Author: Momo Chan

Digging through a dumpster for scraps, a stream of comments suddenly popped into my vision: “Isn’t that the billionaire’s kidnapped daughter? Poor thing!” “Her dad’s loaded, but she can’t even get a decent meal. What a tragedy.” “Her father, that big villain, is about to off himself. Saying all this is useless; she’ll just keep suffering.” Huh? So, my dad’s rich, and if I find him, I won’t starve? Following the on-screen prompts, I sprinted to a lavish villa estate and pounded on the grand gate. The man who opened it had a shock of white hair, but his face—it was undeniably, strikingly similar to mine, at least an eighty percent match. “Dad! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” 1 The man was dressed in a sleek, black silk pajama set, impeccably tailored, making his frame look surprisingly trim. In one hand, he clutched a bottle of what looked like extremely expensive, unreadable vintage wine. In the other, a small white pill bottle. His gaze was utterly vacant, devoid of any emotion—no anger, no surprise, not even a flicker of recognition for my face, which was almost a mirror image of his. He simply stared down at the pill bottle. Beside him, the butler gasped, his face paling, and lunged to grab my arm. His voice dripped with disdain. “Where did this wild child come from? Do you have any idea where you are? Mr. Walsh is not someone you can just call ‘Dad’!” The butler’s grip was surprisingly strong, digging painfully into my arm. But I’d grown up wrestling street dogs for food in alleyways, so my own strength wasn’t to be underestimated. I clung to the ornate, cold iron gate, refusing to let go. “I’ll call him whatever I want! That’s my dad! I can tell! He looks exactly like me!” I shrieked, my voice raspy, terrified that if I didn’t shout loud enough, my rich father wouldn’t hear me. The butler, his face contorted with fury, snarled, “Call security! Drag this lunatic away!” Just then, another line of blood-red text flashed across my vision, punctuated by glaring exclamation points. “Mr. Walsh, the ‘Walsh Tyrant,’ is three minutes away from swallowing those sleeping pills. Today is the anniversary of his late wife’s death; he tries to die every year on this day.” “This butler is working for the wicked stepmother, deliberately trying to drive away the real daughter so Mr. Walsh dies, leaving the fake daughter to inherit everything.” “If this gate closes, Mr. Walsh is doomed.” My heart plummeted. Three minutes? My golden ticket, my long-term meal plan—was it about to vanish? I’d spent eighteen years scavenging, scrounging for scraps. Now that I finally had a rich dad, how could I let him die before I even got one good meal? Summoning a surge of desperate energy, I clamped my teeth onto the butler’s hand, biting down with the same ferocity I used to fend off street dogs. He yelped in pain, his grip loosening just enough. I squeezed through the gate, a tiny, determined ferret. Instead of rushing to embrace my supposed father, I bolted towards him at a full sprint. My target was clear: the pill bottle in his hand. “Dad! Don’t die! I haven’t even eaten yet!” I slammed into his chest. The pill bottle flew from his hand with a sharp clatter, white pills scattering across the polished marble steps, rolling into the grass, lost to sight. Mr. Walsh, the man I’d just addressed, staggered back two steps, the red wine sloshing from his bottle, dark crimson liquid staining his expensive pajamas. It was then, for the first time, that he truly looked at me. His brows were furrowed so tightly they looked etched in stone. “Who let her in?” His voice was cold, carrying the unmistakable weight of someone long accustomed to authority, making me instinctively shrink back. The butler, clutching his bleeding hand, rushed over, his face a mask of terror. “Mr. Walsh, I’ll have her thrown out immediately! This wild girl came out of nowhere.” “I’m not leaving!” I latched onto Mr. Walsh’s leg, pressing my face, streaked with days of snot and tears, against his expensive-looking trousers. What was dignity, anyway? Could it be eaten? “Dad, I’m Daisy! I’m really your daughter! I haven’t eaten in three days. Can’t you just let me have one full meal before you kick me out?” I tilted my head back, my grimy face staring up at him, forcing out a few more tears to make myself look even more pathetic. Mr. Walsh looked down at me, his foot, which had been poised to kick me away, suddenly frozen. His gaze locked onto my face, specifically my eyes. In those dead, vacant eyes, something violently stirred, something explosive bursting to life deep within them. The comments floated past again. “The resemblance! It’s uncanny! Those eyes are exactly like his late wife’s!” “The Walsh Tyrant is softening! He loved that woman more than anything. This little girl is saved!” I seized the moment, crying even louder, my voice cracking. “Daisy?” Mr. Walsh’s voice was no longer icy, but laced with a faint, almost disbelieving tremor. I paused. That name was given to me by the old beggar who found me. He said the tattered cloth I was wrapped in had a strange leaf embroidered on it, like a daisy petal, so he just called me Daisy. “Yes, I’m Daisy.” I answered honestly, calculating whether this name might earn me a meal. Mr. Walsh’s body swayed violently, his face turning incredibly pale. He reached out a trembling hand, as if to touch my face, but his fingertips stopped an inch away, as though my face was a fragile illusion that would shatter at a touch. He murmured, his voice so low it was almost inaudible, yet filled with pain: “…Evening Bloom, it’s our Daisy… did you send her back?” The butler’s face also changed; he’d clearly heard the words, and a flicker of panic crossed his eyes. Sure enough, Mr. Walsh didn’t move his foot. His hand, hanging at his side, clenched into a tight fist, knuckles white. Finally, he spoke, his voice cold, to the butler. “Take her in. Clean her up.” 2 This villa was huge, like one of those bewildering mazes I’d seen outside amusement parks. The chandeliers on the ceiling shone brighter than any stars in the sky. But I wasn’t in the mood to admire it. I sat at a long dining table that could easily seat twenty people, a steaming bowl of seafood porridge placed before me. Mr. Walsh’s butler, Mr. Peterson, stood nearby, his gaze dark and suspicious. Ignoring the heat, I grabbed the bowl and began to gulp it down. The warm porridge slid down my starved throat, a comforting heat chasing away the icy grip of hunger in my stomach. It was unbelievably delicious—succulent shrimp and scallops, a luxury I wouldn’t even dare to dream of. “Slow down. No one’s going to take it from you.” Mr. Walsh sat at the head of the table, dressed in fresh clothes. He held a glass of red wine, swirling it gently, but not drinking, simply watching me. I chewed on a shrimp, mumbling, “No one’s going to take it from me? In the slums, if you’re a second late, there won’t even be a bone left.” Mr. Walsh’s fingers, wrapped around the wine glass, paused. His eyes darkened, as if my words had pierced him. “You’re called Daisy,” he stated, not questioning, but confirming, “Who named you?” “The old beggar who found me. He said when he picked me up, there was a daisy leaf embroidered on my swaddling clothes, so he called me Daisy.” I licked the bottom of the bowl, still wanting more, looking at him. Mr. Walsh didn’t speak, merely set his wine glass down with a heavy, thudding sound. The sorrow in his eyes was so thick it seemed ready to overflow, as if my very presence were a knife twisting in his heart. “Give her another bowl.” Mr. Peterson walked over reluctantly. “Mr. Walsh, this girl’s background is unknown. Shouldn’t we investigate first?” “I told you to serve the porridge.” Mr. Walsh’s voice was low, uninflected. But Mr. Peterson visibly shivered, immediately shut his mouth, and obediently went to fetch more. Is this the aura of a powerful CEO? I thought, a flicker of envy. Once I settled in, I’d try to scare people like that too. As I was on my third bowl, the sharp click of high heels echoed from the doorway. “Brandon, I heard we have a guest?” Before she even appeared, her voice, sickly sweet, reached us, sending shivers down my spine. The comment section exploded. “The wicked stepmother is here! That’s Valerie Sterling, the culprit who stole and abandoned the little girl back then!” “The girl behind her is Chloe Walsh, the current ‘heiress.’ Those two have been sucking Mr. Walsh dry for years!” “Watch out, Daisy! This woman is ruthless!” I put down my bowl and wiped my mouth. Showtime. The battle was about to begin. A woman in a white designer suit walked in, impeccably maintained, looking barely past thirty. Behind her was a girl in a princess dress, around my age, rather delicate-looking, but her eyes regarded people as if they were vermin in a sewer. The moment Valerie saw me, her smile froze. In that instant, I clearly saw a flash of terror in her eyes. “Brandon, who is this?” Mr. Walsh leaned back in his chair, not even bothering to lift his eyelids. “Just a stray I picked up.” Valerie visibly relaxed, then replaced her expression with one of disdain, covering her nose with a handkerchief. “Picked up? Brandon, why are you bringing just anyone into the house? She’s so filthy, who knows what diseases she might carry?” Chloe chimed in, “Yes, Dad, look how she’s made the dining table all greasy. It’s disgusting.” I looked at the two of them, a cold smirk playing on my lips. Disgusting? Just wait. I’d show them truly disgusting. I intentionally let out a loud burp, then grinned at Chloe, revealing two rows of white teeth still flecked with green onion. “Big sister, your dress is so pretty. Is it real silk? Can I borrow it to wipe my hands?” As I spoke, I lunged towards her. Chloe shrieked, darting behind Valerie. “Mom! Look at her! She’s a lunatic!” Valerie shielded her daughter, snapping, “Mr. Peterson! Get this lunatic out of here at once!” Mr. Peterson had been waiting for that command. With a wave of his hand, several security guards moved in to surround me. I didn’t budge. I just looked at Mr. Walsh with a pathetic, puppy-dog expression. “Dad, I’m still hungry.” Mr. Walsh finally reacted. He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping coldly over Valerie and Chloe, finally landing on Mr. Peterson. “Since when did you make decisions in this house?” The security guards’ steps halted abruptly. Valerie’s face paled. She forced a strained smile. “Brandon, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just worried she might hurt Chloe.” “She came back with me.” Mr. Walsh stood up and walked over to me. He towered over me, his shadow falling across me with a palpable sense of intimidation. He reached out, his long fingers cupping my chin, turning my face from side to side. “Since she called me Dad, she’s part of the Walsh family. Anyone who dares to touch her is touching me.” At those words, a pin drop could have been heard in the dining room. Valerie’s nails dug into her palms, and Chloe’s eyes glowed red with jealousy. The comment section erupted in cheers. “Mr. Walsh, the Tyrant, is awesome! That protective dad vibe is amazing!” “Valerie must be furious. All her hard work over the years, and she’s losing to a random wild girl.” “Daisy, quick! Hug that golden thigh! That’s your shield from now on!” I didn’t hesitate, seizing the opportunity. I wrapped my arms around Mr. Walsh’s arm, rested my head on his shoulder, and stuck my tongue out at Valerie and Chloe. “Hear that? I’m a Walsh! From now on, I can eat as many bowls of porridge as I want!” Mr. Walsh’s body stiffened. He made to push me away, clearly disgusted. But I clung on for dear life. No way was I letting go of this golden ticket. 3 That night, I was settled into a guest room. The room was vast, far bigger than the drafty shack I used to live in. The bed was so soft it felt like sleeping on clouds; I thought I might sink right into it. But I couldn’t sleep. Not because I was unaccustomed to it, but because the comments kept scrolling wildly. “Don’t sleep! Someone’s coming tonight to steal your hair for a DNA test!” “Valerie will definitely switch the samples to make the results show you’re not related.” “Once Brandon Walsh thinks you’re a fraud, you’re done for!” I sat up in bed. Trying to switch samples? Not on my watch. I slipped out of the room barefoot, making my way to Brandon Walsh’s bedroom door. It wasn’t locked, just a crack ajar. I cautiously peered inside. Brandon wasn’t asleep. He sat on the sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a photo frame. Moonlight streamed onto him, making his strong back look heartbreakingly solitary. The comments floated by: “That’s a photo of his late wife, Eleanor Walsh. He looks at it every night.” “He was planning to kill himself tonight, but he postponed it because Daisy showed up.” A pang of unease shot through me. This man, who seemed invincible, was clearly a mess inside. I pushed the door open and walked in. Brandon whirled around, quickly flipping the photo frame face down on his lap. “Who let you in?” “Dad, I can’t sleep.” I hugged my pillow, walked to him, and plopped down on the carpet. “This bed is too soft, my back hurts. Can I just sleep on the floor here?” Brandon frowned deeply. “Go back to your own room.” “No.” I refused to budge, a tactic I’d learned from street hustlers. “I’m scared of the dark. What if some bad person comes in to steal my hair?” Brandon actually snorted, a hint of a smile touching his lips. “This is the Walsh estate. Where would a bad person come from?” “You never know. Some people look human on the outside, but you never know what they are on the inside.” I said, meaningfully. Brandon was silent for a moment, then didn’t try to send me away again. “Suit yourself.” He turned back to gaze at the moon outside the window, the lines of his profile sharp and cold in the moonlight. I spread my pillow and lay down at his feet. A while later, I heard him ask in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Do you… really think you’re my Daisy?” He wasn’t asking about my name, but something else entirely. It was a strange question, but I could feel the intense pain mixed with a fragile hope in his words. I rolled over and looked at his profile. “Whether I am or not, won’t we know after a test tomorrow? But I need to be there for the whole thing. No one’s going to switch my DNA sample.” Brandon looked down at me, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. “What do you know?” “I know someone doesn’t want me to be your daughter.” I didn’t spell it out, but Brandon, a man who’d clawed his way to the top in the business world, would get the hint. He snorted. “In this house, whoever I want to be my daughter, is my daughter.” Powerful. That night, I slept soundly. In the hazy depths of sleep, I felt someone gently placing a blanket over me. The movement was soft, a little clumsy, as if they were afraid to wake me.

