Author: Momo Chan

I was in the middle of closing a nine-figure patent deal when my wife’s new intern burst into the boardroom and demanded I go out and buy him breakfast. Looking at the lead investor’s darkening expression, I didn’t hesitate. I tore into the intern right there, telling him to get the hell out of my sight. It took ten minutes of frantic apologies and a one-percent equity concession to smooth things over, but I finally secured the deal—the one project that would pull our company back from the brink of bankruptcy. Exhausted but triumphant, I headed toward my wife’s office to share the news, clutching the signed partnership agreement like a lifeline. Instead, she met me in the lobby. In front of the entire staff, she swung her hand and slapped me—hard—twice. “You cold-blooded bastard,” Victoria hissed, her eyes welling with a fury I didn’t recognize. “Is money the only thing that exists in that head of yours?” I stared at her, my cheek stinging. “Victoria, what are you—” “Do you have any idea that Tyler almost died because of you?” That was how I found out that Tyler, the intern, had been rushed to the hospital for a “hypoglycemic episode” because he hadn’t eaten breakfast. But as I looked past her, I saw Tyler’s desk. Sitting right there, in plain view, was the Coke and the Snickers bar I had bought for him earlier that morning when he’d complained of feeling lightheaded. I looked back at Victoria. Her face was contorted with a protective rage for a boy she’d known for three weeks, while I stood there, the man who had built her empire for ten years, feeling my heart turn to ash. After a long, hollow silence, I finally found my voice. “Victoria,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I want a divorce.” … The words seemed to hang in the air for a second too long. Victoria’s expression froze, a flicker of genuine shock crossing her features. Then, she reached out and grabbed a bucket of grey, stagnant water from the cleaning cart parked nearby. Before I could react, she heaved it over my head. The cold, foul-smelling liquid drenched me instantly. My white dress shirt turned translucent, clinging to my skin, heavy with the stench of floor cleaner and old grime. The office went silent. It was the kind of silence that rings in your ears. I stood there, drenched, water dripping from my hair and stinging my eyes, completely humiliated in front of every person who worked for me. Victoria pointed a trembling finger at me, her voice trembling with vitriol. “You’re clearly not thinking straight. Consider that a wake-up call.” I gripped the damp patent agreement in my hand, my fingers icy. A wave of bitter grief crashed over me, and for the first time in a decade, I didn’t swallow my pride. I bit back. “Do you have any idea what this project was for, Victoria? That bonus was supposed to pay for my mother’s surgery. It’s her life-saving money.” I stepped closer, the smell of the dirty water rising between us. “What could possibly be more important than keeping this company from folding? Than keeping my mother alive? Tyler had a Snickers bar on his desk. He chose not to eat it. Half the staff was sitting idle in the breakroom, yet he chose to barge into a high-stakes board meeting to ask the Executive VP for a bagel? Let’s be real—why the hell am I supposed to be playing delivery boy for an intern?” Victoria’s face went pale, then flushed a deep, ugly purple. She was speechless for a heartbeat before she sneered. “If you want that money so badly, fine. I’m telling you now: you won’t see a single cent of that bonus. I’m giving the entire commission to Tyler as a ‘hardship’ grant.” I felt a physical jolt in my chest. I couldn’t believe these words were coming from the woman I’d loved for ten years. “You have no right.” She looked at me with pure, unadulterated disdain. “Your mother already has one foot in the grave, Mike. Does the money even matter at this point? Tyler is young. He has a future. Giving him that money will be a good lesson for you—to take that arrogant ego of yours down a notch.” The words felt like a serrated blade twisting in my heart. I leaned against the wall to keep from collapsing, tears finally escaping despite my best efforts to hold them back. This company didn’t belong to her. Not really. It was built on the patents my mother had spent her life developing—patents she’d earned while being exposed to toxic radiation in labs for decades. That radiation was exactly why she was dying of cancer now. I had destroyed my health for this project. I’d spent months networking, drinking myself into a stomach ulcer at corporate dinners just to get an audience with an investor of this caliber. And now… “Victoria,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten how you had nothing? How you sat in my mother’s kitchen and begged her to let you use her intellectual property to start this firm? She loved me, so she pitied you. she gave you those core patents for free. For twelve years, she didn’t ask for a dime. Doesn’t it hurt you, even a little, to speak about her like that?” The lobby remained deathly quiet. My voice echoed off the glass walls. I could see the employees shifting uncomfortably, their eyes darting between us. “That’s cold, even for the CEO,” I heard someone whisper. “Tyler didn’t even ask us for food… why did he go to Mike?” “The company wouldn’t even exist without Mike’s mom…” The murmurs hit Victoria like physical blows. Her face shifted through a dozen emotions—embarrassment, regret, and finally, a hardened, defensive pride. “Mike, I… I didn’t mean it like that,” she started, her tone softening just a fraction. But she didn’t get to finish. The heavy glass doors at the entrance swung open. Tyler was being practically carried in by two of our security guards. He looked pale, leaning heavily on them, his eyes wide and brimming with performative sorrow. “Please, don’t fight,” he whimpered, his voice cracking perfectly. “It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered the Vice President for something as trivial as breakfast.” He looked at me, his lip trembling. “A person like me… my life isn’t worth anything. I’m not worth this kind of trouble. Please, don’t be angry at her because of me.” He started to sob, his knees buckling as if he were about to drop to the floor in front of me. “It’s my fault! I’m useless! I should just jump off the roof and stay out of everyone’s way!” He wailed, making a clumsy break for the floor-to-ceiling windows. Victoria’s face transformed. She lunged forward, catching him in a tight embrace, pulling him back toward her. “Tyler! Stop! Don’t you dare! I’m here, okay? I’ve got you!” In the scuffle, the top button of Victoria’s silk blouse popped. As she held him, I saw them. Scattered across her collarbone and disappearing into the hollow of her throat were dark, unmistakable marks. Fresh hickeys. Faded bruises. We hadn’t slept in the same bed in over a month. Suddenly, everything clicked. The late nights. The scent of expensive cologne on her clothes that wasn’t mine. The guarded phone. The strange credit card charges. She was sleeping with him. She was throwing away a decade of marriage for a boy who played the victim as easily as he breathed. I felt a phantom chill settle into my bones. Breathing became a chore. Victoria caught me staring at her neck. For a split second, panic flickered in her eyes, followed immediately by a defensive, ugly anger. “Mike, stop bringing up the past like it’s some kind of shield,” she snapped, adjusting her collar. “I run this company now. You answer to me.” She sneered, emboldened by the boy in her arms. “And stop lying. Your mother isn’t that sick. She told me herself she was doing fine. You’re just being dramatic to get your way.” The bitterness in my mouth tasted like copper. My mother had lied to Victoria because she didn’t want her to worry; she wanted Victoria to focus on the company’s success. But anyone who cared enough to ask a doctor would know she was weeks away from total organ failure without surgery. “Since you seem to think being Vice President gives you the right to be a bully,” Victoria continued, her voice cold as steel, “you’re demoted. Effective immediately. You’ll be Tyler’s personal assistant. You can spend your days getting himcoffee and learning some damn humility.” The humiliation of the day, the betrayal of her affair, and the insult to my dying mother finally snapped something inside me. I lost control. I lunged forward, my hand swinging toward Tyler’s smug, weeping face. “Security!” Victoria screamed. “Restrain him!” Two large guards tackled me instantly, pinning my arms behind my back and forcing me to my knees on the wet carpet. Victoria’s eyes were black with malice. “You want to get violent? Fine. Teach him a lesson. Don’t stop until he’s ‘lucid’ again.” The first slap caught me across the jaw. Then another. And another. I lost count after ten. My lip split. My cheeks burned like they were on fire. My ears rang with a high, piercing whistle, and my vision began to go dark at the edges. Victoria turned to the staff, her voice booming. “If a single word of this leaves this room, you’re fired and blacklisted. Am I clear?” The guards threw me to the ground like a bag of trash. Drenched in foul water, blood, and tears, I looked like a stray dog. I tried to push myself up, but Victoria stepped into my line of sight. She knelt down, whispering so only I could hear. “Mike, if you even think about calling the cops, I will personally pull the funding for your mother’s hospice care. I’ll let her rot.” My heart constricted. My mother had been a professor her whole life—frugal, kind, giving everything she had to charity or to Victoria’s startup. She had nothing left. I clenched my teeth, swallowing the bile and the sobs. I had no choice. I stumbled out of the building and hailed a cab to the hospital. But as I reached the oncology ward, my phone buzzed. It was my mother’s doctor. “Mr. Vaughn, I’m so sorry,” the doctor said, his voice frantic. “Your mother’s medication… the payment was cancelled. We’ve been ordered to cease treatment.” I started shaking. I dialed Victoria’s number with trembling fingers. She picked up on the second ring. “Consider this a taste of what happens when you don’t listen,” she said coolly. “Be at the office tomorrow morning to assist Tyler, or she doesn’t get another drop of morphine.” In the background, I heard Tyler’s playful giggle. “Victoria, babe, can we do that Omakase place for dinner?” The line went dead. I stood in the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway of the hospital and finally collapsed. I curled into a ball on the floor and sobbed until my throat was raw. I pulled out my wallet and took out the savings card I’d been contributing to for ten years—my entire salary, meant for our retirement. I handed it to the billing nurse. She swiped it, then looked at me with pity. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vaughn. This account has been frozen. You’ll need the primary cardholder to authorize any release of funds.” The last of my strength left me. Twelve years of marriage. A decade of building a life. And in her eyes, I wasn’t even worth the cost of my mother’s breath. I had no choice. I wiped the tears from my face, gritted my teeth, and headed back to the office. By the time I arrived, the building was dark except for the penthouse suite. I reached the elevator, but the head of security blocked my path, looking at me with pure mockery. “VP Vaughn? Oh, wait. You’re the assistant now, right? What are you doing here after hours? Looking to steal something?” I didn’t have the energy to fight him. I pushed past him and ran for the stairs. As I approached the executive suite, the sounds coming from behind the mahogany doors were unmistakable. The soft, rhythmic creak of the desk. A man’s breathless moans. A woman’s low, guttural growl. “Victoria… slower… I can’t…” “What if that old man finds out? He’ll kill me,” Tyler’s voice teased. Victoria panted in response. “It doesn’t matter. He’s nothing without me. He has nowhere else to go.” My mother was dying in a cold hospital bed, and Victoria was using the desk I’d bought her to cheat with a boy half her age. Rage, pure and blinding, took over. I kicked the door open with a deafening crash. “Bang!” The scene inside was wretched. Victoria scrambled to pull a shirt over her shoulders, glaring at me. “Mike! Are you insane? You’re acting like a damn lunatic! Did you not learn your lesson this afternoon?” I was shaking so hard I could barely stand. Tears blurred my vision again. “Victoria… please. Just give me the money for her medicine. What do you want from me?” She smoothed her hair, reached into a drawer, and tossed a folder onto the desk. “Simple. Sign the patent transfer. Move the core intellectual property from your mother’s estate into my personal name.” She leaned forward. “The patents are still technically in her name, and that makes me nervous. Sign them over, and I’ll resume her treatment immediately.” I looked at the document. It was a death warrant. That patent was my mother’s legacy—the work that had literally given her cancer. “I won’t sign it. It’s hers. You’ve stolen enough from us.” “Fine. Have it your way.” Victoria’s expression went dark. She stepped toward me. I moved to back away, but a sudden, white-hot explosion of pain erupted at the back of my skull. The world tilted. Black spots flooded my vision. I slumped to my knees, turning my head just enough to see Tyler standing behind me, gripping a heavy metal paperweight. Victoria’s voice sounded miles away. “Let’s see if a few days of reflection makes you more cooperative. Let him see what Tyler had to go through.” She hooked her arm through Tyler’s, and they walked out, leaving me bleeding on the carpet. I lost consciousness as the door clicked shut. When I woke up, I was in total darkness. The air was thick with dust and the smell of mildew. I was in the basement archives—a concrete box with no windows and a heavy steel door. I was still in my wet, filthy shirt. I was shivering, my throat parched, my stomach cramping with hunger. I called out, but no one answered. All I could think about was my mother. Was she in pain? Was she scared? Was she… I curled into a corner and prayed. I don’t know how long I was in there. I drifted in and out of fever dreams, watching the sliver of light under the door fade and brighten twice. Two days. Two nights. Just as I felt my heart beginning to slow to a crawl, the door creaked open. An old janitor, someone who had worked for us since the beginning, had heard my weak scratching. He pulled me out, his eyes wide with horror. The moment I was free, I staggered to the street and hailed a cab. I borrowed the driver’s charger and plugged in my dead phone. The second it powered on, a message popped up. “Is this Professor Vaughn’s son? I’m one of her former PhD students. I’ve been tracking the patent she licensed to the Vaughn-Price Group. I see the license expires tonight. My firm, the Beaumont Syndicate, is prepared to offer $1.5 billion for a ten-year exclusive lease, plus a 51% royalty stake. Are you interested?” Before I could even process the number, the cab pulled up to the hospital. I ran inside, nearly crashing into my mother’s primary physician. “Where is she? Where’s my mother?” The doctor looked down, his face a mask of professional sorrow. “Mr. Vaughn… your mother was discharged two days ago. A young man came with a notarized directive from your wife. He said you couldn’t afford the private care anymore and that she would be ‘resting’ at home.” My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. “Who?” “A Mr. Tyler Evans. I tried to explain the severity of her condition, but he insisted.” I didn’t wait. I flew to my mother’s small apartment. The moment I pushed the door open, my world collapsed. My mother was lying on the cold hardwood floor of her living room. She looked small. Peaceful. Her skin was the color of winter marble. She wasn’t breathing. She was gone. While I was locked in a basement, while Victoria was celebrating her “victory,” my mother—the woman who had given everything to a world that took her for granted—had died alone, in the dark, without a single dose of the medicine she needed. I fell to my knees and pulled her cold body into my arms. I screamed until my lungs burned, until no sound came out but a jagged, hollow wheeze. I didn’t call Victoria. The next few days were a blur of cold rooms and paperwork. I moved like a ghost. On the final day of the wake, a woman in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit entered the funeral home. She walked up to the casket, bowed her head in genuine respect, and then turned to me. “Mr. Vaughn. My name is Serena Beaumont. I’m the one who messaged you.” She looked at my bruised face, my hollow eyes, and as I told her—in broken, halting sentences—what had happened, her expression hardened into something terrifyingly cold. “I had no idea,” she whispered. “I had been trying to reach her for weeks. I should have come sooner.” I shook my head. My mother had hidden her illness from everyone, including her students. She didn’t want to be a burden. I looked at Serena, my eyes bloodshot. “Ms. Beaumont… is that offer still on the table?” This patent was my mother’s life’s work. I would be damned if I let Victoria Price profit from her death for one more second. Serena nodded firmly. “It is.” The moment my pen hit the paper, my phone vibrated. A text from Victoria. “Have you had enough? Sign the transfer today, and I’ll tell the hospital to start the surgery. Don’t be a martyr, Mike. Think of your mom.” Looking at the screen, a hole opened up in my chest—a void of pure, cold hatred. My mother was already at the morgue, and Victoria was still using her ghost as a leash. Serena saw the message over my shoulder. She placed a hand on my trembling arm. “Don’t reply. If you want a monster to fall, you wait until they’re standing on the very edge of the cliff.” She was right. I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. I didn’t send a single word back. On the other side of town, Victoria paced her office, glancing at Tyler, who was lounging on her sofa. “He hasn’t replied. Tyler, are you sure the doctor said his mother was fine?” Tyler shifted, his eyes darting away for a split second. “Totally fine, babe. Just a bit of a cough and some fatigue. Mike is just a drama queen. He’s trying to guilt-trip you.” Victoria exhaled, a smug smile returning to her lips. “I knew it. He’s trying to play me.” She checked her reflection in the mirror. “It doesn’t matter. The IPO launch is the day after tomorrow. I’ll announce that the company has secured permanent ownership of the patents. Once it’s public record and the stock prices soar, it won’t matter what he says. I’ll throw him a few crumbs later, and he’ll come crawling back. He always does.” Tyler grinned, showing his teeth. “You’re brilliant, Victoria. We’re going to be the most powerful couple in the city.” The day of the Price Group IPO arrived. The grand ballroom of the Pierre Hotel was a sea of flashing lights and expensive champagne. Victoria stood on the stage, radiant in a red gown, the image of a titan of industry. She stepped up to the microphone, ready to announce the “permanent acquisition” of the core technology that would make her a billionaire. Suddenly, her secretary burst through the double doors, her face ashen, her hands shaking so hard she dropped her tablet. “Victoria! Stop! We have a massive problem!” Victoria frowned, her voice a sharp hiss through her forced smile. “Get off the stage, Sarah! What the hell are you doing?” “The patents!” Sarah cried out, her voice echoing through the silent room. “The license for Professor Vaughn’s tech expired at midnight. And…” Before she could finish, the giant screens behind Victoria—intended to show the rising stock ticker—flickered and changed. A headline from the Financial Times flashed in huge, bold letters: BEAUMONT SYNDICATE ACQUIRES EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO VAUGHN PATENTS IN $1.5 BILLION DEAL. PRICE GROUP LOSE CORE ASSETS. Below the headline was a crystal-clear photo of me and Serena Beaumont signing the documents. The room erupted. Investors stood up, shouting. The lead underwriters grabbed their phones, their faces pale. Victoria stood frozen, her mouth agape. “That’s… that’s impossible. It’s my mother-in-law. I’ll just call her. It’s a mistake!” Sarah looked at her with a mix of terror and pity. “Victoria… Professor Vaughn died four days ago.”

