony. “Ah! It hurts so much! Ryan, help me!”

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I’m an acoustic architect. I was testing a top-of-the-line bone conduction monitoring headset, and at two am in the morning, I switched on full-spectrum reception. I expected to hear the sleeping breath of the city. Instead, what I heard was a sound coming from the ceiling directly above me — a scraping, like fingernails clawing desperately into concrete. I assumed the upstairs neighbor was a lunatic. Until I pulled up the building’s architectural blueprints, and what I found scared me. There was no floor above me. Just a sealed-off phantom mezzanine. A hidden layer, bricked up and forgotten. And at that moment, that low-frequency vibration was crawling through the ventilation ducts, inch by inch, toward my bedroom. I. It was a Thursday. well past midnight. It’s pouring outside. The whole city felt like it had been submerged in dark, suffocating water — heavy, oppressive, still. I sat in the center of my top-floor apartment, surrounded by roughly $700,000 worth of acoustic testing equipment. My name is Silas Vance. I’m an acoustic architect — I design soundscapes for high-end concert halls, private theaters, and even classified conference rooms. My ears are my livelihood. I’d just signed the lease on this apartment. It was on the top floor of a late-nineties high-rise on the edge of the old district. The view was wide open, but more importantly — it was dead quiet. I’d spent a small fortune on the walls: soundproofing treatment, acoustic foam panels, triple-pane insulated glass. In this room, you could hear a pin drop from across the floor. 2:15 AM. I slipped on my custom monitoring headphones and pushed the full-spectrum gain fader up on the mixing board. I wanted to test the noise floor limit of the new equipment. At first, the headphones gave me absolute silence. The stillness was so absolute, it brought on a faint tinnitus. Then I slowly cranked the gain higher — and I picked up the faint vibration of raindrops hitting the glass, the distant hiss of a car tire rolling over wet asphalt two blocks away. Everything was normal. Perfect, even. Until 2:20 AM. That’s when the sound appeared. Not from outside the window. Not from the hallway. The phase readings told me exactly where it was coming from — directly above me. The ceiling. It wasn’t an ordinary noise. it was a deeply viscous, bone-chilling scraping sound. Shhhk — shhhk — Like something heavy being dragged across rough concrete. And underneath that, something else — faint, but unmistakable. A sharp, hard object, scratching and digging into the floor above. Like fingernails. Like something clawing. A sudden chill washed over me, making every single hair stand on end. I pulled off the headphones and looked up, staring hard at the white ceiling. The room was dead silent. My bare ears caught nothing. I swallowed. Put the headphones back on. The sound was still there. And now, beneath the dragging, something new had crept into the noise floor — a deep, resonant hum. very strange. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard from a household appliance. It had a penetrating quality to it, dense and heavy, like a massive animal growling somewhere in the dark. I watched the spectrum analyzer on the mixing board. The green waveform lines were jumping wildly. I zeroed in on the anomalous frequency band. Fourteen hertz. Infrasound. The lower threshold of human hearing is twenty hertz. At fourteen hertz, your ears can’t detect a thing — but your body can feel it. The moment I locked onto that frequency, a wave of nausea hit me hard. My stomach lurched. My heartbeat turned erratic, stumbling out of rhythm. And then a fear unlike anything I could describe poured down my spine and flooded straight into my brain — cold, like ice water. This wasn’t psychological. This was the resonance effect of infrasound on the human body. Fourteen hertz sits dangerously close to the natural resonant frequency of human internal organs. At sufficient intensity, infrasound can cause the organs to vibrate in sync with the wave — triggering nausea, dizziness, overwhelming panic, and in extreme cases… cardiac arrest. I ripped the headphones off and gasped for air. I looked at the coffee table. There was a glass of water sitting on it. The surface was trembling — tiny, perfectly rhythmic ripples spreading outward in rings. The vibration was real. It was right above my head. But I was on the top floor. The only thing above me was the roof. In the middle of a rainstorm. Two in the morning. Who would be dragging something heavy across the roof? Who — or what — would be generating infrasound at fourteen hertz? I sat on the floor, cold sweat soaking through my shirt. I didn’t call the police. I didn’t know how to explain it. “Officer, I picked up a fourteen-hertz infrasound signal through the ceiling using a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar rig?” They’re going to treat me like a psycho. So I just sat there, staring at the ceiling, until the sky began to lighten. The ripples in the glass went still at exactly 3:40 AM. II. The next day, I was jolted awake by a splitting headache. The sunlight was brutal. I peeled myself off the carpet, every bone in my body aching like it had been ground to dust. I dragged myself to the bathroom and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My face was ghostly pale. My eyes were shot through with red. But the worst part — there was a thin streak of dried blood along the edge