Category: English

1 I possess a highly specific talent. It is not exactly glamorous, but most commuters would beg on their knees for it. Whenever I board a bus, I can see a glowing number hovering above every passenger’s head, indicating exactly how many stops they have left. The older lady with a 5 floating above her hairless crown? Sure enough, five stops later, she sprints off before the doors even fully open, desperate to beat the morning rush at the farmer’s market. The exhausted woman who falls asleep the second her head hits the window? She sports a 15. A totally burned-out wage slave riding all the way to the end of the line. As for me, I specifically target the 1s. I casually sidle up to them, wait a few minutes, and inherit their warm seat while everyone else glares in pure envy. I cannot help it. A gift is a gift. Until today. It was the start of the holiday break. I dragged my heavy suitcases onto the bus, my eyes scanning the aisle for a fresh zero, ready to claim my prize. Instead, I froze. The entire bus, every single passenger, had the exact same number hovering above their heads. Zero. “God, it is packed in here! I am relying on you, seat whisperer!” My best friend, Sophie, grabbed my arm the second we boarded, pulling me out of my daze. “You are the absolute best at this. Find a spot for a poor, tired girl, will you?” “I am on it.” Lugging both of our oversized bags, I activated my eagle eyes. It was a weird crowd today. Half the bus was filled with kids on a field trip, bright yellow caps on their heads, each sporting a glowing 12. They were all heading to Centennial Park. Only two passengers stood out. One was a gloomy young man sitting by the window, staring blankly at the passing cars. A solid 1 hovered above him. The other was an anxious elderly woman sitting near the aisle. Her number kept glitching, flickering frantically between a 1 and a 2. Maybe she had not decided where to get off yet? Playing it safe, I shoved Sophie and the heaviest suitcase toward the gloomy guy, while I squeezed my way over to the old woman. The moment I got close, something felt incredibly off. The bus was full, but not suffocatingly crowded. The field trip kids were traveling light, holding nothing but little paper flags. Yet, in this relatively spacious section, the old woman was clutching an enormous, heavy cast-iron pot to her chest, absolutely refusing to set it on the floor. Judging by how deeply the pot dug into her thighs, it weighed a ton. She kept glancing around nervously. When I stopped in front of her, she flinched like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on, her eyes locking onto me with fierce paranoia. Watching the numbers flicker wildly above her gray hair, a chilling thought crossed my mind. Did she escape from a memory care unit? “Approaching Ashborne Avenue. Passengers departing, please prepare for your exit.” The mechanical female voice echoed through the speakers. I immediately shot a look at Sophie, raising my eyebrows. That guy is about to leave. Grab his seat! But as I looked at her, my blood ran cold. The number floating above Sophie’s head had changed. It was a 0. I whipped my head around. It was not just her. The entire bus, including the laughing kids waving their little flags, every single number had plummeted to 0. “Wait, no! Stop the car!” In a fraction of a second, the world erupted in blinding hellfire. The searing phantom heat of the explosion still crawled across my skin as a warm hand suddenly clamped onto my arm. “God, it is packed in here! I am relying on you, seat whisperer!” I gasped, whipping my head around. “Sophie! You are alive?!” “What the hell is wrong with you? You are the dead one here!” Sophie glared at me like I had lost my mind, yanking me onto the bus steps. “Just find me a seat and I will forgive your weirdness.” I looked up. There it was. The exact same bus. The old woman clutching her cast-iron pot, smiling nervously at me. “No! Get off!” I grabbed Sophie’s hand and bolted for the doors. “Are you insane? Route 8 is the only one that goes to Union Station!” Sophie yelled, planting her feet. “We will wait for the next one. This bus is way too crowded!” “The next one is in thirty minutes! We will miss our train!” She gripped her suitcase handle, refusing to budge. “Just trust me!” I ripped the suitcase from her grip and spun toward the exit. A heavy pneumatic hiss hissed through the air. The doors slammed shut right in my face. I banged on the glass, staring at the driver. “Let us out!” He completely ignored me, stepping on the gas with zero hesitation. “Next stop, Ashborne Avenue.” The mechanical voice made my entire body shudder. Ashborne Avenue. That was where the fire started. The adrenaline spiked in my veins. I shoved my way to the front and screamed at the driver. “Stop the bus! We need to get off right now!” The driver slowly turned his head. His pupils were completely unfocused, staring right through me. “Time is up. You can exit at the next stop.” He spoke in a flat, monotone rhythm, like a machine stripped of its soul. “He is right, dear. Just wait for the next stop. Stop causing a fuss and come sit by me.” The old woman smiled, waving her wrinkled hand at me, her index finger curling in a slow, hypnotic motion. “I guess you were right,” Sophie whispered from behind me, her voice trembling slightly. “The vibe in here is completely unhinged. We are definitely getting off at the next stop.” I squeezed my eyes shut. There is no next stop. “Come here, sweetie.” The old woman was still waving me over. I let out a shaky breath and walked toward her. If I could not run, I had to face the threat head-on. I glanced back, hoping to tell Sophie to keep her distance, only to see her dragging her suitcase right next to the gloomy young man. He sat there like a stone gargoyle, his head bowed, hugging his leather briefcase tight against his chest. I turned my attention back to the old woman. The moment she caught me staring at her cast-iron pot, her welcoming smile vanished entirely. The driver hit the brakes hard, and a distinct, heavy rolling sound echoed from inside the pot. She instantly tightened her grip, her knuckles turning white as her paranoid eyes darted around the cabin. Seeing that nobody else noticed, she let out a long sigh of relief. Then, a high-pitched voice shattered the quiet. “Grandma, what is in your pot?” The old woman violently flinched. “N-nothing! Nothing at all!” “Nothing? Then why are you hugging it like a baby? Want me to hold it for you?” I reached out. She exploded like a lit fuse. “I said I do not need help! Back off!” The driver coughed loudly from the front, and her fiery attitude immediately extinguished. “I am getting off at the next stop anyway. You can have the seat.” She stood up abruptly, hugging the heavy pot to her chest, and practically fled to the rear exit doors. I stared at her back. The flickering 2 and 3 above her head suddenly stabilized into a solid 1. She was telling the truth. She really was getting off at the next stop. Did I accuse the wrong person? But her pot was the only thing on this bus large enough to hide a homemade explosive. I scanned the cabin, my eyes drifting over the field trip kids with their tiny flags, until my gaze locked onto something else. Wait. There was one other person. I stared at the young man sitting next to Sophie. His leather briefcase. It was bulging grotesquely, stretched so tight it looked completely spherical. I opened my mouth to yell for Sophie to move, but the bus hit a massive pothole. A loud metallic clatter rang out. The cast-iron pot had slipped from the old woman’s grasp and hit the floor. I whipped around, my jaw dropping as I saw what rolled out. “Pickled eggs?!” Before I could even process the sight of a dozen hard-boiled eggs rolling across the ribbed rubber floor, a pungent, eye-watering stench of fermented garlic, vinegar, and sulfur violently assaulted the air. Passengers groaned in unison, pulling their shirts over their noses. “How many times do I have to tell you?!” the driver roared. “No foul-smelling food on my bus!” “I am so sorry! I am so sorry, everyone!” The old woman dropped to her knees, frantically chasing the rolling eggs, bowing her head in utter humiliation. “My granddaughter is in the hospital. She cannot keep any food down, but she grew up loving my spicy pickled eggs.” “I do not care about your sob story! Get that garbage off my bus!” Watching this fragile woman getting scolded like a naughty child twisted my stomach. I knelt down to help her gather the spilled food. “Approaching Ashborne Avenue.” The moment my fingers brushed a cold, slippery egg, that icy mechanical voice rang out from the speakers. Instantly, a devastating shockwave of raw heat erupted from behind me. Engulfed in flames, I forced my neck to turn. Right there. It came from right there. “God, it is packed in here.” Before Sophie could even finish her sentence, I was already sprinting down the aisle, lunging straight for the gloomy young man. “Hand over the briefcase! Right now, or I am calling the cops!” I slammed my hands down on the bulging leather, feeling the hard, packed objects beneath the surface. He slowly looked up. His eyes were so hollow, so suffocated by pure despair, that my heart actually skipped a beat. “Give it to me,” I demanded, forcing my voice to stay steady. “What is wrong with you, lady?” one of the kids piped up. “Do you know this guy? Why are you trying to steal his stuff?” I recognized that little girl. During the first two explosions, she survived the initial blast. I remembered her lying in the burning wreckage, weeping softly, whispering that it hurt, begging for her mother. My knuckles turned stark white as I gripped the bag strap. I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper. I will make sure the suffering ends in this lifetime. “Yeah, who do you think you are? You just board a bus and start robbing people?” The chaperone teacher stood up, his face twisted in disgust. “Stop traumatizing my students!” “Listen up, kids! This is called assault. Do not ever act like this maniac!” he yelled, pointing a thick finger at me. Sophie yanked hard on my sleeve, her voice a frantic hiss. “What are you doing? Let go before you get us arrested!” I ignored her, my eyes locked on the young man. In the previous loop, I felt the searing shockwave originate exactly from where he was sitting. I yanked the heavy briefcase with all my strength. He refused to let go, his grip tightening as the force pulled him entirely out of his seat. He stumbled into the aisle, breathing heavily. “Look at her!” the teacher shouted, his voice booming over the engine noise. “She is actually getting violent! Unbelievable.” “Picking on a guy who was just minding his business. Real tough.” “Probably doing it for some viral video. Look at the way she is dressed.” The hostility hit me in waves. I was the villain. I was the monster. Sophie’s eyes were red with frantic embarrassment. “Are you done making a scene?! Everyone is staring! If you do not care about your reputation, I care about mine!” She clawed at my fingers, desperately trying to pry me off the bag. I clenched my jaw, forcing the words out of my tight throat. “He has a bomb in this bag.” The entire bus fell dead silent. Into the suffocating quiet, the icy mechanical voice drifted through the speakers. “Approaching Ashborne Avenue.” Before the tires even screeched to a halt, the heavy thud of combat boots hit the steps. Police officers swarmed the vehicle. “Step back! Nobody move!” “Hands where we can see them!” The passengers froze in sheer terror, their jaws dropping as they slowly raised their hands in the air. “Officers.” a frail, trembling voice floated from the back corner. Everyone turned, staring at the old woman like she had a death wish. She was clearly terrified, shrinking against the window, yet she forced herself to ask the question. “What is going on here? My granddaughter is very sick. I need to get to the hospital.” “We received a 911 call reporting an explosive device on this transit line.” A collective gasp sucked the oxygen out of the cabin. The teacher who had screamed at me stood frozen, his eyes darting from the heavily armed cops to the briefcase still locked in my grip. Sophie was paralyzed, her hand still raised in the air from trying to pry my fingers loose. I finally let go of the strap and slowly raised my hands. “I made the call.” “Are you insane?!” Sophie shrieked, her voice cracking in pure panic. She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin. “What is wrong with your brain? You saw a fat bag and decided to call in a bomb threat?!” “Do you know they throw you in federal prison for fake threats?!” Her face was flushed purple. “You have been saying weird stuff all week, seeing things, acting paranoid. I thought you were just stressed! But now you are hallucinating bombs? You need psychiatric help!” The crowd immediately started murmuring. The teacher clutched his chest, letting out a loud, exaggerated breath. “Jesus, my heart. It is just a fake call.” He glared at me with pure venom. “I knew it. A perfectly normal commute ruined by some paranoid lunatic!” “Sweetheart,” the old woman called out gently, clutching her cast-iron pot. “Do not put so much pressure on yourself. Here, Grandma will give you a nice egg to calm your nerves.” “Silence!” The lead officer stepped forward, his eyes locked on me. “You made the call? Where is the device?” “Him.” I pointed directly at the gloomy man. “He hid the explosive inside his briefcase.” Sophie stomped her foot, tears of frustration spilling over. “Stop lying! You just want to ruin our lives, do you not? You are completely unhinged!” “He is the unhinged one!” I ripped my arm away from her, pointing fiercely at the man. He still had his head bowed, utterly detached from the chaos around him. It was as if the rest of the universe did not exist. Just him, and the bag clutched to his chest. “Let us see what is inside, then we will know for sure.” I lunged for the bag. He twisted away. My fingers missed the leather but caught something dangling from the zipper. A sharp snap echoed as a plastic keychain broke off and hit the floor. It was like flipping a switch. The man’s head snapped up violently. “Enough!” His eyes were completely bloodshot, wild and cornered. The sheer agony in his gaze made the entire bus recoil. Sophie instinctively hid behind my back. “You want to see? Fine! Look at it!” He jumped up, ripped the zipper open, and turned the entire bag upside down, violently shaking it. A heavy, pathetic crash followed. Manila folders, cheap ballpoint pens, a dented thermos, a half-eaten box of saltines, and six frayed notebooks slammed against the rubber floor. Nothing else. No wires. No explosives. No weapons. The bus was dead silent. “Are you happy now?” He dropped to his knees, his voice muffled and thick with unshed tears as he slowly began picking up his scattered life. “They fired me today.” “Six years. Six years I gave them, and they fired me with zero notice. I did not even have time to find a cardboard box. I shoved my entire desk into my bag. That is why it is fat.” He stopped talking. He just kept picking up his pens, looking like a stray dog that had just been kicked into the gutter. Then he reached for the plastic keychain. He slowly turned it over. The smiling face of a little girl was printed beneath the scratched plastic. “My little sister.” His voice cracked, raw and hollow. “A drunk driver killed my parents. She has been in a coma in the ICU ever since. Where the hell would I get money to build a bomb? I cannot even afford to keep her life support running.” The air left my lungs. “I am so sorry. I did not know.” A muffled, terrifying boom ruptured the air. A devastating shockwave ripped from the back of the bus, tearing through the metal and flesh in a blinding flash of orange. The shrieks of the dying melted into one horrifying chord. Through the thick, suffocating black smoke, fighting the agony of my own burning skin, I forced my neck to turn one last time. Through the haze, I saw a hand. A hand tightly gripping a detonator switch. On its middle finger, a thin silver ring caught the flames, flashing a brilliant, blinding light straight into my pupils. My eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror. How is it you?!

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1 After my father’s casket was lowered into the earth, my best friend, Nora, wrapped her arms around my shaking shoulders. “Before he passed, Arthur told you not to forget to water the plants,” she whispered, her voice thick with sympathy. “Kate, he wanted you to keep going. He wanted you to live a good life.” My blood ran entirely cold. My father had a severe pollen allergy. We had never kept a single green thing in our house, let alone flowers or plants. Years ago, he and I had agreed on a secret code. If either of us were ever in immediate, life-threatening danger, we would use the phrase “water the plants” to signal for help. My father had died in a tragic car accident a week ago. How did Nora know our code? … When my father first suggested setting up an emergency signal, I had laughed in his face. I told him life wasn’t a thriller movie, and we didn’t need secret codes. He had simply smiled, telling me it was better to be safe than sorry. We both assumed we would never have to use it. Yet now, those very words had just slipped from the lips of my closest friend. Nora had been my rock. Ever since my father’s accident, she had practically abandoned her own sick daughter, staying by my side day and night for the past two weeks to keep me from falling apart. “Kate? Are you okay?” Nora’s gentle, concerned voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. I pulled myself back to the present and forced a weak shake of my head. There was no way Nora had anything to do with my father’s death. She had no motive, no reason to hurt him. Perhaps my father had managed to tell her the code before he died, hoping she would warn me that his accident wasn’t an accident at all? I clenched my fists, forcing a fragile smile onto my face. “I’m okay, really.” I squeezed her hand. Her palm was burning hot, making my icy fingers ache. “Nora, you’ve been with me for so long. You should go home. Mona must miss her mom.” Nora held on tighter. “My mother is watching Mona. I’m not leaving you alone like this.” Her touch, which had always brought me comfort, suddenly made my skin crawl. I quietly slipped my hand out of her grip, fabricating a quick excuse. “The insurance company called. They need me to sign some paperwork for my dad’s life insurance policy back in my hometown. I have to make the drive today, so…” Before I could even finish, Nora cut me off, her voice laced with a strange, hurried relief. “Oh, in that case, you should definitely go right away!” I stared at her. We had been friends for ten years. I knew every shift in her expression, every nervous tic. Nora, what are you in such a hurry for? The drive to Blackwood Creek was long and winding. Nora’s odd reaction replayed in my mind like a broken record, distracting me so much that I missed the exit for the highway service station. By the time the low fuel light flashed on my dashboard, I was forced to pull into a rusty, isolated gas station at the base of the mountain pass. “Heading up the mountain, kid?” The old attendant shook his head, waving his gloved hands. “Can’t go up. There was a nasty rockslide a few days back. Debris everywhere. A car went over the edge, and the state troopers still have the pass closed off for the investigation.” My grip tightened on the steering wheel. That car belonged to my father. I took a deep breath, smoothing my expression as I stepped out of the car. “Sir, it’s been a week. Why is the road still closed?” “I hear the detectives are treating it as suspicious,” the old man sighed, leaning against the pump. “Two lives lost in one night. They have to be thorough.” “Two lives?” My eyes went wide. I reached out, grabbing his sleeve before I could stop myself. “The police report said there was only one vehicle involved. How could there be two deaths?” The attendant startled, blinking at me in confusion. “Well, yes, only one car went over. But that evening, a young female cyclist stopped by here to escape the storm. She ended up hitching a ride in that very car.” A cold sweat broke out across my back. The world seemed to tilt. The forensic report from the crash site had been absolute: my father’s body was the only one recovered from the wreckage. Where was the girl? Was she alive? Who was she? Driven by a sudden, sickening instinct, I pulled up a photo of Nora on my phone and held it up to the old man. “Was this the girl who took the ride?” The attendant squinted at the screen, then immediately shook his head. “No, definitely not her. The cyclist was broader, heavier, and had short, cropped hair.” I lowered my phone, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, though the knot in my chest only grew tighter. The attendant finished filling my tank, but instead of asking for payment, he gestured toward the small brick office. “Kid, step inside for a second. I want to show you something.” I hesitated, watching him walk toward the door. Under the dim, flickering security light of the station, his face seemed cast in shadow. 2 I took a cautious step back, my eyes tracking his movements with sudden suspicion. The old man caught my hesitation and let out a dry chuckle. He didn’t push. Instead, he disappeared into the office, rummaged around for a moment, and returned with a tablet. “Here,” he said, handing it over with a hint of pride. “This is the security footage from that night. The system usually overwrites the files every seven days, but since there was a fatal crash, I figured the police might want to see it, so I backed it up.” My suspicion instantly turned into a deep sense of shame. “Thank you,” I muttered quietly, taking the screen. He waved it off dismissively. “Don’t apologize for being careful. In this world, you can’t even trust the people closest to you, let alone a stranger at a dark gas station.” The footage was timestamped exactly twenty-eight minutes before the estimated time of the crash. On the screen, my father’s car pulled up to the pump. A moment later, a heavy-set woman with short hair and a massive hiking pack approached his window. After a brief exchange, she loaded her bicycle into his trunk and climbed into the passenger seat. I replayed the short clip half a dozen times. Aside from confirming the girl wasn’t Nora, there was nothing else to see. The attendant leaned over, looking at the screen. “Look, I probably shouldn’t be sharing this, but if it helps you, I can send a copy to your phone.” I looked up, meeting his eyes, which were now filled with a quiet, heavy sympathy. “Your dad used to stop by here every time he drove up this way,” the old man said softly. “You have his eyes.” My throat tightened, and I could barely whisper a thank you. As he turned to walk back to his office, he left me with one final, unsettling thought. “I’ve run this station for thirty years, kid. We’ve never had a rockslide on this pass. The rain that night wasn’t even that heavy. It just doesn’t make sense.” With the mountain pass closed and the sky turning pitch black, I had no choice but to check into a dingy roadside motel at the base of the mountain. I tossed and turned on the lumpy mattress, watching the gas station footage on my phone until the battery finally died. My father looked completely normal in the video. Giving a stranded cyclist a ride in a storm was exactly the kind of man he was. The girl looked ordinary too, her bike tires caked in mud, her face obscured by the hood of her raincoat. It was a perfectly mundane video. When dawn broke, I packed my small bag and decided to hike up the closed mountain road on foot. The paved road was steep but well-maintained. After an hour and a half of walking, the bright yellow police tape marking the crash site came into view. It was the sharpest hairpin turn on the entire pass. A section of the heavy steel guardrail had been completely pulverized, marking the exact spot where my father’s sedan had plunged into the ravine below. The road was marked with white chalk outlines and scattered gravel. I looked at the rocks clustered near the edge. There weren’t many of them: eight rocks in total, ranging from the size of a fist to the size of a washbasin. I frowned. Even if these rocks had fallen directly onto the car, they weren’t large enough to cause a fatal accident on their own. The hum of an approaching engine broke the silence. I stepped onto the shoulder as a marked police cruiser came down the mountain, pulling to a halt just past the barricade. The man who stepped out of the driver’s seat was a familiar face: Detective Robert Collins, my father’s childhood best friend, a man who had known me since I was in diapers. In the span of a single week, he seemed to have aged a decade. He looked at me in surprise, his uniform cap pulled low. “Kate? What are you doing out here?” “I needed to see it, Uncle Robert,” I said quietly. Robert was a veteran homicide detective, and he was the lead investigator on my father’s case. He didn’t need me to explain why I was here. He sighed, lifting the yellow tape to let me through. 3 Robert pointed to the chalk markings on the asphalt, then toward the shattered guardrail. “The rain washed away most of the tire tracks, but the forensics team managed to reconstruct the pattern using specialized lighting,” he said, his brow furrowed in frustration. “The data shows your father was speeding. In fact, he didn’t even tap the brakes as he entered this curve. That goes against every driving habit he had.” His voice grew quiet. “Your father was the most cautious driver I knew. He never sped, especially not in a storm.” My eyes stung with tears. When I was a little girl, I used to complain that he drove like a turtle. He would always smile and tell me that speed didn’t matter, as long as we made it home safely. A man like that would never drive recklessly on a slick mountain pass. Unless something had forced his hand. I pointed toward the ravine. “Uncle Robert, what about the other person in the car? Did she survive?” Robert stared at me, his face freezing. “Kate, I think the stress is getting to you. Your father was alone in the vehicle. We found no evidence of any passenger.” The mountain wind whistled through the trees, making me shiver. Thankfully, Robert trusted me. Once I showed him the gas station footage on my phone, his entire demeanor shifted. He drove me straight to the county sheriff’s department, pulling in his colleagues to trace the short-haired woman. Initially, everyone had assumed my father’s death was a tragic accident, chalking Robert’s obsession with the case up to grief. But with the video evidence, the department quickly swung into action. “Detective Collins! We reviewed the highway cameras,” one of the officers called out. “There’s a toll camera three miles before the crash site. The passenger was definitely still in the vehicle at that point.” “We have an identity!” Within two hours, the system had flagged her. Her name was Gwen. She was a touring cyclist who had passed through the county a week ago. Unfortunately, she was already three states away. Robert called her on speakerphone, allowing me to sit quietly in the corner of the office to listen. “Yeah, I remember that night,” Gwen’s voice came through the line, sharp and irritated. “That old guy agreed to give me a lift to the lodge at the top. But halfway up the mountain, his phone rang. He listened to whoever was on the other end, went completely pale, and then literally forced me out of the car in the middle of a torrential downpour.” She let out a bitter laugh. “My bike chain was busted, and he just left me stranded on the side of the road. I was furious. But then I saw the news about his crash the next morning, and I realized I’d dodged a bullet.” Gwen’s tone was entirely casual, devoid of any real sympathy. Robert asked her several detailed questions, but she had nothing of value to offer. To her, it was simply an annoying detour on her trip. Robert rubbed his face in frustration, leaning back in his chair. I sat frozen, staring at the video on my phone, replaying it over and over. In the background, two deputies were whispering. “According to the cyclist, the victim kicked her out because of an emergency call. But if they were both going up the mountain, why waste time forcing her out of the car? It doesn’t make sense.” My eyes snapped down to the timestamp at the bottom of the screen. My father had left the gas station at exactly 8:32 PM. The crash was recorded twenty-eight minutes later. The distance between the gas station and the hairpin turn was barely four miles. Even in a heavy storm, that drive shouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes. What did he do during those missing eighteen minutes? I stood up, my hand shaking as I grabbed Robert’s arm. “Uncle Robert, look at the time.”

