Category: English

I’ve got a crush on my best friend’s uncle. The word is he has shoulders for days and a waist you could span with two hands—a body built to drive a woman mad. The only catch? He’s a man of few words and even fewer desires, completely immune to the charms of the opposite sex. During my sophomore year break, I went to visit my best friend, Rosie, in her hometown. She begged her uncle to pick me up from the airport. Thinking he was collecting a child, the man had my name broadcast over the airport’s PA system. “Paging little Tia. Your uncle is waiting for you at the information desk. Please do not talk to strangers.” I sprinted toward the desk, my face burning. When he saw me, the man froze for a heartbeat, his demeanor instantly cool and distant. But later that night, he held me so tightly in his arms that the very concept of distance between us ceased to exist. 1 Rosie was at a family reunion and video-called me to complain. But I wasn’t listening. My eyes were glued to a man standing in the corner of the room. Broad shoulders, narrow waist. His dark suit jacket was casually draped over a nearby chair. He’d forgone a tie, and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms traced with the faint blue of his veins. He had an air of handsome indifference that was, somehow, devastatingly sexy. High-bridged nose, thin lips. The man was a masterpiece. My gaze drifted down… and down… until a sudden warmth flooded my nose. “Tia! Are you okay? You’re having a nosebleed!” Rosie’s shriek echoed from my phone. Her voice was so loud that it drew the attention of several people at the party. There I was, sitting in my bright yellow cartoon pajamas, my hair a mess in a haphazard bun, gnawing on a slice of watermelon. From the corner, it seemed the man’s gaze flickered toward the screen. Thank God I wasn’t there in person. They couldn’t see my current state of disaster, or I would have died of humiliation on the spot. Rosie was still fussing over me, but I just wiped the blood away with the back of my hand. “I’m fine,” I said with a goofy grin. “I think I’m in love.” 2 Rosie’s eyes went wide. “No way! You’re finally interested in someone? You’re dating? When did this happen? How did I not know!” I smirked, lowering my voice. “Not exactly, Rosie. I’m talking about the guy in the corner, just behind you.” I pointed gingerly at my screen. “The tallest, most handsome one.” She followed my finger, and her eyes widened even further. “My uncle? You’ve got a thing for my uncle?” “Your uncle?” Rosie nodded. “Yep, that’s him. I mean, he’s gorgeous, obviously, but Tia, if you’re thinking about trying to date him… you’re in for a world of hurt. It’s basically impossible.” Her words were a bucket of ice water. He was her uncle? I thought he was our age, a senior in college at most. The man had a face that completely defied his real age. “How much older is he than you?” I asked. “Six years.” My eyes lit up. Six years! That wasn’t so bad! Not an insurmountable gap at all. “Why is he so hard to get?” I pressed, my hope rekindled. Rosie started ticking points off on her fingers. “He’s famously aloof, a man of few words, and completely uninterested in romance. He’s ruthlessly self-disciplined, the kind of guy who stays perfectly rational no matter what. Even though he’s only a few years older than me, he’s the one person I’ve been terrified of my entire life.” “As far as I know,” she continued, “the concept of ‘dating’ doesn’t even exist in his world. He’s twenty-six and I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend. Not once. He spent all of college buried in a lab, and the second he graduated, he took over the family business. It’s only been a few years, and he’s already number one in the industry.” Rosie’s tone was cautionary. “Tia, my uncle is the ultimate catch. The number of women who have tried to pursue him over the years isn’t in the dozens, it’s in the hundreds. And every single one of them has crashed and burned. They couldn’t even get close enough to touch him.” She gave me a serious look. “Are you sure you want to do this?” 3 I hadn’t realized he was that accomplished. Hearing Rosie lay it all out, I felt the chasm between us yawn wide. The gap in our age and life experience felt like a canyon I could never hope to cross. Defeated, I decided to give up on the idea. But after that day, something strange happened. It was like I was bewitched. For a solid week, I had a series of… unspeakable dreams. And he was the star of every single one. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I was a complete novice in these matters. His face was seared into my brain, impossible to forget. In the middle of the night, I crept out of bed, flipped open my laptop, and searched for official information on him. John Chen. CEO of Chen Corp. 26 years old. Six-foot-one. Single. “John Chen.” I whispered his name, and it felt good on my tongue. It was a nice name. Staring at his formal, corporate headshot, I couldn’t resist. I opened my chat with Rosie. “Rosie! I can’t get your uncle’s stupidly handsome face out of my head! What do I do?!” I couldn’t help it. I was just a normal woman with a healthy appreciation for beauty. To my surprise, Rosie was awake and replied instantly. “What can you do? How about this: you come visit me, and I’ll get my uncle blackout drunk and deliver him to your bed?” Me: “Get him drunk?” Rosie: “Totally! He might look like he can hold his liquor, but he’s a total lightweight. One drink and he’s out cold!” I considered the plan. A trip to visit Rosie… I was on break anyway. It was perfect! I typed back furiously: “Okay, I’m coming to visit. But…” Rosie: “But what?” Me: “But I don’t want to just sleep with him. I want to win him over! Rosie, I’m going to pursue your uncle!” Rosie: “Holy crap. You’re serious?” “Yes!” She didn’t reply for a long time. When she finally did, it was with the gravity of someone making a momentous decision. Rosie: “Alright. That’s my girl. Go big or go home! I don’t care how impossible he is. I will use every trick in the book to make you two fall in love!” Me: Overwhelmed. Crying. Clinging to her leg… 4 After getting a full debrief from Rosie on John’s personality and preferences, I was finally on a plane to Crestview. At the exact same time, Rosie was on a plane heading out of town. Using her trip as an excuse, she had begged John to pick me up from the airport and look after me for a while. To build the suspense, she deliberately only told him my name, Tia. She emphasized that he needed to take very good care of me, that he had to take me everywhere he went, or I might get lost. Naturally, John assumed he was picking up a small child. After the plane landed, John couldn’t get through to my phone. A few minutes later, as I was wheeling my suitcase through the terminal, I heard my name over the PA system. “Paging little Tia. Your uncle is waiting for you at the information desk. Please do not talk to strangers.” And again. “Paging little Tia. Your uncle is waiting for you at the information desk. Please do not talk to strangers.” The social anxiety was real. Face flaming, I rushed toward the information desk with my luggage. As I got closer, I slowed my pace, catching my breath. My eyes landed on a powerful back. John was standing there, leaning casually against the counter, his fingers drumming a light, impatient rhythm on the surface. He projected an aura that was half relaxed, half intimidating. He wasn’t in a suit today, but a casual shirt and jeans. His perfect physique made him look good in anything. He was like a painting you couldn’t tear your eyes away from. Girls all around were sneaking glances at him, but no one dared approach, deterred by his formidable presence. We hadn’t been properly introduced yet, and I agonized over what to call him. Should I call him what Rosie does? After a moment of hesitation, I finally found my voice. “Uncle?” 5 John heard me and lowered his gaze. His eyes fell on me, and for a split second, he looked completely stunned. He straightened up, gesturing toward the still-broadcasting speaker. A deep, pleasant voice washed over me. “My apologies. I didn’t realize you weren’t a child.” My ears burned as I shook my head and mumbled that it was fine. He took my suitcase from me and extended a hand. “Hello, I’m John Chen.” I had whispered that name to myself countless times on the way here. My eyes were involuntarily drawn to his hand—it was all elegant knuckles and long, graceful fingers, with neatly trimmed nails. Hesitantly, I reached out. The moment our fingertips touched, I whispered, “I know.” Lifting my gaze to meet his, I managed a nervous greeting. “My name is Tia. It’s nice to meet you, Uncle John. Thank you for looking after me.” His eyes were dark pools of ink. Was it my imagination, or did they seem to dim for a fraction of a second after I spoke? It happened so fast, I couldn’t be sure. But his demeanor immediately grew more distant, his voice cooler. “It’s no trouble.” Still, the warmth from his palm sent a jolt through me. 6 John was a perfect gentleman. Once he took my luggage, I didn’t have to lift a finger. In the car, I sat obediently in the passenger seat, buzzing with the excitement of our first real meeting. He had the unmistakable air of a man in charge. His presence was so powerful that just speaking to him made my palms sweat. But the face from my dreams was right there, sitting next to me. I picked at my seatbelt, unable to stop myself from stealing glances at him. He kept one hand on the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the road ahead, seemingly oblivious to my little movements. As we drove past city landmarks, he would point them out, telling me their stories. History, when told in his voice, suddenly became fascinating. The more I listened, the more I was drawn to his quiet, mature charm. His voice was a clear, comforting baritone that made me want to relax. Gradually, my own inhibitions started to fade. I became more talkative, the initial awkwardness melting away. I even found myself poking his arm to get his attention. “Uncle, look! What’s that?” “Is that another famous Crestview building?” “It’s so pretty!” “And it’s right downtown, it looks like a fun area.” “Wow, look at that one, too!” When I got no reply, I turned. “Uncle, why aren’t you…” My voice trailed off. I found myself looking directly into John’s handsome eyes, which held the lingering traces of a smile he hadn’t quite managed to hide. My voice dropped to a whisper, my ears heating up. “Why didn’t you answer me?” John let out a soft chuckle. “So, Tia’s finally not nervous anymore, is she?” He had noticed my anxiety. And he had been subtly, wordlessly, helping me overcome it. My heart gave a violent lurch. Damn. Was this the power of a mature man? And he called me Tia! Realizing this, I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from turning up. The ripples in my heart were spreading. Maybe John Chen wasn’t so cold after all. 7 The car pulled into the driveway of a beautiful villa. John got my suitcase out of the trunk, and I followed him inside. He opened a closet and pulled out a pair of women’s slippers in a cheerful butter-yellow. My eyes lit up. It was my favorite color! He instinctively bent down as if to help me put them on. My face flushed. “Uncle, I can do it myself!” He’s being too kind! I screamed internally. Is this part of the service? I slipped them on. Damn. They were a perfect fit. My size, and my favorite color. Surely they weren’t bought specifically for me, were they? The thought had barely formed before I dismissed it. No way. If he knew anything about me, he wouldn’t have thought he was picking up a kid at the airport. Which meant… these slippers were for another woman. Rosie’s intel was wrong. Just like that, my giddy excitement deflated. My head drooped. I had a rival. And judging by this, she was someone important to John. He led me upstairs to a bedroom. When he opened the door, it was clear the room had been decorated for a girl. There was a new toothbrush, toothpaste, even a fluffy new towel that had already been washed. Every detail was thoughtful and welcoming. John leaned against the doorframe. “You can stay here for now. My room is to the left, and my office is on the right. If you need anything, even if I’m working, feel free to come find me.” He expected me to be pleased, but my head hung even lower than before. Who said John Chen was a stoic who was uninterested in women? This room, so perfectly prepared… it must have been for her, too. 8 John had noticed my mood shift earlier, but now he seemed baffled by my deepening gloom. He reached out and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well? Or was I driving too fast? Are you carsick?” “Maybe I’m just a little carsick,” I mumbled, taking a step back. His hand froze in mid-air before dropping to his side. The moment the words left my mouth, I was kicking myself. Tia, what are you doing? You can’t even control your emotions? How rude! You want to make a bad impression on your first day? I wanted to explain, but I didn’t know what to say. In a moment of panic, I blurted out, “Thank you so much for picking me up today! You’ve been a huge help!” I tried to force a winning smile, but it felt stiff and unnatural. “Really, thank you! Because of you, the four seasons are warm! Thank you, because of you…” My hands started moving on their own, performing some bizarre, grateful dance as John just stared at me, his expression unreadable. I snapped my mouth shut, mortified. I wanted to slap myself. What was I doing, trying to be funny? It just made things a hundred times more awkward. He must think I’m a total weirdo. My shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay, fine. I’m just carsick, Uncle. Don’t worry, it’ll pass. I’ll just rest for a bit.” I thought I was hiding my feelings perfectly, but my act was full of holes. As I started to close the door, I saw a flash of helplessness in John’s dark eyes. The man who always seemed to have everything under control now looked like he was struggling to figure out how to handle my mood. His voice was soft. “Alright. You get some rest. Call me if you need anything. I won’t disturb you.” He gently closed the door for me. Was it my imagination, or did his retreating figure look almost… lonely? 9 My parents are both teachers, and from middle school through high school, I was always in a class taught by one of them. I was raised under a strict set of rules, a product of countless regulations. As a result, I never had a crush during my teenage years. Back then, I genuinely believed that dating young was a serious transgression. It was only when I left my parents’ nest that I realized the world outside wasn’t so scary after all. The desires I had suppressed deep inside began to grow wild. When I got to college, the number of guys who tried to hit on me made me realize I probably wasn’t ugly. But this was the first time I had ever been so intensely interested in a man. After a night of feeling sorry for myself, my fighting spirit returned. So what if the room was prepared for another woman? I was the one living in it now. We were under the same roof! A man of this caliber… I was the one who was winning here. My mind drifted to John’s incredible body, which even his clothes couldn’t hide. I couldn’t sleep. I spent the night trying to guess his measurements, but even his corporate bio didn’t have those details. Moving in together right after we met… this was a test, wasn’t it? John was single, successful, and ridiculously handsome. It would be weirder if I didn’t have any competition. I had timing and proximity on my side. I needed to take advantage of this perfect environment. What was I moping about for? The next morning, I was bursting with energy. When John saw that my mood had lifted, he seemed to let out a sigh of relief. But I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. Hadn’t he slept well? Or had he been working all night? 10 In the days that followed, John cleared his schedule to show me every corner of Crestview. A CEO of his stature, personally playing tour guide just for me. He must have been incredibly busy, but he never let it show in front of me. The only clue was the light in his office that often burned late into the night. Every outing was planned meticulously. All I had to do was follow him, no brain required. The more time I spent with him, the more I realized that the man who seemed so unapproachable on the outside was actually incredibly thoughtful and observant. He remembered the food I liked after I mentioned it just once. He picked up on my hobbies, my taste in music, everything. He took me to a high-end auction. Without me saying a word, he knew exactly which item had caught my eye. He bid for it without batting an eyelid, driving the price up until it was his. The next day, it was sitting in my room. I turned to find him, my heart soaring. “Uncle John, is all this for me?” He was just leaning against the doorframe, a faint smile on his lips. “I had a feeling you’d like it.” At glamorous parties where I knew no one, he would instinctively draw me into his circle of safety. Even while talking business with others, his eyes would follow me. He told me that meeting the people at these events would be good for my career after graduation. Because of him, I navigated the galas with ease, making connections and seizing opportunities. Being with John was just… comfortable. I insisted on wearing high heels to go out, loving how they looked. He never tried to talk me out of it. But every single time, just as my feet were starting to ache, he would crouch down, pull a pair of sneakers out of his backpack, and help me change into them. I had no idea when he’d started carrying them. One afternoon, sitting on a park bench, he gently examined my ankle for any redness while lightly flicking my forehead with his finger. “Next time you want to wear heels, how about we just wear them for the photos? Okay?” he asked, his tone gentle and consultative. His perfect manners, his unwavering consideration. I couldn’t tell if this was special treatment reserved just for me, or if it was simply his good upbringing, a favor for a friend. All I knew was that in the moment our eyes met, my heart lost all control. Thump. Thump. Thump. A current zapped through my body. I think, I really think, I’m falling for John Chen.

