Category: English

Ethan’s girl best friend, Chloe, loved playing “pranks.” The first time we met, she slipped a condom into my pocket and started a rumor that I was cheating on him. At a friend’s party, she sat right on Ethan’s lap in front of my face, asking him who was sexier—her or me. Every single time, I would get angry and confront Ethan. But after a while, Ethan stopped comforting me. He impatiently told me to stop overthinking. He said I had no sense of humor. He told me to just “be the bigger person.” So today, when Ethan invited Chloe over to our house to watch the game, I didn’t scream. I didn’t question their relationship. Even when they hugged each other, I just calmly sipped my juice. But I never expected Chloe to sneak mango juice into my cup. The one thing she knew I was deathly allergic to. The moment I shut the bedroom door, my throat felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. I couldn’t breathe. Red hives erupted all over my skin. I collapsed onto the bed. My phone screen was still glowing. My search history was stuck on: “Can a severe mango allergy kill you?” Ethan’s voice came through the wooden door, sharp and demanding. “Hazel, get out of the master bedroom. It’s pouring rain outside, and Chloe is staying here tonight.” I didn’t move. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was because I couldn’t. My body felt like it was filled with lead. Every single muscle was burning hot. I could feel my face swelling up. My eyes were swollen shut, reduced to tiny slits. My lips bloated like sausages. I couldn’t open them, and I couldn’t close them. My throat felt like it was stuffed with burning hot coals. Every breath felt like swallowing blades. “Hazel, did you hear me? It’s a storm out there, she can’t drive home!” Ethan yelled again. Louder this time. I could hear the anger in his voice. He was losing his patience. “Ethan, is she mad at me?” Chloe’s voice drifted in from the living room. She giggled, sounding totally carefree, as if she were talking about some minor joke. “I just added a little splash of mango juice to her cup. I wanted to play a little prank on her.” A little prank. She said it so casually. As if putting mango juice in the drink of someone with a severe allergy was just a fun little experiment. Like dropping Mentos into Coke. “You knew Hazel was allergic to mangoes, and you still put it in?” Ethan’s voice didn’t sound angry. It sounded more like a weary sigh. “I didn’t know her allergy was *that* bad…” Chloe whined, sounding hurt. “I just wanted to add some flavor. I didn’t want her to think the drink I made tasted bad.” “Alright, alright, that’s enough. You did go a bit too far this time,” Ethan cut her off. “Hazel, Chloe knows she messed up. Stop throwing a tantrum. Pack your things and move to the guest room.” I didn’t reply. Not because I was throwing a tantrum. But because I couldn’t speak anymore. My tongue was swollen. My whole mouth was bursting with pressure. I tried to open my mouth, but only a muffled whimper came out. Like a cat with its tail stepped on. Ethan’s voice turned harsh. “Hazel, can you not do this?” After a moment of silence, he sighed and softened his tone. “…Fine, if you want to give me the silent treatment, cool down on your own. I’ll come find you later.” Footsteps faded from the door. The clinking of glasses came from the living room. They went back to watching the game. Just the two of them. Without me. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The crystal chandelier cast a shadow that looked like a butterfly. I remembered when we were newly married. I couldn’t sleep one night and pointed at the shadow, saying it looked like a butterfly. Ethan jumped out of bed, took a photo with his phone, and said he was going to brag to his friends about how creative his wife was. Back then, he was willing to do anything with me. But now? Tears rolled down my swollen cheeks. Breathing became harder and harder. I could hear my own heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like someone knocking on a door that would never open. The phone slipped from my hand. I closed my eyes. Whatever. Let it be. Nobody cared anyway. Outside, the storm raged on, thunder rolling across the sky. I wanted to go to the emergency room. But in this weather, I couldn’t get an Uber. I couldn’t even make it out the front door. When my soul floated out of my body, my first thought was: *So, this is what dying feels like.*

All the pain and agony disappeared in an instant. I floated up to the ceiling, looking down at my own body on the bed. That “Hazel” was lying there with her head tilted to the side. Her face was swollen like a balloon. Her lips were blue. Her arms were covered in red rashes. My phone lay on the floor, the screen still glowing. My search history was stuck on the last thing I looked up before I died: “First aid for anaphylactic shock from mango allergy.” I floated out of the room. Right through the tightly shut door—the door that nobody had bothered to knock on. In the living room, Ethan was sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone. The coffee table was covered in half-eaten food. Beer, chicken wings, chips, and half a pizza. There was also a half-finished drink sitting right on the edge of the table. Ethan hadn’t cleaned it up. He didn’t know that I would never drink that cup again. Chloe sat on the armchair next to him, her legs crossed, scrolling through her phone. The TV was replaying the goal from earlier. “Is Hazel still not coming out?” Ethan didn’t even look up. He just asked casually. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have messed with her cup.” Chloe kept her eyes on her screen, her thumb swiping up. “I just wanted to make her a nice drink. I didn’t think she’d get this mad.” “Well, it’s not like it’s a big deal, but you know she’s allergic to mangoes.” Ethan’s tone was incredibly flat. No worry. No urgency. It was like he was saying, “The weather is a bit cloudy today.” “Does she hate me? Ever since I came back, I feel like she’s had an issue with me.” Chloe’s voice sounded a little sad. “Back when it was just the two of us, things were so easy. Now, I don’t even know what to do to make her happy.” Watching them, I wanted to laugh. Chloe was trying to be careful? The first time she came to our house after she returned, she filled my expensive skincare bottles with tap water. When I caught her, she just laughed and said she was “testing if they were real.” At the party, she swap-tricked my cocktail with straight tequila, making me embarrass myself in front of everyone. She laughed louder than anyone else. But what broke my heart the most wasn’t Chloe. It was Ethan’s attitude. Before Chloe came back, we were so happy. He remembered every single food I loved. He would park outside my office building on rainy days to wait for me. He would cook hot soup and bring it to my study when I worked late. Back then, I thought marrying him was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me. But the moment Chloe returned, everything changed. He started talking about her constantly. He talked about how cute she was when they were kids, how close they used to be. He took her out to dinner more times than he took me. The way he looked at her was so much gentler than the way he looked at me. He kept saying they were just childhood friends. But he never told me why childhood friends spoke to each other in that intimate tone. He stopped remembering what I liked to eat. He stopped waiting for me after work. He stopped cooking soup for me. He even started to find me annoying. He said I was making a mountain out of a molehill. He said I was being dramatic. I wasn’t being dramatic. I was terrified. I was terrified that there was no room left for me in his eyes. “Alright, I’ll go check on her.” Ethan finally put his phone down and stood up from the couch. I followed him back to my bedroom door. Ethan pushed the door open just a crack. The room was pitch black. The curtains were drawn. He saw a curled-up figure on the bed. “Hazel, are you coming out or what?” I didn’t move. I was already dead. “Fine, stop pretending.” Ethan’s voice grew even more impatient. “If you don’t want to come out, I don’t care. Clean the guest room yourself.” He waited for a few seconds. The bed remained completely still. “Unbelievable.” Ethan slammed the door shut. His footsteps faded away. He left. He didn’t even step into the room. He didn’t turn on the light to look at my face. If he had, he would have seen my blue lips. He would have realized my hands were ice cold. But he just stood at the door. A few feet away. Said a few words. And walked away. I floated in the living room. Staring at that closed door. “Ethan, why isn’t she out yet?” Chloe finished her last slice of pizza, her lips greasy. She glanced at the tightly shut bedroom door. “Who knows? She’s just throwing another tantrum.” Ethan was cleaning up the coffee table. He threw the leftovers into the trash can. He picked up my drink, looked at it for a second. He hesitated. Then he poured it down the sink. “Is she still mad at me?” Chloe’s tone sounded a little anxious now. “I really only added a tiny bit to give it some flavor… I didn’t know it would turn out like this.” “It’s fine. But you know she’s allergic to mangoes.” Ethan stacked the cups and brought them to the kitchen. “Don’t do that again next time.” Just that one sentence. No anger. No lecture. He didn’t tell her, “You almost killed my wife.” Just a casual, light, “Don’t do that again next time.” The same way he would tell someone, “Don’t leave your socks on the couch next time.” I watched them. I felt a sharp ache in my chest. Even though I was dead and my heart had stopped beating. Why did it still hurt so much?

“Ethan, do you think she’s actually okay?” Chloe’s voice suddenly got quiet. “What could possibly happen to her?” Ethan turned on the kitchen faucet. The rushing water drowned out his words. “She’s been like this since we got married. She plays dead over every little thing.” He paused. “Remember when you put superglue on her chair? She stayed home for days acting like she was traumatized. She was perfectly fine in the end, wasn’t she?” My soul drifted back to the living room. Chloe’s phone lit up. It was a text from her best friend. “Chloe, did you leave yet? How’s the wife doing?” Chloe typed back. “She’s fine. She’s just dramatic. Throws a fit over every little thing.” “Did Ethan yell at you?” “Why would he? Ethan knows exactly what she’s like.” “Lmao good. Next time, let’s try something else.” “For sure. I’ve got a plan for next time.” “Hahaha you’re savage.” I stared at the messages on the screen. I felt something shatter inside my chest. It wasn’t anger. It was something much colder than anger. It was despair. The absolute despair of realizing that, in their eyes, I wasn’t even a human being. To Chloe and her friends, I was just a toy. A toy they could mess with whenever they wanted, without any consequences. After all, Ethan would never get mad. He would always take her side. I turned around and floated away from the living room. I didn’t want to hear their laughter anymore. I didn’t want to know how they mocked me. I was dead. None of this had anything to do with me anymore. But why did it still hurt? Later that night, Ethan came to the door again. This time, he knocked. “Hazel, come out.” No response. “If you don’t say anything, I’m coming in.” Still no response. Ethan pushed the door open. The room was pitch black. He reached for the switch on the wall. The light flicked on. My body was still lying on the bed. In the exact same position as this afternoon. My face was even more swollen now. My lips had turned a dark purple. My fingers were curled up tightly, stiff and pale. Ethan stood at the doorway. He looked at me and frowned. “Are you still pulling this stunt?” He didn’t walk in. He stood by the door, crossing his arms. He was less than three feet away from me. Three feet. His wife was dead. Lying right there, three feet away from him. He looked at me for three seconds. Then he turned around and walked away. “Hazel, I’m telling you, if you don’t get up, I’m freezing your credit cards tomorrow.” His voice boomed from the living room. He didn’t look back. He didn’t hesitate. He just left. I floated above the head of the bed. Looking at my own corpse. Swollen beyond recognition. Even I could barely recognize myself. Ethan. You didn’t recognize me. Because you never actually looked at me. Whenever you looked at me, it was always with impatience. You always thought I was playing victim, being dramatic, pretending. You never once thought. That one day, I would actually die. I was dead, and you still didn’t believe it. The game ended, and the rain outside gradually stopped. Chloe glanced at the closed bedroom door and sighed. “Ethan, she still won’t come out. She clearly doesn’t want me here. Forget it, I should just go home.” “She’s always like this, don’t take it to heart… I’ll drive you.” Ethan grabbed his jacket. “No, it’s fine. You should stay and be with her. She’s still mad.” “It’s pouring. I’m not letting you drive alone.” Ethan was already putting his jacket on. “Let’s go.” The two of them walked out. The lock clicked shut. The entire house fell into complete silence. Only I was left. Lying in the dark room. My phone lay on the floor. One corner of the screen was cracked. Notifications kept popping up. From Ethan. From my manager, Sarah. From coworkers asking about work. None of them knew. The owner of this phone. Would never reply again. Ethan didn’t get back until almost eleven. He came in, took off his shoes, and changed his clothes. As he passed the bedroom door, he paused. “Hazel, seriously…” He cracked the door open and looked inside. The light was still on. I was still lying there, unchanged. He stood at the door and sighed. “You are so frustrating.” Then he reached in, turned off the light, and went to sleep in the guest room. *Click.* The room fell into darkness. My soul stood in the dark. Looking at my own corpse. I suddenly remembered a post I had scrolled past a few days ago. It asked: *If you died alone in your apartment, how long would it take for someone to find you?*

Some said three days. Some said a week. Some said it depended on when the neighbors started smelling the rot. At the time, I thought: *That won’t happen to me.* *I have a husband.* *No matter what, he would find me, right?* Now, I knew the truth. He wouldn’t. He would just think I was throwing a tantrum. Being dramatic. Playing dead. And even when I was actually dead. He still wouldn’t believe it. The next morning, Ethan got up and made breakfast. The sound of eggs sizzling came from the kitchen. The delicious aroma drifted in. It used to be my favorite smell. “Hazel, wake up. You’re going to be late.” Ethan called out from the kitchen. No response. “Hazel!” Still no response. “Seriously, every single day.” Ethan walked out of the kitchen holding a plate of fried eggs. He glanced at the bedroom door. He didn’t walk over. He picked up his phone and sent me a text: “Are you getting up or what? I don’t care if you’re late.” The message was sent. No reply. He sent another one: “Hazel, don’t push me.” Still no reply. He slammed his phone on the table. “Unbelievable.” He packed his things. And went to work. The house fell completely quiet. Only I was left. Lying in the dark room. At ten in the morning. Sarah, my manager, called. Ethan answered. “Ethan, why isn’t Hazel at work today?” “Oh? She’s not there?” “No, she hasn’t showed up.” “That’s…” Ethan’s voice sounded confused. “She was throwing a fit last night and locked herself in the room. I thought she left for work on her own this morning.” “You should go home and check on her right away.” “Okay, I will.” The call ended. But Ethan didn’t go back immediately. He told his coworkers he had an errand to run. Then he kept working on his tasks. It wasn’t until noon. That he finally drove back home. When he walked through the door, he was still complaining. “Hazel, you better come out. We are having this out today.” He walked to the bedroom door. He pushed it open. The lights were off. The curtains were still drawn. It was pitch black. He reached out and flipped the switch. The light came on. I was still lying on the bed. In the exact same position as yesterday. I hadn’t even changed my clothes. The swelling had gone down a bit. But my lips were even darker now. A deep purple, almost black. “Hazel?” Ethan’s voice changed. He realized something was wrong. I would never skip work just to throw a tantrum. No matter how mad I was, I would never skip work. Because I knew the consequences of missing work were serious. So I always got up on time, went to work on time. No matter how miserable I felt. But this time, I hadn’t gotten up. Ethan finally walked closer. He reached the side of the bed. He reached out and pushed my shoulder. “Hazel? Stop scaring me…” My body moved. Stiff, ice cold, like a block of stone. Ethan jerked his hand back. He stared at my face. Stared at my swollen features. My purple lips. My curled fingers. His pupils dilated in sheer terror. “Hazel!!”

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On Valentine’s Day, I posted two beautiful photos of my wife on TikTok. I never expected her young, secret sugar baby to twist the truth and brand me as a creepy stalker online. He even brought a gang of college kids, who called themselves “social justice warriors,” and cornered me right at my company’s entrance. “Hey, old man! You’re in your forties. Still trying to cradle-snatch a young girl?” “Society is trash because of creeps like you. We Gen Zers are going to teach you how to behave today!” They trashed my office and tried to force my face into a puddle of piss to “look at myself.” What he didn’t know was that my wife was actually forty years old. She just looked twenty because of heavy plastic surgery. And he had no idea that every single penny my wife spent on him came directly from my bank account. Now, it was time to take back everything that belonged to me. On my way back to the office after lunch, I happened to scroll into a live stream on TikTok. The title of the stream was: *Watch me hunt down a creepy stalker and teach him a lesson.* Like most netizens, I stayed in the room just to watch the drama unfold. In the video, a row of young college boys stood in a line. They held up signs that read: “Death to Creeps,” “Beat Up the Stalker,” and “Justice Will Be Served.” As I watched, the background behind them started to look incredibly familiar. The next second, a hyped-up voice came through my speaker: “Alright guys! Taking down creeps is risky business. Send some gifts, and your boy will have more courage to face him!” My phone volume was turned up, but that voice sounded like it was coming from right next to me. I froze for a couple of seconds. When I looked up, I realized this crowd was standing right at the front gates of my company. No wonder the background looked familiar. My phone suddenly flashed a “30 seconds to battery shut down” warning. I put it away and decided to watch the scene play out in real life. Right then, the leader was still shouting into his camera: “Look, guys! This is the office where that creep works. Today, I’m going to expose his disgusting face in front of everyone!” As soon as he said that, the live chat went absolutely wild. [Oh my god, that’s my dream company! How did a creep like him get hired there?] [Birds of a feather flock together. Maybe the whole company is trash!] [Support the streamer! Thank you for protecting us girls. Sisters, let’s shower him with gifts!] [A true hero! Justice might be late, but it’s never absent!] With the continuous stream of paid gifts, the viewer count skyrocketed. Seeing my company’s hard-earned reputation dragged through the mud on a live stream made my heart sink. This was bad. Very bad. I would never allow one bad apple to ruin the company I built from scratch. But first, I needed to figure out what exactly was going on. So, I walked up to them. Before I could even open my mouth, the leader aggressively shoved his phone right into my face. The metal case slammed into my forehead. I winced in pain. He yelled at the camera, “Guys, look! This is the man! He looks all decent in his suit, but he’s actually a disgusting creep who takes candid photos of girls!” I was totally dazed. “Are you guys mistaken?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I was a married man. I always kept a respectful distance from other women, and I certainly didn’t have a hobby of secretly taking photos of strangers. I couldn’t understand how this had anything to do with me. However, he had no intention of explaining. He slammed the phone into my face again. This time, I knew it was intentional. He sneered, spitting out insults: “Old man, you must be in your late forties. You’re practically pushing fifty, and you’re still trying to get with young girls?” “Society is dirty because of scum like you. Today, we’re going to teach you a lesson!” Before I could react, he punched me straight in the face. I stumbled back a few steps, my mind going completely blank from the impact. After shaking off the dizziness, I shouted, “Calm down! If you keep being unreasonable, I’m calling the police!”

I usually have a very stern look. Being the CEO of a major company, my presence alone is usually enough to intimidate people. The younger employees in my office usually walked on eggshells around me. I thought raising my voice would make them back down so we could talk. But these kids completely ignored my warning. They crowded around me, spitting and shouting insults. “Your mom might tolerate you, but we won’t! We’re going to teach you how to act!” “People who don’t respect women shouldn’t even exist. If I were your dad, I would’ve suffocated you at birth!” In the chaos, someone spat on my sleeve. The cold moisture made my skin crawl with disgust. I had lived for over forty years, and I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be cornered and bullied by a bunch of college kids at my own office door. It was lunchtime. Many of my employees were returning from their break. But the entrance was completely blocked by these thugs, so nobody could get in. As the crowd of onlookers grew, I swallowed my disgust and looked the leader in the eye. “I am saying this for the last time. You have the wrong person. I am not the creep you’re looking for, and I have never done what you claim!” “Furthermore, I am married. Watch your mouth. If you continue this harassment, I will sue you for defamation!” I figured they were just hot-headed kids who made a mistake. I was willing to give them one chance to back off. As long as they admitted their mistake, I was willing to let it go. But to my surprise, my words only made him laugh louder. “You have the guts to take the photos, but not the guts to admit it? What a coward!” “Hilarious! Do all married men love to cheat? Since your wife can’t control you, we’ll do her a favor and teach you a lesson!” The boy looked at me like I was piece of garbage. “You want to sue us? Are you out of your mind? You took photos of my girlfriend and posted them online. We’re the ones who should sue you!” Wait. My mind raced. When did I ever post photos of someone else’s girlfriend online? I stared at him. “You say I posted photos of your girlfriend. Show me the proof.” I wondered if someone was using my identity to do shady things online. After all, the only photos I had posted recently were of my wife. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Otherwise, why would they be so sure it was me? I betted he couldn’t produce any real proof, or at least, his proof would be a mistake. “Fine! Let’s make sure you go down with no excuses!” The boy tapped on his phone and quickly pulled up a page. He shoved the screen in front of my face and sneered, “The evidence is right here. What do you have to say now?” I looked at the screen, ready to dismiss it. But the moment I saw it, I froze. The page on his phone was my own TikTok account. Specifically, the post I made this morning. Today was Valentine’s Day. I had rarely posted about my personal life, but today I had shared two beautiful photos of my wife. When I checked it earlier, it only had a few likes. But now, the screen showed tens of thousands of likes, and the comment section was overflowing. My brain worked fast. I immediately connected the dots. I looked at the boy standing in the center. He had pale, smooth skin and a cute, boyish face—the exact type people on Snapchat call a “pretty boy.” On closer look, he actually looked a bit familiar. But I didn’t dwell on that. If I recalled correctly, he had just said that the woman in the photos was his girlfriend. There were too many details here, pointing to a dark truth. But I kept my cool. I decided to test him. “Aren’t you guys being a bit too impulsive? What’s wrong with me posting photos of my own wife?” “You claim she’s your girlfriend? Why don’t we call her here right now and clear this up?” The moment I said that, the boys burst into loud, mocking laughter. “Old man! Go look in a mirror. What young girl would ever choose you?” The leader turned to the crowd of onlookers and yelled, “Sisters! Would any of you date an old man twenty years older than you?” Someone in the crowd yelled back, “No way!” A smug grin spread across his face. “If you had to choose, would you date me, or him?” He pointed to himself, then to me. Unsurprisingly, everyone cheered for him. This area was filled with office buildings. I scanned the crowd, hoping to see a familiar face who could speak up for me, but there was no one. Some people even started advising me to delete the photos and apologize so the kids would let me go. I looked at these young, energetic faces, but all I felt from them was pure, unadulterated malice. Suddenly, a realization flashed through my mind. I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a document folder. “This is the physical copy of my marriage certificate with Vanessa. You claim Vanessa is your girlfriend. Where is your proof?” Vanessa had always been insecure and insisted I carry a copy of our marriage certificate in my briefcase for our joint insurance update today. I never expected it to come in handy like this. But before I could even hold it up, one of the boys snatched the document from my hand and ripped it into pieces. “Nice try with the fake document! Do you think we’re stupid? Leo, this guy is shameless. Let’s give him what he deserves!” Leo! Leo Vance?! Hearing that name made my blood run cold. Fragmented memories suddenly rushed back into my head.

I had heard that name from my wife, Vanessa. A few months ago, Vanessa showed me a photo of a young guy on her phone. She told me he was her cousin who had just got into the top university in our city. She said, as his older cousin, she wanted to buy him a nice gift, but didn’t know what he liked. She asked if she could just transfer some cash to him instead. I didn’t mind, of course. Not long after, I heard her on the phone, saying, “Leo, I transferred the money. Study hard, and let me know if you need anything else, okay?” She hung up with a sweet smile on her face. Seeing me staring at her, she hugged my arm and explained, “My cousin’s name is Leo Vance. If you ever meet him, you have to take good care of him for me!” I hadn’t recognized him immediately because that happened last year, and I had completely forgotten what the boy in the photo looked like. The only thing I remembered was that over the past year, Vanessa had transferred a lot of money to this “Leo Vance.” But since that was her allowance, I never questioned how she spent it or who she gave it to. Now, it seemed like it wasn’t her cousin at all. What Leo did next confirmed my worst fears. As if to rub it in my face, he pulled out his phone and started a FaceTime call. When the call connected, he said, “Babe, I have a surprise for you tonight. Let’s celebrate Valentine’s Day together.” The next second, a voice I knew better than my own came through the speaker: “Of course, baby! I can’t wait!” It was Vanessa. Even though it was a hot summer afternoon, I felt like I had been plunged into an icy lake. Vanessa and I were high school sweethearts. I had loved her for years, and we finally got married. We had been married for over a decade. Although we didn’t have kids, we had always enjoyed our life together. Our relationship had only grown stronger over the years. Our friends always teased us for being as clingy as newlyweds. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought she would cheat on me. And I certainly never expected her to be keeping a twenty-year-old college student as her sugar baby. My entire world shattered in that instant. While I stood there frozen, a familiar voice called out, “Mr. Sterling? What’s going on here?” It was my assistant, Justin. His voice snapped me back to reality. “Call the police! Have all of them arrested! And call Vanessa. Tell her to get her ass down here right now!” For years, I had pampered her, spoiled her, and made sure she never had to lift a finger. And this was how she repaid me? Vanessa, how dare you! I clenched my fists, fury burning in my chest. Although Justin was confused, he immediately pulled out his phone to follow my orders. But before he could dial, one of the college kids slapped the phone out of his hand. It shattered on the pavement. “He’s with the creep! He’s probably trying to delete the evidence!” The boy then stomped on the phone, crushing it completely. I stared at them coldly. “What do you want?” Leo sneered. “Don’t think that just because you know my girlfriend’s name and made up a fake marriage story, I’ll be scared of you.” He laughed mockingly. “So, you’re saying this is your company?” “Yes,” I replied coldly. Leo threw his head back and laughed. The boys behind him joined in, howling with laughter. Before I could call them crazy, Leo turned to his gang. “Brothers, go inside and trash the place!”

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On our third anniversary, I planned to surprise Chloe with a proposal and take her straight to City Hall to get married. I even took a grueling red-eye flight back to the country just to make it in time. I had been scrolling through social media looking for proposal ideas when a viral video with tens of millions of views caught my eye. Under a stunning sky of artificial northern lights and a canopy of stars, thousands of pink roses swayed in the wind. In the center of it all, a man was down on one knee. The comment section was flooded with congratulations, everyone envying the rich guy’s “financial superpower.” My grip tightened on my phone. With trembling fingers, I uploaded the video of my own engagement party from a year ago. Because the woman receiving the grand proposal in that viral video was Chloe—my fiancée. 00 The moment I posted the video, it blew up. “What is going on here? A proposal on one side, and an engagement on the other?” “Look at the timestamp in the photos! The engagement was a year ago. Bro, your green hat is brighter than those artificial northern lights.” “Run, bro! She’s a textbook gold digger!” Right then, Chloe called to check in, just like she did every day. She clearly had no idea she had just become an internet sensation. “Hey babe, I’m still out of town on this business trip. I might have a business dinner tonight, so I won’t be able to FaceTime. Miss me, okay? Mua!” she chirped, blowing a quick kiss into the receiver. Through the phone, I could hear loud music and people cheering in the background. I even faintly heard someone shouting, “Kiss her! Kiss her!” But Chloe didn’t bother to explain. She was always like this, never caring about my feelings. To make it back for our third anniversary, I had spent over ten hours on connecting flights. I had pulled three all-nighters straight to cram a week’s worth of business meetings into three days. She always claimed she was an introvert who hated big, flashy crowds. So, I spent hours decorating our cozy apartment with her favorite pink roses. But now I realized she didn’t hate grand gestures. She just hated them with me. “You can’t make it back again?” My voice cracked. For three years, she had bailed on every single anniversary with the exact same excuse. “It’s not even a big deal, Ethan. If I rush back now, I’ll have to drive for two hours. Do you know how tiring that is?” she whined, trying to act cute. Right. A two-hour drive was too tiring for her. But my ten-hour flight and three days of no sleep meant absolutely nothing. “It must be exhausting. After all, you’ve been busy getting proposed to all day. How could you possibly find the time to come back?” The line went dead silent for a moment. Then, Chloe burst into defensive tears. “What the hell are you talking about? We aren’t even married yet, and you’re already spying on me? I work so hard every day for what? For our future! For our home!” “If I don’t work, do you think we can survive on your pathetic salary?” I let out a cold laugh and forwarded her the viral proposal video on Snapchat. “Are the artificial northern lights beautiful? The roses look great too. And that diamond ring—so big and shiny.” “Since when did your job description change to ‘stand-in fiancée’? How much do they pay you per day for that?” For a long time, there was no sound from the other end of the line, only her rapid, panicked breathing. She must have finally opened TikTok and seen the comment section. “Ethan Miller! We aren’t married yet, and you’re already tracking my every move? Delete that video right now!” Chloe screamed, her voice shaking with rage. “Julian and I were classmates in college! He has a girlfriend. He just asked me to help him test out the venue today!” “Do you have to make such a big deal out of nothing? We’ve been together for three years. Don’t you have any trust in me?” “Besides, Julian has several major projects tied to our company right now. How could I dare offend a VIP client? You’re just insecure because of your own lack of ability, you coward!” As always, she turned it around to attack my competence, comparing me to Julian. “Then what about the ring?” I asked. A rock that size on her finger was hard to miss. “My ring size is similar to his fiancée’s! He was nervous, so he asked me to try it on to see how it looked. It was just a rehearsal to calm his nerves!” Chloe only dared to lie so shamelessly because she knew how much I loved her. But this lie was too ridiculous even for a toddler. She was only comforting her own guilt. I was too exhausted to argue. Summoning every ounce of courage I had left, I said, “Return the $50,000 wedding fund I gave your family. The wedding is off.” ###0

I hung up, feeling completely hollowed out. I tore down all the pink roses, threw them in the trash, and booked a professional cleaning service on the app. I had them pack up every single piece of Chloe’s clothing and belongings and dump them outside the building. Looking at the empty apartment, my body finally relaxed. The exhaustion of three days without sleep caught up to me, and I collapsed onto the floor, losing consciousness. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. The nurse told me the cleaning crew had found me and called an ambulance. They had prepaid the fee and requested a refund through the platform. I nodded, opened my phone to pay them back, and was immediately bombarded with Snapchat notifications from Chloe. “Babe, I was a bit harsh last night. But if you hadn’t accused me first, I wouldn’t have gotten so angry.” “Please don’t be mad at me, okay?” Seeing that I didn’t reply, her tone quickly shifted back to arrogance. “Ethan, you were the one who begged me to be with you in the first place. I already explained everything about Julian. Stop acting like a dramatic, whiny child over nothing!” Even now, she still thought I was the one making a scene. I opened the video I had posted. It was still trending, but the comment section had split into two opposing sides. — *They aren’t even married yet. It’s the 21st century, why can’t a girl choose a guy with better financial prospects?* — *Why is everyone blaming the girl? Maybe the guy is just too broke to afford a wedding after all these years?* As the video gained traction overnight, Chloe’s parents had somehow seen it. They had actually liked those comments and even replied publicly: — *When did Julian get back? Bring him over for dinner tomorrow night.* — *It’s been so long. Bring him over quickly! Arthur has been talking about having a drink with him for years. He hasn’t had a good drink since Julian left.* I stared at their comments, feeling a cold numbness wash over me. So, Chloe had already brought Julian home back when they were in college. Judging by her parents’ warm attitude, they loved Julian. What did that make me? For the past three years, every time I visited her parents, they treated me like garbage. Our engagement had been a nightmare to arrange. Her parents looked down on me because I was just an entry-level employee making peanuts back then. They despised the fact that I wasn’t a local and didn’t own a house or a car. They did everything they could to tear us apart. To prove myself, I worked myself to the bone. I drank so much at business dinners that I ended up with stomach bleeding, all because I wanted to build a life in this city and prove to her parents that Chloe hadn’t made a mistake. Finally, I made manager. Then, luck struck, and I was promoted to General Manager. In just two years, I saved up enough for the wedding fund and the down payment on a condo. Only then did her parents reluctantly agree to our engagement. Over the years, I didn’t just work; I had to constantly cater to her parents. I sent them a monthly allowance of $1,000 to cover their mortgage and bills. Following her parents’ demands, the deed to our condo was registered solely under Chloe’s name. I worked overtime constantly to pay off that mortgage. The moment it was paid off, her parents claimed the condo was too small and demanded I buy another house under her younger brother Leo’s name for them to live in. And like a fool, I agreed to that too. Yet, they still treated me like a second-class citizen. They looked down on my small-town upbringing, thinking I lacked class. I quietly closed the app. Another Snapchat notification popped up from Chloe: *Julian is coming over to my parents’ place for dinner tonight. Are you coming?* Before I could even type “No,” her next message popped up: *My dad said he wants a luxury watch, and Leo wants the new iPhone. My mom has her eye on a Hermes bag. Don’t forget to buy them and bring them over.* *Julian prepared very expensive gifts for tonight. Do not make me look bad in front of him.* I looked at the screen and let out a bitter, mocking laugh. Did they honestly think I was the Jenkins family’s personal, bottomless ATM? I immediately called my assistant and told her to prepare a lawsuit. I wanted every single cent I had spent on them back. If they refused to pay, I would drag them to court. When I arrived at the Jenkins’ house, I saw Julian sitting on the sofa, laughing and chatting with Chloe’s parents like they were one big happy family. Seeing my empty hands, Chloe’s face darkened instantly. She rushed over, grabbed my arm, and pinched my waist hard. “Where are the things I asked you to buy?” “Ethan, are you trying to humiliate me on purpose?” Mrs. Jenkins was even worse. In the past, she at least ignored me while grabbing the expensive gifts from my hands. Now, she looked right through me as if I were invisible. Right then, Julian started showcasing his gifts. “Arthur, Helen, I bought this premium red ginseng for you both. It’s great for your health.” “And I got this iPad and MacBook for Leo. I heard he’s in college now, so these should be useful.” “I came back in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to prepare much. I hope you don’t mind.” I knew Julian was doing this on purpose. I had bought them far more expensive electronics over the years, but they had never treated me with even a fraction of this warmth. The parents beamed as they accepted the gifts, throwing a disdainful glance at me. “What are you standing there for?” Mrs. Jenkins snapped. “A grown man coming to eat for free. Go to the kitchen and help bring out the dishes!” ###0

They still expected me to play the submissive servant, just like always. If this were the past, I would have gone straight to the kitchen without a word. But now, I stood by the door, completely still. Chloe pinched me again, but I shoved her hand away coldly. “Ethan! What the hell is wrong with you? If you didn’t want to come, you shouldn’t have! I didn’t force you!” “Do you have to ruin everyone’s mood to be satisfied?” Leo chimed in from the couch, “Exactly! Chloe said you were going to bring me the new iPhone. Instead, you showed up empty-handed. Julian was the one who actually got me gifts. How do you even have the face to stand there?” Looking at this family of parasites, I realized how pathetic I had been. Every word they said was a reminder of how I had let them treat me like a dog for three years. “Are you all paralyzed? If you want expensive things, why don’t you get off your asses, get a job, and buy them yourselves?” Chloe’s eyes widened in fury. “Ethan! How dare you talk to my family like that? Where are your manners?” “I told you from day one he was just a classless boy from a small town!” Mrs. Jenkins added, sneering. “He has no breeding. We aren’t even married yet, and he’s already disrespecting us. Imagine what he’ll be like after the wedding!” “Ethan, are you still throwing a tantrum over that video from last night?” Arthur Jenkins, who had been quiet, suddenly spoke up. “Chloe explained everything to us. It was just a misunderstanding.” “Since she explained it, you should drop it. You know our families come from different social backgrounds. Why are you being so petty over a silly internet rumor?” Julian smiled politely and joined in. “Yes, Ethan. It was just a misunderstanding. Even if you don’t trust me, you should trust Chloe. She’s such a good girl, she would never jeopardize her reputation. How is she supposed to face the neighbors if you keep making a scene?” “As a man, your job is to work hard and give her a better life, not to restrict her social circle.” Julian’s words were so smooth. If he cared so much about her, why didn’t he buy Chloe and her brother a house? “This is what real class looks like,” Mrs. Jenkins sneered, looking at Julian before turning back to me. “If our family hadn’t gone through that financial crisis back then, do you honestly think a loser like you would have ever had a chance with my daughter?” She was referring to the time their family business went bankrupt due to fraud and cutting corners. Chloe and Julian had been dating in college. They had planned to move abroad together, but after the bankruptcy, Chloe was forced to stay behind. She didn’t even finish her degree and had to start working. Unable to survive the long-distance relationship, she and Julian broke up. When I first started dating Chloe, she constantly begged me for money to support her family. At first, she didn’t tell me about their bankruptcy. It was only after I pressed her that she admitted they owed a massive debt. I didn’t care about the money back then. I just felt incredibly sorry for her, thinking she was a brilliant girl whose future had been ruined by her family’s misfortune. So, I worked harder. In the end, I was the one who paid off their entire $500,000 debt. But the Jenkins family never showed a shred of gratitude. They took it all for granted. To them, Julian and Chloe were the perfect match. If I hadn’t interfered, they would have been together long ago. With Julian’s wealthy background, they wouldn’t have had to suffer for so many years. “Since you love Julian so much, perfect,” I said coldly. “Return all the money I’ve spent on your family over the past three years. The wedding is off. I’m stepping aside to let them be together.” Arthur and Helen Jenkins stared at me in disbelief. I had spent three years acting like a loyal golden retriever, doing whatever Chloe asked. This was the first time they had ever seen me stand up for myself. “Ethan, have you no shame?” Leo yelled. “My sister gave you three of her best years without even asking for a marriage certificate, and now you want your money back?” Mrs. Jenkins pointed a finger at my face, her voice screeching. “What do you think my daughter is? A toy? You got to sleep with her for three years for free! If you want to call off the wedding, fine! But that money is what she deserves. You won’t get a single dime back!” For three years, I had never actually slept with Chloe. She insisted on saving herself for our wedding night, claiming she wanted our first time to be special. If Chloe hadn’t cheated, I would have tolerated her family’s awful behavior. Even after discovering her betrayal, I was initially willing to write off the $500,000 debt and let her keep the condo out of respect for our past. But their utter shamelessness made me want to strip them of everything. “Ethan, I think you’ve really misunderstood,” Julian said, standing up with a sigh of mock disappointment. “If my presence causes this much trouble, I won’t see Chloe again. Arthur, Helen, I’m so sorry for causing this drama. I should probably leave.” Arthur Jenkins immediately grabbed Julian’s wrist to stop him. “This has nothing to do with you, Julian! It’s just this petty boy being insecure. You are our honored guest. If anyone is leaving, it’s the trash!” By “trash,” he meant me. I pulled out the legal notice and the court summons and tossed them right in front of Chloe. She instantly exploded. “Ethan, are you out of your mind? If you want to get lost, get lost! Don’t use some fake lawsuit to threaten me!” She shoved me out the front door and slammed it in my face. Before the door clicked shut, I heard Leo’s panicked voice from inside. “Chloe, you just kicked him out… but what about the money? Over the years, he really did pay for a lot of our—” “Shut up!” Chloe barked, cutting him off. “What do you know? He’s just upset because of that video. He’s throwing a tantrum to try and gain some leverage over me.” “What is this garbage anyway?” Chloe scoffed. I could hear the sound of paper being ripped to shreds. “Just wait. In a few days, he’ll come crawling back like a dog, begging for my forgiveness!” “You really know how to handle him, Chloe!” Leo laughed. The heavy thud of the door cut off the rest of their conversation. In that exact moment, whatever love I had left for Chloe died.

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My daughter was dying. The donor heart meant for her life-saving surgery was gone. And my wife, the chief surgeon who was supposed to perform the operation, had run off to another city to care for her ex-boyfriend’s daughter. While I was frantically searching for the heart, I discovered the brutal truth: my wife had personally transferred our daughter’s heart to her ex’s kid. Furious, I called her over and over until she finally picked up. But she didn’t care. She just gave me a cold, irritated warning. “Arthur, I’m warning you, stop using Lily’s illness to get attention. Her condition is stable enough for another five years. But Julian’s daughter only has two years left. This heart goes to her first!” And so, my daughter died in absolute despair. Yet, when my wife finally saw Lily’s cold body and the real medical charts, she fell to her knees, sobbing and begging me not to divorce her. During dinner, my daughter’s heart condition suddenly took a turn for the worse. The ambulance rushed her to the ER. I called my wife frantically, hoping she would rush back to perform the emergency surgery. But the only response I got was a text saying she was away in another city for a medical seminar. After I pressed her repeatedly, I found out the truth. She wasn’t at a seminar. She was at a hospital out of town, caring for her ex-boyfriend’s daughter. Then, a doctor approached me with devastating news. The donor heart we had secured for Lily had already been used. My daughter’s surgery couldn’t happen. There was no heart left for her. Panic seized me. I pushed through the crowd of doctors and ran to Lily’s bedside. I grabbed her tiny, cold hand, whispering that everything would be okay, telling her not to be afraid. She looked at me with pure terror in her eyes, her lips already turning a pale blue. “Daddy… where is Mommy?” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Why won’t Mommy come see me? Does she… does she not love me anymore?” “Daddy, tell Mommy I promise I’ll be good. I won’t get jealous of Chloe anymore. I won’t cry when Mommy hugs her. Can you please tell Mommy to come see me?” “Daddy, I’m so tired… I don’t think I’ll get to see Mommy again.” My heart shattered into a million pieces. Tears soaked my face. I grabbed a nearby doctor, demanding to know why the heart I had spent millions to secure was given to someone else. The doctor reluctantly showed me the authorization form. It was signed by my wife, Clara. She had personally approved the transfer of that heart to another patient. It felt like a lightning strike. I couldn’t comprehend it. Why? Why would she do this? This was our daughter! How could she be so heartless? How could she give Lily’s life-saving heart to someone else’s child? I fell to my knees, begging the doctors to do something, anything, to save her. I told them I’d pay whatever it took. She was only six years old. She had her whole life ahead of her. But the heart monitor was already flatlining, emitting a sharp, agonizing beep. The doctors rushed past me, desperately performing CPR on my little girl. Lily’s breathing became shallow and ragged. Her face was completely blue, and her tiny body convulsed in pain. It looked like pure torture. I collapsed in the corner of the room, burying my face in my hands, sobbing hysterically. I dialed Clara’s number over and over until she finally answered. Her voice was dripping with impatience. “Are you insane, Arthur?” she snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you? Stop using Lily’s condition as an excuse to drag me home. Act like a man for once. All this crying and whining is pathetic. It’s why I can’t stand you!” “Shut up! Shut up! Just shut the hell up!” I screamed into the phone, my voice raw. “Lily is dead! Lily is dead because of you!” “How could you give her heart to someone else?!” I roared. On the other end, Clara’s voice turned to pure disgust. “Enough, Arthur. Did you have too much to drink? You’re actually lying about our daughter being dead just to trick me into coming back?” “Lily’s condition is stable enough to last another ten years. As a doctor, when I see another child in immediate danger, why shouldn’t I use the heart? Should I really let a perfect donor heart sit around for ten years?” “Who did you give it to? Tell me! Who did you steal my daughter’s life for?!” But Clara just hung up on me. I had to use my own hands to gently close my daughter’s eyes—eyes that had died wide open, filled with confusion and pain. I watched as they covered her with a white sheet and wheeled her into the morgue. My entire world felt blurred, like I was trapped under a thick sheet of ice. Lily was dead. And she was killed by the mother she loved the most.

The next morning, Clara came home. She was holding the hand of a young girl. It was Chloe, the daughter of her ex-boyfriend, Julian. I sat on the couch, surrounded by empty liquor bottles, staring blankly ahead. I didn’t even look at them. Clara took one look at the mess and sneered. “This dramatic act of yours is honestly repulsive. I was only gone for two days to take care of Chloe.” “You’re acting like I committed some ultimate betrayal, putting on this pathetic display of grief!” “Chloe, sweetheart, watch your step. Let’s go to the guest room.” Looking at her, a cold laugh bubbled up in my chest. Clara was so incredibly gentle. She was always so attentive when it came to her ex’s child. When Lily was alive, there was an incident where a glass broke on the floor. Shards were scattered everywhere. Clara never once told Lily to “watch her step” in that gentle voice. Instead, she had screamed at her, calling her blind, useless, and saying she would grow up to be a pathetic failure just like her father. I used to think she just didn’t like kids, that she lacked patience. So, I raised Lily mostly on my own. But now I realized the truth. She didn’t hate kids. She just hated our daughter. Since Lily’s death felt suspicious, I now looked at everyone entering my house with intense distrust. Seeing Chloe, who had been staying at our place on and off, filled me with sudden, uncontrollable rage. “Get out! Both of you, get the hell out of my house! Who gave you permission to bring her here?!” My sudden outburst startled both of them. Chloe instantly teared up, looking terrified. A flash of pain crossed Clara’s face. She rushed forward, stepping between me and Chloe, her voice dripping with anger. “Arthur! Chloe has a severe heart condition! Do you want to trigger her? If you scare her into an attack, I will make you pay!” Hearing the words “heart condition” made my eyes burn with rage. She truly had no soul. Her ex’s daughter had a heart condition, so she kept her close, treating her constantly. But what about Lily? She ignored Lily entirely, and then stole the heart I had begged dozens of people to secure, giving it away to someone else. Did she really not notice anything wrong? Usually, the second Clara walked through the door, Lily would run out, shouting “Mommy!” But today, there was only silence. Yet, Clara only cared about defending her ex’s child. “Chloe, honey, are you okay? Did he scare you? You just had surgery, you need to keep your heart rate down. Tell me, do you feel any discomfort?” Hearing the word “surgery,” I snapped my head up. My fists clenched so hard my knuckles turned white. I glared at them and asked in a low, dangerous voice: “Where did Chloe get the heart for her surgery?” Chloe whimpered, completely terrified, and burst into tears. Clara’s face hardened further. “Arthur, what is wrong with you?!” “I already told you, she has a heart condition and just got out of surgery! She is in recovery! Stop shouting!” I lost all control. I pointed at her and roared, “Really? I didn’t know you cared so much about heart patients! Lily’s heart was failing too, but I never saw you give a single damn about her!” “Did you give Lily’s heart to Chloe?!” Before Clara could answer, Chloe sobbed and spoke up in a shaky voice. “Uncle Arthur… I’m sorry. I didn’t know that heart belonged to Lily. I was just really sick. The doctors said I wouldn’t survive another two years, so Aunt Clara switched it for me…” My hands shook with violent rage. How dare they? I had begged, pleaded, and literally knelt on the cold floor in front of donors and hospital boards to get that heart to save my daughter. How could they just take it and put it in this girl? My eyes bloodshot, my expression twisted into something monstrous. At that moment, I wanted to rip that heart right out of Chloe’s chest. But Clara stepped in front of her, shielding her. “Arthur, have you lost your mind? Chloe was going to die within two years. She needed that heart immediately. What’s wrong with me signing off on it?” “Yes, that heart was hard to get. But Lily had ten years to find another one. Chloe couldn’t wait! “I gave it to the one who needed it first. Isn’t that normal? Why are you being so incredibly selfish?” “No wonder I want a divorce. Living with a selfish, small-minded bastard like you is suffocating!” I felt my chest tightening, my voice trembling as I forced out each word: “Who… is… your… actual… daughter?!” Clara remained stubborn. “You can’t even see the bigger picture. I told you, Chloe was my patient first. Lily still has ten years. Do you really think we can’t find another match in ten years?” “Stop yelling at me! You’re so useless!” My heart went completely cold. The last spark of affection I had for this woman died. I reached into my bag and threw the pre-prepared divorce papers onto the coffee table. “Sign it. I have nothing left to say to you.” Clara’s jaw dropped. She looked at the papers in disbelief. “I told you, Chloe is just my patient! Don’t assume I’m sleeping with Julian just because I helped his daughter. We are completely clean!” “Julian saved my life once. Helping his daughter is just me paying him back. Why do you have to make everything so dramatic?!”

The “life-saving debt” Clara kept talking about happened over ten years ago. She was still in college back then. One night, she was cornered in an alley by thugs who wanted to rob and assault her. Julian stepped in to save her, losing the use of his left arm in the process. Because of that, Clara stayed with him for five years. The only reason she married me was because her family went bankrupt shortly after. Her father developed a severe heart condition and needed an expensive surgery immediately. She couldn’t borrow the money anywhere. Eventually, she came to me, her childhood friend. She knew I loved her. She told me that if I paid for her father’s surgery, she would marry me. I didn’t want to take advantage of her situation. I refused her proposal but planned to anonymously transfer the money to her anyway. But she misunderstood my refusal. That night, she set me up. She got me drunk, made it look like we slept together, and used the guilt to pressure me into marriage. And so, we got married. Though her father’s surgery was successful, he didn’t survive long. He passed away three years into our marriage. I didn’t care about her past. I had married the woman of my dreams, and I pampered her, giving in to her every whim. But after her father died, her heart began to wander. Somehow, she reconnected with Julian. By then, Julian was divorced and raising a daughter on his own. Clara treated Julian’s daughter like her own, keeping her by her side constantly. Lily loved Clara so much. She constantly starved for her mother’s affection. To keep Lily from being sad, I turned a blind eye to a lot of things. I tolerated it all, just so Lily could occasionally hear a kind word from her “Mommy.” But it was all just my delusion. Clara didn’t care about Lily at all. After reconnecting with Julian, she grew to despise me more each day, constantly sighing about her “horrible fate” and how she was stuck in an unhappy marriage with me. Now that Lily was gone, I had no reason to stay. I was going to end this marriage once and for all. Beside me, Clara was carefully checking Chloe’s vitals with a worried frown. Anyone watching would think Chloe was her biological child. “Chloe, sweetie, you look a little pale. I’m worried. Let’s go down to the clinic and get you checked out.” Without looking back, she carried Chloe out the door. I watched her go, realizing she was completely beyond saving. When Lily’s heart was failing, she had told her mother she felt sick. Clara had dismissed it, calling Lily a liar who was just trying to steal attention from Chloe. Yet now, just because Chloe looked a little pale, Clara rushed her to the clinic without a second thought. Did she even have a heart? No. She just didn’t love the child she had with me. I called my parents and told them the news of Lily’s passing. They packed their bags immediately and drove through the night, arriving exhausted and pale. When my mother walked through the door and saw the empty house, she couldn’t accept it. “Where… where is my little Lily?” I stood there in silence, nodding slowly, unable to voice the words. My father’s eyes turned red instantly. “How? We had the donor heart secured! We had the money ready! The surgery could have happened anytime! How is she gone?!” I calmly told them the truth. It was Clara. She had transferred Lily’s heart to Julian’s daughter three days before the scheduled surgery. My father trembled with pure rage, cursing Clara’s name. I quickly helped them sit down, worried their high blood pressure would act up. I told them I was divorcing Clara and begged them not to ruin their own health over her. My parents wept, scolding me for my stubbornness in marrying her in the first place, saying this tragedy would have never happened if I hadn’t been blinded by love. I nodded, admitting my mistake. I was wrong from the very beginning. After a long time, my parents managed to calm down. My father looked around the empty living room, recalling the sweet moments he had shared with Lily. “Let’s bring Lily home,” my father said quietly, his voice cracking. “It’s cold in the morgue.” Just then, Clara walked back in. She overheard my father’s words. A look of complete confusion crossed her face, followed by irritation as she glared at me. “Arthur, what is wrong with you? What are you trying to pull now? Why did you drag your parents all the way here?” “I was only gone for two days to take care of Chloe. Was this really necessary?” “And Lily… she is always so difficult. Always throwing tantrums and acting out. If she weren’t so exhausting, maybe I would actually like her.” Lily was already dead, and here she was, still spitting venom. The rage inside me boiled over. I roared at her. “Lily is dead! Do you understand me?!” “You killed her! You gave her heart to Chloe and killed your own daughter!” Clara’s face twisted into utter contempt. She clearly didn’t believe a word. “You are completely insane. You’ll say anything at this point. Chloe was sick too. I helped her because I’m a doctor, not just because of Julian! Get that through your head!” “There is nothing going on between Julian and me!” “You don’t need to scream at me and make up sick lies about Lily being dead just to guilt-trip me. I know finding that heart wasn’t easy, but like I said, Lily had ten years. Chloe didn’t! Was I supposed to just watch Chloe die?” I didn’t want to waste another breath arguing with this wretched woman. Marrying her was the single greatest mistake of my life. I looked at her coldly. “You think I’m exaggerating? You think I’m lying? Fine. Come with me. Let’s go bring Lily home together.”

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The graduation party in the underground training hall fell apart during a game of Put a Finger Down. Serena grinned and said, “Put a finger down if you’ve already had sex.” I watched Asher, the boy who was supposed to become mine, lower one finger. Which meant he had slept with someone. Just not with me. I had loved him for ten whole years. After a few rounds and too much cheap alcohol, only two players were still in the game: Serena and me. Everyone else had run out of fingers. Serena smiled like a queen at the Moon Crown ceremony and said sweetly, “I’m seeing someone.” The underground training hall went silent. Then the room erupted. I looked toward Asher in the corner. He had told me countless times, “Elena, after the Moon Crown Ball, I’ll swear myself to you.” But right then, he was sprawled across a worn black leather couch, and he did not even look at me. Someone whistled. “Prove it, then.” Serena rose with a smile and walked straight to Asher. She cupped his face, leaned down, and kissed him in front of every young wolf heir in the room. He did not push her away. He did not even look at me. I was technically still in the game, but I folded my last finger into my palm anyway. The game was over. So were my ten years. Whistles, screams, and applause crashed together. The training hall felt as if it had caught fire. Someone shouted, “Oh my god! I knew it!” Someone else asked, “When did this happen?” Serena straightened, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Graduation night. We officially got together.” Everyone’s eyes fell on the newly announced couple. One was Mooncrest Academy’s most dazzling Alpha heir. The other was the school’s most popular highborn she-wolf. Together, they looked inevitable, as if the Moon Goddess herself had arranged them. No one noticed me in the corner. No one noticed that I suddenly could not breathe. I watched Asher lift a hand and casually wipe the corner of his mouth. The crowd rushed in around them, and someone called, “Come on, tell us. Who made the first move? Details.” Serena gave Asher a shy glance and said, “It was nothing, really. On graduation night, I sent him a message…” She told them everything. She said she had asked him to meet her by Moon Lake. She had taken his hand under the full moon and asked, “Do you want to try being together for real?” With every detail, the laughter grew louder. With every detail, someone glanced my way. “Wait, wasn’t there something between Asher and Elena? Didn’t they grow up in the same pack?” “Says who? When has Asher ever really looked at her?” “Elena? That little shadow? Nobody even sees her as a she-wolf.” “Exactly. Who would like her? Asher is the future Alpha. His standards have always been high.” “Do you remember her silverleaf allergy? That emergency in the healing room. Asher made her pasta and somehow forgot she was allergic to silverleaf. Sent her straight to the healing tower.” “Serena wanted the full scholarship to Lunar Academy in Eastshore. Elena was her only real competition. Do we need to spell out the rest?” “That’s brutal. Elena was just a backup from beginning to end.” Serena put on an innocent, wounded expression, but her eyes shone with a winner’s smug delight. “Elena, I’m sorry. I might have mentioned the academy scholarship to Asher once. He wanted to help me so badly back then, so he used silverleaf to trigger your allergy. Don’t blame him. If you have to blame someone, blame me.” So everyone knew Asher had done it on purpose. Everyone except me. Or maybe I had known all along. I had just refused to admit it. In our first year at Mooncrest Academy, Asher had slowly pulled away from me. Whenever we passed each other, he would lower his head and walk by as if he did not know me. Once, I chased after him and asked what was wrong. He said, “Don’t let people get the wrong idea.” I told myself he was about to become an Alpha. One day, an entire pack would rest on his shoulders. He needed dignity. He could not let people tease him. It would weaken his authority. I explained everything away for him. I just never expected that, afterward, I would always see him laughing and talking with Serena.

I could never stop myself from wanting to join them, but whenever Asher saw me smile, his own expression would shut down. He would ask coldly, “Need something?” Only that day was different. He handed me the plate of pasta, his voice gentle like it used to be. He said, “Eat.” So, like an idiot, I ate it without a second thought. And I missed the most important scholarship interview of my life. My eyes burned. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, then looked at Asher and forced myself to ask, “Is it true?” He sat beside Serena, his face blank. “Does it matter? It’s not like it can be changed now.” His tone was as casual as if we were talking about the weather for tomorrow’s forest patrol. My words sank into him like stones into still water, leaving no ripple. He did not care. He did not care about the eighteen years we had grown up together on the same pack territory. He did not care about the future we had once believed we would have. My throat closed. Bitterness rose in my chest again and again. I bit the inside of my cheek and let the taste of blood hold back the breakdown pressing at my ribs. Then I stood up and ran out. Even after I had run far away, their laughter still followed me. Someone shouted, “Elena! Don’t go! Have a drink for your good buddy!” Someone else sneered, “Is she actually crying? Let her go back to her dorm and cry, then. Asher never formed a mate bond with her. What’s she so hurt about?” I stood for a long time on the black stone road outside the academy while the northern night wind swept through the pines and dried the tears on my face. My phone lit up. It was a message from Asher. Where are you? Come back. Don’t make this ugly. I stared at those words, and suddenly I was seven again. During a pup-training game, I missed the training ball, and all the other children laughed. Asher grabbed a wooden stick and charged over, furious. “She missed the ball. What does that have to do with any of you?” Back then, he was my shield against the whole world. And now, he was telling me not to make things ugly. Another message came in. I just lost a bet. It was truth or dare, that’s all. Come back. I’ll explain. Truth or dare. My hand shook so badly I almost could not hold my phone. When I was ten, I had a fever that would not break, and I could barely hold my wolf form. Asher climbed over the ironwood fence in my backyard to bring me moon-dew medicine, then got chased three blocks by the neighbor’s guard dog. When I was twelve, I lost the territory-wide rune-spelling competition. He threw his own first-place blue ribbon into the trash and said, “This stupid thing doesn’t matter. Next time I’ll help you win it back.” When I was fifteen, at the Moon Crown Ball, someone made a vulgar joke about my late first shift. Asher swung a fist. The skin above his brow split open, and the healer gave him three stitches. He still smiled at me and said, “Doesn’t hurt at all.” Had he changed? Or had he always been like this, and I had just refused to see it? Had I been lying to myself from the very beginning? I clenched my teeth and turned back. I pushed open the door to the underground training hall, still clinging to one ridiculous shred of hope. The next second, a bucket of ice water poured down from above the doorframe. The freezing water soaked my hair, blurred my vision, and drenched my clothes. I stood there, shaking all over. Wild laughter burst through the underground training hall. “Holy shit! She really came back!” “Serena, you called it perfectly. How did you know she’d definitely come back?” “Asher, a bet is a bet! The necklace. Now!” Serena leaned against Asher, laughing so hard she almost folded over. “I told you she’d come back.” She held out her hand. Her silver-white nails flashed coldly under the lights. “Your number one backup mate, obviously. On call whenever you need her.”

Asher’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Then he lifted a hand and took the chain from his neck. It was a vintage compass pendant, only half of one. The other half was with me. When we were seven, we had won it at a stall at the Northern Moon Fair. One half for each of us. Neither of us had taken it off since, not even during our first wolf-shifting training. I wore my half beside the moonstone pendant my mother had left me. He called it our lucky charm. He also said that when we finally formed our mate bond, we would put the two halves together. But now, he handed his half to Serena. Serena lifted the pendant under the light, her smile bright and vicious. “So cute. Now it’s mine.” She tilted her head slightly toward Asher and added, “So are you.” I wiped the water from my eyes and stared at Asher. He looked at me. The smile on his face vanished instantly. “What? Do I need your permission to give away my own things?” No explanation. No apology. Only a bucket of ice water and a room full of malice. He was no longer the boy who would stand against the whole world for me. Someone shouted from the door, “Let’s go! I booked rooms in Moon Lake Town. Graduation party continues!” The crowd surged toward the door. When Serena passed me, she deliberately stuck out a foot and tripped me. I pitched forward. My knee slammed into the wooden stairs, and pain flashed white behind my eyes. She looked back with a sweet, innocent smile. “Oops. Didn’t see you.” Then she linked her arm through Asher’s and walked out in white canvas shoes. Asher let her pull him along, passing right beside me. He lowered his head and glanced at me. The look was so brief I could not read it. Then he looked away and followed her into the summer night. I knelt on the cold floor. The blood on my knee mixed with the ice water dripping from my hair, falling drop by drop onto the wooden boards. Drip. Drip. Like all the one-sided love I had poured into him over the years. Pathetic and pointless. I could not go home. If Dad saw me like this, his heart would break. I walked the black stone road outside the academy for a long time. In the end, I found a cheap motel in Moon Lake Town and got a room. I stood under the hot water for a very long time, until my body finally felt like mine again. When I came out, my phone was lit up with messages from Asher. Your dad called and asked when you’re coming home. I said you were with me. Go home soon. Where are you? Are you safe? Then came a video call. I hesitated, then answered. Asher’s face appeared on the screen, still handsome. Behind him was a dim motel hallway. He frowned. “You’re at a motel?” “Yeah.” “Which one?” “None of your business.” After a moment of silence, his tone hardened. “Stay where you are. I don’t want to deal with your dad.” “Asher.” I looked straight into his eyes through the screen. “That compass pendant. Are you really giving it to her?” He opened his mouth, but no words came out. “You said it was ours. You said that on the day we formed our mate bond, we would put them together.” He stayed silent. I asked, “You gave it to Serena. Then what am I?” He swallowed. “It’s just a cheap piece of metal.” I let out a small laugh. “Right. Worthless. Just like me.” “Elena…” I hung up. Half an hour later, someone knocked on the door. It was a delivery driver. He brought a tube of ointment for scrapes and a box of hot mac and cheese. I sat on the motel bed while my phone kept vibrating. The Mooncrest Academy graduation group chat was full of videos. Serena and Asher were singing at the party. She leaned on his shoulder with a cup in her hand while a sickly sweet love song played in the background. Comments popped up one after another. “Oh my god, the way Asher looks at her. I’m dead.” “Kiss! Hurry up and kiss!”

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” In the video, Asher was smiling. The way he looked at Serena was open, undisguised affection. He had never looked at me that way. Not once in all three years at Mooncrest Academy. The video froze on Serena leaning closer to him, her lips slightly parted. Then Serena updated the school social feed. She posted a photo of her full-scholarship award letter from Lunar Academy in Eastshore, followed by a photo of her and Asher at the party. The caption read: The perfect ending to my years at wolf academy. A full scholarship to Lunar Academy, and someone who loves me. The comments from mutual friends stung my eyes. “So jealous. Future Alpha boyfriend and genius she-wolf?” “This must be what it looks like to be the Moon Goddess’s favorite girl!” Serena replied with a heart. Under that, someone else wrote, “Certain people must be dying of rage right now.” “That little shadow? Yeah. We’re talking about you, Elena.” I locked my phone and fell back onto the cheap mattress. There were water stains on the ceiling, and the fluorescent light hurt my eyes. I thought of all the years I had worked myself to the bone for that Lunar Academy scholarship in Eastshore. Giving up the Moon Crown dance team tryouts. Studying Alpha succession courses until three in the morning. No weekends. More than a dozen folders packed with rune notes. I had been only one step away from that dream. Only one step away from going to the same city as him. His city. He did not know that when I filled out my college applications, every school I chose was in Eastshore. Because he was going there. Because he said he loved the East Coast and Eastshore’s snow. So I sent every application there. And now? I sat up, picked up my phone, and logged into the college admissions portal. Then I rejected Lunar Academy’s Eastshore offer and accepted another school. Westcliff Academy. A werewolf college on the California coast. He hated summer. He had always said he could not stand the West Coast sun. But in that moment, Westcliff’s palm trees, ocean breeze, and sunlight sounded perfect. The West Coast. The farther from him, the better. I tapped confirm, and a green enrollment confirmation page popped up. I turned off my phone and picked up the box of mac and cheese. It had already gone cold. I dumped it into the trash. Cheddar. He knew perfectly well that I hated cheddar, that even the smell made me nauseous. But he did not remember. Just like he knew perfectly well I had always been waiting for him, yet he had never truly walked toward me. The next day, I went back to Mooncrest Academy to clear out my locker and pick up my final paperwork. The moment I stepped into the hallway, every eye landed on me. Contempt, mockery, malice. It nearly drowned me. “Going to a motel on graduation night? That’s disgusting.” “Who?” “Who else? That little shadow. Someone got video.” I stopped. Serena stood by a row of lockers, surrounded by girls from the Moon Crown dance team. She held up her phone and was playing a video. In it, I was in last night’s motel hallway, soaked from head to toe, holding my motel key card. Serena covered her mouth and laughed, every word poisoned. “Does this count as leaving in disgrace?” Whispers spread around us. Their stares cut like knives. I walked over and stood in front of her. “Delete it.” “Why should I?” She tilted her head, all innocence. “You went to that sketchy motel alone. That’s not my fault.” “You’re spreading lies.” “Am I?” She turned to Asher. “Asher, tell us. Wasn’t she fooling around with someone last night?” Asher stood nearby with a graduation yearbook in his hand. He looked at the video on her phone, then at me. “Asher.” My voice shook. “Tell her. Tell her why I was there last night.” He knew. He knew everything. Even if he no longer cared about me, even if eighteen years of growing up in the same pack meant nothing to him, he could at least tell the truth. Right? He looked into my eyes. His tone was casual, almost cruel. “People who hate you will always hate you.” I froze. “What?” He said, “If you didn’t do anything wrong, what are you afraid of?”

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Eight years after my husband,Don Damien Vestrani, was killed in a shootout, my best friend, Celeste Marlowe, was gone too. I coughed up blood when the news reached me, but I still forced myself to her funeral. In the visitation room, someone leaned in close to my brother, the one handling the funeral arrangements, and murmured under his breath. “When are you going to tell your sister the truth?” “Celeste has loved Damian in silence all these years. She deserves to be buried beside him—as his wife,his Donna.” My feet stopped as if they had been nailed to the floor. I watched my brother, Julian Ashford, run his fingertips gently across Celeste’s memorial portrait, his voice hoarse. “Damien never wanted anyone to know.” “I married Celeste because I gave him my word. That I’d look after her and the boy for him.” “I’ll have Celeste buried beside Damien. It’s what they both wanted.” That double plot. My husband had chosen it himself, on the highest ridge of Forest Hill Cemetery. And all along, the woman he had meant to lie beside was never me. The triple betrayal of blood, friendship, and love shattered me in a single breath. The room went dark, and I fell backward. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a wedding gown, standing at the altar of the church. Celeste stood in her bridesmaid’s dress, her eyes rimmed red, gazing at Damien. “May the two of you have a long life together.” I stayed silent for a few seconds, then tore off my veil and ran out of the church without looking back. “Sloane!” I had barely reached the doors when Julian, closest to me, caught my wrist. After our parents died in that “incident,” he was the only blood I had left in this world. And yet even he had been keeping the truth from me. Julian’s brow furrowed as he pulled me back. “Today of all days is not the time for a tantrum.” His grip was hard enough that my tears came almost at once. Damien caught up to us, his face full of concern. “Sloane, what’s wrong?” “Is there something you’re not happy with? Tell me. I’ll fix it.” He was exactly as I remembered him. Tender, attentive. The kind of man in whom you couldn’t find a single flaw. He had been the same in my last life. Every dollar that moved through the Vestrani ledgers, I knew about. Every meeting he took out of state, every trip to Europe. He told me himself, before he went. Even the secrets only a Consigliere had any right to hear, he laid at my feet without holding a single one back. And yet this near perfect man had been tangled up with my best friend the whole time. For forty years he had conspired with everyone I loved to keep me in the dark. I sniffed hard and forced it all down. “Damien. I’m not marrying you. We’re through.” Damien’s composure cracked in an instant. “Sloane, what has upset you? Just tell me.” “Whatever it is, I can change it. Please. Just tell me.” He stripped himself of every ounce of pride. so completely that even the guests grew uncomfortable, and started murmuring behind their hands. “That is Don Damien, and she still won’t have him?” “You don’t think she has someone else, do you?” Julian’s face darkened, his anger just barely leashed. “Look at what Damien’s spoiling has done to you.” “I honestly don’t know what game you’re playing. Half the great families on the East Coast would give anything to marry a daughter into the Vestranis,and not one of them has managed it.” His sentence broke off, and his eyes drifted, of their own accord, to Celeste, a few paces away. She was staring at me like everyone else was. Startled. But beneath the surprise, buried very deep, was something that looked almost like hope. I curled the corner of my mouth into a mocking half smile, met Damien’s eyes, and asked him softly. “I’ll ask you once. Have you lied to me?” Something flickered in the back of his eyes. A flash of panic. But his answer came steady. “Of course not.” “How could I ever lie to you?” The words had barely left his lips when the sky beyond the church split open into blossoms of fireworks, light spilling down in ribbons, beautiful beyond belief. By the schedule, this was the exact moment we should have finished our vows and kissed in front of every guest. But now, that whole blazing sky was nothing to me but the punchline of some enormous, cruel joke. I looked at Damien, and I laughed. Then I turned, gathered my skirts, and ran out of the church. By the time I got home, one of my Louboutins was gone, lost somewhere behind me. Like a wounded child, I hid myself in the deepest cabinet at the back of the walk in closet. Half an hour later, they came home. Maybe they had forgotten my old habit of hiding in cabinets. Maybe the things they had to say had waited long enough. They swept the upstairs in a hurried search and decided I wasn’t there. The next thing I heard was Damien’s voice, dropped low into a snarl. “I told you. I told you to find some excuse, any excuse, not to show up at that wedding. Why couldn’t you listen?” Celeste choked back a sob. “I’m her best friend, Damien. If I hadn’t been there, do you think she wouldn’t have wondered?” “Don’t you shout at me. Do you think it was easy for me, standing there watching you marry someone else?” Julian’s voice cut in, low and heavy. “Enough. Don’t blame Celeste. She’s already been through enough.” “If we’re blaming anyone, blame Sloane for being spoiled. Leave her alone. She’ll come to her senses in a few days.” He paused, and then he asked. “Damien. Are you certain you want to marry Sloane? There’s still time.” Damien cut him off without hesitation. “I’ve told you. Sloane is the one I love. What happened with Celeste was an accident.” “An accident? Damien, put your hand on your heart and say that again. If it was really an accident, why did you come to me last night?” The words had barely left Celeste’s mouth when she doubled over, clutching her belly, and cried out. “My stomach. Oh God, my stomach.” “Celeste!” “Celeste!” In a flurry of panic, Damien and Julian rushed Celeste to the hospital. Once they were gone, I pushed the cabinet door open. My face was already ice cold with tears. I pulled out my phone and called an old friend. “That asset management post you mentioned. The one in Oslo. Five year contract. I’ll take it.” “Yes. I can be on a plane in three days.” Norway. Far from this land soaked through with family blood. Far from every single person I had once believed I could give my life to.

I found myself grateful, in the end, that Damien and I had only done the church ceremony, and had never made it to City Hall. If we had, breaking away from him would have been a great deal messier than it already was. I spent the whole afternoon packing. While I was sorting through my documents, I found a photograph tucked into the lining of my wallet. It was of the three of us. I stood in the middle, my left arm through Damien’s, my right arm through Celeste’s, my eyes crinkled into two half moons. Julian had taken the picture. At the time, I had thought there wasn’t a happier person in the world than me. Looking at it now, all I could think was how spectacularly stupid I had been. I drew a long breath and forced myself out of the false comfort of the memory. Just then, Damien called. “Baby, something’s come up over here. I have to handle it.” “Have dinner without me. I’ll come home later and make you a midnight snack, okay?” I tore the photograph into pieces, dropped them into the trash, and said softly: “I told you. We’re over.” “I don’t accept that we’re over.” There was an urgency in his voice on the other end, as though he had more to say. Then, in the background, a familiar voice broke in. “Damien, the doctor said…” Celeste never got to finish. Damien cut the line dead. A text came through immediately after. 【Bad signal on my end. We’ll talk when I’m home.】 【But I’ll say it again. I don’t accept a breakup.】 Watching him keep at the lie, right down to this moment. Something inside me quietly went out. At that exact moment, Celeste posted to Instagram. The photo was of two men’s hands. One was peeling an apple for her. The other was massaging her leg. Being surrounded by the man I love and my best brother. Life is a blessing. I tapped like. A second later, the post, which she had clearly forgotten to hide from my account, vanished. From the curtains in the background and the logo on the headboard, I recognized the place. Beacon Hill Private Clinic. The Vestrani family’s own preferred hospital. Some things, I decided, needed to end. It took me a while to find Celeste’s room. But just before I pushed the door open, I heard Julian’s voice. “Damien. This baby. What are you planning to do?” My hand froze on the handle. I suddenly remembered the child who had called me Aunt Sloane in my last life. Damien and I had never had children of our own. So I had loved that “niece” as though she were my own daughter. Never once suspecting she was the child of my husband and my best friend. Through the gap in the door, Damien’s face was blurred. “The baby can’t stay. Sloane will suspect.” Celeste’s expression, which had been so hopeful, twisted into something ugly. “Damien! Are you even human? This is your child!” Julian reached out, trying to steady her. He pressed his lips together and made the same choice he had made in the life before. “We’ll say the baby is mine. Sloane will only be happy. She won’t think twice.” “And it’ll make it easier for you to be around the child later.” The room fell into silence. At length, Damien nodded. The weight in his face finally eased, and he softened his voice into something coaxing. “I’ll get a vasectomy in a while. Don’t worry. This will be the only child I ever have. Consider it my apology to you.” “We’ll tell everyone that Sloane is the one who can’t conceive. I know a private doctor in Zurich. He can prescribe something that won’t show up on any test she runs on herself. Every result will point back to her.” I gripped the handle so hard I couldn’t move. So this was how it was. In my last life I had carried that guilt like an idiot for forty years. I had flown to every top fertility clinic in North America. Even done IVF. Eight times. Every single cycle had failed. It had never crossed my mind that the whole thing was a trap, laid for me, by hand, by the three people I loved most in the world. Just then, a nurse’s voice came from behind me. “Ma’am? Are you looking for someone?” In the same instant, all three sets of eyes inside the room swung toward the door.

Meeting their stunned faces, I pushed the door open and walked in. “Sloane, listen. Let me explain.” I gave a short, brittle laugh, picked up the chart from the foot of the bed, and pointed at the words threatened miscarriage. I asked him quietly. “Explain what, exactly? Explain how, precisely, you managed to get her pregnant?” “Or explain how you ended up in bed with my best friend in the first place?” “Or perhaps explain how, going forward, my own brother is going to raise your and Celeste’s daughter right in front of my eyes?” My voice was flatter than I had expected of myself. But the slight tremor at the end gave away the thing that was almost swallowing what was left of my reason. Damien opened his mouth. Nothing came out. My gaze moved from the panic on his face to Julian’s forced composure, and finally to Celeste — to the relief of someone who no longer had to hide. And across Celeste, across the relief of someone who no longer had to hide. I pulled my mouth into a thin curve and uncurled my hand, where my nails had cut into the skin of my palm. I was turning to leave when Damien caught me from behind. “Sloane, it isn’t what it looks like. It was an accident.” “Please. Let’s not do this.” At that exact moment, a button on his shirt popped loose. A patch of skin at his collarbone was suddenly visible. I caught it out of the corner of my eye and nearly gagged. There was a bright red mark there. The kind that made it very clear how far things had gone the night before. I shoved him off me. Damien staggered back, off balance, and his elbow caught the electric kettle on the cabinet. The back of his hand went red at once from the scalding water. “What are you doing?” Celeste lifted his hand up to inspect it, her face full of pity. “You wanted to know when it started, didn’t you? Fine. I’ll tell you!” “Shut your mouth!” She ignored Damien’s roar, keeping her eyes on me. Hatred rose slowly to the surface of them. “The night of your twentieth birthday. Damien said there was an emergency with the family. I said I had a fever. Did it never once occur to you how convenient that was?” “Celeste!” Celeste’s mouth curled into a cutting little smile. “After that night, he couldn’t stay away from me.” “You know why? Because I was his first.” “Because he told me, in his own words, that what he had with me was two souls answering each other, and what he had with you was a political marriage between the Five Families. One more piece of business he owed the old man.” “Sloane, from where I’m standing, you’re the one who came in second.” From her first sentence I had been biting down on the tip of my tongue. By the time she was done, the inside of my mouth was full of blood. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face. But in the same instant, Julian’s arm shot out and shoved me hard. “Sloane, have you lost your mind?” “Do you not understand that she’s pregnant?” I lost my footing and went backward. My forehead struck the corner of the table before I could brace. The skin split, and blood ran freely down my face. Slowly, everything went dark. When I came to, before I could even open my eyes, I heard Celeste crying. “Damien. The doctor said this may be the last time I ever conceive.” “If I lose this baby, I’ll never be a mother. Not in this lifetime.” Damien was silent for a few seconds. Then he gave his answer. “Then have the baby.” “When she wakes up, I’ll talk her into adopting the child. It’s the best outcome for everyone.” Celeste stopped crying. “And if she says no?” Damien’s voice slowly turned to ice. “You think she’s in a position to say no?” “The Ashford Don and Donna are long gone. Julian may be her brother, but he stands with me.” “Apart from the three of us, who does she have in this world?” I gripped the sheet, ready on pure instinct to sit up. But then Celeste dropped her voice lower. “And what if she finds out about that?” “That’s two lives, Damien. Two.”

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By the tenth year of my marriage to the Moretti Don, I was finally tired of it all. I stopped checking which villa Lucien Moretti had gone to at night, or which woman he had slept with. And I no longer cared whether he loved me. Even when the family doctor sent over birth control pills, I swallowed them without so much as a frown. Lucien returned to the Moretti estate after dark. He stood beside the bed and said my name in a low voice. “Clara, I haven’t been back the past few days because Vivian got hurt.” “She chased a crew that had hijacked one of our shipments into an alley and got slashed.” “You know what she’s like. If I hadn’t gone, she would’ve kept pushing herself.” I lifted the covers and shifted farther into the bed. “It’s fine. Go to sleep. You still have to meet with the committee tomorrow.” Lucien seemed to pause. “You’re really not upset?” I nodded. Who didn’t have someone they never quite got over? Funny thing was, mine had just come back too. … Lucien remained beside the bed, unmoving. “I’m the Moretti Don. I can’t exactly stand by and let her cause trouble on my turf.” I finally opened my eyes and smiled. “You’ve always been compassionate.” My gaze dropped to the streak of red on his cuff. Vivian’s favorite shade of lipstick. Years ago, when the Sterling family needed to marry one of its daughters into the Moretti family, my half sister Vivian had dropped to her knees in front of me. “Clara, I don’t want to be trapped in some Mafia estate.” “I still want to ride motorcycles. I want to run gun routes. I want to be myself.” “Marry Lucien in my place. Please.” I said yes. Later, I became the Donna of the Moretti family. Vivian remained wild and free. But after our marriage, Lucien went to see her every night at a private house in the suburbs. There, they lived like a real couple, free and unrestrained. And I stayed behind in the heavily guarded Moretti estate. Lucien reached for me. I turned my face away. His hand froze in midair. A moment later, he pulled a paper bag from his coat pocket. Inside was a rabbit-shaped caramel, already half melted out of shape. “Saw it on the way back.” “The medicine tastes bitter.” “Have something sweet.” I stared at the misshapen candy rabbit, unsure what I was supposed to feel. Years ago, when I told him I liked sweets from street vendors, he said food sold outside was filthy. “The Moretti Donna shouldn’t stuff herself with candy like a little girl.” And now he had actually remembered to buy me something sweet. I didn’t take it. “Thank you, Lucien.” Lucien frowned. “Clara, I brought this back for you myself, and you’re still giving me that look?” “Are you still upset about Vivian and me?” Of course I had been upset once. On our wedding night, Vivian sent someone to the estate saying she was about to take on a small crew that had betrayed the Morettis all by herself. Lucien had just taken off his suit jacket. The moment he heard her name, he stood up. I asked, “Do you really have to go now?” He said, “You know what she’s like. She’s never been afraid of anything.” “If no one stops her, she’ll walk into that warehouse with a gun tonight.” He didn’t come back until dawn. There was a faint red mark on his neck. He said Vivian had fought him when he tried to bring her back and had scratched the wrong person in the struggle. I had made scenes. I had cried. Eventually, I stopped asking. Lucien was about to explain again when a guard’s voice came from outside the door. “Don, someone just came from Miss Sterling’s place.” “She slipped her security detail and left word that she’s heading to the docks tonight to settle things with the crew that crossed into our territory and stole our shipment.” Lucien’s expression changed. I closed my eyes again. “Go.” He didn’t move. I added, “If she really charges into the docks, you’ll blame me tomorrow for keeping you here.” Lucien’s voice hardened. “Clara, do you have to be this sarcastic?” I said nothing. A dull heaviness pulled at my lower abdomen. I frowned and endured it. There was no point telling him. He wouldn’t care anyway. In the end, Lucien still left. Before he went, he tossed one last sentence over his shoulder. “Get some rest. Stop using your health to punish me.” The door closed. Then came three soft taps against the window. An old silver ring slid through the narrow gap in the frame. A single letter was engraved on the inside of the band. V. Heat rushed behind my eyes. My heart began to pound. Vale. Beneath the ring was a small note. Only one line was written on it. “Clara, if no one in the Moretti family will protect you, I will.” Three years ago, the man I loved most, Adrian Vale, had supposedly died in a shootout along a smuggling route in the north. No body had ever been found. If this ring was here, then he wasn’t dead. My hands trembling, I hid the ring beneath my pillow.

Vivian came to the Moretti estate early the next morning. The moment she stepped into the main hall, she frowned. “Clara, this place is still suffocating.” She looked around, then laughed. “If I stayed here for three days, I’d probably forget how to hold a gun.” I leaned back on the sofa and said nothing. Lucien had come in with her. He was still wearing the same black suit jacket, which meant he had probably left a family meeting and personally gone to the gate to pick her up. Vivian crossed the room in a few quick steps. “Oh my God. Why do you look so pale?” Then, as if she had only just remembered herself, she touched a hand to her mouth. “Listen to me. I’ve spent too much time out there. I say whatever comes into my head.” “You’ve been the Donna for so many years. All those rules, all those responsibilities… I guess it’s only natural you’d look tired.” “I took medicine,” I said. “That’ll do it.” Lucien’s expression shifted. Vivian blinked. “The birth control pill?” “I only said that if Clara had a baby, Lucien would never come out and spend time with me anymore.” “I didn’t think he’d actually have the doctor send you one.” She lowered her gaze, her voice softening. “Clara, you’re not mad at me, are you?” I shook my head. “There’s nothing to be mad about.” She caught Lucien by the sleeve. “See? Clara barely even talks to me now.” “She used to sneak over walls with me and teach me how to ride. If anyone bullied me, she was always the first one to step in.” She laughed, loud and carefree. “Now she’s been the Moretti Donna for so long, it’s like she’s a completely different person.” Lucien frowned. “Clara isn’t well. Stop bothering her.” The words were stern, but his voice had already softened by the time he looked at Vivian. Vivian tipped her face up toward him. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t the Moretti Don.” The hall went still. Then she laughed again. “Then you could come with me to the West Coast. Down to the Mexican border. Up north into the snow.” “No family meetings. None of this endless family business tying you down.” Lucien smiled too. “Vivian, you’re still as wild as ever.” I lowered my eyes. Once, I had been an excellent rider and a crack shot. I was the one who taught Vivian to ride. The first time she ever took apart a gun, my hands had guided hers. Yet somehow, everyone later praised her for being vibrant and free while calling me dull and boring. I had never liked this walled-in estate either. A sudden cramp twisted low in my abdomen. The teacup slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor. Only then did Lucien look at me. “Clara, what’s wrong?” He reached out to steady me. I moved away. “I’m fine.” His face darkened. “Who told you to actually take the birth control?” I looked up at him. “You had the doctor send it. I could hardly refuse.” Lucien went still. Vivian quickly tugged at his arm. “Don’t yell at her. Clara’s been stuck inside this estate too long. She overthinks everything.” “I’m not like that. If something bothers me, I throw a few punches and get over it.” Lucien stared at me, his voice rough. “Clara, you’re allowed to make a scene.” “You used to smash the glass when I told you to take birth control.” “When I tried to give you sedatives, you said they tasted awful and refused to touch them.” “How was I supposed to know you’d actually swallow it this time?” I had almost forgotten that I, too, had once been that alive. Lucien let out a humorless laugh. “You agreed to marry into the Moretti family.” “Now you’re the Donna, enjoying all the wealth and prestige that come with the family, and somehow you act like I’m the one who wronged you.” “A few days ago, Vivian and I went to the relief center in the South District. She saw those children freezing and took off her leather jacket on the spot.” “She said if she owned all the gold and expensive decorations in this estate, she’d sell them for food and medicine.” “And you? You sit here in the main house feeling sorry for yourself.” For one brief second, guilt flashed across Vivian’s face. After all, I was the one who had funded that relief center. I simply hadn’t appeared there in person. I nodded. “You’re right.” Lucien abruptly stood. “I’m tired of looking at you like this.” He took Vivian by the arm and left. The moment the door shut, agony tore through my lower abdomen. Blood ran down my skirt. Mia burst into tears and ran for the doctor. The family physician arrived quickly. After examining me, all the color left his face. “Mrs. Moretti, the bleeding is severe. The baby… I’m sorry. You’ve miscarried.” I nodded. “I understand.” Mia was crying. “Should I get the Don?” I shook my head. “No.” Ten years. This had been my first child. The last thing still tying me to the Moretti estate. Now it was gone. Good.

Three days after the miscarriage, Lucien came to the main house. Several servants followed behind him, carrying jewelry, dresses, and a saddle. I recognized some of the pieces. The black pearl brooch had been pinned to me by the old Mrs. Moretti herself on the day I married into the family. The deep red cashmere wrap was the one Lucien had draped around my shoulders on my birthday. And the saddle had belonged to my favorite chestnut mare. Before I married into the Moretti family, I used to ride her along the trails near the Hudson Valley for hours at a time. Then Lucien decided Mrs. Moretti ought to behave with more dignity and stop thinking about running off alone. Not long after that, the stable keys stopped being given to me. Lucien looked at me, his tone unusually gentle. “Vivian is moving into the estate in a few days. I’m giving these to her first.” I nodded. “All right.” “She’s used to living on her own terms. A lot of things here don’t suit her.” “All right.” “She likes that horse.” “All right.” He stared at me for a long time, then suddenly smiled. “And Vivian agreed.” “She’s willing to stay with me openly now.” I nodded. “Congratulations.” Lucien seemed to be waiting for me to lose my temper. To question him. To sweep every tray in front of me onto the floor. Instead, I said calmly, “I suppose all of New York will know how important she is to you soon enough.” The smile in his eyes faded. At last, he said only, “Get some rest.” After he left, two servants whispered in the hallway. “Miss Sterling really is something. The Don doesn’t even care about the family’s old rules when it comes to her.” “I heard he’s holding a huge celebration for her at the private estate in the Hudson Valley. After that, who would dare call her some mistress he keeps hidden away?” The other servant lowered her voice. “You know, Mrs. Moretti used to love going out too.” “But after she married him, the Don kept saying she didn’t act like a Moretti wife. He barely let her go anywhere.” She paused. “Now Miss Sterling does the exact same things, and suddenly he thinks it’s charming.” I lay there staring at the ceiling. The celebration would be in the Hudson Valley. Not at the Moretti estate. Which meant I would finally have a chance to leave. I called Mia over. “On the day of the celebration, get me something easy to move in.” Her eyes immediately reddened. “Mrs. Moretti… are you finally going to fight for him?” I nodded. “Yes.” Let them believe that. I didn’t want Lucien to turn back to me. I wanted to disappear from this estate that day. And from Lucien’s world. A maid was checking the measurements for my dress when Lucien walked in. He came over and adjusted my cuff. “This color suits you.” Footsteps sounded outside. Vivian stood in the doorway. Her gaze swept through the room before settling on me. She smiled. “The Moretti estate really is nice. Lucien said I could choose any room I wanted.” She laughed softly. “I don’t like most of the others.” “Clara’s is the only one that actually feels comfortable.” The maid’s expression shifted. Vivian seemed to realize only then how that sounded. She turned to Lucien. “I’m not trying to take Clara’s things.” “If it’s inconvenient, forget it. I can sleep in the stables.” Lucien was silent for a moment before looking at me. “Clara, Vivian won’t be staying in the main house often. Maybe…” I smiled. “Fine.” “She can have the room.” Both of them froze. I looked down and smoothed my cuff. “I’ll move out after the celebration.” I was leaving anyway. The room no longer mattered.

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My husband stole my flower shop dream and gave it to his mistress to open. She pointed at my design sketch and bragged: “My husband drew this for me himself. He said I deserved everything.” The husband she was talking about was mine—Dante Moretti, the most dangerous Don in Chicago. Three years ago, when I told him I wanted to open a flower shop, all Dante said was, “Don’t embarrass me with your little-girl fantasies.” Turns out the flower shop wasn’t the embarrassment. I was the one who didn’t deserve it. Later, Dante publicly announced she was his real wife, and forced me—pregnant—to admit I was some deranged nanny, and to apologize to her. I did it. Then I signed the divorce papers, terminated the pregnancy, and left Chicago. Dante thought I was just angry. He was wrong. This time, I wasn’t coming back. … The bell above the flower shop door chimed. Mia hurried forward, beaming. “My husband sent someone to pick up the flowers!” I followed her gaze— It was Carlo. Dante’s most trusted man. The moment Carlo saw me, the color drained from his face. “Donna…” Mia noticed nothing. She reached under the counter and lifted out a dark green velvet box. “Carlo, perfect timing. Can you give this back to Dante for me? He pushed it on me last night, but it’s just too expensive. I can’t accept it.” Carlo reached for it. His hand was trembling. So was mine. Because I recognized that box. Inside was a diamond necklace—the one Dante had flown to Geneva last week to bid on at auction. Our fifth wedding anniversary was only days away. I’d thought it was meant for me. I’d been looking forward to it. How pathetic. “He came so late last night, though,” Mia pouted. “Said something had held him up.” Last night was my birthday. I’d waited for Dante all evening. All I got was one text: “Something’s come up at the club. Don’t wait up. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.” Turns out the thing that had “held him up”—was me. On Dante Moretti’s schedule, his wife had been filed under “delays.” If I hadn’t wandered into this flower shop by chance, how much longer would I have gone on living inside this lie? I forced myself to stay calm and told myself it was time to leave. But as I turned, my eyes caught the wall inside the shop—a hand-drawn sketch, framed in warm white. A vine-covered archway. A rose-lined window. An old piano. In the bottom right corner, a ginger cat dozing in a flower basket. My feet froze. Three years ago, one winter afternoon, I’d curled up on the couch and spent hours drawing the flower shop of my dreams. Then I brought it to Dante. “Someday, if I get the chance, I want to open a shop just like this.” He’d barely glanced at it. “You’re the Donna of the Moretti family, not some girl with her head in the clouds. Stop wasting your time on this nonsense.” He’d rolled up the sketch and tossed it into a drawer in his study. Later, the sketch disappeared. Dante said someone had thrown it out as scrap paper while cleaning up the study. That evening, he had Carlo send over a bouquet as an apology. “It’s gone. It was just a piece of paper.” I tried to draw it again afterward, but I could never quite recapture the feeling of that first one. For three years, I’d believed it had really been thrown away. It hadn’t. It had been framed and hung on Mia’s wall. No wonder this place had felt so strangely familiar. Dante had followed my blueprint—stroke by stroke—and built another woman’s dream instead. “Do you like it, ma’am?” Mia’s eyes crinkled with delight. “My husband drew it for me himself. Isn’t he amazing?” “Next time, I’m going to ask him to draw my favorite—lilies. Roses are so tacky…” Her husband. Drawn by his own hand. Dante had stolen my dream, signed his own name to it, and given it to his other wife. He’d said a flower shop would make the Morettis a laughingstock. He’d wanted me quiet. Presentable. Useful. I held things together at The Velvet Room for him, managed the old guard, cleaned up every mess. But the moment I spoke a word out of turn, he’d remind me in front of everyone: “Elena, all you need to do is be a good wife.” Turns out, all along, he’d been doing just one thing: Snuffing out my light—so he could use it to shine on someone else. The reason he’d crushed me and the gift he’d given her were, quite literally, the same piece of paper. A cold went through me. As I stepped out of the shop, Carlo followed. “Donna, I—” I didn’t look at him. I was only thinking one thing. What was stolen from me—it’s time I took it back.

At the family meeting the next day, I finished my report on the previous night’s incident at the casino. What could have turned into a full-blown shootout, I’d shut down. No gunfire. No blood. It was the cleanest job I’d handled since becoming a Moretti. Dante knew that. Then, without warning, Dante shoved the ledger across the table and lit a cigar. “This is what happens when you let a woman get involved in the business.” “Just because nothing blew up doesn’t mean she did the right thing. Letting my wife clean up my mess sends a message to Chicago: that Dante Moretti can’t even hold his own turf.” He never once looked at me. In a room of more than twenty men, all I could hear was my own breathing. “A woman should learn how to be a good wife—not give orders on behalf of her man. Elena, you need to understand that.” “As for the one with the loose mouth—she’ll learn her lesson.” He was telling everyone I’d overstepped, and that someone would pay for my presumption. I knew then—this meeting had no place for me anymore. I walked out of the study and found Grace, the old housemaid, in a corner of the garden. She was crying so quietly she barely dared breathe. Last night, when the casino called the estate, Dante hadn’t been home. So she’d knocked on my door. She wasn’t yet fifty. Her husband was dead. She was raising a son in school on her own, and taking care of a sick mother. An extra ten dollars a month could break her. With a single word, Dante could destroy her life. “Grace, I’ll handle last night. You go home. Spend time with your mother.” I handed her a tissue and tried to keep my voice light. Grace looked up, eyes red-rimmed. “Donna, you were the one who fixed it last night. Why would the Don—” “Don’t.” I gave her a small smile. “Go on home.” After Grace left, I stood there for a long time. I didn’t want to go back to the estate and face Dante, so I went to my mother’s. The living room was full of flowers—lilies, their scent sharp enough to sting. Mom was sitting on the edge of the couch, clutching a tissue. Her nose was red, her eyes swollen. “Where did all these come from?” “Dante ordered them for me. Twice a week.” Her smile was thin. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? You’ve always loved flowers.” “I’m fine. Don’t stir up trouble with Dante over a few bouquets. I’m fine.” My hands slowly clenched. The last time she’d had a reaction, it was because Dante had filled the house with lilies. She’d toughed it out until she couldn’t breathe, and had to be rushed to the ER by 911. Four days in the hospital. I’d told Dante. He said he’d remember. Turns out the way he “remembered” was to have flowers delivered twice a week. I looked down. Every bouquet had the same little card attached: Mia’s Blooms. The audacity. Dante didn’t remember that my mother had nearly died from a pollen allergy. But he remembered to send business Mia’s way. I threw every one of the bouquets out. That evening, I got back to the estate, pushed open the door—and stopped dead. The whole house was full of flowers. The foyer, the dining table, beside the fireplace—everywhere, the white lilies I hated most. I looked out at the garden. The rose bushes I’d planted with my own hands had been ripped out. In the freshly turned soil, rows upon rows of white lilies stood at attention. Dante came out of his study, his expression uncharacteristically soft. “Do you like it? You said you wanted to wake up to flowers every day.” I had said that. But I’d never imagined every bouquet would come from his other wife. My fingertips started to go numb. He’d torn out the flowers I’d planted myself, and filled my home with Mia’s favorite bloom. He’d turned me into his other wife’s biggest customer—and I was supposed to thank him for the romance. “What is it? You don’t like them?” Dante crossed to me and slid an arm around my waist. He bent to kiss me. In my head, a single image flashed— The vine-covered archway. The rose window. The old piano. Mia’s voice, smiling: “My husband drew this for me himself.” My stomach heaved. I shoved Dante off and clapped a hand over my mouth as I bolted for the bathroom. I threw up until I was crying. Dante followed me in and handed me a warm towel. “Bad food?” I shook my head, bracing myself against the sink, gasping. The face in the mirror was ghost-white. He frowned. Then something seemed to occur to him, and his gaze dropped. “Elena—are you pregnant?”

I’d meant to save the news of the pregnancy for our fifth wedding anniversary. Seven years together. I’d imagined the moment more times than I could count— Sliding the ultrasound across the table, watching him freeze, then break into a smile. Now, in the wake of Dante’s “something’s come up at the club,” and the framed sketch on Mia’s wall, that “surprise” had turned into a punchline. Dante looked at the report. He was pleased. He helped me up from the bathroom floor and crouched, pressing his cheek against my stomach. “I was too harsh at the meeting.” “It won’t happen again. You just focus on the baby.” He also said he’d make it up to me publicly, in front of everyone. On the night of our anniversary, I put on the cashmere coat I’d worn the first time I met Dante, clasped on the jewelry set he’d given me at our wedding, and arrived at the private ballroom. Dante had spared no expense for our fifth anniversary dinner. But my blood was turning colder by the second. The entire room was drowning in white lilies—the long table, the fireplace, the flower wall behind the head seats—all white, the scent so thick I could barely breathe. Beside my place setting sat a dark green velvet box. The diamond necklace. The very thing Mia hadn’t dared accept had become Dante’s anniversary gift to me. A few of the wives were murmuring not far off. “Donna Moretti has such unusual taste. For a second I thought I’d wandered into someone’s wake.” “Mia’s Blooms again. Every Moretti event lately. You don’t suppose the owner is the Don’s mistress, do you?” “If I were her, I certainly wouldn’t be smiling…” But I did. I smiled. I just kept smiling—until my eyes began to burn. My fifth wedding anniversary with Dante—every flower, every gift—belonged to another woman. I didn’t wait for Dante to arrive. I stood up and walked out. I went to Mia’s Blooms. Mia was behind the counter looking over some sketches. When she saw me, she set down her pen and hurried over. “Ma’am, perfect timing! My husband said he’s opening a second location for me. Soon all of Chicago will know Mia’s Blooms!” Her face was radiant with joy. I said nothing. I walked to the wall and stared at the framed sketch. “Are you planning to steal someone else’s design for the second one too?” Mia went still. “What?” “This drawing—I spent an entire afternoon on it, three winters ago.” I turned to face her. “The cat in the bottom right corner? He was mine as a child. I lost him when I was eight. I put him in the sketch on purpose.” “You said roses were tacky. So why the rose window?” Mia’s face went white. “You know I’m his wife.” My voice was calm. “You know the money for this shop came from my husband. You know that’s my drawing on your wall. You know this shop was my dream. And still, you had the nerve to call my husband yours.” A woman in the shop hurled her bouquet to the floor. “A shop opened by the mistress? That’s disgusting.” Half a dozen phones went up at once. Mia stumbled backward, knocking over a flower stand. Glass shattered across the floor. “Please, stop filming, please…” She crouched down amid the broken flowers and shards of glass, her voice shaking. Suddenly, I found the whole thing unbearably pointless. I was turning to leave when Dante burst in. Smack. The hand with the wedding ring struck me hard across the face. I staggered back, crashing into a flower stand behind me. Broken glass drove into my palm. Blood welled up fast. A sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen. The color drained from my face. Dante didn’t look at me. He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around Mia, pulling her against his chest, murmuring gently. “It’s all right. I’m here. No one’s going to touch you.” Once Mia was calm, Dante came over and crouched down in front of me. On the surface, it looked like he was inspecting the wound. What he said was: “Apologize to Mia. Then we can put this behind us.” I clutched my bleeding hand, staring at him in disbelief. “Dante—have you lost your mind?” “You’re carrying a child.” His voice was low, meant only for my ears. “Don’t blow this up.” Cold flooded through me. “And if I don’t apologize?” Dante looked at me. His tone was terrifyingly even. “Suit yourself. But tonight, Grace disappears from the estate. Her life is over.” “Elena. You know I can do it.”

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Prologue On the eve of our wedding, my fiancé decided I was too conservative and boring, and cheated on me with an A-list actress. He was certain I loved him so desperately that I would never escape his grasp in this lifetime. He even told me to give up our wedding to his new love. What he didn’t know was that at that very same wedding, I married the older brother he feared and respected most—Alexander Foster. Sylvia Bennett’s POV There wasn’t a single person in Los Angeles who didn’t know that Zachary Foster loved me to death. When I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Hematology experts across the country were helpless. Even my parents had started secretly looking at cemetery plots. But Zachary refused to give up. He had the Foster family use every connection they had, chartered a plane to bring in a team of top specialists from Europe, and dragged me back from the gates of hell. In half a month, we were supposed to get married. Today was the day I was promoted to Chief Attending Cardiothoracic Surgeon. A double blessing. A chief attending physician at twenty-eight—the youngest in the entire state. Zachary said he would celebrate for me at a private club tonight and told me to get there early. But in the afternoon, an emergency surgery came in at the last minute. By the time I left the operating room, it was almost seven. Holding back my exhaustion, I rushed to the private club without daring to waste even a second. When I reached the door of the private room, it was slightly ajar, not fully closed. Laughter and chatter, mixed with the smell of alcohol, spilled out from inside. I reached out to push the door open, only to hear my own name. “Good thing Sylvia Bennett had surgery and got held up. Otherwise, Yvonne would’ve been exposed today.” My hand froze on the doorknob. “Exactly. Yvonne has way too much guts. Zachary threw this promotion dinner for Sylvia Bennett, and she still dared to show up. She’s an A-list actress—doesn’t she worry about getting photographed and ending up on the trending topics?” “If she weren’t bold, would she have been able to steal Zachary away?” A burst of laughter exploded. “Speaking of which, how are Zachary and Yvonne still not done? It’s been two hours!” “What’s the rush? Zachary is that intense, and Yvonne is wild and knows exactly how to flirt. Isn’t it normal for her to get him going a few more rounds?” “But Zachary really has guts. Going at it hot and heavy in the private room next door, and he’s not afraid Sylvia Bennett might suddenly show up.” “What’s there to be afraid of? Sylvia Bennett trusts Zachary so much, she’d never even think in that direction. Last time Zachary went to see a movie with Sylvia Bennett, Yvonne was sitting on Zachary’s other side. Zachary used one hand right there and made Yvonne cry, and Sylvia Bennett didn’t notice a thing.” I stood outside the door, cold from head to toe. So that was how it was. These past few months, he had said every few days that the company had a project, that he had to work overtime, that he wouldn’t be home all night. In the middle of dates, a single phone call would summon him away. Last month, I came back from a business trip. My flight landed in the early hours of the morning, in a downpour. He had said he would come pick me up. He was almost there when he messaged me, saying there was an urgent matter at the company and telling me to take a cab myself. I dragged my suitcase and waited in the storm for forty minutes for a car, still feeling sorry that he was working so hard. So there had been no urgent matter at the company. So all those late-night emergencies had been happening in his new lover’s bed. And that movie. For the first time in over a decade, he didn’t hold my hand. Halfway through, he went to the restroom twice. After the movie ended, he said something had happened at the company and told me to go home first. That night, he didn’t come home either. So the hand that hadn’t held mine had been on the woman beside him. So while I sat on his left watching the movie, he was making another woman cry on his right. The casual conversation in the private room continued. “Sylvia Bennett is such a good person. Isn’t Zachary afraid he’ll drive her away?” “Oh, shut up. With Zachary’s status, what man doesn’t have a few women around him? Zachary finally found someone he likes. Stop saying unlucky things.” “Exactly. Zachary said it himself. Sylvia Bennett is too conservative. After all these years of having sex, she doesn’t even change positions. Who wouldn’t get bored after a while? Yvonne is different. She has all kinds of tricks, she lets loose, and she’s fiery too!” “Enough, enough. We just need to keep our mouths shut. Zachary may be playing around, but anyone can see his love for Sylvia Bennett is carved into his bones. He won’t marry anyone but her.” My ears buzzed, and every sound receded into the distance. It felt as if a hand had grabbed my heart and wrung it hard. Pain spread through my veins and into my limbs. I used to be the most pampered heiress in Los Angeles. Street racing, horse racing—I was flamboyant and reckless, unable to tolerate even a speck of sand in my eyes. When I was eighteen, Bennett Group’s capital chain snapped, and the company collapsed overnight. My father jumped from the top floor of an office building. My mother couldn’t take the blow and suffered a heart attack on the spot. From then on, she was hospitalized for years. Everyone who used to circle around me changed their faces. The snickering at cocktail parties and the mocking remarks in newspapers came down on me from every direction. It was Zachary who announced our engagement at the height of the storm. The red carpet stretched the full length of Chang’an Avenue — a famous central thoroughfare in a historic Chinese downtown district. Blooms lined the three-kilometer stretch from the hotel’s front doors all the way to the church. He brought out the full grandeur of the Foster family, and the entire city was stunned. Holding my hand beneath the crystal chandelier, he said to everyone, “Sylvia Bennett is my fiancée. If anyone dares touch a single hair on her head, they answer to me first.” From that day on, no one dared mock me to my face again. His friends all called me Sylvia Bennett and accepted me. But I knew I was no longer the young lady who could act however she wanted. I tucked away all my edges and my temper, learning to become a flawless, perfect fiancée. At banquets, I knew when to advance and retreat. In front of elders, I was respectful and proper, hiding every emotion behind a poised smile. I thought that was how I could repay him. In the end, not only did he betray me, he also let a group of his friends humiliate me with the most intimate details of our sex life. He disliked that I was conservative. He disliked that I was boring. Then he turned around and held a wild, fiery actress in his arms, having sex with her next door to the promotion dinner he had thrown for me. My blood burned from my chest all the way to the top of my head. If he looked down on me like this, then I didn’t need to keep pretending anymore. I turned around and walked, step by step, toward the private room next door. I pushed the door open. On the sofa, a woman lay pinned underneath, completely naked. The man’s shirt was open, his suit pants hanging loosely on his hips. Broad shoulders, narrow waist—his hips moved deep and hard. The woman’s moans were sweet, sticky, and seductive, her legs wrapped around the man’s waist. At the sound of the door opening, the woman shrieked and shrank into the man’s arms. Without even turning his head, the man shielded her, his tone displeased. “No manners. Get out.” I didn’t move. By the light of the wall lamp, I recognized that face. Yvonne Hayes, the actress who had risen to fame the fastest in the past six months. From an unknown D-lister no one could even identify, she had shot all the way up to A-list. Films by acclaimed directors, S-tier variety shows, luxury endorsements—one after another. Her airport candids were on the trending topics every day. The entire internet was guessing who her powerful backer was. Even someone like me, who didn’t care about the entertainment industry, knew her. Now there was no need to guess. Her sugar daddy was currently on top of her. The man noticed I hadn’t left and turned around. The moment he saw me clearly, every trace of color drained from his face. “Sylvia—” I stepped forward and slapped him across the face. The crisp sound exploded in the room, and his face snapped to the side. “Where did this crazy woman come from? How dare you hit Mr. Foster?!” Yvonne screamed, grabbed a wine bottle from the table, and smashed it down toward my head. The bottle shattered. Wine mixed with warm liquid ran down from my temple. “Sylvia!” Zachary cried out, panic in his voice, and hurried toward me. The more he cared about me like that, the more my heart hurt. Without hesitation, I bent down, picked up the longest shard of glass from the floor, and stabbed it back toward Yvonne’s neck. The shard snapped the diamond necklace around her neck and cut a gash along the side of her throat. With a clatter, the necklace scattered all over the floor. Yvonne was terrified out of her mind, screaming as she stumbled backward again and again. “Sylvia Bennett! Are you insane?!” Zachary seized the shard in one grip. The glass dug deep into his palm, and blood instantly gushed out. He didn’t even look at his own hand. His eyes were only on Yvonne. “Yvonne, are you okay? Let me see the wound.” Then he swung his arm hard and flung me away. I staggered and fell to the floor, my palms landing on shards of glass scattered everywhere. Blood poured out. Zachary grabbed some clothes and wrapped them around Yvonne, then lifted her into his arms. “I’ll take you to the hospital.” Holding her, he strode away without looking at me again. The private room fell silent. I sat on the floor, staring at my mangled palms. Blood from my forehead dripped onto the carpet one drop at a time, and my head felt heavy and dazed. I remembered the year I interned in college. In the lab, a needle pricked my skin, and a tiny bead of blood appeared on my fingertip. Zachary’s face turned white. Without a word, he dragged me to the hospital and insisted the doctor give me a full set of tests. The doctor on duty stared at the pinprick-sized wound on my finger and held back for a long time without daring to roll his eyes. That was the kind of person he was. If I shed even one drop of blood, his heart would ache like crazy. It was still the same now. Only the person whose pain he felt sorry for had changed. I casually wiped the blood from my face and hands and walked out of the private room. I knew very well that one thing that group of people had said was true. Zachary would marry no one but me. He had told me countless times, Sylvia, in this life, you can only marry me. Aside from me, no one else will do. In high school, a boy handed me a love letter. The next day, that boy transferred schools and never appeared in Los Angeles again. The year I went abroad for an exchange program, Zachary flew more than ten hours every week to see me, saying he couldn’t sleep if he went a day without seeing me. He once said that even if I ran to the ends of the earth, he would chase me back. He would not let me go. Besides, the wedding was in half a month. The invitations had been sent all over Los Angeles. The hotel, the wedding attire, the officiant—everything was ready. The Foster family would never allow me to call off the wedding and drag the Foster family’s reputation through the mud. I drove straight to the Foster family estate. “Grandpa.” I entered the study of Zachary Foster’s grandfather, Richard Foster, and knelt down without hesitation. “Sylvia? What happened to you? Who hurt you?” “Grandpa.” I knelt with my back straight and looked up at him. “I don’t want to marry Zachary Foster anymore.” Richard Foster stared at me for a long while, his brows knitting tightly. “Nonsense!” His face darkened. “The invitations went out three months ago, and now you’re telling me you won’t marry him? Where does that leave the Foster family’s reputation?” “I watched you grow up. You are the granddaughter-in-law I chose. No matter how wronged you’ve been, Grandpa will stand up for you. But the wedding cannot be changed.” “Grandpa, you’ve misunderstood.” I shook my head. “The wedding will go on as planned. The invitations don’t need to be changed, and neither does the date.” Richard Foster frowned at me. “Then what do you mean?” I looked straight into his eyes and said, word by word, “I just want to ask you to help me find out whether Alexander Foster is willing to marry me.”

Sylvia Bennett’s POV Unexpectedly, Richard Foster did not lose his temper. He looked at me with a complicated expression for a while, then called in the butler and gave a few low instructions. The butler stepped out to make a call and returned in less than ten minutes. “Mr. Foster, Mr. Alexander Foster has replied. He said that in half a month, he will return on time to attend the wedding.” Richard Foster let out a long sigh. “I have heard a little about Zach causing trouble outside lately.” He looked at me, his brows furrowed. “But the two of you have been together for twelve years, after all. Sylvia, have you really thought this through? You don’t want him anymore?” “Grandpa, you know I’ve never been a magnanimous person.” I knelt upright. “Since he has fallen for someone else, I can’t pretend nothing happened and spend the rest of my life with him. I might as well let them have each other.” Richard Foster was silent for a moment, then waved his hand. “I think that bastard is just confused for the moment. But since you’ve made up your mind, I won’t stop you. I’m an old bag of bones. I can’t control you young people anymore.” “Thank you, Grandpa.” After returning to the apartment, I opened my laptop. Doctors Without Borders and the hospital were cooperating on an overseas medical aid team, and they were recruiting doctors. The station was in North Africa, in an area of long-term armed conflict. Alexander Foster was there at this very moment, commanding a peacekeeping mission. The departure date happened to be the afternoon of the wedding day. For me, the timing was perfect. I filled out the application form and clicked send. Then I started packing. Everywhere in this villa, there were traces of the life Zachary and I had shared. We got together when we were sixteen. It had been exactly twelve years. He had followed behind me since elementary school. Even when I thought he was annoying, he refused to leave. When we were sixteen, I agreed to be with him. He was so happy he ran three laps around the school field. When he came back, his head was covered in sweat, and he hadn’t even caught his breath before asking me, “Sylvia Bennett, you’re not allowed to take it back, okay?” Later, something happened to my family, and the entire world changed. But he did not. When everyone was watching me like I was a joke, he gave me an engagement party that made me the talk of the city. During that time, my mother was seriously ill and hospitalized. He gave money, effort, and resources. Every morning, he drove me to the hospital. At night, he picked me up and brought me home. I broke down crying in the hospital corridor, crouching on the floor and sobbing so hard I couldn’t stand. He crouched beside me and wrapped me in his coat. He said, Sylvia, if the sky falls, I’ll hold it up for you. But I was afraid people would laugh at him for marrying a fallen heiress. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough for him. I was afraid I would become a burden to him. He propped up the entire sky for me, and the only thing I could do was not drag him down. So I studied while taking licensing exams. At twenty-four, I obtained my medical license. At twenty-six, I became an attending physician. At twenty-eight, I was promoted to chief attending physician. I thought we would keep walking forward like that forever. It turned out we wouldn’t. How had such a wonderful Zachary changed? I packed only one suitcase, with a few everyday clothes and the things I used most often. For the rest, anything that could be donated would be handled by the butler, who would contact a charity. Anything that couldn’t be donated would be thrown out. By the time I finished packing everything, it was already late at night. I lay in bed, my whole body feeling as if all strength had been drained from it. The wound on my temple throbbed. At last, I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore. They soaked into my pillow. Just as I was about to fall asleep in a haze, someone suddenly grabbed my arm. I was dragged roughly out of bed. Before I even had time to change out of my pajamas, I was shoved into a car. The cold air inside the car snapped me awake. Zachary sat beside me, the pressure around him heavy and low. “Yvonne was hurt because of you. She lost blood. You’re going to donate blood for her.” I froze, then laughed despite myself. “Zachary Foster, I’m a doctor. That little cut on her neck should have stopped bleeding before she even got to the hospital. And you want me to donate blood for her?” He choked on his words and stayed silent for a long while. “Yvonne has a coagulation disorder. Just in case.” I couldn’t be bothered to expose his excuse, full of holes as it was. He sighed, and his tone softened. “Sylvia, where’s your gentleness and generosity? She’s just a young girl who doesn’t know better. She’s only twenty-two. She attacked you earlier because you scared her. Why do you have to hold it against her?” “I’m not holding it against her.” I turned my head and looked at him. “I’m holding it against you. Zachary Foster, you cheated.” His expression froze. After a long time, he turned his face away and looked out the window. “I promise you, no matter what, she will never surpass you.” “In half a month, the person marrying me will be you.” I stared at the side of his face, unable to say a word for a moment. I had caught him cheating on me in the act, yet he believed that as long as he let me take the position of Mrs. Foster, he was giving me the greatest dignity in the world. We arrived at the hospital. He dragged me out of the car, giving me no chance to break free. “She was hurt in your place. You owe her this.” He pulled me all the way into the blood collection room. The doctor on duty recognized me and froze. “Dr… Dr. Bennett?” “Draw her blood,” Zachary said curtly. My arm was pressed onto the blood collection table, and the needle pierced my vein. Dark red blood flowed through the tube and into the blood bag. When it reached four hundred milliliters, the doctor glanced at the blood bag and spoke carefully. “Mr. Foster, four hundred milliliters is already the maximum donation limit. Drawing any more could harm her body—” “Draw more and keep it ready!” Zachary’s expression was terrifyingly dark. “Just in case.”

Sylvia Bennett’s POV Bag after bag of blood was taken away. I watched my own blood flow through the tube and into the plastic bags, and my consciousness started to drift. In the past, when our school organized a blood drive, I was standing in line when Zachary rushed over from nowhere and dragged me straight out of the line. “You’re so tiny. I’d feel awful if you lost even one drop of blood.” Now, for a tiny cut on Yvonne’s neck that didn’t even need a Band-Aid, he pinned me to the blood collection table and kept drawing my blood. A dull swelling started in my abdomen, as if something were sinking downward. Then came a sudden spasm. My face turned white in an instant, and cold sweat seeped from my forehead. A warm, wet sensation spread beneath me. The ceiling before my eyes began to spin, and every sound faded far away. I heard doctors shouting something, nurses running, and someone pressing down on my shoulders. Then I knew nothing. When I woke up again, I was in a hospital room. The doctor sitting by my bed was one of my colleagues. “Dr. Bennett, you’re awake.” He looked at me, his expression complicated. “You’re pregnant. How could you donate that much blood?” I froze. “You didn’t know?” He opened my chart and pointed it out to me. “Eight weeks pregnant. Your hemoglobin was severely low, and with the massive blood loss, it led to…” He didn’t finish the rest. I remembered then. My period really hadn’t come last month. At the time, I thought I was just too exhausted from back-to-back surgeries and didn’t pay attention. “What about the baby?” Marcus Collins looked at me and shook his head. “Mr. Foster will definitely be heartbroken when he finds out,” my colleague sighed. “I’ll notify him to come over—” The young nurse beside him quickly tugged at his sleeve and gave him a look. My colleague’s words stuck in his throat. “Did he come by?” I asked. The two of them exchanged a glance. Neither spoke. “He didn’t, right?” I answered for them. “It’s fine.” I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes. “Don’t tell him.” For the next two days, my colleagues took turns coming to see me. They brought meals, sent flowers, covered my rounds, and took meticulous care of me. Zachary Foster never came once. No one mentioned him. On the afternoon of the second day, I was resting with my eyes closed in the ward when the voices of two young nurses drifted in from the hallway. “Mr. Foster has been on the twelfth floor in the VIP ward with that actress the whole time. I heard flowers filled up an entire floor.” “That cut on Yvonne Hayes’s neck didn’t need hospitalization at all. It was just a shallow scratch, and it healed ages ago. Mr. Foster said she’s a celebrity and was afraid of scarring, so he transferred the entire cosmetic dermatology department team over there.” “Isn’t Dr. Bennett Mr. Foster’s fiancée? She’s hospitalized too, and he won’t even come take one look?” “Shh—stop talking. Careful someone hears you.” Their footsteps hurried away. On the third day, I handled my own discharge paperwork. When I passed the fire stairwell, the fire door wasn’t fully shut. Voices came from inside. It was Zachary Foster’s voice, and one of his friends. “Zachary, you’re really not going to check on Sylvia Bennett?” “It’s been days. You haven’t asked about her once. Back then, if she got a splinter in her hand, you acted like the sky was falling.” “No. She’s become too spoiled and domineering.” Zachary’s voice was cold. “She dared to stab someone in the neck with glass. If I don’t temper that temper of hers, what happens next time? I can’t indulge her.” Yvonne smashed a wine bottle against my head, and he thought she was just a young girl, telling me not to hold it against her. When I fought back, I became spoiled and domineering. Someone he couldn’t indulge. “Zachary, what exactly do you think of Yvonne Hayes?” Zachary fell silent for a moment. “Yvonne, that girl… how do I put it?” His tone turned indulgent and infatuated. “I can’t stop. It’s addictive. There’s an energy in her—bold, passionate, fearless. Like Sylvia used to be.” “Sylvia is too boring now. Like a dead pool of water.” He really was good at finding excuses. But I had already become myself again. The same thing, when Yvonne did it, was passionate and charming. When I did it, it was domineering. He despised me for being as dull as stagnant water before. Now that I fought back, he despised me for being spoiled. When someone stopped loving you, everything you did was wrong. “You’re really not afraid Sylvia Bennett will leave?” Zachary let out a mocking laugh. “Where would she go? Everything she has, I gave her. Without me, she’s nothing.” I stood outside the fire door, clenching my fists. They killed my child. I had to do something for my child. After I was discharged, I got the surveillance footage from the private club that day. Zachary had Yvonne pinned down. Yvonne’s face was directly facing the camera. I uploaded the video online. Less than ten minutes after it was posted, the views broke one hundred thousand. #A-list actress explicit video exposed# Because Zachary had his back to the camera, netizens didn’t know it was him. All the firepower focused on Yvonne. [Holy shit, that face is definitely Yvonne Hayes. Way too recognizable!] [Those moves, that level of explicitness… She always acts like such a pure untouchable ice queen, but she’s this wild in private?] [She plays hard! No wonder her resources are so good!] [The guy’s face isn’t shown. Is this some stunt to buy trending topics or what? Disgusting.] Several of Yvonne’s luxury endorsements immediately announced they were suspending cooperation, and production teams held emergency meetings overnight to discuss replacing her. Yvonne’s studio urgently deleted all posts from every social media platform. But only two hours later, the situation took a dramatic turn. Yvonne’s video was scrubbed completely clean. Her studio released a formal statement overnight: [The video circulating online regarding Ms. Yvonne Hayes is purely an AI-generated fake and a malicious defamation of Ms. Yvonne Hayes’s reputation. Ms. Hayes has reported the matter to the police and will pursue legal responsibility against the rumor-mongers.] Public opinion instantly reversed. Yvonne went from the heroine of a scandal to the victim of AI slander. Sympathy came crashing in like a tidal wave, and the attention was even higher than before. At the same time, another high-definition private video landed on the front pages of every major social media platform. The woman in the video was me. Countless netizens flooded my account and the hospital’s account. The comments section was like a sewer gate had been opened. [A doctor plays this wild in private? Tsk, tsk. Take off the white coat and she’s just a slut.] [Who is that with her? Does Mr. Foster know he’s been cheated on?] [Could it be some hospital executive? Did she sleep her way into that title?] [Mr. Foster’s fiancée filming this kind of thing in private. She’s completely ruined the Foster family’s reputation.] My whole body went ice-cold. I knew this video all too well. The person who filmed it was Zachary Foster.

Sylvia Bennett POV All these years we had been together, he had always liked recording things on his phone. I had never wanted to. But he said he could watch them when he missed me, that they would satisfy his cravings, and he promised he would never show them to anyone. I couldn’t bear to refuse him. I never imagined that in order to cover up Yvonne Hayes’s scandal, he would destroy my reputation without hesitation. Back when we attended social events, if any man looked at me one time too many, Zachary would throw him out with a dark expression. Every time we attended a banquet, the gowns he chose for me were always high-necked with long skirts. He said not one inch of his Sylvia’s skin could be seen by anyone else. He wished he could hide me away. Now, he had personally posted my privacy online, letting millions of netizens fantasize about and humiliate me. My phone vibrated like crazy. I didn’t know who had leaked my number. Unknown numbers poured in like snowflakes. The text messages were full of filthy, obscene abuse. Some people even sent pictures of those parts of their bodies. My hands shook so hard I could barely hold my phone. All the blood rushed to my head. I called Zachary. “Zachary Foster, did you release that video?” I gritted my teeth, my whole body trembling. “Yes.” He admitted it cleanly. “Why?” My voice cracked, tears spinning in my eyes. “That was a video of me and you! How could you!” “When you do something wrong, you have to be punished.” His tone was as hard and cold as ice. “When you exposed Yvonne’s video, you should’ve thought about the consequences.” I was so furious I couldn’t speak. He seemed to notice my suppressed breathing, and the coldness in his voice softened a little. “I released that video only to push down Yvonne’s trending topics. Her career is on the rise right now. A scandal like this would affect her too much.” He sighed softly, then began coaxing me as if he were granting me a favor. “Sylvia, be good. Stop making trouble. Netizens are forgetful. In a few days, everyone will forget.” “Forget?” I let out a miserable laugh. “Will you forget? Will I forget?” Before he could speak again, I hung up hard. The next day, I forced myself to go to work at the hospital. As soon as I parked in the garage, I heard two people passing by pointing and whispering about me. “That’s her, right? The youngest chief physician in cardiothoracic surgery?” “Tsk, tsk. She looks so cold and aloof, but she plays that hard in private.” “I heard she’s Mr. Foster’s fiancée too. No idea where she got the nerve to mess around outside.” I tightened my grip on my car keys and walked into the elevator without looking sideways. When I reached the department, the atmosphere was even stranger. Colleagues who usually greeted me warmly now avoided me like I was the plague. I went to the ward for rounds. As soon as I reached the door, I heard the patient’s family members talking inside. “I won’t let her operate on my son! A shameless woman like that is a disgrace to the name of angels in white!” “Exactly! With a private life that messy, I wouldn’t dare put my life in her hands!” The head nurse tried desperately to persuade them. “Dr. Bennett completed a direct bachelor-to-PhD program in cardiothoracic surgery at University A, and she’s also the youngest chief attending physician at our hospital. Her skills are recognized by the entire hospital.” “Oh, please! Who knows how she got that chief position? I demand a different doctor! If you don’t switch doctors, I’ll file a complaint!” I stood at the door, my hands and feet ice-cold. I studied medicine for my mother, and I studied medicine for the Foster family’s dignity. I fought with everything I had to get into the best hospital in the entire state. Back then, Zachary would proudly introduce me to everyone he met. “This is our Dr. Bennett, the best scalpel in cardiothoracic surgery.” Now, he had personally thrown my professional dignity to the ground and crushed it underfoot. Before long, the hospital director called me in. “Sylvia, you know what’s been going on recently. The hospital has received quite a few complaints, and some family members have posted about it online.” He looked troubled, weighing his words. “I saw that you applied for the Doctors Without Borders war-zone medical team. The approval has already gone through, and your departure date is at the end of the month.” “Don’t come in during this period. Rest at home for now. We’ll talk after the attention dies down.” The meaning behind his words was obvious. The public opinion storm around me had already seriously affected the hospital’s normal operations and reputation. “No need.” I stood up. “Please help me process my resignation. After I return from the war zone, I won’t be coming back to the hospital. You don’t have to be put in a difficult position.” The director hadn’t expected me to be so decisive. He wanted to say something, but in the end, he only let out a long sigh. I returned to the department, packed up my personal belongings, and went straight home. When I pushed open the villa door, the aroma of food hit me. Zachary Foster walked out of the kitchen carrying a plate of food. “Off work? Come eat.” He acted as if nothing had happened, as if the bloody storm online had never existed. “If you can’t stay at the hospital, then come home. It’s not like I can’t support you.” He said it casually. I stood in the living room, motionless, staring at him. When he saw I wasn’t moving, his brows furrowed slightly. “I know you felt wronged yesterday. But you were the one who did something wrong first. You provoked Yvonne first. This is the lesson you deserved.” His matter-of-fact tone finally shattered my last line of defense. I strode over, raised my hand, and slapped him hard across the face. Before he could react, I grabbed the tablecloth and yanked with all my strength. The entire table of food flipped onto the floor. “Sylvia Bennett! Are you insane?” Zachary was stunned by the slap and instinctively stood up, roaring at me. My eyes were red as I stared at him. “Zachary Foster, you destroyed my career!” My voice trembled. “You know why I became a doctor. You know how hard it was for me to get here! For that woman, you want to completely destroy me!” Zachary looked at the tears spinning in my eyes, and only then did he seem to realize the severity of what he had done. Panic and heartache flashed in his eyes. He stepped forward, wanting to grab my arm. “Sylvia, I—” His phone rang abruptly, cutting him off. It was Yvonne. He immediately let go of my arm. The trace of heartache in his eyes quickly faded. When he answered the phone, his voice was so gentle it could drip water. “What? You’re not feeling well? Don’t move, don’t be scared. I’ll be right there!” After hanging up, he didn’t even take his coat before hurrying out. When he passed by me, his steps paused slightly. He glanced at me with a deep frown. “I’ll have Mrs. Watson make you something else to eat in a bit. Stop making trouble.” The front door slammed shut. I stood in the wrecked dining room, feeling as if my heart had been torn apart alive, the pain so intense I couldn’t breathe. I turned and walked to the study, opened the computer, and logged into the cloud album. The full unedited version of the video was stored there. Inside, Zachary Foster’s face had been recorded clearly. I knew that once this video was posted, he would become the one cursed by the entire internet. For exposing his own fiancée’s private video, he would become everyone’s target. But since he didn’t care about me, why should I preserve his dignity? Without the slightest hesitation, I posted the unedited video to every major social media platform. Then I turned off my phone and computer, got into bed, and went to sleep.

Sylvia Bennett POV When I was half-asleep in the middle of the night, I felt as if a mountain were pressing down on me. A familiar scent filled my nose. My eyes flew open. Zachary Foster’s face was dark as he roughly tore at my pajamas. “What are you doing!” I struggled desperately, bending my knee to shove him off. He didn’t dodge or move away. He lowered his head and kissed me. My lips were brutally sealed. The rough kiss was full of punishment, leaving me no room to breathe. My wrists were pinned like they were trapped in iron clamps. I bit down hard. The taste of blood instantly spread through both our mouths. Zachary winced, lifted the back of his hand, and casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Before I could react, he pressed down again. This kiss was even fiercer, even harsher than before. The bloody kiss made me feel suffocated and nauseated. I pounded on his chest and struggled with all my strength. “Zachary Foster, are you insane!” He stopped, bracing his hands on either side of me, looking down at me from above. His eyes were dark and heavy. “I am insane.” “Sylvia Bennett, are you really that cheap? Posting our video for everyone to see?” I trembled with rage and actually laughed. I had never known Zachary Foster could be such a hypocrite. “That’s right! I wanted everyone to see what high-and-mighty Mr. Foster of Los Angeles looks like when he’s in heat!” “It’s not like I’m the only one you’ve ever been in heat for anyway. What’s wrong with letting more people see?” That sentence instantly ignited the fire in his eyes. His face darkened to the extreme. “Fine.” In a few motions, he tore away the last of my clothes, his actions completely merciless. “Since you like having your husband watched so much, then let her watch properly.” My whole body went rigid. “What did you say? Who?” A soft laugh sounded from the bedroom doorway. The lights were suddenly switched on. “Ms. Bennett.” Yvonne leaned against the doorframe, a provocative smile hanging from her lips. “Zach said you’re too boring in bed, like a dead fish, and you can’t get him hard. So he asked me to come teach you.” I couldn’t believe it. The overwhelming humiliation made it impossible to breathe. Zachary Foster had actually brought her into our villa. Into our bedroom. He was letting this woman watch him violate me. I grabbed a book from the nightstand and hurled it toward the doorway with all my strength. “Get out! Get out!” Yvonne turned sideways and dodged. Not only was she unafraid, her smile became even more brazen. “Ms. Bennett, with you acting like such a shrew, how could any man like you?” Yvonne walked to the foot of the bed and watched leisurely. “At a time like this, you should be more proactive. Moan a little sweeter. Then Zach will like you.” Tears slid down uncontrollably, and my whole body shook. “You hear that? Learned it?” Zachary hovered above me, his voice cold. He pressed down again. Pain and humiliation tangled together. I desperately reached toward the nightstand, my fingertips brushing the photo frame. I grabbed the frame and slammed it hard against the wall. The glass shattered. I picked up a shard of glass and pressed it against my neck. “Zachary Foster! If you dare move again, I’ll die right in front of you!” Zachary’s movements instantly froze. His pupils contracted sharply, and uncontrollable panic flashed through his eyes. “Sylvia Bennett, put that down!” “Here Ms. Bennett goes again.” Yvonne let out a scoff beside us. “Crying, throwing a tantrum, then threatening suicide. Ms. Bennett sure is skilled at this routine. Stop pretending.” Zachary’s gaze moved between me and Yvonne. The panic faded, and his expression turned cold and hard again. “Sylvia Bennett, I won’t keep indulging you forever.” I stared fixedly at him. At the coldness on his face. At the way he allowed another woman to humiliate me. I thought I had already hurt so much I had gone numb, but a chill still seeped uncontrollably from the bottom of my heart. “Fine. Then don’t regret it.” My hand tightened around the shard of glass, and I slashed it toward my carotid artery. “Sylvia!” Zachary Foster’s face changed drastically. He grabbed the shard in one swift motion. The sharp glass instantly sliced open his palm. Blood poured out. Like a madman, he wrenched the glass from my hand and flung it away, then clamped his other hand over my neck. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” He roared at me, his eyes bloodshot. I turned my head away, refusing to look at him or speak. Zachary stared at the emptiness in my eyes. After a long standoff, he was the first to give in. “Fine.” “You win. Sylvia Bennett, you win!” I still didn’t look at him. “Get out.” I forced the word from my throat. Zachary stared at me for a long time. Then he abruptly got up, threw on his clothes in a mess, and stopped beside Yvonne Hayes. “Let’s go!” Yvonne wanted to say something, but he dragged her out of the room. Their footsteps faded, and the front door slammed shut. The house fell completely silent. That night, I didn’t even have the strength to turn over. Tears flowed into my ears, then onto my pillow. They dried up, then kept falling again. When I woke up the next day, my eyes were so swollen I could barely open them. In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face again and again before I could barely see. I had just changed and opened the bedroom door when I saw Yvonne coming upstairs. I looked at her coldly. “What are you doing here again?” Yvonne walked up to me and shook the set of keys in her hand. “Zach gave me the keys to this villa. He said I can come whenever I want.” She curled her lips and lifted her wrist as if showing off. On her slender, pale wrist was a sparkling diamond bracelet. “Look familiar?” Of course it did. It was a globally limited-edition piece I’d fallen for at a high jewelry show six months ago. Its intricate manufacturing meant I’d been waiting for the brand to finalize its launch schedule. When Zachary accompanied me to the exhibition, he had sworn he would buy it for me the moment it launched. Now it was on Yvonne’s wrist. “I casually mentioned yesterday that this bracelet was pretty, and Zach gave it to me.” Yvonne admired the bracelet, her gaze provocative. “Sylvia Bennett, so what if you grew up with him? So what if you dated him for twelve years? So what if he loves you?” She took a step closer. “All I had to do was crook my finger, and he obediently came to my bed.” “If I can take your bracelet today, I can take your place as Mrs. Foster tomorrow.” I kept looking at her calmly, as if I were watching a clown performing with all her might. When she saw I wasn’t reacting, she actually grew a little anxious. Just then, the sound of the front door opening came from downstairs, followed by familiar footsteps. Zachary was back. Yvonne’s eyes shifted. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She stepped back a few paces, retreating to the edge of the staircase. “Tell me, if I say you pushed me down from here, will Zach believe me or you?” I had seen enough of this fake-fall frame-up routine. Since she was so determined to pin this crime on me, I might as well make it true. Without hesitation, I followed her and kicked her hard. “Ah—!” Yvonne really screamed and tumbled down the stairs.

Sylvia Bennett POV Zachary rushed up from downstairs. “Yvonne!” Yvonne lay at the foot of the stairs, her hands and feet scraped. She lifted her tearful face, her voice weak and considerate. “Zach, I’m fine… I came on my own to try to persuade Ms. Bennett not to be angry with you anymore. It’s all my fault. Don’t blame Ms. Bennett.” Zachary raised his head and looked at me with an icy gaze. “Sylvia Bennett, how can you be so vicious?” he blurted out. “I really regret saving you back then!” Those words were heavier than every slap and insult combined. Zachary had saved me twice. When I was eight, I fell into the artificial lake in the courtyard. Zachary was the one who pulled me out. From that day on, he became the most important person in my life. When I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. By then, the Bennett family was already far less wealthy than before. Other than crying, my parents were helpless. It was Zachary who begged his family to bring in a team of specialists from overseas. After I recovered, it felt only natural that I ended up with him. I thought he was the salvation fate had given me. For him, I was willing to put away all my temper and learn to be a gentle, domestic woman. Without a single complaint. But now, he said he regretted saving me. If I could go back to that day by the lake, to that hospital bed, I would want to say too: I would rather he had never saved me. Zachary carried Yvonne out the front door. I stood on the stairs, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. It hurt, but it was no longer as piercing as it had been the past few days. My heart seemed to be slowly turning cold. Back in my room, I pulled up the hallway surveillance footage. In the video, Yvonne personally admitted she had seduced Zachary and wanted to take my place. “If I can take your bracelet today, I can take your place as Mrs. Foster tomorrow.” I saved the video. My phone rang. It was my best friend, Nina Scott. “Sylvia, what’s going on over there? I saw everything online. Is that bastard Zachary Foster insane?” “I’m fine.” “Don’t be sad, Sylvia. He’s just a man. He’s not worth it! Men are tools. If they work, use them. If they don’t, throw them away. Don’t ever take them too seriously!” “I’m not sad anymore.” I said calmly, “I don’t want him anymore. He’s dirty.” Nina fell silent for a moment, then suddenly got excited. “Sylvia, you finally came to your senses! I’m telling you, ever since you got engaged to Zachary Foster, you’ve been living like a nun. Day after day, all bland and boring. Even I felt suffocated for you!” She suggested excitedly, “Want to come out tonight? Wash off all that bad luck!” “Come out for what?” “Music, alcohol, male models—everything you could want. The wildest place in all of Los Angeles. Are you coming or not?” I looked at my pale, haggard face in the mirror and suddenly smiled. If Zachary could play around with actresses, why couldn’t I go to a nightclub? “Send me the address.” That night, I changed into a red deep-V spaghetti-strap dress. It was the kind of outfit Zachary would never allow me to wear out. I put on full makeup, stepped into four-inch heels, and drove to the address Nina sent me. Nina had booked the largest VIP private room. The moment the private room door opened, deafening music mixed with the smell of alcohol rushed at me. “Take your pick!” Nina winked at me. With a wave of her hand, more than a dozen tall young men with different looks lined up. “They’re all clean. Abs, pretty faces, everything. My treat, babe! If you like one, take him straight home!” I looked around, and my gaze stopped on the quietest boy in the corner. He had a clean, innocent face and sat there obediently, like a college student. “Him.” Taking him home was unnecessary. I only wanted someone to drink and dance with me. The boy immediately came over, skillfully picked up the bottle, and poured me a glass. “Hi, baby. I’m Star.” After a few drinks, the music picked up. I pulled Star to the dance floor. Twelve years. I had forgotten that I had once been a young heiress who could let loose on a dance floor too. With Star leading me, I danced close against him. Star was very considerate and played along perfectly. When we were tired, we returned to the booth. Star obediently picked up the fruit platter, speared a piece of watermelon with a fork, and held it to my lips. “Baby, is it sweet?” “Sweet.” I reached over, took off the diamond bracelet on my wrist, and casually tossed it into Star’s lap. “A reward. Sell it for cash.” Nina leaned over to take a look and dramatically covered her mouth. “Little brother, you’d better know what that is. This thing is worth seven figures!” Star looked at the bracelet in surprise, then at me. I lifted my glass and took a sip. “It’s just trash. Not worth anything.” It was the gift Zachary had given me when we got engaged. Globally limited, extremely valuable. Star’s eyes shone. He hurriedly stuffed the bracelet into his pocket. “Thank you, baby!” He fed me strawberries with even more enthusiasm. I was just about to bite into a strawberry. The private room door was kicked open. Zachary stood in the doorway. He radiated cold fury, his eyes so vicious he looked ready to kill. When he saw the male model’s arm around my waist and my low-cut spaghetti-strap dress, his face instantly darkened to the extreme. He strode over and shoved Star away from me. Star staggered back two steps and muttered unhappily. “Whoa, where did this old man come from? Who are you? Why so aggressive?” Zachary ignored him. With an ashen face, he stared at me, his gaze falling on my empty wrist. “How dare you give it away?” I crossed my legs and leaned against the sofa, tilting my head up to meet his gaze without backing down. “Why can’t I?” “I didn’t say anything when Mr. Foster gave his little mistress a gift. Since when does Mr. Foster get to make demands of me?” Zachary’s breath hitched. He was too choked to speak. That limited-edition bracelet Yvonne had was originally bought for me. But last night, he hadn’t been able to vent with me, and thanks to Yvonne’s diligent efforts, he had gotten his release. Afterward, Yvonne had clung to him and asked for that bracelet. In the heat of the moment, he had casually agreed. A flash of embarrassment crossed his face, but it was quickly swallowed by even stronger anger. “Hand over the bracelet.” He ordered Star. Star clutched his pocket tightly. Not only did he refuse to hand it over, he went full sharp-tongued mode. “Oh, so this is the brother-in-law.” He deliberately drew out his words. “This was a reward from baby. What does it have to do with you?” “It’s just a little trinket, and you actually have the nerve to ask for it back. Baby must have suffered a lot following you, huh?” Not only did Star talk back, he even leaned closer to me and deliberately rested against my shoulder. “Besides, baby likes clean men now.” He blinked his innocent big eyes at Zachary. “Sorry, brother-in-law. I’m not like you. I’m still a virgin.” Nina laughed so hard beside us that she slapped her thigh. Zachary’s face went completely black. The veins at his temple throbbed as he forced himself to hold back his rage. “Get lost!” “I’m not getting lost.” Star had nothing to fear. “Baby hasn’t told me to leave. What right do you have to chase me away? Don’t you know? Out with the old, in with the new. Brother-in-law, you’re old now, and your body probably can’t keep up anymore. Of course baby wants someone young and strong.” “You’re asking for death!” Zachary’s rationality completely snapped. He raised his fist and was about to smash it into Star’s face. I stepped in front of Star. “Zachary Foster, are you insane?” “He’s just an immature boy. He’s only twenty! You scared him just now, so he talked back. Why do you have to take it so seriously?”

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Chris and I used a CoupleStreak app to track our relationship. For 999 consecutive days, he sent me a “Goodnight” message every single day. He said it was our special ritual. Even when we fought, even when he went on business trips, and even when he didn’t finish his client dinners until three in the morning, he never missed a single day. Until last night, when the streak stopped at day 999. The app gave a cold notification: Your streak has been broken. Thinking something terrible had happened to him, I called him 108 times. When he finally picked up on the 108th call, his voice was raspy and exhausted. “Stop pressuring me, Chloe. I’m still at the hospital. Grace is having an episode.” Grace was his ex-girlfriend. She had gotten divorced just two weeks ago. I gripped my phone tightly, my heart sinking inch by inch. “So you forgot to say goodnight to me?” Chris paused, as if he had just realized it, and let out a soft, dismissive chuckle. “We’ve been together forever, babe. Are you seriously throwing a tantrum over something so petty?” But this “petty” thing was something he had built with his own hands when he was chasing me. He once told me that “goodnight” wasn’t just a word; it was his way of making sure I was the very last thought in his mind before he went to sleep. I stared at the broken number on my screen. Suddenly, I felt like our two and a half years together weren’t that long after all. It was long enough for him to form a habit, but short enough for him to completely forget about me the moment another woman needed him.

The harsh beep of the hung-up call cut through the freezing night wind. I stood outside the iron gates of Chris’s suburban mansion, dragging my heavy suitcase. The fingerprint lock on the front door flashed red, and a cold, robotic voice spoke. “Access expired. Please contact the homeowner.” I leaned against the icy iron bars, my stomach cramping violently from the ten-hour bus ride. Peeking out from the zipper of my backpack was a pink card. “Wishing Chloe a bright future and a happy marriage.” My school principal, Mr. Hudson, had personally handed that to me yesterday afternoon. Because Chris had told me to “stop worrying about petty things,” I had resigned from my tenured teaching job. On this exact day—our 1000th anniversary—I had completely abandoned my stable, quiet life to come to this unfamiliar city alone. This was supposed to be our first day ending our long-distance relationship. I crouched in the corner of the wall to block the wind, pressing my hands hard against my aching stomach. The physical pain dragged my memories back to two years ago. Back then, I was facing severe bullying at my workplace, and my anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t keep food down. But Chris would drive hours every single weekend, without fail, just to see me. He would cook my favorite pasta, sit in my tiny, cramped apartment, and gently coax me to take one bite at a time. He had promised me. “Chloe, as long as I’m here, you will never have to face the cold winter alone.” That was my saving grace, the very foundation of my courage to risk everything today. But now, the man who once used his own body heat to warm my hands had completely forgotten about me in this freezing wind, all because another woman was in a bad mood. At 5:00 AM, a familiar black Mercedes finally pulled into the driveway. The headlights pierced through the thick darkness. My stiff body struggled as I forced myself to stand up against the wall. My frozen facial muscles twitched, trying to force a smile I hadn’t used in hours. The passenger door opened first, and Chris rushed over. He leaned down and gently lifted Grace—who was lost in a deep depressive state—out of the car. Grace was incredibly thin, wrapped tightly in a thick, oversized cashmere coat. The hem of the coat dragged on the ground. It was Chris’s favorite coat. In past winters, whenever I came to visit him, he loved to unzip that very coat, pull me into his chest, and laughingly tell me it was my personal windproof tent. Now, someone else was in that tent. Chris lowered his voice, whispering sweet, comforting words into Grace’s ear. His entire focus was on the woman in his arms. He didn’t even spare a glance toward the shadow where I stood. It wasn’t until Grace half-opened her eyes and pointed toward the gate that Chris finally turned around. When he saw me, shivering and practically frozen solid, a flash of pure shock crossed his face. After settling Grace down, he slowly walked over to me. Across the iron gate, his voice was still that beautiful, gentle tone that I used to lose myself in. “Chloe? Why did you come all this way without telling me?” “You should have called first.” “Grace had a complete mental breakdown last night and had to take sleeping pills. She can’t handle any sudden shocks right now.” “Be a good girl.” “Keep your voice down, okay? Let’s get inside first.” He reached out, trying to grab my heavy backpack. When his fingers brushed against my icy hand, he froze for a split second. I looked at the deep concern in his eyes—all of which was reserved for Grace—and realized with absolute clarity. In this movie of three people, I had become the unwanted extra who was expected to be quiet and understanding. I pulled my hand back, avoiding his touch, and picked up the two heavy bags myself. “Okay. I won’t wake her.” I stepped into the house I once thought would be my home. Chris took Grace upstairs to the master bedroom. It was a long time before he finally came downstairs and poured me a glass of warm water. “I knew I could count on you to be reasonable, Chloe.” I held the warm glass, my eyes landing on his collar. There was a smudge of foundation on his shirt. It wasn’t my shade.

The next morning, I woke up in the guest room. After freezing outside all night, my throat was raw and painful. I got up early, habitually walking to the kitchen to make Chris’s favorite pancakes. As I passed the hallway on the second floor, I noticed the master bedroom door was ajar. Chris and Grace were sitting side-by-side on the wool rug by the balcony. Grace was clutching her head, her body trembling uncontrollably. Chris had his arm wrapped around her, gently rubbing her back. I stood there, silent. I quietly went back to the guest room and pulled out a card I had written on the bus last night. Happy 1000 Days, Dr. Blair! I’m finally here to be with you. The handwriting was bursting with the excitement I felt at the time. But now, I tore it into pieces and threw it into the trash can. At breakfast, Chris brought two plates out from the kitchen. With my throat burning, I instinctively reached for the plate with the light, clear chicken noodle soup. But Chris gently pressed his hand over mine, his eyes soft but firm. “Chloe, I made that specifically for Grace.” “Her stomach is really sensitive from her antidepressant medication. She can’t handle anything greasy.” He pushed the other plate, loaded with greasy bacon, toward me. “You used to love bacon. I went out of my way to order this delivery for you.” I stared at the plate of bacon dripping with oil. Just swallowing my own saliva felt like swallowing razor blades. My voice came out raspy and broken. “My stomach hurts too. I can’t eat greasy food today.” The moment those words left my mouth, Grace’s eyes welled up with tears. The fork slipped from her hand, clattering onto the table, and she began to shake. “I’m sorry…” “It’s all my fault. I’m even fighting you for a bowl of soup.” “I’m so useless. I should just die…” She covered her face and sobbed. Chris immediately rushed to her side, pulling her into his chest to comfort her. Once Grace’s breathing finally calmed down, Chris turned to look at me, letting out a heavy sigh. “Chloe, you’ve always loved greasy food.” “She has lost everything. She’s literally fighting for her life every day.” “You have a stable, great job, and you have my undivided love.” “Why do you have to pick a fight with a sick person over a simple bowl of soup?” With the gentlest tone, he ripped open my deepest wound. He had no idea that I didn’t have a stable job anymore. By noon, I developed a low-grade fever, and my throat was so swollen I could barely speak. Chris’s private dental clinic was located in the commercial district just outside our neighborhood. I decided to walk over to get some anti-inflammatory medicine from him. When I reached the clinic, I looked through the glass storefront. Chris was lying on the recliner next to the dental chair. He was holding Grace’s hand while the nurse administered a calming therapy session for her. Two receptionists at the front desk were whispering to each other. “Dr. Blair is so sweet to her.” “He canceled all of his afternoon appointments just to stay with her during therapy.” I stood in the drizzling rain, took a two-hour bus ride, and went to the run-down North End of the city—a place filled with sketchy, cheap apartments. I walked into a dingy little pharmacy, bought the cheapest fever reducers, and swallowed them with a bottle of water while standing in the cold wind. As the medicine started to kick in, I searched through the narrow alleys for an apartment, repeatedly checking the balance in my bank account. To be with Chris, I hadn’t just quit my job; I had spent almost all of my savings paying off the school’s contract termination penalty. Finally, I stopped in front of a dim, semi-basement apartment. The walls were peeling, and the place smelled heavily of mold. I told myself that this was where I would plant my new roots in a city that didn’t belong to me. I sat on a plastic chair in the rental office and signed the lease for the semi-basement. When I looked up, I saw a job posting tacked on the bulletin board. At that exact moment, the phone in my pocket vibrated. It was a voice note from Chris. “Chloe, I’m taking you out for French food tonight to celebrate our 1000 days.”

I put on my best white dress, applied some light makeup, and went to the dinner on time. It was a Michelin-starred French restaurant with an incredible view, overlooking the city’s sparkling skyline. Chris had booked half the restaurant, and a beautifully wrapped, expensive gift sat in the center of the table. He smiled, pulling out the chair for me. “I know you took your vacation days just to come see me for our 1000-day anniversary.” “I’m sorry I ignored you these past few days. Tonight is just for the two of us.” He elegantly picked up his knife and fork, cutting my steak into perfect, bite-sized pieces. His eyes were filled with so much love that even the violinist playing nearby looked at us with envy. This genuine affection was the hardest thing for me to fight against. It was a slow, blunt knife. Just as I picked up my fork, trying to accept his words as a final comfort, his phone rang. The moment he saw the caller ID, the smile vanished from his face. The panicked voice of Grace’s psychiatrist came through the speaker, so loud that even I could hear it. “Miss Grace just slit her wrists! She’s in the emergency room right now! Dr. Blair, you need to get here immediately!” The cutlery slipped from Chris’s hands, clattering loudly against the plate. His face turned deathly pale. He stood up instantly, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of the chair. He looked at me with guilt, but his eyes were filled with absolute determination. “I’m so sorry, Chloe. Her life is on the line. I have to go.” “Take an Uber back to the mansion. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.” Before I could even speak, he had already stormed out of the restaurant. I sat quietly in the luxurious dining room, staring at the perfectly cut steak, and suddenly felt a wave of pure absurdity. If love only consists of “making things up to me,” how is that any different from charity? I didn’t go back to the mansion. In this city, twelve hundred miles away from my hometown, Chris only had to change the door code, and I would be homeless. The rain outside grew heavier, and not a single light in this massive city belonged to me. I tried calling Chris to tell him that my stomach was cramping so badly I couldn’t walk. He declined my call instantly, sending a cold text right after: I’m outside the ICU right now. It’s not convenient to talk. Be a good girl and go back home to teach your classes. Once I sort things out here, I’ll fly back to see you. I stared at the screen as a wave of acid surged up my throat. I crouched under the bus stop shelter, completely soaked by the pouring rain. That was the moment I finally understood. In his mind, he believed I always had a safe, cozy home to retreat to. Because of that, he assumed I would always be safe. And because of that, he felt entirely comfortable hurting me. In the middle of the night, I went back to the mansion. The house was dark and completely empty. Grace’s antidepressant bottles were still sitting right in the middle of the coffee table. I walked into the guest room and quietly packed my suitcase. I packed my clothes and the lesson plans I had left in the study. I cleaned up the room thoroughly, making sure not even a single strand of my hair was left in the bathroom. I never belonged to this house anyway. I came without a sound, and I left without a trace. Before leaving, I pushed open the master bedroom door and took one last look at the bed we used to share. I pulled a piece of paper from my bag. It was the copy of my resignation letter. I had planned to give it to him tonight, on our 1000th anniversary. I wanted to tell him: “Chris, for you, I have become a wanderer in this city.” But now, I slowly tore the paper into tiny shreds, walked to the bathroom, and flushed them down the toilet. He would never deserve to know this secret. The front door clicked shut. I dragged my suitcase out into the late autumn rain. At that moment, my phone lit up with a message from Chris: She’s out of danger. Take care of yourself at home. Don’t make me worry.

An hour before I left, there was actually a small confrontation. Just as I dragged my heavy bags to the foyer, the front door swung open. Chris had rushed back to grab some of Grace’s things, and we ran straight into each other. Seeing my bags on the floor, Chris pinched the bridge of his nose in exhaustion, though his voice remained gentle. “Chloe, didn’t we agree you would stop throwing tantrums?” “You’re a high school teacher. Can’t you be a little more mature?” “Grace is literally lying in the ICU, and you’re choosing this exact moment to play the runaway girlfriend?” Grace’s nanny, who was following behind him to grab her pajamas, gave me a contemptuous look. Chris stepped forward, placing his hand on my suitcase to stop me. “Fine. I know you still have a few days left of your vacation.” “You’re going back home, right?” “I’ll book you a first-class flight for tomorrow. Just stay at a hotel tonight, okay?” “Grace can’t handle any stress when she gets discharged, so she has to stay here for a while.” “Go back to your quiet little town, teach your classes, and once she’s fully recovered, I’ll come get you.” He took it for granted that Grace could occupy his house, and he took it for granted that he could discard me back to what he assumed was my safety zone. He was so certain that I couldn’t leave my job, so certain that I couldn’t survive in this massive city, that I would eventually crawl back to my comfort zone. I looked at the face of the man I had loved for three years, and the very last spark in my heart died out. I didn’t argue. I didn’t explain. I had no home left to go back to. In front of Chris, I pulled out my phone. I opened the CoupleStreak app that had witnessed our 1000 days. “Chris Blair,” I called him by his full name. “Thank you for taking care of me these past three years.” “But from now on, we don’t need to keep our streak anymore.” Under Chris’s shocked gaze, I decisively tapped “Delete and Terminate Relationship.” The app let out a cold chime: Relationship terminated. All records have been cleared. Chris’s face went completely pale, but he still thought this was just a high-level tantrum. “Are you crazy?” “A thousand days of memories, and you just deleted them like that?” “Do you really have to push me like this right now?” I gently pulled my hand out of his grip. There was no hatred in my eyes, only the complete indifference you’d show a stranger. “I’m not pushing you. I’m letting myself go.” “Grace needs you more. Take good care of her.” With that, I turned around, opened the door, and walked out. I slammed the heavy security door shut behind me, leaving it all in the cold autumn wind. Three hours later, at a run-down local community center in the far north of the city, I stood in my cheap sneakers with my hair tied back in a simple ponytail. I signed my employment contract with the community outreach program. My daily job would be walking through the alleys, handling trivial neighborhood issues. But the moment I wrote down my new address on the tax forms, I let out a long, deep sigh of relief. From that moment on, in this crowded metropolis of twenty million people, there was one less codependent girlfriend, and one more ordinary working woman named Chloe. And Chris was officially locked away in the grave of my past. During lunch break, I sat at the entrance of the alley, eating a warm bowl of street pasta. At the exact same time, Chris stared at the missing app on his phone, letting out a cold scoff as he muttered to himself: “Fine. Delete it. Let’s see how long she can hold out.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “444680”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster