Category: English

“Congratulations, you’ve been optimized.” When HR said this with a smile, I was still trying to decide between a sandwich or salad for lunch. I’d spent five years at this company. N+1 severance. Out by the end of the month. As I was packing up my box, my mom called— “Perfect timing—you’re free now. Go collect rent from those tenants at our business park who are behind on payments.” I looked at my termination letter, then at the list of delinquent tenants she’d sent me. Third on the list was the company that had just fired me. Three months overdue. Eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars. I lit a cigarette and stood at the bottom of the office building, laughing for a good while. **Chapter One** “Congratulations, you’ve been optimized.” When Hayley Chase said this, the curve of her smile was precise enough to have been measured. Eight teeth showing. Exactly like the day she interviewed me five years ago. So this smile comes as a package deal, I guess. One when you enter, another when you leave. “N+1. Just finish the exit procedures before the end of the month.” She slid the agreement across the table, her fingernail tapping the signature line. “Sign here, Ethan.” I’d worked at Apex Interactive for five years. We specialized in short video content operations. After Series B funding, we never secured Series C. Translation: we were running out of money. “Optimization” had become the company’s most frequently used word this year. More than “let’s go,” more than “hit those targets,” more than the “conserve paper” signs in the bathroom. Last month, half of marketing got cut. The month before, customer service was completely eliminated. I’d always thought that as a five-year veteran, I’d at least be in one of the last batches. Turns out I was first. The door opened. Marcus Hayes, the Operations Director, walked in carrying an americano. His tie was impeccably knotted, his hair slicked back enough to use as a mirror. “Ethan, thanks for everything, man.” He patted my shoulder. His tone had that tragic quality of sending a comrade to his death. I glanced down at his hand. It was shaking. You patted my shoulder, you made the face, but the trembling hand is a bit much. A month ago, I’d pulled two all-nighters on a user growth proposal. He copied it word-for-word into his weekly presentation. The cover read “Operations Director Marcus Hayes” in 48-point font, bold, centered. My name appeared on page thirty-seven in the bottom right corner. Six-point font. Light gray. You’d need to zoom in 200% to even see it. He won Best Manager of the Quarter with that proposal. Twenty thousand dollar bonus. Not a cent of it came my way. Then at the layoff committee meeting, he was the first to raise his hand. His reasoning: “This position has low output. Eliminating it won’t significantly impact the department.” I knew why he was so eager to kick me out. Keeping me around meant keeping a witness. If I ever let something slip, the whole proposal situation would come out. “Just sign.” He crossed his legs and sat on the sofa. “The company’s compensation package is very generous. N+1.” I looked at the agreement. N+1, five years of service—theoretically six months’ salary. But after deducting perfect attendance bonuses, downgrading performance coefficients, and something called an “optimization contribution fee”— I’d get four and a half months. “What’s this ‘optimization contribution fee’?” I asked. Hayley didn’t even look up. “Company policy.” So I’m getting laid off and still have to pay into it? Should I thank the company for firing me while I’m at it? I didn’t argue. I picked up the pen. Signed. There was no point arguing. I’d seen this play out before. Back at my desk to pack up. The entire floor was as quiet as a morgue. About twenty people, none of them looked up. The clatter of keyboards filled the air as everyone pretended to be busy. An intern snuck a glance at me, got elbowed by the person next to him, and quickly ducked his head back down. Doug from the next cubicle reached over with his hand, a crumpled paper ball in his palm. I opened it. “BBQ tonight, my treat. Don’t be down.” Below it he’d drawn a pile of poop and a stick figure flipping the bird. I pocketed the note. With that artistic ability, his optimization is just a matter of time. I didn’t have much. A thermos, a dying succulent, a USB drive. Five years. This was all I’d accumulated. I carried the box toward the elevator. Passing Marcus’s office, the door was half-open. He was on the phone, voice low, but I could hear clearly— “Handled. No drama. People like that, just throw enough money at them…” I didn’t stop. When the elevator doors closed, I was alone inside. Walking out of the building, the sunlight made me squint. The twenty-six-story glass facade gleamed in the sun. The sign at the entrance read: Kingston Tech Park, Building A. Standing there, I felt like expired bubble tea that had been thrown out. Unwanted, but somehow not really a big deal. My phone rang. My mom. “Sweetheart! What are you up to?” “Just… got off work.” “Perfect!” Her tone was suspiciously excited, like she’d been waiting for this. “Your dad’s back is acting up. Some tenants at the park are behind on rent. Go collect it for us.” “What park?” “The one where you work! Kingston Tech Park! We own it!” I looked at the building in front of me. Then down at the box in my hands. “…Mom, say that again?” “Kingston Tech Park! Your dad bought it fifteen years ago. You rode a tricycle around the construction site when you were little! I’ve told you this eight hundred times, but every time you just go ‘uh-huh’ and keep playing video games—” “Wait.” I opened my messages. Scrolled to the family group chat, “The Shaw Family Circle.” Three days ago, my mom had sent a spreadsheet. My response below it— “Got it, thanks.” It was an auto-reply. I’d set up keyword triggers. I opened the spreadsheet. Delinquent tenant list. Seven companies total. Third row. Three months overdue, totaling $870,000. Company name: Apex Interactive Technologies, Inc. Legal representative: Richard Kane. I stared at that name for ten seconds. Then put down the box. Pulled out a cigarette. Lit it. Took a drag. Another drag. Then, cigarette between my fingers, I tilted my head back and looked up at that twenty-six-story glass facade— And laughed. I actually laughed out loud. Fired by my own family’s tenant. **Chapter Two** 7:30 PM. BBQ joint. Doug slammed two beers on the table, his face screaming “Bro, don’t be sad, Doug’s here for you.” I chewed on a lamb skewer and played my mom’s voicemail on speaker. “Your dad took you to see it when you were little! You drew Sun Wukong on a pillar in the Building A lobby with crayons—it’s still there!” “Don’t remember.” “Of course you don’t, you were only four. But the pillar’s still there! Go to the lobby tomorrow and look, third one on the left—” I paused it. Doug’s skewer dropped half its meat onto the table. He stared at me, mouth open, a piece of asparagus dangling from his lip. “Your… your family owns it? All of Kingston Tech Park?” “My mom says so.” “All of it? Not just a small office?” “All of it.” “Building A, B, and C? Plus the cafeteria in the middle?” “Plus the parking lot.” He chugged his beer. “Ethan, what the hell were you doing working at that company for five years?” “I only found out today too.” “Your parents didn’t tell you?” “They did.” I showed him the chat history. “My mom sent a voice message last year, forty-seven seconds. I replied with ‘okay.’” “Did you listen to it?” “No. Forty-seven seconds was too long.” Doug slammed his chopsticks on the table. “You deserved to get optimized.” Thanks, man. Really appreciate you giving me the most honest assessment at my most vulnerable moment. He spent five minutes processing this, chugging three beers before finally accepting reality. Then he leaned forward, lowered his voice, eyes gleaming— “So what are you going to do?” “Collect rent.” “And then?” “No ‘and then.’ My mom asked me to collect rent, so I’ll collect rent.” “You’re not going to get revenge? That bastard Marcus stealing your proposal—” “That’s separate. I’ll be a good landlord first.” Doug stared at me for a few seconds. “You’re scheming something.” “I’m eating BBQ.” That night when I got home, my mom had already prepared everything. Property deed, lease agreement, property management authorization—all neatly arranged on the coffee table. Next to them sat a bowl of white fungus and lotus seed soup. My dad was on the sofa watching TV, a medicated patch on his back. When he saw me, he said one thing— “Don’t be too aggressive collecting rent. Business is about relationships.” My mom shouted from the kitClark: “What relationships! Debts must be paid! You’re too soft—three months overdue and you haven’t said a word!” She poked her head out. “Son, when you go tomorrow, stand tall. You represent the Shaw family!” I flipped through the contracts and found Apex Interactive’s. Monthly rent: $290,000. Three-year lease, expiring next June. But they’d stopped paying three months ago. The contract clearly stated: consecutive non-payment exceeding two months gives the lessor the right to unilaterally terminate the agreement. I stared at that clause. Thought back to Marcus’s phone call in his office today. “People like that, just throw enough money at them.” I turned to page two of the property management authorization. It bore the seal of Shaw Property Management, Inc. The agent line was blank. My mom handed me a pen. “Fill in your name.” I did. As the pen touched paper, I suddenly found it oddly fascinating. Yesterday I’d been the lowest-level operations specialist in that building. Tomorrow I’d walk in as the landlord’s representative to collect rent. I leaned back in my chair, looking out at the night. “Mom, besides this park, do we have other properties?” “Sure, your dad has two mixed-use buildings in the south district. Why?” “…Nothing.” “Oh right, you know about your grandmother’s situation, right?” “Doesn’t Grandma run a grain and oil shop?” Two seconds of silence. “Well… sort of.” She carried a plate back to the kitClark, her voice fading. “Sort of.” That hesitant “sort of” gave me a vague sense of unease. That night I had a dream. I was in Apex Interactive’s lobby. On the third pillar from the left, there was a crayon drawing of Sun Wukong. The lines were crooked. Marcus stood nearby, holding a rag, trying to erase it. In my dream, I said one thing— “Don’t erase it. That pillar is mine.” **Chapter Three** The next day, 10 AM. I wore a white dress shirt, carried a briefcase, and stood in the Kingston Tech Park Building A lobby. Looked down. Third pillar from the left. Near the bottom, there was a faint crayon mark. If you didn’t look carefully, you couldn’t tell it was supposed to be Sun Wukong. It looked like melted ice cream with two legs. I confirmed it. It really was my drawing. Deep breath. Walked toward reception. The receptionist was Emily Lane. Started last year. I knew her. She knew me too. “E… Ethan?” Emily’s eyes widened, bouncing between my face and briefcase. “Weren’t you yesterday…” “Laid off yesterday, yes.” I smiled and handed her my business card. “Here in a different capacity today. Shaw Property Management Company. I’m Ethan Shaw, the property owner’s representative.” She took the card. Looked at it for three seconds. Looked at me for three seconds. “…You’re joking, right?” “Contract number JH-2022-A1703. Your company leases the entire 17th floor of Kingston Tech Park Building A. Monthly rent $290,000, three consecutive months overdue, totaling $870,000. I’m here to discuss this matter. Please notify Mr. Kane or whoever handles administration.” Emily’s hand hovered over the phone, frozen. Her expression was like watching a cat walk in and claim to be checking the water meter. “You’re… serious?” I placed the authorization and property deed copies on the reception desk. “Could you make the call? I’m not in a hurry.” Five minutes later. The elevator opened. Hayley Chase walked out in high heels, wearing her standard HR smile. But that smile, the instant she saw me— Cracked. Yes. Like a perfect mirror that suddenly went “crack” down the middle. “Ethan?” “Hi, Hayley.” “What are you… doing here?” “Collecting rent.” Her footsteps stopped. Her heel made a sharp “click” on the marble floor, then silence. I handed her the authorization. She didn’t take it. Her eyes focused on the header—”Shaw Property Management, Inc.”—then moved to the agent signature—”Ethan Shaw.” Read it three times. “This is…” “Your company’s overdue rent. Three months. $870,000 total. Per contract, consecutive non-payment exceeding two months gives the lessor the right to terminate. I’m not discussing termination today—just when you can settle the debt.” I paused, adding with a smile, “For now.” Hayley’s hand holding the document trembled slightly. Not from fear. It was that involuntary muscle response when someone’s worldview suddenly collapses. She opened her mouth to speak. The first-floor lobby was very quiet. Emily pretended to look at her computer, eyes practically flying toward me. Hayley took a deep breath. “Wait here. I need to… notify management.” She turned toward the elevator. Her heels clicked rapidly and erratically. Two steps away, she glanced back at me. That look was complex. Translation: “Are you seriously not messing with me right now?” I nodded at her. Expression sincere. She got in the elevator. After the doors closed, Emily finally couldn’t hold it in. She covered her face with a folder, peering at me from behind it. “Ethan…” “Yeah?” “Did you know yesterday?” “Found out last night.” She swallowed hard. “When you signed the exit agreement yesterday…” “I didn’t know.” “When you came to collect rent today…” “I knew.” She lowered the folder. Face flushed red. Couldn’t tell if she was excited for me or scared for the company. “Badass.” She said. Voice very small. But I heard it. **Chapter Four** Five minutes later, the elevator opened again. Hayley led the way, followed by someone else. Marcus. He strode over, suit crisp, chin raised—the same posture as when he’d patted my shoulder yesterday. Only difference: he wasn’t holding an americano. He was gripping a document. “Ethan?” He stood before me, looking me up and down. A smirk played at his lips—the kind of smile someone in power gives to a farce. “You got laid off and came back to scam us?” “Mr. Hayes.” I handed him the authorization. “Please review this.” He took it and glanced casually. Then a second glance. The second took much longer. “What is this?” “Property deed copy, property management authorization, my identification. Your company owes three months’ rent on Kingston Tech Park. I’m here on behalf of the owner to negotiate.” Marcus flipped it over to check the back. Flipped back to the front. His eyes bounced between “Shaw Property Management, Inc.” and “Agent: Ethan Shaw” at least four times. He laughed. But the laugh sounded wrong. “Your last name is Shaw, the company’s name is Shaw, so it’s your family’s?” “The name on the property deed matches my father’s identification. The authorization bears the corporate seal and notary stamp. If you have doubts, you can verify at the Real Estate Registry.” My tone was calm. Like presenting a PowerPoint—though all my previous PowerPoints had been stolen by him. Hayley stood nearby, hands wringing together. She interjected: “Mr. Hayes, this document… I did a preliminary check. It appears legitimate.” Marcus’s expression looked like he’d swallowed a live fly. And the fly was still buzzing. “Are you kidding me?” He stared at me, voice rising half an octave. “Fired yesterday, today you show up claiming this building is yours? If you’re going to make up a story, at least make it believable—” “Mr. Hayes.” I cut him off, pulling another document from my briefcase. “This is the lease agreement your company signed three years ago. Lessor: Shaw Property Management, Inc. Lessee: Apex Interactive Technologies, Inc., legal representative Richard Kane. Monthly rent $290,000, three months’ deposit plus one month advance.” I turned to the last page. “The seal here matches the seal on my authorization. You can compare them yourself.” The lobby went silent. Marcus stopped talking. The document in his hand was shaking. Subtle, but I could see it. Hayley stole a glance at him, then at me. Emily pretended to answer a call, holding the receiver upside down. About ten seconds of silence. The elevator chimed again. This time Richard Kane emerged. Mr. Kane. Apex Interactive CEO. Forty-five, slightly overweight, balding. Always wore a gray polo shirt. Today: gray polo shirt. As he approached, his face radiated that “I’ll handle everything” executive aura. “Hayley, what’s going on?” Hayley opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Marcus opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I answered for them. “Hello, Mr. Kane. I’m Ethan Shaw. I left your company yesterday. Here today about the rent. Your company is three months overdue, totaling $870,000.” Kane’s steps faltered. He looked at me, then at the document in Marcus’s hand, and took it. He read much more slowly than Marcus. Page by page. At the property deed, his brow furrowed. At the authorization, it knotted into a tight ball. He looked up. This was the first time in five years Richard Kane had truly looked at me. “Ethan.” Five years. First time calling me “Ethan.” Not “what’s-his-name,” not “that operations kid.” “Ethan.” “This matter…” He rolled up the documents, gripping them, and forced a smile. “Let’s go upstairs to talk. Not convenient in the lobby.” He turned toward the elevator. Passing Marcus, he tapped his arm with the rolled documents. “You come up too.” Marcus’s face turned ashen. I followed them into the elevator. The instant the doors closed, I saw Hayley’s reflection in the polished walls. She was biting her lip. Biting it white. Emily finally put down the upside-down receiver. I heard her murmur behind me— “Ethan, you really did come back from the dead.”

