Category: English

Before the System erased me for failing my mission, I asked it, “Can I tell him who I really am?” “You may.” I stood in front of Caleb Davenport and slowly peeled off my shirt. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “The truth is, I’m a girl.” Caleb’s eyes widened, his jaw slack. The poor guy. After years of locking horns with his fiercest rival, he was only now discovering that his sworn enemy wasn’t a guy at all. As his shock washed over me, I closed my eyes, ready for the sweet release of oblivion. But I didn’t die. I woke up, back in this world. The System’s voice was apologetic in my head. “After your death, your mission progress inexplicably shot to one hundred percent. As a compensation package, you have been granted a second chance at life.” A pause. “Your new identity is Ava Miller, the wife of a wealthy man who is never home and whose fortune is yours to spend.” I nodded slowly, processing. “Okay. Sounds good. My dream life, actually. So, what’s the name of this husband who’s never home?” “Caleb Davenport.” 1 “Who?!” I sat bolt upright. “Ahem,” the System cleared its throat, the audio file crackling with digital guilt. “In any case, we hope the host enjoys her new life. Goodbye!” It vanished faster than a guilty conscience. I was left reeling in the silence. “Ma’am, please, you have to calm down! Don’t do anything rash!” A voice beside me pulled me back to reality. I blinked, taking in the scene for the first time. Chaos. Utter chaos. The apartment was enormous, the kind of sprawling penthouse that screamed eight figures. But there was barely a place to stand. Everything from porcelain plates to the curated collectibles in the display cabinets had been smashed to pieces. “It’s one thing to break a few dishes when you’re upset, but this… ma’am, what if you’d cut your hand?” the assistant fretted, wringing his hands. His concern, I noted, was less for my well-being and more for the expensive shrapnel littering the floor. A cleaning lady knelt, cautiously starting to gather the larger pieces. She paused, her eyes fixed on a pile of shattered clay fragments. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “What is it?” the assistant asked. “I think… I think this was Mr. Finn’s.” The assistant sucked in a sharp breath. The air in the room, already thick with tension, solidified into a dreadful, silent dread that gripped the half-dozen staff members present. “Quickly, quickly, clean it up!” the assistant hissed, his voice trembling. “Forget everything else, get Finn’s… get that sculpture out of sight! Mr. Davenport must not see this!” He turned to me, his face pale with terror. “This is a disaster. Mr. Finn’s things are absolutely off-limits. No one is allowed to touch them! Ma’am, of all the things to smash, why this?” I raised an eyebrow. “Finn?” “Shh!” he panicked. “Don’t say his full name! The boss will lose his mind if he hears it!” As if on cue, a tall, lean figure stepped through the front door. “Whose name?” Caleb Davenport’s voice, low and cold, sliced through the silence and landed like a shard of ice in my ear. 2 I was eighteen when I died as Finn. Caleb was only seventeen then. A decade had passed. At twenty-seven, Caleb was taller, his boyish features sharpened into the hard, commanding lines of a man who was used to getting his way. He carried an oppressive aura of power. His gaze swept across the wreckage, finally landing on the pile of broken clay. His eyes turned dangerously cold. The assistant’s legs buckled, and he looked seconds away from dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness. “Finn?” I spoke first, my voice clear and steady. “I broke it. It has nothing to do with them. The guy’s been dead for ten years. Having his stuff around felt… morbid. If you have a problem, take it up with me. Leave the hired help out of it.” Every head in the room bowed, every breath was held. Caleb’s gaze shifted slowly, deliberately, until it locked onto my face. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” he asked, a faint, chilling smile playing on his lips. It held no warmth. I spread my hands. “Finn. I know who he was. Your stepbrother, right? The one you weren’t related to by blood. Wait, don’t tell me you actually miss him? That’s hilarious. Everyone knew you two hated each other’s guts. You couldn’t wait to be rid of him.” “That’s true,” Caleb said, the curve of his lips deepening, his eyes crinkling in a parody of good humor. “So,” I pressed, my voice more confident than I felt, “you won’t be mad that I broke his last remaining keepsake, right?” I’d inherited this mess from the body’s previous owner, Ava. She’d thrown the tantrum that led to a fatal brain hemorrhage and heart attack, which was my cue to enter stage left. The mess wasn’t my doing, but the consequences were all mine. “Mad? Of course not,” Caleb said, his tone surprisingly agreeable. “You’re right. He’s been dead ten years. It’s bad luck to keep it around.” The cleaning crew, taking this as their cue, scurried to clear the debris and then vanished. Just as I thought I was in the clear, Caleb’s hand shot out and clamped around my neck. “Ava,” he snarled, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. “I told you. You can throw any tantrum you want. You can break anything in this house. But you do not touch Finn’s things.” His eyes were like chips of frost, a deep, primal coldness in them that sent a shiver down my spine. His grip tightened, constricting, cutting off my air. I started to choke. “Today,” he breathed, his face inches from mine, “you and I are going to settle this score.” 3 I thought he was going to kill me. But he didn’t. Tears of asphyxiation welled in my eyes. I managed to squeeze a sound from my crushed throat. “Hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts!” Caleb’s grip vanished instantly. He stared at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Who told you to say it like that?” I coughed violently, dragging air into my starving lungs. “Say what like what? What the hell is wrong with you?” “Seven times. Exactly seven. ‘Hurts’… When did you pick up that habit?” “What habit? That’s just… a thing people say!” “I’ve never heard anyone say it like that,” he said, his eyes scanning my face, searching. “Except for Finn.” “Then you haven’t met enough people.” He studied me for a long moment, his gaze intense and unnervingly perceptive. Finally, as if confirming to himself that I was, in fact, still just Ava, a wave of profound weariness washed over his expression. “This sham marriage is over,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ll have my assistant draw up the divorce papers and send them to you.” Without another glance at my coughing, sputtering form, he turned and left. Ten years, and Caleb hadn’t changed a bit. I cursed the System a thousand times over. I knew it was unreliable from the start. Back when it first recruited me, it took weeks to realize it had mistaken me, a girl, for the “villainous male supporting character” it was supposed to bind to. I spent the next six years of my life pretending to be a boy. Going to the bathroom felt like a covert spy operation. The missions it gave me were absurd. “The male protagonist has deviated from his destined path. Your job is to guide him back to becoming the exceptional man he’s meant to be, while maintaining your persona as his evil arch-nemesis.” Seriously? It was a miracle that thing was a System and not a paperweight. Still, I had a strategic advantage. After Caleb’s parents divorced, his father remarried. My mother. She was a gold-digger who saw her new stepson as a threat to her inheritance, and she’d abuse him whenever her husband wasn’t looking. I was the son she brought with her. To make my backstory seamless, the System concocted a premise: my mother, obsessed with having a son, couldn’t accept that she’d given birth to a daughter, and so she raised me, her child Finn, as a boy. What could I say? I leaned into the role. When Caleb skipped school, I’d sneer, “Can’t even handle a classroom? You’ll end up a drain on society.” When his grades improved, I’d scoff, “Is that it? No wonder your parents don’t give a damn about you. You’re pathetic.” When he rode his bike to school, I’d slash his tires. “Why are you riding? Run! You’re built like a damn string bean!” Caleb hated me. He had to. No one could endure six years of relentless torment without developing a deep-seated loathing. One time, a group of local thugs cornered me in an alley, trying to shake me down for cash. Caleb saw it happen. He met my eyes, then turned and walked away without breaking stride. When I got home, I asked him, “Why’d you just walk away like you didn’t know me?” He looked at me with those dark, unreadable eyes. “Didn’t you tell me never to acknowledge you in public? Bro?” He rarely called me that. Only when the sarcasm was meant to sting. In the end, I failed my mission anyway. As the six-year deadline approached, Caleb suddenly dropped out of high school. He had no intention of taking the SATs or going to college. Panic set in. I went to confront him (i.e., start a fight). We fought. Caleb won, of course. No matter how convincing my disguise, I was still a girl underneath, and I was no match for his strength. The System’s voice was already announcing my failure in my head, a cold, robotic countdown to my demise. But I had to know. “Why did you quit?” “Because of you.” “What the hell does that have to do with me?” “My dad said you’re a genius,” he said, a bitter, mocking smile twisting his lips. “He said that after you get into a good college, I have to apply to the same one next year. And if I don’t get in, he’ll beat my ass.” He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “But he doesn’t know that there is no one on this planet I hate more than you. I’d rather not go to college at all than go to the same one as you.” I sighed. It was over. After getting the System’s permission, I showed Caleb the truth. The bruises blooming on my skin were fresh from his fists. I gave him a small, sad smile as he stared, speechless and utterly bewildered. “You get to be yourself, Caleb. How great is that?” The next day, I left that world. The System staged a fatal car accident. I never expected that my death would be the catalyst. With me gone, Caleb went into overdrive. He threw himself into his studies and, against all odds, got into the very university I had always dreamed of attending. The one he was destined for all along. And so, I was revived, granted a life of freedom I had inadvertently earned. Except I’d almost died again within the first five minutes. Damn you, Caleb Davenport. This rich-wife gig was more dangerous than it looked. Divorce was the only way to guarantee my survival. 4 The marriage between Ava and Caleb was a sham from the start. A contract signed for mutual benefit. But Ava, the original, had broken the terms, catching feelings along the way. I couldn’t blame her. With Caleb’s face and physique, few could resist. She wanted a real marriage. Caleb, however, wouldn’t even give her the time of day. He’d even staged a PR stunt with another woman just to piss her off. The day I arrived, Ava’s rage had been triggered by a paparazzi photo of Caleb with that woman. None of this was my problem. Until that afternoon, when my—or rather, Ava’s—assistant burst in, frantic. “Ma’am, it’s terrible news! Mr. Davenport, he’s—!” “Dead?” I asked, hopeful. “No, not that.” “Then why are you yelling?” I rolled over on the couch and went back to my nap. “He’s been set up! Ma’am, you wanted to make this marriage real, right? This is your chance!” He practically dragged me out the door and into a car. On the way, he gave me the rundown. A few days ago, to infuriate Ava, Caleb had arranged a photo op with a B-list actress. The deal was simple: one photo, which the actress would then “leak” to Ava to provoke her. The plan had worked perfectly. Too perfectly. Today, the actress had backstabbed him. She was holding a press conference, sobbing to the media that Caleb had cheated on his wife with her, then callously dumped her. When I arrived, the scene was a zoo. Caleb was surrounded by a swarm of reporters. “Sources claim you’ve been cheating on your wife and seeing multiple other women!” “Mr. Davenport, do you have a comment?” Caleb’s face was a mask of cold fury. “If you believe lies that transparent, you should all get your heads checked.” Classic Caleb. Maximum condescension. But that attitude would only feed the sharks. The flashing of cameras was blinding, a storm of light with him at its center. He stood alone, an island in a sea of vultures. Dammit. The big brother in me couldn’t just stand by and watch. I pushed my way through the crowd. Before Caleb could say another word, I curled my index finger and gave him a sharp rap on the back of his head. “Be nice!” I snapped. “Stop acting like a spoiled brat!” 5 Caleb froze. The cacophony of reporters died down, replaced by a stunned silence as they all stared at us. I put a hand on Caleb’s back and pushed, forcing him into a slight bow. “I apologize on his behalf,” I announced to the press. “That was rude. But let me be clear: we will not stand for baseless slander. The burden of proof lies with the accuser. If you have questions, go find the person who made the claim and ask for evidence.” I planted my hands on my hips, standing in front of him like a shield. “But if you’re going to try and convict him without a shred of proof, then you don’t need your heads checked… you need to see a proctologist, and see if you can find your heads up your own asses!” I railed at them for a solid five minutes. Out-argued and out-shouted, the reporters finally began to retreat. When I turned back to Caleb, expecting a thank you, I found him just staring at me, a strange, dazed look on his face. “Finn…” he whispered. “What?” “Nothing.” He lowered his eyes, his expression a complex storm of emotions I couldn’t begin to decipher. The woman standing before him was Ava. Not anyone else. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Alright, I know you’re grateful. You can show me by buying me dinner.” He didn’t refuse. He asked what I wanted, lobster or caviar. “BBQ,” I said without hesitation. I gave the driver an address, an old haunt of mine. It used to be a roadside shack. Now, ten years later, it was a proper restaurant, bright and clean, but the air was still thick with the same glorious smell of woodsmoke and charred meat. The moment we walked in, the owner recognized him. “Hey, kid! Haven’t seen you in a long time.” I was surprised. “He comes here often?” In my memory, Caleb despised the smell of BBQ. He hated everything I loved. The owner nodded. “Used to. Right after his brother passed, he’d come in a lot. Wouldn’t eat anything. Just sat at that table by the window for hours. On his way out, he’d leave me five hundred bucks and say it was for taking up the space…” “Let’s go in,” Caleb cut him off abruptly. The owner slapped his own forehead. “Right, listen to me rambling. This way, please.” When we ordered, I rattled off all the old classics I remembered. But I deliberately skipped the gristly rib tips. “The rib tips get great reviews here,” Caleb noted. “No thanks. Too much work to eat.” He glanced up at me, a flicker of something in his eyes, but said nothing more. I had been dreaming of this for a decade. Cold beer, smoky ribs—this was happiness. Caleb, as usual, barely touched his food. Dressed in a pristine suit, he looked completely out of place. I hadn’t counted on how little tolerance this new body had for alcohol. My consciousness started to fray at the edges pretty quickly. Caleb frowned, a look of distaste on his face. “We should go.” “Nooo, I can still drink more.” “Ava, you reek of beer.” “Tch. Why do you always use my full name? It’s so formal.” “What should I call you, then?” he asked, his voice flat and detached. I grinned, my inhibitions washed away by the alcohol. “Attaboy,” I slurred, a ghost of an old smirk on my face. “Call me ‘bro.’”