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My husband’s car was taking up my spot again. The nose of his silver Audi was shoved diagonally across the white paint, aggressively claiming two stalls. It was the third time this week. I didn’t call him. I didn’t text him to come down and move it. Instead, I pulled out my phone, recorded a quick ten-second video of the hack job, and posted it to my private Story. Seconds later, my phone buzzed. It was a DM from Jordan, the new intern at my firm—a kid who was barely twenty-three but had already cycled through eighteen girlfriends and considered himself an amateur profiler of the male psyche. “Look, Nat,” he wrote. “In my experience, this reeks of a distraction. If you still want to make it work, call him and tell him to move the car. If you’re done, go upstairs right now and open the bedroom door. Keep the camera rolling.” My hands went ice-cold. I walked toward the elevator, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I let myself into the penthouse, expecting… I don’t know. Chaos? Another woman’s shoes? But Chris was just sitting there, calm as a monk on the living room sofa, his laptop balanced on his knees as he hammered away at an email. The bedroom was empty. Crisp sheets, no lingering scent of perfume, nothing out of place. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, feeling a wave of self-loathing wash over me. You’re doing it again, Natalie. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. But then I looked closer, and my stomach dropped. The tie Chris was wearing—a navy silk with gold accents—wasn’t the red polka-dot one he’d put on this morning. And he never worked in the living room. He always, always used the home office. 1 I set my bag on the console table and kicked off my heels, trying to keep my voice from trembling. “Your car is blocking my spot again.” “Oh, sorry, babe,” Chris said, his tone relaxed, eyes never leaving the screen. “I got a frantic call from the creative team the second I pulled in. I had to get this copy edited immediately. I figured I’d go down and move it once you got close, but I got sucked in. I’ll go down in a second.” Everything he said sounded reasonable. Smooth. “Don’t bother. I parked on the street.” I sat down across from him, my pulse still racing. “Since when do you work in the living room?” “The lamp in the office started flickering. It was giving me a migraine.” He sensed my stare and finally paused, his fingers hovering over the keys. “Is something wrong?” “Where’s the red tie?” He looked down at his chest, then let out a small, tired laugh. “I was at lunch with a client and spilled a bit of espresso on it. It’s the one you got me for our anniversary, so I didn’t want the stain to set. I ran in and hand-washed it the second I got home.” He gave me that look—the one that usually melted me. Pleading, boyish, charming. “My fault for being a klutz. Don’t be mad, okay?” I walked over to the balcony. Sure enough, the red polka-dot tie was draped over the drying rack, dripping wet. It all made sense. Every single detail had a perfectly logical explanation. But the noise in my head wouldn’t stop. I started gnawing on my thumbnail, a habit I thought I’d kicked years ago. “Are you feeling okay, Nat? You look exhausted.” Before I realized he’d moved, Chris was kneeling in front of me. He gently pulled my hand away from my mouth. He sighed, pulling me into his arms, resting his chin on top of my head while he rubbed slow, rhythmic circles into my back. He knew. He knew the anxiety was clawing its way back up my throat. “Come here,” he whispered. “Where?” He led me by the hand to the office. He flipped the switch. The desk lamp flickered twice, a sharp, annoying strobe, before dying completely. The room was spotless. The trash can was empty. There wasn’t so much as a stray hair on the rug. “Feel better now?” he asked softly, his voice full of nothing but tender concern. I nodded, then shook my head. I didn’t know what I felt. He didn’t get frustrated. He led me back to the sofa, poured me a glass of room-temperature water, and pulled a small orange bottle from the side drawer. Xanax. The prescription my therapist had written three years ago. I’d stopped taking it months ago, but he always kept it ready. He held two tiny pills out to me. Suddenly, the air in the room felt too thick to breathe. The anxiety surged into a blind, white-hot panic. I jerked my hand away, knocking the glass out of his grip. Water splashed all over his expensive wool trousers. Chris froze. For a split second, I saw a flash of pure, bone-deep weariness in his eyes. My breath hitched. But true to form, he didn’t snap. He quietly picked up the glass, blotted the coffee table with a napkin, and reached out to ruffle my hair with a small, sad smile. “I’ll go make us some pasta,” he said. I curled into a ball on the sofa, watching his silhouette move through the kitchen. My eyes burned. I felt like a monster, a broken woman sabotaging her own happiness. And yet, the question kept looping in my mind: Is he cheating? I’d asked that question a thousand times three years ago. The answer then had been a definitive no. But the process of proving it had nearly killed me. Was I really going to do this to us again? I didn’t sleep. I spent the night staring at the ceiling, replaying his excuses about the parking spot and the tie until my brain felt like it was bleeding. The next morning, Chris left early. He left a plate of avocado toast on the counter with a Post-it note that had a little smiley face drawn on it. I couldn’t touch it. I walked out to the balcony and stared at the tie. It was mostly dry now. I took it down and examined it. It was clean, except for one tiny, microscopic white speck on the back of the narrow end, right near the label. Espresso is brown. Even a faded stain would be yellow. It wouldn’t be white. And why had he been in such a rush to hand-wash it yesterday while it was still dripping? Why not just toss it in the hamper for the housekeeper? On a whim, I lifted the silk to my nose. Underneath the scent of expensive detergent, there was a faint, unmistakable smell. The sour, slightly metallic scent of baby formula. 2 Holding that tie, I felt a string inside me snap. I stumbled into the storage closet, digging through dusty crates until I found the hidden nanny cam I’d bought years ago. When I finally found a spot for it on the bookshelf in Chris’s office, I stopped. There was a faint mark on the wood—residue from a piece of mounting tape. My own mark. From three years ago. My fingers were numb. My lips were numb. Three years had passed, and it turned out I had never actually gotten better. I wasn’t always “sick.” Three years ago, Chris had just been promoted to Creative Director and hired a new executive assistant. I hadn’t thought twice about it until their company retreat. A friend of mine who worked in the same building sent me a photo. It was a candid shot. Chris was at a grill, flipping burgers, and a woman with a sleek low ponytail was leaning in, gently dabbing sweat from his forehead with a tissue. The intimacy of the gesture was a knife to the gut. “Hey Nat, do you know the new assistant? Is this normal?” the text read. I zoomed in. I knew that face. Rachel Ward. Chris’s college sweetheart. The “one who got away.” When we first started dating, Chris had been honest about her. He told me she was the only woman he’d ever truly loved before me. At the time, I’d appreciated the honesty. That night, when he came home, I showed him the photo. He didn’t lie. He told me he’d run into Rachel working a dead-end job at a hotel. He felt sorry for her, and since the department needed a junior assistant, he gave her the role. “The photo? I wasn’t thinking, Nat. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” He was so sincere. The next day, he even brought Rachel to our apartment so she could apologize to me in person. I accepted it. But the seed was planted. A month later, I found a pair of black sheer tights wedged into the gap of the passenger seat in his car. That was the moment the “sickness” took hold. “Rachel’s tights ripped right before a big pitch meeting,” Chris explained, his voice calm and patient. “It looked unprofessional, so I stopped at a CVS so she could grab a new pair. She changed in the car because we were running late. Diane, the CFO, was in the back seat the whole time. Rachel must have just forgotten the old pair.” Diane confirmed the story. She even sent me a voice note. But I didn’t believe it. I wanted the truth, and I wanted it so badly I became a ghost in my own life. I stormed into his office one afternoon while Rachel was pouring him a cup of coffee. I grabbed the mug and threw the contents in her face, screaming every slur I could think of. Rachel didn’t fight back. She just cried. The entire office watched. That was the first time Chris ever raised his voice at me. He laid out his entire itinerary, his call logs, the sign-in sheets for the pitch meeting. “The evidence is right here, Natalie! What more do you want from me?” I couldn’t hear him. From that day on, I demanded a play-by-play of his life. What time did he leave? Who was he eating lunch with? If he didn’t answer his phone for an hour, I’d call him twenty times. I installed cameras. I tracked his GPS. People felt sorry for him. “Poor Chris.” “Rachel didn’t deserve that.” “Has Natalie… lost her mind?” I knew what they were saying. I couldn’t stop. The breaking point came when I forced him to fire Rachel. Usually gentle, Chris finally snapped. He threw his glass against the wall. He shouted something—I don’t even remember what. I just remember backing away, tripping over the coffee table, and hitting the floor hard. The blood started shortly after. I was lying in a hospital bed when I found out I had been three months pregnant. I lost the baby that night. The grief acted like a cold shower, breaking the fever of my paranoia. The doctors said my hormones had likely exacerbated my anxiety, creating a perfect storm of instability. Chris knelt by my bedside, crying for the first time. He gripped my hand like a lifeline. “Natalie, I give up. It’s all my fault. I never want to see you hurt like this again.” Rachel was gone. Chris promised there would never be another “trust crisis.” But as I sat on the floor of the office three years later, staring at the hidden camera, I felt sick. The green light was blinking, ready to record. One tiny white speck. A faint smell of milk. Was that enough to justify destroying myself all over again? I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the bookshelf. Two voices were screaming in my head. Natalie, when does the nightmare actually end? 3 I left work early and waited for Chris outside his building. When the elevator doors opened and he stepped out, laughing with a group of colleagues, I stepped forward. “Chris.” His smile faltered for a fraction of a second. “Natalie? What are you doing here?” “I realized we haven’t had a real dinner date in forever. I came to drive you home.” I tucked my arm through his, smiling at his coworkers. “Sorry for crashing the happy hour, guys. I’m stealing my husband for the night.” The atmosphere shifted instantly. Their expressions were guarded, tight. One of the younger guys actually took a step back, looking at me with something close to fear. My “meltdown” three years ago was clearly still a legend in these halls. Chris smoothed it over with a quick goodbye and led me toward the garage. At dinner, I kept it light. “How’s work? Did that project from last week wrap up?” “Yeah, finished. This week is mostly client maintenance. Lot of dinners, lot of golf.” “Wednesday too?” “Yeah. Full eighteen holes with the guys from the tech firm.” I nodded, then acted as if I’d just remembered something. “Oh, by the way, I heard you had your new assistant run some errands for you? What did you have her pick up?” Chris stopped mid-bite. He set his fork down and looked at me, his eyes darkening. “When did you talk to my assistant?” “I was waiting for you in the lobby today. The receptionist had her come down to keep me company.” “She’s a kid, Natalie. She’s fresh out of college and doesn’t know anything.” He was staring at me, searching for something. I smiled. “Relax. I didn’t interrogate her. I’m not that woman anymore.” I poked at my salad, my appetite gone. “I just feel like… we’re drifting, Chris.” Silence stretched between us. He reached across the table and squeezed my hand, his thumb stroking my knuckles. “I’ve just been so busy. I’m sorry.” I didn’t push it. That night, I told him I needed some space and slept in the guest room. I locked the door, propped myself up against the headboard, and opened my phone. While I was waiting in the lobby, the assistant—a mousy girl who looked like she was about to faint at the sight of me—had been incredibly jumpy. I hadn’t been mean. I’d just chatted. “I heard you’re a lifesaver with the errands,” I’d said. The girl had been so relieved I wasn’t screaming that she’d practically offered up her phone to show me how organized her shopping lists were. I’d taken a screenshot of the recent ones. Now, I zoomed in. Bottled water. Printer paper. Envelopes. Nespresso pods. All normal. And then: One box of Graham crackers. Two pouches of organic pear and spinach puree. I opened a grocery app and searched the brand. The reviews were full of moms talking about how much their toddlers loved the “no-spill” pouches. I stared at the screen until my eyes burned. The next day at noon, I walked into Chris’s office carrying a thermal bag. He looked up from a meeting, visibly startled. His colleagues scurried out like mice, whispering the moment they were in the hall. “She’s back. God, I feel so bad for him…” “It’s like a horror movie. The control she has.” Chris ignored them, closing his office door and turning to me. “Natalie, you can’t just show up during the middle of the day. It’s too much.” “I took the day off.” I set the bag on his desk and unzipped it. “I made you lunch.” His brow furrowed. “Natalie…” “Just open it.” He hesitated, then sighed and lifted the lid. He froze. Inside the container was a heap of Graham crackers and two pouches of pear puree. I gave him a thin, bright smile. “Baby food. Since you had your assistant buy it, I assumed you’d developed a taste for it.” 4 His face went white, then a mottled, angry red. “Not hungry?” I reached out and flipped the container over. The puree splattered across his mahogany desk and his expensive sleeve. “Then don’t eat it.” Chris shook his arm, his voice a low, dangerous hiss. “What is wrong with you? What kind of psychotic episode is this?” “Tell me why you bought it, Chris. Tell me who it’s for.” I didn’t flinch. “Are you seeing Rachel again?”

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Everyone in Manhattan’s upper crust knew that Roman Kensington’s wife had an IQ of exactly seventy-five. A mild cognitive delay, the specialists called it. So, when Roman slid the glossy sonogram printout across the mahogany dining table toward me, it took my brain a full three minutes to process it. The penthouse was dead silent, save for the low, expensive hum of the central air. “Roman,” I finally said, my voice quiet. “I just had my physical yesterday. I’m not pregnant.” He wouldn’t look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on the sprawling view of Central Park. “I know, Paige. This is… this is my child. With someone else.” Other high-society wives might have screamed. They might have shattered the Baccarat crystal or filed their nails into his chest. I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a sound. I was too busy trying to untangle the logic of it: Why would you have a baby with someone else when we are married? Roman must have mistaken my silence for submission. He leaned over the table, his large, warm hand smoothing down my hair. “That’s right. Just be my good, sweet girl,” he murmured. His voice was soft, the exact tone he used to soothe a frightened child. “The heir to the Kensington empire has to be sharp. Brilliant. And you know how you are…” He stopped himself, sighing. “Never mind. You probably don’t understand anyway. All you need to know is that your position as Mrs. Kensington will not change. Nothing will affect you.” A dull, needle-like ache bloomed slowly across my chest. I am slow. I know that. But a word surfaced in my mind from the television shows I watched. When a husband has a baby with another woman, it’s called cheating. And when a marriage derails like that, it is supposed to end. … 1 Roman lit a cigarette, his movements casual. “She’s a new junior analyst at the firm. But you actually know her. It’s Valerie.” Valerie. Of course I knew Valerie. I had paid for her entire Ivy League education through my foundation for the past seven years. The acrid smoke drifted across the kitchen island, curling into my face. It stung. A thick film of tears began to blur my vision. It wasn’t until a single drop slipped down my cheek that Roman snapped out of his thoughts and hurriedly stubbed the cigarette out in a crystal coaster. “Shit. I’m sorry, Paige. I forgot you can’t stand the smell.” He practically leaped up to crack the floor-to-ceiling windows, letting the brisk New York breeze in. “You know how much pressure I’m under right now. Quitting cold turkey is impossible.” I knew he couldn’t quit. But because of my asthma, he had strict rules for himself. For years, he only smoked on the terrace at the office. He would shower and change his clothes before he ever stepped foot in our home, terrified of bringing even a hint of ash to me. Now, I watched as he waved the smoke away, casually explaining, “Once Valerie found out she was expecting, she insisted on finishing her current portfolio before taking leave. She works so hard. So, I mandated a strict no-smoking policy for the entire executive floor. Even for myself. I just… slipped up today.” “Everything for the mother of the baby, right?” When he spoke about Valerie, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He couldn’t hide it. Even someone as slow as me could see that smile. “Roman… how can you talk about betraying me so easily?” My voice trembled. “What am I to you?” The smoke had cleared, but the tears kept falling, hot and fast, landing in my lap. His brows knitted together. He took a step forward, reaching out to wipe my face. “Paige, sweetheart, you don’t understand the corporate world. This isn’t an affair. It’s a transaction.” When I stumbled backward, shrinking away from his touch, a flash of irritation crossed his handsome face. “Paige, stop making a scene! I just need an heir. A brilliant, capable heir who can take over the board.” He looked at me, his eyes hardening for a fraction of a second. “Can you give me a genius for a child?” It felt like someone had taken a hunting knife and carved a hollow, gaping hole right in the center of my chest. I stared at him, my entire body shaking. His voice abruptly cut off. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached out again, his voice frantic now. “I promise, we’ll have kids later. Sweet, innocent babies just like you. Babies that will grow up safe under my protection. But before that, I must secure my position with a prodigy.” “Valerie is brilliant. You sponsored her for years; you’re her savior. She isn’t like those other social climbers trying to sleep their way to the top. That’s why I chose her.” He let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his dark hair. “See? I really did think this through. I did this to protect us.” I stood frozen, looking at the man I married, and suddenly, I was pulled back to a time long before Roman Kensington existed in my world. I thought of the man who was my biological father. I remembered the damp, freezing basement in Ohio. He used to tie me to a heavy wooden chair, leaving me there for hours in the dark. He would sit at the top of the stairs, eating his dinner, shouting down at me with a cruel laugh. “You’re too stupid to survive in the real world, Paige! I have to push you to the brink to unlock your potential. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Everything I do is for your own good!” I heard those words for so many years that they became the truth in my head. Even after Roman found me and pulled me out of that hell, I still believed it. I used to sneak kitchen knives into my room, trying to recreate the pain my father taught me, convinced I needed to “unlock my potential.” It was Roman who had burst into my room, snatching the blade from my hands and throwing it against the wall. “Everything he told you is absolute bullshit!” Roman had yelled, pulling me into his chest as I sobbed. “Bad people will always disguise their selfishness as love. But you don’t need to be smart to know the truth, Paige. You just have to listen to your heart. If your heart hurts, you walk away from the person hurting it. Do you understand? Don’t listen to their bullshit!” I looked down now, pressing my palm flat against my sternum. It hurt so much. Roman. You were the one who taught me this. When your heart hurts, you leave the bad person behind. 2 I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. My fingers were trembling so violently it took me three tries to pull my platinum wedding band off. I threw it onto the hardwood floor. It bounced with a hollow, metallic ping. “You turned into a bad person,” I screamed, my voice cracking under the weight of the betrayal. “I want to go. I am leaving you!” Roman froze for two seconds. Then, a dark, humorless laugh escaped his throat. “You’re leaving? Fine. But where exactly are you going to go, Paige? Back to the prison to visit your father?” He stepped closer, his imposing frame casting a shadow over me. “Don’t be naive. The second you step out of this penthouse, you wouldn’t even know how to keep yourself fed.” The sharp chime of an alarm on his phone sliced through the tension. He glanced down at the screen. “I have to take Valerie to her OB-GYN appointment.” When his eyes met mine again, there was nothing but cold impatience. “I have given you a beautiful life, Paige. I’ve treated you like a queen. All I am doing is having a child with someone else. I won’t tolerate any more tantrums.” The front door slammed shut with a heavy thud. The sound rattled my bones. He only remembered that he had to take Valerie to the doctor today. He forgot that today was also my birthday. He forgot that exactly ten years ago today, he promised he would spend every single birthday with me for the rest of our lives. Back then, he wasn’t the ruthless CEO of Kensington Global. He was just the outcast—one of his father’s many illegitimate children, treated like dirt by the legitimate family. Because he had scored a 98 on an exam instead of a perfect 100, his stepmother had locked him in the windowless equipment closet of our elite prep school. Roman suffered from severe claustrophobia. In the pitch black of that suffocating room, his panicked sobs echoed through the dark. Neither Roman nor his stepmother knew that I was already hiding in that closet, skipping a class I couldn’t understand. “P-please… don’t cry,” I had whispered, reaching out in the dark. “I’m right here with you.” He sounded so broken. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I gave him the only thing I had: a small, squished vanilla cupcake I had saved my allowance for weeks to buy. I just wanted the older boy to stop crying. He ate the ruined cupcake in the dark, wiped his tears, and made a vow. “We’re friends now, Paige. I will celebrate your birthday with you for the rest of my life.” From that day on, I was his safe harbor from his vicious family, and he was my shield against the world. We held hands and stumbled through the wreckage of our youth together. When he finally seized control of the Kensington empire, the board lined up brilliant, polished, blue-blooded heiresses for him to marry. He rejected them all. No one expected him to marry the girl with the delayed mind. The society papers claimed he was doing it just to humiliate the Kensington name. Even I had looked at him in my white dress, nervously twisting my fingers. “Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake? I… I’m so slow, Roman.” He had slid the diamond ring onto my finger, his smile softer than I had ever seen it. “Yes, you are. You’re too innocent. That’s why I have to marry you and keep you right by my side forever. It’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe.” Marrying me had nearly cost him his empire. His father’s wrath, the board’s threats, the social ostracization—Roman faced it all without flinching. He had held my hands tightly and told me, “Paige, you don’t know this, but that day in the closet… I was going to end it all. You pulled me back from the edge. I swore then that I would never let you go. I can lose everything in this world, but I will never lose you.” Because I was slow, he always made sure to speak his love loudly, so I would understand. But because I am slow, he now felt he didn’t even need to hide his infidelity. I stared blankly at our massive wedding portrait hanging on the gallery wall. A notification ping from my phone dragged me back to the present. It was a text from Valerie. [Paige, did you and Mr. Kensington have a fight? He looked so tense when he picked me up.] [But it’s okay, he’s thrilled now! The doctor says our baby is perfectly healthy.] Below the text was a photo. Roman, the man who struck fear into Wall Street, was leaning forward in a sterile clinic chair, a notepad on his knee, diligently writing down every word the doctor said. He used to do that for me whenever I had an asthma flare-up. Another sharp, piercing pain ripped through my chest. Leave. I have to leave right now. It was the only thought my brain could process. I picked up my phone, my breath catching in my throat, and dialed a number I hadn’t called in a long time. “Mom? I’ll do it. I’ll come with you.” “Darling? Is it really you?” My mother’s voice cracked over the line. “You finally forgive me? Where are you? Pack your things. I’m taking you to the consulate right now.” 3 After finalizing the expatriation paperwork, I returned to the penthouse with a freshly drafted divorce agreement in my bag. I hadn’t even made it past the grand foyer when the sound of bright, ringing laughter drifted from the dining room. Roman had brought Valerie into our home. “You need to eat more salmon. The omega-3s make the baby’s brain develop faster,” Roman was saying. “Oh, relax, Roman. I graduated at the top of my class at Harvard. With my genetics, I promise you this baby won’t be lacking in the brains department.” Standing in the entryway of the house I had lived in for nearly a decade, I felt like a ghost intruding on a stranger’s life. When Valerie saw me, she jumped up from her chair. “Paige! You’re home.” The girl standing in my dining room was radiant, confident, and draped in designer silk. There was no trace left of the skeletal, bruised teenager I had found in that rundown trailer park in the Deep South. Back then, she had just gotten her acceptance letter to Harvard. But her alcoholic, gambling-addict father had already promised her to a man three times her age in exchange for clearing his debts. He tore up her acceptance letter and locked her in her room. She had managed to send out a desperate email blast to every charity she could find. I was the only one who showed up. Three hours on a plane, five hours in a rusted rental car. I didn’t feel tired. I only had one thought repeating in my head like a metronome: Save her. Save her. I did save her. But because my reflexes were too slow, I took the baseball bat her furious father had aimed at her head. I spent two weeks in the hospital. Because of that, Roman had despised Valerie. “You should have called the police,” he had hissed at her in the hospital corridor. “Instead of dragging an innocent woman into your mess.” But eventually, things shifted. He started inviting her to corporate dinners. He would come home and muse, “She really is a once-in-a-generation genius, Paige. It’s a good thing you saved her.” And now, here they were. Standing side by side. A perfectly matched, brilliant power couple. “Paige, please don’t be upset. I’m not staying long,” Valerie said, stepping forward to gently grasp my hands. “The doctor said I was a little anemic today, and Roman was so worried he insisted on bringing me here so your private chef could make me a proper meal.” I violently ripped my hands out of her grip. I stared at her, genuinely confused. “Is something wrong with my brain, or is something wrong with yours?” I asked. “You are supposed to be a genius. Do geniuses really think being a married man’s incubator is something to be proud of?” Valerie’s lower lip trembled. She shot a devastatingly pathetic look at Roman. “No… Paige, I…” Tears pooled in her wide eyes, threatening to spill. Roman immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from me. “Paige, enough. I have explained this to you. I am simply acquiring a capable heir.” His tone was sharp, commanding. “You are too slow to grasp the complexities of my world. So just accept it. Do what you’ve always done and just listen to me. Is that so hard?” Yes. It was. Because you taught me to walk away when it hurts. I reached into my bag, pulled out the divorce agreement, and slammed it onto the dining table. I stared into his dark eyes, not blinking. “We are done, Roman. This is over.” He looked at the papers, his brow furrowing in genuine bewilderment. “I am never going to sign that. Valerie’s presence doesn’t diminish your status as my wife. I don’t understand why you are throwing this tantrum.” I didn’t say another word. I turned on my heel and walked up the sweeping glass staircase to pack my bags. Behind me, Roman let out a dismissive scoff, clearly thinking I was just playing pretend. He turned back toward the kitchen to check on Valerie’s salmon. But Valerie followed me upstairs. When she entered my bedroom, her voice was dripping with desperate sincerity. “Paige, I owe you my life. I would never, ever try to replace you. Roman chose me exactly because he knew I understood my place. Please don’t overthink this.” But the second the heavy oak door clicked shut, her posture shifted. The tearful victim vanished. “God, you really are a retard, aren’t you?” she whispered, a cruel smirk twisting her lips. “Do you have any idea that the life you’re throwing away is what other women would kill for?” She walked over to my vanity, picking up my expensive perfume and examining it. “From the first day I walked into Roman’s office, I realized something. You two are a joke. You don’t understand a single thing he does. You can’t ease his burdens. He practically has to baby you while the rest of high society laughs behind his back.” She set the bottle down with a sharp clack. “He was always going to throw you away. It was just a matter of time.” She pulled out her phone, tapping the screen. “By the way… you’re not so stupid that you don’t know how babies are actually made, right? Want to see?” She shoved the phone in my face. It was a video of her and Roman in a hotel room. The tangled sheets, the raw, breathless sounds of their bodies. Bile rose in my throat. I couldn’t take it anymore. I shoved her hard by the shoulders. “You’re disgusting! You’re both completely disgusting!” Valerie stumbled back, but she didn’t look scared. She gave me a smile that chilled me to the bone. “Fools are so easy to bait,” she whispered. Then, she threw herself onto the plush carpet, clutching her stomach, and let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Roman! Oh god, my baby! Paige, why did you push me?!”