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After my fiancé canceled our wedding for the ninth time—losing another bet to his gorgeous assistant—I set an ultimatum: if the tenth wedding was called off, I’d marry someone else. He just chuckled. “Hanna, you gave me a kidney. Who else would marry you?” Then he smirked, “Besides, who’d want a walking hospital bill?” On our tenth wedding day, his assistant Rianne sent him a one-way ticket to New York. The bet: find her at the airport in an hour, and she’d stay for the ceremony. Richard’s face fell. He tore off his boutonnière and ran. An hour later, Rianne posted an Instagram photo of them embracing at JFK, caption: “Someone who truly cares will find you in a crowd of thousands.” Standing frozen in my lace gown, I began unbuttoning it, then called a number I hadn’t dialed in years. “Ian Glover,” I said, voice steady. “Is that offer to marry me still open?” A sharp breath. “Yes. For you, Hanna? It’s a lifetime offer.” 1 A wave of awkward silence washed over the grand ballroom. The cream of the city’s high society, all dressed in their finest, exchanged uncomfortable glances. A few whispers of support started to ripple through the crowd. “This is the tenth time! Richard is being utterly absurd. How can he keep ditching Hanna West for some assistant?” “Exactly! After everything she’s done for him. She gave him her kidney, for God’s sake. Her own father, Harrison West, practically disowned her for it.” Their sympathetic gazes felt like tiny needles on my skin. Even strangers could see how far past a joke this had gone. Richard’s mother, Amelia, rushed over, her face a mask of frantic composure. “Hanna, darling, you need to tell everyone,” she urged, grabbing my arm. “Just say there was an emergency at the office, a major crisis he had to handle. For now, just invite the guests to start dining.” I looked at the woman who had always claimed to love me like a daughter, a suffocating tightness seizing my chest. “Amelia, do you really think these people are fools? I’ve made that excuse nine times. You want me to say it a tenth?” Her expression hardened instantly. “You’ve said it nine times already. What’s one more?” she snapped, her voice low and sharp. “You claim to love my son, yet you won’t even do this one small thing for him? That doesn’t sound like love to me.” She said it so matter-of-factly, as if she were commenting on the weather. The past two years flashed before my eyes. Ever since Richard had hired Rianne Vance, the brilliant Ivy League Ph.D., as his executive assistant, our wedding had become a recurring nightmare. He always accepted her ridiculous bets on our wedding day. And he always, always lost. The first time, he lost a game of dares and had to give the entire wedding venue to Rianne for her birthday party. Our guests arrived to see a giant screen flashing “Happy Birthday, Rianne!” Their jaws practically hit the floor. The second time, he lost a game of dice and had to down an entire bottle of scotch, landing himself in the emergency room. The third time… Each time, he’d put on a pained expression. “Hanna, I’m doing this for the company. Rianne is a genius, an incredible asset. I have to keep her happy. It was a bet, and I lost. I can’t go back on my word, or she’ll think I’m a dishonorable boss.” A sharp pain lanced through my heart. They always played their games on our wedding day, and he never once won. Did he really think I was that stupid? I remembered the last time, the ninth time. The bet was a hundred-meter dash to my wedding dress, which was displayed on a mannequin. Richard, a towering six-foot-one with the build of an athlete, was feet from the finish line when he suddenly tripped, collapsing dramatically just short of the goal. Rianne, barely a step ahead, snatched the gown. “Well, Richard,” she’d chirped, a triumphant glint in her eyes. “You lose to me every single time. Are you sure you’re not doing this on purpose? Maybe you just don’t want to marry Hanna.” She held the dress against herself. “Tell you what, let me try this on. I bet I’d look stunning.” A flicker of something—admiration, desire—had crossed Richard’s face. He smiled indulgently. “Fine. You won. The dress is yours.” His excuse to me later was pathetic. “We can’t have a wedding without a dress, can we? A bet’s a bet, Hanna. I’m a man of my word.” He had been so close. His hand could have reached it in a second. One more second, and I would have been his wife. That was the closest I had ever come to happiness. Amelia was still whispering frantically in my ear when the grand doors of the ballroom burst open. Richard strode in, Rianne clinging to his arm. “Hanna, I lost again,” he announced, his voice carrying across the silent room. “Took me an hour and one minute to find her. You know me, I’m a man of my word. You wouldn’t want me to look bad, would you?” “The timing is all off for today’s ceremony,” he continued breezily. “We’ll just have to reschedule.” Right there, in front of Rianne, he walked over to our huge wedding portrait, lifted it off its easel, and tossed it into a nearby trash can along with his crumpled boutonnière. A collective gasp echoed through the hall. The sheer contempt in that gesture turned every eye on me, their pity curdling into disdain. The heiress of the West fortune, reduced to a pathetic joke. I saw the smug, victorious gleam in Rianne’s eyes and felt a bitter smile touch my lips. “Richard,” I said, my voice clear and cold. “How about we make a bet? Let’s see if you’ll lose on the eleventh try.” 2 Richard’s face tightened with irritation. “Hanna, I only make these bets with Rianne. Don’t butt in.” I slowly raised my hand, the massive diamond on my ring finger catching the light. “I bet,” I said, my voice ringing with newfound strength, “that by the time we schedule our eleventh wedding, Thorne Industries will be bankrupt.” The color drained from his face. He lunged forward and shoved me hard in the chest. “Hanna, what the hell is wrong with you? You’ve become so venomous. Just because I didn’t marry you today, you’re going to curse my family’s company?” “Rianne was right,” he sneered. “You’re all beauty and no brains, just using that kidney to guilt-trip me.” A wave of fury, hot and sharp, finally broke through my numbness. I stumbled back, catching myself on a table. “If you’re sleeping with her, Richard, then just marry her!” I shouted, my voice trembling. “You don’t have to keep staging these pathetic, humiliating games to torture me!” Rianne’s face flushed a theatrical red. “Ms. West, how could you say something so disgusting?” she cried out. “Richard and I are just trying to foster a positive and fun work environment! Your vulgar accusations are completely uncalled for.” She turned to me, her voice dripping with faux pity. “Look, if you’re that desperate to get married, I’ll be sure to let Richard win the next bet. Okay?” She stepped closer, linking her arm through mine as if we were friends, and hissed into my ear, “Have you no shame, Hanna? Jilted ten times and you’re still here, barking like a pathetic stray. If I were you, I’d have crawled into a hole and died by now. Let me spell it out for you: Richard is sick of you. He wants me.” She pulled back just as quickly, her expression one of innocent exasperation. “Richard, remember that bet you lost last time? The one where you promised to cut off Hanna’s hair to make a wig for Gigi? I didn’t even hold you to it. Why is she making such a scene now?” Richard’s face softened into a look of dopey adoration. He pulled a pair of scissors from a nearby floral arrangement kit and handed them to her. “A bet’s a bet,” he said with a helpless shrug. “I can’t lose face in front of my staff.” My blood ran cold. I stared at him in disbelief. I remembered him stroking my hair, his voice full of admiration. “Hanna, your hair is like black silk. Promise me you’ll always keep it long, for me.” After the transplant, my health had deteriorated. My hair started falling out in clumps. Richard had brewed special herbal remedies for me every day to help it grow back strong. And now, for Rianne’s dog, he was going to let her cut it off. He placed the scissors in her hand, then looked at me as if explaining something to a child. “It’s just hair, Hanna. Poor Gigi lost all her fur after her last treatment. Dogs have pride too, you know. She’s so depressed she won’t even eat. Just let us make a little wig for her.” Before I could even speak, Rianne grabbed a handful of my hair. A vicious light flashed in her eyes as she brought the scissors close to my scalp and, with a sharp, cold snip, severed a thick lock. The tip of the blade scraped my skin, a stinging pain that shot through me. I tried to push her away, but in my weakened state, I was no match for her. Snip. Snip. Snip. She hacked away, leaving my hair a ragged mess. She held up the shorn locks with a look of disgust. “Richard, you said her hair was beautiful. It feels like dried straw. Gigi wouldn’t be caught dead in this.” With a flick of her wrist, she tossed my hair into the trash can. Richard just patted her hand consolingly. “It’s okay. If you don’t like it, we’ll buy something better tomorrow.” Gasping for breath, I stared at them. A primal rage I never knew I possessed surged through me. With the last of my strength, I lunged, snatching the scissors from her hand and plunging them into her chest. The blood bloomed instantly, staining my hands. Rianne gasped, clutching her chest as she staggered backward into Richard’s arms. The ballroom erupted into chaos. “She stabbed her! Oh my God, Hanna West just tried to kill someone!” My body trembled uncontrollably, but my grip on the bloody scissors was firm. “Are you satisfied with this bet, Richard?” I asked, my voice a ragged whisper. 3 For the first time, I saw a crack in Richard Thorne’s arrogant facade. Pure, unadulterated panic. He clutched Rianne tightly, his other foot lashing out to kick me away. “Somebody call 911!” he roared. His eyes, when they met mine, were filled with a chilling, absolute loathing. “You’re insane, Hanna,” he spat. “No wonder your father wanted to beat you senseless. No wonder your mother threw herself off a building. You’re a heartless, toxic viper.” His words struck me like a physical blow, plunging me into an icy abyss. My body trembled so violently I could barely stand. He knew my deepest wounds, and he had just ripped them open with relish. He was terrified for the woman in his arms, so he tore my soul to shreds to even the score. My hair, a butchered mess, framed my pale face. My body finally gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor in a heap of torn silk and broken pride. The paramedics arrived. He lifted Rianne into his arms and rushed her toward the ambulance. Just before he left, he threw one last, venomous look over his shoulder. “Hanna West, this isn’t over. You’ll pay for this. Assault with a deadly weapon, in front of all these people.” The guests began to file out, shaking their heads in pity and disgust. My tenth wedding had ended in a spectacle of blood and violence. I remained on the stage, a lone figure in a ruined gown, until the last person had gone. Then, the police arrived. “Are you Hanna West?” an officer asked, his tone professional but wary. “We’ve received a report of an alleged assault. We need you to come with us.” My voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “Was it Richard Thorne who called you?” The officer nodded. I swallowed the metallic taste of blood and bile rising in my throat and followed them to the squad car, my entire body shaking. In the interrogation room, they asked me about my motive, about the sequence of events. I told them everything, my voice a monotone drone. A female officer looked at me with a flicker of compassion, taking in my mangled hair and the dried blood on my dress. “Ms. West,” she said gently, “he’s clearly moved on. Why are you still hanging on to a man like that?” Why? Her question echoed in the sterile room. Was it because he offered me a single piece of candy when I was drowning in a sea of misery? My parents’ marriage was a business merger. To save his failing company, my father had abandoned the woman he’d loved for five years to marry my mother. Not long after, his ex-girlfriend secretly gave birth to his son. My father didn’t find out until the boy was six. Consumed by guilt, he began dividing his life between our home and hers. My proud, elegant mother froze him out. She threatened divorce, but their family businesses were too deeply intertwined. It was impossible to untangle them. Finally, when I was twelve, she succumbed to her depression and jumped from a skyscraper. In an instant, I was motherless. Six months later, my father remarried. Just like that, they were a happy family of three, and my hatred for him grew with every passing day. I started skipping school, hiding out in internet cafes. When my stepbrother, three years my senior, slapped me and called me an uneducated brat, I grabbed a kitchen knife and slashed his arm. “I’m an orphan,” I screamed at him. “At least I’m not a bastard like you.” That night, my father tied me up and took a cane to me, beating me until my skin was raw before locking me in the basement to “reflect.” I was barely conscious when Richard Thorne found me. He snuck me out, carried me on his back. He was the one who comforted me, who told me I had a reason to live. From that day on, he became my entire world, the sole pillar supporting my fragile existence. My love for him was more than just romance; he was my lifeline. Hours later, Richard arrived at the station, a solicitous Rianne leaning on his arm. When the police asked about a resolution, Richard’s gaze was glacial. “We will not be settling this out of court. She needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She was violent as a child, and she’s violent now. If she doesn’t learn her lesson, there’s no telling what she’ll do next.” Rianne tilted her chin up, her eyes burning with righteous indignation. The female officer sighed and pulled me aside. “Ms. West, he’s still your fiancé. Just go apologize. Show some remorse. We can probably make this go away.” Seeing the unyielding look in my eyes, she sighed again. “Look, I get that you’re angry, but if he presses charges, you could be looking at a year in prison. With your health… are you sure you’d make it out of there alive?” Her grave expression sent a chill through me. With a high-class manipulator like Rianne pulling the strings, it was a real possibility. I walked back into the room and bowed my head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Vance. I acted impulsively. Please, forgive me.”

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I was in the art studio when the heavy lamp directly above me came crashing down. I threw my right hand up to block it. My boyfriend, claiming he had no money, took me to a back-alley clinic. The delayed treatment cost me my right hand. Because of that, I missed the finals of the national art competition and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to study under a grandmaster. I had no choice but to go back to working three jobs a day just to survive. Six months later, while delivering food, I stumbled upon the truth about his family’s wealth and overheard a conversation he was having with a friend. “Liam, that girl—Aria—only had a minor fracture. You actually had them amputate her hand.” “Hmph. It should have been crippled long ago. Since she survived, of course, her hand had to pay the price. After all, I promised Emily I’d help her win the national competition, that I’d clear any obstacle in her path. I won’t allow anyone to threaten her.” Hearing those words, I finally understood. The enviable love I thought I had was nothing but a cruel joke. My boyfriend was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And if that’s the case, I don’t want him anymore. 1 His friend teased, “It’s not like Emily Weasley is short on good teachers. And Aria is your girlfriend. She was counting on that apprenticeship as her only shot. If she ever finds out the truth, you’re going to have a real mess on your hands.” “If you don’t say anything, no one will ever know. Besides, the only reason I got close to Aria in the first place was for Emily.” He then raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and give Aria that new healing ointment your family developed.” His friend hesitated. “But that formula hasn’t gone through clinical trials yet. If she uses it and something goes wrong, it could affect her nerves. Her hand might ache or tremble for the rest of her life.” Standing outside the door, my heart clenched. Tears welled in my eyes. The next words out of his mouth were even more heartless, invisible blades plunging deep into my soul. “You’re always complaining you don’t have data. Well, here’s your clinical trial right here. And if there are problems? Even better. It’ll guarantee she can never pick up a brush again, not even with an assistive device. She can’t be a threat to Emily anymore.” “Damn, Liam. You’re ruthless. Still not letting her go after all this time. Such a waste of talent. What are you going to do if Emily runs into more geniuses in the future? Eliminate them all one by one?” Liam cut him off, annoyed. “It can’t be helped. Aria’s just unlucky. She’s Emily’s personal demon. Since she was lucky enough to survive the accident, as long as she can’t paint anymore, Emily’s obsession will fade, and she’ll achieve even greater things.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll compensate Aria, of course. She only lost a hand. I can make sure she never has to worry about money again.” At that, the tears I’d been holding back finally broke free. I struggled to compose myself, placed the delivery bag by the door, and numbly wheeled my scooter away. I stared at the empty space where my right hand used to be and bit my lip until I tasted blood. For six months, the memory of painting with that hand felt like a distant dream. I never imagined the falling lamp was a premeditated attack, an “accident” designed by my own boyfriend to eliminate a rival for his childhood sweetheart. My hand could have been saved, but he had it amputated. To Liam, I was never his girlfriend. I was just an obstacle, Emily’s demon, that needed to be exorcised. I remember waking up in the clinic, Liam holding me in a tight, worried embrace, as if trying to merge our bodies into one. “You scared me to death,” he’d whispered. “I was so afraid something would happen to you. Thank god you were quick and blocked it with your hand. If it had hit your head… I can’t even imagine.” He held me tighter. “Thank god you’re still here. Thank god you’re okay.” I thought it was love. Now, knowing the truth, a chilling coldness spread through me. What an actor. That lamp was meant to kill me. My survival was an unwelcome miracle. Since I didn’t die as he’d wished, he had my hand severed, ensuring I could never hold a brush again. The man was truly heartless. I wiped my tears and, without another moment’s hesitation, booked a flight to the capital. That night, after my last delivery, I returned to the cramped basement apartment I rented for fifty dollars a month. “Aria, you’re back. You must be exhausted,” he said, handing me a glass of water. After I drank it, he produced a vial of medicine. “This is a new wonder drug from the hospital for healing.” Remembering his conversation, I refused. “I don’t want it. I’m still going to paint.” Liam smiled gently. “Don’t be scared, Aria. This is a special medicine designed to help you hold a brush again.” His smile sent a wave of goosebumps over my skin. Designed to make sure I can never hold a brush again, I thought. I shook my head. Liam’s expression darkened. “Aria, don’t be difficult.” My head started to spin, and I collapsed onto the bed. Through a hazy fog, I felt the prick of a needle in my arm. A searing pain shot through my right arm, and I curled into a ball, whimpering. Liam panicked, grabbing his phone. “What’s happening? Why is she in so much pain?” His friend’s voice on the other end was calm. “Liam, I told you there would be side effects.” Liam wasn’t listening, just raging into the phone. Through my blurry vision, I let out a cold, silent laugh. He was still acting, even now. This was all his idea. He was determined to erase any possibility of my hand healing. Taking my hand wasn’t enough. When he saw me practicing with an assistive device, he grew worried again, rushing to destroy my nerves, to take away even that last sliver of hope. 2 I woke up in that same back-alley clinic. The “doctor” saw I was awake. “You’re up. I’ve given you a painkiller. Does your right arm still hurt?” I shook my head. “Not as much. But I can’t seem to lift it.” I tried to demonstrate, straining with all my might, but my right arm remained limp and unresponsive. Liam seemed to let out a breath of relief. Then, his voice choked with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Aria. This is all my fault.” His eyes were bloodshot, and he truly looked distressed. He leaned down and hugged me, his tears tracing a path down my neck. I kept my head down, my own eyes clear and cold. This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it, Liam? Destroy me to elevate Emily. Concerned for my “recovery,” Liam insisted on carrying me home. Lying in bed, I opened my long-neglected social media account. A flood of hateful messages appeared. Someone had even doxxed me in the comments. 【This basement-dwelling rat loves to steal other people’s work and pretend it’s her own.】 【Looks like she’s missing a hand. Serves her right. A plagiarist gets what she deserves.】 