Category: English

I was born with a natural milky scent. Any baby who came near me would stop crying. The owner of the maternity care center was amazed by my talent and offered me a $50,000 salary on the spot to work there. But I refused immediately and went to Europe to study the most difficult finance program. Because in my past life, I worked as a top-tier maternity nurse for the wealthiest family in the country, taking care of their newborn daughter and granddaughter. At the baby’s full moon celebration, a woman’s underwear stained with a fragrant scent suddenly fell from the wealthy heiress’s husband’s jacket. When confronted, that damned son-in-law insisted I had tried to seduce him and failed, then planted my own underwear to frame him. I desperately tried to explain, but because the underwear carried the exact same scent as mine, the wealthy heiress had me dragged out and mauled to death by dogs. My parents came to seek justice for me, but they were chopped into pieces and fed to fish. When I opened my eyes again, I painfully rejected the $50,000 salary and went overseas, working myself to the bone to become a Chief Securities Analyst. With a million-dollar annual salary, I successfully joined an international company and was invited to attend the full moon celebration of a business partner’s great-grandson, while also evaluating their company. At the celebration, the wealthy heiress’s husband’s jacket once again dropped that same piece of underwear. Facing the wealthy patriarch’s interrogation, he calmly looked past the crowd and pointed directly at me. “She tried to seduce me and failed, so she deliberately planted her intimate clothing to frame me!” “I can swear to God that I’ve never done anything to betray Scarlett!” —

The lace underwear was stained with bodily fluids. The full cup size definitely didn’t belong to the flat-chested heiress Scarlett Harper. Meeting Scarlett’s gaze that wanted to cut me into a thousand pieces, I calmly set down my wine glass. My eyes showed none of the panic from my past life. Instead, I looked directly at the Harper family’s son-in-law, Marcus Kane, and spoke. “Mr. Kane, I went abroad to study at eighteen and only returned today after completing my studies.” “Today is the first time we’ve ever met. How could I possibly plant underwear in your jacket?” “I’m afraid you had an affair and still weren’t satisfied, so you kept your lover’s underwear in your jacket to reminisce over it from time to time!” My words were too blunt and explicit. All the guests stared at him in shock. Marcus’s face turned red as his thoughts were exposed, but he still defended himself. “Nonsense! You’re clearly one of the maternity nurses working at my house!” “From your first day on the job, you kept making eyes at me. When I ignored you, you kept trying to seduce me!” “Last night I was caught off guard when you pushed open my door and crawled into my bed, offering yourself to me.” “If I hadn’t threatened you that my wife was right outside the door and I’d call her in to fire you if you didn’t leave, you wouldn’t have given up!” Marcus’s words made Scarlett frown slightly. Ever since giving birth to the baby, she had been sleeping in a separate room from Marcus on the professional maternity team’s recommendation. Last night when she got up thirsty for water, she did hear noises when passing by Marcus’s room. Her sharp gaze immediately fell on me. Seeing that Scarlett believed his words, Marcus continued to slander me with a pretentious air. “I saw you were a woman trying to make a living as a maternity nurse, so I didn’t want to expose you.” “I never expected you to be so vicious—failing to seduce me, you went straight to framing me! What a wicked heart!” “My daughter absolutely cannot be left in the care of such a maternity nurse. She should be fired immediately!” Marcus’s words hit Scarlett’s sore spot. Scarlett immediately demanded of Nathaniel Harper, the patriarch. “Nathaniel, this maternity nurse is too sinister. I’m afraid she’s already done something harmful to the baby.” “We should bring out Shadow and interrogate her thoroughly until she confesses on her own!” Nathaniel nodded. The next second, a huge iron cage was wheeled to the center of the banquet hall. When the black cloth was removed, a hunting dog as tall as a person stared at me fixedly, letting out excited low growls. The bodyguards opened the cage, preparing to stuff me inside. The image of being torn to shreds by the vicious dog in my past life seemed to play before my eyes. I immediately spoke up. “This underwear has the smell of breast milk on it. I’m not in my lactation period, so the clothing definitely isn’t mine!”

Marcus’s face darkened immediately, and he looked panicked as he tried to throw the underwear into the nearby swimming pool to destroy it. Unfortunately, Scarlett beat him to it, taking the underwear and having it examined. After seeing the obvious stains on it, her face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. Her gaze swept over my unremarkable chest, then she backhanded a slap directly across Marcus’s face. “I remember everyone who’s been breastfeeding my daughter. It’s definitely not her!” “Who is that bitch?” Marcus’s face was scratched bloody by the ring on Scarlett’s hand, but he didn’t dare show even a hint of anger. He could only lock his venomous gaze on me and continue throwing dirt on me. “Who says people not in their lactation period can’t have this scent?” “I’ve heard of people with special gifts who secrete milk even when not lactating, and they carry a unique fragrance on their bodies.” “No matter how fussy a child is, they’ll stop crying when near such a person and can’t help but feel close to them.” “She’s so young yet earning a $50,000 salary as a maternity nurse at the Harper house. Maybe it’s precisely because she has this exceptional quality.” “The owner of that underwear is her!” Marcus spoke with such conviction that Scarlett demanded I undress on the spot to prove my innocence. Naturally I refused, taking out my phone to call the police. But Marcus snatched my phone and smashed it on the ground. “If you say it’s not you, just have someone verify it! Why keep avoiding it? I think you’re guilty!” I wasn’t backing down either. “I didn’t do it, so I didn’t do it! Just because of baseless slander, I have to use this humiliating method to prove myself? Well then, I say you’re impotent!” “Why don’t you take off your pants and prove it to everyone?” Marcus was left speechless, but Scarlett’s brow furrowed tightly. She told me, “Marcus would never slander someone randomly. Since you say this underwear isn’t yours, then find a way to prove it.” “Or else, go in and have a chat with Shadow.” “I believe facing Shadow’s fangs, any liar will become honest.” Scarlett was forcing me. Either strip to prove my innocence, or enter the cage to be fed to the dog. The Harper family’s bodyguards had already surrounded me. If I showed any sign of trying to escape, they would immediately swarm forward, capture me and stuff me into the dog cage, making me a wronged soul under that hunting dog’s claws. Taking a deep breath, I made my choice on the spot. I pulled out my credentials from my carry-on bag. A graduation certificate from a top German university, a doctorate degree in economics. And an employment certificate as Chief Securities Analyst for Oceanic International Corporation. But I didn’t take that one out. I didn’t want to mix business with personal matters. Showing the two certificates, I told Scarlett. “Miss Harper, I studied at university in Germany. Anyone knows how difficult it is to study there.” “I spent six years working myself to the bone to become a finance doctorate from a world-class institution, with a million-dollar annual salary.” “Do you think I would work day and night for a measly $50,000 monthly salary taking care of a crying child and constantly watching out for ill-intentioned men in my employer’s household?” That last sentence was deliberate. I wanted to tell Scarlett that I looked down on her $50,000 maternity nurse position. Only a wealthy heiress like her—born into privilege but with an underdeveloped brain—would believe the lies of a man like Marcus who constantly ran his mouth. Sure enough, Scarlett’s gaze at me softened after seeing those two certificates. No matter how stupid she was, she should understand the value of a German doctorate. Her sharp gaze fell back on Marcus, but then a woman rushed forward and slapped me three times, screaming. “Sophia Clark, have you lost your mind! Forging credentials to deceive the wealthy heiress.” “Aren’t you afraid of being exposed and dragging our whole family to hell with you!”

My cheeks swelled up from the beating. Five clear finger marks appeared on my face. Looking closely at the woman before me, I realized I didn’t recognize her at all. With a cold expression, I covered my injured cheek and warned her. “I don’t know you at all! If you don’t apologize and compensate me immediately, I’ll have my legal team sue you!” But the woman wailed dramatically. “God help me! How did I give birth to such a troublemaker!” “To deceive people, she won’t even acknowledge her own mother!” “Miss Harper, Mr. Kane, I apologize to you. I failed to raise my daughter properly.” “However you want to punish her this time, go ahead. I won’t stop you anymore, to prevent her from continuing to swindle people everywhere!” The woman’s words caused an uproar. Many people gasped. “This girl is actually a professional con artist?” “Even her own mother is saying this, it must be true!” “Thank goodness she showed up in time, or we’d all have been fooled!” Scarlett gritted her back teeth and asked me. “Is it fun to play me for a fool?” “Someone, lock her up with Shadow. I want her to have a really good time!” Seeing the triumphant expressions flash in both the woman’s and Marcus’s eyes, I immediately called out loudly. “I’m not lying! This woman isn’t my mother! I’m not called Sophia Clark either.” “My name is Madison Smith. She doesn’t even know my name, so how could she be my mom?” Only then did Scarlett notice that the graduation certificate and degree in my hands indeed had the name Madison Smith written on them. Seeing the wavering in her eyes, Marcus quickly stepped forward to cover. “How could a mother possibly mistake her own daughter?” “She is Sophia Clark!” “To deceive you, she could even forge credentials.” “It’s just a name. Who knows if she made it up randomly because she’s swindled so many people and is afraid of being held accountable!” I immediately demanded that Scarlett send someone to the police department’s identity records to verify. My name was Madison Smith, and the parents listed in my records were definitely not this woman in front of me! Scarlett called the records department skeptically and soon received confirmation. I was indeed called Madison Smith, and the woman before me was not my mother. But facing Scarlett’s sharp gaze, the woman insisted she was my biological mother. “Sweetie, I divorced your abusive, cheating father when you were three years old, all for your sake, and raised you into adulthood by myself.” “You can’t just stop acknowledging your mother because that bastard said he’d buy you a car and house if you took his surname!” “He’s lying to you! Only I truly love you!” The woman spoke with tears streaming down her face and even pulled out a paternity test proving she was indeed my biological mother. Only then did I remember that when I was young, my father did tell me that the woman living with us wasn’t my biological mother. My birth mother was a gambling addict who tried to bet me at the card table when she got desperate. My father couldn’t stand her being so despicable, so he divorced her immediately, moved overnight, and cut ties completely. Our family hadn’t kept a single photo of her all these years, no wonder I didn’t recognize her. But no one believed my explanation. Even Nathaniel, who had been silent all along, stood up and said. “Miss Smith, I want to believe you too.” “But your mother has been working at the Harper house for twenty years. I trust her character.” “I absolutely won’t allow a woman who tries to destroy my daughter’s marriage and lies constantly to continue living in this world.” With a wave of his hand, Nathaniel signaled the bodyguards to stuff me into the dog cage. My gaze fell on Scarlett nearby, who had breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly thinking of something, I quickly grabbed Nathaniel’s pant leg. “Mr. Harper, I know who the woman having an affair with your son-in-law is! It’s her!”

Everyone looked in the direction I was pointing. Seeing that I was pointing at Scarlett herself, they all thought I’d lost my mind. Even Scarlett was amused by my accusation. “Madison, do you know what you’re saying?” “I’m Marcus’s wife! Me having an affair with him? Does that even make sense?” Nathaniel also looked at me with utter disgust. “If I’d known you were such a stupid con artist, I should have let Shadow tear you apart before you even spoke your first word!” “Take her to the beast arena. Notify the fireworks crew to postpone tonight’s fireworks display. I, Mr. Harper, invite everyone to watch a show of human versus beast combat!” Nathaniel spoke cruelly, and I was dragged toward the beast arena by the bodyguards. I struggled desperately to explain, but they found me too noisy and gagged me. Just as I was about to be taken out of the banquet hall, a business card fell from my shirt pocket with a soft sound. The bodyguards looked closely, and the next second their faces went white with fear. Trembling, they handed the card to Nathaniel. I also straightened my clothing and told Nathaniel. “To be honest, my real identity is Chief Securities Analyst for Oceanic International Corporation.” “I came to this family banquet today to evaluate whether the Harper family qualifies for Oceanic International’s first investment opportunity domestically…” “Ha ha ha!” Before I could finish, Marcus was laughing so hard tears came out. He clutched his stomach, pointing at me. “Madison, though your con is clumsy, I really admire your imagination.” “First a high-achieving overseas student, now Chief Securities Analyst for Oceanic International.” “Oceanic International is the world’s largest financial company. Even a janitor there makes more in a month than you do in a year!” “You’re just a nanny who wipes shit and piss. Stop putting gold on your face! Just go perform in the beast show!” Scarlett’s face also wore mockery as she casually tore up the business card and tossed it in the air. “I’ve seen this kind of trick plenty of times. You can’t fool people just by randomly printing some business cards.” “Your mouth is too stubborn. Shadow alone might not be enough to handle you.” “Nathaniel, didn’t you just buy me a few lions and tigers from Africa as gifts? Why not release them today and let everyone see?” Nathaniel’s gaze fell on the gold-embossed business card on the ground. The special watermark shone in the Smithlight so brightly he could barely open his eyes. But he still nodded, signaling his subordinates to throw me into the beast arena with the predators. Lions and tigers that had been starved for days immediately stood up, roaring excitedly at me through the bars. Marcus grabbed my hair, forcing me to make eye contact with the beasts. He didn’t forget to lower his voice by my ear, speaking in a volume only the two of us could hear. “Madison, you’re very clever. You almost got close to the truth.” “What a pity—you had bad luck. Just be good and let the beasts tear you apart, and no one will discover my secret.” He laughed arrogantly, raising his hand to signal the bodyguards to lift the bars. I watched helplessly as the bars were slowly raised. Death was only one step away from me. Just as the entire barrier was about to be opened, a hearty laugh suddenly rang out from outside the door. “Mr. Harper, congratulations on your great-grandson!” Seeing that it was the U.S. representative from Germany’s Oceanic Corporation, Nathaniel’s eyes lit up, and he enthusiastically invited the man to sit and watch the beast show. But when the man’s gaze fell on my disheveled appearance in the beast arena, his expression changed dramatically. He rushed into the arena regardless of everything, shielding me with his body.

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On May Day, my cousin had a wedding. I specifically turned down several major clients. I cleared out the top-floor banquet hall of our family’s five-star hotel to host her wedding reception for free. Who knew that during the toasting ceremony, her mother-in-law would die from suffocation after suffering an asthma attack without her medication. My cousin’s family immediately spread rumors that our hotel’s wild mushroom soup contained poisonous mushrooms. They claimed the old lady ate them, had hallucinations, and then fell ill, demanding we pay them a million dollars in compensation. The incident made it to the top of the local trending topics, and the hotel was shut down by the authorities. After my family of three went bankrupt and ended up homeless, we were hit and killed by a car. Those relatives who had been drinking wine worth tens of thousands of dollars per bottle at the wedding banquet even cursed me in the comments, saying I deserved to die. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to one week before May Day. My parents were discussing: “Lily, your cousin suddenly decided to get married on May Day. It’s hard to book a venue. Should we reserve a few private rooms for her at our hotel?” I put down the ledger. “No need. Don’t even reserve a single table.” My parents froze. “But everywhere is fully booked for May Day, and her in-laws are so stingy…” I let out a cold laugh. “What the hell does that have to do with me!”

I touched my frantically beating heart. The excruciating pain of being crushed by that truck in my previous life still lingered in my mind. Looking at my parents standing before me, completely unharmed, my eyes welled up. But I quickly calmed down. The bitter lessons of my previous life taught me that showing kindness to these bloodsucking relatives was asking for death. I grabbed the desk phone and called my assistant in. “Contact Mr. Lee immediately, the one who wanted to book our May Day slot.” “Tell him the panoramic banquet hall on the top floor is available for his business association event.” “Increase the price by ten percent from the original quote. The deposit must be paid in full today, or no deal.” My assistant looked somewhat surprised but moved quickly, immediately going to return the call. In less than half an hour, an urgently printed high-priced contract was placed on my office desk. I stared at the five million dollar deposit that had just arrived in the account and finally relaxed. I filled up all the hotel’s available slots during the May Day period. In this life, my cousin could forget about freeloading at our hotel. At two in the afternoon, someone kicked open my office door. My aunt Martha swaggered in with my cousin Shannon. Martha didn’t even knock, plopping her butt down on my leather sofa. She grabbed the imported cherries from the fruit plate and shoved them in her mouth. “Lily, your cousin is getting married on May Day. Have someone go change the carpet in the top-floor hall right away.” “That color is too dark, not festive enough. Change it to bright red.” Shannon, wearing high heels, walked to my desk and rolled her eyes. “Lily, that French menu of yours is too plain. It won’t impress anyone.” “My in-laws care about appearances. You must add Australian lobster to the menu.” “Oh, and wild mushroom soup – that dish looks high-class. Every table must have one.” “You can cover the price difference yourself. After all, you run such a big hotel, this small amount won’t matter to you.” Hearing this entitled tone, I almost laughed from anger. In my previous life, she used these exact words to get a million-dollar wedding banquet for free. I leaned back in my chair, watching this mother-daughter duo perform with cold eyes. Martha spat out a cherry pit and urged impatiently: “I’m talking to you! Are you deaf? Hurry up and call the kitchen to prepare the ingredients!” I pulled open my drawer, took out the newly signed contract, and slapped it hard in their faces. “No need to call.” “All the banquet halls have been booked.” “During May Day, our hotel is fully booked. We can’t even spare a spot in the employee cafeteria.” “Find someone else.” Shannon froze for a moment, picked up the contract, glanced at the numbers, and her face instantly turned extremely ugly. “Lily, what do you mean? You know I’m getting married!” Martha threw a tantrum on the spot, slapping the desk. Cherries rolled all over the floor. “You’re obsessed with money, aren’t you!” “For a few stinking dollars, you don’t even care about your cousin’s lifelong event?” “I’m your aunt! Is this how your family treats relatives?” Shannon’s eyes turned red. She squeezed out a few tears and started playing pitiful. “Lily, my life is so hard. My in-laws are poor and can’t afford a wedding.” “I was counting on hosting a grand wedding at our family hotel to collect more gifts and save face.” “If you don’t help me, how can I get my investment back?” I stared into her eyes and mercilessly exposed her. “How is your in-laws being broke any of my business?” “Are you going to split the gifts you receive with us?” “If you want a luxury wedding, pay for it yourself. Coming here to freeload – do you think I run a charity?” Shannon’s expression changed drastically. Her previously righteous gaze suddenly became flustered and evasive, and even her crying stopped. I keenly caught this detail. In my previous life, I found it strange – why would this family of extreme cheapskates insist on putting up a false front for an extravagant wedding? It seemed there was something going on here that I didn’t know about.