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The ‘first love’ of the city’s most powerful magnate had returned. He’d abandoned an international conference, eager to greet her at the airport. Everyone was buzzing, saying they were finally going to marry. As the most sensible “songbird” by his side, I decisively packed my bags and fled with my savings. Before leaving the country, I sent a farewell message to the magnate: [I’m going abroad, goodbye.] But I accidentally typed “astray” instead of “abroad.” Moments later, I was cornered by a group of men in black at the airport. The one leading them gritted his teeth, his voice laced with fury. “You’re really playing a wild game now, aren’t you?” 1 “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…” Penny leaned in, curious. “What are you counting?” I pointed at my phone screen. “The number of digits in my bank balance.” Her jaw practically hit the floor. “Mr. Duff is that generous with you?” I offered a noncommittal shrug. Everyone in the city knew about Mr. Duff’s pampered little songbird. That would be me. He was usually aloof with everyone else, but he looked after me exceptionally well. My every wish was practically his command. That’s why I had happily lived in the Duff family estate for three years, letting him have his way. But lately, I’d been considering making a break for it. Because Mr. Duff’s ‘first love’ was returning home. Everyone knew that years ago, before Mr. Duff had consolidated his power, his first love was forcibly sent abroad due to family meddling. Their painful separation had left lingering bitterness. Now, Mr. Duff held immense sway, with enough influence to protect anyone he cherished. He could finally have his fairy-tale ending with his first love. But what about me, with no official title or standing? What would my ending be? Just as I was thinking this, a message from Mr. Duff popped up. [Tiger-stripe taro swirl or matcha mille-feuille? I’ll be home in an hour.] I pursed my lips. He was always like this. So thoughtful about these things, which seemed utterly out of character for him. After a moment, I replied: [Neither.] He didn’t reply again. But when he arrived home, he exacted his revenge by bringing two large bags of desserts. “Bad mood?” Mr. Duff naturally wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, his soft kisses brushing against my neck. In the space of my silence, his large hand expertly traced down my spine, effortlessly untying the ribbon at my back. I leaned my head against his chest, choosing to deny it. “No.” He didn’t press further, simply lifted me, placed me on the sofa, and leaned over me. “If something’s bothering you, you should tell me.” My legs felt like jelly. Mr. Duff always did this. He’d first stir me into a dizzying passion, then coax me into saying what he wanted to hear. I was utterly defenseless against him, only able to ask in a soft voice. “Mr. Duff… I was wondering, if I were to leave here…” My tentative question was cut short by a fierce, heavy kiss. It stole my breath, leaving me no strength to speak. “Don’t ask.” My mind was a blur, as if fireworks were exploding. Didn’t he just tell me to speak my mind? And now he wouldn’t listen? 2 The next morning, when I dragged myself out of bed, aching all over, Mr. Duff was already gone. Recalling his uncharacteristically intense behavior last night, my legs still felt weak. That stubborn man, always tormenting me. Would he be so unrestrained with his first love? I picked up my phone indignantly, only to find the group chat had blown up. Thanks to Mr. Duff, I’d long since infiltrated the city’s socialite circle. Several people were frantically tagging me. [Girls, who heard? Amelia came back early today, and Mr. Duff literally ditched an international meeting to pick her up at the airport!] [Where’s Serena? Why hasn’t she replied?] [Has her Mr. Duff been working her over so much she still hasn’t woken up?] [Seriously, Serena has it good. Such blessings.] [@Serena, if you don’t wake up, your man’s going to be stolen!] [Though I hate to be a downer, Serena, Mr. Duff’s actions definitely mean he hasn’t moved on.] [I heard Amelia saved his life when they were kids. If not for their families’ opposition, they would have been married long ago.] [Even though Mr. Duff spoils Serena like crazy, I don’t think he’ll ever marry her…] There were also a few photos someone had snapped. The background was the airport, a man and a woman, walking side by side. The man was pulling a suitcase, and the woman was smiling gently up at him. The sweet vibe screamed “couple.” The man was Mr. Duff. The woman… actually bore a striking resemblance to me. So this was his first love, Amelia? 3 As much as I disliked being conceited, Amelia’s face truly bore a five-point resemblance to mine. Mr. Duff had been treating me as a stand-in! Enraged, I simmered for a moment. After a day of agonizing thought, I decided to make a break for it. What, was giving his first love my spot not good enough for him? But with someone like Mr. Duff, running away meant acting first and informing later. Otherwise, if he knew I was planning to dump him, he’d never let me go. I started secretly selling off luxury items that were inconvenient to carry and depositing the money into another account. But when I sold the eighteenth bag, Mr. Duff found out. “Serena. Are you short on money lately?” He sat formally in his armchair, his expression unreadable. But the deep indent in the soft leather of the sofa hinted at his foul mood. I hung my head, speechless. Damn it! How was I supposed to know that bag was custom-made by a designer specifically for Mr. Duff? That cursed reseller had immediately put it up for auction! Mr. Duff showed no outward displeasure, glancing at the exquisitely crafted bag nearby. “Do you know your name was engraved on it?” Would I have dared to sell it if I knew that? I muttered to myself. Even though I was thinking that, in reality, I gently draped myself around Mr. Duff’s neck, tilted my head, and kissed his earlobe. “I’m sorry…” Three years together, I knew exactly how to please him. But this time, he did nothing. He merely squeezed my lower back in a punishing grip, taking a deep breath. “If you need money, tell me.” That very evening, ten million dollars appeared in my account. I silently counted my balance again. As long as I wasn’t too extravagant, this money was enough for me to live comfortably for the rest of my life. As for leaving Mr. Duff… I really couldn’t put it off any longer. 4 As soon as my visa came through, I started discreetly inquiring about Mr. Duff’s schedule. Rumor had it that after Amelia returned, she planned to visit her hometown, and Mr. Duff would accompany her. “Mr. Duff, I heard from Mrs. Davies that you’re packing your bags again?” Hearing my sudden question, Mr. Duff paused his movements. He frowned, pushing himself up. “You seem very interested in my affairs lately.” I took the opportunity to roll over, obediently resting on his chest, blinking my eyes. “Don’t you like it?” Mr. Duff clearly found this pleasing. He chuckled, reaching out to cup my waist. “No.” He pressed the back of my head, biting my earlobe, his other hand moving with just the right amount of pressure. I instinctively squirmed. But he held my shoulders, forcing me to feel his warm breath against my ear. “Serena, I love it when you care about me.” Trapped in his embrace, unable to move, I could only whimper a few times. In my mind, I silently scoffed, Why is he so mushy? He only says sweet things like this in bed. Pfft. 5 Mr. Duff told me he would be going on a business trip to a neighboring city for three days, starting the day after tomorrow. I began packing my luggage that very day. And, that morning, I sweetly and amiably saw him off. Hmph, calling it a business trip. Did he think I didn’t see Amelia follow him out right after he left? That stubborn man, going on a trip with his first love and keeping it from me. Good thing I was already planning my escape. Calculating the time, Mr. Duff should have already arrived in the neighboring city. I immediately dragged my luggage to the airport. Standing at the airport entrance, I looked back at this familiar city, sighing. Goodbye, my city. What could I do? I was just a gilded cage bird. After much thought, I still pulled out my phone and sent Mr. Duff a farewell message. [Mr. Duff, thank you for your care over the past three years, but I plan to cheat now. Apologies, I wish you all the best, goodbye.] After sending it, I quickly blocked and deleted him. My movements were so swift that I didn’t notice I’d made a typo. I turned off my phone and dragged my luggage through security. After getting my boarding pass, I comfortably lay in the waiting lounge, eating dessert. But after only a couple of bites, the big screen suddenly showed my flight was delayed. The reason for the delay was “passenger reasons.” When I asked, they said an important first-class passenger hadn’t arrived yet. I felt indignant. I bought a first-class ticket too! But the pretty attendant gently and apologetically brought me a plate of mini cakes. And then I was appeased. I started eating, planning how to spend the money I’d saved over the years. Just as I leisurely finished, a large group of men in black suddenly surged through the entrance. They surrounded me, their presence so overwhelming that the small fork in my hand clattered onto the table. Then, a familiar figure walked in, his face contorted with fury. He stalked towards me, practically gnashing his teeth. “Serena Jen, you’re playing quite loose now, aren’t you?” 6 Gasp. Could Mr. Duff teleport? How did he get here? But I couldn’t ask any questions. Mr. Duff had already grabbed me like a chicken by the neck. A group of bodyguards escorted me, making me feel like a misbehaving elementary schooler caught by their parents. People passing by frequently stared at me. I covered my face. So embarrassing, so utterly humiliating! Damn Mr. Duff. The next time he tries to kiss me, I absolutely will not open my mouth! But Mr. Duff’s aura was terrifyingly low throughout the journey, so I dared not speak. It wasn’t until I was escorted home and saw his expressionless face that I tentatively spoke. “Mr. Duff, I…” My unfinished sentence was quickly swallowed. Mr. Duff spun around, pinning me against the door, gripping my chin and kissing me fiercely. He roughly pried open my lips, more frenzied than any time before. Within moments, I was breathless, my entire body melting into his embrace. Only then did Mr. Duff release my mouth, scoop me up, and carry me upstairs. “You… what? Getting bold, Serena Jen?” He finished, even swatting my behind. I was utterly mortified, kicking my legs wildly. “Mr. Duff!” The next second, he pinned my legs and threw me onto the bed. With one hand, Mr. Duff held me down; with the other, he swiftly yanked off his tie. “What? Cheating? What ‘track’ are you trying to stray onto? Am I not enough to satisfy you?” After years of being together, he knew my sensitive spots intimately. His large hand, completely devoid of chivalry, covered me. My mind hadn’t even processed what he was saying, but my insteps were already curling unconsciously, and I was whimpering and crying. “Who’s cheating? Mr. Duff, gentle, please, ohh ohh ohh.” He chuckled, intensifying his movements. I nearly screamed. Physiological tears welled up, and I cried even harder. “Mr. Duff, you’re not playing fair, ohh ohh ohh!” … You really can’t provoke Mr. Duff in bed. By the end, I didn’t even have the strength to beg for mercy. I lay soft and limp in his arms, weakly scratching at him. Mr. Duff then fumbled for another one from the nightstand. “You just needed a good lesson.” 7 I drifted in and out of consciousness until dinner time. The phone screen on the bedside table lit up. I groggily picked it up, realizing it was Mr. Duff’s. Amelia had sent him several messages, which I didn’t dare open. Just as I was about to close it, I noticed Mr. Duff actually had me pinned to the top of his WeChat. I tapped it open, finding he had sent me many messages. The first few were all red exclamation marks. [?] [Are you serious?] […] [You actually blocked me?] [Serena Jen, unblock me right now!] … [Who is he?] [Can’t we talk about this?] [You really did it.] [You just wait.] I was surprised. How could he have sent so many messages, knowing he was blocked? I scrolled up through a mountain of messages. Finally, I saw the message I’d sent right before I blocked him. [Apologies, I plan to cheat now.] Plan to cheat now… cheat now… now. Miss Manners was quite polite, wasn’t she? OMG. Didn’t I mean to say go abroad? How could I make such a huge blunder?! No wonder Mr. Duff was so angry. I had been wondering if he simply couldn’t bear to lose me. But if he couldn’t accept that the woman he was keeping had cheated on him, well, that made perfect sense. As I stood there in shock, Mr. Duff rolled over beside me and pulled me into his arms. He squinted at the phone in my hand. “What are you looking at? Checking up on me?” I sheepishly put the phone back on the nightstand. “Hardly.” I knew my place as the sugar baby to the sugar daddy. He pinched my waist. “I think you dare to do anything.” Feeling his hand on me, I instinctively flinched. “Again, already?” Mr. Duff raised an eyebrow. “Not enough?” I didn’t speak. He already pushed himself up. “I’m not done.” I closed my eyes. How could one man have so much stamina?! 8 It wasn’t until I got up and opened my own phone that the realization hit me. Wait. How did I open Mr. Duff’s phone just now? I entered my own password. How was his password also my birthday? But I didn’t ponder for too long. Mr. Duff had already put on his trousers and buckled his belt. “I need to go out for a bit. Don’t wait up for me to sleep tonight.” Hearing the word “sleep,” a shiver ran down my spine, my legs still weak. No way I’d wait up, absolutely no way. Noticing the change in my expression, Mr. Duff leaned down and kissed me soothingly. “If you still want to go abroad, wait until I’m done with work, and I’ll go with you. Don’t cheat again.” He chuckled softly. I bit him indignantly. “You said it again!” Mwah! He actually laughed at me for half an hour about that “cheating” typo, even after I explained I meant to go abroad! Mr. Duff quickly hurried out the door. Hmph, dressing himself up so handsomely. Just because Amelia sent him a few messages? Getting all worked up like that. Stubborn man. Even if I wasn’t going to cheat, I wouldn’t just sit around and do nothing! I indignantly opened the socialite group chat. They were buzzing about Amelia heading straight to the jewelry store after returning from her hometown alone. [Didn’t they say they were going to her hometown together? But Mr. Duff came back first this afternoon, and Amelia only returned much later by herself.] [I bet they had a spat on the way, throwing a fit.] [Amelia going to the jewelry store must mean Mr. Duff is buying something to appease her.] [Exactly, exactly! Haven’t you heard? Mr. Duff’s car was also heading towards the jewelry street. So late, such a coincidence—what else could it be for?] [What about Serena? Mr. Duff came back this afternoon to find Serena, right?] [Ugh, don’t mind me saying this, but when a man gets frustrated by his first love, he takes it out on his little songbird. Isn’t that standard procedure?] [Tsk, you’re right.] [Poor Serena has been missing for several hours again.] [Mr. Duff’s stamina is truly unmatched by ordinary men…] …A lot of chattering. The latest message was— [No, girls, oh my god, my friend at the jewelry store just messaged me—Mr. Duff bought Amelia an engagement ring!] [Apparently it’s a custom-made one! Engraved with Amelia’s details!] My heart sank as I read the messages. Following closely was a picture. It was a blurry candid shot. But I could make out Mr. Duff and Amelia together at the engagement ring counter. On the counter was a card, which read: [Customization Request: Customer’s Birthday: 08/06, Scalloped edge.] Damn it. Amelia’s birthday was the same as mine? So Mr. Duff’s phone password wasn’t my birthday. It was Amelia’s birthday! I silently looked at the smiling faces of the two people in the photo. An indescribable emotion spread through my heart. He had just said he’d go abroad with me, and now he was buying someone else an engagement ring? Mr. Duff’s words were all bullshit. Pfft, pfft, pfft!

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1 Online, a burning question once popped up: “What do you do when you’ve played the fake sister to a top-tier billionaire for ten years, and the real heir finally comes home?” The top-voted answer was a succinct two words: “Run. Fast.” My finger hovered over that reply on the screen for a long time before I finally hit ‘like’. But I couldn’t run. Because I wasn’t just Robert Marston’s fake sister; I was his dog, his blade, and the only tranquilizer in the rotten, opulent world of the Marstons that allowed him a moment of peaceful sleep. Just moments ago, I’d personally destroyed a priceless hard drive with concentrated aqua regia. It was Robert’s final ticket to send a competitor straight to hell. And ten minutes after I’d dealt with that “trash,” the anonymous exposé hit my phone’s homepage: The Real Marston Heiress Is Returning. Luella Vance’s Days Are Numbered. I sniffed the faint, acrid scent lingering on my fingertips and smiled. My days are numbered? Maybe. … I’d lived in the Marston mansion for ten years. The outside world whispered that Robert doted on his sister. But I knew it wasn’t doting. It was… tending. Like livestock. It was three in the morning, in the private lab on the top floor of Marston Industries’ corporate tower. The exhaust fan hummed, its drone barely masking the pungent chemical smell with a special air freshener system. I peeled off my goggles, then the ill-fitting hazmat suit, revealing a custom evening gown that felt completely out of place. “Cleaned up?” Robert sat on a leather sofa nearby, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. His voice was hoarse, carrying a post-coital languor and a chilling edge. Robert Marston. The ruthless head of the Marston dynasty in Sterling City, a man who’d clawed his way out of the slums, a madman, and for the past decade, my “brother.” “Hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Not a trace left,” I said, scrubbing my unblemished fingers under the faucet again and again. “The data on that hard drive? Not even a miracle could bring it back.” Robert gestured. “Come here.” I obeyed, walking over. He pulled me into his lap, burying his head in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. “Smells like chemicals,” he grumbled, though his arms tightened around me. “Disgusting, Luella.” “That’s the smell of your power, Robert,” I corrected him, my face a blank mask. Robert chuckled, the vibration in his chest sending a shiver up my spine. “These past ten years, without your hands, how many nights of sleep would I have lost?” I said nothing. I’d been the most inconspicuous child in the orphanage. Robert took me home when I was ten. He’d just taken power then, besieged on all sides. He didn’t need a sniveling sister; he needed a confidante, someone utterly clean, utterly loyal, a “shadow” who could handle his dirtiest work. I had a knack for chemistry. He got me the best tutors, built me the best lab. I didn’t disappoint. I learned to concoct hallucinogens that could drive someone insane with a single breath, how to assemble powerful explosives from common household items, and how to make bodies and evidence disappear completely. I was the Marston heiress, and Robert’s personal “cleaner.” Until that post appeared. On the drive back to the mansion, I sat in the passenger seat, my phone screen glowing. The anonymous forum post had exploded. Poster: [INSIDER INFO! The real heiress has been found! Rumor has it she was kidnapped to the borderlands back then, has a crescent-shaped birthmark on her neck! Mr. Marston has already sent people to pick her up!] 1st Comment: [Is Luella Vance screwed? Squatting for so many years, Mr. Marston is a ruthless man, won’t he flay her alive when he finds out the truth?] 2nd Comment: [Heard Luella was from an orphanage too, tsk tsk, time for the country bumpkin’s Cinderella dream to end.] … 188th Comment: [Bet you a bag of chips Luella gets tossed into the ocean for the fish.] I switched off the screen and gazed out at the blurring city lights. “Robert,” I said suddenly. He was resting his eyes, but didn’t open them. “Speak.” “I want to study abroad.” The air in the car instantly solidified. Old Robert, the driver in the front, visibly flinched, and the car swerved slightly. Robert slowly opened his eyes, his gaze, black as midnight, locking onto me. The warmth in them vanished, replaced by an arctic chill. “What did you say? Say it again.” “I want to study abroad.” I forced the words out, my nails digging into my palms. “My chemical research has hit a wall. There’s a professor overseas…” “Screech—!” The Maybach slammed to a halt at the roadside. The privacy partition rose, leaving just him and me in the confined space. Robert’s fingers clamped around my chin, his grip so tight I thought my bones might shatter. He leaned close, his eyes as menacing as a territorial beast. “Luella, who put that idea in your head? Hmm?” “That forum post? You saw it?” My pupils contracted. He knew. “You think the real one’s back, and you need to clear out?” Robert scoffed, his thumb tracing my lower lip, his voice dangerously intimate. “You’re my property. As long as I don’t let go, no one can replace you. Study abroad? Don’t even think about it. For your entire life, you’ll stay in the Marston mansion, by my side. Nowhere else.” His kiss descended, a punishing bite laced with the acrid taste of stale cigarette smoke. I closed my eyes, a cold dread seeping into my heart. He was lying. If he truly didn’t care about the real heir, why had he been frequently deploying private jets to the borderlands these past few days? Why was there a detailed investigation report titled Jenny in his study? He was soothing me. Or rather, he was keeping me stable. After all, I knew too many of the Marston family’s secrets. Until that “real sister” fully took over, I, the “fake sister,” couldn’t be allowed to cause trouble. 2 The day the “real heiress” returned was a lavish charity gala. Robert Marston never went into battle unprepared. If he dared to present that girl in such a setting, it meant he’d made exhaustive preparations. I wore the black velvet gown Robert had personally chosen, clinging to his arm, playing the part of the demure, aloof, and untouchable Marston heiress. Until the grand doors swung open, and all the spotlights in the room converged on that girl. Her name was Jenny. She stood there, timid and uncertain, in a faded white dress, like a delicate wildflower swaying in a storm. But the moment she raised her head, I heard gasps ripple through the room. The resemblance. It was uncanny. Not to me, but to Robert in his youth. The same innate coolness and stubbornness in her eyes, as if carved from the same mold. More importantly, when she tilted her head slightly out of nervousness, a crescent-shaped red birthmark on her neck stood out glaringly under the lights. It was the unique mark of the Marston family’s long-lost daughter. And it was something I, the “imposter,” absolutely did not possess. Robert’s arm stiffened for a fraction of a second. Just a fraction, but he still pushed me away, striding towards the girl. “What’s your name?” Silence descended, Robert’s voice echoing through the ballroom. The girl’s eyes were red-rimmed, her voice trembling. “Jenny… Jenny Vance.” In that moment, I became the biggest joke in the room. The whispers of the socialites surged like a tide. “Look at Luella, her face is white as a sheet.” “A fake is always a fake. The real one shows up, and the imposter’s true colors are revealed.” “How do you think Mr. Marston will deal with her? All these years, the money spent on a fake must be staggering.” I stood my ground, picked up a glass of champagne, and drained it in one gulp. The sharp, burning liquid slid down my throat, suppressing the stinging in my eyes. I didn’t envy Jenny. I was just afraid. I knew how Robert treated traitors and the useless. Those hard drives I’d destroyed, those people who’d simply vanished from the face of the earth, were all grim precedents. That night, Jenny moved into the Marston mansion. And, more strikingly, into the master bedroom next to Robert’s – a forbidden zone even for me. I was relegated to a guest room. The staff, masters of opportunism, immediately diverted the bird’s nest soup originally meant for my room to the master suite. “Miss Vance, I’m so sorry, but the young lady just returned and is a bit frail. This is the only bowl of bird’s nest we have.” I looked at Martha’s smirking face. “It’s fine, I don’t care for sweets.” Closing the door, I pulled a prepared black backpack from under the bed. Cash, a fake passport, several high-concentration anesthetics disguised as lipstick, and a miniature smoke bomb I’d concocted myself. This was my escape route. I’d hoped I wouldn’t need it, but now, it seemed I had no choice but to use it. Late that night, as I opened my door, I bumped into someone. Jenny. She was wearing silk pajamas, holding a glass of warm milk, standing in the dim light of the hallway. There was no trace of the timidity she’d displayed at the gala. She looked at me, a strange, twisted smile playing on her lips. “Going somewhere so soon, big sister?” Her voice was soft, yet it carried an indescribable chill. I frowned. “Move.” Jenny took a step closer, her gaze falling on my backpack, her eyes greedy and malicious. “How could someone like Robert Marston have kept a fool like you for ten years? You think you can just run away?” She reached out, her long fingers lightly tracing my cheek, her nails sharp. “If I were you, I’d get on my knees and beg for mercy. Maybe I’d be merciful enough to leave you a whole body, considering you’ve worn the Marston name for a decade.” I grabbed her wrist, twisting it sharply. “Ah!” Jenny screamed, the milk spilling to the floor. “What are you doing?!” A furious roar echoed from the staircase. Robert strode up, pushing me aside and shielding Jenny behind him. “Robert… she… she called me a wildling, said I didn’t belong…” Jenny clutched her wrist, tears instantly welling up, a picture of delicate sorrow. I watched the scene coldly. It was a cliché, a tired old trick. But in this house, cliché tricks often worked best, because the judge was already biased. Robert turned, his eyes fixed on me as if I were already dead. “Luella, apologize.” I stood tall. “I did nothing wrong.” “I told you to apologize!” Robert’s voice rose a few octaves, laced with unquestionable authority. I looked at the man I’d called brother for ten years. The last sliver of hope in my heart was extinguished. “I’m sorry.” I lowered my head, my voice so calm it surprised even me. “I shouldn’t have soiled the young lady’s dress.” With that, I turned and went back to my room, slamming the door shut. From outside, I could faintly hear Robert’s low murmurs, soothing Jenny. I leaned against the door, slowly sliding to the floor. It wasn’t sadness. It was clarity. Luella, wake up. This was never your home.