I steadied myself and traced the source. A popular art blogger had called me out on behalf of a friend. I clicked on the friend’s profile. My heart sank as I saw the familiar artwork. Those were my paintings. I stumbled out of bed and started rummaging through my things. The folder where I kept my original sketches was empty. Just then, Liam walked in from the bathroom. “My paintings,” I demanded. “Did you take them?” Caught off guard, he stammered, “Aria, I was just worried they would upset you, so I moved them somewhere safe.” I held up my phone, showing him the post. “Then what is this? Why does someone else have my work? Or did you sell it?” “Aria, there must be some misunderstanding,” he insisted. “I didn’t sell your paintings.” “If it’s a misunderstanding and you didn’t sell them, then she must have stolen them and posted them herself?” “Aria, that’s enough!” Liam cut me off, his voice self-righteous. “You have no proof. How can you accuse someone of theft? What are you trying to do?” I sneered. “My work is in her possession, and she’s online accusing me of plagiarism. I’m not allowed to clear my name?” He frowned, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “It’s late. Stop making a scene. So what if they say you stole it? You can’t paint anymore. You’re not part of that world. A few words online won’t hurt you.” His hypocrisy was breathtaking. It was clear he was protecting her. I lowered my head, my eyes filling with tears, and pretended to sob. Liam, thinking he’d been too harsh, came over and put his arm around me. “Aria, forget about what’s online. We’ll focus on making a good life for ourselves.” His cold hand roamed my waist, and then he swept me into his arms, laying me gently on the bed. The moment his lips met mine, I held up my right arm, the stump of my wrist between our faces. I didn’t miss the flicker of disgust in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “My arm… it still hurts. It’s not a good time.” He forced a smile and buried his face in my neck, taking a deep breath before kissing me one last time. “Alright. I’ll let you off the hook for today.” The truth was, in the six months since my injury, he hadn’t touched me. Every time he accidentally brushed against my right arm, he would recoil as if burned before pretending everything was normal. I turned my back to him, violently scrubbing his scent from my skin. The nausea and hatred were overwhelming. Later that night, while he was asleep, I scrolled through the blogger’s friend’s feed. The more I saw, the more my blood ran cold. 3 The account had to be Emily’s. She made no effort to hide it, posting picture after picture of gifts from her “childhood friend,” many of which were identical to the ones Liam had given me. Except mine were fakes. Hers were the real deal. I remembered Liam telling me, “Aria, I can only afford knock-offs for now, but I promise one day I’ll be able to give you the real thing.” I had swallowed his lies, but the truth was, he had always had the money. The gifts I had saved up for, working multiple jobs to buy him, he never used. They were too cheap. And all those Valentine’s Days he’d missed, claiming he had to work? He was with her. She had even posted a photo from the national art competition six months ago, holding her first-place trophy. The caption read: “Half the credit for this award goes to my dearest Liam! I’ll be sure to reward him well tonight!” The day she won her trophy was the day I lost my hand. That night, I was alone in that filthy clinic. Liam had told me he was investigating the falling lamp. In reality, he was celebrating Emily’s victory. When he came back the next day, he said it was just a freak accident. Of course it was. He was the one who arranged it. I closed my eyes, focusing on the faint, phantom ache in my right arm. The next morning, Liam acted as if nothing had happened, leaning in to kiss me. I turned my head away. He frowned slightly, then sighed. “Aria, are you still mad? Don’t be. I know you’re not that petty. Be good, okay?” And then he left. I knew where he was going. Today was Emily’s birthday. For the past three years, Liam had always thrown her a huge party. He would come back the next day with a piece of cake she had supposedly made. I never ate it, telling him I was allergic to nuts. He would just laugh and say, “Aria, you’re poor, but you’re so picky,” before eating the whole thing himself. Around noon, I received another text from the same anonymous number: 【22 Riverfront Villa. Come and see the difference between you and a real person, you pathetic charity case.】 Before, I would have been too busy working to bother with such childish games. But now, with my right arm useless, I had time. So I went. As I approached the door, I heard Liam’s voice. “Let’s give a warm welcome to our queen, the rising star of the art world, the goddess Emily Weasley!” I remembered all the empty promises he’d made, how he was going to treat me like a princess once he had money. I pushed the door open. When Liam saw me, he instinctively pushed Emily away. She pouted. “Liam, I heard you’re keeping some secret girl on the side. Is it true?” Liam had never “kept” me. I was the one working three jobs to support us both. His support only existed in his fantasies. A flash of annoyance crossed his face. “Don’t listen to them. It’s not true.” “No secret girl, or no girlfriend?” Emily pressed. Liam hesitated, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Neither. I told you, I just want to watch over you as you grow up.” Emily beamed, then pretended to just notice me. “Oh! This… incomplete delivery person… doesn’t seem to belong here. You weren’t invited, were you?” Everyone in the room knew what was going on, but they all played dumb, just as Liam had played me for a fool for so long. I gave a cold laugh, my eyes locked on Liam. “I worked hard at my art, hoping my talent would lead to a better life. I worked three jobs a day so we could have a home of our own one day. I trusted my boyfriend because I loved him.” Liam’s hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white. 4 My voice trembled as I continued, “But some people don’t deserve it. Liars don’t deserve anyone’s honesty.” A snicker came from the side. “The things you’re talking about, sweetie, Liam already has in spades. He has plenty of houses. Art is just a little game he plays to keep his goddess happy. And as for love? We can get that whenever we want.” A wave of laughter filled the room. “That’s enough! Shut up!” Liam’s face was dark. “This is Emily’s birthday party. Don’t let some irrelevant person ruin it.” The moment he finished speaking, I turned and walked out. A burst of cheerful music started up behind me. My presence, like my entire existence to them, was nothing more than an ant to be crushed, not worthy of a second glance. But was that really true? If I was so insignificant, why did beating Emily just once turn me into her “personal demon”? I looked at my perfectly intact left hand. A demon isn’t so easily exorcised. Liam didn’t know I was ambidextrous. In the three years we were together, he could barely remember my birthday without a reminder. How could he know anything else about me? For the past six months, I had been secretly practicing, training my left hand to paint. He was always so “disappointed” that I couldn’t paint anymore. I used to think he was sincere, so I kept my left-handed ability a secret, planning to surprise him one day. Thank god I did. Otherwise, he probably would have taken my left hand too. He was certainly capable of it. Five days ago, I had sent a letter, along with one of my mother’s keepsakes and some of my new work, to her former art mentor. I received a reply almost immediately. I had wanted to tell Liam, but just a single drawing left out on the table had made him so paranoid that he’d moved to destroy me completely, to ensure my right arm could never be used again. I packed what little I owned, threw all of Liam’s things in the trash—they were all probably trash to him anyway—contacted the landlord, cancelled my phone plan, and left the city. Six months later, the National Art Competition was held in the capital. Last year’s provincial champions from all over the country were competing. Rumor had it that several reclusive grandmasters were planning to take on apprentices from this year’s finalists. Emily was determined to win. Liam was there with her, of course. He never missed one of her competitions. So when he saw me, the girl he had been searching for, in the convention hall, he froze. He thought he was seeing things. But Emily saw me too and marched right over. Her voice was sharp. “What are you doing here?” She glanced at my right arm with contempt. “You can’t even paint anymore. Are you working as a janitor?” Liam stood beside her, his lips pressed into a thin line, saying nothing. I was there on behalf of my new mentor, so I had arrived early to prepare and had thankfully avoided them until now. I pretended not to hear and turned to leave. Liam suddenly grabbed my arm. “Aria, where have you been for the past six months?” I shook him off. “Sir, do I know you?” He frowned, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. “Aria, it’s been six months. Haven’t you thrown enough of a tantrum? Stop this.” His voice softened. “Now that you know who I am, I’ll give you whatever you want. Just leave Emily alone.” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Let’s be clear. I wasn’t throwing a tantrum. I just don’t want you anymore.” I turned and walked away, ignoring the icy fury that instantly clouded his face. The competition was being live-streamed, and thousands of followers of popular art bloggers were tuning in. When Emily and Liam saw me sitting in the judge’s panel, their jaws dropped. “She’s an amateur! A cripple!” Emily shrieked, her voice echoing through the hall. “How can she be a judge? She’s a thief who steals other people’s work!”

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I was scrolling through Reddit when a post from a legal advice forum caught my eye. It was from my cousin, Ashley, who lives with us. [How do I prevent a manipulative cousin from inheriting my parents’ money?] I was confused. Her family lives in a double-wide trailer in Ohio. Why would she think I’d want a piece of that? The comments were what you’d expect: reassuring her that a cousin has no legal claim, that she was worrying over nothing. But then she replied, a little too eagerly: [Are you sure? I mean, we’re first cousins, practically sisters. That’s not a total stranger, legally speaking. Nothing’s ever 100%, right?] And just like that, I understood. The person trying to inherit someone else’s money… was her. 1 Reading the full post from my cousin’s burner account was a gut punch. [I’m an only child (24F). My dad is in international real estate, and my mom is a partner at her firm. We’re in the nine-figure club, so my inheritance is more than enough for several lifetimes.] [The problem is my cousin (23F). She’s lived with us for years. She’s smarter than me, more successful… basically the daughter every parent dreams of. My mom adores her, honestly more than she seems to adore me.] [How do I stop this cousin, who is a huge threat to me, from getting her hands on my family’s estate?] My head was spinning. The family background she was describing was obviously mine. And the “smarter, more successful, more loved” cousin she was pretending to be… was me. She was posting as me to get advice on how she could screw me over. The comment section was a mix of legal advice and common sense: > [OP, you’re probably young. A cousin has zero inheritance rights unless they are specifically named in a will. Relax.] > [Your first priority should be getting her out of your house. She’s freeloading on your family’s resources. The inheritance isn’t a real issue.] But Ashley’s replies were frantic: > [Are you sure? I mean, we’re first cousins, practically sisters. That’s not a total stranger, legally speaking. Nothing’s ever 100%, right?] The commenters were getting annoyed: > [Are you trolling or just legally illiterate? Your parents’ assets have nothing to do with your cousin. This is textbook paranoia.] > [Yeah, the only way is if your parents write her into the will. The chances of that are basically zero.] Ashley kept pushing: > [A will is unlikely. My mom might, but my dad never would. There’s no blood relation. Are there any other ways? Loopholes?] Then, someone posted the comment that changed everything: > [Theoretically, it’s not impossible. In extreme cases, there’s a concept called ‘heir by proxy’ or per stirpes distribution…] Ashley replied instantly: [OMG tell me more! I’m DMing you, please accept. This is urgent.] The thread quickly turned on her: > [Wait a second… it feels like you’re desperately trying to find a way for your cousin to inherit the money.] > [LOL, busted. You’re the cousin, aren’t you?] 2 Across the dinner table, Ashley angrily locked her phone and slammed it face down. My mom finally looked up from her own phone, tapping the table. “Chloe, can you put that away? Look at your cousin. Ashley knows that dinnertime is for family.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “You never FaceTime me when you’re at school,” she continued, her voice layered with guilt. “You’re finally home for the summer. Can’t you just be present? Once Ashley leaves for college next year, how many of these family dinners will we have left?” It was just the three of us at a massive ten-person table. Some “family dinner.” Ashley immediately softened her expression, turning to my mom with a syrupy sweet smile. “Oh, Aunt Linda, Chloe and I are different. When I’m in Europe, I’ll be calling you every single day. You’ll probably get sick of me.” She shot a smug look in my direction. “I mean, it’s just undergrad. How busy can you be? If someone doesn’t have time for a single call, it’s because they don’t want to make time.” 3 She was right. I rarely called my mom. She shipped me off to boarding school in the first grade and had me studying abroad before I was even eighteen. We saw each other a few times a year. We weren’t close. Beyond a quick “I’m alive and well,” I never knew what to say to her. Ashley was a different story. Ever since my uncle had another kid—a boy, of course—my mom brought Ashley, then a senior in high school, to live with us. Since then, this house had been filled with their laughter and inside jokes. Maybe I’m just emotionally detached, but their closeness never really bothered me. My mom supported me financially, giving me the freedom to pursue my master’s at an Ivy League school without worrying about loans. So I didn’t care that she gave Ashley the warmth and attention she never gave me. I didn’t even mind that she was footing the bill for Ashley’s entire life, including her new plan to study abroad. As long as it didn’t affect me, I figured it was her money. If Ashley could keep my mom happy, fine. I was even okay with her getting a nice chunk of cash to start her life. But now, seeing that post, I knew she wasn’t satisfied with a few hundred thousand. She wanted it all. A comment from that thread echoed in my head: Your first priority should be getting her out of your house. Damn right. This greedy parasite had to go. And she wasn’t getting another dime. 4 I casually took a bite of asparagus. “Oh, by the way, Mom. You asked me to look into the university Ashley got into. I did.” I paused for effect. “It’s a diploma mill. An unaccredited online university with a fancy name. Her degree won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. That eighty-thousand-dollar tuition? You might as well just set it on fire.” My mom froze, a forkful of salmon halfway to her mouth. She shook her head with a weary smile. “Chloe, Chloe. Is this really necessary? Ashley is finally following in your footsteps, trying to better herself. Can’t you just be happy for her?” The story was this: Ashley heard I was starting my master’s program on a full scholarship. The very next day, she quit the preschool teacher job my mom had pulled strings to get her and demanded to be sent abroad, too. She found some shady international admissions agent who, for a hefty fee, got her “accepted” to a dozen garbage schools. From that pile of worthless offers, she picked the one that happened to be in the same city as my university. My mom, clueless, was bursting with pride. She threw Ashley a huge “going away” party, telling all her friends how, with the right support, girls could be just as successful as boys. I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble then. But things were different now. The truth was better for everyone. 5 Ashley’s usual smirk vanished, replaced by a flash of anger. She scrambled for her phone, pulling up the school’s homepage. “Look with your own eyes!” she spat. “It says right here, this is a centuries-old institution, a sister school to Harvard! It’s located right in the heart of America’s capital, New York City, and has produced five First Ladies! It’s the top choice for socialites! What do you know, anyway?” I couldn’t help but laugh. I turned to my mom. “Mom, what’s the capital of the United States? Do you know?” Ashley rolled her eyes, slapping her forehead dramatically. “Chloe, are you for real? Your school is in New York. You don’t know where the capital is? Oh my god!” My mother, at least, wasn’t that ignorant. Her eyes widened as she snatched the phone, reading the poorly translated English description out loud. Her face was a mask of pure shock and embarrassment. 6 My mom, who had always trusted Ashley implicitly, was furious. She was mortified that Ashley had been so careless and, frankly, so stupid. She immediately contacted a legitimate educational consultant to come up with a real plan. The trip to the fake university was off. But with Ashley’s terrible high school grades and abysmal test scores, the consultant said it would take at least a year of hard work at a community college to even have a chance at a decent four-year school. Ashley stomped her foot, her eyes burning with a hatred so intense it was almost shocking. But this time, it wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at my mother’s retreating back as she rushed off to make calls on Ashley’s behalf. 7 Back in my room, I refreshed the Reddit thread. Ashley was spamming the user who mentioned “heir by proxy.” > [Hello? Are you there? This is an emergency, can you please reply?] > [Hey!! Anyone home? I can’t DM you anymore, you didn’t accept my friend request. Is anyone even alive on this site?!] She was panicking. I logged into my burner account and sent her a private message. [Hi there. I’m a paralegal student specializing in family law and estate planning. I saw your post. My family has a leech of a relative too, so I completely understand your situation. Happy to offer a free consultation if you need to talk.] She replied in seconds. No greeting, no pleasantries. [Can my cousin really inherit my parents’ money? Does it have to happen after they die? How does it work?] She quickly backpedaled. [I mean, I need to know so I can warn my parents. To protect our assets.] I sent a smiley face emoji and deliberately let her stew for a while. My phone started buzzing off the hook. > [What the hell? Where’d you go!?] > [Helloooo? I swear, are you a real paralegal or not? Which school do you go to? I’ll report you!] > [Is this how you run a business? I know it’s free, but I’m still the client! You have zero customer service skills!] After enjoying her meltdown for a few minutes, I finally replied. [So sorry, I was in class. Just got free.] She lectured me for another minute before getting back to her point. [Okay, so I’ve been thinking about a scenario. In my family, only my mom is nice to my cousin. My dad and I are pretty cold to her because she’s so perfect it’s annoying. So, could she sue for emotional distress or something? Claiming years of psychological abuse and demand a piece of the estate as compensation?] I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. I tweaked an AI-generated response and sent it to her. [Ma’am, legally speaking, being ‘cold’ to someone does not constitute abuse, and it certainly has no bearing on property division. The only way she can legally inherit is if your parents explicitly grant her assets in a legally binding will or trust. Without that, her claim has no basis. You don’t need to worry.] 8 Ashley was furious. [Who are you to say that? You’re not a judge! You’re just a student! You don’t know anything!] I sent a laughing emoji. [You’re welcome to consult with a licensed attorney. I’m confident their answer will be the same.] [So you’re saying there’s no way? That’s insane! She lived in our house for eight years! Eight! Even if she’s not family on paper, isn’t there something like ‘common law family’? How can they just cut her out? No way!] In her rage, she’d completely forgotten her cover story. [Ma’am, please calm down. That specific avenue won’t work, but it doesn’t mean all hope is lost. For example, you saw the other commenter mention inheriting ‘by proxy.’] [What does that even mean? Explain it to me. Now.] [It means that if, for example, your mother were to pass away, her mother—your grandmother—would be entitled to a share of her estate. If your grandmother then passed away, that share would go to her children, meaning your uncle. Your uncle could then gift that inheritance to his own child. It’s an indirect route, but it’s a possibility.] I wondered if she was smart enough to follow the logic. Her reply came quickly. [So if my mom dies, my grandma gets her money. Then if grandma dies, my uncle gets the money. And if my uncle gets it, it’s basically mine. Right?] I sent her three thumbs-up emojis. She was a quick study when it came to greed. [Ugh, why do you have to wait for people to die to get inheritance? So annoying. I have to figure this out.] Her last message sounded like she was thinking out loud. I decided to test the waters. I pasted another AI response. [Under state and federal law, homicide carries severe penalties, including life in prison or the death penalty. Even if you were to inherit, the Slayer Rule would legally bar you from receiving any assets from the person you harmed. I understand your frustration, but I strongly advise against any extreme measures. Please consider the legal ramifications.] Ashley didn’t reply. But later that evening, as if on cue, my mom let out a series of loud sneezes in the living room. That was just the beginning. In the days to come, she would learn the true depths of her beloved niece’s malice.

