Author: Momo Chan

1 Stella enforced extreme boundaries. For three years, I never entered her apartment or touched her phone. At dinners, she seated me far away. I believed she feared intimacy. On our wedding eve, she sent a live location pin. Thinking she was finally opening up, I went to her apartment. The door was unlocked. Inside, a man lounged on her couch in sweats, his feet in her lap, laughing as he begged for a massage. Stella looked startled, then cold. “Wrong person,” she said. “That pin was for Dylan. Carter, stop acting like a desperate dog. You’re suffocating me.” I stayed silent, amused. She was entangled with another man yet demanded privacy from me. I opened my phone and accepted my regional director’s transfer offer. If I suffocated her, she could have all the space she wanted. Space where I no longer existed. The screen loaded, displaying a brief confirmation text. [Relocation Term: 3 Years. Destination: London Branch. Departure: This Saturday.] Today was Wednesday. There were exactly three days left until the wedding, and three days left until I left the country forever. Seeing me staring silently at my phone, Stella furrowed her brows in deep annoyance. “Carter, I am talking to you.” I locked my screen and looked up at her. “Yeah. I heard you.” She clearly had not expected me to be this calm. The harsh reprimand she had prepared got stuck in her throat, making her expression turn even uglier. Dylan finally decided to pull his legs off her lap. He tugged at the fabric of his hoodie, a matching oversized piece identical to the one Stella was currently wearing. He looked at me with a sheepish, awkward smile. “Stell, this is Carter, right?” Stell. I had been dating her for three years, and I almost exclusively called her by her full name. When we first got together, I asked if we could use pet names. Stella hated the idea. She said overly affectionate nicknames made her skin crawl and made her highly uncomfortable. It turned out she was not uncomfortable with pet names at all. It just depended on who was saying them. Dylan gripped the armrest of the sofa and stood up. “Bro, please do not get the wrong idea. I twisted my ankle playing basketball, so Stell was just rubbing it out for me.” I looked down at his feet. He was wearing fuzzy blue dog slippers. The glass of milk resting on the coffee table was a novelty cartoon mug. The cushion he had been leaning against was a limited edition gaming pillow. None of those things belonged to Stella. And none of them belonged to me. A bitter sense of irony washed over me. This was my very first time standing inside my fiancée’s apartment, yet I felt like a trespasser invading a cozy little love nest she shared with someone else. Seeing my silence, Dylan’s innocent smile began to falter. “Bro, Stell and I were born in the same year. We grew up together. We have always hung out like this, so we do not really have a lot of boundaries with each other.” I shifted my gaze to Stella. She was frowning slightly, completely unfazed by the blatant absurdity of Dylan’s excuse. Yet throughout our three year relationship, her demands for boundaries with me were so severe they bordered on absolute cruelty. I was banned from her apartment. I was banned from touching her phone. I was kept entirely isolated from her inner social circle. Once, I accidentally bumped into a decorative air freshener in her car, and she instantly scowled. “Carter, I really hate it when people touch my things.” Every single rule and restriction she had meticulously drafted for me was completely non existent when it came to Dylan. I let out a soft chuckle and looked at the man standing next to her. “Dylan. I have heard a lot about you.” Stella’s face darkened. “Carter, what is with the sarcastic tone?” I looked at her, genuinely surprised she interpreted it that way. I was not being sarcastic at all. I really had heard his name brought up time and time again. The first time was on my birthday. I had booked a reservation at an upscale restaurant half a month in advance. But at the very last minute, Stella called to cancel. She said Dylan had watched a horror movie and was too terrified to sleep, so she needed to go over and coax him. The second time was when I ran a hundred and three degree fever and had to go to the emergency room. I called Stella, hoping she could drive me. She told me Dylan was throwing a massive fit over wanting artisanal donuts from a specific bakery across town, and if he did not get them immediately, he was going to cry. The third time was the day we were supposed to try on our wedding attire. She showed up two hours late. I sat alone on the velvet sofa outside the dressing rooms in my suit, waiting until my eager anticipation curdled into sheer humiliation. When she finally rushed in, her white blouse was stained with spilled iced coffee. She casually explained that Dylan had lost his cat and was devastated, so she spent the entire morning scouring the neighborhood for it. During every single one of those incidents, I never actually got angry. Because I always assumed the person capable of making someone as cold and distant as Stella break her own rules over and over again must be a helpless, immature little kid. I even promised myself that after we got married, I would treat Dylan well if he was truly that dependent on her. Stella did not have many close friends. I never wanted to put her in a difficult position. But seeing him in the flesh today, the truth slapped me across the face. Dylan was not some little kid. He was the exact same age as Stella, making him two years older than me. Dylan bit his lower lip, his eyes instantly turning red and watery. “Stell, I do not think Carter likes me.” He reached down to grab his denim jacket off the sofa. “Maybe I should just leave. I do not want you guys getting into a huge fight because of me.” Before his hand could even touch the fabric, Stella reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Why should you be the one to leave?” “The person who showed up completely uninvited is the one who needs to get out.” A sharp sting hit the back of my nose. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a dry, hollow smile. “Alright.” “I will leave.” I turned around and walked out the door. As I stood in the hallway waiting for the elevator, a quiet realization settled over me. This was my first time visiting Stella’s apartment. And it would undoubtedly be my last. 2 By the time I unlocked the door to my own apartment, it was nearly eleven at night. I bought this place entirely on my own. Stella had never stepped foot inside it. Not even once. Months ago, I suffered from stomach cramps so severe I could barely stand straight. I called her, practically begging her to drop off a box of painkillers. She just replied over the phone with chilling indifference. “Carter, we are not legally married yet.” “A man and a woman alone in an apartment at night sends the wrong message. It will ruin your reputation.” Back then, I was foolish enough to be touched by her words. I actually believed she respected me and was fiercely protecting my image. It took seeing Dylan draped over her couch in a matching outfit, resting his legs on her lap and begging for a massage, to finally wake me up. All those pristine boundaries were just convenient excuses to keep me at arm’s length. I shook the thoughts out of my head, opened my suitcase, and started packing my life away. Halfway through folding my shirts, my knuckles brushed against a heavy garment bag shoved into the very back of the closet. I froze. Inside was the custom tailored tuxedo I had paid for in full. During our wedding preparations, Stella had been completely hands off with the planning, but she was incredibly generous with her credit card. She booked the most exclusive five star hotel in the city. She secured a fleet of luxury vintage cars. She spared absolutely no expense on the catering menu. Even her wedding dress was a bespoke gown crafted by an elite Italian designer. But when it came to my tuxedo, she simply said, “Just rent one.” “You are only going to wear it for a few hours. There is zero point in wasting money on it.” On the day of our fitting, after keeping me waiting for two agonizing hours, she breezed into the boutique, pointed lazily at a random rack, and said, “That one is fine. Stop dragging this out.” But I refused to compromise. I did not want to look back on the most important day of my life with the woman I loved and feel a shred of regret. So the following week, I went to a high end menswear boutique alone and purchased the most elegant, expensive tuxedo they had. Now, it was completely useless. I took a clear photo of it and listed it on a popular second hand marketplace app. [Brand new custom tuxedo. Never worn. Selling for cheap.] The moment I hit publish, a banner notification dropped down from the top of my screen. It was a new friend request on Instagram. I opened the app. The profile picture was a shot of a guy standing on a beach, facing the ocean. At first glance, it just looked vaguely familiar. But when I noticed the specific angle of the waves in the top right corner, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the exact same beach from Stella’s profile picture. I used to tease her for being an old soul, picking a boring landscape photo as her avatar when she was still in her twenties. Now I knew the truth. It was never a landscape photo. It was just the cropped out half of a matching couple’s picture with Dylan. I hit accept. A second later, a direct message popped up. [Bro, really sorry about everything today. I hate that I made you misunderstand the situation.] [Let me treat you to dinner tomorrow to make up for it.] My thumbs hovered over the keyboard. I typed out “No need,” but before I could hit send, he dropped a location link. [This is my absolute favorite spot in the city. Tomorrow at 5 PM. Do not leave me hanging!] I stared at the address on the screen, feeling entirely hollowed out. It was the exact restaurant Stella always insisted on taking me to for date nights. I never really liked the place. The food was way too sweet for my taste, and the ambient lighting was frustratingly dim. But Stella suggested it every single time we went out. Over the last three years, we had eaten countless meals in that dim dining room. Most of the time, we just sat across from each other in total silence. She would be glued to her phone dealing with work, and I would quietly cut my steak. Occasionally, I would glance up at her and convince myself that this quiet companionship was its own kind of romance. Looking back on it now, the irony made me sick to my stomach. I could not help but ask the ghost of her in my head. Stella. Whenever you sat across from me at that table, who were you actually picturing in your mind? In the end, I decided to go. The next afternoon, I walked into the restaurant right on the dot. As soon as I stepped past the host stand, I spotted them in a booth by the window. Stella and Dylan were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the same side of the table. I walked over and slid into the empty booth seat across from them. Dylan stuck his tongue out in a playful, boyish manner. “Sorry about this, bro.” “I was planning on coming alone, but Stell was too worried about me. She insisted on tagging along.” Worried? What was there to be worried about? Did she think I was going to throw a drink in his face? Hearing that triggered a memory from our second year of dating. My firm had a female client who was notoriously touchy feely with the single guys whenever she had a few drinks. Every time we had a corporate dinner with her, my colleagues’ girlfriends would wait outside in the parking lot to escort them home. I casually brought it up to Stella once. She did not even look up from her laptop. “I trust you.” “You are a brilliant professional. I am sure you can handle a minor inconvenience like that.” Love, it turns out, is entirely measured in double standards. She could not even trust me to eat a simple dinner with Dylan without acting as his bodyguard. But she was perfectly fine leaving her own boyfriend to fend for himself against a predatory client because she “trusted” me. 3 The food had been ordered before I even arrived. Seeing that the table was full, the waiter began bringing out the dishes. Halfway through the service, a heavy realization sank in. Almost every single plate was seafood. Steamed coral grouper, butter and cheese baked lobster, braised sea cucumber with scallions. It was a near identical replica of our finalized wedding banquet menu. When we were selecting the catering options, I had specifically asked her about it. “I have a severe shellfish allergy, and you hate seafood. Why did you pick so many ocean dishes?” She did not even lift her eyes from the brochure. “The guests like it.” I was so blinded by love I did not think twice about it. Now the truth was staring me right in the face. Her vague “guests” was entirely singular. She catered our entire wedding menu to Dylan’s palate. I barely touched my fork the entire meal. I picked at a few pieces of boiled bok choy, chewing them like flavorless cardboard. Dylan, on the other hand, was having the time of his life. He cheerfully peeled shrimp with his bare hands while endlessly chattering about childhood memories he shared with Stella. Right in the middle of a laughing fit, he naturally reached over and dropped a large piece of crab meat directly into Stella’s bowl. “Stell, try this. It is so fresh.” My hand froze over my plate. Stella had scolded me countless times for doing that exact same thing. “Carter, focus on your own food. Stop talking while we eat.” “I hate it when people put food on my plate. It is unsanitary.” But right now, she did not push his hand away. Instead, she leaned down slightly and ate the crab meat straight off his chopsticks. A suffocating wave of isolation washed over me. I was a completely irrelevant outsider intruding on their date. I set my chopsticks down cleanly on the napkin and stood up. “Take your time. I have things to handle, so I am going to head out.” Stella finally looked up at me. “Carter, what kind of tantrum are you throwing now?” I did not bother giving her an answer. I turned my back and walked straight out of the restaurant. The moment the cold evening wind hit my face, the heavy, suffocating knot in my chest finally loosened. I pulled out my phone and drafted a text to Stella. [Let’s cancel the wedding. I am going to the hotel at 10 AM tomorrow to void the venue and catering contracts. You can come along if it is convenient.] I hit send, flagged down an Uber, and went straight back to my apartment. By the time I went to bed, she had not replied. I did not wait up for one. I spent the evening organizing my relocation paperwork, took a hot shower, and fell fast asleep. The next morning, I arrived at the hotel lobby right on time. I sat on a velvet armchair for nearly half an hour. Stella never showed up. I dialed her number. It rang twice before she picked up. Before I could say a word, her deeply annoyed voice came through the speaker. “My mom told me to bring you over to the house today to finalize the last details for the wedding. I am already here. Just grab a cab and come over.” I gripped my phone, silence hanging in the air for a long moment. She clearly had not seen my text. Or maybe she did see it, and just dismissed it as another one of my empty bluffs. After a long pause, I gave a quiet reply. “Alright.” Fine. If she wanted an audience, I would cancel the wedding right in front of everyone. The Davis family shared Stella’s obsession with strict boundaries. Even with the wedding literally days away, I could count the number of times I had been invited to their house on one hand. Every time I visited, Mrs. Davis would politely pour me a cup of tea while Mr. Davis sat silently in the corner reading his newspaper. We were supposed to be merging our families, but it always felt like there was an impenetrable pane of bulletproof glass between us. But today was entirely different. The moment my Uber pulled up to their driveway, I could hear loud, echoing laughter spilling out of the living room windows. I pushed the front door open, immediately realizing Stella had not come alone. Dylan was sitting right next to Mrs. Davis on the plush sofa. He was practically hanging off her arm like a spoiled toddler. “Godmother, you need to tell Stell to back off.” “I wanted to wear my vintage shorts today, but she threw a fit and forced me to change into these jeans.” Mrs. Davis laughed so hard the wrinkles by her eyes crinkled. She affectionately tapped him on the forehead with her index finger. “I am on Stella’s side for this one.” “Those shorts are way too short. You are absolutely forbidden from wearing them out.” “I will take you to the mall this afternoon and buy you a whole new wardrobe.” Dylan’s eyes crinkled into bright crescents. “You are the best, Godmother.” My own mother passed away when I was very young. When Stella and I first got serious, I genuinely wanted to treat Mrs. Davis like a second mother. I bought her lavish gifts for every holiday. I brought back expensive local specialties every time I traveled for work. I cautiously invited her out for lunch or shopping trips to bond. But she never once wore the silk scarf I bought her. The luxury skincare sets I gave her were quietly passed down to their housekeeper. As for my invitations, her answer was always a polite, “Maybe next time,” or “Let us see how my schedule looks.” Back then, I naively believed she was just a busy woman. Now, the brutal truth was undeniable. When someone actually wants to see you, they will give you a specific time and place. They do not brush you off with a vague “next time” to keep you at a comfortable, permanent distance. The laughter in the room instantly died the second they noticed me standing in the doorway. Mrs. Davis seamlessly slipped back into the polite, distant mask I was so accustomed to. “Carter, you made it. Come sit down.” I walked over and chose a single armchair placed as far away from them as possible. I looked directly at Stella. “Did you not see the text message I sent you last night?” Stella frowned, looking genuinely confused. “What text message?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “If you have something important to say, why can’t you just say it to my face instead of texting…” Her voice trailed off abruptly. 4 “The entire chat thread is completely gone. What happened?” Dylan immediately scrambled off the sofa and jogged over. He clasped his hands together, flashing Stella a guilty, highly exaggerated smile. “Stell, my bad!” “I borrowed your phone last night to play a mobile game and accidentally swiped left and deleted Carter’s chat. It shouldn’t be a big deal, right?” Stella let out a fond, exasperated sigh. “If it is deleted, it is deleted. It is not the end of the world.” “You accidentally factory reset my phone a few months ago and I did not even yell at you for that, did I?” Dylan giggled mischievously and darted back to the safety of Mrs. Davis’s side. I sat frozen in my armchair, feeling the blood slowly drain from my fingertips. The woman who treated her phone like classified government property, refusing to let me even tap the screen to check the time, casually handed it over to another man to play video games. Even when he wiped her entire data history, she brushed it off with a gentle smile. Stella turned her attention back to me. “What did you text me last night? Just tell me now since we are all here.” I suddenly changed my mind. For three agonizing years, she had never given me a single ounce of the respect a fiancé deserved. Why was I trying so hard to give her a formal, respectful notice? It was pathetic. I lowered my eyes and kept my voice perfectly flat. “Nothing. It was not important.” Stella’s frown deepened, but she did not press the issue. Instead, Mrs. Davis chimed in with a warm smile. “Carter, how is the groomsmen situation looking?” “Do you think you can clear a spot for Dylan in your party?” She patted the back of Dylan’s hand, her tone dripping with affection. “He and Stella stayed up all night picking out the most gorgeous custom suit for him.” “He really wants to show it off on the big day.” My fingers curled tightly into my palms. Stella could not spare ten minutes of her day to help me select my wedding tuxedo. But she was perfectly happy to stay up all night styling a bespoke suit for him. Since there was not going to be a wedding anyway, what did it matter who stood at the altar? I did not argue. I just gave a quiet nod. “Sure.” I paused, then added, “My boss needs me back at the office. I am heading out.” Mrs. Davis gave a curt nod of dismissal. She did not even offer a fake pleasantry to ask me to stay for lunch. I walked out the front door, flagged another cab, and went straight to the hotel. When I told the events manager I was canceling the wedding, the color completely drained from his face. “Mr. Carter, your date is literally this Saturday.” “If you void the contracts now, we will not be able to refund the vast majority of your deposits.” I gave a firm nod. “I am well aware.” “Keep whatever cancellation fees you need.” He looked at me standing alone at the reception desk, choosing to swallow whatever questions he had. After all, no sane family plans a luxury wedding where the bride and her parents refuse to show their faces, leaving the groom to handle all the grueling logistics entirely by himself. By the time I initialed the final termination clause, the sky outside had turned pitch black. I handed the luxury pen back to the manager and walked through the revolving glass doors. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a notification from the second hand marketplace app. [Hello! Is this tuxedo still available? I would like to purchase it immediately.] I opened the app. The buyer had already wired the full asking price. A few seconds later, a long paragraph popped up in the chat. [I am so sorry if this is overly personal.] [My fiancé and I have been together for three years, and we are getting married this Saturday.] [My salary is not great, so I could not afford to buy him a nice suit. We were just going to rent a cheap one.] [He kept telling me it did not matter, but I know deep down he was disappointed.] [When I saw you listed this for such an incredible price, I had to buy it. I want to give him a real surprise.] [Thank you so much.] I stood on the curb under the harsh glow of a streetlamp, reading those words over and over until a hot sting pricked the back of my eyes. The exact same three years. The exact same Saturday wedding. Someone out there was completely broke, yet still desperately trying to give the man they loved a beautiful, dignified surprise. Meanwhile, someone with an unlimited budget would rather burn thousands on vintage cars than buy her fiancé a proper suit. I typed out a quick reply. [Happy wedding day.] She instantly replied with a smiling emoji. [Thank you! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness too.] I stared at that blessing for a long time. Finally, a genuine, soft smile broke across my face. I will be. But my happiness would have absolutely nothing to do with Stella ever again. When I got back to my apartment, I pulled the tuxedo out of its heavy garment bag. The dark, luxurious fabric pooled across my bed, catching the warm amber light of my bedroom lamp. It truly was a stunning piece of tailoring. It was so beautiful that I used to genuinely believe the day I wore it to walk down the aisle toward Stella would be the absolute peak of my existence. Now, I was just incredibly grateful. Grateful that I had never tainted it by putting it on. The courier arrived twenty minutes later. I handed the pristine garment box over to him and watched the elevator doors slide shut. The moment the lock clicked into place, my apartment felt remarkably empty. I did not waste another second. I grabbed the heavy suitcase I had packed days ago, flipped the light switch, locked the front door, and walked out of the building. My Uber was already idling at the curb. The driver popped the trunk, helped me heave the luggage inside, and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Where to, my man, this late at night?” “The airport.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455094”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 My heart beats with corpse-like steadiness. Fever, blood loss—nothing changes it. At eighteen, the Heustons locked me in their penthouse ICU. Not for love. Cindy’s one-of-a-kind bio-neural heart needed my rhythm as its core frequency. My steadiness kept her alive. Three months ago, a nurse bumped a monitor patch. Five minutes later, Cindy’s heart stopped cold in Europe. By morning, the agency was bankrupt, staff blacklisted. The penthouse elevator ran silent after that. Then Cindy left for Europe. Garrett Montgomery, her fiancé, took over. He slammed down my nine-figure medical bill. “Millions for this? A useless parasite?” He tore off my patches, killed the sync lines, and shoved me onto a treadmill. “Ten miles. Fail, and you’re out.” I gripped the rails. My heart hammered—first time ever. He killed the alarm instantly. He didn’t know. Twelve time zones away, Cindy’s heart was spiraling with mine. … Within three seconds, the treadmill belt went from a slow walk to a sprint. Two security guards grabbed my arms, pinning me to the handrails. The spot on my chest where the patch had been ripped off burned like fire. “Crank the speed up.” Garrett stood behind the glass wall, arms crossed, watching coldly. The nurse paled. “Mr. Montgomery, he cannot engage in strenuous exercise…” “The Heuston family spends a hundred million a year to maintain his heartbeat,” Garrett sneered, his eyes narrowing. “Let’s see just how precious it actually is.” The speed climbed to level ten. My knees slammed against the edge of the belt, and my vision went dark. Alarms screamed through the intercom: “Mother frequency lost. Remote synchronization risk rising.” I gripped the handrails, my knuckles turning white, my voice shredded by gasps. “Don’t… don’t cut the synchronization cable.” Garrett stepped in, leaning down to look at me. “Still acting?” He slapped a stack of annual bills against my face. Maintenance for the climate-controlled chamber, salaries for the medical team, imported drugs, dedicated servers: the numbers were staggering. He picked up a page and read it aloud. “One hundred and thirty million a year.” “What value do you bring to the Heustons?” “Nothing. You just lie there and breathe.” Cold sweat poured down my forehead, and my heart felt as though it were being squeezed by a giant fist. It wasn’t that my heart was weak; it was that if my heart rate spiraled, Cindy’s artificial heart across the globe would collapse with it. “Mr. Montgomery,” I gasped, the words catching in my throat, “stop this now… while you still can.” He slapped me across the face. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. A young nurse, Gwen, rushed forward to grab a spare monitoring patch. “Asher can’t run anymore!” With a flick of Garrett’s finger, the guards dragged Gwen away. The patch was tossed into the trash. “You’re suspended,” Garrett barked. “Say one more word, and you’ll never work in medicine again.” Gwen froze, terrified, unable to move. When the treadmill finally ground to a halt, my legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor. The pressure in my chest grew heavier, but the alarm suddenly cut out. Garrett had switched off the display. The room fell silent, save for my ragged breathing. He glanced toward the penthouse and smiled. “Go search his room. I want to see what kind of garbage the Heustons have been funding all these years.” Two legal consultants and guards stormed the penthouse. By the time I was dragged back up, my room was in ruins. The climate chamber was open, vials of rare medication were scattered across the floor, and the safe by my bed was forced open. A lawyer handed Garrett a stack of papers. “We found these, Mr. Montgomery.” Garrett scanned them, a slow, victorious smirk spreading across his face. “Kickback agreements with medical equipment suppliers.” He pulled out another page. “Offshore bank transfers.” He looked down at me. “What do you have to say for yourself, Asher?” I stared at the papers, a dry laugh bubbling in my throat. They weren’t mine. But I didn’t even have the strength to stand, let alone defend myself. Garrett had already written my sentence. “Colluding with suppliers, embezzling Heuston medical resources, and falsifying medical records to steal special funds.” He slapped the papers against my cheek. “As of right now, Asher’s penthouse privileges are revoked. Transfer him to a standard observation ward.” I forced my head up. “No.” The penthouse environment could not be broken. The temperature control, the silence, the servers, the patches; they were all vital. But Garrett only saw my desperation as fear. “What? Can’t survive without your luxury suite?” He knelt, gripping my jaw. “Then go ahead and die.” As they dragged me out, the central monitoring screen in the facility flashed a violent red. “Mother Frequency Lost.” “Remote Artificial Heart Synchronization Failure.” “Emergency Contact: Cindy Heuston.” Garrett looked at the screen, expressionless. With a click, he turned off the entire alarm system. At that exact moment, in a high-rise conference room in Europe. Cindy was leaning over to sign an acquisition treaty. Her pen suddenly scratched violently across the paper. In the next second, the artificial heart inside her chest let out a shrill, warning shriek. The standard ward on the third floor was loud and lacked proper climate control. I lay curled on the bed, fingers digging into the sheets, the pressure in my chest making it impossible to breathe. The door was kicked open. Dr. Alistair rushed in, his white coat unbuttoned, his face pale with panic. He was Cindy’s primary physician, the only doctor who knew the full truth. Seeing my bare chest, he turned on Garrett. “Who authorized the removal of his monitoring patches?” Garrett was lounging on the sofa, flipping through my chart. “Dr. Alistair, I am the temporary director of this facility.” He pushed a board authorization letter across the desk. “With Cindy away, I call the shots.” Alistair didn’t even look at the paper. He rushed to my bedside. “Asher can’t be in this room.” As he reached for a portable synchronizer, two guards blocked him. “Move!” Alistair roared. Garrett stood up. “Why so protective? He is a fraud, and yet you treat him like he’s more precious than Cindy herself.” Alistair clenched his jaw. He couldn’t speak. The mother-frequency connection was a closely guarded Heuston secret. If leaked, Cindy would become an immediate target in the financial markets. He forced the words out: “His synchronization cannot be interrupted. If anything happens to him, Ms. Heuston will die.” Garrett laughed. “If Asher gets hurt, Cindy dies? Dr. Alistair, I didn’t think a respectable physician like you would help a con artist spin his lies.” I tried to speak, but my lungs felt like they were filled with cement. Alistair’s face drained of color. “Mr. Montgomery, this is my final warning. Stop this now, and we can still salvage her status.” “Salvage?” Garrett’s smile was freezing. “What we need to salvage are the millions he stole.” He pointed at Alistair. “Confiscate his ID badge.” The guards pinned Alistair and dragged him out. “You’ll regret this, Garrett! You’ll kill her!” Garrett ignored the screams, turning to the IT director. “Is the backup server in the penthouse still active?” The IT director trembled. “Mr. Montgomery, we cannot shut that down. It carries the remote calibration parameters for Ms. Heuston’s artificial heart. If we cut it…” “Cindy again.” Garrett’s eyes darkened. “Every single one of you uses her name to threaten me.” He raised his walkie-talkie. “Shut it down.” The IT director lunged forward, but a guard kicked him to the floor. A moment later, the lights in the entire building flickered and dimmed. The monitor beside my bed screeched with static. My heart rate line went completely erratic. I clutched my chest, arching off the bed in violent convulsions. Outside, Alistair was pinned to the floor, veins bulging on his forehead. “Garrett! She’s going to die! Cindy is actually going to die!” Garrett stood over me, watching me convulse without moving a muscle. “Then let her.” His phone rang. An encrypted number from Europe. He answered. His assistant’s voice was frantic: “Mr. Montgomery! Ms. Heuston collapsed during the meeting! Her artificial heart has gone into emergency safe-mode! Is something happening at the facility?” Garrett’s expression flickered. He looked down at me, taking in my cold sweat and ragged, shallow breaths. Then, the hesitation vanished, replaced by cold cynicism. “They’re really playing the part well, aren’t they?” “Mr. Montgomery? Can you hear me?” the assistant screamed. Garrett hung up, turned off his phone, and threw it into his bag. “Cindy is surrounded by Europe’s finest medical minds. She doesn’t need a con artist to save her life.” I lay on the cold mattress, listening to my heartbeat slow down, beat by agonizing beat. By the time I was wheeled into the examination room, my fingers were shaking uncontrollably. The electrodes pressed against my skin felt ice-cold, and the waves on the monitor remained wild and chaotic. Dr. Alistair was pinned outside the door, his clothes covered in dust, his eyes fixed on me. “Asher, hang on!” I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face wouldn’t cooperate. It felt as though invisible wires were tightening around my chest, squeezing the life out of me. Dr. Kingsley, the chief of medicine, rushed in holding a tablet. He showed Garrett the split-screen data: my chaotic heart rate and Cindy’s remote cardiac logs. The timestamps, the spikes, and the moments of instability aligned perfectly. “The moment you ripped off his patch, her heart destabilized,” Kingsley said, his voice trembling. “When you cut the server, she collapsed. Now his heart is failing, and her artificial heart is entering critical shutdown.” Garrett smiled. “Data can be falsified. Everyone in this facility answers to Cindy. If you wanted to spin a lie to protect him, it would take you five minutes.” “Garrett, this is a human life!” Kingsley pleaded. “Which is why we are getting to the bottom of this.” Garrett forced a pen into my shaking hand. “Sign it.” I looked down. It was a voluntary confession of medical fraud and embezzlement. I managed a weak, raspy laugh. “Garrett… you aren’t punishing me. You are destroying her heart with your own hands.” His expression turned icy. “Still trying to threaten me?” “I’m not threatening you,” I whispered. “I’m trying to save her.” Garrett grabbed my wrist, forcing the pen down, scratching the paper and my finger. “You’re trying to save her? You’re just a parasite plucked from an orphanage.” He turned to the nurse. “Inject the stimulant.” Kingsley tried to stop him. “No! His rhythm is already fractured! A stimulant will trigger a complete cardiac collapse!” Garrett grabbed the syringe himself and drove it into my vein. My heart felt as though it had been dropped into boiling oil. The monitor shrieked. I slipped from the chair, knees hitting the floor, my vision fading. In the darkness, I remembered the first time Cindy met me. She was pale, hooked to machines, asking gently, “Are you willing?” I had asked what would happen if I said no. She said, “Then we won’t do it.” But I had stayed because she didn’t force me. Now, someone else was forcing me to die. At that moment, in the European ICU, Cindy opened her eyes, ripped off her oxygen mask, and gasped, “Prepare the jet. We’re going home.” By the time Garrett convened the board hearing, I couldn’t even stand. I was wheeled into the main auditorium. The room was packed with board members, lawyers, and legal advisors, their eyes filled with pity, suspicion, and disgust. Garrett stood at the front, his suit pristine. “Today, we are here to expose a massive fraud that has drained Heuston resources for years.” He projected the forged agreements onto the screen. “Asher, an orphan with no affiliation to the Heuston Group, has occupied our top-tier medical suite for years. We have reason to believe he colluded with suppliers to embezzle millions.” The room erupted into quiet whispers. Garrett turned to the nurses. “Tell everyone what Asher does in the penthouse.” The head nurse stood up. “He doesn’t participate in any research or treatment. He just rests while we cater to his every need.” Gwen tried to shout from the back of the room. “That’s because his monitoring data is directly connected to Ms. Heuston’s!” But the guards quickly dragged her out. Garrett smiled, satisfied. I looked up, committing their faces to memory. Not for revenge, but because if I died, someone needed to remember what they had done. The doors opened, and a bruised Dr. Alistair was brought in. Garrett pointed to my chest. “Dr. Alistair, you claimed Asher has a core proprietary chip implanted near his collarbone?” “That chip was authorized by Ms. Heuston herself,” Alistair spat. “It cannot be removed!” Garrett smirked. “An unauthorized civilian harboring proprietary Heuston technology. This is corporate espionage.” He stepped up to me. “Extract the chip. Send it to legal for analysis.” I panicked, struggling against the chair. “No… Garrett, don’t. She is on her way.” “Even if she returns, she will thank me for disposing of a leech.” I was pinned to the operating chair. No anesthesia. The scalpel sliced into my skin, and blood immediately soaked my shirt. The forceps reached in, grabbing the synchronizing chip near my collarbone. The main monitor flashed a violent red, warning of a complete communication failure. Garrett didn’t care. He pulled the forceps back, ripping the chip out. Just as darkness claimed me, the heavy double doors of the auditorium were blown open. Cindy, pale as a ghost, collapsed from her wheelchair directly at Garrett’s feet, her artificial heart alarm blaring at maximum volume.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455093”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 My wife, Wendy, was a titan of Manhattan’s elite finance. She had an adopted younger brother, Jackson, a brilliant but volatile hacker who existed only to cause chaos. For seven years, they had a very public dynamic: he would tear the world apart, and she would write the checks to rebuild it. Until he tampered with my car’s brake system, sending me over a cliff and leaving me hanging by a thread. As she signed the surgery consent form in the sterile hospital corridor, she offered only a weary sigh. “Don’t be angry with Jackson, Reid. He just thought it was a game. He didn’t actually mean to kill you. He knew I had secured the best medical team in the city for you; he was just trying to scare you.” Before the ink on her signature could even dry, her assistant reported that Jackson was being bullied by some rivals at a nightclub downtown. Wendy dropped the pen and ran. She left in such a frantic rush that she didn’t even notice she had checked the wrong box for my blood type. At that moment, the long-dormant system in my mind chimed. “Dying at the hands of the female lead will immediately complete your mission. Death by mismatched blood-type hemolysis is imminent. Do you accept this exit protocol?” I looked at the bag of blood the nurse was hanging, smiled weakly, and whispered, “Do it.” … “Mr. Beckett, this is Type A blood. Are you absolutely certain you want us to start this transfusion?” The male nurse held the IV bag, the veins on the back of his hand bulging slightly. His eyes were wide with hesitation, even a touch of panic. “Hang it,” my voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. “My wife signed the consent form herself. How could there be a mistake?” The nurse bit his lip, let out a slow sigh, and unpacked the sterile tubing. The thick needle slid cleanly into the vein on the back of my hand. The dark red liquid slid down the clear plastic line, dripping slowly into my bloodstream. The system’s cold, synthesized voice chimed in my head. “Mismatched blood type accepted. Fatal hemolytic reaction countdown initiated. Remaining time: seventy-two hours.” I closed my eyes, feeling the first quiet tremors of poison spreading through my organs. Within thirty minutes, a sharp, grinding ache flared in my lower back, as if a dull, rusty chisel were digging into my spine. My body began to shake with uncontrollable chills. I pulled the heavy hospital blanket tight, but my teeth still rattled violently. The heavy door was thrown open. Wendy stormed into the room, bringing a suffocating cloud of cheap liquor and cigarette smoke with her. The hem of her expensive designer dress was dusted with gaudy, colorful sequins from the club. Behind her stood Jackson, completely unharmed. He wore a sequined shirt, his eyes slightly pink as he clutched her sleeve like a frightened puppy. “What kind of tantrum are you throwing now, Reid?” Wendy stood over my bed, arms crossed, her brow furrowed with sheer annoyance. “The doctor said you only have minor abrasions. Who are you putting on this shivering act for?” I gritted my teeth against the mounting agony in my spine, cold sweat dripping down my temples. “I’m freezing.” Wendy scoffed, irritably tugging at her silk scarf. “Freezing? The thermostat is set to seventy-eight degrees. Stop acting.” She turned to Jackson, her voice instantly softening. “Jackson, go turn off the AC so your brother-in-law doesn’t have another excuse to complain.” Jackson nodded obediently and flicked the switch. He turned to me, looking timid and tearful. “Reid, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to mess up your brakes. I just wanted to test my new exploit program. Wendy already chewed me out. Please don’t be mad at me, okay?” Big tears rolled down his cheeks. Wendy immediately pulled him behind her, shielding him from my gaze. “That’s enough, Jackson. You don’t owe him an apology. He’s lying here in one piece, isn’t he?” She glared at me. “Reid, Jackson