Category: English

The final painting of my life, the very last stroke I’d ever make, was the wedding portrait of my fiancé and his childhood sweetheart. The second I finished, my fiancé crushed my hand. It crippled me for life. 01 The bodyguards slammed me onto the marble floor, their heavy boots pinning down my right hand—the one that painted. I writhed in a pain that felt like my bones were melting. “Ethan! The painting is yours! What more do you want?” My fiancé, Ethan Vance, stood above me, towering and untouchable, his arm casually draped around his little muse, Hailey Carter. “It’s a masterpiece, Clara,” he purred, inspecting the canvas. “Absolutely perfect. Your hand, however, is a little… messy now.” I stared up at him, disbelief choking the scream in my throat. I remembered countless nights when he would gently take the brush from my fingers, his breath warm as he kissed my knuckles. “Guard this hand, my artist. I’m waiting for the day you paint our wedding portrait.” Now, he kissed Hailey’s temple. “Do you want to hear her beg, Haiz?” “No! Ethan, stop!” Panic surged. I twisted on the floor, frantic as a trapped animal. I’d spent years mastering that hand. It was the only part of me that could translate the vivid chaos of my mind into something beautiful. My art was more precious to me than my own life. And now, it was about to be shattered. “Ethan! I swear I won’t interfere! I’ll disappear! Please, for God’s sake, don’t do this to me!” He laughed—a cold, short sound. “Clara Reynolds, playing the martyr? You’re the one who schemed to climb the social ladder and latch onto the Vance fortune. You trying to play the noble ex-fiancée doesn’t wash.” I went mute. I watched, helpless, as Ethan pulled Hailey back, shielding her from what he knew would be a bloody spectacle. The bodyguard raised the iron pipe high above my hand and brought it down with a sickening CRUNCH! “AHHHHHHH!!!” A bolt of pure agony shot up to my brain. My world dissolved into a flash of blinding white. Tears and snot sprayed onto the floor. The bodyguard had to press harder to keep my body from arching off the ground. 02 Ethan Vance was the heir to Vance Corp, a generations-old financial giant. Hailey Carter was the receptionist at one of his companies. I found out during a major charity gala. Ethan slipped away early. When I went to look for him, I heard them through the hotel room door—a chorus of gasps and moans that stopped my heart. I wanted to kick the door down. I wanted to run away. I wanted to plug my ears until they bled. But I couldn’t move. On the drive home, Ethan and Hailey sat together in the front. Ethan’s face was flushed with the goofy, manic glee of a teenage boy in love. Back at the penthouse, he slapped a psychiatric report onto the coffee table. “Hailey has severe Bipolar Disorder. She needs stability. She needs a wedding. I’m her boss; I have a responsibility to care for my people. You, Clara, are and always will be the real Mrs. Vance. A true Vance wife is poised and generous.” My whole body shook with rage. He knew a fake wedding would make me the laughingstock of the entire East Coast elite. Then, Hailey had the audacity to ‘request’ that I paint their engagement portrait. Ethan didn’t know this, but Hailey and I went to the same art school. She was rubbing my face in it. I slapped her. Hard. Right then, I decided to break the engagement. Hailey could be the real Mrs. Vance soon enough. But as I was consulting my lawyers, my world crumbled again. My parents’ small art gallery—a place I loved more than anything—was deep in high-interest debt. The loan sharks found them. They dragged my father in front of my mother, beating him until I was forced to watch. I cracked my head open begging them to stop. My parents were broken, hysterical. “If you’re still his fiancée, he’ll help us! Do you want to see your father beaten to death?” I drove to Ethan’s office and knelt outside Hailey’s door for an entire night, begging him to come home. His secretary delivered his message: “Mr. Vance is deeply troubled that you refused the portrait, which triggered a severe episode for Ms. Carter. He is currently apologizing on your behalf.” He cared for her that much. A few days later, he came home, drunk, and fell on me. He tore at my clothes, yelling Hailey’s name as he used me. I didn’t fight him. I let him take it all out. My love died in that moment. When the sun rose, I finally agreed to paint the wedding portrait. I was a fool to think I could salvage a clean break. As my agonizing scream faded into a gurgle, Ethan held up the canvas, presenting it like a trophy to the Queen: Hailey. “Haiz, I promise you, at our wedding, you will look exactly this beautiful.” Hailey smiled coyly, but her voice was a chilling whisper. “Ethan, I’m grateful for the wedding. But when Clara’s other hand can paint again, I’ll tell everyone the truth and give the painting back to her.” Ethan froze, then his face turned dark as midnight. “Clara Reynolds, you’re still clinging to the idea of painting?” My vision was swimming, my consciousness dimming. My head, sticky with tears and snot, shook weakly on the floor. “Don’t pretend to be helpless now. My commitment stands: you will remain the nominal Mrs. Vance. The wealthy socialite.” He focused on meticulously smoothing a loose strand of hair from Hailey’s face. “But for Hailey to be the sole creator of this masterpiece, you must never pick up a brush again.” “The Vance wife has plenty of help. You don’t need hands anyway.” He turned and waved his goodbyes, dismissing me like a stray dog. “Lose the other hand too.” I gasped. My consciousness snapped back. The first wave of pain had been unbearable. I couldn’t survive another. I thrashed wildly, spewing frantic apologies to him, to Hailey—but they only had eyes for each other. They didn’t hear my blood-gurgling pleas. The iron pipe went up again. Rusty, smeared with my own blood. CRUNCH! “!!!” CRUNCH! “AAAGH!” CRUNCH! “AAAHHHH!!!” Ethan’s voice drifted over: “Keep going. Make sure every hit is solid. Ensure she can never recover. Don’t stop until I say so.” CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!… The world was a kaleidoscope of color. My throat tore with inhuman sounds. I prayed for oblivion. It felt like a lifetime until Hailey finally winced. Then, Ethan graciously granted my reprieve. I was a dead weight on the floor, my hands twisted into grotesque, broken claws, like mismatched roots of some strange vine. They stood over me, picture-perfect, their love radiating brightly, a glorious symphony witnessed by the wedding portrait. I tried to move my lips, to speak, but no sound came. Ethan instructed the guards: “Bandage her. And watch her. She is not to see a doctor until the wounds are healed. We can’t risk her being able to paint again.” A guard uncorked a bottle and poured a liquid over my mangled flesh. I screamed, a final, ragged sound, and coughed up blood. Ethan gently covered Hailey’s ears. The pain was so absolute that I passed out. 03 I woke up in the hospital a week later. My hands were heavily bandaged. “Still hurting?” Ethan looked completely normal, as if nothing had happened. He carefully scooped up a spoonful of lukewarm soup and held it to my lips. “What’s the point of sitting in a dusty studio all day? When you’ve healed, I’ll get you a great executive position, or you can travel abroad to clear your head. Let’s not be mad at each other anymore, okay?” It was rare for him to be this comforting. He was probably worried I’d make a scene and ruin his wedding with Hailey. SMASH! I knocked the bowl away. Ethan’s hands froze mid-air. I swung my legs off the bed, ignoring the throbbing pain, and started to change my clothes. Ethan’s face darkened, but his eyes widened with alarm when he saw blood seeping through my bandages. “This is no time to be dramatic. Your hands can’t be moved!” “It’s none of your business. I don’t need your pity.” “You are my wife! How is it not my business?” “Not for long.” I didn’t look at him. “You and Hailey can have your life.” Ethan’s eyes were wide. I tore off the bandages he’d wrapped. The pain was breathtaking. But I wanted all connection with him gone. Ethan’s face was stone-cold as he hit the emergency bell. A swarm of nurses rushed in and pinned me back onto the bed. “Ethan Vance, you’ll burn in hell!” I screamed, blood spurting from my hands, cursing him with every ounce of air in my lungs. Ethan looked away. “Clara, I know this is hard to accept. Stay here and heal. You will always be my wife in name.” “I’ve assigned my secretary, Chen, to look after you. You can ask him for anything.” Ethan instructed Chen, “Take her phone.” I struggled, I roared, I hurled every curse word I knew. But it was useless. I was confined to the room, forced to “accept” his generous treatment. It wasn’t long before I understood why he was so desperate for me to heal: The wedding portrait went viral. While people marveled at the piece, others voiced suspicion: “Doesn’t that style look exactly like Clara Reynolds’s?” “Don’t you know? Hailey Carter started by copying Clara. She’s known in the art world as ‘Mini-Clara.’” “Seriously, what miracle pill did she take? This portrait is an exact copy, almost like the original artist painted it!” “Hold up, isn’t this actually Clara’s work? And isn’t that the CEO of Vance Corp? Wasn’t he engaged to Clara…?” “This feels really creepy…” I guessed Hailey was due for another “episode.” Sure enough, Ethan reappeared in my room. “Hailey is devastated by the online accusations. I’m hosting a dinner tonight to ease her mind. I’m giving you a chance to apologize to her.” Chen, the secretary, respectfully held out a bridesmaid dress. Seeing me turn away, Ethan cleared his throat. “Cooperate tonight, and I’ll let you leave the hospital and go home to see your parents.” My heart clenched. I hadn’t seen them in ages—not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. After Ethan had “mistakenly” thought I was Hailey that night, he settled my parents’ debt, but used the excuse of “protecting us from the loan sharks” to forbid me from seeing them freely. Ethan knew my weakness. He always did. Half an hour later, I was in the bridesmaid dress, standing at the dinner party. The table was filled with art critics and gallery owners. Hailey and Ethan sat together at one end. There was no seat for me. “Clara, I need you to publicly explain why you stole Hailey’s art.” Ethan’s voice was unnervingly calm. I stared at him. “I stole whose art?” Ethan glared at me. “You’ve always been jealous of Hailey and intentionally mimicked her style. It’s okay. Just apologize publicly. Admit that all your past work was actually hers. Hailey is very generous; she will forgive you.” Ethan turned to Hailey. “Haiz, you agree, right?” Hailey’s eyes welled up. “Actually, Ethan, you don’t need to do this for me. I’m used to being slighted. Clara is your fiancée. Whatever she does to me, I deserve it. I don’t have the right…” Ethan cut her off, his voice laced with resentment. “You have me now. What are you afraid of?” So, this was it. Ethan was going to strip away my entire career and hand it to Hailey so she could be perfect. Of course. Who would tolerate an imperfect partner? The critics began murmuring: “Her copied work is better than the original? How is that possible?” “It makes more sense that Hailey copied Clara.” Amidst the growing whispers, Hailey maintained a polite smile, but her hand was trembling under the table. Ethan’s face began to turn black. He dragged me out into the hallway before I could speak. “Clara, forget admitting to copying.” Seeing my confusion, Ethan spoke slowly. “You’re going to say that all your work was stolen.” “?!” I forgot how to be angry. Ethan touched his nose. “You should realize by now: this dinner is to validate Hailey’s claim as a legitimate artist.” “I’ve worked hard keeping your parents’ loan sharks at bay. I took a lot of heat. Don’t you think you should do something for me?” The blood drained from my face. “You’re threatening me?” “Let’s not use that ugly word.” Ethan was sickeningly elegant. “You miss your parents’ gallery, don’t you? If you handle this right, I promise to rebuild the gallery for your parents.” He was confident. “This is your one chance. Don’t waste it.” My mind exploded. It wasn’t just filial piety. My obsession with that gallery was because it was where Ethan and I first met. When he first saw me, I was lost in my work, the studio quiet, the brush gliding across time. He told me he fell for my concentration instantly. When the gallery went bankrupt, my parents knelt amidst the ruins, pleading with me to go to Ethan. That night, I went to Ethan’s bed. The next day, I became the CEO’s fiancée. I went willingly. Ethan never knew that night, as my eyes focused on the canvas, my heart was already a mess. When he paused outside the gallery in his tailored suit, he paused my heart, too. These secrets, these hopes. He was taking them all and using them as fuel for Hailey’s fire. Ethan Vance. You are something else. 04 “I owe you all an apology.” “I lied to you. I’m so sorry.” I stumbled through the apology. “I was jealous of Hailey’s talent. In school, I bullied her until she agreed to do all my assignments, even my thesis… I took countless masterpieces from Hailey and claimed them as my own. I used my status as Ethan’s fiancée to force her to ghost-paint for me. None of the seven pieces at the last annual exhibition were my own work…” “It was all me…” The room was silent. The critics who had just defended me stared in shock. The Head of the Association, his face beet red, slammed his glass down. “You are a disgrace to the art world!” Whispers of disdain rose, quickly becoming an angry consensus: I should be permanently blacklisted, my work never recognized again. I stood there like a statue. Hailey’s eyes flashed with triumph, but her voice was full of concern. “Clara! Why did you say that publicly? I told you I don’t care about the fame! How will you live now? I feel so awful!!” Ethan quickly pulled her into a hug, soothing her. “Hailey, don’t be so kind. Theft is theft. She has to face the consequences. She’s not worth your worry. I’ll take you to the Maldives to celebrate you finally reclaiming your honor, okay?” Hailey buried her face in his chest. “Ethan, I don’t know how to repay you…” Afterward, Ethan smoothly rallied everyone to raise a toast to Hailey, letting her bask in the spotlight. A greasy, fat-bellied man seized the moment to offer me drink after drink. My hand injuries made drinking tantamount to suicide. Ethan snatched the glass from Hailey’s hand. “Hailey shouldn’t drink. I’ll drink for her tonight!” My eyes tightened for a second. The fat man roughly grabbed my hair and forced my head back. “You plagiarizing b****. You think I’m invisible when I offer you a drink?” The burning alcohol stung my throat and nostrils. Glass after glass. My wounds tore open. Tears streamed down my face. Instinctively, I looked to Ethan for help. But through the crowd, I saw Hailey cup Ethan’s face and kiss him passionately on the lips. The plea died in my throat. I snatched a whole bottle from the fat man’s hand. “You want me dead?” I ripped the bandages off, exposing my raw, bloody hands, and tilted the bottle back, letting the wine cascade down my throat. The noisy private room instantly fell silent. The fat man saw my mangled hands. His face finally paled. He grabbed the bottle. “Ms. Reynolds, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” I grabbed another bottle and chugged. They wanted me dead? Fine. Who was I asking for help? Did I need to? My stomach was on fire, but I felt a strange sense of comfort. Everything blurred. Ethan was watching me from a distance. I expected him to look happy, but his face was surprisingly somber. I didn’t care to investigate. 05 Too bad. I didn’t die. I was back in the hospital. Ethan came to see me, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been blacklisted. Hailey can finally step into her own spotlight. You did well.” He paused, then softened his voice. “Do you still want to paint?” He stared at the corner of the room. “You gave me what I wanted. I’ll give you back what’s yours. I’ve brought in a top surgeon from Switzerland. You’ll have the operation in a few days. I’m letting you paint again.” I suddenly wanted to laugh. “Thank you, Mr. Vance, but don’t bother.” He noticed my distance and frowned. “Even if you don’t paint, you won’t be able to do anything for yourself with those hands.” “What are you fighting for?” I stared at him. “That’s my business. You’re a busy man, Mr. Vance. Don’t worry about me.” Ethan stood up, his voice cracking with a rare loss of control. “Are you breaking up with me?” I was unnaturally calm. “Didn’t you two just kiss publicly?” Ethan choked. With my clumsy fingers, I opened my phone. Hailey’s latest tweet: “Ethan mistook me for his fiancée at the party. We are innocent. Please stop harassing Clara.” “She took care of me in school; she never bullied me. I don’t know why she’s still holding a grudge, but I’ve truly forgiven her. I’m just so hurt…” The comments were a unified attack on me: “Gaslighting a victim! The plagiarizer is whining?” “The unloved one is the mistress. What is Clara doing? Does she think ruining other people’s lives makes her superior?” “Our sweet Hailey is too kind… Burn that Reynolds b****!” “BURN HER +1” Amidst the support, a comment from a profile with a pig avatar caught my eye: “Hailey, show them your real talent! Paint a masterpiece and silence that plagiarizer forever!” I pointed at the comment. “I hear the Head of the Association wants to collaborate with her. You want me to ghost-paint for her again, don’t you?” Ethan’s face went through shades of red and white. I looked out the window, smiling without a trace of warmth. “I won’t accept your surgery. I won’t paint another stroke. Clara Reynolds is dead. You killed her yourself.” Ethan was silent for a long time, then spoke awkwardly. “It’s not just for the painting. Don’t be ridiculous, Clara. You’re exhausting me…” I cut him off. “Then let go. Stop bothering me, the thief who stole art and people.” “Clara Reynolds, I am your fiancé!” Ethan’s eyes widened. “Hailey is sick. Why are you jealous of a sick person?” I didn’t answer. I was too tired. I had nothing left to say. Ethan was silent for a long time, then offered a dismissive laugh. “When Hailey is well, I’ll give you the real wedding. I told you, you are the only Mrs. Vance.” “Don’t be so dramatic. It makes you look pathetic.” 06 Ethan left with a slammed door. He’s a vindictive man. Since he didn’t get what he wanted, I figured he’d hate me. The retaliation came swiftly. My mother called, her voice thick with tears—a new group of loan sharks had shown up. My father was beaten. I rushed home with my injured hands. The walls were covered with vile graffiti aimed at my parents. My father was sprawled on the floor amidst the wreckage. My mother screamed: “Are you only happy when we’re dead?” I tried calling Ethan, but he had blocked me. I borrowed a random number. “Ethan, don’t harm my family. Why are you doing this to them?” Ethan’s voice was devoid of emotion. “They owe money. That’s business. From now on, even if you sell yourself into slavery to pay the debt, it has nothing to do with me.” “Harming your parents? Who do you think you are? You’re nothing to me.” He hung up before I could speak. The next day, Vance Corp officially announced Hailey Carter as Ethan’s fiancée. Ethan publicly cut all ties with me. Without his protection, the loan sharks celebrated by having a “party” at my parents’ house. I was a helpless little lamb, posturing weakly. My parents had sacrificed everything for me. I would break myself, but I couldn’t let them be hurt anymore. I invited the loan sharks to my cheap rental apartment. I braced myself, then lay down on my tiny bed. I opened my legs… No one was coming to save me. I had to save the Reynolds family myself. I started chasing money ruthlessly, shamelessly calling every friend, colleague, and even acquaintance, using soft words and desperate pleas until my lips cracked. Mostly mockery. Rarely a loan. The loan sharks came to “collect” a few more times. The last time, after they were done, they ground a cigarette butt into my sensitive skin. A startled bird flew off the windowsill outside. They grabbed my tear-streaked head and whispered in my ear: “We’re bored of you. Next time you don’t have cash, we’ll give you a real sickness!” “Come on, guys, one more cigarette. Let’s see how many times this b**** can scream…” When they left, I was a dying fish, sprawled in my own blood, gasping for breath. The pain, the terror. It completely broke me. I gave up.