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1 Sebastian had changed. The man who used to greet me with a boundless, golden-retriever warmth now sat in cold silence on the sofa, legs crossed, holding a magazine he’d never read. His gentle face was a stony mask; his eyes glared as if I were a stranger—or worse. Just as I began to speak, my vision glitched. Lines of text floated before my eyes: 【THE MALE LEAD IS REBORN! DON’T LOOK BACK AT THAT TOXIC WOMAN!】 【LAST LIFE HE DIED ALONE FOR HER—NOW MAKE HER PAY!】 【TIME FOR REVENGE!】 I glanced from the floating comments back to Sebastian, still posed like a brooding CEO on our couch. So he’d been reborn. And I was apparently the villainess in his revenge story. How… amusing. A past life? If my memory served me right, Sebastian had a full physical just last week. He was as healthy as a horse; he didn’t even have an ulcer, let alone stomach cancer. And me with my old flame, watching fireworks? My so-called “first love” was now a balding, pot-bellied man. Looking at him for too long was a genuine health hazard for my eyes. But clearly, Sebastian believed it all. As I approached, he didn’t leap up to take my purse like he usually did. Instead, he coldly turned a page, the paper crackling under the force of his grip. “Aurora. You’re back.” Listen to that tone. It used to be “sweetheart,” then “honey,” and now it was the formal, dismissive “Aurora.” I wasn’t annoyed. I casually tossed my limited-edition handbag aside and gave him a smirk. “What, no dinner tonight?” The old Sebastian would have been scrambling to the kitchen, nervously asking if the soup was seasoned to my liking. But this new Sebastian closed the magazine with the grace of someone signing a billion-dollar deal—a grace slightly undermined by the fact that he was still wearing his pink apron with a teddy bear print on it. “I didn’t cook,” he said, lifting his gaze. His eyes were simmering with a carefully contained rage and disgust. “Aurora, I am not your maid. And I’m certainly not some tool you use to blow off steam whenever you feel like it.” The comments above his head exploded. 【BADASS! THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT! SHUT HER DOWN!】 【HE’S FINALLY STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF! THAT DELIVERY, THAT PRESENCE! OSCAR-WORTHY!】 【ASK FOR A DIVORCE! NOW! LET THAT TOXIC WITCH REGRET IT!】 I raised an eyebrow and walked right up to him. Sebastian flinched instinctively, his body tensing like a cat about to hiss. This “rebirth” thing seemed to have some serious side effects, including a full-blown stress response. I reached out, my fingertips lightly tracing the hard line of his jaw. I felt a tremor run through him—a physical rejection—but deep in his eyes, there was a flicker of something else, something complicated and unreadable. “No dinner is no dinner. Why the attitude?” I pulled my hand back and turned towards the kitchen. “It’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.” Sebastian froze. According to the script—or at least, according to the spoilers in the comments—I was supposed to fly into a rage. I was supposed to throw a cup of hot tea in his face and humiliate him for being a useless freeloader. But I didn’t. I opened the fridge, took out a bottle of ice-cold water, twisted the cap, and took a long sip, my eyes tracking his reflection in the polished steel. Sebastian was staring daggers at my back. The comments were just as baffled. 【What’s happening? Why isn’t she following the script?】 【Shouldn’t she be having a meltdown? This is way too calm.】 【Wait… did she get reborn too? No way, this is a solo-reborn plot!】 I smirked to myself. Who said I was the villain? This silly pup was the one who’d cooked up this whole tragic melodrama in his head. When we got married, it was he who had chased me relentlessly, standing in the pouring rain for three hours, begging me to give him a home. I might have a short fuse and be a bit of a workaholic, but I had never, ever mistreated him. His monthly allowance was seven figures. I supported whatever he wanted to do—except for trying to burn down the kitchen. I spoiled him rotten. And this was my reward? The ungrateful brat wakes up from a nap, slaps the “toxic woman” label on me, and plots my downfall? I carried my water back to the living room and sat in the armchair across from him, crossing my long legs in the perfect picture of a heartless capitalist. “Alright. What do you want?” Sebastian took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for battle. From the depths of the sofa cushions, he pulled out a crumpled piece of printer paper and slapped it onto the coffee table. The gesture was powerful, though the grease stains on the paper kind of ruined the effect. “Divorce papers.” Sebastian bit out the words, his voice trembling with either rage or excitement, I couldn’t tell which. “Aurora, I want a divorce. I’ll leave with nothing. I don’t want a single penny of your money. All I want is my freedom.” The comments erupted in celebration. 【FLOWERS! CONFETTI! THE DIVORCE IS HAPPENING!】 【THAT’S OUR GUY! HE’S GOT DIGNITY! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE UNDERDOG!】 【FREED FROM THIS GILDED CAGE, OUR MALE LEAD IS ABOUT TO BUILD HIS BUSINESS EMPIRE!】 I glanced at the paper. The handwriting was a mess, like it had been scrawled in a hurry. The terms were brutally simple: he wanted nothing but a clean break, a quick escape from my clutches. I set down my water bottle, leaned forward, and looked him straight in the eye. He squirmed under my gaze but forced himself not to look away, the veins in his neck popping with the effort. “You’re sure about this?” I asked. “I’m sure!” he declared, his voice ringing with conviction. “For three years, I’ve endured your coldness, your neglect! I’m sick of being your accessory! I’m a man, Aurora! I have my pride!” He sounded so passionate, you’d think I spent the last three years whipping him daily. “Fine.” I pulled a pen from my purse, uncapped it, and signed my name on the document with a smooth, decisive flourish. “You want to leave? I’ll let you.” Now it was Sebastian’s turn to be stunned. He’d probably expected me to shred the paper, to mock him and tell him he couldn’t survive without me, maybe even lock him in the basement like the comments suggested. He never, ever imagined I would agree so easily. So quickly it was as if I were tossing out last season’s clothes. Sebastian stared at my signature, his face draining of all color. His lips moved, but no sound came out. The comments went silent for a beat, then exploded with even more fervor. 【WHOA? That easy?】 【Something’s wrong. This woman is definitely plotting something!】 【BE CAREFUL, SEB! IT’S A TRAP! SHE’S TRYING TO PLAY HARD TO GET!】 I capped my pen, stood up, and looked down at him. “Pack your things and be out by tonight. That work for you?” Sebastian’s head snapped up, and his eyes were suddenly red-rimmed. That abandoned puppy look was back, but he quickly masked it, forcing out a stiff reply. “No problem! I’m leaving right now!” He ripped off the apron, threw it violently onto the floor, and stormed into the bedroom. Two minutes later, a symphony of crashing and banging erupted from the room, sounding less like packing and more like demolition. Meanwhile, the comments scrolled past in a triumphant wave of 【CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ESCAPE FROM HELL!】 The bedroom door flew open again. Sebastian emerged, dragging a massive suitcase, his spine ramrod straight as if he were marching off to war. As he passed me, he hesitated for a fraction of a second, almost as if he was waiting for me to say something, to ask him to stay. I didn’t move. I just glanced down at my phone and said coolly, “Don’t forget to close the door on your way out.” SLAM! The front door slammed shut with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling. I walked to the window and watched his lonely figure drag the heavy suitcase down the street. The comments were still celebrating his glorious liberation. 【HE’S FREE! THE WORLD IS HIS OYSTER!】 【NEXT STOP: THE LOTTERY OFFICE FOR THE WINNING TICKET, THEN A HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF REED CORP!】 【CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THAT WITCH CRYING AND BEGGING HIM TO COME BACK!】

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I was the biological daughter the Winslow family lost eighteen years ago. The System told me that in order to survive, I needed only one thing: genuine acceptance from my family. For three months, I tried to become whatever they demanded. When my father told me I had to prove my worth before I could earn a seat at the Winslow table, I went to his corporate dinners, drinking glass after glass of scotch on his behalf until my stomach lined with ulcers and hemorrhaged. When my mother complained that I was unrefined and unpresentable, I practiced posture and etiquette until my knees were bruised black and blue. When my brother feared that my sudden return would break Daphne’s heart, he made me lie at the welcoming gala, telling the press and society guests that I was just a low-income charity student the Winslows had graciously sponsored. I thought if I was obedient enough, they would eventually look at me and see their daughter. Then came the night of Daphne’s nineteenth birthday. She was supposedly abducted by armed kidnappers who demanded that I go alone to rescue her. Logan gripped my shoulders with bloodshot eyes, begging me. “Save her, Callie. Please. Bring her back, and I swear—I’ll acknowledge you as my sister.” I believed him. I drove to the abandoned warehouse alone. A blow struck the back of my neck, and when I woke, I was bound tightly to a wooden chair in the dark, skin tearing against coarse rope. Then the overhead floodlights blazed on, and confetti showered over me. Daphne, completely unharmed in an immaculate silk dress, threw herself into my mother’s arms, giggling. “Congratulations, Callie! You passed the test.” Logan let out a relieved breath. For the first time since I had arrived, he reached out and patted my head. “From now on, you’re officially a Winslow.” Before the tears could fall from my eyes, the cold, metallic voice of the System echoed inside my mind: “Warning: Acceptance Rating reset to zero.” “Detected emotional components from target subjects: Utility, Pity, Patronage. Genuine familial acceptance: Not found.” “Mission failed. Life countdown initiated: 12 hours.” … 1 Metallic confetti clung to my hair. A sliver of foil slipped into the open cut on my wrist, glued fast by sticky blood. I stared at Logan’s hand. He had just touched my head. For three months, I had begged and bled for that single word—”sister”. It was finally handed to me. Yet the System called it what it was: charity. A scrap thrown to a stray dog. Daphne buried her face in our mother’s chest, sobbing theatrically. “Mom, I was so terrified. I just needed to know if Callie really cared about me as family. If she hadn’t come, I would’ve known she hated me.” Patricia stroked her hair, soothing her gently. “Shh, it’s alright, sweetheart. Don’t cry. Today is your birthday.” Then Patricia’s gaze drifted toward me, her brow furrowing with cold irritation. “Callie, what is that look on your face?” I parted my lips, but my throat was parched and raw. The countdown ticking in my ears drowned out everything else. I had genuinely believed I was going to die in this warehouse. I had prepared myself for the end. To them, it was just a party game. A test to see how docile I could be. Charles Winslow stood a few feet away, checking his platinum watch. “If the drama is over, let’s head back. The guests are waiting.” He glanced down at the blood dripping from my wrists, his mouth twisting in mild distaste. “It’s just a scratch. Don’t go smearing it all over the car.” I looked down at my hands. The rope burns were deep, raw flesh weeping crimson. I had been tied up here for over half an hour, cold and terrified. Not a single person had come early to untie me. Because they had all known it was fake. I was the only one who didn’t. Logan finally stepped over to untie the knots. His hands were gentle, but my limbs were so numb that the moment I stood, my knees buckled. He caught my arm. “Come on, Callie. Don’t make a scene. It’s Daphne’s big day. Try to be a little gracious.” I looked straight into his eyes. “When you said you accepted me just now… did you mean it?” He froze. For a brief, pathetic fraction of a second, my heart lifted. “Maybe”, I thought. Maybe the System was wrong. Maybe human emotion was too nuanced for an algorithm to measure. Logan looked away. “Look, it’s Daphne’s birthday. Don’t push everyone for promises right now.” My heart plummeted straight through the floor, a physical ache cramping deep in my gut. Daphne dabbed at her eyes and walked over, taking my limp hand in hers. Her fingers were spotless, her nails adorned with tiny seed pearls. “Callie, let’s go cut the cake together. You passed the test. We’re real sisters now.” I didn’t move. Her grip tightened sharply, her pearl-tipped nail driving right into the gash on my wrist. She leaned in, whispering so softly that only I could hear. “See? They’ll always love me more.” I lifted my eyes to look at her. In an instant, she pulled back, her face instantly morphing into wounded innocence. “Callie… are you still mad at me?” Patricia’s tone hardened immediately. “Callie, Daphne went out of her way to make peace with you. What more do you want?” What did I want? I wanted to live. It was that simple. “Don’t embarrass us in front of everyone,” Patricia muttered. Looking at their polished, impatient faces, a soft, dry laugh slipped past my lips. A home offered as an act of pity was never a home at all. … 2 By the time we returned to the estate, the blood on my wrists had dried into a dark crust. A maid looked at me with hesitant pity before offering a pack of antiseptic wipes. Charles saw the exchange. “Why is there so much blood? Go get cleaned up, Callie. Don’t stir up any more trouble tonight.” My hand froze midair. The maid pulled back, visibly uncomfortable. I wiped my palms against the hem of my dress. It was a castoff Daphne had discarded two seasons ago, tailored down to fit my smaller frame. None of it mattered anymore. I went upstairs, grabbed the DNA paternity test from my drawer, and walked down to Patricia’s private sitting room. “Mom.” The syllable hung in the air. Her hands paused over her jewelry box. Daphne, sitting on the plush ottoman beside her, looked up. I held out the paper. “Could you… just once, call me your daughter?” Patricia didn’t take it. She looked at the official seal with a faint scowl. “Callie, blood isn’t a weapon to hold over people’s heads.” My hands turned cold. “Daphne has been with us for eighteen years,” Patricia continued evenly. “You’ve only been back for three months. These things take time.” “Time.” I clenched the paper in my fist. But time was the one thing I didn’t have. “How much time?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Daphne’s eyes welled with tears. “Callie, do you really think I stole your place?” Patricia pulled Daphne into her arms at once. “Don’t say that, darling. Don’t overthink.” Then she turned on me, cold and stern. “Callie, stop using your biological status to guilt everyone.” I said nothing. If I opened my mouth, I would break down, and the Winslows despised messy tears. Logan strode into the room and yanked me back by the elbow. “Callie, do you really have to make everything so ugly?” I looked at him. “Were eighteen years of being forgotten not enough room for me to step aside?” He faltered. For a split second, I saw a crack in his composure. Then he exhaled. “We’ll make it up to you later.” “Later.” I had heard that word so many times. When I drank until my stomach bled for Charles, he said he’d make it up to me later. When I knelt until my joints tore on the hardwood during deportment lessons, Patricia said she’d make it up to me later. Even when I begged my own mother to acknowledge my existence, Logan told me to wait for later. Their “later” was a blank check with no date, meant never to be cashed. “Charles, I’m not drinking your corporate dinners anymore,” I said, my voice steadying. “Patricia, I’m done learning how to be your idea of presentable. Logan, keep your pity. I don’t want the scraps of your affection.” Daphne bit her lip. “Callie, please don’t do this. You’re putting everyone in an impossible position.” I looked directly at her. “Then don’t be in one.” I turned back to the three people who shared my blood. “I don’t need your acceptance anymore.” … 3 Charles gave a harsh, dismissive scoff. “Callie, if you walk out that front door tonight, don’t you dare come crawling back in tears.” I gave a single nod. “Understood.” I turned and walked away. Behind me, Logan called out, “Callie!” I didn’t turn around. I hauled my small duffel bag past the wrought-iron gates of the Winslow estate. The bag was ridiculously light. In three months, I had accumulated almost nothing: a few second-hand outfits, a folded DNA report, and an old handwritten recipe book left behind by my adoptive mother. The security guard at the gatehouse looked at me with confusion. “Miss Callie, should I call you a car?” I patted my jacket pocket. My phone still had battery. My wallet held exactly forty-two dollars. I had lived in this sprawling city for three months, yet I had nowhere to go. I stood on the curb as the damp night wind whipped past. My phone vibrated in my palm. It was a text from Logan: “When you’re done throwing your tantrum, come home. Mom cried herself to sleep because of you.” I stared at the screen for a long time. In the past, I would have replied instantly. I would have scrambled to explain myself, apologized profusely, asked if Mom had taken her blood pressure medicine. This time, I turned the phone face down. No reply. I found a cheap, worn-down motel tucked away in an old industrial alley. The wallpaper was peeling, but the room was quiet. In the final hours of my life, I wanted to belong only to myself. … Two days passed. I did not return. At first, Patricia remarked over breakfast, “Good riddance. At least the house is peaceful for once.” Yet that evening, when the kitchen prepared soup, she unconsciously told the maid to set out an extra bowl. When the maid asked who it was for, Patricia sat in silence for a long moment before murmuring, “Just throw it out.” Daphne saw it, her eyes immediately rimming with red. “Mom… are you missing Callie?” Patricia touched her cheek softly. “Only a little, darling. Don’t worry. You’re still my precious girl.” Charles continued going to the office as usual, acting as though nothing had changed. Until a call came through from the private hospital. “Mr. Winslow, we’re calling regarding Callie Hollis. She never returned for her follow-up after that severe gastric hemorrhage. As her emergency contact, please remind her that untreated ulcers of that severity can lead to full perforation.” Charles frowned. “Gastric hemorrhage? When?” His executive assistant’s expression tightened. “Sir… the night of the Henderson merger banquet.” That night, Charles’s business partners had poured drink after drink, laughing about how filial the Winslows’ new daughter was. Charles hadn’t stopped them because the eight-figure contract was on the line. Later, when I collapsed in the restroom hallway, he had assumed I was simply lightweight and dramatic. The assistant placed the medical chart on his desk. “Emergency admission. Acute blood loss. Severe gastric mucosal laceration.” Charles stared at the black-and-white printout, the room descending into absolute silence. That same afternoon, my former etiquette instructor arrived at the estate with her weekly evaluation logs. Patricia had prepared to reprimand her. “Callie made so little progress. Did you even bother teaching her properly?” The instructor quietly placed a folder of photographs on the marble coffee table. “Mrs. Winslow, these are the photos of her knees after each three-hour session.” In the photos, my legs were mottled with deep purple hematomas, some cracked open and bleeding against the bandages. Beside them were pages from my notebook in neat, careful handwriting: “Mom said I looked a little less clumsy today.” “Try harder tomorrow. Make her proud.” Patricia stared at the photographs, the color slowly draining from her face. She remembered what she had told me: “Don’t embarrass me.” She had thought I would be annoyed. She hadn’t realized I was clinging to her approval as if it were oxygen. Across town, Logan drove back to the warehouse. He found the security guard who had handled the lights that night. The man trembled the moment he heard the Winslow name. “Wasn’t it just a prank for Miss Daphne’s birthday? Miss Daphne explicitly told us not to open the door too quickly. And… the latch on the cold-storage unit jammed. Miss Callie was locked inside the sub-zero room for ten minutes.” Logan’s voice tightened dangerously. “Did she scream for help?” “She banged on the door until her hands bled,” the guard mumbled, looking down. “We thought… we thought she was just acting.” Logan leaned against the damp concrete wall, his breath catching in his throat. He remembered how pale I had looked when the lights went on, the blood dripping from my wrists, the desperate, hollow look in my eyes when I asked if he truly accepted me. And his answer had been: “Don’t push everyone for promises.” … 4 Back at the mansion, Daphne was sobbing on the sofa. “I didn’t know it would go that far. It was just a harmless joke…” When Logan walked through the front door, she threw herself at him. “Logan, please don’t be angry with me!” In the past, he would have wrapped her in a protective hug, reassuring her instantly. This time, he stood motionless, his arms rigid at his sides. “Why did you specify that Callie had to go alone?” Daphne blinked, startled. “I… I was scared.” “You were scared, so you sent her to die?” The words cut through the living room like a blade. Patricia gasped, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth. Charles slammed his crystal tumbler onto the side table, shattering the glass. “Enough!” Yet Charles did not defend Daphne either. That evening, a courier package arrived at the front gates, addressed to the Winslow family. Sender: Callie. Inside were all the things the Winslows had ever given me. The designer gowns. The platinum supplementary credit card. The estate keycard. The custom silver pendant engraved with the Winslow crest. And at the very bottom, a single sheet of paper: a formal declaration of disownment. The paper was thin, the handwriting steady and unwavering: “From this day forward, all matters concerning Callie Hollis—in life, death, honor, or ruin—bear no relation to the Winslow family.” Logan held the paper, his hands trembling violently. Patricia suddenly bolted toward the front hall. “Find her! Go find her right now!” Charles stood frozen for a long time before his voice broke the stillness: “Get the car.” They were finally terrified. But I was no longer waiting.