was almost assaulted at that club tonight. He was terrified, yet he still rushed over here to apologize to you. You can’t even offer him a decent look. Don’t you think you’re being incredibly petty?” I stared at her self-righteous face, a dry chuckle bubbling in my throat. My brakes had failed on a winding mountain road, sending me crashing through the guardrails. I was dragged out of a crushed, bloody metal heap. And her only concern was whether her precious adopted brother got his feelings hurt at a bar. “He was terrified?” I rasped, my throat raw. “He was out drinking and partying at a club. You call that terrified? What about me? I almost burned alive in that car. What does that count as?” Wendy’s annoyance grew. “Can you stop talking about death? I hired the best trauma surgeons in the state for you. Besides, your car has a top-tier safety cage. Jackson calculated the physics; he knew you wouldn’t die.” Calculated? I glanced at the dark red blood dripping into my vein. The toxic, mismatched cells were already attacking my organs. He calculated it, alright. He calculated exactly how to end my life. “Wendy,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “What if I actually die?” She froze, then her expression hardened into disgust. “Are we doing this again? Every time Jackson makes a minor mistake, you play the victim and threaten me with your death. Don’t you get tired of being this pathetic, Reid?” She pulled up a chair and crossed her legs. “Stop the drama. If you’re really hurting, I’ll have the nurse bring you some painkillers. Jackson is shaken up, so I’m staying with him tonight. Take this time to reflect on your attitude.” I remained silent. My temperature was climbing rapidly, and my vision began to blur. My chest felt like a furnace, every breath searing my lungs. These were the classic early symptoms of acute hemolysis. My red blood cells were rupturing in mass numbers. “Is Reid really okay, Wendy?” Jackson murmured, peeking from behind her. “His face is so red. Is he running a fever?” Wendy glanced at me dismissively. “It’s not a fever. He’s just throwing a tantrum because I didn’t drop everything to stay by his side.” She stood up, looking down at me with cold warning. “Reid, I’m warning you for the last time. Drop these pathetic jealousy games. Jackson is my brother, and I will protect him. If you keep pushing this, don’t expect me to keep tolerating you.” I offered her a pale, empty smile. “Fine. You go ahead and protect him.” Wendy sneered, taking Jackson’s hand. “Let’s go. Leave him to his self-pity.” The door slammed shut. I looked at the near-empty blood bag and closed my eyes. “System, dial the pain blocker to maximum.” “Pain-blocking protocol at one hundred percent. Have a peaceful journey, Host.” The sound of leather shoes echoed in the hallway. The door clicked open again. Jackson was back, and Wendy wasn’t with him. The timid, tearful mask had vanished, replaced by an ugly, malicious sneer. I ignored him. The fever was leaving me entirely limp, and the scent of iron filled my throat. Jackson walked over to the bed, idly flicking the IV tubing. “Tsk, tsk. Look at you. Pathetic.” “You know what Wendy said in the hallway? She called you a dramatic, exhausting drag. She said you don’t even compare to a single hair on my head.” I forced my heavy eyelids open. “Are you done? Get out.” Jackson chuckled, completely unbothered. “You still have quite the attitude, Reid. But don’t worry, you won’t be talking like that for long.” He pulled out a compact, palm-sized netbook from his bag. His fingers flew across the keyboard as the screen cast a pale blue glow on his face. “Wendy thinks you’re faking, but I think you look a little too peaceful. Why don’t I help make your vitals look a bit more… realistic?” The moment his finger hit enter, the multi-parameter monitor beside my bed let out a deafening screech. The red warning light flashed violently. My heart rate jumped to 180 on the display, while the blood pressure readings crashed below critical thresholds. The alarm echoed down the sterile hallway. I watched him calmly. He wasn’t just a hacker; he was a sociopath with no concept of boundaries. Footsteps thundered outside. “What’s happening?!” Wendy was the first to burst in, her face pale. A swarm of panicked doctors and nurses followed closely behind. Jackson had already tucked the netbook back into his bag with practiced ease. He stumbled back, covering his ears, trembling like a leaf. “Wendy! I don’t know what happened! I didn’t touch anything! The machine just started screaming! It’s terrifying!” He buried his face in her chest, sobbing hysterically. Wendy held him tight, gently rubbing his back. The attending doctor, Dr. Collins, rushed to my bedside, checking the sensors. “This makes no sense. His pupils are normal, and his pulse feels steady. Why is the machine reading a cardiac arrest?” She rebooted the monitor. The readings instantly returned to normal. Wendy’s face turned dark as thunder. She calmed Jackson down, then spun around to glare at me with pure venom. “Reid, is there no limit to your desperation?” “You’re tampering with hospital equipment now? Just to force me to stay? Do you have any idea how many actual patients need these resources?” I lay there, staring at her furious face. “You think I did this?” I didn’t even have the strength to lift my arm, let alone hack a hospital network. Wendy let out a harsh laugh. “Who else could it be? You’re so consumed by your pathetic jealousy that you’ll do anything to frame him!” She marched to the bed and violently ripped the blanket off me. “Get up! Apologize to Jackson right now!” A wave of cold air hit my burning body, and a violent fit of coughing shook my chest. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, but I swallowed it down and looked up at her. “Wendy,” I said, my voice dead. “Are you out of your mind?” She froze. In our seven years of marriage, I had never spoken to her like this. I had always been patient, gentle, and yielding. “What did you just say to me?” she hissed. “I called you an idiot.” I reached out with the last of my strength and ripped the power cord of the monitor from the wall. The screeching alarm died instantly. “The next time you two want to play this pathetic game, leave me out of it,” I whispered, turning my back to her. “It’s disgusting.” Wendy clenched her fists so hard her knuckles cracked. “Fine. You want to act tough, Reid? Let’s see how long you can last.” She grabbed Jackson’s hand and stormed out. “Let’s go, Jackson. Leave this lunatic to himself.” I closed my eyes and swallowed another mouthful of blood. “System, how much time do I have left?” “Remaining time: sixty hours.” “Good,” I murmured. “Almost there.” The hospital television was on, the volume low. A breaking news report flashed across the screen. “Vanguard Holdings’ smart-driving system, Aegis, has suffered a catastrophic security breach. Multiple vehicles equipped with the system have reportedly lost control on major interstate highways. At least ten pile-ups have been reported, with numerous injuries.” I leaned back, wiping the thin trail of blood from my lips. My vision was double now, the hemolysis systematically dismantling my internal organs. Wendy was standing by the window, screaming into her phone. “What is the PR department doing?! I don’t care how much it costs, bury the story! Find a subcontractor and blame the code on them!” She tore off her scarf and threw it onto the sofa, breathing heavily. Jackson sat in the corner, staring at his hands with a practiced look of innocence. “Wendy, I’m sorry. I just thought the core logic of the system was boring, so I added a little backdoor exploit. I wanted to surprise them, I didn’t think it would cause actual accidents.” He shrugged, entirely devoid of genuine remorse. Wendy sighed, walking over to smooth his hair. “It’s fine, Jackson. I’ll handle it. Just don’t be so reckless next time. The media loves to blow things out of proportion. It’s just a few fender-benders, we can settle it with money.” Listening to her dismiss those human lives so casually made my stomach turn. I reached under my pillow, pulling out my slim laptop. The tactile feel of the keys brought a brief moment of clarity to my fading mind. My fingers flew across the keyboard. Wendy would do everything in her power to scrub Jackson’s digital footprint, so I had to act fast. I needed to package every bit of raw data proving his culpability before my body gave out entirely. The progress bar crawled forward. I was blind-typing now, relying entirely on muscle memory. “What are you doing now?” Wendy’s sharp voice cut through the room. She marched over and slammed my laptop shut. “The company is facing a crisis, and you’re lying here playing games on your computer? Do you even have a conscience, Reid?” I looked up at her frantic, angry face. “A conscience?” I let out a dry, rattling cough, spitting a dark glob of blood onto the floor. “Wendy, you are harboring a criminal who has endangered public safety, and you want to lecture me about a conscience?” Her expression turned dark and dangerous. “Watch your mouth, Reid! Jackson is just a kid, he didn’t know any better! Don’t think that just because you sit at home all day, you understand how to run a conglomerate!” Jackson smirked, leaning against her. “Reid, are you going to report me to the police? You don’t have any evidence. Wendy already had the server logs wiped. No one will believe you.” I pushed the laptop screen back open. “Is that so?” I tapped the enter key. An encrypted archive was instantly generated. It contained not only the files proving his sabotage of the Aegis system, but a comprehensive log of his cybercrimes over the past seven years, including corporate espionage and server intrusions against Wendy’s competitors. “Reid, don’t you dare!” Wendy lunged to grab the laptop. I pulled it back, staring at her coldly. “Relax. I’m not calling the police. I’m just writing my will.” Wendy’s hand froze. She looked at my deathly pale face, then let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “A will? For a few scratches? You are completely out of your mind.” She grabbed Jackson’s arm. “Let’s go. Let him play his pathetic games.” The door closed, and I fell back against the pillows, my strength entirely depleted. The scheduled transmission was locked. The payload would deploy automatically three days after my death. “System,” I whispered, my breathing shallow. “How long?” “Remaining time: twelve hours. Multi-organ failure has commenced.” I watched the light fade from the window. “Let’s end this.” The room grew dark. Every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass. My kidneys had shut down, and my lungs were filling with fluid. Outside, the distant boom of fireworks echoed through the sky. The system projected a virtual screen in my mind. Wendy had rented out the city’s largest amusement park for Jackson. Under a sky filled with brilliant colors, Jackson wore a custom diamond crown, smiling like a prince while Wendy looked at him with absolute adoration. “Congratulations on getting through this, Jackson,” her voice was incredibly gentle. “If you want to play with software, I’ll buy you an entire tech firm next week.” A soft alarm chimed as the male nurse burst into my room, his flashlight catching my grey face. “Doctor! We need help in Room Three! The patient is in shock!” Panicked shouts filled the corridor. A crash cart was wheeled in, and the blinding procedural lights flared above me. “Heart rate is dropping! Blood pressure is unreadable! Push epinephrine, now!” “Where is the emergency contact? Get the spouse on the line for a critical notice!” The nurse frantically dialed Wendy’s number. On my mental screen, I saw her phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out, frowning at the caller ID: “St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.” Jackson glanced at the screen, rolling his eyes. “Wendy, he’s playing the boy who cried wolf again. He’s just mad because you’re with me.” Wendy scoffed and swiped to decline the call. The nurse dialed again, but this time, the line was dead. She had blocked the hospital’s number. “I can’t get through! She blocked us!” the nurse cried. The doctor gritted her teeth, delivering chest compressions. “Keep going! Don’t stop!” I looked at their futile efforts, and issued my final command. “System, release the files.” “Command confirmed. Scheduled package locked. Deployment in seventy-two hours.” “Host, your vitals are flatlining.” I took one last look at the dark window. The final firework bloomed and died, leaving only empty darkness. Beside me, the erratic line on the monitor stretched into a single, flat green line. A sharp, continuous tone pierced the silence of the room. I felt my consciousness detach, rising slowly toward the ceiling. “Congratulations, Host. Mission completed. Exit protocol initiated.” Looking down, I saw the medical team slowly step away, pulling the white sheet over my face. “Time of death: two-fourteen AM.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455092”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 On my eighteenth birthday, burning with a fever of a hundred and six degrees, I lay alone on the freezing concrete floor of my tiny apartment. On my phone, notifications from the family group chat were lighting up the screen like fireworks. A five-tier custom cake. Ninety-nine red roses. My father was holding her, my mother was kissing her forehead, and my brother was raising a glass to toast her. The girl they were celebrating was Molly, the adoptive daughter who had been raised in my place. I was the biological daughter of the Prescott family, lost for fifteen years. They found me and brought me back three years ago, yet I had never truly managed to step inside their front door. I called Dad seven times, but nobody answered. I messaged my brother, but he left me on read. I called Mom, and the first thing she said when she picked up was, “Maeve, can you stop causing trouble?” Then the line went dead. I lay on the floor, next to a cheap strawberry cupcake that cost me under ten dollars. The candle on top was crooked, never having had the chance to be lit. I closed my eyes and made the exact same wish I had made for the past eighteen years. I hoped someone would remember today was my birthday. I hoped someone would say those two simple words to me: Happy Birthday. I had made this wish for eighteen years, and not once had it ever come true. And this time, it would be my last. … On the night of my eighteenth birthday, my fever spiked to a hundred and six degrees. I curled up on the cold floor of my rented room, waiting for the end. The room was barely seventy square feet, with no heating. The bitter November wind whipped through a cracked windowpane, cutting into my skin like tiny knives. I huddled into a tight ball, my bones feeling as if they were roasting in a furnace. Every cough felt like shards of broken glass scraping through my lungs. My phone screen lit up. It was the family group chat. Dad had sent a sixty-second voice note. My trembling finger tapped it, and a flood of laughter and music poured from the speaker. “Come on, everyone! Our darling Molly is eighteen today! Raise your glasses. Happy birthday to our little princess!” My brother Tristan’s voice followed immediately after. “Happy eighteenth to the sweetest little sister in the world!” A stream of photos flooded the chat. A heart-shaped wall of ninety-nine red roses, a five-tier custom fondant cake, and a glittering crystal chandelier. Dad, Mom, and Tristan stood in the center, their smiles brighter than the lights. Molly, the center of their universe, wore a pink gown shimmering with diamonds, her makeup flawless, her smile radiant. Three years ago, a DNA test had rewritten our destinies. I was the biological child the Prescotts had lost fifteen years ago, and Molly was the girl who had been accidentally swapped at birth. But three years later, the Prescotts kept Molly and left me out in the cold. “Molly grew up with us. It would be too cruel to force her to leave,” they had told me. “Just live on your own for a bit to adapt, and we’ll bring you home when the time is right.” Three years had passed. Three years of renting a room alone, working part-time, and going to school. What I got in the end was not a ticket home, but a steady stream of family portraits in the group chat, each one more lively than the last, and none of them featuring me. Mom sent another message, just three words: “My precious girl.” It was paired with a selfie of her kissing Molly’s forehead. My tears fell onto the hot, glowing screen. Today was my birthday too. Molly and I shared the exact same birthdate. Yet the entire group chat, the cakes, the flowers, the warm embraces, were all for her. Nobody remembered it was Maeve’s birthday too. I desperately dialed Dad’s number. The first call rang eight times and went to voicemail. The second call rang twice before being declined. The third, the fourth, the fifth… By the seventh try, his voice finally came through. But he wasn’t speaking to me. “Hey, stop it, Molly! Don’t cut the cake yet! Let me take this call… Hello? Who is this?” “Dad… it’s me, Maeve…” Laughter bubbled up on the other end, someone shouting for her to make a wish. “Maeve? What’s going on? I’m busy right now, let’s talk tomorrow…” “Dad… I’m sick… my fever is so bad…” Before I could finish, a sweet, high-pitched voice erupted through the receiver. “Dad! The ice cream cake is going to melt! Hurry up!” “Coming, sweetie! Maeve, take some medicine and go to sleep. I have to go.” Beep. The line went dead. The phone slipped from my weak fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. I turned my head, my eyes scanning the suffocating space of my apartment. Cheap instant noodles were stacked like a mountain in the corner. Two faded shirts hung on the drying line, and the broken window was sloppily patched with plastic wrap and tape. Finally, my gaze landed on the old cardboard box at the foot of my bed, tied neatly with a ribbon. Those were the gifts I had saved up all year to buy. Just hang in there, Maeve. Once you give them these gifts, they’ll want you back. I dragged myself up, leaning against the wall to search for fever reducers. The nightstand was completely bare. I was certain I had left the bottle on top of the cabinet yesterday. Molly had come by yesterday afternoon to return some keys, and the medicine was there. She had claimed her stomach hurt and asked to use my bathroom, staying for about five or six minutes. When she left, she had given me a sweet smile. “Take care of yourself, Maeve. Drink plenty of water.” Where was the medicine? I bent down, searching under the cabinet, the bed, the table. Nothing. My head felt like it was splitting in two, and there was no time to think. I dragged my shaking legs toward the door. I grabbed the knob and twisted. It didn’t budge. I twisted harder, putting all my weight into it. The lock remained completely frozen. I couldn’t open it from the inside. This lock worked perfectly last week. Why was it suddenly… I banged on the door, kicked it a couple of times, but the solid wood only gave a muffled thud. The hallway outside was silent and empty. Pressing my back against the door, I slid down to the cold floor. The phone buzzed again. A video was uploaded to the group chat. Molly was sitting on the leather sofa in the middle of the living room, surrounded by beautifully wrapped designer boxes. She opened the first one and squealed dramatically, “Oh my gosh! Tristan, the limited-edition journal! Thank you so much!” Tristan sat beside her, gently ruffling her hair. The room was bathed in golden light, the crystal chandelier casting a warm glow over their happy faces. I watched the video three times. On the third run, my eyes locked onto the corner of the living room, onto the empty chair beside the piano. During the brief two weeks I was allowed to stay with them three summers ago, that was where I sat every day. I had been too terrified to reach for food at the dinner table, too scared to speak loudly, too timid to touch the fruit on the coffee table. I had just watched them from afar, quietly, thinking that simply being in the same room was enough to make me happy. But then Molly had wept into Mom’s arms. “Mom, she wants to steal my family. I don’t want her here!” That very night, Dad had the driver take me back to my rented room. They didn’t even let me pack my things. I dialed Tristan’s number. It was my second call of the night. It rang three times before he picked up. “Maeve?” Tristan’s voice was laced with irritation, the background music deafening. “What is it?” “Tristan… I have a fever, a really bad one… and the door is locked from the inside… could you…” “Hold on.” In the background, Molly’s voice floated over, dripping with sweetness. “Tristan! Come take a picture with me! Mom wants to post it on social media!” Tristan’s tone shifted instantly, turning soft and indulgent. “Coming! Maeve, you do this every time. Every single time Molly has a birthday, you have to start drama. Just take some