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The woman didn’t just approach me; she lunged. Before I could even register her presence at the entrance of the coffee shop’s no-smoking zone, her fingers were buried in my hair, wrenching my head back with a violence that sent a jolt of white-hot pain down my spine. “You sick bitch!” she screamed, her face inches from mine, spittle flying. “What is wrong with you? Look at what you did to my son!” I was paralyzed, my mind struggling to bridge the gap between my quiet afternoon and this sudden assault. “You’re coming to the hospital with us right now,” she hissed, her grip tightening on my scalp. “You’re paying for every dime of the medical bills, and I’m taking you for everything you’ve got for what you did to him!” She began dragging me toward a sobbing child huddled near a corner table. The boy couldn’t have been more than five. He was howling, clutching his hand to his chest. “What are you talking about?” I managed to gasp out, my voice thin and trembling. “I don’t even know who you are!” The lunch-hour crowd had already begun to circle us, their faces a blur of morbid curiosity and judgment. “Look at her,” someone whispered loudly. “Young, trendy… probably thinks she’s above the rules. Probably a total sociopath, burning a kid just for the hell of it.” “Probably high on something,” another chimed in. “Who else carries a lit cigarette into a no-smoking zone?” Smoking? My stomach did a slow, nauseating roll. I have severe chronic asthma. To me, a cigarette isn’t a habit—it’s a death sentence. I haven’t touched a tobacco product in my entire life. … “Ma’am, please. Let go of me,” I said, trying to force a calm I didn’t feel. I could feel the prickle of a panic attack beginning in my chest, a tightness that usually preceded a flare-up. “Let’s just talk. There has to be a mistake.” “A mistake?” The woman’s voice hit a glass-shattering register. “My son told me exactly what happened! He said a lady who looked just like you burned him with her cigarette while I was at the counter. And look—he pulled this right off your neck while he was trying to get away!” She held up a gold necklace. My heart stopped. It was a delicate chain with a small locket, an heirloom from my grandmother. I instinctively reached for my throat. It was gone. “I… I do have a necklace like that,” I stammered, the world starting to tilt. “But I haven’t even been inside the no-smoking section today. I just walked in the front door!” “She admitted it!” the woman screamed to the room. “She admitted the necklace is hers! You all heard her! She burned my baby and now she’s trying to lie her way out of it!” The atmosphere in the shop turned toxic instantly. “Coward,” a man spat. “Picking on a kid. Why don’t you try that with someone your own size?” “Look at her acting all innocent,” a woman sneered, crossing her arms. “Disgusting.” The little boy, sensing his mother’s escalating rage, wailed louder. “Mommy, it hurts! It burns so bad! Am I gonna die?” “We’re going to the hospital! Right now!” The woman finally released my hair, but only to grab my wrist in a crushing grip, trying to haul me toward the exit. I rubbed my throbbing scalp, my temper finally catching up to my fear. I looked down at the boy’s hand. It was bad—a deep, circular burn that was already blistering and weeping a sickly fluid. My heart softened for a split second. “Look, lady,” I said, my voice firmer now. “I didn’t do this. But that burn looks serious. You need to stop screaming at me and get your son to an ER immediately—” Slap. The sound of her hand hitting my cheek echoed through the quieted cafe. My head snapped to the side, my skin stinging. “Shut your mouth!” she shrieked. “You don’t get to tell me how to take care of my kid after you mutilated him!” That was it. The last of my patience evaporated. “Are you thick?” I yelled back. “I told you, I haven’t been in that section! You’re standing here wasting time and making a scene while your kid is in pain. For all I know, you’re trying to kidnap me. Is that it? Is this some elaborate scam to get me into a car?” She went for me again, her palm swinging toward my other cheek. This time, I caught her wrist, shoving her back with every ounce of strength I had. “Fine!” I barked. “Call the police. Let’s get them down here!” The woman froze for a heartbeat, her eyes darting around. The crowd shifted again. The word ‘kidnap’ had changed the vibration in the room. “Wait, is she serious?” someone muttered. “Is the mom acting weird? Why hasn’t she left for the hospital yet if the kid is that hurt?” “Yeah, that’s a bit strange. Look at her face—she looks terrified now that the cops were mentioned.” Seeing the tide turn, I felt a surge of relief. I reached into my bag and slammed my rescue inhaler onto the table. “Look at this!” I shouted, my voice cracking with emotion. “I am a severe asthmatic. I carry this everywhere. Second-hand smoke literally closes my throat. Do you honestly think I’d be hanging out in a smoking lounge, lighting up, just to burn a stranger’s kid? I’d be the one in the ambulance!” The woman looked at the inhaler, then back at her son. For five long seconds, she just stared at him, a silent communication passing between them that I couldn’t decipher. The murmurs from the crowd grew more accusatory. “She’s definitely a scammer.” “Look at the poor kid, he’s probably just a prop.” The woman’s face went through a kaleidoscope of colors—red, pale, then a mottled purple. Suddenly, she turned and struck the little boy across the shoulder. “You little liar!” she screamed at the child. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you say it was her? I’m going to kill you!” The boy burst into fresh tears, shrinking away from her. “But Mommy—” “You don’t know who burned you? Are you stupid?” she yelled, her voice dripping with a strange, desperate franticness. “Don’t you know your father’s accident took everything we had? We have no money for doctors! If we don’t find who did this, you’re just going to have to soak it in cold water and shut up!” The boy sobbed, but even through his tears, he pointed a shaking finger at me. “It was her! It was!” Suddenly, a girl in the back gasped, looking at her phone. “Wait! They aren’t scammers! I saw this on the news—the hit-and-run case from last month. The husband is in a coma, and the wife sold their house to pay for his surgery. That’s her. That’s the woman from the news.” The crowd pivoted yet again. “Oh, god. I remember that story.” “So the kid isn’t lying. Why would a traumatized kid lie about something like that?” “She almost had us fooled,” a man said, glaring at me. “Trying to bully a poor woman who’s already lost everything. Heartless.” I was done. I wasn’t going to win this court of public opinion. “Fine,” I said, pulling out my phone. “If you’re so sure, let the professionals handle it. I’m calling the police myself.” I dialed 911, reported the assault and the accusation, and then leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms. I didn’t say another word. The woman kept up her theatrics. “I’m telling you now, if my son’s hand gets infected because you’re holding us up here, I’m suing you for double!” “Just stop,” I sighed. “You’re either the unluckiest woman alive or a hell of an actress.” Her eyes welled with tears instantly. “You think this is a joke? You think I want my life to be a tragedy for your entertainment?” The crowd hissed at me. “Zero empathy.” “Typical rich girl.” Before I could snap back, a man in a green apron stepped out from behind the counter. He looked hesitant. “Um… I’m the manager,” he said. “We have cameras in the lounge. Do you want me to pull up the footage while we wait for the cops?” The woman practically threw herself at him. “Yes! Please! Show them! My son can’t wait much longer!” I followed them to the back office, my heart hammering against my ribs. I knew I hadn’t been in that room. I knew the truth would set me free. But as the manager scrolled back through the timeline and hit ‘Play,’ my blood turned to ice. The video showed the smoking lounge. A woman was sitting in the corner, a cigarette held between her fingers. She looked up as the little boy wandered near her. She reached out, deliberately pressed the glowing cherry of the cigarette into the back of his hand, and then slipped out the side door. The woman on the screen had my hair. My height. My jacket. She had my face. The woman—the mother—reacted instantly. She lunged for my purse, which was sitting on the manager’s desk, and dumped the contents everywhere. “Look!” she screamed, pointing at the floor. Tumbled among my lipstick and keys was a folded-up denim jacket. The exact jacket the woman in the video had been wearing. The office exploded. “There it is! The evidence!” “She even tried to hide the clothes!” My head was spinning. A cold sweat broke out across my forehead. It was impossible. I hadn’t been in that room. I hadn’t brought a second jacket. But there it was. And the face on the screen… it was like looking into a mirror. I looked around the room, searching for a hidden camera, a prankster, a glitch in reality—anything. But all I saw were faces twisted with righteous fury. The mother grabbed my arm again. “You’re not going anywhere. Officers! Over here! This is the one who burned my son!” Two police officers pushed through the crowd. They watched the footage once. Then they looked at the jacket on the floor. Then they looked at me. One of them pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Miss, do you want to settle this privately, or are we going downtown?” “My son is traumatized,” the mother sobbed. “He’s going to need therapy for years. I want a hundred thousand dollars for his medical bills and emotional distress. Or I’m pressing charges. I want her in a cell!” I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. It took three tries to find my voice. “That’s not me,” I whispered. “That’s not my jacket. I… I’m being framed.” “You think we’re idiots?” the mother spat. “Pay up or rot in jail.” The officer picked up a medical alert card that had fallen out of my bag. He frowned. “Severe asthma?” “Yes,” I said, grabbing onto the one piece of logic I had left. “I can’t be near smoke. I would have collapsed. Look at the woman in the video—she’s inhaling. She’s fine. I would be dying.” “She’s full of it,” a guy from the crowd yelled, leaning into the office. “I’ve got a cigarette right here. Let’s see if she really has a reaction or if she’s just a good actress.” Before anyone could stop him, he lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke directly into the small, cramped office. The effect was instantaneous. My chest seized. It felt like a giant hand had reached into my ribcage and squeezed my lungs shut. A high-pitched, whistling wheeze tore out of my throat. “Is she faking?” someone asked. “That looks… pretty real.” “Medicine…” I gasped, my vision blurring. “I need… the inhaler…” In the chaos, I realized the inhaler was back on the table in the main lounge. I tried to turn, to push through the bodies blocking the door, but the mother held me fast. “You’re not going anywhere! Nice try with the theatrics!” The air was disappearing. My fingernails were turning a bruised purple. Sweat poured down my face as I clawed at the air. The officer finally realized this wasn’t an act. He shoved the woman aside and ran to the front, returning seconds later with my inhaler. “Here! Take it!” I grabbed the familiar plastic canister with trembling hands. I pressed it to my lips and took a deep, desperate breath. But instead of the cool, life-giving mist, something bitter and caustic hit the back of my throat. It wasn’t my medicine. It felt like inhaling liquid fire. My lungs didn’t open. They locked. My eyes bulged, my heart gave a sickening thud, and the world went black as I crumpled to the floor. The last things I heard were the panicked screams of the crowd. “Oh my god, is she dead?” “She’s just faking it! Get up! You owe me money!” Through the fading consciousness, one thought burned in my mind: The medicine was switched. Someone had replaced my inhaler. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was an execution. When I finally drifted back to the light, the first thing I heard was a sterile, rhythmic beeping. “She’s stable,” a doctor’s voice said. “It was a severe attack, but we got her in time.” “So she really can’t smoke?” That was the mother’s voice. Frantic. “Then who was that in the video? She’s a dead ringer for her.” “We ran the background check,” a police officer replied. “Cassidy Miller. Only child. No sisters, no twins. It’s… it’s bizarre. We checked all the cafe’s footage. Only one woman matching her description entered the building. She went into the lounge, then the restroom, then came out in a different outfit to get her coffee. But the medical evidence doesn’t lie. She nearly died from a single puff of smoke. She couldn’t have sat in that room for ten minutes.” I forced my eyes open. My throat felt raw. “Doctor…” I wheezed. “The inhaler… check the inhaler.” The doctor looked at me with a strange, pitying expression. “We did, Cassidy. We tested the canister you brought in. It’s standard Albuterol. There’s nothing wrong with it.” My heart sank. “No… it tasted like… like poison.” “The mind is a powerful thing,” the doctor said gently. “In cases of extreme stress or psychological trauma, the body can react in strange ways. Dissociative identity disorder can sometimes manifest with different physical tolerances between personalities.” The implication hit me like a physical blow. “You think I’m crazy?” I croaked. “You think I have a split personality that smokes and burns children?” The mother, who had been hovering near the door, stepped forward. “I don’t care if you’re crazy or not! You burned my son! You’re responsible!” “Ma’am, please,” the officer said. “I won’t be quiet! I spent every penny saving my husband from that coma! Do you know how much his meds cost? I have nothing left for my boy!” She looked like she was about to snap. The bravado was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged desperation. The little boy sat on a chair nearby, his hand wrapped in thick gauze. “Mommy, don’t cry. I’ll be okay.” The officer looked at me. “Cassidy, regardless of the medical mystery, the video is conclusive. You might want to consider a settlement.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. “I’ll give them money out of charity,” I hissed. “But I didn’t do it. I am NOT crazy.” “We can run a psych eval,” the doctor suggested. “It shouldn’t take long.” “Do it,” I challenged. “I want to know what the hell is happening.” The results came back an hour later. The psychiatrist looked baffled. “She’s perfectly sane. No signs of trauma-induced fracturing, no history of blackouts, no secondary personalities. She’s just… she’s just a girl who nearly died of an asthma attack.” The mother started screaming again. “Then who was it? Who is that woman in the video?” I felt a cold shiver crawl up my neck. A detail from the video flashed in my mind—something I’d missed in the panic of the coffee shop. “Give me the phone,” I said to the officer. “Let me see the footage again.” “Cassidy, we’ve seen it a thousand times—” “Give it to me!” I grabbed the phone and scrolled. I found the moment the woman in the video reached out to burn the boy. I pinched the screen, zooming in as far as the pixels would allow. The mother tried to knock the phone out of my hand. Her face had gone deathly pale. “Stop it! It’s you! Just admit it!” I stared at the zoomed-in image. My heart broke, then hardened into something cold and sharp. “I know who did it,” I whispered.

