Author: Momo Chan

Every April Fools’ Day, my husband Liam Whitaker played the same private dare game with his childhood best friend, Sophie Reed. “Remember eighth grade?” Sophie said with a laugh. “I dared you to sneak into the school’s PA room and read some ridiculous April Fools’ announcement—and you actually went through with it.” Liam leaned back in his chair, a warm, nostalgic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That was nothing. Freshman year of college, I dared you to steal the dean’s glasses—and you walked off with his toupee too.” Sophie glanced up and saw me. Then she lifted her chin, turned to Liam, and drawled, “Then let’s make today’s dare a big one. Liam Whitaker, do you dare to marry me right now?” Whistles erupted around the room. Liam turned and looked at me. Then he laughed. “Why wouldn’t I? Give me a minute.” He stood, walked over, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into the hallway. “Claire, everyone’s watching. Don’t ruin the fun.” His tone was light, as if what he was asking were perfectly reasonable. “It’s just an April Fools’ joke. Play along and let’s get divorced first. Tomorrow morning, we’ll get married again. I can’t back down in front of Sophie.” I stared at the man in front of me. For the sake of his so-called childhood game, I had swallowed my humiliation for five years. This time, I hid my hand behind my back and tightened my grip on that piece of paper. “But I’m pregnant.” … “Claire, that’s brilliant!” Liam froze for half a second, then burst out laughing. “You made up a pregnancy just to stop me from winning? Damn. Looks like you’re better at April Fools’ than I am.” Sophie sighed sweetly. “Claire, it’s just a game. If you can’t handle losing, just say so. Joking about a baby is pretty awful.” “Exactly.” Liam seized my wrist, his grip painfully strong. “Come on. Hurry up. The judge is off the bench at five—if we don’t make it, this doesn’t happen today. How am I supposed to marry Sophie then?” He dragged me outside with long, urgent strides. Five years. My books had built Blue Harbor Media from nothing into a major publishing company. Yet every year, I had to endure the absurd humiliation he put me through on April Fools’ Day for Sophie’s sake. On the way to the Clark County courthouse, Liam drove far too fast. At the Clark County Family Court, Liam shoved the divorce papers in front of me. “Sign it. The judge is waiting. I still have to marry Sophie after this.” He tapped the table impatiently. I picked up the pen and looked at the name on the page. Liam Whitaker. “Fine. I’ll give you what you want.” I signed without hesitation. By the time we walked out of the courthouse, five years of marriage had been reduced to a joke. Once the divorce decree was signed, Liam walked to the car and changed into a brand-new suit. Sophie pulled out a white veil and pinned it into her hair. They had even booked a makeup artist in advance. The two of them sat beneath a ring light while the makeup artist touched up their faces. I sat in a chair and watched. Five years ago, when Liam and I got married, he had worn a T-shirt, ripped jeans, and flip-flops. When I reminded him to change, he said true love didn’t need to be dressed up. What mattered was that it was real. Now he stood in a perfectly tailored suit, one arm wrapped tightly around Sophie’s waist, smiling brightly at the camera. Click. A perfect couple, captured forever. Not long after, Liam walked back holding a marriage certificate with Sophie’s name on it. “Babe, see this? I won again. We’ll remarry first thing tomorrow morning, so don’t be mad. Consider it a souvenir.” The nausea of early pregnancy churned in my stomach. I was almost too weak to stand. “Take me home,” I said, forcing down the bile rising in my throat. “I need to pack.” I opened the passenger door, but before I could get in, Sophie squeezed past me. “Claire, if we’re acting, we should do it properly. Since Liam and I just got married, obviously I should sit up front.” She opened the door and slid into the seat as if it were her right. With one casual sweep of her hand, she knocked the small pillow and plush charm I kept there onto the floor mat. Liam stood by the hood and gave me a halfhearted apologetic shrug. I turned and walked toward the curb to call a rideshare. Liam caught up in a few strides, opened the rear door, and pushed me inside. “Stop throwing a tantrum. It’s hard to get a car here. Just get in and behave.” Bruno Mars’s “Marry You” was playing in the car. Sophie hummed along to the chorus, tugging playfully at Liam’s sleeve. Liam picked up the next line right on cue. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. She opened a bottle of water, took a sip, and then held it to Liam’s mouth. Liam drank from her hand like a newlywed husband. “Liam, your collar’s crooked.” Sophie turned sideways and reached out to straighten his tie. Her fingertips brushed his throat. She leaned halfway across the console. Liam didn’t move away. Instead, he kept one hand on the wheel and slid the other around Sophie’s back. “Stop it. I’m driving,” he said, but his voice was full of indulgence. I leaned against the rear window as nausea rolled through me again. I closed my eyes and placed a hand over my lower abdomen. Today, this joke should finally end.

The moment we stepped through the front door, Liam’s mother hurried over and took Sophie’s hand, trying to fasten the Whitaker family pearls around her neck. She looked reproachful. “Liam told me everything. Honestly, this is ridiculous.” “Sophie, sweetheart, I always knew you two belonged together. If it hadn’t been for what happened back then…” Mrs. Whitaker noticed me by the entryway and looked away. “You were always meant to be.” Liam stepped between them. “Mom, we’re joking. It’s April Fools’. We’re just messing around.” Mrs. Whitaker stroked the back of Sophie’s hand. “Well, I wish it could stay this way.” I said nothing. I walked around them straight into the bedroom and pulled out my suitcase. I had barely taken out two pieces of clothing when Liam followed me in. “Claire, everyone’s here today. Don’t spoil the mood.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s have dinner together tonight. Celebrate a little.” I brushed his hand away and kept packing. “Tomorrow, the final book in your Nightwalker trilogy launches. I invited the whole team. Think of it as a celebration dinner.” My hands stopped. That novel had cost me three years of effort. Countless nights spent revising until dawn. If I tore everything apart at this exact moment, tomorrow’s publicity would certainly be affected. I closed the suitcase. “Fine. After this dinner.” Liam’s face lit up. He turned and went to the living room to make calls. Then I would treat it as my farewell dinner with the team. Before long, Sophie leaned against the kitchen doorway and lifted her chin at me. “Claire, since you’re not exactly the wife anymore, you could at least make yourself useful, right? Liam’s been killing himself running that company. You sit around this house all day. The least you can do is put dinner on the table.” Liam sat on the sofa drinking coffee and did not object. More than half of Blue Harbor Media’s catalog had been written by me, word by word, inside this house. And now, apparently, I had become the washed-up wife they could order around. Mrs. Whitaker chimed in. “The housekeeper has the night off. Claire, don’t just stand there. People will be here soon.” I didn’t want my last meal with the team to end in bitterness, so I rolled up my sleeves and walked into the kitchen. The nausea in my stomach had not settled, and now dull cramps pulsed through my lower abdomen. I chopped, cooked, plated, and swallowed the cramps building low in my stomach. Sophie stood nearby with the air of a lady of the house. “Squeeze extra lemon on the fish. Liam’s hated anything fishy since he was a kid. And don’t overcook the vegetables.” Several editors arrived one after another. My senior editor, Mark Jensen, couldn’t stand watching anymore. He rolled up his sleeves and came into the kitchen to help wash vegetables. Sophie shoved him away. “Do you have any manners? You’re a guest in someone else’s home, and you’re trying to work in the kitchen? Are you trying to make me look bad in front of my guests?” Mark flushed scarlet and retreated to the living room. I carried out the last dish, a platter of glazed ribs. A full homemade spread covered the dining table. I had just untied my apron when the doorbell rang. Sophie ran to open the door. Several uniformed caterers walked in, carrying large insulated catering boxes. “I saw Claire only made home-cooked food. I was worried it wouldn’t be enough for everyone.” Sophie directed the caterers to set down one elegant platter after another. “So I put a few things on my husband’s Amex.” A seafood tower. Lobster tails. King crab. Oysters. Caviar. There was limited space on the table. Sophie picked up the glazed ribs I had just made and dumped the entire dish into the trash to make room for her seafood. Liam didn’t care. He handed her a napkin to wipe her hands. “You’re always so thoughtful.” I could not bear it anymore and was about to step forward when someone tugged my sleeve. Mark leaned close and pushed his phone screen toward me, his voice very low. “Claire, look at this.” On the screen was a launch poster the publisher had sent him for approval. On the poster, right before Claire Bennett’s name, another name had been added in bold letters. Sophie Reed.

I grabbed the phone and set it in front of Liam. “Why?” I turned and looked straight into his eyes. Liam came over with a smile. “Claire, this is my fault. I forgot to tell you.” “I want her listed as co-author. I already told Sophie it’s done. You love me, right? Do this one thing for me.” “I spent three years bleeding into that book. Why should she get half?” “How can you call this your achievement alone?” Liam raised his voice, though his tone stayed earnest. “It takes a whole team to build a book like this. Sophie is Blue Harbor’s next big push. I’ve poured a lot of resources into her, but right now she needs one breakout moment.” “So you’re using my work as a publicity tool for her?” Liam grew impatient. “Claire Bennett, don’t be ungrateful. Every book you’ve ever written—which one blew up without me pouring money into it? Without me, you’d be nothing. Now I’m asking you to use one book to help out a newcomer. What’s the big deal?” I stood and moved right in front of him. “The copyright is in my name. You have no right to put hers on it.” Sophie walked over, hooking her arm through Liam’s, and cooed softly. “Liam, the food’s getting cold. Everyone’s waiting.” Liam patted the back of her hand comfortingly, then glanced at me. “Let’s eat first. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I ignored the table full of people, grabbed my car keys, and rushed out. By the time I arrived at the publisher’s office, the giant poster had already been hung. Sophie took up almost the entire poster. Beside her photo was a glowing feature about her, even peppered with gossip about her and Liam. My name was squeezed into a corner. Ryan Hale, the publisher handling the launch, had grown up with Liam. His office smelled faintly of whiskey. Ryan stood by the half-open window, swirling a glass in his hand. “Claire, my hands are tied. Liam called me himself and had it rushed to print overnight. Besides—Blue Harbor Media belongs to both of you. The money lands in the same pocket either way. Does it really matter whose name is on the cover?” A chill ran through me. Liam saying “we’ll talk tomorrow” was nothing but a stalling tactic. I turned, went downstairs, and raced back to the Whitaker house. When I pushed the door open, the dinner party had already ended. Liam was sitting on the sofa watching TV with Sophie. “What gives you the right to do this?” “I bled three years of my life into that book.” Liam didn’t move. His tone was careless. “I’ll say it again. We’re just using your name for now. Once Sophie’s numbers pick up, I’ll take her off the cover in the next edition.” Sophie’s eyes reddened. “Claire, this is all my fault. Please don’t blame Liam. If you want, I’ll take my name off—the book is yours. I just hated seeing Liam carry the whole company on his own. I wanted to help him take some of the weight off.” “It has nothing to do with you.” But Liam pulled her into his arms at once, shielding her completely. He looked up at me. “Pushing Sophie is already part of the company’s plan. I hope you won’t be jealous of her.” “Didn’t I just say this? Is your memory that bad?” “Oh, right. Tonight, Sophie is the one with my last name. Maybe you should go outside and cool off.” I took the divorce papers from my bag and threw them straight at his face. “I was leaving tonight anyway. Now there isn’t even a reason for one last connection between us.” The papers hit the bridge of Liam’s nose. “Fine. You’ve got backbone.” Liam covered his nose. “Since you don’t want to be Mrs. Whitaker, I’ll cut off every card and account tied to me right now.” He called the estate security directly. Two guards appeared in the doorway, looking uneasy. Liam pointed at me. “I’ve already divorced this woman. Now she’s here harassing me and my wife. Get her off my property. Now.” The guards had no choice but to pull me out by force. Liam warned me, “Claire Bennett, without me, you won’t even be able to feed yourself. I’ll wait for you to come crawling back tomorrow and remarry me. As for that book, consider it your gift to the bride.” The guards shoved me outside. My foot slipped, and I fell into a rain-soaked patch of mud. I braced myself against the ground, got up, and clutched my stomach as I walked toward the road. Then, around the corner, an out-of-control delivery van came barreling straight toward me.

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When I went to the bar to pick Vito up, I walked in on him tangled up with Gina—my best friend—in a very intimate embrace. Our mutual friends had been placing bets on whether I’d file for divorce. “No way Amelia’s leaving him. Vito’s loaded—she’d never give that up.” “If you ask me, Amelia’s just spineless. Otherwise, how could Vito have been snatched away like that?” “Vito, want to guess how your wife’s gonna react when she sees us going at it like this? Think she’ll lose it?” My darling best friend was perched on Vito’s lap, smiling as she planted a kiss on his lips. “I don’t think Amelia will divorce me. She’s a parasite. She wouldn’t dare.” I was standing outside the door. When I heard that, I almost laughed. He was half right. I had no intention of divorcing him. I intended to be widowed. … Vito arched a brow, stubbed out his cigarette, and suddenly pulled her in for a deep kiss. The people around them broke into another round of cheers, egging them on. I stood outside the door, trembling from head to toe. It suddenly hit me—they’d deliberately called me over. They wanted to see just how far this pathetic doormat could be pushed. But I didn’t go in. Not because I didn’t dare. I just wasn’t going to tear their little show apart with my own hands. That would let them off far too easily. They wanted to see me lose control—wanted me to rush in like some humiliated, cast-off wife, crying, screaming, giving them fresh material to laugh about for the rest of the night. But I wouldn’t. I stood outside the door, slowly steadying my shaking hands. My fingertip slid across the phone screen, and I dialed another number. “Gina’s drunk. She’s at Noir Lounge. You should come get her.” Silence for two seconds on the other end. I heard Kai’s breathing drop sharply. “Drinking with who?” I answered without missing a beat: “With friends. All guys, and they’re the rowdy type. I’m worried they don’t have good intentions with Gina.” Kai—Gina’s husband—had done time once for assault, all because he’d lost his temper. He was more impulsive than me. Meaner than me, too. All I had to do was put the knife in his hand. Kai said okay, told me he was on his way. I hung up and turned to leave. Gina had once boasted to me: “Kai looks like this quiet, harmless type, but he nearly killed a guy for me once.” “And ever since then, he carries a blade on him everywhere. Just in case someone tries to mess with me again.” I’d barely made it to the entrance of the bar when Vito called. His voice was lazy, casual. “You’re already here, aren’t you?” I parted my lips but didn’t speak. He went on, “The waiter said you stood outside for a while. So you heard everything?” His voice was gentle—and to me, unspeakably cruel. I let out a soft “Mm.” Vito laughed. “Pathetic.” He was right. Everyone thought I was pathetic. Back in school, all I ever did was trail behind Vito. If he hadn’t looked out for me, I probably wouldn’t have made it into university. I let out a soft “Mm.” Vito laughed. “Pathetic.” He was right. Everyone thought I was pathetic. Back in school, all I ever did was trail behind Vito. If he hadn’t looked out for me, I probably wouldn’t have made it into university. Two days ago, there’d been rumors linking him to a supermodel. I’d been a little unhappy about it. So today, he’d made a point of letting me see Gina sitting in his lap. He just wanted to drive one thing home. He could give me the position of his wife—and he could humiliate me in front of everyone. And I had better learn to swallow it. That was his idea of authority. Around them, people were egging them on, laughter ringing out shamelessly. “No way, Amelia doesn’t even dare to walk in?” “She heard all that and she’s still not coming in? Talk about a saint.” Then Gina picked up the phone, giggling. “If I’d known you were this terrified of losing him, Amelia, we wouldn’t have bothered hiding it from you all this time.” “Doing this right in front of you—it’s actually kind of a thrill.” “I’ve test-driven your husband for you, and I gotta say, everything’s top-notch. Hope you don’t mind.” “Gina, keep going and she’s gonna start crying.” “Vito, aren’t you going to comfort her?” The moment Gina finished, someone chimed in from the side. This time, Vito answered—unusually serious. “Cut it out. If she cries, I’m the one who has to soothe her afterward.” “Still, as long as I’m willing to come home, she’ll put up with anything.” His tone was condescending, as if I were some vagrant living off his charity. Then he took the phone back, and his voice came through clearer. “Where are you? The bathroom? Let me take you home.” I looked toward the hallway. The moment he saw me, he hung up. The expression on Vito’s face was one of pure satisfaction—with a trace of malicious pleasure. He walked over to me and ruffled my hair carelessly. “Gina’s not like you. She’s just a bit of fun. You’re always going to be my wife—so what’s with the tears?” “There, there. I’m not going to divorce you.” His voice held the tone of a man tossing scraps to a beloved pet. But right then, Gina came out of the room, one hand pressed to her forehead. She staggered—straight into Vito, with impeccable aim. Vito’s arm went around her waist, his palm resting on the bare skin above her hip. Gina tilted her head against his chest and lifted her eyelids just enough to glance at me. “Vito, my head hurts. They made me drink too much.” “Take me home, would you? Amelia already knows anyway. No point pretending anymore.” “She won’t mind, right?” She turned her eyes on me, the challenge in them unmistakable. Just then, Kai messaged me, asking for the address of the bar.

