Category: English

I run a side hustle selling my photos online for people to use as fake profiles for online dating. For an extra fee, I even offer custom voice messages and video calls. Everything was going smoothly until one of my regular clients messaged me: [I’ll pay you $15,000 if you meet up with him in person for me. You can keep whatever gifts he buys you, too.] Just as I was about to reject the offer, a photo of her ‘online boyfriend’ popped up on my screen. It was my absolute worst enemy. I stared at the screen, my face completely blank: [Are you telling me you’ve been using my photos and videos to date him?] 1 [Then you’re definitely being scammed, girl,] I replied earnestly. [Impossible,] she insisted. [He’s transferred me so much money. This is definitely the notoriously wealthy Sterling family heir.] Me: “…” I saved the photo of Arthur Sterling she sent me and ran a quick reverse image search. It was a generic paparazzi shot that gossip blogs had recycled a million times. I sent her the screenshot of the search results. She remained completely unfazed. [We’ve been working together for so long, why would I lie to you? My online boyfriend is 100% the Sterling heir.] I let out an exhausted sigh. Knowing the young master Arthur Sterling, his real-life romantic entanglements were already enough to drive him insane. Why would he have the time or energy for a fake online relationship? And especially… using my photos and videos. Forget falling in love with me through a screen; if he actually saw them, he’d probably throw up. I typed back to the client: [When he looks at my photos, what exactly does he say?] [He says I’m gorgeous! I mean, you are genuinely beautiful,] she paused, then added, [I even used your custom voice memo packages! Every time I send one, he transfers me $8,000!] Mother of God. If Arthur Sterling ever heard that sickly-sweet, high-pitched “baby voice” I put on for those recordings… he’d probably lose his appetite for three days straight. That confirmed it. The guy on the other end was absolutely, categorically not Arthur Sterling! Thinking about this, I went back and reviewed all the photos and videos I had sold to this client. The photos were standard, pretty selfies. But the videos… Lots of tight mini-skirts paired with cat-ear filters. …It’s fine. The guy wasn’t Arthur anyway. The client continued to beg me: [Please, babe, do me this one favor! I promise it’s completely safe! I already told him I’m not ready for any physical contact yet. And the meeting spot is a super crowded mall downtown.] When I didn’t reply immediately, she sent another frantic message: [If you really don’t want to stay, just show your face for one minute and leave! If you don’t, he’ll realize I’ve been catfishing him, and I won’t be able to milk him for any more cash!] A few seconds later, my bank app notified me of a $45,000 transfer. My fingers, which were hovering over the keyboard to type a rejection, froze. Then again… If this guy had the absolute audacity to use Arthur Sterling’s photo for online dating, how did he have the guts to meet up in person? Wasn’t he terrified of being exposed as a fraud? This girl might be able to pay me to act as her stand-in, but absolutely no one on earth could order Arthur Sterling around. Perfect. I’ll go see exactly what kind of freak this imposter is! I deleted my drafted rejection text. [Fine.] Looking at it objectively, this client was incredibly generous. Tsk. I bet the real Arthur Sterling isn’t even this generous. Terrified I’d back out, she quickly forwarded several screenshots of her chat history with the fake Arthur. It was an endless stream of Hubby kiss kiss and I only love my hubby. The chat was flooded with reaction stickers of cute kittens spinning, happy kittens, and whining kittens. Me: “…” The fake Arthur’s replies were incredibly consistent: [Baby, you’re so beautiful.] Transfer received. [Baby, you’re so cute.] Transfer received. … Transfer received. Transfer received. Transfer received. My god. This guy was a walking ATM. The client quickly dropped a location pin. [It’s at this mall.] I clicked on it. Oh, wow. The actual Sterling heir really did frequent this exact mall. It was very close to one of his family’s estates. Maybe I should… I pulled up Arthur Sterling’s contact in my phone. Is there any chance I could arrange for the imposter to run face-first into the real Arthur Sterling? That would scare him to death! Uh. I forgot. Arthur blocked my number. I silently locked my phone. 2 Following the client’s endless, neurotic instructions… I dressed up meticulously and arrived at the mall half an hour early to scope out the area. I never expected that I would actually run into the real Arthur Sterling here. He looked relaxed and indifferent, one hand casually tucked into his pocket. A girl was walking next to him, chattering away happily. Arthur wasn’t really listening; a lazy, detached smirk played on his lips. But the fact that he hadn’t shown any signs of annoyance the entire time was practically a miracle. I was stunned. It wasn’t until Arthur noticed me that his smirk vanished. He muttered under his breath, “What awful luck.” I heard him clearly, but my expression remained completely blank. The girl immediately linked her arm through Arthur’s, glaring at me defensively. “Who are you?” When I didn’t answer, she looked up at Arthur with a pitiful, victimized expression. Arthur scoffed. “Just some broke loser.” He wasn’t wrong. If I wasn’t broke, why would I be here meeting up with a fake Arthur Sterling for cash? I let out a dry, sarcastic laugh, my tone rising slightly. “Having the great Young Master Sterling despise me is truly an honor.” Hearing that, Arthur’s face darkened instantly. He crossed his arms, his words ruthlessly cutting. “Mia, can you even afford a single item in this entire mall?” “As long as you can afford them, that’s all that matters,” I smiled, pointing to a luxury boutique nearby. “Didn’t you buy me a bag from that exact store once?” The girl’s eyes widened in shock. “What is your relationship with him?” What relationship? We were each other’s first loves. Though dating this arrogant young master was easily the biggest mistake I’d ever made in my life. Arthur didn’t say a word, and I wasn’t in the mood to humiliate myself further, so I adjusted my bag and turned to leave. “Mia.” His tone was light and airy, but carried the exact same condescending, arrogant weight it always had. “Which poor guy are you scamming into paying your bills today?” I turned back. “Don’t worry, Young Master. So far, I haven’t managed to scam anyone more generous than you.” Of course, I wasn’t counting the money the client just transferred me. Arthur had been surrounded by sycophants his entire life; he never bothered hiding his emotions. Right now, for example, it was glaringly obvious he was in a terrible mood. Terrified he would intentionally ruin my upcoming meetup, I paused for a second and then decided to appease him. “You were right before. Someone like me will never be happy. But as long as you’re happy, that’s what matters.” Honestly, the whole “mortal enemies” thing was mostly Arthur’s one-sided hatred for me. I never liked making enemies, especially not with an ex who used to be incredibly generous with his money. But the young master, who was famously impossible to coax even when we were dating, was definitely not buying it now. He sneered, his words dripping with venom. “Don’t leave. I want to see exactly what kind of trash you’ve managed to hook this time.” I froze. I still didn’t know what kind of persona the client had established with the fake Arthur. What if she was playing the innocent, pure little flower? The whole thing would blow up in my face. With Arthur’s abrasive personality, he could expose me in two sentences. I swallowed my pride. “He’s not as handsome as you, and he’s not as rich as you. Young Master Sterling, why do you insist on humiliating me?” The girl next to him nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Arthur. Let’s just go.” Arthur didn’t even glance at the girl. His long, elegant fingers pulled a premium black card from his pocket. The girl took it, her entire demeanor instantly changing, and briskly walked away. “I’m going to go shopping then! Text me if you need anything, Arthur!” I smiled. “She’s cute.” Arthur ignored the comment, and showed absolutely no sign of leaving. He just stood there, staring me down. But he had always been like this—willful and unrestrained. In the past, when he had a high fever, I would pace around frantically, worried sick. He would just lazily grab my hand and smirk. “Want to see what 104 degrees feels like?” My eyes widened, my face flushing bright red instantly. Not from shyness, but from pure anger. “Are you psychotic?!” The corners of his lips curved up, and he couldn’t stop a muffled laugh. We eventually tried it, and he ended up in the ER. … They were all just immature, childish memories. I lowered my eyes. Arthur quickly lost his patience. He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t just invent a guy, did you?” I stayed silent. His patience officially exhausted, he answered a call from a friend. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.” Then he cast a final, sweeping glance over me, mockery swimming in his eyes. “Instead of carrying around that cheap, thirty-dollar canvas tote, maybe you shouldn’t have been so damn stubborn about your pride back then.” With that, his long legs carried him away, the distance between us growing rapidly. I watched his tall, retreating silhouette. Even his walk radiated a careless, arrogant swagger. After I broke up with Arthur, I packed up every single luxury item he had ever given me and shipped them all back to him. He only sent me one text in response: [I don’t collect garbage.] Then he blocked me. As for the luxury goods, mutual friends told me he threw them all into the massive dumpster outside his villa. My phone started pinging relentlessly with notifications. Ning: [Babe, are you there yet?] [Let’s just meet at the coffee shop, okay? I’ll text him and tell him I’m waiting for him there.] [Babe, answer me!] I reined in my emotions and replied: [Okay, I’m heading to the coffee shop now.] Once I got inside the coffee shop, I scanned the entire room. I texted the client: [Hey babe, bad news. Arthur Sterling isn’t here. Even worse news, there’s only one genuinely handsome guy in the whole place.] [Impossible! He just texted me that he arrived!] she replied frantically. I let out a long sigh. Until I saw that one incredibly handsome man walking directly toward me. The outer corners of his eyes tilted up slightly, and there was a small, striking red mole just beneath one of his eyes. He smiled warmly. He inexplicably radiated a dangerous, almost fox-like charm. I instinctively took a step back, instantly on guard. He spoke, his voice deep and magnetic: “Mia.” Me: “…” I quickly texted the client: [Isn’t your name Ning? You didn’t use my real name, did you?] She replied instantly: [Uh… yeah. I was too scared to use my real name, and since we were negotiating the photo prices at the time, I just accidentally gave him yours.] Me: [Brilliant.] I locked my phone, took a deep breath, looked up, and greeted the man. “Hi there.” Up close, the man was even more devastatingly handsome. His features were refined and delicate, but not feminine. He had a high, straight nose bridge, thin lips curled into a faint smile, and a subtle, sparkling stud in his left ear. He was significantly better looking than I anticipated; it was almost startling. Wait, he had absolutely no reason to use Arthur Sterling’s photos for online dating. I offered a polite, awkward smile. “You and the photos you sent me… look quite different.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m fairly certain I never sent you a photo of myself.” Me: ? For a split second, my facial expression completely short-circuited. This guy never even sent a photo! How the hell was that client so absolutely certain he was Arthur Sterling?! “Then I must have remembered wrong,” I forced a strained smile, trying to suppress the urge to grind my teeth. “Do you mind if I run to the restroom first?” “Of course,” he smiled gracefully. Once in the restroom, I immediately dialed “Ning’s” number. The second the call connected, I unleashed a furious barrage: “I fucking told you! Your online boyfriend is NOT Arthur Sterling! He’s NOT Arthur Sterling! You wouldn’t listen, so I just assumed he was a normal catfish! Turns out the guy never even sent you a picture! What on earth made you think he was Arthur Sterling?!” The other end of the line was dead silent. After a long pause, a very distinct, very male voice blurted out, “Holy shit.” It was a guy! I was completely stunned. “He’s not Arthur Sterling? How is that possible? Then who is he?” he demanded, firing off questions. I was just as frustrated. “You’re asking me? Where did you even find this guy?! How can you be this incompetent?!” I thought I was dealing with a female scammer trying to milk a rich guy for cash. Who would have guessed it was a dude?! No wonder he needed to buy my custom voice memo packages! “What does he look like? Describe him right now!” The guy actually sounded more panicked than I did. Me: “Well, he’s actually incredibly handsome, so don’t worry about that.” The line went silent again. After a long, agonizing pause, his voice sounded completely drained of the will to live: “He doesn’t happen to have a small red mole under his eye, does he?” Me: “Yes, he does.” “AAAAAHHHHH! I’M DEAD!” …Now he realizes he’s dead. Where was this panic when he was scamming the guy for thousands of dollars?! If the guy he was scamming was actually Arthur Sterling, then he’d be dead. Knowing Arthur’s ruthless reputation, he’d literally skin the guy alive. After a while, he asked, his voice trembling in pure agony, “…What do I do now?” I was curious. “This guy seems a million times nicer than Arthur Sterling. Did you think Arthur was some kind of saint?” “No, you don’t understand. My older brother is infinitely more terrifying than Arthur. If Arthur wanted to destroy me, my grandmother could at least try to stop him. If my brother wants to destroy me, absolutely no one can save me!” Saying that, he started wailing again. My eyes widened in shock. “…What did you just say?” He was clearly in the depths of despair. “No wonder Arthur always calls me an idiot. Am I really that stupid?” Me: “…So what’s the plan now? Should I just make a run for it?” “No!” he hissed through gritted teeth. “If you run, he will 100% investigate. And he will 100% trace it back to me!” I was speechless. He blurted out a desperate solution: “Why don’t you just take over my WeChat account? We’ll just pretend you were the one talking to him the whole time! I mean, my brother is really good-looking, and he transfers a ton of money…” My pupils dilated in pure horror. Before I could answer, he started muttering to himself: “I had no idea he was this generous when he’s dating someone. Fuck, why is he so stingy with my allowance?” “Forget it,” I refused. Ever since I broke up with Arthur, I finally saw things clearly. What doesn’t belong to you will never belong to you, no matter how hard you try. Especially when it comes to these insanely wealthy, elite heirs. It’s better not to harbor any delusional fantasies about them. Besides, if I actually got involved with this man and Arthur found out, who knows what kind of psychotic episode the young master would have? Actually, no. He’d probably just mock the man: “Your taste is absolute garbage, getting involved with a woman like Mia.” I thought about this silently, then let out a heavy sigh. The voice on the other end of the phone whined, “I thought you guaranteed post-sale support!” They really are from the exact same family! This guy’s thought process was just as deranged as Arthur’s. I said flatly, “I’m hanging up.” “$75,000! I’ll add another $75,000!” he panicked. “I literally drained my entire Chinese New Year red envelope fund for this! You absolutely cannot let my brother find out!” Me: “…$150,000.” Him: “…You’re extorting me! You’re definitely going to milk a ton of money out of my brother anyway, do you really have to bleed me dry too?!” “Then never mind,” I said. “Deal!” he shrieked, completely broken. “What’s your brother’s name?” I asked. “Julian Thorne.” My head snapped up. “The Julian Thorne? Arthur Sterling’s older cousin who’s always abroad?” “Yes.” 3 I stayed in the restroom, smoothing out my dress, touching up my makeup, taking a deep breath, and finally walking out. Julian was waiting for me outside. To be honest, Julian’s demeanor didn’t exactly match his elegant, orderly name. He radiated a calm, calculated aura of someone who operated entirely outside the rules. He always wore a faint, polite smile, but he felt exactly like a cunning fox. Why would someone with this much wealth and power resort to online dating? I proactively looped my arm through Julian’s. He paused, a microscopic hesitation, and his smile deepened. “Do you want to go shopping first? Or grab something to eat?” he asked. “Whatever you want,” I replied. So, he took me from store to store, browsing endlessly. Unlike Arthur, Julian was incredibly patient, offering thoughtful feedback on how every bag and dress looked on me, and then flawlessly paying for everything. Arthur was too lazy to look. He would walk into a store, immediately sit down on the nearest plush sofa, stare at his phone, wait for me to pick what I wanted, pay the bill, and leave. It was incredibly bizarre. It felt like the universe had literally dropped a perfect boyfriend into my lap. But Julian was absolutely not as easygoing and accommodating as he appeared. People like him are the most dangerous. But right now… He even summoned two bodyguards to trail behind us and carry the mountain of shopping bags. “Mia, I made a reservation at that restaurant you said you wanted to try,” Julian said, a soft smile on his lips. “Let’s go!” I agreed enthusiastically. “Do you remember which one it was?” He lowered his eyes, his expression completely relaxed and casual. It was exactly the way a predator looks at prey trapped in its palm. …Which one? I have absolutely no idea! And I couldn’t exactly pull out my phone and text his little brother right now. The atmosphere instantly froze. My heart trembled, and I pressed my lips together tightly. I suddenly felt a chilling breeze on the back of my neck. I finally understood why the little brother said Julian was infinitely more terrifying than Arthur. Arthur’s emotions were written all over his face. If you pissed him off, the consequences were immediate and explosive. But Julian was entirely different. I couldn’t read him at all. Like right now, I had no idea what his sudden question was meant to imply. I opened my mouth, but before I could formulate a response, he smiled—a smile that didn’t reach his eyes—and his voice was warm and deep: “It’s fine. You’ve been busy, Mia. It’s completely normal to be forgetful. You’ll know it when we get there.” I nodded frantically, agreeing with everything. Julian was still a good guy! If Arthur had found out I forgot something important involving him, he would have cold-laughed and mocked me relentlessly for five straight hours without repeating a single insult. 4 When we arrived at the restaurant, the host immediately recognized Julian and greeted him respectfully: “Mr. Thorne.” He then escorted us to the most secluded, exclusive private dining room in the back. The ambiance was exquisite, complete with an indoor koi pond. I sat directly across from Julian. He had casually rolled up his sleeves, revealing his elegant, prominent wrists. The pale skin made the subtle blue veins even more striking. I didn’t reach for the menu. “You can order. I’m not a picky eater.” Julian chuckled softly. “Alright.” Taking advantage of the moment, I quickly texted the little brother: [You told Julian you wanted to eat at a Western restaurant?! I almost blew my cover! Are there any other crucial details I need to know? Tell me right now!] Suddenly, the door to the private room was pushed open. A painfully familiar voice rang out: “…Julian? When did you get back to the country?” My entire body turned to stone. Arthur clicked his tongue, his tone utterly bored. “I thought this room was empty, so I didn’t bother making a reservation. The other private rooms are full. Let’s just share.” I acted like a terrified quail, ducking my head as low as humanly possible. But I forgot that Arthur once told me he could recognize me even if I was burned to ash and scattered to the wind. … “Mia?” The lazy, bored voice instantly turned freezing cold. I didn’t dare lift my head. But unexpectedly, my phone lit up with a notification right at that moment: [Huh? That’s impossible. I never told my brother where I wanted to eat. I hate Western food! I told him I wanted the rustic iron-pot goose stew!] My pupils dilated in absolute horror. “Pick your fucking head up, Mia,” Arthur ground out through clenched teeth. Julian tapped his index finger lightly on the table. “Is that how you speak to your sister-in-law?” “What did you just say?” Arthur’s volume skyrocketed. Only then did I slowly, agonizingly lift my head, offering a pathetic, strained smile. “What a coincidence.” Then, following Julian’s lead, I added, “Little brother.” “Who the fuck is your little brother?!” Arthur instantly exploded, pointing directly at me and demanding an answer from Julian. “I dated her! Did you seriously not know that?!” Julian took a slow, elegant sip of his coffee. “I didn’t. Are you two still together?” “No, no! We haven’t been together for a long time! We broke up ages ago!” I quickly interjected. “Shut your mouth.” Arthur’s voice was heavy with suppressed, volcanic rage. Every single word sounded like it was being forced out through a grinder. He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white. “Julian, did you seriously not run a background check on her when we were dating? Are you actually sitting here spewing bullshit, claiming you don’t know who Mia is?!” Julian sat with his legs crossed, his posture entirely relaxed. Even in this suffocatingly tense atmosphere, he managed a smooth, unbothered smile. “I do. So what?” The corners of Arthur’s eyes flushed red with fury. I sighed internally and spoke up. “Don’t be so angry. We just weren’t meant to be. Why don’t you have a glass of water and calm down?” Saying that, I prepared to stand up and pour him some water. “Mia.” Julian cast a light, warning glance at me. My chest tightened, and I immediately sat back down, perfectly still. Arthur stared in absolute disbelief. “You used to argue and fight with me every single day, and now you’re just obediently taking orders from him?! Did he brainwash you?!” Me: “…” Mostly, it’s just because Julian’s aura is significantly more terrifying. A long, agonizing silence passed. Arthur’s voice was slightly hoarse. “When exactly did you two get together?” I couldn’t answer that question. Julian answered calmly: “Late last year.” “When, exactly?” Arthur seemed determined to get the exact date, refusing to let it go. “The day after Christmas.” My facial expression completely froze. A cold, mocking sneer curled Arthur’s lips. “Mia. You are fucking unbelievable.” Arthur and I broke up on Christmas Day. But the person who started messaging Julian the day after Christmas wasn’t me! I remained completely silent, bitterly swallowing the truth, officially accepting the title of a ruthless, calculating woman who seamlessly monkey-branched from one cousin to the other. Seeing that I didn’t dare say a word, Arthur violently slammed the door and stormed out. 5 Julian, however, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He offered thoughtfully, “If the food isn’t to your liking, just let me know.” I nodded, trembling slightly. He gave me a surprised look. “Are you afraid of me?” When he smiled, the red mole near his eye was so dangerously captivating it was almost blinding. I parted my lips slowly: “…You ran a background check on me before?” He nodded, his tone casual and unhurried. “The family was curious about Arthur’s new girlfriend, so they had me look into it.” “Then why did you…” I was stunned. “…still get involved with me…” Julian’s smile deepened. “I thought my future sister-in-law was quite adorable a long time ago.” I awkwardly rubbed my nose. But I still felt like something was fundamentally wrong here. A long time ago? Before he even ran the background check? Wait, and what about his subtle test earlier?! Does he already know the person he was online dating wasn’t actually me?! That I’m just a hired stand-in?! I was terrified, not daring to speak recklessly. “Mia,” Julian said softly. “Come back to the Thorne estate with me next week.” I was shocked. “What?!” He offered a helpless smile. “You said before that you wanted to meet my family, and you brought it up multiple times. Did you forget, Mia?” My heart was pounding. Given my previous mistake, I didn’t dare give a casual answer. “…Oh, right.” “But I’m just… not quite ready yet.” I subconsciously gripped the hem of my shirt. “You mentioned before that your family requires a $4.5 million dowry. Mia, I can transfer that to your account at any time.” Julian looked at me with absolute seriousness. I was horrified. What insane, astronomical dowry?! Is that really what his little brother told him?! My voice shook. “No rush, no rush! Let’s just… take our time and see where things go…” By the end of the sentence, my voice was practically floating away. This entire family is absolutely terrifying. The atmosphere fell silent. Julian lowered his eyes, the smile vanishing from his face. He said softly, “I apologize. I was too impatient.” I froze for a second. Is he… actually deeply, genuinely in love? If he finds out that the person whispering sweet nothings to him all this time was actually a dude… And that I technically conspired with his little brother to deceive him… I rubbed my temples, feeling a massive headache coming on. The situation felt like it was spiraling completely out of control. Judging by his expression, Julian looked genuinely heartbroken. Sigh, it makes sense. If he wasn’t genuinely in love, why would he spend so much money on an online relationship? I quietly stood up. “I’m going to run to the restroom again.”