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It was only when the invisible hand of grief tightened around my heart that I realized the crushing weight of the ultrasound report I’d been trying so hard to ignore. My wife and daughter were famous for their icy temperaments—polished, professional, and emotionally distant. When the news of a third child arrived, I allowed myself to hope. I thought, finally, the frost in our home might thaw. During dinner, my daughter, Sophie, leaned over and whispered in my ear, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Dad, I’m going to have a little brother.” I looked at my wife, Isabelle, and her slightly rounded stomach. I suppressed the urge to grin, pretending I was hearing this “surprise” for the first time. I was ready to celebrate, ready to tell her how happy I was. But before I could speak, Isabelle’s voice cut through the air, cool and clinical. “The child isn’t yours.” She set her fork down with a delicate click. “The amniocentesis results came back yesterday. It’s a boy.” She added, with a nonchalance that made my blood run cold: “A younger man’s genes are simply superior. The child will be sharper, more resilient. It’s better for the family legacy.” The words felt like shards of ice driven into my chest. I sat there, paralyzed, my hand still hovering over my wine glass. The warm, domestic future I’d been picturing—the “happily ever after” I’d spent fifteen years building—was nothing more than a carefully constructed lie. … “Why?” I forced the word out, my voice cracking under the weight of a decade and a half of devotion. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Isabelle, the woman I had loved since we were penniless students, was casually announcing her infidelity over a steak dinner. She didn’t look away. She never did. “Six months ago, at that gala in the Hamptons. Someone spiked my drink. I ended up spending the night with a college kid.” “I took the morning-after pill, obviously,” she continued, a faint, almost predatory smile touching her lips. “But apparently, his constitution was too strong. I conceived anyway.” She looked at our daughter. “When Sophie heard it was a boy, she begged me to keep him. You have no idea how happy she was that day, Daniel.” Isabelle’s laugh was light, melodic. To me, it sounded like a funeral dirge. I turned to Sophie, expecting to see a shred of guilt or confusion on her face. Instead, she looked at me with the same detached calculation as her mother. “I’ve always wanted a brother,” Sophie said firmly. “I don’t care who the father is, as long as he’s Mom’s.” I felt a sickening vertigo. My wife, who I thought loved me more than life itself; my daughter, who I had raised with every ounce of my soul—how could they turn into strangers in a single heartbeat? Isabelle sighed, pulling a silk handkerchief from her pocket and offering it to me. “Don’t be dramatic, Dan. People in our circles… this happens. I thought you were more sophisticated than this.” “Don’t worry,” she added, as if she were discussing a business merger. “Once the baby is born, I’ll set the boy up with a trust and send him abroad. He won’t threaten your position in this house.” I shoved her hand away. Yesterday, I was the man everyone envied. The loyal husband to a titan of industry. The father to a child prodigy who was already being scouted by Ivy League recruiters. Today, the floor had dropped out from under me. “This isn’t real,” I whispered, rubbing my eyes until they burned. “This is some kind of sick joke.” Isabelle reached out, pinching my chin and forcing me to look at her as she wiped a stray tear from my cheek. “Enough, Daniel. Only a few close friends know. To the rest of the world, you’re still the father. You’ll always be my husband. I promise. Okay?” It felt like a slap. The fog in my brain suddenly cleared, replaced by a sharp, jagged reality. My gaze fell on the ultrasound photo—the tiny life that represented my utter humiliation. When Isabelle tried to pull me into a compensatory hug, I recoiled, shoving her back with a force that surprised us both. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me! You’re disgusting!” She held up her hands, stepping back with a frown. “Fine. I’ll give you space. Maybe Sophie can talk some sense into you?” Tears hit the back of my hand. I stood up so abruptly I sent my chair flying, then gripped the edge of the table and heaved. The expensive dinner, the crystal, the flowers—everything crashed to the floor. “I want a divorce,” I snarled. “I will not raise another man’s bastard. Not in a million years.” The room went deathly silent. The warmth vanished from Isabelle’s eyes, replaced by a terrifying, flinty hardness. Sophie looked at me with pure disappointment. “Dad, if you want a divorce, go ahead,” Sophie said. “But I’m staying with Mom. And if you walk out that door today, Uncle Tyler will be my new father by tomorrow.” The strength left my legs. I grabbed the edge of the sideboard to keep from collapsing. “Who? Who did you just say?” Tyler. Tyler Mathew. He was a student in my architecture seminar, a boy who had dropped out because his “girlfriend” got pregnant. I remembered the day he left; he’d been gloating, practically vibrating with excitement. I had tried to give him a fatherly lecture about finishing his degree, about responsibility. He had looked at me with such disdain. “Please, Professor,” he’d said. “My girl has more money than God. She can afford ten kids. I’m just going to let her take care of me.” I had felt sorry for him at the time. I never imagined the “girl” was my wife. My vision blurred with hot, angry tears. “Why… why did it have to be my student, Isabelle?” Isabelle rubbed her temples. “It wasn’t intentional. I went into the wrong suite that night. I didn’t realize who he was until I woke up.” She paused, her eyes roaming over my face with a cruel kind of hunger. “But I can’t say I regret it. The stamina of a twenty-year-old is… refreshing.” A roar started in my ears. I snapped. I grabbed a porcelain vase, a book, a heavy crystal decanter—anything within reach—and hurled them at her. I screamed until my throat was raw. Isabelle didn’t flinch, didn’t even move as things shattered around her. When I finally slumped against the wall, exhausted, she stepped over the wreckage. “Are we done with the tantrum now?” she asked, her voice weary. She reached out to touch my shoulder. “Get out!” I threw the last wine glass at her feet. The glass splintered, a stray shard slicing my own palm. Isabelle’s expression darkened. She grabbed my wrist, her grip like a vice, forcing me to hold still while she inspected the cut. “Since you’re so well-informed now,” she said, her tone conversational once more, “I’ve decided to move Tyler in. The doctor says the baby needs to be near his father for ‘bonding.’ While you’re taking care of me and Sophie, you can look after Tyler too.” I looked at her, horrified. “What… what did you just say?” Isabelle twisted her wedding ring, then reached up to pinch my cheek. “Be a good boy, Dan. Tyler moves in tonight. You’ll be looking after him for the next few months. I’ve already called the university and put you on a sabbatical. You won’t have to worry about work.” “You’re sick,” I spat, my voice a broken whisper. “You want me to serve your… your boy toy? Isabelle, have you lost your mind?” She chuckled, pressing a finger to my lips. “Shh. Lower your voice. You wouldn’t want your mother to hear about this, would you? She’s still in the cardiac unit. Stress is a silent killer for women her age.” The threat hit me like a physical blow. I went cold. “If you don’t play along, Daniel,” she whispered, her smile never reaching her eyes, “I can’t guarantee that someone won’t ‘accidentally’ mention my pregnancy and your impending divorce to her. Do you think her heart could handle that?” I shook with rage and helplessness. My mother. She had been the only one to support our marriage when Isabelle was a nobody with nothing but a dream. My mother had given Isabelle her first five thousand dollars to start her firm. My eyes welled up again, but Isabelle had lost her patience. She checked her Rolex and sighed. “Tyler will be here in five minutes. I’m giving you five minutes to pull yourself together and decide if you want your mother to live through the night.” My fists clenched and unclenched. Finally, defeated, I nodded. She gave me a peck on the cheek as a reward before heading to the front door to welcome him. Sophie pushed past me, her eyes bright with an excitement I hadn’t seen in years. She didn’t even look back at me. The door opened. My eyes met Tyler’s. He looked around the penthouse with the grin of a lottery winner, then looked at me, his former professor, with naked triumph. “Professor,” he smirked. “I look forward to our time together.” I didn’t say a word. Sophie walked over to him. “Dad, you need to move your things out of the master suite so Tyler can have it. You’re old; you can sleep in the guest room or the den. It doesn’t matter.” “Fine,” I said, my voice hollow. If my wife and daughter were gone, what did a room matter? Isabelle looked surprised. She expected more of a fight—the Daniel she knew never backed down. I ignored her and turned to leave. “Not so fast,” Isabelle said, her eyes narrowing. “Since you’re being so accommodating, why don’t you finish cleaning up this mess you made? Then go upstairs and pack your things properly. I want the room ready for Tyler in an hour.” Tyler stepped forward, grabbing my hand in a mock-friendly shake. “Thanks, Professor. I’m sure you’ll keep everything spotless for us.” He was treating me like a servant. And Isabelle and Sophie just stood there, watching. I wrenched my hand away. “There are cleaners for that. They’re professionals.” Isabelle’s voice dropped an octave, cold and dangerous. “Don’t test me, Daniel. You can walk out, but think about your mother. If you won’t do the work, maybe she’s healthy enough to come over and scrub the floors for me?” The air left my lungs. I turned and went into the master bedroom. I started throwing my clothes into a suitcase, but Sophie came in a moment later. She began grabbing my things—my books, my framed photos—and tossing them out into the hallway. Glass shattered. “You’re too slow, Dad,” she said. “Besides, all this stuff is old. It belongs in the trash anyway.” Isabelle walked in and tried to put a hand on my back, a hollow gesture of comfort. “Look, Dan. I’ve bought those beach properties in Malibu you liked. I’ll put them in your name. You love the ocean. You can spend your time there once the baby is born.” The hypocrisy made me want to vomit. I moved away from her touch. Once I cleared the room, I walked out, needing air. Thirty minutes later, a scream echoed from the master suite. Security guards—men I’d known for years—grabbed me and hauled me up to the second floor. Tyler was sitting on the edge of the bed, trembling. Isabelle was holding a long, wicked-looking sewing needle she’d found under the pillow. “Isabelle, I’m so scared,” Tyler whimpered. “That needle was right where I was going to lay my head. If it had hit my eye… if it had hit my heart… I might never have seen our baby.” Isabelle glared at me, her face contorted with disgust. “Daniel, how could you be so petty? So cruel?” “You’re a teacher, for God’s sake! Where is your dignity? I told you Tyler wasn’t a threat to you, and yet you try to kill him? Because I’m having his child? If you weren’t so useless in bed, I wouldn’t have had to go elsewhere to ‘seed’ the family!” The insults rained down on me, but I was too stunned to speak. I hadn’t put a needle there. Suddenly, Sophie lunged at me. Before I could react, a sharp pain exploded in my right wrist. She had grabbed the needle from Isabelle and jammed it into my arm. My hand went numb instantly. But she wasn’t done. She hit me, her small fists thumping against my chest. “Bad Daddy! Bad Daddy! You tried to hurt Tyler, so I’m hurting you back!” The physical pain was nothing compared to the sound of her voice. I had always worried Sophie was too mature, too much like her mother. I had prayed for her to show some emotion, to be a “real” child. I never imagined that the first time she’d throw a tantrum, it would be to defend a stranger against me. I looked at Isabelle, the last shred of my love for her dying in my eyes. “Do you honestly think I did this?” Isabelle didn’t answer. Tyler groaned. “Isabelle, my head… I feel dizzy. What if I’m dying? I can’t die before the baby is born.” Isabelle turned her back on me to comfort him. “This was your fault, Daniel. You deserved whatever Sophie did to you. Stop being a child.” She looked at my bleeding wrist with total indifference. “It’s a scratch. Fix it yourself.” “And don’t worry about your mother,” she added as she led Tyler toward the door. “The medical team is with her 24/7. She’s fine. Just… try to be better, Daniel.” They left. I sat on the floor, clutching my numb hand. “Sophie,” I croaked, reaching out. My daughter looked at me with pure loathing and shoved me away before running after them. I tumbled backward, my forehead cracking against the sharp corner of the coffee table. Blood began to pour down my face, stinging my eyes. “Sophie!” I screamed with the last of my strength. “Sophie, stop! If you walk out that door, you are no longer my daughter!” She paused. For a second, hope flared in my chest. “Call 911,” I whispered. “Please.” She turned, a mocking smirk on her face. “Fine. I don’t need a useless father anyway. I’ve wanted a brother forever, and you couldn’t do it. Tyler did it in one night. You’re pathetic.” She walked out. Eventually, it was the housekeeper who found me and called an ambulance. I woke up in the hospital to the sight of a sympathetic doctor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stanley. You were brought in late. The wound on your forehead… it’s going to leave a significant scar. With cosmetic surgery later on, we might—” I shook my head. I didn’t care about the scar. The man I used to be was already dead. I fell back into a restless sleep, only to be awakened by a notification on my phone. An anonymous email. I opened it, and my heart stopped. Photos. Documents. The truth about Isabelle’s pregnancy. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips. I reached for the phone to call Isabelle, to tell her exactly what kind of viper she’d invited into her bed, when the hospital’s internal line rang. “Mr. Stanley? You need to come to the ICU. Your mother… she’s crashing. This is it.” The world tilted. I ripped the IV out of my arm and sprinted toward the elevators, stumbling, my gown stained with blood. I found my mother in a hallway on a gurney. There was only one intern with her. “Where is everyone?” I grabbed the nurse’s shoulders. “Where are the doctors? Where is the surgical team?” “I don’t know!” the nurse cried. “The CEO’s husband had some kind of ’emergency’ upstairs, and she ordered the entire cardiac and trauma team to her private suite to check him.” My mind went blank. I dialed Isabelle’s number. I dialed ten times before someone picked up. It was Sophie. “What, Dad? Stop being annoying.” “Give the phone to your mother,” I gasped, my voice shaking. “Now!” “Mom’s busy,” Sophie snapped. “Tyler’s having his ultrasound and she’s holding his hand. Don’t call again.” She hung up. My mother’s breathing was becoming ragged, shallow. I called Isabelle’s assistant and screamed until he patched me through. “Daniel, what is it now?” Isabelle’s voice was full of disdain. “I’m in the middle of a procedure.” “Isabelle, please,” I sobbed into the phone. “My mother is dying. Send the doctors back down. Please. I’m begging you.” Isabelle let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Daniel, give it a rest. I’m pregnant with another man’s child, and this is how you react? Faking a medical emergency for your mother? You are truly pathetic. The team is exactly where I want them. Stop being jealous.” “Isabelle, I’m not lying! She’s dying! Please!” “Then let her die,” Isabelle said, her voice like steel. “Maybe then you’ll finally shut up.” Click. The line went dead. I watched the heart monitor flatline. I watched the nurse pull the white sheet over my mother’s face. I didn’t even have the strength to cry. Hours later, Isabelle called back. Her voice was light, almost cheerful. “How’s your mother? The medical team I sent should have her stabilized. I even had some specialists flown in from Germany.” “I’m willing to overlook your behavior today,” she continued. “It’s Sophie’s birthday dinner tonight. Come home. She wants you to bake that chocolate cake she likes.” I stared at the white sheet. “Okay,” I said. My voice was a ghost. I hung up and walked to a 24-hour print shop near the hospital. I printed every file from that email. I put them in a gift box. Then I called a courier. I handed him my black Amex. “Deliver this to Isabelle Stanley at the Pearl Room tonight. Make sure she opens it in front of everyone.” Isabelle, I hope that when you find out the truth, you can still stomach the child you’re carrying. At the gala, Tyler was preening, trying to play the part of the doting father-to-be. Sophie was looking around, impatient. “Where’s Dad? Why isn’t he here yet?” Isabelle checked her watch. “He’s probably still sulking. He’ll be here.” The courier arrived. Isabelle frowned, stepping back, but when she heard my name, she took the box. A faint, smug smile touched her lips. “He always makes such a fuss over a cake. Fine, I’ll forgive him this once—” She opened the box. Her face went ashen.

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Human nature is a fickle, terrifying thing. There was a time, not too long ago, when I genuinely believed Wesley and I would spend the rest of our lives locked in a blood-drawn, scorched-earth war. I thought we would fight until one of us was entirely consumed. But then death stepped into the room, and suddenly, the idea of tangling with him just felt profoundly exhausting. On the day we buried Cassidy, I went back to her parents’ house to help box up her life. By the time I returned to the home Wesley and I shared, his first love had already moved in. As it turned out, on the exact day Cassidy’s heart gave out, the ghost of Wesley’s golden youth had flown back from Europe. A paparazzi photo of their tearful reunion at the arrivals terminal had been trending online all afternoon. The truth is, Wesley was terrified of me. He was terrified that the feral, unhinged version of his wife would rear her head and tear his precious girl to shreds. So, he had taken precautions. Two private security contractors in dark suits were stationed in our foyer, ready to tackle me to the hardwood the second I snapped. 1 When I walked through the door, Wesley and Gemma were sitting at the long mahogany dining table, eating dinner. Gemma was just as I remembered. Effortlessly beautiful, bathed in this soft, untouchable grace. She offered me a slight nod and a tentative, apologetic smile. “Megan. It’s been a long time.” My gaze slid right past her face, landing heavily on Wesley’s hand. He was using his own fork to place a piece of glazed salmon onto her plate. He was so quiet. Quietly chewing, quietly serving her, quietly refusing to look in my direction. I blinked, severing the visual tie, and took a step forward. Instantly, the two men in suits shifted. They stepped directly in front of Gemma, forming a human barricade between her and me. I paused, a dry chuckle catching in my throat. Ah. They’re here for me. I glanced around the room. The heavy crystal vases that usually sat on the console tables were gone. I realized then that if I marched into the kitchen, I probably wouldn’t find a single chef’s knife left in the blocks. Wesley really had thought of everything. I couldn’t even blame him. Given my track record, grabbing a kitchen knife or smashing a vase over someone’s skull wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. If Cassidy were still alive, Gemma wouldn’t have made it through the front door without losing half a limb. But Cassidy was dead. Just the thought of her name made my lungs seize, a thousand microscopic needles piercing my chest with every inhale. I didn’t have the energy to waste on them. I bypassed the human shield and headed straight for the stairs. Wesley froze. I didn’t have to look back to know his brow was furrowed, his jaw locked as he watched my retreating back. No matter how nonchalant he tried to act, I knew his muscles had been coiled wire since the second the front door opened. He was waiting for the explosion. The screaming, the shattered glass, the hysteria. He had probably rehearsed a dozen cold, cutting monologues in his head, ready to put me in my place. But he got nothing. Not a single violent gesture. Not a single word. And somehow, I knew that didn’t bring him relief. Instead, it sat in his chest like a damp clump of cotton—suffocating, immovable, impossible to swallow. 2 I packed a single suitcase and carried it down the stairs. Wesley and Gemma had migrated to the living room. As I approached, the security guards stiffened, adjusting their stances. I stopped a few feet away. “I’m going away for a few days,” I said, my voice flat, scraped hollow. “You can use the time to have your lawyers draft the divorce papers. I’ll sign them when I get back.” Wesley sat frozen on the leather sofa. He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes heavy, staring at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “What did you just say?” I tipped my chin toward Gemma. “A divorce. You moved her in. Isn’t that the endgame here?” Gemma scrambled to her feet, her hands waving in a frantic, delicate panic. “Megan, please, you misunderstand! I’m only staying here temporarily. Just until my new apartment is renovated, I swear I’ll move out.” Gemma’s greatest weapon had always been her weaponized innocence. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and opened my messages. “I’m coming back because I want to fight for myself this time, Megan. You can’t force love. You know that better than anyone. I hope you can find it in your heart to step aside for Wesley and me.” I looked up, meeting Gemma’s wide, trembling eyes. “You sent me this two days ago.” All the color drained from Gemma’s face. She swayed slightly on her feet, a masterclass in fragility. “Wesley, I…” Wesley stood up abruptly, positioning his body in front of hers, shielding her. He glared at me, his face an ice-cold mask of hostility. “What exactly are you trying to prove?” I pressed two fingers to my throbbing temples. “Just that since we’re on the same page about the divorce, I’d appreciate it if you expedited the paperwork.” 3 Gemma was Wesley’s first love. The first person you give your heart to when you’re young and invincible is always the hardest ghost to shake. We were all in high school back then. I remember walking past the abandoned annex behind the gymnasium and seeing Gemma backed against the brick wall, wrapped in Wesley’s arms, up on her tiptoes, kissing him. I saw them. And when Wesley opened his eyes, he saw me. Wesley and I belonged to two completely different stratospheres. We never should have intersected. But he had saved me once. A group of girls had cornered me by the dumpsters, dragging me by my backpack, threatening to strip my clothes off. Wesley had appeared out of nowhere, his fists doing the talking, scattering them like roaches. I had never been a lovable girl. My mother died when I was young, and my father married a woman who made it her life’s mission to break me. She stole my lunch money, spoke to me exclusively in venom, and hit me when she thought no one was looking. Growing up in a house thick with that kind of poison, I developed an armor made of pure defiance. I was cynical, gloomy, and mean. I hated everyone equally. I pushed everyone away equally. So even after Wesley saved me, I didn’t offer him a shred of gratitude. I remember him stepping forward, his designer sneaker coming down hard on my fingers as I tried to push myself off the asphalt. He smiled, a cold, empty thing. “You don’t have the teeth to bite, yet you still bare them at me?” he murmured. “Smile. Or I’ll break your hand.” Wesley treated me the way someone might treat a rabid stray dog they found in an alley. When he was in a good mood, he’d pull me into his inner circle, a vicious kind of protection. When he was in a bad mood, we could pass each other in the hallway and he’d look right through me like I was made of glass. He was volatile, moody, and entirely heartless. So, knowing all that… when I eventually cornered him into a position where his only option was to marry me, just imagine how much he must have hated me. 4 By the time I walked out of the house, my assistant was already idling in the driveway. My skull felt like it was fracturing. I climbed into the backseat and immediately squeezed my eyes shut. The compounding debt of weeks without sleep was finally cashing in. My assistant unscrewed a bottle of water and handed it to me along with two painkillers. “Are you okay, Ms. Kimberley?” “I’m fine. Just drive to the airport.” Cassidy was a beautiful lunatic. A few years ago, she went backpacking and bought a dilapidated piece of land in the absolute middle of nowhere. She used to rave about it. A standalone plot, surrounded by water on all four sides. Just one winding dirt road in and out. It’s so quiet, Megan. It’s the perfect place to disappear. “Once I make enough money at the firm,” she’d say, her eyes practically glowing, “I’m going to build a proper cabin out there. Stock the pond with fish. Plant a vegetable garden. Build a wooden gazebo, lay down a cobblestone path… and Megan, when it’s done, you’re going to live there with me. Okay?” But corporate law never sleeps, and there was never enough money. Six months ago, Cassidy was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She shaved her head before the chemo could take it, wearing a bright yellow beanie, sighing with this heartbreaking disappointment. “If I had known, I would have just built the damn house first.” “Megan, I left the deed to you. Go look at it for me.” She used to tell me I carried the stench of the grave on me. That for a girl in her twenties, I seemed more dead than she did, and she was the one actively dying. She made me promise to get out. To walk around and realize the world was so much bigger than the cold walls of Chicago. “Once you get out there,” she had whispered, her grip on my hand terrifyingly weak, “you’ll realize Wesley is nothing but a speck of dust.” Cassidy was a lawyer to her bones; she tied up every loose end. She transferred the deed before she passed, and even hired a local guide to help me navigate the rural county. I called the guide before boarding my flight. He promised to be at the arrivals gate. When I emerged from the terminal, I spotted a man standing way in the back, holding up a piece of printer paper with “MEGAN KIMBERLY” scrawled on it in black marker. I stared at him for a long moment before approaching. “Hi. I’m Megan.” The man was mid-yawn. Hearing my voice, he snapped his jaw shut, his eyes watering from the suppressed reflex. He looked at me, then looked down at my large, hardshell suitcase. “Right. Let’s go.” It wasn’t until we walked out to the parking garage that I understood his look of pity regarding my luggage. His car was essentially a glorified golf cart with doors. If my suitcase had been a fraction of an inch wider, it wouldn’t have fit. The suspension was a myth. Every pothole felt like a spine adjustment. Within ten minutes, the nausea hit me like a tidal wave. The man driving looked utterly exhausted, his face an emotionless mask. Without taking his eyes off the road, he blindly reached into the center console and tossed a brown paper bag of oranges onto my lap. “Smell the peels if you’re gonna puke. Eat one if that doesn’t work. If you’re still dying, I have some Ambien in the glovebox. Pop one and sleep it off.” What phenomenal hospitality. I forced a tight, rigid smile. “I’m fine. Thank you.” The metal tin can rattled for thirty minutes, taking us from the sprawling highway out into the rural suburbs, and then onto a two-lane blacktop that wound its way into the mountains. With every turn, the trees grew denser, the road narrower. Just as I was calculating the odds of this being an elaborate kidnapping, we finally pulled into a gravel lot. A grinning man jogged up and yanked the passenger door open. “Ms. Kimberley! So nice to meet you. I’m Toby, your actual guide.” I stared at him, then pointed a numb finger at the driver. “Then who is he?” Toby blinked, looking confused. “Did he not say? That’s my buddy. I had a family emergency this morning, so I dragged him out of bed to do the airport run.” Toby glared at the driver. “Dude, what is wrong with you? You couldn’t have introduced yourself?” The man turned his head. He looked murderous. “I pulled an all-nighter, Toby. I went to bed at two in the afternoon, and you dragged me out of it at four. I’ve had exactly three hours of sleep. Push me, and I will actually run you over.” Toby shrank back, quickly grabbing my suitcase from the trunk. “Okay, okay, moving on! Let’s go, Ms. Kimberley, the man’s got waking nightmares.” 5 The sun was dipping below the tree line by the time Toby dropped me off at the only inn the town had to offer. “You can crash here for the next few days, Ms. Kimberley. I’ll swing by tomorrow morning and we can head up the mountain to see the property.” “Do you want me to help you check in?” I shook my head and stepped out of the car. Toby meant well, but he talked too much. On the ride over, he had given me an unsolicited oral history of the county’s logging industry and a Yelp-style review of every diner within a twenty-mile radius. My migraine was now screaming. I walked into the inn and let the receptionist show me to my room. I couldn’t do it. The room was cramped, the air smelled heavily of mildew and damp carpet, and the bedsheets felt clammy to the touch. Wesley used to mock me for it. He couldn’t comprehend how someone who grew up eating government cheese and sleeping on a deflated air mattress could develop germaphobia. No matter where I traveled, I brought my own silk bedsheets. No matter where I ate, I obsessively wiped down the table and requested boiling water to scald my silverware. Was it OCD? Cassidy said it wasn’t. “You just feel entirely unsafe in environments you can’t control,” she had told me. “And so what if you do? Why does he have to make you feel broken for wanting clean sheets?” I walked out of the inn, standing on the edge of the cracked sidewalk, scrolling blindly through my phone, looking for another hotel that didn’t exist. Logically, I should have called Toby. But I physically did not have the energy to form sentences anymore. I stood there for a few minutes until my legs gave out. I crouched down. A few minutes after that, I tipped my suitcase onto its side and just sat on it. A black SUV drove past me, its taillights flaring red. A few seconds later, it threw it in reverse and backed up to where I was sitting. The passenger window rolled down. “Ms. Kimberley?” It was Toby. And sitting in the driver’s seat, now wearing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, was the man from the airport. I squinted at them through the glare of the streetlamp. And then, the world went completely black. 6 The year Wesley’s father died, Wesley wasn’t even eighteen. He wasn’t legally or practically equipped to take over the family empire, so his uncle staged a boardroom coup and took everything. His mother suffered a total psychological break and was locked away in a private psychiatric facility. Wesley was essentially exiled—shipped off to a university in London to keep him out of the way. But he had one demand before he got on the plane: he was taking me with him. He was completely isolated. Everyone in his social circle dropped him overnight like a bad habit. Even Gemma’s wealthy parents forced her to break up with him immediately, severing all ties. He lost everything. But he demanded me. Why? His uncle didn’t care why. To his uncle, Megan was a nobody. A girl from the trailer park with a dead mom and a deadbeat dad. I had zero pedigree, zero influence. I was a stray ant he could step on if he needed to. But I cared. I asked Wesley why. He told me he would pay for my tuition, my living expenses, give me the best resources, and guarantee me a high-paying corporate job the second I graduated. “But why me?” I had pressed. “Because you know how to starve,” he said coldly. “You have no baggage, no family that cares about you, no attachments. And you’re ruthless.” I was ruthless. My grades were flawless; even Wesley couldn’t beat me academically. And I held grudges with a biblical vengeance. I was the reason my deadbeat dad got fired. I was the reason my stepmother ended up with a fractured skull, and why her precious golden-child son got expelled. Wesley said I was a useful weapon. And similarly, he was useful to me. It was a transactional exchange. Nothing more. For three years in London, we were each other’s entire world. He was plotting his return, building his own capital to crush his uncle. The rich are a fascinating breed; even in “exile,” Wesley never truly knew what it was to be poor. But to me, as long as I didn’t have to worry about the electric bill or where my next meal was coming from, I was living in paradise. I became his attack dog. Wherever he pointed, I bit. I never hesitated, never flinched. Ironically, it was Wesley who frequently had to pull me back by the collar, telling me to stop being so recklessly cutthroat. Then came the winter he got sick. A severe viral infection. His fever spiked dangerously high, leaving him delirious. I had tucked the blankets around him and turned to leave the bedroom to get ice, but his hand suddenly shot out, gripping my wrist like a vice. “Don’t go,” he whispered, his eyes unfocused. I stood by the bed, staring at him for a long, long time. Then I sat down on the edge of the mattress. I sat there from dusk until the sun came up. When I woke up the next morning, slumped against the nightstand, Wesley was already gone. We never spoke of it. We pretended the moment didn’t exist. But I knew the truth. I wanted him. I was an anomaly. Bizarre, abrasive, totally isolated. I had no friends, no family, no lovers. But I was still human. And there isn’t a human being on earth who doesn’t secretly fear the dark, who doesn’t crave the warmth of another heartbeat. I was no different. Wesley was the one who reached into the dark and pulled me out. And because of that, I decided I was going to chain him to me. I was going to tie him to my life, permanently, no matter the cost.

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The truth is, I’ve always been a bit of a vacancy. Those glowing credentials—the Ivy League degree, the classical piano trophies, the ballet awards—were all carefully curated illusions. My parents spent a fortune to build a gilded cage of a life that my slow, wandering mind could never have built for itself. While traveling abroad with my boyfriend, Toby, his personal assistant, Lena, insisted on sleeping in the same bed as us. She claimed the hotel was overbooked, her voice a fragile trill of anxiety. In the dead of night, she suddenly clutched her chest, turning to Toby with a pained whisper. She told him her cat, Lilly, was pregnant back home, and through some mystical “soul bond,” she was experiencing sympathetic engorgement. She was in pain, she said. She needed relief. Without a second thought, Toby disappeared under the duvet. I heard the wet, rhythmic sounds of him “relieving” her. I watched, paralyzed by my own slowness, and asked why a cat’s pregnancy would make her chest hurt. Toby popped his head out from under the covers, his expression intensely earnest. He explained that Lena had raised Lilly since she was a kitten, that their bond was so deep it manifested as a psychosomatic resonance. It was science, he claimed. Lena chimed in, her voice breathless, telling me he was just being a supportive boss and that I shouldn’t overthink it. I nodded, a dull, obedient motion. My mother always told me: When you don’t understand, just nod. That night, I heard Lena whispering to something she called “The System.” she wanted to trade her IQ for mine. She said with my “genius” and her ambition, she would finally become the goddess everyone envied. The System’s voice was a cold, metallic hum in the dark. It said the transfer would be permanent in seven days. She actually thought she was stealing brilliance. She had no idea she was trading her cleverness for a void. … 1 The chime signaling the completed transfer echoed in the back of my skull. Suddenly, the fog that had blanketed my mind for twenty-four years began to thin. The world felt sharper, the edges of the room less blurred. Beside me, Lena moans grew louder, more theatrical. “Oh… Toby… that feels so good…” She caught her breath, letting out a sharp, jagged laugh. “Janice really does love you. Look at her. She isn’t even angry.” Toby’s voice came from the depths of the blankets, heavy with a lazy, post-coital satisfaction. “Everyone thinks I’m the one who slaved away to win her over. Hah. They don’t know shit.” “From the start, she’s been nothing but a dog. Throw a bone, and she’ll fetch. If I tell her to move East, she wouldn’t dare look West.” “I don’t believe you,” Lena teased, her tone lengthening into a dare. Toby raised his voice, an edge of command cutting through the air. “Janice. Get me a glass of warm water.” I stood up. I walked to the table. I poured the water, tested the temperature against the side of my thumb, and handed it to him. Toby took a sip, looking at Lena. “See?” “Try something else,” Lena urged, her eyes gleaming with malice. Toby poked his head out again. “My underwear fell on your side of the floor. Pick it up and bring it here.” I nodded. I knelt on the floor, fumbling in the dark. Once I found it, I handed it over. Toby smirked. “Told you. A well-trained pet.” Lena voice was a cocktail of shock and pure, unadulterated disdain. “She looks so cold and untouchable, but she’s really just your little slave, isn’t she?” I wasn’t “cold.” Since I was a child, my parents had one rule for me: Speak less. They said that if I opened my mouth, I’d lose everything. They told me I wasn’t bright, and that silence was my only armor. Every time we went out, I stood there like a beautiful, hollow statue. Before this trip, Toby had reminded me: “Just follow me, keep your mouth shut, and don’t embarrass me.” When they told me to sleep on the sofa that night, I did so without a word. I stayed far away from that bed. I didn’t want to be near them. They made my skin crawl. The next morning. Toby leaned against the headboard, sticking his bare foot out from under the duvet. He shook it slightly. “Put my shoes on for me.” I stared at his foot. Suddenly, my brain felt like a dam breaking. Memories flooded in—vivid, stinging, and nauseating. I saw myself kneeling on the floor, massaging Toby’s feet while he laughed, rubbing his toes against my face like I was a common rag. A wave of visceral disgust washed over me. What a pathetic piece of trash. Seeing me frozen on the sofa, Toby’s voice dropped an octave, turning threatening. “Get over here. On your knees. Change them.” “Don’t make me lose my temper, Janice.” I set my face into a mask, staring at him. Toby lifted his chin, his expression darkening, his eyes full of a cruel, predatory hunger. I picked up his leather loafer from the floor. Then, I slammed it directly into his open mouth. “Mmph!” His eyes went wide, bulging as he tried to spit it out. Before he could move, I lunged forward. I put every ounce of strength I possessed into a kick aimed squarely at his groin. “AAAAAGH—!!!” Toby curled into a fetal ball, clutching himself. His face contorted, a high-pitched, pig-like squeal ripping from his throat. “You! You stupid bitch! How dare you hit me!” I stood there, watching his agony. I let out a soft, vacant giggle. “Toby, I saw a new cartoon recently. Was that funny? Did I play right?” Lena woke up then, rubbing her eyes. “What is all this noise so early?” Toby’s body went rigid. He threw a poisonous look at me, then took a ragged breath, forcing his voice into something resembling a normal tone for Lena sake. “Nothing. She’s just throwing a tantrum. She wants to go home.” His face was ghostly pale, but he didn’t say more. He couldn’t risk the world knowing he was tethered to a “slow” girl just for her inheritance. Toby reached out, trying to pull me into a forced embrace, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. “Going home early is a good idea. We need to get the wedding back on track anyway.” 2 After we returned to the States, Toby said he wanted to take me to meet his “inner circle” at the country club. Before we left, he grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my skin. “Remember: shut up. Don’t humiliate me.” Toby was wearing a bespoke suit my mother had paid for, driving my limited-edition supercar. When we arrived at the golf club, the usual crowd swarmed us. “Wickham! Look at you!” A guy in a loud Hawaiian shirt whistled, his eyes raking over me. “This the fiancée? She’s even more stunning than the photos!” “Stunning? She’s a work of art. Toby, you lucky bastard!” I saw Lena in the crowd. She was wearing a delicate white sundress, standing on the periphery, her eyes locked on me. “If you guys ever want to relax here, just give them Janice’s name,” Toby bragged, slapping his friends on the back. “She’s an SVIP. Membership was nearly two hundred grand. Open bar, everything’s on the house.” “Damn! Two hundred grand? You’re really bleeding her dry, aren’t you, Toby?” “Bleeding her? No, he’s just a world-class gold-digger!” The guy in the Hawaiian shirt laughed, elbowing Toby. The laughter exploded around us. “Toby isn’t the gold-digger.” Lena voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the noise like a blade. The laughter died down. She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on mine, her voice dropping into a slow, deliberate honey. “Janice is the one who’s desperate.” “Really?” Hawaiian shirt leaned in, looking from Toby to me. “So, is it true, Janice? Toby says ‘jump’ and you ask ‘how high’?” Toby’s smile flickered, but he recovered quickly. He turned to me, gesturing toward Lena. “Janice, that bag you’re carrying is new, isn’t it? A limited edition?” He paused, his tone casual, almost bored. “It’s Lena birthday today. Why don’t you give it to her as a gift?” I blinked, looking at Lena. “Is it really your birthday today?” Lena froze. Her brow furrowed suddenly. “Wait… when is my birthday? I… I can’t remember.” She shook her head, her fingers pressing hard against her temples. “My head. It hurts. It hurts so much.” I watched her struggle, then asked with a look of pure, innocent concern: “Lena, is it happening again? Is it the sympathetic engorgement?” “Maybe Toby should help you ‘clear the blockage’ again. He’s so good at it. He really knows how to use his mouth to make the pain go away.” “Holy shit, what?” Hawaiian shirt’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He whirled toward Lena. “You’re pregnant?!” “I am not!” Lena face went translucent. She denied it with a shriek. I stepped in to clarify. “No, no. Lena cat is pregnant. They have a soul bond. She gets congested when the cat does.” “Toby is such a kind boss. He climbed right under the covers to help her out so she wouldn’t suffer. Right, Toby?” “What the hell are you babbling about?!” Toby lunged, cutting me off. “It was a joke! Can’t you tell when someone’s joking? We were just messing with you! Jesus, you’re so dense.” “Yeah, Janice, it’s a misunderstanding! Totally a joke!” “Toby’s a saint to his staff, but it’s purely professional!” The others rushed in to smooth things over, patting Toby’s shoulder and throwing me wary glances. I nodded slowly. “Oh. Okay. I’m not mad.” Toby didn’t let go of my arm. He squinted at me, his eyes searching my face. “Janice, you’re acting… different today.” Before I could answer, Lena snapped. She lunged forward, snatching the bag off my shoulder with a violent tug. I stumbled back as she gripped the leather like a lifeline. She whirled toward Toby, stood on her tiptoes, and planted a heavy, desperate kiss right on his mouth. “Toby! I love you!” Her voice was high and manic. She clutched the bag, her eyes wild. “Thank you for the birthday gift! I love it so much!” The silence was absolute. Toby’s face turned a bruised shade of purple. He shoved Lena away so hard she nearly hit the grass. “Lena! Are you insane? What the hell is wrong with you!” Lena stumbled back, clutching the bag, her expression dazed, as if she didn’t quite know what had just possessed her. Then, the tears started. She turned and fled. Toby shot me one last murderous look before chasing after her. The rest of the crowd exchanged awkward glances and began to dissipate. I stood there, feeling the fog in my head clear a little more. It was like a window that had been caked in grime for years finally having a small corner wiped clean. I walked into the clubhouse, heading for the private suite my parents kept on retainer. Inside the bedroom, Lena was huddled against Toby’s chest, completely unclothed, a look of pure, delirious ecstasy on her face. They saw me. But they didn’t care. To them, I was just a dog that didn’t know how to bark. I took out my phone. I recorded the video. I uploaded it to the cloud. My brain was still a bit fuzzy, but one thought was crystal clear: This will be useful later. 3 My parents sat Toby down to talk about the wedding. “Toby, let’s be blunt,” my father said, leaning back in his leather chair. “Janice is our only child. One day, everything the Emerson family owns will belong to the two of you.” Toby’s fingers twitched, but his face remained a mask of humble sincerity. “Sir, I promise you, my feelings for Janice are genuine.” My father raised a hand, cutting him off. “We want to believe that. But rules are rules, for everyone’s protection.” “Before the wedding, you’ll need to sign a voluntary waiver of marital property. You will have a management role in the Emerson Group, but ownership and final authority will remain solely in Janice’s name.” “We will provide you with a generous salary and an allowance—let’s say, a hundred thousand a month—as a gesture of our trust.” Toby’s knuckles turned white. Then, he looked up, his eyes glistening with faux emotion. “Sir, Ma’am… I can’t accept that.” “I didn’t pursue Janice for her money. My family might not have what yours does, but I have my own two hands. I love her for who she is—simple, pure, and kind. I don’t want the management rights. I don’t want the allowance. I just want her.” He spoke with such conviction, his eyes clear and honest. I saw my father’s stern expression begin to melt. “Good lad! You’ve got spine. I feel better knowing Janice will be in your hands.” As soon as we were upstairs, Toby’s face went cold. He spent an hour furiously typing on his phone. When he went to shower, I opened his laptop. To “prove” his love, he had set all his passwords to my birthday. I saw the pinned chat at the top. [Did you see that movie about the guy who killed his wife? Men are so brutal. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?] [When those old fossils kick the bucket, the idiot gets everything. And she’s so obsessed with you, it’s basically yours anyway.] [Haha. Killing her would be a waste. Much easier to just get rid of the two old ones first.] I never imagined he was the one orchestrating the long game. 4 Today is the seventh day. The day of our engagement gala. In the mirror, I am a vision in white—a custom couture gown, my hair pinned up, crowned by a shimmering diamond tiara. The face in the mirror is beautiful, certainly. Perfectly arched brows, a delicate nose, rose-red lips. But the eyes were still vacant, lacking that vital spark. The fog had thinned significantly over the last few days, but everything still felt slightly muffled, like I was watching the world through a veil of silk. But I remembered one thing: I cannot marry Toby Wickham. My mother came in, smoothing my hair. “My beautiful girl.” I grabbed her hand, and tears began to spill. “Mom, I don’t want to get married.” She froze, then pulled me into a hug. “Oh, sweetheart. It’s just nerves. Toby is so good to you. He’ll look after you when we can’t.” “We checked everything, Janice. His family is respectable—both parents were teachers. He’s a good man.” “You’ll have a peaceful, safe life. That’s all we want.” I marveled at how well Toby had fabricated his “wholesome” background to win them over. I cried harder. I didn’t know how to explain it. The thoughts in my head were like small fish—darting close, then scattering into the deep. I couldn’t catch the words. My mother just assumed I was scared and continued to soothe me. The gala was spectacular. The ballroom was a sea of glittering lights and expensive perfume. Toby, looking sharp in his tuxedo, stepped toward me. He dropped to one knee and produced a ring. “Janice Emerson, marry me. I promise to cherish you for the rest of my life.” The crowd erupted in applause, chanting, “Say yes! Say yes!” I looked at the sparkling diamond, then at Toby’s smiling face. Suddenly, I remembered his voice in the dark hotel room. “…she’s nothing but a dog.” I took a step back. I shook my head. “No.” It wasn’t loud, but in the sudden hush, everyone heard it. The smile on Toby’s face curdled. “Don’t be silly, Janice. Everyone is watching. Be a good girl.” I looked up at the massive LED screen at the front of the hall. “Look there,” I whispered. I had intended to play the video of him and Lena. But that wasn’t what appeared. The screen showed photos of Toby bringing me water, Toby draping his jacket over my shoulders, Toby smiling at me with “devotion.” The MC’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, look at these precious moments—a testament to the unwavering love Toby Wickham has for Miss Emerson.” Toby leaned in close, a cold, mocking smirk playing on his lips. His voice was a low hiss, meant only for me. “I knew you were up to something. I swapped the files hours ago.” He looked at me as if I were a disobedient pet that had failed a simple trick. “Once we’re married, no more cartoons. No more trying these pathetic little stunts you learn online.” “And no more phone. Do you understand?” I stared at his smug, triumphant face. Suddenly, there was a literal thrum in my brain. The fog that had muffled my world for eighteen years vanished in a heartbeat. It was as if someone had shattered the glass. Everything became blindingly, piercingly clear. I opened my mouth to speak. But a scream from the crowd beat me to it. “AHHHH—!!” A woman in a low-cut cocktail dress burst onto the stage. At the same time, a family of four stood up from the VIP table, their faces twisted with frantic energy.

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I was at the clinic for my second-trimester checkup when I ran into my husband’s mistress. The color drained from her face the second she saw me. I didn’t even blink. I barely registered her presence. After all, Justin had cycled through three or four women in the past few years. What was one Daphne Shaw in the grand scheme of things? If I allowed myself to get worked up over this kind of cliché, I probably wouldn’t live long enough to see this pregnancy through. What I didn’t expect was for Justin to be the one throwing a tantrum when I got home. “I told you from the beginning, everything in the Crawford empire belongs to you and the kids. Did you really have to go out of your way to harass Daphne?” he demanded, hurling a Baccarat crystal vase against the hardwood floor. I sat on the velvet sofa, my hands resting instinctively over the slight swell of my stomach. I didn’t say a word. I just watched him storm out, slamming the door so hard the hinges rattled, undoubtedly running straight back into Daphne’s waiting arms. The housekeeper stood in the corner, wringing her hands, completely entirely at a loss. Without a word, I pulled out my phone, snapped a photo of the shattered crystal scattered across the floor, and texted it to my mother-in-law. Emma, take a look at what Justin is doing now… Barely two minutes after the message delivered, my phone screen lit up. It was an alert from my Chase Private Client app. A wire transfer of fifteen million dollars had just cleared into my account. 1 In the beginning, when Justin first started cheating, it didn’t take money from his mother to fix it. I would scream. I would cry. I would point a shaking finger at his face and tear him apart, demanding to know how the boy who was my first love, the man I had been married to for a decade, had turned into such absolute garbage. When did the screaming stop? I think it was right around the time Daphne Shaw entered the picture. She had shown up at a charity gala wearing a simple white silk dress, looking impossibly sweet and unassuming. And just standing there, she looked at least seventy percent like a younger version of me. When I saw Justin wrapping an arm around her waist, parading her in front of our entire social circle without an ounce of shame, something inside me just… snapped. The fire went out. I didn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. My only thought was: Let’s just get a divorce. It was Emma who talked me out of it. She sat me down in her Upper East Side penthouse and told me that while she didn’t necessarily adore me, I came from a legacy family. Our backgrounds matched. “Since your mother passed away, your stepmother has taken over the Stratton estate,” Emma had said, her voice cool and pragmatic. “A divorce will only give her a reason to laugh at you. Justin might be a disaster in the romance department, but his earning power is undeniable. The dividends on your shares alone yield eight figures a year. A divorce means liquidating assets. It’s bad for Crawford Industries, and frankly, Gemma, it’s a massive loss for you.” She leaned in, her eyes hard. “Women need to wake up. Stop filling your head with fairy tales.” I was too stubborn to understand it at first. I swallowed the humiliation for six months until I spiraled into a severe clinical depression. But then, after getting caught in a torrential downpour and surviving a fever that nearly landed me in the ICU, something broke open in my brain. It was as if the fever burned away the last of my delusions. From that day on, I took Emma’s advice. I recalibrated my expectations of Justin. She also made me a promise: anytime Justin caused me public or emotional distress, she would compensate me accordingly from the family trust. So, today, for the sheer inconvenience of being falsely accused of harassing his mistress, I was fifteen million dollars richer. I moved the funds into my high-yield investment portfolio, then walked into the en-suite bathroom to wash my face, calling out to the housekeeper to have the living room cleaned up. When I came back out, I realized my son, Theo, was home from school. He walked right past the swept-up glass, utterly blind to the chaos of our household. His eyes were glued to his iPad. I rested a hand on my lower back and called down the stairs. “Theo. You’re back.” He flicked his gaze up to me for a fraction of a second. “Yes, Mother.” Polite. Cold. Distant. He was exactly like his father. I didn’t push it. I poured myself a glass of warm milk and turned to head back upstairs. “Mother,” Theo called out. “There’s a parent-teacher conference tomorrow. Do you have time to go?” “I’m pregnant, Theo. The doctor wants me resting,” I said softly. “Have your father send someone.” The “someone” Justin would send was, without a doubt, his executive assistant. Sure enough, the next morning, Daphne Shaw stood on my front porch, her own pregnant belly pressing against her trench coat. She looked terrified, yet she forced herself to stand tall. “Mrs. Crawford.” I gave a curt nod. “Miss Shaw. I’ll leave my son in your hands today.” Daphne offered a painfully awkward, fragile smile. “Oh, yes. Please don’t worry, ma’am. I’ve been to his school many times.” I knew. From the moment she and Justin got together, I knew about all these little domestic boundary-crossings. But I was too exhausted to ask, and I certainly didn’t care to listen to the excuses. Later, as I was walking toward the home gym for some light stretching, Theo crossed my path. For once, he hesitated. “Mother?” “Hmm?” “Why couldn’t you come with me? Miss Shaw is pregnant too, and she’s going.” I looked at my twelve-year-old son, my expression flat. “Because I’m spoiled, Theo, and I don’t like being inconvenienced.” I paused, letting the silence stretch before delivering the final blow. “Besides, you said it yourself—you think Daphne is gentle and sweet. You like having her at your school. I’m just doing what makes you happy.” Theo’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He stood frozen in the hallway, his dark eyes dimming as he watched me walk away. 2 I stayed home, prioritizing my peace and my pregnancy. The doctor had confirmed it was twins. Two girls. I needed to keep my stress levels at absolute zero. I ordered a year’s supply of premium, custom-blended prenatal supplements, overhauled my maternity wardrobe with the new season’s designer collections, and after a long spa day, I met my best friend, Penny, for lunch at a Michelin-starred spot downtown. Across the table, Penny looked at me, her eyes rimmed with red. “Gemma, I haven’t seen you since you got sick.” I swirled the sparkling water in my glass. “It’s been almost six months.” That illness had lingered, a stubborn shadow, until quite recently. “How are things with you and Justin?” she asked, her voice hushed. “Great. He treats me very well.” “Very well?” She looked like she wanted to scream. “Gemma, I heard he’s bringing her to the country club mixers now.” I smiled. “I know. But my mother-in-law gave me a fifteen-million-dollar apology.” Penny blinked. “…I guess that is pretty great.” “Penny, I’ve realized something,” I said, leaning forward. “I was wrong all these years. When I married Justin, I shouldn’t have just been thinking about love.” She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “But you guys met in middle school. You started dating in high school. You were completely obsessed with each other. Isn’t it normal to expect a marriage built on love?” “Hearts change.” I took a sip of my drink. “It’s like how I used to strictly drink Diet Coke, and now I actually prefer fresh juice.” A profound sadness washed over her face. It was the same look the rest of my old friends gave me when they came to visit me during my breakdown. They all believed that the death of an earth-shattering romance required lifelong mourning. I used to think so, too. But I figured it out. Eighteen-year-old Justin promised to love eighteen-year-old Gemma forever. But twenty-eight-year-old Justin never renewed that vow. It’s pointless to trap yourself in the past. I patted my stomach. “Look. There are two babies in here now.” Penny’s jaw dropped. “You’re having more kids with him?” “Why wouldn’t I? Emma promised me a twenty-million-dollar trust allocation and a two-percent equity bump in Crawford Industries per child.” Say what you will about Justin, the man was a corporate shark. And Theo had inherited his genius IQ. When my mother died, she left me an eight-figure inheritance, which I poured entirely into Crawford stock. Fast forward a few years, and my net worth had crossed the billion-dollar mark. Why on earth would I walk away from an incubator made of solid gold? Penny went quiet for a moment. “But Daphne is having a baby, too. When her kid is born, Justin is going to be distracted. If he rewrites his will, you might lose out.” “I thought about that,” I replied evenly. “That’s why I’m having two more. It’s a numbers game, Penny. I’m diluting her equity.” 3 When I got home that evening, the living room had been entirely restored. The Baccarat vase had been replaced with an identical piece. That was the beauty of extreme wealth. Nothing was ever truly lost. As long as you had the capital, even the rarest things could be seamlessly replaced. I sat in the cavernous, eerily quiet living room, a sheet mask cooling my face, sipping warm milk and listening to the wind rattling the massive bay windows. Justin wasn’t home. Neither was Theo. My private investigator had just texted me an update: the three of them were having dinner at a high-end Italian place. The photos loaded on my screen. Justin wore a soft, genuine smile. Theo’s eyes were bright and engaged. It was fascinating, really, how much the two of them adored Daphne. Aside from the fact that she shared my coloring and bone structure, we were entirely different species. She came from a working-class background and wasn’t particularly bright. Her sole currency was her endless patience and docile sweetness. I, on the other hand, had been a firecracker since birth. My relationship with Justin had started over a stupid high school misunderstanding. One of my friends got her heart broken by a guy named “Crawford.” Thinking it was Justin—the undisputed king of the prep school—I cornered him in the parking lot and tore him a new one in front of half the lacrosse team. After my tirade, my friend nervously whispered that it was his cousin, a completely different Crawford. Justin had glared at me, his jaw tight. “You just humiliated me. How are you going to fix this?” My brain short-circuited. I pushed my shoulders back and blurted, “Can I take you to dinner to make up for it?” He blushed scarlet. Our love story had played out like an indie coming-of-age movie. Everyone knew how obsessed Justin was with me. At our wedding, he choked on his vows and cried so hard he almost passed out. When my mother died, he held me on the bathroom floor for hours, weeping into my hair, swearing he would protect me until his last breath. But the shelf life of true love is notoriously short. Five years into the marriage, he had his first affair. Then came the second. The third. And finally, Daphne. Watching the photos of them, I felt a strange sense of vertigo. It felt like I was watching eighteen-year-old Gemma and twenty-eight-year-old Justin falling in love all over again. Around ten o’clock, the front door opened. Justin had dropped Theo off. He had cooled down from the morning’s rage. Seeing me on the sofa, he even mustered a semblance of domestic care. “How are the babies?” “Fine,” I said. “The checkup?” “Normal.” Justin fell silent, looking away. I didn’t say anything either. I just swiped to the next photo on my iPad. He lingered in the foyer. After a minute of silence, he spoke up. “I just wanted to drop Theo off. I’ll head out now.” I didn’t even look up. “Okay. Drive safe.” The silence stretched. I didn’t hear the sound of his footsteps leaving. I finally looked up. He was still standing there. “Did you need something else?” He pressed his lips together. “You… you look really good tonight.” Is he out of his mind? “Thanks,” I deadpanned. 4 I assumed Justin would make himself scarce for a while, but to my surprise, he was still there the next morning. We hadn’t interacted peacefully in months. Except for our anniversary a few months ago—we had both drank too much, a bizarre, manic energy had taken over, and we ended up tangled in the sheets for the night. Any other time we saw each other, we barely spoke. And when we did, it ended in a screaming match. The fact that he was voluntarily initiating conversation meant nothing good was coming. Sure enough, he cleared his throat. “Daphne is due soon.” “And?” I asked, sipping my coffee. “I wanted to ask you about those luxury postpartum wellness retreats. You have a lot of experience researching them.” His tone was perfectly even. He was asking me a genuine, earnest question. If this man wasn’t my husband, I might have applauded his sheer sociopathy. I was pregnant with his children, and he was asking me to play concierge for his mistress’s recovery? He was practically shoving my face into the dirt. A cold laugh escaped my throat. “Are you underpaying your executive assistants? They can’t Google a spa?” Justin shifted uncomfortably. “My EA is doing the work of two people right now. Besides, he’s a guy. He doesn’t understand these things.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Daphne… she said you’d know best. It’s her first baby, and she’s terrified. That’s why I’m asking.” He sighed, his voice softening. “She’s been crying non-stop. It reminded me of how scared you were when you were pregnant with Theo. I figured you, of all people, would understand how she feels.” I didn’t understand. And I didn’t want to. No matter how “enlightened” I had become about this marriage, I wasn’t about to act as a maternity consultant for the woman sleeping with my husband. “Do your own research, Justin. If you’re that worried, just throw money at the most expensive one you can find.” Justin’s brow furrowed in irritation. “Gemma, look at you. You’re doing it again. The second something doesn’t go your way, you get hostile.” He shook his head, looking at me like I was a petulant child. “You have such a toxic temper. Who else but me could tolerate you?” He let out a long, heavy sigh. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have asked. I already looked at the brochures you bookmarked on the iPad for your own retreat. I’ll just book that suite for Daphne. You’ve already vetted it, so it must be top-tier.” He kept talking, oblivious to the ice forming in my veins. “You’re only in your second trimester anyway. You have plenty of time to find a different place. Or, honestly, you could just take the suite after Daphne moves out. The timing works out perfectly.” Without another word, he picked up his briefcase and walked out the door. I sat frozen at the kitchen island, a sharp, white-hot pain suddenly twisting in my abdomen. 5 Some money is just too dirty to swallow. After Justin’s little stunt, Emma wired another two million into my account. But looking at those sterile digits on my banking app, I couldn’t find a single ounce of joy. I realized that some indignities couldn’t be papered over with cash. I needed to breathe. I called an Uber and headed to my father’s estate in Westchester. Pulling up to the sweeping driveway, I noticed the old oak tree my mother had planted was gone. My stepmother had finally had it uprooted. The massive hole left in the manicured lawn felt exactly like the crater in my chest. Upstairs, my father looked frail but alert. He was confined to his bed, but his eyes lit up when I walked in. “Gemma, sweetheart. You’re home. I’ve missed you.” I glanced around the lavish, empty room. “Where’s Eleanor?” “Out shopping,” he chuckled weakly. “You know how it is. Ever since I got paralyzed, she can’t sit still in this house.” I sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled the cashmere blanket up to his chest. “Do you ever regret it? Cheating on my mother when she loved you the most?” He looked at the ceiling. “What’s the point of regret? What’s done is done.” He was right. Hindsight morality didn’t change the past. My dad looked at me, a knowing glint in his eye. “Let me guess. Justin is pulling his usual stunts?” “Yeah,” I breathed out. “He knocked up his secretary. She’s in her third trimester.” My dad started coughing violently, his face turning red. “That… cough… how dare he?” “Why wouldn’t he dare? His father-in-law set a shining example.” The truth was, it wasn’t just my dad or Justin. It was an unspoken rule in our social echelon. Once a man acquired enough wealth and power, fidelity became an inconvenience. It was a silent, suffocating agreement we all lived under. My dad finally caught his breath. He stared at me for a long time. “So what are you going to do? Are you leaving him?” I shook my head. “I don’t know. But… I’m pregnant again. Twins.” This time, genuine shock washed over his weathered face. “What are you thinking, Gemma? Why aren’t you cutting your losses?” “Because his mother offered me tens of millions and an equity bump if I give birth to them.” “But you already have Theo.” “Money is money, Dad.” His lips trembled. He couldn’t speak. My parents had built their real estate empire from the ground up. By the time they hit eight figures, my dad had already started looking elsewhere. Justin was wealthier, more ruthless, playing in the billion-dollar leagues. Following in my dad’s footsteps probably felt like a given to him. My father closed his eyes, squeezing back the wetness pooling in them. “Gemma… I know it sounds hypocritical coming from me.” His voice cracked. “But from the day you were born, all your mother and I ever wanted was for you to be happy.” He reached out, his frail, shaking hand gripping mine. “We supported you marrying Justin because you loved him so fiercely. If that love is gone, you do not need to subject yourself to this for a payout.” “I might not be the man I should have been,” he whispered. “And I might not have Crawford money. But my eighty percent stake in Stratton Estates, this house, and the twenty million I have in liquid assets—it all goes to you. I promised your mother that.” Tears finally spilled over his wrinkled cheeks. “Please, sweetheart. Don’t use this marriage to punish me, or to punish a man who doesn’t love you anymore. If your mother were here to see what you’ve become, it would break her heart.” “If you don’t love him anymore, just leave. Please stop letting them tear you apart.”

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The notification pinged on my phone: New photos added to the family album. I tapped it idly, and there it was—a group photo from a corporate gala. I was sitting dead-center at the head table. The nameplate pinned to my chest was unmistakable: Beckett Pierce, Co-Founder. In my living room, several suitcases stood by the door, already packed and zipped shut. Less than three seconds after the photo uploaded, my mother-in-law’s name flashed on the screen. I answered. “Beckett! What the hell is this photo?!” Erica’s voice was a jagged blade of interrogation. I couldn’t help but smile. I’d kept this secret for five years. Five years of playing a role, all undone because I forgot to turn off the auto-sync on a shared cloud account. The truth was out, stripped bare by a single digital upload. Honestly? It was a relief. It saved me the breath of an explanation. The moving truck was ten minutes away. 1 My name is Beckett Pierce. I’ve been married for five years. In the eyes of my wife, Mallory, and her entire family, I am a low-level administrative assistant at a mid-sized firm, pulling in fifty grand a year. That “fact” was the foundation of our marriage. Every rule we lived by was built on that lie. “We do a proportional split,” Mallory had declared before we even walked down the aisle. “I make $180,000. You make $50,000. It’s only fair we split expenses based on our income. I’ll cover seventy percent; you cover thirty.” On paper, it sounded progressive. Logical. In practice, it was a slow-motion execution. The mortgage on our Brooklyn condo was $6,000. She paid $4,200; I paid $1,800. The car lease was $800. She paid $560; I paid $240. Groceries? Every man for himself. Dining out? Separate checks. I wasn’t allowed to touch her credit cards. She wouldn’t dream of touching mine. “With your credit limit? What could you even buy?” she’d say, her voice laced with a casual, devastating pity. Our first anniversary trip to Miami: she booked a suite at the Edition, $1,200 a night. “Your share is $360 a night,” she told me. I Venmoed her the money without a word. At dinner, she ordered the Wagyu and the lobster. “I’ll get the check this time,” she’d say, her tone less like a partner and more like a philanthropist donating to a soup kitchen. I stayed silent. Our second year, her mother’s birthday dinner was at a high-end steakhouse. Twelve people at the table. When the bill came, Erica looked directly at me. “Beckett, we’re doing the proportional split for this, too. Pay your share.” The total was $2,400. My “share” for the table was $200. Mallory didn’t even look up from her phone. Two hundred dollars. For my mother-in-law’s birthday. Later, I found out Erica told the rest of the family: “The poor guy can’t even afford to take us to dinner. We have to let him pay in installments basically.” She didn’t mention it was her rule. She only mentioned I was “too broke” to be a man. For five years, the chorus of my life was: You don’t earn enough. Those four words were the yardstick Mallory used to measure my worth in this house. You earn less, so you do the chores. You earn less, so you listen when your mother-in-law belittles you. You earn less, so the cooking, the dishes, the vacuuming, and the laundry are your domain. “A cleaning service? Do you have any idea what a housekeeper costs in the city?” Mallory would roll her eyes. “Just do it yourself. You’re home by five anyway.” I was home by five. That part was true. What she didn’t know was that before I walked through the door at five, I had chaired three board meetings, signed two multi-million dollar contracts, and greenlit four global projects. There was so much she didn’t know. Like the fact that my monthly income wasn’t four thousand dollars. It was closer to eighty thousand. 2 Eighty thousand. To be precise, my base salary was twenty thousand, but with my founder’s equity and quarterly dividends, it averaged out to nearly a million a year. In a good month, it was more. In a bad month, it never dipped below forty. Why did I hide it? It started as a test. The year I met Mallory, I had just been named co-founder of my tech firm. We met through friends. she was polished, sharp, a rising star in a state-owned utility firm making good money. On our third date, she took me to meet her mother. Over coffee, Erica asked three questions: “What do your parents do?” “Do you own property?” “What’s your current salary?” I told her my parents ran a small hardware store in a small town, that I was renting, and that my salary was… “Fifty thousand,” I said. I had intended to tell the truth. But as I was about to speak, Mallory went to the restroom, and Erica took a call from her sister in the kitchen. She didn’t close the door. “The specs are average, but he’s handsome, tall, and seems easy to handle,” I heard Erica whisper. “The family has nothing. He won’t have any leverage. It’s better this way—my daughter needs someone who’ll listen, not someone with too much money and an ego.” Easy to handle. Those three words stayed with me. So, I stuck with the fifty thousand. I wanted to see what would happen if I was only “worth” that much. I watched for five years. The answer was crystal clear. The “fifty-thousand-dollar” Beckett was a second-class citizen in the Pierce-Vane household. At Christmas, Erica would give Mallory’s sister’s husband a Rolex and then turn to me with a $50 Amazon gift card: “I know things are tight for you. Don’t feel like you have to reciprocate.” When Mallory went to galas or industry mixers, she never invited me. “Why would you go? You wouldn’t even understand what they’re talking about.” I spent my holidays cooking for three, cleaning up after three, and listening to Erica complain about my seasoning. “Look at Mark—Mallory’s colleague’s husband—he’s an MD at Goldman, makes half a million, and he still manages to be a gourmet cook. What’s your excuse?” Mark. I’d hear that name a lot. But not because of his cooking. Every month, my actual pay—the real money—went into an account Mallory didn’t know existed. Over five years, I used that money to buy three properties in cash. A condo on the Upper West Side. A townhouse in Brooklyn Heights. A penthouse in Long Island City. All of them were registered under my pre-marital holding company. Clean. Untouchable. Mallory didn’t know. Erica didn’t know. They only knew the man who “managed” to pay his thirty percent on time. They only knew the man they had “graciously” allowed into their lives. 3 By the third year, it wasn’t the “proportional split” that hurt. It was the way Mallory looked at me. It was the look you give a coat you bought on clearance—functional, but not something you’re proud to wear. When people asked what I did, she’d say, “He’s in admin. You know, nine-to-five stability.” Then she’d give a tight little smile that meant don’t ask follow-up questions. She was ashamed of me. Once, her company had a retreat that allowed spouses. She didn’t take me. “The VPs’ husbands are all hedge fund guys or partners at law firms. What are you going to talk to them about?” I just looked at her. She didn’t even see the insult. To her, it was just a fact. In the fourth year, Mallory got a promotion. Her salary jumped to $220,000. Her ego followed suit. “I’m making nearly a quarter-mil now,” she’d boast on the phone to her friends. “In this economy, that puts me in the top tier.” She’d hang up and see me chopping vegetables in the kitchen. “Keep at it, Beckett. Maybe you’ll hit sixty grand by the time you’re forty,” she’d say, patting my shoulder like I was a slow student who’d finally learned to tie his shoes. I kept my head down. That month, my dividend check was $110,000. That was also the year Mallory’s performance skyrocketed. She landed a massive account: Skyline Tech. That one deal secured her bonus for the year. She was ecstatic. “Skyline Tech! Do you have any idea who they are? They’re a two-billion-dollar company. Their Director of Procurement reached out to me personally.” “Impressive,” I said. She didn’t catch the dryness in my voice. The Director of Procurement at Skyline was Jack Kerwin. My college roommate. I was the one who told Jack to throw her the bone. Mallory thought it was her brilliance. She used that “success” to take up even more space in our marriage. “This family runs on my back,” she’d say. “But don’t feel bad. Some people are just earners, and some are… supporters. I don’t hold it against you.” I don’t hold it against you. That was the moment I started planning my exit. Not because of the money. Not because of her mother. But because of that phrase. When a wife describes her husband as something she “tolerates,” the marriage is already a ghost. 4 In the fifth year, I found the other thing. It wasn’t a grand detective moment. It was a push notification on her iPad while I was paying the utility bills. I knew her passcode—her birthday plus 123. She never bothered to change it because she didn’t think I was smart enough to be curious. The credit card statements were normal at first. Gas, SoulCycle, salads. But then I saw it. On the 15th of every month: a $5,000 Zelle transfer. The recipient’s nickname: Babe. At first, I thought maybe it was for her mother. But Mallory called her mother “Erica” or “Mom.” Never “Babe.” I scrolled back. January. February. March. April. Eight months in a row. Forty thousand dollars. I didn’t recognize the account number. I took a screenshot and stayed quiet. That night, Mallory came home in a radiant mood. “Had dinner with the Skyline team. Tyler was there.” “Tyler?” “I’ve mentioned him. Tyler Stone. The new project manager at Skyline. He’s… brilliant.” She didn’t look at me when she said it. She was staring at her phone, a tiny, ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “What’s he like?” I asked. “Oh, nothing special. Just very competent. It’s nice to work with someone on my level for a change.” She went to shower. I picked up her phone. Passcode: same. Pinned at the top of her iMessage: Tyler. The last message was a selfie. Not of Mallory. It was a man—square-jawed, gym-shredded, wearing a heavy silver chain. The text: Missing you. Mallory’s reply: A kissing emoji. Sent at 3:17 PM. Three hours ago. I put the phone down. I went back to the kitchen. The soup was simmering. I turned off the burner. I stood there in the silence of the kitchen for a long time. Then I pulled out my own phone and texted Jack: Check on a guy named Tyler Stone at Skyline. I want everything. Background, finances, the works. Jack replied instantly: On it. Give me forty-eight hours. I sent another: That contract renewal for next month? Stall it. Copy that. The soup went cold on the stove. I wasn’t in a hurry. 5 Two days later, Jack sent me the file. Tyler Stone. 28 years old. Hired last September. Education: A degree from a generic online university. Background: Parents are blue-collar. No family money. I paused. Mallory had told me a different version of Tyler Stone. “Tyler comes from a very wealthy family,” she’d offhandedly remarked a month ago. “His father owns a private equity firm, I think.” His father worked at a textile mill in the Midwest for thirty years. Jack included screenshots of Tyler’s Instagram. The persona was a masterpiece of “New Money” fiction. Designer watches, afternoon teas at the Baccarat Hotel, photos at exclusive golf clubs. Everything screamed wealth. But Jack added a note: His salary account balance as of last Friday? Twelve hundred dollars. The watches are high-end fakes. The afternoon tea photos are from “split-the-bill” influencer meetups. He doesn’t even have a membership at that golf club—he sneaks in as a guest of a guest. Twelve hundred dollars. With a fifteen-thousand-dollar monthly salary, after NYC rent and maintaining a fake lifestyle, he was barely scraping by. The five thousand Mallory sent him every month wasn’t “pocket change.” It was his rent. Then came the internal Slack and text leaks Jack pulled from company devices. Tyler and his buddy. Tyler: She’s decent. A little stingy with the cash sometimes. Buddy: She got money? Tyler: Makes about two-fifty. Married. Buddy: So what’s the play? Tyler: She says her husband is a loser. Some admin guy. She’s going to dump him soon. Once she divorces him, the condo and the car are hers. She’s already promised to put my name on the deed. Buddy: Lol, you’re just waiting for the seat to open up. Tyler: I told her my dad owns a firm. She swallowed it whole. She thinks we’re “social equals.” Buddy: Women are so easy. Tyler: Once she clears the dead weight, we’re golden. I put the phone down. I poured a glass of water. Five years of marriage. To her, I was “dead weight.” I was the “admin guy” she had to “tolerate.” Tyler was the “social equal.” The “rich guy” she deserved. The irony was delicious. She looked down on the man with the actual millions to chase a man who couldn’t afford his own shoes. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was beyond that. I made a call. “Sandra, it’s Beckett. I need the divorce papers ready.” Sandra was another college friend, a top-tier matrimonial attorney. “Assets?” she asked. “She keeps what’s hers. She doesn’t touch what’s mine.” “The three properties are under the pre-marital corp, right?” “Yes.” “Then she has no claim. Do you have proof of the affair?” “Everything. Bank records, Zelle transfers, texts, and hotel receipts. Jack helped.” Sandra whistled. “You’ve been thorough.” “I’ve had five years to watch her. I’m just finishing the job.” “Alright. I’ll have the draft in three days. How do you want to play this?” I looked out the window at the Brooklyn skyline. “I’m going to wait for her to ask. I want her to think she’s winning until the very second she loses everything.”

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My sister-in-law had barely survived the agony of childbirth, the epidural probably still coursing through her veins, when she dropped the bombshell the second she was wheeled out of the delivery room: she wanted a divorce. She claimed to have a video—shot by her best friend right there in the waiting room—and demanded to air out all the dirty laundry right in front of my face. “I was in there pushing for half an hour, ripping myself apart,” she spat, her voice trembling with a terrifying mix of exhaustion and rage. “And what were you doing? Standing in the hallway on your phone for a solid thirty minutes. What the hell could possibly be more important than me giving birth?” Before I could even process the accusation, she kept going. “And when the nurse finally came out to announce the baby was here, you frowned. You stood there and scowled! It’s obvious—you’re disgusted that I had a girl!” She let out a harsh, breathless laugh. “It’s actually pathetic. Aren’t you a woman yourself?” Faced with this sudden, violent barrage of accusations, I was entirely blindsided. This was their baby. Why was I suddenly the villain in the center of the crosshairs? I looked at her pale, sweating face. Factoring in the massive hormonal drop and the sheer physical trauma she’d just endured, I swallowed the sharp retort burning on my tongue. I chose not to argue with a woman who had just been stitched up. But I never could have imagined that mere days later, she would try to hold my own home hostage under the guise of her postpartum recovery. And that time, I didn’t wait for her to finish her little speech. I looked right past her, locking eyes with my brother, and yelled, “Ben, divorce her. Or figure out how to pay the mortgage on your own from now on!” 1 Kelsey kept thrusting her phone in my direction, her voice raw as she broke down the video her best friend had taken. She analyzed my every micro-expression in that hospital corridor, frame by agonizing frame. If I hadn’t been the person in the footage, I probably would have been convinced I was a sociopath, too. Then, it clicked. I remembered who took the video. It was a girl about Kelsey’s age, hovering in the corner of the waiting room, her phone held up like a shield the entire time. I’d assumed she was just another expectant family member recording memories for someone else. I hadn’t given it a second thought. Kelsey went on and on, her voice climbing in pitch. For good measure, she threw in a few jabs at my brother and our parents. The target was painted; her dominance established. The rest of us were just collateral damage in her one-woman show. But Ben couldn’t take it anymore. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tried to systematically dismantle her hysteria with a calm, measured tone. “Kels, you went into labor suddenly while you were at the mall with Brittany. Mary was in the middle of closing a massive deal with a client. She handed it off as fast as she could and drove straight here.” He took a breath. “When she was on the phone? She was talking to the wealth management guy about setting up a 529 college fund for the baby. You literally said last night that setting up trust funds early was the smartest thing to do. She was doing that for our daughter.” “And that last part is just insane,” Ben finished, his voice cracking slightly. “Mary already bought her a custom Tiffany charm bracelet. She was literally just grinning at me, showing me the little silver bow, saying how perfect it was for a little girl.” Kelsey’s face faltered for a fraction of a second. The righteous anger dimmed, but she couldn’t just let it go. She muttered under her breath, “Well, isn’t that what an aunt is supposed to do?” My dad, who had been quietly standing by the window, finally spoke up. “There is no ‘supposed to’ in this life. You do things out of the goodness of your heart. She’s an aunt, not a scapegoat for your stress.” My mom gently touched my dad’s arm, giving him a look that silently begged him to drop it. My dad crossed his arms and looked away. Stepping forward, my mom smoothed the thin hospital blanket over Kelsey’s legs. “Alright, alright. Everything has been explained. Let’s just let it go. You need to focus on healing right now. The fourth trimester is crucial. Whatever you need, whatever boundaries you want to set for your recovery, you just tell me. I’ll handle everything.” 2 “I’ll handle everything.” Those four words would become the biggest regret of my mother’s life. Originally, we had booked Kelsey into a high-end luxury postpartum care retreat—forty days of catered meals, massages, and 24/7 nursing care. Three days in, she checked out and demanded a refund. “Kelsey feels like the nurses there aren’t up to date on modern holistic practices,” Ben told me over the phone, sounding utterly exhausted. “She wants to hire a private postpartum doula to come to the house.” I hated the idea. The whole point of paying for the luxury retreat was to buy peace of mind—and to spare my mother the backbreaking labor of managing a newborn household. We grew up with nothing. My mom worked herself to the bone for years, and her health was fragile because of it. Once my firm took off and I started making real money, I forced her into early retirement. Sensing my hesitation, Ben quickly added, “Mom won’t have to lift a finger, I promise. Kelsey hired the doula herself. The doula handles the baby and the mother. Mom just has to focus on herself, just like always.” To keep the peace and offer support, my mom suggested they stay at the main family house with us, saving them the commute. But the moment Kelsey settled into the master bedroom, she shouted out toward the living room where I was typing on my laptop. “Mary? Could you come in here for a sec?” I suppressed a sigh. You just had a baby, you didn’t lose the use of your legs, I thought. But catching the hopeful, pleading look in my mother’s eyes, I stood up. When I reached the doorway, Kelsey held out a freshly printed piece of paper. “Here,” she said, her tone dripping with corporate HR energy. “This is my list of boundaries and protocols for my postpartum recovery. Please review it carefully so we can avoid any… friction… moving forward.” I blinked. Friction? I was already feeling friction. Because the very first bullet point on the list read: The house must remain in absolute silence during the recovery period. Phone calls and text notification sounds are strictly prohibited. Wi-Fi routers must be turned off at night to prevent radiation harm to the infant. I work from home. My entire career is built on conference calls and constant connectivity. I am the only person in this house who actually uses a phone for a living. Taking a deep breath, I kept reading. 3 “The doula’s sole responsibility is the mother and the infant. She will not assist with any household chores. A designated family member must prepare three hot, organic meals a day specifically for the doula.” “The infant is off-limits to all extended family (excluding mother, father, and doula) for the duration of the fourth trimester. Eye contact or holding the baby is strictly prohibited unless a financial contribution to the baby’s college fund is made per interaction. (Minimum $100 per visit).” The list went on for two solid pages. There were footnotes detailing strict dietary macros and hyper-specific sanitation requirements involving essential oils and hospital-grade bleach. The final bullet point was bolded: “The fourth trimester postpartum period lasts exactly twelve weeks (84 days). All household members are required to memorize this protocol.” My mom, who had quietly stepped up behind me to read over my shoulder, stayed dead silent. Finally, she leaned in and whispered, “Did she use ChatGPT to write this?” I actually laughed out loud. “Mom, even AI isn’t this stupid.” “Let it go,” my mom whispered back, her voice tight. “It’s just twelve weeks. We can bite the bullet. Once she’s recovered, they can move back to their own place.” I shot my mother a look. “You can bite the bullet if you want. I’m going to the office. God knows when I’ll be back.” My mom swatted my arm. “You’re just going to leave me alone in the snake pit? I’ll come with you. I can clean the office.” “The firm has a commercial cleaning crew, Mom. Don’t steal their jobs. Maria is coming to clean the house today anyway. Just tell her to vacuum quietly so she doesn’t disturb her highness.” As we were whispering, a loud notification ping echoed from Kelsey’s phone on the nightstand. The sleeping baby jolted awake and immediately began wailing. Instinct took over, and my mom rushed toward the bassinet to soothe her. “Stop!” Kelsey yelled, pointing a rigid finger at the bedroom door. “Open the door first. The doula is here.” I pulled the front door open, and there she stood. It was the girl from the hospital. The best friend who had filmed me. I raised an eyebrow, about to ask what the hell was going on, but she blew right past me without even taking off her shoes. She marched straight into the bedroom and pointed at my mother, whose hands were hovering over the crying baby. “Helen, step back,” the girl commanded. “When an infant cries, we do not pick them up immediately. We are practicing delayed gratification to foster independence.” My mom looked completely bewildered. “So we just let her scream?” “A little crying expands the lungs. It’s fine.” And so, the baby cried for nearly an hour. My mom paced the hallway outside the room, practically vibrating with anxiety. The doula stood guard like a bouncer at a club. “You can pick her up if you want, Helen. But if you do, it means you are claiming responsibility for every single time she cries from now on. You’ll be the primary soothing mechanism.” My mom froze. With her bad back, that was a physical impossibility. She backed away. 4 The house finally went quiet. My mom let out a long, ragged exhale and slumped against the wall. “Good lord. That little girl has a set of lungs on her.” I just offered a tight, sympathetic smile. I checked my phone and saw a text from Ben: Is the doula a girl named Brittany? Kelsey’s friend? When did she even get certified? Anyway, I got the groceries. I’m pulling up now. Ben was nothing if not efficient. Right as I put my phone down, the front door clicked open. “Got everything on the approved organic list,” Ben said, hauling heavy canvas bags onto the kitchen island. “I even bought tomorrow’s ingredients so I don’t have to go out again in the freezing rain.” Brittany, the “doula,” marched out of the bedroom, her face set in a severe, judgmental scowl. She inspected the groceries like a health inspector, didn’t say a single word, and marched right back into the bedroom. Two minutes later, all hell broke loose. First came Kelsey’s screaming, followed immediately by the baby, who had been startled awake again. Ben stood in the kitchen, completely shell-shocked. He rushed into the bedroom. “What? What’s wrong now?” Kelsey pointed a trembling finger at him. “What do you mean, now? What do you mean by that tone?” Ben threw his hands up in defeat. “Okay, poor choice of words. But what is going on? Why are you crying? You’re supposed to be resting. And you’re scaring the baby.” “Is that all you care about? The baby?” Kelsey shrieked. “Am I just an incubator to your family? Ben, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this!” I could practically see Ben’s soul leaving his body. “Live like what, Kels? What did I do? Just tell me straight up. All this back and forth, I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what you want from me.” A decorative throw pillow flew out of the bedroom, hitting Ben square in the chest. He didn’t even try to dodge it. He just caught it, hugged it to his stomach, and sighed. “Okay. Are you ready to tell me what’s wrong now?” 5 Kelsey’s voice was a jagged edge of pure entitlement. “I gave you the protocol list, didn’t I? I gave it to your sister this morning! You all have college degrees, why is it so hard to comprehend basic instructions?” She took a gasping breath. “I explicitly wrote that I need freshly bought produce every single day. And the first thing you say when you walk in is that you bought tomorrow’s food, too. Am I supposed to eat stale, day-old vegetables just so you don’t have to make an extra trip?” She pointed toward the hallway. “And the entry fee! I wrote it clearly: anyone other than us and Brittany has to put money in the baby’s jar if they want to look at her. Your mom and sister have been in and out of this room twice, and neither of them has dropped a single cent!” “And then,” she sobbed dramatically, “the baby was screaming her head off. Brittany told your mom that whoever picks her up has to be the one to soothe her forever, and your mom literally ran away. She let her own granddaughter scream for an hour. Did I just have this baby for myself? Is there no one in this house I can actually rely on?” Listening to her made my brain hurt. She was screaming with the lung capacity of an opera singer. Ben put a hand up, motioning for her to stop, but Kelsey was a runaway train. Finally, she delivered her ultimatum. “I want your mom and your sister to apologize to me. A woman’s postpartum recovery dictates the rest of her life. If they don’t apologize, I will hold this over your head until the day I die. You’ll never hear the end of it. Is that what you want?” I actually laughed. I couldn’t help it. I walked up to the bedroom doorway and leaned against the frame. “Who exactly do you want an apology from?” She glared at me, sensing the danger in my tone, but her ego was too inflated to back down. “Am I wrong? If I only have one child, this is the only time in my life I’ll be in this vulnerable state. How can you treat me like trash?” “You act like every day you’re alive isn’t a unique, unrepeatable event,” I said coldly. “Cut the pseudo-therapy bullshit. I’ll ask you one more time. Who do you want an apology from?” “You. And your mother. And Ben needs to apologize too. Otherwise, I’m done. We’re getting a divorce.” I didn’t even look at her. I turned my head slowly to my brother. “Are you divorcing her, or what?” 6 Ben let out a long, ragged sigh. He looked at his wife like he didn’t even recognize her anymore. “I read your protocol list yesterday, Kels. It’s stricter than a maximum-security prison. It’s overkill. I want you to heal, and I want you to be happy, but you are making everyone in this house utterly miserable.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look. Just stay here and recover. Mom, Mary, and I will move out and stay at the new condo for now. I’ll hire a professional nighttime nanny to help you.” Kelsey’s eyes widened in sheer outrage. “What the hell does that mean? Are you taking your sister’s side? Are you leaving me?” “Why should I have to be the one left here? This is my home too! Or is your sister just staying single forever so she can hoard your parents’ inheritance?” Ben let out a dry, hollow laugh. “Inheritance? What inheritance? We didn’t come from money, Kelsey.” Kelsey scoffed, a vicious, ugly sound. “Oh, so we’re playing dumb now? Keeping the wife in the dark? The massive company, this gorgeous house in the suburbs, the luxury cars—are you telling me that’s not your parents’ money?” “I’ve told you a hundred times,” Ben said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “All of this is Mary’s. It’s her personal wealth. She built it from the ground up.” Kelsey looked right at me, no longer bothering to hide her contempt. “Her personal wealth? Please. She’s a spinster. A DINK without the double income. What the hell does she need all these assets for? It’s all going to be left to you and our daughter anyway!” She turned back to Ben. “Your parents worked so hard, and you sacrificed so much just so she could play ‘girlboss.’ Are you just going to let her hoard the fruits of everyone’s labor?” “Ben,” she lowered her voice, dripping with venomous clarity. “Let’s be honest. You’re just mad I had a girl, aren’t you? Fine. I can give your family a boy next time. But I want the deed to this house transferred to my name.” Ah. There it was. The curtain dropped. After all this exhausting theatrics, the real motive was finally out in the open. 7 I am happily, resolutely childfree and unmarried. My family knows this. More importantly, they support it—though it took years of quiet rebellion to get them there. When Kelsey married into the family, she eventually found out about my life choices. Her reaction evolved in fascinating stages. At first, she was annoyed, realizing it meant we might all be living in close proximity for a long time unless she and Ben bought their own place. Then, she grew thrilled. She did the math and realized that if I never had kids, all the family’s resources—and my not-insignificant bank accounts—could funnel directly into her little nuclear family. And I was generous. Generous to a fault. But once she got pregnant, whether it was the hormones or just her true colors bleeding through, she became paranoid and deeply resentful of my presence. Wanting to keep the peace and avoid domestic warfare, I bought a stunning penthouse in a luxury high-rise downtown, intending to move out and leave the family home to them. Ironically, that decision was the spark that blew up the powder keg. She lost her mind. She screamed that she and Ben had never even lived in a brand-new home, so why did I get to live in the penthouse? She was heavily pregnant at the time. My whole family tiptoed around her, treating her like fragile glass, terrified the stress would hurt the baby. Real estate in our mid-sized city was reasonable enough, and Ben and I had always been incredibly close. So, to shut her up, I put the new penthouse in Ben’s name. That placated her for a while. I just hadn’t realized how deep her greed truly ran. Ben stood frozen, staring at Kelsey like she was a stranger. “Did I hit a nerve, Ben?” Kelsey taunted. “I just pushed a human being out of my body, and you’re fighting with me. You really don’t want to be married anymore, do you?” She crossed her arms. “Don’t be a coward. If you want out, just say the word. I’ll change the baby’s last name to mine and move back to my mom’s.” “I have no status in this house anyway. Your mom looks down on me, your sister despises me, and your dad treats me like a beggar asking for scraps.” 8 My mom looked like she had been slapped. She was utterly paralyzed by the sheer audacity of Kelsey’s inverted reality. From the day Kelsey agreed to marry Ben, my mother had bent over backward to accommodate her. Her philosophy had always been: My oldest daughter’s unconventional life gives people enough to talk about; I am not going to be the monster-in-law who ruins my son’s marriage. We had endured so much from Kelsey’s family during the wedding planning. Absurd financial demands, tacky requests—we swallowed our pride and paid for all of it. And Kelsey’s only review of the six-figure wedding we threw her was: “It was okay. I guess they just don’t value me that much.” My mother had lived in a constant state of anxiety ever since, writing blank checks when asked and keeping her mouth shut when criticized, terrified of putting a toe out of line. She survived the Wedding Trials, only to face the Delivery Room Inquisition. And now, we were in the middle of the Postpartum Tribunal. And after this, it would undoubtedly be the Parenting Court. It would never, ever end. I didn’t know if Ben felt like a coward. But standing there, I felt like one. I am not a passive woman. In boardrooms, if a client disrespects me, I cut them down to size without blinking. I had never swallowed this much bile in my entire life. Ben finally spoke, his voice completely hollowed out. “Just stop talking, Kels. You’re recovering. Your health is the priority.” But Kelsey was relentless, high on her own perceived victimhood. “How am I supposed to recover when you and your toxic family treat me like this?” “My family and I have done absolutely everything we can,” Ben said, his eyes going dead. “If you truly believe we are this abusive, then call your mother to come get you. We clearly aren’t worthy of serving you.” Right on cue, Brittany—the “best friend,” who had been silently scrolling on her phone in the corner—finally spoke up. “Look, every family has drama,” she said smoothly, looking at Ben. “But it’s really not fair for three of you to gang up on Kelsey when she’s so vulnerable.” Kelsey latched onto the validation instantly. “Exactly! Thank God Brittany filmed what happened at the hospital. Otherwise, I’d never be able to prove how evil you people really are behind closed doors!” I didn’t let her finish her thought. I stepped right into her line of sight, the last shred of my patience gone. “Ben,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Divorce her. Or you can figure out how to pay the mortgage on that penthouse yourself.”

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I will never forget that high school reunion three years ago. It was there that her ex—the guy everyone called the “Golden Boy” back in the day—proposed a bet so twisted it felt like a fever dream. He wanted to test if our marriage was “the real thing.” He convinced her to fake her own death, cut off every cent of my inheritance, and seize our home. If I remained unmarried after three years, we would “win.” She had laughed with a chilling confidence, telling him that my love for her was written in my marrow. She said I wouldn’t just wait three years; I’d wait thirty. And then, she simply vanished. The bank accounts were frozen. The locks on our house were changed. I was left on the street with nothing but our young son, Sammy, and the clothes on our backs. Today, while I was scavenging through a dumpster behind a diner for scraps of food, a black Rolls-Royce pulled up to the curb. She stepped out, looking as radiant and untouched as the day she left, looking down at me with a mixture of triumph and pity. “You didn’t let me down, honey,” she said, a smile playing on her lips. “You passed the test.” She glanced back at the passenger seat where her “Golden Boy” sat, arching a manicured eyebrow in victory. In my hand, the moldy crust of bread I’d just found crumbled into dust. My heart didn’t race; it went ice-cold. She seemed to remember something then, a brief flicker of maternal instinct crossing her face. “Where’s Sammy? I’ve come to take you both home.” I looked up at her, my voice reaching a level of stillness that was terrifying even to me. “He’s dead.” The world seemed to sharpen around us. “Three years ago, when you cut off the insurance and the accounts, he needed surgery. We couldn’t pay. He’s gone.” … Lindsay froze. She began to scan the desolate alleyway and the trash-strewn lot, as if expecting a six-year-old boy to jump out from behind a dumpster. All she found was the stench of rot and me, clutching my ruined scraps of bread. I had loved that boy with every fiber of my being. We were a shadow and its light; I never went anywhere without him. “Stop it,” Lindsay said, her voice trembling for a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. “I’m being serious. I’m here to take you home.” “Home?” I looked up, my eyes stinging with a heat that felt like acid. “Three years ago, when you staged your death, the lawyers said you owed a mountain of debt. They took the house to settle the estate. Sammy and I have been breathing the exhaust of this city for three years. We don’t have a home.” She hesitated, her mouth working as she searched for a script that hadn’t been written yet. “That… that was part of the simulation. The house has always been in my name through a holding company. It’s still there. Look, just tell Sammy to stop playing hide-and-seek. Tell him Mommy is sorry, okay?” “Then go tell him yourself!” I reached into my tattered jacket and flung a piece of paper at her. It slapped against her expensive silk blouse before fluttering to the pavement. “Go down to the cemetery and apologize to him there!” Her hands shook as she picked up the death certificate. “Sammy…” She stared at the clinical words: Acute Cardiac Arrest. Her eyes welled up instantly. “I was only gone for three years. How can he be gone? You’re lying to me, aren’t you?” She lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders. “I know I messed up! Don’t use a child to punish me. Call him out here, now!” I just stared at her. My lips curled into a silent, jagged smirk. Her grip on me faltered. She began to sob, the reality—or the fear of it—finally puncturing her bubble. “Lindsay, come on. You really can’t see through this?” Dorian stepped out of the car, his movements fluid and arrogant. He snatched the death certificate from her hand. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to the paper. “Does this look familiar? It’s almost an exact replica of the one I forged for you three years ago.” He let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Honestly, it’s not even a good forgery. This seal here? It’s all wrong. We’re professionals at this, man. You’re trying to play the master at his own game?” Lindsay blinked, the tears drying as she listened to Dorian’s smooth, persuasive tone. “Look at the signature,” Dorian continued, showing her the lines. “It’s stiff. The paper has been artificially aged. He probably knew you were coming back today and staged this whole ‘homeless’ act to guilt-trip you into a bigger settlement.” “You’re a lying son of a bitch!” I lunged for him, my vision blurring red. Lindsay’s expression shifted. The grief was replaced by a cold, sharp disdain. “I almost fell for it,” she whispered. She threw the death certificate back at me like it was trash. “Dorian was right. You’re far more calculating than you look.” “Lindsay!” “Bring Sammy home by the end of the day,” she snapped, turning her back on me. “He’s six years old. He shouldn’t be learning these sick games from a father like you.” I scrambled to my feet, desperate to stop her, but Dorian blocked my path. “Hey, man,” he whispered, his voice low enough that only I could hear. “I know the kid is dead.” I froze, the air leaving my lungs. “You want to know why Lindsay doesn’t know?” He smiled, a slow, predatory thing. “Because I made sure every piece of mail, every hospital alert, and every bit of news about that boy never reached her. I scrubbed him from her world.” I clinched my fists so hard my knuckles popped. “Poor little Sammy,” Dorian mused, admiring his own reflection in the car window. “Born with a bum heart just as his mom ‘died.’ There was a donor match, wasn’t there? But you… you were just a delivery guy working four jobs. You couldn’t even afford the deposit to hold the organ. You let that heart slip through your fingers while you were out delivering cold pizza.” My vision went white. “But don’t worry,” Dorian chuckled. “He didn’t go to waste. His marrow, his kidneys, his corneas… I made sure the paperwork was signed while you were out on a shift. He was crying for his daddy, you know. Right until the end.” “You monster!” I threw myself at him, my fingers locking around his throat. “Give him back! Give me back my son!” “Enough!” A sharp sting exploded across my face. Lindsay had slapped me with enough force to send me spiraling into the pile of trash. She pulled Dorian into her arms, shielding him. He began to cough, his eyes watering as he put on a show of frailty. “I was just… I was just asking where Sammy was,” Dorian choked out, his voice thick with fake tears. “I told him the kid shouldn’t be living in a dump… and he tried to kill me!” “You’re lying! Lindsay, he just told me—” “Shut up!” Lindsay’s voice was like a blade. “If you have a single shred of decency left as a father, you’ll bring our son home. If you don’t, I’m filing for divorce and I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.” She helped Dorian into the car and slammed the door. Divorce? I started to laugh, a jagged, broken sound that echoed in the alley. Fine. But before we get to that, I have one last thing to do. The next morning, an anonymous whistleblower report landed on the desk of the CEO at Lindsay’s tech firm. At the same time, a massive banner appeared across the street from the corporate entrance: [TECH STAR DIANA JONATHAN STAGED HER DEATH WHILE HER SON PERISHED] I stood there, right in the middle of the morning rush, holding a framed photograph of Sammy. I didn’t say a word. I just knelt on the sidewalk. I had printed hundreds of pamphlets detailing what Lindsay and Dorian had done—the bet, the frozen accounts, the medical neglect. People started to gather. I saw women reading the flyers, their eyes turning red. “Is this the boy? He was so small. How could she just leave them like that for a game?” “It wasn’t just a game, it was an execution. She cut off the money for his heart surgery?” “The company needs to answer for this! Is this the kind of person they have in the C-suite?” Within the hour, the Head of Human Resources came down personally to escort me upstairs. Lindsay was standing outside her office, her face unreadable, her eyes like flint. Once the door was closed, the CEO poured me a cup of tea, his voice smooth and conciliatory. “Mr. Miller, I think we can all agree that things have gotten a bit… out of hand. Let’s find a way to move past this.” I stared at the tea, my hands shaking. “Move past it? They killed my son.” “Now, let’s not use such heavy words. I know Lindsay was a bit extreme, and Dorian was… well, impulsive. But Lindsay is the backbone of this company. Our investors are here for her name.” I couldn’t find my voice. The CEO leaned in, smiling. “Here’s what I’m prepared to do. I’ll issue a formal reprimand to both of them. And for you… we can discuss a very generous ‘hardship’ settlement. As for the boy… it’s a tragedy, truly. But you and Lindsay are young. You can have more children. You’re a couple. You should be enjoying the life her success provides.” I let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “You’ll protect her because she’s an asset. But why are you protecting Dorian?” The CEO paused. “You don’t know? Dorian was hired on her personal recommendation. He’s her protégé.” My grip on the tea cup tightened until my knuckles turned white. I had applied to this company three times over the last three years. Every time, my resume disappeared into a black hole. I had begged Lindsay once, before all this started, just for an interview. I didn’t want a handout; I just wanted a chance. She had told me no. She said it was “unprofessional.” She said she had to “avoid the appearance of favoritism.” She had to avoid favoritism for her husband, but she could hand-walk her “Golden Boy” into a senior position. “What if I refuse your settlement?” I asked, staring him down. The CEO’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I strongly suggest you don’t try to fight the machine, Mr. Miller.” By the time I left the building, the narrative online had already shifted. The bots were working overtime. “Mentally unstable husband uses son’s death to blackmail tech executive.” “The tragic downfall of Diana Jonathan’s marriage.” “Did the husband’s neglect cause the child’s illness? Is he using the boy as a pawn?” The public, who had been sympathetic an hour ago, was now sharpened into a mob. The comments sections were filled with praise for Lindsay’s resilience and Dorian’s “professionalism.” I went back to the apartment—the one we’d finally been allowed back into, the one that felt like a tomb. I stroked the glass of Sammy’s urn. “I’m sorry, Sammy. Daddy couldn’t protect you.” I placed the divorce papers on the table. Before I could even pick up the urn to leave, the front door was kicked open. Lindsay marched in, her face contorted with rage, holding Dorian, who had a fresh bandage wrapped around his head. “Where is he?” she screamed. “Where is Sammy?” I wiped a tear from my eye. “What do you want?” “What do I want?” Lindsay spat. “Dorian was attacked this afternoon. You told Sammy to do it, didn’t you?” “Lindsay, listen to yourself!” I yelled. “What are you talking about?” Dorian cowered behind her, playing the victim perfectly. “Ewan, why lie? I saw him. The kid hit me with a tire iron in the parking lot. He said he was doing it for you. If Lindsay hadn’t shown up when she did, he might have killed me!” I grit my teeth so hard I thought they’d shatter. Lindsay looked at me with pure loathing. “I knew it. He’s been with you so long he’s learned how to be a liar and a thug. I should have taken him three years ago. Where is he? I’m taking him. Dorian and I will raise him properly. We won’t let you ruin his life.” “Fine!” I pulled the urn out from behind the photo. My eyes were burning. “Then go ahead. Take him. Teach him whatever the hell you want!” Lindsay stared at the urn, then at the photo of Sammy. I was shaking. That urn contained everything I had left of him. It was the only home I could give him. And a second later, she knocked it out of my hands. “Enough with the theatrics!” she screamed as the ceramic shattered against the floor. I let out a strangled cry and dropped to my knees, trying to gather the ashes. “How many times are you going to play this card?” Lindsay grabbed me by the hair, forcing me to look at her. She reached down and grabbed a handful of the grey dust. “It’s charcoal and bone-mold mix. You really think I don’t know the tricks? I’m a scientist, Ewan. I staged a death three years ago; I know what fake remains look like. You’re so desperate for attention you’d hex your own son?” “No… no…” She shoved a handful of the ash into my mouth. I gagged, retretching as the grit coated my throat. “Eat it! If it’s your little prop, why are you acting like it’s poison?” She held my mouth shut until my face turned purple, then threw me aside. I collapsed on the floor, coughing violently, my tears mixing with the dust and blood in my mouth. I tried to scoop the remains back together with trembling hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Lindsay stood over me, disgusted. “Think about Sammy. When he grows up and realizes his father used his ‘death’ and fake ashes to win an argument… he’s going to hate you. He’ll never forgive you.” I couldn’t even speak. She knelt down, her voice dropping to a chillingly calm tone. “Tell me where he is. If you have any soul left, give him to me so I can undo the damage you’ve done.” I looked at her through blurred vision and forced a smile. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll take you to him.” Dorian flickered with a moment of hesitation. Lindsay, however, looked relieved. She reached out and touched my hand. “I knew you’d come to your senses.” We drove to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Lindsay saw a small figure standing near the edge, wearing Sammy’s favorite hooded jacket. “Sammy!” she cried, jumping out of the car. But as she ran forward, she heard Dorian’s panicked voice from behind her. “Lindsay… wait…” She turned around. I had a hunting knife pressed against Dorian’s throat. … The police arrived within minutes, sirens wailing, lights flashing against the dark sea. I held Dorian tight, my arm locked around his neck, standing inches from the drop. The figure in the hoodie stood silently beside me. Lindsay was hyperventilating, the wind whipping her hair across her face. “Ewan, put the knife down. I won’t take him away. I won’t fight you for custody. Just let Dorian go. You don’t want Sammy to see his father become a murderer!” The news helicopters were hovering now, their spotlights pinning us to the cliffside. The negotiators were screaming through megaphones. I felt Dorian shaking in my arms. He was whimpering, a pathetic sound. I looked down at the “child” beside me. The figure looked up at me. I smiled at Lindsay. “No,” I said. “Sammy is going to be my witness.” I tightened my grip on Dorian. “Sammy! Help Daddy push this man over the edge!” “EWAN, NO!” “Sir, stop!” In the chaos, Lindsay did the unthinkable. She lunged forward and snatched a service weapon from an officer’s holster. She pointed it straight at my chest. “Drop the knife, Ewan! I won’t let you destroy him!” BANG. The bullet bloomed like a red carnation on my shirt. I stumbled back. I let go of Dorian. As I fell toward the abyss, I looked at Lindsay one last time and smiled. Then, I vanished into the dark. Lindsay stood frozen, the smoking gun in her hand. In front of the live cameras, the figure in the hoodie reached up and pulled back the hood. It wasn’t Sammy. It was a young girl. “Congratulations,” the girl said, her voice trembling but clear. “Now you’ve killed your husband, too.” The police swarmed Lindsay, disarming her. The lead detective looked at the girl, then at Lindsay. “Kid… what the hell is going on here?”

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I was in such a rush this morning that I grabbed his phone instead of mine. I didn’t even realize the mistake until I was standing outside my best friend’s apartment, clutching the gold-embossed engagement invitations I’d just picked up from the printers. I wanted to surprise her. The moment I stepped into her foyer, the phone in my hand buzzed. A notification popped up: WiFi Connected. My heart did a slow, sickening roll in my chest. Garrett had told me he’d never been here. He’d barely even met her, or so he said. My best friend, Melody, looked up from the sofa. She didn’t look surprised to see me, or the phone. She just offered a thin, mocking smile. “Stop lying to yourself, Donna,” she said, her voice airy and casual. “For the last three years, every time he told you he was on a business trip? He was right here, in my bed.” I looked down at the invitations. Ten years of friendship with her. Three years of a life built with him. It all felt like a punchline to a joke I wasn’t in on. She reached into a side drawer and pulled out a slip of paper, waving it like a trophy. It was a lab report. Two months pregnant. “The baby needs a legal father,” she said, her eyes narrowing with a predatory glint. “If you still want to marry him, fine. You can be our live-in nanny. Free childcare, right?” The front door clicked open. Garrett walked in, carrying a basket of organic fruit, looking every bit the doting partner. When he saw me, the smile on his face didn’t just fade—it calcified into a mask of stone. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply folded the invitation, tucked it into my pocket, and walked toward the door. From this moment on, the script of my life was being rewritten. And these two were no longer in the cast. 1 “What the hell are you doing running around with my phone?” Garrett kicked off his loafers and tossed the fruit onto the entryway table. He glanced at the ultrasound photo in Melody’s hand, then back at me. After a momentary flicker of panic, he straightened his cuffs and sat down beside her. “Since you’ve seen it, there’s no point in lying,” he said. He looked up at me, his expression remarkably calm. “The report is real. Melody is pregnant. It’s mine. Almost eight weeks.” In my pocket, I felt the sharp edges of the invitation crumple against my palm. “And?” I whispered. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Garrett frowned, clearly annoyed by my lack of hysterics. “What’s with the attitude? I haven’t even brought up the fact that you went through my private messages.” He took a sip of water from a glass on the table, his tone shifting into something terrifyingly reasonable. “Look, after those two injuries you had, the doctors said your body couldn’t handle the strain of a pregnancy. You can barely handle a long week at the office without collapsing. I want a family, Donna. Can you give me that? No. But Melody can. She’s doing this for us.” He leaned forward, entirely sincere. “When the baby is born, it’ll call you Mom. You get a child without the physical toll. Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?” Ten years. I had gone hungry so he could finish his degree. I had signed my name to his debts when his first startup failed. I had nearly died twice—once in a hit-and-run meant for him. And now, he was telling me that cheating on me with my best friend was an act of charity. Melody leaned back, crossing her legs. “Donna, we grew up together. You’re the only sister I’ve ever had.” She lowered her eyes, her voice turning soft and fragile. “You know about my struggles… my clinical depression. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it through these years. We can all live together. My baby will be your baby.” She tilted her chin up, a flash of victory in her eyes. “You’ve always wanted a family. Well, now it’s complete.” Garrett patted her hand. “See how mature she’s being? Not like you, always so grim and moody lately.” He reached into his leather briefcase and tossed a document onto the coffee table. “It’s a supplemental agreement. I had my lawyer draft it.” “The wedding goes ahead as planned. You’ll still be my wife. But officially, Melody moves in as my ‘cousin.’ She needs the support during the pregnancy.” I stared at the paper. “A cousin? You want her to live in our house as your cousin?” “Yes,” Garrett nodded. “Her mental state is fragile. I can’t leave her alone. What if she has another episode?” “And after the baby is born?” I asked, my lips twisting into a ghost of a smile. “We’ll register it under your name. Melody is young; she shouldn’t be tied down by a child’s paperwork yet.” Garrett clicked a fountain pen and held it out to me. “I’ll increase your monthly allowance by ten thousand. That’s your budget for the nursery and the help. Donna, don’t be greedy. I’m providing you with the best life possible. What more could you want?” He looked into my eyes, and I realized with a shudder that he truly believed he was the hero of this story. To him, I was a spent asset—a loyal dog that had grown too old to hunt but was still useful for guarding the house. Melody took the pen and forced it into my hand. “Sign it, Donna. If you don’t, you’re throwing away ten years for nothing. You don’t even have a career anymore. Without Garrett, how will you even survive?” The pen dug into my skin. I looked at the two of them, and for the first time, the tragedy of it all felt like a farce. Ten years of my life, traded for a contract that made me a pro-bono nanny in my own home. I set the pen down. “I’m not signing this.” Garrett’s face darkened instantly. “Don’t be ungrateful. I’ve lived with the guilt of what happened to you for years. This child is a gift to you. What is there to fight about?” He stood up, looming over me. “You know how delicate Melody is. If you stress her out and something happens to the baby, that’s on you. I’m giving you one last chance. Sign it.” I looked at her. Melody had been my shadow since the orphanage. When she was diagnosed with depression, I stayed up every night for a year just to make sure she was still breathing. I thought I was saving her life. It turns out she was just using her life to hijack mine. I stood up and pulled the invitation from my pocket, dropping it into the trash can. “I’ll think about it.” I turned and walked out. Behind me, I heard Garrett sit back down. “I knew you’d come around,” he called out. “Make sure you pick out the rings tomorrow. Melody said she liked that limited edition watch—get one for her while you’re at the jeweler.” 2 That night, I went back to the penthouse we shared. I punched the code into the smart lock. Error. I froze. I tried again. Incorrect Code. The mechanical female voice echoed in the silent hallway. I stared at the door I had walked through for five years, suddenly feeling like a trespasser. Two hours later, the elevator dinked open. Garrett walked out, Melody’s arm looped through his. “What are you doing? Standing here like a gargoyle?” Garrett asked, spotting me. “The code is wrong,” I said. Garrett tapped his forehead. “Right. Melody said the old numbers were bad luck. Bad juju for the baby. I changed it.” He stepped forward and punched in Melody’s birthday. The lock clicked open. I followed them inside, but when I reached for my slippers in the foyer, they were gone. In their place was a pair of plush, brand-new slippers in Melody’s size. “Your old ones were falling apart, so I tossed them,” Garrett said over his shoulder. “Melody is moving in; she needed space for her things.” He led her straight toward the primary suite. I followed, stopping dead at the threshold. My desk had been cleared. My books and files—the remnants of the career I’d put on hold to support his—were shoved into cardboard boxes. The walk-in closet was hanging wide open; half of my clothes were gone, replaced by silk dresses and designer bags I recognized as hers. “Garrett, what the hell is this?” I pointed at the decimated closet. Garrett was pouring a glass of lukewarm water, not even bothering to look at me. “She’s moving in. She needs room.” “I had the housekeeper move your things to the guest room. You’ll be sleeping there for the next few months.” Melody was already reclining on the bed, scrolling through her phone. She looked up, her eyes brimming with faux-concern. “Donna, you aren’t mad, are you? My nerves have been so shot lately… I can’t sleep in new places. This room is so much quieter. It’s better for the baby. You’ve always been so good to me; I knew you wouldn’t mind.” I looked at her face—the same face that had wept on my shoulder a thousand times—and felt a sudden, cold lack of desire to argue. The next morning, I sat at the breakfast bar with a bowl of oatmeal. Garrett walked out of the bedroom, phone to his ear. He hit the speakerphone button right in front of me. “Yeah, is this the wedding planner? This is Garrett. I need to change the name on the welcome signage. The bride’s name is Melody.” My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. There was a pause on the other end. “Mr. Morgan… what about Ms. Thorne?” Garrett glanced at me. “Ms. Thorne? Oh, she’s the maid of honor now.” He hung up and took a sip of his coffee. “Melody’s dream has always been a big wedding. With her condition being so unstable, I need you to play along. We’ve been together forever anyway; the ceremony is just a formality for us. Let her have the ‘bride’ title. It’s just a role.” He said it so casually, as if he were asking me to pass the salt. Melody emerged from the bedroom wearing one of my silk robes, wrapping her arms around Garrett’s neck. “You’re the best, Garrett.” She turned to me, smiling like an angel. “Donna, you’ll be my maid of honor, won’t you? I want you to see my happiness from the best seat in the house.” Garrett tapped the counter. “Well? Don’t be petty, Donna. It’s just a label.” I looked down at my oatmeal. Ten years of sacrifice, erased by a single sentence. “Fine,” I said. Garrett beamed. “That’s my girl. I knew we could be a team.” 3 “The gala is tonight. Wear something understated. Don’t upstage Melody.” Garrett tossed an old, grey cocktail dress onto the sofa. Behind him stood Melody, draped in custom couture, wearing a diamond-encrusted watch that probably cost more than my first car. “Garrett, how do I look?” Melody spun in front of the mirror. Garrett stepped toward her, adjusting her necklace with a tender touch I hadn’t seen in years. “Beautiful. You’re going to be the only thing anyone looks at tonight.” He turned to me, his brow furrowing. “Why are you still sitting there? Go get changed. We’re on a schedule.” I picked up the grey dress and went to the guest room. By the time I came out, they were gone. They hadn’t even waited for me. I took an Uber to the hotel. When I pushed open the doors to the ballroom, I saw Garrett holding a champagne flute, laughing with a group of investors. Melody was at his side, looking every bit the high-society wife. I walked over, intending to stand behind Garrett as I always did. “Garrett, who is this lovely lady?” one of the investors asked, nodding toward Melody. Garrett raised his glass, his smile radiant. “Let me introduce you. This is my fiancée, Melody.” A chorus of compliments followed. “A perfect match,” they said. “The power couple of the year.” Another guest, someone who had known us since the early days, recognized me. “Wait, then who is Donna?” The air in the circle went still. People looked at me with a mixture of pity and confusion. Garrett didn’t even turn his head to look at me. “Her? That’s just my sister.” Ten years of being his partner, his backbone, his everything—and I had been relegated to a sister. He didn’t even have the decency to give me a dignified exit. He just erased me. I retreated to a corner, watching Melody soak up the adoration. Mid-way through the night, she walked toward me, a glass of red wine in her hand. “Oops!” She feigned a stumble, and half a glass of Cabernet splashed across the front of my grey dress. The cold liquid soaked through the fabric, dripping onto the floor. I looked like a disaster. “Oh, Donna! I am so, so sorry! I’m such a klutz lately,” Melody cried out, but her eyes were dancing with malice. Garrett rushed over, but he didn’t check on me. He shoved me aside to grab Melody’s hand. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” Then he turned to me, his voice a sharp hiss. “What is wrong with you? Why were you standing so close? You almost ruined her dress! Go to the restroom and clean yourself up. Stop making a scene.” I didn’t say a word. I turned and walked toward the exit. After the gala ended, we stood in the parking garage waiting for the valet. Melody let out a small whimper. “Garrett, I think I twisted my ankle. It hurts.” Garrett looked at me. “Donna, come here and help her walk.” Melody leaned her weight on my shoulder. As Garrett turned his back to look for the car, she leaned in, her voice a poisonous whisper in my ear. “So, ‘sister,’ how does it feel to be the help?” I stopped walking. I looked at the smug curve of her lips. Garrett looked back, his patience gone. “Donna, move it! The keys are in your clutch, stop stalling!” I stood perfectly still. “Give them to me!” Garrett barked. I reached into my bag, pulled out the keys, and let them drop. They hit the concrete with a sharp, metallic ring. Garrett stared at the keys on the floor, stunned. I didn’t look at him. I walked to the curb and hailed a taxi. When I got back to the “guest room,” I opened my phone. There were over three thousand photos in my gallery—the history of us. I hit Select All and Delete. One by one, our memories vanished into a digital void. I cleared our chat history. I blocked his number. A final notification popped up before I finished—a text from him. Don’t forget the bridesmaid fitting tomorrow. Melody wants you in pale pink. I didn’t reply. In the corner of the room, three packed suitcases sat silently against the wall. 4 “This pink really brings out your skin tone, Donna. Try it on.” Melody was standing in her custom lace wedding gown, looking like a dream. She shoved a generic, polyester bridesmaid dress into my arms. Garrett was sitting on the boutique’s velvet sofa, scrolling through his emails. “Just put it on. Don’t keep her waiting.” I went into the dressing room. When I came out, Melody was holding Garrett’s hand, giggling. “Garrett, am I the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen?” He looked up, and for a second, his eyes actually softened. “The most beautiful. You look perfect in everything.” Melody turned to me, patting my shoulder with a saccharine sweetness. “Donna, you’re happy for us, right? We’ve been sisters for ten years. I don’t want to lose our friendship.” She adjusted her veil in the mirror. “We’re going to be a family. My baby will call you Mom. You’ll stay home, help with the house, and Garrett will pay you a salary. You’ll never have to worry about money again.” Garrett nodded in agreement. “She’s being sincere, Donna. She’s looking out for you. Just stay in your lane, keep the house running, and stop the drama.” I looked at their faces—so smug, so certain of their own righteousness. She had stolen my life, and she expected me to thank her for the privilege of being her servant. I took the bridesmaid dress and tossed it onto the sofa. “I’m done.” Garrett stood up. “Donna, what is your problem now?” I didn’t answer. I walked out of the shop. That afternoon was the rehearsal at the chapel. I watched from the pews as Melody walked down the aisle toward him. I felt like a ghost watching a play. When it was over and the crowd dispersed, I sat alone in the empty chapel, staring at the altar. Garrett came back in to grab a forgotten clutch bag. He saw me and hesitated, then sat down in the pew next to me. “Donna, I know this is hard,” he sighed. “I haven’t forgotten everything you did for me. Once the baby is here, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll buy you whatever you want. Anything—except the title of my wife.” I turned my head to look at his profile. “Garrett.” My voice was hollow. “In ten years… was there ever a single moment where you felt sorry for what you were doing to me?” His hand froze on his cufflink. He turned to look at me, and after a long silence, he straightened his suit. “Donna, I gave you ten great years. I took you from a basement apartment to a penthouse. You wore the best clothes, ate at the best tables. My conscience is clear.” Clear. That word snapped the final thread. He knew exactly what he was doing. He just didn’t think I mattered enough for it to be a crime. “Okay,” I said, standing up and brushing the dust off my skirt. “I understand.” At 4:00 AM the next morning, Garrett woke up thirsty. He walked out of the master suite and noticed a strange silence in the house. The guest room door was wide open. The bed was made, perfectly flat, as if no one had ever touched it. The closet was empty. In the bathroom, my toothbrush was gone. He frowned and dialed my number. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” The color drained from his face. He ran to the garage. My car was still there, but on the passenger seat lay a white envelope. He ripped it open. A ring fell out. It was the cheap, gold-plated ring he’d bought me at a street fair ten years ago with his very first paycheck. The plating had worn off long ago, revealing the dull brass underneath. There was no letter. No note. Just a boarding pass stub tucked under the ring. Departure: 4:00 AM. The destination had been blacked out with a heavy marker. Garrett gripped the stub, his fingers shaking. He hit redial over and over, but the mechanical voice was his only companion. He slumped against the car door, the silence of the garage suddenly feeling like a tomb.

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In the hierarchy of the Serpent-shifters, a male who has tasted the intimacy of a mate finds it nearly impossible to walk away. It’s a biological tether, a soul-deep obsession. But my mate’s younger brother had been harboring dark, twisted designs on me long before the ink on our contract was dry. I never imagined that after being bought for a staggering price at a high-end auction and brought back to the Serpent’s Reach, I would actually fall for the man who claimed me. Even less expected was that I would bear his children. For our kind, conception is a rare miracle. Yet, in one breath, I defied the odds and laid three healthy eggs, eventually hatching three perfect, tiny serpents. But the man who once looked at me with a possessiveness that bordered on insanity now wore a face carved from ice. “To be honest, I regret it,” Jeffrey said suddenly. His voice held the temperature of a winter grave. I looked up at him, my heart stuttering in my chest. I didn’t understand. His gaze raked over my body—lingering on my breasts, still full from nursing, and the soft, feminine curve of my hips—with a cold, clinical scrutiny that made me feel naked in the worst way. “If I hadn’t been trying to spite Lydia back then, I never would have brought you here. Now that I look at you, you’re just… ordinary. A common female with nothing in her head but the instinct to breed.” “And my Lydia…” His voice softened with a trace of tenderness he never offered me. “She’s suffered so many years of heartache because of my pride.” The blood in my veins felt like it was turning to slush. My eyes burned, the sting of tears threatening to spill over. I forced myself to speak, my voice a mere thimble of sound, reminding him of the bond. I told him he couldn’t leave me—that his nature wouldn’t allow it. Jeffrey didn’t even flinch. Instead, he looked almost manic as he began detailing his plan to bring his “golden girl” back to his side. He spared me one last look of pure Revulsion, as if I were a piece of furniture that no longer fit the decor. “If it weren’t for that body of yours, do you really think I’d have looked at you twice?” “But don’t worry. You gave me heirs, so I won’t throw you to the wolves. My brother doesn’t have a mate yet. When Beau returns, you’ll be moving into his quarters.” … “Are you certain you want to transfer the legal guardianship of your mate to your brother?” The clerk at the Tribal Registry looked at Jeffrey as if he’d grown a second head. He glanced at me—my curves prominent and healthy—and then at the woman shivering in Jeffrey’s arms. Lydia was gaunt, frail, looking like a gust of wind might shatter her. “Once this is filed, you can’t undo it without the consent of the other male. It’s a permanent severance.” Jeffrey didn’t even look at me. He just scowled. “Of course. Just hurry it up. Lydia just got back and she’s overwhelmed. I need to get her home and settled.” The clerk let out a sharp breath of annoyance. He struck Jeffrey’s name from my record and replaced it with a new one. I was now legally bound to a man named Beau. “Fine. When your brother gets back, send him in to provide the blood-seal,” the clerk muttered. Jeffrey was too busy tucking Lydia’s head into his chest to care. “Tomorrow,” he tossed over his shoulder. When we stepped out of the Registry, I stood alone on the pavement. The wind was biting, but it was nothing compared to the void opening in my chest. I watched Lydia pout, her voice a high-pitched whine as she scolded Jeffrey for “abandoning” her years ago and buying “that woman” right in front of her. Jeffrey cooed to her, his heart on his sleeve, before finally remembering I existed. He glanced back. I must have looked pathetic, standing there in the cold with my thin coat wrapped around me. He hesitated for a second, something flickering in his eyes, but it died before it reached his lips. The silence stretched until I broke it. “Do I have to move out today?” Jeffrey’s brow furrowed. “You don’t have to be in such a rush—” “Your name is Ivy, right?” Lydia interrupted, her eyes narrowing as she cataloged every inch of me with blatant envy. “I remember you. The ‘Prize’ of the auction.” She let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “Men are so predictable. They love the tits and the ass. But honestly, aren’t you embarrassed to walk around looking like… that? If I were that top-heavy, I’d never leave the house.” She looked up at Jeffrey, her eyes brimming with fake tears. “Jeffrey, you actually like that kind of thing, don’t you?” Jeffrey panicked instantly, desperate to prove his devotion. “Who told you that? It’s repulsive. It makes my skin crawl.” I went rigid. My eyes went hot. Repulsive? The man who spent every night winding his serpent tail around me, whispering my name into the crook of my neck as he took me again and again? The man who wouldn’t let me go until I was breathless and trembling? That was what he called repulsive. Lydia smirked, tucking her arm through his, looking at me with a sickening kind of pity. “Don’t be upset, Ivy. If Jeffrey hadn’t bought you, you’d still be in a cage. You should thank me. If I hadn’t picked a fight with him back then, there never would have been a vacancy for you to fill.” I looked at Jeffrey. He didn’t defend me. He didn’t even look me in the eye. “Right,” I whispered, the word tasting like ash. Seeing that I was too broken to fight back, Lydia lost interest. She started tugging on Jeffrey’s arm, demanding they go home. He smiled at her—that soft, doting smile that used to be mine—and let her lead him away. After a few steps, he called back over his shoulder, “Ivy, since you’re so eager to go, go ahead. Move your things.” Then, as an afterthought: “Don’t take it to heart. We’re still family.” Family. Yes. We were still family. Except I was no longer his mate. I was a hand-me-down for his brother. The moment we reached the house, Lydia’s facade crumbled. She stormed into the master bedroom—our bedroom—and began tearing through my things. She threw my clothes into the hallway. She found the pair of grass-woven rings I’d made for our anniversary. She found the silk protection charm I’d spent weeks sewing, the one I’d hidden under Jeffrey’s pillow to keep him safe on his hunts. I’d worked so hard on the stitching. Every thread was a prayer for him. Now, it was under her heel, ground into the dirt. I stood there, paralyzed, watching her move like a hurricane through the home I had meticulously built, piece by piece. Jeffrey stood in the doorway, watching. He didn’t stop her. He just gave a helpless, weary smile. He caught my eye and said casually, “Just let her have her moment. I owe her this. She’s had a hard time. If she breaks anything, I’ll buy you a replacement.” My throat felt like it was closing. I shook my head. “No… it’s fine. It wasn’t anything important anyway.” Jeffrey paused, a flash of irritation crossing his face, but he said nothing. Outside in the yard, there was a row of vegetables I’d planted. Jeffrey used to complain about the dirt, saying we could just buy whatever we needed. But I wanted something of our own. He’d grumbled, but one night, I caught him secretly building a small cedar fence around the sprouts to keep the rabbits out. Now, Lydia marched right over the seedlings. She ripped my lingerie off the drying line, shaking it with disgust. “You actually hang these outside? Are you trying to advertise?” She dropped the lace to the muddy ground and stepped on it. Jeffrey let out a short, surprised laugh. His eyes were fixed on Lydia’s fiery spirit, completely oblivious to how pale my face had become. I instinctively hunched my shoulders, feeling a crushing sense of shame for my own body for the first time in my life. Lydia wasn’t done. She scouted the yard until her eyes landed on the wicker basket in the corner. It was a beautiful day. I’d brought the basket out so the hatchlings could sleep in the sun instead of the stuffy nursery. Panic spiked in my chest. “The babies are in there! Don’t—” Before I could finish, she reached for the handle, intending to hurl it over the fence. I didn’t think. I lunged forward. But I was too late. Lydia, startled by my sudden movement, stumbled back. She let out a sharp cry as she lost her balance. In a blur of motion, a dark shadow streaked past me. Jeffrey caught her, pulling her securely into his arms. The basket tumbled. The three tiny serpents, curled together in their fleece blankets, rolled out like fallen fruit. They were so small. Too small to even make a sound when they hit the grass. Only the eldest, slightly larger than the others, let out a thin, pained hiss as he woke. “My babies!” I dropped to my knees, frantically scooping the three of them into my arms. They were trembling, their tiny tails lashing out to wrap around my fingers for safety. The eldest had a scrape on his tiny head, a bead of pale blood welling up. I couldn’t breathe. The pain in my chest was physical. Jeffrey had been closer to the basket. If he had wanted to, he could have caught it. He could have saved his children. But he chose Lydia. He watched his own flesh and blood hit the ground and didn’t even blink. In the quiet hours of the night, when we were tangled together, I used to wonder if this was love. I told myself his possessiveness, his intensity, his constant need for me… that it had to mean something. In this moment, I finally realized how wrong I was. I looked up at him, my eyes red and my voice shaking. “Jeffrey, please. I’m begging you. Don’t let her touch anything else. I’ll pack. I’ll go now. I’ll take everything and I won’t leave a single trace that I was ever here.” Jeffrey went still. He slowly released Lydia. The hatchlings were still hissing at their father, their tiny voices full of hurt. They wanted him to tuck them into his scales like he used to. But before Jeffrey could speak, Lydia burst into tears. “Jeffrey! Do you feel sorry for her? You do! You care about her and those… those things she produced!” “I knew it! You say she’s repulsive, but you can’t let go!” Jeffrey’s jaw tightened. “Lydia, I didn’t—” “You promised you’d take me away!” she shrieked, tears streaming down her face. “And instead, you bought her at an auction for a record price. Everyone laughed at me for six months. They said I was delusional, that a man like you would never want someone like me.” “No one would buy me after that. I had to wash clothes, chop wood… I did the filthiest work. One winter I had a fever for seven days. I laid in the dark thinking of you, waiting for you to come for me.” “And you? Were you busy holding her? Had you already forgotten me?” She collapsed against his chest, her fists thumping weakly against his heart. “Jeffrey… we can have babies too. I’ll give you so many… just stop looking at her. Please.” I watched Jeffrey’s rigid body slowly melt. He looked away from me, away from his bleeding son, and gently wiped the tears from Lydia’s face. “Don’t cry. I’ll do whatever you want, okay?” The hatchlings watched their father, their cries growing weaker. They nudged my fingers with their small snouts, their black, obsidian eyes reflecting my own shattered face. They seemed to be asking: Why doesn’t he see us? We’re hurt. Why won’t he look? I couldn’t give them an answer. My face felt frozen. I stroked their tiny heads, forcing a bitter, broken smile. “It’s okay, my loves. Mama’s got you.” I lowered my head and started picking up my ruined belongings. Things fell out of my trembling hands as fast as I could grab them. I kept picking them up. I kept dropping them. Scalding tears hit the dirt and vanished. In the background, I heard Lydia’s voice, sweet and demanding. “I want you to build me a new bed! I won’t sleep where you laid with her.” “And dig up those vegetables. I want flowers there. And that fence? It’s hideous. Tear it down.” Jeffrey looked toward the garden. His gaze lingered on the green sprouts for a heartbeat. He looked at me, then turned back to Lydia, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Anything you want, Lydia. Anything.” Over the next few days, I moved into Beau’s quarters. He had been away for so long that the place was thick with dampness and dust. I managed to clear a small corner, layering my old clothes over some dry straw to make a nest for the babies. The humid night wind drifted through the window, carrying the cloying scent of flowers. Jeffrey had dug up my garden and replaced it with Lydia’s favorites. The hatchlings were restless, huddling against my chest. They were heartbroken. Since the day they hatched, their father had never ignored them like this. I leaned down, pressing my lips to their cool foreheads, my eyes stinging. Outside, the sound of Lydia’s muffled giggles and Jeffrey’s low voice drifted through the walls. I rolled over, pressing my hands over my ears. Then, a sudden, violent crash echoed from the main house. “Jeffrey, no! Stop! Don’t touch me! I’m scared, please!” Footsteps thundered across the porch. My body went taut. A second later, my door was kicked open. Jeffrey stood in the doorway. His eyes were a glowing, predatory green, fixed on me with a terrifying intensity. His gaze slid from my face down to the swell of my breasts, partially exposed by my loose tunic. I knew that look. It was the look of a male in his heat. In the dark of our old room, he would pull me into his lap, his tail coiling around my waist, claiming me over and over until the sun rose. He was in his cycle. I instinctively scrambled back toward the corner. Seeing me recoil, Jeffrey’s teeth ground together with an audible snap. He looked furious, though he probably didn’t even know why. The primal urge of the beast was screaming in his blood, drowning out reason. To his lizard brain, there was only one truth: I was his mate. And no one else could have me. As Jeffrey lunged forward, I shook my head violently. “No! Jeffrey, stop!” My rejection seemed to burn him. He stopped in his tracks, looking at me with a wounded, confused expression. Don’t look at me like that, I thought. You’re the one who threw me away. “I won’t do this…” Before I could finish the sentence, he had me. He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand, his strength effortless and suffocating. Suddenly, a sharp hiss cut through the air. The eldest hatchling was struggling to stand. He used his tiny tail to prop himself up, putting his miniature body between me and Jeffrey. I could feel him shaking. His eyes were wide with terror at the sight of his father’s half-shifted, monstrous form, but he didn’t back down. He bared his tiny, undeveloped fangs, letting out a fierce, desperate hiss of warning. The other two woke up and scrambled to join him, three tiny creatures no bigger than my palm, standing in a row to protect their mother. Tears flooded my eyes. “Babies, no… get back…” I tried to reach for them, but Jeffrey held me fast. His mind was gone, lost to the fog of the heat. He reached out to swat them away, his large hand catching the eldest. The little snake thrashed, lashing his tail. “No! Jeffrey, let him go! You’re hurting him!” I screamed, my nails raking across his forearm, drawing blood. Jeffrey growled, an animal sound, and tossed the hatchling aside. The tiny body hit the far wall with a sickening thud and slid to the floor. “My baby!” I felt like my soul had been ripped out. My eyes went bloodshot with rage. “You’re a monster! He’s your son! How could you throw him?!” Jeffrey blinked, a momentary flicker of clarity returning to his eyes. He looked at his hand, then at the huddle of shivering scales in the corner. But the heat was a tide that wouldn’t be stayed. His gaze locked onto me again, his hand moving to my throat, his voice a slurred, guttural mess. “Ivy…” Just then, a scream pierced the room from the doorway. “What are you doing?!”

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