Author: Momo Chan

I’ve had a secret since I was a kid: at a gambling table, I don’t lose. It’s not a streak; it’s a law of nature. This past spring break, my roommates were itching for a thrill. They dragged me to a private, high-stakes club in the desert outskirts of Vegas, certain they could strike it rich. To give them the “joy” of winning, I spent the whole night playing the opposite of my instincts, effectively “feeding” them my own savings, dollar by dollar. But in that final round, I let my focus slip for just a second. In the blink of an eye, the house swept the board. They didn’t just lose the “winnings” I’d funneled to them; they burned through their own cash and ended up deep in the hole with a group of predatory loan sharks. I was about to say, “Don’t worry, I can cover it,” but they turned on me before the words could leave my mouth. They lunged, tied me up tight, and prepared to hand me over to the house to settle their debt. Looking at their twisted, desperate faces, I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh. “Save your energy. This place wouldn’t dare touch me.” Bella, my roommate, sneered as if I’d lost my mind. She pointed a trembling finger at my nose. “If you hadn’t spaced out, we wouldn’t have lost! You’re the one going to the wolves, not us.” “Once the house takes a few of your fingers as collateral, maybe we can actually go back to campus in one piece!” Watching their greed strip away their humanity was almost comical. They had no idea. This underground gold mine—the very tiles they were standing on—was something I won in a card game years ago. Whether I’d lose a finger remained to be seen. But I knew one thing for certain: by tomorrow, there’d be a few heads on the table serving as the next round’s stakes. … 1 Bella yanked my hair back, forcing my face up to meet her crazed eyes. “Judy, quit acting like you’re already dead!” Her eyes were bloodshot, and her spit hit my cheek. “We just lost five rounds in a row. You blew your cash, and then you blew the money we borrowed! If we don’t hand your ten fingers over to the house today, none of us are getting out of here!” I was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey on the hotel carpet, my scalp screaming in protest. But I didn’t struggle. I just looked at her—this girl I’d shared a dorm with for four years. “Bella, did the gambling rot your brain?” I asked, my voice laced with a cold, sharp edge. “Leaving aside the fact that your losses have nothing to do with me, we’re in a high-end establishment. You’re kidnapping someone in a luxury suite. Do you have any idea who runs this territory?” “I don’t give a damn who runs it!” Macy, another roommate, stepped forward and drove her heel into my knee. “Stop trying to scare us with ‘rules’!” “Exactly! We’ve already made the arrangements!” Bella let go of my hair and crossed her arms, a smug, triumphant grin spreading across her face. “I might as well tell you—the man in charge of this whole operation is my uncle.” I arched an eyebrow. “The man in charge?” “That’s right!” Bella looked down at me as if I were a bug. “Everything in this building moves when my uncle says so. Once we hand you over, he’ll take what’s owed in blood, and then he’ll sell whatever’s left of you to some offshore ‘entertainment’ ship. Our debt gets wiped, and we get a nice little finders’ fee to disappear.” I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. Bella’s face contorted. “What’s so funny? You finally snap?” “I’m laughing at how pathetic you are.” I shifted my bound wrists, my tone dripping with mockery. “If your uncle was really the King of the Strip, if he really held the keys to this kingdom, would he really need three college girls to pull off a messy kidnapping in a hotel room? He would have had his enforcers snatch me off the floor the moment I stood up.” The room went deathly silent for two seconds. Bella’s face turned a violent shade of crimson. Hitting a nerve felt good. Enraged, she swung her arm back and delivered a heavy slap across my face. “Shut up! You’re just a bitch who doesn’t know when she’s beaten!” The metallic taste of blood blossomed in my mouth. I ran my tongue over my split lip, my eyes going stone cold. “I’m the one out of my depth?” I stared her down. “Fine. What’s his name? This ‘uncle’ of yours.” Bella gritted her teeth. “Write it down for your obituary! His name is Mr. Ray—Ray ‘The Hammer’ Vance!” Ray Vance? I almost lost it again. Just last month, I was sitting in the penthouse office reviewing the monthly HR reports. There was a new hire, a guy who wasn’t even qualified to work the floor, so they stuck him at the service entrance to check IDs. His name was Ray Vance. Mr. Ray? The Hammer? The world is truly teeming with idiots. BANG! The hotel door was kicked open. A middle-aged man in a cheap, ill-fitting suit with a protruding gut sauntered in, followed by four scrawny guys in “Security” shirts. “Uncle Ray! You’re here!” Bella’s face instantly shifted into a fawning mask of adoration as she rushed to meet him. “Here she is! She’s got the looks—she’ll definitely fetch a high price!” When Ray’s eyes landed on my face, he visibly swallowed. “Damn… she’s a premium find.” He crouched in front of me, rubbing his hands together, reaching out to touch my face. I jerked my head back and spat right at him. “Keep your filthy hands off me.” Ray froze. He blinked, then backhanded me across the head. “The bitch has claws!” He stood up and turned to his ‘security’ detail. “Boys, we just hit the jackpot. The Ghost has been in a foul mood lately, looking for some new… amusement. This girl is pure, she’s got fire—exactly his type.” He stepped on my calf, grinding his shoe into the bone. “Tie her tighter! If we deliver her to The Ghost’s bed tonight, we’re set for life!” 2 THUD. Ray kicked me in the stomach. I curled into a ball on the floor, coughing up a bit of red-tinged saliva. “Bella… maybe we shouldn’t kill her…” Macy whispered, shrinking back, covering her eyes. Tiff, the third roommate, was white as a sheet, trembling behind Bella. “Shut up, you cowards!” Bella hissed. I looked up at Bella, offering one final test. “Bella, it’s not too late. Untie me, and I’ll act like this never happened. I’ll pay off your debt. We’ve been friends for four years. Don’t throw your life away over a moment of desperation.” Bella froze for a second. Then, she let out a peal of hysterical laughter. “You’ll pay? With what? You lost your last dime just trying to buy a bottle of water!” She lunged forward, grabbing my chin in a bruising grip. “Judy, it’s because you have money that we’re doing this!” Her face was distorted by years of repressed envy. “Four years, and you were ‘so good’ to us. But why does one of your handbags cost more than my entire tuition? Why do you get to wear designer clothes and never work a shift while we’re out handing out flyers for pennies just to eat? I’m sick of it!” She shoved my head back against the carpet. “When you’re sold and gone, you’ll just be a ‘missing person.’ Your rich parents will come to campus, desperate. And we—your best friends—will be there to cry on their shoulders. They’ll give us ‘thank you’ money for our help, won’t they? Your useless life is finally going to pave the way for ours!” The other two girls seemed ignited by Bella’s venom. The hesitation vanished, replaced by the same ugly greed. They began hurling insults: “Always acting so damn superior! Every time you paid for dinner, you thought you were being nice? It was disgusting!” “I’m so done with the ‘Little Miss Princess’ act. Once you’re in a brothel, your family’s money will be enough to put a down payment on a condo for me downtown!” I lay there, listening to the depths of their malice, and I actually smiled. “Fine,” I whispered. “You chose this.” You can’t save people who are already dead inside. “Enough talk with a corpse!” Ray interrupted, impatient. He grabbed my collar like he was lifting a stray kitten and hauled me up. “If The Ghost wasn’t busy on the floor tonight, do you think we’d be wasting time here?” When Ray mentioned ‘The Ghost,’ his eyes filled with a terrifying, cult-like devotion. “The Ghost is the Reaper of this town! One word from him, and the whole Strip trembles! They say he carved his way to the top with nothing but a blade and a cold heart. Being sent to his bed is the greatest honor you’ll ever have—if you survive the night.” I smiled inwardly. A blade? Yeah, I remember. He was bleeding out in an alley, his insides nearly on the outside, when I found him. I gave him his life back. I groomed him, placed him in the spotlight, and made him the “Reaper” so he could take the bullets meant for me. The whole underworld knew: the legendary Ghost was just a loyal, rabid dog I kept on a very short leash. I let out a cold snort. “Since he’s so terrifying, why don’t you take me to him right now? I want to see if he dares to touch a single hair on my head.” Ray’s face darkened. He delivered another stinging slap. “You don’t even get to speak his name, bitch! Let’s see how much you talk when you’re kneeling at his feet, begging for mercy!” He signaled his men. “Grab her! Straight to the penthouse office!” Two guards grabbed my arms, wrenching them behind my back, and dragged me toward the door. Bella followed close behind, her eyes wide with excitement. “Uncle! Make sure he cuts off a few fingers in front of us!” 3 I was thrown onto the floor of the penthouse office. Two guards held me down against the massive mahogany desk. “Uncle, look!” Bella cried out, pointing to a crystal picture frame on the corner of the desk. Ray strode over and picked it up. Inside was a photo of a young girl in a white sundress. “I knew it!” Ray’s eyes lit up. “I told you he liked them pure. Look—this girl in the photo looks just like this bitch!” I glanced at the frame. It was a photo of me when I was six, taken at a theme park. Of course it looked like me. That idiot actually kept it on his desk. “Not just the photo! Look at the wall!” Macy pointed to a bulletproof glass case behind the desk. Inside were two brass casings stained with dried blood. Ray looked at them with religious awe. “See that? Those are the bullets he took for the business. He’d die for the rules, for this house!” He grabbed my hair again, forcing me to look at the display. “A brat like you, causing trouble here? You’re going to be skinned alive!” My scalp throbbed. But looking at those bullets, I couldn’t help but smirk. “He’d die for the house?” I repeated. Three years ago, a rival syndicate sent a hit squad after me. Kael—the man they called The Ghost—didn’t even have time to draw his gun. He threw himself in front of me and took those two rounds to the chest. “You’re still smiling?!” Ray was losing his mind. My lack of fear was an insult to his reality. I stared at him, my voice steady. “I’m just curious. If he’s such a martyr, where is he? Why hasn’t he shown his face?” “You little whore! You think you’re worthy of his time?” Ray was livid. He pulled a tactical knife from his belt and slapped the cold flat of the blade against my cheek. Bella stepped up, grinding her stiletto into my calf. “Uncle! Stop talking and do it! She was so tough downstairs—cut her thumb off first!” The other roommates crowded around, their faces twisted with anticipation. “Yeah! Do it! Let’s see how she acts then!” Ray hissed, moving the blade to my right thumb. “Consider this a little ‘welcome gift’ for him tonight. Hold her down!” The guards put their full weight on my shoulders. Just as the knife began its downward arc— A low, guttural voice echoed from the doorway. “What exactly are you doing in my office?” 4 Kael stood there, draped in a charcoal-black suit that made him look like a shadow given form. The room froze. The girls, who a second ago were screaming for blood, scrambled back into the corner, their mouths clamped shut. Ray’s bravado evaporated instantly. He transformed into a whimpering poodle, bowing and scraping as he hurried toward Kael. “Sir! I didn’t expect you back so soon!” Kael didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on the desk, though the guards were still blocking his view of me. The lighting was dim, my face obscured by my own hair. “I asked a question,” Kael said, his voice like grinding stones. “What are you doing in here?” Ray gestured wildly toward me, desperate for credit. “Sir, we caught a cheat! A little brat who thinks she can spit on the rules of the house. She’s been insulting your name, acting like she owns the place!” Bella, afraid her uncle would take all the glory, chimed in. “Yes! She’s a fraud, a liar! We were just… cleaning house for you, Sir! Setting an example!” Kael’s brow furrowed, a flash of irritation crossing his features. Ray misread the cue. To prove his loyalty, he didn’t even wait for Kael to come closer. He spun back to the desk, raising the knife high above his head. “Don’t you worry, Sir! I won’t let this trash offend your eyes a second longer. I’ll take her hand right now!” The blade caught the light—a cold, silver flash. It came down with everything Ray had. “Die!” Bella shrieked, her eyes wide with malicious joy. CRACK. The sound of bone and steel meeting flesh echoed through the room. A spray of warm, copper-scented liquid hit the mahogany desk. A severed piece of a finger flew off, rolling across the carpet. “AHHHH!” Bella’s triumphant grin turned into a horrific gasp. Ray stood there, his arm trembling, the knife frozen in mid-air. The fawning look on his face was replaced by a terror so deep he looked like he’d seen the devil. Because the blade hadn’t hit my hand. My thumb was untouched. Kael had caught the blade with his bare hand. The force of the strike had been so great that the knife had sliced clean through his own pinky finger. Kael didn’t even look at his mutilated hand. He slowly lifted his head. Those eyes, usually as dead as a winter pond, were now a roaring, bloodshot red. He stared at the shaking Ray Vance and spoke with a terrifying softness: “I took bullets for her… and you thought you could touch her?”

