Category: English

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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My first week on the job, and I was already dealing with a nightmare. There was a woman in the office who claimed to be three weeks pregnant. Relying entirely on this “delicate condition,” she had the audacity to drop a carpooling mandate on my desk. Her reasoning was shockingly entitled: she lived far from the office, and my car met her “high standards.” It was a brand-new, fifty-thousand-dollar Volvo SUV, barely a year off the lot. But the truly unhinged part? She flat-out ordered me to be her personal chauffeur, morning and night, effective immediately. She even had the nerve to add, “Don’t be late.” I actually laughed when I read the email. Usually, I had a private driver. I only had my father’s procurement team select this particular Volvo because it was supposed to be understated—a stealth-wealth commuter car that wouldn’t draw attention to an entry-level analyst. Naturally, I had no intention of entertaining such an absurd demand. I fired back a polite but firm, “I won’t be able to accommodate this.” Her retaliation was swift. The very next day, leveraging her minor administrative privileges as an HR Manager, she flagged my timesheet for arriving late and leaving early, instantly docking my pay. Fine. If she wanted to press her face against the glass, I was more than happy to show her how easily it could shatter. 1 I stared at the notification on my monitor, a bitter laugh dying in my throat. How did people like this exist? The sheer, breathless audacity of trying to claim someone else’s property as a personal perk. I decided the best response was absolute silence. I didn’t reply. I didn’t expect her to march right up to my cubicle and rap her knuckles sharply against the fiberglass partition. “I’m expecting,” she announced, as if she were declaring a royal succession. “I need a dedicated ride.” I looked up. Brittany stood there, arms crossed. “I saw you pull in. Nice car. You have to drive home anyway, so taking me is hardly an inconvenience.” She paused, then added with a terrifyingly casual entitlement, “Oh, and you need to clock out at exactly five from now on. I have to get home to cook dinner for my husband.” A hot, prickling sensation of disgust crawled up the back of my neck. I was used to being chauffeured in a Maybach. Who did she think she was, demanding I act as her personal Uber? Besides, I didn’t even know where she lived. How could she possibly know it was “on the way”? Then it hit me. She was HR. She had pulled my confidential employee file to get my home address. I didn’t have the energy for this theater. I gave her a flat, unblinking look. “I’m sorry, Brittany, but I’m a terrible driver. I mix up the gas and the brake, and I have a habit of stopping short. For the safety of you and your baby, it’s really not a good idea.” I thought giving her a polite out would make her back off. Instead, her voice spiked an octave, piercing through the low hum of the open-plan office. “You can’t drive, but you own a brand-new luxury SUV?” Heads began to pop up over cubicle walls. “Look at you. You’re twenty-two. There’s no way you bought that car on an analyst’s salary. Let me guess—some older man bought it for you? A sponsor? God, girls your age really have no self-respect.” A heavy silence fell over our section. I smiled, a tight, cold thing. Yes, technically, an older man did buy me the car. My father. And what of it? It was literally the cheapest vehicle in our family’s garage. I opened my mouth to respond, but our team lead, Kevin, materialized, wearing his usual appeasing, middle-management grimace. “Margot, come on now,” Kevin sighed, playing the peacemaker. “We’re a team here. We help each other out. Brittany’s pregnant, she’s having a hard time. Is it really that big of a deal to give her a lift? You’re young. You need to learn how to play the game and build relationships.” Listening to his condescending lecture, a wave of nausea washed over me. If he cared so much, why wasn’t he giving her a ride? He was playing the benevolent boss with my time and my gas. I turned back to my dual monitors. “I have reports to run,” I said, my voice dropping to a glacial chill. At 5:05 PM, I walked out to the parking garage. The second the key fob clicked and unlocked the doors, the passenger side was yanked open. 2 Brittany slid into the buttery leather seat with practiced ease and snapped her seatbelt into place. I stood frozen outside the driver’s side door. “What do you think you’re doing? Get out. I’m going home.” “Me too.” She adjusted the AC vents so they blew directly onto her face. “I told you this morning.” She tapped her watch. “Look at the time. You’re five minutes late. Consider this a warning, but next time, I’ll have to write you up for violating the schedule.” My grip tightened on the door handle. “I told you this morning, I’m not comfortable driving you. It’s not happening.” She let out a sharp, mocking snort. “Please. I checked the garage security footage. I saw you parallel park this thing into a compact spot in one fluid motion. Don’t play the helpless rookie with me.” The last frayed thread of my patience snapped. “Get out,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. She crossed her arms, sinking deeper into the upholstery, even hitting the button to recline the seat a few inches. She looked like a squatter who had just discovered squatters’ rights. I didn’t say another word. I turned on my heel and started walking toward the parking attendant’s booth. “Security!” Before I could call out again, a coworker who was about to pull out of his space jogged over, grabbing my elbow. He looked terrified. “Margot, don’t!” he hissed, his eyes darting toward my car. “Brittany is a nightmare. She’s got tenure, and she’s super tight with the regional director upstairs. You do not want to go to war with her.” He looked at me with genuine pity. “Just take my advice. Drive her home tonight. Take the hit. Tomorrow, tell her the engine light came on and the car is in the shop. Take the commuter train for a few weeks until she finds another victim. You can’t beat her, so just hide.” I had to pretend my own car was broken? I had to take the train just to avoid a workplace bully who wanted to exploit me? The sheer absurdity of it sent a spike of pure adrenaline straight to my brain. “Thank you, but no,” I said, pulling my arm free. My voice was harder than I knew it could be. I marched back to my car, leaning down to look Brittany directly in the eye. “Brittany, I will say this exactly one more time. Get out of my car. If you don’t, I am calling 911 to report you for trespassing and attempted grand theft auto. There are cameras everywhere. I will press charges.” She hadn’t expected me to call her bluff. The smugness slid off her face. “Are you a sociopath?” she shrieked, her voice echoing off the concrete pillars. “Do you have any concept of corporate culture? Of basic human decency?” She thrust her completely flat stomach forward. “Look at me! I am a pregnant woman. My body is going through trauma! Asking for a ride is the bare minimum you should be doing as a decent human being!” She was working herself into a frenzy, spittle flying onto my leather dashboard. “But no! You make up lies about your driving! You threaten me with the police! You’re harassing a pregnant woman over a car ride? Where is your conscience? God, you Gen Z kids are so insanely selfish! You contribute nothing to this company, nothing to society!” She took a breath, her face flushed red. “Me sitting in your car is a privilege for you! It’s networking! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” I actually laughed. I braced my hands on the roof of the car, looking down at her. “You want to talk about decency? You climbed into a stranger’s private property without permission, threatened to dock my pay to force me to serve you, and you want to lecture me about corporate culture?” I leaned in closer. “You want a ride? Read my lips. Never. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Now get the hell out of my car.” A small crowd of late-staying employees had gathered by the elevators, watching the spectacle. Brittany’s face went through a kaleidoscope of colors—red, white, then a mottled purple. “Fine!” She unbuckled her seatbelt so violently it snapped back against the window. She shoved the door open. “You’re going to regret this, Margot! Watch your back!” 3 The office was buzzing the moment I walked in the next morning. Brittany was holding court by the espresso machine in the breakroom. “Twenty-two years old, driving a fifty-thousand-dollar car. Please. We all know how she affords that,” Brittany’s voice drifted through the open doorway, loud enough to ensure I heard. “I was just trying to look out for her. Warn her about going down the wrong path. And what does she do? Screams at me like a feral animal. Absolutely no class.” A woman from accounting chimed in, right on cue. “I know, right? Don’t let it get to you, Britt. Just because she has a fancy car doesn’t mean she’s better than us. Who knows what she had to do to get it.” Another voice giggled. “Honestly, I’m just waiting for the day some wealthy guy’s wife drags her out of here by her hair. We should keep our distance. God knows what kind of diseases she’s carrying.” A chorus of hushed, vicious laughter followed. I dropped my tote bag on my desk. I walked straight into the breakroom. “Are you finished?” The laughter died instantly. They whipped around to face me. I let my eyes wander over Brittany and her little audience. “I heard every word you just said.” I stepped closer. “Regarding the accusations that I have a ‘sugar daddy,’ that I’m ‘dirty,’ or that I have ‘diseases’—which one of you has the proof?” I held up my phone. “Do you have photos? Bank statements? A medical record?” Brittany sneered, though her eyes flickered nervously. “Ooh, hit a nerve, did I? If you don’t want people talking, don’t be a walking cliché. You’re an intern, honey. You show up in a luxury car, people are going to talk.” “Spreading malicious, unfounded rumors in the workplace is defamation,” I said, my voice dead calm. “I could sue you for everything you have.” “Sue me?” Brittany barked a laugh, planting her hands on her hips. “Are you delusional? I’m the HR Manager! I control who gets hired, who gets fired, and who passes their ninety-day probationary review! You want to sue me?” She stepped into my personal space, her finger inches from my collarbone. “Your entire career here is in my hands. If I say you’re a poor culture fit, you’re gone by noon. You want to play hardball with me? You’re out of your league, little girl.” The air in the room felt suddenly thick. A few people who had been watching quickly looked down at their phones, shuffling away. I looked at the absolute conviction on her face. The sheer belief that her petty, middle-management power made her invincible. I realized, in that moment, that arguing with a person like this was a waste of oxygen. “Well,” I said softly. “Let’s see just how much power you really have.” I turned my back on her and walked straight to the stairwell, climbing up to the rooftop. The wind was biting. I pulled out my phone and dialed the private line of my father’s chief of staff. “Mr. Caldwell.” “Miss Margot,” the smooth, unflappable voice answered immediately. “I need a deep dive on an employee. Apex Solutions, regional branch. Human Resources Manager, Brittany. I want to know who hired her, who she’s sleeping with, what nepotism got her the role. I want every skeleton.” “Understood.” “And pull everything you have on the Regional Director, Richard. Look for any ties between him and Brittany.” “Consider it done. How quickly do you need this?” “Before lunch.” “Of course, Miss Margot.” I hung up, pressing the cold glass of my phone against my forehead, taking a long, deep breath of the city air. I had taken this job at the bottom of the corporate ladder because I wanted to learn the business from the ground up. I wanted to understand the mechanics of my father’s empire before I inherited it. I wore Zara, I kept my head down, and I never used the family name. But I was learning a painful lesson. In some environments, humility isn’t respected. It’s perceived as weakness. It becomes an invitation for the mediocre and the vicious to trample you. They wanted to flex their pathetic, microscopic amount of power over me? Fine. I was done turning the other cheek. I spent the afternoon working quietly at my desk, ignoring the blatant glares and whispers. When the clock struck five, I packed my bag, badged out, and went down to the garage. As I walked toward my row, my heart suddenly seized. I broke into a run. And then, I saw it.

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I rolled up my sleeve, the motion as thoughtless and routine as breathing, waiting for the cold swipe of the alcohol pad. But instead of the nurse’s gentle touch, Drew’s hand clamped down hard over my forearm. The first day of every month. For over a year, this had been our ritual. This was the day I sat in a pristine leather chair and let them draw my blood—the rare antibodies in my plasma supposedly keeping his chronically ill younger sister alive. He didn’t look at me. His voice was a flat, clinical drone that felt almost deliberately cruel. He told me that the woman whose life I had been sustaining month after month wasn’t his sister at all. She was his ex-wife. “Her autoimmune flare-ups have stabilized,” he said, casually adjusting his cuffs. “She’s fully recovered. We don’t need your plasma anymore.” I stared down at the crook of my elbow. The skin there was a constellation of tiny, faded purple dots—a roadmap of my devotion. A violent tremor started in my hands and quickly took over my entire body. “How could you?” The words tore out of my throat, raw and agonizing. “You knew I was pregnant during half those donations! You knew the risk—one wrong move, one drop in my pressure, and it could have killed the baby!” I was screaming now, but Drew’s face remained a mask of flawless, terrifying indifference. If anything, the look he gave me was laced with pity. “I was fully aware of the risks, Jolie,” he said softly. “But you see, the embryo the clinic implanted… it was created using my sperm and Cheryl’s egg. You were just carrying our child.” 1 “What?” The word hung in the air, impossibly fragile. A high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears. Drew pulled a silver lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette. He looked annoyed, but beneath that annoyance was a sickening sense of entitlement. “Cheryl has a fragile constitution. Carrying a child to term would have destroyed her body. Why else do you think I married you?” He exhaled a plume of smoke, looking at me through the gray haze. “But it worked out. The boy is healthy, and her illness is in remission. If you want a divorce now, I won’t contest it.” He let out a long breath, as if a massive weight had been lifted from his tailored shoulders. He looked at my face—which must have been the color of chalk—and actually offered a light, breezy chuckle. “You have no idea the toll this took on me. Every time I was with you, it felt like I was having an affair. Like I was betraying her.” He paused, his eyes darkening with a twisted sort of loyalty. “I never even slept with you without getting her permission first.” The ringing in my ears escalated into a deafening roar. Fragments of our marriage—the tender late-night whispers, the tangled sheets, the vows we took—crashed through my mind, broken and bleeding. My lips trembled, but I couldn’t form a single syllable. As if reading the devastation in my eyes, Drew let out a low, dark laugh. “Last night, when we were in bed? She was on the phone. Listening. It made her so furious she was practically screaming, calling you a whore.” He shook his head, sounding almost disappointed in me. “But you were so far gone, so desperate for it, you didn’t even notice the phone on the nightstand.” The sheer humiliation of it, the absolute violation, surged up from my stomach and exploded behind my eyes. I lunged forward and slapped him across the face with every ounce of strength I had. “You monster!” Drew ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the inside of his cheek. He didn’t look angry. He just looked thoroughly, unapologetically rotten. “I’ll admit, it was a shitty thing to do. I originally planned to keep you in the dark forever. But yesterday, Cheryl saw Toby call you ‘Mommy.’ She broke down. She cried for hours.” He sighed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. “It broke my heart. I can’t let her suffer like that.” He stared right at me, and in that split second, I knew exactly what he was going to say. My body instinctively scrambled backward, pressing hard against the back of the chair. “Don’t you even think about it,” I gasped, terror wrapping around my throat. Drew lunged, grabbing my wrists. He looked at my tears as if they were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. “Jolie, be rational. You are not his biological mother. If we take him back now, you’ll get over it eventually. It won’t hurt as much as you think.” “I raised him for three years!” I shrieked, the tears spilling over, hot and pathetic and desperate. “A thousand days and nights! Do you know he’s allergic to mangoes? Do you know he ends up in the ER every spring with croup? Do you have any fucking idea that I nearly bled to death on the delivery table having him?!” For a fraction of a second, Drew’s expression went completely blank. I let out a broken, hysterical laugh. I remembered it now. He wasn’t there when I gave birth. I had been hemorrhaging. The doctors were shouting, the alarms were blaring, and I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe, begging the nurses to call my husband. I just wanted him to hold my hand. When they finally got him on the phone, his voice was like ice. “I told you, I’m closing a massive acquisition today. Women give birth every second of the day, Jolie. Stop acting like a spoiled brat.” But right before the line went dead, I had heard it. A woman’s soft, melodic giggle in the background. Pleased. Mocking. I had convinced myself it was a hallucination brought on by the blood loss. But it was Cheryl. I sobbed, my chest heaving uncontrollably. Drew watched me, and for a fleeting moment, a flicker of genuine pity crossed his eyes. He opened his mouth, perhaps to offer some hollow comfort, but his cell phone buzzed. He answered it. Cheryl’s voice bled through the speaker, sharp and furious, like a wife catching her husband in a cheap motel. “Why aren’t you answering my texts?! You’re screwing that bitch right now, aren’t you? Don’t think I don’t know how much you love that slut’s body!” Drew smiled. It was a helpless, entirely devoted smile. “Baby, don’t be mad. I’m not doing anything. I promised you I’d handle it, didn’t I? Have I ever let you down?” “Then how are you going to handle it? I want her to get on her knees and apologize to me!” He poured all his attention into the phone, soothing her, validating her. He didn’t even bother taking it off speakerphone. He didn’t care that I was sitting two feet away, listening to them discuss how to dispose of me as if I were the mistress who had overstayed her welcome. My stomach cramped so violently I thought I might throw up. I couldn’t listen to another word. Face ashen, I turned and stumbled toward the door. 2 Footsteps echoed behind me. Drew grabbed my arm, his tone dripping with annoyance. “Where are you running off to? Come back inside and apologize to Cheryl.” “For what?!” I whipped my head around, my eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred. Drew flinched. He wasn’t used to seeing me like this—so sharp, so jagged. He looked away, his jaw tightening. “I saved your life back then. Consider this your repayment.” The world seemed to drop out from under me. A devastating sob tore itself from my chest. Through the blur of my tears, I was violently pulled back to three years ago. I was twenty, trapped in the dirt yard of a crumbling trailer park, being beaten black and blue by my stepbrother and stepmother. Neighbors had gathered around the chain-link fence, watching the spectacle. My biological father leaned against a rusted pickup truck, smoking a cigarette and offering color commentary. “That’s what you get for hiding your waitress tips from us! Beat the brat!” My throat was raw from screaming. My back was a tapestry of welts and bruises from the broom handle. But worse than the physical agony was the look in the eyes of my high school classmates standing in the crowd—pity mixed with revulsion. I had prayed to die right there in the dirt. But just as I was losing consciousness, a sleek black Porsche had torn into the yard. Drew had stepped out like something from another universe. He had punched my stepbrother to the ground, scooped my bleeding body into his arms, and carried me toward his car. My father and stepmother had charged at him, screaming bloody murder. “You rich prick! That’s kidnapping! Put the little bitch down!” Drew had gently set me in the passenger seat, pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his jacket, and thrown it in their faces. His voice had been colder than the bottom of the ocean. “Listen to me very carefully. Jolie has nothing to do with you anymore. If you ever breathe in her direction again, I have enough lawyers to bury you under a prison.” For months after that, Drew had built a fortress around me. And I, like a drowning girl, had clung to him as my sole savior. But life doesn’t deal in fairytales. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The man I thought was my redemption was just a predator dressed in a designer suit, dragging me into a much deeper, darker abyss. The phantom pain of those old bruises merged with the very real shattering of my heart. I pressed my fists hard against my chest, trying to breathe. Drew frowned, stepping forward to pull me into a hug, to stop me from hurting myself. But before he could touch me, Cheryl materialized out of nowhere and slapped me so hard my teeth rattled. “You shameless whore! Trying to seduce my husband right out in the open!” Between the shock and the chronic anemia from being her personal blood bank, my vision went black. I slammed my hand against the brick wall of the clinic to keep from collapsing. Pedestrians were stopping. Whispers rippled through the gathering crowd, their eyes darting between us with disgust and morbid curiosity. The humiliation was acidic. I stiffened my spine and pointed a shaking finger at her. “You’re lying! Drew and I are legally married! You’re the mistress!” Instead of looking ashamed, Cheryl’s lips curled into a slow, terrifyingly smug smile. “Oh? Are you sure about that?” Panic flashed across Drew’s face. He reached out, trying to pull her away. “Cheryl, let’s go—” She shoved him off, her eyes locked on me as she gleefully butchered my reality. “Keep dreaming, sweetie. I never signed the divorce papers. How the hell can you be his legal wife?” Gravity ceased to exist. I crashed heavily to the pavement, all expression wiped from my face. The whispers from the crowd turned into a loud, righteous buzzing. Fingers pointed at me like daggers. “Oh my god, she actually is the homewrecker. The absolute nerve of her.” “Screwing a married man before he’s even divorced? Trash. Someone record this and put it on TikTok. Expose her.” My skull felt like it was cracking open. I opened my mouth to defend myself, to scream the truth, but looking at the sea of disgusted faces, I realized none of them wanted the truth. They just wanted a villain. My chest heaved. I let out a guttural, wounded scream. And then, a tiny, tear-soaked voice pierced through the noise. “You’re mean! Stop hurting my mommy!” Toby wriggled out of the nanny’s arms by the clinic entrance and ran toward me on his little toddler legs, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks. “Mommy, Mommy! I’ll protect you!” My heart plummeted into my stomach. Instinctively, I opened my arms to catch him. But Cheryl lunged and grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Her smugness vanished, replaced by a grotesque, manic fury. “Look at me! I am your mother! Call me Mommy! Say it!” Toby burst into terrified wails. His little face went pale with panic as he reached his chubby hands out toward me, his fingers grasping at empty air. “Mommy! Help! Mommy!” A primal, agonizing pain ripped through my chest. I scrambled up from the concrete and threw my entire body weight at Cheryl, tackling her. “Let him go!” My hands found her throat. I don’t know where the strength came from—rage, motherly instinct, or pure madness—but she was entirely powerless against me. But my victory lasted less than three seconds. Hands clamped onto my shoulders and violently hurled me backward onto the ground. “Jolie, are you out of your fucking mind?!” Drew roared, his face twisted in fury. “Cheryl is sick! Why are you so evil?!” 3 Drew knelt on the ground, wrapping his arms protectively around Cheryl, his eyes filled with nothing but absolute loathing for me. I lay sprawled on the concrete. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t say a word. I just dragged myself up on my hands and knees, reaching frantically for Toby to check if he had been hurt in the scuffle. But before I could even touch his hair, Drew snatched him up. “You’re completely unhinged,” he spat. “Cheryl and I are taking Toby. You need to go somewhere and get your head checked.” Toby looked paralyzed with fear, thrashing in Drew’s grip, his little arms reaching for me. “Want my mommy! I want Mommy!” “Toby!” I shrieked, stumbling after them. But the crowd of bystanders—these self-righteous strangers—stepped in my way, forming a physical wall between me and my son. “The kid belongs to the married couple, lady! Just because you babysat him for a while doesn’t make him yours. You can’t beat biology!” Every word they spoke was a knife twisting in my ribs. Tears blinded me. I stood there, utterly helpless, as Drew carried my sobbing child to his car, shoved him inside, and drove away. “Give him back,” I whispered to the empty street. “Give him back…” The world tilted, went gray, and then completely black. When I opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room blinded me. Drew was sitting in the visitor’s chair. He looked exhausted, a rare, deep crease forming between his brows. Seeing me stir, he immediately leaned forward and tried to take my hand. “Jolie, stop fighting this. Just rest.” He sighed heavily. “I wired a million dollars into your account. Consider it compensation.” “A divorce settlement?” I croaked, and then a bitter laugh bubbled up my throat. “No, wait. It’s a breakup fee. Five years of my youth, acting as a free surrogate and a walking blood bank… don’t you think you’re being a little cheap, Drew?” He watched me quietly for a moment. Then, without missing a beat, he said, “I’ll wire another million.” He paused. “But Toby… I need you to stay away from him.” It felt like invisible hands were strangling me. My eyes burned, bloodshot and feral. “Why?” “Because a boy needs his real mother. You have no biological connection to him.” His voice was void of any emotion. Fresh tears spilled hot tracks down my cheeks, but the fight hadn’t left me yet. “I’ll sue you. I’ll go to the police. Bigamy, medical fraud, whatever it takes!” Drew blinked, his expression softening into that awful, condescending pity again. “Why put yourself through that?” he murmured. “Jolie… you know you can’t win against my lawyers.” His gaze dropped to my lower lip, which I was biting so hard it was bleeding. A strange, unfocused look came over his eyes. As if driven by some dark, selfish impulse, his tone shifted, dropping into a low, husky whisper. “If you really can’t bear to be apart from the boy… there is another way.” I shot up, grabbing the sleeve of his expensive shirt, my heart hammering. “What way?” Drew smiled. He turned his hand over and gently stroked my knuckles with his thumb. “We separate, but we don’t end things. I’ll buy you a luxury condo downtown. Whenever I have free time, I’ll bring Toby over to see you.” The silence in the hospital room was absolute. I let out two hollow, breathless laughs, then violently slapped his hand away. “You want me to be your mistress. You want me to sit quietly in some condo while you play happy family with your wife, waiting for the nights you get bored and decide you need to get your rocks off?” His brow furrowed. He maintained his maddening patience, speaking to me as if I were a petulant child. “There’s no need to make it sound so ugly. It’s an arrangement that benefits us both. Toby gets the love of two mothers, and I can still take care of you. You’re completely alone in this world, Jo. I’d worry about you.” He spoke so softly, so tenderly, weaving a narrative where he was the benevolent protector. But I knew the truth now. It was just a pretty lie to satisfy his own insatiable greed. He wanted the trophy wife and the devoted martyr, all under his control. My stomach churned violently. I threw off the thin hospital blanket and swung my legs over the side of the bed, putting as much distance between us as the small room allowed. “Keep your money. Keep your condo.” Drew’s face darkened. He had thrown me a bone, expecting the pathetic, love-starved girl he had groomed to crawl back to him with gratitude. My rejection bruised his massive ego. “Suit yourself,” he snapped, standing up and smoothing his jacket. “I’m only offering this once. When reality hits you and you regret this, don’t come crying to me. There are no second chances.” I wrapped my arms around myself, staring blankly out the window, refusing to give him another word. The door slammed shut with a concussive force, leaving me alone in the sterile silence. That night, I didn’t sleep a wink. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Toby screaming for me. At dawn, I checked myself out, packed a single suitcase from the house that was no longer mine, and left. I was sitting in a cheap motel room, trying to figure out my next move, when my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification. It was a post from Cheryl. “Baked a strawberry mango shortcake for my little prince! He threw a tantrum at first, but after Mommy force-fed him the first two bites, he gobbled it all up!” My heart stopped. The blood roared in my ears, and my fingers shook so violently I could barely type. “TOBY IS DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO MANGOES!!! GET HIM TO THE ER NOW!!!” I hit send. Two seconds later, the comment vanished. Deleted. I frantically hit her contact name to call her. Call Failed. Number Blocked. 4 I didn’t think. I just grabbed my keys, sprinted to my car, and drove like a maniac. Ten minutes later, I was throwing my shoulder against Cheryl’s heavy mahogany front door until the lock gave way. I burst into the living room. Cheryl was standing there, looking annoyed. In her arms, Toby was thrashing, violently scratching at his neck. His breaths were coming in short, agonizing wheezes. When she saw me, her face contorted with rage. “What the hell are you doing?! Get the fuck out of my house!” She aggressively shifted Toby to her hip, turning her back to me to hide him. I pointed at my son, cold sweat dripping down my spine. “Are you insane?! He’s going into anaphylactic shock! Call an ambulance!” “He is not! Stop making up lies!” Cheryl screamed, marching over and shoving me hard in the chest. “Get out! You psycho bitch, you’re just looking for an excuse to steal my husband and my kid! If you ever come back here, I’ll carve up your face!” Toby’s skin was turning a terrifying shade of red. He was sobbing, a horrific, raspy sound. He saw me over her shoulder and desperately reached out, his tiny fingers hooking into the fabric of my sweater. “Mommy… Mommy, it hurts…” Cheryl didn’t even look at him. She was entirely consumed with her hatred for me, slapping at my arms and screaming obscenities in my face. Something inside my brain just snapped. I grabbed her wrist, twisted it hard, and used my momentum to throw her to the hardwood floor. “Ahhh!” she shrieked, curling into a ball and clutching her arm. I didn’t hesitate. I scooped Toby into my arms and bolted for the front door. But as I crossed the threshold, I slammed directly into Drew’s solid chest. He staggered back, his eyes darting from me, to the crying child in my arms, to his wife sobbing on the floor. His face turned thunderous. “Jolie, what the fuck is wrong with you?! Put him down!” Cheryl wailed from the floor, pointing a trembling finger at me. “Drew! She broke in! She’s trying to kidnap Toby! Call the police and lock this bitch up!” I gripped Toby tighter, my chest heaving. “No! I’m not kidnapping him! He’s having an allergic reaction! He needs an EpiPen, he needs a hospital!” “Enough!” Drew barked. He looked at me with absolute, chilling disgust. There wasn’t a shred of belief in his eyes. He stepped toward me, his sheer size intimidating. “Stop the goddamn theatrics, Jo. Hand him over.” Toby had stopped fighting. His little head lolled against my collarbone, his breathing terrifyingly shallow. My heart was tearing itself to shreds. I braced my legs, preparing to run past him, to fight my way to the car. But Drew anticipated it. He lunged, blocking my path and shoving me hard by the shoulders. I lost my balance and crashed onto the porch. Drew ripped Toby from my arms. I scrambled forward, sobbing, gripping the leg of Drew’s trousers. “Look at him! Just look at him, Drew! He’s losing consciousness!” A sharp kick caught me in the shoulder. Cheryl had scrambled up and thrown herself on top of me, her nails digging into my scalp as she beat me. “Stay away from my son, you fucking psycho!” Neighbors were stepping out onto their lawns, their phones out, murmuring in horror. “Is she trying to kidnap the kid? Jesus.” “Someone call the cops! Hold her down!” I screamed, a sound of pure agony. Hearing it, Drew frowned. He looked down at me with a flicker of hesitation. For a fraction of a second, his grip loosened. And in that moment, the child in his arms—limp and boneless as a ragdoll—slipped downward. Drew froze. A terrible buzzing filled his ears. Slowly, agonizingly, he looked down at the boy in his hands. And what he saw made his heart completely stop.