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1 Austin and I planned to marry after seven years apart. To celebrate, he invited me to Cascade Peaks, where we first met. When I arrived, he and my best friend Serena were already skiing together. The resort ran a buy two get one free lift ticket deal and I was the free extra. At a group photo, I stood frozen on the ice while Austin took the shot. In it, I looked awkward and miserable. He put an arm around me and said you are not photogenic, Paige. Next to Serena, you fade. He promised a solo picture but spent the afternoon skiing with her instead. Later, his post showed them laughing in the sun while I was a blurred shadow at the edge. The truth hit hard. For years, I had shared our relationship with Serena on trips, holidays, and even our keychains. If I was always the third wheel, it was time to get off their track. … When the gondola finally rotated to our turn in the queue, only two empty seats remained. Austin naturally extended his hand, guiding Serena into the cabin first. They sat close, laughing at some private joke, completely oblivious to the fact that the lift operator had blocked me behind the metal safety barrier. The gondola rose slowly, disappearing into the gray, winter sky. It was almost laughable. I didn’t wait around. I stripped off my hired gear, returned it to the locker, and walked out of the resort to catch the public bus back to the city. As the engine roared to life, I clutched my phone, a pathetic sliver of hope still lingering in my chest. What would they do when they realized I was gone? Would they feel a pang of regret for leaving me behind? Would they feel guilty? But throughout the bumpy, three-hour ride back to our apartment, my phone remained dead silent. It was only when I collapsed onto the living room sofa, exhausted to the bone, that Austin’s name finally flashed on my screen. “Paige, where did you go? Serena bought a ton of souvenirs and my hands are completely full.” His voice carried a light, irritated edge. “You just vanished without saying a word. Do you have any idea how worried we were?” Worried? Through the receiver, I could hear Serena’s bright, bubbly laughter echoing in the background. I remained quiet for a long second, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I wasn’t feeling well. I went home.” His tone softened slightly, though it still held a hint of scolding. “I told you to wear your thermals, but you wanted to look cute. You probably caught a cold. We’re on our way back now.” He paused. “Take some medicine first. The cold tablets are in…” “The left drawer of the master bedroom nightstand. You put them there after your last flu.” Serena’s voice cut in, answering for him. I opened the drawer. Right next to the blister pack of pills sat a half-used tube of her favorite lip balm. A wave of dizziness hit me. Looking around, I realized this apartment was overflowing with Serena’s presence. Her silk pajamas were currently spinning in our washing machine. Her expensive face wash sat on our bathroom counter. A pair of her personal slippers rested in our shoe rack. This was supposed to be my future home. I was the one paying half the mortgage. Yet, she looked far more like the mistress of this house than I did. I hung up the phone and walked out onto the balcony, desperate for a breath of fresh air. There, shoved into the dampest, darkest corner of the drying rack, was the wool sweater I had washed yesterday. It was cold, wet, and already beginning to smell musty. Meanwhile, Serena’s delicate activewear occupied the prime, sunlit center of the rack. Even my clothes were pushed aside to make room for hers. I stared at the musty sweater for a long time. Then, I reached out, pulled it off the hanger, and threw it straight into the trash can. Austin didn’t walk through the door until eleven that night. He immediately came over to press the back of his hand against my forehead, his touch familiar and warm. “I bought you some ibuprofen. Come on, sit up and take it.” I leaned away from his hand. “Austin, why have you never posted a picture of me on your social media?” His response was smooth, practiced. “My feed is strictly for work. It’s full of partners and clients. Posting personal stuff looks unprofessional.” I let out a quiet laugh. My face was unprofessional. But Serena’s smile was apparently perfect for his brand, considering she made an appearance on his page every other week. The exhaustion finally settled deep into my chest. “Let’s call off the wedding. We’re done.” Austin froze, his hand hovering in mid-air. “Paige, are you serious?” His voice rose, tinged with disbelief. “We’re already engaged. You’re throwing a tantrum over something this petty?” “Is it just this one thing?” I asked, looking up at him. The gentle facade on Austin’s face began to crack, his voice growing sharper. “The invitations are out. The venue deposit is paid. You want to call it off now? Do you want us to be the laughingstock of the city?” Before I could answer, his phone chimed, cutting through the heavy tension. The ringtone was a soft acoustic folk song. It was a track I had recommended to him a dozen times. Every time, he had called it nice but never bothered to save it. But when Serena took an interest in indie folk music a month ago, the song suddenly became his ringtone. He answered, and Serena’s trembling, tearful voice filled the quiet room. “Austin, Mittens is throwing up blood. I’m so scared…” Austin’s face paled instantly. He grabbed his car keys and jacket, already moving toward the door. “Calm down, Paige,” he threw over his shoulder. “Just get some rest. We’ll talk about this when I get back.” The front door slammed shut. The sound felt like a sharp slap to my face, shattering whatever illusions I had left. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in months. “Sean,” I whispered when he picked up. “Is your offer to open that bistro back home still on?” Austin didn’t return until the following morning. He walked in carrying a large paper bag from my favorite bakery, filled to the brim with every flavor of pastry they made. In the past, I would have squealed with joy, taken a dozen photos, and posted them online to show off how sweet my fiancé was. Now, I only felt a dull ache. Over our seven years together, my weight had climbed from a petite hundred and ten pounds to nearly a hundred and thirty-five. In the beginning, he used to squeeze my waist and tell me my curves were adorable. But gradually, his comments changed. “You should probably watch what you eat, Paige. It’s not a good look when a girl lets herself go. Cut back on the sugar.” So, I had stopped eating them. Austin set the box on the coffee table, pushing it toward me with an apologetic smile. “I stayed up all night thinking. I know I haven’t made you feel secure lately. From now on, I’ll post our photos on my main feed. Don’t be mad anymore, okay?” I didn’t say a word. I simply reached into the box and picked up a cinnamon danish from the side. A neat, semi-circular chunk was missing from the pastry. Someone had already taken a bite out of it. Austin cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed. “Serena came with me to the bakery. Her blood sugar was dropping, so I let her have a bite to tide her over. If it bothers you, I can go buy another box.” I closed the lid of the box. “No need. It’s a waste of money.” Believing the storm had passed, Austin let out a sigh of relief. He immediately busied himself around the apartment, cleaning the kitchen and sweeping the floors with unusual enthusiasm. When bedtime rolled around, he slid into bed and wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, his intentions clear. I pushed him away, pointing to the painkillers on the nightstand. “My cramps are starting early this month. I’m not in the mood.” Austin laughed, pulling me closer. “Serena told me that having regular intimacy actually helps with cramps. It keeps the circulation going. Honestly, once a week is too little anyway. It’s not healthy for you.” My body went completely rigid. My cycle. My pain. The private frequency of our intimate life. He had discussed all of it with Serena over casual conversation. A wave of hot anger surged through me. I shoved him away with all my strength. “Austin, you discuss our private life with her? What am I to you? A joke?” He stared at me, his brows furrowing in frustration. “Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill again? Serena is pre-med. She was just offering medical advice because she cares about you. She’s practically family. Is this really necessary?” I let out a bitter, mocking laugh. “Serena gets cramps too, doesn’t she? Why don’t you go over and help her with her circulation?” His expression darkened instantly. “Watch your mouth, Paige. What did Serena ever do to make you this bitter?” I could criticize him all I wanted, but the moment I mentioned Serena, I crossed his sacred line. I bit my lip, refusing to let the tears fall, but he wasn’t finished. “I guess this is what happens when you grow up in a broken home. You’re always looking for a fight, blowing every tiny detail out of proportion.” I froze. The words cut straight into the rawest, most guarded wound of my childhood. My parents divorced when I was seven. I spent my school years being whispered about, labeled as the unwanted child. When I met Austin, he held me late into the night and swore he would protect me from that pain forever. I had trusted him. I had handed him the keys to my deepest vulnerabilities. And now, he was using them as a weapon to tear me down. My throat burned. I couldn’t help but remember the boy he used to be. The boy who knew I was severely allergic to roses, who would read the ingredient list on a bottle of body wash ten times just to be safe. The boy who carried me on his back to work for a week when I sprained my ankle. But everything had shifted the moment I introduced him to Serena. In the beginning, he complained that she was interrupting our private time. But somewhere along the line, he started asking, “Should we invite Serena? The more the merrier.” I had thought he was just being kind. Only now did I realize his heart had drifted long ago. Austin seemed to realize he had gone too far, his eyes softening with sudden regret. But the floodgates of my resentment had already burst. I shoved him toward the door, screaming at him to get out. He tried to knock a few times, but eventually, his footsteps faded down the hallway. “Lock the door, Paige,” his voice echoed faintly from the corridor. “It’s windy tonight. I’ll come back and apologize tomorrow.” As the silence settled over the empty apartment, my tears finally flowed freely. This was the end. Truly. As I began pulling my suitcases out of the closet, my phone rang. It was our wedding planner, her voice polite but hesitant. “Hi, Paige. We received a request from Austin to make a few changes to the floral arrangements for the reception. He wants to swap out the white lilies for champagne roses. We just need your final sign-off.” I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. “Did he request this himself?” The planner hesitated. “Well, a Miss Serena suggested it. She mentioned it would look much more romantic.” My heart felt like it had been dropped into ice. I was highly allergic to roses. Direct contact could trigger severe hives and restrict my breathing. Austin knew this better than anyone. He had originally banned roses from the venue entirely, even asking our guests not to wear rose-scented perfumes. Yet, for a passing whim of Serena’s, he was willing to turn my wedding into a hazard. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. My voice was entirely flat. “There’s no need to sign off on anything. The wedding is off.” The next morning, I walked into the bridal boutique to settle the cancellation fees. As I approached the glass doors of the fitting room suite, a familiar silhouette caught my eye. Austin was standing behind Serena, carefully trying to zip up the back of a delicate white gown. Suddenly, the zipper split, exposing the bare skin of her back. Austin instinctively reached out to cover her, but the sudden movement caused his nose to bleed. I pushed the door open. All three of us froze in a suffocating silence. Austin was the first to scramble for an explanation, wiping his nose quickly. “Paige, it’s not what it looks like. Your dress details needed to be adjusted, but since we were fighting, I couldn’t ask you. Serena’s measurements are almost identical to yours, so I just asked her to try it on for size…” I looked at my dream wedding gown, now stretched and torn at the seams on another woman’s body. It was pathetic. Just as the anger began to bubble up, the heavy studio spotlight above us began to creak and sway. In a split second, the metal fixture snapped, plunging down toward the three of us. In that terrifying instant, Austin’s reflexes kicked in. He lunged forward, throwing his body over Serena to shield her from the falling debris. A sharp shard of shattered glass sliced across my calf. Warm blood began to pool down my ankle, dripping onto the pristine boutique carpet. Oddly, I didn’t feel any pain. Austin scrambled up, his eyes wide with panic as he looked at me. But before he could take a step in my direction, Serena let out a sharp sob. “Austin… my ankle. I think it’s bleeding…” His attention snapped away instantly. Without a backward glance, he rushed to her side, lifting her into his arms. I didn’t say a word. I turned around, walked out of the store, and drove myself to the urgent care clinic, where a doctor put three stitches into my leg. By the time night fell, my phone was still completely silent. Austin had forgotten. Today was my twenty-sixth birthday. I opened my phone one last time. Serena had updated her social media. The photo showed Austin’s side profile, his head bowed as he carefully applied antiseptic to a tiny scratch on her ankle. His expression was so tender, so focused, that I couldn’t remember the last time he had looked at me that way. I let out a dry laugh and booked a room at a nearby hotel. Then, I drafted my resignation email to my boss and called my mother. “Mom,” I said, my voice steady. “Cancel the banquet. It’s over between Austin and me.” The next morning, I woke up to a single text message from Austin, sent in the dead of night. There was no inquiry about my injury, no mention of my birthday. Serena’s ankle is too sore for her to travel back to her place. She’s going to stay at the apartment for a few days. Since we’re short on beds, do you mind staying at the hotel a bit longer? I turned off my phone, went back to the apartment, and prepared to pack the rest of my belongings. But the moment I unlocked the front door, my blood ran cold. My mother was in the kitchen, her face flushed red from the heat as she bent over a steaming stove. In the living room, Austin and three of his friends were sprawled across the sofa, shouting over a video game. They were casually spitting peanut shells onto the hardwood floor, expecting my mother to sweep them up like a paid maid. Nobody offered to help. Nobody treated her like the mother of the bride. To them, her labor was completely invisible, a convenience they were entitled to. I dropped my bag, ready to scream, but my mother rushed out of the kitchen and pulled me in by the hand. She wiped her damp hands on her apron, her eyes filled with an apologetic anxiety. “Sweetie, I heard you and Austin had a disagreement, so I took the early train down to help smooth things over,” she whispered, her voice low. “You two have worked so hard to get to this point. Don’t let a little temper ruin it. Go sit with the guests. Don’t let them think we don’t know how to host.” My heart ached sharply. I grabbed her hand to pull her out of the kitchen to demand an apology from the living room. “Ah—” She let out a sharp cry of pain, flinching away. It was only then that I saw the raw, angry blisters bubble across the back of her hand and forearm. My eyes welled with hot tears. “Mom, what happened to your hand? We’re going to the hospital right now.” She looked down like a child who had broken a vase. “It’s nothing, really. Just a little spill. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Under my stubborn questioning, the truth finally spilled out. Ten minutes ago, while carrying a heavy pot of hot stew, she had slipped on a greasy wrapper someone had discarded on the floor. She had crashed hard, the boiling liquid splashing over her arm. And Austin? He had barely looked up from his game with Serena. “Careful, Auntie. The floor’s a bit slick,” he had muttered, his eyes glued to the screen. My body trembled with a cold, violent rage. I made a move toward the living room, but my mother held onto my sleeve with a desperate strength. “Please, Paige. They’re just having fun. Don’t make a scene because of me.” I looked through the kitchen doorway. Austin was currently picking out a prime slice of meat from a serving dish, gently placing it into Serena’s bowl. He hadn’t even noticed the quiet crying in the kitchen. My mother had lived a life of brutal frugality in our small town, saving every penny to send me to a top university in the city. I had promised her she would never have to suffer again once I made something of myself. And here she was, serving as a maid to a group of arrogant boys who wouldn’t even extend a hand to help her up after she burned herself. I forced myself to calm down. I wiped my face, bandaged my mother’s arm with cold compresses, and walked into the bedroom. I dragged my large suitcase out and began throwing my clothes inside, not caring how they folded. Once the bags were zipped, I took my mother’s uninjured hand and led her toward the front door. Hearing the heavy wheels of the suitcases, Austin finally paused his game. I kept my back turned to him, my heart braced for some kind of apology, some desperate plea for me to stay. Instead, a notification pinged on my phone. He had sent me fifty dollars. “Heading out?” Austin called out, his eyes already drifting back to the television screen. “Grab us a couple of pizzas from down the street on your way back.” The last shred of hope in my chest withered and died. I didn’t look back. I led my mother down the stairs and hailed a cab. It was only when the taxi pulled up to the train station that my mother finally realized what was happening. “Paige, where are we going? You’re getting married in three weeks. Don’t let a little accident between me and Austin ruin your future. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have come. Driver, please pull over!” I turned to look at her, my eyes rimmed with red. “Mom, this isn’t about the spill.” “Austin doesn’t respect you because he doesn’t love me.” I opened my phone and booked two one-way tickets back to our hometown. Back at the apartment, the guests eventually dispersed as the afternoon faded. Austin sat on the couch, realizing I still hadn’t returned. Just as he stood up to search for me, Serena suddenly began complaining of severe nausea and abdominal pain. By the time he carried her to the emergency clinic, waited through the registration, and watched her finish an IV drip, it was nearly midnight. He finally had a moment to check his phone. He pulled up his chat history with me and typed out a message. But when he hit send, a bright red exclamation mark popped up next to his text. You are no longer friends with this contact.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “513585”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 I was famous in the corporate world for being the gentle, approachable executive. I always had a warm smile for everyone. I was especially kind to our newest intern, Finn. When he messed up a report, I took the fall for him. When he caught a bad fever, I personally cooked a hot meal and delivered it to his rundown apartment. He would blush and call me Victoria, his eyes completely unable to hide his youthful infatuation and deep gratitude. I shielded him from office politics, fast-tracked his promotion, and even brought takeout directly to his desk when he worked late nights. He thought he had met a fairy godmother in the ruthless corporate jungle. He had no idea that I was the one who paid his roommate to move out. He did not know I made the phone call that revoked his mother’s hospital bed. And he certainly did not know I was the invisible hand that forced his girlfriend of three years to leave him. When he was completely backed into a corner, crying and begging me for a loan, I gently wiped the tears from his face and slid a lifestyle contract across my desk. Sign it, and everything I have is yours. Refuse? You will be sleeping on the streets tomorrow. … “Ms. Sinclair, the new intern is here.” I put down my fountain pen. A young man stood outside the glass door of my office. His cheap white button-down shirt was frayed at the collar, and the right cuff was missing a button. The HR director pushed the door open, and he followed her inside. “Good morning, Ms. Sinclair. My name is Finn.” Twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, and so dangerously thin that his shirt hung off his frame. He flashed a quick smile at me, then immediately pulled it back, probably afraid he looked too foolish. I had seen that exact smile three months ago. It was one in the morning on Interstate 95, and my Mercedes had blown a tire. A rusted Chevy van pulled over onto the shoulder. Finn jumped out, jogged over to my window, and handed me a bottle of water. “Are you alright? Do you need some help?” He helped my driver change the tire. He got a streak of black grease across his knuckles, wiped it off on his jeans, flashed me that exact same smile, and drove away. I memorized the license plate of that Chevy. Three days later, a comprehensive background check was sitting on my desk. Finn Gallagher. Graduated from a no-name state college. His father passed away when he was young, and his mother was chronically ill in their rural hometown. He survived on academic scholarships and grueling minimum-wage gigs. I ordered HR to fish his resume out of the rejection pile and slot him directly into my project team. During his interview, he was so nervous he could barely string a sentence together. His technical answers were full of holes. The HR director later pulled me aside. “Victoria, are you sure we want to hire this kid?” I offered a soft smile. “He looks grounded. Let’s give him a shot.” Surviving in this firm had absolutely nothing to do with being grounded. By his first week, he predictably made a massive mistake. Marcus, the project manager, slammed a stack of financial reports onto Finn’s desk. The sharp crack echoed, making the entire sales floor turn around. “Finn, these data metrics are completely wrong! Are you just here to collect a paycheck?” Finn stood up, his hands visibly shaking. “I am so sorry, Marcus. I will redo it right now.” “Redo it? The client needs this tomorrow morning!” Marcus’s voice echoed louder, and Finn dropped his head lower and lower, staring at his shoes. I stepped out of my office and picked up the scattered papers, flipping through the first two pages. “Marcus, I adjusted the data metrics at the last minute and forgot to CC Finn on the email. This one is on me.” Marcus opened his mouth but swallowed his words, not daring to argue with an executive director. Finn stood frozen. His ears were burning red, and his lips parted several times before he found his voice. “Ms. Sinclair, it was actually my fault.” “Call me Victoria.” I placed the report gently back onto his desk. “Fix the numbers and email it to me. Take your time.” At midnight, my inbox pinged with the revised file. He had left meticulous notes in the margins and even reformatted the headers twice to ensure it was perfect. The truth was, he really had made the mistake. Marcus was entirely justified in yelling at him. I shielded him because I wanted him to owe me a favor. Favors are a dangerous currency. The more you owe, the harder it is to pay back. And when you finally realize you cannot afford the debt, you have no choice but to pay with yourself. Finn was a fast learner. In less than two months, he was independently handling client requests. Marcus never praised him out loud, but he began piling more and more critical tasks onto Finn’s plate. I intentionally encouraged Marcus to bury him in paperwork. It was not to groom his talent. An exhausted person’s social circle shrinks drastically. He was too tired to attend after-work drinks. He could not keep up with office gossip. While other interns scrolled through social media during their lunch breaks, he was desperately typing up proposals. Out of the hundreds of people in that building, I was the only person he actually talked to. One night, we were the only two left in the office. I placed a warm takeout container on his desk. “Victoria, you are still here?” “Just finished a conference call. I picked this up for you on the way in.” He took the container with both hands, opening it as if it were a fragile artifact. He practically inhaled the food, his cheeks puffing out as he ate. He hesitated when he reached the last piece of glazed short rib at the bottom of the bowl, but ultimately picked it up with his fork. “Victoria, this is incredible. Thank you.” He had no idea I had spent hours researching the exact culinary profile of his rural hometown to find that specific flavor. When the autumn chill hit the city, Finn got caught in a torrential downpour and developed a severe fever. He called in sick but did not tell a single soul. I only knew because I checked the attendance logs. At four in the afternoon, I arrived at his building carrying a thermal thermos. It was a decaying tenement building in a sketchy part of town. The hallway lights were completely shattered. When he opened the door, his face was terrifyingly pale, slick with cold sweat. “Victoria? What are you doing here?” “Marcus mentioned you didn’t show up. You weren’t answering your phone.” He panicked, frantically trying to tidy up the cramped studio. The tiny space barely fit a futon and a folding table, with textbooks and cheap clothes piled everywhere. There was a small potted ivy on the windowsill, and right next to it sat a pair of fuzzy pink women’s slippers. He followed my gaze and his feverish flush deepened. “My… my girlfriend. She had to go to work today.” “I know.” I unscrewed the thermos, letting the rich scent of hot chicken soup fill the stale air. He rummaged through his desk drawers looking for medicine, only managing to find a blister pack of ibuprofen that had expired six months ago. I did not say a word. I walked back down six flights of stairs, bought a thermometer and fresh medication from the corner pharmacy, and climbed all the way back up. By the time I returned, he had finished half the soup. “Victoria.” He said my name very softly. His voice was completely wrecked. “You are too good to me.” I pulled the thin blanket up to his chest and pressed the back of my hand against his burning forehead. “Just go to sleep.” He closed his eyes, his breathing growing shallow and even. I sat on the edge of his futon, my eyes drifting toward a beautiful charcoal sketch taped to the wall next to the ivy plant. It was a portrait of him. The strokes were careful and full of life. She really did love him. After Finn recovered, he became incredibly attentive to me. He would pour my coffee before morning meetings. He carried my luggage during business trips. When he noticed the bottled water in my car was running low, he restocked it without being asked. The office rumor mill started churning. “Does Finn have a thing for Victoria?” “Give it a rest. The kid has a girlfriend. Stop making things up.” Finn overheard them. He rushed into my office and spent an entire afternoon stammering through an apology. “Victoria, I swear I don’t mean it like that.” The more he tried to explain, the redder his face became. I interrupted him with a gentle smile. “People will talk no matter what we do. I don’t care about the gossip.” But he cared. For the next week, he intentionally kept his distance. He stopped dropping by my office, and he went back to calling me Ms. Sinclair. I did not panic. A week later, Marcus tore into him over a minor client complaint. I stayed in my office and let it happen. Finn stood alone in the breakroom for ten minutes. When he finally walked out, he flashed a strained smile and told his coworkers he was fine. At nine o’clock that night, he finished his shift and walked past my office. My door was wide open. He stood in the hallway for a very long time. “Victoria, that proposal Marcus was yelling about. Could you take a look at it for me?” I waved him inside. After we fixed the formatting, he stood up to leave, keeping his head bowed. “Victoria, I am really sorry for avoiding you lately.” “Are you hungry? A new late-night diner just opened down the street.” The October wind was biting. We sat on plastic stools outside the food truck, eating hot bowls of ramen. He talked about growing up on a farm, chasing stray dogs through the mud. He talked about how loud his mother used to laugh. He talked about eating three massive bowls of chili because he was so nervous the night before his SATs. He rambled for twenty minutes before suddenly looking embarrassed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You must think I’m so boring.” “I don’t find you boring at all.” He stared at me for a few seconds, his face flushing, then quickly lowered his head and shoved a massive bite of noodles into his mouth. On the walk back, he stayed on the side of the sidewalk closest to the traffic. Out of nowhere, he blurted out a question. “Victoria, do you… have a boyfriend?” “Why? Are you trying to set me up with someone?” “No, I just…” Under the amber glow of the streetlights, his ears were practically glowing red. I knew he was falling for me. He was a boy who grew up with nothing, navigating a freezing, unforgiving city, and he had stumbled into a woman who was gentle, beautiful, wealthy, and cared for his every need. But I could not let him confess his feelings just yet. He had to lose absolutely everything first. In early November, Finn’s roommate suddenly moved out. When he told me about it, he looked completely lost. “The landlord doubled the rent out of nowhere. My roommate couldn’t afford it, so he packed up and left.” He stared at the calculator app on his phone. His rent spiked from twelve hundred to twenty-four hundred dollars. Factor in his mother’s monthly medical bills and basic groceries, and he literally did not have the margins to breathe in this city. “Victoria, do you happen to know anyone renting out a cheap room?” “Let me ask around for you.” I had my assistant systematically track down every affordable apartment listing in his district. We signed holding deposits and locked them all down, artificially inflating the prices to a bracket he could never reach. Three days later, I looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “The housing market is a nightmare right now. Do you think you can just tough it out for another month or two?” He offered a bitter, exhausted smile and nodded. He did not ask to borrow money. He worked his corporate job during the day and took night shifts stocking shelves at a convenience store. He got off work at 1 AM and woke up at 6 AM. He was surviving on less than five hours of sleep a night. On the security cameras, I watched him doze off at his desk more and more frequently. The dark circles under his eyes deepened into a bruised purple. Finally, he fell asleep in the middle of a client meeting. Marcus marched into my office right after. “Victoria, Finn is completely dropping the ball. His performance is a liability right now.” “Transfer him to my direct supervision.” I took him under my wing. I slashed his workload in half, but mandated that he report to my office for one-on-one reviews every single day. “Victoria, you are always saving my life,” he whispered, his voice raspy from exhaustion. “Just focus on doing good work.” That same week, I paid a local kid to leave a dead rat in the hallway of his apartment building. I had already bribed the property management company to ignore the maintenance calls. Sophie shrieked in terror, running all the way down six flights of stairs, nearly breaking her ankle in the process. Finn apologized to her over the phone. “Just bear with it a little longer, Soph. I will move us out as soon as I save up enough.” Before he could save a dime, the landlord came knocking. He claimed the building was undergoing emergency renovations and ordered them to vacate by the end of the month. Finn spent an entire Sunday calling real estate agents. Every single lead was a dead end. My assistant had already sanitized the neighborhood of anything he could afford. That night, he stayed at the office very late. He hovered outside my door, agonizing over his pride, before finally knocking. “Victoria. Is there any way I could get an advance? Or a loan? I swear I will pay you back on my next paycheck.” I opened my desk drawer, pulled out a thick envelope I had prepared days ago, and pushed it across the mahogany wood. Five thousand dollars in crisp cash. “You don’t need to pay it back.” He gripped the envelope, his fingertips trembling violently. When he turned to leave, he bowed so deeply his back was almost parallel to the floor. It was only five thousand dollars. He had no idea how much money I had burned just to monopolize the rental market in his zip code. December hit, and his mother was hospitalized. Her chronic kidney condition flared up. The doctors in his rural town claimed they lacked the equipment to treat her, demanding she be transferred to a major hospital in the city. Finn took three days of unpaid leave to arrange the transfer. When he returned to the office, he looked like a walking skeleton. “The city hospital said they can secure a bed, but they need a fifty-thousand dollar deposit upfront.” His entire life savings amounted to less than eight thousand dollars. He did not know I was the reason she was transferred to that specific hospital. The Chief of Surgery, Dr. Harrison, had partnered with my firm on a lucrative medical device contract for three years. I made a single phone call. “Secure a bed for her in your ward.” “Ms. Sinclair, her condition is actually manageable at the local level. A transfer might be excessive.” “I said secure the bed.” Finn spent an entire day bouncing between banks, managing to scrape together an extra eight thousand in high-interest personal loans. Sophie sold her expensive drawing tablet and all her premium art supplies, handing him three thousand dollars. He called every single person in his contact list. Some ignored his calls. Some apologized and said times were tight. One old college buddy transferred him five hundred bucks, adding a text that read, This is literally all I have man, I’m sorry. Thirty-seven phone calls. He raised four thousand dollars. He was still short thirty-five thousand. That night, my phone rang. His voice was completely shattered. “Victoria.” “Yes?” “My mom’s surgery deposit…” The rest of the sentence splintered in his throat. I could hear him gasping for air, desperately trying to swallow his sobs so I wouldn’t hear him cry. “Send me your location. I am on my way.” When I walked into the glaring fluorescent lights of the hospital lobby, he was slumped in a plastic waiting chair, crushing a crumpled admission slip in his fist. He stood up, his lips moving frantically, but absolutely no sound came out. I grabbed his wrist, pulled him to the billing counter, and swiped my black card. “Let’s get her scheduled for the operation first. We can worry about the money later.” The lobby was bustling with nurses and patients. He stood in front of the glass partition, biting his lower lip so hard it looked like it was going to bleed. “Thank you, Victoria.” His mother never needed to be in this hospital to begin with. She could have been treated in their hometown for less than ten grand. I was the one who instructed the doctors to exaggerate her prognosis and push for the expensive transfer. And he certainly did not know that the bed could be revoked at any given second. It would only take one phone call from me. The surgery was a success, and his mother began a steady recovery. Every evening after work, he would call her to check on her progress. The crushing weight on his shoulders seemed to lighten, and his voice regained a hint of its old warmth. I did not give him much time to breathe. In mid-December, Sophie lost her job. She did not quit voluntarily. She worked as a graphic designer for a mid-sized marketing firm. The owner just happened to be a former business partner of mine. I paid someone to embed a highly incriminating email in her work inbox. It was sent from a direct competitor, thanking her for leaking confidential design mockups. Her creative director conveniently discovered the email during a routine audit. Sophie tried desperately to explain herself, but the evidence was fabricated perfectly. In the end, she was given the option to “resign” to avoid legal action. That was only phase one. Phase two was fracturing the trust between her and Finn. I instructed a beautiful temp from our marketing department to add Finn on social media. Her messages were strictly about work, but I had my team splice the screenshots together in a way that made the conversation look undeniably flirtatious. Sophie found the messages while scrolling through his phone. She confronted him immediately. “She is just a coworker asking about an ad campaign. You are overthinking this,” Finn explained. Sophie backed down. The next day, a candid photo of Finn and me on a business trip mysteriously found its way to Sophie’s inbox. In the photo, I was wearing a sleek trench coat, walking purposefully ahead, while he trailed closely behind me, carrying my leather briefcase like a devoted shadow. My assistant chose the camera angle perfectly. We looked incredibly intimate. Sophie held on for one more week. On Christmas Eve, she opened his closet and found a brand new cashmere scarf. It retailed for eight hundred dollars. Tucked inside the luxurious box was a handwritten note. It’s getting cold. Make sure to stay warm. It was a “holiday bonus” I had handed out to my entire project team. But Sophie didn’t know that. All she saw was an obscenely expensive gift she could never afford to buy him, given by a mysterious older woman named Victoria. They had an explosive screaming match that night. At 1 AM, my phone buzzed. It was Finn. “Victoria, Sophie broke up with me.” “Why?” “She said I’ve changed.” The line went dead silent for a long time. “Victoria, have I really become a bad person?” I leaned back against my plush headboard, keeping my voice soft and nurturing. “You haven’t changed. She just doesn’t understand the pressure you are under.” He didn’t say another word, but I could hear his muffled crying through the speaker. Three years of history, wiped clean. He genuinely believed he was the toxic one in the relationship. He had no idea that every single job application Sophie submitted after getting fired was instantly met with an anonymous, defamatory tip from my assistant. She had zero income, her boyfriend was spending all his waking hours with a glamorous female executive, and the rent was due. Nobody could survive that kind of pressure. The day Sophie packed her bags and moved out, Finn sent me a text. Victoria, I’m okay. Just a little stressed out today. He added a smiley face emoji at the end. Of course you are okay. Because outside of me, you literally have nowhere else to go. Right after New Year’s Day, three separate disasters crushed Finn on the exact same afternoon. The landlord issued a final eviction notice. He had to be out by the end of the week. Dr. Harrison called him directly. His mother required a secondary, specialized procedure to prevent organ rejection. The deposit was thirty thousand dollars. And finally, the credit cards he had maxed out to pay his previous rent went into severe default. The bank officially froze his checking account. He locked himself inside a bathroom stall at the office for half an hour. When he finally came out, he splashed water on his face, forced a smile, and told his cubicle mates he ate a bad burrito. At three in the afternoon, he knocked on my door. The door was already open. He stood on the threshold, trapped in a purgatory of hesitation. He couldn’t step forward, but he had nowhere to retreat. I beckoned him inside. “Come in.” He closed the heavy wooden door, glued to the spot. His lips trembled violently, opening and closing over and over, but his vocal cords completely failed him. And then, he collapsed. The twenty-two-year-old boy sank to his knees on my Persian rug, burying his face into his hands, his shoulders convulsing with violent, silent sobs. I stood up, walked around my desk, and knelt on the floor right in front of him. I pulled a tissue from my pocket and gently wiped the wet streaks from his cheeks. “What’s wrong? Tell Victoria everything.” Stuttering and gasping for air, he laid out his entire nightmare. Every single piece of it was orchestrated by me. I dried the last tear from his chin. “Finn, if there was a way to permanently fix every single one of these problems right now, would you take it?” He snapped his head up. “What kind of way?” I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder. Twelve pages of dense legal jargon, drafted and refined by my corporate lawyers over the last two weeks. An exclusive companionship agreement. He stared at the bold letters on the cover page. His entire body turned to stone. “Sign this, and I will cover your mother’s surgery in full. I will put you in a luxury apartment. I will wipe your debt clean.” “A companionship agreement?” “Yes.” “Victoria, you’re joking…” “When have I ever joked with you about your life?” He scrambled backward, his hands hitting the carpet. “I thought you were…” “You thought what? You thought I was a saint?” I leaned casually against the edge of my mahogany desk, staring down at him. “Finn, I paid your landlord to double the rent so your roommate would leave.” His jaw dropped. “I arranged the transfer with Dr. Harrison. Your mother never actually needed to leave your hometown.” The blood drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost. “I had my contacts get Sophie fired. The text messages, the photo, the cashmere scarf. Every single detail was executed by my hand.” His back slammed hard against the closed wooden door. “Everything I did, I did to make sure you ended up right here.” I offered him my warmest, gentlest smile. “Sign the paper, and everything I own is at your disposal. But if you refuse…” I picked up my cell phone and tapped the screen playfully. “Your mother’s surgery gets cancelled tomorrow morning. You will be sleeping on the streets tonight. And your credit score will be ruined for the next seven years.” He pressed his spine against the door, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “I will give you exactly one hour to think about it.” I sat back down in my leather executive chair and started reviewing a marketing brief. He stood frozen in the corner of my office for exactly forty-three minutes. Then, he slowly walked over to my desk and picked up the expensive fountain pen. His hand was shaking so violently that the final stroke of his signature dragged into a jagged, broken line across the paper. I picked up the contract, blew gently on the wet ink, and locked it inside my wall safe. “Good boy.” I reached out and ran my fingers affectionately through his soft hair. He didn’t pull away.

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1 After Dad vanished into the parallel dimension, Mom dumped every single penny we had into quantum portal research. To keep me alive and out of her hair, she bought a nanny bot to handle my daily routine. But Mom’s so-called best buddy, Uncle Felix, hacked the robot’s system and locked it into pet mode. Every day, it dispensed exactly ten pieces of dry cat kibble for me to eat. I was so starved I could barely whisper when I finally called Mom begging for help. Her voice over the phone was sharp and cold. “Can you just grow up for once? You are absolutely useless. You couldn’t even keep your own father from leaving!” “I asked Felix to drop by and check on you every single day! Who is teaching you to tell these disgusting lies?” Terrified, I hung up the phone and crawled deep into my bedroom closet. I hid there because the shadows still smelled like Dad. Just as the last bit of warmth was leaving my body, a strange, echoing voice whispered right into my ear. [Would you be willing to give up your life in exchange for your father’s return?] I gave a weak, tiny nod. I would do it. I would do anything as long as Mom and Dad could be happy again. … I curled up on the hardwood floor of the closet, desperately burying my face in the flannel shirts Dad left behind, breathing in the scent of cedarwood and old spice. His clothes were still neatly hanging there, and just looking at them made me feel safe. I kept my head wrapped in his jacket, quietly feeling my life slip away. The closet was pitch black, exactly like the night Dad disappeared. Only this time, I wasn’t scared at all. That strange voice promised me. It said that as long as I let go of my life, Dad would come back. And if Dad came back, Mom wouldn’t have to hurt so much anymore. I closed my eyes, and my mind slowly drifted away into a heavy fog. By the time I realized what was happening, I was floating in the middle of the living room. The nanny bot was humming in standby mode. I drifted through the air and curiously patted its metal head. It had a perfectly round dome and spoke with a voice that sounded just like mine, so Mom had named it Orbit. Mom used to tell me she was going to bring Dad back, so Orbit would be in charge of watching me eat, sleep, and do my homework. I had been so happy. With Orbit around, Mom wouldn’t have to work herself to the bone anymore. But the very next day, Orbit changed. It stopped cooking my favorite meals. Instead, a little hatch on its metallic belly popped open, dropping a few brown pebbles onto a plastic plate. Orbit’s voice was still sickeningly sweet. [Here is your food for today.] “Orbit, I don’t want this. I want Dad’s scrambled eggs with the secret sprinkle of sugar.” [Ben, as a little kitty cat, you must only eat your kibble.] I figured Orbit was just glitching, so I tried pressing the reset button on its back. But Orbit merely tilted its round head and played a pre-recorded message on a loop. [Pet mode engaged. Please contact the administrator to adjust settings.] I called Mom’s cell phone. It rang forever before she finally picked up. The background noise was deafening. I could hear adults shouting over the roar of massive generators. Mom’s voice was hoarse and dripping with impatience. “Ben, didn’t I tell you not to call me unless it’s an emergency?” “Mom, Orbit is broken. It’s only giving me…” Before I could even finish my sentence, she cut me off. “Didn’t I ask Felix to go see you every day? Why are you making up stories, Ben?” I opened my mouth but the words died in my throat when I heard the sudden crack of a sob in Mom’s voice. Everything went wrong when Dad decided to cross over to the other world. He couldn’t stand how close Mom and Uncle Felix were getting. After that, Mom turned into a completely different person. She cut ties with Uncle Felix and practically locked herself inside the underground lab. She lost her mind trying to find a way to drag Dad back to our reality. Uncle Felix didn’t take it well. Whenever he came over to check on me, the look in his eyes was pure poison. And then… My tiny brain was spinning, trying to piece everything together, when a loud click echoed from the front door. The heavy deadbolt turned. Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and my eyes instantly lit up. Mom was home! I floated eagerly through the living room, watching her kick off her heels. “Ben?” “Mom! You’re finally back!” I threw my arms open and lunged at her, only to pass right through her chest. I stared blankly at my own transparent hands. Right. I forgot I was already dead. “Ben? I am not in the mood for hide and seek today. Come out right now!” I pouted, instinctively wanting to argue that I wasn’t playing games. But no matter how loud I screamed, not a single sound reached her ears. All I could do was watch helplessly as Mom walked over to Orbit to check its system logs. “Orbit, where is Ben?” The robot’s oversized digital eyes flashed blue, and its mechanical voice chimed through the quiet room. [Administrator voice recognized. The kitty cat is currently napping in the bedroom closet.] [Breathing is steady. Sleep mode engaged.] Mom paused, letting out a heavy sigh before turning toward the bedroom hallway. My heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my invisible chest. I wanted her to find me, but I didn’t want her to know I was dead just yet. Dad wasn’t back yet. I couldn’t let Mom’s heart break all over again. Just as her fingers brushed the bedroom doorknob, her cell phone suddenly started screaming in her pocket. “Professor Sarah! We are getting massive energy spikes from the multiverse grid! The experiment is stabilizing!” Mom yanked her hand back from the door, spun around, and practically ran out of the house. Watching the door slam shut behind her, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Mom and Dad were going to be together soon. That was a good thing. I looked down at my pale, shriveled body lying in the closet and realized how ugly I looked. If Dad saw me looking like a pile of bones, he would be so upset. I swallowed the lump in my throat and floated back to the living room. A massive portrait of our family of three hung right in the center of the wall. Mom had specifically framed it after Dad left. I had asked her why she put it up. She just looked at me with those hollow, haunted eyes and kept whispering that it was all her fault. Mom thought I was too young to understand. But I remembered everything. I remembered how Mom took down all our family photos just because Uncle Felix casually mentioned he didn’t like looking at them. Dad and Mom had a screaming match over it, throwing things until I burst into tears. When Dad heard me crying, all the fight drained out of him. He looked utterly defeated. “If it weren’t for you, Ben, I would have walked out on your mother a long time ago.” “But nobody should be caged like this.” I didn’t really understand what being caged meant, but being buried in Dad’s warm chest always made the scary things go away. I floated up to the gallery wall, looking at the smiles frozen in time. We looked so happy back then. Mom’s eyes were bright, and she looked like she was glowing from the inside out. Dad was grinning like a teenager, wrapping his big arms around both of us as if we were his entire world. I remembered that specific day so clearly. Dad made me his famous scrambled eggs with that secret sprinkle of sugar. Mom sat on the couch with me, binge-watching The Powerpuff Girls until midnight, and then she helped Dad wash the dishes while humming a silly pop song. I reached out, wanting to touch Dad’s smiling face one last time. My phantom fingertips slipped right through the glass. I couldn’t feel a thing. Right at that moment, Orbit whirred to life. Its blue eyes blinked, and Mom’s voice suddenly crackled from its built-in speakers. [Ben.] [Mommy didn’t see you when she came home. If you hear this message, please call me back, okay?] [I know it gets lonely being in that big house all by yourself. I know you’re such a good boy and you never want to cause trouble.] [I’m going to bring Dad home to see you. We’ll all go out and get those giant strawberry milkshakes you love, okay? Mommy promises. I won’t flake on you this time.] [Ben, Mom and Dad love you so much.] The living room fell dead silent. I just floated there, staring blankly at Orbit’s shiny shell, my mind completely empty. Mom must have noticed that the message had been played, and when I didn’t immediately call her back, her voice echoed from the robot again. [Ben? Are you still mad at me?] The house was completely still. No echoes. No footsteps. Mom’s voice grew frantic. I could hear her typing furiously, trying to manually override Orbit’s camera. [Orbit, locate Ben.] Seeing the robot pivot its wheels toward the bedroom hallway, I panicked and threw myself in front of it. But I was already a ghost. If Mom saw my dead body now, Dad would never come back! Orbit rolled right through my transparent chest, its mechanical voice chanting like a metronome. [Locating kitty cat. Locating kitty cat.] I focused every ounce of energy I had, desperately mashing my ghostly fingers against the callback button on Orbit’s interface. Come on, Ben! Just push it! You can’t let it go into the bedroom! Maybe the universe took pity on me, because for a split second, I felt the cold, hard plastic against my fingertips. Without wasting a breath, I slammed the call button. Instantly, Orbit froze in place. [Kitty cat located. Override sequence cancelled.] On the other end of the line, I heard Mom let out a shaky exhale. [Ben, you scared me half to death.] She let out a long, exhausted sigh and cut the connection. I drifted over to the living room window, staring up at the night sky. The stars were popping out one by one, twinkling brightly. They looked exactly like Dad’s eyes when he smiled. Dad used to tell me that when people pass away, they turn into stars so they can watch over the people they love. Was I going to turn into a star now? Would Mom and Dad look up, recognize me, and wave hello? I looked down at my fading, see-through hands and managed a small smile. As long as Dad came back, Mom wouldn’t have to lock herself in that freezing lab anymore, staring at Dad’s photos until her eyes bled. She would smile exactly like she did in the pictures. She would take me and Dad to the diner for those strawberry milkshakes. She would sit on the rug and watch The Powerpuff Girls with me over and over again. She would… I stopped my own thoughts. Right. I was dead. There was no more Ben. I let out a soft giggle. It was totally fine. As long as Mom and Dad were happy, everything was perfectly fine. I lost track of how long I drifted around the empty house. Orbit dispensed my rations two more times. I hovered over the brown kibble, sniffing at it, but I couldn’t smell a thing. Finally, the heavy thud of boots echoed from the stairwell. My heart leaped into my throat. It had to be Mom bringing Dad home! I zoomed toward the entryway, staring intensely at the heavy security door. Dad, are you really back? But as the voice outside grew louder, a wave of crushing disappointment washed over me. It was Uncle Felix. “Sarah acts like I’m a freaking burglar. Changing the passcode every damn day. What a joke!” “Spending all her time on that bullshit research. Does she really think playing mad scientist is going to bring a dead guy back to life?” That’s a lie! Dad isn’t dead! He’s coming back! Uncle Felix is the bad guy! Every time he showed up, Mom and Dad would end up screaming at each other. He always wore these stiff white dress shirts, practically bathing in cheap, overpowering cologne. Whenever Mom was around, he would flash this perfect smile and say, “You must be Ben. You’re just as cute as your mom said.” But the second Mom turned her back, Uncle Felix would secretly pinch my arms until they bruised. When I finally burst into tears and screamed that I hated him, he would look at Mom with these big, victimized eyes. That was the first time Mom ever yelled at me. “Why are you acting exactly like your father? So jealous and petty! I’ve told you a million times, Felix and I are just friends!” “If you can’t behave around adults, you can just stay in your room!” Mom dragged me to the lab that night, and I didn’t see Dad for an entire month. When I finally saw Dad again, something inside him had broken. The light in his eyes was completely gone. Uncle Felix finished scrolling through Orbit’s app data on his phone. He scooped up the uneaten cat kibble from the plate and dumped it straight into the trash. Then he flopped onto our living room couch, pulled a black marker from his pocket, and started scribbling over Dad’s face on the framed family photo. He wiped it off, then did it again. “A big worthless loser raises a little worthless loser. Once the little brat is out of the picture, this whole house, and Sarah, will be mine.” He was humming a cheerful tune when his phone started buzzing. His whole demeanor instantly shifted. “Felix, is Ben okay?” It was Mom! Uncle Felix’s voice melted into a pool of sickening sweetness. “Ben is doing fantastic, Sarah. I just cooked him a big plate of scrambled eggs. He even told me it tasted exactly like the way Arthur used to make it.” Liar! Uncle Felix is a dirty liar! I put my hands on my hips, glaring daggers at his smug face. Ever since Mom locked me in the lab that time, the whole vibe in our house had rotted away. Dad stopped smiling altogether. Mom started coming home later and later. Meanwhile, Uncle Felix basically made himself at home. He would bring me cheap plastic toys, smiling that greasy smile while squeezing my cheeks way too hard. Dad just watched it all happen from the kitchen counter, his eyes filled with an emotion I was too young to understand. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what I had seen. It was the absolute, crushing despair of a man watching his family tear itself apart from the inside. And then came the day Dad triggered the portal and vanished from our world. Nobody knew where he ended up. Mom absolutely lost her mind, harassing everyone we knew, tearing the city apart looking for clues. Uncle Felix was the first one at our door. He pulled Mom into a tight hug as she sobbed, whispering, “Don’t do this to yourself, Sarah. Arthur is probably fine.” Back then, I thought Uncle Felix was genuinely sad. I thought he actually cared about Dad. Now, just thinking about it made me want to throw up. Uncle Felix opened his mouth to say something else to Mom, but she abruptly hung up the phone. “If that bastard hadn’t shown up, Sarah would have been mine years ago.” He muttered under his breath, his face twisting into an ugly scowl. He yanked his phone out, spitefully adjusted Orbit’s pet mode down to just five pieces of kibble, and stormed out the door. “Let’s see how long it takes for you to starve!” I watched the door click shut and scoffed. Mom and Dad love each other! A slimeball like you could never break them apart! The living room slowly faded into pitch darkness, leaving only Orbit’s glowing blue eyes illuminating the dust in the air. Eventually, even the robot powered down, its eyes fading to black. I drifted aimlessly through the shadows of the house. Whenever I got tired, I would curl up inside the closet, trying to breathe in Dad’s scent. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t smell a thing anymore. … As my consciousness started to blur, I hallucinated Mom running around the lab. She and a dozen other scientists were glued to a massive bank of monitors, sweating, waiting for something big. I stared greedily at her face. I couldn’t remember the last time she actually slept. The dark circles under her eyes looked like something out of a comic book. “Professor Sarah! We finally locked onto Arthur’s energy signature! It’s him!” Mom’s lips trembled, but no sound came out. The wavelengths on the giant screen hitched for a second before spiking violently into the red zone. Suddenly, the glass containment pod hissed open, and the man lying inside gasped for air. His eyes snapped open. Dad! It was really Dad! I practically did backflips in the air, zooming around his pod in circles. “Dad, you’re finally back!” “Dad, are you going to make me scrambled eggs? Don’t forget the sugar, please!” “Dad, you and Mom have to stop fighting now, okay? You have to take care of each other. Don’t miss me too much!” Maybe my endless rambling actually reached him. Dad blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights, his chest heaving, and spoke his very first words since crossing back over. “Where’s Ben?” Mom froze. She stared at Dad’s pale face as he repeated himself, louder this time. “Where is my son?” She instinctively blurted out, “Ben is waiting for you at home.” “At home?” Dad chewed on those two words, a deep crease forming between his brows. “You left a little boy in that house all by himself?” “He’s not by himself.” Mom rushed to explain, her words stumbling over each other. “He has the nanny bot. And Felix is checking on him… Ben literally just called me a little while ago. He said he misses you so much.” Dad took a slow, agonizingly deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, the warmth I remembered was completely gone. The look in his eyes was like freezing rain. “Take me home.” I tagged along right behind Dad, completely oblivious to the suffocating tension radiating between them. My head was spinning with nothing but pure joy. Dad was back. Neither of them said a single word during the entire drive. The cramped interior of the car was filled with nothing but my ghostly chatter. “Mom, Dad is back now! You better not bring up Uncle Felix ever again.” “Dad, Mom knows she messed up. You guys have to be good to each other now!” “But hey, Dad, if Mom breaks your heart again, I totally support you doing whatever makes you happy! I won’t hold you back anymore!” Mom kept stealing nervous glances at Dad in the rearview mirror. She opened her mouth to speak a dozen times but always swallowed the words. She kept telling herself that once they walked through the front door and saw Ben, everything would fix itself. The house would go back to being a home. They would be a happy family again. Yes, everything will be fine once Arthur sees Ben. Mom slammed her foot on the gas pedal, the SUV speeding through the empty streets toward our apartment complex. Out of nowhere, Dad broke the silence. “Did Ben grow any taller?” Mom’s knuckles turned stark white as she gripped the steering wheel. “Yeah. He grew a little.” Liar! Ever since Dad left, she hadn’t bothered to measure my height against the kitchen doorframe once. “Did he cry a lot while I was gone?” Mom choked on the air. She didn’t answer. The car lurched to a halt in front of our building. Mom and Dad both stared up at the familiar brick facade. It was eight o’clock at night. Every single window in the building was glowing with warm, yellow light. Except ours. Our windows were dead black. They walked up the stairs, Dad a few paces behind Mom. Mom reached out, her hands shaking slightly as she punched the code into the electronic lock. Feeling Dad’s heavy gaze burning into her back, she rushed to justify herself. “I change the passcode every single day. Felix only comes over when I specifically give him permission.” “Ever since you left, I never let him—” “Just open the door,” Dad cut her off sharply, pushing past her into the suffocating darkness of the hallway. The apartment was terrifyingly quiet. There was no soft, excited voice screaming “Daddy!” from the living room. Dad furrowed his brows. He opened his mouth to call my name. But then, he froze. A faint, sickeningly sweet stench of rotting meat was wafting through the stale air…

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On the first day of high school, Chloe sprang from behind and threw her arms around my neck, hugging me tight. Suddenly, a flood of red text exploded across my vision— [Oh my god, this is the 387th time. She still doesn’t realize her best friend is the problem!] [Duck! Get away from her! Just one hug and her beauty stat drops another three points. She was such a pretty, fair-skinned girl in middle school, and now she is being drained dry.] [Exactly. She had straight A’s in middle school and then her grades just vanished. I could literally cry for her.] The text crowded my vision, line after dense line. My entire body went rigid. How did they know? In middle school, I was consistently at the top of my class. Over the last two years of high school, I plummeted straight to the bottom. My skin had become rough and dull, my brain felt sluggish, and I hated even looking in the mirror. Everyone whispered the same thing: Maya peaked in middle school. High school ruined her. She just stopped trying. But I was trying. I never stopped trying. Chloe rested her chin on my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. “Maya, you have to promise to be my best friend this semester too, okay?” The floating text said it was because I hugged her. So… what if I got everyone else to touch her instead? 1 I instinctively bent down, pretending to tie my shoelace, forcing her to let go. “Whoa.” She stumbled slightly. “Why did you randomly crouch down?” “Shoelace came undone,” I muttered, keeping my head down. The text was still scrolling furiously above me. [Wait, did she dodge that? Did she figure it out?] [No way. She has been clueless for two years. She is not going to suddenly have an epiphany.] My nails dug into my palms. In that single instant, it felt like a bomb went off in my head. Everything that hadn’t made sense over the last two years suddenly snapped into place. If what this text was saying was true… I didn’t just ‘lose my touch’. I was being robbed. When I stood back up, Chloe grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward the cafeteria kiosk. Walking beside her, I stared at her profile. Her skin was practically glowing, porcelain white, and her eyes were huge and brilliant. In middle school, I used to look exactly like that. More text drifted past. [Look at her. Half of Chloe’s face was literally stolen from Maya.] [Right?! Chloe used to have yellowish, uneven skin. Suddenly she is Snow White? Who actually buys that?] We reached the kiosk. Chloe bought a strawberry yogurt, pierced the foil with a straw, and pushed it right to my lips. “Take a sip. It’s your favorite.” The text went absolutely ballistic. [Do not drink it! Sharing a straw counts as intimate contact!] [Indirect mouth-to-mouth transfers stats just the same! Dodge it, quick!] I took a half-step back and waved my hand. “I am not thirsty.” Chloe froze. A flash of something unrecognizable darted through her bright, pretty eyes. “What is wrong with you today?” She pushed the straw closer. “Just one sip.” “My throat is sore. The doctor said no cold drinks.” She stared at me for two solid seconds before her bright smile returned. “Okay, fine. Next time I will get you a hot cocoa.” I nodded. Right now, the only thing I could do was play dumb. I had to act like I was still the slow, ugly, clueless Maya. I mentally etched every single phrase the text had revealed into a draft paper tucked in my mind. 387th time. Beauty dropped by three. Intimate contact. Indirect counts too. I stared at the words I wrote on the corner of my notebook during class. If this was how my life had been slowly siphoned away over the past two years— Then what I lost wasn’t just good grades and clear skin. It was two entire years of my life. I folded the paper tight and shoved it into the deepest zipper of my pencil case. Watching Chloe’s back from a few desks away, a crystal-clear thought formed in my mind. I had to figure out exactly how the mechanics of this theft worked. The text seemed to hear my thoughts. A final line floated past. [Ooh, look at those eyes. That is a dangerous look.] [Is Maya… finally going to do something about this?] I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do yet. But I knew one thing for certain: starting today, everything changes. 2 To play my part convincingly, I had to sift through the last two years of my life, frame by frame. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Who was I in middle school? A regular in the top ten of the entire grade. I had skin so pale and flawless the kids nicknamed me ‘Vanilla Bean’. I could run the 800-meter dash and place in the top three. I could memorize vocabulary lists just by glancing at them. Back then, my mom bragged to anyone who would listen that I was a natural-born scholar. But then came the first midterms of freshman year in high school. I dropped from the elite tier straight to dead average. My mom’s first reaction was to scream at me. “Are you dating someone?! Are you playing on your phone all night?!” I told her I wasn’t. She didn’t believe me. By sophomore year, my grades had stabilized at the absolute bottom of the class. The girl in the mirror became a stranger. My skin turned sallow and broke out in cystic acne. My eyes lost their spark, and my face bloated. During P.E., I couldn’t even run half a lap without gasping for air. My homeroom teacher pulled me aside for a serious talk. “Maya, you had such a phenomenal foundation in middle school. Why are you regressing? Have you gotten lazy?” The school nurse prescribed me multivitamins, claiming it was just normal teenage hormonal imbalance. Everyone found a convenient excuse for my downfall. Lazy. Gluttonous. Undisciplined. Puberty. Not a single person considered that my life was being stolen. Chloe transferred to our school on the first day of freshman year. When she arrived, she was utterly average. Middle-of-the-pack grades, plain features. We sat next to each other, and she clung to me. She was constantly holding my hand, throwing her arm around my shoulders, pressing her cheek against mine for selfies. Back then, I was thrilled. I thought I had made a best friend for life. But somewhere along the line, she transformed. Her skin turned luminous. Her eyes widened. Her grades skyrocketed with every exam. By the second semester of sophomore year, she was ranked number one in the grade. The teachers worshipped her. The students idolized her. That was when the title of ‘Genius Beauty Queen’ started circulating. And I? I became the ugly, slow sidekick who hovered in her shadow. As I lay there remembering, the text popped back up to join the pity party. [All that light she shines with? It is yours.] [The most toxic part is, the harder she leeches off you, the nicer she pretends to be.] No wonder every time I bombed a test, she was the first to comfort me. “It is okay, Maya. Just study harder next time.” Then, right in front of the whole class, she would generously lend me her perfect study notes. The teachers would praise her: “Chloe is such a supportive classmate.” The other students would say: “Maya, you must have saved a nation in your past life to get a best friend like her.” I would take her notes, feeling a mix of warmth and deep, crushing guilt. Looking back, it was a sick, twisted joke. The memory that hurt the most was from last month. My mom found a photo of me from middle school and let out a long, heavy sigh. “Maya, look at how beautiful you used to be.” She tapped the photo angrily. “Look at yourself now. Are you not embarrassed?” I stood in front of the mirror, completely unable to speak. I cried until the sun came up that night. I genuinely believed I had ruined my own life. I believed I wasn’t trying hard enough, that I lacked discipline, that I deserved to fail. Now I understood why the text appeared exactly when I was at my lowest. Because I was at rock bottom. If someone hadn’t told me the truth, I would have fully accepted the identity of the ‘ruined, worthless Maya’. Since the truth was finally out, I wasn’t going to hold back. I rolled out of bed and pulled the folded paper from my backpack. Under the desk lamp, I re-read the rules I had noted down. 387th time. Beauty -3. Intimate contact. Indirect counts. I grabbed a pen and added a new line: She transferred here freshman year. My downfall started exactly then. To steal it all back, I need to find the fatal flaw in her system. I folded the paper into an even tinier square and shoved it back into the secret lining of my pencil case. For the first time, I felt a deep, unwavering certainty. The ugly, slow Maya wasn’t the real me. The real me was just waiting to come back. 3 To find the system’s fatal flaw, I had to rely on the floating text. It leaked info, complained, and insulted people on my behalf. If I watched it closely and recorded every anomaly, I could piece the puzzle together. For the next few weeks, I became extremely ‘cooperative’ with Chloe. If she wanted to hold my hand, I gave it to her—but I pulled my sleeve down so the fabric separated our skin. If she wanted a cheek-to-cheek selfie, I tilted my head so my hair created a barrier between our faces. If she threw her arm around me, I conveniently shifted my backpack to act as a shield. Every single time, the text tallied the score. [Ooh, skin-to-fabric contact. She only lost a fraction of a point. Interesting.] [Smart! She is secretly minimizing her own damage.] Now I knew for sure. The more direct the physical contact, the harsher the theft. If there was a barrier, the transfer was drastically reduced. That was the first thread I untangled. The second clue arrived purely by accident. During the school sports festival, Chloe signed up for multiple events. After finishing the 100-meter dash, she was swarmed by a massive crowd of students. Someone threw an arm around her shoulder, another patted her back, and half a dozen others pushed in to high-five her. In that exact moment, the text hovering in my vision glitched aggressively. The words overlapped, flashed violently, and spat out a string of garbled code. [L… Lagging?] [Too many people touching her at once! Is the system bottlenecking?] [Holy crap, the screen is tearing! It is going to crash!] I stood up straight, my heart hammering in my chest. When the crowd finally dispersed and Chloe walked out alone, the text slowly stabilized. I stared at the smooth red letters, my pulse racing. It couldn’t handle crowds. I immediately wrote it down in my notes. Multiple simultaneous contacts → System lag. I drew a heavy, dark circle around it. From that day on, I started testing the theory. When the photography club took a group picture, twenty or thirty people squished together around Chloe. The text stuttered, but recovered quickly. [Not too many people this time. It held up.] During a surprise birthday party the class threw for her, over twenty people took turns giving her a hug. The text merely shivered. It didn’t break. This proved that simultaneous contact and rapid consecutive contact had the exact same effect on the system’s bandwidth. A number slowly began to take shape in my head. Twenty or thirty people? It could handle that. But what if there were more? What was the absolute limit? Did it crash the second it hit the ceiling, or did it need a massive overflow to completely break? The text seemed to read my mind, drifting by at a leisurely pace. [This girl’s observation skills are getting terrifying.] [Is she… counting the crowd?] [Shh—do not spoil it. Let her figure it out.] I ignored them. I just added one more line to my notes. It has a hard cap. If the crowd exceeds a specific number, it will crash. To find that exact number, I had to bide my time. The perfect opportunity arose during the midterm awards assembly. Chloe was called to the stage as the top student in the grade. The crowd went wild, and students rushed the stage, demanding group selfies with her. A massive mob of about forty students swarmed her at once. The text began vibrating violently, the words blurring into an illegible, pixelated mess. I stared at it intensely. At peak density, I counted roughly forty-five or forty-six people touching her in some capacity. The text was so distorted it was practically unreadable, but the screen never went completely white. When the crowd cleared, it slowly stitched itself back together. I let out a long breath. Forty-five or forty-six. It could barely endure it. The breaking point had to be hovering right around fifty. I scribbled the number down. As I wrote it, my hand was shaking. I had finally found the door. All I had to do was get more than fifty people to physically touch Chloe at the exact same time— And the system that had leeched off my life for two years would gorge itself until it exploded. A final line of text drifted quietly by. [Maya, you are not stupid at all, are you?] I smiled. Now that I knew the fatal flaw, I just needed a completely justifiable, public event where everyone would willingly swarm her. 4 And most importantly, I could not be anywhere near her when it happened. If the stolen talents snapped back to me, I needed to be in proximity, but far enough away that she wouldn’t immediately suspect me. I flipped through the school calendar. The Annual Arts Gala. It was the most prestigious event of the year. Awards, performances, bouquets of flowers, absolute chaos on and off the stage. And Chloe was essentially guaranteed to win this year’s ‘Campus Star’ award. It was a title voted on by the entire female student body. Beauty, academics, popularity—she ranked first in all three. I stared at the date on the calendar, a slow smile spreading across my face. Over the next two months, I executed three specific tasks. First, I kept playing the fool. I was clingier with Chloe than ever before. If she wanted to hold hands, I held them. If she wanted a hug, I gave it to her. Except every single time, I sneakily ensured there was a layer of clothing between us, keeping the stolen stats to an absolute minimum. The text scrolled by, laughing at my sabotage. Second, I built her hype. I actively pushed Chloe’s campaign for ‘Campus Star’. I praised her in the class group chats and canvassed for votes on the school forums. “Chloe is beautiful inside and out. She deserves this.” “She is the pride of our class! Everyone vote for her!” My classmates constantly talked about how fiercely loyal I was to my best friend. Chloe was so moved she teared up, pulling me into a tight hug. “You understand me better than anyone, Maya.” I hugged her back, making sure my thick winter coat was wedged between us. The text drifted by: [The higher you build the pedestal, the harder the fall. Fatten the pig before the slaughter.] Third, and most importantly, I executed the final move. I tracked down the student council member in charge of the Gala’s itinerary. I pitched an idea. “For the Campus Star award this year, why don’t we add an interactive segment?” “Let the winner stand center stage, and have the entire grade line up to hand her flowers, give her a hug, or shake her hand.” “We can film it as one massive, continuous panoramic shot. It would be an unforgettable memory for the yearbook.” The council member’s eyes lit up. “That is brilliant! It is engaging and super wholesome.” And just like that, the segment was officially added to the schedule. I stared at the printed itinerary, my heartbeat slow and steady. Campus Star Interactive Congratulatory Segment — Entire Grade Participation. The entire grade. That was a hell of a lot more than fifty people. The night before the Gala, Chloe came to my room. She was holding a bouquet she had prepared, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Maya, if I actually win tomorrow, you are the very first person I am going to hug.” I smiled warmly. “I will be waiting.” She leaned in, arms open to embrace me. I twisted sideways, letting my backpack take the brunt of the impact, allowing her to graze only the fabric of my sleeve. The text cheerfully reported a microscopic decimal of a stat loss. [No biggie, just a drop in the ocean.] Chloe didn’t notice a thing and skipped away happily. I stood there, watching her bounce down the hallway. Tomorrow was going to be the absolute peak of her life. I went back to my desk and opened my notebook. Hard cap is highly likely 50 people. Exceeding the cap guarantees a crash. I took my pen and pressed hard into the paper, writing the final line. Tomorrow, the entire grade will line up to hug her. We will see exactly which number blows the system to pieces. I closed the notebook. The text drifted slowly across my vision. [Is tomorrow the season finale?] [I am literally rubbing my hands together in excitement.] [Good luck, Maya.] 5 The auditorium was packed on the day of the Gala. Chloe had applied a flawless, light layer of makeup. Under the stage lights, her skin looked translucent and radiant. The text mocked her: [Tsk, that entire foundation was robbed straight from the girl sitting in the back row.] I kept my expression perfectly blank. The performances cycled through, one after another. I only cared about one thing: when the award ceremony was going to start. Finally, the host stepped up to the mic and called her name. The auditorium erupted in thunderous applause. Chloe covered her mouth, acting utterly shocked, and gracefully walked up the stairs to the stage. The spotlight hit her, and she smiled like a blooming flower. The girls cheered, the boys whistled. She took the trophy and leaned into the microphone, delivering a perfectly humble, rehearsed speech. “Thank you all so much… I am just lucky to be surrounded by people who constantly help and support me…” The text fired up again. [People who help you? You mean the host you drained dry?] [Keep acting, sweetheart. The curtains are about to close.] I smiled gently at her from the crowd. The host took the mic back. “And now, for a very special segment this year—” “We invite the entire grade to come up to the stage, present a flower, give our Campus Star a hug, and capture the most beautiful group photo in school history!” The crowd roared in approval. The hospitality team, already prepped, took their places on both sides of the stage holding baskets of individual roses. The student council began directing the traffic, forming a massive, winding line. The crowd surged forward. Chloe stood center stage, slightly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it, but her radiant smile quickly returned. She probably thought this was her absolute coronation. The first student walked up, handed her a flower, and hugged her. A number popped up on my screen. [1.] The second, the third. [2, 3…] The line stretched longer and longer. Some handed her flowers, some hugged her, some shook her hand, others slung an arm around her shoulder for a quick selfie. The text started ticking upward, digit by digit. [15, 16, 17…] [Ooh, we are cooking now.] When it hit the twenties, the font on the text began to vibrate slightly. I stared unblinking at Chloe on the stage. She was still smiling, hugging person after person, completely oblivious. No one in that auditorium knew that every single embrace was dragging my stolen life back to me. The numbers ticked faster and faster. [35! Incoming visual glitches!] [Look at the text! It is getting pixelated!] The crowd kept pushing forward. The student council members were shouting into megaphones, “Do not push! Single file! One at a time!” But the excitement was completely out of control. Everyone wanted to touch the ‘Campus Star’ and get some of her good luck. [42! 43!] [It is gonna blow! It is actually gonna blow!] Chloe’s smile began to stiffen. She probably felt something was wrong—a heavy, suffocating weight, like something anchored deep inside her was violently rattling loose. She instinctively took a half-step back. But the center of the stage was mobbed. She was trapped. [48! 49!] I shot up from my seat. The fiftieth student handed her a flower and stepped away. The entire wall of text in my vision began flashing blinding white, like a television losing its signal. [50! Max capacity reached!] [One more and it—] The fifty-first student, grinning ear to ear, threw her arms wide open and tackled Chloe in a massive bear hug. In that exact fraction of a second. The entire wall of text shattered with a deafening, silent SNAP and went completely, blindingly white.

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On the day I was reincarnated, it was the exact day of my adoption at the orphanage. I stood there and watched as Mason dragged his adoptive mother by the hand, pointing frantically toward the girl singing on the swing set, Harah. “Mom! Can we adopt this sister, please?!” In my past life, the adoptive parents had taken me home instead. Mason had resented me for being quiet, for not knowing how to act cute, and for never being as charming as the girl who loved the swings. I organized his study notes, took care of his aging parents, and when the family went bankrupt, I dropped out of school to work and keep the family afloat. His attitude toward me softened, just a tiny bit. But every single time I was in competition with Harah, he still demanded that I step aside. The university recommendation, the scholarship, the overseas training program—every single time. The final time was when the plane went down. As the flames engulfed the cabin, he looked at me and murmured: “If there is a next life… I wish Harah could be my sister.” I heard him. When I opened my eyes again. I was back on Adoption Day. This time, I smiled before Mason could even open his mouth: “Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I think Harah is a much better fit for your family.” Then I turned around and walked straight toward the Miller couple, the people who had adopted Harah in my past life. “I want to go home with you.” 1 Mr. Miller froze for a second. He crouched down to meet me at eye level. His hands were rough, covered in thick calluses, and he held his palm out toward me. “What is your name, little girl?” “…Hazel. Like the tree.” “Hazel,” he repeated. His voice was incredibly gentle, like he was afraid of startling a wild bird. “We want a daughter. Do not worry about being quiet. Our house is very peaceful, and you do not need to perform or entertain anyone to stay with us.” Behind him, Mrs. Miller’s eyes grew slightly red, though she didn’t speak. Instead, she pulled a carefully folded handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it into my hand. “Wipe your hands,” she whispered. “Why are they so cold?” I looked down at my hands. I had been pinching my palms so hard out of anxiety that a row of pale, crescent-shaped indentations marked my skin. A sudden, sharp ache hit the back of my nose. In my twenty-two years with the Evans family in my past life, not a single person had ever asked me why my hands were cold. Laughter drifted over from the swing set. It was Harah. Mason gave me a complicated look but said nothing more. He pulled Mrs. Evans toward the swings, turning back to yell: “Mom! Hurry up! Look how high she is swinging!” Mrs. Evans cast one final glance at me. There was a fleeting flash of regret in her eyes, but it vanished instantly. She turned and walked toward the swing set. Mr. Miller was still crouched in front of me, his hand outstretched. His palm was rough, warm, and waiting quietly. I placed my hand in his. “Okay,” I said. “I will go home with you.” When we walked out of the orphanage gates, the sunlight was so bright it made me squint. Mrs. Miller walked on my left, Mr. Miller on my right. I was wedged in the middle, each of my hands held securely in theirs. I turned my head and looked back one last time. Mason was lifting Harah off the swing, smiling so widely his eyes turned into crescent moons. That was the absolute last time in this life I ever turned around to look at them. 2 The Millers lived in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment tucked away in an old, working-class neighborhood on the east side of the city. The living room held a faded, aggressively patterned fabric sofa. Mrs. Miller dug through the shoe cabinet for a solid minute before pulling out a pair of brand-new, fluffy pink slippers. The tags were still on them. “Bought these ages ago,” she murmured, crouching down to snip the plastic tag. Her ears were flushed. “Just never knew when we would actually get a daughter. They have been sitting there for two years.” Mr. Miller leaned out from the tiny kitchen. “Hazel! I am making fried fish. Do you eat fish?” “I do.” “Great!” He popped back into the kitchen, the loud clang of a spatula hitting a wok echoing through the apartment. I stood in the living room wearing those fuzzy pink slippers, the soles so soft it felt like I was stepping on clouds. That first night, I slept in the spare bedroom. The sheets were freshly changed, smelling deeply of clean cotton baked in the sun. A small nightlight glowed on the nightstand, casting a warm, amber light across the room. Mrs. Miller hovered in the doorway for a long time. She opened her mouth, closed it, and finally just said: “I will leave the door open. Call me if you need anything.” After she left, I buried my face in the pillow. The pillow had been sun-dried too. It was plush, crisp, and radiated an indescribable warmth. For the first time in two lifetimes, I fell asleep in a strange place without curling myself into a tight, defensive ball. Things over at the Evans household, however, were loud. Mr. Miller ran a phone repair stall at the night market. He dealt with every kind of person imaginable, which meant he heard the neighborhood gossip faster than anyone. On the third day, he came home, dropped his toolbox by the door, stripped off his jacket, and turned to Mrs. Miller. “Guess what. The Evans family threw a massive party. Booked seven or eight tables. Said it was a welcome banquet for their new daughter.” Mrs. Miller, who was scooping rice into bowls, paused. “They threw a banquet?” “Yup. Booked a private hall at the Grand Plaza.” Mr. Miller took off his apron, hung it behind the door, and glanced over at me, deliberately lowering his voice. “Word on the street is the son demanded it. Said he wanted to officially and grandly welcome his new sister to the family.” “Do you think we should…” Mrs. Miller trailed off, checking my expression. She didn’t finish the thought, merely placing a bowl of rice in front of me and adding a generous portion of greens to the top. “Hazel, time to eat.” “Okay,” I replied. In my past life, on my third day in the Evans house, Mason locked himself in his room and refused to come out. Mrs. Evans cooked an entire feast, but he wouldn’t even crack the door open. Later, I stood outside his room for thirty minutes holding a plate of food. A piece of paper was shoved out from under the door gap. It read: “Leave me alone.” There was no banquet. There was no Grand Plaza. There was no “grandly welcoming his new sister.” He didn’t even call me “sister” a single time. I had no idea what was going through Mason’s head when he demanded a banquet for Harah. But that was his problem. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. Bits and pieces of the Grand Plaza banquet still trickled down to me. Mrs. Miller ran into the Evans’ housekeeper at the vegetable market. The two stood by a produce stand and chatted. The housekeeper loved to gossip and spilled everything. She said Mason wore a crisp new dress shirt, his hair styled perfectly. He held Harah’s hand the entire night, walking her from table to table to introduce her to the extended family. She said Harah was incredibly sweet, addressing everyone perfectly—”Uncle,” “Auntie,” “Cousin”—making the whole room laugh in delight. She said Mason even tapped his glass with a fork, stood up, and gave a speech. “Thank you all for coming. This is my sister. From now on, anyone who messes with her is messing with me.” The entire hall erupted in applause. Mrs. Miller sighed, quietly snapping the ends off green beans at the kitchen table. Only after the housekeeper had walked away did Mrs. Miller look at me, her voice hesitant. “Hazel… do you regret it? Choosing our family that day?” “Of course not. I cannot thank you enough. Truly.” I meant every word. In my past life, I waited twenty-two years in the Evans house. I waited for him to call me his sister. I waited for him to treat me like actual family. I waited until the plane caught fire and he said, “I wish Harah was my sister.” I had done enough waiting for one lifetime. 3 A few days later, Mrs. Miller came back from the market holding a large bag of premium apples. She explained that the Evans’ housekeeper had forced them onto her and refused to take them back. “She said Mason asked her to pass them along. He said to say… thank you.” Mrs. Miller placed the apples on the table and watched me carefully. I picked one up, rubbed it on my sleeve, and took a bite. It was crisp, sweet, and incredibly juicy. “Then tell him you are welcome.” I said. Mrs. Miller gave me a long look, said nothing, and turned back to the kitchen. I tossed the apple core into the trash and walked out to the balcony to check on the jasmine plant. The leaves looked a bit more lively than a few days ago, and a tiny, pale green bud was sprouting from one of the branches. I had no desire to decode what Mason’s “thank you” meant. Maybe he was thanking me for stepping aside so he could have Harah. Maybe he was thanking me for leaving quietly without making a scene. Or maybe he was thanking me for not exposing his desperate maneuvering on Adoption Day. He chose Harah, and then comfortably accepted my quiet exit. Fine by me. He got the sister he wanted. And whatever debt he felt he owed me, I wasn’t going to collect. On the first day of middle school, I ran into Harah in the hallway. She was wearing a brand-new designer backpack, her hair tied up with a silk bow. She froze when she saw me, then broke into a bright smile. “Hazel! You go to school here too?” “Yeah.” “I am in Class Three! What about you?” “Class Seven.” “What a coincidence!” She beamed. “We are schoolmates now!” I just gave a curt nod and walked away. So, Harah and I attended the same school. She was in Class Three, I was in Class Seven. Every single day after school, I saw Mason waiting at the gates to pick her up. Even from across a crowded hallway, I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my head. I ignored it entirely. A month later, the midterm rankings were posted. I ranked seventh in the entire grade. Harah ranked ninety-third. The massive red bulletin board was plastered right outside the cafeteria, impossible to miss. That afternoon, Mason was standing in the corridor between the classrooms, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. As I walked out, he called my name. His tone was different from before. It was flatter, slower, like he had rehearsed a speech but swallowed half the words at the last second. “Hazel… Miller.” I stopped and looked at him. He rubbed his hands together nervously, shoved them back into his pockets, and shifted his gaze from my face, to the bulletin board, and back again. “My parents brought you up at dinner a few days ago. They heard your grades are excellent.” I said nothing. “They said… back at the orphanage, you were always so well-behaved.” “Yeah.” He paused again. A yellow ginkgo leaf drifted down and landed on his shoulder. He didn’t brush it off. “They said you are doing really well.” “Thank you,” I replied. “Tell your parents I said thanks.” Then I walked away. That night at dinner, Mrs. Miller asked how I did on the midterms. I told her I ranked seventh in the grade. She was so ecstatic she dropped her spatula, ran out of the kitchen, and hugged me tight. The grease from her apron smeared right onto my sleeve. Mr. Miller rushed out of the living room in a panic. “What happened? What happened?!” “Your daughter got seventh! Seventh in the whole grade!” Mr. Miller blinked, then a massive grin split his face. “Well, does that mean we need a celebratory dish?” “Yes! What does Hazel want to eat?” “Fried fish, please.” “Fish again? We just had that two days ago!” “Then I will make extra crispy fried fish!” Mrs. Miller shot me a playful glare, marching back into the kitchen, muttering under her breath, though the oil was already sizzling in the pan. Mr. Miller sat back down on the sofa, picking up his screwdriver to tinker with an old radio, humming a song horribly off-key. I sat at the dining table, looking at my adoptive mother bustling in the kitchen and my adoptive father humming in the living room. I suddenly realized I didn’t care at all about that ginkgo leaf on Mason’s shoulder. 4 The second semester of eighth grade, Mason approached me voluntarily for the second time. I was waiting at the bus stop after school. He spotted me from the shadow of a billboard three meters away. I pretended not to see him. He walked over and stopped beside me, leaving a half-step of distance between us. Close, but not too close. “Hazel.” “Yeah.” “You are in eighth grade now?” “Yeah.” “How were the midterms?” “Fine.” He ran out of things to say. I didn’t offer anything else. The bus arrived. I swiped my card, walked to the back, and took a window seat. As the bus pulled away, I glanced out the window. He was still standing beneath the billboard, his gray silhouette dissolving into the evening dusk. That night, while I was doing homework, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Mason. “Harah bombed her midterms. My dad completely lost it and screamed at her. Could you lend her your study notes so she can copy them?” I stared at the message for a long time. A second text popped up. “Just this once. She will return them the second she is done.” Then a third. “Just consider it a favor.” I put my phone face down on the desk. I finished my math homework. Then my English homework. Then physics. When I was completely done, it was past eleven at night. I picked up the phone and typed a single word: “Sure.” I hit send and turned the phone off. The next day at noon, Harah came to find me. She stood outside Class Seven holding a bubble tea, smiling her trademark sugary smile. “Hazel, thank you so much! I finished copying everything. Here are your notes back!” She handed the notebook over. Stuck to the cover was a sticky note with a crooked, hand-drawn heart. I flipped the notebook open. In the margins of one of the pages, written in tiny, deliberate handwriting, was a sentence. “Your brother told you to let me win, and you did. You are such a good person.” I dog-eared that page and closed the notebook. Harah skipped away, her ponytail bouncing behind her. I stood in the hallway, watching her back. In my past life, she had said almost the exact same thing to me. Right after I gave up the university recommendation, withdrew my scholarship application, and declined the overseas training. She had smiled and said, “Hazel, you are so nice.” Back then, I thought it was a genuine compliment. Now, I finally understood what she really meant. Her translation was: “You handed what was yours over to me, which makes you a pushover. And I am going to keep taking.” A month later, the school announced they were hosting a New Year’s Gala. Each class had to nominate one candidate to host the event, and the faculty would select one boy and one girl from the entire grade. Class Three nominated Harah. She was outgoing, sweet-talking, and loved being on stage. Her homeroom teacher picked her instantly. The homeroom teacher for Class Seven hesitated for days before finally calling my name. I had ranked in the top five on the midterms, and the teacher claimed, “Top students have a stable stage presence.” I didn’t decline. I just nodded. The day the candidate list was posted on the bulletin board, Harah walked past Class Seven and peeked through the window. I was doing homework. Feeling eyes on me, I looked up. She flashed me a sweet smile, spun on her heel, and walked away, her ponytail swishing behind her. After school, Mason was waiting at the gates. As I walked out, he stood up straight. “Hazel.” “Yeah.” “That gala host audition,” he said, his voice tight. “Can you drop out?”

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By the ninety-ninth time a meal made me want to vomit, translucent text suddenly floated across my vision. [The heiress is so pathetic. She wants to throw up every time she eats.] [She still doesn’t know her sense of taste was stolen by the scholarship student, Hazel, using a System.] [All those Michelin star meals she eats? The System transfers them right into Hazel’s mouth.] I dropped my silver fork. My stomach cramped, hollow and burning with acid. Across the dining hall, Hazel sat by the window. Her cracked plastic bowl held stale dinner rolls and cheap canned beans from days ago. She tore off a piece of the dry bread, put it in her mouth, and chewed with a blissful smile. She looked like she was savoring world-class caviar. Another line of text drifted past. [It is not just the taste. All the nutritional value is transferred too. The heiress is going to keep wasting away until she literally starves to death…] I pinched my own hollow, sunken cheek. The sharp sting of pain made me inhale sharply. The floating text was real. Well, if Hazel wanted my sense of taste so desperately, I was going to put my mouth to very good use. 1 My stomach churned with acidic hunger. I rested my head on the mahogany table, staring at Hazel across the room. My mind drifted back to the first time I met her three years ago. It was early September. Hazel stood at the front of the classroom wearing a faded, hand-me-down t-shirt. “Hi, I am Hazel. I come from a really bad neighborhood on the south side. I have to take three different buses and walk two miles just to get to school…” The classroom fell completely silent. Then someone whispered. “Three buses? What time does she even wake up?” Another muttered, looking at her clothes. “They are practically falling apart.” The voices were low but painfully loud in the quiet room. The girl sitting in front of me turned to her desk mate. “She is amazing. Coming from that kind of poverty and still ranking first in the entrance exams.” Hearing those words pull at my heartstrings, I genuinely wanted to help her. The very next day, I went to our homeroom teacher and offered to fully sponsor Hazel’s tuition and living expenses. But Hazel stood up in front of the entire class and flat-out rejected me. “I appreciate Sloane’s charity, but my parents taught me to rely on my own two hands. I refuse to live off someone else’s pity just because I am poor.” “I might not know what a five-star meal tastes like. I do not even know what a proper braised short rib tastes like. But I love my stale bread and cheap beans because I bought them with my own hard-earned money.” She bowed. The class sat in stunned silence for two seconds before erupting into thunderous applause. From that day on, I became the villain. Everyone whispered behind my back. They said the spoiled capitalist heiress tried to humiliate the poor girl with her dirty money. Even my own desk mate moved her things away, sneering at me. “Do not think you can do whatever you want just because you are rich.” That was the day the entire senior class isolated me. And it was the exact same day I lost my sense of taste. Steak tasted like rubber. Fresh greens tasted like bitter ash. Swallowing premium rice felt like chewing sand. I saw countless specialists. They all agreed my tongue was perfectly fine. They diagnosed it as psychosomatic. For three years, I forced down food that tasted like literal dirt. In those three years, my weight plummeted from one hundred and ten pounds to barely eighty. My cheekbones jutted out. My wrists were so thin you could count the bones. Nobody felt sorry for me. Whenever people looked at me, they just muttered the word “Karma.” Looking at the floating text above my head, the horrifying truth finally clicked into place. But I had never done anything to Hazel. Why would she do this to me? [If everything goes according to the plot, Sloane will drop dead in the middle of her final exams. Hazel will score perfectly and get a full ride to Harvard.] [The school board will even recommend that Sloane’s billionaire parents adopt the brilliant, hardworking Hazel to cope with their grief.] I stared at the word “adopt.” My nails dug so hard into my palms they almost drew blood. She had been plotting to steal my entire life from the very beginning. But I could not just confront her. I needed hard evidence. I skipped my afternoon classes, called my driver, and headed straight to the hospital. 2 Our elite academy did all its annual physical exams at this specific private hospital. Conveniently, my family happened to be the hospital’s largest shareholder. It took exactly three minutes for the chief of medicine to hand over my class’s medical records. The director reviewed my charts and sighed. “Miss Sloane, your vitals are dangerously low. Your body is showing signs of severe, prolonged malnutrition. But…” I knew exactly what confused him. I was the daughter of a billionaire. My three daily meals were prepared by private chefs and delivered straight to the academy. How could I possibly be malnourished? He shook his head. “We have run every scan available. We simply cannot find the medical cause.” I did not reply. Instead, I pulled Hazel’s medical file from the stack. Her vitals were absolutely perfect. Under the physical fitness assessment, the doctor had actually written “Excellent.” I pulled up her intake records from freshman year to compare. The difference was staggering. After three years of supposedly eating nothing but stale bread and cheap canned food, she had grown two inches and gained a very healthy thirty pounds. Unless she was tapping into some supernatural force, that was biologically impossible. Armed with the files, I took a sleek black car straight back to the academy. I walked into the classroom and stopped right in front of Hazel’s desk. “Did you do this to me? Did you steal my sense of taste?” The classroom went dead silent. Hazel looked up, her eyes wide and innocent. “What do you mean?” I slammed my hand on her desk. “You stole my taste. Every single thing I eat gets transferred straight into your mouth.” Hazel’s expression faltered for a fraction of a second before her eyes welled up with tears. Her voice trembled. “Sloane… I really do not know what you are talking about. I eat dry bread and cheap beans every single day. I buy them from the discount rack…” The rest of the class immediately stood up to defend her. “Are you psychotic, Sloane? Hazel literally eats scraps. She has it hard enough without you making up crazy conspiracy theories!” “You cannot blame other people just because your own body is failing!” Hazel wiped her eyes, reaching into her worn-out backpack to pull out a crinkled plastic bag. Inside was half a dry roll and some unappetizing pickled vegetables. “Look. I really do not eat anything good…” Her voice trailed off, making her sound like a heavily wronged martyr. “Really?” I let out a cold, sharp laugh and threw both medical reports onto her desk. “Then explain to me how a girl who survives on dry bread and pickles managed to get perfectly healthy, grow taller, and gain thirty pounds?” Hazel froze. She stared at the papers, completely lost for words. Right on cue, a familiar voice rang out from the back of the room. “Sloane, leave her alone! Just because Hazel refused your charity does not mean she cannot accept help from someone else.” Preston walked down the aisle, acting like a knight in shining armor. He placed a carton of premium organic milk gently onto Hazel’s desk. “Here is your daily milk, Hazel.” He looked so incredibly smug, as if Hazel’s perfect health was entirely his doing. Looking at the carton of milk, a wave of disgust washed over me. “Preston, did you forget who you actually grew up with?” The moment those words left my mouth, Hazel frantically shoved the milk carton back toward him. “Sloane, I am so sorry. I should not have accepted Preston’s kindness. I did not mean to make you jealous.” She looked down, her voice trembling. “I promise I will never accept anything from him ever again. Just please stop bullying me.” In one breath, she completely twisted my legitimate accusation into a petty, jealous catfight over a boy. Preston instantly stepped in front of her. “Are you serious right now, Sloane? I literally scoured the city for rare delicacies to help cure your taste loss. Are you seriously going to throw a tantrum over a single carton of plain milk?” My blood boiled. I pointed directly at Hazel. “I cannot taste anything because of her! She has some sort of system. No matter what I eat, the taste and the nutrients get transferred directly to her. She did this to me!” He did not even hesitate. He looked at me like I belonged in an asylum. “Do you even hear yourself right now, Sloane? A scholarship student from the slums used a ‘system’ to magically steal your taste?” “You are absolutely insane.” “You are malnourished because you refuse to eat your food! Stop projecting your eating disorder onto her!” I stared at him. I had looked at that face for over a decade, but right now, all I felt was profound disappointment. 3 I did not wait for Preston after school. I went straight back to my family’s estate alone. Staring at the massive, floor-to-ceiling wine cellar, an overwhelming wave of grief hit me. I popped the cork on a bottle of premium whiskey and poured glass after glass. I cried while I drank. Growing up in a strict, aristocratic household, I was never allowed to touch alcohol. I had absolutely zero alcohol tolerance. But with my taste gone, the whiskey did not burn. It did not sting my throat. I drank it like it was tap water, desperately trying to drown out the suffocating sadness. I drank until I felt physically full. Then my phone lit up with a video call from Preston. The second I answered, he started screaming at me. “Sloane, what the hell did you do to Hazel?!” “Why is she acting like this?!” I stared at the screen. Hazel’s face was flushed bright red. She was slumped over a trash can, violently throwing up. It was the most hilarious thing I had seen all day. “How would I know what is wrong with her?” I asked coldly. “And why is it automatically my fault?” “Who else would sabotage her?!” Preston yelled, his face contorted in anger. “Did you poison her? We were sitting here eating a perfectly normal dinner, and suddenly she started complaining about being dizzy and nauseous. Now she is completely delirious!” Hearing his blind accusations, my rage hit its absolute peak. “When my body started failing, I told you Hazel was behind it, and you called me crazy!” “Now Hazel has a stomachache, and without a single shred of evidence, you immediately accuse me of poisoning her?!” “We grew up together. Does a decade of trust mean absolutely nothing compared to her?” He held Hazel tightly against his chest, glaring at the camera with total disgust. “Hazel is not capable of something like that. You, on the other hand, are a spoiled, vindictive brat. I would not put it past you to try and ruin her.” Hearing those words, the very last trace of affection I held for Preston evaporated into thin air. “Believe whatever you want.” I hung up the phone. I was so furious I reached for another glass, but halfway there, reality crashed into me. I was drinking straight whiskey. Because I had no sense of taste, I was not getting drunk. But the physiological effects of the alcohol were being transferred to Hazel through her precious system! That was why she was dizzy and vomiting. She was experiencing severe alcohol poisoning. This meant that whatever I consumed, good or bad, healthy or toxic, went straight to her. I was a billionaire’s daughter. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. The formula I drank as a baby was the most expensive in the world. The water I drank was flown in from private mineral springs in Europe. My sprawling mansion housed a team of elite private chefs. In eighteen years, I had never consumed a single piece of garbage. Even my cold medicine was custom-flavored to taste like candy. That was exactly why Hazel chose to bind her system to me. For three years, she reaped the benefits of my luxurious diet. She never realized her system had a fatal flaw because I never ate anything remotely bad. Tonight was the very first time she suffered the consequences of stealing from my mouth. But it was definitely not going to be the last. A thrill of pure excitement rushed through me. I pulled out her medical report. Right under the allergy section, it was written in bold black ink. Allergic to Mangoes. I opened a premium grocery delivery app and immediately ordered fifty pounds of fresh mangoes. The very next day, fifty pounds of mangoes were delivered straight to the lobby of my private academy dorm. I hauled the massive boxes into my room and ripped them open. Dozens of bright yellow mangoes were neatly packed inside. I picked one up. It was smooth and cold against my palm. I hated mangoes. I had not touched one in three years. I locked my dorm room door and set up my phone on a tripod. I typed out a livestream title. “Eating One Hundred Mangoes Challenge.” I hit the go-live button. The viewer count started trickling in. I peeled the first mango and took a massive bite. I could not taste the sweetness. I could only feel the mushy, fibrous texture mashing against my tongue. I chewed twice and swallowed. Then came the second. Then the third. By the time I finished the tenth mango, the chat was blowing up, praising me for being a competitive eating god. Since the system was transferring the actual fullness and digestion to Hazel, I did not feel bloated at all. Quantity was completely irrelevant to me. Honestly, I was just dying to know what the physical limit was for someone with a severe mango allergy. The answer was fifteen. Right as I swallowed the last bite of the fifteenth mango, someone started violently pounding on my door. “Sloane! Open the damn door! What did you do?!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “513565”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Six years into my secret crush on my adoptive brother, I slipped a sedative into his drink on the night of his birthday. Ever since our parents died in a car crash, he had micromanaged every single corner of my existence. He controlled what I ate, the clothes I wore, the brand of socks in my drawer, the people I spoke to, and the entire trajectory of my future. If he did not love me, why would he go to such suffocating lengths? Yet every time I tried to confess my feelings, he retreated into dead silence and looked the other way. The drug hit his system fast. His eyes flushed a violent, bloodshot red, and the veins throbbed against his temples. Still, he summoned his remaining strength to shove me away and locked himself inside the bathroom. Through the thick wood, I listened to his ragged, suppressed breathing mixed with the roar of freezing water from the shower head. My fingernails dug hard into the narrow gap of the door frame. “Jason, open the door… please.” My pleading was so quiet it practically scraped against the dust on the floorboards. The only answer I got was the muffled, agonizing groan of a man gritting his teeth to bear the torment. I spent that entire night slumped against the freezing bathroom door, finally understanding the bitter truth. When your heart truly dies, it makes no sound at all. 1 The sharp click of the deadbolt sliding into place felt like a physical blade plunging straight into my eardrum. “Jason!” Refusing to give up, I hammered my palms against the solid wood until my skin burned bright red. “Jason, come out! We need to talk about this!” Only the heavy, ragged sound of his breathing answered me, drowned out by the relentless cascade of running water. Cold water. He was standing under a freezing shower. He would rather stand under bone-chilling ice water than let me touch him. Why? My mind spun in exhausting circles, desperately searching for a logical reason. Had I completely misread every single sign over the years, or was I just hopelessly delusional? I slid down the flat surface of the door until I hit the floor, the biting chill of the ceramic tiles seeping straight through the thin fabric of my skirt. You are pathetic, Winter. You threw every ounce of your self-respect away, and he still refuses to want you. Around four in the morning, the rushing water finally stopped. His voice bled through the heavy wooden door, raw and abrasive, like coarse sandpaper grinding against rusted iron. “Go back to your bedroom.” “No, I won’t.” “Go back right now!” I curled into a tight ball on the living room sofa and waited for the morning sun to spill through the blinds. At some point, exhaustion dragged me under. In my dream, I was standing back at our parents’ funeral. Jason was ten years old when our parents adopted him, long before I was even born. When I turned eight, he left for boarding school on the East Coast and stayed away for seven long years. By the time I turned fifteen, our parents were killed in a sudden pile-up on the interstate. Twenty-four-year-old Jason, already making a prestigious name for himself in academic circles, dropped everything and rushed home to pull my trembling body into his chest. Standing beside the fresh graves, he held me tight and swore an oath. He promised that from that moment forward, he would take our parents’ place and shelter me from the world. He swore he would stay by my side forever, that my happiness was his only mission, and that unless I gave him permission, he would never marry. He promised to stay with me until his dying breath. He was the one who made that promise. And for years, he executed it with terrifying perfection. He gave me everything I could ever ask for, except the one thing I actually wanted. When I woke up, the apartment was empty. A bowl of warm oatmeal sat on the dining table next to a sticky note written in his signature, immaculate script: “Eat breakfast before you head to class.” It was as if the humiliating disaster of last night had been nothing more than a fever dream. I swallowed the oatmeal mechanically, grabbed my bag, and stumbled out of the building in a numb daze. Passing the campus quad at Crestwood University, my foot caught on the raised concrete ledge of a flower bed, sending me sprawling across the dirt. My palms scraped hard against the rough concrete, and dark beads of blood welled up instantly. I hissed at the sharp sting, about to curse my miserable luck, when a glint of dark glass caught my eye inside the bushes. It was a sleek black smartphone. The model looked at least three or four years out of date, but the casing was surprisingly pristine. I debated handing it over to campus security, but before I could pick it up, the screen illuminated the shaded grass. An incoming call. Thinking it might be the frantic owner or a close friend trying to track it down, I hesitated for a split second before pressing answer. A bright, energetic male voice immediately echoed through the speaker. “Oh, thank god! It actually rang!” The guy sounded breathless and deeply relieved. “That is my brand-new phone! I accidentally dropped it yesterday and panicked when I realized it was missing. Could you tell me where you are right now? Just drop me a location and I will sprint right over. Seriously, I will make it worth your while!” I glanced down at my bleeding hand, then checked the time on the phone’s lock screen. I gave him the nearest landmark. “South gate flower bed, Crestwood University.” The line went dead silent for a heartbeat at the mention of Crestwood, followed by a sudden burst of excitement. “Crestwood? No way, I go to Crestwood too! Hang tight, please! Give me twenty minutes tops!” Before I could get another word in, the line disconnected. I crouched on the concrete curb by the flower bed and waited. The morning minutes ticked away mercilessly. The digital clock rolled past eight and slowly crept toward nine. Still, there was no sign of anyone rushing down the sidewalk. Realizing I was about to miss my organic chemistry lecture entirely, I shoved the phone into my tote bag and sprinted toward the science building. By the time I slipped through the heavy lecture hall doors, I was over thirty minutes late. The professor gave me a sharp, disapproving stare from the podium but simply gestured for me to find a seat. When the agonizing class finally wrapped up, the lost phone remained totally silent. I tapped the side power button, only to discover the battery had completely died. I packed my notebook and got ready to head back to the apartment, but a tall guy from my class stepped into the aisle, blocking my exit. “Hey, let’s trade numbers or drop your Insta handle?” 2 He opened his phone, ready to take my digits with an expectant, confident grin. I stared at the glowing screen, froze for a second, and instinctively took a nervous step backward. My throat tightened as familiar restrictions flashed through my mind, and I murmured timidly, “Sorry, I don’t use social media.” Without waiting to see the stunned look on his face, I clutched my strap and hurried toward the exit. As I reached the doorway, his voice carried across the emptying room, dripping with loud sarcasm. “It is 2026! Who on earth doesn’t have an account anywhere? If you want to blow someone off, at least come up with a realistic excuse! Stop acting so superior!” My steps faltered slightly, but I kept my eyes fixed ahead and kept walking. What would be the point of secretly adding anyone? Jason would just find it and delete them anyway. He conducted a thorough, methodical audit of my phone and laptop every single weekend, inspecting my digital life like a federal warden auditing a high-risk inmate. Before college, he had restricted me to a basic flip phone, which made me the ultimate laughingstock among my high school peers. No matter how many times I cried or complained about the isolation, he refused to budge. He insisted it was for my own protection, claiming smart devices would ruin my focus during crucial academic years. In those dark, suffocating years immediately following our parents’ funeral, he had sealed me inside an airtight glass jar. Jason treated me like a fragile porcelain doll on the verge of shattering, and in my grief-stricken state, I clung to him as my sole surviving anchor. By the time the fog of mourning finally lifted, my psychological dependency had solidified. I had fully adapted to a solitary existence where he was my entire universe. Having friends outside our apartment didn’t even feel necessary anymore. When exactly did I become completely alone, without a single person I could confide in? After my morning classes concluded, I walked back to the apartment and immediately plugged the dead phone into a charging cable. Once the screen lit up, I tried to dial the owner back, only to hit a passcode lock screen. I couldn’t get past the four-digit PIN. My only option was to leave the device on the nightstand and wait for him to call again. I tossed my bag onto the desk and stared up at the blank ceiling tiles. A few minutes later, the distinct click of the front door echoing from the hallway told me Jason was home. I hopped off the mattress, my body automatically preparing to run out and greet him the way I always did. Then the humiliating memory of last night crashed over me, and I sank right back onto the edge of the bed. I hadn’t turned on the overhead lamp. I toyed with the idea of pretending I wasn’t home at all, but the bedroom door swung inward before I could hide. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” Bright light from the hallway flooded the dim room. Jason stood in the doorway wearing a tailored light gray dress shirt, looking completely composed, as if the midnight disaster had never happened. “Come eat dinner. I picked up your favorite sweet and sour takeout from the dining hall.” Always like this. A wave of crushing exhaustion washed through my bones. Every single time I tried to tear down the invisible barrier between us, he simply plastered over the wreckage with suffocating kindness the very next morning. The man I was deeply in love with stood right in front of me. I knew in my soul that he felt something profound for me too, yet he dodged the truth with relentless precision. Part of me wished he would just turn cruel and banish me from his life completely, rather than keeping me suspended in this endless, torturous loop of gentle indulgence. Sometimes the urge to scream at him, to grab his shirt and demand to know why he was torturing us both, felt almost impossible to contain. But the words never made it past my throat. I was caught in a miserable contradiction. Half of me prayed he would finally reject me with enough brutality to shatter my obsession, while the other half lived in mortal terror that he might actually walk away for good. We sat at the dining table eating the food he had brought back from campus. Jason taught advanced courses in the humanities department at Crestwood University. Or rather, after accepting a prestigious tenure-track offer from the university, he had gently steered my college applications until I enrolled at the exact same school. “Your art appreciation professor mentioned you walked in late today.” “I checked the security feeds at the front gate and saw you left the building on schedule. Did something happen on your way across campus?” He placed a tender piece of glazed pork into my bowl. The words were phrased like a casual observation, but the underlying interrogation was unmistakably clear. “I found a lost phone by the flower beds and waited around to return it to whoever dropped it.” “Did you give it back?” “Yes.” My hand tightened around my fork for a fraction of a second. I forced my posture to remain relaxed, hiding the sudden surge of panic sparked by the lie, and kept my eyes glued to my plate. He offered a soft, approving smile and dropped the interrogation, shifting smoothly to academic planning. “By the way, there is a major symposium for your department next Thursday. I already registered your name on the attendee list, and I will be accompanying you.” “After the keynote concludes, I will introduce you directly to Professor Vance. Try to make a solid impression so you can secure a research assistant spot in his new laboratory. You are heading into your junior year, and strengthening your academic portfolio now will guarantee your graduate school fellowship.” I gave a vague, noncommittal nod, keeping my mouth shut. I hurried through the rest of my meal in silence, cleared my plate, and retreated to my bedroom. The lost phone on the nightstand had charged past the fifty percent mark. I stretched out across my duvet, scrolling absentmindedly through my desolate contact list, assuming the owner wouldn’t bother reaching out again until the morning. Right as I was drifting into a light doze, the device began to buzz violently against the wood. 3 I hit the green icon, and that same energetic voice filled my ear. “Hey, I ran over to the south gate right after my lab, but you were already gone.” “Yeah,” I replied plainly. “I waited as long as I could, but class was starting, so I had to leave.” He offered a quick apology and asked to confirm if I was actually enrolled at Crestwood. When I said yes, his tone instantly elevated with genuine relief. “Oh, awesome!” “Look, here is the deal. I have a massive, mandatory dress rehearsal tomorrow morning that I cannot miss for anything.” “I literally saved up three months of my part-time tutoring cash to buy this phone, and I am tied up at the performing arts center all day. Could you do me a massive favor and drop it off at the conservatory building tomorrow?” Excuse me? My brow furrowed in immediate irritation. “Why is it my job to play courier for you?” “Can’t you just find a free block in your schedule and swing by my building to grab it yourself?” His pushiness was starting to grate on my nerves, and I found myself regretting my decision not to drop the device with campus security the second I picked it up. He didn’t back down, immediately launching into a charming offensive. “Please, seriously, I am begging you! My name is Cole Shen, acoustic guitar performance major!” “Just bring it over to the practice halls, please. Once I get it back in my hands, I will take you out for the best lunch on campus, my treat.” I had always been terrible at turning down persistent requests. Realizing my Friday course load was light, and knowing the chemistry complex sat just a short walk from the music conservatory, I sighed heavily and agreed to the detour. The second the call ended, two sharp raps sounded on my bedroom door. I scrambled to shove the black smartphone deep beneath my pillows just as the door swung open. Jason walked in carrying a warm mug of milk. “Were you just on the phone with someone?” Admitting the truth was out of the question. I forced my expression into blank innocence and shook my head firmly. “No, you must have heard the television from next door.” Jason stood by the edge of my desk, studying my face with unblinking intensity. After a long, agonizing pause, a faint smile touched his lips, and he extended an open palm toward me. “It has been a few days since our last digital check. Hand your phone over, please.” I let out a controlled, quiet breath and gestured toward the nightstand with my chin. He picked up my smartphone and sat down on the edge of my mattress, beginning his routine inspection while I took slow, deliberate sips from the warm mug. True to form, his audit was meticulously thorough. He scrolled through my text logs, checked my email outbox, inspected my browser history, and even checked the recently deleted folder in my photo gallery. Once he satisfied himself that my digital footprint remained entirely sterile, he set the device back down, took the empty ceramic mug from my hands, gently smoothed my hair, and told me to get a good night’s sleep before stepping out into the hall. Later that night, I tossed and turned beneath my blankets, entirely unable to drift off. Realizing I had looked Jason straight in the eye and lied twice in a single afternoon sent an unexpected, thrilling jolt of defiance racing through my veins. Lying turned out to be remarkably simple. Why had I spent so many years terrified to speak anything less than absolute truth around him? I couldn’t fully explain the shift. All I knew was that once you drop the first lie, you have to build a labyrinth of new ones to keep the walls from caving in. As the semester raced toward finals week, scholarship evaluation periods opened up across the university. My name had sat comfortably at the top of the dean’s list for consecutive years, and this semester was no exception. My academic advisor called me into her office to sign the official grant documentation. While I was scribbling my signature across the bottom line, she leaned back and chatted casually. “So, I hear your brother is seeing the humanities dean’s daughter now?” The tip of my pen caught sharply against the paper, nearly tearing a hole right through the document. “Apparently, the dean set them up during the faculty mixer last weekend, and they hit it off immediately.” “Honestly, you should see them together. They look like a picture-perfect power couple. A couple of professors spotted them walking together across the botanical gardens just yesterday afternoon.” I couldn’t recall walking out of the administration building. My body moved on autopilot until I reached the stairwell of the humanities wing, where a brutal scene played out right in front of my eyes. Jason was descending the staircase side by side with a stunning woman with long, chestnut hair. He tilted his head slightly to catch her words, his lips curving into a genuine, relaxed smile that reached his eyes. It was an expression of effortless equality that he had never once directed at me. My chest felt as if an iron vise had slammed shut around my ribs. Terrified he might look down and spot me standing there, I shrank back into the deep shadow of the concrete pillar as tears spilled over my eyelashes without warning. Right at that exact second, the stolen device in my pocket vibrated against my hip. The screen flashed with the stranger’s number. I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, cleared my throat, and answered. “Hello?” “Hey! Did you make it over to the conservatory building yet? I am up on the seventh floor, room 713!” “I am heading over right now.” That interruption dragged me out of my downward emotional spiral just in time. Desperate to hand the device off and escape my own head, I practically sprinted across campus toward the performing arts complex. The conservatory required keycard access at the security turnstiles. Blocked at the glass doors, I flagged down a male student walking out with a cello case, giving him Cole Shen’s name and room number in hopes he could run the phone up to the seventh floor. The moment the name left my mouth, the guy’s casual smile vanished, replaced by sheer shock. “Cole Shen? Are you messing with me right now?” I stared at him, entirely bewildered by his intense reaction. Before I could explain, he stepped closer, his brow furrowed deeply. “Are you sure you have the right name?” “Cole Shen passed away over three years ago.” My boots felt glued to the concrete steps. The warmth drained out of my extremities in an instant. “That is impossible… I literally just spoke to him on—” “He was a absolute legend in our department,” the cellist interrupted, shaking his head with a grim, somber expression. “Incredible talent, top of his class, super popular guy.” “It was a massive tragedy. He was lined up for a direct doctoral fellowship, and then suddenly he was just gone.” “Half the conservatory was in absolute mourning for months.” My fingers clamped around the metal phone casing so tightly my joints locked up. “How did he… die?” 4 “No idea.” The student shrugged helplessly. “The university administration clamped down on the details immediately. Everyone who knew what happened had to sign strict non-disclosure agreements.” “If you really want the backstory, your best bet would be tracking down the guys who lived in his dorm suite back then.” “Good luck finding them, though. None of those three are on campus anymore. One moved to Europe for grad school, one took a tech job out of state, and the third guy went off to teach in some remote mountain village.” He gave me an apologetic nod and walked off down the concrete steps. I stood completely paralyzed outside the glass entrance of the conservatory. The afternoon sun was blazing overhead, yet violent shivers raced up and down my spine. I had no memory of navigating the bus ride back to our apartment. I skipped my afternoon lab entirely. My personal phone sat on the desk surface, buzzing in a continuous, frantic rhythm as Jason’s contact photo illuminated the screen repeatedly. I lay flat on my mattress staring up at the white ceiling tiles, trapped in a recurring loop of Jason smiling at the dean’s daughter on the staircase, feeling completely hollow inside. By the time the deadbolt turned in the front door, darkness had swallowed the living room. Jason hurried inside, letting out an audible sigh of relief the second he saw my boots by the hallway mat. “Why did you skip your afternoon classes?” His voice was soft and careful, using the soothing inflection reserved for calming a frightened child. “Exhausted.” “That is fine. If you are exhausted, you rest.” He walked over to the edge of the sofa, kneeling on the rug to reach out and brush the bangs from my forehead. “I will email your lab instructor and handle the absence—” “Stop micromanaging my existence!” Watching his practiced, condescending gentleness snapped something deep inside my psyche. I swung my arm and slapped his wrist away with jarring force. He froze completely, his comforting smile hardening into disbelief. “What is wrong with you? Why are you speaking to me like this all of a sudden?” “You are the only family I have left in this world, Winter. I stood over our parents’ graves and made a sacred vow that I would protect you—” “I am twenty-one years old!” My voice cracked as I yelled over his monologue. “You are not my father! We do not even share a single drop of blood!” “You are going to build your own career, marry your own wife, and raise your own children! I cannot spend the rest of my life acting as your helpless dependent!” “Why can’t you?!” he shouted back, his voice booming through the small living room. The sheer ferocity of his outburst shocked me into temporary silence. Catching himself, he immediately dropped his gaze, grasping both of my wrists tightly as his voice dropped into an urgent, desperate rasp. “Did someone say something to upset you today?” “Whatever rumors are floating around campus, listen to me. There is nothing romantic going on between me and the dean’s daughter. We were simply discussing departmental funding.” “Winter, I gave you my word. I will never marry anyone. I am going to stay right here with you forever.” “I don’t want your promise anymore.” “What?” Jason stared at me, genuinely bewildered. “I said I don’t want your suffocating promises anymore!” For the first time in my entire life, I felt a desperate, burning need to banish him from my sight completely. The atmosphere in the apartment felt poisonous. I needed fresh air. I needed distance. I needed to escape his orbit! I couldn’t survive another day trapped inside this psychological greenhouse! Realizing that this wasn’t a temporary temper tantrum, the color drained steadily out of Jason’s face until his skin looked like parchment. “You don’t want my promise?” he whispered, his dark eyes turning a terrifying shade of crimson. “Then tell me what you actually want! What are you asking for?” “Do you want me to stop supervising your schedule, or do you want me out of your life entirely? Or…” His voice trembled visibly. “Are you trying to abandon me?” Years of suppressed bitterness detonated all at once. “I want out!” I screamed through hot tears. “I want to be left alone!” Those four words hit him like a physical blow. His eyes flashed blood red as a violent shudder wracked his tall frame. Before I could react, his hands clamped onto my shoulders with terrifying strength, driving my upper back into the sofa cushions as his face lunged downward until our noses were practically touching. His dark pupils dilated wildly, reflecting my terrified, tear-streaked face. His breath burned against my skin, his mouth hovering barely an inch above my lips. Just as his mouth lowered toward mine, he aborted the movement violently, recoiling backward as if he had brushed against red-hot iron. “You are overstressed from your academic workload.” He turned his back to me immediately, his voice hoarse and unstable. “I will submit medical leave paperwork for your classes tomorrow. You are staying inside the apartment to rest.” Without turning around, he grabbed his keys and strode out the front door, slamming it behind him. Once the deadbolt clicked shut, I curled up into a ball on the couch and wept until the decorative pillows were soaked through. A sharp buzz interrupted the silence. The lost phone was vibrating on the coffee table. Same unknown number. “I have been standing outside the rehearsal halls for an hour! Where are you?” Cole’s voice crackled through the speaker, sounding deeply annoyed. Hearing his voice acted as the ultimate trigger for my fractured emotional state. I screamed directly into the microphone. “Do you get a sick thrill out of playing twisted pranks on strangers?!” “I walked all the way to the music conservatory today! People in your own department told me the truth! Cole Shen died in an accident three years ago!” “Using a dead student’s identity to run some elaborate psychological game makes you a complete psychopath! I am throwing this phone in the nearest dumpster! Call this number again and I am contacting the police!” I jabbed the end button with shaking fingers and raised my arm to hurl the device against the hardwood floor. Before the phone left my hand, the screen illuminated again. Once. Twice. Three times. You really want to push my buttons right now? Fine! I needed a target for my rage, and whoever was on the other end had picked the wrong night to test my patience! I swiped the green icon and screamed at the top of my lungs. “Are you completely out of your mind?!” “You—” “Who told you I was dead?!” “What kind of twisted, jealous psycho goes around spreading rumors that I died?!” Before I could launch my next string of insults, he shouted over me with equal fury. “You just want to steal my brand-new phone! Coming up with a morbid lie like that just to keep a piece of electronics makes you a terrible person!” “Me? Terrible?!” I fired back. “You are impersonating a dead kid to mess with my head!” Neither of us backed down an inch. He sounded genuinely outraged, his voice escalating into frustrated disbelief. “I am standing right outside the conservatory practice rooms right this second, entirely alive! Go ahead and call campus security! I will call the real cops on you for theft first!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “513566”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Michael’s girlfriend was chronically online. She loved testing out every new TikTok trend she scrolled past, and tonight was no exception. “Michael, you’re a year older than me. Why didn’t you visit me in the hospital the day I was born? Do you even love me at all?” Michael let out a helpless laugh, entirely used to her antics. He played along with the joke, but then his eyes caught his famously stoic, buttoned-up uncle sitting nearby. A mischievous glint crossed Michael’s face. “Uncle Declan, what about you? How would you answer that?” The man, who rarely cracked a smile, swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “I did visit.” He took a slow sip. “Not only did I visit, but I held her when she was just a baby.” As the words left his mouth, his dark, heavy gaze drifted across the room, landing squarely on me. 1 Michael Prescott and I grew up together. For the first twenty years of my life, we were inseparable. It wasn’t just me who thought we were endgame. Our parents, our entire social circle, everyone practically had our wedding invitations drafted in their heads. We were the quintessential high-society match, perfectly suited in background and temperament. When I turned eighteen, my parents officially brought up the idea of a merger between the Astor and Prescott families through marriage. They asked how I felt about it. Honestly, I adored Michael. If our families joined, it would be a beautiful story. But we were still young, so the engagement talks were gently shelved, and we headed off to the same Ivy League university instead. For the next two years, we lingered in that agonizingly sweet gray area. More than friends, not quite lovers. Everyone around us treated it as an inevitability. Swept up in the expectations, I let myself fall a little deeper for him with every passing day. Then came the winter of our sophomore year. Michael found me, his eyes bright with an excitement I had never seen before. “Sharon, I met someone. I think I’m really falling for her!” It wasn’t me. Seeing him so ecstatic was a brutal wake-up call. The last two decades of our lives had never sparked real romantic love in him. The lingering hugs, the intertwined hands, to Michael, they were just the perks of having a best friend. You cannot force a heart to feel something it doesn’t. And I refused to humiliate myself by begging. So, I gathered up my feelings and locked them away. To the absolute shock of our social circle, Michael started dating a girl from a very ordinary, middle-class suburb. She was undeniably pretty, with a spoiled, slightly demanding streak that proved she was her parents’ pampered princess. He paraded her around, introducing her to every single person in our elite bubble. My presence suddenly became a very awkward elephant in the room. Our mutual friends didn’t buy it. They placed bets on when the novelty would wear off, convinced that once Michael got bored of playing tourist in a normal life, he would realize I was the one he belonged with. “Don’t stress it, Sharon,” a friend whispered to me over martinis. “He’s just fascinated by the naive, girl-next-door routine. Give it a few months. He’ll get sick of it.” He didn’t. Michael stayed with her for two solid years. He flashed his new relationship all over town, making sure everyone knew, including my parents and his. My father was furious enough to march over to the Prescott estate and give them a piece of his mind. My mother had to physically block the door. “If they don’t want the match, we walk away gracefully. Why make a scene? Do you honestly think our daughter is going to lack suitors?” “That is not the point!” my father thundered. When the families had first discussed the marriage, Michael wasn’t a child. He knew about it. He had, at the very least, offered silent consent. Even if we hadn’t made it official, we were a hair’s breadth away from an engagement. It was only because my mother thought we were too young that she gave us time to date properly. By flaunting this new girl, he wasn’t just breaking my heart. He was publicly slapping the Astor family in the face. Still, on the surface, Michael and I remained friends. Our families had hundreds of millions tied up in joint ventures. We had to keep up appearances. But friends were all we would ever be. Which brings us to tonight. Michael booked a massive VIP lounge at an exclusive club downtown for his birthday, inviting half the city’s young elite. I was on the guest list. And naturally, so was his girlfriend, Sophie. 2 Once Michael started dating, my texts to him slowed to a trickle. But we had a messy digital footprint. Before Sophie came into the picture, our Instagram comments and late-night chat histories blurred the lines of platonic friendship. Once they were official, Sophie demanded total access to his phone. They fought about it a few times. I only found out when Michael pulled me aside to apologize, sheepishly admitting Sophie had blocked and deleted my number from his contacts. Since I hadn’t reached out to him in weeks anyway, I hadn’t even noticed. Sophie was desperately trying to claw her way into Michael’s inner circle. Old money circles are notoriously cliquey, and someone had definitely whispered in her ear about my history with her boyfriend. I understood her insecurity. So, I took a step back and gave them space. Tonight, I had planned to drop off his birthday gift and ghost. But as I walked through the heavy velvet curtains of the lounge, my eyes snagged on a figure sitting in the corner. I froze. Just then, my phone lit up with a text. After reading it, I quietly found a seat at the edge of the room. “Sharon, you made it!” Michael looked genuinely thrilled. “I heard you’ve been shadowing your dad at the firm. I figured you’d be too busy closing deals.” I smiled smoothly, handing over the sleek wrapped box. “Happy birthday, Michael.” “Sharon!” Sophie’s sugary voice chimed in. “It feels like forever. Are you trying a new mature look? It’s giving… pushing thirty.” Sophie was draped in a custom pink couture gown that cost more than a sports car, her hair curled into playful, bouncy waves. She wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what she was saying. I looked down at my impeccably tailored, razor-sharp designer suit and let out a soft laugh. “Is it? Good. I am aiming for ruthless corporate executive, after all.” Michael immediately jumped in to keep the peace. “Sharon, you know Sophie. She’s just playing around. Don’t take it to heart.” I didn’t take it to heart. I didn’t let just anyone into my heart anymore. I sat a fair distance from the main action, but the acoustics in the room were crisp. That was when Sophie pulled out the viral internet joke. “Michael, you’re a year older than me. Why didn’t you visit me in the hospital…” The crowd erupted in affectionate laughter. The guys ribbed him. “Yeah, Michael! Why weren’t you rolling up with a baby bottle for your girl?” It was harmless teasing. Sophie was beautiful in an innocent, doe-eyed way, and over the past two years, she had managed to charm a few of the guys in our group. Michael grinned, tossing his arm over the back of the sofa. “I was probably throwing a tantrum and getting grounded by my mom for spitting out my apple juice.” The room dissolved into more laughter. Michael turned his head, spotting his notoriously strict uncle who had surprisingly shown up to the party. Wanting to test the ice, he threw the question his way. “Uncle Declan, what about you? How would you answer that?” Declan Prescott was five years older than Michael and me. He was the unexpected miracle child of the Prescott grandparents, born late in their lives. From the day he drew breath, he was the golden standard. Despite the small age gap, the generational hierarchy was absolute. Factor in Declan’s Ivy League degrees, his ruthless ascension in the corporate world, and his devastatingly cold charisma, and every trust fund kid in our circle was secretly terrified of him. Growing up, I called him Uncle Declan too. Michael was probably hoping to get a dry, pragmatic business answer out of the man. One of Michael’s friends chuckled nervously. “Come on, man, don’t drag Declan into this. The guy runs an empire. When does he have time for romance?” Then, Declan spoke. “I did visit.” The room went dead silent. “Huh?” The man who treated boardrooms like war zones added softly, “Not only did I visit, but I held her when she was just a baby.” No one noticed his eyes. They were locked dead onto me, dark and consuming. “…” The tension broke as the room burst into roaring laughter. “Holy shit, Declan! I didn’t know you had a sense of humor!” No one took him seriously. Except me. Declan didn’t look away. Even though I actively avoided meeting his gaze, the sheer weight of his stare felt reckless and entirely too loud. When the party started winding down, I slipped out and found my car in the underground valet garage. I opened the door and froze. Someone was already in the backseat. My driver looked at me through the rearview mirror, clearly unsure of what to do. From the shadows of the backseat, Declan’s low, gravelly chuckle filled the space. “Mind giving me a lift? I didn’t bring my driver tonight.” I slid in, and the heavy door thudded shut. The man beside me leaned his head back against the leather and murmured, “I seem to have forgotten my address. Miss Astor, care to let me crash at your place?” 3 Declan feigned being completely wasted, letting his head rest heavily against my shoulder. His breath, warm and laced with expensive bourbon, ghosted over the sensitive skin of my neck. It was impossible to ignore. I stared out the tinted window at the blurred city lights, my mind drifting back to two years ago, the night Michael made it Instagram official. I would be lying if I said it didn’t shatter me. Less than a month after telling me he liked someone else, Michael blasted her picture to the world. I was still sitting in my bedroom, trying to figure out how to untangle our families’ massive expectations without causing a corporate war. Worse, Michael paraded her through our friend group immediately. Maybe he just wanted to show her off, but there were plenty of girls in our circle who hated my guts. The petty, thinly veiled insults came pouring in. If I acted like I cared, I was pathetic. If I acted completely unfazed, I was bitter and in denial. That was exactly when Declan returned from London. He had been overseeing a massive real estate acquisition in the UK, a project that wasn’t even finished yet. I was in a place where I didn’t want to look at anyone with the last name Prescott. But Declan bypassed all the social red tape and walked straight into my life. It was winter break. Declan found me and asked, completely out of the blue, if I wanted to go to London with him to clear my head. I stared at him, utterly lost. For most of my childhood, Michael and I were intimidated by him. He was only five years older, but Declan didn’t play in the dirt with us. The genetic lottery had favored him in cruel, unfair ways. He was brilliant to the point of intimidation. As we grew older, he morphed into this untouchable figure, possessing a quiet, lethal authority and striking, sharp-edged good looks. Women practically threw themselves at his feet. I had barely held a real conversation with him. Any interaction we had was strictly by proxy because I was glued to Michael. So, an invitation to London made zero sense. Declan stood in the snow, hands in his cashmere coat pockets. “Do you still love Michael?” I swallowed hard, the silence stretching out between us. “It’s fine if you do. He’s just a man,” Declan said smoothly. “He won’t be the only one you meet in this life.” I couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort me or mock me. “Michael likes someone else. Would you consider liking someone else?” Declan looked at me, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather. “Consider me?” Absolute shock bulldozed right over my heartbreak. The tears that had been swimming in my eyes finally spilled over, but my expression was one of pure, speechless horror. Declan pulled a pristine linen handkerchief from his pocket and gently dabbed the tear from my cheek. “Don’t waste tears on people who aren’t worth it,” he murmured. He paused, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “Though, I suppose you can look at it as detoxing.” “…” I had zero clue Declan Prescott possessed a sense of humor. He dropped his hand. “If your original reason for choosing Michael was to secure the corporate merger between our families, my portfolio is vastly superior to his.” Vastly was the understatement of the century. Declan was the undisputed heir to the Prescott empire. Michael lacked the ambition and the sheer, ruthless intellect his uncle possessed. “If you purely loved Michael for who he is, well, he forfeited his right to your heart when he chose someone else. Stepping in now hardly makes me the villain.” 4 I didn’t go to London because of his romantic pitch. I went because he asked, “Are you planning to take over your family’s firm after graduation? I have negotiations in London. Want to sit in and watch?” Declan’s reputation in the business world was legendary. Like anyone with half a brain, I idolized his work ethic. It was basic ambition. I wanted to see a master at work. So, even knowing he had essentially offered himself up as my new fiancé, I boarded his private jet. For two weeks in London, he kept me by his side. There was absolutely nothing inappropriate between us. He treated me like a protege, guiding me through the brutal realities of corporate takeovers. I watched him dismantle CEOs with a calm, terrifying grace. If we took emotions out of the equation, choosing Declan was a thousand times better than choosing Michael. The ROI was astronomical. “But, Declan, Michael is your nephew.” It was my last night in London. We were sitting in a dimly lit, velvet-lined speakeasy tucked inside our hotel. Soft jazz drifted through the air, the yellow ambient light wrapping around us in a warm, intimate haze. Declan didn’t even blink. Those deep, unreadable eyes held mine over the rim of his scotch glass. “Yes. He played a foolish game. Marry me, become his aunt, and you can boss him around at family dinners for the rest of his life.” “…” Become Michael’s aunt? I had to admit, the level of petty revenge in that statement was deeply appealing. But I had my own life to map out. Michael broke my heart, but I refused to let him dictate my future. “I have one more question.” “You can ask as many as you want,” Declan replied. “And you don’t have to keep a formal distance. Just use my name.” Since I was a toddler, I had lumped him in with the adults. Michael called him uncle, so I did too. But now, as the energy between us shifted into something dark and charged, using his first name felt dangerously taboo. “What exactly…” I hesitated, searching for the words. “How do you view me?” “Are you asking if this is a business acquisition for me, or something else?” he countered. Before I could stutter out a response, he leaned forward. “Sharon, five years is nothing. Besides Michael, you and I grew up together too, didn’t we?” I froze. “When you started kindergarten, you were always running over to our estate. The adults were busy. You and Michael followed me around like ducklings. Do you remember?” His voice was a low rumble. The memories flashed in my mind. Kids always want to play with the older kids. We used to shadow him everywhere. But as he grew up, he was swallowed by boarding schools, university, and eventually the boardroom. The gap widened until he was a god and we were just kids. “When you two graduated high school, my brother and sister-in-law were thrilled. They wanted to lock down the engagement. You two were practically joined at the hip,” Declan said, his tone sharpening. “But Sharon, he walked away. Even if I am technically his elder, pursuing a brilliant, single woman is hardly a crime.” Declan brought me back to the States. For the entire half-month in London, he never crossed a line. That Christmas, Michael and his parents were too embarrassed to attend our family’s holiday gala because of the girlfriend drama. The Prescott family sent Declan in their place. The house was packed with guests. No one noticed when Declan slipped into my bedroom, closed the door behind him, and asked, “Sharon, have you made your decision?” 5 “Declan, did you really come to the hospital the day I was born?” I asked suddenly, pulled back to the present moment in my apartment. His face was buried in the curve of my neck, pressing soft, biting kisses against my skin. He let out a raspy laugh, his hot breath sending shivers down my spine. “Did you think I was joking in front of that crowd?” “Michael was barely two months old. My brother was swamped at the firm, and his wife was recovering. My parents dragged me to the maternity ward to see you,” he murmured against my collarbone. “Though, I was the only one who actually wanted to see you. My parents were just there for the PR.” “As for whether I held you, surely you remember how you used to act?” “…” When Michael and I were at our clingiest phase, I was constantly demanding Declan pick me up and carry me. Relationships mutate with time. At five, I clung to him. At fifteen, I kept a respectful distance. At twenty, I treated him as an elder. And now, hidden away in the dead of night, we were tearing each other’s clothes off. That Christmas in my bedroom, I didn’t give him a verbal yes. But I didn’t push him away either. He took the opening and executed a flawless, relentless pursuit right under everyone’s noses. The moment Michael fell for someone else, his ghost began to fade from my heart. I wasn’t the type of woman to pine over a man who belonged to another girl. And Declan was impossible to resist. He knew exactly when to push and when to give me space. The void in my chest was meticulously filled by someone else. The summer before last, Declan and I made it official. It was about six months into Michael’s new relationship. He planned a group getaway to the Hamptons and actually sent me an invite. I turned it down flat. That sparked a massive rumor mill. Sophie and the rest of our friends whispered that I was too brokenhearted to watch them be in love. The reality? I had zero desire to ditch my brand-new, spectacular boyfriend to play third wheel to my ex-crush. We kept our relationship completely underground. Like any normal couple, we navigated the exhilarating slide from holding hands to breathless kisses, to tangled sheets and late nights. Before tonight, we hadn’t seen each other in over two weeks due to his business trip. I straddled his lap, pulling him into a searing kiss, pouring every ounce of the longing I’d felt into it. Declan’s hands were anything but polite, lighting fires wherever they traced, dragging me down into the intoxicating haze of him. The night was thick and heavy. A vase of fresh pink bellflowers sat on my glass coffee table. A sudden breeze drifted through a cracked window, and the delicate petals trembled, over and over again, in the dark. 6 With graduation looming, my life became a blur of corporate strategy. My father was eager to hand over the reins. He had thrown me into the deep end of the family business the previous year. Between defending my thesis and closing deals, I barely had time to breathe. After a wild, reckless night, my internal alarm woke me at dawn. I opened my eyes, tried to slip out of bed, and was instantly yanked back by a heavy arm wrapping around my waist. “Why are you up so early?” Declan’s voice was thick with sleep and rough like sandpaper. “Come back to sleep.” “I have to go to the office, Mr. Prescott,” I coaxed, running a hand through his messy hair. “I’m spearheading a massive acquisition this week. Behave.” Declan chuckled into the pillows. “Want me to review the contracts for you?” “Absolutely not. Corporate espionage. I don’t care if you’re my boyfriend.” I rejected him with practiced authority. Since we started dating, Declan had secretly tutored me in high-level corporate warfare. But this was the first project my father had completely entrusted to me. I had to win it on my own. Declan propped himself up against the headboard, watching in silence as I showered, flipped on the vanity lights, and applied my makeup. I told him to go back to sleep, but ten minutes later, he was out of bed. By the time I stepped into the kitchen in my stilettos, Declan was plating breakfast. He was incredibly skilled with his hands. In every possible context. Even rushing on a weekday morning, the eggs benedict he set on the marble island looked like it belonged in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Sometimes, I caught myself wondering why a man like Declan chose me. It wasn’t an inferiority complex. It was just statistics. He had the world at his fingertips. Heiresses and supermodels had practically thrown themselves at his feet for years. Declan caught me staring and didn’t miss a beat. “It’s the same reason you were entirely blind to everyone except Michael growing up. I only ever had eyes for you. Then. And now.” “…” He was still holding a petty grudge against his own nephew. The kitchen smelled like fresh coffee and expensive, territorial jealousy. Falling in love with Declan had been the easiest thing in the world. Just like I always believed—love had to go both ways. I gave him a lingering kiss before grabbing my briefcase. “My schedule is clear for the next few days,” Declan murmured against my lips. “I’ll be staying here.” Technically, he had a guest room at my place. He used it once, last year, when I had a fever and he drove through a torrential downpour to take care of me. Slowly, his tailored suits started taking over my closet. His expensive watches ended up on my nightstand. And then one night, I just wanted him next to me. He hadn’t slept in the guest room since. I was slammed at work right now. Forget dinner dates—I was squeezing in university meetings between board calls. The only place we actually saw each other was in my bed. Thankfully, he didn’t complain. By the time I finalized the acquisition, June rolled around, and I officially graduated. My father had zero intention of starting me in the mailroom. I was the heir apparent. He needed me in the shark tank. When the Prescott Matriarch’s birthday gala arrived, I attended with my parents. Despite the awkward tension from two years ago, the Astor and Prescott empires were still deeply entangled. We all operated on the unspoken elite rule: smile, drink the champagne, and pretend the arranged marriage talks had never happened. The ballroom was packed. I followed my parents to the VIP tables to offer our rehearsed, elegant congratulations. When I smiled and said, “Happy Birthday, Grandma Prescott,” the words caught in my throat. I had called her that my entire life. But considering exactly what I did to her youngest son last night, the title felt distinctly blasphemous. Declan materialized out of the crowd. He was wearing a deep burgundy dress shirt. Uncharacteristically, he hadn’t worn a tie, and the top two buttons were undone. He had literally crawled out of my bed that morning. Underneath the expensive silk, his skin was marked with evidence of our night together. Just like mine was. The moment our eyes met, a faint, devastating smirk touched his lips. There was nothing more lethal than a notoriously rigid, cold man showing a sliver of unadulterated sin. 7 In public, we played the role of distant family acquaintances flawlessly. I looked right at him and nodded. “Uncle Declan.” Behind closed doors, I hadn’t called him that in ages. Except, occasionally, when my back was arched against the headboard and he demanded it. Saying it here, in the middle of a glittering ballroom, felt like a filthy inside joke. He offered a curt, utterly professional nod, his face an ice-cold mask. “Sharon.” Fake. The gala was lavish, but knowing the Prescott family as well as I did, it took me exactly three seconds to read the room. The tension at their main table was thick enough to cut with a knife. I pulled out my phone under the table and texted Declan. What’s the drama? He texted back immediately. Michael tried to bring his girl. Got ripped to shreds. The translation: Michael wanted to officially introduce Sophie to the family. His parents already despised her, and realizing he was serious about marrying her sent them into a tailspin. So, Sophie was banned from the gala. Michael’s parents looked at me with open regret. They offered polite, socially perfect small talk, and I parried it with equal grace. Declan hovered nearby, pretending to casually listen. “Declan, you aren’t getting any younger,” the Matriarch suddenly announced, turning her attention to her youngest son. “With all these brilliant girls in the city, has no one caught your eye?” It was a loaded statement. Half the debutantes in the room had been vetted by her as potential daughters-in-law. Declan, who usually shut down these conversations with brutal efficiency, actually smiled. “Mom, I have a girlfriend.” “Are you serious?” Michael, walking by with a glass of champagne, stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes lit up with gossip. “Uncle Declan, I have an aunt? Who is she? Do I know her?” “…” I shot Declan a covert, withering glare. Ignoring his parents, his older brother, and his sister-in-law, Declan stared directly at his nephew. “Focus on fixing your own mess first.” Michael shut his mouth. “Well, if you’re serious about her, bring the girl around,” Declan’s older brother—Michael’s dad—chimed in. Michael looked ready to scream. His dad had just banished his girlfriend from the premises but was practically rolling out the red carpet for Declan’s mystery woman. “She’s here tonight,” Declan said smoothly. The entire Prescott family gasped. Heads immediately swiveled, eyes darting across the ballroom, aggressively scanning the crowd for suspects. My heart slammed against my ribs. I had no idea what game he was playing. “Declan, which one is she?” his sister-in-law pressed. Given the exclusive guest list, whoever Declan was dating had to be a high-society heiress. The family’s tone instantly shifted to pure excitement. “She’s young. We aren’t in a rush to marry. Let’s give it a couple of years,” Declan deflected smoothly. “…” “Uncle Declan, don’t tell me you’re dating someone younger than me?” Michael joked. Declan went completely silent. ? “Wait, actually younger than me?” Michael looked horrified. Declan’s father finally cleared his throat, looking deeply concerned. “Declan, this girl… she is of legal age, correct?” “Obviously,” Declan shot his father a look of pure disgust. “What kind of monster do you think I am?” Within an hour, the rumor that Declan Prescott had a secret girlfriend tore through the ballroom. Thanks to Michael’s loud mouth, everyone had the clues: She’s in the room, and she’s younger than Michael. The gossip mill went into overdrive. Not a single person guessed it was me. 8 Michael even cornered me by the champagne tower to spill the tea. “Sharon, have you noticed my uncle talking to any girls tonight?” I stared at him blankly, then shook my head. “I hardly know your uncle.” “Fair point,” Michael accepted the lie instantly. “You see him like, twice a year. Makes sense you wouldn’t know.” He swirled his drink, looking miserable. “I’m booking a trip to Europe for the summer to get away from my parents. I’m taking Sophie. Do you want to come? I feel like we haven’t gone on a trip together since high school.” I looked at him like he had lost his mind, fighting to keep my polite smile in place. “No thanks. Work is swamped.” “Are you sure? Sophie specifically asked me to invite you.” “?” Both of you are actually insane. “Pass,” I said coldly. I didn’t have time to be a pawn in whatever insecure power play his girlfriend was running. When I got home that night, Declan was already there. He was standing on my balcony, the warm summer night air rustling his burgundy shirt. He held a crystal tumbler of scotch, watching me walk into the living room. It was a ridiculously cinematic sight. “What’s this?” I asked, crossing my arms and leaning against the glass door, amused. “I left the gala after you. How did you beat me here?” Declan didn’t miss a beat. “I paid my driver double to run the red lights.” He closed the distance between us, carrying the faint, intoxicating scent of oakwood and expensive alcohol. “You were staring at me all night. Do you like me in red?” So he had noticed. “Is it a crime to look?” He laughed, a low, rumbling sound. “I wore it specifically for you to look.” I leaned in and took a sip of the scotch right from his glass. “You’re raiding my liquor cabinet again.” Declan threw back the rest of the amber liquid, setting the glass on a side table. “Come by my penthouse tomorrow. Pick out whatever bottles you want. Take the whole cellar.” The city breeze tangled with the taste of alcohol as he pulled me in. The kiss was slow, deep, and intoxicating. Beneath the burgundy silk, the scratches I left on his back the night before were still fresh. He backed me against the wall, murmuring against my jaw, “What were you and Michael whispering about for so long?” “Why are you so obsessed with him?” I huffed, annoyed. “Are you trying to pick a fight?” In the two years we’d been together, we argued like any normal couple. But Declan was the kind of man who refused to sleep in a different bed, even when he was furious. The fights never lasted until morning. “My brother and sister-in-law are still mourning the fact that you aren’t their daughter-in-law,” he growled playfully. “Am I not allowed to be a little territorial?” “Go pick a fight with them, then.” I pushed lightly at his chest. Instead of letting go, Declan hooked his hands under my thighs and lifted me effortlessly. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist, my vision blurring for a second as the world spun. “I’m not fighting them. They lost their chance at a daughter-in-law,” he kissed the corner of my mouth, his eyes glinting. “But a sister-in-law is still on the table.” I bit down lightly on his lower lip. “I never agreed to marry you.” Declan wasn’t phased. He lowered his head, pressing open-mouthed kisses down my neck, doing exactly what he did best until I was entirely at his mercy. Then, he looked up, his eyes dark and voice hoarse. “Then what am I supposed to do, Sharon? I’m hitting thirty soon. No one else will have me. Are you going to abandon your Uncle Declan?” Hearing him call himself Uncle Declan in that tone was like a cursed spell. It was a poisoned apple, dripping with pure, unadulterated sin. The man was a menace.

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