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The autumn of my freshman year of college, a man dragged me into a rain-slicked alley behind campus, tore away my dignity, and severed my internal organs so severely that I was left dependent on a medical drainage bag for the rest of my life. My mother died in that same alley, stabbed through the chest trying to shield me. In the five years that followed, my father spent every waking hour gathering evidence and filing petitions until the monster was locked behind bars. My fiancé, Brett, relocated us to a quiet neighborhood to start over, never leaving my side for a single day. Surrounded by their fierce, tender devotion, I truly believed I had clawed my way back into the light. Until the morning of my routine hospital follow-up, when I saw both of them gently escorting a pregnant woman into the OB-GYN wing. When the nurse asked for the father’s information, Brett didn’t hesitate. “The night of Laurel’s birthday last month—I was with Whitney. I’m the father.” Brett turned to my father, his voice level and resolute. “Dad, Whitney and I have been together for three years.” I froze in the corridor, the blood draining from my face until my entire body ran ice-cold. Whitney. The girl who had orchestrated my high school torment. The daughter of the man who murdered my mother. … The voices behind the frosted glass clinic door carried into the quiet hallway. My father, a man whose gentle patience had been my anchor for five years, was trembling with a fury I had never heard in him before. “You swore an oath to me, Brett! You swore you would dedicate your life to Laurel!” “And what about Whitney? Look at the impossible position you’ve put her in!” For half a decade, Brett and my father had been inseparable, moving like a father and son bound by shared tragedy. But now, Brett let out a sharp, mocking scoff. “Whitney is a human being, not a pawn. You should be asking what she wants, not deciding her life for her!” The tension inside the room coiled tight, thick and suffocating, until a soft, fragile voice broke through. “Please, Mr. Langford… Brett… don’t fight over me. It’s all my fault…” Standing outside, watching the two men who formed the entire foundation of my world engage in a bitter battle over the happiness of my tormentor, something inside my chest shattered. The sound of Whitney’s voice was a venomous thread, dragging me violently back into the nightmare. In high school, Whitney had made my life a living hell. She had shoved my head into bathroom stalls, ripped the clothes from my back in empty classrooms, and filmed my degradation for the entire school to laugh at. When I finally gathered the courage to go to the police, her father retaliated with brutal, unforgiving violence. That rainy night after class, her father, Frank, cornered me in the alleyway. My mother threw herself between us and caught his blade in her heart. I watched the light leave my mother’s eyes while Frank pinned me down, tearing at my clothes with a feral grin. And Whitney had stood right there at the mouth of the alley, phone raised, giggling as she recorded every agonizing second. Though Brett had arrived just in time to stop Frank before the worst could be finished, the damage was already done. My body was broken, my bladder permanently ruptured, and my mother was dead. Severe depression and crippling PTSD swallowed me whole. I attempted suicide more times than I could count. I shrank from the touch of any man. Thunderstorms sent me into violent, breathless convulsions. My father had dropped to his knees before my mother’s memorial, swearing on her memory that he would make Frank rot. For five years, he poured every penny and breath into ensuring Frank received the maximum sentence. And Brett… Brett had earned a counseling certification just to understand my triggers. He never left my bedside. Every time I reached for a blade, he would slash his own arm, looking into my eyes and whispering that he needed to feel my pain. When I couldn’t bear to look at a man’s face, he rented oversized, suffocating mascot suits, dancing awkwardly in the living room just to draw a faint smile to my lips. The first time I finally laughed, he pulled off the heavy foam head, his face drenched in sweat and tears, and struck himself across the jaw. “It’s my fault, Laurel. If only I had picked you up ten minutes earlier that night…” Piece by piece, they had painstakingly pulled me from the dark mud of my trauma. I thought I was stepping into a hard-won second chance at life. I never imagined they were simply guiding me to the edge of an even steeper cliff. My knees buckled. I slid down the cold drywall of the hospital hallway, my fingers clawing into the linoleum. When pain reaches an absolute threshold, the mind simply goes numb. Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. Two of Brett’s closest friends approached, carrying baskets of fresh fruit and vitamins, their faces lit with relaxed, genuine smiles I rarely saw when they visited me. “Hey, look at our girl! Doing okay, sis?” I stared at them blankly. Just yesterday, those same men had been sitting at my dining table, eating a dinner I spent hours preparing. They had nudged Brett with their elbows, asking when he was finally going to marry me. I had held Brett’s hand, offering a shy, fragile smile. “Brett said we’ll go down to City Hall as soon as my health stabilizes, and then maybe we’ll talk about adoption.” My father had cleared his throat, urging everyone to pass the salad, while knowing glances drifted across the table. They all knew. Every single one of them had known for years. I was the only fool kept in the dark, clutching onto fairy-tale promises of growing old together. Through the half-open door, I caught sight of Whitney’s face. Soft, delicate, glowing with maternal youth. I dug my fingernails into my palms until skin broke. After the trial, my father had once grabbed Whitney by the collar in the courthouse hallway, his voice choked with venom as he told her she would pay for what she did. Brett had forced her onto her knees before me, his eyes icy and merciless: “What you owe Laurel can never be repaid in ten lifetimes.” To punish her, they had demanded she show up weekly, forcing her to apologize and endure their scrutiny. Yet somewhere within that twisted, obsessive proximity, Brett’s hatred had curdled into a dark, suffocating fascination. And my father had somehow found it in his heart to soften toward her. “She lost her father to a life sentence,” my father had murmured to Brett one evening when he thought I was asleep. “She’s paid her penance. Laurel still has the two of us, but Whitney… Whitney has no one in this world.” My life had been incinerated by Whitney and her father. And now, my fiancé was carrying her child, and my father viewed her as a tragic victim. How grotesque. I don’t know how long I sat on that hospital floor, waiting until the numbness in my legs matched the hollow void in my chest. When I finally pulled out my phone in the taxi home, a notification popped up. One of Brett’s friends had just posted an update. A photo of Brett walking along a manicured private path, his hand gently resting on the small of Whitney’s back. The geo-tag read “The Enclave”—one of the most exclusive, high-security gated subdivisions in the city. A place where private security vetted every vehicle at the gate. They had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide her, protecting the girl who had terrorized me from the slightest whisper of public scrutiny. What about me? What about the blood on the asphalt? Who was going to pay for my mother’s stolen life? I didn’t reply to the brief text Brett sent an hour later. In the past, if I failed to respond within ten minutes, he would blow up my phone, terrified that I had slipped into a bathtub with a razor. Today, my phone remained dead silent for hours. It was nearly dark when the front door opened. Brett and my father walked in together, a lingering warmth in their expressions that vanished the moment they saw me sitting in the dark. Brett quickly set a steaming takeout container on the coffee table, kneeling before me with that familiar, practiced tenderness. “Laurel, sweetie, I picked up some of that creamy shrimp bisque from downtown. It’s fresh. Have a few bites.” For five years, Brett had monitored my medications, sterilized my incision site, and changed my drainage bag twice a day without a word of complaint. When nightmares ripped me awake at three in the morning, he held me against his chest, rocking me until dawn. He knew every single detail of my body. He knew I had a life-threatening shellfish allergy. The soup wasn’t bought for me. He reached out to touch my cheek, but I recoiled instantly, shrinking against the sofa cushions. The thought of those hands touching her skin made bile rise in the back of my throat. My father hurried over, alarmed. “Laurel? Honey, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?” The concern in their eyes looked so real. It was an astonishing performance. I pulled out my phone and hurled it squarely at Brett’s chest. “How do either of you look in the mirror without choking on your own disgust?” The phone landed face-up, illuminating the photo of Brett and Whitney at the gated villa. The color drained from both men’s faces in an instant. Brett recovered first, reaching out in a panic. “Laurel, listen to me. Whitney did terrible things in the past, but she knows that now. She’s completely broken. You don’t have to worry—the moment your surgery revisions are done, I’m still going to marry you.” My father let out a heavy, weary sigh. “We only kept it from you because we knew how fragile you are, Laurel. Whitney is worse off than you think. All she ever wanted was a family.” “She’s worse off?!” A raw, ragged scream tore from my throat. I stared at the two men who had sworn to protect me from the world. “She shoved a camera in my face while her father butchered Mom! She ruined my body, she stole my future, and you’re telling me “she” is the victim?!” Before the echo of my voice could fade, Brett’s phone chimed loudly. The speaker picked up Whitney’s soft, tearful whimper. “Mr. Langford… Brett… my stomach is cramping really badly. I’m scared…” Brett’s knuckles whitened around the device. My father turned to me, his eyes full of conflicted urgency. “I’ll go check on her. Brett will stay here with you. She’s carrying a baby, Laurel—she can’t be left alone right now.” I turned my face toward the wall, closing my eyes. After my father left, Brett remained in the apartment, but his mind had already fled. He sliced an apple and cut his finger. He set the kettle on the stove and forgot to turn off the burner. He over-salted the rice. I watched him in silence until he came over to change my drainage bag. As he rolled up his sleeve, my eyes caught the fresh dark ink on the inside of his forearm—the initials “W.K.” intertwined in a minimalist loop. A jolt of pure terror spiked through me. I jerked backward instinctively. My hip knocked against the unsealed medical bag, sending a splash of pale amber fluid over Brett’s wrist and the sleeve of his shirt. That tiny spill shattered the last shreds of his saintly composure. Brett slammed the medical kit onto the floor and screamed, his face twisting with rage. “When the hell are you going to stop holding us hostage with your misery?!” He caught sight of my wide, horrified eyes and froze. The anger bled out of him, replaced by clumsy panic. “Laurel… I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.” I shook my head violently, backing away until my shoulders hit the cold glass of the window. The rain. The alleyway. The heavy, tattooed arm pinning my wrists to the pavement while Frank laughed above me. Tattoos had been my deepest, most visceral trigger. For five years, Brett had refused to let anyone with visible ink enter our apartment. He had scrubbed away every trace of anything that could remind me of that night. And now, he had permanently etched the name of Frank’s daughter onto his own skin. My chest heaved as I fought for air, suffocated by the sheer magnitude of the betrayal. “Is she really that precious to you?” My voice broke into ragged sobs. “Precious enough that you could look me in the eye every day for three years while sleeping with her? Brett… did you forget what they did to me? Did you forget everything you promised?” A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room. I looked at him, but his eyes were fixed entirely on the glowing screen of his phone. “Laurel, I have to go,” he muttered, already heading toward the entryway without looking up. “The ultrasound technician is arriving at Whitney’s house. The baby’s heart rate is irregular.” The front door clicked shut. He hadn’t heard a single word I said. A fire raged through my veins. I wept until my throat bled, smashing every mug, every frame, every piece of shared history in that apartment onto the hardwood floor. Eventually, exhaustion claimed me, and I collapsed into a restless sleep on the couch. I woke in the middle of the night, shivering violently. The cushions beneath me were soaked and foul-smelling. In his rush to get to Whitney, Brett hadn’t tightened the valve on my replacement bag properly. Numbly, I dragged myself into the bathroom, stripped the linens, and washed my skin under the scalding shower spray. My phone buzzed on the counter. A direct message from an anonymous account. Attached was a photo. Whitney, her skin marked with deep red bruises and love bites, resting her head peacefully on Brett’s bare chest. “You put my dad in a cage. This is your payback.” “They hated me so much at first, but look at them now. Begging at my feet, trained like dogs.” “I’ve got plenty more if you want to see how he touches me.” More images flooded the thread. Explicit, undeniable evidence of their intimacy over the past three years. After the attack, Brett had encouraged me to post daily vlogs about my recovery to help me build confidence. I remembered a specific, nameless handle that had viewed every single video from the very beginning. She had been watching me the entire time. I scrolled through the account’s public grid. It was an entire parallel life. On my birthday, when Brett and my father told me an emergency client meeting had come up, they had taken Whitney to a private movie premiere. On the morning of my follow-up appointment, when my father didn’t pick up my twelve frantic calls, they were holding Whitney’s hand at an IV infusion clinic. And on the anniversary of my mother’s death—when they claimed an out-of-town deposition kept them away, leaving me to sit alone by her grave in the rain—they were celebrating Whitney’s positive pregnancy test. I stared at the screen, tears streaming silently down my face, before a dry, hollow laugh escaped my lips. That storm had trapped only me. My mother’s unavenged blood had pinned down only my soul. No one in this world will ever truly share your pain. When dawn broke, I began packing my suitcase. After the incident, Brett had burned every piece of clothing I owned from that period, replacing them with pastel sweaters and soft floral dresses. He had wrapped his arms around me then, whispering, “Forget the past, Laurel. We’re going to build a brand-new life.” On the wall hung the framed portrait from the day I was discharged from the hospital—Dad on my left, Brett on my right, both holding my hands tightly. “We are a family now,” they had told me. “No one will ever let you go.” The front door unlocked. My father and Brett walked in together, stopping short when they saw the packed duffel bags. “Laurel? Where are you going?” my father asked, his brow furrowing. I didn’t pause my hands. “Just getting some fresh air.” Brett’s eyes darkened with guilt. He crossed the room, pulling me into a tight, desperate embrace. “We were wrong to hide it from you, Laurel. Please don’t be like this. Once Whitney delivers the baby, I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go. Okay?” I pulled out of his grasp with quiet disgust. Then I looked past him toward the hallway. Whitney was standing in the doorway, wearing a pristine, floor-length white sundress. My breath hitched, the room spinning violently. On the night of the attack, my white dress had been soaked through with my mother’s arterial blood. Ever since, not a single piece of white fabric had been allowed inside our home. Her outfit was an intentional, calculated strike. I raised a trembling hand, pointing toward the door. “Get out. Get out of my house.” Whitney’s eyes welled with tears, and she sank slowly to her knees on the entryway rug. “Laurel… I know what I did was unforgivable. It’s all my fault. Please don’t blame Brett or your father…” She cradled her barely visible bump, a fleeting glint of malice flashing through her lowered gaze. “If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life serving you, taking care of you to atone for what happened. I swear I won’t come between your marriage…” The last fragile tether of my sanity snapped. I lunged forward, throwing my hands around her throat, pressing her into the hardwood floor. “You dare set foot in this house?! I will kill you! I will tear you apart!” A harsh, agonizing grip locked onto my wrists. Brett yanked me backward with enough force to throw me off balance. He stood over me, his features tight with condemnation. “Laurel, stop living in the damn past! You have to move on!” “Whitney was a teenager who made stupid mistakes, and Frank is already behind bars! Why do you have to hold onto this toxic grudge forever?!” My father stepped between us, his voice heavy with disappointed exhaustion. “Your mother was already in poor health, Laurel. Even without that night, her heart wouldn’t have lasted another few years.” “You have to learn to forgive. If your mother were watching down on us, she wouldn’t want to see you turned into a monster of hate.” The words hit me like a physical blow. “She wouldn’t have lasted another few years anyway.” So that was how they justified it to themselves. I looked at the two men who had sworn to be my protectors, a bitter, broken smile curling on my lips. “Do you think my mother is smiling down on you right now? Watching you protect her murderer’s daughter? Sleeping with her? Breeding with her? Aren’t you afraid of the retribution coming for you?” They both flinched, silence hanging heavy. Suddenly, Whitney let out a soft gasp and collapsed sideways onto the floor. I had never seen Brett move with such raw, frantic panic. He shoved past me, sweeping Whitney into his arms as if she were made of glass. My hip hit the edge of the console table, and Brett’s heavy boot caught the tube of my drainage bag, ripping the plastic seal clean off. He glanced at the fluid pooling around me for half a second, his expression hardening, before turning on his heel and running out the door. My father paused only long enough to throw out a hurried phrase: “We’ll handle this when we get back.” Neighbors in the hallway peered through their open doors, wrinkling their noses in disgust. “Good God, did she just soil herself in the hallway? That’s revolting.” “If you’re that unstable, stay in a facility. Why inflict yourself on the whole building?” Warm, foul liquid soaked through my jeans and hair. I scrambled on hands and knees, trying to wipe the floor with paper towels, whispering apologies through choking sobs. Their judgmental stares cut deeper than any blade. When I first came home with the drainage bag, those exact looks had terrified me. Back then, Brett and my father had shielded me, standing tall against the world’s cruelty. Now, they were the ones who had left me bleeding on the floor. I spent an hour cleaning the mess before dragging my battered body back to my desk. With shaking hands, I opened my social media account and drafted a public post, attaching the court records, the old news clippings, and the hospital discharge summaries. “Five years ago, Whitney Keller orchestrated my brutal assault, leading directly to the murder of my mother by her father, Frank. Today, she is pregnant with my fiancé’s child, sheltered by the very men who swore to seek justice. Here is the unvarnished truth.” Within minutes, the post exploded across the local community feeds. Thousands of comments poured in, condemning Whitney and the grotesque betrayal. Less than an hour later, our front door was kicked open with a thunderous bang. My father stormed into the room, his eyes blazing with fury. “Delete that post right now, Laurel! Are you trying to destroy Whitney’s entire life?!” Brett stepped into the doorway behind him, holding a sheaf of legal documents. His face was cold, stripped of every trace of the warmth he had shown me for five years. “I thought you had a kind heart, Laurel. When did you become so vindictive?” “Tomorrow is Whitney’s birthday. You are going to sign this clemency petition. It will reduce Frank’s sentence and allow him eligibility for medical parole. I promised Whitney I would reunite her with her father.” Every drop of blood in my body turned to stone. I stared at Brett, the very last ember of affection in my soul dying out completely. “I will never sign that,” I whispered, each syllable trembling with pure hatred. “Frank murdered my mother. He destroyed my life—” “SLAP!” The strike was so hard my head whipped to the side, my ear ringing with a sharp, piercing whine. My father lowered his trembling hand, his face twisted in grief and rage. He reached into his coat and pulled out the small ceramic urn containing my mother’s ashes, holding it over the edge of the table. “How much longer are you going to milk your victimhood?! We have catered to your every whim for five years!” “If you don’t sign this paper today, I will smash your mother’s ashes onto the street below! She doesn’t belong in a home filled with this much spite!” My eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror. “No… Dad, please. Don’t touch Mom…” Tears spilled over my cheeks, hot and helpless. “Don’t hurt her… I’ll sign it. I’ll sign it…” The next afternoon, Brett hosted a large gathering at an upscale event space, ostensibly celebrating the upcoming legal resolution and Whitney’s birthday in front of family friends and colleagues. He guided me onto the small stage, his hand clamped firmly around my elbow, whispering beneath the applause. “Remember what you promised. You tell everyone the online post was a misunderstanding caused by your trauma, and you sign the petition publicly.” Seeing how pale and fragile I looked, his tone softened slightly. “Laurel, I know this is hard for you. But once Whitney delivers, whatever you want—any house, any trip—I’ll give it to you.” I nodded numbly, reaching out to take the microphone from the stand. The room went quiet. “The post I published yesterday…” My voice was raspy, cutting through the silence like a rusty knife. “…is the absolute truth. Frank assaulted me and murdered my mother. His daughter, Whitney, tormented me for years and destroyed my family!” Before I could finish, a heavy shove knocked me off my feet. Down in the front row, Whitney clutched her stomach, groaning in theatrical agony as she sank to her knees. “Whitney!” My father turned pale, sprinting toward her. Brett stood over me, his gaze burning with pure, unbridled hatred. “If I had known you were this twisted, I would have left you in that alley to die!” He lunged toward the podium where my mother’s small ceramic urn sat, grabbed it, and slammed it down onto the concrete stage floor. The porcelain shattered into jagged pieces, pale gray ash scattering across the floorboards. I screamed, a sound that didn’t belong to a human throat, clawing across the stage toward the dust. My father rushed up the steps, grabbing my arm, twisting it behind my back, and pressing my ink-stained thumb forcefully onto the signature line of the clemency petition. “You want everyone around you to suffer forever! You are the most selfish creature alive!” “Your mother is gone, Laurel! I just want Whitney to have a chance at peace—what is wrong with that?!” I fought with everything I had, but the agony in my shoulder flared white-hot. My thumb was slammed down onto the red ink pad, then stamped onto the white paper. I stared at the crimson print on the petition through a blur of tears. The years of bullying. The rainy night. My mother’s blood. The five years of slow, humiliating recovery. All of it had been turned into a sickening, cruel joke. “It’s done! Whitney, it’s signed!” My father and Brett broke into relieved, triumphant smiles, rushing down the steps to Whitney’s side. Every ounce of will drained from my limbs. My eyes drifted toward the open floor-to-ceiling window behind the stage. The breeze stirred the heavy curtains, carrying the scent of fresh rain. I felt so impossibly tired. Before my mind could register the movement, my feet had already carried me onto the wide concrete ledge. I looked back at the chaotic room and let out a soft, final smile. “Mom, I’m coming home.” I leaned forward into the empty air, opening my arms to the fall. Behind me, the room erupted into a chorus of blood-curdling screams.