medicine and go to sleep. Stop acting out.” Beep. Call ended. Total duration: 23 seconds. He didn’t even listen to what I had to say. My phone screen reflected my shattered image, pale-faced, with dry, cracked lips bleeding slightly. I dialed Mom’s number for the very last time. It rang twice and connected. “Maeve? What’s wrong?” It was Mom’s voice. The voice of the woman who had given birth to me but never raised me for a single day. Tears spilled over my cheeks. “Mom… Mom, I feel so sick… I have a fever… the lock is broken and I can’t get out… Mom, can you come see me? Just for a minute… please…” A second of silence on the other end. Then, a slight scuffle over the phone, followed by Molly’s low but crystal-clear voice. “Mom! Who are you talking to? We’ve tried taking the family photo three times already, we’re just waiting for you!” Then, Molly’s voice rose, her sweet facade barely concealing the cold calculation beneath. “Maeve! If you’re not feeling well, you should sleep early. Make sure to drink plenty of water! Mom is really busy right now, so we can’t talk!” Beep. The call ended. It wasn’t Mom who hung up. It was Molly. I heard her laugh in the final second before the line went dead. A light, brief snicker. But that laugh carried a chill that turned my blood to ice, even through my hundred-and-six-degree fever. The floor was freezing. The chill brought a fleeting moment of relief to my burning skin, but it was immediately followed by a wave of violent shivering. I curled up by the door, my limbs spasms uncontrollably. My coughs grew heavier, leaving a metallic taste of iron in my mouth as warm blood dribbled from the corner of my lips. My vision blurred with tears. Looking up at the yellow water stain on the ceiling, I hallucinated that it was a moon. The moon of my eighteenth year. I only wanted to celebrate my birthday. No cake, no gifts, no parties. Just a single phone call, just a simple “Happy Birthday.” But the entire world was celebrating Molly, while I burned away in a dark corner. With the last of my strength, I reached for the cracked phone, unlocking it after three attempts. My call history showed: Dad, seven missed calls. Tristan, one call connected, 23 seconds. Mom, one call connected, 47 seconds. With trembling fingers, I dialed the final number: 911. “911, what is your emergency?” “I… fever… can’t get out… door is locked…” “What is your address?” “7… Cooper Lane… Apt… 3B…” “Understood, we are dispatching a unit. Can you open the door?” Open the door. I stared at the brass knob that refused to turn. The final ounce of life slipped from my fingers. “Can’t… can’t open…” “Stay on the line, we will contact you when we arrive.” The operator’s voice grew distant, muffled as if traveling through thick layers of cotton. The phone slipped from my grasp, the screen splintering further. Through the cracks, a new notification from the family group chat flickered: a family photo. Dad, Mom, Tristan, and Molly, all smiling perfectly. There was no fifth chair. There was no need for one. I collapsed onto the floor, my eyes taking a final look at the ribbon-tied cardboard box, then at the cheap strawberry cupcake under the bed. The crooked candle remained unlit. Forget it. I’ll just wish in my heart. I closed my eyes. “I hope in my next life… someone will say Happy Birthday to me on my birthday…” Eighteen years. The same wish every year. Not once had it been granted. My consciousness receded like a retreating tide, draining from my fingertips, my toes, my heart. In my final moments, I heard the wind howling through the broken window. The bitter November wind, weeping for someone.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455091”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On the exact day of our anniversary, Declan wired fifteen thousand dollars to his first love. In the six years we had been together, he had never once transferred a single cent to me. Grief and a suffocating sense of injustice flooded my chest. For the first time in my life, I lost my mind. I screamed. I cried hysterically. Desperate to shut me up, he panicked and delivered a sharp, stinging slap across my face. “Are you done throwing a fit?” I spent the entire night sitting on the freezing hardwood floor, clutching my swollen, throbbing cheek in a dead daze. Outside the window, the streetlights flickered on, then died out. First thing the next morning, I packed my bags and walked out of the tiny apartment we had shared for six years. Three months later, the man who had never once bowed his head to anyone was kneeling at my door, begging for forgiveness. Only to watch me come home with my new husband. 1 A cold, damp chill hung in the air of the apartment. The elaborate anniversary dinner I had spent hours cooking sat on the table, completely untouched. Today was our six year anniversary. He had promised to come home early to celebrate with me. Instead, he made a last minute detour to his first love Lauren’s art studio, making a massive spectacle of wiring her fifteen thousand dollars. He had even opened our fridge, taken the anniversary cake I baked that afternoon, and casually justified it to me. “I know you don’t really have a sweet tooth anyway. Better not let it go to waste. I did you a favor.” Lauren had immediately posted a picture of my cake alongside a screenshot of the bank transfer on her Instagram story. The caption was a blatant flex. [No boyfriend for the holidays, but someone still sent me money and a cake hehe~] It was not that I disliked cake. It was that in our six years of dating, I, his actual girlfriend, had never even received a birthday cake from him. Let alone a random wire transfer of fifteen thousand dollars. The only time I ever asked him for money was when I maxed out my own paycheck buying groceries and household supplies for the both of us. I had to swallow my pride and beg him for help. Ever since then, he rigidly transferred me exactly five hundred dollars a month for “household expenses.” Compared to the fifteen grand he threw at Lauren without a second thought, my allowance was a joke. A sharp, burning cramp seized my empty stomach. I hunched over the dining table, breaking out in a cold sweat from the pain. That was exactly when Declan walked through the front door. He noticed me doubled over, his brows pulling together in a tight frown. He poured a glass of lukewarm water and set it near me. “Didn’t I tell you to eat first if you were hungry? Why wait for me?” I looked up at him. A bitter, numb sensation spread through my chest like poison. He had completely forgotten our plans. He had forgotten today was our anniversary. The only thing he remembered on this special day was to prepare a surprise for Lauren. My phone screen lit up with a direct message from Lauren. A pure provocation. “You do know, right? If Declan hadn’t made that promise to your conservative parents back then, he would be standing next to me right now.” “Harper, he only feels a sense of duty toward you. You have to be smart enough to see that.” I had received plenty of blunt messages like this from her over the past few months. I had always brushed them off. But this time, I could not find a single word to fight back. The fragile string holding my meticulously maintained relationship together suddenly snapped. Lauren was not wrong. Declan and I getting together was the result of a drunken accident. He never actually confessed his feelings to me. The morning after our messy, alcohol fueled mistake, my parents had shown up unannounced. They were old school, traditional folks. They sat him down at the square dining table and demanded he swear an oath. He had to marry me. He had to take responsibility. Deep down, I knew my parents had their own selfish motives. Declan was exceptionally handsome. Through casual conversation, he had revealed his wealthy background and his prestigious career as a surgeon. And me? I was painfully ordinary. The kind of girl who blended entirely into the background of any crowd. I fundamentally believed I was not good enough for Declan, yet I harbored this toxic, desperate hope. I hoped he would eventually fall in love with me. Declan did not let my parents down. He swore right then and there that he would eventually make me his wife and take full responsibility. Six years had passed, and he had kept his word. No matter how many arguments we had, he never once uttered the words, “Let’s break up. We aren’t working out.” But Lauren should never have known about that private promise. There was only one possible explanation. Declan had told her himself. I did not want to overthink it, but my mind was spiraling out of control. Did he also believe that all these years spent with me were just the heavy chains of a drunken mistake? A dense, suffocating pain radiated from my heart. I looked up at him, my eyes red, and asked a very serious question. “Have you ever loved me?” The silence that followed was agonizing. My heart pounded against my ribs. I had instinctively asked if he ever loved me, not if he loved me now. I had already subconsciously accepted the reality that Declan felt nothing for me anymore. A heavy, stifling atmosphere settled over the room. Declan frowned deeper, his voice laced with annoyance. “Can you stop being so dramatic? Fine, I’ll come home earlier next time.” Truth be told, for the past six years, Declan had been a homebody. He was always busy with the hospital, rarely going out. But lately, his schedule had shifted. The GPS history in his car showed that his most frequented destination was Lauren’s art studio. Some things were impossible to ignore, no matter how hard I tried to play dumb. I stood up, willingly tearing open this bloody wound. “I know Lauren. I know you went to see her today. I saw her Instagram.” I was never supposed to know Lauren. It happened one day when I was scouting pieces for a gallery exhibition. She looked at me with her bright, wide eyes, her face lighting up with pleasant surprise. “Oh! You’re the girlfriend Declan has been dating for six years, right? I’m his first love. He talks about you sometimes.” I was entirely average looking. Barely five feet tall with a softer, fuller figure. I was quiet, introverted, and terrible at making conversation. But Lauren was the exact opposite. She was radiant, sunny, and completely unapologetic. She could stand there and openly declare she was his first love without a shred of guilt. She made my insecurities feel like glaring spotlights. Later, scrolling through her social media, I discovered that the rigid, unromantic Declan who never planned surprises for me was actually a hopelessly romantic man in her world. He bought her gifts for every minor holiday. He sent her random cash drops just to make her smile. He took her to trendy restaurants she casually mentioned in passing. They looked perfectly happy. Perfectly in love. Even the way he looked at her in those photos held a soft tenderness he had never once directed at me. My heart felt like someone was taking a dull knife to it. I could not help but wonder. If my parents had not forced his hand back then, would we have broken up years ago? Because Declan had never treated me that well. He had never looked at me with that kind of warmth. Six years. Not once. Declan did not answer my question. His frown deepened into a scowl. “What Instagram post?” He was still playing dumb. I grabbed my phone and shoved the screen in his face. The woman’s gentle, victorious smile was right there. Anyone could feel her overflowing happiness through the pixels. My eyes brimmed with tears. I broke down, demanding an answer. “Why?” Why treat her better than me? Why send her money, plan surprises for her, and even ditch me on our six year anniversary for her? He glanced away from the screen, his tone completely indifferent. “Oh. I didn’t know she posted that.” Seeing my furious silence, he casually pivoted the conversation, brushing it off like dust on his shoulder. “It’s just fifteen grand. I wanted to give it to her, so I did. Do you really need to make such a big deal out of this?” Tears spilled out of my eyes, dropping heavily onto the cold, coagulated food on the table. “You think I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it? Everything you’ve given her these past six years… have you ever given any of that to me?” I swept a dinner plate off the table. It shattered against the floor, slicing through the dead silence of the room. Declan glared at me, his patience entirely evaporated. “Can you stop acting crazy? You’re ruining a perfectly good holiday.” I lowered my head, letting out a self deprecating laugh. “So you did remember what today was.” Honestly, I really hadn’t minded before. My father was a practical engineer, and so was Declan in his own medical way. My mother had raised me on the belief that men were the pillars of the household, and women were meant to be quiet, supportive wives behind the scenes. So during our years living together, I had grown used to giving everything and expecting nothing. I got used to his blunt, unromantic nature. I never cried. I never argued. I never demanded more. I silently took over all the household chores. I cooked every meal. I washed every dish. Even if he never bought me gifts or planned dates for the holidays, I thought it was fine. My dad was the same way. I assumed Declan was simply cut from the same cloth. But then Lauren’s social media proved me entirely wrong. Declan, the man who was supposedly as rigid and unmovable as a mountain, could easily be moved by a woman like Lauren. Just never by me. Outside, a torrential downpour began to pound against the windows. The chill in the apartment thickened. I looked at Declan, realizing for the first time just how fundamentally different we were. I finally woke up to how pathetic, subservient, and exhausted I had become in this relationship. I stood up, ignoring the violent churning in my stomach. I began screaming at him, desperate to drag every hidden resentment out into the light. I wanted to resolve it. I wanted to fix it. But as the words tumbled out, my overwhelming grief took over, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Declan had probably never seen me like this. He was frantic to make me stop. In his blinding irritation, he swung his hand and slapped me across the face. “Are you done?” Clear. Loud. It hurt like hell, but it woke me up.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455090”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The housekeeper called the cops and accused me of horrific abuse. She told them I dragged her into my basement and locked her in the dark for three days and three nights. On the witness stand, she cried until her voice went hoarse. The bruises on her skin, the terrifying audio recordings, the eyewitness testimonies. The evidence was absolutely ironclad. The courtroom gallery cursed me, calling me a monster. The internet demanded I be locked away forever. My tech company was on the verge of being burned to the ground by angry mobs. Through it all, I did not say a single word. I waited patiently until the judge finally looked down at me and asked if I had any final statements. I slowly reached into my suit jacket and pulled out a single sheet of heavy parchment paper. “Your Honor, this is the official structural blueprint of my property, filed and stamped by the city planning department.” “My house is a single story ranch. I do not even have a crawlspace.” So I would really love to know. Where exactly is this pitch black basement she claims I locked her in? 1 I had been alive for thirty two years. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up sitting at a defendant’s table. The charge was kidnapping and severe assault. The plaintiff was my housekeeper, Brenda, a forty six year old woman. At this exact moment, she was sitting in the witness box, sobbing as if her entire world had collapsed. Tears and snot smeared her face. Faint purple bruises peeked out from around her neck. Her arm was wrapped in white gauze, her shoulders trembling violently with every breath. “He dragged me down into the basement,” she choked out, her voice shivering and broken. “He locked me down there for three days. Three whole days.” A collective gasp echoed from the courtroom gallery. Several older women practically jumped out of their seats. “You absolute monster!” “Lock him up and throw away the key!” The bailiffs had to rush over to force them back down. I sat at the defendant’s table with a completely blank expression on my face. I was not trying to look cold or intimidating. I genuinely just had no expression to give. Mostly because my mind was currently occupied with a very specific problem. I was wondering if I could still get a refund for the fifteen dollar teriyaki chicken bowl I ordered for lunch. Do not underestimate that fifteen dollars. My reputation was completely destroyed, my company was hemorrhaging investors, and the funds in my bank account might soon be frozen. Every single penny had to be stretched. “Your Honor, please look at this.” Brenda carefully rolled up her sleeve and extended her arm toward the judge. The edge of the white gauze lifted slightly. The dark bruising, the scraped skin, the angry red swelling. It was an awful sight. Another wave of unrest rippled through the gallery. Someone yelled that I was human garbage. Someone else yelled something much more graphic. A heavy set guy in the back row actually hurled a plastic water bottle at my head. He missed. The bottle flew about two feet wide. I stared at the plastic rolling on the floor and thought to myself that with an arm like that, the guy could not even make a high school junior varsity team. Sitting next to me, my defense attorney, Simon, looked physically ill. He leaned in, his voice a furious whisper. “Arthur, what the hell is your problem? You need to say something!” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “What is the rush?” “What is the rush?” His hands were literally shaking. “Look at the gallery! Look at this courtroom! The entire world wants your head on a spike! If you don’t speak up right now, the judge is going to buy every word of this!” I leaned back comfortably in my heavy wooden chair. “Let her finish her story.” Simon stared at me for three agonizing seconds. His lips moved silently. Finally, he squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and scribbled a furious line on his legal pad. I peeked over his arm. “Client is experiencing severe psychotic break.” Fair enough. He could write whatever helped him cope. Up on the stand, Brenda’s wailing grew even louder. “He did unspeakable things to me in that dark room! I screamed for three days and nobody came to help me!” She curled her body into a tight, defensive ball, acting out the perfect picture of pure trauma. People in the gallery were openly weeping with her. My eyes drifted down to her feet. Wow. Brand new shoes. Designer Gucci sneakers. Twelve hundred dollars retail. She supposedly gets locked in a pitch black dungeon for three days, escapes by the skin of her teeth, and her very first priority is dropping over a grand on luxury footwear? Her mental resilience was vastly superior to mine. Truly fascinating. 