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The fourth time Devon broke up with me, his eyes were glued to another girl’s tear-streaked Instagram story. “Just play along,” he said, his voice low. “She has a weak heart. Can’t handle any stress.” I touched the faded mark on my ring finger where a promise once lived and watched him, my lips pressed into a thin line. He broke up with me every time he found a new target. That way, he said, it wasn’t cheating. His friend snickered. “You really letting her go, Jules? Thea’s been your little shadow since you were kids.” Devon scoffed, cutting a piece of steak and holding it to my lips like I was a pet. “My Thea’s the most obedient girl in the world, aren’t you?” I swallowed the steak, along with the bitter taste in my mouth, and nodded. As I turned away, I heard him make a bet, his voice dripping with confidence. “Give it three days. She’ll be back, hugging her pillow and begging me to take her back.” My phone felt hot in my palm. A new message had just come in. 【Thea, can’t you just let me be there for you?】 I wiped the corner of my mouth, erasing the last trace of pepper sauce, and typed a single word. 【Okay.】 1 The moment the message sent, my phone rang. Every head in the room, including Devon’s, turned to me. Before I could even answer, his friend let out a derisive laugh. “Whoa, I didn’t even know she had a phone. I thought our little Thea, with her social anxiety and all, just stayed locked up in her tower.” “No joke, man. If I hadn’t heard that ringer, I would’ve sworn her only hobby was staring at the front door, waiting for Devon to come home.” “Oh, shit. Then she must’ve seen my comment on Devon’s post about Lana’s ballet performance. The one where I said you two were soulmates. Hope we didn’t hurt your feelings, Thea.” The table erupted in laughter. I stood there, clutching my phone, feeling small and helpless. When he’d had his laugh, Devon tapped his wine glass with a silver fork. “Alright, that’s enough. You keep bullying my Thea like that, and you’ll have to deal with me.” “Right, right. Devon loves his girl the most.” “He may play the field, but Thea’s the one who’s always there.” Their mocking eyes darted toward me, each glance a physical sting. A cold dread washed over me, and I turned to flee. Devon’s hand shot out, grabbing my arm. His other hand went to my neck, yanking off the silver chain I always wore. “Lana loves vintage things. You don’t mind if I let her borrow this for a bit, do you?” His fingernail dug into the half-healed burn on my skin. I’d gotten it two days ago, making soup for him. He didn’t notice the slight wince of pain, just gave me a roguish, charming grin. I looked down at the locket in his palm. Tucked inside was a tiny, folded note he’d written for me on my eighteenth birthday. 【Thea is my life. I love Thea.】 He had given me the chain itself when I was fifteen, on a night of flash floods. He’d carried me on his back out of our collapsing apartment building, and later, he found the chain to soothe my frayed nerves. It was all his, really. What right did I have to say no? “Be my guest.” His friend burst out laughing again. “She’s always so agreeable. You’re a lucky man, Devon.” The air grew thick, suffocating. I wrenched my arm free and ran. I could still hear their booming laughter as the private dining room door swung shut behind me. The call had disconnected. A string of texts followed. 【Thea?】 【What happened? Why aren’t you answering?】 I slid down the cool hallway wall, tears blurring my vision. But I bit my lip, hard. I refused to cry for him again. The “Lana” they were talking about was Lana Thorne, a dance major still in college. Three months ago, Devon had been an honored guest at his alma mater’s centennial celebration. He’d seen her and been instantly captivated. He pursued her relentlessly, showering her with designer bags and luxury cars. He even gave her our promise token. It was a simple red cord bracelet I had braided myself, staying up for a week straight. I had even gone to a special retreat in the mountains to get the thread, hoping to imbue it with blessings. For years, even as it faded, he had never taken it off. But this time, he gave my heart away so easily. Last night, Lana had finally agreed to be with him, on one condition: she wouldn’t be the other woman. So, Devon broke up with me. Again. He swore it was just to fool the girl, that his heart belonged only to me. I had tolerated his cheating, his distractions, a thousand times before. But this time, I was really letting go. My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out. 【Thea? Answer me, please. Don’t make me worry.】 I took a deep breath, composing myself, and typed. 【Elias, I’m ready for a home now.】 Elias’s call came through instantly. I could imagine his excitement, and I knew that in the heat of the moment, people do impulsive things. So I let it ring and sent him a text instead. 【Focus on your business trip. Securing that new equipment for the hospital is too important. No mistakes.】 His reply was instantaneous. 【Yes, ma’am! Counting the seconds until I’m back. Wait for me!】 I let out a small, watery laugh, and the tears I’d been holding back fell like broken pearls. After the “breakup,” I didn’t go back to the house I shared with Devon. I checked into a hotel. Sleep didn’t come easy. In my dreams, Devon flickered between an angel and a demon. We were childhood sweethearts, our families equals in business. Our parents had always planned for us to marry. We fell in love for real when we were older. But then, a cruel twist of fate—a car accident that stole my parents and sent my family’s business into a nosedive. Even though Devon and I had already had our engagement party and set a wedding date, his parents suddenly refused to acknowledge me. But back then, Devon was completely devoted. He fought with his parents, determined to be with me. But after my parents’ death, I shut down. I couldn’t bear to be around anyone. A deep depression set in, and I developed a crippling social anxiety that often left me mute in front of strangers. Devon stayed by my side through it all, his constant presence a lifeline, always trying to make me smile. I was so moved. I thought I would follow him to the end of the earth. Halfway through the dream, the scene shifted violently. Devon had his arm around a new girl, a canary in a golden cage, and he was backing me into a corner, his words sharp and humiliating. His parents burst in, screaming at me, calling me shameless. I woke up with a gasp, heart pounding, drenched in sweat. Outside, a storm raged, thunder shaking the windows. I touched my forehead; it was burning. My phone’s notification light was blinking. It was Lana. A series of risqué selfies, taken in the bed I shared with Devon. I threw the phone aside and curled up under the covers. I don’t know how long I was out, but the ringing of my phone woke me again. It was Elias. “Thea, I miss you so much. I still have another week here…” His voice was a deep, magnetic hum that made me smile. But when I tried to answer, a hoarse croak came out, startling us both. I didn’t want him to worry. I lied and said I just had a small cold and had already made a doctor’s appointment. He sighed in relief, then fussed over me for a few more minutes before hanging up. Worried he might call the hospital to check, I dragged myself out of bed and called a cab. By the time I ran into the emergency room, I was soaked. Before my number was even called, a group of immaculately dressed young women cornered me in the hallway. They held up their phones, live-streaming. “Hey everyone, we’re Lana’s girl squad, and you’re not going to believe who we found! This is the home-wrecker who’s trying to steal Lana’s man!” “We’re here today to pay our respects! Smash that like button, everyone! Let’s get this home-wrecker trending!” They shoved and pushed me. I shrank against the wall, clutching my wet clothes, struggling to breathe. “Get a good look at her, people! Keep your men away from this viper!” One of them grabbed my chin, forcing my face into the camera. I tried to push them away, biting my lip in humiliation. “You bitch! How dare you fight back? We’re not saying anything that isn’t true!” “Lana’s too nice to deal with you herself, so we’ll teach you a lesson for her!” My shirt ripped. I tried desperately to cover myself, shaking my head wildly. I looked around for help, but the onlookers just watched, captivated by the drama. Just as despair set in, Devon appeared. He was backlit by the hospital lights, a savior striding toward me. A wave of relief and sorrow washed over me. “Devon…” I choked out, my voice thick with tears. “Help me…” He shot me a look of pure venom, then rushed past me to shield Lana, who was standing off to the side, silently crying. “Thea, did you have to follow her here? She just had heart surgery!” The taste of blood filled my mouth, sharper and more bitter than the day his mother had slapped me. I curled into a ball against the wall, my body shaking uncontrollably. “Devon, I don’t feel well. Can you take me to see the doctor?” Lana murmured, leaning against him. Perhaps because I was so silent, Devon finally deigned to look at me. The moment his eyes met mine, Lana clutched her chest and collapsed into his arms. His attention snapped back to her. He scooped her up and strode toward the examination room, his face etched with worry. As he carried her away, Lana glanced over his shoulder and gave me a triumphant smirk. Her friends followed, chins held high. The show was over. The crowd dispersed. All I could hear was the drumming of the rain. Staring out at the storm, my mind drifted back to when I was eighteen. Devon, covered in blood, had carried me on his back to this very clinic. He was so exhausted his lips were white, and he stumbled several times, but he never loosened his grip, whispering softly in my ear. “Don’t be afraid, Thea. I stabbed the guy who hurt you. I’m here. No one will ever hurt you again.” His young back wasn’t broad, but it was my entire world, my sanctuary. I had clung to him, my voice a faint whisper in reply. We made it to the clinic, and he collapsed before I did. The doctor checked me over. “You just have some scrapes. Your boyfriend, on the other hand… he has multiple stab wounds. The one on his side is serious. He’s lucky you got here when you did.” The boy who would have died for me was now protecting another woman, spewing poison at me. The image of him carrying her away shattered the memory of the boy who had once carried me. I lowered my head, no longer wanting to watch. In my heart, I said goodbye to him, and to the girl I used to be. My number was called. As I approached the examination room, I saw that the doctor on duty was a good friend of Elias’s. The thought of my pathetic state getting back to Elias was unbearable. I covered my face and fled. Outside, the storm still raged. I took a cab back to the hotel, stripped off my wet clothes, and tried to bring my fever down with a cool cloth. The phone on the bathroom counter lit up. It was Devon. “Thea, where the hell are you? How did you even know Lana had a follow-up appointment today? If I hadn’t gotten there in time, you would have bullied her into another heart attack!” I didn’t argue. I just hung up. A second later, a notification popped up. A new post from Devon. 【A new beginning.】 The picture was of him and Lana kissing. Around her delicate, white neck was my silver chain. I liked the post. Then I unfollowed him. A message from Elias came through immediately. 【Thea, you lied to me. I called the hospital. My colleague said you never checked in. How are you feeling?】 A warmth spread through my chest. I typed and deleted several messages before finally settling on one. 【I’m fine now. Just took some fever reducer and feeling a little sleepy. Focus on your work. Don’t worry about me.】 The phone went quiet. I smiled. Elias was always so considerate. The future head of the prestigious Thorne Medical Group, a man worth billions, yet he always listened to me. I had Devon to thank for meeting Elias. If it hadn’t been for his constant cheating, his endless breakups for other women, the crushing weight of it all wouldn’t have driven me to seek therapy. And I never would have met Dr. Elias Thorne. He was a top psychiatrist, yet he chose to see patients at his family’s private clinic out of a genuine desire to help. At first, it was just a professional relationship. He was my confidant, the one person I could talk to about the emptiness in my life. He was the only person I could talk to. As time went on, my visits became more frequent, my condition worse. Elias was baffled. In his entire career, he’d never had a patient who deteriorated under his care. It made him focus on me even more, and somewhere along the way, his professional concern blossomed into something deeper. I had rejected his advances at first. But after Devon’s latest, most public betrayal, I finally saw things clearly. I accepted Elias. I waited until the sky cleared before I went back to the house. I just wanted to pack my things and leave, but when I put my key in the lock, it wouldn’t turn. The lock had been changed. I stood there for a moment, stunned, and pulled out my phone to call Devon. But then the door swung open. Devon’s mother stood in the entryway, flanked by a team of maids, looking at me with disdain. “Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. The trash my son finally threw out. What are you doing back here? Trying to steal something while he’s not home?” My hands twisted the hem of my shirt. “Mrs. Vance, I just…” “Shut up!” She cut me off with a wave of her hand and gestured to the maids. “Throw her things out.” My suitcases were tossed out onto the muddy lawn. My most prized possession, a sketchbook, landed in a puddle. Every page was filled with drawings of Devon. I had been learning to draw for ten years, all for him. But he was ashamed of my “pathetic little hobby,” and he never let me tell anyone about it. Even when a well-known art critic saw some of my sketches online and offered to mentor me, Devon had belittled my talent until I gave up the opportunity. I bit my lip and knelt to rescue my drawings. As I picked up the soaked book, a piece of paper fell out from between the pages. A letter, in Elias’s elegant script. “Thea’s eyes are like shattered stars.” I must have brought the sketchbook to one of my sessions. I had no idea when he’d slipped it in. The tears came, hot and fast. Devon’s mother stood over me, her voice dripping with contempt. “What are you crying for? So unlucky! The Vance family took care of you for ten years. That’s more than enough charity. Now get lost!” She shoved me, grabbing my arm and trying to drag me away. I clutched the letter, letting the mud stain my clothes, my skin, my everything. On the third day after our “breakup,” Devon called. “Thea. Have you learned your lesson?” His voice was scolding. I said nothing. After a long, tense silence, he chuckled. “You’re still the same. So jealous. You can’t stand to see me with any other girl. I told you, I was just having a little fun. I would have come back to you when I was done. Did you have to be so vicious and go after Lana?” A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to scream, to defend myself, but the words wouldn’t come. “Forget it. It’s pointless trying to reason with you. Since you refuse to change, you can keep reflecting on your mistakes. When you finally realize you were wrong, I’ll come back.” The line went dead. I let out a bitter laugh and blocked his number. I had missed three days of work. I went to the Vance Corporation building during my lunch break to resign. But before I could even speak to my manager, the head of HR found me. She slapped a termination notice on my desk. “Mr. Vance said to give you this when you showed up,” she sneered. My colleagues, who should have been at lunch, were all at their desks, watching the show. Their stares felt like physical blows, and I found it hard to breathe again. I scrambled to pack my things, desperate to escape. Just then, a delivery man walked in. “A Miss Thea Collins? I have a delivery for you.” He placed a massive bouquet of fiery red roses in my arms. I found the small card tucked inside. 【Thea, a friend of mine needs an illustrator for her gallery. The job is yours whenever you’re ready.】 It was from Elias. My boring clerical job had been Devon’s idea. I hated it, but I did it to make him happy. None of my colleagues liked me, but I gritted my teeth and did my work. But Elias… he always told me to just be myself. With his encouragement, the contemptuous stares of my colleagues didn’t seem to hurt so much. I put the flowers down and swept everything off my desk—pens, papers, pictures, everything—into the trash can. Including a framed photo of me and Devon. The HR manager’s jaw dropped. I picked up the roses and walked out without a backward glance. I was about to call Elias to thank him when my phone rang. It was Devon, from a new number. He was screaming. “Thea! Lana just collapsed and was rushed to the hospital! What did you do to her this time?!” Staring at the unfamiliar number, I found my voice. “Devon, if you have a problem with your eyes, go see a doctor. Stop using me as your punching bag. We are broken up.”

