Author: Momo Chan

The day my parents split up, my sister—with her sun-kissed hair and honeyed words—left with our mother. My brother, the bouncy, charismatic golden boy, was scooped up by our father. When it was finally my turn, they looked at me and spoke in perfect, chilling unison. “You need to be the sensible one, Myra.” “You’re practically an adult now. You can take care of yourself.” 1 They left me, a ten-year-old girl, at my grandmother’s drafty, decaying farmhouse in rural Ohio. Then, they wrapped their arms around their favorite children and drove away, entirely satisfied with their choices. I already knew I was unloved. That wasn’t new. But in that moment? My chest caved in. It physically hurt, a sharp, twisting agony behind my ribs. My name is Myra Callahan. Since the day I was born, I’ve been the leftover part of the equation. After they had my sister, Bianca, they wanted a boy to complete the perfect picture. Instead, they got me. Another girl. A disappointment. So, they dumped me in the country with my grandmother. They didn’t bring me back to their manicured suburban life until I was six, right after she died. And now, four years later, they were throwing me right back. Except this time, the old house was completely empty. My grandmother wasn’t here anymore. Not that she had loved me much when she was alive—she was quick to slap and quicker to curse when she was in a foul mood—but at least she was a warm body in a cold room. Kids need someone. Anyone. But my parents never seemed to grasp that concept. It didn’t matter that my mother, Evelyn, was an award-winning literature teacher at a prestigious prep school. Or that my father, Robert, was a highly respected associate professor at the university. They had eyes only for the children they deemed worthy. They never paused to wonder if their middle daughter might need them, too. And just like that, I was left behind. 2 I became the wildest, most untethered kid in the county. I could climb to the very top of the old oak trees to peek into bird nests without anyone yelling at me to get down. I could wade into the freezing creek and swim for hours until my lips turned blue. If I stayed out all day, it didn’t matter. The other kids in town were bitterly jealous. “Man, I wish my parents didn’t care what I did,” they’d groan. “If I climbed that high, my dad would actually ground me for a year.” They envied my freedom, but God, I envied their chains. They had parents. Parents who cared if they fell. My parents had stopped caring a long time ago. When late afternoon rolled around, the air would shift. You’d hear Tommy’s mom shouting from her porch, telling him dinner was on the table. You’d see Sarah’s grandma shuffling down the gravel road to drag her inside. One by one, the woods would empty. And I would become entirely alone. I would sit in the branches, watching them retreat toward warmly lit windows, before slowly sliding down the bark and making the long walk back to my own dark house. It was so quiet inside. The kind of quiet that rings in your ears. I cooked for myself. I ate by myself. Spring, summer, fall, winter. It never changed. When night fell, I would crawl under the damp, heavy quilts of my bed. But no matter how long I lay there, I could never get warm. The icy wind would whistle through the cracks in the ancient window frames, seeping straight into my marrow. I remember staring out the window, confused. It was early autumn; it shouldn’t be this cold. Why was I shivering? I would pull my knees to my chest, cocooning myself in every blanket I owned, waiting for a pocket of body heat that never came. I didn’t understand it when I was little. It was only when I got older that I realized the truth. It wasn’t my body that was freezing. It was my soul. It was the absolute, hollow chill of having nothing and no one to anchor you to the world. Children are supposed to be insulated by love. I had none. So even buried under a mountain of cotton, I remained freezing. I grew up in that cold. Inch by inch. Year by year. By the time I was a senior in high school, sitting in a fluorescent-lit classroom churning through AP practice exams, I had come to a quiet revelation. It was okay not to be loved. It was okay not to have a family. I could survive on my own. Graduation was months away. Once I got my diploma, I could leave this town, this state, this life. I would go somewhere new, build a fresh existence, and surround myself with so many friends that the gaping hole left by my parents wouldn’t matter anymore. I had a plan. And then, I got sick. 3 Two months before graduation, my already irregular period turned into an unrelenting, heavy hemorrhage. I was terrified. I scraped together every dollar of my meager savings and took a bus to the main hospital in the city. The ultrasound tech was quiet. The doctor was grave. She told me there was a mass growing inside my uterus. A massive fibroid cyst. That was what had been destroying my cycle and causing the bleeding. The doctor looked at me with deep, unmistakable pity. “Honey, hasn’t this been agonizing? A mass this size… medically speaking, you should have been in debilitating pain for a long time.” I stared at my knees. “And your periods being this erratic,” she continued, her brow furrowing. “You’re young, maybe you didn’t know it wasn’t normal, but didn’t your mother notice? Has she never brought you in for a checkup?” “A simple ultrasound years ago would have caught this,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. “If we had seen it early, you wouldn’t be looking at surgical intervention right now.” I dug my nails into my palms and forced a tight, brittle smile. “It doesn’t hurt that much.” “And… I never told my mom about my periods. She doesn’t know.” But that was a lie. I had told her. I told her that my cycle was a nightmare. That I would skip months, and when it finally came, I would bleed for three weeks straight. I told her about the blinding, white-hot pain in my abdomen. Twice, the cramps had been so violent I actually passed out cold. Her response? “Stop being so dramatic, Myra.” “Your sister never acts like this. When Bianca gets cramps, I make her some herbal tea and she’s fine.” “She doesn’t call me crying, claiming she’s ‘dying.’ You’re just weak. No wonder people find you exhausting.” “I don’t have time for this, her SAT prep tutor is waiting. I’ll Venmo you. Go buy some Advil. Honestly, all you ever do is ask for money.” My phone had buzzed a minute later. Ten dollars. Exactly enough for a generic bottle of ibuprofen at the pharmacy. I had tried telling my dad, too. He wasn’t any better. It was the second time the pain made me black out. I had collapsed on the hardwood floor of my lonely house, hitting my head on the coffee table. I woke up with blood in my hair. A kind classmate had helped me to the school nurse the next morning. I was young and terrified, but even I knew something was profoundly wrong inside my body. Sobbing, I called my father. It rang and rang. When he finally picked up, his voice was ice. “Myra. What on earth possesses you to blow up my phone like this? Do you have any idea that your brother is currently on stage performing his violin solo?” “If I hadn’t muted my phone in time, you would have ruined his entire competition.” “Thomas needs to win this to secure his conservatory admissions. You are nothing but a liability. No wonder your siblings call you the ‘Mistake.’” Myra the Mistake. That was the nickname Bianca and Thomas gave me. Kids are brutally honest in their cruelty. When they brought me back from the country at age six, Thomas was five. He was the prince of the house. Bianca was the prized princess. They each had their own massive bedrooms. Neither of them wanted the weird, feral country girl encroaching on their territory. Mistake. Get back to your doghouse. My dad had heard them say it once. He frowned and scolded them. “Don’t speak to your blood like that,” he’d said. Then, he cleared out a corner of the enclosed sunporch and put my bed there. Because of that one half-hearted scolding, I used to foolishly believe my dad was the only one who didn’t think I was a burden. But he was exactly like them. That day on the phone, bleeding and terrified, I stammered through my tears, trying to explain my symptoms. He met my terror with irritated exhaustion. “Fine, I get it. You don’t feel good.” “This is just a pathetic excuse to beg for your allowance early, isn’t it? Thomas is right. Teenage girls are just a nightmare of manufactured drama.” “Making up lies about dying just to get cash. It’s actually sickening, Myra.” He hung up on me. Hours later, I got a Venmo notification for $200. The note read: Your allowance for the month. Do not ask for more. And so, my illness festered in the dark, growing until it demanded to be cut out. Thankfully, the doctor assured me the surgery was relatively straightforward. An incision, a removal, and I would be cured. The catch? After my meager insurance, the out-of-pocket cost was $5,000. Thinking of the $10 sitting in my bank account, I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat. “Doctor… can the surgery wait? Just two months?” Graduation was in two months. Once I was out, I could get a factory job, work double shifts, and save the five grand. Her next words shattered that fragile hope. “Wait two months? Honey, you need to be admitted today.” “This cyst is causing active hemorrhaging. If we don’t intervene, you are at extremely high risk of bleeding out. You could go into cardiac arrest.” She leaned forward, her voice softening into a desperate plea. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Do not let stubbornness or fear cost you your life.” “Go home. Bring your parents back here to sign the consent forms and pay the deposit.” She was right. My life hadn’t even truly begun yet. I couldn’t just die over five thousand dollars. In my civics class, we learned about parental obligation. They brought me into this world; legally, they had to keep me alive in it. Paying me a pathetic $200 a month to rot in a farmhouse wasn’t enough. They had to pay for my medical care. They had to. 4 My mother’s manicured suburb was a long way from my part of the county. My bank account was running on fumes, but I spent $5 on a commuter train ticket to get to her house. I reasoned with myself on the ride over. She was a woman. Surely, when confronted with a mass growing inside my uterus, the sheer, terrifying reality of female anatomy betraying itself, she would understand. I stood on her pristine porch for a long time before I finally knocked. The door swung open. It was Bianca. Where I was gaunt, pale, and trembling, she was glowing. Her skin was flawless, her hair glossy. She radiated the kind of vibrant health that only comes from being deeply, expensively nurtured. She was the hothouse rose. I was the weed growing in the asphalt. We shared the same DNA, but our universes couldn’t have been further apart. Bianca looked at me, her brow furrowing in instant, deep annoyance. She looked at me like I was a tax auditor showing up unannounced. “What are you doing here?” “Didn’t Mom already send your pathetic allowance?” She planted her body firmly in the doorway, blocking the entrance. I opened my dry lips to speak, but my mother’s voice drifted out from the kitchen. “Is Thomas here yet? Tell them to come in!” Bianca rolled her eyes. “No. It’s Myra.” The house went dead silent for three agonizing seconds. Then, my mother’s voice, laced with heavy reluctance: “Oh. Well… let her in, then.” Bianca stepped aside just enough for me to squeeze past, acting as if she were bestowing a grand blessing upon me. The moment I stepped into the dining room, I understood why she hadn’t wanted me inside. The sprawling mahogany table was groaning under the weight of a feast. Filet mignon, butter-roasted lobster tails, artisanal sides I didn’t even know the names of. And right in the center, a towering, gorgeous custom birthday cake. My mother emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of glazed chicken wings. She paused when she saw me. “Myra. Why are you here?” “You really should have called ahead. It’s your sister’s birthday today. We’re expecting guests and I didn’t make extra food.” My stomach, hollowed out by days of rationing crackers, gave a violent ache. I pressed my hand against it. “I’m not hungry,” I lied quickly. “I ate before I came.” Bianca crossed her arms and flopped onto the velvet sofa. “Doesn’t matter if you called ahead anyway. I don’t want a bloodsucker who only shows up to beg for cash ruining my birthday.” My face flushed a hot, dark red. The sheer humiliation of why I was actually there made my skin crawl. My mother didn’t correct her. She just looked at me, her silence a loud, ringing endorsement of Bianca’s words. Tears burned the back of my eyes. I wanted to scream that it wasn’t true. The only times I ever asked for money was when they completely “forgot” to send my allowance. I would wait. Days would pass. A week. And nothing would hit my account. Yet, they never forgot to reward Bianca with a trip to the Bahamas for bringing her math grade up a single letter. They never forgot to buy Thomas a three-thousand-dollar gaming rig because he learned a new concerto. I survived by eating dollar-store ramen and plain bread. But sometimes, even that ran out. I remembered sitting in class, my vision swimming from hunger, looking at the teacher’s pink eraser and hallucinating that it was a piece of meat. I only called them when I was so starved I was eyeing the half-eaten sandwiches in the cafeteria trash cans. Only then did I break down and ask for my own money. But to Bianca, I was a bloodsucker. What kind of vampire survives on two hundred dollars a month? “Mom,” I choked out, fighting the tears. “I’m not a bloodsucker. I only asked for money when my account was negative…” My mother held up a hand, cutting me off. “Enough. You’re a fine kid, Myra, but your sister isn’t entirely wrong. I’ve spent plenty of money on you over the years.” “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is being a single mother to a teenager? Let alone having to support you out in the country on top of it?” “Bianca didn’t do well on her SATs last year, so I had to put her in that elite prep course. That was fifteen thousand dollars upfront. Things are tight right now. You calling and demanding cash… you can’t blame your sister for being irritated.” Her words felt like liquid nitrogen poured straight into my veins. For a split second, she made me feel like the villain of the story. But I wasn’t the one draining her bank account. I cost her two hundred dollars. Something inside my chest, a dark, jagged thing, began to claw at my throat. I felt like I was going insane. I needed to scream. Before I could, my mother sighed. “Anyway, you’ve made your appearance. You should head back.” “You don’t know any of Bianca’s friends. It’s going to be awkward for everyone if you just hover here.” Panic seized me. I pulled the crumpled, slightly damp medical report from my jacket pocket and thrust it toward her. “Mom, please, I came because I have to tell you something. I’m sick…” Ding-Dong. The doorbell chimed, bright and cheerful. Bianca instantly lunged forward, grabbing my arm and shoving me hard toward the kitchen. Her face was twisted in absolute disgust. “Listen to me, you little freak,” she hissed. “If you don’t want to get thrown out on the street, you stay in this kitchen and keep your mouth shut. Do not tell anyone you are my sister.” “I am not letting my friends know I’m related to a trash-dwelling charity case. One word, and I’ll drag you out by your hair.” I thought of the blood, the doctor’s warning, the $5,000 I desperately needed just to survive. I shrank back against the refrigerator. “I won’t say anything,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Just please don’t kick me out yet.” Bianca shot me a look of pure venom, smoothed down her dress, and walked back out to greet her friends. 5 Bianca’s friends were exactly like her. Polished, loud, practically dripping in wealth. Standing in the shadows of the kitchen in my faded, hand-me-down sweater—clothes Bianca had discarded years ago—I truly did look like a feral animal that had wandered indoors. Soon, the house was filled with the sound of “Happy Birthday.” The clinking of glasses. The rich smell of expensive food being devoured. Just as they were about to cut the cake, the front door opened again. Two familiar voices echoed in the entryway. “Happy birthday to my beautiful girl! Sorry Dad is late!” And then, my brother, Thomas—who had never spoken to me without a sneer—sounded like the perfect, charming sibling. “Sorry, B. My fault entirely. Rehearsal ran late. I brought you that new Prada bag you wanted to make up for it.” A girl in the living room gasped loudly. “Oh my god, is this the famous violin prodigy brother?” “He’s exactly like the rumors! So handsome and so sweet.” Another voice chimed in. “Sweet? He’s a genius. He skipped two grades in middle school. He’s taking the SATs with us this year.” “No way! Thomas, what colleges are you looking at? Let a girl know so I can apply there too!” Thomas chuckled, the sound smooth and practiced. “Mostly just the Ivy League. Harvard’s humanities program has a better vibe than Yale, I think.” The girls practically swooned. “God, a prodigy brother and a gorgeous, smart sister,” someone sighed. “Bianca’s top of our class, too. Your parents’ genetics are absolutely insane.” My parents laughed. It was a warm, deeply satisfied sound. “Oh, stop. We aren’t that special,” my mother demurred modestly. “We’re just educators.” “Such a humble-brag!” a boy laughed. “Seriously, your family is like a poster for perfection.” The atmosphere in the living room was euphoric. I stood perfectly still in the dark kitchen, watching the warm glow of the dining room light spill across the floor. I felt like a thief, peering through a window at a family I was never allowed to join. Then, someone asked the question. “With genes like that, why didn’t you guys have more kids? Imagine how perfect a third sibling would be.” My breath hitched. My fingernails dug half-moons into my palms. What will they say? Would they, for one brief, fleeting moment, acknowledge that I existed? My father let out a short, dismissive scoff. “Actually, we do have another one. But she… didn’t exactly get the family traits.” “Oh?” a girl asked, intrigued. “What do you mean?” My father’s tone darkened. “I don’t know if it’s a genetic misfire, or if being raised by her grandmother out in the sticks stunted her brain. She’s dull. Slow. We brought her back when she was young, but she has no social skills. Completely withdrawn.” My mother, riding the high of the party, eagerly joined in. “Exactly. Zero emotional intelligence. She never even calls us.” “The only time we hear from her is when she wants money. Honestly, sometimes I look at her and wonder how Robert and I could have produced someone so… lacking. But thankfully, she turns eighteen soon.” “Once she’s a legal adult, our obligations are done. We won’t have to deal with it anymore.” The words didn’t just hurt. They severed something deep inside me. I stared blankly at the tableau in the living room. So, their love was entirely conditional. Because I wasn’t as aggressively brilliant as Thomas, or as socially dominant as Bianca, I wasn’t fit to be their daughter. That was why they dumped me during the divorce. That was why they never bothered to ask who I really was. If they had, they would know that my bad grades in elementary school were because the underfunded rural school never taught me phonics or basic math. When I was dropped into their suburban district in first grade, I was drowning. But that was elementary school. By middle school, I was never out of the top ten. Now, at my high school, I was ranked third in my entire senior class. My teachers called me brilliant. They said I was a lock for MIT or Stanford. My classmates loved me. I stayed late to tutor anyone who asked, breaking down complex physics problems with infinite patience. But to my own parents? I was a dull, stunted, emotionally deficient genetic mistake. It was hilarious. Truly, bitterly hilarious. Through the doorway, Bianca’s eyes locked onto mine. She wasn’t hiding her vicious, triumphant smirk. Under her piercing gaze, I suddenly felt dirty. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt like a cockroach caught on the kitchen tiles. I took a panicked step backward, desperate to hide deeper in the shadows. My foot hit something hard. CLANG. A heavy metal pot lid went spinning across the tile floor. The noise was deafening in the quiet kitchen. The laughter in the living room died instantly. “Who’s in there?” my dad demanded, his voice dropping an octave. Bianca sneered. “Probably just a rat.” In the dark, I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking violently. Please don’t come in. Please just ignore it. If I wasn’t seen, I could pretend this night never happened. But the heavy footsteps grew louder. “That wasn’t a rat. That sounded like a person,” my dad said, his voice hard. “Get out here, right now.” Click. The harsh fluorescent lights of the kitchen flickered to life. And there I was. Stripped of the dark, exposed in my ragged clothes, looking like the most pathetic clown in the world. 6 A girl in the hallway shrieked. “Oh my god! There’s actually someone in there! Is she a burglar? Call 911!” Thomas let out a dry, cruel bark of laughter. “Relax, guys. It’s not a burglar. It’s just my idiot sister.” “What are you doing skulking around in the dark, Myra? Come to beg for more cash?” A dozen pairs of eyes shifted from fear to profound, morbid disgust as they stared at me. My mother sighed loudly, playing the weary, martyred parent. “Everyone, I’m so sorry. Myra isn’t a thief. She just came to visit and must have fallen asleep in the kitchen.” She turned to me, her eyes dead. “Alright, Myra. You’re awake now. It’s time for you to go back. You have graduation coming up. I know you aren’t going to get into a real college, but you still need to pass.” “Try not to fail out completely. It’s embarrassing enough for your siblings as it is.” She was stepping toward me, her hand reaching out to physically push me toward the back door. But I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have the surgery money. As her hand clamped onto my shoulder, the last shred of my dignity evaporated. I dug into my pocket and yanked out the crumpled hospital paperwork. My face was completely bloodless as I looked up at her, begging. “Mom, please don’t make me leave.” “Thomas is right. I did come for money.” The air in the room turned hostile. My mother’s face contorted in fury. I spoke as fast as I could, terrified that if I stopped, my throat would close up and I would choke on my own grief. “I’m sick. The doctor said I need surgery immediately. It’s not even that much, Mom, it’s just five thousand dollars for the copay.” Five thousand dollars. Less than half the cost of the Prada bag Thomas had just casually handed Bianca. A fraction of what his violin cost. But saying the number out loud felt like I had pulled a pin on a grenade. My father, who hadn’t spoken directly to me in months, closed the distance between us in two strides. SMACK. His hand cracked across my cheek with brutal force. “Five thousand dollars isn’t a lot?!” he roared. “Do you have any concept of how hard I work?” “You absolute embarrassment. You skulk in the shadows like a rat, you don’t even have the decency to wish your sister a happy birthday, and then you ambush us in front of guests for five grand?” My cheek burned like it had been held to an open flame. But the pain in my face was nothing compared to the violent tearing in my chest. “Bianca told me to hide!” I screamed, the truth ripping out of me. “She said she didn’t want anyone to know she had a trashy sister! And is five thousand really that much to you, Dad? Bianca’s new bag costs ten! Thomas’s bow alone costs more than my surgery!” “I’m in agony, Dad! I’m bleeding! I pass out at school from the pain, and you know that because the nurse called you!” For a fraction of a second, a flicker of guilt crossed his eyes. But his ego quickly crushed it, and his self-righteous rage returned. “You don’t get to compare yourself to them!” he spat. “Bianca is top of her class! Thomas wins national awards! They earn their rewards!” “What have you ever done but bring us down? Why should we invest a dime in you?” “And this supposed illness? I’m sure it’s just another one of your psychotic lies. You’ve been making up stories for attention since you were a kid.” Thomas stepped forward, snatching the crumpled ultrasound paper from my shaking hand. “Yeah, let’s see what terminal disease you’ve invented this time, Mistake.” He scanned the paper. Suddenly, he dropped it like it was coated in acid, wiping his hand aggressively on his jeans. He looked at me, his eyes wide with exaggerated, theatrical disgust. “A 10-centimeter uterine mass? Bleeding?” Thomas yelled, making sure the entire living room heard him. “Are you kidding me, Myra? You’re begging us for money because you caught some dirty STD?”