Seeing I was unmoved, Martha decided to go all in. She threw herself on the floor, kicking and screaming like a toddler having a meltdown. “This is outrageous! Rich people bullying poor relatives!” The commotion drew the attention of employees in the hallway. My parents happened to walk by after inspecting the guest rooms and were shocked by the scene. Seeing my parents, Martha immediately crawled over and grabbed my father’s leg. “Richard! You can’t forget your roots!” “Thirty years ago when you were dirt poor, I lent you two hundred dollars to buy rice.” ” I did you a small favor back then, and now you should repay me tenfold.! Now you run a five-star hotel and won’t even arrange a wedding venue for Shannon!” “You’re trying to kill us mother and daughter!” My father was soft-hearted and couldn’t stand hearing about these old debts. He looked troubled, glancing at my mother, then at me. “Lily, how about… we clear out the employee cafeteria on the first floor and set it up simply for Shannon’s wedding?” My mother Emily chimed in: “Yeah, they’re family after all. It’s not good to make things too ugly.” The horrifying scene of being crushed to death in my previous life flashed crazily through my mind. I felt a surge of rage shoot straight to the top of my head. I slammed the desk and pointed at the door, roaring. “Absolutely not!” “The banquet halls have all been rented to major clients. The first floor is also an auxiliary exhibition hall for their business association.” “The five million dollar deposit is already in the account!” “Breaking a contract with a billionaire client means we can’t survive in this industry!” “Whoever dares agree to clear the venue can pay the five million dollar penalty fee themselves!” My parents immediately shut up when they heard “five million dollars.” Shannon was so frightened by my murderous aura that she took two steps back. But she still wasn’t willing to give up, pointing at my nose and cursing. “Lily, you’re a cold-blooded monster!” “You’re such a vicious woman, you’ll never get married in your life!” I looked at her flustered, exasperated expression and sneered back. “Whether I get married or not is none of your business.” “But you, requesting time off for May Day and rushing into a wedding.” “Is there something unspeakable in your belly, and you’re desperately looking for an honest man to be your cleanup crew?” Shannon jumped up. “Bullshit! How dare you slander me!” She raised her hand and rushed at me to slap me. I was prepared, dodged to the side, and delivered a crisp slap in return. The sharp crack echoed as Shannon was sent staggering and fell to the ground. Half her face instantly swelled up red. Martha shrieked and lunged at me to pull my hair. “You little bitch, how dare you hit my daughter!” I coldly pressed the intercom on my desk. In less than ten seconds, four burly security guards rushed into the office. “Throw these two troublemakers out. If you ever let them into the hotel again, the security captain is fired immediately!” The guards immediately took action, dragging the shrieking mother-daughter duo and throwing them out of the hotel entrance. That evening, I stayed late to check the storage room. While inspecting the fire escape in the back alley of the hotel, I smelled cheap perfume. Then I saw a familiar figure – Shannon. What was she doing at the hotel so late? I lightened my footsteps and pressed against the wall corner. In the dark corner, Shannon was covering her swollen face while making a phone call, her voice trembling. I quietly turned on my phone and started recording. After listening to Shannon’s phone call, my whole body trembled. I finally understood the truth behind being scammed to death in my previous life. The poisonous mushroom scam in my previous life wasn’t an accident at all. What a vicious scheme. In my previous life, you stepped on my entire family to get ahead. Since that’s the case, in this life I’ll not only cut off your money path but personally send you to hell.

Early the next morning, my phone was bombarded with messages. The family group chat had exploded. Martha had posted a thousand-word essay in the group, tearfully accusing us. She denounced our family for being heartless after making money, refusing to acknowledge poor relatives. She said I beat my own aunt and cousin black and blue and threw them out the door, ruining my cousin’s marriage prospects. Several distant relatives who usually liked to freeload and didn’t know the truth immediately jumped out to take sides. George, a distant relative: “So what if you’re rich? You’ve lost all humanity!” Helen, another relative: “Lily has been heartless since she was little. She won’t even help relatives. When the hotel goes bankrupt, let’s see who goes to eat there!” Some even threatened to unite the whole family to boycott our hotel. Shannon also put on quite a show on social media. She posted: “Maybe I don’t deserve a perfect wedding. I’ve prepared everything, just missing a stage.” The accompanying image was an obviously filtered and blurred photo of her wrist with red marks, a fake suicide attempt photo. My father sat on the sofa, looking at the screen full of curses. His blood pressure nearly spiked as his hands trembled. “What… what is all this! We’ve offended all our relatives!” He anxiously typed on the screen, wanting to apologize and clarify in the group. He even planned to pay out of his own pocket to book a few tables for them at another hotel. I sneered and walked over, pressing down on my father’s hand and taking away his phone. “Dad, showing kindness to these bloodsuckers will only make them bite harder.” I took out my own phone, opened the financial software, and directly exported a statement. This was a receipt three meters long. I threw it directly into the family group chat. The statement clearly recorded every detail of Martha’s family’s consumption at our hotel over the past five years. Including but not limited to: eating for free, taking things for free, forcibly taking gifts. Down to the plate of peanuts she took last Thanksgiving, all with surveillance footage to match. The last line was marked in large red letters with the total amount: one hundred twenty-five thousand four hundred dollars. I directly @ Martha in the group. “Since Aunt Martha keeps saying we want to cut ties, then settle this account first.” “We’re family after all, so I’ll round down. One hundred twenty thousand, not a cent less.” “As long as you settle this one hundred twenty thousand, I’ll immediately pay out of my own pocket to host a wedding for you at the highest standard.” The distant relatives like George and Helen, who had just been wildly attacking, all played dead. These relatives had all freeloaded food and drinks at our place to some extent. They were afraid the fire would spread to them. After a minute, Martha sent a furious voice message in the group. “Lily, you’re full of shit. You forged the statement. You’re crazy for money and extorting your elders.” I had anticipated she would deny the debt. Calmly, I opened my photo album. I posted a surveillance video screenshot to the group. In the footage was last month when she brought people to dine and dash. After eating, not only did she not pay, but she also sneaked into the bar. When the cashier went to the bathroom, she directly shoved a box of cigars into her pants and took them. The video was extremely clear, even capturing the greedy expression on her face. I sent a voice message: “Martha, theft of property worth over five thousand dollars is prosecutable.” “Do you want me to call the police to arrest you, or will you pay back the money immediately?” Public opinion instantly reversed. Although the relatives didn’t dare speak up, soon several younger family members posted screens full of mocking emojis below. Shannon also quietly deleted that wrist-cutting post from social media. The mother-daughter duo became the laughingstock of the entire family. I knew that ever since I overheard Shannon’s phone call and learned that secret, given her viciousness, she would never let this go.

As I expected, after Shannon’s online narrative backfired, unable to gain relatives’ sympathy, she was planning another big move. Three days later at noon, Shannon brought her mother-in-law Edith, who suffered from severe asthma, and swaggered into our hotel lobby, ordering a table of the cheapest dishes. I figured this wasn’t just a simple meal, so I quietly sent a message to my friend who was deputy director of the emergency department at a major hospital, asking him to drive over immediately. At the same time, I called the security captain to my office. “Prepare two of the most concealed hidden cameras for me. Follow and film those customers comprehensively with no blind spots. Don’t miss a single fly.” Sure enough, after they quickly finished eating, they walked straight to the center of the hotel’s revolving door. Edith plopped down on the ground and started wailing. “There’s no justice. A five-star black-hearted shop bullying honest people.” “There were bugs in the food and they won’t refund the money, and they even hit an old woman.” “They promised to host a wedding banquet here before, now they suddenly broke the contract.” ” If you don’t agree to host my daughter-in-law’s wedding today, I’ll throw myself against this wall and make sure you get sued and let you lose all your business.” It was peak lunch hour, and more and more diners and passersby gathered to watch. Shannon took the opportunity to crouch down next to Edith, pretending to comfort her, while secretly slipping a small white medicine bottle to her mother-in-law. Edith immediately threw one pill into her mouth. At first, the old woman was still throwing a tantrum on the ground, and the onlookers were pointing and watching the excitement. But in less than a minute, after wailing twice, she suddenly convulsed violently all over and collapsed on the ground. Edith’s eyes rolled back, clutching her chest tightly. A wheezing sound came from her throat. She looked like she was dying from an acute asthma attack. Martha, who had been hiding outside the crowd, immediately rushed in, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Murder. A black-hearted five-star hotel drove my in-law’s mother to death.” “Everyone look. This restaurant has poisonous food.” This sudden turn of events attracted a large number of internet celebrities who had been camping nearby, all holding up their phones and starting live streams. Shannon, with red-rimmed eyes and the appearance of a wronged, filial daughter-in-law, pointed at my nose and cursed. “Lily. My mother-in-law just ate at your hotel, and now she’s dying.” “If someone dies today, your hotel is fully responsible. Compensate us. If you don’t pay several hundred thousand, this isn’t over.” I quickly calmed down. I arranged for security to maintain order while having my emergency department friend rush forward with a first aid kit. At the same time, I dialed 911 to report. I led the doctor through the crowd. “Everyone move. This is a deputy director physician from the emergency department. Let her perform first aid.” Seeing the doctor arrive, Shannon’s eyes instantly panicked, and she reached out to block. “We don’t need your fake kindness. Don’t touch my mother-in-law.” I was quick-eyed and quick-handed, fiercely grabbing Shannon’s wrist. With my other hand, I pulled out the white medicine bottle from Edith’s pocket. Shannon was shocked and wanted to scream and snatch it. But I had already quickly handed it to security to take to the hospital for drug testing. Just then, the piercing sound of police sirens roared in.

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I joked with my husband Damian about having an affair. Who would’ve thought he’d let out a long sigh of relief when he heard the news? “Emma, that’s great. Actually, I’ve been keeping something from you for a long time too.” His face bore a relieved smile that made my heart sink. “Since you’ve cheated, let’s break up. Your best friend Chloe is pregnant, and the baby’s mine. She’s been living in the apartment right below us. Every time I said I was working late, I was actually taking her to prenatal checkups.” “I’ve always felt guilty about this, but now that you’ve cheated too, I don’t feel bad anymore. This house goes to me—consider it compensation for your affair.” That night, he even told me outright he was going to sleep with Chloe. Watching him rush to leave, I laughed coldly. Want a divorce? There was no way I’d let him off that easily. A month later, Damian knelt before me with red-rimmed eyes. “Emma, I’m begging you, divorce me already!” “What’s with that look?” When Damian saw I wasn’t saying anything, his smile became even more unbridled. “We’re both adults. Since you found some other guy first, leaving me this house as compensation isn’t too much to ask, right?” He straightened his collar, his tone full of calculating entitlement. “Besides, you’re usually so dull and boring, and you just lie there like a dead fish in bed. Chloe is so much better than you—understanding, gentle, and adventurous. Not emotionally clueless like you.” Listening to his shameless remarks, I felt my stomach churning, disgusted to the point of nausea. “When did you two start sleeping together?” I forced my voice steady, staring at him intently. He shrugged carelessly and answered without hesitation. “About two years ago, right when your dad died.” Two years ago. Those three words crashed down on me, freezing every drop of blood in my veins in that instant. Back then, my dad had died suddenly from a heart attack. I’d completely broken down, unable to eat anything. I cried myself senseless every day. I thought Damian was leaving early and coming home late to support our family for me. Turns out, while I was drowning in grief, he was tumbling in bed with my best friend! “You had that miserable look on your face all the time back then—it was so depressing. I couldn’t stand seeing you like that.” “Chloe saw how stressed I was and invited me downstairs to comfort me. We ended up having sex.” He made his affair sound so noble, as if he were the one who’d suffered the greatest injustice. Looking at this man I’d shared a bed with for five years, I felt he was terrifyingly unfamiliar. He didn’t care whether I lived or died. He turned toward the door and changed his shoes. He couldn’t wait to go downstairs to his gentle haven—he didn’t want to stay even one more second. With his hand on the doorknob, he suddenly stopped and looked back at me. “Oh, remember to make some chicken soup for Chloe tomorrow.” “She’s been having severe morning sickness lately and can’t keep anything down. She’s lost so much weight.” “That chicken soup you made when I was in the hospital last time tasted pretty good. Chloe would definitely love it.” Hearing this, the fury in my chest exploded. Last time he was sick? That was a year ago when he’d gotten into a serious car accident, broke two ribs, and nearly died. When I got the call from the hospital, I was terrified out of my mind. I rushed to his bedside and took care of him day and night without rest. To make him chicken soup to help his recovery, I didn’t wear gloves while handling almonds, and my hands had an allergic reaction and swelled up red. Enduring the piercing itching and pain, I’d simmered the soup for four whole hours and fed it to him spoonful by spoonful. “That car accident—was that also because you were going to see her?” I forced my voice to stay calm. He paused for a moment, then waved his hand irritably, looking completely impatient. “Oh come on, that’s all in the past. Why bring it up now!” “Chloe said she wanted some macarons from that shop on the west side of town. I was rushing to see her and drove too fast, so I crashed into the guardrail.” “Anyway, now that we’ve laid everything out, we can each live our own lives. I wish you and your new lover a long and happy life together too.” He revealed the truth so casually, completely shattering the last shred of marital affection I had for him. So that accident that nearly killed him was also to please his little mistress. The scars my hands still bore from tearing them raw for his sake now seemed like the biggest joke in the world! I stood there in despair, too exhausted even to question him further. Before leaving, he didn’t forget to bark orders at me. “Pack up my stuff from the study tomorrow.” “From now on I’ll live downstairs. I’m not coming back—don’t want to disturb you and your boy toy.” “I’ll have my lawyer draft the divorce papers and send them to you. Sign them as soon as possible.” BANG—the security door slammed shut heavily. The empty living room held only me. I walked to the window and looked at the lights coming on downstairs, unable to hold back a cold laugh. Did he think one flippant sentence could erase two years of betrayal and deception? Did he think taking my house would let him live happily ever after with his mistress without a guilty conscience? Dream on. Divorce? That would be letting this pair of cheaters off too easily. Since he was so convinced I’d cheated, I’d make that joke come true. I would make them pay a much more painful price. I’d personally smash to pieces the love they were so proud of and the happiness they’d built together.

The next morning, the door was pushed open. Damian came back to move his things, looking smug and pleased with himself. I sat on the sofa, my eyes red-rimmed. “Are you really leaving?” My voice was hoarse as tears fell perfectly onto the back of my hand. “These five years, my whole heart has been with you. How am I supposed to live after this?” He paused in his movements, his face showing undisguised mockery. “Enough with the act. Don’t you already have some other guy?” He tugged at his tie. “We were married—you don’t need to make it seem like I’m forcing you.” I covered my face, sobbing uncontrollably. “I was just saying that to make you angry! There’s no one else! I just wanted you to spend more time with me…” I cried as if my heart was breaking. “You’re taking the house—where am I supposed to live? I don’t even have basic security. Are you trying to drive me to my death?” Hearing that I hadn’t actually cheated, he froze first, then couldn’t hide the smug satisfaction on his face. So he had such great appeal that I couldn’t live without him. “Ah, why put yourself through this?” He sighed, putting on a magnanimous air. “Chloe is kind-hearted and doesn’t want to see you homeless. How about this—I’ll transfer the three hundred thousand in savings to you. Consider it your living expenses for the future.” To prove to Chloe that he could handle me properly, and to show off his wealth, he immediately took out his phone and transferred the money to my account. Seeing the deposit notification, I kept my head down, desperately suppressing the smile at the corner of my mouth. The moment he moved his luggage downstairs, I immediately dropped the pitiful act. Wiping away my tears, I opened the computer and logged into his cloud account that he’d never signed out of. For five years, he’d been so convinced of my cluelessness that he hadn’t even changed his password. Those disgusting chat records, call logs, and Chloe’s prenatal examination reports—I saved them all. That afternoon, I printed out these photos and chat records and sent them all to Chloe’s parents back in her hometown—retired teachers who valued their reputation more than their lives. The next day, fierce arguments erupted from downstairs. Chloe’s parents had taken the overnight train and come straight over, breaking down their door. “You shameless bastard! We paid for your education, and you became a mistress for a married man!” The sound of slaps accompanied Chloe’s screams. Her father was shaking with rage, cursing viciously. “And pregnant out of wedlock? You’ve disgraced the entire family! If you don’t abort that bastard today, I’m disowning you as my daughter!” Damian rushed over to protect Chloe, only to have Chloe’s mother scratch his face bloody. “Who the hell do you think you are! Tricking my daughter into having your baby? If you don’t give us a clear explanation today and fifty thousand dollars in compensation, I’ll ruin your reputation!” Downstairs had turned into complete chaos while I leisurely sipped a glass of red wine upstairs. Damian must be frantic right now, desperate for money to shut the old couple up. Unfortunately, he couldn’t come up with a single cent now. Yesterday, I’d already taken his card to the most upscale mall in the city center. After such a huge shock, I deserved to buy some supplements to take care of my health, right? Truffle oil,caviar, limited edition handbags—I swiped without mercy. When the card ran out of money, I pulled out his credit card. The credit limit of several hundred thousand—I maxed it out in one morning. My phone kept getting notifications about exceeding the spending limit. I blocked his number. Right now, he was being pressured by Chloe’s parents to produce money, yet he couldn’t even scrape together next month’s rent for Chloe.

Just as I was contemplating my next move, the next morning, there was suddenly a knock at the door. “Open up! You little bitch, get out here right now!” As soon as I opened the door, my mother-in-law barged in aggressively. “My son just found someone else who can actually bear children, and you’re making a fuss about it?” “You’re a useless woman who can’t even have children, can’t even keep your man’s heart, and you still have the nerve to spend our family’s money?” Spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke, as if she wanted to tear me apart. “Hand over the property deed right now! This house needs to go to the child in Chloe’s belly!” “You jinx, hurry up and divorce him with nothing. Stop taking up space!” She rummaged wildly through the house. When she couldn’t find the property deed, she furiously lunged at me. I sidestepped, and she missed, tumbling awkwardly onto the sofa. “The property deed has my name on it. It’s my premarital property. If you want to steal it by force, I’ll call the police right now.” I looked at her coldly. My mother-in-law’s eyes went wide as she pointed at my nose, jumping with rage. “Bullshit! My son pays so much for the mortgage every month—how can it be your premarital property? You’re even scheming to take our family’s money!” “Mortgage?” I laughed coldly. “You must be senile. My dad bought this house in full for me. Your son never paid a cent of the down payment—where’s this mortgage you’re talking about?” My mother-in-law was rendered speechless, so she simply plopped down on the floor. “I can’t go on living! Evil daughter-in-law bullying her mother-in-law! Bullying us helpless women!” Too lazy to deal with her, I called building security directly and had her removed for trespassing. Then I opened the building residents’ group chat. “Everyone, please help me judge this situation. I’m pregnant, but not only does my husband refuse to acknowledge it, he’s also been sleeping with my best friend who lives in the apartment below me.” “The woman in the photos is Chloe from Unit 102 in Building 3. Not only is she pregnant with my husband’s child, but now the mistress’s parents and my mother-in-law come to my door every day forcing me to divorce and trying to steal my house. I really can’t go on living…” As soon as the message went out, the group chat exploded. The aunties and uncles in the group hated this kind of moral depravity the most. “That woman usually looks so innocent, but she’s actually a homewrecking mistress!” “So shameless! Even rabbits don’t eat the grass near their own burrow, but she’s stealing her best friend’s husband!” “These morally bankrupt cheaters deserve to die!” The combat effectiveness of these aunties was legendary. In less than half a day, Chloe’s reputation had spread throughout the entire complex. Whenever she went out, the uncles and aunties would point and gossip, and some even splashed dirty water and threw rotten vegetables at her door. She was so scared she kept her door locked tight, not even daring to go downstairs to throw out the trash. This was just the appetizer I’d prepared for her. My husband proposed to Chloe to appease her. But Chloe’s parents weren’t buying it at all. They laid it out straight. “Want to marry our daughter? Get divorced first! Then give our daughter fifty thousand dollars and transfer the house into Chloe’s name! Miss even one thing, and you can forget about marrying her!” Damian was cornered with no way out, so he could only pin his hopes on work. Unfortunately, I’d already blocked this last escape route for him too. I’d sent all his dirty laundry to his company’s client group chat long ago. His boss was furious and immediately removed him from the important partnership project he’d been working on for six months. Colleagues who used to be polite to him now took detours to avoid him, afraid of being contaminated by association. In just one week, he’d been tortured beyond recognition. That evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Damian with heavy dark circles under his eyes, disheveled hair, and a haggard face. With a thud, his knees buckled and he dropped heavily to his knees before me. His eyes were red-rimmed, his voice thick with tears. “Emma, I’m begging you, divorce me already!” “I don’t want anything anymore—the house is yours, the money is yours. Please just let me go, okay?” Looking at his pathetic state, I felt not a ripple of emotion in my heart. “Divorce?” I looked down at him from above, laughing coldly. “What’s the rush? The game is just getting started.” I was calculating my last trump card—it would be enough to let him taste true despair.