I sent him the location. Then I looked up and fixed my gaze on Vito. “And what if I do mind?” It was the first time Vito had ever seen me speak so seriously. It threw him. He tried to push Gina away, but she draped herself over him like a limp rag. “We’ve slept together how many times now—are you really going to pretend nothing happened?” “You said it yourself, Amelia’s like a piece of wood in bed. She doesn’t know the first thing about pleasing you!” She laughed sweetly, saying it loud enough for me to hear on purpose. Vito shot me a nervous glance. “That was just a joke. I was teasing her.” I let out a soft “oh,” my voice quivering, as if I’d been shattered but couldn’t bear to walk away. I knew what they loved most was seeing me like this—small, groveling. So I lowered my eyes and murmured: “Then let me come with you to take her home.” “What did you say?” Gina couldn’t believe her ears. I lifted my head and looked at them steadily. “You have a headache, don’t you? Vito and I will take you home.” I stubbornly grabbed hold of her, forcing her to lean her weight against me. Vito froze for a moment at what I was doing, then laughed as if I’d amused him. He reached out and flicked the tip of my nose. “Aw, Amelia’s jealous? Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.” “Jewelry, bags, a designer gown—whatever you want. Anything else? I’ll take you to the auction tomorrow.” His words and gestures were affectionate, as if he hadn’t done a single thing wrong. Inside, I was disgusted with him. But nothing showed on my face. I’d always been good at wearing this mask. Back in high school, some girl had cornered me in the bathroom and cut up my clothes. Vito was the one who warned her off. He’d stood there frowning at me for a long time, then shrugged off his jacket and put it around my shoulders. “You should have a bit of a temper.” That girl never came back to school again. Vito assumed it was his doing. What he didn’t know was that she’d been caught kissing another boy by her strict, old-fashioned father. And her father had been led there by me. She was forced to transfer schools—no more chance to bully me, of course. But I was happy to have someone like Vito play the hero, so I never told him the truth. “Let’s go. Take her home,” I said. “But I already booked us a hotel room. Who said I was going home?” Gina’s voice cut in, her eyes glittering with triumph. Right in front of me, she wrapped one pale leg around Vito’s, staring up at him. “You don’t want to, Vito?” “That lingerie you wanted me to wear—I already had it sent to the hotel. If you miss out tonight, I’m not putting it on next time.” Vito’s pupils contracted, his interest visibly sharpening. “Amelia, you go home first.” “I can’t miss out on Gina’s little gift.” “That lingerie you wanted me to wear—I already had it sent to the hotel. If you miss out tonight, I’m not putting it on next time.” Vito’s pupils contracted, his interest visibly sharpening. “Amelia, you go home first.” “I can’t miss out on Gina’s little gift.” I looked at him, my eyes red. “You sure?” He nodded, then frowned. “Be good—unless you want a divorce.” I drew in a deep breath. Even breathing made my chest ache. Gina let out a snicker. “What, you want to stay and watch? That’s a bit much. Wouldn’t that be too cruel on you?” Inside, I laughed coldly. Of course I wanted to watch. I wanted to watch them make fools of themselves. After all, Kai would be here soon.

I didn’t say anything. Gina suddenly leaned in close and whispered in my ear: “You know when Vito and I slept together for the first time?” “The day you had that miscarriage and ended up in the hospital.” “We did it in your master bedroom. On your bed.” I was shaking all over. The whole time I’d been hospitalized, Vito had kept telling me he was busy with a project at the office—that’s why he couldn’t come. And I’d actually believed him. Turns out he’d been busy screwing Gina. Gina laughed, her voice growing crueler. “Amelia, if you have even a shred of dignity left, don’t follow us. Just divorce him already and let me have Vito.” I stared at her. “Why would you do this?” “Vito’s rich and handsome—who wouldn’t want him? He’s a hell of a lot better than Kai!” There was open worship in her face. I glanced at the time. Kai should be about ten minutes out. I kept stalling. “Would Kai even let you go? Didn’t you say he has a terrible temper, that he nearly killed someone once? Aren’t you scared?” At the mention of Kai, Gina’s tone turned dismissive. “He’s all brawn, no brain. One crook of my finger and he’ll do anything I say.” “Worst case, I trick him into a divorce down the line. He’s as gullible as you are.” I asked again: “What if he catches you cheating?” She curled her lip. “He’s probably still hauling cargo down at the docks, or watching the back door of some casino. Dog-tired every day. How would he ever figure out what I’m up to?” “And even if he did find out, he wouldn’t dare say a word.” She leaned closer, dropping her voice—but that only made it sharper. “I train him like you’d train a dog. You wouldn’t understand.” I gave a cold, silent laugh and casually checked my phone. A message from Kai. *I’m almost there.* I suddenly didn’t feel like letting them off this easily. I wanted to see how this rabid dog would bite. So I turned to Vito with the same wounded expression. “I’ll wait for you in the hotel lobby. When you’re done, can we go home together?” I laid on the humiliation thick. Surprise flickered in Vito’s eyes. “Why are you so… why does it have to be me?” Gina cut in, “Amelia, do you have any shame? Even now, you’re still crawling back for more punishment? What are you even trying to do?” I kept begging. “If it weren’t for Vito back in college, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” “He paid for all my living expenses those four years. He’s been supporting me ever since.” “Gina, I can’t survive without him.” Vito really was good at making money. By the time he was twenty, he already had several companies and clubs under his name—numbers in his account that ordinary people wouldn’t earn in a dozen lifetimes. In college, he played the part of an ordinary student while quietly running the family’s books for the casinos, freight operations, and security firms. All that gray-market money passed through layers of shell companies, coming out clean as project dividends. With him, I never had to worry about money. The card he gave me had no limit. Tuition, rent, living costs, even the expenses when I later went abroad for academic conferences—all of it, he covered. That was how I made it through graduate school and eventually earned my doctorate. Gina was glaring at me now, venomous. “You gold-digging little bitch!” Vito shot her an impatient look. “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s still my wife. If she wants to come along, let her.” Gina’s expression flipped instantly, and her voice turned fawning: “I just don’t want her to ruin the mood for us.”

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Ten years after the Moretti family cast me out, my older sister, Alessia, found me in the slums. I stood there in a threadbare coat, three children clustered around me. To my surprise, Alessia’s eyes reddened. “Vivienne, didn’t you always hate children? Wasn’t taking over the family the only thing you cared about?” I took a bite of stale bread, scooped the smallest child up from the muddy ground, and waved the other two inside. Isabella blocked the doorway, her arm linked through Lucian’s. She spoke as casually as if none of this concerned me. “Vivienne, I was the one who begged Dad to have the doctor drug your wine. And Lucian was the one who gave a rival family your license plate and your route.” “If you hadn’t taken my place in that car, I would have been the one killed in the explosion.” She leaned into Lucian’s arms and smiled sweetly. “Thank you. Truly.” Lucian—my former fiancé—looked down at her without a flicker of emotion, as though he had not personally sent me into an ambush ten years ago. Alessia’s voice turned cold. “When Isabella first came back, you refused to surrender your place as the Moretti heir. You even ordered the guards to keep her out of a family council meeting. She was shot outside because of you.” “Taking one hit for her was nothing more than repayment.” Isabella shrugged. “I’ve already forgiven you, Vivienne. We came to bring you home to the Moretti estate.” Her gaze slid past me to the three children. “But these children are beneath us. Keeping them would only disgrace our family.” “Get rid of all three.” I stared at her. “All three?” The boy crouched on the steps, playing with a folding knife, was Matteo—the sole heir to the De Luca family, which had ruled Sicily’s underworld for nearly a century. The silent boy by the door was Ethan, heir to the Kane family, which controlled the East Coast’s ports and arms-trafficking routes. And the sleepy little girl in my arms was Sofia—the only daughter of Don Valenti, the man every crime family in New York answered to. “You’ll be better off without them,” Isabella said. When I finally reacted, she smiled. Her bodyguards stepped forward, surrounded me and the children, and drew their guns. I pulled the child farthest away behind me and let out a quiet breath. Sofia, above all, could not be harmed. Her father had barely managed to save his only daughter during an internal family revolt. “What is it? Can’t let go?” Lucian’s eyes were icy. “Vivienne, do you really expect to drag three burdens back to the Moretti estate?” Matteo’s eyes flashed. He jabbed a finger at Lucian. “What are you, blind? You think I’m a burden?” “I wouldn’t join your pathetic family if you begged me.” I frowned and covered his mouth before he could say anything worse. That boy had the sharpest tongue of the three. “Embarrassed?” Isabella’s eyes curved with amusement. “Lucian doesn’t even mind that you had children with another man. He’s still willing to let you come home.” She made the offer sound like an act of unimaginable mercy. “I’m not going back.” They all froze. Alessia’s face darkened. “Ten years away, and you’ve forgotten how to behave?” I nodded. Ten years was long enough to let go of everything I had once cared about. “Do it,” Lucian said coldly. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually grown attached to three nameless little bastards.” He looked at the children as though they were filth in his way. “They aren’t mine.” I tightened my arms around Sofia. “But you can’t touch them. None of you can afford the consequences.” What difference would returning to the Moretti family make? Couldn’t he see that none of these children looked afraid of him? Lucian sneered and lifted one hand. One of his guards fired toward the doorway. The bullet grazed the wall and shattered a metal tag hanging from the frame. My heart dropped. Before Alessia could move, I shoved Sofia toward the house, kicked a length of pipe off the ground, and sent it crashing into the nearest man’s wrist. His gun fell. I ripped the knife from my sleeve and lunged for Isabella. She clearly had not expected me to strike first. Her smile froze. The blade stopped half an inch from her throat when Alessia seized my wrist and slammed me into the crumbling wall. “How dare you!” My back hit hard. An old injury tore open, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. But I did not stop. I gritted my teeth and came at Isabella again. My blade sliced through her sleeve and forced her to stumble backward. A second later, Lucian fired at the ground by my feet. Stone exploded upward. My knees gave out, and I dropped hard into the dirt. “Vivienne!” Alessia shouted furiously. “You dare attack Isabella?” I braced a hand on the ground and slowly looked up. “She wants those children dead. Why shouldn’t I come for her?” The bullet that had shattered the metal tag had scraped Sofia’s waist, exposing a crest set with black obsidian beneath it. Sofia went pale. Her eyes filled as she threw herself back into my arms, trembling violently. I held her tight, my heart sinking lower by the second. “Lucian.” I tore the tag from Sofia’s waist and held it up. “Recognize this?” Black obsidian. A gold crown entwined with a serpent. The Valenti family crest. Isabella’s eyes widened in disbelief. But Lucian raised his hand again, his expression hardening. “You think a forged crest is enough to fool me?” Matteo reached into his boot and pulled out a silver badge. “My father is Don Marco De Luca. If you want to kill someone, come for me.” Isabella flicked her hand dismissively. One of the guards knocked the badge away. “Did Vivienne prepare that story and those props too?”

I pulled Matteo behind me, retrieved the silver badge, and pressed it back into his hand. Then I checked Sofia’s damaged crest. Only after I was sure she was frightened but unharmed did my expression turn cold. “Isabella, do you understand what it means to terrorize Don Valenti’s only daughter?” Alessia answered lazily. “Don Valenti’s daughter? Vivienne, even for you, this performance is pathetic.” Isabella clung more tightly to Lucian’s arm, her concern perfectly measured. “She’s using children to impersonate heirs from three powerful families. If word gets out, she won’t go down alone. She’ll drag the entire Moretti family with her.” “She still hates me.” Lucian and Alessia both went cold. “You’re safe. I won’t let her touch you,” Lucian said, pulling Isabella into his arms. Alessia looked furious. “Ten years, and you still haven’t learned. What exactly do you want?” “Isabella is my real sister. You were only the orphan Father brought home. You occupied her place for more than a decade. What right do you have to resent her?” The words cut into a part of me that should have gone numb years ago. A small hand caught my bloodstained sleeve. I looked down into Sofia’s red-rimmed eyes. “You had a terrible life before us, Vivienne.” I managed a faint smile and stroked her hair. When I looked up again, every trace of emotion was gone. “Wait fifteen minutes. Then you’ll know whether I’m lying.” The children’s escorts were supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes. That was when I usually returned them, one by one, to their safe houses. “How long are you planning to stall?” Alessia snapped. Isabella suddenly stepped in as though she were defending me. “Fine. If Vivienne truly can’t bear to part with them, we don’t have to kill them.” Lucian frowned, but when he looked at her, he still nodded. “Whatever you want.” Alessia said nothing more. I held Sofia against me, my fingers tightening. Isabella walked slowly toward me, naked challenge in her eyes. “They can live.” “But if you want to return to the Moretti family, you can never have anything to do with them again.” She paused, then smiled. “And so you remember, for every child you keep, I’ll leave one wound on your body.” “I’ve been practicing with a knife lately. I could use a live target.” All three children crowded around me. “You people are sick!” Matteo shouted. “Vivienne is stronger than any of you. Even my mother respects her!” “Wait fifteen minutes if you have the nerve,” Ethan said. “When my father gets here, let’s see who still dares touch Vivienne.” The guards surged forward and dragged them aside. A hand clamped over Sofia’s mouth. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Matteo fought the hardest, his face red with rage. Ethan was the quietest. He only stared at Lucian and Isabella, memorizing their faces. Then the fifteen minutes were up. “Miss Vivienne!” A sharp shout came from the mouth of the alley. Adrian, head of Valenti security, charged into the alley in black tactical gear, his face tight with fury. “Stop! Who the hell are you?” I looked behind him. No one else. My heart sank. “You came alone?” Adrian’s expression tightened. He lowered his voice. “Every route into this area was blocked at once. The De Luca convoy and the Kane teams were cut off. Valenti headquarters hasn’t reached us yet either.” “I came ahead to retrieve Miss Sofia.” The smile on Isabella’s face faded slightly. Lucian’s gaze darkened too. “Another actor?” he said. He stared at me, something unreadable beneath his anger. “You really will do anything to protect these children, won’t you, Vivienne?”