of my nostril. A nosebleed. That was a classic physiological response to prolonged exposure to high-intensity low-frequency sound waves. Everything that happened last night was real. That fourteen-hertz vibration had done actual, physical damage to my body. I splashed water on my face and forced myself to calm down. I’m a technical person. I believe in logic. I believe in data. Every sound has a source. Every vibration has a medium. I changed my clothes and decided to check the rooftop. The building had four units per floor and two elevators. I took the emergency stairwell up, rounded the half-landing, and came to the iron door that led to the roof. It was sealed shut. Not with the kind of ordinary padlock the building management usually used — this was a massive, brand-new industrial combination lock. And the gaps around the edges of the door had been packed solid with black acoustic foam sealant. I stood there, frowning. This wasn’t right. Fire code strictly prohibited permanently sealing a rooftop emergency exit. It was a serious violation. And the lock and the foam sealant both looked fresh — definitely less than a month old. I reached out and touched the black foam. The material was unusual. High-density polyurethane — an extremely specialized soundproofing and vibration-dampening material. The kind you’d only find in professional recording studios or heavy industrial equipment rooms. No ordinary building management company would ever use something like this to seal a rooftop door. Someone was intentionally covering up whatever noises were coming from the rooftop. I stepped back and headed downstairs. I found the building’s property manager in the security booth on the ground floor. His name was Frank. Frank was an old man in his sixties, always wearing a smile, listening to the radio in that little booth of his. I handed him a cigarette and asked, as casually as I could manage, “Frank, why is the rooftop door locked up so tight? I heard something on the roof last night and wanted to go check if there was a leak, but I couldn’t get it open.” Frank’s hand jerked the moment he took the cigarette. It slipped right out of his fingers and fell onto the desk. He looked up at me, and for just a second, I caught a flash of unmistakable panic in his eyes. He didn’t hold my gaze. His eyes immediately slid away to somewhere else. “Ah… that door…” Frank stumbled over his words. “That… the waterproofing layer on the roof is damaged. It’s dangerous up there. The company ordered it sealed. You… you heard something last night?” “Yeah. Like some kind of machine running.” “Wind! It was definitely the wind!” Frank’s voice shot up almost an octave, sudden and jarring. “There was a terrible storm raging outside last night — the ventilation ducts on the top floor were resonating. Old building like this, it happens all the time. Don’t overthink it. Stop asking around.” With that, he turned his back to me, grabbed a rag, and started furiously wiping down a desk that was already perfectly clean — a clear signal that this conversation was over. I didn’t push any further. I already had the answer I came for. Frank was lying. And he was scared. He was scared of whatever was on that rooftop. Or more precisely — he was scared of whoever was up there. I left the security booth and walked quickly back to my apartment. Things just took a dark turn. This wasn’t a simple noise complaint anymore. This was something premeditated, something hidden — something that carried a whiff of real danger. I opened my laptop and loaded last night’s audio recording into my acoustic analysis software. I was going to strip this sound down to its skeleton and find out exactly what it was. III The waterfall display on the software’s interface looked like a colorful cross-section scan, sound waves cascading in layers across the screen. I put on my headphones and began the tedious work of audio separation — filtering out the rain, filtering out the wind, filtering out the ambient noise of the city. What remained was a single, pure band of audio, rendered in deep crimson on the display. Fourteen hertz. I ran a pitch-shifting process on the segment, pulling it up into a frequency range the human ear could actually distinguish. When the sound came through my headphones again, I felt cold sweat soak through my shirt in an instant. That was not duct resonance. That was absolutely not a sound produced by nature. It was mechanical. Rhythmic. Unmistakably man-made. Click… hum… click… hum… The rhythm was terrifyingly steady — like some enormous, precision medical instrument cycling through its operation. And what truly made my blood run cold even more were the smaller details buried beneath that mechanical drone. I kept boosting the gain, peeling back frequency layers one by one. I heard liquid. Not rainwater — something viscous, being pumped through tubing. I heard metal striking metal. Sharp. Clean. The kind of sound that only comes from high-grade stainless steel making contact with itself. Like a scalpel dropping onto a metal tray. I finally heard it — a sound so faint it was almost nothing. A gasp, muffled inside some kind of sealed space. A human gasp. Full of agony. Full of suppression. It lasted less than half a second before the roar of machinery swallowed it whole. I shoved the keyboard away and shot up from my chair. My stomach lurched violently. I ran to the washroom and hunched over the toilet, dry-heaving. This is insane. This is absolutely insane. What the hell is happening above my head? I splashed