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Julian Wilson was unlike any other titan in New York. When the paparazzi caught him in a fender-bender with his latest lover in the passenger seat, he didn’t get angry. Instead, he flashed a grin and gave the photographers a friendly tip. “Remember, for stuff like this, you call my wife. She handles the checks.” The tabloid reporters would share a knowing smile. “Mrs. Wilson has the patience of a saint. A hundred of them, and she doesn’t bat an eye.” But they also remembered the day Julian Wilson married me in a wedding that was the talk of the decade. They remembered how he’d spoken to them in a low, almost hushed tone, shielding me from the flashbulbs. “My wife… she’s a little shy. Please don’t frighten her.” That was only seven years ago. In that time, the shy Mrs. Wilson had learned to claw and fight with his mistresses, to sign one check after another. Scandal containment: a million. A discarded lover: five million. A life-ending secret, an abortion: ten million. And so, as the world held its breath, waiting for the check that would accompany mistress number one hundred, I pushed open the heavy oak door to the Wilson matriarch’s private study. “We had a deal,” I said. “When he reached number one hundred, I would walk.” 1 When the reporter slid the glossy photo of Julian kissing another woman across the table, I didn’t even flinch. I simply stood, went upstairs, and opened the door. Matilda Wilson turned in her chair as if she’d been expecting me. She watched me with the calm, assessing gaze of a woman who had won this war a generation ago. My feelings for her were… complicated. “Have you made up your mind?” she asked. “Yes.” I pushed the signed separation agreement across her desk, my eyes lowered. “Thank you, Mother, for taking care of me all these years.” She let out a long sigh and shook her head. “Leave whenever you’re ready.” I can still hear her words from seven years ago, the day I first stepped into the Wilson mansion as its new mistress. She had looked at me with an expression that was half-pity, half-knowing. “Loving him is easy, Vivian. Keeping him is the hard part.” I was too young, too in love to understand then. It was only after Julian’s scandals began piling up at my door, one after another, that I finally understood her warning. It wasn’t a prophecy; it was a history lesson. Leaving her study, I took a deep breath. The butler was directing staff to bring in a new delivery of gift boxes. The latest Parisian couture, the ‘Heart of Eternity’ diamond from a Christie’s auction, and a pair of crystal slippers Julian had spent six months commissioning for me. On the sole, etched in his own handwriting, were the words: J, for my only love, V. My only love? What a bitter joke. Every woman in Manhattan envied me the penthouse apartment I used just to store these tokens of his affection. To me, they were nothing but trophies of his infidelity. Each gift marked another betrayal. In the beginning, I believed him every time he apologized. I believed he would change, that he hadn’t inherited his father’s insatiable appetite for women. But the gifts kept coming, and I felt myself withering, petal by petal, until I was nothing but rot pressed into the mud. “Do you like them?” Julian’s arms wrapped around me from behind. I smelled an unfamiliar scent of orchid on his collar. It was the signature fragrance of mistress number one hundred, Isabella Rossi. She fancied herself a rare flower, a stark contrast to me, who, in her words, reeked of the vulgar smell of money and checks. I shifted away from his touch. He stumbled slightly, the smile on his face faltering for a second before he caught my hands, his fingers lacing through mine. “Still not used to it after all this time?” he murmured. “Alright, let me change. We’ll have dinner together.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek, completely missing the small object I held clenched in my palm. I was about to say something. But he had already turned. His polished leather shoe came down, stepping directly on the plastic pregnancy test I’d dropped. The two faint lines on its screen were a secret he would never know. He kicked it aside like a piece of trash. His brow furrowed in disgust. “What is this filth doing in the house? Someone, get in here!” In that moment, I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the test, or about me and the child in my womb. A heavy, crushing pain settled in my chest. I couldn’t even make a fist. Julian noticed nothing. When he sat down again, he brought up an old topic. “Let’s put Isabella on your team. If you’re managing her, I won’t have to worry.” Isabella was the daughter of one of their maids. He’d personally mentored her, brought her into the company, and had been pushing for weeks to place her on my project team. I’d refused every time, not wanting a daily reminder of his affair. But this time, I simply smiled. “Alright.” 2 He looked surprised, but his surprise was quickly replaced by delight. He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “Darling, I knew you’d be understanding.” The happy curve of his lips should have been familiar, but it felt like I was looking at a stranger. During my four years at Columbia, whenever people whispered that I was the bastard daughter of a showgirl, that I was dirty and cheap, he had always been the one to stand in front of me. He was the one who took me to see the stars from a Brooklyn rooftop, the one who carried me through the streets in the dead of night when my appendix burst, his shirt soaked with sweat and his feet bleeding by the time we reached the hospital. As I lay in the hospital bed, I had asked him, my eyes red, “How can I ever repay you?” He just smiled. “I don’t want repayment. Just be my partner. Just be understanding.” Later, when I was held up at knifepoint during a shopping trip, he’d talked the mugger into taking him as a hostage instead of me. I was unharmed. He took three stab wounds to the arm and chest, yet he was the one wiping away my tears. “Don’t cry. I don’t want your tears. Just marry me. Just be my understanding wife.” I never could have imagined what “understanding” truly meant to him. It wasn’t about being a good partner in business or a supportive wife at home. It was about accepting and cleaning up the endless messes from his affairs. Julian’s initial joy was followed by a flicker of suspicion. “You’ve always said no before. Why the sudden change of heart?” My gaze drifted to the corner where the broken pregnancy test lay in the dust. I gave a faint, empty laugh. “I’m tired,” I said. “I don’t want to fight anymore.” Not for him, not for this family. Whoever wanted the title of Mrs. Wilson could have it. “If only you’d realized that sooner! Which of my friends doesn’t have a girl in every borough? Your own father played the field back in the day, didn’t he? And your mother never said a word!” It was true. My mother never said a word. She and my father met on the mainland. After I was born, he came to New York to make his fortune. When he had enough, he brought us over. For a while, he was the perfect husband, the perfect father. Until my fifteenth birthday. That was the day my mother discovered his other family, his other son who was exactly my age. She had screamed, a raw, hysterical sound, and grabbed my father by his collar. “Why? How could you do this to us?” He shoved her away and pointed a finger in her face. “A cheap showgirl has no right to question me! If you hadn’t given me a useless girl, do you think I would have needed to find other women?” He turned and kicked me hard, spitting in my face. “Useless. What a waste of space.” Later that night, my mother stabbed my father twenty-three times. Then, she killed herself. She died at my feet. The blood was still warm. It has been my nightmare ever since. There was a time when Julian would have threatened to kill anyone who even dared to bring it up. Now, he could toss my trauma out like a casual joke to shut me up. I wondered how many times he’d shared this story with his lovers, with his friends, all of them laughing at my expense. Seeing the look on my face, he finally had the decency to back down, offering a weak apology. “Sorry. My mistake. Slipped out.” The pain came in waves, so intense it made me tremble. I said nothing. I didn’t even look at him. Just as he started to move toward me, his phone rang. He picked it up and walked out of the room. I heard him murmur the word “baby” with a tenderness that used to be reserved only for me. I once thought it was my special name. I later learned he called every one of them “baby.” The sound of their flirting, muffled through the wall, was like a thousand tiny needles in my ears. I remembered my first year at Wilson Industries. I couldn’t make sense of the financial reports. He’d pull me onto his lap and go through them with me, giving me a playful bite on the shoulder for every mistake I made. Back then, we were the golden couple of the New York elite. Then came the first mistress. I fought. I screamed. I threatened divorce. He would promise it would never happen again, but his nights were still filled with parties and other women. I cried until I was empty, and he would stand there, refusing to sign the papers, yelling, “My father was like this! My uncles are like this! Every man I know is like this! What did I do that’s so wrong?” I, a Columbia graduate, became a shrieking harpy, turning our home into a warzone. Finally, his mother summoned me to her study. “It’s useless,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “Infidelity is in the Wilson blood.” “But I will give you a choice. Wait until he’s had his one-hundredth affair. After that, whatever you decide to do, I will support you.” She thought I would become like her: numb, resigned, and eventually, accepting. But I became Mrs. Wilson because I loved Julian. I didn’t love Julian because I wanted to be Mrs. Wilson. Without love, I didn’t want the man. I should have been numb by now. But as my eyes fell on the two-meter-long portrait of me in my wedding dress hanging over our bed—a mosaic he’d spent three months piecing together, his eyes red with exhaustion—and I heard him on the phone, patiently coaching his new lover on how to handle tomorrow’s investors’ briefing, the absurdity of it all was overwhelming. I wiped a tear from my eye, pulled a suitcase from the closet, and began to pack. Julian walked back in, a smile on his face. The smile vanished. “Where are you going?” 3 “I was thinking of a trip. Europe, maybe.” He looked me over and nodded to himself. “Good idea. Let Isabella handle things here. You go and relax.” The next day, the annual investors’ briefing was packed. Every partner of Wilson Industries was there. Isabella, dressed in a sharp power suit, commanded the stage, all traces of the timid girl who used to call me “ma’am” gone. Julian sat beside me, beaming with pride. Suddenly, the massive screen behind Isabella went black. A moment later, it flickered back to life, not with charts and figures, but with the unmistakable sounds of a couple in the throes of passion. An image appeared—Isabella, entangled in bed with a man. Although their faces were blurred, everyone in the room knew exactly who that man was. Isabella covered her face and ran from the stage, pushing through the stunned crowd to throw herself into Julian’s arms. She looked at me, her face streaked with tears. “Mrs. Wilson… Vivian… I know you’re angry, I know you look down on me, but how could you risk the Wilson legacy for your own petty jealousy?” With one sentence, she made me the villain. I looked directly at Julian. “Do you also believe I did this?” He didn’t answer me. He just held Isabella, murmuring words of comfort. After a long moment, he finally looked up, his eyes filled with a mixture of disgust and disappointment. “So that’s why you agreed so easily yesterday! You had this planned all along!” he hissed. “You came from nothing, Vivian. How can you be so cruel to her? We’re all selling something in this world. What makes you so much better than her?” He let out a cold, humorless laugh. “Don’t you forget, I made one Vivian Thorne. I can just as easily make another Isabella Rossi!” The air was thick with whispers and mocking laughter. I thought after seven years, I was immune. I thought I had cried all my tears and felt all the pain there was to feel. But his words… they churned something toxic inside me. I opened my hand, wanting to show him I didn’t have the remote, that it wasn’t me. The moment my hand moved, Isabella shrieked and recoiled. “Vivian, no! Don’t hit me! I’m sorry! I’ll never see Julian again, I promise, just please don’t hit me!” Julian’s face darkened. He grabbed her arm and yanked up her sleeve. The crowd gasped. Isabella’s arm was a canvas of ugly bruises and what looked like whip marks. In an instant, Julian’s eyes went red. He pulled the trembling woman into a fierce embrace and barked an order at his bodyguards. “Make her kneel.” I struggled, screaming, “Julian, calm down! It wasn’t me!” He sneered. “I’ve been too calm. I’ve given you too much respect, and it’s turned you into a monster. Today, I’m going to teach you how to be a proper Wilson wife.” As he finished speaking, a bodyguard stepped forward with a riding crop. The whip cracked through the air. The people around us just watched, some of them even starting to count. “One… two… three…” My face and limbs were pinned to the floor. Blood, mixed with tiny flecks of skin, splattered in front of my eyes. The pain on my back was a fire, burning its way straight into my soul. The man who once rode a bicycle with me through Central Park at dawn, the man who once whispered “don’t be afraid” as he shielded me with his own body, the man who knelt outside the library at Columbia and swore he would love me for a lifetime… that man was finally, irrevocably shattered. Tears streamed down my face. When Julian saw my tears, he flinched as if he’d been burned and took a step back. “Mr. Wilson, that’s one hundred,” a guard said quietly. “Any more and you might kill her.” He waved a dismissive hand, his brow furrowed. “Enough! Get her to a hospital.” As they loaded me onto a stretcher, I saw Isabella, still nestled in Julian’s arms, flash me a triumphant smile.

