Category: English

1 I designed the digital wedding invitations for my best friend Sienna and built the platform myself. A week before the ceremony, I noticed one account had viewed her invitation page 298 times. It belonged to Chris, my boyfriend of seven years. When I asked him why, he snapped, “How do you even know that?” I blurted out, “Because I built the platform.” He went silent, then looked up, eyes bloodshot. “Because I can’t stand the thought of watching her marry another man.” That was how I learned they dated in college. I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm. “Piper, please. Don’t ruin her wedding.” The next morning, HR received an anonymous report accusing me of running an undeclared side business and using company property for private commercial projects. I was currently ranked number one for Regional Creative Director. Sienna was number two. The attached backend screenshots were accessible only to Chris. Last night’s confession wasn’t honesty. It was me handing him the ammunition to destroy my career. … Staring at the screenshots in the compliance file, my head throbbed so violently that the print began to blur into double vision. Those were the exact backend pages I had shown Chris on my laptop. The lead investigator from Compliance slid the folder across the desk toward me. “We received an anonymous tip alleging that you failed to disclose a related side business and leveraged corporate assets to take on private wedding contracts.” “There is also a record of a two-hundred-dollar Venmo transfer from Sienna.” I pulled out my phone and tapped open the transaction history. “That was a fee for licensing music rights for her ceremony. The memo line clearly states it.” The investigator glanced briefly at the screen. “The payment description can be verified, but the fact remains that you failed to declare the platform’s existence to HR.” “Pending the outcome of this investigation, your eligibility for tomorrow’s final review for Regional Creative Director is temporarily suspended.” Coldness seeped into my fingertips. The final review was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I had poured two years of my life into this promotion, pulling endless late nights and sacrificing my health to reach the top spot. “How long will the investigation take?” “Seven business days.” I opened my mouth, but my voice came out choked and thick with unshed tears. “But the final panel evaluation starts tomorrow.” The investigator avoided my gaze. “The promotional review will not be delayed for an individual inquiry.” The office door swung open abruptly. Sienna burst in, her eyes red and brimming with tears. She grabbed my hand tightly. “Piper, I swear I didn’t know it would turn into this!” “Someone came to me demanding an explanation for that two-hundred-dollar transfer. I was so terrified that I signed the statement they put in front of me.” My eyes locked onto the document clutched in her fingers. I previously commissioned Piper to design my wedding invitations for compensation. Black ink on white paper, bearing her signature at the bottom. She had rebranded a simple two-hundred-dollar music royalty fee into an illegal private design fee. I yanked my hand back, blinking rapidly to force back the tears stinging my eyes. I turned my face away from her. I didn’t want her to see me break, and I couldn’t bear to look at her performative sorrow for another second. “Who made you sign it?” Her lips trembled, but no sound came out. A second later, Chris rushed into the room. He held a warm oat milk latte from my favorite coffee shop, beads of sweat glistening at his temples. Yet his very first words weren’t aimed at comforting me. “Can Sienna still use her wedding invites normally?” The air in the room plummeted to freezing. Realizing how cold he sounded, he quickly added, “The wedding is only seven days away. The guest RSVPs and seating charts are all hosted on that link. Shutting it down right now will create total chaos.” Sienna looked at him, her eyes glistening with tears. “If Piper doesn’t want me to use it, I can find a replacement.” “Except there’s no time to swap everything out,” Chris blurted out. “Your dress fitting is tomorrow, and the final reminder blasts need to go out Friday.” I wiped a stray tear from the corner of my eye and let out a soft, bitter laugh. Some questions didn’t even need asking anymore. Sienna lowered her head, tears still clinging to her lashes. Chris stole a quick glance at her before forcing his gaze back to me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out into the hallway. “Don’t shut down the invitation link yet, and don’t reach out to her fiance,” he whispered urgently. “Once the wedding is over, I’ll help you resolve this mess with HR.” I stared into his eyes. “Was it you who reported me?” Chris hesitated for two agonizing seconds. “Does it really matter who submitted the report right now?” “HR will clear your name once they finish investigating.” “Sienna only gets one wedding in her life.” A wave of sour pain rushed up my throat. “Her wedding is once in a lifetime.” “So my promotion can just be sacrificed and restarted whenever it suits you?” He offered no answer. His silence cut deeper than any confession ever could. That evening, a company-wide email landed in my inbox. Due to an ongoing investigation regarding undeclared secondary business activities, Piper’s candidacy for the Regional Creative Director position has been suspended. Her place in the final review panel will be filled by the runner-up candidate, Sienna. I sat alone in the dark office, staring at the presentation deck I had perfected over the last two years. It seemed I wouldn’t be needing it anymore. A ping chimed from my laptop. The backend notification panel refreshed. User GH has accessed Sienna’s wedding invitation. Total views: 299. A moment later, a system update showed that Sienna had changed her ceremony’s background track. The new song was the exact indie ballad Chris had played on repeat for four straight years during college. I stared at the title on the screen as tears crashed onto my keyboard. The groom standing at the altar wouldn’t be him. Yet every hidden detail of her wedding was infused with his shadow. I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. I scrolled through years of Chris’s and Sienna’s social media posts, public comments, and old group chats. The more I read, the more I realized what a pathetic joke I had been. During a team dinner months ago, a platter of spicy blackened fish was placed right between Sienna and me. Chris had immediately reached across the table, swapping it with a plain steamed dish from the far end. I had frowned at the time. “You know I don’t like steamed fish.” He had smiled gently. “You’ve been breaking out lately, babe. Spicy food isn’t good for your skin.” I thought he was looking out for me. Only now did I realize he was simply catering to Sienna, who couldn’t handle spicy food. Another time, when Sienna was stuck working late during a violent rainstorm, Chris had driven halfway across the city to pick her up. When he returned home, he had grinned at me. “You’re always worrying about her staying out late alone, right? I went and picked her up for you.” Not only had I suspected nothing, but I had genuinely believed I was blessed to have a boyfriend who got along so well with my best friend. Whenever we went out for dinner, caught a movie, or booked a weekend getaway, I was always the one eagerly inviting Sienna along. Looking back now, I finally saw the truth. Every single move Chris made toward Sienna was executed under the guise of caring for me. And I had acted like a brainless fool, orchestrating their reunions over and over again. By dawn, a sharp, rhythmic throbbing hammered against my temples. The moment I pushed myself up from the couch, my vision flickered dark. The doorbell rang. Chris stood outside holding a bag of fresh crab dumplings, unsweetened soy milk, and my favorite brand of migraine medication. “I knew you wouldn’t sleep well last night,” he murmured softly. He pulled the curtains shut, coaxed me to lie down, and expertly began rubbing my temples. His pressure was identical to the way he had massaged my forehead over the last seven years. My body almost instinctively relaxed under his touch. Then the image of the HR complaint screenshot flashed across my mind. I violently slapped his hands away and forced myself upright. A wave of dizziness nearly knocked me off my feet, forcing me to grip the coffee table for support, but a scorching fire blazed inside my chest. “I have to go to work.” He reached out to steady me. “I already called in sick for you.” “Who gave you permission to call in sick for me?” Chris frowned, his tone exasperated. “Look at the state of you. How can you possibly work today?” “Besides, haven’t I always handled your sick leave before?” I braced myself against the sofa, my stomach churning violently. “Before was before.” “What gives you the right to make decisions for my life?” His expression hardened. “Piper, I am trying to help you.” I changed into my work clothes and headed for the door. As the elevator doors began to slide shut, he caught the frame, leaning in. “Going there won’t change anything.” “The internal audit takes seven days, and the final panel evaluation starts this afternoon.” I lifted my head, locking my eyes onto his. “How do you know it takes seven days?” Chris froze for a split second. “You mentioned it last night.” I hadn’t said a single word about the timeline last night. I barely remembered how I walked out of the building or how I made it to the office. All I felt was the searing ache behind my eyes and the blurred landscape passing by. By the time I reached the regional office, my face was terrifyingly pale. My supervisor sighed the moment he saw me. “Didn’t Chris call in sick for you? If you’re unwell, go home and rest.” Coworkers gathered around my desk. “He called early this morning saying your migraines flared up.” “Where do you even find a boyfriend that attentive?” Someone else chimed in with a laugh, “Piper, you really don’t have to worry about a thing. Chris plans everything out for you.” I stood in the center of the bustling office, my hands and feet icy cold, a loud ringing buzzing in my ears. I couldn’t process a single word they said after that. Everyone envied me. Nobody knew that the man who claimed to know me best had personally orchestrated my professional execution. I marched straight to the division head’s office, demanding to submit supplemental evidence. He simply closed the folder on his desk. “Sienna is already in the final review prep room. You cannot enter.” “Why?” “Chris came by this morning.” “He told us you discovered he dated Sienna in college and that your emotional state is severely unstable right now.” “He was concerned that your personal drama would disrupt today’s final evaluation process.” I gripped the edge of his desk, my knuckles turning bone-white. So he hadn’t brought breakfast to my apartment out of concern for my headache. He had come to personally ensure I would be incapacitated and unable to show up at work. My boss let out a long sigh. “Piper, Chris is trying so hard to protect you. Don’t make things difficult for him.” Applause erupted outside the glass office. Sienna stepped out of the presentation room wearing the sleek professional suit I had gifted her for her birthday. Clutched tightly against her chest was the printed binder containing the exact promotional strategy I had spent two years building. The moment the presentation room doors clicked shut, a system email popped up on everyone’s screens. Following panel review, Sienna has been appointed Regional Creative Director. The office went silent for a beat before bursting into enthusiastic applause. Sienna stood surrounded by the team, clutching my binder, her eyes brimming with modest tears. “Piper, maybe I should step down,” she whispered softly. Yet even as she spoke of stepping down, the brand-new Director ID badge was already clipped proudly to her lapel. A thick, metallic taste gathered in my throat. I pushed right past her, shoving her aside. She stumbled against the corner of a desk, prompting a chorus of gasps from the onlookers. I didn’t look back, heading straight into my manager’s office. “The audit isn’t even finished! On what grounds are you revoking my qualification?” My manager slid a client transfer sheet across the table. “Your three primary accounts are being reassigned to Sienna.” Those were accounts I had nurtured for six months. To secure the toughest client, I had attended four separate menu tastings and pulled all-nighters revising event flowcharts. I slammed my palm onto the paper, my fingernails digging into the printed margins. “I won those accounts!” “While under compliance review, you are barred from managing corporate accounts.” Hushed voices whispered outside the cracked door. “She ran a shady side hustle behind our backs and blames everyone else when caught.” “Talk about poor character. The moment she loses a promotion, she claims people are stealing her clients.” “She was always ranked number one. Now that Sienna beat her once, she completely lost her mind.” My chest heaved violently as I fought to draw air into my lungs. Those malicious whispers scraped against my eardrums, setting off a sharp, throbbing pain behind my temples and causing my fingers to tremble uncontrollably. The rage inside me boiled over. I whipped the door open. The gossip died instantly. Sienna walked toward me with tear-filled eyes. “Piper, I really had no idea it would come to this.” “That two hundred dollars, I didn’t even have to send it. I just wanted to support your little project.” I couldn’t hold it back any longer. My voice shattered the silence. “That was a music licensing fee, and you know it better than anyone!” Tears spilled down her cheeks in torrents. Chris immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from my gaze. “Piper, that’s enough!” “You’re the one who hid an undeclared business, and now you’re pinning the blame on Sienna?” I stared at him, the buzzing in my ears deafening. “Get out!” I turned and bolted into my private workspace, slamming the heavy wooden door behind me with a crash that rattled the glass panels. Bracing my back against the door, my legs buckled. I slid slowly down to the floor, collapsing onto the cold carpet. When tears finally burst from my eyes, I didn’t even have the strength left to wipe them away. That afternoon, legal counsel and the product compliance team called me in for an emergency meeting. They demanded I hand over all backend administrative credentials, source code, and user data for the wedding invitation platform. “The platform leveraged corporate project templates and case studies. It qualifies as company intellectual property.” “Pending the audit, the company is taking full operational control.” I forced out a raspy, strained answer. “I developed that software entirely on my personal time, using my own money and private server infrastructure.” The corporate lawyer slid the surrender agreement closer. “Hand it over first. We can discuss ownership rights after the investigation wraps up.” I stared at the word Transfer printed on the form and let out a soft, bitter laugh. If I handed it over now, would I ever see it again? Before the workday ended, I exported every system log, backed up the entire codebase, and shut down the platform servers completely. Sienna’s digital wedding invitation link went dead instantly. An hour later, my college alumni chat group exploded. Wait, did Piper seriously just find out today that Chris and Sienna used to date? Literally our entire graduating class knew about them. She got caught doing shady side work, lost her promotion, and now she’s sabotaging her best friend’s wedding out of spite. That’s absurdly petty. Staring at the phrase entire graduating class knew, my shaking fingers could barely hold the phone. Everyone knew. I was the only idiot kept in the dark for seven full years. My phone chimed while I was still curled up on the floor behind my locked office door. Seeing the word Mom on the screen, I hurriedly wiped my face and swallowed a sob before answering. “Mom…” Before I could say another word, her furious voice screamed through the speaker. “Chris called me and explained everything!” “How can you be so petty and vindictive? Just because Sienna got promoted, you go and shut down her wedding invitations?” “This whole drama is spinning out of control! Relatives are calling me left and right asking what’s wrong with you! How am I supposed to show my face?” I pressed my hand tightly over my mouth, but tears still trickled through my fingers. Notifications flooded my screen in a relentless stream. Digital invitation app unexpectedly pulled offline. Rumors cite founder’s promotional failure and romantic rivalry for malicious service disruption. Platform taking user money then pulling the plug, serious breach of trust. I stared at the multiplying hate comments. I didn’t even register the exact moment HR walked in and unclipped my employee badge from my desk. My phone kept vibrating uncontrollably. A high-priority email from Legal flashed on screen. Failure to hand over administrative access and source code by 18:00 today will result in immediate legal action. Carrying a single cardboard box of personal belongings out of the office, every eye in the building locked onto me. Some held up their smartphones to snap photos, while others whispered behind their hands. “She acted so high and mighty, turns out she’s a sore loser.” The distinct click of a camera shutter sounded behind my back. I didn’t turn around. I simply gripped the cardboard box tighter against my chest. In less than ten minutes, a photo of me was uploaded online. In the picture, my face was ghostly pale, holding my box with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Overlaid across the image were four bold words: Sore Loser Meltdown. The comments snowballed instantly. Lost the promotion to her best friend, boyfriend still carries a torch for the friend, completely broke down. Can you imagine hiring a wedding planner like this? What if she snaps on your big day? My hands were so cold I could barely hold my phone. Sienna’s fiance called my cell directly. “Piper, I’ve known about Chris and Sienna’s past for a long time.” “Sienna was completely transparent with me, and Chris never crossed any lines.” “Sabotaging her wedding just because you failed to get a promotion is vile.” I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat tasted like copper and blood. They all knew. Every single one of them. Chris’s call came in right after. “Piper, bring the invitation server back online.” “If you keep acting like this, we are done.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up from my chest, tears cascading down my cheeks. “Fine.” “Let’s break up.” Silence hung on the line for a few seconds before his voice turned ice-cold. “Don’t regret this.” He hung up. I sank onto the curb outside the building, feeling as though my chest had been hollowed out. Seven years of love, ended with a cold snap of a phone call. Meanwhile, my platform’s support inbox was overwhelmed. Fraud allegations, refund demands, and formal complaints flooded the system. People accused me of running a scam, taking money then shutting down service, while others rallied users to file a class-action suit. You ruined my wedding timeline! Can you afford to pay us back? The link won’t open! Who is paying for my emergency reprint costs? We’re suing for emotional distress! The phone vibrated so violently my palm went numb. By late afternoon, two police officers arrived at my apartment door. Someone had filed a formal report alleging my app was an illegal operation engaging in financial fraud and data theft. I sat at the station for hours, patiently explaining that the server shutdown was necessary to preserve data logs and evidence. The officers requested my system logs, payment receipts, and user agreement terms. By the time I walked out of the precinct, the sky was completely dark. Over a dozen angry platform users were waiting outside my apartment complex, waving smartphones in my face and screaming for refunds. One woman shoved a printed refund claim right against my cheek. “You thought you were so clever? Pay us back now!” The sharp edge of the paper scraped across my eyelid, leaving a stinging, hot tear. I backed up against the brick wall, my knees trembling so violently I could barely stand. It wasn’t until building security intervened that I managed to break free from the mob. My phone vibrated endlessly through the night. Once inside, I immediately booted up my laptop, compiling server access records, financial transaction histories, and time-stamped chat logs into a secure file. If they wanted an investigation, I was going to give them an exhaustive one. At three in the morning, I dispatched the compressed data archive simultaneously to the police, corporate compliance, and the executive board at Corporate Headquarters. At dawn, an email chimed in my inbox from Corporate HR. Following an executive review, procedural irregularities were identified in the regional branch’s evaluation process. The selection for Regional Creative Director will be reset, and responsible administrators face disciplinary action. The position of Corporate Director of Digital Wedding Solutions is currently open. Miss Piper Wilde, would you be interested in joining Corporate Headquarters? Ten minutes after receiving the email, the Chief Human Resources Officer called my cell. “Piper, this offer isn’t a temporary consolation prize.” “Corporate HQ has spent six months prepping the new Digital Wedding Division. We’ve been searching for a leader who understands the wedding industry inside out and possesses the technical capability to build proprietary software.” “Your platform passed our corporate tech audit with flying colors.” “The role comes with double your previous salary. You will retain one hundred percent personal ownership of the platform, and the corporation will license it via an enterprise partnership model.” I gripped my phone, my fingers still trembling. The screams, the police sirens, and the paper scraping across my face from last night were still ringing in my ears. I could hardly believe that the very thing everyone labeled a career-ending stain had become my golden ticket to the top. This time, I didn’t hesitate for a single second. “I accept.”