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When May kicked the door open for the third time, flanked by her entourage, I was slowly straightening my collar in front of the mirror. Clifford, the lead counsel for the Sterling Group, spoke first. His voice was as clinical as a scalpel. “Mr. Smith—pardon me, Gavin. This is the third documented instance of marital infidelity.” “The prenuptial agreement is ironclad,” he continued, adjusting his glasses. “You are to leave with nothing. No assets, no alimony, and you are permanently waiving all custodial rights to your son.” May stood behind him. Those eyes, which I once thought held the stars, were now filled with nothing but a toxic, concentrated hatred. “The first time, you claimed she was a stranger. The second time, you played the amnesia card.” “Three strikes, Gavin. What’s the script this time?” She slammed the divorce papers onto the nightstand so hard a spray of ink speckled the mahogany. I didn’t look at her twisted expression. I didn’t care about the predatory clauses in that contract. As my fingers brushed the pen, I felt a sudden, inexplicable lightness. The moment my signature hit the paper, I heard May catch her breath. As I turned to leave, her controlled facade finally shattered into a scream that echoed down the hallway. But it didn’t register. Wasn’t this the ending she had been writing for us all along? … Clifford snatched the papers away before the ink could even dry. As if terrified I’d change my mind, he turned to May with a triumphant nod. “It’s done, May. He signed.” May stared at me, her brow furrowed. I suppose she was waiting for the encore—waiting for me to rip the papers to shreds like the last two times. Waiting for me to drop to my knees, forehead hitting the floor until I bled, sobbing, “Please, for the sake of our son, just believe me one last time!” I calmly capped my pen and set it on the table. “I’ll have my things moved out as soon as possible. As for visitation—” “You don’t deserve to be a father,” she interrupted, her voice dropping to a low, jagged growl. “You will never see him again.” I didn’t look up. I just let out a small, tired laugh. “I was actually going to say… I don’t want them. The visitation rights. You can keep them.” The indifference in May’s eyes flickered. For a split second, she looked unsettled. She couldn’t wrap her head around this sudden “efficiency.” For the last four years, she and our son had been my entire universe. I used to feel a pang in my chest just hearing the boy call Clifford “Uncle T” one too many times. To walk away now, so cleanly—it wasn’t like me. “Pathetic,” she spat, finally finding a way to rationalize my behavior. “You’re throwing away your own flesh and blood for whatever tramp you have waiting outside.” “Tell me, Gavin… was it worth it? All those schemes you used to crawl into my bed, forcing me to have that child—what was it all for if you’re just going to discard him now?” I listened to her, but the urge to defend myself had simply evaporated. The first time she “caught” me in a hotel room, I was catatonic with confusion. I had screamed myself hoarse trying to explain I hadn’t touched anyone. But May was always certain I was obsessed with her. And because the woman I was allegedly with had vanished—leaving nothing but a blurred silhouette on a security feed—May “mercifully” believed me. But she took our son away. I was relegated to once-a-month visits, scheduled a week in advance through Clifford. Every second was supervised. I had to watch Clifford’s smug face while I held my boy. I had to ask permission to buy him clothes or toys. If Clifford didn’t approve, the gifts never made it past the front gate. My mental health spiraled. Then came the second “affair.” I had taken a job to keep my mind busy. On a business trip, I woke up in a haze in a cheap motel. A stranger was lying next to me, watching me with a predatory grin. I called the police myself, but the medical exam showed no signs of assault. To May, that just meant I hadn’t had time to “finish the job.” After that, I was banned from parent-teacher conferences. May told the school Clifford would handle everything. She told me to stay home so I wouldn’t “embarrass the family.” When our son pointed a finger at me and called me a “bad man,” she stood by and said nothing. And now, the third time… I was tired of the game. I decided to give them exactly what they wanted. So why was she asking me why? Clifford stepped closer to her, lowering his voice in a mock-whisper that he intended for me to hear. “May, I’ve seen a lot of deadbeat dads in my career, but I’ve never seen one sign away his rights this eagerly.” “He’s probably been planning this for a while. A kid is just baggage when you’re trying to live a playboy lifestyle. Don’t waste your breath on him.” He glanced at me, a flicker of something dark and heavy in his eyes. I smiled. He seemed to have forgotten… four years ago, he was the one who drafted that absurd “three strikes” prenup with surgical precision. May’s face turned several degrees colder. “You’d better mean it. Don’t come crawling back to my doorstep on your knees.” She turned and swept out of the room. I watched her back, the corners of my mouth twitching. I won’t be back, May. Years ago, to convince myself I was worthy of you, I visited every cathedral and small-town chapel I could find. I prayed until my knees were raw. I traveled five thousand miles on a spiritual pilgrimage just to hear a priest tell me that “love is a destiny, regardless of birthright.” I thought I had found a miracle. It turns out I just found a curse. This time, my knees wouldn’t bend an inch. Clifford looked at me, a smirk playing on his lips. “Well, Gavin, time is money, and I’m sure you have a ‘busy’ night ahead of you. We’ll leave you to it.” The door clicked shut. Silence flooded the room. I looked down at the woman still sleeping off a drug-induced stupor on the bed. A wave of nausea hit my stomach. I had woken up before her; I could have left before they arrived to “catch” me. But I was bored of being the mouse. I had stayed just to end the game. I threw on my coat and walked out without looking back. The next evening, I went back to the house to pack. When I pushed open the master bedroom door, I found it stripped bare. My clothes, my books—everything was gone. The maid wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Sir… your things were moved to the garden shed. Mr. Clifford said… he said the master suite needs to be ready for its new owner immediately.” I let out a dry laugh. Four years of marriage, and I didn’t even get a decent goodbye. I walked to the storage shed in the backyard. It was a graveyard of boxes and plastic bags. I knelt and started digging. Nothing else mattered, except for my mother’s jade bracelet. It was an heirloom passed down through six generations, the only thing in this world that truly belonged to me. Finally, I found it at the very bottom of a crate. I clutched it in my palm, letting out a long, shuddering breath. As I started to gather a few shirts, a high-pitched, mocking voice came from the doorway. “What are you doing?” I turned. Parker stood there, his small frame silhouetted against the light. He looked exactly like May, but he had adopted that same condescending posture as Clifford. “Taking my things,” I said, returning to my packing. Usually, I would have rushed to hug him, even if he pushed me away. This time, I was a hollow shell of calm. “Those aren’t yours.” He walked inside when I didn’t respond, deliberately stepping on a pile of my sweaters. “Uncle T says everything in this house belongs to Mommy. You aren’t allowed to take anything.” I paused. “These are my personal belongings, Parker.” “You bought them with Mommy’s money.” He put his hands behind his back. “Mommy’s money belongs to the Sterlings. Sterlings don’t give things to outsiders.” Outsourcer? I looked up at him. My four-year-old son was looking at me as if I were a common thief. The coldness in his eyes was even sharper than May’s. “I’m taking one thing,” I said, tightening my grip on the bracelet as I stood up. “The rest you can burn for all I care.” “No.” He stepped in front of the door, spreading his arms wide. “You can’t steal from us.” “Parker, move.” “No!” he shouted. “You’re a beggar! A thieving beggar! Uncle T said once you leave, you’re never coming back, and if you touch anything, it’s stealing!” My pulse throbbed in my temples. “I’m saying it one last time. Move.” “No! Give it back!” He lunged at me, grabbing for the red silk pouch in my hand. I instinctively pulled back, and the silk tore. The jade bracelet slid out, hitting the concrete floor with a sickening crack. It shattered into jagged shards. I stood frozen. I remembered the day my mother put it on my wrist. She was so frail then. “Gavin, this has survived six generations. Give it to your daughter one day. Or your son’s wife.” I had no daughter. I would never have a daughter-in-law. All I had was this bracelet. Six generations of history, shattered by my own son. Parker stood there, muttering under his breath, “You should have just let go…” My eyes burned as I looked at him. “I told you… that was all I had left of your grandmother.” “You think she cares? Do you even know why she’s rotting away in that nursing home?” Parker blinked, taking a half-step back. “I don’t have a grandmother. I just know about the old lady who’s a money-pit.” The blood roared in my ears. “Uncle T said so. He said she stays in that fancy room and burns through Mommy’s money, and she’s never going to get better anyway. She’s just a waste of—” “Say that again.” My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore. It was a low, vibrating hum of pure rage. Parker looked startled, but he bit his lip and doubled down. “She’s a money-burning old lady! What are you going to—” I shoved him. He tripped over a box and landed hard on his rear. He stared at me for one shocked second before letting out a blood-curdling scream. “MOMMY! MOMMY!” I stood there, my palm tingling. I looked at my son wailing on the floor, but all I could hear was “money-burning old lady.” That woman was my mother. His grandmother. The woman who, despite being fresh out of surgery, spent weeks hand-knitting him a baby blanket. The woman who, every year on his birthday, had the nurses help her call him just to whisper a blessing. And he called her a waste of money. A sharp piece of jade sliced into my palm. The pain cleared my head. May burst in, saw Parker on the floor, and scooped him up. “Parker! What happened?” Parker buried his face in her neck, sobbing hysterically. “He hit me, Mommy! Make him leave! I want Uncle T!” May looked at me, her eyes flashing with cold disgust. “Gavin, have you lost your mind? Putting your hands on a child?” “I didn’t hit him,” I said quietly. “I pushed him.” “Is there a difference?” I looked down at the broken jade in my hand. “Yes. Hitting him would be an act of a father trying to discipline a child. Pushing him was simply giving him what he deserved.” May stiffened. She looked down at her son. Parker’s cries subsided into a smug mumble. “I was just telling the truth… Uncle T said that old lady is just burning Mommy’s cash…” May pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’s a child, Gavin. Don’t be so sensitive. Clifford manages our family’s finances; he was likely discussing fiscal realities, and the boy overheard. Don’t make this a moral crusade.” “Clifford does so much for this family. You wouldn’t understand the pressure he’s under.” She caught sight of the shattered bracelet in my hand. For a fleeting second, her voice softened. “Look, I brought Parker here today so we could talk. But the divorce… let’s not tell him just yet. I don’t want to affect his development.” I knew what she meant. She wanted me to play the part of the disgraced ghost until she was ready to announce her “new” family. I didn’t say a word. Talk? About what? In four years, the total time she and my son had spent talking to me didn’t equal half the time she spent with Clifford. It was May who had pursued me in college. She was the one who broke down my walls, making me believe in a “possibility” that everyone said was impossible. I had prayed for a miracle, and I thought I got one. Now I realized the miracle was a mirage. My mother was waiting for me. I picked up my bag and walked out of the shed. In the living room, Clifford was kneeling in front of Parker, whispering something to soothe him. I walked past them like they were ghosts. Behind me, Parker wailed again. “The bad man is ignoring me!” He stamped his feet, furious. He was used to me groveling after he threw a tantrum. He was used to me saying, “Don’t be mad, Parker. Daddy’s sorry.” When I didn’t even give him a glance, his world tilted. May’s voice cracked like a whip. “Stop right there!” I stopped. “Come here and apologize to Parker,” she commanded. “You scared him.” I paused. I realized this might be the last time I’d ever see them. I didn’t have the energy to fight. I walked over and knelt down. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking her in the eye one last time. “I shouldn’t have pushed him.” Parker sniffled, then suddenly spat directly into my face. The glob of saliva slid down my cheek. “Dirty man,” he chirped in his sweet, childish voice. “You deserve it.” May watched with icy indifference. “Even a child can see through your disgusting behavior, Gavin. Your affairs have consequences.” I slowly wiped the spit from my face. I started to laugh. “My affairs?” The setups were so clumsy, so transparent—did she really not see the holes? Or did she just choose not to? “May, for four years, you and Clifford have been a couple in everything but name. You even sent my son to stay at his house. Who’s really the one stepping out here? We’re getting divorced. Can we at least stop lying to ourselves?” Clifford’s face went pale. His eyes welled with performative tears. “Gavin, how could you say something so cruel? May, I…” “Gavin, enough!” May’s gaze burned into me. “You want to talk about being ‘unfaithful’? Fine. Since you’re so convinced we’re ‘dirty’—” She stepped toward me, grabbing my wrist and dragging me toward the bedroom. “I’ll show you what dirty actually looks like.” She threw me onto the floor and used one of my own ties to bind my wrists. Then she turned, grabbed Clifford by his lapels, and pulled him close to her ear. “Do you want me?” she whispered, loud enough for me to hear. Clifford hesitated for a heartbeat before wrapping his arms around her. “May, I’ve waited a lifetime for this…” They began to lose themselves in each other, clothes hitting the floor. I bit my lip until I tasted copper. “May, we’re getting divorced. You can do this whenever you want. Why do you have to humiliate me like this?” She stopped, her hand gripping my chin. “Humiliate you? Gavin, you think you still have enough dignity left to be humiliated?” “May, honey, don’t let him distract you…” Clifford murmured, breathing against her neck. She let go of me and sank back into his embrace. I closed my eyes, silent tears tracking through the dust on my face. Then, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a call from the nursing home. I struggled against my bonds to reach it. When I finally pressed ‘accept,’ it wasn’t my mother’s voice. It was a nurse, her voice trembling. “Mr. Smith? You need to get here immediately. Your mother… she found out about the divorce. She thinks she’s a burden to you. She’s on the roof—” “What?” “She said—” The line went dead with a burst of static. My brain exploded. “May!” I screamed. “Something’s wrong with my mother! Let me go! Please, just let me go!” She glanced back at me, a mocking smile on her lips. “Trying to use the ‘dying mother’ card again, Gavin? I told you, I’m watching the show. You stay put.” “I’m not lying! The hospital called! She found out about the divorce and she’s—” “Enough.” She stood up. “The ink isn’t even dry on the papers. How could she possibly know? You probably told her yourself just to trigger another crisis. It’s your own fault.” She turned back to Clifford. I lunged toward the door, my wrists screaming against the tie. “May! She saved your life! She saved Parker! She took that hit for you three years ago! Please don’t do this!” “Gavin!” She looked at me with pure exhaustion. “Is your mother your hostage? Every time you get caught cheating, it’s either ‘think of the baby’ or ‘remember the accident.’ I’m done.” “I’m not—” I choked on a sob. “This is real. Please…” Clifford wrapped his arms around her waist. “May, everyone knows she only jumped in front of that car to save her grandson. If it had just been you, she wouldn’t have moved a muscle. You’ve already paid her medical bills for years. You’ve done enough.” “Let’s not let him ruin the mood…” The last spark of hesitation in May’s eyes died. I stopped begging. I threw myself at the door, my head slamming into the wood. Blood smeared the white paint. She marched over, grabbed me, and threw me back into the center of the room. “You wanted the truth, Gavin? Here it is. You’re going to watch.” She tore a strip of duct tape and slapped it over my mouth. Then she hauled me up and shoved me into the walk-in closet, locking the door from the outside. The light disappeared. In the darkness, I heard them continue. Again. And again. The next evening, May returned from a gala. She stood in the living room, rubbing her temples, and habitually called out: “Gavin? My head is killing me. Make me some tea.” No one answered. She frowned and turned to the maid. “Where is he?” The maid looked confused. “Ma’am, I was going to ask you. Parker had a fever this morning—102 degrees—and he’s been calling for his father. Also… the hospital called. They said Gavin’s mother jumped last night. The body is at the morgue. No one has come to identify her.” May froze. “What did you say?” A cold realization gripped her heart. “You… you didn’t let him out?” The maid looked blank. “Let him… out of where?” May bolted up the stairs, her heart hammering against her ribs. She threw open the closet door—