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1 The day I won a brand-new BMW, my phone rang. It was me, calling from ten years in the future. “Don’t let Ethan borrow the car,” my own voice urged. “He’ll use it to pay a gambling debt.” When my brother asked, I refused outright. That night, driving his old sedan to see our parents, he crashed and was left in a vegetative state. Guilt overwhelmed me. Only my parents’ care kept me going. Then my future self called again, coldly mocking: “It’s an act. They want your heart for Ethan.” I found donation forms in their bag. Enraged, I cut them off and threw them out. After Ethan died from blood loss, I learned the truth: they needed my blood, not my heart. Desperate to apologize, I tried to find them—but my future self warned: “They hate you. They’ll drag you down.” I hesitated. Then came the call: my parents were murdered in a break-in. Rushing to them, I was hit by a truck. Dying, I wondered why my future self would ruin my life. Then I opened my eyes… back to the day I won the car. … “[Aurora], you have to listen to me,” my own voice hissed from the phone. “Ethan will definitely ask for the car. Don’t you dare lend it to him. He’s just going to use it to settle his debts.” A violent shiver ran down my spine, and the phone clattered to the floor. “Congratulations, Ms. Evans,” a staff member said, holding out a shiny new set of keys. “You’re the winner of the BMW sedan!” Looking at the keys, it finally sank in. I was back. I had been reborn on the very day it all started. On the phone, my future self was warning me, pleading with me not to let my brother borrow the car. The first time this happened, I didn’t believe it. I saw my own number on the caller ID and assumed it was some elaborate prank. But then she started revealing secrets—tiny, hidden things from my childhood that no one else could possibly know. I had no choice but to believe she was me. She swore that if I lent Ethan the car, he would immediately hand it over to his creditors. So, when he called, I stood firm and refused. But that night, he crashed his old car on the way to see Mom and Dad, leaving him a vegetable. The accident report concluded the wreck was caused by mechanical failure in his aging vehicle—a tragedy that a new, safer car would have prevented. My refusal had doomed him. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs. I cried until I passed out, convinced I had killed my brother. It was my parents who nursed me back to health, their tireless care a gentle balm on my shattered soul. Just as I was starting to feel human again, the phone rang. This time, the voice was a cold sneer. “[It’s all fake! I thought they really cared about me, too. That’s why I didn’t think twice about the chicken soup they made.]” “[The next thing I knew, I was strapped to an operating table. They were going to take my heart for Ethan.]” Following my future self’s instructions, I found the donation forms in my mother’s purse. Blinded by rage, I kicked my parents out, ignoring their frantic pounding on my door all night. Then came the news: Ethan had died. He hadn’t gotten a blood transfusion in time. They hadn’t wanted my heart at all, just my blood. Shame and regret washed over me. I had to find them, to apologize, to explain everything. But the phone rang again. “[This time, you listen to me and you do exactly as I say! Mom and Dad are destroyed. They blame you for Ethan’s death, and they don’t want to live anymore. If you go to them now, they won’t listen to reason. They’ll just try to take you with them.]” So I stayed away, telling myself I’d give them time to cool off. That night, burglars broke into their home and killed them. My mind fractured. I had to see them, just one last time. Racing there, I ran into the street and was struck and killed by a truck. As my life faded, the phone rang one final time. Through the speaker, I heard a faint, chilling laugh. This time would be different. This time, I would write my own ending and escape the tragedy of my past life. Snapping back to the present, I ignored the voice from the phone and sent a text. “Ethan, you’re not going to believe this. I won a BMW! You love cars. Want to take it for a spin for a few days?” Ethan rushed over, his eyes glued to the sleek new car. “Wow, Aurora. Seriously? Congratulations!” “You came just in time,” I said, nudging him toward the driver’s side. “Get in. Try it out.” He slid into the driver’s seat, his hands stroking the leather-wrapped steering wheel as his eyes lit up. “What a machine,” he murmured, over and over. “A real beauty.” Seeing the pure joy on his face, I remembered the mangled wreck of his old car, the image seared into my brain. I held out the keys. “It’s yours. Take it.” He looked up, surprised. “Aurora, what are you doing?” I smiled. “Just take it, Ethan. That old car of yours is a death trap. It’s time for an upgrade.” He hesitated, though his fingers never stopped caressing the wheel. “But it’s your prize. I can’t just…” “Don’t be silly. We’re family. A car this nice should be driven by someone who’ll really appreciate it, don’t you think?” That seemed to do the trick. “Well… okay, then.” He drove off, a massive grin on his face. I had made a different choice. I had changed the past. Everything was going to be okay now. But before I could even begin to relax, the phone rang that evening. It was the hospital. “Is this Aurora Evans? Your brother has been in an accident. You need to come to the hospital immediately.” “An accident?” My voice was a strangled whisper. “That’s impossible. He was driving a brand-new car.” “His condition is critical. Please, get here as soon as you can.” When I arrived, my mind was a maelstrom of confusion. How could this have happened again? I had given him the new car. This wasn’t supposed to happen! “What happened to my brother?” I demanded. My sister-in-law, Jessica, who had arrived first, was a sobbing wreck. The moment she saw me, her grief twisted into rage. She lunged, her fingers clamping around my throat. “You jinx!” she shrieked. “You cursed woman! If a passerby hadn’t found him after he crawled halfway up that ravine, my baby would have been born without a father!” Nurses rushed to pull us apart. “Ma’am, please, you need to calm down!” one of them urged, before turning to me. “Mr. Evans’ car went off a cliff on the mountain road. By the time the ambulance arrived, we only found a few fragments of the vehicle. The car itself must have gone all the way down.” “He was covered in so much blood we couldn’t recognize him. We only identified him from the driver’s license we found nearby.” “But the car was brand new!” I protested, my voice cracking. “There couldn’t have been anything wrong with it!” Jessica’s glare was venomous. “You know how much he loves cars! If you hadn’t insisted on him taking that BMW, he never would have been on that road! He never would have crashed!” Was it my fault? Again? The doctor offered a possible explanation. “It’s possible the new car handled differently than what he was used to. He might have misjudged the power on a sharp turn, causing him to lose control.” The world tilted on its axis. I stumbled, my legs threatening to give out. How could this be? I thought giving him the safe, new car would save him. But instead, my insistence had sent him plunging off a cliff. My desperate attempt to fix the past had once again left my brother’s life hanging by a thread. My father put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Aurora. You just wanted something good for your brother.” My mother pulled me into a hug, stroking my hair. “He got help in time. He’s out of danger. He’s going to be okay.” I collapsed against her, sobbing. Worried I would spiral back into guilt, my parents stayed by my side day and night, their warmth a fragile shield. My spirits slowly began to lift. Then, just like before, I knew the call was coming. The one warning me to be wary of my parents. I didn’t even touch the screen, but the call connected automatically. “[Aurora, I’m so sorry about Ethan. But this is not your fault.]” “[Trust me. Don’t drink the soup they’re going to bring you. They’re planning to take you to the hospital and cut out your heart for Ethan.]” That evening, Mom brought me a bowl of chicken soup. I pulled out the donation consent form I’d found in my father’s bag and laid it on the table. “You want me to give blood to Ethan, don’t you?” My mother’s hand froze mid-air. She shot a panicked look at my father. He looked down, his face a mask of guilt. “Aurora, we know you’ve always been afraid of needles, we were worried…” “I’ll do it,” I cut in. “I’m scared, yes. But my brother’s life is more important.” Last time, my refusal had cost Ethan precious time. This time, I would cooperate. This time, he would be fine. I signed the form. My mother looked at me, her eyes glistening with what I thought were tears of pride. “Our Aurora’s all grown up. So responsible.” This time, I walked into the hospital with my parents, fully conscious. When I woke up from the procedure, my entire body throbbed with a deep, grinding ache. I swung my legs out of bed and was seized by a wracking cough. I gasped for breath, spitting something thick into my hand. Blood clots. A wave of dizziness washed over me. Had my immune system crashed? Why was I having such a violent reaction to a simple blood donation? Before I could process it, the door to my room was kicked open. It was Jessica. Her face was a storm cloud of fury. “You murderer!” she screamed. “You killed him! You killed your own brother!” I stared at her, completely bewildered. “What are you talking about? He’s dead? But he got my blood…” It didn’t make sense. I had done everything differently. I had obeyed my parents. I hadn’t listened to the phone. How could Ethan be dead again? Jessica ignored my confusion, her voice rising to a fever pitch. “Stop playing dumb! You did this on purpose! You knew you had AIDS, and you gave him your blood anyway?” “He went into septic shock from the contaminated transfusion! He died right there on the table!” “Why would you do that to him? Just because he wrecked the precious BMW? How could you be so evil?” AIDS? Me? Impossible. “No,” I stammered, shaking my head. “I would never… I couldn’t…” “Still lying? Then how did my husband die?” Jessica marched out of the room and returned moments later, shoving a lab report in my face. “Here’s the proof! Now what do you have to say?” Her hand flew out and a sharp crack echoed in the room as my head snapped to the side. “Undeniable proof,” she spat. “How are you going to lie your way out of this one?” My cheek stung, but my eyes were fixed on the paper. There it was, in black and white. The blood I gave Ethan had tested positive for HIV. My world shattered. I was careful. My health checks were always perfect. How could I have HIV? Jessica’s rage was a physical force, her fists and feet finding their marks as she pummeled me. “Ethan worshipped you his whole life! He treated you like a princess! And you repay him like this? He’ll never rest in peace!” Her words were daggers in my heart. Was it true? Had I really killed my brother? “That’s enough, Jessica!” my father’s voice boomed. “Ethan is gone. Stop tormenting Aurora. Go home.” “I feel dirty just touching her!” she spat, giving me one last, hateful glare before storming out to handle the funeral arrangements. “I’m so sorry, Mom, Dad,” I sobbed, the guilt a suffocating tide. “I swear I didn’t mean to kill him! I wanted to save him. I don’t know how… I don’t know how I got sick!” I was babbling, repeating myself, a broken record of apology. My mother just shook her head and wrapped her arms around me. “Don’t talk about it anymore, Aurora. Let’s go home. Come have dinner with us.” As she held me, my phone buzzed. My own voice drifted out, a ghostly whisper: “[You killed your brother. Mom and Dad hate you now. If you go home with them, they’re just planning to kill you before killing themselves.]” Last time, I had listened. I had avoided my parents, and because of that, I wasn’t there to protect them when the burglars came. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I squeezed my mother’s hand. “Let’s go home together.” Dinner was a somber affair, the shadow of Ethan’s death hanging over the table. But my parents kept putting food on my plate, asking if I had enough to eat. They were grieving, yes, but they didn’t hate me. They were worried about me. See? I thought to myself, a small, bitter victory. They don’t hate me. I’m their daughter. The voice on the phone was wrong. It was all a lie. The next day, my parents said they wanted to stay home, to be left alone with their grief. I was about to agree when a flash of memory from my past life hit me: my parents, murdered in their own home. There was only one way to prevent that. “Mom, Dad, Ethan is gone,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “You’re all I have left. I can’t lose you, too.” “Let’s move.” I found them a place in an older, quiet apartment complex. The building was dated, but the neighborhood was safe and full of other retirees. They wouldn’t be lonely here. For the next few days, I was a fortress of caution. Every morning before leaving for work, I’d remind them not to open the door for strangers. Every evening, I’d take them for a walk after dinner. Life settled into a gentle, healing rhythm. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t stop what was coming. One afternoon, I came home with groceries to find the world had turned to ash. “No…” I whispered, my heart seizing. The apartment was a blackened, hollowed-out shell. Firefighters were everywhere, but it was too late. They couldn’t even find my parents’ bodies. “It was an electrical fire,” the fire chief told me, his face grim. “Started with some faulty wiring.” He looked at me, a hint of accusation in his eyes. “Did you check the power sources before you left this morning?” “I…” My legs gave out, and I crumpled to the ground. So, it was me. I had killed them. In my obsessive need to protect them, I had trapped them. My love had become their tomb. Jessica arrived, her face a mask of triumphant fury. “You curse!” she screamed, pointing a trembling finger at me. “You’re not human! Killing your brother wasn’t enough, was it? Now Mom and Dad are nothing but dust! Are you happy now that you’ve wiped out the entire family?” “No, Jessica, it was dangerous outside, I just wanted them to be safe…” I tried to explain, but the words died in my throat. “You locked them in there!” she shrieked. “You gave them no way to escape! You’re a monster!” “I’m putting all of this online. I’m going to let the whole world see what kind of monster you are!” She did. She posted the entire story: how I’d given my brother HIV-tainted blood, and how I’d then trapped my parents in a house that burned to the ground. The internet exploded. The consensus was universal. I was the villain. “She’s not a sister, she’s the damn Grim Reaper!” “That poor sister-in-law, trying to hold the family together while this psycho destroys it.” “This is premeditated murder. Lock her up and throw away the key!” “Her name is Aurora Evans. We have her address. Don’t let her get away with this.” The messages flooded in—hate mail, threats. I was a pariah. The guilt was a cancer, eating me alive from the inside out. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. Jessica’s daily visits, filled with fresh new torments and accusations, wore me down to nothing. “How can you still be alive when you’ve destroyed everyone around you?” she would hiss. Finally, I broke. I found myself on the roof of my building, staring down at the city lights twinkling far below. It could all be over. “I’m sorry, Jessica,” I whispered to the wind. “For everything.” She had followed me up, her voice a relentless whip. “Don’t think putting on a sad face is going to fix anything. You don’t have the guts to jump!” But as I looked at her, at the raw, undisguised eagerness on her face, everything suddenly clicked into place. A cold, terrifying clarity washed over me. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?” I said, turning to face her. “For me to do this.”

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For five years, I loved a man who couldn’t see me. Then, right before our wedding, a miracle happened: Ewing got his sight back. I stood before him, a playful smile on my face, my best friend Sophia by my side. I wanted him to guess which one of us was his fiancée. Without a moment’s hesitation, he chose Sophia. When our friends asked him why, he just blinked and then laughed. “Come on,” he said. “My Tina could never be ugly.” 1 The moment the bandages came off, the air in the room grew still, thick with anticipation. Everyone held their breath. I watched as Ewing, overwhelmed, pulled his friends into a series of tight, grateful hugs. Then, his eyes scanning the room, he asked the question I’d been dying to hear. “Where’s Tina?” A warmth spread through my chest. The first thing he wanted after regaining his sight… was me. Finally, his gaze found me by his hospital bed, tears of joy streaming down my face. As our eyes met, I took Sophia’s hand and pulled her up to stand beside me, my own tears still shimmering. Ewing had become incredibly sensitive to sounds during his blindness. Last night, Sophia and I had practiced, perfecting our vocal tones to match. The plan was simple: stand before him together, a little game to see if he could pick out the woman who had been his entire world for five long years. We spoke in unison, our voices intertwining. “Guess which one of us is your Tina?” “Guess which one of us is your Tina?” It was meant to be a harmless joke, a sweet test. After all, even though we’d only met after his accident, I had poured five years of my life into his care. We had built a love story from scratch, learning each other’s souls in the dark. Everyone, myself included, was certain he would know me in an instant. Ewing’s eyes flickered over my face. For a split second, I saw him pause, a flicker of confusion in his expression. Then, his gaze settled on Sophia, and a brilliant, confident smile—the one I knew so well—lit up his face. “Tina,” he said, his voice full of warmth as he reached for her. “Come here. Let me hold you.” 2 Ewing once told me, his words slurred with alcohol, about the accident. He’d been on his way to win back his ex-girlfriend when he crashed. A blood clot pressed against his optic nerve, plunging his world into darkness. His ex never visited. Not once. After that, Ewing had sealed himself off from the world, his personality becoming a minefield of unpredictable moods. No one dared to get close. Until me. At the time, I was in the hospital for my own reasons, my face a canvas of bruises and cuts from… an incident. Ewing’s room was right next to mine. In his world of darkness, he was the only person who couldn’t judge me for my appearance. He was quiet, a handsome statue of a man, and I turned him into my reluctant confidant, my emotional sounding board. Eventually, my constant chatter wore him down. He finally spoke to me, and one sentence turned into a conversation, a friendship, and then… love. As I helped him open his heart again, his old friends slowly trickled back into his life. Now, in this sterile white room, as he called my best friend by my name, a heavy silence fell over everyone. The air crackled with unspoken awkwardness. One of his friends, sensing the impending disaster, quickly pulled me in front of Ewing, trying desperately to salvage the situation, to protect the last shreds of my dignity. “Ewing, man, you’re just messing with her, right? Trying to scare her a little before the big surprise? That’s a risky move, dude. Not the best way to win a girl’s heart.” Ewing’s gaze fell on me again, truly looking this time. I met his eyes, a desperate hope fluttering in my chest. A slow, dismissive smile curved his lips. “You guys, stop playing around. I may have never seen Tina, but I’ve painted a picture of her in my mind a thousand times. And my Tina… she could never be ugly.” 3 Such a casual, dismissive sentence. To him, this was all just a joke. There wasn’t even a trace of anger on his face, only amused certainty. He was utterly convinced that the woman he’d loved for five years, the woman he was about to marry, had to be beautiful. And that woman, he was sure, could not possibly be me. Under the worried gazes of his friends and Sophia, the loving words I’d prepared dissolved into a lump in my throat. I forced a small, brittle smile. “You’re a sharp one, Mr. Pence,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. “Of course, I couldn’t possibly be Tina.” Sophia started to protest, to explain, but I squeezed her wrist, silencing her. The smile stayed plastered on my face until the heavy hospital door clicked shut behind me. Only then did it shatter. From the hallway, I could hear their voices, the murmur of conversation. I could even make out Ewing’s incredulous tone. “Seriously, guys, stop messing with me. She’s not Tina? Then… did my Tina not come to see me today?” I sank to the floor in the empty corridor, my body curling into itself. I should have known. I should have seen this coming all along. 