The gala for my father’s seventieth birthday had just wound down.
Deep in the night, my phone buzzed frantically. It was my husband, Mark.
His voice crackled with panic on the other end. “Max, something terrible has happened! Our lead investor just skipped town with all the money. I have to get out of the country, lie low for a while. Don’t, under any circumstances, try to contact me!”
In an instant, every trace of sleep vanished. I forced my voice to remain calm, telling him to be safe.
The moment I hung up, I didn’t hesitate. I called the bank’s 24-hour hotline and froze every single card and account under my husband’s name.
The irony was almost funny. The so-called “lead investor” who had supposedly vanished with our fortune was, at that very moment, passed out drunk in the room next to mine.
He was my father.
And I was very, very curious to see just how long he and my husband planned to keep up this elaborate “bankruptcy” charade.
1
I booked the first flight I could.
When I arrived at the luxury resort he was supposedly hiding out in, I found him at the entrance of a grand ballroom. He was dressed in a sharp tuxedo, and on his arm was my close friend, Jessica, glowing in a white wedding gown. They were greeting guests.
His eyes widened in panic when he saw me. He stumbled down the steps, rushing towards me.
“Max, let me explain. Jessica’s father is critically ill. His dying wish is to see her married.”
He grabbed my arm, his voice a desperate whisper. “I’m just acting, that’s all. It’s just a performance for her dad.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I yanked my arm free and slapped him hard across the face.
“A performance?” I spat, my voice dripping with ice. “Should I chip in for a wedding gift, then? Help you really sell it?”
The surrounding guests were already starting to whisper and point. Jessica, seeing the commotion, flushed with a mixture of shame and anger. Then, as if on cue, tears welled in her eyes, expertly casting her as the victim and me as the intruder.
“Miss Aston,” she began, her voice trembling beautifully, “I know you’ve always been obsessed with Mark, to the point of developing… delusions. I feel for you, I truly do. But this is my wedding day. Please, don’t be so aggressive. You can’t force someone to love you.”
Mark nodded, playing along. “Whatever you have to say, we can talk about it at home after the ceremony. Be good, Max. Don’t make a scene.”
Even now, all he could think about was continuing with this sham of a wedding.
I laughed, a harsh, grating sound. My eyes scanned Jessica, and then I saw it, glittering around her neck.
It was my necklace. A one-of-a-kind emerald piece worth ten million dollars. The very one I had reported stolen months ago.
“No wonder you were paying her a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-month salary,” I seethed, the pieces clicking into place with sickening clarity. “You two have been screwing around behind my back for God knows how long!”
“And my designer bags, my jewelry that went ‘missing’… you stole them all for her, didn’t you?” I raked my gaze over Jessica with contempt. “One of you steals, the other one wears it. You’re a match made in hell, you pair of scumbags.”
The crowd erupted in a mix of gasps and laughter, phones already out and recording.
Jessica stomped her foot, her face a mask of fury. She fumbled in her purse and triumphantly produced a marriage certificate, shoving it in my face.
“Open your eyes and look! Mark and I are legally married!” she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me, high on her momentary victory. “She’s sick in the head! She throws herself at any man who looks her way. My husband is just her latest obsession!”
The crowd’s murmurs shifted. A few men started looking me up and down with leering eyes, one of them letting out a low whistle.
“Hey, baby, you that desperate? The guy’s married. My room’s just upstairs if you need to scratch an itch…”
One of them was bold enough to reach for my arm. I snatched a wine bottle from a nearby table and brandished it, making him recoil.
I pointed the jagged neck of the bottle at Mark, my voice low and dangerous. “I’m giving you one last chance. Me, or her. Who is your wife?”
Mark’s gaze flickered, and his next words plunged a shard of ice into my heart.
“My only wife is Jessica,” he said, his voice cold and final. “Now, you’re going to apologize to her, or so help me, I will have you committed.”
Jessica clung to Mark’s arm, her face a picture of tearful gratitude, and shot me a look of pure triumph. “Darling, don’t waste your breath on a psycho. She’s not worth it.”
Looking at their disgusting, triumphant faces, something inside me snapped. I raised the bottle, ready to bring it crashing down on them both. If I was going to hell, I was dragging them with me.
But Mark was faster. He kicked out, not at the bottle, but at me. As I stumbled, he lunged forward, stomping on the back of my hand with all his weight. His eyes were filled with a chilling malice.
“Jessica is my life,” he snarled. “You hurt her, and I’ll make you pay a hundred times over.”
A sickening crack echoed in the ballroom.
A dull, throbbing agony shot up my arm, stealing my breath. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead.
Jessica, ever the actress, rushed to his side, tugging on his arm. “Mark, stop! It’s our wedding day. If something bad happens, it’ll be a terrible omen. Just… just make her kneel and apologize. That’s enough.”
Mark nodded, his tone dripping with magnanimous condescension. “You hear that? Get on your knees and apologize. Do it now, or you’re going straight to an asylum.”
The loathing in his eyes was a physical blow. My heart felt like it had turned to stone. This was the man I’d given my youth to. My first love.
Seven years. Our seven years of history were nothing against the test of time.
I fumbled for my phone, my fingers clumsy and shaking. I opened my photo gallery and pulled up a picture of our marriage license, and a photo from our wedding day.
“This is proof we’re married,” I announced, my voice trembling with rage. “I’m reporting you for bigamy!”
In this country, bigamy was a serious crime. Prison time.
The crowd’s murmuring turned suspicious, their eyes darting between Mark and Jessica.
“That certificate she’s showing is dated seven years ago. Were they lying?”
“If he’s married to both, that’s a felony! He should be locked up!”
Jessica just smirked at me, a cruel, triumphant gleam in her eyes. She leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper.
“You still don’t get it, do you? Your marriage certificate with Mark… it’s a fake.”
“He promised me he would only ever truly love me. You were never worthy of legally being his wife.”
For a moment, the world went silent. Then, a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated fury surged through me. My entire seven-year marriage, my devotion, my sacrifices… it was all a joke.
I started to laugh, a broken, hysterical sound that quickly turned into sobs of despair. I stared at her, my vision blurred with tears of hatred.
I raised my good hand, not even sure what I intended to do, but before I could touch her, she let out a piercing shriek and threw herself backward onto the marble floor.
She clutched her stomach, her face contorted in agony.
“Mark! My stomach… the baby… our baby!”
Before I could even process the word “baby,” a brutal slap sent my head snapping to the side. My ears rang, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
Mark scooped Jessica into his arms, his eyes burning with a hatred so intense it scorched me.
“Jessica is pregnant with my child,” he roared. “If anything happens to that baby, I swear to God, I’ll make you pay with your life!”
I tried to speak, but only a bitter taste coated my tongue.
He was the one who said he never wanted kids. A DINK—double income, no kids—lifestyle, that’s what he’d preached. A child would only get in the way of “our life together.”
I’d believed him.
Now I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a child. He just didn’t want a child with me.
Jessica let out a panicked cry. “Get me to a hospital! Please, I think I’m losing the baby!”
Without a second glance at me, Mark turned and ran, carrying his precious cargo out of the ballroom.
The world tilted, and darkness swallowed me whole.
When I woke up, the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room greeted me. An IV was taped to my arm, but it wasn’t dripping fluid in. It was drawing blood out.
I tried to struggle, to sit up, but my body felt like lead.
Mark appeared at my bedside, looking down at my pathetic state with cold, detached eyes.
“Jessica’s losing a lot of blood,” he said flatly. “She needs a transfusion, and you’re a match. Consider it your way of atoning for what you did.”
A surge of adrenaline-fueled rage shot through me. “I didn’t push her!” I screamed, my voice raw.
His hand clamped around my throat, squeezing. “I have waited seven years for this child,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “I will not allow anything to happen to Jessica or my baby. If they don’t make it, I will burn you to ashes and scatter them to the wind.”
He held on until spots danced in my vision, then released me. I fell back against the pillow, gasping for air, overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of helplessness.
The blood loss made me dizzy, and I drifted into a groggy sleep.
I was pulled back to consciousness by the sound of a voice. I cracked my eyes open to see Jessica on the phone, her back to me.
“Yes, everything is arranged with the asylum,” she was saying. “The moment Max Wynton is stable, she’s to be transferred. I want her locked away for the rest of her miserable life.”
She noticed I was awake, ended the call, and walked over to my bed with a smirk. She poured a glass of water from the carafe on the nightstand. And then, she tipped it, sending a stream of scalding hot water onto my arm.
“This is what you get for crossing me,” she sneered.
I cried out, my body convulsing from the searing pain. I bit my lip until it bled, glaring at her through a haze of agony.
“You faked it all,” I rasped. “The fall, the miscarriage…”
She laughed, a loud, ugly sound. “And what if I did? Mark only believes what I tell him.” She placed a hand on her flat stomach, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “My baby could have been perfectly healthy. Such a shame I had that ‘accidental’ fall a few weeks ago that took care of it. Mark was so excited about being a father… I just had to find someone to blame, didn’t I?”
I trembled with a rage so profound it felt like it would tear me apart. “You’re a monster.”
Her smile widened. “And once you’re gone, all your assets will become mine.”
A cold dread washed over me. She wasn’t just planning to lock me away. She was planning to make sure I never left this hospital alive.
Using every last ounce of strength I possessed, I ripped the IV from my arm, scrambled out of bed, and shoved her aside. I had to escape.
But my body betrayed me. I was too weak. After only a few steps, my legs gave out and I collapsed in the hallway.
Jessica followed at a leisurely pace, giving my side a contemptuous kick. Seeing that I couldn’t even get up, she laughed.
“Go on, run. I thought you were so tough.” Her eyes glinted with a sadistic light. “You know, just getting rid of you would be too boring. Let’s play a little game.”
“I hear there’s a derelict part of town not too far from here. Full of… desperate men. How about we drop you off there?”
I recoiled in horror, scrambling backward. “You can’t do this. My father is—”
Before I could finish, she grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back and slapping me twice, hard.
“Your family? A bunch of ungrateful leeches!” she spat. “Every time Mark brought them gifts, they looked down on him. If it weren’t for Mark supporting your family all these years, do you think you could have lived the life of a wealthy housewife?”
My heart sank. The lie was so audacious it was almost brilliant.
Mark was a broke nobody when I met him. I used my own savings to fund his first start-up. My family never approved of him, which is why he barely had any contact with them. The few times he did visit, he brought a cheap basket of fruit. And “supporting” them was a joke. Without my father secretly investing millions into his company, he never would have gone public in seven years.
Her bodyguards dragged me out of the hospital and threw me into a car. We drove to the city’s dark, forgotten underbelly and they dumped me in a filthy alley.
She pulled out her phone and addressed the group of gaunt, hollow-eyed men who were already gathering, drawn by the commotion.
“Whoever shows her the best time,” she announced, her voice echoing in the grimy space, “gets half a million dollars.”
Instantly, four or five of them closed in, a predatory hunger in their eyes that made my stomach churn. I grabbed a loose brick, ready to defend myself.
“You will regret this!” I screamed at her.
She was unfazed. She even started a video call with Mark. My terrified, dishevelled image on the screen made him roar with laughter.
“Jessica, you’re too soft,” his voice tinny through the phone’s speaker. “She killed our baby. She should be rotting in a prison cell.”
Jessica sighed dramatically. “But she was with you for a time, Mark. I want to build up some good karma for our future children. She’s just so stubborn. If she had just knelt and begged for forgiveness, I wouldn’t have had to do this.”
Mark scoffed. “She’s a vindictive bitch. I’ve had enough of her. You know, Jessica, we’ll have to redo our wedding, but I promise you, this time, it will be the most extrMaxgant event this city has ever seen.”
They talked as if I wasn’t even there, as if my life wasn’t about to be destroyed. Any last flicker of hope I had for the man I once loved died in that filthy alley.
After hanging up, Jessica turned to the vagrants. “What are you waiting for? Get to it! If you don’t, you won’t see a single penny!”
With a primal scream, I surged forward, crashing into Jessica and knocking her to the ground. I threw all my weight on top of her, my hands finding her throat and squeezing.
“If I die, I’m taking you with me!” I shrieked.
For the first time, I saw real fear in her eyes. She clawed at my hands, choking and gasping for help.
Suddenly, Mark’s furious roar cut through the air. “Max, you’re dead!”
He must have rushed over after the call. He snatched a heavy rock from the ground and brought it down on the back of my head. The world exploded in a flash of white-hot pain as he kicked me off of Jessica.
It took a long moment for my vision to clear. When it did, I saw Mark glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.
“It wasn’t enough for you to kill our child, you had to try and kill her too,” he seethed. “This time, I won’t be lenient.”
He barked an order at his bodyguards. “Go get more of them. And call the local news stations. Tell them we’ve got a scoop. By the end of today, Max Wynton’s name will be synonymous with filth!”
Ignoring the blinding pain in my head, I tried to crawl away, to escape, but the bodyguards were on me in a second. They dragged me back, forcing me to my knees in front of Mark and Jessica.
Mark fussed over Jessica, gently brushing dust from her dress with a sanitized wipe, his touch full of tenderness. He wouldn’t even look at me.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he murmured to her. “I’ll get your revenge for you right now.”
Jessica, her eyes brimming with tears, clutched his hand and shook her head weakly. “I don’t blame her. As long as I can be with you, I’ll endure any hardship.”
I spat at her feet. “How many men have you pulled that routine on? How many backup plans do you have lined up after Mark?” I’d seen her getting cozy with other men at his office before; I’d just been too blind and trusting to see it for what it was.
Her act shattered. The tears became real, streaming down her face in angry torrents. “Mark, she’s humiliating me! I can’t live like this!” she wailed, turning as if to smash her head against the nearby brick wall.
Mark caught her, holding her tight, his face a thundercloud of fury directed at me.
“I’ve been too good to you,” he snarled. “You can live out the rest of your pathetic life in this gutter.” He gestured to his men. “Break her arms and legs.”
Panic seized me. I thrashed against their grip. “Mark, you’ll pay for this! As long as there is breath in my body, I will never let you get away with this!”
He let out a cold, dismissive laugh. “Oh, I’m waiting. I remember that old college flame of yours, the one who’s still single, waiting for you. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees the video of the great campus beauty, Max Wynton, begging for mercy under a pile of hobos. He probably won’t be able to eat for a week.”
I couldn’t believe it. To appease Jessica, he was willing to utterly and completely destroy me.
My joints were brutally dislocated. The physical agony was immense, but it was nothing compared to the searing pain in my soul. Tears streamed down my face, hitting the grimy pavement as memories of our seven years together flashed through my mind. The sweeter the memory, the more bitter the irony now.
I was a broken puppet, paralyzed on the ground, my eyes locked on Mark, burning with a helpless, venomous rage. He held Jessica, gazing down at my ruined form as if I were an insect.
The circle of men closed in, the stench of unwashed bodies and cheap liquor overwhelming me. Their greedy, lecherous stares made me want to vomit. My tears of terror only seemed to excite them more.
Jessica burrowed into Mark’s chest, her voice a sickly sweet murmur. “Mark, I can’t watch. It’s too scary.”
He covered her eyes with his hand, his voice a gentle caress. “I’ll watch for you, my love. I’ll watch her get the punishment she deserves. She could never compare to you, to your purity and kindness.”
My heart shattered into a million pieces.
I gritted my teeth, trying to writhe away like a worm, to escape their grasping hands. But they cornered me, my back against the cold, damp brick wall. There was nowhere left to run.
As they lunged, I squeezed my eyes shut.
I’d rather die than suffer this humiliation.
I was about to bite down on my own tongue, to end it all, when the piercing wail of sirens sliced through the night.
Seven, eight police cruisers swarmed the alley, their lights painting the scene in strobing flashes of red and blue.
In the middle of them all, a black Rolls-Royce, the kind that whispers of old money and untouchable power, glided to a silent stop.
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[System Alert: Critical deviation detected in Decade Vow core mission.]
[Marriage milestone: FAILED.]
[Host termination: 48 hours.]
The warnings pierced my mind just after Richard asked, with cruel gentleness, if I still wanted to try on my wedding dress.
Minutes earlier, he’d been adjusting my veil.
“I was next door keeping Wendy company,” he chuckled.
Then it clicked—that’s how he knew I’d gone to the club last night.
“She was so scared when she heard your voice, she had to sit on my lap the whole time,” he said, each word a blade.
I followed his gaze to Wendy, the girl I’d sponsored for years, now holding my crystal heels, eyes red with tears.
Moments before, she’d crouched at my feet, gushing, “If he ever breaks your heart, I’ll make him pay.”
Richard brushed my bodice, his tenderness now a mockery.
All the joy drained away, leaving only the System’s countdown and the weight of betrayal.
1
I stared at Richard, my throat tight and burning.
“Say that again.”
And he actually did. This time, he sounded even more composed.
“I was with her last night.”
“I was planning to keep it under wraps a little longer. But seeing her hold your wedding shoes just now… it hit me. She deserves an explanation too.”
I stood frozen, the words trapped in my chest.
Today wasn’t just my final fitting.
Today was the absolute deadline for the System to verify the success of my Decade Vow mission.
Ten years ago, I bound my soul to this System. The price was ten years of my lifespan. In exchange, I gave Richard a meteoric rise to power and saved the Prescott family from absolute bankruptcy.
The System only gave me one condition. I had to fulfill my marriage pact with Richard within ten years.
Today was supposed to be the finish line.
Instead, he chose today to shove me off a cliff.
I heard my own voice shaking.
“Why today?”
“Why did it have to be the day I put on my wedding dress?”
Richard remained silent for a heartbeat, but his gaze drifted right past me, landing softly on Wendy.
“Because she’s been by my side for a long time. She never asks for anything. She doesn’t even dare to ask for a title.”
“I refuse to let her suffer in silence anymore.”
A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips.
“And me?”
“What about my last ten years? What was all that for?”
His expression didn’t waver. It was as if he had rehearsed these answers a thousand times.
“It’s not like I’m backing out of the wedding.”
“It’s just that Wendy needs some closure, too.”
I looked at the man I loved, feeling my heart sink into a bottomless pit.
But I didn’t realize he could stoop even lower.
He met my eyes, his tone completely flat.
“When you took that fall down the stairs at the new house last month? That wasn’t an accident.”
“I took her to see our bridal mansion that day. She spilled some champagne and didn’t mop the floors properly. When you went up to check the lighting fixtures later, you slipped.”
My blood ran cold. My entire body turned to stone.
I nearly had a miscarriage that day. I spent the entire night clutching my ultrasound scans, too terrified to sleep, sobbing because I thought I had overworked myself with the wedding prep and failed to protect my baby.
Richard had held me tightly that night, kissing my forehead, telling me it was okay, begging me not to blame myself.
He wasn’t comforting me.
He knew exactly what happened. He just sat back and watched me tear myself apart.
I raised my hand and slapped him across the face with everything I had.
The sharp smack echoed off the mirrored walls. The entire boutique went dead silent.
Richard’s head jerked to the side, but he didn’t blow up. Instead, he let out a breath, looking almost relieved.
“Are you done?”
“If you’re done, try to calm down. We’re skipping the fitting today.”
“The wedding can be pushed back.”
He turned on his heel to leave.
Inside my head, the System’s alarm screamed to life.
[Decade Vow System detects critical mission deviation.]
[Marriage milestone confirmation: FAILED.]
[Host termination countdown: 48 hours.]
I stood glued to the floor, my hands and feet turning to ice.
Right on cue, Wendy rushed forward, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. She grabbed one of the bridal heels and lobbed it at Richard, acting like she was standing up for me.
“You promised me you wouldn’t say anything!”
“Why did you have to hurt Audrey today of all days?”
The pointed heel clipped Richard’s forehead. His very first reaction wasn’t to check his own bleeding skin, but to grab her hands and ask if she had hurt her fingers.
I stood in the distance, letting my tears fall and stain the pure white silk of my gown.
2
By the time the bridal shop descended into total chaos, Declan arrived.
He was my senior in college and the co-founder of the charitable trust my late mother left behind.
Every single grant application Wendy submitted over the past four years had crossed his desk.
The moment he walked in, his eyes darted to Wendy first. Only after making sure she was okay did he frown and look at me. “Audrey, what exactly are you trying to pull here?”
I stared at him.
“You knew too. Didn’t you?”
He dodged the question, his voice taking on that familiar, patronizingly soft tone.
“Wendy just wants a place to belong.”
“Don’t back her into a corner.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I’m backing her into a corner?”
“I used my dead mother’s money to put her through college. I paid her hospital bills. I paid her rent. I pulled strings to get her internships. And now you’re telling me I’m the one ruining her life?”
Declan sighed heavily, giving me the kind of look reserved for a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
“She comes from a broken home. She grew up with nothing.”
“You have the world at your fingertips. She has absolutely nothing.”
“Since you’re the one who brought her up to this point, you should be the bigger person and show some grace.”
Right on cue, Wendy drifted over, her eyes red and puffy.
“Audrey, if you’re mad, take it out on me. Please don’t blame Richard.”
“I was the one who fell for him first. It’s all my fault.”
Her voice was frail and dripping with guilt. But the silver leaf pendant resting against her collarbone caught the light, and the sight of it made my eyes burn.
That necklace was my mother’s heirloom.
Three years ago, Wendy was hospitalized. She cried through the night, terrified of the dark. I personally fastened that necklace around her neck, telling her it would keep her safe.
Looking at it now, I realized my kindness was just a joke.
I reached out, hooked my fingers around the delicate chain, and ripped it off her neck.
She let out a sharp cry of pain, bursting into tears as she scrambled backward.
The next second, Richard stepped in and shoved me hard.
I stumbled in my heavy gown. My waist slammed violently into the edge of the display podium. A sharp, cramping pain shot through my lower abdomen instantly.
He completely ignored me, shielding Wendy behind him as his voice turned to ice.
“That is enough, Audrey.”
I looked up at him, suddenly finding the whole situation incredibly absurd.
We had fought before over the past decade.
But he had never laid a hand on me. He had never pushed me away in front of an audience.
And now, to play the knight in shining armor for a girl I practically raised, he didn’t even care about the baby growing inside me.
I took a shaky breath, shifting my gaze to Declan.
“That phone call last night. Telling me to go to the club to pick up the girls. You set that up on purpose, didn’t you?”
Declan’s eyes flickered away.
“You were going to find out eventually.”
Then it hit me.
It wasn’t just Richard and Wendy.
Even Declan, my trusted friend, was busy paving the way for her.
Richard’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen and then shoved it directly in my face.
Someone had already leaked photos from the bridal boutique to a gossip blog.
The angles were perfectly cropped. You could only see Wendy looking innocent, holding the shoes with teary eyes, and me looking like a monster, aggressively ripping the necklace off her throat.
The comments were already flooding in, tearing me apart for bullying a sweet girl.
Richard’s face was thunderous.
“Did you hire someone to post this?”
Looking at that photo, a strange, chilling calm washed over me.
“No.”
“But isn’t she the other woman?”
Richard ground his teeth, his voice dropping low with suppressed rage.
“She never wanted to compete with you.”
“Are you really so bitter that you have to destroy her life?”
Declan chimed in, playing the voice of reason.
“Audrey, if this blows up, it’s going to ruin Wendy’s graduation and drag the foundation’s name through the mud.”
“You need to go to her commencement ceremony and clear the air publicly.”
Richard followed up with a final demand, tossing it out like a generous favor.
“As long as we get past this graduation drama, our wedding goes ahead as planned.”
My chest felt hollow, packed with shattered glass.
One betrayed me. One fiercely protected her. One did her dirty work to clean up the mess.
And right now, all three of them were demanding that I be the one to swallow my pride and step back.
Just then, my phone chimed with a private message from Wendy.
[Audrey, Richard was so worried I’d get scared hearing your voice last night. He held me on his lap the entire time.]
[I was shivering so much, so he kissed me. He kissed me for a really long time.]
I stared at those two lines of text. Bile rose in my throat.
The System’s voice echoed simultaneously.
[Host’s will to survive is plummeting rapidly.]
[Termination countdown halved.]
[Remaining time: 24 hours.]
I slowly raised my head and looked at the two men standing before me.
“Fine.”
“I’ll go to the ceremony.”
3
Wendy’s commencement was held in the grand university auditorium.