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The day after the locks were changed, I posted a message in the company-wide Slack channel. “If anyone needs a spare key to the penthouse, please come see me directly.” When my phone screen lit up, I was staring blankly at the steaming water in the clawfoot tub, precisely 98 degrees. The message from the intern felt like a needle pressed into my pupil. “Hey Oliver, Serena actually gave me a spare key a few days ago. She said it would make things more efficient.” Efficient? The corner of my mouth twitched. My gaze drifted to the bowl of slow-simmered beef consommé on the nightstand, still radiating a faint warmth. My mind kept looping back to that strand of chestnut hair I’d found caught in the shower drain this morning. Coarse, wavy—entirely different from my own straight, ink-black hair. The mystery of the missing spare key from the entryway console finally had an answer. Last night, when Serena told me she’d lost her set, the sizzle of the steak in the kitchen had drowned out my doubt. She always used the keypad. Now, I realized her casual “I lost them” had been as calculated and light as a feather. I hung my suit jacket on the mahogany valet, watching my shadow stretch long across the hardwood floor. On the brass key rack, the silver fob was indeed gone. … The moment Serena walked through the door, her face was a mask of cold fury. “Oliver, have you lost your mind? What the hell was that message in the Slack channel? Do you have any idea what people are saying about him now?” I set the soup spoon down and looked at her, my gaze unwavering. “Why did you lie to me about losing the keys?” She froze. After a long beat, she exhaled, her voice dropping an octave into a deceptive softness. “Milo is my personal assistant, Oliver. Giving him a key was about logistics, nothing more. I only told you I lost them because I didn’t want you overthinking things. Are you really going to be this reactive?” I was silent for a few seconds. When I spoke, my voice was a raspy ghost of itself. “Should I just give him my set too, then?” “Oliver!” Serena’s voice sharpened, hitting the ceiling. “Milo left the office in tears this afternoon. He’s my employee, period. Can you please stop being so paranoid?” “Then how do you explain the handprints on the glass in the steam shower?” “What handprints?” I grabbed her hand and led her toward the master bath, pointing at the glass partition. But the surface was pristine. Empty. Serena wrenched her hand away, letting out a sharp, mocking breath. “I’m not doing this with you. Don’t let it happen again. Go fix your head.” Ten minutes later, I was removed from the company Slack. A notification popped up on my phone: my position as the “Executive Liaison”—a title she’d given me to justify my presence in her life—had been terminated. The grayed-out group icon and the termination notice felt like two successive slaps across the face. My skin burned. The aroma of the beef consommé drifted from the kitchen, but suddenly, it made my stomach turn. Two thousand, four hundred and eighty-five days. I was still waiting for the marriage certificate she had promised me years ago. Instead, I got a front-row seat to her publicly defending another man. My mind drifted back to the year my father jumped from his office window and my mother vanished into the night. Serena had been the one to hold me, her eyes red with a fierce vow. “Listen to me, Oliver. Even if the whole world turns its back on you, you have me. I can’t be a surgeon anymore, but I can sell the tech. I can build us a home. We’ll have a balcony full of flowers—you’ll plant hydrangeas, I’ll keep the succulents. We’ll have a life. A real one.” Back then, my heart ached with a gratitude so deep it was indistinguishable from love. I couldn’t say no to the woman who had lost the dexterity in her hands—the hands of a prodigy surgeon—saving me from that car wreck. So I stayed. I transformed from a concert pianist with a promising career into her high-end housekeeper, her personal chef, her shadow. Massages, gourmet meals, managing her social calendar—my entire existence was filtered through Serena. My mother hadn’t understood. “Is it worth throwing away your life’s ambition for her?” I had been so certain when I answered. But now, looking at Serena’s beautiful, increasingly distant face under the warm glow of the chandelier, I realized I had been catastrophically wrong. We settled into a cold war. She stopped coming home, though I still had the driver deliver her meals like clockwork. Meanwhile, Milo’s Instagram became a broadcast of my displacement. He posted a photo of the executive lounge door; a pair of black leather slippers sat by the threshold. They weren’t my size, and they certainly weren’t Serena’s style. Then came a photo of a new set of stoneware soup bowls—dark, masculine, nothing like the ones Serena usually preferred. In the photo, they were sharing a meal, their blurred reflections caught in the window, smiling at each other. Milo’s caption read: “Hearty soup with my favorite person. Some vintage relics are just meant to be replaced.” I had spent four hours slow-roasting the bones for that soup. The bowl they’d discarded was part of a set I’d bought her seven years ago for our first anniversary. The comments were a bloodbath of subtext. “Is the CEO finally trading up? This looks like a much better match than the last one.” Serena didn’t argue. She simply “liked” the comment. In the warmth of our living room, with the central heating humming perfectly, I felt a bone-deep chill. It was that casual, effortless “like” that did it. Seven years of giving everything I was, and I was just a “vintage relic” in the eyes of others, and a “previous model” to her. A notification pinged. Milo had tagged me in a post. “Oliver, I’m so sorry about the misunderstanding! I accidentally spilled something on my shirt the other day and had to use your shower. Please don’t be hard on Serena because of me.” “Serena said she’s added my biometrics to the smart-lock system now, so I don’t have to bother you for keys anymore…” followed by a smug emoji. He had every reason to be smug. On the surface, it was an apology. In reality, it was a flag planted in my territory, letting everyone know whose side Serena was on. A mutual friend commented: “Is this an apology or a victory lap? Serena, you’re really letting this slide?” Another replied: “Let it slide? Can’t you see the ‘Mr. CEO’ position is up for grabs?” Serena remained silent in the threads, but under the comment about “replacing the man of the house,” she posted a single smiling face. I stared at the screen until my eyes blurred with a stinging heat. I exited the app, opened the smart-home security settings, and deleted my own fingerprint from the system. I left only hers and his. Serena wanted to swap me out. And frankly, I was tired of being the help. That night, Serena finally came home. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes held a strange, bright intensity. She thrust a vintage leather-bound book of sheet music into my lap. “I told you I’d find this for you. Keep it.” She pushed me gently onto the sofa and sat down at the Steinway in the corner. Her back was to me, her shoulders hunched as she clumsily hunted for the notes with her scarred hands. If this had been a month ago, I would have been like Milo—I would have taken a photo and captioned it: “She’s trying so hard just to make me smile!” But now, I just asked quietly, “When did it start?” The piano went silent. Serena turned around, her brow furrowed into a tight knot. “I explained it. I even humbled myself to apologize. Oliver, what more do you want?” I looked her straight in the eyes. “There’s a pair of men’s slippers in your office. A new bottle of cologne in your gym bag. A high-end gaming console in the guest room. And the drawer in the nightstand? It’s full of a brand of protection we’ve never used. Your closet—” “Enough!” The silence that followed was deafening, filled only by our jagged breathing. Serena stood up after a few seconds. The sheet music was crumpled in her grip, her knuckles white. She looked at me with a cold, condescending disappointment. “Oliver, I’m starting to wonder if your father’s instability was genetic. What’s next? Are you going to threaten to jump off a balcony to guilt me?” “Like your father did when he found out your mother was leaving?” The words hit me like a physical explosion. My heart felt like it had been ripped open. I expected her to argue, to deny, to lie. I never imagined she would reach into my chest and twist the oldest, rawest scar I had. “In the adult world, we don’t say everything out loud. It’s called grace,” she said, her voice icy. “Whatever I do outside this house doesn’t change the fact that you were always going to be the man I married. I ruined my hands for you. I gave up being a surgeon for you. What else could you possibly want?” “Milo using the shower was a lapse in judgment, fine. He apologized. Let it go. Stop acting like a martyr.” The louder she spoke, the more clinical her gaze became. She framed it as if I were the one being unfaithful, the one being unreasonable. I looked at her and realized she wasn’t hiding out of guilt. She was acting out of the absolute certainty that I had nowhere else to go. She believed she owned me because I was “broken” without her. My throat felt constricted. I didn’t say another word. She remembered her ruined hands. She remembered her lost career. But she had conveniently forgotten that I had ruined my own hands too—not in a crash, but in the slow, agonizing death of a thousand chores, tending to her every whim until my technique was a memory. After she retreated to the bedroom, I sat at the piano. I pressed a key, then another. The notes were there, but the soul was gone. Later that night, I heard the front door click. Serena had slipped out. I opened my eyes in the dark. A few minutes later, Milo posted again. Five photos. Each one showed a drone-light display over the city skyline. Together, they spelled out: “SERENA LOVES MILO.” I had seen that same display three years ago. It was the night Serena’s company went public. She had given me the deed to the penthouse and a balcony filled with roses, peonies, and succulents. She had yelled into the night: “I kept my promise, Oliver! I’ll love you forever!” The woman was the same. The recipient had changed. My phone vibrated. A text from my mother. I turned off the phone, pulled my suitcase from under the bed, and began to pack. My clothes went in first. Everything else—the gifts, the mementos—went into the trash. When Serena returned the next morning, she saw the suitcase by the door. She loosened her silk tie, a mocking smirk playing on her lips. “And where do you think you’re going?” “On a trip.” “A trip?” She laughed as if I’d told a joke. “You’ve waited on me hand and foot for seven years. You haven’t spent a single night away from this house. You think you can just leave?” “Oliver, if this is some play to make me crawl back to you, it won’t work.” “I don’t think I’m in the wrong here, and I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong with Milo. I’ve supported you for seven years. It’s time you grew up.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t even look at her. I just tucked the suitcase back into the closet for now. It felt light—empty, almost. Just like the house I’d lived in for seven years, and the marriage I’d been waiting for. I thought it was a sanctuary; it was just a cage. Serena nodded, satisfied. “Good. You’re learning.” “Nobody else in this world is going to give you a home like this, Oliver. You should be grateful for what you have.” Her words were cold, punctuated by the faint scent of a strawberry-flavored vape—Milo’s brand—clinging to her hair. My heart gave one last, dull throb of pain. “Just remember, you aren’t that shining star on the stage anymore. You’re just my domestic partner. A man who’s lost his edge. Stay quiet, stay obedient, and I’ll keep taking care of you…” Her voice drifted off as she turned on the shower. I couldn’t hear the rest, but I’d heard enough. I smiled to myself. She didn’t know that my passport and essentials were already in that bag. I wasn’t staying because I was “grateful.” I was staying because my flight wasn’t until the day after tomorrow. The next day, Serena called me—a rarity. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft. “The annual gala is tonight. The board and the investors all want to finally meet you.” She let out a small, flirtatious laugh. “Come. Use the opportunity. Propose to me in front of them. Let’s make it official.” My heart skipped a beat, then went flat. No excitement. No joy. But I agreed. Not because I had hope. But because after seven years of giving her my soul, I wanted a definitive ending. That evening, she sent a courier with a gift. A vintage-style leather watch strap and a tailored black tuxedo. My favorite color. My exact size. A ghost of warmth flickered in my chest. When the double doors of the ballroom opened and I walked toward the center of the room, I froze. In the center of the gala floor, on a platform draped in white orchids, stood Serena. She was wearing a stunning black diamond-encrusted gown and a sapphire pendant. And Milo was there, down on one knee, holding a ring box. The flashes of the cameras were blinding. The roar of congratulations felt like a tidal wave crashing over me. I should have been devastated. But I wasn’t. I just felt a profound sense of “of course.” Seeing me, Serena stepped off the platform and hurried over. She kept her voice low, urgent. “This proposal is just for show, Oliver. It’s for Milo’s birthday wish. He needs a ‘best man’ to stand with him for the photos. Just play along for tonight. I’ll explain everything when we get home.” She didn’t even realize how insane she sounded. She shoved me toward the platform, positioning me right next to Milo. And so, I stood there. The actual partner of seven years, forcing a smile for the cameras. I watched the woman I loved take the engagement ring I had picked out months ago and let another man slide it onto her finger. I watched them gaze into each other’s eyes. I watched them embrace and kiss while the room erupted in applause. I had dreamed of this moment. In my dreams, I was the one holding the ring. In reality, I was the prop. During the cocktail hour, Milo followed Serena around with a glass of custom-made ginger-infused water. It was my recipe—the one I’d perfected after dozens of tries to help with her chronic migraines. “You’ll be my ‘Water Man’ forever, won’t you?” she had once joked. Now, she’d given that recipe to him too. “The CEO and Mr. Milo are a match made in heaven,” a guest toasted. “I bet we’ll hear wedding bells and see a baby within a year.” “From your lips to God’s ears,” Serena laughed, raising her glass. Milo looked at me, his grin widening with triumph. He leaned in close under the cover of the noise. “Oliver, the proposal you waited seven years for? I got it with one little lie. You’re just as pathetic as your deadbeat dad. Why don’t you do the world a favor and follow in his footsteps?” His voice was low, but loud enough for Serena to hear. A few guests nearby went silent. Serena just sipped her wine, her eyes darting away, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing. I picked up a glass of red wine from a passing tray. I took a slow sip, then threw the rest of the glass directly into Milo’s smiling face. The room went dead silent. I turned to Serena. “Why did you really bring me here? To be a groomsman? To pass a loyalty test? Or just to be the punchline for your friends?” Serena’s face flushed with anger. “Oliver! I explained this to you! What the hell is wrong with you?” She stepped in front of Milo, shielding him. I didn’t look at her. “Whatever it was, you got what you wanted,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Serena, we’re done.”