4 I’d never really been in a relationship before. Ewing was my first true boyfriend. My looks had always made me a target, a joke. I still remember the day he asked me to be his girlfriend. He was holding my hand, his thumb gently tracing circles on my skin. In front of all his friends, his unseeing eyes were fixed on me. They said a blind person’s gaze was empty, but in Ewing’s, I could have sworn I saw a universe of devotion. That, combined with his striking features, was intoxicating. “It doesn’t matter what you look like,” he’d said, his voice a low promise. “I would know you anywhere, Tina. You feel… different from anyone else.” His friends, who knew his history, weren’t so sure. One of them had quietly pulled me aside once. “Ewing’s always been about looks, Tina. If he ever gets his sight back, you should…” He trailed off, but the warning was clear. Everyone thought he was only with me because he couldn’t see me. But Ewing seemed determined to prove them wrong. He appeared to love me so deeply. Once, as a prank, his friends had another woman take his hand when I wasn’t there. He’d recoiled instantly, his face twisting in anger. I heard he’d lost it, smashing a glass table and screaming at them. “Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again! Tina is one of a kind. She’s everything to me.” After that, his friends all apologized to me, changing their tune. “Man, even his ex showing up now wouldn’t stand a chance. He’s completely head-over-heels for you. He’s genuinely in love.” Only one of them, a man named Liam, never bought it. Every time he saw me, he’d give the same quiet advice. “Don’t waste your time on him, Tina. What he feels now isn’t real.” Liam had grown up with Ewing in the same wealthy enclave. They were close, with similar temperaments, though everyone said Liam had a shorter fuse. He was brutally honest, a trait that had apparently scared off every woman his family had ever tried to set him up with. But over the years, I’d learned he was a classic case of all bark and no bite. When the news came that Ewing’s surgery was a success, everyone else tried to hide it from me, to “manage” the situation. It was Liam who had driven straight to my apartment and brought me to the hospital. But it turned out he was right all along. Ewing’s love wasn’t for me. It was for a fantasy, a beautiful ghost he had named Tina. 5 As I left the hospital, Liam fell into step beside me. He looked like he wanted to say something comforting but couldn’t find the words, just awkwardly hovering near me. For five years, Ewing’s friends had been polite to me, but I always knew it was a performance. If Ewing hadn’t needed me, they wouldn’t have given me the time of day. We were from different worlds, our lives intersecting only by circumstance. Now that the circumstance was gone, it was only natural for our paths to diverge. A sleek, stiletto-heeled figure breezed past us before stopping short in front of Liam. “I hear Ewing can see again,” she said, her voice dripping with arrogance. The impeccably dressed woman clearly knew Liam. He shot her a sideways glance, his expression screaming, ‘Not interested.’ Losing patience, she ignored him and strode toward the hospital entrance. Liam muttered under his breath, “Disappears for five years without a single visit. The second she hears he can see, she materializes. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out what that’s about.” He glanced at me, watching for my reaction. When I just managed a weak, bitter smile, he seemed about to press his point. But I spoke first. “He’ll take her back.” My words stopped him cold. I looked at him, forcing another smile. “Don’t you think?” Liam never lied to me. He just nodded. 6 A week passed. A week of absolute silence from Ewing. Then, I saw it online: a video of him at a gala with the woman from the hospital. Under the flash of cameras, they were the picture-perfect couple, her hand tucked possessively in the crook of his arm. The only odd thing was Ewing’s expression. The man who had always smiled for me now wore a stony, unreadable mask. The internet was buzzing about the reclusive Pence heir’s sudden return to the public eye. A notification popped up at the top of my screen, obscuring Ewing’s face. It was from Liam. Library? I was applying for grad school. When Liam found out, he’d volunteered to be my tutor. I knew what he was really doing—gently guiding me back to my own life. I’d spent so many years wrapped up in Ewing’s world, even taking a year off from college to help him navigate his darkness. On my way, I typed back. As I closed the app, a call history notification caught my eye. A number so familiar it was burned into my memory. In the beginning, Ewing, bored and lonely, must have gotten my number from somewhere. He’d call me from morning till night, not to say anything important, just to whine like a child until I brought him a caramel apple from the stand near campus. This time, however, his voice wasn’t playful. It was heavy, serious in a way I’d never heard before. “Tina,” he said, his breathing ragged on the other end. “I miss you.” I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. It took a moment to steady my voice. “Ewing,” I whispered, “let’s break up.” His heavy breathing filled the silence. We used to stay on the phone all night, talking until we both drifted off, neither wanting to be the first to hang up. Five years of intense, all-consuming love. Even now, as I ended it, he didn’t ask to see me. A cold certainty settled in my stomach. Deep down, he already knew. He knew the “ugly” girl from the hospital was the real Tina. He said nothing more. The silence stretched on, chilling my fingers and making my legs ache. I finally pulled the phone away from my ear. The call had been disconnected for who knows how long. 7 I hailed a cab and headed for the city library. Love might be gone, but I couldn’t let my future slip away too. Liam had scheduled our session for the afternoon, but when I arrived early, I found him already there, sitting in our usual corner spot. He waved me over. As I sat down, he pushed a warm bottle of coffee across the table toward me. “You’re early,” I said, shrugging off my coat and scarf. I watched as he methodically laid out his notes and textbooks, covering the empty table. “Figured you might be crying somewhere and needed a place to go.” He tapped a section in a textbook with his pen, a passage he’d already highlighted and annotated. “Start with this.” The page was covered in his neat, red-ink notes and detailed diagrams. “I broke up with Ewing,” I said flatly, copying his notes into my own notebook. Liam paused. Ewing always said Liam was the biggest chatterbox in their group, but with me, he was usually quiet, a listener to my endless monologues. “He won’t agree,” Liam said. “It’s just a matter of time,” I replied, my pen stopping. My nose started to burn again. “He’s just lying to himself right now. He can’t avoid me forever. The moment he truly accepts that the Tina in his head is… me… this plain, ugly girl… not the perfect fantasy he created… he’ll let go.” “You’re not ugly.” The words hung in the air between us. We both looked up at the same time. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, his lips pressed into a thin line, the corner of his eye twitching. I saw a faint blush creep up the tips of his ears. He was trying so hard to look composed, but he repeated himself anyway. “Tina, you’re not ugly. Just because other people say it doesn’t mean you have to accept it. A person’s worth, whether they’re ugly or beautiful, isn’t just about their face. I hope you get that.” His gaze was intense, unwavering. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. In the world I’d grown up in, being told you were ugly because your appearance wasn’t pleasing to others was a simple, unchangeable fact. It was a “fact” that had brought me nothing but pain. Because I was “ugly,” my teacher believed the popular girl who copied my test answers and punished me for cheating. Classmates called me shameless. My own parents told me I was an embarrassment. He was just trying to be nice, I figured. I gave a half-hearted smile and looked back down at my book. But a bitter complaint slipped out anyway. “You people who are good-looking will never get it. No one’s ever going to point a finger at you, Liam, and call you ugly.” I peeked up at him. He had turned his head, and all I could see was the sharp line of his jaw and his thick, fan-like eyelashes. I couldn’t read his expression. Just when I thought we’d spend the rest of the afternoon in silence, he ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair, messing it up. He said my name, “Tina.” I looked up, startled, and met his burning gaze. He looked… exasperated. “I said you’re not ugly! God, you’re impossible. If you argue with me one more time, I swear I’m done tutoring you.” 8 Liam’s sudden outburst left me baffled. It was as if some long-dormant, irritable part of his personality had just burst forth. Thankfully, things returned to normal after that. By the time we left the library, the sky had bruised to a dark purple, pricked with a few early stars. As we walked, Liam took a call, and I watched his brow furrow deeper and deeper. When he hung up, he explained, “My grandfather collapsed during dinner. Angina. They’ve taken him to the hospital. It sounds serious. The family wants me there now.” I remembered his grandfather, a respected old general with a stern face but a kind, cheerful smile whenever he saw me. He was always in his dress uniform, the chest heavy with medals. Liam scanned the street, a river of red taillights and blaring horns. It was rush hour in the heart of the city. Driving to the hospital would take at least an hour. “The subway,” he said decisively. “We can make it in twenty minutes.” I was a little surprised. I never imagined a guy like Liam would willingly take public transit. Ewing had once told me that people in their circle had private drivers since they were kids and were gifted sports cars on their eighteenth birthdays. He’d looked genuinely pained when I told him I took the subway and bus everywhere, vowing that I’d never have to suffer like that again now that I was with him. For me, it was just… life. It wasn’t “suffering.” I watched Liam expertly tap his phone at the turnstile. I couldn’t help but ask. “Don’t you find this… embarrassing?” “Why would I?” he shot back instantly, looking at me with genuine confusion. “The city builds this incredible system for us. Shouldn’t we appreciate it and use it? Or is it that you look down on yourself for using it?” The double meaning hit me, reminding me of our argument in the library. He let out a short, scoffing laugh and turned to watch for the train. But his next words floated back to me, clear and sharp. “Tina. Dignity is something you earn for yourself. It’s not something other people give you with their words.”

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Bad news: I’m the switched-at-birth fake heiress. Even worse news: I’ve spent my entire life being a spoiled, arrogant brat with zero skills, and now I have nothing to show for it. And I’m pretty sure this is all my ridiculously overprotective, sister-doting brother’s fault. So I stormed over to his penthouse in the middle of the night and clung to his leg for dear life. “Waaah! It’s all your fault you spoiled me rotten! If you don’t take care of me, I’ll… I’ll hang myself from your front door!” A vein throbbed on my brother’s temple. “…Just get up, Debra.” 1 I was a mess, sprawled on the polished marble floor, my fingers desperately clutching the leg of Liam Howard’s tailored trousers. I proceeded to wipe my snot and tears all over the expensive fabric. Liam’s patience finally snapped. “Debra Howard!” I looked up at him, my eyes shimmering with tears. Just like that, the anger drained from his face. He took a deep breath, his voice softening. “Of course, I’ll take care of you. But you have to tell me what happened first, okay?” It all started the day before. With graduation just around the corner, I had zero interest in getting an internship. My brilliant plan was to go home and surprise my parents by announcing my intention to mooch off them for the foreseeable future. Instead, the surprise was on me. I overheard the secret that would turn my world upside down. Turns out, years ago, my dad had to go overseas for a business trip that was supposed to last several months. He couldn’t bear to leave my mom, who was suffering from terrible morning sickness, so he took her with him. A month before her due date, she took a nasty fall and was rushed to a nearby hospital. The baby—me—was born safely, but then a massive earthquake struck. In the ensuing chaos, two newborns in incubators were accidentally switched. Now, my parents were in the study, discussing how to contact their biological daughter and make things right. When they mentioned my name, their voices heavy with exhaustion, I couldn’t bring myself to listen anymore. My head felt like it was filled with buzzing bees for the rest of the day. For a spoiled, clueless girl who had never worked a day in her life, my world had just ended. My sky had fallen. Growing up, my parents tried everything to find a hobby for me. They hired tutors for piano, ballet, painting, even martial arts. I managed to drive every single one of them away. It wasn’t complicated: I was a bratty chatterbox. I refused to learn and insisted on pulling my tutors into endless, pointless conversations. Whenever my mom scolded me, I’d immediately hide behind Liam, my lower lip trembling. “Liam, I don’t like any of this!” He was a total sucker for it. He’d shield me instantly. “If she doesn’t want to learn, don’t force her.” My mom would sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Keep spoiling her, Liam. She’ll grow up knowing nothing. Are you going to provide for her then?” His expression, even as a boy, was firm. “Yeah. I will.” And he spent the first part of his life living up to that promise. After I was born, the family business boomed. My parents were constantly flying around the world. At just six years old, Liam took it upon himself to raise me. You could say I was his project. But his excessive doting turned me into a little terror. Didn’t want to go to class? That’s fine, as long as I was having fun. Bullied other kids with my family’s influence? No problem, he’d clean up the mess. Refused to learn any skills? Who cares? Our family had more than enough money. That was the value system I’d lived by for twenty-one years. I was all set to be a happy, pampered freeloader for the rest of my life. And now they were telling me I was the fake heiress. I couldn’t accept it. I just couldn’t. 2 The thought of my miserable future life brought on a fresh wave of genuine, heartfelt sobs. “Liam, this is mostly your fault.” He looked at me, utterly bewildered. I spoke with the conviction of a prosecutor. “You know what they say, ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’ I read this story once, about a mother who let her son get away with everything, from stealing candy as a kid to robbing banks as an adult. He ended up on death row, and for his last wish, he asked to see his mom. Do you know what he did? He bit her ear clean off!” Liam squeezed his eyes shut and took another long, slow breath, his voice tight. “What, exactly, are you planning to steal?” I panicked. “Ugh, why are you so dense? It’s a metaphor! I’m making a point!” He actually looked surprised. “A metaphor? Look at you, learning new words.” That only made me cry harder. “This isn’t a joke! I’m really not your sister!” Liam froze. Then, he reached down and effortlessly lifted me from the floor. “I know. But I raised you. Blood or not, I’ll always take care of you.” “Really?” “Yes.” “I don’t believe you.” “…” What if the real heiress decided I’d stolen her life of luxury for twenty-one years and convinced my parents to kick me out? Besides, everyone knew me as a spoiled brat. If we ever got into a fight, they’d all take her side and condemn me. My brother adored me, sure, but I wasn’t his real sister. Over time… Oh god, the more I thought about it, the more terrifying it became. It’s not like I asked to be switched at birth! Seeing my lip tremble again, Liam sighed and knelt in front of me, his voice soft and coaxing, just like all the times before. “Then what do you want me to do? I’ll agree to anything, okay?” My head snapped up. “How about you send me to study abroad!” Liam’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t say anything. “No, wait, that’s a terrible idea. I made too many enemies in high school, and they’re all overseas now. If they find out I’ve gone from princess to pauper, they’ll make my life a living hell. I’ll probably end up dead in a ditch somewhere…” I chewed on my finger, immediately dismissing my own suggestion. “Okay, what if you record a video promising to give me a monthly allowance… no, that’s no good either. If we have a falling out, you’ll just cut me off and sue me for blackmail. I’ll end up in jail, and when I get out, I’ll be a mess, and then one of my old enemies will find me and push me off a building—” The vein on Liam’s forehead was practically pulsing. He clamped a hand over my mouth. “Enough. I should have burned all of your trashy novels years ago.” “Mmph! It’s your fault for spoiling me! I’m terrified and you’re still yelling at me!” The thread of composure I’d been holding onto finally snapped. I grabbed the edge of the sofa, sobbing and stomping my feet. “Liam, what am I going to do?” He must have never seen me cry this hard before because he just stared, momentarily stunned. After a long moment, he pulled me into his arms. “What are you so afraid of? I’m never going to leave you.” I don’t know how long I cried, soaking a large patch of his custom-made black silk shirt before I finally drifted off to sleep. In a hazy daze, I felt someone carry me to a soft bed, gently wipe my face with a warm cloth, and then quietly close the door, leaving me in the darkness. 3 I slept like the dead. When I woke up, the sun was already setting, casting long, orange shadows across the room. I rubbed my swollen eyes and opened the door to find Liam standing silently on the balcony. He was perfectly still, staring at the distant skyline, a nearly burnt-out cigarette pinched between his fingers. My heart dropped. The last time he smoked was when he had just taken over the Howard Group. The foundation was shaky, and the old board members fought him on every decision. The stress got to him, and he started smoking. When I found out, I threw a fit—fake coughing, shortness of breath, chest pains—a full-blown drama queen performance until he agreed to quit. He never could say no to me. So why was he smoking now? Was it… because of me? “Liam,” I called out softly from behind him. His fingers twitched, and he reflexively stubbed out the cigarette. His hair was a little messy, falling over his forehead and hiding the gaze he deliberately kept averted. That’s when I noticed it. A faint, angry red bloom across his right cheek, like he’d been slapped. Hard. The words died in my throat. He forced a weak smile, his voice raspy. “You’re awake? I’ll go make you some pasta to fill you up.” He walked past me towards the kitchen, his steps hurried as if he were fleeing a natural disaster. My phone buzzed gently. I glanced down and saw a message from my dad, sent and then quickly retracted. The picture was becoming painfully clear. Welp, it looked like Debra Howard was about to be permanently evicted from her home. I clamped my hand over my mouth and ran back into the room, trying to stifle the sobs that threatened to escape. Before the axe fell for good, I quickly checked the balance on my accounts. Luckily, I still had a little over a million dollars. First things first, I transferred a hundred thousand dollars to each of the two girls I’d been sponsoring for years, to cover their tuition and living expenses. Almost immediately, two question marks popped up in our little group chat. I gave them the short version of the story, gently explaining that my own future was uncertain and I couldn’t continue supporting them regularly anymore. Right now, I was paranoid and fragile, seeing shadows in every corner. I felt like anyone could be waiting to kick me while I was down. I didn’t want to expose my weakness, so I was about to dissolve the group chat when a video call request came through from them. Mia: “Is that all? Big deal. I’ll support you from now on.” Lily: “Debra, I’ll support you too!” My composure shattered in an instant, and fresh tears streamed down my face. I was touched, but I had to refuse. “Sniffle… Never mind, guys. The money you two make wouldn’t even be enough to buy me a handbag.” Mia and Lily: “…” Mia was in my year; Lily was a year younger. Back in prep school, they were scholarship students at our elite academy. That kind of poor-but-resilient-heroine trope was prime bait for the idle, rich scumbags. And I, the resident tyrannical heiress, loved nothing more than putting those scumbags in their place. So, we had a deal: I protected and funded them, and they tutored me. It was a fair trade that had lasted until now. I wasn’t sure if you could call us friends, but they loved sharing their lives with me, and I found it surprisingly fun. After they saw I’d declined their very generous offer of patronage, they spent the whole night planning out my future. In the end, we all agreed on the perfect solution. Get certified as a pastry chef and open a dessert shop! Ever since I was a teenager, whenever I got into trouble, I’d bake a box of cookies for Liam as an apology. Even the coldest heart would melt at the sight of such a peace offering. After thinking it over, I realized that baking was probably the only talent and interest I actually had. Time to get to work. I started researching online, so absorbed that I didn’t even notice the missed calls from Ethan. 