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My boyfriend took me home for the holidays to meet his parents. On the way, he handed me a glass of plain water. Two sips later, my vision went dark. When I woke up, I heard my boyfriend haggling with a human trafficker. “I swear to God! I guarantee she’s a virgin!” But I wasn’t panicked at all, because the human trafficker was actually… my childhood friend’s dad! I had been trafficked back to my own hometown! Right into my childhood friend’s house! 1 My head throbbed with a dull ache, and it was hard to breathe. I groggily opened my eyes and tried to move, but I was completely immobilized. Alarm bells went off in my head. I frantically checked my body. I found a large wad of rough cloth shoved into my mouth, leaving me only able to make muffled whimpering sounds. My hands and feet were tied tightly together, the purple bruises and rope marks clearly visible. There was absolutely no way I could break free. “Tell me the truth! Have you slept with her yet?!” “I swear to God! I, Luke, have absolutely zero interest in women! I never sleep with women! I guarantee she’s a virgin!” “Alright, kid. Here’s twenty grand.” “Deal!” A conversation drifted in from outside the window. I followed the sound and saw two silhouettes. One of them was the boyfriend who had drugged and sold me! And the other, an older man… looked a bit familiar? I scanned the room. In the bottom corner was a large, brick-built wood-burning stove. The cupboard had two tiers. On a wobbly wooden stool with a broken leg, there were some faded pink marker scribbles that read: “Caleb is a…” I remembered perfectly. That was a sentence I secretly wrote when I came over to play at Caleb’s house when we were kids: Caleb is a big idiot! It suddenly hit me. This was Caleb’s house! That other silhouette was Caleb’s dad! Bad news! I was trafficked into a backward, remote mountain village by my college boyfriend! Good news! I was trafficked back to my own village! Right into my childhood friend’s house! I struggled to shift my body, using the wall for leverage to straighten my back and stand up. I hopped over to the wooden door and slammed my body against it, making a loud bang, bang noise. Uncle John! Open the door! It’s me, Lily! When I was little, I helped you pick pears! Don’t you remember?! Come look at me! Let me out! I shouted frantically, but the words were trapped behind the cloth, coming out as low, muffled whimpers. “Shut up, you stupid bitch! Keep quiet! Keep making noise and I’ll take care of you right now!” Uncle John yelled at me impatiently and kicked the door twice from the outside as a warning. The old wooden door shook a cloud of dust all over me. Waaah! It’s not fair! It’s me, Lily, Uncle John! Just look at me! “Dad, who is he?” “Oh, son, you finally decided to come back. That’s the delivery guy. Go to the kitchen and keep an eye on the goods for me.” “Okay.” That voice! Even though it lacked the youthful innocence of the past, I could still tell—it was Caleb! 2 I obediently hopped backward a few steps, trying hard to squeeze out some tears and look pitiful, waiting for Caleb to come in and untie me. With a creak, the door opened. Caleb’s face was backlit, his features sharply defined in the shadows. I instantly held my breath. Caleb really lived up to his title as the village heartthrob back then! He was even more handsome now! I blinked my large, teary eyes, hopped frantically over to him, and shoved my face right in front of his. Look at me! Caleb! I’m Lily! Untie me! But Caleb just frowned. “Who are you? Why are you in my house?” I froze for a second, then realized how much a girl changes as she grows up. Since I was twelve, in the seventh grade, I had gone to the city for school and never returned to the village. I hadn’t seen Caleb in nine years. Just looking at my face, he didn’t recognize me! I whimpered loudly again, my eyes darting desperately to the gag in my mouth. Caleb! Take this out so I can speak! We grew up together! I know so many embarrassing stories about you! Just let me tell two of them, and you’ll definitely recognize me! Caleb backed away a few steps, looking disgusted. “Why are you acting like this in my house? Are you trying to pull an insurance scam?” I almost passed out. Scam your giant gorilla! Why don’t you go ask your dad why I’m like this? Isn’t your dad the village pear farmer? Why is he running this kind of racket?! “What scam? Son, you misunderstand. She’s my new wife! Your new mom!” Just as I rolled my eyes at Caleb, Uncle John walked in, beaming happily. “Oh, son, you know your mom passed away so many years ago. I haven’t had a woman in all this time. This time, I got the matchmaker to find me a young, pretty one. We’re getting married and throwing the banquet tomorrow!” As Uncle John spoke, he excitedly rubbed his hands together and reached out with a sleazy grin to touch my face. Furious, I dodged backward, glaring at him viciously. What matchmaking?! You literally bought me! You’re trafficking women! “You dare glare at me, you little bitch?! Think you’re special?! I’ll beat you to death!” Uncle John’s face instantly changed. He raised a hand to slap me across the face. But Caleb stepped forward, shielding me, and caught his hand just in time. Hiding behind Caleb, my sense of security skyrocketed. Thank God! Caleb is still as smart as ever! He saw through Uncle John’s lies! He knows I was trafficked here! He’s definitely going to save me! But it turned out I was overthinking things. 3 Caleb just stared coldly at Uncle John. “Dad, it’s fine if you want to remarry, but why are you tying her up? Have you forgotten how Mom died?! She committed suicide because she couldn’t take your domestic abuse anymore! “Now, since you’re marrying someone new, I won’t stop you. But you have to promise me you won’t repeat the same mistakes. You have to treat her well.” Caleb’s words sent my hopeful heart crashing straight to the bottom of the abyss. He actually believed it?! Where did his perfect-math-score brain go?! “You got it, son! Dad listens to you. I promise to treat this woman well!” Caleb didn’t say another word. He actually just brushed past Uncle John and walked out, clean and decisive. My vision went black. It felt like the sky was falling. Sigh. I guess there was no other way. Caleb wasn’t going to save me, so I had to save myself. I hopped over to one of the kitchen walls with great effort, bent my knees, and bumped against the wall, signaling Uncle John to look at a chalk drawing up there. It was from when Uncle John turned thirty. I had secretly taken a bunch of colored chalk from school and drawn a ten-tier cake for him on that wall. Underneath, in very neat handwriting, it read: Lily wishes Uncle John a happy birthday. He had patted my head and praised me then: “Haha, little Lily drew this so well! Uncle John is going to take you to town to buy your favorite basket cake!” It was pouring rain that day. He pedaled his little tricycle, having me sit in the back under an umbrella. He rode for over ten miles on muddy roads to take me to town, saying he was going to buy me a basket cake from Mr. Miller’s bakery. Unfortunately, before we even entered the shop, I was picked up by my uncle from the city. My parents passed away when I was very young, and I was raised by my grandmother. But in my seventh-grade year, my grandmother, my only remaining family, passed away too. My uncle, taking pity on me being all alone, came down to the village and took me back to the city. Even though my parents died early, the villagers were all very kind to me, often bringing me meat, vegetables, and rice. Especially Uncle John, who frequently smiled and told me: “Lily, you have to grow up well.” I was raised by the whole village. Now, as if by some twist of fate, I had been trafficked right back to my own village. 4 “Get over here! What are you jumping around for, you stupid bitch! Trying to run away?! I’ll break your legs!” Uncle John stormed over, grabbed me by the neck, slammed me hard onto the ground, and started kicking my legs. My head hit the cold concrete floor. A dull, throbbing pain shot straight to my brain, and it felt like my kneecaps were shattered from the kicks. I lay on the ground, fighting through the pain, trying my hardest to lift my head and whimper at him continuously. Uncle John! It’s me, Lily! How can you not recognize me?! But seeing me resist only enraged Uncle John further. He stepped on my head, grinding the side of my face into the dirt. “You cheap slut! Let me tell you, if you dare try to run, I’ll scatter your entire family’s ashes!” As if stomping on me wasn’t enough, Uncle John pulled an old bamboo whip from the top of the cupboard. This thing was a staple in every household in the village. If a kid misbehaved, a serving of “bamboo shoots and pork” (a beating) would set them straight. “I’ll beat you to death! Do you know my favorite thing to do is beat pretty women?! You better behave!” Uncle John looked possessed, getting happier the more he beat me. The whip came down like rain, lash after relentless lash. I felt like the skin on my back was being flayed open. The agonizing, burning pain forced tears from my eyes. All I could do was curl up on the floor and desperately shake my head. A thousand urgent explanations turned into nothing but muffled whimpers. Uncle John… stop hitting me. If you keep hitting me, I’m really going to die… I don’t know how long he beat me before Uncle John rubbed his elbow and spat at me. “Ptooi! My arm is sore from beating you. For a cheap slut like you, it’s not worth it! Sit tight and wait for the whole village to come for the banquet tomorrow! I’m going to marry you in style!” I curled up on the floor, trembling all over, the pain pushing me to the brink of unconsciousness. “Don’t play dead! We’re getting married tomorrow! Here’s two slaps to wake you up!” He yanked me up by the collar and slapped me hard across the left and right cheeks. Before I passed out, my hazy vision caught the fading light as the wooden door shut. 5 “Hey. How are you holding up? Eat some porridge.” At the crack of dawn the next day, someone gently patted my cheek. I forced my eyes open. It was Caleb. “Caleb! It’s me!” I couldn’t help but cry out anxiously, only to realize I could actually speak. The gag in my mouth had been removed. “How do you know my name?” Caleb set the bowl of porridge on the floor and asked, looking confused. “I’m Lily!” After holding it in for so long, I could finally say my own name. All the grievances in my heart burst open like a broken dam, and I started wailing out loud. “Waaah, Caleb! Uncle John beat me so badly last night! I’m never going to forgive him! I’m never drawing him birthday pictures again! Hurry up and untie me!” But Caleb glanced at the writing on the wall and just shoved me. “Shut up! How dare you impersonate Lily?!” I stumbled and fell backward, furious and resentful! I swear! This father and son pair are dumber than a box of rocks! “Caleb! I really am Lily! Have you forgotten?! We grew up together! We’re childhood sweethearts!” Caleb glared at me in disgust and took the bowl of porridge away. “Get lost. Who’s your childhood sweetheart? If you dare impersonate Lily again, I’m feeding this porridge to the dog!” I looked at his fierce expression, feeling disappointed and stubborn. Tears rolled down my face as my voice shook violently: “Caleb, when your old yellow dog had puppies, we delivered them together. Have you forgotten? “When you turned thirteen, I folded a hundred origami cranes for you, each with a hidden wish written on it. Have you forgotten that? “Back then, you spent three days and three nights writing a hundred love letters for me. Have you forgotten that too? “And now you don’t even recognize me! Our ten years of friendship were completely wasted on you!” I enunciated every word clearly, and Caleb listened, absolutely dumbfounded. He swallowed nervously. “Are… are you really Lily? Why don’t you look anything like her?” He was still doubting me?! Completely disappointed, I sat up straight, leaned into his face, and yelled: “Haven’t you ever heard of puberty, you idiot?!” Seeing him still staring blankly, seemingly unconvinced. In a fit of rage, I deployed my ultimate weapon: “Caleb! You wore split-crotch pants and showed everyone your wiener!” 6 When I was three, my parents were still alive. They carried me to Caleb’s house to buy pears. But we couldn’t find anyone in the house, so we eventually went to their pear orchard. Caleb, with his little stubby legs, came running all the way out to meet me, but I just pointed at his split-crotch pants and laughed. His mother came running up behind him, frantically trying to put a diaper on him. My mom just smiled: “Lily, do you like your Caleb? Should Mommy arrange an arranged marriage for you?” I vaguely remember nodding. As we grew up, whenever Caleb made me mad, I would lean in and secretly tease him about it. Every time, his face would turn bright red. He’d cover his crotch and haughtily huff at me, “Fine! I can’t mess with you!” Over time, this joke became a secret shared only between the two of us. “Caleb! Do you believe me n—” Before I could finish yelling, the light in my line of sight was blocked by a figure frantically lunging at me. Then, my arms were filled with a trembling body that felt like it was going to shatter. Caleb pulled me into a fierce, desperate hug. “Lily, you heartless jerk. Nine years and you never came back to see me. Did you forget about me? Do you have any idea how much I missed you…” Caleb buried his face in my shoulder. His voice shook pitifully, and I could clearly hear the choked-back sobs at the end of his sentences. I could even feel the fabric on my shoulder getting soaked by a warm liquid. Caleb was actually crying? Suddenly, I didn’t dare yell at him anymore. Then, thinking about it carefully, I realized something wasn’t right. Wait, why is HE acting like the victim?! What does he have to be upset about?! He’s the one who didn’t recognize me! And I got a brutal beating from his dad! I was about to scold him, but I realized I couldn’t catch my breath. “Caleb, don’t hug me… so tight. I’m suffocating…” 7 “Hey! Son! Is she awake yet?! The whole village is here for the banquet!” Right then, Uncle John walked in, his face beaming with joy. The next second, the smile vanished from his face instantly, and he quickly shut the wooden door. “What?! Son, what are you doing?! Let go of her right now! If the villagers see this, people will talk!” Caleb stood up, his face dark. “Dad, this is Lily!” “Oh, son. I know you miss Lily, but you can’t just grab a random person and say it’s her. It’s impossible for her to be Lily. They don’t look alike at all. Just look at the writing on the wall. She’s definitely playing tricks trying to escape!” I rolled my eyes, unable to hold it in anymore. “Uncle John! Have you forgotten that on your thirtieth birthday, besides drawing this picture for you, you rode your tricycle to take me to town to eat a basket cake?!” Uncle John shuddered violently, his eyes widening like saucers. “You… you’re really Lily? The college student I bought is actually you?!” Caleb instantly caught the glaring issue in that sentence. “What do you mean ‘bought’?! Dad?! Explain yourself?!” “Uncle John! Trafficking women is a felony! You can’t be involved in this kind of racket! Where’s the ex-boyfriend who sold me yesterday? We need to catch him!” I shook Uncle John’s shoulders violently, trying to shake some sense into him. He immediately dropped to his knees, sliding right to my feet. “Whatever Lily says, goes! I’ll never do something this stupid again! “Uncle John was so foolish. I didn’t recognize you yesterday and I hit you. I’m so sorry, Lily.” After saying that, he slapped himself hard on the left and right cheeks. Two red handprints instantly bloomed on his face. Caleb kept his head down, a vicious glint hidden beneath his messy bangs, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists. “Who sold you? I’m going to deal with him.” I pointed at a young man sitting at a large round table outside, tapping his chopsticks, waiting for the banquet to start. “That’s him! Luke!” Caleb shot out like a bolt of furious lightning. 8 “Hey, you’re his son, right? You want a pretty college girl? Since you’re repeat customers, I’ll only charge you…” Before Luke could finish his sentence, he was hoisted into the air and slammed against the wall by Caleb. “What are you doing?! I found your dad a beautiful wife! Why are you hitting me, you psycho?!” Caleb’s eyes were as cold as a frozen lake. He tilted his head, leaning close to Luke’s face. “Do you have any idea who you just sold?” “Her…” Luke pointed a trembling finger in my direction. I stood a short distance away, frowning deeply. From my angle, it seriously looked like they were kissing! I yelled anxiously, “Caleb! Don’t go easy on him!” I grabbed a stool and charged out. I was aiming to hit Luke in the stomach. But my aim was apparently terrible, and I just smashed the stool into the wall! “Hey, John, I heard your son came back. And you’re getting married today! Double blessings!” “Where’s the new bride? Is she prettier than your last one? Bring her out so we can see!” At that moment, the villagers arriving for the banquet started offering their congratulations. Caleb seemed to get even angrier hearing that. He threw a punch straight down at Luke. And smashed his fist right into the wall. The skin on Caleb’s knuckles instantly tore, seeping blood. “Caleb! Today is your dad’s big day! Seeing blood is bad luck!” “Oh, what a sin! John, come control your son!” “Who is that boy wearing glasses? He looks so delicate and pale. Stop hitting him, let me take him home and love on him properly.” I was in the middle of pulling Luke’s hair. Hearing these familiar voices, my heart twisted, and I abruptly stopped what I was doing. I looked down the line at their faces. Nine years had passed, but I still recognized every single one of them. Aunt Sarah, Uncle Tom, Grandma Liu, Grandpa Miller… The smiling faces that had showered me with love when I was a kid flashed before my eyes. My vision blurred with tears. I felt both overjoyed and deeply sad. Overjoyed because I got to see them again. Sad because I was about to be separated from them again. “Oh my, why is this child crying… it breaks my heart.” “Is she the new bride John is marrying?” Caleb roared at the top of his lungs: “What new bride?! She’s Lily!” 9 “Wh… what? She’s Lily? Little Lily finally came back?! Oh my, let me look at you. You’ve grown so much!” “Lily, you came back and just stayed at your Uncle John’s house?! You didn’t even come around to visit us! Did you forget all about us?!” “Aunt Sarah’s peaches are ripe again! Come to my house tomorrow to eat peaches, Lily!” “Uncle Tom just slaughtered a pig for the New Year! Come to my house tomorrow, I’ll stew some pig trotters for you!” “I didn’t forget you guys… I came back to find you…” I sobbed, hugging them one by one. “Wow, you guys are something else! Playing me for a fool?! Hiring me to buy someone, and it turns out you all know her!” While I was catching up with the villagers, Luke seized the opportunity and bolted. Clang, clang, clang! Before I could even chase after him, the sound of a gong echoed through the courtyard. I whipped around. It was Uncle John. He was beating a gong to get the villagers’ attention. “Catch him! Everyone! That brat who just ran away tried to sell Lily for cash!” “What?! He dared to bully Lily?! I’m going to break his legs! Don’t run, you bastard!” Uncle Tom exploded with rage, ran into Uncle John’s house, grabbed a hoe, and chased after him. “Beat him to death! How dare he bully our Lily! Doesn’t he have eyes?!” “Everyone, chase him! He’s not getting away!” Aunt Sarah hoisted a rake over her shoulder and chased after him, cursing a blue streak. “I’m going too! I’m going to get revenge for Lily!” Grandma Liu raised her cane high, ready to join the pursuit. I quickly grabbed her and made her sit down. “No, no, no, Grandma Liu, your health isn’t good. You shouldn’t go.” 10 The village was full of narrow, winding dirt paths. The houses were close together, each fenced in to raise chickens, and everyone had a fierce guard dog. Hunted from all sides, Luke sprinted desperately through the village, causing absolute chaos everywhere he went. More and more villagers came out to help. It was practically the entire village mobilized. “Everyone come out and catch him! That animal sold Lily!” “Grab your weapons and get him!” “I’m begging you, please spare me! I won’t take the twenty grand, okay?! “Please let me go! Ahhhhh!” Luke ran for his life while screaming and begging at the top of his lungs. But two fists are no match for dozens of hands. He was eventually surrounded by the villagers, caught in the middle of the crowd, and beaten mercilessly. “Ow! Why are you pulling my hair?!” “Stop scratching! Ahh, it hurts!” Watching the villagers exact revenge for me, I was moved to tears and snot. Waaah, the villagers are so good to me. They really are my family. They are my family! After my touching moment, I clapped my hands gleefully. “Haha! Luke, when you kidnapped me, you never expected this day would come, did you?!” “Here, you must be hungry.” Before I could stop grinning, Caleb walked over holding two massive chicken drumsticks. He shoved one into my mouth. Then he sat down next to me. His deep eyes were locked onto the scene of the villagers beating Luke, and he violently chewed the chicken in his mouth to pieces.