Isabella’s smile stiffened, and her fingers tightened around Lucian’s sleeve. Lucian did not look at her. His eyes stayed on Adrian. “Vivienne,” Isabella cried, as though a thought had just occurred to her, “so that’s why you refused to come with us. Is this man your lover?” Lucian’s expression turned instantly dangerous. “No!” My chest tightened. “Adrian, go. Find someone from Valenti headquarters, the De Luca family, or the Kane network.” Adrian hesitated, then turned to leave. Something in Lucian snapped. He drew his gun and fired at Adrian’s back. “Lucian, stop!” My voice broke. He ignored me. Adrian twisted aside. Before he could regain his footing, Lucian’s guards rushed him from every direction. Guns, batons, and knives boxed him in. “Don’t hurt him!” I lunged forward, but Alessia grabbed me. A knife punched through the protective panel over Adrian’s shoulder. He grunted and dropped to one knee. Then the blows rained down. When fragments of his black armor scattered across the ground, my mind went blank. “Stop!” My throat was raw. “He came to take the children home!” No one believed me. By the time the guards stepped back, Adrian was covered in blood and barely upright. Isabella walked toward him, smiling more gently than ever. “Where did you find someone this stupid, Vivienne?” “All this for three children raised in a slum?” She waved one hand. Three knives were placed in front of me, their edges gleaming. “You should worry less about him and decide whether you’re saving these children.” “I’m saving them.” Three wounds. None of them would kill me. I owed their families too much to abandon the children now. The first knife cut into me, and my vision went black at the edges. The second sliced across my shoulder. My fingers clawed into the dirt until my palm was torn open. Alessia stopped the third blade, fury blazing in her eyes. “Vivienne! You still insist on protecting them?” Sweat covered my forehead, but my voice did not shake. “I’m protecting them. And I’m not returning to the Moretti family.” Alessia lost control and slashed my shoulder herself. “That is not your decision.” “You still owe Isabella. You still owe this family.” So that was why they had come to take me back. They meant to squeeze every last bit of value out of me. Every breath shook with pain, but I forced myself upright. Isabella watched the blood spread across my clothes, barely able to hide her satisfaction. “She’s fighting this hard for a few little bastards,” Isabella said, covering her mouth as though a thought had just occurred to her. “Do you think she really slept around out here and had children?” I looked down. The blood on my clothes came from my shoulder and torn palm. Lucian turned sharply, his eyes dangerous. “Search her.” Two guards wrenched my arms behind me and shoved me to the ground. They tore open my coat, emptied my pockets, and pressed brutally into my old injuries, looking for anything that might prove the children’s identities—or reveal what I had done for the last ten years. Pain exploded through my body. Blood flooded my mouth, and I could not speak. “Those children aren’t hers,” Adrian rasped through blood. “I know exactly who their fathers are.” Isabella turned to him and smiled slowly. “If they aren’t hers, why are you so desperate to protect her?”

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On my wedding day, I walked my blind father down the aisle of the church, and the entire sanctuary suddenly erupted in laughter. Dad tightened his grip on my hand, nervous. “Claire… did Dad embarrass you?” I quickly lifted the lace veil from my face and turned toward the projection screen behind the altar. That was when I finally saw it. A single, bright red USDA pork inspection stamp had been slapped onto each of our faces. From the bridesmaids’ bench, my best friend Bianca Whitmore was doubled over laughing. “Oh my God, Claire, you two are adorable. You look like two little pigs that just rolled off the slaughterhouse conveyor belt.” My fiancé, Nolan Ashford, laughed and pulled a folded check from the inside pocket of his tux, handing it to her. “A bet’s a bet. You win. She really didn’t notice a thing all the way to the altar.” So it was another bet. Back in college, they’d bet on whether I’d actually eat the cereal they’d swapped out for dog kibble. On my birthday, they’d bet how long it would take me to open the gift box stuffed with Monopoly money. And this time. They’d made my blind father a chip in the game too. Nolan held out his hand, coaxing me like a child. “Sweetheart, everyone’s watching. Let’s just finish the ceremony.” I looked at him, then at Dad standing beside me, disoriented, still not understanding what had happened. This time, I wasn’t going to swallow it. … “Claire, why’d you stop? Are you mad?” When I didn’t answer, Bianca picked up two flutes of champagne and stepped down from the bridesmaids’ bench. She pressed one of them straight into my father’s hand. “Mr. Sutton, it was just a little joke to lighten the mood. You’re too much of a gentleman to take something like that to heart, right?” Dad couldn’t see the ridiculous red stamp on his own face. He accepted the flute awkwardly and tipped his head back, draining it in one go. “Of course not. It’s Claire’s wedding. As long as everyone’s having a good time…” He didn’t finish. His body suddenly folded forward, and he started dry-heaving violently. Bianca clapped her hands and laughed out loud. “Nolan honey, you lose again!” “I told you a blind man’s sense of smell isn’t that sharp.” “I literally squeezed half a tube of septic-tank slug juice into that glass, and Mr. Sutton chugged it!” Laughter and camera shutters exploded all around us. Nolan’s face did tighten. But not because my father had just been publicly humiliated. Because his wedding had gone off script. I watched Dad forcing himself to endure it, that meek little smile on his face. I couldn’t listen to another second of it. “Nolan Ashford, the wedding is off.” I steadied my father, who was swaying on his feet. “Dad, we’re leaving.” Nolan finally panicked. He rushed down from the altar and caught my wrist, lowering his voice. “Claire, Bianca takes jokes too far, I know. I’ll make her apologize to your father myself, later.” “Every guest in this church is staring at us. Don’t blow this up any bigger.” I shook his hand off and walked straight for the church doors without looking back. Bianca’s voice drifted after me, wounded in exactly the right pitch. “Claire Sutton, it was just a joke. Are you seriously doing this?” … Mass General. The emergency room. A nurse worked over our faces with alcohol wipes, one careful pass at a time. I could guess when it had happened. Before the ceremony, Bianca had insisted on doing our “touch-ups.” My face had foundation on it, and once it was wiped away, only a few faint pink marks remained. Dad’s face wouldn’t come clean, no matter what she tried. The skin had already scrubbed raw and red, and yet he was the one smiling at me, trying to comfort me. “It’s okay, Claire. Walking around with a mark on my face isn’t the end of the world.” “Dad just made trouble for you again. Because of me, you didn’t even get your wedding…” I lowered my head. My throat was too tight to say a word. How could I blame him. It was Nolan and Bianca who had always treated me like a chip at their table. Like the summer after graduation, when the three of us had planned to go skydiving together. They’d coaxed me into jumping first. Then they’d stayed in the cabin, filming me at my worst, betting on whether I’d cry from sheer humiliation the moment my feet hit the ground. But this time, they had no right to make my father a punchline in their game. I opened my phone. The college group chat was already blowing up. 【Bianca is a legend, I peed a little laughing, two little pigs 💀】 【Claire is being SO dramatic though?? She really called off her own wedding in front of everyone???】 【Guys don’t forget, Nolan only confessed to her back in the day because he bet Bianca he could pull the scholarship kid.】 【And she said yes on the spot and followed him around for five years like a puppy. I can’t 😭】 I stared at the messages scrolling past. So that was it. Even the first “I love you” of this entire relationship had just been a bet. It was over. 【Ding.】 A new email pushed through. Munich Ophthalmology Institute. Dad’s surgery had finally been scheduled. At last, I could take him and leave.

After I got Dad settled in his hospital room, Nolan finally messaged me. His tone had already slid back into its familiar gentleness. 【Claire, today was on us, I know. But you also overreacted, just a little.】 【I already booked our honeymoon flights. Aspen. I’m taking you to see the snow you’ve always wanted to see.】 I stared at the screen, and my mind ran back through every single time before this. Every time Bianca had used me as the punchline of a bet, Nolan had come around afterward to apologize. He said Bianca didn’t mean it. He said he’d never wanted to hurt me. He said I was too sensitive, too fragile. I had believed him for five years. I had swallowed it for five years. But I get cold easily. What I wanted was somewhere warm. I had told him. For our honeymoon, I wanted the Amalfi Coast. Aspen was where Bianca had been begging to go. Sure enough, the next message came right after. 【Bianca’s coming with us, more the merrier.】 I didn’t reply. I called an Uber back to the apartment. Before I left, all I wanted was Dad’s medical file and my own passport. The moment I pushed the door open, a burst of confetti exploded over my head. “Surprise! Claire, happy birthday!” The living room was packed with our college friends. Nolan and Bianca stood at the center, pushing a tiered cake between them. “Claire, the wedding was our fault.” Nolan’s voice was soft. “This cake is my way of making it up to you. Don’t be mad anymore, okay?” But today wasn’t my birthday. My birthday was this same date, next month. Five years together, and Nolan had gotten it wrong every single year. The crowd cheered, urging me to cut the cake. I wasn’t in the mood. I sidestepped everyone and headed for the bedroom to grab my things. Bianca cut in front of me first. She scooped a dollop of frosting off the cake with her finger and lifted it to my lips, smiling sweetly. “Come on, Claire, just a taste. I made this for you myself.” I didn’t have time to pull back. The frosting smeared hard across my mouth. An off, foul taste flooded my tongue, and my throat began to tighten almost instantly. I looked down, eyes wide. Deep inside the exposed layer of the cake, several dark red things were slowly writhing. Leeches. The one thing that could actually kill me. I’d been severely allergic to them since childhood. A single contact could send me into shock. Nolan knew. His brow finally furrowed. “Bianca, this stake might be a little far this time.” Bianca just pursed her lips, unbothered. “I don’t care. She ate it, didn’t she? That new Porsche of yours is mine.” Nolan could see I was already struggling to breathe, and he reached out to steady me. “Claire, let me get you to the ER.” But Bianca suddenly clamped down on my arm. “Claire, you barely got any of it. It can’t be that bad, can it…” “Are you still holding a grudge about the church?” Her nails dug into my skin. My breathing was getting worse. I ripped my arm out of her grip on instinct. Bianca stumbled back. The back of her hand caught the metal edge of the cake cart, opening a thin red scratch. “Bianca!” Nolan let go of me instantly and rushed over. The others swarmed in around her, panicked. Nobody noticed I could barely stand. I made it into the bedroom on unsteady legs and started stuffing what I needed into a bag, piece by piece. Voices drifted through the door. “Honestly, Nolan’s the one who’s actually into Bianca.” “Do you remember, years ago, Bianca dared him he wouldn’t hike the White Mountains ridge alone. He actually went, in the middle of a storm. Nearly died…” A bet. The White Mountains. My fingers snapped tight around Dad’s medical file. The date of injury written inside was five years ago, exactly, on the day Nolan had gone up alone. That day, he had been caught in a landslide. My father, a park ranger for White Mountain National Forest, had been the first to go in after him. Dad had pulled Nolan out of the rubble. And then a second wave of rocks had come down and struck him on the back of the head. Permanent damage to the optic nerve. He had never seen anything again. For five years, Nolan had told me it was an accident. But it turned out. The whole thing had started because of a throwaway dare between him and Bianca. Everything my father had lost, an entire world, had been the price of paying off their little wager. I picked up my bag with unsteady hands and stepped out of the bedroom. Nolan was bent over Bianca, murmuring to her. He heard me and turned, frowning. “Claire, it’s the middle of the night. Where do you think you’re going with a bag?” “We fly to Aspen for our honeymoon first thing in the morning. You really have to pick now to throw a fit?” I didn’t dignify it with an answer. I walked straight for the door. Behind me, Bianca’s voice carried that perfect note of triumph. “Nolan honey, I’ll bet you, she can’t keep this tantrum up for even a day.” “By tomorrow morning at the airport, she’ll be right behind us like a good girl.”

After I left, someone dropped a video from the party into the group chat. Bianca was clearly drunk in it, cheeks flushed pink. “Nolan Ashford, you’ve lost three rounds in a row now. You have to be my husband for a whole month!” Nolan gave a helpless laugh and nodded, agreeing. The rest of them started chanting. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” The video cut off there. I spent the entire night being resuscitated in the ER. Morning. At my bedside, Dad was gripping my hand hard, his unseeing eyes rimmed red from staying up. “Claire, you scared Dad to death… The doctor said ten more minutes and you wouldn’t have made it.” I didn’t say a word about the truth of the night before. I only told him I’d eaten something bad and it triggered an allergic reaction. Nolan hadn’t called once the entire night. He’d sent two flat, hollow voice memos in the early hours of the morning. 【Claire, did you end up in the ER?】 【Don’t be mad anymore. I’ll come by first thing tomorrow to check on you and Dad.】 Dad heard the voice memo notifications and his face brightened at once. “Nolan’s coming to see you? Are you two making up?” “He’s a good boy. When I brought him down from that mountain, he got on his knees and swore to me he’d take care of you.” Yes. Nolan had made that promise, right in front of my father. That he would take care of me. But for five years, he had let Bianca use me as her toy at the gaming table over and over. Dad reached for his white cane and insisted on going downstairs to wait. Nothing I said would stop him. Two hours passed. I stood at the hospital-room window and looked down at Boston’s cold morning wind, and at Dad’s hunched figure, standing on his white cane, waiting. Nolan didn’t come. Bianca, however, had posted a new Instagram Story. In the photo, Nolan was sitting at her family’s dining table, sipping coffee with her parents, all of them laughing. The caption read. 【My dad said he missed Nolan. He dropped everything and came right over. 🥰】 Looking down at that hunched silhouette on the sidewalk, my nose stung. Nolan didn’t finally arrive until the afternoon. Bianca was trailing right behind him. “Mr. Sutton, Nolan brought me to come see you.” She smiled and pressed two ivory-colored official folders into Dad’s hands together. “This is our marriage certificate. Feel the cover.” Dad’s rough fingertips traced the embossed gold lettering, and his eyes filled instantly. “Good… good… Claire finally got to marry Nolan…” He couldn’t see. He thought it was my marriage certificate and Nolan’s. But I could see it perfectly clearly. Inside the folder were the names Nolan Ashford and Bianca Whitmore. Date of registration: this morning. Nolan caught the look on my face and grabbed my wrist, dragging me out into the hallway. “Claire, don’t spiral on me.” “I only went to City Hall with Bianca because I lost the bet. Her parents have been pushing her to get married, and I was just going along with it to make them happy.” “We’ll be divorced in a month. Then you and I can go get our own license, okay?” He treated marriage like a party game. And he treated me like a fool. I looked at him and, all of a sudden, I didn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. “Nolan, we’re done.” He blinked, brows pulling together. “Claire Sutton, we already had the wedding. This is just paperwork.” “Can you please not blow every little thing up like this?” The door to the hospital room opened. Bianca leaned out, pouting. “Nolan honey, we still have to go pick up honeymoon stuff. The stores will close if we’re any later.” Nolan called back over his shoulder. Bianca smiled and looped her arm through his, and the two of them disappeared down the corridor. I walked back into the room, ready to make up some excuse. But I found tears streaming from Dad’s lightless eyes. “Claire, don’t hide it from Dad anymore… I heard everything.” “Leave him. We’re not putting up with this.” I fought down the burning in my throat and nodded, hard. That night, Nolan sent me a message. 【Nine a.m. flight tomorrow, headed for Aspen.】 【Come on your own. And stop with the theatrics.】 I didn’t reply. I opened the airline’s website and booked two one-way tickets overseas. Boston to Munich. Lufthansa Flight 423. Departure: eight a.m. the next morning.