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My name was written on a card and dropped into a box. And just like that, I, Sloane Richmond, a scholarship student at the prestigious Blackwood University, became the new prey in the latest round of a hunting game played by the school’s untouchable elite. The one tasked with my taming was the student body president himself, Landon Cole. He pursued me like something out of a romance movie: gentle, attentive, and obscenely generous. Everyone on campus whispered that I was about to hit the jackpot, to become his pampered little thing. They placed bets behind my back, wagering on how hard I’d be crying on the final day of the one-month deadline. But none of them knew. The most dangerous predators are the ones who appear as prey. I came to this university with a single purpose: to evaluate the character of my potential fiancé. And now, the evaluation was over. 1 My name is Sloane Richmond. In the Blackwood University archives, I am, for all intents and purposes, a charity case. On the first day of school, my roommate, Nina, pulled me aside to give me a hushed, conspiratorial rundown of the Blackwood survival guide. “Sloane, you have to remember, there are two kinds of people at this school.” She lowered her voice, nodding toward a red Ferrari peeling away from the curb outside our window. “There are people like us, who fought tooth and nail just to get in.” “And then there are them,” she said. “The heirs, who show up to class in supercars.” “And that circle, the one led by student president Landon Cole… you have to stay as far away from them as you possibly can.” Nina’s expression was dead serious. “They’re monsters, Sloane. Actual monsters.” “They love this disgusting game they call the ‘Kingfisher Draw.’” My hand, holding a glass of water, froze mid-air. I looked at her. “What kind of game?” Seeing my casual curiosity, Nina’s voice trembled with urgency. “They collect the names of pretty, normal girls on campus—girls without money. They write them on cards and put them in a box.” “Whichever girl one of the rich guys draws, he has one month to make her fall completely and hopelessly in love with him.” Nina’s face was a mask of disgust and fear. “And on the last day, in front of everyone, he dumps her in the most humiliating way he can think of.” “They call it ‘taming the prey.’ The winner is the one whose prey cries the hardest during the breakup.” She gripped my arm, her knuckles white. “Last semester, a junior from our department was chosen. A month later, she found out she was pregnant.” “The guy’s fiancée showed up and slapped her in front of a crowd, called her a whore.” “The junior… she couldn’t take it. She jumped from the top of the humanities building. She and the baby… both gone.” “So, Sloane, you’re so beautiful. Please, just be careful. Don’t let them notice you.” I reached out and patted her tense shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said, offering a placid smile. “I’m just here to study.” Nina looked into my eyes and, for some reason, shivered. That night, in a private suite at the exclusive Aurelian club. Isabelle Beaumont giggled, shaking a polished wooden box. “Landon, darling, it’s your turn! Let’s see which lucky girl gets to be graced by your attention.” Landon Cole was draped across a velvet sofa, swirling a glass of red wine, the picture of lazy, aristocratic boredom. He glanced at the box without a flicker of interest. Undeterred, Isabelle pushed the box right under his nose, her voice thick and sweet like honey. “Come on, Landon, just draw! I put a real prize in there for you this time.” “Scholarship student from the art department. Name’s Sloane Richmond. Looks like an absolute angel. Imagine the satisfaction of winning her over just to break her.” Hearing this, a slow smile spread across Landon’s face. He reached out and plucked a card from the box. On it, in elegant script, was the name: Sloane Richmond. He stared at the card, his smile deepening with meaning. “Alright,” he said, his voice a low purr. “This month, let’s play with her.” From that day on, my quiet university life was suddenly spectacular. Everywhere I went, I “happened” to run into the student body president. Lining up in the cafeteria, he’d appear behind me, insisting on swiping his card for me. “Come on, fate brought us together in the lunch line. It’s on me.” Studying in the library, he’d sit across from me. The moment I frowned at a textbook, a note would slide across the table with the solution neatly written out, accompanied by a bright, effortless smile. I went to the artisanal coffee shop my father had opened for me just outside campus, deciding on a whim to learn how to work the espresso machine. Landon, assuming I was a struggling barista, promptly bought out the entire day’s inventory of cold brew, handing it out to strangers just so I could get off my shift early. “Don’t work so hard,” he murmured, his voice laced with concern. “A woman’s hands aren’t meant for this.” It took every ounce of my self-control not to let my eyes roll all the way into the back of my head. Within a week, the entire campus was buzzing. The student president was relentlessly pursuing the scholarship student, Sloane Richmond. I became the target of every girl’s envy, jealousy, and hatred. Every time I went back to my dorm, Nina would look at me with the sorrowful eyes one reserves for a lamb being led to slaughter. “Sloane! I told you to stay away from him!” I threw my hands up in mock helplessness. “I don’t know how he does it! He just… appears.” “You can’t fall for it!” Nina stomped her foot. “He’s just playing with you!” I nodded, my face a perfect portrait of sincerity. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Of course I knew. Every time Landon performed one of his grand, romantic gestures, I could see Isabelle and her little posse in the distance, phones held up, recording everything. Let them film. My good side is all 360 degrees of them. Then came the invitation to Isabelle Beaumont’s birthday party at the Aurelian. Landon texted, asking me to be his date. I deliberately played my part. That place is way too expensive. I don’t have anything to wear. Ten minutes later, he was standing outside my dorm building holding a garment bag from a ridiculously high-end designer. Inside was a starlit blue evening gown with a price tag that could cover four years of tuition. “Wear this,” he said, his voice low and intense. “Tonight, you’re the princess.” Gasps erupted from the girls watching from their windows. “Oh my god, is that a custom D’Amore? That dress costs more than a new car!” “Sloane Richmond is the luckiest girl alive!” I had to physically restrain myself from crying with laughter. The price tag was almost as much as one of my favorite pairs of silk pajamas. I changed into the dress and walked into the Aurelian on Landon’s arm. The club was my eighteenth birthday present from my father, one of the more modest properties in my portfolio. As we entered, the general manager’s eyes lit up. He recognized me instantly and started forward, about to bow. I shot him a single, sharp glance. The man was a consummate professional; he pivoted smoothly and went to greet another guest as if nothing had happened. The birthday girl, Isabelle, saw me, and the jealousy in her eyes was a tangible thing. “Sloane, you look absolutely beautiful. Landon has such exquisite taste.” She paused, then leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But you should be careful in a rented dress. If you damage it, you could never afford to replace it.” I just smiled and said nothing. Throughout the party, Landon was the perfect gentleman. He intercepted drinks for me, cut my filet mignon, and draped his suit jacket over my shoulders when I feigned a shiver. Every detail was flawlessly executed, a scene from a Hollywood script. He pulled me before his friends, introducing me with an air of possession. “This is my girlfriend, Sloane.” His friends cheered and offered congratulations, their eyes glinting with derision and amusement. I stood there like a well-dressed doll, playing my part in his production. Midway through, I excused myself to go to the restroom. Just as I reached the corner, I heard Isabelle’s voice drift from the hallway. “Izzy, don’t you think Landon’s going a little overboard this time? A custom D’Amore gown? Is it possible he’s actually serious?” Isabelle let out a sharp, ugly laugh. “Are you kidding? My brother bought me that dress. Landon just borrowed it.” “After he’s done with her, that little charity case is going to have to take it off and give it back to me.” “It’s like fishing, you know? The more expensive the bait, the more satisfying the catch.” Another girl chimed in obsequiously. “You’re a genius, Izzy! Letting the poor girl wear Cinderella’s glass slippers for a night, only to smash them yourself. God, that’s going to be epic.” Isabelle’s voice was dripping with venomous glee. “Just you wait. The month is almost up. When the time comes, I’m going to make her strip that dress off in front of the entire school, crying her pathetic little eyes out.” Around the corner, in the shadows, I pressed the ‘stop recording’ button on my phone. After Isabelle’s party, Landon’s romantic offensive grew even more intense. Every morning, he was waiting outside my dorm with an elaborate breakfast. He skipped his own advanced economics seminars to sit with me through my boring required art history lectures. When I dozed off, he would secretly draw a tiny cartoon pig on the palm of my hand. On the day I had casually invented as my birthday, he presented me with a diamond necklace in front of all my roommates. Nina’s jaw dropped. She dragged me onto the balcony, her face etched with worry. “Sloane, be honest with me. You’re not actually falling for him, are you?” My fingers grazed the diamonds at my throat. I gave her a reassuring smile. “Of course not.” “Then why are you accepting something so expensive?” Nina’s voice was strained with panic. “With guys like him, everything they give, they expect back with interest! How are you ever going to pay for that?” I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry.” “He’s going to regret it.” The next day, Nina and I were having lunch in the cafeteria. Isabelle, flanked by her friends, walked past our table carrying a tray. With a flick of her wrist, a bowl of scalding hot tomato soup came tipping toward me. I dodged, but the hot liquid still splashed across my arm. “Ah!” Nina screamed, frantically grabbing napkins to dab at my skin. Isabelle looked down at me, her expression one of pure contempt. “Oops. So sorry. My hand slipped.” Her eyes scanned my simple white t-shirt. “You get that thing from a thrift store for five bucks? Here.” She pulled three hundred-dollar bills from her wallet and tossed them on the table as if feeding a stray dog. “That’s three hundred. Should be enough to buy you a whole new wardrobe.” I had to clench my fists under the table. That blind fool. This one t-shirt was worth more than her entire tacky outfit. I had specifically chosen it from my closet full of bespoke clothing as my most “understated” piece, and she had just ruined it. Oh, Dad, I thought, the things your daughter endures for the sake of the family business. Just then, a figure charged through the crowd. Landon shoved Isabelle aside with enough force to make her stumble. He rushed to my side, his face a mask of frantic concern. “Are you okay? Did it burn you? How bad is it?” He whirled on Isabelle, his voice like thunder. “Isabelle, are you insane? Apologize to Sloane. Now.” Isabelle’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “Landon, darling, it was an accident.” “I said, apologize!” Startled by his fury, she mumbled a resentful, “Sorry.” The word was barely out of her mouth before Landon swept me up into his arms, princess-style, and strode toward the campus clinic as the entire cafeteria stared. “I’m so sorry, Sloane,” he whispered, his voice tight with emotion. “I should have protected you.” I lowered my gaze, letting my shoulders tremble. “It’s not your fault,” I whimpered, my voice thick with unshed tears. He held me even tighter. “Sloane, trust me. No one will ever dare to bully you again.” I rested my head against his chest. The cloying scent of his expensive cologne mixed with the acidic smell of tomato soup was truly nauseating. If Dad knew I’d gotten hurt playing this stupid game… But it was alright. The observation period was almost over. The one-month deadline finally arrived. I received a text from Landon. Lover’s Point. Tomorrow at 7 PM. I’ll be waiting. There’s something important I need to tell you. Okay, I texted back, adding a smiley face. I’ll bring a gift for you, too. It’s a surprise I prepared just for you. 😉 Nina saw my reply and started pacing like a caged animal. “Sloane, are you crazy? You’re actually going? He’s obviously going to dump you, and you’re bringing him a gift?” “I know,” I said calmly. “That’s why I prepared such a grand one for him.” A gift he would remember for the rest of his life. The next evening, I went to Lover’s Point as planned. Landon was already there, looking like a prince straight out of a fairy tale. Beneath his familiar, gentle smile, I could see the glint of a hunter’s excitement. In the shadows of the trees, I caught the tell-tale glint of phone screens. Isabelle and the rest of the Kingfisher Draw players were already in position. “Sloane,” he began, his voice heavy with fake regret. “I’ve thought about this a lot. I think… I think we should break up.” “Our families are just from two different worlds. My mother would never approve. It breaks my heart to do this, but it’s better to make a clean break now.” “It’s for your own good. You’re a wonderful girl, and I hope you find someone who can actually marry you one day.” He delivered the lines with such heartfelt sincerity; he really had a future in low-budget soap operas. But if it was a performance he wanted, I was more than happy to oblige. “So… this whole month?” I asked, my voice trembling as I looked up at him, my eyes shimmering with tears. “Everything you did for me, all the kindness… it was all just a game, wasn’t it?” Landon’s face broke into a cruel, unconcealed smirk. “Since you’ve already figured it out, I guess I can drop the act.” “That’s right. It was a game. Sloane, did you really think I could ever fall in love with some poor little scholarship girl?” He pointed a finger at the dress I was wearing, then at the necklace on my neck, and sneered. “Do you think you’re worthy of any of this?” “Now, the game is over.” “Give back what doesn’t belong to you. Especially that diamond necklace. I was planning on giving that to Isabelle.” Isabelle and her cronies stepped out from the trees, moving behind Landon, ready to watch me get stripped of my borrowed finery. I raised my hand and unclasped the diamond necklace he’d given me. Then, in front of all of them, I drew my arm back and threw it. The necklace cut a glittering arc through the twilight air before landing in the lake with a quiet plunk. Isabelle shrieked. “My diamond necklace! Sloane, are you insane?!” The others stood with their jaws agape, too shocked to speak. “Landon was right,” I said, my voice suddenly clear and steady. “A diamond necklace of this quality really isn’t worthy.” “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen diamonds of such poor clarity before.” “As for this dress…” I turned my gaze to Isabelle. “Isabelle, open your eyes and take a good, long look. Does this really look like the dress your brother gave you?” One of her more observant friends leaned in and whispered nervously, “Izzy… that doesn’t look like the D’Amore couture your brother bought. It… it looks more like the ‘Galaxy of Starlight’ gown the international master designer Julian Devereaux created for the Richmond heiress.” Isabelle shot her friend a withering glare. “Are you insane, too? Her last name is Richmond, so that makes her the Richmond heiress? Could a scholarship girl ever wear something like that?” It was getting late, and I needed my beauty sleep. It was time to wrap this up. “Landon, I have to admit, playing with you all has been… tiring.” “The observation period is over, fiancé. Congratulations.” “You’ve been disqualified.”

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It was late. I was alone, scrolling through Wattpad, and settled on a steamy story titled My Roommate is My Best Friend’s Boyfriend. The writing was good, the smut was top-tier, but the further I read, the more unsettling it became. The description of the male lead… Why did it sound exactly like my boyfriend? 1. 6’1″, thin lips, a lecturer at his alma mater. Allergic to nuts, with a small red mole just under his left collarbone… Could it really be a coincidence? My throat tightened. I kept scrolling. 【…he pinned me against the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, his fingers expertly unbuttoning my shirt. The city lights blazed outside, blurring the figures of people walking on the street below. The thrill of being caught, the sheer risk of it, only seemed to make him harder, rougher.】 Another long, explicit passage followed. My heart skipped a beat. Ethan’s new apartment, the one he was so proud of, had a massive floor-to-ceiling window. He’d taken me to see it a few months ago when it was just an empty space. The setting sun had spilled across the river, catching in his smiling eyes. He’d held me from behind, his voice soft in my ear. “I know how much you love a good view. Once you finish your master’s and move in, we can sit here every night and watch the city light up.” I frowned. Could the man in this story really be Ethan? I read more carefully, but as I did, a sense of absurdity started to push back against my initial panic. The male lead in the story was wild, aggressive, whispering filthy things in the heroine’s ear. My Ethan was gentle, reserved, with an almost old-fashioned shyness. The few times he’d tried to say something even remotely flirty, he’d been the one to blush first. How could that man be the same one pinning a girl against a window for the whole world to see? Ethan was moderately well-known on campus. A handsome young lecturer was bound to attract attention. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that someone was using him as a muse for their fantasy. Besides, I only had two best friends. One was studying abroad in Berlin, and the other had graduated and was a lesbian. I trusted them both completely. I let out a long breath, the tension in my shoulders easing slightly. Maybe I was just being paranoid. 2. Even though my gut told me it was impossible, I read the rest of the chapters. The plot was simple. The heroine, a college student, moves out of her dorm after a fight with her roommate. She finds a new place, only to discover that her landlord and new roommate is a man—her best friend’s boyfriend. They both agree to keep it a secret. But living together, just the two of them, day in and day out… sparks were bound to fly. After the boyfriend has a fight with his girlfriend (the heroine’s best friend), the heroine comforts him. They drink, and the long-suppressed tension finally explodes. The heroine discovers that beneath his gentle, scholarly exterior, her best friend’s boyfriend has a completely different side. From there, the story was a non-stop smut-fest. My fingers, acting on their own, scrolled past the last chapter and into the comment section. A reader had posted: This feels so real, omg. Is the male lead based on a real person? Can’t wait for the next update! The author had replied to that comment just two minutes ago. Let’s just say… my inspiration is very close by. 😉 He just wore me out, I’m exhausted! We’re going to bed now, I’ll update tomorrow! Goodnight! xoxo I stared at that comment for a long time. My logical brain was screaming that it was a coincidence, that I was overthinking it. But I opened my chat with Ethan anyway. I typed: Are you asleep? The thirty seconds I waited for a reply felt like an eternity. The only sound in the dark, quiet room was the frantic thumping of my own heart. My screen lit up. 3. Ethan: Just finished some work. About to head to bed. Why are you still up? You know you need your sleep. His reply was as prompt and caring as always. On any other night, it would have made my heart melt. Tonight, it felt like a slap in the face. I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood. Impulse took over. I had to know. I had to see for myself. Words could lie. His apartment couldn’t. My fingers flew across the screen, moving faster than my thoughts. I opened the Uber app. Set destination. Request ride. Confirm. A long moment passed. I picked up my phone again and texted Ethan. Suddenly really miss you. I don’t have class tomorrow. I’m coming over. Is that okay? The second the message sent, my phone started ringing. The screen glowed with his name: Ethan. I immediately declined the call. A new text from him popped up. It’s almost 1 AM. I don’t want you coming over by yourself this late. Be a good girl. I’ll come pick you up first thing in the morning, okay? I replied: No. I want to see you now. I’m already in the Uber. After sending the text, I took two steps forward. The motion-sensor light in the hallway flickered on, illuminating my pale face. I was already standing right outside his door. 4. I didn’t knock. If the one-in-a-million chance was true, what would bursting in accomplish, other than showing my hand? I turned and slipped into the fire stairwell at the end of the hall. From this angle, I had a perfect view of his front door. A few minutes later, the door creaked open a few inches. Not all the way, as if the person inside was cautiously checking the hall. A man’s voice, hushed and urgent, drifted out. “Hurry up.” Then, a girl stepped out. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen. She pouted. “Do I really have to go? Can’t I stay a little longer? She’s still in the car, right?” Ethan’s voice was cold, hard, completely stripped of the warmth I was used to. It was the voice of a stranger. “Go home. Now. Don’t make me say it again.” “She could be here any minute. She can’t see you. I’ll text you when it’s safe to come back.” The girl seemed intimidated by his tone. She mumbled, “You’re so afraid of her…” “Calla, you know exactly what she means to me.” “And you’re not afraid I won’t come back?” “You will,” Ethan said, his voice certain. The story on Wattpad mentioned that the male lead had stopped charging the heroine rent. But my mind couldn’t focus on that detail. Because I recognized the girl. Calla. My sister. Or, more accurately, the sister I refused to acknowledge. The product of my father’s affair. 5. Ethan and I had only been officially dating for six months, but we’d known each other for over twenty years. We weren’t exactly childhood sweethearts. Our families had been neighbors, living in the same quiet cul-de-sac. My childhood memories were filled with him, a quiet little boy who always trailed after me, sharing his candy, chasing away stray dogs. My mom used to laugh and call him my little guardian angel. My world was small and safe back then. I thought it would last forever. Until Calla and her mother showed up. I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face, the color draining from her cheeks. My happy, carefree childhood had been a lie, eaten away by a secret rot. Calla was only a year younger than me. Which meant that while my mother was pregnant with me, full of hope and excitement, my father was in another woman’s arms, creating another “blessing.” The arguments, the crying, the sound of breaking glass, the prying eyes of the neighbors… that period of my life is a dark, painful blur. My mother was a proud woman. She couldn’t tolerate the betrayal, especially not when the other woman showed up on our doorstep with her child, demanding my mother step aside. In the end, my mother chose divorce. The day we left, it was drizzling. I pressed my face against the car window, looking back. I saw Ethan run out of his house, chasing our car, holding something in his hand. But he disappeared into the rain. That escape didn’t just take my family; it severed my connection to my childhood, to Ethan, to everything I had ever known. My mom and I moved across the country. Calla, and everything associated with her, became a wound I never spoke of, a mark of shame burned into my soul. The next time I saw Ethan was in high school. 6. He was on stage in the auditorium, giving a speech as a student representative. He was tall, confident, poised. I sat in the audience, not daring to believe it was him. But as the crowd was filing out, he spotted me and called out my name. It felt like fate, pulling us back together. The trauma of my childhood had changed me. I was no longer the happy, outgoing girl he knew. But Ethan saw all of it—my fragility, my insecurity, my sharp edges—and he stayed. Year after year, through high school and college, he was there. Finally, I let my guard down. I allowed myself to believe that he truly understood me, that he loved me. I never, ever imagined that his other woman would be Calla. He, more than anyone, knew how much I hated her. Why? When he held her, did he ever think of the helpless little girl I used to be? Of the tears I cried? This wasn’t just cheating. This was a slow, deliberate torture. He had taken my most painful memory and used it to slice away every last bit of my trust. The sensor light in the hallway clicked off, plunging me into darkness. I leaned against the cold wall and listened to the sound of his apartment door locking. The world was silent, but inside my head, the fortress I had built from love and trust was crumbling to dust. 7. My phone screen glowed in the dark. Ethan: Where are you? Should I come get you? I fought to keep my hands from shaking as I typed my reply. I’m suddenly not feeling well, really dizzy. Might have caught a chill. I’m not going to come over, just going to go back to my dorm and rest. He replied instantly: Not feeling well? How bad is it? Where are you right now? Still in the car or back at campus? Don’t move. Tell me where you are. I’m coming to find you right now. Wait for me. His panic felt so real it was almost convincing. I didn’t reply. Less than two minutes later, that door opened again. Ethan was rushing out, a t-shirt thrown on crookedly, his face a mask of genuine concern. He was fumbling to put on a jacket with one hand while holding his phone with the other. Watching him, so flustered and worried, I wanted to laugh. But all I felt was a deep, hollow sadness. Just as the elevator doors were about to open for him, I stepped out from the end of the hall. The stark, white light of the sensor enveloped us both. My voice was low, but in the silent hallway, it was as loud as a gunshot, and it made him freeze, his back rigid. “Ethan.” 8. His hand, halfway into his jacket sleeve, stopped moving. He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Chloe? I thought you were sick.” I ignored his question. “I just saw someone who looked a lot like Calla leaving your apartment.” My voice was flat. “Tell me I was mistaken.” His face went pale. He knew there was no point in lying. After a long moment, he managed to choke out two words. “I’m sorry…” “When did it start?” I asked. He looked down, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Four months ago. That time we had that big fight… she came over to comfort me. I’d been drinking. I thought… I thought she was you. It just… happened.” I closed my eyes. It matched the plot of the story perfectly. The journey from suspicion to certainty, from a flicker of hope to utter despair, had been brutally fast. It hurt, but more than the pain, I felt sick. I suddenly remembered my freshman year of college. Ethan and I had ended up at different schools. We had a stupid fight, and I’d impulsively told him I never wanted to see him again. I was hysterical, screaming cruel things into the phone. Two hours later, my roommate burst into our room, panicked. Ethan had scaled the spiked iron fence around our all-girls dorm. His palms were bleeding, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just stood under my window in the pouring rain all night, his eyes fixed on my room. He was so proud, so arrogant. But in front of me, he had made himself small. He ended up with seven stitches. As the nurse put in his IV, he looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed. “Chloe, I don’t want anyone but you. If you ever say those words to me again, I’ll… I’ll…” He never finished the threat. He just buried his head in my neck and cried, hot tears scalding my skin. He couldn’t live without me. I had been so sure of that. And it was that certainty that made this betrayal so much more pathetic. “Ethan,” I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. “We’re done.” 9. He refused to accept it. He begged. He pleaded. He was about to get on his knees. I didn’t stop him. So he knelt. I knew he was trying to make me feel sorry for him, to make me soften. But even fate wasn’t on his side. As he knelt, his phone slipped out of his pocket and clattered on the floor. The screen lit up with a text notification. I snatched it up before he could. The words on the screen were bright and damning. Calla: Is she gone yet? I miss you. We didn’t get to finish earlier… Can you just tell her to go home so I can come back and play? 😘 I let out a cold laugh and threw the phone at him. It bounced off his chest with a dull thud. “You both make me sick.” I turned and walked away. He scrambled to his feet, desperate. “Chloe, wait, let me explain—” I spun around and spat the words at him. “Don’t you dare touch me with the same hands you touched her with!” The pure disgust in my eyes finally broke him. He froze, not daring to take another step. I walked into the elevator without looking back. As the doors slid shut, his figure disappeared from my sight, once and for all.

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For my birthday, my sister Ashley gave me a ten-dollar scratch-off ticket. I won two hundred bucks. And my mother’s face fell apart. She snatched the ticket out of my hand, her knuckles white. “This is Ashley’s luck! You give this back to her, and I’ll buy you a new one.” I was stunned. “Mom, I’m the one who scratched it…” “Why do you have to be so selfish?” Her voice shot up, sharp and accusing. “Do you know what your sister makes an hour? This is a week’s worth of groceries for her!” Ashley, scrolling through her phone, didn’t even look up. “Whatever, Mom. Let her have it. It’s her birthday present.” My mother’s eyes instantly welled with tears. “You see? Look how considerate your sister is! And then there’s you, using your own birthday to take advantage of her!” I felt a cold wave wash over me. Just last month, for Ashley’s birthday, my mother had insisted I buy her a Tiffany bracelet. When Ashley got it, she didn’t even say thank you. Suddenly, the brand-new designer purse I’d bought for my mom, sitting in my bag, felt ridiculously out of place. It looked like she wouldn’t be getting it after all. 1. The candles on my cake were barely lit when Ashley tossed a crumpled scratch-off ticket onto the table. “Here,” she said. “Happy birthday. Go on, scratch it. If you win, you have to thank me.” I found a penny and scraped away the silver coating. The number “$200” appeared. “Wow, I won!” I looked up, smiling, only to see the joy drain from my mother’s face. She snatched the ticket, gripping it so tightly her nails dug into the thin cardboard. “This is Ashley’s luck! Give it back to her. I’ll buy you another one.” I just stared at her. “Mom, she gave it to me. I scratched it…” “Don’t be so selfish, Sarah!” she snapped, her voice cracking. “Ashley’s barely making ends meet. Two hundred dollars is a lot of money for her!” Ashley, still glued to her phone, sighed dramatically. “It’s fine, Mom. Just let her have it.” That was all it took for my mom to get choked up. “Look at your sister, so generous! And you, you have to make a big deal on your birthday and take from her!” Last month, for Ashley’s 24th birthday, my mother had taken me aside. “Sarah, honey,” she’d said, her voice dripping with concern, “Ashley needs something real for her birthday. A milestone. All her friends have nice things. You’re doing so well, you should get her something that will last.” She kept this up for a month. Daily calls and texts about how hard Ashley had it, how I was the big sister, how I could easily afford it. I caved. I spent three thousand dollars on a classic Tiffany & Co. bracelet. When I gave it to her, Ashley ripped the box open and immediately clasped it onto her wrist, not even bothering with the tissue paper. “Mom! Look!” She wiggled her arm, the silver catching the light. “It fits perfectly!” My mom beamed, adjusting it for her. “It’s beautiful! You have such delicate wrists, everything looks good on you.” Ashley threw her arms around Mom. “Thanks, Mom!” I was left standing there, holding the empty blue box. My mom patted Ashley’s back, then glanced at me. “See? She loves it.” Ashley finally looked at me and gave a dismissive little smile. “Oh, yeah. It’s nice.” Then she went right back to admiring her wrist. Not a single “thank you” was directed at me. “The quality is just wonderful,” Mom murmured, turning Ashley’s hand over and over. “She can wear this for the rest of her life…” I quietly put the empty box in my purse. The crinkle of the wrapping paper was the only sound I made. “Oh, right,” my mother said, as if suddenly remembering I was there. “Sarah, make sure you give Ashley the receipt. In case she wants to exchange it for a different style…” “I will,” I said, my voice flat. Ashley finally tore her eyes away from the bracelet and held her hand out to me. “Receipt?” I pulled the slip of paper from my wallet. She plucked it from my fingers and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. “So, what’s for dinner?” she asked, linking her arm through Mom’s. “I’m craving sushi.” “Of course, sweetie,” Mom said instantly, then turned to me. “You want to come?” I looked at the gleaming bracelet on my sister’s wrist, and a heavy, sinking feeling settled in my stomach. “No, thanks,” I said, grabbing my bag. “I have a brief to finish up for work.” As I was walking out the door, I heard Ashley ask, “Why does she always have to be such a downer?” The door clicked shut, cutting off my mother’s sympathetic laughter. 2. Staring at the flickering candles on my cake, I replayed that scene in my head and felt like an idiot. What was I even expecting? I touched my purse, feeling the smooth leather of the Chanel handbag inside. It cost a fortune. My birthday is also the day my mom went through hell to have me, and I wanted to give her something special, a real nest egg. Since Ashley had her Tiffany, I thought Mom deserved something even better. But now? No. I was keeping it for myself. My mother was still going on. “Your sister has it so tough. As the older sister, can’t you just let her have this one thing?” That sentence was the match that lit a thirty-year-old powder keg. All the times I had swallowed my pride and my hurt… I was done. I am thirty years old. I’ve spent three decades letting things go. This time, I wasn’t going to. “Let her have it? Haven’t I let her have enough?!” My voice was so loud it startled me. My mom stared, speechless. Ashley finally looked up from her phone, her expression one of pure shock. “From the day she was born, what haven’t I given her? Toys, clothes, my room, my opportunities… and now I’m supposed to give her my winning lottery ticket?!” I snatched it back from her hand and clenched it in my fist. “She has it so tough? Then how could she accept a three-thousand-dollar bracelet from me without so much as a thank you?!” My mother’s face hardened. “Now you’re keeping score…” “Keeping score?!” I laughed, a bitter sound. “You didn’t seem to mind when I was spending three grand on her! But over two hundred dollars, you call me selfish?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “God, Sarah, what’s the big deal? It’s just a scratch-off ticket.” “It is a big deal!” I spun to face her. “Of course it’s not a big deal to you! You’re always the one getting everything handed to you!” My mother’s face was pale with rage, her finger trembling as she pointed at me. “How dare you speak to your sister like that!” “Oh, I’m just getting started,” I said, taking a deep breath and speaking each word with cold precision. “From this day on, I’m not giving up another damn thing.” With that, I grabbed my purse and walked out. “You get back here!” she shrieked behind me. “What is this attitude!” I slammed the door without looking back. In the hallway, I could hear Ashley’s syrupy voice. “Mom, don’t be mad. You know how she gets…” I stood at the elevator, jamming the ‘down’ button over and over, desperate to escape the house that had been draining the life out of me for my entire life. 3. I’m six years older than Ashley. My mother had a complicated delivery with her. A hemorrhage. She almost died on the operating table. She always said Ashley was a miracle, a gift from God that had to be protected. So Ashley became the center of her universe. A delicate doll to be cherished and shielded from the world. And I became the older sister who always had to step aside. When I was in elementary school, I won first prize in the school’s academic fair. The prize was a brand-new, bright red backpack. I loved it. Ashley, who was in preschool, decided she had to have it. My mom didn’t even ask. She just started pulling it off my shoulders. “Your sister wants it. You’re older, you can use your old one.” I clutched the straps. “But I won it…” Smack. The sting on my cheek was sharp and immediate. “Do you have any idea what I went through to give you that sister?” my mom screamed, her eyes red. “I almost died! My back has never been the same! You ungrateful child!” I have so many memories like that, but the one that sticks with me the most was the Disneyland trip. I was ten, Ashley was four. She threw a massive tantrum, screaming and crying that she had to go. My mom finally gave in. I stood by the door, twisting the strap of my schoolbag. “Mom, can I come too?” She didn’t look up from braiding Ashley’s hair. “And do what? Do you know how much a ticket costs? We can’t afford to take you both. You need to be more responsible. You can stay home and do Ashley’s laundry.” I bit my lip. “But I have homework…” “Do it tonight!” she snapped, slamming the hairbrush on the table. “Your sister rarely asks for anything. Can’t you be considerate for once?” My eyes burned. “Why do I always have to be the one? Why do you never take me anywhere? Don’t you love me?” She shot up, her hand raised to hit me again. “Don’t I love you? How do you think you got this far, you ungrateful little—” My dad stepped in, guiding her away and shooting me a look. “Your mom’s just stressed, Sarah. Don’t make it worse. We’ll bring you back a souvenir.” After they left, I stood in the empty living room and cried until I couldn’t breathe. And after I was done crying, I started to believe it was my fault. That I really was inconsiderate. So I washed all of Ashley’s clothes. I mopped the floors. I even scrubbed the greasy stove top. I thought that when they came home and saw how clean everything was, they’d finally praise me. That afternoon, I heard the key in the lock and ran to the door. Ashley burst in, waving a new teddy bear, and immediately tripped over a small stool I’d used for cleaning. She fell and started wailing. My mom rushed over, scooped Ashley up, and then turned and shoved me, hard. “Did you push her?! You are a vicious child! Just because we didn’t take you to Disneyland?” I stumbled back against the wall, my shoulder aching. “I didn’t! She tripped!” “Liar!” Mom raised her hand again. “You’ve been jealous of your sister since the day she was born!” I flinched, tears streaming down my face. It wasn’t until a terrified Ashley whimpered, “…it was the stool…” that Mom lowered her hand. But her expression only got uglier. “Well, it’s your fault for leaving the stool in the middle of the room!” That night, I cried myself to sleep. In my mother’s eyes, I was always wrong. Her guilt over nearly dying to have Ashley had been forged into a weapon. And she used it on me, every single day. My dad’s refrain was always the same: “Your mother has it hard. You have to understand.” But who was supposed to understand me? Maybe from the day my mom almost died, I was destined to be the sacrifice. My hurt was meant to soothe her guilt. My surrender was meant to fix her trauma. But why? Because I was born six years earlier? Because I grew up healthy and without complication? From then on, I buried myself in books. It was the only place I could win. When I got the best grades, teachers praised me. When I won competitions, my classmates were impressed. It was the only time I felt like I was worthy of being loved. 4. Thankfully, I was a good student. All those years of feeling invisible, I channeled that pain into my studies. I fought and clawed my way into a top law school. The day I graduated, I stood on the stage in my cap and gown, accepting an award for academic excellence. The auditorium was filled with applause, but the one person I wanted to see wasn’t there. She was at Ashley’s high school for a parent-teacher conference. After I started my career, I rarely went home. That house was a museum of my pain: Ashley’s stolen toys, my mother’s dismissive glare, my father’s weak, placating smile. Every visit felt like suffocating. But last Christmas, my aunt convinced me to go home. When I opened the door, I was shocked. My mother’s hair was so much grayer, like a dusting of snow. The moment she saw me, her eyes filled with tears, and she grabbed my arm with her thin, frail hands as if she was afraid I’d vanish. At dinner, she kept piling my plate with my favorite foods. She remembered. Later, my dad pulled me onto the porch. “Your mother…” he began, his voice thick. “She stays up some nights, just looking at your old childhood photos.” He sighed. “I think she knows she was wrong.” In the moonlight, I could see the glint of tears in his eyes. In that moment, my resolve softened. Ashley was away at college out of state. My parents were alone. I started visiting every week. I bought my mom expensive supplements and took my dad for a full physical. Mom would stroke my cheek and say, “My oldest girl is the best.” I thought we had finally turned a corner. I thought we could be a normal family, and I craved that long-overdue affection. Until the day Ashley graduated and moved back home, dragging her suitcases behind her.