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Truth or dare. I drew the dare: “FaceTime your secret online partner right now.” My hand shook so violently that I knocked over my glass, dark amber liquid pooling across the sticky table. My best friend laughed, shoving my shoulder. “What’s with the massive panic? Who are you hiding? Someone embarrassing?” I couldn’t say a word. How could I? The girl on the other side of that anonymous screen was his older sister. Before I could come up with an excuse, the heavy door of the private lounge swung open. “Corinne?” Sam blinked, sitting up straight. “What are you doing here?” “Picking up my boyfriend.” Her eyes were fixed straight on me as she crossed the room in long, decisive strides. Sam looked at her, then looked at me, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief. My mind went entirely blank. A frantic flutter rose in my throat—”When did she figure it out? How did she know it was me?” Then, without slowing down, Corinne brushed past my shoulder. She reached out and lifted the heavy tray straight from the hands of the young busser clearing the next table. “Babe,” her voice dropped into a tender, scolding murmur, “didn’t I say I’d pay your tuition? Why did you sneak out to work another shift?” 01 The room seemed to tilt on its axis. Sam’s voice exploded right beside my ear. “Holy shit, Corinne, don’t give me a heart attack! I thought you were talking about Mason!” He paused, suddenly realizing what he’d said. “Wait… since when do you have a boyfriend?” “Do I need to submit an application to you before I date someone?” Corinne threw him a dismissive, icy glare. But the moment she turned back to the boy with the tray, her features softened instantly into something unrecognizable. “Leave this to me. Go sit down and rest.” She pushed up the sleeves of her tailored silk blouse and began clearing the leftover plates and greasy glasses. Her movements were clumsy, hesitant. Dark sauce splashed onto her pristine designer cuff. She winced, drawing in a sharp breath through her teeth, yet she didn’t call for help. She kept going. Sam rubbed his eyes, utterly bewildered. “Is that really my sister? The girl who literally sterilizes her steering wheel before she drives?” He nudged me, suspicious of my silence. “Man, why are you so calm? Did you already know about this?” I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin went numb. I couldn’t shake my head, and I couldn’t nod. Because until ten seconds ago, I genuinely believed I was the one she was dating. Corinne and I had met on an anonymous confession board a year ago. It started as late-night venting, then shifted into private voice notes, and eventually blossomed into an intense, secret relationship online. When I pieced together that she was Sam’s older sister—the brilliant, untouchable girl I had harbored a hopeless crush on all throughout high school—I was terrified, but deliriously happy. Terrified that Sam would find out. Euphoric that my private dream had somehow become mine. We were inseparable for six months. But right before graduation finals, my mother caught on to my late-night calls, confiscated my phone, and locked down my life. We were abruptly cut off for three whole months. When exams finally ended and I got my phone back, I logged in only to find an empty screen. She had blocked me on everything. I spent weeks drowning in guilt, assuming I had broken her heart by disappearing, desperately searching for a way to explain. So during those few agonizing seconds when Sam dared me to call her, I had made up my mind. I was going to throw caution to the wind. I was going to stand up and confess that I was the boy from the screen. Whether she forgave me or screamed at me, I wanted to be brave for once. Now, that bravery felt like a cruel joke. In the three months I was gone, she hadn’t been grieving. She had simply moved on to the next boy without missing a beat. “Mason? Earth to Mason. What are you spacing out for?” “Nothing,” I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. I took a slow breath and forced myself to stand. “I just remembered I have something urgent at home. I need to go.” “Right now? What about your dare? What about your online girl?” As I stepped toward the door, my eyes brushed against Corinne’s. She offered a polite, distant nod—the kind reserved for a younger brother’s casual acquaintance. Just a standard, courteous greeting. Yet the sheer detachment in her gaze felt like a blade scraping against my ribs. A bitter, suffocating humiliation rushed through my chest. I hurried out, Sam’s questions fading behind the heavy door. There was no online girlfriend. There never would be again. 02 I bolted all the way home. There were only three minutes left before the college portal closed for final ranking submissions. Hands shaking against the keyboard, I canceled my first-choice university in Chicago—the city where she lived—and switched it to a coastal campus a thousand miles south. I submitted it with thirty seconds to spare. A cold wave of relief washed over me. I couldn’t imagine spending the next four years alone in a frozen northern city, running into a girl who had replaced me like an old coat. I collapsed onto my mattress, completely drained. Hours later, the patter of heavy rain against glass pulled me from a restless sleep. I dragged myself up to shut the window. As the old wooden frame creaked forward, two silhouettes on the sidewalk below caught my eye. “Walk slower,” a voice drifted up through the rain. “You’re going to slip again.” “No, I won’t,” the boy laughed. Corinne let him tug her along by the hand, looking down at him with a tenderness so raw it made my throat ache. They bantered under the streetlamp, their shadows merging. Then he pulled her in. The kiss was lingering, possessive. Their warm breath fogged up the clear canopy of the umbrella. My hands trembled as I jerked the window shut. A dull, throbbing ache flared behind my temples, my throat burning as if I’d swallowed glass. On the nightstand, my phone buzzed incessantly. Sam had sent a string of voice memos. “Man, I still can’t wrap my head around it. The iron queen actually fell in love.” “Remember when my parents were pressuring her to date, and she claimed she already had a guy? We thought it was just a lazy excuse. Turns out it was real.” “I just found out they’ve been together for a full year.” My throat tightened. “A year?” “Yeah. Kept it totally underground until now. Who knew she had it in her to be so secretive?” The acid in my stomach surged upward. A year. That meant our entire timeline overlapped. Every memory I had hoarded like treasure, every late-night confession, every tender reassurance she gave me until dawn while I cried over my father’s death… none of it was special. I was never her person. I was just someone to kill time with when she was bored. “By the way, why did you run off so fast earlier?” Sam’s text popped up. I swallowed the lump in my throat and typed back with forced lightness: “Nothing major. Just changed my college list. Decided the north is too cold. The south suits me better.” “Seriously?! You finally came to your senses! But what about your online girl?” I stared out into the darkness. Lightning cracked across the sky, followed by a low roll of thunder. Usually, on nights like this, Corinne would call within seconds. She knew how much I hated thunderstorms. No matter how early her morning classes were, she would stay on the line, letting the call run until my breathing evened out into sleep. She would hum old, soothing melodies into the receiver, her low, steady voice shielding me from the noise outside. Now, the only sound reaching my ears was the muffled laughter drifting up from the pavement downstairs. “Your technique is terrible.” “I’ll let it slide tonight, but next time we’re practicing somewhere else.” “Shut up, the neighbors are going to hear you…” I pulled the blanket completely over my head and typed four words with numb fingers: “We broke up.” 03 I didn’t explain anything to Sam. In his head, he manufactured an entire tragic narrative about my devastating heartbreak, insisting that I needed a beach trip to clear my head before summer ended. I thought it would just be the two of us. On the morning we were supposed to leave, I hauled my duffel bag over to the SUV and pulled open the passenger door. A crisp, familiar voice came from the driver’s seat. “That seat’s taken. You and Sam are in the back.” I froze, looking up into Corinne’s striking profile. Behind me, Sam ran over, dragging the new boyfriend along. “Hey, man! My parents freaked out about us driving down the coast alone, so they forced Corinne to play chaperone.” “Like I wanted to come,” Corinne said, not hiding her annoyance. Sam didn’t care; he was too easygoing to let her tone bother him. He tossed his bag in and climbed into the back with me, chatting away. The atmosphere in the car was lively, mostly dominated by Justin. Justin leaned back in the passenger seat, showing off the woven leather band on his wrist with an expensive silver clasp. “She broke it when she was chasing after me on campus—it cost thousands, but she didn’t even blink when she replaced it. Then she spent another fortune getting the original restored.” Sam played the eager audience, groaning playfully about being suffocated by their romance. “Anyone thirsty?” Justin rummaged through a cooler bag between his feet, passing out cold drinks. When he reached me, he paused, letting out a small, performative gasp. “Oh, sorry. I only brought three.” He smiled thinly. “Sam, your friend doesn’t talk much. I figured he probably wasn’t thirsty.” It wasn’t my imagination. There was a quiet, sharp hostility directed right at me. Before I could say it was fine, a cold bottle of water landed on my lap from the front. “Give mine to Sam’s friend,” Corinne said, glancing into the rearview mirror. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second in the glass. My heart betrayed me, kicking hard against my ribs. Then she added smoothly, “Justin and I will share.” Justin’s pout vanished instantly. “That’s better.” Sam groaned again, covering his eyes. “Please, spare me. I’m going blind back here.” Corinne couldn’t help it; a soft, genuine laugh slipped out. When she smiled like that, her eyes crinkled into gentle crescents, transforming her sharp features into pure warmth. I stared, lost in the sight. Back when we spent hours on the phone, whenever her laugh drifted through the speaker, I had tried a thousand times to picture what her face looked like in that exact moment. Now I knew. It was just as beautiful as I had imagined. It just didn’t belong to me. 04 We arrived at the beach house late in the afternoon. Corinne pulled Justin toward the shore to take photos against the setting sun. “Let me take them for you, bro!” Sam offered eagerly, jogging over. Corinne blocked him with a flat look. “Your camera skills are an insult to human vision. Back off.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine.” Then he glanced around, spotting me standing by the porch. “Hey, let Mason do it! He’s amazing with cameras. He can make a cheap point-and-shoot look like a high-fashion editorial.” Without waiting for my answer, Sam practically shoved me forward. My mind went blank. I waved my hands nervously. “I don’t know how to use an instant camera.” “It’s simple. Here.” Corinne stepped up to me, placing the vintage Polaroid into my hands. Though she maintained a careful distance, when she leaned down to adjust my grip, her breath brushed faintly against the side of my neck. “Press here to focus, shutter’s on the right. Got it?” My entire body stiffened. It took me several seconds to manage a stiff nod. She didn’t linger. She turned and walked straight back to Justin. Through the tiny viewfinder, I watched the two of them lean into each other, the golden light washing over their shoulders. A memory hit me with sudden, visceral force. Last summer, on the phone, she had asked me where I wanted our very first picture together to be taken. I told her I wanted it by the ocean. She had laughed softly on the other end. “Just the ocean? That’s our first official photo, you know. Don’t be so casual.” I had stayed silent for a long time before telling her the truth: my father had died of liver cancer when I was in middle school, and his ashes had been scattered in the Pacific. I wanted him to see every major milestone of my life. Corinne’s laughter had died down immediately. Her voice had turned solemn, steady, and fierce. “I won’t let him down. I promise.” Now, through the lens, the past collided violently with the present. Corinne tilted her head, pressing a spontaneous kiss against Justin’s cheek. “What was that for?” Justin chuckled, startled. “I love you, Justin.” “So cheesy,” he grinned, blushing. “Why are you being so dramatic?” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying with everything in me to keep my hands steady. But no matter how hard I tried, the lens in front of me refused to focus. 05 For the next few weeks, I became a silent witness to their romance. They chased the tide along the shore. They ducked behind coastal rocks at dusk to steal kisses out of the wind. For twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day, she seemed physically tethered to his side. She took incredible care of Justin, and by extension, she was generous to us. Whenever she brought back snacks or specialty drinks for him, there was always an extra portion left on the counter for Sam and me. She acted like a gracious, responsible older sister. It was almost impossible to reconcile the woman in front of me with the person who had played with my feelings online. For a brief, desperate moment, I even wondered if I had gotten it wrong. What if someone had used her photos to cat-fish me? That fragile hope shattered two days later. We were by the outdoor pool when Justin pointed at the heavy metal watch on Corinne’s left wrist. “Why do you always keep that on, even when we go into the water?” Corinne’s hands paused on her towel. She stared at Justin, her dark eyes unreadable and impossibly deep. Justin looked confused, offering a teasing smile. “What? Do I have sunscreen on my nose?” She lowered the towel, wet strands of hair falling across her forehead, casting a shadow over her pale face. “Nothing.” After a long silence, she slowly unclasped the watch and set it on the glass table. Across her pale inner wrist lay a thick, faded silver line. I hadn’t mistaken her. That mark belonged uniquely to her. Corinne came from a fractured family, just like me. During her senior year of high school, her parents’ bitter, vicious divorce had made local headlines. The entire city had followed the scandal. Sam had been shielded, sent to live with their grandparents in the countryside. Corinne had been left alone at ground zero to absorb the shrapnel. The trauma had turned her solitary, volatile, and deeply depressed. At her lowest point, she had despised everything around her, but most of all, herself. After we started talking online, the phrase she repeated most often was “thank you.” She told me that because of my voice, she hadn’t touched a blade in months. She told me that because of me, she thought living might actually be worth the effort. Now, without me in her life, there were no fresh marks on her skin. Instead, because of Justin, she smiled constantly. She showed an open, childlike warmth she had never shown anyone else. I stared at their intertwined hands on the lounge chairs. A bitter, self-mocking smile touched my lips. All those late-night confessions… they were just sweet, dramatic lies to keep a lonely boy on the hook. 06 Right before the trip was scheduled to end, things fell apart. Corinne and Justin had a massive, explosive fight over something neither of them would name. They plunged into an icy, suffocating silence. Justin spent every waking hour in our room, venting and crying to Sam. Because Sam and I shared a room, Justin’s presence meant I was constantly pushed out. Every time Justin walked in, he would look at me pointedly until I left to stand in the hallway. At first, Sam stood up for me. But as the days dragged on, Sam grew irritable. “I’m caught in the middle here, man,” Sam told me one afternoon, exasperated. “Can you just be cool and step out when he needs to talk? Please?” From that day on, Sam’s loyalty shifted entirely. Justin became his top priority. Even when I tried to bring up something important, Sam would cut me off to obsess over his sister’s relationship. “Wait, do you think she’s seeing someone else on the side?” Sam would ramble on for twenty minutes analyzing their texts, before finally remembering I was sitting there. “Anyway, what were you saying earlier?” The desire to speak instantly evaporated. I swallowed my words down. I had wanted to tell him that my father’s death anniversary was coming up in two days, and that my mother was driving down to pick me up so we could visit his memorial. In the past, Sam would have offered to drive me himself. Now, his mind was completely consumed by Justin. There was no room left for me. The final straw came when we went to the local waterpark. At the turnstiles, my pass scanned red. Sam slapped his forehead, looking sheepish for half a second. “Shit, I forgot to buy yours.” He shrugged, turning away. “You have your phone, right? Just buy one online. Justin and I are heading to the roller coasters first.” He grabbed Justin’s arm and walked through the gates without looking back once. He seemed to have completely forgotten that this entire trip had been his idea. He had clapped me on the back two weeks ago, promising: “Just show up, man. I’ve got everything covered.” Standing alone outside the gate, a profound, hollow exhaustion settled over me. I didn’t buy a ticket. I turned around and took a cab back to the empty rental house. My pocket buzzed. It was my mother. “Mason? Are you having fun with your friends?” I looked down at the floorboards, my voice barely audible. “Mom… can you pick me up early?” There was a slight pause on the line. She seemed to sense something, but didn’t press. “I’m already in town. Pack your things.” “Okay.” I hung up, turned around, and nearly collided with someone standing right behind me. Corinne was wearing an oversized faded blue T-shirt, her hair damp from a recent shower, water droplets clinging to the ends of her collarbones. “You’re leaving?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Did you and Sam fight?” I hadn’t expected her to be here. My hands fumbled awkwardly, unsure of where to rest. Thankfully, she had never paid much attention to anyone who wasn’t Justin. I offered a vague excuse about family plans, and she accepted it without pressing further. I turned to head upstairs, but a sharp, rhythmic clicking sound stopped me in my tracks. I looked down. In her left hand, Corinne was turning over a slim, vintage silver mint tin, her thumb flicking the metal hinge open and shut with practiced agitation. A cold chill ran down my spine, and before my brain could stop my mouth, the words spilled out: “Why are you taking your meds again?” The clicking stopped instantly. The silence in the hallway became absolute. In that frozen second, I knew I had crossed a lethal line. This was a secret known only to the boy from the screen. Corinne refused to let her family know about her diagnosis; she had hidden her mood stabilizers in an old mint tin for years. Seeing her act so bright and grounded over the past few weeks had made me forget who she really was underneath. Volatile. Obsessive. Possessive to the point of suffocation. I remembered the day I finally powered up my old phone. My secondary messaging app had exploded with hundreds of frantic, unhinged notifications, flooding the screen: “Where are you?” “Why did you leave? Did I do something wrong? I can change, I swear I can.” “Please don’t go…” “Are you abandoning me too?” “You liar. I don’t care where you run, I will find you.” I wanted to step back, but my shoes felt glued to the hardwood floor. Corinne took a slow, deliberate step toward me, her eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Did I ever say there was medicine in here?”

