Category: English

1 Drifting between life and death, I finally understood. I could hear my wife, Seraphina, and her lover, Rick, clearly now. Rick was growing impatient. He wanted to know when she’d tell me our son wasn’t actually missing. He couldn’t wait to see the look on my face. But Sera just laughed. There was no hurry, she said. It was my fault for making her get rid of the baby years ago. This was my punishment. She’d tell me the truth once she decided I’d learned my lesson. So that was it. Four years of living hell—not a tragedy, but a sentence. A spectral tear fell. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. It started four years ago. I’d stepped out of the car for a minute during an argument. When I returned, our son was gone. From then on, I lost my mind. I searched like a man possessed, drowning in guilt every waking moment. Her mother blamed me endlessly. My own mother cried herself to sleep each night. Sera would scream at me, telling me to die, swearing she’d divorce me if I didn’t find our boy. For four years, I gave up everything—my career, my life, my sanity. I chased 99 false leads across the country, each one carving away another piece of me. My body became a map of self-inflicted scars. Depression consumed me whole. On the 100th lead, something inside me snapped. I couldn’t go on. I swallowed a full bottle of sleeping pills. I died in my son’s nursery, wanting to be close to him in the end. Seraphina opened the bedroom door, saw I wasn’t there, and assumed I hadn’t come home yet. She turned, pulling Rick with her, and they fell onto our bed. Her voice was casual. “He probably fell for another scam artist. God knows what ditch he’s ended up in this time.” Rick roared with laughter. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve never seen anyone so gullible. He believes anything anyone tells him.” “Remember that time he ran off into the mountains? Nearly didn’t make it back. When the cops found him, his clothes were torn and he was waving a knife around like a lunatic. There were three guys on the ground… who knows what happened there.” At that, the temperature around Seraphina dropped. She shoved him away. Rick knew he’d said the wrong thing. He quickly wrapped his arms around her neck, kissing her skin. “Sorry, Sera. I won’t talk about it. It’s been so long…” She flipped him onto his back, a wicked smile playing on her lips. “Don’t think for a second I’m jealous. I just can’t stand how pathetic he is.” “If he had just learned to look the other way back then, I never would have left him.” “But he has a man’s blood on his hands. He deserves every bit of this. He has no one to blame but himself.” With that, their clothes scattered to the floor. On the bed where we had made love countless times, their bodies tangled together in a desperate heat. I thought death was supposed to be the end of pain, but my heart felt like it was being pierced by a thousand needles. I remembered it so clearly. She was the one on her knees, clinging to me. “Finn, please don’t leave me. I was drunk, I thought he was you. I’ll get rid of the baby, I swear. Just believe me.” But I couldn’t forgive her. I insisted on a divorce. She went insane, dragging Rick in front of me to apologize. Then she went and had the abortion herself. My resolve crumbled. After months of torment, I forgave her. And my reward was being played for a fool for four years. Their moans echoed through the house until the dead of night. Finally, breathless, Seraphina seemed to remember me. She frowned, looking toward the front door. “Where the hell is Finn? Not even a text to say he’s not coming home.” She picked up her phone and called me. After a few seconds of silence, my phone began to ring, its shrill tone cutting through the house. Seraphina froze, her head snapping toward the nursery. A flicker of malicious glee crossed Rick’s face, hidden behind a mask of pretend concern. “When did Finn get back? You think he heard us?” Seraphina threw on her clothes and stormed toward the nursery. I floated behind them, watching her hesitate, her hand hovering over the doorknob. Finally, with a creak, she pushed it open and walked to the bed. I was curled up under the covers. Her face flushed with anger. She thought I was ignoring her on purpose. “Finn, if you know, then there’s no point in hiding it anymore.” “Yes, I took Max. But you were the one who was wrong first.” She glanced at me, her voice flat. “As long as you don’t make trouble, we can keep living like this.” The silence stretched on for a full minute. Her expression soured. She let out a cold, sharp laugh. “You’re going to play dead with me? Fine. Let’s see how long you can keep it up!” I watched her rage, her curses washing over me. I felt nothing. I was almost curious to see the look on her face when she finally realized. She slammed the door on her way out. But a few minutes later, she returned, holding the hand of a four-year-old boy. My eyes flew open. It was him. It was my son, Max. He had my eyes. Tears streamed from my spectral form. I rushed forward to hold him, only to pass right through his small body. Seraphina’s voice was triumphant as she pushed him onto the bed. “I left him with my mother. He’s back now. Are you happy?” Then, she and Rick left again. That monster. That absolute monster! Leaving a child this small alone! In the pitch-black room, Max began to cry, his small sobs echoing in the silence. My heart shattered. I tried to comfort him, my voice a useless whisper. “Max, don’t cry, Max. Daddy’s here…” But I was the fool. The living can’t hear the dead. Max curled up next to my body, eventually crying himself to sleep. I watched him, my soul aching with a love so fierce it was agony. He had to be so scared, so hungry. Even in sleep, his face was a mask of pain. I stayed by his side all night. The next morning, he sat up, rubbing his eyes. His small voice was filled with panic. “Grandma? Where are you? Max is hungry…” He looked at the unmoving lump of my body beside him. After a moment’s hesitation, he whispered, “Mister? Can you get up and find Max something to eat?” “Max is a good boy. Just a little bit is okay.” After a long silence, he slid off the bed, his shoulders slumped. He picked up a small bottle from the floor. My soul screamed. It was the bottle of sleeping pills. There were still a few left inside. My heart leaped into my throat. Max’s face lit up. “Candy!” He shook a few pills into his palm, then glanced back at my body. “I’ll only eat three, mister,” he bargained. “I’m so, so hungry.” He raised his hand to his mouth. “NO!” I shrieked, a useless, silent sound, rushing to stop him, but I was nothing but air. The door flew open with a bang. It was Seraphina. She saw what Max was doing and her eyes widened in horror. She lunged forward, jamming her fingers into his mouth. “Spit it out! Spit it out right now!” Max started wailing, terrified. “Don’t hit me! I won’t do it again, Mommy, I promise!” Only when she was sure his mouth was empty did the color return to her face. She looked at me, her eyes filled with disgust. Before she could speak, Rick pointed an accusing finger. “Finn, what the hell is wrong with you? He’s just a kid! You could have killed him.” “I know you’re pissed that Sera took him, but you can’t take it out on Max!” He spat his venom at me, and Seraphina just stood there, watching. If they had just looked closer, they would have seen the waxy, yellow pallor of my skin, the faint, sweet smell of decay. But my last hope was misplaced. After a few minutes, she picked up Max and walked out. She took him to get lunch, but her mind was elsewhere. She checked her phone. It had been nearly two days since we had last spoken. A strange anxiety began to creep in. I never gave her the silent treatment. I had told her once, “If there’s a problem, let’s face it head-on. Don’t run from it.” Even when I’d caught her cheating, as broken as I was, I hadn’t backed down. A sudden, jarring thought hit her. Maybe something had actually happened to me. She shot to her feet, muttering to herself. “Something’s not right. This isn’t like him.” She turned to rush home, but Rick’s voice stopped her. “I saw Finn get up to eat yesterday.” Seraphina paused, turning back slowly. “He got up yesterday?” Rick nodded, a sheepish look on his face. “Yeah. I tried to talk to him, but he just told me to get lost…” Seraphina’s face hardened into a mask of pure contempt. She laughed twice, a harsh, grating sound, and sat back down. “I knew it. He was faking it. All that crap about loving his son was an act. He almost got Max killed!” I floated above them, a bitter laugh escaping my spectral lips. I wasn’t faking it. I was really dead. I looked at the triumphant smirk on Rick’s face and wondered if he’d still be smiling when the truth finally came out. I drifted back to the house and kept watch over my own body for a few more hours. My phone rang again. It was my mother. She must have known something was wrong when I hadn’t messaged her for two days. She called three times. Then, silence. Less than half an hour later, she was at the door, breathless and terrified. She rushed straight to the master bedroom. “Finn? Finn!” Not finding me, she checked the guest room, and finally, the nursery. “AH! FINN!” Her scream tore through the quiet afternoon. I couldn’t bear to watch what came next. My mother’s sobs were a physical force, shaking the whole house as she rocked my lifeless body. “How could you leave me all alone! How am I supposed to live now!” A few hours later, she took me away. When the door opened again, it was Seraphina, reeking of alcohol. She pushed Rick away and stumbled toward the nursery. “Finn, you son of a bitch, how long are you going to play dead?!” She stopped short. The bed was empty. I was gone. Her heart gave a painful lurch. A cold smile spread across her face. “Couldn’t keep up the act, huh? Decided to run away from home? Fine! Get the hell out and don’t ever come back.” She collapsed onto the living room sofa. Rick wrinkled his nose in disgust. “He could have at least cleaned up before he left. The whole place stinks. It’s making me sick.” Seraphina didn’t seem to hear him. A thought occurred to her. She went to our bedroom and yanked open the closet. All of my clothes were still there. She breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought he had some nerve. Didn’t even pack a bag. He just wants me to come begging for him to come back. Ha. In his dreams.” Her mind at ease, she even had Rick move in. “Since he doesn’t want this life, let’s see how long he can last without it.” I watched it all, a ghost in my own home. For the next few days, Seraphina partied, dragging Rick to every social event she could. But she wasn’t happy. A dark cloud seemed to hang over her, growing heavier each day. Finally, on the seventh day of my disappearance, she broke. She brought Max back to the house. She opened my messaging app and ordered Max to record a voice note. Max, terrified, wouldn’t speak. Her face darkened. “Say it!” she roared. “Are you deaf? I told you to call for your daddy! Do you hear me?!” The boy’s fear peaked, and he burst into tears. Rage consumed me. I wanted to tear her limb from limb. He was just a child. She would do anything to torment me. “Daddy… Daddy, Daddy…” She got what she wanted and sent the voice note. Finn, do you even want your son anymore? What kind of father lets him cry like this? Rick came over and put his arms around her. “Don’t be angry, Sera. If he’s going to be like this, why do you even care? The man doesn’t deserve to be a father.” Seraphina was silent for a long time, staring at her phone, which remained silent. She couldn’t take it anymore. She called me. Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing. With a crash, she threw her phone against the wall. Rick was stunned. He couldn’t understand why she was so furious. “Sera, the kid’s right here… don’t get so worked up. We can just get a divorce. It’s not worth it.” The word “divorce” seemed to stab her. Her eyes turned red. She started to laugh. “A divorce? And let him off that easy?” She took a deep breath, picked up the shattered phone, and dialed my mother. After a long series of rings, my mother answered on the last one. Before she could speak, Seraphina blurted out, “Mom, where is Finn? I need to talk to him.” My mother’s voice was a raw rasp, each word scraped from her throat. “You will never see him again in this life, you monster. I hope you’re satisfied.” Seraphina froze. Before she could ask what she meant, the line went dead. Her face flushed with rage. She cursed, then typed a furious message to my dead number. Finn, you want out? Fine. I’ll give you what you want. Get your ass back here and I’ll give you a goddamn divorce! Still no reply. Hearing the word “divorce,” Rick’s face lit up. He rushed to the bedroom to find the paperwork. But when he came back out, Seraphina was grabbing the still-sobbing Max and storming out the door. “Sera, where are you going?! Sera!” She peeled out of the driveway without a backward glance. I floated into the back seat with Max, my soul consumed by hatred. You bitch, where are you going in such a rush? You don’t care if you crash, but what about my son?! I soon saw her destination. She stood on my mother’s doorstep, panting, and began to hammer on the door. “Finn, open the door! I know you’re in there! Stop being a coward! Say what you have to say to my face!” With a slow creak, the door opened. Seraphina’s angry expression hadn’t had time to fade before it froze, replaced by a look of sheer, uncomprehending horror.

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My husband, Carter, had a first love named Jessica. Once, Jessica got into a shouting match with a guy over a minor biking accident. To help her vent her frustration, Carter abused his power as a police captain and threw the man in a holding cell on bogus charges. That petty act of favoritism left the man with a criminal record and a heart full of venom. Sometime later, that same man kicked down the door to my in-laws’ house. He held Carter’s parents and his younger sister hostage with a hunting knife, demanding that Carter show up and apologize. Panicking, I called Carter. But he was too busy picking up Jessica’s son from kindergarten. Not only did he refuse to believe me, but he also cursed me out, calling me a vicious, jealous bitch. He said my lies were pathetic and asked who I was putting this show on for. In desperation, I dialed 911. The emergency dispatcher who answered the call was none other than Jessica. Over the line, she laughed at me. She called me a lunatic, accused me of cursing Carter’s family, and labeled me a psycho. She warned me to never call again, threatening to have Carter arrest me for making a false report. Eventually, the intruder lost his mind waiting for Carter. Right in front of my eyes, he brought his hunting knife down on my in-laws and my sister-in-law. 1 I went to visit my husband’s parents for our usual weekly dinner. The moment I pushed the front door open, I froze. A stocky man in his fifties was standing in the living room, clutching a serrated hunting knife. His wild eyes locked onto me. “Do not take another step! You walk in here, and I kill them all!” On the living room floor, my father-in-law Arthur, my mother-in-law Helen, and my sister-in-law Sarah were bound tightly with thick rope. The man had his heavy work boot pressed firmly against Arthur’s head. Seeing me, Arthur struggled to lift himself up. The man immediately delivered a brutal kick to Arthur’s stomach. “Don’t move! You twitch again, and you are the first to die!” He pointed the bloody tip of the knife at my chest. “Stay back! Who are you? Where is that bastard Carter?” “He locked me up. Because of him, my son got rejected from the military, and my daughter lost her college scholarship. He ruined my entire family. If he does not come here and fix this today, I am going to slaughter his.” It hit me. This was Gary. Jessica had gotten into a minor scrape with him while riding her bike. To play the hero for his ex-girlfriend, Carter used his badge to charge Gary with assault and locked him up. Carter had even bragged about it to me at home. Now Gary was out, and he had come for blood. His screaming echoed down the hall. Neighbors began creeping out of their apartments, crowding the stairwell in absolute shock. Seeing Gary’s hand shaking with rage, I held my hands up slowly. “Gary, please. I am Carter’s wife. Do not do anything stupid. I am calling him right now. I will make him come here.” My hands trembled violently as I pulled out my phone and dialed Carter’s number. When he finally answered, I frantically explained the nightmare unfolding in his parents’ living room, begging him to get there immediately. Instead of panic, Carter’s voice dripped with absolute disgust. “Rachel, are you mentally ill? I am helping Jessica pick up her kid for one afternoon, and you invent a horror story like this?” “Jessica has a shift at the dispatch center today, so I promised to take Tyler to the amusement park. Stop annoying me.” Click. He hung up. Because my phone was on speaker, Gary and every neighbor in the hallway heard every single word. Whispers broke out behind me. “What kind of son is that? He is a cop, and he won’t even save his own family?” “Did you hear him? He is busy playing daddy to another woman’s kid.” “He is worse than an animal. Arthur raised a monster.” Gary’s face twisted into something demonic. Seeing him grip the knife tighter, I dropped to my knees on the hardwood floor. “Please! I am begging you, please do not hurt them!” I slammed my forehead against the floor, ignoring the sharp pain. “I will get him here! Give me a few more minutes, please!” Carter wasn’t answering anymore. I had no choice but to call the station. I dialed 911. The line clicked open. “911, what is your emergency?” The voice belonged to Jessica. Carter had pulled strings to get her a temp job at the emergency dispatch center. I didn’t care who it was. I screamed our address and told her a man was holding Carter’s family hostage with a knife. “Get Carter here now! If he doesn’t come, his parents and sister are going to die!” A cold, mocking laugh echoed through the receiver. “Rachel, have you completely lost your mind? Just to stop Carter from spending time with my son, you are cursing his own parents to die? You really are a wonderful wife.” “The emergency line is not your personal drama hotline. If you fake another report, I will have you thrown in a cell.” The line went dead. The neighbors behind me saw what happened and immediately pulled out their own phones to call 911. Every single one of them was met with Jessica’s threats and hung up on. Realizing Carter was never coming, Gary completely snapped. “Fine! He ruined my family, so nobody gets to live!” Gary grabbed a fistful of Arthur’s gray hair, yanked his head back, and dragged the hunting knife across his throat. Blood coated the living room. 2 Gary ran. After slashing Arthur’s throat, he drove the blade deep into Helen’s chest. Both of them died on the floor. I only managed to throw myself in front of Sarah. In his psychotic rage, Gary wanted to make Sarah suffer. He slashed her face open, then drove the knife straight through her hand, pinning it to the floorboards. He ran out the door waving the bloody knife. The terrified neighbors scattered, completely powerless to stop him as he disappeared into the busy city streets. By the time I got Sarah’s bleeding body into the emergency room, the local police finally showed up at the hospital. Deputy Blake walked up to me. He looked at the harsh red light of the operating room, his face pale with horror. “Rachel, what the hell happened? Why didn’t you call us?” I sat slumped in the corner of the hallway, shivering uncontrollably. “I did. The dispatcher said I was making a fake report.” “I called your captain. He was too busy picking up a kid.” Blake looked confused. “A kid? What kid? You and the Captain don’t have kids.” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Not mine. Jessica’s kid.” “She was the one on the 911 line. She told me I was crazy and threatened to arrest me.” Blake slammed his fist into the hospital wall. “This is completely insane! I am calling him right now.” He pulled out his radio phone and dialed Carter’s personal number. When Carter picked up, Blake didn’t hold back. “Carter, where the hell are you!” Carter’s tone immediately turned hostile. “Blake, remember your rank. I am the Captain. You don’t get to interrogate me.” “I am at the airport terminal. Make it quick, I am busy.” “The airport? What the hell are you doing at the airport?” “I have been working too hard, and the station is quiet. Jessica and Tyler have been begging to go to the Bahamas. I took my annual leave to take them on a vacation to relax.” Blake let out a hollow, furious laugh. “Carter, your mother and father are dead. Your sister is currently bleeding out in an operating room. And you are taking a vacation? Is your brain rotting?” Carter scoffed over the line. “Blake, I thought we were friends. I can’t believe you are teaming up with my psycho wife to play this sick joke.” “Do not think I don’t know you guys orchestrated this. What did Rachel promise you to make you curse my family like this?” “I am spending the next few days with Jessica and her boy. Do not call this number again.” The call disconnected. Blake tried calling back immediately, but it went straight to voicemail. The phone was off. At that exact moment, the red light above the operating room flicked off. 3 The surgeon pushed through the swinging doors, peeling off his bloody gloves. “Family of Sarah Winston?” I scrambled to my feet. “I am. I am her sister-in-law.” The doctor looked utterly defeated. “We saved her life. But the laceration on her right cheek was extremely deep. It is going to leave a severe scar. As for her right hand… the tissue and nerve damage was catastrophic. We had no choice but to amputate at the wrist.” “She lost a massive amount of blood. She is in a coma and being moved to the ICU.” In a fraction of a second, every ounce of strength evaporated from my bones. The fluorescent lights blurred, the room spun, and I collapsed backward. A couple of nurses caught me under the arms and guided me to a plastic waiting chair. Sitting there, the tears finally broke loose. Carter and I had been married for five years. I had moved across the country for him, leaving my own family behind. Whenever Carter and I fought, Arthur and Helen always took my side. Sarah treated me like her own flesh and blood. Whenever Carter made me cry, Sarah would literally point her finger in his face and scream at him. They never let me feel alone in that house. I loved them far more than I ever loved Carter. And now, because of Carter’s pathetic ego and his obsession with another woman, he had personally handed his parents a death sentence and mutilated his own sister. I dragged my exhausted body to the billing counter and paid for Sarah’s ICU room. Standing behind the thick glass pane, looking at the vibrant, college-graduated girl reduced to a broken body covered in bandages and tubes, my chest caved in. She didn’t even have her right hand anymore. Blake called Carter’s phone until his battery died. It stayed off. He tried calling Jessica’s number. It rang twice and then went to voicemail. They were fully committed to their romantic getaway. I didn’t have the energy to care about his affairs anymore. Aside from giving statements to the detectives, I had to arrange a funeral for my in-laws and keep a 24-hour watch over Sarah. The gruesome double homicide had already made the local news. The rumor mill was working overtime. I stayed awake for two days straight until Sarah finally opened her eyes. When she saw me through the ICU glass, tears poured down her bandaged face. The doctors warned me to keep her stress levels low, so I lied and told her to focus on healing, hiding the truth about her parents. Three days later, the medical examiner released the bodies. I arranged the cremation. Walking out of the crematorium, I placed two wooden urns on the back seat of my car. I started the engine, looking at the polished wood in the rearview mirror. “Dad, Mom, we are going home.” 4 Sarah was young, and her physical recovery was fast. By the fifth day, she was moved to a regular room. When I finally broke the news about her parents, she didn’t scream. She just stared at the wall and gave a slow, numb nod. I was terrified the shock had broken her mind. “Sarah, please cry. Do not hold it in. I am right here. I am not going anywhere.” She slowly turned her head. She stared into my eyes with a chilling emptiness. A long minute passed before a gut-wrenching wail tore from her throat. I wrapped my arms around her trembling shoulders, holding her tight. “Let it out. I’ve got you.” Because she was sobbing so violently, the stitches on her face tore open. I had to run to the hallway and scream for a doctor. As the doctor methodically re-stitched her torn cheek, Sarah laid there perfectly still. Her calmness was terrifying. “Rachel, where is my brother?” she asked bluntly the moment the doctor left. “Sarah, he…” I stammered, completely lost on how to explain the disgusting truth. “Forget it. You don’t have to say it.” Sarah let out a ragged sigh. “When that guy kicked our door down and tied us up, screaming about my brother, I knew Carter had ruined someone’s life.” She covered her eyes with her remaining hand, her body shaking. “I just never thought he would let Mom and Dad die for it.” I had temporarily placed the urns in my home office. I was waiting for Sarah to be discharged so we could bury them together. She was their daughter; it was her right to be there. As for Carter, I truly did not care if he lived or died. Even if you ignored the two dead bodies and the severed hand, his blatant affair was enough to make my skin crawl. I could never sleep in the same bed as him again. Now, every time I heard his name, all I saw was the gaping wound on Sarah’s face, the ocean of blood on the floor, and the absolute despair in Arthur’s eyes before the knife fell. I sat in silence, holding her shoulder. “Rachel,” Sarah whispered into the sterile hospital room. “After all this, do you still consider me your family?” I nodded hard. “Yes. I will be your sister for the rest of my life. Once you are healed, I will take you to the best plastic surgeons in the country. We will fix your face.” “Rachel, I heard you on the phone that day. I heard everything he said.” Her voice turned to absolute ice. “I want him and that bitch to burn in hell.”

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The day I interviewed at Lumina Dynamics, their Director of Technology tore my resume to pieces in front of everyone. He sneered, asking what gave someone from a diploma mill the right to even be here, and told me to get the hell out. The other interviewers around him erupted in laughter. I didn’t react. I just calmly bent down and picked up the scattered pieces, one by one. I looked up at him, a small smile playing on my lips. “Very well, Marcus,” I told him. “In half an hour, you will receive a formal email from Vanguard Corp terminating all of our contracts with your company.” He laughed even harder, mocking me. “Who the hell do you think you are, daydreaming in my office?” Exactly thirty minutes later, the CEO of Lumina Dynamics burst into the interview room, his face pale with panic. He slapped the still-clueless tech director across the face, his voice cracking with rage. “You absolute moron! Do you have any idea whose resume you just ripped to shreds?” 1 The sweltering air in Lumina Dynamics’ interview room 203 was a solid, suffocating thing, like a cheap sponge soaked in filth, refusing to yield a single drop of fresh oxygen. I was dressed for this undercover mission in a carefully chosen white shirt and a pair of faded jeans. No makeup, and my hair was pulled back in the most unremarkable ponytail imaginable. To them, I looked like any other recent graduate, anxious and uncertain about the future. Across from me sat the company’s Director of Technology, Marcus. He was a man in his forties, his hair shellacked with too much gel, gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes sized me up like a piece of cheap merchandise. He pinched my forged resume between his fingers. His crudely manicured nail scraped impatiently across the words “Oakwood Community College,” making a grating sound. “Oakwood Community College… What the hell is that? Some diploma mill next to a strip club?” His voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp and dripping with undisguised contempt. The other interviewers beside him exchanged knowing glances, smirks they couldn’t quite suppress. They were like a pack of Roman patricians watching a spectacle, and I was the lowly gladiator about to be thrown to the lions. I remained silent, watching him as if he were the star of some terrible, low-budget play that had nothing to do with me. My silence seemed to infuriate him. He’d probably expected me to tremble with fear, to wither under the weight of his authority. He shot to his feet, holding the single sheet of paper in front of my face. With a sharp, violent rip, he tore my “resume” in half. And then again. The pieces rained down like toxic confetti, landing around my sneakers. “Does a piece of trash from a worthless school like this really think she can interview here?” He was practically spitting as he spoke. “Listen here, little girl. Lumina only hires the best, from the Ivy League! Someone like you isn’t even qualified to get us coffee. Now take your garbage and get the hell out!” The laughter, no longer restrained, exploded in the small room. One of the female interviewers even covered her mouth in an exaggerated gasp, shooting Marcus a fawning look. “You’ve got a sharp eye, Marcus,” she cooed. “These desperate wannabes trying to sneak into big companies need to be put in their place.” The humiliation was meant to be a thousand tiny needles, piercing my composure. But I felt nothing. It was all just… absurdly comical. This was the core supplier Vanguard Corp paid seven million dollars a year? This was the ace director in charge of our most sensitive technical integration? The management was a chaotic mess, rife with nepotism, rotten to its core. The risk of a data leak was a hundred times more severe than even Mr. Sinclair had predicted. I bent down. Under their mocking gazes, I slowly, deliberately, picked up every single piece of my “humiliation.” Then I straightened up, walked to the polished mahogany table, and placed the fragments gently on its gleaming surface. I lifted my eyes to meet Marcus’s, his face twisted with arrogance, and offered him a slight smile. “Very well, Marcus.” My voice was quiet, but it had a strange, cutting quality that silenced the room. “In half an hour, you’ll be receiving a formal email from Vanguard Corp’s legal department. It will inform you that every single one of our contracts with this company is terminated.” After a moment of dead silence, Marcus erupted as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. He laughed so hard his greasy glasses nearly slid off his nose. “Vanguard Corp? Hahaha! Who the hell do you think you are? Some community college idiot, coming to my turf to daydream?” He pointed a finger at me, then turned to the others. “Can you believe this? I call out her bullshit and she completely loses it. Starts spouting absolute nonsense.” The others joined in his laughter, though it was a little weaker this time, tinged with an uncertainty my words had planted. I didn’t spare the clowns another glance. I turned and pulled open the door. The fluorescent lights in the hallway were harsh. I took out my phone and dialed a number on my speed dial. He picked up on the first ring. “Victoria, how did it go?” Mr. Sinclair’s deep, steady voice came through the line. I leaned against the cool wall, gazing out at the gray city skyline. My tone was as flat as if I were deciding on a salad for lunch. “Mr. Sinclair, about that seven-million-dollar annual renewal with Lumina… I don’t think we’ll be needing it.” “Their people just tore up my resume. In front of a room full of their staff.” The line was silent for three full seconds. Then, Mr. Sinclair’s voice returned, low and laced with a terrifying, controlled fury. “I understand. Handle it your way. The firm’s legal and marketing departments are on standby.” After hanging up, I didn’t leave. I waited. I waited for the devastating email to reach its destination. I waited for the C4 I had just planted to detonate inside this seemingly solid corporate tower. Less than twenty minutes later, a frantic, chaotic pounding of footsteps echoed from the end of the hall, accompanied by a man’s panicked, voice-cracking shriek. “Marcus! Where is that goddamn idiot?!” I watched with detached amusement as a man with a severely receding hairline, his bespoke suit soaked through with cold sweat, practically sprinted toward me. It was Lumina’s CEO, Arthur Carlson. I’d seen his picture at a few annual supplier summits. His personal assistant trailed behind him, her face just as pale, nearly tripping in her high heels. Arthur spotted me leaning against the wall, and the color drained from his face. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost. He practically threw himself in my direction, screeching to a halt a few feet away, heaving for breath, his chest rising and falling violently. Before I could say a word, he had already stormed into interview room 203. The next sound was a slap so sharp and loud it seemed to echo through the entire floor. It was followed by Arthur’s furious, near-hysterical roar. “You brainless idiot! Do you have any idea whose resume you just ripped to shreds?!” I strolled back to the doorway, leaning lazily against the frame to enjoy the magnificent chaos unfolding within. Marcus was clutching his rapidly swelling face, his gold-rimmed glasses knocked clear across the room. He was completely stunned. “Mr. Carlson… I… she was just some fraud…” Arthur spun around like a cornered lion. But the moment his eyes landed on me, he instantly deflated into a trembling quail. He bowed deeply, his voice shaking like a leaf in a storm. “Ms. Victoria! A misunderstanding! This is a terrible, terrible misunderstanding! I was blind, my people are incompetent, please, I beg you, don’t take it to heart!” Marcus was dumbfounded. He pointed at me, then looked at his groveling boss, stammering, “What’s going on? Who the hell is she?” As if his tail had been stepped on, Arthur whirled back around and kicked Marcus squarely in the kneecap. “Who is she?!” he screamed. “She’s our biggest client! She’s Vanguard Corp’s Chief Marketing Officer, Victoria! That seven-million-dollar contract? It was her signature on the bottom line!” A bomb had just gone off in the room. The interviewers who had been laughing so freely just moments ago were now chalk-white, their throats so tight they looked like they’d forgotten how to breathe. Their gazes darted between my simple white shirt and the pile of shredded paper from the “diploma mill,” their eyes filled with a mixture of raw terror and utter disbelief. I stepped into the room, took the last piece of the resume I’d been holding, and gently placed it on top of the messy pile. My eyes were like arctic ice as I scanned each of their faces, finally landing on Arthur, who was shaking uncontrollably. “Mr. Carlson, is this how you screen your talent?” “Is this the kind of man you have managing our highest-level technical integration?” Every word was a frozen dagger plunging into his heart. Sweat poured down Arthur’s forehead in rivers, dripping onto the carpet. He grabbed Marcus by his silk tie, his spit flying. “Marcus! You’re fired! Effective immediately! Get your shit and get out of this building! Now!” I watched the pathetic display, a cold, mocking smile on my lips. “Fired?” “Do you really think firing one useless employee is enough to compensate for the insult he paid to me, and to all of Vanguard Corp?” I took out my phone, opened my email, and turned the screen toward him. The harshly worded “Notice of Contract Termination,” drafted by Vanguard’s top legal team, glowed on the screen. “The termination notice has been sent. A formal letter from our lawyers will be delivered to your desk shortly.” Arthur stared at the screen, his legs giving out from under him. He collapsed onto the expensive Persian rug, his eyes vacant. “It’s over,” he muttered, his voice hollow with despair. “It’s all over.” I didn’t waste another look on the pathetic man. I turned and walked away, my steps crisp and decisive. At the door, I paused. Without looking back, I delivered one last line that sent him plunging into an icy abyss. “Mr. Carlson, this is only the beginning.” 2 Returning to my penthouse office in Vanguard Corp’s Manhattan headquarters was like stepping out of a filthy, oppressive bog and back into my absolute kingdom. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city skyline glittered, a forest of steel and glass exuding a cold, arrogant light. The air inside was perfectly climate-controlled, scented with my favorite white tea aromatherapy. Mr. Sinclair had already prepared a pot of impossibly rare Darjeeling tea. The rising steam softened the features of his face, a face weathered by decades of navigating the brutal seas of commerce. “You’re back. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He pushed a cup of the amber liquid toward me. His tone held none of the coldness of a chairman, only the warmth and concern of a mentor. I shook my head, lifting the delicate bone china. Its warmth spread through my fingertips, chasing away the last of the cheap chill I’d picked up at Lumina. “It was nothing.” I took a small sip and looked at the man across from me. “The fish is even dumber and more vicious than I imagined. Lumina’s management is rotten from the top down.” This “undercover” operation had been a top-secret directive from Sinclair himself. For the past six months, the technical specs for several of Vanguard’s flagship products were being precisely countered by our arch-rival, OmniCore, just before launch. We had run countless internal audits, scoured our firewalls, and reviewed every NDA until our eyes bled, but we couldn’t find a single leak. The only remaining suspect was our core component supplier: Lumina Dynamics. But we had no hard evidence. In this world, moving without proof would only spook our prey. So, I’d orchestrated this little drama, disguising myself as a nobody applicant to get a feel for Lumina’s internal culture. I just never expected them to rip off their own mask for me before I even had a chance to start probing. I set down my cup and gave my boss my assessment. “This Marcus guy is arrogant and stupid. He doesn’t have the brains to be the mastermind behind a sophisticated corporate espionage plot. At his level, he’s a gofer at best—a dog let off its leash to bark at the door. There’s a much bigger fish hiding behind him.” A chilling glint flashed in Mr. Sinclair’s deep-set eyes. He nodded slowly. “Do what you need to do. The entire firm’s resources are at your disposal.” His tone shifted, taking on the unique ruthlessness of a top-tier capitalist. “Besides, it’s high time we cleaned up this supply chain. A company with no respect for its clients doesn’t deserve to survive.” With the chairman’s blessing, there was nothing left to hold me back. I returned to my desk, opened a secure channel, and convened an emergency video conference with the heads of Legal and Marketing. My orders, delivered over an encrypted network, were precise and lethal. “Legal, I want every contract we’ve had with Lumina for the past five years. I want you to go through them with a goddamn magnifying glass and find every single breach. Delivery delays, defect rates, spec failures—anything and everything.” On the screen, the head of Legal pushed up his glasses, a predatory glint in his eyes. “Leave it to me, Victoria. There are enough penalty clauses in these old contracts to strip them bare.” I smiled, satisfied. “Once you have the evidence, prepare to file a lawsuit. I want maximum punitive damages. I want them to vomit up every last cent they’ve ever earned from us, with interest.” I then turned my attention to the Director of Marketing. “Marketing, activate Plan B. Contact our backup suppliers and open top-priority negotiations. I want a new letter of intent on my desk within three days.” I slowed my speech, adding weight to my next words. “And I want you to let Wall Street Journal and a few of the tech blogs in the Valley know, ‘accidentally on purpose,’ that we’ve dropped Lumina from our core supply chain due to ‘gross misconduct and extreme managerial incompetence.’” The marketing director grinned, giving me a thumbs-up. “Understood. The leak will be very… ‘accidental.’” The meeting ended. A series of fatal blows was already hurtling toward the enemy. I leaned back in my leather chair, waiting for the market to deliver its verdict. It didn’t take long. My phone began vibrating incessantly on the desk. Real-time updates from my team. “Victoria, Lumina’s pre-market stock is starting to dip.” “Boss, three of their downstream partners are blowing up our PR lines, trying to figure out what’s going on.” “It’s already hitting the tech forums. The story is trending.” Meanwhile, Arthur’s calls came in one after another, like a death knell. I glanced at the flashing name on the screen and hit decline every time. His text messages flooded my inbox, a pathetic cascade of begging. “Ms. Victoria, for the love of God, please give me another chance!” “We’ve worked together for so many years! Think of our history!” “Victoria! Don’t push us too far! If you back us into a corner, we’ll drag you down with us! It won’t be good for anyone!” “I was wrong. I admit it. Just name your price. I’ll do anything!” I watched the progression from threats to groveling, a cold smile touching my lips. I sent a single, two-word reply. “Just wait.” Just then, an unknown number called. I swiped to answer. Marcus’s voice, rabid and unhinged, exploded from the speaker. “So you’re Victoria, huh? You think ruining my career is the end of this? I’ve got connections, you bitch! I’ll make sure you can never work in this town again!” He continued spewing a torrent of filth, polluting the air with his vulgarity. I didn’t even bother to grant him a response. I just ended the call and blocked the number. The ravings of a mad dog on its way to the slaughterhouse weren’t worth a single second of my time. But his words—“I’ve got connections”—only confirmed it. The trap I’d set was working. Marcus, you stupid dog. You’re about to lead your real master right to my door. 3 Things escalated faster than I’d anticipated, and with a decidedly dramatic flair. The next morning, I got a call from the front desk. Arthur was in the lobby of the Vanguard tower, surrounded by gift boxes of premium cigars and rare liquors, begging to see me. I flipped through the morning paper, speaking coolly into the receiver. “Tell security I’m busy. And tell him to get lost.” After being unceremoniously denied entry, Arthur seemed to have a complete breakdown. He sent me a long, encrypted message that confirmed all my suspicions. “Victoria, I’m begging you! I can’t fire Marcus. He’s my brother-in-law Derek’s man. Derek is the Executive VP, he runs the entire R&D division. Marcus is his right hand. My hands are tied!” Derek. The CEO’s brother-in-law, Lumina’s Executive VP. The real snake, hidden in the weeds, had finally shown its head. Just as I was about to deploy my team to dig into Derek’s background, a vicious, targeted smear campaign against me and Vanguard Corp erupted online. Several third-rate tech gossip sites, known for their sensationalist clickbait, suddenly published a coordinated series of articles with inflammatory headlines. Tech Giant’s ‘She-Devil’ Exec Abuses Power to Crush Supplier! The Seven-Million-Dollar Bully: How a Community College Grad’s Rejection Sparked Corporate Warfare. Annihilated by Arrogance: Is Big Capital the Final Nail in the Coffin for Small Tech? In these articles, I was painted as a petty, vindictive monster who had slept her way to the top. And Marcus, the arrogant fool, was recast as a tragic hero who stood up for his principles, only to be ruthlessly crushed by a corporate tyrant. The most malicious twist was the claim that my entire interview was a setup. They accused me of being a corporate spy sent by Vanguard to steal Lumina’s “proprietary technology.” The internet, as it does, went wild. Keyboard warriors who cared nothing for the truth, only for a chance to tear down the successful, flooded the comment sections with venom. “This Victoria chick sounds like a total psycho. Ruining a company because some HR guy told the truth?” “This is how corporate giants like Vanguard operate? Disgusting. Boycott them!” “The articles are right. She was totally a spy. What kind of exec fakes a resume to go to an interview?” Inside Lumina, the anonymous employee forums exploded. Derek seized the opportunity. In an emergency all-hands meeting, he fanned the flames, telling the tech teams that Vanguard was trying to steal their hard work before casting them aside like trash. He cleverly reframed my personal retaliation as a David-and-Goliath class struggle, positioning himself as the valiant savior protecting Lumina’s employees from the evil corporate empire. The crisis had escalated into all-out war. Just as the online furor reached its peak, my secure burner phone buzzed with a self-destructing encrypted message. It was from an unknown number. “Ms. Victoria, my name is Noah. I was the intern taking notes at your interview. Derek is in the VP’s office shredding files and deleting data from the core servers. He’s ordered IT to physically reformat the hard drives of several key computers. Something felt wrong, so I secretly copied down the asset tags and last-user logs for those machines.” Noah. I instantly pictured a young, clean-cut face with bright, clear eyes. During the interview, while everyone else was laughing and sucking up to their boss, he had been the only one whose face was a tight mask of disgust. When Marcus was verbally assaulting me, I’d caught a glimpse of Noah out of the corner of my eye. His brow was furrowed, his hands clenched into fists beneath the table. I had made a mental note then: this kid was different from the rest of the rot in that room. My fingers flew across the keypad. “Stay safe. Do not expose yourself or do anything to arouse suspicion. Send me everything you have. Try to recall any file names or timestamps you can.” “Will do. Please, find the truth.” A moment later, Noah’s data came through. I stared at the string of asset numbers. The user with the highest-level access on one of the wiped machines was listed as: Derek. I leaned back in my chair and let out a soft, cold laugh. Oh, Derek. You’re even dumber than I thought. You’re practically screaming your guilt from the rooftops. The very evidence you’re so desperately trying to destroy is the key that will lock you in a federal prison cell. He was stoking a firestorm of public outrage to create a smokescreen, all while frantically trying to cover his tracks. It was the move of a man utterly terrified of being caught. I was now certain of it. This rat was already lining up his next gig, ready to grab the cash and run. I immediately encrypted the data and forwarded it to my top cybersecurity team with orders to prepare their most advanced data recovery tools. Then I stood up and walked into Mr. Sinclair’s office. “The fish has taken the bait. It’s time to reel him in.” For the first time, a slow, cold smile spread across my face. Derek, by trying to bury the evidence, you’ve just shown me exactly where to dig. This is where the real game begins.

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My welcome home party turned into an absolute joke. After five years together, my girlfriend finally showed up, completely late, with a frat boy trailing behind her. The kid didn’t even hesitate. He looked me up and down with a smug smirk. “Man, doing a Ph.D. overseas takes forever. You’re getting pretty old, aren’t you?” He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “At your age, not being married… doesn’t your family get anxious?” Then came the venom. “Oh, wait. I forgot. Your parents are dead.” My face turned stone cold. But Nina, the woman who had always been my gentle anchor, just chuckled and ruffled the kid’s hair. She looked at me with zero remorse. “Noah is young. He doesn’t know any better. Be the mature one, Oliver. Don’t take it personally.” Later that night, near the patio fire pit, I caught Noah pinning her against the brick wall, kissing her hard. He growled against her lips, “Baby, don’t you dare walk down the aisle with him.” Nina let out a breathless moan. “I’m not marrying that cursed loser. I only want to be yours.” Eventually, I let her go. I walked away and married someone else, exactly like she wanted. I never expected her to fly across the Atlantic, stay awake for days, and drop to her knees in front of me, sobbing. “Please. Please marry me.” 1 But that came later. The nightmare started at the party. Nina had texted the group chat saying she was running behind. The guys at the bar nudged my shoulder. “Nina is probably picking up some insane welcome back gift for you, man!” I just smiled, nursing my beer, imagining exactly how I was going to pull her into my arms. Three years of a long distance relationship while I was studying in Europe had almost driven me insane with missing her. Two hours later, as the bartender was calling last orders, Nina finally strolled in. Except she wasn’t alone. She had a younger guy glued to her side. I took a step toward her, but my boots froze to the floor. The silver engagement ring that belonged to me was currently gleaming on Noah’s index finger. The guys around me went wide eyed. Ben leaned in and whispered to Nina, “Are you out of your mind? Why did you bring him?” Nina waved it off like it was nothing. “What is the big deal? Noah wanted to come, so I brought him.” She noticed my eyes locked on the ring. A flicker of panic crossed her face, but she quickly masked it with a casual shrug. “Your ring was just sitting in the drawer collecting dust. I let Noah wear it for fun. You do not mind, right, Oliver?” I stood there, paralyzed. That was the ring she used to guard with her life. If anyone even touched her jewelry box, she would throw a fit. Looking at the woman standing in front of me, I felt like I was staring at a stranger. The sweet, affectionate girl I left behind would never speak to me like this. Noah caught my gaze and threw the ring onto the floor like a piece of trash. “Sloppy seconds from an old guy. Keep it. I do not want it.” The silver band bounced against the hardwood and rolled straight into the glowing embers of the fire pit. Nina did not even glance at the flames. She immediately grabbed Noah’s hand, inspecting his fingers with frantic worry. “Are you okay? Did you hurt your hand?” My body moved on instinct. I hunched over, reaching toward the heat to save the ring. Her voice from the night I proposed echoed in my ears. Oliver, I love you. I swear I will love you until the stars burn out. Feeling the heavy stares of everyone in the room, I forced myself to stop. I pulled my hand back. I was not going to humiliate myself any further. 2 My face was completely drained of color. Ben saw my expression and shoved Noah’s shoulder. “Watch your mouth, kid. Apologize to Oliver right now.” Noah scoffed, rolling his eyes. “The guy literally got his own parents killed. I was doing him a favor. Wearing his ring is bad luck anyway.” That was a line nobody crossed. That was the deepest, most agonizing wound in my soul. I could not fathom how Nina could take my darkest trauma and serve it up as gossip to her boy toy. The anger boiled over. I clenched my fist, pulling my arm back to wipe that smug look off his face. Nina instantly threw herself in front of him, shoving her hands against my chest. “What the hell are you doing!” Almost simultaneously, the rest of the guys stepped in, acting as a human shield for Noah. “Relax, Oliver! He just has no filter. Let it go!” “Yeah, man. Noah is a good kid. He did not mean anything by it!” I froze. What a sick, twisted joke. My closest friends and the love of my life were standing in a united front with a guy I barely knew. And I was standing entirely alone. Three years. It only took three years for my entire world to get hijacked. Nina glared at me, her voice sharp and unforgiving. “Are you done throwing a tantrum? Did he say anything wrong? You are the reason your parents died! Am I lying?” She sneered. “You went off to Europe, lived the high life, and forgot everything, did you?” My breath hitched. She always knew exactly where to slide the knife. She was right. If I had not thrown a fit as a kid begging for candy from the backseat, my dad would not have turned around. He would not have taken his eyes off the road. The truck running the red light would have missed us. But the part about the high life? During my three years abroad, I drowned in fear, isolation, helplessness, and crushing poverty. There was no high life. A cold drop slid down my cheek. I realized with a numb shock that I was actually crying. Seeing the tear, Nina’s harsh expression cracked. She took a half step toward me, instinct taking over. But Noah grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. A dozen eyes stared at my pathetic breakdown. The familiar sensation of absolute helplessness washed over me. I turned and practically jogged to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I should have seen the signs. Over the last year, our texts had dried up. Our phone calls turned into hurried excuses. We barely exchanged three sentences a week. I could not even remember the last time we FaceTimed. After I got my breathing under control, I walked back out. That was when I found them in the shadows of the hallway. Noah had her backed against the wall, kissing her with bruised intensity. Noah pulled back just enough to speak. “Baby, don’t you dare walk down the aisle with him.” Nina let out a soft, breathy sound. “I’m not marrying that cursed loser. I only want to be yours.” 3 The party died down. People slowly filtered out. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I stared at the screen and answered on autopilot. “Oliver! Why did you fly back to the States? Are you not coming back here?” When I did not answer, the voice on the other end grew frantic. “Talk to me!” My throat felt like it was lined with glass. “I am coming back.” My girl, my crew, they all belonged to Noah now. There was nothing left for me in this city. Harper let out a massive sigh of relief on the phone before her tone shifted. “Are you crying? Where are you? I am booking a flight right now. Wait for me.” The moment I hung up, Nina’s voice sliced through the silence behind me. Her face was dark with suspicion. “Who the hell are you talking to? Is it a woman? Do I know her?” I ignored her and kept walking toward the exit. She lunged forward, grabbing my wrist with a painful grip. She was not going to let it go. I gave her a deadpan answer just to get her off my back. “A colleague from the lab. She needed the passcode for a data file.” That seemed to satisfy her. She loosened her grip and tugged me toward the parking lot. “Let’s go. My parents are waiting for us at home.” It was only then I realized Noah had slipped away unnoticed. My dad and Nina’s dad had served in the military together. They were brothers in arms. After my parents passed, Nina’s family took me in. I grew up in their house. Out of basic respect, I had to go see them. I walked up to her car and opened the passenger door. Sitting right on the seat was a custom cushion embroidered with Noah’s initials. A tacky little crown sticker was slapped on the dashboard. The neck pillow literally said Prince Noah’s Throne. He did this on purpose. He was marking his territory. I stood there for a long moment, debating if I should just sit in the back. Nina looked over at me, her tone defensive. “Don’t sit there. Noah gets super weird about people touching his stuff. Be the bigger person.” She remembered that Noah was possessive over a seat. But she completely forgot that I get violently car sick and can only ever ride in the front. I did not argue. I shut the door and pulled open the back door. The first thing I saw was a crumpled set of crimson lace lingerie kicked under the floor mat. During those two hours she was late to my party… those two hours where I sat checking the door every five minutes with a stupid, hopeful smile on my face… they were sweating all over the back seat of this car. What an absolute joke my life was. 4 When we walked through the front door, Nina’s parents practically tackled me with hugs. “You are home… look at you, finally home.” After the initial warmth and catching up, Nina’s mom grabbed my arm and pulled out a stack of elegant cardstock. “Look, Oliver. Tell me which invitation design you like. I have been obsessing over your wedding details for months!” Wedding? I immediately took a step back. “Mrs. Davis, we are not…” Nina cut me off instantly. She flopped down onto the expensive leather sofa. “Mom, you guys handle the small details. Oliver is jet lagged and exhausted.” I stared at her, baffled. She was talking like the wedding was actually happening. Then what was the plan with Noah? Her parents exchanged a knowing look and laughed. “Girls always side with their men! You used to fly out to Europe to visit Oliver all the time, but now that he is back, you two can finally be together every day!” Nina looked genuinely panicked for a split second and frantically changed the subject. Every alarm bell in my head went off. I pulled out my phone and texted Ben. Hey, can you check Nina’s social media for the last three years for me? In those three years, Nina had never visited me once. Not a single time. Ben replied instantly. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why? I did not buy it. I texted a few other guys from the crew. They all gave me the exact same story. I almost convinced myself I was paranoid. Then I remembered a burner account I made years ago to check a local restaurant’s hidden menu. I logged in and searched for Nina’s profile. An endless wall of photos loaded onto the screen. It was suffocating. Every single post was a selfie of her and Noah. They had been touring the globe. Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Bali. The room started spinning. I felt like I was going to throw up. Over the last three years, I had begged her to come see me. I scraped together pennies hoping we could meet halfway. She always said she was slammed with corporate projects. I waited three years. She had time to travel the entire world with a frat boy. But she could not spare a weekend to jump on a two hour budget flight to see me in a neighboring country. 5 When I first got my Ph.D. acceptance letter, I was going to turn it down. I had zero money. But Nina’s parents were wealthy, and they insisted I go. They liked the prestige of having a doctor in the family. They promised to send my tuition and living expenses through Nina’s bank account every semester. For the first few months, things were okay. Then the money completely stopped. Nina claimed there was a banking issue, then said her accounts were frozen, then just stopped replying. I had to take on three brutal part time jobs washing dishes, tutoring, and hauling boxes just to pay my university fees. Because I was broke, I had to rent a rotting apartment in a neighborhood crawling with junkies and gangs. My build was not exactly intimidating compared to the massive guys loitering on my corner. Every night was a survival game. I locked every deadbolt, wedged a chair under the handle, and pushed my heavy wardrobe against the front door. Even then, drunk men would pound on the thin wood, screaming threats. I used to call Nina in the middle of the night, shaking, just trying to hear a familiar voice to keep the panic attacks at bay. She would sigh into the receiver. “Babe, I am super stressed at the office. Just tough it out. The sun will be up soon.” Then she would hang up. I would sit on the edge of my mattress until dawn, gripping a kitchen knife with white knuckles, too terrified to blink. I kept scrolling through her secret profile. I found the post from that exact night. Younger guys are such babies. My silly Noah is terrified of thunderstorms. Had to cuddle him all night to get him to sleep. Underneath the photo were comments from Ben and the rest of the crew. Hey, that is our boy! Give him some extra love! Protect Noah at all costs! P.S. Make sure you hide this from Oliver. Everyone knew. Every single one of them. And they all covered for her. While I was bleeding myself dry, working until my hands cracked, trying to finish my degree early so I could marry her… she had slowly infected my entire friend group. She turned my brothers into Noah’s loyal soldiers. They boxed me out. I was the punchline to a joke I did not even know was being told. My skin was completely devoid of color. Nina’s mom noticed and assumed it was the jet lag. She told Nina to drive me to our place. I walked like a zombie following Nina into the garage. The moment I saw her car, a violent shudder ran down my spine. The image of the red lace was burned into my retinas. I gritted my teeth and violently ripped my arm out of her grip. “Back off. Do not touch me.” Nina took a deep breath, playing the patient girlfriend. “How else are you going to get home?” I did not say a word. I turned around and started walking down the driveway into the night. I walked step by dragging step. The sun vanished completely. The suburban streets went pitch black. Nina trailed slowly behind me in her car, the headlights casting a long, mocking shadow ahead of me. Years ago, she knew I hated city noise, so she insisted we buy a house deep in the suburbs. I walked for two straight hours. My dress shoes tore the skin off the back of my heels. When I finally unlocked the front door, Nina stormed in behind me, her face twisted with rage. “What the hell is your problem?” “You go overseas for a few years and come back acting like a dramatic, fragile princess!” Who made me fragile? I survived the absolute trenches for three years. I clawed my way out of the mud. I had zero right to be fragile. I ignored her shouting. I just stared at the interior of the house. My quiet study was gone. It was now an RGB lit gaming room packed with high end consoles. The bathroom vanity was cluttered with men’s cologne and skincare brands I did not use. Even the toothbrush holder had a cute little label that read Noah’s Property. This was supposed to be our sanctuary. The home we built. Now, every corner reeked of another man. I was too exhausted to fight. I walked down the hall and opened the guest room door, just wanting a bed. Sitting dead center on the mattress was Noah. He was wearing my father’s wedding suit. I stopped breathing. That suit was the only physical item I had left of my dad in this entire world. My dad used to point at that suit and tell me, When you get married, wear this. And protect your wife the way I protected your mother. That is what makes a man. Now, that sacred fabric was draped over Noah’s shoulders. He had taken scissors to the vintage lining, letting the yellowed fabric fall to the floor. The subtle embroidered details had been ripped out. My dad was heavily built. A soldier. Noah was lanky. So Noah had haphazardly pinned and stitched the fabric to make it tighter. Seeing me in the doorway, Noah gave me a sick, taunting smile and flexed his shoulders, intentionally stretching the fragile seams. A loud tearing sound echoed in the quiet room. The back seam split wide open. Outside, a massive crack of thunder rattled the windows. I flinched. The sound physically broke something inside me. I watched my dad die all over again. I lost my mind. I grabbed a heavy ceramic vase from the hallway table and hurled it at the floor, shattering it into pieces. I screamed until my vocal cords bled. “Who gave you the right to touch that!” “Take it off! Take it off right now!” Noah faked a look of absolute terror and scrambled behind Nina, though I could see the victorious smirk playing on his lips.

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Three years after breaking up with River Wright, I accidentally ran into him on a film set while working as a background extra. By then, he had already established himself as an elite, visionary director. The extras around me were whispering, gossiping about how the leading lady of this film was his girlfriend of three years, and that they were likely getting engaged soon. They looked at her with pure envy, talking about how lucky she was to lock down River, effectively securing her future as a permanent fixture in the untouchable Wright dynasty. Looking at the freezing, intimidating man surrounded by a massive entourage, I could barely recognize him as the same boy who used to squeeze into a cramped, miserable studio apartment with me to survive. While I was still lost in my memories, he suddenly stopped walking. He instructed his assistant to have the lead actress, Ashley Blair, step out because she was feeling unwell. He ordered them to use a stunt double for the upcoming water scene. Then, he casually lifted his eyes, carelessly pointing a single finger directly at me. When his gaze locked onto mine, the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a provocative smirk. He asked if I had a problem with it. 1 An icy rain had just stopped, leaving the air biting and cold. I huddled within the crowd of extras, pulling my heavy cotton coat tight around myself. My friend, Maya, leaned in, barely suppressing her excitement. “Did you see Director Wright’s face when Ashley accidentally bumped into that prop?” She was a massive fan of the River and Ashley relationship, constantly obsessing over their every interaction. I gave a weak hum of agreement. I had been on set all night, taking the freezing wind directly to the face. Right now, I was shivering violently and just wanted to crawl into bed. Another extra next to us jumped into the conversation. “Ashley is so incredibly lucky. Three years ago she was a literal nobody playing nameless extras. Now she is a massive, A-list movie star.” “Well, look at Director Wright’s family. The Wright Entertainment Empire! Making someone a star is basically a hobby for them.” “Ashley really hit the jackpot. Marrying him and having the Wright family backing her? She is set for life.” Maya argued back, “What do you mean ‘hit the jackpot’?” “When Director Wright directed his first indie film, nobody had any idea he was the Wright heir. Everyone knows he had some desperate ex-girlfriend who dumped him because she thought he was broke and wanted to climb the social ladder.” “Honestly, thank god that girl was completely blind. She practically handed him over to Ashley.” Maya nudged me, looking for backup. “Right?” I gave another slow, exhausted hum. 2 When I was dating River. I had absolutely no idea he came from insane wealth. To be fair, he never mentioned it. But honestly, nobody looking at the sweet, exhausted, endlessly patient junior camera assistant he was back then would ever connect him to the billionaire heir of the Wright Entertainment Empire. And I certainly did not dump him to climb the social ladder. Because nobody climbs the social ladder just to end up as a nameless extra on their ex-boyfriend’s set. Maya cleared her throat, about to say something else, but suddenly froze. The normally terrifying Assistant Director was walking toward the extras’ rest area, leading a tall, imposing figure. River Wright had personally come to the extras’ holding area. They had been filming for a month, and this was the very first time. The AD glanced at his phone and whispered something. River replied dismissively. “Ashley is not feeling well. Let her rest in the trailer.” “Find a double for the water sequence.” Even though I was shrinking back and keeping my head down, I felt a stare lock onto me like a physical needle. “Use her.” River’s voice was quiet, but it carried an undeniable, absolute authority. My chest tightened violently. I slowly raised my head, locking eyes with River’s freezing, pitch-black gaze. Our eyes met. The corner of his lips curled up slightly, his brow arching in a silent challenge. “What? Do you have a problem with it?” His voice felt like it had been soaked in ice water. 3 My legs felt like lead as I followed the AD. The rigging crew was already waiting by the edge of the deep water tank. I gritted my teeth, fighting back violent waves of dizziness and shivering. Maybe because I looked genuinely sick, the usually brutal AD offered a rare word of comfort. “It is just a wide shot. Do not stress.” He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. A PA suddenly yelled his name from a distance. “Director Wright needs you.” I turned my head. Through the chaos of the scrambling crew, I immediately spotted River. He was standing behind the monitor, arms crossed, his expression impatient and harsh. Everyone hovered around him like anxious satellites, waiting for his command. I snapped back to reality as the slate clapped and the AD yelled, “Action!” The wire violently yanked me up, suspending me high in the air. Below me was the freezing, pitch-black water. Memories I had desperately tried to bury suddenly surged to the surface. Splash— The freezing water slammed into me from all sides, crushing my chest. A delayed, violent panic hit me. I instinctively began thrashing. “Cut.” The crew dragged me out of the water, dragging my freezing body onto the concrete. In the chaos, a massive shadow fell over me. I struggled to look up, only seeing the sharp, merciless line of River’s jaw. A second later, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Absolutely pathetic.” Because I had water in my ears, his voice was muffled, but the cruelty was unmistakable. “How does someone with zero talent and zero professionalism even get hired on my set?” He checked his expensive watch, tapping the glass as he spoke to the crew. “Dry her off. We are going again.” Over the roar of the industrial space heaters, I caught fragments of the crew whispering. “It is just a wide shot. You cannot even see her face. Why are we doing another take?” “…He is in a terrible mood… Ashley scraped her knee…” I lowered my eyes. I methodically wrung the freezing water out of my hair with a towel. I kept my mind completely blank. From the second I decided to return to acting, I had mentally prepared myself to endure absolutely anything. We shot the water plunge five times. River finally gave a tight nod of approval. The crew immediately scrambled to tear down the set, prep for the next location, and move on. The entire soundstage was a chaotic blur of noise and movement. I tried to move my limbs, slowly swimming toward the edge of the tank. But no matter how hard I tried, my completely frozen body just started dragging me down into the water. Until my consciousness finally slipped into absolute darkness. 4 When I woke up, I was lying in a strange, unfamiliar bedroom. The heavy blackout curtains were drawn shut. The room was dark and suffocating. It felt like a completely isolated island. A massive wave of pure panic crashed over me. I violently threw myself out of the bed. The sudden movement ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand. Blood immediately started pouring down my skin. When the dizziness finally passed, I grabbed my phone, which was aggressively vibrating on the nightstand. A breaking news notification immediately popped up on the lock screen. [River Wright carries Ashley Blair off set! Actress posts a sweet photo confirming their happiness!] My hand shook. The screen automatically unlocked to a social media app. Half an hour ago, Ashley had posted two photos. One was a steaming bowl of ginger soup. The other was a dark, blurry shot of the water tank. The caption read: [The hardest scene is finally here! It is freezing outside, remember to drink your ginger soup. Feeling so warm and happy inside.] The comment section was split into a massive war. One side was aggressively defending the “carry,” claiming Ashley fainted from exhaustion and River rushed her to the medic. Another side was viciously attacking the production team and her manager, demanding to know why an A-list actress was forced to shoot a freezing water sequence for hours until she collapsed. Scattered in between were obsessive fans screaming about how perfect River and Ashley were together. Soon, the hashtag #AshleyBlairProfessionalism hit the number one trending spot. I glanced at it for a few seconds and closed the app. My head was still throbbing violently. It felt so heavy I thought if I tilted my neck, it would snap right off. As I slipped my shoes on, my brain finally processed something. I was wearing thick, dry, completely different clothes. Just as I started looking around for my soaked costume, the bedroom door opened. River walked in, holding a steaming bowl of ginger soup. “Looks like you are fine.” He casually set the bowl on the nightstand, staring at me with a dark, calculating intensity. The dim light cast heavy shadows across his face, hiding his expression. After a long pause, a mocking smirk curled his lips. “Lily Evans, look how pathetic you have become.” I let out a short, dry laugh. My throat felt like it was lined with broken glass, but I managed to speak. “Isn’t this entirely your fault?” 5 River’s face darkened instantly. I scanned the room again. Still no sign of my costume. Whatever. I didn’t care. It was just a shame about the money. The production company charged a two-hundred-dollar penalty for lost wardrobe. I tried to walk past River to leave. But he moved faster, suddenly closing the distance. With almost zero effort, he shoved my exhausted, weak body back down onto the bed, pinning me there. River grabbed my wrist with one hand, his eyes dropping to the bleeding puncture wound from the IV. The corner of his mouth twitched. His other hand grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “Still the exact same. Totally unreasonable.” His tone was intimate, almost teasing, with a faint smile playing on his lips. But his dark eyes were completely dead. There was absolutely zero warmth. I twisted my head violently, trying to escape his grip and the hot, suffocating breath hitting my face. River let me struggle, his grip like iron. “Three years ago, you vanished without a single word.” “When you did that, did you ever imagine this is how you would end up?” His thumb slowly traced the line of my brow. “Three years ago… did you act like this in his bed too?” A massive, overwhelming wave of pure humiliation crushed my chest. I didn’t even have time to feel angry. The blood pounded violently in my temples. My teeth started chattering uncontrollably, my entire body violently shaking. A flash of genuine regret crossed River’s eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t…” I snapped my head to the side, sinking my teeth violently into the hand pinning my face down. My mind went completely blank. I just bit down harder. And harder. The heavy, metallic taste of blood instantly flooded my mouth. River gritted his teeth, finally letting out a sharp hiss of pain. His face twisted as he struggled to maintain control. Right at that exact second, there was a soft knock on the door. “River? Are you in there?” Ashley’s voice was hesitant and probing. 6 I ran out of the hotel. Standing under a pitch-black, suffocating sky, I felt completely lost. Someone gently tugged on my sleeve. It was a group of extremely young, panicked-looking girls. The girl leading them looked at me nervously. “Miss, are you crew for The Emerald Cage?” She pointed at the production logo printed on my jacket, her voice frantic. “Do you know how Ashley is doing? Is she okay?” They told me they were Ashley’s super-fans. When they saw the news that she fainted, they panicked, paid off a scalper, and snuck onto the lot. Their faces were pale with genuine fear and concern for their idol. “She is fine,” I rasped, my throat burning. “You guys need to go home. This area is restricted, and it is not safe for you to be out here in the dark.” As they turned to leave, one girl who had been standing quietly in the back hesitated, her voice trembling. “Lily Evans? Is that you?” When she saw me freeze, her face lit up. “It is you!” “I used to watch your shows and movies! I loved your acting so much!” “When you quit the industry, there was absolutely no news about you. I was so worried about you.” “Are you ever going to come back to acting?” I never imagined that, in this miserable, humiliating moment, I would hear someone say they loved me and loved my work. The sheer shock of it hit me like a physical blow. My nose burned. My throat completely locked up. I could only manage a single, heavy nod. “I will.” The girl stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me in a tight, gentle hug. “I never believed a single word of those tabloid rumors,” she whispered in my ear. “Keep fighting!” She gave me a bright smile and ran off to catch up with her friends. I watched her until she disappeared into the dark. Only then did I look down. My tears hit the concrete, shattering into tiny, dark flowers. Three years ago, the tabloids exploded with a story that “manipulative D-list actress Lily Evans” slept with a billionaire heir to secure a role. The photos they leaked showed me practically unconscious, hanging off a man as we stumbled into a hotel room, and later leaving with my clothes completely disheveled. The entire internet ripped me apart, using the most vile, toxic language imaginable to destroy me. Even just ten minutes ago. The man who used to love me used the exact same rumors to degrade me. But this stranger? She looked me in the eye and said she believed me. 7 The production provided a cheap, rundown dorm for the background extras. When I walked in, Maya was just climbing down from her top bunk. “You are finally back.” She aggressively ushered me to sit down, grabbing pillows for my back and pouring me a glass of hot water. “Even if River is obsessed with protecting Ashley, what he did today was completely psychotic.” Her eyebrows were twisted in a tight, angry knot. “You were the one who went into the freezing water. You were the one who passed out. But the second Ashley posts a picture, the entire internet is praising her dedication!” She cursed a few more times, then suddenly shot me a very strange, calculating look. “By the way… the AD told me to tell you that Director Wright was extremely impressed by your raw talent today. He said you have great instincts, and he is writing a specific speaking role just for you.” I gave a weak, exhausted nod. My head was pounding so hard it felt like a construction crew was operating inside my skull. I dry-swallowed two painkillers and collapsed onto the thin mattress. Just as I was slipping into unconsciousness, my phone vibrated. It was a text from my mom. [Transferred some money to your account. Please don’t starve yourself.] Her profile picture was a screenshot of a character I played years ago. A photo of twenty-two-year-old Lily Evans. Arrogant, confident, and utterly fearless. The words on the screen blurred into a watery mess. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, tangling into my hair, making my scalp itch. It felt just like the day before I left home to return to the city. Resting my head on her lap, she gently stroked my hair, her voice thick with helpless love. “I don’t care about anything else. I am just terrified you are going to get hurt. I am terrified you are going to be miserable.” “But I know you. Once you make a choice, you will smash your head against a brick wall before you ever turn back. You will walk this path no matter what.” “Whenever you get too tired, just come home. Do not torture yourself for nothing.” I didn’t reply. I honestly didn’t know what to say. As I closed the chat app, a tiny red dot suddenly appeared on my contacts tab. Under the [New Friends] requests, there was a blank profile with the username “M.” I locked my phone screen. Rolling over, I sank back into the dark.

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My life took a devastating turn when I was eighteen. I fell madly in love with Mike Maxwell, a thirty-five-year-old widower. To be with him, I abandoned the ballet career I valued more than my own life and turned down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study in Paris. I even ignored my parents’ furious warnings and tearful pleas, ruthlessly cutting all ties with them. But then, the fantasy shattered. I caught Mike red-handed, holding another woman in his arms. They were laughing without a care in the world. I heard him whisper in her ear that girls who danced ballet were just a bit more flexible, and that after marriage, all women were exactly the same. He told her I couldn’t even compare to her little finger. Watching that scene, I didn’t throw a hysterical fit. I didn’t shed a single tear. Taking a page right out of his playbook, I turned around and became the sugar mommy of a handsome, young college student named Declan. Everything was perfect until one night when Declan got dead drunk. Through his slurred, drunken haze, I heard him call Mike “Uncle.” He mumbled, “Uncle, I did exactly what you asked. I played with her feelings. You better treat Phoebe like a goddamn queen from now on.” Those few words felt like a bucket of ice water, completely waking me up from years of delusional dreaming. I finally made my decision. Mike or Declan, it didn’t matter. Both of these men made me absolutely sick to my stomach. 1 “You have to treat Phoebe right and make her happy for the rest of her life. Otherwise, I swear to God I’ll take her far away from here! If it weren’t for Phoebe, there is no way in hell I would have ever helped you with this.” Having said his piece, Declan looked entirely drained. He slumped at the table, downing his drink gulp after bitter gulp. A satisfied smirk crept onto Mike’s lips. His gaze flicked toward me for barely a second before darting away. “Relax. Phoebe is the first woman in this world to ever show me what real love tastes like. She taught me how to love, and I will never let go of her hand as long as I live.” “I only asked you to play this little part because I was worried Sylvia was too obsessed with me to ever agree to a divorce. I just didn’t want my Phoebe to suffer even the slightest grievance.” I lay quietly on the velvet sofa, faking a deep, drunken sleep. But my heart plummeted into an endless abyss. A biting cold seeped into my veins, freezing my limbs completely numb. Mike had once poured those exact same sweet words out to me, holding nothing back. He had held me so tight, his eyes swimming with deep affection and regret. “Sylvia, it’s such a tragedy we were born at the wrong times. We are seventeen years apart. Will you ever resent me when I get old?” Back then, I was totally blinded by the honey trap of love. I fought my parents to the bitter end and turned a deaf ear to my friends’ desperate warnings. “Mike, I am in love with who you are, not your age. We are going to be the happiest couple in the world!” I sounded so incredibly determined back then. Looking back now, it was absurd to the point of being sickening. To force me into asking for a divorce, he carefully orchestrated this entire scheme, bringing in his own nephew to run a romance scam on me. Could there be a more grotesque joke in this world? “Sylvia loves you? Hah! I just fed her a few sweet nothings and took her out for a couple of joyrides, and she is already dead set on me! Just watch. The second I mention marriage, she will slap those divorce papers right in your face tomorrow morning.” “A woman like Sylvia, who falls for whoever gives her the time of day, isn’t even worth a strand of Phoebe’s hair. She actually genuinely believes I am obsessed with her! It’s hilarious!” Declan laughed out loud, completely unbothered, entirely missing the way Mike’s face instantly darkened. Declan’s gaze swept over my body with undisguised mockery. After making sure I was still passed out, he turned back to Mike. “You really think I’d treasure the used trash you got bored of? It’s just a game. Honestly, touching her makes me feel filthy.” The moment those words hit me, a sharp ache shot up my nose, and my eyes inevitably welled up. My chest felt so tight I could barely breathe. When Declan and I first met, he knew perfectly well that I was a married woman. Back then, he would blink those innocent, clear eyes and gently pull me into his embrace. His eyes were always swimming with heartbreaking tenderness. “Your husband clearly doesn’t know how to cherish you. I don’t care that you are married. I just want the right to quietly stay by your side. Can I?” That day, I stood completely frozen for a long time. Even after I wandered home in a daze and mechanically cooked dinner for Mike, my chest still burned from the heat of his hug. It had been so many years. The heart that had long died inside that frigid marriage felt like it was finally beating again. Later on, every time he saw me, he brought a bouquet of vibrant red roses. I tried to push them away, tried to decline, but he would just forcefully yet gently press them into my arms. “Sylvia, it’s just a few roses. I only hate that I can’t give you more right now. Once I finally take over the business, I swear I’ll buy you an entire rose estate!” Roses. How long had it been since I last received them? Ever since I married Mike, whenever I hinted at wanting flowers, he would shoot the idea down with the most half-hearted excuses. The only exception was the night he finished celebrating Phoebe’s birthday and casually tossed a withered, dying rose onto the table in front of me like it was garbage. Because of that, when Declan approached me with such burning passion, I grabbed onto him like a drowning woman clinging to driftwood, refusing to miss out on love again. But looking at it now. That decision was fatally stupid. I was just a laughingstock to him, a toy to be used and tossed aside. The truth was far too cruel. Mike didn’t stay in the private room much longer. Shortly after, Declan carried my body out to leave early. By the middle of the night, I was burning up with a high fever. My head was splitting, and in a dizzy, spinning haze, I was rushed to the hospital by Declan. By the time I finally forced my heavy eyelids open, it was already the next morning. Faint sounds of giggling and flirting drifted in from the hallway. Through the glass window on the door, I caught sight of two highly familiar figures. Declan was breathing heavily, pinning Phoebe tightly against his chest. He lowered his head and planted a deep kiss on her cheek. “Phoebe, what on earth are you thinking? How could I possibly fall for Sylvia? What does she have that could ever compare to you? I am pushing through the disgust to do all this just for you. You heartless little tease, how are you going to make this up to me?” A stunning blush immediately spread across Phoebe’s cheeks, and she gave Declan a playful glare. Then, she stood on her tiptoes and carefully, seductively kissed him on the lips. “Come over to my apartment tonight, okay? Your uncle went out of town on a business trip. I will make sure to reward you properly tonight. You know how it is, Declan. My heart loves Mike, and I want to be his legal wife, but my body and my passion will always belong entirely to you.” Declan’s breathing instantly grew heavier. After they finished their nauseating display of affection outside, Declan slowly straightened his wrinkled shirt collar and pushed open the hospital room door. Seeing that I was awake, a fleeting panic flashed in his eyes, but it was replaced by flawless concern in the blink of an eye. “Sylvia, you’re awake? How are you feeling? Does anything still hurt?” I kept my lips pressed tightly together, saying nothing. My eyes were dead-set on the faint red hickeys peeking out from beneath his collar, a violent bitterness flooding my mouth. So the things I heard last night were not just a bad dream after all. Seemingly noticing my unusual stare, Declan very naturally pulled his collar up a bit, leaning in to pinch my cheek with a grin. “Why the long face? Did you black out? You got completely wasted last night and started gnawing on me like crazy. The marks on my neck still haven’t faded. When exactly are you going to take responsibility for me?” My stomach immediately did flips, and my already pale face lost whatever color it had left. He had used this exact same excuse countless times before. Almost every single time he spent the night at my place, he would wake up the next morning with fresh red marks all over his neck and collarbones. He would always look at me with a suggestive, teasing smirk. “Sylvia’s stamina was incredible last night. Look at all your trophies on me. Are you satisfied with your masterpiece?” Deep down, I never really believed it. All my old friends knew I was a happy sleeper when drunk, never the type to go crazy or lose control. But the evidence was always right there in front of me. So every time, I would be teased into a blushing, utterly mortified mess. And Declan would only take it further, pulling me tightly into his arms and pressing a highly restrained kiss to my forehead. “So, when are you going to make me an honest woman? Sylvia, I really want to marry you and tie myself to you for the rest of my life.” I used to think those words were the absolute pinnacle of romance and happiness. Knowing the truth now made it feel incredibly nauseating. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I leaned over the edge of the bed and started dry heaving violently, my ghostly pale face turning beet red from the strain. Declan was clearly stunned. A flash of genuine worry crossed his eyes. He snapped out of it, hurriedly rubbing my back while frantically pressing the call button for the doctor. His anxious act was absolutely bulletproof. “Sylvia? What’s wrong? Is your stomach acting up again?” Meeting his worried gaze, I zoned out for a split second. Declan. Your acting belongs in Hollywood. By the evening, my high fever finally broke. Declan was incredibly sweet as he stayed with me through dinner, but then put on an apologetic face, claiming a sudden company emergency required his immediate attention. His face was a picture of heartbreaking guilt. “Sylvia, I am so sorry I can’t stay here at the hospital with you. The moment I handle things at the office, I promise I’ll sprint right back to you, okay?” I put down my water glass and locked eyes with him. Deep down in the darkest corner of my heart, I still held onto one last, pathetic shred of hope. “But Declan, today is our three-year anniversary. You promised me you would spend it with me.” He was the one who always initiated our anniversaries. Every single time, he would cancel all his meetings and social events just to focus entirely on me. I used to worry that his impulsive behavior would give his rivals ammunition in the family business, but he always acted like he couldn’t care less. “I am just completely helpless when it comes to you. I am more than happy to be the man in the shadows. Let people talk. In this world, the only opinion that matters to me is yours.” “Sylvia, what the hell is work anyway? How could it ever compare to a single strand of your hair? Being with you is the most important thing in my life.” Those words used to make me want to laugh and cry at the same time. They melted my heart into a puddle, warm and burning. I hadn’t felt that kind of unwavering, devoted preference in years. But this time, Declan frowned slightly, a visible trace of annoyance flashing across his features. His tone became stiff and dismissive. “Sylvia, can’t we just celebrate it in a few days? Be reasonable. This project is life or death for me, and I cannot afford to drop the ball at a critical moment.” “Just be good, okay? I will come straight back to you the second I am done.” He didn’t even leave me a second to argue. He grabbed his coat from the chair and walked out of the room without a single backward glance. I sat quietly on the bed. It wasn’t until the air in the room had completely turned cold and dead that I slowly raised my hand to wipe away the dried tears on my cheeks. That last, pathetic sliver of hope finally vanished into thin air. “Declan, I won’t be waiting for you anymore.” Declan never came back that night. The next morning, however, Mike called me out of the blue. His tone was incredibly nasty, his impatience radiating right through the phone. “Sylvia! Where the hell is Phoebe? Didn’t I explicitly tell you to set up a room for her at the house? Did you pull your lady of the house routine and kick her out again? How can you be this petty? Where is a young girl like her supposed to go out there!” “All I asked was for you to help out and cook her a warm meal! Could you not show even a shred of decency to a young girl? When did you become so vicious?” When it came to Mike, I had long since run out of tears and expectations. After all, his countless, blatant affairs over the years had ground whatever fiery love I once had for him into dust. I had dragged out signing the divorce papers purely out of a sick sense of revenge. I maliciously thought that as long as I refused to give up my title, Phoebe would remain nothing but a dirty little secret in the shadows. But now, I was truly exhausted. I didn’t want to play this disgusting game for another second. “Mike, let’s get a divorce.” I hadn’t absorbed a single word of his harsh accusations, nor did I care to. The line went dead silent. It took him a full thirty seconds to find his voice again. “What, couldn’t handle the loneliness and found yourself a new toy? Or did you actually fall for some random guy? Sylvia, is this another one of your games to play hard to get? Using divorce as an excuse to force me to the negotiating table and beg you to stay? Aren’t you tired of this routine?” “How many times do I have to repeat myself? The only woman I will ever truly love is Phoebe!” I couldn’t even be bothered to argue. I actually found his clownish behavior incredibly funny. Didn’t he set up this entire trap himself? How did he have the nerve to play the victim of betrayal now? I simply gave a calm sound of agreement, coldly stated a time to meet at the courthouse for the paperwork, and hung up without hesitation. When Declan rushed to my house, the first thing he saw was the signed divorce agreement laid flat on the table. Joy practically exploded across his face. He didn’t even try to hide the fresh hickeys on his neck or air out the pungent scent of women’s perfume clinging to him before leaning in close. “Sylvia! You finally decided to go through with it?” I nodded expressionlessly. His smile grew so wide it nearly reached his ears. “This is absolutely perfect! Once you are officially single, we won’t have to sneak around like thieves anymore! You’ll marry me then, won’t you? I swear, I will never let you suffer even a fraction of what your ex put you through!” “Sylvia, you have no idea how happy I am!” Looking at Declan’s beaming face, I couldn’t help but let a small smile curl my lips too. Because once those papers were filed, my future would be scrubbed entirely clean of both of these scumbags. Mike disgusted me. Declan made me want to throw up. I didn’t see Mike in person until the day we finalized the paperwork. For some reason, he looked incredibly grim, a dark storm brewing in his eyes. “Did you really fall for someone else? You’re in such a rush to dump me just so you can marry another guy? Sylvia, your so-called true love is pitifully cheap.” I shrugged indifferently, my face a mask of absolute calm. My complete dismissal seemed to instantly ignite Mike’s temper. He took two aggressive steps forward, invading my personal space. “I am warning you one last time! Playing hard to get won’t work on me! You better actually sign those papers! If you try to pull any stunts in there, I will ruin your life!” “And from now on, Phoebe is my legal wife! After this is done, you will personally apologize to her! If you hadn’t kicked her out, she wouldn’t have had to suffer in a hotel! You are deeply manipulative!” I treated his words like absolute garbage. I pushed open the glass doors of the building first, walked straight to the counter, and slapped my ID down. Before the clerk could even go through the standard questions, I spoke up. “I am absolutely certain. I want a divorce.” The process was faster than expected. With no property disputes holding us up, it was a breeze. Before long, the certificate of freedom was resting securely in my hands. The moment I stepped out of the building, I noticed two incredibly flashy luxury cars parked by the steps. One was Declan’s sports car, the other was Phoebe’s ride. Declan hurried over the second he saw me, a massive grin on his face. “Sylvia! Congratulations on your freedom! I came specifically to pick you up to celebrate! I already booked first-class tickets to Paris. Let’s leave today!” At the same time, Phoebe pushed her car door open. Like a fluttering butterfly, she threw herself straight into Mike’s arms, completely ignoring the public setting. “Mike! I’ve waited for you for so long! Does this mean I get to officially be your wife today? My heart was practically breaking from the wait!” Standing on the steps watching this play out, I actually felt a twinge of admiration. All three of them knew exactly how filthy this whole setup was, yet they could still act with such raw, convincing emotion. But mostly, it was just a physiological urge to gag. To complete their supposedly pure, elevated romance, they had effortlessly offered me up as a sacrificial lamb. Could the world get any more absurd? I wasn’t going to give them what they wanted. I slightly shifted my body, coldly dodging Declan’s hand as he reached for mine. His smile froze instantly. Behind me, I could clearly feel Mike’s piercing gaze locked onto my back. “Sylvia, what’s wrong? You finally got rid of that guy, aren’t you happy? You always said you wanted to marry me. The man you truly love is me.” Mike let out an incredibly grating sneer. He deliberately held up his divorce certificate, sporting the smug look of a victor. “Sylvia, we are legally finished. Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t stick to me like chewing gum anymore. You were acting so aloof inside. What, the moment you step outside, you’re already dying to take it back?” “Sylvia,” Phoebe’s voice was sickeningly sweet, yet laced with hidden venom. “Please, stop trying to steal Mike from me. We are soulmates. Doesn’t Declan love you too? We both get what we want. Isn’t this the perfect ending.”

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I decided to stop by my fiancée’s corporate headquarters to pick her up and surprise her for her birthday. As I stepped out of the elevator, a young man I’d never met blocked my way. He was her new personal assistant. With a flat expression, he told me that meeting the CEO required an appointment scheduled forty-eight hours in advance. He even took the homemade birthday cake I was carrying, calling it an “unidentified high-calorie food item” that broke office policy. I couldn’t believe it. I took out my phone and called my fiancée’s private number. The call connected, but the voice that answered belonged to the assistant standing right in front of me. He said, his tone full of contempt, that a man who spent all day revolving around a woman was a pathetic simp and deeply unmanly. Later, I confronted my fiancée. She dismissed it completely, saying her assistant was just being professional and enforcing boundaries. She told me not to be so sensitive. In that moment, I knew I had nothing left to say to her. I quietly took out my phone and texted my mother, telling her to cancel the $500 million joint venture with the Sullivan family immediately. My reasoning was simple: I wanted to learn how to keep strict professional boundaries, too. After all, for some people, investing real emotion and money in a woman is clearly just bad for business. 1 It was Victoria Sullivan’s birthday. Carrying a cake I had spent hours baking myself, I drove to her company to pick her up, hoping to give her a sweet surprise. I never expected what happened next. The second I stepped into the elevator, someone literally shoved me back out into the lobby. Victoria’s new executive assistant, Liam Pierce, stood there in a sharp suit. Using an incredibly cold, corporate tone, he looked at me and said, “Apologies. This is the private executive elevator. Unauthorized personnel are strictly forbidden from riding it.” His voice echoed through the lobby. Employees and clients immediately turned to stare at me. Feeling my face heat up, I opened my mouth to explain who I was. He did not even let me speak. Flipping open his leather portfolio, he continued, “Mr. Sterling, I am well aware you are Ms. Sullivan’s fiancé. However, you are not on the CEO’s itinerary for today.” “Anyone wishing to see the CEO must submit a request to my office forty-eight hours in advance for approval and scheduling.” “This is the new company policy. I expect you to respect our operational protocols.” I stood there, completely frozen in disbelief. Not wanting to cause a humiliating scene in front of a lobby full of people, I pulled out my phone, planning to just call Victoria directly. Before I could dial, Liam’s voice cut through the air again, dripping with irritation. “Furthermore, the birthday cake you are holding qualifies as an unidentified high-calorie foreign food item. It is strictly prohibited from entering the executive workspace.” “Per protocol, you must surrender it to the front desk for a security screening. You will receive a claim ticket to retrieve it when you leave.” I was absolutely dumbfounded by the sheer audacity of this guy. Before my brain could even process what was happening, he snapped at the young receptionist behind the desk. “Security breach at the front desk. I am docking your monthly bonus by fifty dollars. Pay attention to your job. Do not just let random loiterers wander into the building.” I finally hit my breaking point. I stepped forward, my voice hard. “Mr. Pierce, do you not think you are crossing a line? I am Victoria’s fiancé. Are you seriously telling me I cannot visit my own fiancée at her office?” The poor receptionist looked like she was about to cry. “Exactly, Liam! Everyone in the company knows Mr. Sterling. I obviously cannot deny him entry.” Liam’s face hardened into a stone wall. He did not yield an inch. “Rules exist for a reason. No one gets special treatment. I am confident that by strictly enforcing company policy, the CEO will entirely support my decision. Have a good day.” With that, he pulled out a black VIP keycard and swiped it against the scanner with a deeply arrogant flourish. Beep. The heavy metal doors of the executive elevator began to slide shut. Right before the doors closed completely, he lifted his chin, locking eyes with me. There was no attempt to hide the smug superiority in his gaze. It was a silent, arrogant declaration. He won. And he successfully ignited a massive fire of rage in my chest. I immediately dialed Victoria’s private, personal cell phone. I needed to ask her exactly what the hell was going on, and who she thought she hired. The phone rang endlessly, but nobody answered. Furious, I was about to turn around and leave the building when the call suddenly connected. But before the word “Victoria” could even leave my mouth, a familiar, icy male voice echoed through the speaker. “Apologies, the CEO is currently unavailable. If you have an urgent matter, I can relay a message on your behalf.” At this point, my temper completely snapped. My voice was lethal. “Mr. Pierce, please inform Victoria that her fiancé is currently blocked from seeing her. Tell her to come down to the lobby and personally sign me in.” I expected him to panic, or at least get defensive. Instead, the line went dead silent for a second. Then, he replied in a flat, robotic tone. “Understood. I have recorded your demand.” “By the way, if I may be so bold…” “Mr. Sterling, do you genuinely have nothing productive to do with your life? Constantly hovering around a woman like a lovesick teenager… it is honestly pathetic.” I stared at the screen as the call disconnected. I stood in the lobby for a full minute, completely stunned. Eventually, I just started laughing. I had nothing to do? I was a lovesick teenager? I was hovering? It was beyond absurd. I graduated with my Ph.D. at twenty-six. Every elite bio-research institute in the country was in a bidding war to hire me. My daily schedule was ten times more packed than Victoria’s. And he had the audacity to call me unemployed? And calling me a simp was even more hilarious. At my eighteenth birthday gala, Victoria took one look at me and fell head over heels. From that night on, she spent years aggressively pursuing me. She followed me from New York to London. She chased me for three solid years before I finally agreed to be her boyfriend. The second I graduated college, she pressured both our families into finalizing an engagement, terrified I would change my mind and run. Saying I was obsessed with her was a massive joke. It was the exact opposite. But at the end of the day, Liam was just a glorified assistant. I was confident that once I told Victoria what happened, she would fire him immediately. But I had zero desire to stand in this toxic building any longer. Whatever. I was done. Just as I turned toward the revolving doors, my phone rang. It was Victoria. When she realized I was stuck in the lobby, she immediately started apologizing. “Baby, I am so sorry! I was stuck on a massive conference call. I had no idea you were here. I will send Liam down to escort you right now.” “Please do not be mad at me. I already booked a table at your favorite French restaurant for tonight. Give me a chance to make it up to you?” I let out a long, exhausted exhale. Remembering it was her birthday, I swallowed my irritation and stopped walking. I waited for several more minutes. With a soft chime, the executive elevator doors finally opened. I shot a freezing glare at Liam as he elegantly stepped out. He still wore that pristine, corporate smile. There was absolutely zero apology or regret on his face. “Mr. Sterling, the CEO has granted special authorization for me to escort you up.” I ignored him completely, walking straight past him into the elevator. But before I could step inside, Liam stepped into my path, physically blocking me again. “Mr. Sterling, per company policy, non-employees entering the executive floor must sign in and be escorted at all times. Here is your temporary visitor QR code.” “Please scan to register.” In that exact moment, I genuinely wanted to turn around, walk to my car, and never look back. But my desire to march into Victoria’s office, throw this in her face, and demand an immediate explanation was stronger. I clenched my jaw, fighting back the urge to punch him. I scanned the code. I registered. And I let Liam “escort” me down the hall to the CEO’s office. We finally reached her door. It was closed. Liam knocked softly. As I waited, my eyes casually drifted over to the massive, custom-built desk reserved for the executive assistant. My brain suddenly short-circuited. Sitting right next to his monitor was a deep purple, artisanal ceramic mug. It looked incredibly familiar. Aside from the color, it was an exact replica of the mug sitting on my desk at the research institute. It was a gift Victoria had painstakingly picked out for me during a business trip to Amsterdam last month. When she gave it to me, she made a massive deal out of it. She bragged that it was designed by an obscure European artisan, unavailable anywhere in the States, guaranteeing nobody else would ever have one like it. Liam noticed me staring at it. He casually commented, “The CEO has exquisite taste, doesn’t she? When I accompanied her to Amsterdam last month to help pick out your souvenir, she noticed how much I admired it. So, she bought one for me as well.” “She told me this color matched my aesthetic. Oh, by the way, I remember you really loved the blue one she got you. You even posted it on your Instagram story.” I did not say a single word. My stomach violently plummeted. Victoria never bought casual gifts for other men. I was the only exception. And she knew damn well how much I absolutely despised wearing or owning the exact same thing as someone else. While my mind was spinning, Liam pushed the heavy oak doors open. The moment she saw me, Victoria immediately muted her microphone and gave me a brilliant smile. “Hey baby! My call wraps up in ten minutes. Just hang out on the sofa for a bit.” Liam’s face remained completely passive. He walked smoothly over to the executive desk. With practiced familiarity, he picked up Victoria’s water glass and refilled it with warm water. Using the brief pause in her meeting, he flashed a flawless smile, rapidly debriefed her on two urgent matters, and turned to leave. Right before stepping out the door, he casually added, “Boss, you left your stomach medication in my car last night. I transferred it to the glovebox of your Bentley. Do not forget to take it on time.” The delivery was smooth, elegant, and perfectly professional. It was as if I did not even exist in the room. As if he had not spent the last twenty minutes aggressively humiliating me in the lobby. He was acting like absolutely nothing happened. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to remain calm. I sat on the designer leather sofa, waiting for Victoria to finish her call. But the longer I sat there, the more a sick, creeping suspicion began wrapping around my brain. It was about Liam. Honestly, I met him on his very first day on the job. At the time, Victoria explicitly instructed him that, as her personal assistant, one of his duties was to ensure my requests were handled promptly. Liam had smiled politely and agreed. And for a while, he seemed to do his job perfectly. Even though we rarely interacted face-to-face, he was always involved. Whenever Victoria and I had a date, Liam would text me a curated list of restaurant options, confirm my choice, and handle the reservations. For holidays and anniversaries, he would draft a spreadsheet of luxury gift options for Victoria, sending it to me so I could pick out what I wanted her to buy me. It looked like flawless, hyper-competent service. But slowly, I started feeling like something was deeply wrong. Whenever I called Victoria, Liam was always the one answering, immediately telling me she was tied up in meetings. Whenever I texted her, she would leave me on read for hours, later apologizing and saying she was too swamped to check her phone. Even when she was on business trips in cities where I happened to be attending conferences, whenever I tried to take her out to dinner, Liam would immediately block me, claiming she had back-to-back networking dinners. It happened so often that it started to feel intentional. It felt like Liam was systematically building a wall, isolating Victoria from me. As a result, unless Victoria had a rare night off and came home to our apartment, actually getting in touch with her had become nearly impossible. But whenever I voiced my frustration to Victoria, she always acted like I was being paranoid. “The company is in a massive expansion phase. I am drowning in work. I literally do not have the mental bandwidth to micromanage these tiny details.” “Stop overthinking it, baby. Once this quarter wraps up, I promise I will take you on an amazing vacation.” I believed her. I had tested Victoria for three entire years before dating her. I implicitly trusted her character. Her obsession with me was undeniable, and I never once believed she would cheat. I just assumed she was a workaholic. And since my own research schedule was brutal, I let it go. I thought Liam was just doing his job as a personal assistant, managing her chaotic life. But after everything that just happened, my intuition was screaming at me with absolute clarity. Liam viewed me as a threat. To spare me from waiting any longer, Victoria hurriedly wrapped up her conference call and rushed over to coddle me. “I am so sorry! It is so rare for you to actually pick me up from work, and I made you wait.” Before I could even open my mouth to explain what happened downstairs, or demand to know why Liam had a matching Amsterdam mug, Victoria threw her arms around my neck, pulling me tight against her and kissing my forehead. She was just leaning in to kiss my lips when Liam suddenly walked back into the office. Startled, I immediately pulled away from Victoria’s embrace. “Apologies, Boss. I thought your meeting was still ongoing. I just wanted to slice the cake Mr. Sterling brought and serve it.” Liam apologized verbally, but there was not a single trace of embarrassment on his face. Victoria did not even scold him for failing to knock. Instead, a bright smile spread across her face. “You brought me a cake? Let me try a piece, I am starving.” I opened my mouth to tell her I baked it from scratch. But when I looked down at the slice on the plate, I immediately realized something was wrong. “This is not the cake I brought. My cake was filled with blueberries. This one is plain vanilla.” I shot a dark, questioning look at Liam. He smiled politely, his voice calm and perfectly steady. “Mr. Sterling, the cake you brought was excessively high in sugar. It is not suitable for the CEO’s dietary plan. Since today is her birthday, I took the liberty of pre-ordering a keto-friendly, low-sugar alternative from her favorite bakery.” Victoria did not seem to care at all. She took a massive bite. “Wow, this is actually really good. You are always so thoughtful, Liam.” She completely failed to notice that my face had turned into a thunderstorm. I shoved the plate Liam offered me away, my voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register. “Where is the cake I brought? Who gave you the authority to throw away my property without my permission?” “How do you know the cake I baked was not low-sugar?” “Is this the ultimate power trip of a ‘Gold-Star Executive Assistant’? You think you have the authority to dictate what the CEO’s fiancé is allowed to feed her?” Liam’s perpetually composed mask finally cracked. A flash of genuine panic crossed his eyes. His voice trembled as he immediately started apologizing. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry, Mr. Sterling. Your cake is still in the breakroom, untouched.” “I was merely prioritizing the CEO’s health, given her recent focus on fitness.” Liam played the role of the terrified, hyper-professional subordinate perfectly. He looked absolutely nothing like the arrogant tyrant who had barred me from the elevator twenty minutes ago. I was genuinely stunned by his acting skills. As soon as his apology hung in the air, Victoria frowned. “Let it go. It is just a slice of cake. Liam was just looking out for my health. Since he already apologized, stop blowing this out of proportion. We can take the cake you brought back to the apartment and eat it later.” “Liam, do not let this happen again. Leave us alone and shut the door behind you.” Liam gave a shallow, perfectly executed bow and turned to leave. Still playing the flawless corporate servant. But right before he turned his head, both Victoria and I clearly saw the corners of his eyes turning bright red, as if he was holding back tears. Victoria let out a heavy sigh, wrapping her arms around me again to soothe my temper. “Come on, Liam was just prioritizing my health. Do not let a minor misunderstanding ruin your mood.” “Minor misunderstanding?” I stared at Victoria in total disbelief. Remembering the aggressive humiliation I endured in the lobby, I completely lost my filter, dumping every single detail of Liam’s psychotic power trip directly onto her. As I spoke, Victoria’s frown deepened, but she remained completely silent. When I finally finished, the room was dead quiet. I fully expected her to storm out there and fire Liam on the spot. Instead, she let out a long, exhausted sigh. “He is just a young guy who takes his job a little too seriously. He enforces strict professional boundaries. Stop being so petty.” I was so stunned I physically shoved Victoria away from me. Three years ago, she fired an assistant on the spot and paid him severance just because he misspelled my first name on a document. Now, I was explicitly telling her that her new assistant had maliciously and intentionally humiliated me in public. And her response was to casually brush it off as him being “professional.” I let out a dark, bitter laugh. “What about the mug on his desk? You know exactly how much I despise receiving matching gifts.” “Victoria, you used to have absolute, flawless boundaries when it came to other men.” Victoria rubbed her temples. Looking completely exhausted but endlessly patient, she looked at me and said, “Yes, he is a bit rigid with the rules. But you just said it yourself. He was strictly enforcing company policy. Do you expect me to punish my employee just because he refused to break the rules and give you special VIP treatment?” “As for the gift. You always seemed so happy with the presents Liam picked out for you. That is why I let him choose your souvenir this time. While we were shopping, I noticed he really liked the design. The mug was only a few thousand dollars. It is basically pocket change. Is casually buying an employee a cheap souvenir really a federal crime?” Hearing her actively defend Liam, I felt a wave of absolute disgust wash over me. I could not stop the bitter questions spilling from my mouth. “Fine. He was just strictly enforcing corporate policy.” “Then let me ask you this. He is just an assistant. Why does he have unrestricted VIP access to your private elevator?” “Why does he have the authority to confiscate a homemade birthday cake brought by the CEO’s fiancé and replace it with a store-bought one?” “Why does he have the authorization to screen your private calls, intercept your personal texts, block your fiancé from seeing you, and openly mock me for being a pathetic simp? Are those tasks included in his official job description?” “Do you really think this is about the money? You bought him the exact same mug you bought me. What is the subtext there? Are you implying he holds the same weight in your life as I do?” “If you told people he was your assistant, they would believe you. If you didn’t, they would assume he was the one engaged to you.” Victoria’s face darkened, but I did not see the shock or outrage I expected. Instead, she grabbed my arm, falling right back into her usual routine of placating me like a child. “He has to escort high-profile clients up to this floor all the time. Giving him a VIP card just makes logistical sense.” “As my personal assistant, when I am swamped, having him screen my calls and answer texts is completely standard practice. It is just a ceramic mug. Are you seriously going to launch a full-scale inquisition over a cup?” “Honestly? All I see is an assistant who executes his duties flawlessly and pays extreme attention to detail. I had no idea you harbored this much irrational hostility toward him…” Hearing Victoria refuse to acknowledge a single issue, all the fight completely drained out of me. No matter how I phrased it. He was the one actively destroying boundaries, and she was the one passively enabling it. Yet somehow, I was the petty, jealous, irrational villain in this story. “Baby, are you just feeling hyper-sensitive lately? Stop throwing a tantrum. Once this quarter is over, I will take you on a nice, long vacation to relax. Okay? Just smile for me.” Victoria wrapped her arms around me again, using that sickly sweet, pacifying tone. It was obvious she did not care about this situation at all. I had absolutely nothing left to say. I pushed her off me, stood up, and walked toward the door. Victoria sighed heavily but followed me out. As I walked past Liam’s desk, I remembered something and stopped dead in my tracks. Taking a deep breath, I looked down at him. My voice was ice cold. “Give me my cake back.” Liam froze. He clearly did not expect me to actually demand it back. His eyes involuntarily darted toward the stairwell door. I followed his gaze, taking a few long strides and pushing the heavy fire door open. There it was. The cake I had spent my entire day baking with love. Treated like literal garbage. The box had not even been opened. It was shoved into the top of the industrial trash can. I slowly turned around, staring dead into Victoria’s eyes. “Victoria. Behold your completely unbiased, hyper-professional assistant.” Without waiting for her to formulate another pathetic excuse, I turned my back on her, walked straight to the elevator bank, and pressed the button for the standard employee elevator. Behind me, I heard Liam’s frantic, whispered apologies. “I am so sorry, Boss. I assumed you would not be able to eat both cakes, so I temporarily set it aside. I had no idea the cleaning staff would throw it away.” “I swear I had no malicious intent. I think Mr. Sterling just completely misunderstands me.” I did not even bother turning around. I just threw a freezing response over my shoulder. “You know damn well whether the janitor threw it away, or if you threw it away yourself. Let me give you a piece of advice. You need to relearn how to show basic, human respect to your boss’s fiancé. If you pull a stunt like this again, the only person who is going to end up humiliated is your boss.” Victoria grabbed my arm, aggressively suppressing her own temper, still trying to defuse the situation. “Liam already explained it was a misunderstanding! Stop obsessing over a stupid cake and embarrassing everyone!” “Today is my birthday. Can you please just give me some respect and stop causing a scene?” I violently ripped my arm out of her grip and sneered. “Do you even need me here? I am pretty sure your gold-star assistant already has your entire night perfectly planned out.” With that, I stepped into the elevator. Right before the metal doors slid shut. Victoria’s face looked absolutely livid. Meanwhile, Liam stood right next to her, maintaining that flawless, robotic corporate smile, staring directly at me. He was still playing the role of the perfect assistant. Once I got back to my car, I sat in the driver’s seat for a long time, completely unable to calm down. The more I thought about it, the more furious I became. I pulled out my phone and quickly typed a text to my mother. [Mom, pull our funding from the five-hundred-million-dollar joint venture with the Sullivans. Terminate it. I figured some things out today. It is better to maintain strict professional boundaries.]

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The rivalry between Smith and me started back in high school. His father was the man who wrecked my mother’s marriage, leaving a permanent, unbridgeable chasm between us. So, when I found out the lead investor for our new project pitch was Stella Lancaster, I already knew the outcome. She is my wife, but Smith is the ghost of her past. He is the one who got away, and I knew that better than anyone. When the pitch results were announced, Stella handed the golden branch straight to Smith, exactly as I expected. He walked up to me, his tone dripping with unconcealed smugness. “Even if you married her, so what? In her heart, I will always be number one.” “Everything you bleed to achieve is handed to me on a silver platter.” I followed his gaze to where Stella stood a few yards away. Suddenly, a wave of sheer, bone deep exhaustion washed over me. I was done. I did not want to play this endless game of tug of war anymore. This time, I choose to let go. Rather than letting a hopeless marriage drain the life out of me, I was going to focus on my own empire. 1 The new investor was stunning. Her looks, her ruthless competence, and her elite family background had already sparked a wildfire of gossip across our floor. The investor was Stella Lancaster. My wife. The moment I saw her name on the executive brief, I knew my silent war with Smith was already lost. In the breakroom, my coworkers were whispering furiously over their coffees. “Did you hear? The CEO of Summit Peak is heading the investment this time. Stella Lancaster herself.” “She is a literal goldmine. If she picks our team’s design, we will not have to worry about our quotas for the next five years.” “Honestly, Smith’s team is probably going to bag it. Word on the street is that Smith is her college sweetheart. Her first love. She is only investing in Nova Design because he works here.” Hearing those words made my chest tighten. I walked back to my desk like a hollow shell. The news of Stella’s arrival had taken over the office. Our department director, Harrison, called Smith and me into his office. “Rob. Smith.” “Stella Lancaster from Summit Peak is funding this cycle. I want both of you to lead your teams and draft a concept. You have one month to submit your final pitches.” Harrison gave Smith a long, meaningful look, his eyes practically shining with approval. It was obvious Harrison had heard the rumors too. He knew exactly why Stella had chosen our firm. Before I even stepped out of the office, I knew my team’s grueling work would be for nothing. Competing against Smith meant I was just there to be the sacrificial lamb. Out in the hallway, Smith stopped in his tracks. We stood face to face. I met his gaze, and he offered a slight smile. It was arrogant, bright, and completely infuriating. “May the best man win, Rob.” But his eyes said he had already won. He knew exactly who Stella would choose. I watched him walk away with that confident stride before turning on my heel. The design department was basically throwing a parade for him. If my team’s proposal got rejected, I would be demoted to working under Smith. I would have to swallow my pride and take his orders. I refused to bow down to him. Right before clocking out, a crowd formed around Smith’s desk, showering him with praise. “You are incredible, Smith.” I looked at him through the sea of people. He was the center of attention, surrounded by warmth and laughter. In contrast, my corner of the office felt bitterly cold. I stood alone. He caught my eye and smirked. I looked away, grabbed my trench coat, and walked out into the chilly evening air. 2 Stella got home late. Her expression carried its usual detached, untouchable grace. Despite everything, I could not stop myself from asking. “Stella, did you invest in my company?” She looked up at the sound of my voice. Her eyes met mine, calm and unreadable. She gave a soft hum of confirmation. “Why Nova?” I pushed. I forced a casual, joking tone. “Are you going to give your husband a backstage pass?” Stella’s brow furrowed slightly. She looked entirely serious. There was not a trace of humor in her striking eyes. She paused for a moment. “It was a board decision. I do not make the final call on the proposals alone.” Her underlying message was crystal clear. Being her husband gave me absolutely zero privileges. I did not press any further. She was always like this. Cold, pragmatic, operating entirely on her own strict logic. She never bent the rules for me. And like a fool, I constantly humiliated myself by hoping I could be her one exception. Stella turned away and walked into her home office. The heavy mahogany door did not click shut all the way. I could hear the low murmur of her voice on a phone call. The voice echoing faintly from the speaker was Smith’s. Stella would occasionally let out a soft, low laugh in response to whatever he was saying. When the call ended, she pushed the door open. She walked to the entryway and pulled her coat off the rack. Slipping into her camel trench and sliding on her leather heels, she stood tall and looked back at me. “I have a business dinner. I need to head out.” I just nodded. Stella was breathtaking. She had sharp, aristocratic features, a high nose bridge, and perfectly sculpted lips. Her tailored suit underneath the trench coat made her look powerful and commanding. The heavy front door clicked shut behind her. She came home very late that night. Any questions I wanted to ask died in my throat the moment I saw Smith’s newest post on Instagram. It was a group photo. Four people. Smith, Stella, and two of their old college friends. Staring at that picture, I realized my question was pointless. I wanted to ask Stella if she would favor Smith. The answer was already staring me in the face. I used to leave a warm lamp on in the living room whenever she had late dinners. Tonight, I turned off every light in the house and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When I woke up, Stella and I barely crossed paths. We left for work separately. At the office, the entire department treated Smith like royalty. Everyone knew the truth. If it were not for Smith, Stella would never have looked twice at our firm. My bad blood with him was my own problem. My coworkers only cared about their annual bonuses and hitting their quotas. Today, Stella arrived at the office for an investor walkthrough. Director Harrison immediately summoned Smith to escort her. When Smith finally returned to the floor, all eyes locked onto him. “Smith, is CEO Lancaster super intimidating in person?” Smith’s lips curved upward. His answer was deliberately vague and intimate. “I have known Stella for a long time. She is not intimidating at all. You guys can relax.” The junior designers exchanged knowing, excited smiles. I had already read every single detail of Smith and Stella’s college romance online. If I were not Stella’s husband, I probably would have thought their youthful love story was beautiful too. But reading the compilation of their history, painstakingly put together by their old classmates, only left me with a mouth full of ash. Smith still had an old, active Twitter account from college. It was a digital diary of their romance. I used to torture myself by scrolling through it late at night. The more I read, the more I realized how fiercely Stella had loved him. She would read every single one of his mundane tweets, liking and replying to them. She was the one who chased him first. It took me a full year of relentless pursuing just to get Stella to look my way. When I first found out Stella’s ex was Smith, a sick thrill had run through me. I thought I had won. I thought it was the ultimate revenge against him. But I quickly realized I had lost, brutally and completely. The fact that my wife still harbored feelings for her ex was not a victory. It was the ultimate humiliation. It just gave Smith another way to crush me under his heel. 3 Smith and I had been sworn enemies since middle school. We were like fire and ice, completely incompatible. His father manipulated his way into our home. The stress and betrayal broke my father’s health, sinking him into severe depression. I almost lost my dad entirely. In high school, Smith followed me again. He was one point short of getting into the elite prep academy, so my mother, Victoria, pulled strings and paid off the board to get him in. That same year, my father left the country to recover in a private sanatorium. I was left behind in the Kensington estate. I thought if I acted out, if I was cruel enough, Smith and his father would take the hint and leave. My tactics were not clever. Honestly, they were stupid. I tried to poison their tea with black ink. I wanted to terrify them, to mark my territory. Instead, Smith went straight to my mother playing the victim. Victoria’s face turned dark with fury. She cornered me and berated me for being a monster. I hated them, but I never had it in me to do real, permanent damage. Everything I did only made my mother feel worse for Smith and his father. By college, I was finally at a different university. The final nail in the coffin of my relationship with Victoria came during my freshman winter break. She took Smith to a high society gala instead of me. When people asked, she did not even deny it when they assumed Smith was her biological son. She even mentioned changing his last name to Kensington. I told her if she let him take our family name, I would drop it entirely and take my father’s name, Reed. Her eyes burned with rage. She raised her hand, ready to strike me across the face. But a tall, imposing figure stepped in and caught her wrist. That person was Stella. After graduation, our paths crossed again. I spent an entire year chasing her. Just when I was on the verge of giving up, she finally said yes. It was only after we signed the marriage papers that I found out Smith was her ex boyfriend. She had even visited the Kensington estate before, formally introduced as Smith’s girlfriend. When my mother found out Stella and I were married, her face drained of color. She clutched her chest, struggling to breathe. “Did you do this on purpose?” she gasped. “You knew she was his ex. Did you marry her just to spite him?” I was paralyzed. During the holidays, I refused to go back to the estate. But Stella insisted. She dragged me back. The moment we walked through the doors, Smith and I got into a physical altercation in the courtyard. We both lost our footing and fell hard. Stella reacted purely on instinct. She lunged forward and caught Smith, holding him up. I hit the concrete. Later at the hospital, with red, stubborn eyes, I asked Stella why she did not catch me. She calmly peeled an apple, not even looking at me. “I did not see you.” When Stella stepped out of the hospital room, Smith walked in. He looked down at me in the hospital bed, a victor’s smile on his lips. He spent the next ten minutes recounting every beautiful detail of his college life with Stella. He painted a picture of a warm, passionate Stella that I had never met. My heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice. After I recovered, I found myself trapped in the same orbit as him again. We ended up at the same design firm. We were constantly at each other’s throats. He weaponized his status as the heir to the Kensington Conglomerate to make management bow to him. And now, he had the added armor of being the lead investor’s unforgettable first love. Everyone worshipped the ground he walked on. I knew my pitch was doomed. But I still pushed my team to work overtime, perfecting every single detail of our proposal. A month later, I walked into the executive boardroom holding my portfolio. Everyone was seated. Except Smith. He walked in a moment later, side by side with Stella. The morning light from the floor to ceiling windows hit them perfectly. Stella occasionally tilted her head up, matching Smith’s height, listening intently to whatever he was whispering. 4 Her profile was sharp against the projector’s light. Her dark eyes held a faint, rare smile. When her gaze accidentally flicked to mine, I searched her eyes, desperate to find some hidden emotion. But there was nothing. Just that same chilling, detached indifference. We drew lots for the presentation order. I was up first. I walked to the podium, perfectly composed, and pulled up my slides. I poured my heart into the presentation, breaking down every inspiration and structural concept. I was completely immersed in the work. When I stepped down, the applause was painfully sparse. The only person clapping with any real enthusiasm was Noah, a bright eyed kid who had been my intern since he graduated. Stella’s face was completely blank. No one could read her. Director Harrison kept stealing glances at her, trying to decipher her mood. Then it was Smith’s turn. He walked to the front and naturally locked eyes with Stella. They shared a private, knowing smile. The other executives exchanged glances, barely hiding their gossip fueled grins. Noah leaned over to me and whispered anxiously, “Rob, are we going to lose this?” I forced the corners of my mouth up into a rigid smile. When Smith finished, the room erupted. The applause was deafening compared to mine. Harrison clapped so hard his face turned red. A faint, unmistakable smirk touched Stella’s lips. We took a thirty minute recess. Lately, the suffocating rumors about Stella and Smith were draining the air out of my lungs. The way she looked at me was so cold it made my chest physically ache. Listening to the office chatter, I learned even more about their past. Stella had pursued him relentlessly. She waited outside his dorm every morning to bring him coffee. Everyone at their elite university knew how deeply Stella worshipped Smith. I sat frozen in my chair. Watching the backs of Stella and Smith as they walked out of the boardroom together, my nose stung. The woman I had bled to win over was harboring the soul of the man I hated most in the world. The boardroom emptied out until only Noah and I were left. Noah gave my arm a comforting squeeze. The thirty minutes were up. The results were in. Stella and the executives from Summit Peak had already left the building. Harrison stood at the head of the table to announce the verdict. There were three deciding votes. All three went to Smith. When the words left Harrison’s mouth, my eyes burned. A hot, pathetic dampness threatened to spill over. I bit the inside of my cheek and forced the tears back down. Harrison shot Smith a look of pure, validating triumph. A crowd immediately formed around him. “Smith, you are an absolute god!” I packed up my laptop and walked toward the exit, a solitary shadow in a room full of celebration. Smith caught up to me in the hall. “Rob.” I stopped. His eyes were bright with mockery. “Even if you are the one married to her, I will always be her priority.” “Everything you break your back to get, I can have just by reaching out my hand.” He was right. When we were fourteen, he effortlessly stole my mother’s love. Now, he effortlessly occupied my wife’s heart. Down the hall, Harrison was kissing up to Stella by the elevators, treating her like royalty. Suddenly, the fight drained out of me. I did not want to compete with Smith anymore. And I did not want Stella anymore, either. The elevator doors remained open. Harrison spotted us and practically begged Smith to join them in the elevator. I had no choice but to step in too. The heavy metal doors closed. The car descended. Harrison immediately started his usual brown nosing. “CEO Lancaster, you and Smith are such a powerful match. Truly a match made in heaven.” A few other managers chimed in eagerly. “Exactly! We heard rumors that you two were already married. You are so supportive, coming all the way to our firm just to back your husband’s project.” I listened to their sickening flattery in dead silence. My heart did not even skip a beat. It was just numb. I felt a heavy, burning gaze lock onto the side of my face. I turned my head. Stella’s face had gone completely rigid. Harrison nudged my arm, silently ordering me to play along. “Right, Rob? Do not they look perfect together?” The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. I looked calmly into Stella’s eyes. “Yes. A perfect match.” Panic flashed through her usually icy eyes. Her lips parted slightly, as if she was desperate to say something. 5 I stepped out of the elevator and walked away fast. Behind me, a low, urgent voice rang out. “Rob.” I did not hesitate. I did not stop. I pushed through the lobby doors and escaped the crowd. The tears I had been swallowing down finally clawed their way up my throat. The suffocating weight of my grievances broke me. When I was fourteen, my father had a mental breakdown and was committed to a facility because my mother was sleeping with another man. I was terrified and lost. When Stella blocked my mother’s hand from striking my face, I thought she was my savior. But everything I fought desperately to hold onto slipped through my fingers and flowed straight to Smith. My luck was always just one step short. I hid in my car in the underground garage and broke down completely. Once the tears finally stopped, my vision cleared. Stella’s tall figure appeared in the dim light of the parking garage. She was walking fast, her heels clicking aggressively against the concrete. Just as she reached out for my door handle, I slammed my foot on the gas and tore out of the garage. I drove straight to the Kensington estate. Neither Victoria nor Smith’s father was home. The sprawling mansion was dead quiet, save for a few maids. The bedroom I had grown up in had long been seized, completely remodeled into Smith’s personal sanctuary. I grabbed my passports, my financial documents, and a few valuable heirlooms. The entire house was infested with traces of Smith and his father. On the desk in the study sat a framed photo of Smith’s college graduation. I looked away. When Victoria first found out I married Stella, she exploded. She accused me of sacrificing my own marriage just to get back at Smith. If I had known Stella was his ex, I would have just assumed she had terrible taste in men. I would have tossed her into the same garbage bin as him. As I walked out of the grand double doors, I ran straight into Smith. He leaned against a marble pillar, looking at me with pure amusement. “Rob.” “It is boring fighting you. You know why? Because I can take whatever you want without lifting a finger.” “Your dad lost to my dad. You lose to me. It runs in your blood.” “I heard you chased Stella for a year? Half the guys on campus were obsessed with her back then.” “But she was known as the Ice Queen. Completely untouchable.” “Yet with me? I do not have to do a single thing, and she will always take my side.” “It was true four years ago, and it is true today.” In Smith’s eyes, Stella was gentle, fiercely loyal, and devoted. In my eyes, she was cold, ruthless, and entirely indifferent. Smith’s old tweets were a brutal reality check. Only after seeing how Stella loved someone else did I realize she never loved me at all. Smith loved playing the social media game. We only added each other on messaging apps after we started working at the same firm. Stella would occasionally like his random, mundane status updates. Sometimes she would even leave a comment. I had started a massive fight with her over it once. She just frowned, looking at me with total disdain. “Rob, why are you always targeting him?” I was so furiously heartbroken I could barely string a sentence together. Did she not know what boundaries were? All I wanted was for her to choose me. Just once. Smith’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Rob, you can never beat me.” “The woman you love? I was the one who taught her how to love.” “I even took her first kiss.” I just smiled faintly and walked past him without a word.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “435827”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

After breaking up with my secretly wealthy ex-boyfriend, I quickly got together with his adoptive father. Not long after, I found myself sitting at their family dinner table. Right across from me was my ex and his new flavor of the month. Smiling sweetly, I picked up a piece of green bell pepper and dropped it right into Logan’s bowl. Everyone knew it was the one vegetable he absolutely despised. I looked at his new girl and casually mentioned that since she called Sebastian her step-dad, she ought to start calling me step-mom. I even made her an offer. Fifty grand if she called me Mom once. Half a million if she said it ten times. Hearing this, Logan slammed his hands on the table and shot up from his chair. He furiously demanded to know who the hell I thought I was, screaming that since his dad had not said a word, I had no right to order his girlfriend around. I simply shifted my gaze to the man sitting beside me. Sebastian was slowly chewing his food, not even bothering to lift his eyes. I gave a thoughtful nod, reached into my purse, and tossed a crumpled medical bill onto the table. The moment Logan’s new girlfriend saw that paper, all the color drained from her face. She grabbed Logan’s sleeve, her voice trembling with tears, and begged him to just call me Mom. I was twenty-two, and Logan was eighteen. I had been forced to drink until I blacked out. When I woke up, my head was splitting, and I was completely naked. Logan was sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette, his jacket draped over his shoulders. He did not even bother to look back at me. “You were the one begging for it last night.” My brain was a hazy mess. I had zero recollection of what happened, but the guilt crushed me. I immediately apologized. “I am so sorry. What do you want? Anything I can do to make this right, I will do it.” Logan thought about it for a second. He told me to become his girlfriend to compensate for taking his virginity. I nodded and agreed. My shifts at the campus bar were not enough to cover both my living expenses and Logan’s tuition and allowance, so I picked up a second job working the day shift as a cashier at a convenience store. I was working two jobs, running myself into the ground. To be closer to his dorm, I rented a cramped, overpriced room in a rundown apartment building near his university. On my one rare day off, I took Logan out on a date. By the time we got back to my apartment, it was already ten at night. My roommate, Sierra, was just heading out for her night shift. She rolled her eyes the second she saw me. “Was that your boyfriend downstairs? Looks like a broke loser, just like you.” “Unlike me. I just met a trust-fund kid a couple of days ago. He tipped me a thousand bucks without blinking.” When I ignored her, she scoffed. “Forget it. Trying to talk sense into your thick skull is a waste of time. Those rich guys and corporate billionaires are incredibly easy to please. Keep your mouth sweet, act a little submissive, and stroke their egos. That is how you get paid.” “If one of them actually takes an interest in you, even if you are just his side piece, you are still set for life.” I ignored her. Most of my paychecks went straight into Logan’s bank account. Whenever we had our weekend dates, he would press his lips against mine and whisper sweet promises. “Do not worry, Ivy. Once I graduate, we will get married, and it will be my turn to take care of you.” His long fingers would roam over my body, the air in the room turning heavy and hot, but we never went all the way again. I always assumed it was because our first time was so traumatic. I thought I had forced myself on him, leaving him with emotional baggage. I buttoned up my coat and walked him back to his dorm. Just as I turned to leave, I heard his frat brother laugh and ask who I was. Logan’s voice drifted out, casual and annoyed. “Her? Just some desperate stalker who will not leave me alone. She is so annoying.” Lately, Sierra had been acting incredibly anxious. When I walked into the apartment, I caught her aggressively taping up a shipping box containing the heavy gold bracelet her sugar daddy had bought her a few days ago. “Gold prices are tanking right now. Why not wait a few weeks? You could get a lot more for it,” I asked, setting down my cheap takeout box. “I will sell my stuff whenever I damn well please. Mind your own business.” Her eyes darted to my dinner, and a nasty smirk crossed her face. “You should spend more time worrying about your little boy toy. I heard his frat is throwing a massive party at the club downtown tonight. Do you have a night shift? With a pretty face like his, if you do not keep him on a tight leash, some rich girl is going to snatch him right up.” Seeing me freeze, Sierra paused. “…Wait, do not tell me he did not even invite you?” Logan and I had been together for three years. He usually played the role of the sweet, obedient boyfriend, but I constantly worried about him. Ironically, we had met at a bar, so I knew exactly what happened at those parties. I called my manager, faked a sick leave, and rushed to the club. Standing outside the VIP room, I leaned in to peek through the glass. Before I could, the heavy door swung open. Logan’s frat brother stumbled out, completely wasted, squinting at me in the dim light. “Oh, you are… Logan’s stalker, right? Looking for him?” I ignored the insult, trying to look past him into the booth. “Do not bother looking. Logan is not here. He does not even live in the dorms. Why would he waste his time slumming it at a frat mixer?” “He does not live in the dorms?” That was impossible. “You really are clueless, aren’t you?” The guy looked me up and down with obvious disgust. “Everyone on campus knows Logan’s family is loaded. You are out here flipping burgers and scrubbing floors, thinking you can bag a billionaire heir? Keep dreaming, sweetheart.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. An hour later, I was standing outside the gates of the most exclusive luxury high-rise in the city, getting aggressively blocked by a security guard. “I said no entry. I see girls like you showing up in the middle of the night all the time. If you go in there and cause a scene, I am the one who gets fired!” While we were arguing, the roar of an engine cut through the night. A sleek, limited-edition sports car pulled up ten feet away. Logan hopped out of the driver’s seat, laughing and dapping up his wealthy friends before they drove off. Still smiling, Logan turned around and locked eyes with me. His grin vanished instantly. “Ivy… I thought you had a shift tonight?” “This is my friend’s place. I was just visiting,” Logan lied, his voice tight. “Stop lying.” I took a step forward, my anger boiling over. “That jacket you are wearing? The watch on your wrist? I have never seen them before. You are rich. You can afford to live in a place like this. So why the hell have you been bleeding me dry for three thousand bucks a month? Why did you play the pathetic, broke victim for three years?” For three years, I gave up any semblance of a normal life. I lived in a roach-infested shoebox. I ran between two exhausting jobs and survived on four hours of sleep. I gave up all my weekends just to take him on dates, and I paid for every single movie ticket and dinner. If the food was not expensive enough, he would throw a tantrum. My eyes burned, and tears of pure frustration spilled over. Logan lunged forward, wrapping his arms around me. The harder I pushed, the tighter he held on. “Ivy, I am so sorry. I was just terrified you would freak out if you knew the truth. I was planning to reveal everything on your birthday. It was supposed to be a massive surprise.” He was still lying to my face, and I genuinely could not comprehend what he gained from this twisted game. But the crushing heartbreak suddenly gave way to razor-sharp clarity. He wanted to put on a show? Fine. I would play along. I wanted to see exactly how far Logan was willing to take this. So, as he spouted his hollow excuses, I slowly nodded. And Logan actually bought it. He faked a relieved smile and kissed the corner of my mouth. “Ivy, I knew you loved me too much to stay mad.” That night, I slept in Logan’s sprawling, multi-million-dollar penthouse. When we walked through the lobby the next morning, the same security guard practically bowed to me. “Have a wonderful day, Miss.” The following day, Logan handed me a platinum card with two million dollars loaded onto it. For the first time in my life, I walked straight into a luxury designer boutique. “Box this up.” The sales associate completely ignored me, continuing to fold scarves. I slammed the platinum card onto the glass display. “I said, box it up.” The associate’s demeanor flipped instantly, flashing me a brilliant, obsequious smile. I returned to my crappy apartment carrying a mountain of designer shopping bags. Sierra nearly choked on her water. “Where the hell did you get the money for that? Did you finally bag a sugar daddy?” I threw myself onto the cheap sofa and opened a real estate app to browse luxury apartments. “My boyfriend.” “You dumped the broke college kid?” “Nope.” Sierra shrieked. “He is a trust-fund baby?! Are you kidding me? How did you get that lucky?” I let out a dark, self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah. So lucky.” I walked into my room, packed my bags, and moved out of that miserable apartment forever. The night before my twenty-fifth birthday, I got a call. Logan was wasted and demanded I come pick him up. It was pouring rain outside. My umbrella was useless against the wind, and by the time I reached the upscale restaurant, my clothes were soaked through. I stood outside the private dining room, raising my hand to knock, when a burst of obnoxious laughter echoed through the wood. “I officially won the bet, right? I dated that bartender for three whole years! I played the broke college kid, drained her bank account, and the stupid bitch was still totally obsessed with me! I told you guys, women are all gold-diggers. Give them enough money, and you can make them do whatever you want.” It was Logan. My hand froze mid-air as a chorus of mocking voices joined in. “Logan is the absolute king! Rich or poor, he gets the job done. Fair is fair, the keys to the Porsche will be at your house tomorrow.” “You gotta admit though, that bartender’s body is insane. When I dragged him to your bed that first night, I copped a feel. Her waist and ass are top-tier. You got lucky, bro.” “Whoa, chill. I never actually slept with her. That one-night stand was completely staged just to trap her into dating me. You know how strict my family is. If I accidentally knocked up some trashy nobody, I would be cut off.” “Smart move, man. Escorts like her are just for practice anyway. When it is time to settle down, you have to marry someone from our tax bracket.” My fists clenched so hard my nails dug into my palms. I kicked the door open with a deafening crash. The room went dead silent. Logan, his face flushed with alcohol, stared at me in shock. “What are you doing here?” I plastered a sickeningly sweet smile on my face. “I heard you had too much to drink. I came to take you home.” I dragged Logan’s drunk weight back to the penthouse and dumped him on the bed. He passed out immediately. Grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, I sat alone on the balcony. The things they said were vile, but surprisingly, I felt absolutely nothing. Because I never actually loved Logan. Our entire relationship was built on the crushing guilt I felt over taking his ‘virginity’. Since he faked the whole thing, the debt was wiped clean. I owed him nothing. In fact, he owed me three years of my youth. I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket. It was a private phone number I had secretly copied from Logan’s phone—the number of his legal guardian. The phone rang three times before a deep, irritated voice answered. “Who is this?” He sounded like a man who was very unhappy about being woken up in the middle of the night. “Mr. Sebastian Vance, I am Logan’s girlfriend. I am pregnant. I need to meet with you tomorrow. Does that work for you?” I lied through my teeth without missing a beat. “Why the hell should I believe you?” I let out a soft laugh and switched to a video call, panning the camera over Logan’s passed-out face in the moonlight. “If you refuse, I cannot guarantee your golden boy will wake up in one piece. I am sure his heroic late parents would not want anything bad to happen to their only son, right?” Sebastian Vance was a notoriously ruthless corporate titan. Anyone who dared threaten him usually had a team of private security kicking their door down within thirty minutes. I swallowed hard, trying to hide my terror. The line was dead silent for a long time. Finally, the man sighed. “Fine. Meet me at the Jade Garden tomorrow.” When Logan finally woke up, I was calmly setting out a massive breakfast spread on the dining table. He leaned against the doorframe, a nasty sneer on his face. “You heard everything last night, did you not? Why are you still here? Who are you putting on this pathetic housewife act for?” “Do not think I am going to pity you. The bet is over. I am done playing house with you.” I completely ignored him, sitting down to eat my eggs. Logan laughed maliciously. He pulled out a chair across from me and kicked his feet up on the table. “Playing deaf? Fine. I will make sure you get the message.” He pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and instantly switched to a sickeningly sweet voice. “Baby, I am sending you my address right now. Come over, I have a massive surprise waiting for you. Love you.” Hanging up, he immediately ordered a bouquet of 999 premium roses on a delivery app. He cranked the volume on his video game to the max, glaring at me every few seconds to see if I was crying yet. I acted like he did not exist, calmly stood up, and started washing the dishes. The second I finished, the doorbell rang. Before Logan could even stand up, I beat him to the door and yanked it open. Sierra was standing on the doorstep, dripping in head-to-toe designer labels. The moment she saw me, her perfectly manicured eyebrow arched. “Well, well. If it isn’t Ivy, the girl who bagged a billionaire. What are you doing in my boyfriend’s apartment?” Logan shoved me out of the way, pulling Sierra inside. “I got black-out drunk a few years ago and accidentally touched this club waitress. She has been stalking me ever since. You know her?” Sierra let out a mocking laugh. “We do not know each other. I just saw her serving drinks at a dive bar across town.” “I knew it.” Logan pulled out the massive bouquet of roses he had ordered. “There is no way a high-class girl like you would associate with trash like her.” The two of them treated me like invisible air, aggressively flirting back and forth before collapsing onto the sofa, practically making out. I stood a few feet away, entirely unfazed, casually pulling out my phone. I snapped a crystal-clear photo of them swapping spit, then slipped the phone back into my pocket. “Ivy, I already have a fiancé. Sierra’s family runs a massive international conglomerate. She just moved back from Europe. We belong to the same social class, so just give up.” “Keep the money I gave you. Consider it a tip for your services. We are done.” “No,” I said flatly. “Unless you wire me another five million, I am not leaving.” Before Logan could even react, Sierra leaped off the couch and slapped me hard across the face. My cheek burned instantly. I glared at her, but she violently shoved me backward. I tripped and fell hard onto the floor. “Ivy, stop being a greedy, delusional bitch!” She grabbed the massive bouquet and started hurling the heavy roses at me, snapping the stems against my skin. “A useless, pathetic loser like you deserves absolutely nothing!” “Five million? In your dreams. Do you even know who Logan’s guardian is? Sebastian Vance. Say one wrong word to the press, and he will have you erased before dinner.” Slam! The heavy oak door was violently shut in my face. Sitting on the floor of the hallway, rubbing my stinging cheek, I suddenly started laughing. Logan faked being poor to scam me out of my money, only to get scammed by a fake heiress pretending to be rich. Karma really was a bitch. My phone buzzed in my pocket. “Hello, Miss Ivy? This is Mr. Vance’s driver. I am pulling up to the lobby now. You can come down.” It was my first time sitting in a customized Maybach. When I arrived at the Jade Garden, Sebastian had already ordered. The table was covered in the most aggressively spicy, heavy dishes imaginable. Two glasses of expensive liquor sat in the center. Sebastian pushed one of the glasses toward me. “Drink.” I did not move. He chuckled, picking up his own glass and taking a slow sip. “Drink it, Miss Ivy. I had my team run a sweep. You have absolutely zero medical records at any OBGYN in the state, and no pharmacy records of buying pregnancy tests.” “I think it is safe to assume you are not pregnant.” Sebastian was thirty-four. A relatively young age in the cutthroat corporate world, yet he held absolute, terrifying control over the entire Vance empire. A few hours was more than enough time for him to strip my entire life bare. Everything I knew about Sebastian came from two sources. First, networking with high-end escorts at the luxury clubs I visited after Logan gave me the black card. Second, vague complaints Logan used to make when he was drunk. Sebastian was an illegitimate child, utterly despised by his aristocratic family. He spent his childhood being viciously bullied by his half-siblings. When he was sixteen, they pushed him into a freezing, rushing river and walked away, leaving him to drown. Logan’s mother, Officer Morgan, was walking by with her husband. Logan’s father dove into the freezing rapids and managed to shove Sebastian to the riverbank, but the current dragged him under. He never resurfaced. Logan was three years old. Two years later, Officer Morgan was killed in the line of duty. Logan’s greedy relatives swarmed like vultures to steal her pension, completely abandoning Logan. By then, an eighteen-year-old Sebastian had brutally seized power within the Vance family. He crushed all opposition, legally adopted Logan, and became his sole guardian. Did Sebastian actually love Logan? Absolutely not. Everything Sebastian did was driven by a heavy, suffocating guilt toward the people who died to save him. He provided Logan with unlimited wealth and protection. He had more than repaid his debt. I picked up the glass of liquor and threw it back like a shot. The alcohol burned my throat. “Logan told me he is marrying a European heiress named Sierra. Why did you not stop him?” I asked. “He is an adult. We share no blood, and legally, he is not my responsibility anymore. I do not care who he marries.” Sebastian smiled lazily. “But instead of talking in circles, why do you not get to the point?” I took a deep breath. “If Logan keeps acting like a degenerate psychopath, he is going to destroy Officer Morgan’s legacy. You do not step in because he constantly weaponizes his parents’ death to guilt-trip you.” “But I have zero emotional baggage with him. On top of that, he scammed me out of three years of my life. Nobody knows exactly how to break him better than I do.” “I read the financial reports. The Vance board of directors is pressuring you to get married to stabilize the stock. Let us sign a contract. A fake marriage.” Sebastian raised a sharp eyebrow. “You have guts, I will give you that. Coming into my territory and actively plotting revenge against my ward.” He stood up. The sheer physical presence of the man made me instinctively shrink back, a cold shiver running down my spine. I was gambling with my life. If I won, I would get everything I wanted. If I lost, the absolute worst-case scenario was going back to scrubbing floors. I had already hit rock bottom. I had nothing to lose. His deep, freezing voice dropped from above me. “But I have to admit, I am extremely curious to see exactly how you plan to discipline my deadbeat son.” “Come home for dinner tonight, Mrs. Vance.” I won. Sebastian moved with terrifying efficiency. An hour later, holding a freshly stamped marriage certificate, I was sitting in his car heading toward his sprawling private estate. On the way, his phone rang. He casually tapped the speakerphone button. “Hey Dad, I am bringing my new fiancée home for dinner tonight. Figured it was time you met her.” “Fine.” Sebastian’s dark eyes slid over to me. “Perfect timing. I just got my marriage certificate. There is someone I want you to meet as well.” Before Logan could ask a single question, Sebastian hung up. The estate was obscenely massive. A butler in a tailored suit respectfully took my cheap duffel bag and carried it up to the master suite. Sebastian led me down a different hall and opened the double doors to a walk-in closet the size of my old apartment. Racks of pristine, haute couture dresses lined the walls. “Pick one.” I pulled out a soft pink silk gown. The fabric felt like water. In twenty-five years, I had never touched anything so expensive. “Do you have a secret girlfriend? Do not worry, once the contract expires, I will sign the divorce papers immediately. I won’t ruin your actual relationship.” “I do not have one.” “Then who are these for?” I turned around. Sebastian was leaning against the doorframe, his face blank. “There is no other woman. I just had my assistant buy a wardrobe based on your measurements this afternoon. If my staff could not handle a basic task like that, I would fire them.” He paused, then added defensively, “If I actually had a girlfriend, why the hell would I fake a marriage with you?” I snorted, covering my mouth to hide a laugh. For a guy who looked like a literal mafia boss, his personality was surprisingly petty. I picked a sleek, understated black dress and applied the absurdly expensive makeup he had provided. Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, I actually gasped. Money really was magic. The exhausted, overworked barista was gone. Staring back at me was a polished, dangerous socialite. “Are you ready? Logan is pulling up to the gates.” “Coming.” I walked out of the closet. Sebastian’s gaze dropped from his Rolex to me. He froze completely still. “Is it… too much?” I asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “It looks good.” He quickly averted his eyes, clearing his throat. “Let’s go down. They are waiting.” “Dad! Where have you been? My fiancée has been waiting out here. You are being totally disrespectful to her—” Logan was lounging on the imported Italian leather sofa, his arm draped possessively around Sierra. Sierra was picking nervously at her nails, looking absolutely terrified to be in Sebastian’s house. Seeing Sebastian and I walking down the grand staircase, fingers tightly laced together, Logan’s voice died in his throat. He shot to his feet. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I lifted my chin. Sebastian remained completely silent. I knew the rules. From this second forward, Sebastian was not going to fight my battles for me. “Why shouldn’t I be here?” I held out my free hand. The butler immediately stepped forward, placing the red marriage booklet onto my palm. I flipped it open, shoving the stamped photo right into Logan’s face. “I am Sebastian’s legally wedded wife. That makes me your stepmother. Watch your tone when you speak to your elders, Logan.” “Bullshit! Where did you get a fake ID printed so fast? Dad, say something!” Logan looked panicked, desperately searching Sebastian’s face for a denial. Sebastian ignored him completely and walked straight to the dining table. Because we had guests, the private chef had prepared a massive feast. My eyes immediately locked onto a sizzling plate of spicy green bell peppers. Technically, this dish should never have been served, since Logan threw a fit whenever he smelled them. I threw a quick glance at Sebastian. He was hiding a smirk behind his water glass. The man was petty as hell.

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My sister Olivia owed three million dollars and then died in an accident. At the funeral, my parents cried and said to me, “Even though Olivia is dead, the debt still needs to be repaid! Jenna, please help her pay it back! Otherwise, she won’t be able to enter heaven!” Just because of those words, I gave them all my savings. Starting the next day, I worked three jobs every day to earn money and repay the debt. Even after my second pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I kept working. Later, because I was working overtime, I didn’t pick up my daughter from school, and she was killed by kidnappers. My husband River collapsed from a heart attack when he learned the news. Before he died, he refused to see me even once. “After all these years, my daughter and I together still couldn’t compare to Olivia! Jenna White, if there’s a next life, I’d rather never have met you!” The night my daughter was buried, I finished repaying all the debts and jumped from a high-rise building in guilt. Before dying, I saw Olivia, radiant and glamorous, leaning into her creditor Marcus Wilson’s arms. “Useless. It took her ten years to repay three million. We had to wait all this time before we could finally be together as husband and wife.” Marcus comforted her, “Forget it, at least she earned us three million. Without this money, how could we live so well?” “Now that her whole family’s dead—such bad luck! Let’s go, let’s go. Tomorrow we’ll take this money to the Maldives!” I died with my eyes wide open. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of Olivia’s burial…

“Olivia, how could you leave us so early? You’ve ripped out your parents’ hearts!” “Leaving behind such a huge debt—how are your mother and I supposed to repay it!” Familiar shrill cries pierced my ears. Before I could process what was happening, I saw Marcus Wilson swagger into the living room and slap a debt notice onto the table. “Don’t rush to cry just yet.” He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth and grinned. “Your daughter owed me three million before she died. Now she’s dead—what about the debt?” He was tall and burly, full of thug energy, with seven or eight muscle-bound men behind him. The entire room full of relatives fell instantly silent with fear. I shuddered and realized I had been reborn. Reborn on the very day of Olivia’s burial! My mother Karen’s face was streaked with tears, her graying hair disheveled on her shoulders. She looked at the account statement and cried so hard she nearly fainted. “I know about this money. Olivia mentioned it—she wanted to buy us retirement insurance, but didn’t have enough money, so she borrowed it. Who knew she’d end up owing this much…” My father George wrapped his arm around her shoulder. As soon as he opened his mouth, tears flowed down the deep furrows at the corners of his eyes. “Olivia was such a good girl since childhood. At ten years old, she cooked for her mother and me. Who would have thought she’d suddenly be gone…” He looked at the IOU, and his gaze gradually became resolute. “No matter what, the White family doesn’t wrong others or betray our conscience. Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean the debt can rot away!” “We’ll repay this debt!” He turned his head, his aged eyes finding me precisely in the crowd. “Jenna, from now on we’ll repay this three million together and overcome this hardship, okay?” “If we can’t repay it, your sister won’t be able to reincarnate even in the afterlife!” With that, the old couple held each other and wept. Relatives surrounded them, all with reddened eyes.

“Don’t worry, with Jenna helping you, this money can definitely be repaid.” “Stop crying. You still have another daughter, don’t you? You can’t collapse now.” “Exactly. Olivia would be so sad seeing this from beyond!” But I noticed that Marcus Wilson’s gaze had been fixed on the coffin the whole time. I squatted down pretending to tie my shoelace and moved closer to observe, following his line of sight. The mahogany coffin had several air holes drilled in the side, through which I could vaguely see fabric moving inside. Just as I thought! Olivia wasn’t dead at all. From the very beginning, this funeral was a setup orchestrated by her and Marcus! I stood up. River was watching me from not far away. After glancing at me once, he immediately turned and left. In my previous life, moved by Karen and George’s tears, I had impulsively agreed to take on this debt. For ten years I didn’t buy a single new piece of clothing, and in the end, my whole family died tragically. In this life, I announced loudly, enunciating each word: “My sister incurred this debt herself. Why should I be the one to repay it?” The moment those words fell, Karen and George’s crying stopped abruptly. Everyone stared at me in shock. Karen rose from George’s embrace and pointed at me, cursing viciously. “You bitch! Your sister died protecting you! How dare you say such things!” George’s eyes were bloodshot. “That’s your sister! Her body isn’t even cold yet, and you’re already rushing to distance yourself?” They glanced imperceptibly at Marcus Wilson. A flash of surprise crossed his eyes as he slammed his palm on the table like a fan. “Debts must be repaid—it’s only natural!” “If you don’t pay, I’ll pry open the coffin and whip the corpse!” With that, he grinned menacingly and moved toward the coffin, making as if to push it. “Don’t you dare!” George lunged forward like a madman to block him, refusing to let Marcus Wilson get close. Karen pounded and hit me, crying so hard she could barely breathe. “You’re inhuman! Your sister loved you so much. For this little bit of money, you’d let her remain restless even in death?” “From childhood, we loved you most. We made sure you went to college, put the house in your name—and in the end we raised a heartless ingrate!” The relatives couldn’t stand it anymore. “Jenna, your parents spent so much money on you. Just help them out if you can.” “She’s already gone. What’s the use of clutching all that money?” “Your sister treated you so well, even going out of her way to drive you to work every day. Don’t be so mercenary!” They had no idea of the truth. Olivia drove me to work because the car was originally mine. She said she’d be my driver, but once she got the car, she never returned it. She even made me pay for gas cards. The idea that they supported my education was even more laughable. The truth was Olivia took the entrance exam twice and still only scored two hundred points, while I got into a prestigious university. Karen and George usually boasted about their eldest daughter’s good grades, but when the scores came out, they were dumbfounded. They could only announce publicly that the family could only support one child and that Olivia had voluntarily given up her opportunity for higher education. They even gave her all the money collected at my college celebration party and made me work summer jobs myself. “Your sister doesn’t have much education. It’s not easy for her working outside. You’re going to fight with her over this little bit of money?” “We’ve always been fair. We supported you to get a higher education, so naturally we need to give your sister more money.” As for the house in my name, it was actually bought for Olivia, and it used up my first-time homebuyer status… They claimed to treat us equally, but everything clearly favored Olivia! Otherwise, Olivia wouldn’t have been audacious enough to fake her death to scam money! I blurted out: “That car was originally mine. She never even—” Before I could finish, Karen slapped me across the face. Then crying, she pulled out her phone and transferred seventy thousand dollars to Marcus Wilson on the spot! “This seventy thousand is for you first! The White family never defaults on debts. No matter what, our backbone won’t bend!” “If Jenna White won’t acknowledge it, we will!” At the same moment, my phone dinged, showing a balance of zero. My brain exploded with a buzz. I suddenly remembered that a few days ago Karen said she didn’t have money for online shopping and insisted on linking my card. That seventy thousand was clearly all the savings in my account! “That’s my money!” I screamed and lunged forward to stop them. But George flung me back, and my forehead smashed against the vermillion coffin with a bang. “You’re money-obsessed! That was transferred from your mother’s phone! It’s money we’re paying back for your sister!” “You’ve been calculating since childhood. Now even your mother’s and my money you assume is yours?” “Wolf-hearted and dog-lunged! You caused us to lose our jobs back then, and now you’ve killed Olivia! I’d rather not have a daughter like you!” My forehead hurt so much my brain went blank. But I heard barely audible soft laughter coming from inside the coffin. Olivia was laughing too—from childhood to now, this family had never welcomed me! With reddened eyes, I raised my head, wanting nothing more than to expose Olivia’s fake death on the spot. But my gaze suddenly fixed on George’s wrist. There was a bracelet there, with jade-green beads carved with Olivia’s initials. Exactly the same as the one on Marcus Wilson’s wrist. In my previous life, Marcus had admitted personally that he’d given one to his father-in-law! Boom— Like thunder splitting through dense fog, everything suddenly made sense. Karen and George had known the truth from the very beginning. They deliberately put on an act, trying to squeeze every last drop of blood from me!

Thinking of my daughter who died miserably in that alley in my previous life, and River who was enraged to the point of coughing up blood. And Olivia and Marcus Wilson’s triumphant faces before my death. A surge of rage rushed straight to my temples, my throat making cracking sounds. When hatred reached its peak, my rationality became unprecedentedly calm. Karen, George, and Olivia were hypocritical and ruthless, wanting my money while maintaining their good reputation. Exposing them directly would be too easy. I wanted them to lose everything and be utterly disgraced! Trembling, I forcibly suppressed the surging emotions and made a phone call. I looked up at the coffin and suddenly asked softly: “How exactly did my sister die? Which hospital? Do you have a death certificate?” “What do you mean?” George immediately questioned, a flash of wariness in his eyes. “Wasn’t it because you were lazy and late, and your sister was driving you when she had the car accident?” “Before she died, your sister threw herself over you to protect you! She was protecting you until her last breath!” “Is that so?” I looked at them. “But I suddenly fell into a deep sleep that day. When I woke up, I just saw you all crying. I didn’t even see her one last time. Isn’t that strange?” The relatives in the room froze, only now realizing. “Right, I didn’t see her either.” “They brought her back from the hospital and put her straight into the coffin.” “Wasn’t it a bit too rushed?” Marcus Wilson’s eyes flashed with malice as he stared at me intently. George raised his voice. “That’s because your sister’s body was completely shattered. I was afraid of scaring everyone!” “She’s right there in the coffin—how could this be fake?!” The relatives agreed one after another. “True, who would joke about a dead person?” “I helped close the coffin lid. There was definitely someone inside.” I laughed coldly. I remember reading that if you don’t place a token in the deceased’s hand, their spirit can’t cross over！ “So now—I’m going to put something in Olivia’s mouth!” With that, I immediately turned around and reached to open the coffin! “Don’t!” Karen screamed, her eyes nearly splitting. George grabbed me just in time and swung his hand, slapping me hard across the face. “Don’t you dare open it!” The corner of my mouth stung with pain. The relatives were also shocked by George’s outburst. George immediately found an excuse. “Don’t delay your sister’s burial!” The next instant, several thugs pushed and shoved, forcing River, who had just left, back into the mourning hall. In his arms, Emily was wearing a princess dress and crying hysterically. “Don’t touch me! Mommy—Mommy save me!” “What are you doing! Let go of Emily!” River held the child tightly, refusing to let go. But Marcus Wilson waved his hand, and his subordinates gripped his shoulders hard, pressing him down so he couldn’t move. They forcibly snatched Emily away and gripped her neck tightly. “Let go of my daughter! What are you going to do to her—again!” River’s eyes were nearly splitting, his gums almost bleeding from biting down. Again? What “again”? My brain felt like it was exploding. Trembling, I met River’s bloodshot eyes. That complex, furious expression was exactly the same as in my previous life! He had also come back! After our daughter’s tragic death, just like me, he was reborn to this moment! So just now, his first reaction was to leave to protect Emily, but he was still blocked. “So what? Sign the contract!” Marcus Wilson swaggered forward and threw a debt contract directly at me. “If you owe money and don’t pay, I’m justified in doing anything!” “Jenna White! Are you really not going to care about your own daughter? Sign it now!” George shouted at me with reddened eyes. Karen clutched her chest and rushed forward crying, pounding on a thug’s chest, only to be flung aside. She sprawled on the ground, slapping the floor and wailing. “My poor Emily, Grandma is useless, Grandma can’t save you!!” Then she desperately pulled at my pant leg. “That’s your biological daughter! What are you hesitating for? If anything happens to Emily, I’ll never forgive you!” Several relatives nearby also cried and urged, “Jenna! Stop worrying about the money!” “If something happens to the child, you’ll regret it forever!” “This is a matter of life and death! Those loan sharks will do anything!” I looked at that familiar debt notice, my pupils contracting sharply, my jaw chattering. Marcus Wilson grinned wickedly. He pulled out a knife from his chest and turned to press it directly against Emily. “Mommy—!” The blade pressed inward, and a line of blood instantly appeared. Images of Emily’s death in my previous life flashed uncontrollably through my mind. “Are you signing or not!” Marcus Wilson pushed the knife in another fraction. “Jenna White!” Karen’s voice cracked! George rushed over and slammed me to my knees with a bang. He snatched the debt notice and forced my fingers down onto it. “I’m fucking telling you to sign—sign it!” Just then, River suddenly erupted. His wrist dislocated as he escaped from between the two thugs and snatched Emily into his arms. “You fucking dare to snatch—” Marcus Wilson’s expression changed dramatically as he raised the knife. “Bang”—the living room door was kicked open. Several police officers surveyed the scene, their voices cold and stern. “Hands up! Everyone freeze!” The entire room fell into instant silence. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I rushed to the door and grabbed the quick-dry cement I had prepared earlier. “What are you doing!” George’s eyes nearly popped out. I desperately poured all the cement onto the coffin with a splash, laughing through tears, shouting at the top of my lungs. “I’m giving my sister her final send-off! Seal the coffin for burial!”

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