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Three years. I’ve spent three long, stifling years inside this fallout shelter—The Citadel. I haven’t seen a single “Xeno-beast,” and I wouldn’t know what radiation looked like if it hit me in the face. My life is a repetitive cycle of eating, sleeping, and existing in a state of enforced luxury that feels more like a high-end nursing home than a survival bunker. It’s not that I haven’t tried to do my part. I’ve begged to join the surface scavengers, to actually earn my keep. But every time I opened my mouth, the Director shut me down. His refusal was always the same: absolute, immovable, and shrouded in that creepy, paternalistic concern. He told me that my only job was to stay happy. He claimed that as long as I was “joyful,” the monsters within a hundred-mile radius wouldn’t dare approach. That was my “great contribution.” He even warned me that if I so much as scraped a knee, the entire Citadel would pay the price. So, I became a golden prisoner. I stayed in my climate-controlled suite, killing time with the only thing they allowed me: video games. Until the day the Strike Team came back. A man—Briggs, the Director’s son—burst into my room, his face a mask of gore and fury. He didn’t say a word before he grabbed my console and slammed it into the floor. The screen shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. His eyes were bloodshot, screaming at me through a throat raw from howling. He told me they were out there bleeding, that AJ’s insides had been torn out in front of him. That “Six” was gone—half his head bitten off by a Ravager. Fifteen men died on that run. He pointed a shaking, grease-stained finger at me and demanded to know why I got to sit in the AC, eating steak and playing games, while his brothers were being fed to the meat grinder. 1 “GAME OVER” flashed across the screen in a mocking, jagged red. I groaned, tossing the controller onto the velvet sofa. That was the seventh time tonight. This new expansion boss was tuned to be impossible; it wasn’t even fun anymore, just punishing. “Stress levels are up 3.7%. Heart rate at 105. I strongly suggest you terminate high-intensity entertainment immediately.” The voice was cool and clinical. Dr. Naomi Foster stood in the doorway, tapping a stylus against a tablet that displayed my biometrics in real-time. Even in the middle of a literal apocalypse, she kept her white lab coat pressed and her expression perfectly neutral. “I’m fine, Naomi. I was one hit away from clearing it,” I muttered, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. She ignored me, walking over to scan my wrist with a handheld sensor. “Director Killian’s orders are explicit. Your mood must remain within the ‘Optimal Joy’ bracket. Any factor contributing to negative emotional variance must be eliminated.” She reached for the power cable of the console. “Wait! Don’t!” I shielded the machine like it was a living thing. “I promise, the next run is the one. When I win, my mood will skyrocket. Dopamine hit, right?” Naomi paused, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses as she weighed my desperation against her protocols. Just then, a rich, savory aroma wafted through the door. “Hey there, kiddo. Hungry? Look what Saul managed to whip up for you.” Old Man Saul, the head of the mess hall, shuffled in with a silver thermal container. He was all smiles, his face a roadmap of deep-set wrinkles. When he popped the lid, the room was suddenly filled with the scent of slow-roasted brisket and fresh herbs—real food. In a world where most people killed for a sleeve of stale crackers, this meal was a king’s ransom. “Saul, you’re spoiling me again,” I said, though my eyes were already glued to the plate. “Hey, you deserve it! If it weren’t for you, my hydroponic garden would’ve succumbed to the blight months ago,” Saul chuckled, patting my shoulder. “Eat up! Happy belly, happy heart. And if you’re happy, we all get to sleep a little sounder tonight.” Naomi looked at Saul, then at me, and finally pulled her hand away from the power cord. She logged something on her tablet. “Protein and fat intake will assist in dopamine regulation. Permitted. But I’m checking your glucose in thirty minutes.” I dug in, the warmth of the food chasing away the residual frustration of the game. Saul and Naomi watched me from either side—one like a doting grandfather, the other like a scientist observing a prized specimen. This was my life. I was the Citadel’s most precious resource, pampered and protected with a single, bizarre mission: Stay happy. Because I was the “Sanctifier.” They told me that as long as I remained content, an invisible, intangible power within me projected a barrier that kept the radiation and the nightmares at bay. I finished the last bite, letting out a satisfied breath. I was reaching for the controller again, ready for a rematch, when a piercing, rhythmic shriek tore through the silence of the bunker. It wasn’t the red alert for a breach. it was the heavy, grinding groan of the main blast doors opening. Saul’s smile vanished. Naomi’s grip tightened on her tablet. Briggs and his team were back. 2 The sound of metal on metal echoed up the shafts, heavy and ominous. The atmosphere in my suite curdled instantly. Saul’s face went pale, and Naomi instinctively checked the lock on her tablet. The scent hit us first—not the sterile air of the bunker, but the metallic tang of blood and the acrid stench of spent gunpowder. Then came the boots. Heavy, frantic, and followed by the low, guttural moans of men in agony. I had just picked up the controller when my door—a door that usually hummed open with a soft beep—was kicked off its hinges. CRACK. The frame splintered, and the door slammed against the wall. Briggs stood there, a vision from a nightmare. He was coated in a thick layer of dark blood and soot. His tactical vest was shredded, and his left arm hung at a useless, nauseating angle. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with a terrifying, manic grief. They darted from the empty dinner plate to the controller in my hand. His gaze felt like a physical weight, something heavy and sharp enough to draw blood. “Captain…” Saul started, his voice trembling. Briggs didn’t hear him. He marched into the room, leaving a trail of wet, crimson footprints on my white carpet. He walked straight to the TV, and before I could even blink, he ripped the cables from the wall. He hoisted the console high above his head and brought it down against the floor with a sickening crunch. Internal components shattered. Plastic shards flew like shrapnel. “What the hell are you doing?!” I yelled, jumping up from the sofa. That was the only piece of my old life I had left. “What am I doing?” Briggs turned, his voice a low, vibrating growl that erupted into a roar. He shoved a finger into my chest. “I’m out there in the dirt! I watched AJ get disemboweled by a crawler! I watched Six get his head crushed like a grape! We lost fifteen men today!” He was vibrating with rage, spit flying from his lips. “And you? You sit here in the cool air, eating real meat, playing your fucking games? Tell me… how is that fair?” “Briggs, back off!” Naomi stepped between us, her voice sharp. She held up her tablet like a shield. “You know the protocol! His emotional stability dictates the integrity of the Citadel’s field! You’re endangering every soul in this bunker!” “To hell with your protocols!” Briggs shoved her aside. She stumbled against the wall, her tablet clattering to the floor. “I’m tired of hearing about ‘importance.’ My brothers are dead! And for what? To protect this… this leech?” Saul tried to intervene, his voice breaking. “Captain, please, Jude didn’t choose this, he—” “Shut up, old man!” Briggs didn’t even look at him. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me off my feet. He was pure, raw muscle fueled by adrenaline and spite. I couldn’t breathe; my toes barely brushed the floor. His face, smeared with the lifeblood of his friends, was inches from mine. The smell of death on him was overwhelming. “You think losing your toy is bad? You think I’m ruining your ‘vibe’?” He let out a twisted, jagged laugh and began dragging me toward the door. “Come on. I’m going to show you what the world actually looks like. I’m going to show you exactly what people are paying for your ‘good mood.’” 3 My heels scraped uselessly against the cold metal floor. Briggs’s grip was like an iron vice. I was a passenger in my own kidnapping. The corridor outside was lined with people—survivors, technicians, the remaining soldiers. They had gathered to welcome their heroes home, but now they stood in a heavy, suffocating silence, watching me with eyes that had turned cold and predatory. “Look at him! Everyone, look at our ‘Chosen One’!” Briggs’s voice boomed, echoing through the narrow hall. “The great Sanctifier! Our precious little secret!” He threw me toward the entrance of the medical bay. Inside, it was a butcher shop. The smell of bleach couldn’t mask the copper of the blood. A soldier was screaming as a medic tried to tourniquet a stump where his leg used to be. Another man lay on a cot, his chest crushed, a ventilator wheezing a useless, rhythmic sigh. Near the back, a row of bodies lay under stained white sheets. My stomach did a violent somersault. I’d seen gore in games, but this was visceral. It was the smell of voided bowels and the sight of yellow fat clinging to torn muscle. “See that?” Briggs hissed in my ear. “The one on the left? That’s Miller. He got half his torso taken out trying to scavenge the specific brand of canned peaches you like. And that small one under the sheet? That’s Six. He was nineteen. Before we left, he told me he wanted to see you—just once. He wanted to see what ‘hope’ looked like. Well, here you are.” The crowd shifted. The pity and confusion I usually saw in their eyes had curdled into a dark, infectious resentment. “Why him?” a man with a missing arm rasped. “Why do we die out there while he rots in luxury?” “Parasite!” someone spat. “Throw him out!” The anger was spreading like a wildfire in a dry forest. “Stop this! All of you!” Naomi finally pushed through the throng. Her face was deathly pale. She looked at her shattered tablet, then at the monitor on the wall. A red line was spiking into a jagged mountain range. “The sensors are screaming! The radiation levels outside the perimeter are climbing! You’re killing us all!” She looked toward the end of the hall, toward the observation deck. I followed her gaze. Director Killian stood there in his crisp uniform, his face unreadable. He didn’t move. He didn’t call for the guards. He watched his son incite a lynch mob against his most “valuable asset” and did absolutely nothing. His silence was a death sentence. Saul rushed forward, trying to shield me with his frail body. “You can’t do this! If the field drops, we’re all dead! Director, say something!” “Get out of the way, you old fossil!” Briggs kicked Saul in the stomach. The old man gasped, crumpling into a ball on the floor. “Saul!” I screamed, trying to reach him, but Briggs caught me by the throat, pinning me against the wall. “You still care about others?” Briggs leaned in, his voice a lethal whisper meant only for me. “Cowardly science and old-man sentimentality don’t mean a damn thing here. Today, I’m going to expose the lie.” I looked at Saul on the floor. I looked at Naomi, held back by the crowd. Finally, I looked up at Killian, who remained as cold as a statue. A bone-deep chill spread from my heart to my fingertips. In that moment, I felt the Citadel shudder. A low, vibrating hum—so subtle I thought I imagined it—echoed in my ears. Briggs wasn’t finished. He dragged me to the center of the common area and raised a hand to silence the crowd. He pulled a serrated hunting knife from his belt. The blade caught the overhead LEDs, gleaming with a cruel, cold light. “You want to know what makes him so special?” Briggs laughed, pressing the tip of the blade against my cheek. “I’m going to open him up. Let’s see if our ‘Sanctifier’ is made of divinity… or if he’s just leaking the same pathetic blood as the rest of us.” 4 The cold steel bit into my skin. The room went dead silent. “Briggs, stop!” Naomi’s voice was a frantic shriek. “The alarms are going off! The external radiation is off the charts! You’re triggering a collapse!” Briggs didn’t even blink. He grinned at the crowd, a predator basking in the spotlight. “Do you hear that? The same old ghost stories,” he shouted. “We survive out there with steel and lead, not with ‘vibes’ and graphs!” He twisted his wrist. The blade sliced into my cheek. The pain was a white-hot spike. I let out a choked cry as warm blood traced a path down my jaw, dripping onto the sterile floor. But he was just getting started. He kicked my legs out from under me and pinned me face-down. His knee was a mountain in the small of my back. Then, he began to cut. It wasn’t a stab. It wasn’t a slash. It was a slow, methodical, agonizingly precise flaying. He traced the lines of my shoulders, peeling back the skin with the practiced hand of someone who had dressed a thousand kills. I heard Naomi’s hysterical sobbing. I heard the dull thuds of Saul being kicked as he tried to crawl toward me. And I heard the crowd—the terrifying, rhythmic chanting of people who had found a scapegoat for their misery. In a gap between the waves of agony, I managed to turn my head. I looked past the boots and the blood toward the high walkway. Killian was still there. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t horrified. He was merely… observing. The realization was colder than the knife. He wasn’t just allowing this; he had planned it. I was no longer useful as a mascot, so I would serve as a sacrifice to vent the colony’s rage. Inside me, something shifted. That “inner sun” they always talked about—that warm, pulsing core of energy that had always felt like a soft summer afternoon—began to flicker. In the face of this absolute betrayal, it didn’t just dim. It curdled. The light turned black. The warmth turned to sub-zero ice. Like a star collapsing into a black hole, my “Sanctity” died. The world changed. I could “feel” the invisible dome over the Citadel melting away like wax. I could “feel” the things outside—the ancient, hungry, irradiated malice—noticing the hole. They were like sharks catching a scent of blood in the water. By the time Briggs finished his grisly work, I couldn’t even feel the physical pain anymore. I was a hollow shell of raw nerves and cold void. “See?” Briggs hoisted my bloodied, ruined form up for the crowd to see. “Look at your god! He bleeds. He screams. He’s nothing!” The crowd roared, a sound of primal, fearful triumph. “Throw him out!” Briggs commanded. Two soldiers grabbed my arms and dragged me toward the airlock. I left a thick, smeared trail of red across the floor of the only home I’d ever known. The heavy gears of the blast door groaned. They tossed me out like a piece of spoiled meat into the grey, ash-choked wasteland. The doors hissed shut behind me. I lay in the dirt, a heap of flayed muscle and broken spirit. Above me, on the ramparts, Briggs appeared. He looked down at me, laughing, his voice carrying over the dead plains. “See? The ‘Sanctifier’ is gone, and the sky hasn’t fallen! It was all a—” His laugh was cut short by a sound that didn’t come from a human throat. It was a siren, but not the bunker’s. It was the sound of the world itself screaming.

