Author: Momo Chan

1 The truck rattled violently over the cracked, dusty highway of the wasteland. I curled deeper into the passenger seat, my fingers instinctively tightening around the oversized tactical jacket swallowing me whole. It belonged to Ryder, draping past my thighs like a heavy canvas sack. “Keep shrinking and you’ll end up in the glove compartment,” the man in the driver’s seat grunted without turning his head. My body stiffened. I quietly pulled my legs back half an inch. I had to stay on his good side. I couldn’t risk being disobedient. After all, three years after the outbreak, I was a zombie—an abomination that any normal human would put down on sight. 2 Three months ago, my fiancé, Tristan, had pushed me out of the armored vehicle, straight into the swarming horde. An apex infected had torn open my wrist, letting the virus flood my veins. I expected to become a mindless, decaying ghoul roaming the ruins. But instead, I woke up. My body temperature plummeted, and my heart beat at a sluggish, heavy crawl, but my mind remained entirely mine. Oddly, the lower-tier infected stopped attacking me. They even parted like a quiet tide whenever I drew near. I became a ghost drifting through the quarantine zone. I wasn’t a zombie—I couldn’t stomach raw flesh. But I wasn’t human either—normal food made me sick. I was starving, hovering on the brink of death every single day, yet unable to die. I survived that agonizing, hollow existence for three months. Until I ran into Ryder. That day, he had just wiped out an entire mutated nest. Covered in black, viscous blood, he sat on a jagged piece of rebar amid the rubble, smoking a cigarette. I only approached him because I wanted to pick up a shiny glass marble lying near his boots. But he looked down. A cold, heavy blade pressed against my throat. “Where did you crawl out from, little monster?” Terrified, I dropped to my knees, holding up the marble with trembling hands, expecting him to slice off my head and dig out my core. But he didn’t. He studied me for a long, quiet moment, then slid his knife back into its sheath. He threw his half-smoked cigarette onto the dirt and crushed it with his boot. “Get in the truck.” And just like that, he took me in. 3 “Eat if you’re hungry,” Ryder said, watching me with lazy amusement. My lips parted, but I hesitated. The thought of eating felt wrong, but the gnawing ache in my stomach was unbearable. After a moment of desperate internal conflict, I crawled toward him on hands and knees. Ryder routinely unbuttoned his collar, exposing the broad expanse of his chest. I leaned over him, using my sharp canine teeth to pierce his skin. Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips to the tiny wound, carefully sipping the warm, metallic fluid. “Easy, little monster,” he murmured. He kept one hand on the steering wheel while the other slid behind my waist, pulling me a fraction closer to his chest. Honestly, I had no idea how infected were supposed to feed. The first time I drank his blood, he had to guide my head down himself. As the hunger subsided, my fractured senses began to piece themselves back together. I stopped, releasing his skin. Unsure of what to do next, I stayed draped across his chest, peeking up at him through my eyelashes. Ryder looked down. He traced the faint, wet bite mark on his collarbone. “Full?” I nodded slowly. “Then go back and sit down.” His hand left my waist, and I hurriedly scrambled back to the passenger seat, curling myself into a tight, protective ball. The sky darkened, and the brutal temperature drop of the wasteland began to settle in. My body—stuck at a permanent sixty-eight degrees—grew stiff and slow. Still, I dragged myself up to make dinner for him. It was the only way I could prove my worth. I refused to be called a parasite ever again. 4 I brought the small iron pot over and held it out to him. “Auu,” I chirped. Eat. Ryder took the pot and drank the broth directly from the rim. A wave of relief washed over me. He ate it. It meant I was still useful. As long as I could cook and work, he wouldn’t think of me as dead weight. He wouldn’t throw me out. My tense shoulders relaxed. I happily reached into my pocket and pulled out a battered, one-eyed stuffed bear I’d salvaged from the rubble earlier that day. Its seams were splitting, and half its stuffing was spilling out, but I loved it. Clutching the bear to my chest, I curled up in the corner of the back seat. I wanted to have a sweet dream tonight. But I didn’t. Instead, the nightmares took over. I was back at the Sanctuary with Tristan, during the days before everyone realized my awakening had failed. Back then, Tristan still protected me. He told everyone I was just a late bloomer. But slowly, the lies wore thin. Within a year, even Tristan stopped believing. He went from bringing me canned fruit and holding me tight to looking right through me. I spent my days on edge, only daring to take the worst rations—rotten potatoes and hard, insect-ridden biscuits. People pointed at me, calling me a leech, throwing dirt on my clothes. Tristan would just stand there, coldly cleaning his rifle, never once looking my way. And then came the supply run. The horde rushed us. Rotting faces pressed against the glass. Tristan grabbed me by the collar and threw me out into the cold. The stench of decay hit me as I crashed into the sea of bodies, watching his truck speed away into the dust… I bolted upright, gasping, though my dead lungs couldn’t even draw a proper breath. My teeth chattered violently, and a quiet, broken sob slipped from my throat. My tears felt freezing as they hit the back of my hand. Beside me, Ryder’s voice broke the silence. “Why are you crying? Dreaming about someone else?” I nodded miserably. “Auu…” Ryder didn’t say anything else, but his hands kept moving. Only then did I realize he was sewing a new button onto my one-eyed bear. I let out an excited chirp, pointing at his hands. He was fixing my bear. Ryder. The strongest electro-kinetic in the Apex Sanctuary. Rumor had it he was ruthless, short-tempered, and strictly a solo hunter. I’d seen him from a distance back at the base. Everyone feared him—even Tristan. Nobody dared to cross his path. Yet here he was, carefully mending a ruined toy for me. 5 “Auu,” I urged softly, nudging the bear closer to him. Hurry. Ryder glanced up at me, silent, but his fingers moved faster. When he finished the last stitch, he bit the thread off and handed the bear back. I snatched it up, hugging it tightly. My bear had eyes again. I wanted to roll around the backseat in pure joy, but my rigid muscles wouldn’t allow it. Instead, I rubbed my cheek against the smooth surface of the new button eye. “How did you get bitten?” Ryder asked suddenly. “Why did the base send someone without powers on a high-risk run?” I froze. The warmth of the moment evaporated, replaced by a cold dread. “Auu… Auu!” I gestured frantically, pointing at myself, then out at the pitch-black highway, making a violent shoving motion. “Someone pushed you,” Ryder said, his voice level. I nodded vigorously. “Auu!” Yes! “Someone from the Sanctuary?” I nodded again and began to make more complex gestures. I drew a small figure in the dust on the dashboard, and a slightly larger one beside it. I pointed to the smaller one, then to myself. “Auu…” A low whimper escaped me. I buried my face in the toy bear, too ashamed to look at the larger sketch representing him. Ryder fell silent for a long time. Just when I thought he had lost interest, he spoke. “You knew him.” I chirped excitedly, my hands flying as I tried to explain. I pressed my two index fingers together, then bent one over the other, mimicking the motion of sliding a ring onto a finger. “Auu, auu!” “He was your… partner?” “Auu!” Yes! You’re so smart! “What was his name?” How could I tell him a name? I paced the backseat anxiously, making panicked noises. “Calm down,” Ryder’s steady voice cut through my panic. “I’ll ask, you answer.” He paused, a look of disgust crossing his face. “Tristan Miller?” “Auu! Auu!” Yes! That’s him! How did you know? Ryder’s gaze darkened as he watched my frantic reaction. “Ah. So he was your fiancé.” “No wonder you used to hover around him like a shadow.” I stared at him, stunned. He had noticed me back then? “Auu, auu?” Can you help me kill him? I wasn’t a saint. That man had thrown me to the wolves, leaving me to rot and starve for three months. I hated him. I wanted to rip his throat out myself. “You want him dead?” Ryder arched an eyebrow, looking at my weak, swinging fist. I nodded with everything I had. “Auu!” “Look at yourself. You can barely walk straight. How are you going to kill him?” Frantic, I grabbed his sleeve and tugged hard. “Auu, auu!” If you kill him for me, I’ll cook for you every day, I’ll wash your clothes, and I only need a tiny bit of blood to survive! Ryder didn’t answer immediately. His eyes lingered on my lips, his throat swallowing slowly. “You want my help?” he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, teasing drawl. “Then what are you going to give me in return?”

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1 The night we broke up, Garrett got scratched by a feral cat. The next morning, I woke up to find a sleek black cat staring at me with his exact amber eyes. Without a word, I scooped him up and brought him to my apartment. For the next few days, he was forced to watch me live. He watched me eat, sleep, and FaceTime the new man in my life. He tried to claw at the screen, but his paws were too short; he tried to scream at me, but all that came out of his throat were pathetic, high-pitched meows. One evening, while we were sitting on the couch with a reality show buzzing in the background, I pulled him onto my lap. I looked closely into his eyes and smiled. “You know,” I murmured, “the way you look at me right now… you look exactly like my ex-boyfriend.” His entire body went rigid. I lifted him up, bringing him level with my face. “If you really are him, blink three times.” He blinked frantically, his tail snapping straight and tense as a wire. I set him back down on the cushion, my voice dropping to a flat, dry whisper. “Just kidding. How could a cat ever understand what I’m saying?” I stood up and walked into the kitchen to wash some strawberries. Behind me, he froze on the couch, his eyes burning into my back. Does she know? Or does she simply not care anymore? “Are you two seriously over?” On the other end of the line, my best friend Sloane’s voice was thick with disbelief. “Yes. It’s done.” I propped my phone between my shoulder and my ear as I snapped open a heavy, black heavy-duty trash bag. At my feet, the black cat I had rescued the night before crouched on the plush rug. His amber eyes never left me, his tail thumping against the floor in a restless, agitated rhythm. “And Garrett just let you walk away?” Sloane let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “The man practically kept you in a gilded cage. You couldn’t even go to a grocery store without checking in.” “What Garrett wants doesn’t matter anymore.” I knelt, pulling open the bottom drawer of the coffee table. Sitting in the back was a small velvet box containing our matching platinum promise rings. Garrett had slid mine onto my finger on my birthday last year. He had rushed to my apartment straight from a welcome-back dinner for Sienna, smelling faintly of the expensive, niche perfume she always wore. He had run his fingers through my hair, his voice carrying that familiar, gentle condescension. “Sienna just got back to the States, Audrey. She’s fragile right now, so I stayed a little longer to keep her company. You’re so sensible; you won’t hold it against her, right?” I hadn’t said a word. He took my silence as permission. Within a week, he transferred ten percent of the equity he had promised me in our joint venture directly to Sienna. His excuse was that Sienna needed “a sense of security” in the family business. I pulled his ring from the box and tossed it into the black plastic bag. It hit the bottom with a dull, metallic clink. Beside me, the black cat shuddered. He scrambled forward, burying his front paws into the edge of the trash bag, letting out a sharp, desperate yowl. “Meow!” I looked down at him. The look in his eyes was identical to Garrett’s. It was the same arrogant, high-handed certainty that I would never actually leave, no matter what he did. I used the toe of my slipper to gently nudge him aside. “Stop it. It’s dirty.” The cat ignored me, lunging again, his small teeth tearing at the plastic. I didn’t bother stopping him. I went back to clearing the drawer. Garrett’s spare key. Tossed. The matching coffee mugs he bought us. Tossed. The silk slip dress he had custom-ordered because he liked how my body looked in it. Tossed. “Sounds like you’re purging every trace of him,” Sloane remarked over the line. “Just clearing out the garbage.” My voice was completely flat as I stuffed the last of his designer button-down shirts into the bag. There was a faint, dried coffee stain on the cuff of the sleeve. It had happened last week when Garrett threw his arm out to block a spill from hitting Sienna’s dress. At the time, he had turned to me, his tone smooth, reasonable, and entirely dismissive. “Audrey, run down to the car and grab my spare shirt, would you? Let’s not make Sienna feel guilty about this.” That was his specialty. Using the softest, most loving words to commit the most glaring betrayals. The black cat was pacing in frantic circles around my ankles. Seeing that I was ignoring him, he leaped onto the coffee table and slammed a paw down onto my phone. The screen flared to life. A text notification from Elliott popped up. Elliott: Are you free tomorrow? I managed to secure a table at that new omakase place you’ve been wanting to try. The cat froze. He stared at the name Elliott on the screen, a low, guttural growl vibrating deep in his throat. “Is that Elliott texting you?” Sloane asked, her sharp ears catching the vibration. “Yeah.” “Go! Absolutely go. Why should Garrett spend every waking hour coddling his precious ‘sister’ while you sit at home waiting for table scraps? You deserve a life, Audrey.” I picked up the phone, carefully avoiding the cat’s unsheathed claws. My fingers tapped across the keyboard. Audrey: I’d love to. See you tomorrow. Before I could lock the screen, the cat went wild. He launched himself toward the phone, claws out. I swiped the phone high out of his reach. He missed, landing heavily on the rug with a dull thud. I stood over him, my shadow swallowing him whole. “Do that again, and you’re sleeping outside.” The cat went entirely still. He looked up at me, those amber eyes wide with a sudden, dawning terror. It was as if he couldn’t comprehend the ice in my voice. Just like Garrett. Garrett had lived his entire life believing that the Audrey who always left a porch light burning for him would never, under any circumstances, shut the door on him for good. I tied the black trash bag into a tight, double knot. I hauled it to the foyer, opened the front door, and threw it into the chute without looking back. 2 The next morning, I took the black cat to the vet. He hadn’t slept all night. He had spent the dark hours pacing the living room floor, frantically scratching at the empty drawer where his belongings used to be. When I tried to put him into the plastic carrier that morning, he fought me with a savage, desperate strength, leaving a deep red scratch across the back of my hand. I looked at the thin beads of blood welling up on my skin. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. I simply took an antiseptic wipe and wiped the blood away, my expression entirely blank. The cat went still. He shrunk into the back corner of the carrier, staring at my hand, letting out a low, pathetic whimper. It sounded almost like an apology. The veterinary clinic was packed. When the doctor pulled him out onto the stainless-steel exam table, the cat was uncharacteristically docile. But his eyes never left my face, tracking my every movement as if terrified I might walk out the door. “He’s got quite a temper,” the vet remarked, checking his heart rate. “His stress levels are off the charts. Extreme anxiety.” “He’s still adjusting to a new environment,” I said, looking down at my phone. My texts were quiet. Garrett’s avatar remained silent, but there was a message from his executive assistant, Arthur, sent thirty minutes ago. Arthur: Miss Audrey, Mr. Mercer had an accident last night and is currently admitted to the hospital. Arthur: He was highly agitated when he woke up and realized you weren’t there. When would it be convenient for you to visit? Miss Sienna is currently with him, but he keeps asking for you. I looked at the screen and felt a cold, mocking laugh bubble up in my chest. Sienna was already there. Why on earth did he need me? To act as a prop for their touching family reunion? I swiped left on Arthur’s chat thread and hit Delete. On the table, the cat began to struggle. He tried to crawl toward me, but the vet held him down gently. “Easy there, buddy. Almost done.” The clinic door swung open, and Zachary stepped into the exam room. Zachary was Garrett’s college roommate and closest enabler. In his arms, he carried a pristine, incredibly expensive Ragdoll cat—the very one Garrett had bought for Sienna last month. Zachary stopped when he saw me. A sneer curled his lips as his eyes drifted to my plastic carrier. “Well, well. Audrey,” he drawled, his voice dripping with condescension. “You certainly have your priorities straight, don’t you?” He set Sienna’s cat on the adjacent counter. “Garrett is lying in a hospital bed, and you don’t even have the decency to show your face. Instead, you’re here playing nurse to some mangy alley cat?” I didn’t look at him. “He has Sienna. He doesn’t need me.” Zachary let out a harsh laugh. “Are you still throwing a tantrum over that? Sienna is his family, Audrey. What is wrong with him looking out for her?” He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. “Do you even know why Garrett got into that accident last night? He drove halfway across the city in a torrential downpour just to get those pastries from the bakery downtown—the ones you supposedly love. He was walking back to his car when some stray cat attacked him, and he lost control of the wheel on the drive back.” “You really are a piece of work, Audrey. Have some decency.” I kept my gaze fixed on the black cat on the exam table. His small body had gone completely rigid. He was staring at me with an intense, pleading urgency, waiting for my reaction. Did he think I would break? Did he honestly believe that a story about his hollow, dramatic grandstanding would make me run back to his hospital bedside? I reached down and smoothed the band-aid over my scratched hand. “The bakery downtown?” I finally raised my eyes to meet Zachary’s. “I have a lethal peanut allergy, Zach. Every single pastry from that bakery is fried in peanut oil.” Zachary’s smug expression faltered. “He bought those because they are Sienna’s favorite,” I said, my voice entirely devoid of emotion. “Zach, do me a favor and give Garrett a message.” “If he wants to play the doting brother to Sienna, tell him to go right ahead. Just tell him to stop using my name to alleviate his own guilt.” On the exam table, the black cat thrashed violently. He kicked out, knocking a stainless-steel tray of medical instruments to the floor with a deafening clatter. He bared his teeth, letting out a raw, agonized shriek, trying to leap toward me. He looked desperate to explain, desperate to tell me it wasn’t like that. I gave him a brief, cold glance, then turned my back on him. “Doctor, please put him back in the carrier when you’re finished. I’ll be waiting in the lobby.” When we got back to the apartment, I began to pack. There wasn’t much of my own to take. Garrett had bought the apartment, and almost everything inside it had been purchased with his credit card. My entire life fit neatly into a single rolling suitcase. The black cat followed me like a shadow. Wherever I stepped, he was right at my heels. I began pulling the designer dresses Garrett had bought me out of the closet, taking photos of them to list on a luxury resale app. The cat jumped onto the bed, slamming his paw down onto a silk gown. He refused to let me move it. “Move,” I said, pushing his shoulder. He dug his claws into the fabric, letting out a low, rumbling growl of protest. I ignored him, turning my attention to the desk. In the bottom drawer, buried beneath old tax documents, was a thick manila envelope. It contained the stock certificates for a subsidiary of the Mercer Group. When Garrett had given Sienna ten percent of the parent company, he had handed me these subsidiary shares as a consolation prize. He had pinched the back of my neck, his voice dripping with patronizing warmth. “This company will be your security, Audrey. Be a good girl. Stop fighting with Sienna over pennies.” I had accepted the envelope back then without a word. Now, I pulled the certificate out, slipped it alongside the signed relinquishment form I had prepared, and sealed the envelope. The cat saw the envelope and went completely feral. He leaped from the bed, his teeth baring as he tried to tear the thick paper to shreds. “Garrett,” I said quietly.