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The morning of the convention, the clock was ticking down to doors-open, but I was still fumbling with the satin ribbons of my cosplay. I’d spent nearly an hour staring at the character poster, trying to replicate that perfect, gravity-defying bow, but my fingertips were slick with frustration and sweat. That’s when Daniel leaned over. He picked up the fallen ends of the ribbon, his hands moving with a practiced, fluid grace. In seconds, he’d turned the limp fabric into a crisp, voluminous bow. I caught his reflection in the mirror, my eyebrows climbing. “Since when did a software engineer learn how to do that?” He straightened up, giving me that easy, boyish smile I’d loved for seven years. “Anything for you, right?” I did a slow pirouette, admiring the silhouette, but Daniel frowned, tilting his head as he studied his handiwork. He muttered under his breath, “Wait… something still isn’t right.” I stopped mid-turn and looked up at him, my voice barely a whisper. “What’s wrong with it?” 1 Daniel’s fingers twitched for a second, but he didn’t answer. He just laughed it off, reaching out to ruffle my hair. “We’ve got to move, or you’re going to miss the opening ceremony. Weren’t you dying to get a photo with that guest artist?” I stayed rooted to the spot, my eyes dropping to his hand as he gripped the strap of my gear bag. “You’ve tied that bow for someone else before, haven’t you?” The air in the room seemed to vanish for half a beat. The smile on his face didn’t disappear, but it grew thin, brittle. I watched the slight movement of his throat as he swallowed before he bent down to pick up my prop staff. “What goes on in that head of yours, Jo?” he asked, his tone perfectly light. “Remember when I worked at that high-end gift wrap shop during grad school? I spent eight hours a day tying bows for rich ladies’ Christmas hampers. I could tie these in my sleep back then. It’s muscle memory, that’s all.” It was a perfect explanation. Natural. Logical. I remembered that job. I used to bring him coffee while he worked behind a counter piled high with gold foil and velvet ribbon. He wasn’t lying about the experience. But as I stared at the bow on my hip, a cold, nagging sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. Something was off, but I couldn’t put a finger on the shape of the wrongness. I watched him carefully pack my bag, making sure to include the portable charger, the cooling mist, and even a small clip-on fan because I’d complained once about how hot the convention halls get. “All set,” he said, checking his phone. “And I found that gourmet taco truck you wanted to try—it’s parked right by the north exit. We can hit it on the way out.” I forced a smile. That nameless anxiety felt silly in the face of such thoughtfulness. Maybe I was just projecting my own stress onto him. We made it just as the hall lights dimmed for the opening. This was the biggest fan expo the city had seen in years, and I’d been counting down the days for months. I was busy recording the stage on my phone when Daniel leaned in, whispering in my ear as the cosplayers began their walk. “That one’s from Elden Ring, right?” “And that’s the lead singer from Starry Skies!” He didn’t miss a single one. Even when an obscure NPC from a niche indie game appeared, Daniel leaned over and whispered the character’s name and their specific backstory. The music was deafening, the crowd a sea of neon and joy, but my heart was sinking like a stone in deep water. Daniel is a classic tech guy. In our seven years together, he’d treated my hobbies with a sort of polite, distant tolerance. Usually, if I tried to get him to watch an anime with me on the couch, he’d be snoring by the second episode. The unease I’d tried to bury came roaring back. People don’t just wake up one day with a PhD in a subculture they’ve ignored for a decade. I lowered my phone, my hands shaking slightly. I tried to keep my voice casual, as if we were just chatting. “When did you become such an expert? I don’t even recognize half of these.” He rubbed the back of his neck, the tips of his ears turning a tell-tale shade of pink under the strobe lights. “You’re always saying I don’t take an interest in what you love,” he said. “I’ve been following this one creator on YouTube who does deep dives into lore. I guess I’m a fast learner.” I bit my lip. “That’s a very thorough YouTuber.” His gaze flickered for a split second before he pulled me into his side, his arm heavy around my shoulders. “Honey, they’re a pro. I just wanted to be able to talk to you about this stuff. I wanted to be part of your world for once.” I didn’t say anything else. I just nodded and let him hold me. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of forced smiles. A question was taking root in my mind, growing thorns: Is he doing this because he loves me, or because he’s practicing for someone else? When the convention wrapped, Daniel—who usually hates crowds and street food—insisted on taking me to the night market nearby. I watched him order extra-spicy skewers, something he’s never been able to handle. He bought two cups of sickly sweet boba tea, even though he’s a black-coffee-only purist. That night, back at the hotel, he left his phone on the nightstand while he went to shower. An ad popped up on his screen from a shopping app—recommendations for three different floral perfumes. I have chronic allergies. I haven’t worn perfume in seven years. In that single, quiet moment, the floor fell away. I knew. Daniel was seeing someone else. 2 When Daniel came out of the bathroom, he reached for me like he always did, his skin warm and smelling of hotel soap. I pulled away, instinctively. “I’m exhausted, Dan. My feet are killing me.” He didn’t push. He just leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Goodnight, baby.” He was asleep within minutes. I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, replaying every bow he’d tied and every character name he’d whispered. After an hour of agonizing, I reached out and took his phone from the nightstand. He hadn’t changed the passcode. I went through everything. Photos, texts, call logs—nothing. His Uber history showed only home and the office. His Venmo was just rent and split dinners with friends. It was a clean phone. Too clean. I felt a wave of relief so strong I almost cried. I was being paranoid. I was the crazy girlfriend. But as I went to put the phone back, a notification chimed. An app I didn’t recognize—a boutique marketplace for handmade goods. I tapped it. The shop was called “Zoey’s Craft Haven.” It was a small-scale page, mostly custom cosplay commissions and accessories. On the surface, it looked like a dozen other shops. Then I saw the model in the featured banner. She was leaning against a brick wall, her hair grazing her collarbone, a playful, dimpled smile on her face. She was wearing the exact same costume I’d worn today. Using a reverse image search was easy. Within minutes, I found her social media. Her handle was @ZoeyNotTheZoo. Her bio read: Cosplayer/Artist. Commissions open. She was based in a city only two hours away from ours. I scrolled down to a pinned video. She was dressed as a cat-girl, lounging on a bed, posing for someone behind the camera. I was about to exit when I heard a voice from the speakers. “Baby, don’t move. Just one more shot.” It was Daniel’s voice. That specific, indulgent tone he used when he was looking at something he adored. The exact same inflection he’d used with me for seven years. He even used the same nickname. The sound felt like a physical blow to my eardrums. My body began to tremble, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. I closed my eyes and the images flooded in. Daniel holding her. Daniel kissing her—forehead, nose, lips. Daniel staying up late to help her sew a costume, learning the lore of her favorite shows so he could impress her. The tears came silently. I had thought we were the lucky ones. Seven years, and we were supposed to be the “happily ever after.” But you can’t argue with a ghost in a video. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. 3 I spent the rest of the night like a masochist, scrolling through every post she had. Her name was Zoey. About six months ago, Daniel’s company had hired her cosplay troupe to do some promotional work for a product launch. That was the spark. At first, it looked professional. She mentioned him in a post, thanking “the lead engineer” for helping with the tech setup on stage. Daniel had been the same as always during that time—coming home for dinner, bringing me my favorite snacks, listening to me vent about my boss. He’d laugh at his phone sometimes, but he’d always say it was just “crap from the group chat.” When did it change? Three months ago. She posted a photo of a hospital wristband at 2 AM. The caption: “Scary night with food poisoning, but thank God someone was there to drive me to the ER.” Daniel had been on a “business trip” in her city that weekend. Daniel stirred in his sleep, his hand reaching out blindly for mine. “Baby… come here…” I wiped my face, but the tears wouldn’t stop. On his lock screen, our photo from last summer was still there. We looked so happy. But now, I didn’t know which “baby” he was dreaming about. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. We were high school sweethearts. He was the man who told every friend he ever had that he’d marry me. He was the man who stayed awake for three nights straight in a plastic chair when I had my appendix out. How does that man just… disappear? What choked me the most was that he was willing to learn a whole new world for her—a world he’d dismissed when it was mine. It was a jagged pill I couldn’t swallow. I sat there until the sun began to peek through the hotel curtains. Then, I put his phone back, picked up mine, and booked two train tickets to Zoey’s city. When Daniel woke up, I told him I’d changed our plans. His smile faltered. “Why there? I thought we were going to the theme parks for your birthday? I spent a fortune on those express passes, Jo. You know how hard they are to get.” I held up my phone, cutting him off. “There’s a legendary artist doing a signing there. You know, the one I’ve talked about a million times? It’s a one-day-only thing.” He looked like he wanted to argue, so I added the finisher: “Plus, my mom really wanted me to pick up some of that specialty sourdough from the bakery there. You wouldn’t mind, would you?” The tension in his shoulders bled out instantly. “Oh. Sure. It just caught me off guard.” He kept glancing at his pocket. There was a bulge there—a small, square box. I pretended not to see it as I urged him to pack. “Hurry up! I want to get there before the line gets crazy.” By the time we arrived in Zoey’s city, Daniel was glued to his phone. He kept checking his notifications, a small, secret smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Before we left the hotel, he helped me with my dress again. His movements were so practiced now, so effortless. “You’ve really mastered this,” I said, watching him in the mirror. “I’m a fast learner, remember?” “Right. Oh, by the way, I hired a local freelance assistant to help us at the signing. The lines are supposed to be brutal, so she’s going to meet us to help hold our spot.” “That’s my girl,” he said, kissing my temple. “Always thinking ahead. I’m looking forward to learning more about your scene.” I smiled. “Pay close attention, then.” After we bought the gifts for my parents, I led him to a themed cafe in the arts district. When Daniel saw the girl waiting at the corner table, the blood drained from his face so fast I thought he might faint. “Hi there,” I said, extending my hand with a bright, fake smile. “You must be Zoey?” 4 “Hi…” Zoey had been looking down, adjusting the lace on her skirt. When she looked up, her smile was radiant—until she saw Daniel standing behind me. She froze. The girl’s eyes began to well up almost instantly as they locked onto his. I kept my arm looped firmly through Daniel’s, tilting my head innocently. “Why are you guys looking at each other like that? Do you already know each other?” “No. No, we don’t,” Daniel blurted out, his hands waving dismissively. Zoey’s eyes turned a deeper shade of red. The lunch was a masterclass in torture. Daniel sat there like he was in an electric chair, making every excuse to leave the table—to use the restroom, to check the parking meter, to take a “work call.” Every time he left, Zoey’s phone would buzz with a text. I acted like I noticed nothing. I insisted on taking “cute” photos with Daniel, posing him so his arm was around me, making sure the flash on my camera was bright and obvious. Zoey’s composure was disintegrating. By the time our “commission” was over, her face was flushed. “Are you okay? You look like you have a fever,” I said with faux concern. She bit her lip, throwing a desperate glance at Daniel. He looked at the ceiling. Zoey looked down, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling great today. I’ve ruined the mood. I’ll… I’ll give you a discount on the fee.” I smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry about it. Your outfit is stunning, though. Can you send me the link to your shop?” She nodded, reaching for her phone to add me on social media. Daniel lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. “Jo, let’s go. This style isn’t for you anyway. It’s a bit… juvenile, don’t you think?” He practically dragged me out of the cafe. At the door, I turned back and waved at Zoey. “I’ll definitely be booking you again!” Daniel didn’t say a word. He hailed a cab and basically shoved me inside. Seeing his face—the raw, panicked fury behind the mask—I felt a tiny, cold spark of satisfaction. By the time we got back to the hotel, Daniel had smoothed his features back into that “devoted boyfriend” look. I sat on the edge of the bed, chatting idly. “That girl today was so pretty. How old do you think she is?” “Younger than you,” he snapped. The air in the room turned to ice. Realizing his mistake, he cleared his throat. “I mean… she looked young. Just a guess.” “I see.” Daniel didn’t want to talk anymore. He started rummaging through his suitcase for his pajamas, the sound of the zipper harsh and frantic in the quiet room. “Get some sleep,” he said, tucking me in with exaggerated care. “We have to be up early for the Stevensons’ wedding tomorrow.” I closed my eyes. At midnight, I heard the rustle of clothes. The door opened a crack, a sliver of hallway light cutting across the carpet, and then clicked shut. I was alone. I opened my phone. Zoey had posted a new video thirty minutes ago. She was holding a wine glass, crying her eyes out. The caption was just one line: Even after all this, I still love you. Daniel had commented five minutes ago. “Wait for me.” I stared at those three words for a long time. Then I turned off the screen. Daniel didn’t come back that night. I didn’t sleep a wink. In the morning, he walked in carrying a bag of fresh pastries. He looked at me, dressed and ready, and forced a smile. “I went out early to get these. Your favorite—almond croissants from that place down the street.” He pressed the bag into my hands. I could smell a faint, unfamiliar perfume clinging to his collar. “By the way, baby,” he said, his voice dropping into that romantic register. “I have a huge surprise for you today.” I smiled back. “So do I.” 5 I’d known about his “secret” for a week. My best friend had been dropping hints about ring sizes. Daniel had been having “top secret” dinners with the groom. He’d been obsessively talking about our “journey” as a couple. Everything pointed to one thing. People think women are intuitive, but the truth is, we only miss the details when we choose to trust. Once the trust is gone, every detail is a scream. I put on my most flawless makeup. I wore my favorite dress. Daniel and I arrived at the wedding looking like the golden couple. He leaned in, his breath warm against my ear. “You look breathtaking today, Jo.” I looked at him in his custom suit and smiled. “You too.” “It’s a special day, after all,” he whispered. The Stevensons had been together for ten years. Watching them exchange vows, seeing that raw, honest happiness, actually made me cry. I was mourning a version of us that had already died. The bouquet toss was at the end of the night. The bride walked straight off the stage and pressed the flowers into my hands. The band shifted. They started playing “Our Song”—the one from our very first date. Suddenly, the giant projector screens in the ballroom flickered to life. It started with a slideshow of our life. Our college orientation. Our first shitty apartment. That sunset in Maine last summer. Seven years of us. I watched it all, tears streaming down my face. How could two people who loved each other this much end up here? The final slide was a photo of us on a pier, silhouettes against the orange sky. The text underneath read: Seven years was just the beginning. Will you give me forever? The room erupted. People were cheering, whistling, clapping. Every eye was on us. Daniel took a deep breath, his hands shaking as he dropped to one knee. He pulled a velvet box from his pocket, his eyes shining with what looked like pure, unadulterated devotion. “Joanna, will you marry me?” Time stopped. The whole world was waiting for me to say yes. I looked into his eyes—those eyes that had looked at Zoey the same way—and I let out a soft, jagged laugh. “Daniel,” I said, my voice carry across the silent room. “Which ‘baby’ are you asking right now?”