4 A few days later, Liam seemed to have finally processed the fact that I wasn’t his biological sister. Seeing that my mood had stabilized, he cautiously brought up the topic. It seemed a major life crisis really could make a person grow up overnight. I even found myself reflecting on my own behavior. Liam had always been so good to me, and I’d used his love to emotionally blackmail him. It was completely out of line. The old me, the one who held everyone else to impossible standards while letting myself off the hook, would never have thought that way. But I wasn’t a pampered heiress anymore. A girl’s got to know when to adapt. I sighed inwardly and forced a smile. “It’s a good thing Mom and Dad found their real daughter. What’s her name? Where does she go to school?” Liam looked at me, his gaze deep and unreadable. “Her name is Isla. She’s currently studying abroad… at the same university as Ethan Vance. It seems they’re… quite close.” He paused on the last sentence, his eyes dropping to avoid mine. I froze. Isla. I’d heard that name before. The first time was during a phone call with Ethan. I heard a girl’s voice in the background and immediately, jealously demanded to know who she was. He was silent for a moment before answering coolly, “Isla. She’s a classmate in my project group.” The second time, Mia got accepted into an exchange program at the same university as Ethan. Knowing about my massive crush, she volunteered to do some recon for me. She found out that he and this Isla girl had indeed partnered on several major projects. And the third time… was Liam telling me she was the real Howard heiress. Trashy romance novels were too tame. My life was way more dramatic. If I flipped off the sky right now, would it strike me with lightning? What cosmic force had I pissed off to deserve this? Seeing me looking completely lost, Liam sighed softly. “Ethan has always been cold and aloof. I never wanted you to pursue him because I was afraid you’d get hurt. If you—” I shook my head vigorously, my gaze determined. “Don’t worry, Liam. I’m done chasing him.” The Vances and the Howards were old family friends. Ethan and I had grown up together. He was brilliant, devastatingly handsome, and had this untouchable, icy aura that perfectly fit my image of the unattainable male lead. So I used our childhood connection to stake my claim, making sure not a single other girl got near him for years. He once said he liked girls who were his equal, so I gritted my teeth and studied for hundreds of sleepless nights to get into a top university in the same city as him. Although Ethan was cold to everyone, he always tacitly allowed my not-so-subtle advances. I took that as a sign that he wasn’t rejecting me, which only encouraged me to try harder. Our families had even floated the idea of us getting engaged after graduation. But now, by some twist of fate, he’d met the real heiress, Isla. This must be what he meant by his “equal.” What could I do? Fate itself had tied them together. I couldn’t even imagine how ugly my downfall would be if I refused to see the writing on the wall and kept clinging to him. Hearing my answer, Liam’s eyes flickered, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Really?” I nodded glumly. “For real. Being in different countries for so long… the feelings have faded. I don’t think I even liked him that much anymore.” Ugh, such a clumsy lie. He’d see right through it. He could always tell when I was just pretending to be tough. I braced myself for his comforting words, but when I looked up, I was stunned. “Hey, what are you smiling about?” Liam’s smile hadn’t quite vanished. He quickly raised a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Good. It’s good to see you’ve come to your senses.” My senses? Where were my senses supposed to be? I had a feeling he was mocking me. I eyed him suspiciously for a long moment. He suddenly stood up, back to his usual prim and proper self. “I’m heading to work.” 5 Mia quickly sent me a detailed guide on how to open a shop, a step-by-step tutorial that was incredibly thorough and organized. Lily, who happened to be attending university in the city, volunteered to be my runner, helping me scout the perfect location for my new store. My only job was to focus on getting certified. I scheduled a visit to a well-known baking academy to learn more. As luck would have it, the city’s Department of Labor was hosting a culinary competition soon. If I entered, I could directly test for the advanced pastry chef certification. I immediately signed up for the most expensive one-on-one course. When I got home and was looking over my new class schedule, the doorbell rang. I opened it to find a stunning blonde woman. Her bright smile faltered for a second when she saw me, and she greeted me with a hint of awkwardness. “Hi, is this Liam Howard’s apartment? Are you his sister?” She spoke with a crisp British accent. I remembered my mom showing Liam a stack of photos of eligible young women, trying to force him into blind dates. This woman was among them—the only foreigner, which made her memorable. Her name was Anne, the daughter of a major international client. Apparently, she had fallen for Liam at first sight during a business meeting. Foreigners tended to be bold and direct, and it seemed my brother was having trouble with her advances. Obviously, I was on my brother’s side. I had to help him out. I smiled sweetly and replied in equally fluent English, “No. I’m his girlfriend.” Anne’s expression soured. “As far as I know, he doesn’t have a girlfriend.” I casually twirled a lock of my wavy hair, putting on a haughty air. “My apologies. He chased me for a very long time before I finally said yes. You can ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.” “It’s true. She’s my girlfriend,” a deep, steady voice said from behind me. Liam had appeared, walking past a shocked Anne to stand beside me, his expression perfectly calm as he backed up my story. See? We were so in sync. Best fake-siblings ever. Anne’s suspicious gaze still darted between us. So, I took it a step further, looping my arm through Liam’s and cooing in a syrupy voice, “Honey, you must be so tired. How about I make us a steak dinner tonight?” Liam’s body instantly tensed, turning into a stone statue. I gave his arm a discreet, sharp pinch. Thankfully, he recovered quickly, turning to Anne with a natural expression to ask what she needed. Anne just shot us a cold look, muttered, “My mistake,” and clicked away on her high heels. I let out a breath and looked up at Liam, expecting praise. “Wasn’t I great?” He didn’t answer. He just tilted his head slightly, and his voice came out a little rough. “Go put on some more clothes. The AC is blasting in here; you’ll catch a cold.” I glanced down. I was wearing a silk slip dress, the neckline dipping low enough to show a hint of cleavage. Right. We were adults now. Living with my brother was getting a bit… complicated. I needed to find my own place. 6 A few days later, I found an apartment I loved. That evening, the housekeeper came over to cook, but Liam was still working late. On a whim, I decided to cook him a meal myself. So when he finally got home, he was greeted by a table full of blackened, unidentifiable objects and me, beaming with enthusiasm. Liam: “…” I picked up a piece of what was once braised short rib and placed it on his plate. “Brother, you must be starving. I made all your favorites.” “And here are the sweet and sour… things.” “And pan-seared scallops! For your daily dose of protein.” I chattered nonstop throughout the meal, my mouth never stopping for a second. Of course, I knew the food looked and tasted like garbage. But you can’t waste food. The more I talked, the less I had to eat. Liam struggled to swallow a bite of my cooking. The next second, his plate was full again. He looked up, about to say something, but when he saw my almost pleading smile, he froze. A complex mix of emotions flashed through his eyes—shock, guilt, and a deep, aching pity. I don’t know what he was imagining, but he gently pushed my chopsticks away. “Debra,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “you never have to worry about the future. I promised I’d take care of you for the rest of your life, and I will never go back on my word.” He took my hand. “The hands that wear diamonds and pearls aren’t meant for this kind of work, do you understand?” I was genuinely touched. So, naturally, I put another piece of charred mystery meat on his plate. “Liam, I just wanted to repay you for all these years.” “…Repay me?” The words sounded strained, as if he were grinding his teeth. I didn’t get it. “Besides, I won’t have the chance to do this anymore. I’m moving out.” After I briefly explained why, he became incredibly quiet. He even started actively eating, moving with the programmed precision of a robot. Before long, every plate was empty. I stared at him, my hand hovering over my phone, debating whether to call a shaman or a doctor first. Liam suddenly looked up, his tone flat and businesslike, as if he were in a negotiation. “I’ve given it some thought, and I believe it’s better for you to continue living here. My reasons are as follows: first, your baking academy is closer to my place. Second, Anne may not believe you’re my girlfriend, and we might need you to play the part again if she shows up.” I muttered under my breath, “First he says he’ll take care of me forever, now he’s giving me conditions. Men. All talk.” Liam pressed his fingers to his temples. “…Third, the private pastry chef from that bakery you love? I can hire her to give you private lessons.” My face instantly changed. “Really, Liam? I knew you were the best! I’ll love you forever!” The tips of his ears turned pink under the warm light. He avoided my adoring gaze, his voice a low murmur. “So, are you still moving out?” I shook my head so hard it felt like it would fly off, laying on the praise thick. “Nope! Never! You know I was only thinking of moving because I was afraid I was bothering you. Did you really think I’d want to leave the most amazing, handsome, kindest brother in the entire universe? I would rather live here as a cockroach than leave you—” A faint smile touched Liam’s lips. He stood up, gathered the plates, and walked to the kitchen in one fluid motion. “Alright, that’s enough. Go to your room. I’m doing the dishes.” “Okay, Liam!” 7 I don’t think I’d ever been this busy in my entire life. Baking classes during the day, checking on the dessert shop’s renovation in the afternoon, and more lessons with the private chef at night. Oh, and I still had my thesis to finish. I’d gotten used to collapsing on the sofa from exhaustion, only to be carried to my bed by Liam later. So when Ethan’s call woke me up, I groggily checked the time. Eight in the morning. Seeing his name on the screen felt like a relic from another lifetime. It had been over a month since we’d last spoken. I hesitated for a second before answering. “Debra?” It was the middle of the night in the UK, and his voice was hoarse. I mumbled a soft, “Yeah? What’s up?” Ethan was quiet for a moment. “…Are you upset?” “No. Why are you calling all of a sudden?” It was always me who called him, and he was always too busy to talk for long. He was acting weird today. Oh god. Did he find out I’m the fake heiress? Is he calling to officially cut ties? My hand tightened around my phone. Better to strike first than be humiliated. Ethan: “You said you wanted to come to the UK for your graduation trip. I’m not too busy right now, so when are you coming?” I think I did say that. But now I was busy trying to build a life for myself. I couldn’t explain all that to a guy like him. I gave a vague excuse. “I’m getting ready to open a dessert shop, so things are pretty crazy right now. Sorry.” He must have found the idea of a freeloader like me opening a business completely unbelievable because he took a few seconds to process it. “Why a dessert shop, all of a sudden?” That question veered dangerously close to my whole life story, and while he’d find out eventually, I wasn’t ready to tell him now. I was shocked to realize that, in my subconscious, I trusted Mia and Lily more than I trusted Ethan. So what had I been doing chasing him all these years? Was I just bored? “Debra, time to get up for your class.” Liam’s knock on the door came at the perfect moment. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Ethan, I have to go. Talk to you later.” I hung up without waiting for a reply. Knowing his personality, he probably wouldn’t call me again. I should have been sad. But I was so busy I barely had time to breathe, let alone mourn the end of a one-sided crush. In fact, it felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt… lighter. But contrary to my expectations, the less I reached out, the more frequently he started calling. At dinner, I’d answer his call, and before I could get two words out, Liam would remind me my food was getting cold. In my room, as soon as I picked up, Liam would walk in with a platter of cut fruit. On the sofa, just as his ringtone started, a muffled grunt would come from the bathroom. I’d rush over to find he’d nicked himself with his razor. “…Liam, can’t you be more careful?” His freshly dried hair fell softly over his forehead, making him look surprisingly innocent. “Sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.” I pushed him onto the sofa and went to get the first-aid kit. The phone kept ringing incessantly. Liam caught my wrist. “Aren’t you going to get that?” I frowned, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “He’s not as important as you are.” For a second, we both just stared at each other. The air grew thick, syrupy. My breathing hitched. We held each other’s gaze, a flicker of an unidentifiable panic passing between us. The skin where his palm wrapped around my wrist began to burn. I felt trapped. I yanked my hand away, the sudden movement startling even me. Run. The word screamed in my head. Meeting his deep, searching eyes, my throat went dry. “I’ll… I’ll go get the antiseptic.” I had to hurry. At this rate, the tiny cut would heal on its own. After patching him up, I went back to my room and saw a message from Ethan. [Is it because of you and Isla? Is that why you’re pushing me away?] He knew. Which meant my parents had contacted Isla. The axe had finally fallen. But I no longer felt the panic from before. Only a strange calm. Taking a deep breath, I typed out a reply: [No. It’s because I don’t like you anymore.]

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The noise from the room upstairs ripped me from my sleep. It was the scraping of chairs on the floor, the sound punctuated by shrieks and what sounded like laughter. “Idiots,” I muttered, clamping a pillow over my head. I fumbled for my earplugs on the nightstand, shoved them in, and rolled over, surrendering back to the darkness. The next morning, the landing for the fourth-floor staircase was cordoned off with police tape. When I asked what happened, the story came out in hushed, horrified whispers. Sometime in the dead of night, the girls in Room 414 were slaughtered. All four of them. No survivors. 1 To understand the timeline, the four of us from the room directly below—314—were brought to the station for questioning. It was the girls in 427, the room next door to the victims, who found them. The winter dawn was still a vague promise in the sky when they got up for an 8 AM lecture and noticed 414 was still dark. Then they looked down. A thick, blackish-red liquid was seeping from under the door. The police were fast, but someone was faster. Before the scene was fully secured, a photo had been snapped and blasted to every group chat on campus. The pictures were… a Jackson Pollock of blood and something worse. Leah threw up the second she saw them. Now, Nina, Zoe, and I sat in a sterile waiting room at the police station while Leah gave her statement. The air was thick with a shared, unspoken weight. If just one of us, annoyed by the noise, had gone up there to complain… could we have stopped it? And if not, could we at least have seen the killer’s face? Given the police something to go on? But we didn’t. None of us did. I just laid there, beneath the unfolding carnage, and cursed them for waking me up. I called them idiots, then fell asleep and didn’t wake until morning. Sleep feels impossible now. Every time I close my eyes, I see blood dripping through the ceiling tiles above my bed. Sensing our fragile state, the police brought in a specialist to “interview” us—a department-approved psychologist. The door to the interview room opened, and Leah emerged, leaning on the arm of a woman with long, dark hair. 2 Dr. Evelyn Reed was a renowned criminal psychologist, a frequent and vital partner in the department’s major cases. Her reputation was built on one extraordinary skill: a masterful use of hypnosis. A conscious criminal can lie, can control their narrative. But under hypnosis, the mind’s floodgates open. Every detail, every buried memory, is laid bare for the hypnotist to see. Dr. Reed gently guided Leah to a chair beside me, her voice as smooth and soothing as warm honey. “Alright, girls, thank you for providing what you could. The detective tells me you’re all quite shaken up. Don’t worry. I’m going to have a one-on-one session with each of you, just to help you process everything. How does that sound?” She was talking to us like we were children. I glanced at her ID badge. She couldn’t have been more than four years older than us. But I didn’t care. At that moment, I desperately needed whatever help she was offering. 3 We went into her temporary office one by one. For the twenty minutes I was under, I have no idea what happened. I only know that when I woke up, a profound sense of calm had settled over me. The bloody image of Room 414 had, for a moment, receded into a manageable haze. As I was leaving the room, she offered a small, disarming smile. “Nice combat boots, kiddo.” I waited in the lounge while the others took their turns. A young officer, sensing my boredom, handed me a tablet to watch videos on. Leah was the last to finish. This time, she walked out on her own, no longer needing support. “Congratulations, girls. You should all be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight,” Dr. Reed said, clapping her hands together softly. Her gaze landed on me. I offered a weak smile in return, but as my eyes met hers, a sliver of ice traced its way down my spine. Her red lips parted. “I’m sorry, Ava. You’ll need to stay.” Nina, Zoe, and Leah froze. Leah was the first to speak. “Why?” Dr. Reed strode toward me. My wrist suddenly felt heavy. Cold. A pair of handcuffs clicked shut around it. She was still smiling, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “Because you’re the one who murdered everyone in Room 414.” 4 “What are you talking about?” Nina lunged forward, placing herself between me and the psychologist. “Ava was with us the entire time! There’s no way she could have killed anyone!” Zoe and Leah rushed to my defense. “That’s right! I even heard her roll over in her sleep that night!” Leah added. Dr. Reed crossed her arms, watching our frantic display with a detached amusement. “She’s deceived all of you.” “You’re lying!” Nina was furious now. “I thought you were here to help, but you’re just twisting things! Police! Officer!” Nina’s voice was loud, echoing through the station as she yelled for the uniformed officers standing down the hall. “Help! Someone is trying to illegally detain my friend!” A few officers approached, their expressions a mixture of confusion and concern as they looked from my terrified face to Dr. Reed’s calm demeanor. “Dr. Reed,” one of them began, “are you saying this girl… killed four people?” She said nothing, her smile unwavering. “That seems… unlikely,” another officer murmured. “The killer was brutal, a complete psychopath. She’s just a twenty-two-year-old kid.” Dr. Reed’s gaze settled on me. “Then I suggest we watch the session tapes.” 5 I didn’t kill anyone. I knew that. But when the video from my hypnosis session played, my world tilted on its axis. On the screen, I was reclined in a soft armchair, Dr. Reed’s voice a gentle murmur guiding my answers. It started with simple things: my name, my major, the university I attended. Then it delved deeper, into secrets I’d barely admitted to myself—the time I cheated on an exam, the raw, simmering resentment I held for my family. I pressed my hand to my mouth. Some of these details were things I thought I’d forgotten, yet under her guidance, they flowed from me with perfect clarity. Hypnosis unearths memories buried under layers of dust. Finally, she asked the question. “On April 12th, at 1:00 AM, what were you doing?” My voice, thin and distant, came from the speakers. “Killing them.” Dr. Reed pressed on. “Who?” “Room 414. All four of them.” 6 A gasp escaped my lips. Nina, Zoe, and Leah stared at me, their faces masks of disbelief. I shook my head frantically. “No! That’s not me! That’s when the noise woke me up! I looked at my clock—it was exactly 1:00 AM! I muttered something and put my earplugs in and went back to sleep!” Leah immediately backed me up. “I can vouch for that! I’m a light sleeper. I heard her toss and turn!” Nina nodded vigorously. “Our beds are head-to-head. I heard her curse them out! How could it be her?” Zoe chimed in, her voice firm. “I was half-asleep, but I know it wasn’t Ava. She has a history of depression, and since her recovery, she’s been extremely sensitive to screaming. I heard screams from upstairs that night. Ava would never go towards a sound like that.” We sat on one side of a long table, the four of us from Room 314. On the other side sat Dr. Reed and the police. Detective Miller, the lead on the case, clearly trusted his consultant, but his eyes held a flicker of doubt as he looked at me. Another officer leaned over and whispered to Dr. Reed, “The girl’s history checks out. Hospital records confirm it. She has a stress-induced aversion to screaming. Are you sure about this?” Dr. Reed just smiled. “Detective Miller, when has my hypnosis ever been wrong?” The detective fell silent. I’d read about her. In the four years since she’d started consulting, Dr. Reed had helped close over a hundred major cases, including twelve cold cases from the last century. And in all those cases, she had never once made a mistake. 7 Because of Dr. Reed’s flawless record, the department had granted her a special privilege: any suspect identified under her hypnosis could be detained immediately, pending further evidence. Just like that, I was held at the station. But to formally charge me, they needed more than a recording. They needed physical proof. Dr. Reed seemed unusually invested in my case over the next few days. The clock was ticking. The department could only hold me for a limited time without concrete evidence. If they couldn’t produce anything in five days, I’d have to be released. And her special detainment privilege would be revoked. I wasn’t worried. I knew where I was that night: in my bed. In five days, I would become the first blemish on her perfect career. But on the evening of the fourth day, the forensics team found one of my footprints in the blood-spattered dorm room of 414. 