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1 The night before our wedding, my friends threw a joint bachelor-bachelorette party for Vanessa and me at a lounge downtown. A few drinks in, someone suggested a round of Truth or Dare. The first spin of the bottle pointed straight at me. My younger brother, Tyler, leaned back with a smirk. “I dare you to take off your shirt, bro. Let’s see if that gym membership actually paid off.” The table immediately erupted into cheers and catcalls. I looked over at Vanessa, hoping she’d step in, but she was looking down, idly clicking her lighter to spark a cigarette, completely ignoring me. Left with no choice, I shrugged out of my jacket, leaving myself in just a thin gray tank top. On the very next round, the bottle landed on me again. My older sister, Brooke, raised her cocktail glass with a tight, mocking smile. “Alright, Ethan. Dare to admit that you’re basically pathetic? Like, you’d literally shrivel up and die if you didn’t have a woman taking care of you?” My face burned hot. Everyone at the table stared, waiting to see if I was going to ruin the vibe by getting defensive. I closed my eyes for a second, my throat tight. “I dare,” I muttered. When the bottle finally spun and pointed to Vanessa, the table went wild. One of her friends leaned in, grinning. “Vanessa, dare to tell your future husband what you were doing behind everyone’s back last night?” Vanessa paused for two seconds. Then she turned to look at Logan, her male best friend sitting right next to her. A soft, indulgent smile touched the corners of her eyes. “Logan got completely wasted and insisted I drive him back to his hotel,” she said, her tone dripping with affection. “Then he ended up throwing up all over himself. I had to wash him up, change him into a clean bathrobe, and hold him until morning because he said he was too scared to sleep alone.” The private room fell quiet for a heartbeat, before bursting into a flurry of suggestive, knowing laughter. Logan reached over and playfully pinched Vanessa’s ear, whining about how she was airing his embarrassing laundry. I sat there, frozen, unable to form a single word. Then, Vanessa’s childhood friend, Becca, pointed out the window toward the courtyard. The city’s mobile registry clerk had set up a pop-up marriage licensing desk for a local weekend festival. “If you two are so close,” Becca challenged, “do you dare to take Logan out there right now and sign a real marriage license?” Logan’s eyes lit up instantly. He looked at Vanessa. I watched her too, my heart hammering against my ribs. But Vanessa only let out a breathless, helpless laugh. She took Logan’s hand, stood up, and walked out into the roaring cheers of the lounge. In that exact moment, I realized tomorrow’s wedding didn’t need to happen. Twenty minutes later, Vanessa and Logan walked back into the room, triumphantly holding two red folders containing their legally binding marriage license. The crowd swarmed them. “Now that,” Becca yelled over the music, “is how you officially say goodbye to being single.” Tyler was busy snapping photos on his phone, laughing loudly. “Vanessa, honestly, you and Logan look more like a real bride and groom than the stiff photos in your wedding teaser.” I stood on the periphery, still wearing nothing but my thin tank top. The lounge’s air conditioning was blasting, sending a deep, biting chill through my shoulders. Vanessa noticed. But instead of wrapping her coat around me, she draped it over Logan’s shoulders. Logan immediately made a show of pulling it down, offering a casual, easygoing laugh. “Hey, don’t give this to me. I’m tough. Ethan’s going to overthink this and get his feelings hurt again.” He said the words, but he didn’t actually take the jacket off. Vanessa nudged him playfully. “Stop acting like a tough guy. You just got done puking your guts out.” Logan nudged her back. “Fine, fine, you’re the boss. Just make sure to soothe your husband later. Don’t let him think I’m actually stealing his girl.” A ripple of laughter went around the table. A sharp, hot sting hit the back of my nose. I had to turn my head away, pretending to study the stage lights to keep from tearing up. Three winters ago, I had stood in the freezing wind with Vanessa, waiting to sign the paperwork for our townhouse. My hands had gone completely numb. She had barely looked up from her phone, saying, “Ethan, just deal with it for a minute. We’ll be done soon.” She wasn’t blind to other people being cold. She just didn’t care when that person was me. I turned to leave, but Vanessa caught my wrist. “It’s just a game, Ethan. Don’t ruin the night before our wedding.” I looked down at the official documents in her hand. She followed my gaze, her expression completely indifferent. “It’s just a piece of paper. I’ll file for an annulment next week.” I stared at her, wondering if I had somehow misheard. When absurdity reaches a certain peak, you don’t even cry. You just feel a profound, hollow embarrassment. The woman who was supposed to walk down the aisle with me tomorrow had just legally married another man tonight, and she was talking about it like she had accidentally purchased the wrong movie ticket. “So,” I finally asked, my voice barely a whisper, “is our ceremony tomorrow just another part of the game to you?” Vanessa’s expression hardened instantly. “Ethan, do you really have to start this right now?” she snapped. “You know exactly what Logan means to me. If there was ever anything romantic between us, don’t you think we would have ended up together years ago? Why would I even be marrying you?” Logan quickly patted her arm. “Hey, don’t yell at him. It’s totally normal that he feels a little insecure.” Even as he spoke, he pulled her jacket tighter around himself. I didn’t argue. I just told them I was going to the restroom. On my way back, I noticed the heavy wooden door to our private room wasn’t fully closed. The voices inside carried out into the hallway with painful clarity. “Ethan looked like he was about to faint,” Becca was saying, laughing. “He really can’t take a joke.” Tyler immediately chimed in. “He’s been like that since we were kids. Everyone else is having a great time, and he immediately assumes the world is ganging up on him.” Brooke’s voice was slightly quieter, more measured. “Just make sure tomorrow goes off without a hitch. And tell Logan to keep it dialed back a bit. We don’t want Ethan actually throwing a fit and ruining the ceremony.” Logan sighed heavily. “I seriously didn’t mean to step on his toes. If Vanessa and I wanted to be together, we would’ve done it a decade ago. It’s not like he’s competing with me.” Becca laughed. “Exactly. Honestly, you two are tighter than half the married couples I know.” “Look, if he’s still bent out of shape tomorrow, I’ll just sit in the back,” Logan added. “I’m easy. I’ll sit wherever, as long as it doesn’t mess up their day.” Vanessa finally spoke, her voice flat and dismissive. “Don’t worry about him. He just overthinks everything.” A single, hot tear spilled over my cheek. I wiped it away quickly, my fingers cold against my skin. Every laugh filtering through the crack of that door felt like a physical strike, a mocking reminder that tonight, I was the main event in a joke I hadn’t agreed to play. I didn’t go back inside. When I got home, I sat on the living room sofa in the dark for hours. It was nearly dawn when I finally decided to slide my wedding band off my finger. But as the heavy platinum ring slipped past my knuckle, I noticed a tiny engraving on the inner band. It was a date. It wasn’t my birthday. It was Logan’s. As soon as the shops opened, I took the ring back to the jeweler. The clerk pulled up our order history, her expression turning incredibly strained as she read the notes. “Mr. Miller, I’m so sorry, but this engraving was personally confirmed by Ms. Carter,” she murmured. “Our records show she specified this date, noting it was a ‘highly significant milestone.’” I stared at the numbers, my hands turning like ice. The clerk kept speaking, offering polite, empty apologies, but the words turned into white noise. My chest burned. I had been carrying this ring around, thinking it was a symbol of our future, while she had used it to permanently record another man’s birth. On my last birthday, Vanessa had left town at the last minute to help Logan “clear his head” after a bad week. She had simply sent me a Venmo transfer with a dry text telling me to buy myself something nice. I had sat alone in a steakhouse until the staff started putting the chairs on the tables. Yet she remembered Logan’s birthday so precisely that she had carved it into the band meant for my finger. As I walked out of the jewelry store, my phone rang. It was the wedding coordinator, asking if I was ready to confirm the final walkthrough for the afternoon. I was about to tell her to cancel the entire thing, but the words caught in my throat. Suddenly, I wanted to know. I wanted to see exactly how much of my own wedding had been built without me. When I walked into the townhouse, the living room television was still casting the media stream from last night’s bar lounge. On the screen was a photo of Vanessa and Logan standing side-by-side at the registry desk. They were holding up their signed marriage licenses, smiling brightly. The comment thread beneath the post was rolling in. Becca: Now this is what I call a perfect match. Way more natural than those stiff engagement photos. Tyler: Logan looks incredible. Man, I wish he was my actual brother-in-law. He had added a follow-up comment right after: Unlike my brother, who always looks like he’s attending a funeral. It’s exhausting. Logan had replied: Hey, go easy on Ethan. He’s just sensitive. Vanessa hadn’t left a comment. But her name was right there at the top of the likes. I stood frozen in the center of the room before clicking on the shared album link. It led to a hidden iMessage group chat called Operation: Wedding Surprise. Brooke was in it. Tyler was in it. Becca, Logan, and even my own parents were in it. The only person missing was the groom. My mother had texted the group a few days ago: Ethan gets so anxious and takes things too seriously. Don’t consult him on too many details, it’ll just stress him out. My father had replied: Just get the ceremony done. Let’s not give the relatives anything to gossip about. I stared at those messages, my breathing shallow and tight. When we were kids and Tyler broke my toys, my parents told me to let it go because I was the older, mature one. Now, at my own wedding, they were still asking me to step aside. The front door clicked open. Vanessa walked in, with Logan trailing close behind to help carry her bags. The moment Logan saw me, he offered an easy, pleasant smile, as if last night had never happened. “Hey, Ethan. Still mad at us?” he asked, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “I told you, it was just a stupid game. Vanessa and I have been friends forever, it didn’t mean anything.” He reached out and patted Vanessa’s shoulder. “Go on, work your magic and cheer him up. Don’t let him walk out on you.” He drifted over to the coffee table, picking up the sample bridal bouquet I had ordered. “Honestly, white roses would have been so much more classic,” Logan mused, spinning the stems. “But whatever, Ethan likes lily of the valley, so lily of the valley it is. Just throwing my two cents out there. Don’t let me meddle in your wedding.” My fingers curled into fists. I am severely allergic to roses. The exposure causes hives and throat swelling within minutes. Vanessa knew this. But she avoided my eyes, looking at the flowers instead. “Logan actually has a point. He’s always had great taste. Maybe we should swap them for white roses.” Logan immediately laughed, batting her arm. “Don’t do that, you’ll get me in trouble. Ethan’s going to think I’m bullying him.” They went back and forth, a seamless, well-rehearsed double act that made my very real health risk look like a petty tantrum. I looked at Vanessa. “Is this actually my wedding, or is this just a party you’re throwing for Logan?” Vanessa’s forehead creased in instant irritation. “Ethan, why do you have to sound so incredibly bitter?” she said, her voice sharp. “Logan is just trying to help us out, and you have to twist every single thing into something ugly.” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed her bag and walked out, Logan following her with a quiet, sympathetic look in my direction. My phone buzzed again. It was the wedding coordinator. “Mr. Miller, I’m so sorry to bother you again,” she said, her voice sounding distinctly uncomfortable. “But I wanted to confirm the alterations on the backup suit. Are we still adjusting it to Mr. Foster’s measurements? The note on the file says ‘Interactive Segment Backup.’” I held the phone to my ear, completely speechless. They had already gone ahead and altered a custom suit for Logan, using my wedding budget, right under my nose. I drove straight to the tailor’s shop downtown. When I walked in, Logan was standing in front of the three-way mirror, wearing the tailored white suit. Vanessa was sitting on the plush velvet sofa, her phone held up. Her eyes were fixed entirely on him. Logan spun around, grinning. “Well? Do I look decent?” Vanessa scoffed, though her face was soft. “Terrible. Absolutely hideous.” But as Logan turned back to the mirror, I saw her quickly snap a photo and slide the phone face-down against her knee, acting as if nothing had happened. That small, quiet gesture hurt worse than any insult. It was the proof that she wanted to capture him when he wasn’t looking. When I had tried on my wedding suit, Vanessa had texted me that she was stuck in a corporate meeting and couldn’t make it. I had sent her three photos of different cuts. It took her three hours to reply with a single, dry text: Looks fine. Now, Logan was just fooling around in a backup suit, and she was sitting there, quietly collecting photos of him like a treasure. Logan adjusted the lapel, his tone turning wistful. “Well, I’ll probably never get married anyway. Might as well use Ethan’s big day to play dress-up.” Vanessa frowned. “Don’t say things like that.” Logan smirked. “What? Afraid your husband’s going to get jealous? Fine, fine, I’ll take it off before he catches me.” I walked out from behind the display partition. “Why is there a custom-tailored suit for another man at my wedding?” Logan jumped, his eyes widening. He quickly took two steps toward me, hands raised. “Ethan, seriously, it’s not what you think. I was just helping out to see how the fabric caught the light on camera. Don’t take it the wrong way.” Vanessa stood up from the sofa, her voice tight with irritation. “He’s the best man, Ethan. There’s an interactive segment during the reception where he has to be on stage. What is wrong with him trying on a suit?” Before I could reply, there was a loud, metallic screech. A heavy, freestanding iron garment rack next to the display area wobbled and began to tip directly toward us. Vanessa didn’t hesitate. She lunged forward, throwing her arms around Logan and pulling him flush against her chest as she dragged him out of the way. The heavy iron rack crashed directly into my left shoulder. The sharp edge of a metal hanger sliced deep into my forearm as I fell. The pain came in a slow, hot wave. Blood began to seep through the sleeve of my shirt, dripping onto the polished floor. Logan let out a shaky breath, burying his face in Vanessa’s neck, his shoulders trembling. “Why did you grab me?” he whimpered, though his fingers were locked tightly into her collar. “Ethan was right there. Go check on him.” But he didn’t let go of her. Vanessa was completely focused on him, her hands checking his neck, his arms, her voice laced with panic. “Are you okay? Did it hit you? Talk to me, Logan.” I stood there, holding my bleeding arm, looking at them. My sister and brother chose that exact moment to walk into the shop. Tyler took one look at Logan’s tear-stained face and glared at me. “Ethan, seriously? What did you do to him now?” Brooke’s face went cold. “He was literally just helping you out by trying on a suit, and you had to start a fight over it? No wonder nobody wants to be around you.” Tyler helped Logan stand up, letting out a heavy sigh. “Can’t you just be more like Logan for once? He doesn’t take everything so seriously. He knows how to have fun. That’s why people actually enjoy his company.” “You always look like you’re carrying the weight of the world,” Brooke added, crossing her arms. “Like everyone owes you something.” Vanessa finally turned her head to look at me. Her eyes brushed over my bleeding arm for a fraction of a second before she sighed. “Ethan, you’ve really crossed a line today.” I looked at the four of them standing together. The sheer humiliation and grief in my chest was so heavy I could barely draw a full breath. But I refused to let them see me break. I reached down with my right hand, grabbed the wedding band from my finger, and slid it off. The inner engraving of Logan’s birthday scraped against my skin, cold and mocking. I walked over and placed the ring on the table in front of Vanessa. “Vanessa, we’re done.” The entire boutique went dead silent. Vanessa’s face went pale. “The wedding tomorrow,” I said, my voice quiet but steady. “It’s off.” Vanessa’s eyes darkened, her jaw tightening. “Ethan, think very carefully about what you’re saying. The invitations are sent. Our family and friends are already in town. If you call this off now, do you have any idea how embarrassing that will be for us?” I didn’t answer. Logan let out a soft groan, leaning his head against Tyler’s shoulder, complaining of a sudden headache. Vanessa immediately turned her attention back to him, before casting a cold look at me. “Get yourself under control. I’m taking him to the clinic.” She helped Logan out the door, with Brooke and Tyler hovering closely behind them. Once they were gone, the shop assistant cautiously approached me with a roll of gauze. “Mr. Miller,” she whispered, her voice full of pity. “I think you should know… Ms. Carter paid a rush fee last night. She left instructions that if you didn’t show up tomorrow, the ceremony would proceed with Mr. Foster in the backup suit so the stage wouldn’t look empty.” I stood there, letting her wrap my arm, unable to even find the words to thank her. Every question I had was finally answered. Logan wasn’t some last-minute addition to my wedding. She had already carved out a space for him to take my place. By the time I got back to the townhouse, the bleeding had stopped, but the throbbing pain in my arm was constant. The living room lights were on, but the framed engagement photo that used to hang above the fireplace was gone. In its place was a blown-up print of the photo from the bar lounge—Vanessa and Logan holding their marriage certificates. Tucked into the corner of the frame was a sticky note from Becca: Interactive area display backup. Ethan won’t mind, right? I stood in the quiet room, staring at it. Everyone knew I would mind. They just didn’t care. The tears came then, quiet and unstoppable. I tried to wipe them away, but my sleeve just got damp. This was supposed to be our home, but standing in it, I felt like a trespasser who had stumbled into someone else’s life. On the kitchen island lay the master itinerary for the reception. Under the “Groom’s Entrance” section, there was a highlighted note: Best Friend’s Blessing — Logan enters from the side door in the custom white suit. Groom pulls him onto the main stage for a surprise interactive segment. I wanted to laugh. They hadn’t spent a single second wondering if this “surprise” would strip me of whatever dignity I had left. I went into the bedroom to pack my things. On the nightstand, there was a small velvet box containing a custom boutonnière for the best man. The card attached read: For my most special guy. You belong right next to the bride. The front door clicked open, and the faint scent of hospital antiseptic drifted into the room. Vanessa walked into the bedroom, her face instantly souring when she saw my suitcase on the bed. “Ethan, are you seriously still doing this?” she sighed, throwing her keys onto the dresser. “The ring, the breakup, and now the packing? The wedding is tomorrow morning. Do you really need to drag everyone through this drama?” I picked up the itinerary and slid it across the mattress toward her. “Am I the one making drama?” Vanessa glanced down at it, her expression twisting into annoyance. “It’s a single reception activity, Ethan. It was meant to make the night fun. Can you stop making absolutely everything about yourself?” I lifted my bandaged arm. “I got hurt today, Vanessa. You haven’t even asked if I’m okay.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a sharp breath. “You have a scratch, Ethan. You’re a grown man, you can put a band-aid on. Logan was literally on the verge of a panic attack. Of course I took him to the doctor first.” I looked at her. “If he is at that venue tomorrow, I won’t be.” Vanessa let out a cold, humorless laugh. “Are you actually trying to threaten me with our wedding? The venue is paid for. The caterers are set. The guests are sleeping in their hotel rooms right now. If you don’t show up, you’re only making yourself look incredibly pathetic.” The room fell dead silent. I finally understood. She wasn’t afraid of me walking away. She was just entirely convinced that I didn’t have the courage to do it. Her phone rang. It was Logan. His voice was thin and raspy through the speaker. “Vanessa… I’m okay, seriously. Don’t worry about me. My stomach is just acting up again, probably from the stress. Go take care of Ethan. He’s probably still furious.” “Where are you?” Vanessa asked immediately, her voice instantly dropping its harsh edge. “Just back at my hotel room,” he murmured. “I’ll be fine. I can manage.” Without another word, Vanessa grabbed her car keys. “Vanessa,” I called out. She paused at the door, her shoulders tense with impatience. “What now?” “If you walk out that door tonight,” I said quietly, “don’t bother coming back to marry me tomorrow.” She stood there for three seconds. “Whatever, Ethan.” The door slammed shut. I dragged my garment bag to the front door, along with my suitcase. I took the reception itinerary, tore it clean down the middle, and left it resting on top of the photo of her and Logan. Then I pulled out my phone and texted the wedding coordinator: The ceremony will proceed tomorrow as scheduled. Please officially change the groom’s name to Logan Foster. I stared at the screen for a long time. It felt incredibly fitting. I wasn’t in the planning chats. My ring carried his birthday. The suit was tailored to his frame. The display photo featured his face. Even our families believed they looked better together. If everyone wanted him in that spot, I was happy to let him have it. The coordinator replied almost instantly: Mr. Miller, are you certain? A change of this nature requires official confirmation. I typed back: Yes. Wish them the best. As soon as the text sent, a message from Vanessa popped up: Logan is finally asleep. Stop being childish. I’ll be there to pick you up at eight tomorrow morning. I didn’t reply. I turned off my phone, pulled my suitcase behind me, and walked out of the apartment.