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1 Even after the pregnancy test turned positive, my husband kept my daily grocery allowance at eight dollars. His secretary—a woman with the kind of sculpted, waist-to-hip ratio that looked engineered for high-fashion lookbooks—personally rejected my request for a dietary increase. “You’ve gained five pounds in your first trimester, Tessa,” Paige had said, looking at me over the rim of her designer glasses. “Our corporate partners are already whispering that Mr. Montgomery married a sow. From today on, every meal is steamed greens. No oil, no carbs.” I was so hungry my vision blurred when I stood up. Desperate, I took thirty dollars from Marcus’s dresser drawer and walked to a diner around the corner, where I inhaled two bowls of beef noodle soup until my stomach cramped from the sudden warmth. Before I could even walk back to the apartment, two patrol officers pulled up, handcuffed me against the brick wall, and took me to the precinct on a grand larceny complaint. Marcus arrived at the precinct, looking down at me in my handcuffs with an expression carved out of cold stone. “I give you an obscene amount of money every single day, and it’s still not enough? Now you’re resorting to petty theft?” The dam broke. I shook in the metal chair, tears scalding my cheeks. “You called the police on your pregnant wife over thirty dollars for food? Who’s the one resorting to extremes here, Marcus?!” His brows slammed together. “What thirty dollars? The accounting flagged thirty million.” Before my hollow, starving brain could process the words, his phone buzzed on the metal table. A text from Paige illuminated the screen, complete with a high-resolution snapshot of an invoice from an elite Fifth Avenue boutique: Mr. Montgomery, Mrs. Montgomery wasn’t satisfied with the cash she took. She just contacted my office demanding another five million in petty cash. Marcus stared down at his phone, his jaw muscles clenching so tight the skin paled around his mouth. From where I sat, clamped to the bolted table, I couldn’t see the screen. I only saw the look that settled over his features—a heavy, suffocating mix of disgust and profound disappointment. “You stole from our accounts just for this?” he asked, his voice dead and level. “Trinkets? Bags?” “If you won’t feed me, I’m not going to starve myself to death just to preserve your idea of marital dignity!” “Are you truly that insatiable, Tessa?” I dug my fingernails into my palms until they nearly drew blood. My eyes burned. Two bowls of soup at a greasy-spoon counter—that made me insatiable? That made me a monster? His thumb flicked across the glass of his phone. A second later, the sharp, automated chime of a completed wire transfer echoed in the small interrogation room. He stood up, adjusting the lapels of his bespoke charcoal suit. “I covered this invoice. But hear me clearly: this is the last time. I will not keep bailing out your bottomless greed.” “Well, thank you so much, Mr. Montgomery,” I spat, the sarcasm shaking with bile and unshed tears. “How generous of you.” He looked at my defiant, emaciated face, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. Turning to the desk sergeant, he said, “I will not be signing a waiver of non-prosecution. Process her however the statute dictates.” He turned on his heel and walked out, the heavy precinct door swinging shut behind him. During the seventy-two hours I spent in the county holding cell, he didn’t visit once. The only person who showed up was a junior associate from his family office’s legal team, carrying intake forms. I didn’t offer a single word of defense. In the eyes of the law, thirty dollars taken without permission was still technically petty theft, wasn’t it? Those three days in county lockup were, horrifyingly, the fullest my stomach had been in three months. My bunkmate watched me scrape every single grain of plain white rice and every limp green bean from the plastic tray, shoveling it into my mouth like a starving stray. She hesitated for a long time before leaning over her bunk. “Honey… did nobody ever feed you on the outside?” My cheeks were stuffed full. I froze. Never eaten good food? How could that be? When Marcus and I first started dating, he had hired private culinary instructors to master regional cooking. French sauces, Italian handmade pastas, rich, slow-simmered broths—whenever I mentioned a craving, he would carve two hours out of an eighty-hour executive workweek just to cook for me with his own hands. On our vacations, he took me through Michelin-starred dining rooms across the world, watching me take my first bites with genuine delight in his eyes. My throat tightened, a thick lump rising in my chest. I wiped the corner of my eye with the sleeve of my rough orange jumpsuit. How could the Tessa Hayes of three years ago ever have imagined that the man who once hand-peeled prawns for her would one day despise her for gaining weight during pregnancy? That she would end up in a concrete holding cell, treating lukewarm prison starch like a banquet? Seventy-two hours later, the medical staff ran a mandatory intake clearance, confirmed my vital signs weren’t crashing, and discharged me. I took the subway back to our penthouse. I had barely unlocked the front door when my phone rang. It was Paige. “Mrs. Montgomery, the municipal health portal forwarded your discharge summary. You gained three pounds during your three days in detention.” Paige’s tone was slick with contempt. “You managed to gain weight on jail rations? Are you biologically incapable of self-discipline?” Before I could get a word out, a notification flashed across my screen from our shared household account. Daily recurring allowance modified. “Starting today, your daily allocation is reduced by fifty percent,” Paige continued smoothly. “Until you shed those three pounds.” A direct deposit hit my checking app. Four dollars. 2 “Four dollars? Paige, that’s insane! How am I supposed to buy food with four dollars in Manhattan?” “These are Mr. Montgomery’s explicit instructions.” “What?” Over the line, Paige let out a low, mocking laugh. “You embezzled such a staggering fortune from Mr. Montgomery, and he’s still willing to grant you a living stipend. What right do you have to complain?” My body went rigid in the hallway. Thirty dollars spent on diner broth was considered a “staggering fortune” to Marcus? “Mr. Montgomery doesn’t even take you to executive galas anymore. Haven’t you figured out why?” Paige asked, her voice dripping with artificial pity. “If you hadn’t let yourself balloon into a circus act, would our prospective partners have dared to joke behind his back that he brought a barnyard animal home? I’m begging you, Tessa—for the sake of the Montgomery name, show some basic pride and watch your silhouette.” My voice cracked, tears choking my throat. “I’m pregnant, Paige! The baby is growing! How am I supposed to not gain a single pound—” “Eat less. It’s simple physics.” The line clicked dead. I called her back three times. Straight to voicemail. I called Marcus’s direct personal line. It rang until it timed out, unanswered. I turned on the television in the living room just to drown out the ringing in my ears. A financial news broadcast was playing a recap of the Global Commerce Summit from that morning. There was Marcus, cutting through the press corps, flanked by Paige. She was wearing a custom navy silk evening gown that hugged every curve of her frame. Nestled against her clavicle was a platinum-and-diamond pendant that had made headlines at Christie’s Geneva auction last month—sold for three million dollars. She leaned in toward Marcus, murmuring something that made him smile faintly, perfectly composed, perfectly polished. My phone vibrated with trending notifications from social media: Montgomery Capital CEO makes stunning appearance alongside lead aide. The power pair of Wall Street: beauty, brains, and billions. The comment sections were a feeding frenzy: —Look at that waist-to-hip ratio. I spend two hours a day in Equinox and I will never look like that. —God really gave her everything. —She looks like an editorial model, and here I am looking like an inflated balloon. The words inflated balloon burned into my retinas. My hands began to shake uncontrollably. I pressed my trembling palm against my lower belly, catching sight of my reflection in the dark television screen. My cheeks were hollow, my skin gray and sallow, my collarbones protruding like dry branches. “What are we going to do, little one…?” I whispered into the quiet, echoing room. Do I have to terminate this pregnancy? The thought terrified me, tearing through my chest like jagged glass. Before I let myself surrender to that darkness, I resolved to give Marcus one last chance to explain himself. I dialed his number ten times in succession. Ten rings. Ten automated disconnects. Finally, the eleventh time, the line picked up—but it wasn’t Marcus. “Mr. Montgomery is in a closed-door session with our European underwriters,” Paige said, her voice sharp with annoyance. “Could you please show a shred of decorum, Mrs. Montgomery? Stop harassing him every five minutes.” “Put him on the phone, Paige.” “I told you, he is in high-stakes negotiations.” “Then have him call me the second he steps out!” “I apologize, Mrs. Montgomery, but as his executive assistant, it is my professional duty to filter out non-essential domestic interruptions.” I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. “What gives you the authority to dictate what passes between a husband and his wife?” “If you continue this hysterical behavior,” Paige replied, ice-cold, “Mr. Montgomery will serve you with divorce papers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The call ended. When I tried again, my number had been blocked. I slid down the cold drywall of the hallway, pulling my knees to my chest in the dim apartment. I opened my bank app. My available balance was one dollar and eighty cents. An outpatient termination procedure at the nearest women’s clinic cost nearly two thousand dollars without insurance clearance. My parents were retired blue-collar workers out in Pennsylvania, living off meager pensions and occasional day-labor gigs that paid barely eighty dollars a shift. Just last week, my mother had wired me a thousand dollars she had pinched together from her savings, begging me to buy vitamins and fresh fruit for the baby. But between the mandatory co-pays for my initial prenatal panel and iron supplements, I had already burnt through eight hundred. They had nothing left to give, and I would rather die than ask them for another dime. Sitting in the unlit room, I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and let out a shuddering, broken breath. In the three years I had known Marcus, outside of normal courtship gifts and prenatal medical bills, I had never asked him for a cent. My parents had refused every single offer of financial assistance from their billionaire son-in-law, fiercely determined to stand on their own two feet so Marcus would never look down on our family. I had thought our restraint, our quiet pride, would keep our love clean. Instead, it had brought me here. My phone screen suddenly lit up. 3 It was Marcus. “You called?” His tone was quiet, almost gentle, carrying that low baritone I used to melt into. But the rage that had been festering in my gut flared instantly. “Did you instruct Paige to slash my daily food allowance in half?” “Yes.” “Marcus, if you want this baby to starve to death, just wire me three thousand dollars right now and I’ll go to the clinic and get an abortion myself.” “What kind of childish tantrum is this?” Marcus’s voice hardened with irritation. “I cut the discretionary spending in half so you would stop wasting funds on vanity and actually spend the remaining balance on real food!” My fingers trembled so badly the phone nearly slipped from my grip. “Do you hear yourself? Was I able to eat ‘real food’ before the cut? When did feeding your pregnant wife become a low-cost nuisance to you, Marcus?” Silence stretched across the line, heavy and strained. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded cold and weary. “Tessa, you’re the one who has lost all perspective on money. Even cut in half, what sits in that account is more than an ordinary family spends in a year. If you want cash for yourself, just ask me. You don’t need to insult my intelligence with pathetic lies about starving.” He exhaled sharply, preparing to hang up, then added, “I’ll authorize another transfer to your daily pool. Don’t steal from the house again.” The call went dead. A minute later, a mobile notification pinged. Paige had authorized the transaction from the family trust ledger. Amount: $1.00. A memo attached from Paige’s business handle: Mrs. Montgomery, Mr. Montgomery reiterated that if your insatiable demands continue, he will proceed with dissolution of marriage. I stared at the screen. One dollar. Added to my remaining checking balance of one dollar and eighty cents, I had exactly two dollars and eighty cents to my name. A plain bagel at the corner bodega cost a dollar fifty. That bagel was my breakfast and my lunch. By nightfall, my stomach was convulsing with hunger cramps. I stood outside the artisanal bakery two blocks down, watching the baker pull fresh, steaming sourdough loaves from the ovens through the window. My mouth watered so violently it made my teeth ache. The clerk behind the counter noticed me hovering near the glass and opened the side door. “Hey, you again? Want a loaf? Five bucks each, or three day-old rolls for four.” “Can I… is there any way I could buy a roll for a dollar?” The clerk frowned, waving a hand. “Sorry, lady. This is artisanal grain. We run on thin margins as it is.” I pulled my coat tighter around my hollow frame and turned away into the autumn wind, telling myself that if I walked away, if I didn’t smell the warm yeast, the gnawing in my belly would stop. It didn’t. The hunger was physical, visceral, clawing at my ribs. Wandering the block, I spotted a young woman closing up a small sandwich shop, tossing large plastic bags of bread crusts and trimmed edges into a compost bin near the curb. I stepped forward, my voice cracking with humiliation. “Excuse me… are those… are you selling those?” She stopped, looking at me curiously. Then her eyes widened. “Wait. Aren’t you… aren’t you that gold-digger on the tabloids? Montgomery’s wife?” I quickly waved my hands, pulling my hood lower over my sunken face. “No. No, you have the wrong person.” “Yeah, figures,” she muttered, shaking her head. “That woman siphons millions out of his accounts. Why would she be asking for stale bread trimmings?” I swallowed the bitter bile in my mouth. “Could I… could I give you fifty cents for half of that bag of crusts?” She stared at me, bewildered. “A quarter of the bag is fine, too,” I whispered, my voice shrinking into the cold air. She looked at my protruding collarbones, sighed, and handed me the entire gallon bag of bread heels. “Keep your change, or give me fifty cents if it makes you feel better.” I gave her fifty cents. With eighty cents of my remaining money, I begged her to sell me a bottle of generic tap water that retailed for a dollar, pleading until she took pity and handed it over. I carried my bag of crusts back up the elevator to our dark, empty penthouse. I didn’t dare turn on the lights. Every utility bill felt like another excuse for Marcus to accuse me of extravagance. Huddled in the corner beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminated only by the cold neon glow of Manhattan traffic below, I shoved the dry, chewy bread crusts into my mouth, chewing desperately. A dry chunk caught in my throat. I gagged, coughing violently, and reached for the water bottle. My fingers were so weak, trembling from hypoglycemia, that I couldn’t break the plastic seal. I twisted with everything I had. The plastic ring snapped, but the sudden force jerked the bottle from my grip. It hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. Clear water gushed across the floorboards, soaking into the rug. I scrambled on my knees, desperately scooping at the puddle, trying to funnel the remaining liquid in the neck into my parched mouth, but only three drops touched my tongue. I broke. I curled over my knees on the floor, clutching the empty plastic bottle, sobbing so hard my chest heaved. Through my tears, my gaze landed on the kitchen sink in the darkness. Our building’s filtered delivery service charged a delivery fee per five-gallon jug. Paige had canceled that account two weeks ago. 4 I dragged myself across the floor to the kitchen sink, reached up, and turned the heavy brass faucet. Untreated municipal tap water, smelling faintly of old pipes and chlorine, poured out. I cupped my shaking hands beneath the stream and swallowed mouthful after mouthful, choking on the rush. My stomach bloated instantly, rejecting the cold deluge. I collapsed against the lower cabinets, coughing until tears and bile spilled onto the marble floor. Around me lay the spilled water, the soggy paper bag, and a few scattered crumbs of dry bread. I lay curled on the tile, gasping for breath, weeping until my ribs burned. When the dry crumbs were gone, the black spots danced behind my eyes again. To silence the tearing ache in my stomach, I drank more tap water, forcing my belly to stretch with cold liquid just to trick my nervous system into feeling full. Only when my abdomen felt tight and sloshing did the trembling subside enough for me to drift into an exhausted, feverish sleep on the floor. The next morning, my phone buzzed at seven sharp. It was Paige. “The smart scale in your master bathroom logged your weight this morning,” she said, her voice crisp and robotic. “You gained another pound overnight. Your rate of weight gain is officially out of control. Effective today, your food allowance is reduced by half again.” The daily deposit notification appeared on my screen. Amount: $2.00. I lay on the cold tiles, staring up at the ceiling, too drained to scream. “Is this Marcus’s decision as well?” “Yes,” she replied flatly, and hung up. I didn’t even have the energy to feel anger. Two dollars. If I tried to survive on two dollars today, my baby and I would both collapse before the sun went down. I pushed myself up, my joints aching, and walked into Marcus’s private study. I stood before the concealed steel safe behind his bookshelf. My fingers hesitated over the keypad. I entered six digits: my birthday. A soft click echoed through the quiet room. The heavy door swung open. He hadn’t changed the combination. It was still the date he had set three years ago when we first moved in together. Inside, banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills were neatly arranged beside blue leather binders containing corporate deeds, bearer bonds, and velvet cases of museum-grade gemstones. My hands shook. I didn’t touch the binders or the jewels. I slipped my fingers into a loose band of currency and pulled out a single green bill. One hundred dollars. “Just one,” I whispered to the empty room, tears blurring my vision as I pushed the heavy safe door shut until the electronic lock engaged. “Just one bill. It won’t hurt him. He won’t notice.” I took the elevator down to street level and walked straight into the noodle bar on the corner. I ordered a steaming bowl of braised beef noodles and sat by the window. The moment the server set the bowl down, I plunged my chopsticks in, lifting a massive clump of noodles toward my mouth. Before the first bite could touch my lips, the wail of a siren cut through the morning air. A squad car screeched to a halt outside the window. Two uniformed officers rushed through the glass door, their hands on their holsters. Within seconds, cold metal ratcheted around my wrists, pinning my hands behind my back. “Tessa Montgomery? You’re under arrest for grand larceny and domestic burglary. Step away from the table.” “Wait! Please!” I cried out, my voice cracking in humiliation as the other patrons turned to stare. “Please, just let me finish this bowl! I’ll cooperate, I swear! Just let me eat!” The officers didn’t hesitate. They hauled me up by my arms, dragging me away from the untouched, steaming bowl of broth. At the precinct, I learned that Marcus had canceled a multi-million-dollar overseas roadshow the moment the alarm tripped on his safe. He sat across from me in the interrogation room, his bespoke overcoat unbuttoned, his face dark with suppressed fury. “Do you have any idea what was in that safe?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. “That was the liquid reserve designated for our child’s trust.” I ignored him. My head was down, my face buried in a cup of instant noodles that a sympathetic desk sergeant had handed me five minutes ago. I slurped the salty, MSG-laden broth like it was nectar from heaven. Marcus’s jaw twitched. “Stealing from the corporate holdings was one thing, Tessa. But taking the money set aside for your own unborn child? Are you completely devoid of a conscience?” I drained the cardboard cup until not a drop remained, set it on the metal table, and looked up at the female officer standing by the door. “Is there… could I have another one, please?” “Tessa! Stop playing dumb!” Marcus slammed his palm against the steel table with a deafening crack. “Where did the money go? Where did you wire our child’s trust funds?” “Don’t interrupt my meal,” I muttered. The female officer walked over and set a second steaming cup of instant noodles in front of me. I tore the plastic fork open and began eating immediately, my throat burning as I swallowed the hot noodles whole. A look of pure disgust crossed Marcus’s face. He clearly couldn’t bear to look at me a second longer. He turned toward the senior partner of his private legal firm, who was standing quietly in the corner of the room. “File the charges under the harshest statutory guidelines,” Marcus instructed, his voice ruthless. “Whatever the maximum sentence for first-degree grand larceny is in this jurisdiction, seek it. No leniency. No plea bargains.” “Understood, Mr. Montgomery,” the lawyer murmured, taking notes on a tablet. “You’re hiring the best attorneys in the state to lock me up?” I swallowed the last mouthful of broth, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and looked straight into his dark eyes. Marcus frowned, pausing by the door. I stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the concrete floor. “Marcus Montgomery, if you have any real power, tell your high-priced lawyers to get me life without parole! Let me stay in a federal penitentiary for the rest of my days!” 5 “What kind of nonsense are you spewing now?” His scowl deepened, his eyebrows drawing tight with impatience. “Nonsense? I’m dead serious, Marcus! I pray to God you lock me away for life!” I laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound that scraped against my dry throat. “Because at least in prison, nobody docks my food rations! The Department of Corrections feeds inmates three square meals a day! They even give pregnant women supplemental milk and fruit! I have had enough of being your high-society trophy! Compared to being your starved, humiliated wife, I’d rather be a convicted felon!” “I restricted your discretionary accounts so you would stop blowing millions on worthless luxury goods!” Marcus looked at me as though I were completely deranged. I burst into bitter, helpless laughter. “Luxury goods? You honestly believe I can afford luxury goods? I’m not your precious secretary, Marcus! I don’t get gifted three-million-dollar diamond pendants from Geneva auctions! I don’t get dressed in custom haute couture to walk arm-in-arm with you at global summits while the entire internet hails us as the golden couple! Just because I got pregnant, just because my body dared to change, I wasn’t even fit to be seen in public with you!” Marcus’s entire frame went rigid. He slowly turned around, his eyes locking onto mine with sudden, sharp intensity. “What are you talking about?” “Isn’t that what you ordered?” My eyes stung, tears finally spilling over my hollow cheeks. “You had a smart-monitoring scale installed in our bathroom, demanding I log my weight every morning. And the second the scale ticked up, you slashed my grocery allowance. From eight dollars a day, down to four! From four dollars down to two! You bought Paige Nichols a three-million-dollar necklace, but when I took a single one-hundred-dollar bill from your safe just so I wouldn’t faint from starvation, you called the police to send me to prison!” Standing behind Marcus, the senior legal counsel’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. “Mrs. Montgomery… Mr. Montgomery never authorized—” “Hold on,” Marcus commanded, raising a hand to cut his lawyer off. He stepped forward, crossing the distance between us until he was towering over the metal table. He leaned down, his eyes scanning my gaunt face, my sunken collarbones, the papery texture of my skin. “Keep talking,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, trembling whisper. “Tell me everything.” “You even…” The room suddenly tilted. A black curtain dropped over my peripheral vision. The air was sucked out of my lungs. I heard Marcus cry out my name in terror, his voice cracking with a panic I hadn’t heard in years. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. When my consciousness flickered back, the pungent smell of antiseptic filled my nose. Above me, a clear IV bag was slowly dripping saline and yellow-tinted lipids into a catheter in the back of my hand. A nurse was adjusting the flow rate, her expression furious as she looked at Marcus standing beside the bed. “Severe maternal malnutrition,” the nurse scolded, keeping her voice tight and scathing. “Her BMI is dangerously below clinical thresholds. She’s carrying twins of early development, yet her weight is barely enough to sustain an adolescent. Are you her husband? Do you not feed your wife?” Marcus stood there, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. He didn’t offer a single word of defense. The nurse shot him one final look of pure disgust, scribbled on the chart, and exited the room, pulling the privacy curtain shut. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, answered with one hand, and spoke in a low, clipped tone: “Cancel all roadshows. Postpone the board meeting indefinitely. I don’t care about the quarterly losses. I have a critical personal matter to handle.” He hung up, pocketed the device, and sat down on the edge of my hospital mattress. He reached out toward my hand, his eyes red-rimmed with profound worry. I turned my head away, staring cold-eyed at the blank white wall. “Tessa,” he began softly, his voice trembling slightly. “That smart monitoring scale… didn’t you ask for it?” “Why on earth would I ask for a machine to police my body?” He hesitated, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Paige told me you wanted to monitor your maternal fitness… to keep your dancer’s figure from slipping.” “When did I ever say that to you?” His jaw tightened. “You never told her you were going on a strict pregnancy diet?” “I am carrying your child, Marcus!” I turned, my hand flying out and striking him across the cheek. Slap. I had put everything I had into it, but my body was so depleted that the blow landed as little more than a weak brush against his stubble. Yet his eyes instantly welled with tears. He grabbed my trembling, ice-cold hand and pressed it against his cheek, holding on as if I were slipping off a cliff. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I didn’t verify it. I was buried in the merger, and every time the accounting alerts came through, Paige showed me invoices from luxury houses… I thought you were compulsively spending to act out.” I laughed, a dry, hollow rattle. With my free hand, I unlocked my phone from the bedside table and shoved the screen in his face. “I was constantly asking for money because your office was feeding me on two dollars a day!” Marcus stared at the banking app. His pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks. He pulled the phone closer, his fingers rapidly scrolling through the transaction log: + 8.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+8.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+ 4.00 from Montgomery Family Office. + 1.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+1.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+ 2.00 from Montgomery Family Office. Line after line. Day after day. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving him as pale as a corpse.