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In this life, I am still the executive assistant. My boss is still the girl I grew up with. In my last life, when the boy who hung the moon in her sky handed her a joint venture proposal, I quietly intercepted it and turned it down behind her back. As a result, she made my life a living hell, systematically destroying everything I cared about until my family was left with nothing. When the fatal car crash finally took my life, she stood over my broken body, gave a soft, dismissive laugh, and whispered, “If there’s a next life, stay out of my business.” Now, I am breathing again. And when that same proposal crosses my desk, I don’t reject it. I hand it right to her. Not long after, her empire crumbles into bankruptcy. And I turn around, walking straight into the arms of my billionaire father. 01 “Catherine, this is the development proposal from Wesley Hawthorne.” I watched as Catherine Dupont, who had been wearing her usual icy CEO mask, suddenly lit up, her hands trembling slightly as she took the portfolio from me. The only reason she was this excited was because Wesley was her ultimate “what-if”—the golden boy she had spent her entire adolescence pining for, the one who always managed to slip through her fingers. But looking at the reality of the situation, Hawthorne Industries and the Dupont Group were apex predators in the same sector. They were fierce competitors. Not to mention, Wesley hadn’t bothered to initiate contact with Catherine in over a decade. For him to suddenly extend an olive branch out of the blue… anyone with a shred of business acumen would pause to look for the poison on the leaves. “Wesley actually reached out to me? Elliot, hurry up, schedule a meeting for us to sign the paperwork.” Catherine’s face was glowing. She was entirely incapable of sitting down to weigh the pros and cons. If this were my previous life, I would have spoken up to stop her. After all, childhood loyalties are nothing but loose sand in the face of corporate greed. People change. I did exactly that in my last life. And she screamed at me, her face twisted in rage. “Elliot, do you think everyone in the world is as cold-blooded and ungrateful as you are?!” “If Wesley hadn’t pulled me out of that lake when we were kids, I would have died!” I knew she was blindly devoted to him. The more I tried to reason with her, the more she hated me. So, I took the hit. I went behind her back and formally rejected the partnership. I didn’t do it out of jealousy. I didn’t care that she loved him instead of me. I did it because that “partnership” was a ticking time bomb Wesley had custom-built to blow the Dupont Group to pieces. Before I died in my last life, I never regretted what I did, even when Catherine found out, threw apocalyptic tantrums, and made my daily existence an absolute nightmare. At the very least, the Dupont Group survived. Catherine was her father’s first female heir, appointed against the immense pressure of their conservative board. Everyone was waiting for her to fail. Everyone wanted to see the empire burn in her hands. I couldn’t bear to see her break. So I volunteered to be her right hand, her shield. The price I paid was agonizing. I became the unforgivable villain in her love story, the obstacle keeping her from Wesley. My adopted family lost their jobs because of her petty retaliation. And the most pathetic part? I took the impact in that car crash to save her life. As I lay dying, she smiled down at me. “With you gone, Elliot, there’s nothing standing between Wesley and me anymore. If there’s a next life, do yourself a favor and leave me alone.” Only after I died did I realize that the crash was never an accident. It was her plan. A plan to eradicate me. Now, I’ve been given a second chance. Since Catherine doesn’t care about protecting her own legacy, why should I? Everyone has their own fate. This time, I will not entangle myself in her karma. If she wants a happily-ever-after with Wesley so desperately, I will personally hand her the bitter fruit she’s begging for. After all, you reap what you sow. To help my boss pluck the moon from the sky as quickly as possible, I played the role of the dutiful assistant to perfection. I didn’t waste a single second. I immediately contacted Wesley’s office and locked in an afternoon slot to discuss the terms. In the fifteen minutes between those calls, I pulled out a piece of paper I had memorized—a private investigator’s tip-line attached to a multi-million dollar reward for a missing heir. I dialed the number. “Hello,” I said, my voice steady. “My name is Elliot. I’m the biological son you’ve been searching for.” 02 There was a heavy pause on the other end. The voice that finally answered sounded exhausted, brittle with years of false hope. “Another scammer?” I let out a soft laugh. “This one is the real deal. Just tell me where and when you want to do the DNA test.” It was true. After I died in my last life, I discovered that my biological parents were fiercely private, ultra-wealthy billionaires. My adoptive parents were just working-class people who had found me abandoned by a patch of tall grass off a busy street. The only reason I grew up knowing Catherine and Wesley was because my adoptive mother worked as a housekeeper at the Dupont estate. My adoptive dad worked grueling shifts, so my mom had no choice but to bring me to work. Day after day, I trailed behind Catherine, and she trailed behind Wesley. Over time, we became a trio. When we were kids, the companionship was genuine. But as we grew older and the invisible walls of social class began to solidify, things changed. Catherine and Wesley never said it out loud, but deep down, they looked down on me. I was the help’s kid. Now, breathing the air of a second life, I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they realized who I really was. Suddenly, my phone vibrated violently against my thigh. I answered it quickly. Catherine’s shrieking voice blasted through the speaker. “Elliot, where the hell are you?! I am giving you exactly twenty minutes to get back to the office!” “Oh, and detour to Fifth Avenue to pick up the dress I ordered! Their courier is too slow. Move your ass, Elliot! If you make me late to see Wesley, I will end you!” She hung up before I could utter a single syllable. I let out a low, cold breath. It was just a preliminary business meeting, but she was treating it like she was walking down the aisle. That was the power of the golden boy. I had guarded her quietly for twenty years, and it amounted to nothing compared to a man who had ignored her for a decade. Well, I was officially retiring from the role of the pathetic lapdog. But, considering she was technically still my boss, I drove toward the boutique. By the time I picked up her dress, I was already fifteen minutes past her deadline. I wasn’t in a rush. As I walked past a high-end designer window, my eyes caught a stunning white dress. A phantom image flashed through my mind, and on a whim, I walked in and bought it. When I finally made it back, Catherine was, predictably, ballistic. “What is wrong with you today, Elliot?! Everything you do is a beat too slow! Did you know I was meeting Wesley? Are you doing this on purpose?!” She knew I had feelings for her. Wesley had been the one to tell her. Before that, Catherine just found my working-class background a bit distasteful. But after Wesley snooped through my private journals and outed my feelings to her, her distaste curdled into absolute disgust. Wesley had casually dropped the bomb with a smirk. “You know, Catherine, Elliot wouldn’t be a bad choice for you. I kind of ship it.” From that day on, Wesley deliberately iced Catherine out. Not because he actually cared about her, but simply because he loved torturing me. The more miserable I was, the more entertained he was. His resentment stemmed from the fact that, growing up, I outperformed him in everything. Academics, sports, you name it. A nobody eclipsing the shining heir apparent. For a narcissist like Wesley, it was an unforgivable offense. But how was that my fault? Gold shines, no matter where you bury it. I let Catherine hit my arm a few times, her manicured nails digging into my jacket, before I stepped back. My voice was dead calm. “Are you done?” In my last life, Catherine used my love for her as a weapon to endlessly torment me. But this time, carrying the physical memory of a crushed ribcage and shattered glass, I wasn’t going down that road again. Having seen the ugly, rotten core of who she really was, loving her was a physical impossibility. Catherine froze, her hand hovering in the air. “Did you just snap at me, Elliot?” I needed to buy time. I hadn’t officially reunited with my biological family yet, so I couldn’t completely blow up my life here. I swallowed the vitriol and forced a veneer of patience. “We are less than thirty minutes away from the meeting. If you don’t hurry up, you’re going to leave him with the impression that you’re unpunctual. I imagine that’s not what you want.” I paused, letting my tone drop casually. “Besides, I heard Wesley is bringing his new executive secretary today. Word is, she’s absolutely gorgeous…” I feigned indifference, but it worked like a charm. Catherine’s eyes widened, her brows snapping together in immediate insecurity. “Well, what are you standing there for?!” she snapped. “Grab the files and get the car ready!” 03 Seeing her agitated actually brought a quiet sense of peace to my chest. I tossed the white dress I had bought for myself into the trunk just as Catherine rushed out of the building. It was true that Wesley had recently hired a stunning Ivy League grad as his secretary. Even though Catherine rarely interacted with him, I knew she obsessively tracked his every move through backchannels. Her interest in Wesley was purely romantic; she couldn’t care less about his actual business operations. Because of that blind spot, she hadn’t given this joint venture a second thought. She just saw it as a VIP ticket to finally getting the guy. “Hey. Elliot. How do I look?” I turned around. She was standing by the car, arms crossed, chin tilted up in a pose of absolute arrogance. The look in her eyes was loud and clear: Look at how perfect I am. You don’t deserve to even look at me. I had to admit, to outshine the rumors of Wesley’s new secretary, Catherine had gone to war. If you didn’t know it was a corporate M&A meeting, you’d think she was walking the red carpet at the Met Gala. She had completely sacrificed her own sharp, commanding style to cater to what she thought Wesley’s aesthetic was. I felt a brief flicker of pity, quickly followed by apathy. It wasn’t my problem anymore. I got in and drove us to the venue, pushing the speed slightly. I entirely “forgot” that Catherine suffered from severe motion sickness. Calling it an accident would be a lie. I did it on purpose. In my last life, I accommodated her every need. I drove her everywhere myself because I didn’t trust anyone else with her safety. I knew that if I drove too fast, the acid reflux would make her violently ill. “Elliot, you did that on purpose! Ugh!” I watched Catherine lean against the brick wall outside the venue, dry-heaving. I let a faint smile touch my lips. “You’re accusing the wrong guy, Catherine. I’m just setting the stage for you and Wesley to have a moment.” She shot me a venomous, red-rimmed glare. I held my hands up defensively. “Come on. Men love a damsel in distress. Playing the fragile, vulnerable card is the fastest way to trigger a guy’s hero complex.” I was being overly cynical, but Catherine hadn’t clawed her way to the CEO chair by being stupid. She caught the subtext instantly. She wiped her mouth, straightening up with a harsh, mocking laugh. “Why should I believe a word you say? It’s no secret you’re obsessed with me. I’ve told you a million times, it’s never going to happen. Stop trying to climb the social ladder through my bed. Wesley is the only one on my level.” She didn’t even try to hide the contempt. I put on my best hurt expression. “That’s exactly why I’ve decided to give up on you.” The moment the words left my mouth, Catherine actually went rigid for three full seconds. “Oh, please,” she finally scoffed, recovering her sneer. “You claim to love me, but you fold at the first sign of trouble. You’re pathetic, Elliot.” She turned on her heel and marched through the glass doors without looking back. I watched her go, my eyes narrowing into a cold stare. If I let myself repeat the same mistakes in this life, that would be pathetic. Wesley’s team had just arrived. The private conference room held only the four of us: me, Catherine, Wesley, and his secretary, Jordan. “Wesley, what made you suddenly want to work with us?” Catherine completely ignored the chair I pulled out for her across the table, glaring at me before practically throwing herself into the seat right next to Wesley. It was a four-person table, and she had stolen the seat meant for his secretary. “We’ve known each other forever, Wesley. No need to keep things so formal,” she purred. Wesley shot me a deliberate, mocking look. He draped his arm over the back of Catherine’s chair, letting it rest just millimeters from her shoulders. I took in his smug, territorial display with zero emotional reaction. In fact, it took everything in me not to laugh. A grown man, the CEO of a major corporation, still playing high-school dominance games like a dog marking a fire hydrant. I watched Catherine practically drowning in Wesley’s eyes. Knowing she would drag this out, I was about to speak up to push the deal forward, but the woman next to me beat me to it. “Mr. Hawthorne, Ms. Dupont,” Jordan said, her voice clipped and professional. “Since everyone is present, I suggest we begin.” Catherine, furious at having her flirting interrupted, shot the secretary a murderous glare. I took a moment to observe Jordan, then glanced at Catherine. In terms of pure glamor, Catherine had definitely outdressed Jordan today. That was probably the only reason Catherine hadn’t demanded the woman be fired on the spot. Because Catherine was entirely focused on Wesley, the contract review went dangerously fast. As Wesley stood up to leave, I smoothly stepped in front of him. “Mr. Hawthorne, our CEO is feeling a bit under the weather today. For old times’ sake, would you mind driving her home?” Catherine, who had been looking crestfallen at his departure, instantly perked up. She stepped close to him, putting on a soft, helpless voice. “Please, Wesley? Elliot is completely incompetent. He drove so erratically I got incredibly carsick. Would you mind?” I kept my eyes on Wesley, catching the microscopic flicker of irritation in his jaw before I gave him a polite smile. Once Catherine and Wesley were in his car, Jordan reached for the passenger door. Catherine immediately snapped from the backseat. “Wesley, I really prefer not having random employees know where I live.” Jordan looked genuinely speechless. Trying to hide my amusement, I gently pulled her back by the elbow. “Mr. Hawthorne, thank you for ensuring our CEO gets home safely. It’s a perfect opportunity for you two to discuss the finer points of the partnership.” As the car pulled away, Jordan dropped her leather briefcase onto the pavement with a heavy thud. “Is she psychotic? Just throwing her weight around to abuse the working class? She acts like everyone is dying to get their hands on that piece of trash.” Hearing her vent, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Well, to be fair, you’re the daughter of a billionaire. You’re hardly the ‘working class’.” 04 Jordan’s expression instantly turned lethal. She locked eyes with me, her posture shifting into something dangerous. “How do you know that?” I only knew because, after I died, I found out my billionaire father had a daughter two years older than me. To protect her from the suffocating pressure of the media, my father had scrubbed her existence from the public record. It gave her the freedom to live an actual life and experience the world on her own terms. While I was still lost in my memories, Jordan suddenly snapped a brutal kick aimed straight below my belt. I reacted purely on instinct, dodging just in time. “Who sent you? What’s your angle?” Jordan’s face was terrifyingly cold. I threw my hands up in a desperate surrender. “Hey, hold on! Are you trying to end your own bloodline?!” Jordan froze, then immediately pivoted to launch another kick. “What kind of psycho are you? You think you can just call me sister and I’ll buy it?” I blocked her leg with my forearm. “You don’t have to buy anything. We can do a DNA test right now.” Right on cue, my phone started vibrating furiously. I held it up to show her the screen. “I literally just scheduled the private doctor with the estate manager. Come on. Let’s go bleed for science.” With that, I popped the trunk, pulled out the white dress I had bought earlier, and tossed it to her. By the time we arrived at the discreet location I had arranged with my father, the estate manager was already waiting. To prevent anyone from buying off a public hospital, my father used the family’s exclusive private medical team. Because the stakes were so high, the lab ran the rush order flawlessly. The results came back within hours. Jordan stared at the paper, her eyes wide. “You really are my little brother.” My billionaire dad broke down, pulling me into a crushing hug, sobbing uncontrollably. The only tragedy was that I was a year too late. My biological mother had passed away from an illness twelve months ago. Her dying wish had been for them to find the son they had lost. Now that I was back, my father wanted to call a massive press conference and announce my return to the world. I immediately shut the idea down. My revenge wasn’t complete. The traps hadn’t been sprung. Showing my hand now would ruin the game. I pulled Jordan aside. “Hey, you hate Wesley, right? I hate him too. How about a little sibling bonding exercise to take him down?” Wesley was the quintessential bloodsucking capitalist, treating his employees like disposable batteries. Jordan had been sick of him for months. She raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.” As I laid out my blueprint, Jordan clicked her tongue. “Damn, little brother. You’ve got some deep-seated trauma with this guy.” She hit the nail on the head. I did. In my previous life, my death was entirely intertwined with Wesley Hawthorne. He was far more dangerous than anyone realized. 05 This entire “partnership” was a premeditated scheme designed by Wesley to gut the Dupont Group from the inside out. Right now, both companies were heavyweights in the same industry. Two tigers can’t share one mountain. Wesley was desperate to swallow Catherine’s empire whole. Because Wesley placed so much emphasis on this joint venture, Catherine became utterly obsessed with it. She worked me to the bone, piling on tasks that had never been part of my job description. She really had learned from the best. Growing up with Wesley had taught her how to be a ruthless capitalist. Honestly, I could have just thrown my resignation letter in her face right then and there, walking away to inherit my billions. But if I did that, my brutal death in the last life would go unanswered. They would win. Besides, before I officially stepped into my family’s empire, I needed to build a solid foundation. I found out that my father was currently eyeing a massive plot of land in the Southside Yards. Coincidentally, Wesley was desperate for that exact same parcel. But based on the memories from my past life, the Southside Yards project was poisoned chalice. It looked like a goldmine, but it was rotten to the core. Even though it was adjacent to the city’s new commercial hub, the land had a dark history. It used to be a low-income neighborhood. Due to deep political corruption and violent, forced evictions orchestrated by shell companies, families had been destroyed. People had died. The scandal had been buried deep. Worse, the geological survey had been doctored—the ground was inherently unstable and prone to catastrophic sinkholes. My father had only recently returned to the US and wasn’t privy to the local, buried dirt. He was still deciding if the land was worth the investment. Wesley, on the other hand, thought he was playing 4D chess. His plan with Catherine was to build a massive residential complex on the Southside Yards. Dupont Group would be the public face—buying the land and building the structures—while Hawthorne Industries would act as a silent, shadow backer. If the skeletons in the closet were unearthed, or if the ground caved in, the public would burn Catherine at the stake. Wesley could just sever ties, keep his hands clean, and watch his biggest competitor die. If the project succeeded, he raked in half the profits with zero risk. Wesley thrived on dirty deals disguised as brilliant business moves. In my last life, I saw right through his trap. I fought tooth and nail to protect Catherine, saving her company, her reputation, and her father’s legacy. My reward was being treated like garbage. This time? I wasn’t just going to sit back and watch. I was going to give them a little push over the edge.