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391744”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was at my high school reunion when I saw the post. I’d spent the last hour nursing a drink I didn’t want, scrolling through social media to avoid eye contact, when Jackson’s latest update popped up on my feed. [Ran into the guy I hated most in high school at the reunion tonight. Seeing how pathetic his life turned out? Absolute peak satisfaction. Karma is a beautiful thing.] The comment section was already a sea of “likes” and “congrats” from people I used to share a homeroom with. I sat there, my thumb hovering over the screen, before I slowly typed out a single line: “By ‘hated,’ do you mean the way you led the entire grade to ostracize him? Or the part where you knew he and his childhood sweetheart were in love, yet you inserted yourself into their lives under the guise of being a ‘bro’ just to sabotage them, eventually bullying him into moving across the ocean?” The second I hit send, the comment vanished. Deleted. I looked up. Jackson was standing three feet away, a smug, punchable grin plastered across his face. “Miles, man, why are you dressed so… casual?” he asked, his voice carrying just loud enough for the nearby tables to go quiet. “Is life in London not treating you well? Or did you just give up?” He leaned in, the scent of expensive bourbon and cheap malice radiating off him. “Are you married? Got a girlfriend? Or are you still just drifting? Don’t tell me you’re still living paycheck to paycheck, waiting in line for a government handout.” He chuckled, glancing at the crowd for approval. “If you’re struggling, just come back home. We won’t laugh at you. Or is the reason you stayed away for ten years because you’re still holding a grudge against me?” The room went dead silent. Every head turned. I could feel those eyes—sharp, judgmental, and heavy with the same casual cruelty they’d wielded a decade ago. But I wasn’t that seventeen-year-old boy anymore. I didn’t shrink. I didn’t look at the floor. I didn’t bother telling them that I owned more than just a house and a car. I didn’t mention that I held a significant stake in the very hotel group hosting this pathetic gathering. Instead, I looked Jackson dead in the eye and asked one question: “What about you, Jackson? It’s been ten years. Are you and Tina finally together?” 1 The words hit the room like a sudden drop in temperature. Tina, who had been standing a few feet away, finally broke her ten-year silence. She looked exactly the same, yet entirely different—the girl I once thought I’d spend my life with was now just a stranger in a cocktail dress. “Miles, stop it,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Don’t be like that. Jackson and I… we’re just friends. We’ve always just been friends.” She stepped closer, trying to reclaim some ghost of the intimacy we once had. “I know you’re still bitter about the past, but it’s been so long. I’ve wanted to get everyone together for years just so we could finally talk, clear the air, and start over. Can’t we just move past it?” Jackson, sensing an opening, raised his glass. He tried to throw an arm around my shoulder, the way he used to do when he was mocking me. “Exactly! We’re all adults here, Miles. If I did anything to offend you back in the day, don’t take it to heart. You know me—I’ve always been a straight shooter. I never understood all that sensitive, brooding stuff you had going on.” The crowd followed his lead like clockwork, standing up with their glasses raised. “Yeah, don’t be a buzzkill, Miles. Jackson’s just a high-energy guy.” “It’s all in the past. Who keeps a grudge for ten years? That’s just petty.” “Be the bigger person. Jackson was the one who went out of his way to make sure you were invited tonight.” They framed his forced invitation as an act of charity, a seat at the table I should be grateful for. They wanted the satisfaction of my forgiveness so they could stop feeling like the villains of my story. But I’ve never been good at following a script I didn’t write. I didn’t touch my glass. “I can’t drink,” I said quietly. “My wife is pregnant. I have to go pick her up in a bit.” The sound of shattering glass sliced through the room. Tina’s drink had slipped from her hand, splashing red wine across the hem of her dress. Everyone stared, but Jackson was the only one whose eyes betrayed a flicker of genuine relief. Tina forced a jagged, painful smile. “You’re… you’re joking. You don’t have to lie just because you don’t want to drink with us.” “I’m not joking,” I replied calmly. “I’m married. My wife is expecting. I’m only back in the States to handle some family business acquisitions.” Jackson couldn’t hide his excitement. It was the most honest he’d been all night; with me married, he finally didn’t have to pretend to be Tina’s “just a friend” anymore. “When did this happen?” he asked, his voice booming. “Why wasn’t there an announcement? Congratulations, man!” Tina’s voice was brittle, like dry leaves. “But… you always said… Miles, you’re lying to me, aren’t you?” One of Jackson’s flunkies stepped forward, his face reddening with secondhand indignation. “Miles, seriously? You’re going to pull this? Do you have any idea how long Tina has been waiting for you to come back?” He gestured wildly. “Look at her. You didn’t come to this reunion to move on; you came to get back with her. Be a man. Don’t be so dramatic. Don’t miss out on a woman like her—you’ll never find another one.” I’d forgotten how much I hated the sound of their voices. I gave them a thin, effortless smile. “I really am married. As for the things I said back then? They were just the foolish promises of a kid who didn’t know any better.” I looked directly at Tina, taking the very words she’d used to destroy me ten years ago and handing them back to her. “Surely you can take a joke, right?” 2 Tina and I were “the” couple. We grew up in houses that shared a fence, went to the same schools, and shared every secret from kindergarten through sophomore year. Then came Jackson. He moved to our town junior year and blew through our lives like a hurricane. He was loud, athletic, and had that “golden boy” charisma that made every guy want to be his brother and every girl want his attention. That included Tina. Suddenly, they were always together. They sat together in the back of the class, whispering about things I wasn’t part of. They gamed together until 2 AM. Our walk home from school, which had been a private ritual for a decade, slowly became a trio. At first, I told myself I was being paranoid. He was just a new friend. Until the day Jackson, while “play-fighting” with Tina, knocked my glass water bottle off my desk. It shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. It was a custom-etched bottle Tina had given me for my birthday. Part of a set. “Whoops!” Jackson said, his voice loud and performative. He patted my shoulder with a heavy hand. “My bad, bro. I’ll buy you a new one. Don’t get all worked up about it.” I shook my head, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s fine. It was an accident. Don’t worry about it.” Jackson leaned down, but his voice stayed loud enough for the whole room to hear. “No, really, let me replace it. I know how you sensitive types are. You say you’re not mad to our faces, then you go home and stew about it for a week.” The air left my lungs. He was framing me as the “delicate” one, the guy who was secretly petty. The guys around us started snickering. “I said it’s fine,” I muttered, my face heating up. Jackson pointed at me, laughing for the crowd. “See? Look at that face! He’s already sulking. It’s just a bottle, man. Just tell me to buy you a new one instead of being so passive-aggressive. I hate it when people can’t just be real.” He nudged Tina. “Tess, talk to your boy. Tell him to cheer up before he ruins the vibe for everyone.” Tina looked at the glass on the floor, then at me. “Miles, honestly, stop being so sensitive. I’ll just buy you another one. It wasn’t even that expensive.” “You think I’m being sensitive?” I asked, a lump forming in my throat. “I’ll buy it myself. Forget it.” Tina looked like she wanted to apologize, but Jackson threw an arm around her neck, pulling her away. “Man, what did you say to him? You broke the Prince’s heart!” he joked. “Let’s go, let’s go. We’ll come back when His Royal Highness has cheered up.” And just like that, I had a nickname: The Little Prince. Every time I handed out papers for a teacher: “Careful, don’t want our delicate Little Prince getting a paper cut.” Every time I sat quietly to read: “Look at that royal posture. So much more refined than us peasants, right?” The laughter followed me through the hallways like a physical weight. The smirks, the side-eyes, the whispered jokes—they were everywhere. And Tina? She did nothing. Eventually, even she started using the narrative. When she was annoyed with me, she’d sigh and say: “God, Miles, stop acting so entitled. You don’t actually live in a castle. Drop the ‘Little Prince’ attitude.” 3 The cold war between Tina and me set in, and Jackson used the silence to sharpen his knives. He started targeting every little thing. If I had a simple keychain on my bag, he’d gasp: “Whoa! Look at the accessory on Miles’s bag! So chic. You really put a lot of thought into being ‘aesthetic,’ don’t you?” He’d mimic me, primping his collar with exaggerated, feminine movements while the other guys howled. If I wiped down my desk after lunch, he’d sneer: “So refined, Miles. You think the rest of us are pigs? If we’re too gross for you, why don’t you just get a private tutor at home? Why bother slumming it with us?” I could feel the resentment from the other kids growing. He was making my basic habits look like an insult to them. During the weekly seat rotation, I was moving a heavy box of books. I couldn’t carry it all in one trip. Jackson walked over and put his foot right on top of the remaining box. “Man, I’m exhausted,” he shouted to the room. “Is there a brave soul willing to help our Little Prince? He’s got such frail, dainty arms, I’m worried he might snap.” The classroom erupted. People were literally doubling over, some even mocking the way I walked. Tina didn’t look back. She just muttered, “That’s enough, Jackson.” Jackson gave a loud, mocking Tsk. “Oh, looks like someone’s still protective of her childhood crush.” Tina flared up, her face turning red. “I’m not protective! I’m not ‘hearting’ anyone, especially not a crybaby!” Jackson grinned, satisfied. “Exactly. We’re just trying to toughen him up, right? He’s too soft. He’ll never survive in the real world if he’s this in his head all the time.” Tina looked at him, her expression softening into something familiar and warm. “Yeah… I guess guys should be a bit more… rugged.” Jackson playfully punched her shoulder. “Now you’re talking! Men should act like men!” My heart didn’t just break; it felt like it had been shredded. I thought if I just ignored them, Jackson would get bored. But after a month of silence, it was Tina who broke first. She caught me by the lockers. “Miles, please stop being mad. Don’t ignore me.” She looked at me with those big, tearful eyes she’d used since we were six. And like an idiot, I softened. I couldn’t imagine a life without her. We were supposed to go to the same college, move to the same city. I couldn’t leave her behind. So, we made up. Or at least, we pretended to. I still waited for her after her extracurriculars. We still walked home together, the streetlights casting our long shadows on the pavement. But I could feel Jackson watching us from a distance, whispering to his friends and laughing. That laughter made my skin crawl. It made me feel like I was the punchline to a joke I hadn’t heard yet. I tried to tell Tina how I felt. She groaned. “You’re overthinking again. They’re just kidding around. That’s just how guys are with each other.” When she saw my face fall, she softened her voice. “Okay, fine. I’ll talk to them. I’ll tell them to back off the jokes.” She walked over to Jackson across the quad. I watched as Jackson threw his head back and yelled, “Oh, we can’t even joke now? Does he think he’s a god? Does everyone have to bow down to him?” “Jackson!” Tina snapped, but it sounded performative. Jackson shrugged and shot me a look of pure, unadulterated malice. During those months, Jackson’s voice and his subtle cruelties were like invisible fists. The whispering in the back of the room felt like insects crawling over my skin. But I was weak. I told myself it was only two more years. Just two more years and I’d be free. I could endure it. And then, out of nowhere, Tina confessed she loved me. 4 She asked me to meet her at the football bleachers after practice. We’d spent our whole lives hanging out at the fields, so I didn’t suspect a thing. Until a few guys from class started acting weird. They kept asking me what my “big plans” were for the weekend and what I was going to wear. “Just a workout set,” I told them. “We’re hitting the gym, then the library. Just a normal Saturday.” They looked disappointed. “You’re going on a date with the prettiest girl in school and that’s the best you can do? So boring.” Boring. The word stung. Was that why Tina was spending so much time with Jackson? Because I was boring? The next day, following the “advice” of those guys, I bought a new athletic set. They told me it was “high-fashion” and “fitted” to show off my build. I wasn’t the biggest guy, but I was lean and toned from years of swimming. When I met Tina, her eyes lit up. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking almost shy. I felt a surge of hope. Maybe this was it. Maybe we were finally going back to how things used to be. We sat down in the shade of the bleachers, and she started acting fidgety. “Miles,” she said, her voice small. “I’ve been holding something in for a long time. I need to tell you.” My heart started thumping so hard I could hear it in my ears. “Will you be my boyfriend?” Blood rushed to my face. I felt dizzy with relief. After a moment, I whispered, “If it’s you, Tina… then yes.” I remembered when we were seven, and she’d held my hand and told me I was the best boy in the world and she was going to marry me one day. I remembered her standing up to middle-school bullies for me like a mother hen. Miles is mine, she’d said. If you mess with him, you mess with me. Ten years of history. How could a guy like Jackson ever stand a chance against that? Tina leaned in, asking me to repeat myself. I took a deep breath and said it louder. “Yes! I love you too, Tina!” “HAHAHAHAHA!” A roar of laughter erupted from behind the bleachers. A dozen kids from our class spilled out, phones in hand, recording everything. Their faces were twisted with mockery. Jackson was at the front. “God, Tina, you really are the best. I can’t believe you actually got him to say it.” I looked at Tina. She turned her head away, refusing to meet my eyes. Jackson walked up to me, his face a mask of fake pity. “Oh man, Miles. Are you serious? You wore that outfit to a fake confession? What are you trying to prove? That you’ve actually been to a gym once?” The guys who had “recommended” the outfit were in the back, smirking and looking away. Jackson reached out and yanked the collar of my shirt, pulling it so hard the fabric strained. I stumbled back. “I was wondering why you looked so ‘buff’ today,” Jackson laughed. “It’s because the shirt is two sizes too small! He’s literally squeezing himself into a kid’s size to look tough!” “I’m not!” I shouted, my voice cracking. The crowd went wild. “Is it true, Jackson?” someone yelled. “I felt the fabric myself!” Jackson yelled back. “It’s stretched to the breaking point! Talk about overcompensating!” A few guys started whistling, their eyes scanning me like I was a freak in a circus. I looked at Tina, my face pale, my voice trembling. “What is this? What did they mean?” 5 Tina finally looked at me, but her eyes were cold. “Miles, you’re just so… uncool. You never fit in with anyone. Jackson thought this would be a good way to get you to loosen up. To stop acting like you’re better than everyone.” The betrayal felt like a physical blow to the chest. My eyes burned. “You think humiliating me like this is ‘helping’ me?” Before she could answer, Jackson stepped in. “Don’t you dare talk to her like that. You’re always playing the victim, banking on the fact that she feels sorry for you.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me. “She didn’t even want to talk to you anymore. It took me five minutes to convince her this would be funny. She even bet me that the second she showed you a little affection, you’d come crawling like a pathetic puppy. And look at you. She was right.” The world tilted. The air felt like lead. Without thinking, I lunged forward and shoved Jackson as hard as I could. “MILES!” A sharp shout came from the edge of the field. Before I could move, a massive force slammed into me. I was hoisted up by my collar and slammed against the equipment shed. Pain flared in my back. Panic and rage flooded my system.

