Category: English

The bouquet didn’t just land in my hands; it collided with my chest, a soft, fragrant thud amidst the chaos of the reception. Every pair of eyes in the ballroom pivoted to Gary. It was a reflex, a collective expectation built over the eight years we’d been together. The chanting started almost immediately, fueled by champagne and sentimentality. “Marry her! Marry her!” “You’re up, buddy! Put a ring on it!” The crowd surged, pushing Gary toward me. I stood there, clutching the white roses, my face flushing with a heat that felt like hope. I waited for the smile, the drop to one knee, the words I’m finally ready. Instead, Gary reached out. His expression was terrifyingly calm as he plucked the bouquet from my grip. He turned and handed it to the bridesmaid standing next to him. “She caught it first,” he said, his voice smooth, reasonable, and loud enough to silence the front row. He turned back to me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Be a good girl. We’ll get the next one.” The spotlight swung away, chasing the flowers. I watched the bridesmaid—a twenty-two-year-old girl named Paige—giggle, feigning shock and shyness. I forced a smile. It felt like cracked plaster on my face. Gary didn’t know there wouldn’t be a next time. My wedding was next week. … Becca’s face went dark instantly. She looked ready to commit a felony. I caught her wrist just as she raised her hand. She whipped around, her eyes rimmed with red, tears threatening to spill. “That bitch did it on purpose, Nora! I told every single bridesmaid to back off. That bouquet was meant for you…” “Becca,” I whispered, squeezing her hand. “The wedding isn’t over. Don’t ruin your night.” The room’s attention had already drifted. They were looking at Paige, the girl holding my flowers. She cradled them like a prize, casting a dewy-eyed glance at Gary, who had already retreated to the safety of the sidelines. The MC, a seasoned pro, cracked a few jokes to salvage the awkwardness, and the music swelled. Becca let out a frustrated huff, glaring daggers at Gary’s back before turning to finish her duties. For the rest of the reception, I sat at the head table, the maid of honor exposed to a hundred pitying glances. Gary sat three tables away with his finance buddies, laughing, a drink in hand. Paige sat next to him. She wasn’t supposed to be a bridesmaid. The groom had added a groomsman last minute, and Gary had suggested Paige—his executive assistant—fill the slot. He took her everywhere lately. “Mentorship,” he called it. Apparently, that mentorship extended to my best friend’s wedding. During the toasts, Becca dragged her new husband over to our table. She hugged me so hard I could barely breathe, whispering venomously into my ear: “That girl has been throwing herself at Gary for six months. I had someone look into her. She’s a shark, Nora. And Gary…” “Becca,” I rubbed her back, cutting her off. “You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen. Let’s focus on that.” She gritted her teeth but nodded. When the venue finally cleared out, Gary strolled over. “Ready to head back?” He reached for my purse naturally, his other arm moving to drape over my shoulders. I stepped sideways, letting his arm fall through empty air. “You’ve been drinking. I called an Uber.” He didn’t seem to notice the rejection. “Smart. Okay.” The car ride was quiet. The city lights blurred against the window, mirroring the exhaustion in my reflection. My makeup was perfect, but my eyes looked dead. “About earlier,” Gary said, breaking the silence. “Paige technically touched the flowers first. She’s young, probably just wanted to feel part of the magic.” He paused. “Don’t overthink it.” I stared at the passing neon signs. “I’m not.” He waited, then finally looked up from his phone. He scooted closer. “You’re mad.” “We said ‘next time,’ right?” His fingers brushed the nape of my neck, a familiar, possessive gesture he used to soothe me like a temperamental pet. “Our wedding is going to blow Becca’s out of the water. You can have as many bouquets as you want, okay?” A familiar acid rose in my throat. It was always like this. A gentle tone, a vague promise of “someday,” and the expectation that I would just… settle. “Gary,” I said, watching his reflection in the dark glass. “Yeah?” “Becca and I made a pact when we were seven,” I said, my voice steady. “Whoever got married first, the other one had to get married within a week. We were supposed to wear the dresses we made for each other. We were supposed to witness it together.” The air in the car went still. His hand stopped moving on my neck. “You’re holding onto a childhood game?” He chuckled, but the sound lacked warmth. His hand resumed its motion, lazily now. “Plans change, Nora. Venues, vendors, logistics—that stuff takes a year to prep. We’ll plan it properly. Why the rush?” He didn’t explain why he couldn’t just say I’ll marry you in front of our friends. He just skipped straight to the logistics of a hypothetical event. I remembered a month ago, when Becca dragged me to the fitting room to show me the bridesmaid dress she’d designed. Pale champagne silk with tiny pearls at the waist. Becca had cried when I put it on. “You look stunning, Nora. I made this for you. Just wait until I design your wedding dress. It’s going to be a masterpiece.” Gary had been there, buried in his emails. He’d glanced up for half a second. “Nice,” he’d said, before diving back into his phone. At the time, I felt happy for Becca, but a cold wind had blown through the center of my chest. Eight years, and I was still just the audience. The car pulled up to our building. Gary unbuckled. He leaned in, assuming the fight was over, expecting a kiss. I put my hand on his chest, stopping him. He froze. “I’m tired, Gary.” He stared at me for a beat, then patted my shoulder. “Being a maid of honor is exhausting. Go get some sleep. Paige just texted—she can’t get a ride from the venue. It’s not safe for her to be alone out there. I’m going to loop back and drop her off.” “Okay,” I said. He didn’t move. He was waiting for the script. He was waiting for me to say, Be careful, or to whine, Do you have to? Instead, I opened the door and got out. I walked into the lobby without looking back. Upstairs, I collapsed onto the sofa. It took me an hour to summon the energy to walk down the hall. I paused outside the “Spare Room.” When we bought this place four years ago, it was the “Nursery.” Now, it was a storage unit for dead dreams. I went inside. From the dusty crib, I pulled out a heavy box. Handwritten letters, ticket stubs, photo booth strips—the archaeology of a relationship. At the bottom was a photo from college graduation. He was giving me a piggyback ride under a cherry blossom tree. On the back, in his messy scrawl: I’ve got your back forever. Promise. The dim light of the living room made the ink look gray. A silent mockery. I heard his car pull into the garage below. I didn’t move. I listened to the elevator, the key in the lock, the muffled footsteps. “Still up?” He stood in the doorway. I didn’t turn around. I was kneeling on the floor. “Yeah.” “Cleaning house?” He asked, his tone light. “Getting nostalgic?” “Did you get her home?” I asked quietly. He paused. “Yeah. She lives way out in Queens. Hard to get a cab.” “Okay.” I placed the photo back in the box and closed the lid. “Come on, let’s go to bed,” he said, reaching out a hand to help me up. I stood up on my own, ignoring his hand. My legs were numb. I stumbled slightly. “Gary.” “Hmm?” He stopped halfway to the bedroom. “I want to break up.” He froze, then laughed. He loosened his tie, shaking his head. “Still on about the bouquet? Don’t be petty, Nora.” He used that tone again—the one for a tantrum-throwing toddler. “Fine. I’ll buy you a massive arrangement tomorrow. Five hundred roses. Happy? Now go wash your face, I have a board meeting at 8 a.m.” He turned his back on me and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m getting married,” I said to his back. “In less than a week.” His hand, reaching for the bathroom door handle, stopped. Slowly, he turned around. The mask of tolerant amusement finally slipped. “Nora, stop it.” He rubbed his temples. “Marriage is a legal contract, not something you do to win an argument.” “October 28th,” I said. “The venue is booked. The dress is ready.” He let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Did Becca put you up to this? Just because she rushed into things doesn’t mean the whole world has to be impulsive.” “Gary,” I cut him off. “The invitations go out tomorrow.” A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Do you think this works on me? This just makes you look childish, Nora. I am in the middle of the most important quarter of my career. I don’t have time for your drama to derail my focus.” “You just want to be a bride that badly?” His words hit like stones. Once, they would have made me panic, made me apologize, made me beg for him to understand. Now? I felt nothing but a vast, cool silence. His attention had always been the most expensive thing on the menu. He saved it for investors. He saved it for his “promising” assistant. The late-night texts, the birthday surprises, the “business trips” that included spa days… There was never any budget left for me. I looked him in the eye and nodded. “Yeah. All my friends are married. I want to have a family.” I walked past him into the bedroom. On the nightstand sat a bridal magazine from six months ago. The headline screamed: The 3-Month Countdown: A Bride’s Guide. I had bought it excitedly. He had seen it, said “What’s the rush?” and I had never opened it again. Lying in the dark, my phone buzzed. A text from Becca. You up? I can’t sleep. I’m so angry thinking about that girl’s face. What is WRONG with Gary? What was wrong? Nothing. Or everything. Some flowers just don’t bloom, no matter how long you water them. Becca typed again: Remember our pact? One week apart. Who knew your guy would be such a block of wood? You catch the bouquet and he still doesn’t get it? It’s been eight years, not eight weeks! Whatever. I give you a pass this time. You can break the pact. My fingers hovered over the screen. I typed: Babe, when have I ever broken a promise to you? Gary moved into the corporate apartment near his office the next day. He claimed my “wedding hysteria” was suffocating him and he needed peace to work. Good. It gave me the space to breathe. I handled everything in silence. I listed our condo—the one we bought together but was solely in my name because his credit was tied up in the business back then—on a real estate app. The afternoon I handed the keys to the agent, I was clearing out the last of the junk mail when I found a project file Gary needed. I hesitated, then decided to drop it off. The door to his corporate apartment was closed, but I could hear laughter inside. I raised my hand to knock, but a familiar female voice floated through the wood. “Gary, stop, I feel terrible! I didn’t mean to catch the bouquet. Now everyone in the Slack channel is making jokes. They’re asking if we’re…” “You have to clarify it in the group chat, or I’ll never be able to show my face in the breakroom again!” My hand froze in mid-air. Before Gary could answer, one of his frat-boy business partners laughed. “Come on, Paige. Do you really want him to clarify it, or are you fishing to hear him say something else?” Laughter followed. Flirty, knowing laughter. “Stop teasing her,” Gary’s voice cut in. It was warm. Indulgent. “Don’t worry about it, Paige. People talk. They’ll forget in a week.” They’ll forget in a week. The memory hit me like a physical blow. Two years ago, I went to his office to drop off lunch. He had hugged me, forgetting where we were. A junior analyst saw us. Within an hour, Gary had sent a company-wide memo regarding “professional conduct” and clarifying that visitors should not be mistaken for partners. He told everyone not to misunderstand. I had understood then. I stopped visiting. My fingertips went cold. He didn’t hate office romance. He hated being seen with me. A woman who offered no strategic value to his empire. Another voice inside the apartment spoke up. “Speaking of… Gary, how did you handle the Nora situation? I actually got a digital invite this morning. Is she serious?” Silence. Then Gary chuckled. It was a dry, hollow sound. “Let her have her moment. I spoil her too much usually. She needs to learn that throwing a tantrum doesn’t get results.” “Damn,” someone laughed. “So you’re really not going?” Gary didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Then, a hesitant voice: “Gary, are you sure about playing chicken? You guys have been together forever. We’ve all been waiting for that wedding…” The voice dropped lower. “Unless… you have other plans? Maybe… a certain Ms. Paige?” “Mr. Reynolds!” Paige squealed, her voice dripping with artificial shock. “Don’t make jokes like that! Gary knows… he knows what he’s doing.” She said the last part softly, intimately. Gary didn’t correct them. A low ripple of laughter went through the room. “Honestly,” another guy said, “Gary’s a saint. Eight years? I would have bailed ages ago. Nora’s great, but what does she actually bring to the table? Paige here is sharp, she’s in the trenches with us…” “Oh, stop it!” Paige giggled. The motion-sensor light in the hallway clicked off, plunging me into darkness. I placed the file on the doormat and nudged it until it slid halfway under the door. Then I turned around and walked away.

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Kate cried. Not the happy kind of crying. When I handed her the pregnancy test, she froze for a solid three seconds. Then the tears just started falling. “Kate?” She didn’t say a word. She just grabbed a tissue, wiped her eyes, and turned her back to me. I thought she was overwhelmed with joy for me. Mark and I had been married for eight years. We’d been trying for a baby forever. Finally, it had happened. But the way she was crying felt wrong. Her hands were shaking. When she left, she stood in the doorway for a long time, her lips parting as if to speak, but she swallowed the words and walked away. The next day, she came back. She was holding a manila envelope. Inside was a divorce settlement agreement. Blank. “Sarah,” she looked at me, her eyes rimmed with red. “This baby… I need you to think really hard before you keep it.” 1. I thought my sister had lost her mind. “Kate, what the hell is this?” I shoved the envelope back across the coffee table. A blank divorce agreement. Why would she bring this into my house? “You and Mark are good, right?” She didn’t answer my question. She just countered with one of her own. “Of course we’re good.” “Is he working late a lot recently?” “Yeah. He just got promoted to Project Director. The hours come with the territory.” “How late?” “Eleven, midnight. Sometimes later.” “When he’s working late, and you call him, does he answer?” I paused. “Sometimes he doesn’t. The signal is trash in his office garage. He told me.” Kate set her coffee mug down. Her hand was still trembling. “Sarah… have you ever checked his phone?” “Checked his phone?” I actually laughed. “Kate, I’m not that kind of wife. Marriage is about trust—” “Check it.” She cut me off. Her voice was quiet, but it had the weight of iron. “Just once. Tonight. Wait until he’s asleep, and just look.” I studied her face. She wasn’t joking. There were deep purple bruises of exhaustion under her eyes, and her lips were chapped, like she hadn’t slept in days. “Kate, what is going on? Can you just tell me?” She opened her mouth. Then closed it. “I can’t just tell you,” she said. “Because you won’t believe me. You’ll just think I’m trying to drive a wedge between you.” “You’re my sister—” “I’m your sister, which is exactly why you won’t believe it.” She stood up. “You’ll think I’m jealous because you married well. You’ll think that because I’m divorced, I can’t stand seeing you happy.” That stung. Kate divorced three years ago. Her ex-husband cheated, left her high and dry, and she’s been raising her daughter alone ever since. “Kate, I have never thought that—” “I know.” She picked up her purse. “That’s why I’m not telling you. You have to see it for yourself.” She walked to the door and stopped. “Sarah.” “Yeah?” “No matter what you find, remember one thing—you are not alone.” The door clicked shut. I stood in the living room, still clutching that manila envelope. It was light. But suddenly, it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Mark came home late that night. Eleven-forty. He brought a gust of cold Chicago wind in with him. He saw me still sitting on the couch and offered a tired smile. “Still up?” “Waiting for you.” “Babe, don’t be silly. You’re pregnant. You need your rest.” He placed his phone on the entryway console table—his habit. Phone down, shoes off. I used to think it was discipline—disconnecting from work to be present with me. Tonight, I stared at that phone and it looked less like a device and more like a locked box. He went to shower. The sound of water running filled the apartment. I sat on the couch, staring at the console table. Kate’s voice echoed in my ear: Check it. Just once. I didn’t move. The water stopped. He came out, toweling off his hair, and saw me still sitting there. “What’s wrong? You look zoned out.” “Nothing.” “Come to bed. I’ll drive you to your appointment tomorrow.” “Okay.” I followed him into the bedroom. Lay down. Lights out. His breathing evened out quickly. I lay there, eyes wide open, staring at the dark ceiling. The phone was in the hallway. His breathing was heavy, rhythmic. I didn’t move. Not because I was scared. But because I didn’t want to know. If that box was empty, I was paranoid for nothing. If it wasn’t— I closed my eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. 