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The day before Valentine’s, my boyfriend told me he had a three-day work trip to New Orleans. I offered to come along, but he said: “It’s a company project. Bringing you wouldn’t be appropriate.” The very next day, I saw Chloe—my best friend—post on Instagram: a nighttime shot of St. Louis Cathedral. The caption read: “NOLA is stunning. Thanks Ethan, for showing me these lights tonight.” I called him. He picked up right away. In the background, Chloe’s flirty voice chimed in, “Ethan, this skewer of shrimp is for you.” My voice went hoarse. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a work trip alone?” He answered lightly. “Oh, Chloe wanted to get out for a bit, so I brought her along. It’s on the way anyway.” “The company’s covering it. It’s just one extra hotel room.” After I hung up, Chloe posted another Story. She and Ethan at the French Market, each holding a Cajun shrimp skewer, both beaming. It wasn’t until the evening of the third day that I finally got a message from Ethan. “Nora, I’m coming back tomorrow. Want anything as a souvenir?” I stared at my screen. Chloe had just posted her eighth New Orleans location tag. The caption read: “Third trip with Ethan. Perfect.” I typed slowly: “No need. Just have fun.” He replied instantly: “You’re so understanding. I’ll take you next time.” I didn’t respond. Because I knew—there wouldn’t be a next time. … That night, when Ethan came home, he brought Chloe through the door with him. I was sitting on the couch, lights off, just sitting there. The door opened, and Chloe’s laughter poured in first. “Nora!” She had her arm hooked through Ethan’s, the other hand hauling two stuffed paper bags. “We brought back so much for you!” Ethan changed his shoes, glanced my way, tone casual: “Chloe’s place is out of the way. She’ll stay in the guest room tonight, just make do.” I looked at him. He’d already hung up his coat and was leaning down to take the paper bags from Chloe, setting them on the table. Chloe unpacked everything one by one—pralines, beignet mix, a bottle of Cajun spice, a limited-edition mini Tabasco. And a tote bag printed with the wrought-iron balconies of the French Quarter. “Come on, Nora, sit over here!” She patted the couch, and once I moved over, she launched into stories about NOLA. “Did you know, the moment they lit up Jackson Square at night, I just froze.” “Ethan was right there next to me. I told him I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life!” “She stood there for a good twenty minutes. I couldn’t pull her away.” Ethan chimed in, a smile at the corner of his mouth. “And then Bourbon Street!” Chloe turned to him. “Ethan, how many oysters did you have that night?” “A dozen.” “Right! A whole dozen! I told him, you can really eat—” The two of them chatted and laughed. I couldn’t get a word in. Not that anyone cared whether I could. I suddenly remembered a week ago, when I’d leaned over the desk and shown Ethan my Valentine’s Day plans on my phone. I’d looked up a couple’s restaurant in advance. He’d pulled me close then, resting his chin on top of my head, and said: “Valentine’s is just us two. Nobody’s gonna get in the way.” Valentine’s was here now. So this was his idea of nobody getting in the way? “Nora?” Chloe called. She switched topics, now telling me about a vintage photo studio in the French Quarter, how Ethan had picked out a cream-colored Southern-belle gown for her, and how passersby had stopped to take pictures when she tried it on. “Ethan said I looked like I’d stepped out of an old movie. Isn’t he too sweet?” Ethan lowered his head and laughed, not denying it. I looked away and stared at the pile of stuff on the table. Their laughter filled the whole living room. I sat at the end of the couch like a decoration someone had put in the wrong place. Ethan must have noticed how quiet I’d gotten. He casually pulled a few items toward me and said: “These are for you. Picked them out just for you. Don’t overthink it, alright? I was just bringing her along for a change of scene. You get it, right?” I looked down at the items. A bottle of Tabasco, a bag of pecan candies, and a box of cookies with a crushed corner. Picked out just for me, he said. Get it. I rolled the phrase around silently, didn’t say it out loud. Then I got up and walked toward the bedroom. Neither of them noticed. They kept laughing in the living room. I closed the bedroom door behind me. The sounds outside didn’t disappear, just got a little quieter. Ethan’s backpack was slung over the back of a chair. I bumped it when I shut the door. The zipper hadn’t been closed properly. A lipstick rolled out and landed on the floor. I bent down to pick it up. Strawberry flavored. Not my shade. I peered inside the bag and saw a Polaroid. Bourbon Street. A whole neon-lit wall as the backdrop. Ethan on the right. Chloe leaning sideways against him. His hand on her shoulder. Both of them laughing. Underneath was a hotel receipt. Yeah. One room. I put everything back, closed the bag, and looked out the window. Out in the living room, Chloe was asking Ethan what building was printed on the tote bag. He was explaining, she was laughing. Their voices sounded close enough to be in the same room with me. I didn’t sleep that night. At three in the morning, I opened my phone and pulled up an email I’d left sitting for two months. It was from my advisor in Paris, inviting me to a three-year research program in France. The last time I’d opened it was one evening when Ethan was propped up in bed watching a show. I’d hesitated for a long time, snuck a glance at him, and finally closed it. Back then, I couldn’t bear to leave him. Now, I opened the reply box: “Professor Laurent, I’m confirming my acceptance of the research position. Please advise on the next steps.”

The next day, I was woken by noise from the kitchen. I opened the bedroom door and saw Chloe standing at the stove, wearing Ethan’s oversized gray loungewear, frying eggs. She pressed down on the yolk with the spatula, tilted her head, and asked Ethan: “You like them sunny-side up, right?” Ethan was leaning against the cabinet next to the stove, looking down at her: “Sunny-side up. Good memory.” “Of course.” Chloe shot him a coy look. “I remember everything about you.” I walked over and sat down at the table. It was already set. Ethan came over carrying two cups, set one in front of Chloe and pushed the other toward me. I glanced down. Iced Americano. No sugar, no milk. But I liked mine sweet. I didn’t drink black coffee. The one who drank unsweetened black coffee was Chloe. At the table, Chloe spoke up. “Nora, I just broke up with someone, and it’s too depressing to be home. Mind if I stay here a few more days?” “You guys have plenty of space. I’ll just tuck into a corner, I won’t be in the way.” Before I could open my mouth, Ethan answered: “Stay as long as you want. You and Nora are best friends. Better here than out at some hotel—I’d feel more at ease.” So Chloe moved in. That night, Ethan said he had a work dinner. He left with Chloe, the two of them laughing on their way downstairs. I stood on the balcony and watched them walk away. The last thing I saw was Ethan reaching up to smooth her wind-blown hair back into place. I turned my phone face-down on the balcony railing and closed my eyes for a moment. Around ten that night, the lock clicked. I was sitting on the couch. Chloe came in first, makeup still on, laughing as she stepped inside: “Nora, you’re still up?” The first thing I noticed was the necklace on her throat. Tiffany. Heart-shaped pendant. Rose gold chain. Catching my gaze, she smiled: “Ethan said this style suits me. You don’t mind, do you?” I didn’t say anything. Late that night, lying in bed, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I nudged Ethan beside me. He put his phone down. “What?” “That necklace,” I said. “It’s the Valentine’s Day limited edition, isn’t it?” He paused. “It’s just the regular one.” “I looked it up,” I said, looking at him. He was silent for a beat, then let out a sigh, set his glass on the nightstand, and gave me that all-too-familiar expression. Not guilt. Impatience. “Nora, just say what you want to say.” “Chloe is living in our home, wearing my clothes, using my things.” I laid it out one line at a time. “She’s rearranged our décor, she’s wearing the limited-edition necklace you gave her for Valentine’s. Do you think this is normal?” “She just went through a breakup.” He frowned. “And isn’t she your best friend? What’s wrong with me looking out for her a bit more?” “Looking out for her?” I repeated. “Is that what this is called? I’m your girlfriend!” “Can you not blow this out of proportion?” He waved his hand, like he was brushing off an annoyance. “Chloe is a friend. I’m just being a little more attentive to her, and you have to make that face. Do you have any idea how ugly you look right now?” “She’s the one who broke up. You’ve got nothing wrong with your life, what are you being so petty about?” Just then, the bedroom door opened. Chloe walked in, looked at the two of us, and pulled on a pained expression: “Is this because of me… Nora, I’ll go stay at a hotel. I don’t want you two to fight over—” “No need,” Ethan said, turning around, his tone instantly softening. “Don’t overthink it. Nora’s just a little tired, she’s always like this. Don’t take it to heart.” Chloe glanced at me. The glance lasted a second, but I saw it clearly. Not apology. Satisfaction. “You’re overreacting,” Ethan said finally. “You’re being so immature.” I didn’t say another word. I got up, went to the study, sat down at the desk, and read through the program materials from Paris again. Out in the living room, Chloe was comforting Ethan: “Nora’s probably just been under a lot of stress lately. Don’t take it to heart.” He said, “I know. Don’t feel bad.” I closed the calendar. Half a month left.

The next day, mutual friends invited us out to dinner. Knowing I wouldn’t see them for three years, I agreed. By the time I got there after work, almost everyone had arrived. I pushed the door of the private room open and immediately saw Ethan and Chloe sitting side by side. Chloe waved me over. I ignored her and grabbed a seat wherever. Before the food even came, Chloe started intercepting Ethan’s drinks. A guy across the table egged him on: “Ethan, come on, one drink.” She took the glass. “Ethan’s not drinking tonight. I’ll cover for him.” She tipped her head back, downed it, and flashed the guy a smile. Ethan leaned toward her and murmured something. She shook her head, then picked up her fork, cut a piece of salmon, trimmed off the edges, and placed it on his plate. Intercepting drinks. Sharing food. Whispering. Every glance was on him. Maya sat next to me, quietly poked my arm, and gestured toward them with her eyes. I said, “It’s fine. Just eat.” It was raining when the gathering ended. I hadn’t brought an umbrella. Before leaving, I mentioned it to Ethan. He was bent over his phone, hailing an Uber for Chloe. Didn’t even look up. “Mm, call one yourself. I’ll wait with Chloe—I wouldn’t feel right leaving her.” The rain wasn’t heavy, but the Uber’s location glitched twice, traffic was terrible, and by the time I got home I was soaked through. Ethan and Chloe still weren’t back. That night, I took my temperature: 102 degrees. I texted Ethan: “I have a fever. Can you grab me a box of Tylenol from the CVS downstairs on your way back?” Half an hour later, he replied: “Chlo’s not doing great emotionally tonight, I’m going to sit by the river with her for a bit. If you’re feeling really bad, just Uber yourself to urgent care. Don’t tough it out.” I stared at those lines for a long time. He was sitting by the Charles River with her, letting the wind blow through her hair. I put my phone down, grabbed my coat, went downstairs, called a car, and took myself to the nearest urgent care. While I was waiting for my number to be called, Chloe posted an Instagram Story. The photo was the Charles River at night, two trendy coffees perched on the railing, Ethan holding one. Only his profile was in the frame. Wind lifted his hair a little. Lights and water in the background. The caption read: “The night wind is so strong. Thanks for being with me.” I turned my phone face-down on my knee. Urgent care had the AC blasting. I wrapped my coat tight, listened to the nurse call numbers, my mind blank. Early the next morning, I opened my laptop. I’d downloaded the school’s academic leave application form two weeks ago and left it sitting in a folder untouched. I filled it out, attached a copy of Professor Laurent’s invitation letter, and sent it to the department. I’d only chosen this program to stay in Boston. Ethan was here. Every plan I had revolved around this one person. Now I was cutting my last reason loose. The department sent back a confirmation. I cc’d my advisor. Then I opened the email thread from Paris and looked over the flight information again. Two weeks. Then Paris. I saved a screenshot of the itinerary, shut the laptop, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. In the living room, Chloe was on the couch scrolling Instagram. Ethan sat next to her. They were debating where to go for the weekend. I walked past them with my glass, went back into the study, and closed the door behind me. Soon enough, I wouldn’t have to see them anymore.

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This was the thirty-third time my fiancé Ethan had left me alone in the bridal shop because of his stepsister Jessica. Every single time we scheduled a wedding photo shoot, Ethan would find some excuse not to show up. I called to ask why. His tone was dismissive. “Jessica wanted to travel. I’m already in Miami with her. There’s really no way I can come back. We’ll deal with the wedding photos next month.” Jessica snatched the phone. “You’re calling to bother us over something this trivial? It’s not like this is the first time you’ve missed a shoot. You should be used to it by now.” This time, I didn’t take off the wedding dress and slink away. Instead, I smiled and dialed Ethan’s best friend. “Vincent, if you can get to the bridal shop in five minutes, I’ll marry you.” …… By the time the shoot was finished, it was already evening. I changed out of the gown and settled into the lounge area, leaving a quick five-star review for the shop on Instagram. The post had barely gone up when Ethan’s number flashed on my screen. But the voice on the other end was Jessica’s, dripping with affected sweetness: “Olivia, taking wedding photos all by yourself and posting about it? Doesn’t that feel lonely?” I leaned back against the sofa. “Not as lonely as you.” “My post went up less than ten seconds ago, and here you are calling. Watching my Instagram like a hawk, lurking on every single one of my accounts like a little mouse—who’s the lonely one here?” Jessica’s composure shattered. “I wasn’t stalking you! I just happened to see it!” I couldn’t be bothered to keep talking to her. I hung up. Shortly after, a string of texts from Ethan rolled in. 【Olivia, do you have any idea how hard Jessica is to calm down?】 【She called you because she cares about you. Why did you have to snap at her? When are you going to fix that temper of yours?】 I didn’t reply. Instead, I opened Instagram and made another post. The caption was simple: *My fiancé and I are having our wedding this weekend. All friends welcome.* The comments section exploded. 【Oh my God, Olivia, you and Ethan are finally getting married? Congratulations!】 【I thought you two broke up ages ago. You’re really doing it? I’ll be there this weekend for sure!】 【New York’s most beautiful bride is finally walking down the aisle. Ethan really waited for this day.】 I was about to reply when Ethan’s comment appeared right at the top. 【Olivia, have you lost your mind? I’m still in Miami with Jessica. There’s no way I can make it back to New York for a wedding this weekend. Can you stop making decisions on your own?】 【Delete this right now and tell everyone you made it up, before you embarrass yourself.】 I ignored Ethan’s orders. Because my wedding no longer required him as the groom.