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Returning home from a three-year overseas assignment, I expected the quiet embrace of my late father’s estate. Instead, I found it violently carved into an illegal, overcrowded boarding house by the very estate manager he had trusted. To reclaim what was rightfully mine, I went undercover. I posed as a prospective tenant, quietly gathering photographic evidence of the blatant fire code violations and structural hazards, preparing to report him and force a full restoration of the property. When I brought up standard safety concerns, the estate manager sneered. “I call the shots around here. If you don’t like it, pay the ten-times penalty fee to break your lease and get the hell out.” His retaliation was swift and vile. He padlocked the second-floor kitchen and bathrooms, barring the tenants from using them, and even resorted to slipping live rats into my room, hoping the sheer disgust would force me to break my contract. What truly chilled me, however, wasn’t his cruelty, but the spinelessness of the other tenants. The same people who had quietly cheered me on for demanding to see his permits suddenly turned on me. They blamed me for rocking the boat, cursing me for bringing the landlord’s wrath down upon them. After the last shred of my sympathy evaporated, I pulled up a contact in my phone—a high-end demolition and zoning contractor I’d kept on retainer. “I’ll sign off on the demolition plan right now. I cover all out-of-pocket expenses,” I told the man on the other end. “But I have one condition.” “Name it.” “Your crews need to be on-site, engines running, by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” 1 I stood on the front steps of the Greenwich estate, the crisp evening air biting at my cheeks. Three times I punched the passcode into the security pad. Three times, it flashed red. This sprawling colonial was my inheritance, left to me by my father. For three years while I was expanding our firm’s portfolio in Dubai, it was supposed to sit empty, maintained and pristine. Instead, the foyer was swarming with strangers. “You here to rent, too?” a woman asked, holding the heavy oak door open with a welcoming, albeit tired, smile. I froze, the breath knocked out of my lungs. The grand, sun-drenched living room with its vaulted ceilings had been butchered. Cheap drywall partitions sliced the space into cramped, windowless bedrooms. The sprawling mahogany terrace had been enclosed with flimsy plywood to create single occupancy units. Through the hallway, I could see my father’s old study—once a sanctuary of leather and literature—stuffed with two bunk beds, the heavy velvet drapes crudely pinned up to divide the space. A vein throbbed against my temple. “Who is running this place?” I managed to ask, my voice tight. “I need to see the person in charge.” My father had been an intensely private man. Barely anyone knew the security codes to this house. My mind raced through a very short list of suspects, but when the man finally emerged from the back hallway, I still felt a shock of disbelief. Frank Cobb looked exceedingly pleased with himself. He held a clipboard, his eyes raking over me with a dismissive sweep. “You look a bit young, but whatever. You looking for a room?” He was my father’s most trusted estate manager. Because I spent my life flying between international offices for the family company, I had left Frank in charge of my father’s care during his final months. He had never actually met me face-to-face. “I was under the impression this was a private residence belonging to Mr. Davenport,” I said, keeping my tone perfectly measured. “Who authorized chopping it up into a boarding house? Was it… you?” Frank’s eyes narrowed, a flash of defensive anger crossing his face. He slammed the clipboard down onto a makeshift folding table. When he looked at me again, there was nothing but contempt. “I am the master of this house! Its name is Cobb now!” he barked. “This Mr. Davenport you’re talking about? He was just my employer. Look, kid, if you’re here to start trouble, there’s the door.” He took a step forward, raising a hand as if to shove me out. “I only welcome paying tenants. Not your kind.” “Wait.” I planted my feet. There was no way I was letting this parasite keep his claws in my family’s legacy for another night. “I’m a tenant. I want to move in today.” I pulled a platinum credit card from my bag and tossed it onto the table. Frank’s eyes instantly lit up, the greed overriding his hostility. “Well, listen here, you can’t afford the big rooms, but there’s a small unit at the far left of the second floor. It’s perfect for you,” he said smoothly. “Five thousand a month. Utilities aren’t included.” My stomach turned. Five thousand? I pressed him on the other units. They ranged from five to ten thousand dollars a month. Looking around, I mentally counted the doors. The estate had been chopped into at least twenty micro-units. Frank was pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in illegal rent. I feigned hesitation, complaining about the price. I casually mentioned knowing Mr. Davenport, claiming we had met once or twice. “What do you know? This is prime real estate. People are lining up down the block to live here!” Frank lifted his chin, his tone dripping with arrogance. “It’s a luxury estate. Hell, real estate developers offered me top dollar to buy the land, and I turned them down.” He laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “That Mr. Davenport you’re so fond of? He was just the guy who paid my checks. Died a few years back. Guess he didn’t have the luck to enjoy this place.” As he spoke, he shot his cuffs, deliberately flashing the heavy, gleaming watch on his wrist. My pupils dilated. It was a custom vintage Patek Philippe. The exact one I had bought for my father for his sixtieth birthday. He had loved it dearly but lost it in his final months. We spent half a year looking for it. Frank hadn’t just stolen the house. He had stolen my father’s memory. He was still rambling about the amenities when I cut him off, a cold, empty smile curving my lips. “Fine. I’ll take it.” 2 I paid six months’ rent upfront, without blinking. The lease agreement was handed to me by Frank’s son, Tyler. It was five pages of draconian rules restricting the tenants, with zero accountability for the landlord. I signed it all without a word. I followed Tyler up the grand sweeping staircase, down the hall to the smallest room at the end of the corridor. It used to be my childhood storage closet. Less than fifty square feet. It was where I used to keep my old model airplanes and dusty building blocks. Now, it was my apartment. I scanned the second floor, my brow furrowing deeper with every second. The open-concept loft had been floored over with cheap steel grating to create a communal bathroom. Right next to it, they had tapped directly into the mainline to rig up a makeshift gas kitchen. It was a ticking time bomb. One spark, one structural shift, and the whole floor could collapse or go up in flames. “Wait,” I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous register. Tyler turned, annoyed. “This is a massive safety hazard. I want to see the deed to the house. I want proof you actually own this property.” Tyler stiffened. He whipped his head around, staring at me like I had lost my mind. Doors along the hallway cracked open. Tenants poked their heads out, drawn by the confrontation. “Are you psycho? Of course this is my house,” Tyler spat. “I installed that bathroom and kitchen for your convenience. Who the hell are you to question me?” “You’ve tapped into the gas line illegally. The wiring is completely exposed. And you’re renting out non-residential space,” I pointed toward the enclosed balcony. “You won’t show the deed because you’re subletting. Or worse, this isn’t even your house to begin with.” Murmurs rippled through the hallway. Someone in the back, clearly fed up, spoke out. “She’s right! Look at what they’ve done to the place. I bet he is a scammer. Show us the papers!” “I’ve been saying that gas line smells funny for weeks! We’re gonna get blown to pieces!” The commotion echoed down the stairs. Heavy footsteps thundered up, and Frank appeared, his face purple with rage. “You little brat! You’ve been a pain in my ass since you walked through that door!” Frank roared. “The contract is signed. You live here, or you get out! Say one more word and I’ll shut you up myself!” He wasn’t done. He looked me up and down, his lip curling at my tailored trench coat and silk blouse. “Look at you, dressed up like some Wall Street snob. I bet you’ll be bringing all sorts of trash back here. You’re in my territory now. You play by my rules.” He jabbed a stubby finger in my face. “Otherwise, I’ll make one call to the executives at Pinnacle Holdings, and I’ll have you blacklisted from the entire Tri-State area! You’ll never work again!” Pinnacle Holdings? I went perfectly, utterly still. Frank took my silence for fear, puffing his chest out. “That’s right! My wife is a senior manager at Pinnacle. She’s the CEO’s right hand!” he bragged. “She could crush you like a bug. Nobody messes with me and gets away with it!” So that’s how it was. Diane Cobb. A mid-level project manager who used to bow so low she practically kissed my shoes every time I walked into the boardroom. “Is that so?” I whispered. A woman next to me grabbed my sleeve, her eyes wide with panic. “Don’t do it, honey,” she hissed. “Her husband isn’t joking. Somebody tried to report them to the housing authority last year, and they got evicted the next day!” “She’s right, you don’t want to make an enemy out of them!” I kept my eyes locked on Frank and Tyler. Slowly, deliberately, I pulled out my phone and dialed the fire marshal’s tip line. Before the call could connect, a glass beer bottle flew through the air and shattered against the doorframe right next to my head. Shards rained down. A sharp pain sliced across my forehead. Blood trickled down into my brow, blurring my vision. “You little bitch, you’re calling the city?” Tyler screamed, stepping forward. “We’re breaking your lease! Right now!” I stepped back, calmly wiping the blood from my skin. I pulled the lease from my bag and dropped it at his feet. “You want to break the lease? Fine,” I said softly. “But read section four. If the landlord terminates without cause, you owe me ten times the security deposit and rent.” Tyler snatched the paper, ripping it in half. Fire danced in his eyes. “Pay you? In your dreams!” He leaned in and muttered something to his father. Frank’s eyes gleamed with a vicious, calculating light. Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed. He walked over and slammed heavy padlocks onto the second-floor bathroom and kitchen doors. “You know what? As a responsible landlord, I need to listen to my tenants,” Frank announced, his voice dripping with mock concern. “You think it’s unsafe? Fine. The second-floor kitchen and baths are strictly off-limits. You want to eat or piss, you go downstairs to the courtyard.” He looked directly at me. “Try to do a good deed, and this is the thanks I get. Can’t risk getting reported, can we?” With two sentences, he had masterfully turned the entire floor against me. 3 I tried to explain, but it was useless. The same tenants who had just been demanding to see his permits turned their fury onto me. They cursed me for being naive, for angering the landlord. One woman even told me I needed to get on my knees and apologize so they could have their kitchen back. Frank spat on the floor, a smug, triumphant grin on his face. He checked the locks one last time and strolled back downstairs toward the master suite. He had a private en-suite bathroom and a fully remodeled chef’s kitchen on the first floor. This didn’t affect him in the slightest. Refusing to stand there and be yelled at, I walked into my cramped room and slammed the door, falling back onto the narrow cot. Outside my tiny window, where my mother’s rose garden and a cedar swing set used to be, there was now a hideous cinderblock structure covered in cheap tar paper. More illegal housing. If this place caught fire, twenty people would die, and legally, as the owner of the estate, their blood would be on my hands. My heart hammered against my ribs. I pulled out my phone and called the demolition contractor. The man on the line laughed with sheer relief when I told him to authorize the leveling of the property. “Finally, Ms. Davenport! The land value alone is astronomical,” he said. “We can have the site cleared and the escrow funds released to your account within the month.” But when I told him it had to happen tomorrow, he hesitated. “Tomorrow at 8 AM? That’s going to require pulling double shifts and paying premium fees to the city for expedited permits.” “I’ll cover the premium, the hazard pay, and I’ll give your crew an extra percentage point on the back end,” I replied without missing a beat. Money talks. He agreed instantly. I let out a long breath. I was just about to get up and stretch my legs when I heard a scratching sound by the door. Three massive, sewer-slicked rats squeezed through the gap beneath the doorframe, scurrying into my room. My breath caught. Instinct took over. I grabbed a heavy wooden bookend from the dusty shelf and hurled it at the closest one. Crack. From the hallway, I heard Frank’s raspy chuckle. “If you’re scared of a little wildlife, sweetie, just pack your bags,” he taunted through the wood. “Pay me my ten-times fee, and I’ll even be nice enough to come in there and catch them for you.” He thought he could terrify me into submission with cheap tricks. He had no idea who he was dealing with. I moved with clinical precision. I scooped up the dead rat with a trash bag, ripped the door open, and hurled the carcass directly at his chest. Frank shrieked, his face draining of color as he stumbled backward. “I’ve spent time in the Australian Outback,” I said, my voice lethal. “I’ve seen bugs bigger than that. Try harder.” I slammed the door in his face, a cloud of dust settling around my feet. The adrenaline crash left me exhausted. I laid down and actually managed to fall into a deep sleep. When I woke up, the room was suffocatingly hot. I went to open the door, but the handle wouldn’t turn. It was padlocked from the outside. No matter how hard I kicked or shoved, the heavy oak didn’t budge. “Frank! You spineless coward!” I yelled, slamming my boot into the wood. “You lock a tenant in their room?” I kicked again, the wood splintering slightly. Finally, a voice hissed from the other side. “Stop it! Are you trying to wake up the whole house?” “You brought this on yourself with all that reporting nonsense!” another tenant yelled through the door. “Because of you, we can’t cook, and we have to walk outside to use the bathroom. You deserve this!” Idiots. They wanted me to be the sacrificial lamb. They wanted me to fight the landlord, but the second it inconvenienced them, they were perfectly happy to leave me in a cage. I remembered one of the tenants whispering to me earlier about how the roof leaked near the electrical boxes and how the gas smelled like rotten eggs. That’s how I knew they were terrified. Disgusted, I stopped kicking. “Yeah, that’s right! Give up!” Frank’s voice echoed in the hall. A second later, a wave of foul, murky laundry water sloshed under the door gap, soaking my shoes. I jumped back, the stench of mildew and dirt hitting my nose. “Keep making noise, and I’ll leave you in there to rot!” Frank spat. 4 I spent the entire night in that room, sitting in the dark, watching the hours tick by on my phone. Three hours left until the demolition crew arrived. I couldn’t just sit there. I tapped lightly on the adjoining wall, whispering to the young guy in unit 203. I promised to Venmo him five hundred dollars if he slipped out and broke the padlock. He did. The house was deathly quiet in the pre-dawn hours. I crept softly down the stairs, pausing when I heard voices murmuring from the master suite. “Dad, you think that girl asking about the deed knows something?” Tyler asked. Frank scoffed, a thick, arrogant sound. “Impossible. Davenport died overseas years ago. If he had family that cared, they would’ve shown up to claim this place by now.” “I heard he had a kid, though. A daughter, maybe?” “Died in a plane crash a couple of years back. I heard it through the grapevine at Pinnacle. The kid is dead. The house is ours. Nobody is coming for it.” A plane crash? He wasn’t entirely wrong. There had been a massive aviation disaster three years ago involving a flight I was supposed to be on. It had been a clerical error that kept my name on the manifest, but I had missed the boarding by ten minutes. Frank had banked his entire illegal empire on the assumption that I was dead. Just then, Tyler’s phone rang. It was the demolition contractor, doing a courtesy call to the current occupant. Frank grabbed the phone, put it on speaker, and cursed the man out before hanging up. “Bullshit! Tell me to pack my bags? Let’s see them try to touch my house!” I didn’t linger. I slipped out the side door, breathing in the crisp morning air, and drove straight to the contractor’s office to finalize the paperwork. When I returned to the estate an hour later, the street was rumbling. I rode in the passenger seat of the lead excavator, a massive, yellow beast of a machine. Behind us, a fleet of bulldozers and dump trucks idled, their engines vibrating against my chest. “ATTENTION RESIDENTS. YOU HAVE THIRTY MINUTES TO GATHER YOUR BELONGINGS AND EVACUATE. THIS PROPERTY IS SCHEDULED FOR IMMEDIATE DEMOLITION.” The megaphone cracked through the quiet suburban street. The front doors blew open. Frank charged out, leading a mob of half-dressed, panicked tenants. “Like hell you are! Without my signature, nobody touches a single brick!” Frank roared, his face purple. Tyler pushed to the front of the crowd, brandishing a baseball bat. “This is illegal eviction! You touch this house, and I’ll have the cops here so fast you’ll spin! You’re trespassing!” The site foreman looked up at me in the cab, hesitating. I gave him a single, curt nod. The excavator’s massive steel arm raised high into the sky, blotting out the sun. Then, it swung down, smashing straight through the wrought-iron gates and obliterating the illegal brick extension in the front yard. CRASH. Wood splintered. Brick exploded. A massive cloud of dust swallowed the lawn. I opened the cab door and stepped out onto the treads, looking down at Frank with eyes like ice. “That was your thirty-minute warning,” I said, checking my watch. “You now have fifteen minutes. I suggest you start packing.” Frank choked on the dust, coughing violently. When he looked up at me, his eyes were bloodshot with absolute fury. “Who the hell do you think you are?!” he screamed. “I should’ve kept you locked in that room and beat you senseless!” He waved the ripped lease agreement in the air. “You’re violating your contract! I’m calling the police!” “Oh, please do,” I replied, crossing my arms. “In fact, tell them to hurry. I’d love to explain to them how you’ve been squatting on a dead man’s property.” I raised my hand, giving the foreman another signal. The excavator swung again. This time, the bucket crashed directly through the bay windows of the master suite—Frank’s room. “You bitch!” Frank shrieked, dropping his phone. “You want to play rough? My wife is on her way right now! When she gets here, she’ll end you! You have no idea the kind of power she has!” Really? How convenient. A slow, terrifying smile spread across my face. “I can’t wait to see,” I said softly, “exactly how much power your wife thinks she has.” For three years, I had let the rot fester in this house, and in my company. It was time to cut it out. Down the street, two black Lincoln Navigators tore around the corner, screeching to a halt at the curb. Diane Cobb stepped out of the lead car, dressed in a sharp St. John power suit. She completely ignored the heavy machinery, marching straight toward the wreckage with the fury of a woman who thought she owned the world. “Who authorized this?!” she shrieked, her voice cutting through the rumble of the engines. “Who dares to touch my property? Show yourself! I’ll ruin you!” I stepped down from the excavator, the dust clearing as my heels hit the pavement. I looked up. I watched the exact moment the blood drained from Diane’s face. I heard the collective, sharp intake of breath from the lackeys standing behind her. Her eyes widened in absolute, primal terror. “Ms… Ms. Davenport?” she gasped, her knees visibly shaking. “Is that… you?”