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It took twenty-four hours for a nurse to find my body. By then, I was a cold weight in a pool of my own blood, a piece of forgotten medical waste. On my tenth birthday, my parents left this world forever. From that day on, my brother threw me out of our home. He packed my life into a suitcase and sent me to a boarding school where I stayed for eight years. He didn’t just dislike me; he loathed the very fact of my existence. As I died on that operating table, I could hear him in the next room. His voice was a velvet caress, a comfort I hadn’t felt in a decade. He was telling Hailey, his adopted sister, not to be nervous. He promised he would save her. He didn’t mention that he was harvesting my brain—my life—to give to her. The last thing he ever said to me over the phone was: “What is it this time? Coughing up blood or another fake fainting spell? I’m warning you, unless you’re actually dead, stop bothering me.” Then, he hung up. 1 After I died, my soul remained tethered to my brother. I watched him, my tether, as he stood outside the Intensive Care Unit like a gargoyle carved from grief and anxiety. Hailey had been moved there after the surgery. Through the observation window, he stared at her pale, fragile face with a look of pure, agonizing devotion. “The next twenty-four hours will determine if the transplant was a success,” Dr. Whitmore said, stopping beside him to offer a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done everything a surgeon could do, Beckett. The rest is up to fate. If the best neurosurgeon in the state couldn’t save her, then no one could.” “By the way,” the doctor added, “your phone was blowing up while you were in the OR.” He handed the device back. Beckett unlocked the screen, saw the name flashing there, and his jaw tightened until the muscles jumped. It was my homeroom teacher. He held the button down to delete the notification, but the phone rang again immediately. “You should probably take that,” Dr. Whitmore suggested gently. “They’ve called a dozen times. Maybe something happened to Wren at school?” At the mention of my name, Beckett’s eyes flashed with a visceral, jagged hatred. “Something is always happening to Wren,” he spat. “She faints, she vomits blood—it’s a goddamn theatrical performance. Every time I show up, she’s fine. She treats me like a dog on a leash. If she were even half as decent as Hailey, I wouldn’t have had to cut off her tuition.” He gripped the phone so hard his knuckles turned white. “Don’t bring her up. Every time I hear her name, I see my parents’ mangled bodies in that wreckage.” I stood beside him, a transparent ghost, my heart aching with a familiar, hollow despair. Beckett, I wasn’t lying. I would never play games with you. I only took the suppressants before you arrived because I didn’t want you to see me fading. I didn’t want to burden you. From the day our parents died, the brother who used to tuck me in at night began looking at me like I was a murderer. After the funeral, he volunteered for a medical mission in the rural South. That’s where he found Hailey—a girl with a brain tumor and a family too poor to afford a bandage, let alone surgery. He brought her back to our house. He sent me to boarding school. From that day on, he had only one sister. He wouldn’t spare me a glance, yet he moved heaven and earth for Hailey. To fulfill his promise of curing her before her twentieth birthday, he spent years searching for a donor, even putting up his entire life savings as a bounty for a “willing” match. I knew this was my only path to his forgiveness. When I realized I was terminal, I signed the organ donation papers. I thought that if my death saved the girl he loved, he might finally stop hating me. Tears I couldn’t feel rolled down my ghostly face. Just before the call timed out, Beckett finally snapped and pressed ‘accept.’ “Hello? Is this Wren’s guardian?” the teacher’s voice came through, frantic. “She’s—” “I don’t want to hear it!” Beckett barked, cutting her off. “If she’s dead, call me to pick up the body. Otherwise, lose my number.” Beckett, usually the epitome of the calm, collected surgeon, only lost his mind when it came to me. Or Hailey. He treated Hailey like a second chance at penance—as if saving her would earn him a pardon from our parents’ ghosts. Dr. Whitmore, who had been a peer of our parents, watched Beckett’s rage with a look of deep concern. “Beckett, it’s been eight years. The plane crash wasn’t Wren’s fault. I watched that girl grow up alongside you. She is the only family you have left in this world.” “Dr. Whitmore, please,” Beckett said, his voice trembling with suppressed fury. “Don’t mention her again. My only priority is Hailey.” The senior doctor sighed and walked away. A nurse approached timidly. “Dr. Moore, your remaining clinic appointments for today—” “Cancel them all. I’m staying right here until she wakes up. I won’t leave her side for a second.” I felt a bitter smile touch my lips. I looked through the glass at Hailey. I was overwhelmed by a cold, sharp envy. I had donated my entire physical form, and it hadn’t bought me a single smile. She simply had to exist to make him abandon his principles, his patients, and his life. He used to be the kind of doctor who stayed late to see every single person in the waiting room. But for Hailey, the rules didn’t apply. Suddenly, Dr. Whitmore called his cell again. Beckett hit speakerphone without looking away from Hailey’s bed. “Beckett, I just saw Wren’s name on the hospital registry,” Whitmore said, his voice grave. “Did something happen?” 2 Beckett’s brow furrowed. I could see the fuse of his patience burning short. He glanced at the date on his phone, and his chest began to heave with jagged breaths. “Does she have no shame? Does she not know what day it is?” he hissed. “Tell her to get out. I don’t want to see her.” Today was my eighteenth birthday. It was Hailey’s nineteenth. And it was the eight-year anniversary of our parents’ death. “Beckett, this isn’t the visitor’s log,” Whitmore said, his tone dropping an octave. “It’s the inpatient list. Ask her if she’s okay.” “Or check your office,” Whitmore continued. “Whenever she comes to see you, she waits there. She’s a quiet kid; she wouldn’t tell you if she was hurting.” The dam broke. Beckett roared into the phone, “She’s been ‘hurting’ since the day they died! Every day it’s a new symptom, a new crisis, and every time I check, there’s nothing. I’m a doctor—do you think I can’t tell when someone is faking? Her face is yellow as cornmeal, and she doesn’t even have the decency to use the right foundation to hide the ‘sickness’ she’s pretending to have. I don’t know that liar. Stop talking to me about her!” On the other end, Dr. Whitmore sounded breathless with anger. “If you won’t ask, I will. You’re going to regret this, Beckett. If your parents were alive, they would never allow you to treat their daughter this way.” “Wren is no daughter of theirs!” Beckett screamed, his face a mask of fire. “She doesn’t deserve the name. As soon as Hailey wakes up, I’m taking her to the courthouse to legally put her on our family registry.” Dr. Whitmore sputtered, his voice thick with suppressed rage. “If your father were alive, you would be the one kicked out of the family. For eight years, you cut her off. Have you ever wondered how a young girl survives on her own? Have you ever looked in her dorm? She has more work uniforms for her three part-time jobs than she has school clothes! You’re a brilliant surgeon, Beckett, but as a human being, you aren’t worth the dirt under your father’s fingernails.” The line went quiet. Beckett’s eyes were bloodshot. He stood in the sterile hallway and screamed at the ceiling: “Don’t you dare bring them up! If it wasn’t for Wren, they would never have changed that flight! They wouldn’t be dead! I will never forgive her until the day she dies!” His words hit me like a physical blow, pinning me against the wall. A wave of exhaustion washed over my soul. I slid down the wall, burying my head in my hands. I had wanted to be like them. I wanted to be a healer. I worked three jobs to pay for the dream he stole from me. I studied by the light of streetlamps and worked double shifts, and the stress turned into a silent killer. Three years ago, I was diagnosed with liver cancer. I remember the day I tried to show him the report. I was trembling, my hand shaking as I held out the envelope. He didn’t even open it. He tore it into confetti and threw it in my face. “Wren, do you think if you pretend to be sick like Hailey, I’ll love you? In your dreams. If you bring me another fake lab report, I’m calling the police for fraud.” It was a report from his hospital. All he had to do was type my name into the system. I never mentioned it again. When I fainted at school, the teacher would call, and I couldn’t stop her in time. But don’t worry, Beckett. The calls are going to stop now. This time, I’m really gone. 3 My body lay on the cold steel of the operating table in the basement. Piece by piece, the parts of me not ravaged by cancer were being harvested. And upstairs, Beckett was still a sentinel at Hailey’s door. A nurse, hurried and harried, rushed past him toward the service elevator, but he caught her arm. “Wait, keep an eye on her for me,” he said, nodding toward Hailey. “Don’t leave for a second. If there’s a spike in her heart rate, page me. I’m just going to the restroom.” The nurse looked conflicted. “But the donor’s body… we need to prep for transport to the crematorium…” Beckett waved her off, frowning. “The donor saved my sister’s life. I’ll handle the final arrangements personally later. Right now, watch Hailey.” He walked away, glancing back three times, his heart visible on his sleeve. Half an hour later, he returned. It was shift change. The hallway was empty save for the skeleton crew. My body remained on that table, forgotten in the transition of paperwork. A young nurse ran up to him, holding a bag of takeout. “Dr. Moore, this was dropped off at the front desk for you.” Beckett pulled his gaze away from Hailey. He rubbed his tired eyes and saw Hailey’s name on the receipt. A warm, genuine smile broke across his face. “She’s an angel,” he whispered. “Even before surgery, she was thinking about making sure I ate.” There was a long note in the “special instructions” section. Beckett read it word for word, his eyes shimmering. [Big brother, if you’re reading this, the surgery must be over. Are you tired? Did you forget to eat again? I ordered this specifically for you. When I wake up, I’m going to make sure you take better care of yourself. You’re the most important person in the world to me!] Beckett wiped a tear with a napkin and ate the meal standing up. Just as he tossed the trash, Dr. Whitmore called again. “I found Wren’s room number. I’m sending it to you. Go see her. I’m stuck in a consultation.” The warmth vanished from Beckett’s face instantly. “What is she pulling now? Doesn’t she know I’m busy? Did she tell you to call me? If she’s not dead, tell her to crawl over here herself! I am not leaving Hailey until she’s out of the woods!” He gripped the phone, his voice shaking with resentment. “Dr. Whitmore, I call you ‘Uncle’ out of respect for my father. But look at the difference. My biological sister does nothing but cause trouble while I’m trying to save lives. My adopted sister, while facing death, orders me dinner because she’s worried I’m hungry. Do you honestly still think Wren deserves a place in this family?” He slammed the phone shut. It was the first time he had ever truly defied his mentor. And once again, it was because of me. Don’t worry, Beckett. When you finally find out, you’ll never have to be angry again. 4 Beckett glanced at the room number on his screen, his face hardening into a mask of ice. He deleted the message. On his way back from the trash bin, he passed the door to the room I had occupied. He paused for a fraction of a second. His lip curled in a sneer. “Drama queen,” he muttered under his breath. My heart—the ghost of it—leaped into my throat. Just turn the handle, Beckett. Just look inside. You’ll see I wasn’t lying. But he didn’t stop. The weight of his disappointment was so heavy it felt like lead in my soul. I followed him to the corner, where he stopped, breathing hard. Suddenly, he spun around. He marched back to my room and threw the door open with a crash. “Wren! Get out here!” he barked into the silence. There was no answer. He took two steps inside and saw the bed. It was half-stripped, the pillows neatly stacked, but the mattress was empty. Look closer, Beckett! Look at the nightstand! I left everything for you! I didn’t kill them… I swear I didn’t… But he had no patience for me. Seeing the empty bed was proof enough for him. He slammed the door so hard the frame rattled. Back in the hallway, he pulled me out of his block list. He took a deep breath and sent a voice memo, his voice vibrating with rage: “Wren, if you waste hospital resources one more time, I will have security drag you out. If you aren’t in your bed, you aren’t sick. You’re a fraud. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to check yourself out. If you don’t, never call me your brother again.” As the message sent, my phone—sitting on the pillow in that empty room—chimed softly. No one was there to hear it. Beckett returned to Hailey’s window. He seemed to remember something and texted Dr. Whitmore: [I checked. She’s not even in her room. You fell for her act again.] Inside the ICU, Hailey’s finger twitched. Beckett pressed his face to the glass, his eyes wide. When he saw her eyelids flutter, he forgot all about me. He pulled out his phone and started shopping—jewelry, a designer bag, things a girl her age would love. Then he opened a food app and ordered a strawberry cake, her favorite. He paced the hall, muttering to himself. “What else does she like? What else?” He snapped his fingers and ran toward his office. He grabbed his briefcase and pulled out the legal documents for the family registry—the ones he’d had prepared for months. He was running so fast he collided with the nurse who had been assigned to me. She looked up, her eyes lighting up when she saw him. “Dr. Moore! Your sister, Miss Moore, she—” “Not now!” Beckett waved her off, not letting her finish. He burst into Hailey’s room just as she opened her eyes. He let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. Then, his phone rang. It was the morgue coordinator. “Dr. Moore, your sister… the organ donor… she’s still on the table in OR 3. The staff just realized. We need you to come down and sign for the body. There are no other family members on file.”

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For six months, I had been secretly dating my older brother’s best friend. I just hadn’t found the right moment to break the news to my brother. Then came the afternoon Tyler dragged me to the park out of nowhere, claiming we were going on a “sting operation” to catch Jackson on a date. “I finally caught the bastard,” Tyler said, practically vibrating with excitement. “He actually brought his new girl out in public.” Before my brain could even process the words, Tyler shoved me forward, right into the middle of the walking path. When my eyes focused on the couple standing in front of me, my vision blurred. The world tilted on its axis. My throat tightened so violently I could barely breathe, let alone speak. All I could manage to force past my trembling lips was a pathetic, broken whisper. “Hey, Jackson. Nice to meet you… both.” Jackson’s eyes locked onto mine, and the color completely drained from his face. 1. I stared at the man I knew better than my own reflection, the phone trembling in my grip. Tyler didn’t notice my world collapsing. He was too busy wearing a shit-eating grin. “Jackson, that sly son of a bitch. I knew if I trailed him long enough, I’d catch him on a private date.” He nudged my shoulder. “Mia, call him. Let’s see what he says.” I didn’t say a word. I just numbly pulled up the familiar contact and pressed dial. Fifty feet away, the young man strolling down the path pulled his phone from his pocket. He looked annoyed for a fraction of a second before answering. When he spoke, his voice was that same soft, familiar cadence I fell asleep to every night. “Hey. I’m tied up with something right now. Can we talk later?” I wanted to scream. I wanted to ask him if tied up with something meant holding another woman’s hand. But my throat was a desert. Nothing came out. Jackson glanced at his screen, his tone dropping an octave. “I have to go.” The line went dead. At that exact moment, a heavy hand shoved my back. My feet stumbled forward on autopilot until I was standing dead center in front of the golden couple. Looking at their intertwined fingers, a burning, acidic ache flooded my eyes. I clawed together every ounce of dignity I had left, pasted on a hollow smile, and offered my greetings. Jackson looked like he had seen a ghost. 2. “What are you doing here?” Jackson demanded, his voice tight. “Are you following me?” Before I could even open my mouth, Tyler leaped out from the bushes, waving his phone—which was currently broadcasting a FaceTime call to their college group chat—right in Jackson’s face. “Gentlemen! What did I tell you?” Tyler hollered. “Our boy is officially off the market! Who says he doesn’t owe us a steak dinner for holding out on us?” Seeing my brother suddenly materialize, the hostility vanished from Jackson’s face. The sharp, defensive edge he had directed at me instantly dissolved. “Dinner? Yeah, sure,” Jackson stammered, pulling the girl closer to his side. “Gia and I will treat you guys next time.” The pure, unfiltered adoration in his eyes as he looked down at her felt like a physical blow. There was nowhere to look, nowhere to hide from it. I suddenly realized I was staring at a total stranger. Only last night, this same man was on the phone with me, mapping out our future. We had spent an hour strategizing the perfect, seamless way to tell Tyler that we were in love. How does a man’s entire reality shift overnight? My phone buzzed in my palm. I looked down. It was a text from Jackson. Keep your mouth shut. Let me explain later. By the time I looked back up, Jackson had slipped his phone away and was laughing with my brother. The girl beside him smiled warmly at Tyler, then turned her gentle, doe-like eyes toward me. “And who is this?” she asked. Jackson didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, her? That’s the little sister I told you about.” Sensing Gia’s subtle hesitation, he quickly added, “She’s a total crybaby. Super clingy. Tyler and I used to do the dumbest things just to ditch her when we were kids.” Gia’s face lit up with understanding. She covered her mouth, giggling softly. “You’re so mean. You literally caused her to develop a stutter back then, and you still have the nerve to complain about her?” 3. For the longest time, I had only ever viewed Jackson as an older brother figure. Especially after the incident when we were kids—when he played a cruel prank on me just to get rid of me, traumatizing me so badly I developed a psychological stutter. After that, I kept my distance. Even when I ended up attending the same university he did, my boundaries remained firmly in place. But Jackson, apparently, had other plans. He started forcing Tyler to bring me along to their hangouts. He’d buy me iced lattes, pastries, designer bags. He’d drop them off without asking. I rejected them every single time, but his persistence was relentless. The turning point happened at a roommate’s birthday party. I had too much to drink, and Tyler, stuck at work, asked Jackson to pick me up. When Jackson tried to grab my arm, I shoved him away. I could barely walk straight, but my instinct to keep my distance was ironclad. I stumbled toward the curb to hail a cab, but he caught my waist and pulled me flush against his chest. He let out a heavy sigh. “You really hold a grudge, don’t you, kid?” He ruffled my hair, his tone suddenly dropping into something thick and indulgent. “Be my girlfriend, Mia. I’ll let you take your revenge on me for the rest of our lives.” The alcohol fog in my brain parted for a split second. Sensing my hesitation, Jackson cupped my face in his large, warm hands. “You’ve rejected my gifts a hundred times,” he murmured. “You can’t reject me tonight.” I was dizzy. Flustered. And, stupidly, I nodded. After that, he was the perfect boyfriend. He sat with me through evening lectures. He stayed at the library until midnight. When I had bad cramps, he’d show up with a hot water bottle and ginger tea. Tyler used to complain to me about it. “I swear to God, Mia, Jackson is hiding a girl. You have no idea how much he sneaks off campus lately. If I find out who it is… man, we swore we’d stay bachelors together, and he broke the pact.” Whenever Tyler said that, my heart would race. My cheeks would burn, and I’d look away. Later those nights, I’d text Jackson, asking how we were going to break the news to Tyler. He’d send voice memos, sounding dramatically aggrieved. “Man, I can already picture the day your brother breaks both my legs.” Then, his voice would soften into a raspy whisper. “But it’s fine. I stole his most precious treasure. It’s a price I’m more than willing to pay.” “I am not a treasure, idiot,” I’d text back, smiling into the dark. I had felt so incredibly lucky. And now, here I was. Watching the man who said he was willing to pay the price casually eat half-eaten fries off another woman’s plate. 4. Bile rose in the back of my throat. Tyler had bought a bunch of street food, but I hadn’t touched a single bite. Tyler happily devoured my portion, completely oblivious to my nausea, and kept teasing his best friend. “I knew you were too polished to be single for three years,” Tyler joked. “You turned down all those girls on campus. You were just waiting for the right one, huh?” Gia smiled brightly, tilting her head at Jackson. “Wait, didn’t you tell me no one ever had a crush on you?” Tyler’s eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas. He threw his arm around Jackson’s neck in a headlock. “Alright, spill it, man. How did you trick this gorgeous girl into dating you? I need to take notes.” I stood perfectly still, watching. Jackson purposefully avoided looking in my direction. Gia, clearly finding the dynamic endearing, let her eyes crinkle with laughter. “Honestly? He chased me for almost a year,” she said. Jackson looked away, the tips of his ears flushing red. Gia reached out and affectionately poked his cheek before continuing. “He’d ask me out every single day. Coffee, movies, dinner. But he’s so popular, and I have terrible trust issues. I didn’t feel secure, so I kept saying no. Until…” She went on to describe a night she had terrible stomach flu. How Jackson drove through a torrential downpour to get to her apartment. How he stayed up all night nursing her. How he gave her full access to his location and his schedule, proving his loyalty. Every single detail, every sweeping romantic gesture… it was exactly what he had done for me. “But the real kicker,” Gia said, her voice dripping with affection, “was that he truly understood what I cared about. I’m a massive Coldplay fan. He sat at his computer for three days straight, refreshing the page, just to score me a VIP ticket to their sold-out stadium tour.” “The March 1st show?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from someone else. “Yeah, that exact one,” Gia nodded, sighing. “Because it was right near the college, it was impossible to get tickets. I would have been heartbroken if Jackson hadn’t pulled it off.” 5. I had wanted to go to that concert. I had wanted to go with him. I was the one who sat in front of my laptop for three days. I was the one who fought the digital queues and finally managed to snag two VIP tickets. I remember trembling with excitement when I showed them to Jackson. But we never went. He told me his frat brother was desperately trying to impress a girl who loved Coldplay, and begged him for the tickets. Jackson asked if we could give them up. He transferred double the ticket price into my bank account to make up for it. I had been crushed, but I figured there would be other concerts. If his friend was begging him, it felt petty to say no. Looking back now, I realized there was no frat brother. He took the tickets I fought for and used them to woo another woman. I had literally paid the price of admission for someone else’s love story. I mentally checked out. For the rest of the conversation, I stared at my phone, pretending I couldn’t hear Jackson awkwardly trying to rope me into the banter. A text popped up from a former senior at my college, someone I now worked with. It was regarding some outsourced project code that needed debugging. I threw myself into the chat, asking for specifics, burying my brain in data until the physical world faded away. When the chatter around me finally died down, I looked up. Tyler was staring at me, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Earth to Mia. I’ve been calling your name for two minutes. Are you hiding a secret boyfriend or something?” I opened my mouth to brush it off, but before I could speak, Jackson broke into a violent coughing fit. He pounded his chest, pretending he choked on a chili flake. Suddenly, I was completely out of fucks to give. “Actually, yeah. I am seeing someone.” The expressions on Tyler and Jackson’s faces were identical shades of thunderous black. Tyler practically launched himself off the park bench, looking like he was ready to commit a felony. “Mia! Call that son of a bitch right now! I am going to shatter his kneecaps!” “I guard you night and day, and some absolute degenerate still slips past the gates?!” Tyler yelled, pacing. “I want to see exactly who has the balls to lay a hand on my little sister.” I stared at him. You didn’t guard me very well from the guy standing right next to you, I thought. I could feel Jackson’s eyes burning holes into my skin. Even without looking at him, the sheer panic rolling off him was palpable. Why the panic, Jackson? Did you think I was texting you? Or did you think I was about to blow up your life right here, right now, and shatter Gia’s illusion of you? “Mia, you just started your internship,” Jackson said, his voice forced into a calm, authoritative older-brother tone. “You don’t know how to judge character yet. You need to let Tyler screen this guy for you.” I smiled sweetly. “You’re absolutely right. I’d love for both my big brothers to screen him.” Jackson stared at my phone as I raised it to my ear. The line picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Evan. Can we meet up?” Evan’s deep, soothing voice crackled through the speaker. “Send me the pin. It’s getting late—are you hungry? I’ll take you out.” “Just come here,” I said softly. “You can eat with us.”