2:00 AM. I got up to use the bathroom. Passing the hallway console, I stopped. The phone sat there, face down. I picked it up. The passcode was my birthday. He’d never changed it. He loves me, I told myself as I punched in the six digits. It unlocked. iMessage. Three pinned conversations. First was me. Saved as “Wife.” Second was his mom. Saved as “Mom.” Third— The contact name was just an emoji. A house. No name. Just a little house. I tapped it. The latest message was from tonight, 9:17 PM. A photo. It was a little boy, maybe two years old, wearing dinosaur pajamas, lying on a bed, grinning. Below it, a caption: Son is waiting for you. He refuses to sleep. 2. I put the phone back on the console. Face down, exactly how it was. I went back to the bedroom and lay down. Mark rolled over, draping a heavy arm across my waist. “Mmm… you cold?” “No.” His hand was warm. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, frozen. That little boy in the dinosaur pajamas. Big eyes. Single eyelids. Mark has single eyelids. I didn’t sleep all night. The next morning, Mark got up and made breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast. He bustled around the kitchen in his apron, looking back to smile at me. “Want some bacon? Gotta keep the protein up for the baby.” “Sure.” I sat at the dining table, watching his back. I had watched this back for eight years. Eight years ago, he was making forty grand a year, and I was making sixty. Our first apartment was a fourth-floor walk-up with no AC. Every day after work, he’d carry the groceries up the stairs for me, then run back down to park the car. Five trips sometimes. Later, when we bought a place, we didn’t have enough for the down payment. I borrowed eight grand from my mom, five from a college friend, and drained my entire 401k savings. He said, “Sarah, when I make it big, I’ll pay you back double.” Then he switched jobs. Salary bumped up. Switched again. Another bump. From forty grand to eighty, to one-fifty, to two hundred… now he was pulling in nearly four hundred thousand. When the money started coming in, he said, “Don’t worry about the bills anymore. I’ll handle the finances.” I thought he was taking care of me. He took over the household accounts. He transferred me a set allowance for groceries and bills every month, and told me he was investing the rest. “Once we save enough, we’ll get a real house. Something in the suburbs.” I believed him. For eight years, I managed the household, paid the mortgage, and sent his mother money every month. He said the rest was in savings. In “growth funds.” I never asked to see the numbers. Because I trusted him. I thought about last winter. November. Our anniversary. I took a half-day off work. Went to the market at 3 PM. Bought the expensive short ribs he loves, fresh herbs, a bottle of wine. I bought flowers, too. I rarely bought flowers—waste of money—but seven years felt like a milestone. By six, dinner was ready. Four courses. The flowers were in a water glass because I didn’t own a vase. Seven o’clock. He wasn’t home. Eight o’clock. I called. Straight to voicemail. Nine o’clock. A text: Meeting ran late. Don’t wait up. I took the flowers out of the glass. I needed the glass to drink water. He came home at eleven. “Did you eat?” “Yeah, we ordered takeout at the office.” The food on the table was cold. Congealed fat settled on top of the ribs. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll put it in Tupperware.” He didn’t notice the flowers. He didn’t remember what day it was. I heated up the ribs and ate them alone at the counter. Now I wonder—when he didn’t answer at 9 PM that night… where was he? Who was he with? Was a toddler in dinosaur pajamas calling him Daddy? Breakfast landed in front of me. Scrambled eggs, bacon, perfectly buttered toast. “Eat up while it’s hot.” He sat opposite me, beaming. I looked down at the plate. “Mark.” “Yeah?” “What time did you get in last night?” “Eleven-ish? I told you, we’re pushing hard on this project launch.” “Right.” I took a bite of toast. It felt like dry wall in my throat. He got up to clean the kitchen. I heard the faucet running. When I finished, I rinsed my plate. He was putting on his coat, checking his watch. “Gonna be late again tonight, babe. Don’t wait up.” “Okay.” The door closed. I sat back on the couch. I pulled out my phone and texted Kate. Kate, you were right. She replied in three seconds. Like she had been staring at the screen. What did you see? I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to type it out. I sat there for a long time. Then I got up and gathered his laundry from last night. As I was checking the pockets of his jacket, a receipt fell out. Nordstrom, Kids Department. Total: $128.00. Item: Patagonia Fleece, Blue, Size 4T. Size 4T. That fits a two or three-year-old. 3. Kate came over. This time, she didn’t beat around the bush. She brought a clear plastic binder packed thick with documents. “This is everything I’ve collected over the last six months.” She dropped the binder on the coffee table. I didn’t touch it yet. “Six months?” “Yes. Six months ago, I saw his car in the parking garage at the mall. There was a woman in the passenger seat. And a car seat in the back.” I stared at her. “You saw that, and you didn’t tell me?” “I wasn’t sure—” “You weren’t sure, so you investigated him for half a year while I played house?” She didn’t speak. “Kate,” I said her name sharply. “Six months. You let me live a lie for six months.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I was scared you couldn’t handle it. You had just found out about the fibroids, you hadn’t even had the surgery yet—” “So you decided for me?” “No—” “How are you any different from him?” I asked. It was cruel. I knew it was. She wasn’t Mark. But in that moment, the betrayal felt universal. Six months. I slept in the same bed as that man, cooked his meals, washed his clothes, and got pregnant with his child—while my sister watched me play the fool. Kate looked down, crying silently. I sat opposite her, dry-eyed. “Give me the binder.” She slid it across. I opened it. Page one: A photo. Grainy, taken from a distance in a parking lot. Mark’s Tesla. A woman with long hair in the front seat. The silhouette of a car seat in the back. Page two: An address. The Aston Apartments, East Side. Unit 1402. “I followed him,” Kate said. “Twice. Both times he went there. Once he stayed the whole night. Once was a Lesleyday afternoon, stayed for four hours.” Page three: Property records. Unit 1402 Owner: Emily Lesley. Date of Purchase: Two years and three months ago. “Your husband paid for it,” Kate said. “But her name is on the deed.” I flipped the page. Bank transfer screenshots. Mark Smith -> Emily Lesley. 8th of every month. $3,000. Memo: Monthly. Six screenshots. Six months. Three grand times six is eighteen thousand. That’s just the six months Kate tracked. What if it’s been two years? Three thousand times twenty-four… Seventy-two thousand dollars. I did a quick mental calculation of my household budget. Mark transferred me $800 a month for groceries. He sent his mom $400. I paid the mortgage, $1,800 a month. My salary was decent, but after the mortgage and bills, I was usually in the red. I dipped into my own savings, my yearly bonus, my overtime pay to cover the gap. And he was sending that woman three thousand dollars a month. I closed the binder. “Kate.” “Yeah.” “Thank you for getting this.” “Sarah—” “But I don’t want to talk about you hiding this right now.” She opened her mouth to speak. “We’ll talk about that after I deal with Mark.” I picked up the binder and stood up. “You should go, Kate. He’ll be home by seven.” Kate lingered at the door. “If you need anything, call me.” “I will.” The door closed. I sat alone in the dimming living room. The water glass she hadn’t touched was still on the table. Outside, the sky turned purple, then black. There was leftover rice in the fridge. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed two eggs. Made fried rice. Ate it alone. Washed the bowl. Wiped the table. Then I sat on the couch and waited for Mark. 7:20 PM. The lock clicked. “Babe, I’m home! Early today.” He beamed as he kicked off his shoes. “Oh, you cooked? Smells good.” “Fried rice. Yours is in the pan.” “Awesome.” He headed for the kitchen. I watched his back. That back I’d looked at for eight years. For the first time, it looked like a stranger’s. 4. For the next three days, I did nothing. I went to work. Came home. Cooked dinner. Talked to Mark. But I started watching his phone. Details I used to ignore now pricked like needles. He always went to the balcony to take calls. His auto-lock settings changed from 30 seconds to immediate. He took his phone into the bathroom when he showered—he never used to do that. On the third night, he worked late again. Midnight. When he crawled into bed, I smelled detergent on him. Not our detergent. We use Tide. He smelled like lavender Downy. “Working this late?” “Yeah, grinding on the proposal.” “You work so hard.” “As long as you appreciate it, babe.” He kissed my forehead. The smell of lavender suffocated me. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t speak. On the fourth day, I called in sick. I drove to The Aston. It’s a nice complex. Forty minutes from our place. Modern, good landscaping. The kind of place young professionals live. Unit 1402. I stood outside looking up. The blinds on the 14th floor were pink. Clothes were drying on the balcony—a man’s white dress shirt, a woman’s sundress, and tiny, colorful children’s clothes. It looked like a home. Another home. I sat in the bakery across the street for two hours. At 10:30, a woman came out pushing a stroller. Long hair, beige trench coat, sunglasses. A little boy sat in the stroller. Dinosaur hat. The kid from the photo. She pushed him to the small park next to the complex. Sat on a bench. The kid toddled around, tripped, and started wailing. She scooped him up, bounced him twice. He stopped crying and wrapped his arms around her neck. She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. I knew exactly who was receiving that picture. At noon, I got back in my car. I sat there for a long time. Then I opened Mark’s banking app—the password was his mom’s birthday. He made me memorize it years ago when he set it up. He didn’t know I still remembered it. Credit card statements. I scrolled down, line by line. Cartier: $12,000. Date: Three months ago. I never received any jewelry. Luxury Post-Partum Center: $8,500. Date: Two years ago, May. Two years ago in May. I was on a business trip. Gone for two weeks in Seattle. Mark texted me: Take care of yourself, wifey. Miss you. He was spending that month helping another woman recover from birth. Gymboree: Annual Fee $2,200. Payer: Mark Smith. Kindred Photography: $600. Carter’s: Multiple charges. I closed the app. My hands were on the steering wheel. They were shaking uncontrollably. I took a deep breath. I pulled out my phone. I looked at the photos from Kate’s binder. Kate only tracked six months of transfers. But the banking app went back three years. Three years. $3,000 a month to Emily Lesley. That’s $108,000 just in cash transfers. Plus the jewelry, the luxury care center, the preschool, the clothes, the daily expenses. I did the math. Over $250,000. And my savings for the last three years? I opened my own banking app. Balance: $4,217.65. Eight years of marriage. That was all I had. I bought a coffee at the bakery. Held it in my hands. Didn’t drink it. Sat until it was cold. Then I dumped it in the trash and drove home. On the way, I made a call. “Kate.” “Sarah? What’s wrong?” “Page three. The condo at The Aston. Did you pull the full deed history?” “I did. 900 square feet. Bought March 2022. All cash. Purchase price 320,000. He bought her a condo in cash.” “Sarah—” “Plus the monthly transfers and expenses. Three years. He’s spent at least half a million dollars on them.” Kate stayed silent. “I’ve been married eight years. I have four thousand dollars.” “Sarah, listen to me—” “Kate, does your file have her ID info?” “Yes. Emily Lesley. Born 1994. She went to the same college as Mark.” College alum. Mark told me he never dated anyone seriously in college. “The kid. Date of birth?” “January 2023.” January 2023. I counted back. Conception would have been around April 2022. April 2022. That month, Mark and I were actively trying. I was taking prenatal vitamins. He told me: Don’t stress, babe. Let nature take its course. Nature took its course. We tried for two years. Nothing. She got pregnant. “Kate.” “Yeah.” “There’s something I don’t get.” “What?” “I tried for two years. We went to the fertility clinic. The doctor said I was fine. He said Mark was fine. But it never happened.” On the other end of the line, the silence stretched out. Heavy. “When you get home,” Kate said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “go check the nightstand. Or wherever you keep your water.” 5. I didn’t go straight to the water. Kate’s implication was too dark. I needed to confirm it myself. That night, Mark worked late again. Eleven PM. I went into his home office. Third drawer down. He always said it was for old tax documents and warranties. I dug for five minutes. Inside an envelope labeled “Receipts,” tucked way in the back, I found a blister pack. Small white pills. Aluminum foil backing. I held it under the desk lamp. Ethinyl Estradiol / Drospirenone. Birth control pills. More than half the pack was gone. Seventeen pills missing. These weren’t mine. I wasn’t on the pill. This pack was in his desk. And every day, the water I drank… he poured it. Every morning, he woke up before me, filled a glass of water, and set it on my nightstand. “Babe, hydrate before you get up.” He’d been doing it for two years. I thought he was thoughtful. I sat in his office chair, holding that blister pack. I stared at it for a long time. I didn’t cry. I just felt cold. Bone-deep cold. I took out my phone and snapped a photo. Then I put the pills back exactly where they were. Envelope back. Drawer closed. I went to the bathroom. Turned on the faucet. Let the water run. I scrubbed my face. Looked up at myself in the mirror. Thirty-one years old. Fine lines appearing around my eyes. He said: You work so hard, honey. He said: Get some rest, babe. He said: When we save enough, we’ll get that dream house. He said all of that while crushing a contraceptive pill into my water glass every single morning. Ensuring I stayed barren for two years. Because the woman across town had already given him a son. He didn’t need two. I turned off the tap. Dried my face. Walked out to the living room. I opened my laptop. Opened Excel. Eight years of accounts. I calculated every penny. Mortgage: $1,800 a month. Eight years is $172,800. The first three years I paid it alone. Later he said he’d handle it, but the auto-pay never changed. It still came out of my account. Down payment: My loans and savings, total $60,000. Household: He sent $800, but actual costs were $1,500. I covered the gap. Eight years. That’s nearly $70,000. Support for his parents: $400 a month. Nearly $40,000. My bonuses: Every year, used to pay off debts, cover vacations, buy gifts for his family. Total. I ran the sum three times. $420,000. In eight years, I poured over four hundred grand into this marriage. And in three years, he spent over five hundred grand on her. My eight years. Her three years. I opened Kate’s binder to the property page. The Aston. $320,000. Cash. Our condo? I paid the down payment, and we still owe the bank $200,000. He gave his mistress a paid-off home. He gave me a mortgage. I closed the laptop. Picked up my phone. “Kate.” “I’m here.” “Find me a divorce lawyer. The sharkiest one you know.” “Already did. Mr. Sterling. Tomorrow, 3 PM.” She’d been ready for six months. “Thanks.” “Sarah… are you still mad at me?” “Yes.” “…” “But I’m going to destroy Mark first.”

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The day the poor scholarship student ran for Student Body President, my childhood friend made sure everyone voted for me instead. Even though I wasn’t running. He didn’t do it for me. He did it because he got a sick thrill out of crushing the spirit of the pretty girl on financial aid, calling it a “lesson in reality.” Later, he would hospitalize the guys who bullied that same scholarship student. But then, the boy who had been my shadow since birth—the one who supposedly cared for me—leaned back in his chair, swirling his drink, and announced to the entire room, “Selene isn’t expensive. Fifty for a quickie, five hundred for the night.” I froze. Then, quietly, I transferred all my classes to the morning block to avoid him. On the rainy night my mother’s condition went critical, I swallowed my pride and asked him for money. He waited until his cigarette burned down to the filter before flicking the ash near my hand. “Selene,” he said, his voice void of warmth. “I don’t owe you a damn thing.” After he walked away, the top student in our year stepped out of the shadows and held an umbrella over my head. “Would you be willing to come to London with me?” I nodded. 1 On the first day of the semester, Piper stood at the podium, her cheeks flushed with hope as she delivered her speech for president. But when the votes were projected on the screen, her face went ghost white. There were thirty people in the seminar. Selene received twenty-nine votes. Beside me, Roman Carter watched Piper’s devastation with the focus of a predator. He started a slow, mocking clap. “Surprise, Selene,” he drawled, his voice dripping with faux affection. Piper looked like she was going to be sick. Her eyes filled with tears, shifting to glare at me with pure, unadulterated jealousy. I sighed, a silent exhale that vanished in the room’s tension. The girl who won by a landslide was me. I hadn’t even put my name on the ballot. And the guy next to me? Technically, he was my childhood friend. Realistically? I was the daughter of the help who used to live in his guest house. That dynamic shattered the summer after middle school. My father was driving Mrs. Carter—Roman’s pregnant mother—and my own mother when the car crashed. My mother was the sole survivor, but she never woke up. She’s been in a vegetative state ever since. From that day on, the Carters threw me out. My relationship with Roman curdled into something dark. Even though the police report cited brake failure—an accident—Roman never looked at me the same way again. The rumors at school were vicious. They said I was a jinx. A curse. The girl who killed Mrs. Carter and Roman’s unborn brother. Roman loved watching me take the heat. By some twisted fate, we ended up at the same university, in the same major. On the first day, he had taken my bag with practiced intimacy, whispering in my ear, “Been a while. I missed you.” During introductions, he jerked his chin in my direction. “Selene.” Everyone turned. The sunlight hit my profile, and for a second, it looked like a scene from a romance novel. Then Roman smiled. It was a cruel, jagged thing. “Her dad’s dead. Her mom’s a vegetable.” The room erupted in gasps. People awkwardly looked away, shuffling their feet. The professor eventually forced Roman to sit down. When it was my turn, I just gave my name. Roman was bored out of his mind until Piper showed up. Piper was the scholarship kid with a chip on her shoulder. She hated the Greek system, hated old money, and wasn’t afraid to say it. But when she spoke, her eyes lingered on Roman a little too long. Roman scoffed, winding a lock of my hair around his finger. “Don’t get too close to people with brain damage, Selene.” I had a feeling he was the one who would get close. And honestly? Good. 2 I was right. First, he humiliated Piper in the election. Then, in a bout of ironic courtship, he started working shifts with her at the diner to “experience the struggle.” When guys harassed her, he sent them to the ER. I kept my head down. I studied. I worked three jobs. I did people’s homework for cash. I thought our lives were finally diverging into parallel lines. Then I walked into the lecture hall and heard a recording blasting over the speakers. “Selene, you look desperate for cash. How much are you selling it for?” “Fifty for a quickie, five hundred for the night.” It was my voice. People screamed. Some laughed. Roman stood in the center of the room, looking like a king in his court. “I told you,” he announced, his tone light, conversational. “She’s cheap. Fifty or five hundred.” The room buzzed with noise. Disgusting, predatory looks crawled over my skin. I froze. The audio was doctored. In high school, I did people’s homework. The question had been about essay prices. I had answered honestly. Now, it was being played to the entire student body as a solicitation for sex. Piper threw herself into Roman’s arms, looking scandalized. “Why would you play that, Roman?” He ruffled her hair. “She stole your spot in the competition. She needed to be taken down a peg.” I sat down in silence. I pulled out my phone, found the old transaction logs—labeled distinctly as “Essay Editing” and “Math Tutoring”—and uploaded the screenshots to the class group chat. Then, I logged into the portal and transferred every single class I shared with them. They could play at being adults. They could find their entertainment in destroying people. I couldn’t. I had to pay back the Hale family a thousand dollars every month for my mother’s medical bills. I didn’t have the luxury of time for their games. Seeing no reaction from me, Roman cornered me after my new class. He sat on the desk in front of me, swinging his legs. “I was just helping you drum up business, Selene,” he said, a lazy smile on his lips. “Don’t I get a thank you?” I looked at him. Cruel. Arrogant. Broken. The sunny, polite boy from the estate was dead. He died in that crash, too. And the optimistic, confident Selene died with him. I lowered my eyes. My voice was dry. “Thank you.” His face darkened. His jaw ticked. “Don’t thank me.” Roman found out about the class transfer quickly. He brought Piper into the coffee shop where I worked. Piper “accidentally” tripped, sending a scalding latte all over my apron and arm. The skin turned angry red instantly. She frowned, stepping back. “Do you even know how to serve coffee? You splashed my dress! You couldn’t afford to replace this if you worked here for a hundred years!” I had crouched down to clean up the mess, but I paused. I looked up at her. She was wearing the season’s latest designer gear. Roman’s money, obviously. There was barely a drop on her hem. I stood up. “Call the police, then. The security cameras captured everything.” Including the way she had shoved her hand out to tip the cup. She choked, grabbing Roman’s hand. “Baby, the dress you bought me is ruined.” Roman glanced at her, then patted her head dismissively. “I’ll buy you another one.” Piper smirked. “Let’s go.” She hummed a tune as she linked arms with him, leaving me with a puddle of coffee and a burning arm. I stood in silence for a moment, then grabbed the mop. Later, a delivery driver dropped off a tube of burn cream with a note: Switch your classes back. I threw it in the trash. Two weeks later, final group projects were assigned. Every time I made eye contact with a classmate, they looked away. A girl I had tutored once whispered to me, “Someone told us not to team up with you. If we do, we’re blacklisted.” The professor sighed. “Selene, per the syllabus, groups must be two or three students.” I stared at my laptop screen. A text popped up from Roman. Come back. At that exact moment, a chair scraped against the floor next to me. It was Atlas Hale. The top student. The impossible standard. “Want to be partners?” he asked. 3 I exhaled, a sound I hadn’t realized I was holding in. It seemed like every time I hit a wall, Atlas Hale was there to open a door. The last time was the summer after high school. I was sitting in the parlor of the Hale estate, terrified, waiting to beg his grandfather for a loan. Atlas had walked in first. I had jumped to my feet. He smiled, a gentle expression that reached his eyes. “Don’t be nervous. I’m Atlas. Grandfather is… eccentric.” I knew who he was. Everyone did. National Go champion. Heir to the Hale empire. “I’m Selene,” I managed, clutching the hem of my cheap shirt. He poured me tea. “You’re early. Grandfather was up all night gaming, he won’t be up for a while.” “I can wait,” I whispered. “Play a game with me?” he asked. I blinked. “Go?” He pulled out a board. “Five-in-a-row. I heard you were unbeatable in middle school.” We played all morning. His presence had a grounding effect, calming the storm in my chest. It was the same now. “Can we wait to submit the form?” I asked him quietly. If we didn’t submit it yet, Roman wouldn’t know. If Roman knew, he would go nuclear. Atlas nodded. “Whatever you need.” After a beat, he added, “If you need help with anything else, tell me.” On the deadline day for the project, I got fired from the coffee shop. The manager was vague, mumbling something about “complaints from influential customers.” I stood outside the shop, the rain soaking through my thin jacket. I didn’t know where to go. The rain was silent, but my mind was screaming. I went to the hospital. My mother lay there, still and silent. She had aged so much. The Carters always said Mrs. Carter was going out for a spa day. Why did she take my mother? My phone buzzed. Roman. Come to The Lounge. I’ll give you a grand. I typed back: Transfer it first. The Lounge was an upscale bar near campus. The smell of expensive scotch and designer perfume couldn’t mask the rot underneath. Roman waved me over. “Here.” I sat next to him. The leather was still warm from someone else. I tried to stand, but his hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you come to me?” He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. “If you don’t come back to my section, who’s going to partner with you?” “Is Professor Zhou going to let you fail?” I said nothing. He bit my earlobe hard. “Selene, why the hell won’t you speak?” “How can you be so calm?” “How can you pretend nothing happened?” “My dad is dead!” “Your mother is a vegetable!” I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. Piper came back from the restroom and froze when she saw me in her seat. She stormed over, grabbed a drink, and threw it in my face. “Get up! That’s my spot.” I was almost grateful for the interruption. “Okay.” I said one word, blood mixing with the alcohol on my lips. As I stood up, someone tapped Roman on the shoulder. A guy looked at me, confused. “Dude, she’s partnered with Atlas Hale.” 4 There was no time to react. Roman yanked me back down onto the sofa. His hand wrapped around my throat, squeezing. “How did you get to Atlas?” “Did you sleep with him? Was he good?” “Fifty or five hundred, Selene?” I clawed at his arm. Black spots danced in my vision. Blood from my bitten cheek leaked out, dripping onto his hand. Roman released me as if burned. He caught me as I slumped forward, his grip shifting from violence to a desperate embrace. His voice sounded wrecked. “Talk to me, Selene.” “Ignore me again, and I won’t let go next time.” I couldn’t speak. I wanted to vomit. But I didn’t have the energy. I smelled like vodka, rain, and blood. I must have been repulsive. Roman buried his face in my damp, cold neck. “I only have you, Moon.” “Don’t leave me.” I closed my eyes, resigning myself to the darkness. The whole table was terrified. Especially the guy who dropped the news about Atlas. He looked ready to bolt. Piper was the only one with nerves of steel. “Roman,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “You still have me.” Roman didn’t hear her. He only saw me. The next day, he transferred me five thousand dollars. The incident at the bar was swept under the rug. The only thing that changed was that he forced his way into my life again. He insisted I join him and Piper for the big semester project. He paid for my time. I couldn’t refuse the money. Which meant I had to bring Atlas along. We met at a different café. The manager practically bowed when we walked in. Roman saw Atlas and smirked. “How’s the old man holding up?” Atlas nodded calmly. “He’s well. Your father brought your brother by to visit him recently.” Roman’s face went rigid. The “brother” was the illegitimate son his father brought home freshman year—a kid only a few months younger than Roman. Proof that Mr. and Mrs. Carter’s “perfect marriage” was a lie long before the accident. Atlas knew exactly where to aim. He glanced at me. “It’s crowded here. Let’s go to the back.” I nodded quickly. Roman looked like he wanted to kill someone. Once seated, Atlas pulled out some blueprints. “Can you model these for me? Five grand per model. Cash on delivery.” I looked at the papers. They were prototypes for Hale Industries. Confidential ones. He was handing me money. It was charity, wrapped in work. “Thank you,” I said. Mom’s condition had worsened. I needed every cent. He smiled. “I’m not doing you a favor. You’re the best modeler in the department.” I managed a weak smile. 5 Rumors started flying that Atlas and I were together. Some said the Hales gave me a huge sum of money—a dowry, they joked. Atlas didn’t care about the gossip. Maybe because he was leaving. He was going to London for a semester exchange in the fall. Roman remained volatile. He liked to summon me to the bar, just to have me sit there while he drank and stared at me. One night, he was wasted. He leaned heavily on my shoulder. “Do you know why your dad died?” I had heard this rhetorical question a thousand times. But his next words stopped my heart. “He was drunk. He deserved it.” “But my mom? Why did my mom have to die with him?” I shoved him away. Hard. I slapped him across the face. The sound cut through the music. “Don’t you dare lie about my father,” I said, shaking. “He never drove drunk. Never.” Roman’s head snapped to the side. He laughed, a wet, sloppy sound. “He drank! Are you stupid? A driver with twenty years of experience just ‘loses control’? The autopsy found alcohol! Your dad killed a car full of people!” He was pointing a crooked finger at me. “The report proved it!” Piper appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Roman’s arm, screaming at me. “Your dad is a murderer!” The accusation rang in my ears. Dizziness swamped me. Years ago, the crash was ruled an accident. Brake failure. I had never seen the autopsy report. But Dad… he wouldn’t. By the next morning, the whole campus was buzzing with the “truth.” They looked at me with disgust. They looked at Roman with pity. In high school, I was a jinx. Now, I was the daughter of a murderer. I walked through the day like a ghost. It rained all day. When the hospital called, thunder was shaking the windows. Acute intracranial pressure. She needed immediate surgery. One hundred thousand dollars. High risk. Low success rate. Do you want to proceed? Every word was a hammer blow to my chest. “Miss Selene? Miss Selene?” I looked down at my shoes. I couldn’t cry. I was too empty. “Give me one day.” I found Roman at The Lounge. When I walked in, his friends jeered. “Hey look, it’s Fifty.” “Fifty is too cheap. Let’s say five hundred. I like to take it slow.” “If I were her, I’d have jumped off a bridge by now.” I didn’t hear them. I walked straight to Roman, bent my knees, and knelt on the sticky floor. “Lend me a hundred grand. Please.” His hand paused halfway to his mouth. He looked down at me through the smoke. “Is your mom dying, too?” I didn’t answer. Ash from his cigarette fell onto my arm. It burned a small, grey circle into my skin. I didn’t flinch. Finally, the cigarette burned down to his fingers. He stood up. “Selene. I don’t owe you anything.” He walked away. I collapsed on the floor. When I left, the rain was still pouring. I walked into the storm, letting it soak me to the bone. Steps approached rapidly from behind. An umbrella appeared over my head. A warm jacket was draped over my shoulders. “Selene,” Atlas said. “Grandfather says he’ll cover your mother’s treatment.” “Don’t be scared.” I looked up. Finally, the tears came. Atlas wiped them away with his thumb. “The medical facilities in London are better. We can transfer her there.” He paused. “Will you come to London with me?” “UAL. The best design program in the world.” “Grandfather insists. He says he wants to hire you for Hale Corp immediately after graduation to exploit your talent.” I stared at him for a long time. Then I nodded. He pulled me into a hug. It was warm. Safe. With Atlas’s help, the application was instant. We didn’t tell anyone. In the last month of freshman year, we flew to London.

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My husband thought seventy-dollar tins of premium baby formula were a luxury we couldn’t afford. For months, he’d insisted on feeding our daughter nothing but watered-down rice cereal and thin vegetable mash. The result was heartbreaking. At fourteen months old, Sophie was a ghost of a child—sallow-skinned, lethargic, weighing barely twelve pounds. I had spent two months secretly scrimping and saving, taking on extra data-entry shifts late at night just to buy four cans of high-end imported formula to get some nutrients into her fragile body. But when the delivery box arrived and I opened it, the premium tins were gone. In their place were four plastic bottles of cheap, sugary fruit juice. Fuming, I pulled out my phone to demand an explanation from the seller. That’s when I saw the notification. My widowed sister-in-law, Brooke, had just posted on Instagram. There they were. My four tins of premium formula, lined up neatly on her marble kitchen island. The caption read: “So grateful for my amazing brother-in-law. Ryan knows Hunter is at that critical growth stage at four years old and went out of his way to send over this imported gold. He’s more of a father to my son than most biological dads could ever be. Blessed. #FamilyFirst #BestUncle” Seconds later, a private DM popped up from her. It was a photo of a receipt for a prestigious private piano academy. “Hey babe, tell Ryan thanks again for me. He pulled some serious strings—and spent a fortune—to get Hunter into Mr. Sterling’s masterclass.” I stared at the total on the receipt: $38,000. The blood in my veins turned to ice. My daughter was starving, and my husband was financing a four-year-old’s concert pianist dreams. The front door groaned open. Ryan walked in, tossing a box of generic government-subsidized nutrient supplements onto the table. His face was set in that familiar mask of weary irritation. “I picked these up for the kid,” he said, his voice clipped. “Maybe if she eats these, she’ll actually put on some weight and you’ll stop complaining.” I looked at the box. In bold letters, it said: FREE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE – NOT FOR RESALE. … It was a slap in the face. We already had boxes of these in the pantry—donated by a local clinic—but he never bothered to notice. He just wanted the credit for ‘providing.’ “We don’t need those, Ryan,” I said, my voice trembling. “Fine. Suit yourself.” He snatched the box back, his tone turning frigid. “You’re the one who said no. Don’t go blaming me later when you’re crying about her being thin.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the guest room, slamming the door. I didn’t even get a chance to ask him why our daughter’s survival was currently sitting in Brooke’s pantry. The next morning, I walked into the living room to find Ryan and Brooke already perched on the sofa like a pair of high-court judges. Ryan didn’t even look up from his coffee. “Natalie, sit down. We need to talk. Your spending is out of control. Since Brooke has a background in corporate accounting, she’s going to handle our household finances from now on. She’s here to walk you through the new monthly budget.” Brooke produced a leather-bound planner with a smirk that didn’t reach her eyes. She cleared her throat, sounding every bit the professional auditor. “Natalie, honey, you’re just too impulsive with money. Starting this month, your total household allowance is capped at $250. You’ll submit every single receipt to me for reimbursement. If the expense isn’t ‘essential,’ I won’t approve it.” She began reading from a list of draconian rules. “Daily groceries cannot exceed $10. Generic brands only—no organic, no name-brands. Toiletries and feminine products must be under $5 per pack. You get one clothing purchase a month, not to exceed $30. Absolutely no snacks, no Starbucks, no ‘treats.’” She paused, tilting her head. “Also, Sophie is over a year old now. She can eat what we eat. So, no more specialized formula and no more brand-name diapers. If she gets sick, you bring the medical bill to me for ‘review’ before I release the funds…” “Enough!” I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet, and I was being told how many tampons I was allowed to buy. My fists were clenched so tight my nails drew blood. “I don’t accept this. This is insane.” Brooke’s eyes immediately welled up. She dropped the planner onto the coffee table, her lower lip trembling. “Ryan, I told you I shouldn’t have stepped in. Look at her… she’s so ungrateful. I’m just trying to help your family stay afloat, and I get treated like a villain.” Ryan’s face darkened instantly. “Natalie, drop the attitude,” he barked. “Brooke is a CPA. Don’t question her expertise. A family needs a solid fiscal foundation to survive the long haul.” A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “A fiscal foundation? Ryan, you’re worried about a $250 allowance for your own wife and child, yet you just dropped thirty-eight thousand dollars on Brooke’s son’s piano lessons? How is that ‘solid fiscal planning’?” “Are you seriously jealous of Brooke again?” Ryan groaned, his expression full of disgust. “I’ve told you a thousand times. My brother is gone. Brooke is a single mother struggling to survive. I am simply doing my duty as a man to look after them.” “She’s struggling?” I pointed toward the bedroom where Sophie lay sleeping. “Our daughter is fourteen months old and weighs less than a healthy infant. She’s sallow and weak. Does she not count as family?” “That’s enough!” Ryan stood up, his voice booming. “Stop being so hysterical. If Sophie is thin, it’s because of you. If you hadn’t insisted on working those stupid freelance gigs while you were pregnant, maybe she wouldn’t have been born two months premature. You’ve been a subpar mother from day one. If you put half the effort Brooke puts into Hunter into our daughter, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I stared at him, the man I had loved for seven years, and felt a coldness settle into my bones. We had met in college. I had given him every cent of my inheritance to start his tech firm. When he told me the startup failed and we were a million dollars in debt, I didn’t hesitate. I spent my entire pregnancy eating plain toast and canned beans to save money. I worked until my back felt like it was breaking, right up until the night I went into labor early. I had sacrificed my body, my career, and my sanity for him. And this was the return on my investment. The “negotiation” ended there. Ryan left with Brooke, presumably to go house-hunting for her “noble” new life. I sat on the sofa for a long time, the silence of the apartment ringing in my ears. The tears came slowly at first, then in a flood. I wasn’t just crying for the money; I was mourning the seven-year lie I had been living. A sharp, thin wail from the bedroom broke my trance. I ran in to find Sophie. When I picked her up, my heart nearly stopped. She was burning—radiating a heat that felt like a furnace. I rushed her to the ER. The diagnosis was severe pneumonia. The hospital stay and the immediate treatments would cost over five thousand dollars. I didn’t have fifty. I called Ryan, my hand shaking as I held the phone to my ear. “Ryan… Sophie has pneumonia. She needs to be admitted. I need the money for the deposit.” His voice came through the line, bored and dismissive. “It’s just a cold, Natalie. Don’t be so dramatic. Give her some Tylenol. Besides, Brooke handles the accounts now. You have to clear it with her.” I heard Brooke’s voice in the background. She took the phone. “Pneumonia? Send me the digital copies of the lab results and the doctor’s credentials. I’ll need to verify the necessity of the admission. Give me three days to audit the request.” “Three days?!” I screamed into the phone. “She’s burning up! She can’t wait three days!” “Mommy! Uncle Ryan! Look! The pirate ship is going so fast!” It was Hunter’s voice, joyful and loud. They were at a theme park. “Look,” Brooke said, her voice dropping to a chilly whisper. “If you’re going to be difficult and refuse to follow the protocol, then the expense is denied. Don’t call back.” Click. I stood in the sterile hospital hallway, shaking with a rage so violent it felt like a physical seizure. The billing department was hovering. Desperate, I scrolled through my contacts until I hit a name I hadn’t called in years. I swallowed the pride that had kept me silent for so long. “Hi… it’s Natalie. I… I need five thousand dollars. Please.” Five minutes after I hung up, a notification flashed: Transfer Received: $50,000. I stared at the zeros, sobbing so hard a nurse had to lead me to a chair. Ryan didn’t call for three days. Not once. He only showed up after Sophie was discharged. Brooke was trailing behind him, carrying two pathetic bags of bruised grocery-store fruit. “Hey, honey,” Brooke said, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Ryan’s been so swamped helping Hunter get settled into his new private preschool. He felt terrible about missing the hospital stuff, but you know how it is—family duties.” I looked at Ryan. I felt nothing but a deep, churning nausea. Ever since his brother died, our home had become a secondary thought. He fixed Brooke’s lights, he mowed Brooke’s lawn, he attended Brooke’s parent-teacher conferences. We were just the roommates he subsidized. “Watch the baby,” I said, my voice flat. “I’m going downstairs to get some things.” When I returned thirty minutes later, I walked into a nightmare. Sophie was on the floor, vomiting violently, her little face turning a terrifying shade of gray. “What did you give her?!” I screamed, dropping my bags and rushing to her. Brooke pointed toward the kitchen, her expression a mix of smugness and feigned innocence. “Oh, I saw those potatoes in the pantry were starting to sprout. Such a waste! I mashed them up with some milk for the little one. She actually ate quite a bit. See? She’s not picky if you just feed her.” My brain felt like it exploded. “Those were in the ‘to be tossed’ bin! They were sprouting! They’re toxic!” “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Brooke rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “A little sprout never killed anyone. You’re just looking for reasons to be wasteful. No wonder Ryan says you’re a spendthrift. Honestly, with the way you throw money away, it’s a miracle Ryan has anything left.” Looking at her smirking face, something in me snapped. The years of repression, the hunger, the gaslighting—it all condensed into a single point of white-hot fury. I lunged at her, my fingers clawing for her face. But Ryan caught me. He shoved me back with enough force to send me reeling. “Natalie! Stop it!” he bellowed. “Brooke was just trying to help! She was trying to save us money because she knows how hard I work! If Sophie is sick, it’s because she has a weak constitution. You’re the one who made her this way!” “It was just a few potatoes,” he continued, his eyes cold and full of contempt. “She’ll throw up and be fine by morning. Stop making a scene. Brooke and I have to take Hunter to his Taekwondo grading. Grow up and take care of your daughter.” He didn’t even glance at the child heaving on the floor. He walked out, following Brooke. I didn’t waste another second. I gathered Sophie and raced back to the hospital. It wasn’t “just a stomach ache.” It was severe solanine poisoning. Because she was already so malnourished and weakened from the pneumonia, her body couldn’t fight it. She slipped into a coma and was rushed to the ICU. The next day, I went back to the apartment to grab a change of clothes. Ryan and Brooke were there, sitting at the dining table, going over spreadsheets. “Oh, look who decided to show up,” Brooke said, her voice sharp. “Ryan was looking at the insurance portal. It says the claim for the pneumonia was filed for five thousand, but the reimbursement check for two thousand was sent to your personal account. Where is that money? You need to hand it over.” I stared at her, stunned. “Hand it over? To you?” “It doesn’t matter where it came from,” Ryan said, his voice a low, threatening rumble. “Any money in this house is marital property. And since Brooke is managing our wealth, it goes to her. It’s for the ‘family fund.’” “Wealth?” I spat the word like it was poison. “There is no wealth, Ryan! You told me we were in debt! And that money is for Sophie’s medical bills! She’s in a coma! The ICU costs thousands a day!” “Natalie, stop with the horror stories,” Ryan snapped, standing up. “It was a potato. She’s probably just sleeping it off and you’re milking it for sympathy because you hate that I’m helping Brooke. You know I’m struggling to dig us out of the hole my business left, and yet you still have this obsession with spending.” He walked over, grabbed my phone out of my hand, and used my thumb to biometrically unlock it. “Ryan, don’t!” He ignored me, navigating to my banking app. His eyes widened. “Thirty thousand dollars? You’ve been hiding thirty thousand dollars in a private account while I’ve been killing myself to pay our bills?” “That’s the loan I took out to save our daughter’s life!” I screamed, lunging for the phone. He shoved me away. I tripped, my forehead slamming against the sharp corner of the sideboard. I felt the warm prickle of blood immediately. “See?” Brooke chimed in, her voice hushed and toxic. “I told you she was siphoning money. She’s been lying to you this whole time, Ryan. She’s probably been skimming off the grocery money for years.” Ryan didn’t even look at the blood dripping down my face. He initiated a transfer of every cent in that account to Brooke’s ‘management’ firm. “This is for your own good,” he said, tossing the phone onto the sofa. “You clearly can’t be trusted.” They left together, the door clicking shut with a finality that felt like a coffin lid. That night, Brooke posted again. A photo of a dazzling blue diamond pendant against her skin. “A $35,000 ‘thank you’ gift from my favorite person. He saw me stressed and insisted I have something pretty. So lucky to have a man who knows my worth. #BlueDiamonds #Protected” I stared at the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs. That was Sophie’s life-support money. That was my daughter’s breath, hanging around Brooke’s neck. But then, I saw a comment that made the world stop spinning. It was from one of Ryan’s old college buddies: “Damn, Brooke! Ryan’s getting cheap, isn’t he? His last tech exit netted him forty million. A thirty-five-thousand-dollar necklace is pocket change for a mogul like him!” Brooke’s reply was almost instantaneous: “Shh! Delete that! Don’t let the ‘wifey’ know. She still thinks he’s broke and in debt. If she knew he was worth nine figures, she’d spend him into the grave in a week!” The room tilted. Forty million. Nine figures. Every skipped meal, every freezing night because we ‘couldn’t afford’ to turn up the heat, every moment I spent agonizing over the price of a gallon of milk… it was all a game. A sick, sadistic psychological experiment to keep me small, hungry, and compliant. I started to laugh. A jagged, broken sound that turned into a retch. When the shaking finally stopped, I picked up my phone and dialed that number again. My voice was a rasp of cold iron. “I’ll do it. I want the divorce.” “But I don’t just want him gone,” I whispered into the dark. “He hid everything. He let our daughter starve while he sat on millions. I want him stripped bare. I want him in the dirt. I want him to watch while everything he built turns to ash.” Sophie’s ICU bills were covered by an anonymous donor—my uncle—and she was moved to a private wing with the best specialists in the city. But she was still far from safe. I went back to the apartment one last time to get my legal documents. I was barely inside when Ryan stormed in, his face contorted with rage. “Natalie! You bitch! Brooke’s car was keyed in her driveway tonight. Was that you? Did you hire someone to do that?” Before I could even answer, Brooke followed him in, her arm wrapped in a dramatic, unnecessary bandage. “Natalie, how could you? It’s just a necklace! Are you really that petty? I’ve lost my husband, I’m all alone, and you’re trying to destroy the only joy I have left? Can’t you just be the bigger person?” I looked at the tiny scratch on her arm, then at Ryan’s furious face. My daughter was fighting for her life in a sterile room, and they were here playing ‘Suburban Victim.’ “It’s a shame the car didn’t hit you instead,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Maybe next time I’ll have better luck.” “Natalie!” Ryan stepped toward me, his hand raised. “I don’t even recognize you. You’ve become so incredibly cruel.” “Ryan, she’s out of control,” Brooke whispered, clutching his arm. “She’s dangerous. Hunter is terrified of her. You know, Hunter’s new Doberman, Zeus, is being trained as a guard dog. Maybe Natalie needs a night in the kennel with Zeus to learn some humility. To remember who actually provides for her.” Ryan looked at her, then back at me. A slow, cruel smile spread across his face. “That’s a great idea, Brooke. A little ‘time-out’ to adjust your perspective.” “Ryan, that dog is a monster,” I said, my heart starting to race. “It’s been trained for aggression.” “He’s just a puppy, Natalie. Barely six months old,” Ryan said, his voice devoid of any warmth. “He won’t kill you. But he’ll certainly make sure you stay in your place. Consider it a lesson: Brooke is the head of this family now. You don’t cross her.” He grabbed me by the arm, his grip like a shackle. He dragged me out of our apartment and into the backyard of the house next door—the house he had bought for Brooke with my inheritance money. He shoved me into the gated kennel area and locked the heavy iron bolt. As he turned to leave, Brooke leaned against the gate. She pulled her collar down slightly to reveal a fresh, dark hickey on her neck. “You really are a loser, Natalie,” she hissed so only I could hear. “When you’re gone, your husband is mine. Your house is mine. Your money is mine.” She smiled, a sharp, predatory look. “And don’t worry about that pathetic daughter of yours. I’ll make sure to ‘take care’ of her just like I did with the potatoes…” I lunged at the bars, screaming, but she just laughed and walked away. I turned around. In the shadows of the kennel, three full-grown, red-eyed Dobermans—not one puppy—slowly stood up, their low growls vibrating in the air.

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It started with an electric bill. That was how I found out my father had a second family. Mom had asked me to log into Dad’s utility account because the notification said the bill was overdue. I punched in the password, expecting the usual boring interface. I froze. There were two account numbers linked to the profile. The first was ours: Unit 2, Building 7, Oakwood Gardens. The second address was one I’d never seen before: Unit 1801, Tower 3, The Vancroft. The account nickname consisted of just one word: Home. I stared at the screen for ten seconds, the blue light burning into my retinas. My house was Oakwood Gardens. So, if this other place was Home—which family lived there? I didn’t tell Mom. Not yet. I took a screenshot, logged out, and opened Google Maps. The Vancroft. Located in the Riverside District. Average listing price: $1.2 million. 1. I didn’t go home after work that day. I called an Uber and headed straight for Riverside. The Vancroft was “new money” written in glass and steel. There was a fountain out front and a crystal chandelier in the lobby that looked like it cost more than my car. It was a universe away from the walk-up condo built in 2003 where I grew up. I stood outside the entrance for ten minutes, watching the revolving doors spin. When a delivery driver buzzed in, I slipped through the gate behind him. Elevator to the 18th floor. Unit 1801. There were two pairs of slippers on the welcome mat outside the door. One pair of men’s leather loafers, size 11. My dad’s size. One pair of women’s slides. Pink, with a little satin bow on top. My mother wouldn’t be caught dead in pink. I stood there, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I didn’t knock. I crouched down and looked at the gap beneath the door. The doormat was brand new. It read: HOME SWEET HOME. My mother didn’t speak a word of English beyond “Hello” and “Thank you.” I pulled out my phone, snapped a picture, and went back downstairs. I found a bench in the complex’s landscaped garden and sat. 6:30 PM. If people lived here, they’d be coming home soon. I waited forty minutes. At 7:10 PM, a woman walked in with a boy. She looked to be in her late forties, hair done in perfect, expensive beach waves, wearing a beige trench coat and carrying shopping bags from Nordstrom. The boy looked about eighteen or nineteen, backpack slung over one shoulder. They fobbed into the building. I watched the elevator indicator lights. It stopped on the 18th floor. Three minutes later, the windows of Unit 1801 glowed to life. Warm, yellow light. It looked cozy. It looked like a family. I sat in the cold, staring at that window. My phone buzzed. It was Dad. “Harper, honey, I’ve got a client dinner tonight. Won’t be home for supper.” I looked up at the light on the 18th floor. “Okay.” I hung up. Twenty minutes later, a black Audi A6 pulled into the driveway. License plate 7792. My dad’s car. He got out, carrying a white cake box. Magnolia Bakery. He walked into the building. The elevator rose. Another light flicked on in Unit 1801. I sat on the bench. The wind was biting, cutting through my jacket. My dad’s “client dinner” was on the 18th floor. I suddenly remembered last month, on Mom’s birthday. Dad said he had a board meeting and didn’t get home until 10:00 PM. There was no cake. He had said, “You’re fifty years old, Susan. Why do you need a birthday party? You’re not a child.” I pulled out my phone and opened the banking app. I had access to Dad’s personal account; I handled his taxes sometimes. I scrolled down. Every month on the 15th, there was a fixed transfer. $3,000. Recipient: Vanessa. Memo: Household. I scrolled back. January. $3,000. December. $3,000. November. $3,000. I kept scrolling. And scrolling. My fingers started to go numb. The transfers went back to 2005. Every single month. Not one missed payment. 2005. I was six years old. I did the math in my head. 20 years. $3,000 times 12, times 20. $720,000. And that was just the monthly allowance. My hand was shaking. Not from the cold. I closed the app. I stood up and took one last look at the window on the 18th floor. The warm, yellow light. A family of three. I turned around and walked away. On the ride home, Mom texted me. “Harper, I saved some dinner for you. Corn chowder and ribs. Come home soon, it’s getting cold.” I stared at the message. For a long time. Then I typed: “Okay. Almost there.” 2. When I got home, Mom was at the sink, washing dishes. Her apron was old, the fabric worn thin near the waist where she had patched a hole with mismatched thread. The stew was on the table, covered with a plate to keep the heat in. “Late night?” Mom wiped her hands on a towel as she turned around. “Overtime,” I lied. I sat down to eat. The meat was falling off the bone, the corn sweet and soft—just the way she knew I liked it. As I ate, a hot pressure built up behind my eyes. “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, pausing. “Nothing. The ribs are good.” Mom smiled. The skin around her eyes crinkled. “Eat up, then. There’s more in the pot.” She turned back to the sink. I heard the rush of the faucet. My mother’s hands were perpetually red and chapped from water and soap. In the winter, her knuckles cracked and bled, covered in Band-Aids. She wasn’t always like this. I’d seen the old photos. Twenty-five years old, working at the bank, crisp white blouse, a bob cut that framed her face perfectly, a smile that lit up the room. She was a head teller back then. Top performance in her branch. Then she got pregnant with me. Dad had said, “Stay home and take care of the baby. I’ll take care of you.” So Mom quit. She was twenty-eight. When she resigned, her branch manager had said, “Susan, are you sure? You have a real future here. It’s a waste to leave.” Mom had said, “The baby is more important.” What she didn’t know—what I had only recently pieced together—was that after she quit, her position was filled by a woman named Vanessa. Mom resigned the same year Dad’s construction supply business was just getting off the ground. Where did the capital come from? Mom’s inheritance. $50,000. Back in 2004, that was everything my grandparents had saved. Mom said, “Robert, take it. When the company gets big, just pay me back.” Dad said, “Don’t worry. I’ll never let you down.” The company did get big. It went from a $50,000 startup to a multi-million dollar operation. And Mom? Mom stayed home. She raised the kid, cooked the meals. Washed the clothes, mopped the floors. Twenty years. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. No weekends, no holidays, no year-end bonuses. After I went to college, Mom had a little more time. She told Dad she wanted to buy a new winter coat. Her old one was eight years old, the cuffs frayed. Dad said, “Money’s tight right now. We need to be frugal.” Mom said, “Oh. Okay then.” She wore that coat for another year. My first year working, I used my Christmas bonus to buy her a high-end down parka. Mom was happy for a week. She tried it on five times. Every time, she’d fold it carefully and put it back in the box, saying, “It’s too nice. I don’t want to ruin it.” Sitting at the kitchen table now, I thought about that coat. I thought about the woman at The Vancroft. The beige trench coat. The Nordstrom bags. The beach waves. My dad bought those for her. My mom wore an eight-year-old coat. My dad gave Vanessa a $3,000 monthly “allowance.” I squeezed my eyes shut. After dinner, I went to my room. Locked the door. Opened my laptop. I’m a CPA. Auditing is what I do. It’s who I am. I logged into Dad’s business accounts. He hadn’t changed the password since the dawn of time. I started digging. And God, did I find things. Beyond the monthly $3,000 transfers, there was so much more. 2008. Transfer: $100,000. Memo: Property Purchase. 2012. Transfer: $60,000. Memo: Renovation. 2015. Transfer: $45,000. Memo: Vehicle. 2018. Transfer: $30,000. Memo: Tuition. 2019. $30,000. Tuition. 2020. $30,000. 2021. $30,000. 2022. $30,000. 2023. $30,000. Six years of tuition. What kind of school costs $30k a year? Private prep school. I looked up the rates for Riverside Academy. $28,500 plus fees. I remembered something else. My senior year of high school, I wanted to take an SAT prep course. It was $500. Mom asked Dad. Dad said, “She’s already a senior. Why bother now? It’s a waste of money.” I didn’t take the course. I got into a state school. My $500 class was a waste. But another kid’s $30,000 tuition was paid without blinking an eye. I took a deep breath. I kept digging. That night, I exported ten years of transaction history. I flagged every suspicious line item until 3:00 AM. I calculated the total. 20 years. Transfers to Vanessa, plus the condo down payment, the renovation, the car, the tuition. Total: $2.4 million. And that was just the paper trail I could find. Conservatively? $2.5 million. I stared at the number on the screen. $2.5 million. Mom’s inheritance was $50,000. Dad built his life on that $50,000. And then he took $2.5 million to support another woman. Another home. I closed the laptop. I lay on my bed. There was a water stain on the ceiling. The roof leaked last year. Dad said, “Contractors are rip-offs. Let’s wait on it.” We waited a year. I bet the ceiling at The Vancroft didn’t have any stains. 3. The next day was Saturday. I didn’t go into the office. I investigated Vanessa. Her social security number was on the bank transfer logs. I asked a college friend to run a background check. He worked in data security. Vanessa. 48 years old. Local. Former employee of First City Bank. Hired: 2004. 2004. The same year. The year Mom quit. I grabbed my phone and dug out digital scans of Mom’s old photo albums. I found a group shot. Mom standing behind a bank counter with her team. On the far right, a tall woman with long hair, smiling broadly. On the back of the physical photo, Mom had written: 1999. Me, Vanessa, and Joan. The Dream Team. Vanessa. Vanessa. My mother’s colleague. But she was more than that. I went through Mom’s WeChat contacts (she used it to talk to relatives). No Vanessa. But I found a contact named “Big Sis V.” The last message was from 2004. Mom: “V, I’ve put in my notice. Take care of yourself.” Vanessa: “Don’t worry. You just focus on the baby. I’ve got things covered here at the bank.” She had things covered. She covered the bank. She covered my dad, too. I stared at that message for a long time. In 2004, Mom resigned. In 2004, Vanessa took Mom’s job. In 2005, Dad started sending Vanessa money. Mom gave up her seat at the table, and she gave it to her. Vanessa didn’t just take the job. She took my mother’s husband. I kept looking. I pulled the property deeds. The Vancroft, Tower 3, Unit 1801. Owner: Vanessa. Purchased: 2008. Down payment: $100,000. The mortgage payments? My dad paid them for ten years. Paid off in full in 2019. Current value: approx $1.2 million. There was also a car. 2015 Cadillac XT5. Bought for $45,000. Registered to Vanessa. I thought about Mom taking the bus to the grocery store. Dad said, “You don’t work, Susan. Why do you need a car? Gas is expensive.” Mom said, “You’re right.” I looked up Vanessa’s son. Tyler Su. 19 years old. Born: 2006. I was born in 1999. He was seven years younger than me. Which meant— When I was six, Vanessa was pregnant. When I was seven, she gave birth. The boy had my dad’s last name. Su. A fire started burning in my chest. What was I doing when I was six? I was sitting at the table, waiting for Daddy to come home for dinner. Mom would say, “Daddy’s busy at work, sweetie. You eat first.” What was Daddy busy with? He was busy having a baby with Vanessa. In that moment, everything clicked. When I was little, Dad was never home. I thought it was “client meetings.” In high school, he was gone even more. I thought it was “business trips.” Since college, I rarely came home, but when I did, he was gone. Mom said, “Your father works so hard.” He worked hard for twenty years. Hard at managing a second life. I put down the phone. Through it all, Mom knew nothing. She thought her husband was building an empire for us. She thought her sacrifice had meaning. She thought her $50,000 inheritance had bought a future for her family. She didn’t know it had turned into $2.5 million for another woman. She didn’t know the woman who took her job took her life. I picked up my phone. I wanted to call Mom. My finger hovered over her name. I put it down. Now wasn’t the time to show my cards. I had to do something first. 4. For the next three days, I kept digging. I knew there had to be more. I logged into Dad’s email. Password: his birthday + last four digits of his cell. He really thought we were too stupid to look. There was a folder named “ADMIN.” Mostly boring invoices. But at the bottom, three emails caught my eye. Sender: Baker & McKenzie Law Group. “Mr. Su, per your request, the draft of the divorce agreement is attached. Please review.” Date: Two months ago. I opened the attachment. Divorce Settlement Agreement. Plaintiff: Robert Su. Defendant: Susan Lin. Asset Distribution: a. Oakwood Gardens property transfers to Defendant. b. 100% of Company Equity remains with Plaintiff. C. Savings in respective personal accounts remain separate. d. Other assets to be negotiated. Oakwood Gardens. Bought in 2003. Worth maybe $400,000 now on a good day. It was an old building. And the company? I checked the financials for Su Construction Supplies, LLC. Annual revenue $3 million. Net profit roughly $500,000. Conservative valuation? At least $2 million. So, Dad wanted to give Mom the decaying $400k apartment. And keep the multi-million dollar business for himself. Plus his savings, his investments. Mom would get less than 15% of the total assets. This was his definition of “I’ll never let you down.” I opened the second email. “Mr. Su, regarding the equity transfer. To transfer 30% of shares to Tyler Su, we need the following documents…” He was giving the company to Vanessa’s son. Tyler. The 19-year-old. I was his biological daughter. In twenty-six years, he hadn’t given me a single share. But he was handing the legacy to the boy born on the side. I scrolled down. Third email. It was from Vanessa to my dad. Informal. “Robert, you need to speed up the divorce. Tyler is applying for schools abroad next year, we need the tuition liquid. If you can’t handle Susan, I’ll find someone to talk to her.” My dad replied: “Don’t worry. Done by year-end. She’s easy to deal with.” She’s easy to deal with. Yeah. Mom was easy. For twenty years, her answer to everything was “Okay,” “Sure,” “Whatever you think is best.” Vanessa said, “I’ll find someone to talk to her.” Who? Who the hell was she going to send to intimidate my mother? The audacity. I took screenshots. Every email. Every attachment. Then I checked one last thing. Tyler Su’s transcript. Riverside Academy.

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The Smith family was a den of vipers. To break Dominic and me apart, they drugged him, orchestrated a night of “accidental” passion with his socialite ex, and ensured she ended up pregnant with twins. When I found out, I packed my bags, but Dominic—shattered and desperate—begged me to stay. He swore he’d never see them. He told me the pregnancy had been “handled.” He even held a blade to his own wrist to prove he couldn’t live without me. I was young, I was in love, and I believed the lie. Three years later, the lie imploded at a kindergarten orientation. In a fit of blind rage and betrayal, I kept the twins behind after the event to confront the teacher about why Dominic’s name was on their emergency contact list. On their way home, they were snatched. Dominic didn’t ask questions. He didn’t look for evidence. He blamed me instantly. To force a confession I didn’t have, he took my mother—who had a failing heart—to the top of a pier-side drop tower. I screamed until my throat bled, telling him I didn’t know where they were. Dominic only roared back, his face a mask of predatory fury: “I’ve given you everything, Leah! Why would you touch those children? If you don’t tell me where they are, I’m letting her go!” He shoved her toward the edge of the platform. Her safety harness was unbuckled, flapping uselessly in the wind. I had no answers to give. In his cold, calculated hatred, Dominic finally pushed the button. My mother plummeted. Moments later, his phone rang. The kidnappers had been found. It had nothing to do with me. Without a glance at my mother’s broken, lifeless body, Dominic turned on his heel and ran toward his “real” family. While he was holding those twins, I was in a sterile hospital room, pulling a white sheet over my mother’s face. In that moment, the love I held for him didn’t just die. It rotted. … I stared at the white shroud covering my mother, my eyes so dry they burned. I had no tears left. The doctor stood beside me, his voice heavy with a pity I couldn’t stomach. “I’m so sorry. If she had been brought in just twenty minutes earlier… she might have had a chance. Her heart simply gave out from the sheer terror.” I dug my nails into my palms until I drew blood. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing my lungs. I should have left him three years ago. I could have saved her. My mother had treated Dominic like her own son since the day we married. I had only asked the teacher to keep the kids for ten extra minutes to talk. I didn’t kidnap them. But Dominic wouldn’t listen. He chose his “legacy” over my mother’s life. After making the arrangements for her body, I dragged myself back to the empty house we once called a home. Seven days. I told myself I only had to survive seven more days. Then, I’d take her ashes back to the coast, and Dominic Smith would become a ghost in my past. Dominic didn’t come home until the following evening. He didn’t notice my ghost-white skin or my hollow eyes. He just walked into the kitchen, radiating a cold, sharp bitterness. “Leah, I honestly can’t believe you,” he said, his voice a low hiss. “You were willing to watch your own mother go over the edge rather than tell me where those boys were. Do you have any idea what they went through? They’re still in the hospital because of you!” They’re in the hospital, I thought, the irony tasting like copper in my mouth. My mother didn’t even get the chance to be a patient. She went straight to the morgue. My chest tightened so hard I couldn’t breathe. I looked him dead in the eye, but only a raspy, broken sound escaped my throat. Seeing my distress, a flicker of something—regret? pity?—crossed his face. “Fine,” he sighed, reaching out. “As long as the boys are okay, Tiffany and I will find a way to move past this. I know you’ve been stressed taking care of your mom. In a few days, once things settle, I’ll take you away for the weekend. We need to reset.” He tried to pull me into the familiar curve of his chest, but I shoved him away with every ounce of strength I had left. “No… no more… taking care of her,” I croaked. My voice was a ruined thing; he couldn’t even understand the words. He frowned, his patience evaporating. “Stop acting out, Leah. You were in the wrong here. I’m staying at the hospital tonight to be with the kids. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency.” He turned to leave, but his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, and his face went pale. Before I could move, he lunged forward, grabbing my wrist in a vice grip. “Get in the car. Now.” He didn’t care that I could barely stand. He dragged me through the hospital corridors like a piece of luggage. The moment we reached the private wing, Tiffany—the woman who had been a shadow over my marriage for three years—lunged at me. She slapped me so hard my head hit the linoleum wall. She wasn’t finished. She threw herself on me, screaming, clawing at my skin like a wild animal. Thinking of my mother, a spark of cold fire lit up in my gut. I tried to fight back, tried to push her off. Suddenly, Dominic’s hands were on me, pinning my arms to my sides. He held me still, letting Tiffany land blow after blow across my face. When he finally let go, I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Dominic looked down at me, his expression a complicated mess of guilt and resolve. “The twins are losing too much blood. Their levels are critical. Just let Tiffany vent, Leah. You owe her this.” I let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. Tears finally began to fall. A doctor stepped out of the ICU. “We need the units now.” Dominic didn’t wait. He hauled me up and shoved me toward the technician. “She’s a match. Take whatever you need.” I struggled, my weak hands fluttering against his chest, but he pinned me down on the cot. I watched, detached from my own body, as the thick needle pierced my vein. Dominic stroked my hair, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly tender tone he used when he wanted to manipulate me. “It’ll be over soon, honey. Think of this as your penance. Once this is done, we can start over.” I closed my eyes tight, systematically erasing every memory of love I had ever felt for this man. After two bags, the world began to tilt. My head rolled to the side, but Dominic grabbed my arm, his voice tight with anxiety. “Doctor, they’re twins. Shouldn’t you take more? Just to be safe?” The doctor shook his head, looking uneasy. “Sir, if we take any more, she’ll go into shock. She could die.” Dominic didn’t hesitate. He shifted my arm, offering it up like a piece of meat. “She’s stronger than she looks. Do it.” I broke into a cold sweat, my voice a mere whisper. “Dominic… please… I had nothing to do with the kidnapping…” He just looked at me with profound disappointment. “Still lying, Leah? Even now?” They took two more bags. By the end, I was a shell. Dominic’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second, and he reached out to help me up. But then, Tiffany called his name from the ICU window, her voice trembling with manufactured terror. Dominic turned and ran to her without a second thought. I was left on a gurney in the hallway, discarded like a used bandage. Later, I was moved—not to a room, but to a small chair in the twins’ suite, effectively tethered there by my own exhaustion. Dominic’s parents arrived an hour later. His mother, a woman who wore pearls like armor, walked straight up to me and backhanded me across the face. “You animal,” she spat. “We knew you were low-class, but to target three-year-old children? You’re lucky we don’t have you arrested.” I was too weak to even flinch. I looked toward Dominic, expecting the man who used to defend me against his mother’s barbs to step in. He stood by the window, his hands trembling as he stirred a cup of broth for Tiffany. He wouldn’t look at me. His eyes, once full of a heat that could melt me, were now as cold as a winter morning in the city. “Just endure it, Leah,” he said quietly. “You brought this on yourself.” His mother let out a sharp, jagged laugh and kicked me square in the stomach. I felt a sharp, hot burst of pain, followed by the sickening sensation of warmth spreading between my thighs. As the world faded to black, the last thing I saw was Dominic’s face, finally breaking into an expression of pure, unadulterated panic as he ran toward me. When I woke up, I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t. I just listened to the voices in the room. “Maybe it’s for the best that the pregnancy didn’t hold,” Dominic was saying, his voice sounding hollow. “If she could hurt the twins like that before she even had her own child, imagine what she would have been like later.” “Let’s just pretend it never happened,” his mother’s voice replied. “Don’t even tell her. The Smith heir should come from Tiffany anyway. We were never going to accept a child from her bloodline.” A single tear escaped my closed eyelids. Did he ever love me? I wondered. Or was I just a three-year distraction? When the room finally fell silent and the footsteps faded, I opened my eyes. I reached down and touched my abdomen. It felt empty. Cold. I should have left years ago. One wrong decision had cost two lives—my mother’s and my child’s. I was staring at the acoustic ceiling tiles, lost in a trance of grief, when the door creaked open. Tiffany walked in, her “grieving mother” facade replaced by a sharp, triumphant smirk. “Leah Smith. Still breathing? You really are like a cockroach.” She walked to the side of my bed and pressed her thumb hard into the bruising on my arm where the IV had been. “Oops. My bad. But hey, a little bruise is nothing compared to a miscarriage, right? You weren’t fit to be a mother anyway. Think of it as a favor.” She started to giggle—a high, tinkling sound that grated on my raw nerves. With the last of my strength, I grabbed the heavy thermal carafe from the bedside table and swung it at her. It clipped her shoulder, spilling lukewarm water everywhere. Tiffany didn’t get angry. Instead, a look of predatory glee crossed her face. She deliberately threw herself onto the floor, knocking over a chair as she went. A second later, the door burst open. Dominic was there, his face contorted in rage. “Leah! What the hell are you doing?” He lunged at me, his hand connecting with my cheek so hard I tasted blood. He froze when he saw how pale I was, his hand trembling as he pulled it back. But Tiffany began to sob from the floor. “Don’t hurt her, Dominic! It was my fault,” she wailed, her voice thick with fake tears. “I just wanted to apologize. I thought… maybe she lost the baby because of the stress I caused. I wanted to make peace, but she…” She let out a broken whimper. “It’s fine. I deserve it for trying to be kind.” Dominic looked at me with a disgust so deep it felt like a physical blow. He reached down and gathered Tiffany into his arms. “I never knew how truly venomous you were, Leah. You aren’t half the woman she is. My parents were right about you from the start.” He turned and walked out, carrying her like a prize. I watched them go, laughing until the sound turned into a sob. You’re right, Dominic, I thought. We both made a mistake. You chose her, and I chose you. I was discharged a week later. When I opened the front door of our penthouse, I found Tiffany and the twins sitting in our living room. Dominic stood in front of them, blocking my view like a bodyguard. “The boys have severe trauma from the kidnapping,” he said, his brow furrowed. “They need stability. I’ve moved them in so I can look after them personally.” There was a challenge in his eyes, a silent dare for me to object. I simply nodded, my face a mask of indifference. Dominic blinked, caught off guard by my lack of fire. He reached out to grab my hand, a look of confusion flickering in his dark eyes. Before he could touch me, Tiffany stepped in, slipping her arm through his. “Dominic, if Leah isn’t comfortable, the boys and I can leave. We can stay at a hotel. It’s just… they’re so scared, and you’re the only person they trust right now.” She shot me a look of pure malice over his shoulder. I remained silent. Annoyed by my lack of reaction, Dominic snapped, “This is a Smith property. I decide who stays. If Leah has a problem with it, she can be the one to leave.” He watched me, waiting for the explosion. In the past, I would have burned the house down. I would have screamed until he chose me. Now, I just felt tired. “I’m just here for my documents, Dominic,” I said, my voice sounding like it was coming from miles away. “Sign the divorce papers and leave them on the desk. When you have a gap in your schedule between playing house, let me know. We can go to the courthouse and end this.” Panic flared in his eyes, masked instantly by bravado. “Fine! Go! See if any other man with my bank account wants a woman as cold as you.” Then, his voice dropped, turning manipulative again. “Look, once the boys are better, I’ll send them to the estate in the Hamptons. This will be our home again. Just give it time, okay?” He tried to pull me into an embrace. I pulled back, smelling nothing but rot on him. The man I loved was dead. This was just a walking, breathing corpse of a marriage. I went upstairs to my office. On the way, I saw the boys in the hallway. They had found the porcelain urn I had brought home from the funeral parlor. They had poured water into it and were using my mother’s ashes as “gray paint,” smearing it across the wallpaper. My heart shattered into a million jagged pieces. I lunged forward. “You little monsters! Put that down!” The boys saw my desperation and grinned. Then, with a casual cruelty that could only be inherited, they smashed the urn onto the hardwood floor. I fell to my knees, frantically trying to scoop up the gray dust with my bare hands. The boys started jumping on it, their sneakers grinding my mother into the floorboards. I lost it. I shoved them back—hard. They fell, catching themselves on the sharp porcelain shards. They let out a synchronized howl of pain. Tiffany appeared instantly, her eyes wild with fury. “Leah! What is wrong with you? It’s just a jar! You pushed my children over a jar?” Dominic appeared behind her, his face darkening to a bruised purple as he saw the blood on the twins’ hands. I was still on the floor, weeping, trying to gather what was left of my mother. Dominic lunged forward and backhanded me. The world spun. I fell onto the broken porcelain, the shards slicing into my palms and knees. Dominic didn’t even look at my wounds. “You haven’t learned a thing,” he spat, his voice trembling with cold rage. “You need a lesson you’ll never forget.” He grabbed me by the collar and dragged me down the hall, throwing me into the windowless walk-in pantry. He slammed the heavy door and turned the deadbolt. I wasn’t let out until the following morning. The butler opened the door, his eyes full of disdain. “Get out. Mr. Smith says you’ve had enough time to think.” I stumbled out, clutching a small plastic bag containing the few ounces of ash I had managed to salvage. I had a flight booked for that afternoon. All I needed was my employment release from the preschool where I worked. When I walked into the Director’s office, she sighed heavily. “Leah, why did you have to cross Mrs. Smith? Dominic is a powerful man, and his family is everything to him. My hands are tied.” My heart gave a dull, familiar throb of pain. Because the Smiths never officially recognized me, I was still “Miss Susan” to the world. Our marriage was a secret they kept in a drawer. I just nodded, waiting for her to stamp the papers. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the courtyard. I walked to the window and saw Tiffany. She was standing in the middle of the playground, throwing handfuls of photos into the air. Behind her, two men were unfurling a massive red banner over the school entrance: [THANK YOU, MISS LEAH, FOR TAKING CARE OF MY HUSBAND’S NEEDS. I’M WILLING TO PAY THREE DOLLARS FOR YOUR NEXT SHIFT.] The parents waiting at the gates turned to look at me, their expressions curdling into disgust. The world began to tilt. I felt the bile rise in my throat. Tiffany saw me through the glass and raised her voice, her face twisted in a mocking grin. “This is the woman who tried to break up my family! Be careful, ladies. Don’t let your husbands come to pick up the kids. Miss Leah is always looking for a promotion.”

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Three years into our long-distance relationship, I decided it was time for the “big surprise.” I’d booked a late-night Amtrak to the city, a bouquet of peonies tucked under my arm, and a heart full of plans for Miles’s twenty-fourth birthday. But when the door to his apartment swung open, the reality didn’t match the script in my head. The man who had just been cooing into the phone, telling me how much he ached for me, was currently pinned against the sofa by another girl. She was kissing him with a frantic, proprietary hunger. Even as the small crowd around them erupted into whistles and cheers, Miles didn’t pull away. His expression wasn’t one of resistance; it was a hazy, passive acceptance. From my shadow in the corner of the entryway, I watched them for a long, frozen minute. No one even noticed I was there. … When Miles called me earlier that night, I was already standing outside his door, holding a custom-ordered bourbon-vanilla cake. I’d borrowed a nondescript delivery jacket from a courier downstairs and pulled the brim of my cap low. Through the phone, his voice was crystal clear, vibrating with that familiar, boyish charm. “Babe, I got the gift you sent. I love it so much. It’s perfect.” As soon as the words left his lips, a chorus of drunken mocking rose up behind him. His friends were parroting his tone, shouting “Babe!” and “I love it!” into the cramped apartment air. For three years, Miles had made “loyalty” his entire personality. He told everyone he met that he was taken. His friends all knew my name, my face, and the fact that we’d used matching lock-screen photos since sophomore year of college. He didn’t hide me; he brandished me like a shield. Hearing that soft, needy “Babe” made my pulse skip. My ears felt hot. I gripped the cake box tighter, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Just a few days ago, I’d had this impulsive, romantic vision. I’d take the train, bring the flowers, and give him a birthday he’d never forget. The call ended. I let out a small, shaky smile, fished the spare key from my pocket, and eased it into the lock. The moment the door clicked open, my eyes went straight to the living room. A group was huddled around the sofa in the center of the room. Under the dim, amber glow of the Edison bulbs, I was invisible—just a shadow in a delivery jacket. Miles was sinking into the leather cushions. A girl—someone I didn’t recognize—had her hands planted on either side of his head, leaning down to claim his mouth. They were tangled together, their lips pressed tight in a way that looked practiced. The room erupted again, the cheers turning into a dull roar in my ears. I felt the blood drain from my face, a cold, heavy stone settling in my gut. My hands went numb. Miles seemed lost in it. And when the girl finally pulled back for air, I didn’t see him push her away. I saw him lean up, following the gravity of the moment, and kiss her back. The cake box hit the floor with a wet thud. The romantic atmosphere shattered instantly. A dozen heads turned toward the door. In my panic, my first instinct wasn’t to scream or demand an explanation. It was to drop to my knees and try to save the ruined cake. The white frosting was smeared across the hardwood—a soft, pathetic mess. To my touch, it felt like jagged shards of glass, slicing into my dignity until I felt like I was bleeding out right there on the floor. “How’d the door get open? Who forgot to—” Someone started to curse, and then the room descended into a chaotic scramble of voices. But as I finally looked up, the noise died. Silence fell over the apartment like a shroud. For three years, I had been the wallpaper of Miles’s life. My face was his screensaver; our framed photos lined his hallway. He’d hung them up the day I moved back for my master’s program, telling me over FaceTime that he needed the “shrine” to survive the distance. Now, Miles just stared at me, paralyzed. His phone sat on the coffee table, the screen still glowing with a candid photo he’d taken of me while I was sleeping. That image of pure, unsuspecting peace felt like a slap in the face. “Hey, Nora… what are you doing here? You should’ve called, we would’ve picked you up from the station!” “Miles is wasted, seriously. He was just saying your name like five minutes ago. You guys are literally goals, haha.” “Look, it was just Truth or Dare. We pushed it too far, totally our fault. Don’t be mad, Nora.” The “bros” were already closing ranks, spinning the narrative before Miles could even find his tongue. I saw the girl—the one who’d been on top of him—clutching Miles’s sleeve. His friends tried to usher her behind them, and I caught a glimpse of tears welling in her eyes. There were only a few feet of floorboards between us, but it felt like a canyon had opened up. Miles was suddenly a stranger on the far side of a cliff. He finally shoved through the crowd, stumbling toward me, frantically wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nora, baby—I don’t even like her. It was a mistake. I didn’t—I swear I didn’t mean to—” He was rambling, his voice breaking in that specific way he knew always melted my heart. He started to cry, big, fat tears tracking through his stubble. I looked away from the pile of ruined cream on the floor and focused on his lips. Miles used to tell me those lips belonged to me and me alone. Now, they were stained with a shade of red that wasn’t mine—a bold, mocking crimson. It was a territorial marking, a flag planted on soil I thought I owned. The last thread of my composure snapped. My throat ached, and without a word, I turned and bolted. “Nora! Wait!” I heard him pounding after me, but I slammed the door with every ounce of strength I had left. The courier was still by his bike downstairs, looking confused. I ripped off the oversized jacket and handed it back to him. “Thanks,” I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “I’ll leave you a five-star review.” He saw my blotchy, red eyes and opened his mouth to ask if I was okay, but the sound of heavy footsteps hitting the stairs cut him off. Miles caught my arm, his grip trembling. He looked pathetic, undone. “Nora, please. It was nothing. I was drunk, she jumped me. Please don’t leave. You can’t leave me.” I stayed silent. Behind him, his friends had spilled out onto the sidewalk, a chorus of excuses following in their wake. The girl was there, too, rubbing her face. She looked like she’d been crying, her voice hitching in her throat. “Nora, I’m so sorry. I just… I lost my head. Miles rejected me, I swear, I just forced it…” The second she said “Miles,” he snapped. He whirled around and screamed at her, “Don’t call me that! I don’t even know you! You’re making me sick, just get out of here!” The girl flinched as if he’d hit her. She stood there, stunned, before turning away and letting out a jagged, muffled cough. As she turned, I felt Miles’s grip on my arm tighten. He was rigid with tension. The pressure hurt. I winced and tried to pull away, which seemed to snap him out of his trance. He looked at me, his eyes flitting from anger to desperate concern. “Babe, are you okay? Did I hurt you? It’s freezing out here, your hands are like ice.” He took my hands in his, blowing warm air onto my fingers, completely ignoring the girl he’d just humiliated. The crowd went quiet. The courier, sensing a scene he didn’t want to be part of, quietly pedaled away. I looked at the top of Miles’s head as he bent over my hands. I felt like a dull knife was being dragged across my chest—a slow, rhythmic sawing. He took my lack of resistance as a sign of forgiveness. He leaned in, trying to kiss my cheek, but I jerked my head away. I kept my eyes on the pavement, pulling my hands back and smoothing my hair. My voice was eerily flat, like I was commenting on a forecast. “My train back is in an hour. Take me to the station.” A flash of pure, pathetic relief crossed his face. “Of course. Anything. Let’s go.” He fumbled for his keys, led me to his car, and held the door open like he was the perfect gentleman. When I climbed into the passenger seat, he tried to lean over to buckle my seatbelt—the way he’d done a thousand times before. I was faster. I yanked the strap across my chest and clicked it into place, a physical barrier against the world. I didn’t say another word. Miles hesitated, then shut my door gently. He walked back toward the group. I couldn’t see his face, but I watched him in the side mirror. He took off his jacket—the expensive wool one I’d bought him for Christmas—and handed it to the girl. Then he ran back to the car. The heater kicked in, filling the cabin with artificial warmth. As the engine hummed, I stared down at my feet. I was wearing the sneakers Miles had bought me. I hated heels, so he’d filled my closet with every color of flat-soled shoes imaginable. Miles hadn’t finished college. His parents passed away during his sophomore year, and he’d had to drop out to work. He’d lived on nothing so I could have everything. I remembered the leanest month, when he only had twelve dollars to his name. He spent six on a bowl of wonton soup for me and the other six on a single, long-stemmed rose. Back then, I thought his face was more beautiful than any flower. He’d looked at me with such fierce, terrifying certainty and promised he’d get rich just to take care of me. When his first startup took off, he didn’t spend a dime on himself. He transferred the entire first check to my savings account. People teased him, calling him “whipped,” but he’d just laugh and say he was happy to be my servant for life. For three years, he wasn’t physically there, but he saturated my life. Everything I touched, wore, or used was a gift from him. Even when I told him it was too much, he insisted. “Where’s your jacket?” I asked as he pulled out into traffic. “You were wearing it a second ago.” A chill seemed to cling to him. I wanted an answer—I needed to hear the lie or the truth, I didn’t care which. He kept his eyes on the road. His voice was a whisper. “It got… dirty. I took it off. I know you can’t stand stains, Nora. I didn’t want to bring the mess into the car with you.” The car came to a halt at a red light. He reached over and gripped my hand so hard it felt like he was trying to fuse our bones together. Like he was afraid if he let go, I’d evaporate. I didn’t look at him. I looked at the window. In the black reflection of the glass, I saw a girl crying, and I barely recognized her. The station was a ghost town. Miles had rushed out in just a thin t-shirt. I took a deep breath, stepped out of the car, and kept my tone light, professional. “You should get back. I can handle it from here.” He frowned, his mouth opening to protest, but his phone cut him off. It was one of his friends. Miles tried to ignore it, but it rang again instantly. He went to hit decline, then changed his mind. Maybe he thought showing me he had nothing to hide would help. He hit ‘speaker.’ “Miles, where are you? Daisy is—” The name Daisy hit the air like a gunshot. I saw Miles’s entire demeanor shift. He cut the speaker, pressed the phone to his ear, and looked at me with the eyes of a trapped animal. Seeing that I remained expressionless, he stepped several yards away to take the call in private. I didn’t try to stop him. I just sat on a cold metal bench in the terminal, watching the departure board. When he came back, he looked torn, his face a map of guilt. He reached out and hooked his pinky around mine—our secret signal for “I’m sorry, let’s make up.” I didn’t look at him. “Babe… the door locked behind us and they’re all stuck outside. They can’t get back in. I have to go back for a second, okay?” I didn’t answer. “Just… take a breath. Calm down. You can do whatever you want to me later, just please, don’t talk about breaking up. You know you’re all I have.” Before he turned to leave, he tapped his phone. A notification chimed on mine—a massive Venmo transfer. As his tail-lights faded into the night, I finally blinked. My throat felt like it was full of dry sand. The old Miles would have printed my ticket for me. He would have checked my bag, made sure I had snacks, and stood on the platform until the train was out of sight. This time, he didn’t even notice that I hadn’t gone to the kiosk to get a ticket. On the big screen, the departures kept flickering. There wasn’t even a train back to my campus tonight. Miles hadn’t asked why I’d come. He hadn’t wondered how I could possibly be leaving so soon. He was too busy covering his tracks, frantically trying to pull himself out of the mud he’d jumped into. The sky was bruising into a dark, rainy gray. I rubbed my temples, pulled up an app, and booked a slow, grueling Greyhound bus. The city was hours away from my university. The bus was cramped, sweltering, and smelled of old coffee and desperation. As soon as I took my seat, Miles’s texts started flooding in. Nora, today was on me. I screwed up. Please don’t give me the death penalty yet. Let’s talk. We were only hanging out for work stuff. I already talked to the partners—when you start your internship this summer, you’re going to be right next to me in my office. I need you. I can’t breathe without you. Don’t throw us away. I scrolled past the words and tapped on a photo he’d sent a week ago. It was a group shot from a company retreat. Miles was in the center, and right next to him, leaning in so close their shoulders overlapped, was Daisy. She was smiling with a soft, gentle warmth. When Miles first started the company, he’d kissed me and made a promise. “Behind every great man is a greater woman,” he’d said. “There will only ever be one female employee in this company, Nora. And that’s you. You’re the only queen this castle needs.” It was a cheesy, romantic joke, but I’d tucked it away like a treasure. Now, the “employee” slot was filled. And I realized I didn’t want to be the queen of his castle anymore. The bus was noisy—a baby crying in the back, a man snoring beside me. But inside my head, it was silent. I opened the chat, my thumbs shaking as I typed the words, letter by letter. Miles, we’re done. Don’t come looking for me. I hit send. I didn’t wait to see the “typing…” bubble. I blocked him. I thought that was the end of it. But a second later, my phone rang. An unknown number. I picked up. Miles’s voice was hysterical, a jagged edge of madness bleeding through the line. “Nora, if you want to break up with me, you’ll have to kill me first. You hear me? Unless I’m dead, this is never happening.” The hair on my neck stood up. I heard the screech of tires on the other end—a violent, metallic scream that made my heart jump into my throat. Then, I heard Miles laugh. It was a cold, hollow sound. “Phone calls are cheap,” he whispered. “I’m coming to you. You can say it to my face.”

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I am an eternal. I was born with a curse of gold. Every person who has ever tried to kill me for my fortune has only succeeded in making me richer. My net worth is measured in billions, a staggering, icy mountain of numbers that means absolutely nothing to me. Because the truth is, I’m exhausted. I have been murdered in a thousand different ways across centuries. I have no desire to keep going; the light at the end of the tunnel has always been a mirage. To break the cycle of immortality, the rule is simple but impossible: I must find someone who loves me and does not care for my money. After lifetimes of searching, I thought I had finally found him. He didn’t want my money. That much was true. But as it turns out, he didn’t love me either. Instead, he held a scalpel, and he used it to open me up. … I was lying on a cold, stainless steel surgical table. Above me, the reflective surface of the surgical lamp acted like a morbid mirror, showing me the gore of my own opened chest. Another death to add to the tally. New cause of death: +1. But this time, the pain was different. It wasn’t just physical; it was a piercing, psychological agony that reached deep into my marrow. The sensation of my flesh being peeled back was so intense I couldn’t even find my voice to scream. I gritted my teeth, forcing the words out as I looked at Nathan. “Is it money?” I wheezed. “You know I have more than I could ever spend. Just give me a number. I’ll give you everything. Just stop.” Nathan shook his head. His hand trembled as he reached out to stroke my hair. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. His tears fell fast, splashing onto my cheek, but they felt utterly devoid of warmth. “I don’t want your money, Maren,” he whispered. “It’s you I love. The wealth… it was just a nice bonus. But it’s you. It’s always been you.” I let out a wet, ragged laugh. My limbs were twitching uncontrollably from the shock. He hadn’t used a single drop of anesthesia before he slid the blade into me. He had told me he was going to harvest my organs, one by one. He was going to drain every drop of my blood. And he called this love? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. If he wanted me dead, why couldn’t he just make it quick? “Nathan, please. If you don’t want the money, tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you. Anything. Just… give me a clean kill. Don’t torture me under the guise of ‘loving’ me.” Nathan remained unreachable, his expression a mask of tragic devotion. He just kept insisting he loved me. I didn’t understand where that love was supposed to be—until five minutes later, when the doors to the OR swung open. Another gurney was pushed in. On it lay a young woman. She was beautiful, with skin like porcelain and a face that looked peaceful in her medically induced sleep. They parked her right next to me. I watched, fading, as my blood was siphoned out of my veins and tubed directly into her body. Then, a team of specialized, silent surgeons began to work on her. She looked gravely ill. As they opened her up, I saw the state of her internal organs—withered, failing. One by one, they began to remove her dying parts and replace them with the healthy ones they were taking from me. The realization hit me like a physical blow. This was his plan. I froze, a single tear escaping the corner of my eye. “Who is she?” I choked out. Nathan didn’t answer immediately. He was looking at the woman with a gaze so tender it made my stomach turn. “Nathan! Answer me!” He snapped out of it, reaching down to take my hand. He told me the truth then, his voice steady and clinical. “Her name is Valerie. We were high school sweethearts. We spent three years sitting at the same desk, planning our lives, promising to get married the second we graduated college.” He paused, his eyes clouding over. “But life is cruel. Right after graduation, she was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder. Within five years, her organs began to atrophy. They’re failing, Maren. All of them. There is no cure in the world.” He looked at me with a terrifying kind of clarity. “I couldn’t just stand by and watch her vanish. I couldn’t lose the person who defines my entire youth. So, I found another way.” I stared at him, my mind reeling. “A disease with no cure… and you think swapping my organs into her will work? If it were that simple, wouldn’t a doctor have suggested it years ago? Why wait until now?” Nathan understood the logic. He turned his head, his gaze dropping onto me with a cold, detached intensity. After a long silence, he sighed. “Maren, I know your secret.” He leaned in closer. “I know you’re an eternal.” His words sent a chill through me that outstripped the cold of the OR. It explained everything. He didn’t love my money, but he didn’t love me either. I had thought this life would finally be the one to break the curse, but I had failed again. Nathan’s coldness was breathtaking. Even as he watched me being dismantled, he stood there calmly, stroking my palm with his thumb as if we were having a quiet night in. My entire body revolted against his touch, the pain pulling me toward the brink of a blackout. But Nathan wasn’t finished. He kept talking, narrating the epic tragedy of his life with Valerie. “I took her everywhere. I saw every specialist, every healer. There was no hope. Valerie suffered so much; she cried in my arms more times than I can count. Only I truly understand her pain.” “I promised her I’d save her. I swore I’d find a way. I can’t live in a world without her, Maren. She’s the sun. Without her, my world goes dark.” “When I found out what you were, I had this… premonition. A feeling that you were the answer. You were the one who could change our destiny.” So that was why there was no anesthesia. That was why he had played the part of the perfect partner for three years. Every “I love you,” every shared meal, every quiet moment—it was all a long con to gain my trust so he could harvest me like a crop. How could he? I let out a raw, animalistic scream. For the first time in centuries, I lost my composure. I lashed out, cursing him with every breath I had left. I was used to death—it was the white noise of my existence—but I couldn’t swallow this. I would have preferred it if he had just been a common thief. The double weight of the betrayal and the physical agony pushed me into a state of delirium. My body began to seize, my limbs twisting in a gruesome, unnatural way, but Nathan held me down with a firm, steady grip. He kept talking, trying to soothe me with words that were nothing short of monstrous. “Just hold on, Maren. Just a little longer. I know you’ve done this a thousand times. You’ve seen every kind of pain there is. This is just one more. You can handle it.” “You’ve been looking for a way out of your immortality, right? Well, I’m helping you. You help me save Valerie, and I help you end this ridiculous cycle. It’s a win-win.” “You save her, and I’ll help you finish this. I’ll keep loving you, in a way. I’ll remember you forever. You’ll live on through Valerie. Isn’t that a beautiful way to continue?” I looked at him through a red haze. The pain was so sharp I bit through my tongue, spraying a mouthful of blood across my lips. Nathan, seemingly afraid I would kill myself before the harvest was complete, didn’t hesitate to shove his own hand into my mouth for me to bite on. “It’s okay, Maren. Shh. I’m right here. Just stay with me. The doctors said the organs take better if the donor isn’t sedated. It ensures the ‘vitality’ transfers. It’s going to be over soon.” For a split second, the way he held me—the tenderness in his voice—felt like I was on a delivery bed, and we were about to welcome a child into the world. But it was a hallucination. A sick, twisted lie. I let out a jagged, hollow laugh, the last of my faith in humanity curdling into ash. I bit down on his hand as hard as I could and spat blood into his face. “If you know what I am,” I hissed, “then you should know what happens when someone takes the flesh and blood of an eternal. I’m warning you, Nathan. Stop this now. You cannot handle the consequences.” Then, the darkness finally took me. I don’t know how long I was under. When I woke up, I was submerged. I have died and returned countless times. Usually, twenty-four hours after the lights go out, I claw my way back. I’ve woken up in morgue lockers, in shallow graves, in the damp filth of sewers. As long as the world keeps spinning, even if I were burned to a stray atom, I would reform. This time, I was in a large glass vat filled with formaldehyde. My hollowed-out body was soaking in it like a bath, my cells slowly knitting themselves back together. I couldn’t move yet, but I could hear. Nathan’s voice drifted over, cold and clinical. He was standing nearby. He leaned over the vat to look at me. In the reflection of his pupils, I saw what I had become. It was horrific. My five-foot-seven frame had shriveled, curled into a ball of raw muscle and bone. I didn’t even look human anymore. Every usable organ was gone. They all belonged to Valerie now. Nathan sounded satisfied. There was a lilt in his voice I had never heard before. “She shouldn’t be able to come back from this, right? Not in this state. There’s nothing left but a skeleton and a head. There’s no fuel for a resurrection.” The surgeon, a man who clearly lacked a soul, nodded. “I doubt it. She’s not even viable for scientific study at this point. So, the remains…” Nathan didn’t hesitate. “To be safe, cremate what’s left. Scatter the ashes to the four winds. I want to make sure she stays gone. That’s the only way Valerie can safely inherit the estate.” The doctor was apparently a jack-of-all-trades—organ harvester and body disposer. They chatted about my disposal as if they were discussing what to do with a stray dog. Once my fate was settled, they moved on to Valerie’s recovery. Nathan’s tone turned ecstatic. “The eternal’s organs are incredible,” he whispered. “I thought she’d have a long, painful rejection period. But she was sitting up the next morning.” “More than that,” the doctor added. “The integration is seamless. Her healing rate is off the charts. She’s… vibrant. It’s astounding.” “We’ve already talked,” Nathan said, his voice bright. “In three days, we move to the next step.” The next step? He hadn’t mentioned a next step. I wanted to hear more, but Nathan’s phone buzzed. It was Valerie. Her voice came through the speaker—soft, sweet, and full of life. She wanted a strawberry cake. She was hungry, her appetite was back, and she sounded perfectly healthy. Nathan sounded like a man possessed by joy. “You little glutton,” he teased. “You just get your life back and all you want is cake?” Valerie giggled. “There are other things I want, but since you aren’t here, I’m trying not to think about them…” Nathan smiled, the kind of smile he used to give me. “I’m coming over now. Why don’t you start thinking about exactly what you want? Hmm?” Listening to them, my heart—or the space where my heart used to be—turned to ice. My body began to regenerate faster. Something was punching through my raw chest, cell by cell, knitting together a new heart. I felt a ghost of a smile pull at my lips. I could feel the rhythmic thrum of a pulse. The heart that had loved Nathan had been cut out and thrown into another woman. It took the love and the heartbreak with it. This new heart? It didn’t feel anything for him. No pain. No love. Only a cold, calculating desire to see the results of his “miracle.” I waited in that vat for hours, watching my body fill out. Thirty minutes before the doctor was scheduled to come and take me to the crematorium, I shattered the glass and stepped out. When the doctor found the empty vat, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He scrambled for his phone, his voice shaking as he called Nathan.

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In this house, excellence was my scarlet letter. It was a simple, twisted rule of physics: because my younger sister, Bella, was perpetually stuck in second place, the universe had to bend to accommodate her fragility. My mother, terrified of bruising Bella’s ego, funneled everything—designer clothes, the best snacks, the leaked exam prep sheets—directly to her. When the semester finals were posted, I was Valedictorian material. Again. Bella locked herself in her room and wept for three days. My mother, too busy coaxing her out with hot cocoa and promises, forgot my eighteenth birthday entirely. The day after, my mother walked into the principal’s office and reported me. She claimed I had hacked into her laptop—she was a teacher at our school—and stolen the test answers. She told them my ranking was built on fraud. I tried to explain. I begged her to look at my study notes. But she just waved a dismissive hand, her voice airy and detached. “A mother reporting her own child? That is the ultimate proof, Norah. Who would doubt me when I’m sacrificing my own flesh and blood for the sake of integrity? Don’t waste your breath.” She leaned in, her eyes hard. “Just admit it. Make your sister feel better. Let the whole family have a peaceful New Year.” Fine. If my words held no weight. Then perhaps my life would be heavy enough to tip the scales, Mom. 1 School let out late for the winter break. My little farce of a scandal didn’t last long before the holidays swallowed it whole. I chose a good day to die. On New Year’s Day, the city hosts a massive fireworks display over the river. Leaving this world amidst the noise and the light seemed poetic. The headlines would be spectacular. That morning, my parents were bustling around, preparing the annual “Merit Bonus”—our family’s twisted version of a holiday allowance. Every year, Bella got more. I got less. I wasn’t looking forward to the ritual. But today, Mom announced a change. The envelopes would be distributed strictly based on academic performance. I looked at her with skepticism. She doubled down, emphasizing that this was about “absolute fairness” and that the “unfortunate cheating incident” wouldn’t be counted against me here, since the school hadn’t officially expelled me yet. I was surprised. A little elated, even. On my very last day in this house, I was finally going to earn the reward that belonged to me by right. It felt like a small mercy before the end. With a trembling hand, I opened my velvet box. Inside, sitting in the center of the plush lining, was a single, rusted penny. I froze. I turned my head to look at Bella’s box. In front of her sat a thick stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills. Ten thousand dollars. My throat felt like I’d swallowed glass. “Mom… you mixed up the boxes.” Mom was holding her phone up, recording Bella’s reaction for Instagram. She didn’t even look at me. “No mix-up.” “You get first place every time because of talent, Norah. And that talent? Your father and I gave you that. It’s genetic.” She zoomed in on Bella’s teary, happy face. “But Bella’s second place? She stayed up all night crying and studying for that. She fought for it.” “Effort is the only thing worth rewarding.” I watched them—the picture-perfect mother and daughter posing with the cash. The blood drained from my face. I couldn’t process her logic. Did I not try? The only difference was that Bella liked to nap during class and then performatively burn the midnight oil at home, making her struggle visible. “Oh, stop with the funeral face. It’s a holiday,” Mom snapped, suddenly looming over me, arms crossed. The impatience in her eyes stung worse than the slap. “Haven’t you had enough glory at school?” ” The Honor Roll certificates, the scholarships, the trophies—when have you ever gone without? And now you come home and want to fight your sister for a little pocket money?” I closed my eyes, taking a steadying breath. “Mom, it’s not about the money…” “I think it is,” she cut me off, her voice ice-cold. “You are so selfish. You want to monopolize everything. You want the honor, you want the praise, and now you want to snatch this joy from Bella too?” “Did you see how late Bella stayed up? Four in the morning!” “And you? You come home, listen to your French tapes, and you’re asleep by eleven.” “What makes you think you deserve the same as her?” My explanation came out in a rush, desperate and jagged. “That’s not true, Mom. I don’t waste a single minute during the day. I study through lunch, I use every break between classes, I—” “Enough!” “Don’t stand there and brag about your natural gifts. If you hadn’t selfishly absorbed all the nutrients in the womb, maybe Bella would be the one in first place.” “Let me tell you something, Norah. The cheapest thing in this world is effortless intelligence.” I clenched the rusty penny until the copper edge cut into my palm. Mom turned her back on me, her voice instantly softening into honey as she addressed Bella. “Bella, honey, go try on that new red dress. Your Aunt Sarah is coming over later. Let’s make sure you look stunning.” “Okay!” Bella chirped, gathering her stack of cash. As she skipped past me, she shot me a quick, victorious smirk. 2 We had a tradition of a big family dinner on New Year’s Day. By early afternoon, the house was full. Bella, radiant in her new designer dress, flitted through the crowd, collecting compliments like flowers. Only Aunt Sarah noticed me sitting in the shadows. “Why is Norah so quiet? It’s a party, honey. Why the long face?” The room went silent. All eyes pivoted to me. Mom laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, she’s just having a tantrum.” She recounted the story of the Merit Bonus in a few sentences, shaking her head at the end. “That child, her heart is so small. The school just gave her a brand new laptop for her mid-terms—even with the cheating allegations, they let her keep it.” “And she comes home and fights Bella for cash. She says we’re unfair.” I couldn’t help it. “I didn’t cheat.” Aunt Sarah laughed, trying to smooth things over. “Norah, listen to me. Your mom is doing this for your own good. Getting caught cheating now is a blessing. Better to learn the lesson now than during SATs.” My aunt chimed in, “You used to get first place without cheating, Norah. Why go down this crooked path?” “Your sister is always second, but she never looks for shortcuts. You should learn from Bella.” My uncle sipped his tea, looking sage. “Let’s say you didn’t cheat. Fine. Even if you got first place on your own, you should still let your sister have the money.” “You earn rewards and praise at school. Bella earns them at home. That’s fair. Stop being difficult.” My father and the other relatives nodded in agreement. “Norah is just too calculating.” “You know how these academic types are… arrogant.” The chorus of voices was indifferent and piercing. Fair? The weights Mom had placed on my side of the scale all these years were lighter than that rusty penny. When I was ten, I won Gold in the State Writing Contest. The committee gave me a heavy, gold-plated medal. Bella, who had placed Honorable Mention, was upset. She demanded my medal. I gave it to her. Five minutes later, she tried to throw it in the trash compactor. I tackled her to get it back. Bella fell. She screamed like she was being murdered. Mom came running, scooped her up, and screamed at me. “Why can’t you just let her play with it? It’s just a piece of metal!” “I worked hard for that! She tried to throw it away…” “Win, win, win. That’s all you care about!” She cut me off. “Can’t you just let your sister be happy for once?” The next day, sitting on the most prominent shelf in the living room, was a crystal trophy. The engraving read, in swirling script: To Bella, The World’s Best Girl. At twelve, I placed in the Math Olympiad. The school gave me a hardbound set of classic literature. Bella wanted to read them. I lent them to her. She dog-eared the pages and used markers to draw on the text. Heartbroken, I hid the books on top of my wardrobe. When Mom found them, she mocked me for being stingy. The next day, three different sets of Encyclopedia Britannica, leather-bound with gold leaf, appeared in Bella’s room. Fourteen. Sixteen… Every time, my hard-won honors became the justification for Bella receiving a grander gift. It was as if my excellence was an active assault on my sister. An injury that required financial compensation. I wondered, quietly, what kind of fairness I would receive after I died. 3 Dinner was lavish. The round table groaned under the weight of the dishes. “Hey,” Mom spun the lazy Susan until the poached shrimp were in front of me. “Pass this to your Aunt Sarah.” I reached out. “Hey, the sauce,” Dad pointed to the condiment caddy near my elbow. I slid it over silently. “Hey, get another pair of serving forks. These fell on the floor,” Mom commanded. I got up, went to the kitchen, and retrieved a clean pair. I sat back down, placed the forks on the turntable, and spun it gently to the center. Across the table, my five-year-old cousin, Sophie, stared at me for a long time. Then, she tilted her head, her voice ringing out with the pure, brutal curiosity of a child. “Cousin… do you not have a name?” The dining room went dead silent for a second. The glass in my hand trembled. Shame, hot and liquid, flooded my chest. “Sophie! Don’t be rude!” Aunt Sarah quickly covered her daughter’s mouth, smiling awkwardly at me. “Kids say the darndest things. We live out of state, she hasn’t seen you in forever.” My other aunt ruffled Sophie’s hair. “Of course your cousin has a name. It’s Norah. Like… like ‘ignore-a’ without the ‘ig’. Just kidding! It’s a lovely name.” I lowered my head, a bitter smile touching my lips. Mom didn’t seem bothered at all. She waved her hand. “She’s just a baby. It’s cute.” The conversation moved on. Laughter resumed. Everyone thought it was just a funny little interlude. An innocent misunderstanding. Only I sat there, my hand shaking so hard I couldn’t lift my forks. Because I knew Sophie wasn’t wrong. In this house, I truly didn’t have a name. It started the year Bella took the high school entrance exams and came in second. Again. She locked herself in her room and cried all afternoon. After hours of coaxing, she told my parents why. She had heard classmates talking. “People only remember the name of the person who came in first. Nobody cares about second place.” My parents, heartbroken by her tears, made a decision. From that day on, the name “Norah” was erased from our household. They called me “Hey.” They called me “Big Sister.” They called me “You there.” At first, I fought it. “Mom, my name is Norah.” Mom would frown, annoyed. “Why are you so difficult? It’s all the same. You know I’m talking to you, don’t you?” “The school PA system announces your name every day. Isn’t that enough for your ego?” Her sarcasm made it impossible to argue. So, I got used to turning my head at “Hey.” I got used to being a transparent entity, a pronoun instead of a person. Because remembering the winner hurts the loser. So my existence had to be blurred out. Laughter surrounded me. Glasses clinked. But I was freezing. The pity in little Sophie’s eyes… I don’t think I would have forgotten it, even if I lived to be a hundred. “Hey, why aren’t you eating?” Mom’s voice. I looked up. She was frowning at me, impatient. This time, I didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Soon, my name would be in every newspaper in the city. People would remember it then. 4 As the time for the fireworks approached, the living room became a chaotic flurry of coats and boots. “Norah, are you really not coming?” Aunt Sarah asked one last time. I shook my head. “She wouldn’t dare,” Bella whispered as she laced up her boots. “Half the school will be at the plaza. She’s afraid of the shame.” Mom’s hands paused as she wrapped her scarf, but she said nothing. The door clicked shut. The voices faded down the hallway. I sat in the silence. I opened my laptop and scheduled the post explaining everything. I set the timer. Then, I walked out into the night. The closer I got to the river, the louder the explosions became. The sky was stained with violently changing colors—neon greens, burning oranges. Beautiful and fake. Cheers drifted from the distant plaza. The dark water of the river churned beneath my feet, reflecting the carnage in the sky. There were fireworks in the water, too—broken, shimmering, like a parallel world celebrating something I couldn’t see. Running from one noise to another. It seemed fitting. I gripped the railing. I didn’t hesitate. I vaulted over. The sound of my body hitting the water was swallowed by a thunderous boom overhead. The cold was instantaneous. It wrapped around me like a shroud. As I sank, the air in my lungs burned away. In those final moments, a memory flashed—vivid and bright. I was three years old. I had brought home my first “Good Job” sticker from preschool. Mom, young and beautiful, put down her papers. She scooped me up, burying her face in my neck, kissing me. “Our Norah is so smart! My wonderful girl!” She did love me, once. But we had both forgotten that a long time ago. Darkness took the rest. When consciousness returned, I was floating. It turns out, the soul survives. The realization made me want to laugh, but I had no voice. I drifted. Not long after, my body washed up on a shallow bank, wedged between jagged rocks. A night jogger found me. He screamed. He called 911. He flagged down others. “It’s a student. Wearing a uniform.” “Oh god, on New Year’s Day…” “Pull her up! Is she breathing?” “She’s gone. Look at her face…” The news spread through the crowd like a virus. More people gathered. Hovering in the air, I saw them. Mom and Bella. “What’s happening over there?” Mom asked a bystander. “Think a student jumped in the river. They pulled her out, but she’s dead.” “They said she’s wearing a Prep High uniform. Terrible. The pressure at that school is insane.” Mom frowned. Genuine worry and teacherly concern washed over her face. “Prep High? Did she have a fight with her parents? Who kills themselves on a holiday?” She muttered to herself, anxious. “I hope it’s not one of my students…” Bella tugged at her hand. “Mom, let’s go. It’s freezing.” “Wait.” Mom pulled her hand away, pushing toward the crowd. “I need to check. If it’s one of mine…” She pushed past one person, then another. “Excuse me. Let me through.” “I’m a teacher at the high school. It might be my student…” The crowd parted for her. She walked closer. Until she could see the body on the muddy bank, half-covered by a silver thermal blanket. Mom stopped dead.

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I was lying in bed, the heavy swell of my pregnancy weighing me down, doom-scrolling through local news on my phone, when a push notification slid across the top of the screen. [Local Breaking News: Green-wood Heights Wife-Killer Apprehended. Suspect brutally stabbed his pregnant wife to death after she refused intimacy.] My thumb hovered over the screen. A cold drop of unease landed in my stomach. I tapped the notification. The timestamp on the article was dated tomorrow. And the name of the murderer was my husband. I stared at the screen, convincing myself it was a glitch, a sick prank, some algorithm gone wrong. Then I saw the photo. It was our wedding picture. My face was heavily pixelated to protect the victim’s identity, but the man standing next to me, smiling that charming, practiced smile, was unmistakable. My heart hammered against my ribs, skipping a beat. At that exact moment, the bedroom door creaked open. My husband stood in the doorway. He licked his lips, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up. “Hey, babe. I need you tonight.” 1 “Bennett… I—I’m not feeling great. The baby is kicking up a storm.” My voice trembled, fracturing under the weight of the headline burned into my retinas. Bennett’s smile didn’t drop, but it hardened. The warmth evaporated from his eyes, replaced by a sharp, jagged impatience. “Not feeling well? Again? What is it this time, Claire? What kind of drama are we playing at now?” I froze. Bennett never spoke to me like that. He was the picture of patience, the man who brought me ice water at 2:00 AM. Before I could stammer out a defense, he crossed the room in two long strides and seized my wrist. His grip was iron. “Is there someone else? Is that it? Is that why you have a new excuse every single night to keep me away?” I gasped, the pain in my wrist sharp and immediate. A dark, suffocating dread washed over me. The news article… it wasn’t a glitch. I scrambled backward, trying to kick myself off the mattress, desperate to put distance between us. But he was impossibly strong. He yanked me back, throwing me down against the sheets with a violence that knocked the wind out of me. My stomach hit the mattress. A blinding bolt of pain shot through my abdomen. Bennett didn’t even blink. He scanned the room, his eyes landing on the nightstand. He grabbed the paring knife I’d used earlier to slice an apple. The metal was cool against the frantic pulse in my neck. “If you’re so unwilling,” he whispered, his voice devoid of humanity, “then I’ll just send you and that bastard child on your way.” The pain was white-hot. Warmth flooded my chest. I stared up at his face—twisted, unrecognizable—as the room began to dissolve into shadows. … My eyes snapped open. I bolted upright in bed, my lungs heaving, gasping for air like a drowning woman breaking the surface. I looked down. My chest was smooth. My skin was unbroken. My phone screen was still glowing in the dark room. The time had jumped back ten minutes. And then, the notification slid down from the top of the screen again. The bloody headline. Click. The bedroom door handle turned. The same face appeared. The same predatory smile. The same bone-chilling words. “Hey, babe. I need you tonight.” 2 This time, I didn’t fight. I forced my breathing to slow. I plastered a weak, apologetic smile onto my face and softened my voice to a whisper. “Honey, the baby is really restless tonight. I’m completely drained. Can we… can we take a rain check?” I thought gentleness might buy me time. A negotiation. But the contempt on his face arrived even faster than before. “That same old line. Claire, do you think I’m an idiot? Do you get off on playing me?” He stalked toward the bed, the obsession in his eyes dialing up to a fever pitch. “Claire, do you even love me anymore?” I didn’t get a chance to answer. He lunged at me like a feral animal. But I was ready. I rolled off the other side of the bed, landing heavy on my feet. He crashed into the mattress, grabbing at empty air. Humiliated and enraged, he snatched the paring knife from the nightstand. It’s over, I thought. I’m going to die again. He raised the knife, the blade catching the moonlight. In that split second, my eyes locked onto his hand—specifically, the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. There was a faint, jagged brown birthmark. My pupils dilated. Bennett didn’t have a birthmark there. The only person who had that mark was his twin brother. Cole. Bennett and Cole were identical physically, but that was where the similarities ended. Bennett was polished, successful, the golden boy. Cole was dark, erratic, a volatile recluse. I had always been terrified of him. Because their parents were deeply superstitious—believing twins brought bad fortune—Cole had been sent away to live with a grandmother in rural Pennsylvania. He didn’t come back until college. He wasn’t close to us. He wasn’t even close to Bennett. Why was Cole pretending to be his brother to kill me? And where was the real Bennett? A million terrifying questions misfired in my brain, but survival instinct took over. I tried to run. I wasn’t fast enough. The knife found its mark again. Precise. Fatal. 3 Third awakening. I didn’t wait. I launched myself out of bed, slammed the bedroom door, and twisted the lock. An instant later, the handle jiggled violently from the outside. My phone lit up. The nightmare notification arrived on schedule. “Babe, open the door.” I leaned my back against the wood, my heart hammering against my spine. My shaking fingers dialed Bennett’s number. It rang twice before he picked up. “Claire?” Bennett’s voice came through the speaker, warm but laced with exhaustion. Tears instantly flooded my eyes. “Bennett…” “I am so sorry, honey. We hit a crisis with the merger. I’m going to be stuck at the office late. Don’t wait up, okay? Get some sleep.” My heart plummeted into the icy pit of my stomach. The person outside the door was definitely Cole. A heavy thud shook the doorframe. Cole’s voice was losing the facade, becoming jagged and frantic. “Claire! Open this door! What the hell are you doing?” I spoke rapidly into the phone, barely whispering. “Bennett, listen to me. Whatever you hear, do not come home. Call the police! Send help now!” I hung up. I took a deep breath, faced the vibrating door, and screamed with everything I had left: “COLE!” The pounding stopped instantly. One second. Two seconds. Then, a sound like thunder. “How did you know?” The wood splintered. A massive crack appeared in the center of the door. He had a fire axe from the hallway. He swung it again and again, wood chips exploding into the room. Through the jagged hole, Cole’s eye stared at me, manic and cold. “Well, sister-in-law,” he laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “Since the cat’s out of the bag, I guess I can stop pretending. You die tonight.” 4 Fourth loop. I lay in bed, my body cold as marble. I had less than five minutes before Cole walked through that door. I forced the panic down. I needed a plan. I needed a weapon. But I was heavily pregnant; in a physical struggle for a knife, I would lose. He was stronger, faster, and unburdened by a nine-pound baby. My eyes darted around the room, landing on the vanity. In the bottom drawer, tucked behind my skincare, was a canister of pepper gel. I’d bought it months ago after reading about a robbery nearby. I moved fast. I grabbed the canister and slid it under the duvet, gripping it tight in my right hand. I didn’t lock the door. Instead, I walked over and cracked it open just an inch. I got back into bed, heart thundering. When Cole walked in, I didn’t wait for his line. I pulled the duvet down to reveal my shoulder, tilting my head, giving him a sleepy, inviting smile. “Honey, you’re finally home. I’ve been waiting for you.” Cole froze. He stood in the doorway, the script in his head malfunctioning. I sat up, letting the strap of my silk nightgown slip down my arm. I curled my finger at him. “What are you standing there for? Come here.” The suspicion in his eyes warred with something else. Lust. He walked to the bed, his guard dropping. He thought this was going to be easy. He thought he’d won. He leaned over me, his face inches from mine. I pulled the canister from under the sheets, aimed for his eyes, and depressed the trigger. “AHH! GOD! MY EYES!” The scream tore through the house. Cole collapsed onto the bed, thrashing, clawing at his face as the chemical burn set his skin on fire. Now. I rolled off the bed and ran. Adrenaline numbed the heaviness of my body. Hallway. Living room. Foyer. The front door. I grabbed the handle and twisted. Locked. I looked down. A heavy-duty padlock had been installed on the inside of the door. Behind me, the screaming had stopped. Heavy, stumbling footsteps were coming down the hall. “Heh… well played, Claire. You really… you really surprised me.” I froze. 5 I turned around slowly. Cole was leaning against the hallway wall, one hand covering his streaming eyes, the other steadying his swaying body. His face was a mask of red, inflamed skin. “Run,” he rasped, stepping into the living room light. “Why aren’t you running?” He laughed, a wet, ugly sound. “You thought a little pepper spray would stop me?” I looked at the padlock, hope draining out of me like water. “Cole, why?” I asked, backing away toward the kitchen. “Bennett is your brother. I’m your family.” I needed him talking. I needed a way out. “Brother?” Cole spat the word out. “When has he ever treated me like a brother? Since we were kids, he got everything. Mom and Dad’s love, the Ivy League degree, the career. And now? He gets you. The trophy wife.” His face twisted, ugly with decades of rot. “Why him? What does he have that I don’t?” “So you kill me? You think killing me gets you his life?” “Killing you doesn’t get me the life,” Cole smirked, wiping mucus from his nose. “But it destroys his. He’ll be the husband who snapped. The murderer. He loses his reputation, his freedom, everything. And me? I’ll finally watch him suffer while I spend his money.” I understood. This wasn’t just murder. It was usurpation. He wanted to wear Bennett’s skin. “You’re insane.” “Insane? You’re about to join the club.” He lunged. I screamed, dodging behind the kitchen island. We circled the granite countertop. But I was slow. Too slow. He cornered me against the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was nowhere left to go. The paring knife appeared in his hand again. “Stop struggling, Claire. Just accept it.” I stared at him. The proximity of death clarified everything. My mind sharpened into a diamond point. “Wait!” I shouted. “You think destroying him gets you his money? You idiot. Bennett’s company is underwater! The merger failed. The funding dried up. He’s on the brink of bankruptcy!” I was gambling. “If you take his identity now, all you’re inheriting is twenty million dollars in debt and a potential prison sentence for fraud.” I watched his face. He hesitated. “You’re lying.” “Am I? Why do you think he’s been up till 4:00 AM every night? Why do you think he’s so stressed? Check the financial news, Cole. It’s all there.” I was planting a seed. Doubt. It was working. The knife lowered an inch. Then, his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his phone. He answered it, putting it on speaker without taking his eyes off me. A voice filled the room. A voice I knew better than my own. “Cole, is it done? Is she dead yet?” My world stopped. 6 The silence in the room was deafening. I stared at the caller ID on Cole’s screen: Bennett. Bennett’s voice was high-pitched, frantic. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Did you do it? Don’t forget the deal, Cole. Once she’s gone, the ten-million-dollar life insurance payout hits the account. We split it fifty-fifty. That covers the company’s debt and sets you up for life.” Cole hung up the phone. A slow, cruel grin spread across his burned face. “Hear that, Claire? Your perfect husband. He sold you out for a check.” “He planned the whole thing. He knows exactly what I’m doing. Hell, he gave me the key.” Something inside me shattered. It wasn’t the fear of death anymore. It was the total annihilation of my reality. Bennett. The man who rubbed my feet. The man who cried when we saw the ultrasound. He wanted me dead. He wanted our child dead. For money. That’s why the notification was real. Bennett was the murderer. He just outsourced the labor. The betrayal was so absolute it felt physical, like he had reached inside my chest and crushed my lungs. “Why…” I whispered. “Why?” Cole mocked, stepping closer. “Because he loves you, Claire. He loves you so much he couldn’t bear to do it himself. So he sent big bad brother Cole to do the dirty work.” He raised the knife. “You can die happy now. Your death saves the company. You’re a hero.” I looked at him. The tears dried up. The heartbreak calcified into something cold and hard. Screw love. If I had to crawl out of hell to drag them both down with me, I would do it. 7 Fifth loop. I didn’t cry. I lay in bed and waited for the knife. My enemy wasn’t just Cole. It was the two of them. A united front. I couldn’t fight them physically. I had to make them turn on each other. Cole arrived. I didn’t act. “Do it,” I said. He paused, confused by my resignation, but stabbed me anyway. Sixth loop. Seventh loop. Eighth loop. I used each death to study them. To perfect the timing. To analyze the cracks in their relationship. Bennett’s greed and paranoia. Cole’s inferiority complex and rage. Those were my weapons. Ninth loop. I was ready. Before Cole entered, I grabbed my phone. I sent an anonymous email to Bennett’s work address. Subject: Warning. Body: Watch your brother. He plans to keep the money for himself. I deleted the sent mail. I opened the voice recorder app and set it to record. The door handle turned. Cole walked in. Before he could speak, I cut him off. “You’re not Bennett. I know you’re Cole.” He blinked, stunned, then sneered. “So you know. Does it matter?” “I know you and Bennett planned this together. For the ten million dollars.” Cole flinched. He stepped forward, reaching for my throat. I held up the phone, screen facing him. “I’m recording.” He lunged, snatched the phone, smashed it onto the hardwood floor, and stomped on it until the glass was dust. “You think breaking the phone helps?” I said, my voice steady. “I set that recording to auto-upload to a cloud server. If I don’t enter a passcode in three hours, it gets emailed to my best friend, Harper. She goes to the cops.” “Guess who goes down for conspiracy to commit murder? I know you want to replace Bennett, let him take the fall. But think about it… before you walked in, did I record an intro? Did I send Bennett a message telling him I know about your side deal? If he thinks you’re a liability… do you really think he’ll let you live?” I laughed. It was a dark, jagged sound. “Your ending won’t be much better than mine.” Cole stopped breathing. He stared at me, and for the first time, I saw it. Fear. Not of the police. Of Bennett. “You…” He shook with rage, raising the knife. “Kill me,” I said, closing my eyes. “Kill me, and the email goes out. The recording drops. You both rot in prison. Or worse.” The knife hovered in the air.

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