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Three years ago, the wedding that was supposed to be the highlight of the New York social season became my public execution. My ex, Quentin, didn’t just leave me at the altar; he replaced me. In front of eight hundred guests, he announced a change of plans, a change of brides, and a total erasure of my dignity. I shattered that day. For a long time, the only thing I lived with was a crippling, suffocating depression that felt like drowning in slow motion. Then came Gideon. He stepped into my life like a sunrise in a dark room. With a patience that felt holy, he stitched the pieces of my soul back together. He swore on everything he held dear that he would be my anchor, my sanctuary, my forever. I actually believed him. I believed I had finally found a way out of the wreckage. Until today—sixty minutes before our vows were set to begin. Gideon walked into the bridal suite, but he wasn’t carrying flowers. He was holding a bridesmaid’s dress. His face was a mask of cold indifference as he dropped the fabric onto the vanity and told me to put it on. I gripped the lace of my white gown, my knuckles turning white. I couldn’t process the words. My brain kept stuttering, trying to find a reason, a joke, anything. He looked at my stunned face and let out a short, jagged laugh. It was a sound I’d never heard from him before—it lacked any trace of the man who had held me while I cried. He told me, quite casually, that he’d forgotten to mention a small detail: the bride had changed. He had a “kept woman”—a girl he called his little songbird. Apparently, she had been demanding a title, a place in the sun. So, he decided to give her my wedding. Gideon had the audacity to offer me a hollow comfort. He said the legal marriage certificate would still bear my name; the ceremony, the dress, the public “I do”—that was just a performance for her. A gift. The door pushed open before I could even scream. Callie strolled in. She moved with a slow, predatory grace. Half of her face was stunning, like a masterpiece, but the other half… it was a nightmare of melted wax and distorted features. It was a haunting, visceral sight. Without a word, she reached out and ripped the silk from my shoulders, tearing the wedding dress right off my body until I was standing there in nothing but my slip. She looked at me with a twisted, triumphant smile and called me “sister.” The word felt like a slap. That’s when the realization hit me like a physical blow. I knew her. She was the woman Quentin had married after he left me. Gideon didn’t even flinch. He wrapped his arm around Callie’s waist and kissed her right there, in the middle of my ruined dreams. He looked proud. He looked satisfied. Callie leaned into him, her eyes locked on mine with pure malice. She whispered that my ex, Quentin, certainly had good taste—that she was “exquisite” in bed, a fact Quentin had clearly appreciated. Her words were a serrated blade, sawing through the last of my heart. I had been betrayed before, but I never thought I’d be led to the same slaughterhouse by a different man. The hope, the trust, the healing—it was all a lie. The abyss I had fought so hard to climb out of opened its mouth and swallowed me whole. … “What’s the point of being a beauty queen if you can’t even keep a husband?” “Seriously, is this Callie girl some kind of sorceress? She looks like that, yet she’s stolen two husbands from the most beautiful woman in the city? I need her to start a masterclass.” “Men are all the same. Callie must be thrilled—from mistress to wife, and she gets to make the ‘rightful’ bride play bridesmaid twice!” The whispers drifted through the air, sharp and poisonous. I dug my fingernails into my palms until I felt the warm slickness of blood, but the physical pain was a dull thud compared to the screaming in my head. An hour ago, I was the woman of the hour. Now, just like three years ago, my carefully planned life was nothing but a dowry for Callie. On the stage, they were exchanging rings. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream until my lungs gave out. But Gideon’s voice—that beautiful, demonic voice—was still vibrating in my ears. “If you walk out that door, your sister’s ventilator stops tonight. Daisy won’t make it to sunrise.” When he saw the color drain from my face, he had the nerve to lean in. He kissed me with the same mouth he’d just used on Callie. “Don’t look like that, Izzy,” he’d whispered. “Once I’m bored with her, things will go back to how they were. Your ex only lasted three months with her before he was done. Just hold on a little longer…” He watched my reaction, his eyes searching for my pain. When he saw my eyes turn bloodshot with unshed tears, he laughed—a bright, joyous sound. “Yes! That’s it! That’s the exact face you made three years ago when Quentin replaced you at the altar!” Callie stood beside him, looking down at me from the height of her stolen pedestal. “Pathetic,” she mouthed. I didn’t look at her. My heart felt like it was being flayed alive. “Why?” I gasped, my fingers catching the fabric of his lapel. “Why, Gideon? Why are you doing this?” He smiled, a cruel, handsome tilt of his lips. “Why? Why do you always need a reason? I fell for you at first sight—you didn’t ask why then. Now I’ve got a taste for someone else, and you’re obsessed with the ‘why’ of it?” “Fine. You want a reason? She’s better in bed. She makes me feel things you can’t. Is that enough for you?” My hands began to shake uncontrollably. It had been a year since my last major episode, but the tremors were back—the physical manifestation of a soul breaking apart. Gideon’s eyes flickered with a momentary panic. He reached into his pocket and pulled out my medication, trying to force a pill into my mouth. Even while he was destroying me, he carried my meds. He acted as if he still couldn’t stand to see me hurt. I had been so afraid of marriage. It took every ounce of my strength to say yes to him, to believe that love wasn’t a trap. How could he turn his heart off like a faucet? And how could he choose her—the one person who had already gutted me once before? I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I broke. The sobs tore out of me, jagged and ugly. Gideon was the first to notice the tears. His face shifted from concern to a sneering contempt. “Isabel, you’re still so incredibly stupid.” “You lose a man and all you know how to do is cry. But unfortunately for you, there’s no ‘second me’ coming to save you this time.” As if on cue, the doors burst open and the paparazzi swarmed in like vultures. The flashes were blinding, the shutter clicks sounding like gunfire. The questions were relentless, honed to draw blood. “Miss Thorne, can you explain why the invitations had your name, but you’re standing here in a bridesmaid’s dress?” “How does it feel to be dumped at the altar for the second time? Do you think you’re just cursed?” “We heard you struggle with clinical depression. You’re shaking—is this a nervous breakdown on live TV?” “How does it feel to lose two men to a woman like Callie?” I clenched my fists, my gaze burning into Gideon. He leaned in and mouthed two words: “Quentin. Accident.” The blood turned to ice in my veins. Three years ago, when Quentin announced Callie as his bride, I had lost my mind. I had screamed. I had slapped him in front of everyone. The price for that slap was my family’s car being run off the road that night. My parents died instantly. My sister, Daisy, survived by a miracle, but she hadn’t opened her eyes since. Quentin had whispered it to me at the funeral: “If you’d just been a good girl, they’d still be alive.” Callie had laughed in my face: “Who cares if you’re the ‘it-girl’? You’re just a discarded toy. You can’t beat me.” Gideon was reminding me of the cost of rebellion. He was holding my sister’s life over my head. I took a shuddering breath, my teeth gritted so hard I thought they might shatter. I turned to the cameras, my voice trembling but audible. “I… I have no comment. I just wish Mr. and Mrs. Vance a very happy life together.” Gideon smiled, satisfied. With that one sentence, I became the headline. I was the national laughingstock. The girl who didn’t just lose—she thanked them for it. That night, Gideon brought both of us back to the penthouse. Callie had been his “bird in a cage” for a year, but this was her first time stepping into the home I had built. I had spent a month decorating the master suite for our wedding night. She took one look at it and claimed it. She looped her arms around Gideon’s neck, her eyes fixed on me. “Gideon, honey… I’m your wife now. That means everything here is mine, right?” Gideon looked at her distorted face with a terrifyingly tender smile. “Everything.” “What about her?” Callie pointed a manicured finger at me. I felt my heart hammering against my ribs, a trapped bird in a cage of bone. Gideon leaned down and playfully nipped her nose. “Do whatever you want with her.” I turned to run. I didn’t care about the consequences; I just needed to be out of that house. But Gideon’s low, melodic voice drifted down the hall. “Are you forgetting Daisy? You really want to run?” I froze. Daisy was all I had left. My parents were gone because of me. I couldn’t let her blood be on my hands too. I turned back. Seeing Callie’s face in the dim light of the hallway sent a fresh jolt of horror through me. No matter how many times I saw it—the way the skin on the left side of her face sagged and puckered—the primal fear remained. Callie caught my expression. Her smile vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp fury. “You’re afraid of my face, aren’t you?” My scalp tingled with dread. She had been bullied for that face her entire life. She was hyper-sensitive to every flinch, every look of pity or disgust. I could see the murderous intent in her eyes. “No… no, I’m not…” “Aren’t you?” Callie laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering on a grave. “Gideon, I don’t like her. Let’s just kill her. Let’s get rid of her for good.” She said it with the sweetness of a child asking for candy. I remembered then what Quentin had told me—that the “accident” that killed my parents had been Callie’s idea. Why were men so drawn to this kind of darkness? Why did they choose her over me? Gideon’s expression flickered with a brief, sharp annoyance. “Callie, don’t forget your place.” “Isabel is still the woman I publicly claimed. She has a certain… value. You? You’re still the thing that stays in the shadows.” Callie’s face twisted with resentment. I looked at Gideon, a tiny spark of hope igniting in my chest. Maybe he still cared. Maybe this was some sick test. But then he crushed it. “You can do anything you want to her,” he said, his voice cold as a winter morning. “Just don’t kill her.” That was the moment I finally died. Callie let out a jagged, manic laugh. She grabbed a steak knife from the side table. She pinned me against the wall, her nails digging into my cheeks, and pressed the cold, sharp edge of the blade against my skin. She didn’t even push hard, but I felt the stinging line of heat as the skin parted. I was paralyzed. “Please… not my face…” My face was the only thing I had left of my mother. I looked so much like her. It was my only connection to the life I had lost. But Callie was beyond reason. Her words were venom, dripping into my wounds. “I hate this pretty little face of yours.” “Why do you get to be the one everyone loves? Why do people look at you with stars in their eyes while they look at me like I’m a monster? You’re the ‘Belle of the Hamptons,’ right? Let’s see how they like you when you look just like me.” “No! Gideon! Please! You know… you know what this face means to me!” I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak. I looked at Gideon, pleading with my eyes. He had told me a thousand times that my face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He knew I used it to see my mother’s ghost in the mirror. He watched. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. He wasn’t just indifferent; he was enjoying the spectacle. I realized then that he didn’t love me. He didn’t even love Callie. He loved the power of breaking things. The instinct to survive—or perhaps just the pure terror—gave me a sudden burst of strength. I shoved Callie away. She tripped, the knife slipping from her hand, and as she fell, the blade caught the “good” side of her face, slicing a deep, ragged line across her cheek. She let out a blood-curdling scream. I didn’t wait. I bolted for the door, my throat dry and burning. But the bodyguards were already there. They blocked the exit, their faces like stone. Behind me, Gideon’s voice was slow, almost bored. “Izzy, I really didn’t want to ruin that face. I liked looking at it.” He walked toward me, his steps heavy and deliberate. He grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at Callie, who was clutching her bleeding face and howling. “But you broke my favorite toy’s face. She’s very sensitive about her looks, Izzy. I’m afraid I can’t protect you anymore.” Callie’s screams turned into a manic, guttural sound. Gideon handed her back the knife. No matter how much I begged, no matter how much I screamed, he remained unmoved. He held me down. He literally held me down while Callie took her revenge. The blade cut into me, again and again. The sensation of skin being carved away was a white-hot agony that transcled pain. Everything in my vision turned a thick, sticky red. Through the haze, I heard Gideon whispering in my ear. “It’s okay, Izzy. I’ll still love you even when you’re ugly. Not like Quentin. He only loved the surface. I love the broken things.” Darkness began to pull at the edges of my consciousness. I drifted into a memory. Two years ago. Gideon had taken me to my final therapy session. The doctor told me I could stop the meds. Gideon had been so happy; he’d kissed my forehead and promised me a surprise. While I waited for him, I ran into Quentin. I was happy then. I had light in my eyes. Quentin saw it and told me he regretted everything. He tried to touch me, tried to pull me into his car. Gideon saw us. He didn’t see me rejecting Quentin; he saw me “glowing” because of him. He convinced himself that I was still in love with the man who had destroyed me. I had tried to explain for months, but he just went silent. I woke up to the sound of rhythmic thumping and moaning from the next room. “Gideon… do you like the black lace or the white?” “I like it all…” The sound of his voice through the wall was a spike through my heart. My body began to shake—the tremors were so violent I thought my bones might snap. Gideon. You saved me from the darkness, only to become the monster waiting in it. I listened to them for hours. Every sound was a fresh cut. Finally, the room next door went quiet. I heard the click of a lighter, and then Gideon walked into my room. He knew I was a light sleeper. When we first moved in, he had the entire place carpeted and padded so I wouldn’t wake up. He turned the house into a sanctuary of silence. Now, he used the sounds of his betrayal to wake me. “Does it hurt?” he asked. The tremors were so bad I couldn’t move. He sat on the edge of my bed and traced the bandages on the ruined half of my face as if he were touching silk. “I won’t ever leave you,” he whispered. “I just wanted you to feel the pain. If it hurts enough, you’ll never be able to forget me, will you?” “When this is all over, it’ll just be us. Forever.” I stared at him, my voice a broken rasp. “What are you talking about? I told you… I don’t love Quentin. I haven’t thought about him in years.” Gideon’s laugh was a hollow, self-deprecating thing. “Is that so? But Izzy… you don’t know, do you? Every night for the last three years, you’ve called out his name in your sleep. Every. Single. Night.” His eyes were bloodshot, manic. So this was it? All this horror because of a name I muttered in my nightmares? Or did he just want to own my trauma? I shook my head, tears leaking from my one good eye. “Gideon, please, you have to believe me… I was having nightmares… I was dreaming about the accident…” “I don’t believe you,” he said, his voice flat. He pulled out a phone and showed me a screen. It was a live feed of Daisy’s hospital room. “See this button?” he whispered. “One tap, and the oxygen flow to her ventilator stops. Don’t hate me, Izzy. I just can’t have you remembering him anymore. I have to be the only one left.” “No… no, please!” I screamed. I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t be the reason she died. As his thumb hovered over the screen, something in me snapped. The pain in my body vanished, replaced by a surge of pure, adrenaline-fueled desperation. I threw myself at him.

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A sudden, jarring fracture in reality propelled me five years into the future. In my memory, Dwight and I were just starting to plan our wedding. I remember the weight of the silk, the way the lace scratched my collarbone as I stepped out of the fitting room, my heart hammering against my ribs. I expected to see that look—the one where his breath hitches, where he looks at me like I’m the only light in a dark room. Instead, he just smiled. It was a practiced, hollow thing. He told me I looked beautiful in the gown, but his next words gutted me: he wouldn’t be the one standing at the end of the aisle. I stood there, paralyzed, my mind spinning. I didn’t understand. Then he told me he had already signed the papers. He was legally married to someone else. I had spent three years chasing him—the untouchable “Ice King” of our university. He was the brilliant, distant architect of his own world, and I had slowly, painfully carved a place for myself in it. Behind that cold exterior, he had been a man who would pull me into a frantic kiss in the rain, who would swallow his pride and beg hospital administrators for help when my mother got sick. Or at least, he used to be. … The news hit me like a physical blow. I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold in the middle of the boutique. Dwight leaned down, his fingers steady as he adjusted the train of my dress. He spoke about his infidelity with the same clinical detachment he used for business contracts. “I met a girl. She’s young, impulsive—one of those girls who loves too hard and threatens to break her own heart if she doesn’t get her way.” He let out a soft, dry chuckle. “She made it clear she wouldn’t survive if I didn’t marry her.” He looked up at me, his eyes searching mine. “I couldn’t just let her destroy herself. You’re not that cruel, are you? You’d understand.” My voice shook, barely a whisper. “Dwight, if this is a joke, it’s not funny. It’s not April Fools’. Stop it.” His smile faded, replaced by a terrifyingly soft expression. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Joanna, I’m serious.” I stared at him. The face was the same—the sharp jaw, the eyes that haunted my dreams—but the soul behind them felt like a stranger’s. I felt a chill settle into my bones. He stroked my cheek, his voice a soothing hum. “She has the certificate, the legal status. But my heart? That belongs to you. You’re still the woman I love. You’re the only ‘Mrs. Sterling’ that matters in this house.” “Except for the wedding,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash. “And the legal right to your name.” He shrugged. “I can give you everything else. Luxury, devotion, a life most people dream of. Does a piece of paper really change what we have?” Everything I had spent years building—the future I had survived for—felt like a grotesque parody. Last night—or what felt like last night to me—he had been holding me, whispering that he would make something of himself, that he would give me the world. I opened my eyes to a world where he was indeed the powerful CEO he promised to be. He just wasn’t mine anymore. I took a ragged breath, the corset of the dress feeling like it was crushing my lungs. “If you’re married to her, then we’re done. I’m leaving.” Dwight’s face darkened instantly. The mask of the doting lover slipped. “Joanna, don’t be childish. You’re not a girl anymore; don’t act like one. Why pick a fight over a child who means nothing?” He stepped closer, his shadow looming over me. “I’ve spent five years making sure you never had to lift a finger. You’re a hothouse flower now. Where would you go? Who would take care of you?” A needle of sharp, hot pain pierced my chest. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How did the boy who would have moved mountains for me turn into this—a man who saw me as a pet? I forced a laugh, tilting my chin up with the last shred of my dignity. “I don’t need a keeper, Dwight. I’ll survive just fine on my own.” He stared at me for a moment, as if seeing a ghost. Then he reached out and pinched my cheek, a patronizing gesture. “Stop the drama. When I get bored of her—and I will—I’ll divorce her and marry you properly. Okay?” I stepped back, breaking his touch. “I said, it’s over.” His eyes turned cold. “Fine. It’s over. But tell me—how are you going to cover your mother’s medical bills? It’s sixty thousand a month for her care. Do you have that kind of cash lying around?” I froze. He saw the flicker of panic in my eyes and smiled, satisfied. He patted my hair. “Go back to the house, Joanna. You’re my partner, not some mistress you need to compete with. Take a cab to the hospital after you change. Go see her. She’s been asking for you.” He checked his watch, dismissive. “I have to go. Talia is stubborn; she won’t eat dinner unless I’m there to coax her.” I watched him walk away, his silhouette sharp and confident against the afternoon sun. I stood there, a bride in a dress that no longer meant anything, until the shop assistant’s awkward cough snapped me back to reality. I stripped off the lace and silk and ran for the hospital. Five years ago, my mother needed a specialist—a surgeon whose waitlist was miles long. Back then, Dwight was just a student with a brilliant mind and zero clout. He had slept in the hospital lobby for a week, pestering every resident and intern until he finally got her chart into the right hands. He saved her life. Now, that life was a bargaining chip. When I entered her room, the woman in the bed looked like a shadow of herself. She was gaunt, her skin like parchment. When she saw me, her clouded eyes brightened. She reached out with a trembling hand. “Mom,” I whispered, pressing her palm to my face. “I’m here.” She smiled weakly. “My good girl. Where’s Dwight? You mentioned the wedding… did the dress fit?” The tears started then, hot and uncontrollable. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell her that her hero was a monster. “It’s beautiful, Mom. He loved it. He says I look like an angel.” She nodded, her eyes drifting shut. “Your father is waiting for me, Joanna. I’m not afraid to go. I just didn’t want to leave you alone. But seeing you two… I can rest now.” I couldn’t breathe. I made a frantic excuse and stumbled out of the room, my heart a lead weight in my chest. I went back to the house—our house—only to be met with the sound of laughter and intimacy echoing through the hall. “Do you like it when I feed you, baby?” “I love it. I want you to do everything for me.” The voice was high, flirtatious. My stomach did a slow, sickening roll. I leaned against the wall, dry-heaving, the bile rising in my throat. I wanted to scream, to tear the door off its hinges, but then I thought of my mother—fragile as a dried leaf in that hospital bed. I stayed frozen. When the silence finally fell, I keyed in the code. The air in the living room was heavy, smelling of expensive perfume and sex. I felt like I was walking into a crime scene. A girl—Talia—yelped, clutching a silk throw over her bare shoulders as she huddled into Dwight’s side on the sofa. Dwight didn’t even look guilty. He just sighed, pulling a blanket over both of them. “You should have called before coming back from the hospital. I would have picked you up.” I didn’t speak. If I opened my mouth, I was going to lose it. Talia peeked out from the blanket, her eyes wide and faux-innocent. “Dwight? You said this was our home. Why is she still here? Is she going to… watch us?” She emphasized the word “watch” with a jagged edge of malice. Dwight didn’t answer her immediately. She kicked him playfully under the blanket. “I don’t like it! Make her leave!” I looked around the room. Every piece of furniture, every painting, was exactly as I had described it to him years ago on the night of our graduation. This was supposed to be our sanctuary. “Fine,” Dwight said, his voice flat. He looked at me as if I were a piece of furniture that no longer fit the decor. “Joanna, move out. The lake house is bigger anyway. You’ll like the garden.” I didn’t fight. I didn’t beg. “Fine. I’ll go.” Maybe it was the lack of resistance, but Dwight looked surprised. He stood up, pulling on his pants, and walked over to me. “You always complained about not having enough room for your plants. The lake house has a greenhouse. I’ll come by tonight.” I looked at the scratches on his chest, the marks of another woman’s nails. I stepped back. “Whatever she wants. I don’t care.” He smiled, reaching out to ruffle my hair. “Good girl.” At seven that night, my phone buzzed. “Talia has a fever,” Dwight said, his voice clipped. “I’m staying at the clinic with her. Come to the hospital; I’ll walk you to your mom’s room.” I hesitated, but I thought of the look on my mother’s face earlier. I went. But when I got to the ward, Dwight wasn’t there. Only Talia was, standing by my mother’s bed. Her hand was hovering over the oxygen intake. My heart nearly stopped. I lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and twisting it away. Before I could think, my hand flew out and cracked across her face. Talia’s “innocent girl” mask shattered. Her face twisted into something ugly, something predatory. “You pathetic old bitch,” she hissed, clutching her red cheek. “You think you can just hang onto my husband? You’re a parasite. Sixty thousand a month to keep a corpse warm? That’s my money. That’s marital property.” She leaned in, her voice a poisonous whisper. “Stay in this room every second if you want. But the moment you leave, I’m ending this.” I was shaking with a rage so pure it felt like fire. I raised my hand again, but she suddenly collapsed toward the door, sobbing. “Dwight! She hit me! She just attacked me!” Dwight was there in an instant, catching her. His eyes, when they landed on me, were ice. “Apologize to her. Now.” I laughed, a jagged, broken sound. “She tried to kill my mother. I should have done more than slap her. If she touches that equipment again, I’ll kill her myself.” Talia’s tears flowed harder. “I didn’t! I was just curious who was in here… I didn’t touch anything!” Dwight’s jaw tightened. “Joanna. Apologize.” “I have nothing to apologize for. Check the cameras! If I’m lying, may God strike me down right here!” Talia tugged at his shirt. “Dwight, I swear on my life I didn’t do anything. My face hurts so much…” “I believe you,” he said softly to her. “Let’s get you to a doctor. I promise you, she’ll be the one begging for forgiveness soon.” He threw a final, chilling look over his shoulder. “I’ll be in the next room, Joanna. I’m waiting.” They left. “Joanna?” a weak voice called from the bed. I turned. My mother was awake, her eyes wide with a terrifying clarity. “Did that girl… did she call him her husband?” I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I tried to smile. “No, Mom. She’s just a… a nurse he hired. She’s being let go. Don’t worry about it.” “I’m sick, Joanna. I’m not blind.” She looked at me with heartbreaking pity. “It’s over, isn’t it? He’s with someone else.” I couldn’t speak. The silence filled the room like water in a sinking ship. Suddenly, three nurses burst in. “Room three. Payments have been halted, and the discharge papers were signed by the primary guarantor. We need the equipment for an incoming patient. Please clear the room immediately.” The world tilted. I knew that look he gave me. This was the “consequence.” He was using my mother’s literal breath to break me. My mother seemed to understand. She reached out, squeezing my hand one last time. “It’s okay, Joanna. I’m ready. Don’t let him do this to you.” “No! I won’t let you die!” I ran to the billing department, my lungs burning. I pulled out every card I had. Declined. Declined. Frozen. In a panic, I ran to Talia’s room. I fell to my knees. I let my forehead hit the cold linoleum. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have hit you! Please, just tell him to turn the machines back on!” I screamed, the words blurring together. “Dwight, I apologized! Don’t kill her! Please!” Dwight sat there, calmly feeding Talia a spoonful of soup. He looked at her. “Do you forgive her? Or should she stay there a while longer?” I sobbed, my head throbbing, blood trickling from where I’d hit the floor. Talia just watched me, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. Just as I felt the darkness closing in, a commotion broke out in the hall. “What a waste… should we take her to the morgue or call the funeral home directly?” “Her daughter was just at the desk… she was too late.” The thread snapped. I scrambled to my feet, my legs like jelly. A young nurse caught me as I stumbled out of the room. “Where were you?” she asked, her voice soft with pity. “You missed her. She left this for you.” She handed me a crumpled scrap of paper. My mother’s shaky handwriting: Joanna, I didn’t want to be your burden anymore. Live your life. The orderlies pushed the gurney out. The white sheet was pulled over a face I had loved my entire life. The world went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in the middle of the University Quad. It was spring. The air smelled of cut grass and cheap coffee. Dwight—twenty-one-year-old Dwight—was standing in front of me, looking younger, softer, his eyes full of a light that hadn’t yet been extinguished by greed. “Joanna,” he said, his voice bright. “I… I accept. I want to be with you too.” I looked at the bouquet of roses in my hand. I looked at the man who would eventually murder my mother for the sake of his ego. I threw the flowers directly into his face. “Get lost, Dwight. Don’t ever speak to me again. You make me sick.”

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The sneeze caught me off guard, sharp and involuntary, just as I sat down for dinner. My husband, Gary, a prestigious professor of ophthalmology, had always treated me with a clinical sort of indifference. But tonight, he paused, his chopsticks hovering in mid-air. Without looking up, he said in a flat, measured tone that we were getting rid of the plants on the balcony. He wouldn’t keep them anymore, he said, because my allergies were clearly acting up again. His grad student, sitting across from us, let out a soft gasp of admiration. “Professor, you’re such a romantic,” he chirped. “I know how much those orchids mean to you. You’ve spent ten years nursing them.” Instead of warmth, a cold leaden weight settled in my chest. Gary loved those flowers more than anything. On our wedding night five years ago, my pollen allergy had flared so badly I broke out in hives. I had sobbed, begging him to move the pots outside. He had looked at me with nothing but irritation, snapping that I was being “dramatic” and “jealous of a plant.” Three years ago, when I was pregnant and suffering from a sudden onset of seizures, his colleague in OB-GYN warned him that the heavy fragrance in our apartment might be aggravating my condition. Gary had merely sneered. He questioned the “genetics” of a child who couldn’t handle a little pollen, suggesting the baby wasn’t “fit” to be his. The baby didn’t make it. Just as he’d predicted, in the cruelest way possible. And now, because of one tiny sneeze, he was voluntarily giving up his decade-long passion? This sudden, belated tenderness felt wrong. My eyes darted nervously toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the balcony. There, on the glass, I saw it: two sets of overlapping handprints. One set was small, dainty, and distinctly not mine. Right then, the student—who had been scrolling through his phone—spoke up in surprise. “Wait, Paige just posted. She’s having a massive allergy flare-up too.” The world seemed to tilt. Paige was Gary’s star pupil, the girl he’d mentored with obsessive focus. She was also the woman he had emotionally drifted toward three years ago. Blood rushed to my head, then turned to ice. After dinner, I didn’t say a word. I watched from the window as Gary walked his student to the car. As soon as the taillights faded, I dialed my best friend, Jordan, a ruthless divorce attorney. My voice was eerily calm. “Get the post-nuptial agreement out of the safe. The one he signed three years ago—the ‘at-fault’ clause for the house and assets.” “Clara?” Jordan’s voice sharpened. “What happened?” “I’m done, Jordan. I’m leaving him.” 1. “Did he cheat again?” Jordan asked, her voice dropping an octave. I stared at the congealing grease in my soup bowl. I couldn’t help but let out a jagged, bitter laugh. “Yeah. But you have to give him credit for loyalty. It’s still Paige.” The line went silent for a beat. Then, Jordan erupted. “That absolute piece of trash! If Paige hadn’t mismanaged your medication three years ago, you wouldn’t have lost a six-month-old—” She stopped herself. She knew the territory was too raw. During the six months after I lost the baby, I tried to end it three times. The first time was pills. The second was the bridge. The third was a blade in the bathroom. The first two times, Gary thought I was “performing for attention.” It wasn’t until the third time, when he kicked down the locked bathroom door and slipped in the red pool on the floor, that he finally felt something like terror. To keep me alive, the man who was usually a pillar of cold, intellectual pride knelt by my hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. “Clara, I was wrong. Please don’t leave me alone…” Gary was an orphan. He had grown up at my parents’ dinner table since middle school. I was the only family he had left. After that night, he deleted Paige from everything. He signed that agreement—forfeiting everything if he ever strayed again—and swore he would spend his life making it up to me. It’s only been three years. I guess even geniuses like Gary can’t help but return to their old habits. “Do you have proof?” Jordan asked, pulling me back to the present. I looked at the hanging ivy plant by the bedroom door. Tucked inside was a tiny, high-def camera Gary had installed himself three years ago. He told me it was so he could check the app and make sure I was “safe” while he was at the hospital. He’d stopped mentioning the camera after a month, claiming he’d switched phones and lost the login. It turned out his “concern” for my safety had an expiration date. I went to the drawer and pulled out his old phone, the one he kept meticulously charged. He told me it was full of “precious memories of us” that he couldn’t bear to delete. I had believed him. Until now. I tried the old passcode—our anniversary. Incorrect. My heart hammered against my ribs. I felt like I was being strangled. I took a deep breath, my fingers trembling, and punched in four digits: 0907. The day he first met Paige three years ago. Unlocked. The bitterness at the back of my throat was a physical weight I couldn’t swallow. I forced myself to tap on the gallery. 10,875 photos. 319 videos. 1,025 screenshots of texts. All of them—every single one—of Paige. As for me, his wife? There was one photo. A scanned copy of our marriage license. In the thumbnail next to it, I looked sallow, my hair greasy, dark circles under my eyes from seventy-two hours of overtime. I looked like a ghost of a woman. Next to Gary’s polished, handsome face, we looked like strangers from different worlds. I found a screenshot of a text Paige had sent him: “Gosh… Professor, do you honestly not have nightmares waking up to that face every day?” Gary’s reply was a single word: “Yes.” I stared at that word until it blurred. Yes. He forgot that the reason I was working myself to death back then was to save up for the down payment on a house closer to the hospital, so he wouldn’t have to commute while he was on call. Every sacrifice I made was a brick in a wall he was now using to bury me. I opened the camera app, but my finger froze. He had never even logged in. A cold realization washed over me. I stood on a chair and tore down the “security camera” he had placed there to watch over me for three years. It was a dummy. A plastic shell. Empty. 2. A sharp, throbbing pain spiked in my temples. I did something I’d never done—I raised my hand and slapped my own face, hard. “Clara… you stupid, pathetic fool.” Just then, his old phone pinged with a WhatsApp notification. Paige: “Thanks for the allergy meds, Professor! I’m feeling so much better already~” Paige: “You must be exhausted with those surgeries. Don’t forget our three-year anniversary on December 20th. I have a surprise for you~” December 20th? I had to grab the dresser to keep from collapsing. Three years ago, on December 19th, I went to the ER with an eye infection. Paige, the intern on duty, “accidentally” prescribed me a medication strictly forbidden for pregnant women. I spent the 20th hemorrhaging in a surgery suite, nearly dying as I lost my son. And that was the day my husband of ten years decided to start an affair with the girl who killed our child? How dare you, Gary? Before my rage could boil over, a voice memo from Gary to Paige popped up: “As long as I can get you into that PhD program in Zurich, no amount of surgery is too much. My biggest regret is that I can’t marry you. Using every resource I have to lift you up to the world stage is the only dream I have left.” To lift her up. The fury in my veins felt like it was turning into ash. The front door opened. Gary walked in, carrying a small container of sliced mangoes from the market downstairs. He saw me holding his old phone. A tiny flicker of a frown crossed his face, but he quickly smoothed it into his usual mask of calm. I stared at him, my eyes burning with unshed tears. He acted as if nothing was wrong, setting the fruit on the table. “You said you wanted these yesterday.” He turned to wash his hands. I followed him, my voice cracking. “Gary. Are you going to explain this?” At the sink, he didn’t even look up. “Explain?” He let out a soft, dry chuckle. “There’s nothing to explain. You’ve seen it. She’s the love of my life.” His profile was caught in the shadows, looking sharp and utterly heartless. “You made a scene and forced the hospital to fire her back then, ruining her career. Sending her abroad now is my way of apologizing for you. It’s penance. If you want to remain ‘Mrs. Ward,’ then stay quiet. Do you understand?” The old Clara would have screamed. She would have broken plates. But I felt like a machine that had been switched off. I looked at this man I had loved for two decades—the boy I’d shared my lunch with, the man I’d built a life for. He looked at me with nothing but amused contempt. He wasn’t hiding it anymore. He was cheating, he was proud of it, and he assumed his “stupid, soft-hearted” wife would just take it. I looked at the fruit on the table. “How much were those mangoes?” Gary blinked, seemingly relieved that I was “backing down.” His tone softened. “Five dollars.” I started to laugh. A low, jagged sound that shook my whole body. I had seen the photos in the hidden album. A $10,000 Cartier ring. A $40,000 Hermès bag. A condo worth nearly a million dollars titled in Paige’s name only. And the $400,000 he’d tucked away in a European account for her “living expenses” in Zurich. He had drained our joint life savings to “lift up” his mistress. “Gary, do you remember what you said the day you proposed?” I asked quietly as he walked toward his study. He paused for a second, then sighed with utter boredom. “I don’t remember.” Slam. The door shut between us. 3. Gary slept in the study that night. I spent the hours in a daze, talking to Jordan until the sun came up. Gary hadn’t always been this cold. Back in our small hometown, he was the local prodigy—brilliant, handsome, from a wealthy family. Until his parents died in a horrific car crash and greedy relatives picked the estate clean. At eleven, he was discarded like trash. I was the one who found him, shivering and hungry in an alleyway, and brought him home. My parents had been the Wards’ driver and housekeeper for years. Out of a sense of old loyalty, they took him in. For the next twenty years, my parents treated him like a son. He and I were inseparable. He was cold to everyone else, but he had a soft spot for me. In high school, people made bets on whether a genius like him could ever love a “mediocre” girl like me. He won a track meet that year, and instead of celebrating with the cool kids, he pushed through the crowd and collapsed onto me, his heart racing against mine. I can still smell the scent of mint on his jersey. “It’s a good thing,” he whispered for everyone to hear, “that I happen to love a ‘mediocre’ girl named Clara.” The dream shifted. The minty scent of the boy turned into the expensive cologne of the man. At twenty-eight, he finally proposed in front of our families and his prestigious colleagues. He held a simple band and looked at me with a fire in his eyes that I thought would never die. “For twenty years, you were my reason to live. Clara, I swear, I will spend the rest of my life making you the happiest woman in the world. Marry me. I will love you forever.” … “I stopped loving Clara a long time ago. But right now is the critical window for your fellowship. I need the marriage to keep her stable, otherwise, a community college dropout like her will never stop hounding you…” I stood outside Gary’s clinic, listening to him coo at Paige inside. My heart, which had ached all night, suddenly went numb. A community college dropout? I felt a ghost of a smile on my lips. He knew damn well the only reason I didn’t finish my degree was because I’d taken a knife wound to the hand protecting him from a group of thugs. I couldn’t write fast enough to finish my exams after that. When someone stops loving you, even your breathing is an offense. A nurse at the reception desk saw me standing there. “Ma’am, you’re in the wrong place. Prenatal check-ups are at the end of the hall to the right.” Her voice startled the two inside. Paige turned pale. Gary’s eyes dropped to my stomach, and a flicker of something—was it excitement?—crossed his face. “Are you pregnant again?” The question acted like a match to a powder keg for Paige. She burst into tears, her voice trembling as she looked at Gary. “You said you haven’t touched her in three years! You promised you were waiting for me! You liar!” She turned and bolted down the hall. Gary didn’t even look at me. He shoved me aside to chase after her. I tripped, my ankle twisting sharply as I hit the floor. As the pain flared, all I could think about was the year after the miscarriage. He had flown across the country to find the best holistic doctors to “restore” my health. He would hold the cup of medicine to my lips and whisper, “The doctor says your body is too fragile. We have to wait three years before we try again. No intimacy, honey. I just want you to heal.” If he hadn’t come home drunk after his department’s gala last month and forced himself on me, I might never have known. His “devotion” was just a tactic to keep his mistress happy. My heart was dead wood. I pulled myself up and limped away. … Gary called me a week later. His voice was low, raspy with exhaustion. “Paige can’t handle it. she’s trying to break up with me. She’s threatening to turn down the Zurich offer just to spite me.” 4. I sat in a coffee shop, my knuckles white as I gripped the phone. “And?” Silence. Then, “Get an abortion. I promise, we can have another child later. When the timing is right.” I fought back a shudder. “You know what the doctor said, Gary. If I lose another one, I might never—” “Paige’s future is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I won’t let anyone stand in her way.” He hung up. I felt the blood drain from my face. A second later, Jordan arrived and dropped a folder on the table like a lead weight. “Gary took out a private loan three months ago. He used your parents’ bistro as collateral to fund Paige’s offshore account.” The world went black for a moment. He knew that bistro was my parents’ life’s work. They’d run it for thirty years. I reached for my phone to scream at him, but my mother’s name flashed on the screen. She was hysterical. “Clara? There are men here… debt collectors. They say Gary put a lien on the restaurant? What’s happening? Oh god—Arthur! Arthur, look at me! Clara, your father’s having a heart attack—” … “We got him here in time. He’s stable for now.” The surgeon’s words allowed me to breathe, but only for a second. Gary walked down the hospital corridor, his white coat billowing. He looked at my tear-streaked face with a chilling, mocking indifference. “If you had just cooperated earlier, your father wouldn’t be in surgery.” I stared at him, horrified. “You did this on purpose. You knew his heart was weak—” “You refused to listen.” Gary shrugged. Because his mistress was throwing a tantrum, he was willing to let my father die. “You animal!” I slapped him across the face, a visceral, ringing blow. “When you were fourteen and your relatives nearly beat you to death for ‘stealing’ money you didn’t take, my father took the blows for you! He broke his arm protecting you!” “When you were fifteen and needed a transfusion, we all lined up! My father gave so much he couldn’t stand up for two days!” “When you were seventeen—” “Enough!” Gary roared, his eyes flashing with pure loathing. “Don’t act like your family is so noble. You only took me in because you knew I’d be someone one day. It was an investment!” The rage left me as quickly as it had come. It was replaced by a hollow, final disappointment. I wiped my eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it. The baby is gone.” Gary looked surprised by my sudden compliance. He hesitated. “I can give you a few days to prepare mentally. I know you’re attached—” “No need.” I held up my phone, my voice empty. “I’ve already checked in. The procedure is in thirty minutes.” I expected him to be pleased. Instead, his face went livid. “You’re that eager to kill my child?” I didn’t answer. I followed the nurse into the surgical wing. Two hours later, I was back in a recovery room. Gary appeared, now dressed in a suit. Seeing my pale face, a rare flicker of guilt crossed his eyes. “…Did it hurt?” he asked softly. I turned my head away, silent. His phone rang. It was Paige. Her voice was a high-pitched whine. “Gary, hurry up! We’re going to be late for the dinner with Professor Abernathy! It’s not like it’s her first miscarriage, why are you hovering—” For the first time, Gary hung up on her without a word. “She’s just a girl, Clara. Don’t take it to heart,” he said, the old gaslighting habit returning. “I’m not leaving you alone because I want to. I spent months convincing Professor Abernathy to write her recommendation for Zurich. Without it, she’s stuck.” He paused, looking at me as if I owed him something. “Try to understand. She’s given me three years of her life without a title. I owe her. Your family did a lot for me, but I’m not ungrateful. Once she’s settled in Germany, we’ll have a fresh start. We’ll have another baby.” I looked at him and smiled. It was the most honest smile I’d given him in years. “Okay.” He left, satisfied. The moment he was gone, Jordan walked in. She nodded to me. “Everything is ready. The evidence of the affair, the financial fraud, the professional misconduct reports.” I reached into the drawer of the nightstand and handed her a small, heavy wooden box. “Six months ago, you handled the divorce for Professor Abernathy’s daughter. You said he hates cheaters more than anything.” I looked at the door Gary had just walked through. “This is the gift I prepared for Gary’s dinner. Make sure the Professor gets it.”

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My wife, Vivian, is the youngest top lawyer in New York. Her proudest achievement was successfully defending the killer who ran over my daughter as innocent. The day my daughter died in that horrific car accident, my wife Vivian pulled the drunk Ethan from the driver’s seat, shoved him into the passenger seat, and got behind the wheel herself. She told me: “Mia is dead, but Ethan is still alive. He has a bright future ahead of him. He can’t go to prison.” Ethan was acquitted, while I was diagnosed as mentally unstable and confined at home, receiving injections for half a year. I stopped making a fuss and quietly watched them parade around as a couple, taking the medication she gave me on schedule. She thought I had finally become an obedient lunatic. Until the day of the Bar Association awards ceremony, when I stepped onto the stage where she was receiving her award and pressed play on the big screen for her. “Learned some new tricks, have you? Trying to get my attention with this indifferent attitude?” Vivian’s expression turned cold, a thin layer of anger lurking in her eyes. “Derek, I know you’re angry with me for defending Ethan. But I’m a lawyer. I won’t abandon any client. Besides, Ethan was innocent to begin with.” I looked confused. “Why are you explaining all this to me? I didn’t even mention Ethan.” The coldness on Vivian’s face instantly froze, a trace of guilt floating to the surface of her eyes. She reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Forget it, I’ll find it myself.” I turned and went back to the bedroom. Just as I was about to lie down and rest, Vivian’s gentle voice drifted in, somewhat muffled. “Ethan, what’s wrong? Don’t cry, tell me slowly… Those reporters are writing nonsense. I’ll come over right away.” After a while, the bedroom door was pushed open. “Something came up with Ethan. I’m his defense attorney, so I need to go handle it.” She explained somewhat uncomfortably. “Oh.” Vivian froze. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something more, but I just nodded calmly and smiled at her faintly. After all, I couldn’t even remember where that case file was, so how could I remember someone named Ethan? Vivian left in anger and didn’t come home all night. The next evening, she returned. And with her came Ethan. His eyes were red-rimmed as he stood behind Vivian with his head lowered. That face was indeed handsome. Even at thirty, he still looked like a college student. No wonder Vivian couldn’t stop thinking about him. “Derek,” Vivian coughed somewhat uncomfortably, “Ethan’s address was exposed and it’s not safe anymore. I’m having him stay at our place for a few days.” Ethan kept his eyes down, his voice very low: “Derek, sorry to intrude. I really had nowhere else to go. Those people are terrifying, calling me a murderer.” “How pretentious,” I thought to myself, then turned and headed to the kitchen. At the dinner table, Ethan sat next to Vivian, helping her with soup one moment, cutting her steak the next, bustling about enthusiastically. “Vivian, you have a sensitive stomach. You can’t eat anything too spicy.” He placed the cut steak onto Vivian’s plate, then shot me a provocative glance. Vivian looked at me somewhat awkwardly, wanting to see my reaction. I just quietly kept my head down, drinking my soup.

“Derek, aren’t you going to have some of the main course?” Seeing me unmoved, Vivian took the initiative to push the plate of beef toward me. “This beef is grilled really tender.” Looking at that plate of beef contaminated with Ethan’s saliva, my stomach instantly churned with nausea. “No need,” I said flatly. “Derek, what are you throwing a fit about now? You’ve been giving attitude ever since Ethan walked in. Our daughter’s death was just an accident. Why do you insist on blaming Ethan?” Vivian’s voice turned cold. I looked at her in confusion. Just as I was about to speak, Ethan interrupted in a low voice. He stepped back half a pace behind Vivian, forcing out a smile: “Vivian, forget it. Derek has disliked me for more than just a day or two. I’ll pack up and move out tonight. If those reporters want to block me, let them. It’s not like I haven’t had dirt thrown at me before.” “Don’t talk nonsense. This is my house, and I’m the one who invited you to stay here. Derek has just been cooped up at home too long and his temper has gotten strange. Don’t pay attention to him.” Vivian comforted him gently. Hearing these words, I felt nothing but numbness in my heart. And so Ethan moved in. He couldn’t sit still for a moment, finding new ways every day to assert his presence in front of me. I just thought there was something wrong with his brain. Vivian had been so busy these past few days that she’d been sleeping at her office. Who was he performing for? Too lazy to care, I turned back to watch TV, but caught sight of a small plush toy in the corner of the TV cabinet. The toy was dusty, with one eye coming loose. My heart seized painfully. This was my daughter’s favorite. How could it be here? As I pondered this, Ethan suddenly reached from behind me and snatched the plush from my hands, his tone casual: “You scared me. I thought I’d lost it.” I stared at him. “This is yours?” Ethan lifted his chin, a smug smile curling at the corner of his mouth: “Yeah, Vivian gave it to me. She said it really suits my temperament.” Vivian gave it to him? An image flashed through my mind of my daughter bouncing toward me in her pink tutu dress. “Give it back.” I extended my hand toward Ethan, my voice hoarse. “Why should I? It’s mine!” “This was my daughter’s. It can’t possibly be yours!” I lunged forward, grabbing Ethan’s wrist. “Let go of me!” Ethan cried out. The front door burst open and Vivian, who had left work early, rushed in. Seeing this scene, she didn’t say a word and shoved me away. I crashed heavily into the corner of the coffee table, sharp pain radiating from my waist. Vivian shielded Ethan, glaring at me furiously. “Derek, have you lost your mind?!” I pointed at the plush toy, tears streaming down my face: “This was Mia’s. Vivian, why is he saying it’s yours?” A flash of discomfort crossed Vivian’s face. “That was a gift I gave to Ethan! Are you going to snatch this away from him too? Is your illness not cured yet?!” Those words were like ice water dumped over my head. I stopped arguing, because I suddenly realized there was something seriously wrong with my memory.

I raised my head and stared at Vivian for a long moment. Those eyes that once held so much love now only showed impatience and disgust, tearing apart the gentle image in my memories. When I first met her, I was the notorious playboy of our social circle. Everyone said I was destined to die alone, because even for an arranged marriage, no socialite could tolerate my temper. Only Vivian. Back then she was just a rookie lawyer, but she stood firmly in front of me. She said, the way you love and hate so boldly is truly captivating. She said, I’ll spend my whole life protecting your pride. For that promise, I didn’t hesitate to break with my family to marry her. I accompanied her from having nothing to becoming today’s top lawyer. But later, after my repeated outbursts over the Ethan situation, she finally grew tired. She said, Derek, when will you ever change that domineering temper of yours? It’s really annoying. All my breakdowns and tears were just unreasonable tantrums in her eyes. Thinking back on the past, bitterness surged to my nose. I’d never felt so wronged. “Vivian, did you really buy this plush toy?” I demanded. Her eyes flickered with panic for a moment, her voice unconsciously rising: “There are tons of similar plush toys on the market! Must you imagine the whole world is conspiring against you before you’ll be satisfied?” Behind her, Ethan’s lips curved into an imperceptible arc, though his tone remained flat: “Vivian, forget it. Since Derek insists, I’ll give it to him. Even though this represents your thoughtfulness toward me, I don’t want you two fighting over a toy.” “No need to give it to him!” Vivian looked at me coldly. “Derek, don’t forget that Mia’s ashes are still at the funeral home. If you keep making trouble, I don’t mind making her disappear forever!” My whole body trembled, my nails digging sharply into my palms. Vivian was someone who did what she said. I closed my mouth and said nothing more. After this incident, to appease Ethan, Vivian decided to throw a small party at home. “Tomorrow is Ethan’s birthday. I’ve invited a few colleagues and friends over to celebrate. Since you’re idle at home anyway, you can be responsible for preparing the food and decorations.”

Tomorrow was October fifteenth. An indescribable sadness welled up in my heart. This date seemed very important to me too, but I couldn’t remember why. Seeing my delayed response, Vivian frowned slightly: “Ethan has suffered quite a bit lately. I want to make him happy. You’d better act gracious and don’t embarrass me.” I nodded mechanically. After she left, I directly called a home service team to come over. The old me would never have delegated this to others. Back when Vivian was just starting out, she was so busy her feet barely touched the ground. She often skipped meals and suffered from stomach pain. I felt so bad for her that I, a young master who’d never lifted a finger, forced myself to learn to cook. But Vivian took it for granted, and would even complain when the food I brought her had gotten cold. Feeding sincerity to a dog must feel just like this. Early the next morning, the house was decorated with flowers. Ethan looked at Vivian with a beaming smile: “Vivian, do you think this cake is pretty? It’s my favorite strawberry flavor!” Vivian wrapped her arm around his waist affectionately, smiling as she said, “As long as you like it.” Before long, guests began arriving one after another. Ethan sat in the center, receiving everyone’s well wishes. “Wishing the handsome Ethan eternal youth!” “Ms. Vivian is so thoughtful toward Mr. Ethan!” Ethan’s eyes and brows were full of satisfaction, his gaze drifting intermittently toward me in the corner: “Actually, I have Derek to thank for how happy I am today. Although there were some misunderstandings before, all these fruits and pastries today were personally prepared by him.” Everyone’s eyes instantly focused on me, filled with scrutiny and mockery. “So this is Ms. Vivian’s husband? I heard after his daughter’s accident, he developed a serious illness.” “He looks pretty normal though. How could he…” Vivian frowned, apparently not wanting people to pay too much attention to me: “Alright, let’s cut the cake.” The lights dimmed. Ethan closed his eyes to make a wish, candlelight illuminating his smug face. Just then, the doorbell suddenly rang. “Who could that be at this hour?” Vivian opened the door with some displeasure. Standing at the door was a delivery person, next to a white funeral wreath. Vivian’s expression changed. “Why are you delivering such an inauspicious thing? Take it away immediately!” The delivery person looked bewildered, pulling out a form to check: “No mistake. This is memorial supplies that Mr. Derek ordered from us six months ago. He said it absolutely had to be delivered today.” As the delivery person spoke, he craned his neck to look inside. My head started aching again, my temples throbbing. I held my head and staggered backward, bumping into the wine on the table. The wine bottle fell to the floor, glass shards flying everywhere. All the fragments of memory reassembled in that moment. A red sports car crashed into the guardrail, the front end severely deformed. My daughter lay in a pool of blood, her eyes still open, staring fixedly ahead. And Vivian, the woman I’d loved for five years, was frantically pulling the reeking-of-alcohol Ethan from the driver’s seat, shoving him into the passenger seat, then getting behind the wheel herself. She turned her head and looked at me as I rushed over, revealing a cruel expression. “Derek, this was an accident. Mia is already dead. But Ethan is still alive. He can’t go to prison.” Reality and memory slowly overlapped. I looked at the white funeral wreath before me, at the room full of festive red balloons, my whole body beginning to tremble, my eyes turning blood red. “Vivian, did you think that by giving me injections and hypnotizing me, you could make me forget all of this? Impossible! I will never forget that Ethan is the killer who murdered Mia, and you are his accomplice!” The living room fell deathly silent. Several lawyer colleagues exchanged glances, whispers spreading. “Could the previous rumors actually be true? Did Ethan really kill someone while drunk driving?” “If it’s true, doesn’t that mean Ms. Vivian committed perjury?” “Didn’t Ms. Vivian say those were just rumors? But looking at Derek’s reaction… it doesn’t seem fake.”