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1 The day of my final background verification for the London transfer, the clerk called me into a small, windowless office. She stared at me across the desk, her expression tight. “Naomi, why didn’t you disclose your marriage and child?” I froze. The fluorescent light hummed overhead, suddenly too loud. “I’m sorry?” I asked, assuming I’d misheard. “I’m twenty-eight. I’m single. I’ve never been married, and I certainly don’t have a child.” The clerk didn’t look convinced. She turned her computer monitor toward me, tapping a manicured finger against the glass. There it was, spelled out in the state database. Marital Status: Married. Spouse: Marcus Brody. Registered three years ago in Clearriver County. Dependents: Milo Brody. Male, age two. Mother of record: Naomi Pendleton. My chest tightened. I stared at my social security number, my date of birth, my childhood address in Clearriver, Ohio. Everything matched. “Are you sure you didn’t just fail to report this?” the clerk asked, her tone shifting from professional to suspicious. A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “Fail to report a husband and a child? How does someone forget a family, ma’am? There’s been a massive mistake.” But bureaucracy doesn’t care about shock. My international transfer was scheduled for next month. My visa, my apartment lease in London, my entire career trajectory—it was all riding on this background check. If they flagged me for falsifying family records, the visa would be denied, and my firm would rescind the offer. I left the immigration office on legs that felt like lead. I called my parents on the drive home. The line crackled. When I demanded to know what was going on, the silence on the other end was deafening. Finally, my mother spoke, her voice low and strained. “Naomi, don’t dig into this. It’s fine. It won’t affect your transfer. We’ll handle it.” “Handle what?” I yelled over the steering wheel. “Mom, there is a child registered under my name!” In the background, I heard my younger sister Audrey’s soft, mocking giggle. “Come on, Naomi. Maybe you just forgot? You always were a little spacey.” I hung up, my hands shaking so hard I almost lost control of the car. I didn’t go back to my apartment. I drove straight through the night to Clearriver, pulling up to the county clerk’s office just as the doors opened. It took me thirty minutes and a fifty-dollar fee to get copies of the marriage file. When the clerk handed me the manila envelope, my fingers were damp with sweat. I pulled out the documents. The marriage application, the photocopy of the driver’s license, the utility bills used for verification. And there, stapled to the corner, was the official marriage photo. The woman in the photo wore a crisp white button-down. Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. She had my nose, my high cheekbones, my exact smile. At first glance, even I felt a sickening jolt of recognition. But I kept looking. When I was seven, I fell off a tire swing and ended up with a jagged scar behind my right ear. It’s mostly hidden by my hair, but if I pull it back into a ponytail, it’s visible from a few feet away. The woman in the photo had perfectly smooth, unblemished skin behind her ear. My heart did a slow, heavy roll in my chest. She was pretending to be me. I flipped to the signature page. Naomi Pendleton. The handwriting was heavy, the loops of the letters dragged out, an almost perfect imitation of my cursive. But I’ve always written the letter ‘P’ with a distinct, disconnected gap at the bottom. The person who signed this paper didn’t know that. I turned the page. My old driver’s license number. My high school graduation photo, lifted from an old yearbook. My mother’s cell phone listed as the emergency contact. A cold sweat broke out across my neck. This wasn’t just identity theft. The call had come from inside the house. I drove to my parents’ home. My mother was standing at the kitchen island, chopping celery for a roast. When I slammed the manila folder onto the granite countertop, the knife slipped, clattering against the wood. “What is this, Mom?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. She looked at the paperwork, then looked away, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Naomi, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s probably a database error. You know how county systems are. I’ll call someone next week and get it sorted.” “A database error?” I pointed at the photo. “That is a photo of a woman who looks exactly like me, wearing my clothes, using my social security number. Who is she, Mom?” Her face went rigid, her voice rising to that sharp, defensive pitch I had heard my entire life whenever I pushed too hard. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? You’re going to London. Focus on your move and stop obsessing over administrative mistakes!” I stared at her. My mother had always been high-strung, but there was something else in her eyes now. Panic. And a deep, suffocating guilt. 2 The next morning, I drove to Clearriver Community Hospital. According to the birth certificate, Milo Brody had been delivered there two years ago. The records department was located in the basement, behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass. I stood there, feeling like a ghost in my own life. Legally, I was the mother of this child. Yet, I had to present my ID and sign three different consent forms just to look at my own supposed medical records. The clerk behind the desk clacked away on her keyboard. “Alright, I see the delivery file from October of 2021.” She printed a two-page summary and slid it under the glass. Patient Name: Naomi Pendleton. Age: 26. Admission: Active labor. Next of Kin present: Frances Pendleton (Mother). Frances. My mother’s name stared back at me in black ink. The room seemed to tilt. My own mother had sat in that recovery room, watching another woman give birth under my name, and had signed her own signature as the grandmother of record. “Is something wrong, sweetie?” the clerk asked, noticing my pale face. “I need the full medical chart,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “The nursing notes, the physical descriptions. Everything.” “I can’t release the full clinical notes without a court order or a formal legal dispute,” she said, her expression softening with pity. I pulled out the letter from the immigration office, the one threatening to revoke my visa application due to fraudulent declarations. “My identity was stolen,” I told her, holding the paper against the glass. “If you don’t give me those files, my attorney will subpoena this entire hospital by Monday morning.” Twenty minutes later, I had a copy of the intake chart. I flipped past the vitals, the epidural dosage, the APGAR scores. On the third page, under the nurse’s shift notes, a small hand-written line caught my eye: Patient has a distinct, three-inch faded burn scar on the inner left wrist from childhood. I dropped the paper onto my lap and lifted my left arm. My wrist was smooth, white, and completely unscarred. But I knew that scar. I had seen it a thousand times. A summer afternoon when we were kids. A boiling kettle sliding off the stove. The sound of screaming, and my mother holding her favorite child, rocking her back and forth on the kitchen floor. Audrey. My stomach churned with a sudden, violent wave of nausea. It was my sister. My phone buzzed in my hand. It was my mother. “Naomi,” she said, her voice frantic, whispering as if someone might hear her. “Are you at the hospital?” I leaned my head against the steering wheel, the vinyl cold against my forehead. “Why, Mom? Did you think the records wouldn’t show your name?” Silence stretched over the line, heavy and suffocating. “Audrey is home,” my mother said, her voice dropping all pretense. “She wants to see you. She’s missed you, Naomi. Please. Just come home and let’s talk about this as a family.” My sister, the golden child. The girl who could do no wrong, who had spent her entire life being shielded from the consequences of her own chaos while I paid the bills. I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. “I’m not coming home, Mom.” 3 I didn’t go back to my parents’ house. Instead, I drove to the address listed on Milo’s birth certificate. It was a quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac on the wealthier side of town. The townhouses were new, with manicured lawns and double-car garages. A sleek black SUV was parked in the driveway. I sat in my car for thirty minutes, watching the front door. Eventually, a man walked out. He was in his mid-thirties, wearing a designer grey jacket and a heavy gold watch that caught the afternoon sun. He carried a little boy on his hip. I got out of my car and closed the door. The man stopped when he saw me. He didn’t look startled. Instead, a slow, mocking smile spread across his face. “Naomi,” he said, adjusting the toddler on his hip. “You got here faster than I thought you would.” “Marcus Brody?” I asked. “The one and only,” he said smoothly. He set the boy down on the grass, letting him play with a small toy truck. “The marriage license,” I said, stepping closer. “The birth certificate. How did you pull this off?” Marcus leaned back against the hood of his SUV, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one, taking a slow drag before blowing the smoke over my head. “The paperwork is real. The signatures are notarized. If you want to argue with the state database, be my guest. But right now, on paper, you’re my wife. And that’s my son.” “I wasn’t even in the country when that license was signed,” I spat. “Then go prove that to your immigration officers,” he sneered. “Go tell them your whole family is a bunch of liars. See how fast they cancel your visa. I don’t care. But I’ll make you a deal. You want to go to London? Great. Sponsor my visa. Take us with you. Or, if you want me to disappear, pay me. I know what they’re paying you over there. You can afford it.” I had never felt such a pure, visceral disgust for another human being. “You are completely delusional.” Marcus’s smile vanished, his eyes turning cold. “Don’t get cute with me, Naomi. Your sister—” He caught himself, stopping mid-sentence. “My sister what?” I demanded. The two-year-old boy on the grass suddenly looked up. He had Audrey’s wide, doe-like eyes and a head of soft brown curls. He stared at me for a long moment, then toddled over, reaching his small, dirt-stained hands toward my jeans. “Mommy,” he chirped. “Mommy, hold.” The word felt like a physical blow. I flinched, stepping back. “Don’t—don’t call me that.” The boy’s face puckered, his lower lip trembling. Marcus laughed, a dry, ugly sound. “See? Even the kid knows his mother. Who is a judge going to believe? You, or your own son?” “We’re doing a DNA test,” I said, my voice shaking with rage. Marcus raised an eyebrow. “What?” “We’re going to a clinic. Right now,” I pointed at the boy. “If he isn’t mine, you’re going to sign whatever paperwork my lawyer drafts to clear my name, and then you’re going to rot in a cell.” He stared at me for a few seconds, measuring my resolve. Then, he shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Three days later, I was back at the county testing center. I had barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that little boy’s face, calling me a name I had never earned. Marcus was already in the waiting room, holding Milo, who was fast asleep against his shoulder. He looked entirely unbothered. The technician called my name and handed me the sealed envelope. I tore it open, my chest aching with tension. My eyes skipped down to the final bolded line of the report. The biological relationship between the tested parties, Naomi Pendleton and Milo Brody, is confirmed. My vision blurred. The room spun. No. No, no, no. This is impossible. Marcus leaned over my shoulder, catching sight of the paper. He let out a low, satisfied whistle. “Well, look at that. Mother of the year.” 4 My hands were shaking so violently I almost dropped the papers. But as I clutched the envelope, a loose sheet of pink paper slid out from behind the main report. It was a supplementary lab note. My eyes scrambled across the text, landing on a paragraph near the bottom. Addendum: Genetic analysis indicates a first-degree familial relationship consistent with an aunt-nephew or sibling-sibling match. Testing does not support a direct maternal-offspring relationship. The air rushed back into my lungs. Marcus saw my face change. His smug grin faltered. “What? What does it say?” He snatched the paper from my hands, his eyes darting across the lines. His face turned a sickly, mottled grey. “This is bullshit. What does this mean?” The lab technician, who had been watching us from behind the counter, spoke up gently. “It means that while you share a significant amount of DNA with the child, you are not his mother, Ms. Pendleton. Biologically, you are likely his aunt.” An aunt. Audrey’s child. I stared at the wall, the pieces finally locking into place. The white shirt. The burn scar. My mother’s desperation. My father’s silence. They had stolen my name to hide Audrey’s pregnancy, allowing her to keep her perfect, unblemished life while using me as a shield. Marcus tried to pull the boy away and head for the exit, but I stepped in front of him, blocking the door. “You knew,” I whispered. “You knew the whole time.” “Get out of my way, Naomi,” he growled. “Is she the one who paid you? My sister?” Marcus didn’t answer, but the muscle jumping in his jaw was all the confirmation I needed. I drove back to my parents’ house in a daze of cold fury. When I pushed the front door open, the house was quiet. In the living room, Audrey was standing in front of a full-length mirror, draped in a delicate blush-pink silk dress. It was her engagement gown. Next month, she was marrying Garrett Lindon, a young, ambitious attorney from a wealthy local family. Her Instagram had been a non-stop parade of engagement photos, diamond rings, and captions about “finding her forever.” She saw me in the mirror and froze. her smile faltered, but she quickly tried to recover. “Naomi! You’re finally home. Look at this dress, isn’t the lace beautiful?” “Whose baby is Milo, Audrey?” The room went dead silent. The earring she had been trying to put in slipped from her fingers, clinking softly against the hardwood floor. My mother burst out of the kitchen, her face pale. “Naomi! Stop this! What is wrong with you?” I threw the DNA report onto the glass coffee table. It landed with a sharp slap. “The baby has my DNA, but he isn’t mine. There’s only one other person in this family who could have had him.” No one spoke. My father, Arthur, was sitting in his armchair in the corner. He slowly put down the television remote, his face aging ten years in an instant. Audrey’s eyes filled with tears. She took a step toward me, her hands trembling. “Naomi… please. Don’t do this.” A wave of pure disgust washed over me. It was always this face. The tearful, helpless younger sister. When she crashed my car in college, she cried, and my parents blamed me for lending it to her. When she stole money from my purse, she cried, and they told me I was being greedy. And now, she had stolen my legal identity to hide a secret child, and she was still asking me not to “do this.” “Three years ago,” I said, my voice echoing in the quiet room. “Did you sign my name on that marriage certificate?” She shook her head, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I didn’t want to. I swear, Naomi, I didn’t want to.” I let out a harsh, dry laugh. “Then who wore my shirt? Who went to the hospital under my name? Who gave birth to a child and let them write Naomi Pendleton on the birth certificate?” My mother lunged toward the table, her hands reaching for the DNA report, her fingers clawing at the paper to rip it up. I grabbed her wrist, stopping her mid-air. “Don’t,” I said. My mother gasped, staring at me as if I were a stranger. I had never laid a hand on her, never spoken to her with such cold authority. My father finally spoke, his voice heavy. “Naomi, it’s done. It happened three years ago. Bringing it all up now… it doesn’t help anyone.” “Who does it help, Dad?” I asked, turning to him. “Does it help me? Or does it just keep her safe?” He couldn’t look me in the eye. My mother broke down, weeping against the back of the sofa. “Audrey was so young! She was just starting her life. If she had a child out of wedlock with a man like Marcus, her career would have been over before it started. She would have never met Garrett. You… you were already established. You were living in Chicago. We didn’t think anyone would ever find out!” “So you gave her my life,” I said. “You let her use me as a shield.” “We thought it was just temporary,” my mother sobbed. “We thought you were far away. It wasn’t supposed to affect you.” “Where was I when you registered that marriage?” I asked. Audrey looked down, silent. “I was in Singapore,” I said. “On a three-week corporate audit. I have the passport stamps. I have the hotel receipts. And the day Milo was born? I was on a high-security clearance project at my firm’s headquarters. I have security badge logs proving I didn’t leave the building for sixteen days.” My dad stood up, his face tight with panic. “Naomi, what are you trying to say?” “I’m saying,” I said, picking up the DNA report and sliding it back into my bag, “that I am going to the police. And I am going to clear my name.” Audrey fell to her knees, grabbing the hem of my jeans. “Naomi, please! Garrett’s family is so traditional. If they find out about Milo, the wedding is off! I’ll lose everything!” I looked down at her, my heart entirely cold. “Then you should have thought about that before you stole my name.”