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My new laptop cost me twenty-five hundred dollars. It was a high-end beast, custom-specced for the kind of heavy rendering my job demands. When my nephew asked to borrow it to finish his senior capstone project, I didn’t even hesitate. I said yes. The next day, he posted on Instagram: “Just flipped this used rig for eight hundred bucks. Pure profit! Living my best life!” I clicked the photo. There it was. My laptop. The same specs, the same serial number sticker on the corner, the same custom finish. I didn’t call him. I didn’t scream. I simply pulled up my admin portal. After remotely bricking the hardware, I sent him a single text: “Are you finished with that project yet?” The comments section on his post was already starting to burn. 01 When the phone rang, I was deep in a flow state, eyes glued to a wall of cascading code. The caller ID read: Sarah. My older sister. I swiped to answer but didn’t get a word out before her voice blasted through the speaker, sharp and demanding. “Grant? You busy?” “A little,” I said, my eyes still tracking a bug in the script. “Listen, I need a favor. Tyler—you know he’s finishing his degree this semester—his laptop is a total piece of junk. It’s freezing up every time he tries to run his data models. He was wondering if he could borrow your new one for a bit.” My fingers froze over the keyboard. My new laptop. I’d bought it last month—a top-of-the-line machine that had eaten through a significant chunk of my savings. I needed the high-tier GPU for my rendering work; it wasn’t just a computer, it was my livelihood. “Sarah, I use that for work,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Ugh, I know you work. But he only needs it at night. You use it during the day, he uses it in the evening. It’s not a big deal. Besides, how long does it take to write a paper? A week, tops.” Her tone was so matter-of-fact, as if she were asking to borrow a stapler rather than a three-thousand-dollar setup. “We’re family, Grant. You’re his uncle. Don’t you want to see him succeed? If he doesn’t graduate because he can’t finish his project, how’s that going to look on all of us?” There it was. The “Family Tax.” I felt a familiar throb of irritation behind my eyes. I minimized my coding window and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Sarah, the software and project files on that machine are sensitive. If he accidentally deletes—” “Oh, please. Just back it up. Tyler is twenty-two, not five. He knows how to use a computer. Just put your secret stuff in an encrypted folder and tell him not to touch it. It’s just a laptop, Grant. Don’t be so stingy.” I stayed silent. It was always the same routine. Whenever she wanted something, she draped herself in the mantle of “Family Values.” If I hesitated for even a second, I was the selfish one, the cold-hearted brother who didn’t care about blood. “Anyway, that apartment of yours isn’t exactly Fort Knox,” she added, her voice breezy now that she sensed my silence as a white flag. “It’s probably safer at our place anyway. We’re always home. It’s settled, then. I’ll have Tyler swing by later to pick it up.” In the background, I could hear Tyler’s muffled, impatient voice: “Mom, why are you still talking to him? He’s my uncle, he’s supposed to help me out.” The entitlement in his voice made my blood pressure spike. “Sarah, wait,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “Now what?” “That machine is a tool, not a toy. If Tyler takes it, there are rules. One: he doesn’t touch my files. Two: if so much as a pixel is out of place, he pays for the repair or replacement. Three: I want it back in seven days. Exactly.” There was a beat of silence. Sarah clearly wasn’t used to me setting hard boundaries. “Fine, fine. Whatever. You’re so dramatic,” she huffed. “He’s on his way. Have it ready.” She hung up before I could say another word. I stared at the dead screen, a hollow feeling settling in my chest. I opened a folder and started backing up my active projects to the cloud, trying to convince myself I was just being paranoid. Tyler was a bit of a brat, sure, but he wouldn’t do anything truly stupid. He just needed to graduate. 02 Thirty minutes later, the doorbell buzzed. I opened it to find Tyler standing there, AirPods shoved in his ears, jaw working rhythmically on a piece of gum. He was wearing an oversized designer hoodie that probably cost more than my monthly grocery bill. He looked at me with an expression that bordered on bored contempt. “Hey. Mom said you’re letting me use the rig?” “Yeah.” I stepped aside to let him in. He wandered into my small apartment, his eyes scanning the space with a faint, judgmental smirk. He didn’t say a word about the decor, but the way he tilted his head told me he thought my place was beneath him. “Where’s the bag?” he asked. I pointed to the black, reinforced laptop case on the desk. I’d spent sixty bucks on that case specifically for its shock-absorption. He walked over and slung the strap over his shoulder with a reckless, one-handed motion. The bag swung and hit the edge of the desk with a dull thud. My heart did a painful somersault. “The password is 1-1-2-2-3-3,” I said, my voice tight. “There’s a folder on the desktop labeled ‘DO NOT TOUCH.’ Leave it alone. All the software you need for your data models is already installed and pinned to the taskbar.” “Got it, got it. Chill out,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. The music bleeding from his AirPods was so loud I could hear the bass line from three feet away. He turned to the door, stepping back into his sneakers without ever looking at me. “Later.” “Tyler,” I called out. He stopped, turning his head just enough to show he was annoyed. “What now?” “Be careful with it. Seriously. It’s expensive.” He let out a short, mocking laugh, the kind that implied I was an idiot for even stating the obvious. “Yeah, okay.” The door slammed shut behind him. I stood there in the silence, a bad taste lingering in my mouth. It didn’t feel like I’d just done a favor for a relative. It felt like I’d been shook down for protection money. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the anxiety. It’s just a week, I told myself. If I fight Sarah over this, Mom will be calling me tonight to give me a lecture on ‘harmony.’ I sat back down at my desk and realized how empty it looked. I usually ran a dual-monitor setup. Tyler hadn’t just taken the laptop; he’d taken the 27-inch 4K monitor too, unplugging it without even asking if it was part of the deal. I reached for my phone to call Sarah, then hesitated. I forced myself to take a deep breath. One week. Just survive one week. I hooked up my old, flickering backup monitor. As the screen hummed to life, I felt a strange, sinking sensation in my gut. 03 The next morning started with a frantic call from my project manager. We spent the entire morning in a remote sprint, trying to put out fires on a new client launch. By noon, I was exhausted. I ordered some takeout and, out of habit, opened Instagram to kill a few minutes while I waited for the delivery. I hadn’t scrolled three inches before a familiar handle popped up. It was Tyler. He’d posted a carousel of photos. The caption read: “Liquidating some assets. Flipped this used setup for $800. Pure profit! Thanks for the quick cash, boys. Drinks on me tonight!” My heart skipped a beat, then began to hammer against my ribs. I tapped the first photo. It was a screenshot of a Venmo notification. Someone had sent him $800 with the caption “For the laptop.” I swiped to the second photo. It was a picture of a sleek, black laptop. In the upper right corner was the tiny, silver logo sticker I’d put there so I wouldn’t mix it up with my old work machine. The third photo was a spec sheet of the hardware. CPU, GPU, RAM… everything matched my twenty-five hundred dollar investment perfectly. The fourth photo showed the laptop sitting next to the 4K monitor on a coffee table I recognized from Sarah’s living room. The blood rushed to my head so fast it made me dizzy. Then, just as quickly, it went cold. My hands were shaking. Fury. A cold, crystalline rage I hadn’t felt in years. I had lent him that machine yesterday. He had sold it today. A twenty-five hundred dollar laptop and a six-hundred dollar monitor—over three thousand dollars of professional equipment—sold for eight hundred bucks. And the bastard called it “pure profit.” I reached for the dial pad, ready to tear Sarah and Tyler apart. My thumb hovered over Sarah’s name, but I stopped. What would that accomplish? I knew exactly what she would say. “Oh, Grant, he’s just a kid, he didn’t know.” “He was short on rent, you’re his uncle, can’t you just help him out?” “It’s already sold, what do you want me to do? I’ll tell him to give you the eight hundred.” Eight hundred dollars for three thousand dollars worth of my life? I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. I scrolled down to the comments on Tyler’s post. “Bro, $800 for those specs? You robbed that guy,” one friend wrote. “Nice flip, Ty. We hitting the club tonight?” another chimed in. Tyler’s reply was a smug smiley face: “You know it. Table service at midnight.” I tossed the phone onto the desk and stood up, pacing the length of my tiny living room. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a lead weight. I couldn’t breathe. I walked to the window, lit a cigarette—a habit I’d quit a year ago—and took a long, harsh drag. The smoke burned my lungs and made me cough, but the nicotine hit my system and began to clear the fog of panic. I couldn’t just scream at them. They didn’t speak the language of logic or respect. To them, my hard work was just a resource for them to mine. I needed a better way. I needed a way to make Tyler cough up the hardware, and to make sure both he and his “smart” buyer regretted ever crossing me. My eyes fell on my desktop tower, still humming as it compiled code. A thought struck me like a lightning bolt. The laptop was a professional workstation. For security and insurance purposes, I had registered it through the manufacturer’s enterprise cloud service and bound the hardware ID to my account. That account gave me master-level permissions. Including… the “Nuclear Option.” 04 I crushed out the cigarette and sat back down. Stay cold, I told myself. Stay clinical. I opened my browser and navigated to the manufacturer’s portal. Login. Password. Two-factor authentication. The page loaded, showing my device management dashboard. A single line of text sat at the top of the list: “Model: Precision Series X. Serial: XXXXXXXXXXXX. Status: Online.” Online. That meant the buyer had already hooked it up to Wi-Fi. I stared at that green “Online” indicator, and a slow, jagged smile spread across my face. Perfect. I clicked on “Device Actions.” A menu of options appeared: Locate Device, Play Sound, Lock Hardware, Wipe Data. My cursor hovered over Lock Hardware. If I clicked this, a low-level command would be sent via the cloud directly to the laptop’s BIOS chip. It wasn’t just a Windows password lock. It would physically disable the motherboard, the CPU, and the SSD controller. The laptop would become a literal brick. No amount of reformatting or part-swapping would fix it. It would be a three-thousand-dollar paperweight. The only way to unlock it was for me—and only me—to send the authorization code from this specific account. It was a feature designed for corporate theft. I never thought I’d be using it on my own nephew. I began to map out the moves in my head. Step one: Lock the device. Turn that buyer’s “steal” into a piece of junk. When he realizes he’s been scammed, he’ll go straight for Tyler’s throat. Step two: Apply pressure. Tyler, desperate to keep the buyer from calling the cops or kicking his door in, would have to come crawling back to me. Step three: Recovery. I’d get my gear back, and Tyler would learn that actions have consequences. No screaming. No family drama on the phone. Just a clean, digital execution. I didn’t need to argue with people who didn’t value me. I just needed to show them what happens when you steal from a man who knows how the machine works.

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During the year I loved Arthur the most, he died in a car crash. Everyone expected me to have a total breakdown, but I didn’t cry or make a scene. Two years later, I bumped into him in a private room at a club. Arthur had his arms around a young girl, kissing her passionately. His friends quickly surrounded me, scrambling to explain: “Arthur was severely injured in that crash and fell into a coma. He just recently woke up, but he has amnesia… We didn’t want you living in constant anxiety, so we never told you.” Arthur pushed the girl away, walked up to me, and frowned: “I heard you’re my fiancée? Even though I don’t remember it, seeing how devoted you’ve been to me, I’ll honor my promise and marry you.” I smiled faintly and replied, “They’re lying to you. We don’t know each other.” Arthur didn’t know that on the very day he faked his death, I received a video. In the video, Arthur was laughing and telling his friends: “The thought of only having Chloe for the rest of my life after we get married… I just can’t accept it. “I’m going to fake my death and have fun for a few years. You guys make sure to comfort her. Don’t let her do anything stupid.” He also didn’t know that during the two years he spent “dead,” I had found someone else too. 1 The friends around us froze for a moment, then started trying to persuade me: “Chloe, how can you say you don’t know him? We’re the ones who hid it from you. It has nothing to do with Arthur.” “Yeah, Chloe, we did it for your own good. We didn’t want you constantly worrying. Now that Arthur finally woke up, please don’t throw a tantrum.” The private room was suddenly filled with accusations directed at me. Before I could even speak, a loud scoff cut through the noise. Arthur stood up from the sofa, a cigarette pinched between his fingers, and said with lazy arrogance: “If she says we don’t know each other, then forget it. Saves me the trouble of taking responsibility.” The young girl who had been with him immediately clung to his arm, lifting her face with a shy, nervous look: “Arthur… I know you. She doesn’t appreciate you, but I… I’m willing to marry you, okay?” Arthur didn’t answer. He just shot me a cold, indifferent glance, then wrapped his arm around the girl’s waist, leaned down, and kissed her. Seeing this, his friends immediately stepped in front of me to block my view. They tried to comfort me: “Chloe, Arthur has amnesia. You know he loved you the most before.” “Yeah, Chloe. You need to show him more care and help him remember you sooner. Stop throwing these little fits.” I opened my mouth, about to say something to these so-called friends of Arthur’s, when a sudden, sharp pain shot through my abdomen. My face instinctively went pale. I didn’t stay another second; I turned and walked out of the room. I moved so fast that the people inside didn’t even have time to react. Only after I had completely disappeared did they sigh and say to Arthur: “Arthur, you went too far. Chloe is genuinely jealous and angry. Her face went completely white. What if she really dumps you?” Arthur smiled, sitting back down on the sofa. “Chloe is easy to coax. It’s been two years; I refuse to believe she doesn’t miss me. “Besides, I have ‘amnesia’ right now. Once I’ve had my fun, I’ll just tell her my memory came back and that none of this was my true intention. I won’t even have to apologize. I’ll just crook my finger, and she’ll come running back.” 2 Once I was out of the room, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and crouched on the floor. Waves of pain radiated from my stomach, draining me of the strength to even make it to the restroom. Until a shadow fell over me. A familiar voice sounded above me: “What, feeling heartbroken? Hoping to rekindle that old flame?” I looked up to see Asher leaning against the doorframe a short distance away, arms crossed, looking at me with a cool expression. He was dressed entirely in black. He had a high, straight nose bridge, and his eyes were hidden in the dim light, making his emotions impossible to read. Under the lights, the lines of his thin lips were beautiful and sharp. In that instant, a surge of grievance from being falsely accused swelled in my heart. My tears, completely betraying me, started falling uncontrollably. Asher panicked instantly. He dropped his arms and hurried over to me. “Don’t cry. I won’t say it again.” He had a great build and was very strong. He scooped me up from the floor with one arm. The scent of cedar drifted into my nose, stirring my heartstrings. I naturally wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered: “My stomach hurts…” Asher paused for a second: “Did it come early?” I nodded, my lips accidentally brushing against his chin, and rested my head on his broad shoulder. Asher carried me to his car, turned on the heat, and said: “Wait for me in the car. I’m going to buy you some things.” With that, he closed the door and turned to leave. The dim yellow light from the streetlamps spilled over him, outlining his tall, straight back. Not long after, a video call notification popped up. It was Asher. “They’re out of the brand you usually use. Do any of these look okay?” I was just about to pick one when a familiar, surprised voice rang out from the video feed. Arthur, his arm around the young girl’s waist, walked into the convenience store. He looked Asher up and down and said in astonishment: “I asked you to come drinking tonight, and you said no. Turns out you’re here buying stuff for a woman! “Are you on a video call with her? Let me see! Who on earth managed to get our aloof Mr. Sterling to open up?” Saying that, Arthur reached out, trying to snatch Asher’s phone. I instinctively moved my face away from the camera. But Arthur never touched the phone. Asher just gave him a flat, cold look, and Arthur immediately pulled his hand back. “Alright, alright. I see you’re guarding your treasure closely. Remember to bring her out to meet us next time! “Oh, by the way, Asher, I ran into Chloe. She walked into the wrong private room and caught me kissing another woman. It scared the hell out of me. Thank God the other guys thought fast and told her I had amnesia. I’ll play around a bit more, and then my memory will ‘magically’ return. “Of course, you really helped me out big time, bro. When I realized I hadn’t had my fun yet, your idea to fake my death was an absolute lifesaver.” The video feed shook, and the next second, the screen showed the call had ended. 3 Asher returned ten minutes later. He didn’t dare look at me. He just handed me the things he bought, quickly got into the driver’s seat, and locked the doors. “I had someone deliver some brown sugar ginger tea to the house. Do you… want to go back and drink it?” Asher’s words carried a hint of cautious hesitation. It actually made me want to laugh. Asher was a well-known second-generation heir in the capital. And he was also Arthur’s best friend. In the past, whenever I went out to dinner with Arthur, Asher was always there. Back then, he was incredibly cold towards me. Especially when people teased me and Arthur, telling us to show some PDA, Asher wouldn’t even spare us a glance. He would even look mocking and disgusted. So much so that everyone in that circle thought he hated me. Until the day Arthur supposedly died in a car crash, and I received a video. A video sent by Asher. In the video, Arthur was laughing and telling his friends: “The thought of only having Chloe for the rest of my life after we get married… I just can’t accept it. “I’m going to fake my death and have fun for a few years. You guys make sure to comfort her. Don’t let her do anything stupid.” But what I never expected was that this whole “fake death” scheme was actually Asher’s idea. This man was quite the schemer. 