When I walked backstage, she was wearing an immaculate white sundress. Her hair was perfectly styled, and her face carried that carefully curated look of innocent vulnerability.
The professors, classmates, and alumni buzzing around her were showering her with praise.
One of the deans patted her shoulder affectionately.
“Wendy, you’ve really beaten the odds.”
Someone nearby immediately chimed in.
“Absolutely. Coming out of an impoverished mountain town and making it to the top of the class in the city. You’ve really made something of yourself.”
An older alumni smiled warmly at her.
“I was just telling the board, you’re the greatest success story the foundation has ever produced.”
“Exactly. Winning valedictorian is incredibly well-deserved.”
“She’s going places. I heard she bagged multiple elite internships in her senior year alone.”
“That’s what you call pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.”
I stood in the shadows, listening to the glowing praise, feeling a bitter laugh bubble up in my throat.
None of them knew. Her tuition, her hospital bills, every stepping stone of this supposed ‘self-made’ success story was paved with the blood, sweat, and charity of my mother and me.
But here she was, the poster child for independent resilience.
The second I stepped into the light, Wendy’s eyes brimmed with tears. She rushed toward me.
She paused a few feet away, acting incredibly timid, as if she was terrified I would lash out.
Then, very tentatively, she reached out and pinched the fabric of my sleeve.
“Audrey, you actually came.”
“I thought… I thought you’d never forgive me.”
Richard materialized behind her and shoved a folded piece of paper into my hand.
“Read this when you get on stage. Stick to the script.”
I glanced down at the paper.
Paragraph one: I had to admit that my emotional outburst at the bridal shop was due to pregnancy hormones and pre-wedding jitters, and that I had wrongfully targeted Wendy.
Paragraph two: I had to explicitly state that the cheating rumors online were vicious, fabricated lies.
I read it once. Then, while maintaining dead-eye contact with Richard, I slowly tore the paper into confetti.
His face darkened instantly.
“Audrey, don’t do anything stupid.”
I ignored him, walking straight past him, and took the microphone directly from the MC’s hand.
The auditorium was packed. The harsh stage lights beat down on me, making my eyes sting.
I stood at the podium, staring out at the sea of unfamiliar faces, my voice ringing out crystal clear.
“I only have two things to say.”
“First, Wendy is not an innocent, underprivileged student.”
“Second, Richard isn’t my fiancé. He is her husband.”
The crowd erupted. A tidal wave of gasps and whispers crashed through the room.
Wendy’s reaction was flawless. The tears spilled over her lashes on command.
“Audrey, how could you say that…”
“I never wanted to steal anything from you.”
“If you want, I’ll even claim your unborn baby as my own! Just please, don’t back me into a corner!”
That single sentence acted like gasoline on a fire. The murmurs turned into loud, furious chatter.
She successfully painted herself as the ultimate martyr making a heartbreaking sacrifice, while I became the toxic, unhinged villain using a pregnancy to blackmail a man.
I opened my mouth to respond, but Wendy suddenly reached into her designer clutch and slapped a little red booklet onto the podium right in front of me.
A marriage certificate.
I looked down. My mind went entirely blank.
The names printed on the legal document were Richard Kensington and Wendy.
The date of registration was yesterday.
I snapped my head toward Richard.
A flicker of guilt crossed his face, but he quickly masked it with cold indifference, leaning in to whisper harshly in my ear.
“She’s graduating. She’s been feeling insecure.”
“I just signed the papers yesterday to humor her. It means nothing.”
“Once this PR nightmare dies down, I’ll quietly file for divorce.”
“Our wedding is still on. Stop throwing a tantrum.”
Humor her.
So in his world, a legal marriage was just a shiny toy you handed out to keep a girl quiet.
He thought he could secretly marry her, then throw a massive wedding with me, partitioning his vows like party favors for two different women.
But Wendy was still putting on the performance of a lifetime.
Wiping her tears, she sobbed into her own microphone, claiming my four years of sponsorship were never about charity. She told the crowd I had a twisted savior complex, that I was trying to groom her into an obedient pet.
She claimed I was a control freak who turned violently abusive the second she formed a genuine friendship with Richard.
She even swore to God that the photos from the bridal shop were a smear campaign I had personally orchestrated.
The crowd turned ugly. Fast.
“What a fake philanthropist.”
“Sponsoring a girl just to steal her man? Sickening.”
“She’s absolute trash.”
Rage blinded me. I raised my hand, fully intending to slap the lies out of her mouth.
But before my hand could connect, someone gripped my wrist from behind, locking it in a vice grip.
I whipped around. Declan was standing there, his face tight with anger.
“Audrey, that’s enough.”
“This is a graduation ceremony, not a street brawl for you to act like a lunatic.”
I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded.
“Declan, you honestly think I’m the one being a lunatic?”
He broke eye contact, but he didn’t let go of my wrist. His voice was cold.
“If your conscience was actually clean, things wouldn’t have escalated this far.”
That single sentence extinguished the last dying ember of warmth in my heart.
And right at that moment, someone in the front row launched a plastic cup of red fruit punch at the stage.
It hit my stomach. The sticky red liquid cascaded down the pristine white of my dress. Then came a second cup. Then a third.
The insults grew deafening. A few radicalized students rushed the stage, shoving me, yanking on my dress, shoving their phone cameras aggressively into my face.
I was violently jostled backward. My foot caught on a cable, and I stumbled hard. A sudden, agonizing tearing sensation ripped through my lower abdomen.
I looked down and watched as the dark, heavy crimson began to bloom rapidly across the wet fabric of my dress.
In that moment, a chilling realization washed over me.
I was losing the baby.
But the mob in the auditorium didn’t care. The screaming, the pushing, the flashes—nobody stopped.
I clutched my stomach, the physical agony finally overriding the heartbreak. I didn’t even have the energy left to say a single word.
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1
At my career’s breaking point, my manager and boyfriend, Nolan, told me to gain twenty pounds in two weeks to land an Oscar-bait role.
I showed up hopeful, but the director sighed. “Your acting is incredible, Avery, but the character is severely emaciated. You’re all wrong.”
My stomach dropped. Before I could text Nolan, I saw him across the room, smiling triumphantly at my rival. She got the role—simply because she was thinner.
When Nolan met my gaze, his smile vanished. He rubbed his nose, looking exhausted. “Serena is in her prime for awards season. She needs this more than you. Your acting is too good; I had to trick you into gaining weight to let her win.”
He delivered the final blow without pause. “And you’ve begged me to marry you for years. Now that you’re too heavy to book roles, we can finally settle down.”
There was no romance, no vow. His eyes darted to Serena, his first love, standing nearby.
I realized I was just a placeholder, a warm body waiting for her return. I laughed bitterly, slid the silver ring off my finger, and said calmly, “Forget the wedding. We’re done.”
The silver ring hit the floor and rolled under a leather casting couch.
Nolan’s face darkened with immediate fury.
“Are you expecting me to beg you to stay in front of her? Is this your way of proving you matter?”
I opened my mouth. “No…”
He held up a hand, his eyes burning with impatience.
“Save the excuses. Do whatever you want. Just don’t come crying to me tonight, drunk and begging to get back together.”
I gripped the hem of my oversized sweater. My cheeks burned with a humiliating heat, worse than if he had slapped me across the face in front of a live audience.
Serena gently tugged at his sleeve.
“Nolan, I told you not to speak to women like that. Avery, he’s just blunt, he doesn’t mean any harm, please don’t be mad at…”
Nolan grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door.
“Don’t waste your breath on her. Didn’t you need to go to wardrobe for your fittings?”
They walked out without a single backward glance.
The chemistry between them was palpable. They moved in sync, looking exactly like the leaked paparazzi photos from their romance years ago. It was as if they had never broken up at all.
Someone in the casting room recorded the entire exchange. An hour later, it was posted online by an anonymous burner account.
Once again, my body became the internet’s favorite punching bag.
[Good lord, her body has completely let itself go. Does she know she’s an actress? Is she prepping for a role as a slaughtered pig?]
[Seriously, she just blew up overnight. Zero work ethic. Could she not put the fork down for five minutes? Look at how elegant Serena Blair is!]
I was born with a metabolism that punished me for breathing.
The first time I was ruthlessly fat-shamed by the internet years ago, I fell into a severe depression. I had to take steroid medications just to function, which only made my weight spiral further. Directors laughed me out of rooms. I was ready to quit acting entirely.
That was when Nolan pushed his way through a crowd of executives mocking me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the building.
He looked at my tear-streaked makeup and told me, “The world is already looking down on you. Are you going to bully yourself, too?”
From that day on, he was my guiding light. I followed him, trusted him implicitly, and fell deeply in love with him.
He knew exactly how agonizing my journey had been. He knew how much faith I placed in him.
And today, he took that faith and crushed it under his heel.
My phone buzzed.
It wasn’t a text from him.
It was a flood of direct messages from my top fan accounts, begging me to fire my manager.
They had been telling me to drop Nolan since the very beginning, ever since my styling and roles started tanking. I used to brush it off, blindly believing that as long as my acting was solid, I could elevate any terrible script he handed me.
But now, the label of “the ugly, toxic supporting character” had been permanently glued to my forehead, bleeding over into my real life.
2
I finally realized how pathetic my confidence was compared to the brutal reality he had orchestrated to elevate Serena.
My assistant, Jess, let out a heavy sigh from the passenger seat of my car.
“Stop reading the comments, Avery. Look, I already enrolled you in an elite weight-loss boot camp.”
I took a deep breath, staring out the rain-streaked window.
“Cancel it. Didn’t the agency want to pivot me to the international market? Tell Director Davis I accept his offer.”
Jess whipped her head around, her jaw dropping.
“But that’s a massive global franchise! You’ll be shooting on a closed set overseas for two years. What about you and Nolan?”
“There is no me and Nolan,” I cut her off smoothly. “From now on, my life has absolutely nothing to do with him.”
The head executives at my agency were thrilled when I agreed to the international pivot.
To build up my underdog narrative, they intentionally left all the fat-shaming hashtags trending on Twitter.
Thankfully, my mental armor was infinitely stronger than it used to be. The insults barely registered.
I was sitting in the agency’s conference room, filling out my international transfer and visa applications, when the door violently crashed open.
Nolan stormed in, his face red with fury.
“I told you guys when I signed on that we do not buy negative PR for Serena! The entire internet is calling her a manipulative homewrecker right now!”
His tirade choked off the second he realized I was sitting at the table. A flash of awkward guilt crossed his face.
The rumor was that after Nolan and Serena broke up years ago, our agency spent a fortune to poach him. They agreed to a massive list of unequal demands.
I just hadn’t realized that one of those demands was a protective clause for Serena.
Looking back, it all made sickening sense. Whenever I needed good PR, he threw me to the wolves. He bought negative trending topics about my weight, my face, my personality, leaving them up for days.
When I was doxxed and stalkers showed up at my front door, he didn’t show a single ounce of sympathy.
Just like now. We were both getting dragged online, but his eyes were only looking out for her.
A soft, mocking chuckle escaped my lips.
His face instantly hardened into a scowl.
“The executives promised me they wouldn’t touch her. So this was your doing, wasn’t it?”
“You’re mad that I gave the role to her, so you rallied your toxic fanbase to call her a homewrecker? You’re spinning a narrative that she’s using me to sabotage your career?”
I furrowed my brow. Before I could even open my mouth to defend myself, his phone rang.
I caught a glimpse of the screen. Serena. He answered it on the first ring.
It was a courtesy he had never extended to me, not even the night I was being chased down a highway by deranged stalkerazzi and called him for help in tears.
“Nolan!” Serena’s voice was frantic on the other end. “Someone leaked photos of you and Avery on a date! Everyone is saying I’m the other woman! They’re calling me a mistress!”
“She won’t stop crying,” her assistant yelled into the background. “She’s threatening to jump off the balcony to prove her innocence!”
In that split second, the color drained from Nolan’s face. His knees physically buckled.
He glared at me, his eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred.
“You are a vicious, evil woman. You’re so desperate to ruin her that you’d set your own career on fire!”
He didn’t give me a chance to speak. He stumbled backward and sprinted out of the room.
The executive sitting across from me let out an uncomfortable sigh.
“We didn’t buy those trends. Do you want me to…”
I forced a polite smile.
“No need. Let him think whatever he wants. I’m leaving anyway.”
The executive nodded silently and collected my transfer paperwork.
Less than three minutes after I walked out of the conference room, my phone chimed with a notification from Twitter.
I opened the app. Nolan had just quote-tweeted the viral photo of us on a date.
[Avery and I have never been in a romantic relationship. We are strictly colleagues. Serena Blair and I never broke up. Any romantic marketing involving Avery Sinclair was purely a studio-mandated PR strategy. There is no infidelity involved.]
My chest seized. It felt like an invisible fist was crushing my lungs.
When Nolan first became my manager, Serena’s rabid fanbase accused me of being the homewrecker who ruined their fairy-tale romance.
When paparazzi finally caught us kissing a year later, the hatred multiplied tenfold.
I endured a solid year of brutal cyberbullying. It got so bad the agency begged us to just go public and clear the air.
3
But Nolan always refused. He always used my career as an excuse, claiming a public relationship would ruin my marketability. He stood by and watched as millions of people called me a slut, a mistress, a home-wrecker.
And now, he freely handed the public declaration of love that I had bled for over to his ex.
He permanently branded me with the “mistress” label just to protect her.
In that moment, I finally understood that true love knows no obstacles.
The only obstacle was that he simply didn’t love me.
The agency couldn’t control him anymore. They immediately moved to assign me a new manager and drafted a statement to sever all ties with him.
But when it came time to hand over my portfolio, Nolan suddenly slammed the brakes.
“I’ve managed her for years! No one knows her career trajectory better than I do!”
The sudden 180-degree shift in his attitude was laughable.
It only cemented the fact that I was nothing but a tool he needed to keep in his back pocket.
I stared at him, my eyes empty, filled with nothing but profound numbness and exhaustion.
“No. I know my own trajectory.”
He flinched. He clearly hadn’t expected me to speak to him with such cold authority.
In the past, whenever the agency suggested switching managers, I was the one who fought against it. I wanted to stay close to him. I willingly kept myself chained to him.
But now that my spine was made of steel, he was completely powerless.
Sensing the tension, the executive slid my international transfer forms across the table.
“Look, the reality is, Avery is leaving the country…”
Nolan frowned deeply. He reached out to grab the papers.
My eyes narrowed. I stepped directly into his path, blocking his hand.
“I am in control of my own career from now on. If you refuse to hand over the files, I will build a new portfolio from scratch.”
I grabbed the papers, folded them neatly, and handed them back to the executive. I shook my head slightly.
As I turned to walk away, Nolan raised his hand, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to grab my wrist. I side-stepped him effortlessly.
After the disastrous meeting, I went back to my apartment and started packing my life into boxes.
As I was folding clothes, my phone buzzed. A text from him.
[Her mental health is incredibly fragile. I was just calming her down. Don’t overthink this.]
In a sea of green text bubbles, this was the first time in an entire month he had initiated a conversation that wasn’t strictly about work schedules.
And yet, it was still revolving around Serena.
Whenever I texted him for comfort, whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on or just a shred of affection, his standard response was always the same three words.
[Toughen up, Avery.]
I didn’t immediately call him back in tears. I didn’t beg for his attention or try to explain my side of the story like I used to.
What was the point?
A few minutes later, the electronic lock on my front door beeped rapidly with several failed passcode attempts.
My heart skipped a beat. I pulled up the security camera feed on my phone and saw him standing in the hallway.
The tension in my chest evaporated.
All that was left was a hollow, empty void where my expectations used to be.
Our passcode was our anniversary date. He had been coming to this apartment for five years and still couldn’t remember it.
Yet, when he needed to log into a social media account he hadn’t touched in two years, he remembered Serena’s birthday as the password in less than a minute.
I put my packing tape down and opened the front door.
His eyes were laced with genuine anxiety.
“Why didn’t you open the door? I thought something happened to you.”
I found the whole situation hilarious.
“What could possibly happen to me? You said it yourself, I’m tough.”
He frowned, the fleeting guilt in his eyes vanishing instantly.
“Look, I found out Serena’s PR team bought those trending hashtags. I didn’t have all the facts, and I shouldn’t have accused you. That’s on me.”
“But there is absolutely no need for you to be this petty and sarcastic. She only broke up with me back then because her management forced her to. There is nothing going on between us now.”
“That statement on Twitter? She posted that using my phone. By the time I saw it, the damage was done. I already told you, we can get married right now. You really need to let this go.”
I stared at the poorly concealed impatience swimming in his eyes.
4
I finally spoke.
“So, if you two had never broken up, is this how you would talk to her? Would you demand she marry you without a shred of romance or a proper proposal?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, visibly irritated.
“That doesn’t matter. You’re in a critical phase of your career right now, you shouldn’t…”
My chest contracted violently.
Before he could finish his sentence, I raised my hand and slapped him directly across the face.
My voice was terrifyingly calm.
“You knew I was in a critical phase of my career, and you still manipulated me into gaining twenty pounds!”
“You’re right. None of it matters. Whether your pathetic excuses were meant to protect me or because you’re still obsessed with her, it doesn’t matter. Because we are broken up.”
“Now get the hell out of my apartment. I never want to see your face again.”
His eyes widened, rimmed with a furious, humiliated red. It was the first time in five years I had ever kicked him out.
He slammed the door behind him, spitting out one final, venomous threat.
“You’re going to regret this!”
For five years, I had bent over backward to accommodate his every mood.
We had never been at each other’s throats like this.
So, when he realized I was no longer his submissive, easy-to-control puppet, he resorted to the dirty tactics he usually reserved for his enemies.
My interim manager told me I had to attend a high-end charity gala that evening.
But when I arrived, I realized I had been tricked. It was a sleazy, low-tier corporate networking mixer. A yacht party where actresses were treated like eye candy.
Nolan and Serena were sitting on either side of the wealthy studio executives.
My new manager gently pushed me into the private room.
“Your resources are being downgraded, Avery. You aren’t bringing in money right now. Nolan said if you can handle the drinking for Serena tonight, he’ll secure a great script for you.”
Back when I was a nobody clinging to Nolan’s roster, I couldn’t book any good roles. My lack of income meant his performance bonuses tanked.
To make sure I didn’t drag his career down, I secretly agreed to attend one of these shady investor banquets.
It started with just drinking on behalf of the executives. But as the night dragged on, several men cornered me and started force-feeding me liquor.
I tried to run, but the VIP doors were deadbolted.
They pinned me down, their hands wandering all over my body. Right as I was about to give up all hope, Nolan kicked the heavy wooden doors off their hinges, grabbed a fire axe from the hallway, and smashed the mahogany dining table cleanly in half.
His eyes were bloodshot as he pulled me into his chest, shielding me from the room.
He drove me home, screaming at me the entire ride, calling me an idiot with no brain.
He told me that these drinking banquets almost always ended in hotel rooms.
He yelled until I stopped responding.
Bright red blood had started spilling past my lips like water.
That was the first time I ever saw genuine, unfiltered terror on his face.
From that day forward, I was banned from attending any event that required alcohol.
Seeing me frozen in the doorway, Serena smiled brightly and walked over.
“Oh, this is all my fault. I told the investors my alcohol tolerance is terribly low, but I didn’t want to disrespect them. Nolan remembered you could hold your liquor, so he called you in.”
“You don’t mind, do you? Really, we’re doing this to help you network for new roles.”
I stared at the smug, provocative gleam in her eyes. Surprisingly, I felt entirely at peace.
It was fine. I would drink the poison tonight.
Because after tonight, every single debt, every ounce of history between Nolan and me, would be permanently erased.
I picked up a heavy crystal tumbler filled with dark amber liquor. I locked eyes with Nolan, watching the sudden, nervous tension ripple across his face.
“Thank you all for this wonderful opportunity.”
The cheap, high-proof alcohol burned down my esophagus like battery acid.
I wiped a stray tear from the corner of my eye and poured myself a second glass.
“But for this next round…”
Before I could finish, Nolan practically lunged out of his chair, snatching the glass from my hand. His brow was furrowed in deep, angry lines.
His voice dropped to a harsh whisper.
“If you can’t drink, then don’t! Do you always have to be this stubborn? Would it kill you to just admit you need me?”
I smiled. I opened my mouth to speak, but a violent, metallic clattering erupted from the ceiling above us.
Before any of us could look up, the entire room lurched into a violent, terrifying sway.
The floor dropped out from under my heels, sending my head spinning.
5
With a heavy thud, I crashed onto the marble floor.
Piercing screams erupted from the hallway outside the VIP suite.
“Earthquake! It’s an earthquake! Run!”
Nolan grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet. He threw his arm around my waist, preparing to drag me toward the exit.
But from behind us, Serena’s voice pierced the chaos.
“Nolan! My legs… my legs won’t move! I’m so scared!”
In that split second, without a single micro-expression of hesitation, he let go of my hand.
“She was in a severe earthquake as a child. She has crippling claustrophobia, I can’t just leave her here.”
“You need to get out on your own. If you can’t make it to the stairs, find cover! I promise I’ll come back for you!”
Without waiting for a response, he scooped Serena up into his arms and sprinted past me, vanishing into the panicked crowd.
I struggled to push myself up off the floor.
But with a deafening crack, the massive crystal chandelier detached from the ceiling and slammed directly into my shoulder.
Nolan had glanced over his shoulder right as it happened. The momentary hesitation in his eyes vanished as quickly as it appeared.
He disappeared into the dust and the screaming, taking my consciousness with him.
…
When I finally woke up, the sterile smell of a hospital room filled my lungs.
Jess was sitting by my bed, her eyes red and puffy.
The earthquake hadn’t been catastrophic. The hotel suffered minimal structural damage, and there were barely any casualties.
The most severely injured person in the entire building was me, knocked unconscious by a cheap light fixture.
The emergency rescue teams were the ones who pulled me out of the rubble.
Jess looked at me, her mouth opening and closing.
I knew exactly what she wanted to say. Nolan never came back.
He was busy comforting Serena.
On Instagram, I saw the photo they posted. Their hands tightly intertwined.
The caption read:
[No matter how much time passes, my heart will always choose you first.]
I didn’t feel the soul-crushing grief or the fiery rage I expected.
I only felt a profound sense of relief. My heart, which had spent five years sprinting to keep up with his, could finally beat for itself.
I looked at the nightstand. Sitting next to my water cup was a first-class ticket for an overseas flight.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
Jess helped me out of the hospital bed. We took a private car straight to the international terminal.
Right before I stepped into the security checkpoint, a text from Nolan popped up on my screen.
[Why aren’t you in your hospital room? Stop running around. I hired a private specialist to give you a full-body scan.]
Staring at the message, I felt absolutely none of the pathetic, desperate joy I used to feel whenever he showed me a breadcrumb of attention.
I smiled, hit block, and permanently deleted his contact.
I popped the SIM card out of my phone and tossed it into a trash can. I had already set up a new international number.
Nolan Cross.
I am so incredibly tired of playing your twisted game of cat and mouse.
From this moment on, I will never haunt your world again.
Nolan gripped his phone, pacing the hallway outside Avery’s hospital room. He had been waiting for twenty minutes, but she hadn’t replied.
In the past, the moment he sent a text checking up on her, she would immediately call him back, her voice thick with happy tears. Even when she was buried in script readings, she made her assistant reply instantly.
But ever since that disastrous casting call, the dynamic had subtly shifted.
It planted a dark, unsettling seed of panic in the pit of his stomach.
Someone gently tapped his shoulder.
He spun around, assuming it was Avery.
“Where the hell did you go? Stop running…”
The spark of relief in his chest instantly flatlined when he saw Serena standing there. A heavy, unexplainable wave of disappointment washed over him.
“What are you doing here? I told you to stay in your suite and rest. The lobby is swarming with paparazzi and stalkers, what if they get a photo of you?”
Serena’s eyes grew glassy with tears.
“It’s fine. I wasn’t really hurt anyway. I just felt so alone in that big room… and I wanted to check on Avery. I need to apologize to her. If I hadn’t cried out for you, she wouldn’t have been crushed by that chandelier.”
Nolan’s immediate instinct was to say Avery was fine.