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In our third year of scraping by in the city—working back-to-back shifts and counting every dollar—my boyfriend became the personal lapdog to a Manhattan trust-fund heiress. He carried her designer bags, fetched her iced lattes, drove her vintage sports car, and served as her round-the-clock emotional cushion. He was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Even on my birthday, before the match could touch the candle on my small grocery-store cake, his phone rang. He grabbed his coat without a second thought. Whenever I tried to voice the ache in my chest, he would only furrow his brow, his voice heavy with practical exhaustion. “I’m just pretending to be her boyfriend, Chaya. It’s to help her save face in front of her social circle. The check she gives me covers our rent for an entire year.” “Do you know how hard we fought just to stay in this city? I have to make it here.” “Just bear with it a little longer. Once she pays out this bonus, I’m buying you that designer dress you wanted for your job interview.” I looked down at my hands, raw and chapped from scrubbing dishes and winter winds, and let out a hollow laugh. Until the night I worked an extra shift behind the bar and caught him pinning the heiress against a shadowy wall in the corridor, his eyes rimmed with desperate red. “Just wait for me, Wanda,” he breathed, his voice breaking. “I swear I’ll make something of myself. I’ll be someone worthy of standing beside you.” And clinging to her body was the exact emerald silk dress that had been sitting in my online shopping cart for three months. If he had already given the dress to someone else, then my love had no reason to linger in this place. … I took a step back into the corridor’s darkness, letting the shadows swallow me whole. Wanda leaned against the exposed brick, her mascara smudged, a faint blush staining her cheeks. Scott stood inches from her, clutching a linen napkin, waiting for her to take it. He wasn’t touching her, yet the space between them hummed with an intimacy far more devastating than physical contact. Watching the silk hem of her dress brush against the fabric of his trousers, I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers. I wanted to tell myself I had remembered the cut wrong, that it was a coincidence. The screen lit up: “Only 1 left in stock — Sold Out.” My vision blurred with a sudden, hot wave of moisture. That dress cost six hundred dollars. I had never bought anything that expensive in my life, but Scott had once promised he wanted me to walk into corporate interviews feeling untouchable. To buy it myself, I had picked up two graveyard shifts at the lounge every week, stashing away ten-dollar bills. Now, there was no need. By the time the ringing in my ears faded, the two of them had disappeared back into the VIP booth. I didn’t chase after them. It wasn’t in my nature. For anything marked “low inventory” or contested by another, I had never learned the art of begging. It was a busy holiday weekend, and I worked until three in the morning. Leaning against the metal door in the alley during a five-minute break, my phone buzzed in my apron pocket. A text from Scott: “Chaya, I’ll be late tonight. Don’t wait up.” I stared at the screen, then closed the app. For the first time in four years, I didn’t reply. When I finally got back to our cramped outer-borough apartment, I pulled the miniature cake from our sputtering, broken refrigerator. The cheap frosting had collapsed into a melted puddle. It looked like something beaten down by a downpour of heavy tears. For the second time that week, I stuck a single candle into the wax cardboard, clicked the lighter once, and blew the flame out without lighting the wick. Scott had forgotten. He had sworn he would make up for missing my actual birthday tonight. Morning arrived, and the landlord knocked on the door before Scott even turned his key in the lock. The lease was up; if we wanted to renew, we had to pay the full annual sum upfront. I opened my banking app to check our joint savings. Scott had transferred out four thousand five hundred dollars. That was five months of our scraped-together rent, mixed with the wire transfer my grandmother had insisted on sending me from her meager pension. The front door opened. Scott walked in carrying a paper bag of warm bagels and black coffee. He set a cup in front of me with an affectionate pat on my shoulder. “Did you stay up all night binging shows again? Or was the market busy? You ruin your immune system doing that, Chaya. You have to eat.” I had told him three times that I had taken the bar gig. Clearly, the words had never registered. “The landlord came,” I said quietly. “There’s nothing left in the joint account.” His hand paused over the paper wrapper. He looked away, clearing his throat. “Wanda had an emergency gala last night. Her driver quit, and the boutique wouldn’t release her gown on credit. I fronted the deposit for her.” “She was supposed to reimburse you.” I slid my phone across the laminate table. “Then why is the account still empty?” He was silent for several beats, finally looking up with an edge of irritation. “Chaya, her world doesn’t operate on our timeline. You can’t nickel-and-dime people in her bracket. It looks desperate.” I didn’t say a word. He pushed the coffee closer to me. “Don’t stress. Once her quarterly allowance clears, I’ll put every cent back.” For the past two weeks, the local tabloids had been running blind items about Wanda’s father freezing her trust fund after a family fallout. Gossip blogs claimed she was on the verge of being cut off entirely. Before, I had worried Scott wouldn’t get paid for his ‘services.’ I never imagined he had taken it upon himself to play the gallant savior on my dime. Scott ate his breakfast in silence and collapsed onto the bed, dead to the world in seconds. I picked up the collapsed birthday cake, walked down the five flights of stairs, and dropped it straight into the dumpster. Some things, once broken, can never be patched up. The day I received the invitation for a final-round interview, I called out of my night shift. The position was an executive assistant role at the corporate headquarters of an international luxury hotel group downtown. The base pay was modest, but it included health insurance, benefits, and subsidized corporate housing. If I landed it, I could finally quit running myself ragged across three part-time jobs. I wouldn’t have to suffocate in this moldy, drafty apartment anymore. I bought a discounted navy blazer from an outlet rack, ironing out the creases until midnight. When I finally took the slow bus home, the takeout container of noodles I had bought had turned cold and stiff. Scott was sitting in the entryway tying his shoes, his phone wedged between his ear and shoulder. On the other end, Wanda was sobbing hysterically; her father had revoked her black card and was forcing her to attend a high-society networking dinner. Seeing me, Scott placed a palm over the receiver. “Why are you back so early?” I held up my phone, wanting to share the only good news I had received in months. He frowned, impatient. “Wanda’s having a crisis. I have to go.” “Can you stay? Just for tonight?” He already had one foot out the door. He leaned in and pressed a distracted, hurried kiss against my cheek. “Isn’t your interview next week anyway? It’s not like it’s right now.” The door slammed shut. The noodles grew colder on the counter. I stood in the dim foyer, the realization settling heavily in my bones: to him, every milestone of mine was something that could always wait. The day before my final interview, I went to the lounge to collect my hourly pay. The floor manager mentioned that Wanda had been in an hour earlier and had left a diamond earring in a private booth. I took the velvet pouch to log it at the front desk, only to see Scott’s leased sedan idling in the alley outside. The rear door was slightly ajar. Wanda was sitting in the back, barefoot, her slender ankle resting squarely on Scott’s thigh. Scott had his head lowered, gently massaging the blistered skin near her heel. Wanda reached out, her manicured fingers trailing lazily along the curve of his ear, down to his throat. “Doesn’t your little girlfriend ever get mad?” Scott’s throat bobbed. “No.” “Why not?” “She’s sensible. She understands how the world works.” I stood frozen behind the car, the sharp post of the earring digging into my palm. When Scott first met me in graduate school, I had been “sensible”. We were two broke kids trying to survive in a concrete city that swallowed the weak. On the night he asked me out, I had cancelled the reservation at the expensive bistro he couldn’t afford, dragging him instead to a late-night diner where we split a plate of greasy fries. When we moved in together, he offered to pay the larger share. I told him I didn’t want grand, empty promises of being ‘taken care of.’ Real love wasn’t a rescue mission; it was two people pulling the same weight in the same direction. I walked quietly to the front of the car, placed the earring under the windshield wiper, and walked back inside to finish mopping the floor. The manager asked why there was blood on my fingers. I looked down and saw that the earring’s pin had punctured my skin. I remembered how those independent heroines in classic films always patched their own wounds in silence. The next morning, at the hotel group’s headquarters, I didn’t even make it past the lobby. The HR coordinator reviewed my paperwork, looked up with an expression of polished regret, and informed me that my background check had flagged an active financial liability risk. The company policy strictly prohibited hiring candidates entangled in major unresolved debt disputes. I went cold. I begged him to double-check. He turned the monitor toward me. A credit report displayed a co-signed commercial bridge loan of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars under my name. The signing date was three months ago. That was the exact day Scott had handed me a stack of papers, claiming the landlord needed an extra signature for our apartment lease renewal. With only one shot at this career, I called Scott frantically. He was at a private gallery opening for Wanda. In the background, crystal glasses clinked, punctuated by airy laughter. He let the silence stretch for an agonizing time before whispering, “Wanda was bridging a short-term financing gap for her boutique. The underwriters needed a secondary co-signer with clean credit.” My voice shook violently. “Why did you use me?” “Because your credit history was spotless. It’s just a formality, Chaya. As soon as her trust funds are unfrozen, she’ll take your name off.” I stood outside the glass boardroom, watching candidates in crisp suits file in and out. The line went dead. He didn’t call back. The job that was supposed to save me was gone before I could even introduce myself—sabotaged by a signature I never knew I gave. When I arrived home, Scott had surprisingly cooked dinner. A bowl of tomato and egg noodles sat on the small table, flanked by a glass of warm water. He arranged the silverware neatly, the way he always did when he wanted to placate me, and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I know you’re upset,” he murmured. “But don’t go confronting Wanda, and don’t look for a lawyer.” “Why shouldn’t I?” I sat down across from him, leaving the bowl untouched. “Making a scene won’t help anyone. You don’t have a job right now. If you blow this up and make things hostile, what if the lenders come after you for the full amount?” He reached across to take my hands. I pulled them away. He sighed, his tone laden with heavy paternalism. “I’m doing this to protect you, Chaya.” I stared at the bowl. I had told him years ago that while I liked egg in my tomato soup, I couldn’t stand the yolk. Yet every single time, he scooped the dry yellow yolk back into my dish, insisting it was for my own good. His idea of ‘protection’ had always been deciding for me how much humiliation I was required to swallow. I stood up, walked toward the bathroom, and said evenly, “I’m seeing an attorney tomorrow, Scott.” For the first time, his face darkened into pure hostility. “Chaya, don’t push me.” Three days after my legal consultation, Wanda was involved in a car crash. Driving under the influence, she slammed her luxury convertible into the structural barrier of a high-end hotel parking garage. A local reporter captured grainy footage of Scott pulling her limp body from the driver’s seat. Yet the following morning, the precinct contacted me: the official accident report listed “me” as the driver who fled the scene. I rushed to the private hospital wing. Scott was pacing the hallway. Wanda’s mother sat outside the room, elegantly draped in cashmere, fingering a string of jade beads. She looked at me with open disgust. Wanda had suffered nothing more than a tiny cut on her forehead that required two stitches, but her private security guards stepped forward, shoving me violently toward the end of the corridor. Scott didn’t utter a single word to stop them. “Why aren’t you telling them the truth?” I demanded, my voice trembling with rage. “Wanda can’t have a DUI on her record right now, Chaya,” Scott hissed under his breath. I looked at him, letting out a wild, disbelieving laugh. “And I can?” “Just play along for a few days. Once the press moves on to something else, her family’s lawyers will handle the settlement and erase it.” The tears finally spilled over, hot and bitter. “Scott, should I remind the police that I don’t even have a driver’s license?” “Stop throwing a tantrum!” His eyes were suddenly bloodshot with genuine fury. “Wanda isn’t like you! A criminal record will ruin her social standing and her inheritance!” Standing there, I felt the air leave my lungs. In all the years I had known him—when he worked twelve-hour shifts with a hundred-degree fever, when clients cursed him out in stairwells, when our bank account held twenty dollars—I had never seen him cry. He had never once shed a tear for my pain. But for this girl’s convenience, his eyes burned with grief. My legal aid attorney arrived at the precinct to help me give my statement. Scott remained behind at the hospital. Yet outside the station, the attorney suddenly backed out, nervously declining to represent me. The traffic officer claimed the security footage was too obscured to clear me, and worse: an eyewitness had submitted a signed statement swearing I was behind the wheel. When the officer shoved the citation toward me, demanding my signature, I dialed Scott’s number with the last shred of my sanity, praying he would finally choose decency. The line was quiet. “Wanda just took her sedative,” he whispered coldly. “She’s emotionally unstable. I can’t leave her.” I clutched the ballpoint pen, the tip pressing so hard against the paper that it tore through the fiber. “What about me, Scott?” “Just sign it,” he said, talking down to me like a petulant child. “I’ll sort it out later. Didn’t you always want to make a life in this city? Don’t burn bridges you can’t afford to rebuild.” I didn’t sign. I begged the legal aid attorney for ten minutes of her time. Pitying me, she confessed that it wasn’t about legal fees—she simply couldn’t risk the wrath of the heiress’s family. She revealed that the key witness statement placing me in the car had been signed by an intimate companion traveling in the vehicle. A companion. There had been no one else in that car except Scott. The man who had once promised to shield me from the world had become someone else’s attack dog—and I was the lamb he offered for slaughter. When my mother called, I was huddled under the concrete awning of the police precinct, trapped by a torrential downpour. My grandmother’s heart condition had suddenly deteriorated. She had been rushed to the state hospital, and the ICU was demanding an immediate deposit before surgery. My family didn’t have enough; my mother was weeping, asking if I had any savings left in the city. My balance was thirty-two dollars. Our joint account was empty. My credit cards were maxed out by unauthorized charges, and a six-figure debt hung over my name. Desperate, I texted Scott: “My grandmother needs emergency surgery. Please wire back the money you took from our account.” Thirty minutes later, his response arrived: “I’m accompanying Wanda to meet her father’s board members right now. We’ll talk when it’s over.” She couldn’t wait. I dialed his number over and over, ignoring the rain soaking through my canvas shoes. “Scott, I’m begging you,” I sobbed into the receiver. “I’ll take the blame for the crash. I’ll sign whatever Wanda wants. Just give me my money back to save my grandmother.” Scott lowered his voice, irritated. “Chaya, do not corner me right now. Her father is finally giving me an audience. If I mess this up, everything is gone.” “My grandmother needs a chance to live!” I screamed into the phone. “Can’t the doctors just stabilize her with medication first?” In the background, crystal stemware chimed. Scott’s tone abruptly shifted into humble, sickening sycophancy as he answered a passing greeting from Wanda’s father. I held the phone to my ear until the dial tone droned. At one in the morning, a voicemail from my mother arrived. My grandmother hadn’t made it to the operating table. I sat on the cold concrete steps in the dark, listening to the last voice note my grandmother had ever sent me. Once. Twice. Ten times. “Chaya, sweetheart… an old woman doesn’t need fancy things. Don’t starve yourself in that big city, you hear? Buy yourself something warm to eat…” The money from the only heirloom she had left—her thin gold bracelet—hadn’t saved her life. She had sent it to me, and it had been spent buying champagne for a spoiled socialite. I walked through the empty, rain-slicked streets until dawn. When the rain finally stopped, my tears had dried completely. This city held no one who loved me. There was nothing left here to keep me. My suitcase was packed with nothing but cold, heavy clarity. “Scott, we’re done.”