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1 In the city’s elite circles, there was a running joke: “If your husband’s giving you trouble, just have him spend an afternoon with Leo Hanover. He’s the only man in the city who’d let his wife bring home a different man every night for the sake of their kid.” So at parties, someone would inevitably say with a sigh, “If only my husband had half of Leo’s patience.” What they didn’t know was that Leo Hanover, the man they saw as the city’s most patient and obedient husband, on a day no different from any other, asked his wife for a divorce. He didn’t even want the child. When I brought it up, nobody believed me. Including my wife, Victoria Sterling. … “What is this nonsense?” When I said I wanted a divorce, Victoria didn’t even look up from her paperwork. Only the ash at the tip of her cigarette grew long, forgotten. “I said, I want a divorce.” Victoria glanced at her watch, her brow furrowed, and answered a question I hadn’t asked. “Damian gets out of school in seventeen minutes.” I knew what she was doing. She was using our son as leverage. But she didn’t know what had happened yesterday. At the Sterling family dinner, as I was picking the hated green onions out of his soup, as I always did, our eight-year-old son, Damian, looked up at me. “Dad,” he said suddenly, “I’ve realized you’re really pathetic.” I froze on the spot. My chopsticks clattered to the floor. Damian didn’t even flinch at the sound, continuing as if talking to himself. “No wonder everyone calls you a spineless doormat. Even Grandma can’t stand you. And honestly? You’re not nearly as fun as the uncles Mom brings home.” A ripple of snickering went through the Sterling family members at the table. Only my face was terrifyingly cold. Damian saw my humiliation, but he just frowned. “Dad, don’t always act like I’m bullying you. Pouting like a little kid all the time… don’t you have any shame?” For a dizzying moment, I saw his mother’s reflection in the son I had raised for eight years. Just then, Victoria walked in with her companion for the evening, the hot new movie star, Evan Vance. Victoria’s mother finally spoke up, smoothing things over. “Alright, Damian is just a child. You’re his father, are you really going to hold a grudge against your own son?” The others chimed in. “Yes, kids say the darndest things. Don’t take it to heart.” “Besides, everyone in the city knows your reputation. Damian is just repeating what he hears. You can’t blame him.” I just watched silently as Damian, who had been glaring at me with impatience just a moment before, broke into a wide grin and ran towards Victoria and Evan. He grabbed Evan’s arm, swinging it playfully. Evan, smiling conspiratorially, produced a paper kite from behind his back. The way Damian’s face lit up, it was clear this wasn’t their first meeting. They already had their little secrets. Victoria felt my gaze and glanced at me, but her eyes slid right past, as if I were a piece of furniture. She probably assumed the grim look on my face was just the usual breakdown after being the butt of the joke. She was used to it, after all. But this time, the one treating me like a joke wasn’t some stranger. It was the son I had painstakingly nurtured, cared for, and raised for eight long years. “Are you sure you want a divorce?” Perhaps my silence had stretched on for too long. Victoria was finally looking at me. My eyes met hers. “Yes, Ms. Sterling,” I said softly. Victoria Sterling and I were a mismatch in every conceivable way—family background, status, even looks. The only reason she had chosen me as her husband was because I was compliant and emotionally astute. For years, to keep her happy, I had lived by two simple rules: Never say anything that would anger Victoria. Never do anything that would anger Victoria. “You…” Before she could finish, the office door was pushed open. I was surprised to see Evan. Victoria had a rule: the men she brought home were never brought to the office. Evan was the exception. “Ms. Sterling, am I interrupting?” At the sight of him, the cold lines of Victoria’s face softened slightly. “It’s nothing important. Just give me a moment. I haven’t forgotten my promise to you and Damian.” Evan smiled. “As long as you remember.” The irony was crushing. Even my request for a divorce was “nothing important” in her eyes. And Victoria, who never bent for anyone, was now being forced to compromise because of an impatient look from Evan. “If this is because you’re angry about the dinner yesterday,” she said, her voice clipped, “because my family upset you, I promise it won’t happen again.” Evan chimed in smoothly. “Leo, the park opens soon. Damian’s waiting in the car. Please, can you just let Victoria go for now?” My hand trembled. I had tried to take Damian to an amusement park countless times. He had always scoffed at the idea. “Dad, you’re a grown man. Can you stop being so childish? Going to a place like that is just a waste of my time.” Now, swallowing the bitter wave of grief rising in my throat, I pointed to the divorce papers on her desk—a document I had revised over and over again. “Sign it. I’ll leave immediately. I won’t bother you ever again.” Only then did Evan seem to notice the papers. A flicker of excitement lit up his eyes. “Ms. Sterling, should I give you two some privacy?” He said the words, but he didn’t move an inch. Victoria set down her pen with a frown. “No need.” I recognized the expression. It was the prelude to her anger. In the past, I would have immediately apologized, scrambling to smooth things over. But now, I was numb. I didn’t care. “Ms. Sterling, surely Leo isn’t trying to divorce you because of me,” Evan said, biting his lip in a display of feigned distress. He immediately turned to me. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come over last night without calling. I made you angry. It’s all my fault.” He bowed his head, grabbing my wrist, his eyes full of guilt. But the sharp, digging pain of his fingernails was all too real. Out of Victoria’s line of sight, he mouthed the words, his lips forming a cruel smile: She and your son… they don’t want you. You deserve this. I felt no anger, only a profound sense of the absurd. I slowly pried his fingers off my wrist. He suddenly stumbled backward, collapsing to the floor. It was such a clumsy, pathetic performance, but Victoria bought it. And so did Damian, who had just pushed the door open. “Have you not caused enough trouble?!” Victoria’s voice was sharp. “Dad, are you crazy? Why did you push Uncle Evan?!” In that moment, my wife and my son were both accusing me, defending another man. “Uncle Evan, don’t worry. I won’t let anyone bully you again,” Damian said, rushing to Evan’s side, his face a mask of concern. Eight years ago, I had stayed up all night, every night, watching over the fragile life that was the newborn Damian. He was barely the size of my palm, lying in an incubator, clinging to life. The hospital had issued one critical condition notice after another. Nearly everyone had given up on him; the doctors said even if he survived, he wouldn’t live past five. Only I refused to let go. I begged the doctors, I prayed to every god I could think of, I sought out anyone who could possibly save him. And I did. I saved his life. That was why I could endure Victoria’s neglect, her coldness. In her eyes, Damian was my weakness, the one thing she could always use to control me. Now, she dropped all pretense. “Leo, if you really want this divorce, you will never see Damian again!” At the word “divorce,” Damian’s head snapped up. He glared at me. “Dad, you’re divorcing Mom because of Uncle Evan?” “I’m telling you, even if you get divorced, I’ll never go with you. A stupid, useless person like you doesn’t deserve my mom. Everyone laughs at you! Grandma and the others can’t stand you! Can’t you just take a good look at yourself for once?” There was no sadness in his eyes as he looked at me, only disgust. I no longer felt any lingering affection for him either. I just said, flatly, “Good. Because I don’t want you anymore, either.” Damian froze, his eyes widening in disbelief. A flush of red crept into them. He wasn’t always like this. Before he was five, whenever someone made fun of me, he would take my hand and say, “Dad, you still have me.” When I was sad, he would hug me. “Don’t be sad, Dad. Damian is here.” He was once my only anchor in that cold, cruel house. But people change. And I couldn’t live a life without a single drop of sweetness anymore. Victoria picked up her pen. With a flourish, she signed her name. “Don’t you dare regret this!” I let out a breath of pure relief. The weight I had carried for so many years was finally lifted. “I will never regret it.” My absurd marriage to Victoria Sterling had finally come to an end. I had followed her around like a shadow since we were children, but her gaze had never once landed on me. Even our marriage was a fluke. Her fiancé had left her at the altar, declaring he’d suddenly realized he preferred freedom to marriage. Humiliated and furious, Victoria had simply swapped out the groom on the spot. To everyone, I was the lucky one. I thought so too. In a place she could never see, I had secretly loved her for my entire youth. But the Sterling family was furious. They told everyone that a person from a small, insignificant family like mine could never be worthy of a Sterling. I knew it too. So for years, I was careful, cautious, trying to please every single one of them. But I was naive. There are some circles you can’t enter, no matter how hard you try. Now, I was giving up. Giving up on all of it. I folded the signed divorce agreement and put it in my bag. I checked the time. “Weren’t you going to the amusement park? If you leave now, you can still make it.” I had planned so many trips, I had the park’s operating hours memorized. I looked at Damian, my voice soft with a final instruction. “You’re allergic to mangoes. You can’t sneak any more food with mango in it.” I remembered a time when Damian would cry every night, begging to see Victoria. She would just brush me off with two words: “Too busy.” So Damian secretly ate a mango gummy. He broke out in hives all over his body, gasping for breath. Terrified, I had begged Victoria to come home. Afterward, the Sterlings berated me for days. They said my interruption had cost their company a multi-million dollar contract. They said it was my fault for not watching him properly, that the scars left by the hives were my failure. I was consumed with guilt. But Damian seemed to have found a loophole. Whenever he wanted to see his mother, he would search the house for anything containing mango. In his mind, an allergic reaction was the only way to make his mother come home. He never knew that with each frantic hospital trip, his father’s heart broke a little more. “Damian, you’re eight years old. You’ll be in the second grade soon. You need to learn to take care of yourself.” I watched as Damian pouted and turned away, hugging Evan. “You’re not my dad anymore after you divorce Mom! I don’t need you to worry about me!” A flash of memory: Damian, just learning to walk, toddling after me, endlessly chanting “Dada, Dada.” A sharp sting hit the back of my nose. My voice was hoarse. “Fine. I won’t say any more.” Victoria sensed my emotion and sneered. “Are you satisfied now that you’ve made this scene?” Evan stepped in front of her, pretending to mediate. “Victoria, take it easy. I’m sure Leo is hurting right now, too. Maybe it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. When you’ve both cooled down, you can talk it over. After all, how could he possibly bear to leave Damian? It must have just been said in anger.” Damian was the first to object, his face twisted with malice. “He doesn’t want me? Ha! I don’t want him either!” Victoria’s voice was cold as ice. “I gave him plenty of chances. He brought this on himself. People have to pay the price for their own recklessness.” But from the moment I asked for the divorce, I had never intended to look back. Evan’s eyes lit up with undisguised joy. “Well… Leo, regardless, I still think you should reconsider. We’re heading to the park now. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Damian.” Victoria looked at me with a smirk. “You got what you wanted. Why are you still standing here? Are you waiting for me to beg you to stay?” Without another word, I turned and left first. “Have fun,” I said over my shoulder. Back at the Sterling mansion, I began to pack. It turned out that all my possessions from all these years fit into a single suitcase. I left the necklace I wore on the coffee table. Inside the locket was a family photo of Damian at three years old, a photo I had begged Victoria for three whole days to take. Just then, a news alert popped up on my phone. It was an entertainment headline: Victoria Sterling spotted at an amusement park. The photo showed the three of them—Victoria, Evan, and Damian—looking for all the world like a perfect family. What was there left to miss? Before I left, I gave the money I had saved over the years to the butler. “This is for Damian’s child support.” The butler hesitated, about to say something, when Victoria’s mother pushed open the main doors. She saw the suitcase and froze. “Damian told me you’re insisting on divorcing Victoria.” I was silent for a moment, then shook my head. “It’s not an insistence. It’s already done.” Her face contorted with rage, and she swept everything off a nearby table. “Leo Hanover, who gave you the nerve?! You worthless piece of trash, how dare you be the one to serve my daughter with divorce papers! I’m telling you, you will leave with nothing! And that includes Damian! You will never see your son again!” From the day I married into this family, her first words to me were a command not to call her “Mother-in-law.” Every time Damian had a little scrape, every time Victoria was slightly unwell, it was my fault. I could have endured the screaming. I was her favorite punching bag, after all. But I endured it all for Damian. Now that I was giving him up, I had no reason to endure it anymore. So when she raised her hand to slap me, I caught her wrist and shoved her away. “From the moment Victoria signed those papers, I have had nothing to do with you or the Sterling family.” Caught off guard by my resistance, she stumbled and fell. Just then, a familiar voice came from the doorway. “Leo! Have you completely lost your mind?! You dare to lay a hand on my mother?” It was Victoria. Evan was right behind her, his eyes wide as he rushed to help her mother up. “Leo, no matter how angry you are, you shouldn’t take it out on her mother!” The servants, drawn by the commotion, began whispering in the background. “I used to feel sorry for Mr. Hanover, but now I see he was just putting on an act.” “Right? This is nothing like the weak, bullied man everyone talks about. He even dares to hit his own mother-in-law.” Damian stood in front of his grandmother, glaring at me. “You’re a bad dad! You bullied Grandma! I never want to see you again! I want Uncle Evan to be my dad!” At only eight years old, he had no idea how lethal those words were. Even a heart as battered as mine could still feel the sharp, twisting pain. “She tried to hit me, I was just…” Victoria cut me off, her voice a cold sneer. “You’re saying my mother hit you? Did anyone here see that? But we all saw you push her. What else do you have to say for yourself? Leo, you’ve caused enough trouble, but bullying my mother is a new low. Apologize to her. Now.” I refused. From the moment I stepped into this house, my life had been an endless series of apologies. Damian refused to go to school, and I had to bow to his teachers. Victoria’s tie didn’t match her suit, and I had to apologize. Her mother lost face at a party, and I had to apologize to the guests. “Victoria, it’s fine,” her mother said, suddenly magnanimous in front of her daughter. “It’s nothing serious. No need to get upset.” She was always the picture of grace in front of Victoria, but behind her back, she treated me like a servant. I couldn’t stand to look at this family for another second. “Just throw out anything I haven’t packed,” I said to the butler. “I’m leaving now.” But Damian blocked my path. His eyes were red, but the words he spoke were not of reconciliation. “You think you can just walk away after bullying Grandma and Uncle Evan?” “I’m going to punish you! Just like you used to punish me! So you’ll learn your lesson about what you can and can’t do!” I stared at him in disbelief. No matter how much he disliked me, how could he hate me this much? “Mary… lock him in the attic.” The Sterling family attic was their version of a punishment room. I had locked Damian in there once, after he threw his chopsticks at me during a dinner party because he didn’t like the food. I did it to teach him a lesson. I never imagined that less than a year later, my own son would use it to “punish” me. Victoria and the others stood by, their faces blank, tacitly approving Damian’s actions. The servants grabbed me, and I struggled, my eyes burning. “Damian, I am your father! How could you do this to me?!” He looked at me with the same cold indifference as his mother. “Not anymore. Not since you divorced Mom.” The son I had raised with my own hands was now standing with them, against me. My heart, what was left of it, finally died. That night, locked in the attic, I took one last look through the window at Damian’s room. He used to love it when I played hide-and-seek with him in there. Now, he had a father he liked better. And I was choosing to let them be. I made one final phone call. Then, I lit a pile of old junk in the corner. The flames instantly roared to life, engulfing the small space. I smiled bitterly in the flickering light. “Everything here… it’s time for it to end.” Just before I jumped from the window, I thought I heard a gut-wrenching, primal scream coming from the main house…

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “385638”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day I found out I was pregnant was the day my on-again, off-again boyfriend of ten years, Jack, finally kicked me to the curb. He bailed, only to announce his engagement to someone else a week later. I became the laughingstock of our social circle. Through the worst of it, Aidan was the one by my side. Everyone whispered about it. “If Elara was a lovesick fool, then Aidan was her knight in shining armor, swooping in to raise another man’s child.” “The hero finally ditched the side character, so the second lead gets his chance, right?” Aidan shielded me from all of it, a silent guardian, just as he had been for years. The day I finally accepted his proposal, the tall, handsome man’s eyes turned red for the first time. “Lara,” he choked out, “I swear I’ll make you happy.” On our wedding day, I found myself inexplicably thrown seven years into the future. The thirty-five-year-old Aidan was looking at me, his voice cold, his face a mask of impatience. “Just tell me,” he said. “What will it take for you to finally agree to the divorce?” 1 “I do.” The words slipped out automatically, a reflex from the ceremony I’d just left. It took me a few seconds to realize my surroundings were all wrong. There were no cheers, no guests, and no response from Aidan. The man who had been looking at me with tear-filled eyes at the altar just a moment ago now wore a look of pure indifference. My answer seemed to smooth the deep furrow in his brow. “Since you agree…” “A divorce?” The word finally registered. “Why?” Silence hung in the air for a beat too long. Aidan’s voice was heavy. “Elara, can you please stop changing your mind over and over again?” “There’s no point in dragging this out. Do you really want to make such a scene that neither of us can walk away with any dignity?” His impatient expression and icy tone made the world feel unreal. Aidan had never looked at me like that. Before this, he had proposed to me four times. I’d turned him down the first three times, terrified he would end up hurting me too. But he had been relentless, telling me again and again, “Lara, I’ll never leave you.” “I’ll chase you for the rest of my life. Please, just don’t push me away.” “Just give me one chance, please?” He’d even had a single, crimson dot tattooed right over his heart. For me. I stared at his face, my mind reeling from the whiplash. Aidan tossed a file onto the table with a sigh of frustration. “When you’ve made up your mind, just contact me. I’m giving you one more month, max.” “Otherwise, we’ll just let the lawyers handle it.” 2 My gaze drifted downward. The bold, black letters on the cover of the file seared into my eyes. DIVORCE AGREEMENT. Aidan had already signed it. His familiar, elegant script, the same script I’d seen just a minute ago on our handwritten vows, was now scrawled across this sterile white paper. He knew I loved old traditions, so he’d insisted on writing our vows himself. And now, that same hand had signed away our future. I pinched myself, hard. The pain was real, but this nightmare didn’t end. The sharp edge of the paper sliced my finger. A drop of red bloomed on the agreement, a stark contrast to the white page. It reminded me of the handfasting cord we’d tied around our wrists at the wedding. The vibration of my phone pulled me back. The screen displayed the year: 2025. Seven years after our wedding day. A message from someone named ‘Mark’: [Mr. Scott is driving towards Riverside Park. Destination is likely the West End.] I scrolled up. The chat was filled with reports on Aidan’s every move. And photos of him with a woman who lived in the West End. According to the chat history, I’d hired this private investigator three months ago. A week ago, I’d asked him for detailed information on the woman, preparing for a confrontation. [Eva Vance, 27, from Oakhaven.] [Started as an intern at Mr. Scott’s company three years ago, later promoted to his personal assistant.] [Contact info is…, but Ms. Hayes, confronting her directly right now might not be the best move.] The P.I., probably used to these messy situations, was advising caution. I never made that call. My fingers traced over the intimate photos on my screen, zooming in again and again. A hot burn started behind my eyes, and soon, tears blurred the screen into a watery mess. Before I could dial her number, her name flashed across my screen. An incoming call. “Took you long enough to answer.” Eva’s voice was light, laced with an unmistakable thread of triumph. “Weren’t you desperate to meet me?” 3 The moment I saw Eva, I froze, my feet feeling like lead. She looked even more like me than in the photos, only younger, fresher. She’d chosen the coffee shop; clearly, she was a regular. A waiter hurried over. “Welcome back! The usual today?” “Just milk this time,” Eva said, raising an eyebrow at me. “I’m pregnant. The doctor said I need to cut back on caffeine.” She watched my knuckles turn white where I gripped my purse, then feigned a moment of realization. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I hit a nerve?” “Look, I’m a direct person, so I’ll just be honest. What man doesn’t want a child of his own?” “Since you can’t give him one, shouldn’t someone else be allowed to?” I stared blankly at her flat stomach, the palms of my hands stinging. Seven years ago, I’d lost our first child. The miscarriage was followed by a severe illness, and the doctors told me it would be nearly impossible for me to conceive again. Aidan never brought it up, but I knew how much he loved kids. So, I’d been seeing specialists in secret, forcing down bitter medications. My mom would cry just watching me. “You wouldn’t even drink a sip of cold medicine when you were little…” It was agony. I’d drink the medicine, throw it up, and then force myself to swallow it again, the bitter taste clinging to my mouth. I wanted so badly to have a child with Aidan. Everyone said he’d be an amazing father to a little girl. I never thought that after seven years… We still wouldn’t have a child of our own. 4 Watching Eva’s carefully protective gestures, I finally understood Aidan’s urgency. She was pregnant. In another couple of months, she’d start to show. He didn’t want her, and his child, to be without a proper name. Sensing my gaze, Eva placed a hand over her stomach. “Aidan has probably mentioned this to you many times. I have no issue with the asset division. Settle it however you see fit.” “You two were together for so long. You wouldn’t want things to end on an ugly note, right?” She spoke with the exact same phrasing Aidan had used. I could almost picture them, rehearsing this conversation, complaining about how I was dragging my feet, refusing to let go. “If I don’t agree to a divorce, you can’t move up… Are you afraid of your child being labeled illegitimate?” Eva’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes filled with contempt. “You think I’m dirty? That I’m manipulative?” “The love is gone, but you cling to him like a leech. Don’t you think that’s disgusting?” I imagined the 35-year-old me must have become incredibly weak over these seven years of marriage. So weak she couldn’t even make a single phone call to demand the truth. I straightened up, and just as I reached for my hot coffee, a sharp, violent pain tore through my abdomen. The world went dark for a second, and I barely managed to grip the edge of the table to stay upright. Eva grabbed her purse, her eyes wide with alarm. “If anything happens to this baby, Aidan will never forgive you!” I gritted my teeth against the wave of agony, my knuckles white on the table. “Aidan told you not to see me, didn’t he? If he finds out you came to threaten me into a divorce…” Eva’s face paled. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she muttered, turning to leave. 5 I collapsed the moment I got home. When I woke up, it was the next day. Slivers of light pushed through the curtains, illuminating a cold, silent apartment. The entryway was a mess. Aidan hadn’t come back. I used the wall to pull myself up, my body aching as I stumbled to find some painkillers. But when I opened the medicine cabinet, there wasn’t a single painkiller inside. Instead, there were neatly organized bottles of vitamins and various brands of hangover remedies. My handwriting covered the labels, tiny notes detailing when Aidan should take his vitamins and which remedy worked best for different situations. Tucked at the back of the cabinet was a small notebook. February 27th: A picked the fruit out of his lunchbox again. Punishment: two Vitamin C gummies. March 6th: Showed off at a work dinner, drank too much, and got sick. Babbled nonsense all the way home. Punishment: No alcohol for three days, only stomach-soothing broth. March 13th: Forgot his hangover pills again… The entries were frequent at the beginning, but as I flipped through the pages, they became sparse. Until finally, the pages were blank. I ran my fingers over the slightly damp paper, lost in a daze. My phone buzzed. A message from my mom. [Honey, you two haven’t been back in so long. Your father and I miss you.] [Thanksgiving is just around the corner. You’ll be coming home with Aidan this time, right?] I blinked away the blurriness in my eyes and opened my chat with Aidan. A sea of my green message bubbles was met with only a few terse replies from him. [Saw this tie while shopping, thought it would look great on you.] [This plant looks like a giraffe! Doesn’t it look like the one we saw on our safari trip?] [Found that old song you used to love. Haven’t heard it in ages.] [It’s raining, make sure you dress warm. I packed a scarf in your suitcase.] [I made fish soup, with that soft tofu you love.] Aidan: [Last-minute business trip.] My shared moments had become a monologue. His rare replies were dismissive. The very last message was from two months ago. A reminder from me. [Don’t forget tomorrow. You promised Mom and Dad we’d visit.] He still hadn’t replied. 6 I called him. He finally picked up on the third try. “What is it?” “Thanksgiving is coming up. Mom and Dad want us to come home.” There was a long pause on his end, followed by an impatient sigh. My heart plummeted. Before he proposed, Aidan, afraid I’d get homesick, promised my parents we would visit for every holiday and at least once every two months. But now, it had been over half a year since we’d gone home together. “We’ll see.” He was about to hang up, but I cut him off. “You promised me.” On the day we were supposed to leave, Aidan came home. He watched me get into the passenger seat, his expression cold. “Elara, this is the last time.” “They’re going to find out about us sooner or later. I’ve given you more than enough time.” The scenery blurred past the car window. A small charm on the rearview mirror chimed softly. It was a cheerful sound, but it felt jarringly loud. Aidan had a lot of stressful work events, so he always preferred quiet music in the car to unwind. I had chosen quiet, soft trinkets for him. His favorite had been a small, lavender-filled sachet I’d embroidered myself. Now, it had been replaced with a jumble of cold, clanking metal charms. I stared at the tangled chains, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Why did you lie to me?” Why did you say you were on a business trip when you were setting off fireworks for someone else in another city? Why did you promise we’d do a hundred things together, only to leave the pages of our journal blank? Why did you propose one moment, swearing to love me forever, only to turn around and share all those romantic gestures with another woman? I couldn’t understand. Aidan slammed on the brakes, his eyes flashing with ice. “Elara, are you really one to talk about lies and betrayal?” 7 “What’s that supposed to mean?” His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “Have you ever been completely honest with me?” I stared at him, confused, but before I could ask, a sharp cramp seized my stomach. I stumbled out of the car and rushed into the rest stop, but all I retched up was blood. In the mirror, my reflection was ghastly. My face was pale and gaunt, my cheeks sunken. No amount of makeup or bright lipstick could hide the aura of sickness clinging to me. I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and, clutching my stomach, slowly made my way back to the car. I knocked on the window. “Can you turn around after this? I need to go to the hospi—” “You should just go home by yourself today.” Aidan was staring at his phone, his brow furrowed. “Something came up at the office. I have to go back and deal with it immediately.” I glanced at his screen. The chat window was open. It was Eva. “Aidan, I can’t go back alone right now. I’m not feeling…” The window slid up, cutting off my words. I took two steps after the car, and the world spun. A metallic taste filled my throat as my stomach convulsed. I crumpled to the ground, curling into a ball as darkness swallowed me whole. 8 When I woke up, the sharp smell of antiseptic filled my nostrils. After I collapsed at the rest stop, a kind stranger had brought me to the nearest hospital. My phone showed over a dozen missed calls from my frantic mother. “Honey, you said you’d be here by seven! Are you stuck in traffic?” “Mom, don’t worry.” I blinked against the sting in my eyes. “Something urgent came up with Aidan’s company, so we had to rush back. We might not… we might not be able to make it home for a while.” “Oh, as long as you’re okay.” My mom sighed in relief. “Your father and I know you’re both busy. We’ll see you at Christmas.” Listening to her gentle chatter, my nose burned even more. In my last relationship, I was young and stubborn, and I’d charged headfirst down a dead-end road. My parents had worried endlessly. So when Aidan started pursuing me, they were hesitant to trust him. It wasn’t until after my miscarriage, when Aidan stayed by my side day and night, enduring countless closed doors only to reappear with his heart on his sleeve, that they were finally moved by his sincerity and accepted him. At our wedding, my mother cried until her eyes were swollen. When my father placed my hand in Aidan’s, his own eyes were red. “Don’t worry,” Aidan had promised them. “I’ll make Lara happy for the rest of her life.” I never thought that in seven years… just seven short years… This is what we would become. After reassuring my mom, I hung up and went to get my test results. The moment I opened the folder, my fingers froze. I gripped the paper, my knuckles turning white. Gastric Cancer, Stage IV. 9 I don’t know how long I walked, numbly grateful for the cold wind on my face that seemed to clear my head. When I got home, I was surprised to see a familiar figure waiting. The moment he saw me, Aidan shot up from the couch and grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. “Are you done with your games?” I frowned at him, confused. Aidan slammed a stack of photos onto the table. Every single one was a picture I had seen on my phone. “Elara, what the hell do you want?” “Hiring someone to follow her, take pictures of her, trying to hurt her… you did all that just to force my hand, didn’t you? If you have a problem, you come at me!” Eva, terrified I would reveal she had initiated our meeting, had played her trump card. She must have known she was being photographed all along. No wonder the angles were so perfectly intimate. I didn’t have the energy to argue. All I wanted was to lie down and sleep. But Aidan yanked me back, his eyes blazing with a righteous fury, as if I were the most despicable person on earth. Pain shot through my shoulder, and I braced myself against a cabinet to stay upright. “Eva is certainly clever…” My weary smile seemed to sting him. He tightened his grip, nearly crushing my bones. “Elara, you have no right to look down on her.” “Of course, someone like you, always so high and mighty, you could never see any fault in yourself, could you?” “That expression… it’s disgusting. Just like your parents.” He spat the words out, his face twisted in a snarl. I froze for a moment, then slapped him across the face, hard. His head snapped to the side, his face falling into shadow. “Don’t you dare talk about my parents!” I was shaking, the pain in my body and my heart becoming one. “I can’t talk about them? Or do you just think I’m not worthy?” Aidan let out a sudden, harsh laugh. The red handprint on his cheek was stark as he grabbed my other hand before I could strike him again. “Elara, all these years, that’s what you’ve really thought, isn’t it?” 10 I stared at Aidan, dumbfounded. I had no idea why he was saying these things. “My parents never did anything to—” “I heard them at the hospital! They never approved of me, did they? They thought someone like me could never make you happy. They thought marrying their precious daughter to me was a complete tragedy.” The hospital? My mind drifted back to the time I was hospitalized after losing our first child. Aidan had been there for me, day and night. It was then that I finally started to let him in. My parents, seeing that I no longer pushed him away, realized I was finally ready to move on. But they still had their reservations. “Honey, we know you’re hurting right now. Starting a new relationship might be a good distraction, a way to feel better.” “But if you haven’t forgotten the last one, it’s not fair to Aidan.” They had hesitated, then continued, “Besides, Aidan is still so young. We believe he has a bright future, but marriage is a serious commitment. We want you to be happy, not to rush into something out of desperation because of your current situation.” Back then, Aidan was young, in love with me, and broke. I knew what my parents were afraid of. They were afraid I would suffer, afraid I would walk down another dead-end street. I had promised them then, “Mom, Dad, don’t worry.” “Besides you two, no one will ever love me more than Aidan.” Before our wedding, to show their support, my parents gave Aidan a substantial sum of money to start his own business. I never imagined that in his eyes, it wasn’t a gift. It was charity from on high. “Admit it, Elara. You’re just like them. Even after you were with me, you were still obsessed with your ex. You even met up with him the night before our wedding.” Aidan closed in, his grip on my wrist threatening to shatter bone. He was right. The night before our wedding, I did see Jack. That reckless fool had gotten drunk, climbed the fence into my parents’ yard, and started waxing nostalgic. “Lara, I know you don’t really want to marry Aidan. As long as you don’t push for marriage, we can still be together like before. I don’t mind…” A slap from me cut him off. “You hit me?” I slapped him again, harder this time, and grabbed a nearby wine bottle, pointing it at him. “I was a fool for ever getting tangled up with you, but I’m telling you now, I am marrying Aidan because I want to.” “If you ever say another word to disrespect him, I won’t hesitate to call the police.” Jack looked at me and suddenly laughed. “Elara, you really haven’t changed, have you? Still such a believer in true love.” “Aidan is not like you. You don’t have the right to even be compared to him.” “We’re all the same, Elara. You’re just too naive to see it.” 11 The pain was so deep it stole my breath. I swallowed the metallic taste in my mouth and looked up at Aidan. “Is that really who you think I am?” His words were a knife, twisting in my heart. “Elara, did you think that because I chased you like a pathetic dog, I deserved to be your second choice? That because I love you, I should just live in the shadow of your perfect ex, picking up his scraps and thanking you for the privilege? “That no matter what I do, I’ll never measure up to the man who threw you away? Sometimes, people are just pathetic. And you’re one of them.” Aidan slammed the door on his way out, leaving me alone in the crushing darkness. The seeds of doubt had been planted long ago. Now, they had grown into a monstrous tree, leaving no room for a single word of my defense. 12 Before checking into the hospital, I made a trip to a small chapel on a hill. I climbed the stone steps one by one, leaving behind my last wishes. I wished for my parents to stay healthy. I wished for myself to hold on a little longer, to make the goodbye less sudden. After lighting a candle, a young groundskeeper approached me. “You’re back,” he said with a gentle smile. “Here to see the wishing tree again today?” I paused for a moment. I remembered. I did have a wish hanging on that tree. After Jack and I broke up, I had come here to take down the wooden charm we’d hung together. The branch was a little too high. I stood on my toes, stretching, and finally lost my balance. The charm, carved with the words Forever and Always, flew from my grasp. But it didn’t hit the ground. It landed, perfectly, in the hands of Aidan, who had been quietly following me. He stammered, afraid I’d be angry, “I’m sorry, Lara… I was just worried about you being out here alone.” I stared at the charm in his palm. In that moment, it felt like a sign from the universe. Telling me that no matter how far I fell, no matter how much it hurt, Aidan would always be there to catch me. Just as he had silently watched over me for the past ten years. So I took his hand. “Hang it back up.” I watched him clumsily tie it back in its place. “A little higher,” I teased, pinching his arm. “The heavens can see it better if it’s higher. Don’t you want them to wish us a lifetime of happiness?” Aidan froze, the meaning of my words slowly dawning on him. “Us?” His eyes welled up. He looked so endearingly clumsy, fumbling with the string, pricking his finger in the process. That was the day we got together. Now, I walked toward the old wishing tree. It was almost completely covered in charms and ribbons; most people now used the newer tree on the other side of the path. After seven years of sun and rain, our charm was faded and worn. I reached up to touch it, and through a gap in the branches, I saw a familiar sight. Aidan was holding Eva, lifting her up as she stretched to tie a brand-new ribbon to the highest branch of the new tree. “Can you reach?” he asked. “Higher, a little higher!” Eva squealed playfully. “I want to tie it at the very top!” The string on our old charm had rotted away. I gave it a gentle tug, and it fell into my hand. Aidan’s name was so faded it was almost illegible. Only my name, Elara, remained clear on one side. A stubborn coincidence. I clutched the charm and turned away. I called Aidan. “I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “Let’s get a divorce.” Aidan seemed surprised by my quick decision, but I could hear the relief in his voice. “Okay. When?” “Tomorrow.” 13 The next day, I didn’t make it to my appointment with Aidan. The pain that night was unbearable. Just before I passed out, I managed to call for an ambulance. When I came to after emergency treatment, I saw dozens of missed calls from Aidan. “Elara! What the hell is your game now?” He was furious. “Is it fun for you, jerking me around like this again and again?” My throat was raw, and I could taste rust. “You need to stay still. Let me get you some water.” Aidan paused when he heard the nurse’s voice. After a few seconds of silence, his tone softened slightly. “Where are you?” He arrived in less than half an hour. He stood by my bed, his brow slightly furrowed. “What are you doing here?” I looked at him calmly and told him the truth. “Cancer.” Aidan froze. It took him a few seconds to process the word, and a flash of disbelief crossed his face. But just as quickly, the disbelief morphed into contempt. “Elara, that’s not going to work. I thought I made it clear. There’s no future for us…” “Do you have a pen?” I held out my hand. “Let’s not wait. I’ll sign it now.” Aidan seemed surprised by my lack of hesitation. It wasn’t until the signed divorce agreement was in his hands that he seemed to fully grasp what had happened. After confirming everything was in order, his expression finally softened. “See? If you’d just done this earlier, we wouldn’t have had to go through all this ugliness.” “You know I tried to do this peacefully at first. I never wanted it to get this bad.” I was exhausted. All I wanted was to sleep. I turned my head away without responding. Aidan started to walk away, the papers in his hand, but then he stopped. He turned back. His question was almost absurd. “Did you ever truly love me? Even for a second.” Realizing how pathetic that sounded, he rephrased. “Elara, do you have any regrets?” Looking at him, he felt like a complete stranger. Utterly and completely unfamiliar. “Do you?” I didn’t answer his question, but asked one of my own. “Do you regret being with Eva?” Aidan stared at me, his lips trembling slightly, but in the end, he said nothing at all.