8 With solid evidence now in hand, I was formally arrested. Dr. Reed sat across from me in the interrogation room, her face radiating confidence. “Well, Ava, what do you have to say now?” I clenched my fists. “I was never in Room 414!” Detective Miller looked at me, his expression conflicted. “Then how do you explain your footprint at the scene?” I had no answer. Why was my footprint there? I hadn’t even gotten out of bed that night. How was it possible? Unless… unless I had sleepwalked? Murdered them in a trance and had no memory of it? But that didn’t make sense. I was awake when I heard the noise. The screams mixed with laughter, the sounds that made me think it was just a wild party… My breath hitched, a painful tightness gripping my chest. It was hard to breathe. I clutched my head, curling into myself in the hard metal chair. “I… I don’t know… It wasn’t me… I can’t… breathe…” “Hey! Are you okay, kid? Dr. Reed! Get a medic in here!” 9 When I came to, Leah was sitting across from me. They told me that in my disoriented state, I had begged to see one of my roommates. I needed to know, needed to hear from someone else if I had left the room that night. Leah was the only one free from classes, so the police had called her in. Seeing her familiar face, I opened my mouth, my voice raspy. “Leah, I…” She held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to ask. Don’t.” I stared at her, confused. Leah sat perfectly still, her eyes darting to the side for a split second. “I did some digging…” I didn’t understand. She brought her gaze back to me and gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible wink. “All you have to do is keep denying it.” “But that night…” “Don’t worry,” she interrupted, her voice firm. “I was barely asleep. You never left your bed. Don’t you dare start doubting yourself.” The visit was over just like that. After Leah left, I remained seated, my mind reeling. It was Detective Miller who gently prompted me to my feet. As I turned, I saw Dr. Reed standing in the doorway, watching me with a strange, knowing look. Wait. I spun back around, looking at the spot where Leah had been sitting. Her eyes… where had they been looking? Slowly, I lifted my gaze. The one-way mirror. The digging she did… it wasn’t about the case. It was about Dr. Reed. “Ava!” Leah suddenly ran back into the room and threw her arms around me. “I’ll be back to see you soon, I promise!” For the first time, Dr. Reed’s composure cracked. An annoyed expression flashed across her face as she reached out to pull Leah away. “That’s enough! The visit is over!” As Leah was pulled back, she leaned in, her lips brushing my ear as she whispered a single, rapid phrase. “She has a history of coercion.” 10 “What did you say to her?” Dr. Reed demanded, her fingers digging into Leah’s shoulders. Her voice was sharp, menacing. “Do you have any idea that by withholding information, you’re only hurting yourself?” Leah looked at her, her expression a mask of innocence. “I just told her to take care of herself.” “You—!” Dr. Reed seemed to realize she wouldn’t get anything more. She released her grip, took a deep breath, and nodded slowly. “Fine. If you refuse to cooperate, then I can’t guarantee your friend will be able to take care of herself.” “Oh, she will,” Leah said, her gaze unwavering. “This is a police station. There are rules here.” I saw a muscle jump in Dr. Reed’s jaw. She forced her signature smile back into place. “Alright, kiddo. Let’s hope so.” After Leah was escorted out, I stared at Dr. Reed, a terrifying thought taking shape in my mind. If hypnosis could unearth forgotten details… …could it also be used to implant them? A chilling possibility bloomed in the darkness of my thoughts. If she could alter someone’s memory and then plant corresponding evidence, she could frame anyone she wanted. She could make anyone a killer. And my footprint… My mind flashed back to the moment after my first session. Her casual comment as I walked out the door. Nice combat boots, kiddo. 11 “You can forget it! I’m not confessing to anything!” Facing Dr. Reed again, I felt a surge of defiance. “Your hypnosis is bullshit! I never left Room 314 that night!” I turned my attention to Detective Miller. “Detective, the killer was obviously a violent maniac. Instead of wasting time on a girl who can barely lift a textbook, why don’t you focus on finding the real monster?” Detective Miller’s brow furrowed, but Dr. Reed cut in before he could speak. “Rest assured, kiddo, the police have considered more angles than you can imagine. Do you really think we haven’t looked at other suspects? The fact is, there were no signs of forced entry, and no trace of anyone else at the scene. Just you.” I let out a cold, bitter laugh. “You’re at every crime scene with the team. How hard would it be for you to fake a single footprint?” “Thump, thump!” Detective Miller rapped his knuckles on the table. “Watch your tone! That’s a baseless accusation against an officer of the court!” I pointed directly at Dr. Reed. “She’s not an officer. She’s a consultant you brought in. And if I recall correctly, Doctor, right after you graduated, there was an incident, wasn’t there? A little scandal involving forced confessions?” A flash of genuine anger lit up Dr. Reed’s eyes. Her chest rose and fell sharply before she suppressed the emotion. “Ava, it would be much better for you to confess now. It could be a mitigating factor during sentencing.” I said nothing, staring back at her in stony silence. She turned to the detective. “Detective Miller, I’m requesting permission to conduct another hypnosis session.” After receiving a nod, she looked back at me, her voice cold. “Just remember, a confession extracted under hypnosis doesn’t qualify for leniency.” I slammed my hands on the table. “This is coercion! It’s a forced confession under a different name!” Dr. Reed walked around the table and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.” 12 I fought against the hypnosis with every fiber of my being. But she had some kind of power, a force of will that pinned me to the chair. She held a silver pocket watch, swinging it gently before my eyes. After a few passes, a throbbing pain began behind my temples. “Your father doesn’t love you. Your mother doesn’t love you. You don’t even love yourself,” her voice whispered, weaving its way into my mind. “You’re not the cheerful person you pretend to be. It’s all just an act…” There’s a unique cruelty to hypnosis. The things I had locked away, the deepest vulnerabilities of my soul, she pried them open with casual ease. Then, she used them as leverage, as weapons to shatter my defenses. The overhead light blurred, expanding into a hazy halo. Her words sank into me like anchors, and once again, my consciousness slipped from my grasp and fell into her hands. “You killed everyone in 414 because you wanted to survive, isn’t that right?” My body felt limp, my mouth moving against my will. “Yes… No… it wasn’t… Yes, it was me…” “Say it again. You were the one who killed them, correct?” “No… Yes, it was me…” “That night, you snuck into 414 and used a hammer to crush their skulls, didn’t you?” My teeth chattered, a violent tremor running through my body. Dr. Reed’s voice sharpened, cracking like a whip. “Didn’t you! Speak! Say it was you!” Tears streamed down my face. “Yes… yes…” “Good. Now, I’m going to ask you again, calmly and clearly…” Through my blurry vision, I saw her reach over and turn on the video camera. 13 A tidal wave of despair crashed over me, so heavy I thought it would drown me. I wanted to scream, but I was paralyzed by a terror that stole my voice. Then, the door burst open. The sound was followed by a volley of camera flashes. “See! This is exactly what I was talking about! Coerced confession! Dr. Reed, I can’t believe in this day and age, you’re still pulling these tricks!” My mind slowly cleared. I pushed myself up from the reclining chair to see a wall of reporters and cameras blocking the doorway, all aimed at the scene inside. Nina was at the forefront, her voice booming and righteous as she condemned Dr. Reed’s methods. Leah and Zoe stood beside her, adding their own angry accusations. It turned out they had dug into Dr. Reed’s past, found the dirt, and leaked it to a few hungry tabloid reporters. These were people who cared only about clicks and controversy; they had no problem storming a psychologist’s office affiliated with the police department. The office was technically separate from the main station, and by the time the police responded to the commotion, the reporters had already captured their headline moment. Detective Miller pushed through the chaotic crowd, his eyes wide with shock as he took in my tear-streaked face and the frozen figure of Dr. Reed. “Dr. Reed,” he stammered, “what in God’s name are you doing?” 14 With concrete proof of her coercive methods, the department immediately revoked Dr. Reed’s status as a special consultant. Her special detainment privileges were gone, too. And just like that, I was released. We got a stern lecture about orchestrating a media circus, but in the end, Detective Miller let us go back to campus. Dr. Reed’s office, situated just beside the main police building, looked like it was being shut down. As I walked out of the station, I saw her standing by the door, wrapped in a white coat, her gaze cold and fixed on me. A shiver of discomfort went through me. I kept my head down and tried to walk past without making eye contact. “You think this is over?” Her voice, low and sharp, stopped me in my tracks. I turned back. She hadn’t moved a muscle, only tilted her head slightly in my direction. The smile on her face was deeply unsettling. “Psycho,” Nina muttered, stepping in front of me. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward our waiting ride-share. Dr. Reed remained motionless, her chilling gaze following me until the car door slammed shut. 15 Back in my own bed, I slept better than I had in days. Maybe the sheer exhaustion of the ordeal had finally overridden the trauma of what happened upstairs. I thought it was finally over. The next morning, I rolled over and felt something hard and circular digging into my side. Half-asleep, I reached for it. The cool metal against my palm sent a jolt of ice through my veins. I shot upright in bed, my hand clenched around it. A pocket watch. A silver pocket watch, identical to the one Dr. Reed had used to hypnotize me. A flicker of movement in my peripheral vision made me turn my head. A splash of crimson against the pale morning light made me scream. Across the room, Zoe was dead. Her body was half-draped off the side of her bed, her face turned towards me, her eyes wide and lifeless.

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The house was silent, deep in the clutches of the night. I’d just found the perfect story to unwind with—The Roommate Deal—and settled in for a delicious read. It was one of those steamy, forbidden romance tropes, but the more I scrolled, the more a strange unease began to curdle in my stomach. The male lead… the way he was described… Why did he sound so much like my boyfriend? 1 Six-foot-one, with thin lips. A university lecturer who stayed on at his alma mater after graduation. Allergic to nuts. A small, crimson birthmark just below his left collarbone… Could the world really serve up a coincidence that specific? My throat tightened. I kept scrolling. 【…He pressed me against the living room’s floor-to-ceiling window, his fingers deftly unhooking my bra. The city lights blazed outside, blurring the figures of people walking on the street below, but the thrill of being caught, the sheer risk of it, only seemed to fuel his fire.】 What followed was a long, explicit passage that made my heart skip a beat. Ethan’s new condo, the one he was so proud of, had a massive floor-to-ceiling window just like that. He’d taken me to see it a few months ago, when it was still being renovated. The room was empty then, a hollow shell, but that window dominated everything. The sunset bled across the river, the colors pooling in his smiling eyes. Ethan had wrapped his arms around me from behind, his voice a soft murmur against my ear. “I know how much you love a good view,” he’d said. “When you finish your master’s and move in, we can sit right here and watch the city lights every night.” I frowned, the screen of my phone feeling cold in my hands. Could the man in this story really be Ethan? I scanned the text more carefully, but as I did, a sense of absurd dissonance began to wash away my initial shock. The male lead in the story was wild, almost feral, his words laced with a crude, demanding heat. My Ethan was gentle, thoughtful, with a streak of old-fashioned chivalry that was almost bashful. He was the kind of man who’d make a teasing joke and then blush before I did. How could a man like that be the same one pinning a woman against a window in plain sight, without a shred of restraint? Besides, Ethan was something of a minor celebrity on campus. A handsome young lecturer was bound to attract admirers. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that someone had used him as the muse for their fictional fantasies. And my two best friends, the only two people I trusted with the intimate details of my life? One was studying abroad in Germany, and the other had graduated and was happily dating a woman. I trusted them implicitly. I let out a long breath, the tight knot in my chest loosening just a little. Maybe I was just overthinking this. 2 Even though my gut told me it was impossible, I couldn’t stop myself. I read the rest of the story, devouring every chapter. The plot was simple enough. The heroine, a college student, moves out of her dorm after a fight with her roommate. She finds a great new place, only to discover after moving in that her landlord—and new roommate—is a man. Not just any man. Her best friend’s boyfriend. They make a pact to keep it a secret from the friend, and for a while, they live together in platonic harmony. But the forced proximity of two single people in one apartment inevitably sparks something. One night, after the boyfriend and his girlfriend (the heroine’s best friend) have a fight, the heroine tries to comfort him. They drink a little too much wine, and the long-suppressed tension finally ignites… The heroine discovers that beneath his polished, gentle exterior lies a completely different man, one he only reveals to her. From there, the story descended into a torrent of explicit scenes. My thumb mindlessly swiped down, landing on the comment section at the bottom of the page. A reader had posted: “OMG, this feels so real! Is the male lead based on a real person? Dying for the next update!” The author had replied just two minutes ago. “The muse… 😉 Let’s just say he’s right here beside me. He just put me through my paces again, and I’m exhausted ~ We’re going to bed. New chapter tomorrow! Good night!” I stared at that reply for a long, long time. Logic told me it was a coincidence. That I was letting my imagination run wild. But my finger was already opening my message thread with Ethan. I typed: Are you asleep? The thirty seconds I waited for a response stretched into an eternity. The night outside my window was thick and dark, the only sound the frantic thumping of my own heart. Then, my screen lit up. 3 Ethan: Just finishing up some work. About to head to bed. Why are you still up? You know late nights are bad for you. His reply was as prompt and caring as always. On any other night, my heart would have fluttered. I would have told him to get some rest, too. But tonight, that swift response felt like a slap in the face. I bit down on my lip, hard enough to taste blood. An impulse, sharp and undeniable, seized me. I had to see for myself. Words could lie. A scene could not. My fingers moved faster than my thoughts, already opening the ride-share app. Destination. Request. Confirm. The motions were mechanical, swift. After a long moment, I picked up my phone again and sent Ethan a new message. Suddenly really miss you. I don’t have class tomorrow. I’m coming over now, okay? The second the message delivered, his call came through. I watched his name flash on the screen—Ethan—and immediately declined it. A new text from him appeared instantly. Ethan: It’s almost one in the morning. I don’t want you coming over by yourself this late. Ethan: Be good. How about I come pick you up first thing in the morning? I replied: No. I want to see you now. I’m already in the car. After sending it, I took two steps forward. The motion-activated light in the hallway flickered on, illuminating my pale, drawn face. I was already standing right outside Ethan’s front door. 4 I didn’t knock right away. If that one-in-a-million chance was real, what would barging in accomplish, other than tipping them off? I turned and slipped into the fire-stairwell at the end of the hall. The angle gave me a perfect, unobstructed view of Ethan’s apartment door. A minute later, the door creaked open, just a crack. It didn’t swing wide, as if the person inside was cautiously checking the coast was clear. A man’s voice, hushed and urgent, drifted out. “Hurry up.” Then, a girl stepped out. Her face was flushed, glowing with a sated, rosy warmth. She let out a coquettish little hum. “Do I really have to go? Can’t I stay a little longer? She said she was still in the car, didn’t she?” Ethan’s voice was unnaturally hard, a tone I had never heard before, stripped of all the warmth I knew. “Go home. Now. Don’t make me say it again.” His next words were clipped, severe. “She could be here any minute, and she absolutely cannot see you. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.” The girl seemed taken aback by his coldness, her lips forming a wounded pout. “…You’re that scared of her?” “Maya, you know perfectly well what she means to me.” “And you’re not scared I won’t come back?” Ethan’s reply was certain, absolute. “You will.” The story had mentioned that the male lead had stopped charging the heroine rent months ago. But my mind wasn’t processing that detail right now. Because I recognized the girl. Maya—my sister. Or, the sister I refuse to acknowledge. The living, breathing product of my father’s affair. 5 Ethan and I had only been officially dating for six months. But we had known each other for over twenty years. We weren’t exactly childhood sweethearts in the traditional sense. Our families had been neighbors, living in the old faculty housing complex by the university. In the hazy memories of my childhood, he was always the quiet boy trailing a step behind me, the one who’d share his candy and chase away the stray dogs that scared me. My mom used to laugh and ruffle his hair, calling him my little guardian. My world was small then, contained within the courtyard of that complex. I thought life would go on like that forever. Until Maya and her mother showed up. I will never forget the blood-drained, ashen look on my mother’s face. My happy, carefree childhood, it turned out, had been hollowed out by a silent infestation. Maya was only a year younger than me. Which meant that while my mother was pregnant with me, filled with joyous anticipation for her new baby, my father was in another woman’s arms, creating another “surprise.” The arguments, the crying, the sound of things shattering, the prying eyes of our neighbors… that entire period of my life is a dark, painful blur. My mother was a proud woman. She couldn’t stomach that kind of betrayal, especially not when the other woman showed up on our doorstep with a child in tow, demanding that my mother step aside. In the end, she chose divorce. It was drizzling the day we left. I remember pressing my face against the car’s rear window, looking back. I saw Ethan run out from the entrance of the complex. He was holding something, trying to give it to me. But his small figure quickly vanished into the rain-swept gray. That frantic escape didn’t just take my family; it severed all my connections to my childhood, to Ethan. My mother took me far away, to a new city, a new school. Maya, and everything associated with her, became a wound I never spoke of, a mark of shame carved deep into my bones. The next time I saw Ethan was in high school. 6 He was on stage, giving a speech as the student body president. He stood tall and confident in the auditorium’s spotlight. I sat in the audience, not daring to believe it was him. But when the assembly was over, he found me in the swarming crowd and called out my name without a moment’s hesitation. It felt like fate had circled back on itself. The trauma of my childhood had changed me, twisting my personality. I was brittle, insecure, and sharp-edged. Ethan saw all of it. He witnessed all my jagged edges, my moments of weakness, my defensive pride, and he still chose to hold me. Year after year. From high school through college graduation. Finally, I let my walls down. I allowed myself to believe that he truly understood me, that he truly loved me. But I never, ever imagined that the person he would cheat on me with would be Maya. He knew. Better than anyone, he knew how much I despised her. Why? When he held her in his arms, did he ever, for even a second, think of the helpless little girl I used to be? Of the tears I’d cried? This wasn’t just cheating. This was a slow, deliberate execution. Ethan had taken the most painful part of my past and used it as a knife, slicing away at my trust, piece by agonizing piece. The hallway light timed out, plunging me back into darkness. I leaned against the cold wall, listening to the soft click of his apartment door locking. The world was utterly silent, but inside me, the fortress I had built from love and trust was crumbling into dust. 7 My phone screen glowed in the dark. Ethan: Where are you? Want me to come get you? With a trembling hand, I forced myself to type a reply. Suddenly not feeling well. Really dizzy, think I caught a chill. I’m not coming over anymore. I’ll just go back to my dorm and rest. His response was immediate. Not well? Is it serious? 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 was so palpable it practically vibrated through the screen. I didn’t reply. Less than two minutes later, his apartment door was thrown open again. Ethan was a mess. He’d thrown on a T-shirt, the collar askew. His face was a mask of genuine, unfeigned worry. He was fumbling with his phone in one hand while trying to pull on a jacket with the other, his movements clumsy with haste. Looking at him, so completely undone, I wanted to laugh. But all I felt was a profound, hollowing sadness. Just as the elevator doors were about to open for him, I stepped out from the end of the hallway. The stark, white glare of the motion-activated light enveloped us both. My voice was quiet, but in the echoing silence of the corridor, it was enough to make his entire body go rigid.

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Alex and I had a rental-unit kind of love. The kind built in a space that was never truly ours, filled with furniture we promised we’d replace one day. Lately, that space had felt emptier than usual. He was a ghost, leaving before sunrise and returning long after I’d fallen asleep. Tonight, when he finally walked in, reeking of the city and exhaustion, something in me snapped. I slapped him. The sound was sharp and ugly in our small living room. And then the text appeared, floating in my vision like a cruel, omniscient narrator’s notes. 【The hero was just about to pull the engagement ring from his pocket. The side character just slapped it right back in.】 【If only she had shown him an ounce more understanding, the fortune he’s about to build wouldn’t have fallen into the heroine’s lap.】 【One slap. It shattered the last of his pride. This is where they go their separate ways…】 I closed my eyes, the words burning behind my lids. Then I opened them and slapped him again, on the other cheek. “What’s in your pocket?” 1. Alex lifted his head, his lips pressed into a thin, white line. His skin was naturally pale, and against it, the two red imprints of my hands stood out like graffiti. Stark. Shocking. I flexed my stinging fingers. “I asked you what’s in your pocket,” I repeated, my voice steadier than I felt. 【LMAO, does she really think he’s still going to propose after this?】 【Don’t worry, our girl is on her way to comfort him.】 【It wouldn’t be a side character if she didn’t self-destruct.】 The floating commentary was impossible to misunderstand. I was the self-destructing side character. The villain of my own story. Alex and I were locked in a stalemate. It was clear now that whatever was in his pocket was staying there tonight. His phone buzzed on the coffee table. I sighed, the fight draining out of me. “Fine. Go answer your phone.” I turned and walked toward the bedroom. As I passed the table, my eyes caught the name on the screen. Lana. Definitely not a man’s name. Could this be her? The heroine the comments were cheering for? A wave of nausea hit me. It’s a lie to say it didn’t hurt. Alex and I had known each other for five years, been together for three. We both came from nothing, two kids from working-class towns who decided to brave the city together after college. To save on rent, moving in together was a no-brainer. Our apartment was small, but every mismatched mug, every scuffed piece of IKEA furniture, every throw pillow, we’d picked out together. We’d polished this temporary box into a home, warm and lived-in. We even adopted a cat, Milo. My gaze swept over our little world, a lump forming in my throat. Soon, all of this might just be a memory. I collapsed onto our bed, and the tears I’d been holding back finally broke free. Just as I’d expected, I heard the front door open and click shut. He left. He went to find someone else. The realization ripped through me, and a sob tore from my throat, raw and ugly. My heart seized, a physical, stabbing pain. My first love. My first everything. And it was ending. “Waaaaah…” In the empty apartment, the only sound left was the echo of my own grief. 2. I don’t know how long I cried before exhaustion pulled me under. When I woke, Alex was sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared at my swollen eyes, a strange mix of anger and amusement on his face. “You hit me, and you’re the one crying?” His anger seemed to have faded. Someone had clearly done a good job of soothing him. I turned my back to him, refusing to even look at him. If he wasn’t going to break up with me now, what was his plan? To see us both? When he reached for me, I slapped the back of his hand away. “Don’t touch me with your filthy hands!” That did it. Alex shot to his feet, his voice tight with fury. “Filthy? Chloe, I shouldn’t have bothered going out to get you ointment!” Ointment? I glanced down at my hand. A thin layer of a pale, soothing balm was spread across my knuckles. But what did that prove? It was just a final, desperate twitch from a dying relationship. Since he wouldn’t say it, I would. “Alex, let’s break up.” 【Whoa, didn’t expect the side character to be the one to end it.】 【Yeah, but wait until she sees how successful he becomes. She’ll be the one crawling back.】 【Just break up already. You two are toxic.】 Alex froze, his face a mask of disbelief. “What did you say?” “I said, let’s break up. I’m tired.” He looked down at me, his voice eerily calm. “I want to know why.” I sniffled, the words tumbling out. “Because I’m tired of waiting up for you until one or two in the morning. Sometimes I don’t see you for days. You know I hate the dark, Alex.” But the real reason was simpler. It was better for me to dump him than for him to dump me. At least this way, I could keep a shred of my dignity. 【This girl is killing me. The man is grinding to build a future, and all she can think about is herself. She deserves to be broke forever.】 【He was right not to propose. A girlfriend like this will only drag him down.】 【The heroine is so much better. She supports his career and gives him the emotional validation he needs.】 That’s what Alex was thinking too, wasn’t it? 3. I secretly wiped a tear from my eye and started pulling my clothes out of the closet. Alex watched me, his voice softer now. “I told you, once this project is over, I’ll make it up to you. Why don’t you believe me? I don’t agree to this breakup. You don’t have to move out right away. I won’t come back for a few days. Just… cool off.” And then he was gone again, leaving me alone. I did the math. The lease was up in two weeks. I could stay here while I looked for a new place. I went about my days, work and home, keeping myself busy enough not to think about him. Three nights later, there was a knock on the door. I assumed it was Alex, back already. I checked myself in the mirror, smoothed my hair, and opened it. But it wasn’t him. It was a woman I’d never seen before. She gave me a bright, practiced smile. “Hi, I’m a friend of Alex’s. He asked me to pick up a few things for him.” The feeling was instant—a sharp, cold needle straight to the heart. I forced myself to stay calm. “You’re Lana, aren’t you?” She blinked, just for a second, then nodded. I handed her the bag of files she’d pointed to. As she turned to leave, the words came out before I could stop them, a painful litany of my love. “He doesn’t like to be bothered after he’s been drinking. Just let him sleep it off. And he has a severe peanut allergy, so be careful with takeout. Remember to pack him a mask every day, he’s sensitive to strong smells on the subway…” The woman’s smile turned smug, victorious. “Okay, got it. I’ll be sure to take very good care of him for you.” The moment the door closed, my legs gave out. I slid to the floor, a hollow ache spreading through my chest. The comments flared to life again. 【Tonight’s the night! The hero and heroine get drunk at the bar, things get heated, and he finally realizes who his heart truly belongs to.】 【So hot. He goes all night.】 【Our girl is gonna be so sore tomorrow. Poor baby!】 Alex wouldn’t agree to a breakup but would sleep with someone else that quickly? All night? I didn’t even know he had that in him. A reckless, self-destructive urge took over. I needed to see it. I needed to let the reality of it cauterize this wound shut for good. I went to the bar they mentioned in the comments. I checked room after room in the private lounge area until I got to the one at the very end of the hall. Before I could even touch the handle, I heard it—the kind of sounds that make you blush. “Oh, Alex, harder…” “I’m so close, ah…” My hand trembled on the doorknob. I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe he could be so… cheap. A sour taste filled my mouth. Well, I came all this way. I might as well witness for myself how completely the man I loved for five years could disappoint me. The door swung open. A shriek pierced the air. Two strangers, a man and a woman, stared back at me, their faces a mixture of terror and outrage. Realization dawned. I mumbled an apology and backed out, my face burning. Just as I turned, I saw Alex and another woman walking into a different private room down the hall. So I’d just had the wrong room. The small flicker of relief I’d felt moments ago was instantly extinguished.

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1 I accidentally slept with my arch-nemesis. I woke up and ran. But freakish fertility meant one night resulted in quadruplets. Before I could tell my family, mercenaries grabbed us and locked us in a private hospital suite. Sebastian Croft—the man I’d slept with—had crashed on his way to a party and was now in a coma. The quadruplets? Possibly his only heirs. His mother offered $400 million to keep them. My parents refused: “We’re poor but proud,” my father said. My sister Lily promised to help me raise them. As I nearly agreed, Sebastian’s voice rang in my mind: Take the money, idiot! Last time, your parents took 4 billion from my mother for our sons—then gave it all to your sister! Your father sold you to some backwoods town for 10k while you recovered, afraid you’d ruin Lily’s perfect life! I stared at his motionless lips, even pried them open slightly. Don’t touch me, moron! If you hear me—don’t be a fool again! … “Geri Bartlett, how could you have sex before marriage? I never thought I’d have such a disgraceful daughter!” My dad’s face was purple with rage, his finger practically touching my nose as he spat his words. My mom stepped between us. “Mark, times have changed. Don’t be so harsh on Geri. What’s done is done. We need to think about her future now.” She turned to me, her voice softening. “Geri, honey, we’re not rich, but we’ve always made sure you and Lily had everything you needed. I taught you from a young age that a person’s dignity is priceless. If you take that four hundred million, you’re essentially selling your children. We don’t do things like that. It’s immoral.” She patted my hand. “You’ve never been pregnant before, sweetie, you don’t know what to expect. I’ll take care of you. And after the babies are born, I’ll help you raise them.” Lily nodded eagerly. “I’ll help too, sis! I’m an elementary school teacher, so I can make sure we raise four little geniuses!” Just like Sebastian’s thoughts had predicted. A perfect prophecy. “And what about me?” I asked my mom, my voice quiet. She hesitated for a second. “Well, of course, I’ll look after you while you recover from the birth.” “And after that?” I pressed. “Do I just… not get married?” “After you have these kids, you can stop being so picky and get back to dating!” my dad roared before my mom could answer. She shot him a glare and turned back to me with a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to get married. You’ll have done the most important thing in a woman’s life. You can do whatever you want after that. Of course,” she added, “you’ll still have to work. Four babies will be a handful for your father and me, so you’ll need to earn money for formula.” Influenced by Sebastian’s mental tirade, I could suddenly see the superficiality in her words, the false comfort I’d never noticed before. My whole life, I’d seen my family in a certain light. My dad was a typical patriarch, ordering my mom, Lily, and me around without a second thought. My mom, though she enabled him, was gentle and reasonable. She never told me to “give in to your sister” and often praised me for being sensible and smart. Lily had always been my shadow, and even though we grew distant when she went to college out-of-state, she was still my sweet little sister whenever she came home. Had I been blind my whole life, or was Sebastian using some kind of black magic to mess with my head? “Geri, you’re not actually thinking about taking the money, are you?” Lily’s voice, suddenly sharp and shrill, snapped me back to reality. The jealousy in her eyes was a palpable thing. My mom’s face hardened. “Geri, you’ve only been working for a couple of years. Have you already developed such a taste for luxury? If you choose the money, I’ll be deeply disappointed in you.” I could understand her not wanting me to “sell my kids.” But calling me greedy for accepting a payment that would secure their future? That, I didn’t understand. My dad’s anger boiled over. He shoved past my mom, his hand raised to strike me. I flinched back instinctively. His eyes bulged. “You dare to dodge? You worthless girl! If you take that money, I swear I’ll break your legs when we get home!” Sebastian’s mental voice was frantic. Geri, can’t you see it? They don’t love you! My mother is waiting for your decision, and your own father is calling you ‘worthless.’ Has he ever called your sister that? I know it’s hard to accept that your parents don’t love you, but you have to wake up—for our sons! Take the four hundred million and live your life! “What happened to the children?” I whispered, looking at him. When they were old enough, they kept asking about their mother. Our eldest, the smartest one, figured out where you’d been taken when he was only five. He went to save you alone. The other three secretly followed him… and something terrible happened to all of them. The pain in his thoughts was so raw it was clear they had suffered immensely. I stroked my barely-there bump, a wave of protectiveness washing over me. My decision was made. My dad was still yelling. “What are you talking to this vegetable for? So what if his family has money? He’s as good as dead! You are not marrying him!” Mrs. Croft had finally had enough. “Mark Bartlett, my son is not dead. And I will see to it that he recovers.” My father deflated instantly, muttering under his breath, “Can’t even call a vegetable a vegetable anymore.” I almost laughed. He was just a paper tiger, all bark and no bite. I looked at Mrs. Croft, my voice firm. “Ma’am, I accept your offer. You can transfer two hundred million now, and the other two hundred after the children are born. And… if you’ll have me, I’d like to marry Sebastian.” I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure about Sebastian’s telepathic warnings, but one thing was certain: with money, I could build a good life. I could protect the people I wanted to protect. Idiot! You are not marrying me! My father exploded. “You crazy bitch! Are you out of your mind? For a bit of cash, you’re going to have a vegetable’s babies and then tie yourself to him for life? I don’t have a daughter so pathetic!” My mother’s face was grim. “Geri, don’t be so impulsive. You’ll regret this.” Lily couldn’t hide her malice anymore. She glared at me as if she wanted to tear me apart. Mrs. Croft looked me straight in the eye. “Geri, you’re willing to marry my son, even if he never recovers?” I nodded. “I don’t want my children to be illegitimate.” “Don’t worry about that,” she said smoothly. “I can arrange their story.” I shrugged. “Then I just want the money.” A man with a mouth as foul as Sebastian’s wasn’t exactly my dream husband. “Done.” Mrs. Croft transferred two hundred million dollars to my account on the spot. The notification sound on my phone was the most satisfying thing I’d ever heard. The room fell silent. My family stared, mouths agape. My father was the first to snap out of it. He lunged at me, his hand raised again. “You give that money back—Agh!” Before he could finish, one of the mercenaries had him in an iron grip. Faced with absolute power, my father began to tremble and beg. Mrs. Croft’s voice was calm but laced with steel. “Mark Bartlett, Geri is now the mother of my grandchildren. I will not allow you to harm her.” My mom, terrified, rushed to smooth things over. “Geri is our eldest! Now that she has all this money, why would we ever hurt her? Mark just has a temper, I’ll talk to him. You’re a powerful woman, please don’t hold it against him.” “See that you do,” Mrs. Croft said, dismissing them. “Now, please leave. My son needs his rest.” Mrs. Croft arranged a separate car for me. My father, still shaken, didn’t dare say another word. My mother grabbed Lily and offered me a few hollow compliments, but I knew better than to believe them now. Free from their control, I went straight to one bank and deposited a hundred million, then to another to buy fifty million in gold bars. The rest I set aside for a house. After a quick stop at a lawyer’s office, I had the Croft’s driver take me back to my parents’ home. I didn’t expect the complete change in attitude that awaited me. My father was standing in the living room, holding a belt, his voice stiff. “Daughter, you’re pregnant. I shouldn’t have tried to hit you. I’m here to apologize.” He actually started to kneel. “Don’t,” I said, stopping him. His face flushed. “So, you accept my apology?” I nodded. In truth, I was only there to pack my things and leave for good. I had to protect my unborn children, and whether my father’s apology was genuine or not was completely irrelevant. My mom beamed. “See, Mark? I told you Geri is the most sensible one. She never holds a grudge, especially not against her parents.” I’d heard her call me “sensible” a thousand times growing up. Today, I finally understood what it meant. It was a tool of manipulation, a way to make me feel guilty for wanting anything, for fighting for myself. While the “willful” Lily could live freely and be showered with all their love. Why? What made it fair? My mom wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Come on in, Geri. I made your favorite, steamed crab.” It was another one of her moves, a desperate attempt to keep me under her thumb. But this time, it only exposed her ignorance. She didn’t even know I was allergic to crab. Lily loved crab, so we had it often, but I could never eat more than a few bites. The one time I got to eat a whole quarter of a crab was after I placed first on a major exam in high school. I got sick immediately. My mom gave me some cash and told me to go to the clinic myself. When I came home and told her I had an allergy, my dad called me dramatic, and my mom promised she’d stop making it. A day later, Lily whined that she wanted crab dumplings, and my mom prepared a feast. Before we ate, she placed a heaping plate of steamed crab in front of me. “This is just steamed, Geri,” she said kindly. “It’s light, and I washed it very carefully. You’ll be fine this time. You’re such a good girl, even sickness wouldn’t dare to touch you. Trust me.” I got sick again. This time, I quietly took an allergy pill and told myself she just didn’t understand allergies. If I was just more sensible, my allergy wouldn’t be a problem for the family. I had brainwashed myself like that countless times, all for a few scraps of their love. Thank god I was finally awake. At the dinner table, I picked at a bland plate of stir-fried bok choy while my family exchanged furtive glances. Lily finally broke the silence. “Sis, my commute is two hours each way now. It’s killing me. I’ve been wanting to buy one of those townhouses near the school. My birthday’s coming up, so you could just get me the deed as a gift, right? It’s not much, only twenty million.” A small, bitter smile touched my lips. Of course. This