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My boyfriend had been secretly planning a proposal, a fact the family’s adopted golden girl gleefully leaked to me three days in advance. I pretended I knew nothing. Three days later, she dragged me to the grand event under the guise of a casual dinner. I was just about to plaster on my best face of rehearsed shock when the man of the hour dropped to one knee—not in front of me, but right in front of her, under the blinding lights and the stares of Chicago’s elite. Caroline gasped, her manicured hands flying to cover her mouth. “Oh my god, Mia… I had no idea he was going to ask me.” She looked at me, her eyes wide and swimming with manufactured innocence. “You two have been so close lately, I honestly thought this was all for you…” Spencer rose to his feet, towering over me. His gaze was entirely devoid of warmth. “So what if you share the Kensington bloodline, Mia?” he said, his voice carrying just enough for the front row of guests to hear. “Caroline and I grew up together. I hope tonight serves as a wake-up call. Learn your place, and stop obsessing over things that will never belong to you.” Beside me, my best friend Harper was vibrating with rage. “Are you seriously going to just stand there and take this?” she hissed. Actually? Yes. I absolutely could. 1 When the three-carat oval diamond slid onto Caroline Kensington’s ring finger, the temperature in the room seemed to shift. Every gaze in the private ballroom pivoted toward me, heavy with pity and suffocating amusement. “She really thought it was her. God, how embarrassing.” “If I were her, I’d walk right into the lake. Humiliating.” “She had it coming. Everyone knows Caroline and Spencer belong together. She just uses her biological status to try and steal Caroline’s life.” Harper lunged forward, her heels clicking aggressively against the marble. I caught her by the wrist, pulling her back. “They set you up, Mia! They are publicly executing you, and you’re just taking it?” Harper whispered, her voice cracking with indignation. “Why shouldn’t I?” I whispered back. I watched Spencer pull Caroline into a protective embrace, catching the smug, triumphant smirk she shot me over his tailored shoulder. All I felt was a profound, bone-deep sense of relief. The curtain is finally falling, I thought. I don’t have to play a part in this psychotic family’s stage play anymore. Three years ago, when I first started working as a junior analyst at Kensington Enterprise, Arthur Kensington, the CEO, had called me into his office. I expected a reprimand. Instead, the ruthless billionaire’s eyes welled with tears. “Victoria,” he had choked out. “After all this time… you’re finally willing to come home?” He told me how I had run away after a massive fight, how his adopted daughter, Caroline, had been consumed by guilt ever since I left. I had tried to explain. Over and over again. I wasn’t Victoria Kensington. My name was Mia Sullivan. It was right there on my W-2. But he and his wife Beatrice had just stared at my face, their expressions hardening into a wall of absolute denial. “If you’re back, then enough with the tantrums,” Arthur had said, deadpan. “Using a fake name? Really? Are you trying to sever ties with this family completely? Will you only be happy if we throw Caroline out onto the street? She’s lived with us for twenty years. Sending her away would be abandonment!” That was the day I learned the great secret of the Kensington dynasty. They had a biological daughter who was found and brought home late in life, only to realize her parents heavily favored the adopted daughter they had raised. Even her childhood fiancé, Spencer Croft, sided with the adopted girl. Three years ago, the real Victoria had a screaming match with the family, walked out into the Chicago winter, and vanished without a trace. And I, apparently, was a dead ringer for her. Back in the present, Spencer shielded Caroline with his body, playing the valiant knight. “When you pulled your little disappearing act three years ago, Caroline nearly drank herself into an early grave out of guilt,” Spencer sneered at me. “As long as you stop throwing these pathetic tantrums, I am still willing to honor our family’s original arrangement and marry you. But the condition is this: you never make things difficult for Caroline again.” Three years ago, I had tried to quit my job to escape their collective delusion. But Spencer had cornered me in the parking garage. He tossed a sleek black bank card onto the hood of my rusted Civic. “Are you trying to drive Caroline insane again?” he had demanded. “Stay. Play your part. There’s three hundred thousand dollars loaded onto that card every single month.” Who walks away from that? So, I became Victoria Kensington. I kept my head down, lived like a ghost in their sprawling Gold Coast mansion, and collected my hazard pay. But Caroline was relentless. If she wasn’t strategically throwing herself down a flight of stairs, she was slipping strawberries into her own smoothies knowing she was highly allergic, just to point the finger at me. Even with security cameras proving my innocence, no one in that house ever chose to believe me. At three hundred grand a month, I wasn’t earning a salary. I was accruing damages for emotional distress. But now? Now they had stopped pretending. Which meant I could finally tender my resignation. Under the watchful eyes of Chicago’s high society, I smoothed my dress, walked right up to the newly engaged couple, and smiled. It was a genuine, radiant smile. “Congratulations to you both,” I said, my voice steady and clear. “I am truly so happy for you. I wish you nothing but a lifetime of joy. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head out.” Caroline froze. The rehearsed tears vanished from her eyes. Spencer’s brow furrowed in deep irritation. “Victoria, what kind of game are you playing now?” Caroline quickly recovered, her eyes welling up instantly. “Sister, please don’t be like this. I swear I had no idea Spencer was going to do this today. If you’re really that upset… I can give the ring to you.” “I’m good,” I said, stepping back. “No, I mean it!” Caroline lunged forward, grabbing my hand, trying to press the diamond into my palm. “Take it!” “I said I don’t want it!” “Ah!” I instinctively pulled my hand back, gently brushing her wrist away. The ring slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the polished marble floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room. Caroline’s eyes spilled over. “Do you really hate me that much, Victoria?” “That is enough!” Spencer roared, yanking Caroline behind him. 2 “Who the hell do you think you are?” Spencer’s voice was venomous. “Yes, you share their blood. But I’ve known Caroline for twenty years. If we’re talking about who truly belongs here, you are the outsider!” Something inside me finally snapped. The sheer absurdity of it all bubbled up into my throat. “You’re absolutely right!” I yelled back, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “I am the outsider! Because I’m not the real heiress! I’m not Victoria Kensington! My name is Mia Sullivan!” The entire ballroom plunged into a dead, suffocating silence. My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath. Caroline pressed both hands over her mouth, a picture of tragic disbelief. “Sister… how could you say something so horrible just to spite me? How is a family supposed to survive this kind of cruelty?” I stared at her, my eyes wide. “What?” Were they entirely incapable of processing the English language? I pointed frantically at my own face. “Look closely! Look at my face! I don’t even look exactly like her! Victoria’s eyes are slightly larger than mine, and her earlobes sit lower. Just look!” “Shut up!” Spencer shoved me hard by the shoulder. “I told you, I will not let you torment Caroline anymore.” Behind him, Caroline was practically vibrating with theatrical sobs. The whispers from the crowd started up again, a low hum of judgment. “What is she doing? She looks exactly like Victoria.” “She’s literally gaslighting everyone just to embarrass Caroline. It’s a power play to make Spencer pity her.” Spencer glared at me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. “My patience with you has run out, Victoria. If you pull one more stunt to hurt Caroline, I won’t show you an ounce of mercy.” …Was there a single sane human being in this zip code? I threw my hands up in defeat. “Fine! You don’t believe me? Let’s go get a DNA test. Right now.” Spencer and Caroline both flinched. I leveled a finger at Caroline. “Let’s go back to the estate, swab Arthur and Beatrice, pay for a rush job at the lab, and get the results by tomorrow. Then you can see for yourselves whether I have a drop of Kensington blood in my veins!” Spencer frowned, a flicker of genuine uncertainty crossing his perfectly sculpted features. Even the guests looked unsettled. “She wouldn’t bluff about a DNA test…” “Wait, is it actually possible she isn’t Victoria?” “She looks dead serious.” Spencer opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Caroline let out a devastating wail. “I know I’m just the adopted one!” she sobbed, backing away. “You don’t have to humiliate me like this! You don’t have to constantly remind me that I’m not real family!” She kicked the fallen engagement ring across the floor, covered her face, and sprinted toward the double doors. When a waiter tried to gently stop her, she shoved him aside with surprising force. I stood there, utterly bewildered. “Wait, I wasn’t talking about you—ah!” A brutal force slammed into my chest, sending me stumbling backward in my heels. Spencer stood over me, his face twisted in fury. “When does this end with you?!” “I’m not Victoria!” I shouted. “Enough!” Spencer spun on his heel, sprinting toward the exit. “Caroline! Caroline, wait!” Harper appeared at my side, staring at the doors. “Is brain damage a prerequisite for inherited wealth?” “Apparently,” I muttered, rubbing my shoulder. I didn’t linger. I walked straight out of the hotel and hailed a cab back to the Kensington estate. I had made enough money. Regardless of whether they believed my identity or not, I was packing my bags and leaving tonight. But the moment I stepped through the grand oak doors of the mansion, two massive security guards grabbed me by the arms. “Mr. and Mrs. Kensington heard how you bullied the younger Miss until she ran away in tears,” one of them said gruffly. “They’ve ordered us to lock you in the attic for three days to reflect on your actions.” “What? Wait! I’m not Victoria! I swear to God! Let go of me!” They dragged me up three flights of stairs. The heavy wooden door of the attic slammed shut. Click. The deadbolt slid into place. I pounded on the wood until my knuckles bruised, screaming until my throat was raw. Nobody came. Eventually, I slid down the door and pulled my knees to my chest in the dusty darkness. Fine. Whatever. Three days. I’d leave in three days. But as the hours bled into a terrifyingly long night, I realized a fatal flaw in their punishment. No one was coming to bring me food. Or water. 3 I lost track of how long I had been starving. I didn’t even have the energy to tap on the door anymore. Three days. Not a single drop of water. I was genuinely going to die up here, amidst forgotten oil paintings and mothballed chandeliers. Then, a faint rustling sound. A squashed, plastic-wrapped croissant was shoved beneath the gap in the door. I scrambled toward it, my hands shaking so violently I barely managed to tear the plastic open before shoving it into my mouth. “It’s me.” The whispered voice on the other side made me freeze. “Caroline?” I croaked, my brow furrowing in the dark. “I believe you,” Caroline whispered, her voice stripped of its usual saccharine sweetness. “I believe you aren’t Victoria. I can get you out of here, but you have to promise me one thing. You can never, ever come back.” I could have wept with joy. “I swear it.” “Swear on your life!” “I swear on my life, my soul, whatever you want! I will never return to this house or look at a Kensington again!” “Wait here. I’m going for the master key.” Of all the ways I imagined this ending, being rescued by Caroline was not on the bingo card. She was a deeply twisted person, but in this singular moment, she was my savior. She snuck me out through the service elevator, shoved me into a rideshare, and even paid for a room at a boutique hotel downtown, hauling my duffel bag up the stairs for me. But the moment she unlocked the hotel room door and pushed me inside, my blood ran cold. We weren’t alone. Seven heavily tattooed, massive men were waiting in the room, their arms crossed, staring at us with predatory grins. Before my brain could even process the danger, Caroline shoved a heavy baseball bat into my hands. Then, in one fluid, violent motion, she ripped the collar of her own blouse down to her sternum, tearing the fabric. She threw her head back and let out a bloodcurdling, throat-tearing scream. “I’m sorry, Victoria! Please! Please don’t let them touch me!” My jaw dropped. Two of the men lunged forward, grabbing Caroline by the arms and dragging her toward the bed. Before I could even lift the bat, the sound of frantic, pounding footsteps echoed down the hallway. “Caroline!” “My baby!” Arthur, Beatrice, and Spencer burst through the door. “Caroline!” Spencer’s eyes went completely feral. He shoved me into the wall so hard my teeth rattled, then launched himself at the lead thug, burying his fist into the man’s jaw. “You want to die, you sons of bitches?!” Arthur and Beatrice rushed to the bed, trembling as they looked at the red, angry scratches Caroline had just clawed into her own neck. Beatrice turned to me, her face contorted in absolute hatred. “Victoria Kensington! She is your sister! How could you be this vicious? This evil?!” “I—” I dropped the bat as if it burned me. Caroline collapsed into Spencer’s chest, weeping hysterically. “Sister, if you wanted Spencer, I would have stepped aside! I would have given him to you!” she cried, burying her face in his shirt. “I know you’re the real daughter. Everything in that house belongs to you. If you just asked, I would never say no. But why… why did you have to hire these men to ruin my purity? Did you just want Spencer to be disgusted by me? Did you want mom and dad to throw me away?” She broke down into loud, choking sobs. I was speechless. I had vastly underestimated the depths of Caroline’s psychotic brilliance. Arthur and Beatrice threw their arms around her, screaming at me over her shoulder. “How did we give birth to such a monster?! To use such a filthy, depraved tactic against your own sister… you aren’t human!” “You’re all insane!” I screamed back, my vision blurring with rage. “I am not a part of your family! I just happen to look like her! I don’t give a damn about Spencer, and she staged this entire thing!” Spencer let out a dark, terrifying laugh. “You think your little lies are going to save you now?” he snarled, stepping toward me. “Caroline is going to be my wife. I don’t care what happens to her, she will always be my wife. You wanted to use gutter tactics to destroy her? Fine. Then I’ll destroy you first.” He snapped his fingers at his personal security team, who had just flooded the hallway. “Take her to the Croft meat-packing warehouse. Put her in the deep freeze.” My eyes widened in sheer terror. “What?” Two men grabbed me by the elbows and dragged me toward the service elevator. I thrashed wildly, kicking at their shins. “I am not Victoria! Run a DNA test! Let go of me! Please!” Suddenly, the three hundred thousand dollars a month didn’t seem like enough. It was pennies compared to the hell I was living in. The industrial freezer was set to five degrees Fahrenheit. I was wearing a thin cotton t-shirt and jeans. The second I hit the metal floor, my breath turned to thick white smoke. The heavy steel door slammed shut. The mechanical thud of the external lock echoed like a death sentence. I threw myself against the frosted metal, screaming until my lungs burned. “I’m not her! You have the wrong person!” “Still acting?” Spencer’s muffled voice bled through the heavy door. “The biometric lock on this door is coded to Kensington family fingerprints. Keep pretending you aren’t one of them, and you can freeze to death in there.” 4 The sound of his dress shoes faded away into the cavernous warehouse. Panic seized my chest. “Spencer? Spencer!” I screamed, slamming my raw fists against the door. “I am not her! I can’t open it! I’m going to die in here!” Only the low, mechanical hum of the refrigeration units answered me. I collapsed into the darkest corner, curling into the tightest ball possible, blowing hot breath into my cupped hands. But human heat is no match for industrial coolant. Within an hour, I was violently shivering. Within two, the shivering stopped—the deadliest sign of hypothermia. My eyelashes were heavy with frost. My thoughts began to slur together into a warm, dangerous haze. Then, a sharp, electronic beep. Click. I dragged my numb body across the floor. Pushed. The heavy door cracked open. I tumbled out onto the concrete floor, gasping the ambient warehouse air like it was holy water. But when I looked up… the corridor was entirely empty. Whoever had opened the door was gone. It took me an hour to stumble back to the Kensington estate, my lips blue, my fingers burning with returning circulation. I pushed open the doors to the grand living room. There they were. Sitting by the roaring fireplace. Beatrice was stroking Caroline’s hair while Arthur poured her tea. Spencer was pacing, looking agitated. “Is that bitch still playing dead in the freezer? Have my guys drag her out here. She’s going to kneel and apologize to Caroline.” “No need,” I rasped. “I’m right here.” He froze, whipping around to face me. A cruel, knowing smile spread across his face. “I thought you said you weren’t Victoria Kensington? How did you open the biometric lock, then?” I scanned the room. The entire Kensington staff and family were accounted for. I had no idea who had opened that door for me. When I didn’t answer, Arthur slammed his fist on the coffee table. “Caroline isn’t related to us by blood. Of course she lacks a sense of security! It is our duty as parents to compensate her and protect her! But you are our flesh and blood. Nothing can change that. Why must you constantly fight her for our attention? Have you no shame?” Beatrice stood up, delivering her ultimatum. “Get on your knees and apologize right now, or you are no longer a daughter of this house!” “Deal!” My voice cracked like a whip, startling all of them. “I’ll kneel. Hell, I’ll bow my head to the floor!” I took a step forward, the remaining cold in my bones replaced by a searing, white-hot fury. “But since you are all so stubbornly, violently convinced that I am your biological daughter… where is my trust fund distribution?” They stared at me, dumbfounded. I let out a harsh, barking laugh. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. Everyone in Chicago knows Caroline gets an eight-figure dividend from the Kensington Enterprise every single year. Since I’m your daughter… pay up.” I held out a trembling hand. “I don’t even want the full amount. Five million dollars. Cash transfer. Right now. The second it hits my account, I’ll drop to my knees and apologize to whoever you want.” “You…!” Beatrice clutched her pearls, her face turning purple. I didn’t let her breathe. “What? You demand that I play the role of your dutiful daughter, but you refuse to give me a dime? You pour your entire family fortune into a girl with zero Kensington blood, and you preach to me about family ties?! Is that it?!” Beatrice’s mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish. “You love to talk about how I’m your child,” I sneered, pacing in front of them. “When have you ever treated me like one? What have you given me in the last three years, besides orders to bow down to your precious fake heiress, who holds the shares and the money?!” Arthur and Beatrice exchanged deeply unsettled looks. Even Spencer stared at me, slightly taken aback by the sheer venom in my voice. “You give me nothing, and then you call me greedy!” I screamed. “You want me to be the bigger person? Pay me to be the bigger person!” The room was dead silent. Only the crackle of the fireplace could be heard. “If you aren’t paying,” I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, “then don’t you dare ask me to kneel. You couldn’t afford it.” I turned on my heel toward the door. “Stop.” Arthur’s voice was heavy with exhaustion. “Five million. I will wire it right now. And then you will kneel.” Pathetic. These blind, foolish parents were literally paying their biological daughter off just to buy their adopted daughter a moment of satisfaction. I turned back around. “Gladly. But while we wait for the wire to clear…” I pulled a crumpled document from my back pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Sign this.” An unconditional, irrevocable deed of gift. Legally binding. Stating that under no future circumstances could this five million be reclaimed. Arthur skimmed it, signed it with a heavy gold fountain pen, and threw it back at me. “Running wild in the streets for three years turned you into nothing but a mercenary.” I didn’t care. Because my phone buzzed. $5,000,000.00 successfully transferred. I walked right up to Caroline, who was staring at me with wide, hateful eyes. I dropped to my knees. My forehead hit the plush Persian rug. Once. Twice. Three times. “I am so sorry. I was wrong,” I recited in a flat, deadpan voice. I stood up, dusted off my jeans, and walked out of the mansion without looking back. As I passed Spencer, he reached out, his mouth opening as if to say something. I didn’t even blink. I walked right past him, leaving his hand hanging in the empty air. As the heavy front doors closed behind me, a phone rang inside the house. It was the Chicago Police Department. “Mr. Kensington? Regarding the missing persons report you filed three years ago for Victoria Kensington? We found her.” 5 “What did you just say?” Spencer, who had answered the house phone, thought he was hallucinating. “Victoria Kensington,” the officer repeated over the speaker. “The missing daughter. She’s at the precinct.” Spencer let out a scoff of disbelief. “You’ve got the wrong file, officer. Victoria came back three years ago. She literally just walked out of our living room.” There was a pause on the line. “When did she come back?” “Three years ago. She’s been living here.” “That’s impossible, sir,” the officer said flatly. “Immigration records show Victoria Kensington has been living in Melbourne, Australia for the last three years. She only re-entered the United States three months ago.” Spencer stopped breathing. He turned his head slowly. Arthur and Beatrice were staring at the phone, the blood draining completely from their faces. “No…” Beatrice whispered. She stood up so fast the tea tray clattered to the floor, and bolted for the door. Twenty minutes later, the family burst through the glass doors of the downtown precinct. “Victoria! What kind of sick prank is this?!” Arthur roared. But when they saw the girl sitting on the metal bench, everyone froze as if struck by lightning. It was a girl with a face nearly identical to the one that had just left their mansion. But this girl was terrifyingly thin. Her cheekbones were sharp, her clothes were threadbare, and her hair was a tangled, unwashed mess. She emanated a cold, jagged edge that the girl in their house never had. “This is impossible…” Beatrice whispered, turning to the desk sergeant. “Where did you find this girl? She’s an imposter. A lookalike. Our daughter was just with us…”