What I hadn’t expected was that Ethan would buy a last-minute red-eye flight back. Jessica came with him. At two in the morning, Ethan threw open the front door, seething. Jessica’s eyes were swollen and red. The moment she saw me, she started in with her grievances. “Happy now, Olivia? Ethan and I finally get a chance to unwind, and you have to pull this fake wedding stunt and force us to fly back in the middle of the night.” “You completely ruined my Miami trip!” I glanced at Ethan, then at her. My voice was calm. “Nobody asked you to come back.” Ethan’s voice was sharp with anger. “Olivia, I came back to talk to you like a reasonable person. Delete that post. I’m not ready to marry you yet. Just wait a little longer.” My answer was simple. “No.” Ethan took a deep breath. “Olivia, how long are you going to keep this up?” “Everyone is watching. Do you realize you’re forcing me into this?” Jessica scoffed. “Ethan, she’s obviously doing this to pressure you into marrying her so she can keep you away from me.” Then she turned to me. “Ethan and I are just siblings. It’s not what you think. You’re the one with the dirty mind, seeing something wrong everywhere. Delete that post now.” I didn’t acknowledge her. I looked at Ethan and said the same two words: “Not deleting.” Ethan laughed bitterly. “Fine. Then I won’t show up to the wedding either. You’ll be standing there with no groom. The one who’ll look like a fool is you, not me.” I smiled. “Whether you show up or not doesn’t matter. You’ve been absent from my life for a long time already, haven’t you? You’ve poured all your time and energy into Jessica. And I, your fiancée, had to wait thirty-three times just to take wedding photos with you.” “Ethan, who exactly is your fiancée?” Ethan frowned, as if I were being completely unreasonable. “Olivia, do you really have to put it so harshly?” “Jessica isn’t an outsider.” “She’s my stepsister.” “She’s important to me. We’ve known each other for years. She depends on me, and I take care of her. What’s wrong with that?” I smiled. Over the past eight years, Jessica would call him in the middle of the night, saying she couldn’t sleep. Ethan would leave me without hesitation and drive over to keep her company. In the beginning, he’d still feel guilty. He’d hold me and say she just lacked a sense of security. But as time went on, they grew more and more brazen. Whenever Jessica needed anything, Ethan would cancel every plan he had with me to be with her. And if I so much as expressed displeasure, I became the unreasonable one—immature, graceless, not generous enough. I looked up at Ethan. “So in your eyes, she can take up your time whenever she wants, interrupt every date we have—” “And I, as your fiancée, don’t even have the right to mind. Is that it?” Ethan softened his tone. “Olivia, I know you want to marry me as soon as possible.” “But I really don’t like this side of you. You used to be so easygoing, so reasonable. Why do you have to push me like this now?” I looked down at Jessica’s arm hooked through his. Her body was practically pressed against him, and Ethan made no effort whatsoever to put distance between them. I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh. “Ethan, you have absolutely no sense of boundaries.” “Is Jessica your stepsister or your lover?” Jessica’s tears appeared on cue. “Olivia, you’re insane! There is nothing between Ethan and me! Why do you keep making these disgusting assumptions about us!” Ethan wrapped his arm around Jessica’s shoulders and wiped her tears for her. “Olivia, apologize to Jessica. Right now.” I found it absurd. “Apologize for what?” Ethan erupted. “You made Jessica cry! Of course you need to apologize!” Just then, Vincent strolled in, fashionably late. Ethan did a double take. “What are you doing at my place in the middle of the night?” Vincent glanced at me. “I’m here to help Olivia move out.” Ethan blinked, then visibly relaxed. A smug, knowing expression spread across his face. “Thanks, Vincent, but it’s really not that serious. Olivia and I are just having a little couple’s spat.” His tone was dripping with self-satisfied understanding. “Actually, do me a favor and talk some sense into her.” “Tell her to grow up and stop doing things that only embarrass herself.” Then he looked down at Jessica in his arms, his voice going soft immediately. “I need to take Jessica to a hotel first.” “She took a red-eye to get back here. She’s exhausted.” Vincent lowered his head and smiled—a smile loaded with meaning. “Sure. Leave everything here to me.”

With Vincent’s help, I moved out that very night. When Ethan discovered I was gone, the messages started pouring in. 【I know you’re upset, but you really can’t pressure me like this. Marriage is a big deal. You just announce a wedding out of nowhere—I’m not mentally prepared for that.】 【Olivia, it’s not that I don’t want to marry you, but now really isn’t a good time. Jessica hasn’t been doing well lately and she needs me around. Can’t you just wait a little longer?】 【Olivia, I’m serious. I’m not ready for marriage at all. Pushing me like this is only going to make me resent you.】 And so it went, all the way until the day before the wedding. I didn’t reply to a single message. But that evening, Jessica sent me a video. I tapped it open. The screen first showed a lavish hotel suite. The lighting was dim. White sheets lay tangled across the bed. A champagne flute on the nightstand was still half full. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the midnight ocean of Miami stretched into darkness. The camera panned slowly. Ethan appeared in the frame. He sat on the sofa, shirt collar hanging open, hair falling across his forehead in disarray. Jessica was curled against his chest, wearing a thin-strapped slip dress, her body draped over him like silk. She looked drunk—but the eyes that met the camera were perfectly lucid. She reached up deliberately, hooked a finger around Ethan’s tie, and pulled him toward her, inch by inch. Ethan didn’t resist. His hand rested on her waist. Jessica tilted her face up and kissed him on the lips. The frame held for two seconds. Then she looked straight into the camera. The corner of her mouth curled into the smile of a victor. The video ended there. Her call came in right after. “Did you watch it? Ethan’s cheating on you. If even that isn’t enough to make you cancel the wedding, then you really are something else.” “If I were you, I’d be dead from rage by now. You’d fit right into the Victorian era—the kind of devoted wife who watches her husband hold another woman and keeps smiling through it all.” My voice didn’t waver. “Still better than being the mistress who never gets a ring.” Jessica hung up in a fury. On the day of the wedding, I was already in my gown. Guests filed in one after another, offering their congratulations. I smiled and thanked each of them. Ethan walked in wearing a tracksuit. When he saw me, a flash of genuine awe passed through his eyes. “I’ll give you this—you picked a beautiful dress on your own.” But within seconds, Jessica appeared at his side in a formal gown, hooking her arm through his. Her makeup was immaculate. She wore a pale pink dress. The guests exchanged bewildered glances. A few seconds later, murmurs rippled through the room. “Isn’t that the groom? Why isn’t he in a tux?” “Who’s that woman with him? Why is she on his arm?” “This is Olivia’s wedding, isn’t it? Why did Ethan bring another woman?” A fiancé in athletic wear with another woman on his arm, while the bride stood alone in her wedding dress on the opposite side of the room—no matter how you looked at it, something was off. Ethan ignored the questioning stares and launched into his stiff explanation. “Let me make one thing clear. There’s nothing going on between me and Jessica.” “That video you saw of us looking intimate—we staged the whole thing. We just wanted you to call off the wedding. Didn’t expect you’d actually go through with it.” Jessica nodded beside him, her voice saccharine-sweet—a completely different person from the venom of the night before. “That’s right, Olivia. The whole thing was my idea. I just wanted to test how much you really care about Ethan.” “The fact that you watched that video and those photos without even flinching—your devotion to Ethan is truly admirable.” I looked at the two of them and smiled faintly. “I don’t care what you do anymore.” Ethan sensed something was off. A flicker of panic crossed his face. “Jessica is my stepsister. Just like Vincent is my friend. They’re both important people in my life.” “You can’t marry me and then demand I ignore my stepsister’s feelings. I told you, Jessica hasn’t been well lately. I need to spend more time with her. Can’t we just postpone the wedding instead of canceling it?” “You know how much I value relationships.” “Family, friendship—they all matter to me.” “I can’t just abandon my stepsister because I’m getting married.” I looked at his open, guileless expression and couldn’t help but point something out. “Ethan.” “You keep saying family is important. Friends are important.” “But haven’t you noticed that your most important friend isn’t by your side today?” “Take a guess where he’s going to show up.”

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The giant projector screen blares my falsified medical lab results dead-center during my wedding reception, and the entire ballroom erupts in screaming chaos before I can even process what’s happening. Ezra Carter hurls my engagement ring hard at my chest. It bounces off my white lace wedding gown and clatters across the marble floor. “You’re a used trash girl who aborted a kid years ago, and you thought you’d lock down a Carter marriage?” He snarls loud enough for every guest to hear. “Your Hale family’s corporate merger funding deal is dead. You all watch your company tank tomorrow.” My birth parents’ faces bleach pure white. Chloe Hale, their beloved adopted daughter, steps forward with glistening fake tears streaking her cheeks. “Sage, how could you lie to Mom, Dad, and Ezra?” Her voice cracks, perfectly staged pity dripping off every syllable. “You ran wild alone for years after Mom and Dad found you again—how could you drag the whole Hale name down with your reckless choices?” “I didn’t do any of this. That lab report’s fabricated.” My voice stays flat, calm, no tremor. Ezra sneers right in my face. “A filthy girl like you doesn’t deserve a Carter last name. I call this engagement off for good. Either you get the hell out of this venue and let Chloe take your spot as my fiancée, or the Hale Group files Chapter 7 bankruptcy by sunrise. Choose.” Chloe latches onto Ezra’s suit sleeve, then twists back toward my parents with that mournful act cranked higher. “Mom, Dad, don’t let Sage ruin everything. I’ll marry Ezra instead of her. I’ll fix the funding deal, I’ll save our company—just send Sage somewhere to lay low until Ezra cools off.” Whispers roar through the crowd nonstop. I catch every cutting comment clear as day. “She only reunited with the Hales three years back, spent all her youth running loose—who knows what messes she got tangled in.” “The Hales tried to pawn a damaged girl off for corporate cash. Disgusting.” Ezra slams a fist on the head table. “Make your choice fast. I won’t wait all night.” Chloe’s eyes flash quiet victory beneath her teary mask as she begs my parents to cast me aside. Their gazes turn ice-cold when they land on me. “Sage, you’ve disappointed us beyond repair. The Hale household doesn’t claim you anymore.” I cling to one last shred of hope, glancing between them. “Just send me for a second independent lab test to prove this is fake—” “Quit embarrassing us further! Get out!” Dad shouts over the crowd noise. Three years ago, they tracked me down, pulled me away from the quiet life I built with Jesse, swore they’d make up for all the lost years and love me properly. But every single time Chloe set me up with lies, broke her own things and framed me, or staged falls to fake injury, they picked her side without a single question. This night’s no different. I yank the silk veil off my head and drop it at their feet. “Fine. From this second on, I cut all ties with the Hale family permanently.” Late autumn rain slams down out of nowhere, frigid wind biting through my thin wedding dress. I stand alone at a bus stop, clutching a crumpled photo of Jesse pressed tight to my chest. “Old man, you begged me to give this family a real shot after you passed. I tried. They don’t love me at all.” Jesse was a retired Marine combat vet who raised me for two decades, drilled hand-to-hand combat into my bones. I fought off street thugs, violent deadbeat contractors withholding pay, even worked high-risk private security bodyguard shifts to cover his cancer medical bills. For three years back with the Hales, I followed Jesse’s dying wish, toned down every sharp edge, acted docile and soft-mannered to fit their wealthy socialite mold. I never called Chloe out on any of her manipulative schemes, all to honor his last request. Now I’m outcast with nothing, no roof, no family, no safety net. “Guess I don’t have to fake being a tame debutante anymore, memorize useless fancy etiquette rules for rich snobs.” I fold Jesse’s photo back into my jacket pocket and glance up at a taped flyer plastered to the bus stop billboard. [URGENT Nanny / Step-Mother Wanted for 6-Year-Old Boy. Live-in, $50k Monthly Salary. Must handle extreme stress, unshakable mental fortitude. Warning: Minor physical injury possible on the job.] I rip the paper free, a sharp, amused smirk tugging my lips. “Perfect match. This job’s tailor-made for my skill set.”

I drive straight to the gated waterfront Rossi estate address printed on the flyer that same afternoon. A stoic head butler waits at the front marble doorway, scanning my wedding-stained dress with a skeptical frown. “You’re the applicant for the boy’s caretaker position?” I nod once, no extra pleasantries. “Step inside. Forewarning—Master Jude’s temperament is volatile. He has to take a genuine liking to you to stay employed.” He steps aside to let me cross the foyer. “Dozens of women have applied before you, none lasted more than three full days. Mr. Rossi’s orders: only staff who survive three days get a formal audience with him and a long-term employment contract.” Confidence settles steady in my bones. The hardships I endured growing up with Jesse, every brutal fight, every penny scraped together for medical bills, all beat dealing with a moody six-year-old boy by a mile. I round the grand staircase and spot him instantly. Jude’s dressed in a tiny tailored black three-piece suit, sharp delicate features, but a cold, lonely edge no kid his age should carry. “Hello, Miss. I brought you a gift.” He holds out a wrapped velvet box, wide innocent eyes masking whatever trick he’s cooked up. The butler staggers backward a full step, panic flooding his face. “Thank you so much, baby.” I take the box and flip the lid open without hesitation. A massive hairy tarantula leaps straight for my face the second the box opens. The butler yelps and collapses onto the marble floor, hands flying to cover his eyes. I pinch the tarantula gently between two fingers, turning it over to examine its abdomen with genuine curiosity. “Wow, great size on this girl. You’ve been feeding her really well. This gift’s my favorite welcome present ever—thank you, Jude.” Jude’s cocky smug expression crumples into pure shock. He blinks hard, voice tight with disbelief. “You’re not scared at all?” I grew up off-grid in a remote cabin with Jesse. Snakes, lizards, spiders, wild amphibians—none of them rattle me in the slightest. “This is your first gift to me, of course I love it. No way I’d be frightened.” I place the tarantula back inside its velvet box, then reach out to curl my hand around his tiny palm. “C’mon. We can grab a glass terrarium to house her together. I can walk you through her molting cycle—they’re super fragile during that phase, I’ll teach you all the care tricks.” His cheeks flush bright red, and he yanks his hand free instantly. “I don’t need help taking care of my pets!” He storms a few steps up the staircase, then twists back to glance over his shoulder at me. “The terrarium room’s on the second floor. Follow me if you want.” He leads me to a closed bedroom door, shoving it open to reveal walls lined floor-to-ceiling with sealed glass enclosures. Geckos, horned frogs, monitor lizards, every cold-blooded creature labeled with handwritten feeding schedules taped to each tank. “Your collection?” I ask quietly. He nods. “Butler helps with feeding sometimes. They never yell or lie to me. They keep me company all day.” A sharp twinge of sympathy twists my chest. I set the tarantula tank down on an empty shelf, then drop to my knees and wrap my arms lightly around his small frame. “Jude, my name’s Sage. Starting today, I’ll stay right here with you.” His whole body stiffens, then he wriggles free of my hug and bolts toward the door. “I don’t need anyone hanging around me! I’m a tough guy, I handle everything alone.” I stay kneeled on the carpet, watching the tips of his ears burn bright red, and smile softly. That night, a brutal thunderstorm rips through the neighborhood, lightning splitting the sky every few seconds. I get up to lock the floor-to-ceiling windows and hear glass shattering from Jude’s bedroom next door. I burst through his door without knocking. A broken desk lamp lies shattered on the rug, and Jude curls tight against the bed frame, clutching a throw pillow to his chest, skin pale as chalk from terror. When he sees me, he snatches a ceramic vase off his nightstand and hurls it straight at my head. “Get out of my room! Who said you could barge in?” This kid puts on such a tough front, but thunderstorms terrify him to his core. I catch the flying vase mid-air with one hand, then cross the room in two strides and slip under his duvet, wrapping an arm around his waist. “I’m terrified of thunderstorms too. Can I crash here with you just tonight? Please?”