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In my past life, the maid Linda secretly brought her entire family to live in the basement of my villa. Whenever night fell and everything was quiet, they would come out to roam around. Several times I noticed that the fully stocked refrigerator would be empty the next day. There were always potato chip crumbs on the sofa. I thought Linda was sneaking food, so I scolded her a few times but didn’t think much of it. Until I prepared to immigrate and sell the villa. The maid’s son snuck into my bed, strangled me to death, and threw me in the basement. The whole family even forged my suicide note and seized my villa. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn three days before I was strangled. The first thing I did was call the renovation company to seal the basement shut with cement. “Hello? Is this the renovation company? Tomorrow…” Before I could finish the sentence, I suddenly saw Linda standing in the doorway. I was so startled that my phone fell onto the blanket. Linda had half her face hidden in shadow, her lips curling into a kind smile. “Arwen, it’s so late. Who are you calling?” My heart immediately started racing wildly, and cold sweat broke out all over me. I forced myself to stay calm and picked up my phone. “The bathroom seems to be leaking a bit. I thought I’d contact a contractor in advance to come take a look tomorrow.” “Linda, it’s so late and you’re still not asleep. Is something wrong?” Linda sighed, her face full of concern. “I heard sounds from your room and thought you were having nightmares again, so I came to check on you.” “If you’re fine, then I’m relieved.” My hands clenched the blanket as I forced out a smile. “I’m fine. Go get some rest. I’ll call you if I need anything.” Watching Linda close the door behind her, I let out a long breath. With trembling hands, I unlocked the screen and was about to press “911” to call the police when the door was pushed open again. I quickly flipped my phone face-down on my leg, nearly scared out of my wits. Linda walked back in carrying a glass of milk, smiling warmly. “I heated up some milk for you. It’s good for sleep.” I quickly shoved my phone under the pillow and reached out to take the glass of milk. “Thank you, Linda. It’s too hot. I’ll let it cool down a bit before drinking it.” Linda didn’t leave immediately. She stood by the bed looking me up and down for a long while before finally giving me a reminder. “If it gets cold, it’ll upset your stomach. Arwen, don’t forget to drink it.” The door closed again. I stared at that glass of milk and suddenly abandoned the idea of calling the police. Just throwing them in jail for a few years would be too easy on these parasites. Since I’ve been given a second chance at life, I’m going to give them a taste of their own medicine. I picked up the glass of milk, walked into the master bathroom, and poured it all into the toilet bit by bit. Then I put the empty glass back on the nightstand, pulled the covers over me, and lay down pretending to sleep. About ten minutes later, Linda crept over to the nightstand. She picked up the empty glass, looked at it, and only then left satisfied, closing the door behind her.

After confirming she had completely let down her guard, I carefully lifted the covers and tiptoed out of the master bedroom. Like a gecko, I lay flat at the railing of the second-floor staircase, holding my breath as I looked down. I saw Linda walk skillfully to the first floor, pull out a key, and open the basement door. Immediately after, three men and two women crawled out from inside like rats. They were Linda’s husband, her brother, and Jason Lee — the one who strangled me in my past life. The other two women were her mother-in-law and her high school daughter. I covered my mouth, terrified of making even the slightest sound. In my past life, Linda had told me with tears running down her face that she had a whole family to support. I felt sorry for her and paid her double what other maids earned outside. At the time, she even brought her whole family, carrying a basket of eggs to my door to kneel and thank me. It turned out that “gratitude” meant scouting the place in advance so the whole family could take over my nest like cuckoo birds. Now, these parasites were sprawled comfortably on the sofa watching TV. Linda’s husband opened my double-door refrigerator and took out the lobster that had just been air-shipped yesterday, walking into the kitchen. Her mother-in-law skillfully swiped several bottles of wine worth tens of thousands of dollars from the wine cabinet. Linda’s brother Kyle shrank his neck, looking somewhat worried as he glanced at the second floor. “Keep it down, you guys. Don’t wake up that woman.” Linda gnawed on my imported apples while smugly waving her hand. “What are you afraid of? I put extra sleeping pills in her milk. Even thunder couldn’t wake her up right now.” I hid in the shadows, eyes wide, breaking out in a cold sweat. No wonder in my past life, until the day I died, I never heard any sounds from downstairs at night. Linda’s daughter Wendy asked while stuffing potato chips in her mouth: “We eat like this every day. When the refrigerator runs out, won’t she get suspicious?” Linda snorted, her tone full of contempt. “That woman is just stupid with too much money.” “Her parents divorced long ago and went abroad to live their own lives. No one cares whether she lives or dies.” “If she really asks, I’ll just insist I don’t know anything. What can she do to me?” Linda patted the leather sofa, laughing greedily. “Besides, this villa is in a remote location, a full two hours’ drive from downtown. The neighbors around here haven’t even moved in yet.” “This woman has mental problems and has to take medication. The villa has no surveillance cameras. She can’t find any evidence. What do we have to fear?” “At worst, I’ll just say she’s hallucinating from her medication.” Listening to them mock me so brazenly, I dug my fingers hard into the wooden railing. Thinking back to my past life, there were several times I noticed things seemed to be missing from the villa. But because of severe childhood trauma, I had a pathological aversion to being monitored, so I hadn’t installed surveillance cameras. Plus, what went missing was just food and drinks, nothing valuable, so I didn’t think much of it. More fatally, Linda knew I had trouble sleeping and was taking medication, so she would often fabricate fake timelines in front of me, making me think my memory was faulty.

When I looked up again, Jason and Wendy were walking toward the spiral staircase to the second floor. I tiptoed back into the master bedroom, slipped under the covers, and closed my eyes. As soon as I lay down, the door was pushed open. After some rustling sounds, Wendy’s exclamation came from the direction of the walk-in closet. “Jason, look at these dresses, these diamond necklaces. This woman is so lucky.” She put my clothes on herself while cursing viciously. Why does she get to be so rich, living in a big villa every day wearing designer brands? It should all be mine. Jason let out a sleazy, evil laugh. “Take whichever one you like. She has so many clothes and jewelry she can’t wear them all. She definitely won’t notice if a few go missing.” After saying this, Jason started impatiently urging Wendy to leave. Wendy walked to the door holding the clothes, but didn’t forget to turn back and warn him in a low voice. “Don’t go too far. Mom said this woman has never even been in a relationship. She’s a virgin.” “Don’t wake her up and ruin our whole family’s plan.” Jason let out a perfunctory snort. “I know. You’re so naggy.” The door closed softly, and my heart immediately sank. Then the mattress suddenly dipped down as Jason actually climbed onto my bed and pulled me into his arms under the covers. My stomach immediately churned, making me want to vomit. But I could only bite down hard on my tongue, using the pain to force myself not to tremble even the slightest bit. If he discovered I was awake, the tragedy of being strangled to death with a rope in my past life could very well repeat itself immediately. Jason buried his face in my neck, greedily taking a deep breath of my hair’s fragrance. His rough, greasy hand slowly slid down from my cheek. The sour stench of not bathing for years rushed straight to the top of my head. Just as his disgusting hand slid down my back and was about to reach around to the front — “Ring ring ring.” The alarm clock on the nightstand let out a piercing sound. Jason jumped up from the bed in fright. Linda immediately rushed in and skillfully turned off the alarm. She grabbed Jason by the ear, scolding in a low voice. “Bastard, are you trying to get our whole family killed?” “If you wake her up and she finds out, what are we going to eat and drink?” Jason rubbed his ear nonchalantly, his eyes showing the same viciousness as in my past life. “If she finds out, we’ll just kill her.” “Bury her in the basement, and all the money and things in this big villa will be ours.”

The air suddenly went quiet. Linda seemed to be seriously considering the feasibility of killing me. I was so scared that cold sweat poured from my palms. I held my breath tightly, my brain racing. If they made their move now, even if I had to jump from the second-floor balcony and break my leg, I had to take that chance. “No.” Linda suddenly scolded in a low voice, interrupting Jason’s murderous intent. “This damn girl said she’s having a renovation company come tomorrow to fix the leak.” “If we kill her now and someone comes tomorrow to find no one home and calls the police, we’ll all be exposed.” She paused, her tone revealing cunning malice. “After tomorrow, once we’ve dealt with the renovation people, it won’t be too late to kill her slowly.” Linda stared hard at Jason, warning him sternly again. “When the renovation company comes tomorrow, you all stay in the basement. Don’t even fart.” “I’ll lock the basement security door from the outside beforehand and take the key with me.” “It’s a security door. No one can open it without the key.” “She never goes to the basement anyway. As long as I’m not home, there’s no way she can discover you.” Jason nodded repeatedly in agreement. “Okay, okay, whatever you say. Let’s go.” Hearing the door close, I kept my eyes tightly shut, not daring to even flutter my eyelashes, continuing to pretend to sleep. A full half hour passed. Just when I was about to open my eyes — A breath suddenly came close, bringing bad breath with it. “Looks like she really didn’t wake up.” Jason’s voice was right next to me. I pinched my thigh to force myself to stay calm. Linda breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright, let’s go. That lobster is almost done.” The door closed again. To be safe, I endured another half hour in the darkness, making sure no one was speaking anymore before I finally dared to slowly open my eyes. I grabbed my phone. The blinding bright screen showed: 4:30 AM. I wiped the drool from my nose, hatred surging like lava in my heart. Fine. Since you parasites want to kill me, don’t blame me for being ruthless. I sent a message to the renovation team leader. “Zack, bring plenty of cement and sand tomorrow morning. I want to completely seal up that abandoned basement in my house.”

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Living alone, I kept feeling like there was a second person in my home. This morning, I’d just finished making breakfast. The moment I turned around, the fried egg was gone. Freshly washed clothes hung in the closet suddenly had stains on the collar. I turned the house upside down and installed security cameras, but found nothing. Just when I let my guard down, my boyfriend smiled and pulled me close— “You were so passionate last night. The moment I walked through your door, you threw yourself at me.” My blood ran cold. But last night, I wasn’t even home. My boyfriend McMenaman’s fingers were still brushing against my waist. Seeing my face turn ghost-white, he paused and leaned in to touch my face, his tone teasing: “What’s wrong, babe? Embarrassed? You sure didn’t act like this when you were holding onto my neck last night, refusing to let go.” Every muscle in my body tensed. The pain of my nails digging into my palms barely brought me back to my senses. I stared into his eyes, my voice shaking: “You’re saying… you saw me in my room last night?” McMenaman nodded, the smile still on his face. He reached out to put his arm around my waist, but I instinctively dodged. He froze, confused: “Yeah, wasn’t there a power outage? I was worried you’d be scared, so I came over to keep you company.” “When I came in, before I could even turn on the lights, you threw yourself at me. Your hair was in those new big waves you got permed. I’d recognize those curls anywhere.” Every word he spoke was like an ice pick stabbing into my bones. I grabbed his arm hard enough to make him wince: “I’m not joking, McMenaman. I really wasn’t home last night.” “I told you last week—Dottie just went through a breakup. I stayed with her for a couple days. Last night I slept at her place the whole time. I never came back.” The smile slowly froze on McMenaman’s face. He reached out to feel my forehead, panic creeping into his voice: “Stop messing around. This isn’t funny.” “Only you and I have keys to your place. We just changed to that high-security lock last month. Who else could it be but you?” “Besides, we’ve been together three years. You think I’d mistake your body, your voice?” “Last night you sounded exactly like you always do. Even the perfume was the same!” I didn’t argue with him. With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and called Dottie on speaker. The phone rang twice before she picked up, her voice hoarse from just waking up: “What’s up, honey? You left your cartoon bathrobe here when you left this morning. When are you coming to get it?” I took a deep breath: “Dottie, tell me the truth. Did I sleep at your place last night?” “Duh, where else would you be?” Dottie yawned, her tone teasing. “We stayed up until three watching horror movies. You were so scared you cried while hugging my arm, and you made me get you an ice-cold Coke. Don’t tell me you forgot already?” “Or is McMenaman checking up on you? Want me to vouch for you?” “No need, thanks Dottie.” I hung up and looked up to see McMenaman’s face white as paper, sweat beading on his forehead. He staggered back a step and bumped into the dining table behind him. The glass I’d just set there wobbled and crashed to the floor, shattering. “That’s impossible… how can this be?” He muttered to himself for a moment, then suddenly rushed toward the bedroom like a madman. I heard the loud bang of the closet doors being flung open, clothes being torn down in heaps. Then the sound of him crouching down to search under the bed, the storage boxes on the balcony being turned upside down. The whole place looked like it had been ransacked by thieves. Ten minutes later, he emerged covered in dust, shaking his head with vacant eyes: “Nothing… there’s nothing.” I leaned against the wall, my legs so weak I could barely stand, and finally fumbled for my phone with shaking hands to dial 911.

The police arrived quickly. Two uniformed officers followed the forensics team through my door while I was still trembling all over. I nearly dropped the glasses when I tried to hand them water. I told them everything from start to finish. From the mysteriously disappearing fried egg at breakfast months ago, to the lipstick stains that suddenly appeared on my freshly washed white shirt collar. Then to last night’s incident. Tears streamed down my face as I spoke. The forensics team, wearing white gloves, examined the entire place. The doors and windows were intact. The lock showed no signs of tampering. The security bars I’d installed last month were welded tight, without even a gap large enough for a hand to squeeze through. The forensics team swept the entire house with their equipment. No bugs, no hidden cameras. Not even a hidden compartment to hide someone. “We’ll go check the building’s surveillance footage.” One of the officers, named Brown, patted my shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t panic just yet.” McMenaman and I followed them to the property management security room. With the police present, we fast-forwarded through all the surveillance footage from yesterday afternoon when I left to this morning when I returned. The footage clearly showed that at 5:20 yesterday afternoon, I walked out of the building entrance wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, carrying a canvas bag. I never returned after that. At 11:07 PM, McMenaman entered the building. He didn’t leave until 8:10 AM to buy breakfast. During that time, except for delivery people and food couriers stopping on the floor, no strangers had entered or exited my floor. McMenaman’s face lost all color. He gripped the edge of the security desk, his voice shaking: “That’s impossible… then who was with me last night?” “Her voice, her body—everything was exactly like Sean. I really didn’t mistake it. Sean, you…” “Is now really the time for this?” I cut him off, my nails digging into my palms until they bled, then turned to the officer. “Officer, I’ve suspected someone was in my home before.” “Actually, I’ve felt something was off for a while.” “Sometimes I’d pour water in the morning before leaving, and when I came home at night, the glass would be moved a few centimeters.” “A sandwich I made and left on the dining table—I’d turn around to get milk, and come back to find half of it missing.” “Clean white T-shirts I’d washed and hung in the closet would have yellow stains on the collar before I even wore them, like someone had worn them and gotten foundation on them.” “And last week, the keys I’d left on the shoe cabinet by the entrance—I clearly remembered putting them there, but when I got home from work, they were on the dining table. I thought I’d misremembered at the time, but now it’s obvious I didn’t.” After listening, Officer Brown brought the forensics team back to my place. They searched inside and out for over an hour, even removing some ceiling panels to check, tapping on the utility shaft walls. Still nothing. Finally, Officer Brown sighed and left me his contact information: “We’ll go back and review the past three months of surveillance footage. If you notice anything unusual, call me immediately.” “It’s also possible you’ve been under too much work stress lately and your memory is playing tricks on you. If you’re really worried, you might want to get checked out at a hospital. You should probably avoid staying here for now.” After the police left, only McMenaman and I remained in the house. The atmosphere was so oppressive I could barely breathe. We sat on the sofa. Neither of us spoke first. Only the sound of our heavy breathing. After a long while, I got up to pack my suitcase. McMenaman hesitated, then came over to help me pack: “You’re right, we can’t stay here. Let’s go to a hotel first.” At the hotel, after checking in, McMenaman immediately pulled out his phone to call a security camera company: “I need you to send someone over tomorrow morning to install cameras with storage cards in my home. Cover every blind spot. Money is no object!” After hanging up, he came over to hold me, his hands still shaking: “Don’t be scared. I refuse to believe we can’t catch whoever’s playing these tricks.” I leaned into him, but there was no warmth in my heart. I didn’t tell him that half a month ago, I’d secretly hidden a small camera in the air conditioning vent. It went dark the very next day. I thought it was a quality issue and changed it out three times. Each one mysteriously broke after a few days of use, never capturing anything. Would it be the same outcome this time?