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1 The party was already in full swing, though a few people had yet to arrive. The private dining room of the upscale downtown bistro hummed with the clinking of wine glasses and the low, gossiping murmur of old high school classmates. “Is it true? Are Ethan Hayes and Isla Mercer really getting engaged?” “Oh, absolutely. I heard Ethan recognized her as his childhood savior specifically because of that unique red birthmark near the corner of her eye.” The speaker suddenly turned toward me, their eyes scanning my face with casual curiosity. “Hey, Audrey, didn’t you use to have a mark just like that? Right near your eye?” “Yeah, but hers was on the wrong side. No luck in that one anyway. Good thing you had it lasered off.” My fingers instinctively drifted to the outer corner of my left eye, touching the smooth, slightly sensitive skin. Before I flew back to the States, my father had called me. He reminded me that Isla was a rising social media influencer now, a public figure. “You two look eighty percent alike,” he had said, his voice flat and unyielding over the transatlantic line. “We can’t have you walking around with the exact same mark. It’ll cause confusion. Get it removed before you board the plane.” I had always preferred quiet compliance to endless, exhausting arguments. So, I went to a clinic in Lisbon and had it burned away. Suddenly, someone near the door gasped. “Isla’s here!” The chatter died down instantly, replaced by a collective rustle of heads turning toward the entrance. Isla Mercer walked in, her hand slipped elegantly through Ethan Hayes’s arm. She hadn’t changed at all. She still possessed that rare, effortless magnetism that commanded every eye in the room the moment she stepped across a threshold. Ethan stood beside her, tall and striking in a tailored charcoal suit. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his features were sharp, his gaze cool and composed. He looked far more grounded and formidable than he had three years ago. When his eyes swept across the room, my body reacted before my mind did, and I lowered my head. Only after a second did I realize how foolish that was. We had dated online for an entire year, but he had never once seen my face. To him, I was just a ghost in a locked drawer. Isla let go of Ethan’s arm and glided toward me, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood floor. Before I could move, she threw her arms around me, wrapping me in a suffocating cloud of expensive floral perfume. “Audrey! Oh my god, when did you get back?” I gently but firmly pulled my arm out of her grasp. “Just landed a couple of days ago.” The lighting in the private room was dim, but Isla’s eyes locked onto the corner of my left eye. She stared at the faint, pinkish mark for two long seconds before a satisfied smile curved her lips. “By the way, Audrey,” she said, leaning in as if sharing a precious secret, “Ethan and I are getting engaged next month.” “Congratulations,” I said quietly. “Dad was saying it wouldn’t look right for the younger sister to marry first while the older one is still single,” she continued, her voice dripping with performative concern. “So he asked me to keep an eye out for you. And honestly, Ethan and Dad found someone perfect.” She tilted her head, her eyes sparkling. “He’s an Ivy League grad, comes from a wonderful family. He was a little hesitant at first because of your… well, your overpriced, one-year master’s from Europe. But I used some of my connections to convince him to give you a chance.” I didn’t tell her that the “overpriced degree” was a fully funded master’s from one of the top business schools in Europe, or that I had already signed a lucrative contract with a top-tier consulting firm in the city. I didn’t say anything at all. I simply unlocked my phone and began reviewing a spreadsheet my supervisor had sent over. Isla’s smile faltered, her brow furrowing into a look of delicate distress. “Audrey, please don’t let your stubborn pride make things difficult for the family. You don’t want people whispering about how hard it is to marry you off, do you?” I nodded slowly, not looking up from my screen. “Whatever you say, Isla.” She froze, clearly caught off guard by my lack of resistance. Before she could press further, Ethan approached from behind, his hand settling naturally on her waist. He didn’t bother looking at me. “Let’s not waste our evening on irrelevant people, Isla,” he said, his tone smooth but dismissive. “Come on, everyone’s waiting for us.” I kept my eyes on my phone, my fingertips tightening against the glass screen until they turned white. We all took our seats around the long mahogany table. The wine flowed, the laughter grew louder, and the room warmed with nostalgia and easy camaraderie. Ethan didn’t speak much. Most of the time, he simply sat back, his arm draped over the back of Isla’s chair, his thumb occasionally tracing the small, crimson birthmark at the corner of her right eye. It was an intimate, practiced gesture. At one point, a classmate across the table mentioned that they were planning to marry someone they had met on a dating app. The table erupted into playful teasing. Isla seemed to think of something. She turned her head, looking at me with a sweet, speculative expression. “Speaking of online dating… Audrey, didn’t you have a serious online relationship back in high school?” She tapped her chin, her eyes wide. “I remember you mentioning he went to Oakhaven High, too.” The glass in Ethan’s hand paused mid-air. He slowly looked over, his sharp, dark eyes fixing on me with genuine attention for the very first time. Isla blinked innocently, her voice carrying over the din of the room. “Whatever happened to him anyway? Why did you guys break up?” 2 Honestly, the details of that final day had become somewhat blurred over the years. I only remembered the agonizing anxiety of the night before we were supposed to meet. I had been a knot of teenage insecurity, terrified that the real-world version of me—the quiet, bruised girl who hid in the back of the library—would disappoint him. And then, my phone had lit up with a notification. It was a photo of Isla, smiling brilliantly under the streetlights. My breath had caught in my throat. For a wild, terrifying second, I thought he had somehow connected the dots and discovered who I was. I clutched my skirt, my heart hammering against my ribs. But the next message was a notification for a wire transfer. One hundred thousand dollars. Don’t contact me again, he had written. I don’t want her to know you exist. This money is for your trouble, and for your silence. He wrote that he had finally found his savior—the girl with the red birthmark near her eye. I had one too. But mine was on the left. I didn’t argue. I didn’t try to explain that Isla’s birthmark was on her right eye, or that she had never set foot in the neighborhood where he had been hurt. I simply accepted the transfer, logged out of the account, and put the old phone in a box at the bottom of my closet. Until the very end, he never knew that the girl who had spent a year listening to his darkest fears, the girl who had pulled him back from the edge of his own teenage despair, was the quiet outcast sitting three rows behind him in study hall. To this day, I still couldn’t comprehend how Isla had convinced him she was his savior. Isla, who had spent two years ensuring my high school experience was a living hell, was somehow his angel. Shortly after we broke up, Ethan’s name was everywhere. He graduated at the top of our class, went to an Ivy League university, and eventually built a tech empire that made him one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. During a high-profile media interview, he had publicly declared his devotion to Isla, crediting her with saving his life when they were teenagers. I had turned off my phone that day and never searched his name again. I used to think Ethan’s departure would be a permanent rainstorm in my life—a damp, cold ache I could never escape. But then I took that hundred thousand dollars and moved to Portugal. In Lisbon, the sun was generous. It shone for over three hundred days a year, warming even the coldest winters. I spent my days studying, drinking cheap espresso on cobblestone streets, and slowly untangling myself from my family. I forgot the sound of Ethan’s voice. I became the top student in my department. I truly believed that three years of endless sunshine had dried out the old wounds. But sitting in this dim room, feeling the weight of his gaze, I realized some dampness settles deep in the marrow. At the first sign of rain, it starts to seep back out. 3 Ethan’s gaze remained fixed on me, intense and searching. “Oakhaven High?” The silence stretched between us, so tense I could hear the hum of the air conditioner. For a fleeting, terrifying moment, I wondered if he was finally putting the pieces together. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, his expression returning to its usual cool composure. “What was his username? Maybe I know him.” I forced a small, indifferent smile and took a sip of my water. “I don’t even remember. It was just an online thing. No real feelings involved.” He nodded slowly, his posture relaxing. “Right. Just an online thing.” The classmates around us lost interest, disappointed by the lack of drama, and began chatting about other things. But someone else turned back to Ethan. “Hey, Ethan, didn’t you have an online phase too? Come on, tell us the story!” Isla puffed out her cheeks in a mock pout, nudging his shoulder. Ethan let out a soft laugh, his eyes softening as he looked down at her. “Yeah, I did. Briefly.” He reached up, his fingers gently brushing the hair away from her right temple, his thumb settling on her birthmark. “But it didn’t mean anything. I spent years looking for Isla, and when I couldn’t find her, I got lonely. It was a compromise. Just settling.” “And what happened?” someone asked. His expression darkened slightly, a shadow crossing his eyes. “Eventually, I realized that settling is just a waste of time. Luckily, I found the person I was actually looking for.” My throat felt tight, dry. “Oh my god, that is so romantic,” a classmate squealed. “Ethan, you are literally a saint. And Isla, you are so lucky! I saw on social media that you were just named the national ambassador for the anti-bullying foundation. Even our high school alumni page posted a congratulatory banner for you!” Isla waved her hands quickly, her cheeks flushing with a perfect, humble pink. “Oh, stop, it’s really nothing. The foundation just wanted someone who could raise awareness.” Ethan’s tech firm was the talk of the city, and Isla was his beautiful, philanthropic fiancée. I knew all of this from the news. But hearing it in person made me feel entirely hollow. I leaned slightly toward the girl sitting next to me. “Is that… is that real? The anti-bullying thing?” She looked at me as if I had asked if the earth was flat. “Of course it’s real. It’s been trending on Twitter all week. Isla’s been getting endorsement deals left and right because of her clean image. Ethan’s supposedly planning a massive public proposal at the foundation’s annual gala next week.” I lowered my gaze, staring at the faint scar on the palm of my hand. I had physical scars on my shoulders, my ankles, and my lower back. And then there were the ones etched so deeply into my mind that no amount of Portuguese sunshine could ever fade them. I could still hear the sound of the metal bucket scraping against the concrete floor of the high school bathroom stall. I could still feel the freezing water soaking through my thin cotton shirt as I shivered on the tiles, listening to their laughter outside. I remembered going to my father, crying, showing him the bruises on my arms. He had sat at the kitchen table, refusing to meet my eyes. “You’re the reason your mother is dead, Audrey,” he had whispered, his voice heavy and dead. “If Isla needs to blow off some steam, just let her. Is it really necessary to run to your teachers and make a scene?” Isla and I weren’t twins, but we shared a birth week, and my father always insisted on celebrating only hers. One year, I had wanted my own cake. My mother had driven out in a storm to get it for me. She never made it back. That night, my father lost his wife, and Isla lost her mother. And I became the murderer. For the next three years, Isla made sure I paid for it. And now, she was the national face of anti-bullying. 4 As the dinner ended and people began to say their goodbyes, Isla walked over to me, a sweet, pitying smile on her face. “Audrey, let us give you a ride. It’s late, and you probably don’t have a car yet.” I stared at the remaining fruit platter on the table, the alcohol from earlier settling into a dull, throbbing headache behind my eyes. I felt incredibly tired. Ethan stepped up behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder as he looked down at me with cold indifference. “Don’t bother, Isla. Some people will never appreciate your kindness, no matter how hard you try.” I didn’t bother correcting him. Once the group dispersed onto the sidewalk, the class president, Lucas, noticed how pale I looked and offered to drive me home. I thanked him quietly, too exhausted to make polite conversation during the ride. My rented apartment was dark and quiet when I let myself in. I lay on the sofa for a long time, staring at the ceiling, before I finally stood up and walked over to the bedroom chest of drawers. Deep in the back, behind a stack of winter sweaters, was a small, dusty box. Inside lay the cheap smartphone I had used in high school. It was the phone that held all my conversations with Ethan. Back then, he was the only one who knew what I was going through, even though I had never told him the bully was my own sister. He had spent hours messaging me, repeating the same words over and over: “Bullying is bullying, Audrey. It doesn’t become a joke just because she shares your DNA.” His words had given me the courage to start secretly recording the incidents. I had saved dozens of audio files and videos. But in the end, I had remembered my mother’s final text to me: Take care of your sister. I had kept the files locked away, never showing them to anyone. I plugged the old phone into a charger and waited for the screen to light up. I scrolled through the old files until I found one labeled June 12th. I pressed play. My teenage voice, raw and choked with tears, filled the quiet room. “I didn’t know Mom would crash. She was my mother too! Do you think I don’t miss her?” Then came Isla’s sharp, cruel laugh. “Shut up. A murderer doesn’t get to call her Mom. Grab her hair, girls. Keep her down. Just don’t leave any marks where Dad can see them.” I hit the stop button, my chest heaving, my throat tight. I remembered telling Ethan back then that I didn’t want to expose her, expecting him to call me weak or foolish. But he had only sent a long paragraph: “That’s okay. Nobody has the right to force you to be a hero. If your mother were here, she would just want you to be safe.” But keeping quiet now felt like a betrayal of the girl who had shivered on that bathroom floor. I sat at my desk, opened a secondary social media account, and uploaded a single screenshot of the audio file’s wave format along with a fifteen-second clip of Isla’s voice. I wrote one sentence: How can a bully be an anti-bullying ambassador? Then, I hit post.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “543128”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 The moment I stepped through the wrought-iron gates of the university after years living abroad, a wall of bodies blocked my path. The girl leading the pack held herself with a razor-thin, aggressive arrogance, surrounded by a court of sycophants who addressed her with sickening deference as “Miss Hayes.” Her eyes locked onto the limited-edition leather handbag on my arm, her lip curling into a sneer. “So you’re the cheap little thing using your face to seduce my brother? You really had the nerve to intercept the bag I ordered?” The ring of lackeys instantly took their cue, closing in like vultures. “Gold-diggers these days—they’ll do anything for cash!” “Trying to claw your way into the Hayes family is one thing, but stealing from Nina? Do you have any idea who she is? She’s the Hayes heiress!” “Hand over the bag and get on your knees to apologize, or we’ll make sure you’re expelled before the semester even starts!” Listening to them shower the girl at the center with relentless, rehearsed flattery, a cold laugh bubbled up in my chest. She’s the Hayes heiress? Then who on earth am I? I pulled out my phone, my fingers flying across the screen as I shot a message to my brother, Harrison. When did Mom and Dad have a third child? How come I didn’t know I had a little sister? Harrison’s reply came back almost instantly. Did jet lag completely fry your brain? Mom and Dad only have the two of us. Where the hell would a third kid come from? I glanced up from the screen, surveying the girl in front of me. Her makeup was meticulously applied, designed to project an aura of unapproachable wealth, yet there wasn’t a single shred of family resemblance in her features or her posture. A vague suspicion began to take shape in my mind, but I typed out another text to Harrison anyway. Well, if there isn’t a third child, why am I currently cornered at the campus gate by a ‘Miss Hayes’ and her personal mob? The chat bubble bounced with “Harrison is typing…” for a long, agonizing moment before a wall of frantic text flooded my screen. Miss Hayes? You didn’t run into Nina Frost, did you? Jesus Christ, I am so sick of her! She’s doing the heiress act again? Just because Mom and Dad took pity on her and paid her tuition for a few years, she actually convinced herself she’s a Hayes! It’s all because Mom has a soft heart. Every time Nina pulls out the waterworks and plays the tragic orphan, Mom melts and lets her get away with using our family name to strut around town. Audrey, ignore her. If she steps out of line or tries to get in your face, just put her in her place! That’s what I always do. I had known about the underprivileged student my parents were sponsoring. Back then, I was living in London, taking care of our aging grandparents, while Harrison was constantly traveling for work. We were both worried our parents would feel lonely in an empty house, so we encouraged the idea, thinking it would be nice for them to have a young person around to keep them company. I had assumed the girl would be quiet, modest, and at least somewhat grateful. I certainly hadn’t expected her to use the Hayes reputation to terrorize people on campus. Reading Harrison’s breathless tirade, it was clear his patience with Nina Frost had run out long ago. The image of my usually untouchable brother being exasperated by a fake heiress was almost absurd enough to be funny. Seeing me staring down at my phone instead of cowering, Nina’s eyes flashed with anger. She snapped her fingers at one of her followers. The girl caught the signal immediately, lunging forward with her hand raised, aiming a hard slap at my face. I took a sharp step back, dodging the blow effortlessly, and raised an eyebrow at Nina. “What’s the rush? Don’t you want to check your phone first?” Before Nina could snap back, the cell phone in her coat pocket broke into a sharp, loud ring. Her gaze dropped to the screen, and for a fraction of a second, her face froze. But she recovered quickly, smoothing her expression into a triumphant, self-assured smirk. She tapped the screen and brought the phone to her ear, taking the offensive before the caller could utter a word. “Harrison! You won’t believe how rude that new girlfriend of yours is being to me! She’s acting like this already, so imagine how unbearable she’ll be once she thinks she’s established! Are you calling because she ran to you with some fake sob story?” Her calculated performance was cut short by my brother’s furious voice booming through the speaker, loud enough for half the crowd to hear. “Nina, what kind of delusional garbage is coming out of your mouth?! Do you have any idea who Audrey is?! Apologize to her right now!” Nina hadn’t anticipated that her carefully constructed narrative would be met with total rage. Her face turned pale, her tone instantly shifting to a pathetic, wounded whine. “Harrison, I’m saying this for your own good! She’s just a gold-digger! Why can’t you see through her? Just because our family has money doesn’t mean we should let a woman like her throw it around! You should be making her apologize to me and hand over that bag! If you don’t, I’m calling Mom right now to tell her everything, and I’m never speaking to you again!” 2 In the past, whenever Nina and Harrison bumped heads, she would run straight to our mother, weeping and playing the helpless victim until my mother forced Harrison to apologize. Because it had worked every single time, Nina was utterly convinced that invoking our mother’s name was her ultimate trump card. Hearing her bring up our mother again lit a fuse inside Harrison. “Nina, have you completely lost your mind?” he spat into the receiver. “Go ahead. Call Mom. I’d love to see if she takes your side this time!” The line went dead with a harsh click. The silence that followed was suffocating. Seeing Harrison’s furious reaction, the followers standing around Nina began to shift uncomfortably. Harrison Hayes was the publicly acknowledged heir to the Hayes empire. Even if Nina was the prized daughter of the family, none of them wanted to risk standing on the wrong side of the future CEO. Nina’s eyes brimmed with tears of humiliation and rage. Looking at her hesitant, cowering lackeys, she gritted her teeth and stomped her heel against the pavement. Realizing she had lost her leverage for the moment, she glared at me with pure venom and turned on her heel to leave. “Wait,” I called out, my voice cutting through the quiet. “Your name is Nina Frost, right?” I paused, letting my gaze drift over her. “If you’re the great Hayes heiress… why isn’t your last name Hayes?” A flicker of panic crossed her face, but she forced her chin up, adopting a sneer of supreme superiority. “What would someone like you know about high society? I took my mother’s maiden name!” “My parents are deeply in love,” she added smoothly, regaining her footing. “They decided long ago that one child would take my father’s surname, and the other would take my mother’s.” It took everything in me not to laugh out loud. My parents were deeply in love, but they certainly never made an agreement like that. My father’s name was Richard Hayes, and my mother’s name was Eleanor Hayes. Whether a child took the father’s name or the mother’s, the result was precisely the same. Nina was clearly banking on the fact that my mother preferred to stay out of the public eye, assuming almost no one on campus knew her full maiden name, allowing her to spin whatever ridiculous narrative she pleased. I forced down the amusement threatening to break through and tilted my head in mock confusion. “Is that so? That’s funny—I could have sworn the matriarch of the Hayes family wasn’t named Frost. Did I remember it wrong?” Hearing me reference her benefactor’s real background, Nina’s composure cracked for a split second. But then she seemed to remind herself that a girl like me—someone she had already categorized as a middle-class climber—couldn’t possibly have access to the inner circles of the elite. She bolstered her courage, leaning in close with a harsh glare. “I am the daughter of the Hayes family. Do you really think you know my mother’s name better than I do? Who are you to question me?” “Let me tell you something,” she hissed. “As long as I say no, you will never, ever step foot through the doors of the Hayes estate!” Fearful that I might call Harrison back and expose her further, she spat out her warning and swept away, her followers trailing nervously behind her. I didn’t bother stopping her. At the end of the day, Nina Frost was nothing more than a student my family funded out of charity. Once I got home and laid out the afternoon’s antics in front of my mother, Nina’s true colors would be laid bare. Once the funding was cut, she would fade back into obscurity, never crossing paths with my family again. When I returned to the family estate after my afternoon classes, our long-time housekeeper, Martha, informed me that my mother was surprisingly tied up at the corporate headquarters, managing a rare late-night board meeting. My father, on the other hand, had returned early. The moment he saw me walk into the foyer, he beamed and hustled me straight into his study. “Audrey! Harrison told me everything. You’re back for good this time, right?” He pulled out the leather armchair behind his massive oak desk, ushering me into it with frantic enthusiasm. “This is fantastic. Now that you’re finishing your degree locally, you can start taking over the company operations step by step! Once you can handle the board on your own, I can finally retire and take it easy.” He patted my shoulder briskly. “Sit, sit! Look over these quarterlies, sweetheart. Dad’s going to fetch you some fresh fruit.” I looked down at the mountain of financial audits and corporate filings stacked neatly on the desk, feeling an affectionate, exasperated sigh build in my throat. He was practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of dumping his entire workload onto his daughter. Resigned, I sat down and began leafing through the balance sheets. When my father returned carrying a crystal bowl of freshly cut fruit, his smile widened into a warm, doting grin at the sight of me immersed in the files. 3 He set the bowl down beside my elbow, immediately stepping behind my chair to work out the knots in my shoulders before dropping down to rub my calves. “Oh, my hard-working Audrey,” he coaxed gently. “Reviewing financial statements is exhausting. Come on, let Dad feed you a bite of melon.” I leaned back, turning my head to take the piece of fruit he was holding out, when a faint, metallic click echoed from the doorway. Snap. My head jerked toward the noise just in time to see a flash of a phone camera and a dark silhouette sprinting away down the corridor. It was Nina. I frowned, watching the empty doorway, before turning to my father. “Is Nina Frost living here?” My father nodded, completely unbothered as he picked up another slice of fruit. “The girl mentioned that staying here made her commute to the university easier. Your mother was feeling a bit lonely with the house so quiet, so she agreed to let her use the guest wing.” I gave a silent nod, letting the matter rest for the moment. The decision to support Nina had been my mother’s; it was only right that I discuss her behavior with my mother directly. When my mother finally returned late that evening, she wrapped me in a suffocating embrace the second she walked through the door. She spent the next two hours fussing over my health, asking about my flight, and plying me with tea, completely overwhelming me with maternal fussing until the topic of Nina slid right out of my mind. It wasn’t until the following afternoon, when I ran into Nina on campus, that the situation flared back up. I had assumed that after Harrison’s sharp rebuke the day before, Nina would have the sense to keep her distance. Instead, she cornered me right outside the lecture hall, creating a scene in front of dozens of gathering students. “You shameless little parasite!” she shrieked, her voice echoing down the corridor. “I knew you were after my family’s money! How can anyone be so disgusting? It wasn’t enough for you to crawl around my brother—now you’re going after my father?!” She pointed a trembling, manic finger at my face. “I thought if Harrison really fell for you, I’d swallow my pride and tolerate you! But you actually had the nerve to lay a trap for my dad! If I don’t put you in your place today on behalf of my mother, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself!” Her outburst caused an instant stir. Even the classmates standing beside her exchanged bewildered glances. “Nina, are you serious?” one of her friends whispered loudly. “It’s one thing to go after Harrison, but Mr. Richard Hayes? He’s old enough to be her father! Why would she…” A dark, vicious spark glinted in Nina’s eyes. She let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Why wouldn’t she? You don’t know what these gold-diggers are capable of when there’s a fortune on the line! They have zero shame!” “You think I’m making this up?” she bellowed, her voice reaching a crescendo as she ripped an envelope from her bag and slung a stack of glossy photographs into the air. “I saw it with my own eyes! I have proof!” The photo prints scattered across the floor. I glanced down at the one that landed near my shoe. It was the shot she had snuck from the doorway of my father’s study. Taken from a low, angled perspective through the cracked door, the framing was maliciously deceptive: it made it look as though I was lounging in my father’s lap while he tenderly fed me fruit. The surrounding students scrambled to pick up the pictures, and as they took in the images, the looks thrown in my direction shifted from curiosity to sharp, disgust-laden judgment. “Gross… she must be completely desperate for money.” “She’s got a pretty face, but she’s using it to pull something this vile? Seducing the son wasn’t enough, so she moved on to the father?” “Does she think Mrs. Hayes is dead or something? She’s not going to wind up rich; she’s going to wind up in prison.” Listening to the whispers spiral into increasingly absurd accusations, my jaw tightened. I opened my mouth, intent on ending the delusion by declaring my actual identity. Before I could speak, a blur of motion lunged from my side. PAK! A sharp, stinging blow cracked across my left cheek, forcing my head to the side. I froze, the sting radiating across my skin. In my entire life, protected and cherished by a family that adored me, no one had ever laid a finger on me. The shock lasted half a second before raw, blinding rage swept through my veins. Abandoning any thought of diplomatic explanations, I surged forward, grabbing Nina by the collar of her jacket and shoving her back with enough force to send her crashing against the row of lockers. Her lackeys snapped out of their stupor and rushed forward, their hands grabbing at my arms, trying to pin me down. But having spent my formative years riding horses and training with private instructors in Europe, I wasn’t about to be manhandled by a group of entitled college bullies. Ignoring the stray scratches and blows landing on my shoulders, I twisted out of their grip, reached over, grabbed Nina by the hair, and landed a hard, solid right hook square across her face. The hallway dissolved into chaos. Screams, gasps, and the scraping of metal lockers echoed off the walls. The professor standing at the podium tried to yell over the din, but seeing that the fight was rapidly escalating out of control, he scrambled for his phone and dialed the Academic Dean. The Dean arrived within minutes, shouting for everyone to stop, but the crowd was too dense and chaotic for his voice to carry weight. Panicked, he pulled out his phone and dialed the emergency contact listed on Nina’s primary file—my mother. The moment the call connected, Nina, her face bruised and her hair a tangled mess, threw herself toward the phone and let out a blood-curdling wail. “Mom! You have to come right now! I caught Dad’s mistress on campus, and she’s trying to kill me!” 4 My mother, of course, didn’t believe for a second that my father was having an affair. But hearing the Dean’s panicked, vague summary that Nina had gotten into a violent physical altercation with another female student, she immediately dropped everything and rushed to the campus. By the time she arrived, the faculty had managed to pull us apart. The Dean stood between us, his brow furrowed deep with frustration as he tried to piece together the situation. Nina, tears streaming down her bruised cheeks, launched into her grievance with tragic theatricality. “Dean Campbell! I didn’t start this fight—she drove me to it!” she sobbed, clutching her chest. “Any daughter who sees a home-wrecker flaunting herself in front of her family would lose control!” She snatched one of the scattered photographs off the floor and thrust it under the Dean’s nose. “Look at this! Look at what she was doing with my father!” Dean Campbell took the photo, glancing down at the image. His brows pulled together tighter, a look of profound discomfort crossing his features. He turned to me, his breath drawing in as if preparing to deliver a stern reprimand. “Dean Campbell,” I interrupted, my tone icy cold as I met his eyes. “Before you say anything, I suggest you pull up my university enrollment profile.” The Dean hesitated, catching the absolute authority in my voice. Dubious, he pulled his tablet from under his arm, logged into the administrative portal, and brought up my student file. He skimmed the first few lines. Then his eyes widened. He looked at the digital file—listing my full legal name, Audrey Hayes, and my parents, Richard and Eleanor Hayes—and then looked back up at Nina, his face instantly draining of color. His posture shifted from irritation to absolute fury as he turned on Nina. “What is the meaning of this spectacle?! You know nothing, yet you’re standing in a university hallway publicly fabricating filthy lies about another student! Do you realize this is defamation? Do you realize you can be prosecuted?!” Nina staggered back, stunned by the sudden turn of hostility from the administration. “Dean Campbell! What are you talking about?! Have you lost your mind?!” “She is destroying my family!” Nina screamed, her voice cracking with desperation. “How can you stand there and accuse me of lying?! I saw her with my own eyes! Is she paying you off?! Did she bribe you, or are you just too terrified of my father to punish his little side-piece?!” Dean Campbell, having just confirmed my identity, knew with absolute certainty that I was no mistress—I was the legitimate, blood heiress of the Hayes family. In the past, whenever Nina paraded around campus calling herself “Miss Hayes,” the administration had assumed it was a private family matter regarding a distant relative or an unacknowledged branch, choosing not to pry into the personal lives of their primary benefactors. Now, looking at the real heiress standing bruised in front of him, the hideous truth was painfully obvious. The fake heiress had walked right up to the real one and attacked her in broad daylight. Yet Nina remained entirely blind to the reality crashing down around her, her arrogance driving her deeper into the trap. “Don’t you know who I am?!” Nina shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the Dean. “I am the daughter of Richard Hayes! You’re just a dean! Do you really think my father is going to break up our family for a woman like her?” “I’m telling you, the second my father throws her out, your career at this university is over! Just wait until my mother gets here—let’s see how bold you are then!” Dean Campbell actually let out a short, incredulous laugh. The sheer audacity was so absurd he didn’t even know where to begin dressing her down. To Nina, however, his sudden silence looked like terrified submission. Feeling emboldened, she turned back to her group of followers, motioning for them to close in on me once more. “What are you waiting for? Teach this trash a lesson!” Before the girls could move, and before the Dean could intervene, the heavy double doors at the end of the hallway burst open. My mother, accompanied by two personal aides, hurried down the corridor. Nina’s face lit up with immediate relief. Casting aside any lingering fear of the Dean, she sprinted forward and threw herself into my mother’s arms, weeping hysterically. “Mom! You came!” “Look at her, Mom!” Nina sobbed, gesturing wildly over her shoulder. “She seduced Harrison, she stole my bag, she made Harrison scream at me yesterday, and now she’s trying to steal Dad! You have to stop her!” My mother’s eyes followed Nina’s shaking finger, landing on me—standing in the center of the crowd, my hair disheveled, my jacket torn, and a visible bruise blooming across my left cheekbone. A look of total, paralyzed shock washed over my mother’s face. Nina, completely oblivious to the sudden chill in the air, reached into her pocket, pulled out one of the photos, and slapped it into my mother’s palm like a trophy. “Look, Mom! I caught them! I saw her sitting in Dad’s lap, letting him feed her fruit in his study! You have to punish her! You can’t let a parasite like this ruin our family!” The utter madness of her words broke through my mother’s usually gentle demeanor. A sharp, violent fury flushed through my mother’s features. She grabbed Nina by the shoulders and shoved her back with shocking force. “Nina Frost, what insane nonsense are you spewing?!” my mother roared, her voice trembling with rage. “She is my daughter!”