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The first thing I smelled was the copper of my own blood. The last thing I felt was the jagged edge of a broken champagne bottle tearing through my carotid artery. Then, I blinked. The neon glare of the club was gone. In its place was the sterile, flickering fluorescent light of the Stratton & Co. marketing floor. I was back. Back to the Tuesday morning when Mindy first proposed the “team-building” night that would end my life. In my previous life, it started with a whim. Mindy suggested we book a private lounge at The Ace of Spades, a high-end club where a single bottle of Armand de Brignac goes for three grand. She ordered ten. By 2:00 AM, she’d slipped out the back with the rest of the team, claiming she was “checking the valet.” She never came back. The owner—a man with a shaved head and a temper like a pressure cooker—found me alone in the wreckage of the VIP suite. He didn’t care about corporate politics. He wanted his thirty thousand dollars. When I called Mindy, she laughed over the speaker. She told me the champagne tasted like it had been watered down and that the owner should be “honored” a firm like ours even stepped foot in his “dive.” He didn’t feel honored. He felt murderous. 01 “Friday night. Private lounge at The Ace of Spades. I’ve got ten bottles of gold-label bubbles on ice. Don’t even think about being a no-show, babes!” Mindy was leaning against my cubicle partition, a bottle of cold-pressed peach juice dangling from her hand. Her lip gloss left a sticky, coral-colored ring around the straw. Peach. It was always peach. Sweet, soft, and cloying. Five of our six-person team nodded eagerly. I was the only one who didn’t look up from my monitor. “Norah? You’re in, right?” She tilted her head, her blonde highlights catching the office light. I didn’t hesitate. “No.” The sucking sound of the straw stopped. She kept the bottle to her lips, but her eyes narrowed. “Wait, why? It’s Friday!” “I’m busy.” “Is it the money? Don’t worry about the money, sweetie. It’s coming out of the team-building budget. Howard already signed off on it.” “The quarterly budget is eight hundred dollars,” I said, finally turning to face her. “Ten bottles of Ace of Spades is thirty thousand, plus the lounge fee. How exactly are you planning to expense that, Mindy?” The rhythmic clicking of keyboards in the department faltered. Diane, our senior lead, let her fingers hover over the keys. Mindy slowly lowered her juice and stood up straight. The smile stayed on her lips, but the warmth vanished from her eyes. “Norah, you’re so literal. It’s a hookup. The owner is a ‘friend’ of mine. He’s giving us a massive discount.” “How massive? Give me a percentage. I’ll help you run the numbers against the company’s audit policy.” She didn’t answer. Her fingernail traced a sharp, nervous line down the side of her plastic bottle. “Fine. If you want to be a buzzkill, be a buzzkill.” She turned on her heel. On her way back to her desk, she dropped a gourmet chocolate on Chris’s keyboard and gave Diane a playful squeeze on the shoulder. Every move was calculated, a masterclass in social engineering. I had watched her play this game for a year. In my last life, I was just a pawn she sacrificed to clear her tab. At 3:00 PM, Howard called me into his office. “Norah, I heard you’re skipping the team event?” “Yes.” “Reasoning?” “The cost is astronomical, Howard. Even at a fifty-percent discount, it’s ten times our allotted budget.” He tapped his fingers on his mahogany desk. There was a Yeti tumbler sitting there, decorated with a crooked heart sticker drawn by his young daughter. He looked like a family man, a responsible VP. “I’ll handle the financials. But Norah, your attitude is becoming a problem. Mindy works hard to keep morale up, and you’re making her look bad in front of the group.” “I’m not trying to make her look bad. I’m asking a math question.” “Ask it privately then. You’re making it sound like she’s… skimming.” He cut himself off, realizing where that sentence was heading. “Just go. Try to be a team player for once.” When I stepped out, Mindy was waiting at the end of the hallway. She had a new juice. A larger one. “What did Howard say, Norah?” Her voice was pure honey. “Nothing.” “Good. Honestly, I’m sorry I didn’t consult you first. Next time, you’ll be the first person I ask, okay?” She draped an arm over my shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, but her sharp manicure poked right into the soft skin above my collarbone. “Mindy, how many of these ‘team events’ have you organized this year?” “I don’t know… seven? Eight?” “All on the company dime?” “Duh. That’s what a budget is for.” “Do you keep the itemized receipts?” Her grip tightened for a fraction of a second. Then she let go, her smile never wavering. “Why the sudden interest in accounting? Want to see them? I can show you everything.” “Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll find them myself.” I walked away. Her voice trailed after me, sweet and bubbly as if nothing had happened. “Okay! Suit yourself! Next time then!” Back at my desk, my phone buzzed. A voice note in the department group chat. Four seconds. Mindy’s voice was a low, conspiratorial whisper, the kind meant to sound like a secret shared for your own good. “Norah’s been under a lot of stress lately, guys. Let’s all try to be extra kind to her, okay?” Five minutes later, Diane peered over the top of her monitor, checking to see if anyone was listening. “Norah,” she breathed, her voice barely audible over the hum of the AC. “You shouldn’t have picked a fight with her.” 02 “Morning.” No one replied. It was 8:06 AM. The office was a tomb of mechanical clicks and white noise. I set my bag down and saw my computer was already on. The screen was stuck on a red system alert: Your account has been forcibly logged out. Please contact your administrator. I looked under the desk. My power strip had been yanked out—not accidentally, but with enough force to leave a gouge in the plastic. Chris sat across from me, his noise-canceling headphones on, eyes glued to his screen. He didn’t even look up. I went to HR to borrow a spare cable. When I returned, a Starbucks cup was sitting on my desk. The label read: Peach Green Tea Lemonade. Double Syrup. No name. Mindy’s signature. She was the only one who ordered from that shop. Under the cup was a Post-it note. Pastel pink. Her favorite. Don’t be mad, Norah! My treat. Peace offering? ~M. I dropped the drink into the trash can. I kept the note, tucking it into my drawer. At the 10:00 AM weekly status meeting, Howard was outlining the Q4 roadmap. When he got to the Market Expansion column, he paused. “Norah, what’s the status of the Highpoint Media project?” Before I could breathe, Mindy cut in. “Howard, I actually chatted with the Highpoint lead yesterday. I think there’s been a little… friction in the communication? I’m not sure, but he sounded a bit frustrated.” She sounded hesitant, like she was protecting me. It was a perfect performance—just enough to plant a seed of doubt in Howard, but vague enough to make her seem innocent. “Friction?” Howard frowned. “What kind?” “Just… technical stuff. He said the handoffs haven’t been smooth. I didn’t want to dig too deep since it’s Norah’s baby, you know?” She turned to me, eyes full of performative sympathy. “Don’t be mad that I mentioned it, Norah. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” In less than fifty words, she had buried three landmines. One: she turned a non-existent complaint into a “fact.” Two: she posed as the “reluctant” whistleblower. Three: she framed a betrayal as an act of friendship. I stared at her. “The Highpoint lead told you this? When?” “Yesterday afternoon. He called my cell.” “Did you call him back? Do you have a log?” She laughed. It was the wounded laugh of a friend being interrogated. “Norah, you’re acting like a prosecutor. I don’t record my calls. Who keeps a log of a casual check-in?” Chris chimed in immediately. “Exactly. Mindy’s just trying to help, and you’re giving her the third degree—” “Enough,” Howard snapped. “Norah, I want a full log of every interaction with Highpoint on my desk by EOD. Meeting adjourned.” At 2:00 PM, I bypassed our local drive and logged into the corporate ERP system. Expense reports are filed under the Administrative module, one page per month. March: Omakase dinner. $4,800. April: Karaoke Lounge. $4,500. June: Cross-departmental mixer at a mountain resort. $12,000. The limit for a mixer is $5,000. I pulled up the scanned attachment for the June retreat. It was a handwritten receipt with a blurry stamp. Looking closely at the digital scan, I could see the faint white edges of liquid paper where the original number had been covered. The “5” had been clumsily turned into a “12.” I hit Print Screen. The second the file saved, a notification popped up in the corner of my screen. Mindy. What are you working on, Norah? Come downstairs for a snack! They have those new matcha cookies, my treat! She was sitting three rows away, smiling at me over the sea of cubicles. How did she know what I was looking at? No thanks, I typed. Don’t be a hermit. Everyone thinks you’re acting so weird lately. I heard the click-clack of her stilettos on the tile. She leaned over my shoulder, the scent of her peach perfume so thick it made my throat itch. I could see the outer ring of her colored contact lenses. “Norah,” she whispered, her voice a low frequency meant only for me. “Some things in the system are meant to be read. Others… aren’t.” “I’m just doing my job, Mindy.” “Good to know.” She straightened up and shouted to the room, “Afternoon snacks are on me! Add your names to the Slack thread!” Within seconds, six emojis flashed in the channel. No one tagged me. When the elevator doors opened at 6:00 PM, it was just the two of us. She spoke first. “Norah, just so you know… those workflows you were looking at? Howard was the one who signed off on all of them.” The elevator reached the lobby. The doors slid open. She stepped out, then turned back to look at me, a sharp, peach-colored smile on her face. “Who do you think Howard is going to protect? You… or the system?” 03 “Norah, Highpoint Media pulled out.” Howard didn’t even wait for me to sit down on Wednesday morning. He snatched the project folder off my desk. “Pulled out? Why?” “Their Director called yesterday. Said your communication style was ‘abrasive’ and requested a change in lead. Since they’re already halfway out the door, I’m giving the account to Mindy to see if she can save it.” “He called Mindy? Not me? Not you?” “He called Mindy. She brought it to me. It’s done, Norah.” He walked away. I pulled up my phone. I had the Highpoint Director’s personal number. Our last text was from three days ago. He had sent a data sheet and added, Great work on the proposal, Norah. Very solid. I typed: Hi, regarding the lead change, do you have a moment for a quick call? I hit send. A second later, a red exclamation point appeared. Message not delivered. It wasn’t a network error. He had blocked me. Three days ago, I was his favorite strategist. Today, I was a ghost. I didn’t know what had happened in those seventy-two hours, but I knew who had orchestrated it. At lunch, I walked into the breakroom. Chris and two other associates were huddled around the microwave. The second I entered, their voices dropped to a muffled hum. “…I heard the audit thing is getting serious…” “Shhh, she’s right there.” Chris grabbed his Tupperware and walked past me without a word. The others followed like ducklings. The microwave hummed, spinning someone’s abandoned leftovers. I stood there in the silence, feeling the oxygen being sucked out of the room. When I got back to my desk, I realized my drawer was slightly ajar. Everything had been moved. Not tossed—carefully searched and replaced. But my pens were facing the wrong way. My notepad had shifted an inch to the left. The pink Post-it was gone. Mindy had reclaimed her trail. And the thumb drive. The grey drive where I’d saved the ERP screenshots was gone. It had been sitting right next to my keyboard. Now, the space was empty. I logged into my computer. The screenshots on my desktop were gone. The trash bin had been emptied. The security cameras in our zone had been “out for repair” for three months. Mindy had joked about it in the group chat back then: “We’re all family here, who needs big brother watching?” Family. At 5:00 PM, Mindy returned from “off-site.” She was carrying a large bakery box. “Babes! I took a baking class! Who wants homemade sea-salt cookies?” She distributed them one by one. When she got to me, she set a large, crumbling cookie directly on my desk. “This one’s the biggest. Just for you, Norah. Don’t say I never give you anything.” Her voice was so sweet it felt like it was calcifying into sugar. She hadn’t said a single negative word about me in public all afternoon. But every person who walked past my desk looked away. You don’t need a broken bottle to kill someone. You just need to trap them in a world where everyone listens to you, and then slowly stop the air. At the bus stop after work, Diane appeared next to me. We both looked straight ahead. “Howard’s wife is Mindy’s cousin,” she said, her lips barely moving. I cut my eyes toward her. “How did you find out?” “Last year’s Christmas party. Howard’s wife came to pick him up. Mindy ran up and called her ‘Cuz.’ There were two hundred people in that hall, but I was the only one standing at the right angle to hear it.” The bus pulled up. Diane stepped on. Just as the doors were closing, she looked back. “You can’t win, Norah. Don’t kill yourself trying.” 04 Norah, please report to HR on the 19th floor immediately. The email arrived at 8:00 AM. CC’d: Howard, the HR Director, and Legal. Legal. In my last life, Legal never got involved in “performance reviews.” The conference room door was open. Five people were already seated. Meredith, the HR Director, sat in the center. Mark from Legal was on the left. Howard was on the right. At the far end sat a middle-aged man in a sharp suit, flipping through a stack of printed documents—an outside auditor. “Sit down, Norah.” Meredith’s voice was cold. She had a set of A4 papers spread out in front of her. Forms and signatures. “Do you recognize these?” She slid them across the table. Five expense reimbursement forms. $1,600, $2,300, $1,800, $2,100, $1,900. Totaling nearly ten thousand dollars. In the “Requested By” box was my signature. Every single one. The handwriting was terrifying. The slant of the ‘N,’ the way the ‘r’ looped—it looked exactly like mine. Except I had never signed them. “I didn’t sign these.” “These were submitted using your employee ID and login,” the auditor said, pushing his glasses up. “The system logs show five submissions over the last six months. Howard approved them under the impression they were for cross-departmental events—catering, venue deposits, travel stipends.” “We cross-referenced,” Meredith added. “Three of these events never happened. The other two cost less than five hundred dollars. The rest is… missing.” I looked at the signatures. In my last life, I hadn’t lived long enough for the audit to catch up. “Howard,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Did you look at the content when you approved these?” Howard’s face turned a dull grey. He gripped his Yeti tumbler until his knuckles went white. “Mindy told me you submitted them. She said she was helping you with the workflow because you were ‘struggling’ with the software. I trusted—” The door opened. Mindy walked in. Her eyes were red. She was clutching a tissue, her nose slightly pink. She had been crying, or she was perfectly prepared to. “Sorry I’m late,” she whispered. She took the last empty chair. Right next to me. “Meredith, I feel so responsible for this.” Her voice trembled. “I helped Norah enter these into the system. She said she was confused by the interface, so I just… I did it for her. I didn’t check the amounts. We’re friends. I trusted her.” She looked at me. In those watery eyes, I didn’t see guilt. I saw the deep, satisfied hunger of a predator watching its prey hit the trap. “Norah, just tell them. Tell them you asked me to do it.” “I didn’t.” “If you say that…” her voice broke, “then whose signature is that?” The auditor cleared his throat. “We’ve done a preliminary comparison. The signature on these forms is a 91% match for the signature on Norah’s original employment contract.” Meredith leaned forward. “Norah, you have two choices. You can cooperate and tell us where the money went, or we can involve the authorities and turn this into a criminal matter.” Mindy’s shoulders shook with a sob. She pressed the tissue to her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. Tears rolled down her cheeks, perfectly timed. “Meredith, Norah is a good person. Maybe it’s just a… a misunderstanding?” She didn’t finish. She buried her face in her hands. The four people in the room looked at Mindy with far more sympathy than they looked at me. My keycard was confiscated. My laptop was locked. I was told to leave the premises immediately pending a full investigation. The hallway was silent as I walked out. Mindy caught up to me at the elevator. The tears were gone. Her face was dry, her foundation perfectly smooth. “Norah, wait.” She stepped in front of the elevator doors. She pulled a bottle of peach juice from her bag, unscrewed the cap, and took a long sip. “Do you know why I picked you?” I didn’t speak. “Because you were ‘useful.’ On your first day, Howard asked who was willing to stay late to organize the archives, and you were the only one who raised your hand. I knew right then.” She wiped a drop of juice from her lip. “Just admit it, Norah. Ten grand isn’t that much. Pay it back in installments. I’ll talk to Meredith, tell her you’re going through a ‘personal crisis.’ They’ll fire you, sure, but they won’t call the cops.” “And if I don’t admit it?” She tilted her head. Her false lashes fluttered. “Don’t admit it? Norah, I’ve seen the agenda for the Annual General Meeting next week. Your name is on the last slide.” She shook the juice bottle at me. “That’s the slide for ‘Public Termination for Cause.’ See you then, babes.”