2 The prosecuting attorney was a man named Pierce. He was in his early forties, lean, sharp, and wore thin gold rimmed glasses. In the city’s legal circles, he had a terrifying reputation. Rumor had it the man had never lost a criminal prosecution in his life. The moment he stood up, the gallery instantly went dead silent. The way he looked at me was identical to a scientist examining a dead butterfly already pinned to a corkboard. Absolute, condescending certainty. “Your Honor, I would like the court to hear our first piece of critical evidence.” He pressed play on his laptop. A disturbing audio recording echoed through the courtroom speakers. “Do not touch me! Please, let me go!” It was Brenda’s voice. Filled with pure terror, desperation, and soul crushing agony. “No! Please, stop!” The recording abruptly cut to static. The courtroom felt like a graveyard. A few young women in the gallery covered their mouths in horror. I stared blankly at the ceiling tiles. I knew about this recording. The production value was honestly pretty decent. But if you listened closely, there was a very strange noise buried in the background static. Faint, but definitely there. It sounded exactly like a DoorDash driver knocking on a door and yelling about a food delivery. Whoever edited the track got sloppy in post production. “This audio,” Prosecutor Pierce said, adjusting his gold glasses, “was extracted directly from the victim’s mobile device. Independent forensic analysts have confirmed the timestamps align perfectly with the days of the kidnapping.” Beside me, Simon’s hand was shaking so badly he could barely take notes. Pierce did not miss a beat before dropping his second bombshell. The official medical evaluation. “Extensive bruising concentrated on the arms, neck, and lower lumbar region. The distribution of these injuries is entirely consistent with violent dragging and prolonged physical restraint.” He read the report clearly, emphasizing every single syllable. Every word felt like a rusty nail being driven into the ears of the jury and the gallery. The verbal abuse hurled at me grew louder. Someone actually started clapping. They were applauding the prosecutor. In the middle of a criminal trial. The judge had to slam his gavel three times to restore order. The corner of Pierce’s mouth twitched. It was a highly controlled micro expression. But he could not hide the sheer arrogance radiating off him. “Our third piece of evidence is a sworn witness testimony.” A middle aged man wearing a faded plaid shirt was called to the stand. He claimed to be my neighbor. “It was late that night, probably around two or three in the morning.” He swallowed nervously, looking at the jury. “I heard a woman screaming coming from the defendant’s property.” “It was a horrible, bloodcurdling sound. It kept starting and stopping.” “It went on for at least ten solid minutes.” Pierce leaned on the podium. “Are you absolutely certain the sounds originated from the defendant’s house?” “Positive,” the man nodded vigorously. “It was definitely the house next door. The walls were literally vibrating.” I almost burst out laughing right then and there. Because my actual next door neighbor was Mrs. Higgins. She was an eighty three year old widow who lived entirely alone and had been completely deaf since birth. The loudest noise she could possibly generate at three in the morning was the creak of her orthopedic mattress. The walls were vibrating? What was Mrs. Higgins doing over there, hosting an underground CrossFit class? But I kept my mouth shut. It was not time yet. Simon noticed the slight upward curve of my lips. The poor lawyer looked like he was about to have a stroke. He scribbled another furious sentence on his legal pad and shoved it into my chest. “If you laugh right now, I am quitting on the spot. That is not a threat. That is a promise.” I slowly pushed the notepad back toward him, adding my own messy handwriting to the bottom. “Relax. We are ending this today.” He read it, and his expression perfectly translated into three simple words. You are insane. 3 To understand how this circus started, we have to rewind exactly one month. My name is Arthur Kingsley. Thirty two years old. Founder and CEO of a tech startup called Sentinel AI. We build advanced, artificial intelligence integrated security systems. We secured our Series B funding last year and were preparing for a massive public offering by the end of the winter. I was not a billionaire, but I had built a very comfortable life in this city. I bought a sprawling property in Crestview Estates. A massive, open concept house. Almost four thousand square feet. No basement. No attic. No hidden cellars. Just one massive, flat level of glass and steel where you could see from one end to the other in a single glance. A month ago, my mother forced me to hire a live in housekeeper. “You live alone in that giant glass box and survive entirely on takeout,” she nagged over the phone. “Mom, I have a state of the art dishwasher, a smart laundry system, and three robotic vacuums.” “Can a robot cook you a hot pot of beef stew after a fourteen hour shift?” Fine. You can never win an argument with a stubborn mother. That was how Brenda entered my life. She was forty six, a local woman with over a decade of domestic work experience. She came highly recommended by a premium agency, with glowing reviews from all her previous employers. Diligent, quiet, and an incredible cook. She really was excellent at first. The house was spotless, the meals were fantastic, and her beef stew was genuinely amazing. But there was one very specific thing she did that caught my attention. She had a habit of wandering through my house with her smartphone out. She would stroll from the living room to the guest bedroom, then from the guest bedroom into my private home office. Whenever she walked, the camera lens on the back of her phone was always facing outward, scanning the room. At first, I assumed she was just filming TikToks. Everyone wants to be an influencer these days. But one night, I came home from the office much earlier than usual. She was standing in the kitchen, whispering frantically into her phone. She did not hear the garage door open. “Do not worry, Vic, I memorized the layout. Yes, I know what to do.” Her voice was hushed, almost completely silent. The second she heard my dress shoes hit the hardwood, she killed the call instantly and spun around with a warm, grandmotherly smile. “Mr. Kingsley! I kept your dinner warm on the stove.” Her smile was flawless. But the speed at which she hung up that phone was completely unnatural. That night, while she was busy scrubbing the kitchen sink, I locked the door to my study and booted up my laptop. I accessed the backend of my home’s security grid. I run an AI security company. The camera network installed in my own house is the absolute pinnacle of our unreleased prototype tech. There were high definition lenses hidden in every single corner of the property. Twenty four seven cloud backups. Military grade voice print recognition. I scrubbed through the footage from the past two weeks. I found a few extremely fascinating details. First, Brenda received a phone call every single afternoon at exactly two o’clock. The calls always lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes. Second, she really was wandering through my house with her camera, but she was never filming herself. She was meticulously mapping the structural layout, documenting the blind corners, the window locks, and the hallway dimensions. Third, the moment she finished filming, she would text the photos to a specific contact on her phone. The contact name was simply “Vic.” I did not confront her. Instead, I quietly logged into the master controls, boosted the recording frame rate to maximum, and changed the cloud backup deletion cycle from seven days to permanent storage. Then I picked up my phone and called Simon. I asked him to run a deep background check on one specific man. Victor. My former business partner. Three years ago, Victor tried to secretly bundle our company’s core algorithm data and sell it to our biggest corporate rival. I caught him red handed. I had all the digital evidence. I did not call the police. I simply forced him to resign and stripped him of all his equity. I gave him a quiet, dignified exit. He did not appreciate the mercy. He hated me. He hated me down to the very marrow of his bones. A few days later, Simon called me back with the results. “Victor has been in constant contact with a premium domestic staffing agency for the last month. He wired several large sums of cash. One of the receiving bank accounts belongs to a woman named Brenda.” I sat in my office chair in total silence for a long time. Finally, I gave Simon his orders. “Do not spook them. Let her keep working. Let him keep plotting.” Simon panicked. “Are you out of your mind? They are obviously setting you up for something massive!” “If they want to destroy me, they have to make a move first,” I said calmly. “I need them to play their hand entirely so I can crush them all at once.” What happened next played out exactly as I predicted. Half a month later, Brenda vanished into thin air for three days. When she finally reappeared, she was sitting in a police interrogation room. Covered in horrific bruises. Sobbing until she was choking on her own breath. She pointed a trembling finger at my photo and accused me of viciously assaulting her and locking her in the dark basement of my house for three consecutive days. Four uniformed officers showed up at my front door. I opened it. “Arthur Kingsley?” the lead officer asked. “That is me.” “You need to come with us.” Before I stepped out into the cold night air, I turned back and took one long look at my house. One single level. A perfectly flat, modern piece of architecture. A small laugh escaped my lips. Victor. You want to frame me for a horrific crime, and you did not even bother to check if my house actually had a basement? Did you do absolutely zero homework? 4 The news exploded across the internet ten times faster than I could have ever imagined. By the afternoon of my arrest, the media had completely lost its mind. The headlines were clickbait gold. “Famous Tech CEO Arrested for Horrific Abuse of Housekeeper! Held Hostage in Basement!” “Monster in a Suit! Sentinel AI Founder Exposed as Violent Predator!” “Victim Speaks Out: He Dragged Me Into the Dark. I Did Not See Sunlight for Three Days.” It was the number one trending topic on every single platform. Pinned to the top of every feed. Going completely viral. The comment sections were an absolute bloodbath. “Give him the chair! Lock him up forever!” Over eighty thousand likes. “Rich scum like this do not deserve to breathe our air.” Over sixty thousand likes. “Everyone boycott Sentinel AI immediately! The CEO is a psychopath!” Over fifty thousand likes. Protesters organized a massive rally outside my corporate headquarters. They held up giant banners screaming for my head. Someone threw buckets of bright red paint across the floor to ceiling glass doors of my lobby. My security guards were physically assaulted trying to keep the crowd back. A college intern was recognized walking to his car, and a group of people ripped his backpack off and threw it into a dumpster. As for the company stock, it was a total massacre. The lead investor from our Series B round called my CFO in the middle of the night, his voice like absolute ice. “If these allegations against Arthur are proven true, we are pulling every single dime of our funding immediately.” And while all of this chaos was burning the world down. I was sitting quietly in a sterile holding cell. They had confiscated my phone. I could not see the news. I could not hear the outrage. When Simon came to visit me for the first time, the man looked like he had aged a decade in three days. “Do you have any idea what is happening out there?” he asked, rubbing his temples. “I can guess.” “You are the number one villain in the country right now.” “Makes sense.” “Your corporate lobby looks like a slaughterhouse from all the red paint.” “Unfortunate.” “Your biggest corporate rivals are poaching your elite engineering team while the ship is sinking.” “Expected.” “And your old buddy, Victor.” Simon paused, his jaw clenching. “He went on national television.” I raised an eyebrow at that. “He did an exclusive sit down interview with a prime time news network, playing the role of the deeply concerned former business partner.” Simon mocked Victor’s overly dramatic tone perfectly. “I am absolutely heartbroken by Arthur’s actions. When we worked together, I always noticed severe flaws in his moral character, but I never imagined he was capable of this level of depravity. My heart bleeds for the victim.” Simon finished his impression and stared at me. I let the silence stretch for a few seconds. Then I nodded. “His acting is honestly not terrible.” Simon looked like he wanted to jump across the metal table and strangle me. “Arthur! Your life is completely ruined and you are giving him a review on Rotten Tomatoes?!” “Did you get the information I asked you to find?” I asked, cutting through his panic. Simon sighed heavily, pulling out a thick manila folder. “Victor wired a total of forty seven thousand dollars to Brenda over the last three months using three separate shell accounts. Also, exactly one week before the alleged kidnapping, Victor booked a luxury suite at the Ritz for her. Room 1208.” “Good.” “I also got the official architectural blueprints you wanted. Stamped by the city zoning department. Original copies.” “Perfect.” “Arthur.” Simon leaned forward, looking desperate. “When do we drop this?” “During the trial.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Bring every single piece of paper in that folder to court.” “Make absolutely sure you do not forget a single document.” He swallowed hard. “When exactly do you want me to present it?” “At the very end.” “I want them to say every single lie they have prepared. I want them to empty their entire arsenal.” “Then, I will speak.” Simon stared at me in silence for a very long time. Finally, he nodded his head. “Alright. I trust you.” While Simon was stressing himself into an early grave, my best friend’s reaction to the news was an absolute masterpiece of chaotic loyalty. When I finally got my phone back days later, I read Jax’s text logs in chronological order. 2:17 PM: “Bro are you okay????” 2:18 PM: “Is the stuff on the news actually real?” 2:19 PM: “There is no way man no freaking way” 2:22 PM: “I believe you! You are not that kind of guy!” 2:23 PM: “But just in case it is real you gotta tell me right now so I can pack your bags” 2:24 PM: “Just kidding just kidding” 2:25 PM: “But seriously if we need to flee to Mexico I have a van full of gas” 2:30 PM: “Why are you not answering?? Did they lock you up already??” 2:31 PM: “We are so screwed” 2:45 PM: “Hold up I just read the full article they said you locked her in a basement???” 2:46 PM: “Wait a minute” 2:46 PM: “You don’t even have a basement????” 2:47 PM: “You live in a flat one story house!!!!!” 2:47 PM: “I was just there last month! You don’t even have a decent closet! I tried to hide your birthday keg and couldn’t find a spot!” 2:48 PM: “This whole thing is a massive setup!!!!!” 3:00 PM: “Arthur do not worry your boy is on the case” 3:01 PM: “I am driving to your office right now to beat the hell out of those people throwing paint” 3:15 PM: “Just got here tried to talk some sense into them” 3:16 PM: “They swung first so I swung back currently sitting in the back of a police cruiser” 3:17 PM: “My eye is swollen shut but I feel great” 3:18 PM: “Worth it.” That was Jax. A six foot three wall of muscle. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. But his heart was pure gold. A very violent, fiercely loyal block of gold. 5 The second day of the trial began. Prosecutor Pierce strolled into the courtroom wearing an expression of absolute, guaranteed victory. His strides were longer and more confident than yesterday. Today was the day he pulled the net tight. He called a new witness to the stand, a man claiming to own the local convenience store down my street. “The defendant did not leave his house to buy groceries, nor did he order any food deliveries during those three specific days. For a wealthy bachelor living entirely alone, this total lack of activity is highly suspicious.” The man spoke with absolute conviction. I thought to myself, well obviously I did not buy anything locally. I was on a business trip in Chicago during those exact three days. I could not exactly reach my arm across the country to buy a bottle of water. Pierce then called a young woman who claimed to be Brenda’s close friend. “Brenda told me weeks ago that her boss was acting really creepy toward her. He would say things that were highly inappropriate. She was just too terrified to report him.” When the woman spoke, her eyes darted around the room constantly. Her fingers nervously picked at the seams of her jeans. Pierce looked incredibly satisfied with his theatrical production. Once the witnesses stepped down, he walked to the absolute center of the courtroom floor. It was time for his closing statement. “Your Honor, members of the jury.” He elegantly pushed his gold glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The facts of this case are undeniable. The evidence is mountainous.” “The victim’s harrowing personal testimony, the certified medical reports detailing her brutal injuries, the terrifying audio recording, and the corroborating statements of three separate witnesses. Every single piece of evidence points directly to one inescapable truth.” He turned slowly on his heel and pointed a perfectly manicured finger directly at me. “The defendant, Arthur Kingsley, abused his position of power to inflict unimaginable physical and psychological torment on a helpless woman, illegally holding her captive in the dark for seventy two hours.” His eyes were freezing cold. “Throughout this entire proceeding, the defendant has remained completely silent. He has offered absolutely no defense. In a court of law, silence of this magnitude is the loudest confession of guilt.” The gallery erupted into furious, vindicated applause. The bailiffs had to shout and physically intervene to quiet the mob. Pierce turned back to the judge, offering a crisp, respectful bow. “The prosecution rests. We beg the court to deliver the maximum possible sentence for this monster.” He casually walked back to his table and took a seat. He unscrewed the cap of his expensive bottled water and took a slow, victorious sip. His posture screamed that the guilty verdict was already printed, just waiting for the judge’s signature. The judge nodded solemnly, turning his heavy gaze toward my table. “Arthur Kingsley.” “Do you have any final statements before this court moves forward?” The entire room went completely dead. Hundreds of eyes locked onto my face. The angry citizens in the gallery glared at me, looking like they wanted to drag me out into the street and hang me from a streetlamp. Next to me, Simon took a massive, shuddering breath. He placed his hands firmly on top of the bulging manila envelope. A full week of meticulous, undeniable proof was stuffed inside. I stood up. I slowly adjusted the cuffs of my tailored suit. I took my time. I moved so slowly that the entire courtroom began to vibrate with impatient rage. Someone in the back yelled for me to stop stalling and just confess already. A bailiff barked for silence. I ignored all of it. I lifted my chin and looked directly into the judge’s eyes. “Your Honor.” “Yes, Mr. Kingsley.” “Before I begin, I would like to ask the court to officially verify the core details of the plaintiff’s sworn statement.” Prosecutor Pierce raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The plaintiff explicitly stated,” I paused, letting the silence hang, “that I dragged her down into a basement and locked her there for three days and three nights. Is that correct?” The judge flipped open the massive binder of trial transcripts. “That is correct. The plaintiff’s exact recorded words were, ‘He dragged me into the basement. There were no windows, and it was so pitch black I could not see my own hands.’” “Excellent.” I nodded slowly in approval. “A basement. Three days and three nights. No windows. Pitch black.” “She is absolutely certain those were her exact words?” “It is recorded in black and white under penalty of perjury,” the judge stated flatly. I turned my head and looked directly at Brenda. She was still crying into her hands. But I noticed her fingers suddenly dig viciously into her knees. Her knuckles went completely white. I turned back to the bench. “In that case.” I gave Simon a tiny nod. Simon ripped open the manila envelope and pulled out a massive, folded piece of architectural drafting paper. He unfolded it with a sharp snap and handed it to the bailiff. The bailiff passed it up to the judge’s elevated desk. “What exactly is this?” the judge asked, frowning. “That is the official architectural blueprint of my residence, registered with the city zoning and planning department,” I said, my voice projecting clearly across the silent room. “It includes the original structural layout tied to my property deed. It bears the official city seal, the lead developer’s signature, and is dated from the exact year of construction.” The judge flattened the heavy paper and began studying the lines. Prosecutor Pierce’s brow furrowed into a tight knot. But he did not object. He clearly thought this was just the desperate, pathetic flailing of a dying man. It did not matter. The judge stared at the blueprint for about fifteen seconds. His hands suddenly stopped moving. He pulled his reading glasses down to the bridge of his nose, stared closely at the paper, then pushed the glasses back up and read it a second time. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked down at me. “Defendant.” “Yes, Your Honor.” “This official structural blueprint indicates a specific architectural design.” The judge paused, his voice turning incredibly heavy. “Your residence is a single level slab on grade property.” “That is correct.” “There is no basement.” “That is correct.” “There is no subterranean level, no sunken storage room, and absolutely no structural enclosure below the ground elevation line.” “That is exactly correct,” I said. My voice was calm, but it echoed like a gunshot through the massive room. The silence stretched for two seconds. Then three seconds. Then five seconds. From across the aisle, I could clearly hear Prosecutor Pierce’s hand freeze on his water bottle. The faint, scraping sound of the plastic cap twisting shut abruptly stopped. Click. His hand just hovered there, completely paralyzed.