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My father brought two retired officers back from the front lines to serve as personal guards for my sister and me. The younger one, a nimble lieutenant named Rhys, had eyes only for my sister from the moment he set foot in the General’s residence. The one assigned to me was his older brother, a captain once feared as “The Ghost of the Frontier.” His body was a roadmap of shrapnel scars. Nerve damage made his right hand tremble, and his left ear was nearly deaf. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being sent back to the battlefield, so broken and battered. I personally requested he stay. When his old wounds flared up, sending waves of agony through him, I dove into medical texts to find ways to ease his pain. I arranged for the best military physical therapists to see him every week, even though he never once met my gaze. When his right hand could no longer hold a pistol steady, I threw myself into firearms training, becoming a crack shot just so my father would have no reason to replace him. I always told myself his coldness was just a symptom of his trauma, a fortress of ice around his heart. I believed that if I was patient enough, my warmth could eventually thaw it. That delusion shattered during an ambush on a border support mission. He snatched the gun from my hands and tossed it to my sister. As enemy soldiers closed in on me, the only words he had for me were, “I’m sorry. Sera needs this more.” Seraphina Hayes. The illegitimate daughter my father brought home. As the blade pierced my chest, I heard him whisper, his voice a ghost in my ear. “What I owe you in this life, I’ll repay in the next.” So, his distance was never about trauma. It was a choice. He simply never wanted me close. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my father told us to choose our guards. 1 I studied the two brothers standing before me, saying nothing. Seraphina bit her lower lip, her gaze shifting timidly to me. “Aria, you have to inspect the troops so often. It would be much safer for you to have the more agile guard. Why don’t you take Rhys? Elias… he seems to be struggling physically. I can take care of him.” As she spoke, she took a half-step closer to Elias Blackwood. The stoic man’s back went rigid, a flicker of anxiety crossing his eyes. I remained silent, the fragmented memories of my rebirth slowly piecing themselves together. In my last life, it was after these exact words from Seraphina that I had hesitated. She had made the same sudden offer to give me Rhys, the more capable fighter. Watching her now, with that same look of cautious concern, acting as if her only thought was for my well-being, I remembered how I’d truly believed her. I thought she was protecting me from being burdened by the “problem” that was Elias. Like a fool, I refused. I didn’t want my newly arrived sister to feel slighted, nor could I stand the idea of sending the heavily scarred Elias back to the front to die in a blaze of cannon fire. It wasn’t until that final day, during the ambush, that I saw Seraphina for who she truly was. Her words had been, “Aria, you’ll be safer with the gun,” but when Elias handed it to her, she took it without a single moment of real hesitation. The man she had chosen, Rhys, was an elite soldier, more than capable of protecting her. She had the emergency beacon my father had given her hidden on her person. But after a few token protests, she accepted Elias’s protection as her due. She’d always been like this, banking on the fact that I couldn’t stand to see others in trouble because of me. She knew I would always be the one to back down. It allowed her to secure her own safety while maintaining her reputation as the sweet, considerate girl who always thought of the greater good. But this time, I spoke, my voice calm and even. “Fine. Rhys can stay with you.” The mask of concern on Seraphina’s face froze. She wasn’t the only one stunned. Beside her, the Blackwood brothers both snapped their heads up, their eyes wide with disbelief. “Insolence!” My father’s face darkened as he rounded on Seraphina. “Don’t be ridiculous! Aria is the sole heir to this family! Elias is half-crippled, he can barely hold a gun. How is he supposed to protect you?” A faint, imperceptible smile touched my lips. So my father knew the extent of Elias’s condition all along. This entire charade of a “choice” was nothing more than a performance for outsiders. However… Just as the tension in Seraphina’s shoulders began to ease, just as she was about to raise a hand to wipe away non-existent tears, the man who had been silent this whole time suddenly spoke. “I can protect Miss Caldwell.” My eyes shot up to his. The man who hadn’t said a single word to me in three years in my past life was now speaking with perfect clarity? As my gaze met his—bloodshot, yet shockingly clear—I knew with absolute certainty: He had come back with his memories, too. …No wonder he’d talked about repayment in the next life. His greatest fear, reborn, was still being chosen by me. Too bad for him, this time, I had no intention of choosing him at all. “If you doubt my combat ability, you can test me right now,” Elias continued, his tone unwavering. I never doubted his skill. In my final moments in my past life, my consciousness watched as he, to protect Seraphina, single-handedly tore through the entire enemy ambush force. The pistol in his left hand was steadier than anyone’s. How laughable. I had pushed myself to master firearms back then, terrified my father would send this “defective” soldier back to the front to be cannon fodder. Sure enough, the moment he dropped the pretense, it took him only three moves to pin my father’s own special forces instructor to the ground. My father’s expression softened. The glimmer of tears in Seraphina’s eyes vanished instantly. To be honest, Elias was far less charming than his brother. If it weren’t for his legendary reputation as “The Ghost of the Frontier,” she would have picked the handsome, clean-cut Rhys from the start. “In that case, Elias will go with you. As for Rhys, you will protect Miss Aria.” Hearing the final assignment, Rhys shot a look in my direction. When his eyes landed on my crisp military uniform, his brow furrowed in undisguised disdain. Suddenly, Rhys dropped to one knee. “General, I request permission to return to the Southwestern border zone.” My father’s face hardened. “A position as a personal guard isn’t good enough for you? You’d rather go back to dancing with death on the front lines?” Rhys pointedly turned his face away, avoiding my steady gaze. “My skills are insufficient, sir. I am not worthy of protecting Miss Caldwell’s life.” I lowered my eyes, a bitter smile on my lips. The disability I’d gotten at fifteen while shielding Seraphina had, in the end, become proof of my incompetence in the eyes of others. Elias’s cold distance in our past life… he must have seen me the same way. “Rhys! How could you speak to my sister like that!” Seraphina rushed to his side, pushing at his arm, her voice trembling. When Rhys looked up at her, his eyes were churning with an emotion he didn’t bother to hide. “I came back from the battlefield for one person, and one person only.” In the heavy silence of the room, a soft laugh escaped me. Seraphina quickly suppressed a rising smile, patting his hand in a mock reprimand. “Don’t be silly! I would never let you go back!” “Why make this so difficult?” I drawled, toying with the dog tag at my waist. “Sister, why don’t you just take both of them?” Seraphina’s cheeks flushed. “Aria… don’t say things like that.” The Blackwood brothers were undeniably handsome. From the moment they had walked into the living room, her gaze had never strayed from them. My father considered it for a moment. “Aria, are you sure?” “I’m sure. I don’t want either of them.” Both brothers stared at me now. Their expressions were a clear mix of confusion and disbelief, as if trying to figure out where I got the audacity to say such a thing. Elias’s gaze was particularly intense, layered with an emotion I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—decipher. “Then what about your security?” my father asked. “What else is there?” I replied calmly. He was clearly taken aback. “Actually, Father, why don’t you send me to the Rangers? There’s no shortage of protection there.” In my last life, I was so consumed with Elias that I missed crucial opportunities to solidify my family’s power within the military hierarchy. My situation and Seraphina’s were worlds apart. Father always said we were both his daughters, but the promotion recommendation lists sent from the troops only ever included Seraphina and my cousin. It was all because he saw me as limited by my old injury. It didn’t matter that I was the daughter of his lawfully wedded wife; he didn’t care. My cousin was a Major in the Rangers, a decorated officer. Every year, Seraphina reaped honorary awards based on his achievements. Meanwhile, I had to beg and plead with the logistics department just to get approval for Elias’s experimental medication. If I wanted to change my fate, I had to seize it with my own two hands. The Rangers didn’t think much of the General’s daughter who had “pulled strings” to get in. They dumped me in a logistics support company and washed their hands of me. I didn’t complain. I poured everything I had into training and tactical studies. The military aptitude I’d never shown in my past life now emerged with a force that surprised even me. After taking first place in the most difficult border infiltration exercise, the brigade commander promoted me personally. He held the enlistment ceremony that should have happened six months prior and gave me command of a reconnaissance platoon. The military was in a critical period of strengthening its forces. As much as he doted on Seraphina, he couldn’t afford to ignore my abilities now. Slowly, my reputation in the service began to rival Seraphina’s title as the “General’s Golden Girl.” One day, back at the family estate, Seraphina cornered me in the hallway. “Aria, don’t you think you’re being a little too conspicuous lately?” I raised an eyebrow. “You keep stealing the show in these exercises, spending all your time on the training grounds. I’m not trying to discourage you, sister, but your success is probably just a fluke. If you make a mistake one day, you’ll be embarrassing the whole family.” “Besides,” she added, her eyes flicking meaningfully towards Elias, “with your physical limitations, what officer would want to marry you if you keep carrying on like this?” “I think you should just quit messing around with the Rangers. In the future, I’ll just bring you along to these sorts of events.” I scoffed. “You’re just afraid I’ll outshine you, aren’t you?” Her pupils contracted. “Sister, in what capacity are you telling me to tone it down? As the General’s rightful heir, or as the youngest platoon leader in the Rangers?” “You seem to be enjoying all the benefits, so what right do you have to tell me to sit down and be quiet?” “Aria, how could you…” Her eyes instantly filled with tears. I watched her performance with cold detachment, cutting her off. “Since you brought up my injury, maybe we should talk about that ‘accident’ when I was fifteen?” “I risked my life to shield you from enemy fire. Who was it that gave me a final push?” “Leaving me with a permanent, debilitating injury?” Seraphina stumbled backward, her trembling fingers flying to her mouth. “Don’t put on that act. You weren’t the one who took the bullet.” “Go on, keep being the General’s Golden Girl.” I turned to leave. But she suddenly collapsed to the floor, her face tilted up to mine, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, sister… I was just so scared…” “How could you think I would do something like that…” The crystalline tears splashed onto the stone tiles. “That’s enough!” Rhys strode forward, pulling her into his arms. “Miss Caldwell, that was completely out of line!” Seraphina quickly clutched his arm, shaking her head through her sobs. “Don’t… I’m really okay…” But her body continued to tremble. A flash of pain crossed Elias’s eyes. He looked directly at me. “You should apologize.” I almost laughed out loud. He waited stubbornly for my response. CRACK! The sound of my hand striking his cheek echoed in the hallway. Seraphina shrieked, throwing herself in front of him. “Aria! How could you hit him!” I slowly lowered my tingling hand. “Sister, you’d better get your men in line. They seem to have forgotten their place.” “You—” Rhys’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles cracked. Elias touched his reddening cheek, his eyes filled with a shock I had never seen there before. I walked away without giving any of them a chance to speak. I had planned to pack my things and move into the barracks, to escape this viper pit for good. But in the early hours of the next morning, my door was hammered open. Rhys kicked his way in without a second thought. Before I could even react, he had violently dragged me out of bed. “Sera’s been kidnapped! You’re coming with me, now!” I moved instantly, pulling the pistol from under my pillow and pressing the cold barrel to his forehead. “Move again. I dare you.” “And what does her kidnapping have to do with me?” “You still have the nerve to deny it!” Rhys’s eyes were bloodshot; he’d clearly been up all night. “If you hadn’t said those cruel things to her yesterday, she never would have driven off in the middle of the night!” “Now the kidnappers have specifically demanded you in exchange for her. This is your mess to clean up!” The door burst open again, and Elias rushed in, his face pale. He scanned the room frantically. “Did you find her?” Rhys tightened his grip on my collar. “The kidnappers agreed to a trade.” “You caused this mess. You’ll be the one to fix it.” “You’re asking for it!” I slammed the butt of the pistol against his face. His brow split open, and blood streamed down his cheek. “A bodyguard. Do you really think you have the right to lay a hand on me?” The blow left Rhys dizzy, but his eyes only grew more ferocious. “My apologies for the offense, Miss Caldwell, but you don’t have a choice in this matter.” “For Sera’s sake, we will gladly accept any punishment!” he snarled, grabbing my wrist. “Elias! Restrain her!” My marksmanship could hold Rhys off, but once Elias moved, I had no chance. With a loud crash, I was slammed against the wall. The sight of Elias’s military boots filled my vision. I struggled with all my might, but I was no match for the two of them. I could only look up, a final, desperate plea in my eyes. “Elias… don’t do this… please…” His Adam’s apple bobbed. In the end, he just turned his head away. “I’m sorry.” Click. The sound of the magazine being removed from my pistol sealed my fate. I was completely subdued. On the way, Elias watched me himself. “You came back too,” he said suddenly. A mocking smile twisted my lips. “And yet, you’re still just as cruel to me.” He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was raw. “I owe you.” SLAP! I hit him again, hard. “Two lifetimes, and your apologies are still worthless.” His head snapped to the side. His hair fell across his face, hiding his expression. I only heard his low voice. “I swear, this is the last time.” He suddenly grabbed my wrist, his grip so tight I thought the bones would shatter. “This time, I’m trading you for her. Consider the debt from our last life paid.” “After this, I will protect you, even if it costs me my life.” I turned my face away and laughed coldly. His knuckles whitened as he squeezed harder, promising me, “It’s just an act for them. I will never let any real harm come to you.” The exchange point was an abandoned armory. In the moment I passed Seraphina, she suddenly stumbled forward. “Elias! Rhys!” My head whipped around. Elias was the first to react, rushing forward to catch her securely in his arms. Rhys deftly sliced through the ropes on her wrists. Elias’s arms were wrapped around her so tightly his fingertips were trembling. I could just make out the shape of his words as he murmured to her: “It was my fault… I let you suffer…” A strange, unfamiliar ache tightened in my chest. Even though I had told myself, again and again, not to hope for anything. The rough texture of a hemp rope digging into my skin broke my trance. Before I could make a sound, cold duct tape was slapped over my mouth. I’ve been locked in this dark, damp warehouse for three days and three nights. There isn’t an inch of my skin that isn’t covered in the ugly, weeping scars left by a branding iron. The leader of the kidnappers kicked over a metal drum in frustration. “Aren’t you the General’s precious daughter? How come it’s been three days and no one’s even called to negotiate? Are you even his kid?” I pulled at the corner of my bleeding lips. The family did have a precious daughter they cherished. It just wasn’t me. “Last chance.” The man brandished a syringe, stalking closer. “This drug will amplify your pain tenfold. Now, call your family.” “If they’re willing to pay the ransom, you’ll be spared some suffering.” “If they’re still not willing…” he hefted an axe with a sinister grin, “then I’ll start by chopping off that injured arm of yours and sending it to them!” “Wait! Don’t—” The moment the needle pierced my vein, every muscle in my body began to seize. “Dial!” A cold phone was shoved into my blood-caked hand. I scrolled and scrolled through the contact list. My father and cousin’s numbers went straight to voicemail. Seraphina declined the call immediately. Finally, my finger hovered over Elias’s name— “Hello?” “Elias!” My voice was a shredded rasp. “Bring the ransom! They drugged me, they’re going to cut off my arm!” The clinking of glasses and cheerful chatter echoed from the other end of the line. I froze. “Where are you?” “Miss Caldwell, it’s Sera’s welcome-home party tonight. Don’t cause trouble.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. “What did you say?” “Just hang on one more night. I’ll come get you tomorrow.” The kidnapper let out a derisive snort. My teeth began to chatter. “You promised… you promised you would protect me…” After a long silence, he said softly, “Stop playing games.” The line went dead. “Wait! Elias!!” I tried to redial, but all I got was a cold, busy signal.

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Chapter 1 Five years into my London assignment, my brother suddenly texted me to say he was getting married. The woman in the engagement photo was the gold digger who’d stolen my first love. She didn’t know my real identity. After stealing my college boyfriend, she’d flipped the script and painted me as the other woman. She got me bullied by the entire campus for four years. I saw red. My brother, Michael, was still rattling on, oblivious. “Hannah! Please, I love her, I really do! She’s not like those other women. She never asks me to buy her luxury crap. I’ve already decided—we’re getting the license!” “Mom and Dad said you handle all the family’s assets, and that we need your approval to welcome Selena into the family. Please, sis, just this once. I swear, she’s the one.” “You don’t believe me? Look, Selena is gorgeous. It was love at first sight. I swear I won’t marry anyone else!” I hung up and went straight to Selena Song’s Instagram. Her latest post was a shot of her Harry Winston custom engagement ring. “Only one in the world,” the caption read. I looked at the identical diamond on my own hand and my blood boiled. I was about to message Selena when I saw her DM from two hours ago. An invitation to the wedding. “Hey, loser. You said someone like me would never land a billionaire. Well, how do you like me now?” “Why no reply? Scared to show your face and admit I won?” “It’s okay to admit you can’t compete. After all… no real man wants an uptight prude.” I actually laughed out loud. “You invited me, Selena,” I texted back. “Don’t regret it.” 1 I booked the red-eye and flew back to New York. The Manhattan penthouse was empty; everyone was already upstate, setting up for Michael’s wedding. Every luxury car from our garage had been sent ahead for the wedding motorcade. I crashed for a few hours. To get to the old family estate, the only car left was the “cheapest” one: our $150,000 Mercedes Sprinter van, the one we used for staff and luggage. When I arrived at the estate, the lawn was already full of guests. A crowd of young women was busy taking selfies in front of the old, dilapidated mansion. I was confused. What was so special about this dump? Years ago, after I’d doubled the company’s size, I decided this old place was too dark. I’d moved us into a glass penthouse with a real view. No one had set foot in this house for a decade. “Selena, you’re amazing!” one of the women gushed, phone held high. “This house must be worth, what, twenty million?” “I can’t believe it. You’re going to be the lady of this mansion!” “I can’t even dream this big! Can we come crash here sometime? Please!” Selena’s chin was in the air. “Of course. I’ll just mention it to Michael. Just use my name at the gate from now on, security will let you in.” My old college roommate practically bowed. “Selena, I always said you and Leo were the better match. If I wasn’t scared of Hannah Gu, I would have totally been on your side!” “But thank God you dumped Leo! I heard his family went bankrupt. Your luck is just insane. You ditch one trust-fund baby and land the son of a billionaire! If you know any other rich guys, you have to save one for me!” Leo. My college boyfriend. After Selena stole him, she’d make a point to make out with him right in front of me. In response, I’d made one call and had my family pull all our contracts with his father’s company. The moment he was broke, Selena dumped him. And now, this opportunistic roach had somehow managed to sink her claws into my idiot brother. I was about to walk over when my old roommate spotted me. Her face soured. “Well, speak of the devil. If it isn’t Selena’s runner-up.” “What brings you here? We all thought you were too busy making your ‘fortune’ to hang out with old classmates.” Another woman chimed in. “Right? She dropped out of the alumni chat right after graduation. Never came to a single reunion. Guess she was afraid we’d laugh at her.” Then, someone noticed the Sprinter van I’d arrived in. They howled with laughter. “Oh, she’s making a ‘fortune’ all right! As a nanny for some rich family! Did you stop by on your way to the grocery store? You better hurry back. You don’t want to get fired for being late with dinner!” “What’s that saying? Champagne taste on a beer budget. After Leo dumped her, she swore she’d make him regret it. Now look at her. This is just sad.” I sighed. “Open your eyes. Yes, it’s a van, but it’s a Mercedes. It costs over 150 grand.” “What? A $150,000 van? Who the hell hires a nanny that drives a car like that?” Selena’s face went pale, then twisted. “Who else? The Gu family!” Chapter 2 “Hannah Gu! You tried to steal my man in college, and now that I’m marrying Michael, you’re shamelessly sinking your claws into his family? Did your parents teach you nothing about basic decency?” “Are you that addicted to being a homewrecker? You are just born trash!” I was so stunned by the accusation I couldn’t even speak. Before I could, Selena was circling the van. “That’s right! This is my husband’s family van! I saw the housekeeper driving it when I stayed over. Back then, it was driven by this fifty-year-old woman who’d worked for the family her whole life.” “I even threw a fit and told Michael they treated their staff too well, and that he’d have to buy me an even more expensive car!” She jabbed a finger in my face. “You steal my boyfriend, fine! But now you’re stealing a poor old woman’s job? How desperate are you to sleep your way into this family? You have no shame!” “That woman has a mortgage to pay! You’re basically murdering her!” A sharp CRACK echoed as her palm connected with my cheek. It stunned me. “Selena, are you insane!” “You need to provide evidence for an accusation like that. I’m calling the cops!” Before she could answer, her friends lunged. “Evidence? Everyone knows you pretended to be a poor, pathetic waitress at that restaurant just to chase Leo!” “You were always bringing food to the guy’s dorm, selling water at his basketball games… you practically had ‘DESPERATE’ tattooed on your forehead!” “Totally! I remember she even hid a love letter in his takeout box!” “If Leo didn’t have high standards and choose our Selena, that bitch might have actually succeeded!” One of them gasped, a look of horrified realization on her face. “Selena! What if she already knew about you and Michael? Why else would she just happen to get a job as the Gu family’s nanny right when you’re getting married?” “You’ve got a stalker, girl! You’ll have to sleep with one eye open! God knows you’ll wake up one night and find her in bed with your husband!” Selena’s face was purple with rage. “I knew someone was stalking my Instagram! It was you! Again!” “There are millions of men in the world. Why do you always have to chase mine? You’re a goddamn infection! Shameless!” She was screaming. Every guest on the lawn turned to stare. As they pieced her words together, their expressions turned to disgust. “I knew rich guys had mistresses, but I’ve never seen one bold enough to crash the wedding.” “My company’s future depends on a partnership with the Gu family. I can’t let this cheap slut ruin this!” A mob started to form, all of them yelling at me, calling me every filthy name in the book, demanding I get off the Gu family’s property. Selena pulled out her phone and dialed Michael. “Fire that new nanny! I don’t like her!” My brother’s voice was tinny, confused. “What? But last time, you said you loved her cooking.” “Well, I don’t like her now! If you keep her, you can forget about this wedding!” “It’s her or me, Michael! Your choice!” I tried to get my phone to explain. My head snapped to the side as one of her friends slapped me. Hard. Another one grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. “What? You gonna tattle? Michael only has eyes for Selena. Give it up, you slut!” “You couldn’t beat her in college. You really think you can win now, as a nanny? Dream on!” “If you make a single sound, I’ll break your jaw.” I couldn’t move. They slapped me over and over, my ears ringing. Then, I heard my brother’s voice from Selena’s phone, resigned and final. “Selena. I choose you.” “Don’t worry, okay? The nanny is fired. Please, don’t be mad at me.” That idiot! Selena hung up and smirked, looming over me. “How does that feel, Hannah? I told you I’d deal with you.” “Now… get the hell off this property.” I shoved my attackers off and spat the blood from my mouth. “I leave,” I said, my voice cold, “and your wedding is over.” As I wiped my mouth, one of them spotted my hand. “Selena! How does she have your wedding ring?” Selena went ballistic. “She must have stolen it! Get it back! Get it off her!” A group of them swarmed me, pinning my arms. My blood was pounding in my head. I roared, “Get off me! This ring isn’t yours! It’s mine!” “The one Michael gave you is a FAKE!” Selena lunged, her nails digging into my already swollen face. “My husband is a billionaire! He would never give me a fake!” “Do you know how much this ring costs? Seven figures! It’s a custom Harry Winston! One of one!” “You could sell your body for a hundred years and never afford this!” She turned to her friends. “What are you waiting for? Rip it off her!” “If she doesn’t give it, chop off her hand! I’ll take responsibility!” Chapter 3 A volcanic rage gave me a burst of strength. I threw them off me and dialed my father. “Cancel the wedding! Song Lingling is not to set foot in our family!” “And get the lawyers. I’m suing her.” My father was confused. “Hanyue? What are you saying? Your brother said this woman was a nice girl. Your mother and I have even met her.” “Nice? She’s about to chop my hand off!” The words ripped out of me. The next second, the phone was ripped from my hand. Selena, holding it, started screaming into the receiver. “Listen up, you old fossil! You must be Hannah’s sugar daddy, right? Do you know your whore is out here trying to sleep with other women’s husbands?” “You better leash your dog! If I ever see this bitch again, I’ll beat the shit out of both of you!” My father’s voice boomed, furious. “Who is this? Give my daughter back her phone!” Selena spat. “Daughter? You’re sick, old man, playing games like that.” “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m Selena Song! The future mistress of the Gu family! You got a problem with that, you come find me. I’ll be waiting!” Before my father could speak, she smashed my phone on the cobblestones, shattering it. Her friends cheered. “Damn, Selena! Badass! Spoken like a true Mrs. Gu!” “That’s nothing! Ten more old guys could show up, and I’d send them all home in an ambulance!” “Nobody messes with the Gu family!” Selena, drunk on the praise, turned her attention back to the ring on my hand. “Why is it still on her? Do I have to do it myself?” She was unhinged. Afraid she’d damage the ring, I pulled it off and handed it to her. She snatched it, but she wasn’t done. “You think you can just walk away after stealing my ring? Not so fast.” My face was grim. “What do you want?” “Hold her down! If she’d steal a ring, who knows what else she’s stolen from the house!” “What belongs to the Gu family belongs to me. You stole from me, and you’re going to pay!” Two of them grabbed me, forcing me to the ground. The others went to the van and grabbed my briefcase. I panicked. “Don’t touch that! Those are vital company documents!” The woman holding it burst out laughing. “You? A company? ‘Vital documents’?” “What company does a nanny have? A housekeeping service?” Another one sneered, “No, stupid. She’s a mistress who climbs into beds. It’s a ‘call girl’ company! Hahaha!” They threw my briefcase on the ground. Selena stepped on it, grinding her heel in. “Important, huh? This must be where you’ve hidden all the stolen goods.” “Open it!” I was seeing black, struggling against the hands holding me down, but it was useless. I watched, helpless, as Selena pulled out the files. My five years of work. The entire plan for our European expansion. Global market research. It was a multi-billion dollar strategy. If it succeeded, it would double our company’s annual revenue. Selena glanced at the papers, her face wrinkling in disgust. “Just a few pieces of scrap paper. You were this worked up over paper?” “Let me show you, right now, what happens when you try to steal another woman’s husband.” And with a smile, she tore my life’s work to shreds. My twenty thousand words of handwritten analysis, gone. I wanted to rip her face off. As I tried to get up, someone kicked me in the back, sending me face-first into the dirt. Seeing me so humiliated, Selena laughed. “You want them? Crawl and get them.” “Get her phone. Let’s see how many other men she’s seducing. I’ll post it online. It’s a public service, really.” One of them picked up my shattered phone and handed it to her. She managed to power it on and opened my work chat.