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When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back at the starting line of the nightmare. My brother, Brad, always had a twisted obsession with playing God. He lived for the aesthetic of the “perfect pair.” To broadcast his whirlwind romance with Diana Blackwood—the city’s youngest tech billionaire—he didn’t just stop at matching His and Hers bathrobes or synchronized calendars. He decided I was the final piece of his collection. “It’s about symmetry, Nico,” he’d said back then, his eyes gleaming with a manic sort of pride. “The billionaire and her protégé, and you—my brother—with her right-hand woman. It’s a match made in heaven.” In my past life, I folded. I let him push me into a marriage with Morgan. For three years, she was the perfect wife. She was attentive, bordering on doting. She curated my life with such surgical precision that I actually let myself believe it was love. I believed the lie until the very end. But when I was dying, lying in a sterile hospital bed and begging her over the phone to come sign the consent forms for a life-saving surgery, all I heard was a low, jagged laugh. “You actually think you’re worth my signature?” Her voice had sliced through the line like a scalpel. I remember the coldness that seeped into my marrow as she dismantled our entire three-year history with a few sentences. “You loved playing house with your brother’s little matching game, didn’t you? But Cody is my only match. A man like you? You were only ever fit for the trashy girls I could pick up off the street for fifty bucks.” That was when the truth came out. On our wedding night, the woman in my bed hadn’t been her. It had been a girl she’d hired from a dive bar to humiliate me before the marriage even began. She had spent three years weaving a web of fake affection just to destroy me, all to avenge some perceived slight against her “precious” Cody. I died on that operating table, my heart heavy with a hatred so pure it brought me back. 1 Brad wouldn’t stop talking. “Come on, Nico. What do you think of Morgan? Diana’s chief of staff.” He shoved a glossy photo toward me. “She’s brilliant, she’s gorgeous, and she’s Diana’s inner circle. You’re a catch, she’s a catch. It’s poetic!” I stared at the photo, the phantom pain in my chest a sharp reminder that this was real. I was back. In my last life, I’d agreed to this because I valued “loyalty” and “friendship.” I didn’t want to rain on Brad’s parade. Morgan was a master of the long game. She had played the part of the gentle, cultured woman so well I’d been fooled for over a thousand days. The memory of her voice in that hospital room—the sheer, unadulterated disgust—made bile rise in my throat. I pushed the photo away so hard it skittered off the mahogany table. “I’m not interested.” Brad blinked, his practiced smile faltering. “Wait, what? Nico, you usually go along with this stuff. Morgan is incredible. She’s exactly your type.” I looked him dead in the eye, my gaze cold enough to make him flinch. “If you’re so desperate to find a ‘match,’ go to a shelter and pair up some Labradors. I’m done being the accessory to your ego.” Brad’s face flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson. Sitting next to him, Diana Blackwood narrowed her eyes. “Nico, Brad is only trying to look out for you.” I grabbed my bag and stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. “I can look out for myself. I don’t need his brand of ‘charity’.” I threw open the door to the private lounge and nearly collided with a woman standing in the hallway. The scent hit me first—sandalwood and something expensive. It was Morgan’s scent. The same eyes that had deceived me for years were now staring directly into mine. “Leaving so soon, Mr. Vance?” she asked, her voice a low, melodic purr. I couldn’t help it; I recoiled. The physical urge to get away from her was visceral. “Move.” Morgan arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. My hostility clearly wasn’t in her script. She took a step closer, invading my space. “You seem to have a very specific grievance with me, Nico. Have we met?” I looked up, meeting her gaze with a sneer. “We haven’t. But I know your type, and I don’t like what I see.” She let out a soft, amused huff. “You’re quite the character. But don’t you think snubbing Diana and Brad like this is a bit… short-sighted? They have your best interests at heart.” “My interests aren’t up for public debate,” I snapped, sidestepping her and walking toward the exit. I could feel her eyes on my back, heavy and calculating, all the way to the elevator. I went straight to my apartment and started packing. I needed to disappear, to put as much distance between myself and that woman as possible. But an hour later, the doorbell rang. Morgan stood there, holding a leather-bound folder. “Nico, we need to talk.” I tried to slam the door, but she wedged her designer heel in the frame. Her expression shifted from polite to predatory. “It’s about your father’s estate. The venture capital firm he left you. Don’t you want to know how deep in the red it actually is?” I froze. That company was the only thing I had left of him. In my previous life, I’d handed the keys to her right after the honeymoon. She’d gutted it and used the assets as a “dowry” for Cody’s start-up. I let her in, my face a mask of ice. She tossed the folder onto my coffee table. “The credit lines are frozen. If you don’t get an influx of at least five million in the next seventy-two hours, the bank begins liquidation. Your father’s legacy becomes a footnote in a bankruptcy filing.” She leaned in, her eyes locking onto mine. “And I’m the only one who can write that check.” I actually laughed. It was a hollow, jagged sound. “And let me guess. There’s a catch.” Morgan moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Marry me.” “What could you possibly want with me, Morgan? Why this game?” “I want you,” she said, her voice dripping with a simulated sincerity that made my skin crawl. I picked up the folder and, without breaking eye contact, tore the entire thing in half. Then I tore it again. “Let it go bankrupt,” I said, my voice steady. “I’d rather beg for change on the street than spend a single second bound to you.” 2 The moment she left, I called my CFO. It was worse than she’d described. Not only were the lines frozen, but several massive short-term loans were being called in early. It was a coordinated strike. Someone was pulling strings behind the scenes. It had to be Morgan. It was her signature move: create a fire, then show up with a glass of water and demand a kingdom in exchange. It was exactly what she’d done in my first life, and I had been too blinded by grief to see the matches in her hand. Not this time. I spent the next forty-eight hours listing my condo, selling my watch collection, and reaching out to old rivals to sell my shares at a loss. But every door was slammed in my face. Word had gotten out. Diana Blackwood had made it known: anyone who helped me was an enemy of the Blackwood empire. Brad called me, his voice thick with a fake, pitying concern. “Nico, just swallow your pride. Morgan is crazy about you. She went to Diana on her knees to get that funding approved for you. If you marry her, the company is saved, you’re taken care of, and everyone wins. Why are you being so difficult?” I hung up and blocked him. Three days later, the process server arrived with a summons. The walls were closing in. I was sitting in the middle of my half-empty apartment when the door opened. Morgan stood there, silhouetted against the hall light, holding a black umbrella. “Stop fighting, Nico,” she said, walking toward me like a victor surveying a battlefield. “One word from you, and this all goes away.” I looked up at her. “Does it make you feel powerful? Backing someone into a corner just so you can play the savior?” She frowned. “I’m trying to help you.” “By cutting off every exit?” I stood up, closing the distance between us. “By telling Diana to blackball me? You don’t want a husband, Morgan. You want a pet.” She reached out and gripped my jaw, her fingers digging in with surprising strength. “My patience is wearing thin, Nico. You’re going to marry me. You don’t have another choice.” I felt a dark, twisted smile spread across my face. “Fine. You want a wedding? We’ll have a wedding.” She blinked, startled by the sudden compliance. She let go of my face, her expression softening into that practiced, “gentle” mask. “Good. I’ll handle the arrangements.” I didn’t say a word. I remembered the first wedding—the way she looked at Cody over my shoulder while we danced. This time, I wasn’t an oblivious lamb. I just needed the money to hit the accounts. Once the wire transfer cleared, I’d be gone before the ink on the license was dry. On the day we signed the papers at City Hall, Morgan was radiant in a cream-colored suit. She took my hand as we walked down the stone steps. “We’re family now, Nico.” I pulled my hand away and checked my watch. “Whatever you say.” A charcoal-gray sports car pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down to reveal Cody. In my last life, Morgan would have moved mountains—or killed me—just to see him smile. “Hey, Sis. Congrats,” Cody said, his eyes flicking to me with a smirk. “So this is the new groom? Handsome. No wonder you skipped my birthday dinner to handle his ‘paperwork’.” Morgan’s shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. She turned to Cody, her voice laced with a sudden, sharp anxiety. “Cody? What are you doing here?” Cody climbed out of the car and draped an arm around her shoulders with a familiarity that was insulting. “Just wanted to see the man of the hour. Hey, Morgan, my stomach is killing me again. Can you take me to the clinic? I don’t think I can drive.” He didn’t even try to hide the provocation. He was marking his territory. Morgan looked back at me. “Nico, Cody isn’t feeling well. I need to get him to the doctor. I’ll have the driver take you home.” In my last life, this was exactly how it started. On our first day as a married couple, she left me at the curb for a “medical emergency” that turned out to be a party. I had spent my wedding night alone, thinking I was being a supportive husband. I nodded. “Sure. Have a safe trip.” Morgan seemed unsettled by my lack of emotion. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Cody pulled her toward the car. As they sped off, I pulled out my phone and called the company controller. “Did the wire hit?” “Yes, sir. Five million, cleared ten minutes ago.” I felt the first real spark of joy in weeks. “Transfer it immediately to the offshore holding account. Then call the authorities. We’re filing for Chapter 7 and reporting the company for suspected fraudulent investment. Freeze everything.” 3 I went back to the penthouse—the “marital home” she’d bought. I spent an hour taking every “His and Hers” item she’d meticulously placed—the matching towels, the monogrammed pillows—and tossed them into the trash chute. Then I booked the first flight to London. I was reaching for my suitcase when the front door was nearly kicked off its hinges. Morgan stormed in. Before I could react, she had her hand around my throat, slamming me back against the hallway wall. “You played me!” she screamed, the veins in her neck bulging. “The money is gone! You filed for bankruptcy? You liquidated the very thing I bought for you?” I gasped for air, staring back at her with a defiance that fueled her rage. “Yeah,” I choked out. “Your money… it felt dirty. I didn’t want it.” Her grip tightened. I saw red at the edges of my vision. “You’re dead, Nico. I will destroy you.” I managed a jagged grin. “Then do it. Kill me. But you’re never getting that money back.” She abruptly let go. I slid down the wall, coughing and clutching my throat. She hovered over me, her face a mask of pure malice. “You think you can just run?” she hissed. “I know where your father’s ashes are buried, Nico. You think I won’t have that urn smashed and scattered in a gutter by tomorrow morning?” I started to shake. In my last life, this was how she broke me. She’d used my father’s memory to force me to donate bone marrow to Cody. I lunged at her, my palm connecting with her cheek in a stinging slap. “You monster!” She didn’t flinch. She just slowly turned her head back to me, her eyes burning. She swiped a thumb across her lip where I’d drawn blood. “Good,” she whispered. “I like it when they fight back. Since you won’t be a husband, you’ll be a prisoner.” She pulled out her phone. “Cancel all flights in Nico Vance’s name. Freeze his personal accounts. And put a guard at the cemetery. If anyone so much as touches his father’s plot, I want to know.” She looked down at me one last time. “From today on, you don’t go anywhere without my permission.” The house arrest began. She confiscated my phone and my ID. I was locked in a gilded cage, a high-tech villa on the outskirts of the city. By day, she was the powerful executive. By night, she came home to find new ways to break me. She’d order the cook to make things I was allergic to. She’d turn the AC down to freezing and take all the blankets. Eventually, she started bringing Cody over. She’d let him lounge in her lap while I sat across the room, a silent witness. “Look, Morgan, he’s watching us,” Cody would giggle, leaning into her. Morgan would barely glance at me. “He’s just a toy that won’t follow instructions. Don’t mind him.” I sat there, watching the performance, feeling nothing but a profound sense of nausea. In my first life, this would have gutted me. Now, it was just pathetic. I got up to leave the room. “Stay right there,” Cody called out. “Nico, get me a glass of water. I’m parched.” I ignored him and kept walking. “I said stop!” Morgan’s voice cracked like a whip. “Cody asked for water. Did you lose your hearing?” I turned around. “Is this why you forced me to marry you? To be a waiter for your pet?” Morgan was across the room in seconds. She grabbed a handful of my hair, forcing my head back. “Husband? You think you earned that title? You’re here for penance, Nico. Your father ruined Cody’s family. He drove them to the brink of extinction. Now, you’re going to pay that debt back in blood.” I froze. “What are you talking about? My father was an honest man. He never hurt anyone.” “Lie to yourself if it helps you sleep,” she spat, shoving me away. “But you’re going to spend the rest of your life making it up to him.” She turned to Cody, her voice instantly turning sweet. “How should we punish him today, Cody?” Cody stared at me, a cruel light in his eyes. “I’ve been feeling so lightheaded lately, Morgan. The doctor said I’m anemic. Maybe Nico should give me some of his blood?” Morgan didn’t even hesitate. “Done.” She called her private doctor. Two security guards pinned me to the dining table while they drew eight hundred milliliters of blood. My vision went black. I felt cold—a deep, hollow cold that started in my chest and spread to my fingertips. I collapsed onto the floor, unable to move. Morgan looked down at me, her eyes devoid of anything resembling humanity. “This is just the beginning, Nico. I’m going to take everything you owe him, piece by piece.” 4 The fever hit that night and didn’t let go for days. Morgan refused to call a doctor. She had a maid pour bitter, nameless herbal teas down my throat while I shivered under thin sheets. I was too weak to even crawl to the bathroom. Cody would come into my room while she was at work, just to gloat. “You look pathetic, Nico,” he said, tracing a finger down my cheek. I tried to flinch, but I didn’t have the strength. “Morgan doesn’t love you. She feels sick every time she has to touch you. On your wedding night? She didn’t even stay in the building.” He leaned in, whispering with a jagged grin. “She hired a girl from a street corner to sleep with you. It’s a shame you ran away so early—you missed out on her favorite part of the prank.” I stared at him. Even though I knew the truth, hearing it out loud felt like being plunged into ice water. I forced myself to sit up, summoning every ounce of remaining strength to slap his face. “Get out.” Cody shrieked and fell back onto the floor. The door flew open. Morgan charged in, her face contorting when she saw Cody on the ground. She rushed to his side. “Cody! What happened?” Cody started sobbing, clutching his cheek. “I just wanted to check on him, Morgan. I felt bad for him… and he hit me!” Morgan turned on me, her eyes wild with fury. “You’re asking for death, Nico!” She lunged forward and delivered a backhand so hard I was thrown across the bed. My lip split, and my ears rang with a deafening hum. “If you ever touch him again, I will kill you myself!” I wiped the blood from my mouth and laughed. It was a wet, rattling sound. “Then do it. Kill me now. End the play.” Morgan gripped my chin, her nails drawing blood. “Kill you? That’s too easy. Cody’s kidneys are failing. And what a coincidence—you’re a perfect match.” My heart stopped. “No. You can’t. That’s illegal.” She laughed, a cold, sharp sound. “In this city, I am the law. Next month, you’re going under the knife.” The next few weeks were a clinical nightmare. I was force-fed supplements and injected with vitamins every day, like a pig being fattened for slaughter. They weren’t caring for me; they were maintaining the hardware. I tried to escape once. The maid had left the door unlocked. I made it to the kitchen and grabbed the landline, dialing 911 with shaking fingers. “Help, I’m being held against my will… they’re going to harvest my—” The line went dead. I looked up to see Morgan standing there, the cord wrapped around her hand. “You never learn, do you?” She dragged me by my hair back to the bedroom and threw me onto the bed. “If you’re so eager to leave, we’ll move the surgery up. Today.” The guards strapped me to a gurney. The surgical lights were blinding. I thrashed against the restraints until my wrists were raw and bleeding. “Morgan! You’ll rot in hell for this! Let me go!” Morgan stood by the operating table, her face a mask of indifference. “This is what you owe him.” She turned to leave as the anesthesiologist approached, but suddenly, a white-hot pain bloomed in my abdomen. Not the surgery—something else. A deep, tearing agony. “It hurts…” I gasped. “Something’s wrong…” The doctor stepped forward, his face going pale as he checked the monitors. “Ms. Blackwell… his vitals are crashing. It’s a massive internal hemorrhage—an old condition must have flared up from the stress and the blood loss. He’s too weak. If we take the kidney now, he’ll die on the table before we even finish the first incision.” Morgan froze. She turned back, staring at me. “What did you say?” “He’s in critical condition,” the doctor stammered. I was slipping away, the pain so intense I could barely see. “Morgan… please… help me…” Morgan’s expression shifted, a flicker of something—doubt? Fear?—crossing her face. But then the doors burst open. Cody was being wheeled in on another gurney, gasping for air. “Morgan… it hurts… I can’t breathe… the doctor said if I don’t get the transplant tonight, I won’t make it to morning…” In my last life, she let me die in that hospital. In this life, she looked at my fading eyes, then looked at Cody. “He’s just a piece of trash I picked up,” she said, her voice like iron. “If he dies, he dies. Save Cody. Start the transplant now.” I felt the cold take over. “Morgan… I hope you see my face every time you close your eyes…” Then, a deafening explosion rocked the building.