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My roommate catfished Zach Cole by pretending to be me. When he finally figured it out, she cornered me in our room, sobbing and begging me not to expose her. She claimed her family was in a financial crisis due to her grandmother’s terminal illness, and that she had only lied to Zach to accept his massive bank transfers—money she could never afford to pay back. In my past life, I let my pity get the better of me. I went along with the lie, stepped into her shoes, and forced myself to be with Zach. But years later, long after Janelle Miller had married a wealthy older man, Zach lost his mind. He turned his resentment on me, torturing me emotionally in our quiet home. “Did you honestly think I loved your face?” he had screamed, his eyes wild with regret. “Your looks are nothing compared to Janelle’s soul. Give her back to me!” Now, time has rewound to our senior year of college. Zach corners me at the bottom of the dorm steps. He waves his phone, displaying our supposed intimate chat history, and leans in close with a smug, familiar smirk. “Hey, baby. Why are you acting like you don’t know me?” I look at him with cold, dead eyes. “Get the fuck away from me.” 1 Zach’s expression shifted instantly into something amused and mocking. He looked down at the photo on his screen, his eyes moving back and forth to compare it to my face. “Interesting,” he murmured, a slow grin spreading across his lips. “One second you’re calling me your husband, and the next you’re telling me to screw off. Isn’t that a bit harsh, Ro?” His dark eyes gleamed with a practiced, flirtatious warmth. The casual, intimate cadence of his voice was loud enough to make several passing students turn their heads to look at us. I kept my face entirely blank. “You have the wrong person. Move.” Zach let out a sharp, disbelief-filled laugh. But he quickly softened his tone, taking a half-step closer. “Look, baby, I’m sorry. I know you said you weren’t ready to meet in person yet. But I love you too much to keep waiting. I couldn’t help myself.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone again. “Don’t be mad. Let me transfer you five thousand dollars right now. Go buy yourself something nice, and let me take you out to a proper dinner. How does that sound?” Having lived through the years of his cold indifference and eventual cruelty, seeing him act like a desperate, lovesick puppy was almost comical. “Do you even know my name?” I asked. Zach’s thumb hovered over his screen, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. “Rowan?” I let out a cold, humorless laugh. “Did you bother looking at the name on the bank transfers? Because it isn’t mine.” Zach reached out, intending to pat my head, but I stepped back, letting his hand hang awkwardly in the air. His fingers curled slowly into a fist before he forced his smile back. “Stop playing, Rowan. You’re the one who told me you were using your parents’ joint account and didn’t want them seeing the transactions, so you had me wire the money to your roommate’s account instead.” I stared at him, exhausted by his density. “You’ve been talking to this girl for months. Did you ever once FaceTime her?” Zach hesitated, then slowly shook his head. “So you’ve never actually seen her face, and yet based on a few photos, you assumed the girl behind the screen was me,” I said, my voice cutting through the humid afternoon air. “You wired her over a hundred thousand dollars without a second thought. Did they skip basic internet safety during your freshman orientation? You’re the victim of a textbook romance scam. I suggest you call the police.” Zach still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Convinced I was simply throwing a tantrum because he had showed up unannounced, his expression turned pleading. “Baby, please stop. We have something real. Meeting in person was always the end goal. Besides…” He lowered his voice, a hint of entitlement creeping in. “You sent me those private photos. I couldn’t just sit around anymore. But I swear, I won’t touch you until you say it’s okay.” My chest tightened, a cold chill running down my spine. “What photos?” Zach turned his phone toward me. On the screen was a photo of a woman’s silhouette, taken through a frosted glass shower door while she was changing. It was unmistakably my back. “Come on, that’s clearly you,” Zach said, his voice dropping to a low murmur. “Who else could have taken something that private? Stop teasing me.” I didn’t answer him. Instead, I swiped his screen upward to look at the chat log. Janelle had sent the photo under my name, adding a pouty emoji: [Babe, finding an internship is exhausting. Look how much weight I’ve lost.] Zach’s reply had been nearly instantaneous, followed by a transaction confirmation for twenty thousand dollars: [I can take care of you, baby. My dad just bought me a townhouse downtown with a pool. Why don’t we just move in together?] Janelle’s response: [Oh, I know exactly what you boys are after! I’m not ready yet. Let’s wait until graduation.] I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. In my past life, I had never actually looked at their chat history. I had always assumed Janelle took public photos from my social media accounts to fool him. I never realized she had been secretly photographing me in our shared space. Without another word, I took out my own phone, snapped a photo of Zach’s screen, and drafted an email to the Dean of Students. Dean Avery, a student has taken non-consensual, private photos of me in my dormitory and distributed them to third parties. I am requesting an immediate investigation. If the university cannot handle this, I will be contacting the police. 2 When I returned to the room, Janelle was pacing near the balcony, her face pale and anxious. I ignored her, setting my bag down on my desk as if nothing had happened. After a few minutes of agonizing silence, Janelle crept over to my side, her voice trembling. “Rowan… who was that guy you were talking to downstairs?” “Just some idiot who got scammed online,” I said casually. “I told him to call the police.” Janelle froze. Almost immediately, her phone began to buzz in her pocket—vibrating again and again with incoming notifications. She stared at her pocket, too terrified to pull the device out. After what felt like an eternity, she cleared her throat, her voice dry. “Rowan… we’re still best friends, right?” “Of course,” I said, turning to look at her with a gentle, empty smile. In my past life, I truly had considered her a sister. I had pitied her because of her dysfunctional family and her grandmother’s failing health. That pity was the only reason I had agreed to cover for her when Zach confronted us. Only later did I learn the truth. Janelle’s grandmother had indeed been sick, but Janelle hadn’t spent a single dollar of Zach’s money on her medical bills. Instead, she used those funds to pay for extensive plastic surgery and a master’s program abroad. By the time she returned to the country, she was entirely unrecognizable—polished, sophisticated, and beautiful. By then, my relationship with Zach was already falling apart. He constantly complained that I was too cold, too reserved, and lacked the playful warmth of the girl he had fallen in love with online. At a college reunion, surrounded by our former classmates, Zach had drunkenly scoffed at me. “Rowan’s just a trophy,” he had said, swirling his whiskey. “She’s beautiful, sure, but she has the personality of a brick. She’s nothing like the girl I talked to back in college.” I had sat there in burning humiliation. That was when Janelle, elegant and dripping in designer jewelry, had laughed softly and raised her glass. “Well, that’s because the girl you were talking to wasn’t Rowan,” Janelle had said with a conspiratorial wink. “Our Rowan is gorgeous, but she’s terribly shy. I had to act as her Cyrano to help her land you. Zach, you owe me a seat at the head table when you two finally get married.” With a few lighthearted sentences, she had rewritten her fraud as a sweet, sisterly favor. But Zach had stared at Janelle for the rest of the night, his eyes vacant and intense. When we got home, I finally confessed the entire truth to him. I thought he would understand the sacrifice I had made to protect a friend. Instead, Zach gripped my shoulders, his eyes wild with anger. “So the person I fell in love with all those nights was Janelle? Why did you lie to me, Rowan?” “You came to school demanding to see me,” I had cried, trying to pull away. “Janelle couldn’t pay back the money. If I hadn’t stepped in, she would have gone to prison—” “I fell in love with the soul behind those messages!” Zach roared, shaking me. “Not this empty shell! Do you think you’re so special just because of your face? How do you know I wouldn’t have accepted Janelle just the way she was? Her personality made you look entirely worthless.” From that night on, Zach attended every social gathering where Janelle was present. Once, when I was burning with a high fever and begged to stay home, Zach had physically dragged me out of bed and forced me into his car. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he had sneered as we sped down the highway. “You’re trying to keep me from seeing Janelle. Why are you so desperately jealous? She literally built this relationship for you.” “I told you, I never asked her to talk to you!” I screamed through my tears, shivering from the fever. “She scammed you! She stole your money!” “Then I wish she had kept lying to me forever!” Zach snapped. I spent that dinner in a feverish daze, watching the two of them laugh and talk. By then, Janelle was far too ambitious to settle for a trust-fund kid like Zach; she had returned to the country to marry a wealthy, divorced tech executive. I realized then how pathetic I had been. I decided to leave Zach once and for all. But he couldn’t handle the rejection. On the drive back from Janelle’s wedding, blind with rage and liquor, he jerked the steering wheel and slammed the passenger side of the car directly into the highway guardrail. 3 “Rowan, my grandmother has cancer, and the hospital is threatening to stop her treatment. I was completely out of options…” I leaned my elbow on the desk, listening to Janelle spin the exact same web of lies she had woven in our previous life. Before she could finish, the door to our dorm room was pushed open. Dean Avery walked in, her expression grim. “Is everyone present?” she asked, looking around. “Who’s missing? Give me their names so I can call them back immediately.” Aside from Janelle and me, we had two other roommates. Sarah was currently cramming for the LSAT, practically living in the law library. Lily had already moved out to work on a tech startup with her boyfriend. Once the Dean called them, neither dared to delay; they both hurried back to the room within fifteen minutes. Janelle, still oblivious to the email I had sent, asked in a small, anxious voice, “Dean Avery, is something wrong?” The Dean closed the door behind her and turned to face us. “An incident has occurred. Someone in this room took a non-consensual, private photo of Rowan and distributed it online. If the person responsible steps forward now, we can handle this quietly. Otherwise, this becomes a police matter, and it will not end well for anyone involved.” Janelle’s fingers tightened around her phone so hard her knuckles turned white. Based on the layout of the bathroom shown in the photo, we quickly narrowed down the timeline to the previous weekend. Sarah immediately raised her hand. “I was at the library study room for forty-eight hours straight. I have the security swipe logs and security footage to prove I never set foot in the dorm.” Lily shook her head. “I was out of state visiting my boyfriend’s parents. I have my flight receipts.” All eyes slowly fell on Janelle. Janelle forced a fragile, nervous laugh. “Rowan, are you sure you didn’t get confused? Last weekend, you asked me to take a photo of your back so you could send it to your online boyfriend. Did he leak it?” The room fell silent. Sarah and Lily exchanged uncomfortable glances. Dean Avery looked at me, her brow furrowed in disappointment. “Rowan, is this true? The internet is a dangerous place, and sending private images to strangers is highly risky. I hope you’ve learned from this.” I let out a quiet, cold laugh. “Dean Avery, I never asked Janelle to take any photos of me. And I don’t have an online boyfriend. I have no idea why she would say that.” Janelle’s eyes widened in panic. “Rowan, you’ve been talking to Zach Cole from the neighboring campus ever since the basketball mixer! You were too shy to approach him, so I offered to help you chat with him. Have you forgotten?” I remembered that mixer. Janelle had asked me which player I thought was the most attractive, and I had casually pointed to Zach. At the time, she had laughed and pointed to Gavin Mercer, our department’s top student. “Sure, Gavin is brilliant, but Zach’s family is loaded. Look at his shoes—they cost more than my tuition. Compared to him, Gavin’s practically a charity case.” I had thought it was just typical college banter. I never expected her to weaponize that moment to cover her own crimes. I looked Janelle dead in the eye. “So, let me get this straight. Because you thought I had a mild interest in a guy, you felt entitled to secretly photograph me while I was changing, send it to him without my knowledge, pretend to be me, and solicit over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from him?” The color drained entirely from Janelle’s face. 4 In the Dean’s office, Janelle dissolved into hysterical tears. “Rowan, please, you have to forgive me,” she sobbed, clutching at my sleeve. “In the beginning, I really did just want to help you. But before I could tell you, my grandmother got sick. You know my parents don’t care if she lives or dies, but she’s the only person in the world who ever loved me. Zach has so much money… I only used those transfers to pay her hospital bills. I’m so sorry…” Her crying was so desperate that even Dean Avery looked slightly swayed. The Dean sighed, rubbing her temples, and looked at me. “Rowan, if that photo was only sent to Zach and hasn’t been leaked publicly, maybe we should bring him in to discuss this. He’s a major party in this situation. If we can resolve this privately, it might be best for everyone.” I looked at Janelle. She hadn’t yet received the funds to go abroad or get the cosmetic procedures that would alter her square jaw and plain features. Even with her makeup, her face looked stressed and unremarkable. In my past life, Zach had sworn up and down that he would have chosen Janelle regardless of her looks because of their “soul connection.” I wondered if he would make the same choice looking at her now. I nodded at the Dean. “Let’s bring him in.” Within twenty minutes, Zach arrived. He burst into the office and rushed straight to my side, his face tense with anxiety. “Baby! What did your Dean mean on the phone? What do you mean we’re both victims? Is your roommate trying to steal the money I sent you?” He whirled around, glaring at Janelle with pure disgust. “Hey! Are you shameless? That money was for Rowan. Who the hell do you think you are, keeping it?” Hearing Zach’s harsh words, Janelle’s tears froze on her cheeks. Her throat tightened, and she felt as if the floor were tilting beneath her. For months, they had stayed up until the early hours of the morning, exchanging sweet, intimate words. [Kiss me, baby.] [I love you so much.] [It doesn’t matter if you aren’t as beautiful as your photos. I’m not that shallow.] [We are soulmates, Ro. I could never be angry with you.] Those tender words had convinced Janelle that Zach truly loved her mind. She believed his affection transcended the empty beauty of the photos she had sent. But now, he was calling her shameless in front of everyone. I watched the subtle shift in Janelle’s expression. Even while crying, she instinctively tilted her head to what she thought was her best angle, looking up at Zach with big, pleading eyes. “I’m sorry, Zach,” she whispered. “The truth is… the person you’ve been talking to this whole time isn’t Rowan. It was me. I wanted to bring you two together, but…” Zach stared at her, completely dumbfounded. Then, he let out an aggressive, defensive shout. “Don’t talk absolute garbage! Who would ever want to talk to you? Do you think I have that much free time? If you hadn’t uploaded Rowan’s student ID to the profile, I wouldn’t have given you a second of my day!” I kept my eyes fixed on Zach. He was practically vibrating with panic, desperate to distance himself from her. He looked exactly the same as he did in my past life when he was trying to shift blame—selfish, defensive, and furious that his own stupidity had been exposed. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss her, Zach,” I said, my voice smooth and deliberate. “You two spoke for months. You must have realized how compatible your personalities are. Surely you aren’t so shallow that you only care about a face? Why don’t you two just date for real?” Zach looked like he was about to blow a fuse. “Are you kidding me? She looks like a square box! Who would date that? I’d be the laughingstock of my entire family! Janelle, you are a sick, twisted freak. You used Rowan’s face because no actual guy would ever look at you. You’re going to return every single cent, or I’m suing you.” “Zach, my grandmother is dying…” Janelle whimpered. “What does your grandmother have to do with me?” Zach spat, cutting her off ruthlessly. “Does her being sick give you the right to play with my feelings? You scammed my emotions, and you scammed my money. I’m not letting this go. You pay me back, and you write a formal apology, or I will make sure you spend graduation in a jail cell!” Janelle’s face completely shattered. She took a deep breath, turning to the Dean. “Dean Avery, can Rowan step out for a moment? I want to discuss the details of the transfers with Zach privately. It’s… a very large sum, and I want to explain things clearly.” 5 I waited in the hallway for about fifteen minutes. When Zach finally stepped out of the office, his eyes lit up the moment he saw me leaning against the window sill. “Rowan! Hey, can I get your actual phone number?” I looked at him, my expression dripping with disdain. “Your ‘baby’ is in that room, Zach. Don’t go calling random girls that. It makes you look incredibly cheap.” Zach winced, looking genuinely hurt. “Rowan, I only have feelings for you. I was confused.” “Really?” I smiled coldly. “But you fell in love with Janelle’s ‘soul’ over text, didn’t you? Or were all those sweet words just a lie because you were shallowly obsessed with my face?” Zach shifted his weight, looking cornered. “Janelle told me… she said you actually had a crush on me. She said this was all just a misunderstanding. Rowan, can we just start over? Give me a real chance.” I looked at him as if he were a specimen in a biology lab. “You believe everything she tells you? Zach, is there a genuine cognitive deficit I should be aware of? Why would you assume I’d have feelings for someone who can’t even tell who he’s dating? Do I look like a charity worker to you?” Zach’s face flushed red with embarrassment, but he forced himself to maintain his polite composure. “I just got stupid because I liked you so much. Rowan, trust me, I’m a better guy than you think.” “I’m not interested,” I said, turning away. “I already like someone else. Whatever you decide to do with Janelle is your business, but I reserve the right to take legal action regarding my privacy. Now, move.” Zach’s eyes widened, panic flaring in his expression. “That’s impossible. Who could you possibly like? No one on this campus is more successful, better looking, or more devoted to you than I am.” “Gavin Mercer,” I said clearly. “Who?” “I said, the person I like is Gavin Mercer.” The moment the words left my mouth, a tall figure rounded the corner of the hallway. Gavin was carrying a thick stack of research binders, his posture straight and disciplined. Hearing his name, he stopped, his clean, calm gaze falling on my face. His eyes lingered on me for a fraction of a second before he turned to the office door, knocking politely. “Dean Avery, I’m Gavin Mercer. You asked to see me about the department seminar?” I watched his back as he stepped into the room, my heart aching with a sudden, sharp grief. In my past life, when Zach had crashed our car and fled the scene to save his own skin, Gavin’s car had been right behind us. The vehicle had caught fire, and I was trapped inside, unconscious. Gavin had thrown himself into the flames, burning his hands to the bone as he desperately pried open the twisted metal of the passenger door, screaming my name over and over. “Rowan, wake up! Please, don’t close your eyes! I’m getting you out!” His hot tears had fallen on my face, the only cold sensation in a world of burning heat. At that point in his life, Gavin was a highly successful entrepreneur whose tech company was about to go public. He had everything to live for. I had never understood why he would risk his life for me. Perhaps in this life, I would finally find out.

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1 At our engagement party, the “Wonder Twins” were at it again, lost in a world of hydrological flow charts and seismic data. I stood three paces behind them, draped in their heavy wool overcoats like a human coat rack. My arms were starting to ache, but I stayed silent, watching the back of Elena’s head as she gestured wildly at a tablet screen. This was our night—the night we were supposed to celebrate a lifetime together—but the guest of honor was currently more interested in the silt deposits of the Mississippi Delta than her fiancé. The head table, specifically reserved for us and Elena’s parents, sat empty and gleaming under the ballroom lights. I reached out, gently tugging Elena’s sleeve. “Elena, let’s sit down first. The appetizers are being served, and your parents are waiting. You can talk shop later.” Before she could respond, Nathan—her “academic soulmate” and lifelong friend—placed a hand on my wrist. His grip wasn’t aggressive, just firm, with that patronizing steadiness he always used with me. “Evan, buddy,” Nathan said, not looking up from the data. “We’re in the middle of a breakthrough here. Can you try not to break Elena’s train of thought? It’s a bit delicate.” Elena didn’t even glance my way. Her eyes were glued to a shifting heat map on the screen. “Just give us a minute, Evan. Stop hovering.” I felt a phantom sting in my chest. “Stop hovering.” I was the one holding her coat. I was the one who had spent three months coordinating with the florist because she was “too busy with the lab.” Nathan pulled out the chair at the head table—the one meant for me. He sat down, beckoning Elena to join him. “Sit here, El. Look at this spike in the second quadrant.” Elena sat. She pulled her chair close to his, their shoulders brushing as they leaned into the glow of the tablet. My seat. My place next to my bride. I gripped their coats until my knuckles turned white. “And where am I supposed to sit, Elena?” She blinked, finally looking up, though her eyes were glazed with equations. She looked at the table, then at me, as if realizing for the first time that there were only two seats. She didn’t offer to move. Instead, she pointed a casual finger toward a dark corner near the service entrance. “There’s an extra chair over there, isn’t there?” I looked. It was a folding chair tucked beside a large, overflowing trash bin. Nathan looked up then, offering a sympathetic, albeit hollow, smile. “Go ahead and take a load off, Evan. Once El and I finish this simulation, we’ll get to the ‘fiancé’ stuff.” They turned back to their hydrological maps. Our guests began to filter in, glancing at the two geniuses huddled at the head table. No one seemed to find it odd. In our social circle, their brilliance acted as a universal hall pass for rudeness. People whispered about their “vibrant intellectual synergy,” while I was just the “stable accountant” who kept the lights on. I didn’t argue. I didn’t make a scene. I walked to the corner, draped their expensive coats over that lonely folding chair, and walked out of the ballroom. I stood on the curb and pulled out my phone to call an Uber. My heart felt strangely light, the weight of the coats finally gone. If even our engagement could be pushed aside for a data set, then this marriage didn’t need to happen. … It was 11:00 PM when the front door finally clicked open. The sound woke me. I had been drifting in and out of a restless sleep on the sofa, the moonlight cutting a cold silver line across the living room floor. Elena walked in, smelling of expensive perfume and the sterile scent of the lab. “You’re back,” I said, my voice raspy. I didn’t turn on the lights. “Are you sulking?” she asked. She didn’t sound guilty. She sounded annoyed. I looked down at my hands. I didn’t say a word. She sighed, a long, weary sound, and sat on the edge of the sofa near my feet. “Look, I know it was a bit much letting Nathan take your seat for a while. I was distracted. It was an oversight.” It was a rare apology from her, but it felt like a band-aid on a bullet wound. “It’s fine, I—” “But Evan,” she interrupted, her tone sharpening. “That’s no excuse for walking out. You left me there to explain your disappearance to a hundred guests. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? Over a chair?” I sat up, the darkness making her face look like a marble mask. “You think this is about a chair? You think I’m ‘indulging’ myself because I didn’t want to watch my fiancée play house with another man at our own engagement party?” “Evan, please.” Elena rubbed her temples. “You’re an accountant. You’re a numbers-on-a-spreadsheet guy. You don’t understand the level of research Nathan and I are doing. Even if I explained the data to you, it would go over your head. So what’s the point in you sitting there?” The words felt like a physical blow. What’s the point in you sitting there? “I’m your partner, Elena. Not your assistant.” “Then stop acting like a child. You humiliated Nathan, too. You threw his coat in the corner like he was some intruder. Everyone saw it. You made it very clear you have a ‘problem’ with him.” The anger in her eyes wasn’t for me, or for us. It was for Nathan’s pride. “Elena…” I stood up, my fists clenched at my sides. The words I’d been rehearsing all day finally climbed up my throat. “I think we need to call off the—” Beep-beep-beep-click. The electronic lock on the front door hummed, and the door swung open. Nathan walked in, carrying a stack of manila folders. I froze. “Elena? Why does he have the code to our house?” “Nathan needs to consult on things sometimes,” she said dismissively, already standing up to meet him. “Digital communication is too slow for the nuances of the modeling. It’s more efficient this way.” “But this is our home. This is—” Nathan stepped between us, his shoulder brushing Elena’s with a practiced familiarity. “Hey, Evan. Look, I found the error in the fitting model. The variance wasn’t being cleared in the second loop. Check this out, El.” Elena’s eyes lit up instantly. “Yes! That’s it! Let’s run the simulation again right now.” I reached out to grab her arm, to stop her from disappearing into the office with him. “Elena, we were talking.” Nathan’s hand came down on mine, patting it twice. “Later, buddy. We’ve got real work to do. Whatever it is, it can wait until we’re finished.” “Ignore him, Nathan. Let’s go,” Elena said. They walked into the study and the door slammed shut. A second later, I heard the distinct click of the deadbolt. I stood in the hallway, staring at the wood grain of the door. She had told me this was our sanctuary. She said the door code—259297, the numerical sequence for Always—was a secret just for us. I took a deep breath, trying to still the shaking in my hands. It was fine. Let them have the study. Let them have the data. I wasn’t getting married anyway. I turned to go to the bedroom, but the study door cracked open. “Evan?” Elena called out. “Nathan and I are going to be pulling an all-nighter. Can you brew two cups of coffee? Make Nathan’s hot, two sugars.” She didn’t wait for an answer. She began to close the door, her face already turning back toward the computer screen. She assumed, as she had a thousand times before, that I would simply do it. “Elena,” I called out. She paused, looking impatient. “What?” “I’m going to bed.” She blinked, confused. “Can’t you just make the coffee first? It’ll take five minutes.” “No.” I had grown up in the shadow of “prodigies” like them. Even my own parents used to say, “Don’t get in the way when Nathan and Elena are working, Evan. Be useful. Help where you can. When they’re successful, they’ll pull you up with them.” So, I had spent years carrying their bags. I booked their flights. I picked up their dry cleaning. I even let them steal my seat at my own engagement. Nathan’s head popped out from behind the door. “C’mon, Evan. We’re really in the weeds here. Just two cups? For old times’ sake?” “No,” I said again. My heart was thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. It was the first time I had ever said no twice. Nathan’s smug smile faltered. Elena pulled the door wide, staring at me with a dark, unreadable expression. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll do it myself.” She brushed past me, her shoulder hitting mine with deliberate force. I didn’t look at her. I went into the bedroom, climbed under the covers, and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up. The next morning, the smell of burnt toast pulled me from sleep. When I walked into the kitchen, they were already eating. Two plates. Two glasses of orange juice. “Is there any for me?” I asked, the habit of years still dying hard. I used to always make breakfast for three. Elena wiped her mouth with a napkin, her movements stiff. “If you want breakfast, make it yourself.” Her voice was laced with a cold, lingering resentment. I looked at the counter. The espresso machine was a mess, and a broken ceramic mug lay in the trash. Elena never could handle the “mundane” machinery of the house. I was the one who fixed the Wi-Fi, the one who descaled the coffee maker, the one who kept the physical world running so she could live in her clouds. “She’s in a mood!” Nathan joked, reaching over to playfully pinch Elena’s cheek. He looked at me with a grin. “El didn’t get her caffeine fix last night because someone went on strike. She’s been up all night. I’ve been trying to keep her spirits up.” I said nothing. Their breakfast was simple—fried eggs and toast—far less elaborate than the omelets I usually prepared. But even in its simplicity, Elena hadn’t bothered to crack a third egg for me. “Let’s go, Nathan,” Elena said, standing up. “We need to finish the flow simulation and get the report to the lab by five.” “You got it,” Nathan said, following her. As she passed me, Elena gave me one last look—sharp and dismissive—before they disappeared back into the study. I sighed and went to the kitchen. I made myself a sandwich, then began the invisible labor of the “lesser” partner. I threw their dirty laundry into the wash. I loaded the dishwasher with the mountain of mugs they’d gone through. I cleaned the coffee grounds off the counter. That evening, Elena finally emerged and came into the bedroom. She wasn’t there for me. “I’m setting some boundaries for the house,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing her temples. “Starting tomorrow, I don’t want you entering the study or the three adjacent rooms. Consider them a restricted zone.” I stared at her. “Excuse me? This is my house too. Why?” “Because you’re loud, Evan. You’re distracting.” She didn’t even look at me. “Nathan and I need a focused research environment. Your puttering around, the vacuuming, the kitchen noises… it’s breaking our flow.” “You could work at the lab,” I suggested, my voice tight. “That’s what labs are for.” “Sometimes the lab isn’t an option. We have the server set up here.” She looked at me then, her eyes cold. “You don’t contribute anything to the work, Evan. The least you can do—the absolute least—is stay out of the way. Stop being a hindrance.” I gripped the edge of the duvet. That night, we slept back-to-back, a canyon of silence between us. I thought she was just blowing off steam. But when I woke up the next morning, I found a literal barrier. A temporary plastic partition had been tension-mounted across the hallway, sealing off the study wing. Taped to the plastic was a hand-printed sign: EVAN: DO NOT ENTER. I reached out, my hand trembling, and touched the frame. ZAP. A sharp, stinging arc of electricity jumped from the frame to my fingertips. I cried out, falling back onto the carpet. The study door opened. Nathan stepped out, holding a remote. “Oh! Sorry, man. Forgot to tell you.” He clicked a button, disarming the low-voltage deterrent. He stepped over the barrier and offered me a hand. “It’s just a little security measure to keep the ‘unauthorized’ out while we’re running high-precision sensors. Be more careful.” “Get away from me!” I snapped, scrambling to my feet and backing away. Nathan froze, his expression shifting to a hurt pout. He looked back at Elena, who was standing in the doorway. “Don’t be dramatic, Evan,” she said coldly. “The fence stays until the simulation is finished. If you can’t respect a simple sign, then the tech will have to do it for you.” “This is my home!” My voice cracked. “You put up an electric fence in our hallway? To keep me out?” Nathan stepped forward. “Evan, buddy—” “Shut up, Nathan!” I pushed his hand away. It wasn’t even a hard shove, but Nathan gasped, losing his balance and falling onto his backside on the hardwood floor. “Nathan!” Elena screamed. She rushed to his side, cradling him as if I’d hit him with a car. Nathan held his wrist, looking at me with wide, wounded eyes. “Evan, I… I didn’t mean to upset you,” Nathan stammered. “El, maybe I should go. I don’t want to cause trouble between you two.” He started gathering his papers, stuffing them into his leather satchel with frantic, shaky hands. “We’ll just finish this at the lab, El. It’s clear Evan’s… he’s got some issues with me being here.” “Nathan, stay,” Elena commanded. She turned to me, her face contorted with disgust. She reached out and ripped the partition down, throwing the plastic onto the floor. “There. Is that what you wanted? Are you happy now that you’ve sabotaged our work day?” She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the week. She didn’t bring Nathan back to the house, and at the office, she kept her distance. I thought maybe, just maybe, the message had sunk in. Then came the storm. A torrential downpour trapped everyone at the office late on Friday. I stood in the lobby, checking my watch every few minutes. My car was in the shop, and Elena had promised to drive me home. Finally, I saw her walking toward the exit, keys in hand. My heart lifted. “Elena! Ready to go?” “Move,” she said, pushing past me without a glance. I stumbled back. Nathan was right behind her, clutching a waterproof folder to his chest. “Elena? What are you doing?” She walked to the curb and opened the passenger door of her Audi—for Nathan. “I have to get Nathan home first,” she said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “You’ll have to wait here.” I froze in the cold draft of the lobby. “There are four seats in that car, Elena. Nathan lives five blocks from us. It’s on the way.” She rolled down the window, the rain splashing against her designer glasses. “You’re the one who threw a tantrum about him being at the house, remember? I’m taking him to his place, and then I have some things to discuss with him. It’s out of your way. Just wait.” “Elena!” I stepped toward the car, reaching for the handle. She didn’t wait. She rolled up the window and accelerated, the tires kicking up a wall of dirty rainwater that soaked me from head to toe. I stood there in the wind, the rain masking the tears on my face. I walked back into the lobby, shivering. The lights in the building began to flicker and die as the janitorial staff finished their rounds. I waited until midnight. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Nathan. Hey Evan, don’t wait up. El and I found a massive glitch in the flow-field data. She’s staying at my place to help me iron it out. Catch a ride with a coworker or something. See ya. I stared at the screen until it went dark. The wind howled against the glass of the office tower. I didn’t call an Uber. I didn’t go home. I walked back up to my cubicle, wrapped myself in a spare coat, and slept on the floor in the dark. I was shaken awake by the sound of a high-voltage hum. Still groggy, I grabbed a flashlight and headed down to the basement laboratories. I didn’t know why—call it a gut feeling. When I opened the heavy steel door to the oceanography lab, my heart stopped. The room was flooding. A pipe had burst, and two inches of water already covered the floor. The instrument panels were sparking, needles swinging wildly into the red. I looked at the wall—the master circuit breaker, the one that should have tripped automatically, was manually jammed into the ‘ON’ position. I didn’t think. I lunged through the water, ignoring the prickle of electricity on my skin. I slammed the breaker to ‘OFF’ and punched the emergency drainage override. The room went dark. But something was wrong. Above me, a heavy support beam, weakened by the storm or the vibration of the failing machinery, let out a metallic scream. CRUNCH. The world went black. When I woke up, my head was wrapped in heavy gauze. The hospital room felt too bright. The door burst open. Elena was there, breathless, her hair a mess. “Where is he?” she demanded. My eyes welled with tears. I reached out a hand. “Elena… I’m here. I tried to save the—” SLAP. The force of the blow sent my head spinning. The wound on my forehead throbbed with white-hot agony. “What is wrong with you?” Elena screamed, her voice cracking. “Why would you turn off the master breaker? Do you have any idea what you did? You wiped six months of Nathan’s real-time simulation data! It’s gone, Evan! All of it!” I sat there, trembling, my hand over my stinging cheek. “I didn’t… Elena, the room was flooding. The breaker was jammed open. I had to shut it down or the whole building would have caught fire.” “Evan, please,” a voice said from the doorway. It was Nathan. He looked devastated, his eyes red. “Are you really going to lie about this? Are you going to say I was the one who left the safety overrides off?” I gritted my teeth against the pain. “I’m saying when I got there, the breaker was jammed. I was trying to stop a catastrophe.” “Enough!” Elena looked at me with pure loathing. “This is a classic amateur mistake. I’ve told you a thousand times—don’t touch our equipment. You don’t know the first thing about the lab protocols. You did this because you’re jealous. You did this to hurt Nathan.” The noise attracted a few of our colleagues from the hallway. They gathered at the door, whispering. Elena didn’t care. She turned to leave. “Elena, where are you going?” one of the researchers asked. “To file the incident report,” she said, her voice like ice. “This was a catastrophic loss of intellectual property. The board needs to know. And Evan Brooks is the primary person responsible.” “Elena!” I croaked. “Wait, El!” someone shouted, stepping into the room. “If you file that report, he’s finished. He’ll lose his job, his license… the damages on that equipment are seven figures. You guys are supposed to be getting married next month!” Elena paused at the door. She looked back at me, her silhouette dark against the hospital lights. “I don’t need a husband who is a jealous, incompetent fool,” she said, each word a jagged shard of glass. “You are worse than useless, Evan. You’re a liability.” She left. The investigation was swift. They reviewed the security logs and the lab’s internal backups. “The logs show that Nathan Miller was the last person to officially log out of the lab,” the lead investigator said during the hearing in the main conference hall. “Followed by Evan Brooks entering with a flashlight at 2:00 AM.” I sat in the front row, the bandage still on my head, my eyes fixed on the floor. Elena stood up. She didn’t look at me. She pointed to the grainy CCTV footage on the screen—me, entering the lab. It was the only camera that hadn’t been knocked out by the storm, but it didn’t show the breaker box. “I think the choice is clear,” Elena told the board. “Do you believe our lead scientist, a man with a flawless record, made a ‘rookie’ mistake with a circuit breaker? Or do you believe a sales accountant with a documented history of resentment toward his partner’s colleagues decided to take matters into his own hands?” The room went silent. The investigators looked at me with pity and disgust. “I’m sure I checked that breaker before I left!” Nathan added, his voice trembling with ’emotion.’ “I’m positive!” “Well,” a board member whispered. “If Nathan says so, it’s probably true. Why would he sabotage his own life’s work?” “Exactly,” another replied. “What was Evan even doing there? He’s a salesman. He had no business in the lab. He almost got himself killed, and for what? Spite.” The lead investigator nodded. “Based on the testimony and the technical evidence, we find Evan Brooks liable for the incident.” Elena nodded to the investigator. “Thank you.” Two security guards stepped forward to escort me out. As I passed Elena, she leaned in, her voice a low hiss. “You went too far this time, Evan. Maybe a little time in the real world without me will teach you some humility.” I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. A week later, a junior member of the investigation team—someone who had always liked me—sent an encrypted file to my personal email. “You asked me to look into the external server pings,” the note read. “I found something. Check the timestamps.” I opened the file. As I scrolled through the data, my heart began to pound. Oh, Elena. You and Nathan really did think I was stupid, didn’t you?