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Framed for a scholarship student’s rape and murder in my past life, I was sentenced to life. My own girlfriend provided the “evidence,” and my parents testified against me. For twenty years in prison, I clung to the hope they had a reason. Upon release, they welcomed me with a lavish dinner—only for me to wake up as a ghost, reading headlines that I’d committed suicide out of guilt. Then I reopened my eyes. I was back on the night it all began. If they were determined to paint me as a monster, fine. I’d become a spectacle—a man hospitalized in front of a live audience, impossible to frame. I hit “Go Live” and started devouring mangoes from a street stall like a madman. “Is this guy crazy?” “The owner’s frozen!” “What a channel launch!” As viewers flooded in, I counted down. Right on time, I collapsed, foaming at the mouth. Darkness. 1 The moment I passed out, the live chat went into a frenzy. “Is he for real? Is this guy nuts?” “Swollen lips, trouble breathing, hives breaking out all over… that’s anaphylactic shock! Someone call 911!” The fruit stand owner’s expression shifted from anger to horrified shock. He stumbled back, hands raised in surrender. Sticky, sweet mango juice coated my hands, the taste in my mouth a cloying mix of sugar and bitterness. Only one thought burned in my mind. Even if I die, I’m dragging every last one of them to hell with me. The wail of the ambulance siren was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. As the paramedics rushed toward me, the fruit stand owner grabbed my hand, his voice trembling. “Son, whatever it is, it’s not worth this. If you die on me, I’ll never sell another piece of fruit in my life!” His words struck me like a physical blow. A complete stranger showed me more compassion in a single moment than my family had in a lifetime. The irony was suffocating. I gripped his hand, my voice a desperate rasp. “Sir, can you do me a favor? Please, keep the livestream running. All the way to the hospital.” In the chaos, unnoticed, I palmed a small fruit knife from his stand and slipped it into my pocket. The chat was a mix of advice and mockery. “Dude, don’t get stuck with his medical bills! It’s not worth it!” “That poor owner. Worst luck in the world, running into this psycho.” “Wait… isn’t that my coworker? He’s usually such a quiet guy. What the hell happened?” Seeing that last comment sent another pang through my chest. The cruel joke was, in my last life, the only people who ever believed in my innocence were my colleagues. I’d been arrested right after work that day, accused of murder. I thought it was a misunderstanding, that I’d be released in no time. Then my father came to visit me. His first words were a command. “Julian, stop being stubborn. Confess. As your father, I can’t cover for you any longer.” I had just stared at him, completely bewildered. The detective on the case, a man named Miles, was a bulldog for justice. He’d grabbed me by the collar, his eyes shot with rage. “You bastard. Do you have any idea she was just eighteen? She’d just gotten into college.” The evidence against me was impossibly perfect. My own girlfriend, Chloe, had submitted the video of me threatening and kidnapping the victim. The fruit stand owner hesitated. I clutched the phone tighter, screaming at the paramedics who were trying to move me. “If you don’t let me keep this stream live, I’m not going to the hospital!” Two of them moved to restrain me. Without a second thought, I pulled the fruit knife from my pocket, my eyes wild with desperation. “You come near me, and I’ll kill myself right here!” The chat exploded. “WHOA! What the hell happened to this guy? He looks genuinely broken. That look in his eyes… that’s not an act.” “He’s completely lost it. I know this guy, he was about to get married. House, car, the whole deal. This makes no sense.” “Fruit stand owner’s internal monologue: Great, the knife is mine too!” A police car pulled up, and the man who stepped out made my entire body go rigid. Detective Miles strode forward, his brow furrowed, but he kept his voice calm and steady. “Son, whatever’s wrong, the police are here to help. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” His words sent a tremor through me. My throat closed up. The live chat fell silent. In my last life, this was the man who had sent me to prison. The fruit stand owner rushed forward. “Kid, I promise, I’ll keep the stream going all the way to the hospital! Just please, don’t hurt yourself!” Every eye was on me. I kept the phone in one hand, the knife in the other. “I don’t trust anyone. Stream it. All of it.” The viewer count surged past twenty million. The owner agreed, taking the phone. I was finally helped onto the stretcher and into the ambulance. The chat was already buzzing with theories of a deeper conspiracy. On the way to the hospital, the police identified me and contacted my parents. My phone rang. It was my dad. The owner held the phone out to me, and I nodded. “Julian, you are such a disappointment. You might as well just die in that hospital.” “Why do you always have to cause a scene? Do you have any respect for me as your father?” “I’m telling you right now, you get online and you apologize to everyone, or you’re not welcome in this house tonight!” He hung up before I could even respond. The chat was split. Some thought my father was in the right; others found him unbearably cold. Detective Miles, riding with us, muttered under his breath, “What a heartless bastard.” The comment reached my ears. I looked over at him, the truth burning on my tongue. But who would believe me? The man in that video looked exactly like me. The police had confirmed it wasn’t a fake. My own parents had given statements against me. What kind of parents would frame their own son? Detective Miles caught my gaze, a flicker of contemplation in his eyes. I thought about the girl, the student who had just started college. I dredged up the memories of that night and crooked a finger at him. I whispered a few words in his ear. Detective Miles shot up so fast he hit his head on the ambulance ceiling. His expression was stone. “Are you serious?” I nodded. This time, let’s see how they frame me now. I lay in a hospital bed, the steady drip of the IV a metronome counting down my fate. The chat was filled with comments of “boring,” “clout-chasing loser,” and “viral attempt failed.” But I had already won. I had twenty million witnesses. Then I saw the time on my phone and a cold dread washed over me. 8:31 PM. It was the time from my nightmare. The timestamp on the video. The moment “I” dragged that girl through the door, tearing at her clothes, spewing vile words. If I’d had more time after reincarnating, I wouldn’t have resorted to something so desperate. My parents never came. Chloe never came. The fruit stand owner, who had stayed with me, looked increasingly grim. “Kid, maybe they have their reasons,” he said, trying to comfort me. “Maybe they’re just caught up. Don’t overthink it. What do you want to eat?” Yeah. Reasons. Right up until the moment they fed me poison, I stupidly believed they’d been threatened, that it was all part of some larger conspiracy. But after they killed me, they had my body cremated immediately and told the media I had died of shame. “You can turn off the stream now,” I told him. As the owner stared at me, confused, his phone rang. He answered, and a voice barked from the other end. “This is Detective Miles. Is Julian Shaw awake?” “Put him on.” He must have been watching the stream. I didn’t take the phone. I just looked into the camera and smiled faintly. “Detective, you want to know how I knew? You’ll have your answer in a few days.” Amidst a flood of question marks from the chat, I ended the broadcast. But the call was still connected. Detective Miles’s voice was tight with anger. “If you knew what was going to happen, why didn’t you stop it? She was only eighteen—” “—her life was just beginning,” I finished his sentence, my voice utterly calm. It was the same line he’d used on me, over and over, during my interrogation in my past life. My life had just been beginning too. I’d just paid off my mortgage, my car loan. I was about to propose to Chloe. Instead, I was betrayed by everyone I loved and thrown in a cage for twenty years. And even then, I never blamed them. When I got out, all I wanted was to live a quiet life with them. They never wanted me to live at all. “Detective,” I said softly, my eyes starting to burn. “Today is my birthday.” I hung up and looked at the fruit stand owner. “Sir, I’d like a bowl of noodles.” He shot to his feet, ready to run out and buy them, but then he sat back down. He pulled out his phone, ordered something, and handed it to me. “Here. You pick what you want. It’s on me. I hope, from now on, you don’t face any more obstacles you can’t overcome.” Last life, I was so busy I didn’t even remember my birthday until the next day. Five days later, I was arrested. The hospital room was dim, but for the first time, it felt like a light had been switched on in my life. As I ate, the owner watched me, his eyes glistening. “My daughter,” he said quietly. “She just started college this year. She’s delivering food to save me some money.” My blood ran cold. The girl who died… she was delivering food to earn extra money too. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “She’s stronger than me,” I said, the only comfort I could offer. “She’s a brave, good kid.” Around midnight, my IV was finished, and I went home. The owner had rushed off after a phone call, but not before I managed to stuff all the cash I had into his pocket. I opened the door. The apartment was clean and tidy, just like last time. Chloe was in bed, murmuring sleepily. “What took you so long? You must be exhausted.” She wrapped her arms around me. My body went rigid. I didn’t dare close my eyes. It was her video that had sent me away for twenty years. I kissed her forehead, just like I always did, and went to wash up. What now? Her familiar, steady breathing filled the room. I took her phone, slipped out into the night, and raced to my best friend Flynn’s house. The moment he opened the door, I shoved the phone at him. “Back up everything on this to my cloud drive. And install a tracker on it.” Flynn yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Jules, man, what’s the rush? Did Chloe cheat on you or something?” “Fifty grand,” I said flatly. “You in or should I find someone else?” “I’m in, I’m in!” He got to work while I crashed on his couch. At five in the morning, I took the phone back, stopping to buy Chloe breakfast on the way home. Flynn’s words echoed in my head. “Bro, I checked everything. There’s nothing on there. You’re being paranoid.” The days passed in a haze of anxiety. I wrote a will and had it notarized. “Upon my death, all my assets are to be donated to charity.” On the fifth day, I was at work when Detective Miles walked up to my desk, his expression grim. “Julian Shaw, you’re a suspect in a rape and murder investigation. You need to come with us.”

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My brother, sick of watching me suffer through a ten-year crush, drugged his best friend and delivered him to my bed. I was forced to be the antidote. When we woke up, Jeff Stone coldly agreed to marry me. But soon after the wedding, he left the country. Our daughter and I waited for three years, and when he finally came back, I took her to the airport to meet him. The moment our daughter called out “Daddy,” the woman on his arm, Claire Lowe, couldn’t handle the betrayal. She ran off, right into the path of a drunk driver, and was killed instantly. After that, Jeff never smiled again. He stayed, watching over me and our daughter day and night. I thought my suffering was finally over. But on our daughter’s third birthday, our house caught fire. My first instinct was to save them both, but as I ran to their room, Jeff calmly locked the door, his eyes filled with a chilling, bottomless hatred. “If it weren’t for you two, Claire would never have died,” he whispered through the door. “Every day since she’s been gone has been a living hell. I’ve wanted to drag you both down to join her for a long time.” As the flames consumed us, I finally understood the depths of his hatred. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back on that fateful night, the night Jeff was drugged. As he stumbled towards me, his face flushed and his eyes hazed with desire, I shoved him away with all my might and grabbed my phone to call his one true love… 1 A ragged gasp tore through the air, sending a shiver down my spine. My eyes snapped to the source. Jeff was on the bed, his face flushed with a feverish heat. The top buttons of his black shirt were undone, and it was clear he was losing control. “Nina, come here…” he rasped, his eyes dazed as they found me. In my past life, I would have rushed to his side, my heart aching for him. But now, I scrambled back in terror. It was this night, this one night, that sealed our fate. We were both drugged, and we fell into bed together. Afterwards, he had coldly agreed to marry me, only to spend years abroad, completely indifferent to whether our daughter and I lived or died. I only learned the truth later. He went abroad to be with his true love, Claire. He only came back that day to finally end things with me. But when our daughter called him “Daddy,” the shock sent Claire running to her death, and Jeff’s grief turned into a murderous hatred for us. But that mistake hadn’t been made yet. If I wasn’t the one to be his antidote tonight, then my daughter and I could escape that horrific fate. Without a second’s hesitation, I dialed Claire’s number. “Is this Claire? You need to get to the Grand Althea Hotel, Room 32. Now.” I braced myself against the door, keeping Jeff’s burning-hot body on the other side. At the same time, a familiar heat began to spread through my own veins. I remembered what my brother had said in my past life as he’d pushed me into the room, his heart aching for my unrequited love. “Nina, you and Jeff have been dancing around each other for years. It’s driving me crazy. I’m just giving you two a little push. It’s time he became my brother-in-law!” “Leo, are you trying to kill me?” I had begged. “Let me out!” He’d just chuckled, shoving me into Jeff’s arms. “I put something in your drink, too. Just enjoy it. You’ll thank me in the morning.” A bitter smile touched my lips. Oh, Leo. Jeff doesn’t love me. He never has. Fifteen minutes later, a frantic, pale-faced Claire arrived. She eyed me suspiciously. “Nina, everyone in our circle knows you’re obsessed with Jeff. Why would you be so… helpful? Wasn’t he having dinner with your brother tonight? How did he get drugged? Is this some kind of trick?” She was wary, but when she peeked inside and saw that it was indeed Jeff, her expression shifted. I pushed her towards the room. “There’s no time to explain. Miss Lowe, I know you and Jeff have feelings for each other. You don’t want some other woman to have him tonight, do you? He needs you. He’s about to lose it.” I had no idea where my brother had gotten that drug, but it was brutally effective. In my past life, while Jeff still had a shred of control, he had bitten through his own tongue and snapped the bones in his fingers trying to resist. In the end, it wasn’t enough. But now, with Claire here, he wouldn’t have to fight it anymore. A low groan came from inside the room. The veins on Jeff’s forehead and neck bulged. Claire stared, her cheeks flushing. She straightened her dress, tossing me a smug look. “Well, at least you know your place. You didn’t try to take advantage of him. Now that I’m here, you can give up… wait, why is your face so red?” I just shook my head, urging her to go inside. The moment Jeff’s hands tore at the strap of Claire’s dress, I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the door closed. The sounds that followed were muffled but unmistakable. Every moan, every gasp, was a knife twisting in my heart. I couldn’t bear it. I turned and fled the hotel. The drug was starting to kick in. In my past life, half the reason I couldn’t push Jeff away was because the drug had shattered my own willpower. While I still had my wits about me, I stumbled to a stop in front of an exclusive-looking private club and staggered inside. A young host smiled at me. “Good evening, miss. How may I help you?” I clutched my head, trying to clear the fog. “I need to hire an escort.” He blinked, then professionally guided me to a private suite. I don’t know how long I waited, but eventually the door opened and a man walked in. He was tall and impeccably dressed in a tailored suit. His gaze fell on my disheveled clothes, and he froze. Before he could speak, I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my lips to his. “I’ve been drugged,” I whispered. “Please… help me.” The man stiffened. I felt him frown, his hands coming up to push me away. “Is it money?” I gasped, fumbling in my pocket. “I’ll pay you anything! Anything you want!” I shoved my credit card into his hand and reached for his belt. 2 Through the haze, I thought I heard the man say my name. “Nina, don’t do this…” So noisy. I shut him up with another kiss. It worked. No wonder this club was so popular. The escorts weren’t just handsome; they knew how to play hard to get. Finally, I heard a sigh from above me. “You started this. Don’t you dare regret it.” Then he flipped me onto my back, his mouth crashing down on mine in a storm of raw, pent-up passion. After a night of tangled limbs and fevered whispers, I woke with a jolt before dawn. It took me a moment to remember where I was and what I’d done. I’d slept with a stranger. An escort from a club. He was still asleep. I quietly dressed and slipped out. As I passed the large plate-glass window of a department store, I saw my reflection. My clothes were torn, and my neck was a canvas of angry red marks. I hurried home, hoping to sneak in before my brother woke up. I slipped through the door and was about to tiptoe up the stairs when a cold voice stopped me. “Where were you last night?” Jeff was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed. I froze. Wasn’t he supposed to be with Claire? I could see the faint marks of her kisses on his neck. His eyes were lazy, but sharp. I looked down, my heart sinking. I had thought that after last night, Jeff and I would be finished. I could finally start seeing him as just my brother’s friend. “I… just went for a walk,” I mumbled. “Why are you back so soon?” Jeff’s new villa was being renovated, so he’d been staying with us for a few months. I glanced around. “Where’s Claire? Didn’t she come back with you?” In an instant, his expression darkened. “Nina, where were you? And who did this to you?” I realized he was talking about the marks on my neck. I instinctively pulled my collar up. “It’s nothing. Mosquito bites.” A cold, humorless laugh escaped him. “Don’t play dumb. I know your brother drugged your drink, too.” “What, did your little plan backfire? Couldn’t sleep with me, so you ran out and found some other man?” he sneered. “Nina, did you really think calling Claire over and then disappearing for a night would make me worry about you? That’s a pathetic way to play hard to get.” I was stunned. Why was he so angry? I had given him exactly what he wanted. A bitter taste filled my mouth. He thought my sacrifice was just some childish game. His voice was like ice. “As you can see, Claire and I were together last night. I’m going to marry her. So whatever little games you’re playing, I suggest you stop.” I looked down, a small, sad smile on my lips. “Fine.” “I’m sorry about what my brother did, but…” I looked up, meeting his gaze. “I’m really not in love with you anymore.” He stared at me, his brow furrowed in disbelief. Everyone in our circle knew I was in love with him. I’d refused countless dates and set-ups, all for him. But now I knew better. I wouldn’t bring a daughter into this world just to watch her die in despair. Jeff opened his mouth to say something, but my brother’s terrified shriek cut him off. “A GHOST! There’s a ghost in the house!” Leo came sprinting down the stairs, pointing a trembling finger back towards a guest room. “Claire! When did she get here?” Jeff calmly closed the bedroom door. “I brought her back last night. She was exhausted and doesn’t like hotels.” “What?!” My brother shot a complicated look from Jeff to me. “So… you two didn’t… last night?” His eyes darted between the marks on my neck and the ones on Jeff’s. “Leo, I’m going back to bed,” I said, making a quick escape. From my room, I could faintly hear them arguing, my brother demanding to know what had happened. At lunchtime, Leo knocked on my door. I didn’t get up. “I’m not hungry, Leo. You guys go ahead.” A moment later, I heard Claire’s light, tinkling laugh. “Let me try. After all, it’s thanks to Nina that Jeff and I are finally together.” 