whole act was about the money. “I donated it,” I said flatly. “All of it. To charity.” Lily’s face contorted. “What? Two hundred million? You donated all of it? For twenty-something years, you’ve lived in this house, used our money, and you never once thought about giving back?” “You’ve lived here longer and used more,” I replied calmly. “Have you ever thought about giving back?” She was stunned into silence, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. My dad jumped to her defense. “Lily is different! She gives her salary to us, and she got that tenured teaching position. Her life is stable; your mother and I don’t have to worry about her. Besides, you’re the one who will marry out. She’s the one who’s going to stay and take care of us. It’s only right that she gets more.” So that was it. “Whose decision was that?” I asked. “Of course it was—” he started, but my mom tugged his sleeve. She gave me that practiced, phony smile. “You and Lily drew straws when you were little to decide, Geri. Don’t you remember?” I didn’t. And I suspected it was just another lie to justify their favoritism. I let go of my last shred of hope. I looked at my mom. “So you want me to buy Lily the townhouse too, right?” Her gaze flickered away. “Geri, you’ll have four hundred million after the babies are born. A twenty-million-dollar house won’t make a dent.” I laughed. “I’ll buy her the house. On one condition: we cut all legal ties. From this day forward, I am not responsible for your retirement or your care.” “You ungrateful child!” my father roared. “No, we can’t do that, we can’t…” my mother cried, slapping her thigh in distress. Lily, however, saw her opportunity. “Mom, Dad, I’ll take care of you. Look at her, the second she gets money, she wants to abandon you. Do you really think she’ll ever be a good daughter? That townhouse is in the city center; it’s an investment! It’ll only go up in value.” My parents hesitated. I wasn’t surprised. I placed a document on the table—an itemized bill of every expense they’d ever paid for me since birth. “The total on paper is less than five hundred thousand, but I know raising me took effort. So I’ll pay you two million, lump sum. After you retire, I’ll also pay you each ten thousand a month for the rest of your lives. If you live another ten years, you’ll get far more than twenty million. I can even set it up through an insurance policy if you don’t trust me.” They always said Lily, the teacher, was the stable, dependable one, while I, with my corporate job, was wild and unreliable. Fine. Let’s see if their “stable” daughter was more important than a guaranteed, comfortable retirement. Lily panicked. “Dad, Mom, she’s lying to you!” I was prepared. I coolly produced a checkbook and three copies of a contract I’d had my lawyer draft. “I can write the check for two million right now. The contracts are already signed by me. All you have to do is sign, and they become legally binding.”

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1 The young assistant my husband doted on was behind the wheel for the first time. She mowed down my daughter. The wheels crushed Lily’s tiny legs. I screamed, a raw, useless sound against the blood gushing from the holes in her flesh. When Stephen arrived, the driver, Kate, dissolved into a storm of tears and buried herself in his arms. “Stephen, your daughter just ran into the road! She was trying to scam us! This disgusting mother-daughter pair, they must be trying to break us up!” Stephen’s arms tightened around her, a fortress. “I’ve already signed a waiver. No one will touch you.” He murmured, his voice impossibly gentle. “My poor princess, you must be terrified. I’ll take you to Disneyland to clear your head.” And as I knelt on the pavement, begging the paramedics to save my child, my husband was on one knee under the Disneyland fireworks, placing a princess tiara on his assistant’s head. Later, when my daughter was nothing but a handful of ash, he finally remembered he was a father, and he wept, begging her to come back… … Outside the emergency room, I paced, each step a lifetime of anxiety. Suddenly, a courier with a small package found me. “Are you Mrs. Pierce? This is from your husband.” I looked down as a text from Stephen lit up my screen. “Lily needs to be more careful. Running into the street like that… she almost got Kate killed.” “A band-aid should be enough for that scrape. I have to fly out for an international deal. You keep an eye on her.” He added one last line. “Once she’s better, I’ll take you both to Disneyland.” Just then, Kate’s social media feed updated. Under the explosion of fireworks above the Disney castle, she and Stephen were posing for a selfie, matching Mickey Mouse ears perched on their heads. The caption read, “A dream come true at Disney! Thank you to the most handsome CEO in the world!” The man who was always so cold and severe had shed his armor, posing for a nine-photo spread of cloying, intimate selfies with her. His usually indifferent eyes were burning with a heat, a devotion, I hadn’t seen in years. Hours later, the light above the ER door finally went out. I stumbled forward, my legs giving way. The doctor just pulled off his mask and shook his head. “I’m so sorry. We did everything we could.” A nurse next to him whispered, “That poor little girl… it breaks your heart.” They told me that in her last moments, during a final, fleeting burst of consciousness, she had been murmuring one thing over and over. “Daddy… Lily’s not a bad girl… please don’t leave me and Mommy.” So she knew. My daughter understood all along. She had seen the way Stephen’s voice turned impossibly soft whenever he spoke to Kate, a tone reserved only for her. For us, all that was left was impatient dismissal. She knew that when his phone rang with that special ringtone, he would drop everything and walk out the door, leaving us behind. We had lost his favor, his light. In a flash, the memories I tried so hard to suppress flooded back. Lily, crumpled on the asphalt, whimpering in agony as her life bled out onto the pavement. Stephen, arriving at the scene, his first instinct not to rush to his daughter, but to cradle a terrified Kate in his arms. “Don’t be afraid, Kate. When the police get here, I’ll sign the waiver. I’ll protect you.” Kate was the one who had done this, an unforgivable crime, yet my husband stood ready to be her shield, her champion. My daughter’s eyes were fixed on them, on Stephen holding Kate. The light in those bright, innocent eyes dimmed, flicker by flicker, until only a deep, bottomless despair remained. Now, clutching my daughter’s cold, still body, I knelt before the mortician, my voice a shattered whisper. “Please… please, cover the wounds. Let her go in peace… let her be whole.” On the cold steel table, Lily lay with her eyes closed, looking so peaceful, as if she’d never known a moment of pain. As if, at any second, she would rub her eyes and call out, “Mommy.” The mortician gently straightened the hem of her little dress. “Ma’am,” he said softly, “it’s time for her to go.” The pain in my chest was so immense I couldn’t breathe. I wanted nothing more than to follow her. At that exact moment, Kate posted a new video. “So this is what a suite that costs tens of thousands a night at Disney looks like! Thanks to my CEO for the eye-opening experience!” She gave a sly wink to the camera. “And a little secret for you all… the Ice King might act tough, but his lips are surprisingly soft when you kiss them.” Before the words had even faded, a hand with long, elegant fingers pushed her playfully onto the bed. A man’s deep voice, laced with dangerous charm, rumbled through the speaker. That night, they embraced in the most magical suite in the Magic Kingdom. My daughter was pushed into an incinerator. Her small body, turned to ash, inch by inch. My heart felt as though it had been carved out of my chest. Eight years ago, Stephen and I were struggling to get our company off the ground, crammed into a tiny, rundown apartment. Maybe Lily was our lucky star. The moment she was born, our fortunes turned. Contracts started pouring in like an avalanche. Once we had money, Stephen wanted to give her the world. He was so determined to make her his one and only princess that he underwent a vasectomy, a risky procedure back then. I remember him after the surgery, pale but resolute, holding our baby girl. “Lily,” he’d whispered, “Daddy promises. You will be my only child, forever.” And over the years, how many times had he promised to take her to Disneyland? In the end, he fulfilled that princess dream for another woman, placing a crown on her head before a fairy-tale castle. I buried my face in my hands, hot tears streaming through my fingers. Lily, my sweet girl, Mommy was wrong. I was so, so wrong. I forgot the oldest rule in the book. A man with money is a man with a wandering eye. I sat slumped in a chair at the crematorium, sending text after text to Stephen. [KATE KILLED OUR DAUGHTER. HOW COULD YOU SLEEP WITH HER?!] [Stephen, I will never, ever forgive you!] The screen remained dark. My storm of emotions quieted into a dead, hollow calm. I sent one last message. [Lily is gone… Come say your last goodbye.] A moment later, the phone lit up. Stephen’s reply was a shard of ice in my heart. [Are you insane? Cursing our own daughter just for attention? You disgust me.] I stared at the screen, biting my lower lip so hard I tasted blood. The man who once crawled on his knees up the stone steps of a monastery, praying for a charm to keep our daughter safe—that man was gone forever. If only, Stephen. If only I had never met you… At dawn, I went home to pack up Lily’s things. I sifted through old photos, each smiling face a dull knife twisting in my gut. Suddenly, I heard footsteps and laughter from downstairs. It was Stephen’s voice, crisp and cold, but laced with an unmistakable, uncontainable joy. “Kate, I can’t believe it… you’re pregnant!” His voice trembled. “After my surgery… to have another child… this is a miracle. A gift from heaven.” I heard him gently help her to the couch. “A little prince or a little princess, I don’t care, I’ll love them just the same. I’m going to the study to get the bank books. Don’t you worry. I’ll give you and our baby the best life imaginable.” That was our money. Money that was meant for me and Lily. How dare he use it to raise the child of the homewrecker who destroyed my family? The child of my daughter’s killer! A wave of pure rage propelled me through the door. I saw Kate lounging on the sofa, legs crossed, as if she were the queen of this house. When she saw me, a smug smirk played on her red lips. Her eyes glinted with triumph. She trailed a finger lightly over her flat stomach. “Oh, Lia. I’m so, so sorry,” she cooed, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “I guess I’m just young, you know? My body is just… better. Even after Stephen’s little procedure, he hits the jackpot on the first try with me…” Her words were a bomb that detonated inside my skull, shattering what was left of my sanity. I lunged, throwing myself at her without a second thought. I was a mother beast, cornered and broken, my grief erupting in a primal scream. “You monster! Give me back my daughter! You took my life!” In the ensuing struggle, her sharp nails raked across my face, leaving bloody trails. She slapped me, hard and fast, like a sudden downpour. I hadn’t eaten in over a day, and even with all my strength, all I could manage was to tear out a few strands of her hair. Kate threw her head back and shrieked. “Stephen, help me! Save me and the baby!” Her voice was a theatrical wail. “This bitch is trying to make me bald!” Stephen rushed in at the sound of the commotion. Without hesitation, he grabbed a pair of scissors from the desk. The sight of them in his hand sent a sliver of ice through my veins. What… what was he going to do? The man who once promised to be my shield from the world now stood before me, his face a thundercloud. “I leave for two seconds, and you dare to hurt Kate? What will you do when she moves in? Try to kill her?” The cold glint of the steel flashed before my eyes. I stared, paralyzed by fear, tears streaming down my face. I summoned every ounce of strength I had left. “No, Stephen, you can’t… you can’t do this to me…” A flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He sneered, his other hand grabbing a fistful of my long hair. “Who do you think you are, Lia? You think our ten years together gives you a free pass to treat Kate however you want?” As he spoke, bodyguards materialized, pinning my arms. He brought the scissors to my hair and began to hack away, each rough cut a severing of a memory. In my despair, a ghost of a gentler time surfaced… back when Stephen wasn’t the untouchable CEO of Pierce Corp. To save money, he’d learned to cut hair himself, and he’d washed mine countless times, his fingers always so gentle. Today, for his assistant, he was shearing away the hair I cherished, and with it, every last shred of the love between us. When he was finished, the reflection in the shattered mirror showed a grotesque stranger with a butchered, patchy scalp. I screamed, a sound of pure agony, and lunged forward, smashing what was left of the mirror. His voice cut through my sobs, cold and hard as stone. He knelt before Kate, taking her hand and pressing his lips to her knuckles as if she were royalty. “For every ounce of grief she causes you, I will make her repay it a hundredfold. Now, is my princess satisfied?” Kate wrapped her arms around his neck, nodding shyly. She glanced at me, and her lips curled into the triumphant smile of a victor. “Look at you,” she sneered. “A plucked chicken. You really think you can compete with me for him now? He stopped loving you years ago. This desperation is just pathetic.” A hollow, empty smile stretched across my own lips. “Stephen,” I said, my voice eerfed by flat. “Let’s get a divorce.” “The life I wanted—one man, one woman, for a lifetime—you can’t give me that anymore.” He answered with a dismissive scoff. “You’re a housewife, Lia. You wouldn’t survive a day without me. A divorce? Fine. But Lily stays. She’s a Pierce. You’re not taking her anywhere.” With that, he swept Kate into his arms and carried her up the stairs. Soon, the sound of her delighted giggles drifted down from the master bedroom. I knelt on the floor, surrounded by the shorn locks of my hair, and finally let myself break completely. You’re wrong, Stephen. You can never take her with you. I found a hat, wiped my tears, and drove to the crematorium. After signing the release form for the ashes, I looked at the attendant, my voice trembling. “Could you… could you please put them in this urn for me?” My voice was steady, but my body swayed, and I nearly collapsed. It was a ceramic urn we had made together, as a family. I remember that day. Stephen had rushed through his part, his movements bored and dismissive. Then his phone rang, and he left without a backward glance. Lily had watched him go, her little mouth pressed into a tight, thin line. My heart ached. I knew that look. It was the face she made when she was disappointed beyond words. And now, she would sleep forever inside that very urn, the one her father couldn’t be bothered to look at twice. Before heading to the airport, I did one last thing. I sent a video file to an encrypted email address. Just as the plane was about to take off, a flight attendant approached me, her expression apologetic. “Mrs. Pierce? I’m sorry, but a suspicious item was detected in your luggage. We’ll need you to come with us for an additional security check.” My face remained calm, but my heart hammered against my ribs. When I stepped off the plane, I saw him. Stephen, with his arm wrapped tightly around Kate. His features were sharp and unforgiving in the cold wind. “Lia. Who gave you permission to leave Havenport?” His gaze dropped to the object in my arms. “And where is Lily? Why isn’t she with you?” I didn’t answer. I just turned and ran, a primal instinct to flee. Suddenly, bodyguards swarmed from all directions, their hands clamping down on my arms like iron vises. Stephen frowned, his eyes fixed on the urn I clutched to my chest. “Why are you carrying that ugly pot around on a plane?” Kate sashayed over, a smug look on her face, and snatched the urn from my hands with ease. I looked up at her, my voice raw and cracking, begging. “No! Please, don’t touch her! My daughter is in there!” She popped the lid off, dipped her fingers inside, and brought a pinch of the powder to her lips. “Kate, no! You already killed her! Let her rest in peace!” Amid my frantic screams, she licked her fingertips, a slight smirk on her face. Then, her expression soured. She gagged dramatically and, with a flick of her wrist, overturned the urn, dumping its entire contents onto the cold, unforgiving concrete. “Ugh, disgusting! It’s just flour! Lia, you really are a drama queen. You almost had us going there.” Hearing this, the tension drained from Stephen’s body. The dark storm in his eyes subsided. He lifted his expensive leather shoe and ground the powder on the ground into dust. “Lia, we’ll settle this little stunt later. I’ve already been to the hospital. Lily isn’t there. Where did you hide her?!” The blood drained from my face. I forced the words from my throat. “I’m not lying. Lily… is dead.” Stephen’s eyes turned to ice. “I’ll find out where she is myself. And since you refuse to tell the truth, perhaps you should never speak again.” He gave a sharp, brutal flick of his hand. “Take her. Sew her mouth shut.” The bodyguards approached me, vile grins spreading across their faces, as if they had been waiting for this moment their whole lives. “So sorry about this, Ma’am…” the leader sneered, his yellowed teeth flashing as he grabbed me. “Remember that time you cut your finger slicing fruit? The boss docked my pay for a whole year for that. Today, I finally get to collect on that debt.” The tip of the needle pierced my lip. Pain, sharp and blinding, shot through me, and my body convulsed in a silent, tear-soaked scream. Another guard leaned in close, his breath hot and foul in my ear. “Remember me, Ma’am? You wandered off while shopping, outside the protection detail. The boss gave me a hundred lashes for that…” The needle weaved in and out of my flesh, each pull of the thread an agony that tore through me. Through a blur of tears, I saw Stephen standing a few feet away, arms crossed, watching me with cold detachment. All the love, all the tender protection he had once showered upon me, had now been twisted into weapons used to destroy me, body and soul. Just as they were about to pull the final stitch tight, Stephen’s sharp eyes caught something. A glint of white in the gray dust on the ground. He bent down slowly, his movements stiff, and picked it up. It was… it was a tiny tooth, not quite consumed by the fire. He lunged at me, his hands closing around my throat, his voice a raw, desperate roar. “Lia, what is this powder on the ground?!” The man who always had the world in the palm of his hand was finally, terrifyingly, losing control. “Tell me! That’s not Lily’s ashes, is it? IS IT?!”

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The sleek black car pulled up to the curb, and I knew it was Alexander. The man I married—a man known for his cold, impenetrable discipline. And yet, his new secretary was sitting in my seat. Right then, I knew. This marriage was over. 1 That day, Alexander Sterling came to pick me up. My hand froze on the handle of the passenger side door. A young, beautiful girl was already sitting there, a saccharine smile plastered on her face. “Mrs. Sterling! So nice to finally meet you!” Her greeting was polite, dripping with manufactured sweetness. But she made no move to get out. My eyes narrowed, my gaze shifting to Alexander. He was on the phone, his head bowed, oblivious to the silent storm brewing in his car. We were supposed to be going to an auction tonight. A date. I’d spent hours getting ready, anticipating this rare evening out with him, only to find my seat—my spot—occupied. “It’s an honor, Mrs. Sterling. I’m Shailene White, Mr. Sterling’s new assistant,” the girl chirped, her smile deepening to reveal two perfect, almost sickeningly sweet dimples. “I heard you were going to a private auction tonight, and I begged Mr. Sterling to let me tag along and see what it’s like. Don’t worry, I won’t be any trouble at all.” A stone dropped in the pit of my stomach. I knew this man, this coolly perfect creature I was married to. He maintained a formidable distance from everyone. He didn’t let people in. Ours was a marriage of alliance, a calculated choice between two powerful families. People had joked that I was marrying a statue, that I’d be a lonely wife. But after we were engaged, Alexander would hold me with a surprising warmth in his eyes. In moments of passion, the tips of his ears would flush a deep red. “You’re my wife, Ava,” he’d said once, his voice low. “We’re a unit. That makes you different from everyone else.” Today, it seemed, something had changed. 2 But I am not some wilting flower who suffers in silence. I am Ava Newton, and I have never had to ask permission to be angry. “Out.” The single word, cold and sharp, hung in the air. The girl stared at me, her smile faltering. She clearly hadn’t expected me to humiliate her so publicly on our first meeting. My tone must have been harsher than I intended, because for a moment, Shailene looked utterly lost. “I… I’m sorry, Mrs. Sterling.” Her voice trembled, thick with unshed tears, as she scrambled into the back seat. Alexander finished his call just then, his eyes finding mine. He saw the fury on my face and a look of weary indulgence softened his features. He leaned across the console to buckle my seatbelt, his familiar cologne filling the space. But the seat felt wrong. It had been adjusted. My frustration boiled over. “This is infuriating!” I snapped, shoving the seat back aggressively. “Who the hell dares to change the settings on my seat?” The atmosphere in the car turned glacial. In the back, the girl was frozen in silence. Alexander’s brow furrowed slightly. His voice was calm, a stark contrast to my rage. “Ava, if you’re not in the mood tonight, we can just go home.” In the rearview mirror, I saw her, Shailene, silently weeping. The sight made my blood run cold. “Shailene White, is it?” I said, my voice dripping ice. “I’m no longer in the mood. You can get a cab home. My husband and I are leaving.” The girl’s face went pale, and she shot a desperate, pleading look at Alexander. He said nothing, offering her no escape. Defeated, she stumbled out of the car, a ghost in the twilight. 3 Alexander would never undermine me in front of others. He was a master of restraint. That’s why he suggested we go home. If there’s a problem, we solve it at home. It was our unspoken rule, a silent pact we’d honored for years. “She’s just a kid, Ava, fresh out of college. Why are you letting her get to you?” he said, pulling me into his arms the moment we stepped inside our house. “It’s the first time,” I stated, my voice flat. Alexander looked confused. “The first what?” “In all these years, it’s the first time you’ve let another woman sit in your passenger seat.” He hadn’t realized. He hadn’t thought that was what this was about. In our circle, everyone knew how exceptional Alexander Sterling was. Women flocked to him, a constant, buzzing swarm of admirers. But he was untouchable. He moved through a garden of temptations, yet never once plucked a single flower. A faint smile touched his lips as he gently brushed a stray strand of hair from my face. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you jealous.” He leaned in, his lips brushing my cheek, his nose tracing a line down to my jaw. “She’s my employee, Ava. Nothing more. There is nothing between us, and there never will be.” He cupped my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze. His voice was a low, sincere vow. “I promise you.” 4 A woman’s intuition is a powerful thing. Even after only one meeting with Shailene White, I knew. I knew she wanted more from Alexander than a paycheck. I had assumed my little show of force would be enough to put her in her place. But I was wrong. The necklace that should have been mine from the auction appeared the very next day, clasped around her neck. Hannah, Alexander’s chief assistant, sent me a picture and a screenshot from a private social media feed. In the photo, a delicate crescent moon, glittering with diamonds, rested against the pale skin of Shailene’s throat, making her look even more doll-like and innocent. Her eyes were red and swollen, but a triumphant little smile played on her lips. It seemed she’d cried herself a river last night and been rewarded with a very expensive gift. The screenshot was from her Instagram story: [Image: A close-up of the necklace nestled in a velvet box.] Caption: The boss says girls have to be strong even when they’re hurt! Wiping my tears and getting back to it! Yes, sir, Mr. Sterling! Ice flooded my veins. It’s embarrassing to admit, but her little performance almost made me lose my composure. It was an ugly feeling, like finding a pristine white silk scarf stained with a single, ugly drop of ink. The primal urge to jump in my yellow Ferrari, push it to 120, and slap that woman’s smug face was almost overwhelming. But then I looked at my own hands and thought better of it. Was I really going to let some cheap, manipulative girl get to me? That was beneath me. I picked up my phone and called Wendy at Hermès. The joy in Wendy’s voice was unmistakable. “Mrs. Sterling, don’t you worry about a thing,” she gushed. “Even if I have to turn Manhattan upside down, I will find every piece you need and have it delivered today!” And so, that afternoon, before the end of the workday, every single female assistant in the executive wing of Sterling Corp—forty-six women in total, excluding Shailene White—received a thick, orange box from the President’s wife. Inside each was a twelve-thousand-dollar Hermès necklace. While the individual price couldn’t compete with the two-hundred-thousand-dollar auction piece, the sheer volume of it sent a clear message. Hannah, ever the smooth operator, included a small card with instructions for each recipient: post a picture to your social media with a specific caption. [Image: A selfie wearing the new Hermès necklace.] Caption: The boss’s wife says every girl deserves the best! Chin up, ladies! Thank you, Mrs. Sterling! The women were, of course, thrilled to comply. The executive assistants were the nerve center of the office grapevine. Which one of them wouldn’t happily post a picture of a gift from the President’s wife? One particularly savvy assistant even added her own little flourish: Mrs. Sterling knows how to play the game! #bosslady Within half an hour, the entire company was buzzing. Everyone knew the President’s wife had showered the assistants with Hermès. As for why… the gossip mills were churning at full capacity. Shailene White’s face turned ashen. Looking deeply insulted, she fled to the restroom, her eyes brimming with tears, and tore the diamond necklace from her neck. Two colleagues who came in to touch up their makeup saw her and shared a knowing, dismissive laugh. Burning with humiliation, Shailene hurried out, the sound of their mockery chasing her down the hall. Her cheeks were hot with shame as she placed the diamond necklace back in its box. She then marched straight to Alexander’s office and returned it. 5 Alexander had just ended a video conference with his partners when he looked up to see Shailene, clutching the necklace box, her eyes red-rimmed and fixed on the floor. She had clearly been crying again. “What’s wrong?” he asked, a hint of confusion in his voice. Shailene’s tears started to fall before she could even speak. “Mr. Sterling,” she choked out, the picture of fragile innocence, “please, take this back. I can’t accept it.” A flicker of annoyance crossed Alexander’s stern face. His gut told him something had happened, but he didn’t press. He simply waited, his gaze fixed on her. Finally, biting her lip, Shailene told him everything that had transpired in the office that day. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Sterling. I seem to always be causing trouble for you,” she whispered between sobs. “I just posted that to encourage myself. I don’t know how Mrs. Sterling even saw it… I never thought she would get so angry.” She looked like a terrified rabbit. “Mr. Sterling, I want to apologize to her. I can explain everything to her face-to-face.” Alexander never looked at social media. His time was consumed by work. But as the CEO of a massive corporation, he was all too familiar with the vicious undercurrents of office politics. His expression grew colder. “I understand,” he said, his voice a low rumble. 6 That evening, Alexander brought Shailene home. She trailed behind him, timid and quiet, as they entered our living room. “I asked Shailene to come so she could clear the air with you directly,” Alexander said with a sigh. “Ava, she is just my secretary. I gave her the necklace as an apology for what happened yesterday. That’s all it was.” I stirred the last of the bird’s nest soup the housekeeper had prepared for me and took a final, deliberate sip. “Mrs. Sterling, I am so sorry,” Shailene said, bowing deeply. She was a master of the frail, vulnerable act. “It was the first time I’d ever received such an expensive gift, and I got carried away. If I did something to upset you, please, just tell me. I’ll fix it immediately!” I raised an eyebrow. “Shailene White, is it?” She darted a glance at Alexander, as if trying to draw courage from his presence, before giving a slow, hesitant nod. The sight of this girl, so determined to challenge me in my own home, was almost laughable. “I’m not your teacher, and I’m not your boss. It’s not my job to teach you how to behave,” I said coolly. “But I am Alexander Sterling’s wife. And I will not give a second chance to anyone who dares to blur the lines with my husband.” She looked stunned, as if no one had ever spoken to her so bluntly. The only expression left on her face was one of pure, helpless fragility. “Ava,” Alexander interjected, his voice tight. “Shailene is here to apologize.” He knew me. He knew my temperament and my methods. Even if he didn’t approve of what I’d done today, he understood why I’d done it. By bringing her here, he was making a concession, trying to get me to let it go. We were both intelligent people; we could read each other with a single look. “Fine,” I said, deciding to give him this one chance. After all, he hadn’t actually cheated. “But it won’t happen again. Not with her, not with anyone.” 7 “You didn’t have to resort to those kinds of tactics against a young girl,” Alexander said later that night as we prepared for bed. “You should have come to me first.” I sat at my vanity, brushing my hair, my eyes meeting his reflection in the mirror. He was so devastatingly handsome. “You knew I wanted that necklace, Alexander. Yet you gave it to another woman. Don’t I have a right to be angry?” I couldn’t imagine it—if this perfect man were ever truly tarnished, could I still love him the way I did now? He walked to the bar and poured himself a glass of ice water, his movements calm and deliberate. “She cried all night because of your misunderstanding. Her eyes were so swollen this morning, I gave her the necklace as an apology. It was an impulse.” His story was flawless. I studied his reflection for a long, silent moment. Two hundred thousand dollars was nothing to us. Giving it away on a whim was plausible. It all depended on who was on the receiving end. His fingers tapped against the marble countertop. He was waiting for me. This was the first time we’d ever had a real conflict over a third person, and the entire situation felt exhausting, an affront to the cultivated decorum we both valued. We were people who prized our dignity above all else. “Alexander,” I said softly. “I love you.” His tapping stopped. He clearly hadn’t expected me to say that. “I love the man you are—the one who is spotless, who is different from everyone else. You never let other women get close because you value emotional fidelity, because you wanted a clean marriage. I wasn’t always like that, but you changed me. We want the same thing now. I hope our marriage never reaches a crossroads.” A weary sigh escaped him. “It hasn’t.” 8 Alexander is an intelligent man. He knew he had crossed a line, and I trusted him not to give Shailene any more false hope. Without the CEO’s favor, Shailene, as an intern, was relegated to the most basic tasks. Before, she had occasionally been given shifts at the main reception desk. Now, Hannah simply left her off the schedule entirely. I never told anyone to ostracize her. Since Alexander had his boundaries, I trusted him to handle it. But in a place like Sterling Corp, you don’t need direct orders for the wolves to start circling. The sycophants and ladder-climbers did the work for me. Within two weeks, the new secretary couldn’t handle the drastic fall from grace and the psychological toll. She lost weight, her bright-eyed optimism dimming into a perpetual state of anxiety. The breaking point came after a high-level board meeting. Shailene had been assigned to clean the small conference room by herself. Alexander, having forgotten a file, walked back in to find her on her knees in her pencil skirt, painstakingly scraping a piece of gum off the plush carpet with a small blade. She sensed his presence and scrambled to her feet, mortified. Alexander’s gaze was deep and cold. He just stood there, his silence stripping away the last of her pride. “Mr. Sterling,” she whispered, tears beginning to fall. These weren’t crocodile tears. There was no performance. Alexander was the sun she admired from afar, a star she could never touch. Just as she was beginning to accept her fate on the fringes, he had to see her like this—at her absolute lowest. She wanted nothing more than to push past him and run. In just two weeks, the cheerful, vibrant girl he had first met had become this fragile, broken thing. That night was the first time Alexander ever truly lost his temper with me. He came home in a fury. The glass of water I offered him, he didn’t drop it. He threw it. It shattered on the marble floor at my feet. “Why can’t you just leave her alone?” he roared, his voice shaking with a rage I had never seen before. “Ava, I respect you, I love you, and I have tolerated your cruelty and your insults towards her time and again. But what sick thrill do you get from tormenting someone weaker than you?” Suddenly, I remembered. During his time at Yale, Alexander’s younger sister, who was in middle school, had taken her own life after relentless bullying. It was a scar on his soul, a wound that never healed. He despised bullies with a passion that bordered on obsession. “Ava, don’t let me see you use these tactics to hurt someone ever again,” he warned, his voice dangerously low. “Because next time, I won’t just stand by and watch.” I stared at the man before me, a stranger whose face was contorted with an emotion I couldn’t recognize. For the first time in our marriage, Alexander had lost his reason—all for another woman, and for something I hadn’t even done. The feeling was sickening. It felt like the shattering of glass. Like a fine crack spidering across a perfect mirror. Something that could never be undone.

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