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My mother’s relentless campaign to marry me off had reached a fever pitch, setting my nerves entirely on edge. In a moment of sheer desperation, I bit the bullet and shelled out five thousand dollars to rent a girlfriend through a high-end agency online. She was breathtaking—impeccable poise, razor-sharp elegance, and an hourly rate that bordered on highway robbery. On the drive down to my parents’ house, I went over the ground rules at least a dozen times. “Just play a normal mid-level corporate account manager. Nothing flashy. Don’t blow our cover.” She nodded along with angelic obedience. Then came dinner. My dad stared across the table at her for all of three seconds before his fork clattered against his porcelain plate. “What in God’s name are you doing in my house, young lady? You’re supposed to be in Chicago.” My entire body went rigid. My rented girlfriend, however, simply offered a calm, practiced smile. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Cornell.” 01 After my third arranged blind date went down in flames, my mother took the nuclear option: she dialed the main switchboard at my corporate headquarters. Our twenty-two-year-old receptionist cupped the receiver, her voice trembling over the intercom. “Mr. Cornell? Your mother says if you don’t take this line right now, she will keep calling until security has to escort her off the premises.” I glanced at the twelve department heads seated around the glass conference table, all waiting on my project briefing. A sharp pulse pounded in my left temple. “Tell her I’m running an executive meeting.” “I did.” “And?” “She said corporate strategy doesn’t preclude getting a marriage license, and that you should have brought your birth certificate to work.” The room plunged into dead silence. Several junior analysts lowered their heads, their shoulders vibrating with desperately suppressed laughter. I took the receiver and kept my voice at a low hiss. “Mom, what on earth are you doing?” “Her name is Rachel. She’s your Aunt Helen’s coworker’s niece. Stable job in hospital administration, sweet temperament, and I’ve seen her picture—she has the kindest eyes, Tyler. A real keeper.” “Last week’s date had ‘the kindest eyes,’ too.” “You have the nerve to bring that up?” My mother’s volume soared. “The poor girl asked what you look for in a partner, and you told her ‘a pulse.’ What kind of sociopath says that on a first date?” “I had just finished a seventy-hour sprint and hadn’t slept in two days.” “You’re twenty-nine, Tyler. Not nineteen.” “My birthday isn’t for two months.” “And what, are those sixty days going to magically sprout a wife on your doorstep?” I held the handset an inch away from my ear. In the conference room, my team looked like they were on the verge of internal hemorrhaging. I sucked in a slow, measured breath. “I’ll come home this weekend.” A two-second pause hung over the line. “Are you bringing a girl?” “Just me.” “Then don’t bother coming.” “Click.” The line went dead. I stared at the dark screen, wondering if I had somehow been swapped at birth. After the meeting broke up, my childhood friend Trevor lounged against my office doorway, wearing an infuriating smirk. “Carol’s tactical offensive remains undefeated.” “If you don’t have actual business, get out.” “I actually have a solution,” Trevor said, dragging a chair across the hardwood and sliding his phone across my desk. On the screen was the sleek landing page of an ultra-exclusive agency. The copywriting was discreet and dripping with high-class euphemisms: “Executive Companion Services, Gala Escort, Bespoke Temporary Partnerships.” I scrolled down, my brow furrowing deeper with every line. “You want me to hire an escort?” “I want you to de-escalate a domestic crisis.” “Is this even legal?” “It’s performance art, Tyler. You’re hiring an actress for a weekend family barbecue, not signing a fraudulent prenup.” Trevor tapped a bullet point on the screen with complete solemnity. “Look here. Custom backstories, full demographic memorization, stress-tested against intrusive Southern-style matriarchs.” “Does it actually work?” “My cousin hired one last Thanksgiving. The girl was so convincing his grandmother took off the family heirloom emerald ring and slipped it onto her finger that very evening.” “And how did that end?” “She played the part too well. When they tried to break it off, Grandma’s blood pressure spiked and she had to spend forty-eight hours under medical observation.” I kicked his chair leg. Trevor scrambled out of range, yelling over his shoulder, “That’s only because he bought the budget tier! Choose the platinum tier, man—the professionalism is night and day!” By eleven that night, fresh out of the shower, I lay in bed listening to my phone buzz off the nightstand. In our family group chat, my mother had posted a photo of our old dining table covered in an antique lace cloth. Arranged neatly on top were vintage brass candleholders, monogrammed napkins, and two unlit pillar candles. “Aunt Helen:” “What’s the occasion, Carol?” “Mom:” “Just getting things ready. Wouldn’t want to be caught unprepared if somebody finally decides to bring home a bride.” My uncle dropped six applause emojis. My father never typed in the group chat. But three minutes later, a notification popped up on my banking app: a direct transfer of three hundred dollars from Frank Cornell. The attached memo read: “Bring someone home this weekend. Your mother’s blood pressure has been acting up.” I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at those three hundred dollars, feeling the last barricade of my resolve crumble to dust. I reopened the agency’s website, filled in the comprehensive intake questionnaire, and selected the highest tier of service. When the final invoice screen popped up, my thumb hovered over the glass. “Five thousand dollars. Duration: Forty-eight hours.” I stared at the total for a full minute, closed my eyes, and hit confirm. The payment confirmation had barely faded when an unknown Chicago number lit up the screen. A woman’s voice answered—crisp, cool, and unflinchingly steady. “Mr. Cornell. I’ll be handling your weekend engagement.” 02 We agreed to meet at a quiet coffee shop in the financial district. I arrived twenty minutes early, claiming a booth by the window and laying out my dossier on the table. Page one: “My Profile.” Tyler Cornell, twenty-nine, Senior Project Director, lives alone, no vices. Page two: “The Parents.” Carol Cornell: relentlessly inquisitive, soft heart, sharp tongue, obsessed with household stability and pedigree. Frank Cornell: a man of few words, virtually invisible around the house, spends his retirement fishing and repairing vintage analog radios in his workshop. Page three: “Rules of Engagement.” Never bring up regional real estate prices. Never speculate on a timeline for children. Never remain alone in the kitchen with my mother for more than ten consecutive minutes. The final clause was circled in red ink: “Do not, under any circumstances, appear too impressive.” At precisely eleven o’clock, the glass door swung open. A woman in an oatmeal-toned trench coat stepped inside. She didn’t scan the room like a lost patron; with a single, sweeping glance, she locked eyes with me and walked over. I instinctively sat up straighter. She was leagues beyond the blurry thumbnail on the agency portal. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose, artful knot at the nape of her neck, her only jewelry a pair of understated pearl studs. She carried no designer-monogrammed handbag, only an understated dark leather folio. Yet every stride, from the entryway to my booth, radiated an unnatural, absolute composure. “Mr. Cornell?” “Yes. Have a seat.” She slid into the opposite booth and extended a slender hand. “Nicole Winslow.” I took it, struck by how cool her fingertips were against her dry, steady palm, before pulling away. When the server approached, she ordered hot water with lemon. “No coffee?” I asked. “I have engagements this afternoon.” “Busy line of work.” She gave me a neutral look, letting the comment hang in the air. I slid the paperwork toward her. “This is my family’s breakdown. Take a look.” She skimmed the first two pages. “How long have we been dating?” “Three months.” “How did we meet?” “A mutual friend’s dinner.” “Which friend?” “Trevor.” “Where was our first official date?” I blanked. “We need to fabricate that, too?” “What happens if your mother asks for specifics or demands to see our first photo together?” I had no counter to that. She produced a sleek fountain pen from her folio and jotted notes in the margin with fluid script. “First encounter: Trevor’s birthday party.” “Second encounter: Browsing the stacks at an independent bookstore.” “Defined the relationship: Strolling along the riverwalk.” I scanned the bullet points, raising an eyebrow. “A boutique bookstore doesn’t sound like somewhere I’d naturally hang out.” “Fine. A late-night diner over greasy burgers.” “Much better.” She looked up, the corners of her lips curving in the faintest ghost of an amused smile. It was so subtle it vanished the instant I registered it. Over the next hour, she subjected me to over twenty rapid-fire questions: my mother’s signature holiday dish, my father’s preferred brand of whiskey, my embarrassing childhood nicknames, and which particular relative I dreaded seeing most. By the end, I felt less like a client hiring a date and more like a suspect under rigorous deposition. “My turn,” I said, pulling the pen toward me. “What’s your cover identity?” “A standard corporate administrative associate.” “Salary?” “Around sixty-five thousand.” “Your parents?” “Small business owners back in Ohio.” I nodded with immense satisfaction. “Perfect. The more ordinary, the safer.” Her index finger tapped the rim of her ceramic mug. “Any other parameters?” “Several.” I leaned in, keeping my voice low. “No high-end designer labels. No statement jewelry. Leave whatever luxury car you drive in the city. Keep your diction casual—my extended family is blue-collar and proud; if you sound like an Ivy League keynote speaker, they’ll think you’re looking down on them. Most importantly, do not give off the vibe of someone who dines with board members on weekdays.” Nicole was quiet for a beat. “What exactly does that vibe look like?” I pointed at her hand holding the mug. “Like that. Right now.” She looked down at her hand. “Is there a problem?” “You look too unshakeable.” “Would you prefer I develop a visible tremor?” “Let’s not overcorrect.” I cleared my throat, shifting my gaze toward the window. Across the street, a black town car had been idling near the curb for twenty minutes, its driver remaining behind tinted glass. Nicole followed my gaze, her expression remaining entirely flat. She gathered the paperwork into her folio and stood. “Saturday morning, eight-thirty. I’ll pick you up.” “No need. I’ll drive.” “That works.” “Where should I pick you up?” She named an upscale residential district on the Gold Coast. When I pulled up the map, the pin landed directly in front of a gated, private high-rise complex. I looked up at her. Without missing a beat, she added, “Meet me outside the transit station on the corner.” 03 Saturday morning, eight-fifty, I pulled my sedan to the curb outside the station. Nicole was already waiting. She had traded her tailored trench coat for a powder-blue knit sweater and regular denim jeans. Her hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, her makeup minimal, her feet clad in clean canvas sneakers. If you ignored the handcrafted Italian leather duffel beside her, she looked every bit the relatable young professional. I got out to load her luggage into the trunk. The moment I hoisted the duffel, my lower back nearly gave out. “Did you pack bricks?” “Host gifts.” She unzipped the side compartment to show me: artisanal loose-leaf teas, an orthopedic lumbar cushion, high-grade wellness supplements, and two heavy glass bottles of liquor completely devoid of commercial labels. Every single item was calibrated with frightening precision. I lifted one of the unbranded bottles. The glass was immaculate, with nothing except a tiny batch number etched near the base. “Is this expensive?” “Not particularly.” “How much?” “A gift from an acquaintance.” I set it down carefully, eyeing her with newfound suspicion. “Just so we’re clear, my dad drinks twenty-dollar bourbon.” “Then tell him this costs twenty dollars.” “You lie with terrifying ease.” “Occupational hazard.” She slipped into the passenger seat and clicked her seatbelt. I rounded to the driver’s side, but the moment I turned the ignition, my phone buzzed incessantly against the console. My mother had sent nine messages in under two minutes: “Where are you guys on the highway?” “Does she eat trout?” “Is she lactose intolerant?” “Are the guest room floral slippers okay or too retro?” “Do her parents know you’re dating?” The final message was a sixty-second voice note. I didn’t dare press play. Nicole turned her head toward me. “What is your mother asking?” “Your shoe size.” “Seven.” “Do you like fish?” “Yes.” “Do you take sugar in your tea?” “Light sugar.” I typed out the responses. My mother immediately replied with a string of smiley faces, followed by: “What did you say her full name was again?” My hands froze over the steering wheel. Nicole looked over, a rare flicker of exasperation surfacing in her eyes. “Tyler, we rehearsed this a dozen times yesterday.” “I’m nervous.” “It’s just a weekend visit.” “For you, it’s a paid gig. For me, it’s walking the plank.” She fell silent for a few seconds, her tone softening slightly. “In that case, stop calling me Ms. Winslow.” “What should I call you?” “Nicole.” I tried it out, feeling the syllables roll awkwardly over my tongue. “Nicole.” She answered smoothly. “I’m right here.” A sudden, thick quiet settled between us in the car. The navigation app chimed, instructing me to take the next right, and I nearly swerved past the exit ramp. She reached out and adjusted the dashboard AC vent away from my face, showing remarkable grace by not laughing at me. As we cleared the metropolitan sprawl, the highway gave way to rolling farmland and the winding roads leading toward Cedar Creek. My mother called again to check our ETA. Before hanging up, she lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “Your father is acting very strange today. He shaved before sunrise and put on an ironed dress shirt.” “He probably just wants to make a good impression on my girlfriend.” “He never wore that shirt when we went to church.” “Is it new?” “He’s kept it buried in the bottom of his cedar trunk for twenty years.” I didn’t think much of it. As we passed the county toll booth, Nicole suddenly asked, “What is your father’s full name?” “It was in the profile. Did you forget?” “I want to verify.” “Frank Cornell.” Her hands, resting lightly on her knees, clenched ever so slightly. The movement was minuscule, but I caught it. “What is it?” I asked. “Nothing.” “You recognize the name?” She turned her gaze toward the window. “It sounds familiar.” I chuckled. “My dad has spent forty years fixing small-town electronics and lawnmower motors in Cedar Creek. Half the county knows him.” Nicole didn’t reply. For the remaining thirty minutes of the drive, she was noticeably quieter than when she first got in the car. I wanted to press her, but dismissed it as my own paranoia. Near the town limits, I pulled over on the shoulder to run through our script one last time. “If my mom asks about marriage, you say it’s too early.” “Understood.” “If she asks about your income, sixty-five thousand.” “Understood.” “Keep your family background as boring as humanly possible.” “Got it.” “And try to look relaxed when we walk in.” She tilted her head. “Tyler, the only person here who needs a sedative is you.” My palms were slick against the leather wheel. Down the gravel road, my family’s two-story clapboard house came into view. Two festive red ribbons were tied to the porch railings, and several pickup trucks belonging to my aunts and uncles were already parked along the grass. My vision swam. “I thought she said this was just an intimate family lunch.” Nicole glanced at the crowded driveway, her voice deadpan. “If I breach the contract and bail now, do you get a refund?” “Not a dime.” “Then let’s go inside.” The moment the engine cut out, the front screen door flew open. My mother burst out wearing an embroidered apron, flanked by Aunt Helen and Aunt Claire. The three of them bypassed me entirely, their eyes locking onto the passenger side like heat-seeking missiles. Nicole stepped out, offering a bright, effortless smile. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cornell.” My mother’s eyes practically radiated light. And then, from inside the house, the sharp sound of shattering ceramic echoed across the porch. My father hadn’t come out to greet us. The yard fell so quiet you could hear the wind rustling through the oaks. 04 My mother was the first to snap out of it, craning her neck toward the open doorway. “Frank! What did you drop?” No answer came from within. Nicole stood by the fender, the warmth in her smile dimming slightly. I hauled the heavy duffel out of the trunk and leaned in close to her. “Do you really know my dad?” “We met once.” “When?” “Let’s go inside first.” She reached to take the strap from me, but I didn’t let go. “For five thousand dollars, I assumed full disclosure of material conflicts was included.” “Tyler, there are six pairs of eyes watching us from the porch.” I glanced up; Aunt Helen was practically leaning over the railing. My mother had already hurried over, taking Nicole warmly by the hands. “Come inside, sweetheart, it’s freezing out here. Let Tyler carry the bags—he’s got plenty of muscle.” I dragged the luggage up the steps, my stomach twisting into knots. Inside the living room, a broken coffee mug lay scattered across the linoleum. My father stood by the low coffee table, still clutching the broken ceramic handle in his hand. He was indeed wearing a charcoal-gray dress shirt, his thin silver hair combed neatly back. The way he looked at Nicole, however, was definitely not the look of a man meeting his son’s new girlfriend for the first time. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Cornell,” Nicole said, breaking the silence. My father’s jaw tightened. He bent down to pick up the shards. “Let’s eat first.” My mother slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch that, you’ll cut your fingers! Tyler, grab the broom.” By the time I returned with the dustpan, my aunts had already encircled Nicole on the sofa. Aunt Helen probed about her workplace, and Nicole answered flawlessly, claiming a generic administrative desk job in the city. Aunt Claire immediately followed up on salary. “Around sixty-five thousand,” Nicole offered with practiced ease. My mother beamed, declaring that young people should take their time building a life, while my father sat in the far armchair, not uttering a single syllable. When lunch was served, Nicole was seated directly beside my mother. She served portions to the older relatives with a grace that felt neither aloof nor overly eager. I started to let my guard down, thinking perhaps I had manufactured a crisis in my head. Until my father looked up, locked eyes with Nicole, and stared at her for three unbroken seconds. His fork clattered onto the table. “What in God’s name are you doing in my house, young lady? You’re supposed to be in Chicago.” The entire dining room froze. The smile on my mother’s face calcified. Aunt Helen looked between my father and Nicole, her eyes wide with shock. I sat with my glass suspended in midair, my brain short-circuiting. Nicole, however, seemed entirely unfazed. She curved her lips into a quiet, respectful smile. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Cornell.” My mother turned to my father, her voice dropping into a register that signaled impending disaster. “Frank. How do you know Nicole?” “Ran into her years ago on a business trip to Chicago.” My father picked up a clean fork. “Just once.” “You remember a girl you saw “once” that clearly?” “She looks exactly like her grandfather.” Nicole lowered her gaze, gently nudging the platter of roast chicken toward my father. “My grandfather still speaks of you often.” My father’s face darkened instantly. “We don’t talk about that during lunch.” My mother opened her mouth to interrogate him, but I hurriedly ladled soup into her bowl. “Mom, it’s her first time visiting. Don’t turn this into a precinct interrogation.” “I’m asking your father, not her.” “It’s the same thing.” The tension thawed slightly, and lunch continued under a blanket of strained pleasantries, though no one was really paying attention to the food. After we cleared the table, I was about to pull Nicole upstairs to get the truth when my mother brought out the two unlabeled bottles from the duffel bag. “Nicole, dear, these bottles don’t have any labels. Where did you get them?” “A friend distills them privately.” My father stood up so fast his chair screeched against the floorboards. “Put those back in the bag.” My mother recoiled. “Why are you yelling?” She tilted the heavy bottle beneath the chandelier, examining the tiny, laser-etched serial numbers on the glass base. My uncle, who prided himself on being an amateur whiskey and wine collector, leaned in. His face drained of color. “This isn’t moonshine.” “What do you mean?” “That vintage seal… I’ve only seen that bottling series in high-end auction catalogs.” He pulled out his phone, typing furiously for two minutes before holding the screen up for the entire room to see. A bottle from the exact same private reserve allocation had hammered at an international auction for forty-five thousand dollars. Total, suffocating silence gripped the room. My mother clutched the bottle, her hands visibly trembling. “Nicole… didn’t you say you made sixty-five thousand a year?” 05 Nicole didn’t flinch at the auction listing on the screen. “The collector bottle is authentic, but the contents were rebottled with private stock.” My uncle looked skeptical, reaching forward to break the wax seal. My father snatched the bottle out of his hands and shoved it back into the duffel. “When a guest brings a gift, you say thank you. You don’t perform a forensic audit.” His harshness only deepened everyone’s suspicions. My mother untied her apron, draped it over the chair, and sat down directly across from Nicole. “Sweetheart, tell me the truth. What does your family actually do?” “My family operates several enterprises.” “How large are these enterprises?” “Fairly substantial.” Aunt Helen chimed in from the doorway. “Are they local or regional?” “The headquarters is in downtown Chicago.” My mother drew in a sharp breath and glared at me. I desperately wished I had someone to glare at. The modest family business we rehearsed at the coffee shop had somehow morphed into a multi-entity conglomerate. To make matters infinitely worse, my father clearly knew her lineage. Nicole set down her tea, her tone impeccably soothing. “Mrs. Cornell, I didn’t intend to mislead you. Tyler was worried that a perceived gap in our backgrounds would make you feel uncomfortable, so he asked me to keep my answers modest.” The blame landed squarely on my shoulders with terrifying precision. My mother’s glare turned murderous. “You told this poor girl to lie to me?” I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “Yes.” “And you made her claim she worked a desk job for sixty-five grand?” “I thought it would keep things simple.” My mother raised a hand to smack my arm, but Nicole gently caught her wrist. “Mrs. Cornell, he was only trying to protect your peace of mind.” Her voice was so gentle, so utterly convincing, that my mother deflated within seconds. The relatives, however, were buzzing. Aunt Helen began asking for corporate names, while Aunt Claire wanted to know if her wealthy parents approved of the match. Nicole answered whatever was safe and smoothly deflected what wasn’t. Her diplomacy was airtight, leaving me looking like a clueless bystander in my own living room. Thirty minutes later, my mother finally ushered the relatives out the front door. The moment the latch clicked, I took Nicole by the wrist and marched her up to the second floor. My old bedroom was preserved exactly as I had left it in high school: faded basketball posters on the drywall, stacks of old textbooks by the oak desk. I shut the door and lowered my voice to a sharp whisper. “Did you take this contract because you saw my father’s name on the intake form?” “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “So you knew who I was before we even met?” “I only knew you were Frank Cornell’s son.” “Did you run a background check on me?” “Everything I needed was in your agency application.” A surge of anger flared in my chest. “Nicole, I paid five thousand dollars for a temporary girlfriend to appease my mother, not an operative using my family for an agenda.” She was silent for a few seconds. Reaching into her pocket, she placed a sleek black corporate card on my desk. “If you believe the integrity of the service was compromised, I will initiate a full refund immediately.” “This isn’t about the money.” “Then what do you want to know?” “How do you and my father know each other?” She walked to the window, looking out over the backyard garden and the weathered wooden grape arbor. “Five years ago, my grandfather owned a rare, specialized vintage audio receiver that failed. No technician in the city could restore the damaged circuit boards. Eventually, an old engineer pointed him toward Frank Cornell.” “All this over an antique radio?” “That receiver contained an encrypted analog audio tape hidden inside the chassis.” I paused. “What tape?” “I don’t know the full contents.” She turned around, her gaze heavier than I had ever seen it. “After your father repaired the equipment, my grandfather offered him an immense sum to stay in Chicago. Your father left in the middle of the night. Over the past five years, my grandfather sent representatives several times. Your father refused to see them.” Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. My father stopped outside my bedroom door, knocking twice. “Nicole. Come downstairs. We need to talk.” As I moved to follow them, Nicole’s phone chimed sharply with a priority alert. She glanced at the caller ID, her composure cracking for a fraction of a second. “I need to take this.” She stepped onto the balcony, sliding the glass door shut. Through the glass, I couldn’t hear the details, only catching fragments: “…board of directors…” and “…the old man’s condition…” The call lasted less than a minute. When she slid the door open, my mother was standing in my doorway holding a plate of sliced apples. Through Nicole’s phone receiver, a man’s deferential voice carried clearly into the hallway: “Madam Chair, our security detail has arrived at the town limits.” The plate in my mother’s hands tilted. Slices of apple tumbled across the floor.

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Everyone in our social circle knew that Pierce Wardell, sole heir to the Wardell shipping dynasty, suffered from severe prosopagnosia. In our five years together, even a subtle change in my haircut or the silhouette of my coat was enough to make me invisible to him. He lived in a world of smooth, featureless mannequins, anchoring himself to voices, gaits, and the tiny details he forced himself to memorize. Until our wedding rehearsal. To loosen up the room, the event coordinator introduced an impromptu game: a blindfolded groom searching for his bride among the bridal party. I was wearing the custom French silk gown Pierce had personally selected for me, standing barely a breath away, my heart swelling with quiet anticipation. He stepped right past me. Without a second of hesitation, his hand closed around the slender wrist of my best friend, Kendra. His thumb brushed the delicate hollow of her wrist bone—the tender, habitual gesture he only ever used when soothing my late-night anxieties. Kendra flushed crimson, lowering her lashes with a flustered murmur. “Pierce… stop. Everyone’s watching.” The moment the words left her mouth, Pierce ripped off the blindfold and instinctively stepped in front of her, shielding her behind his broad frame. He turned to me, his tone brimming with unshakeable logic: “You two are always joined at the hip. I thought if I found Kendra first, you’d naturally be right beside her.” Standing beneath the chandeliers, I felt a hollow, bitter laugh rise in my throat. His incurable face blindness, it seemed, made an exception for only one woman in the world. At every gala, his gaze found Kendra across a crowded ballroom in an instant. He noticed the second she swapped her pearl studs for silver drops. Yet standing before him, I had become nothing more than a faded, overexposed negative. Under the harsh glare of the stage lights, they looked like the destined couple. I didn’t argue. Amidst the awkward, nervous chuckles of our guests, I reached up, unpinned the cathedral veil, and let it slip from my fingers. “If you’ve already chosen your bride, Pierce, then it’s time for me to step into the wings and begin a life without you.” … When the lace hit the hardwood floor, the room fell dead silent. The coordinator gripped her microphone, the professional smile freezing on her face. “Miss Alden… is this an unscripted part of the recessional?” I bent down, picked up the delicate tulle, and shook off the stray sequins. “No. I’m just tired.” Pierce crossed the platform, his brow knitted tight as he lowered his voice to a sharp hiss. “Corinne, both our families are sitting in the front row. Do you really have to pick this exact second to throw a tantrum?” I looked past his shoulder. Kendra remained under the spotlight, rubbing the faint red mark where his fingers had gripped her skin. “Corinne, please don’t misinterpret this. It was just a parlor game. You know about Pierce’s condition. It’s completely normal for him to mix people up.” Except he hadn’t mixed her up. He had found her with surgical precision. Pierce turned back toward Kendra, his sharp edge melting instantly into an instinctive gentleness. “Does your wrist hurt? Did I hold you too tight?” Kendra tucked her hand behind her back, offering a faint, self-effacing smile. “I’m fine. Go comfort Corinne. She’s the real bride today. She must be feeling awful.” Every syllable felt like a needle pressed into my sternum. Only then did Pierce remember my existence. He reached out to take my hand. I took a step backward. His fingers hovered in the empty air between us, his expression darkening into irritation. “Corinne, that’s enough. It isn’t like I chose to be neurologically damaged. We’ve been together five years—don’t you understand how hard this is for me? I have hundreds of photos on my phone cataloging your features just so I don’t fail you. Throwing my condition back in my face like this… is that really fair?” “Fair?” Just last month, he came to pick me up outside my design studio. I was wearing a new camel wool coat. I walked past his black town car three separate times, making direct eye contact, and he stared blankly through me. It wasn’t until the building doorman tapped on his window that he finally realized who I was. He had wrapped me in his arms, full of contrite murmurs: “I’m so sorry, Corinne. I promise I’ll memorize you better.” Yet that very afternoon, Kendra had merely swapped her silk scarf at a boutique across the street. From twenty yards away, Pierce had waved and called out with effortless warmth: “Kendra! That shade of blue really brings out your eyes.” Back then, I built a thousand fragile excuses for him. “Maybe Kendra’s cadence was easier to recognize. Maybe her posture was distinctive. Maybe it was just sheer coincidence.” I had made so many excuses for him that it took until today to realize none of them could bear the weight of the truth. The venue director hurried over clutching her clipboard, desperate to diffuse the tension. “Mr. Wardell, the lighting team is ready for the banquet hall walk-through. Would the three of you like to take a brief intermission first?” Before Pierce could answer, Kendra drew in a sharp, pained breath. She glanced down at her ankle. “I think I’ve been on my feet too long. It’s throbbing.” Pierce didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. He bent down and caught her elbow. “Your old injury again? Didn’t I explicitly tell you not to wear four-inch heels today?” Kendra pressed her lips together, her voice small. “Flats look dreadful with a bridesmaid dress.” “Who gives a damn how it looks compared to your leg?” His voice carried a scolding tone, but his hands were infinitely gentle. He supported her weight, guiding her toward the private greenroom, glancing back at me only after taking several steps. “Go change out of the gown. I’ll help her ice it and come find you.” I stood alone on the rehearsal stage. The heavy layers of silk satin weighed down on my shoulders until it felt difficult to breathe. He had spent three months commissioning this dress, telling me that white made me look like the moon breaking through a winter sky. But right now, all his eyes could see was the faint trace of pink on Kendra’s ankle. With the help of a backstage assistant, I lifted the voluminous hem and stepped off the platform. Passing the greenroom, the door was cracked just enough for their voices to spill out into the corridor. “Hold still. Let me spray the topical anesthetic.” Kendra let out a soft, teasing laugh. “Pierce, do you seriously remember which pocket of my bag I keep my medicine in?” Pierce chuckled, low and fond. “Your purse is always a disaster area. If I didn’t keep track of it for you, what would you do?” I looked down at the back of my foot. The stiff leather of my bridal heels had rubbed the skin raw. The wardrobe assistant gasped beside me. “Miss Alden, your heel—it’s bleeding through the stocking!” The laughter inside the room died instantly. Pierce pushed the door open. When his gaze dropped to the crimson smear on my ankle, a flicker of genuine panic crossed his features. “How did that happen?” I said nothing. Kendra leaned against the doorframe, her voice dripping with soft contrition. “It’s all my fault… If my foot hadn’t flared up, Pierce wouldn’t have neglected you.” The panic on Pierce’s face instantly hardened back into defense. “Nobody is blaming you, Kendra.” He turned to me. “I’ll have the driver take you back to the penthouse. I’ll come home tonight and dress the wound myself.” A quiet, hollow smile touched my lips. Even my pain had to wait in line behind hers. Pierce didn’t return to the penthouse until eleven that night. I was sitting on the living room sofa, a fresh bandage already taped over my blistered heel. When the front door clicked open, he stepped inside holding a bakery box in one hand and a pharmacy bag in the other. Seeing me awake, the tight lines around his eyes relaxed slightly. “Does it still hurt?” I didn’t answer. He knelt on one knee before me, unscrewed an herbal ointment, and cradled my heel in his palm. His touch was feather-light, just as it used to be. “I was wrong today,” he murmured, his thumb resting gently on my instep. “Kendra’s ankle has chronic ligament damage. I panicked for a second and lost track of you.” The ointment was cold against my skin. I looked down at his lowered lashes, and the calcified ache in my chest softened despite myself. It wasn’t that Pierce had never loved me. When my chronic gastritis ruptured years ago, he had walked out of an eight-figure boardroom negotiation, sitting beside my hospital bed and holding my IV hand until daybreak. When my father’s logistics firm went under, he stood like an iron wall before the creditors, absorbing the fallout so I could build my design studio in peace. Because of those memories, I kept convincing myself that he was simply ill. That he was biologically impaired. That he was just dense. I told myself that if I just gave him time, the man I loved would return to focus. Pierce smoothed a fresh square of gauze over my skin, then placed the pastry box on the coffee table. “You mentioned craving that French bakery’s chestnut tart last week. I had my assistant queue up before closing.” I glanced at the gold foil logo. It was indeed my favorite patisserie. Pierce covered my fingers with his, his voice dropping into that familiar, soothing register. “Corinne, our wedding is in forty-eight hours. Let’s not let a stupid party game destroy everything we’ve built. From now on, I’ll keep my distance from Kendra. I’ll make sure she doesn’t drop by unannounced. All right?” His thumb rubbed the inside of my palm. In the past, whenever he held me like this, every ounce of my resolve would crumble. This time, after a long silence, I finally gave a slow nod. “One last time.” A relieved warmth flooded his eyes. “Yes. One last time.” The following afternoon, he drove us personally to the private tasting for the wedding dessert menu. Throughout the drive, his phone lit up on the console. “Kendra.” He glanced down and tapped the screen to decline. It buzzed again. He declined it once more. I kept my gaze fixed out the passenger window, silent. Sensing the shift in the air, Pierce deliberately switched the phone to silent and slid it face-down into the cup holder. “Today belongs exclusively to you.” The pastry chef presented a slate tray of artisanal samples. Just as I lifted a fork toward a raspberry mousse, his phone screen lit up on the tabletop. A preview image expanded automatically. It was Kendra, standing inside a bridal fitting room. The zipper of her bridesmaid gown was completely jammed halfway down her spine, leaving a wide expanse of pale skin exposed to the dressing room mirror. Beneath the image was a single line of text: “Pierce, the attendants all went to the back storage room. I’m stuck and I can’t reach the catch. Could you please come over for a second?” Pierce’s breath hitched. I set my silver fork back down on the porcelain plate. “You told me today belonged exclusively to me.” He looked up, caught off guard, scrambling to justify himself. “She’s a woman alone in a fitting room with an open dress—it’s an awkward situation. I’ll just drive over, find a female associate to help her, and come right back.” “Does a premier bridal boutique not employ staff?” His brows pinched together in exasperation. “Corinne, please don’t make this sound so sordid.” The pastry chef stood beside our table, eyes glued to the floor in suffocating awkwardness. I looked straight into his eyes. “Pierce. If you walk out of here right now, I will never forgive you.” His hand tightened around his key fob. For a fleeting second, conflict flickered in his dark eyes. Then the phone screen flared again. A frantic voice note played through his car’s synced audio: Kendra’s voice, trembling on the verge of tears. “Pierce, two male guests from the neighboring suite are knocking on my dressing room door… I’m really scared…” Pierce shot to his feet. “I need to check on her.” I reached out, catching his sleeve. “What about me?” He paused, his voice clipped and hurried: “Wait here for me. The moment I handle it, I’ll come back. Corinne, this isn’t an ultimatum.” “It isn’t an ultimatum because you’ve already made your choice.” After the glass doors swung shut behind him, the pastry chef cleared his throat and asked with painful politeness, “Miss Alden… would you still like to sample the Sicilian pistachio mousse?” I looked down at the pale green confection. A sudden, sharp realization pierced through me. Pierce remembered every single dietary quirk Kendra possessed: no iced drinks, no spicy seasoning, a mild mango sensitivity, half-sweet cold brew with oat milk. Yet my severe, anaphylactic allergy to pistachios? He had forgotten it three times during our wedding planning alone. When Pierce finally returned to the bakery, the staff were already turning over the chairs. I was still sitting by the window, the dessert plates untouched before me. A faint trace of perfume lingered around his collar. Fresh, floral, and entirely foreign to me. “Corinne.” He sat opposite me, reaching across the table to cup my cheek. I tilted my head away, avoiding his touch. His hand froze in midair. “I swear I only went to call a manager for her. Kendra was genuinely terrified. I couldn’t just leave her there.” I looked down at his crisp white cuff. There was a faint smudge of coral lipstick near the pearl button. It was nearly imperceptible unless caught directly by the chandelier light. Following my gaze, Pierce looked down, his face instantly draining of color. “She lost her footing when she came out of the stall. She stumbled against my arm. It isn’t what you think.” A profound exhaustion washed over me. “Pierce, have you ever noticed that it’s “never” what I think?” He fell silent. After a long time, he lowered his head, his voice rough. “I know you feel slighted. For tomorrow’s pre-wedding photo shoot, I’ve told Kendra not to come. Just you and me. I promise.” I searched his face. “Really?” “Really.” Yet when we arrived at the photography studio the next morning, Kendra was already seated in the main vanity chair. Dressed in a blush bridesmaid gown, she was having her hair pinned into loose curls. Seeing us enter, she stood up immediately. “Corinne, please don’t be upset with Pierce. The lead photographer mentioned needing a few full-party editorial shots for the album, so I came early.” Pierce was standing beside her, holding an insulated coffee cup. A handwritten barista tag was stuck to the side: “Americano, light ice, half sweet, no dairy.” Kendra took the cup, her eyes curving into affectionate crescents. “You still remember that dairy upsets my stomach?” Pierce answered naturally, “You’ve always had a sensitive digestive tract.” I looked at his other hand. It was empty. We had left the penthouse in a rush this morning, and I hadn’t had time for breakfast. Pierce knew full well that my blood sugar crashed easily under studio lights. In the past, he always kept a small bar of dark chocolate tucked into his inner pocket. Today, there was nothing. The photographer called us to the set. The first concept was the classical bridal suite. Pierce stood beside me, his arm resting loosely around my waist. Through the viewfinder, he looked every bit the devoted, aristocratic fiancé. No outsider could have detected a flaw in the portrait. Until the photographer called out from behind the lens: “Mr. Wardell, look down at your bride. Give me a little more emotional depth in your eyes.” Pierce turned his gaze toward me. And in that quiet moment, I watched him struggle. His eyes scanned my forehead, tracked the curve of my cheekbone, and lingered on the edge of my lip—like a student desperately searching for the landmarks he had crammed the night before. The last embers of warmth in my heart quietly burned to ash. During the outdoor terrace shoot, a heavy lighting scaffold swayed under a sudden gust of coastal wind. I was standing near the edge of the stone steps; my heel caught on the trailing lace, and my balance gave way. Pierce reacted instantly. His reflexes were razor-sharp, his fingers locking around my forearm to arrest my fall. For a split second, I almost believed I had been wrong about him. Then Kendra screamed. “Pierce!” A lightweight foam reflector board had tipped over toward her side of the terrace. In reality, it was still a foot and a half away from making contact. Pierce let go of my arm instantly. I crashed heavily onto the sharp concrete edge of the staircase, a blinding shock of pain radiating through my knee. By then, Pierce had already crossed the terrace, pulling Kendra tightly into his chest. “Are you hurt?” Kendra’s face was pale as paper, her fingers clutching his suit lapels. “I… I thought it was going to crush me.” Pierce rubbed her back, murmuring soothing reassurances. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” The studio crew descended into chaotic murmuring. A junior stylist rushed to my side, kneeling on the pavement. “Miss Alden! Your knee is split open!” Blood was already soaking through the inner lining of the ivory silk gown, spreading into a stark crimson bloom. Pierce finally turned his head. When his eyes registered the blood, his expression shattered. “Corinne!” He took a step toward me. Suddenly, Kendra pressed a hand to her sternum, her breathing turning shallow and ragged. “Pierce… I can’t catch my breath…” Pierce’s boots froze on the concrete. His eyes darted between the blood dripping down my leg and Kendra’s gasping mouth. I propped myself up against the cold stone balustrade, my voice barely above a whisper. “Who do you choose this time, Pierce?” His jaw clenched into a rigid line, panic flashing through his gaze. “Corinne… she has chronic asthma.” A quiet laugh escaped my lips. “I understand.” He scooped Kendra into his arms, heading rapidly toward the studio exit. As he brushed past me, he hesitated for half a second. “I’ll have my driver take you to the emergency clinic.” The double doors swung shut. The studio was left with only the blinding glare of the strobe lights. I looked down at the ruined, bloodstained hem of my bridal gown, and found that I didn’t even have tears left to shed. The private clinic smelled overwhelmingly of iodine and rubbing alcohol. When the nurse cleaned the gravel from my open wound, the antiseptic stung so viciously that my fingers dug into the vinyl examination table. Pierce called seventeen times. I let every single one ring out. Just as the doctor handed me my discharge paperwork, my screen lit up with a text message. “Corinne, I am so sorry. Kendra had a severe bronchospasm. I had her transported home safely. Which clinic are you at? I’m coming to get you right now.” Two minutes later, another message arrived: “There are only two days left before our wedding. I don’t want us walking down the aisle carrying a misunderstanding.” He always had a way of rebranding every deliberate choice as a harmless misunderstanding. I powered down my phone, caught a cab, and returned to our penthouse alone. The foyer was still stacked with silver-ribboned wedding favors. Embossed invitations were spread across the mahogany coffee table, our names printed together in gold calligraphy: “Pierce Wardell & Corinne Alden.” I stood in the silence for a long time before dragging my vintage leather suitcase out of the closet. Passports, bank cards, a few sets of everyday clothes. When I moved to the study to pack my sketchbooks, a bottom drawer caught my eye—it wasn’t fully closed, a sliver of white cardstock peeking through the seam. I pulled the drawer open. An entire stack of index cards spilled onto the dark wood desk. Attached to each card was a photograph of me: long hair, short hair, evening wear, casual linen. On the back of every single card, meticulous notes were written in Pierce’s elegant, aristocratic handwriting: “Corinne Alden: A faint birthmark hidden behind her left earlobe.” “Corinne Alden: The right corner of her mouth lifts higher when she smiles.” “Corinne Alden: Squeezes her knuckles when nervous.” “Corinne Alden: Never wears perfume; smells naturally of cedarwood detergent.” Every stroke was deliberate, a monument to discipline. Then, my fingers brushed against the final card at the bottom of the stack. It was a candid photograph of Kendra. There were no bullet points on the back. No physical markers. No cheat sheets. Across the clean white cardstock, he had written only four words: “No need to memorize.” My heart contracted violently, squeezing the remaining breath from my lungs. “No need to memorize.” Because the second she appeared, his instincts took over. She stood in his world as the sole, effortless exception to the rule. The penthouse front door clicked open. Pierce rushed into the study, out of breath. The moment his eyes landed on the cards scattered across the desk, all the color drained from his face. “Corinne… let me explain.” I held the single photo of Kendra between two fingers, presenting it to him. “What does this mean?” His throat bobbed convulsively. “The neuro-specialist assigned me facial recognition drills. I wanted to make absolutely certain I wouldn’t fail you at the altar.” “And her?” Pierce stood utterly silent. I looked into his eyes, my voice steady and clear. “Pierce, you don’t suffer from an inability to recognize people. You just suffer from an inability to see me.” He crossed the room in two strides, wrapping his arms around me with a desperate, crushing strength. “That isn’t true! Corinne, I love you. The woman I am going to marry has been you from the very beginning.” His voice trembled against my neck. “I admit I’ve been thoughtless recently, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. We have five years between us. The invitations are in the hands of every prominent family in the city. You can’t hand down a death sentence right now. Please.” Enclosed in his embrace, the faint, lingering scent of Kendra’s perfume drifted from his lapel. A wave of nausea rose in my throat. His phone began to chime violently from his jacket pocket. The screen flashed with Kendra’s name. He rejected the call. Once. Twice. Three times. His jaw was clenched tight as he terminated the connection again and again. A second later, Kendra initiated an incoming video call. The screen lit up automatically on the desk: she was standing on the windswept ledge of a hotel rooftop terrace, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “Pierce… the tabloids leaked the rehearsal photos. Everyone online is calling me a home-wrecking mistress… I can’t take this anymore…” Pierce’s entire body went rigid against mine. I placed my palms against his chest and pushed him away. “Are you going to go?” His voice was hoarse, ragged with desperation. “She’s completely unstable right now. Corinne, I can’t gamble with someone’s life.” I nodded slowly. “If you walk out of this door tonight, the wedding is over.” Pierce stared at me, as if looking at a stranger. “Corinne… don’t corner me like this.” A faint, bitter smile touched my lips. “Between the two of us, who is really cornering whom?” The phone chimed again, shrill and unrelenting. Pierce closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, then reached out and snatched his car keys off the desk. “Wait for me. We will talk the second I get back.” When the heavy oak door clicked shut, it locked away the last remnant of warmth in my heart. I took off my three-carat diamond engagement ring and placed it squarely on top of the flashcards. At five in the morning, I rolled my suitcase out of the penthouse into the quiet dawn. On the afternoon of the wedding, the cathedral began filling with high-society guests. My bridal makeup artist called my cell phone, her voice shaking with panic. “Miss Alden! Where are you? The procession is starting in five minutes!” I sat in the back of a yellow cab parked across the cathedral square, watching the empty red carpet unfurling toward the grand arched doors. “Tell Pierce Wardell,” I said quietly, “that the bride is not coming.” Inside the sanctuary, the organ sounded, and the officiant called out for the third time: “Will the congregation please rise for the bride.” At the far end of that aisle, my silhouette would never appear again.

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