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455089”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Before she died, Emma begged me: “My new pen pal has depression. Please keep writing to him for me, save him.” After hesitating for a long time, I began to mimic her handwriting, keeping up the correspondence for three years. That was until Gavin, fully recovered, tracked me down and showed up at my door. As I stood there wondering if I should confess that I was the one behind the letters, floating text suddenly drifted across my field of vision like a live chat overlay on a screen: [Does this side character seriously think she’s the female lead? She’s just a ghostwriter.] [Once she takes credit, the male lead marries her. But when he finds out she’s a fake, he takes his anger out on her, divorces her, and ruins her life.] I stared at the man standing in front of me. Except for that very first letter, every single word sent over the last three years had come from my hand. I shook my head. “I’m sorry. The person you’re looking for is no longer here.” 01 I recognized Gavin the second I saw him. He looked much more mature than the photo he had slipped into one of his letters three years ago, but his face was unmistakable. Gavin panicked instantly. “No longer here? What do you mean she’s no longer here?” In his desperation, his hands flew forward and gripped my shoulders tightly. “Ouch, let go of me,” I said, swatting his hands away. “Who even are you? Let’s talk like civilized people, keep your hands to yourself.” Realizing he had let his emotions get the better of him, he let go of me immediately. “I’m sorry. What did you mean when you said she’s no longer here?” “Aren’t you looking for Emma? She’s dead.” In truth, I still had one unmailed letter sitting inside my apartment. Over the past year, I could tell from his replies that he had recovered from his depression and no longer needed “Emma” to keep him anchored. Because of that, I had started spacing out my replies, hoping he would naturally adapt to her gradual departure. “Dead?” Gavin looked completely shell-shocked. “How is that possible? She messaged me just last month.” I gave him a wary look. “Who are you, anyway? Why are you asking about her?” “We were pen pals. Did she ever mention that to you?” “Sorry, we weren’t that close. But she really is dead, so you can stop looking. If you don’t believe me, ask her other friends.” Emma had been a solitary, eccentric person who kept to herself. If she had any friends at all, I was the only one. “How did she die? When?” “Aren’t you her pen pal? Didn’t you know she was sick? She passed away earlier this month. You’re just too late.” 02 The floating comments in my vision flared up with skepticism: [Did she forget who is standing in front of her? Why is she lying about Emma’s death? And why is she pretending she doesn’t know him?] [Wait, this is wrong. Isn’t she supposed to claim she’s the one who wrote the letters? She should say she only used Emma’s name because she was shy, accept his proposal, and marry him.] [If she acts like this, how is the actual female lead supposed to show up? In the original plot, the male lead finds out the side character is a fake, forces a divorce, gets drunk, and has a wild night with the female lead. That’s how their true love story is supposed to start…] Reading the floating comments made me even more glad that I was playing dumb. Over the last three years, because I wasn’t great at inventing a fake life for Emma, I had simply written about my own daily routine. I was living a perfectly fine life; I had no desire to marry some rich guy only to be tortured and ruined. Gavin blocked my path as I tried to leave. “Can you take me to her grave?” “I don’t even know who you are,” I said, refusing him flatly. “First of all, it’s not safe. Second, I have to go to work.” He pulled out a credit card and a stack of letters. “There’s fifteen thousand dollars on this card. I want to hire you to take me to her. These are Emma’s letters. You must recognize her handwriting.” I recognized it, of course; I had practiced mimicking Emma’s handwriting until it was flawless. But I pushed them away. “Sorry, I don’t know how you found this place, but Emma and I were just roommates. I can’t tell her handwriting apart. I need money, but I’m not taking sketchy cash from a stranger. For all I know, you’re trying to kidnap me and sell my organs. Let me through, or I’m losing my punctuality bonus.” I took a step down the stairs. “You’re Fiona, right?” he said. “You weren’t just her roommate. You were her only friend.” 03 “Emma talked about you in her letters. She said you were wonderful to her, and she was incredibly grateful for you.” Oh, great. I had written so many letters over the years, sometimes after a glass of wine or two, that I had completely forgotten what I’d said. I must have let my vanity get the best of me and thrown in a few compliments about myself. [Look at her panic. She definitely remembers what the male lead looks like, so why is she playing dumb? Does she hate a comfortable life?] [He’s incredibly wealthy! With how much she knows about him, she could easily extract millions. Why is she throwing this opportunity away?] [Maybe she’s playing hard to get.] [Maybe she thinks confessing too early makes her look desperate.] “Fiona, you don’t need to be so defensive,” Gavin said softly. “If you’re uncomfortable, you can invite some friends or family to join us. I just want to visit her grave.” Emma was an orphan, and I had handled her funeral and burial. She once told me: “I’m totally alone in this world. When I’m gone, just put my ashes in a jar and dump them in the ocean.” I had teased her in return: “No way, I don’t want to end up eating a fish that ate you. I’ll buy you a cheap plot, don’t worry.” Even a cheap plot was a huge expense for me, so I had spent quite a bit of my savings on a small headstone that simply read: Emma. I let out a sigh. “Fine, I’ll request some time off and take you.” When we arrived at the cemetery, Gavin stood silently before the small headstone for a long time. It must have been incredibly hard for him to accept. He had fought his way out of a dark place, expecting to finally meet his savior, only to find a cold piece of stone. Eventually, he walked back over to me. “Fiona, is there anything you need? I want to repay you for taking such good care of Emma.” I thought about it, then pointed at the headstone. “Could you reimburse me for the grave? I’m really tight on money. Emma wanted me to scatter her ashes in the ocean, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Still, the plot was a massive expense for me.” [Haha, of course the side character is a gold-digger. Even now, she’s only thinking about money.] [She only marries Gavin for his wealth anyway.] [If she weren’t so greedy, how else would the pure and innocent female lead stand out?] “Of course,” Gavin replied instantly. “I’ll pay you back ten times that amount.” I smiled, thrilled by the sudden windfall. Just then, the cemetery keeper walked by and recognized me. “Hey there! Visiting your friend again? I’ve never seen anyone visit a grave so often. You’re here every single month!” Crap. Busted. 04 [Haha, she just said Emma died this month, but she’s been coming here every month. Let’s see how she lies her way out of this one.] [Her face is completely white. The male lead definitely noticed.] “Every month?” Gavin looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I thought you said she died recently?” I forced myself to stay calm, though my hands were sweating. I let out a heavy sigh. “I was talking about my mother. I miss her, so I come here every month to talk to her. Also, in the months before Emma passed, I came to look at plots for her. I didn’t want her to have nowhere to go when the time came, but no matter how many months I checked, the price never dropped.” Gavin looked only half-convinced. “Did Emma leave any final words for me?” I wanted nothing more than to sever any connection with this man. I shook my head. “She lost her ability to speak toward the end. It was my first time dealing with something like that, so I was too frantic taking care of her to ask.” “Did she pass away in your apartment?” I nodded. It was indeed my apartment; she had stayed with me, and I couldn’t just throw her out when she got sick. “Thank you for taking care of her.” “Don’t mention it. We were friends.” Suddenly, he asked, “Where is your mother’s grave? I’d like to leave some flowers.” Oh god. My mother was alive and well, living in another state. [The side character grew up without a mother in this town, so she’s totally making things up now.] [The male lead absolutely detests being lied to. His punishments are usually brutal.] I declined quickly. “No, thank you, Mr. Gavin. I promised my mother I would only ever bring my future husband to see her. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.” He accepted the excuse surprisingly easily. We walked back to his car. When we reached my apartment building, I said, “You can just drop me off here, Mr. Gavin.” Gavin remained quiet the whole ride. Once we pulled up, I reached for the door handle, but the doors remained locked. “Fiona, I have a request,” he said. I paused. What now? “May I see the room Emma lived in?” “It’s my apartment, so that’s not really appropriate. Besides, I’ve already cleared out her things.” “I’ll buy the apartment from you, then.” “No way,” I snapped, raising my voice. “This is the only thing my father left me. Absolutely not.” The lock clicked open. I scrambled out. “Fiona, please,” he said, getting out of the car. “Emma was incredibly important to me. She saved my life. I just want to see where she spent her time.” And then, he dropped to his knees. [Oh my god, when did the male lead become like this? Kneeling for love? He’s a multi-millionaire heir!] [I love this devoted husband energy! This is pure, unadulterated love.] [Look at his broad shoulders and narrow waist… how is she resisting this? Even if she’s a terrible side character, she gets to enjoy this view.] I couldn’t stand a scene in public, so I pulled him up. “Just for a minute. Then you leave.” He got up remarkably fast. My apartment had no trace of Emma, especially since she had passed away three years ago. The decor was soft and pastel pink, which was the polar opposite of Emma’s actual style; she had loved deep blue. “This is the guest room where she stayed. Take a quick look. I threw everything of hers away after she died.” He walked in, his long legs taking him straight toward the desk. I realized too late that I had made a terrible mistake. His fingers picked up an envelope. “I thought you said you cleared everything out?” The envelope was addressed to Gavin, signed by Emma. And the letter inside was a simple, normal update about daily life. It sounded nothing like a dying person.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455088”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 When I transmigrated into this trashy romance novel, my little sister was kneeling in the pouring rain, begging her billionaire boyfriend not to dump her. I lunged forward and slapped her right across the face. She cupped her cheek, tears welling in her eyes. “Summer? You hit me?” I shook my hand, which was completely numb from the impact. “Are you awake yet?” She sniffled. “Yeah. Fully awake.” I shoved the umbrella into her arms, spun around, and glared at the billionaire standing on the mansion’s porch. “Your turn, Gavin. Are you going to get on your knees yourself, or should I fetch a non-slip mat for you?” Rain hammered against the pavement in front of the Harrington estate. The marble tiles were polished so bright they practically reflected my face, which was still trying to adjust to this high-definition world after only three minutes of transmigrating. My name is Summer. One second I was on the subway, reading a trashy, angsty web novel and complaining about the plot; the next, I was standing outside a mega-mansion. Right before my eyes was my little sister, Jasmine, kneeling in the rain. She was clutching a breakup agreement, soaked to the bone, sobbing so hard she couldn’t even form words. Gavin Harrington stood on the sheltered porch, holding a black umbrella low. Not a single drop of water touched his bespoke suit. The words coming out of his mouth were as toxic as they get. “Jasmine, someone like you doesn’t belong in the Harrington family. You aren’t worthy.” In my head, the original plot instantly popped up. In the novel, Jasmine suffered a miscarriage for this man, faced endless public humiliation, got constantly misunderstood, and was eventually locked in his mansion’s basement. Even on her deathbed, she still had to listen to him say “I love you.” My blood pressure skyrocketed on the spot. My wet shoes slipped on the slick pavement, and I almost did a full face-plant into a bow. Thankfully, I caught my balance. Gavin’s brow furrowed. He looked like he was waiting for me to join the crying fest. I marched up to Jasmine, raised my hand, and smack. It was a crisp, resounding slap. Even the sound of the rain seemed to quiet down for a second. Jasmine stared up at me, hand on her cheek, water dripping from her eyelashes. Her lips trembled uncontrollably. “Summer?” I crouched down, grabbed her by the shoulders, and stared straight into her dazed eyes. “When you look at him right now, is he still glowing in a romantic soft-focus filter?” She turned her head dazed to Gavin. Gavin raised his chin, looking down his nose at her with utter contempt. Jasmine sniffled. “No.” I nodded in satisfaction. “What does he look like to you now?” She took another look, hesitated, and muttered, “Like a guy who got locked out of his apartment for not paying his rent but is still trying to act like the president of the HOA.” I almost applauded right there. Brilliant. The slap therapy worked perfectly. Gavin’s expression soured. He stepped forward a fraction. An umbrella-toting bodyguard immediately adjusted his coverage. The sheer dramatic staging of it made it look like they were shooting a high-fashion cologne ad. “Summer, you dare strike her?” I stood up, rainwater dripping from my hair. Just as I was about to strike a powerful, intimidating pose, my nose tickled. “Achoo!” The sneeze blasted directly toward Gavin. The bodyguard’s umbrella wobbled. A fine mist of sneeze-spray settled on the front of Gavin’s pristine suit. Combined with his scowling face, the high-society romantic drama instantly devolved into an infectious disease control hazard. I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “Sorry, Mr. Harrington. My reflexes are more honest than your personality.” Behind me, Jasmine let out a sharp, muffled snort, trying desperately to suffocate a laugh. Gavin raised his hand. A bodyguard offered a handkerchief, but he ignored it. He didn’t even look at me, keeping his cold gaze locked on Jasmine. “Jasmine, if you walk out of this gate with her, don’t you dare think of ever coming back.” Jasmine’s shoulders slumped slightly. I could already guess her line in the original book: Gavin, I truly love you. I reached out, grabbed her head, and physically rotated her ninety degrees so she was facing the main exit of the gated community. “Don’t look. It’s bad for your eyesight.” With her neck twisted, Jasmine squeaked in a muffled voice, “Summer, my neck doesn’t rotate like a security camera.” I let go and snatched the breakup agreement from her hands. The pages were packed with dense legal jargon: Jasmine was forbidden from harassing Gavin, forbidden from appearing near the Harrington estate, forbidden from speaking to the media, and forbidden from seeking compensation. The line for the payout amount was completely blank. I looked up. “Mr. Harrington, this contract is incredibly eco-friendly.” Gavin glared at me. “What do you mean?” “You saved a ton of paper by omitting the dollar signs.” One of the bodyguards failed to suppress a chuckle, his shoulders twitching before he quickly looked down at his shoes. Gavin descended the stairs, his umbrella escort moving in perfect synchronization to keep him dry. He stopped right in front of me and lowered his voice. “How much do you want?” I pulled out my phone, opened the calculator app, and tapped the screen furiously. Gavin watched me with a smirk of sheer disdain. I shoved the screen right in front of his face. It read: 250. His jaw tightened. “Are you mocking me?” I shook my head. “You misunderstand. That’s your appearance fee. In Vietnamese Dong.” Jasmine couldn’t hold it in anymore. She burst out laughing, quickly biting her own hand to muffle the sound. Gavin stared at me as if he wanted to file me away as a breach of contract. Just then, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the gates. The tinted window rolled down halfway, revealing a strikingly handsome face. The man wore gold-rimmed glasses and held a folder. He glanced at my outstretched phone screen. “Mr. Harrington, the board of directors is waiting.” Gavin snapped his gaze away from me, his voice stiff. “Gideon, you’re just in time. Escort these two off the property.” Gideon looked at my soaked sleeves, then glanced at the damp spot on Gavin’s chest. He remained silent for two seconds. “I can escort them out, but sanitation and disinfection fees will be billed separately.” I locked eyes with him through the rain. He was exceptionally good-looking, but his tongue was lethal. Gavin’s face went completely dark. I helped Jasmine stand up. As we passed Gideon’s car, he slid an umbrella through the open window. Jasmine reached for it, but I snatched the handle first. “Thanks. I’ll get it back to you.” Gideon stared at me. “The umbrella has a tracker.” My hand slipped, and I almost dropped it. He pushed up his glasses. “Just kidding.” I let out a breath. Then Gideon added, “It only has a Venmo code.” I looked down. Sure enough, a printed QR code sticker was taped to the handle. Jasmine whispered beside me, “Summer, do billionaires usually run side-hustles as umbrella rentals?” I stared at Gideon’s clean, elegant face, grinding my teeth. “Sis, remember this: even if a guy looks like a model, he might just be a smart-rental umbrella in human form.” The car window began to roll up. Just before it closed completely, Gideon’s voice drifted out. “Deposit is eighty-eight bucks.” I stood in the rain clutching the umbrella, thinking this novel world was absolutely exhausting. I hadn’t even dealt with the toxic billionaire yet, and I was already getting hit with a mobile transaction fee. 2 Back in our cramped apartment, Jasmine sat on the sofa clutching a mug of hot water, a faint red handprint still visible on her cheek. I rummaged through the drawers for ointment but only found a bottle of eucalyptus oil and half a block of hotpot base. Jasmine stared at the eucalyptus oil, shrinking back. “Summer, maybe we just let it heal naturally?” I shoved the bottle back into the drawer. “Fine. If your brain can wake up from love, your face can handle a little swelling.” She looked down, cradling her mug, her ears flushing red. I spread the breakup agreement across the coffee table. Next to it, I lined up the phone recordings, photos, the degrading text messages Gavin had sent her, and the stack of receipts for all the expensive gifts she had bought him over the years. The more I read, the more I wanted to list Gavin on eBay. Title: Billionaire, barely used, brain unboxing pending. Jasmine said softly, “Summer, Gavin wasn’t always like this.” I looked up. She immediately clutched her mug tighter. “I’m sorry! He was always like this. I just had a beauty filter on in my head.” The doorbell rang. Jasmine flinched, the lid of her mug rattling. I peeked through the peephole. Two men in sharp suits stood in the hallway, holding leather portfolios, their expressions so uniform they looked like they had been manufactured in the same factory. “Miss Lin, we are here on behalf of Mr. Harrington.” I didn’t open the door. I just yelled through it, “Did you bring care packages?” There was a pause outside. “We require Miss Jasmine Lin to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Mr. Harrington is willing to offer an additional hundred thousand dollars.” Jasmine’s eyes lit up for a fraction of a second before quickly dimming again. I reached out and covered her ears, shouting through the door, “Too low!” The voice outside responded, “Name your price.” I thought about it. “Have Gavin Harrington come here himself and sing I Will Survive. No lip-syncing, and he’d better hit the high notes.” Silence fell over the hallway. After a few seconds, a horribly familiar male voice echoed through the wood. “Summer, don’t push your luck.” Gavin had actually come. I unlocked the door and cracked it open just enough to show half my face. Gavin stood in the hallway, flanked by his assistant and two bodyguards. He held a revised contract, his face practically screaming: I am gracing you with my presence, so you’d better bow down and thank me. The moment I saw him, I slammed the door shut. Bang. Jasmine blinked, holding her mug. “Summer, aren’t you going to negotiate?” I leaned against the door, latched the safety chain, and cracked it open again. “Negotiating like this gives me a sense of security. Besides, it matches his gutter-dwelling vibe.” Gavin glared at me through the gap. “I will give