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Word was spreading fast through high society that Howard Hargrove’s long-rumored overseas fiancee was finally back in the country. That exact same afternoon, a video of me slapping his face right outside the Hargrove Group headquarters went viral online. In the clip, he stood drenched in the rain, wearing a tailored three-piece suit. My palm hit his cheek with a crisp crack, snapping his head to the side, yet he didn’t utter a single word of protest. The internet tore me apart within minutes. Who does this gold digger think she is? Does she actually think she’s Mrs. Hargrove? Howard’s patience is terrifying. Security should’ve dragged her off the property. By evening, heiress Dianne Crawford posted a photo from a lavish gala. In the picture, Howard’s designer suit jacket was draped over her shoulders. Her caption read: After all these years, right back where I belong. Within ten minutes, the hashtag #FutureMrsHargrove hit the top of the trending page. I tossed my phone onto the mattress, looking down at the man beside me. “Well, Mr. Hargrove,” I murmured, “your fiancee certainly knows how to curate a scene.” He took my hand, resting my palm flat against his jawline. “Babe,” he whispered, “did hitting me hurt your hand?” 1 I looked down at him. Howard was kneeling by the edge of the bed, his crisp white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his silk tie half-loosened. One of his hands gently held my wrist while the other carefully smoothed soothing ointment over my palm. His dark brows were tightly knit. If a passerby walked in right now, they would assume I was the one who had been struck. I tried to pull my hand back, but his grip remained firm yet tender. He lowered his head, continuing to rub the ointment into my skin. “It’s red right here,” he muttered. “That’s from slapping your face.” “Which is why it hurts,” he replied without missing a beat. He looked up, his eyes dead serious. “Next time, don’t do it yourself.” “Who should do it then?” “I’ll do it.” I stared at him for two full seconds. Fearing I hadn’t grasped his meaning, he added quietly, “Tell me where you want it to hit, and I’ll smack myself in front of the mirror.” A sharp laugh escaped my throat despite myself. “Howard Hargrove, do you honestly think you’re being funny right now?” He shut his mouth instantly. My phone was still buzzing relentlessly on the sheets. I didn’t even need to look to know that social media was exploding. Dianne’s photo was a masterclass in subtle manipulation. Under the gala’s golden chandeliers and beside a champagne tower, she sat with Howard’s dark suit jacket draped over her shoulders, her face half-hidden in the lapel. Howard stood beside her, looking down at a stack of documents. From that angle, it looked like he was shielding her from the draft. Her caption was just as clever: After all these years, right back where I belong. Neither confirming nor denying anything, leaving the rest to the internet’s imagination. I casually tapped into the comment section. I knew Mr. Hargrove had a fiancee. High society guys never marry random influencers. Dianne’s elegance screams primary wife energy. Was that girl who slapped him outside the building yesterday just an angry side chick losing her mind? He didn’t even fight back. He probably just gave her a graceful exit out of pity for their past. As I read the last comment out loud, Howard’s thumb froze against my palm. His expression hardened, temperature dropping instantly. “Stop reading it.” “I’m not finished.” “There’s nothing good about watching people trash you.” “I find it entertaining.” Howard pressed his lips into a tight line. I knew him well enough to know he was already itching to scrub the trending topics and file lawsuits against every single commenter. In the three years we had been married, the one thing he could never tolerate was anyone speaking ill of me. He hated it even more than I did. I used my free hand to poke his forehead gently. “Alright, big boss, hold off on the lawyer letters for a second. Explain to me first, how did your suit jacket end up on Dianne’s shoulders?” Howard sat up straight immediately. “I didn’t put it on her.” “It’s your jacket in the picture.” “It is mine, but I didn’t give it to her.” “So it grew legs and walked over to her on its own?” Howard’s throat bobbed. Knowing the explanation sounded thin, he lowered his eyes, carefully capped the ointment tube, and wrapped my hand in a warm, damp towel. He was dragging out the process to buy time. I smiled warmly at him. “Mr. Hargrove, I’ll give you three seconds.” “Three.” He blurted it out instantly. “Reporters blocked me at the gala entrance, so I took off my jacket and handed it to Garrett so he could block the camera lenses.” “Dianne spilled red wine on her dress during a toast. Garrett assumed she was an important guest that the hosts needed catered to, so he handed her the jacket. I had already gone upstairs to the second-floor conference room and didn’t see any of it.” I raised an eyebrow. “Garrett certainly knows how to be helpful.” A faint cough sounded from the bedroom doorway. Garrett stood outside, his face as pale as a man who had just received a life sentence. “Ma’am, I was wrong.” I turned my head. Garrett was Howard’s head assistant, having served him for seven full years. Today was indeed a massive blunder on his part. Glancing nervously at Howard, Garrett forced himself to continue. “The lighting was dim, and Miss Crawford’s assistant mentioned she was cold. I didn’t think much of it. Right after I handed it over, Mr. Hargrove went upstairs. The photo must have been snapped during that window.” Howard’s voice was crisp. “Year-end bonus gone.” “Deserved,” Garrett whispered. I nearly broke out laughing. “You can go, Garrett.” Garrett turned to leave, but at the doorway, he quickly added, “Ma’am, the PR department has a statement ready, and Mr. Hargrove already instructed the legal team to document all libelous posts.” Howard frowned. “I told you to leave.” Fearing further wrath, Garrett vanished in seconds, shutting the door tightly behind him. Silence washed over the bedroom. Howard turned back to me. The man who had just coldly berated his assistant now spoke in a voice lowered by several octaves. “Babe, do you believe me?” I looked into his eyes. Dark circles shadowed his skin. This morning, outside the corporate building, he had stood in the pouring rain while I slapped his cheek. He hadn’t explained, hadn’t dodged, and hadn’t gotten angry. Every camera caught his head turning from the strike. Yet no camera captured the fact that before the slap, his stomach spasms were so severe his hands were trembling. I had told him to go to the hospital. He said he had to wait until the board meeting ended. I told him it was raining outside, and he said it didn’t matter. He had always been like this. Business, the Hargrove empire, my needs, he put everything first. The only thing he relegated to the very back was himself. So I couldn’t stop myself from raising my hand. I wasn’t angry at Dianne Crawford. I was furious at him for treating his own body like trash. I let out a soft sigh. “I believe you.” “You can hit me again if you want.” “Get lost.” “Can’t,” he muttered, pulling me closer. “I just got official status. I can’t get lost.” “Where did you get official status?” “From our marriage license.” 2 Howard and I had been secretly married for three years. Very few people knew about it. So few that high society genuinely assumed Howard was keeping a mysterious fiancee overseas for years. The rumor wasn’t entirely wrong. I had indeed spent a long time abroad, and I had indeed spent a massive amount of his money. However, I wasn’t being kept like a pet. I was managing overseas mergers and acquisitions on his behalf. The green energy sector, which was currently the Hargrove Group’s most lucrative asset, was almost poached by foreign venture capital three years ago. Howard had just taken over the conglomerate back then. Internal chaos and external threats plagued him, with half the board plotting to oust him. He couldn’t leave the country, so I went in his place. We had been married for less than three months at the time. Stepping out of the registry office, Howard held my hand tightly by the car, asking softly, “Can we go public tonight?” “No.” His brows knitted instantly. “Why not?” “I fly to Zurich tomorrow morning.” “And?” “I don’t want to negotiate a multibillion-dollar acquisition under the title of Mrs. Hargrove.” “You are Mrs. Hargrove.” “Still no.” Howard stayed silent the entire ride home. Once inside, he locked both copies of our marriage license into his office safe. That night, he pulled me into his arms from behind. “Nora.” “Yeah?” “Are you trying to hide me forever?” I turned around in his embrace and kissed his jawline gently. “Wait until the acquisition closes.” “How long?” “Six months max.” Howard believed me. Six months later, the acquisition remained locked in intense negotiations. I stayed in Europe, grinding through endless meetings with ruthless investors. A year passed before the clean energy deal finally settled. Then Howard’s scheming uncle targeted me. His uncle believed I was merely a pawn Howard placed overseas. If he discovered we were legally wed, he would use me as leverage to cripple Howard. So I kept our marriage under wraps. Howard endured it, month after month. During the second winter, he flew to London to spend Christmas with me. Snow fell heavily outside the apartment while I prepped a hotpot in the kitchen. Howard sat on the couch watching a live business interview on his phone. On screen, the host asked him with a smile if good news was on the horizon regarding his personal life. Howard looked straight into the camera. “Yes.” I poked my head out from the kitchen. “Howard Hargrove!” “I didn’t say who,” he replied innocently. “How is that any different from telling them?” “I’m almost thirty.” “And?” “I’m married, but nobody knows.” I stuffed a pair of chopsticks into his hand. “Just wait a little longer.” “You said that last time.” “This time it’s for real.” Howard stared at me intently. “Nora, you better not be playing me.” As it turned out, I played him again. In the third year, the Hargrove Group completely stabilized, and I finally returned home for good. Howard had been organizing public announcement ideas for a month prior to my arrival. Every night, he would slide his phone over to me. “How about this picture?” “Too goofy.” The next day he would swap it out. “This one?” “You look like a sappy groom.” “I am a sappy groom.” Before we could finalize an announcement strategy, Dianne Crawford returned to the country. She was the eldest daughter of the Crawford family, Howard’s childhood neighbor, and the exact type of childhood sweetheart the public loved to romanticize. High society quickly matched her with the rumored overseas fiancee. When Howard learned about the gossip, his immediate reaction was to release a formal denial. I stopped him. The Crawfords had recently partnered with the Hargrove Group on a major commercial venture. Dianne’s sudden return and her deliberate fueling of rumors weren’t out of nostalgia. She wanted the leverage and status that came with being viewed as the future Mrs. Hargrove. Since she wanted to put on a show, I wanted to see just how far she could perform. Turns out, by afternoon, her performance had catapulted her straight to number one on the trending topics. 3 The next morning, Howard was kicked awake by me. He had insisted on sleeping in my bed last night, claiming he was being cyberbullied online and needed comfort from his lawful wife. Finding him annoying, I ignored him, so he sat at the foot of the bed wrapped in a blanket, staring at me silently. Eventually, his puppy-dog eyes gave me a headache, and I gave in, letting him slide under the duvet. The result was a night of utter restlessness on his part. One moment he was touching my palm to check if it still hurt, and the next he was wrapping his arms around my waist to ask if I was still mad. At three in the morning, he even snuck out of bed to draft a public statement on his laptop. Exhausted, I grabbed his phone and shut it down. “Go to sleep.” He lay back down, but two minutes later he whispered, “Nora.” “Say one more word and you’re sleeping in the guest room.” “I had a dream you didn’t want me anymore.” With my eyes closed, I reached out and patted his hair. “I want you.” He finally settled down. Now, as dawn broke, his phone was buzzing incessantly again. I nudged his leg with my foot. “Answer the phone.” Howard opened his eyes with a heavy frown. His first instinct wasn’t to grab the phone, but to reach out and check my wrist. “Does it still hurt?” “No.” He checked my palm carefully, making sure there was no swelling before picking up the call. The moment he answered, Garrett’s panicked voice echoed through the speaker. “Mr. Hargrove, Miss Crawford posted again.” Howard’s face darkened instantly. I sat up and grabbed my own phone. In the early hours of the morning, Dianne had shared a throwback photo. In the picture, a teenage Howard in a high school uniform stood beneath a sprawling oak tree, his profile cold and distant. She had cropped the shot so only half his face and her own shadow on the grass were visible. Her caption read: Some people have been standing there since youth. The comment section was going wild. Is this the power of childhood sweethearts? Gosh, Howard was so handsome as a teenager. Who wouldn’t fall for him? Dianne really kept this hidden for so many years. When is that violent girl from yesterday going to apologize? I tapped on the photo to expand it. The teenage boy was indeed Howard. But I recognized the photo instantly. I was right there on the day it was taken. It was our prep academy’s anniversary celebration, and Howard had been dragged into volunteering by the student council. Dianne was secretly taking pictures of him. A second after that frame was taken, I stepped out from behind the tree and pressed an icy bottle of water against his cheek. Howard dodged with a scowl, but naturally reached out to take my heavy backpack off my shoulders. Dianne had simply cropped me out completely. I held my phone screen in front of Howard’s face. “‘Standing there since youth’?” Howard’s heart skipped a beat. “I was waiting for you that day.” “She didn’t capture that part.” “I have the original photo.” He leapt out of bed immediately, not even bothering with slippers, and marched into the home office to boot up his computer. I leaned against the doorway, watching him. In less than a minute, he pulled up an image from an encrypted album. Under the exact same tree, on the exact same afternoon. In the uncropped photo, teenage Howard held my backpack in one hand and my half-empty water bottle in the other. I stood beside him, draping his oversized school jacket over my shoulders. The shadow Dianne claimed as her intimate presence was merely her standing several feet behind us, completely ignored. Looking at the screen, a chuckle escaped my lips. “How do you even still have this?” “I had it taken.” “Who took it?” “Garrett.” “You were bossing Garrett around back in high school?” “He was my desk mate back then.” “You made your desk mate secretly snap photos of me?” “He did it voluntarily.” A faint cough sounded near the doorway. Garrett stood outside the office. “Ma’am, I was not voluntary.” Howard cast him a dark glare. Garrett instantly pivoted. “Though I grew to do it voluntarily over time.” I couldn’t stop laughing. Howard, however, wasn’t smiling. He exported the original high-resolution photo and prepared to forward it directly to the PR department. I pressed my hand over his wrist. “Don’t rush.” “She’s stepping on you.” “She’s stepping on you too.” “Which is why we can’t be hasty.” I saved Dianne’s cropped photo to my phone. “The more elaborate her fantasy is right now, the sweeter her downfall will be later.” Howard looked at me, falling silent for a moment. “You’ve already planned everything, haven’t you?” “Pretty much.” “When did you start planning?” “The moment she posted that gala photo.” He reached out, pulling me into his arms and resting his chin on my shoulder. “Nora.” “What?” “Are you actually going to let us go public?” I looked at him. Howard had been remarkably obedient since last night, refraining from aggressive public statements, avoiding reckless confrontations, and holding back his legal team from suing the entire internet. Yet I knew deep down how desperately long he had waited for this moment. I raised my hand, gently smoothing down his messy morning hair. “I’m giving you your chance.” His eyes lit up instantly. “Tonight is the Crawford family gala. I’m taking you with me to shatter her fantasy.”

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I was raped. When I woke up, my phone was waiting with photos of my naked body. The message read: You look better in the shower than you do dressed. I scrolled frantically through my contacts and called the only person in the world I trusted—Cole Mercer. He said, “Don’t move. I’m on my way.” He checked the security feeds, brought me warm milk, moved me into his place, and pulled me back from the edge of a nervous breakdown. On the seventh night, I realized he had been standing outside my bedroom door every single night. And the scar on his wrist matched the exact width of the bruises around my throat. 1 I was raped. When I woke up that morning, the dull, throbbing ache through my joints and the violent constellation of bruises in the bathroom mirror told me the nightmare had been real. I crouched on the tile under water hot enough to scald, scrubbing until my skin bled. But the marks felt carved into the bone. No amount of soap could wash them away. Then I picked up my phone. Two photos had arrived from an unknown number. They were pictures of me, passed out cold, completely naked. The lighting was dim, but the purple handprints clamped around my throat were unmistakable. A third text popped up: Call the cops, and these go straight to your office Slack. My fingers trembled against the glass. The fourth message followed immediately: You look better in the shower than you do dressed. I lunged toward the window, tearing the curtains back. The courtyard below was quiet. Empty. Panic took over. I checked every window latch, ran to the front door, and threw both deadbolts. Sliding down the wooden panel until I hit the floor, my palms broke out in a cold, suffocating sweat. I scrolled through my contacts, looking for a lifeline, and dialed Cole Mercer. We had grown up together. He was two years older than me, a brilliant programmer who could pull apart any piece of software. If anyone on earth could trace this monster, it was Cole. 2 4:17 AM. The phone rang five times before the connection clicked open. “…Jesse?” His voice was thick with sleep, but he pronounced my name with sudden, razor-sharp clarity. I opened my mouth. The tears got there before the words did. “…Cole.” Silence fell on the other end for two beats. Then came the violent rustle of bedsheets, followed by the metallic jangle of keys. “Where are you?” “Home.” “Stay on the line. Don’t hang up. I’m coming.” The roar of an engine ripped through the receiver, crackling over the static. His breathing was heavy and ragged, like he had bolted from his sheets straight into the driver’s seat. In under twenty minutes, my doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. It was him. His white t-shirt was wrinkled, his grey sweatpants rumpled, his dark hair a mess. The second I pulled the door open, his pupils shrank. His hand rose, hovered above my head for half a beat, and then pressed gently against the nape of my neck, pulling me forward. “Inside,” he murmured. “Let’s talk inside.” 3 He closed the door behind him, guided me to the sofa, and knelt on the hardwood, looking up into my face. “What happened?” I handed him the phone. He looked at the two photos. His eyes lingered on the screen for only a fraction of a second—so fast I wasn’t even sure he had processed them. But the knuckles clutching the frame turned stark, bloodless white. “…Did you call the police?” “He threatened me with the pictures. He said if I go to the cops, he’ll send them to everyone I work with.” Cole set the phone on the coffee table. He drew in a slow, ragged breath, stood up, paced the living room twice, and then knelt right back in front of me. “Jesse. Look at me.” I lifted my eyes. “I’ll pull the metadata. I’ll trace the IP. But you cannot stay here alone. Pack a bag. You’re coming to my place.” “I… you have so much work—” “Jesse.” His voice dropped, low and fierce. “Do you have any idea what you just went through? You think I could sleep knowing you’re here alone?” He took my wrist. His grip was feather-light, his palm radiating heat. “I have an empty guest room. You stay with me. I’ll drive you to work, I’ll cook dinner. You don’t have to lift a finger. Just stay there until I find him.” His eyes were ink-black. Watching me, he looked more devastated, more unhinged by the situation, than I was. In that second, something inside my chest caved in—a warm, aching ache of profound relief. Someone was catching me before I hit the ground. “…Okay.” 4 He stood immediately, walked into my bedroom, and pulled open the closet. “Let’s pack. A week’s worth of clothes.” “Right now?” “Every minute you spend in this apartment is another minute I’m terrified for you.” I leaned against the doorframe, watching his silhouette moving back and forth, folding my shirts, grabbing my coat. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “Aren’t you going to ask me… how it happened?” His hands paused. His back remained turned to me. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to ask.” He turned around, a stack of folded sweaters in his arms. “When you’re ready, I’ll listen.” I looked down, blinking rapidly against the burn in my eyes, and walked over to help him pack. When we walked out, I glanced back one last time at my apartment—the living room, the coffee table, the full-length mirror. I couldn’t bear to look at it. I pulled the door shut. Cole drove. I sat in the passenger seat, hugging a duffel bag against my chest. The stereo played a slow, muted piano melody. My head leaned against the glass as streetlights blurred past in amber streaks. Exhaustion dragged me under. “…Cole.” “Yeah?” “Thank you.” He didn’t reply. Halfway between waking and sleeping, I felt the car ease up on the accelerator. A warm hand reached across the console, brushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead, and pulled away just as quickly. I caught the whisper of a sentence, swallowed whole by the engine’s low hum. 5 That first night, the guest room was spotless. The sheets were crisp, dove-grey cotton, and an amber nightlight cast a soft glow on the bedside table. “Get some sleep. I’m right next door. If you need anything, just call out.” He reached over, flicked off the overhead light, and hesitated. “Jesse. Don’t be afraid.” The door clicked shut. I stared up into the pitch-black ceiling, listening to my own pulse hammer against my eardrums. The smell of the room was unfamiliar. The mattress felt strange. Even the air entering my lungs belonged to someone else. Still… it wasn’t that place. Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under. And then I was right back in that suffocating room. My wrists were pinned. A black blindfold cut off the world. The suffocating heat of another body pressed down into mine, heavy and unyielding. A hand dragged slowly down my throat, scraping my skin like thorns. “Don’t cry,” a voice murmured right against my ear, low, amused. “When you cry… it just makes me want to ruin you more.” 6 I gasped, shooting straight up in bed, drenched in ice-cold sweat. My phone screen flickered: 3:12 AM. Next door, a floorboard creaked. Then two soft knocks sounded against my door. “Jesse?” Cole’s voice drifted through the wood, raspy and low. “…I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” The handle turned anyway. He walked in wearing dark navy pajamas, carrying a glass of warm milk. He sat on the edge of the mattress and held it out. “Drink a little. Nightmare?” I took the glass and sipped. It was warm, sweet. He watched me finish it, took the empty glass, set it on the nightstand, and ruffled my hair with infinite care. “I’m right here. Go to sleep.” His palm was warm. His touch was gentle. My eyes stung as I closed them. Drifting off, a stray thought flickered through the fog in my head: There’s a wall and a heavy door between us. I didn’t scream. How did he know I was having a nightmare? 7 When I woke the next morning, the smell of butter and toast drifted from the kitchen. Cole stood by the stove in a grey linen apron, frying eggs. The morning sun caught the sharp angles of his jaw. “You’re up? Go wash your face. Sunny-side up, runny yolks, just the way you like them.” I hovered by the kitchen counter, rubbing my eyes. “What time did you get up?” “Around six. Habit.” He slid the eggs onto a plate beside two slices of golden toast. “Milk’s in the microwave. Grab it yourself.” I carried the warm glass to the breakfast table. He watched me take a sip, his gaze lingering on my collarbone for a fleeting second before darting away. “How’d you sleep?” “…Fine.” “The dream again?” My grip on the glass tightened. I didn’t answer. He didn’t pry. He pushed the plate closer to me. “Eat up. You’re fading away.” I took a bite of the toast. The familiar combination of rich yolk and salted butter tasted like my childhood. Cole had always been a great cook. When we were kids and his house was empty, he was already making dinner for us by the time he was twelve. “Cole,” I mumbled around a mouthful of bread. “Thanks.” He sat across from me, a small, subtle smile touching his lips. “Since when do you say thanks to me?” In that moment, I thought: Thank God I have him. Without him, I would have fallen apart entirely. 8 The nightmare didn’t leave. Like a predator marking territory, it dragged me back into the dark every single night. The voice, the weight, the laughter—it grew sharper, more vivid with every passing hour. On the third night, I woke up gasping at 3:00 AM, my heart kicking against my ribs like a trapped bird. I curled under the duvet, staring at the halo of the nightlight, digging my nails into my palms until the sharp sting anchored me to reality. Then came the knock. Cole walked in carrying another glass of warm milk, sweetened with honey. “Drink it. It’ll help you sleep.” I reached for it, our fingers grazing. I flinched. “Why are your hands so cold?” “Just got out of bed. It’s nothing.” He stood by the bedside, looking down at me in the dim light. “What did you dream about tonight?” I bit the rim of the glass and stayed silent. He didn’t push. He leaned over, tucking the edge of the blanket around my shoulders. “Try not to think so much.” He turned and walked out. As the door clicked shut, a strange scent lingered in the air. Fresh laundry detergent… mixed with something metallic. Like rust. I inhaled deeply, but the scent was already gone. A trick of the mind, I thought. Just a ghost of a dream. 9 I fell into the rhythm of this new life. By day, I went to work, and Cole drove me there and back. “You’re in no state to drive,” he had said, and I hadn’t argued. Every afternoon at five, his sedan was idling at the curb outside my office. At night, he cooked dinner—braised ribs, garlic greens, clear broths. And there was always a glass of warm milk pushed across the table when we finished. “Drink it. It’s good for you.” I teased him once, “You’re starting to sound like my mother.” He froze for a fraction of a second, then ducked his head, shoveling rice into his mouth, the tips of his ears flushing pink. Lying in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, I caught myself thinking: Maybe living like this forever wouldn’t be so bad. The nightmares remained, but every night around three, he would knock, hand me the milk, wait until I drained the glass, and tuck me in before leaving. Every time the latch clicked, it felt like he had locked the terror outside the door. And then a sickening wave of guilt washed over me: I was sexually assaulted. What right do I have to feel this safe? 10 On the fourth night, the voice returned. “Don’t cry,” the whisper purred against my skin, fingers digging into my waist. “You can’t run from me.” I woke up with a violent jerk, gasping for air, clutching the sheets with bloodless fingers. The knock came instantly. Cole walked in with the glass, the amber nightlight softening the contours of his face. I watched him approach, a sudden thought cutting through the haze: “Cole… do you ever actually sleep?” His foot paused mid-step. He extended the glass, his expression unreadable. “Of course I sleep. I just wake up the second you make a sound.” “Do I make that much noise?” “Yeah.” He stood over me, his features cast in shadow. “You scream sometimes.” “…What do I scream?” Silence stretched between us for two seconds. “Couldn’t make it out,” he said softly. “Drink your milk. It’s the weekend tomorrow. I’ll take you to the ocean.” I didn’t press him. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I never make a sound in my sleep. I had slept like a stone since I was a child. My mother used to joke that an earthquake wouldn’t wake me. Later that same night, I woke up again. Not from a nightmare. My eyes simply opened. My breathing was steady, my pulse quiet, the room drowning in silence. I turned my head toward the base of the door. Through the crack beneath the wood, there was a faint, unbroken shadow. Someone was standing right outside. Motionless. Like a carved statue. I held my breath. The shadow didn’t budge. I stared at it for what felt like an eternity—one minute, five minutes, ten. Then, the shadow shifted. Almost imperceptible footsteps faded down the hall toward the adjacent room. I stared at the pale sliver of light beneath the door, my mind racing in the dark: How long was he standing there? Why? If I sleep like the dead, why does he knock the exact second my eyes open from a nightmare? Does he stand outside my door all night… or does he not sleep at all? 11 Day five. The coast. The wind was brutal. Cole had driven two hours to a deserted stretch of grey, rocky beach. The winter ocean was a dull slate, waves crashing heavily against the jagged stones, throwing cold mist into the air. He walked ahead of me. I stepped carefully into his footprints in the sand. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “Who do you think… did this to me?” He stopped and turned around. The wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead. “I’ll find him,” he said, his voice flat, emotionless. A sudden chill crawled down my spine. “And when you find him? What then?” He didn’t answer. He walked back to me, reached out, and pulled the zipper of my winter coat all the way up to my chin. His cold knuckles grazed my jaw. “Wind’s freezing. Don’t catch a cold.” Looking at his downcast eyes, an ancient memory surfaced. When Cole was brought back by his father years ago, he was gaunt, silent, his wrists lined with faint, pale scars. When kids at school cornered him, I threw myself into the fight. I ended up with a bloody nose, and Cole knelt on the asphalt to wipe the blood from my face, his hands trembling violently. Jesse, don’t be so good to me, he had whispered. You’re my best friend, I had told him. Who else am I supposed to protect? He had stared at me for a long time, his voice swallowed by the wind: Then don’t you ever regret it. I hadn’t understood him then. Standing on this desolate beach, watching his back, an inexplicable dread settled in my stomach. Something was profoundly wrong. But I had no proof, no logic, no shape to give the fear. That night, he brought the warm milk as usual. “Cole,” I said, peering over the rim of the glass. “You said last night I screamed.” He looked at me. “What did I say?” He stood beside the bed, silhouetted against the hall light. A heavy silence hung between us before he spoke. “You screamed: Don’t touch me.” My chest seized. “Anything else?” “No.” When he said no, the corner of his mouth twitched. A ghost of a smile, there and gone. I lowered the glass. “…How do you remember so clearly?” He tilted his head slightly. “When have I ever forgotten a single thing about you?” The words left me completely speechless. He leaned down and carefully wiped a drop of spilled milk from the wooden nightstand, his thumb dragging slowly across the grain. “Sleep now.” After the door closed, I stared at the half-empty glass for a long time. Then I poured every drop into the potted ivy sitting on the windowsill. I lay down, closed my eyes, and stayed wide awake. 12 2:47 AM. The door next door opened. Footsteps padded down the hall, stopping directly outside my room. This time, I didn’t open my eyes to look at the shadow. I pulled the blanket to my chin and curled into a tight, rigid ball. He stood outside the wood for an agonizingly long time. So long that I thought he was going to turn the knob. Eventually, the floorboards creaked. He moved away. 1:00 AM had passed. 2:00 AM had passed. No nightmares. Because I hadn’t slept at all. 3:00 AM. Silence. 3:15 AM. A knock sounded against my door. 13 “Jesse?” Cole’s voice filtered through the wood—gentle, hushed, the exact same tone he had used for the past four nights, as if terrified of startling me. I didn’t answer. He knocked twice more, and then the brass handle turned. The door swung open an inch. He stood in the frame holding a warm glass of milk, his dark pajamas buttoned neatly to the collar. “Another bad dream?” I sat up straight in bed, staring right into his eyes. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “I haven’t slept a wink tonight.” His hand froze. The surface of the milk trembled, sending ripples across the white liquid. The bedroom went dead silent for three beats. And then, his lips curved. It wasn’t the warm, reassuring smile of the past four days. The gentleness remained on his lips, but his eyes turned completely black, like ice fracturing over a deep, violent current. The look of a hunter realizing the prey had finally noticed the trap. “Is that right?” he murmured. He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. Click. The deadbolt fell into place. “Good,” he said, setting the glass on the nightstand. A soft sigh escaped him. “Playing the saint for five days was getting exhausting anyway.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “617937”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Right after accepting the proposal from Rio, the city’s elite trust-fund heir, I stumbled across a viral forum thread. “Idiot. She actually thinks I care about her personality. If she weren’t gorgeous, why would I date a mute?” “Once her looks fade, I’m dumping her.” The comment section was bashing him for being a total scumbag. He ignored them completely and kept updating: “She loves me so much, she’ll definitely be heartbroken when we break up. I’ll transfer some cash to compensate her first.” “The Maybach I just bought is pretty nice. I’ll give it to her so she doesn’t have to squeeze onto public buses after the breakup.” “The new luxury villa I bought is nice. I’ll give it to her so she isn’t homeless after the breakup.” The comment section was completely dumbfounded. Two years passed, and I ended up with countless luxury properties and cars under my name. His latest forum post: “Damn it, why is she getting prettier and prettier?” The comment section: “Bro, you two are literally married now, how is your mouth still this stubborn?” 1 Rio, the elite trust-fund heir of the city, had a mouth made of pure battery acid. If anyone annoyed him, he would tear them apart with a few sharp words. Yet, he spent six months pretending to be a sweet, devoted golden retriever just to woo me. He even learned American Sign Language just so he could communicate with me. When he confessed his feelings to me yet again, I built up the courage to sign back: “Why do you like me? I’m mute, and I’m an orphan. With your status, you deserve someone much better.” He smiled gently, his eyes filled with unwavering conviction. “Because you’re sweet and kind. I care about what’s on the inside.” Watching him clumsily move his fingers to sign those words, I was deeply moved and accepted his proposal to date. 2 Shortly after, I stumbled upon a viral forum thread while scrolling on my phone. “Idiot. She actually thinks I care about her personality. If she weren’t gorgeous, why would I date a mute?” “Once her looks fade, I’m dumping her immediately.” My heart skipped a beat. I tapped into the thread. The comment section was calling him out for being toxic. “That’s terrible.” “Holy hell, we found a real-life scumbag.” “Putting myself in the girl’s shoes, this is devastating. She has a disability and thought she found true love, only to end up with a shallow jerk who’s just using her for her looks.” “I’m begging you, dump her already. She deserves better, not a bottom-tier jerk like you.” The original poster skipped past all the insults and replied directly to the comment telling him to break up: “Telling me to dump her so you can steal her, right? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, you filthy home-wrecker.” “I spent months acting like a sweet little puppy in front of her, forcing myself not to utter a single curse word, wearing those ridiculous soft-boy hoodies.” “I don’t get why she likes the sweet puppy type. If she wants a dog, why doesn’t she just buy a real one?” “When she gets mad, she gives me the silent treatment, forcing me to swallow my pride and beg for forgiveness. I’m such an idiot, crawling back even when she ignores me.” “Once I dump her, I’m going back to being my true self.” The poster posted complaint after complaint. It was clear he had been holding in his resentment for a long time. The comment section didn’t hold back either: “Hilarious. You chose to pursue her, nobody forced you. What are you whining about now?” “Seriously, she’s so unlucky to run into a guy like you.” He replied furiously: “How is she unlucky? To chase her, I became her maid, her driver, and I destroyed my hands learning ASL, even though she can hear fine!” “Dammit, ASL is so hard, my fingers are almost broken. I don’t know how she deals with it every day, enduring so much malice from people.” The commenters subtly picked up on something strange. “Wait, is he actually feeling sorry for her?” “Hold on, ladies, something feels off about this guy…” “Bro, why force yourself to learn ASL if she can hear you?” He replied boastfully: “Because it shows sincerity! You have no idea how moved she was when she saw me signing. She even cried!” “She is utterly obsessed with me. When I drop the breakup bomb, she’ll probably pass out crying.” I looked at the familiar avatar and location tag. I smiled. Pass out crying? Not likely. 3 I typed a comment under an alt account. “OP, I support you. Once she isn’t pretty anymore, dump her immediately.” He replied within seconds: “Watch your mouth, you jerk!” I was speechless. Could my comment be any worse than his battery-acid tongue? I continued commenting: “I dated someone similar before. After breaking up, she stalked me relentlessly and even threatened to end her life.” He seemed startled and asked hurriedly: “How did you solve it?” “I gave her a $300,000 breakup payout.” He replied: “Only $300k? You cheapskate. I’m transferring money to her right now.” The next second, my phone buzzed with a $300,000 wire transfer notification. Then came a text from Rio: “Babe, you are my whole world. I’ll love you forever.” Me: “Babe, thank you! You’re so good to me. If you ever dump me, I’ll never recover.” Rio: “Don’t overthink, babe. I’m not that kind of guy.” Then he wired another $300,000. Looking at my bank balance, my shoulders shook with silent laughter. Idiot. Did he really think I was in this for love? I was here for his money, of course. Rio posted a screenshot of the transfer on the thread and made a point to reply to my comment. “Bro, your advice worked.” Suppressing my excitement, I kept prompting him: “Next step, I suggest you dump her fast. Ideally within a month, or it gets harder to break off.” Once I made enough cash, who wanted to keep working as his girlfriend? Unexpectedly, he ignored my comment completely and posted: “The Maybach I bought is nice. I’ll gift it to her so she doesn’t have to take the bus after we split.” “The new mansion is nice too. I’ll give it to her so she isn’t homeless after the breakup.” I covered my mouth in shock. Jackpot! The comment section exploded with question marks. “Are you pulling my leg?” “Did I stumble into a billionaire’s thread?” “Wait, are you for real? Who are you backstabbing?” “Ladies, this twist is hitting my poor nerves.” “I thought he was a shallow jerk, but he’s a billionaire learning ASL and gifting mansions while totally oblivious that he’s whipped!” He replied: “You know nothing. I’m just pretending to be whipped. It’s all part of my master plan.” Comments: “Your mouth is harder than tungsten steel.” “If you fell face first, your stubborn mouth would puncture the Earth.” “Sir, your mouth isn’t soft at all.” “If you told us you were like this earlier, I wouldn’t have insulted you. I’d call you hubby right now.” “Hubby, I’m mute too, and I’m very pretty.” “Me too! I’m not mute, but I’m gorgeous. Check your DMs.” “Hubby, I’m not picky. I don’t want your mansion or Maybach, I just want to get dumped by you.” In an instant, the comment section shifted completely. Women were calling him hubby and posting pretty selfies. Dammit, so many competitors appeared out of nowhere. Rio is a superficial playboy. What if someone steals him away? My Maybach and mansion haven’t even been transferred to my name yet. Can everyone wait until I secure the assets before trying to steal him? I was genuinely worried. 4 To my surprise, Rio blasted them directly: “Back off, all of you! I hate gold-digging home-wreckers the most. Blocked!” The comment section fought back: “You call us gold-diggers, but did you ever think your girlfriend is in it for your money too? Why else did she accept your cash?” “Exactly! Maybe the person telling you to transfer money in the comments IS your girlfriend’s burner account!” I froze. Are netizens really this sharp nowadays? What if Rio actually believes them? While I was panicking… Rio replied with his usual battery acid: “Shut your trash mouth. Your heart is filthy so you see filth everywhere. My babe is nothing like that!” “Say another word and I’ll flame you until you delete your account.” 5 Actually, long before I met Rio, I had heard of his reputation. He was an outright superficial playboy. None of his relationships lasted past two months. Once he broke up with someone, he would hand them a massive breakup payout. A girl from my dorm used to date him, and when they split, he gave her a $100,000 payout. I nearly died of jealousy back then. Unexpectedly, that roommate refused the money, crying and threatening to jump off a roof to win him back. Rio didn’t even show his face. He turned around and flew to Europe with another girl. Eventually, that roommate suffered a breakdown and dropped out of school. Back then, I thought to myself: if it were me, I wouldn’t throw a fit. I’d just ask for a bigger payout. As a poor orphan who was mute, finding a job was extremely difficult. Even if I found one, surviving in the workplace would be tough. If I could somehow get a large sum of money, I’d be set for the rest of my life. So, I spent a bit of money to track down his schedule and the places he frequented. Then, I casually crossed paths with him. To my surprise, he took the bait the very first time we met. Turns out, attracting a shallow guy is easy. As long as you’re gorgeous enough, you don’t have to do anything and he’ll come right over. Now, besides cash, I unexpectedly scored a mansion and a car. I overachieved my goal. Next, all I had to do was behave and wait for him to dump me. 6 Strangely enough, two months passed. I waited every single day for Rio to drop the breakup bomb, but he showed no intention of breaking up. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. Did I get prettier again? I walked over to the mirror and checked. Not at all. Lately, because of my senior thesis, I had been pulling all-nighters. Dark circles hung down to my cheeks, breakouts popped up everywhere, and my face was puffy. I looked so rough I scared myself. Right on cue, Rio sent a text message. “Babe, let me take you out on the yacht this weekend, okay? I haven’t seen you in two days, I miss you so much.” Here came my chance. If I showed up looking like this, Rio would definitely dump me on the spot. Sure enough, on the yacht… The moment Rio saw me, the smile on his face froze. Without a word, he stood up and left the lounge. He left me standing there awkwardly, feeling at a loss. His friend noticed and walked over to greet me. Fearing the music was too loud for me to read lips, his friend spoke very slowly: “Rio is just tired. Sit here for a bit, I’ll go check on him.” I was slightly dazed. Every time Rio saw me in the past, he acted like an excited puppy seeing its owner, running over to hug and cuddle me. Now… See? Once a man loses interest in you, his disgust is undisguised. I picked a spot to sit down, pulled out my phone, and opened his forum thread. As expected, he updated. He probably wanted to ask netizens how to dump me. Opening it up, I was stunned. He posted: “We didn’t see each other for two days, why did she get even prettier?” “My heart is pounding so fast looking at her. I want to hold her and kiss her senseless, but I’m afraid she’ll get mad.” “Rookie mistake. I shouldn’t have invited other people today.” I was completely baffled. Does he have vision problems?! I looked terrible today! Where did I get prettier?! Comments: “Whipped into an idiot again, bro.” “Happily whipped, bro!” “Whether you’re a scumbag or romance-brained, I can tell.” “To be honest, I preferred your arrogant, rebellious attitude from before.” “Am I the only one curious about how gorgeous his girlfriend actually is? She turned him into a spinning top.” He shot back ruthlessly: “Who says I’m whipped? I’m stating facts! She did get prettier! Once her looks fade, I’m still going to dump her ruthlessly.” “With her temper, I can’t tolerate her for long.” The comments exposed him without mercy: “Then dump her already! Two months passed, you didn’t dump her, and you’re even more obsessed! What should I say about you?” He replied: “I know what I’m doing. Mind your own business.” Comments: “Your mouth is the toughest thing on your body. If you actually split, you’ll be weeping.” “Who understands? I really want to see OP get hit in the face after a breakup.” “He’ll definitely be crying like a boiling kettle while begging for her back, all while claiming he doesn’t care.” “Hahaha, just thinking about it is hilarious.” “By the way, can someone track down his girlfriend and send this thread to her? Then SHE can dump him, hahaha.” Rio snapped: “Is it that funny? Believe it or not, I’ll smash my head against a wall to show you!” What the commenters didn’t know was that guys like Rio, who fell hard and fast, dumped people the hardest. The real victims were the slow-burn types who fell in love right before getting dumped. So I kept reminding myself: I must never fall for him. He approached me with motives, and I was milking his money with a clear conscience. Maybe in another lifetime, if I reincarnate as a billionaire, I’ll repay him. 7 Scrolling down to a comment, I paused. “Stop romanticizing OP. He’s just obsessed because he hasn’t slept with her yet. Once a guy gets what he wants, he loses interest fast. No exceptions.” Is that true? “Babe, what are you looking at?” I didn’t know when Rio had appeared behind me. Startled, I hurriedly hid my phone behind my back. “Want to watch a movie?” I nodded. Inside the dim, private screening room… Rio slowly leaned closer, his voice raspy: “Stella, can I kiss you?” I suddenly remembered that comment. If doing this could make him dump me, it wouldn’t hurt to try. “Can I?” Rio asked again, his ears turning red. I bit my lip and nodded. He immediately leaned in and kissed me. His hot palm pressed against the back of my head, kissing me with urgent intensity. It was as if he had been holding back for a long time. At such close range, Rio’s face looked even more refined. Sharp brows, deep eyes, a high nose bridge. Although he was a shallow guy, he was undeniably handsome. With these looks, even male celebrities would pale in comparison. No wonder my former roommate threatened to jump off a roof instead of breaking up with him. I still remembered the first time I met him, I was completely stunned. My roommate had described him as average-looking, humorous, and great at charming girls. What I saw was a guy with striking looks and a mouth made of pure battery acid. He once took me to meet his friends. One girl mocked me covertly for being a mute on financial assistance, claiming I didn’t deserve Rio, the city’s elite heir. Rio slammed his glass down and flamed her on the spot: “Who gave you permission to judge my girlfriend? What kind of trash are you?” “You act tough around guys every day, but the moment a girl shows up, you reveal your toxic nature?” “Are you going to get lost yourself, or stay and let me finish flaming you?” The girl slunk away in embarrassment. Turning around, meeting my startled eyes, his face instantly softened as he comforted me gently: “Babe, ignore her. She’s a terrible person. You deserve me eight hundred times over.” “You’re way out of my league.” It made me wonder if I had mistaken him for someone else. After all, many people shared the same name. It wasn’t until I found his forum thread that I confirmed I hadn’t mistaken him. It was just playboy tactics. They loved playing the devoted lover, but when the breakup arrived, you could jump off a building and it still wouldn’t win them back. 8 Rio’s kiss deepened, as if trying to swallow me whole. After kissing for ten minutes, he finally released me, his eyes hazy and breath heavy: “Stella, it hurts… can we?” “Don’t worry, I haven’t done this before. I’m clean.” I rolled my eyes internally. He was practically living like a playboy, yet he claimed he hadn’t done it before? He could lie all he wanted, but did he think I’d buy it? Still, this fit my goal. Besides, I had been eyeing his physique for a while too. I feigned bashfulness, lowering my head and signing: “Your friends are outside… they’ll hear…” “It’s fine, I locked the door.” But… My gaze shifted downward… Looking at his impressive build… I furrowed my brows in concern. With our size difference, doing this might actually be the end of me. As if sensing my hesitation, he patted his chest like an obedient puppy, promising firmly: “Don’t be scared, I’ll be gentle. If it’s too much, tap my back and I’ll stop, okay?” 9 I believed his trick. When it became too much and I slammed my hands against his back frantically… He acted like he had lost all feeling. In the end, I had no choice but to kick him off the bed before he finally behaved. Afterward, he knelt on one knee before me, helping me clean up while signing earnestly: “Babe, I’m sorry. When you tapped so fast, I thought you were praising me and telling me to go faster.” My face burned bright red hearing that. I lifted my foot to kick him again. He caught my ankle firmly. Rio’s throat bobbed: “If you don’t believe me, let me show you again. I promise I won’t do that this time.” Get lost! His hidden motives were practically written on his face. Wasn’t he exhausted after so many rounds? Whatever, I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. I lay on the bed and fell into a heavy sleep. In my half-dazed state, I felt him wrapping his arms around me, dropping his puppy act and speaking in a low, possessive tone: “Stella, you are mine. Mine for the rest of your life.” Where did this possessive ghost come from? Get away! Scared, I sat straight up. Thank goodness it was just a dream. I thought after that night, he would lose interest in me completely. To my absolute dismay, he became even more clingy. I was in despair. Why wasn’t this guy following the playbook?!

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1 The wedding march was three measures in. I stood at the beginning of the aisle in a strapless silk gown embroidered with thousands of micro-crystals, feeling the weight of the train pooling behind me. All I had to do was wait for Simon to walk down from the altar, take my hand, and lead me the rest of the way. Every seat in the cathedral was taken. Across the nave, the champagne tower caught the morning light filtering through the stained glass, throwing fractured diamonds across the pews. In the front row, my mother, Susan, clutched a lace handkerchief in her trembling fist, her eyes rimmed with red, smiling with a joy so fierce it looked like relief. Seven years. From eighteen to twenty-five. From cramped college dorms to the anchor desk at Channel 7 News. Everyone in our circle said the same thing: Nora Hayes was the luckiest woman in the city because Simon Mercer had carried her on his palms for nearly a decade. He stood under the vaulted archway, sharp in his bespoke tuxedo. I gathered the heavy satin of my skirt and took a step toward him. Then another. I was three paces away when his shoulders hitched. Simon winced, pressing the heel of his palm hard against his temple. He swayed, his knees buckling slightly, and Marcus, his best man, lunged forward to steady his elbow. “Simon?” A knot tightened in my throat. I reached out, my fingers brushing the lapel of his jacket, but he snapped his head up. The eyes that had watched over me for seven years—eyes that had always held a gentle, almost suffocating warmth—were completely blank. He looked through me as if I were a sheet of glass. A stranger trespassing in his line of sight. “Who are you?” he asked. The cathedral went dead. A rustle of confusion rippled through four hundred guests like dry leaves scraping across concrete. I froze. The train of my dress suddenly felt like cast iron anchored to the stone floor. Simon didn’t spare me another second. He looked straight past my bare shoulder, his gaze locking onto the second row of mahogany pews on the left. Evelyn Ward. His childhood friend. The fragile, sickly girl whose family lived next door to his growing up—the one who claimed the world was too loud, too sharp, and that she couldn’t survive without him nearby. Simon shook off Marcus’s grip. He walked past me with brisk, purposeful strides. Then, beneath the gaze of hundreds of colleagues, socialites, and my weeping mother, Simon sank onto one knee on the burgundy runner. He looked up at Evelyn, his microphone clipping his lapel, his voice low, steady, and amplified through every speaker in the vaulted ceiling. “Evelyn, marry me.” A pause, thick as suffocating smoke. “I’ve loved you for so long.” 2 The blood drained from my limbs, leaving my veins filled with slush. Marcus broke the trance first. He bolted down the aisle and grabbed Simon by the collar of his jacket. “Are you out of your goddamn mind, Simon?!” His voice echoed sharply against the limestone walls. “Seven years! Nora is the bride today! She’s twenty-four weeks pregnant with your twins! Don’t pull this psychotic stunt now!” Simon pulled his arm free with a light, dismissive scoff, looking at Marcus like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery aisle. “Pregnant?” Simon turned his head slightly, glancing at me. The sheer indifference in his expression—the faint, patronizing irritation—was a blunt knife sawing slowly into my sternum. “I don’t know her,” he said. The room erupted. “What is happening? Did he have another episode?” “Is his amnesia back?” “Jesus Christ, what about Nora? Look at her bump…” My mother tried to stand, her hands gripping the pew in front of her, her lips trembling so violently she couldn’t form a syllable. I stood frozen in the middle of the aisle, my fingers gripping the stems of white calla lilies until the stalks snapped and green sap stained my satin gloves. Marcus’s face was gray. He gripped Simon by the nape of his neck and half-dragged him toward the private vestry off the side of the altar. The heavy oak door didn’t catch. It remained open by a sliver. I moved toward it like a sleepwalker, my feet carrying me across the stone floor without my permission, until I was pressed against the shadowed molding outside. Their voices cut through the jamb with razor clarity. “Are you really going to keep this charade going?” Marcus’s voice was a furious hiss. “Evelyn has a bad week, so you turn Nora into the town joke in front of four hundred people?” Charade. The amnesia. It was fake. The tips of my fingers went numb. A silence hung in the room for several seconds. When Simon spoke, it was that same low, measured voice I had fallen asleep to for seven years—reasonable, calm, utterly devoid of guilt. “Evelyn is spiraling, Marcus. Her doctor said the stress could trigger another cardiac event.” “So you destroy your pregnant fiancée?!” “Evelyn depends on me. She only listens to me,” Simon said evenly, as if explaining an algebraic equation. “I have to give her absolute, unmistakable proof that she comes first. It’s the only way to stabilize her.” Marcus sounded incredulous. “And Nora? She’s six months along! You humiliated her at her own wedding! What happens when she finds out this was all staged?” “Nora will fix herself.” The reply came without an instant of hesitation. “She’s always been sensible, Marcus. Since she was a kid, she’s known how to handle her own mess. With my intermittent amnesia as an excuse, she’ll rationalize it. She always finds an excuse for me.” 3 My spine pressed flat against the chilled plaster. So that was it. The rare, tragic diagnosis. The transient dissociative amnesia his private neurologist had supposedly confirmed three years ago. Every time he looked at me with unrecognizing eyes. Every time he abandoned our anniversary dinners to rush across town because Evelyn couldn’t breathe. Every time he wavered between two women, retreating into the fortress of a convenient, untestable mental fog. It was theater. Seven years of immaculate, rehearsed theater. And for seven years, I had believed him. I had wiped my own tears in hospital waiting rooms, smoothed things over with his horrified friends, comforted my weeping mother, and swallowed every humiliation whole. I had held his hand in the dark and told him, It’s okay, Simon. I love you enough for the both of us. We’ll wait for you to come back. I was the clown in his private circus. Inside the vestry, Simon spoke again, adjusting his cuffs. “Stay out of it, Marcus. If something happens to Evelyn because I hesitated, I won’t be able to live with myself.” I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the small, desperate ember of love I had nurtured since I was eighteen was gone. Not smothered. Crushed into fine, gray powder. He was right about one thing. I was sensible. I knew how to fix myself. And once I fixed myself, I didn’t want his child. And I didn’t want him. I turned around, lifting the hem of my dress, and walked back onto the raised platform. The officiant was still standing frozen behind the pulpit, holding the leather-bound service book like a shield. Four hundred guests stared at me, their eyes burning into my skin like branding irons. I didn’t look back at them. I walked up to the minister, reached out, and took the wireless microphone from his hand. The metal casing was still warm from Simon’s palm. I turned to the congregation. My voice, honed by years of live news broadcasts, came out entirely level. “Thank you all for coming,” I said. “Please consider this your official notice: the wedding is canceled.” Total silence fell over the room. “From this moment forward, Simon Mercer and I have no relation to one another. Our lives are separate.” I set the microphone gently on the wooden lectern. I stepped down from the dais just as the vestry door swung open. Simon stepped out. Hearing my announcement, his face didn’t register a flicker of surprise or panic. He didn’t even look in my direction. Instead, he walked straight back to the second row. He leaned over Evelyn Ward, brushed a stray dark curl away from her forehead, and smiled with infinite tenderness. “Little princess,” he murmured, his voice carrying clearly in the quiet. “Want to ditch this place with me?” A sharp intake of breath rippled across the pews. I smiled. A tiny, genuine pull at the corner of my mouth. It was astonishing how quiet a heart could be when it finally stopped beating for someone. I walked to the front row where my mother sat. Her tears were soaking through her lapels, her hands shaking so hard she couldn’t pick up her purse. “Nora…” she choked out. “My sweet girl…” I pulled a tissue from my pocket, gently dabbed the corners of her eyes, and kept my voice low. “It’s over, Mom. Let’s go home.” 4 After settling my mother into a quiet boutique hotel room downtown and making sure she had taken her blood pressure medication, I called an Uber. The driver glanced at my smeared eyeliner in the rearview mirror. “Where to, miss?” “St. Jude Women’s Pavilion,” I said. “Emergency admission.” He didn’t ask another question. Outside the window, the neon signs of the city blurred into streaks of magenta and cold blue. My hand rested instinctively on the swell of my belly. Twenty-four weeks. Twins. Two little boys. The sonographer had told me at my last scan that they were thriving, measuring slightly ahead of schedule, curled around each other like two small apples. I used to keep the ultrasound printouts hidden in a locked folder on my phone, waiting for Simon’s next “lucid period” so we could celebrate together. There would be no celebration. At the hospital, I bypassed the regular triage desk and checked in directly at maternal-fetal medicine. The intake nurse took my chart, glanced at my driver’s license, and then looked down at my intake form. Her pen stopped moving. “Ms. Hayes,” she said, her voice dropping to a cautious, clinical whisper. “You’re requesting a late-term termination for a twin pregnancy?” “Yes.” “Given your gestational age, this requires medical induction and a surgical evacuation. The risks are substantial. Severe hemorrhaging, uterine scarring, infection, and a permanent risk of secondary infertility.” She hesitated, looking at the diamond engagement ring still on my left hand. “Is your partner here? Have you discussed this with your family?” I looked down at my lap. My fingers curled into a fist, then slowly relaxed. Discuss it? With whom? With the man who dropped to one knee before another woman while his unborn children were inside me? I knew better than anyone what it felt like to grow up in the shadow of a lie. My mother had been deceived into being a married man’s secret mistress for seven agonizing years. I had spent my childhood hearing the whispers behind closed doors, branded a bastard child by suburban neighbors who looked at me with pity and disgust. I swore on my life that my children would never inherit that legacy. They would never be treated as the collateral damage of a coward’s double life. “I don’t need to discuss it,” I said, meeting her eyes. “My signature is on the consent form. Please prepare the room.” 5 Before they wheeled me into the procedure suite, the nurse prepped my arm for an IV line. I turned my head away, watching the fluorescent lights humming in the ceiling. My phone buzzed on the stainless steel bedside stand. A push notification from Instagram. I unlocked the screen with an unsteady thumb. It was a new post from Evelyn Ward. In the photo, she was wearing my custom-tailored silk reception gown—the one I had left in the bridal suite—reclining into Simon’s chest. The background was the ballroom at the St. Regis, where our reception had been scheduled. The five-tier cake stood behind them; the champagne tower remained untouched. Her caption read: Rock bottom isn’t terrifying when someone chooses you again and again, healing every wound you never thought would close. A cascade of likes rolled in beneath it. Marcus’s profile picture was among them. I stared at the image. Her childhood insecurities were worthy of being healed by Simon’s public, theatrical devotion. But my life, my mother’s dignity, and the two heartbeats fluttering beneath my ribs were simply disposable. I laid my hand flat against my stomach. A bitter, metallic taste flooded my mouth. “Family needs to step out,” the transport tech announced, pulling open the curtain. “We’re rolling.” I closed my eyes. As the propofol burned through my vein, cold and thick, I heard something deep in my chest snap. A clean, final fracture. 6 The surgery was complicated by heavy bleeding. The attending physician informed me that my uterine wall was thinned, and the blood loss had exceeded typical thresholds. I had to remain in the recovery bay until late afternoon with an abdominal pressure pack. I lay under the scratchy hospital sheet, watching the water stains on the ceiling tiles. My stomach was flat again. Empty. The emptiness hurt worse than the physical cramping tearing through my pelvis. At four o’clock, the doctor finally signed my discharge papers. “Bed rest for at least two weeks, Ms. Hayes. No heavy lifting, no cold baths, and absolutely no emotional stress. If the bleeding picks up again, come straight to the ER.” I nodded. I stopped by an attorney’s office two blocks from the hospital. In thirty minutes, an experienced family lawyer drafted a clean separation agreement and property division for our co-owned property. She was an older woman who listened to the timeline with tightening lips and a trembling jaw. “You should have left him years ago, dear,” she murmured as she stamped the notary seal. “I know,” I said. By the time the cab dropped me off at our high-rise condominium, twilight had bruised into navy blue. Every step up the carpeted hallway felt like walking through wet cement. I leaned against the doorframe, catching my breath before punching in the keypad code. The door clicked open. I froze. The living room lights were glowing softly. Evelyn was curled up on our Italian leather sofa, draped in my champagne silk robe—the one I had bought three months ago for my wedding night. She held a mug of chamomile tea, looking entirely at home. When the lock beeped, she looked up, her expression entirely neutral. “What are you doing here?” she asked. From the kitchen, the hum of the range hood clicked off. Simon walked out carrying two plates of glazed salmon. The moment his eyes landed on me, his brows knit into an irritated scowl. “Are you serious, Nora?” His tone was thick with exhaustion, like an exasperated homeowner dealing with a persistent stray dog. “I don’t even remember you right now. Stalking me back to my apartment—isn’t this getting pathetic?” Evelyn gave his arm a gentle, playful nudge. “Simon, be nice.” I stood by the entrance console, a cold draft sliding through my coat. My limbs were shaking from blood loss, but the sheer absurdity of the tableau gave me a strange, chilling clarity. I reached into my bag, pulled out the manila envelope, and tossed it onto the kitchen island. “Simon,” I said, my voice deadpan. “How long do you plan to keep playing the amnesia card?” 7 Simon’s hand froze mid-air, the plate hovering an inch above the marble island. The silence that followed was suffocating. He set the plate down slowly. Without looking at me, he walked over to Evelyn, whispered a few soothing words into her ear, guided her gently into the master bedroom, and pulled the door shut behind her. When he turned back around, the blankness in his eyes was gone. He looked exhausted, calculating, and slightly annoyed. “Marcus told you?” he asked quietly. I didn’t answer. He let out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as if organizing his patience. “Nora, Evelyn’s nervous system is shot. She’s been in and out of clinics since we were kids. She relies on me. If I don’t give her absolute reassurance, she spirals into self-harm.” “And me?” I asked. It wasn’t an accusation; it was barely a question. He hesitated for two seconds. “You’re overcomplicating things. It’s an outward gesture, Nora. You know I have an obligation to her—” “An obligation?” “I care about her,” he said smoothly. “But I love you.” I stared at him. The man I had shared a bed with for seven years. He had managed to reduce seven years of gaslighting, public humiliation, and calculated abandonment into a tidy little phrase: an outward gesture. Seeing my silence, Simon softened his posture. He took a step toward me, reaching out to pat my shoulder like an adult soothing an unreasonable child. “Be good, Nora. Don’t throw a fit over optics. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to City Hall. We’ll get the marriage license signed properly. Just the two of us.” City Hall. In seven years, he had proposed three times, and all three times, the actual registry appointment had been canceled because Evelyn had an emergency. Now, he was offering me a courthouse signing like a bone thrown to a dog. I nudged the manila envelope toward him with one finger. “Keep it,” I said. “We’re breaking up—” The master bedroom door slammed open. Evelyn charged out, her hands clutching her head, her face pale and damp with tears. “You’re leaving me… you’re going to marry her anyway… I can’t breathe, Simon, I can’t do this anymore—” She stumbled toward the floor-to-ceiling balcony doors. Simon’s face drained of color. He lunged across the living room, catching her around the waist just before she reached the sliding glass. “Evelyn! Stop! Look at me!” She thrashed in his arms, sobbing hysterically. Then, suddenly, she turned her head, saw me standing by the island, and lunged. Her fingers hooked into my hair before I could react. Crack. Her open palm struck my cheekbone. “You!” she screamed, her spit hitting my face. “You’re trying to steal him from me! Get out! Leave him alone!” A second slap landed across my ear, followed by a third. My post-op body had no balance; my knees buckled, and I went down hard on the hardwood floor. A sharp, hot tear ripped through my pelvic wall, and the taste of copper filled my mouth. Before I could push myself up, Evelyn abruptly dropped to her knees, clutching her own shoulders, shaking violently. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” she sobbed into the carpet. “I didn’t mean to… I couldn’t control it…” Simon dropped beside her, wrapping both arms around her trembling frame, pulling her tightly against his chest. Then, he looked up at me. There was no horror in his face. No instinct to help me up. Only cold, mounting resentment. “Nora,” he snapped, his voice sharp with blame. “You know how unstable she is. Why did you have to come back here and trigger her?” 8 I lay on the floor for a long time, unable to gather enough strength in my core to stand. Through the veil of my disheveled hair, I saw Evelyn resting her cheek against Simon’s shoulder. As his hand stroked the back of her head, she tilted her chin slightly. Her eyes met mine. And in that split second, her trembling lips curved into a distinct, razor-sharp smirk. It was deliberate. Triumphant. A cold numbness spread through my chest, drowning out the throbbing pain in my cheek. I dragged myself up, using the side of an armchair for leverage. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely keep my grip. Before I could take a step toward the guest room, Simon’s hand shot out and clamped around my wrist. He was still kneeling, looking up at me with an unyielding scowl. “Apologize to her, Nora.” Apologize. The word echoed in the empty spaces of my mind. With it, the very last fragment of warmth I had preserved for this man vanished completely. I jerked my wrist out of his grip with every ounce of strength I had left. Without a word, I stumbled into the guest bedroom, dragged my duffel bag from the closet, and began tossing my clothes inside. Outside, Evelyn’s muffled whimpering continued through the drywall. “Simon… did I ruin everything again? I didn’t want to hurt her… my chest hurts so much…” Simon’s voice was lower than silk. “It’s not your fault, Evie. I’m right here. You’re safe.” I sank onto the carpet, my forehead pressed against the zipper of my suitcase, my nails digging into the skin of my palms until they bled. Halfway through packing, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket. It was Sandra Powell, the executive producer at Channel 7. I took three shallow breaths, swallowed the blood pooling behind my teeth, and answered. “Sandra?” “Nora, thank God you picked up,” Sandra said, her voice taut with urgency. “Someone leaked the footage from the cathedral. It’s on TikTok, and local news blogs have picked it up.” My stomach plummeted. “What are they saying?” “Someone claiming to be an insider is running a smear campaign on Twitter,” Sandra said, sighing heavily. “They’re framing you as a homewrecker who trapped a wealthy man with a pregnancy while his sick childhood sweetheart was pushed aside. The comments are disgusting, Nora. Broadcast standards has already called me. You need to keep your head down, or management is going to pull you off the six o’clock broadcast.” I closed my eyes. “I understand. Thank you for the heads-up, Sandra.” I hung up and tapped on Twitter. The top trending post under our city’s hashtag was from an account called @EvelynsSun. It was a detailed, emotional thread narrating the tragic romance of Simon Mercer and his delicate childhood love, portraying me as the opportunistic, ambitious journalist who wedged herself between them using an unplanned pregnancy as leverage. The final tweet read: I don’t understand why Ms. Hayes had to do this. Simon and I grew up together; we only took a break. But as long as he’s happy, I will step aside. The replies were a wall of vitriol: —Desperate social climber gets what she deserves. —Getting pregnant out of wedlock to secure a bag? Classic. —Justice for the real partner. My vision blurred, the edges turning gray and static. A cold sweat broke out across my collarbone. I tried to brace myself against the bed frame, but my hands slipped. The room tilted violently, and darkness swallowed the floor. 9 I woke up to the smell of hospital-grade antiseptic and the steady hum of an IV monitor. I turned my head. Simon was sitting in the vinyl armchair beside the bed, looking rumpled and tired. When he saw my eyes open, a flicker of relief—and perhaps a ghost of affection—crossed his face. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a fever?” he asked softly. “If Evelyn hadn’t heard you collapse in the guest room, you could have gone into septic shock.” He reached out, his hand cool against my forehead. “The fever finally broke.” I looked away from him, staring at the sterile white curtain. The window showed a pitch-black night. I reached toward the bedside table for my phone. Simon’s hand moved quickly, hovering over the screen before he reluctantly handed it over. “Don’t look at it right now, Nora. You need to rest.” My chest tightened. I swiped the screen open. Over eighty missed calls. Dozens of frantic texts from colleagues and college friends. And on the local trending tab, a new headline blazed: #Channel7AnchorNoraHayes HighSchoolScandal My thumb shook as I opened the link. Three hours ago, @EvelynsSun had posted another update. This time, she claimed to be a former high school classmate of mine from suburban Ohio. The thread alleged that I had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with our married track coach, Mr. Harrison, causing a scandal in our district. Attached was a class graduation photo. And next to it: a grainy, telephoto shot of Mr. Harrison walking into an OB-GYN clinic in Cleveland, his hand resting on the shoulder of a young woman whose back was turned to the camera. The angle made her hair and posture look eerily identical to mine at seventeen. The caption read: I wasn’t going to say anything, but since she ruined an innocent woman’s wedding, everyone should know the truth about how she operates. A tear slipped silently down my temple, soaking into the cotton pillowcase. I looked at Simon. “Ruining my career. Does that make the two of you feel better?” Simon answered instantly, his tone defensive. “This has nothing to do with Evelyn.” His certainty was absolute. “She doesn’t know anyone from your high school. She wouldn’t even know where to find these pictures. You probably crossed someone in the industry, Nora. An ambitious rival taking advantage of the wedding press.” He paused, his eyes shifting away from mine toward the baseboard. “Or,” he added quietly, “maybe there’s some truth to it.” 10 A sharp, acidic burn shot straight through my sinuses. I stared at him, my voice barely audible. “You think it’s true?” Simon kept his eyes fixed on the wall. “True or not, it doesn’t matter anymore, Nora. It’s in the past. I wouldn’t leave you over something that happened when you were a teenager.” My ribs felt like they were collapsing inward, suffocating my lungs under an impossible weight. My phone rang again. It was Sandra Powell. I pressed the speaker button, my voice hoarse. “Sandra.” “Nora,” Sandra sighed, sounding bone-tired. “You know corporate policy on morality clauses. With the station’s parent company going through a merger, management won’t tolerate this kind of press.” “I understand.” “Take a personal leave. Settle your domestic situation. We’re moving Jessica up to cover the evening desk starting tomorrow.” The call ended with a dull click. The phone slipped from my limp fingers, landing against the rough hospital blanket. I stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the tiny black dots in the plaster. When I spoke, my voice was a flat, dead whisper. “Simon.” “We’re done.” “Get out of my life.” Simon sighed, pressing his fingers into the corners of his eyes. His tone shifted back to that practiced, patronizing cadence—the voice he used when I was being ‘difficult.’ “Stop it, Nora. I know you’re humiliated. I know you’re upset.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the mattress. “But you won’t leave me. We’ve been together seven years. You’re carrying my children. You don’t know how to exist without me, and I know you’re not going to raise those babies alone.” Seven years of devotion. My unborn twins. To him, they weren’t sacred milestones of a shared life. They were leverage. Guarantees that I would remain his compliant, ever-forgiving spectator. The hollow ache in my chest didn’t flare into rage. It settled into a cold, flat calm. His phone buzzed in his breast pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the caller ID, and immediately stood up. “I need to take this,” he murmured. Two minutes later, he pushed the door back open, pulling his coat on. “Evelyn is having another panic attack,” he said briskly. “Her blood pressure is through the roof. I have to go back and check on her.” He walked to the foot of the bed, his tone matter-of-fact. “You’re an adult, Nora. Learn to take care of yourself for one night. Stop overthinking everything.” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” The door clicked shut. His footsteps receded down the linoleum hallway. I looked back at the ceiling. I couldn’t even summon the energy to feel disappointed. 11 Ten minutes after Simon left, a floor nurse entered with an IV bag of saline. She paused at the door, glancing down the empty hallway where Simon had just disappeared. “Was that your husband?” she asked, adjusting the flow valve. “I tried to catch him at the nurses’ station to go over your discharge restrictions. You had a late-term surgical termination of twins yesterday morning, followed by a secondary uterine hemorrhage. You cannot be left alone under any circumstances—” She stopped, noticing my silence. “He told you he had an emergency?” she guessed, her professional mask cracking into quiet sympathy. “Yes,” I whispered. She hung the bag on the metal stand and gently tucked the blanket around my shoulders. “You’ve had two significant bleeds in thirty-six hours, Ms. Hayes. Your hemoglobin is critically low. You cannot afford an emotional breakdown right now. Please, try to sleep.” I nodded, closing my eyes, letting the saline drip cold into my arm. By three o’clock the following afternoon, my fever had vanished, and the cramping had dulled to a low, manageable ache. I signed my own discharge against medical advice and called a cab back to the condominium to gather the rest of my legal documents and clothing. The penthouse was silent when I entered. On the glass coffee table in the center of the living room sat a massive bouquet of three dozen long-stemmed red roses. And resting against the crystal vase were two embossed leather folders. State of New York. Certificate of Marriage. My feet seemed to root themselves to the floorboards. I walked forward as if drawn by a wire, reaching out with a trembling hand to open the top folder. The gold lettering gleamed beneath the recessed spotlights. The photograph showed Simon Mercer in a crisp charcoal suit, and Evelyn Ward wearing a cream lace dress with a fingertip veil. Both of them were smiling with effortless, radiant ease. The date stamped at the bottom was today. Ten o’clock this morning. A dry, hollow laugh escaped my throat. Last night, in my hospital room, he had promised to take me to City Hall to ‘make things right.’ This morning, he had married Evelyn Ward. The bedroom door clicked open. Simon walked out carrying a glass of water. When he saw me standing over the coffee table holding the certificate, he froze. “Nora? What are you doing out of the hospital?” His gaze shifted to the papers in my hand. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t flinch. He simply exhaled a slow, weary sigh, as if explaining an inconvenient administrative delay. “Evelyn is pregnant,” he said. I stared at him. “Last month, on our anniversary trip, you got angry about her calling me and took the train home early,” Simon explained calmly. “She came over to the hotel. We were both drinking. It happened once.” He took a sip of water. “She started vomiting yesterday morning. I took her to urgent care, and the blood test confirmed it. She’s five weeks along.” He looked at me with an expression that bordered on pity. “Nora, she isn’t strong like you. She couldn’t survive the social shame of having a child out of wedlock. I couldn’t let my baby be born a bastard. So we went down to the municipal clerk this morning.” 12 The word hung in the air between us like cyanide. Bastard. I stood there, feeling the cold weight of the leather folder in my palm, my mind struggling to process the sheer depravity of his logic. “And my children?” I asked. My voice sounded thin, scraping against the back of my throat like dry sandpaper. “My twins… they’re supposed to be born bastards?” Simon sighed again, stepping closer, his voice dropping into that soothing, reasonable register. “Once you deliver, we’ll handle it legally. We can arrange an open adoption agreement through Evelyn. On paper, she’ll be their mother of record, and they’ll have the Mercer name. No one will ever know.” He reached out, his fingers lightly brushing my arm. “Nora, a piece of paper doesn’t change what we have. Even with this marriage, you are the woman I love. Nothing between us has to change. You’ve always been sensible, Nora. You understand why I had to do this, don’t you?” Seven years. Seven years of shared meals, shared beds, shared secrets. And in the end, his cruelty was so absolute because he genuinely believed I lacked the pride to walk away. I let out a short, ragged breath. “Nothing changes? You want me to be your secret mistress?” Simon fell silent. He looked down at his leather loafers, then met my eyes, his tone deadening into something vile. “Your mother lived as a mistress for seven years, Nora,” he said quietly. “It’s not like the concept is unfamiliar to you.”

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My sister had her eyes on my husband. She secretly dug a used condom out of the trash bag by our front door. When I accidentally caught her in the act, she flew into a hysterical rage and shoved me down the staircase. I died in a pool of my own blood. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back on the exact day she was rummaging through the garbage. This time, I quietly walked away. After all, that little latex wrapper belonged to my father-in-law and his boyfriend. 01 The muffled rustling outside the door was what woke me up. That was the moment I realized I had been given a second chance at life. In my previous life, I had opened the front door to take out the trash, only to catch Brittany elbow-deep in our garbage bag. She pulled out a crumpled, used condom. We stared at each other in dead silence. For a split second, she froze, but then a twisted, unhinged smile crept across her face. “Well, Stella, since you saw everything, you can’t blame me for this.” She lunged at me like a feral animal. “Go to hell! Once you’re dead, Preston is going to be all mine!” I instinctively tried to dodge. But Brittany seized the opening and violently shoved me toward the stairs. The back of my head slammed against the sharp edge of the wooden steps. My consciousness began to bleed out along with the agonizing pain. The very last thing I saw was Brittany standing at the top of the landing, looking down at me with absolute disgust. “Preston is a catch. I just wanted to give him a baby! Is that a crime? Blame your own rotten luck for walking out at the wrong time. You deserve to die!” After my funeral, my mother put on a tearful show. Then she provided a rock-solid fake alibi for my sister. I remember my spirit lingering as my mother sighed at my framed memorial photo. “Brittany just wanted a child, Stella. It’s not like she asked you to get a divorce. Why did you have to be so selfish about it? I’ve already lost you. I can’t lose Brittany too. You forgive me, right?” “Stupid bitch! Was she that desperate for a man? Disgusting.” Brittany’s venomous muttering slipped through the crack of the door, pulling me violently back to the present. This time, I kept my hand far away from the doorknob. Peeking through the peephole, I watched Brittany slip the stolen prize into her pocket and walk away with a triumphant smirk. A slow smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. What my sweet little sister didn’t know was that the trash bag didn’t belong to our household. It belonged to our next-door neighbor, Victor. Victor was my father-in-law’s absolute best friend. He walked with a heavy limp from a youth spent doing hard labor. Because of his bad leg, he often left his trash in front of our door, and I would always take it down for him out of sheer pity. In this life, I genuinely wished my sister the absolute best of luck. I hope she gets pregnant on the first try. 02 The moment Brittany’s footsteps faded down the hall, my father-in-law, Arthur, stepped out of the guest bathroom. He had just finished a shower, his thinning hair still dripping wet. He threw a sideways glance at me. Seeing me still standing in the living room, his bushy eyebrows immediately pulled together in a scowl. “Weren’t you supposed to take the trash out? Why are you just standing there like a statue?” “Work emergency. Just replying to an email.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Always an excuse when I ask you to do one simple chore. Hurry up and get that garbage out of here before it attracts rats.” Watching his bizarre sense of urgency, a wild, absurd thought sparked in my brain. Whenever Arthur had free time, he loved going over to Victor’s place to play cards. Every single time he came back from those long card games, he looked completely drained, heavily sweating, and the very first thing he did was hit the shower. I had never thought much of it before. But now, the puzzle pieces were snapping into place. Were they actually playing cards? Who exactly used the latex wrapper in that trash bag? Victor lived entirely alone. He didn’t date, didn’t have female visitors, and kept to himself. The only person who visited him several times a week was Arthur. Could it be? My eyes widened in shock, accidentally meeting Arthur’s impatient glare. His face darkened with anger. “What the hell are you staring at? Move it!” 03 The very next afternoon. The minute my mother-in-law, Martha, grabbed her gym bag and headed out to her senior Zumba class, Arthur grabbed a six-pack of imported craft beer and hurried next door. I quietly slipped out and followed him. Arthur punched in the keypad code to Victor’s apartment with practiced ease. I pressed my ear flat against the heavy oak door for a long time. There was no sound of cards shuffling. No casual banter or laughter. Just faint, muffled groans. It sounded like someone trying desperately to hold back, only to fail miserably. A cold shiver crawled straight down my spine. That night in bed, I cautiously tested the waters with my husband, Preston. “Hey, have you ever thought that… your dad and Victor are a little too close?” He was lying flat on his back, endlessly scrolling through TikTok, not even bothering to look up. “They’ve been best buddies for decades. Grew up in the same dirt-poor town. It’s called loyalty, Stella.” “But every time your dad goes over there, he stays for hours on end. Isn’t that a bit excessive?” Preston finally peeled his eyes away from his glowing screen. His forehead creased with intense annoyance. “What exactly are you trying to say?” I bit the inside of my cheek, taking the plunge. “Victor hasn’t had a woman in his life for as long as I’ve known him. You don’t think he might be into m…” “Stella! What the hell is wrong with your sick mind?” “I saw something in his trash bag today…” “Shut your mouth!” Preston cut me off sharply, his tone dropping to freezing temperatures. “If I ever hear you disrespecting Victor like that again, we are going to have a serious problem.” I swallowed the rest of my words. Preston and Victor had a deep bond. When Preston was a kid and his parents were working double shifts to keep the lights on, he basically lived at Victor’s house. In Preston’s eyes, Victor was practically a second father, maybe even more respected than Arthur himself. Telling him my theories now would only backfire. Whatever. I would wait until I had undeniable proof. 04 Over the next few weeks, I racked my brain trying to gather evidence of Arthur and Victor’s secret affair. But these two old men were incredibly paranoid. The door was always deadbolted. I pressed my ear against the wood several times. Aside from the occasional choked gasp, it was impossible to record anything solid. The trash bags, however, told a different story. Every few days, a fresh batch of used wrappers would magically appear. Brittany was putting in the work, too. Terrified that she wouldn’t catch on the first try, she sneaked over multiple nights a week to raid the garbage. Honestly, I was praying for her success even harder than she was. 05 A month later, we hosted a birthday dinner for Martha. Arthur invited Victor. Martha invited Brittany. The whole cast of characters was gathered under one roof. My gut told me tonight’s dinner was going to be a blockbuster show. Brittany walked in wearing a skin-tight white cocktail dress. Her waistline was visibly thicker, the fabric stretching uncomfortably across her midsection. According to my mother, Brittany had been dealing with terrible nausea lately, throwing up almost everything she ate. My mom had been blowing up the family group chat, demanding I take time off work to escort my sister to a doctor. She threw around lines like, “Your baby sister is sick, and you have a duty to take care of her.” I left her on read. So she sent me a dozen back-to-back voice memos. Every single one was a tearful rant calling me cold-blooded and selfish. I raised an eyebrow as Brittany took a seat. Did she actually hit the jackpot? My gaze naturally drifted over to Arthur and Victor. They were sitting on the living room sofa, a chessboard set up between them. Knee touching knee. Shoulder brushing against shoulder. As Arthur reached out to move a pawn, his fingers delicately grazed the back of Victor’s hand. They shared a brief, loaded look. Both of them wore faint, secretive smiles that spoke volumes. I fell into deep thought, trying not to laugh out loud. Who exactly was the father of Brittany’s miracle baby? 06 Brittany pulled a velvet box from her designer knock-off purse and slid a heavy gold bracelet onto Martha’s wrist. “Happy birthday, Martha! I spent weeks picking this out. Do you love it?” Martha’s wrinkled face bloomed with absolute delight. “Oh, Brittany, sweetheart, you didn’t have to spend so much! This must have cost a fortune. You work so hard for your money, you shouldn’t be spoiling an old woman like me.” Her words were humble, but she immediately held her arm up to catch the living room lighting. I stared at that gold bracelet for exactly two seconds. Wow. That was the exact same bracelet I had bought for my own mother last month. When Mom opened my gift, she had carelessly tossed it onto the coffee table without a second glance. But when Brittany gifted her a cheap, ten-dollar acrylic scarf from a discount bin, my mom wore it around her neck the very next day. In the middle of a sweltering summer heatwave. She paraded it around the neighborhood, bragging to anyone who would listen. “My youngest made this just for me. It’s the thought that counts. Unlike my eldest, who just throws money at problems to shut me up.” One of her friends actually tried to defend me. “Why wear a heavy scarf in July? Gold is a great investment.” My mom’s face had instantly turned sour. “You people don’t understand love! The weather is getting breezy at night anyway.” She did wear it at night. And ended up with a massive heat rash across her collarbone. “As long as you love it, Martha!” Brittany’s sugary voice snapped me back to the present. “So, Martha, what did my big sister buy you?” Martha shot me a side-eye loaded with venom. “I wouldn’t dare expect luxury from her. All I did was ask when she plans on giving me a grandchild, and she’s been giving me attitude all week.” Saying that, Martha playfully squeezed Brittany’s hip. She offered a knowing, calculating smile. “You know, Brittany, you look like you’ve put on a little healthy weight. You’ve got the perfect figure for having babies. If only you were my daughter-in-law.” Brittany immediately shot a hopeful glance at Preston, her cheeks flushing crimson. Too bad Preston wasn’t even looking at her. He was entirely fixated on Arthur and Victor’s chess game. Martha noticed me standing there and her smile vanished. “What are you staring at? Go check on the roast! Do you expect me to serve you on my own birthday?” I gave a tight smile and turned toward the kitchen. Behind me, Martha’s cackling continued. “Brittany, honey, don’t you think this bracelet needs a matching necklace to really pop?” Brittany hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Um… sure! We can go shopping at the mall next week. See if we find something you like.” “Oh, I couldn’t possibly ask that of you.” “It’s nothing, really. Whatever makes you happy.” “Well, thank you in advance, sweetheart.” I grinned wildly to myself as I checked the oven. Brittany was chronically unemployed, living off my mother. Her bank account was emptier than her head. She was going to bleed cash for this little stunt. 07 By the time I carried the final platter of roasted vegetables to the dining table, Brittany had already claimed the seat directly next to Preston. She tilted her head, her eyes flashing with pure arrogance. “Stella, Martha told me to sit here. You don’t mind, do you?” I smiled warmly, saying absolutely nothing. I dragged a spare folding chair from the corner and quietly sat down right next to her. The folding chair was significantly lower than the dining chairs. It felt like I was crouching. But the low angle gave me a crystal-clear view of the real action happening under the tablecloth. Brittany slipped off her high heel and stretched her foot toward Preston’s direction. First, she lightly brushed his calf. When Preston didn’t pull away, she grew bolder. Her toes began to slowly, deliberately trail up the inside of his leg. Suddenly, Preston jolted. His hand, holding a glass of water, froze in mid-air. His ears turned violently red in a matter of seconds. I narrowed my eyes. This reaction was wrong. Preston was notoriously germaphobic and had severe anxiety around women. Aside from me and his mother, if a woman even bumped into him at the grocery store, he would freeze up and break into a cold sweat. But Brittany’s foot was practically in his lap, and not only was he not dodging, he was blushing? Had he been hooking up with Brittany this whole time? But that didn’t make any sense. If they were already sleeping together, why on earth would she need to repeatedly dig through a biohazard trash bag for used condoms? Brittany’s lips curled into a smug smile. She picked up a prime cut of roast beef and placed it on Preston’s plate. “Eat up, Preston. You’ve been looking so overworked lately.” Preston stared blankly at the meat on his plate. His brow furrowed deeply. With a swift flick of his fork, he shoved the beef right off his plate onto the table. The movement was brutal and efficient. Not a single second of hesitation. Brittany’s smile instantly shattered. “Preston, what are you doing?” “Sorry. I don’t eat food other people touch.” Preston’s face was completely devoid of emotion. He didn’t even grant her a glance. Brittany’s lower lip trembled, tears rapidly pooling in her oversized eyes. Martha scrambled to defuse the tension, using her own fork to scoop up the discarded meat and shove it into her mouth. “If he won’t eat it, I will! Anything Brittany serves is delicious!” Brittany bit her lip, desperately trying to keep the tears from falling. But under the table, her foot tensed up with a vengeance. This time, she aimed straight for the prize. “Ugh… ah!” A strangled, breathy gasp tore out of Preston’s throat. It ended on an embarrassingly high note, sounding incredibly fragile and flushed. Every single person at the table dropped their forks. 08 Martha stared at Preston in utter panic. “Honey, what’s wrong?” Preston’s face was the color of a ripe tomato. But his eyes weren’t on Brittany. They were locked onto Victor, who was sitting across the table. The look in Preston’s eyes was chaotic. There was sheer panic, desperate pleading, and a bizarre hint of… shyness. He looked like a blushing bride caught in a scandal. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. No way. There was absolutely no way. Victor stared right back at him, his voice dripping with exaggerated concern. “What is it, kiddo? Are you feeling sick?” Preston rapidly broke eye contact, staring intensely at his empty plate. His voice was muffled. “Nothing. Just bit my tongue.” Brittany’s lips formed a vicious smirk. Under the table, her foot didn’t stop. In fact, she doubled down, moving faster, clearly punishing him for rejecting her roast beef in front of everyone. Preston was squirming in his chair. He bit down brutally on his lower lip. The veins on his forehead popped, and beads of sweat dripped down his temples. Yet, he still didn’t pull away. Instead, his body subconsciously leaned further in. Right at that moment, Victor set down his beer and stood up. He pulled a few napkins from the dispenser and held them out to Preston. “You’re sweating buckets, Preston. Is it too warm in here for you?” Seeing Victor suddenly loom over him, Preston’s pupils dilated in sheer terror. He instinctively glanced down under the table. Brittany’s foot was still working its magic. Preston’s face went from flushed red, to chalk white, to a sickly shade of green. “Jesus! It’s YOU?” He shot up out of his chair like he had been electrocuted. “I need to use the bathroom.” Preston practically sprinted out of the dining room. Brittany sat frozen in her seat, her face burning with utter humiliation. I calmly picked up my wine glass, took a delicate sip, and spoke in a syrupy sweet tone. “Don’t take it personally, Brittany. My husband has terrible germaphobia. He hates being touched by women. Make sure you keep your feet to yourself next time, so you don’t accidentally bump into him again.” I placed heavy emphasis on the word accidentally. Brittany shot me a look of pure, venomous hatred.

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On the evening of our third wedding anniversary, Nicholas Prescott stood before a room full of flashbulbs and federal prosecutors, publicly handing over the ledger that dismantled my family’s empire. Overnight, Robert and Marian Mercer tumbled from the heights of old-money Manhattan society into federal custody. I dropped to my knees on the polished marble floor, clutching at the hem of his tailored trousers, begging him for mercy. Nicholas looked down at my red, swollen eyes, his mouth twisting into a razor-thin sneer. “Love you? Evelyn, my entire existence has been about destroying you.” His voice was low, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd like shattered glass. “Fifteen years ago, when your parents drove mine to jump from our penthouse balcony for the sake of corporate debt, did they show any mercy? This isn’t cruelty. This is justice. The Mercer family owes me blood.” In the months that followed, he used my parents’ survival in prison as a leash, keeping me locked inside his sprawling coastal estate, subjecting me to slow, deliberate torment. When I took a blade to my wrists, he tore it from my grip. When I starved myself, he held my head back while private doctors forced nutrient lines down my throat. His face contorted with cold fury as he hissed into my ear: “I will drag you back from the edge every single time, Evelyn. I will keep you alive just to make sure you suffer for the rest of your days.” What Nicholas didn’t know was that my parents had never driven his family to their deaths. Nor did he know that “Donor E”—the anonymous benefactor whose trust fund had paid for his private schooling, his Ivy League tuition, and his rise from an orphaned boy to a Wall Street titan—had always been me. In the end, I climbed the cliffs behind the estate, seeking the only silence left to me. And that time, when I stepped off into the salt air, his outstretched fingers were just a second too late to catch the hem of my falling dress. 1 “Kneel, Evelyn. Beg them for forgiveness.” Nicholas’s voice had barely cut through the howling wind before the bodyguard behind me clamped two heavy hands onto the back of my skull, slamming my forehead down against the cold granite headstone. Crack. The impact vibrated through my teeth. Blood gushed from my split hairline, warm and thick against the freezing stone. A November squall was sweeping across the hillside cemetery, pelting us with driving rain. I had no umbrella, no coat; water and crimson rivers rushed together down the bridge of my nose, dripping onto the chiseled names of Arthur and Grace Prescott. The bodyguard didn’t pause. He grabbed my tangled, soaked hair, pulling my head back only to drive it into the stone again. And again. Not until the grey granite was slick with my blood did Nicholas finally lift two gloved fingers. “Get up,” he said, stepping forward. “Wipe it off. Don’t let your filthy blood stain my parents’ resting place.” My throat was raw, but I didn’t dare make a sound. Any sign of defiance would only be visited tenfold upon my parents in their upstate cells. For their sake, to keep the guards from looking the other way while they were beaten, I swallowed every scream. My body shuddered with violent tremors. I pressed my palms into the muddy sod, struggling three times before I managed to haul myself onto trembling knees. I reached into my pocket for a handkerchief, but Nicholas tossed a bundle of sodden, shredded fabric directly into the mud before me. My breath caught. My vision blurred. It was ivory silk and hand-sewn French lace. The bespoke wedding gown he had commissioned for me three years ago, shredded into ragged ribbons. Nicholas tilted his head, savoring the horror in my eyes. He stepped in, his leather-clad fingers pinching my jaw until bone ground against bone. “Heartbroken?” he whispered, his breath warm against my freezing skin. “Watching you walk down the aisle in this made me sick to my stomach. Every sweet word, every tender touch—it was an act, Evelyn. An agonizing performance. Using it as a rag to scrub my parents’ grave is the only real purpose it has ever served.” He leaned closer, his eyes pitch-black. “Scrub it clean. If that headstone isn’t dry, the warden won’t bother feeding those two old convicts tonight.” He released his grip, shoving me backward. I fell hard, the rough, gravelly earth tearing the skin off my palms. Satisfied by my humiliation, Nicholas turned on his heel. He slipped an arm around the slender waist of Elise Warren, pulling her under the shelter of his black umbrella. Elise shot me a smirk of triumphant pity over her shoulder as they walked down the stone path toward his idling Maybach. I had no choice. I gathered the wet shreds of silk, crawled back to the headstone, and began to wipe. Blood oozed from my forehead and the palms of my hands, mixing with the rain, smearing across the granite in ugly streaks. I had to scrub over and over, my fingers numb and stiff, fighting the downpour that refused to let the stone dry. I lost track of time. My knees went entirely numb; the rain soaked through my thin clothes until my core turned to ice. Eventually, the sky emptied itself, the rain tapering into a sullen mist. The bodyguard stepped forward, ran a calloused finger over the damp granite, and gave a reluctant nod. “That’ll do.” He reached down to haul me to my feet by my collar, but my strength was already gone. The heavy exhaustion that had been building inside me for months finally won. My eyes slipped shut, and my knees gave out completely. I tilted backward, falling into the dark. Before the light went out, a jagged edge of the neighboring plot’s stone base slashed deep across the side of my neck. A flare of sharp, brilliant pain—and then, a profound sense of lightness. I didn’t feel fear. I only felt relief. In the final fraction of a second before my consciousness shattered, through the blur of my fading vision, I caught a glimpse of Nicholas. He was running back down the gravel path, his umbrella cast aside in the mud, his face pale and contorted with sheer panic. “Evelyn! Evelyn, look at me!” His voice sounded muffled, as if coming from the bottom of an ocean. For a fleeting moment, it felt like an old dream—back when he still pretended that I was the center of his world. “Evelyn, don’t you dare close your eyes! Talk to me! Evelyn!” 2 I woke to the smell of damp plaster and industrial bleach. Opening my eyes, I stared at the peeling white ceiling of the basement utility room. I reached up, my stiff fingers brushing against the thick gauze wrapped around my neck. There was no surge of gratitude for being alive. Only a hollow, suffocating regret. I survived again. Before I could fully gather my senses, the heavy wooden door was kicked open. Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper who had once bowed politely when I entered a room, stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. “Still lying there playing the invalid?” she sneered, tossing a bucket and a bundle of rags onto the concrete floor. “You think you’re still the mistress of this estate? You’re nothing more than a stray dog Nicholas keeps around to kick. Miss Warren wants the master suite cleaned from top to bottom. Get moving.” She grabbed my arm, dragging me off the narrow cot. My feet hit the floor, soft and unsteady. A deep, unnatural heat burned behind my eyes; fever had settled into my bones, making the room tilt. I picked up the bucket and climbed the stairs to the second floor. When I pushed open the double doors of the master bedroom, the breath left my lungs. Elise was straddling Nicholas’s lap in front of the mahogany desk, her slender arms looped tightly around his neck. They were kissing—deeply, messily. As I stepped over the threshold, she broke away with a soft gasp, a thin strand of saliva glistening between their parted lips before snapping. The sight struck me like an electric shock. The ache in my chest wasn’t a metaphor; it was a physical tearing, as though someone had forced a handful of broken glass down my throat. I lowered my head instantly, tightening my grip on the plastic handle of the bucket. “I apologize,” I whispered, staring at the floorboards. “Mrs. Gable told me Miss Warren requested the room cleaned.” Elise nestled further into Nicholas’s chest, her fingers playing with the lapel of his charcoal suit. Her voice was sweet, dripping with venom. “Oh, yes. Nicholas told me this used to be your bridal suite. No wonder the whole floor smells like defeat.” She looked down at me from his lap, her chin tilted high. “Take every piece of your clothing, every framed portrait, every little keepsake, and throw them in the incinerator. And don’t you dare use a mop. Get on your hands and knees with a rag. I want every single square inch scrubbed until it shines.” She turned her face toward Nicholas, pouting playfully. “Nicholas, darling, you don’t think I’m being too hard on her, do you?” Nicholas glanced at me. His gaze flicked over my fever-flushed cheeks, the dark circles under my eyes, and the white bandage at my throat, but there was no pity in his eyes—only irritation, as if my very presence were an unsightly stain on his rug. He looked away, pressing his lips softly against Elise’s temple. “Not at all. She’s a stray. Treat her however you like, as long as it makes you happy.” I pressed my lips together until I tasted copper, swallowed the shame, and sank to my knees. Keeping my head down, I dipped the rag into the cold water and began wiping the floor, inch by agonizing inch. Above me, Elise cupped Nicholas’s jaw, pulling him down into another lingering kiss. My mind betrayed me, dragging up memories of this very desk. Two years ago, right after we moved in, Nicholas had pulled me onto his lap in this exact spot, his head buried in the crook of my neck, whispering promises against my skin: Evelyn, it’s you and me against the world. I love you, Evie. More than my own life. I’ll spend every day making sure you never know a moment of sorrow. Thud. A sharp kick struck my ribs. I tumbled forward, my hands splashing into the grey water of the bucket. Nicholas looked down at me from the edge of the desk, his brow furrowed with cold impatience. “Take the trash out and finish inside the walk-in closet. Elise and I want to rest.” I used the wet rag to wipe away the stray tears that had dripped onto the hardwood, rose to my feet, and walked into the closet. Our wedding portraits had already been pulled from the walls; someone had used a box cutter to shred my face before tossing the frames onto the floor. My cashmere sweaters, my silk dresses, my jewelry boxes—everything had been stuffed carelessly into black heavy-duty trash bags. Every trace of the life we had built together had been systematically reduced to garbage. I dragged the bags out into the hallway. Through the cracked door behind me, I saw Nicholas sweep Elise up into his arms, carrying her toward the king-sized bed where I had slept for three years. She laughed, a high, melodic sound, before the heavy oak door clicked shut. Then came the muffled sounds of shifting sheets, gasps, and whispered intimacies. My feet felt like they were encased in concrete. I stood there in the corridor, unable to move, listening to the man I had loved make love to another woman in our bed. My fingernails dug into the meat of my palms until fresh blood broke through the scabs. The nausea hit me in violent waves; I braced myself against a marble pillar, dry-heaving until my ribs ached. The fever flared hot behind my temples. The world spun. I staggered toward the grand staircase. Standing at the top landing, looking down at the wide marble steps below, a profound, suffocating self-loathing rose up and swallowed me whole. I was tired. So deeply, impossibly tired. I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and let my weight drift over the edge. Just as the floor vanished beneath my feet, a calloused hand shot out from the side, gripping my wrist with crushing force and yanking me violently back onto the carpet. I opened my eyes, disoriented. Standing before me was a man in the estate’s black security uniform. His features were sharp, his jaw set, but his eyes held something I hadn’t seen in this house for months: fierce, desperate concern. He gripped my wrist tighter, leaning in so his lips barely grazed my ear, his voice a low, urgent murmur: “Miss Mercer. I’m going to get you out of here.” 3 “They spent fifty million on this engagement gala alone! Mr. Prescott treats Miss Warren like royalty.” “Well, can you blame him? I heard Miss Warren is actually ‘Donor E’—the secret benefactor who paid for his education after his parents passed away. Love combined with that kind of debt of gratitude? He’d give her the moon. But what I don’t get is why he suddenly downgraded the wedding to an engagement party.” “Oh, you didn’t hear? The benefactor’s identity isn’t fully confirmed. Mr. Prescott is still verifying the old trust records. He wanted this mysterious ‘Donor E’ to stand as their primary witness at the altar. Since he hasn’t tracked down the final paperwork, he pushed the wedding back and threw this gala instead!” The gossiping voices drifted past the service entrance. I leaned against the tile wall of the catering corridor, a faint, bitter smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. The “E” in Donor E didn’t stand for Elise. It stood for Evelyn. When I was sixteen, using the dividends from the trust fund my grandfather left me, I set up an anonymous endowment through our family attorney to cover the living and educational expenses of the orphaned son of Arthur Prescott. I chose the letter E simply because it was the first initial of my name. None of it mattered anymore. Even if Nicholas discovered the truth tomorrow, what difference would it make? We were separated by a chasm of ruined lives, prison bars, and hatred. We were enemies until the day we died. I kept my head down, picked up my mop and bucket, and walked toward the grand ballroom’s public restrooms to complete my assigned chores. As I passed through the service doors, an expensive leather shoe subtly extended from the edge of the hallway. Splash! I tripped, crashing hard onto the marble floor. The bucket tipped, dumping gallons of dirty, sudsy water all over my uniform. A ripple of cruel laughter broke out among the gathered waitstaff and high-society guests lingering nearby. Before I could push myself up, a pair of glittering silver heels clicked into my field of vision. Elise stood over me, her gown shimmering in the chandelier light, her face tight with barely suppressed rage. She looked around at the onlookers, then down at me, her eyes flashing. I lowered my head instantly, my voice hoarse. “Miss Warren, I’m sorry. I—” Crack. The slap was so hard it knocked my face sideways, my cheek slamming against the wet tile. Before I could draw breath, she struck me again. Crack. The metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. My lips went numb. “You pathetic little cockroach,” Elise hissed under her breath, her chest heaving. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Purposely making a scene at my engagement party to humiliate me?” She raised her hand for a third strike, her diamond rings catching the light. Mid-swing, a man’s hand caught her wrist mid-air. Elise spun around, furious words already on her tongue. “Who the hell do you think—Nicholas?” I looked up through my wet, tangled hair. Nicholas stood there, dressed in a bespoke tuxedo, looking tall and imposing. For a single, pathetic second—like the dying spark of a candle before it drowns in wax—a faint glimmer of hope rose in my chest. He had stopped her. Then Nicholas spoke, his tone smooth and cool. He took Elise’s raised hand, rubbing her reddened palm with his thumb, his voice filled with effortless tenderness. “Elise, if she offended you, tell the staff to deal with her. Why hurt your own hand? Look how red your palm is.” He brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them lightly. “Does it hurt?” The breath left my lungs. The pain in my chest didn’t flare; instead, it went completely, terrifyingly hollow. It was as if my nervous system, pushed past the limit of what it could endure, simply shut down all feeling to keep me from going insane. I didn’t give Nicholas the chance to order his guards forward. I couldn’t bear the thought of another beating at the hands of strangers. I raised my own right hand. And slammed it across my left cheek. Smack. The sound echoed sharply against the marble walls. I didn’t stop. I raised my left hand and struck my right cheek. Smack. Smack. Smack. A dozen times. Over and over, with everything I had left, until my jaw felt unhinged and blood trickled from both corners of my mouth onto my soaked collar. Only then did I let my hands drop to my sides. I looked up at Elise, my eyes empty. “I apologize, Miss Warren. I was careless. There is no need for your staff to dirty their hands on my account.” My voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “If you are still displeased, I can continue.” The hallway fell dead silent. Even Elise took a step back, her eyes wide with unease. The guests looked at me as if I were a madwoman who had lost all instinct for self-preservation. Nicholas stood frozen. His expression shifted into something strange—a fleeting, fractured look that almost resembled agony. He took two involuntary steps toward me, his lips parting as if to say my name. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, twice. Then his face hardened, his jaw tightening into a mask of cold dismissal. He waved a dismissive hand. “Get out of my sight.” I gathered my strength, picked up the overturned bucket, and walked down the corridor without looking back. Behind me, Nicholas’s voice rang out, sharp as a whip, directed at the maid who had tripped me: “Pack your things. You’re fired. Prescott House does not employ people who play petty games.” Elise hurried to his side, trying to link her arm through his. “Nicholas, darling, she was just—” He pulled his arm away, his voice ice-cold. “I told you before, Elise. Do not bring your street habits into this house. I have a headache. Go back to your suite.” Elise stood in the hallway, staring at his retreating back, her manicured nails digging deep into her palms. It was nearly midnight by the time I finished scrubbing the restrooms. Dragging my exhausted, aching body back down to the basement utility room, I found a small glass jar of burn ointment and sterile gauze sitting on the threshold. Inside my pocket, the burner phone Wesley had slipped to me buzzed faintly. I unlocked the screen: Everything is arranged, Miss Mercer. Hold on. Tomorrow, you’re free. 4 The day I ran from Nicholas Prescott, the sky broke open. The rain over the Long Island sound fell in sheets, violent and relentless, turning the sea below the cliffs into a churning cauldron of slate-grey foam. My face was still swollen and bruised despite the ointment, but I climbed the winding stone path to the ocean pavilion at the edge of the estate. The housekeeper had ordered me to clean the floor-to-ceiling windows of the clifftop guest house. Years ago, during the first summer of our marriage, Nicholas had brought me here when the waters were calm and blue. He had stood behind me, wrapping a cashmere shawl around my shoulders, whispering: You said you loved watching the ocean from high up, Evie. So I built this pavilion for you. Do you love it? Now, staring at my reflection in the dark glass, I saw a ghost covered in bruises, hollow-cheeked, with dead eyes. I didn’t dare remember anymore. Remembering was a slow suicide. The housekeeper had claimed I was the only one assigned to clean the pavilion today. But as I wiped the salt spray from the glass, the heavy oak doors behind me clicked shut with an ominous echo. I spun around. Elise stood near the entrance, wrapped in a fur coat. Behind her were four burly, rough-looking men in street clothes, their eyes roaming over me like vultures over carrion. Panic slammed into my chest like an adrenaline shot. I turned to sprint for the terrace fire exit, but the men moved faster. Two pairs of heavy hands slammed me down onto the polished oak floor, pinning my arms behind my back. Elise walked over slowly, the sharp click of her stilettos echoing off the high ceiling. She stopped beside my pinned hand, lifted her foot, and drove her metal stiletto heel straight through the delicate bones of my knuckles. I screamed, an agonizing, breathless sound. “You think you’re untouchable, don’t you?” Elise hissed, leaning down, her face twisted with rage. “You seduced him again, didn’t you? That’s why he canceled our wedding this morning! That’s why he fired my girl! He even had high-grade burn ointment delivered to your rat hole of a room! You’re the daughter of two convicted felons! You’re worth less than a stray dog, and you dare try to steal him back from me?” She twisted her heel deeper into my flesh, then pulled back and kicked me squarely in the stomach. The breath exploded from my lungs. A wave of iron rose in my throat; I choked, spitting dark blood across the floorboards. “I don’t have time to play games with you anymore,” Elise said, smoothing her coat. She looked over at the four men with a cruel, indifferent smile. “I brought some friends to keep Miss Mercer company. Let’s see if Nicholas still looks at you with pity after every man in this room has had his turn.” She turned and walked out, the heavy doors locking behind her. The men laughed, low and greasy, stepping closer. One of them knelt, his beer-soaked breath hot against my face as his heavy fingers ripped the collar of my shirt open. “Never had a high-society princess before,” he chuckled, pinning my shoulders down. “Hold still, sweetheart. It’ll hurt less if you don’t fight.” “Look at that skin,” another sneered, unbuckling his belt. “Hey, hold her legs. Let me get a taste first—fuck!” The moment his grip loosened around my knees, I drove the steel-capped toe of my work boot directly between his legs with every ounce of strength I had left. He shrieked, doubling over in agony. I scrambled backward like a wounded animal, pushed myself to my feet, and bolted up the spiral staircase toward the pavilion’s observation deck. Behind me, the sound of heavy boots pounded against the wooden stairs—a relentless, waking nightmare closing in. In the top-floor corner office of Prescott Tower in Midtown, Nicholas felt a sudden, inexplicable tremor in his chest. A deep, cold dread settled over him. A frantic knock shattered the silence. His executive assistant rushed in, out of breath, slamming a manila folder onto the mahogany desk. “Mr. Prescott! The forensic audit on the Prescott Educational Trust just cleared. We tracked the original escrow accounts for Donor E.” The assistant’s voice trembled. “It wasn’t Miss Warren. It was… it was Evelyn Mercer.” Nicholas stared at him, motionless. For three agonizing seconds, his brain refused to process the words. Then he lunged forward, grabbing the files. The documents were clear: established fifteen years ago, authorized by the Mercer family trust. Because Evelyn had been a minor at the time, the trust required the signatures of her legal guardians. Robert and Marian Mercer. His parents’ supposed mortal enemies had signed off on the trust that fed him, clothed him, and sent him to Harvard. They had willingly funded the son of the man who died in their wake—and years later, welcomed that same boy into their home as their son-in-law. “No,” Nicholas whispered, his hands shaking so violently the paper rattled. “No, this is wrong. Get the car!” He shoved the desk back, sprinting toward the private elevator. “Drive to the estate! Now! I need to hear it from her!” His mind was a storm of terror. If the Mercers had funded his entire life, what else had he been wrong about? When the car screeched to a halt outside the estate, Nicholas burst through the front doors, rain dripping from his coat. Mrs. Gable hurried forward, bowing low. “Where is she?” Nicholas demanded, his voice ragged. “Miss Mercer was sent to clean the ocean pavilion, sir,” Mrs. Gable stammered. “To prepare it for your wedding with Miss Warren—” Nicholas’s heart plunged. “I canceled the wedding with Elise this morning,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. Before Mrs. Gable could answer, a young kitchen maid broke through the staff entrance, tears streaming down her face. “Mr. Prescott! You have to go to the pavilion! Miss Warren brought four strange men up to the cliff house, and Miss Mercer is up there all alone!” Crack. The world went white. Nicholas didn’t wait for his security team. He bolted back out into the torrential rain, leaped into the driver’s seat of his SUV, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and tore up the narrow mountain road leading to the clifftop pavilion.

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My parents ran a grade-based allowance system every month. I always thought my sister got the money. Until I ended up at Station 2 in the campus dining hall. Interviews were paying seven bucks an hour, hiring only one person, and there she was. Her voice was raspy as she uttered the most shocking words I had ever heard. “Is this a joke to you, Nora?” “Just to humiliate me, you came to steal this job even with an eight-hundred-dollar monthly allowance?” I froze. The words spilled out before I could stop them: “What eight hundred dollars? Didn’t Mom and Dad give all that money to you?” Pathy went dead silent. And right then, something clicked in my head. Unless… that money was never meant for either of us from the start. 01 My twin sister and I were raised by two of the city’s most celebrated educators. They had shelf-loads of state honors, featured constantly in local educational press. Their golden rule was simple: “Pressure drives competition, competition drives effort, and effort brings success.” So, from the moment we were born, Pathy and I were pitted against each other. For other babies, rolling over, sitting up, and crawling were natural milestones. For us, they were points on a scoreboard. Whoever learned first got the point. If you earned five points a day, you got milk. If you failed, you went hungry for twenty-four hours. For over ten years, Pathy and I lived in a relentless warzone. We treated each other like bitter rivals, fighting purely for a plate of food. Until the day our acceptance letters to a top-tier university arrived. Our parents made us a solemn promise: “Once you start college, we will give each of you eight hundred dollars a month for living expenses.” Pathy and I burst into tears right there. We thought our nightmare was finally over. Then came the night before move-in day. They placed two identical exam packets in front of us. “We custom-made these tests covering everything from high school. Finish them, hand them in, and we’ll grade them.” “Take it seriously. This determines who gets the college allowance for the first month.” I couldn’t help asking, “What do you mean, Dad?” They answered with smooth, reasonable composure: “We looked into it. College is when kids ruin themselves most easily. For your own good, we will issue a specialized exam at the end of every month.” “The highest score gets the eight-hundred-dollar monthly allowance. The lower score gets zero.” Pathy and I stared in disbelief. We protested together. “That’s crazy! You promised us! You said eight hundred each once we got into college! How can you go back on your word?” Dad’s face darkened instantly, his voice dripping with intimidation. “Who are you to question us? I am your father. You live under my roof and eat my food, so you follow my rules.” “Besides, isn’t this for your own good? If you’re going to be this ungrateful, neither of you gets a single cent.” Once again, Pathy and I backed down. A college student with zero allowance is like a fish out of water, bound to suffocate. 02 When college started, I had zero dollars. “Nora, you scored two points lower than your sister,” my parents told me. “So, no allowance for your first month.” I begged them not to be so cruel, but they didn’t care. I had to dig out the eighty dollars in birthday money I had hidden under my bed just to survive. To stretch every cent, I lived on cheap stale bagels, only allowing myself a single hard-boiled egg in the morning. Going hungry brought sharp stomach pains, and stomach pains meant needing medicine, which I couldn’t afford. Day by day, my face grew pale and hollow. My roommates quickly noticed. They asked gently, “Nora, are your parents not giving you allowance? Why are you eating so little?” “You’re going to ruin your health like this.” I managed a bitter smile and briefly explained the twisted competition rule at home. My roommates were horrified, looking at me with deep sympathy. “Did you apply for financial hardship aid?” I shook my head. “My parents won’t let me.” If people found out two award-winning educators had a daughter applying for hardship aid, they thought it would bring shame to their reputation. From that day on, my roommates constantly found excuses to feed me. “Nora, this milk expires soon and I hate it, drink it for me.” “Nora, this sandwich has eggs and I’m allergic, take it.” “Nora, these plums from my garden are way too sour, please finish them.” My chest felt warm and aching at the same time. The warmth I had never felt at home, I was receiving here. 03 Eighty dollars, no matter how carefully spent, couldn’t last a whole month. A little over two weeks in, I had ten dollars left in my wallet. I was completely out of options. In desperation, I considered applying for online loans, but legitimate platforms rejected me due to my lack of credit history. Driven into a corner, I called my mother for help. First call, unanswered. Second call, rejected. Third call, she finally picked up. Before I could say a word, her sharp, irritated voice snapped: “Are you out of your mind?” “Don’t you know your father and I are busy at work? Calling nonstop, are you trying to drive me crazy?” I kept my voice as low as possible, pleading with pathetic weakness. “Mom, I don’t have money to buy food.” “Please, just give me a little bit of allowance.” “I really can’t make it through the month.” I thought no matter how cold parents were, hearing their child starve would soften their hearts. I was wrong. Her tone was icy. “If you can’t make it, figure it out yourself. Who told you to score lower than your sister?” “If you want money, beat her at the end of the month. Otherwise, don’t even dream about it.” Click. She hung up. At that moment, all the bottled-up pain surged over me. Standing alone in the stairwell, heavy tears spilled down my cheeks. I had never felt so utterly helpless. I couldn’t understand it. Why did other parents worry about their children going hungry, while mine watched me starve without batting an eye? 04 I walked back to my dorm with red, swollen eyes. Seeing me like that, my roommates immediately gathered around. I told them everything. They instantly offered to lend me money, but I refused. Even though I was broke, I didn’t want to tarnish this pure friendship with financial debts. Helpless, my roommate offered another idea. “Why don’t you try borrowing from your sister? You’re twins, she can’t be completely heartless, right?” “Yeah, your parents gave her eight hundred dollars. Asking to borrow fifty bucks isn’t much.” I hesitated. “But… Pathy and I don’t get along.” Ten years of ruthless competition had made us treat each other like enemies. My roommate encouraged me, “Just try. Maybe she’s not as cold as you think.” I gritted my teeth and dialed my sister’s number. 05 The moment the call went through, Pathy spoke with total impatience. “Spit it out, don’t waste my time.” My roommates were right beside me, hearing every word. My face burned with shame, but I forced myself to whisper, “Pathy, could you lend me fifty dollars?” “I promise I’ll pay you back next month.” The next second, Pathy exploded. “Borrow money from me? Have you lost your mind, Nora?” “You blew through your own cash and now you come begging to me?” “Have some damn pride!” Before I could respond, she slammed the phone down. A stinging sensation filled my nose as I tried to hold back tears. My roommates blew up in rage. “What the hell! Is your sister crazy? If she doesn’t want to lend it, she doesn’t have to be so nasty!” “Unbelievable! She gets eight hundred bucks and won’t even lend fifty to her own twin!” “And calling you a big spender? Is she blind? You’ve been starving on dry crusts for days!” I stayed silent, feeling both furious and deeply hurt. To be honest, Pathy’s reaction didn’t really surprise me. She had been like this since childhood, attacking me before hearing the full story. We were used to treating each other this way. A moment later, my roommate showed me a screenshot of a part-time job. “This local diner needs weekend help. It pays daily, fifteen bucks an hour.” I grabbed onto it like a lifeline, hugging her tightly while whispering endless thanks. She smiled and patted my back. “Just help me with the group projects later.” 06 Two days of grueling work earned me a hundred and twenty dollars. With that money, I dragged myself through another two weeks. It was brutally hard, counting every single penny just to eat. During a break between classes, our advisor posted a list of work-study campus jobs in the group chat. On-campus positions! Long-term! Overjoyed, I registered immediately, grabbing contact details and sending private messages. Every single one turned me down. The higher-paying ones were taken instantly. The flexible ones clashed with my heavy class schedule. Rejection after rejection broke my spirit. Just as I was about to give up, a new posting appeared in the chat. Dining Hall Assistant. Seven dollars an hour. Includes free lunch and free dinner. The only downside: only hiring one person. Seeing the words “includes free meals,” my eyes burned red. This was my only way to survive. Without wasting a single second, I added the manager’s contact, terrified someone else would snatch it. “Hello, I’d like to apply for the Dining Hall Assistant position.” Five minutes later, the reply came: “Sorry, another student just messaged me a step ahead of you.” My throat constricted with panic. I messaged back furiously, pleading: “Please give me a chance! I work really hard and I’m not afraid of tough work. I promise I won’t slack off or cause trouble!” After a long silence, the manager finally replied: “Come to Dining Hall Station 2 tomorrow after class for an interview.” 07 The next day, I waited eagerly for class to end. Right before the final bell, our advisor dropped a message in the chat: “Don’t leave after class. We are having a mandatory class meeting. Class president, organize everyone.” I froze in shock. I wanted to run, but I didn’t dare. Our advisor was notoriously strict. Getting caught skipping meant standing in the office for a week reciting English vocabulary. Throughout the meeting, I sat on pins and needles, checking my phone constantly, my mind in chaos. My roommate kept whispering, “It’s fine, don’t panic, it’ll end soon.” In the end, it dragged on for far too long. The second it ended, I grabbed my books and sprinted toward the dining hall. Twenty minutes late. My heart sank. It was over. The job was gone. I walked up to Station 2, my voice trembling. “Excuse me, ma’am, I’m here for the work-study interview. Who should I speak to?” The cafeteria worker looked me up and down. “Take a seat over there, sweetie. The manager is interviewing someone else right now.” I sat on a chair, my palms soaked in cold sweat. Despair crept over me. A few minutes later, the manager walked out from the kitchen, followed by another student. I looked up, and my eyes widened in total shock. It was my twin sister, Pathy. 08 Our eyes met, both of us frozen in disbelief. The manager looked at me. “Are you the student who messaged me about the interview?” I nodded quickly. He led me into the back kitchen for a quick chat. Because I had rehearsed answers with my roommate, I answered every question smoothly. Finally, he asked, “The pay here is really low. Are you sure you can accept seven dollars an hour?” I nodded aggressively. “As long as meals are included.” The manager looked at me with a complicated expression, sighing softly. “What is wrong with kids these days…” “Working so hard just for a meal. Do your parents not feed you at home?” I didn’t understand what he meant, nor did I have time to ponder it. He led me back outside and spoke to both Pathy and me. “Wait here for a moment while I decide who to hire.” 09 The moment the manager stepped away, the tension exploded. Pathy suddenly shoved me hard. Losing my balance, I slammed into the ground. Furious and confused, I scrambled up. “Are you crazy, Pathy? What did you shove me for?” She stared at me, her eyes brimming with tears. My heart skipped a beat as I remembered drama tropes of girls faking injuries. I took two steps back nervously. “Hey, don’t try to play the victim! You pushed me first, I didn’t touch you!” Instead, her voice broke, raspy and choked with emotions, delivering the most shocking words of my life. “Is this a joke to you, Nora?” “Just to humiliate me, you came to steal this job even with an eight-hundred-dollar monthly allowance?” I froze completely, my mind going blank. I stared at her in utter disbelief and blurted out: “What eight hundred dollars?” “Didn’t Mom and Dad give all that money to you?” Pathy’s rage flared up instantly. “Stop acting! How can you keep lying to my face?” “I know you’re smarter than me. No matter what test Mom and Dad give us, you always score higher.” “But do you have any idea? Because of you, I’ve been starving in this school for almost a month!” “Every day, all I think about is saving money, eating cheap one-dollar bagels from the breakfast cart for every meal!” I was rendered speechless. Pathy grabbed my hands, her voice breaking into a plea. “I’m begging you, Nora. Can’t you just let this go for once, for the sake of being sisters?” “I desperately need this job. I am so, so hungry every single day.” A chill ran down my spine. “But Mom and Dad told me they gave the entire eight hundred dollars to you,” I stammered. Pathy completely lost control, screaming with bloodshot eyes: “How could they have given it all to me? If I had eight hundred dollars, why would I be living like a dog?” “Besides, if I actually had that money, even as much as I hate you, I would have lent you fifty bucks when you asked!” I tried to explain, “But I really didn’t get a cent! I’ve been starving for a month just like you, living on nothing but dry bread!” Pathy shoved my hands away, bordering on hysteria. “Are you trying to trick me again? If Mom and Dad didn’t give the money to you or me, who else could they possibly give it to…” Her voice abruptly cut off. The air turned dead silent. And right then, something clicked in my head. Unless… that money was never meant for either of us from the start.

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Shane Callahan was the single most offensive human being I had ever encountered. The first time I took an interest in him, he looked me dead in the eye and sneered, “Back the fuck off, you sick faggot. You disgust me.” Three years later, I found him bleeding to death on the concrete floor of an unsanctioned underground fight club. I bought his life. When he finally came to, he stared up at me through swollen, purple lids, voice raw and suspicious. “Why the hell did you pull me out?” I smiled, letting the silk lapels of my coat fall open. “I’m a queer, Callahan. What the fuck do you think a queer wants with a man like you?” He immediately dragged his hands down, shielding his groin, his lips peeling back in a snarl. “You filthy dog.” I reached out, caught him by the shoulder, and flipped him flat onto his stomach, pinning him into the mattress so hard the air left his lungs in a wheeze. “With a man like me,” I murmured into the shell of his ear, “what good do you think covering the front is going to do?” 1 The pit had a new problem child. The club manager practically bowed as he led me up the private iron staircase into the VIP mezzanine, his hands wringing together like dry parchment. “It’s this kid, Mr. Mercer. He refuses to take a dive.” The manager leaned close, lowering his voice against the roar of the crowd below. “He’s won six bouts in a row. The odds are completely fucked. The high-rollers on the books are starting to lose their minds.” I rested my forearms on the brass railing and looked down into the cage. Sitting on an overturned grease bucket in the corner, staring blankly at the blood-spattered canvas, was Shane Callahan. Memory hit me like an electric shock, dragging me back thirty-six months. I didn’t hand out my attention easily; in my world, men bent over backward for a fraction of my favor. But three years ago, when I had extended a silver-plated invitation his way, what had he given me in return? Back the fuck off, you sick faggot. I tapped the edge of my cigarette against the railing, watching the ash drift down through the smoke-choked air. “Put Maddox in the cage with him next round. Triple the dose on Maddox’s pre-fight cocktail.” The manager swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Right away, sir. And… how far should Maddox take it?” I didn’t turn around. My voice remained as light and indifferent as the autumn wind outside. “Beat him until he stops breathing.” 2 Down in the pit, there were no weight classes, no rounds, and no refereeing. The animals in the bleachers paid for one thing: red meat. Maddox was built like an industrial press, six-foot-four of scarred muscle and unhinged aggression, and tonight he had enough synthetic amphetamines coursing through his veins to stop an ox’s heart. He felt no pain. Shane was fast. He moved like water, ducking hooks that would have shattered brick, constantly pivoting, hunting for an angle, an exposed throat, a liver shot. But you cannot reason with a bulldozer that has no nerve endings. The roar inside the warehouse nearly blew the corrugated roof off when Shane coughed his first mouthful of dark blood onto the floor. He staggered, caught himself on one knee, and forced himself back up. That face of his—god, even split open and dripping red, there was an infuriating, untamable vitality to it. He lasted two more exchanges before Maddox caught him mid-pivot and slammed him into the concrete. The fists came down like sledgehammers. Heavy. Rhythmic. Shane’s mouth and nose sprayed crimson with every impact, his head bouncing off the deck. The crowd went feral, pounding the chain link, spitting foam. “Kill him! Break his fucking neck! Kill him!” I curled the corner of my mouth. Game over. I stood, smoothing the crease of my slacks, preparing to leave. But just as I turned my back, my gaze snagged on Shane’s eyes. Unfocused. Glazing over. Those were the eyes that had arrested me three years ago—alive with an arrogant, sunlit insolence, burning with youth. Now, the light in them was flickering, guttering out like a dying match. My shoe stopped mid-stride. A sudden, sharp hollow opened up behind my ribs. After everything, I still wanted him. “Call it,” I told the manager. “Get him out.” 3 By the time they hauled Shane into the back locker room, his pupils were blown wide, his consciousness slipping through his fingers like sand. I crouched beside the rusty gurney and waved my hand in front of his battered face. “Two choices, Callahan,” I said, voice calm and level. “You come home with me, and I keep you breathing. Or you lie right here and bleed out.” His cracked lips twitched. I leaned down, bringing my ear close to his mouth. “Go… fuck… yourself…” he rasped. A laugh slipped out of me. “Still the same feral stray. Suit yourself.” I straightened and turned toward the metal door, throwing a careless sentence over my shoulder. “You really have nothing left to live for? Not a single thing?” Every human being has an anchor. Nobody walks through hell without a reason. The room went dead silent. Just as my hand touched the brass handle of the door, a sound cracked through the damp concrete room. Hoarse. Desperate. “Save me.” I didn’t turn back. I merely lifted two fingers in the air, signaling the private medical team waiting in the corridor to go in. I walked out into the cold night air, and someone immediately draped my cashmere coat over my shoulders. I checked the Patek Philippe on my wrist. I was five minutes behind schedule. Five minutes wasted on Shane Callahan. In my precisely engineered, mechanically cold life, Shane was already proving to be an anomaly. 4 It took two months in a high-end private facility to piece his ribs, his skull, and his spleen back together. The moment the discharge papers were signed, my driver delivered him directly to my penthouse. I cut my afternoon board meeting short, driving back through the city faster than usual. When I took the private elevator straight up and entered the master suite, I heard the sound of rushing water from the bathroom. I pushed the frosted glass door open. Shane jerked around, water streaming down his lean, corded shoulders. “What the fuck!” He instantly clamped both hands over his groin, backing into the subway tile, his glare venomous. “Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see I’m taking a shower?!” I unfastened my watch, setting it on the marble vanity, and began unbuttoning my shirt. Piece by piece, right in front of his deteriorating expression, I stripped completely bare. “I see it.” “You sick faggot, you—” Before he could finish the curse, I stepped under the hot stream, grabbed his arm, spun him around, and slammed his chest flat against the wet tile. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you, Callahan?” I murmured, pressing my weight against him until his spine arched. “When you’re dealing with a queer like me, it’s the back you need to cover.” The roar of the showerhead did little to drown out the gasps, the choked groans, and the steady stream of filth Shane spat into the steam. It was the same handful of words, over and over. Pervert. Disgusting. Animal. Get the fuck off me. “Is that all you’ve got?” I chuckled against his neck. He ground his teeth together, the veins in the back of his hands bulging as his fingers clawed at the slick ceramic. “Fucking sickos like you used to get dragged behind trucks.” I hooked my fingers into his hip, shifting his angle, and a violent shudder ran through him, his knees buckling so hard he nearly hit the shower floor. I leaned over his shoulder, watching the sharp profile of his jaw. “Before you throw stones at me, Shane, maybe check your own glass house,” I whispered. “A straight guy being handled by a queer isn’t supposed to get hard.” He froze. He looked down at himself, water dripping off the tip of his nose, staring in total, uncomprehending horror at his own body’s betrayal. The sheer, childlike bewilderment on his face in that split second was so raw it was almost endearing. A sharp ache coiled deep in my lower belly. I reached around, caught his wet chin between my fingers, and turned his face to press my thumb against his bruised, crimson lips. “All right,” I breathed against his mouth. “I’m done in here. Let’s move to the bed.” 5 I possessed neither the patience nor the temperament for gentleness. He trembled beneath me, his hands clutching my forearms with white-knuckle force as his breath fractured into ragged, hitching sobs. His handsome face was crumpled in pain, damp brown hair plastered to his temples by sweat and steam. He looked ruined. Utterly, intoxicatingly wrecked. Every drop of desire in my blood caught fire. Even the curses he hissed through his teeth felt like lighter fluid poured straight onto the flame. “Filthy dog…” “Mm.” “Get off… get the fuck…” I pushed harder, burying myself deeper. “What was that?” His neck arched back, exposing the long, vulnerable line of his throat, practically begging for teeth. I leaned down and bit the cord of his neck, hard enough to taste salt and iron, and a strangled whimper tore out of his chest, vibrating straight through my ribs. He drove me out of my mind. I wanted to crush him. I wanted to grind his bones down and swallow them whole until he lived inside my skin. For the first time in my thirty years, I finally understood why men burned down empires for an hour in bed. The wet, frantic rhythm of skin on skin filled the dark room. He had no breath left to swear at me, his defiance eroding into something thin, desperate, and pleading. “Please… don’t… no more…” I shifted, kissing the wet salt trailing down the corner of his eye. “Shane,” I murmured, my voice thick. “Whose bed is this? Who am I?” He gasped for air, his chest heaving three, four times before he could piece together the syllables. “Adrian… Mercer.” His voice was rough, low, and beautiful. It sounded infinitely better wrapped around my name. “I was going to let you sleep tonight,” I said against his mouth. “Too bad.” Shane, you are far too breathtaking when you break. 6 Shane stayed in my penthouse. The first rule I laid down was absolute: he was never stepping foot inside an underground ring again. He fought me on it with everything he had. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can do?” he snarled across the dining room table. “You come back from those bouts bruised to the bone, limping, wincing every time I lay a finger on you,” I said, slicing into my steak without looking up. “It ruins my mood.” “Do you have any idea what it means to cut off a man’s livelihood?” he shouted, slamming his palms on the dark wood. “You’re taking food off my table!” “And?” “You arrogant prick!” He lunged. He had professional reflexes, and I took his right hook square across the cheekbone. The butler dropped a silver tray; the maids in the hallway froze in terror. I had never, in my entire privileged life, been struck by another human being. Yet, oddly, I didn’t feel a flicker of rage. The scuffle dragged us both onto the Persian rug, fists turning into grips, fury bleeding into friction. We sparked like flint and steel. By morning, I had taken my fill. I dragged myself out of bed, buttoning a fresh shirt, while Shane lay tangled in the Egyptian cotton sheets, glaring at me like a caged wolf. “Someone ought to cut that thing off you and feed it to the coyotes,” he spat. I paused by the door, adjusting my cufflink. “Want another round?” His gaze dropped instantly, his shoulders tensing. I smirked and reached for the doorknob, but before I could turn it, his voice drifted from the bed, quiet, muffled, and thick with defeat. “You can’t just stop me from earning money, Mercer.” There was an edge of helplessness in it. A tiny, raw tremor of despair. A ripple disturbed the smooth, icy surface of my chest. Before I could examine what that ache was, it slipped away into the shadows. 7 I had my private investigator pull Shane Callahan’s background that afternoon. The file was thin, but heavy. His parents had died in an industrial boiler explosion at a textile plant just outside the city. Shane had been fifteen. His brother, Luke, had been ten; his little sister, Maisie, just seven. “The settlement from the company was insulting,” my assistant explained quietly, standing on the other side of my mahogany desk. “Non-union shop. They barely paid burial costs. A fifteen-year-old kid carried the entire family on his back from that day forward.” He flipped a page. “The sister, Maisie… she’s in end-stage renal failure. She’s been living in a county hospital ward for the past eighteen months waiting on a kidney. The brother, Luke, just started his freshman year at state college.” My assistant’s face softened with genuine pity. He could look at those numbers and feel the suffocating weight of an impossible life. I couldn’t. I had been born into private equity and old money; poverty was an abstract concept, like zero-gravity physics. You cannot truly comprehend a cage you have never touched. I closed the manila folder. “Understood.” As autumn turned bitter and gray, Shane couldn’t go back to the cage, so he found a part-time gig at an auto body shop on the west side. One evening, on a whim I couldn’t quite justify to myself, I had the driver take a detour all the way across town to pick him up. Outside the garage, under the freezing neon light, two young men were leaning against a rusted fender, sharing soft-serve ice cream despite the bite in the air. One was Shane. The other was a kid his age, wiping motor grease from his hands with a rag. The coworker slung a heavy arm over Shane’s neck, leaning in close to whisper something right against his ear. Shane didn’t pull away. With me, he flinched or braced himself whenever I got within arm’s reach. But here, he leaned into the casual contact, threw his head back, and laughed—an open, bright, unguarded sound that cut through the cold. Had I ever seen Shane laugh like that? Not once. A sour, suffocating heat flared behind my ribs. Shane spotted the black Maybach idling by the curb. He waved goodbye to the kid, jogged over, and slid into the leather interior, smelling of motor oil and cheap vanilla. “What are you doing here?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The tightness in my chest deepened. “Had business in the district. It was on the way.” He nodded, asked no further questions, and went back to chewing the edge of his sugar cone. “Stay away from other men,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. Shane paused, frowning. “He’s a coworker.” “I don’t care. Don’t let them hang on you like that. You don’t know what kind of filth is running through their heads.” His brow furrowed deeper, a look of profound disgust washing over his face. “You think everyone in the world is as sick as you?” I turned my head, my eyes locking onto his. “What did you just say?” “Normal people aren’t like you, Mercer.” The words barely cleared his teeth before I grabbed him by the front of his jacket and slammed him down across the wide leather bench. The privacy partition whirred upward, sealing us in the dim, soundproof darkness. Shane stiffened. Outside the penthouse, in public, his resistance was always muted—he hated making a scene, suffocating his protests in the back of his throat like a trapped animal. I didn’t understand the sudden, blinding fury tearing through me, but I didn’t care to stop it. I pinned his wrists above his head, pressing down until my chest crushed his. “Not like me?” I sneered, leaning into his ear as his breathing turned shallow and jagged. He clamped his jaws shut, turning his face away into the leather, his body shivering. I reached down, dragged his calloused hand between our bodies, and forced his palm flat against the damp, warm front of my trousers. “Feel that, Shane. Whose reaction is that? Tell me again how you aren’t like me.” He jerked his hand back as if he had touched white-hot iron, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and fractured with a panic he couldn’t hide. I gave a low, bitter laugh, but the irritation inside me only sharpened. “You and I are cut from the exact same cloth, Callahan. Don’t let me catch you forgetting it again.” I was drowning in him, completely blind to how lethal that current already was. 8 When I woke the next morning, Shane was already sitting up on the edge of the mattress. His hair was a messy nest of dark strands, one stubborn cowlick sticking straight up in the back. Looking at it, a ridiculous warmth brushed against my ribs. “Don’t go to the shop today,” I said, sitting up against the headboard. “Stay home and rest.” I knew I had been too rough in the car. “I have a shift,” he muttered, not looking back. My silk tie had knotted poorly, and I yanked it loose with an irritated tug. “Can’t I afford to keep you?” He was still half-asleep, his voice dull and groggy. “What, you’re gonna keep me forever?” “What if I do?” The words slipped out of my mouth before my brain could vet them. “What if I keep you for the rest of your life?” The bedroom fell dead silent. The gentle morning draft from the balcony fluttered the loose hair at the crown of his head. I looked away, clearing my throat, terrified of digging into the terrifying truth behind what I had just said. I pivoted sharply, needing to change the subject. “About your sister,” I said, keeping my tone crisp and managerial. “My people found a compatible donor kidney through a private registry. I’ve already retained the chief of transplant surgery at St. Jude’s. You can go down there this afternoon, meet the team, and lock in the surgery date.” I stood, smoothing my cuffs. “Don’t worry about the billing. It’s handled.” Shane’s mouth parted slightly. He turned around, staring at me as if I were speaking an alien language. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and ruffled his hair, smoothing down that ridiculous cowlick. “I have to go.” As I pulled my hand away, his fingers suddenly shot out, clamping around my wrist. His eyes were rimmed with red, his grip trembling with an intensity that bordered on pain. He looked so fragile, so utterly stripped bare, looking up at me for confirmation. “Is that… are you serious?” It was such a minor thing for me—a phone call, a transfer of funds from an auxiliary account. Back then, I didn’t understand that the things we step over without looking can be the very boulders crushing someone else to death. The nightmare that had kept him awake in the dirt, bleeding his knuckles raw in back alleys for years, had been erased by me with a stroke of a pen. “Why would I lie to you about that?” Shane lowered his head, his chest hitching in silent, ragged breaths. I looked down at his dark eyelashes, fluttering against his cheek, and a bizarre, foreign ache tightened in my chest. Much later, I finally understood what that feeling was. It was an urge entirely detached from lust. It was simply the desperate, overwhelming need to press my lips against someone’s forehead and keep them safe. In my entire life, until Shane Callahan, I had never felt it once. 9 A multi-billion-dollar acquisition entered its final closing stages that month. I lived on black coffee and adrenaline, practically sleeping in the corporate boardroom, forgetting meals until my assistant placed them directly in front of my face. I hadn’t been back to the penthouse in four days. Realizing a crucial environmental clearance document was locked in my private study at home, I buzzed my house manager. “Yes, bottom drawer of the walnut desk.” “Right away, Mr. Mercer. I’ll have the courier bring it down.” My eyes wandered to the small porcelain dish on my desk. Strange—I was a man who ignored trivial domestic details, yet I had somehow memorized the fact that Shane had a weakness for blueberry tarts. “Is Shane at the house?” “Yes, sir.” “Have him bring it.” The moment Shane walked into my corner office forty minutes later, I realized what a catastrophic mistake I had made. Winter was setting in. He was wearing a cream-colored turtleneck beneath a tailored charcoal wool coat I had bought for him. As the coat swung open, the lean, firm contour of his waist was on full display. One look, and forty-eight hours of corporate strategy evaporated from my brain. I dismissed my vice president and general counsel immediately, waving them out the door. Shane touched his cheek self-consciously. “What are you staring at?” I gestured for him to come over. He hesitated, then walked behind the desk. I reached out, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him against my chair. He looked down at me, his fingers twitching slightly. For a second, I held my breath, waiting for him to touch my hair. But his hand stalled in midair, dropping back to his side. “You lost weight,” he said quietly. “I’m exhausted,” I mumbled, burying my face against his sweater. I didn’t even realize how much I sounded like a man whining to his lover. “What have you been doing all week?” At the mention of that, a faint, genuine warmth broke across his features. “At the hospital with Maisie. The doctors say her labs are stable. They set the surgery for next Tuesday.” He paused, swallowing hard, his voice dropping into something delicate. “Thank you, Adrian.” Had Shane ever been this soft with me? My grip on his waist tightened instinctively. If buying his gratitude was this easy, I would have moved heaven and earth for him ten times over. “That’s all the thanks I get?” Shane blinked, uncertain. “What else do you…” I parted my knees, reached up, and pulled him down by the collar until he was kneeling between my legs on the plush carpet. The gesture was unmistakable. The color drained from Shane’s face, leaving him rigid and pale. To be honest, I had wanted him on his knees for months. But with his feral pride, I had always assumed he’d bite me bloody out of sheer spite. Now, though, I knew he wouldn’t. Because beneath the rough exterior, Shane was far more decent, far more innocent than I was. He believed in debts. He believed in paying them back. Just as I anticipated, he took a slow, shuddering breath, his trembling hands reaching for the zipper of my slacks. Anticipation spiked through my veins, hot and sharp. But as I watched his crimson lips part, drawing closer, I couldn’t miss what was sitting in his eyes: humiliation, endurance, and a profound, hollow helplessness. My fingers tangled in his hair—and froze. A sudden, suffocating ache clamped down on my heart. I caught him under the arms and hauled him up violently, pulling him into my lap and burying his face into my shoulder. “What now…?” he gasped, disoriented. “Forget it,” I rasped, wrapping both arms around his back, pressing his chest flat against mine. “Just let me hold you. Let me recharge.” He stiffened, whispering a soft, bewildered, “You’re out of your mind,” but he didn’t pull away. I closed my eyes and tightened my grip, trying to drown out the frantic, chaotic beating of my own heart. I was feeling mercy. For a plaything. To develop a bleeding heart for an untamed stray was a dangerous, pathetic defect. It was a terrible sign. 10 The corporate war dragged on until the final week of December. The only redeeming part of those grueling weeks was knowing that when I returned to the cold glass tower, there was a warm body waiting beneath the duvet. Shane was a heavy sleeper. One night, I found him dead to the world, a faint red crease pressed into his cheek from the pillow. I stood by the bed, looking at him, an unreasonable irritation prickling at me. I wanted to hear his voice. I slid under the covers and deliberately pressed my freezing feet against his calf. He jumped, his face contorting in a groan. “Jesus Christ! Mercer, are you trying to give me hypothermia?!” He cursed, but he didn’t kick me away. “Sorry. Accidents happen. Go back to sleep.” “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep after that?” “Good. Stay awake then.” “You… get off me… mmph.” When I woke the next morning, the gray winter light was filtering through the sheer curtains. Shane was still out cold. I slipped out of bed with utmost care, but before I walked toward the dressing room, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down and pressing a feather-light kiss to his forehead. It didn’t carry an ounce of lust. As I pulled away, Shane’s hand twitched in his sleep, his fingers curling slightly into the sheet—the exact same way he unconsciously held onto the hem of my shirt when he drifted off beside me. When bodies stay tangled for too long, the distance between hearts begins to fray. And it happens without a sound. It was New Year’s Eve. Following tradition, I prepared holiday bonus envelopes for the domestic staff. After handing them out in the marble foyer, I called the house manager over. “Find me another envelope.” He brought back a standard white one. I frowned. “Something bigger.” He returned with a heavy stationery envelope. “Bigger.” When we ran out of options, I stuffed a thick stack of cash into the largest one we had, took it upstairs, and set it gently on Shane’s nightstand. I leaned down, brushing the stray bangs from his forehead. “Happy New Year, Shane.” There was an embarrassing amount of tenderness in my voice, so quiet I barely recognized it myself. After I pulled the door shut with a soft click, the man on the bed slowly opened his eyes. A faint, tired smile touched his lips, his voice soft against the pillow. “Happy New Year, Adrian.” 11 The Mercer family was vast, which meant the annual New Year’s gathering at the ancestral estate in the hills was an exercise in performative elegance. Children ran through the manicured courtyard with sparklers. Near the bay window, my uncle was losing an aggressive game of chess to my grandfather. My mother, Victoria, approached me holding a flute of champagne, her diamonds catching the chandelier light. “Did you stop by the Montgomery estate this morning?” “I did.” “Good. Vivian is your future wife. Show some courtesy to her family.” I nodded vaguely, my fingers unconsciously fiddling with the leather band of my watch. Beneath the strap, hidden against my pulse point, was a faint ring of teeth marks Shane had left three nights ago. Outside, fireworks erupted over the valley. Inside, crystal clinked against crystal amid hollow laughter and polished smiles. Surrounded by all this glittering noise, an unbearable loneliness hollowed out my chest. I wanted Shane. I slipped out to the terrace, pulled out my phone, and dialed. He picked up on the third ring. The background was dead quiet. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Haven’t been back to my place in months,” he replied, his voice calm. “Doing some cleaning. Fixing a leaky pipe.” A beat. “Why? You need something?” “I’m a little…” The words jammed in my throat. I miss you was a sentence that had never existed in my vocabulary. “Bored.” A soft huff of laughter came through the receiver. “You’re surrounded by fifty of the richest people in the state and you’re bored?” Suddenly, a small tug hit my trouser leg. “Uncle Adrian! Come light sparklers with me!” my niece chirped. Shane heard her. “Sounds like you’re busy,” he said evenly. “Go back inside.” He hung up. I stood there for three seconds, looking at the black screen. I patted the little girl’s head. “Uncle has to leave, sweetheart. Go play with your cousins.” I snatched my coat off the hall rack and headed straight for the front double doors. My mother set her porcelain cup down, her voice sharp as glass. “Adrian. Where are you going?” My boots didn’t break stride. “Don’t worry about it.”

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