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The day before we were supposed to move into our newly bought townhouse, my fiancé’s childhood best friend, Rachel, had a plumbing emergency. Naturally, she moved right in. She took the master bedroom, used my brand-new luxury bath towels, wore my slippers, and even changed the smart lock passcode to her own birthday. I asked Ethan, “She’s sleeping in our marriage bed. Where am I supposed to sleep?” He answered as if I were the one being unreasonable. “The guest room is empty, isn’t it? Rachel has a bad back, and the mattress in the master bedroom is better for her. It’s only for two weeks, Elena. Don’t be so dramatic.” But I hadn’t slept on that bed even once. And right at that moment, he was already helping another woman take down the custom bedside lamp I had spent three months picking out. That weekend was our housewarming party. All our friends and family had arrived. Rachel, wearing a cute apron, was busy hosting and serving appetizers. Ethan gently wiped a smudge of flour off her cheek. His mother, Linda, held her hand, praising her for keeping the place so spotless. Someone mistook Rachel for the bride, and the whole living room erupted into laughter. Ethan only offered a half-hearted “Stop joking,” before turning around to scold me for arriving too late. I stood right in the middle of the moving crew, holding up my itemized receipt list. “The bride isn’t coming.” “I’m just here to take my things. And by the way, to let everyone know—” “The wedding is canceled.”

I first realized Rachel had moved into our house when I went over to deliver the custom curtains. The smart lock passcode was originally Ethan’s birthday. I entered it three times, and each time it flashed red: Access Denied. Just as I was about to call him, the door opened from the inside. Rachel stood there, wearing Ethan’s oversized grey flannel shirt, her wet hair draped over her shoulders. When she saw me, she blinked in surprise, then quickly offered a warm smile. “Elena! What are you doing here?” That flannel shirt was a designer piece I bought for Ethan’s birthday last year. She looked down at herself, as if she had just realized what she was wearing. “Oh, I just got out of the shower and realized I forgot to pack a change of clothes. I had to borrow his. You don’t mind, right?” I didn’t answer her. I only asked, “Why was the lock code changed?” “Oh, I kept forgetting the old one, so Ethan just changed it to my birthday. It was easier.” She stepped aside to let me in, her tone so natural, as if this house had belonged to her all along. In the entryway hung a bright orange-red abstract painting that wasn’t there before. A matching throw blanket was draped over the sofa, and the coffee table was covered with her collection of ceramic figurines. On the shoe rack, the top shelf I had reserved for myself was now crammed with her designer high heels. The home I had spent months decorating was suddenly covered in another woman’s footprints. Rachel took the shopping bag from my hands. “Are these the curtains? Honestly, cream is a bit too boring. Ethan and I ordered emerald green velvet ones. They’ll be delivered tomorrow afternoon.” “You and Ethan ordered them?” “Yeah. He said you’ve been super busy with work lately, so he told me to just make the executive decisions on the interior decor.” She pulled me into the master bedroom. The bed was made with her favorite floral sheets. Her expensive skincare products lined the nightstand. In the closet, half of the space was taken up by Ethan’s shirts, and the other half was packed with her sundresses. My custom monogrammed wedding duvet set had been ripped out of its packaging, crumpled into a ball, and stuffed into the bottom of the closet. Rachel followed my gaze and laughed quickly. “Red is just so loud, so I took it off. It’s not too late to put it back on when you guys actually get married.” I bent down and pulled the duvet out. The protective cover was gone. The matching silk pillowcases, which my mother had bought for me as part of my bridal registry, were being used to prop up her vanity mirror. One corner was stained with liquid foundation. My chest tightened, a heavy weight crushing my lungs. “Rachel, who gave you permission to touch my bridal registry gifts?” The smile on her face froze for a fraction of a second. “It was just a temporary loan, Elena. Don’t get defensive. The pipes at my apartment literally burst, the drywall is ruined, and hotels are so overpriced right now…” “Are you telling me you can’t afford a hotel?” She went quiet. Of course Rachel could afford a hotel. She was just used to this. She knew that as long as she asked, Ethan would hand her the world on a silver platter. I dialed Ethan’s number. He took his time picking up, and I could hear mall music playing in the background. “Hey, what’s up?” “Did you seriously change our house passcode to Rachel’s birthday?” He paused for two seconds. “She kept getting locked out. It’s just a passcode, Elena. You can just memorize the new one, right?” “Why is she sleeping in the master bedroom? And why did she ruin my bridal bedding?” “The guest room faces the highway, and she’s a light sleeper. The bedding was just sitting there anyway. What’s the big deal if she uses it for a couple of days?” I stared at the bed I had never even slept in. “We were supposed to move in tomorrow, Ethan. If she’s in the master bedroom, where am I sleeping?” Ethan’s tone turned sharp and impatient. “The guest room is empty, isn’t it? Rachel has a bad back, and the master bedroom mattress is better for her spine. Just crash in the guest room for a few days. Once her apartment is fixed, she’ll leave.” “This is our marriage bed.” “A bed is literally just a piece of furniture to sleep on, Elena.” He sighed, and then I heard him whispering to Rachel on the other end, his voice softening. “Hey, don’t cry. Don’t go to a hotel. It’s not safe for a girl to stay in a cheap motel by herself.” Then, he turned his cold tone back to me. “Elena, Rachel and I grew up together. She’s basically family. She’s going through a hard time, and we’re just helping her out. Can you please just be supportive for once?”

Rachel stood in front of me, her eyes turning slightly red, but she didn’t make a single move to pack her bags. In that exact moment, the desire to fight completely drained out of me. “Fine,” I said. I heard Ethan let out a massive sigh of relief over the phone. “I knew you were reasonable. Oh, by the way, I’m helping Rachel pick out a new bedside lamp. The one you bought is too dim, and she likes to read before bed. Let’s just swap it out.” So, that flannel shirt wasn’t just “borrowed after her shower.” She had been living here comfortably. I hugged my ruined wedding duvet and turned to leave. Rachel chased me to the front door, her voice dropping to a soft, pathetic whisper. “Elena, we’ve known each other for years. I don’t want something so small to ruin our friendship.” I stopped and looked back at her. “If it’s such a small thing, why didn’t you sleep in the guest room?” She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Ethan and I had been dating for seven years. Rachel had been a shadow over six and a half of them. When she went on business trips, he would drive five hours just to pick her up from the airport. When I had a 103-degree fever in the middle of the night, he told me to just call an Uber to the ER. When she sprained her ankle, he stayed up all night by her bedside. When I waited for him in a pouring rainstorm for three hours, he shrugged and said, “A little rain never killed anyone.” Every single time I drew a boundary, he would say: “Her parents live out of state. If I don’t look out for her, who will?” Eventually, I stopped fighting. It felt like asking for basic respect made me the villain in my own relationship. When I got back to my parents’ house, my mom was in the living room organizing my wedding registry gifts. Four custom duvets, a vintage vanity box, and luxury dinnerware sets were piled high on the carpet. Our wedding was scheduled for the 18th of next month. The invitations had been mailed, and the venue and caterers were already paid for. When my mom saw me walk in carrying the dirty, unboxed duvet, her face fell. “Why is it stained?” I looked down at the beige foundation smudge. “Someone borrowed it.” She opened her mouth to ask more, but I cut her off. “Mom, what if I don’t want to get married anymore?” She stared at me for a long time. Finally, she only asked one thing: “Are you sure?” My nose stung with unshed tears, and I nodded. My mom took my hand and pressed her savings account card into my palm. “Then don’t. A canceled wedding is just a temporary embarrassment. A miserable marriage is a lifetime sentence.” My phone buzzed continuously. Ethan sent me several photos of bedside lamps on SnapChat. Rachel likes the first one, but I think the third one looks more classic. You choose. I didn’t reply. Two minutes later, another message popped up. Actually, never mind. We’ll go with the first one. As long as she likes it. I looked at those last words and laughed. When we were decorating the townhouse, I begged him to go lamp shopping with me. He sat in the store for less than ten minutes before checking his watch, saying, “As long as it lights up, who cares?” It wasn’t that he lacked patience. His patience was just never reserved for me. At 1:00 AM, he called. “I’ll drive over tomorrow morning to help you pack your apartment. We have a lot of stuff, so wake up early.” “No need. My company scheduled an emergency business trip for me.” It was the first time in seven years I had ever lied to him. He didn’t ask where I was going or for how long. He only said, “Make sure you’re back by the weekend. I already invited our relatives over for the housewarming party. Don’t leave Rachel to handle all the hosting alone.” Right before he hung up, he added one more thing. “Oh, and don’t bother bringing those cream curtains. The emerald green ones Rachel ordered are already paid for, and they’re non-refundable.”

The call ended. I immediately opened my laptop and began canceling everything: the venue, the caterers, the photographer, and the limo service. I lost nearly ten thousand dollars in non-refundable deposits. But as the cancellation emails flooded my inbox, I felt myself breathe truly, deeply, for the first time in years. The next morning, I took our co-ownership deed, the renovation receipts, and my bank statements showing my $270,000 contribution straight to a divorce and family lawyer. The title of the townhouse had both our names on it. His family paid 60% of the down payment, and mine paid 40%. But almost all the renovations, custom appliances, and high-end furniture were paid for by me. The lawyer confirmed that if Ethan wanted to keep the house, he would have to buy out my 40% share, plus appreciation, and return every single item I had purchased. I drafted a list based on my receipts. Even the custom bed in the master bedroom was under my name. Ethan was so used to me letting things slide. He never expected me to actually keep score. On Friday night, Rachel sent me a photo on SnapChat. Hanging in the center of the living room wall was a framed photo from a New Year’s Eve party three years ago. Rachel stood dead center. Ethan and I stood on either side of her. But the photo had been cropped. My body was cut in half, making me look like a random stranger who had accidentally walked into the frame. Beneath the photo, on the entryway table, stood three mugs. Two of them were matching custom ceramic mugs with “Ethan” and “Rachel” printed on them. The third one was a cheap, plain white mug with a handwritten label taped to it: Elena. She texted: Doesn’t it feel so much like home now? I replied with a single word. Yeah. It really did look like a home. Except I was never the homeowner. On Saturday morning at 9:40 AM, I arrived at the townhouse with a professional moving truck. The front door was wide open, and the living room was already packed with relatives. Rachel was wearing a pastel dress and a matching linen apron, carrying a fruit platter and socializing with the guests. Ethan stood right behind her, gently tightening the apron strings that had come loose around her waist. Linda, Ethan’s mom, was holding Rachel’s hand, grinning from ear to ear. “Rachel is just so capable. Ethan and Elena are always so busy with work. This house would be a mess without you.” A distant relative who didn’t recognize me smiled at them. “Is this the lovely bride? She and Ethan look so perfect together!” Laughter erupted in the room. Rachel’s cheeks flushed pink, and she waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, stop it! Elena will be here any minute.” Ethan didn’t immediately let go of the apron strings around her waist. He only offered a casual, “Don’t make jokes like that.” Then, he looked up and saw me standing there. His very first words were: “Where have you been? The guests have been waiting for ages.” I walked in. My eyes swept past the cropped photo on the wall, landing on the dining table. The red holiday dinnerware my mother had carefully selected was nowhere to be seen. In its place was the emerald green set Rachel had bought. The master bedroom door was open. The floral sheets were still draped over the bed. My bridal duvet was gone, replaced by a framed childhood photo of Ethan and Rachel on the nightstand. Linda saw where I was looking and said dismissively, “Rachel’s only staying for a few more days. You kids shouldn’t let small things ruin your relationship. We have guests today, Elena. Don’t make a scene.” Before I could even speak, Rachel walked over with a glass of water. “Elena, you must be exhausted from your trip. I put your cup right at the edge of the counter so it’s easy for you to grab.” She handed me the cheap white mug with the handwritten Elena label on it. Ethan saw that I wasn’t reaching out to take it, and his brow furrowed. “Rachel’s been running around helping out all day. The least you could do is say thank you.”

I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Thank her for what?” “For everything! The furniture delivery, the cleaning, the catering menu, the housewarming party—she took care of all of it. You’ve been a ghost all week, and now you just walk into a fully decorated home. Yes, you should thank her.” I looked around at the beautiful furniture—every piece picked out and paid for by me. During the renovations, I was the one who stood in the dust, dealing with contractors, fixing leaks, and supervising the deep clean. Rachel had only lived here for a few days, swapped out my curtains, my lamps, and my plates, and suddenly she was the hero of this house. And I was just a difficult guest. Just then, the elevator doors chimed open. Three burly movers rolled in heavy-duty dollies and packing blankets. The lead mover looked at me. “Are you Elena? Is this the unit?” The living room fell into a dead silence. Ethan’s expression hardened. “What are they doing here?” I pulled the itemized list from my bag. “I’m moving out.” “Moving what out?” “The flat-screen TV, the sectional sofa, the coffee table, the dining table and chairs, the refrigerator, the washer and dryer, the master bed, and both nightstands. I bought all of it.” I handed the clipboard to the mover. “Please pack everything on this list.” Rachel’s hand trembled, spilling water all over her apron. Ethan grabbed my arm tightly. “Elena, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you insane?” I shook his hand off and slammed the legal buyout agreement onto the dining table. “I don’t want the house. You will pay me out for my 40% share of the property based on the current market appraisal.” “As for everything inside—whoever paid for it, keeps it.” Linda quickly ran over, throwing herself in front of the movers. “Elena! Couples fight, but you don’t do this in front of family! Everyone is here today. If you strip this house bare, where is our family’s dignity supposed to go?” I looked at her calmly. “Linda, this isn’t a fight.” “The wedding is canceled.” “Ethan and I are done.” Ethan went completely stiff. “What did you just say?” “I canceled the venue, the catering, and the photographer on Monday.” The color drained from his face. “So you never had a business trip. You lied to me?” Even now, at a moment like this, his immediate reaction was anger that I had lied to him. “If I didn’t lie, would you have let me cancel it peacefully?” “Of course not!” he yelled, his voice cracking before he forced it down into a whisper. “Rachel stayed here for a few days. That is it! Is that really worth ruining our entire wedding over?” I looked at him, feeling nothing but pity. “Do you really think this is just about a bed, Ethan?” “Isn’t it?” “Fine,” I nodded. “Since you think it’s so insignificant, then give me back my bed.” The movers had already begun unscrewing the TV bracket from the wall. Rachel finally panicked. She rushed over, tears welling in her eyes. “Elena, please! I’ll pack my things right now. The sheets, the towels, the slippers—I’ll replace all of them with brand-new ones. We’ll change the lock code back today. If you hate the photo on the wall, I’ll take it down right now!” She was desperate, but she still didn’t get it. She still thought this was just a list of “small things” that made me snap. I looked at her with complete serenity. “No need.” “You don’t have to move out.” “Since you love it here so much, you can keep living here.” “The house, the man—I don’t want either of them anymore.”

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After Ethan cheated and crawled back to our marriage, my entire family turned into his personal surveillance team. Whenever he went out to take the trash, my dad would sneak behind him and Snapchat me a video: “He’s being good. Didn’t even glance at his phone.” When he had a meeting at his law firm, my mom disguised herself as a janitor and snuck in: “Not a single woman got within ten feet of him.” When he flew back from a court case, my best friend, Mia, scanned him from head to toe with a lint roller. “No stray hairs, no lipstick stains. Everything’s clean.” Everyone guaranteed me that Ethan’s heart was back in the right place. Even Ethan himself knelt by my bedside every night, swearing he would only love me and our unborn child. That was until I was seven months pregnant. Ethan was away on a business trip, and I went to the hospital for a routine checkup alone. As I walked past the maternity ward, I froze. There he was, holding a newborn baby, passionately kissing the woman lying on the hospital bed. And my parents and Mia were standing right beside the bed, their eyes welling with tears of joy. I recognized the woman instantly. It was Iris, his former mistress. The moment they saw me, everyone went into defense mode, reflexively shielding the baby from me. But I just calmly walked up and adjusted Ethan’s collar. “Cute baby. She looks like you. I won’t interrupt your happy family moment.”

Ethan stood frozen, panic splashing across his face. “Chloe, let me explain…” “Do these clothes need to be washed?” I interrupted him, pointing at the pile of laundry on the sofa. His face turned deathly pale. He grabbed my hand tightly. “Chloe, don’t be like this. Please, just let me explain.” “Be like what? Isn’t it a good thing that I’m not ruining your moment?” I looked at him, a faint smile on my lips. He shook his head, his voice dripping with cautious confusion. “You’re… not angry?” I knew why he was so surprised. Six months ago, the day I caught him cheating with Iris, I had completely lost my mind. I printed thousands of copies of their bedroom photos and plastered them all over his law firm’s entrance. When he asked for a divorce, I stabbed him three times with a paring knife and climbed onto the roof of our building. That day, my parents and Mia had dragged a blood-soaked Ethan to his knees in front of me. Holding my positive pregnancy test, he had begged, “Chloe, you’re pregnant! For the sake of our baby, please forgive me just this once!” Back then, everyone thought I was a psycho. But now, I just stood there in silence, prying his fingers off my wrist one by one. “Because it’s not worth it anymore.” As soon as the words left my mouth, the baby in his arms started crying. The sharp, piercing wail stabbed right through my nerves. Suddenly, Mia—the same best friend who just yesterday had been rubbing my belly, begging to be my baby’s godmother—rushed forward and shoved me hard. “If you want to lose your mind, do it outside! Don’t scare the baby with your psycho drama!” “Iris didn’t even dare to stay in a VIP room because she was terrified of hurting your feelings! Do you have any idea how much she has suffered?!” My parents, who had once cried so hard they went gray overnight out of pity for me, now stood like a human shield in front of Iris. “Chloe, Iris is a good girl,” my mom said. “She has no family in this city. We had to be here to support her during the delivery.” Heavily pregnant, I was pushed back by the people who were supposed to love me most. I stumbled and hit the doorframe hard. A cold sweat broke out from the dull pain in my back. Taking a few seconds to catch my breath, I said, “That’s your business. I don’t care.” I turned to leave, but Iris, eyes red and tearful, struggled to get out of bed. She fell to her knees right in front of me. “Chloe, please don’t blame them. It’s all my fault!” “My dad was forcing me to go back to that remote mountain town to marry an old creditor. Everyone was just trying to help me. They suggested I have the baby here and pretend I’m married so my family would leave me alone…” “You were the one who brought me out of the Appalachians and paid for my college tuition. I’ve never forgotten your kindness. I swear, I would never try to steal your husband!” She was sobbing, but I saw the triumphant, mocking smirk hidden in the depths of her eyes. A wave of intense nausea hit me. I instinctively shook off her hand, leaning against the wall as I gagged. “Iris!” “Chloe! How dare you push her?! She literally just gave birth!” Mia’s eyes flared with rage, and she slapped me hard across the face. My cheek went numb instantly. Clutching my stomach, I gasped for air, wanting to scream back, but my parents were already pushing and dragging me out the door. “Just go home! Stop causing a scene here!” The heavy door slammed shut. Through the glass, I could hear them speaking in soft, soothing voices, comforting Iris. I was locked out. A sudden crack of thunder rumbled outside. The cold wind blowing through the hallway made me shiver violently. Ethan rushed out, holding an umbrella. “Chloe, it’s pouring. Let me drive you home.” I didn’t refuse. He let out a sigh of relief. “The doctors said Iris has some health issues. If she had aborted this baby, she would never have been able to conceive again. I just couldn’t be that cruel.” “But I swear, you’re the only one I love.” “Once she’s discharged, I’ll buy her and the baby a place in the South. They’ll never cross your path again.” “I don’t care.” I slipped the wedding band off my ring finger and tossed it at his feet. “Give it to her. We’re divorcing as soon as my baby is born.”

Ethan wanted to chase after me. But Mia’s voice echoed from the room behind him: “Ethan! Come back quick, Iris is crying again!” In the end, he just left me there, throwing the umbrella into my hands. “I’m not divorcing you. Just go home and calm down first.” I opened the umbrella. It had a gaping hole in the fabric, much like my fractured marriage with Ethan. The rain dripped through, soaking my face. It wasn’t enough to drown me, but it was enough to freeze whatever warmth was left in my heart. Sitting in the back of the Uber, I opened Instagram. I went to Iris’s profile, and saw she had just uploaded a new reel. “Our little princess is finally here. My husband named her Rosalie.” My hands clenched so hard my knuckles turned white. An overwhelming wave of grief flooded my chest. Rosalie. That was the name I had chosen for the baby I lost years ago. Back then, Ethan’s business rivals had sent thugs to trash our house. I had thrown myself over him to protect him and was beaten so badly I miscarried on the spot. Now, he had handed that very name to another woman’s child on a silver platter. My trauma, and the death of our first child, meant absolutely nothing to him. Tears blurred my vision. Shaking, I scrolled down her feed. On the day I was in a terrible car accident and broke my leg, my parents and Mia had sent me generic text messages—while they spent the night setting off fireworks with Iris on the beach. When I was throwing up my guts from severe morning sickness, they ordered me some random soup delivery—while they took Iris on a seven-day luxury trip to Europe to see the Northern Lights. On my birthday, they all claimed they were too busy with work—while they went camping and stargazing with Iris. There were over six hundred posts. I forced myself to watch them, one by one, torturing myself until my heart went completely numb and my tears dried up. I used to have doubts, but I had clung to a desperate shred of hope. But now, with the truth laid bare, I had to admit that they had all been playing me for a fool. Pulling myself back to reality, I gently stroked my pregnant belly, taking deep, steady breaths. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Mommy is going to take you away from here very soon.” I went back to my parents’ house, intending to grab my passport and birth certificate. I unlocked the front door. But the sight before me was completely foreign. All of my belongings were gone. In their place was a beautifully decorated, cozy nursery fit for a princess. I reached out to touch a seashell nightstand lamp. Suddenly, a sharp voice barked from behind me: “Don’t touch that!” My parents were standing in the hallway, carrying grocery bags, looking at me with pure annoyance. “Iris doesn’t like people messing with her things. She’ll get upset.” I looked at them. “Where are my things?” “In the basement.” “This was my room.” My mom glared at me, walking into the kitchen. “I’m Iris’s godmother now. Do you really have to be jealous of everything?” I was pushed to the side, my wet clothes sticking uncomfortably to my skin. But neither of them asked if I was cold. A bitter burning throat caught up to me, and my eyes welled with tears. “What about me? Am I not your daughter anymore?” My mom didn’t even look up. “How can you compare yourself to Iris? She’s sweet, loving, and always brings so much joy into this house. She’s like a little ray of sunshine.” “Unlike you, always walking around with a long face, acting like the whole world owes you something.” She sighed. “If you hadn’t forced your way between them, Iris and Ethan would have been married years ago.” “They were always meant to be. They hid their feelings for years just to spare your feelings. Can’t you be a little understanding for once?” My own mother was asking me to be understanding of my cheating husband and his mistress. I forced a laugh and wiped my tears. “Fine. Let her be your daughter from now on.” “What are you throwing a tantrum for now? Where are you going?” My dad looked over, irritated. “I’m taking a job in Seaside City. I’m leaving, and I’m never coming back.” I pulled out my phone, wanting to check the official offer email. Instead, I saw a rejection notification from the Seaside General Hospital Board: Dear Applicant, following a formal report and background check, your application has been rejected due to resume falsification and multiple records of financial misconduct. You have been permanently blacklisted from our network.

My heart plummeted. I immediately called the hospital director. His voice was cold as ice on the other end. “I highly respected your work, Chloe. I never expected your medical thesis to be plagiarized.” “If Attorney Ethan hadn’t personally brought us the evidence of your misconduct, we would have been fooled by you.” Ethan… Rage roared through my veins. Ignoring my parents’ shouts, I bolted out of the house and drove straight to the hospital. In the private suite, Ethan was softly singing a lullaby, putting Iris’s baby to sleep. I kicked the door open. The sudden noise made the baby in the crib burst into tears. “Ethan! How dare you sabotage my career?!” I screamed. “Being a surgeon was my dream! You know how hard I worked for this!” He immediately covered Iris’s ears, glaring at me with immense annoyance. “Seaside General only had one opening this year, and Iris wanted it. It’s a great boost for her resume.” My rage, my pain, my years of hard work—it was all nothing but a minor inconvenience to him. I was breathing so hard my chest ached. I grabbed his collar. “You are going to call the board right now and tell them the truth, or I will sue you for defamation!” “Go ahead and try,” he smirked, entirely unfazed. “I can guarantee you that not a single lawyer in this entire city will dare to take your case.” “Besides, we have plenty of money. You don’t need to work. Just stay home and take care of our baby when it’s born.” I stared at him in utter shock, tears streaming down my face. “I will hate you for the rest of my life…” Seeing the sheer despair in my eyes, Ethan’s expression softened slightly. He reached out to wipe my tears. But Iris suddenly got out of bed and walked over. “Ethan, let me talk to Chloe.” She wrapped her arm around mine, her sharp acrylic nails digging viciously into my flesh. She leaned in, whispering in my ear: “Chloe, your parents, your best friend, your husband, and now your job—they’re all mine.” “Did you really think your patient complaints and losing your previous hospital job were accidents? Ethan set all of that up just to keep you busy so you wouldn’t catch us at my prenatal appointments.” “Just accept it. You will never win against me.” “Shut up!” Blinded by fury, I raised my hand to slap her, but Ethan grabbed my wrist mid-air with brute force. He growled, “Don’t you dare touch her!” He pulled Iris behind him, looking at me with eyes colder than ice. “Get out.” I lifted my chin, brushing away my tears. “I’m going to show you exactly what I dare to do.” I went home, opened my laptop, and compiled every single piece of evidence of Ethan and Iris’s affair—including their explicit photos—into a 128-page PDF. Then, I posted the link directly under Iris’s viral Instagram and TikTok posts. The internet exploded. The story spread like wildfire within hours. Media outlets were flooding my inbox, begging for exclusive interviews. Before I could even reply, Ethan burst through my front door. He grabbed me by my shoulders, practically lifting me off the ground. “Chloe! Are you trying to ruin Iris?! The hospital is surrounded by reporters!” “You are coming with me right now to clear her name and apologize!” “Why should I apologize to a homewrecker?!” I thrashed, trying to break free, but his grip only tightened. His face was terrifyingly dark. “If you don’t do this, I will make sure no OB-GYN in this city will touch you when you go into labor.” I stared at him, my heart breaking into a million pieces. To protect Iris, Ethan was threatening my life and the life of our unborn child. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. “Fine. I’ll go.” At the hospital, the lobby was packed with reporters, camera flashes blinding the room. Iris was clinging to Ethan’s arm, looking like a frightened, innocent victim. I walked up, took the microphone from a reporter, and spoke clearly into it: “Why would anyone think I would forgive an ungrateful snake?” “The rumors are absolutely true. Iris is a homewrecker.” “I sponsored her education and brought her out of poverty, and she repaid me by sleeping with my husband and bearing his bastard child.” The crowd gasped. Iris’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “Chloe… you kept stalking my husband, and I stayed quiet. You drugged him and got yourself pregnant, and I accepted it. What more do you want from me?” She pulled a document from her bag—a legal marriage certificate. It had Iris and Ethan’s names on it. “I am Ethan’s legal wife.”

I stared at the document in a daze, then looked at Ethan, who quickly averted his eyes. Mia stepped in front of Iris, glaring at me. “Chloe, get it through your head! You are the psycho stalker trying to ruin their marriage!” My mom then stepped forward, holding a printed sheet of paper, and addressed the reporters. “I am so sorry, everyone. My daughter has been diagnosed with severe prenatal psychosis. She’s been obsessed with Ethan, going as far as drugging him to get pregnant. She has caused so much pain to Iris and Ethan. As her mother, I deeply apologize on her behalf.” I looked at my mother, completely shattered. Tears poured down my face. “Mom? Are you crazy? She’s the one who—” Before I could finish, Ethan arrived with a team of security guards and private doctors. They took the falsified psychiatric evaluation from my mother’s hands. Before I could even scream, a sharp needle pierced my neck. As darkness pulled me under, the last thing I saw was Ethan and Iris holding hands, walking away without throwing a single glance back at me. They confiscated my phone. I was locked in a tiny, windowless room in a private clinic for an entire month. I fought, I screamed, I even tried to climb out of a window and nearly broke my leg, but I couldn’t escape. When I was eight months pregnant, Ethan finally showed up. He brought my favorite apple pie and gently tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, Chloe. We just couldn’t let you run wild and hurt Iris.” “The marriage certificate was just a legal formality to secure the baby’s trust fund. Once you give birth, I’ll divorce her.” “But first, you need to sign this confession admitting you were the stalker, and kneel to apologize to Iris. Only then will we let you out.” I knelt on the cold floor, my heavy stomach making the posture agonizing, and muttered the words they wanted to hear. “I’m sorry. I was the mistress. I will never bother you again.” “Are you satisfied now?” Ethan’s face turned incredibly pale. He clenched his fists, swallowed hard, and finally sighed, taking me back to our apartment. The moment we got back, I packed my bags as fast as I could. I had to leave. But just as I walked out of the bedroom, the front door burst open. Iris came in, sobbing hysterically, and threw herself at my feet. “Chloe, please! Give me back my baby!” “I was planning Rosalie’s one-month welcome party, and the moment you got back, she disappeared! If you hate me, take it out on me, but please don’t hurt my daughter!” Ethan rushed in behind her. He slammed me against the wall, his hand wrapping tightly around my neck. “Rosalie is only a month old! Have you completely lost your mind?!” The air was cut off from my lungs. I struggled to squeeze out the words: “I… didn’t… take her.” “I’m about to be a mother… why would I… hurt a baby…” “Ethan, if anything happens to Rosalie, I’m going to kill myself!” Iris screamed, making a move to slam her head against the wall, but my parents quickly grabbed her. “Why are you wasting your breath with her? Just make her talk!” Mia barked, rushing into the room. She ripped open my bedside drawer, pulled out a sewing kit, and pulled out a long, thick needle, pointing it at my fingernails. “I swear, I don’t have the baby!” I shrieked, shaking my head in terror, looking at Ethan for help. But Ethan just looked away, giving Mia a silent nod. They knew how much I valued my hands—my hands that were supposed to perform surgeries. They knew exactly how to break me. But how could I tell them where the baby was when I didn’t know?! “Chloe, you brought this on yourself!” Mia hissed. The silver needle was driven straight under my fingernail. An agonizing, white-hot pain shot up my arm. My entire face contorted in a spasm. I screamed so hard my voice gave out, and tears poured down my face. Just as Mia raised a second needle, Ethan’s phone rang. It was the police. “Sir, we’ve found the baby. Please come down to the station immediately.” Ethan’s face lit up with joy. He threw me aside. The entire group rushed out of the room, slamming the door. I fell heavily onto the hardwood floor. Suddenly, a warm, wet sensation spread between my thighs. I looked down. A pool of dark, crimson blood was expanding beneath me. “My baby…” I dragged my body toward the door, but it was locked from the outside. A violent contraction ripped through my abdomen. I stared blankly at the blood pooling around me, my heart dying with every drop. I reached for the apple pie box on the table, found the small plastic knife, and pressed it hard against my wrist. Suddenly, the door was kicked open with a loud crash. A tall figure rushed through the dust. Julian ran in, his face pale with terror. He threw himself onto the floor, pulling me into his arms, his voice shaking violently: “Chloe! Oh my God, Chloe… I’m so sorry I’m late…”

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