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My husband Ethan Chase was sent undercover. No lavish wedding for me, no honeymoon either. When I had complications giving birth to our daughter, he was on a mission. Our daughter is seven now, and she’s only seen him in photos. “Vivian, I’m sorry. Being with me has made you suffer. Once this mission wraps up, I’ll come back and we’ll be together.” Every time we talked, I’d smile and say it was fine, that his safety mattered more. Until our daughter fell seriously ill, and I ran into him at the hospital with a pregnant woman for her prenatal checkup. “Mommy, look…” My daughter pointed at him excitedly. I immediately covered her mouth in panic. “Don’t call out! Your dad’s on a mission—it could put his life in danger!” My daughter looked at me with confusion written all over her face. “Mommy, what are you talking about?” “That’s my classmate’s dad. He picks her up from school every day.” “My classmate’s about to have a little brother. When are you going to give me a sister?” I forced myself to stay calm and dialed Ethan’s number. “Ethan, where are you? Our daughter’s sick.” Not far away, he glanced at his phone. He bent down to kiss the pregnant woman’s face, then frowned and walked to a corner to answer. He deliberately lowered his voice: “Vivian, I’m on a mission abroad. I have to hang up.” After ending the call, he stared at his phone, distracted. It took him a while before he took the prenatal test results and went to queue for registration. My eyes stung terribly. As if possessed, I carried my daughter and walked over. Charlotte Lane was sweet-looking, completely non-threatening. She was clearly someone who’d been well-protected all her life. When she learned my daughter was her son’s classmate, she brought me to a café next to the hospital. She ordered juice for the two children, then cheerfully pulled me into small talk. When she talked about Ethan, her eyes practically sparkled. “My husband and I have known each other for ten years. I was his first love. When we first got married, there was a misunderstanding, and in a fit of anger I ran off to Europe. He couldn’t find me and was depressed for quite a while. But seven years ago, he came to Europe to find me. We reconciled and had our first child.” Seven years ago. I turned my face away, afraid she’d see the tears welling in my eyes. That was when Ethan and I first met. I had just graduated high school when my family forced me to get married. After a huge fight with my parents, I ran away from home and met Ethan in an alley. He reeked of alcohol, lying on the ground vomiting blood. When he saw me, he stared for a long time before explaining he’d been injured on a mission. I believed him and took him to the hospital. Later we fell in love, and I followed him to this unfamiliar place. Until he went abroad on a mission, and I discovered I was pregnant. I endured the pregnancy and delivery all alone. Back then I didn’t know anything, not even how to properly recover postpartum. The landlord bullied me for being an outsider and threw me and my baby out in the middle of the night. I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “So… have you two always had a good relationship?” Charlotte took a sip of her milk tea and closed her eyes contentedly. “Very good. When I had our first, he was there for the entire delivery. He booked the best postpartum care center.” “Most people rest for a month after giving birth, but he insisted I take three full months.” “This time my morning sickness has been severe with the second baby, and he’s been so worried he’s lost a lot of weight too.” I gripped my straw so tightly I wanted to stab it into my flesh. Charlotte looked at me curiously. As if she’d discovered something exciting, she couldn’t contain herself. “No wonder we hit it off so well—haven’t you noticed we look a bit alike?” “Actually, I know that during the three years I was abroad, my husband found a substitute who resembled me.” “My husband said that woman was barely educated, completely on a different intellectual level from him.” “I’m pretty understanding about it. I just think of it as my husband finding a free prostitute.” The tip of the straw pierced under my nail, but I felt no pain. Charlotte didn’t notice my reaction and smiled at me smugly. “You have no idea how much my husband dotes on me. When he found out that woman was pregnant, I lost control and had someone run her over with a car. I heard she hemorrhaged badly.” “That woman reported it to the police, but my husband didn’t blame me at all. He took care of all the trouble for me.” “After I had our first baby, I had some postpartum depression. I had people harass that woman, calling her a homewrecker. Watching her carry her child around looking so helpless—it felt so satisfying.” “Oh, and my husband was even more ruthless. When the homewrecker was arguing with people, he and I just sat in a car across the street watching the show.” Late pregnancy, getting hit by a car, all alone with no one to turn to. I crawled to a nearby hospital by myself to beg for help. The day people called me a homewrecker, Ethan choked up on the phone for the first time, saying he was sorry. How ironic it seems now. My vision kept going black. I almost fainted from my seat. Charlotte finally noticed something was wrong and worriedly supported me. “Are you okay? We’ve been chatting so long—where’s your husband?” I opened my mouth, my throat tight. “He…” Just then, an indulgent yet helpless voice came from behind us. “Drinking milk tea behind my back again. Charlotte, you’re being naughty.”

The familiar voice exploded above my head. I mechanically turned around. The moment our eyes met, Ethan froze. I’d thought about going crazy, demanding to know why. But I had to consider my daughter’s feelings. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” I stood up, lowered my head, grabbed my daughter, and fled. That dark gaze followed me like a shadow, accompanied by Charlotte’s coquettish voice. “Come on, forgive me just this once.” “She’s our son’s classmate’s mom. Pretty pitiful—her daughter’s sick and her husband doesn’t even care.” When I got home, I locked myself in my room and cried for a long time. The doorbell rang in the evening. It was Ethan. “Mister, why are you here?” My daughter was curious. He frowned, seeming uncomfortable. I forced back my heartache and sent my daughter to her room to do homework. Once only the two of us remained in the living room, I finally had a chance to really look at him. He’d gotten thinner. He’d changed too. He didn’t drink the hawthorn tea I brought him, even though he used to love it. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I beat his chest with my fists, crying my heart out. “Why did you lie to me? You made our daughter into an illegitimate child!” “Do you have any idea how landlords kept kicking us out, how much contempt I endured with our daughter?” Back then I’d look for work during the day and sleep at the bank at night. On my first day of work, my finger got pierced by a machine. I didn’t cry. I just gently pulled my finger out and sat there in a daze. I kept telling myself to be strong, that everything would be fine when he came back. Now he was back, but as someone else’s husband. Ethan let me vent without saying a word. He just kept glancing at his phone. When I was too tired to hit him anymore, he helped me sit down, then quickly stepped back several paces. With a complicated expression, he pulled out a bank card. “Vivian, I’m sorry. From now on I’ll deposit child support in this card regularly.” “Just one condition—please don’t hurt Charlotte. She’s innocent.” I threw the bank card at his face like a madwoman. “She’s innocent—so I’m not? Our daughter’s not?” “I treated you as my husband. What did you treat me as? What did you treat our daughter as? Take your dirty money and get out!” His eyes turned red. Words came to his lips but he swallowed them back. After taking a phone call, he turned and left. He left in such a hurry that he trampled the flowers I’d planted in the yard. Those were flowers he and I had planted together seven years ago. “Come back! Explain yourself!” I wiped away my tears and chased after him. My daughter suddenly came out of her room, her face deathly pale, gasping for breath. Panicked, I picked up my daughter and screamed at his retreating back. “Ethan Chase! Our daughter’s having an asthma attack! Come back!” He acted like he hadn’t heard. Without any hesitation, he got in his car and left. I had no more tears left. No voice left to cry. I held my daughter and rushed to the roadside, flagging down a taxi to the hospital. “There are no beds available? Doctor, please, my daughter really can’t wait.” My daughter couldn’t breathe. She was starting to lose consciousness. Just like the past seven years, I numbly knelt and begged. But this time my daughter’s condition was extremely critical. The doctor told me expressionlessly to try another hospital. Just then, Charlotte appeared. “Vivian Adams?” She happened to be at this hospital waiting to give birth. After learning the situation, she immediately had Ethan help arrange for my daughter to be admitted. I felt a complicated mix of emotions. “Thank you…” “Don’t mention it. Your husband’s not around, so it’s only right we help you. Right, honey?” She kindly pulled me close and wiped the tears from my face. Ethan uncomfortably turned his head and pulled their son away. “Charlotte, I’ll take our son home first and bring back some toiletries for you.” The boy refused to leave. “Dad, I don’t want to go. I want to stay and wait for my classmate.” Ethan instinctively glanced in my direction and warned the boy in a low voice. “Don’t play with trashy people. They’ll be a bad influence on you!” He dragged the child away against his will. I trembled with rage. I wanted so badly to ask him why he said that about my daughter. They were both his children—why treat them so differently? But thinking of Charlotte’s kindness, I hesitated.

As soon as he left, Charlotte’s eyes suddenly reddened. “Vivian, he went to see that woman last night.” My heart skipped a beat. For some reason I felt guilty. She gave a bitter smile, her voice muffled. “Actually, after I got pregnant with the second baby, I was worried he couldn’t handle it, so I gave him permission to temporarily see that woman for relief.” “You know what he said?” Her nose turned red, looking pitiful. “He refused. He said women outside were dirty, that the time he didn’t use protection with that woman was because he was drunk.” “He wanted her to abort the child, but it was a life after all. I couldn’t bear it, so I told him to bring the child back to raise.” “He disagreed. He said he only recognized children I gave birth to. The homewrecker’s child had no right to appear before me.” I bit my lip hard until I tasted iron, forcing the tears back. So my daughter wasn’t someone he wanted. That’s why he could bear not coming back to see us even once in seven years. “Ouch, my stomach.” Charlotte suddenly clutched her belly and cried out in pain. I realized she was about to give birth and instinctively reached out to support her. Just as I was about to touch her, a strong force shoved me to the ground. Ethan had returned. He shielded her behind him. Then turned to face me, furious to the point of losing control. “Vivian Adams, did you ignore everything I said? If anything happens to Charlotte, I’ll kill you!” The back of my hand scraped against the concrete, the skin torn off. It burned with pain. I didn’t want to cry, but tears fell uncontrollably. “Is this what you think of me?” His gaze landed on my bleeding hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He seemed about to say something but stopped. Charlotte looked between us in confusion. “You two know each other?” He panicked. As if terrified I might say something to Charlotte. Before I could speak, he dragged me outside. “I’m worried about people with unclear backgrounds like her approaching you with ulterior motives.” I gave up resisting and laughed through my tears. “Right, someone from my social class doesn’t deserve to know you.” I must have been blind before. But then my daughter rushed out of the emergency room, crying and hitting him. “Bad man, let go of my mom!” “Let go!” Ethan winced in pain and instinctively pushed her away. Due to the momentum, my daughter screamed and tumbled down the stairwell. Ethan’s face changed. He quickly reached out to grab her but missed. “My child!” Everything happened too suddenly. I had no time to save her. Instead, Charlotte reacted in time and pulled my daughter back up. But the next second, her features contorted in pain. “Help! My water broke!” “What happened to you? All because you saved my daughter.” I panicked, feeling both grateful and guilty toward her. Despite her dazed consciousness from the pain, she still comforted me. “Vivian, don’t worry. We hit it off so well—saving your daughter was the right thing to do.” Ethan looked horrified and frantically carried her to the emergency room. The fetal position was abnormal. The situation was serious. This tough man actually knelt down. “Doctor, please save my wife. I’ll pay any amount.” The operating room doors closed. He remained kneeling in despair, praying. “Please God, let my wife deliver safely. I’ll trade my life if necessary.”

Passing medical staff couldn’t help but admire his devotion. My daughter and I felt like intruders, completely out of place. For a moment, everything felt so unreal. Was that Ethan who once only had eyes for me really just using me to pass the time? “Mommy, I feel awful!” My daughter’s painful cry woke me up. Her condition hadn’t stabilized. Her eyes rolled back and she started convulsing. Terrified and incoherent, I knelt before Ethan holding her. “The doctor said she needs surgery right away, but all of today’s surgeries are fully booked.” “Please save our daughter. I promise I’ll never appear in front of you again.” Charlotte had mentioned he was one of the hospital’s shareholders. He must have a way. My daughter was barely conscious in my arms, delirious with discomfort. “Mommy, Daddy, I feel awful…” Ethan softened. His hand moved toward her uncontrollably. Just then, the operating room doors opened. The doctor tiredly removed his mask and smiled: “Congratulations, mother and child are both safe.” He abruptly pulled his hand back and rushed over, pressing delicate kisses on her forehead. “Charlotte, you worked so hard. Two children are enough. We won’t have any more.” Charlotte weakly opened her eyes and couldn’t help complaining softly. “Isn’t it three? That woman gave you one too.” Ethan hesitated, then chuckled softly. “Only the ones you give birth to deserve my last name!” All color drained from my face. I could barely stand holding my daughter. He looked up at me, his expression gradually becoming complicated. After escorting Charlotte back to her room, he came after me. “Vivian, I’m sorry. I misunderstood you earlier.” He moved his gaze from my bleeding hand to my daughter. As if making a huge decision, he finally agreed to hold our daughter. “You’ve had it hard these years. I’ll arrange the surgery right now.” Tears blurred my vision. I couldn’t see his expression clearly, but I heard the tremor in his voice. Watching my daughter enter the operating room, I mechanically signed the consent form. When I looked up, I saw Ethan pushing Charlotte over. My nose stung. I couldn’t help wiping away tears. “Charlotte, why aren’t you resting? Why did you come here?” She completely dropped her previous gentleness, her smile dripping with mockery. “Vivian Adams, playing with you all this time has actually made me feel a bit sorry for you.” “My younger son was born with a severe blood disease. He needs a complete blood transfusion.” “Your daughter happens to be a match. All we needed was your signature on this surgery consent form!” She waved the form I’d just signed. I felt like I’d fallen into an ice cellar. I suddenly understood everything. I grabbed Ethan and screamed hysterically: “She’s your daughter too! How can you bear to do this?” He didn’t dare look me in the eye. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you later.” Charlotte leisurely enjoyed watching my agony. “Do you understand now? You were never his weakness!” I was consumed with hatred. I looked at them and laughed coldly with meaning. “Someone as uneducated as me—did you think I’d be easy to manipulate?” “Why don’t you go inside and see who exactly was sent into the operating room?”

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How rich can a person be? My Alpha husband Hector is very rich. The Dubois pack he leads is the wealthiest of all packs. In our five years of marriage, every time he goes out to accompany his childhood sweetheart Layla, he transfers a property to my name. After I had 99 properties under my name, Hector suddenly discovered I had changed. I didn’t cry or make a fuss, didn’t beg him not to go out. I just took the initiative to choose the best villa in Dubois pack and waited for him to sign the property transfer agreement. The man signed, the pen tip leaving sharp marks on the paper. For the first time, he showed a hint of hesitation, his voice low: “When I get back, I’ll take you to see the fireworks.” I obediently put away the agreement and softly answered: “Okay.” I just didn’t tell him that what he signed this time was our divorce agreement. I also made an appointment with a witch for 30 days later to help me dissolve the mate bond between Hector and me. After 30 days, I’ll be able to leave completely.

In the office, news of Layla’s return to Dubois pack was playing on TV. The man’s gaze remained locked on the news footage, those deep eyes reflecting Layla’s image. Even when he took the property transfer agreement I handed him, his slender fingers gripped the pen and signed without hesitation. Villa No. 1 in the western suburbs—a property in Dubois pack that money couldn’t buy. It wasn’t important in Hector’s heart. Just like me in his heart—equally unimportant. When the news ended, the man was in a good mood. He casually tossed the pen on the desk with a crisp sound, pushed the agreement toward me while joking carelessly: “I’ve transferred over sixty houses to you, right? You’re a little rich woman now.” The barely suppressed joy in his tone wasn’t to congratulate me. It was only because his beloved Layla had returned to the pack. I stood in front of his desk, my slender fingers smoothing the corners of the agreement, and nodded. “The western suburbs villa has an ocean view. I really like it.” I didn’t tell him this was actually the 100th property he’d transferred to me. Hector and I are fated mates. Back then, we fell in love at first sight. As an Alpha, Hector didn’t care at all that I was just an ordinary wolf. His love for me was generously passionate. At a moonlight ball once, we danced one dance after another. Afterward, we lay together on the lawn looking at the stars. Hector held my shoulder and told me “I love you” a hundred times. I smiled with narrowed eyes and made him a promise: “If you make me sad in the future, I’ll leave you after the hundredth time.” Under the moonlight, Hector kissed my eyes: “I swear I’ll make you happy. I’ll never give myself the chance to hurt you.” Hector broke his word. His love for me didn’t last long—only until the day Layla first returned to the country. It was our first wedding anniversary. I waited in the candlelight dinner Hector had personally prepared, happily waiting for him to come home. But all I got was a property transfer agreement and a cold apology. “Sorry Nora, I missed our anniversary. Will you forgive me?” I ignored the strong, unfamiliar perfume scent on him and hoarsely forgave him for the first time. What followed was the second time, the third time, the fourth time… It was through so many betrayals that I learned Hector had loved his childhood sweetheart Layla since they were young. But when Hector wanted to confess to Layla, she met and fell in love with her own fated mate. Layla followed her mate to another pack. Hector was heartbroken. It was under these circumstances that he met me. After that, we fell in love, got married, and everything seemed happy. Then Layla’s mate died, so Layla came back. And Hector chose without hesitation to go find Layla. In five years of marriage, he abandoned me countless times to accompany his childhood sweetheart. Eventually, he even started proactively giving me a house before going to find Layla. From the first house to the ninety-ninth. Every time, I forgave him. And now, it was exactly the hundredth time. Hector, after this time, I won’t need to forgive you anymore. Thinking this, I smiled with relief and looked at him calmly. Hector froze, and his deep blue eyes actually showed a trace of reluctance. Then with some hesitation, he said to me: “When I get back, I’ll take you to see the fireworks.” In the past, whenever he showed even a hint of softness, it would become my fantasy of trying to win him back. I would cry and beg, then despair. Because Hector would always pry my fingers away one by one and coldly leave two words: “Crazy.” Fortunately, I’d already been crazy ninety-nine times. And now, the hundred times were complete. I didn’t need to continue this self-deception anymore. Because in the stack of contracts I’d just handed him, I’d secretly hidden a divorce agreement. I also found a witch who could help dissolve the mate bond. The witch said she needed to prepare and would perform the dissolution in 30 days. Hector. Thirty days from now, we’ll have nothing to do with each other anymore.

Countdown: twenty-five days. In these five days, the man’s usually clean social media feed was unusually lively. During the day, they fed pigeons in the plaza. At night, they watched parade floats from the hotel observation deck at the amusement park. I didn’t miss a single step they took together. As for what he promised me, he’d probably forgotten long ago. I stood up to pack my luggage and had just spread a mess on the floor when I suddenly received a call from Connor, Hector’s Beta warrior. “Luna Nora, remember to come to the fireworks show at Moon Pool at eight o’clock.” “If anything goes wrong, Alpha Hector definitely won’t let me off.” In the eight years I’d been married to Hector, only his Beta called me Luna Nora. Because he was the only one who knew about my marriage relationship with Hector, and the only one who knew I was the Luna of Dubois pack. Thinking about it now, maybe Hector proposed keeping our marriage secret because he was afraid Layla would hear the news and refuse to date him. I didn’t want to make things difficult for Connor, so I agreed. But when I actually set out for Moon Pool, I was in a daze for a moment. Five years ago, when Hector and I had just gotten married, he gave me a secret fireworks show. Connor had quietly told me about it then too. Five years later, heading to the same place, my mood was completely different. When I arrived near Moon Pool, countless tourists had already gathered there. There were even many media outlets. I was puzzled, afraid I’d gotten it wrong, so I called Hector. The other end of the line was endless busy tones. I called again. I didn’t know what I was expecting. But no matter how many times I called, no one answered, and I never saw any trace of Hector. Looking at the time, it was almost eight o’clock. Someone in the crowd was already shouting: “The fireworks show is about to start!” “This is the fireworks show Alpha Hector prepared for his wife. We’re lucky to catch it.” I froze. In public, Hector’s image had always been unmarried. The wife they spoke of couldn’t possibly be me. It could only be someone else. I knew the best viewing spot for the fireworks was on the northernmost side of Moon Pool. Since I was already here, I might as well go look. At least the fireworks were innocent. But there were too many people. I was pushed to the very front by the crowd. I finally saw Hector. He was in the best position, deeply embracing Layla. The fireworks were already blooming gloriously in the night sky, one after another. I listened to the explosions going off beside my ears. I also heard Hector’s deep confession to Layla against the background of boiling crowds mixed with fireworks. A reporter held a microphone to Layla’s face and asked her: “Miss, what is your answer?” Hector gently held Layla’s shoulder, looking at her with anticipation all over his face. Layla shyly took the microphone and had just opened her mouth when my eyes met Hector’s. Hector’s whole body stiffened, and he involuntarily said: “Nora…” At that moment, the entire Moon Pool fell silent. Even the sound of fireworks became insignificant. Everyone was focused on what he’d said and on me, whom he was looking at. Layla narrowed those charming peach-blossom eyes, looked me up and down, raised an eyebrow, and asked Hector: “Darling, who is this?” Hector’s jawline tightened. He obviously hadn’t expected to run into me on this occasion. He awkwardly licked his lips, pondering how to salvage the situation. I smiled and, under everyone’s probing gazes, answered: “My name is Nora. I’m Hector’s…” Hector tensed up, trying to stop me, but what I said was: “Distant cousin.” As soon as the words fell, my fingers clutching my palm also relaxed slightly. “My mom asked me to help him check if his future partner is handsome. Did I scare you all?” Hector’s expression finally relaxed, and he nodded at me with satisfaction. He never wanted me to reveal my identity in public, and his mother naturally felt the same way. So every time I went out with his mother, she had me call her directly by name. This name I’d been calling for five years was the best excuse prepared for just this moment. The fireworks show had to continue, and no one paid attention to me anymore. The weather didn’t cooperate—it suddenly started pouring rain. Thunder and lightning flashed in the sky. Hector hastily dispersed the crowd and carefully escorted Layla to the car. Leaving me standing there alone. The rain was bone-chilling, yet I felt numb. Probably because these five years of marriage had long since made me accustomed to it.

I went home and took a hot shower. When I came out, I ran into Hector in the living room. He hesitated for a moment, then actually thanked me: “But thank you for helping me out of that situation.” “We… after all, our marriage is secret. If I’d said it right there, it would’ve been bad for Layla’s image.” “Later… I’ll find a chance to make our relationship public.” I didn’t remind him that we wouldn’t need to make our relationship public anymore. This marriage was coming to an end. It might as well never have existed. Better for both him and me. He suddenly remembered to care about me: “But how did you end up there?” I smiled and stared at him for a long time without speaking. Not until his eyes became evasive did I say: “Connor told me to go.” Only then did he remember that today’s fireworks show was originally what he’d promised me. But he’d been too sweet with Layla and had completely forgotten about it. “Sorry. Next week… no, next week won’t work. I have to handle a Rogue attack at the pack border. Next month then. I’ll definitely take you.” I shook my head. “We’ll see when the time comes.” Hector was satisfied with my understanding and gently hugged me. Never before had I felt a man’s embrace so cold. After that day, Hector did go on a business trip. Except he took Layla with him on the business trip. Outside of work, they had candlelight dinners together and visited the werewolf museum. They went to eat at the specialty seafood night market he’d never been willing to take me to. He’d told me: “I’m an Alpha after all. Going to eat that kind of thing—how undignified.” But in front of Layla, Hector had no status. He was just an ordinary man deeply in love with her. Countdown: three days. Hector finally came back. In the half month he’d been away on business, I hadn’t contacted him even once. Looking at the spotless villa, as if he’d suddenly discovered what I’d contributed over five years of marriage, he said to me: “Nora, you’ve worked hard.” After five years, I couldn’t remember the last time he’d called me that. “I was planning to take you to see fireworks the day after tomorrow, but fireworks are currently banned…” I could hear that he just didn’t want to take me to see fireworks anymore. Layla had probably said something to him. “Then forget it.” Hector froze, as if he hadn’t expected me to actually just let it go like that. “You… don’t mind?” If it were in the past, I would’ve already gone crazy accusing him. Why could he never keep the promises he made to me? But now, I no longer cared about those false promises of his. “It’s just fireworks. It’s fine not to see them.” Just like Hector—actually, I could do without him too. After a long silence, Hector spoke again. “Then the day after tomorrow, I’ll go with you to see that villa in the western suburbs.” “The flowers nearby are beautiful. We can admire them there.” I looked at my phone. The calendar told me that the day after tomorrow was Layla’s birthday. I only remembered because last year Hector had spent the entire day with Layla on that date. I’d felt unwell and went to the hospital, called him countless times, but he didn’t answer a single one. On such an important day, would he come see me? He was just putting me off. “That day, don’t you need to accompany Layla?” Hector’s expression stiffened for a moment. He said: “I’ve been with her so long. I should spend time with you too.” After saying this, he seemed to feel the words sounded too absurd and guiltily lowered his head. But I didn’t expose his lie. I just went along with him and played along. As it happened, that day was when I’d scheduled the witch to dissolve the mate bond. Very meaningful indeed.

Countdown: one day. These past two days, Hector hadn’t appeared. He’d been with Layla the whole time, probably to appease her. But every night, he’d share some trivial things with me. Entertainment gossip, stray cats he saw on the roadside, funny posts on social media. We were like an ordinary couple separated by distance, casually chatting about boring daily matters. But in five years of marriage, Hector and I had never shared anything about our daily lives. I didn’t understand why he was suddenly doing this, and I didn’t want to understand. In these three days, I’d been busy moving, packing my things bit by bit and shipping them to Ashclaw pack. I’d also negotiated rental contracts with a real estate agency to rent out all one hundred properties under my name. These actions eventually alerted him. That night, he called and asked me: “Connor said you’re moving things?” I answered casually: “Yeah, didn’t you say we were going to the western suburbs? I like it there.” Hector paused, then said to me: “If we set off fireworks hiding in the western suburbs, it should be fine.” I shook my head with a joking tone: “No need. Be careful or you’ll get arrested.” The man relaxed a bit. “Then tomorrow night, just wait for me directly in the western suburbs.” I hummed in acknowledgment. A message popped up on my phone—flight ticket purchase successful. But Hector seemed to suddenly sense something and repeated: “You must wait for me.” I promised him: “Okay.” But the next night, he still didn’t come. Connor apologetically told me that Hector had a meeting and would be a bit late. But on social media, Layla was admiring flowers in the park in the western suburbs, and Hector was right there with her. I glanced at the time. My flight would take off in four hours. I probably wouldn’t have the chance to tell him this news in person. Countdown: three hours. I lay on the bed. The witch was beside me preparing the ritual needed to dissolve the mate bond. Soon, the ritual began. Something seemed to be pulled from my body. Covered in cold sweat, while feeling the pain, I thought of Hector’s promise to me yesterday and couldn’t help laughing. If he knew this was the last time I’d wait for him to fulfill his promise, would he immediately come back to see me? On the ceiling, the villa’s luxurious chandelier cast light down on me. I looked at this room—this was his compensation for hurting me the hundredth time. Leaving here had meaning too. Countdown ended. The witch completed her ritual as promised. The witch revealed a smile: “Congratulations, Nora. The mate bond has been dissolved.” I closed my eyes and felt the invisible shackle inside me finally shatter. That vague pull, the pain, the uncontrollable sense of belonging—all dissipated. At this point, my marriage was completely over. I picked up my suitcase, ready to leave. The highway to the airport was a bit congested. I sat in the car and happened to look over to see Hector hurriedly driving toward the western suburbs. I lowered my head, realizing this brief passing would be forever. But Hector suddenly stopped his car and looked in my direction…

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My younger sister Ella and I liked the same person for ten years. Ethan White said he liked gentle and considerate girls. Ella was a natural at acting cute. I couldn’t pull it off. Whenever the three of us were together, he only talked to Ella. I sat beside them like a telephone pole. On college graduation day, he and Ella got their marriage license. I left in a huff. Went abroad, got an MBA with a full scholarship. Hustled for four years building a startup. By year six, the company went public. Recently I heard Ethan White’s cash flow had dried up. He’s been begging people everywhere for investment, and posted on Instagram: “Meeting a major investor tomorrow, wish me luck!” Ella commented below: Honey, you’ve got this! You’re the best! I looked at the schedule my secretary sent for tomorrow. 9:30 AM, meeting with a small company CEO about financing. The name column read— Ethan White. My mom called begging me: “Jenna, Ethan White can barely hold on, you have to help.” “Help with what?” “His company’s in trouble, looking for investors everywhere. You studied abroad all those years, you must know people in this business, right? Help make a connection.” Mom said this casually, like she was asking what to cook for dinner. “I’ll see what I can do.” “Don’t just ‘see.’ Ella’s anxious. And you—over thirty and still not married, what’s the point of building such a big career? Look at your sister, what a great marriage she has.” “You’ve been drifting around abroad for six years, not even coming home for holidays. After Ella married Ethan, she’s been taking care of me and your father constantly. What have you ever done?” “But when Dad had surgery that year, I paid all the hospital bills.” “So what, you transferred money and that makes you great? Two hundred thousand to buy yourself peace of mind? Where were you when your sister stayed in the hospital room for seven days and nights? Abroad making your money!” I didn’t respond. “You know what, you’ve been competitive since you were little. Always comparing yourself to Ella. What did you end up with? Ella married a good man. And you? Over thirty, alone abroad, not even someone who cares about you.” I looked at Ethan White’s name on the schedule, my finger lightly swiping across the screen. “Mom, it’s almost midnight.” “Fine, fine, you’re busy. You’re always busy.” Mom’s voice lowered a bit. “Your sister wants you to help find out what kind of person the investor Ethan’s meeting tomorrow is, so he can prepare.” The investor is me. “Okay, I’ll ask around.” After hanging up, a Snapchat message popped up. Ella’s voice message. Thirty-six seconds. She always sent voice messages, never typed. “Jenna, Mom told you, right? Ethan’s under so much pressure lately, he can’t sleep every night. You’ve been abroad so long, you must know lots of people in investment, right? Help us ask around.” She paused. “Oh, what is it you do again? Internet or something? I can’t quite remember.” Thirty-six seconds and she couldn’t even remember what I do. The news coverage of the IPO included my full name. She wouldn’t search for it. The family group chat was buzzing too. Mom: [Ethan has an important meeting tomorrow, let’s all cheer him on, hope he secures the investment!] Dad responded with a thumbs up. Ella: [Honey’s the best! He can definitely do it!] Twenty-something messages scrolled by, not one related to me. Six years. I only read messages in this group, never replied. I used to try. The day I closed Series A funding, I sent: Got Series A. No one asked what Series A was. Ella replied: [Jenna, you’re still working on that little project? Keep it up.] After that I stopped posting. Secretary Amy’s call came through. “Miss Harris, tomorrow’s 9:30 client’s assistant called to confirm the time. Materials are ready, should I send them now?” “Just leave them on the desk.” “Okay. Also—the assistant seemed pretty anxious, asking if they could meet ten minutes earlier.” “Tell them to wait in the reception room when they arrive. Time stays the same.” “Understood, Miss Harris. Anything else we need to prepare?” “No preparation needed. Just follow the standard financing consultation procedure.”

“Jenna, why aren’t you replying to my messages?” At seven in the morning, Ella’s second voice message exploded into my phone. Forty-two seconds. “Jenna, Ethan didn’t sleep well again last night, I’m so worried for him. I know you’re busy, you have your own things to handle. But if Ethan can’t close this deal—we might have to mortgage the house. Our daughter’s kindergarten fees next semester—” Her voice choked up here. House, daughter, tuition. Each keyword precisely stabbing at the two words “family obligation.” Ten years. She used sweetness and cuteness on Ethan White, used misery and pressure on me. Sweet and miserable were her only two frequencies. I didn’t reply. On the drive to the office, my phone rang again. Caller ID: Claire Smith. College roommate, hadn’t been in touch for over four years. “Jenna? Long time no see! Heard you’re back in the country?” “Why’d you think to reach out?” “Ha, your sister mentioned you at a dinner party a few days ago—” “What did she say?” “She said you went abroad because of a broken heart. That you liked her husband Ethan White for ten years, couldn’t win him over, and left for abroad in a fit.” My grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Everyone was feeling for you, how hard these years abroad must have been. Your sister even said you’re still not married, probably still can’t let go.” “Her eyes were red, weren’t they?” “How did you know? Yes! She said the person she feels most sorry for in this life is you. But she also said—she said you’ve been stubborn since childhood, competing with her over everything, even studying abroad was to prove you’re better than her. She said she actually feels bad for you.” Claire’s laugh was light. But every word was like a soft knife. Ella used the most pitiful posture to write my character for me—a pathetic older sister who failed at chasing a man, left abroad in a huff, worked desperately to prove herself, and still couldn’t get married in her thirties. Six years. Rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, market cap nearly ten billion, over five hundred employees globally. In her mouth, it all amounted to nothing more than “heartbroken woman who ran away and can’t get married.” “What else did she say?” “Said you cried at the airport that day, so heartbreaking—” “I cried at the airport?” “Yeah, she—” “Claire.” “Hm?” “My flight abroad was at 4 AM. I took a cab to the airport by myself. No one saw me off, no one knew what time I left.” Silence on the other end for two seconds. “Including Ella. She didn’t even know what day I departed, how would she know if I cried or not?” Claire went quiet. After a while she asked softly: “So these past few years—” “Pretty good. The company’s been busy.” “Your sister said you opened a small online shop abroad—” “Not a shop.” I didn’t explain further. “Claire, anything else? I’ve arrived at the office.” “Oh, okay, then let’s meet up sometime? Your sister said she’s always wanted to—” “No thanks. Busy lately.” I hung up. The car pulled into the underground garage. Engine off. She cried at the airport. She went abroad because of a broken heart. She still can’t let go. This narrative—how many people had Ella told? At how many dinner parties, with that red-eyed pitiful look, did she reduce my six years to a single sentence about running away? My phone vibrated. Family group chat. Ella: [Jenna’s been back in the country recently but won’t reach out to me. Is she still mad at me…] Mom: [That’s just how she is, don’t mind her. If she won’t help Ethan, forget it.] Dad: [Stop talking about it, the most important thing today is Ethan’s matter.] Every message defaulted to Ella’s version. I was the petty, grudge-holding, unmarriageable older sister. She was forever the kind yet heartbroken little sister. The elevator arrived. Amy stood at the corridor entrance. “Good morning, Miss Harris. Starlight Tech’s preliminary screening—the investment department added a few attachments, do you want to see them now?” “Bring them in.” “9:30 meeting time stays the same?” “Same.” “How should we approach it?” I walked into the office. “Follow the rules. Who he is doesn’t matter. The project speaks for itself.”

“Jenna, are you there?” 7:23 AM. Ethan White’s Snapchat message appeared on my phone. In six years, this was the first time he’d messaged me. Not to ask how I was. Not to say long time no see. To ask for help. “I’m meeting an investor this morning at 9:30, a company called Summit Holdings. You’ve been abroad so many years, do you know anyone there? Help me get some intel on what kind of person their CEO is.” I looked at this message. Ten seconds later, another one. “Ella said you did something with investment banking? Then you must understand this circle a bit. Help me ask around, this is really important to me.” Investment banking. That’s how Ella introduced me to him. He didn’t even know what I did. That “investor” was my company. That “CEO” was me. But he didn’t know. No one told him. Just like no one ever cared. I didn’t reply. Another message popped up. “Jenna? Did you see my message?” Then: “I know you might still care about what happened before. But that’s all in the past. Help me with this, for Ella’s sake.” Care about what happened before. He thought I wasn’t replying because I still resented him for marrying Ella. Not because I had over forty emails waiting to be processed first thing in the morning. He thought my world still revolved around him. I shut off my phone and walked into the company. By the time I sat at my desk, Amy had already organized the day’s schedule. “Miss Harris, I went through Starlight Tech’s due diligence attachments. The investment department has a finding.” “Go ahead.” “Their core product LINKER’s underlying conceptual framework highly matches the paper you published in the school journal in 2016. Keyword overlap exceeds seventy percent.” “I know.” “The investment department initially thought it was a related party project and specifically came to confirm with me. Your name isn’t in any of Starlight’s documents.” “Of course not.” Amy hesitated. “If we need to go through intellectual property procedures—” “We don’t.” “But Miss Harris—” “If a concept only stays in a notebook, it’s nothing. He at least took it and did something with it. Whether he succeeded is another matter.” Amy pressed her lips together. I finished flipping through his business plan. Four product lines, not one viable. Technical team configuration unbalanced. Customer acquisition cost model still using data from three years ago. My phone lit up again. Family group chat. Ella: [Honey’s already left! Everyone pray for him] Right after, she private messaged me: “Ethan said you didn’t reply to his message. Can you just help me this once? He’s really nervous.” Then an eight-second voice message: “Is your phone dead? Did you even see it or not?” I closed Snapchat. 8:50 AM. Amy poked her head through the door. “Miss Harris, Mr. White from Starlight Tech arrived at reception. He’s forty minutes early. Should we arrange for him to go to the meeting room?” “Arrange it. One glass of water.” “Okay.” She walked out two steps then turned back. “The receptionist said—after he arrived he made a phone call, not quietly.” “What did he say?” “He told whoever was on the phone: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen plenty of investment companies this size, today’s just going through the motions.’” Summit Holdings, last year’s assets under management: twenty-six billion. In his mouth, we were just going through the motions. “Amy.” “Yes.” “Notify him at 9:30 sharp. Not a minute earlier.”

“It’s 9:28, Miss Harris.” Amy gently reminded from outside the door. I closed the report I was halfway through reviewing. My phone lit up on the desk. Ella’s voice message. Fifteen seconds. “Ethan said he messaged you and you didn’t reply. Are you doing this on purpose? This meeting is really important for him today. If you won’t help, fine, but don’t drag him down.” A pause. Her tone switched frequencies. “I’m telling you, Jenna, if Ethan’s meeting falls through today, I’m telling Mom and Dad it’s because of you. You’re taking out your frustration about not getting married on us—when will you ever grow up?” Fifteen seconds to say all that without breathing. With outsiders she draws out every word coyly. With me every word stabs without gaps. Mom’s call came right after. “Jenna, are you fighting with Ella again?” “No.” “Then why won’t you help Ethan? It’s a ten-minute thing and you’re making excuses.” “Mom, I’m at work—” “What’s so important about that little company of yours? Ethan’s matter is serious business, can’t you tell what’s important?” “Mom—” “Don’t Mom me! I’m telling you, Jenna, if you won’t even help with this little thing, don’t come back to this house. You ran off after college graduation, you weren’t there when your dad had surgery, you didn’t come to your sister’s wedding. Six years. Have you done one thing for this family?” I leaned back in my chair. Outside the window the September sunlight was blindingly white. “You’ve been competitive since you were little, always comparing yourself to your sister. What for? You’ve worked yourself to death, what’s the point?” From far away on the other end—Ella’s voice: “Mom, stop, she has her reasons.” Mom sighed. “Fine, don’t help then. You never cared about this family anyway.” Beep— She hung up. I placed my phone on the desk. My fingertips felt nothing. Not pain, just gripped too tight. The day I rang the bell at the NYSE, I stood on the platform watching colorful confetti fall, hundreds of people applauding below. The lights were scorching. In that moment what I thought wasn’t about success. It was: if only Mom could see this. Later I sent that video to the family group chat. No one replied. Two hours later Ella sent: [Did you go traveling? Looks so fancy.] Then the group started discussing what color Ethan White’s new car was. “Miss Harris.” Amy’s voice came from the doorway. “It’s 9:30 sharp. Mr. White has been waiting in the meeting room for ten minutes. Should I bring him over now?” I opened my eyes. Sat up straight. Materials spread on the desk in front of me. Debt ratio, cash flow, product progress, thirty million in financing—every data point in my hands. “Bring him in.” Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Leather shoes hitting the floor with steady, confident rhythm. Amy’s voice arrived first: “Mr. White, this way please.” The door pushed open. Ethan White stood in the doorway. Sharp suit, business plan bound and held in his hands. A practiced smile on his lips, the standard expression for meeting unfamiliar investors. He looked up. His gaze swept across the office, across the floor-to-ceiling windows. Landed on my face. The smile disappeared. The document slipped an inch between his fingers. His lips moved, his voice like something was blocking it. “…Jenna? Jenna Harris?” I looked into his eyes. From this end of the desk to that end, less than two meters. Ten years ago when three people sat together, his gaze never lingered on me. “Mr. White, please sit.”

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“You’ll regret this. The hundredth time, you’ll truly regret it.” When I said those words, there was still a flicker of light left in my eyes. I was the orphan of the Moon’s Edge Pack’s bravest warrior. The fated mate of the Alpha heir. The most beloved sister of the Protector leader. I should have had the strongest foundation in this world. But then an omega named Jasmine appeared. And everything collapsed. The credit for saving them was stolen. She staged her own framing. Leo and Ethan—every time, they chose to believe Jasmine. My hair was cut off. I was humiliated in public. I counted in my heart. From one to ninety-nine. In the Darkmoon Forest, I lay in a pool of blood. No one looked back. The hundredth time. I died. When the truth finally came to light, when a strange she-wolf named Nera appeared before them with absolute dominance. It was already too late. Casey POV In the Dark Moon Forest, towering pines blocked out the sunlight, creating a solemn and sacred atmosphere. I placed the wildflowers I’d picked before the memorial altar where my parents’ ashes had been scattered, feeling warmth rise in my eyes. My parents were the Moon’s Edge Pack’s bravest warriors, both killed in battle during a Rogue attack. From that moment on, I vowed to carry on their legacy and become the strongest female warrior in the pack. I touched the acceptance letter in my pocket from North America’s top werewolf training camp, finally feeling a weight lift from my heart. “Dad, Mom, I did it. I’ll carry on your honor.” I whispered to the wind. I’d worked so hard to get into that elite-only training camp. But I had to keep it a secret from my brother and Ethan. When I got back to the Pack house, the living room, usually so quiet, felt unusually tense. My brother Leo, the pack’s border patrol leader, and my mate Ethan, heir to the Moon’s Edge Pack Alpha. Both sat on the couch with dark expressions. Meanwhile, Jasmin stood to the side with her hair cut into a jagged, uneven mess, sobbing pitifully. “Alpha, Leo, don’t blame Casey. I know she didn’t mean to cut my hair like this. It’s all my fault for making her angry.” Jasmin looked utterly aggrieved, tears streaming down her face as she made her accusation. Hearing this, the fury in Ethan’s deep eyes intensified. “You don’t need to make excuses for her. Leo and I know her spoiled temper better than anyone!” “I’ve been too lenient with her! Don’t worry, Jasmin, we’ll get you justice today.” Leo chimed in, then turned his cold gaze on me with a stern tone. “Casey, look at what you’ve done! Apologize to Jasmin right now!” Seeing the flash of triumph in Jasmin’s eyes as she lowered her head, I kept my face expressionless and said nothing. I’d been training near the Dark Moon Forest these past few days and hadn’t even seen Jasmin. How could I have cut her hair? This was just another one of her self-staged frame-ups. But I didn’t explain. Because I knew that no matter how clumsy the lie, as long as it came from Jasmin’s mouth, Leo and Ethan would believe it without question. Seeing my lack of response, Leo’s anger grew. “You’ve really become lawless! Ethan, hold her down!” I looked at them in disbelief. Before I could react, Ethan had already strode forward, clamping down on my arms and pinning me in place. And Leo picked up a pair of sharp scissors and mercilessly grabbed my waist-length hair, cutting it off with a “snip.” Watching the strands of black hair fall, my heart suddenly ached. I remembered when I was little, how Leo would clumsily braid my hair with a comb. I remembered at my eighteenth birthday Mating Ball, how Ethan had gently stroked my long hair. He had loved it. Since my parents’ sacrifice, they had been the only support in my world. Until that brutal Rogue attack a year ago, when I fought desperately to drag their wounded bodies to safety, only to collapse from exhaustion myself. When I woke up, this Omega named Jasmin had stolen credit for my actions and become their “savior.” After that, everything changed. They pampered Jasmin endlessly, and despite me being Ethan’s Mate, they trampled me underfoot for her sake time and time again. My waist-length hair was completely cut away. Ethan released his grip, and Leo threw down the scissors. They immediately turned to comfort the frightened Jasmin, taking her to the dining room. From beginning to end, they never looked at me again. I stared at the hair scattered on the floor and laughed bitterly. It didn’t matter. I was about to enter the training camp anyway. Short hair would actually be more practical and convenient for training. The next morning when I opened my door, I found Leo and Ethan waiting outside. “Casey, you need to stop throwing these tantrums. Jasmin is our savior. You need to treat her well.” Leo said coldly. Ethan echoed him. “You know you’re my Mate. I’m only good to her to repay a debt. Don’t be jealous over something so pointless.” I’d heard these words so many times over the past year that I was sick of them. “95.” The two exchanged glances and said in unison. “What 95?” I looked at them quietly, my voice as flat and lifeless as stagnant water. “Leo, Ethan, this is the 95th time you’ve hurt me for Jasmin’s sake. By the 100th time, you’ll regret it completely!”

Casey POV Their faces instantly darkened. Ethan frowned. “Casey, don’t make such ridiculous jokes.” “I’m not joking.” Ethan was about to press further when suddenly his expression changed. A faint Mind-link came through the air. It was Jasmin. “Ethan, Leo… I can’t take this humiliation anymore. Since Casey can’t stand having me here, I’m leaving the Pack right now…” Jasmin’s tearful voice rang out. Hearing this, both men instantly panicked. Without a word of explanation to me, they immediately turned and rushed out like madmen. Watching their hastily disappearing backs, I smiled self-deprecatingly, turned around, and went back to my room to calmly pack my things. I didn’t keep a single gift that Ethan and Leo had given me. I threw them all in the trash. That evening, Ethan and Leo returned with Jasmin. The moment they saw me, they both scowled and started scolding. “Casey! Why did you send people to trash Jasmin’s room? You drove her to the point of wanting to leave the territory! If we hadn’t caught up with her in time, she really would have left!” Looking at their righteous indignation, all I felt was deep exhaustion. I didn’t even bother asking how Jasmin had staged the scene this time. My silence was taken as admission in their eyes. Leo held back his anger and said coldly, “Jasmin’s room is uninhabitable because of what you did, so she needs to stay with us for a while. Since you caused this mess, give your room to Jasmin.” I glanced at him. Too tired to argue, I simply tossed the room key on the table. I was leaving soon anyway. It didn’t matter where I stayed. Then Ethan frowned and added, “Also, Jasmin is allergic to pollen, so I’m having the rose garden in your yard completely removed.” My heart stabbed with pain. That rose garden was my mother’s favorite flower when she was alive. She had tended it herself. It was the only memento she’d left me! I stared hard at Ethan, but all I saw in his eyes was favoritism toward Jasmin. Soon, several lower-ranking wolves came with tools and headed to the backyard. I stood by the window, numbly watching as those beautiful roses were uprooted and crushed into the soil. Eventually I moved alone into the guest room next door. Looking at the empty room, I felt strangely relieved. Good. The traces of Casey should have been cleared away anyway. Late at night, a knock on the door broke the silence. I opened it to find Jasmin. She wore a wolf fang necklace around her neck and showed it off to me with a smug expression. “Casey, look! Leo gave me this today. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” My pupils constricted sharply. That necklace was the last memento my parents had left us! Leo had actually given it to some outsider Omega?! “Give it back! You don’t deserve to wear it!” I instinctively reached out to snatch the necklace back. Seeing me make a move, a triumphant smile appeared on Jasmin’s face. She deliberately took a step backward, then spread her arms and fell straight down the staircase. “Ahh!” Her scream immediately alarmed Leo and Ethan in the study. Both men rushed out. Seeing Jasmin lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs with blood covering her forehead, they paled in fear. “Jasmin!” Ethan raced downstairs and pulled her into his arms. Leo charged up and grabbed my wrist, demanding harshly, “I knew your obedience during the day was an act! The moment our backs are turned, you find ways to bully her! Casey, you’ve disappointed me so much!” Jasmin leaned against Ethan, breathing weakly. “Ethan, it hurts so much… I feel like I’m dying…” “Casey, use your healing power to save her now!” Ethan turned and roared at me. I possessed a rare healing ability among wolves, but each use consumed a great deal of my life force. I gritted my teeth and violently shook off Leo’s hand. “I won’t! She staged that fall herself!” The two men were furious. Leo snatched the necklace from Jasmin’s neck and held it high, his eyes blood-red as he threatened, “Casey, you won’t do it? Then I’ll smash this necklace as compensation to Jasmin!” Ethan released suffocating Alpha pressure and glared at me through clenched teeth. “If you dare let anything happen to her, I’ll reject you!” I looked at these two men I had once cared about most, threatening me with my parents’ memento for the sake of a lying she-wolf. My chest felt stuffed with grief that couldn’t be released, hurting so much I felt ready to explode. I stared at Leo, my voice choking. “So Mom and Dad’s memento… you really gave it to her?” Then I looked at Ethan, my eyes frighteningly red. “So in your heart, I’m not even worth as much as some outsider Omega?” Both men froze. Before they could speak, I snatched the necklace from Leo’s hand and said slowly, enunciating every word. “Remember this. This is the 96th time.”

Casey POV In the end, I walked over to Jasmin and placed my hand over her wound. Brilliant white light flared. I was forced to expend massive amounts of healing power until my vision blurred and I finally collapsed from exhaustion. The next day, I woke up in a hospital bed at the pack hospital. No one was by my side. I dragged my weakened body out of the hospital. Just as I reached the entrance, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Jasmin. “How does it feel to be falsely accused with no way to explain yourself? Casey, you can’t win against me!” “See? With just one word from me, Leo and Ethan won’t take your side. You must be so upset, right? Don’t worry, I’ve prepared a surprise for you. Make sure to check it out.” A surprise? Remembering all the tricks and frame-ups she’d orchestrated before, I sneered and put my phone away. As I was about to cross the street, a black SUV suddenly came racing toward me like it had gone mad! BANG! The violent impact sent me flying. Because I was too weak from overusing my healing power, I couldn’t call on my wolf in time. I crashed heavily to the ground. Blood blurred my vision. Pain tore through every part of my body. My consciousness grew hazy. Through the fog, I felt pack guards carrying me to an operating room. Voices clamored around me. “That Jasmin woman woke up yesterday and is perfectly fine, but she keeps saying this hurts and that hurts. Alpha Ethan called all the surgeons over to examine her! Now there’s not even a doctor available to operate on Casey! What are we supposed to do?” “Go ask quickly if they can spare one doctor for the surgery!” Ten minutes later, someone came running back, their tone full of helplessness. “They refused! They insist we send her to a human hospital, and they’ll cover the costs!” “A human hospital?! She’s so badly injured and her healing ability is suppressed. How can she possibly survive the trip to a human hospital?!” Chaotic arguing filled my ears, but I couldn’t make out anything clearly. In a daze, I seemed to see the past. Back then, when I got even a minor injury during training, Leo would worry endlessly. Ethan would stay by my side constantly, using his Alpha pheromones to comfort me. But that was all a long, long time ago. Now there was no one by my side. My eyelids felt heavy as lead. My will gradually faded. Before losing consciousness completely, “The… the 97th time…” When I woke again, I saw two faces full of guilt. Leo tucked the blanket around me, his tone apologetic. “Casey, I’m sorry. We didn’t know it was you who got into the accident.” Ethan brought over a cup of hot water to feed me. “You were fine when you left. How did you get hit?” Remembering the messages I’d received before the accident, I looked away, my voice hoarse. “Ask Jasmin.” The expressions on both Leo and Ethan’s faces froze, instantly turning dark. “Casey, why are you still trying to frame Jasmin? She’s a fragile Omega. How could she possibly plan something like this?” “Exactly! Jasmin is still lying in the hospital. How would she have time to hurt you!” Seeing their absolute certainty, I didn’t want to waste more words. “I’m tired. Get out.” The two men, who had more to say, finally held back after seeing my pale face. Leo and Ethan left the room one after the other. A few minutes later, my phone on the table rang. “Casey, this is the instructor from the werewolf training camp. Can you report on schedule in one week?” “Yes, I can leave anytime…” Before I finished speaking, the door was pushed open. Leo and Ethan walked in with furrowed brows, looking suspicious. “What do you mean ‘leave’? Where are you going?” I calmly hung up the phone. “I was asking about discharge. Why are you back?” Ethan was about to press further when a nurse burst in urgently. “Alpha Ethan, Leo, Miss Jasmin just threw up…” Watching them leave in a hurry, I smiled silently and bitterly.

Casey POV Over the next few days, Leo and Ethan rarely appeared. Even when they occasionally came by, they’d only sit for a moment before finding an excuse to leave. I knew they were constantly attending to Jasmin. Because every day, Jasmin sent me photos and videos. Leo would hunt game himself just to make her meat soup. Ethan bought her all kinds of gifts. Jewelry meant to please her filled half her hospital room. I never replied once. I left the hospital without telling anyone. As I reached the border of the territory, several Rogues with glowing green eyes suddenly leapt out from behind me. Because I’d overused my healing power earlier and my body hadn’t fully recovered, I couldn’t shift into wolf form at all. I struggled desperately but was knocked unconscious. I don’t know how long passed. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Jasmin, also tied up. When the Rogues weren’t paying attention, Jasmin looked over with an arrogant expression and whispered. “Good, you’re awake. These Rogues have already sent a message to Leo and Ethan saying you and I were both kidnapped. Casey, guess what? When they have to choose, who will matter most to them?” I looked coldly at Jasmin, wanting to ask why she kept repeating these boring games. In the end, I ignored her. A few minutes later, the car door opened. I was standing by a river with rushing currents. Several SUVs came speeding from the distance. After Leo and Ethan got out, Jasmin immediately put on a pitiful expression, tears streaming down her face. The Rogue leader immediately pressed his claws against mine and Jasmin’s throats. Leo’s face darkened. “Whatever conditions you want, name them and let them go!” The Rogue leader snorted coldly. “We want you to give up that eastern territory! And as an exchange, you can only take one person today! Choose!” I watched as both men’s faces turned extremely ugly. Leo was furious but didn’t dare provoke them rashly. He could only suppress his anger to negotiate. “Let them go, and we can discuss the other conditions!” “You can only take one! Choose quickly, or I’ll bite through their throats!” Jasmin cried even more heart-wrenchingly, struggling constantly. The Rogues removed her gag. “Leo, Ethan, save me! I’m so scared! I don’t want to die!” Watching this tearful performance, my expression remained calm throughout. Seeing they still wouldn’t agree, the Rogues even started a countdown. Both men looked conflicted, their eyes constantly shifting between Jasmin and me. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” By the count of “five,” when Jasmin and I were about to be pushed into the river, Jasmin let out a scream. Leo finally lost his composure and shouted, “Save Jasmin first! She saved our lives. Casey, trust me, I can definitely save you.” Ethan also stated his position. “Jasmin is just a fragile Omega. She can’t withstand this. Casey, you’re a warrior’s daughter. Don’t worry, we’ll come for you right away.” From the moment they hesitated, I’d already predicted this outcome. But hearing them say it out loud now, I felt the last thread of hope in my heart completely severed. I couldn’t help but laugh. After the choice was made, Jasmin was pulled back. And I was pushed off the high bridge. I watched Leo and Ethan run desperately toward Jasmin and closed my eyes in despair. The cold wind cut my skin like knives. There was no blood, but it still felt like being tortured. Dense pain invaded every corner of my body, making me wish for death. In an instant, many images flashed through my mind. Leo, holding me and crying when our parents died, swearing he would always protect me. Ethan, at the Mating Ball when we found out we were Mates. His eyes reddening as he promised to love me. This was how we parted ways. The icy river water dragged my body downward. I grew faint. My strength slipped away…

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “393231”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster