Category: English

1 My husband’s childhood sweetheart always had a knack for taking things that belonged to me. After being reborn and realizing I would only end up dead if I kept fighting her, I decided to put a clear price tag on every single piece of my personal property. Claiming she suffered from severe motion sickness, she insisted on riding in my husband’s passenger seat every single time. I simply pasted a laminated payment code on the dashboard with a note: Passenger Seat Subscription. Fifteen thousand dollars a year. Renewals get a twenty percent discount. When she took a fancy to my quarterly project proposal, my husband knocked on my office door to plead her case. I didn’t even bother looking up from my laptop. “Seventy-five thousand dollars. The moment the wire transfer clears, I’ll take my name off the cover page and put hers.” On our son’s birthday, I cleared my schedule and rushed to his preschool to pick him up. But when the teacher brought him out, he looked up and told her, “She is not my mommy. I am not going with her.” As we stood there in a tense standoff, his favorite aunt, Rosemary, arrived late, clutching the expensive toy I had personally bought and wrapped for him. Toby immediately threw his arms around her legs, looking up at his teacher. “See, Ms. Jennings? This is my real mommy.” My husband, Hank, stepped forward to explain, but I cut him off. I held out my hand toward him, my face entirely blank. “One million dollars, and I will sign the legal custody transfer papers today.” Hank stared at me in absolute disbelief. “Alicia, are you seriously taking your anger out on our own son?” he hissed. “He is only four years old! You need to stop this nonsense!” Toby flinched slightly at my words, but his face quickly flushed a deep, angry red. He clung to Rosemary’s designer coat even tighter. “One million is fine! I don’t want a horrible mommy like you anyway!” So that was it. In his eyes, the mother who woke up two hours early every morning to prepare fresh, organic breakfasts, the mother who turned down a major promotion just to have more time to tuck him in, was nothing but a horrible nuisance. Rosemary played the gentle saint, patting Toby’s head. “Toby, sweetie, I told you it’s bad manners to speak to adults like that.” Toby pouted, pointing a finger at me. “But she has bad manners first! When Daddy was spending time with you the other day, she kept calling and calling to ruin his mood! You taught me that we have to give bad people a taste of their own medicine!” Hank’s face suddenly went pale. “Alicia, that night was only because Rosemary’s car broke down…” I raised a hand, cutting off his pathetic excuse. “You spent our wedding anniversary with her. That counts as an extra service. You owe me for that, too.” Hank froze, looking at me as if I had suddenly transformed into a stranger. After a long, heavy silence, he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an elegant black card, and threw it onto the concrete. “Alicia, when even your own flesh and blood can’t stand you, maybe you should look in the mirror and figure out what’s wrong with yourself.” He guided Rosemary and Toby toward his car, leaving me to breathe in a cloud of exhaust fumes. I didn’t argue. I simply bent down and picked up the sleek plastic card. The sharp corner bit into my palm, but the physical sting only cemented my resolve. In my past life, when Hank let Rosemary strip away everything I owned, I had sobbed, screamed, and clawed for my dignity. My hysterics had earned me nothing but his disgust. He had eventually even given away my mother’s burial plot to Rosemary, just so she could bury her golden retriever. In a fit of blind rage, I had slapped Rosemary across the face and demanded a divorce. I thought taking a stand would make him realize his mistakes. Instead, to punish me, he agreed instantly. He hired the most ruthless corporate lawyers to exploit every legal loophole, ensuring I was cast out on the street without a single penny to my name. Days after the divorce, I was diagnosed with acute cardiomyopathy. I was so broke I couldn’t even afford the ambulance ride, forcing myself to crawl to the hospital. Desperate to survive, I swallowed my pride and called Hank over and over. He never picked up. Instead, Rosemary sent me a voice note from his phone. “Alicia, you gave this man up of your own free will. There are no refunds in this game.” While waiting for life-saving money that would never arrive, all I received were photos of her gloating. In the final moments of my life, I stared at my phone screen, watching Rosemary lounging in my silk pajamas, wearing my favorite perfume, and kissing my husband on the fresh, clean sheets I had washed myself. Reborn into this life, I knew love was a luxury I couldn’t afford. But money, cold and hard, could keep me alive. I just hadn’t expected the son I had cherished so deeply to turn against me so easily. Before the cold sadness could settle into my bones, my phone buzzed in my hand. It was the hospital. “Ms. Archer, we have excellent news. A donor heart has successfully matched with you. We can schedule your transplant surgery for next month.” The news hit me like a physical wave. My knees buckled, and I had to lean against the brick wall of the preschool to keep from falling. This time, I wouldn’t die in a dark, sterile hospital corridor. The moment I hung up, a text from Hank popped up. “I lost my temper earlier. I know I promised you a proper wedding ceremony back then. The designer just delivered your custom gown to the estate. Why don’t you come home and try it on?” I didn’t reply, but I didn’t refuse either. When I married Hank five years ago, his family’s shipping empire had just collapsed. He was so poor we couldn’t even afford a simple registry wedding. Back then, I believed in his brilliance. I knew he would build his way back to the top and give me the dream wedding he always promised. But when he finally regained his fortune, Rosemary came crawling back, stealing his attention, his warmth, and my son’s love. The wedding I had waited half a decade for had never materialized. When I pushed open the front doors of our penthouse, the first thing I saw was Hank and Toby circling Rosemary, who was draped in the cascading white silk of my custom wedding gown. They were showering her with praise. Noticing my presence at the door, the smile on Hank’s face instantly withered. He walked over to me, reaching out to wrap an arm around my waist, but I stepped back. “Alicia, listen to me…” he began, his voice laced with practiced guilt. “Rosemary’s mother is in the final stages of cancer. Her dying wish is to see Rosemary walk down the aisle. Rosemary doesn’t have a partner, so I thought we could do a mock wedding first, just to give her mother some peace of mind. Your ceremony will just have to be pushed back a little longer.” I stared past him at Rosemary. The gown, which had been meticulously tailored to my exact measurements, somehow fit her shorter frame perfectly. Rosemary looked down, biting her lower lip in mock hesitation. “Hank, maybe we shouldn’t. Alicia has been looking forward to this for five years. I feel terrible.” She made a show of trying to unzip the back, but Toby lunged forward like a little bullet, slamming his small body directly into my stomach. “You mean woman! You’re just jealous because Aunt Rosemary looks like a beautiful fairy in that dress! Your stomach is all wrinkly like old tree bark, you look ugly in everything anyway!” The force of his impact knocked me flat onto the hardwood floor. A sharp, searing pain flared in my chest, leaving me breathless and dizzy. Seeing me curled up on the floor in agony, Toby shrank back, a flicker of guilt crossing his face, though he still kept his chin stubborn and high. Hank rushed over, trying to pull me up. “Toby! How could you push your mother like that?” His eyes fell on my midsection, where the faint stretch marks from carrying Toby remained, and a shadow of shame crossed his face. “Alicia, if you really mind this, I can find someone else to play the groom…” I shook off his hand and pushed myself up, dust clinging to my clothes. “I don’t mind,” I said quietly. I pulled out my phone and opened the calculator app. “On top of the venue and the dress, we need to factor in the rate for the wedding night. If you’re playing the husband, you need to pay for the full package.” Before I could finish typing the numbers, Hank slapped the phone out of my hand. It clattered loudly against the floor. “Alicia, are you insane? Toby is standing right here! Rosemary and I are completely innocent! I don’t know what kind of demon has possessed you to make you this greedy!” I looked up, meeting his furious gaze. “She wants to take everything I have, and I can’t stop her. Is it really a crime to ask for financial compensation?” Hank choked on his words, his chest heaving with rage. “I am not doing this with you,” he spat. He pulled out his phone, typing furiously. A second later, my phone vibrated with a bank notification. The deposit was massive. “I must have been completely blind when I married you!” he yelled. He grabbed Rosemary and Toby, guiding them out of the apartment and slamming the heavy oak door behind them. The noise echoed through the empty penthouse. I stared at the long string of zeroes on my screen, fighting back the hot tears stinging my eyes. When Hank and I started out, he had nothing. We used to share ten-dollar takeout boxes and live in a damp, moldy basement apartment. He felt so guilty about our poverty that he would take night shifts delivering food just to buy me the pastries and boba tea he saw other girls enjoying. Once, when I offhandedly complained about how hard it was to dry clothes in the damp basement, he spent half his monthly earnings on a small, portable dryer for me. When I caught him drinking cold tap water in the middle of the night to quiet his hunger, I cried, holding him tight. He had wept into my hair, promising me that once he made it, he would spend the rest of his life making it up to me. Yet every single promise he fulfilled was handed directly to Rosemary. And now, when I demanded the only thing that could actually save my life, I was told he was “blind to marry me.” I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to distract myself by scrolling through social media. But my feed was entirely dominated by Rosemary’s posts. Hank had taken her to the wedding planner’s office. The digital mock-ups of the venue she posted were the exact designs I had spent months curating down to the last detail. The wedding I had dreamed of for five years was being handed to another woman. I squeezed my phone, ready to block her account, when a flash of silver on her wrist caught my eye. When I realized what she was wearing, the blood rushed to my ears. I grabbed my keys, looked up her tagged location, and drove there like a woman possessed. “Give me my bracelet back!” I lunged toward Rosemary the moment I burst into the bridal boutique, reaching for her wrist. That bracelet was the only keepsake my mother had left me. For years, I had kept it safely tucked away in a velvet box, barely brave enough to touch it myself. And now, it was resting on Rosemary’s wrist. Before I could touch her, Toby threw himself in front of her, shoving me back with all his might. “This is my gift to Aunt Rosemary!” he shouted, blocking her like a tiny shield. “Just tell me how much you want! I’ll pay you right now!” He held up his smart watch, tapping the screen to bring up his digital allowance wallet. The sheer shock of it numbed the physical pain of my fall. I stared at my four-year-old son, my limbs turning utterly cold. “Toby, what did you just say?” Toby rolled his eyes. “I asked you how much. You sell everything for money anyway, don’t you? Name your price.” My chest tightened so hard I couldn’t draw breath. When he was barely old enough to speak, I had shown him that bracelet. I had told him it was the only piece of his grandmother I had left, the only thing keeping her memory alive. Back then, he had buried his face in my neck, whispering in his sweet, baby voice, Mommy still has Toby. Now, using the very smart watch I had bought him for his birthday, he was trying to buy my mother’s final keepsake to give to another woman. Rosemary made a show of slipping the silver band off her wrist. “I’m so sorry, Alicia. Toby told me you never wore it, so I assumed you didn’t want it anymore.” Hank, who had been discussing the catering details nearby, hurried over when he heard the commotion. Seeing Rosemary taking off the bracelet, he glared at me. “Alicia, what are you making a scene for now?” “It’s just a piece of old jewelry. Your wrists are too thick to wear it anyway. What’s the harm in letting Rosemary borrow it for a few days?” I lost all control. “It is my mother’s heirloom!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Rosemary, you steal everything from me! Aren’t you afraid my mother’s ghost will come for you tonight?” My scream drew looks from the boutique staff, making Hank’s face darken with embarrassment. “Give it back to her, Rosemary,” Hank said stiffly. “I’ll buy you a brand new one. Wearing things from dead people is bad luck anyway.” Toby chimed in immediately. “Yeah! Let Daddy buy you a bigger, prettier one!” With those words, he snatched the silver bracelet from Rosemary’s hand and flung it directly at me. “Don’t!” I shrieked. I scrambled forward, reaching out desperately, but my fingers only brushed the cool silver before it hit the tiled floor. It shattered into three jagged pieces. In that split second, a part of my own soul seemed to break with it. I fell to my knees, blindly gathering the sharp fragments, my tears splashing hot against the cold marble. “Stop making a scene,” Hank muttered. Seeing the blood dripping from my palm where a sharp edge had sliced my skin, he reached down to pull me up. “It’s just an object. Is it really worth all this drama?” I slapped his hand away with all the strength I had left, my eyes burning red. I reached into my bag, pulled out the divorce papers I had carried with me, and hurled them directly at his face. “We are done, Hank. We are divorcing…” Hank, however, barely glanced at the document, assuming it was another asset transfer agreement. He caught the papers, his face turning incredibly cold. “Alicia, so cash isn’t enough anymore? Now you’re trying to leverage my company’s shares?” He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “You probably told Toby to throw that bracelet just so you could use my guilt to extort more assets from me, didn’t you?” He pulled a pen from his pocket and scribbled his signature on the back page without even reading it. “You’re incredibly calculating, Alicia. I’ll sign it this once out of pity, but don’t think you can play this card a second time.” He tossed the papers onto my bleeding hands and walked away without looking back. Sitting on the floor, surrounded by the ruins of my mother’s keepsake, I let out a soft, hollow laugh. He didn’t realize there wouldn’t be a second time. I didn’t want him, and I didn’t want our son. For the next few weeks, I lived entirely in the hospital. The money Hank had transferred to my account was more than enough to cover the transplant surgery, the private suite, and years of post-operative care. With a new heart, I would finally put the tragedy of my past life behind me and begin again. On the morning of the surgery, as the nurses prepped me for anesthesia, the lead surgeon suddenly walked into the room, pulling off his sterile gloves. “I am terribly sorry, Ms. Archer. We cannot proceed with your surgery today.” My heart did a terrifying flutter. “What do you mean? Why can’t we?” Despite the expensive therapies I had been buying, my cardiomyopathy was advancing rapidly. During my brief hospital stay, I had suffered three separate cardiac episodes. The most severe one had landed me in the ICU for twelve grueling hours. Only my sheer, stubborn will to live had pulled me back from the brink. My body simply did not have the time to wait for another match. The surgeon looked incredibly uncomfortable. “The donor heart that was matched to you has just been reassigned.” I clutched my chest, panic clawing at my throat. “Reassigned? To whom? Is it a matter of money? I can pay double, triple, whatever they want!” The doctor avoided my eyes, pulling his surgical mask up as if trying to shield himself from my desperation. I swung my legs off the operating table, stumbling after him, my voice rising in a frantic pitch. “You know my condition! I won’t survive another waiting list! How can you just take it away? This is murder!” My screams echoed down the sterile hallway, drawing the attention of patients and staff alike. “Who took my heart?” I shrieked, tears streaming down my face. “Do the wealthy get to decide who lives and who dies?” The gathering crowd began to murmur in sympathy, and a sympathetic nurse quietly pointed toward the executive wing. I ran down the corridor, ignoring the nurses calling after me, only to freeze when I saw the figure standing guard outside the VIP operating theater. It was Hank. He was standing like a sentinel, blockading the doors. Rosemary, who was sobbing softly in a nearby chair, looked up and saw me. She immediately ran over, grabbing my wrists. “Alicia? Are you saying my mother stole your heart?” She sank to her knees, weeping against my shins. “I was wrong to take your things, Alicia. I’ll apologize, I’ll give everything back! Just please, don’t take this chance away from my mother!” Hank’s face contorted with disgust. “Alicia, just because your own mother is dead, you want to drag Rosemary’s mother to the grave with her? How can you be so utterly malicious?” My fingernails dug deep into my palms, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth as I bit my lip. “Hank, her mother has terminal, systemic cancer! A heart transplant won’t save her! Rosemary is doing this on purpose just to—” Before I could finish, Rosemary began frantically bowing, her forehead cracking against the linoleum. “I’ll give you all the money you want, Alicia! I’ll pay you back for the heart, just please let my mother live!” A cold sweat broke out across my body, my chest tightening so painfully I could barely form words. “I don’t want your money! I want my match! Give me back my heart!” “That is enough!” Hank roared, grabbing my arm and yanking me away from Rosemary. “You’re faking a heart condition just to spite Rosemary’s mother, using people’s pity to cause a scene in a hospital! Alicia, you have crossed the line!” He signaled the security guards, who quickly seized my arms. I thrashed against their grip, but my weak, oxygen-deprived body was no match for them. My heart began to beat in a chaotic, erratic rhythm, a crushing pain blooming behind my ribs. By the time they threw me out onto the asphalt of the hospital driveway, the suffocating grip of death was already closing in on me. I reached out a trembling hand toward the onlookers, silently begging for help, but the crowd simply sneered and turned away. “Disgusting woman, trying to steal a dying old lady’s chance at life. Still acting even now.” My hand fell limp against the cold pavement. As the darkness swallowed my consciousness, my final, fading prayer was that in my next life, I would never, ever cross paths with Hank again. Meanwhile, inside the hospital, the transplant surgery went ahead. Shortly after, Hank hurried through a hasty, lavish wedding ceremony with Rosemary. But as he stood at the altar, preparing to exchange rings, Alicia’s pale, sweat-streaked face kept flashing behind his eyes. She had looked so incredibly fragile at the hospital. “I’m sorry, Rosemary,” Hank muttered, suddenly pulling his hand back. “Let’s pause the ceremony here. Your mother is still heavily sedated anyway, she won’t notice.” Without waiting for her response, he tore off his boutonnière and walked out, dialing his assistant. “Check Alicia’s medical records at the hospital. Now.” Ten minutes later, his assistant called back, his voice shaking with terror. “Sir… the records show Mrs. Archer was diagnosed with acute, end-stage cardiomyopathy. Her transplant surgery was scheduled for exactly one week ago…”

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Three months into our marriage, my husband, Alfredo, died in a horrific car crash. I was kneeling at his funeral, on the verge of fainting from sheer grief. Suddenly, a stream of glowing bullet comments flashed across my field of vision. [Don’t cry, girl! Your husband isn’t dead. The one who died was actually his older brother, Thomas.] [He only swapped identities because he was terrified his pregnant sister-in-law, Winnie, wouldn’t survive the shock of losing her husband.] [Even though he’s holding Winnie in his arms right now, his heart is actually secretly breaking for you.] [Once Winnie gives birth to his brother’s child, he’ll reveal the truth to everyone.] I stared at the man across the room, who was so carefully massaging my sister-in-law’s legs. A strange, cold clarity washed over me. I stood up, turned around, and walked straight to the hospital. “I don’t want this baby anymore.” 1 Three months into our marriage, my husband, Alfredo, died in a horrific car crash. I was kneeling at his funeral, my vision blurring, on the verge of fainting from sheer grief. It had been three days since the accident. My tears had completely run dry, leaving only a hollow, throbbing numbness in my chest. Beside me, my mother-in-law held her head in her hands, her loud, agonizing wails echoing off the walls. My hand drifted to my coat pocket, where my positive pregnancy test lay. I had only received the results three days ago. I was about to pull it out and show it to his mother when a row of glowing, translucent words suddenly flashed across my field of vision. [Don’t cry, Sienna! Your husband isn’t dead. The one who died was actually his older twin brother, Thomas.] [He only swapped identities because he was terrified his pregnant sister-in-law, Winnie, wouldn’t survive the shock of losing her husband.] [Even though he’s holding Winnie in his arms right now, his heart is actually breaking for you.] [Once Winnie gives birth to his brother’s child, he’ll reveal the truth to everyone.] My hand froze in my pocket. I slowly turned my head. Standing next to Winnie was the man everyone believed to be Thomas. He wore a crisp black suit, his face pale and exhausted. When he looked at me, his eyes held a deeply buried, agonizing tenderness. With that single look, my world fractured. The glowing text was right. The man holding Winnie, whispering soft comforts into her ear, was indeed my husband, Alfredo. 2 [Poor guy, watching the woman he loves suffer so much and unable to say a word…] [Well, Alfredo knows Sienna is strong and can get through this. But Winnie is fragile, plus she’s carrying his brother’s child.] [Don’t worry, Sienna. He’ll make it up to you later…] The comments continued to float before my eyes. I slowly forced myself to stand, but my knees, numb from hours of kneeling, buckled beneath me. Alfredo instinctively lunged forward to catch me, but he forgot he was holding Winnie’s hand. The sudden pull caused Winnie to stumble with a soft gasp. Alfredo immediately let go of his direction toward me, turning back to wrap his arms around her waist. “Are you alright, Winnie?” Winnie’s face flushed as she shook her head, whispering, “I’m fine. My foot just fell asleep, and I lost my balance.” Hearing her discomfort, a flash of deep worry crossed Alfredo’s face. “Don’t be foolish. You’re pregnant. Why didn’t you say something if you were feeling unwell?” Without a second thought, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to a padded chair by the wall. He knelt before her, gently sliding off her shoe, and placed her foot on his knee to massage it. “Is that better?” Winnie blushed, looking up at me with embarrassment. “Alfredo… I mean, Thomas, Sienna is still here…” Hearing my name, Alfredo froze. He stood up stiffly, his eyes darting toward me, wanting to say something. But my vision went black, and I collapsed onto the floor. 3 When I woke up, I was in the master bedroom of the family estate. The lights were dimmed. Alfredo and his mother were standing near the window, their backs turned to me, speaking in hushed whispers. “Alfredo, are you really going to keep Sienna in the dark?” my mother-in-law asked, her voice trembling. “You… you don’t still love Winnie, do you?” There was a long silence before Alfredo spoke. “That’s in the past,” he said, his voice flat. “But Winnie is too delicate, and she is carrying Thomas’s only child. I can’t risk her health. Sienna has always been strong. She will get through this. Once Winnie’s baby is born and I’ve settled her, I’ll tell Sienna the truth. She will understand.” A cold, sharp pain pierced my chest. I had met Alfredo when his relationship with Winnie was at its absolute worst. Winnie had just been announced as Thomas’s girlfriend, and Alfredo had treated her with such hostility that he refused to be in the same room as her. I had spent so much of our relationship trying to play the peacemaker, coaxing him to be kinder to her, wondering why he harbored such deep resentment. Now, the pieces fell into place. He didn’t hate her. He loved her, and he hated that he couldn’t have her. 4 Hearing his explanation, my mother-in-law let out a long sigh. “You’re right. Winnie is the one who is suffering the most right now. Go back to her room, Alfredo. She shouldn’t be alone. I will stay here and watch over Sienna.” “Okay.” Alfredo turned, throwing a long, lingering look toward the bed. I kept my eyes tightly closed, forcing my breathing to remain steady, while my fingernails dug deep into my palms. A wave of bitter nausea rose in my throat. I had been nothing but a second choice, a safe harbor. And all those times I had tried to comfort him and patch up his relationship with Winnie, he must have looked at me and thought I was a pathetic joke. For the past three days, I had blamed myself for his death. I thought he had died because he drove out in the middle of a storm to buy my favorite breakfast. It was all a lie, a carefully orchestrated performance to protect his true love. 5 The pregnancy test in my pocket felt heavy against my skin. I pulled the slip of paper out, staring at the black ink: Intrauterine pregnancy, approximately 6 weeks. This paper was supposed to be my saving grace, my light in the dark. But now, it was a mockery. Alfredo’s words echoed in my head, cold and hollow. Sienna has always been strong… I can’t risk Winnie’s health… I looked at the tiny, blurred image of the scan. I gripped the edges of the paper. Rip. One tear, then another, until the medical report lay in a dozen neat pieces in my hand. I dropped them into the wastebasket beside the bed. There was no room in this world for a child born of a lie, and there was no room in my heart for him anymore. 6 [Sienna, don’t be sad! He really does love you!] [He just wants to give his past love a safe, quiet closure. You should try to understand his position!] [Are you people blind? He knelt down to rub her feet. That’s disgusting.] [I feel so sorry for her. She deserves so much better.] Ignoring the comments, I stood up and walked downstairs. In the dining room, Alfredo was sitting at the table, carefully picking the bones out of a piece of fish and placing the meat into Winnie’s bowl. I sat down opposite them. My pale face immediately drew their attention. A flash of guilt crossed Alfredo’s eyes. He silently deboned another piece of fish and placed it on my plate. “Eat something, Sienna. You’ve lost too much weight.” Suddenly, Winnie let out a soft retch. Alfredo immediately pulled a napkin, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to guide her to the kitchen sink, helping her wash up without a single second of hesitation. I looked at my plate, the appetite completely gone from my body. My mother-in-law walked in, quickly placing a bowl of warm soup in front of me. “Sienna, drink some soup. You need to keep your strength up.” “Thank you, Mother.” I sipped the soup, but my chest remained cold. When Alfredo and Winnie returned to the table, Winnie looked at me, her eyes red. “Sienna, does it hurt to look at Thomas’s face? He looks so much like Alfredo. I’m sorry… I don’t want to make you sad.” My mother-in-law dropped her spoon. The sharp clink of metal against porcelain echoed in the quiet room. Alfredo kept his eyes on his plate, silent. “So, sister-in-law, are you asking me to leave the house?” I asked plainly. Winnie looked startled, her lower lip trembling. “No! I didn’t mean that at all! I only thought… if it were Thomas who died, and I had to watch Alfredo and you together every day, I would die of grief. I only wanted to care for you, but I’m so clumsy with my words…” Alfredo’s initial irritation at her words quickly melted into a soft, protective guilt. He was relieved. He was glad it was me who had to suffer this grief, and not his precious Winnie. “You’re right,” I said, putting down my spoon. “The living must move on.” “I am moving out of the house today. If I decide to remarry in the future, I wouldn’t want my new husband to feel uncomfortable.” The room went dead silent. Alfredo slammed his hand on the table, standing up so quickly his chair scraped against the floor. “Sienna! My brother only died three days ago!” 7 “And?” I looked up, my eyes meeting his. Alfredo’s hands clenched into tight fists, a sudden, sharp panic flashing in his eyes. I laid my napkin on the table. “Thomas, you don’t actually believe you have the right to demand I remain chaste for your deceased brother, do you?” He choked on his words, his face turning red with frustration. He couldn’t argue. To the world, he was Thomas. My mother-in-law quickly tried to play the peacemaker. “Sienna, where would you go? This is your home!” “Looking at Thomas’s face only reminds me that my husband is dead,” I said, standing up. “He is dead, and he is never coming back.” I looked at her, my expression calm. “Thank you for everything, Mother. But I am leaving today.” “Sienna!” Alfredo stepped forward, reaching out to grab my arm. But Winnie suddenly gasped, clutching her stomach as she leaned against the table. “Thomas… my stomach… it hurts a little…” Alfredo froze. His body reacted before his mind could, spinning around to catch her, his voice filled with a desperate panic. “Winnie! Where does it hurt? Should I call the doctor?” That was a level of concern he had never shown me in all the days since the accident. I didn’t look back. I walked upstairs to pack my things. 8 There wasn’t much to pack. I folded my clothes and packed my essentials, stripping away my presence from the room like peeling off dead skin. My mother-in-law followed me into the room, her eyes red as she took my hand. “Sienna, I beg you. For Alfredo’s sake, stay with us. Just until your sister-in-law gives birth, please?” “Does Alfredo really love only me, Mother?” I asked, looking her in the eye. She flinched, her gaze darting away. I let go of her hand, pulling the zipper of my suitcase shut. “Take care of yourself, Mother. From now on, pretend you never had me as a daughter-in-law.” I wheeled my suitcase out of the room. 9 In the living room, Winnie was resting on the sofa. Alfredo was kneeling beside her, holding a cup of warm water and speaking to her in a low, soothing tone. They both looked up when they heard the wheels of my suitcase against the hardwood floor. Winnie pushed the cup away, her eyes filling with tears. “Sienna, please don’t go. I didn’t mean to drive you away…” Alfredo stood up, his face dark with anger as he grabbed my wrist. His grip was tight, almost painful. “Sienna! Stop this!” he growled, a faint trace of panic hidden beneath his anger. “Where do you think you’re going? You aren’t well, and you’re making Mother cry!” “Let go, Thomas,” I said, my voice empty. “Have some self-respect.” “I have my own life to live. I won’t stay here and be an eyesore.” “What are you talking about?” Alfredo’s voice rose. “Winnie is pregnant and emotional! Even if she said something insensitive, can’t you be the mature one? You used to be so sensible!” “Sensible?” I let out a dry laugh. “Thomas, my husband has been dead for three days. And you want me to be understanding toward a pampered woman whose every need is met? Her pain is real, but mine is just a tantrum?”

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1 When my stepson pushed me down the stairs, Garrett’s immediate reaction was to cover the little monster’s eyes and scream at me. “Have you lost your mind? Hurting yourself just to frame my son?” Seeing me curled on the floor in agony, he threw out another line: “That is enough! If this baby is gone, we can always have another. We can have countless children, but I only have one Danny! Stop being so dramatic!” Even as the blood began to pool beneath me, staining the hardwood, he was still murmuring comforts to his son, telling him not to be afraid. Through the gaps in Garrett’s fingers, I saw the chilling, triumphant smirk on my stepson’s face. This was the third child he had managed to destroy. By the time the man finally noticed the deep red pool expanding across the floor, panicking as he tried to lift me, my heart had already turned to ash. On the stretcher to the ambulance, I pulled off the oxygen mask and looked at him with absolute calm. “Garrett, I want a divorce.” … The moment I fell down the stairs, my instincts took over, and I wrapped my arms tightly around my swollen stomach. The pain was immediate, a sharp, tearing sensation that soaked my dress and left a bright trail of blood on the floor. “Clair!” A desperate cry rang out. Garrett rushed toward me, his knees slamming hard against the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. His hands shook as he reached for me, terrified to touch me. The usually composed, commanding CEO was weeping, his tears falling onto my face. “Don’t worry, don’t worry… the ambulance is on its way… Clair, please hold on…” Gathering my remaining strength, I grabbed his sleeve, pointing toward the top of the landing. “It was Danny… he pushed me… he did it on purpose…” Garrett froze. He slowly turned his head to look at his eight-year-old son, Danny, who was shrinking into the corner of the landing, sobbing as if he were the one traumatized by the blood. “Daddy… I am scared… there is so much blood…” Danny whimpered. The conflict in Garrett’s eyes lasted only a fraction of a second. The next moment, he pulled the boy into his arms, using his hand to shield Danny’s eyes from the scene. When he looked back at me, his gaze was filled with pleading. “Clair, you are in too much pain. You are hallucinating.” He wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, his voice hurried and tense. “Danny is only eight years old. He is terrified. It was just a tragic accident!” “An accident?” I whispered, my body shaking from the physical pain, though my chest felt even colder. The first time, it was a bottle of lubricant left directly outside the bathroom door. The second time, it was a high dose of laxatives mixed into my morning milk. This was the third time. Garrett continued to ramble, trying to convince me, or perhaps trying to convince himself. “I know you are hurting, and I am devastated about the baby too… but Danny is my only son. He has had a difficult life since his mother passed. As the adult, can’t you be more understanding?” More understanding? At the cost of my unborn children’s lives? As Garrett leaned down to kiss my forehead, attempting to quiet my protests, Danny looked at me through the gaps of his father’s fingers. His tear-streaked face held no trace of fear. He grinned, his lips moving silently to form three words: Go to hell. In that moment, I finally accepted the truth. Some people are born wicked, and some people choose to remain blind. Garrett’s love was too crowded, trying to accommodate the role of a devoted husband while protecting his monstrous son, and my children were the ones sacrificed to keep the peace. As they lifted me into the ambulance, Garrett clutched my freezing hand, his voice hoarse from crying. “Clair, don’t close your eyes, please… we can have other children, I will make this up to you, but Danny is my only boy…” With his other hand, he gently patted Danny’s back, whispering, “Don’t be scared, buddy. Daddy is right here.” The suffocating hypocrisy finally snapped my last nerve. I reached up and ripped the oxygen mask off my face. The medical monitors began to beep frantically. Garrett stared at me in terror. “Clair, what are you doing? Doctor! Help her!” I looked at the man I had loved for seven years, my voice barely a whisper. “Garrett, I want a divorce.” 2 When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room. The heavy, warm weight in my abdomen was gone. “Clair, you are awake…” Garrett, who had been sitting by my bedside, gripped my hand. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw covered in dark stubble, looking as though he had aged a decade overnight. “I am so sorry… it is my fault. I didn’t protect you.” He pressed his face against my palm, his warm tears wetting my skin. Watching his display of grief, I felt nothing but a dull absurdity. I stared at the ceiling, my mind drifting back to three years ago, shortly after we married. We were happy then. Danny had been living with his grandparents in the country, quiet and isolated. It was my own sympathy that drove me to suggest bringing him to live with us. “Let us bring him home,” I had told Garrett back then, wrapping my arms around his neck. “A child needs his father. I will treat him as my own.” Garrett had been deeply moved, holding me close and telling me how lucky he was to have me in his life. I had naively believed that kindness could change a person. Instead, my misplaced sympathy had brought a natural-born monster into our home, a child who would systematically destroy three of my pregnancies. “Garrett,” I said, my voice dry and hollow. “When Danny pushed me, he stood at the top of the landing, waiting until I reached the exact step before he moved. He wasn’t scared. He was smiling.” Garrett stiffened, his shoulders shaking. He buried his face in his hands, running his fingers through his hair as if trying to block out a truth he could not accept. “Clair, I know you are angry… I am devastated about our baby too! That was my flesh and blood!” He looked up, his expression torn between grief and denial. “But the therapist said Danny is experiencing a severe stress response! He lost his mother at a young age, and he is deeply insecure. He is just afraid that a new baby will take away our love. He didn’t mean to do it. He is only eight!” “Does insecurity excuse murder?” I asked, my voice flat. Garrett flinched at my tone. He grabbed my shoulders, his voice desperate. “He is still a child. He doesn’t understand. We are still young, Clair. We can have other children. Please, don’t blame Danny. He had nightmares all night, crying and saying he was sorry. He is terrified too…” Looking at him, the last trace of warmth in my heart died. To Garrett, the lives of my three unborn children did not equal the weight of his son’s insecurity. I closed my eyes, pulling my hand from his grip. “Garrett, since you care about him so much, I will leave this house to him.” A heavy silence fell over the room. Panic flickered in Garrett’s eyes. He tried to reach for me, but I pulled away, my cold expression silencing him. Over the next two days, I refused to speak to him, refused to eat, and instructed my lawyer to send the divorce papers directly to the ward. 3 Garrett finally realized that I was serious about leaving. On the third morning, the door to my room opened, and Garrett entered, dragging Danny behind him. His grip was firm, lacking his usual tenderness as he pulled the boy to the side of my bed. “Kneel down.” Garrett’s voice was hoarse, his eyes rimmed with red from days of sleeplessness. Danny trembled, dropping to his knees on the cold tile. Tears immediately spilled down his cheeks, his small hands twisting together in a display of helplessness. “Clair… I am sorry… I know I was bad…” “I didn’t mean to do it, I promise I will be good… please don’t make Daddy leave…” The boy sobbed hysterically. To any outsider, I would have looked like a cruel, heartless stepmother. I watched the performance with a cold detachment. “Garrett, if you brought him here to put on a show, you can both leave.” “It is not a show,” Garrett said, taking a deep breath as if he had reached a difficult decision. Ignoring Danny’s crying, he looked at me, his eyes filled with a desperate resolve. “I know I have failed you, Clair. I have let you down.” “The car is waiting downstairs. As soon as he apologizes, I am having my driver take him back to his grandparents’ estate in the country.” My fingers tightened around the bedsheet, my breath catching in my throat. Sending him away? Danny was Garrett’s entire world. For seven years, even when Danny had physically injured a classmate at school, Garrett had never so much as raised his voice. Whenever I had suggested boarding school, it had led to explosive arguments, with him accusing me of being cold-hearted. But now, he was choosing me over his son? “Are you serious?” I asked, my voice dry. “I am,” Garrett said, kneeling beside the bed and burying his face in my hands. “I have thought about it for the past forty-eight hours. I am grieving our child too, but I cannot lose you. If his presence in this house causes you pain, then he cannot stay.” “This house needs you, Clair. Let us start over, just the two of us, please.” He looked up, his eyes filled with a raw, broken devotion. Beside the bed, Danny continued to cry, begging his father not to abandon him, but Garrett did not look back. He kept his eyes locked on mine. My heart, despite my best judgments, wavered. I had loved him for seven years, and I knew how much this boy meant to him. If he was truly willing to send his only son away to protect our marriage… perhaps I was his priority after all. Perhaps, without Danny’s influence, we could return to the life we once had. My mind warned me to refuse, but looking at his exhausted, pleading face, my old affection took over. “Garrett…” My eyes burned with unshed tears. “This is the very last time.” A look of immense relief washed over his face, and he pulled me into a tight embrace. “Thank you… thank you, Clair. I promise I will make this up to you. I will never let you suffer again.” 4 I closed my eyes, letting a single tear slip down my cheek. The first week after my discharge was the most peaceful time I had experienced in seven years. The house was quiet, free of Danny’s screaming and malicious pranks. Garrett was attentive, returning home early every evening to prepare meals and speak softly, as if terrified of disrupting my recovery. “Clair, try this soup. I let it simmer for three hours.” He held the spoon, blowing on it gently before offering it to me. “The doctor said you need to rebuild your strength. Once you are feeling better, we will take a trip together.” Seeing the exhaustion lingering in his eyes, I felt a touch of sympathy. Perhaps he had truly changed. Perhaps sending the boy away was the fresh start we needed. A few days later, Garrett went to the study for a scheduled video conference. As I sat on the balcony enjoying the afternoon sun, a gust of wind blew a freshly washed towel over the railing, landing in the courtyard of the neighboring villa. The house belonged to a neighbor who had moved abroad, and it had recently been leased to a new tenant. Rather than bothering the staff, I decided to walk downstairs and retrieve it myself. But as I approached the iron gate dividing our properties, a familiar, high-pitched laugh echoed through the garden. “Die! Die! The little monster is dead! Hahaha!” The blood in my veins turned to ice. I stepped closer to the climbing roses on the fence, looking through the metal gaps into the neighboring yard. Danny, who was supposed to be hundreds of miles away at his grandparents’ estate, was standing on a wooden play set, dressed in a brand-new track suit. In his hand, he held a small, handmade red doll, the protective amulet I had spent weeks sewing for the baby. “Go to hell! You don’t get to steal my daddy!” Danny threw the doll hard against the gravel, laughing hysterically, his expression identical to the one he wore the day he pushed me. And Garrett, who was supposed to be in his study on a business call, was standing right below the play set. He didn’t reprimand the boy. Instead, he picked up the muddy doll, dusted it off, and pressed a finger to his lips. “Danny, keep your voice down!” Garrett’s tone was filled with a gentle, indulgent sigh. “What did you promise Daddy? Until Clair calms down, we have to play the secret game. If she hears you, Daddy won’t be able to sneak over through the back gate to see you every day.” “She is just being dramatic,” Danny sneered, crossing his arms. “Daddy, when can I come back? I want to live in the big house again.” Garrett patted his head, sighing softly. “Soon, buddy. Just be patient. Once she is fully recovered and stops bringing it up, Daddy will bring you home. You are my boy, nobody can send you away permanently.” The world seemed to fracture around me. The country estate had been a lie; Danny had simply been hidden next door. His remorse had been a temporary tactic, and my grief was dismissed as mere drama. He had made his choice. He chose to treat me like a fool, continuing to harbor the monster who had killed my children. An absolute numbness settled over me. My love, my grief, and the seven years I had invested in this man dissolved into nothingness. I walked back to our house, pulled my suitcase from beneath the bed, and packed my belongings. I took nothing that Garrett had bought me, leaving only the signed divorce agreement on the kitchen counter, tucked beneath the cold, unfinished soup. Goodbye, Garrett. Take your fatherly devotion and your monstrous son, and burn in hell together.

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1 As a senior partner at a high-profile family law firm, I have handled more divorces than I can count. I have watched betrayed wives tear down mistresses in public, and I have exposed conniving husbands hiding millions in offshore accounts. But I never expected that same brand of cheap, dirty drama to drag me under. It didn’t just rain on my parade; it was a torrential downpour of ice-cold water, straight to the chest. It started on a busy Tuesday morning when a young, fragile woman blocked the entrance of my firm. She was dressed in a simple white linen sundress, faded from too many washes, which only served to make her pale face look more pathetic. Her stomach was slightly rounded, showing a pregnancy of about four or five months. “Please, ma’am,” she sobbed, her voice carrying across the busy lobby. “I beg you to let him go. A child needs a father.” It was peak morning rush hour. Colleagues and clients stopped in their tracks, whispering and pointing. The receptionist tried to steer her away, but the girl’s shrill voice cut through the air, freezing everyone in place. “I know what we did was wrong, but I love him, and he loves me! Please, just give him his freedom!” I stood at the top of the lobby steps, feeling absolutely nothing. In my line of work, I saw this exact performance at least eight times a month. “Miss,” I said, walking down the steps, the sharp click of my designer heels echoing against the polished marble floor. “If you are trying to pull a scam, you should really do your homework first. I am a widow.” The murmurs in the lobby died down instantly. Everyone in the firm knew my husband had died three years ago. It was a tragedy that had nearly broken me, a topic no one dared to bring up in my presence. But instead of running away, the girl reached into her canvas bag and pulled out a stack of glossy photographs, throwing them onto the floor between us. The pictures scattered across the marble. I looked down, and my chest went tight. They were intimate photos of a man and a woman. The man’s face was one I saw every time I closed my eyes: Elliott. My husband, who had been dead for three years. In the photos, his skin was darker than I remembered, and there were a few more lines around his eyes, but that lazy grin and the familiar way he draped his arm over the woman’s shoulder were things I would recognize even if he were burned to ash. But it was what the girl said next that made the room spin. “He has a red, butterfly-shaped birthmark on his lower back,” she said, looking at me with a defiant pout. “And when he gets passionate, the color deepens. Am I right?” My hand trembled, and my hot americano nearly spilled over my fingers. The eyes of my colleagues felt like needles pressing into my skin. “Audrey’s husband is alive?” “Faking his death? Insurance fraud? What is going on?” The wild theories began to fly around the lobby. I took a slow, deep breath, pushing my gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose, forcing myself to project a calm I didn’t feel. I bent down and picked up one of the photographs. My thumbnail dug into Elliott’s face, hard enough to rip the glossy paper. Then, I looked up and offered her a cold, empty smile. “Are you absolutely certain this baby belongs to my husband?” The girl thrust her chin out, her face filled with stubborn pride. “Elliott said that as soon as you sign the divorce papers, he will marry me!” “Elliott?” I repeated the name, tasting the bitterness of it. “Yes! Elliott!” I nodded, slowly pulling out my phone, and dialed a number in front of the entire crowd. “Yes, I’d like to report a disturbance at my office,” I said into the receiver, my voice steady. “A woman is harassing my staff and attempting to extort me. She claims she is pregnant with the child of my husband, who died three years ago. I suspect she is either a grave robber or mentally unstable.” I hung up, looking at the girl’s suddenly pale face. “Since you claim he is the father, this actually works out perfectly,” I said, stepping closer. “My husband’s ashes are currently resting at Oakwood Cemetery. We can head over there now for a DNA test, or I can arrange to have him dug up so you two can catch up. What do you think?” The girl stumbled back a step, but the look in her eyes wasn’t fear. It was something far worse: pity. “You are just lying to yourself,” she whispered. “Elliott is alive. He said if you agree to sign the papers, he will meet you.” She held up her phone, showing me an address on the screen. In that single second, the blood in my veins turned to ice. Alive? My three years of grieving, the tears, the empty bed, the quiet house: what had it all been for? 2 I didn’t even notice the elevator ride down to the garage. The security guards were still detaining the girl in the lobby, her faint cries echoing down the shaft. I hit the button for the basement level, which offered a private exit through the building’s quiet coffee shop. As a lawyer, I believed in evidence and cold logic. The dead do not walk among the living, unless they were never dead to begin with. Three years ago, Elliott had gone on a business trip to Colorado. He was driving through a mountain pass when a massive landslide swept his car off the cliff. The vehicle was crushed beneath tons of rock and dirt. The recovery team only found fragments of the vehicle and partial remains. Because a traditional identification was impossible, the police relied on his personal belongings, his wallet, and the license plate. I had received a urn filled with ashes, along with a five-million-dollar life insurance payout. At the time, I was working eighty-hour weeks to make partner. The loss had devastated me so deeply that I took a six-month leave of absence just to learn how to breathe again. And now, I was supposed to believe he was alive? The elevator doors opened with a soft chime. The coffee shop was tucked into a dim corner of the basement, mostly empty during the morning rush. I saw him immediately. He was sitting by the window, wearing a faded gray utility jacket. His hair was longer than before, messy and unstyled. He held a cigarette between his fingers, staring down at his phone. The way he held the cigarette, the slight hunch of his shoulders: my chest tightened so violently I could barely draw breath. I quieted my steps, walking toward him. The closer I got, the more the ghost became a man. I stood behind him, catching the distinct, cheap scent of his brand of tobacco. I used to beg him to buy better quality cigarettes, but he always refused, claiming he preferred the harsh, throat-burning taste of the cheap stuff. “Elliott.” I spoke his name. He turned his head slowly. Our eyes met. It was indeed Elliott. His skin was darker, his face thinner, and the soft, gentle expression he used to wear was gone, replaced by a cynical, calculating look in his eyes. There was no joy in his face, and no guilt. He merely frowned, stubbing out his cigarette in a half-empty cup of cold coffee. “You made it,” he said. His tone was so casual, as if he were asking me what we should have for dinner. Slap! I struck him with every ounce of strength in my body. The sharp sound of the blow echoed through the quiet shop. His head snapped to the side, a thin line of blood appearing at the corner of his lip. He stood up slowly, his face twisting with sudden rage. “Audrey! Are you out of your mind?!” “Am I out of my mind?” I let out a harsh laugh, though hot tears were beginning to sting my eyes. “You’ve been dead for three years, Elliott. I spent three years crying over your grave, supporting your aging parents, and living like a ghost myself. And now you show up alive?” “Why didn’t you come back? Why did you send that pregnant girl to humiliate me at my own firm?” “Did you want to ruin my career, or did you just want to see me lose my mind?” Elliott wiped his lip, his eyes turning cold and dark. “I couldn’t come back, Audrey. I was deep in debt, and I didn’t want the collectors coming after you.” “But I have to be back now. Gilligan is pregnant, and I need to give her a proper family.” “Let’s just end this quietly. Sign the divorce papers, and return the five million dollars from the insurance policy to me.” “My life bought that money, Audrey. Since I’m still breathing, that money belongs to me.” I stared at him, a cold realization washing over me. So that was his game. It wasn’t a miracle; it was a scam. He had faked his own death to wipe out his gambling debts and cash in on a massive insurance policy. And now that the heat had died down, or the money had run out, he had returned to claim the prize, bringing his mistress and his unborn child to push me out of the way. I looked at the man I had loved for seven years, the husband I had wept for in the middle of the night, and felt a deep, sickening disgust. “Elliott,” I said, wiping a stray tear from my cheek, my voice turning to stone. “Have you forgotten what I do for a living?” “I am a prosecutor’s worst nightmare, and a criminal’s greatest threat. I am a lawyer.” “Faking your death to claim a life insurance policy is major insurance fraud. With a sum of five million dollars, you are looking at a minimum of ten years in a federal penitentiary.” “Your relationship with that girl constitutes bigamy, which is another two years.” “And now, you are attempting to extort me.” I took a step closer, staring directly into his shifty eyes. “You want that five million dollars? Fine.” “Go claim it in prison.” Elliott’s face fell, his arrogant posture vanishing. He hadn’t expected me to be so cold, so analytical. Suddenly, his expression softened, and he dropped to his knees, grabbing my coat. “Audrey! Please! I had no choice!” he begged, looking up at me with tears in his eyes. “The debt collectors would have killed me if I didn’t pay them!” “Gilligan is completely innocent in all of this. Please don’t do this to us. I’m begging you!” A few patrons in the coffee shop turned to stare. The man who had been so smug a moment ago was now groveling like a dog at my feet. I looked down at him, and the last shred of affection I had held for him died. 3 I kicked his hands away, ignoring his pathetic cries as I walked out of the coffee shop and went back to my office. Gilligan was still sitting in the reception area. When she saw me, she tried to stand, but the icy glare I gave her pinned her to her seat. “Mrs. Shaw…” “Don’t speak to me.” I walked into my private office and slammed the door shut, locking out the curious eyes of my staff. My hands were shaking. Not from fear, but from pure, unadulterated rage. I sat down at my desk, forcing myself to take deep, measured breaths. Elliott’s return meant my peaceful, quiet life was over. If the insurance fraud came to light, I would be the first person the authorities investigated. As the beneficiary, the insurance company would assume I was an accomplice. And then there was the five million dollars. Elliott claimed he had used the money to pay off his debts. But that didn’t make sense. That five million was still sitting in my private investment account, untouched. I had never spent a single dime of it because it felt like blood money. If I hadn’t given him the money, how had he paid off his debts? And where had he gotten the money to support a mistress for three years? Suddenly, my phone rang. The screen displayed my mother-in-law’s name. For the past three years, despite my grief, I had taken care of his parents. I paid their monthly bills, took them to their medical appointments, and even organized his father’s funeral last winter. I answered, keeping my voice as steady as possible. “Hello, Mother.” “Audrey!” her voice came through the speaker, breathless with excitement. “You need to come to the house right now! It’s a miracle! A complete miracle!” “What happened?” “Elliott! My boy is alive!” she sobbed happily. “He’s back, Audrey! He’s really back! And he brought a beautiful girl with him. She’s pregnant with my grandson! I had a specialist look at her belly, it’s definitely a boy!” I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. So, they had all been in on it. Elliott had left the cafe and gone straight to his mother, using her to put pressure on me. And her words… “Mother, do you even know who that woman is?” “Oh, who cares about that?” she snapped, her tone suddenly turning dismissive. “As long as she can carry the family name, she is a blessing! Audrey, don’t blame me for being blunt. You were married to my son for five years and never gave us a child. Now that he has survived this ordeal and brought home an heir, it’s a gift from above!” “You need to come over and sign those divorce papers. Don’t stand in the way of that poor girl’s future.” My heart felt as though it had been submerged in freezing water, then shattered with a hammer. Three years of devotion. Three years of caring for them, paying their medical bills, burying her husband. All of it meant nothing compared to an unborn grandson and her precious, deceitful son. I let out a soft, humorless laugh into the receiver. “Of course, Mother.” “I’ll be right over.” “We have a lot of things to settle.” I hung up, opened my laptop, and pulled up the digital copy of the life insurance policy from three years ago. Beneficiary: Audrey Shaw. Insured: Elliott Shaw. The death certificate, the cremation records, the estate closure documents: everything was filed perfectly. At the time, my mother-in-law had handed me the documents herself, claiming she was too heartbroken to look at them. I had handled all the paperwork. But looking at it now, the holes were glaring. If Elliott was alive, whose remains were in that urn? And where had he been hiding for three years? I closed the laptop, retrieved a small digital voice recorder from my desk drawer, and slipped it into my purse. Then, I sent a quick message to my assistant: Run a search on all bank accounts associated with Elliott Shaw and his mother over the past three years. Look for large cash withdrawals or overseas transfers. And call the legal department at the insurance company. Tell them I have information regarding a major fraud case.

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1 A year into my marriage, I was dragged into an alley, stripped of my jacket, and pinned to a wall. A woman live-streamed my humiliation, slapping me while screaming, “You homewrecking whore!” “I’m married! You have the wrong person!” I yelled, but she shoved a marriage certificate in my face. The photo showed her with my husband, Mark, dated three years prior. My life imploded. My TV station promotion was revoked, and I was blacklisted from the industry. In total despair, I climbed onto our penthouse balcony, ready to jump. Just as I prepared to leap, I heard voices inside. Gina, my attacker, laughed. “Mark, you’re wicked. Using a fake certificate to destroy her just to make me laugh after only three months.” Mark’s voice was indulgent. “Anything to make you happy, babe. Play with her however you want.” I stared at the glass door, my heart shattering. The nightmare I had endured for a month was nothing but a cruel game for his amusement. The wind on the balcony was freezing, yet their laughter carried perfectly to my ears. I closed my eyes, recalling the living hell of the past month. After being publicly branded as a mistress, I had posted my actual chat logs to prove I had been deceived. But every attempt at clarification only invited more vicious harassment. My colleagues shunned me, and strangers on the street spat in my direction. “Look at how she dresses. You can tell she is a home-wrecker.” “All those designer bags are probably paid for in bed.” I had tried to tune out the noise and bury myself in my work. But during a live broadcast, a guest unexpectedly asked me why I chose to destroy another woman’s family. I finally cracked, sobbing hysterically into the microphone. “I am not a mistress! I had no idea he was married!” Nobody believed me. The footage of my breakdown was edited, memed, and shared across the internet, triggering a fresh wave of harassment. I lost my job, and my career was effectively dead. Fear and nightmares became my nightly companions. I consumed sleeping pills by the handful, and my hair fell out in clumps. When Mark finally returned from his trip abroad with Gina, I confronted him, only for him to shrug with complete indifference. “You only asked if I had a girlfriend when I was studying in Europe, Alice. You never asked if I had a wife. How is that a lie?” The final thread of my sanity snapped. Death felt like the only escape. But standing on the balcony, learning the truth, I froze. If all of it was a lie, what was the point of the agony I had endured? Rage, hot and violent, surged to my head. I threw the balcony door open. Mark’s smirk froze. My words cut through the room like a blade. “Why would you do this to me?” He frowned, gesturing for Gina to wait outside. Then, he sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette. I was highly allergic to tobacco, coughing instantly as the smoke hit my lungs. Normally, he would never smoke near me, but today, he was entirely unmoved by my distress. Mark spoke calmly, taking a slow drag. “Since you heard us, I will be direct. Alice, I know you love me, but I am bored.” “I am bored of your unchanging hairstyle, bored of always having to soothe your insecurities, and especially bored of your predictable routine in bed. I need excitement, and Gina gives me what you can’t.” I took a ragged breath, fighting the nausea rising in my throat. “Mark, how can you do this? Does my mother’s memory mean nothing to you?” At the mention of my mother, his expression stiffened slightly. “It has been years, and you still use her death to guilt-trip me. I know she saved my life, but was marrying you not enough of a repayment?” We had been neighbors growing up. When a fire broke out at the Fairfax estate, his parents were away, and even their nanny had fled, leaving Mark trapped inside. My mother was the only one who ran into the flames to pull him out. She died shortly after from severe smoke inhalation. Her sacrifice had always been a sacred boundary between us. Hearing him dismiss it so casually, combined with weeks of humiliation, pushed me over the edge. I lunged forward and slapped him across the face. “I regret that she ever saved an ungrateful beast like you!” The slap left both of us stunned. Then, Mark let out a low chuckle. “That is the first time I’ve ever seen you look this angry.” He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a whisper. “This look actually suits you. It is quite stimulating.” “Since Gina is outside, why don’t we try the bathroom?” A wave of intense revulsion washed over me. I stared at him, unable to recognize the boy I had loved since childhood. I grabbed a heavy crystal vase from the table and hurled it at his feet, screaming at him to get out. After he left, I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Exhaustion weighed heavily on my limbs, and I dragged myself toward the bedroom, needing to sleep. But when I pushed the door open, my breath hitched. Our wedding portrait had been ripped from the wall and thrown onto the floor. My face had been defaced with black marker, with the word “WHORE” scribbled across my forehead. Next to the frame lay two dusty handprints, and as I stepped backward, my bare foot brushed against something slick. A discarded condom wrapper. I gagged, but my stomach was entirely empty. Pain consumed me, but my eyes remained completely dry. The tears refused to come. Then, my phone buzzed. Mark had posted a new update on his social media: “Returning to my family. Looking forward to spending the rest of my life with my beautiful wife.” The attached photo showed him and Gina, their silhouettes framed by a golden sunset. In that instant, my world shattered, and the tears finally spilled over. But beneath the grief, a cold, sharp resolve began to take root. 2 Over the next few days, I quietly compiled evidence of his infidelity, determined to dismantle his reputation. But the deeper I dug, the colder my heart became. Three months ago, on my birthday, I had sat alone in our dark apartment waiting for him until dawn. That entire night, he had been setting off fireworks on a private beach with Gina. Two months ago, I had sat alone in a hospital corridor, holding a positive pregnancy test and trying desperately to reach him. He had ignored my calls because he was busy buying heating pads and preparing tea for Gina’s menstrual cramps. One month ago, when the fake mistress scandal broke and the stress caused me to miscarry in a cold hospital room, he was in Iceland, watching the northern lights with Gina. I ran to the bathroom, vomiting until my throat tasted like copper. Only when my stomach was completely empty did the numbness in my chest offer a brief reprieve. The following morning, I sent the entire folder of evidence to a prominent investigative journalist. Back at the apartment, I forced myself to sit at the desk and draft a divorce agreement. My eyes grew misty as I typed. We had been childhood sweethearts, quietly harboring feelings for each other for years. We had promised that once he graduated from his university in Europe, we would finally build a life together. In the beginning, he would wait outside my office for hours, regardless of how late my shift ended. When I fell ill, he postponed a multi-million-dollar merger just to spend six hours simmering fish soup to bring to my bedside. On the night of my promotion, he had purchased a flawless diamond at an auction and knelt before me. I had insisted on keeping our marriage private because I did not want people accusing me of marrying for money. I never expected that my desire for privacy would provide the perfect cover for his betrayal. I eventually fell asleep at the desk, exhausted. By the time I woke up, the internet had exploded. But when I opened the trending news, my vision blurred. The evidence I had sent had been entirely manipulated. Instead of exposing his affair, the headlines presented a forged confession, claiming I was apologizing for being a mistress. They had used advanced voice-cloning technology to replicate my voice, and an AI generator to copy my handwriting. The digital mob turned on me with renewed ferocity. My photos were doctored with offensive captions and circulated across every platform. My personal accounts were deactivated, and my phone number was leaked online. Vicious messages and threatening calls flooded my inbox. Strangers demanded to know my nightly rates. I let out a hollow laugh. This was Mark’s retaliation. In the past, whenever I faced minor criticism online, he would use his family’s PR firm to scrub the internet clean within minutes. Now, he had used those same resources to build my personal purgatory. The front door clicked open, and Mark walked in. Rage eclipsed my judgment. I grabbed a glass mug and hurled it at his head. “Mark! I am not a mistress! She is! Sign the papers!” He ducked, the glass shattering against the wall. Before I could move, his hand clamped around my throat, pinning me against the wall. Oxygen left my lungs, and my eyes watered from the pain, but his grip did not loosen. Just before I lost consciousness, he let go, leaving me to slide down the drywall, gasping. “Have you calmed down?” Mark asked, straightening his cuffs. “If you pull another stunt like that, the consequences will be far worse.” “Alice, a little jealousy is fine, but this behavior is getting tedious. Stop trying to use these dramatic schemes to win back my attention.” “You love me too much to actually leave, and I need a wife who understands the family dynamics. This arrangement suits both of us perfectly.” He glanced at the divorce papers on the desk and let out a dry chuckle. “Do you honestly think you can survive a divorce? You have no career left. Who will support you if you leave me?” “Behave yourself, and once I’ve had my fun, I will clear your name.” I coughed violently, my throat burning. He ignored my pain entirely. “Gina has been crying for days because of the stress. I am throwing a grand wedding ceremony to reassure her, and she expects you to apologize to her in person before she will forgive you.” He turned toward the door. “Whether you show up is up to you. But if Gina remains unhappy, I will make sure your life becomes even more uncomfortable.” After the door clicked shut, my chest heaved with a mixture of laughter and tears. That evening, a new headline dominated the social media channels: “The Prodigal Son Returns! Fairfax Heir Spends Millions on a Lavish Wedding to Honor His Wife!” The comments section was filled with venom directed at me, with users criticizing my upbringing and mocking my mother’s passing. I sat on the kitchen floor, clutching the trash can, feeling an absolute detachment take over. The residual warmth I held for the boy who had once knelt in the rain to slide a ring onto my finger vanished completely. My phone vibrated, displaying an unknown number: “I received the files you sent. When are you free to discuss this?” 3 The wedding of the century became the sole topic of conversation online. The public narrative was set: Mark Fairfax was a reformed romantic protecting his fragile wife, while Alice was a desperate intruder who had tried to steal him away. When Mark returned to the apartment, he tossed an invitation onto the table. “The ceremony is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Do not be late.” The day after tomorrow. The anniversary of my mother’s death. I stood up, my chair scraping harshly against the hardwood floor. “I cannot make it. I am visiting my mother’s grave.” “And when are you going to sign the divorce papers?” He ignored the question entirely, letting out a soft grunt. “Your mother has been gone for years. There is no point in visiting a headstone. Gina’s parents will be there, so you can pay your respects to them instead.” A dull ache flared in my chest. Seeing my defiance, he pulled a velvet box from his pocket and opened it, revealing my mother’s delicate gold necklace. “This belonged to her, correct? If you choose to skip the ceremony and upset Gina, I cannot guarantee what will happen to this.” My jaw clenched so hard it ached. Before my anger could boil over, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I forced myself to take a slow, deep breath, checked the message, and looked at him calmly. “Mark, do you truly want me to offer my blessings to Gina in front of the press?” He smiled. “Absolutely.” On the day of the wedding, the venue was swarming with reporters. In the dressing room, Gina stood before the vanity in a custom satin gown. Her lapel bore a white rose labeled “Bride,” while Mark wore one labeled “Groom.” On the table lay a withered, black rose labeled “Mistress.” Gina let out a soft whine, and Mark immediately grabbed the black rose, pinning it roughly to my blouse. The sharp pin scraped against my collarbone, drawing a thin line of blood, but he did not care. “Do you truly want to go through with this?” I asked, looking into his eyes. He frowned. “It is just a flower, Alice. Don’t be dramatic.” Gina turned around, her expression triumphant. “During the ceremony, you will read the apology slides I prepared, word for word. Then, you will kneel and beg for my forgiveness.” “You will kowtow nine hundred and ninety-nine times before you are allowed to stand. Do you understand?” I remained silent, staring back at her. Annoyed by my silence, Mark gripped my jaw tightly. “Do not embarrass us today.” I shoved his hand away, maintaining my cold stare. Before he could speak, the double doors opened, and a crowd of reporters and high-society guests entered the suite. They immediately crowded around Gina and Mark, offering praise, before their eyes landed on my lapel. The whispers began instantly. “How pathetic. Some women truly have no dignity.” “She actually had the audacity to show up. If I were Gina, I would have had security throw her out.” I reached up, ripped the black rose from my chest, and threw it to the floor. “I am not the mistress. Gina is.” Nobody believed me. The sneers only intensified. Mark stepped closer, grabbing my wrist under the cover of his sleeve and squeezing until my bones ached, signaling me to be quiet. Gina offered a fragile, pitying smile to the cameras. “Please, do not be too harsh on Alice. She was simply blinded by her affection for Mark. She is here today to make things right.” The music began, and they walked out to the altar hand-in-hand. After the vows were spoken and the rings exchanged, I was escorted onto the stage under the harsh glow of the spotlights. But as the projector screen behind us lit up, Mark’s face drained of color, turning a sickly, translucent white.

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1 I used to be the ex-girlfriend Leo claimed he was “just having fun with.” Then, his younger brother, James, spotted me in a club and roped me into playing his fake girlfriend—all to make his childhood crush jealous. That kiss in the VIP room was supposed to be a show for the crush, but it landed right in Leo’s line of sight. Right in front of James, Leo emphasized the word “sister-in-law,” chewing on it like it was a bitter betrayal. “Don’t recognize me? Sister-in-law.” Inside the club. I was carrying a tray of drinks across the dance floor. The moment I turned around, someone grabbed my wrist. I looked down. The guy looked early twenties. Striking features, with eyes that were bright and completely feral. “You’ll do,” he said. I raised an eyebrow. “Let go.” “You need money.” “Are you psychic now?” “Would you be working here if you were rich?” He tilted his head. I didn’t argue. My bank account was sitting in the double digits, and rent was due in three days. “And your point is?” “Play my girlfriend. One month. A thousand bucks.” I laughed out loud. “Did you hit your head on the way in?” He let go of my wrist and pulled up a photo on his phone, shoving it in my face. “Her. Michelle,” he said. “I’ve asked her out 999 times, and she always shoots me down.” “I want her to know I can get a girl too.” He paused, his eyes lingering on my face for a second. The tips of his ears turned a suspicious shade of red. “Plus, you’re prettier than her. By a lot.” I smirked. “Then go find a real girlfriend.” “Too much work.” He said it like it was a universal truth. “A fake one is easier. When it’s over, we go our separate ways. Clean.” I sat down, giving him a slow once-over. His ears turned even redder. “What are you looking at?” “Seeing if you’re worth my time.” I curled the corner of my lip. “A month is too long. Three appearances, max. A thousand bucks, paid upfront.” “Are you robbing me?” I made a move to stand up. “Deal!” He added my number. The name popped up on my screen: James Vance. The next day, James sent me an address. When I got to the lounge, I sent him a voice note: “Hey babe, I’m here.” He replied instantly: “Don’t talk like that!!!” Three minutes later, he walked out of the lounge and just stared at me, dumbfounded. “Look good?” I blinked innocently. His Adam’s apple bobbed. I slid my arm through his. “Let’s go, boyfriend.” His entire body went rigid like a coiled spring. The girl from the photo was definitely the center of attention in the private booth. When she saw us walk in arm-in-arm, her eyes locked on me. “And this is?” She scanned me from head to toe. James tried to play it cool. “My girlfriend.” One of the guys started hollering. “Holy shit, James! Since when? You never said a word!” “Recently.” James kept stealing glances at Michelle out of the corner of his eye. “Love at first sight.” Michelle smiled tightly. “What should we call you?” Everyone looked at me. I slowly slipped my jacket off. The slip dress underneath left very little to the imagination. I rested my chin on James’s shoulder, smiling sweetly at Michelle. “You can just call me a little older and wiser.” James completely froze. Michelle blinked. “You’re older than James?” “Doesn’t matter.” I turned my head, letting the tip of my nose brush against James’s ear. “What matters is he likes it. Right, babe?” James’s ear was hot enough to fry an egg on. “…Yeah.” The vibe in the booth shifted instantly. “I’m gonna get some air,” I said, standing up. I leaned in and whispered in James’s ear, “Keep up the act.” Out in the hallway, I leaned against the wall and pulled out a cigarette. Footsteps echoed from the end of the hall. I looked up by instinct— The cigarette dropped from my lips. Leo Vance. His features were even colder than I remembered. He stopped in his tracks. Then, he smiled. It was a smile that chilled you to the bone, like a bitter November wind. “Long time no see.” I picked up the cigarette, held it unlit between my lips, and said nothing. He stepped closer, reached out, and plucked the cigarette from my mouth, snapping it in half between his fingers. Then, his eyes dropped to the thin straps of my dress. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “What are you doing dressed like this in a place like this?” “Meeting a guy,” I laughed. “Is my ex-boyfriend trying to play chaperone?” His eyes darkened, like ink swirling in a glass of water. Right then, the door to the booth swung open behind me. An arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me backward into a solid chest. Then, a soft pair of lips landed clumsily on the corner of my mouth. Someone inside yelled, “Holy shit! James, you’re actually doing it!” Before I could even process what was happening, another force violently yanked James away. James stumbled back, looked up, and saw Leo. He froze. “Leo? You made it?” My brain flatlined. Leo’s gaze moved slowly from my face to James. The corner of his mouth twitched into a dangerous smile. “And who is this?” “My girlfriend!” James puffed out his chest, sounding entirely too proud of himself. “Gorgeous, right?” Leo’s eyes dragged deliberately from my lips down to the spot on my shoulder where James’s hand had just been. “Sister-in-law.” He chewed on the word, spitting it out like it tasted like poison. “Hey there,” I blinked at him innocently. “Brother-in-law.” Leo’s breathing hitched. “Wait, you two know each other?” James frowned, his eyes darting between me and his older brother. “Never met her.” “Nope.” We spoke at the exact same time. Leo didn’t look at me again. He pushed past us and walked straight into the booth. James leaned in close, dropping his voice. “Are you sure you don’t know my brother?” “Positive.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and smiled at him. “What, afraid I’m sleeping with him behind your back?” “No—” He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s just… the way he looked at you was weird.” “What kind of weird?” “I don’t know how to explain it.” He thought for a second. “It was like… he wanted to tear someone to pieces.” “You’re overthinking it.” I looped my arm through his, pressing myself against his side. “Let’s go back in.” He didn’t move. He looked down at me, a strange look in his eyes. “Were you… acting a little too real back there?” “Isn’t this what you paid for?” I looked up at him, my eyes crinkling in a smile. “Babe, I’m a professional. If you pay me, you get the premium package.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he turned his face away. Bright red. I laughed to myself. Kids are so easy to read. When we walked back into the booth, Leo was already seated. The only open spot was right next to him. I sat down beside James, melting against his side like I had no bones. His arm stiffened for a second before he slowly relaxed, his hand tentatively resting on my waist. Leo didn’t stop drinking, but his jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. My phone buzzed. I looked down. A text from an unknown number: “Do you enjoy parading around half-naked in front of other men?” I didn’t reply. Delete. Block. Then, with a bright smile, I picked up a piece of fruit on a toothpick and held it up to James’s mouth. “Say ah, babe.” James looked like his soul was leaving his body. He took the toothpick from my hand and whispered, “Can you… tone it down a little?” “Tone what down?” I leaned in close, letting my breath ghost over the shell of his ear. He practically shrunk into the sofa, nearly knocking the fruit platter onto the floor. I couldn’t stop laughing. When the night finally ended, James stood outside the club, struggling to find the right words. “You were really good tonight. Michelle looked like she wanted to puke.” “Thanks for the glowing review.” “But,” he paused, “I still think my brother was acting weird around you.” “Is that so?” “Though I heard he just got dumped by his girlfriend recently, so maybe he’s just in a bad mood.” “Right, right. He’s probably just jealous of you,” I brushed it off. “Oh, wait.” I suddenly remembered the stunt in the hallway. “You kissed me without my permission tonight.” James looked like a deer in headlights. He whipped his head away, his ears burning crimson. “They were calling me a liar! I had to prove it!” “That wasn’t part of the base package, honey.” He immediately pulled out his phone and hit send on a transfer. A notification popped up. Ten grand. I stared at the screen, genuinely shocked. “Are you always this reckless with your money?” James tilted his chin up, trying to sound tough but just sounding defensive. “Are you saying my first kiss isn’t worth ten grand?” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing. “Alright, well, this girl needs her beauty sleep.” As I turned to walk away, I could feel his eyes glued to my back. But I could feel another gaze, too. Piercing down from the second-floor window of the club. Heavy, suffocating, like it was trying to nail my feet to the pavement. Once I was in the cab, my phone buzzed again. A new number. “See you soon.” Ten seconds later, a second text came through, as if he was intentionally giving me time to panic. “Ex-girlfriend.” The second act happened sooner than I expected. James texted me: “Party tonight. Michelle’s going to be there. You need to come.” He followed it up with: “Maybe keep it low-key tonight. After you left last time, my brother didn’t say a single word for the rest of the night. It was terrifying.” I was lying in bed, holding my phone above my face. I smirked. “Low-key? Go hire someone else.” He replied instantly: “NO WAIT! WEAR WHATEVER YOU WANT! PLEASE COME!” Then, another transfer hit my account. One grand. I accepted the money and sent back a blown-kiss emoji. “Good boy. Mommy will take good care of you tonight.” “Witch!” I tossed my phone aside, laughing, and started digging through my closet. I finally settled on a deep burgundy velvet mini dress. It completely exposed my collarbones, so I paired it with a microscopic gold chain holding a single ruby pendant that rested right on the edge of the neckline. If I walked out in this, forget the childhood crush—I could make a priest break his vows. This VIP room was even bigger than the last one, complete with a private karaoke stage and a full bar. When I walked in, it was already packed. “The queen arrives!” the same guy from last time hollered. “James, your girl is insane. Every time she walks in, it looks like a red carpet.” James grinned like an idiot, throwing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me down onto the sofa next to him. Michelle was sitting directly across from us, her makeup flawless but understated. “Want to sing?” Michelle offered the microphone, her smile tight. I took it and picked a song. When the chorus hit, I turned around and sang directly to James. My eyes locked on his, my voice low and breathy, like I was whispering a secret just for him. I reached out, tracing a finger from his collar down to his jawline, giving it a playful tap. James sat up so straight it looked like someone had shoved a steel rod down his spine. His ears were practically glowing red. When the song ended, the room was dead silent for three whole seconds before anyone clapped. “So, how did you two get together?” Michelle asked, her voice dangerously quiet. James was taking a nervous gulp of water and practically choked on it. I answered for him. “At a club. He grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to go out with him.” Michelle’s smile slipped for a fraction of a second. “Really?” “Yep.” I turned to look at James, reaching out to trace his jawline again. “He was so cute that night. Like a stubborn little puppy. I just didn’t have the heart to say no.” James coughed violently, almost spitting water everywhere. “I need to use the bathroom.” He scrambled up and bolted. Michelle watched him run away, then looked back at me. She took a slow sip of her drink and didn’t say a word. But the temperature in her eyes had dropped below freezing. “I’m going out for a smoke.” Leo stood up abruptly from his dark corner of the booth. When he said it, his eyes were dead set on me. My phone buzzed. “End of the hall.” “Come here.” I ignored it. Three minutes passed. “Don’t make me drag you out here.” I let out a soft laugh, downed the rest of my drink, and stood up. Leo was leaning against the wall, a cigarette pinched between his fingers. I tilted my head, looking up at him. He took a step forward, boxing me in against the wall. He didn’t touch me, but his scent—tobacco and something dark and expensive—completely engulfed me. I instinctively held my breath. “Are you done playing your little game?” “Who’s playing games with you?” I gave him a mock innocent look. His eyes traced a slow path from my lips down to the ruby resting on my chest. He paused for a beat. Then he reached out, his thumb and forefinger gripping my chin, tilting my face up to force me to look at him. “If you need money that badly,” his voice dropped to a low, dangerous rumble, “you can come to me.” I smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach my eyes. “Leo, whatever we were, it’s been over for a long time.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You vanished. You didn’t leave a single word.” “Because there was nothing left to say.” I closed my eyes for a second, the memory washing over me. Standing outside the men’s room at that club, hearing his voice drifting over the sound of running water— Mia? I’m just having fun with her. The laughter. The clinking glasses. I had turned around and walked out. No tears. No dramatic confrontations. I never looked back. “Mia.” His lips were inches from my ear. “You owe me an explanation.” I pushed his chest hard. “An explanation for what? Why I dumped you?” I smoothed an invisible crease on my skirt, keeping my voice light and completely detached. “Because you were boring, Leo. Being with you was a chore.” His eyes turned lethal, like polished obsidian daggers. I didn’t back down. We just stood there, locked in a silent war. Suddenly, voices drifted from the other end of the hall. “It’s not what you think—” James and Michelle. I turned my head. Down the hall, James was chasing after Michelle. Michelle’s eyes were red, her voice trembling. “You’ve been confessing your feelings to me since we were kids. I never said yes because I was never sure if you were actually serious.” “Of course I was serious before!” James looked frantic. “James, do you even realize what you just threw away?” Michelle looked up at him, a single tear rolling down her cheek, looking perfectly fragile. “I was actually planning on saying yes. On your thousandth attempt.” James froze, completely stunned. “Don’t cry. I… I just wanted you to notice me. I…” The words died in his throat, like he was choking on them. Michelle stared right at him. “If you were single right now, and I said yes… what would you choose?” James went completely silent. I leaned back against the wall. Smart girl. She didn’t demand that he dump me. She dangled the prize he had wanted his whole life in front of his face, forcing him to make the choice himself. No matter what he said, she got to play the tragic victim. Leo stepped up right behind me. He lowered his head, his lips grazing my ear. “Enjoying the show?” I ignored him. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, sir! Let me clean that up!” A waiter rushing past with a cart had accidentally sloshed a few drops of red wine onto Leo’s crisp dress shirt. The commotion made James and Michelle look over. They saw me and Leo. He was standing so close his body was practically wrapped around mine. James’s face went from confused, to shocked, to absolutely furious. “Mia!” He sprinted down the hall, grabbed my arm, and yanked me behind his back, glaring daggers at his older brother. “Back off, Leo.” The faint trace of amusement completely vanished from Leo’s face. “Excuse me?” James pushed me further behind him, guarding me like a junkyard dog. “I said—stay the hell away from my girlfriend!”

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1 My fiancée, Kristin, had a best friend named Brooke who proudly called herself a master of training men. She preached that all men were inherently flawed beasts who needed to be broken and house-trained. Under Brooke’s constant brainwashing, Kristin turned my life into a series of endless rules. I had to be on call twenty-four hours a day. Going on a business trip required submitting a written request for approval three days in advance. Every hour, I had to send my live location and video-call her to prove exactly what I was doing. I had to do ten things to please Kristin just to earn a single kiss, and I had to perform ridiculous public displays of affection to prove my loyalty. My buddies laughed at me. “Gavin, man, that good-husband training of yours… you might as well be in a maximum-security prison.” I would just smile it off. “Happy wife, happy life, right?” I was planning my ninety-ninth proposal, waiting for the exact moment my company went public. But then Kristin and Brooke burst into the conference room with a mob, ripped the stockings off my female business partner, and pulled them over her head. That was the exact moment my patience snapped. If they wanted a dog, they could go find another one. I was done playing fetch. … Ten minutes prior. I had just closed the deal of a lifetime with our investor, Diana Ward. The moment her pen touched the contract, my company would be cleared for its IPO. Just as Diana raised her pen to sign, a shrill screech shattered the quiet of the boardroom. “Kristin, watch how I handle this homewrecking whore!” Brooke did not even hesitate. She lunged forward and grabbed Diana by the hair. “Tear her apart! Look at that slutty face of hers!” Kristin’s face was twisted in absolute rage. They had brought five or six women with them. Some screamed, others swung. The room descended into absolute chaos. “Suit jacket on top, fishnets and stilettos on the bottom? What kind of business meeting is this? She is practically begging to be bent over!” “Exactly! Kristin, if we were ten minutes late, they would be rolling around on the lounge sofa!” Brooke’s words poured gasoline on the fire. Kristin glared at me, her eyes burning with a deep, ugly resentment, as if she had caught me red-handed. “Have you lost your minds? Get off her!” I snarled. When Brooke finally let go, she ripped out a bloody clump of Diana’s hair. Kristin leaped in, tearing Diana’s stockings off her legs and forcing them over her face. Seeing Diana exposed, I threw my suit jacket over her shoulders. She was shaking, her voice trembling with pure rage. “Is this your idea of a professional negotiation, Gavin?” “I am so incredibly sorry. I will make this right, I promise…” Before I could finish, Kristin ripped my jacket off Diana and threw it to the floor. “Why are you apologizing to her? She is a cheap homewrecker! She deserves to be humiliated!” “Exactly! Rising to the top at her age? We all know how she got her promotions,” Brooke sneered. Diana let out a sharp, furious laugh. “This is slander! I will sue you into the ground!” “Go ahead! Sue us! You came in here to seduce my fiancé, and now you are playing the victim?” Kristin sneered. My face turned cold. “Kristin! Shut up! Apologize to Diana right now!” “You are making me apologize? Gavin, I love you so much! What did I do wrong?” Suddenly, she was the victim. I bowed deeply to Diana. “Please, let my assistant escort you out first. I will handle this.” Diana glared at me, adjusted her torn clothes, and stormed out. Looking at the hysterical Kristin and her smug group of friends, a profound emptiness settled in my chest. Eight years of knowing her, six years of loving her, and I was finally, utterly exhausted. Eight years ago. Kristin was the golden girl of our university. An heiress with the title of campus queen, she had a line of suitors stretching out the door. I was nobody, a poor kid getting by on scholarships and hard labor. I worked night shifts just to buy her the fresh organic milk she liked every morning. My poorly written love letters filled her locker daily. Back then, Brooke would laugh and say, “Probably some broke loser dreaming of a miracle.” But Kristin never threw them away. I could not afford expensive roses, so I gathered fresh wildflowers from the hills. I quietly cleaned her classroom, pulled her shifts, and changed my elective courses just to catch a glimpse of her. If she wanted something done, I did it in secret. For two years, I loved her in absolute silence. Then, one day, she blocked my path. “Gavin Pierce. It is been a month. Where are my letters? Where is my morning milk? Where are my wildflowers?” I stood there, completely frozen. Dozens of rich guys showered her with designer bags, but she had noticed the broke kid. “I know your mom is sick. I paid her medical bills. Now, what do you have to say to me?” She was wearing a white summer dress, her smile so bright she looked like an angel. I stammered, “Thank you…” “Wrong answer,” Kristin whispered, stepping closer. Confused, I took a breath. “I love you?” Kristin stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick, sweet kiss to my cheek. “Bingo.” 2 During those weeks when the letters had stopped, I had been working myself to the bone trying to raise money for my mother’s liver surgery. Kristin paid for everything, hiring the best specialist in the country. The eighty thousand dollar bill was settled without her even blinking. Every day after class, she came to the hospital with me, bringing food and telling jokes to keep my mother’s spirits up. When we started dating, Brooke screamed at her, asking what she could possibly see in a pauper. Kristin simply laced her fingers through mine in front of everyone. “Because Gavin shows me what real love looks like.” When my mother was recovering, Kristin stayed up all night with me. This girl, who had never washed a dish in her life, tried to help empty my mother’s drainage bags. I held her hand, my eyes burning with tears. “Kristin, I swear, I will spend the rest of my life making you happy.” Though my mother eventually passed away from post-op complications, Kristin remained my anchor through the darkest days. But then, Kristin’s father was caught in a massive cheating scandal. Her mother committed suicide in grief, and their family empire was torn company by company by greedy board members. After that, Kristin changed. Staring at the shrieking woman in front of me, my restraint finally snapped. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face. The sharp sound cut through the chaos instantly. Kristin froze, her hand flying to her cheek. Her cheek swelled rapidly, and a bead of dark blood welled at the corner of her lip. “You… you struck me?” She looked at me in utter disbelief, her eyes pooling with tears. My chest heaved with fury. I pointed toward the glass doors. “Who let these people in? Pack your bags and get out. You are fired!” I screamed at the security guards. “Gavin, are you blind? That woman was practically throwing herself at you! Or are you two already sleeping together?” Brooke shouted, stepping in. You would think they had caught me in bed rather than a board meeting. The veins on my neck bulged. “Get. Out.” The girls looked at each other, suddenly uneasy. They had never seen me like this. For eight years, I had been trained to protect Kristin from even the slightest scratch. Hitting her was unthinkable. Kristin burst into hysterical tears. “You will regret this, Gavin! I swear you will!” Brooke hugged her, sneering at me. “See, Kristin? This is what happens when you let a broke dog get too comfortable! You think staying by his side when he was poor means he will be loyal? Men are trash at their core! If I had not been watching him like a hawk, he would have cheated on you years ago!” The other girls chimed in. “Seriously. Brooke is the master at this. Look at how she turned her own husband from a player into a loyal pup! Toby does not even dare look at another girl. Brooke is a literal genius.” Brooke pointed a finger at my face. “Gavin, you know exactly how much Kristin did for you. If you get down on your knees right now and beg her for forgiveness, maybe she will take you back. Otherwise…” Here it was again. The endless humiliation, the emotional abuse. After her family fell apart, Kristin became paranoid. Brooke convinced her that all men were liars. To help us, Brooke took total control of our relationship. She boasted to Kristin, “My Toby is so obedient. If I tell him to jump, he asks how high.” Toby, indeed, never looked up in public. Brooke was incredibly proud of her creation. Back then, I tolerated it all just to give Kristin peace of mind. But soon, Brooke became a permanent fixture on our dates. 3 If a female passerby brushed past my shoulder, Brooke would scream in the street, forcing me to vow my undying love to Kristin on the spot. When I was building my company, working eighty-hour weeks, I had to answer hourly video calls. If I was even seconds late, Brooke would smirk on the screen. “Twenty-eight seconds to answer, Gavin? Hiding another woman under your desk?” Then Kristin’s face would darken, and I would spend the next hour begging for forgiveness. Whenever Kristin made a hand gesture representing a number, I had to immediately wire her that exact amount of cash. “A man’s heart is where his wallet is,” Brooke had declared. Even when I collapsed from a stomach ulcer due to stress, I did not dare miss her calls. Every holiday, every anniversary, I had to spend thousands on elaborate gifts just so Kristin would not feel embarrassed in front of her friends. Even when my company was struggling for cash flow, I took out personal loans to buy her what she wanted, always making sure to buy Brooke a matching luxury item too. But Brooke’s demands only grew. She helped Kristin set up a point system. Good behavior earned points; mistakes deducted them. Travel required three days’ notice. I was not allowed to make eye contact with female clients or give them compliments. I could not ride in an elevator or a car with another woman. My friends thought I was insane, but I did it all. Yet, Brooke mocked me. “He is only doing this because he has not gotten into your pants yet. Once he gets what he wants, he will change.” So, for six years, our physical relationship never progressed past simple kisses. And even those had to be bought with ten completed favors. I kept telling myself she was just insecure because she loved me. Once my company succeeded, I showered them with money, but their tests only became more sadistic. They sent honeytraps to seduce me during business trips. They tore up my business proposals just to see if I would raise my voice. They installed tracking software on my phone, suffocating my every move. Staring at Brooke’s smug face, I let out a low, cold laugh. “Otherwise what?” “Otherwise, I will personally make sure Kristin never marries you! Ninety-nine proposals? You can try nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and you will still die alone!” Brooke barked. I looked past her, staring directly into Kristin’s eyes. “Is this what you want too?” Kristin’s response was to step forward and slap me again, hard. I slowly picked up the torn pieces of the Diana Ward contract. “I was going to sign this today. Once signed, the company would have gone public, and my net worth would have skyrocketed.” “For our ninety-ninth proposal, I bought the estate overlooking the bay. I bought the sports car you wanted. I had a custom wedding gown made to your exact measurements, and I bought a rare emerald jewelry set at an auction…” Kristin’s anger suddenly wavered, replaced by a flicker of greedy anticipation. But then, I spat out a mouthful of blood and looked her dead in the eye. “But now, it is over. We are finished, Kristin. There won’t be a ninety-ninth proposal.”

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1 When my mother gave birth to me, she fell into a crushing postpartum depression. More than once, she stood on our high-rise balcony, staring at the ground far below, ready to jump. Each time, my father rushed out, wrapping his arms tightly around her trembling body, pulling her back against his chest. “I’m here, Jenny,” he would whisper again and again, kissing her hair. “The baby and I are right here. Don’t be afraid.” For our sake, she fought against the silent scream inside her to end it all. But the fragile peace broke the night I burned with fever. As I cried in my crib, something in her snapped. Instead of soothing me, she grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills and locked herself in the bathroom. That was when my father’s own sanity shattered. He kicked the door open, eyes wild and bloodshot. “Do you want to drive us both mad?” he roared, his voice raw from months of exhaustion. “Nothing I do is ever enough! If you want to die so badly, then go ahead—I won’t stop you!” Blind with rage, he twisted off the cap and forced the blue tablets into her mouth. My mother didn’t cry. She didn’t even struggle. She had already seen the secret messages on my father’s phone—from My Sunshine. The woman in those photos looked bright, alive, perfect. My mother believed she could be a better wife to my father, a better mother to me. She had already decided to give up. The pills scattered across the cold tile floor like plastic beads. My father continued to shove them into her mouth, his face twisted in a mask of desperation. But my mother only looked up at him with a faint, tragic smile. “It’s okay,” she whispered around the dry tablets. Suddenly, my loud, agonizing cry cut through the bathroom from the nursery. The sound seemed to pierce through my father’s madness. His eyes cleared, and the plastic bottle slipped from his hand, clattering against the floor. Shaking violently, he shoved his fingers down her throat to force her to throw up. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed, his voice trembling as he held her limp body. “Jenny, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me lately.” My mother retched, coughing up the pills, weeping as she lay collapsed on the floor like a crushed flower. Since her illness began, my father had taken over everything. He changed my diapers, prepared my bottles, and ran his company during the day, only to rush home by six to cook and watch over my mother. Slowly, the people around us began to whisper, their sympathy shifting away from her. “She’s dragging him down,” his employees muttered. “Does she think Christian is a machine who doesn’t need sleep? He works all day and plays nurse all night.” “He does everything for that baby while she just looks for new ways to kill herself. Thank goodness Scarlett is there to help him at the office, or he would have lost his mind by now.” Scarlett was the secretary. She was “My Sunshine.” A sharp ring of the doorbell broke the silence of our apartment. Scarlett stood at the entrance, dressed in a sharp, tailored office suit. When she saw the pills scattered across the floor and my mother’s disheveled state, her eyes welled with tears. “Mrs. Shaw, are you torturing Christian again?” Scarlett asked, her voice trembling with indignation. “It’s just a baby. If you didn’t want to go through with it, you shouldn’t have had her. But don’t use your illness as an excuse to destroy him.” My mother froze, her limbs starting to shake uncontrollably. It was the onset of another panic attack. Seeing this, my father quickly retrieved her prescription bottle and a glass of water, gently coaxing her to swallow the calming medication. “Scarlett, that’s enough!” he barked, pulling her back. But Scarlett wouldn’t stop. “He almost fainted at his desk yesterday, Christian! And then he has to come home to this. Please, just let him go. I beg you.” Before she could walk away, I let out another sharp wail from my crib. Without a word, my father and Scarlett sprang into action. One wrapped me in a warm blanket while the other expertly prepared a fresh bottle. Their movements were so synchronized, so effortlessly harmonious, that they looked like a real family. My mother instinctively reached her pale, thin hand toward me. But my father gently, silently pushed her hand aside. In that moment, a quiet realization seemed to settle over her. She couldn’t even take care of herself. How could she ever take care of me? Slowly, she pulled her hand back, tucking it into her sleeve. When my father carried me out the door to take me to the clinic, he looked back at her one last time. His eyes held nothing but profound weariness and disappointment. The heavy front door clicked shut. My mother dragged her weak limbs into the bedroom. The cabinet where the sleeping pills were kept was locked tight, but she managed to pry it open with a heavy brass paperweight. She unscrewed the lid, tipped her head back, and swallowed the pills, one after the other. In those quiet seconds as the chemicals began to invade her system, fragments of the past flashed through her mind. She remembered my grandmother’s harsh demands, insisting on an heir despite my mother’s fertility struggles. She remembered the endless, painful rounds of IVF that left her body bruised and swollen. She remembered the smell of copper and rust in the delivery room when she began to hemorrhage, and my father’s frantic voice echoing from the corridor. “Jenny, I only want you! I don’t care about the baby, just stay with me!” But after thirteen agonizing hours of labor, I was born. And with my birth came the shadow that never left her. She had tried to hang herself, tried to swallow poison, tried to slit her wrists in the bathtub. Each time, my father had arrived just in time, catching the blade with his bare hands. “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he would say. He had been her savior, the perfect husband, and the ultimate father in everyone’s eyes. But he had also started smoking heavily, and the dark circles under his eyes had turned into permanent bruises. That night, my father’s driver brought me back to the apartment, but my father didn’t return. I lay quietly in my stroller. My mother leaned over, her fingers tracing my cheek with a desperate, tragic tenderness. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. With her vision blurring from the slow-acting pills, she opened Scarlett’s social media page. There was a live photo posted just minutes ago. Through the shifting frame, she saw my father, shirtless, laughing as he leaned over Scarlett. The caption read: Only with you can I finally breathe. In the brief flash of the image, the tattoo on my father’s lower back was clearly visible. It was a small, radiant sun. The exact same icon he used for Scarlett’s contact name. And then my mother saw her own name in his contact list. He had saved her under a simple emoji: a dark, heavy raincloud. Tears silently spilled over her cheeks, soaking into the fabric of her collar. She shook so violently that she had to choke down several of her calming pills just to keep from collapsing on the spot. Then, the landline rang. It was the hospital. “Is this Genevieve Shaw? I am so sorry to inform you, but your mother suffered a massive cardiac arrest. She passed away ten minutes ago.” My mother gasped, clutching me to her chest as she ran out into the pouring rain. She fell several times on the wet pavement, scraping her knees, but she kept going until she reached the hospital. When she saw the white sheet draped over her mother’s face, she fell to her knees, her voice raw. “How could this happen? Her heart had been fine for years…” Lost and terrified, her first instinct was to call my father. The first call rang out. No answer. The second call was instantly rejected. By the third try, his phone was switched off. The cold, robotic operator’s voice repeated in her ear, matching the icy rain that dripped from her hair. He had promised her, sworn on his life, that he would always answer her calls on the first ring. Huddled on the freezing hospital floor with me in her arms, she felt the last piece of her world slip away. She walked into her mother’s empty hospital room to gather her belongings. On the floor by the bedside table, she found her mother’s phone. The screen was still active, displaying a video that had been sent earlier that afternoon. In the video, Scarlett was holding my father, a positive pregnancy test clutched in her hand. “Christian, I’ll get rid of the baby,” Scarlett sobbed in the recording. “I just want to be by your side, to take care of you and Genevieve. But please, give me some kind of status. Give me a reason to stay.” The camera panned slightly, catching my father’s conflicted face against the window. After a long, agonizing pause, he spoke. “Okay.” My mother felt as though a lightning bolt had pierced her chest. Clutching her marriage certificate, which she always kept in her purse, she ran through the rain to the local registry office. The clerk behind the desk looked at the database, then shook her head with a look of pity. “Mrs. Shaw, Christian Shaw’s legal spouse is not you. It is a woman named Scarlett Vance.” The words echoed in her ears, dragging her back to three months ago. My father had taken her marriage certificate, claiming he needed it to register a new downtown property under her name. “You’re the hero of our family, Jenny,” he had said, kissing her forehead. “You gave me our beautiful baby.” He hadn’t been buying a house. He had been quietly dissolving their marriage. My grandmother’s only wish had been for her daughter to have a happy, stable family. Seeing that video had literally stopped her heart. Under the gray, pouring sky, my mother’s vision went black, and she collapsed onto the wet concrete. When she opened her eyes again, she was in a hospital bed. My father was sitting beside her, the dark circles under his eyes deeper than ever. But when he saw her wake up, his face hardened with anger. “Did you really call me a dozen times and fake an illness just to get attention?” he snapped. “Do you have any idea that our daughter was running a high fever? Scarlett and I had to stay up all night at the clinic. Can’t you be sensible, just for once?” He hadn’t even looked at the death certificate resting on her bedside table. My mother swallowed the dry lump of grief in her throat. She lowered her head and remained silent. “I left the baby with Scarlett,” my father said, standing up to adjust his coat. “The company gala is tomorrow night. Make sure you wear something decent. Don’t embarrass me again.” At the gala, my mother wore a beautiful crimson gown, but no amount of silk could hide the ghostly paleness of her skin. On stage, Scarlett stood in a brilliant gold dress, receiving the “Employee of the Year” award directly from my father’s hands. The whispers from the crowd drifted over to where my mother stood. “If it weren’t for Scarlett, Christian’s company would have gone under by now.” “She thinks having a baby makes her royalty. Always throwing tantrums.” “Honestly, Christian and Scarlett look like the real couple here.” My mother watched them, realizing the crowd was right. They looked perfect together. Her eyes drifted to Scarlett’s wrist. Resting there was the heirloom emerald bracelet, a piece of jewelry traditionally passed down to the rightful matriarch of the Shaw family. My mother had almost broken it during one of her manic episodes, and my father had locked it away, promising to keep it safe. Now, it gleamed against Scarlett’s pale skin. Seeing my mother, Scarlett smiled, naturally linking her arm through my father’s as they walked over. “Mrs. Shaw,” Scarlett said, her eyes flashing with quiet triumph. “Please don’t play the sick card next time. Christian and I were genuinely worried about you.” My mother clenched her fists, trying to stop her body from shaking. Scarlett stepped closer, leaning in until her lips were inches from my mother’s ear. “I didn’t have time to visit your mother yesterday,” she whispered, her voice low and venomous. “So I sent her a little surprise instead. I wonder if she liked it?” The wicked, mocking grin on Scarlett’s face seemed to expand, filling my mother’s vision. Before she could think, my mother lunged forward, her fingers wrapping tightly around Scarlett’s throat. “Why did you do it?” my mother screamed, her voice cracking. “You killed her! Aren’t you afraid of hell?” Scarlett choked, struggling in her grip, but she didn’t look afraid. She smiled. The next second, my father slammed his hand into my mother’s shoulder, shoving her away so hard she hit the floor. He stepped in front of Scarlett, shielding her. “Genevieve, I told you to stop this madness!” he roared, his eyes filled with pure disgust. He didn’t see the malicious smirk playing on Scarlett’s lips behind his back. Just as my mother gathered the strength to stand, the smart tracker on her wrist began to beep frantically. It was the emergency alert linked to my baby monitor. My mother’s heart stopped. She looked up, meeting Scarlett’s cold, mocking gaze. “What did you do to my baby?” my mother shrieked. “If you touch her, I’ll tear you apart!” Scarlett shrank back, putting on a face of pure innocence. “Christian, I don’t know what she’s talking about. I placed the baby in the best private nursery in the city. I paid for the highest level of security. How is that a crime?” Without a moment of hesitation, my father turned and shoved my mother back down onto the floor. “Scarlett is trying to help you care for our daughter, and you accuse her of this?” he spat. “Are you ever going to stop?” The alarm on the watch was ringing louder, a high-pitched scream that tore at my mother’s soul. She crawled forward, clawing at his trousers. “The baby is in danger! I can feel it! She’s—” “Shut up!” he interrupted, kicking his leg free. “Scarlett has sacrificed her own time for our child, and you humiliate her in front of my entire company? Is this depression excuse ever going to run out?” My mother froze, her tears dripping onto the polished wooden floor. Scarlett stepped forward, her eyes red, looking like the victim of a terrible injustice. “Christian, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have argued with her. Since she’s sick, she can say whatever she wants.” With a theatrical sigh, Scarlett began to lower herself to her knees to apologize. My father caught her immediately, pulling her up before looking down at my mother with absolute coldness. “Apologize to her,” he commanded. Those two words crushed the last bit of life left in my mother’s chest. Suddenly, she coughed, and a spray of dark, clotted blood splattered across the floor. The guests gasped, drawing back in horror. My father took a step back, his face flashing with sudden alarm. “Jenny, what… what is that?” Only my mother knew that the massive dose of sleeping pills had finally begun to destroy her organs from the inside out. Without saying a word, she wiped the blood from her chin, dragged her body forward, and knelt before Scarlett. She bowed, pressing her forehead to the floor three times. “I am sorry, Miss Vance,” she whispered. She stood up, her eyes vacant as she looked at my father’s stunned face. “Can I go now?” Without waiting for an answer, she tapped the tracker on her watch. The signal wasn’t coming from the luxury nursery. It was coming from the top-floor warehouse of my father’s company building. Scarlett quietly raised her phone, showing my mother the screen. On the live security feed, I was tied to a small wooden chair in the corner of a locked storage room. Dark, thick smoke was already billowing under the door. My mother opened her mouth to scream, to beg, but before she could move, my father’s security guards pinned her arms behind her back. My father looked at her with cold indifference. “I am signing the custody of our daughter over to Scarlett. You need to be locked away until you can clear your head.” He turned and walked away, his arm wrapped protectively around Scarlett, who flashed a final, victorious smile over her shoulder. My mother screamed, thrashing against the guards, but her body was failing. As the connection between us slowly faded into nothingness, she collapsed onto the floor, her eyes staring blankly into the light. When my father finally returned to the quiet apartment late that night, the rooms were dark. He walked out onto the balcony, lighting a cigarette. He checked his phone, but there was no reply to the messages he had sent her. A strange, heavy weight settled in his chest. He walked into the master bedroom. As he opened the door, his shoe hit a plastic object. He looked down. It was an empty bottle of sleeping pills. A sudden, terrible dread gripped his throat as he picked it up. In that exact moment, his phone began to ring furiously in his pocket. It was the emergency room.

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1 At four o’clock in the morning, my codependent, drama-addicted best friend pounded frantically on my front door. “Paige! My boyfriend is going to break up with me! We have to go kneel outside his apartment together and beg him to stay, please?” I stared at her in utter disbelief. “Why do I have to kneel?” Natalie nodded quickly. “It makes me look more sincere! If he sees you swallowing your pride for me, he’ll definitely soften up!” I opened my mouth to refuse, but she suddenly whipped a kitchen knife from her purse, pressing the dull side against her own wrist. “Paige, I love him so much. If he leaves me, I swear I won’t survive the night!” Terrified of what she might do, I allowed myself to be dragged through the freezing pre-dawn air to the high-rise downtown. We knelt on the hard concrete, shivering as the darkness slowly gave way to the first pale light of morning. Finally, just as the first rays of the sun began to warm the glass facade, the lobby doors swung open. A tall man walked out, his arm wrapped protectively around a heavily pregnant woman. The moment I raised my head, my mind went completely blank. The man was Derek Harrington, my husband of seven years, the man I had been in a bitter cold war with for the past month. Beside me, Natalie’s tears vanished. She stood up, brushing the dirt from her knees, and smugly pulled Derek away from the pregnant woman’s side. “We had a bet, Derek! Whoever got Paige to kneel and apologize first got you to yourself for a whole month! I won, sweetie. You can’t break your promise now.” My eyes drifted to the pregnant woman. She looked horribly familiar. She was Scarlett Moore, the underprivileged student Derek and I had sponsored through our charitable foundation for the past seven years. “No wonder you agreed to let me have Derek last night, Natalie,” Scarlett murmured, resting a hand on her round stomach, her voice dripping with mock innocence. “You already had this little performance planned.” “That’s enough,” Derek said, raising a hand to pacify both women. “Scarlett, you’re pregnant, go home and rest for the month. Natalie, you won, but you need to show some consideration for Scarlett’s condition.” Only after he had comforted them did his gaze finally land on me. “Stop fighting it, Paige,” he said, walking over to grab my hand. Our matching platinum wedding bands glistened in the morning light, feeling like cold iron against my skin. “Why that face? It was just a harmless joke. Besides, you know how I am.” Yes, I knew exactly how Derek Harrington was. He was a notorious playboy, a man driven by a desperate need to win. When our families arranged our marriage of convenience, he had promised to clear out his harem, and I had foolishly believed the reformed bad boy myth. “So… you slept with the girl we sponsored, slept with my childhood best friend, and conspired with them to make me kneel on the street, all just to see me submit?” “Of course,” he murmured, leaning down to press a soft kiss against my forehead. “In a marriage, someone has to have the upper hand.” “I admit the method was a bit extreme this time, but you’re my wife. No matter what happens, I would never let an outsider threaten our home.” Natalie grabbed my arm, her expression bright. “Paige, we’ve been best friends forever. You always said you wanted me to find a reliable man. I trust your taste, Derek is perfect. Besides, I’m a free spirit, I have no intention of marrying him or ruining your household.” Scarlett offered a timid smile, cradling her stomach. “Me too, Mrs. Harrington! This baby was an accident, but I only view you and Mr. Harrington as my benefactors. No matter the gender, I only want financial security, I would never try to take your place.” Looking at my husband’s modern-day harem, I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “This is the fidelity you promised me after our wedding?” Derek blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “Isn’t this enough?” “I’m a man, Paige. I was never going to spend my entire life tied to one woman. I agreed to the merger because I thought you understood that. I thought you didn’t mind.” “If you hadn’t tried to freeze me out this month, you would have never even known about them.” He wiped a tear from my cheek. “Be good, Paige. Stop making a scene. You are still the only one who matters to me.” I raised my hand and slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t get angry. He simply chuckled, reaching out to ruffle my hair. “Go home and wait for me. Tonight, I’m all yours.” 2 By the time my driver found me sitting near the apartment gates, I was shaking with silent sobs. As the city lights blurred outside the window, my mind drifted back to our university years in London. Derek had been the campus playboy, always surrounded by beautiful women. At a party once, a classmate had joked about who would eventually be forced to marry him to settle his wild streak. When someone mentioned my name, the others immediately laughed it off. “No way! Paige Reynolds believes in true love and old-school romance. She’d never touch a guy like him.” Amid the laughter, Derek’s expression had turned serious. He pushed his companions aside, sat down next to me, and whispered, “If my partner is you, Paige, I’d give it all up.” I had looked away, hiding the secret love I had carried for him ever since he had defended me against high school bullies years before. Later, when the Harrington family faced a severe liquidity crisis, I found him drinking himself to sleep at a private club, and proposed our corporate merger. He had looked at me with tear-filled eyes, promising, “I’ll clear everyone else out, Paige. No matter how rotten I am, I’ll never bring that dirt home to you.” The car came to a stop. We were back at the estate we had designed together, the home we had shared for seven years. In corporate marriages, emotional decay was common, but I had never expected Derek and me to end up like this. I packed my bags quickly, preparing to move to a private townhouse under my own name. But as I opened the passenger door, my assistant called, her voice tight with panic. “Mrs. Harrington, we have a crisis!” “The shares of Harrington Enterprises are plunging. Someone leaked photographs of Mr. Harrington taking a young woman to an OB-GYN clinic. The media is claiming your marriage is over, and institutional investors are threatening to pull their capital!” I ordered the driver to take me directly to the medical plaza. The main entrance was already swarming with reporters, their flashes reflecting off the glass doors. I pushed through the crowd, heading straight to the private VIP wing on the top floor. Inside the examination room, Derek was kneeling beside Scarlett’s chair, his ear pressed against her pregnant belly. “You’re here,” he said, standing up and smoothing his tailored suit. “The lobby is packed with reporters. Did you have any trouble getting past them?” The truth hit me with sudden, freezing clarity. “You leaked those photos yourself.” “Of course,” he murmured, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I told you to wait for me, but you tried to leave. I had to use a little leverage to bring you back.” I couldn’t believe my own ears. “Are you insane? Do you have any idea how much this scandal is going to cost the firm?” Scarlett whimpered, shrinking behind him. “Mrs. Harrington, please don’t be mad at Derek. It’s my fault, my stomach was hurting, and he only came to support me. If you want to blame someone, blame me!” “Blame you?” I let out a cold laugh, thrusting my phone screen toward her face. “In three hours, we lost seventy million dollars. I could liquidate every asset you own, and you still couldn’t cover the margin call!” Scarlett burst into tears. “Why are you yelling at her?” Derek snapped, pulling her behind him. “Scarlett grew up in a small town, she doesn’t understand corporate finances. It’s nothing a joint public statement can’t fix. Why take it out on a pregnant woman?” “I only wanted to teach you a lesson, I didn’t expect the market to react this violently. But since we’re here, you’ll have to help me coordinate with the public relations team to clean this up.” His casual tone reminded me of our first year of marriage. An aspiring actress had tried to use Derek’s name for publicity, leaking photos of him escorting her to a hotel. Before the story could even break, Derek had blacklisted her and sued the photographer into bankruptcy. When the dust settled, he had thrown himself into my arms, murmuring, “My darling, you have no idea how hard I had to fight to keep my reputation clean for you.” Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain shot through my lower abdomen, forcing me to gasp. Derek’s eyes narrowed with concern. “What’s wrong?” He reached out to steady me, but I flinched away from his touch. He turned to his assistant. “Take my wife downstairs to the executive clinic for an immediate evaluation.” Then, he looked back at me, his voice softening. “Let them check you over, then go back to the house and wait for me. I’ll make sure this is settled by tonight.” I pushed past him, walking out of the ward. Just outside the clinic doors, a familiar physician called out to me. “Mrs. Harrington! I was just about to call you. Your laboratory results from last week are finalized. Congratulations!” 3 Even as Derek pushed open the front door of our estate that evening, the doctor’s words from earlier were still echoing in my ears. “Twins. Almost eleven weeks along. Everything looks perfectly healthy.” “Three months already…” I whispered, my hand resting gently on my flat stomach. “If I terminate the pregnancy now… will it be very painful?” The doctor had paused, her expression turning incredibly serious. “Mrs. Harrington, from a professional standpoint, I strongly advise against that. Your uterine lining is exceptionally thin. If you choose to terminate this pregnancy, it is highly unlikely you will ever conceive again.” A hand waved in front of my face, breaking my trance. “Are you listening to me?” Derek’s voice brought me back to the dim living room. “I’ve scheduled a press conference for tomorrow morning to clarify the hospital photos. As long as we stand together before the cameras, the rumors will die down.” I didn’t answer, my palm pressing against my stomach. “Derek,” I said softly, “if I were pregnant… would you change?” He froze, then let out a low laugh. “What a question. Are you really this jealous of Scarlett?” He stepped closer, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “No matter what happens, you are my only wife. Natalie, Scarlett… they’re just distractions. They don’t compare to you.” “Even if Scarlett has the baby, I’ll simply establish a trust fund and send them abroad. Then, it will just be you and Natalie left here with me.” He looked down at me, his tone filled with a sickening kind of tenderness. “Don’t worry, you and Natalie have been friends since childhood. She would never hurt you.” I smiled. It was exactly what I had expected. Every trace of the love I had carried for him since our youth vanished into nothingness. So be it. Our marriage was a commercial transaction, a quest for profit. I should have never expected a soul. For the sake of the life growing inside me, I agreed to the compromise. “What time is the conference?” Derek let out a long, visible sigh of relief. “Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” He patted my head. “You’ve had a long day. Go get some rest.” With that, he turned and walked toward the master bath. The next morning, we stood arm-in-arm before a wall of flashing cameras, presenting the perfect picture of corporate solidarity. Derek addressed the room with his trademark charm. “First, I want to thank everyone for their interest in our personal lives.” “The young woman in the photographs is an employee of our foundation. As her employer, I was merely assisting with a medical emergency. Any rumors of inappropriate conduct…” He offered a self-deprecating smile. “A few blurry photos and some internet gossip shouldn’t be enough to cause such a stir, surely?” A reporter in the front row pressed further. “Mr. Harrington, your bachelor years were quite colorful. Is this joint appearance merely a public relations stunt to stabilize the stock price? Is your marriage actually intact?” Derek’s laugh was warm and easy. “We all have our wild years. But from the day I married Paige, I understood the responsibilities of a husband.” He offered me a playful, apologetic look. “If you keep digging up my past, my wife might make me sleep on the couch tonight!” The room filled with polite laughter. I offered a gentle nod and a warm smile for the cameras, doing exactly what was required to reassure our institutional investors. The narrative was already shifting online: The Reformed Playboy, Corporate Power Couple, True Love in High Society. I kept the smile fixed on my face, watching him. Seeing the crisis averted, Derek relaxed, preparing to deliver his closing remarks. But suddenly, the phone in his pocket began to vibrate. My smile grew wider.

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When I awakened my Riftweaver class, I became a god in this nightmare of a survival game. I could tear through the fabric of reality, slipping in and out of the most lethal, high-tier raids as if I were taking a walk in the park. Naturally, whenever a raid team got completely wiped and trapped, I was the first person they called for a rescue. And being the pragmatist that I am, I hung a massive neon sign in the Nexus Hub. My price? One thousand Credits per extraction. I made an absolute killing. After casually ripping open a portal to drag a few half-dead nobodies out of a death zone, a brand new player suddenly pointed her finger at my face and started screaming. “Are you serious? You just casually open a door and demand a thousand Credits? Talk about bloodsucking greed!” She turned to the crowd, puffing out her chest. “If any veteran players need a rescue, you can call me! I am also a Spatial class.” “I don’t need your Credits. We are all players trapped in this hellhole. Helping each other is just basic human decency!” Watching the major guilds, the very same people I had bled to save time and time again, flock to this shiny new saint, I smiled so hard my cheeks ached. Little did they know, the staggering fortune sitting in my bank account was already enough for me to live like royalty for the rest of my life. I could finally retire. 1 Thud. My arms burned with exhaustion as I hurled the last player out of the distorted, crackling void rift. His tactical armor was shredded into metallic confetti. A gruesome claw mark, deep enough to scrape bone, ran across his chest, sizzling with toxic black mist. I took a slow, deep breath, stabilizing the heavily depleted spatial energy in my core. “That makes four of you. Invoices have been sent to your HUDs. One thousand Credits each. Settle up.” I wiped a streak of someone else’s blood off my cheek, leaning lazily against a glowing obsidian pillar. Before the survivors could even catch their breath, a shrill, drippingly righteous voice echoed across the crowded Hub. “A thousand Credits? That is pure extortion!” I cracked one eye open. The voice belonged to a girl in a pristine white sundress. She was young, sporting one of those incredibly innocent, harmless faces. Right now, she was biting her lower lip, pointing a trembling finger at me with a look of absolute disgust. “Look at them! They are half dead, and you are taking advantage of their trauma! Do you have a shred of empathy?” I let out a dry laugh, tossing a heavy silver coin in the air and catching it. “And who the hell are you, sweetheart?” “I risked half my life dragging them out of an SSS-Tier death trap. A thousand is market rate. Do you think opening dimension rifts runs on hopes and prayers? You think stabilization anchors are free? If it is too expensive, next time, you can rot in the abyss.” “We are all human beings! We should be looking out for each other. Demanding money just ruins the solidarity.” The girl in the white dress took a bold step forward, spreading her arms to shield the groaning casualties behind her. “You clearly have a spatial gift. You can save lives with the snap of your fingers, yet you bleed your own people dry. You are a monster!” A crowd was forming. Among the onlookers, I spotted several familiar faces. People whose lives I had saved. They were shifting uncomfortably, avoiding my gaze, and whispering among themselves. “Honestly… a thousand is pretty steep. I only cleared eight hundred on my last raid.” “Right? Val charged us the same rate back then. It drained everything we had, but we were too scared to complain.” “She could just help out. Why does she have to be so corporate about human lives?” I stared coldly at this gallery of hypocrites. These were the exact same people who had once crawled on their hands and knees, begging me to save them. The loudest whisperer was Gideon, the leader of a top-tier guild known as The Vipers. He had hired me multiple times. He stepped to the front of the crowd, casually spinning a heavy obsidian ring on his thumb. “Val, the rookie has a point. A thousand Credits is an outrageous premium. We put our lives on the line for every single Credit we earn. We shouldn’t be treated like walking ATMs.” Seeing a major guild leader back her up, a flash of pure triumph crossed the white dress girl’s eyes. “Since Val treats human life like a business transaction, I suggest we stop giving her our hard-earned money! Let me introduce myself. I am Daisy, and I awakened a Spatial class today too.” “Starting right now, I am forming the Player Vanguard Alliance! If anyone needs an emergency extraction, I will do it absolutely free! I will not take a single Credit from you!” The Hub went dead silent for a fraction of a second. Then, the entire hall erupted into deafening cheers and applause. “Free! Oh my god, Daisy is an actual angel!” “Exactly! Not like some people who are infected with the rot of greed!” I looked at the furious, self-righteous mob, and then at Daisy’s face, which was practically glowing with vanity and desperate ambition. I dusted off my gloves and glanced down at the four bleeding men still groaning on the floor. “So, is that how you guys feel too?” 2 The four men wouldn’t look at me. Some stared at the marble tiles, others clutched their wounds and whined, but none dared to meet my eyes. “Look, Val… we are in pretty bad shape. Medical supplies are going to cost us a fortune…” One of them, a bulky guy nicknamed Jax, mumbled, his voice shrinking like a coward. “Stop right there.” I tapped the holographic screen on my wrist. “You signed a soul contract before I went in. Two hundred Credit deposit, eight hundred upon delivery. Pay up. Stop wasting my time.” “Oh please, Val! We were all dragged into this nightmare game from the real world. Why do you have to push them to the brink?” Daisy bit her lip again, keeping her arms wide as if protecting them from a dragon. Her big, doe eyes were full of judgment. “It is hard enough out here. How about this? I will make the call for them. They will each give you a five hundred Credit tip. You hardly used any energy opening that door anyway. Just treat it as your good deed for the week.” The surrounding crowd nodded vigorously, murmuring about how Daisy’s compromise was perfectly reasonable. I actually laughed out loud. “You will make the call for them? Who made you queen of the slums? It is incredibly easy to be a saint when you are spending someone else’s money.” I locked eyes with Daisy, my voice dropping to absolute zero. “I have heard of paying debts with gratitude. I have never heard of demanding the rescuer eat the cost of energy and lifelines. What, is my life not worth anything? Does my mana just fall from the sky?” “Valerie, watch your mouth!” Gideon intervened, his face darkening to play the hero. “Daisy is looking out for the community. Don’t burn your bridges. We are all stuck in this game together. You do not want to make enemies out of everyone.” “Enemies?” I let out a sharp sneer. I raised my hand and clenched my fingers violently in the empty air. A sickening tearing sound echoed through the Hub. A jagged, pitch-black rift ripped open right behind me. A howling, freezing gale blasted out from the void, carrying the blood-curdling screeches of the abyssal horrors lurking on the other side. It was the exact SSS-Tier death zone they had just escaped from. The color instantly drained from the faces of the four survivors on the floor. They scrambled backward in sheer terror. “Don’t want to pay the balance? No problem.” I pointed at the swirling vortex of destruction. “Your two hundred deposit only covered the trip from the boss room to this exact spot. Since the balance is too steep, I will offer premium customer service and put you right back where I found you.” “You wouldn’t dare!” Daisy shrieked, tears instantly spilling down her cheeks on command. “How can you be so barbaric!” “Barbaric?” I took a step forward, my amber eyes drilling into hers. “Sweetheart, isn’t your free rescue alliance supposed to be top tier? I really don’t mind throwing you in there with them. You can give everyone a live demonstration of how a free extraction works.” The violent winds from the rift whipped Daisy’s pristine dress around. Staring into a void that looked ready to devour the world, all the blood vanished from her face. Without her shielding them, the four men completely lost their nerve. “I’ll transfer it! I’m paying right now!” “Val, don’t do it! Please close the door!” Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Four crisp chimes rang out from my system interface. Seeing the additional three thousand two hundred Credits hit my account, I clapped my hands together. The terrifying rift snapped shut in an instant. “Pleasure doing business with you.” I raised an eyebrow, not bothering to waste another glance at the pathetic lot, and turned toward the VIP lounge area. The trust was gone. This business was dead. I had saved up more than enough anyway. It was time to wash my hands of this mess and enjoy a very early retirement. But before my boot could even cross the threshold of the lounge, the system bracelet clamped to my wrist began vibrating violently. A blood-red notification forced its way onto my retina display. [Alert: Player ‘Valerie’ has triggered the Weekly Mandatory Raid requirement. The System is now matching you with a party…] I frowned. I was planning to just breeze through a low-tier zone for this week’s quota. Why the hell was it forcing a match? A split second later, the roster of my new teammates materialized. Slot one: Daisy. Followed immediately by Gideon, and the four cheapskates who had just tried to scam me out of my fee. Before I could even process the absurdity, the teleportation array beneath my boots exploded into a blinding crimson light. 3 After a sickening wave of vertigo, damp, freezing fog hit my face. I opened my eyes. My boots were sinking into the muddy soil of some ruined landscape. Looking around, I found five sickeningly familiar faces staring right back at me. Gideon, Daisy, and the four deadbeats. However, thanks to the system’s raid entry mechanics, all their previous fatal injuries had been fully healed the second we loaded in. “Well, well, well. Look who it is. Small world, isn’t it, Val?” Gideon gave a predatory smile, twisting that obsidian ring on his thumb. “Oh wow, Val! How did you end up in this zone?” Daisy bit her lip, faking a look of pleasant surprise. “Since we are a team now, let’s just let bygones be bygones. You are just a Spatial support class. You don’t have any real combat power. Don’t worry, we will take very good ‘care’ of you.” She leaned heavily on the word ‘care’. The men around her chuckled darkly, sharing a knowing look. I patted a speck of mud off my tactical jacket, my expression completely flat. “Don’t flatter yourselves. Just worry about keeping yourselves alive.” “Nonsense! We are all players, we have to look out for each other.” Daisy delicately wrapped her arms around Gideon’s bicep. “Gideon, Val might overcharge people, but she is still just a girl. When we run into danger, we have to make sure she is protected.” I didn’t even bother acknowledging the white lotus act. A quick glance at the system told me this zone was called “Whispering Hollows”. It was merely a C-Tier raid. With my agility alone, I could walk out of here without even triggering a rift. But it took less than five minutes for me to realize I had severely underestimated how utterly spineless these people were. The thick brush ahead rustled violently. Three massive Abyssal Hellhounds, each the size of a grizzly bear, lunged out of the fog, their glowing toxic green eyes locked onto us. “Weapons out!” Gideon roared. His heavy mechanical exoskeleton hummed to life, glowing with red energy lines. I took a step back to maintain a safe distance, but Jax suddenly slammed his shoulder into my back. He shoved me straight into the path of the lead Hellhound’s leaping jaws. “Whoops! Slipped!” Jax gave a fake apology while scrambling backward faster than a rat. “Val! You have spatial speed! Kite two of them away for us! Once we kill this one, we will come save you!” Daisy screamed from the backline, her eyes filled with toxic malice. “Yeah, Val! You’re a pro! Hold the line!” Gideon swung his heavy broadsword at the remaining hound, but deliberately slammed his massive riot shield into the dirt right behind me, completely blocking my only escape route. It was entirely orchestrated. They wanted me to be their free meat shield. They wanted me to die right here. Inside a raid zone, the spatial dimensions were locked by system rules. I couldn’t just tear open a portal back to the Nexus Hub. They clearly knew that. Watching the rotting, razor-sharp jaws snap toward my face, I didn’t even blink. I strolled through SSSS-Tier nightmares for a living. Did they really think a pack of C-Tier trash mobs could take me out? They thought I was soft. Moving with deliberate slowness, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a shimmering gold talisman, and crushed it in my palm. [Alert: God-Tier Consumable ‘Aegis Ward’ activated. Immune to all physical and magical damage. Duration: 30 minutes.] A halo of brilliant golden light instantly wrapped around my body. The Hellhound’s jaws, capable of snapping steel girders, clamped down hard on the barrier. A dull, metallic gong echoed through the trees. The recoil shattered the beast’s fangs, sending black blood flying in all directions. Standing safely inside the golden bubble, ignoring the monster’s infuriated roars, I casually found a clean boulder and sat down. I even dug a can of soda out of my inventory and popped the tab. “Good luck, guys. Rooting for you.” I took a sip of the fizzing drink, smiling pleasantly through the translucent golden dome at Gideon and his crew. Their faces were an absolute picture of shock. They wanted to use the environment to murder me. They forgot that as the premier rescue specialist of the server, the one thing I had an infinite supply of was god-tier survival items. The cost of this single talisman could fund their entire guild for six months. Gideon’s face turned black with rage. Daisy’s innocent mask completely shattered, revealing a twisted, ugly grimace. But before they could formulate a new dirty trick, a deafening, earth-shattering roar erupted from the deepest part of the hollow. The ground began to quake violently. A shadow the size of a skyscraper slowly rose through the dense fog. 4 “ROAR!” The blast of sound shredded the mist. This wasn’t a standard mob. It was a raid boss, an absolute behemoth. Gideon’s face drained of all color. “Damn it! Who crushed the beast egg?!” Daisy was hiking up her pristine skirt, her face turning green with terror. In her hand, she was clutching a glowing red crystal. She had gotten greedy and tried to steal the boss’s loot while the hounds distracted us. “Gideon, save me! It’s looking right at me!” Daisy shrieked, diving behind Gideon’s armored back. The behemoth went into a frenzy. It swiped a massive claw, turning a cluster of ancient trees into splinters. A monster like this did not belong in a C-Tier zone. “Run! Move it!” Gideon screamed. He pushed his exoskeleton to the absolute limit, grabbing Daisy and sprinting for his life. My Aegis Ward was still active. I could have casually walked behind them. But the enraged boss was blindly smashing the terrain. The ground beneath us began to fracture and cave in. As we ran, the path ahead suddenly vanished, giving way to a bottomless, jagged chasm that looked like the gaping maw of the earth. “Dead end!” Jax screamed in despair. Gideon glanced back at the rapidly approaching titan. A flash of pure, ruthless desperation crossed his eyes. He whipped his head around and locked eyes with me. “Don’t blame us, Val. Blame yourself for being a selfish bitch!” Before the words even settled, he lunged at me. At the exact same time, Jax and the other players moved in unison, using all their momentum to shove me toward the edge of the abyss. My Aegis Ward negated damage, but it didn’t prevent physical displacement. My boots left the ground. Freezing wind rushed past my ears. In that split second of freefall, I looked up at the ledge. Daisy was peering over the edge, looking down at me. Her sweet, pitiful act was gone, replaced by a smile of pure malice. “You’ve got so many Credits, Val! You can spend them all by yourself down there! You deserve this!” Without missing a beat, Gideon’s crew turned and sprinted in the other direction. I let out a cold laugh. Did they really think I came unprepared? Just inches before my spine could be impaled on the jagged stalagmites below, I pulled a pitch-black token from my jacket and crushed it. It was an Absolute Anchor Beacon. Price tag: One hundred thousand Credits. It bypassed any and all zone locks. BOOM! A violent storm of spatial energy swallowed me whole. When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting on the cold marble floor of the Nexus Hub. Although I avoided lethal damage, the violent spatial turbulence had bruised my ribs. A trickle of blood ran down my chin, and my tactical jacket was torn to shreds. “Holy crap! Is that Val? How did she get out of the raid?” “Wasn’t she in Whispering Hollows? Oh my god, look at the main screens!” Gasps of horror rippled through the Hub. No one stepped forward to help me up. Every single player was paralyzed, staring up at the massive central broadcast screens. I wiped the blood off my mouth, grabbed a stone pillar to pull myself up, and followed their gaze. The screens were live-streaming Gideon’s team. Without me taking the fall, the enraged boss had cornered them against the edge of the abyss. “Daisy! Open a rift! You said you were a Spatial class! Do it now!” Gideon roared hysterically. Half of his mechanical armor was crushed, and his face was a bloody mess. “I… I’m trying! But the spatial frequency here is too chaotic! I can’t lock the coordinates!” Daisy was sobbing hysterically, snot and tears ruining her pretty face. She waved her hands frantically, conjuring a pathetic, flickering blue spark in the air. The legendary, miraculous “free rescue portal” she had bragged about managed to tear open a gap roughly the size of a human hand. Forget the heavily armored Gideon; you couldn’t even shove a house cat through that hole. “This is your grand spatial magic?!” Jax shrieked in absolute despair. ROAR! The behemoth raised its gargantuan claw, blotting out the sky. Carrying the force of a hurricane, the claw came crashing down on the screaming team.

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