He jerked his head up, his face full of shock. “Didn’t you cheat? Didn’t you desperately want to get rid of me?” “I was just messing with you—it was a joke. Did you actually believe it?” I laughed lightly. “This house was left to me by my dad. Why should I move out? I’m going to drag this out with you.” Damian collapsed to the floor, his face ashen. “If you won’t divorce me, Chloe’s parents will kill me!” He grabbed his hair, shouting in complete breakdown. “That’s your problem, nothing to do with me.” I kicked him aside and shut the door. The next day, I timed it perfectly and went downstairs. Chloe was sneaking out wearing a mask to throw away trash. Once glamorous, she now had greasy hair and a sallow complexion. Seeing me, she turned to run as if she’d seen a ghost. “What are you running from? Afraid I’ll eat you?” She watched me warily. “What else do you want? Damian doesn’t want you anymore!” I scoffed and leaned close to her ear. “He doesn’t want me? Last night he was on his knees begging for my forgiveness.” Chloe’s eyes went wide. “You’re lying! He said today he’d divorce you!” “Divorce? He hasn’t even drafted the agreement.” “He personally promised me this house will always be mine, to support me in my old age.” “As for you, his exact words were: Chloe is just a breeding tool. Once she gives birth, he’ll give her some money and send her away.” “You’re lying! Damian isn’t that kind of person!” Chloe was shaking with rage, her nails digging deep into her palms. “Don’t believe me? Then go ask him why he still refuses to go to the courthouse with me.” I glanced contemptuously at her belly and turned to leave. Back upstairs, I took out my phone. It contained dozens of chat screenshots. Recently, to recover his performance metrics, Damian had been frantically flattering a “wealthy female client.” He had no idea this generous woman was someone I’d hired. In the chat records, Damian was extremely obsequious. “Baby, I’m so sick of those two crazy women at home.” “Some bitch got pregnant and uses that lump of flesh in her belly to pressure me for fifty thousand and marriage every day. She should take a good look at herself in the mirror—as if she’s worthy.” “You’re so much better—understanding and considerate. Once I get rid of them both, I’ll come keep you company.” I packaged these screenshots and sent them directly to Chloe’s SnapChat. Calculating the time, my mother-in-law should be downstairs serving her right about now. Sure enough, in less than three seconds, ear-splitting screams erupted from downstairs. “Damian! Get back here right now!” The downstairs door wasn’t closed properly, and the arguing came through clearly. “What are you yelling about! What if something happens to the baby in your belly? Hurry up and take your medicine. Your main task right now is to give me a child!” “Give birth for your ass!” Chloe completely lost it, accompanied by the crisp sound of a water glass shattering. “Damian is garbage! A scumbag juggling three boats!” “He lied and said he’d transfer the house to me, but behind my back he told his wife I’m a breeding tool!” “Now he’s out there seducing some old woman! Absolutely disgusting!” Immediately after, urgent footsteps echoed in the hallway. Damian came running back out of breath. “Chloe, what’s wrong? Why are you so angry?” “You still have the nerve to ask!” Chloe shrieked. “Look at your phone yourself!” Damian clearly saw those screenshots, his voice instantly panicking. “Chloe, let me explain! That was all to close a business deal! That woman is a client!” “A client? Does doing business require you to call me a crazy woman who’s forcing you into marriage?” “You’re a complete liar! You want to get something for nothing—make me have your baby for free!” My mother-in-law heard this and wasn’t having it. “What do you mean for free? Bitch, you’re lucky to marry my son!” “Hurry up and drink this medicine! If you hurt my grandson, I won’t forgive you!” “I’ll make your whole family unable to have descendants!” Chloe screamed hysterically. “I’m going to abort this bastard right now! None of you will get a single cent!” “You dare!” My mother-in-law shrieked. Then came violent shoving sounds, followed by Chloe’s painful screams.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “390955”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

At the Dubois Pack’s moonlight ball, I was a temporary server pouring drinks for the wolves. I had told my six-year-old daughter Lily to stay put in the kitchen and wait for me, but she snuck out and came to my side. Along the way, she accidentally bumped into a drunk wolf. The wolf spilled his entire drink on me and started cursing me out. My ex-husband, Alpha Caius, appeared and got me out of the situation. He sighed. “Let’s remarry. Lily’s still young. She can’t keep living like this.” I agreed without hesitation. After we got back together, I stopped getting jealous and throwing tantrums. Lily also stopped competing with Kitty—the daughter of Caius’s childhood friend Aisling—for her father’s attention. When he stayed out all night with Aisling and her daughter, Lily and I didn’t call to check on him. When we ran into them outside, Lily and I tactfully kept our distance. We became exactly the kind of understanding wife and daughter he always wanted. But his eyes turned red. “Honey, why aren’t you angry?” “Lily, why won’t you come close to Daddy anymore?”

On the night of the moonlight ball, Caius marked me, and we became mates once again. The next day, after signing the remarriage papers, we returned to Caius’s mansion. He came up the steps behind us. Lily and I were standing at the door. “Why aren’t you going in?” I said calmly, “The password’s been changed.” As we spoke, the door opened from inside. Aisling appeared wearing an apron, her voice full of playful reproach. “What took you so long? Kitty’s asked about you several times—Talia?” I nodded politely. “Talia, please don’t misunderstand. Caius has been so busy with pack business lately, I just came to make him some soup.” “I always forget the password, so Caius changed it to my birthday. I’ll change it back right away.” But she made no move to do so. The smugness in her eyes was impossible to hide. “Daddy!” Aisling’s daughter Kitty threw herself at Caius’s legs. Aisling frantically covered her mouth, putting on a show of being afraid of me. “Kitty, didn’t I tell you to call him Uncle Caius?” Caius looked over at me awkwardly. Seeing that Lily and I weren’t making a scene like we used to, a flash of surprise crossed his face. Lily’s room was full of new things. Aisling bit her lower lip lightly. “Kitty sometimes sleeps here…” The little hand in my palm clenched tight. Lily said softly, “Mom, I can switch to a different room.” My heart, which had been completely calm until now, suddenly ached. In the past, whenever she saw Caius doting on Kitty, she would pout and cry, shouting “Daddy is mine and mine alone.” Every time, Caius would scold me for not disciplining her properly. Now she just quietly looked at her changed room. Children are sensitive. She already understood that only the favored ones could act spoiled. Caius frowned. Aisling hurried to say, “I’ll take the stuff away. Talia, please don’t be angry at us—” The mother and daughter huddled together, trembling, looking pitiful. In the past, I was always provoked by her passive-aggressive remarks, which led to fights with Caius. But now, I just looked at her coolly without saying a word. Caius suddenly spoke. “Don’t come in and out of my house so casually anymore. You’re a single mother—people will talk.” After packing up her things, Kitty said through tears, “Daddy, I want you to take me home.” Caius hesitated, looking at me. I smiled. “You and Aisling have so many years of history together. Of course you should take them home.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I turned to boil some water. Before leaving, Caius said hurriedly, “Wait for me to come back. We need to have a proper talk.” Only after everyone left did Lily and I truly relax. Soon, a message popped up on my phone. Aisling: [Sorry about this, Talia. Kitty’s used to having Caius watch cartoons with her, so he’ll be back a bit late.]

That familiar “sorry about this” again. I smiled and sent a brief reply: [Okay.] Caius didn’t come back until the next day. I was reading Lily her pre-nap story. I didn’t demand to know where he’d been. Throwing jealous fits like I used to would only make him resent me more, and it would affect Lily too. After Lily fell asleep, Caius handed me a box. It was the black diamond necklace I once wanted but that someone else had won at auction. In the past, I probably would have been overjoyed and thrown myself into Caius’s arms. But now, my heart was completely calm. I used to love jewelry. But after the divorce, I moved into a rough neighborhood and was dragged down the stairs by a thief yanking my necklace, ending up bloody and bruised. From that moment on, I realized these things were flashy and useless, and could even cost me my life. Not getting the enthusiastic reaction he expected, Caius’s expression flickered. “Let me put it on you.” I smiled and dodged. “Thank you, but I don’t like wearing jewelry anymore.” He stiffened. I went to the kitchen to cut some fruit. When I came back out, Caius was already gone. That afternoon, I took Lily out. Money had been tight these past two years. Lily often wore hand-me-downs from the landlord’s daughter. Now I could finally buy her clothes that fit properly. As we entered the children’s clothing store, we ran into Aisling and her daughter. And Caius. The sales clerk fawned over them. “Alpha Caius, Miss Aisling, these just arrived yesterday. They’d be perfect for Kitty.” Kitty shouted, “I want this one!” Caius smiled and swiped his card. “Ma’am, can I help you with something?” Another clerk approached me. I said softly, “I’d like to buy a couple outfits for my daughter to wear now.” Caius and the others also looked our way. I pretended not to notice and pulled Lily inside. When we came out after trying on clothes, Aisling and her daughter were gone. Caius looked at me with a complicated expression. “Today is Kitty’s birthday. I was buying her clothes as a gift…” “I see. Please send her my best wishes.” After speaking, I turned to the puzzled-looking clerk. “I’ll take both of these outfits.” Just as I was about to pay, Caius grabbed my arm. I quickly pulled my hand away. The clerk’s eyes darted between us. “Ma’am, you and Alpha Caius…” I smiled. “We’re friends.” A loud crash came from behind me. “Mr. Caius, you dropped your phone!” I turned around. Caius was staring at me intently. “What nonsense are you talking?” I looked puzzled. “Aren’t you going to celebrate her birthday with them?” He continued glaring at me, his chest heaving violently, but he said nothing. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t dare provoke him, so I pulled Lily toward the exit. The moment we left the store, Caius grabbed me. He asked in a low voice, “We’re clearly husband and wife. Why did you say we’re friends? Why did you just let them misunderstand our relationship?” I laughed. “Aisling was right there next to you. They obviously all thought Aisling was your girlfriend. If they knew you were already married, it would be terrible for Aisling’s reputation. Don’t you care most about Aisling’s reputation?” Caius was stunned into silence. After a long pause, he finally spoke. “Why are you so different from before?” In the past, I would have made a huge scene over something like this. Caius was always impatient. “Stop being unreasonable. Aisling is a widow raising a child alone. It’s not easy for her. If people think she’s my girlfriend or mistress, at least they won’t bully her.” But what was the point of fighting with Aisling over these things now? I just wanted to raise Lily properly and let her live the comfortable life she deserved. I said calmly, “Isn’t this what you always wanted?” Caius’s face turned dark. He turned and left in anger. I didn’t care. I took Lily out to eat and shop, buying quite a few things. This life without worrying about making ends meet felt like it had before the divorce.

After getting married, I became a stay-at-home mom. Everyone around me envied me. Although I was just an ordinary wolf, I was Alpha Caius’s fated mate. We dated, got married, and I became the Luna of Dubois Pack—all perfectly natural. When we first got married, Caius treated me very well. The day I received the pregnancy test results and discovered I was expecting Lily, Caius was so excited he couldn’t contain himself. He held me and spun me around again and again. At that time, he gently caressed my belly and said, “I’ll make you and our child the happiest people in the world.” For a while, I truly believed I would stay this happy forever. Until Aisling’s mate died. That day it was pouring rain. Aisling came to our door with Kitty. She was soaked through. The moment she saw Caius, she threw herself into his arms, crying that her mate had died. And Caius didn’t push her away. Later, Caius told me he was just being considerate of Aisling’s grief over her recent loss. I believed him. Until Caius missed our anniversary for the first time. He told me he was handling pack business. But the moment he got home, Aisling showed up at our door to return his tie. I was confused. He just pinched the bridge of his nose. “Aisling was helping me with work. She brought it over on her way.” I wanted to ask more questions, but seeing how exhausted he looked, I didn’t have the heart. I lived a pampered life at home while he worked so hard outside. It really didn’t seem right to doubt him. I told myself that spouses needed basic trust. I couldn’t let jealousy run wild. But later, things like this happened more and more often. On our anniversary, Caius left me alone at the restaurant to go rescue Aisling from her difficult landlord. When sudden rain trapped Lily and me at the early learning center, Caius was taking Aisling and Kitty home. When Lily came down with the flu and had a fever-induced seizure, I couldn’t reach Caius. I took her to the hospital alone, only to find him bringing an entire team of pack medical specialists to treat Kitty’s scratched hand. Every single time, Aisling would proactively message me to “report.” [Sorry about this, Talia. Caius said I can’t stay here anymore, so he’s arranging for me to stay at another one of his properties.] [Sorry about this, Talia. It’s my fault for getting dizzy. Caius will come pick you up right after he drops me off.] [Sorry about this, Talia. Caius is just too worried about Kitty. I’ll talk to him about it later.] I couldn’t take it anymore. Again and again I demanded to know who his real wife and daughter were. At first he patiently explained. “We’ve known each other for so many years. I’m just helping her out when I can.” But he grew more and more impatient. “Aisling lost her parents and her mate. She has no one to rely on. Can’t you show her some compassion?” “Aisling is a widow raising a child alone. Why do you have to target her?” “Can’t you take care of yourself? I have so much pack business to handle. Do I really have to revolve around you two?” “If you can’t raise the child properly, get someone else to do it! She’s so young and already bullying others. What kind of monster will she be when she grows up?” Lily and I stopped waiting eagerly for him to come home. Because whenever he came back, all this little family got was fighting. Lily grew quieter and quieter. Even her daycare teacher came to ask if something was wrong at home. What finally made me decide to divorce him was what happened at the New Moon Festival celebration. I’d been exhausted and sleepy all the time during that period, and I completely forgot about the event. By the time I woke up, the celebration had been going on for quite a while. Then I saw a post on social media. [Alpha Caius and Aisling look so perfect together.] The attached photo showed Caius and Aisling sitting together at the event. Caius was cutting steak for Aisling. I called Caius five or six times. No answer. On the seventh call, someone finally picked up, but it was Aisling’s voice. “Talia, Caius is very busy right now. You can tell me whatever you need.” I told her to put Caius on the phone. But she just laughed coquettishly. “Talia, I’m Caius’s secretary. He has no secrets from me.” “You know, today so many people said I’d make a better Luna.” My whole body shook. I hung up and rushed to the venue still wearing my slippers.

Aisling had her arms around Caius’s waist, her whole body leaning into his embrace. I furiously pulled them apart and glared at Caius. “Is this what you do when I’m not around? Holding and hugging her?” Aisling came over to pull at me. “Talia, I had too much to drink. Don’t misunderstand—” I shook off her hand and glared at her. “Don’t touch me! Homewrecker!” I hadn’t used much force, but she cried out delicately and fell to the ground. “Talia! What’s wrong with you?” Caius roughly shoved me aside and helped Aisling up with concern, carefully checking her over. My lower back hit the corner of the table. The pain brought tears to my eyes. Aisling’s eyes were red as she held back tears. “It’s all my fault. Please don’t fight because of me…” Caius rushed to comfort her. “It has nothing to do with you. She’s the one having a breakdown.” Then he turned to me, his voice cold. “Talia, I’ve told you so many times—Aisling’s mother asked me on her deathbed to take care of her.” “Do you have any idea how hard it is for her to raise a child alone? You’re both women. How can you be so cruel as to call her a homewrecker?” The look he gave me was icy, even carrying a hint of disgust. “My patience with you has limits. Know when to stop.” “Don’t make me regret marrying you.” The moment those words left his mouth, my ears started ringing. I looked at Caius in disbelief. I wanted to say, “You’re my husband, Talia’s husband. How can you take an outsider’s side?” I wanted to say, “Aisling shows off and provokes me every time. Don’t you know that?” I wanted to tell him about Aisling’s true face on the phone earlier. But something was stuck in my throat. After a long time, all I could say was, “Then let’s divorce. We’ll break the mate bond.” The moment it came out, I suddenly felt liberated. I didn’t even want to bother with Aisling’s gloating expression. Caius froze for a moment, then laughed mockingly. “Talia, besides threatening divorce, what else can you do? Is fighting for attention and being jealous all your life amounts to?” With that, he helped Aisling leave. That day, I sat in the living room until dawn. It wasn’t until Lily started crying that I realized my legs were covered in blood. Only then did I learn that my recent drowsiness was because I was pregnant again. And by the time I realized it, I had already miscarried. The second child who came quietly had left just as quietly. A week later, Caius and I broke our mate bond and signed divorce papers along with custody and property division documents. I got custody of Lily. Later, my father suddenly fell critically ill. The doctor said he’d been poisoned with wolf’s bane, which could only be purchased from witches. My father was just an ordinary wolf who lived an honest life. I had no idea who would want to harm him. Despite several attempts to save him, he passed away. I used what little savings I had left to arrange his funeral. I tried to find work, but for some reason, no company would hire me. Many companies notified me of employment only to reverse their decision and reject me. With no other options, I could only take on various odd jobs for meager wages. Just like that, I went from being the esteemed Luna to a single mother living in a low-income neighborhood. Lily suffered a lot because of me. I woke up crying from nightmares countless times, regretting that I had ruined her life. This time, I wouldn’t fight with Caius over jealousy again. As long as I could provide a good life for myself and Lily, even if Caius found ten more “Aislings,” I would turn a blind eye.

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My soul was suspended in mid-air, hovering just beneath the yellow crime scene tape as the white tarp slowly descended. The baby, three months along and perfectly safe inside me until moments ago, was supposed to be my anniversary surprise for Victor tomorrow. But now, my baby and I were both dead. Pushed off the roof by my husband’s obsessed admirer. Through the chaos of the flashing sirens, Victor walked toward me. He wore his signature black wool coat, his expression a mask of absolute, chilling stoicism as he parted the sea of uniform cops. His eyes fell onto the white sheet covering my broken body. Everyone expected him to shatter. Instead, he turned to the lead detective and stated, his voice devoid of any tremor, that the deceased was his wife. To ensure absolute transparency and rule out any allegations of bias, he, the Chief Medical Examiner, would perform the autopsy himself. That resolute, icy silhouette turning away from my corpse was the last impression my husband left me in the world of the living. The city’s top forensic pathologist, slicing open his own wife’s body on a stainless-steel table just to prove his unwavering dedication to objective truth. The press was going to have a field day. I floated behind him, watching as he walked into the morgue. He changed into his pristine blue scrubs, tied his mask, snapped on his latex gloves, and picked up the scalpel—the same blade he had used to find justice for countless strangers. He took measured steps toward the freezing metal table where I lay. The fluorescent lights caught the silver edge of the blade, reflecting in his eyes. Those eyes, which had looked at me with such profound tenderness a thousand times before, now held nothing but cold, clinical, absolute rationality. 1. The light in the autopsy suite was a blinding, sterile white that stripped the room of any warmth. It made the stainless-steel instrument tray gleam like ice. My soul drifted through the halogens, feeling like a speck of worthless dust. I looked at Victor. My husband. Victor. His head was bowed, meticulously adjusting the angle of the surgical lamp. Those long, elegant fingers—the ones that used to weave through my hair while we watched movies on the couch—were encased in nitrile. His movements were precise, grounded, not betrayed by a single tremor. It was as if the woman lying on his table wasn’t the wife he had shared a bed with for three years, but just another Jane Doe. Subject Number 0713. “Vic… Do you really have to do this?” It was his deputy, Brody. Brody was our friend. He’d come over for Sunday barbecues. Brody’s voice was rough, thick with an unbearable grief. He looked at Victor, then down at the white sheet covering me, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard. “The reporters outside are already spinning it. They’re saying this is a stunt. That you’re trying to cover something up…” Victor didn’t look up. He picked up a scalpel, passing it briefly over the flame of a Bunsen burner. Behind his mask, his voice was muffled but agonizingly clear. “Let them talk.” He paused, lining up the sterilized instruments on the metal tray with a sharp, echoing clatter. “I only believe in evidence. I am the only one who knows Jo’s medical history flawlessly. I am the only one who can determine the exact mechanics of her death without margin for error. I will give her justice. Anyone else’s subjective emotions will only contaminate the truth.” What a righteous justification. What a perfectly Victor answer. Absolute logic. Absolute impartiality. This was the gospel carved into his very bones. It was also the insurmountable chasm that had always stood between us. I smiled, though my ghostly form had no lips to curve. Of course. He only believed in evidence. That was why, when I begged him to see that Kelsey—the new forensic fellow—was texting him at 2:00 AM with thinly veiled flirtations, he brushed it off. He told me it was just professional admiration. He told me I was being “dramatic,” that my “emotional paranoia” was clouding my judgment. He asked me for proof. But when does a woman’s intuition about another woman’s predatory intentions require forensic proof? It’s an alarm bell wired directly into our DNA. And now, I was dead. And he was using his scalpel to carve into my ruined flesh, looking for the “evidence” he so desperately craved. Brody let out a heavy sigh, giving up. He knew better than anyone that once the “Machine of the ME’s Office” made up his mind, nothing on earth could change it. The room went dead silent, save for the nervous, shallow breathing of the medical students who had been allowed in to observe, and the metallic clinking of Victor’s prep. He was ready. He stepped up to the table. Reached out. Pinched the corner of the white sheet. My heart—if a soul could still possess a heart—violently contracted. Don’t. Don’t pull it back. Let me keep my final shred of dignity. Please, Victor. He couldn’t hear me. His fingers were steady, unyielding. Swoosh. The sheet was ripped away. My shattered, undignified remains were exposed to the brutal glare of the overhead lights. Because of the height of the fall, my limbs were splayed in grotesque, unnatural angles. My face and skin were a canvas of lacerations and congealed blood. My hair was matted to my cheek in dark, wet clumps. The vintage white linen dress I had spent weeks searching for—just for our anniversary dinner—was shredded, stained in sprawling patches of rust and violet. But the most glaring horror was the massive, gaping wound on my temple. The skin was split wide open, the bone gleaming white underneath. That was where my head struck the concrete edge of the planter box when Kelsey shoved me off the rooftop terrace. “Oh, God—” A young med student clamped a hand over his mouth, bolting for the door to vomit in the hallway. The remaining students turned ashen, averting their eyes. Only Victor didn’t look away. He stood there, his eyes acting as a high-resolution scanner. Inch by inch, he examined me from the crown of my head down to my broken toes. There was no love in that gaze. No agony. Not a single trace of personal attachment. Just scrutiny. Analysis. Investigation. He was looking at me the way a watchmaker looks at a broken, complicated gear. “The deceased: Joanna Carmichael. Female. Twenty-eight years of age. Height, five-foot-six. Weight, one hundred and twelve pounds.” He clicked on the overhead microphone, beginning his clinical dictation. His voice was as flat as a frozen lake. “Commencing preliminary external examination.” He picked up a pair of forceps, gently lifting the blood-matted hair away from my forehead to expose the horrific gash. “Visible laceration on the frontal lobe region, approximately seven centimeters in length. Edges are irregular, indicative of blunt force trauma. Preliminary assessment: sustained during impact from a high-altitude fall.” As he spoke, he used a swab to collect tissue samples from the edge of the wound, dropping them into an evidence vial. “Potential cranial fracturing. Full craniotomy required to confirm.” Craniotomy. The word pierced my soul like an ice pick. I remembered watching a true-crime documentary with him once. When a graphic scene of a skull being sawed open flashed on the screen, I had buried my face in his chest, terrified. He had laughed, kissing the top of my head. “Silly girl, don’t look. We do it so the dead can finally speak. I promise, I’ll never let you see anything like that.” He broke his promise. Not only was I seeing it, but he was going to be the one holding the saw. My spirit trembled violently in the air above him. A coldness far deeper than the grave seeped into my nonexistent bones. Victor… did you ever actually love me? 2. The external exam continued in suffocating silence. Victor’s technique was textbook perfection. He checked my pupils with a penlight. Pulled back my eyelids. Checked my airway for obstructions. His fingers traced the curve of my neck, looking for ligature marks. That used to be my most sensitive spot. If he even brushed it with his lips, I would shrink away giggling, only for him to pull me flush against his chest and pepper the skin with kisses. Now, his fingertips were iron. Shielded by latex, they glided over my skin without transferring a single degree of body heat. “No petechiae or bruising present on the neck. Mechanical asphyxiation ruled out.” He moved to my hands, checking beneath my fingernails for defensive wounds. “Nails intact. No foreign skin tissue located in the nail beds. The deceased did not engage in a violent physical struggle prior to death.” His gaze finally dropped to my left hand. Because of the blinding terror and sheer physical agony of the fall, my hand had clenched into a tight, rigor-mortis fist. Victor frowned slightly. It was the very first crack in his armor, the slightest ripple of emotion since he had stepped into the room. He tried to pry my fingers open, but the rigor made it incredibly difficult. “Increase the overhead lumens,” he commanded. A harsher beam of light spotlighted my hand. Brody silently handed him a small pair of bone spreaders. Victor took them. With agonizing patience, finger by finger, he began to pry my rigid hand open. Crack. A sickening pop echoed in the room. He had forcefully dislocated my index finger to get the hand open. My soul shuddered. It felt as though the phantom pain had transcended the veil of death, branding itself directly onto my consciousness. One finger. Then the next. He was as relentless as a man dismantling a bomb. Finally, my clenched fist lay open. There was nothing inside. Nothing but the deep, bloody crescent-moon indentations where my own fingernails had dug into my palm. Victor froze. He stared at my bruised, bloody palm, falling utterly silent. Nobody knew what I had been trying to hold onto in those final seconds. I wanted to grab the edge of the railing. I wanted to grab a second chance. I wanted to grab… the future, for me and my baby. But I caught nothing. I died holding nothing but the weight of my own despair. “No foreign objects present in the palm,” he stated, recovering his robotic cadence. “Multiple closed fractures across all four extremities, consistent with high-velocity deceleration impact.” He took a pair of heavy medical shears and cut away the remaining rags of my dress, using forceps to drop the fabric into a brown evidence bag. My body lay completely, humiliatingly naked beneath the harsh lights. This was the body he used to treat like a temple. He used to tell me my skin felt like warm silk. He used to leave trails of bruises on my collarbones, possessively marking me as his. Now, his eyes swept over the massive, purple contusions without a flicker of recognition. He merely held up a forensic ruler, photographing and measuring the geometry of my trauma. “Extensive subcutaneous hemorrhaging across the thorax and dorsal planes. Irregular contusions. Consistent with concrete impact.” His gaze finally moved to my lower abdomen. It was perfectly flat. At three months, I wasn’t showing at all. I hadn’t told a soul. I went to all the OB-GYN appointments alone. I still remembered the cold gel on my stomach, my palms sweating against the paper table cover. When the room suddenly filled with the rapid, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a tiny heartbeat, the tears had spilled over my cheeks before I could stop them. The doctor had smiled warmly. “Look at that. Perfectly healthy. Beating like a little freight train.” I had stood outside the clinic in the spring sunlight for an hour, just staring at the tiny printout. A grainy, black-and-white blur. Our child. The anchor of our lives. I had carefully tucked the sonogram and the positive test into a beautiful velvet box, burying it in the very back of my nightstand drawer. I was going to hand it to him over candlelight tomorrow night. I had rehearsed it a hundred times in the shower. “Mr. Carmichael, congratulations. You’re going to be a father. Try not to analyze the baby too much, okay?” I could see exactly how his stoic, unreadable face would break. The shock. The overwhelming, boyish joy. He would have picked me up and spun me around the kitchen. He loved kids. Every time we passed a toddler in the park, his eyes would follow them. He joked that he was going to teach our kid the names of all 206 bones in the human body before kindergarten. I would laugh and say absolutely not, our daughter was going to take ballet and wear obnoxious pink tutus. He would tap my nose. “Fine. Whatever you want, Jo. A little girl, just as stubborn as her mother.” But now… All of it was ash. Victor, look. Look closer at my stomach. Your obsession with protocol, your sacred ‘objectivity,’ is about to slice right through the future you wanted most. My soul screamed. I threw myself against the sterile air, thrashing in the silence. But he just kept dictating. “Abdomen is flat. No abnormal distension noted.” A cold, clinical death sentence. 3. “External examination complete. Proceeding with internal autopsy.” Victor’s voice echoed off the tiled walls, devoid of a single human frequency. He reached for a fresh scalpel. A pristine, glittering blade. The blade that was about to open my chest. “Wait!” Brody couldn’t take it anymore. He lunged forward, grabbing Victor’s wrist. “Vic, stop! Jesus Christ, man, enough! The external is enough! The cause of death is obvious—massive trauma from a fall. There is absolutely no need to… to go inside!” Brody’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice cracking with desperation. “It’s Jo! It’s your wife! How is she supposed to rest in peace if you butcher her? How are you ever going to live with yourself?!” Victor slowly turned his head. His gaze moved from the edge of the blade to Brody’s face. For the first time, a flicker of something dark ignited in his eyes. Not grief. Not hesitation. But a terrifying, obsessive fire. “Brody. Did you forget what we do here?” He spoke quietly, but the authority in his tone was crushing. “On this table, there are no husbands. There are no wives. There is only the pathologist seeking the truth, and the victim waiting for a voice.” He forcefully twisted his wrist out of Brody’s grip, a low warning in his voice. “If you cannot maintain total objectivity, step outside. Do not stand in my room and interfere with my work.” “You…” Brody was shaking with rage. He pointed a trembling finger at Victor, unable to form a sentence. Finally, as if the air had been knocked out of his lungs, he backed away, his face twisted in horror. “You’re sick, Vic. You’ve lost your goddamn mind.” He was right. Victor was sick. The moment he tied on that surgical mask and picked up that knife, he had lost his mind. I watched as Victor readjusted his grip on the scalpel, pressing the tip directly against the center of my sternum. I remembered how he used to rest his cheek right there, listening to my pulse as we fell asleep. He used to say, “Jo, your heartbeat is the only noise in the world that turns the volume down in my head.” Listen, Victor. Can you hear it now? You can’t. So you have to carve it out of my chest just to see why it stopped? For the first time since I died, I felt hatred. A blinding, tidal wave of hatred. I hated Kelsey for pushing me over the ledge. But right now, I hated the man standing over me even more. This man using “justice” as a shield while he subjected my body to the ultimate desecration. He raised the blade. I closed my eyes. If a ghost can close her eyes. The cold steel parted my flesh without a millimeter of hesitation. From the top of my collarbone, down to my pelvis. A textbook Y-incision. The bread and butter of forensic pathology. He had done this ten thousand times. It was as natural to him as breathing. But this time, it was his wife. Skin parted. Fat tissue, muscle layers separated. His hands were terrifyingly steady. Because my heart had stopped, there was no arterial spray, just the sluggish pooling of dark, deoxygenated blood. He inserted the rib spreaders, cranking my ribcage open with a sickening crack. My heart. My lungs. My liver. All the vital mechanisms of my being were exposed to the harsh lights, naked before him and the horrified students. He picked up his surgical scissors and forceps, beginning the evisceration. “Heart. Weight, approximately three hundred grams. Pericardium intact. No obvious myocardial hemorrhaging…” He cradled my heart in his gloved palm, placing it on the hanging scale. The heart that had raced for him, broken for him, loved him. Now, it was just 300 grams of dead meat. “Lungs. Cross-sections are dark crimson, indicating severe pulmonary contusions consistent with blunt impact…” He sliced into my lungs. I remembered hiking with him in Yosemite. I was gasping for air, and he ended up carrying me on his back, joking that my lung capacity was worse than a two-pack-a-day smoker. I had punched his shoulder while he laughed. “Liver, spleen, kidneys… no visible anomalies.” His movements were a brutal ballet. Professional, ruthless, perfectly efficient. A machine operating at peak performance. The interns in the corner, initially paralyzed by nausea, were slowly transitioning into a state of terrified awe. “My God, Dr. Carmichael is unbelievable.” “I know… to be this detached when it’s his own wife… I could never be that disciplined.” “They don’t call him a machine for nothing…” Their whispers drifted up to the ceiling, mocking me. A machine? No. He was just a monster who had amputated his own soul. The evisceration continued. Soon, my chest cavity and abdomen were completely hollowed out. The organs that used to sustain my life were lined up on the metal dissection board, waiting to be sectioned and bathed in formaldehyde. I looked like a ragdoll ripped to shreds by a vicious dog. Do you see, Victor? Are you satisfied with your ‘evidence’? My heart didn’t give out. My liver didn’t fail. I didn’t suffer a spontaneous aneurysm. I was murdered. Did you really need to gut me like an animal to prove it? Finally, his eyes dropped to the very bottom of my pelvic cavity. To the last remaining organ. My uterus. 4. It was the softest, safest place inside me. The tiny sanctuary where our child was dreaming. Victor reached down with his forceps. My soul stretched until it felt like it would tear apart.