Jude’s small frame goes rigid under the covers, but a faint flicker of quiet relief softens his sharp little glare. “Fine. Only tonight, since storms freak you out. Don’t get used to sharing my bed.” Classic stubborn little tsundere kid. “Thank you, Jude. The thunder’s making it impossible to sleep—can you read me a bedtime story to calm me down?” I grab a fairy tale hardcover off his nightstand and press it into his hands. He rolls his eyes dramatically. “You’re way too old for storybooks, that’s embarrassing.” Even so, he accepts the book, flips to the first page, and clears his throat to read aloud. Within ten minutes his voice grows softer and slower, the book slipping loose from his fingers as he drifts asleep mid-paragraph. I tuck the duvet snug around his shoulders and pull him close to my chest, letting both of us pass out through the rest of the storm. Early the next morning, the butler knocks the bedroom door open with a breakfast tray balanced in his hands. He freezes, tray nearly slipping from his grip, eyes blown wide. “Master Jude never lets any stranger cross his bedroom threshold, let alone sleep beside him—this is unheard of.” Jude blinks awake slowly, rubbing sleep crust out of his eyes, rushing to defend our shared bed. “She’s the one scared of thunder last night. I let her crash here, that’s all.” The butler stares at me like I’m some kind of miracle, rushing off to deliver a full report to Kai Rossi immediately. I stretch my arms out, reaching to help Jude pull on his tiny suit jacket. He twists away fast, cheeks flaming. “I dress myself! Don’t think this little stunt makes you special. All the other women who applied only care about my dad’s fortune anyway.” I hold back a quiet laugh. I absolutely took this job for the massive paycheck—nothing more, nothing less. We head down to the formal dining room for breakfast, and that’s when I lay eyes on the infamous Kai Rossi for the first time. Now I fully understand Jude’s comment about gold-digging applicants. Sharp sculpted jaw, icy dark eyes, tailored black designer suit, the cold, untouchable head of the entire East Coast Rossi crime syndicate with a legitimate multi-billion dollar finance empire front. Every single socialite in Manhattan would kill to lock him down. Kai sets his morning newspaper flat on the tabletop, those piercing dark eyes locking directly onto my face without breaking contact. “You’re the new caretaker. Name?” “Sage Voss.” His fingers pause mid-tug on his suit jacket’s button, leaning back slow against his leather dining chair. “Butler says Jude’s taken a strong liking to you. If my son accepts you fully, we sign a civil marriage license per the employment contract—your monthly salary doubles after that. One rule to drill into your head: look after Jude properly, and cut out any greedy ulterior motives targeting me.” “Understood, Mr. Rossi.” Jude marches out of the kitchen carrying a covered ceramic plate, sliding it onto the table directly in front of me with a deceptively sweet smile. “I made you breakfast all by myself. Hope you love it.” The butler’s eyes bug out, rapidly shooting panicked side glances in my direction. I lift the plate’s lid off. Two slices of sourdough sandwich bread sandwich a thick clump of dark green caterpillar paste, with a plump live caterpillar wriggling dead center on top. “Homemade protein sandwich. You aren’t gonna turn it down, right?” Jude challenges, eyes sharp with expectation. I pick up the whole sandwich and take a huge bite, chewing thoroughly before swallowing without a single flinch. “Tastes solid. Only complaint’s the caterpillar’s a little small. Back when I lived off-grid, I pan-fried way bigger caterpillars for dinner all the time.” Jude’s cocky scheming face drops completely, stunned silent. Off to my side, Kai’s mouth twitches upward in a faint, barely noticeable smile. “Looks like your little prank didn’t land this time.” He lifts his espresso mug, voice low and calm. Jude’s face burns scarlet, jumping down off his dining chair and sprinting out the back door in frustration. I grab his canvas backpack and chase after him. “Wait up—I’ll drive you to private school!” Kai’s gaze tracks my retreating figure across the lawn, his cold expression melting into tangled, aching longing. He murmurs quiet enough only he hears the words. “Sage… you really don’t remember a single thing about us.”

I walk two hundred yards from Jude’s private school gate when my cell rings, the school administrator’s harsh tone crackling through the speaker. “Are you Jude Rossi’s guardian? He assaulted another student. Come to the principal’s office immediately.” I hang up, a faint weight settling in my chest. I got into constant fights as a kid too, and every time Jesse got called in, he’d bow his head and beg forgiveness for my outbursts. This sharp little boy shares my hot temper. Worst case, I’ll write a settlement check—his dad owns half the city’s banks, cash’s never an issue. I step into the office and spot Jude standing stiff next to a chubby boy with only a tiny scrape across his cheekbone. I blink once, unimpressed. “That’s all the damage?” The principal glares hard at me, offended by my lack of panic. “Jude attacked this child and refuses to apologize. You need to discipline him severely.” I tilt my head, unyielding. “A tiny surface scrape from two kids roughhousing isn’t worth a formal parent conference. Boys fight all the time over trivial stuff.” Jude’s rigid shoulders relax, his wide eyes locked on me in pure shock. The chubby kid’s mother surges forward, finger jabbing straight at my face, voice shrill with rage. “What kind of woman raises such a violent, ill-mannered brat? No wonder he’s got no mother figure around to teach him respect!” Cold rage floods my veins. One sharp kick sends the plastic visitor chair beside me splintering into broken shards on the linoleum floor. “Do not speak about my kid like that. Jude never throws a punch unless someone crosses a line first. Now tell your son to explain exactly what happened.” Every person in the room freezes rigid. The little boy’s lip trembles, and he bursts into loud sobs. “He called Jude a motherless stray… everyone in class teases him about it.” I turn to the furious woman, tone flat and unforgiving. “You heard him. Your son threw the first insult. Jude only defended himself—you ought to thank him for not hurting your child worse.” She yanks her crying son forward, forcing a rushed apology. I glance down at Jude. “You still acted out of line. Say sorry for hitting him.” Jude blinks, confused. “Why? He insulted me first.” “He called you motherless, but you have me. Don’t waste your energy fighting over empty words.” Jude’s eyes glisten with emotion, his head drooping slightly. “I’m sorry I hit you.” The chubby boy grins, grabbing Jude’s wrist in awe. “Your mom knows how to fight! I wish my guardian was this cool.” Jude tugs my hand, and we walk out to the black town car waiting curbside. He mumbles quietly, cheeks flushed pink. “You’re nothing like the other women who applied.” My mood lifts instantly. “Does that mean you accept me as your stepmom now?” “All the others screamed at my reptiles, and they always assumed I was the troublemaker before asking questions. You protected me without hesitation. Thank you.” My heart softens completely. “Then call me mom, yeah?” His neck flushes bright red. He stares hard out the passenger window, silent for a long beat. I signal the driver to pull away, ready to drop the subject. “Mom.” The soft word floats off his lips, reflected clearly in the car’s tinted glass. I wrap my arms tight around him, warm joy bubbling up inside me. “Baby, you’re such a sweet kid.” Jude squirms against my hug, too embarrassed to reply.

I carry Jude into the villa entryway, and Kai nearly spills his black espresso all over his tailored suit. He composes himself fast, masking his shock behind a cold, neutral expression. “Jude clearly trusts you fully. Head to the city clerk’s office tomorrow morning to file our marriage papers per the contract.” “Understood, Mr. Rossi.” I lift Jude higher in my arms, pausing at the staircase landing to glance back over my shoulder. “Quick question—our monthly salary doubles once we’re legally married, right?” A faint, hidden smile tugs the corner of Kai’s mouth. “That’s the clause we agreed on.” Relief floods my chest. Ten grand each month is life-changing money. The next day, we exit the municipal clerk building holding a crisp official marriage certificate, and I can’t stop grinning. Kai sits beside me in the town car, his gaze drifting to my reflection in the car window, a quiet happy smile playing across his face that he thinks I won’t notice. Months slip by after we file the license, and I settle into a steady routine with Jude. He’s transformed entirely—once quiet, lonely, and bitter, now he laughs constantly and begs for my attention every single day. He refuses to sleep alone through thunderstorms anymore, demands bedtime stories every night, begs me to teach him hand-to-hand combat, and drags me to climb estate trees, splash each other in the garden fountain, and feed every lizard and tarantula in his collection together. The estate butler watches our chaotic daily antics with a weary fond grin. “Master Jude has never laughed half this much in all seven years of his life. You two match perfectly, like you were always meant to be together.” Kai also changes drastically. He used to leave the mansion before sunrise and return long after midnight, buried under syndicate and corporate work. Now he sits at every single family breakfast, lunch, and dinner without fail. On weekends, he drives us to high-end supermarkets, amusement parks, and aquariums, pushing back dozens of critical business meetings just to tag along. The butler pulled me aside one afternoon to whisper a secret. “Mr. Rossi canceled more board meetings these past few months than he skipped in the entire six years before Jude was born combined.” I brush the comment off casually. “He neglected his son for half a decade. He’s just making up for lost time.” A week later, I take Jude shopping in a luxury downtown mall—and run straight into Chloe and Ezra. Chloe’s stomach bulges with her pregnancy, and she smirks when she spots me, voice dripping with mocking disdain. “Sage? You left the Hale family just to become a live-in maid? How utterly humiliating for our family name.” Ezra wraps an arm around her waist, his eyes sliding judgmentally over Jude’s designer clothes. “Chloe’s due in two months, and she’ll need someone to handle newborn care full-time. Word on the street claims you can’t have children of your own. Instead of tending to a stranger’s boy, come work for us as a live-in maternity nurse—at least you’ll get to pretend you have a kid of your own.” Jude’s jaw tightens, ready to snap back, but I place a hand on his shoulder to hold him quiet. I level a sharp glare at the pair. “Your mouths reek so bad I’m shocked you didn’t brush your teeth before leaving the house. Have some decency for your unborn child and stop spewing garbage. I know you forged that fake medical report to ruin my wedding day, Chloe.” “You two schemed to destroy my life for wealth and status. Don’t act like you hold any moral high ground. Scum belongs with scum.” Ezra lifts his palm to strike me, but I twist his wrist hard with one sharp motion. A sick pop echoes through the mall corridor, and he screams in excruciating pain. “Sage! How dare you hurt Ezra!” Chloe shrieks. I wipe my palms clean of invisible dust, cold and unyielding. “If either of you harass me or my kid again, I’ll lay both of you flat. I held back all those years only out of respect for Jesse’s memory—no more mercy from now on.” I grab Jude’s hand and walk away, Ezra’s furious shouts echoing behind us. “I’ll track down every detail of your new job! I’ll make sure every high-society venue in Manhattan blacklists you for good!” That evening inside Kai’s private study, his lead assistant lays a full incident report across the mahogany desk. “Boss, Mrs. Voss-Rossi ran into Ezra Carter and Chloe Hale at the mall today. Ezra attempted to strike her; she dislocated his wrist. Before leaving, Ezra swore he’d ruin her reputation across the city.” Kai closes the file, his tone icy and lethal. “Let him dig all he wants. Send formal gala invitations for Jude’s seventh birthday charity ball to both the Hale and Carter families. I’ll publicly reveal Sage’s official identity as my wife in front of every elite socialite and mafia affiliate in New York that night.” “Every humiliation Sage endured at their hands these past three years— I’ll repay every last ounce of it.”