Early the next morning, McMenaman brought me back home. We personally watched the workers install four high-definition cameras in every corner of the living room, bedroom, and balcony, covering every angle with no blind spots. After testing, the workers assured us that this model was waterproof, tamper-proof, with stable signal, and wouldn’t easily malfunction. After the workers left, we returned to the hotel and stared at the camera feeds on our phones. We watched for an entire day. The camera feeds remained quiet, not even a breeze stirring the curtains. I felt even more uneasy. In this anxious state, Officer Brown called in the evening. “Miss Sean, we reviewed three months of surveillance footage from your building complex today.” “Besides you and your boyfriend, only your friend Dottie visited once last month. No other outsiders have entered or exited.” “All the strangers in the hallway were delivery people or food couriers. We verified all their identities. No suspicious persons.” Finally, his tone took on a tactful persuasive quality: “Miss Sean, I suggest you go to the hospital for a checkup. Perhaps you’ve been under too much work stress lately and your memory is off. Don’t feel bad about it.” After hanging up, my heart sank even deeper. McMenaman listened to the call and ran his hands through his hair in frustration, then stood up and grabbed his pajamas, heading to the bathroom: “Babe, I’m going to take a shower. After that, let’s go out for some of that sushi you love. Let’s not think about this for now.” I sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the traffic outside the window, my mind in chaos. Could it really be my mental state? But those mysteriously disappearing breakfasts, the stained clothes, the person impersonating me—it was all so real, not a hallucination at all. I sighed and looked back, instinctively glancing at my phone on the nightstand. The screen was displaying the live feed from home. But the next second, I froze completely. The surveillance feed that had been clear and normal just moments ago was now pitch black. A big X marked the signal bars, like a closed eye. My blood ran cold. I jumped up. The cameras were out again! Before, I could comfort myself that it was poor camera quality or the wifi cutting out. But today’s cameras were brand new, using independent data cards, with new storage cards too. Even if the network went down, they should still store footage locally. How could they go black without warning? If before I could fool myself about camera quality, after yesterday’s incident, I was one hundred percent certain—there was definitely someone in my house! I grabbed my bag and phone from the table. Without even putting on my jacket, I yanked open the hotel room door and rushed out. I ran to the hotel entrance and flagged down a taxi, my voice trembling as I gave my home address. The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror but didn’t dare ask questions. He hit the gas and drove toward my apartment complex. On the way, McMenaman called. His voice was panicked, with the sound of running water in the background: “Babe, where did you go? I was halfway through my shower when I heard the door slam. Why didn’t you say anything before leaving?” “The cameras are all out!” I shouted, crying. “That person is in my house right now!” McMenaman shouted in panic: “Wait for me, I’m coming right now. Don’t do anything rash! Sean, just stay where you are and wait for me!” “I can’t wait!” I bit my teeth and hung up, then pulled up Officer Brown’s WhatsApp. My hands shook so much I had to retype several times: [Officer Brown, the new cameras in my home went dark. I suspect someone’s in my house. I’m heading there now. Please come quickly!] As soon as I sent the message, the taxi arrived at the complex entrance. I paid and rushed into the building. The elevator was occupied and stopped on a high floor. I bit my lip and turned into the stairwell, climbing toward the 12th floor. Halfway up, I kept feeling footsteps behind me. When I looked back, there was nothing—just the green exit sign glowing. I didn’t dare stop. I bit my teeth and kept climbing, my legs so weak I nearly collapsed on the stairs. I finally made it to the 12th floor, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath. When I pulled out my keys, the keychain fell to the ground with a loud clatter that echoed sharply in the quiet hallway. I picked it up with shaking hands and inserted the key into the lock. The moment I turned it, I smelled the citrus aromatherapy I usually used wafting from inside. I took a deep breath and shoved the door open hard. The living room light was on. Warm yellow light fell on the sofa, where a woman sat with her legs crossed. She wore one of those black sheet masks I regularly used. Her hair was styled in the same big waves as mine. She was scrolling through my iPad with her legs crossed. Hearing the door open, she slowly looked up and peeled the mask off her face. I froze in place. The face she revealed was exactly the same as mine!

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To save my fiancée Angela from a raging fire, seventy percent of my skin was burned. Angela spared no expense, hiring Europe’s top plastic surgery specialists to treat me. She flew to Europe countless times each month to stay with me. Until I recovered and returned to America, wanting to surprise her, I overheard a man outside her office saying: “You’ve done more than enough. You don’t owe him anything anymore.” Angela said nothing. The next moment, a little girl pushed past me and rushed into the office: “Mom, are you going to leave me and Dad? Who is this homewrecker trying to steal you away?” My heart jolted. When did Angela have a child? That brief moment felt like an entire century. Just then, someone came to report to Angela. They gave me a strange look before pushing open the office door. The instant our eyes met, I caught a flash of panic in Angela’s gaze. “Fernandez, you’re back.” Angela quickly composed herself and came forward to take my hand. She gripped too hard. A burning pain shot through the back of my hand, and bright red blood stained her pale fingers. Before I could react, something struck my shin. Then came a tearing pain. “You bad person, stay away from my mom!” The little girl’s shrill voice rang in my ears. Before she finished speaking, the man beside her immediately scooped her up. The girl’s features looked remarkably like Angela’s. When I looked at the man’s face, I froze. He looked seventy to eighty percent similar to me. The excruciating pain in my body made it impossible to think. I could only stare dumbly at everything before me. Who were these two people? A massive unease engulfed me. I slowly withdrew my hand from Angela’s grip and looked at her helplessly, hoping she would explain. But she had no time for me. Her brow furrowed tightly, her voice tinged with anger: “Bridges George, take Ellis away.” What a coincidence—he shared my surname too? Bridges looked aggrieved. The little girl called Ellis was startled into silence, looking completely dazed. But I knew very clearly that Angela felt guilty. The fiercer her words, the more panicked her heart. Bridges pressed his lips together, his eyes full of stubbornness. He held out for a while before finally carrying Ellis away. But he wasn’t watching where he was going, and the father and daughter crashed hard into the wall. The pain from her forehead made Ellis burst into tears, releasing all her pent-up grievances. Angela hesitated at first, but when she saw Bridges’s reddened forehead, she immediately stepped past me. She tenderly rubbed Bridges’s forehead, no longer sparing even half a thought for me. I stood there stupidly. When I looked up, I saw Bridges watching me with mockery. The corner of his mouth curved slightly in a provocative and contemptuous smile. Looking at that face so similar to mine, my heart felt heavy, as if something inside had died completely. I left the office in a daze and returned home alone, only to be locked out. Hearing the “incorrect password” message, my heart felt sour and swollen, an indescribable feeling. With a click, my father opened the door from inside. A flash of panic and guilt crossed his eyes, as if I’d come at the wrong time. The house was brightly lit. The table was laden with sumptuous dishes. Six chairs were arranged around the dining table, with a baby high chair placed beside one of them. Three elderly people were chatting and laughing, bustling about inside. They were my mother and Angela’s parents. When they saw me with my suitcase, the smiles on their faces instantly froze. After an awkward silence, my mother was the first to speak: “Fernandez is back? You should have told us you were coming.” Her voice carried both complaint and reproach, but no warmth. Looking at her, I suddenly remembered these past five years, enduring pain alone in a European hospital. And my parents seemed to have rarely cared about me. So much so that they hadn’t even noticed the doctor had already informed them of my discharge. I stared hard at the six chairs around the dining table, my heart dark and confused. “Fernandez?” Angela’s voice came from behind me. I turned to see the intimate figures of their family of three. Bridges held Ellis with one hand while his other arm wrapped intimately around Angela’s waist. The instant I turned around, Angela hastily broke free from Bridges’s embrace.

My parents shot me a reproachful look the moment they saw them. Then their eyes filled with immense joy and affection. “You’re back.” My father stepped forward and familiarly took the child from Bridges’s arms. At that moment, I had to admit it. After five years away, my place had been completely taken by Bridges. Only after everyone had entered the house did Angela realize I was still standing outside. Looking somewhat embarrassed, she pulled me inside: “Wait a moment, I’ll get you a chair.” “Angela, I’ll do it.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Bridges stopped Angela’s movement. He shot me a triumphant look. I lowered my eyes. From the earlier pulling, my grotesque skin showed spots of blood. “Fernandez is back.” Only Angela’s father offered an awkward smile and small talk. I forced the corners of my mouth up with difficulty but said nothing. At that moment, Bridges came over with a stool. “Sorry, Fernandez, I really couldn’t find a chair. It’s all my fault. Why don’t you take my chair?” Though he said this, his eyes held no trace of apology. “Enough. He has hands and feet. You even brought him a stool—what face does he have to blame you?” My dad interrupted impatiently. I hadn’t said a word since entering, yet I seemed to have done everything wrong. “Let’s eat.” I sat awkwardly on that stool in the corner. Looking at the seafood feast on the table, I didn’t know what to eat. “Can you please eat properly? Who are you putting on that pitiful act for?” My dad sounded impatient. Angela cut a piece of fish for me: “Try this. The housekeeper’s cooking is excellent.” Looking at that bright, colorful piece of fish in my bowl, I only felt my mouth growing more bitter: “I’m allergic to seafood.” At the dining table, Angela’s face stiffened, her eyes filled with guilt and panic. Five years was simply too long. She had forgotten. “I’m full. I’m going to rest now.” In the end, I was the one who broke the oppressive silence. Only to discover that everyone looked even more embarrassed. “My room—is it gone too?” Angela was silent for a moment: “Your room has the best lighting. Bridges’s health isn’t good…” So he’d occupied my room. “And you came back too suddenly. We haven’t had time to clean the guest room. How about you stay in the living room tonight?” A massive dizziness swept through my mind. “So my room—you and he are living in it?” I suppressed the anger inside me and asked word by word. Angela froze. All these years, she’d told herself that Bridges was just a substitute, but she didn’t realize that everything she’d done for Bridges had broken her own principles. At this moment, faced with my questioning, she suddenly didn’t know how to defend herself. Angela’s silence dealt me a heavy blow. “Are you two married?” I asked an irrelevant question. Angela instinctively shook her head. I laughed bitterly. Not married, yet they could sleep together and even had a child. It turned out Angela’s conservatism was only directed at me. An inexplicable rage surged from my heart. The immense anger made me extraordinarily strong. I flipped the dining table with one motion: “Get out.”

Everyone was startled by my sudden fury, frozen in place. “Fernandez George!” My father roared. “You…” He was about to curse at me, but when he saw my bleeding arms, he swallowed all those harsh words. He looked at me with complex emotions and let out a long sigh. For a moment, in that huge house, only Ellis’s wailing could be heard. “Fernandez, I know you can’t stand me, but Angela just got pregnant. She can’t handle being frightened!” Bridges tenderly stroked Angela’s abdomen and shot me a provocative look before continuing: “And Ellis—she’s still so young. What if she gets traumatized?” “If you have any grievances, take them out on me!” My mother came forward, somewhat at a loss: “Fernandez, let me bandage you first. Tonight… just make do for now.” “Tomorrow I’ll prepare a welcome party for you. Everyone will be so happy to know you’re back.” After all that, in my own house, I was still the one who had to “make do.” At that moment, I suddenly felt tired. I sat back down on the sofa without another word. But Bridges still wouldn’t let me go. In the middle of the night, I sat blankly on the sofa when I suddenly heard a soft laugh. I looked up to see Bridges. He was holding a glass of hot water, leaning against the doorframe, his eyes full of mockery: “I hope Angela’s carrying a son. That way we’ll have both a son and a daughter.” Seeing my lack of reaction, Bridges intensified his efforts. “You don’t know this, do you? Angela and I got together while you were still unconscious.” “Oh, and this.” He displayed the watch on his wrist. My pupils contracted. My heart throbbed with pain. That was the heirloom my grandfather left me on his deathbed. Five years ago, to save Angela, the strap had broken. Seeing my reaction, the malice in Bridges’s eyes became even more obvious: “Fernandez George, do you know how disgusting you are right now?” “She said just looking at you once makes her lose her appetite for three days.” “You’re already like that—why can’t you be more self-aware and break off the engagement yourself?” He started rambling about his efforts over the years. He was my uncle’s son, but my uncle was incompetent. Though he was the eldest, he lost to my father. He squandered the family fortune, dying young and full of regrets. When he was young, what he heard most was his father cursing mine. He said it was lucky I got burned, giving him the chance to return to the George family. In the future, not just the George family, but even the Angela family would be his. “Then what are you so worried about?” I interrupted him. “Since the George family and Angela’s family no longer have a place for me, what are you so worried about?” Bridges’s triumphant expression froze. Then his gaze turned cold as he looked at me: “I’ll show you exactly what your position is in this family now.”

With that, he walked to my side, released his hand, and deliberately fell to the ground. “Crash!” Along with the sound of the glass hitting the floor, Bridges let out a scream. Soon, everyone came out. Seeing the blood from glass cuts on Bridges’s foot, everyone’s faces changed drastically. “To the hospital!” My father’s brow furrowed tightly, his eyes showing an urgency and ferocity I’d never seen before. “If you have grievances, take them out on me! Why do you have to turn this house into chaos?” My breathing caught. My heart was squeezed tight by an invisible hand. Grievance, pain, anger, despair. Angela slapped me across the face, then helped Bridges out the door. My mother kept pounding on my chest, completely oblivious that the spot she was hitting had already begun to seep with traces of blood. “Why didn’t you just die five years ago? Are you alive just to torture us?” “If you have grievances, take them out on me! Bridges is innocent!” I stood there numbly. The pain in my heart had long since overwhelmed my physical wounds. Where no one could see, Bridges flashed me a provocative smile. I felt cold all over. The huge house returned to silence. In this place where only I remained, I quietly took out my phone, which was still recording. The next day, my parents acted as if nothing had happened, discussing details of the welcome party with me. But my heart felt no ripples whatsoever. The party was held in the George family garden, where there was a large swimming pool. At the banquet, I watched Bridges skillfully conversing with friends I used to be close with. The whole event felt absurd and laughable. Now in everyone’s eyes, Bridges was the George family’s favored son, the company’s legitimate heir. My heart ached numbly, especially when my father publicly announced he would divide the company shares between Bridges and me. Me: 1%. Bridges: 10%. In that instant, I became the biggest joke. “How pathetic.” “A homeless dog.” “He’s a废person. What use are shares to him?” “If you ask me, he shouldn’t have saved Angela back then. Who knows how much the George family could have developed by now.” Mockery, schadenfreude, mixed with a few words of pity and regret. The next second, Bridges walked toward me with a wine glass, looking triumphant. Everyone around watched with anticipation for the show. “Fernandez, congratulations.” A mocking smile played on his lips. I pressed my lips together and said nothing. Bridges’s eyes flashed darkly. The next second, he slipped, and the wine in his hand spilled all over me without missing a drop. Even more onlookers photographed my disheveled state, pointing and commenting. Angela tried to come forward to help me out of the situation, but I pushed her away. She looked somewhat confused, standing in place. Seeing I wanted to leave, Bridges wasn’t willing to let me go so easily. He followed close behind me to the poolside. “Did you enjoy the welcome ceremony I prepared for you?” Then he revealed a malicious smile. “Guess who they’ll save?” With that, he pulled me into the pool with him. The water in the pool was so cold. The pungent smell of chlorine constantly irritated my nose and skin. The stiffness in my limbs made even struggling difficult. On the other side, Bridges pretended his foot had slipped, putting on an act of drowning. He kept struggling, kept shouting. My consciousness gradually blurred as I slowly sank to the bottom. Meanwhile, Bridges continued struggling with all his might. Everyone rushed over. Angela jumped into the water without hesitation and swam straight to Bridges, rescuing him. My parents only gathered around Bridges, concerned about him. Completely forgetting that their own biological son was still in the water. Before I completely lost consciousness, I seemed to see a figure swimming toward me.

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