4 The moment we arrived at Asher’s villa, my feet barely touched the ground before he swept me up into a princess carry. After I handled things in the bathroom, Asher placed me on the bed and handed me his phone to play games. Once I finished the hot drink, he practiced taking off his clothes, lay down beside me, and began rubbing my stomach. The overhead light draped over his abs like a thin veil. Every defined line seemed to whisper an untold story, making me want to explore. I thought it, and I did it. Asher’s eyes darkened, and he pinned down my restless hand. “Behave.” I ignored him. He cupped the back of my head and kissed me deeply. Two years was more than enough time for him to learn my body perfectly. When things got heated, he grabbed my hand. His voice was hoarse as he spoke: “Help me.” I had learned about Asher’s stamina the very first time we slept together after I got drunk. It wasn’t until my wrist was aching terribly that he finally finished. Just as he was about to carry me to the bathroom to clean up, the phone by the bed started ringing. It was Asher’s phone. I had accidentally rolled over and hit the answer button. “Ash, I’m planning to throw an engagement party with Mia just to piss Chloe off. What do you think? “She saw I was alive, and instead of caring about my health, she just got jealous and angry! She hasn’t even contacted me yet! “Looks like she’s grown a spine during these two years. I need to torture her a little, let her experience the pain of losing me all over again. I need to plan this out. When the time comes, you have to…” Arthur’s voice poured out of the speaker. But before he could finish, he stopped abruptly. Because I couldn’t help but let out a soft gasp. Not because of what Arthur said, but because something had woken up again. And it twitched right in my hand. 5 I glared at Asher, feeling both annoyed and embarrassed. Arthur’s voice came through the phone again, sounding amazed: “Well, well, Asher! What are you up to right now? You actually have a woman with you?! Tell me right now, is it the woman you were video calling today?” After not seeing each other for two years, and the fact that I only made a brief, simple sound… Combined with the countless women Arthur had surrounded himself with over the years, he completely failed to recognize it was me. Asher clearly had no intention of entertaining Arthur. His eyes were locked onto me, burning with unspoken desire. I glared at him fiercely, broke free from his embrace, and scrambled toward the other side of the bed. But before I could even crawl a single step, Asher grabbed my ankle and dragged me back. Arthur kept talking: “My good brother, you absolutely have to bring her out so I can see who this goddess is! To think she managed to get our iron tree to bloom! Since you’re finally playing the game, you can’t refuse when I introduce girls to you from now on! “Oh, right, the engagement party. Originally, I was going to ask you to invite Chloe for me, but knowing how much you’ve always hated her…” Before Arthur could finish, an impatient Asher hung up the phone. He tossed the phone onto the bed, scooped me up with one arm, and carried me to the bathroom. When we finally came back out, it was three hours later. Asher looked thoroughly satisfied. I glared at him, collapsed on the bed, and refused to speak to him. I picked up my phone and saw I had received a text message. It was from one of Arthur’s friends. Two years ago, Arthur had brought me into all his social circles. [Chloe, Arthur is getting engaged to someone else in seven days. You have to come stop him! I don’t want him to regret this when he gets his memory back! This isn’t his true intention!] I glanced at the message, deleted it, and tossed my phone aside. I’m not the type of person who goes looking for trouble when I have none. What does Arthur getting engaged have to do with me? Asher reached out to pull me into his arms. I glared at him and quickly shimmied away. I absolutely did not want to endure another three or four hours. 6 The news that Arthur was alive and planning to get engaged spread quickly. Many friends reached out to me. Some offered sympathy, some furiously cursed Arthur for being a scumbag, and others were just there to enjoy the drama. My college roommate, Lily, called me, loudly condemning Arthur. “When I first heard Arthur wasn’t dead, I was so happy for you! But then I heard he’s getting engaged to someone else?! That is completely unacceptable! So what if he has amnesia?! Does that mean he can just betray you?! You are his fiancée! Did no one tell him that?! “No way, I can’t let my best friend get bullied like this! I’m going to find out where Arthur is having his engagement party, and we are going to go get justice for you!” I laughed: “Even marriages end in divorce; an engagement can be canceled. My relationship with him ended two years ago. Whatever he does now has nothing to do with me.” Lily was still furious: “I just can’t swallow this! You waited for him for two whole years! I watched you stay single this entire time!” I choked on the cracker I was eating. Who waited for him for two years? It was just that my relationship with Asher hadn’t been made public yet. Lily continued trying to persuade me, wanting me to go with her to confront Arthur. After I refused again, she sighed. “Alright, alright. Are you free to go out tonight? We haven’t hung out in forever. Drinks are on me tonight!” Having nothing better to do, I agreed. Lily picked the location. She arrived before I did. Looking at the hotel in front of me, I was a bit confused. “Didn’t you say we were going to a bar? Why are we at a hotel?” Lily looked a bit evasive, pulling my arm as she walked inside. “Bars are so unsafe at night! What if we get drunk and run into danger? A nice hotel is much better. We can get some food, too. It’ll be so comfortable.” Lily led me inside. The moment the doors to the main banquet hall were pushed open, my face fell. 7 This was the hotel where Arthur was holding his engagement party. On the stage, Arthur was already exchanging rings. Standing opposite him was the girl I had seen at the club. The girl gazed up at Arthur with a shy, loving expression. But Arthur’s brow was deeply furrowed. He kept glancing toward the hall entrance. When our eyes finally met, Arthur paused, then his brow unfurled, and a smirk curled his lips. The MC standing beside them asked: “May I ask the groom-to-be, are you willing to stand by your bride-to-be’s side for every important moment in the future?” Arthur glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, the smile on his face growing wider: “Of course.” He slipped the ring onto Mia’s finger, and the guests below the stage erupted in cheers. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Mia’s cheeks grew even redder, but she proactively stood on her tiptoes and leaned toward Arthur. Arthur didn’t refuse. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her passionately amidst the cheering crowd. I turned to look at Lily. She looked guilty but still urged me on: “Chloe, hurry up and get up there! Steal him back! Arthur is your man!” I didn’t say a word. I just stared at her quietly. Lily and I met in college. We went to class together, ate together, and hung out during breaks. I truly considered her my friend. But now, the doors to the banquet hall had been closed. A few of Arthur’s closest friends were blocking the exit. It was obvious who they were blocking. “Chloe, I just couldn’t stand seeing you bullied like this, so I tricked you! I wanted to bring you here so you could vent your anger! I’ll go up on stage and help you get revenge right now!” Without looking at me, Lily hurriedly made a move to storm the stage. I stood my ground and looked at her calmly: “Lily, Mia… she’s your cousin, isn’t she?” I remembered Lily mentioning in college that she had a cousin. “What? Did your cousin ask you to bring me here so I would make a scene, embarrass myself, and make her look better?” As if I had struck a nerve, Lily stood frozen on the spot. I let out a scoff: “That disgusting excuse for a man… just because your cousin treats him like a treasure doesn’t mean anyone else does.” I glanced around the room. There were top-shelf liquors, fine beverages, and exquisite pastries laid out everywhere. They definitely put some thought into this. Since everyone was so determined to get me here, and I was already here, I wasn’t going to just stand around. I found a seat, grabbed a pastry, and started eating. While eating, I looked around. Asher was on a business trip and wasn’t here today. Lily, meanwhile, had angrily stormed over to me, pointing a finger and accusing: “Chloe, watch what you say! I think you’re just experiencing sour grapes! My future brother-in-law and my cousin are deeply in love! You’re just jealous, that’s why you’re slandering him!” I scoffed. Just as I was about to say something, a tearful female voice interrupted. The engagement ceremony on stage had ended, and Mia had somehow made her way over to me. The moment our eyes met, she threw herself at me and grabbed my hands: “Ms. Vance, please don’t blame Arthur! He has amnesia! He doesn’t remember you, he only loves me! It’s not his true intention! If you’re angry, you can take it all out on me! You can hit me, you can curse me! “I… I’ll even kneel for you! As long as you don’t blame Arthur!” Mia moved fast. Her hands clamped tightly around my wrists, her nails digging deeply into my flesh. The pain made me instinctively shake her off. I didn’t use much force, but she screamed and collapsed to the floor. The next second, I was shoved hard. I was wearing high heels today. Pushed off balance, I twisted my ankle severely. An agonizing pain shot through me, so intense it almost brought tears to my eyes. Arthur glared at me with pure rage: “Chloe, you’ve gone too far! Who gave you the right to bully Mia at our engagement party?! Do you think I don’t exist?! “Apologize to Mia right now!” The guests in the hall had been watching me ever since I arrived. Now, they all gathered around with a “grab the popcorn” attitude, eager for a show. Someone spoke up: “Ms. Vance, you and Mr. Sterling are in the past. It’s over. Crashing his engagement party with Ms. Mia… isn’t that a bit inappropriate?” “Exactly! People need to have some self-awareness. He doesn’t love you anymore. Forcing it won’t work. Besides, a forced melon isn’t sweet!” Mia lay in Arthur’s arms, her eyes red as she sobbed. She tugged at Arthur’s sleeve and spoke with immense understanding: “Arthur, it’s okay. I don’t blame Ms. Vance… It’s completely normal for her to feel sad and hurt seeing you with me. It’s normal for her to blame me and hate me, as long as she doesn’t resent you…” “This isn’t your fault.” After comforting Mia, Arthur turned to me with a cold face: “Chloe, no matter what our relationship was before, it ended two years ago. The woman I love now is Mia. If you bully her, I won’t let you off! Apologize to her right now!” From an angle where the others couldn’t see, Mia shot me a provocative smile. I smiled back faintly. “Sure. “I apologize.” The next second, I slapped Mia squarely across the face. After that, thinking it looked a bit unsymmetrical, I slapped the other side too. Symmetry. Mia screamed and burst into tears. Furious, Arthur raised his hand to hit me, but his friends immediately stepped in and held him back. They lowered their voices and warned him: “Don’t go too far, man! Otherwise, when you ‘recover’ your memory, you won’t be able to fix this! “Mia can’t compare to Chloe. Don’t lose your head!” Arthur looked like he wanted to say more, but one of his friends suddenly shouted: “Asher! You’re back! Come quick! Chloe twisted her ankle. You take her home first!” I turned around to see Asher walking toward us from a distance.

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To afford the expensive rut-suppressant injections for him, I worked multiple part-time jobs day and night, never daring to take a day off even when I was sick. Until one day, I overheard the truth. “Elias ordered a $230,000 bottle of wine, and she’s literally killing herself working for a $2,300 injection.” “Haha, poor people are so cheap. You just feed them a few lies and they hand over their entire heart.” “Just don’t take the joke too far. If your Master finds out, it won’t end well for you.” That was when I finally understood. To him, I was nothing more than an entertaining game to kill time. It wouldn’t be long before he kicked me to the curb. But what he didn’t know was that my billionaire father had just found me. In three days. I was going to leave this place and step into my life as a wealthy heiress. 1. Elias was an Incubus I found abandoned in the pouring rain. At the time, he could barely maintain his human form. He was covered in mud, his golden curly hair plastered to his back by the rain, and his eyes were clouded with a hazy, mesmerized red. He was breathtakingly beautiful. I was completely captivated. By the time I snapped back to reality, I had already carried him back to my tiny, unfurnished apartment. I agonized over the decision. I could barely afford to feed myself, let alone an Incubus. But looking at Elias’s pitiful face, I hardened my heart and decided to keep him. I kept him for five years. However, he continually delayed signing a formal Master-Servant contract with me. I always thought it was because Elias wasn’t ready. I never expected that I wasn’t his only Master. Walking past a private VIP room at the club where I worked, I saw a familiar silhouette. My footsteps faltered as someone inside spoke. “Haven’t you had enough fun yet? The Master is coming back soon. Make sure you get rid of her before then.” Elias pulled a cigarette from a pack and replied lazily. “She treats me pretty well, she’s just too poor.” “The apartment she rents is tiny, like a birdcage, and the soundproofing is garbage. I can never get a good night’s sleep; it’s so annoying.” “Sometimes in the middle of the night, you can literally hear the neighbors going at it.” Hearing that incredibly familiar voice, I froze in place. I stared at him in absolute disbelief. Shouldn’t he be at home? Why was he here…? I couldn’t help but stop, desperate to see clearly if the man inside was actually Elias. After some teasing laughter, someone mocked. “What kind of romance can poor people possibly offer?” “Does she know that the single bottle of wine you just ordered costs $230,000?” “If you really can’t bear to let her go, just keep her as a secret pet on the side.” “These poor girls are easy to break.” A quick rebuttal followed. “How is that possible? Are you saying Elias actually caught feelings?” “Man, you don’t even know. That woman works herself to death day and night just to buy him a $2,300 injection, and Elias doesn’t feel a shred of pity for her.” “Besides, it was always just a game anyway. Hahahaha, poor people are so incredibly cheap. Just feed them a few lies and they hand over their entire heart.” “Right, Elias?” My grip on the serving tray tightened violently. My entire body went rigid. It was him. “Yeah.” Elias gave a muffled, indifferent agreement. “The Master is flying back in half a month. Give it another seven days. Seven days is plenty of time to get rid of her.” “What if she clings to you? I mean, you spent so much of her money. Poor people will literally fight to the death over money.” “Does she have the ability to cling?” Elias’s voice suddenly turned freezing cold. “I’ll just throw some cash at her to make her go away.” “Don’t worry, Mia is very obedient to me. She won’t make a scene; she’ll just cry.” “If she really refuses to listen, I’ll just pull a disappearing act.” The laughter inside morphed into flying daggers, stabbing directly into my heart. The pain was so intense that tears streamed down my face. So, Elias was never a stray Incubus. He had a Master, and his Master was incredibly wealthy. These past five years with me were nothing more than a game to cure his boredom. It wouldn’t be long before he abandoned me. That night of “salvation” in the pouring rain had ultimately just been my own delusional fantasy. I desperately wanted to storm in and confront Elias. To demand why he lied to me. But the moment he turned his head toward the door, I turned and fled. 2. It was midnight by the time I got home. The second I opened the door, Elias’s clear, bright voice called out. “You’re home?” He was wearing a strawberry-print apron, walking out of the kitchen, his hands still wet from washing. “Late-night snack will be ready in a minute! I made your favorite spicy noodle soup, with extra lettuce.” I forced a stiff smile and gave a soft “Mm.” After changing into my pajamas, I sat at the dining table, my mind a chaotic mess. In this world, an Incubus holds a very low status, equivalent to a human’s pet. They can be kept in captivity, beaten or killed on a whim, or even served as food on a dining table. When I first took Elias in, I was still a student. My roommates couldn’t understand why I would want to keep an Incubus. “Incubi are dark, degraded creatures. Their brains are only wired for lust and manipulation; they don’t understand actual love.” “Mia, haven’t you watched the news? So many pet Incubi secretly run away, and the brutal ones even eat their Masters alive. You’re inviting a wolf into your home.” “You should just sell him quickly. An Incubus in rut tastes better and sells for a much higher price.” I didn’t listen to a single word they said. Instead, I used my meager allowance to rent a basement apartment for him to live in. They didn’t understand. I was an orphan. I desperately craved a family. I craved companionship. Thinking of Elias’s gentle, obedient smile, I felt that keeping him for the rest of my life would be a wonderful thing. At the very least, he belonged to me. I didn’t care about his low status; in fact, it made me feel safer. He was an Incubus. We could form a contract. Once I became his Master, he would stay by my side forever. That dark, damp basement became the only thing I looked forward to during that time in my life. Later, when I secured a stable job, Elias and I moved out of the basement. We currently rented a standard one-bedroom apartment. On the 18th floor. It was small, but it was incredibly cozy. We lived a very ordinary, but very happy life. Except… the place I considered our home was nothing but a “birdcage” to Elias. And all the tenderness and love he showed me was completely fake. “Here it is! Here it is!” Elias was beaming as he brought over the spicy noodle soup. He plopped down in the chair across from me, resting his chin on his hands, blinking his large, beautiful eyes at me. Every night when I got off work, he would cook me a late-night snack and keep me company while I ate. This was usually the most relaxing and joyful part of my day. But today, every second felt like agonizing torture. The table fell silent. Elias spoke softly. “Mia, I feel like… we might not be a good match…” I knew exactly what Elias was going to say next. Perhaps clinging to the very last shred of my dignity, I cut him off. “You want to break up, right?” “Okay.” He looked slightly stunned and asked, “How did you know?” I looked at his face, bitter tears involuntarily slipping from the corners of my eyes. “Stop pretending, Elias. Is lying to me really that fun?” I opened my bag, pulled out a thick stack of printed documents, and slammed them onto the table. After discovering he was lying to me, I spent every last cent of my savings to hire an investigator to dig into Elias’s background. When the file was sent to me, I finally learned that the gentle, considerate man who had been by my side for five years was actually the contracted Incubus of Chloe, a prodigious teenage pianist. They had attended a high-society gala together. Amidst the clinking glasses and flashing lights, Elias’s eyes were entirely focused on the radiant young girl, his expression filled with absolute tenderness and adoration. “Elias, you lied to me for five whole years.” “You played the pathetic victim in front of me, telling me you were persecuted, abandoned, and chased away. But in reality, you already had a Master. You lived a life of absolute luxury. You never actually suffered at all, did you? Everything you told me was a complete fabrication!” “What an incredible performance… For five years, I didn’t notice a single flaw!” Elias’s expression shattered into pure panic. Under the massive emotional surge, he lost control of his human form; his pointed ears, wings, and tail suddenly materialized. My eyes were bloodshot as I stared at him with pure hatred. “The rut-suppressant injections cost $2,300 each. Every single month, I worked myself half to death just to earn enough money to buy them for you. And you? How did that $230,000 bottle of wine taste?!” “Elias! You played me for an absolute fool! Was it fun?!” I violently stood up and flipped the dining table. The spicy noodle soup crashed to the floor, the pungent smell instantly filling the room. Elias fell silent. His face was unreadable, but his thick, fleshy tail twitched anxiously behind him. “You know everything?” “…I’ll pay you back double for all the money you spent over the years, I…” “No need.” I raised my hand and violently swatted his tail away, my voice dripping with absolute disgust. “Taking money from a degraded creature like you makes me physically sick.” “Elias, my roommates were absolutely right. All Incubi are nothing but calculating, degraded creatures. You don’t have hearts! And you will never understand love.” “If I had known, I should have sold you the very first time I laid eyes on you.” Elias’s face instantly drained of all color. He swayed on his feet, looking like he was about to collapse. I grabbed my bag from the chair, opened the front door, and walked out. After leaving, I had no idea where to go. I wandered aimlessly along the side of the road. The winter night was freezing. Eventually, I just found a random 24-hour karaoke place. I sang, I cried, and I drank, aggressively purging all my emotions. When I was too exhausted to cry anymore, I just lay down on the sofa and slept. 3. At 5 AM the next day, the karaoke place closed. I wrapped my heavy coat tightly around myself and left. After thinking it over, I decided to go back to the apartment. Aside from that rental, I truly had nowhere else to go. Besides, I was the one who signed the lease and paid the rent. Why should I be the one to leave? If anyone was leaving, it should be Elias. On the walk back, I noticed someone had sent me over twenty consecutive text messages. I opened the chat. It was a DNA paternity test report. A while ago, a group of very intense people had tracked me down, claiming I might be the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Arthur Sterling, and demanding I go to the hospital with them for a DNA test. Terrified it was some elaborate new human trafficking scheme, I firmly refused. But Arthur’s head butler, Mr. Thorne, was incredibly persistent. He had medical staff stake out my apartment building for a very long time. Eventually, just to get them to leave me alone, I gave them a saliva swab, a nail clipping, and a few hair follicles. And now… it was actually true. Mr. Thorne immediately offered to come pick me up and take me home. I paused for a moment. “Give me three days. I have some things I need to take care of first.” The situation with Elias wasn’t fully resolved yet. I am someone who draws very clear lines between love and hate. If it started clearly, it needs to end decisively. I still owed Elias one final, definitive goodbye. After today. He will go back to being a rich girl’s pet. And I will go live my life as a billionaire heiress. After this parting, our paths will never cross again in this lifetime. 4. I didn’t even make it back up to the apartment. In the courtyard of the complex, I ran straight into Elias. He was following closely behind a woman, desperately whining and apologizing. “Master… I was wrong, Master. You were abroad for so long, and I was so bored, I just wanted to find a cheap distraction to play with for a bit…” “Please don’t ignore me. I know I made a mistake. But don’t worry, she didn’t taint me. You are the only Master in my heart…” My heart felt like it was pierced by needles. Taint? Elias actually used that word to describe me. I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms, and forced myself to keep walking forward as if nothing was wrong. As we brushed past each other, the woman with the red lips and voluminous, wavy hair tilted her head and glanced at me. “Stop.” She called out to me. “Are you the woman who took care of Elias’s rut cycles?” “Rolling around with an Incubus… doesn’t that make you feel degraded? You have terrible taste.” Elias’s face went completely pale. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and turned around to face her. But before I could speak, she slapped me hard across the face. “Ah—” A short, sharp cry escaped my lips before my right cheek started burning and throbbing. I looked up in absolute disbelief. “Why did you hit me?!” Chloe glared at me, her eyes vicious and ruthless. “I hit you because you deserve it. Did you not know he is MY Incubus?” “You dare touch my property? Do you have a death wish?” I couldn’t hold back my retort. “How was I supposed to know he had a Master?!” “That’s a lie!” Elias suddenly shouted loudly. “Master, it was all her fault! She seduced me! You know how it is… my status is so low, no one ever looks twice at me.” “I never intended to betray you, Master! I told her from the very beginning, but she was easy and only cared about pleasure, and I was temporarily blinded by her…” “That was a great slap, Master. Does your hand hurt? Let me blow on it for you.” My mind went completely blank. I stared fixedly at Elias. That face, which had been so incredibly familiar to me, suddenly looked like a complete stranger’s. He seemed terrified of Chloe. His entire body was trembling. Suddenly, Elias looked at me with pleading eyes and gave a microscopic shake of his head. I understood exactly what he meant. I lowered my eyes and stood up straight. I said coldly, “Elias, we are completely done.” With that, I turned and walked away, my steps growing faster and faster as the tears finally began to fall. The sorrow hit me like a massive tidal wave, dragging me down into an endless, suffocating darkness. If I hadn’t experienced these events firsthand, I never would have believed that the boyfriend I had shared a bed with for five years possessed an entirely different, horrific persona. All the sweetness and happiness of the past had mutated into sharp blades, violently slicing into my heart. It turns out that love can be entirely fabricated. And acted out with terrifying realism. I was such an idiot. I believed Elias’s lies so easily. When I finally got back to the apartment, I sat numbly on the edge of the bed, staring blankly out the window. Allowing myself to be completely consumed by the grief. 5. Mr. Thorne arrived exactly on schedule. Outside the gates of the apartment complex, a massive, understated but incredibly luxurious black Rolls-Royce was parked by the curb. Standing next to the car was a middle-aged man wearing a traditional, pale blue tunic, his face radiating an elegant, scholarly aura. The moment he saw me, his eyes turned completely red, and his hands trembled as he reached out to me. A strong scent of sandalwood washed over me, and then I was pulled into his arms, my cheek pressed tightly against his chest. A bizarre, unfamiliar feeling bloomed inside me. Is this… what having a father feels like? For the entire drive, I kept sneaking glances at him, unable to believe that the father figure I had been missing for over twenty years had suddenly, miraculously materialized. The wealth of the Sterling family was far beyond anything I could have ever imagined. The opulently decorated, gilded mansion felt like stepping into an actual royal palace. Sunlight streamed through the intricate carved-wood window frames, illuminating the priceless rugs. Every step felt like walking on clouds. For the next few hours, my father personally gave me a grand tour to help me get acquainted with the estate. After two whole hours, we had only managed to cover a small fraction of the Sterling manor. Mr. Thorne escorted me back to my new bedroom. “Miss, please make yourself completely at home. This will be your home from now on.” I nodded absently, feeling incredibly light and completely detached from reality. Shortly after, he had a massive pile of brand new electronic devices delivered to my room. I picked out a phone that felt comfortable in my hand and inserted my old SIM card. The moment the phone booted up, a call came through. “Hello?” “Mia, I accidentally took your ID card when I left.” Hearing Elias’s voice, my expression instantly darkened. After a two-second pause, he continued. “It must be really inconvenient not having your ID, right? When do you want to come get it?” Incubi in this world aren’t issued government ID cards, so Elias was always fascinated by mine. He liked to keep it in his wallet, carrying it with him everywhere, and would often pull it out just to play with it when he was bored. I thought it was just a cute, weird way of showing he loved me, so I let him. But now that we were broken up, him keeping it was entirely inappropriate. “Keep it. You can just throw it in the trash. I’ll go get a replacement.” “I can bring it to you.” Elias said softly. “Mia… the other day, I really didn’t have a choice. You know my life and death are entirely in her hands.” “When we got back, she whipped me thirty times. It hurts so much. My back is completely shredded and covered in blood. Mia~ please, have a little pity on me.” I closed my eyes tightly. What exactly did Elias mean by ‘have a little pity’ on him? It meant exploiting my endless capacity for forgiveness. It meant exploiting the grueling, backbreaking labor I endured to buy him those injections every single month. It meant exploiting the fact that for all those years, I lived as frugally as possible just to give him the absolute best of everything. And what did I get in return? I was stripped of my money, my heart, and my dignity. I must look like an absolute clown. My emotions boiled over. Suppressing the raging storm in my chest, I delivered my most venomous response. “Then why didn’t she just beat you to death?” “What right does a disloyal, lying, manipulative Incubus like you have to even exist in this world? You deserve every single lash.” “Elias, you make me physically sick.” I cursed him with the most vicious, hateful words I could find. The other end of the line went dead silent. After a very long pause, he finally asked, his voice raw and hoarse: “Do you really hate me that much?” “Hate you? Of course I hate you. I wish you were dead.” “Do not ever show your face in front of me again. If you do, I won’t be able to stop myself from slapping you.” With that, I hung up the phone and blocked his number entirely.

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I was so dumb. Dumb enough that when my husband brought another woman home, I thought he found me a new playmate. After all, Ethan was the first person who chased away my bullies and was willing to marry me. That is, until he brought his mistress home again and laughed while telling her, “She’s a dimwit. She won’t make a scene, and she won’t cry.” This time, I didn’t laugh with him. Chapter 1 I stared down at the floor, twisting my fingers, watching the ash from his cigarette drift down. “Get out,” I said softly, as light as the ash itself. “What did you say?” Ethan cocked his head, looking into my eyes, smiling as he asked. Every time he thought I said something funny, he’d look at me like that. I counted the planks on the wooden floor. One, two, three… When I got to the sixth, I said, “This is my room. You two get out.” The woman hugged him from behind. “Babe, what are you still doing? I can’t wait.” I remembered her name was Linda. She was Ethan’s secretary. Her voice always sounded strange, like she was deliberately tightening her throat. Ethan stubbed out his cigarette on the doorframe and kissed her neck. “Hold on, can’t you see someone’s causing trouble?” He turned back and patted my head. This time he patted it hard, making my head wobble. “Be a good girl and go sleep in the guest room tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to buy a new dress.” I looked up, my gaze landing on a scar on his collarbone. It was from a fight he got into for me. He used a beer bottle to smash the head of a guy who tried to pull my pants down. A shard of glass had cut him too. Blood dripped onto my hand, warm. I stared at that blood for a long time. Until he scolded me, “Little dummy, don’t you know how to be scared?” Now, that red scar rose and fell gently with his breathing. Next to it was a smear of lipstick, a different shade of red. I said his name, emphasizing each syllable, “E-than.” “I’m not going to the guest room.” He frowned. “Don’t make a scene. Listen to me.” I spoke slowly, “My room. My bed. You two get out.” Linda covered her mouth and giggled. Ethan’s face darkened. He stopped petting my head and instead grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the room. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you annoying me right now?” He was strong, and I had no choice but to be dragged along. One of my slippers fell off, and my bare foot slapped against the cold floor, slap, slap, slap. The hallway lights were dim, shining on our wedding photo on the wall. In the photo, he was looking down and kissing my forehead, while I stared at the camera with wide eyes and a blank expression. The photographer had said, “Bride, give us a smile.” I tried hard to pull the corners of my mouth up. But Ethan said, “Nah, don’t smile. It’s better like this. Pure.” Now I knew what he probably meant was, “purely stupid.” Stupid enough that no one would respect me. Chapter 2 Ethan dragged me to the door of the guest room and tried to shove me inside. I braced myself against the doorframe. My fingers dug into the wood, my knuckles turning white. This action required a lot of coordination. My brain had to command my fingers to bend, my arms to use strength, and my feet to stand firm. For me, it was like commanding a disobedient army. It was tiring and slow. But I did it. Ethan looked at me in surprise. He probably didn’t expect me to resist. All these years, I had never resisted him. I ate what he told me to eat. I wore what he told me to wear. I smiled when he told me to smile. “June, that’s enough. Stop being stupid,” he called me by my full name, impatience in his voice. I looked up and met his eyes. “I am not stupid. I am just slow to react. But I remember.” “March 17th, 11:00 PM. You said you were discussing business. Lipstick stain on your shirt, brownish-red.” “June 9th, 3:00 PM. You said you were on a business trip. Hotel photo. The shadows and the angle of the sun didn’t match.” “August…” “Shut the hell up! What kind of weird habit is this!?” Ethan yanked me into the room and threw me onto the bed. He glared at me fiercely and left, slamming the door shut. The lock clicked. He had locked it from the outside. The light in the guest room was broken. It was dark, with no color. He probably didn’t remember the light was broken, or maybe he didn’t remember I was afraid of the dark. I was scared. Curled up at the head of the bed, I said to the closed door, “Ethan. Divorce.” “Let’s get a divorce.” Chapter 3 The next morning, the housekeeper let me out. When I went downstairs, Ethan was sitting at the dining table reading a newspaper. Linda was next to him, eating porridge. She was sitting in my seat, using my small flowered bowl. “Good morning, sister.” She held the spoon in her mouth and blinked at me. “My bowl.” I stared at the small flowered bowl. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. She looked ridiculous. “Sorry, sister. I’m pregnant with Ethan’s baby. Ethan said everything in the house belongs to me and the baby. I thought he had told you too.” Ethan looked at her adoringly and didn’t say anything. She rubbed her belly. “Sister’s strange illness is hereditary, so she can’t have children. I’m suffering in sister’s place. I’m just using your bowl and chopsticks. Sister isn’t that stingy, right?” I looked down and counted my toes. Five on the left foot, five on the right foot. Ten in total. “The chopsticks are Ethan’s. The bowl is mine. Mom gave it to me.” When I was little, my mom used this bowl to feed me. After she died, I used this bowl to eat by myself. Ethan frowned. “June, cut the crap. We’re all family. Why are you being so petty?” Linda gently patted Ethan twice, stood up, held the bowl, and walked up to me. “This bowl is quite unique. Can you give it to me, sister? Let my baby share some of your blessings.” I shook my head. “No blessings. Mom is gone.” Ethan’s face darkened. “June, what the hell are you talking about? Why are you saying such unlucky things?” Linda squeezed out a sweet smile. “It’s okay, Ethan. Sister is intellectually disabled. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I don’t mind.” “Give it back.” I reached out to grab the bowl. The small flowered bowl slipped from her hands, fell to the floor, and shattered. She screamed and fell to the ground, pushing me in the process. I fell too, and it hurt a little. Then she sat on the floor and started crying. “What’s going on?” Ethan’s face changed, and he stood up. He stepped over me and hugged Linda. Linda buried her face in his shoulder and cried, pears bathed in rain. “Ethan… she, she suddenly attacked me… her mind isn’t right to begin with, I… I’m scared…” “I was afraid she would hurt the baby… I just wanted to protect our child…” Ethan patted her head with heartache and didn’t even glance at me. “Don’t be scared, baby isn’t scared. It’s okay now. I’m here.” He used to say similar things to me when it thundered. He picked up Linda and ordered the housekeeper, “Call an ambulance, quick!” Then he pointed his finger at me. “June, if anything happens to the child, I will never forgive you!” The housekeeper walked over carefully. “Ma’am, you first…” “I am not ‘Ma’am’ anymore.” Ethan was stunned for a moment, but he continued to hold Linda and left without looking back. I climbed up, endured the pain, and began to pick up the broken pieces. One piece, two pieces, three pieces… Chapter 4 I lay on the hospital bed, looking out the window and listening to the noise outside the ward. “Yes, Mrs. Chen suffers from Kabuki syndrome and skeletal dysplasia. This time it’s only a minor fracture. If there are no other problems, she can go home after it’s set. She needs to be very careful in the future and cannot…” “Who asked about her? How’s Linda? Is the pregnancy affected?” “Ms. Linda currently shows no problems…” “Then check again! If there’s even the slightest problem with the mother or child, I’ll hold you responsible!” After a while, it became quiet outside. A young doctor walked into the ward. He wore a light blue shirt under his white coat and thin-rimmed glasses. “Mrs. Chen, I am your attending physician. My name is Gu, Dr. Gu.” “June.” I spoke slowly. “I am June. Not Mrs. Chen.” Dr. Gu raised an eyebrow, smiled, and nodded. “Alright, Ms. June. May I examine you?” “Okay.” He took out a small flashlight and carefully observed my eyes. “Any dizziness?” “A little.” He took out several cards with patterns on them. “Can you tell me what’s drawn on these?” “I don’t know.” Dr. Gu was startled. “You can… try to interpret them in your own way.” I took the cards and placed them where the light was even. I told him the color code corresponding to each color block. His expression gradually became solemn. “Besides color, what else are you sensitive to?” I thought for a while. “Time. Memory. I remember every second. Remember the traces of dust.” “Then from the moment I opened the door and came in until now…” “Three minutes and seven seconds… eight seconds… nine seconds…” He stood up, hurried out, and then came back with some things. I did some strange tests. He asked me to distinguish subtle frequencies and memorize complicated pattern sequences. I did them one by one. “Ms. June.” Dr. Gu’s expression was serious. “Your perception ability… I have never seen a similar case. I sincerely invite you to join our research institute. We need your gift. You can consider it.” I didn’t really understand. Since childhood, others said I was stupid, said my brain had problems. But I still agreed. “Okay. Is there a salary?” Dr. Gu didn’t expect me to agree so quickly, and he nodded quickly. “Of course, I promise it will be very generous. I’ll report it right away. The relevant department will definitely attach great importance to it and treat you as a treasure. I look forward to your recovery as soon as possible and becoming my colleague.” “Okay.” He shook hands with me in a friendly manner and stood up to leave. At the door, he suddenly turned his head again and smiled. “Your eyes are really beautiful, like they were painted.” Chapter 5 After returning, I lay in the guest room again. I didn’t like the guest room. But they said the master bedroom faced the sun, which was good for pregnant women. So I couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom, couldn’t sleep in my own bed. In the evening, Ethan came to bring me food. He carefully blew on the porridge and fed it to my mouth. “June, I know you’re upset. When the child is born, I’ll make him call you Mom, okay? Don’t you want to be a mother?” “But for now, just stay in your room and don’t go out. After Linda gives birth, I’ll take you out to buy a new dress. I’ll buy you all the dresses in the entire mall, okay?” I picked at the bedsheet, counting the patterns on it. One, two, three… “Small flowered bowl.” Ethan’s hand holding the spoon stopped. “Huh?” “Small flowered bowl broke.” “It’s okay, I’ll order an identical one for you.” I shook my head. “Not the same. Already broken.” “Ethan. We divorce.” The spoon fell into the bowl with a crisp clatter. “June, are you done yet? Divorce? How will you live without me? Who will care for you, feed you, dress you? Who remembers you’re scared of the dark and thunder?” He reached out and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up. “What are you fussing about? What right do you have to fuss? Can you give me children? Give birth to a fool like you? Huh?” I shook off his hand and lowered my head. “I am not a fool. Ethan. We divorce.” Ethan stood up with a sneer. “June, I don’t know where you learned this, but I advise you to quit while you’re ahead and not push your luck.” “You’re a fool who doesn’t even dodge or cry when hit. How long could you live without me?” “Reflect on it properly.” Ethan slammed the door and left. I didn’t know why he was angry. I couldn’t give him children. If we divorced, he should be happy, right? He said I was a fool, wouldn’t dodge, wouldn’t cry. I thought he was more like a fool, not knowing what he wanted at all. But I knew what I wanted.

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On the third day of my mission to capture Tristan’s heart, he confessed his feelings to me. But the affection meter floating above his head clearly read a solid 0! After we made it official, he spoiled me rotten. On our sixth anniversary, he proposed in a spectacular, high-profile way. As I was nodding with tears in my eyes, a barrage of live comments suddenly floated across my vision: [The Second Male Lead must be so exhausted acting. To protect the Female Lead, he endured his disgust and played along with the Vicious Supporting Female for 6 whole years!] [This substitute really bought into her role, LMAO!] My blood instantly froze. No wonder that number hadn’t changed in six years. At the same time, the system’s cold, mechanical voice exploded in my mind: “Final phase initiated. Capture countdown: Ten days.” “Upon failure, you will be completely obliterated.” Smiling, I pulled back the hand he was about to put the ring on and wiped my tears. “Sorry, but I’m tired of playing this dating game.” 1. The holographic comments were still scrolling past my eyes: [Whoa, did the supporting girl’s expression just change?] [She should’ve woken up a long time ago. The Second Male Lead only has the Female Lead in his heart.] [Sitting here waiting for her to go crazy and turn evil—] Turn evil? No. I just suddenly remembered a lot of details. He never allowed me to meet anyone alone, claiming he was “worried about bad influences.” He always gently interrupted whenever I brought up my career: “I make enough to take care of you.” It turned out that wasn’t him spoiling me. It was a cage. I returned to our shared mansion in a daze, mechanically throwing my things into a suitcase. As I passed the study, the comments suddenly surged: [Look at the computer! Tristan didn’t log out of his messages!] [Oh no, if she sees his chat history, it’s over…] [Danger! Initiate Female Lead Protection Protocol!] A crisp notification chime echoed from the study. I pushed the door open and walked in. The monitor was glowing, displaying a chat window between Tristan and the Male Lead, Carter. The latest message was sent by Tristan: “She suddenly rejected the proposal. Protect Chloe these next few days. Don’t let Harper anywhere near her.” Carter replied quickly: “Don’t worry. Thanks for your hard work all these years.” I laughed out loud. How absurd. Because of me, two men who used to be bitter rivals had formed a united front. I scrolled up. The chat history sliced through my skin like a dull knife. Carter: “I remember in the original plot, Harper not only ruined Chloe’s face but also hired guys to assault her. It must be so hard for you to share a bed with that venomous woman every day.” Tristan: “As long as Chloe is safe, none of this matters.” Carter: “She seems to be falling deeper in love with you. If she finds out the truth, will she go even crazier?” Tristan: “She won’t find out.” “And if she does, and dares to touch a hair on Chloe’s head—” “I’ll break her arms and legs, throw her in a psych ward, and lock her up for the rest of her life.” He even added an exclamation mark to that last sentence. I stared at the screen, my fingertips turning to ice. The comments were boiling over: [“None of this matters”… The Second Male Lead loves her so much! I won’t say who!] [Am I the only one who thinks this conversation is terrifying? Setting someone up for six years just to protect the Female Lead?] [To the person above: She’s a vicious extra! He’s doing society a favor while protecting his true love. It’s a win-win!] [Look at the supporting girl’s face… is she about to snap?] [Stop causing trouble and just run away!] Run? I looked down at my slender wrists. Yeah. I needed to run. It was pitch black by the time I dragged my suitcase out the front door. I stood on the sidewalk, momentarily unsure of where to go. The comments were getting anxious on my behalf: [Is she really leaving?] [Hurry up and go! Don’t ruin the sweet moments between the Second Male Lead and the Female Lead!] [Wait… is that car in the distance Tristan’s?!] Headlights pierced the darkness, and a familiar black sedan slammed on its brakes right next to me. Tristan got out and ran over. His dress shirt was slightly wrinkled, his breathing heavy, and his face wore a perfectly crafted mask of panic and heartbreak. “Harper, I’m sorry. I rushed it… I thought you’d be happy.” He reached out to grab my hand, his eyes turning red. “Don’t leave. Let’s sit down and talk, okay?” If this were the past, my heart would have melted into a puddle. But now, all I could think of was the phrase break her arms and legs and lock her up. I took a half-step back, dodging his touch. “I don’t blame you,” I heard my own voice say, light and airy. “I’m just bored of this.” “Bored…?” His eyelashes fluttered, acting as if he couldn’t comprehend the word. “You don’t love me anymore?” Under the streetlights, his features were tinged with a shattered vulnerability. His acting was so flawless he deserved an Oscar. A single comment drifted by: [Honestly, his kindness to her these past six years couldn’t have been entirely fake… this is kind of heartbreaking.] That sentence suddenly woke me up. I raised my head and looked deeply into his eyes. “Tristan.” “In these six years, was there even a single second… where you genuinely felt happy?” His pupils shrank infinitesimally. He didn’t answer. But the comments exploded: [!!! Did she find out?!] [Holy shit, high alert—] [Tristan, don’t just stand there! Make up a lie!!] The wind was freezing. I grabbed my suitcase, turned around, and vanished into the night. No footsteps chased after me. Only the clear, rhythmic ticking of the countdown echoed in my mind: 9 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes. —The game wasn’t over yet. But the player was done following the rules. 2. I hailed a cab and leaned against the cold window, my hands trembling uncontrollably. Not out of fear. Out of excitement. So this was what it felt like to strip away a six-year facade. It felt like I could finally take a deep breath. The countdown flashed coldly in my peripheral vision: 9 days, 23 hours, 10 minutes. I had less than ten days to live. All because of a man who would never love me. How ridiculous. “Where to, miss?” the driver asked, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. I gave him an address. It was a riverside café I used to love. Tristan had once told me it was “too loud and chaotic.” He never let me go back after that. The comments drifted across my vision: [Where is she going? Why isn’t she running away?] [Tristan’s last look was terrifying…] [Is it just me, or does she look absolutely stunning in that red dress?] Outside the window, the neon lights of the city blurred past. For the past six years, I had lived inside a glass dome. Everything I saw was a sanitized version of the world, filtered by Tristan. Now, the glass was shattered. The wind poured in, bringing with it the smell of street food, the damp river breeze, and the laughter of strangers. It felt so real it made me want to cry. The café was exactly where it used to be. The bell above the door chimed as I pushed it open. The owner, Dave, a man with a graying beard, paused when he saw me. “Harper?” “Dave. Long time no see.” “It really is you!” He wiped his hands on his apron and stepped out from behind the counter. “It’s been what, five or six years? You used to love that window seat. You’d order a latte and write screenplays all afternoon…” Only then did I remember. Before I met Tristan, I used to come here to write my thesis. I was a film student back then, dreaming of winning an Academy Award, scribbling margin notes all over my scripts. And then what happened? Then Tristan said, “Acting is too exhausting. Let me take care of you.” He said, “Hollywood is too toxic. It doesn’t suit you.” He said, “Harper, having me is enough.” And like an idiot, I believed him. I skipped my auditions, turned down contracts, locked my dreams in a drawer, and handed him the key. “The usual?” Dave asked. “Yeah,” I paused. “And add a slice of tiramisu.” I never dared to eat it before. Tristan used to tell me I “gained weight easily and wouldn’t look good on camera.” But I only had ten days left. What did it matter if I gained weight? The window seat was empty. I sat down. The river breeze brushed my face, and the city lights on the opposite bank reflected in the dark water, shattering into ripples of liquid gold. As I took the first bite of cake, the sweet cream and the bitter coffee-soaked ladyfingers melted on my tongue. I closed my eyes. It was so delicious. So this was what it felt like to be alive. The comments went quiet for a moment before slowly resuming: [She’s eating so earnestly…] [Why do I feel inexplicably sad?] [If I only had ten days left to live, I’d want a good meal too.] [But seriously, is Tristan really going to let her be this free? I doubt it.] I doubted it too. So when my phone buzzed with Tristan’s name on the caller ID, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. I answered but didn’t speak. “Harper, where are you?” “I’m worried about you,” his voice carried a trace of exhaustion. “I’m eating.” “Come home, Harper,” he softened his tone. “We both need to calm down. I promise I won’t bother you tonight. You can sleep in the guest room. We’ll talk things out tomorrow, okay?” Such a familiar cadence. For six years, every time I threw a tantrum, he acted exactly like this. Gently, patiently coaxing me back into the cage, step by step. And then everything would return to the status quo. “Tristan,” I said, staring out at the river. “Do you remember my senior thesis film?” He went silent for a moment. “Why bring that up now?” “I played a captive woman who, in the end, burned the house down with herself inside it.” I scooped up another bite of cake. “You told me the acting was too extreme. You said no one in real life would be that stupid.” “But I understand it now.” “She wasn’t stupid. It was just that the fire was the only thing she had left.” The breathing on the other end of the line grew heavier. “What exactly are you trying to say?” “I’m trying to say,” I swallowed the last bite of cake, “for the next ten days, I’m going to live my own life.” “Don’t look for me. Don’t bother me. Don’t threaten me using my family.” “After ten days, if I’m still alive…” I let out a soft laugh. “Then we can go back to playing your game.” 3. I checked into the most expensive presidential suite in the city, swiping the supplementary black card Tristan had given me. The comments were still flowing: [A presidential suite??? She really knows how to enjoy herself.] [Using the Second Male Lead’s money to stay in a luxury hotel. Legend.] [She only has ten days left. Let her splurge!] I dropped my suitcase in the foyer and sank into a bathtub covered in rose petals. The countdown ticked in my mind: 8 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes. I had eight and a half days left. My phone was eerily quiet. Tristan hadn’t called back. That was very unlike him. Deep into the night, I was lying on the massive California King bed. The comments were sparse: [Is she really sleeping? She’s got nerves of steel.] [What is the Second Male Lead doing? I think he’s tracking her phone’s GPS.] [Honestly, this feeling of being constantly monitored is suffocating.] Just as I was drifting off, a violent crash echoed from the front of the suite. I jolted upright. The comments instantly exploded: [WTF WAS THAT SOUND?!] [Someone’s kicking the door down!!!] [Is it Tristan???] [Help, I’m so tense!] Before I could react, the bedroom door was violently kicked open. Tristan stood in the doorway. His eyes were completely bloodshot, looking like a man pushed to the absolute edge of fury. “Harper.” His voice was hoarse as he walked toward me, step by heavy step. I instinctively grabbed the collar of my bathrobe. He stopped in front of me, his shadow entirely engulfing me. “Where is Chloe?” I froze. “What?” “Stop acting.” He suddenly grabbed my wrist, his grip so tight my bones ached. “Where did you kidnap Chloe? Tell me!” “I don’t know what you’re talking about—” I tried to pull away, but he squeezed harder. The comments were scrolling at lightspeed: [What’s going on? The Female Lead got kidnapped?] [By the supporting girl? Impossible, she’s been at the hotel the whole time!] [The timeline doesn’t match up. She didn’t have time to hire kidnappers!] [Tristan has lost his damn mind!] “Tristan, let me go!” I gasped in pain. “I haven’t even seen Chloe! I’ve been here the whole—” “Harper, I underestimated you.” “You put on such a great show of being heartbroken, only to turn around and kidnap Chloe? You really are a venomous bitch.” “I didn’t do it,” I said through gritted teeth. He violently shoved me back onto the mattress, leaning over and pinning me by placing his hands on either side of my head. “I’m giving you one last chance. Where is Chloe? What did you do to her?” His breath hit my face, carrying an almost psychotic hostility. In six years, I had never seen this side of him. The comments began to split: [Tristan is terrifying…] [But if the supporting girl really kidnapped the FL, she deserves it, right?] [Read the room! She didn’t have time to commit the crime!] [Could this be a setup?] “I told you, I don’t know.” “Tristan, look at me. Have I ever lied to you in the past six years?” His pupils contracted. He wavered for a split second. “The location where Chloe’s phone signal disappeared,” he looked down at me, his gaze like a poisoned blade, “was the exact same café you went to.” My blood ran cold. A trap. Someone had set a trap. “It wasn’t me, I didn’t…” My voice started to tremble. “Enough!” He abruptly stood up and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. Grabbing my hand, he pressed the cold steel edge directly against my wrist. “Harper.” His voice was horrifyingly low. “I know you hate Chloe. I know you hate her for stealing me away—even though I never belonged to you to begin with. But you don’t get to touch her.” “I’m going to ask you one last time! Where is Chloe?” The blade bit into the flesh of my wrist. Bright red blood instantly welled up. Agony shot through my veins like an electric current. My vision went dark, and I nearly passed out. The comments were going insane: [He’s lost it! He’s completely lost it!] [I’m starting to feel bad for the supporting girl… she legitimately looks clueless.] [Harper, say something! Even if you have to lie!] I opened my mouth, a broken, breathy sound escaping my throat: “I… didn’t…” 4. Crimson blood stained the pristine white sheets. Tristan’s hand was like an iron vice, locking my wrist in place. The blade remained buried in my flesh. Every heartbeat brought a fresh wave of tearing agony. “One last time,” his voice sounded like it was coming from miles away. “Where is Chloe?” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My vision began to blur. All I could see was his clenched jaw and the manic, bloodthirsty redness in his eyes. The comments flooded in like a tidal wave: [She’s fading fast…] [Tristan, let go! She’s actually going to die!] [Can someone call 911?! This is literally attempted murder!] [Where the hell is the system?! Are they just going to ignore this level of violence?!] The system remained dead silent. Right. In a capture-target game, the life of the supporting female character was never a priority. I was just an NPC. A stumbling block on the protagonists’ path to true love. A malicious background prop meant to highlight the Female Lead’s kindness. But I could feel pain. Real, agonizing pain. “Still won’t talk?” Tristan pressed the blade down another fraction of an inch. I heard the faint sound of skin tearing, followed by a warmer, heavier flow of blood. Black spots danced in my vision, like static on an old television set. Just as I thought I was actually going to die right then and there— Tristan’s phone rang. The moment he saw the caller ID, his pupils dilated. He answered it almost instantly: “Chloe?” From the other end came a woman’s intermittent sobbing: “Tristan… I-I escaped…” “They took me to an abandoned warehouse on the west side… they all ran away…” “…I’m so scared…” “Don’t be scared! I’m on my way!” Tristan’s tone shifted instantly. The ruthless cruelty vanished, replaced by a trembling, desperate tenderness I had never heard before. “Are you hurt? Find somewhere safe to hide.” He forgot to even hang up the phone. He dropped my wrist and sprinted out of the suite. The blade was yanked out of my flesh, sending another spike of blinding pain through my arm. I collapsed back onto the mattress, watching his silhouette disappear through the door. The comments went dead silent for a second before exploding: [He just left her?!] [Her wrist is still bleeding!] [He could have at least called an ambulance?!] [This is his idea of love? Being willing to casually slaughter someone else for the FL?] [How did I ever think he was devoted and romantic…] I struggled to lift my uninjured hand, reaching for my phone on the nightstand. My fingertips were shaking. It was only inches away, but it felt like miles. More and more blood poured from my wrist. The sheets were soaked, the deep crimson spreading endlessly across the white fabric. I gritted my teeth and threw my entire body weight forward by a single inch— My fingers finally brushed the edge of the phone. The comments turned into a cheering squad: [Come on! You got it!] [Dial 911! Hurry!] [Don’t fall asleep! Hang in there!] I unlocked the screen, but my vision was too blurry to make out the numbers. Relying entirely on muscle memory, I tapped 9-1-1 and hit dial. The dial tone rang through the speaker. Once. Twice. My breathing grew shallower, the black spots in my vision multiplying. Click. The call connected. “911, what is your emergency?” I opened my mouth to speak, but only a faint gasp escaped. “Hello? Can you hear me? Do you need police, fire, or medical?” I wanted to say: I’m at a hotel. I’m bleeding out. I’m dying. But it felt like something was blocking my throat. I couldn’t make a sound. “Hello? Is anyone there?” The voice from the speaker grew distant. The phone slipped from my fingers, hitting the plush carpet with a dull thud. The comments were frantic: [NO!!!] [Somebody save her!!!] [Where is the hotel staff?! How did no one hear a door getting kicked down?!] [Tristan, you absolute piece of shit!!!] My consciousness began to scatter. In a daze, I felt like I was floating. I looked down and saw myself curled up in a pool of blood, my face as pale as a sheet of paper. And then I saw the comments updating. [Tristan found Chloe.] [Chloe threw herself into his arms and cried.] [He’s comforting her, telling her ‘it’s going to be okay.’] [Chloe kissed him.] […They’re making out.] [While Harper is literally lying here bleeding to death.] The comments paused for a few seconds. Then the tone drastically shifted: [I suddenly feel… incredibly sick.] [What did the supporting girl even do wrong? She just fell in love with the wrong guy.] [She genuinely dedicated six years of her life to him.] [What gives Tristan the right to treat her like this?] [If she dies, he’s a literal murderer.] [I want to see him regret this.] [I want to see him drop to his knees and beg for her forgiveness.] [But she might not live to see it.] [Can someone please go to the hotel and save her? I can’t watch this anymore.] The countdown was still glowing, flickering weakly in my mind: 8 days, 9 hours, 01 minutes. The game wasn’t over. But it looked like the player was logging off early.

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“You’re pregnant.” I was halfway through a sip of water when the words hit. I nearly choked, my throat seizing as I forced myself to swallow and maintain a mask of icy composure. The only reason I didn’t spit it out was because the doctor sitting across from me, looking clinical and professional in his white coat, was my ex-boyfriend. 1 “Ow, hey. Take it easy.” I was lying on an exam bed in the ER, letting a certain someone poke and prod at my abdomen with more clinical detachment than I found strictly necessary. “How long has the pain been localized in the lower right quadrant? From what I can see, it’s not appendicitis.” Silas West withdrew his hand—his long, elegant fingers that I once knew so well. He looked at me like I was a stranger off the street. If it weren’t for that familiar, infuriatingly arrogant edge in his voice, I wouldn’t have believed this was the man I’d shared a bed with for three years. “Since last night,” I muttered, turning my face away. It had only been a month since the breakup. Apparently, thirty days was all it took for some people to become completely unfazed. Cold-hearted prick. “Have you been sexually active recently?” “…” He knew damn well we hadn’t been. Suddenly, a nurse burst in with two ultrasound reports. They were clearly mine. Silas took the sheets, and I watched his handsome face go from clinical neutral to a shade of dark, thunderous brooding. “You’re pregnant,” he repeated, his voice dropping an octave. I nearly died right there on the crinkly exam paper. “Excuse me?” “A ten-week-old fetus,” he said, his eyes flashing with something that looked suspiciously like hurt masked by rage. Ten weeks ago, Silas and I were still very much together. But in the three years we’d dated, we had never actually… gone all the way. We’d been “intimate,” but there was always a line he didn’t cross, a ghost of someone else always lingering in the room. “Riley Miller,” he growled, “Did you cheat on me?” As a woman who was, quite frankly, still a member of the V-club, I knew this was a massive clerical error. But seeing him this worked up? It felt too good to pass up. I wanted to burn his composure to the ground. “Well, since you’ve figured it out, I guess there’s no point in lying,” I said, my voice dripping with fake nonchalance. I didn’t just stop at the verbal jab; I sat up and crossed my legs with an air of sophisticated mystery. “I was actually surprised to see you here, Silas. Did you drive all the way from Seattle to Boise just to attend my wedding? I haven’t sent out the invites yet.” Honestly, seeing Silas at Boise Memorial was a shock. He was the golden boy of the University of Washington’s surgical department. Why would he sabotage a brilliant career to move to a mid-sized city in Idaho? As for me, I was only here because after our explosive breakup a month ago, I’d packed my life into a U-Haul and fled back to my parents’ house. I couldn’t stand the sight of the Seattle skyline if he was under it. “Riley!” He stepped closer, his breathing heavy. “I’m right here. No need to yell. I left the house in a rush today, so I don’t have the save-the-date on me. I’ll be sure to mail you one, though. For old times’ sake.” I stood up, ready to make a grand exit. If I stayed another second, I was fairly certain Silas might actually bite me. The look in his eyes was feral. As I tried to brush past him, his foot “accidentally” caught mine. I tripped, and he pivoted instantly, blocking my path. I tumbled straight into his chest. To keep from eating the linoleum floor, my arms instinctively flew up and wrapped around his neck. The scent of his cologne—something crisp, like cedar and rain—hit me like a physical blow. Even through the layers of his shirt and white lab coat, I could feel the radiating heat of his body. “Already a ‘married woman,’ yet you’re still throwing yourself into my arms?” he whispered, his voice dangerously low. 2 Gaslighting. Incredible. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I hissed, trying to untangle myself. “My fiancé owns several properties here in Boise. My future mother-in-law adores me. She’s already talking about helping with the baby so I can focus on my career. With a setup like that, I don’t need to throw myself at an ex.” “Riley, you really are something else.” A cold draft hit my back as the door swung open again. It was the same nurse from before, looking frantic. “I am so sorry! The charts got swapped at the desk. Dr. West, this is Ms. Miller’s report.” I should have run when I had the chance. The silence in the room was deafening. Silas took the new report, read it, and then a slow, terrifyingly beautiful smirk spread across his face. “Well,” he said, handing me the paper. “I can prescribe you some high-grade laxatives.” “What?” “You aren’t pregnant, Riley. Your ‘abdominal pain’ is just a severe case of being full of it. Literally. You’re constipated.” I wanted the earth to swallow me whole. I looked at the nurse, who was doing a heroic, if failing, job of not laughing. “Fix the filing system,” Silas said to the nurse, his voice tight with suppressed amusement. “We can’t have this happening twice.” Just as he was about to tuck the report away, the nurse spoke up again. “This other one—the pregnancy report—it belongs to a Ms. Blake. She’s waiting in the lounge.” My heart did a painful somersault. After the breakup, the name “Serena Blake” was a trigger. “Which Ms. Blake?” I asked, my voice suddenly small. “Serena?” The nurse nodded, surprised. I looked at Silas. So, that was it. Why would a top-tier surgeon move to a “flyover” city? Because his “White Moonlight”—the one who got away, the girl he’d never truly moved on from—lived here. He hadn’t come for me. He’d come for her. Then the second realization hit me like a freight train. “That’s Serena’s pregnancy report?” The nurse, blissfully unaware of the emotional carnage she was causing, nodded again. “Dr. West has been her primary since she arrived. The girls at the desk were gossiping… they said since Dr. West and Ms. Blake are old friends, maybe the baby is—” “That’s enough,” Silas snapped, cutting her off. The nurse scurried out, but the damage was done. Serena Blake was the reason Silas and I were over. She had spent the last six months of our relationship weaving herself back into his life, and now, here she was. Pregnant. 3 Two months ago. That was when she’d flown to Seattle to “reconnect” with him. “Riley, it’s not what it looks like—” Silas started. “We’re over, Silas.” “I can explain the timeline—” “I don’t care about your timeline. I’m not interested.” I turned on my heel and slammed his office door so hard the glass rattled in the frame. He was on my heels instantly. As we reached the hallway, the noise must have drawn attention. Serena emerged from the waiting area, her hand instinctively resting on her stomach. We came face-to-face. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a glance. My only goal was to get out of this hospital and out of this town. I’d only taken a few steps when Serena let out a sharp gasp. She crumpled toward the floor, clutching her belly and whimpering in a way that screamed for attention. Silas, it hurts, her silence screamed. I saw him hesitate. Just for a second. That split-second of indecision was all I needed to know where I stood. He stayed. He went back to her. I walked out of the hospital doors alone, clutching my ultrasound report—the one that said I was just a girl with a stomach ache, not a woman with a future. Who was playing who? When I got home, my parents were staged in the living room like a firing squad. I knew that look. “Mom,” I said, closing the door quietly, trying to maintain the peace. Neither of them looked at me. They sat stiff-backed, faces set in grim lines. I decided to just sit down and take whatever lecture was coming. “Don’t you dare sit down!” my mother barked. “It’s my house too, Mom.” “You’re nearly thirty!” she shouted, ignoring me. “I set up three dates for you this week and you blew off every single one! Do you want to kill me? Even the neighbor’s golden retriever has a partner and two litters of puppies by now!” She shoved a stack of glossy papers into my hands. I looked down. In bold, horrific letters, it read: HUSBAND WANTED. My jaw dropped. “Mom, what is this? And why is my photo printed upside down?” It looked less like a dating profile and more like a ‘Missing Person’ flyer or a funeral notice. “I wanted to see if I could attract a man by making you look like a project,” she snapped. “I’ve already coordinated with my friend Mrs. Higgins. You’re going on a blind date with her son tomorrow. If you blow this one off, I’ll have your father post these flyers on every telephone pole from here to downtown. Do you understand?” My mom was a lost cause when she was in a “Matchmaker” frenzy. I turned to my dad, hoping for a shred of fatherly solidarity. “Dad, come on. I’m your little girl. Don’t you want me to stay home a few more years? Keep you company?” My dad stood up, took off his favorite cardigan, walked to the window, and threw it outside. “Go find a nice man to take care of you, Riley,” he said solemnly. 4 I caved. The thought of my “funeral-notice” dating flyer plastered all over Boise was too much to bear. I followed my mother’s instructions and took an Uber to a high-end French bistro downtown. It was actually quite nice—dim lighting, velvet booths, very romantic. My mom had already scurried off to “meet the guests” at the door. I was sitting at the table, scrolling through my phone, when I saw them. Mrs. Higgins, my mom… and Silas West. The world is a cruel, tiny place. The seating arrangement was a nightmare: Me, my mom, Silas, and his mother. Silas sat directly across from me, looking like the picture of a perfect gentleman. He smiled at my mother, a sweet, charming expression that made my skin crawl. “It’s so good to see you again, Mrs. Miller.” “Oh, Silas! Look at you! You’ve grown into such a handsome man,” my mom gushed. She was already mentally picking out her dress for the wedding. I stabbed at my salad, glaring at Silas with enough venom to kill a cobra. “I don’t know what happened with the last guy she was seeing,” my mom sighed, leaning toward Silas’s mom. “Three years down the drain. He must have been a real loser.” “Oh?” Silas leaned forward, his interest piqued. “What did she tell you about him?” A cold dread settled in my stomach. When I’d come home crying and angry, I hadn’t told my mom the truth about the cheating or Serena. I’d told her something much more… emasculating. Something that wouldn’t make her pity me, but would make her glad he was gone. “Well,” my mom whispered, not very quietly. “Riley said the poor boy had… performance issues. Medical ones. You know, ‘failure to launch.’ Extremely premature.” The sympathetic look Silas’s mother gave him was legendary. “Oh, bless his heart. It’s good she found out before marriage. That’s a lifetime of frustration.” “Exactly,” my mom agreed. I watched Silas’s face. His calm, “perfect gentleman” mask was beginning to twitch into something much darker. I buried my face in my wine glass, chugging the Chardonnay. I didn’t dare look up. I could feel his gaze burning holes into my forehead. Needing an escape, I mumbled something about the restroom and bolted. I was halfway to the lounge when a hand gripped my wrist and pulled me into the shadows of the hallway near the coat check. “You,” I gasped, backing up. Silas didn’t say a word. He just kept stepping forward until my back hit the wall. “Premature?” he whispered, loosening his tie with one hand. “Performance issues? You seem to have a lot of opinions on my anatomy, Riley.” The scent of cedar and rain enveloped me. He was so close I could feel the heat of his breath against my neck. It sent a traitorous shiver down my spine. “Riley,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration. “How can you claim I’m ‘inadequate’ when you never even let me try?” My heart was hammering against my ribs. He was the one who cheated! Why was I the one feeling guilty? Just then, I heard the clicking of heels. Our mothers were coming toward the restrooms. If they saw us like this, my mother would have the priest on speed dial before dessert. “Let go! They’re coming!” I hissed. I tried to push him away, but he grabbed both my wrists with one hand, pinning them above my head, while his other hand cupped the back of my neck. He didn’t hesitate. Silas kissed me—a deep, possessive, “I’m-going-to-prove-you-wrong” kiss that tasted like red wine and years of suppressed longing. He broke into my senses with practiced ease. By the time I could think to pull away, the two “Best Friends” were standing five feet away, clutching their pearls and grinning like they’d won the lottery. Game over. 5 “I’d love to get Riley’s new number,” Silas said with a boyish grin. My mother didn’t even wait for me to agree; she grabbed my phone, unlocked it, and pulled up my QR code. So much for blocking him. But Silas wasn’t done. He was a shark in a tailored suit. “The only problem is,” Silas sighed, looking at my mom with puppy-dog eyes, “I’m staying in my mom’s guest suite, but it’s actually just a studio. I’ve been sleeping on a loveseat for a week. My back is killing me.” His mother nudged him, looking confused, but my mom took the bait hook, line, and sinker. “Well, stay with us! We have plenty of room, and I haven’t seen your mother in ages. You can both move into the guest wing for a few days!” And just like that, the next morning, Silas arrived with three suitcases, looking like he planned to move in permanently. I had never met a more shameless human being. Over brunch, I learned the backstory I’d forgotten. Silas’s mom was a Boise native who had moved to Seattle after a messy divorce when Silas was six. Apparently, our families had been close back then. I’d met him when I was three, but I had zero memory of the scrawny boy who had apparently decided way back then that I was his. While my mom was busy fawning over him, Silas’s phone buzzed on the table. The notification read: Serena. I pretended to be intensely interested in my toast, but I was watching him like a hawk. Thanks for taking care of me. Dinner tonight? the message read. That little snake. Silas was literally in my house, and she was already trying to lure him away. Suddenly, a competitive fire ignited in my chest. I wasn’t going to let her win. Not this time. I pulled up a local app and booked tickets for the most intense, multi-hour experience I could find. “I actually booked us something for tomorrow,” I said, interrupting their conversation. “An escape room followed by a three-hour movie marathon. Silas, I hope you’re free?” Silas looked surprised, then his lips curled into a smirk. He checked his phone, saw Serena’s message, and typed back a single word: Busy.

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Caspian faked amnesia just to break up with me. “Who are you?” he asked. I paused for a breath, then smiled. “I’m your brother’s fiancée.” Caspian froze. Later that night, Pierce, his older brother—the one who had been urging us to split—sent me a frantic series of texts: [YOU EVIL BITCH! When did you and I get together?] [Caspian is standing outside my apartment with a goddamn machete!] 1 When I arrived at the hospital, Caspian “Cas” Miller was lying in bed, a perfectly respectable, if slightly dramatic, gauze bandage wrapped around his head. He looked up at me with a confused, lost expression and asked: “Who are you?” I let the question hang for a moment, then laughed softly. I reached up and subtly pulled the collar of my silk blouse lower, exposing a faint, reddish mark on my neck. “I’m your brother’s fiancée.” The door was closed. Pierce, Cas’s elder brother, was standing just outside, waiting for me to deliver the final, clean breakup speech. I’d been with Pierce when the news of Cas’s minor car accident and subsequent hospitalization came in. Pierce had leaned back in his leather chair, a cynical smile playing on his lips, and flashed a certified check for five million dollars at me. “Sasha,” he’d said, his voice smooth and cold. “The future with Caspian is unpredictable. Yours, however, can clear a path to the top right now.” Cas and I had been together for two years, and in all that time, he’d been stubbornly silent about the Miller family’s staggering wealth. It wasn’t until I picked up a shift at a high-end resort that I ran into him. He was out with friends, checking out of a presidential suite that cost more than my annual rent. I stood silently at the reception desk, watching him. I wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t even tired. Cas looked up, and we locked eyes. He flushed bright red, mortified. “I… I didn’t tell you before because I was afraid you’d feel too much pressure being with me.” I stared at him, pointing a disbelieving finger at myself. Me? Did I look like someone with that much pride? Kid, if you’d mentioned the generational wealth sooner, you wouldn’t have had to chase me for over a year. Our relationship had been a private affair. But after that run-in with his friends, the news inevitably reached the ears of the Miller patriarch—his older brother, Pierce Miller. I met Pierce shortly after. The brothers shared seven-tenths of a face, but Pierce’s expression, when he looked down at me, carried a stifling, heavy aura that made me instinctively tremble. Pierce wanted me to break up with Cas. The previous night, he’d sent me a recording. In the video, he and Cas sat across from each other. Next to the visibly raw and youthful Cas, Pierce looked impossibly polished and mature. Pierce’s voice, slow and deliberate, sounded like a hammer tapping on a delicate glass heart. “You met Sasha in college, right? You chased her for ages. She was always volatile, a real piece of work. But the moment she found out who you were, she suddenly became sweetness and light.” His implication was crystal clear: I was a gold-digger, a phony, someone who groveled for cash. “She’s not like that!” Cas shot back immediately. His voice was unsteady, lacking any conviction. He was only desperate to defend me, but his words were hollow; he didn’t even believe them himself. Compared to an old fox like Pierce, Cas was a lightweight. Pierce simply smiled, seeing his trap set. “Is that so? Then let’s run a small test. You fake a car accident, pretend you have amnesia. You treat her like a stranger, cold and indifferent. Then we’ll see what her true reaction is.” The video ended there. This scene in the hospital confirmed everything. Cas had chosen to play along. 2 The expression on Cas’s face cycled through disbelief, horror, and confusion, like a computer trying to process an overload error. “Want an apple? Your fiancée will peel one for you.” Five million dollars was certainly tempting. But being used as a pawn in their sibling drama? That was a bridge too far. Hearing the word “fiancée” drove Cas’s face green with rage. He opened his mouth, ready to demand answers, but stopped himself at the last second. He still had to maintain the amnesia act. Breaking character now would be shooting himself in the foot. He tried to look composed, yet his eyes betrayed him, welling up with tears. His voice was thick with suppressed emotion. “My… my brother is single, I think.” I waved a dismissive hand. “You’ve lost your memory, sweetheart. It’s normal not to recall your brother’s relationship status.” Cas pressed his fingers hard against his temples, anxiously saying, “I think I’m starting to remember something.” I pulled his official, printed medical chart from the bedside table and forced him to look at the paperwork. “The doctor said there’s no risk of memory recovery, Cas. Just focus on healing.” Cas gripped the paper, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. I placed the perfectly peeled apple on his tray. As I prepared to leave, I ruffled his hair affectionately. “If a memory can be forgotten, it probably wasn’t all that important to begin with. Time to move on.” “I’m going out now—with your brother. We have dinner reservations. No, wait, scratch that. We’re going to a romantic, intimate restaurant. You rest up. We’ll drop by when we’re done.” I gave him a cheerful wave and walked out. The moment the door clicked shut, the hospital room erupted in a sound like a boiling kettle coming to a tragic shriek. Pierce, standing outside, was oblivious to the conversation. He turned to me, his eyes softening slightly, a look of quiet satisfaction for my perceived compliance. On the way to the hospital, Pierce had been relentless in guiding me. “The fact that Caspian agreed to this charade proves he already doesn’t trust you. A crack in a relationship doesn’t mend; it only widens. Trying to win him back is pointless.” “Better to take the five million now and disappear gracefully than to have a messy, hysterical breakup later.” Pierce always knew exactly where to twist the knife. I handed him my debit card. “I don’t want to mess with a physical check. Have your people wire the money to this card.” Pierce nodded, handing the check and my card to his assistant to process. By the time I stepped out of the room, the assistant was done. A deposit alert had popped up on my phone a few minutes prior. As Pierce handed my card back to me, he was completely unaware of the furious face pressed against the small glass panel on the door behind him. Cas, staring through the glass, fixed his gaze on the card in Pierce’s hand. From his angle, he couldn’t see the design. Given my earlier words, he immediately assumed it was a hotel room key card. Cas’s face was dark, his forehead throbbing with visible veins. I took the card from Pierce, allowing my fingers to linger seductively over his hand. “Thank you,” I purred. I slipped the card into my bag and turned to leave. Pierce looked down at the spot where I had touched him, his fingers unconsciously flexing once. The moment I rounded the corner, Cas exploded out of the room. The supposedly gravely injured man attacked Pierce like a rabid dog, tackling him and beating him on the floor. “Pierce Miller, you sick bastard! You stole my fiancée!” Pierce: “Wait, what?” 3 The hospital corridor descended into chaos. Pierce was knocked out cold with a single, furious punch. Cas sat nearby, sobbing uncontrollably. I watched the dramatic scene unfold from a sheltered alcove for a long time before reluctantly walking away. I spent the rest of the day on a five-million-dollar shopping spree, returning home only after dark. As I stepped out of the elevator, I saw Pierce standing at my door like a vengeful ghost. He was covered in bruises and resentment. Gone was the cool, self-possessed corporate shark. “Sasha Holloway! You need to go back and explain things to Cas right now!” I opened the door to my apartment and innocently asked, “Explain what?” Pierce’s brows furrowed. His expression was pure disgust. “You know damn well! Stop playing dumb with me! Caspian thinks I stole you! He thinks I made him fake amnesia so you could ditch him and walk into my life! He’s armed and blocking my driveway like a maniac!” I hummed a tune and ignored his tirade. I dumped my afternoon purchases onto the bed, covering the duvet with piles of expensive, barely-there clothes. I held up a sheer, white lace negligee against myself for inspection. “Would this look good on me?” I asked Pierce. His face turned an even deeper shade of green. He turned away, refusing to look at me, his teeth practically grinding. “Only a blind idiot like Caspian would find you attractive. I’d rather be celibate for the rest of my life than be with a toxic, malicious woman like you.” The moment the words left his mouth, a knock sounded at the door. “Sasha, are you home?” It was Cas. Pierce’s composure shattered. He stared at the door, panicked, and made to rush toward me. “Don’t open it!” he hissed. Cas already thought we were having an affair. If he found Pierce in my apartment late at night, especially after all the hospital drama, no explanation would save him. I rolled my eyes. “He called out my name, which means he knows I’m in here. If I don’t open the door, it’ll look even worse.” I grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the bedroom closet. “Why don’t you hide in here for a while?” Pierce looked utterly defeated. But after a moment of desperate thought, he realized he had no choice. He took a deep, resigning breath and reluctantly squeezed himself into the walk-in closet. I turned and opened the door for Cas. Cas, tall and large, stood slumped outside. His head was down, and the corners of his eyes were still slightly red. I reached out and lightly stroked his cheek. “What’s this? Were you crying?” The tears Cas had been fighting finally broke through. Hot, wet tears soaked into my hand. His sense of injury and injustice was like a floodgate opening. He was the one who agreed to fake the amnesia. He was the one who pretended not to know me this morning. Now, no matter how much injustice he felt, he had to swallow it. “My brother… he won’t let me back in the house. He kicked me out. I have nowhere to go.” Pierce, crammed in the closet after being hunted all afternoon, likely had a stroke. Cas grabbed my hand and buried his face in my palm, rubbing against me like a lost puppy. “Fiancée, can you let me crash here for the night? The sofa is fine. I promise I won’t be any trouble.” I nodded sympathetically. “Of course, sweetheart.” Pierce: “?!” Cas stepped inside, swapping his shoes, and immediately his eyes fell on the array of expensive, revealing lingerie scattered on the bed. His expression twisted into something momentarily feral. I followed his gaze, then offered a shy, suggestive smile. “Your brother bought them. Said he wanted to ‘celebrate’ tonight…” I stopped my sentence abruptly, as if realizing I’d said too much. I lowered my voice to a suggestive whisper. “Your brother is always buying these useless, racy things. He never listens.” Inside the closet, Pierce was silently staring at the ceiling, likely attempting to hang himself with a coat hanger. I quickly scooped up the pile of clothes, opened the closet door, and tossed them inside. The sheer white negligee landed squarely on Pierce’s face. Pierce was already mentally dead the moment I opened the door. He pressed his palms together, a picture of helpless, silent begging. Cas stood right by the closet door, separated from Pierce by a thin sheet of wood, and spoke to me. “Will my brother be coming back tonight?” I shook my head. “I have no idea. Why don’t you call him and ask?” Pierce’s eyes widened in terror. Cas took out his phone and dialed Pierce’s number. The next second, Pierce’s ringtone—a custom, jarring corporate chime—blared inside the closet. Cas’s eyes narrowed dangerously, fixed on the wardrobe. “Fiancée, I think my brother’s phone is ringing.”

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