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The year Weston and I loved each other most fiercely was the year he got a vasectomy for me. It was the year he signed over his entire fortune and had a signaling implant embedded under his skin, so I could summon him with the press of a button. That was also the year his mother was dying of cancer, and I was the one who called off the emergency measures. I let Weston beg, let his pleas echo in the sterile hallway, but I wouldn’t let anyone give his mother a single drop of blood. After she died, he shielded me from the cameras and calmly signed a waiver, absolving me of all legal responsibility. He told me, “Even if you had asked for my life, I wouldn’t hate you.” And then, “Lana. For the rest of my life, my love for you will be unconditional.” After that, everyone in Veridia City knew Weston Blackwood was madly in love with me, a force that defied gods and men. But in the seventh year of our marriage, he fell for a girl who spoke of “The Divine” as if it were her closest confidante. For her, he had the implant surgically removed. For her, he had the vasectomy reversed. He started spending his days with her, lingering in sun-drenched chapels and quiet sanctuaries. It all came to a head the day my father was in a car crash, hemorrhaging, his life measured in minutes. I called Weston, hoping he could leverage his connections to find a rare blood type. But the girl, Seraphina, answered his door. She blocked the entrance with her delicate hand, a smirk playing on her lips. “The Divine has spoken,” she said, her voice light and cruel. “Your father, and you… you’re both meant to die.” I called Weston’s cell. When I told him, his voice was a flat, distant thing. “Your father lived a few years longer than my mother. It’s his time. This time, I’m listening to the will of the Divine.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I grabbed Seraphina by the throat and dragged her up to the rooftop. One by one, I started breaking her fingers. Then I made a video call to Weston, my face a calm mask. “The Divine has a new message,” I said. “If you can’t save my father in the next hour, it’s a life for a life.” 1 Weston, a man I hadn’t seen in months, appeared on that rooftop less than ten minutes after I hung up. His eyes landed on Seraphina, curled on the ground, five of her ten fingers already twisted at grotesque angles. His pupils contracted, his brow furrowed in a deep line. “Lana, this is too much. Because of you, Seraphina will never play the piano again.” He took a step closer. “You don’t need to take your anger at me out on her. She’s just a kid.” The moment the words left his mouth, I brought my heel down on her sixth finger. Seraphina’s voice was already raw from screaming. A choked, gurgling sob escaped her as her body convulsed. “Westy, save me,” she whimpered. “The Divine wouldn’t want one of its flock to lose her hands.” Her cry sent a jolt of panic through Weston. “Lana, I said let her go! Don’t you want to save your father?” I froze, lifting my foot. A sardonic smile touched my lips. “Then what are you wasting time here for? Go find the blood. If I don’t hear from you in fifty minutes, your little treasure is going to pay the price.” Weston’s gaze, thick with worry, settled on Seraphina. He whispered a soft, “Wait for me,” and then he was gone. Watching his retreating back, Seraphina began to tremble, but it was with laughter. “Even if you cripple both my hands, Westy will still love me. Unlike you. You’re just a psycho, a freak with a broken brain.” She looked up at me, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Do you know what he said the night he took my virginity? He cried. He said he hated you. He said he hated you for killing his mother, that you were nothing but a filthy, disgusting murderer!” For a second, the world went white. A sharp pain lanced through my skull, and I was thrown back seven years, to the day I stood in front of a team of doctors, blocking them from saving Weston’s mother. He had begged me then, begged me until the light above the operating theater went out, until the white sheet was pulled over his mother’s face. I had asked him, “Do you hate me?” If he had said yes, just one word, I would have told him everything. I would have gone to prison for it. But he shook his head. And I actually believed him. I believed he didn’t hate me. Seeing my composure falter, Seraphina’s expression grew even more triumphant. With her few remaining intact fingers, she flipped me off. “You know, Lana, you’re not even as useful as a broodmare at a stud farm. But maybe you should go learn—” She paused, her eyes widening in mock realization. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot. You already are one, aren’t you? Ridden and passed around by a thousand different men.” Her contemptuous laugh was cut short after three seconds. I was holding a dagger, its point aimed directly at her throat, ready to slice down. A split second before I made contact, a boot kicked the dagger from my hand. I grunted, clutching my hand. I didn’t need to look to know the blade had flipped, slicing my palm open. Blood was already welling. Weston swept a crying, trembling Seraphina into his arms, his expression like carved stone. “A blood match was found. Your father is receiving a transfusion now.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. “Show me.” Weston nodded, and a bodyguard held a phone in front of my face. It was a live feed from the hospital security camera. My father was surrounded by doctors, and I could clearly see a bag of blood plasma hanging by his bed. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and looked up at Weston’s retreating back. “Weston,” I said. “Let’s get a divorce.” He stopped, his shoulders stiffening. He turned around. From this distance, I could see the faint smile on Seraphina’s lips before she buried her face in his chest to hide it. “Seraphina is just a child. She won’t affect our marriage, so I won’t agree to a divorce,” Weston said, his eyes dark and unreadable. “My mother’s life was my wedding gift to you. It’s also the chain that binds our marriage. This lifetime, you’re never getting away.” My hand shook as I lit a cigarette. I swiped at my phone, not looking at him again. The blood from my palm smeared across the screen, and it took me a long time to wipe it clean. Weston gave an order to one of his men. “Get gauze and antiseptic. Make sure her hand doesn’t scar.” He didn’t remember. He and his mother had already left countless scars on my body and in my soul. As his footsteps faded, I looked at the faint, silvery lines on my wrist and spoke to my lawyer on the phone. “Draw up the divorce papers. I want them today.” After I hung up, I stubbed out the cigarette and went downstairs to see my father. In the hospital corridor, a couple of nurses were whispering. “It’s so tragic. Wrists and ankles both slit, bled him out…” “That’s what you get for crossing the wrong people…” My heart leaped into my throat. I ran, a frantic, desperate sprint toward his room. The heel of my shoe snapped, and I heard a sickening crack from my ankle. I limped the rest of the way, bursting through the door. There he was. My father, limbs splayed out like a starfish, the flesh on his wrists and ankles peeled back. His skin had a sickly, bluish-gray pallor. “…Dad?” I whispered. I stumbled toward him, took his hand, and pressed it against my cheek. “Dad, you said you wanted those cream-filled cannolis from that little shop in the North End, remember? I’m not busy today. I’ll go get them for you, okay?” The icy chill of his hand made my tears feel like acid. In the dead silence of the room, I heard laughter from next door. It was Seraphina, her voice a sickly sweet whine. “Westy, I want the cannolis from that little shop now. I mean it. If you don’t go buy them for me yourself, I’m not taking my medicine!” She held up her bandaged hand pitifully. “Go buy them now, and then you can feed them to me. Please, hurry up!” Weston’s eyes were full of doting affection. He gently pinched her cheek. Seraphina pouted, and then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw me standing in the doorway. Her smile was bright, blinding. “Lana, I’m not mad at you anymore for what happened earlier. The Divine teaches us to forgive everyone. And Westy isn’t mad either, right?” Weston wouldn’t meet my eyes. After ten years together, I knew that look. It was guilt. I hooked my fingers under his chin, forcing his head up. I ignored his frown and held him steady. “My father is dead,” I said softly. A faint smile touched his lips. “He deserved to die. But the blood in his body won’t go to waste. What do you think… blood pudding?” CRACK. The sound of my hand hitting his face echoed in the hallway. His head snapped to the side, his expression hidden by his hair. “Don’t you hit Westy! The Divine will never forgive you for that!” Seraphina shrieked, jumping in front of him. A second later, she was reeling from a slap of her own. The moment she cried out in pain, Weston moved. He opened his mouth to yell at me, but then he saw the tears streaming down my face. His expression went completely blank. I had only seen that look on his face once before, seven years ago. His mother was undergoing chemotherapy, and I had disappeared for seven days. When he saw me again, my face was also stained with tears. The thick armor I had built around myself had shattered. I had made him promise never to lie to me again. He had lied to me three times since. He lied about working late, the night he took Seraphina’s virginity. He lied about not liking birthdays, throwing away the cake I baked from scratch, only to place a handmade gift from her under his pillow. He lied about saving my father, but left me with nothing but a corpse. The harsh words on Weston’s lips softened. “The Divine told Seraphina that bloodletting therapy might be effective. I didn’t think your father wouldn’t make it. But I promise, I’ll give him a funeral worthy of a king.” He sighed. “This was my mistake. Do whatever you want to me, just don’t hurt yourself.” As the words left his mouth, I pulled the stylus-sharp pin from my hair and plunged it into his shoulder. Seraphina let out a tearful scream. He grabbed her hand, telling her not to move. A laugh bubbled up inside me. How did it come to this? How did I become the irredeemable monster in this story? My fingertips brushed against the warm, sticky blood. I rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger. “Weston, I want you to personally take a knife, slit Seraphina’s wrists and ankles, and drain three bowls of her blood.” “Lana, don’t push it!” Without even flinching, Weston pulled the hairpin from his shoulder and tossed it into a trash can. “Seraphina’s anemic. Besides, your father dying was fate. Don’t drag an innocent person into this!” “Fine. Then we’re divorced,” I snapped. “Impossible!” “Nothing’s impossible. You used to say it was impossible for you to cheat, and now you have a mistress, don’t you?” I gave them both a cold, withering look. Just then, my lawyer arrived, handing me a divorce agreement. The smile that was about to bloom on Seraphina’s face vanished instantly. Because Weston tore the papers to shreds. I toyed with a lighter as my lawyer handed me a whole stack of identical agreements. I lit one on fire, then held another one out to him. “Tear all you want. I had a few thousand copies made.” Weston looked exhausted. “Lana…” I enunciated each word. “Did you not understand me? I want you to personally slit her wrists and ankles and drain three bowls of her blood.” Weston’s gaze shifted to Seraphina. She started shaking like a leaf. “Westy, I’m anemic! And… and The Divine doesn’t like its followers to be imperfect! Besides…” she looked up at me, a cunning light in her eyes. “Lana, I’m carrying Westy’s child. I’m not like you, all used up and broken inside, unable to have one. This is our first baby.” She covered her mouth. “Oh dear, did I say something wrong?” Her words were like lightning strikes, leaving me charred and exposed. I lunged at her, my teeth gritted, and aimed a punch straight for her stomach. “If you’re so sorry, then you can join me in never having children!” Weston’s hand clamped around my wrist like a vice of iron. I thought I heard the bones creak. “Was she wrong? Isn’t it the truth?” he ground out. “Lana, Seraphina and I have been in the chapel, praying for your repentance for what you’ve done.” His voice was laced with righteous fury. “You should be atoning for your sins, not running wild like a madwoman!” My vision tunneled. “Atoning? What sin did I commit?” Weston’s handsome features twisted into a cruel mask before my eyes. “You’ve committed no sin? Weren’t you the one who took your anger out on my mother after you let other men sleep with you?” “My mother did nothing wrong! Why did she deserve to die at your hands?” I burst into hysterical laughter, tears streaming from my eyes. “You say she did nothing wrong?” “Yes, yes, you’re right. It’s my fault. The biggest mistake I ever made was marrying you!” How could we have ended up here, when we were once so in love? I had loved him so much that when his mother, sick with cancer, suggested using my blood as some kind of folk remedy, I had sliced my own wrist without a second thought. I had loved him so much that even when I was pushed into that dark room, when countless hands reached out to grope me in the blackness, I held onto one belief. I believed that Weston loved me. I can still see his mother’s sneering face. “Lana,” she had said, “if a woman loses her purity, do you think Weston will still want you?” And later, after I stopped the doctors from saving her, she was still smiling from her hospital bed. “Lana, you have no womb, and no purity. You will never, ever have Weston’s untainted love!” But the night she died, Weston had held me in his arms, his embrace firm and unwavering. He had chosen me. My lawyer discreetly handed me a fresh copy of the divorce agreement. My hand trembled as I signed my name, refusing to wipe the tears from my eyes. I threw it at Weston. “Let’s get a divorce. A sinner like me can’t possibly compare to your pure little Seraphina.” I saw the rage in Weston’s eyes cool for a moment. But then he heard Seraphina start to sob. He snatched a pen, and with a cold snort, scrawled his own name on the paper. “You want to play this divorce game? Fine, I’ll play along,” he spat. “But Lana, even divorced, you’ll only ever be mine. I told you, we die together. Let’s just see how many days you last this time before you come begging me to take you back.” Those words, once so full of passion, now made me want to vomit. It was true, this wasn’t the first time I had brought up divorce. But this time… Remarry? Never again. Not only that, I was going to make them lose everything. Clutching the signed agreement, I limped away. Behind me, I heard Seraphina’s soft, cloying voice. “Westy, I hurt all over. How are you going to make it up to me?” Weston’s voice was deliberately loud, meant for me to hear. “How about a wedding?” As I walked away, I made a discreet gesture to my lawyer. “I need you to do something for me.” Weston thought he could still wound me emotionally. He paraded Seraphina around at every high-profile event, his arm around her, introducing her as his fiancée. Soon, everyone was looking at me with a strange mixture of pity and contempt, as if the madwoman had finally been cast aside. But Weston would always try to compensate afterward. The expensive, custom-blended scar cream he’d won at a high-stakes auction at the Phoenix Club—no matter how much Seraphina whined for it—was still delivered, untouched, to my bedroom. I wouldn’t leave the Blackwood estate until after my father’s casket was in the ground. I was afraid. Afraid he wouldn’t be able to find me. On the seventh day, the day of the funeral, I stood at the door in a black dress, greeting the mourners. Suddenly, an invitation card flew through the air, its sharp edge slicing my cheek. Seraphina stood there, arrogant and proud, dressed in a pure white wedding gown studded with the very jewels that had been the talk of the city at an auction just days before. “Lana,” she said with a saccharine smile, “you don’t mind if I borrow your venue for my wedding today, do you?” Before I could react, her burly bodyguards pushed me aside, clearing a path for her. I stumbled, my eyes falling on the gilt-edged card on the floor, now stained with my blood. It read: Groom, Weston Blackwood, and Bride, Seraphina Vance, cordially invite you to witness their love. In the moment it took for me to process this, Seraphina had skipped over to my father’s open casket. Her face was a mask of childlike innocence. “Uncle’s complexion doesn’t quite match today’s wedding theme!” She took a marker from her purse and drew a bright red clown nose on my father’s face. She beamed at me, triumphant. “What do you think? Isn’t that much better?” Weston had clearly sheltered her well. It had only been a few days, and she had already forgotten the feeling of pain. I grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking until I could feel her scalp tear, and slammed her head against the heavy wood of the casket, again and again. I let her scream, let her struggle. Weston appeared out of nowhere. “What the hell are you doing now? Are you trying to kill her?!” he roared. I laughed, not stopping. “That’s right! I am going to kill her! Today is her death day!” I let her go. “And before she dies, I’m going to rip that pretty mouth off her face!” When I finally released her, Seraphina was a mess. Her makeup was smeared, her hair was matted, and a patch of her scalp was bald. The pure, white angel had become a crawling insect on the floor. Weston caught her, his face a mask of anguish and hatred. “Treating her like this will only push me further away,” he said, his teeth clenched. Words like that couldn’t stir a single ripple in my heart anymore. Because Weston was already a world away from me. He probably didn’t remember it. The day he found me, homeless, and took me in. The day he stood between me and his mother’s whip. The whip. I would never forget the whip. Weston had sworn to me then. He had said that nothing, nothing, could ever push him away from me. My eyes burned. I pulled a dagger from a sheath strapped to my thigh. “Get out of my father’s funeral, now!” Seraphina sobbed in Weston’s arms. “Westy, I only want to have our wedding here today. Nowhere else will do! You can’t say no! Do you want to betray the vows we made before the Divine?” Weston held her close and gave a sharp nod to his men. In an instant, the dagger was knocked from my hand, and my arms were pinned behind my back. “Lana,” Weston said, his voice cold. “I hope today’s events will teach you a lesson.” Seraphina clung to him, her expression a mixture of triumph and scorn. There, in the black-and-white solemnity of the funeral hall, in front of my father’s memorial portrait, a priest invited the bride and groom to exchange their vows. “Wait!” Seraphina suddenly said, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “After Westy and I are married, I’ll be the primary wife. If Lana is still around, she’ll be the secondary one. It’s only right that the second wife kneel before the first to show respect. A little tradition will make our modern wedding perfect.” Weston hesitated for a moment, then nodded. I was dragged in front of Seraphina. Two bodyguards tried to force me to my knees, their hands heavy on my shoulders. But I gritted my teeth, my body rigid, refusing to budge. “You want me to kneel to you?” I spat. “You’re not worthy.” “Seraphina, if I get through this today, I swear I will make you wish you were never born!” My threat seemed to ignite something in Weston. He barked at his guards. “More pressure! If she still won’t kneel, break her kneecaps!” BANG! A bullet whizzed past Weston’s ear. Suddenly, the hall was filled with more than a dozen men in black suits. At their head was a young man who looked barely out of his teens. He waved his hand, and every man raised a weapon, aiming directly at Weston and Seraphina. “I’m here today,” the young man’s voice rang out, cold and clear. “Who dares make her kneel?”

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