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During the interview, the host caught me off guard with a deeply personal question. What is your biggest regret in this life? “My child,” I blurted out. It was an instinct, a reflex born of muscle memory and phantom pain. Beside me, Jonathan fell utterly silent. For the remainder of the segment, his jaw was locked, his expression a stormy, unreadable mask. I assumed he was mourning the baby we never got to meet. When the cameras stopped rolling, I went to his dressing room to comfort him. The door was cracked open. I was just about to push it wide when I saw him staring down at his phone, his thumb tracing the screen with a devastating tenderness. “Nessa,” he whispered to the photograph, his voice thick with a sorrow I hadn’t heard in years. “My biggest regret is that I couldn’t be with you. Just because I felt guilty… I threw away the life we were supposed to have.” I froze in the hallway. The air evacuated my lungs, leaving me hollowed out, suspended in a terrible, ringing silence. The ghost haunting Jonathan’s heart wasn’t our poor, lost son. It was the woman who had killed him. 1. By the time we left the studio, a fine Seattle drizzle had begun to fall. Jonathan seamlessly slipped into his role as the perfect husband. He draped a cashmere throw over my knees the moment we got into the car and cranked up the heat. Seeing my lingering silence, he leaned over and gently covered my hand with his. “Are you still upset about Norton?” he asked softly. “I’ll have my PR team speak to the network. They need to train their hosts better. I promise you, a blindside like that won’t happen again.” Ever since we lost Norton, Jonathan had treated my emotional state like spun glass—fragile, precarious, requiring constant, delicate management. I honestly thought I had moved past the darkest of the grief. But hearing our son’s name aloud today… it still felt like taking a serrated blade straight to the ribs. I looked up at Jonathan’s handsome profile, illuminated by the rhythmic passing of the streetlights. I hesitated, chewing the inside of my cheek, before letting the words slip out. “You know what happened to Norton wasn’t just an accident, Jonathan. If you had the chance to do it all over again, to make a different choice… would you—” “Natalie.” Jonathan frowned, his brow pulling taut. Half of his face was swallowed by the shadows of the passing downtown skyline, making him look like a stranger. “It’s been eight years. You have to stop clinging to ghosts. Look at our life. Aren’t we living beautifully now?” I didn’t answer. He didn’t push. Outside, the rain began to come down in sheets. His executive assistant was waiting at the garage entrance with a massive umbrella. The headlights of our car cut through the murky night, fracturing the raindrops into glittering diamonds. He was right, in a way. We were living beautifully. Or at least, expensively. We rode in a $150,000 Porsche. We lived in a $15 million penthouse overlooking Elliott Bay. Everywhere we went, doors swung open and people bowed their heads. I wore sweaters that cost more than my first car. Just as the TV host had gushed: “Mr. and Mrs. Mercer have the perfect marriage and a booming empire. You are the ultimate aspirational couple.” In the grand, sweeping narrative of our flawless lives, that one little tragedy was supposed to be a footnote. To bring it up felt almost vulgar to them, like a wealthy woman complaining about a papercut. But… was it really just a papercut? Could what happened back then truly be swept under a Persian rug? I turned my face toward him again, my throat tightening against my will. “I’ve been dreaming about him lately,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I keep dreaming about Norton. And in the dreams, he tells me… he tells me we made the wrong choice back then.” Jonathan slowly withdrew his hand from mine. He turned his head to look out the rain-streaked window. “It’s in the past, Nat. Medical technology is lightyears ahead of where it was. We’ll have another baby. First thing tomorrow, I’ll have David set up an appointment with that top-tier therapist in Bellevue. You just need to stop overthinking. People have to look forward, not backward.” This was who he had been for the last eight years. Clinical. Rational. Breaking down the calculus of our lives into neat little columns of risk and reward, always choosing the path of maximum return. Just like right now. He chose to look away. He chose to end a conversation that offered no tangible ROI. I was just about to reach for him, to force him to look at me. Then, as we approached the intersection, blinding high beams flooded the cabin. A red Porsche—the exact same model as ours—ran the light, barreling straight toward my side of the car. Crash. In the fraction of a second before the airbags deployed, before gravity inverted and metal screamed against metal, I saw the face of the driver in the red car. Vicky Kensington. The nightmare that had haunted my entire adult life. The murderer of my unborn child. After eight years, she was back. 2. When I woke up, I was drowning in the scent of jasmine. A private hospital suite. Two nurses were murmuring quietly near the door. “Who exactly is the patient in the VIP suite? I swear, she has the most perfect life.” “I know, right? Her husband looks like he stepped out of a GQ spread, and he’s here every single day with fresh flowers.” The older nurse scoffed softly. “You seriously don’t know who she is? She’s the wife of the CEO of Mercer Holdings. She’s the original Mrs. Mercer. Everyone in the corporate world knows he practically worships the ground she walks on. She gets the absolute best of everything. Hell, Mercer Holdings basically funded this entire hospital wing just for her.” The younger nurse audibly gasped. They were so caught up in their romanticized gossip that they didn’t hear the familiar, heavy footsteps approaching until it was too late. Their chatter snapped off instantly. I opened my eyes. Jonathan was standing at the foot of my bed, holding a massive bouquet of jasmine, the petals still glistening with water droplets. Seeing I was awake, his expression barely shifted. He offered me a calm, measured look. “How is the pain today?” he asked. “There’s a gala tonight. Do you think you’re well enough to make an appearance?” My skull throbbed in agonizing time with my heartbeat. I licked my cracked lips, my voice raspy. “The woman who hit me. It was Vicky, wasn’t it?” “Yes.” Jonathan began arranging the jasmine in a crystal vase on the nightstand, his movements meticulous. “It wasn’t intentional. Our companies are in the middle of a massive merger. There is absolutely no reason to let a minor fender-bender derail a multi-billion-dollar deal.” He paused, looking down at me. “I’ve already signed the settlement agreement on your behalf. All you need to do tonight is smile for the cameras and tell the press it was a simple misunderstanding.” His tone was steady, reasonable, and utterly uncompromising. It sounded exactly like him eight years ago. Eight years ago, Vicky Kensington—the spoiled heiress who felt entitled to my husband—cornered me on a staircase. I was eight months pregnant. She pushed me. The impact of the fall was catastrophic. The baby shifted, becoming hopelessly wedged in my shattered pelvis. I labored in pure agony, but he wouldn’t come. The doctors told us the internal hemorrhaging would kill us both. To save my life, they had to… they had to crush my little boy’s skull to pull him out. The sight of my baby—that tiny, broken, bruised little body—fractured my soul into a million jagged pieces. But Jonathan? Jonathan used my shattered womb as leverage. He wasn’t the titan of industry back then. He fell to his knees beside my hospital bed, his face pale and wet with tears, begging me. “Natalie, I know I have no right to ask this of you. But this is our only way out. I need capital for the startup, and the Kensington family is the only one who can write a check that big to keep it quiet. Please, Nat. Please help me. If we sue, they’ll tie us up in court for decades and bankrupt us. I just need this one chance. Just this once, and I swear to God, I will give you the world.” It was the first time I had ever seen Jonathan break. I looked at the premature gray at his temples. I looked at his bloodshot eyes, exhausted from working three jobs to keep us afloat. I cried until I choked on my own tears. I agonized over it in the dark. And eventually, I broke. My heart went soft for him. As he said, people had to look forward. Jonathan had bled for me, sacrificed his youth for me. It was my turn to bleed for him. And so, with a shaking hand, I signed the non-disclosure and settlement agreements. I traded Norton’s life for the seed money that built the Mercer empire. Vicky was quietly shipped off to Europe by her family. Jonathan took that blood money and shot into the stratosphere. He cornered the Seattle real estate market. He bought the Porsches, the penthouse. He became the untouchable Mr. Mercer. In the early years of our wealth, he used to hold me on our balcony, looking out over the glittering city lights. “Look, Natalie,” he’d whisper into my hair. “I kept my promise. I did it all for us.” He was so proud. So deeply satisfied. But he conveniently forgot something. Every brick of his empire was mortared with my dead child’s blood. Ambition is a ravenous beast. Once it gets a taste of flesh, it never stops hungering for more. Back then, Jonathan sacrificed Norton on the altar of his ambition. Now, it seemed, it was my turn. 3. Jonathan didn’t seem to notice the ice forming in my veins. He was already on the phone with his assistant, enthusiastically dictating the final details for the gala. “Make sure Vicky’s seat is right next to mine, we have terms to discuss. And swap out the centerpieces in the main hall. I want roses. Everything should cater to her preferences tonight.” He remembered everything about Vicky Kensington. He forgot that I was violently allergic to rose pollen. I watched the subtle, unconscious curve of his lips as he spoke about her. Suddenly, a sickening thought rooted in my mind. When exactly had they become so close? Was it after Norton died… or before? I remembered the early days of her obsession. Jonathan had seemed so profoundly annoyed by her. No matter how many expensive watches she sent to his tiny office, he would turn her away with a stone-cold face. “Ms. Kensington, have some self-respect. I am a married man. I love my wife, and that will never change.” Back then, he used to tell me about her antics like they were punchlines. He called her an empty-headed socialite, a girl who looked like a million bucks but didn’t have a single thought in her pretty head. But as the years went on, her name started slipping into his vocabulary more frequently. The annoyance faded, replaced by something dangerously ambiguous. I had been too drowning in my grief over Norton to notice the shift. Looking back now, the timeline was terrifyingly clear. Jonathan hadn’t just forced me to sign that settlement out of ambition. He did it because, deep down in some dark, unspoken place, he had already started falling for her. A creeping, suffocating pain wrapped tightly around my chest. Through the blur of my tears, I saw Norton’s unclosed eyes. Not this time. I was done bleeding for him. I grabbed the crystal vase from the nightstand and hurled it as hard as I could at Jonathan. “I will never settle with Vicky Kensington, Jonathan! Never!” The vase shattered against the wall behind him, but not before clipping his temple. A thin line of blood trickled down his skin. He didn’t flinch. He just looked at his reflection in the mirror, wiped the blood with his thumb, and calmly poured a glass of water. He pressed two painkillers into my palm. “Don’t be dramatic, Natalie.” His voice was smooth, patronizing. “A tantrum at twenty is cute. At thirty, it’s just pathetic. I am handling this situation. Your job right now is to play the role of Mrs. Mercer and not make a mess for me to clean up. Do that, and you can have whatever you want.” As he spoke, he tapped out a quick text. Ten minutes later, a private jeweler was ushered into the room, presenting a velvet box containing a multi-million-dollar ruby necklace. Jonathan lifted the heavy stones, holding them up against my collarbone. He finally smiled. A genuine, appreciative look. “Stunning. It suits you perfectly. Wear this to the Kensington gala tonight, and you’ll eclipse everyone in the room.” I looked at the rubies. If I remembered correctly, Jonathan had attended a private Sotheby’s auction in Geneva last month. He won two pieces. One was this utterly pedestrian, overly flashy ruby set. The other was a masterpiece, a legendary diamond choker literally named The Everlasting. I guess his “Everlasting” love was never meant for me. Taking my silence for submission, Jonathan clasped the necklace around my neck and patted my head like a well-behaved dog. “See? Isn’t this better? We have to look forward. I won’t let you suffer for nothing. Once the merger closes, I’ll take you to Bali for a month. Just the two of us.” Before I could answer, his phone buzzed. He reached for it so quickly he knocked a manila folder off the bedside table. The papers spilled across the floor. At the top of the medical brief, stamped in bold red letters: SCHIZOPHRENIA – INVOLUNTARY COMMITMENT PROTOCOL. Jonathan always had a contingency plan. This was his Plan B. If I didn’t play the good wife, if I refused to smile at the woman who murdered my child, he was prepared to have me locked in a psychiatric ward to discredit me. How utterly tragic. This was the reality of the “perfect marriage” the world envied. When love burns out, all that is left is a boardroom calculation—a brutal weighing of assets and liabilities. And the most tragic part? He thought I was completely trapped. 4. Despite the nausea churning in my stomach, I put on the gown and walked into the gala on Jonathan’s arm. It was immediately obvious that Jonathan had micromanaged the decor. It wasn’t just wealthy; it was deeply, intimately thoughtful. Every detail screamed of a man trying to impress a specific woman. Vicky Kensington stood in the center of the room, greeting the billionaires and politicians with a champagne flute in hand. And there, resting against her collarbones, was the Everlasting diamond. When she saw me, a vicious, triumphant smile spread across her perfect lips. “Natalie. I’m honestly shocked you had the guts to show your face,” she purred as we crossed paths. “I figured after our little bumper-car incident, you’d be cowering in a hospital bed for the rest of your life.” It was true. For years, the mere thought of Vicky induced panic attacks. Back then, the power dynamic was entirely in her favor. She used to torment me with a casual cruelty—slapping me across the face, organizing social blackouts to ruin my career, treating me like dirt on her shoe. The only reason I survived those years was because Jonathan stood as my shield. But now, my shield was standing beside my tormentor. All I could do was try to keep my head above water, to avoid getting sucked into the undertow of their toxic current. But Vicky wasn’t going to let me walk away. The moment Jonathan stepped away to speak with a senator, she grabbed my wrist, her manicured nails digging into my skin. “Do you actually think wearing his ring gives you any power over me?” she hissed, her eyes gleaming. “Let me make this crystal clear for you, Natalie. I am the only woman he has ever truly loved.” To prove her point, she pulled out her phone and opened a hidden photo album. “Look at this. March of last year. The anniversary of your little bastard’s death. Jonathan told you he had an emergency board meeting, right? He was actually in Aspen, celebrating my birthday.” She swiped to the next photo. “June of this year. Mercer Holdings goes public. He told you he was in Tokyo securing investors. He was in Paris with me, shopping for couture.” Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. “Every gift he bought me. Every secret getaway. We’ve been together for eight years, Natalie. Eight years. Everyone in his inner circle knows. The VPs, the board members, the assistants. They’ve all been laughing at you behind your back.” She leaned in, her perfume cloying and suffocating. “You thought you had this beautiful, happy life. You’re nothing but a pathetic joke.” Her words hit like shrapnel. My hands shook as I took the phone from her. I stared at the glossy, curated evidence of a parallel life. There was Jonathan, laughing on a yacht. Jonathan, kissing Vicky’s cheek in front of the Eiffel Tower. Jonathan, looking at her with a light in his eyes I hadn’t seen since we were twenty-two. What was I doing while these photos were taken? I was sitting on the floor of a nursery that never got used, sobbing into baby blankets that still smelled like dust. I was drowning in guilt for trading my son’s life for Jonathan’s success. The tears spilled over, hot and uncontrollable. It wasn’t just the betrayal. It was the total, agonizing collapse of the reality I had lived in for nearly a decade. Vicky watched me cry, drinking in my devastation like fine wine. She leaned closer, twisting the knife. “Do you want to know why he finally brought me back to the States?” she whispered. “Because I’m pregnant.” She patted her flat stomach. “He already drafted a new will. He’s leaving the lion’s share of his estate to my child. You broke your back for that man for half your life, and for what? I still win.” I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I forced myself to look her dead in the eye, my voice trembling but clear. “So… you admit it. You admit that you purposefully pushed me down those stairs to kill my baby, just so you could have Jonathan?” Vicky laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “So what if I did? The statute of limitations for the assault is over, and you signed an NDA. You can’t touch me. Jonathan will never let you near me. With him protecting me, you will die a miserable, defeated woman.” Right as the words left her mouth, the main spotlights of the ballroom swung toward the stage. I took a deep breath, reaching up to the brooch pinned to my dress. I unclipped the hidden microphone I had been wearing all night. I looked at Vicky, my face stripped of all emotion. “You’re right. Legally, I can’t touch you,” I said softly. “But I can make sure that every single person in this room—and the two million people currently watching this live broadcast—know exactly what kind of monster you are.”