She was built tough. During action sequences, she refused to use stunt doubles to save the studio money. She took hits, cuts, and bruises without ever complaining. To the rest of the world, she was made of iron.
But whenever she was alone with him, she would pout and show him her bruises. Even when he gave her the cold shoulder, she would whine until he was forced to pat her head and comfort her.
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1
On graduation day, Darryl was set to propose to Harper—until she vanished, leaving him a text and me a note: “I’m giving him to you.”
Watching him frozen on the quad, ring in hand, I blurted out, “I’ve loved you since high school, even before Harper noticed you.”
Admitting I’d secretly followed his every move for seven years, I asked, “Could you please…?”
Darryl stared, then took the ring meant for her and slid it onto my finger.
The next day, we moved into a damp basement. For three years, he worked himself to death, becoming CEO of Darryl Innovations.
But on move-in day for our new estate, he stood at the door, hand-in-hand with Harper, blocking me. “I’m bored of you,” he said flatly. “I slept with you for three years. It’s over.”
“What did you just say?”
I stood there gripping the handle of my heavy suitcase, staring at him in complete disbelief. The wind howled past my ears, creating a deafening buzz in my skull.
He squeezed Harper’s hand tighter, his brow furrowing with obvious impatience.
“Over the last three years, I have wired a total of three million dollars into your bank account. We are done here. You are walking away a rich woman, so do not act like you lost out.”
My vision blurred. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out by the roots, leaving behind a bloody, gaping hole.
So my seven years of silent devotion and my three years of bleeding by his side to build his empire…
In his eyes, it was all a transactional service worth exactly three million dollars.
I lowered my head. Teardrops violently splashed against the hard plastic shell of my suitcase.
He had absolutely no idea. That suitcase held every single thing I owned in this world.
He also had no idea that just an hour ago, his executive assistant called me in a blind panic. Darryl Innovations had suffered a catastrophic break in their funding chain.
I had just wired every single penny of that three million dollars straight back into his corporate account to save him.
Harper stepped forward, a perfectly manufactured look of guilt plastered across her flawless face. She reached out to grab my wrist.
“Anna, I am so, so sorry.”
“I just could not bear living my life without him…”
I violently yanked my arm out of her grip.
“Then why did you abandon him three years ago?!”
“Why did you text me saying you were giving him to me?!”
“Why…”
Why did you have to come back now?
Before the rest of my furious grief could leave my lips, a blinding, explosive sting erupted across my cheek.
My vision fractured into a blur of spinning colors.
It took several agonizing seconds for the world to pull back into focus. When it did, I saw Harper hiding her face against Darryl’s chest, sobbing pitifully.
“I never should have reached out to you when I got back to the States. I just could not control my heart.” She wept, her voice trembling. “This is all my fault. I should just leave.”
Darryl gently cradled her face, his thumbs wiping away her tears as he whispered sweet comforts.
“How could this possibly be your fault?”
“I was the one who lost control the second I saw you at that hotel. I was the one who claimed you.”
“I forced you to face your feelings for me, and I forced you to confront Anna. I do not love her. Why should we be miserable just to appease her?”
His naked confession felt like a poisoned arrow tearing straight through my sternum. The agonizing pain radiated down to my fingertips.
All the blood drained from my face as I stumbled a step backward.
Darryl shot me a look of pure, venomous disgust.
“Get lost.”
Just like that, I was tossed out like a piece of garbage he no longer had any use for.
The light drizzle quickly morphed into a violent, freezing downpour. I stood on the pavement until my entire body went numb, before finally dragging my suitcase away in absolute disgrace.
Without even realizing it, my feet carried me straight back to the damp basement apartment we rented three years ago.
I collapsed onto the cheap mattress, completely stripped of my strength.
I do not love her.
I do not love her.
Those words circled my brain like a relentless, mocking curse. My fingernails dug so deeply into my own arms that they left bloody trails across my skin, but it was not enough to distract me from the suffocating agony in my chest.
Just as I felt like I was literally going to die, my phone buzzed. It was my mother.
“Anna, sweetheart. Stop wandering out there on your own.”
“I found a really nice young man for you to meet. A blind date. Are you willing to give it a try?”
I gripped the phone like a drowning woman clinging to a life raft, swallowing hard to force my voice steady.
“Okay. I will come home as soon as I can.”
Sometime later, a thick, burning haze completely took over my mind. Through the violent fever dreams, I felt a pair of strong, familiar arms wrap tightly around my shivering body.
Darryl’s smooth voice drifted into my ear.
“I knew you would come hide here.”
“Does your face still hurt?”
He tightened his grip, burying his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.
“Anna, I just cannot swallow my pride. Give me three months. In three months, I am going to make her deeply regret the way she abandoned me without a word.”
“When those three months are up, I will clear all this toxic garbage out of my heart, and I will marry you.”
His body was radiating heat, but hearing those words made my blood run entirely cold.
Darryl was raised by a widowed mother who collected scrap metal just to put him through college. After graduation, this miserable basement was the only place we could afford.
Every single item in this room was something I had hunted down on clearance.
I remembered the day I managed to snag a bulk pack of toilet paper on a massive discount. I showed it to him like I had just won the lottery.
“Look, Darryl! I saved us another eighty cents today!”
His eyes were glued to a coding interface on his laptop. He suddenly turned, grabbed my waist, and buried me in a fierce, crushing hug.
“Anna. Harper didn’t believe in me. Do you?”
“I swear to god, I am going to build an empire and give you the life you deserve.”
His embrace back then was scalding hot. It felt like it could burn me alive.
“I believe in you, Darryl. I only believe in you.”
His kisses came down like a violent, desperate storm. “My sweet Anna. You are too good to me.”
We were dirt poor, but the sheer sweetness of those days felt like it was overflowing from my heart.
I honestly believed he worked himself to the bone for three years just to fulfill the promise he made to me.
Now, the humiliating truth finally set in. He was just biding his time. He was waiting for Harper to come back so he could stand before her as a king.
Silent tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, soaking into the cheap pillowcase. A violent shudder ripped through my spine.
Darryl anxiously pressed the back of his hand against my forehead.
“Did you catch a fever in the rain?”
Watching him climb out of bed with that familiar urgency, digging through the cabinets for the first aid kit and plugging in the electric kettle, a heavy sense of disorientation washed over me.
Over the last three years, aside from proudly introducing me as his girlfriend to the public, he had played the role of the perfect partner.
When we were starving, he would pick the only pieces of meat out of his soup and place them in my bowl.
When my heels were covered in bleeding blisters from running across the city to promote our startup, he would carry me on his back all the way home, carefully apply ointment, and soak my feet in warm water.
When he stayed awake for three consecutive nights to finalize a pitch deck, he still forced himself out the door to buy me a birthday cake.
He was always making promises.
“Anna, the second my business stabilizes, I am putting a ring on your finger.”
But when that day actually arrived, all I got was the brutal truth.
“Slept with you for three years. Bored of it.”
“I do not love her.”
“Get lost.”
My vision was swimming.
Was he truly putting on this cruel act just to punish Harper, or was he just completely, hopelessly still in love with her?
Darryl’s phone shattered the silence.
He was just about to hand me a mug of hot water. Hearing that specific ringtone, he immediately set the mug down on the nightstand, practically ripping his trench coat off the hook as he yanked the front door open.
“Anna, there is a thunderstorm outside. You know Harper gets terrified of the thunder when she is alone in that massive house.”
I clung to my last, pathetic shred of hope.
“Darryl… I am scared too.”
I wanted to scream that I was the one who was terrified of thunder.
Back in high school, during a massive summer storm, I hid under my blankets, shaking like a leaf. Harper had laughed at me, purposely throwing the bedroom windows wide open so the thunder clapped right next to my ears.
“Do not be such a coward,” she had teased. “It sounds just like war drums.”
But hearing my plea, Darryl’s face darkened with severe disappointment. He only paused for a fraction of a second.
“Anna… I always thought you were the understanding one.”
Understanding.
That single word violently shoved all my desperate hopes right back down my throat.
Hearing the heavy metal door slam shut, a broken, bitter laugh escaped my lips.
My body was burning with a dangerously high fever. I weakly reached out to grab the mug of water he left behind.
My trembling fingers slipped. The ceramic mug crashed to the concrete floor, shattering into a dozen jagged pieces. Just like the ten years of love I had completely wasted on him.
Staring at the angry red blisters rapidly forming on the back of my scalded hand, I murmured to the empty room.
Darryl.
You abandoned me twice in one day.
I do not want you anymore. I am done taking care of you.
Using the absolute last ounce of strength in my body, I unlocked my phone and dialed my bank’s elite client hotline.
“I need to issue an immediate freeze on the five million dollar corporate wire transfer I authorized earlier today.”
The next time that rusted metal door opened, three days had passed.
Harper stood in the doorway, her eyes scanning the cramped room with undisguised disgust.
“Anna, do you want to know the real reason I dumped Darryl back then?”
“I just refused to rot in a dark, pathetic little hole like this.”
My fever had finally broken. I calmly shut my laptop and met her arrogant gaze with eyes made of ice.
“You got exactly what you wanted. You are back in his bed. There is absolutely no need for you to come slumming down here just to mock me.”
She stepped forward, seamlessly slipping into her old, manipulative habits. She looped her arm through mine, pouting her lips like an innocent child.
“Oh, Anna, do not be mad at me.”
“I am actually saving your life. Can you imagine how miserable it would be to spend the rest of your life married to a man who does not even love you?”
I let out a harsh scoff and physically ripped my arm away from her.
She did not even flinch. She just stared at me, her eyes dancing with wicked amusement.
“Do you want to know why Darryl suddenly agreed to date me in high school? You know how intensely private and cold he used to be.”
Ignoring my darkening expression, she clamped her hand around my wrist and practically dragged me toward the door.
“Come to the college reunion with me tonight, and I will tell you his deepest, darkest secret.”
I did not fight her.
I was leaving this city in a few days anyway. I was leaving the battleground where I had bled for three years.
Consider this my final goodbye.
Sitting in the backseat of Darryl’s luxury SUV, I watched Harper claim the passenger seat. She spent the entire drive happily chirping at Darryl, weaponizing our shared past.
“Darryl, do you remember when you forced Anna and me to stay after school for tutoring? God, we complained so much back then.”
“And in college, every single time you bought me a gift, you always included a little greeting card for Anna. You were so terrified I would annoy my own roommate.”
Darryl gazed at her with sickening tenderness. Every few minutes, he would take one hand off the steering wheel just to press her fingers against his chest.
Sitting in the back, I was treated like an absolute ghost.
A heavy, suffocating acid burned the back of my throat. I turned my head to stare out the tinted window, letting my mind drift back to those school days.
A secret crush is a teenage girl’s most delicate treasure.
And I had only shared that treasure with one person. Harper.
I remember blushing furiously as I confessed my feelings. Harper had rolled her eyes, her face twisting in utter disdain.
“Anna, what is wrong with your taste?”
“Sure, he has a pretty face and gets perfect grades. But have you seen the absolute dump he lives in? His family cannot even afford a basic television.”
When I frantically tried to defend him, she just covered her mouth and laughed.
“Alright, alright. Your best friend will help you get your man.”
Under the guise of helping me pursue him, she began aggressively inserting herself into his life.
Then, out of absolutely nowhere, she walked up to me in the cafeteria, her fingers perfectly entwined with his.
“Anna, Darryl and I are officially together.”
There was no apology in her eyes. Only the thrilling rush of a victory lap.
The sun was shining brilliantly that day, but my entire world plunged into an endless, freezing winter.
During high school, I eagerly looked forward to the tutoring sessions Harper constantly complained about.
During college, I worked double shifts at a cafe just to help Darryl afford Harper’s lavish birthday surprises.
I was like a starving beggar, greedily collecting whatever pathetic scraps of time I could spend near him.
“Anna, we are here.”
Harper’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
She linked her arm through mine, playing the role of the sweet best friend as we walked toward the private dining room. Darryl trailed closely behind us, the silent, devoted protector.
Right before we reached the heavy mahogany doors, she leaned in close. Her voice dropped to a sinister, triumphant whisper.
“Anna, do you remember a secret you told me a long time ago?”
“In high school, you used to sneak up to the side wall of the rooftop every single afternoon to write anonymous messages to a boy you had never spoken to?”
“That boy was Darryl.”
“He thought the girl he was sharing his soul with… was me.”
Her words were light as a feather, but they hit my eardrums like a detonating bomb.
“That was the only reason he ever agreed to date me.”
“Anna.”
“I stole him right out from under you.”
“And after tonight… you will never, ever get him back.”
My entire body locked up. My legs suddenly felt like they were cast in solid concrete.
I remembered a conversation Darryl and I had late one night in the basement. We could talk for hours without ever running out of things to say.
He had looked at me with a strange, melancholy expression.
“You know, I always feel this unexplainable sense of familiarity with you.”
“Anna, if only the girl from back then was you…”
It took ten years, but the horrific truth behind those words finally clicked into place.
I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to grab her by the throat and ask her why.
We grew up together. We shared everything from elementary school to college.
When she skipped out on the bill at a restaurant, I was the one who rushed over to empty my wallet and apologize to the owner, and she never even thanked me.
When she complained she had nothing to wear for a date, I handed over the brand new dresses my mother bought for me, and she never returned a single one.
When a girl from another class insulted her, I was the one who kicked the classroom door off its hinges to defend her honor, earning myself a permanent strike on my academic record.
I could not fathom why she felt the need to destroy my life like this.
But before I could speak, she pushed the heavy doors open and strutted into the private room.
Darryl stopped right beside me. His voice was a low, freezing warning.
“Anna. No one in there knows we ever dated.”
“Do not do anything to embarrass Harper tonight.”
A broken, pathetic smile stretched across my lips.
Any lingering desire I had to expose the truth about the rooftop messages instantly turned to ash.
He walked inside and naturally took the seat directly beside Harper.
The room erupted in loud, obnoxious cheering from our old classmates.
“Look at Mr. CEO! You and Harper have been going strong for ten years now! Now that you are sitting on a tech empire, when are we getting the wedding invitations?”
“Right? You guys were the ultimate power couple on campus. Everyone was insanely jealous of you.”
Harper cast a shy, demure glance at Darryl.
“I am in no rush. Whatever Darryl wants.”
She took a delicate bite of fish, then suddenly covered her mouth, letting out a violent, dramatic gag.
The entire table gasped in collective excitement.
“Oh my god! Are we celebrating a wedding and a baby tonight?!”
Darryl grabbed a napkin, gently wiping the corner of her mouth with sickening devotion.
“If that is the case, you all better double your wedding gifts. I will be checking the envelopes.”
I sat directly across the table, watching their sickening display of domestic bliss. My stomach violently churned.
I thought about the last three years.
Even when my face was flushed red with desire and the mood was perfect, he would always pull away at the last second to grab protection.
“Anna, it is not the right time for a baby.”
“Just wait a little longer.”
I waited for years, and he never gave me an inch. But the second Harper returned, he planted a child in her without a second thought.
Sarah, my old college roommate, nudged my arm with a sharp elbow.
“Anna, you are obviously going to be the maid of honor and the godmother. They are dragging their feet, why aren’t you pressuring them to lock down a date?”
Harper’s eyes drifted down to my hands. I had forgotten to take off the cheap silver ring Darryl bought me two years ago.
“Do not put too much pressure on Anna, guys. She has had a rough time. She has been hopelessly in love with Darryl for a decade.”
“She even snatched the prop ring Darryl used for his proposal, claiming she wanted it as a keepsake to mourn her broken heart.”
That single sentence was a nuclear bomb. The entire table went dead silent.
Dozens of eyes snapped toward me, dripping with absolute revulsion and contempt.
“Wow. No wonder she was always trailing behind them like a pathetic lost puppy during college. She was waiting for a chance to strike.”
“Harboring filthy thoughts about your best friend’s man for ten years? That is absolutely repulsive. She does not even deserve to sit at this table.”
While I was paralyzed by the shock, Sarah aggressively grabbed my hand and yanked it up for the entire table to see.
“Look! The inside of the band literally has Harper’s initials engraved on it.”
“I cannot believe Anna is this much of a shameless, desperate homewrecker.”
The insults rained down on me like toxic acid, burning away whatever dignity I had left. The blood entirely abandoned my face.
A guy from our graduating class stood up, a sleazy smirk on his face, holding a shot glass brimming with cheap liquor.
“Anna, are you really that desperate for a man? Drink this, and I will do you a favor and be your boyfriend for the night.”
Without waiting for my answer, he grabbed my jaw and tried to force the burning alcohol down my throat.
I shot a desperate, pleading look at Darryl.
He knew my stomach lining was entirely destroyed from drinking with aggressive clients to secure funding for his company. One shot of hard liquor could land me in the emergency room.
But Darryl just gave me a flat, apathetic stare.
“Let her get a boyfriend. It will stop Harper from feeling insecure.”
My heart plummeted straight into the abyss.
The burning liquid flooded my mouth, violently searing my throat and setting my damaged stomach completely on fire.
Right at that exact second, the heavy mahogany doors were violently kicked open, slamming against the wall with a deafening crash.
A furious, dangerously low voice echoed through the room.
“Who says Anna doesn’t have a boyfriend?”
🌟 Continue the story here
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1
My older brother Thomas used his dying breath to entrust his twelve-year-old daughter and his entire estate to me.
For ten grueling years, I played the role of both father and mother. I worked myself to the bone to put her through college. I thought the hardest days were finally behind us.
But right after her graduation ceremony, she teamed up with my ex-wife, Brenda, a woman I hadn’t seen in years. Together, they slapped me with a massive lawsuit.
“Uncle Tom, my dad left this house to me. You’ve been living here scot-free for a decade. It’s time for you to pack your bags. And that hundred thousand dollars? That wasn’t a gift. You owe me.”
I stared at my niece. She was aggressively in my face, completely unrecognizable. A bitter smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I thought about the updated will securely locked inside a bank vault. A document no one else knew existed.
Did Thomas somehow foresee this exact day?
“Tom! Open the damn door! I know you’re in there!”
The voice on the front porch was jarringly familiar.
“Who is it?”
I yanked open the heavy front door, my brow furrowed in confusion.
Lily stood on the porch. Her eyes were as cold as ice. Standing right behind her, wearing a smug, arrogant smirk, was Brenda.
“Lily?”
I froze. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, and she looked entirely different from the bright-eyed girl I had raised. Something was deeply wrong.
“What’s going on, Lily? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Trouble? Oh, I’m doing great. Thanks to you.” She sneered, stepping past me into the house.
Her eyes scanned the living room like a barcode reader, judging every piece of furniture. Her lips curled into a nasty smirk.
“Just came to check on my amazing uncle. Playing house in a home you stole. Must be nice and cozy, right?”
Her glare felt like a physical knife dragging across my skin.
“Lily. What the hell are you talking about?”
There was no warmth. No happy reunion. Just this biting, toxic sarcasm.
“What am I talking about?” Lily let out a dry, mocking laugh.
Brenda immediately took that as her cue. She eagerly unzipped her designer purse, pulled out a thick stack of folded papers, and shoved them into Lily’s hands.
Lily took the papers and slammed them down hard onto the glass coffee table. The whole table rattled.
“Open your eyes and read it. It’s a court summons. I’m suing you for embezzling my parents’ estate. For illegally occupying my property. And for that hundred thousand dollars in cash. It’s time to pay up.”
My brain short-circuited. A loud ringing echoed in my ears.
A summons? Suing me? Embezzlement?
I looked at Lily, my throat suddenly going bone-dry.
“Lily… what is this? When your parents passed away…”
Lily ignored me and repeated herself, her voice flat and robotic.
“Tom. Give me my house back. And the hundred grand.”
“A hundred grand?!” I stammered. “Lily, how can you even say that? Every single penny of that money was spent on you. Your parents told me…”
“Told you what?” Lily interrupted, her face twisting in pure disgust.
“Did they tell you to take care of me, or did they tell you to steal my inheritance? Ten years. A hundred thousand dollars. Where are the receipts, Tom? Because all I see is you living comfortably in a house that belongs to me.”
“Exactly.” Brenda nudged Lily’s arm, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Lily is a legal adult now. The law is on her side. You can’t just squat on a dead man’s property forever. Don’t waste your breath on him, honey.”
After all these years, Brenda’s toxic, instigating mouth hadn’t changed one bit.
Lily ignored Brenda and kept her dead eyes locked on my face.
“Drop the act. This is my house. That is my money. Every single dime my parents left behind. They died, and you swallowed their blood money. How do you even sleep at night?”
Ten years of blood, sweat, and tears. And in her eyes, I was nothing but a thief.
“Lily… I’m your uncle. Your family…”
“You stopped being family the day you decided to freeload in my house.”
“Get out. Both of you, get the hell out of my house!” I pointed a shaking finger at the front door.
Lily didn’t flinch. “Get out? You’re the one who needs to get out. This house will officially be mine very soon.”
She didn’t spare me another glance. She turned on her heel and marched out. Brenda shot me a victorious, venomous glare and quickly followed her.
I stood alone in the living room, staring at the blinding white legal papers on the coffee table. My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
This was bad.
2
When I got to the office the next morning, my entire body felt heavy. My right eyelid wouldn’t stop twitching.
I had barely sat down at my cubicle when Stan, the guy from the next desk over, rolled his chair toward me. His face was scrunched up in discomfort.
“Hey, Tom… man… have you checked the local neighborhood Facebook group? It’s… it’s a total bloodbath.”
My stomach dropped into my shoes. I frantically pulled out my phone.
I opened the app. The top pinned post hit my eyes like a flashbang.
The Ultimate Betrayal. Blood-Sucking Uncle Steals Orphaned Niece’s Inheritance for Ten Years! Posted by: Lily.
There were photos attached. One was a picture of my front porch. The other was an old, heartbreaking photo of Lily as a little kid, wearing a faded, oversized t-shirt, standing alone in her parents’ old backyard.
The post itself was an absolute character assassination. She called me a hypocrite. A predator. She accused me of betraying my brother’s dying trust, embezzling a massive fortune, and emotionally abusing her.
The comment section was a mob out for blood.
“Absolute human garbage!”
“Lock him up!”
“Get the hell out of our neighborhood!”
“Give that poor girl her house back!”
My hands shook so badly my phone slipped from my grip and clattered onto the desk.
“Tom! Mr. Henderson wants you in his office. Right now.”
One of the administrative assistants called out from the hallway. She looked at me like I was a piece of trash stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
I forced myself to stand up and walk into the manager’s office.
Henderson sat behind his massive mahogany desk. His face was thunderous.
“Tom.” He tapped a heavy pen against his deskpad.
“We expect a certain level of integrity from our employees. Personal scandals reflect on this company. Have you seen the absolute circus online today? Everyone in the building is talking about it. You need to pack up your desk and go home. Fix this mess before you even think about coming back. You are suspended. Do I make myself clear?”
Suspended.
It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water directly over my head.
I drove home in a complete daze. The moment I pulled up to my driveway, I saw Lily standing on the front porch with her arms crossed, blocking the door like a bouncer. Brenda was hovering right next to her.
A few neighbors were peeking through their blinds. Others were lingering on the sidewalk, whispering and pointing.
“Wow. You actually have the nerve to show your face around here?” Lily announced, making sure her voice carried down the street.
“Hey everyone, come take a look! This is the parasite who steals from his own orphaned niece. Does a guy like this really deserve to live in a house like this?”
“Tom, you owe me that money. You owe me this house. And I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”
“Answers?!” I felt the blood rushing to my head. “You posted a pack of lies online! The whole company saw it, and I just got suspended from my job.”
“And now you’re blocking my door demanding money? I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
“Lily, I want you to look deep inside your conscience. How old were you when your parents passed away? Twelve. Who raised you? Who put clothes on your back and food on your plate? Who drove through literal blizzards to sit through your parent-teacher conferences? For the last ten years, I was your father.”
“My father?!” Lily’s lip curled in absolute disgust.
“My real father wouldn’t have dumped me in a cheap boarding school. He wouldn’t have only cared about my test scores. He wouldn’t have been completely broke when it was time to pay my college tuition, humiliating me in front of the financial aid office. If Brenda hadn’t stepped in to cover the final payments…”
“Save the sob story, Tom!” Brenda yelled, completely cutting me off.