cold water on my face and stared at my own bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Fear was tearing through my veins like wildfire, but some deep professional instinct kept me unnervingly calm. I need the blueprints. I have to figure out the structure of this building. At two o’clock that afternoon, I called in a favor from my contacts at an architectural design firm and got my hands on the original construction drawings from when this building was completed. I spread them out across the living room carpet and started marking them up with a red pen. This was a high-rise tower built in the late nineties, back when building codes were nowhere near as strict as they are today. I found my floor — the top floor, the 24th. I traced my finger upward along the cross-section diagram, from the 24th floor toward the roof. My finger stopped. My heart clenched. According to the blueprints, there was a full five-foot gap between the ceiling of the 24th floor and the underside of the roof deck. Five feet. In architectural terms, this is called a “structural transfer layer” or a “mechanical interstitial space.” But in the building notes, this gap was labeled as “fully sealed solid fill.” Means, according to the drawings, above my head should be five feet of solid concrete and insulation. Solid concrete cannot produce that kind of hollow, dragging sound. And solid concrete cannot contain mechanical equipment capable of generating 14-hertz infrasound. There was only one explanation. This interstitial space was never filled in. It was hollow. Five feet tall. Spanning the entire footprint of the top floor. A ghost space. Someone had built an extremely hidden facility up there — above my head, inside that lightless, five-foot-high void. And inside that facility, there were medical devices. There was thick liquid. There was… a person. IV Night fell again. The whole city lit up, but my apartment felt like a cold iron box. I didn’t turn on the lights. I sat in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Tonight, I didn’t switch on the monitoring equipment. I didn’t need anymore. That nauseating low-frequency vibration came back on its own. Hummmmm— The 14-hertz infrasound rolled over me like an invisible tide, washing past my ankles, climbing up my knees, and finally closing around my heart like a fist. The water glass on the coffee table rippled again. My breathing felt tight. My temples throbbed. I had to fight back. I couldn’t just sit here and let this happen. I pulled out the equipment I’d rented that afternoon — a military-grade infrared thermal imaging camera and a high-precision laser vibrometer. My hearing had already proven something was there. Now I needed visual evidence. I aimed the laser vibrometer’s red dot at the ceiling. The readings on the screen immediately went haywire. The vibration source wasn’t directly above me. It was slightly to the left — above my bedroom. I picked up the thermal camera and crept quietly into the bedroom. The room was pitch black. I raised the camera and pointed it at the ceiling. The screen should have shown a solid field of deep blue — the color of cold, inert material. It didn’t. Right in the center of the screen, where the ceiling was, a massive blaze of red burned back at me. Bright, aggressive red. The color of intense heat. It was a huge heat source, its shape completely irregular — like some enormous creature crouched in the darkness above me. I adjusted the contrast on the camera, trying to make out the edges of the heat signature. Slowly, the red mass began to separate into distinct shapes. I could see the outline of a machine. Rectangular. Radiating enormous heat. Almost certainly the source of the infrasound. And beside the machine — several human-shaped outlines. One of them was lying flat. Completely still. The other two were standing over the motionless figure, their arms moving in slow, deliberate motions — like they were performing some kind of extremely precise procedure. I bit down hard on my lip to keep from making a sound. They were performing surgery. Above my head. Inside a lightless, five-foot-high phantom mezzanine hidden in the bones of this building. two figures were performing surgery on someone lying there. No sterile environment. No legitimate medical equipment. Just 14-hertz infrasound and a space designed to never be found. What was this? Some kind of underground clinic? Or was it something worse— A phrase flashed through my mind, and my blood ran cold. Illegal organ harvesting. Only transactions this dark and bloody required such extreme measures of concealment. Then, without warning, the image on the thermal imaging screen changed. The two standing silhouettes suddenly froze. One of them slowly turned its head. On the thermal screen, the figure’s face was nothing but a blurred smear of red. But I could feel it — he was looking directly at me. Through five feet thick of solid concrete and insulation, through the endless dark, he had locked onto my exact position. Had he spotted me? Impossible. Infrared can’t penetrate concrete. There was no way he could see me. But the next second, the standing silhouette suddenly dropped into a crouch. He pressed himself flat against the floor of the hidden space — the same floor that was my ceiling. On the screen, his face was flush against the surface. Then, from directly above my head, came a sound — sharp, clear, and absolutely chilling. Knock. He was tapping on the ceiling. He was saying hello.

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