3 The knock came again, softer this time. “Nina, it’s Claire. Please, for my sake, come out and have some lunch with us.” My parents had always taught me to be polite to guests. I sighed and opened the door. At the table, Jeff was silent, but he was piling food onto Claire’s plate. Soon, it was a small mountain. “Jeff, darling, Nina is right here,” Claire cooed. “She’s already upset about last night. You’re going to make her even more jealous.” Jeff shot me a cold look. “What’s there to be jealous about? You’re the one I’m going to marry. I see her as a sister, just like Leo does.” I said nothing, forcing down mouthfuls of rice that tasted like ash. My brother opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, sighing. A bit of food was left on the corner of Claire’s lips. Jeff reached over to wipe it away, but she stopped him with a playful smile. “No, silly. I want you to kiss it off.” She leaned in, offering her lips. Jeff hesitated for a second, then smiled and leaned in to kiss her. Claire turned to me, her eyes glinting with triumph. “Don’t mind us, Nina. Jeff’s had a taste of it now, you know. You’re still single, but you’ll understand when you get a boyfriend.” The meal was torture. I put down my chopsticks. “I’m full. You two enjoy.” After lunch, my brother finally exploded. “You idiot! You had the perfect opportunity last night! Why did you just hand him over to that two-faced witch?” “Jeff might be blind to her games, but I’m not! That whole display at the table was just to spite you! I told you two had feelings for each other…” “Leo, stop,” I interrupted. “Don’t say things like that anymore.” He stared at me, bewildered. I smiled. “I don’t love Jeff anymore. Leo, can you set me up on a date?” My brother was, first and foremost, my protector. After making sure I wasn’t joking, he let out a long sigh of relief. “Finally, little sis! You finally see the light! I told you not to waste your life on one guy. Jeff’s a great catch, but there are plenty of other fish in the sea.” “I’ll call Marcus Thorne right away. You know, the one you turned down last year? His family’s company is way bigger than the Stones’, he’s handsome, and just like you, he’s never been in a serious relationship. Just meet him. You might actually like him.” I dutifully added him as a contact. I had thought letting go of Jeff would be agony, but now that I had, it was just… quiet. This time, I could change everything. “Jeff, darling, can you help me take my suitcase up to your room?” Claire’s voice chirped from the hallway. She turned to me. “Nina, Jeff’s villa isn’t ready yet, and he wants me around all the time, so I’ll be staying here for a few days. You don’t mind, do you?” “Of course not,” I said, shaking my head. I watched Jeff haul her luggage, a bitter smile on my face. In my past life, after our one-night stand, Jeff had sent Claire abroad under the guise of “furthering her studies” to keep her from being hurt. After our rushed wedding, he had joined her, leaving me to give birth to our daughter, Anya, alone. I had waited and waited, only for him to return holding Claire’s hand. His eyes, when they looked at me then, were always cold. Not like now, when they looked at Claire with such warmth. I turned to leave and bumped into something hard. Claire, who had been carrying a basin of water, let out a startled cry as it splashed all over her. “Claire!” Jeff’s head snapped up. He rushed over, pulling her into his arms and glaring at me. Claire sobbed against his chest. “Nina, if you didn’t want me to stay, you could have just said so. This dress was a gift from Jeff. It was very expensive, and I cherished it. Why did you have to ruin it on purpose?” “I didn’t! It was an accident…” I stammered. “Enough!” Jeff’s voice was sharp. “Nina, I told you to stop with these games. If you don’t want Claire here, we’ll move out the day after tomorrow.” He didn’t give me a chance to explain, just swept Claire up in his arms to go change. As he carried her away, she hooked her arm around his neck and shot me a victorious smirk. 4 When Claire came back downstairs wearing the dress I treasured most, my blood ran cold. “You’ve never worn it since I gave it to you,” Jeff said, as if that explained everything. “Claire can wear it for now.” I gave a weak, bitter smile. I hadn’t worn it because it was too precious. It was the only birthday gift Jeff had ever given me. After he found out about my crush, the gifts stopped. That dress was my secret treasure. But now, I just nodded numbly. “Fine. It doesn’t fit me anymore. I was going to get rid of it anyway.” For the next few days, Claire was constantly draped over Jeff, their public displays of affection clearly meant for me. The day he officially proposed to her, I was so distracted that I got into a minor car accident. I was fine, but a passerby insisted on taking me to the hospital. They came to visit me as a group. Claire’s face immediately crumpled. “Jeff, do you think… do you think Nina did this on purpose? Because we got engaged?” “It’s all my fault,” she whimpered. “If I hadn’t pushed you to propose, this never would have happened…” “It has nothing to do with you,” Jeff soothed her. “Hush. I ordered you that milkshake you like. It should be here. Why don’t you go get it?” The moment Claire was gone, Jeff’s face hardened. “Nina, did you really have to pull a stunt like this on our engagement day? Are you that desperate to break us up? I told you to give it up! There will never be anything between us!” I just smiled faintly. “You’re mistaken, Jeff. I only see you as a brother. And my accident had nothing to do with you.” He didn’t believe me. “Claire and I are getting married soon,” he said, his voice softer but still firm. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll find a boyfriend and get over me.” “I already have one,” I said. “You don’t have to lie!” he snapped, an irrational anger flaring in his eyes. Just then, Claire returned with the milkshakes. She smiled as she handed one to me, deliberately flashing the diamond ring on her finger. “Nina, just give it up. The more you act out, the more Jeff will hate you. See this? I’m the only one he loves. He put this ring on my finger himself. It’s over.” As they were leaving, Jeff gave me one last, long look. “And even if you don’t have a boyfriend, it doesn’t matter. You’re Leo’s sister, which makes you my sister. As long as you drop these ridiculous fantasies, I can take care of you for the rest of your life.” At his words, Claire shot me a look of pure venom, though she quickly masked it. “That’s right. You can think of me as your big sister, too. Jeff and I will both look after you.” But I wasn’t lying. I really did have a boyfriend. My gaze softened as I looked at the gardenia on my bedside table. A gift from Marcus Thorne. At first, I had only agreed to the date to appease my brother. But when I got to the coffee shop, I realized Marcus was the man from the club. I blushed, mortified, but he just chuckled, backing me into a corner. “Shy now? You weren’t so shy the other night.” I was ready to die of embarrassment and never speak to him again, but a few days later, I was followed by a creep on my way home from work. Marcus appeared out of nowhere, landed a few solid punches, and drove me home. “I thought you were an escort,” I said in the car. He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. “Who told you that? You were the one who was so desperate you grabbed the first man you saw. You’re lucky I was there inspecting my club that night. Who knows what kind of creep you might have ended up with.” I punched his arm, and he caught my hand, pulling it into his lap. “Nina, I’ve liked you for a long time. Be my girlfriend.” Even the car accident had been because of him. He’d told me he was planning to propose, and I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t looked before crossing the street. Every time I thought of his face, a quiet joy bloomed in my chest. After I was discharged, I was out of the house from dawn till dusk. One night, I came home late to find Jeff waiting for me by the door. His expression was complicated. “Nina, have you been avoiding me?” I blinked, then laughed. “You’re overthinking things.” But he blocked my path, his hand shooting out to grip my wrist. “You’d better be. Claire and I are getting married soon. I’m warning you, don’t try anything.” I pulled my hand away. “I wish you a long and happy marriage,” I said sincerely. His expression finally softened, but then his eyes fell to my neck, and his face contorted. “Who did that? Don’t tell me it was a mosquito again.” It was a mark Marcus had insisted on leaving that afternoon, a way of “claiming his territory.” Before, I would have hidden it, but now, I had nothing to hide. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” His face grew even darker. I walked past him, not noticing Claire hiding in the shadows, her face pale with jealousy. The next day, I got a text from Marcus. “My treasure, I’m taking you somewhere special.” I was about to head out when I saw Claire in the backyard, playing on my old swing set. “Nina!” Jeff’s voice called out. I ignored it and left. But when I got home that night, he kicked my bedroom door open, his face a mask of fury. He slapped me, hard. “Nina, how could you be so vicious? Just because Claire used your swing set, you had to sabotage it to make her fall? She’s in the hospital now. Are you happy?”

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The Thorne family heir is a psycho. Anyone who crosses the person he protects is met with savage, absolute reprisal. Unfortunately, the person he protects is my stepsister, Chloe—the person I hate most in this world. The day after Chloe deliberately smashed my mother’s urn, and I broke her wrist in response, I was dragged into a dark warehouse by the Thorne heir’s men. They shattered my hands and feet and severed the tendons in my wrists. Using my last ounce of strength, I begged my most trusted bodyguard for help. The kidnappers just watched, then one of them spoke to him. “Mr. Thorne,” he said, “she’s broken.” In that moment, I knew. I gave up. And as I welcomed death, Julian Thorne finally broke. 1 I found Julian Thorne on the street. It was pouring rain, and a group of men had him cornered in an alley. I leaned against my car window, idly watching the man struggle to survive the storm. He was beautiful. The way he fought was an art form, his rain-soaked shirt clinging to the lean muscle of his back. Every punch, every kick, was mesmerizing. I could see the raindrops atomize on his skin. Even when they broke his nose, the blood only served to paint his beauty with a sharp, tragic edge. He was a perfect, violent masterpiece. But he was outnumbered. They finally beat him to the ground. After he’d taken a kick that I was sure broke his ribs, I finally pushed my door open and dialed 911. The thugs scattered. I walked over and held out my hand. “I save your life,” I said, “and you protect me for three years. Deal?” The rain hammered his face, carving lines through the blood. He looked up, his dark eyes as deep and cold as a quarry, and said nothing. I took his silence as a yes. I’m not a good person. It was a whim, a moment of aesthetic appreciation. No one in this world loved me; I just wanted to choose a single person for my “family.” He was beautiful, he was broken, and he was alone. A perfect stray. I chased him for three years. For three years, he remained just as cold. He was a feral cat that refused to be tamed, treating every attempt at affection with aloof disinterest. It was, honestly, compelling. He didn’t love me. But when I was in danger, he was always the first one there. That was enough. Until the gala. Until he saw my stepsister, Chloe. Until he fell in love with her at first sight. And until my life ended. The day after Chloe “tripped” during an argument with me, I was pushed down a flight of stairs, ending up with a severe concussion. The day after my best friend, fed up with Chloe’s venomous, two-faced act, “accidentally” spilled a drink on her, I was held down and had three bottles of vodka poured down my throat, perforating my stomach. In just a few months, I was a wreck, the target of a relentless, invisible campaign of terror. The perpetrator was the psycho heir to the Thorne fortune. No one knew how Chloe had met him, but all of New York knew he worshipped her. Touch a hair on her head, and you’d lose a limb. Slowly, my friends vanished. My best friend stopped calling, her last words a warning: “Stop fighting Chloe, Elara. That psycho Thorne will literally kill you.” So what? When Chloe “accidentally” knocked my mother’s urn off the mantle, watching it shatter, I didn’t hesitate. I beat her, right there in the living room, until I heard the snap of her wrist. The next day, I was abducted. Warehouse. Tendons severed. Hands and feet shattered. “Mr. Thorne, it’s done, just as you ordered.” The kidnapper’s phone was on speaker. I heard the voice. “Warn her. Next time she dares to touch Chloe, I’ll kill her.” Cold. Detached. The same ruthless cruelty I’d always found so compelling. I couldn’t believe it. How could it be him? How could it be him? The kidnapper repeated the warning, then threw a phone onto the floor beside me. “You can call your savior now,” he sneered. “Remember the lesson.” To make the act more degrading, they had smeared the phone’s screen with a viscous, milky fluid. The stench was vile. I didn’t move. I just lay on the concrete, staring at their triumphant faces. After ten minutes, they got bored and left. As the heavy door slid shut, I heard one last snippet of their call. “Mr. Thorne, the phone is with her. She trusts you more than anyone. I’m sure she’ll call you first… just like always…” The last spark of hope in me died. Julian Thorne. My bodyguard. He really was the psycho heir. 2 I stared at the phone. I remembered when Chloe got “stuck” in our home elevator. She’d called me for help. I ignored her and went for a walk. That night, men grabbed me. I was locked in a dark room. Three days. No food, no water. The hunger, the cold, the suffocating blackness. Julian had a tracker on my phone. He was the only one who could find me. I called him, sobbing, begging for help. His voice was flat. “Just apologize to Chloe, Elara, and I’ll come get you.” I refused. I called the police. But somehow—somehow—they couldn’t find me. When the cops showed up at my father’s house, my father, my brother, and Julian all told them the same story: I was unstable, prone to drama. It was a false alarm. I was blacklisted for filing a false report. That time, I lasted three days. I broke. I cried. I apologized to Chloe. It was the first time I had ever bent to her or her mother. She’d smiled, standing over me. “I’m so glad you finally see the error of your ways, sister.” My father and brother were “relieved.” I was “finally behaving,” “learning my place.” When I got out, I was diagnosed with severe claustrophobia. I’m terrified of the dark. I’m terrified of small spaces. But lying here, in this dark, silent warehouse, I felt nothing. You can only feel fear when you still have the will to live. I didn’t touch the phone. I lay there for three days. I thought about my mom. I thought about how, when she was sick and dying from chemo, my dad stopped coming home. I thought about the photos that woman—Chloe’s mother—sent to my mom’s hospital bed. Photos of her and my father, in our home. I thought about how she and Chloe came to our house for my mother’s “last birthday.” My mother, weak from treatment, had a heart attack. She never recovered. My brother, Marcus, held me as I cried. He promised me. “It’s okay, Elara. I’m here. I’ll never let those monsters hurt you.” Mom was gone for less than a month before Dad moved them in. At first, Marcus was my ally. When did he change? Was it when Chloe offered him her only piece of candy, her hand trembling? Was it when she’d get “bullied” at school, only to cry in the hallway where she knew he’d find her? Like her mother, she was an expert at playing the victim. And I… I was always the villain. The day he first defended her against me, I demanded to know how he could forget what they did to our mother. He snapped. “Mom had cancer, Elara. She was going to die anyway.” The same words my father had used a hundred times. In that moment, I had no family left. And now, the person I had chosen as family, the one I’d rescued… was using that same blade to kill me, all for the same two women. I looked at my broken hands. I looked at the filthy phone. I laughed. This life… it was nothing but betrayal. It was pointless. I didn’t touch the phone. I just lay there. And I waited. 3 I thought I would die. But on the third day, the warehouse door was kicked open. “Why? Why didn’t you call me? ” Julian stumbled in, a man possessed. In the dim light, he saw me. The blood-caked mat, the mangled wrists, the leg bent at an unnatural angle. All sound died. “Elara. Don’t you die. I forbid you to die! ” His hands were shaking as he lifted me. He was acting like he actually cared. I smiled, my lips cracking. “Elara! Elara, please, stay with me!” Something wet hit my face. Are those… crocodile tears? Pathetic. I was rushed to the hospital. I survived. When I opened my eyes, he was there, red-rimmed and hollowed out from lack of sleep. “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you ask me for help? Why?” He stared at me, desperate for an answer he couldn’t comprehend. He didn’t understand why the person who had once trusted him implicitly would rather die than dial his number. “Why didn’t you call me?!” He was unraveling, his voice a raw, broken whisper. I found it hilarious. You wanted me dead. Who is this performance for? I glanced at the phone he was clutching. He immediately held it out to me. And as the phone, still crusted with filth, touched his own skin, he finally realized. The dry, foul-smelling stain melted against the sweat of his palm. As a man, he knew exactly what it was. He froze, his entire body going rigid. “They broke… my hands,” I whispered, my throat like sandpaper. “They wanted me… to use… my tongue.” Julian staggered back, as if I’d hit him. He was shaking his head, his face a mask of disbelief and pure, animal horror. I smiled. Julian Thorne. You’re the one who ordered it. How long are you going to keep up the act? I closed my eyes. 4 The doctor came in. “The bones will heal. The tendons… that’s the real problem. The damage is severe. If she’d been brought in immediately, we could have guaranteed eighty percent recovery. But now…” He shook his head. The attending physician, a woman, looked at me with pity. “The VIP patient on the floor above… Ms. Chloe… she’s here for a minor wrist fracture. The Thorne family flew in a specialist team from Johns Hopkins. Our chief of surgery went to ask them… but they said… they said they would only operate if you knelt at Ms. Chloe’s bedside and begged.” She looked down, ashamed. “I was told to relay that message. It came from her brother.” My brother. I smiled. “It’s fine. I can just die.” The doctor blanched. She knew. When a patient says that calmly, they mean it. Julian exploded. “Elara, stop being so dramatic! You hurt her first! It’s just an apology! Is your stubborn pride worth more than your life?” I turned my head and stared at him. “Apologize… to the woman who helped kill my mother? “I’d. Rather. Die.” The veins in Julian’s neck bulged. I’d never seen him this out of control. He wanted me to kneel to Chloe that badly? I would never give them the satisfaction.

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The day Victoria brought her new secretary into the passenger seat of her car, a stream of comments materialized before my eyes: 「The ML is finally here! When is the toxic side-character husband gonna get lost? He’s so annoying!」 「I just want to see the sweet romance between the stoic FL and the sunshine ML. Get lost, old man.」 I pretended not to see them. Instead, I played the part of the magnanimous husband, allowing Victoria to set the young man up in one of our villas, arrange for his grandfather’s medical care, and smooth over all his problems. No one knew that Victoria was pregnant. A woman wasn’t a necessity. Compared to the fate of losing my mind, making trouble for the male lead, and being burned alive, the alternative seemed far more appealing: secure an heir who carries my name, while discarding the mother. Wasn’t that a much sweeter deal? 1 Victoria never mentioned she’d replaced her executive secretary. She pulled up to collect me as usual. The passenger-side window slid down. “Mr. Stack, I’m Ms. Vance’s new secretary!” The boy’s thin, rosy lips curved into a sweet, effortless smile. He showed none of the deference or timidity one would expect when addressing a superior. He made no move to get out. Victoria spoke up. “Adrian, Leo gets a bit carsick. You take the back.” This was unprecedented. Victoria was a woman who lived by boundaries. We’d been married for three years. It was an arranged union, yes, forged to serve the greater interests of our families, but we were hardly a couple in name only. Every night, Victoria would hold me as she fell asleep, whispering about how much she’d added to my personal investment fund. She had once thumped her chest and promised she would never, ever put me in an awkward position. For Leo, she broke that promise for the first time. 2 I am not some mild-mannered, spoiled rich kid. The rules should have been established at the first sign of disrespect. But before I could let my expression harden, the comments flared to life again: 「Here comes the drama! The toxic husband is about to tear into the ML, and the poor boy will have to scurry into the back seat.」 「It’s just a passenger seat! Can’t he let the guy who gets carsick have it?」 They chattered on, dissecting the plot. It turned out I was living in a CEO romance novel. The female lead, Victoria, was cold and untouchable. The male lead was Leo. He’d grown up in a remote mountain village and had been a recipient of Victoria’s charity. He’d endured countless hardships just to get close to her. He was resilient, optimistic, and had earned her special attention and support in his career. Bound by the fact that she was married, he could only bury his years of secret admiration deep in his heart. To the outside world, our high-society marriage was a merger of assets, devoid of true love. I was merely the husband in name. In the original story, I would have tormented Leo from our very first meeting, kicking him when he was down and pushing him to the brink. But my cruelty, instead of breaking him, would only strengthen the bond between him and Victoria. I would continue down my path of self-destruction until Victoria, disgusted, would demand a divorce. I’d blame Leo, arranging for thugs to corner him in a warehouse. But a fire would break out. Victoria would rescue him, leaving me to be burned alive. With the “toxic husband” out of the way, the male and female leads would begin their passionate office romance, leaving a trail of love in their wake, much to the delight of the readers. To avenge Leo, Victoria would then plunder my family’s resources, securing an empire for their three future sons. My poor parents, in their old age, would be reduced to selling hot dogs from a cart. How infuriating. This was not my style. A woman, more important than my family’s legacy? Impossible. Utterly impossible. 3 I opened the rear door and slid inside. Leo sat beside Victoria, his voice low and intimate. “Ms. Vance, you like that special porridge I make, right? I’ll bring some for you tomorrow.” The words were laced with provocation. Victoria, oblivious, answered instinctively. “Okay.” A cold snort escaped my lips. No wonder she’d told the housekeeper to stop making breakfast a week ago. I was a night owl. Victoria, convinced it was unhealthy, used to drag me to bed with her, force me on morning runs, and watch me eat breakfast. At first, I found her nagging annoying. But she would wrap her arms around me, fiercely declaring that we were going to be husband and wife for life, and she wouldn’t allow me to be unhealthy or fall behind. If I did, she’d carry me to the finish line herself. Habit is a poison. And dependency, its venom. Once you’re infected, it’s damn hard to quit. 4 Victoria was perceptive. She caught my dark expression in the rearview mirror and offered an explanation. “Work has been hectic lately. I didn’t want to wake you, so I left early.” Leo chimed in, “Ms. Vance comes in at the crack of dawn just to personally train me. But I’m so slow… she has to explain things over and over again.” She glanced at him, a warmth in her eyes she didn’t even seem to notice herself. But I remembered Victoria’s former secretary—an Ivy League graduate, fluent in four languages, a brilliant and resourceful professional. The slightest mistake from him would earn a merciless scolding. The comparison was stark. Perhaps my silence was too cold. Victoria realized I was truly angry. She pulled the car over and turned to Leo. “Get out and take a taxi.” Then, ignoring my protests, she pulled me into the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt for me. Leo stood on the rain-slicked curb, looking utterly dejected. A lost puppy abandoned in the storm. The comments exploded. 「No, FL! Don’t do it! What if something happens to the ML taking a taxi by himself?」 「This is all the toxic husband’s fault with his constant glaring! He’s ruining the romantic tension!」 But there were dissenting voices. 「I don’t get it. They’re still married! Are you guys all on Team Home-wrecker, trying to force out the original wife… I mean, husband?」 「What do you know? There’s no real love in these arranged marriages. The one who isn’t loved is the real third wheel.」 5 I was starting to understand. The commenters were split into two camps. One side was all about the plot, desperate for the lead couple’s sweet interactions. The other side stood on moral ground, but still hoped I would act rationally and not create a mess that couldn’t be cleaned up. In the kitchen, Victoria was personally making me chicken soup. My feelings were complicated. To be fair, before Leo’s arrival, she had been a perfect wife. Beautiful, smart, capable. She would voluntarily give my family’s company preferential treatment on projects, we discussed everything, and we were perfectly compatible in bed. We were leagues better than the other society couples who lived separate lives. My mother always said I’d hit the jackpot with a wife who knew how to care for a man. A spoonful of fragrant soup was held to my lips. “Darling, you were jealous today. It made me a little happy.” She sat beside me, leaning into my arms as she always did. I shifted away, avoiding her intimate touch. Victoria froze. “Adrian? What’s wrong?” It was the first time I had ever refused her touch. “Nothing. I’m just tired.” “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I forgot for a moment how much you hate anyone else sitting in my passenger seat. It won’t happen again.” Victoria had always been scrupulous, brushing off any man who tried to get close. She used to complain that I was too trusting, even offering me her phone to check. Now, her explanation felt like a cover-up. “He and I are just colleagues. Nothing more.” “Mm,” I grunted. A sharp pang hit my chest. As much as I hated to admit it, I had fallen in love with Victoria. But the comments said her true love wasn’t me. They were all just waiting for me to lose control. Why should I give them the satisfaction? 6 Late that night, I feigned sleep. I heard Victoria answer a call, her voice hushed. Leo’s tearful voice drifted from the phone. “Ms. Vance… I’m still walking home… some bad men are following me.” Pathetic. His apartment was in Northwood, a twelve-mile walk. I don’t know what he said next, but Victoria’s voice grew tense. “Don’t be afraid. I’m coming to get you right now.” She grabbed her coat and rushed to the garage. I didn’t move. According to the comments, in the original plot, I would have woken up, furious at being disturbed, and tried to stop her from leaving. Leo would have been mugged by a group of drunkards, and nearly seriously hurt. Victoria, consumed by guilt, would have blamed me. As compensation, she would have bought a sapphire brooch I wanted and given it to Leo. In a fit of rage, I would have shoved her, causing her to miscarry the child she didn’t even know she was carrying. 7 After a full night’s sleep, I decided to pick up my test results from last week. At the hospital, Dr. Evans smiled. “Congratulations, Mr. Stack. Your wife is pregnant. Shall I notify Ms. Vance?” I had forgotten. I was so used to coming to the hospital owned by Victoria’s family. “No, please. Keep this strictly confidential.” Dr. Evans, assuming I was planning a surprise, readily agreed. I felt a little lost. Victoria had wanted a child for so long. But my unhealthy lifestyle had left me with some minor health issues. She had personally supervised my diet and exercise for over two years before we stopped using protection. As I wandered in a daze, I saw them. Victoria and Leo. They were in a hospital room, standing beside a bed where Leo’s grandfather lay. The comments were back. 「Grandpa was so good to the ML. FL, you have to pay the medical bills and get the best international specialist for him!」 「Don’t worry, the FL was raised by her own grandpa. She’ll definitely have a soft spot for him.」 8 The old man, Mr. Henderson, opened his eyes. He took his grandson’s hand and placed it in Victoria’s. “You must be Leo’s girlfriend, right? My grandson likes you so much. He has your picture by his bed.” “Grandpa!” Leo flushed, embarrassed. Victoria started to explain, but when she saw his pleading eyes, her lips tightened, and she said nothing. The comments cheered as if it were New Year’s Eve. 「So sweet! The FL sees how much the ML cares for her!」 「Look at them avoiding each other’s eyes! Even Grandpa with his bad eyesight can see the sparks!」 「Are you guys crazy? She’s a married woman!」 「If you don’t like it, get lost. We’re here for the ship.」 Strangely, as long as I wasn’t in the same frame as the main characters, the comments seemed unaware of my existence. When Victoria left the room, I stepped back around a corner. Leo tugged at the sleeve of her designer blazer, his eyes welling with tears. “Ms. Vance, thank you for saving me last night. And for bringing my grandpa to the hospital.” “Stop crying,” she said softly. “I’ll buy you a car, then you won’t have to worry about taxi fares.” Overcome with emotion, he pulled her into a hug. She held him, murmuring comforting words. If I wasn’t the man being cheated on, I might have found it touching. I took a deep breath. I walked a short distance away and dialed her number. She whispered something to Leo before answering. “Darling, I had to go back to the office for an emergency last night. Are you up? I’ll have the housekeeper make you breakfast.” “Victoria,” I said quietly, “turn around. I’m right behind you.” 9 Victoria’s tall, composed figure seemed to turn to ice. I could feel her stiffness even from a distance. The comments, hearing my voice, erupted. 「Crap, how did the toxic husband get here? Don’t let him show his face in front of Grandpa! He’ll give the old man a heart attack!」 「Quick, camera on the toxic husband! I want to see his rage-face and how the FL is going to protect her man!」 They kept calling me the “toxic husband,” as if I’d committed some heinous crime. Victoria turned around slowly, her voice trembling, terrified I had overheard her tacitly accepting the role of Leo’s girlfriend. “Adrian, I…” But she didn’t see me. The comments breathed a collective sigh of relief. 「See? No way the toxic husband would be here. This is a crucial scene where the future granddaughter-in-law makes a good impression. Thanks to Grandpa, we get all the sweet plot points later.」 「That husband is a liar! He tricked the FL and almost tricked us!」 A few disagreed. 「Why are you guys as disgusting as the main characters? The FL has a husband! Why didn’t she clarify? Emotional cheating is still cheating.」 「Brainless plot-bunnies. You attack the husband just so you can ship your CP. So far, I haven’t seen the ‘original spouse’ do anything to hurt the ML. But the ML is being manipulative and shady. If you were the husband, could you tolerate this?」 I felt a small sense of vindication. Some viewers had clear eyes. Using the angle of the building to my advantage, I stayed hidden and watched her. “You sound guilty,” I said into the phone. “Been up to no good?” Her clenched fist relaxed slightly. “Of course not. I was just afraid you’d worry when you saw I wasn’t home.” I teased her deliberately. “Disappeared at the crack of dawn. Don’t tell me you rushed to the office to eat that porridge your male secretary makes.” “Adrian, don’t be silly. I’m out shopping with Cassy.” “Don’t lie to me. Or I’ll call Cassy to confirm.” “I’m not lying! Call her if you don’t believe me.” “Alright, alright. When have I ever doubted you? Get back to what you’re doing.” “Okay! Remember to eat breakfast. I’ll worry if you’re hungry.” A woman’s words can be pure deception. It had never been clearer. After hanging up, I saw her immediately dial another number. Cassy was her best friend; providing an alibi would be no problem. But once you tell the first lie, you have to keep telling more to cover it up.

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I was born deaf. It’s a silence so complete, it feels like time itself has stopped. My family thought I was just a quiet, well-behaved baby. It took them years to realize I wasn’t responding because I couldn’t hear. Everyone told my mother to give up. “Send her to a state home. It’ll be easier. You can have another.” My own father gave her an ultimatum: “It’s me or the ‘broken’ kid.” Mom didn’t even cry. She just packed our bags and we left. She worked two jobs, taking me with her, and spent her nights teaching herself sign language so she could teach me. I remember her, exhausted, her hand on my throat, mouthing words over and over, trying to teach me how to feel the shape of sound. When I was six, she had finally saved enough for my first hearing aids. That was the first time I heard the rain. It was also when I discovered my “gift.” When I wear my aids, I hear the world. When I take them out, the world goes silent… but I can hear thoughts. From that day on, I almost never took the aids out. Knowing what people really think—it’s not a gift. It’s a curse. 2 There were times, when she was so tired she could barely stand, that my mom thought about leaving. She thought about walking out the door and never coming back. I knew. I’d just tug on her shirt and sign, You won’t leave? She’d burst into tears and hug me, and I’d listen to her thoughts. I love you. I will never leave you. School was hard. Teachers were kind, but kids were cruel. “Deaf-mute.” “Freak.” I never, ever took my hearing aids out at school. I was terrified of what I’d hear. I hated the world’s noise, but I hated its silence even more. So I just… disappeared. I was the quiet girl in the back row. Excellent grades, zero friends. I got my mom’s looks. Not “bombshell,” but “pretty.” Boys would sometimes leave notes in my locker. When I’d politely decline, they’d get mean. “What, you think you’re too good for me? You’re a deafie. I was just being nice.” You learn to ignore it. Their words were never as ugly as their thoughts. Mom opened a small diner, The Dumpling Nook. I’d help out on weekends, clearing tables and running the register. Mom wanted me to stay home and study, but I wanted to help. One day, a group of kids from my class came in. Mom was so happy she comped their meal. The next day, the rumors started. How I was “trailer trash.” The jocks would “borrow” my homework. It always came back stained or torn. My teachers would ask if everything was okay. I’d just nod. I didn’t want to make things harder for my mom. It got worse. Then, I was “asked out” by Ethan Crowe. The school “god.” I was stunned. I had nothing he could possibly want. I said no. I expected him to be cruel. Instead, he just smiled, a flash of perfect white teeth, and ruffled my hair. “That’s okay, Ava. I’ll wait. You’ll come around.” He walked away, his white shirt bright in the sun. That image stuck with me. Of course, the entire school lost its mind. I got a new nickname: “The Girl Who Shot Down Ethan.” I started noticing him. He wasn’t just popular; he was brilliant. On the academic rankings, he was always right behind me. Number two. He was the debate team captain, the class president, the star quarterback. He was everything. Our school put up a “Wall of Scholars” for national competition winners. My photo went up for winning the National Essay Contest. Right next to it was a photo of Ethan, holding a debate trophy, his smile so bright it hurt. The next day, there was a letter in my locker. His name was on the envelope. I waited until I was home to read it. Ava, I read your essay. It was incredible. I feel like you’re the only other person here who’s actually thinking. My asking you out was… clumsy. I apologize. Can we just be friends? If yes, just leave this note in your desk. I’ll find it. —Ethan I shouldn’t have. I should have thrown it away. But… I was lonely. I wrote back: Friends. Let’s both ace the midterms. I tucked my reply into my copy of The Bell Jar and left it in my desk. The next morning, the book was gone. In its place was a tiny stuffed bear. Our “friendship” became a secret. We’d pass in the halls, and he’d give me a small, private smile. That was it. I was grateful. A month later, he texted. I’m drowning in calculus. Meet me at the library on Saturday? Please? It was off-campus. It felt… safe. I said yes. I was nervous. I spent an hour picking out an outfit. He was already there. He was so easy to talk to. I recommended a few prep books I was using. He bought them, and then he bought me a coffee, and we just… talked. Until the sun started to set. I got home that night, and my skin started to itch. By morning, I was covered in hives. I’m deathly allergic to mango. I retraced every step. The only thing I hadn’t prepared myself was the coffee… the one he’d bought me. I missed the state math competition. Ethan showed up at the hospital a few days later with flowers. “Ava! I heard you were sick! Are you okay?” His smile was so warm, so concerned. I pulled out my right hearing aid. The world went silent. 【God, this is boring. I wish she’d stay in here longer.】 I fumbled with the aid, pretending to adjust it. 【She had to have told me she was allergic to mango. I remember it. Thank God it worked.】 …It worked? 【She’s so annoying. This ‘little deaf girl’ act is so old. If she’d just fall for me, I wouldn’t have to pull this crap.】 I put the aid back in. My hands were shaking. “The doctor said…” His voice was smooth as silk. “I… I think I must have eaten something with mango in it. At the diner. I’m so stupid. I ruined everything. I’m so sorry I missed the competition.” He looked genuinely devastated. 【She’s buying it. Perfect. Now I just need to keep her out of the running for the AP Scholar prize.】 I handed him the bottle of water from my nightstand. I made sure he saw the red, swollen rash on my hand. He flinched, just for a second. “It’s okay,” I said, my voice soft. “It was an accident. I should have been more careful. I feel like I let you down. You were cheering for me.” He relaxed, taking the water. “Next time, Ava. We’ll be 1 and 2.” I smiled. Oh, Ethan. You’re not even in my league. “Actually,” I said, “I was organizing my study notes before… this. I can give you a copy when I get out. To thank you for the flowers.” His eyes lit up. 【Her notes? It’s over. I’ve won.】 When an enemy reveals his weakness, the game is yours to control. I gave him my notes. All of them. And they were all correct. It’s just… I gave him the long, convoluted, time-wasting formulas. The ones that take ten minutes when a simpler one takes two. The test is about speed, after all. I’m not a “good” girl. I’m a survivor. He touched my future. He was lucky I was only going for his GPA. Ethan, ecstatic, told me he’d placed second in the math competition. (A new kid, Liam, had taken first.) He was convinced my notes would help him “clinch the top spot” next time. I just smiled. “I know you can do it.” 3 Someone posted a photo of us at the library. The rumors went nuclear. My teachers pulled me aside. I promised them Ethan and I were “just study partners.” They let it go. My grades were my shield. But the whispers… I took out my aids for just a second. 【Look at her. Total user. Playing the deaf card to get the top jock to pity her.】 【I heard she’s faking the deaf thing. She’s just a manipulative bitch.】 I put the aid back in, my head pounding. That afternoon, I was cornered in the bathroom. It was Maya, the “queen bee” of the school. She took a long drag from her vape and blew the smoke in my face. I coughed, my eyes watering. “Heads up, scholarship,” she said, flicking an ash. “Ethan Crowe? He’s not ‘nice.’ He’s a snake. Don’t be an idiot.” She just… left. Ethan, meanwhile, doubled down. He started sitting with me at lunch. In front of everyone. “She’s such a slut. Leading him on.” “She’s probably just after his money.” I tried to ignore it, my hands shaking so hard I couldn’t hold my fork. I took a deep breath. I picked up my unopened orange juice and slid it across the table to him. “Ethan,” I said, loud enough for the tables nearby to hear, “I can’t get this open. Can you help me?” It was the first time I’d ever publicly acknowledged him. He was stunned. Then he smiled, popping the seal and handing it back. You’re the one who started this, I thought. Why should I be the only one to pay for it?

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