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Standing in the auditorium, I stared up at the podium. Professor Evelyn Mercer. She practically radiated cold, untouchable perfection—the human embodiment of absolute, freezing abstinence. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, unable to shake my doubts. I called out to the System in my head. Sys, are you absolutely sure we have the right target? Looking at her, it was impossible to connect this pristine academic with the profile of an obsessive, unhinged stalker. The System’s robotic voice chimed back in a panic: It’s because she hasn’t developed feelings for the male lead yet! Once she falls for him, her dormant possessive-psycho attributes will completely detonate! You have to distract her, host. Under no circumstances can Evelyn be allowed to intervene in the romantic arc of the male and female leads! I stroked my chin, mulling it over for a few seconds before a spark of inspiration hit me. Fight fire with fire, right? If she was supposedly a dormant, dark-romance psycho, why not out-creep her and see what happened? Acting on impulse, I pulled out my phone, typed up an anonymous text, and hit send: Professor, your skin is so pale. I wonder if the rest of you is just as flawless under those clothes. Up at the podium, Evelyn picked up her phone, glanced at the screen, and set it back down. Not a single muscle in her face twitched. I raised an eyebrow. Impressive. An absolute master of composure. So, I sent another: Your waist is incredibly narrow. I bet if someone held you tight enough, their fingers would leave beautiful bruises. This time, I finally saw her brow furrow. Hmph. So what if you’re a dark, possessive psycho? I thought. Let’s see how a straight Ice Queen handles getting relentlessly targeted by an unhinged queer girl. 01 Unsurprisingly, my number was promptly blocked. The look of disgust on Evelyn’s face lasted only a fraction of a second. She smoothly regained her composure, her dark eyes scanning the lecture hall with total indifference. “The department is launching a new experimental research project. We require one undergraduate assistant,” she announced, her voice like chilled glass. “Do I have any volunteers?” The entire room went dead silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Even the frat boys who usually salivated over Evelyn quickly buried their heads in their textbooks, terrified of making eye contact. It was a universally acknowledged truth on campus: Professor Mercer of the Biology Department was unequivocally the most stunning woman at the university. She was also, unequivocally, its most ruthless tyrant. In her three years of teaching, she had overseen dozens of massive experiments. To this day, not a single student had ever walked out of her lab smiling. The silence stretched for three agonizing minutes. Not a single hand went up. Evelyn didn’t look surprised. She simply picked up the student roster, preparing to pick a sacrificial lamb at random. Right as her lips parted—about to call out Declan Wright’s name—I threw my hand into the air. “Professor Mercer. I volunteer.” Instantly, the collective gaze of the entire class snapped toward me. Their eyes were brimming with the kind of profound respect usually reserved for martyrs. Evelyn looked up, her gaze landing on me. She slowly closed the roster. “And your name is?” she asked, her tone impeccably flat. I flashed her a radiant, blinding smile. “Jordan. Jordan Ellis.” “Well, Jordan Ellis,” she said coolly. “I look forward to working with you.” 02 On the walk back to the dorms, Declan wouldn’t stop buzzing in my ear. “Jordan, you were acting so weird today!” he exclaimed, matching my stride. “Volunteering for Mercer’s lab? I thought you despised bench work.” I gave him a breezy, fabricated excuse. “I’m short on credits. Might as well knock them out.” “But Professor Mercer is brutally demanding. If you do this… you definitely won’t have time to chase after Naomi.” Naomi Foster. The female lead of this world. A wealthy, beautiful graduate student in our department. The System had originally assigned me the role of the tragic, throwaway side-character—the pathetic roommate of the male lead, Declan. In the original plot, “I” was Naomi’s ultimate, desperate simp. My entire existence revolved around finding new, humiliating ways to win her over, entirely ignoring my studies. Of course, as cannon fodder, all my efforts were doomed. Upon discovering that my goddess actually had a crush on my roommate, “I” was supposed to be consumed by jealousy, frame Declan for something awful, get exposed by Naomi, and be universally despised until I was forced to drop out. I wasn’t even supposed to be a footnote in the storyline between Declan and Evelyn. The System gave me this throwaway identity purely for the freedom to operate off-script. Now that my target was Evelyn Mercer, there was zero reason to maintain my original persona and keep playing the role of Naomi’s tragic lapdog. So, I kept my eyes on my phone, furiously typing as I casually replied, “Naomi is way too much work. I’m exhausted. I think I’m over her.” Declan’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He studied my face to make sure I wasn’t joking. When he realized I was serious, he let out a very quiet, very hopeful, “Oh.” Then, his curiosity shifted back to my phone. “Jordan, why do you keep staring at your screen today? And why are you smiling like… like a creep?” “Just messing with my digital pet,” I lied smoothly. “It’s highly entertaining.” “Digital pet? Like a Tamagotchi app?” “Uh… yeah. Something like that.” Just an ordinary, delightfully vulgar little game called ‘Pretend to be an Unhinged Lesbian to Terrify a Straight Woman.’ Evelyn had already blocked two of my burner numbers. But it didn’t matter. With the System acting as my ultimate tech support, I generated a third number and went right back to my harassment campaign. Professor, don’t waste your energy blocking me. No matter how many numbers you block, I’ll always find a way to reach you. Professor, you looked so incredibly sexy today. That silk blouse was fighting for its life against your chest. I just wanted to tear it open and devour you. Professor, your hands are so beautiful. They look like they’re meant to be soiled with something filthy. Want to try mine? Professor… Watching the little ‘Read’ receipts pop up beneath every single ignored message, I finally burst out laughing. Evelyn’s facial expressions right now had to be absolutely priceless. It probably never occurred to her—a dormant, obsessive psycho—that she would suddenly be targeted by an even more deranged, heavyweight stalker! I sent text after text, utterly relentless. Only when I had exhausted the entire notes app filled with ‘dark romance stalker quotes’ I’d curated did I finally take a breath. I assumed Evelyn was just going to ignore me into oblivion. I was just about to shove my phone into my backpack when the screen lit up with a reply. You better hope I never catch you. Because if I do, I will make you wish you were dead. I smirked, thoroughly unbothered. I already knew an unhinged psycho like her wasn’t someone to cross lightly, which was exactly why I was brilliantly hiding behind a digital smokescreen. She wanted to catch me? Good luck even figuring out my gender, sweetheart. Muahahahaha. 03 The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed, ready to report to the lab. Suddenly, Declan popped up. “Jordan, let’s walk together. I really want that scholarship, so I begged Professor Mercer to let me join the project too.” My stomach dropped. Hell no! The entire reason I sacrificed my precious sleep to become a lab rat was to physically block him from getting close to Evelyn! Why was he coming?! I carried a knot of dread in my stomach all the way to the science building. It was only when I walked into the lab and saw Naomi standing there that I secretly exhaled a sigh of relief. Right. Evelyn and Naomi were cousins. It made perfect sense for Naomi to join her older cousin’s project. Declan was almost certainly here for Naomi. He had always harbored a crush on her, but out of loyalty to me—his tragic, simp roommate—he had buried his feelings. My little declaration yesterday about giving up on Naomi must have been the green light he was waiting for. He was here to spark up a romance with the female lead. Perfect. I nudged him with my elbow and beamed. “Declan, if you like her, go for it! I’m rooting for you.” Declan flushed bright red and ducked his head, looking completely bashful. I was just about to tease him a little more when a highly irritated voice snapped through the room. “Jordan? What the hell are you doing here? When is this going to end?” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Turning around, I was met with Naomi’s face, practically radiating annoyance. “This is a professional laboratory, not a playground for your obsession!” she hissed. “I don’t care how much you like me, you don’t get to stalk me here!” I swallowed my temper and offered a deadpan explanation. “Naomi, I’m here for the credits and the scholarship. Not for you. I am completely over you, so please, put your ego away.” Naomi froze. Her eyes darted nervously toward Declan for a split second before she lowered her voice. “I really hope you’re telling the truth this time. Don’t play games with me.” I couldn’t help but scoff. She reeked of that classic, obnoxious pick-me energy. Oh hell no. I wasn’t letting her win this round. Seeing that it was just the three of us in the lab, I aggressively rolled up my sleeves, planted my hands on my hips, and shamelessly stepped up onto a stool to gain the high ground. I unleashed on her. “Naomi, I swear to God, if I’m lying, I hope I get hit by a bus tomorrow! I’m totally over you! Actually, I’m obsessed with Professor Mercer now!” “You know what?” I continued, dropping into a vicious, rhythmic freestyle. “Compared to her, you’re nothing but a wilted piece of lettuce! She destroys you in looks! She destroys you in brains! She destroys you in body! Yeah! Absolutely wrecked!” My flawless execution left Naomi standing there, her face turning an impressive shade of bruised purple. I was just about to add some hand gestures for dramatic flair when a voice cut through the air behind me. “It seems my students are overflowing with energy today. Since that’s the case, we’ll add two more rounds of extractions to the schedule.” 04 And just like that, my beautiful Saturday was slaughtered on the altar of science. Staring resentfully at the elegant curve of Evelyn’s back—her long legs, that impossibly narrow waist—I pulled out my phone with a vengeance. Time for more digital harassment. Professor, you look so excruciatingly sexy today. I want you to step on me with those heels. I bet it would feel like heaven. Professor, the way you stare so intensely at those slides… I want to blind you to everyone else so you only ever look at me. Across the room, Evelyn picked up her phone. She glanced at the screen. Her brow furrowed sharply as her thumbs flew across the keyboard. Are you spying on me? I typed back at lightning speed: Ah~ The Professor finally replied! I’m so happy~ You’re absolutely right. I hid cameras in the lab. And in other places too… but I can’t tell you where. Professor, I’ll never take my eyes off you. For the rest of your life, you’ll never escape me! CRACK. The sharp sound of shattering glass echoed through the lab. “Professor Mercer!” Declan gasped. “Are you okay?!” I quickly shoved my phone in my pocket and hurried over. Evelyn’s hand was bleeding, a jagged cut sliced across her palm from a beaker she had apparently just crushed in her grip. Declan scrambled to find alcohol wipes and bandages, but I snatched them right out of his hands. Moving with ruthless efficiency, I cleaned the wound and taped up her palm before she could even process what was happening. She opened her mouth, likely to say she could do it herself, but I was already done. Declan: “…” Naomi, who had rushed over and contributed absolutely nothing: “…” Evelyn stared down in silence at the slightly crooked bandage on her hand. After a long moment, she looked up at me. “Thank you, Jordan.” “Don’t mention it,” I chirped. Considering I’m the one who pissed you off enough to shatter solid glass, it’s the least I could do. Heh. Because of Evelyn’s injury, the two extra rounds of experiments were mercifully canceled. In an incredibly sunny mood, I packed up my bag and left the building with Declan. Right as we stepped outside, I realized I’d left my notebook behind and jogged back inside. Passing the trash can outside the lab doors, I spotted the bloody alcohol wipe and the wrapper from the bandage sitting right on top. A slow smirk spread across my face. Dodging the angle of the hallway camera, I carefully picked it up. I snapped a photo and sent it to Evelyn. You threw this away, didn’t you? It still has the scent of your perfume on it. Ah… I couldn’t resist tasting it. I was so insanely jealous of the guy who bandaged your hand. I wanted to chop his fingers off. But I feel much better now. You need to be a good girl from now on. Don’t do things that make me angry. You are mine! You can only be touched by me! Do you understand? Hitting send, I violently shuddered, rubbing the goosebumps erupting on my arms. Were my curated stalker quotes a little too psychotic? Was Evelyn actually this deranged in secret? Thinking of her pristine, Ice Queen demeanor, I shook my head hard. Nah. No way. There was no way she was this unhinged… right? 05 A week of relentless harassment passed. Aside from two texts telling me to “Go to hell,” I received absolutely no response from Evelyn. That was a minor issue, though. Right now, I had a catastrophic, five-alarm fire to put out. I watched as Declan approached Evelyn for the fifth time that hour, holding up a clipboard of data and practically shooting heart-eyes at her. I let out a heavy, stressed breath. Nudging Naomi, who was standing beside me, I muttered, “Hey. Your boy is blatantly hitting on my girl. Aren’t you going to do something about it?” Naomi turned to look at me. Her eyes were deeply mournful, her expression tangled in a bizarre, complicated mess of emotions. I sighed, rubbing my temples. I hadn’t anticipated this. Ever since the day I stood on a stool and screamed that I was obsessed with Evelyn, the dynamic in this room had mutated into something horrifying. Naomi’s looks toward me were getting increasingly sorrowful and longing. Meanwhile, Declan wasn’t hitting it off with Naomi at all. Instead, he was aggressively orbiting Evelyn like a moth to a very cold flame. Everything was backward. The only silver lining was that my digital terrorism seemed to be working. Evelyn genuinely appeared wary that her psychotic stalker might lash out. As a result, she maintained a rigid, icy distance from everyone. Right as Declan leaned in close, she seamlessly took a step back. There wasn’t an ounce of romantic tension on her face—just pure, merciless professionalism. I stared at the bizarre love triangle playing out until Naomi’s voice broke my concentration. “Jordan,” she asked softly. “Do you… really like Professor Mercer?” I glared at her. “None of your business.” Naomi let out a soft huff. “I think you just said all those things to make me jealous. You’re so immature, Jordan.” I couldn’t even formulate a response to that level of delusion. I turned away, heading toward a quiet corner to draft my next harassing text to Evelyn, when her voice suddenly rang out, cutting through the hum of the lab. “Jordan. The data sets you submitted are flawed.” Her tone left absolutely no room for argument. “Come to my office immediately after lunch break.” 06 Heart in my throat, I knocked on Evelyn’s office door. When I walked in and saw the stack of red-inked lab reports on her desk, I let out a stealthy exhale of relief. Thank God. It really was just about the data. Five minutes into her lecture, my brain completely short-circuited. Evelyn truly lived up to her reputation as the university’s most terrifying academic. Even without raising her voice or saying a single insulting word, the atmosphere in her office was suffocatingly oppressive. If I were a normal person with an ounce of shame, I would have been mortified by the elementary mistakes she was pointing out, wishing the floor would swallow me whole. Unfortunately for her, I had absolutely zero shame. Her words flowed in one ear and right out the other. Instead, my eyes locked onto her mouth as it moved. Her lips were a beautiful, plush shade of pink. They looked so soft. So incredibly yielding. It would be the perfect time to drop a line from my stalker notes. “Professor, your lips look so—!!” I slammed my mouth shut in absolute horror, my eyes going wide. Holy shit! I had completely zoned out! I had almost said the actual filthy text message out loud! Evelyn paused, her dark eyes lifting from the paper to pin me down. “My lips look so… what?” “Dry! Really dry!” I scrambled forward, practically lunging for the pitcher on her desk to pour her a glass of water. “Professor Mercer, you’ve been talking for so long, you must be parched! Here, hydrate! Save your voice!” Evelyn stared at me in dead silence. After what felt like an eternity, the faintest, most inexplicable smile ghosted across her lips. She reached out, her fingers brushing against mine as she took the glass. “Alright. That’s enough for today,” she murmured softly. “Go back and re-verify your numbers, Jordan. Bring them to me tomorrow.” I pressed my lips tightly together and nodded like an obedient golden retriever. Stepping out of her office, I pulled the door shut and immediately sagged against the cool hallway wall. I stared down at my hand, absentmindedly rubbing the fingers that had just grazed hers. Her skin had been cold. Smooth and heavy, like touching polished jade. I pressed a hand over my chest, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of my heart. I let out a frustrated breath. Damn it. For an unhinged, fatal-attraction psycho… she was actually incredibly seductive. 07 The relentless, punishing hours in the lab had completely drained my life force. Sitting in an 8 AM lecture the next day, I was practically comatose. Through the haze of exhaustion, I remembered I hadn’t completed my morning quota of harassing Evelyn. Dropping my heavy head onto my desk, I blearily opened my phone, copied a paragraph from my notes app, and sent it off: Professor, I had the most beautiful dream last night. I dreamt I made you cry. Your eyes were so red, and you were begging me to stop. But I couldn’t. You look too pretty when you cry. I just want to lock you in a room so I can watch you cry for me forever. I hit send, locked the screen, and prepared to pass out for the rest of the lecture. But against all odds, the second my eyes drifted shut, my phone vibrated twice. Evelyn, breaking her week-long silence, had actually replied. I’ve seen this exact paragraph three times now. Are you going to send it a fourth? Three times?! The adrenaline spiked so fast I nearly fell out of my chair. Sleep vanished. I was wide awake and sweating. No wonder that paragraph felt so familiar as I was pasting it! I’d already sent it! I frantically scrolled up through our chat history. Oh, it was a bloodbath. Not only had I sent that dream text three times, but there was another text I’d accidentally sent twice! Mother of God! This was the karma I deserved for being too lazy to update my dark romance quotes! I furiously typed out a desperate save: I will. Not just a fourth time, but many times. Because every time I make you cry in my dreams, I have to be a good girl and report it to you. And soon, I’m going to make you cry in real life. You can look forward to it~ I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, mentally giving myself a high-five for that brilliant recovery. Just as I thought the crisis was averted, my screen lit up with one final text. I’ll be waiting. Staring at those three short words, an involuntary shiver crawled down my spine. The back of my neck felt suddenly, terribly cold. Did she… did she know something?