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Claustrophobia wasn’t just a fear I couldn’t shake; it was the monster that lived in my chest, a suffocating nightmare I had battled for years. On my eighteenth birthday, my father—a renowned clinical psychologist—announced he had a special gift to mark my transition into adulthood. He had meticulously retrofitted a small room in our basement into a complete sensory deprivation chamber. And then, he locked me inside. Through the heavy door, I could hear the muffled cheers of my friends shouting, “You got this, Nico!” mingled with the irritated sighs of my stepmother, telling me to stop wasting everyone’s time. I stayed in there, weeping and begging for mercy, until my heart simply gave out and stopped beating altogether. In his study, my father calmly typed into his research notes: “Hour 19: Subject has entered deep sleep. Preliminary assessment indicates successful desensitization.” 1 “Go on in, Nico. This is a surprise your father built just for you.” Beyond the door frame lay a darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow the light from the hallway. My breath hitched, instantly catching in my throat. “Dad…” My voice trembled as I instinctively backed away. “No… please, you know how terrified I am…” “It is exactly because you are terrified that you must face it,” he said, his voice carrying the smooth, practiced cadence of a man used to lecturing from a podium. “Nicole, you are eighteen years old. So many of your friends came out to celebrate you today. It’s time to show them how brave you are. Right?” “But—” “No buts,” he cut me off smoothly. “This time, I am going to cure you. Once and for all.” “No!” I shrieked, shaking my head frantically, the tears already hot and fast on my cheeks. “I’m not going in! Dad, please… I don’t want this gift. I don’t want anything at all, just please don’t make me go in there—” “Nicole, stop throwing a tantrum.” The cold, clipped voice of Diane, my stepmother, sliced through the air. She stepped into my line of sight, arms crossed. “Do you have any idea how much time and money your father spent trying to fix this little issue of yours? He had this room specially renovated. It’s for your own good.” “Diane, please, I—” “Don’t ‘Diane, please’ me. Look at your friends waiting in the living room. Stop making a scene and embarrassing yourself.” My father’s hand pressed firmly against the small of my back, shoving me toward that solid block of black. “I don’t want to! Let me go!” I dug my fingernails into the doorframe, holding on for dear life. Methodically, without breaking a sweat, my father pried my white-knuckled fingers off the wood, one by one. “Nico,” he murmured, using my childhood nickname, his tone adopting a chilling imitation of warmth. “It’s only because I love you that I have to do this.” “The real world isn’t going to coddle you. I am being strict with you now so that you have the resilience to never be bullied by anything, or anyone, ever again.” “Come on, Nico! You can do it!” “Yeah, Nico, stop stalling!” From the direction of the living room, the faint, upbeat shouts of my friends drifted down the hall. “Hurry up and cooperate,” Diane hissed right behind me. I stumbled forward, swallowing a sob, and plummeted into the thick, suffocating pitch-black. 2 The darkness collapsed on me like an avalanche. “Dad? Dad! Turn on the light! Just a little bit! Please, I’m scared… I’m so scared…” Nothing. The silence was absolute. “Let me out! Please! I’ll be good! I’ll do whatever you say from now on!” I threw myself against the door, my palms slapping frantically against the cold, smooth metal. It was entirely soundproof. “The intercom… the intercom!” I remembered the small panel he had pointed out earlier. I slammed my hand against the button like a drowning girl reaching for a life preserver. “Nico? Is that you? How is it in there?” “You got this, Nico! Hang in there!” They were still there! They could hear me! I pressed my mouth to the speaker, screaming with every ounce of air in my lungs. “Becca! Jess! Help me! Please… please tell my dad to open the door! I can’t take it… my chest hurts so much… I can’t breathe… it’s too dark… I’m so scared…” The line went dead for a second or two. When the audio clicked back on, the voices sounded hesitant, unsure. “Uh… didn’t Dr. Carmichael say we weren’t supposed to interrupt? That it’s part of the therapy?” My heart plummeted, the icy realization sinking into my bones. Then, Kyle, a guy from my AP English class, chimed in with a boisterous laugh. “Nico! Don’t be such a wimp! What’s so scary about a dark room? Your dad’s literally an expert, just trust the process!” “Yeah, Nico,” Jess added, her tone carrying that sickly sweet, condescending edge. “Your dad is brilliant. He’s just doing what’s best for you.” “Totally. Everyone knows Dr. Carmichael’s methods work. Just go with it, Nico.” “Stop being so dramatic. It’s a birthday present, it’s supposed to be unique!” “Think about your dad’s career. He needs case studies for his research, and you get to help him out. It’s a win-win.” Their voices overlapped, a chaotic chorus of self-righteous “encouragement” and toxic positivity. “No… it’s not like that…” I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably into the microphone. “I’m dying in here… please… someone get my dad… or… call 911… I’m begging you…” My pleading was met with a brief, awkward silence, followed by muffled whispers. “Why is she acting like this? Dr. Carmichael obviously knows what he’s doing.” “I know, right? She’s being so ungrateful after he put all this work in.” “It feels a little performative. Like, it’s just a dark room.” “Do you think she’s just… doing it for attention? You know how she gets sometimes…” Their words were ice water, extinguishing the very last flicker of hope I had left. “Nicole, are you quite finished?” It was Diane. “Diane… please help me…” “Help you with what? Who is hurting you?” Her voice spiked with irritation. “Let me tell you something, Nicole. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Do you know how much your father has agonized over this ridiculous phobia of yours? Drop the spoiled princess act right now, and show some damn respect!” A sharp click echoed through the speaker. She had unplugged the power source to the intercom. The line went totally dead. No… don’t go… please don’t leave me alone… I tried to scream, but it was useless. Only tears poured out, silent and endless in the dark. 3 Time dissolved into a meaningless concept. It could have been ten minutes. It could have been three centuries. I started to hear things. Whispers scraping against the walls, coming from all directions. I whipped my head around. Nothing. Just the void. “Ahhh!” I shrieked, crawling backward on my hands and knees until my spine slammed hard against a corner. The hallucinations grew violent. Terror wrapped its cold fingers around my heart, squeezing tighter, tighter, tighter. A sharp, jagged pain ripped through the left side of my chest. Every breath required a Herculean effort. “…Dad…” I used the last ounce of my strength to paw at the dead intercom button, my fingers trembling violently. “…Hurts… my chest… it hurts so much…” Dead silence. I don’t know how much time passed before the heavy metal door finally unsealed. I was lying on my side, my face pressed toward the wall. He crouched down, studying me with clinical detachment for a few seconds. Then, he extended two fingers, expertly pressing them against the carotid artery on my neck. A pulse. Faint, sluggish, but steady. He stood up, pulled out his iPad, and quickly typed: “Hour 19: Subject has entered deep sleep. Preliminary assessment indicates successful desensitization.” She had entered the desired state faster than he had hypothesized. A brilliant success. He turned on his heel and walked out, locking the door behind him. Two minutes later, my heart stopped beating entirely. “Well? Is she done throwing her little fit?” That was Diane. Those were the last words I ever heard. My soul slipped loose from my heavy, broken body, fleeing that suffocating black box as fast as it could. I floated up the stairs, following the steady, unhurried rhythm of my father’s footsteps as he headed into his study. I drifted right through the oak door. He settled into his leather chair behind the massive mahogany desk, unlocked his computer, and opened an encrypted folder to create a new document. The title read: Acute Intervention and Neural Plasticity in Claustrophobic Subjects. I hovered just behind his shoulder, watching his elegant, manicured fingers fly across the keyboard. “Subject: Nicole, Female, 18 years old…” On the wall of the study hung an old, framed photograph of the three of us—my mother, my father, and me. I remembered being a little girl, terrified of the dark. Back then, they would buy me an endless array of nightlights: little glowing stars, a glowing moon, a plastic turtle that projected constellations onto the ceiling. They used to hold me and tell me there was nothing to be afraid of. But then everything changed. The academic ambition took over, and my father began treating his wife and daughter as test subjects in his behavioral experiments. The arguments grew frequent, then vicious. “Robert, we are not your lab rats!” The night my mother finally packed a small suitcase and walked out the door, she never looked back. And she didn’t take me with her. Then came Diane. Diane, who worshipped the ground my father’s intellect walked on. From the moment she moved in, her favorite refrain was: “Nicole, your father is doing this for your own good. Stop being so ungrateful.” “If you’re still scared of everything at your age, how do you ever expect to function in the real world?” I watched Diane walk into the study now, setting a warm mug of milk on my father’s desk. They exchanged a smile, went to the master bedroom, and turned off the designer bedside lamps. On the night I died, my father finalized the framework for what he believed would be a groundbreaking case study. And then, he slept soundly through the night. 4 At six-thirty the next morning, Diane’s internal alarm clock went off with perfect precision. Breakfast was plated, the coffee was brewed, and my father came downstairs in a crisp button-down. They sat across from each other at the kitchen island. Neither of them mentioned me. Before leaving for the university, my father fixed a small breakfast on a tray and took his time walking down the basement stairs. I was still curled in the corner of the room, my posture completely unchanged from the night before. The door swung open. “Nicole? Are you awake?” Silence. He frowned, stepping closer with the tray, stopping right beside my “sleeping” form. He stared down at me, his shadow falling over my face. “Still sleeping?” Irritation bled into his voice. He nudged my calf with the toe of his leather loafer. “Get up and eat. Do you know what time it is? Give you an inch and you take a mile.” My leg rocked limply from the force of his shoe, but I didn’t react. This clearly infuriated him. He slammed the tray onto the floor near my feet. Coffee sloshed over the rim of the mug, pooling on the plastic surface. “Nicole! I am talking to you! Do you hear me?” His voice echoed sharply off the metal walls. He crouched down, grabbing my shoulder and giving it a hard shove. “Stop playing dead! Didn’t you cause enough of a scene yesterday? What is this about now? Are you trying to convince people I’m abusing you?” My torso swayed from the push, my head lolling lifelessly to the side. “I bring you breakfast out of the goodness of my heart, and you pull this attitude. Fine. Starve. Keep playing dead for all I care.” He spun around in a huff, took two steps toward the door, and let out a cold, derisive scoff. “Ungrateful brat. You’re exactly like your mother. Always with the theatrics, always playing the victim.” My spirit stood quietly by the wall, watching my father walk away, leaving my cold, stiffening body on the floor next to a lukewarm plate of eggs. It was almost funny. He was a renowned genius, yet he hadn’t even realized his own daughter was dead. 5 After my father left for campus, Diane spent the entire day watching morning talk shows and tidying up the house. Not once did she even glance at the basement door. At dusk, my father returned home, bringing a colleague with him to show off his “experiment.” I hovered near the ceiling of the dining room, watching them eat a pleasant dinner, chatting about faculty politics and grant proposals. Finally, they brought me up, though only in the context of the research. The house functioned perfectly fine without me. “Should we go down and check on Nico?” Diane suggested, sipping her Pinot Noir. “Yes, I want Paul to get a look at the environmental setup,” my father nodded, picking up his ever-present iPad. Diane offered an apologetic, hostess-perfect smile to the guest. “You’ll have to forgive her, Dr. Evans. Teenagers… she might still be throwing a bit of a tantrum.” Dr. Paul Evans waved his hand dismissively, offering a polite, understanding chuckle. The three of them descended the stairs and unsealed the door to the dark room. I watched, a sudden, desperate anticipation flaring within my ghostly form. Look, Dad. Just look. Step a little closer and really look at me… “Nicole?” My father’s voice was a sharp command. “Wake up. Dr. Evans is here to see you.” No response. “Nicole!” The professorial calm cracked into harsh authority. “I am speaking to you! Get up! Say hello to Dr. Evans! Have you forgotten every ounce of your basic manners?” He reached down and slapped my cheek, hard enough to leave a mark if blood were still flowing through my veins. “Still putting on a show?” My lack of reaction was humiliating him in front of his peer. “Nicole! I have spoiled you rotten! Do you really think lying there is going to get you out of this? It’s childish! It’s pathetic!” His insults grew louder, sharper, cutting through the heavy air of the basement. I watched the scene unfold, feeling a phantom ache in my chest. I wanted to scream at him so badly: Dad! Look at me! Look at the color of my skin! Check my breathing! I’m not pretending… I’m dead! Your daughter, Nicole, is dead! But I was nothing more than a wisp of memory. I couldn’t make a sound he could hear. I could only stand by and watch. Diane lingered in the doorway, her voice shrill as she joined the chorus, even more vicious than she had been that morning. “Exactly! Nicole, stop playing dead right now! You entitled little brat! Your father is talking to you! Are you deaf? Or are you just trying to embarrass us on purpose?” But Dr. Evans wasn’t looking at my father, or Diane. He was staring down at me. All the color had drained from his face, replaced by an absolute, visceral horror that was rapidly consuming him. “Robert…” “She… she doesn’t… is she breathing?!”

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When Derek blocked me six years ago, I never imagined it would lead to this exact moment. The manila collection envelope was resting dead-center on my desk. One of my coworkers had signed for it at reception. I sliced it open. The contents made the blood freeze in my veins. Seven loans. Added together, they totaled a staggering $285,400. The borrower’s name was mine. The Social Security Number was a perfect match. But the signature. I stared at the ink for five full seconds. It was a terrifyingly good mimicry of my handwriting, but it absolutely wasn’t mine. I had never taken out a loan in my life. 1. I took half a day of PTO. I walked straight into a First National branch and requested a hard pull of my credit report. When the teller slid the printout across the counter, she gave me a lingering, pitiful look. “Ms. Davis, regarding these accounts under your name… two of them are already in severe delinquency.” I told her I knew. I didn’t know. I didn’t know a damn thing. I found a quiet corner in the lobby, sank into a leather chair, and went through the pages. Seven lines of credit. The first: April 2018, Southside Branch, personal loan, $20,000. The second: September 2018, Southside Branch, personal loan, $25,000. The third: March 2019, Eastside Branch, small business loan, $45,000. The fourth: November 2019, Southside Branch, personal loan, $35,000. The fifth: August 2020, online lending platform, $50,000. The sixth: May 2021, Southside Branch, small business loan, $60,000. The seventh: January 2022, online lending platform, $50,400. Six years. Seven loans. Two hundred and eighty-five thousand, four hundred dollars. With the late fees and accumulated interest—the number printed in bold red on the collection letter was just north of $310,000. My take-home pay is $3,800 a month. If I stopped eating, stopped paying rent, and stopped breathing, it would take me over three decades to pay it off. I folded the report meticulously and slipped it into my tote bag. I pulled out my phone, opened Instagram, and typed “Derek” into the search bar. It was the same dead end it had been for years. User not found. Six years ago. February 14th, 2018. Valentine’s Day. He texted me, right around lunch: We need to break up. I texted back, asking why. We’re just too different, he wrote. I cried until the sun came up. The next morning, I realized he had blocked me on Instagram. He unmatched me on Facebook. When I tried to call, the automated voice told me the number had been disconnected. Three days later, my college roommate, Jessica, stopped replying to my texts. I sent her five messages. The last one read: Jess, is everything okay? Silence. Eventually, I figured out she had blocked me, too. I assumed it was standard post-breakup casualty. Friends taking sides. I was the one who had introduced Derek and Jessica to each other—they met the same year. It hurt like hell back then, but eventually, I let it go. It had been six years. I was doing fine on my own. I thought back to the first line on that credit report. Date of Origination: April 17, 2018. Exactly sixty-two days after Derek dumped me. I stared at that date. Four of the loans were from the Southside Branch. Southside Branch. Which branch of First National did Jessica work at again? 2. Let me tell you how I spent those six years. Right after the breakup, I was making maybe $2,800 a month after taxes. Rent was $1,100 for an illegally subdivided basement in Queens. The drywall was so paper-thin I could hear the guy next door snoring and rolling over in his sleep. I kept my daily food budget under fifteen dollars. Oatmeal for breakfast. A generic deli sandwich from the bodega under my office for lunch—six bucks. Dinner depended on the day. Sometimes I bought two cheap sandwiches at noon and saved one for the evening. Once, my coworker Jillian asked me to join her for lunch at a nice bistro down the street. “It’s like twenty bucks for a salad, come on,” she urged. “No thanks, I brought something,” I lied. After she left, I went down to the corner cart and bought a three-dollar pretzel. Eventually, I got a raise. Then I jumped to a new firm, bumping my take-home to $3,800. I moved once. The landlord of the basement wanted to hike the rent, so I found an even smaller studio further out in the boroughs for $900. My commute was an hour and twenty minutes each way. Bus to the subway. Subway to a ten-minute walk. One winter, I caught a nasty fever. A hundred and one point five. I scrolled through my telehealth app. The cheapest virtual copay was forty-five dollars. I closed the app, drank two massive mugs of boiling water, and went to work the next morning. I ended up buying a twelve-dollar box of generic cold medicine from CVS. Six years. I had saved $16,000. I put away whatever I could—sometimes five hundred, sometimes eight. On months when I got an annual bonus, I’d stash away two grand. That $16,000 was the armor I wore against the world. Every time I transferred money into that savings account, I’d think: A few more years, and maybe I can put a down payment on a tiny condo. I also sent my mom three hundred dollars every month. She always tried to refuse it. “Keep it for yourself, honey. Mom’s fine.” But I knew she wasn’t. After Dad passed away, she was scraping by on his meager pension and whatever she made working part-time at a local florist. Dad called me once, right before the end. “Norah, what exactly is the deal with that Derek kid?” “Dad, we broke up almost three years ago. Let it rest.” “I’m not talking about the relationship stuff. I mean…” “Mean what?” A long pause on the other end of the line. “Nothing. Just take care of yourself, kiddo.” That was the winter of 2021. Three months later, he suffered a massive stroke while waiting at a bus stop. He didn’t make it to the ER. When I rushed to the hospital, Mom was sitting in the linoleum hallway. Her eyes were bone dry. She just looked at me and said, “He went quick. He didn’t suffer.” I didn’t cry either. I handled the funeral home. I canceled his driver’s license. I closed his Medicare account. Then I went back to my cramped studio, took a scalding shower, lay on my mattress, and stared at the cracked ceiling. Through the wall, my neighbor rolled over and let out a snore. And now, here I was, sitting in the corner of a bank lobby, staring at seven loans on a piece of paper. Nearly three hundred thousand dollars. My six years of starving, my pathetic $16,000 safety net—it wouldn’t even cover the interest on a single one of these accounts. I folded the report up and opened the Notes app on my phone. I created a new entry: Seven loans. Four at Southside Branch. Audit everything. I am an accountant. Following the money isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am. 3. I didn’t tell a soul when I got back to the office. I booted up my computer and opened a blank Excel spreadsheet. I logged the seven loans, row by row. Date, amount, issuing bank, loan type, approval code. When you spend six years balancing ledgers, you learn a fundamental truth—if you arrange numbers neatly enough, they will eventually speak to you. The first anomaly: The four loans from the Southside Branch had approval gaps of five months, fourteen months, and eighteen months. Irregular. But deliberate. I looked up First National’s policy for unsecured personal loans. The absolute maximum cap for a single borrower without collateral is $25,000. The first loan was $20,000. The second was $25,000. The fourth was— Wait. The fourth was $35,000. It exceeded the cap. How does an unsecured personal loan get approved for $35,000 when the hard limit is $25,000? Only one way. An internal override. A manager’s signature. I highlighted that cell in yellow. The second anomaly: The third and sixth loans were small business loans. To get an SBA or commercial loan, you need an established LLC. I don’t own an LLC. So what company name was on the application? I picked up my cell phone and dialed the bank’s customer service. “Hi, I need to check the details on a commercial loan under my name.” “For commercial accounts, we require you to bring your physical state ID to the originating branch, ma’am.” I couldn’t get to the Eastside Branch today. But I could check public records. I pulled up the state’s Division of Corporations website. I typed in my name. Nothing. There were zero businesses registered under my name. So how did the commercial loan clear the underwriting process? I kept digging. The third anomaly: The fifth and seventh loans were from online fintech platforms. Online lenders have notoriously loose underwriting, but they always require two-factor authentication via SMS. Six years ago, they might not have used facial recognition. But they definitely sent a verification code to my phone number. I checked my text history—obviously, messages from years ago were long gone. But my carrier would have the metadata. I walked on my lunch break to an AT&T store and requested my incoming SMS logs for August 2020 and January 2022. “We can only go back five years,” the rep said. “2018 is wiped.” “Just give me 2020,” I said. I waited fifteen minutes. “Ms. Davis, on Sunday, August 14th, 2020, your number did receive a verification ping from a shortcode associated with that lending platform.” I stared at the date. August 14th, 2020. A Sunday. What the hell was I doing that Sunday? I pulled up my calendar history. That was the weekend my mom fell down the stairs. I had spent the entire day at the hospital with her. Where was my phone? Then, the memory hit me. I had rushed out of my apartment in an absolute panic. My phone was dead, still plugged into the wall charger by my bed. My apartment. Who had access to my apartment? The landlord. I remembered asking the landlord about a weird charge on my deposit back when I moved in. She had waved me off and said, “Oh, a young guy came by to check on the place when you weren’t home. I thought he was your boyfriend, so I let him in.” I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Now, the memory felt like a physical blow to the chest. I went home after work. I sat at my forty-dollar IKEA desk and stared at the glowing Excel grid. Seven loans. Four from the Southside Branch. Southside Branch. Personal Credit Division. I pulled out my phone and scrolled deep, deep into Jessica’s old Instagram feed—before she went private. Her last public photo was from December 2017. A selfie with a shiny new name badge. The background was the marble lobby of a bank. The badge had the First National logo, and beneath her name, it read: Southside Branch. 4. I didn’t confront Jessica. Accountants know the golden rule: You never make an accusation until every single cent is accounted for. I took two more days of PTO. Day one: Southside Branch. I stood at the teller window, sliding my driver’s license across the marble. “I need to query the loan origination documents under my name. I want copies of the physical contracts.” The teller clicked her mouse a few times. “Ms. Davis, you have three active legacy loans with us. You’ll need to see a loan officer at Desk Three.” The officer at Desk Three was a polite woman named Mrs. Higgins. “Retrieving archived contract copies requires submitting a formal request to corporate,” she explained with a practiced smile. “It usually takes three to five business days.” “Can you see the name of the underwriting officer who approved them?” “Well… let me check the internal portal.” She looked at her monitor. Her eyes flicked back to me, just for a fraction of a second. “The authorizing agent was a colleague of mine in the Credit Division.” “What’s their name?” “I’m afraid I can’t disclose internal employee IDs without a subpoena.” She didn’t give me the name. But that tiny hesitation—that flicker in her eyes. I logged it. Day two: Eastside Branch. I was tracking down the $45,000 commercial loan. “The applicant’s corporate entity on this file,” the commercial loan officer read from his screen, “is… D&C Imports LLC.” D&C. Derek and Jessica? No, Jessica’s name starts with J. Wait. D&C. Derek & Chelsea? I introduced Derek to a girl named Chelsea once, but this was Jessica. (Self-correction: Let’s assume the company name is D&J Imports LLC for Derek & Jessica). D&J Imports LLC. I walked out to the parking lot, leaned against a concrete pillar, and pulled up the state’s corporate registry on my phone. D&J Imports LLC. Registered: October 2018. Principal Executive: Derek. Initial Capital: $100,000. Business Type: Wholesale Retail / Electronics. Shareholder Breakdown: Derek (70%), Jessica (30%). I stared at the two names burning through the glass of my screen. Derek. Jessica. They had started a business together. And they had used my name, my credit, to fund it. I locked my phone and stood perfectly still in the biting wind outside the bank. I remembered six years ago, standing in a crowded dive bar, introducing the two of them. “Jess, this is the guy I’ve been telling you about. Derek.” “Hey,” she had said. “Nice to meet you. Norah talks about you all the time.” I remembered the way Jessica had looked at him that night. At the time, I thought it was just polite interest. The guarantor section of the commercial loan, printed clearly in black and white: D&J Imports LLC. Principal: Derek. 5. When I got home, I did one thing. I found a lawyer. Not some high-powered corporate shark, just a guy named Mr. Kessler that our company’s in-house counsel recommended for civil disputes. The initial consultation was free. Kessler listened to my timeline, steeled his jaw, and asked, “What hard evidence do you have right now?” “My credit report, the metadata for the seven loans, and the LLC registry showing his company as the guarantor on the business loan.” “Have you done a forensic handwriting analysis?” “No.” “Do it. The moment we prove those signatures aren’t yours, we elevate this from a civil dispute to identity theft and wire fraud.” “Will the police actually care?” “They will if you hand them the case on a silver platter. Get the handwriting analysis, the loan contracts, and the wire transfers. You’re a CPA. Tracking the cash flow should be a walk in the park for you.” I nodded. Kessler leaned back. “And this Jessica girl… what’s her exact title at the Southside Branch?” “Loan Officer, I think. Or Credit Manager.” “If she personally pushed your applications through the system, this isn’t just fraud anymore. It’s internal bank corruption. That changes the entire landscape.” I left his office and drove straight to an independent forensics lab. I paid $2,500 out of pocket for the expedited handwriting analysis. It drained a massive chunk of my savings. I provided exemplars of my handwriting, alongside the digitized signatures from the bank documents. “You’ll have the results in about a week or two,” the technician told me. By the time I stepped back out onto the street, it was pitch black. I stopped at a rundown diner and ordered a plate of plain scrambled eggs and toast. Five bucks. Halfway through the eggs, my phone buzzed. Unknown number. “Am I speaking with Norah Davis?” “Yes.” “This is Pioneer Recovery Services, we’re calling regarding—” I hung up. It rang again. I powered the phone down. Back in my apartment, I opened my laptop. There was one more thing I needed to audit. The timeline of Derek and Jessica’s relationship. You can’t easily look up marriage licenses online in this state, but I had a different route. The Division of Corporations registry for D&J Imports LLC. I clicked into the “Filing History” tab. July 2018: Articles of Organization filed. October 2018: Member added (Jessica). I scrolled down to the very bottom, to the original draft applications. November 15, 2017 – Pre-Registration Memo: Principal Derek. Emergency Contact: Jessica (Spouse). November 2017. Derek broke up with me on Valentine’s Day, 2018. In November 2017, three months before he dumped me, he was already listing Jessica as his spouse on legal documents. We hadn’t even had our first fight about breaking up yet. They were together in 2017. Maybe even earlier. The breakup wasn’t because we were “too different.” It was because they were already building a life together. Blocking me everywhere wasn’t about “getting a clean break.” It was an information quarantine. Instagram, Facebook, my phone number—severed entirely. They erased me from their world so they could hijack my identity in peace. And then they burned my credit to the ground to the tune of nearly three hundred thousand dollars. For six years. Six years I spent eating ramen in a basement, terrified of getting a cold because I couldn’t afford the copay. While they lived in a house paid for by my name. I closed the laptop. I didn’t shed a single tear. I washed my hands, packed my generic sandwich for tomorrow’s lunch, and set my alarm for 6:00 AM. I lay down on my mattress. My neighbor snored through the drywall. I didn’t sleep a wink. 6. Lying awake in the dark, I played back the “breakup” frame by frame. February 14th, 2018. I had bought him a cashmere scarf. It cost ninety-five dollars. I had saved for a month to afford it. I hadn’t even given it to him yet when the text came through. We need to break up. I had typed out a massive, desperate paragraph asking if there was someone else. No, he had replied. Don’t overthink it. We just aren’t a match. I sent another wall of text. He never read it. The next morning, I went to his apartment. I pounded on the door for ten minutes. Finally, a neighbor poked his head out. “Buddy moved out. Packed up a U-Haul late last night.” I tried calling him. Disconnected. Blocked on social media. Wiped clean. Back then, I thought I was the problem. Had I been too needy? Had I not been making enough money? I couldn’t return the scarf, so I wore it myself for the next three winters. But thinking about it now— A week before he moved out, he had come over to my place. He was fixing a leaky faucet in my bathroom. I was at work. He had my spare key. When I got home, the faucet was fixed. But I suddenly remembered something he said right before he left. “Hey, Norah, where do you keep your Social Security card? I was looking for a towel in your drawers and saw some important papers. You should lock those up.” “They’re just in the second drawer of my nightstand,” I had said. “Got it. Just be careful,” he replied. I thought he was just being protective. Now I understood. He wasn’t “reminding” me. He was verifying the location. Before the breakup, he needed to photocopy my SSN and ID. Before he vanished, he needed to make sure he had all the puzzle pieces. Blocking me was just locking the door behind him. It wasn’t a breakup. It was the final stage of a heist. That cashmere scarf was still shoved in the back of my closet. I got out of bed, pulled it out, and ran my fingers over the fabric. It was pilling badly. I folded it neatly and put it back. Not because I missed him. But because it wasn’t time to throw it away yet. 7. On Saturday, I drove to my mom’s place. She still lived in the same tiny, aging duplex. Dad’s framed photo sat on the console table in the living room. “You eat yet?” she asked as I walked in. “Yeah.” I hadn’t. She went to the kitchen anyway to heat up some soup. I sat on the couch, staring at Dad’s picture. “Mom.” “Yeah, honey?” “Right before Dad passed… did he ever say anything to you? About me?” The running water in the kitchen stopped. “Like what?” “Like… did he ever mention Derek? Or any kind of bank loans?” Mom peeked her head around the doorframe, a dish towel in her hands. “Why are you bringing this up now?” “Mom, please. Just tell me.” She wiped her hands and walked slowly into the room. “Your father was acting strange those last few months.” “Strange how?” “He kept leaving the house, taking the bus downtown. Said he had errands. One time he came back, his face was red as a beet, he was so angry.” “Did he say why?” “He just kept muttering, ‘I’ve got to get to the bottom of this thing with Norah.’” “What thing?” “I asked him! He wouldn’t say. He just told me, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.’” “And then?” “And then he…” Her voice caught, flattening out. “He passed.” She looked away. “I never touched his stuff. If you want to look, go through his desk in the sunroom.” Dad’s “office” was just an enclosed porch with a wobbly desk and a rusty metal toolbox. Inside the toolbox were his wrenches, some wire, a few screwdrivers. I lifted the plastic tray. Underneath was a manila envelope. Inside the envelope— A notebook. A cheap, palm-sized, blue spiral notebook. The kind you buy for fifty cents at a pharmacy. I flipped to the first page. Dad’s handwriting. It was messy, but pressed deeply into the paper, like he was gripping the pen too hard. December 2, 2021. Checked the mail. Found a letter from a bank. Addressed to Norah. Debt collection. $20,000 personal loan. Norah doesn’t take out loans. Something is wrong. Page two. December 8, 2021. Took the bus to the Southside Branch. Brought Norah’s birth certificate. The lady at the desk said they can’t tell me anything without Norah here in person. Page three. December 15, 2021. Went back. Demanded to see the manager. Explained the situation. Manager said he’d ‘look into it.’ Never called back. Page four. January 6, 2022. Called the 1-800 number. Sat on hold four times. Every time they transfer me, they tell me ‘the account holder must be present.’ Page five. January 19, 2022. Went to the Eastside branch. Found out about a business loan. $45,000. Norah doesn’t own a business. This is fraud. Page six. February 4, 2022. Tried looking up that Derek boy. Can’t find him. Phone disconnected. Jessica’s number is dead too. Page seven. March 1, 2022. Walked down to the police precinct. Officer said Norah has to file the report herself. I told him I’m her father. He said, ‘Tell your daughter to come down here.’ Page eight. March 8, 2022. I’ll try the bank again tomorrow. There was no page nine. March 9th, 2022. The day my dad collapsed at the bus stop. Where was he trying to go? My hands began to shake violently around the cheap plastic cover. Not from anger. But because— He knew. He was trying to fix it. He was a retired city bus driver. He barely knew how to use a smartphone. He didn’t know what a corporate registry was or how to run a forensic credit check. All he could do was ride the bus from branch to branch, sit on hold for hours, and write down his dead-ends in a fifty-cent notebook. He fought for three months. And he died trying. My mom walked in carrying a bowl of soup. She saw me sitting on the floor, clutching the blue notebook to my chest. “Is that his little ledger?” she asked softly. “Mom, did you ever read this?” “I tried. I didn’t understand it. All that stuff about branches and accounts… it was over my head.” She paused. “But I knew he was trying to protect you. A couple days before he passed, he kept pacing the living room saying, ‘I can’t let them do this to her.’” She set the soup on the table. It went cold. I slipped the notebook into my bag. I zipped it shut. My dad couldn’t finish the audit. I was going to finish it for him. 8. The handwriting analysis came back. My palms were sweating as I picked up the thick envelope from the lab.

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Ten minutes before the ceremony, I shoved a handful of condoms into my best friend’s chest. Dustin caught them with a grin, making a crude joke about how he wasn’t going to survive the honeymoon at this rate. Beside him, Carlin didn’t say a word. But there was a shift in her eyes—something dark, something I couldn’t quite read. Once Dustin walked out to join the groomsmen, she turned to the vanity mirror, adjusting her diamond drop earrings. Her voice was terrifyingly casual when she finally spoke. She told me she was the one marrying him today. She added that they were going to use every single one of those condoms tonight. I just stood there, the air knocked out of my lungs. Seeing my frozen expression, she laughed, a breezy, practiced sound, and told me she’d explain everything after the ceremony. The next hour felt like someone had hit fast-forward on my life, blurring the edges of my reality until nothing made sense. I stood in my tailored suit, anchored to the spot of the Best Man, and watched the two most important people in my world walk down the aisle together. Under the glow of the stained glass, the officiant spoke. They exchanged rings. They became husband and wife. … 1 I had imagined a million different endings for me and Carlin. This wasn’t one of them. Which was why, after the reception, when she and Dustin knelt on the carpet of the bridal suite, I felt entirely hollow. Carlin was still in her wedding gown, a faint, angry hickey blooming just above her collarbone. She was begging for my forgiveness. Looking down at her, a memory crashed into me. Ten years ago. She had dropped to her knees just like this, refusing to get up until I promised I wouldn’t leave her. Ten years. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days. That’s how long I spent pulling her out of the suffocating, catatonic trauma that had locked her inside her own mind. And this was how she repaid me. By kicking me out of my own life. The door clicked shut. Dustin shifted his weight, kneeling right beside her. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. I could read the quiet, sickening triumph in his eyes. “How long?” I asked. My voice sounded flat. Foreign. Like I was asking about the weather. “Dustin’s fiancée bailed on him,” Carlin said quickly, her hands twisting the expensive lace of her skirt. “I was just doing him a favor. The invitations were sent. His parents flew all the way to Boston for this, Wes. He couldn’t bear to break their hearts…” Right. So my parents and I had to be the ones to take the hit. “Wes, come on, man. We’re brothers. Just do me this one solid.” Dustin reached out, tugging at the crease of my slacks. His eyes were red, playing the pathetic victim to absolute perfection. “There’s nothing going on between me and Carlin. I swear.” I tuned out the pathetic whining. I pulled out my phone and opened his Instagram. Thank you, C, for keeping me grounded… The caption sat below a photo of two silhouettes tandem bungee jumping. That was posted the weekend I got into that minor car wreck. The weekend Carlin told me she was at a medical conference in Chicago. I scrolled down. Two glasses of red wine, dim candlelight, and two hands intertwined across a linen tablecloth. She hadn’t even bothered to take off the engagement ring I gave her. Swipe after swipe, the digital footprint pieced together a version of Carlin I didn’t even know. Bubble tea runs. Viral downtown bakeries. Gourmet chocolate tastings. Whenever I suggested those things, her brow would furrow, and she’d brush me off with a sharp, “I don’t like sugar, Wes.” But for Dustin, she tried it all. Carlin was a notoriously brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon at Boston General. She treated her hands like million-dollar assets. She despised dirt, germs, and anything domestic. Yet, there was a photo of her wearing a flour-dusted apron, standing by a stove. My face flushed hot, a phantom fever burning beneath my skin. Two winters ago, I had the flu so bad I couldn’t stand. I asked her to make me some soup. She had stood in the doorway of our bedroom, completely detached. “I’m a surgeon, Wes. My hands don’t belong in a kitchen. Just Postmates something.” I had accepted it. I had spent ten years accepting her cold, clinical nature, assuming that was just who she was. So I ordered delivery, shivering under the duvet, listening to her murmur on the phone in her home office. Her tone had been so soft. So careful. I thought I was hallucinating from the fever back then. Now I knew I was just a blind idiot. The shock had burned off, leaving behind a vast, numbing wasteland. I shoved the phone screen inches from Dustin’s face. “You call me your brother,” I whispered. “And this is how you repay me?” I didn’t wait for him to scramble for a lie. I turned my head, locking eyes with the woman I had built my entire twenties around. “If you two want each other so badly, fine. You can have him.” 2 I ignored Carlin shouting my name. I walked out of the hotel, the heavy Boston rain hitting the pavement and my phone buzzing incessantly in my pocket. Every chime felt like a hammer taken to the last fragile pieces of my sanity. Years ago, Margaret Olivia—Carlin’s grandmother—had bailed my father’s firm out of bankruptcy. Ever since I was a kid, the narrative was drilled into me: We owe the Olivias. When Carlin’s mind fractured in her teens, when she violently pushed everyone away, I was the one who stayed. I would plaster on a smile, sit outside her locked door, and say, “I’m not going anywhere, C. I promised your grandmother I’d stay.” But I couldn’t stay anymore. [Wes, I already explained everything. What more do you want?] [Please don’t be mad. You’ve been wanting to get married, right? We’ll go to City Hall tomorrow. Just us.] The burn in my throat hit faster than the tears. My vision blurred. Her mental health had stabilized years ago. She became a doctor, a prodigy in the OR. She’d press her warm face into my neck in the middle of the night. She’d buy me expensive watches. I thought those were the signs that I had finally won her heart. I started bringing up marriage. [Give it time, Wes. My family is a medical dynasty. I need to become Chief of Surgery first.] [I just made attending. I barely have time to sleep, let alone plan a wedding. Next year, okay?] She had even grabbed my shoulders once, looking at me with pure frustration. “Dustin is your best friend. He’s out there grinding, trying to get his fellowship, trying to make a real mark in medicine. Why are you only obsessed with a ring?” I hadn’t thought it was strange back then. I thought it was nice that two people I loved, who usually bickered, were finally getting along. I had even smiled like a fool and said, “Dustin grew up with nothing, C. Look out for him at the hospital for me, will you?” She hadn’t said yes. But behind my back, she gave him everything. In just two years, Dustin’s career skyrocketed. He somehow afforded a luxury condo in the Seaport District on a resident’s salary. I had actually bought a bottle of Macallan and dragged Carlin over to his place to celebrate. God, I was stupid. I scrubbed my face hard, trying to wipe away the wetness on my cheeks and the pathetic memories of the last decade. I pulled up a text thread and typed a message to Margaret Olivia. “Mrs. Olivia, the Gustave family’s debt is paid in full. I am leaving Carlin.” When I finally got back to our apartment, Carlin was already sitting on the leather sofa. There was a velvet box resting on the coffee table. A diamond ring inside. Our eyes met. She stood up, exhaling a soft, tired sigh. “Wes, Dustin is up for a massive promotion. We’re going to get our license tomorrow. I even bought the ring. Just… stop throwing a tantrum.” Not ‘marry me.’ But ‘stop throwing a tantrum.’ I looked at the ring. It was a custom Tiffany setting. The exact one I had seen sparkling in the background of Dustin’s Instagram posts. She gave him the wedding of a lifetime. She gave me the leftovers. I stared at her. Looked at the face I had secretly painted a hundred times, the face I had carved into my heart since I was eighteen. I let out a soft, broken laugh. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. I won’t get in the way of his promotion, either. Because I’m not marrying you. Get out.” Carlin only heard the first half of my sentence. She stepped into my space, wrapping her arms around my waist, pressing her chin against my chest. Her voice held that familiar, confident hum—the sound of a woman who knew she always won. “Let’s just go to sleep. Tomorrow, wake up and post something on your socials. Clear the air for Dustin.” I froze. “Clear what air?” Her arms didn’t loosen, but I felt her brow furrow against my shirt, as if calculating the easiest way to manipulate me. “Just put out a statement saying Dustin and I have been dating for a while, and that you… well, that you were the one who got in the middle of it. It’s the only way to save his reputation.” A violent shudder ripped through my chest. I stared blindly at the wall behind her. Those red lips had kissed me a thousand times. They had whispered things in the dark that made my heart race. Now, every single syllable she spoke was a scalpel gutting me alive. I choked back the bile rising in my throat, grabbed her arms, and shoved her away. “What about my reputation? Does that mean nothing to you?” She stumbled back, blinking in genuine surprise. She wasn’t used to me saying no. She let out a small, condescending chuckle. “Wes, Dustin isn’t like you. He grew up in foster care. He had to claw his way up from the bottom. You’re his best friend. You should be willing to take a hit for him.” Should? On what grounds? When Dustin’s undergrad tuition bounced and the university was going to expel him, I drained my savings to pay it. Senior year, when he got mixed up with local dealers and owed money, I was the one who took the beatings to protect him. I brought him home, fed him, and introduced him to everyone as my brother. When no residency program would take him because his test scores were trash, I swallowed my pride and begged Carlin to pull strings at Boston Gen. Dustin had cried that night, burying his face in his hands. “You’re my savior, Wes. I owe you my life.” I didn’t realize paying me back meant sleeping with my fiancé. I exhaled a ragged breath, lifting my chin to look the woman I loved dead in the eye. “Carlin. I don’t owe you. And I sure as hell don’t owe Dustin. Walking away quietly and letting you two have each other is the absolute limit of my grace.” “I will never admit to being the other man. Ever.” 3 I turned on my heel, ready to pack a bag and leave. Her voice pinned me straight to the floorboards. “Think about the photos, Wes. Do you really want those seeing the light of day?” The silence in the apartment became deafening. I turned around slowly, looking at the ice-cold mask on Carlin’s face. Instantly, my mind violently dragged me back to when I was nineteen. I remembered her holding my bruised, bleeding body, shaking uncontrollably as she cried into my hair. Her mental breakdown had been at its worst that year. I spent my days chasing her around the house, trying to force her to eat, to take her meds. One afternoon, she bolted out the front door. I chased her for blocks into a bad neighborhood. Someone grabbed me from behind. Dragged me into an alley. A hand clamped over my mouth. The tearing of clothes. The suffocating weight. I never saw their faces. I couldn’t count how many there were. When Carlin finally found me, she lost her mind. She held me tight, chanting apologies, promising she would fix it. Later, holding my trembling hand, she swore she had used her family’s money to bury the attackers. She swore she had bought and destroyed the photos they took. She looked into my eyes and promised that her entire life belonged to me now. And now, for the sake of another man’s career, she was holding my deepest, ugliest trauma over my head. Seeing the blood drain from my face, a flicker of hesitation crossed Carlin’s eyes, but she ruthlessly buried it. She softened her voice, stepping back into the role of a soothing doctor. “Just post the statement, Wes. I’ll handle the rest. We’ll get married. We’ll have kids. I will be your wife…” “And if I say no?” “Think of your parents. Your father’s heart condition can’t handle a public scandal…” She didn’t finish the threat. She didn’t need to. We spent the rest of the night in suffocating silence. She went to bed, confident I would cave. I always caved. Every argument we ever had ended with me swallowing my pride and crawling back to her. When I turned on my phone the next morning, my notifications exploded. Dustin was trending locally. Boston surgeon exposed in shocking love triangle. Before I could even process the headlines, Carlin kicked the bedroom door open. “Wes, Dustin is your brother! How could you smear him like this? You ruined his name!” Her eyes were bloodshot. She didn’t give me a chance to speak. She grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me down to the parking garage, driving us straight to the hospital. When I stumbled out of her Porsche, my knee smashed into the heavy car door. I gasped in pain. She didn’t even turn around. I watched her sprinting toward the hospital entrance, and a broken laugh bubbled up in my chest. Her hand had always felt so tight, so warm in mine. But now, I felt like I was free-falling into a black void. The main lobby of Boston Gen had been turned into an impromptu press pen. Dustin sat at a folding table, his shoulders slumped, his eyes red-rimmed and tragic. Carlin rushed past the cameras, shoving me straight into the swarm of reporters, and ran to his side. A dozen microphones were shoved into my face. “Mr. Gustave! Dr. Dustin claims you suffered severe sexual trauma years ago, leading to psychological instability. Is that why you lashed out at his wedding yesterday?” “Is it true you’ve been stalking Dr. Olivia, despite knowing she and Dr. Dustin have been deeply in love for years? Were you trying to break them up?” “You two grew up together. How do you justify trying to steal your best friend’s fiancée? Have you no shame?” The blood roared in my ears, hot and violent. I stared at Carlin in pure, unadulterated horror. She promised me. She swore on her life she would never breathe a word of the alleyway to anyone. How did Dustin know? Before the math could click in my brain, the “brother” who swore he owed me his life looked up from the table. A vicious, phantom smile ghosted across his lips. A second later, the large digital display behind the reception desk flared to life. It was my face. Pale, terrified, tear-streaked. And my body. Covered in dark, violent bruises and dirty handprints. 4 The lobby erupted. The sound of camera shutters sounded like machine-gun fire, mixing with the sickening whispers all around me. “Jesus, he’s damaged goods. Using his family money to harass Dr. Olivia? Disgusting.” “If he hadn’t shown up and ruined the reception yesterday, Dr. Dustin wouldn’t have been forced to expose him…” My throat felt like it was packed with broken glass. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I couldn’t scream the truth. I couldn’t scream that I was the one kept a secret in the dark. Carlin materialized beside me. Her voice was a soft, lethal whisper meant only for me. “It’s done. Just apologize.” “Your reputation is already dead,” she continued smoothly. “So protect Dustin’s. I keep my promises, Wes. I’ll still marry you.” I stared at her for a long time before I managed to force a sound past my teeth. “He broadcasts my rape to the world… he destroys my life… and you want me to apologize to him?” Carlin frowned, shaking her head as if I was the one being unreasonable. “Dustin is just protecting his career. What else was he supposed to do?” “Besides, these photos are real. He didn’t forge them. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at your own bad luck.” Fury, suffocation, and a hatred so pure it terrified me collided in my chest. My knees buckled. I swayed on my feet, about to scream, when a sharp, desperate voice cut through the chaos. “Wes! Is this true? Have you been harassing Carlin and this doctor?” My heart stopped. My father stood at the edge of the crowd, clutching his chest. His face was ash gray. Before I could move, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. My mother shrieked, a gut-wrenching, animal sound. “David!” I shoved through the reporters, throwing myself onto the marble floor beside him. Before I could even touch him, a sharp slap cracked across my face, snapping my head to the side. My mother stood over me, her hand trembling. “This is your fault! If you hadn’t done these vile things, your father wouldn’t be dying!” She dropped to her knees, abandoning me to crawl toward Carlin, grabbing the hem of her lab coat. “Carlin, please! You’re a surgeon. Save him! Please save your Uncle David!” Carlin didn’t move. She didn’t call for a crash cart. She just stood there, her cold eyes locked onto mine. Dustin leaned in, whispering loud enough for the mics to catch. “Carlin, don’t hold Wes’s psychotic behavior against his parents. Just help Mr. Gustave.” Carlin looked at him, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “No. Wes has to publicly apologize first. He has to admit he tried to ruin our relationship. Otherwise, your reputation will be permanently scarred, and I won’t allow that.” She wouldn’t allow his reputation to be scarred. But she would watch my father die on the floor. “Wes! What are you waiting for?!” My mother screamed, the sound tearing through the lobby. She grabbed my hair, shaking me. “Say it! Are you going to watch your father die?!” I looked at my dad. His lips were turning blue. White foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. We were out of time. I swallowed the metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I rasped. “I shouldn’t have gotten between you two.” “That’s it?” a reporter yelled from the back. “You drove Dr. Dustin to the brink of ruin, and you just say sorry? Get on your knees and show some remorse!” The crowd murmured in vicious agreement. Carlin stood completely still. Silent approval. My mother, frantic and terrified, kicked me in the shin. She slapped my face again, twice, the smacks echoing off the walls. “Kneel! Hit yourself! Do you want your father to die?!” she sobbed, completely unhinged by panic. I looked at her. I looked at the blue tint spreading across my father’s cheeks. I slowly closed my eyes. I raised my hand and brought it down hard across my own cheek. Then again. And again. My face was entirely numb. My soul was entirely numb. The only thing I felt were the hot tears hitting the back of my hand, dripping onto the marble floor. Drop. Drop. SMASH. A silver-headed cane came flying out of nowhere, cracking violently over Carlin’s skull. A voice, sharp as a guillotine and cold as ice, boomed through the lobby. “Carlin Olivia! Take your little homewrecker and get out of my hospital! Get out of my family!” “As of this moment, Wesley Gustave is my grandson, and the sole heir to the Olivia estate!”

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The roar of the party died as if someone had cut the power. My wife, a renowned professor at the university, suddenly dropped to her knees in front of me. Her hands were trembling, her voice thin and jagged. She told me that Toby’s heart was failing and that I was a perfect match. She said the transplant had to happen immediately. I stood there, frozen, feeling a strange, hollow silence in my chest. There was no surge of adrenaline, no spike of fear—just a dull, aching nothingness. “Everyone only has one heart, Margot,” I reminded her quietly. She didn’t blink. “I’ll call the best surgeons in San Francisco,” she said, her words rushing out like a landslide. “We’ll get you an artificial heart. The technology is incredible now, Sam. Please.” I looked down at her, then at her stomach. “You’re six months pregnant. You’re supposed to give birth in twelve weeks.” She gritted her teeth, her eyes gleaming with a desperate, frantic light. “We can have another baby later. Right now, we have to save him. We have to let this one go.” Before I could even process the cruelty of those words, a bright, boyish laugh rang out from the hallway. Toby ran into the room, grinning ear to ear. “April Fool’s, Professor! Happy April Fool’s Day!” He stopped next to her, looking far too healthy for a man supposedly on his deathbed. “We aren’t actually matches, Sam. I was just messing with you. I can’t believe Professor Mercer actually went and asked you to give up the baby. That’s hardcore!” The tension in the room snapped. Our friends burst into chatter, the air filling with nervous, relieved laughter. “Man, that was dark,” someone chuckled, nursing their bourbon. “Toby, you really put Sam in a spot there. I mean, that’s his own flesh and blood.” “If Toby had said he was a match for me,” another friend joked, “Margot probably would’ve dragged me onto the operating table herself.” I didn’t laugh. I didn’t move. I just sat back down on the velvet sofa, pulled out my phone, and sent a one-line text to my lawyer: I need you to draft divorce papers. Tonight. … Margot had never been able to stay angry at Toby. He was her star student—fragile, sickly, and brilliant in a way that made her protective instincts go haywire. She treated him like a piece of fine porcelain. But this time, when she stood up, her face was a mask of cold fury. The room went silent again. The atmosphere curdled. Someone whispered to Toby, “You pushed it too far. You know Sam is her Achilles’ heel. Remember that junior faculty member who made a joke about him three years ago? Margot nearly had him blacklisted.” Toby’s smile vanished. His lashes fluttered, quickly becoming wet with tears. He reached out, tentatively grabbing the hem of Margot’s blazer. “I’m so sorry, Professor. It’s April Fool’s… I just wanted to see if the rumors about how much you love him were true.” Margot remained silent. Toby turned to me, sniffing back a sob. “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean it. If you’re mad, just yell at me. I deserve it.” Our friends tried to play peacemakers. “He’s just a kid, Sam. He’s impulsive. Don’t take it to heart.” “Yeah, Margot, he’s your protégé. You spent three years mentoring him, you even mentioned him in the first line of your latest publication. You can’t let one stupid joke ruin that.” Finally, Margot’s expression softened. She reached out and wiped a tear from the corner of Toby’s eye. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said firmly. Toby nodded frantically. Then she looked at me, her voice carrying a trace of practiced guilt. “I’m sorry, Sam. I overreacted. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about the… the pregnancy.” The pregnancy. She spoke about ending our child’s life as if she’d accidentally suggested a restaurant I didn’t like. It wasn’t the first time. Whenever Toby was involved, the brilliant, logical Dr. Margot Mercer became a different person—someone dictated by raw, unchecked emotion. Last New Year’s Eve, she drove six hundred miles through a snowstorm because Toby called her saying his stomach hurt. When I asked her why, she just sighed and said, “He’s fragile, Sam. I was worried he’d end up in the ER alone.” But she wasn’t worried about me, her husband, waiting at home with a cold dinner. She wasn’t worried when my depression got so bad I stopped speaking for three days. She wasn’t worried when I had a 104-degree fever and laid in the dark for twelve hours, wondering if I was dying. To me, she was a machine. “Sam, being pregnant is exhausting enough. Stop giving me more things to deal with.” When I became irritable or withdrew, she dismissed it as “jealousy” and went back to her study. I lived in the shadow of her work, always careful not to disturb her. Yet, in the prestigious journal article that took five years of her life, the first person she thanked wasn’t me. It was Toby. An undergraduate with barely any technical contribution. The interview went viral. In the video, Margot looked ethereal and calm. “In my ten years of teaching,” she told the reporter, “Toby isn’t the most talented student I’ve had. But he is certainly the most resilient. I’m grateful he came into my life; he gave me the courage to keep going.” The day that interview aired, I dropped my favorite vase. It was a piece we’d made together at a workshop in Mendocino during the year we were most in love. She had told me then that we’d keep it forever, a family heirloom for our future children. When she saw the shards on the floor, she just called the housekeeper to sweep them up. “Maybe I can glue it back together,” I whispered, kneeling on the floor, my hands shaking. She pulled me up, frowning. “It’s just a cheap vase, Sam. Don’t be dramatic.” My eyes stung. She touched her belly and added, “It’s fine. We can just go make a new one eventually.” I tried to tell myself she was just a “rational” person. That she didn’t care for sentimentality. But that night, when I went to her study to bring her some fruit, I saw a locked glass cabinet. Inside, she had displayed a cheap, twenty-dollar fountain pen Toby had bought her at a gift shop. It felt like a bucket of ice water over my head. We had a screaming match. I actually broke the lock and threw the pen into the trash. She lunged for it, retrieving it like it was a holy relic. When she looked at me, her eyes were full of nothing but pure, unadulterated annoyance. “Look at yourself, Sam! You look like a goddamn lunatic! You broke that vase yourself, so what are you actually blaming me for?” I told her to swear on her life that she didn’t have feelings for Toby. I told her to swear that if she did, we both deserved to die. Margot—a staunch materialist, a woman of science—hesitated. A long, suffocating silence followed. Finally, she spoke. “Fine. I have feelings for him.” My heart shattered, but she continued, her voice cold. “But we haven’t crossed a line, and we won’t. You don’t need to act like a victim. You haven’t been cheated on.” I started to cry, and she sighed, reaching out to smooth my messy hair. “Sam, we’ve been together for eleven years. The spark is gone. To be perfectly honest, kissing you feels like pressing my top lip against my bottom lip. There’s nothing there.” She looked at me with a pity that hurt more than her anger. “Sometimes I regret marrying you right after we finished grad school in London. I didn’t realize that ten years later, I’d find out what it actually feels like to be excited by someone again.” The woman who once bought out a whole florist just to surprise me was now standing over me, calmly discussing her change of heart. “Toby is vibrant. He’s not sullen like you. He likes stupid romantic movies and feeding stray cats. Things you used to like, but when he does them, it’s charming. It makes my heart race. I can’t help it.” Her final words were a gentle execution. “As long as you want it, you’ll always be my husband. But you have to accept that my heart belongs to him now.” After that night, I spiraled. I cried until my eyes were permanently swollen. I tried to detach. I tried not to care when she came home late, or when she went to Hawaii for a “research trip” with Toby. I lied to myself. Until today. Until she knelt in front of our friends and asked me to give up my heart and our baby for him. The marriage was over. It had been dead for a long time; I was just the last one to stop performing CPR. “Sam, I know I messed up. Please forgive me,” Toby said, his voice stronger now, a faint, smug glimmer in his eyes. A friend piped up, “Come on, Sam. He didn’t mean any harm. He’s always been a bit of a clown. He once got drunk and said he wanted to marry Margot, too. He just says things.” The room went silent. The guy realized his mistake and covered his mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean he doesn’t think before he speaks. Everyone knows you and Margot are solid. No one could ever come between you.” I smiled, a thin, ghost of a thing. I looked at Toby. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.” The room let out a collective breath of relief. Then I looked at Margot. “I’m divorcing your professor, Toby. I hope you get everything you ever wanted.” “Sam!” Margot’s face went pale. “Don’t talk nonsense in front of everyone.” “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I laughed. “You can tell a room full of people you’re willing to abort our child and take my heart for Toby, but I can’t mention a divorce?” She knit her brows. “It was an April Fool’s joke! Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” “Toby apologized. I scolded him. If you keep acting like this, you’re just making a scene for no reason!” Friends started chiming in. “Take a breath, Sam. Don’t throw away a decade over a prank.” “Yeah, Margot clearly cares about you. She doesn’t usually snap at Toby like that.” I looked at Margot, my voice eerily calm. “You didn’t get angry for me, Margot. You got angry because Toby joked about being a match. You were disappointed when you found out it wasn’t true, weren’t you?” She flinched. A flicker of irritation crossed her brow. “I’m begging you, just stop. If you don’t care about your own dignity, at least think about Toby’s.” Fatigue washed over me like a tide. I closed my eyes. “Fine. See you at the lawyer’s office on Monday.” I stood up to leave, but Toby threw himself at my feet, sobbing. “Sam, please don’t be mad at the Professor! She just wants me to be healthy!” I looked down at the boy, his face a mess of performative grief. “You spent so much energy proving how much you matter to her,” I whispered so only he could hear. “You should be happy. You won.” He turned white. I stepped around him and walked out. “Sam!” Margot’s voice was like ice behind me. “Don’t forget that your mother is still at Mercer Medical.” I stopped dead. I never thought she’d use my mother—who was battling stage IV cancer—as a bargaining chip. After a long, agonizing silence, I forced a smile and turned back to pull Toby off the floor. “I was just kidding,” I said, my voice sounding hollow even to me. “I don’t blame you.” Toby sobbed. “Good. I was so scared I’d caused trouble for the Professor.” The farce ended. Margot insisted on driving me home. “I only said that to scare you,” she said as we drove through the dark. “I would never do anything to your mother.” “You were hurt today, I get it. To make it up to you, I’ll go with you to see her tomorrow. We can do the prenatal check-up at the same time.” “Sam, we’ve been together for eleven years. It’s not like I don’t love you. If you could just try to get along with Toby…” I leaned my head against the window. “I meant what I said.” “Margot, let’s get a divorce. Whatever happens with you and him… it’s not my business anymore.” She let out a short, dry laugh. “This is the seventh time you’ve brought up divorce since I got pregnant. Next time you want attention, try a new trick.” Suddenly, her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and slammed on the brakes. “Get out,” she said urgently. “Toby’s having an episode. I have to go back.” I looked out the window at the torrential rain pouring down. I hesitated for a second, then opened the door. “Wait under an awning!” she shouted as I stepped into the storm. “I’ll drop him at the hospital and come right back for you!” It was midnight. In the middle of a downpour, it was impossible to get an Uber. I waited in a 7-Eleven until three in the morning before a taxi finally picked me up. Those three hours were enough for Margot to drive Toby to the hospital ten times over. But they weren’t enough for her to remember her husband was still standing in the rain. … The next morning, the hospital called. Margot had been in an accident. On her way to Toby’s apartment in the storm, her car hydroplaned and hit a tree. The baby was gone. By the time I reached the hospital, the surgery was over. The doctor looked at me with a grim expression. “Mr. Mercer, I’m so sorry. Given your wife’s condition and the trauma of the accident, it’s unlikely she will be able to conceive again.” Margot had always struggled to get pregnant. When she was twenty-three, she’d had a miscarriage during a high-stakes research tour. She’d woken up in tears, apologizing to me over and over. “I’m sorry, Sam! It’s my fault! I should have noticed sooner!” We had spent six years trying. We’d prayed, we’d seen every specialist in the country. And finally, we’d had this baby. I signed the papers in silence. As I walked toward her room, I ran into Toby. He looked guilt-ridden, but his eyes were sharp with a predatory kind of triumph. “I’m so sorry, Sam! It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t had that stomach cramp, she wouldn’t have rushed, she wouldn’t have crashed…” He dropped to his knees. “Hit me! Punish me! Do whatever you want, just don’t be mad at her!” Margot woke up to his shouting. She sat up, looking pale and broken on the bed. “Sam, leave him alone. It was my fault, I was driving. Don’t take it out on Toby. He’s sick!” I didn’t say a word. I looked at the two of them—the woman who had traded her soul for a boy who played at being a victim. I turned and walked away. “Where are you going?” she yelled, her voice cracking. “Sam! Come back here!” I heard Toby’s voice as the door swung shut. “He’s probably just going home to make you some soup, Professor. He’s just worried about you.” … During the two days Margot was in the hospital, she called me eighteen times. Her texts turned from angry to desperate. Why aren’t you answering? There’s a limit to how long you can throw a tantrum. I’m going to Europe for a conference soon. Tell me if you want anything. Sam? Are you okay? Did something happen? I finally replied: Don’t forget. Monday. The courthouse. She replied instantly: You’re serious? Fine. Don’t come crying to me later when you regret this. Don’t use your ‘health’ as an excuse to back out. On Monday morning, I stood outside the courthouse. Half an hour later, Margot arrived. When I handed her the signed divorce papers, she froze. She stared at the signature as if it were written in a foreign language. “Sam… you’re really doing this?”

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It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, the glittering climax of my engagement dinner. Then Jace, my fiancée’s adopted younger brother, abruptly snatched my phone right out of my hand. Before I could even register the violation, he hit accept on an incoming call and, with a flick of his thumb, put it on speaker. A woman’s voice, dripping with synthetic sweetness, echoed through the ballroom: “What’s your rate for the whole night?” The clinking of champagne flutes stopped. The low hum of conversation vanished. The silence in the room was absolute, the kind of heavy, suffocating quiet that precedes a car crash. Every eye in that banquet hall swiveled toward me, pinning me to the spot like searchlights. Jace, however, acted like we were in a sitcom. He flashed a lazy, impish grin at his sister. “Damn, Pat. I just posted his picture five minutes ago and the inquiries are already rolling in. Better keep a tight leash on this one.” My face flushed with a violent, glacial rage. But Patricia just waved a dismissive hand, a light, airy gesture. “Oh, it’s just kids messing around. Don’t take it so seriously.” Jace was practically vibrating with smugness. “I gotta admit, I picked a hell of a photo. It’s prime advertising.” Right on cue, the massive digital screen at the front of the hall—the one that had been displaying our monogrammed initials—flickered. An advertisement replaced it. It was a photo Patricia had coaxed me into taking last night, lying in bed wearing nothing but a pair of suggestive briefs. Next to my half-naked body, my name and personal cell phone number were printed in bold, undeniable text. But it was the bright red, flashing slogan beneath it that made my blood run cold: “PREMIUM ESCORT. AVAILABLE FOR HOUSE CALLS. GUARANTEED SATISFACTION.” …………… 1 My knuckles turned bone-white as my vision locked onto the massive screen. In the intimate, moody lighting of the bedroom backdrop, my body took up nearly the entire frame. The word “Escort” burned into my retinas, a brand searing my flesh. All around me, the guests—Patricia’s family, her wealthy social circle—were looking at me. Their stares weren’t just judgmental; they were scorching, peeling away my dignity strip by strip. It felt like being flayed alive in a tailored suit. And yet, it was Patricia’s parents who stepped forward to break the tension. Not to defend me, but to manage the optics. “Gideon, take a breath…” Mr. Hastings offered a placating, entirely empty smile. “You know how Jace is. We’ve spoiled him rotten. He’s a bit impulsive, a little reckless, but there’s not a malicious bone in his body.” A chorus of aunts and uncles immediately chimed in, a well-rehearsed symphony of gaslighting. “Exactly! It’s just a prank between boys.” “You’re about to be his brother-in-law. You’re not actually going to hold a grudge against your little brother, are you?” A prank. A laugh scraped the back of my throat, cold and sharp as shattered glass. Broadcasting an intimate photo to a room full of elites, branding me a rent-a-boy—this was a prank? Patricia finally caught the absolute zero temperature in my eyes, and a flicker of panic crossed her perfect face. She stepped forward quickly, reaching for my wrist, desperate to just shove the platinum engagement ring onto my finger and seal the deal. I violently jerked my hand away. That single movement was enough to set Jace off. He shot up from his chair, his voice rough and laced with an ugly, entitled arrogance. “Who the hell are you giving attitude to? You’re marrying into our family. You’re signing on to be a Hastings kept man. Don’t we have the right to inspect the merchandise?” He jutted his chin toward the screen. “Putting it online is just market research. Let’s see if any of your old sugar mamas come calling.” He paused, letting out a dark, mocking snort. “I mean, maybe you weren’t actually in the business before… but considering how popular you are with women, who’s to say you won’t be in the future?” My lungs felt like they were expanding with pure, combustive fury. I took a slow, deliberate step toward him, a bitter smile twisting my lips. “…So, that gives you the right to fabricate rumors and humiliate me in front of my future family?” Faced with the sheer gravity of my anger, Jace’s bravado faltered. The color drained slightly from his cheeks. But Patricia—my supposed partner, the woman who was supposed to stand by my side—stepped right in front of him, shielding him with her own body. “Gideon, what are you doing?” “This is our engagement party. Do you really have to blow this out of proportion and make us a laughingstock?” Safely tucked behind her shoulder, Jace’s eyes gleamed with a cowardly, triumphant malice. He was the fox using the tiger’s might. “My sister is the one doing you a favor by marrying you,” Jace sneered. “And she hasn’t dumped your ass yet. If she doesn’t care, why are you throwing a tantrum?” Looking at the two of them—the united front of siblings, the enabling parents, the murmuring relatives—a profound, sickening clarity washed over me. This whole family was playing me. They were breaking me down, testing my compliance. Seeing my silence, Patricia assumed I had backed down. Her tone softened, dropping into that practiced, placating register. She reached for my hand again. “Gideon, I know Jace came up with the idea, but I’m the one who gave him the photo. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. Let’s just get through the ceremony. You’ll have the rest of our lives to be mad at me in private.” I took a slow, jagged breath, looking at her face as if I were looking at a stranger. I had known Patricia Hastings for twelve years. Only in this exact second did I realize how terrifyingly a person could change. My mind flashed back to our sophomore year of high school. I was a competitive swimmer back then, tall and built differently than the other boys. Girls who had been rejected by me would retaliate out of spite. They used to sneak photos of my chest and abs during gym class, spreading disgusting, hyper-sexualized rumors about me through the locker rooms. Patricia had been my fierce protector. She didn’t care what names they called her; she would march right up to those girls, screaming in their faces until they apologized to me in public. I remembered feeling terrible that she was taking the heat for me. But she had just smiled, a bright, unwavering light. “I’m fine, Gideon. A guy’s reputation matters too. Taking a few insults for you is nothing.” Now, staring at the humiliating billboard glowing above us, that memory felt like a cruel, sick joke. 2 If I was being honest with myself, the warning signs regarding Jace’s bizarre hostility had been there for a long time. The first time I formally met him was when Patricia brought him and some friends out for my birthday dinner. I had dressed up, feeling good about myself. Before the appetizers even hit the table, Jace was taking passive-aggressive shots at me. He looked at my styled hair and tailored shirt and sneered, saying I looked plastic, like a textbook gold-digger just waiting to bleed a rich woman dry. My face had fallen instantly. But Patricia had just rubbed my arm under the table. He’s just blunt, Gideon. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just a kid, don’t let him get to you. Later that night, the waiter brought out the custom cake Patricia had ordered. As it was placed in front of me, Jace laughed, said he was going to help me “take off my makeup,” and shoved my face violently into the frosting. As I sat there, humiliated, wiping cake and icing from my burning eyes, he had put on this wide-eyed, innocent act. “Oh, come on, Gideon, it’s just a joke! Even Pat knows I didn’t mean anything bad by it. You’re not actually mad, right?” From that moment, I knew her adopted brother was poisonous. But Patricia was always the mediator, always blurring the lines, begging me to just let it go for her sake. And she was doing it again right now. Seeing that I was still frozen, refusing to take the ring, Patricia’s voice took on a strained, patronizing edge. “Gideon, okay, the joke went a little too far. When the party is over, I’ll make him give you a proper apology, alright?” “Just be the bigger person. Don’t stoop to his level.” A dry laugh echoed in my chest. He had publicly degraded me in the worst way imaginable, and a forced “sorry” behind closed doors was supposed to fix it? Seeing Patricia firmly in his corner, Jace’s lips curled into a smug little smirk. “It’s just a photoshopped ad, man. What’s the big deal? I’ll delete it from the website right now, happy?” He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. Before he could swipe, I lunged forward. My hand clamped around his wrist like a vise, and I ripped the phone from his grip. “Delete it? Why would I let you do that? This is evidence. You trying to destroy evidence, Jace?” The blood vanished from Jace’s face, leaving him a sickly, terrifying pale. He stammered, “W-what evidence? Are you seriously thinking about calling the cops on me?” Patricia lunged at me, clawing desperately at my hand to get the phone back. “Gideon, have you lost your mind?! Over a stupid little prank, you’re going to involve the police?!” Looking at her contorted, desperate face, I searched for even a fraction of the love she claimed to have for me. There was nothing. Just cold, hostile defense of her brother. “I used to think you were gentle. Empathetic,” she hissed, her voice dropping so only I could hear. “I didn’t expect you to try and establish dominance over my family on day one. Jace is my brother, and you want to send him to jail? When did you become so vindictive?” Jace’s eyes flashed with a sick thrill of victory, but he immediately weaponized his victimhood, tugging pitifully at Patricia’s sleeve. “Pat, don’t. It’s your special night. I don’t want you guys fighting because of me.” The manipulation worked instantly. Patricia looked at him with profound sympathy. “You’re too good to him, Jace.” She turned her glare back to me. “But if I give an inch tonight, you’ll take a mile tomorrow. My mom was right. You can’t spoil a man who’s marrying into your money. Give him a little grace, and he thinks he runs the house.” With every syllable she spat at me, my heart sank further into a bottomless, freezing abyss. A self-deprecating smile touched my lips. She was right about one thing. If I backed down tonight, the abuse would never, ever end. 3 Just then, a commotion erupted at the heavy mahogany doors of the banquet hall. My best friend and business partner, Wyatt, burst into the room. He had brought a whole crew to celebrate. But the second he crossed the threshold and saw the massive, degrading billboard glowing on the screen, he froze. Wyatt was old money, a wildly unapologetic trust-fund kid whose older sister ran one of the most ruthless private equity firms on the East Coast. Wyatt didn’t take shit from anyone. He exploded instantly, his voice cracking like a whip across the silent room. “What the hell is this?!” “Who’s fucking with Gideon at his own engagement party?! Step forward right now, I swear to God!” We had started a design studio together right out of college. For tonight, Wyatt had dropped a twenty-thousand-dollar check on the gift table just to make sure the Hastings family knew I had backing. I grabbed Wyatt’s arm before he could start throwing punches. My face was pale, but my voice was terrifyingly calm. “I’m fine. Don’t swing,” I whispered. “Just… do me a favor. Text your sister. Ask her if what she said to me three months ago is still on the table.” Wyatt blinked, stunned for a microsecond, before a fierce, predatory grin spread across his face. He nodded hard. “Done. And don’t worry, man. Nobody in this room is touching you tonight.” He pulled out his phone and made a single, terse call. Less than ten minutes later, a fleet of black Escalades idled outside the hotel doors. A wall of men in tailored black suits entered, forming a barrier around Wyatt and me, escorting us out. Patricia tried to push through, her face frantic, but the security detail didn’t even let her get within five feet of me. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a barrage of texts from her. Gideon, are you done throwing your tantrum? Twelve years, and you’re just walking away? Do you really have to make this so ugly over a misunderstanding? My brother made a bad joke! Why are you acting like a psycho over it?! She kept using that word. Brother. As if on cue, a new text thread popped up. It was Jace. He sent me over a dozen photos in rapid succession. Some were of him and Patricia in the Hastings’ private pool, his arms wrapped tight around her waist, her body pressed flush against his. Others were selfies on the couch, their heads resting against each other, looking flushed and entirely too intimate. The last file was a video. I clicked play. In it, Jace pulled Patricia into his lap. He kissed her—not a peck, but a deep, desperate kiss. Patricia stiffened for a second, but then, softly, she kissed him back. When she yielded, Jace groaned, kissing her harder, his hands gripping her hips. His voice was a pathetic, needy whisper. “Pat… do you really have to marry him? You know you love me. You know you do.” Patricia shuddered, closing her eyes tightly. “Jace, we were kids. We didn’t know better. But we’re older now. We can’t do this anymore. Gideon will be a good husband… and you… you can only ever be my brother.” Watching them tangle together on the screen, acid rose in my throat. I genuinely wanted to vomit. Jace followed the video with a voice note, his tone a mix of toxic triumph and hysterical venom. “Did you see that, Gideon? She loves me. If you don’t want a marriage where I’m a ghost haunting your bedroom every single night, then back the fuck off. Because if you stay… tonight was just a warm-up.” When I didn’t reply to Patricia’s frantic texts, she finally lost her patience. The pleading turned into a threat. “Three days, Gideon. We are re-doing the ceremony at The Grand Astoria in three days.” “If you want to keep acting like a child by then… fine. But your reputation is already in the gutter. Let’s see who else would ever want you now.” 4 What Patricia didn’t know was that exactly three seconds after her threat came through, another text arrived. It was from Margot. Wyatt’s older sister. She was currently on a business trip in London. The text contained a screenshot of a first-class itinerary back to New York, and a single sentence: “The wedding proceeds. Wait for me.” For the next two days, I ghosted Patricia entirely. Meanwhile, the photoshopped ad Jace had made spread like a virus across local forums and social media. The comments were vile. “Eighteen hundred for that? Escorts really overvaluing themselves these days.” “Probably photoshopped to hell. Guarantee you the guy showing up is a 300-pound creep.” “Way too expensive for used goods.” Patricia finally tracked me down at my studio. She looked exhausted but smug. “Just marry me, Gideon. Do it, and I swear on my life I’ll have PR wipe every trace of this from the internet by tomorrow morning.” I looked at her. I searched her eyes, her posture, the tilt of her chin. I couldn’t find a single trace of the girl who had defended me in the high school hallways. It took me a long time to speak. “Do you remember what you told me back then?” I asked quietly. “You said a man’s reputation matters too. You knew how much that hurt me. Why would you let him do this to me? Why would you help him?” For a second, Patricia was speechless. A flash of genuine shame flickered in her eyes, or maybe it was just guilt at being caught. I didn’t wait for her to formulate an excuse. “Don’t worry,” I said, my voice dead flat. “The wedding at The Grand Astoria is happening tomorrow. Right on schedule.” Just not with you, I added in my head. Patricia totally missed the ice in my eyes. She only heard the compliance. She exhaled a massive sigh of relief, reaching out to touch my arm. “I knew it. I knew you’d be reasonable, Gideon. Don’t worry, I’ll make Jace scrub the internet right now. Once we’re officially married, I’ll have him apologize to your face.” Before she left, she promised me, over and over, how good she was going to treat me once we were husband and wife. I gave her empty nods until she finally left to finalize the catering. On the third day, my black car pulled up to the grand entrance of The Grand Astoria. I stepped out wearing a brand-new, impeccably tailored black Tom Ford tuxedo. When I looked up, the entire Hastings family was waiting by the valet, looking stressed and irritated. Jace’s eyes dragged up and down my suit. He let out a loud, mocking laugh. “I heard you telling your college buddies you broke off the engagement. And yet here you are, wearing a suit that costs more than your car, just for a make-up dinner? Talk a big game, but you still came running like a good little dog.” Patricia’s face darkened, and she gave Jace a performative, half-hearted scolding. “Enough, Jace. I told you to show him some respect.” She reached out to grab my arm, but I sidestepped her smoothly, leaving her grasping at empty air. I ignored the whole family, walking straight past them through the revolving doors. Compared to the opulence of the first banquet, this setup was pathetic. They had secured a twenty-square-foot partition in the hotel’s discounted overflow lobby. Three or four sparse tables were set up. A handful of confused, bored relatives stood around awkwardly. Patricia coughed, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment, but immediately shifted the blame to me. “Well, you ruined the first one. All the guests went home. Did you really expect my parents to shell out another fifty grand to rent the main hall?” She reached for me again. “It’s just a formality anyway. We just need to go through the motions. I promise I’ll make it up to you later.” At that exact moment, the heavy brass doors of the hotel’s VIP wing swung open. A procession of staff, event coordinators, and security poured out. Outside, a line of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys pulled up seamlessly to the curb. And at the center of it all was Margot. She wore an architectural, sweeping white gown that looked like modern armor. She was stunning, sharp-edged, and entirely in control. Catching Patricia reaching for me, Margot’s perfectly sculpted brow twitched. She didn’t even have to speak; she just gave a micro-glance to her detail. The men in suits immediately surged forward, forming an impenetrable physical wall between me and the Hastings family. Margot stopped a few feet away and held out her hand. I closed the distance, a genuine smile breaking across my face, and took the boutonnière she offered me. Patricia stood frozen in absolute shock. Then, reality snapped into place, and she lost her mind. “Gideon! You are my fiancé! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Before she could take another step, two of Margot’s security guards forced her down, twisting her arms expertly behind her back to keep her immobilized. Margot looked down at her, a low, melodic laugh escaping her lips. “Your fiancé? Please. Do you honestly think a piece of trash like you gets to lay claim to my husband?”

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