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Every time Parker Cole abandoned me for Hannah Sinclair, she made it a point to rub it in my face. Tonight was no exception. “Happy Birthday, Bonnie. How does it feel to celebrate all by yourself?” Just as I was about to hang up the phone, a line of glowing text drifted across my field of vision, hovering in the empty air of my dining room like a live-stream comment. “The male lead has no idea it’s the heroine’s birthday, but the female rival remembers the exact date. Is this not love? This is love!” Another line floated by. “Who else gets it? Our heroine is too kind. The rival tries to provoke her, ends up getting mad herself, but still comes back for more. So cute.” “Don’t be mad at her, baby girl. All her hate is just frustration that you don’t look at her. Give her an inch of initiative, and you’ll catch yourself a prickly, defensive little kitten.” I let out a soft scoff. Hannah Sinclair? A defensive little kitten? Everyone in our circle knew the score. She loathed my cold, calculating, profit-driven nature, and I had exactly zero patience for her spoiled, erratic, weather-vane temper. But, driven by some inexplicable impulse—perhaps sparked by those bizarre floating words—I leaned into the absurdity. “Thank you, Hannah. I’m actually touched you remembered it was my birthday.” 1 Dead silence on the other end of the line. I started to doubt the validity of the floating text. How could Hannah Sinclair, of all people, be a tsundere? Thanks to Parker, our relationship over the past few years had plummeted past the freezing point into outright hostility. It was an unspoken rule in Manhattan’s upper crust: if Hannah was on the guest list, I wasn’t. If I was there, she was out. She had given up studying abroad in London just to stay in the States and follow Parker. After graduation, she entangled herself in his life so thoroughly that she didn’t even care when the old-money crowd whispered behind her back. If Parker and I went on a business trip, she’d demand he take her shopping. If we had a date, she would miraculously twist her ankle or spike a fever. Birthdays, anniversaries—she always found a way to drag him away to her side. And every single time she succeeded, I’d get a call just like this one, dripping with mockery, flaunting how devoted he was to her. Honestly, it was entirely unnecessary. I had only agreed to date Parker to maximize a strategic corporate merger. It was the path of least resistance. And if there was a villain in this love triangle, it was him. If his boundaries hadn’t been so deliberately blurred, if he hadn’t constantly indulged her whims, she would never have had the leverage to provoke me in the first place. I didn’t exactly like Hannah, but I couldn’t say I truly hated her either. We had grown up together, after all. There was a history there. But she was supposed to despise me. Why would she go out of her way to remember my birthday? “Heroine, don’t hang up! She’s buffering. She’s panicking. Her brain is short-circuiting.” “Hahaha, the rival’s fur is entirely puffed up right now. She’s definitely staring at her phone in sheer disbelief, taking deep breaths.” “The element of surprise is a flawless tactic. I can’t wait for the day her prickly facade completely crumbles!” Watching the spectral words fade into the air, a genuine smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. I had known her for over two decades. We might not have been best friends, but we knew the darkest, ugliest corners of each other’s temperaments. I didn’t even need the mysterious text to picture it. I could perfectly envision her staring at her phone, mouth opening and closing, swallowing her carefully prepared insults until she finally choked out— “Are you out of your mind?! Bonnie Montgomery, stop playing the victim with me!” The sheer satisfaction of predicting her response entirely washed away the lingering sting of being ditched by Parker. Looking at the meticulously arranged centerpiece and the empty dining room, I chuckled, suddenly at a loss for words. I had thought Parker would at least remember. Whether as a boyfriend or a future business partner in a high-stakes merger, he should have known today was my birthday. “Bonnie, cut the act!” Hannah’s voice barked through the speaker. “I’m in a good mood today, so I’m going to take pity on you and buy you a cake. Stop pretending you’re heartbroken.” The heavy disappointment in my chest snapped like a brittle twig. Maybe… maybe she really didn’t hate me? “Then I want the one from the bakery on the Upper East Side,” I said softly. An immediate, exasperated groan echoed through the receiver. “I know, I know! You are so high-maintenance. You’ll only eat from that one specific pastry chef, and it has to be the mango filling. God.” “Chat, what do we do when we encounter a fiercely defensive kitten? She says she hates you but won’t stop following you around.” “Recommend taking her straight home and kissing her senseless!” “Who else is dying at the thought of the rival furiously scrolling through delivery apps right now to find the exact right cake? Is this the legendary ‘mouth says no but body says yes’?” Listening to Hannah’s muffled, continuous grumbling through the phone, a strange, warm knot formed in my chest. She remembered. She remembered all of it. 2 The doorbell rang. Along with the pristine bakery box came a gift. A custom silk scarf from a top-tier European house, in exactly the color palette and vintage cut I favored. Almost simultaneously, a text from her lit up my screen. “I was in a good mood today, so the scarf is yours. Bonnie MONTGOMERY!!! I am warning you, do not play the pathetic card with me again. I don’t buy it!” I looked between the mango cake and the heavy silk, my thumbs moving smoothly over the glass screen. “Thank you for the gifts. I love the scarf.” The floating text in my vision went absolutely feral. “I’m screaming. One sentence and she’s probably flushed beet-red, muttering ‘psycho’ while smiling at her phone.” “These two girls are the absolute best. Please stop fighting over that trash man.” “Just coax her a little! The kitty just needs a little chin scratch.” I ran my fingers over the rolled hem of the silk scarf, a quiet, unfamiliar warmth blooming in my veins. The next morning, an artisan coffee and a pastry sat on my office desk. Parker leaned against the edge of the mahogany, watching me. “I’m sorry about last night, Bonnie. Hannah is just too impulsive. I’ll make sure everything is handled properly before the wedding.” He paused, his gaze dropping to my neck. “That scarf looks stunning on you today. It suits you.” This was Parker’s signature move. A tone so indulgent it bordered on patronizing, always leaving just enough ambiguity. I was never quite sure if that indulgence was meant for me, or for Hannah. Looking at the man before me, it would be a lie to say I felt absolutely nothing for him. When we first started dating, it had aligned perfectly with my family’s corporate restructuring. Tech startups were becoming the new empire builders, riding the wave of emerging algorithms and digital infrastructure. For a legacy company like ours to stay at the apex, integrating with new tech money was essential. But there were a hundred ways to achieve that. It didn’t have to be Parker Cole. I hadn’t been entirely opposed to marrying him, perhaps even building a life together. But reality had a funny way of stripping the gold paint off base metal. “Yesterday was my birthday. Did you know that?” Seeing the sheer, unadulterated shock flash across his face, I looked down, adjusted the silk scarf at my collar, and let out a cold, internal laugh. It must have been so much work for Hannah. Racking her brain, fabricating an emergency to drag him away from me on the exact day of my birthday. And in the end, her meticulous plotting had been entirely wasted on a man who hadn’t even realized what day it was. Parker lost his smooth composure, standing up straight. A rare flicker of genuine guilt crossed his features. He opened his mouth, closed it, and ultimately said nothing. I flipped open the quarterly proposal, mentally calculating the delivery dates for our joint venture. I didn’t even look up to see when he finally slinked out of my office. Corporate life spares no one. Even the heirs to the throne have to grind. At noon, my assistant trailed behind me, her expression unusually bright, a secretive smile playing on her lips. As soon as I stepped into the executive dining room, a chaotic chorus of cheers erupted. The crowd parted, and Parker emerged, pushing a massive, multi-tiered cake on a cart. “Happy Birthday, Bonnie!” I studied the towering confection, my expression pleasant but entirely detached. “If it’s not from the bakery on the Upper East Side, I won’t eat it. And I only eat fruit fillings if they’re mango.” I met his eyes. “I’ll pass on the cake.” My phone buzzed incessantly in my pocket. The private group chat with my inner circle was exploding, everyone demanding I host a party tonight to properly celebrate. I typed out a quick, gracious agreement, and explicitly tagged Hannah Sinclair. The chaotic group chat went completely dead. She replied almost instantly. “Beg me. Beg me, and I might show up.” The floating text surged again. “Ahhhhh the leopard and the cat, I’m ascending! Is this not love?!” “The girls are the main event! Drop the dead weight of a man.” “Who else understands the pure delicacy of a defensive rival? She’s definitely avoiding eye contact right now, feeling like something is slightly off, but stubbornly tilting her chin up anyway.” I was finally starting to grasp the precise emotional texture of the word tsundere the comments kept using. I lowered my head, a genuine smile breaking across my face. “I’m begging you.” 3 I wiped the smile from my face and looked up at the sea of executives and assistants, all of whom currently looked like they wanted the floor to swallow them whole. I picked up the silver knife, cut a slice of the rejected cake with a light chuckle, and set it on a plate. “I can’t eat this, but you all shouldn’t let it go to waste. Make sure you thank Mr. Cole for his generosity.” Parker’s smile looked more like a grimace. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me out into the hallway and back toward my office. “Bonnie, forgetting your birthday was my fault, but did you really have to humiliate me in front of the entire floor?!” he hissed, dropping his voice. “It was the thought that counted! Would it have killed you to take one bite?” The floating comments were merciless. “This is exactly what tech bros do. They can’t be bothered to remember a woman’s basic preferences, and then they blame her for ‘humiliating’ them when their low-effort gesture fails.” “Take the rose-colored glasses off. Proof that a man is just a man. Doesn’t matter how rich he is, he’s still weaponizing his incompetence.” “I am begging you on my hands and knees, look at our girl Hannah! The party is tonight and she’s probably been trying on battle armor since 8 AM!” I wrenched my wrist out of his grip and walked straight to my desk. The timeline on the joint venture was still dragging. Perhaps realizing he had crossed a line, Parker leaned his hands heavily on my desk, took a deep breath, muttered a hasty apology, and volunteered to secure the VIP room at a private club for tonight’s party. “Suit yourself,” I said, not looking up. Adult birthdays are rarely just about cake; they are battlegrounds for leverage and corporate probing. Tonight would be a test of how solid my relationship with Parker really was, and by extension, the merger of our two families’ empires. I maintained a polite, impenetrable smile throughout the evening. Parker hovered, trying to play the perfect host, but continually found himself hitting a brick wall. Once the initial wave of networking died down, he looked at me, letting out a heavy sigh. “Bonnie, I was wrong. The cake debacle won’t happen again.” He gestured to the lavish room. “Do you like what I did with the place? Guess what I got you for your actual gift.” Before I could even form a response, a commotion rippled near the entrance. It truly was the entrance of a queen demanding her subjects part the Red Sea. Hannah Sinclair swept in, dripping in a breathtaking couture gown, her chin tilted up with that signature, disdainful arrogance. She marched straight up to me, coming to a halt right next to Parker. She looped her arm lightly through his. “Bonnie, you don’t mind, do you?” Before Parker could even react to her touch, Hannah furrowed her brow, sweeping her gaze over the room with a theatrical click of her tongue. “Bonnie, has your taste really deteriorated this much? It seems I’m not the only one who hates you. Someone deliberately decorated this entire room with the exact roses you despise. And since when do you drink champagne? You only ever drink fruit wine.” She systematically tore the party to shreds. From the greeters to the lighting, from the alcohol to the ambient scent, from the floral arrangements to the catering. She didn’t even notice that the blood had completely drained from Parker’s face. She delivered the final, fatal blow: “This hits every single one of your red flags with terrifying precision. Who designed this? I need to shake their hand.” I offered her a serene, amused smile and tilted my chin toward Parker. Embarrassment doesn’t just evaporate; it transfers. Hannah’s hand subtly slipped out from the crook of Parker’s arm, acting as if she had never touched him at all. “Hahaha, she is so cute. When a cat knocks over a vase, they just pretend it never happened, therefore it never happened.” “See? Your greatest enemy knows you best. They are in the same frame! Enemies to lovers incoming.” “Can the man please exit the chat? I only want to see the rival’s meticulously chosen gift (strikeout) flex (check).” After I finished another round of corporate pleasantries, she unabashedly wedged herself right between Parker and me. Completely ignoring the social cues of the room, she pulled a sleek glass bottle from her clutch and spritzed the air with aggressive flair. “Bonnie. Does it smell good?” It did. It was my absolute favorite niche European fragrance. The same one I had worn since college. “Do you like it? What a shame. I bought out every single bottle of available stock in the country. Even if you love it, you can’t get it. You’ll just have to settle for whatever generic trash you can find.” As she spoke, her eyes flicked intentionally toward the small gift box resting on the table beside me. Parker’s gift. Also perfume. The silence in our immediate circle grew physically painful. The onlookers wanted to laugh, but didn’t dare, their eyes darting nervously to Parker’s ashen face. It was utterly absurd. The supposed “other woman” knew the girlfriend better than the boyfriend of five years did. “Let me make one thing clear,” Hannah hissed, leaning in close. “Whatever you like, I will take it from you!” I rested my chin in my hand, my eyes crinkling with undisguised amusement. “So, you know exactly what I like.” “O-of course I do!” 4 The floating text absolutely lost its mind, and this time, even our close friends couldn’t hold back their snickers. We had all been in the same social stratosphere for years. When you grow up together, the boundaries for teasing are virtually nonexistent. The laughter flushed Hannah’s cheeks pink. She stamped her heel in indignation, turned on her stiletto, and stormed off—completely forgetting her hard-won bottle of perfume on the table. “I haven’t seen you two act like this in years,” one of our friends murmured, swirling her drink. “I always say,” another chimed in, “Bonnie looks like the calm, responsible one, but she’s secretly wicked.” “Poor Hannah. Defeated time and time again, yet always coming back for battle. We thought you two would be locked in a cold war forever.” A sudden, thoughtful silence fell over the group. Honestly, compared to Parker, Hannah was the one I had truly grown up with. From elite prep schools to Ivy League networking events, from childhood braces to bespoke tailored suits. I knew her, and she knew me. We hadn’t missed a single major milestone in each other’s lives. Back then, even though she constantly wanted to compete with me over grades, fashion, or social standing, it had never been this toxic. Not until Parker Cole arrived. His entry into our world had been blinding. The Cole tech empire was shifting its headquarters to the East Coast, backed by massive government contracts. He was the kind of new money that demanded immediate respect from the old guard. My connection with Parker was driven by mutual benefit. It was logical. Smooth. There is no such thing as pure, unadulterated romance at this level of wealth, just as there is no such thing as isolated corporate maneuvering. Interests and emotions must entangle to form an unbreakable alliance. But as if by some cruel twist of fate, Hannah also met Parker. And she became infatuated. From that moment, our rivalry mutated into something ugly. We fought over everything. But mostly, we fought over him. To Parker, I was the ideal board-room partner, the perfect choice to appease his investors. I just wasn’t the perfect girl to date. The very traits that made me an incredible asset in a merger—my calm, my stability, my emotional restraint—were viewed as massive flaws in his romantic life. He loved the fact that we were fighting over him. He fed off the ego trip of two powerful heiresses tearing each other apart for his attention. In the past, our families’ projects had been too deeply intertwined. My hands had been tied, and I had given Parker far too much leeway. But now… I stared at the pale golden liquid swirling gently in my glass. Now, Parker was no longer essential. We might all run in the same circles, but there are circles within circles. New money like the Coles, no matter how bright they burned, still lacked the deep, unshakable roots of families like mine and Hannah’s. Even though my relationship with Hannah had fractured over the years, neither of us had ever truly crossed the line into destroying the other’s family legacy. At the end of the day, men were the most expendable assets in our portfolios. If Parker had a shred of self-awareness, he would have handled his own mess quietly. He wouldn’t have let it escalate into a public spectacle. Fortunately, the delivery date for the joint venture was imminent. Once the ink dried on the final contracts, severing ties with maximum efficiency and minimum PR fallout would be the optimal move. I clinked my glass against a friend’s, offering a knowing smile. Some things didn’t need to be spoken out loud. Perhaps men possessed a survival instinct after all. For the next few weeks, Parker morphed into the picture-perfect boyfriend. He was attentive, cautious, and ironically, our project milestones moved at record speed. The only remaining annoyance was his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Cole had built their wealth from the ground up. They adhered to a painfully traditional “man conquers the world, woman tends the hearth” philosophy. A few years ago, they wouldn’t have dared speak to me with anything but reverence. But recently, emboldened by Hannah’s aggressive pursuit of their son, their spines had stiffened. They had started trying to dictate my life. “Bonnie, darling,” Mrs. Cole said, her diamonds flashing as she poured tea. “You and Parker aren’t getting any younger. It’s time to settle down. A man needs to build his family before he can truly conquer his industry.” She patted my hand condescendingly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, dear, but a woman’s true priority should be her home. Supporting her husband, raising the children. Our legacy is in the next generation. When are you going to let Mr. Cole and me hold our grandchildren?” I glanced at Parker, who was sitting on the velvet sofa, entirely motionless, acting as if he had suddenly gone deaf. I understood the nature of this ambush perfectly. They felt they weren’t getting a big enough piece of the pie in the merger. They wanted to lock me down, to bind our assets permanently through marriage and an heir. “Today, I’m going to teach you how to make his favorite pan-seared branzino,” Mrs. Cole continued smoothly. “Parker loves it. Once you two are married, you can make it for him so he doesn’t have to keep running back here to his mother.” I offered a placid smile, saying absolutely nothing. The floating text, however, was having a field day. “Enemy forces arriving in five seconds! Waiting for the girls to collide.” “This old bat. Her greedy little abacus beads are practically hitting my face. I hope the rival shows up and burns the house down.” “Hahaha, the rival probably didn’t even want to come, but the second she heard the heroine was here, she shot out of bed, strapped on her Louboutins, and launched herself like a missile.” Before Parker could even attempt to mediate the tension, Mrs. Cole’s face broke into a dizzying, sycophantic grin as she rushed toward the foyer. Hannah Sinclair strolled in, her sweet, weaponized charm immediately flattering the elder Coles into a state of absolute euphoria. I watched as she handed over her hostess gift, fighting the urge to burst out laughing. It was the exact same generic, high-end corporate basket I had brought. She put on an Oscar-worthy performance of surprise, as if she hadn’t realized I would be sitting right there. “Oh! Bonnie. You’re visiting Mr. and Mrs. Cole too?” If she tried acting like this in Hollywood, she’d be laughed out of the room. “Yep,” I said, popping the ‘p’. “I’m here to cook.” 5 The delicate, carefully arranged features of her face instantly contorted. It was a beautiful mosaic of disbelief, confusion, and raw, visceral anger…

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I have been married twice in my life. The first time was a shotgun wedding to my childhood sweetheart, Victoria Belmont, the undisputed princess of Manhattan’s old-money elite. I was young, arrogant, and demanded absolute perfection. So, when I discovered she was entertaining a quiet, lingering fascination with her new executive assistant, I filed for divorce. I refused to share my wife’s heart with anyone. The second time, I married for love—or at least, I thought I did. I married Harper Monroe, San Francisco’s newly minted tech billionaire, a woman who claimed she fell in love with me at first sight. Every year since my second marriage, my ex-wife Victoria has sent me a birthday present. I have never once signed for them, nor have I ever written her back. I was hell-bent on proving to the world—and to her—that I could build a beautiful, thriving life without her. And I believed I had. Until the third year of my marriage, when I accompanied Harper to her college reunion. A former classmate, heavy with gin and nostalgia, threw an arm around Harper’s shoulders and gave her a sloppy thumbs-up. “If we’re talking about blind, obsessive devotion, Harper, you take the crown,” he slurred. “When Oliver decided you were too broke for his ambitions, took all your startup cash, and ran off to Paris… man, you swore you were going to tear him apart.” He let out a booming laugh. “And look how that turned out! You ended up marrying him anyway.” 1. I slowly turned my head to look at Harper. She offered a forced, tight smile. “He’s drunk, Spencer. Are you really going to listen to a drunk?” The classmate caught the shift in the air and immediately took offense. “Who’s drunk? I’m telling the truth! I remember the night he left. You sat on my couch and cried until the sun came up—” Harper stood up so fast her chair scraped violently against the hardwood. “Shut your mouth!” she snapped, her voice like cracking a whip. The room went dead silent. The alcohol seemed to evaporate from the classmate’s veins. His eyes darted from Harper to me, lingering on my face for a long, uncomfortable moment. In his strange, pitying stare, the last three years of my life suddenly clicked into horrifying focus. No wonder a fiercely independent, rising Silicon Valley titan had supposedly fallen in love at first sight with a divorced man she met at a gala. No wonder she absolutely forbade me from styling my hair with gel, preferring it softly parted. No wonder she bought me endless variations of crisp, white button-down shirts. No wonder she had infinite, bottomless patience for all my flaws and temper tantrums. I wasn’t her great love. I was a ghost. I was the placeholder for a college romance that had cut her to the bone. I picked up my phone and stood up to leave. A hand locked around my wrist. It wasn’t tight enough to hurt, but the touch made my skin crawl. It felt sickening. I ripped my arm out of her grasp and, acting on pure, blinding instinct, slapped her across the face. A collective gasp sucked the air out of the private dining room. Harper slowly turned her head back to face me. She wiped a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth, and then, terrifyingly, she smiled. I had been married to her for three years. I knew that smile. It was the calm before the absolute devastation. When I first moved to the West Coast to be with Harper, Victoria had followed me. My ex-wife showed up at our gates in Pacific Heights every single day, trying every tactic in the book to win me back. Harper had watched from the window, turned to me, and asked with a light laugh, “Thinking of going back to the old money, Spencer?” Before I could even formulate a response, Harper had walked out the front door, rolled up her sleeves, and gotten into a physical altercation with Victoria on the sidewalk. That very night, Harper launched a scorched-earth corporate war against Belmont Enterprises, bleeding millions just to force Victoria’s hand and drive her back to New York. Harper Monroe was a woman who destroyed whatever stood in her way. But right now, what right did she have to be angry? I was the one who had been played. I was the one cast as the understudy in my own marriage. I turned toward the door, only to freeze. Walking into the private room, wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and an easy, dazzling smile, was a man. It only took one glance for the breath to leave my lungs. He was her first love. Oliver noticed me immediately. He paused, his gaze sweeping over my face, my hair, my clothes. A flicker of profound, cruel understanding sparked in his eyes. A wave of humiliation crashed over me. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, my fingernails digging sharp crescent moons into my palms. Oliver glided right past me, approaching Harper with an effortless familiarity. “New boyfriend?” he asked, his voice melodic. “He looks so much like me. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on me, Harper.” Harper’s expression turned to ice. “This is my husband. Show some respect.” Oliver immediately dropped his gaze. His shoulders slumped, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled with a practiced fragility. “I… I didn’t know you were married. You don’t have to be so mean to me.” Without thinking, Harper’s posture entirely softened. She leaned toward him, her voice suddenly frantic and desperate. “Hey, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” She didn’t get to finish. Oliver covered his mouth, a quiet, mocking giggle escaping his lips. “God, three or four years and you’re still so easy to trick.” Harper’s jaw clenched tight. “Oliver.” She was annoyed, but he was laughing. And everyone else in the room just watched them, completely accustomed to their chaotic, gravitational pull. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t be in that room for a second longer. I turned and practically ran out the door. As I fled down the hallway, I heard Oliver’s teasing voice drift out of the open door. “Aren’t you going to chase him?” My footsteps faltered. I stopped, a pathetic sliver of hope making me wait for her answer. Then came my wife’s voice, airy and dismissive: “He doesn’t have a temper like yours. He’s much easier to coax.” 2. I don’t remember the drive back to Pacific Heights. The moment I unlocked the front door, the massive wedding portrait hanging in the foyer seemed to scream at me. When Harper first told me she loved me at first sight, I hadn’t believed her. How could I? I had been betrayed by a woman I’d known for over twenty years; the idea of trusting a stranger felt impossible. But my divorce from Victoria had been ugly. My parents, furious at the scandal and the loss of the Belmont alliance, cut me off entirely. Because I had no concrete proof of Victoria actually sleeping with her assistant—only emotional infidelity—the tabloids ripped me to shreds. They called me a spoiled, dramatic, hypersensitive brat. My peers in the New York elite circles practically bought popcorn to watch my downfall. Everyone said I would never find a woman as powerful or as perfect as Victoria Belmont. I refused to accept that. I wanted to prove them wrong. And I hit the jackpot with Harper. She was a rising star, a self-made prodigy. Her public, undeniable devotion to me was the ultimate vindication. It shut the mouths of everyone who had laughed at me. But tonight, the illusion shattered. Her “love at first sight” was nothing more than a desperate grasping at the ghost of the boy who had broken her. My stomach churned. The acid rose in my throat. I stumbled into the downstairs bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left but dry heaves and tears. When I finally rinsed my mouth and stepped out, I walked down the hall to Harper’s private study—a room I almost never entered. There, wedged between thick volumes of macroeconomic theory, was a battered, leather-bound notebook. It looked wildly out of place. My hands shook as I pulled it off the shelf and opened it. A Polaroid slipped from the pages and fluttered to the floor. It was Harper in her graduation gown, looking up at a young man with a look of pure, unadulterated worship. The woman I knew was a stone-cold killer in the boardroom. But in the pages of this diary, she was just an ordinary, heartbroken girl. He said I was a dead end. He said he was leaving for Europe. I begged him not to. But he left anyway. He took every dime I had saved and walked out. That cruel, beautiful boy. When he comes back, I swear I’m going to ruin him. I’ll make him wish he was dead. The ink on that page was blurred by old, dried water marks. Teardrops. The paper was stiff and wrinkled. I turned the pages, fast-forwarding through years of silent obsession. I met a man today. He looks just like him. It’s my wedding day. I texted him. If he comes back to America today, I’ll marry him instead. He didn’t come. I guess I have to stop waiting. My vision blurred. Hot tears spilled over my eyelashes. While I had been excitedly picking out floral arrangements and writing my vows, terrified but hopeful for a second chance at love, my bride was staring at her phone, praying another man would crash the wedding and steal her away. I heard the heavy click of the front door unlocking. I didn’t move. I just stood there, the diary open in my hands. Footsteps rushed down the hall. Harper appeared in the doorway. When she saw what I was holding, the temperature in the room plummeted. Her voice was ice. “Who gave you permission to touch my things? Give it to me.” On the day she proposed, Harper had transferred half of her company shares into my name, just to make me feel secure. During our marriage, she gave me unfettered access to her life. No passcodes on her phones, tracking apps shared between us so I always knew she was safe. But now, because I was holding a relic of Oliver, she looked at me like I was a thief. I let out a broken, hollow laugh. “If your heart is already occupied by someone else, why do you care if I look?” She didn’t answer. She just lunged forward and grabbed the notebook. I gripped it tightly, refusing to let go. Harper didn’t hesitate. She grabbed my hand and began bending my fingers backward, one by one. Crack. The sound of my own bone fracturing echoed in the quiet room. All the color drained from my face as a blinding pain shot up my arm. I gasped, releasing the book, and threw it hard against her chest. “If you’re still so violently in love with him, why the hell did you marry me?!” I screamed. She rubbed her temples, looking thoroughly exasperated, as if I were a toddler throwing a tantrum. “That is all in the past. Stop being so dramatic and unreasonable.” “Then look me in the eye,” I challenged, my voice shaking. “Look me in the eye and tell me you married me because you love me.” I didn’t flinch. I stared right into her soul. Harper’s eyes flickered away for a fraction of a second. And then, she let out a cold, defensive scoff. “You want the truth, Spencer? Fine. I’ll give you the truth.” She stepped closer, her voice cruel and precise. “When I first pursued you, yes, it was because you looked like him. But haven’t I treated you well enough these past three years? Haven’t I given you everything?” Yes. She had. She treated me so perfectly that I was completely fooled into believing it was love. But what was the reality? Victoria was always looking for the next shiny new thing. Harper was violently stuck in the past. She loved Oliver. She had only ever loved Oliver. I looked at the careful, almost reverent way she was smoothing down the wrinkled cover of the diary, and I felt nothing but absolute disgust. “I want a divorce, Harper.” 3. Harper’s hands stopped moving. She let out a long, heavy sigh. “Spencer, can you stop throwing a fit for five minutes?” she said, her tone dripping with condescension. “You are the husband of the Monroe empire. Everyone in this city bows to you. If you throw a tantrum and demand a divorce now, you’ll just be a laughingstock again.” The words felt like a punch to the gut. They were so hauntingly familiar. When I asked Victoria for a divorce, she had said almost the exact same thing. It was just a harmless crush on the assistant. We didn’t actually sleep together. Stop making a scene, Spencer. But I refused to be married to a woman who harbored someone else in her heart. I had the strength to walk away from Victoria, and I had the strength to walk away from Harper. “Tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. My lawyer’s office,” I said, my voice dead and flat. I turned and tried to walk past her. Harper reached out and gripped my shoulder hard. “Don’t be so childish. Who is going to marry a man who’s been divorced twice? You’re damaged goods.” I stared at her, suddenly realizing I didn’t know the woman standing in front of me at all. When I had sat on our sofa, crying as I told her what Victoria had put me through, she had held me tightly, kissing my hair, whispering that she wished she had found me sooner to protect me from the pain. Perhaps the absolute devastation in my eyes was too loud, because Harper’s grip loosened, and her tone softened. “Look, I’m sorry. I just—” Her phone buzzed, cutting her off. I glanced down. There was no caller ID saved. Harper hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen, before she swiped to answer. “Arrested for a DUI?” Her voice instantly sharpened. “I am not bailing you out. You didn’t give a damn about me when you emptied my bank account and ran off to Paris!” Every word was laced with rejection, but the underlying panic and fierce attachment betrayed her. I had literally just asked her for a divorce, but one phone call from Oliver eclipsed my entire existence. Watching her frantically search for her car keys, I let out a bitter, exhausted chuckle. “In such a rush to go see your old flame? The least you could do is stay and negotiate our assets.” Harper shot me a venomous glare. “Stop being paranoid. He just moved back to the States. He doesn’t know anyone here. I’m his ex-girlfriend; it’s basic human decency to help him out of a jam.” She grabbed her keys and rushed out into the night. The heavy oak door slammed shut. The house plunged into an oppressive silence. I walked upstairs to our bedroom, pulled out a suitcase, and began throwing clothes into it. A few minutes later, my phone pinged with a friend request on social media. The profile picture was a crude, hand-drawn sketch of a kitten. Harper’s profile picture had always been a hand-drawn puppy. They had been broken up for years, yet she couldn’t even bring herself to change their matching icons. I accepted the request. Oliver didn’t send a message. He didn’t need to. I clicked on his profile and scrolled through his timeline. There, I found a version of my wife I had never met. I saw Harper letting a man draw all over her face with lipstick while she laughed. I saw Harper at a carnival, taking ridiculous, silly photobooth pictures, her eyes crinkling with joy. I saw Harper wearing an apron, cooking a chaotic, messy dinner in a tiny apartment. All of these posts were from over three years ago. Before me. Suddenly, my feed refreshed. A new post from Oliver popped up. Bad boys get everything they want. The location tag was the most exclusive, discreet boutique hotel in San Francisco. The photo was a close-up of two hands, their fingers intimately intertwined against rumpled white hotel sheets. The woman’s hand was missing a wedding ring. But there was a pale, distinct tan line around her ring finger. Harper couldn’t even wait the mandatory thirty days to finalize a divorce. I bit down on my lip until I tasted fresh blood. Acting on pure, blinding adrenaline, I hailed an Uber and gave the driver the address of the hotel. The concierge refused to give me the room number. So I walked the halls. I knocked on every single door, apologizing to angry guests one by one. When I reached the final door at the end of the penthouse suite, I froze. My hand hovered inches from the wood. What was I going to do if I walked in? Catch them in the act? Scream like a lunatic? Throw a punch? And then what? End up on the front page of Page Six tomorrow as the pathetic, hysterical cuckold again? I stood in that quiet, dimly lit corridor for what felt like hours. I let my hand fall to my side. I didn’t knock. I dragged my hollow, exhausted body back to the empty mansion. I spent the next few hours drafting emails to my divorce attorneys. When my eyes finally gave out, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. The next morning, I was violently awakened. But it wasn’t the sun. It was the fact that I was trending online. The headline read: TECH MOGUL’S HUSBAND CAUGHT SNEAKING INTO HOTEL FOR LATE-NIGHT RENDEZVOUS WITH EX-WIFE. 4. Before I could even process the words on the screen, Harper dragged me out of bed by the collar of my shirt. She shoved her phone inches from my face. It was a paparazzi photo of me standing outside the boutique hotel last night, looking pale and deeply distressed. “Spencer, running off in the middle of the night to beg your ex-wife to fuck you? Have you no shame?” she spat, her voice vibrating with rage. My head was spinning, my body heavy with sleep and exhaustion. “I haven’t even seen Victoria,” I shot back defensively. “And speaking of hotels, weren’t you at that exact same place last night?” A flash of raw panic crossed Harper’s eyes, instantly swallowed by aggressive, defensive fury. “Nothing happened between me and Oliver!” she yelled. “But you—sneaking around in the middle of the night to see Victoria? Explain yourself!” A dark, twisted laugh bubbled up in my chest. If she wanted to believe the worst of me to justify her own guilt, fine. “Sure. Let’s say I did go see her,” I said, my voice eerily calm. Watching her pupils dilate in shock sent a sick thrill of vindication through my veins. “I didn’t just see her. I told her I regretted ever leaving her,” I lied, the words tasting like ash. “Because no matter how unfaithful Victoria was, at least she never looked at me and saw another man’s face.” Harper’s breathing turned ragged. Her fingers dug into my shoulders so hard her knuckles turned white. “You think I don’t have regrets?!” she screamed, her composure entirely gone. “Oliver might have left me, but at least he never belonged to another woman! Do you know how many people laugh behind my back because my first marriage is to a man who’s already someone else’s leftovers?!” SMACK. The sound of her hand cracking across my jaw echoed in the bedroom. My palm stung with the phantom memory of the slap I had given her the night before. Harper’s head snapped to the side from the force of her own swing. Her eyes filled with bloodshot, violent rage. She raised her hand again, preparing to strike. But she froze mid-air. I tilted my chin up, exposing my face to her. “Do it! Hit me! Let’s see what else you can break!” Harper stared at me, her chest heaving. Suddenly, she lunged. She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me across the hardwood floor, straight into the master bathroom. She turned on the faucet, letting the massive standalone tub fill with freezing cold water. Despite my thrashing, she shoved me down, forcing my head and shoulders under the icy surface. “Harper! Are you insane?!” I sputtered as I breached the surface, gasping for air. She grabbed a loofah and began scrubbing my skin with a terrifying, manic strength. “I don’t hit men, Spencer. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a temper,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “This is your only warning. I never want to see you communicating with your ex-wife ever again.” The ice water sank into my bones, but it was nothing compared to the absolute, freezing terror in my heart. “How can you be such a hypocrite?!” I yelled over the running water. “You spent last night alone in a hotel room with Oliver! You expect me to believe nothing happened?!” She shoved my head back down into the water. “You don’t get to question me!” Water rushed up my nose. The primal, blinding panic of suffocation hit me. I thrashed blindly, clawing at her arms. Just as my lungs began to burn, the pressure on the back of my neck vanished. I shot up, coughing violently, dragging ragged breaths into my burning chest. Harper stood over the tub, looking down at me like an emperor surveying a prisoner. “Stay here and think about what you’ve done,” she commanded coldly. She turned on her heel and walked out. Panic seized me. I scrambled out of the tub, desperate to follow her, desperate to get out of that room. But my wet feet slipped on the imported Italian tile. I went down hard. My skull slammed against the sharp edge of the marble counter with a sickening crunch. Outside, I heard the heavy click of the deadbolt sliding into place. Harper’s muffled voice bled through the wood. “When you figure out how to act like a husband, I’ll let you out.” A blinding, nauseating agony bloomed on the side of my head. Something hot and wet was running down my temple, dripping onto my cheek. My hands shook violently as I reached up to touch my face. My fingertips came away coated in thick, dark crimson. “Harper…” My voice was a weak, pathetic wheeze. “Harper, I hit my head. Please… unlock the door. I’m bleeding.” I dragged myself to the door and slapped my bloody hand against the wood. It left a smeared, red handprint. I heard footsteps approaching. Hope flared in my chest. But then, she let out a short, cynical laugh. “You really will pull any stunt to get out of trouble, won’t you, Spencer?” she mocked. “Faking an injury today? What’s next? Faking your own death?” The pool of red on the white tile grew larger. Hot tears mixed with the blood running into my eyes. The world began to tilt. The edges of my vision went dark, and the cold swallowed me whole.

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I was scrolling through my bank app, digging into the archives of my transaction history, when I found a transfer from three years ago. Recipient: Becca Jackson. Amount: $46,800. Memo: The last of the tuition. Go get ’em, babe. I stared at those words for a long time. That money represented three years of my life. Three years of working three jobs, sleeping four hours a night, and skipping meals so she didn’t have to take out a single student loan. Today, her wedding invitation arrived in the mail. The groom is my best friend. 1. The invitation was sent by Tyler himself. I knew it was him because of the tiny, hand-drawn smiley face on the back of the envelope. Tyler had been drawing that same stupid face since freshman year of college. He drew it on my birthday cards. He drew it on the Post-it notes he left on the fridge when we were roommates. Now, he’d drawn it on the invitation to his wedding with my ex-girlfriend. “August 28th. Tyler Miller & Becca Jackson. We request the honor of your presence.” I flipped the card over. There was a handwritten note on the back. *Mike, you have to be there. We’re waiting for you! ~* I stared at that tilde—that playful little wave at the end of the sentence. My phone buzzed on the desk. A text from Tyler. Tyler: Did the invite get there yet? I didn’t reply. Tyler: Mike, man, don’t be like that. You can’t control who you fall for. Just come. I’ve got the best seat in the house saved for you. I flipped the phone face-down. Outside, the Seattle sky was turning a bruised purple. I sat alone in my apartment. It’s a four-hundred-square-foot studio I’ve lived in for four years. It used to hold two people. Me and Becca. She lived here all through grad school. We shared a twin bed because that was all we could fit. There wasn’t even room for a desk, so she used to propped herself up on pillows and write her thesis on the mattress. I’d wake up at 5:00 AM to open the coffee shop. At 9:00, I’d head to my corporate data-entry job. At 6:00 PM, I’d start my shift at the bar, getting home around midnight. Three jobs. I was pulling in about six thousand a month. Rent was two thousand. The rest went to her tuition, her books, her groceries, her life. Whatever was left—barely anything—was what I used to feed myself. “Once I graduate, it’ll be our turn,” she used to say. I believed her. “Once I’m working, I’ll pay you back double,” she’d promise. I believed that, too. On her graduation day, I took a half-day off to watch her walk across the stage. She looked radiant in her cap and gown. I was standing in the middle of the crowd, trying to get a decent photo of her, when Tyler squeezed through the throng. He threw his arm around her and grinned. “Come on, Mike! Get a shot of us!” he shouted. I held up my phone and took the picture. She was laughing. He was leaning in close. I didn’t think anything of it back then. Looking at that photo now, they were the ones who looked like a couple. After graduation, Becca landed a job at a mid-sized ad agency. Making good money. “Let’s just save up for a bit first,” she told me. I said okay. Three months later, she asked me to dinner. I thought she was going to talk about rings, or maybe moving into a place with an actual bedroom. Instead, she said, “Mike, I don’t think we’re a good fit anymore.” It was raining that night. I remember because I’d left my umbrella at the bar. I walked twenty blocks to the subway in the downpour. I didn’t cry. I was just… cold. Two months after that, Tyler posted a photo on Instagram. A woman’s hand, a diamond ring. The caption: “For the rest of my life.” The first comment was from Becca: “Always you.” I clicked on Tyler’s profile. His new avatar was a photo of him and Becca. I’ll admit it—in that moment, something inside me shattered. But I closed the app. I didn’t call. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. Because I convinced myself it was my fault. I wasn’t successful enough. I wasn’t polished enough. I was just the guy who worked three jobs and smelled like espresso and cheap beer. I carried that shame for a year. Until today. Until this invitation. Something felt wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was a thorn buried deep in my chest. I opened my phone and started scrolling back through my texts with Tyler. All the way back. And then I saw it. Three years ago. While Becca was still in the thick of her Master’s program. A text from Tyler: “Hey Mike, Becca’s really stressed about her finals. I’m taking her to the library to help her study so you don’t have to worry about her.” My reply: “Thanks, man. Seriously. She’s been so busy she hasn’t even texted me back today.” He had replied with a smiley face. The exact same smiley face that was on the back of the wedding invitation. I stared at the screen. Three years ago. She was in school. I was working myself into the ground. And he was “taking her to the library.” I finally realized what that thorn was. It wasn’t just the heartbreak. It was the realization that I’d been a fool. 2. Becca and I were together for seven years. We met freshman year. She was a journalism major at the university across town. She was soft-spoken, pretty in a scrubbed-clean way, with dimples that showed up whenever she laughed. I met her at a campus print shop. She was trying to print her senior project and her card got declined for two dollars. I stepped up and paid for it. She thanked me and asked for my number. That was it. For four years, we didn’t spend much. We ate at the dining hall, walked in the parks, and our “fancy” date was a $20 buffet on my birthday that she’d saved up for two weeks to buy. I thought she was the most grounded girl in the world. I didn’t care about the money. I just cared about her. After graduation, she wanted to go for her Master’s. She didn’t get in the first year. She wanted to try again. “I’ll support you,” I told her. “I’ve got this.” I was making forty grand a year at a small firm. Rent was eighteen hundred. Between her prep courses, her books, and her living expenses, the math didn’t work. So I picked up the second job. Then the third. I never kept a spreadsheet. I didn’t think I needed to. When she finally got in, the tuition was twenty thousand a year. She acted shy about the money, so I made sure to stay ahead of it. I’d Venmo her the cash before she even had to ask, always with a memo like “You got this” or “Keep going.” I never used the word “loan.” I never thought I’d need to. I was sleeping five hours a night. My mom would call and ask why I sounded so thin over the phone. I told her work was just busy. I didn’t tell her I was bankrolling my girlfriend’s future because I knew she’d tell me I was being a martyr. Three years. I actually went back and did the math on the bank app. One hundred and forty-seven thousand, three hundred dollars. Tuition, rent, a new MacBook, her clothes, her sorority alumni fees, her professional certifications. $147,000. During those three years, I didn’t buy a single piece of clothing that cost more than twenty bucks. In the dead of winter, I wore a puffer jacket I bought on clearance at Walmart for $29. Becca wore a North Face parka. I’d bought it for her. “It’ll be worth it once I’m done,” she’d say, her eyes wide and sincere. And I believed her every single time. I thought we were building a life. I didn’t realize she was building her life, and I was just the scaffolding. Tyler was my best friend. He was a design major, came from a family with a bit of money. The three of us were a trio. He used to call her “Big Sis Becca.” I thought it was sweet. He was charming, the kind of guy who could talk his way into any party. After college, Tyler got a job at a big 4A agency. Started at eighty thousand. Then he hopped to another firm for a hundred. Then a hundred-and-fifty. He bought a car. A white BMW. When he posted the photo, I was scrubbing counters at the coffee shop. I liked the post. He commented: “You’ll get there too, Mike! Keep grinding!” Followed by three flexed-arm emojis. Now I look back at those three years. The nights she didn’t come home until late. the weekends Tyler “helped her study.” The way she started keeping her phone face-down on the table. The way her wardrobe suddenly shifted to expensive brands I didn’t recognize. I was too tired to see it. I was a spinning top, fueled by caffeine and the desperate hope of a “someday” that was never meant for me. Now, I have plenty of time to think. 3. I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I tracked down Becca’s old roommate from grad school, Mia. Mia was always decent to me. She’s working in tech now, doing ops. I asked her to lunch. “Mia, I need you to be honest with me,” I said. She looked nervous, poking at her salad. “When Becca was in school… was Tyler over a lot?” Mia didn’t say anything. Her fork hovered in the air. “Just the truth. I’m not going to start a fight. I just need to know.” She sighed and put her fork down. “Mike… it’s over. Why do this to yourself?” “Was he there?” She was silent for a long beat. “Yes.” “Since when?” “Junior year of the program. Maybe earlier. He was always bringing her dinner, staying late. They told everyone they were working on ‘collaborative projects.’” Junior year. I did the mental math. That was when I started the breakfast shift at the diner. “Were they…?” “I don’t know for sure,” Mia said. “But I came home early once and they were… very close on the couch. They jumped apart when they saw me.” My hand tightened around my water glass. “Anything else?” “Tyler got drunk one night and made a scene outside the apartment. He was shouting something about how she couldn’t keep doing this to him. Becca went down to quiet him. The next morning, she told me not to mention it to you.” Don’t mention it to Mike. I almost laughed. “Thanks, Mia.” I paid the bill and walked out into the Seattle wind. Junior year. I’d just paid her second-year tuition. Twenty grand. She was taking my money and sleeping with my best friend. It didn’t start after we broke up. It had been going on for two years. I bankrolled her for three years. She lied to me for two. My phone buzzed. Tyler. Tyler: What are you wearing to the wedding? Need me to help you pick out a suit? I looked at the message. The playful tone. The smiley face. The Tyler who “helped her study.” The Tyler who told me to “keep grinding.” I locked my phone. I didn’t reply. But this time, it wasn’t because I didn’t know what to say. It was because I didn’t want him to know that I finally knew. 4. My mom called while I was hanging laundry on the balcony. “Mike, I have some news.” “What is it, Mom?” “The land. The old auto shop your father left us.” My heart skipped. My dad had passed away five years ago, leaving a derelict plot of land in an industrial part of town that we’d been trying to sell for years. “A developer reached out,” she said. her voice shaking. “The whole area is being rezoned for a tech campus. They signed the papers this morning. With the relocation fees and the buyout…” She paused. “It’s five point one two million dollars, Mike.” The wind caught a damp shirt and slapped it against my face. Five million. My mom kept talking, going over the tax implications and the payment schedule, but I couldn’t hear her. A few days later, the money hit. My mom kept a portion for her retirement and transferred five million to me. “Your father worked himself to death for that land,” she told me. “You’ve been working yourself to death, too. Take it. Don’t ever be that tired again.” I sat in front of my laptop staring at my balance. From $3,200 to $5,003,200. It didn’t feel real. But the numbers didn’t lie. I didn’t tell a soul. Not a single person. In their eyes, I was still the guy in the $29 Walmart jacket. That night, for the first time in years, I felt a strange kind of peace. It wasn’t an empty peace—it was the quiet of a man holding an ace of spades in a room full of people who think he’s broke. The next day, I made a move. An old college acquaintance, Jordan, had started a boutique media firm a couple of years ago. Brands, digital marketing, viral content. She’d reached out to me months ago looking for a partner to buy in, but I hadn’t had the cash. I called her. “Is that offer still on the table?” Jordan sounded surprised. “It is.” “How much?” “One point five million for a thirty-five percent stake.” “I’m in.” Three days later, the papers were signed. The company was called Vantage Media. We had high-end clients, a sleek office downtown, and a growing reputation. I still didn’t tell anyone. The day we finalized the partnership, I drove past the old street where Becca and I used to live. The coffee shop was still there. I’d spent two years of my life standing behind that counter, smelling like steamed milk and desperation. I looked at it for a moment, then I drove away. 5. I started digging. In the past, I would have said “Let it go.” But now, I wanted the full picture. I tried logging into Becca’s old cloud storage. We’d shared a family plan back in the day to save ten bucks a month. I guessed the password. 19960315mv — her birthday plus my initials. She hadn’t changed it. I scrolled through the archived emails. Mostly junk. Then I found one. From: Tyler Miller. Date: Two years ago. Subject: House Hunting. The body was short: Becca, let’s go see that condo on Saturday. The agent says we can do 20% down. I can swing $300k. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to cover the rest. And then the kicker: Once you graduate, we’ll move in. This will be our real home. My hands were shaking. Not with sadness, but with a cold, sharp clarity. I remembered that Saturday. Becca had told me she had a mandatory seminar at the university. I’d stayed in our tiny studio and spent the whole day doing her laundry and cleaning the bathroom so she could “rest” when she got home. She wasn’t at a seminar. She was picking out a condo with Tyler. With Tyler’s down payment. While I was paying for the roof over her head and the food in her stomach. I kept scrolling. I found another one from Tyler. Becca, when are you going to tell Mike? We can’t keep dragging this out. Her reply: Let’s wait until graduation. He’s paying my tuition right now. It wouldn’t be right to tell him yet. I put my phone down. I closed my eyes. $147,300. She’d planned it all. Use him until the degree is in hand, then discard. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I was her scholarship. I opened my eyes. I didn’t cry. I took screenshots. Every single one. Then I logged out and changed the password. 6. My mom was diagnosed with liver cancer in the fall. It was early. The doctors were optimistic, but it was going to be expensive. This was before the land sale. I had less than two thousand dollars in my savings. I called Becca. We’d only been broken up for a month. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I was desperate. “Becca, my mom’s sick. It’s cancer. I’m… I’m really struggling with the bills.” There was a long silence on the other end. “Mike, I just started this job. Things are tight.” “I’m not asking for much. Just ten thousand. I’ll pay you back, I promise. You know I’ve never asked you for anything.” “I… let me see what I can do.” She didn’t say who she was asking. I waited two days. No reply. The third day, I texted her. She replied: I’m so sorry, Mike. My expenses are just too high right now. You should probably ask someone else. “Expenses.” I found out later what those expenses were. That same week, she and Tyler were in Cabo. While my mom was lying in a hospital bed, Becca was in the tropics. Tyler posted a photo of two tropical drinks and their shadows on the sand. Caption: “Paradise is wherever you are.” I saw that post while sitting in a sterile hospital hallway. The smell of bleach was everywhere. My mom was inside getting a scan. I checked the date. It was the same week. I tucked my phone away and walked into her room. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll find a way.” My mom looked at me. She looked so old. Her hair was completely white. “Mike, don’t work too hard,” she whispered. She said the same words Becca used to say. But they meant something entirely different. I ended up taking an advance on my salary and borrowing from coworkers to pay for the surgery. I never asked Becca again. 7. The wedding is approaching. August 28th. Ten days left. I wasn’t going to go. But then I found one more email I’d missed. It wasn’t from Tyler. It was from Becca’s father. Sent eighteen months ago. Becca, I heard that boyfriend of yours has a sick mother. Do not lend him a dime. His family is a black hole. They’ll never be able to pay it back. Tyler is the better choice. He has his own money; he won’t drag you down. Make the switch soon. You have my blessing. Make the switch soon. My fingers felt like ice. She didn’t refuse to help because she was “tight on cash.” She refused because her father told her I was a bad investment. I stood up and walked to the window of my new office. The sun was setting over the city. Lights were flickering on in the skyscrapers. Behind every light was a home. I didn’t have a home yet. But I had five million dollars. I had thirty-five percent of the hottest media agency in the Pacific Northwest. I picked up my phone and replied to Tyler’s text. Mike: Tyler, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m bringing a very special gift for you both. He replied instantly. Tyler: Awesome! I knew you were the best! What is it?? I typed back. Mike: You’ll see when I get there. 🙂 I added the smiley face. Just like his.

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I don’t dare touch AI anymore. Not because of the tech, but because every time I ask it a question, someone close to me dies. The first time, it was something mundane. I asked if sprouted potatoes were safe to eat. Within twenty-four hours, my parents were dead—acute food poisoning. The doctors couldn’t save them. The second time, I was at the pier with my boyfriend. I asked the AI if the vintage roller coaster was structurally sound. Minutes later, the safety harness snapped, and he was flung from his seat, reduced to a pulp on the concrete below. The police dragged me in as their prime suspect. They tore my life apart, searching for a wire, a poison, a motive. They found nothing. Terrified, I made a pact with myself: I would never touch a chatbot again. I would live a quiet, analog life. But then came my boss, Donovan. He was desperate to close a massive deal with a high-profile client known for his “appetite” for young assistants. “If you don’t go to that dinner tonight and keep him happy,” Donovan snarled, leaning over my desk, “don’t bother coming in tomorrow. You’re finished.” In a moment of pure, desperate weakness, I felt my thumb hover over that familiar icon. I needed a way out. I typed: “How do I protect myself from workplace harassment and a predatory boss?” That night, the company Slack channel exploded. There had been a massive gas leak at Donovan’s estate. His entire family—his wife, his kids, everyone—was gone. 1 I stood outside the office building, shivering in a low-cut dress I hated, my face caked in heavy makeup. I felt like a cheap imitation of myself. I was just about to text Donovan to see where he was when a squad car pulled up to the curb. Detective Miller stepped out. He caught sight of my outfit—the crimson lips, the exposed skin—and his eyes narrowed with immediate suspicion. “Detective?” My heart hammered against my ribs. I felt a hot flush of shame creep up my neck. “This… it’s for work. My boss was supposed to take me to a client dinner—” Slap. The blow caught me off guard, ringing through my skull. Brooke, Donovan’s fiancée, had lunged out from behind the squad car. “You total slut!” she screamed, her face contorted. “Dressing like a streetwalker and you have the nerve to say you weren’t sleeping with my husband?” My ear was throbbing, the metallic taste of blood blooming in my mouth. I opened my mouth to snap back, but Brooke collapsed into a jagged, hysterical sob. “You monster! You killed him! You killed Donovan… give him back to me!” Wait… what? Miller’s voice was like cold iron. “Donovan is dead, Jade. A gas leak. The whole house went up. All four of them.” The world tilted. I stood there, frozen, a garish doll in the middle of a nightmare. “I knew she was trouble the second he hired her!” Brooke shrieked at the gathering crowd. “But I didn’t think she was a murderer!” Brooke had always hated me. She’d spent months spreading rumors that I was trying to climb the corporate ladder through Donovan’s bed. But this was different. This was life and death. “I didn’t do anything!” I whispered, my voice trembling so hard it was barely audible. “You’re lying!” “Am I?” She whipped out her phone and showed it to Miller. “I have the security footage from the office last night.” The video was grainy but clear. It was late. The office was empty except for Donovan and me. I was shown stumbling out of his private suite, my blouse torn, pointing a shaking finger back at his door and screaming. “You’re a goddamn animal, Donovan! You’ll get what’s coming to you! I hope you and your whole family rot in hell!” I hadn’t realized a crowd had formed on the sidewalk. Their stares were like needles. Miller’s expression shifted from professional wariness to something much darker. I panicked. I had screamed those things. But it wasn’t because I was planning a hit. It was because… My hesitation was all they needed. To them, it looked like a confession. “Look at her!” Brooke screamed, lunging at me again, her nails clawing at my face. “She couldn’t get what she wanted, so she slaughtered them! Murderer! You bitch, I’ll kill you myself!” Later, in the suffocating heat of the interrogation room, Miller leaned across the table. “Tell me the truth, Jade. What really happened?” My face was swollen, a dark bruise blooming on my cheek where Brooke had hit me. My lip was still crusted with blood. “Detective, please! It wasn’t me!” I was sobbing now, the kind of deep, ugly cry that comes from total helplessness. “I didn’t do anything!” “Give it a rest!” Miller slammed his palm onto the table. I flinched, my chair scraping against the floor. “This is the third tragedy following you in six months. Your parents. Your boyfriend. And now your boss and his children. Once is a tragedy. Twice is a coincidence. Three times?” He leaned in closer, his breath smelling of stale coffee. “Three times is a pattern. It’s impossible for it to be anything else.” 2 “Detective Miller, you were the one who cleared me the first two times!” I was leaning forward, my voice cracking with desperation. “My parents died of food poisoning from sprouted potatoes. My boyfriend died because the pier maintenance was negligent. Those cases were closed! I’m innocent!” “Cases can be reopened, Jade. Especially when new ‘shadows’ emerge.” Miller’s eyes were cold. “The footage shows you were the last person to see Donovan alive, and it shows a violent motive. I have every reason to believe you’re our primary suspect.” I felt like I was sinking into a frozen lake. I started babbling, the words spilling out in a mess. “No… no, it’s not like that. It was Donovan! He was disgusting. He tried to force himself on me, that’s why I screamed at him! He told me I’d be fired if I didn’t go to that dinner. I had to stay!” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, my chest tight. “I was so scared. I even went online to look up safety measures… just in case things went south at the dinner…” “Wait.” Miller cut me off, his eyes sharpening. “Where did you look?” I blinked, startled. “Just… on my phone. The AI assistant I use.” “The AI again?” Miller’s voice went up an octave. I froze. Suddenly, the absurdity of it hit me. All three times. There was a sickening, impossible thread connecting every death. The potatoes. The roller coaster. The “protection” from my boss. Every single time, I had asked that specific AI a question right before the bodies started dropping. But I hadn’t done anything. The police had checked my phone before. It was a standard, commercial AI app. No hacks, no dark web links, nothing. My parents’ death was ruled a medical complication due to their age. My boyfriend’s death was a freak mechanical failure. The park took full responsibility. Determined to prove my innocence, I unlocked my phone and handed it over. “Look at the logs. It’s right there.” Miller scrolled through the chat history, his brow furrowed. He looked frustrated, stuck in a logical loop he couldn’t break. Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room burst open. Brooke charged in, her eyes bloodshot. “I knew it! You’re a goddamn serial killer!” she screamed. “I’ve been reading the forums. People are talking about ‘AI-assisted murders.’ You’re one of those sickos! You’re a freak!” “Ms. Sterling, please!” Miller tried to restrain her. “Those are conspiracy theories. We don’t have forensic evidence yet. Please, calm down.” But Brooke was beyond reason. She was vibrating with a terrifying, manic energy. “If you can’t prove it, then I’ll do it for you! Give me that phone. I want to test her ‘Oracle.’ I want to see if it has the guts to kill me!” 3 Miller hesitated. I was shaking my head so hard my neck hurt. “Don’t do it! Please, I don’t want to touch it ever again!” I was terrified. The mere sight of the app icon made my skin crawl. “Scared, are you?” Brooke sneered, leaning over me. “If you won’t let us test it, you’re admitting you’re the killer. You’re hiding behind a screen!” She began weaponizing her grief, threatening to go to the press, to sue the department for incompetence. Miller, backed into a corner, finally gave in. But he was smart. He set the stage. He used a department-issued device to mirror my phone, brought in tech specialists to track the backend data in real-time, and pointed three cameras at the screen. My mind was a blank slate of horror. I didn’t know what to type. I was terrified that a single typo would end another life. “What’s the matter? Lose your nerve?” Brooke shoved me aside and grabbed the phone. She began typing with a vengeful ferocity. [Jade is a cold-blooded murderer. I want her to pay for my fiancé’s life right now!] She even typed her full name. “There! Come and get me through the wires, you piece of plastic!” she barked at the phone. “Let’s see what you’ve got!” The room went silent. We waited. One minute. Ten minutes. Half an hour. The AI responded with its usual, robotic script: [I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request. Please adhere to our community guidelines regarding violent speech.] Nothing else happened. Brooke let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “See? Nothing! She just acts when no one is watching. This proves the AI is a smokescreen. She is the one doing the killing!” She was about to launch into another tirade when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen, and for the first time that day, a genuine, secret smile touched her lips. She silenced the call immediately. “Fine. The facts are clear. Arrest her or I’m calling the Commissioner.” She turned to leave, but Miller blocked her path. “Just to be safe, I’d prefer if you stayed at the station tonight. Until we finish the digital sweep—” “I haven’t committed a crime, Detective. I’m the victim here,” she snapped, brushing past him. “My luck is better than hers. I’m not going to die.” She marched out, the heels of her boots clicking sharply on the linoleum. Miller signaled a young officer to follow her discreetly. Then, he turned to his tech guy. “Trace that last call she got.” The technician worked for a moment, then looked up, bewildered. “The number doesn’t exist, sir. It’s a ghost line. High-level encryption.” Miller’s face went pale. He keyed his radio. “Officer Henderson, where is she?” “She just pulled into the City Hospital parking garage, sir. I’m right behind her.” “Hospital? Why?” “I don’t know… she’s been inside for about ten minutes now…” Miller’s eyes went wide. “Something’s wrong. Move! Now!” 4 Miller grabbed his jacket and bolted, dragging me along with the squad. As we neared the hospital, the radio crackled. “Sir! She’s coming out!” Henderson reported. “She’s in her Porsche. She’s heading toward her apartment complex. I’m back on her tail.” Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the entrance of Brooke’s luxury parking garage. “She’s right there, Detective,” Henderson said, pointing to a sleek white Porsche idling in its assigned spot. “I haven’t taken my eyes off it.” Miller looked closer. The car was silent. The lights were off, the windows tinted dark. It was a freezing night, the underground garage feeling like a tomb, yet the driver wasn’t getting out. Miller unholstered his weapon. The other officers followed suit, fanning out to flank the vehicle. “Brooke? This is Detective Miller. Step out of the car!” Silence. Two officers moved to the front, while Miller reached for the driver-side door handle. He yanked it open. A scream ripped from my throat—a jagged, primal sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. My legs gave out, and I hit the concrete, retching as my stomach turned inside out. Brooke was there. Or what was left of her. She was still buckled into the seat, but her head… her entire head and neck were simply gone. The interior of the Porsche was painted in a sickening mosaic of deep crimson, shattered bone, and grey matter. It looked like a grenade had gone off in her mouth. “Seal the area! Call the coroner!” Miller barked, though even his voice had a slight tremor. He stepped into the car, his eyes scanning every inch of the gore. I was curled on the floor, gasping for air. The sight burned behind my eyelids. My chest tightened—a familiar, terrifying pressure. My lungs felt like they were filling with sand. “Help… please…” I clawed at a young officer’s pant leg, tears streaming down my face. “Let me go… my asthma… I can’t breathe…” The officer looked panicked, reaching down to help me, but Miller stepped out of the blood-soaked car and stood over me. His shadow was long and terrifying. “No one is going anywhere,” Miller said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” “I… I didn’t…” I wheezed. “Stop lying!” Miller leaned down, his face inches from mine. “You killed her. You sat in my interrogation room and you killed her.” “Detective, that’s impossible,” Henderson stammered. “She was with us the whole time. She was under constant surveillance!” Miller didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes locked on mine. “You still won’t admit it? Fine. Let’s run an experiment.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out my phone—the evidence. He opened the AI app. “You say you’re having an asthma attack, Jade? Let’s see what your ‘friend’ says.” He typed into the chat: [I’m at the Harbor View Apartments parking garage. I’m having a severe asthma attack. What do I do?] The AI spat out a list of standard medical advice. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end. Less than ten minutes later, a small, autonomous delivery drone hummed into the garage. It landed softly a few feet away. In its claw was a sealed medical bag. Inside? A high-grade, prescription-strength emergency inhaler. The officers backed away as if the drone were a bomb. “Trace it!” Miller roared. The tech team scrambled. Minutes later, the report came back: “It’s a dead end, sir. The order was placed through an encrypted virtual account. No name, no credit card, no IP. It’s like the order originated from nowhere.” Miller turned back to me. He pulled out his own work phone, registered a fresh account, and typed the exact same prompt, even using my name. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Nothing happened. No drone. No help. Miller looked at me, his face a mask of grim realization. “I know how you’re doing it now, Jade.”

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