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In the end, during that final mission, Regina didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger to save the man who had always been the ghost in our relationship—her “one who got away”—and the bullet tore right through me. She knew. She knew I had the Protocol backing me up. To her, my death was nothing more than a temporary glitch, a brief nap before the reboot. For three days, she stayed by Becket’s side, nursing him, comforting him, erasing me from her mind as if I’d never existed. By the time she finally remembered I was a person who actually occupied space in her life, she wasn’t greeted by a sleeping fiancé. She found a corpse beginning to succumb to the heat. I remember asking her, just before we set out, clutching onto a final, pathetic shred of hope: “Would you ever actually kill me, Reggie?” She had gone quiet for a long time before the words tumbled out: “No.” At that moment, both I and the Protocol felt a heavy sink in our collective chest. We knew it was a bad omen. If she had just said yes—if she had actually killed me by choice—my mission would have ended right then and there. But that “no” made me delusional. It made me think she actually loved me. It made me think the mission was about to get a whole lot more complicated. Looking back, all that worrying was for nothing. It wasn’t love. It was just me, making a fool of myself until the very end. … I sat on the edge of the roof, reaching out as if I could brush the stars with my fingertips. Before I could lean out too far, the Protocol’s voice hissed in my ear, sounding genuinely bewildered: [Host, please tell me you aren’t doing something stupid. We’ve put in too much work to get this close to the finish line. Don’t you dare jump.] My mouth twitched into a grimace. “Relax. I’m just catching the breeze. Do you really think I’m that fragile?” In fairness, the view from the roof was spectacular. It gave me a front-row seat to my fiancée wrapped in another man’s arms in the garden below. Becket looked like the protagonist of a tragic indie film, his eyes brimming with a manufactured sorrow. “You have to forget me, Regina. We’re a secret that can’t survive the light. This isn’t going to end well for us.” Regina spoke to him with a tenderness I had never once been allowed to taste. “I’ll take care of everything. I just need a little more time.” But Becket wasn’t playing along this time. “I’m almost thirty, Reggie. How much more time am I supposed to waste waiting in the shadows?” Regina started to say something, her lips parted in a desperate plea, but Becket cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “I’ve agreed to the setup my mother arranged. A blind date. A real future. Reggie, I’m begging you… let me go.” Regina turned her face away, her jaw tight with irritation. “Becket, stop being dramatic, okay?” He gave a hollow, bitter laugh and turned on his heel, disappearing into the darkness of the driveway. I watched her standing there, a lonely silhouette against the manicured lawn, and shook my head. “See that? That’s the tax you pay for an affair.” The Protocol chimed in: [Technically, you two aren’t married yet.] I rolled my eyes. “You don’t know a damn thing. Watch this. I’m going to go down there and push her buttons. If I’m lucky, she’ll get pissed enough to just stab me and get it over with.” The Protocol gave me a mental thumbs-up. [High-risk, high-reward. I like it.] I kept my pace light and bouncy as I walked down the stairs, finding Regina exactly where I expected—looking like a woman whose world had just collapsed. “Ouch. You look like you just got dumped. Want to talk about it? I’m a great listener,” I said, flashing a grin and throwing an arm over her shoulder. Her face remained a mask of stone. She shoved my arm off with a cold efficiency. “It’s nothing.” Nothing? No, that wouldn’t do. I needed more fire than that. “Come on, Reggie. I saw the whole thing from the roof. Getting dumped isn’t the end of the world, it’s just—” I didn’t finish the sentence. Her hand flew out, catching me by the throat with a strength that felt like iron. She looked like something that had crawled out of a nightmare. “You were spying on me?” she hissed. Her eyes were bloodshot, shimmering with a terrifying intensity. “Have I been too kind lately? Have you forgotten who you are in this house?” Looking into her murderous eyes, I felt my lips curl upward. Yes. That’s it. Just squeeze. Kill me. Let me go home. “Yeah, I followed you. So what?” I gasped out, leaning into the pressure of her grip. “Are you really that ashamed of being caught acting like a common tramp? I don’t blame him for leaving. A woman who wants the whole world while she’s already got a man at home? Even I’m starting to find you pathetic.” I poured every ounce of venom I could into my voice, terrified she might soften. Her grip tightened. Her knuckles turned white. To be honest, the sensation of dying isn’t pleasant—it’s a panicked, primal sort of pain. But the thought of home, of ending this grand humiliation, was a powerful anesthetic. Then, abruptly, she let go. I crumpled to the pavement, my lungs burning as I hacked and coughed, trying to pull in air. “I was wrong to snap,” she said, her voice dropping back into that terrifyingly cool professional tone. “I’ll keep my distance from him from now on.” My heart stopped for a different reason. I looked up at her, eyes wide with disbelief. But she didn’t look back. She just gave me the cold view of her retreating back. “Protocol… what the hell was that?” I whispered, my voice trembling. The Protocol sounded just as stunned. [She let you go? Are you kidding me? A woman who treats men like disposable tissues actually showed mercy?] I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. But nothing could change the fact that I was still here. By the time I was halfway through my third bag of chips in the kitchen, the Protocol finally spoke up. [Host, why are you eating your feelings?] I crunched down viciously on a chip. “I’m going to get so fat she can’t stand the sight of me. Maybe then she’ll finally put a bullet in my head.” The Protocol decided I had finally snapped and went quiet, leaving us both to sit in our shared misery. It was a pathetic scene: one man and one invisible AI, failing at suicide-by-fiancée. I was plotting my next move when a knock sounded at the door. It was Becket. He stood there with a thin, polite smile, holding a crisp white dress shirt. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” he said, his voice dripping with faux-humility. “Regina stayed over at my place a few nights ago and I… well, I accidentally got some wine on her shirt. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea if you found it, so I brought it back myself. You aren’t upset over such a small thing, are you?” I knew what he wanted. He wanted the explosion. He wanted me to scream and throw a punch so Regina could come running to his rescue. But I had too much on my mind to play my part in his melodrama. “Thanks. Appreciate it,” I said, reaching for the shirt. Becket’s smile faltered. The lack of a reaction clearly bothered him. He suddenly grabbed my wrist, his grip surprisingly tight. “What are you acting for?” he spat, his voice dropping the polite facade. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter how ‘understanding’ you are. she’ll never truly look at you. If I hadn’t moved away, you wouldn’t even be a footnote in her life. You’re just a cheap placeholder. A discount version of me.” It was a textbook provocation. Amateur hour. “Believe whatever helps you sleep at night,” I said. “Now let go.” I tried to pull my hand back, barely using any force, but the moment I moved, he went limp. He collapsed toward the floor like a puppet with cut strings. “Ah!” he cried out. Before he could hit the hardwood, Regina appeared as if summoned by a spell. I didn’t even have time to blink before her palm connected with my face. Crack. “Ewan, I’ve warned you so many times,” she said, her voice trembling with rage. “Why can’t you just behave?” My cheek burned. The pain was sharp enough to bring involuntary tears to my eyes. I didn’t defend myself. I just stared at Becket. He buried his face in Regina’s shoulder, a calculated sob escaping his throat. “Reggie, it’s my fault. All my fault. I shouldn’t have upset him. You two are getting married… don’t let me be the reason you fight.” He made a weak motion as if to pull away. “I just wanted to see you one last time. Now that I have, I’ll leave you both in peace.” Regina wasn’t about to let that happen. She gripped his hand with a fierce protectiveness and led him toward the master bedroom, brushing past me as if I were a piece of furniture. She didn’t even give me a second glance. The look she had given me—the sheer, unadulterated disgust—left no doubt in my mind. If Becket hadn’t been there to play the victim, she might have actually finished what she started earlier. “What are you still standing there for?” Regina’s voice drifted back, cold and hollow. “Get out.” I looked down at my phone. A message had just come in from the rescue coordindator. I felt a ghost of a smile touch my lips. “Regina,” I called out. “If I keep hurting him… would you kill me?” She went silent. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it. If the end was already written, I wanted the closure of the spoken word. She didn’t answer right away. I didn’t wait. The rescue team was blowing up my phone. A notorious cartel cell had moved into the valley. People were dying, the medical teams were overwhelmed, and they needed every able body. I sighed. “The protection is in the drawer. I probably won’t be back for a while. Do whatever you want.” I shouldered my pack and turned to leave. But just as my foot hit the threshold, I heard it. Her final answer. “No.” Two days of grueling travel later, I arrived at a hidden mountain village. The team leader barely looked up before tossing a trauma kit at my chest. “Move! We’ve got casualties that won’t last another hour!” I’d heard stories, but the reality was a visceral shock. The ground was littered with the wounded, their cries a dissonant chorus of agony. It was a slaughterhouse. “How did it get this bad?” I asked, already kneeling over a man with a jagged shrapnel wound. The leader’s face was grim. “These people are monsters. Right now, our priority is getting the hostages out of the compound across the ridge.” I frowned. “There are more?” The compound was a fortress. Trying to pull someone out of there was a suicide mission. The leader sighed. “Yeah. Some poor kid. Apparently, he was lured out here by a girl he met on a dating app. He’s been in there for twenty-four hours. God knows what’s left of him.” My heart went out to the guy. Even in this “scripted” world, I’d spent enough years here to feel for the locals. Most of them were just ordinary people trying to survive, no different from the office drones I knew in my real life. The cartel had sent word: they would trade the hostage, but only for a medical professional and a full trauma kit. They were bleeding out over there, too, and they were desperate. I volunteered. It wasn’t because I was a hero. It was because the Protocol guaranteed my resurrection as long as the mission wasn’t “complete.” Regina knew that. It was the safety net that allowed her to be as cruel as she wanted. I walked toward the enemy lines, the trauma kit heavy in my hand. When I was only a few yards away, a sharp gasp cut through the mountain air. “Ewan?” I looked up. My heart skipped a beat. Looking back at me, his eyes wide with terror, was Becket. What the hell was he doing here? The cartel gunman didn’t give us time for a reunion. He pressed the barrel of his rifle against Becket’s temple. “Don’t just stand there! Hand over the kit if you want him to live!” Becket was a mess—bruised, bloody, and shivering. He looked broken. “Are you deaf? Give it to them! Move!” If I weren’t a member of this team, if I didn’t have a code of ethics to uphold for every life, I would have dropped the bag and walked away. I took a breath and held out the kit. “Take it. Now let him—” Before I could finish, men surged from the brush on either side. A heavy boot slammed into the back of my knee, and I hit the dirt hard. “You bastards! We had a deal!” I snarled. the leader laughed, a cold, rasping sound. “You talk about deals with us? Here’s the truth: we never planned on letting you go. An extra hostage is just an extra insurance policy.” I felt a surge of genuine fear. Resurrection or not, the pain was real. These men weren’t the type to give you a quick, clean exit. “Why waste your breath on him? He’s a dead man anyway.” I was already calculating my escape when I saw it. Becket wasn’t being held down anymore. He calmly untied the ropes around his wrists and sat down on a grimy sofa in the back of the room. The realization hit me like a physical blow. The wounds, the terror—it was all a performance. He wasn’t a victim. He was a partner. “Why?” I asked. I used to think he was just a petty, jealous man. But this? This was a different level of evil. He chuckled, leaning back. “You really thought I was at university in Europe all those years? Please. I dropped out months in. This business pays way better than a desk job. Every man for himself, right, Ewan?” I went quiet. When I looked up, I just felt a weary kind of pity. “What do you want?” He pulled a knife and traced the flat of the blade along my cheek. He gave me a brilliant, manic smile. “I want to play a game.” A cold pit formed in my stomach. “What game?” He checked his watch. “Regina will be here in a few minutes. I want to see who she chooses. You… or me?” All this effort, all this blood, just to play a sick game of “who do you love more” with Regina. I didn’t know whether to be disgusted or impressed by the sheer scale of his obsession. But I couldn’t say a word. They taped my mouth shut before I could respond. Time became a blur of silence and mountain wind. Eventually, the sounds of an arrival echoed from outside. “Miss Thorne! What an honor to have such a powerful woman visit our humble home!” The cartel leader grinned and shoved both Becket and me toward the door. We were bundled like cargo. Regina’s eyes swept over the scene. Her gaze didn’t even pause on me; it locked onto Becket immediately. “Let them go. Name your price. I have the wire transfer ready.” The leader scratched his ear. “You misunderstand, Regina. It’s not about the money anymore. I want to play.” “What?” Regina’s eyes narrowed, her hand drifting toward her holster. “I know you’re armed,” the leader said. “But my boys have their fingers on the triggers. One wrong move, and we all go up in flames.” Regina stopped. “What do you want?” He pointed at the two of us. “Simple. You can take one man with you. The other… you have to shoot him yourself.” “…Name a price for both. I’m not playing this,” Regina said after a long, agonizing silence. The leader barked out a laugh. “You think you’re in a position to negotiate? You have ten seconds. If you don’t choose, I’ll kill them both.” I looked at Becket. He was actually risking his own life for this. If Regina chose me, he’d die. He was insane. Bang. The bullet tore through the air before I even realized what was happening. I felt the impact, a sudden, blinding heat in my chest. My body began to tilt backward. Blood sprayed into the air, vivid and bright against the gray sky. Regina hadn’t even hesitated. She had made her choice in a heartbeat. All those promises, those years together—they meant nothing. Not even a second of doubt. As my spirit drifted from my body, I stood there, a ghost watching the wreckage. I watched her sprint past my cooling corpse, not even looking down as she stepped over my arm to reach Becket. She gripped his hands, her voice frantic as she checked him for injuries. She really did hate me that much. Suddenly, a triumphant chime echoed in my head. [Congratulations, Host! Mission Complete. Proceed to return to the real world?] [Warning: Upon return, this body will be truly deceased. No further resurrections will be possible in this plane.] I watched Regina’s retreating back as she led Becket away. I smiled. “Yes. Do it.”

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The tragedy of my last life began with a leaked corporate proposal. That afternoon, my uncle found the evidence on my cousin’s computer, and the finger was immediately pointed at me. I was the only other person who had touched her desk. Faced with my cousin’s breathless, tear-soaked pleading, my heart had softened. I swallowed my defense and took the blame, muttering something about a misclick. From that moment on, I was branded the family curse. The loss of her job, the derailed career—it was all hung around my neck. My relatives tore me apart at every family gathering. My parents, exhausted and humiliated by the relentless screaming from my aunt and uncle, eventually forced me to my knees to beg for forgiveness. Later, when my cousin’s own startup imploded, leaving her drowning in a mountain of debt, my aunt and uncle showed up at my door. They demanded I sell the small condo my grandmother had left me to bail her out. They said I owed them. In the violent scuffle that broke out on my landing, my uncle shoved me. I fell down the concrete stairwell. My neck snapped. I died instantly. The grief and shock destroyed my parents; they both fell ill and followed me to the grave within the year. But today, my eyes snap open. I am back on the exact day the proposal leaked. And this time, I’m not carrying anyone else’s cross. 1 “You ungrateful little parasite! After everything this family has done for you, you sell our company’s secrets to a competitor?!” “What kind of sick game are you playing? I’m calling the cops right now!” My uncle’s palm cracked across my cheek like a gunshot. The explosive, stinging heat radiating across my skin jolted me completely awake. I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights. Scattered manila folders covered the office floor. My cousin, Brittany, was crouched by her leather desk chair, sobbing into her hands. Her mother—my Aunt Carol—was standing over me, hands on her hips, spitting venom. My laptop bag sat right where I’d left it on the glass table. I had actually come back. Back to the exact moment I took the fall. In my past life, this slap had completely disoriented me. Just as I opened my mouth to swear I hadn’t touched Brittany’s files, I had met her eyes. They were wide, brimming with tears, begging me silently. I had caved. I took the hit. I promised my aunt and uncle I would find a way to make up the financial loss. I didn’t know I was buying a one-way ticket to hell. Because of me—supposedly—Brittany lost a multi-million dollar bid and got fired. My uncle’s family made sure everyone in our zip code knew I was a backstabbing snake who ruined her bright future. The disgust in my relatives’ eyes. My parents, beaten down by the sheer volume of Aunt Carol’s hysteria, dragging me over to their house to grovel. Then came Brittany’s doomed business venture. The six-figure debt. My aunt and uncle, eyes red with greed and desperation, pounding on my door, screaming that this was my karmic debt to pay. They knew my grandmother had left me that little house in the suburbs. They brought men to physically pry the keys from my hands. The weightlessness of the fall. The agonizing crunch of my skull against the concrete. The sight of my parents, broken and weeping by my hospital bed as I slipped away. The memories rushed through my blood, freezing it into ice. I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms that the skin broke. The sharp pain grounded me. In this life, I would rather die than take the fall for her. Seeing me just standing there, Brittany dialed up the waterworks. She threw herself against her father’s chest. “Dad, stop, don’t hit Jo anymore! She probably didn’t mean to do it! She came by to hang out yesterday, she was messing around near my desk… she must have clicked the wrong thing…” It sounded like mercy. It was actually a perfectly executed trap to establish that I was the one on her computer. Aunt Carol pounced immediately. “Didn’t mean to?! This little bitch is just jealous of your salary! She did this to ruin you! You’re too sweet, Brittany, you’re letting her stab you in the back and you’re still trying to protect her!” “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” my uncle roared at me. “That was a multi-million dollar contract! You’ve destroyed her life!” A low murmur rippled through the open-plan office. The other employees were watching the spectacle. “Jo is usually so quiet when she comes around,” someone whispered. “Always so polite. Why would she do corporate espionage?” “You never know with people,” another muttered. “Paul is her own uncle. He wouldn’t falsely accuse his own niece, would he?” “Maybe she really was jealous of Brittany…” The whispers acted like gasoline on my uncle’s rage. Breathing heavily, his face flushed purple, he raised his hand to strike me again. I didn’t freeze this time. I took a sharp step back, dodging his hand effortlessly. When I spoke, my voice was absolute zero. “I didn’t leak that proposal.” 2 The office went dead silent. Brittany’s sobbing abruptly hitched, a flash of genuine panic cutting through the faux-tears in her eyes. My uncle glared at me, his jaw working. “You expect me to believe that? If it wasn’t you, who was it? Brittany said you were on her computer yesterday. Who else could have done it?” “I came to the office yesterday to see her, yes.” I locked eyes with Brittany. “But I never touched your computer. Not even the power button. I came to borrow a GRE prep book. You told me it was on your desk and to grab it myself. When I walked over, your monitor was black. I grabbed the book and walked out. I was in your cubicle for sixty seconds.” Aunt Carol practically foamed at the mouth. “Liar! You’re just trying to save your own skin! If you didn’t touch it, how did our competitor get the exact file?!” “It’s incredibly easy to prove,” I said, my voice steady, cutting through her hysterics. “Brittany’s computer has an activity log. What time the file was opened, what time it was sent—it leaves a digital footprint. Check her email, her Slack, her cloud drives. There will be an outbound record. Furthermore, this company has security cameras. Pull the tape from yesterday. See exactly how long I was at her desk, and see who else sat in that chair.” Aunt Carol wasn’t backing down. “You’re a tech major! You know how to hack! You probably remote-accessed her desktop!” A harsh, dry laugh escaped my throat. “So I spent four years mastering network security just so I could hack into Brittany’s completely unencrypted, password-free desktop?” I paused, turning my gaze back to my cousin. Her face had lost all its color. “Brittany, you just told everyone I ‘clicked the wrong thing.’ So which is it? Was I an accidental klutz, or an elite hacker? And if I clicked the wrong thing, tell me—what email address did I accidentally type out perfectly? At what exact time?” Brittany opened her mouth, but only a pathetic, raspy breath came out. Her fingers twisted the fabric of her silk blouse into knots. She couldn’t meet my eyes. I had spent the last two years helping this office out with their IT issues for free, just as a favor to my uncle. The staff liked me. Unlike Brittany, who treated the receptionists and tech guys like the help, I actually talked to them. Gary, the senior systems administrator, finally stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Jo has maintained our servers for months. We all know her character. If she wanted to steal a file, she wouldn’t do it from Brittany’s physical machine and leave a trail a mile wide.” My uncle hesitated, his anger momentarily replaced by confusion. He looked down at his daughter. “Brittany… is she telling the truth?” “I… I don’t remember,” Brittany stammered, her voice trembling—this time for real. All her self-righteousness had evaporated. “I was just so panicked! I saw her near my desk, and then the file was gone…” “You don’t remember?” I sneered. “A million-dollar contract on the line, and your memory gets fuzzy? Think harder, Brittany. Was it an accident, or did you send it to someone yourself?” Aunt Carol exploded. “How dare you speak to her like that! Why the hell would Brittany send it on purpose? Is she insane?!” “Only she knows the answer to that,” I said quietly. “Stop it! Dad, Mom, please, I just want to go home, I’m having a panic attack…” Brittany immediately reverted to the helpless, fragile girl routine, knowing it was her parents’ kryptonite. Realizing there was no smoking gun to immediately hang me with, Aunt Carol grabbed her purse. She shot me a look of pure venom. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this with your smart mouth. I will find the proof, and when I do, I’ll make sure you pay for this.” She grabbed Brittany by the arm and stormed out, my uncle trailing behind them. The glass door slammed shut behind them, rattling in its frame. Once they were gone, the adrenaline left me in a rush. My knees buckled, and I collapsed into the nearest rolling chair. I had survived the first hurdle. But I knew Aunt Carol and Brittany. They had lost the contract and humiliated themselves in front of the office. They wouldn’t let this go. The file really was in the competitor’s hands, because Brittany had sold it to them. And she would move heaven and earth to make sure I took the fall for her greed. 3 Sure enough, by 7:00 AM the next morning, the family group chat was a warzone. Aunt Carol led the charge. She sent over twenty voice memos, each one dripping with manufactured tears, twisting the events of the previous day into a bizarre work of fiction. In her version, I was a jealous, sociopathic monster who bit the hand that fed me. “Everyone, you have to hear this! When has Paul and I ever treated Jo with anything but love? Her parents work crazy hours, so she practically grew up in our house! Brittany treated her like a sister. She shared everything with her!” “And how does she repay us?! She steals Brittany’s proposal and sells it to a rival firm because she can’t stand that Brittany makes more money than her! Millions of dollars, gone! Brittany was fired! Her life is ruined! And Jo won’t even admit it! She brought her little IT friends to gang up on us! We tried to talk to her, and she practically raised her hand to hit Brittany! Is she even human?” “Her parents are just as guilty for raising such a toxic, rotten kid! I’m saying this right now: if Jo doesn’t pay us back for Brittany’s lost wages and get down on her knees to apologize, our side of the family is cutting her off. We’ll go to her parents’ workplaces and let everyone know what kind of criminals they’re raising!” Following her mother’s barrage, Brittany dropped a long text paragraph, accompanied by three selfies showing her red, swollen eyes. “Hi aunts and uncles… I know you all love Jo. I never thought she’d do something like this to me over petty jealousy. When I saw her at my desk, I just thought she was looking at my things. I never imagined she was stealing from me. I’m completely broken right now. I lost my job, and the person closest to me betrayed me. I don’t want to ruin Jo’s life, but I need her to take accountability and give my parents some closure. When you make a mistake, you have to pay the price, right?” It was a masterclass in manipulation. Within minutes, the chat was swarming with relatives taking the bait. The ones who usually sucked up to Aunt Carol for favors were the first to draw blood. “Jo is so out of line. How could she do this? Disgusting behavior!” “Brittany has always been such a sweet girl, she wouldn’t lie about this. Make Jo pay for the damages!” “This is what happens when you let someone else’s kid eat at your table. Paul and Carol wasted their love on her.” Even the relatives who usually stayed quiet chimed in, eager for the drama. “Family is family, but if Jo stole something, she needs to face the music.” “Millions of dollars is a big deal. The least Jo could do is show some remorse.” My phone rang. It was my parents. “Jo, honey, what is going on?” my mom’s voice was trembling with anxiety. “What is Carol saying about you? Tell us it’s just a misunderstanding.” Hearing my parents’ voices—alive, healthy, frantic with worry—sent a wave of fierce warmth through my chest. In this life, I wouldn’t let anyone touch a hair on their heads. “Mom, Dad, breathe,” I said softly. “It has nothing to do with me. Brittany leaked the file herself, and she’s trying to use me as a human shield. I have the proof. I’m just waiting for the right moment to drop it. Do not reply to the group chat. I have it handled.” They hesitated, but my parents trusted me. “Okay, sweetie. We believe you. But if they try to come over here and harass you, your dad and I aren’t going to just stand by.” “I know. I love you.” I hung up. I sat on my bed, scrolling through the toxic sludge in the group chat, quietly screenshotting every single message. Seeing that I wasn’t responding, Brittany grew bolder. She tagged me directly, demanding I come out of hiding. She warned that if I didn’t show my face, they were coming to my parents’ house. Aunt Carol took it a step further. She dropped a pin of my parents’ address into the chat. She invited everyone who lived nearby to come over at 7:00 PM to “demand justice” and watch my parents “discipline their thief of a daughter.” A cold, sharp smile touched my lips. Perfect. The stage was set. The audience was invited. It was time to pull the trapdoor. 4 At exactly 7:00 PM, cars started pulling up to the curb outside my parents’ house. Aunt Carol, Uncle Paul, and Brittany got out, followed by three of my louder aunts and uncles. They marched right onto our front lawn. Aunt Carol didn’t even bother ringing the doorbell; she just started screaming at the second-floor window. “Jo! Get your ass out here! Hiding in your bedroom like a coward won’t save you!” “Come out here and look your cousin in the eye! Pay up or we’re throwing a brick through your window!” “Come out here and explain yourselves!” an aunt yelled at my parents’ silhouettes in the window. Neighbors started stepping out onto their porches. People walking their dogs stopped on the sidewalk. Whispers broke out. Brittany stood slightly behind her mother, playing the tragic victim perfectly. She kept wiping her dry eyes, looking up at our window with a sickeningly triumphant smirk hidden just beneath her hands. She was waiting for me to break. Inside, my dad was shaking with rage. He reached for the front door handle. “I’m going down there. I’m not letting them speak to you like that.” “Dad, no.” I gripped his forearm tight. “Don’t get in the mud with them. It just makes you dirty.” I pulled my phone from my pocket. “Watch. Today, they’re going to choke on every single word they just spat out.” Down on the lawn, Brittany was still staring up at my window, waiting for my surrender. Then, a voice cut through the crisp evening air from the sidewalk behind her. “Brittany?”

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