“Where is the money? Where are the bank statements? If you can’t produce them, it means you stole it. And the house? Is your name on the deed? No? Then pack your garbage and get out. Stop squatting in a house you don’t own.”
Brenda turned to the watching neighbors.
“Look closely, people. This is Tom. A man with zero morals. How can any of you sleep at night knowing a thief lives on your street?”
More neighbors started gathering on the sidewalks. I could hear their hushed whispers, the judgmental clicking of their tongues.
My vision swam with dark spots. I was shaking with so much rage I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence.
3
Bad news travels faster than wildfire.
My own neighborhood became a hostile zone.
When I stepped outside to take out the trash, Mrs. Higgins from the house across the street took one look at me, gripped her garbage bags, and practically sprinted in the opposite direction.
A group of kids riding their bikes down the street stopped and pointed at me.
“Look. That’s the bad guy. The guy who stole that girl’s house.”
I had to grip the plastic trash bin to stop myself from doing something stupid.
My phone was even worse.
Unknown numbers called back to back, ringing constantly.
I finally answered one.
“Hello?”
“Is this Tom? You absolute piece of trash. I hope you rot in hell.”
A barrage of vile, explicit curses exploded through the speaker.
I slammed the end call button and powered the phone off completely.
The house finally fell silent, but the heavy, crushing weight in my chest only got worse.
A lawyer was my only lifeline now.
I scrounged together every loose bill I had hidden in my desk drawers just to cover the initial consultation fee.
I sat in a stiff leather chair in a downtown law firm. Across the desk, Mr. Davis adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. His frown was so deep it looked permanent.
“Tom.” He spoke slowly, and every word felt like a hammer hitting my chest. “Your situation is… well, it’s not looking good.”
My stomach dropped.
“The opposing party, Lily, is a legal adult. She is the rightful heir and the legal owner of the property. She wants to reclaim it, and legally, she is entirely justified. Your name is not on the deed.”
Davis flipped open the thin manila folder on his desk.
“The main issue is the hundred thousand dollars. You claim your brother and sister-in-law verbally entrusted it to you for her upbringing. But there is absolutely no paper trail. They just said ‘take it’ and ‘live here.’ They didn’t write a formal will stating the cash was a personal gift to you, nor did they legally transfer the house. In the eyes of the court, it is incredibly difficult to prove this was an unconditional transfer of assets.”
He paused, looking at me with pity.
“You have to prove that every single penny of that hundred thousand dollars was spent directly on Lily’s upbringing. Or, you need to prove your sister-in-law explicitly stated the money was yours to spend. Also…”
He pointed a pen at the printed screenshots of Lily’s viral posts.
“The court of public opinion is heavily stacked against you right now. Judges are human beings. They read the news. It will subconsciously affect their perspective.”
Prove it?
It had been ten years.
Groceries. Utility bills. Gas money. Textbooks. Winter coats. Extracurriculars.
Who in the world keeps a detailed receipt for every single gallon of milk and pair of shoes they buy over a decade?
“So… that’s it? I just sit here and let them destroy my life?”
“Do your absolute best to find evidence,” Davis sighed. “Large bank withdrawals that coincide with tuition due dates. Or, if there was anyone else in the room when your brother gave you those instructions. An eyewitness.”
An eyewitness?
My brother died suddenly. The only other person in that hospital room besides me… was Brenda.
Her?
Would she testify for me?
Pigs would fly before that woman lifted a finger to help me.
I dragged my exhausted body back home. As I unlocked the front door, I noticed a folded piece of paper shoved underneath the crack.
A notice from the Homeowners Association.
The itemized list was incredibly long. Neighborhood maintenance fees. Trash collection. Security gate upkeep. The numbers were astronomical.
The bold black text at the very bottom hit me like a physical punch.
Outstanding Late Fees and Penalties: $15,872.00
Fifteen thousand dollars in late fees?!
I immediately dialed the HOA president’s number.
“Listen, Tom. Lily marched into the office yesterday and demanded a full audit of the last ten years. She said the reduced rates we gave you out of sympathy were invalid. She demanded we back-charge you at the absolute maximum market rate. For ten years of occupancy. Plus late penalties.”
I hung up before he could finish his sentence and immediately dialed Lily’s number.
“Lily. You went to college to learn how to completely ruin a person, is that it? Making the HOA back-charge me fifteen grand? This is extortion. Back off.”
“Having a tough time, Uncle Tom?” Lily’s voice was dripping with smug satisfaction. “If you want peace and quiet, pack your bags and wire me the money. I promise I’ll leave you alone. If not, I have a lot more tricks up my sleeve.”
I was so angry my vision blurred. I tore the HOA notice into tiny shreds and threw them against the wall.
4
It didn’t take long for HR to drop the word “temporary” from my suspension.
A rep from corporate handed me a heavily worded NDA and a “Graceful Exit Agreement.”
The subtext was crystal clear. Sign the paper, quit quietly, and get a tiny severance check. Fight it, get fired for violating the morality clause, and leave with absolutely nothing.
I felt like my spine had been ripped out. I took the severance.
The massive suburban house felt incredibly hollow with just me inside it.
I started tearing the place apart like a madman.
My brother’s old toolbox. My sister-in-law’s knitting basket. Lily’s kindergarten art projects.
I yanked out drawers and dumped them on the floor. I pulled every box out of the attic.
I searched for twenty-four straight hours. Aside from some old photo albums and worthless trinkets, I found absolutely nothing.
No receipts. No hidden documents. No evidence.
I collapsed onto the messy floor, staring blankly at the dusty ceiling fan.
Suddenly, a violent, aggressive pounding echoed from the front door.
It was louder and angrier than Lily’s knocking. Someone was trying to break the door down.
I scrambled up and yanked the door open.
Three massive, intimidating men stood on my porch.
The leader had a tight buzzcut, a black muscle shirt, and thick tribal tattoos snaking up his neck. His eyes were dead and aggressive.
The two guys behind him were built like brick walls.
Buzzcut held a stack of papers in his massive hands. When he saw me, he flashed a nasty smile, revealing a row of yellowed teeth.
“You Tom?”
His voice was pure gravel. He slapped the papers hard against the wooden doorframe.
“Lily sent us. Read it and weep. Formal Notice of Reclaiming Property.”
He paused, his small eyes gleaming with cruelty.
“You have exactly two hours to pack whatever trash belongs to you and get out. This house belongs to the lady now. We’re here for the eviction.”
“Eviction?!” I yelled. “The court hasn’t even heard the case yet. She has zero legal right to force an eviction.”
“Rights?”
One of the thugs with a deep scar across his cheek let out a harsh laugh. He shoved his heavy hand against my chest, physically pushing me backward.
The three men pushed past me, marching into my living room like they owned the place.
“Here’s your rights,” Buzzcut said, shoving the notice directly into my face.
“Lily is the deed holder. Understand? The owner calls the shots. She wants you gone, so you’re gone. You want to cry to a judge? Let’s see who the cops side with.”
He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck.
“Besides, the lady gave us full power of attorney to clear the premises. We’re just doing our jobs. Go ahead, call 911.”
“This is breaking and entering,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest. “Get out of my house.”
“Get out?” Buzzcut threw his head back and laughed. He shoved me hard into the drywall.
“Alright boys, get to work. The boss lady said anything that isn’t nailed down is garbage. Throw it all out. Let’s give this freeloader some space.”
They immediately started grabbing my belongings and hurling them into the corners of the room.
One of the thugs picked up a cheap plastic picture frame from the side table.
It was the only surviving family photo of my brother, Sarah, a tiny Lily, and me. He didn’t even look at it. He just casually tossed it onto the hardwood floor.
The plastic cracked loudly. The photo slid out, and a heavy, dirt-caked work boot stepped directly onto my brother’s face.
That photo was the only physical memory I had left of my brother.
All the blood rushed to my head. I let out a feral yell and lunged directly at the man who stepped on the photo.
The ensuing chaos was deafening. A neighbor must have heard the shouting and called the police. The flashing blue lights eventually scared the thugs away.
As I was on my hands and knees, trying to sweep up the broken glass and shattered plastic, my phone rang.
“Hello? Lily…” my voice was shaking.
“Tom.” Her voice was completely hollow.
“Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, a real estate agent is coming to do a walkthrough. Pack your garbage and leave the keys on the kitchen counter. I’m coming to officially take possession on Monday. If you are still inside that house, what happened today is going to happen every single day.”
She delivered the threat rapidly, without a single stutter.
A walkthrough? Taking possession?
“Lily!” I jumped to my feet. “Your parents left this house for me to live in. They wanted me to have a roof over my head so I could…”
“So I wouldn’t end up on the street!” Lily screamed, her voice cracking with fury.
“It wasn’t meant for you to squat in for ten years. Do not bring up my parents. You don’t have the right. Brenda was right about you. You’re just a greedy, pathetic parasite.”
“What kind of poison is Brenda feeding you?!” I roared into the phone. “That woman is a…”
“She cares about me. She actually looks out for my future. She treats me ten thousand times better than you ever did.”
Lily practically screamed the last sentence.
The line went dead.
The dial tone pierced my eardrum.
Ten years. Ten whole years.
I ruined my own life to play both parents. I clothed her, fed her, paid her tuition. I bought her the newest iPhones and expensive bags because I was terrified she’d get bullied for being the poor orphan kid. I ate ramen noodles for dinner so she could have steak.
And this was the result. She sent violent thugs to tear my house apart and crush my brother’s face under a dirty boot.
I had raised a monster.
She didn’t even call me Uncle anymore.
Just “Tom” and “Parasite.”
The phone vibrated again.
Brenda.
My fingers were trembling as I hit accept.
“I assume you heard what Lily just said,” Brenda purred, her voice dripping with triumphant satisfaction.
“Be smart about this. Pack your bags and leave quietly. Save yourself the embarrassment of a public trial. Because if we go to court, I promise you, I will bleed you dry until you don’t even have the shirt on your back.”
She didn’t even wait for a response. The call disconnected.
The phone slipped from my sweaty palm and cracked against the hardwood floor.
I slumped against the side of the sofa, sliding down until I was sitting in the dust. I had absolutely zero fight left in me.
The house was gone. My career was gone. My reputation was completely destroyed. I was drowning in HOA debt, and my legal fund was basically empty.
Was there really no way out?
5
I wandered around the empty, echoing house like a ghost for two days.
The dirty, crumpled family photo sitting on the coffee table burned my eyes every time I walked past it.
In the picture, Thomas had his arm wrapped tightly around Sarah. Lily had two little pigtails, grinning at the camera without a care in the world.
Sarah passed away from a sudden illness when Lily was young. A few years later, Thomas’s grief caught up with him. His body just completely shut down.
I remember Thomas lying in that sterile hospital bed. He was skeletal. He gripped my hand with a desperate, terrifying strength.
“Tom… take care of Lily. The house… is big enough for both of you to live in. The money… make sure she has a good life.”
I buried my face in my hands. A sharp, agonizing lump formed in my throat.
Hot tears leaked through my fingers.
No.
I couldn’t just roll over and die.
Thomas entrusted Lily to me. He told me to live in this house. He didn’t do it so I could be tortured and destroyed by Brenda’s toxic manipulation and a brainwashed kid.
I dragged myself off the floor, wiped my face with my sleeve, grabbed a jacket, and ran out the door.
The bank. I needed to go to the bank.
That hundred thousand dollars was deposited under my name.
The teller at the front desk frowned deeply when I asked for a decade of transaction history.
“Sir, our local branch system only goes back five years for immediate printing. Anything older requires a formal request from the central archives. It usually takes three to five business days for approval.”
“Request it. Right now. Expedite it if you have to,” I begged, pressing my hands against the bulletproof glass.
I waited through two agonizing days of silence before the bank finally called me to pick up the files.
My hands were shaking as I held the thick stack of printed statements.
I flipped through the pages. Rapidly scanning the lines.
Tuition.
There it was.
Every August, a massive sum was wired out. Payee: State University.
The amounts matched perfectly.
That was Lily’s college tuition.
Five full years of out-of-state tuition.
That single expense accounted for over fifty thousand dollars.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
This was a lead.
But my relief lasted exactly two minutes.
This was only her college years.
What about high school? Middle school?
What about groceries, medical bills, clothes, laptops, and emergency room visits?
Out of the hundred thousand, college took half. The other fifty thousand was stretched over the first five years. That’s ten grand a year. Less than a thousand bucks a month for food, shelter, and clothing for a growing teenager.
The paper trail was broken. A few college tuition receipts weren’t going to justify the entire amount in front of a judge.
Refusing to give up, I drove to Lily’s old high school and middle school.
The administrator at the high school adjusted his glasses and shook his head firmly.
“Mr. Pendelton, you’re asking for financial records from seven years ago. Those are in the deep archives off-site. Without a formal subpoena or a court order, we absolutely cannot release a minor’s historical financial records to you. It’s a massive liability.”
I hit a brick wall.
The middle school was even worse. The old records clerk had retired, and the new staff didn’t even know what filing system was used back then.
Every single thread led to a dead end.
I walked back to my neighborhood, my head hanging low, utterly defeated.
As I approached my street, I saw Brenda’s obnoxious bright red SUV parked by the curb. She was standing on the sidewalk, smiling warmly, brushing a stray lock of hair behind Lily’s ear.
Lily actually looked happy.
“Wow. You still haven’t packed?”
Brenda caught sight of me, and her warm smile vanished instantly. She looked down her nose at me.
“Absolutely shameless. You’re like a leech that refuses to let go.”
She raised her voice, making sure anyone walking their dog could hear her.
Lily’s smile disappeared. She shot me a look of pure, unadulterated disgust, grabbed Brenda’s arm, and climbed into the passenger seat without a word. The SUV sped off.
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The wedding prep was going perfectly. That was until my fiancée, Sarah, brought her childhood guy friend, Oliver, into our brand new home.
What pushed me entirely over the edge was finding out Oliver spent the night in our custom ordered master bed.
The next morning, Oliver posted a short video that instantly blew up online. The caption was completely sickening.
In the video, he smirked at the camera. “Huge thanks to Sarah for setting this up. This hundred thousand dollar mattress is insane. Especially the vibration feature. George really has a killer eye for this stuff. smirk emoji”
Sarah’s comment under his post was basically pouring gasoline on a fire. “If you like it so much, I will make him buy you one too.”
Seeing that, I was shaking with pure rage. I called a junk removal company overnight and had that expensive mattress dragged straight to the city dump.
When Sarah found out, she called me immediately. Zero apologies. Instead, she screamed at me. “Are you out of your mind? If you did not want the bed, you should have just given it to Oliver! Throwing it away is such a waste!”
I did not say a single word. I just quietly deleted every single wedding post from my social media.
If she could not even maintain the most basic boundaries, this wedding was off.
But not long after, Sarah was on her knees in front of me, crying her eyes out and begging me to take her back. She swore she could not live without me.
1
“George, what the hell is your problem?! Why did you delete all the wedding announcements?”
When Sarah finally tracked me down, I was busy directing a crew inside our newly renovated penthouse.
She came in hot, opening her mouth just to scold me.
“Do you have any idea how many people are messaging me right now? Are you intentionally trying to humiliate me?!”
I refused to even look at her. I just motioned to the movers handling the bed frame. “Guys, pick up the pace. Do not worry about scratching the walls. Just get it all out of here.”
The movers gave a quick nod and kept working.
Sarah glanced at the busy clean up crew. The realization finally hit her. Every single piece of furniture they were hauling out was something I had spent months tracking down, specifically catered to her tastes.
A flicker of genuine panic crossed her face, but she quickly forced it down.
“George, why are you having them move all this stuff?”
I finally turned around, locking eyes with her. My voice was dead.
“I am canceling the wedding. Is that not obvious enough for you?”
Her eyes widened. She finally realized I was completely serious. When she spoke again, her tone was significantly softer.
“I know you are mad. But I can explain this. Absolutely nothing happened between Oliver and me! He was literally just testing the mattress for us!”
Thinking about that disgusting video still trending online, I let out a harsh, bitter laugh.
“Yeah, people who know the truth think he was just sleeping on the bed. Everyone else on the internet thinks he was sleeping with you!”
“The entire comment section is mocking me for being so generous. They are saying if I let another guy test out my wedding bed, I probably let him test out the bride too!”
Sarah stayed silent for a long moment. When she finally answered, it was just a lazy excuse.
“Oliver did not do it on purpose. Stop caring so much about what random people online think. The internet will forget about it by tomorrow. If it really bothers you that much, I will just tell him to delete the video. Okay?”
Watching her act like she was making some massive sacrifice, I scoffed out loud.
“You think deleting a video fixes this? Sarah, listen to me. This is not over.”
Her temper flared right back up.
“George, are you ever going to drop this? Nothing I do is good enough for you! We are supposed to get married in a few weeks. Can you stop throwing a tantrum over nothing?”
I twitched a tight smile, pointing at my own chest. “I am throwing a tantrum?”
She crossed her arms. “Obviously! How many times do I have to say it? Oliver and I are completely platonic! If I was actually into him, do you honestly think I would be marrying you?”
A sharp pain twisted in my chest. My eyes burned.
“Is that right? So according to your logic, I should be thanking him?!”
“Do you think I am an idiot? If you two really did nothing wrong, then why was the entire set of bedsheets completely replaced this morning?!”
Suddenly, the electronic lock on the front door beeped.
Oliver rushed into the living room and immediately dropped to his knees on the hardwood floor.
“George! I am so sorry! This was all my fault! Please do not be mad at Sarah!”
Before I could say a word, he raised his hand and started violently slapping his own face.
Sarah looked completely heartbroken.
“George, that is enough! Oliver grew up incredibly poor. He got overly excited experiencing a luxury bed for the first time and made a stupid video. You cannot blame him just because it went viral!”
“We are getting married soon. Can you just be the bigger person? It is just a dumb internet trend. Why are you being so petty?”
2
It was always like this.
No matter how inappropriate or shameless Oliver acted, in her eyes, it was never a big deal.
She unconditionally took his side, completely blind to the pain she was causing me.
If that was how she felt, why did she even agree to be my girlfriend? Why did she agree to marry me?
My chest felt completely hollow.
“Sarah, what the hell am I to you? You even gave Oliver the passcode to our private home. Are you seriously trying to follow the internet comments and make me give up my spot for him?”
She rolled her eyes, looking totally annoyed.
“If you were not the heir to the Kensington empire, no one would even care about our wedding. This whole thing only went viral because of your status! You brought this on yourself!”
“So what you are saying is, because my family has money, I deserve to be publicly humiliated? Sarah, when did you turn into this person?”
Looking at the woman standing in front of me, she felt like a total stranger. I closed my eyes, fighting back the dampness gathering in my lashes.
Noticing the shift in my mood, Sarah bit her lip and reached out to grab my sleeve.
“George, I came here to explain things and figure this out. I do not want to fight with you. Let us just calm down.”
I coldly yanked my arm away.
Tears instantly welled up in her eyes.
“You always do this! You get mad and refuse to listen to a single word I say! I came here to fix the internet drama, and you just yell at me and threaten to break up! How am I supposed to not get defensive?”
“What exactly do you want me to do to make this go away? Just give me a straight answer!”
I knew at least half her tears were completely fake.
But after three years together, seeing her cry was still my ultimate weakness.
The veins in my forehead throbbed. Finally, I let out a heavy sigh, giving in one last time.
“Fine. Tell Oliver to delete the video and post a public apology. Then we drop it.”
I locked my eyes entirely onto hers.
“I am willing to let this slide because of everything we have been through. But Oliver has to leave New York. I will personally find him a job in another state, but you two are cutting all contact.”
Sarah was nodding along at first, but the second half of my demand made her freeze.
“He just moved to the city. If you force him to leave, what if something bad happens to him out there?”
I let out a cold scoff and turned toward the door.
“Then we have nothing left to talk about. If you cannot do it, we are done.”
Sarah panicked and rushed to block my path. She struggled internally for a few seconds before biting her lip and lowering her head.
“Okay! We will do it your way. I will keep my distance from him. We can move forward with the wedding.”
After that, she dragged a very pathetic looking Oliver out of the apartment, claiming she needed to find him a cheap hotel before having him post the apology.
I let them go.
Thinking the nightmare was finally over, I pulled out my phone, ready to draft a new wedding announcement to do some damage control.
I was halfway through typing when a text popped up from one of my buddies.
“Bro, your girl and her friend got entirely wasted at my club. They are practically glued together on the couch. You better come pick her up before this gets worse.”
“…Alright, I am on my way.”
I forced the words through gritted teeth, swallowing down a tidal wave of fury as I hung up the phone.
I drove like an absolute maniac. By the time I kicked open the doors to the VIP lounge, Oliver and Sarah had basically stripped off half their clothes and were aggressively making out on the leather sofa.
My vision went completely red. I grabbed an ice bucket from the bar, marched over, and violently hurled the freezing water and cubes directly onto them.
“You shameless animals! Keep kissing, I dare you!”
3
The freezing water jolted them completely awake. They shrieked, scrambling up in a panic.
“Who the hell do you think you are?! What are you doing to my friends?!”
A drunk guy sitting at their table started shouting, heavily swaying as he grabbed an empty beer bottle to swing at me.
Before he could even raise his arm, my bodyguard stepped in, grabbing the guy by the back of his neck and slamming his face directly into a massive fruit platter on the table.
Sarah was shivering violently from the ice. She wiped her eyes, saw it was me, and immediately exploded in anger.
“George, are you psychotic?! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Oliver cowered, hiding completely behind Sarah’s back like a terrified child.
“L-George. Do not misunderstand. Sarah and I just get a little physical when we drink. It is a habit, we are used to it…”
I let out a dark, furious laugh.
“Sarah, what exactly did you promise me this afternoon? You said you would keep your distance. Is this your version of keeping your distance?!”
Pure rage boiled over. I kicked the heavy glass table, sending it crashing sideways.
“You are practically having sex in the middle of my friend’s club! Should I have arrived a little later? Do you guys need me to book you a hotel room?!”
Sarah looked guilty for exactly three seconds before her defense mechanisms kicked in. She lifted her chin, completely unapologetic.
“Oliver is leaving the city tomorrow! It is totally normal for us to grab a few drinks to say goodbye! You go out drinking with your friends all the time. Why is it a crime when I do it?!”
I roared at the top of my lungs.
“I drink with my friends?! Do I make out with my friends?! Do I take my clothes off and roll around on a couch with them?!”
“Do not forget who you are! If my buddy had not ordered his staff to delete the security footage, you and Oliver would be trending on Twitter again by tomorrow morning!”
Sarah glared at me with freezing resentment.
“Who I am? What does that even mean? Does being your fiancée mean I lose the basic human right to have a drink with my best friend?!”
“Friend? This is what you call a friend?”
I reached out, grabbed a half naked Oliver by the collar, and violently yanked him out from behind her. My hands were literally shaking with anger.
Oliver immediately dropped to his knees again.
“I am sorry George! I am so sorry! This was all my fault! I pressured Sarah into drinking! Punish me, but please do not be mad at her!”
Before I could blink, he grabbed a heavy glass liquor bottle from the floor and violently smashed it against his own forehead.
Blood instantly poured down his face.
“I know I messed up! I am paying for it right now!”
Sarah looked completely horrified. She dropped down, sobbing hysterically.
“Oliver! Stop hurting yourself! This is not your fault!”
Looking at the two of them crying together on the floor, anyone walking in would think I was the evil villain tearing apart two star crossed lovers.
“Are you done putting on a show?”
I kicked Oliver straight in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards, and ordered my bodyguard to pin him down.
Then I grabbed a heavily swaying Sarah by the wrist and dragged her out to the car.
“This is the absolute last chance you get. When you sober up tomorrow, we are going to have a very serious conversation about whether this wedding is actually happening.”
Sarah fought me the entire way, screaming curses and calling me a monster, until the alcohol finally took over and she passed out in the passenger seat.
The very next morning, the absolute first thing she did when she opened her eyes was ask for Oliver.
“George, you bastard! You just left him bleeding in that club?! I have to go find him!”
She grabbed her purse and rushed to the front door. But the second she pulled it open, she let out a bloodcurdling scream.
4
I stood up and walked over.
Oliver was kneeling directly outside my front door. His hair was matted with dried, dark blood. He looked like a literal ghost out of a horror movie.
I closed my eyes. A massive wave of pure, unfiltered exhaustion washed over me.
Oliver’s face was completely pale. He forced a weak, tragic smile at Sarah.
“Sarah, I just came to say goodbye. Thank you for taking care of me all these years.”
He slowly turned his head to look at me, his voice trembling with fake desperation.
“George, I really know I messed up. I knelt out here all night to reflect on my actions. Please, just forgive her.”
Sarah lunged forward, desperately trying to pull him up from the floor. Oliver gripped her arms, shaking his head.
“Sarah, just listen to me. Please treat George well. You guys are getting married. Do not let me ruin things between you.”
What an incredibly generous speech.
If a stranger heard this, they would assume he was her loyal boyfriend and I was the abusive millionaire stealing his girl.
He was acting pathetic, but every single word out of his mouth was a calculated flex. He was rubbing it in my face that he was the only man Sarah truly cared about.
And Sarah completely fell for it. She grabbed his arm, trying to drag him toward the elevator.
“Stop talking! I am taking you to the hospital right now!”
Oliver struggled against her grip.
“No, Sarah! Do not treat me this well. I do not want George to misunderstand us again!”
My eyes were dead cold. Before I could even open my mouth, Sarah spun around and delivered a stinging slap directly across my face.
“George! Do I need your permission to take my bleeding friend to the ER now?! He is in this condition because of you! You have the nerve to be jealous?!”
The slap was incredibly heavy. My head actually snapped to the side.
I pressed my tongue against the inside of my aching cheek. A dark, hollow laugh escaped my throat.
“You actually hit me?”
Sarah spat a curse, grabbing her car keys from the console.
“Yeah, I hit you! You think having a little money makes you a god?! Without the Kensington fortune, you are absolutely nothing! Nobody wants to deal with your entitled rich boy temper!”
A flash of smug triumph crossed Oliver’s eyes before he went right back to begging.
“George, I promise! As soon as I get checked out, I am leaving the city! You will never have to look at me again!”
“He has no right to kick you out of this city! Do not be scared. I will make sure you stay right by my side!”
Sarah pulled him toward the elevator without giving me a single backward glance.
I stood in the doorway, watching their silhouettes disappear. My heart felt like it was encased in solid ice.
Whatever deep, unforgettable love I used to have for this woman completely died in that exact moment.
I closed my eyes, pulled out my phone, and dialed a number.
If Sarah wanted to choose Oliver over me, then I was done showing mercy.
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In the fourth year of our arranged marriage, Nathaniel still loved that fragile human, Sophia, his fated mate.
Even though I was his wife now, it didn’t matter.
After Sophia got injured, he even wanted to drain half his blood for her.
Alpha blood had strong healing powers. It could prevent scars from forming on her wounds.
Sophia shattered the keepsake my grandmother left me.
Yet he grabbed me by the throat and forced me to apologize to Sophia.
To make him happy, I chose to break the mate bond and leave on my own.
Two months later, he found me in Paris and begged me to come back to him.
But he didn’t know. I had found my fated mate.
Amelia Johnson POV
On the phone, Moore, my father’s beta, had a calm and professional voice.
“Amelia, Alpha Silas has carefully considered your proposal. He admits that Nathaniel has done far too much for that human, things a qualified alpha heir shouldn’t do. Therefore, the cooperation with Moonclaw Pack can be terminated. You can leave Moonclaw Pack after that ridiculous marriage contract expires and go anywhere you want.”
His voice paused, taking on a hint of amusement.
“If the money isn’t enough, you’ll have to talk to your father yourself.”
“Thank you for your help, Moore.”
I hung up and looked at the enormous photo hanging in the center of the living room wall.
In the picture, I wore a formal dress, standing beside Nathaniel.
That was the only time in my life I dared to stand so brazenly close to Nathaniel.
Yet his expression was so cold.
Love or the lack of it needed no words. It hung there, naked and obvious.
“It’s finally going to end.”
I sighed.
Four years ago, my father sent me to Moonclaw Pack for an arranged marriage when I was twenty-two and still hadn’t found my fated mate.
After arriving, I learned that Nathaniel had already found his fated mate.
It’s just that his fated mate was human, a human that Nathaniel’s father, Alpha William, refused to accept.
So Alpha William ordered him to give up that human and be with me.
On my wedding night, there was no tenderness, only Nathaniel’s cold, cutting words and a ridiculous marriage contract.
“Amelia, remember your place. This is just an arranged marriage between us. And this arrangement only lasts four years. During these four years, do what you’re supposed to do and don’t fantasize about anything that doesn’t belong to you. After four years, give up your position to its rightful owner.”
Back then, I naively thought that four years would be enough to warm a block of ice.
I thought we could become mates who loved each other.
But four years passed, and I finally understood: some ice would never melt for me.
A soft sound at the door interrupted my thoughts.
Nathaniel was home.
His tall figure brought a sharp chill as he stepped inside. I took a deep breath and went to meet him.
I took his coat and hung it up.
I knelt down in front of him, opened the shoe cabinet, and took out a pair of soft house slippers.
I had practiced this routine for four years.
Nathaniel had long grown accustomed to it all. He loosened his tie and tossed it carelessly on the shoe cabinet:
“Next month is the pack’s full moon festival. Don’t forget to attend.”
My movements as I changed his shoes froze for a moment.
I shook my head gently:
“I’ll probably be busy that day. I won’t go.”
After that day, I would no longer be Nathaniel’s mate.
But I couldn’t bring myself to say those words.
Hearing this, Nathaniel’s brows furrowed immediately.
“What are you throwing a tantrum about now?”
His voice was full of impatience.
“Because I’ve been spending more time with Sophia lately? Amelia, I warned you on the first day of our marriage. Don’t fantasize about things that don’t belong to you. And put away that pathetic victim act. It only disgusts me.”
I was simply preparing to disappear completely from his world after the contract expired, to never be an eyesore again.
Yet he thought I was protesting his kindness toward Sophia in this way.
I opened my mouth but ultimately said nothing.
Nathaniel’s phone rang.
He glanced at the caller ID, and his expression instantly softened. A tenderness he had never shown me.
Sophia’s crying came through the receiver. Nathaniel asked nervously and gently:
“Sophia? What’s wrong? Don’t cry, take your time.”
Sophia on the other end seemed to be saying something intermittently.
Nathaniel kept comforting her:
“Don’t be afraid, I’m here. Where are you now? Okay, I’ll be right there!”
He hung up and didn’t even glance at me still kneeling on the floor. He grabbed his car keys and rushed outside.
He moved so urgently that his shoulder slammed hard into me.
I was already off-balance, and this powerful impact sent my body stumbling backward uncontrollably.
My forehead struck hard against the sharp corner of the door frame. Searing pain exploded from my temple, and stars burst before my eyes.
But Nathaniel’s figure had already disappeared outside the door. He rushed into the cold night without even a backward glance.
The huge house instantly fell silent.
I supported myself against the wall and slowly stood up. The pain at my temple made me dizzy.
I walked to the mirror in the entryway and looked at the pale-faced woman in the reflection.
I wore a blue floral dress, looking docile and harmless.
But I wasn’t always like this.
I was my father’s favorite child, inheriting his combat talents. I could shift at sixteen and beat down those guys who drooled after me.
I never imagined becoming someone’s mate, bearing his children, managing a household.
For four years, I had disguised myself as a weak, unthreatening woman.
All to win Nathaniel’s love.
It was laughable, but I had to do it to maintain the alliance between our packs.
I was an alpha’s daughter. This was my duty.
At least it would all end soon.
It wasn’t until late at night that my phone rang.
It was Nathaniel.
I answered.
His voice came through, completely flat:
“Come to the hospital.”
I instinctively asked:
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
“Come and you’ll see.”
The call was mercilessly disconnected, leaving only the cold dial tone.
Without thinking, I grabbed a coat and rushed out.
The night wind was freezing. I drove at top speed all the way.
What could have happened?
Was it an accident with Sophia? Or was it him?
I arrived at the hospital as fast as I could.
From a distance, I immediately saw Nathaniel in the hospital room, holding the crying Sophia and comforting her.
They were embracing tightly. The scene felt so ironic, as if I, who had rushed here, was the third party.
Amelia Johnson POV
The air in the corridor felt especially cold because of the disinfectant smell.
I stood there, feeling like all the blood in my body had been frozen by this chill.
I watched the two people embracing tightly in the distance.
Nathaniel lowered his head, softly comforting Sophia who was crying in his arms. The lines of his profile were as gentle as if he were a different person.
That was the tenderness I hadn’t earned even after four years.
I could barely breathe.
It took me a long time to move my stiffened legs again, walking toward them step by step.
Nathaniel heard the sound and looked up.
The moment he saw me, the tenderness that flashed in his eyes quickly faded, replaced again by that familiar coldness.
“What happened?”
I forced myself to speak.
Nathaniel looked at me with those terrifyingly calm eyes and spoke slowly:
“Sophia had an accident. The wound is long, and she’s lost a lot of blood.”
I instinctively asked:
“What?”
“She needs a blood transfusion.”
Nathaniel looked at me as if stating a fact as mundane as the weather, completely unrelated to her:
“My blood can not only save her but also prevent the wound from scarring.”
“You want to give her your blood?!”
Alpha blood did indeed have powerful healing abilities.
But that didn’t mean it should be used at times like this, especially not for the reason of preventing a human from having scars.
This was absurd.
He would go this far for Sophia?
“I didn’t call you here for your opinion.”
Nathaniel coldly interrupted me.
“Just to inform you.”
“Nathaniel, you can’t do this!” I stepped forward, my voice trembling with urgency. “Losing a large amount of blood is dangerous even for you. This is too risky!”
“Dangerous?” A mocking smile curved Nathaniel’s lips. “That’s none of your concern. My decisions aren’t for you to question.”
“I’m your mate!” The words burst out, carrying a desperation I hadn’t even noticed in myself.
“Mate?” The mockery in his eyes deepened. “Remember your place, Amelia. You’re just a conveniently suitable arranged marriage partner when I needed one. Now, move aside.”
I see.
So my only value as his mate was to be a silent background prop when told he’d decided to risk himself for another woman.
How ironic.
“Fine.”
I stepped back, feeling all the strength drain from my body.
Nathaniel released Sophia and helped her sit in a nearby chair.
He comforted her with gentle words, then turned and strode toward the treatment room.
Just as the door was about to close, I called out:
“Nathaniel!”
He stopped and turned to look at me without emotion.
For a moment, I wanted to ask him:
In these four years, did you ever care for me, even for a second?
But meeting those cold eyes, I knew the answer would only disappoint me more.
In the end, I only said:
“Be safe.”
His gaze seemed to flicker slightly, but he said nothing in the end.
He turned and went to give blood without hesitation.
I finally understood completely.
His love for Sophia was profound enough that he would give his precious blood for her.
And my four years of devotion and waiting were nothing but a joke.
In the corridor, I sat on the cold bench.
Sophia walked out of the hospital room, wiped away her tears, sat down beside me, and spoke in a gentle tone:
“I’m sorry for troubling Nathaniel again because of me. You know, when I first learned about you, I was really angry. But he said you were just a tool he used to deal with Alpha William. With you around, Alpha William wouldn’t make things difficult for me, and I could have more freedom.”
I knew what this meant.
Alpha William was an extremely strict werewolf alpha.
He didn’t allow any female werewolves to leave the pack, or even go to bars alone.
He was even stricter with Nathaniel’s mate.
He forbade me from leaving the pack, required me to wait at home when Nathaniel returned, demanded I personally take care of all of Nathaniel’s needs.
So Nathaniel knew this life was restrictive, but he didn’t care about me, so he couldn’t see my pain.
“You know what? One year, he secretly flew to Paris just because I casually mentioned I liked a certain vintage pendant that was about to be released.”
Sophia smiled and continued to provoke me.
“But I was still angry at the time, so I threw the jewelry box right back at him.”
I remembered that pendant.
When Nathaniel returned from Paris that time, he casually tossed an exquisite velvet box to me, his tone indifferent:
“Someone gave it to me. I don’t like it. You deal with it.”
I was so happy when I opened it and saw the necklace.
I thought it was the first and only gift he’d ever given me.
I treasured it at the bottom of my jewelry box, never daring to wear it, often taking it out and looking at it for hours.
It turned out that what I treasured was just the garbage Sophia had disdainfully thrown away.
“And another time,”
Sophia’s voice drifted over leisurely,
“I was in a bad mood late at night and posted something really sad on social media. Guess what? He actually flew to New York overnight to be with me. Even though I didn’t want to see him, he stood in the rain all night.”
I remembered that time. When Nathaniel came back from his business trip, he was soaking wet and pressed me hard beneath him, taking me fiercely.
I naively thought at the time that it was proof of his longing for me after our separation, a breakthrough in our relationship.
It turned out that wasn’t love at all, much less genuine feeling.
It was just him venting all his unfulfilled desire for another woman on me, a substitute he could use whenever he wanted.
“These four years,”
Sophia’s voice was full of pride,
“I ignored him, wanted him to give up, but Nathaniel pursued relentlessly. Every day he had someone send me a bouquet of lisianthus.”
The flower language of lisianthus is unchanging love, eternal waiting.
I felt dizzy and disoriented.
He didn’t like having any plants in the house. He said he was allergic, so I, who had always loved fresh flowers, hadn’t bought a single one in four years.
Yet he easily ordered flowers for someone else for four entire years.
I was a complete fool.
Four years of arranged marriage, an elaborately planned deception.
“I’m leaving.”
I didn’t want to hear her continue.
I stood up and pushed through the hospital doors, finally breaking into a run.
I was afraid that one second later, I would completely drown in this four-year-long fantasy.
Amelia Johnson POV
After escaping from the hospital, I locked myself in the villa for three whole days.
So the pendant I had carefully treasured was someone else’s discarded garbage.
So what I thought was passion was just a tool for venting.
So my joyful late-night companionship was just witnessing a prolonged confession.
Four years, one thousand four hundred and sixty days: I had become a complete substitute, a shadow.
Not even a shadow, just an insignificant background prop in his love story.
On the fourth day, Beta Henry knocked on my door:
“Amelia, Alpha William wants you and sir to remember to attend the gathering tonight.”
I didn’t refuse.
This was Moonclaw Pack’s rule: a monthly banquet, rain or shine.
I spent a long time using thick concealer to hide the exhaustion and pallor on my face.
I changed into a proper long dress and played the role of Nathaniel’s gentle and virtuous mate once again.
This would be the last time.
In the evening, Nathaniel came home, his face slightly paler than usual but still upright.
Seeing me, he only nodded faintly as a greeting, then went straight upstairs to change.
From beginning to end, he didn’t ask why I had suddenly left that day or how I’d been these past few days.
As if I were just a prop needed to attend the banquet together.
The pack’s council hall was built large and usually served the function of hosting banquets as well.
The huge dining table was filled with pack members, but the atmosphere was as oppressive as always.
No one dared to make noise around the stern and rigid Alpha William.
Nathaniel’s father, Alpha William, sat at the head of the table.
Halfway through the meal, an elder spoke up with concern:
“Nathaniel, you and Amelia have been together for four years. Why hasn’t she gotten pregnant yet?”
At these words, everyone’s gaze focused on my flat abdomen.
Oh no.
Nathaniel put down his utensils and wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin, his tone indifferent:
“No rush.”
These three casual words instantly ignited Alpha William’s fury. He slammed his fork heavily on the table.
“No rush?!”
William glared at him.
“You’re already thirty years old. How much longer do you want to wait? Amelia, as Nathaniel’s mate, don’t you have any sense of responsibility?!”
The attack instantly turned toward me.
I put down my fork, stood up, and bowed my head slightly:
“Dad, it’s my fault.”
“Of course it’s your fault!”
William’s voice grew even harsher. His sharp gaze cut into me like a knife.
“I heard that a few days ago, Nathaniel gave a lot of blood for that human woman! Alpha blood is so precious and powerful. How can it be casually given to others, especially to a fragile human?! You’re his mate and you were there. Why didn’t you stop him from doing something so dangerous and reckless?!”
“Dad, this was my own decision.”
Nathaniel frowned and spoke up.
“You shut up!”
William scolded.
“You don’t get to speak here! Amelia, you’ve been married to Nathaniel for four years without bearing an heir for the pack. Now you can’t even take care of Nathaniel’s health, letting him deplete himself for some damned human! You’re failing completely as a mate!”
Yes, this was another reason I decided not to continue the marriage arrangement.
This Alpha William was even more domineering and tyrannical than a king.
Especially, he hated all women.
That included me, of course.
He believed women should stay obediently at home, locked up in chains, only needed to bear children.
So his mate, that brave Luna, tried to resist and ultimately chose suicide.
The death of his fated mate only intensified this tyrant’s obsession.
In these four years, I had endured too many such insults. I hadn’t planned to respond.
But William gestured to a nearby servant.
The servant immediately brought over a bowl of dark, bitter-smelling medicine.
“This is medicine I specially had the healer prepare for you. It will help you get pregnant. Drink it!”
William commanded.
I looked at the bowl of medicine, my stomach churning.
For the first time, I chose to resist.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I won’t drink this medicine.”
Everyone was shocked, including Nathaniel, who looked at me with surprise.
William’s face turned ashen. He pointed at my nose and roared:
“You dare defy me! Are you challenging Moonclaw Pack’s rules? Guards!”
Two tall guards immediately stepped forward.
“Take her to the yard! Give her ten lashes with the silver whip!”
I didn’t resist, letting the guards drag me out.
From beginning to end, Nathaniel just sat there, watching coldly.
He didn’t even say a word in my defense, only looking away the moment I was taken out.
As if what was about to happen in the yard had nothing to do with him.
The late autumn night was bitterly cold.
William was always strict. He had established many rules.
This wasn’t my first time being punished, but it would be my last.
Wounds left by silver weapons were difficult to heal. The cold penetrated through the wounds into my bones, making me shiver all over, yet I also felt a burning pain spreading.
Through the study window, I could clearly see Nathaniel’s silhouette.
He didn’t come out. He sat on the study sofa, holding his phone and making a call.
I couldn’t see his expression, but I could imagine that the person on the other end must be Sophia.
Time passed minute by minute. The intense pain and cold from my back gradually blurred my consciousness.
After the whipping ended, I felt my body growing colder and heavier, and the scene before my eyes began to spin.
In the second before I completely lost consciousness, I saw Nathaniel in the study finally hang up the phone, stand up, and draw the curtains.
He completely shut out my last shred of hope.
So he simply didn’t care.
Everything went black.
Then nothing.
🌟 Continue the story here
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I secretly loved Ethan for ten years. For five years, I was his substitute wife.
In that fire, I lost hearing in my left ear and covered my back with scars to save his life.
But he believed Cherry saved him. He said I stole someone else’s credit. He said I disgusted him.
Then he brought her to our bed. Told me to buy the condoms.
Inside the bedroom, Ethan’s stifled, wild groans mixed with Cherry’s shaking moans.
Outside, I clutched the condoms, my knuckles white, the wounds on my back reopening.
Can’t I just give up?
The day I signed the divorce papers, I booked a one-way ticket to an island.
My left ear is deaf. I’ll listen to the waves with my right.
He doesn’t love me. Fine.
I just want to be Summer Lynn again.
Summer Lynn POV
“Miss Lynn, you have severe hearing loss in your left ear.”
The doctor handed me a report, his tone heavy.
“Five years ago, you inhaled toxic smoke in the fire. It damaged your auditory nerve. Over the years, you’ve also had severe chronic depression. Your immune system has collapsed. Now even your right ear is starting to fail.”
I sat in the chair without a sound.
The doctor thought I didn’t understand, so he repeated himself. “If you don’t adjust your emotional state, your right ear will be affected too.”
I looked at the diagnosis report. After a few seconds, I folded the thin sheet of paper neatly and placed it in my bag.
“I understand. Thank you, doctor.”
I stood up and left the consultation room. Outside in the corridor, a rainstorm had begun.
I couldn’t help but think of that fire from five years ago.
Ethan’s villa had caught fire. His leg was crushed, and he was trapped in the second-floor bedroom.
I was the one who rushed in through the high heat. When the beam collapsed, I threw myself over Ethan and shielded him with everything I had.
My back was severely injured, and my left ear was damaged by the toxic smoke. It kept bleeding.
I dragged the unconscious Ethan out of the fire, then fell into a severe coma myself.
But after I spent three days and nights being resuscitated in the ICU and finally woke up, everything had changed.
That hospital was a private facility the Harrington family had invested in.
Ethan’s mother, who had always despised me, suppressed my true medical report.
Sitting by Ethan’s hospital bed was Cherry Collins.
In Cherry’s hand, she clutched a watch she’d brought out from the fire.
Cherry Collins was Ethan’s first love, the one who held his heart.
Five years ago, Cherry, as Ethan’s girlfriend, had secretly left to study abroad on the night of their engagement, turning the Harrington family into a laughingstock.
The Harrington family urgently needed a replacement to complete the engagement.
I, who had secretly loved Ethan for ten years, stepped forward and willingly became the substitute for this marriage.
That day, Ethan expressionlessly slid the diamond ring originally custom-made for Cherry onto my ring finger.
From that moment on, I was nothing but a substitute.
And when that fire happened, Cherry had just returned to the country.
Ethan’s mother told Ethan that Cherry had rushed into the fire to save him, while I had only run in afterward to steal the credit.
Ethan believed her. He was convinced that Cherry had risked her life to rush into the fire and save him.
I dragged my still-bleeding back to explain, but all I got in return was Ethan’s extremely disgusted look and one cold sentence:
“Summer, to make me love you, you’d even steal a life-saving deed? You truly disgust me.”
After that, I never brought it up again.
I took out my phone to call a car. A sedan suddenly screeched to a stop in front of me.
The window rolled down.
Ethan sat in the driver’s seat.
He frowned slightly, his gaze resting on my rain-soaked shoulders, his tone cold.
“Get in.” Ethan spoke. “Stop making a scene. If you get sick, I’ll have to arrange for someone to take care of you.”
My hand holding the phone paused.
I raised my head and looked past Ethan to see Cherry sitting in the passenger seat.
Cherry didn’t turn around. She just leaned slightly to the side.
If this were before, I would have stared hard at the passenger seat position, yanked open the car door, and demanded an explanation from Ethan about why he said he’d be at a company meeting but drove the car here instead.
I would have asked, red-eyed and stubborn, for an explanation.
Ethan was used to my questioning.
But this time, I just glanced once, then calmly withdrew my gaze.
“No need.” I stood on the steps, my tone devoid of emotion. “The hospital is full of germs. I’m afraid of infecting you both.”
Ethan’s hand on the steering wheel paused slightly.
“Ethan.” Cherry spoke softly. “Is Summer upset because I’m sitting here? Maybe I should get out. I can just take a cab back.”
“Stay seated.” Ethan interrupted Cherry, his gaze still on me.
“Summer, don’t test my patience. Are you sure you want to stand here in the rain?”
“I called a car. It’ll be here soon,” I replied.
Ethan looked at me, then finally let out a cold laugh.
“Fine.”
The window rolled up. The sedan merged back into traffic and quickly disappeared into the curtain of rain.
I hadn’t called a car. I opened the umbrella in my bag and walked into the rain.
I returned to the villa. It was already seven in the evening.
I closed my dripping umbrella and walked straight into the kitchen.
I walked to the counter and pulled open the bottom drawer. Inside was a very thick notebook.
Opening the cover, it was filled with my notes.
Five years ago, Ethan was admitted to the ICU because of a stomach hemorrhage.
After that, I visited every hospital in the city and wrote down these precautions.
For the past five years, I’d followed this notebook and made nutritious meals for Ethan every day.
My hands still bore two permanent scars from burns.
And Ethan’s evaluation of the nutritious meals was usually just a cold “just leave it on the table,” or he simply wouldn’t come home.
I flipped through two pages. The paper made a dry rustling sound.
Then I closed the notebook and threw it into the nearby trash can.
I looked at my left ring finger.
This ring was personally designed by Ethan for Cherry back then. The ring size was also made to Cherry’s measurements.
So the ring was a bit tight on my finger.
Every time I accidentally bumped it, the band would dig hard into my knuckle.
But I never complained of pain. I insisted on wearing this ring for five years.
Summer Lynn POV
The knuckle of my ring finger had long since developed a ring of stubborn dead skin from being squeezed.
I squeezed out a large blob of hand soap and spread it on my ring finger. I gripped the wedding ring with my right hand and pulled hard outward.
The stinging pain of broken skin came. The metal scraped against my knuckle. The ring gradually left my finger.
The moment the ring came off my finger, I stood by the sink for a long time.
I dried my hands, then walked out of the bathroom.
I lifted the covers and lay down.
I closed my eyes. My right ear listened to the sound of rain outside the window. My left ear existed in absolute, dead silence.
I should have gone to the living room to turn on a dim lamp, then stayed up all night waiting for Ethan to come home.
But tonight.
I didn’t turn on a light for him. I didn’t wait anymore either.
The next morning when I came downstairs, Ethan and Cherry were already sitting in the dining room.
Cherry picked up a bowl of hot milk and walked over.
“Summer, you got caught in the rain last night. Drink some hot milk while it’s warm.”
I didn’t speak. I pulled out a chair and sat down.
I hadn’t slept all night. My stomach sent a wave of pain through me.
I picked up the hot milk and took a sip.
After just a few seconds, my face instantly changed.
There was peanut powder in the milk.
I had an extremely severe peanut allergy. Ethan knew this.
If I touched even a little bit, I would have an allergic reaction, triggering acute asthma or even shock.
My airway felt like it was being squeezed shut by an invisible hand.
I covered my throat, desperately gasping for air, but couldn’t draw in a single breath.
I fell from the chair in agony, my face quickly turning purple.
“Ah!”
At the same moment, a cry rang out from the kitchen.
“Ethan, it hurts… I cut my finger.”
Cherry held up her finger with a small trace of blood, her eyes red.
Ethan, who had been watching the morning news, heard the sound and immediately stood up, striding toward the kitchen.
I collapsed on the floor, my vision starting to blur.
I used every ounce of strength to crawl toward the table. In the drawer there was my epinephrine emergency pen.
My fingertips finally touched the edge of the table.
Just as I was about to pull open the drawer, Ethan rushed past.
Bang!
To get to Cherry faster, he kicked the trash can beside the table.
It knocked away the emergency kit I’d barely managed to reach.
The medicine vial rolled to the deepest part under the sofa.
I desperately reached out my hand and grabbed Ethan’s pant leg, making agonized sounds in my throat.
Ethan looked down.
He looked at me but didn’t stop. Instead, he shook off my hand.
“Summer, can you stop making a scene?”
Ethan’s tone was filled with undisguised disgust. “Cherry cut her finger. She faints at the sight of blood. I have to take her to the hospital right away!”
He walked straight over, picked up Cherry, and strode quickly toward the door.
At the doorway, he coldly threw out a sentence:
“Call yourself a car to the hospital!”
The door closed.
I lay on the cold floor. My vision was already going black from lack of oxygen.
I bit down hard and dragged my heavy body inch by inch toward the sofa.
My nails scraped across the floor with a harsh sound, drawing out threads of blood.
Finally, I touched the emergency pen.
With trembling hands, I removed the safety cap, aimed it at the outside of my thigh, and stabbed it hard into my muscle!
Along with the intense pain of the thick, long needle piercing in, the medication was rapidly pushed into my body.
Ten minutes later, my airway slowly opened.
I lay on the floor, gulping in air.
I had almost died here just now.
I’d always thought that the person I’d saved with my life all those years ago would also save me when I was in danger.
But only at this moment did I finally understand.
In Ethan’s eyes, my life wasn’t worth even a bit of broken skin on Cherry.
I should give up.
Summer Lynn POV
I lay on the cold floor for an entire night.
Until dawn broke, Ethan hadn’t returned. He hadn’t called even once.
I propped up my numb body and slowly climbed up from the floor.
I opened my computer, printed out a divorce agreement, and dialed a number I’d never actively called in five years.
“If you’re calling to say that Ethan is with Cherry again, don’t bother. I told you long ago. You’re just a substitute.”
“Now that Cherry is back, Ethan doesn’t need a wife with no social standing like you.”
Over these five years, Ethan’s mother had never hidden her disgust for me.
Every time Ethan brought Cherry to public events, she either permitted it or even supported it, trying to force me to leave on my own.
My voice was calm. “I agree to the divorce, and I’ll leave here forever, but I need you to help me with something.”
The person on the other end was clearly stunned, then said, “As long as you’re willing to leave Ethan, I’ll agree to any condition you want. How much money do you want?”
“I don’t want a single penny.” I looked at the agreement I’d just signed beside me.
“I just need you to use the Harrington family’s connections to quietly finalize the divorce within a month. And… erase all my information. Ethan can’t find out.”
Ethan’s mother laughed. “Fine. In thirty days, I’ll have someone deliver your new identity to you.”
After doing all this, I found a number in my contacts.
This number belonged to a gallery director.
Five years ago, I’d had the chance to have my own art exhibition. But to take care of Ethan, I put down my paintbrush and picked up cooking instead.
“Marcus, that beach house you mentioned. Is it still available?”
“Of course! Finally ready to paint again?”
“Yes.” I replied. “I want to rent that house.”
I wasn’t going to be Mrs. Harrington anymore.
After hanging up, I booked a one-way ticket for thirty days from now.
I was going to that island where no one knew me, to become Summer Lynn again.
That evening, Ethan came back alone.
He walked into the living room and saw me sitting quietly on the sofa reading.
I didn’t rush up to him with hot milk like before. I didn’t even lift my head.
Ethan asked coldly, “Did the family doctor come treat you this morning? Stop eating random things from now on.”
I turned a page in my book, my tone calm. “It’s fine. I won’t die.”
“There’s a charity auction gala tomorrow. Come with me. Don’t you always want me to introduce you to the public?”
My gaze moved from the book.
I was about to refuse when Ethan’s phone suddenly rang.
Cherry’s delicate crying voice came from the other end. “Ethan, can you take me to tomorrow’s auction? I just got back to the country. I don’t know anyone. I’m so scared to go alone…”
Ethan glanced at me.
I remained sitting quietly, as if I hadn’t heard the phone conversation at all.
He suddenly blurted out, “Okay, I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
After hanging up, Ethan looked at me.
“You don’t need to go to tomorrow’s gala. Rest at home. I’ll take you to another gala in a few days.”
If this were before, I would have demanded through red eyes why he was going back on his word.
But today, I looked at him and gently closed the book in my hands.
“Okay.” I nodded, no unwillingness in my tone. “I understand.”
Ethan looked at me. He suddenly yanked off his tie, turned around, and strode upstairs.
What he didn’t know was that the moment he turned to go upstairs, I took out my phone.
On the phone screen was a ticketing message from the airline.
“You have successfully booked a one-way ticket to Hawaii departing in thirty days.”
Ethan’s mother had also sent a message:
“The divorce has entered the process. It will take thirty days. In thirty days, I hope you keep your promise.”
I replied, “Thank you.”
Then I opened my calendar and silently began counting down.
Summer Lynn POV
The next day, Ethan took Cherry to the charity gala as expected.
When he returned, he even tossed me a gift box.
“Auction item from last night’s gala. For you.”
I sat on the sofa, my gaze falling on that gift box.
I didn’t take it. I didn’t open it either.
“Do you need me to open it for you?” Ethan’s brow furrowed slightly. He walked over and opened the gift box clasp with one hand.
Inside lay a dazzling diamond necklace.
“I saw Cherry really liked the main piece from this collection, so I bought it for her. This starry one is the secondary piece. It happens to suit you.”
My fingertips curled slightly under my sleeves.
What he gave Cherry was the main necklace worth tens of millions. What he gave me, his wife, was just a secondary gift piece.
If this were before, I would have asked him through red eyes, “Ethan, in your heart, will I always only get the things she doesn’t want?”
I would have been too upset to sleep, while he would only think I was making a fuss and habitually use money to wipe away my tears.
But tonight, I just felt like my heart had been injected with anesthesia. Even the pain had become dull.
I looked at the necklace reflecting cold light and pulled at the corners of my dry lips slightly.
“Thank you.” My voice was as light as a feather landing on the ground. “The necklace is beautiful. I really like it.”
Ethan’s movements paused.
I didn’t look at the necklace anymore. My gaze returned to the book in my hands.
“Summer, stop making a scene.” His voice deepened, carrying suppressed displeasure. “I’m very tired today. I don’t have time to humor you.”
“I’m not making a scene.” I turned a page in my book, my tone as calm as stagnant water.
Ethan stared at me for a while, then let out a cold laugh, turned around, and strode toward the second-floor study.
Bang!
The study door slammed shut.
I didn’t try to keep him.
I looked at the glittering necklace on the table. What flashed through my mind was a scene from ten years ago.
That year I was only sixteen, hiding in a corner of the Harrington family villa, watching that handsome young man.
I’d secretly loved him for a full ten years. When his fiancée ran away from the wedding, I was willing to wear an ill-fitting wedding dress and shield him from all the embarrassment.
On our wedding day, I naively thought that as long as I was obedient enough and understanding enough, someday I could make him love me.
Even though he put a ring that didn’t fit my finger onto my hand, even though he wouldn’t spare me a glance, I still felt that at least I was standing beside him.
But that fire not only took away my hearing. It also completely burned away my love for him.
For Cherry’s sake, he didn’t even care about my life.
Once a person wakes up, they understand everything.
For the next two weeks, I silently erased all traces of myself.
I listed designer bags and clothes on secondhand websites at low prices, keeping only a few of the most ordinary clothes.
In the huge master bedroom, the traces of my presence grew fainter and fainter.
That afternoon, the villa’s doorbell suddenly rang.
Cherry walked in.
I walked out of the storage room holding a wooden paint box covered in thick dust.
I looked up and saw Cherry.
Around Cherry’s neck, she was conspicuously wearing that dazzling main diamond necklace.
That huge central diamond rested perfectly on her delicate collarbone, so bright it hurt the eyes.
“Summer, you’re home.”
Cherry walked into the living room, deliberately tucking her hair behind her ear to fully expose the necklace to my view.
“A few days ago at the auction, Ethan insisted on buying me this jewelry set. I said it was too expensive and I couldn’t accept it, but he wouldn’t listen. He even put it on me himself.”
Cherry smiled happily. “He said this necklace had a secondary gift piece that he brought home for you. Did you see it?”
My fingers holding the paint box tightened slightly.
I listened to Cherry’s boastful words and looked at that necklace, but my eyes didn’t show even a ripple of emotion.
I pointed at the box. “If you like it, take that along with you.”
Summer Lynn POV
Cherry froze in place.
After all, my reaction carried an uncomfortable sense of dismissal.
Cherry bit her lip unwillingly.
Her gaze shifted and landed on the old paint box I was holding.
“Summer, what are you packing up?”
Cherry walked forward, pretending to be curious as she reached out to touch the box.
“Don’t touch it.” My voice turned slightly cold. I instinctively stepped back.
This was the last memento my mother left me before she died.
It was also what I planned to take to the island. My hope for starting a new life.
Cherry didn’t pull her hand back. Instead, she twisted her wrist hard, using my own backward movement as cover.
Crash!
A dull, heavy sound.
The heavy wooden box slipped from my hands and fell hard onto the marble floor.
The wooden box shattered instantly.
The paint tubes I’d treasured for years broke into pieces, paint splashing out everywhere, staining the expensive carpet and splattering onto my clean pant legs.
I stood frozen, staring at the broken wooden box, my brain blank for a moment.
“Oh no!”
But Cherry cried out first. She quickly stepped back two paces, her eyes instantly reddening like a startled deer.
At the same moment, the second-floor study door was pushed open forcefully.
Hearing the commotion, Ethan quickly came downstairs.
“What happened?” He glanced at the paint all over the floor, his brow knitting tightly.
Cherry immediately grabbed Ethan’s sleeve with red eyes, her voice choking with tears. “Ethan, I just wanted to help Summer with something… Summer might still be mad at me. She threw the box down and almost hit my foot…”
Ethan’s gaze followed Cherry’s pointing finger and landed on me.
He looked at the mess on the floor, then at my face.
“Summer, what exactly are you trying to do?”
Ethan’s tone was ice-cold, with undisguised disgust. “They’re just some paint tubes. Do you really need to make such a scene?”
These paints were my mother’s favorites when she was alive.
Five years ago, to take care of Ethan who had a stomach hemorrhage from inhaling smoke, I gave up my own art exhibition.
Now, the items I treasured most from my mother had been smashed to pieces by Cherry’s own hands, yet he directly pinned all the blame on me.
I slowly raised my head and looked at Ethan.
“You think this is just some paint?” My voice was very light, but carried a kind of deathly stillness that made people’s hearts skip.
“What else?” Ethan looked at me coldly, pulling out a checkbook from his suit pocket. “How much money do you need? A hundred thousand or two hundred thousand? I’ll write you a check.”
I looked at him for a few seconds.
Looking at this man whose life I’d saved with my own, even at the cost of my left ear’s hearing.
I suddenly found it absurd.
I nodded.
I didn’t reach for that check.
I turned around and looked at the servant standing timidly to the side.
“Sweep all this garbage into the trash.”
Ethan’s hand holding the check froze in midair.
“Summer…” Ethan frowned. He seemed like he wanted to say something to make me stay.
I had already turned and gone upstairs.
In this house, there was nothing left worth looking at even once more.
Back in the bedroom, I closed the door and leaned weakly against it.
I closed my eyes and bit down hard on my lower lip until I tasted a hint of sweet, bloody iron, finally forcing down the sourness in my throat that nearly tore me apart.
I took out my phone and opened the calendar.
Only seven days left until my flight departed.
After heavily crossing off today’s date, I took a deep breath.
Very soon, I could be completely free.
Summer Lynn POV
I moved out of the master bedroom and into a guest room.
I no longer asked Ethan what time he’d be home.
Even when Cherry occasionally walked around the living room wearing Ethan’s shirt, I just ignored it.
This complete indifference seemed to provoke Ethan.
One evening, Ethan pushed open the guest room door.
I was sitting by the window reading.
Hearing the sound, I didn’t even lift an eyelid.
Ethan walked over and placed an invitation on the small table in front of me.
His tone was cold. “My friends are having a party tonight to celebrate Cherry’s gallery securing a location. Come with me.”
My gaze finally moved from the book pages and landed on that invitation.
For five years, Ethan had never brought me to meet his friends.
His friends looked down on me as a substitute, and he never felt it necessary to have me attend.
But today, he wanted to bring me along.
“I’m not going.” My voice held no emotion.
Ethan’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
He looked at me, his eyes gradually growing cold.
“Summer, stop making a scene.” His voice was heavy. “You need to attend the party tonight.”
He still wanted to control me like before.
Over these five years, whenever he used this tone, no matter how wronged I felt, I would immediately comply, afraid of making him unhappy.
I looked at him for a few seconds.
I didn’t have the energy to endure his cold violence anymore.
“Fine.”
I stood up.
I casually grabbed a high-necked long-sleeved shirt and put it on, covering the hideous burn scars on my back.
Half an hour later, I arrived at the private room.
Ethan pushed open the door and led me inside.
The lively conversation in the room instantly went quiet for a moment.
In the center of the sofa, Cherry wore a beautiful white dress, surrounded by several friends chatting.
Seeing me, Cherry’s smile stiffened for a moment, then she happily came forward.
“Summer, you came.” A flash of mockery crossed Cherry’s eyes as she deliberately stood at Ethan’s side.
I paid no attention and walked straight to the most secluded corner of the room to sit down.
Ethan was pulled to sit in the center of the crowd.
Cherry naturally sat close beside him.
During the meal, everyone gathered around Cherry.
A few deliberately lowered mocking remarks occasionally drifted over from the sofa area, carrying undisguised malice.
“Cherry and Ethan really look like the perfect married couple. Some people use dirty tricks to become substitutes, but they still can’t compare to Cherry.”
I sat quietly in the corner, as if all of this had nothing to do with me.
The music in the room was very loud. I was sitting on his left side.
My left ear had complete nerve death from that fire five years ago. I couldn’t hear anything from it.
In such a noisy environment, sounds coming from my left were, to me, an area of complete dead silence.
In the corner, I kept my head down looking at my phone, motionless.
For some reason, the people in the room gradually stopped talking. The atmosphere became awkward.
Suddenly, Ethan strode over and pulled me up from the sofa.
“I’m talking to you. Can’t you hear me?”
Ethan looked at me, his tone carrying displeasure and coldness.
I was caught off guard and stumbled from being pulled.
I was forced to raise my head and meet Ethan’s ice-cold eyes.
If this were before, I would have desperately explained. I would have told him through red eyes that I really couldn’t hear.
But now, I looked at him and calmly spoke.
“Yes.”
I looked into his eyes, my voice devoid of any emotion.
“I can’t hear.”
Ethan froze for an instant.
Then his eyes turned completely cold.
“Stop acting in front of me.”
He released my hand.
I rubbed my aching wrist where he’d gripped it, turned around without hesitation, and walked straight out of the private room.
I didn’t want to stay in this place anymore.
Summer Lynn POV
I walked out of the private room. The air in the corridor was cold and cutting.
I rubbed my painfully squeezed wrist and didn’t wait for Ethan. I walked straight toward the club’s exclusive elevator.
I had just pressed the down button when the elevator doors opened.
Just as I was about to step in, urgent footsteps sounded behind me.
Ethan strode over with a dark expression, Cherry following closely beside him with reddened eyes.
The three of us, one after another, walked into the narrow elevator car.
The elevator doors slowly closed and began descending smoothly.
Cherry seemed like she wanted to say something to break the awkward silence, but after glancing at Ethan’s grim profile, she swallowed her words.
Just as the elevator numbers hit the twentieth floor, a violent explosion shook the building.
BOOM.
The entire structure shuddered.
The lights in the car instantly went out completely. The overhead ventilation fan made a piercing shriek before stopping entirely.
Immediately after came a terrifying sensation of extreme weightlessness that made hearts leap into throats.
The elevator was out of control.
The entire car, in complete darkness, plummeted downward at a horrifying speed!
“AH”
Cherry let out a piercing scream.
I was thrown against the elevator wall by the sudden jolt. The pain made my vision go black.
In the darkness, weightless and disoriented, survival instinct took over. I reached out, trying to grab anything to steady myself.
I grabbed the nearest thing. The hem of Ethan’s suit jacket.
After dropping for more than ten floors, the elevator’s emergency safety clamps finally locked onto the tracks with a death grip.
The car was like it had hit an invisible wall, abruptly suspended in midair.
The massive recoil force threw us all heavily to the floor.
In the pitch darkness, I could only hear heavy breathing.
Above our heads came the sound of metal scraping as steel cables snapped. The car swayed precariously in midair.”Ethan…” Cherry curled up in Ethan’s arms, crying uncontrollably.
I leaned against the cold metal corner of the elevator car.
My right ear was filled with Cherry’s crying and the terrifying sound of steel cables about to snap.
My left ear existed in absolute, dead silence.
This extreme sense of being torn between half noise and half silence instantly pulled me back to that fire from five years ago.
In the old villa five years ago, after the flames died down, it was this same suffocating darkness.
The collapsed beam pressed on my back. I had shielded Ethan beneath me. I waited for rescue in that narrow, scorching, suffocating rubble.
Since then, I’d developed severe claustrophobia.
Whenever night fell, whenever I was in an enclosed space, I would uncontrollably tremble all over, break into cold sweats, even have difficulty breathing.
So for these five years, in the villa’s living room, a lamp was always left on for me.
At this moment, the claustrophobia was completely triggered in the darkness.
My whole body began trembling. Cold sweat instantly soaked through my back.
I opened my mouth, desperately trying to draw in the thin oxygen in the elevator car.
I don’t know how much time passed.
Suddenly, the roar of an electric saw cutting through metal came from the elevator ceiling.
The top panel was forcibly pried open, creating an extremely narrow gap.
A beam of blinding flashlight pierced down through the gap, cutting through the darkness inside the car.
A rough rescue rope was thrown in.
“Listen!”
The rescue personnel shouted with all their might from above. “All the load-bearing cables have snapped! The opening is too narrow. We can only pull one person up at a time! Quickly put the safety harness on yourselves!”
Suddenly, the elevator dropped sharply downward.
Ethan didn’t hesitate at all.
He grabbed the rope and without a second thought secured it around Cherry, locking the safety clasp tight.
Then he forcefully lifted Cherry upward.
“Pull her up! Hurry!” Ethan roared toward the opening at the top.
The people above began pulling. Cherry’s body was gradually hauled out of the car bit by bit.
Ethan kept his head tilted back, his hands constantly supporting Cherry’s waist until he confirmed she was completely safe. Only then did he turn his head.
In the faint remaining light of the flashlight, he looked toward me curled up in the corner.
“Summer, wait another ten minutes. They’ll lower a second rope right away.”
Ethan showed not a trace of guilt toward me.
“Cherry developed severe claustrophobia from the fire scene years ago. She can’t stay in the dark. I have to send her up first.”
I leaned against the cold elevator wall.
The flashlight’s beam shone on my face, illuminating the absurdity and desolation in my heart.
The person who risked her life to shield him in that burning villa back then. It was clearly me.
The one who truly developed claustrophobia. It was me!
But Ethan had believed Cherry’s lies.
I lowered my head.
In the residual light of the flashlight, I looked at my own hand.
From extreme fear and the instinct to survive, from the moment we started falling, I had been desperately clutching the hem of Ethan’s suit jacket.
My knuckles had turned white from excessive force. Even my fingernails had drawn blood.
I looked at that wrinkled corner of fabric I’d been gripping, and suddenly felt that my persistence over these five years was nothing but a joke.
What exactly was I clinging to?
Why did I love a man who didn’t even care about my life?
Why did I continue to maintain a marriage built on lies and humiliation?
The elevator shook violently again.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Then I gradually loosened my fingers.
I released that corner of fabric I’d been desperately clutching.
Summer Lynn POV
“Summer?” Ethan spoke in the darkness, a trace of panic in his voice. “Say something.”
No response came from the corner.
“Summer! Don’t play dead on me right now!”
He took a step toward me, undisguised irritation in his tone. “Cherry has claustrophobia. What’s wrong with me letting her go up first? Your turn is coming right away. Why do you still have to make me angry?”
“I’m not playing dead.”
Finally, my voice came from the darkness.
Calm, weak, yet carrying a frightening emptiness.
“I just think,” I leaned against the cold iron wall, slowly closing my eyes, “if this steel cable snaps right now, at least I’ll have given you back the life I owe you.”
Ethan fell silent for a moment.
“What are you talking about?!” He suddenly reached out his hand and grabbed my shoulder hard in the darkness. “Are you insane?!”
My entire body was trembling violently. My clothes were completely soaked with cold sweat. My body temperature had dropped to a terrifying level.
Ethan must have noticed my abnormality.
After all, he’d never seen me like this before.
Even five years ago after that fire, when I woke up in the ICU and he accused me, I’d only bitten my lip hard, my face pale. I’d never been like this. As if I were an empty shell that could shatter at any moment.
“We’re pulling you up right now!”
The rescue personnel’s shout came from above again. Immediately after, a second rope was thrown down.
When I left the elevator, the lights outside were so bright I couldn’t open my eyes.
I was pulled out of the elevator shaft. My legs went weak and I sat directly on the corridor floor.
Medical personnel immediately surrounded me.
On the other side of the corridor, Cherry was throwing herself into Ethan’s arms, crying pitifully, clutching his clothes and refusing to let go.
“Ethan, I thought I’d never see you again…”
Medical personnel were taking my blood pressure.
My face was deathly pale, but I didn’t glance at Ethan even once.
“Sir, this lady has an extremely rapid heart rate with mild shock symptoms. She needs to be taken to the hospital for observation immediately.” The emergency doctor turned to shout at Ethan.
Ethan’s brow furrowed. He was about to push Cherry away and come over.
But Cherry suddenly hugged his waist tightly, her body trembling violently.
“Ethan, I feel so dizzy… I can’t breathe…” Cherry closed her eyes and fainted directly in Ethan’s arms.
“Cherry!”
Ethan’s face changed dramatically. He scooped up the pretending Cherry, turned around, and rushed toward another ambulance parked outside the club entrance.
I sat on the ground, watching Ethan’s back as he ran wildly holding Cherry.
When facing danger, he chose someone else.
After the danger passed, he still chose someone else without hesitation.
The doctor beside me urged anxiously, “Miss, where is your family? Have him accompany you in this ambulance!”
“I don’t have any family.” I withdrew my gaze, my voice calm.
“I’ll go by myself.”
I pushed away the nurse’s outstretched hand, supported myself against the wall, slowly stood up, and walked onto the ambulance alone.
In the emergency room at the hospital.
After finishing my IV drip, it was already late at night.
I didn’t notify anyone. I removed the needle myself, took a cab, and returned to the villa.
The villa was still pitch dark.
Ethan would definitely spend tonight at the hospital watching over his Cherry.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
I opened my computer and logged into my personal bank account.
I returned all the money Ethan had transferred to me over these five years.
A full five million dollars was transferred back to Ethan’s private account.
In the refund note, there was only one simple sentence: “We have no relationship from now on.”
After finishing all this, I closed the computer and walked to the bed.
I took out my phone. The screen lit up, reflecting my pale face.
I opened my calendar and glanced at the date.
I calmly turned off my phone, lay down on the cold bed, and closed my eyes.
I didn’t suffer from insomnia.
The next day, as soon as dawn broke, I got up to pack my luggage.
After packing, I placed the already-printed divorce agreement on the table.
I removed my wedding ring and gently pressed it on the signature line of the agreement.
I dragged my suitcase and walked out of the villa.
The cold early autumn wind hit my face, blowing away the last trace of the oppressive atmosphere from this house that clung to me.
A taxi I’d reserved was already waiting outside the door.
The driver got out and helped me put my suitcase in the trunk.
The car slowly started up, heading toward the airport.
I turned off my phone and wearily closed my eyes.
“Please drive faster.”
🌟 Continue the story here
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The moment I won the championship, I instinctively looked for Payton.
But the VIP section was empty.
On my phone, news flashed. He’d spent millions to rent every billboard in the city. All to celebrate his first love Sophia’s birthday.
Meanwhile, the trending topic was my scandal. “Extreme skydiving champion Lily is the mistress of the Payton heir.”
But I was supposed to be his fiancée.
I rushed to his office to confront him. Instead, I walked in on an intimate moment.
He calmly lifted Sophia off his lap and looked at me coldly.
“Sophia’s back. You can get lost now.”
Seven years of being by his side meant nothing.
I looked at his smug face and laughed.
I turned and walked into the elevator, dialing his half-brother and bitter rival.
“Jace, that collaboration you mentioned before. I’m in. Let’s make Payton lose everything.”
Lily’s POV
As I leaped from four thousand meters high, the wind roared in my ears.
I calmly pulled the ripcord. The massive main parachute exploded open above my head, violently yanking my rapidly falling body upward.
Landing, detaching the chute, unfastening the safety buckle.
My movements were fluid.
Enthusiastic cheers erupted around me.
This was my third extreme skydiving world championship this year, and also the highest-level commercial endorsement I’d secured for Payton Corporation.
After removing my goggles, I instinctively looked toward the VIP viewing area.
I scanned all around but never found the figure I’d been expecting.
Payton hadn’t come after all.
My assistant Shay approached hesitantly, holding out my phone. “Lily, Payton, he…”
On the screen was a news article.
“Payton heir makes grand romantic gesture, spending millions to rent citywide billboards for Sophia’s birthday!”
In the video, the usually cold and taciturn Payton was gently fastening a diamond necklace around a girl’s neck.
The girl shyly nestled into his embrace like a startled fawn. Below this news article hung another glaring headline.
#Extreme skydiving champion Lily is the Payton heir’s mistress#.
The netizens’ mockery flooded in.
“She flies around in the sky every day and actually thinks she’s a socialite?”
“Who doesn’t know Lily signed with Payton Corporation for money back then? She’s just a money-making tool.”
“Our Sophia is afraid of heights. Mr. Payton won’t even let her near the second-floor terrace. Lily skydives every day and Mr. Payton never cares about her. That’s the difference between true love and a mistress!”
I calmly turned off the screen, concealing all emotion in my eyes.
“Miss Lily, are you okay?” Shay looked at me with concern.
“I’m fine. Pack up the equipment. We’re going home.”
During the thirteen-hour flight, I didn’t sleep once. My mind was filled with the look in Payton’s eyes as he fastened the necklace around Sophia’s neck.
That careful, protective gaze. He used to look at me like that too.
Seven years ago, my mother was dying. I knelt in the rain outside the Payton estate, begging for money.
It was Payton who walked up to me with an umbrella and pulled me to my feet.
He paid for her treatment. He sent me to the best skydiving school.
He said, “Lily, you belong to the sky. You shouldn’t be held back by this mud.”
I thought it was love. But I was wrong. He was just seeing someone else in me. Someone too afraid of heights to ever fly herself.
Now, that woman had returned.
As soon as I got off the plane, I called Payton.
The phone rang for a long time before he answered. In the background was soft piano music.
“What is it?” The man’s voice carried cold indifference.
“I saw the news.” I gripped my phone tightly, my knuckles turning white. “Payton, we’re legally married.”
A slight snort came from the other end. “Lily, don’t try to control me with that piece of paper. Whatever compensation you want, contact my secretary directly.”
“I just won the championship.” I didn’t know why I said this. Perhaps I still held onto a laughable shred of hope.
“Mm, congratulations.” His tone was perfunctory. “Sophia has a bit of a cold. I don’t have time to listen to you report your achievements. If there’s nothing important, I’m hanging up.”
Beep.
The sound of the call ending pierced my eardrum. Standing in the airport, I suddenly felt that the cold at four thousand meters was nothing compared to this moment.
When I returned to the villa, it was already late at night. I opened the door and froze.
The originally minimalist living room was now filled with pink throw pillows and stuffed animals.
My favorite skydiving oil painting of the snowy mountains had been taken down and carelessly tossed in a corner, replaced by an enormous solo portrait of Sophia.
Payton sat on the sofa, playing with an exquisite music box. Hearing the noise, he looked up, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Why did you come back so suddenly?”
“This is my home. Can’t I come back?” My voice was hoarse.
Payton stood up and walked over to me, looking down at me from above.
“Sophia likes this place. She doesn’t sleep well and needs quiet. Your skydiving equipment takes up too much space. I’ve already had it moved to the apartment in East City.”
His tone was flat, as if he were discussing the most ordinary matter.
“You’re kicking me out?” I looked up, staring hard into his eyes.
“Just having you change where you live.” Payton was somewhat impatient. “Lily, you’ve always been independent and strong. Sophia is timid. Don’t scare her.”
Looking at this man I’d loved for seven years, I suddenly felt he was completely unfamiliar.
I was independent and strong, so I deserved to be kicked out?
She was timid, so she could rightfully take over everything that belonged to someone else?
I didn’t make a scene. I didn’t cry.
I simply turned around calmly, dragging the suitcase I hadn’t even opened yet, and walked into the night.
He didn’t try to keep me.
Behind me, only the crisp music of the music box played on, as if mocking my pathetic state.
Lily’s POV
The apartment in East City was tiny, not even big enough to store my parachute pack.
I spent the entire night packing up the equipment I’d once treasured like precious possessions, stuffing them one by one into the cramped storage room.
At dawn, Payton’s secretary called.
“Mrs. Payton, Mr. Payton has instructed that for next month’s extreme sports reality show, he hopes you can help Miss Sophia.”
The hand wiping my helmet paused. “Sophia? Isn’t she afraid of heights?”
The secretary gave an awkward laugh. “Miss Sophia says… she wants to challenge herself. After all, Mr. Payton feels this show has very high viewership, which would help Miss Sophia’s career…”
“And Mr. Payton’s intention is for you to serve as her dedicated safety instructor, protecting her throughout.”
Have a world champion serve as a safety instructor for a delicate female celebrity?
And watch my own husband dote on another woman in front of a national audience?
“I refuse.” I coldly uttered those words.
“Mrs. Payton…” The secretary’s voice lowered. “Mr. Payton said if you refuse, Payton Corporation will withdraw all sponsorship of your skydiving team for the second half of the year.”
I shut my eyes tightly. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand.
Payton, you’re so cruel to me.
My team had over a dozen colleagues who’d been with me for a long time. They desperately needed this sponsorship to maintain the high training costs.
“Fine.” After hanging up, I looked at myself in the mirror with reddened eyes and forced out a smile more painful than crying.
The debt I owed Payton. I was close to finally paying it off.
On the day of filming, the weather was hot.
Sophia wore a custom pink skydiving suit and was surrounded by a cluster of assistants as she approached.
She wore delicate makeup and had her hair carefully styled. She didn’t look like someone here to skydive. More like she was walking a red carpet.
Payton followed beside her, holding a parasol, carefully shading her from the sun.
“Hello, Lily.” Sophia walked up to me with a sweet smile. “I’m really afraid of heights. Payton insisted I try skydiving. You must protect me, okay?”
I handed her a set of basic protective gear with an expressionless face. “Put it on. Check the buckles.”
Sophia suddenly cried out, looking at Payton with grievance. “Payton, this buckle is so hard. It hurt my hand.”
Payton immediately dropped the umbrella, took her hand with concern and blew on it gently, then turned to look at me coldly. “Lily, can’t you help her? What am I paying you for?”
The surrounding crew members all turned to look, their eyes full of curiosity.
I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and efficiently fastened Sophia’s safety buckles, tightening the straps.
“It hurts! Be gentler!” Sophia’s eyes immediately reddened.
Payton shoved me aside and shielded Sophia behind him.
“Lily, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?” His eyes were icy, as if I were a criminal.
The push made me stumble backward, my back hitting the hard cabin door.
“Skydiving isn’t acting. If the straps aren’t tight, there could be an accident.” I looked straight into his eyes, my voice completely flat. “If Mr. Payton is worried about her, you can take her and leave right now.”
Payton’s expression was terrible. He was about to speak when Sophia tugged at his sleeve. “Payton, Miss Lily is just looking out for me. I’m fine. I can handle it.”
He glanced at me coldly. “If anything happens to Sophia, even one hair on her head, I’ll make you pay.”
The plane took off. As altitude increased, the cabin pressure began to change. Sophia’s face turned pale. She clutched Payton’s arm tightly, trembling all over.
“Payton, I’m scared… I don’t want to jump anymore…” Her voice took on a tearful quality.
Payton held her tightly, constantly comforting her, then turned and roared at the pilot. “Turn back! Can’t you see she’s uncomfortable!”
The pilot looked at me somewhat helplessly. “Miss Lily, this…”
“We can’t turn back.” I looked calmly at the instrument panel. “The air currents are unstable right now. Forcing a landing is too risky. We must either jump at the designated altitude or circle to burn fuel.”
“I told you to turn back, don’t you understand!” Payton suddenly stood up, rushed over to me, and grabbed my collar. “Lily, do you want to make Sophia uncomfortable? You crazy woman!”
Looking at him, I suddenly felt utterly absurd.
I was a professional skydiving athlete using my professional knowledge to protect everyone’s safety, yet in his eyes, I’d become a vicious woman jealous of someone else.
“Payton, let go.” I said coldly.
Just then, the plane suddenly encountered strong turbulence. The fuselage shook violently. Sophia screamed and fainted.
Chaos erupted in the cabin. I quickly steadied myself and checked Sophia’s vital signs. She’d only fainted from extreme fright. Nothing serious.
But Payton had completely lost his rationality. He shoved me away, held Sophia tightly in his arms, and glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Get away! Don’t touch her!”
I sat on the cold metal floor, watching him hold another woman while trembling, and my heart felt like it was being pierced by millions of needles simultaneously. The pain made even breathing taste of blood.
Lily’s POV
The plane ultimately landed safely.
Sophia was rushed to the hospital. Payton stayed close by her side. Meanwhile, I, as the “instigator” of this “farce,” was kept at the tarmac, subjected to questioning by the production team and Payton Corporation’s PR department.
“Miss Lily, why did you refuse to turn back? Was this decision mixed with personal emotions?”
“There are rumors that you hold a grudge against Miss Sophia and deliberately tampered with the equipment. Are these accusations true?”
Countless microphones thrust toward me, camera flashes blinding. I repeated that same sentence expressionlessly. “Weather conditions didn’t permit it. I only made the most professional judgment.”
No one believed me.
With Payton’s tacit permission, public opinion completely turned toward Sophia. She became the innocent victim. Someone bravely challenging herself but persecuted by a vicious instructor.
And I became the jealous lunatic.
My social media accounts were flooded with hate. Countless vicious private messages poured in.
People even mailed dead rats and razor blades to my apartment.
I ignored it all, just locked myself in my room, reviewing the meteorological data from that day over and over.
I wasn’t wrong. But I knew that in Payton’s eyes, even my breathing was wrong.
Three days later, Payton’s mother, Claire, personally came to this small apartment.
She wore a haute couture suit. Looking around, a flash of disgust crossed her eyes. “Lily, look at yourself now.” Claire sat in the only clean chair, her tone condescending.
I brought her a glass of water. “Why are you here?”
“Don’t call me Mom.” Claire coldly interrupted me. “If Payton hadn’t insisted on marrying you back then, do you think you could have entered the Payton family? Think about what your status is.”
I lowered my eyes and didn’t refute her.
“I’m here today to inform you of something.” Claire took out a document from her bag and tossed it on the table. “You must win the World Championship next month. Payton Corporation just acquired an overseas sports brand. We need this championship to expand brand awareness.”
I looked at the document, sorrow welling up in my heart. “What if I can’t win?”
“What did you say?” Claire sneered. “Lily, don’t forget that your mother’s medical bills back then, and your training expenses over these years, were all paid by the Payton family. The contract states it clearly. If you lose, not only do you have to pay ten times the penalty, your team will have to disband too.”
She stood up, looking down at me from above. “Win the championship, fulfill the responsibilities in the contract, and then voluntarily divorce Payton. Sophia is the one I approve of. You’ve occupied this position long enough. It’s time to give it up.”
The door slammed shut heavily. I collapsed to the floor, looking at that cold contract, and finally couldn’t hold back my tears. So in their eyes, I was never Payton’s wife. I was just an employee who’d signed an unequal treaty.
For the next month, I practically lived at the training facility. The high-intensity training aggravated my old injuries. My shoulder and knee hurt so much I couldn’t sleep. I could only get by on painkillers.
I dragged my exhausted body back to the apartment, only to see Payton’s car downstairs.
He leaned against the car door, a cigarette between his fingers. Seeing me, he stubbed out the cigarette and strode over. “Where were you? Why do you look so haggard?”
“Training.” I flatly uttered that word and walked past him, preparing to go upstairs.
He grabbed my wrist.
I gasped, the severe pain in my shoulder instantly draining the color from my face.
Payton froze for a moment and instinctively released his grip. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I stepped back, creating distance. “Mr. Payton, is there something you need?”
Irritation flashed in his eyes. “Sophia has a very important red carpet event tomorrow. She needs a beautiful necklace. I remember you have one called Heart of the Sun. Lend it to her for a day.”
I jerked my head up, looking at him in disbelief.
That “Heart of the Sun” necklace. The ring he’d proposed with had been remade into it. Later, he’d personally fastened it around my neck, saying he wanted that necklace to stay against my heartbeat forever.
Now he wanted me to lend this necklace to another woman?
“No.” I said stubbornly through gritted teeth.
“Lily, can you stop being so selfish?” Payton’s voice turned cold. “It’s just a necklace. It’s not like you wear it.”
“That’s a memento from my mother!” I blurted out, randomly making up a lie. I didn’t want to tell him I’d been wearing that necklace all along.
Payton sneered. “Your mother left it to you? Lily, when you lie, don’t you think first? I bought that for you back then. Since I bought it, I have the right to use it now.”
He reached out and directly pulled open my collar. The silver chain glinted coldly in the moonlight, and that blue diamond rested quietly at my collarbone.
Payton froze. He clearly hadn’t expected that I’d been wearing it all along.
Looking at his shocked expression, my heart no longer held a ripple of emotion. I reached up without hesitation and yanked hard.
Snap.
The chain broke, its sharp edge cutting a bloody line across my neck.
I hurled the necklace, still warm with my body heat and blood, hard against his chest. “Take it! Now get the hell out!”
Lily’s POV
The necklace struck Payton’s chest, then fell to the ground with a crisp sound.
Payton looked down at the necklace on the ground, then at the blood seeping from my neck, an extremely complex emotion flashing in his eyes.
He instinctively reached out, wanting to touch my wound. “Lily, you’re insane…”
I violently slapped his hand away, my gaze cold as ice. “Payton, take your things and get out of my sight.”
I didn’t look at him again. I turned and walked into the dim stairwell. Only after closing the door did I slide powerlessly to the floor, covering my neck, letting tears flow.
That necklace wasn’t just his proposal token to me. It was the only thing that could give me strength during countless high-altitude descents.
Now, even this last bit of warmth had been personally stripped away by him.
The next day, photos of Sophia wearing that “Heart of the Sun” on the red carpet dominated all entertainment news headlines. The caption read: “Limited edition blue diamond gifted to beauty, Payton heir and Sophia’s relationship going strong.”
I turned off my phone, forcing myself to focus on the tactical board in front of me. The World Championship was about to begin. I had no time to heal my wounds.
“Miss Lily, your shoulder…” Shay looked at my trembling hand with concern written all over her face.
“Give me a nerve block injection.” I instructed the team doctor expressionlessly.
The doctor frowned tightly. “Lily, are you insane? If you get another nerve block with this injury, you might never be able to lift your arm again!”
“It’s fine.” I raised my head, my eyes resolute. “I must win this competition.” If I won, I could completely repay my debt to the Payton family. If I won, I could completely leave Payton.
The moment the nerve block entered the joint cavity, the pain nearly made me bite through my teeth.
The World Championship was held in Switzerland. The snow winds of the Alps were bone-chillingly cold. I stood at the helicopter cabin door, looking down at the continuous snow peaks below, and took a deep breath. I leaped, like a bird, diving into the vast whiteness.
Wind roared in my ears. I endured the severe pain in my shoulder, precisely controlling my posture, completing one high-difficulty maneuver after another. Opening the chute, gliding, precision landing. When both my feet landed steadily on the bullseye, thunderous applause erupted throughout the venue.
I won. I’d won this gold medal with the highest value, and also completed the task Claire had assigned.
On the day I returned home, the airport was filled with my fans and media. Wearing sunglasses, I struggled to make my way out under security escort.
Suddenly, a commotion erupted in the crowd. “It’s Mr. Payton! Mr. Payton came to pick her up!”
Payton wore a black haute couture suit, holding a large bouquet of bright red roses, striding toward me. Media camera flashes went crazy, trying to capture this touching scene.
Payton walked up to me, handed me the roses, his eyes so tender they seemed to drip water. “Darling, congratulations. I knew you could do it.”
He called me “darling.” He hadn’t used that term in three years.
I didn’t take the flowers. I just looked at him coldly. “Mr. Payton, don’t put on an act here. I just finished competing. I’m very tired.”
The smile on Payton’s face froze. He stepped forward, trying to put his arm around my shoulder. “Stop making a scene. So many media are watching. I’ve already made reservations at a restaurant to celebrate for you.”
I dodged his touch, my voice not loud but clear enough for the surrounding media to hear. “Mr. Payton, your fiancée Miss Sophia is still waiting for you. You’ve given the flowers to the wrong person.”
As soon as I said this, the entire venue erupted in shock. Payton’s expression instantly darkened. He said angrily, “Lily, do you have to make a scene at a time like this?”
“What did you say?” I laughed coldly. “Payton, you’re using the championship I risked my life for to advertise your company, then you turn around and act affectionate toward me. Don’t you find that disgusting?”
I didn’t acknowledge his ugly expression again. I walked straight through the crowd and got in the car. The moment the car door closed, I saw Payton violently hurl that bouquet of roses to the ground.
When I returned to the apartment, the first thing I did was print out divorce papers. I signed my name on them, then put them in an envelope and mailed them to Payton. I wanted nothing. I only wanted freedom.
Lily’s POV
Three days after I mailed the divorce papers, Payton didn’t respond.
Instead, Sophia posted a photo of herself trying on wedding dresses on social media. The caption: “Seven years of feelings, not as good as one grand wedding. Looking forward to next month’s wedding.”
Looking at that post, I had no reaction.
Seven years. The length of my marriage to Payton was also exactly seven years.
Today was our seventh wedding anniversary.
In previous years on this day, no matter how busy he was, he would cancel all social engagements to spend time with me.
But today, he was accompanying another woman trying on wedding dresses.
In the evening, someone knocked on the apartment door.
I opened it to find a drunk Payton. His tie was loosened, his eyes reddened, staring hard at me. “Lily, how dare you?” He shoved me aside, stumbled into the room, and threw the crumpled divorce agreement on the table.
“Giving up all marital assets? Do you think that makes you noble?”
I closed the door, coldly watching him lose control. “I’ve fulfilled my contract obligations. I don’t want Payton Corporation’s sponsorship anymore either. Payton, I don’t owe you anything.”
“What did you say?” He whirled around, grabbed my chin in a vice grip, the force almost crushing my bones. “Lily, you owe me a life! I saved your mother’s life! You think you can leave me?”
I was forced to look up at this face I’d once been so infatuated with. “Oh? Do you want me to give my life back to you?”
Payton seemed stung by the deathly stillness in my eyes. He suddenly released me, irritably loosening his tie.
“Take back the agreement. I can pretend this never happened.” His tone softened somewhat, carrying arrogance.
“Sophia’s wedding is just for show. She needs a wedding to solidify her status in the entertainment industry. You’re still my wife.”
I could hardly believe my ears. “Payton, are you insane? You want me to watch you hold a wedding with another woman, and then I’m still supposed to continue being Mrs. Payton?”
“What do you want? Money? Resources? I can give you anything!” He shouted loudly. “Lily, don’t be too greedy! You’re flying around in the sky every day. How would you have time to take care of home? Sophia can provide me happiness that you can’t!”
“Happiness?” I chewed on this word, feeling utterly desolate.
“When I was getting nerve block injections to skydive for your company, nearly dying on that snowy mountain, you were helping her pick out necklaces. When I was being cyberbullied across the internet because of your coercion, you were helping her try on wedding dresses.”
“Payton, you don’t want happiness. You just need an obedient pet and a good employee who can make money for you!”
Slap!
The crisp sound of the slap echoed in the small apartment. Payton’s hand hung in mid-air, trembling slightly.
I turned my head to the side. My cheek hurt badly. I tasted blood at the corner of my mouth. This was the first time he’d hit me.
The air was deathly silent.
“Lily… I…” Payton seemed to realize what he’d done. Panic flashed in his eyes as he tried to reach for me.
I stepped back, avoiding his touch. “Payton, consider this slap the last bit of gratitude I’m repaying you.” I pointed at the door, my voice utterly devoid of warmth. “Please leave my home immediately.”
Payton stood in place, his chest heaving violently. He looked at me. Ultimately saying nothing, he turned and slammed the door as he left.
The next day, I contacted a lawyer and formally filed for divorce with the court. Since he wasn’t willing to divorce by agreement, we’d go through legal procedures.
Just as I was preparing to go to the law firm, I received a call from my coach. “Lily, something’s happened! The training facility’s property rights were transferred by Payton Corporation. The new owner is demanding we all move out within three days!”
My head buzzed. That facility stood on the last piece of land my mother had left me. Later, to raise training funds, I’d mortgaged this land to Payton Corporation.
Payton had once promised me that as long as I won the World Championship, he’d return the facility’s property rights to me. He’d broken his promise.
“Who’s the new owner?” I asked, suppressing my fury.
“It’s… it’s Sebastian.”
All the blood in my body instantly froze. Sebastian, Sophia’s father.
He was also the man who’d scammed my mother out of all her money years ago, causing her heart attack and ultimately her death! Payton had actually given my mother’s memento to my enemy!
Lily’s POV
I don’t know how I rushed to Payton Corporation’s building.
Security tried to stop me. I shoved them aside. Eyes red, like a cornered beast, I kicked open Payton’s office door.
Inside the office, Payton sat on the wide leather sofa. Sophia leaned against him, holding a document, laughing happily. That document was the property rights transfer for the facility.
Seeing me burst in, Sophia cried out in alarm and shrank into Payton’s embrace. “Miss Lily, why are you here…” She looked at me timidly, like a frightened little rabbit.
Payton’s expression darkened. He shielded Sophia behind him, looking at me coldly. “Lily, what are you doing? This is the office!”
I stared hard at the document in his hands, my voice trembling with extreme anger. “Payton, you gave the facility to Sebastian?”
Payton frowned, his tone very impatient. “It’s just a broken-down facility. Sophia’s father wants to invest in extreme sports. I saw that land was sitting empty, so I transferred it to him. If you want one, I’ll buy you ten better ones.”
“Broken-down facility?” I laughed miserably, tears finally bursting forth. “Payton, that’s what you promised to return to me! That’s the only thing my mother left me!”
“Lily, stop making a scene.” Payton stood up, looking down at me from above.
“Your mother’s been dead for so many years. What’s the use of keeping a piece of land? Sophia’s father is a businessman. That land can only achieve maximum value in his hands.”
“Businessman?” I pointed at Sophia, questioning him. “Do you know what kind of person Sebastian is? He scammed my mother out of all her money years ago! He’s the murderer who killed my mother!”
Sophia’s face paled. She immediately burst into tears. “Miss Lily, you can’t slander my father just because you’re jealous of me! My father has always done honest business. How could he possibly scam anyone…”
“Shut up!” I roared.
“Stop!” Payton suddenly slammed a document on the desk, making a huge noise. He walked up to me, his eyes utterly devoid of warmth.
“Lily, you’re becoming more and more disgusting. I know better than you what kind of person Sophia’s father is.You could fabricate such lies just to take over that land?”
He looked at me with eyes full of disappointment and disgust. “You used to be jealous of Sophia, but at least you were honest. Now? You’re like a lunatic spouting lies!”
Looking at him, my heart shattered completely into dust. He didn’t believe me. He’d rather believe a con artist’s daughter than his wife of seven years.
“Payton, I’m asking you one last time.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm. “Give me back the facility, and we’ll have nothing to do with each other ever again.”
“Impossible.” He refused without hesitation. “I already promised Sophia. It’s a gift for her father.”
A gift. He was giving my mother’s memento to the enemy who killed her.
“Fine.” I nodded, wiped away my tears, and straightened my spine. “Payton, you’re going to regret this.”
I turned and walked out of the office without looking back.
I didn’t return to the apartment. Instead, I went straight to the law firm. “Mr. Zhang, help me investigate all of Sebastian’s financial transactions over the years, and find evidence of the fraud he committed against my mother back then.” I slammed a bank card on the table. “This is all my money.”
As I left the law firm, I got a call from Old Lee. “Lily, the facility… Sebastian brought people to demolish the buildings!”
I rushed to the facility like a madwoman. Bulldozers were roaring. The row of trees my mother had planted with her own hands had already been uprooted. Sebastian stood to the side, smoking a cigar, looking smug.
“Stop! Everyone stop!” I rushed forward, trying to block the bulldozers.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Miss Lily?” Sebastian exhaled a puff of smoke, looking at me with a smug grin. “What’s wrong? Didn’t Mr. Payton tell you this land is mine now?”
“Sebastian, you bastard! Give me back the land!” My eyes were bloodshot as I lunged at him, trying to attack him.
Several security guards immediately stepped forward and pinned me to the ground. The rough gravel scraped my cheeks. I struggled desperately, but it was useless.
“Demolish it!” Sebastian waved his hand.
I watched as the bulldozers knocked down the training tower, watched as those buildings that held countless hours of my sweat and memories turned to rubble.
My heart died along with those ruins.
Lily’s POV
Through the clouds of dust, the security guards tossed me to the roadside like garbage.
My knees and elbows were scraped raw, blood mixed with dirt running down. I watched Sebastian drive away in his luxury car, laughing, watched the bulldozers crush the last traces of my mother.
I didn’t cry. I’d run out of tears yesterday.
I dragged my stiff body back to that cramped apartment, step by step. I opened my laptop and began organizing all the commercial endorsements and competition prize money I’d earned for Payton Corporation over the years.
Payton thought I was just an athlete who could only skydive, but he forgot that over these seven years, to help him solidify Payton Corporation’s market share in the sports industry, I’d been exposed to many core confidential matters.
If Sebastian dared to take over the facility, he would definitely use Payton Corporation’s resources for money laundering and illegal financing.
I dialed an encrypted number. “Help me check Sebastian’s recent fund flows, especially any connections with Payton Corporation’s overseas accounts.”
A low male voice came from the other end. “Lily, you’re finally willing to contact me.”
That person was Jace Payton. Payton’s half-brother, the child of the Payton family who’d always been exiled abroad. He was also the one who, years ago in that rainstorm, had actually paid the first installment of my mother’s surgery fees. But later Payton appeared, forcefully took over everything, drove Jace out of the country, and became my “benefactor.”
“Jace, help me.” My voice was hoarse.
“Alright. Three days.” Jace didn’t ask a single question and hung up directly.
For those three days, I didn’t leave the apartment. Payton didn’t look for me either. My phone was filled with news about Sophia and Payton preparing their wedding of the century.
On the third night, Jace sent me an encrypted email. Inside was not only evidence of Sebastian using the facility for money laundering, but also evidence of Sophia’s early involvement in illegal gambling. Most damning of all, Sebastian’s money laundering channel used Payton’s private overseas accounts.
Looking at the evidence on the screen, I smirked coldly. Payton, for the sake of a con artist, you personally handed me the knife.
I packaged all this evidence and set it to send on a timer. Target: the police department and all major mainstream media outlets.
After finishing this, I received a call from Payton. “Tomorrow is Sophia’s wedding. You must attend.” His voice still carried that commanding tone.
“In what capacity should I attend?” I asked flatly. “Ex-wife, or the stray dog you kicked out?”
Payton was silent for two seconds, his tone tinged with displeasure.
“Lily, stop making a scene. There will be a lot of media tomorrow. You attending as Payton Corporation’s spokesperson will dispel rumors that we’re on bad terms. As long as you cooperate, I’ll compensate you double for the facility’s loss.”
“Compensation?” I laughed lightly. “Payton, some things once broken can never be fixed.”
“Lily! What exactly do you want!” He finally lost his patience. “I’m warning you, if you dare not show up tomorrow, or if you dare cause trouble at the wedding, I guarantee you’ll never be able to stay in the skydiving world!”
“Fine, I’ll go.” I calmly hung up. I would give them a wedding gift they’d never forget.
The next day, the weather was terribly gloomy, strong winds rolling with dark clouds. The wedding of the century was held at an outdoor estate owned by Payton Corporation.
I wore a black trench coat with no makeup, my face pale as a ghost. Payton wore a white custom suit. Seeing me, he frowned deeply and strode over. “Why are you wearing this? Didn’t I have someone send you a dress?”
“The dress was too dirty. I found it disgusting.” I looked straight into his eyes.
Just then, Sophia approached in a trailing wedding dress, supported by Sebastian. “Miss Lily, you came.” Sophia smiled happily, showing off as she touched the blue diamond necklace around her neck.
I looked at this revolting father and daughter, then at Payton standing beside them, his eyes fixed on Sophia. “Yes, past matters should be completely resolved today.”
I raised my wrist and checked the time. Ten o’clock sharp. The time the scheduled email was set to go out.
Almost simultaneously, piercing sirens suddenly sounded outside the estate. Over a dozen police cars roared up, directly breaking through the estate gates.
Several police officers strode up to them. “Sebastian, you’re suspected of massive fraud and illegal money laundering. Please come with us. Mr. Payton, your private accounts are suspected of involvement in international money laundering. Please cooperate with our investigation.”
Cold handcuffs were directly clamped onto Sebastian’s and Payton’s wrists. Sophia screamed and collapsed to the ground in fright.
Payton looked at the handcuffs on his wrists in shock, then suddenly turned to look at me. “Lily… was this you?” His voice was trembling.
I stood in place, looking at his pathetic state, not a ripple of emotion in my heart. “Happy wedding, Mr. Payton.” I smiled slightly and turned to walk into the strong wind.
Lily’s POV
The police cars roared away. The originally lavish wedding of the century instantly became a farce.
I didn’t look back once. I walked straight out of the estate. The wind grew stronger and dense raindrops began to fall from the sky. I drove to the wilderness skydiving facility in the suburbs. Today would be my last jump. I wanted to leave all the Payton family’s taint from these seven years in the wind.
When I reached the facility, heavy rain had already fallen. The meteorological station issued a thunderstorm warning. Skydiving in this weather was tantamount to suicide. But I didn’t care. I put on that pure black skydiving suit without any sponsor logos and shouldered my original old parachute pack.
The helicopter pilot gripped the cabin door tightly. “Lily, you’re crazy! In this weather, if you encounter strong wind shear, the chute won’t open at all!”
“Let me fly once.” I looked at him, my eyes as hollow as a dry well. “Just this once. If I don’t jump, I’ll suffocate.”
The helicopter climbed with difficulty through the wind and rain. I sat by the cabin door, looking down at the city shrouded in dark clouds and rainstorm. My phone vibrated frantically in its waterproof bag. It was Payton’s number. He must have been released on bail.
I pressed the answer button.
“Lily! Where are you!” On the other end, Payton’s roar almost pierced through the wind and rain. “You dared to give that evidence to the police! Do you know how much Payton Corporation’s stock price dropped today!”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Facing the violent wind pouring into the cabin, my voice was oddly calm. “You broke the law for Sophia’s sake. I just helped you wake up.”
“Come back right now! Tell the media that evidence was forged by you! Otherwise, I’ll make sure you never touch a parachute again in your life!”
“Payton.” I interrupted his ranting. “Do you remember what you said to me seven years ago? You said I belonged to the sky, that I shouldn’t be held back by mud. But these seven years, you personally dragged me into the filthiest swamp.”
“What do you mean? Lily, don’t change the subject!”
“Payton, let’s divorce. I’ve already signed the agreement and mailed it to your lawyer.”
“No way! You can’t just leave me, Lily. You owe me…”
“I owe you nothing!” I screamed into the phone. “I paid for my mother’s life with seven years of my youth. With all my championships. I even got revenge for the facility. Payton, after today, we’re done. Forever.”
I violently threw my phone out of the cabin, watching it tumble through the air, finally disappearing into the rainstorm. “Open the door!”
The cabin door opened. The violent wind instantly enveloped me. Without a moment’s hesitation, I leaped into that pitch-black thunderstorm.
The moment the weightlessness hit, I closed my eyes. My body tumbled violently in the strong air currents, completely losing control. I didn’t pull the main chute. Memories of these seven years flashed through my mind.
The altimeter was frantically alarming: 1000 meters… 800 meters… 500 meters…
Just as I was about to give up struggling and let myself fall, a dark shadow suddenly swept down from above at high speed, breaking through the rain curtain, precisely grabbing my reserve chute ripcord.
“Bang!” The reserve chute was forcibly deployed. The massive pull made my vision go black, my shoulder sending tearing pain. Two bodies collided violently in the strong wind.
I barely opened my eyes. Through my blurred goggles, I saw a pair of deep, anxious eyes. It was Jace. He’d actually jumped down after me.
“Lily! Do you have a death wish!” He roared at me through the wind and rain, holding me tightly, using his own body to shield me from the raging wind.
We glided with difficulty through the strong wind, ultimately deviating from the landing point and crashing heavily into a muddy forest. The massive impact made me completely lose consciousness.
When I woke up again, I was lying in a hospital bed. My right shoulder was in a thick cast.
The hospital room door opened. Jace wore a black shirt, his face somewhat pale, his left arm also wrapped in bandages. Seeing me awake, joy flashed in his eyes. He quickly walked to the bedside. “Lily, you’re finally awake.”
I looked at him, my voice hoarse. “Why… did you jump after me?”
“Because I can’t lose you again.” Jace gripped my uninjured left hand tightly, his gaze intense and stubborn. “Seven years ago, I was one step too late and let Payton take you away. You suffered for seven years. This time, I absolutely won’t let go.”
I was stunned, my eyes gradually reddening.
Just then, the hospital room door was violently kicked open. Payton charged in, his eyes bloodshot like a crazed beast. When he saw Jace holding my hand, his rationality seemed to completely snap.
“Jace! Let go of her!” Payton rushed over and grabbed Jace’s collar. “You dare touch my woman!”
Jace sneered and pushed him away.
“Your woman? Payton, do you deserve that?”
He pulled out a stamped document from his pocket and threw it in Payton’s face.
“Look carefully. The court has officially accepted the divorce lawsuit. From now on, Lily has nothing to do with you.”
Payton stared at the document, his face deathly pale.
He turned to look at me, his voice trembling with a hint of panic.
“Lily… is this true?”
I looked at him, my gaze as calm as if looking at a stranger.
“Mr. Payton, please leave now. I need to rest.”
🌟 Continue the story here
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My husband is Bren, the Alpha of the Dubois pack.
He’s also the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Outsiders always assume I must be incredibly wealthy after marrying Bren.
Whenever I hear that, I can only smile bitterly.
Later, while organizing files in Bren’s study, I accidentally discovered a yellowed gift agreement hidden in the bottom drawer.
It was a breakup settlement Bren had given his ex-girlfriend Vivian for free:
30 million in cash, 2% of the company’s equity, and ownership of two commercial buildings in the pack’s business district.
I’ve been married to Bren for seven years, but before our wedding, he had me sign a cold, impersonal prenuptial agreement.
I don’t have any assets under my name, let alone any involvement in his business.
Even the villa we currently live in has nothing to do with me.
Just as I’m feeling angry, Bren appears in the doorway and scolds me:
“I told you not to go into my study. You broke the rules again.”
I hand him the gift agreement he gave his ex-girlfriend and say calmly:
“Bren, let’s get divorced. I want to break our mate bond with you.”
He frowns and tears the document in my hands to shreds:
“Just because of this agreement?! I can do whatever I want with my own property. Do I need your approval? Besides, this is all in the past.”
With that, he doesn’t spare me another glance and leaves the study.
And I simply call my lawyer calmly.
When the divorce lawyer sent over the divorce agreement, she was still trying to convince me:
“Luna Una, are you sure you want to give up all assets? Although you signed a prenuptial agreement, Alpha Bren has always been generous. You can fight for your legal rights.”
Hearing the lawyer’s words, a bitter smile appeared on my lips.
Legal rights? I actually have nothing.
After marriage, Bren only takes a $1 salary from the company each month.
The company’s equity distribution was made very clear before I married him.
All core assets belong to him personally and have nothing to do with me.
On our wedding day, he had a professional lawyer present as a witness, while I faced a thick stack of prenuptial agreements.
Actually, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it before.
Bren is a natural Alpha leader and businessman, skilled at planning and very rational.
At that time, I loved him as a person, not his wealth, so I didn’t care at all.
But it wasn’t until I saw how generous he was with his ex-girlfriend that I realized how much of a fool I’d been.
My chest tightened painfully, but I still replied calmly,
“No need. Just proceed with this agreement.”
After hanging up with the lawyer, I removed my ring:
Inside the ring was an English inscription: B&V.
Only at this moment did I suddenly realize this was actually an abbreviation for “Bren and Vivian.”
This reminded me of three years ago when I accidentally left my ring at an art exhibition.
When Bren saw I wasn’t wearing my ring, he immediately lost his temper.
He dragged me to the door. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring? Where did you put it?”
The coldness on his face made me panic. I quickly explained:
“I went to see an art exhibition during the day and accidentally left it in the restroom. The staff said they’d bring it tomorrow.”
After hearing my explanation, although Bren didn’t say much more that night, he had his assistant retrieve the ring from the exhibition staff overnight.
Even this villa we live in was purchased because he had planned to marry Vivian.
Vivian left him but took away assets I could never obtain in my lifetime.
What I’m jealous of isn’t just the unfair distribution of assets, but his favoritism toward his ex-girlfriend all these years.
For the next seven full days, he barely spoke a word to me.
He didn’t touch any of the breakfasts I prepared.
He didn’t even come home two nights.
Thinking of all these past events, numbness and sourness surged through my heart again.
Afraid tears would burst forth, I removed the ring and placed it on the table.
After the lawyer delivered the agreement, I decisively signed my name on the divorce papers and left the villa without looking back.
With a friend’s help, I quickly found a suitable apartment.
I’ve never been picky about living conditions, so that same afternoon I finalized the lease with the landlord.
By the time I finished cleaning thoroughly, it was already nine o’clock at night.
I decided to return to the villa to talk to Bren face-to-face about the divorce and breaking our mate bond.
But I waited until eleven o’clock at night, and Bren still hadn’t returned.
I sat blankly in the living room waiting for him.
At one in the morning, Bren pushed open the door, reeking of alcohol.
Seeing me sitting there, he immediately showed signs of impatience.
He took off his suit jacket and casually threw it over the back of a chair, saying coldly to me, “Going to fight again? I don’t have time for that.”
With that, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and was about to head straight to his room.
The whole time, he didn’t glance once at the divorce agreement I’d placed on the table, nor did he say an extra word to me.
My throat tightened slightly, but I still called out to him, “Bren, this is the divorce agreement. Please sign it. Let’s get divorced and break our mate bond.”
Bren’s steps paused slightly. He turned back irritably to look at me.
“Still angry about the breakup agreement with my ex? You’re my wife now. Don’t you even have that much grace?”
Hearing these words, I suddenly wanted to laugh.
So in Bren’s view, the only reason I wanted a divorce was because he gave his ex a breakup settlement?
But if it were really just about money, I wouldn’t have chosen to marry him in the first place.
Maybe Bren will never know that I’ve silently loved him for many years.
I once wrote him 99 love letters but never dared to deliver them personally.
Like a humble observer, I quietly watched everything about him from the sidelines.
I watched Bren fall in love with Vivian, watched Vivian break up with Bren and leave for another pack, watched Bren look utterly devastated.
Not long after, I discovered Bren and I were fated mates.
At that time, Bren took the initiative to ask me to date him. I was beyond thrilled—I thought he’d let go of Vivian.
Even if he didn’t love me that much, I wasn’t afraid. I thought people can change, that my sincerity would eventually move him.
After we started dating, although he rarely took initiative with me, he always maintained a certain politeness.
He spent very little time with me, but he was willing to accompany me to a movie on Valentine’s Day.
He’d give me gifts on my birthday, though the gifts were only chosen by his secretary.
But even these small bits of sweetness made me feel very content.
After dating for a year, we got married smoothly.
There was no touching marriage proposal, no romantic wedding.
It was simply because his parents urged him to get married, so he agreed to marry me.
Four years of secret love, one year of dating, seven years of marriage.
Now it’s enough. I don’t want to continue anymore.
Suppressing the stabbing pain in my chest, I took a deep breath,
“Bren, I really want a divorce.”
With that, I stood up first, repeating calmly and firmly, “So, I hope by tomorrow morning, this agreement will already be signed. After that, we’ll find a day to break our mate bond.”
After saying this, I imitated his usual cold manner, walked past him toward the guest bedroom, and locked the door.
Bren suddenly shouted angrily behind me, “Fine, Una! You want a divorce, right? Okay, I’ll sign it right now. Even if you come crawling back begging me later, I won’t take you back!”
Soon, the sound of a door slamming came from the next room.
Listening to the commotion outside, even though I was mentally prepared, I still felt a dense, stabbing pain in my heart.
Perhaps Bren had long forgotten that during these seven years of marriage, I had begged him in a low voice countless times.
On the first anniversary after our marriage, I pleaded with him to celebrate at the beach.
He agreed readily, but when the appointed time came, he sent me a last-minute message saying he had an emergency meeting that evening.
After that, he never explained again and just hung up the phone directly.
Seven years have passed, and every year I ask if he has time, saying I want to travel somewhere with him.
But every year, he says his schedule is too tight and he has no time.
Just like that, the trips he owes me have been postponed again and again.
Actually, I never understood before why even after years of marriage to Bren, there always seemed to be an invisible wall between us.
Not until that gift agreement surfaced.
Only then did I understand—it’s all simply because he doesn’t care about me at all.
I have to admit one thing:
Where a man spends his money is where his love is.
The next morning, Bren was already gone.
Only the living room remained, littered with shredded pieces of the torn divorce agreement.
Looking at the mess, for a brief moment, I felt somewhat dazed.
Perhaps… Bren isn’t really that heartless toward me?
Did he tear up the divorce agreement because he couldn’t bear to let me go?
It wasn’t until my phone buzzed with a new message that I snapped back to reality.
The message was from a strange girl.
A week ago, she suddenly wanted to add me as a friend on my Ins account.
Her verification message read, “Third wheel, I’m back. Time to return Bren to me, don’t you think?”
Out of curiosity, I accepted her request.
Since then, she’s been frequently sending me various photos and documents.
Photos of Bren accompanying her to concerts; Video screenshots of the two of them watching fireworks together at the beach;
Even photos of them kissing in a parking lot late at night.
Even that agreement in Bren’s study—she was the one who tipped me off about it.
This time, she sent a photo of Bren sleeping peacefully on a hotel bed, captured from the side.
“I heard you went through Bren’s study and saw that agreement. So, have you given up yet?”
“By the way, the jewelry Bren left for you—I hope you’ll send it for cleaning and disinfection soon.”
“I have a cleanliness obsession. I don’t like things that other people have touched.”
“Making Bren marry you was only because I thought you were clean enough. Men have physical needs, you know. Better he relieves himself with you than goes looking for prostitutes outside.”
“Also, you only have three days to get divorced, or I’ll go public with our relationship.”
“Don’t think Bren can’t bear to lose you. You have no idea how proactive he is.”
“Ever since I returned to Dubois pack, he’s been coming to find me almost every day. Alright, enough talking. Bren’s about to wake up. We’re going to take a bath together.”
The messages stopped abruptly there.
And my tears fell one by one onto the keyboard.
Through blurred vision, I forced myself to reply:
“You said you don’t like things other people have touched, but over these years, Bren and I have had sex a thousand times already.”
After I sent the message, there was no further response from her.
My chest felt suffocated, like being punched into cotton.
That sharp, piercing pain surged up instantly.
No wonder he stormed out in the middle of the night.
At the time, I thought it was because my mention of divorce had upset Bren.
Turns out he was just rushing off to relive old times with his ex-girlfriend.
The last thread in my heart snapped. With trembling fingertips, I sent him a message,
“Bren, are you free today? I want to break our mate bond with you. We can go to City Hall and handle the procedures.”
I sent my message a full half hour ago, and Bren still hasn’t responded. Calling him goes unanswered too.
Instead, Vivian sent me a voice message.
“Are you annoying or what? Why do you keep calling Bren? Don’t you know? Bren and I hate being disturbed when we’re alone together.”
I suppressed the anger in my heart and replied to her:
“I’ve already told him I want to reject him. If you don’t want to remain nameless forever, have him come back and break the mate bond with me.”
Vivian stopped responding.
I really had no patience to wait for Bren’s message anymore.
I directly contacted a moving company and started packing all my belongings.
Including all the various gifts I’d given him over the years.
Oil paintings I’d made for him, ties and cufflinks I’d bought him…
He’d thrown all these things in the storage room like garbage.
Since he doesn’t want them, I’ll throw them all away—along with the heart that once loved him.
Although I’d lived in this house for seven years, it took only three hours to load all my things onto the moving truck.
As I was leaving, I ultimately couldn’t hold back and burst into tears again.
I had just moved to my new apartment and was simply organizing my things.
That’s when I received another message from Vivian:
“Come over. Bren is at my hotel suite. He’s agreed to break the mate bond.”
Looking at this message, my fingers tightened unconsciously around my phone.
In the end, I only replied: “Okay.”
Before leaving, I’d already formed a revenge plan in my mind.
I changed into a quick-dry outfit and grabbed a camera with a telephoto lens.
Then I took a taxi straight to the hotel Vivian had sent me.
I’d been humiliated by Vivian for a whole month.
It was time to let her experience what being humiliated feels like.
Even though I knew Bren would be furious and we’d both lose in the end.
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