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1 My wife begged me to perform the surgery that would save her first love’s life. Once he was stable, she destroyed my career. All because the patient was the golden boy she never got over. “Have you no decency, David? Extorting money from Zach like a common thief?” She was a surgeon herself. She knew damn well that the five thousand dollars wasn’t a bribe. It was a standard peer-to-peer consulting fee, legally billed for performing an emergency microdissection at an out-of-network regional hospital. Yet, she still marched a horde of local reporters and camera-wielding influencers into our clinic, publicly accusing me of taking kickbacks from a desperate family. “If you don’t get on your knees and apologize to Zach today, David, I will make sure you never hold a scalpel again.” Under my wife’s relentless campaign, the board suspended my clinical privileges. Dozens of patients on my waitlist were left stranded; some didn’t survive the delay. The internet tore my reputation to shreds. But then, the tables turned. She came back to me, broken and weeping, begging me to return to the operating room. “Dr. Miller, when are you available to schedule the second-stage decompression for Dr. Fletcher?” I had just finished confirming the administrative details with the Chief of Surgery when Sarah let herself into the apartment. The heavy front door slammed shut, and she stormed into the living room, her face pale with fury. She flung her designer handbag onto the glass coffee table. The heavy metal clasp struck the glass with a sharp, sickening crack. She pointed a trembling finger at my face. “David Miller, isn’t a doctor’s first duty to save lives? You had the audacity to pocket five thousand dollars from Zach? Has your conscience completely rotted away?” Earlier that afternoon, Sarah had stood in front of a dozen local news cameras, proudly filing a formal, public complaint against me for ethical misconduct. She was an attending surgeon at the same medical center. She knew the mechanics of our industry inside out. She knew that fee wasn’t a under-the-table kickback; it was a contracted specialist fee for traveling out of state on my day off to perform a highly complex brainstem surgery. I graduated top of my class at Johns Hopkins, completed a double fellowship, and spent years specializing abroad before returning to train under Dr. Arthur Pendelton—a living legend in neurosurgery and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Today, I held an endowed chair in neurosurgery, backed by prestigious federal grants. I had published over a hundred papers and personally performed over ten thousand procedures with a ninety-nine percent survival rate. In my field, if a case was deemed inoperable, they called me. Two days ago, Zachary Fletcher—Sarah’s high school sweetheart, the boy who had ghosted her years ago only to return as a general surgeon at a community clinic—was admitted with acute hemiplegia. A massive, deep-seated tumor was compressing his brainstem. He was looking at permanent paralysis, if not death. When Sarah found out, she came to my office with red, swollen eyes. She held my hands and wept, begging me to perform the high-risk resection. She knew that in this part of the country, I was the only one who could pull it off. Out of professional duty and the remnants of my love for her, I agreed. I caught a late-flight out, spent six agonizing hours in a foreign OR, and saved his life. I didn’t expect that before my return flight even touched down in Chicago, my wife would use my billing receipt to crucify me. “You are going to wire that money back to Zach’s mother right now,” Sarah demanded, her voice tight and shaking. “And then you are going to make a public apology.” I didn’t answer. I was staring at my phone, reading the first wave of vitriolic comments on the local news station’s Facebook page. “I’m talking to you! Are you even listening to me?” With a swift, angry swipe, Sarah knocked the phone out of my hand. It clattered across the hardwood floor. A sharp, familiar ache shot up my thumb—the joint I relied on for microscopic stitch control. I closed my eyes for a brief second, mapping the pain, praying it was just a superficial bruise. A surgeon’s hands are his life. I bent down, retrieved the phone, and slipped it into my pocket. Then, I looked up at the woman I had been married to for a decade. “If you actually believed I did something unethical, Sarah, you could have brought it up to me privately,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet. “Why the media circus? Why ruin my name in public?” “Because people need to know who you really are,” she spat. “And what about the patients currently on my schedule? If the board suspends me while they investigate this nonsense, who operates on them? Who keeps them alive?” Sarah sat on the opposite armchair, crossing her arms. A cold, dismissive smirk played on her lips. “Please. Who would trust a corrupt thief with their skull open? For all we know, you’d leave a sponge in their head just to extort them for more money on the follow-up.” My chest tightened. Just last year, a patient’s relative had falsely accused Zach of leaving an instrument in an abdomen during an emergency appendectomy. The family had cornered him in the lobby, threatening to ruin his life and send him to prison. Sarah hadn’t hesitated. Without waiting for the internal review, she had been the first to sign a petition supporting him, publicly declaring: “I would stake my own life and career on Dr. Fletcher’s absolute integrity.” Now, because I had accepted a standard, legally contracted fee to save that same man’s life, she was willing to paint me as a monster. Looking at her sharp, bitter face, a cold wave of estrangement washed over me. Was this really the woman I had loved for ten years? “I’ll waive the consulting fee,” I said, standing up. “Consider it a charity case. But I am not apologizing for doing my job.” Waiving the fee was a concession to keep the peace. Refusing to apologize was the only boundary I had left. But Sarah wasn’t finished. She lunged out of her chair, blocking my path to the hallway, her eyes wild with a strange, crusading zeal. “Returning the money without an apology means you still don’t get it. You don’t get to buy your way out of a moral failure, David. You will return every cent, and you will apologize on camera. Both. I am not negotiating with you.” I felt a sudden, profound exhaustion. “You’ve lost your mind,” I muttered, brushing past her shoulder toward the door. She stumbled back a step, her face twisting in shock. As I opened the front door, she screamed after me, her voice echoing down the sterile apartment corridor: “David! If you don’t issue a public apology within three hours, I swear to God, I will make sure you never touch a scalpel again!” 2 The moment I stepped onto the surgical floor of Midwest Memorial, the clinical chaos swallowed me. I sank into the familiar, comforting routine of pre-op prep, trying to lock the image of my wife’s furious face behind a mental firewall. For a few hours, under the harsh, shadowless lights of the OR, the world was simple again. There was only the steady beep of the vitals monitor and the microscopic boundary between life and death. The procedure went beautifully. But the moment I stepped out of the scrub room, my phone buzzed. It was the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Reynolds. “David, we have a complication,” Reynolds said, his voice strained. “Zachary Fletcher’s post-op scans are showing localized swelling. He’s showing signs of early brainstem compression. We need you to schedule the second-stage decompression immediately. If we don’t relieve the pressure, he’s not going to make it through the week.” Before I could even formulate a response, the double doors of the recovery wing swung open. A wall of bright smartphone lights, heavy television cameras, and shouting voices flooded the hallway. I was instantly surrounded. The metallic tang of panic flared in my throat as lenses were shoved inches from my face. Leading the pack was Sarah, her arm locked around a frail, elderly woman in a faded, threadbare winter coat. It was Evelyn Fletcher, Zach’s mother. “There he is!” Sarah yelled, pointing directly at my chest, her voice carrying over the din of the reporters. “Look at him, everyone. This is the great Dr. David Miller. The brilliant, untouchable chief of neurosurgery. This is the man who demanded five thousand dollars in cash from a desperate, grieving mother before he would even agree to step into the operating room.” She turned to the camera crews, her expression a mask of righteous indignation. “I know some of you doubted my initial report. You didn’t want to believe a distinguished specialist could be so predatory. But I brought someone who can tell you the truth.” Evelyn Fletcher looked tiny under the glare of the studio lights. Her silver hair was disheveled, and her hands shook as she clutched an old leather purse. Tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks. “My name is Evelyn Fletcher,” she sobbed, holding up a driver’s license to a camera lens. “My son, Zachary, is a doctor himself—a good boy who dedicated his life to serving low-income clinics. Two months ago, he fell ill. None of our local doctors could help him. They told us only Dr. Miller had the skill to remove the tumor.” She paused, swallowing hard, her voice cracking with well-rehearsed misery. “I begged Dr. Miller to save my boy. He agreed, but then he told me… he told me he wouldn’t board the plane unless I paid him five thousand dollars up front. We’ve spent every dime of our savings on Zach’s treatments. We have nothing left. I had to go to our neighbors, to our church, begging for scraps just to make the payment.” Sarah reached into her own pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, displaying it to the cameras. “Show them the billing receipt, Evelyn. Let them see how he tried to cover his tracks.” Evelyn fumbled with a folded piece of paper. It was a standard, official invoice from the Milwaukee hospital’s billing department, clearly marked “Out-of-Network Consulting Specialist Fee.” But under the glare of the phone cameras, to a public already suspicious of medical billing, it looked like a smoking gun. “He forced us to sign this,” Evelyn cried, her shoulders shaking. “He called it a ‘consulting fee’ to keep himself safe from the board, but it was a bribe. Pure and simple. That five thousand dollars was our family’s blood money.” In a country where medical debt is a national crisis, the narrative was perfect. It took less than ten seconds for the crowd of onlookers in the lobby to turn. Visitors, off-duty nurses, and administrative staff stared at me with open disgust. “You greedy bastard!” a man in a winter jacket shouted from the back. “How do you sleep at night?” a young woman yelled, recording me on her phone. Two angry men began pushing through the reporters, their faces red, clearly looking for a fight. Before the situation could turn violent, Dr. Reynolds appeared with a squad of hospital security guards. They formed a wall between the media and me, pushing the reporters back and hustling me into the administrative offices. Once the heavy oak door clicked shut, the silence of the executive suite felt suffocating. Sarah had followed us in, leaving the press outside. She stood near the window, looking at me with a triumphant, cold smile. “Nothing to say, David? Shocked that your little side-hustle got exposed?” I tightened my fists, my voice flat. “Sarah, who was the one who begged me on her knees to take Zach’s case in the first place?” She scoffed, crossing her arms. “If I had known you were going to extort his family, I never would have asked. But it doesn’t matter now. Zach is stable, and we don’t need you anymore.” She genuinely had no idea. She hadn’t seen the latest scans. She didn’t know that Zach’s brainstem was slowly herniating. I looked past her to Dr. Reynolds. “I am declining the second-stage surgery,” I said. “Find someone else.” Sarah laughed, a high, mocking sound. “Who are you texting? Give me that!” She lunged to grab my phone, but I stepped back, tucking it away. Seeing that she couldn’t bait me, she turned her fury back toward the window, crackling the blinds to wave at the reporters outside, feeding the frenzy. An hour later, under immense pressure from the hospital’s board of directors and the public relations team, Dr. Reynolds had no choice. He suspended my clinical privileges pending a formal review. As I walked out of the administrative wing to pack up my office, Sarah passed me in the corridor. She leaned in, her whisper sharp and venomous. “That’s what you get, David. I told you I’d take your toys away.” Suddenly, a voice shattered the quiet of the hallway. “You can’t do this!” 3 A young mother, her face pale and streaked with tears, pushed through the remaining onlookers and ran toward us, clutching a five-year-old boy in her arms. “Dr. Miller! Please, they’re saying you’re suspended. What about Joey?” She fell to her knees right there on the polished linoleum, her fingers gripping the hem of my white coat. “He’s only five. If you don’t do the surgery tomorrow, the doctors said he won’t make it. Please, Dr. Miller…” The little boy, Joey, clung to his mother’s neck. His skin was a translucent, sickly gray, but his large, dark eyes were fixed on me with a quiet, terrifying trust. “Dr. David?” the boy whispered, his voice trembling. The sound of my name in his small voice felt like a physical blow to my chest. Joey was my patient. A year ago, he had fallen from a high playground structure and suffered severe head trauma. While the initial bruising had healed, he had recently developed aggressive, deep-seated scar tissue near his brainstem, leading to intractable, life-threatening seizures. The microdissection required to clear the scar tissue was incredibly delicate. One millimeter off, and he would never breathe on his own again. I was the only surgeon on staff with the clearance and the hands to perform it. We had been scheduled for eight o’clock the next morning. Now, logistically and legally, my hands were tied. I had no clinical privileges. But looking at the mother’s desperate face and the child’s fragile chest rising and falling, the anger inside me crystallized into something cold and hard. I decided, in that split second, that if I had to lose my license to save this child, I would. “I will do the surgery,” I said, bending down to help the mother to her feet. “Don’t worry.” A gasp of relief escaped her lips, and she began to weep against my shoulder. Before I could even straighten up, Sarah’s sharp laugh sliced through the air. “Oh, please, David. How much did you pay her to put on this little sob story? Do you really think we’re that gullible?” She stepped closer, her eyes flashing with disdain. “You hired an actress to bring a sick kid to the lobby just to save your reputation? It’s pathetic. If you want to keep operating, it’s simple: get on your knees, apologize to Evelyn Fletcher, and return the money. Otherwise, stop the theater.” She had no idea what Joey’s chart looked like. She didn’t care. To her, every human life in this building had become a prop in her war against me. “Sarah, shut up,” I said, my voice dropping to a register that made even the nearby security guards tensed. “If I am banned from the OR, Joey dies. If Zach’s condition worsens and I am not there, he dies too. Do you understand the stakes of what you are doing?” “Threatening me now? Pathetic,” she sneered. She turned to the young mother, her voice rising. “Ma’am, this man is using your child. He doesn’t care about your son. He only cares about his status!” “That’s a lie!” the mother screamed, her maternal instinct taking over. “He’s the only one who didn’t give up on my boy!” In a flash of pure, ugly frustration, Sarah reached out and shoved the woman back. The mother stumbled, dropping her purse, and Joey let out a sharp, terrified cry. That was the breaking point. The mother lunged forward, grabbing Sarah’s hair, and the two women collided, tumbling into the security desk. The lobby erupted into chaos. Dr. Reynolds appeared again, looking gray and exhausted. He grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the melee. “David, get out of here. Go home. I’ll handle the crowd, but you cannot be on campus right now.” “What about Joey’s surgery?” I demanded. “I’ll find someone else to assist,” Reynolds said, though we both knew there was no one else. “Just go.” I left through the basement exit, but the nightmare followed me home. By nightfall, the video of the lobby brawl had gone viral. Local influencers had set up live streams outside the hospital doors, blocking the ambulances and shouting at patients entering the clinic. The hospital’s website crashed under the weight of thousands of angry comments demanding my immediate termination. My mentor, Dr. Pendelton, released a statement defending my integrity, explaining the standard nature of consulting fees. Within hours, the online mob turned on him too, calling him an “enabler of institutional greed.” Late that night, Dr. Pendelton called me. “Don’t read the forums, David,” his voice was old, but steady. “They don’t understand the work we do. This will blow over once the board reviews the contracts. Rest your hands. We need you sharp.” “I’m sorry, Arthur,” I whispered, staring out the window of my dark living room. “I’m so sorry they dragged you into this.” “Nonsense. You’re my best student. Go to sleep.” At midnight, Dr. Reynolds called again. He told me to stay home the next day to let the dust settle. “We’ve reassigned Joey’s case to Dr. Higgins,” Reynolds said quietly. My heart sank. Higgins was a competent general neurosurgeon, but he didn’t have the micro-vascular training for a brainstem scar resection. “Reynolds, don’t do this,” I pleaded. “Higgins can’t navigate that corridor. Let me go in as an advisor.” “The board won’t allow it, David. I’m sorry.” 4 The call came at ten the next morning. It was a resident I had mentored, his voice cracking over the line. “Dr. Miller… Joey is gone. Dr. Higgins hit a branch of the basilar artery during the dissection. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. He died on the table.” The phone felt heavy in my hand. I sat down on the edge of the unmade bed, the silence of the apartment crushing me. Joey was five. He had had a whole life ahead of him, a mother who loved him fiercely, and he had died because of a political game. He had died because my wife wanted to prove a point. A few minutes later, the front door unlocked. Sarah walked in. She was humming a soft tune, placing her car keys on the counter. She must have heard me talking, because she peeked into the bedroom, her face bright with a sickening satisfaction. “Hear about the kid?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe. “I guess your ‘actress’ wasn’t very lucky. That’s what happens when you try to play God, David. Karma is a bitch.” I stood up, my vision tunneling into a red haze. I walked toward her, my hands shaking so violently I had to shove them into my pockets to keep from grabbing her by the throat. “He was five years old, Sarah,” I said, my voice shaking with a rage so deep it felt ancient. “He wasn’t an actor. He was a child. And he is dead because you blocked his surgeon.” She rolled her eyes, turning toward the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. “Oh, please. People die in hospitals every day. Don’t try to pin this on me. If you had just apologized to Zach’s family, none of this would have happened.” Before I could answer, my phone rang again. It was Dr. Reynolds. “David,” he gasped, his voice completely breathless, frantic. “Get to the ER now. It’s Dr. Pendelton. He’s been hurt.” I didn’t look at Sarah. I grabbed my jacket and ran out the door. When I reached the hospital lobby, the scene was a war zone. Police barricades had been erected, and blue lights flashed against the glass facade. Inside the trauma bay, Reynolds met me, his scrub top covered in blood. “What happened?” I demanded, my chest heaving. “He came to the hospital to deliver his clinical logs to the board,” Reynolds said, his eyes wild with grief. “The protesters… they recognized him from the streams Sarah did. They surrounded his car. Someone pushed him. He fell down the concrete steps of the plaza. He hit his head, David. It’s a massive subdural hematoma with a midline shift.” My mind went entirely blank. Arthur. The man who had been a second father to me, who had taught me how to hold a needle, how to breathe through a crisis. “Where is he? Let me in the OR.” “The board…” Reynolds started, but I grabbed his collar, pulling him close. “I don’t give a damn about the board! He is going to die if we don’t evacuate that clot right now! You know none of your other attendings can do this under pressure!” “I’m sorry, David,” a cold voice cut through the trauma bay. Sarah was standing in the doorway, flanked by three security guards and a local news reporter holding a live-streaming phone. “The rules apply to everyone, even your precious mentor,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy. “Dr. Miller is suspended. If the hospital allows a suspended doctor to operate on a high-profile patient, the liability will destroy this institution. We have to think of the hospital’s reputation.” The reporter was broadcasting everything. I could see the screen—the live chat was moving at lightning speed, filled with comments calling me a “killer” and demanding I stay away from the patient. Dr. Reynolds looked at the camera, then at me. The courage drained from his face. “David… I can’t,” he whispered. “The board’s directive is absolute. If I let you in, they will pull our trauma certification.” He turned to the on-call neurosurgeon, a mid-level attending named Dr. Carter. “Carter, you’re primary. Get him to OR 4.” I watched them wheel Arthur’s gurney down the red-line hallway. I wanted to fight, to scream, to break through the doors, but three security guards kept their hands on their holsters, their eyes fixed on me. Sarah leaned against the wall, watching the gurney disappear. She turned her head slightly to ensure the reporter was out of earshot, then whispered to me: “He’s going to die, David. And everyone is going to know he died because you were too proud to apologize to Zach. How does it feel to watch the person who built you crumble because of your own arrogance?” My blood ran cold. The sheer, calculated malice in her eyes was something I had never seen in a human being before. “Sarah,” I said, my voice empty of all warmth, all history, all humanity. “If Zach’s condition worsens… don’t you dare come looking for me.” She smirked, tossing her hair. “Please. Zach is doing fine. Dr. Carter said his vitals are stable. We will never need you again.” Two hours later, Dr. Carter stepped out of the operating room. He didn’t look at me. He walked straight to the sink, put his hands under the water, and let his head fall. Arthur was dead. I walked into the quiet recovery bay where his body lay under a white sheet. I knelt beside the metal gurney, my forehead resting against the cold iron railing, and I wept. I wept for the boy Joey, for the giant Arthur, and for the ten years I had wasted loving a monster. The curtain pulled back. Sarah stood there, her phone still in her hand. But the smugness was gone. Her face was white, her lips trembling. “David…” she choked out, dropping to her knees beside me, her hands grabbing my arm, her forehead slamming against the linoleum in a frantic, desperate gesture of submission. “David, please… I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m so sorry. You have to save Zach. He’s herniating. His mother just called—his pupils are blown. He’s going to die if you don’t do the second-stage surgery right now.”

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My mother was dying. The hospital had issued three critical condition notices in a single night, each one a desperate plea for a family member’s signature. I was three hundred miles away on a business trip, frantically calling my wife, Lily. I begged her to go to the hospital, to sign the consent forms, to give my mother a fighting chance at surgery. Her refusal was ice-cold. “I have a crisis at the office, Ethan. I can’t just drop everything and take a personal day.” “Your mom has always been healthy,” she added, her voice dripping with annoyance. “People don’t just drop dead of a heart attack out of nowhere. I’ll check on her tomorrow. Stop being so dramatic.” I drove through the night, pushing my car to its limits. When I finally burst through the hospital doors at 3:00 AM, I didn’t find my mother in recovery. I found a gurney in a quiet hallway, covered by a sterile white sheet. As I collapsed over her body, my chest heaving with a grief that felt like physical mutilation, my phone buzzed. A notification from Instagram. Lily had just posted a photo. She was at a dimly lit cocktail bar, glowing under the neon lights, her head resting intimately on another man’s shoulder. The caption read: “Sometimes the ‘work’ is worth the overtime. ;)” That was her “crisis.” That was her “emergency.” 1 When Lily walked through the front door the following evening, I was carefully placing my mother’s urn into a custom-made glass display case I’d ordered. The soft thud of the glass settling caught her attention immediately. She didn’t offer a hug or ask how the drive was. She didn’t even mention the hospital. “What is that? Some hideous souvenir you picked up on your trip?” She walked over, her brow furrowed in distaste. “Seriously, Ethan? I’m the one who has to dust this place. Can you stop buying junk? It’s so childish.” I looked up at her. This was the woman who, just last night, had been playing the doting companion for Marcus Higgins, laughing over expensive martinis. For him, she was all smiles and grace. For me, she was a critic who couldn’t even be bothered to wipe a countertop in the ten years we’d been married. My silence made her squirm. She cleared her throat, looking at the fine, grey powder visible through the glass. “What’s even in there? It looks like literal dirt.” “Ashes,” I said. “What?” She jumped back, a flash of genuine shock crossing her face. “Whose?” I carefully adjusted the case in the corner of the living room before looking her in the eye. “My mother’s.” Because I wasn’t screaming or throwing furniture, Lily decided I must be playing some sick joke. She rolled her eyes and actually kicked my shin—not hard, but enough to show her contempt. “Oh, grow up. That’s a disgusting thing to lie about. You’re being a freak.” She slumped onto the sofa, but then her eyes caught the silver bangle sitting on the coffee table. It was an old, tarnished piece of jewelry my mother had worn every day since I was a boy. “And this? More trash?” Lily picked it up by the tip of her fingers, as if it were a used tissue. Seeing the slight dent in the metal and the dark patina of age, she hissed. “Do you think money grows on trees? You went on a business trip and came back with pawn-shop garbage.” She threw the bracelet at me. I scrambled to catch it, but it hit the floor with a metallic ring. My heart shattered with it. The weeks of suppressed agony, the image of that white sheet, and the sight of her in that bar all surged into my throat. “It was my mother’s!” I roared. Lily flinched, her eyes wide. She’d never heard me raise my voice like that. Not once in a decade. But instead of apologizing, she grabbed her designer bag and headed back for the door. “Don’t you yell at me!” she snapped, her face turning a blotchy red. “If you can’t act like a civilized human being, I’m not staying here.” The door slammed so hard the glass in the display case rattled. I had spent ten years worshiping the ground Lily walked on. I had been the “perfect” husband—the one who cooked, cleaned, and looked the other way when her “work meetings” with Marcus lasted until midnight. I’d told myself to be a man, to trust her, to be the rock of the family. But the moment she left my mother to die alone so she could have a drink with her lover, the man I used to be died, too. I picked up the bracelet, tucked it into my pocket, and called a divorce attorney recommended by an old friend. 2 I was leaving the law firm when Lily called. No apology. Just a command. “Ethan, get over to the medical center on 4th Street. Now. I need you to pick us up.” I remembered the lawyer’s advice: Keep a record. Stay close. Gather the evidence. “I’m on my way,” I said. When I pulled up to the curb, Lily wasn’t alone. She was flanked by Marcus Higgins and a frail-looking older woman I recognized from Marcus’s social media—his mother. Lily pulled open the back door of my SUV, ushering Marcus’s mother inside. “Ethan, Marcus’s mom isn’t feeling well. She needed some tests done, and she’s going to be staying in the city for a few days to see a specialist. I told them we’d help out.” Marcus’s mother didn’t even look at me. She just sat in my car as if I were a hired chauffeur. Marcus leaned his elbows on my window frame, a smug, punchable grin on his face. “Hey, Ethan. Appreciate the lift, man. I heard you just got back from that trip. Rough timing, having to play Uber driver as soon as you get home, huh?” I felt the bile rise in my throat. I didn’t say a word. Lily climbed into the passenger seat and shoved my shoulder. “Marcus is talking to you, Ethan. Where are your manners? Don’t be so grumpy.” “Can we go?” I asked, my voice flat. “Wait!” Marcus’s mother piped up from the back, tapping Lily on the shoulder. “Lily, dear, can’t Marcus drive? I get so anxious riding with strangers. My heart, you know…” She stared at me in the rearview mirror, her eyes full of calculated malice. She was trying to kick me out of my own driver’s seat. 3 I looked at Lily. Marcus was a “stranger” to her six months ago, yet here he was, practically part of the family. The audacity of this trio was breathtaking. Lily looked at me, her expression pleading but firm. She actually wanted me to move. I let out a short, dry laugh. “Fine. If it’s an ’emergency,’ I’ll let the pro take over.” I stepped out of the car. Marcus didn’t even try to hide his triumph as he slid behind the wheel of my car. They probably thought they were winning—that Lily’s blatant favoritism was a sign of the new life they were building. They had no idea I was already gone. I took a cab home. An hour later, Lily walked through the door alone. She looked at me and immediately started barking orders again. “Ethan, Marcus and his mom want to go to the hospital to visit your mother. They’re dropping their bags at the hotel now. Go put on something decent and get the car ready.” “No,” I said. Lily’s face contorted. “I already promised them, Ethan! You’re making me look like a liar. Are you doing this on purpose?” “My mother doesn’t know them. They’re strangers. There’s no reason for them to ‘visit’ her.” “Marcus is my partner at work!” she yelled. “And his mother is a saint. She’s sick herself and yet she still wants to show her respects. Why are you always so small-minded? It’s exhausting!” I almost laughed. I had tolerated her “partnership” with Marcus for a year, and now she was calling me small-minded? I stood up and started walking toward the bedroom. I was done talking. “Ethan! Don’t you walk away from me!” Lily grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin. “Just because your mom is sick doesn’t give you a free pass to be a prick!” She grabbed the electric kettle from the kitchen counter and hurled it at the floor in a fit of rage. The plastic shattered, and a spray of scalding water hit my right forearm. The pain was instant and agonizing. I gasped, stumbling back as the skin began to blister and peel. Lily froze. The sight of my arm—raw and red—seemed to snap her out of her tantrum. “Oh my god… Ethan… let me… I’ll help.” She grabbed some gauze and wrapped it clumsily. “I’ll drive you to the ER.” “Fine,” I grunted, the pain making my vision swim. As we reached the car, I reached for the passenger door. Lily suddenly lunged forward, trying to block me. “Wait! Don’t—” Too late. I looked at the dashboard. There was a photo taped there—the one I’d kept in the car for years. It was a picture of the night I proposed to Lily. We were both so young, so full of hope. But now, my face had been blacked out with a Sharpie. Written across my chest in jagged letters were the words: Cuckold Loser. Before I could process the insult, Lily slammed the door shut. She didn’t realize my hand was still on the frame. The sound of my bones cracking was louder than the door. I fell to my knees, the pain in my arm and my hand merging into a white-hot scream. Lily didn’t apologize. She huffed, a sound of pure irritation. “I told you to wait! This is your own fault, Ethan. I’m trying to handle this, and you just won’t listen. You’re so clumsy.” “That…” she added, looking at the door, “that was just a stupid game Marcus and I played. A dare. It was a joke, Ethan. Don’t make it a thing.” 4 There is no “game” that ends with writing “Cuckold” on a man’s face unless the people playing it despise him. Lily knew that. But she still chose to protect Marcus. Strangely, the physical pain was so intense it actually numbed my heart. “It’s fine,” I said, cradling my mangled hand. “It’s just a photo. It doesn’t matter. Just take me to the hospital.” Lily looked stunned. She was used to me exploding, used to the tears and the accusations. My calmness clearly unnerved her. In the ER, as the doctor was cleaning the burns on my arm, Lily’s phone chimed. She answered it immediately. “Hey, Marcus,” she said, her voice turning soft and melodic. “Lily, my mom just made some of that seafood bisque you love. I saved a bowl for you. You coming over?” “I’ll be right there,” she whispered. She stood up to leave, forgetting she was supposed to be holding the ice pack against my arm. The doctor stopped her. “Wait, he needs help with his mobility for a few minutes. Can you stay?” Lily rolled her eyes at me. “He has another hand, doesn’t he? He can hold it himself.” She turned to me, her face a mask of disgust. “You men are so needy. Do you really think the world stops because you have a couple of scratches? If I hadn’t driven you here, you’d probably have let it get infected just to spite me.” She pivoted on her heel, her bag hitting the corner of the table and jarring my arm. I let out a sharp cry of pain. I heard her mutter the word “Pathetic” as she disappeared down the hallway. I sat there, holding my ruined hand with my burned arm, feeling the cold drip of the IV. I checked my phone. Lily had posted another update. It was a photo of her, Marcus, and his mother sitting around a cozy table. In the center was a steaming pot of bisque. The caption: “Sharing with the family I chose. #Blessed” I looked at her smile—the one I hadn’t seen in years. I hit the “Like” button and turned off the screen.

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While the woman I called my wife—The Honorable Judge Sloane Sinclair—was in the next room, weeping with joy as she held the hand of the man she truly loved, I was becoming a corpse in the room next door. She had no idea that his life had been bought with mine. Instead, she sent a flurry of cold, sharp texts to my silent phone: “Consider yourself lucky. If anything happens to Oliver, I’m filing the divorce papers tonight.” “Now get over here and apologize to him. If your attitude is right, I might consider tearing up the settlement.” I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Instead, the ER surgeon who had tried to restart my heart dialed her number. “Is this the wife of Ethan Miller? I’m so sorry to inform you, but your husband has just passed away. We couldn’t stabilize him after the complications from the procedure.” Sloane’s response was a sharp, brittle laugh. “Is he really that desperate for attention? Oliver just woke up, and Ethan is already playing these pathetic games? Tell him he has three minutes to get his ass in here and apologize to Oliver, or he’ll never see me again.” She didn’t need to worry about the divorce papers anymore. She had used her seat on the bench and every legal connection she had to essentially “sentence” me to give a kidney to Oliver Kent, the one who got away. Now that the debt was paid in blood, there was nothing left for me to say. 1 While Sloane sat by Oliver’s bed, I was lying on a cold steel table, watching the light fade. Tubes snaked out of me like parasitic vines. The rhythm of the machines was the only thing keeping count of my final seconds. Then, the long, continuous beep of the EKG signaled my exit. At that exact moment, the news traveled down the hall: Oliver’s transplant was a success. The “Emergency” light outside my room flickered off, and my eyes closed for the last time. Perhaps it was the sheer weight of my resentment, but my soul didn’t move on. It lingered, tethered to Sloane. I watched her embrace Oliver. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her voice thick with an emotion she had never once granted me in our five years of marriage. My heart—or what was left of it—sank. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to ask if, when we were both being wheeled into those twin operating rooms, she had felt even a flicker of fear for me. But I knew the answer. It was Sloane who had brought the full weight of the law down on me. She had hired the most ruthless litigators, used her influence to validate a coerced “voluntary” donation agreement, and presided over my social execution before the physical one even began. I remembered the transition into the OR. The terror had been a cold stone in my gut. I had called her one last time, my voice trembling, begging for a scrap of mercy. “Sloane, please… I’m scared. I don’t want to do this. It hurts, Sloane. I feel like I’m dying.” I had never bowed to her like that. I thought if I finally broke, if I took the blame for every imaginary sin she accused me of, she might remember she loved me. I thought five years might buy me my life. But her voice over the phone had been like dry ice. “Apologizing is the bare minimum, Ethan. Saving Oliver’s life is the only meaningful thing you’ve ever done. Don’t think this gets you off the hook for how you’ve treated him. We’ll settle the rest when he’s recovered.” “I think I’m dying, Sloane,” I whispered. “Then apologize to him before you do!” she snapped. I had tried to speak, to tell her I never did the things Oliver claimed, but the anesthesia took my voice. “You disgust me,” she had said, right before the line went dead. As the dial tone hummed, my love for her—a five-year flame—went out. She called me disgusting, yet on our wedding day, she had looked me in the eye and told me I was her “always,” her “exception.” It turns out I was just a placeholder until Oliver Kent decided he needed a spare part. 2 Sloane’s hand moved over Oliver’s face with a tenderness that felt like a physical blow to my ghost. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “Thank God… you’re here.” The exhaustion in her eyes told me she hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours, praying for his survival. Did she even realize her husband was already cold? Oliver offered a weak, pale smile. “Sloane… you shouldn’t have stayed up. I’m so sorry. Where’s Ethan? Is he still angry? I need to go talk to him. I need to make things right.” He made a performative show of trying to sit up. It was so transparently fake that any objective observer would have seen the act. But Sloane wasn’t objective. She gently pressed him back into the pillows, stroking his hair. “Hush. Ethan is the one who needs to apologize, not you. You’re too good for your own health, Oliver. People take advantage of that kindness.” A nurse walked in, checking the monitors. She looked at the two of them and smiled sadly. “You two are clearly very close. Your wife didn’t leave that hallway once while you were under, Mr. Kent.” Oliver turned a performative shade of pink. Sloane stiffened for a second, but she didn’t correct the nurse. She let the world believe she belonged to him. The nurse’s expression then darkened as she sighed. “It’s a shame about the man in the next suite. He went in alone, died alone. Not a single family member came to claim him. It’s heartbreaking.” I saw a shadow cross Sloane’s face. For a fleeting second, I hoped. Connect the dots, Sloane. Realize it’s me. But she just let out a shallow breath. “That is… unfortunate.” My soul felt grey. She was so consumed by her “pedestal boy” that I didn’t even exist as a possibility in her mind. As they wheeled Oliver to his recovery room, Sloane paused by the doors of my OR. She glanced inside. My body was there, draped in a white sheet, feet pointed toward the door. She couldn’t see my face, but she could see my ankle. If she had looked closer, she would have seen the faint, jagged scar there—the one I got five years ago when I pulled her out of the wreckage of a car accident. But she kept walking. 3 While Sloane was settling Oliver into his room, a woman burst through the hospital’s double doors. Mia Miller. She ran past Sloane, who didn’t even turn around. Mia reached my bedside, her hands shaking as she touched my cold arm. She tried to stroke my hair, but when her fingers met my frozen forehead, she broke. “You idiot,” she sobbed, two tracks of tears carving paths through the dust on her face. “If you had just married me like we joked about when we were kids, you wouldn’t be lying here alone.” My heart ached. Mia had clearly driven straight from the airport. She had moved to Chicago years ago because she couldn’t stand to watch me marry Sloane. She told me Sloane would never truly accept her, and she didn’t want to be the “foster-sister baggage” that ruined my marriage. I was an orphan. The Millers had taken me in when I was seven. Mia was their biological daughter, my sister in every way that mattered, though I knew her feelings had shifted as we got older. I had broken my foster parents’ hearts to be with Sloane. They wanted me to marry into a family that could help the business; they saw me as an investment. Mia was the one who helped me pack my bags and leave. She was the only one who ever loved me without a price tag. Mia began the paperwork to take my body. Meanwhile, Sloane was headed out to get Oliver’s favorite cupcakes from a bakery thirty miles away. Oliver had mentioned a craving, and Sloane didn’t hesitate. I remembered asking Sloane to grab a bag of takeout on her way home once when I had the flu. She had told me she was “too tired to make extra stops.” Mia and Sloane collided in the hallway near the exit. My body was being wheeled out on a gurney between them. “Watch it,” Mia snapped. Her voice was jagged glass. She knew Sloane had killed me, even if the law called it a “complication.” Sloane’s eyes narrowed. She recognized Mia. “Move, Mia. I’m in a hurry.” Sloane took a step back, showing a superficial respect for the dead on the gurney, but as Mia turned to follow the porter, Sloane’s eyes snagged on my exposed ankle. “Wait!” Sloane called out, her voice suddenly sharp. “Who… who is that? Who died?” 4 My breath hitched—or the ghost of it did. I was caught between wanting Mia to scream the truth and wanting her to keep Sloane in the dark. Mia was silent for a long beat. Then, she looked Sloane dead in the eye. “He was my husband.” I froze. Sloane looked like she had been slapped. She knew everything about my past, including the fact that Mia had been in love with me. “When did you get married?” Sloane blurted out. Mia let out a cold, sharp laugh. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Judge Sinclair.” Sloane’s face twisted into a sneer. “All those years of crying about Ethan, and you moved on that quickly? I guess your ‘devotion’ was as shallow as I thought.” Mia stopped walking. She turned back, her gaze burning a hole through Sloane’s designer coat. “Compared to you, Sloane? I haven’t even begun to show what I’m capable of.” The sarcasm was a blunt instrument. Even Sloane felt the hit. But I didn’t stay to see her reaction. I followed Mia and my own cold remains. I realized, with a strange sense of relief, that I didn’t love Sloane anymore.

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