you three hundred thousand. Leave this city.” I pulled out my phone and opened a food delivery app. “Hold your horses. Let me check how many pepperoni pizzas three hundred grand can buy.” A vein pulsed on Gavin’s temple. “Summer!” “Don’t worry.” I swiped the screen. “With the local coupons, that’s about thirty thousand pizzas. Mr. Harrington, are you trying to drown us in cheese?” The assistant couldn’t help himself. He let out a sharp cough. Gavin whipped his head around. The assistant immediately stared at the wall, his face turning a deep crimson. Jasmine peeked out from behind me, her voice soft but steady. “Gavin, I won’t bother you anymore.” Gavin’s expression relaxed slightly, clearly waiting for her to start crying. But Jasmine continued, “Just return the massage chair I bought you last year.” The draft from the hallway whistled through the crack. Gavin’s eyelid twitched. I looked back at her, a wave of sisterly pride washing over me. Look at that. The kid was finally learning how to collect debts. Gavin gritted his teeth. “Jasmine, are you sure about this?” Jasmine hesitated for half a second before opening her phone’s notes app. “And the watch I got you for your birthday. That was twelve thousand. The organic royal jelly your mother made me buy, five grand. And the pet grooming bill for your dog, Duke. I paid nine hundred bucks for that, and the dog bit my ankle right after.” The more she read, the smoother she got. No tears fell, but her mouth was moving at lightning speed. “Oh, and those forty boba teas I ordered for you when you said you were in a bad mood. You only took one sip, said it was too sweet, and left. I stayed up until three in the morning drinking them so they wouldn’t go to waste.” I chimed in, “That counts as emotional distress. I suggest we charge him per cup.” The billionaire filter on Gavin’s face was peeling off like cheap paint. He slapped the contract against the door. “Don’t regret this.” I slipped the contract through the crack and looked at it. This time, the compensation line indeed said three hundred thousand. I pulled out a pen and added two zeros to the end. Gavin sneered. “Are you out of your mind?” I handed it back. “Mr. Harrington, if you’re going to insult us, at least adjust for inflation.” At the end of the hallway, the elevator dinged. Gideon walked out, carrying a transparent document folder. His gaze drifted from our high-security doorway negotiation to Gavin’s thunderous expression. “Mr. Harrington, the Chairman wants you back at the office.” Gavin suppressed his rage. “What are you doing here?” Gideon held up the folder. “Delivering the receipt for the umbrella deposit.” My scalp went numb. Jasmine whispered behind me, “Summer, he tracked us down to collect a debt.” Gideon approached and slid the receipt through the door crack. I took it, looked at it, and stared at him. “The deposit was eighty-eight dollars. Why does this receipt say eight thousand eight hundred?” Gideon’s eyes behind his glasses remained perfectly calm. “The umbrella you took was a limited-edition commemorative piece.” I looked down at the black umbrella leaning against the wall. Printed in tiny font on the canopy was: Harrington Group 10th Anniversary Employee Benefit. I looked back up. “Your employee benefits are that expensive?” Gideon nodded. “The price reflects the fact that nobody wanted them.” Gavin finally snapped. “Gideon, whose side are you on?” Gideon tucked the folder under his arm, his tone deadpan. “Billed hourly, right now I am on the side of the receipt.” I watched him through the crack. For the first time, a thought popped into my head. This man is unhinged. But he is exactly the kind of unhinged I need on my team. The hallway motion-sensor light clicked off. In the sudden darkness, Jasmine grabbed my arm nervously. Gavin’s voice drifted through the gap, sounding like a utility shut-off notice. “Jasmine, I am giving you one last chance.” I was about to lay into him when Gideon’s voice echoed in the dark. “Mr. Harrington, motion-sensor lights require sound.” In the next second, he clapped his hands twice. The light flickered back on. Revealing Gavin’s face, pressed right against the door crack, trying to peek inside. Our eyes met from a mere three centimeters away. Jasmine let out a shriek and splashed her mug of hot water straight through the gap. Outside the door, Gavin unleashed a scream that was decidedly un-billionaire. 3 Gavin was howling and hopping down the hallway while his bodyguards scrambled around him. The corridor echoed with the sounds of dropping dignity and urgent requests for burn ointment. I shut the door tight, locked it, and turned to Jasmine. She was holding her empty mug, her face pale. “Summer, did I just ruin everything?” I patted her shoulder. “You just physically terminated a toxic engagement. High efficiency, really.” Jasmine’s lips twitched, wanting to smile but not quite daring to. Suddenly, our phones began to vibrate frantically. The original novel’s plot was fighting back. A PR account associated with the Harrington Group had just released a statement. It heavily implied that Jasmine had been stalking Gavin for years, and after failing to extort money from him, she had thrown boiling water at him in a fit of rage. Underneath the post, armies of internet trolls and bot accounts were marching in, calling her a gold-digger, an attention seeker, and a lunatic obsessed with marrying into wealth. Jasmine watched the comments roll in, her face draining of color. I snatched the phone away. “Don’t look into the dumpster. Roses don’t grow there.” Her eyes welled with tears. “But everyone believes them.” I opened a drawer and pulled out a small megaphone. It was a relic left behind by the original host of this body from when she used to sell hairpins at a street market, which was bright pink with two faded strawberry stickers. Jasmine stared at me, startled by the prop. “Summer, what are you doing?” I hung the megaphone around my neck, opened a video editing app on my phone, and began organizing our evidence. “Gavin loves public opinion. Let’s give him a feast.” As the sunset bled through the windows, I dragged Jasmine straight to the Harrington Group headquarters. The office tower was buzzing with rush-hour traffic. When the security guards spotted the neon-pink megaphone in my hand, their expressions instantly switched to high alert. I cleared my throat. The megaphone let out a screeching feedback howl, making passing white-collar workers collectively shrink their necks. “Attention, passersby and lovers of gossip! The Harrington Group’s Annual Relationship Fraud Customer Service Desk is now open!” Jasmine tugged at my sleeve, her fingers trembling. I handed her my phone. “Read the ledger.” She looked at the screen, then at the gathering crowd. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. I raised the megaphone. “During his relationship with my sister, Mr. Gavin Harrington accepted gifts totaling twenty-three thousand six hundred and forty-eight dollars! This includes a high-end massage chair, designer watches, organic supplements, dog grooming bills, and forty boba teas!” Someone in the crowd snorted. “Dog grooming counts too?” I nodded into the mic. “Even the dog got pampered, while my sister didn’t even get a thank-you!” Jasmine sniffled, lifting her chin. “And the Uber fares!” I passed her the megaphone. Her hands shook as she took it, her voice wavering at first but growing clearer with every word. “Every time we had an argument, he made me get out of his car and find my own way home. I had to take Ubers back just to apologize to him. The total round trips cost me nine hundred and seventy dollars!” The onlookers began whispering and chuckling. Two security guards lunged forward, trying to grab the megaphone. I sidestepped them, but my heel caught on a loose paving stone. I tilted sideways, losing my balance. A firm hand caught me by the back. The crisp scent of pine and rain filled my nose. I looked up. Gideon was standing right behind me, holding a coffee cup in his other hand. The coffee sloshed slightly but didn’t spill a single drop. Inappropriately, I found myself thinking: This guy’s balance is perfect for waitressing. “What are you doing here?” I asked. Gideon looked at the pink megaphone around my neck. “Working.” I pointed at the crowd. “It’s a circus outside your office tower. Aren’t you going to do something?” He looked down at his phone. “I’m waiting for the PR department to clock out.” I blinked. “Why?” Gideon turned his screen toward me. The internal PR group chat was scrolling at lightspeed. “There’s a woman holding a relationship fraud seminar downstairs.” “Security can’t catch her. She has insane agility.” “Mr. Harrington is asking who let her in.” “The revolving doors refuse to take the blame.” Gideon tucked his phone away. “If they haven’t clocked out, I can’t bill for overtime.” I stared at him, managing to squeeze out, “Your rebellion against capitalism is oddly refreshing.” Before Gideon could reply, the revolving doors spun open violently. Gavin stormed out. He had changed his shirt, but a patch of red skin was still visible on his collarbone. His expression was darker than the twilight sky. Jasmine’s hand holding the megaphone shrank back. I stepped half a pace forward, shielding her. Gavin growled, “Summer, have you had enough?” I turned the megaphone volume to maximum. “NO!” The piercing screech of feedback echoed across the plaza. Gavin’s eye twitched. He lunged to grab the device. Gideon smoothly extended his coffee cup between us. “Mr. Harrington, it’s hot.” Gavin froze. In that split second, the burn on his neck must have triggered a vivid flashback. I seized the opportunity to step back and hit play on my phone’s audio recordings. Gavin’s voice blasted through the speaker. “Jasmine, you are absolutely nothing without me!” The crowd gasped. Jasmine stood tall behind me, her shoulders no longer hunched. She looked at Gavin, her face completely devoid of the broken, pleading look from the original book. Gavin lunged again to shut off my phone. My foot slipped on the wet stone. This time, I couldn’t catch myself. I went down, taking the megaphone with me. Gideon reached out to catch me, but his coffee was caught in the crossfire. My elbow shoved his arm. Splash. The coffee splattered directly onto the massive digital billboard flanking the lobby entrance of the Harrington Group. The giant screen flickered violently. The corporate promotional video glitched, suddenly cutting to a bright blue error screen. Then, the megaphone fell to the pavement, triggering a pre-recorded intro I had set up earlier: “Welcome to the premier episode of: Gavin Harrington’s Epic Downfall!” Every single person outside the building looked up at the giant screen. The display flared to life. 4 On the massive digital screen, Gavin’s voice, “You are absolutely nothing without me!” looped three times in high-definition audio. With each repetition, Gavin’s face turned a shade closer to a boiled lobster. A security guard tried to pull the power cable, but the display’s control box was mounted too high. He jumped twice, only grabbing handfuls of empty air. A passing software engineer holding a boba tea yelled directions. “Reboot it! Hold the power button for ten seconds!” The guard roared back, “This is a commercial display, not your home router!” Gideon stood off to the side, staring down at his coffee cup. Only a smear of brown foam remained at the bottom. I cleared my throat. “I’ll pay for it.” He looked at me. “The coffee or the screen?” I immediately turned to Jasmine. “Jasmine, look! A wild guilt-trip in its natural habitat.” Jasmine looked up at the sky with a face so earnest it was almost heartbreaking. Gavin finally snapped out of his trance. He marched up to me, his finger practically poking my forehead. “You set me up?” I picked up the pink megaphone and blew the dust off it. “Mr. Harrington, this is called customer feedback.” He lowered his voice to a threatening hiss. “Do you think a couple of audio clips can ruin me?” I opened my phone’s gallery and held up a screenshot of the text messages showing he had made Jasmine wait in a torrential downpour for five hours. “I also have pictures.” I swiped to the next image, a voice-to-text transcript of his mother demanding Jasmine deliver imported supplements but forbidding her from entering the house. “And audio transcripts.” I kept swiping, showing screenshots of his friends betting on how long Jasmine would last in a group chat. “And group chats.” Gideon reached out, his fingers gently pressing down on the edge of my phone. I looked at him warily. “Are you confiscating the evidence?” He adjusted his glasses. “Your battery is at four percent.” I looked down. My breath caught. Gideon handed me a power bank. The casing, naturally, was another Harrington Group 10th Anniversary Employee Benefit. I took it in silence. Just how many unwanted promo items did this company manufacture? Gavin saw Gideon helping me, his brow furrowing into a tight knot. “Gideon, don’t forget who signs your paychecks.” Gideon checked his watch. “My employment contract explicitly excludes accompanying you during public embarrassments.” Several chuckles erupted from the crowd. Gavin’s temper flared. He turned to his bodyguards and ordered them to clear the plaza. The crowd began to disperse, pushing Jasmine back. I reached out to grab her, but she pulled away, taking a firm step forward. “Gavin Harrington.” Her voice was still thick from crying, but it carried perfectly through the megaphone. “You always said I couldn’t survive without you.” Gavin stared at her, his expression a complex mix of anger and expectation, clearly waiting for her to beg. Jasmine pulled a plastic card from her purse. “This is the gym membership you opened under my name. You never went once, and the trainer texts me every single day asking when you’re coming in.” Gavin froze. She held the card high. “Refund me the money. I’m taking up boxing.” The crowd burst into full-blown laughter. I almost squeezed the power bank to pieces, my heart bursting with sisterly pride. I wanted to commission a plaque for her. The last shred of Gavin’s romantic ego was utterly demolished by the word “boxing.” Just as the security guards were starting to sweat from the sheer chaos, a sleek silver luxury van pulled up to the curb. The door slid open, and Mrs. Harrington stepped out. She was immaculately put together, her hair coiffed without a single strand out of place, her pearl necklace gleaming under the streetlights. “What is the meaning of this?” Her voice wasn’t loud, but the plaza instantly fell quiet. Jasmine’s face paled. In the original novel, Mrs. Harrington was a major source of misery, famous for using multi-million-dollar checks and icy glares to crush the female lead into oblivion. I slung the megaphone over my chest, preparing for battle. Mrs. Harrington walked over, her gaze sweeping past Jasmine before settling on me. “So, you’re Summer?” I nodded. She reached into her designer bag and pulled out a card. Jasmine tensed. I braced myself. Here it comes. The classic “take five million and leave my son” routine. Mrs. Harrington slid the card toward me. “There is a thousand dollars on this.” My face practically cracked open. She lifted her chin. “Leave my son.” The onlookers fell into a collective, stunned silence. I stared at the card, taking a few seconds to process it before asking, “Mrs. Harrington… is your son really worth that little nowadays?” Beside me, Gideon turned his head away, his shoulders shaking slightly. Mrs. Harrington’s face turned livid. Gavin growled, “Mom!” Mrs. Harrington glared back at him. “Shut up! The company’s stock is tanking, and you’re out here hosting a relationship exit interview?” My eyes lit up. Ah. So the Harringtons do care about public scandal. Just as I was about to strike while the iron was hot, Mrs. Harrington turned to Gideon. “Gideon, take them to the conference room. We will settle this inside.” Gideon nodded. I took a step back. “We aren’t going.” Mrs. Harrington sneered. “Scared?” I held up the megaphone. “Just worried your conference room doesn’t have cameras.” Gideon tapped his phone screen a few times. “It does. And it records audio.” I looked at him. He added, “I just had it serviced today. I still have the receipt.” I was certain of it now. This man has an unhealthy obsession with receipts.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “455087”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

“Dad! I’ve paid off David’s penthouse apartment in full, and I even hired a live-in house manager. David won’t have to worry about a thing in his retirement!” My son, Kevin Miller, sounded thrilled. I, however, was stunned, somewhat at a loss. After my divorce, I had worked tirelessly, alone, to raise my son. He graduated college and successfully landed a coveted offer from a top tech company, earning a hefty six-figure salary. But the first thing he did after receiving his first-year bonus was to arrange a lavish, all-inclusive retirement for my own brother, David Stone. “David was so good to me when I was a kid. Now that I have the means, naturally I want to repay him first!” “He looked out for me then, and now I’ll look out for him!” Watching my brother, David, and my son, Kevin, chummily with their arms around each other, I couldn’t help but laugh. Last month, I’d tried to bring up wanting to catch up on my missing social security payments. What did he say again? “Social security is all a scam! At your age, you should be focused on your career!” “It’s pathetic to think about taking it easy before you’re even old enough. You have no ambition!” Thinking of that, I tossed the already melted pill into the trash. When I spoke again, my voice was devoid of emotion. “Alright, then. Let’s find a time for you to formally separate your residency from mine.” The moment the words left my mouth, the living room fell into a dead silence, which was then shattered by Kevin Miller’s furious roar. “Dad! You’ve really lost it!” “How can you be so petty at your age? Your heart is smaller than a pinhead!” David Stone looked awkward, patting Kevin’s back, his words hesitant. “Mark… I know… I know you think I’m taking advantage of Kevin’s filial devotion. I also feel it’s not right, but Kevin is such a loyal kid…” I remained expressionless, pulling open the front door. “Got it. This is my house. Please leave!” Kevin Miller was so enraged his face flushed crimson. He clenched his fists, about to step forward. Seeing the situation escalating, David quickly pulled and pushed Kevin out the door. “Mark! You’re angry right now. I’ll take Kevin for now. We can talk again in a couple of days when you’ve cooled down!” I watched, wide-eyed, as the uncle and nephew walked away with their arms around each other, feeling a huge chunk of my heart hollowed out. For the next week, Kevin acted as if I didn’t exist, completely silent. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that my ex-wife’s call came through. “Mark, I swear, ever since we divorced, you’ve become more and more unreasonable!” “You’re going to hurt your son over something so trivial?” “It’s been a week, and you haven’t even bothered to reach out. Don’t you know you should apologize to your son when you’ve done something wrong?” I held the phone in silence, not uttering a word. “Mark! Are you listening?! Kevin’s been in a terrible mood these past few days, drinking himself miserable! Do you, as his father, even have a heart?!” “I’m warning you, Kevin is my only son!” “You were so adamant about raising him back then. If I’d known you’d act like this, I never would have agreed to let you take him!” Her words cut through me like a knife. She was right! All these years, I’d pulled double duty as both his mom and dad, raising him alone. How much he used to depend on me when he was little. But I don’t know when it started, my sacrifices were simply taken for granted. No matter how much I did, it seemed it could never compare to a few superficial words of warmth from his mom, whom he only saw twice a year. I choked back the lump in my throat, my voice trembling. “Is that so? I haven’t been good enough to him?” “Sarah Johnson, have you given a single penny in child support all these years? His food, his clothes, parent-teacher conferences, every ache and sniffle—which one wasn’t me?” “How dare you accuse me?” The woman on the other end was speechless, unable to utter a word for a long time. I wiped my eyes and simply hung up the phone. Before I could put my phone down, it rang again. It was David Stone. I hung up immediately. The next second, SnapChat notifications started pinging, one after another. [Mark! Aren’t you being too much?! What did Sarah do wrong? What did Kevin do wrong? Can’t you ever look for reasons within yourself?] [The way Kevin is now just proves he’s a good kid who knows how to repay kindness. I truly can’t understand how you could be a father like this!] [No matter what, Kevin is your only son. Do you really want to sever ties with him forever?] [Alright, I know you’re mad at me. I apologize, is that enough?!]

His condescending tone made me laugh bitterly. My temper boiled over, and I typed a reply directly. [What? So you *do* know you shouldn’t have taken it? If he treats you like his real dad, then I’ll step aside. From now on, he’s your son! Isn’t that perfect?] David Stone’s chat box showed “typing…” for a long time. In the end, not a single word was sent. I sat on the sofa, looking at the empty apartment, and couldn’t hold back my tears. How could a person end up like this? After being betrayed by my wife and my own brother, even my only son stabbed me in the back. What else is this but being completely alone and betrayed? … In the darkness, I dreamt of my first half of life. Married for 24 years, I hadn’t lived a single day for myself. At first, I tried desperately to be good to my wife, only for her to get involved with my own brother. Later, I devoted myself to my son, only for him to leave me with nothing. When I opened my eyes again, I looked at the paltry four-figure balance on my phone and the payment reminder from the social security office, finding it utterly absurd. I should have cried for myself. But I didn’t. I opened a local job search app, carefully sifting through suitable positions. From now on, every penny I earned would no longer be for anyone else. Only for myself. They say children are your retirement plan. But now, even my own son couldn’t be relied upon. Who else could I rely on? Only myself! The next morning, I finalized an agreement with a high-end property management company, taking on a live-in house manager position, with food and accommodation included. I started packing my luggage. Kevin Miller had a lot of things, and I sorted them out too. Since I decided to cut ties with this ungrateful wretch, I might as well be thorough. I was still debating whether to call him to pick up his stuff when the door was pushed open with a bang. Kevin Miller stormed in, fuming. “Dad, are you crazy?! I already told you, if I needed cash, I could just do some freelance work. Why would you become a live-in house manager? Isn’t that embarrassing?!” “You packed all your bags and didn’t even tell me?” “If the property management company hadn’t sent the contract confirmation to my email, I would still be in the dark!” I watched him explode, expressionless. While he caught his breath, I pointed to the pile of packages on the floor. “Perfect timing. All of this is your stuff. Take it with you.” His face immediately turned ashen. “What do you mean? Are you really kicking me out? Just because I object to you becoming a house manager?” “Dad, you’re almost fifty, can’t you use your brain?!” “If people find out that my dad, Kevin Miller’s dad, is working as a house manager, how am I supposed to show my face after that?!” I stopped what I was doing, looking at him, feeling a bit estranged. “Is that so? What do your feelings of shame have to do with me?” “You only think about yourself. Have you ever considered my situation?” Kevin Miller’s brows furrowed, “What situation could you possibly be in?” “I’m working myself to the bone out there, and you’re living comfortably at home. What more do you want?” I couldn’t help but sneer. “Kevin Miller! Did I raise you to be too naive?!” “The little money I earned from odd jobs all these years, you completely drained it before the end of each month. Now I only have a few thousand bucks left in my account!” “How many times has the social security office sent payment reminders? Do you understand what that means?!” Kevin Miller looked impatient. “Didn’t I tell you? You have me as a son; that crappy insurance is a waste of money!” “Do you really think I’d abandon you when you’re old?” I pulled at the corner of my mouth, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly trouble you.” “You still have to impress your mom and her lover. What about me?”

“What I said yesterday came from the heart. You’re an adult now, and you’re also your mom’s son. From now on, you don’t need to worry about my affairs.” Kevin Miller trembled with rage, his fists clenching audibly. “Enough! What ‘lover’?! What ‘lover’?!” “Hasn’t David done enough for you? After you divorced my mom, to spare your feelings, David hasn’t even agreed to marry Mom yet!” “Just for that, what’s wrong with me supporting him in his retirement?!” I nodded, not arguing further, simply politely pushing the luggage towards him, then ‘escorting’ him out. The moment the door closed, I immediately contacted a locksmith. See? How could I entrust my golden years to an ungrateful wretch who couldn’t tell right from wrong? On my first day of work at my employer’s house, I received a call from my dad. “Mark, Kevin just called me. What’s going on? Did you really go and become a house manager?” “And don’t be so harsh with the boy. Kevin was really hurt by you this time; his voice sounded hoarse on the phone.” Hearing that, a pang of sadness hit me. “Dad.” “Was I wrong?” “Yes, I admit that right after Sarah and I divorced, David, as his uncle, did help look after Kevin for a few days.” “But David stole my wife! Kevin was a victim too!” “How could he turn around and forget me, the father who raised him from diapers, and go support the man who broke up my family in his retirement?” There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. “…What?” “Didn’t Kevin tell you? I scrimped and saved to put him through college, helped him find a job.” “Now that he’s received his bonus, the first thing he does is arrange retirement for Sarah and David, and then he turns around and calls me petty!” “Now their ‘happy little family of three’ is doing just fine. What am I supposed to do?” “I only have a few thousand dollars in my account, and social security keeps sending reminders. If I don’t renew it this year, am I really supposed to rely on that ungrateful wretch?” Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably, yet I laughed aloud. “I’m earning money with my own hands to secure my own future. What’s wrong with that? Now, just because he finds it embarrassing, I have to back down?” “Do you think that’s fair?” After a long time, there was a deep sigh from the phone. “Mark, I know the boy didn’t act honorably, but no matter what…” “Kevin is still your only son, after all…” Before he could finish, I interrupted him directly. “Dad!” “I don’t have the same good fortune as you and Mom. I know my own son; I can’t rely on him in the future.” “So, starting today, I have to plan for myself.” Hanging up the phone, I stood in the small room assigned to me at my employer’s house, a jumble of conflicting emotions swirling inside me. Even though everyone said this line of work, “serving people,” wasn’t respectable. But this employer offered a very good salary – twelve thousand a month, with food and accommodation included. It wasn’t until now that I fully understood. The idea that children are your retirement plan. Sometimes, your own flesh and blood can be less reliable than the actual balance in your bank account! My own son, just to save a few grand, declared social security a scam. But the salary my employer provides, if I save it for a year, I can fill that entire retirement fund shortfall! I thought my attitude had made everything clear, and the matter would be over and done with. To my surprise, a month into my job, David Stone showed up at my employer’s house with Kevin Miller. Seeing me, Kevin Miller’s frown was so deep, you could almost see him crushing something between his brows. “Dad! How long are you going to keep this temper tantrum up? That’s enough!” David Stone looked around the staff room, his face still wearing that phony look of apology. “Mark! No matter how angry you are, you can’t embarrass Kevin and Sarah like this!” “Ignoring your own son to come serve strangers, doing this kind of work—what were you thinking?” “Just to spite us?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “409896”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

It was Christmas Eve, and I was temporarily called in to cover for a colleague at the blood draw station. Suddenly, a little girl cut into the line, her accompanying middle-aged father, masked, quietly urged, “Excuse us, my daughter’s in a hurry.” Seeing no one behind objected, I proceeded to verify their information. “Is this the bone marrow matching sample for Zoe Davies?” The girl obediently extended her arm, but the man suddenly reached out, blocking the needle. “Wait, we’re not doing it today.” I cursed him in my head, but when I looked up, they were already walking away, leaving the consent form on the counter. The guardian’s signature, “David Miller,” stared back at me. That was my dad’s name, and I recognized his handwriting. I pulled out my phone, my fingers stiff with cold. “Dad, are you working at the office today?” A hospital-specific PA announcement echoed from the other end of the line. He paused for three seconds. “…Yes, I’m at the office.” I remained silent. After hanging up, I accessed the hospital system backend and typed in Zoe Davies’ name. “Patient: Zoe Davies. Matching recipient: David Miller. Relationship: Father-Daughter.”

“Nurse? Are you going to continue?” An old man in line behind me impatiently poked his head forward. I snapped back to reality, realizing my knuckles, pressed against the counter, were white. “Apologies, just a moment.” I forced myself to finish the remaining work, my mind replaying Dad’s words. As soon as my shift ended, I rushed into the locker room, locked the door, and only then dared to take out the paper again. “Patient: Zoe Davies, Age: 6, Diagnosis: Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.” “Matching Recipient: David Miller. Relationship: Father-Daughter.” “Father-Daughter.” Those two words seared my eyes. I pulled out my phone and opened the hospital’s internal system, typing in “Zoe Davies’” name. A more detailed medical record page popped up. The earliest visit was nine months ago. The most recent was three days prior, an outpatient visit where a new round of chemotherapy drugs was prescribed. The contact phone number field listed an unfamiliar mobile number. The address was: Willow Creek Residences, Building 1, Apartment 602. This wasn’t our family’s address, nor was it Dad’s company apartment. I stared at the address, racking my brain. Nine months ago was precisely when Dad started his frequent “overtime” and “business trips.” Mom even felt sorry for him, saying the company had many projects that year, and I should bother him less. I opened my navigation app and typed in the address. 8.5 kilometers from the hospital, a mid-range apartment complex called Willow Creek Residences. I don’t know how I walked out of the hospital building, but I hailed a taxi. “Driver, to Willow Street, Willow Creek Residences.” On the way, I clutched the consent form in my pocket, my hands clasped in silent prayer that my worst fears wouldn’t come true. I arrived at the complex, pulled up my mask, and hid behind a large maple tree to the side. Just as I was about to freeze, starting to wonder if I had the wrong place or if this was all a ridiculous misunderstanding, a figure too familiar for comfort appeared in the complex. It was Dad. He went upstairs and appeared in a window on an upper floor. He bent down, his silhouette clear. He was stroking the little girl’s head. So gently, so tenderly. When I was little and had a fever, he would touch my forehead like that. But in recent years, such touches grew rare. He was always busy, and his head rubs became perfunctory, quick pats, his attention always seemingly elsewhere. It turned out his tenderness and time hadn’t disappeared. They were just given to someone else. I held back tears, raised my phone, my hand trembling slightly, but I still managed to capture that window, those three figures huddled together. I don’t know how long I stood under that tree. The window lights went out eventually, but my father never came out. It seemed Dad wouldn’t be coming home tonight. Thinking of Mom still waiting at home for Christmas Eve dinner. I dragged my numb legs out of the complex. On the way home, I tried to compose myself, attempting to make my expression look normal. “Alice, you’re back?” My mom, wearing an apron, peered out from the kitchen, a smile on her face. “Perfect, I just finished preparing dinner. Your dad just SnapChatted that something came up at the office and he’ll be late again this year, told us to eat first.” I opened my mouth, wanting to tell her the truth. But my throat felt completely constricted. I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing the truth that was about to burst out. “I’m going to wash my hands.” Turning towards the bathroom, my tears finally broke free. I turned on the faucet, letting the sound of the running water mask my sobs. At the dinner table, I tentatively asked Mom, “Is Dad really that busy with work? Not even a break for the holidays.” “I understand. Work is important.” I lowered my head, chewing the pasta in my mouth forcefully, but tasted nothing. My stomach felt like it was filled with ice. I couldn’t wait any longer. On the last day of my holiday, I arrived at the hospital early. I casually chatted with the nurses in the hematology ward. “Busy lately, huh? Can’t even get peace during the holidays.” “Tell me about it, especially those high-risk leukemia kids; treatment can’t stop. There’s a little girl named Zoe, only six, poor thing.” My heart clenched sharply. “Zoe? That’s a unique name.” “It is. She’s also adorable, and her dad is very dedicated. He comes almost every day, stays with her through treatment, coaxes her to take medicine, sometimes he stays all night. Dads like that are rare these days.” “They are…” I murmured, my throat dry.

Coming every day. Staying all night. Running around for her. These words were like fine grains of salt scattered on my heart. I remembered my appendectomy, how I cried out in pain, wanting Dad to hold me. But he was away on a “project inspection,” and it was Mom and Uncle who stayed with me for three days. When I was struggling with insomnia due to stress during my final exams in high school, he would only say, “Don’t overthink it, just do your best,” and then go back to his work in the study. He wasn’t incapable of giving, nor did he lack time. I decided to get one step closer to that other family. I put on casual clothes and a beanie, covering most of my face. In my hand, I carried a stack of prepared survey forms and brochures. She saw me and paused, startled. “You are…?” “Hello, sorry to bother you.” I tried to make my voice sound steady, even a little shy, like a student. “I’m a volunteer from the local Red Cross chapter. Excuse me, is this where Zoe Davies lives?” Hearing Zoe Davies’ name, her guarded look softened slightly. “We’ve received information about some families in need from the City Children’s Hospital’s Hematology Department. We’re very concerned about Zoe Davies’ situation.” She hesitated for a few seconds, then stepped aside. I took a deep breath and walked into another home. My gaze was immediately drawn to a large framed photo hanging on the central wall of the living room. “That’s my husband and daughter.” I dug my nails into my palm, forcing myself to stay clear-headed and maintain my expression. Just as I was about to probe further, the sound of a key turning in the lock suddenly echoed from the front door! David Miller stood at the doorway, carrying an insulated food container. “Grace, I made some fish soup for Zoe to help her get her strength back…” I sprang to my feet, pulling up my mask, and made to leave. “Sorry, something urgent just came up! I’ll leave these materials with you. You can call the number on them if you have any questions!” I pulled down my beanie, stumbled out of the complex, and gasped for air. After some time, my phone vibrated in my pocket. “Alice, your shift must be almost over, right? What do you want for dinner tonight? Your dad just called and said he might be late again tonight, has an unavoidable engagement. Shall we just eat something simple, just the two of us?” “Late again!” My last nerve snapped. “Mom! Dad is seeing someone else!” Mom didn’t say anything, just told me to come home. When I got home, Mom was sitting on the sofa, as calm as if nothing had happened. She pulled out her phone and showed me a SnapChat message. “Your husband has another home at Willow Creek Residences; his daughter is six years old.” “I didn’t want to believe it,” Mom’s voice trembled slightly, as if she were talking about someone else’s life. “Your dad, he has many flaws. He’s lazy, stubborn, sometimes he doesn’t keep his word. But… for twenty years, I thought, at least he had a bottom line. I secretly checked his phone, the lock screen password was still your birthday, the chat history was clean, and the bank statements showed nothing unusual. I even wondered if someone sent it by mistake or if it was malicious slander.” My last emotional defense collapsed. I pulled out the consent form from my pocket. Then I took out my phone and showed her the pictures. “Mom! Look closely, Dad is seeing someone else!” I took Mom and hailed a taxi to that hospital room. But from inside, suppressed sobs from a woman and a man’s low growl could be heard. Just as I was about to push the door open, it was suddenly pulled open. Dad, his face ashen, walked out and collided with me. When he saw me, his pupils constricted, and a flash of panic crossed his face, quickly replaced by feigned anger. “What are you doing here?” “That’s what I should be asking you, Dad. Didn’t you say you had an important meeting at the office today?” The murmuring patients, family members, and medical staff around us all turned their gazes our way. Dad’s face flushed crimson, then turned ashen again. He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong, almost dragging me into the nearby fire escape stairwell. “Alice Miller! What are you trying to do?!” he snarled, a vein throbbing in his temple. I pulled out my phone, opened my gallery, and swiped through the intimate photos of him and Grace Davies, one by one.

His shoulders slumped, and his voice softened, pleading: “Alice, Alice, listen to me… Dad was just confused for a moment… I was really just confused! I’m sorry to your mom, I’m sorry to you… But things are already like this, Zoe is so young, and she’s so sick… She needs her dad, she needs money for treatment… Your mom isn’t well, and she’s strong-willed, she definitely wouldn’t be able to handle it if she found out! Alice, please keep it a secret for Dad, okay? Dad promises, I’ll make it up to you two properly in the future, just don’t tell your mom, I’m begging you…” I stopped looking at him, turned, and pulled open the stairwell door. Outside, Mom was standing there, I don’t know how long she’d been there. Dad’s legs buckled, and he sank to his knees. “Sarah, Sarah, let me explain…” Mom didn’t look at Dad; she just took my hand. “Alice, let’s go home.” “Mom…” I began cautiously in the car. “Alice,” she cut me off, her voice soft but exceptionally clear. “When your dad knelt down, I wondered what kind of person I had truly known for these past twenty years.” “Then I thought about that child, Zoe, only six years old, diagnosed with leukemia.” My heart sank. “Mom, what do you mean?” “The child is innocent.” Mom’s words were like a needle, piercing my most sensitive nerve. “What about me?! Am I not innocent? For these twenty years, isn’t *our* family innocent? Mom, Dad lied to us! He has two families! That child… that child is his evidence!” “I know. I know all of it. But Alice, that child is dying.” “So what?” “So we’re supposed to be saints, give our money and resources to save his and the other woman’s child? Mom, wake up! When he begged me to keep it a secret from you, he only thought of himself and that child! He never considered how much you’d suffer if you found out!” “If he had considered me, none of this would have happened in the first place.” Mom looked up, a terrifying resolve in her eyes that I’d never seen before. “Alice, I will work with your dad to save that child. As for your dad and me,” she paused, “we’ll talk about it once that child’s condition is stable.” I stared at Mom in disbelief, as if seeing her for the first time. “You’re crazy!” I grabbed my bag and signaled the driver to stop. “If you want to be a saint, go ahead! I don’t want to see either of them again!” I sat down on a stone bench, quietly sobbing. I even wondered if I was wrong? I pulled out my phone and called my boyfriend, Ethan Hayes. “Ethan,” I choked out, almost incoherent. “My dad… my mom… they’ve all gone crazy… Are you home? Can I come over?” “I’m home. Take your time, don’t rush, I’ll wait for you.” Half an hour later, I knocked on Ethan’s apartment door. I poured out everything that had happened that day, from the confrontation at the hospital to my mother’s shocking decision. Ethan listened quietly, his brow gradually furrowing. “So, your mom’s saying, save the person first, then deal with right and wrong.” “That’s not even about right and wrong!” I sprang up from the sofa, agitated. “Ethan, why are you saying that too? That’s his mistress’s child!” Ethan was silent for a moment. He then took out a file folder. “Alice, there’s something your mom didn’t want me to tell you. For the past eight months, your mother has been secretly commissioning me to investigate your father.” Ethan’s voice was low. “She started to suspect something was wrong about nine months ago, but she had no evidence. She asked me to investigate your father’s itinerary, spending records, communication links…” I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning, frozen on the spot. Nine months ago… that was precisely when Dad started his frequent “overtime,” and also Zoe’s earliest medical visit. “Why… why did you keep it from me?” My voice trembled. “She said you were still young, and with your job at the hospital, you were already under a lot of stress. She didn’t want you to be distracted.” “She said today she’d use ‘her half’ of the money to save Zoe,” I looked at Ethan, and he nodded, confirming my guess.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “409895”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster