Category: English

Five years ago, my wife spent an afternoon volunteering at a local children’s shelter. She came home and cried in my arms all night. She told me about a three-year-old boy whose eyes reminded her so much of her late brother. She wanted to adopt him. I loved her too much to say no. I signed every piece of paperwork they put in front of us. For five years, that boy called me Daddy. I paid for the best private academy, threw him birthday parties that were grander than anything I’d have planned for a child of my own blood. Until last month, when Teddy was diagnosed with acute leukemia. He needed a bone marrow transplant. On the day of the donor match results, the oncologist pulled me into a private office. His expression was troubled. “Mr. Michell, you and the boy… you aren’t biologically related, are you?” I nodded. “No, we adopted him.” “And your wife?” I frowned, confused. “She’s his adoptive mother. There’s no biological connection there either.” The doctor fell silent for a long moment before sliding a folder across the desk. “According to these lab results, Mr. Michell… your wife is his biological mother.” I drove home with the report burning a hole in my passenger seat. When I walked in, Hannah was sitting on the living room floor, peeling an apple for Teddy. She looked up, caught the look in my eyes, and the paring knife slipped from her hand, clattering against the hardwood. That very evening, the doorbell rang. Standing on the porch was her college boyfriend, Chase. He was holding a bunch of white roses. “Hannah,” he said, his voice thick with relief. “My marrow is a match. Our boy is going to make it.” … “Our boy.” Those two words felt like ice picks driving straight into my chest. I slowly turned my head to look at Hannah. She was deathly pale, her lips trembling. The sharp, metallic clang of the knife hitting the floor still seemed to vibrate in the silence as she collapsed onto the sofa, looking entirely hollowed out. “Sean… I can explain…” I didn’t say a word. I pulled the front door wide open. The man outside froze. He clearly hadn’t expected me to open the door. This was Chase Woodward, Hannah’s college ex. I’d seen photos of him before. At Hannah’s college reunion five years ago, she had posted a group picture. When I asked about it, she smiled and said he was just an old classmate, nothing serious. “Nothing serious.” Right. “Sean,” Chase said, quickly recovering his composure and tucking the roses behind his back. “I’m sorry. I came to—” “To claim your son?” I cut him off. His face fell. I threw the lab results right in his face. “Biological mother, biological father. A happy little family. How convenient.” The sheets of paper drifted onto the welcome mat. Hannah threw herself off the sofa, dropping to her knees at my feet and clawing at my jeans. “Sean, please, listen to me. I didn’t mean to keep this from you. I didn’t even know myself until recently—” “Recently?” I let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Five years ago, when you sobbed in my arms all night, was that ‘recently’? When you told me his eyes looked just like your brother’s? Your brother? Hannah, you’re an only child. You never had a brother.” She had no answer. I crouched down, forcing her to look at me. “When is Teddy’s birthday?” “September twelfth,” she whispered. “And when did you and Chase break up?” Her eyes dilated with panic. “February.” I laughed, but my eyes burned. “Nine months from February is November, Hannah. But Teddy was born in September. You were already pregnant with another man’s child the day we signed our marriage license, weren’t you?” She broke down, sobbing hysterically. Chase, still standing on the porch, had the nerve to chime in. “Sean, look, what’s done is done. The boy’s life is what matters right now—” “Get the hell out,” I said, my voice dead. “Listen—” “I said, get out.” I had never looked at another human being with so much hatred. Chase pressed his lips together, bent down to pick up the fallen roses, and walked away. I slammed the door and leaned my back against it, slowly sliding down to the floor. Hannah crawled over, wrapping her arms around my leg. “Sean, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… Teddy is still in the pediatric ICU. He needs the transplant. I beg you, just let him get through this, and then you can do whatever you want with me…” I looked down at her. This woman I had adored, protected, and loved with everything I had for eight years. “Hannah.” “Yes?” “We’re getting a divorce.” She froze, staring up at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “What did you say?” “Divorce,” I repeated. “I’m calling my lawyer first thing in the morning.” She shook her head violently, tears streaking her face. “No! Sean, you can’t do this! Teddy is in the ICU. He needs his family. He needs us to be whole!” I laughed again, a sound raw and ugly. “Whole?” “Hannah, this family was a lie from day one. The piece we were missing was just standing on our porch holding white roses.” “No!” she screamed. “Chase and I ended things years ago! I haven’t contacted him once since I married you!” “Then how do you explain Teddy?” She choked on her words. I stood up, stepping out of her grasp, and walked into the study. I opened the safe and pulled out the adoption papers from five years ago. A thick stack of documents, my signature on every single page. I remembered the social worker smiling at me back then. “Mr. Michell, you’re a good man, being so supportive of your wife’s wishes.” A good man. The phrase made me want to throw up. I threw the papers onto the coffee table. “Hannah, tell me. Five years ago, did you actually volunteer at that shelter?” She stayed quiet. “The little boy who ‘looked like your brother’—was any of that real?” Silence. “The night you cried and begged me to adopt him—was any of it real?!” I roared, my hands shaking uncontrollably. Hannah curled into a ball on the rug, gasping for air between her sobs. “I… I had no choice… My parents wouldn’t let me bring a baby home. Chase had gone out of state, he had no money… I couldn’t support him on my own. I had to put him in foster care temporarily… until I got married… and found a way…” A cold chill washed over me. “So I was your ‘way’?” “I was the perfect, unsuspecting idiot you handpicked to clean up your mess?” “You dated a guy for four years, got pregnant, turned around and married me, and then orchestrated a heartbreaking adoption story to get your kid back. Hannah, that is a masterpiece. They should write a screenplay about you.” She couldn’t speak through her tears. I took out my phone and dialed my attorney. “Patrick? I need you to draft a divorce agreement. As fast as possible. We split the assets fifty-fifty. The boy… isn’t mine. He goes with her.” I hung up and looked at her. “I’m sleeping in the study tonight. Tomorrow morning, we file.” Hannah lunged forward, grabbing my ankles. “Sean! If not for me, think about Teddy! He’s called you ‘Daddy’ for five years! How can you just watch him die?!” I looked down at her. “His real father was just here. He’s a match. He’s more useful than I am.” I pulled my leg free, walked into the study, and locked the door. Behind me, Hannah’s weeping was loud and desperate. I sank against the door, burying my face in my knees. Eight years. Eight years of my life, gone. The next morning, I woke up at five. I packed my basic toiletries into a duffel bag. As I passed Teddy’s bedroom, I paused. The door was slightly open. The small bed was covered in dinosaur sheets—he had picked them out himself three months ago. He had dragged me through the department store all afternoon, tugging my hand and piping up, “Daddy, I want the T-rex ones!” I had smiled and swiped my card. Back then, I was thinking about whether we should try for a second child once he got a bit older. How pathetic. I averted my eyes and went downstairs. Hannah hadn’t slept. She sat on the sofa, her eyes swollen and bloodshot. When she saw me, she stood up. “Sean…” “Let’s go,” I said. For a second, her face softened, thinking I’d changed my mind. But then I added, “We’re going to the courthouse.” The color drained from her face again. The drive was dead silent. At the county clerk’s office, there was a line. Some couples were laughing; others, like us, looked like walking corpses. When it came time to sign the initial paperwork, Hannah’s hand shook so violently she could barely hold the pen. “Sean, is there really no hope for us?” I didn’t look at her. “None.” “What about Teddy?” “Chase will take care of him.” She snapped her head up. “How do you know that?” I let out a cold laugh. “Hannah, how do you think he knew to show up last night? If he didn’t know Teddy was his, why would he get tested? Why would he show up at our house with flowers?” “How long have you two been talking behind my back?” Her lips trembled, but she couldn’t summon a single word. When the papers were finalized and filed, a strange sense of relief washed over me. Stepping out of the courthouse, the morning sun was blinding. My phone buzzed. It was the hospital. “Mr. Michell? Teddy’s… he’s having a rough morning. Can you come in?” I stood frozen on the sidewalk. Hannah, standing beside me, heard the tension. “Is that the hospital? What’s wrong with Teddy?!” I glanced at her. “If you want to know about your son, ask his father.” I turned and walked away. But after a few steps, I stopped. Five years. For five years, he called me Daddy. Just last week, he was clutching my sleeve from his hospital bed, whispering, “Daddy, I’m scared.” I took a deep, agonizing breath, turned around, and got into my car to drive to the hospital. When I got to the room, Chase was already there. He was wearing a patient gown, looking pale after the preliminary marrow collection procedures. Hannah had arrived before me and was holding Teddy’s hand, crying softly. Teddy was wearing an oxygen mask. When he saw me walk in, his eyes brightened, and he reached out a tiny, frail hand. “Da… Daddy…” My throat tightened. Chase stood up. “Sean, thank you for looking after Teddy these past five years. I’ll take it from here.” I ignored him. I walked to the bedside, crouched down, and took Teddy’s hand. “Hey, buddy. Chase is a match. You’re going to get better real soon.” He blinked, confused behind the plastic mask. “Chase?” My chest felt like it was in a vice. “He’s… he’s going to be your dad now.” Teddy shook his head, tears spilling over the edges of his mask. “No… I want my Daddy. I want you.” I looked away, not wanting him to see my tears. Just then, the door swung open. Someone I absolutely did not expect walked into the room. My mother. Leaning heavily on her cane, breathless, she stood in the doorway. She scanned the room, her gaze sweeping past Chase and stopping dead on Hannah. “Well, Hannah,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it silenced the room instantly. “My son treated you like a queen for eight years. And this is how you repay him?” Hannah’s face turned white. “Mrs. Michell…” “Don’t you dare call me that,” my mother said, slamming her cane onto the tile. “You are no daughter-in-law of mine.” I rushed over to support her. “Mom, what are you doing here? The doctor said your blood pressure is too high for you to travel.” “How could I stay home?” she snapped, looking at me. “You called me last night saying you were filing for divorce. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I took the first train down here.” “Sean, I told you from the start something was off about this woman. When she insisted on adopting that baby, I knew it didn’t make sense. What newlyweds choose to adopt before even trying to have their own? Turns out she just wanted her own kid back on your dime!” Hannah kept her head down, her shoulders shaking. Chase opened his mouth to speak, but my mother cut him off with a blistering glare. “And who the hell are you?” Chase shut his mouth, looking thoroughly chastened. My mother reached into her bag and pulled out a thick manila envelope, tossing it onto the bedside table. “Sean, I know you. You have too soft of a heart, and I didn’t want you second-guessing yourself. I had your uncle do some digging. See for yourself.” I opened the envelope. Inside were several photographs and a private investigator’s report. The first photo showed Hannah and Chase sitting in a quiet café. The timestamp was from three months ago. The next photo showed them walking out of the private clinic where Teddy was first diagnosed with leukemia. In the next, they were inside a car, Chase holding Hannah’s hand. According to the report, Chase had moved back to the area three years ago. During that time, he and Hannah had communicated at least forty-seven times, with eleven documented face-to-face meetings. My hands began to shake. “Three years,” I whispered, looking up at Hannah. “You’ve been seeing him behind my back for three years?” She trembled, her voice barely a squeak. “It’s not what you think… I only contacted him after Teddy got sick, to get him tested—” “Bullshit!” my mother barked. “Teddy wasn’t sick three years ago!” Hannah fell completely silent. I stared at the three-year-old photo in the café, my mind buzzing. Three years ago. That was the year I got promoted to VP, the year I bought her that beautiful colonial house with the big backyard. Three years ago, on her birthday, she had held me tight and whispered, “Sean, marrying you is the best thing that ever happened to me.” I let out a laugh. It started small, then grew, until tears were streaming down my face. Chase lost his patience. “Mr. Michell, you’ve signed the papers. There’s no need to drag this out—” “Drag this out?” I snapped my head toward him. “Chase, who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” “You let me play the fool for eight years, let me raise your kid for five, and now you’re telling me not to drag this out?” Everyone in the room went rigid. Right then, the phone in my pocket vibrated. It was a text from Patrick. Sean, I just got the results back on that background check you asked for. Teddy’s adoption paperwork is highly irregular. There’s no record of him ever being admitted to that shelter’s foster system. The entire placement was fabricated. More importantly, I found the private facilitator who handled the transfer. He’s willing to testify. We can sue for full restitution of every dollar you spent on Teddy over the last five years, plus substantial emotional damages. There’s one more thing… you might want to sit down for this. I took a slow breath and scrolled down to the next message. In an instant, my entire body went numb. The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the floor.

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Melody’s mother stole my father, and in doing so, she killed my mother. Years later, history decided to repeat itself. The boy I grew up with, the one who had been by my side for eighteen years, lied to my face. Behind my back, he spent his evenings helping Melody with her college applications, even gifting her the limited-edition vintage vinyl I had begged him to find for me. And when Melody hacked into my college portal and withdrew my Ivy League acceptance, replacing it with a local community college, he actually defended her. “Melody didn’t mean any harm, Caroline,” he pleaded. “She was just playing a practical joke on you.” But there was nothing funny about it. 01 Just days before the final college decision deadline, I experienced a violent, inexplicable tear in time. I was hurled ten years into the future. I saw myself. I saw a girl who had scored a 1550 on her SATs now limping on a shattered right leg, her hair unwashed and tied back with a fraying rubber band, busing tables at a greasy diner. Meanwhile, my stepsister Melody had graduated from an elite university, married my childhood sweetheart, Connor, and given birth to a picture-perfect pair of twins. I remember the blood draining from my face. “How did this happen?” My twenty-eight-year-old self offered a hollow, broken laugh. “Melody changed my college portal. By the time I found out, the deadline had passed. It was too late.” “Dad and Connor both took her side. They said she didn’t do it maliciously, that it was just a prank, that I needed to take a joke.” “But I couldn’t swallow the injustice. I confronted her. We fought at the top of the stairs, and she threw herself backward, framing me. Dad… Dad wanted to teach me a lesson. He hired the best prosecutors to press aggravated assault charges and let me rot in a juvenile detention center for six months.” “Connor promised he’d wait for me. But the day I got out, I found them tangled up in his bed.” “I snapped. I grabbed a kitchen knife. I hurt them both.” “That time, Connor hired the most ruthless defense attorney in the state to ensure I got the maximum sentence. Five years.” Her words were like lightning striking the base of my skull. My whole body went rigid. I heard my own voice trembling as I fought back: “No. That’s impossible. Connor and I grew up together. He loves me. He promised he’d protect me for the rest of my life.” “He knows how much I despise Melody and her mother. He would never help them destroy me.” The older version of me stared back, her eyes rimmed with red. She looked down at her ruined, asymmetrical leg. “Why wouldn’t he? People change, Caroline.” “Even this leg… Connor paid off one of the guards in lockup to look the other way while an inmate took a metal pipe to my knee.” She jerked her head up, her gaze fierce and desperate. “Caroline, listen to me. If you don’t want to lose your future, if you don’t want to become a convicted felon scrubbing grease off diner tables, wake the hell up! Stop letting Connor play you for a fool!” The sheer magnitude of the information hit my brain like a physical blow. The world tipped on its axis. The next second, I collapsed onto the hardwood floor. When I opened my eyes, the sterile, chemical scent of hospital bleach flooded my lungs. “Caroline, thank God, you’re awake!” Connor was sitting by the edge of my hospital bed. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around my left hand, his dark eyes wide with unfeigned panic and concern. “You passed out in your room last night. You scared the life out of me!” 02 I lay there, perfectly still, just looking at him. Unbidden, a memory surfaced. Eighth-grade field trip to the state park. I had wandered off the trail and gotten hopelessly lost. It was Connor who spent three hours searching for me in the dying light. His shins were sliced up by thorny brambles, but he still insisted on carrying me on his back the whole way down the mountain because I was too paralyzed by fear to walk. I thought of my fourteenth birthday. My father had thrown a massive, catered backyard gala for Melody—who happened to share my exact birthdate—and completely forgot about me. I had hidden in the darkness of my closet, clutching a framed photograph of my mother to my chest, crying until I couldn’t breathe. It was Connor who opened the closet door. He was holding a lopsided, home-baked cupcake with a single lit candle, looking at me like a knight who had finally found his charge. “Happy birthday, Caro.” “Don’t be scared. You’re not alone. I’ll be here for every birthday, for the rest of your life.” I thought of all the times Melody had tried to insert herself into his orbit. In the dead of winter, she had spent weeks knitting him a gray scarf. Connor hadn’t even given it a second glance before tossing it into the cafeteria trash can. Melody’s eyes had welled up with those trademark tears, but Connor’s voice was like ice: “Don’t waste your time. I will always stand with Caroline.” “You and your mother destroyed her family. That makes you my enemy, too.” Then, another memory. Melody’s mother, Valerie, ‘accidentally’ knocking my mother’s vintage Cartier watch off my dresser, shattering the delicate glass face. Blinded by grief and rage, I had thrown a glass of ice water right in Valerie’s face. Valerie was a master of the victim act. She instantly collapsed into my father’s arms, weeping. “I was just trying to help Caroline tidy her room. I didn’t mean to bump the dresser. She misunderstood… she thinks I did it on purpose.” “Richard, please, don’t be mad at her.” Her calculated retreat only made my father more protective of her. He turned to me, his eyes devoid of any paternal warmth. “Caroline Ellis, who taught you to act like such a savage? Apologize to your mother, right now!” I tipped my chin up, my throat tight. “I only have one mother. Valerie is just a cheap homewrecker.” The slap echoed through the hallway. My father struck me so hard my ears rang. “I have spoiled you for too long. You have zero respect!” As punishment, he forced me to stand in the freezing mudroom for twelve hours. No dinner. No water. No sitting down. My legs shook. I was lightheaded from hunger. It was Connor who shimmied up the trellis and crawled through the mudroom window, pulling a bag of warm, sugar-dusted apple cider donuts from his jacket. I ate them through my tears, and he wiped my cheeks with his thumbs, his own face twisted in sympathetic agony. “Don’t cry. Once we graduate, we’re going to college in Boston. We’ll get as far away from them as possible.” “I’ll be your family from now on. I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you.” It never surprised me that my father chose Melody over me. But Connor? Connor, who looked at me like I hung the moon? How could he ever betray me for her? I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe the vision of my twenty-eight-year-old self was just a stress-induced nightmare. I tried to self-soothe. But reality was waiting to deliver its own slap to the face. 03 Before we checked out of the hospital, Connor ran down to the pharmacy on the first floor. I watched him walk back into the room, holding a small paper bag. “Are you getting a cold?” I asked, confused. He froze. A heavy silence stretched between us before he hesitated, shifting his weight. “It’s not for me. It’s for Melody.” “She texted a few minutes ago saying she was running a fever, so she asked me to pick up some meds.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. The terror of my nightmare flooded my veins, making my skin prickle. I couldn’t stop the barrage of questions. “Why are you buying medicine for Melody? Since when do you two text? Since when are you close?” “Do you have feelings for her? When did this start?” Seeing my escalating panic, Connor quickly set the bag down and reached for my shoulders. “Caro, stop overthinking. How could I ever like Melody?” “You’re the only one I care about. But Melody… Melody saved my life. I’m just repaying a debt.” I recoiled. “She saved your life? When? Why don’t I know about this?” Connor finally confessed the secret he had been keeping for months: “Two months ago, I was walking back from a party. I was crossing the street, and a drunk driver blew a red light. I didn’t see it coming.” “If Melody hadn’t shoved me out of the way, I would have been the one with a shattered femur.” I knew Melody had been injured. Of course I did. But I had no idea she had broken her leg saving Connor. Suddenly, everything clicked. It made sense why, despite missing the final two months of senior year and being confined to a hospital bed, Melody had seemed completely unfazed. She was constantly posting bubbly updates on her Instagram stories. Her favorite captions were always: “My favorite private tutor is here again! I’m so spoiled! <3" "Look at the limited-edition vinyl my tutor hunted down for me! Best day ever!" I had never visited her in the hospital, so I had never seen this "tutor." I assumed my dad had hired some grad student to keep her grades up. But looking back, during that exact same period, Connor had stopped walking me home from school. "Caro, my grandma isn't feeling well. I have to go to the estate and check on her. I can't walk you home today." I knew how much Connor loved his grandmother. I never questioned it. I even bought her expensive teas and sent them with him. Was it all a lie? Hot tears welled in my eyes. I looked at the boy I thought I knew better than anyone. "So... the 'tutor' was you. And the person who gave her that vinyl record was you. Wasn't it?" I had wanted that record for a year. It was nearly impossible to find. I had begged Connor to help me track it down. He had tapped his chest confidently and said, "Leave it to me. Have I ever let you down?" Two weeks later, he handed me a generic, newly pressed album. "I'm sorry, Caro. The vintage one is completely sold out. I called every collector I know." But he had found it. He just gave it to Melody instead. 04 Seeing my tears, panic flared in Connor’s eyes. He scrambled to explain himself. "Caro, please don't cry. I swear to you, I'm only nice to her because I owe her my life." "I know how much you hate her. I was terrified that if you found out, it would mess with your head right before finals. That's why I asked everyone to keep it a secret." I fought to keep my voice from shaking. "If you were going to lie to me, why couldn't you just keep lying?" He looked miserable, rubbing the back of his neck. "Melody... she wants to apply to the same colleges in Boston as us." "She’s timid. She’s terrified of being in a new city where she doesn't know anyone and getting bullied. She thinks if I’m there, she’ll have someone to look out for her." "She literally took a car for me, Caro. I couldn't say no..." "Just... do it for me, okay? Can you just try to co-exist peacefully with her from now on?" He couldn't say no to Melody, so his solution was to demand that I compromise. The audacity was suffocating. "Valerie drove my mother to an early grave. And you want me to play nice with the daughter of my mother's replacement? Do you hear how insane you sound?" I was thirteen when my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Valerie couldn't even wait for the body to get cold. She showed up at our front door, dragging Melody behind her. The sickest part? Melody was born on the exact same day, in the exact same year, as me. That was how my dying mother found out my father had been living a double life since the day I was born. The betrayal broke what little spirit she had left. She coughed up blood and passed away less than a month later. Three months after the funeral, my father moved Valerie into the master bedroom. Connor knew all of this. He held my hand through the funeral. And yet, here he was, twisting himself into knots to defend Melody. "You can't choose how you're born, Caroline. The sins of the parents aren't Melody's fault." "She's not like her mother. She's sweet. She's kind." "She has never once tried to hurt you. She’s always bending over backward, trying to get you to like her." "You need to learn to let things go. You can't live in this toxic bubble of hatred forever." As I watched Connor advocate for Melody, the warmth in my chest died out, inch by agonizing inch. The image of my twenty-eight-year-old self—limping, wiping down a greasy table, dead-eyed and broken—flashed behind my eyelids with terrifying clarity. Suddenly, the boy standing in front of me felt like a stranger. A dangerous stranger. I instinctively took a step back. "I need to be alone. Do not follow me." I needed space to think. Of course, Connor didn't listen. He followed me out of the hospital, but perhaps sensing my absolute disgust, he maintained a strict fifteen-foot distance all the way back to my house. 05 I walked through the front door of my house and pushed open the door to my bedroom. There was Melody, sitting in my desk chair, typing away on my laptop. The words from my future self—Melody changed my college portal—screamed in my head. My pulse spiked. I lunged forward and shoved her away from the desk. "Who gave you permission to touch my computer?" Melody stumbled and fell gracefully to the carpet, immediately playing dumb. "Sister, you're misunderstanding. I would never mess with your applications!" "My laptop crashed, and I just needed to look up some research material." She lowered her eyelashes, a perfectly timed tear slipping down her cheek. "I'm sorry. I forgot how much you despise me. I promise I'll never touch your things again." I didn't have the energy for her Oscar-worthy performance. I slid into the chair, pulled up the Common App portal, and checked my submissions. Thankfully, I had walked in just in time. She hadn't managed to alter anything yet. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. But when I looked up, Connor was standing in the doorway, helping Melody up from the floor. He was glaring at me with open disapproval. "Her leg is barely healed, Caroline. How could you be so aggressive?" "You're out of line. You owe her an apology." I stared at him, incredulous. "She was sneaking onto my laptop without asking. If she falls, she deserves it." Connor’s brow furrowed deeply. "Why are you being so bitter? It's like I don't even know who you are anymore." His reflexive instinct to protect her over me was the final nail in the coffin. It confirmed everything. Last night wasn't a hallucination. It was a premonition. In the not-so-distant future, Connor would absolutely destroy me for Melody’s sake. But I wasn't going to stick around and play the naive victim. I swallowed the sharp, acidic ache rising in my throat and met his gaze. "I am bitter. If you don't like it, then let's break up." His face drained of color. He looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Are you seriously throwing a tantrum and threatening to break up just because I called you out?" Melody clung to his arm, pretending to be the peacemaker, though she was clearly pouring gasoline on the fire. "Sister, please. Connor loves you so much. He does everything for you." "Every time you two fight, he's always the one who swallows his pride to apologize." "If you shed a single tear, he beats himself up for days." "You might be throwing a tantrum, but you shouldn't use your relationship as a weapon. Aren't you afraid of breaking his heart?" Connor looked at me, a profound disappointment settling over his features. "You're acting like a spoiled brat, Caro." "Just because I usually let you get away with murder doesn't mean I don't have my limits." "Let's just take some space. Don't call me until you've calmed down and realized how ridiculous you're being." With that, he wrapped his arm around Melody’s waist and helped her out of my room. Watching his retreating back, a profound wave of sorrow washed over me. My future self was right. People change. No matter how much Connor used to cherish me, Melody was now the priority. From this day forward, we were on different paths. I blinked back the stinging in my eyes, turned to my computer, and made a calculated, cold decision. I logged in and changed my binding enrollment from Boston to UC Berkeley in California. If he wanted to play house with Melody in Boston, he could have her. I was officially opting out. To ensure she couldn't try anything again, I changed my portal password. I had always used Connor’s birthday—it was entirely possible Melody had guessed it. Finally, I pulled a suitcase from my closet and began packing. I booked a room at a boutique hotel downtown. I refused to spend another night under the same roof as Melody. Who knew what kind of sociopathic stunt she’d pull next? This time, I wasn't going to prison. I was escaping the Ellis family. I was starting over. 06 Carrying my suitcase downstairs, I had to walk past Melody’s bedroom. The door was left ajar. Inside, she was sitting on the edge of her mattress, her skirt hiked up to her knees. Connor was kneeling on the floor in front of her, gently massaging her calf muscles. "Is that feeling any better?" he asked softly. Melody’s ears flushed pink. She nodded shyly. "The pain is fading. Thank you." Connor smiled, a soft, indulgent expression I used to think belonged only to me. "You don't have to thank me. You took that hit for me. It's the least I can do." Melody looked down, her expression steeped in manufactured guilt. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault you and my sister fought." "Maybe I should just go to a state school here. I don't want to be the reason your relationship falls apart." "If I get bullied in college, well... that's just my fate. I'll endure it." Connor squeezed her knee comfortingly. "You're not changing your plans. I promised I'd look out for you, and I keep my promises." "None of this is your fault. Caroline is just being irrational." "I guess I spoiled her too much. She thinks the world revolves around her." "Maybe Wyatt was right. I need to leave her out in the cold for a while so she learns how to behave." Wyatt. Connor’s arrogant, old-money best friend. Wyatt had always hated me. If Connor helped me with a project, Wyatt called me lazy. If we went to a diner and I meticulously picked the green onions out of my soup because I loathed the taste, Wyatt called me high-maintenance. If Connor lost track of time playing video games and missed my call, and we argued about it, Wyatt called me a controlling bitch. He was constantly in Connor’s ear, telling him he could do better, urging him to dump me. But back then, Connor would always shove him and shoot back: "Shut the hell up. Caro isn't high-maintenance, she knows what she likes. It's cute." "If she's mad at me, it's because I messed up. It's not her fault." "You're just a miserable single guy who’s jealous of what we have. Stay out of it." That Connor—the fiercely loyal, deeply devoted boy who would fight anyone who spoke ill of me—was dead and gone. The Connor sitting on the floor was Melody’s knight in shining armor. It was impossible not to grieve. We had shared eighteen years of life. Eighteen years of inside jokes, shared trauma, and quiet promises. Detoxing from him was going to hurt like hell. My nose burned. I forced myself to look away, gripped the handle of my suitcase, and walked out the front door without looking back. 07 I lived in the downtown hotel for two weeks. I didn't hear a word from Connor. But I saw plenty of him on Melody’s Instagram. He took her to the summer carnival, riding the vintage carousel—my favorite ride. He went shopping with her to pick out a dress for graduation. He stood in line for two hours outside Rosenberg's to buy her a fresh, warm box of pastries. He even took her to our spot. The stargazing hill overlooking the valley. Whenever the grief over my mother became too much, Connor would drive me up there, roll out a blanket, and we’d watch old movies on his iPad under the stars. In the photo Melody posted, a romantic comedy was playing on a tablet. Connor was leaning back against the hood of his car, looking relaxed. Melody was leaning into his space, pressing a kiss to his cheek. So this was his version of "repaying a debt." I stared at the photos. I scrolled through them obsessively, almost masochistically, etching the reality of their intimacy into my brain. It was a form of exposure therapy. And it worked. The agonizing, breathless pain in my chest slowly dulled, hardening into a cold, flat indifference. ... Once I felt like I could breathe again, I texted a friend and agreed to meet up at a lounge downtown. I was walking down the dimly lit hallway toward the restrooms when someone bumped roughly into my shoulder. I stumbled, my heels catching on the carpet, and nearly went down. A hand shot out and caught my elbow, steadying me. "Thanks," I muttered, looking up. I froze. Connor was standing there, looking down at me with an amused, patronizing smirk. "See? You still need me to catch you." His tone was incredibly casual, as if the last two weeks of silence and betrayal had never happened. "Admit it, Caro. You can't survive without me." My face remained entirely impassive. I pulled my arm out of his grip. "Don't flatter yourself. I'd be perfectly fine without you." Connor raised an eyebrow. "You're seriously still holding a grudge? Two weeks later?" "Caro, why are you so stubborn? Would it physically kill you to just back down once?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling heavily like a weary parent offering a truce. "Fine. You win. I surrender." "Let's just say I was wrong, okay? Let's make up. Stop giving me the silent treatment." "We've never gone more than a week without seeing each other since we were kids. I actually missed you." He reached out to pinch my cheek, a fond, easy smile spreading across his face. "I don't know why you're fighting this. You look like you've lost weight since I stopped coming around." "When you're done here, I'll drive you to that late-night diner. We'll get pancakes." It was painfully obvious. He hadn't taken my breakup seriously at all. He genuinely believed this was just an extended pout. I slapped his hand away. My voice was glacial. "Do not touch me. We are broken up." "I lost weight because it's ninety degrees outside and I haven't had much of an appetite. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. Stop being so narcissistic." Seeing that his charm offensive was failing, Connor’s smile vanished, replaced by a cold edge. "Caroline, enough is enough." "I'm handing you an olive branch. How much longer are you going to drag this out?"

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When Donna first suggested we keep our finances strictly split—going fifty-fifty on everything, including the care of our aging parents—I agreed. I spent the next five years working myself to the bone, quietly building a million-dollar nest egg specifically for my dad’s retirement and medical care. But when the household ledger arrived this month, the charges were a sea of red, all linked to one name: her childhood best friend’s father, Frank. When I confronted her, she didn’t even look up from her laptop. “Tommy’s family is going through a tough time, Lester. I’m just helping where I can. It’s pocket change.” Pocket change. There were thirteen transactions, each hovering around a hundred dollars, all within a single month. Yet when my dad was hospitalized last month and his co-pay came out to three hundred dollars, Donna printed out the itemized statement and left it on the kitchen island, demanding I reimburse her half of the shared debit account immediately. I didn’t want to fight. I threw the papers onto the counter and locked myself in the guest room. Until yesterday, when my dad’s condition suddenly worsened. Panicked, driving like a madman, I rushed to the bank to withdraw the funds for his emergency surgery. But the teller behind the glass gave me a look of cold confusion. “Mr. Crawford, the beneficiary listed on this high-yield trust isn’t your father. Is it possible there’s been a mistake?” My brain went completely numb. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. How could there be a mistake? Every single dollar in that account was paid for in my sweat, my blood, the missed dinners, the eighty-hour workweeks. The teller, growing impatient, turned the monitor toward me. The name of the trust fund stared back at me in bold, unforgiving letters: “The Frank Palmer Care Trust.” Frank Palmer. Tommy’s father. … It felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water directly down my spine. My phone buzzed in my hand, jarring me back to the sterile warmth of the bank lobby. It was a text from my dad. “Don’t worry about me, Lester. The doctor says a couple of painkiller shots will do the trick. Save your money.” I pressed my hand over my mouth, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. Looking at the massive withdrawals over the past few months, I had actually allowed myself to believe my dad was finally spending money on himself, that he was finally enjoying his golden years instead of scrimping to save me a dollar. It had all been a lie. Someone else had been living off my sacrifice. I took a cab straight back to our suburban home, slamming the bank statement onto the marble coffee table. “Why is Frank Palmer’s name on my dad’s trust fund, Donna?” Donna startled, looking up from her tablet. But within seconds, her expression shifted back to that familiar, defensive coldness. “All my liquid capital is tied up in the firm’s new real estate development. You know I can’t touch it right now.” “I just put Frank’s name on it as a temporary measure. He’s sick, Lester. He could need emergency surgery at any moment. I needed a contingency plan. Once the firm’s payout clears next month, I’ll transfer three times that amount back into your account.” It was the same raw, unapologetic favoritism. She had assigned a custom ringtone to Tommy’s father years ago. Even if he called at three in the morning, she would leap out of bed to answer. Meanwhile, my dad’s chronic illness had flared up three times this past year, and she hadn’t so much as sent a text asking how he was doing. My phone buzzed again. It was a frantic alert from the hospital. My dad’s vitals were dropping. They needed to move him to the ICU immediately. “I need the money. Now.” My voice shook, my teeth clicking together. Donna looked at me as if I were a hysterical child, her eyes swimming with deep-seated irritation. Before she could speak, Tommy stepped out from the kitchen, holding a glass of iced tea, looking entirely too comfortable. “I’m afraid that’s not going to work, Lester,” Tommy said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “My dad just booked a luxury European cruise for the three of us. It covers all our expenses, and we had to use the cash on hand. There’s barely anything left in that account.” He smirked, turning his phone screen toward me to show the balance of the linked debit card: $54.82. A million dollars. Five years of working myself to the bone, of turning myself into a ghost at corporate dinners, reduced to fifty-four dollars and eighty-two cents. My throat closed up. I stared at Donna, my vision blurring. “My dad is on an operating table right now. He is dying. And you—” “Oh, stop it,” she interrupted, waving her hand dismissively. “Is it really necessary to make up a lie like that just for money? Fine. I’ll write you a promissory note. I’ll pay you back three million next month.” She grabbed a pen, scribbling a sloppy note on a piece of scrap paper and sliding it across the table, as if a few scratched lines could erase the absolute betrayal of my trust. Just then, the front door opened, and Frank walked in, carrying several high-end shopping bags, loudly boasting about the designer watch he’d just bought. That money was supposed to buy my dad a peaceful retirement. Last month, I had bought my dad a three-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater. He had tucked it away in his closet, refusing to wear it because it was “too nice.” He kept wearing his faded, threadbare flannel shirt. My hands shook as I unlocked my phone, frantically going through my contacts to see who I could borrow money from. Then, a banner notification popped up from the hospital. “Time of death: 4:14 PM.” The world went completely silent. It felt as though a lightning bolt had struck me, splitting me open from the inside out. I stood frozen in the entryway. I slowly crumpled the cold, worthless promissory note in my fist. Looking at the three of them laughing in the living room, a strange, hollow clarity washed over me. I decided right then: I was done. I was never coming back. During the three days of my dad’s wake, I cried until my eyes burned dry. Almost everyone we knew came to pay their respects, to offer a quiet word of comfort. Everyone except Donna. She didn’t even know. She was too busy driving Tommy and his father to their premium executive wellness physicals at the private clinic—a package I had originally suggested she buy for “my” father. Instead, she had forced my dad to go through the receipts, charging him for the co-pay right in front of her. That night, my dad had quietly packed his small bag and walked out into a torrential downpour, catching a bus back to his old house in the country. He developed a severe fever that night, which ultimately triggered his final organ failure. And now, he would never need another doctor. When I finally took an Uber back to the house to pack, I found my dad’s clothes and blankets strewn across the hallway floor. Tommy was standing in the living room, bossily directing two moving men as they unscrewed the framed photographs from the wall. “What the hell are you doing?” I gasped. Tommy crossed his arms, looking down his nose at me. “Oh, Lester. My dad’s heart has been acting up, and Donna said he should move in here so we can keep an eye on him. Obviously, we had to clear out this junk to make room.” When we first bought this house, we agreed on a split layout for our parents. The two guest rooms were meant for her mother and my dad. Later, when her mother moved to France, Donna unilaterally gave that room to Tommy. I hadn’t protested. But now, she was giving my dad’s room to Tommy’s father. Seeing my dad’s meager belongings being stepped on by the movers, a surge of raw fury rushed to my head. “These are my father’s things! What right do you have to throw them around?” “I gave them permission.” The front door opened, and Donna walked in, carrying a bottle of heavy-duty disinfectant. She began spraying the walls of my dad’s old room, her movements casual and unbothered. “Your dad hasn’t been back in three days. He obviously went back to the countryside. I told you he didn’t belong in the suburbs anyway, but you insisted on dragging him here.” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “The place smells like old dust. It’s disgusting.” My fists clenched so hard my fingernails bit into my palms. My heart felt as though it were being crushed under the tires of a semi-truck. Suddenly, a loud “crack” echoed through the hall. The movers had dropped the only professional portrait my dad had ever taken. The glass shattered into a thousand jagged pieces—mirroring the cold, lonely way he had died. In its place, Tommy hung a framed photo of Donna, Tommy, and Frank laughing together at a beach resort. A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips. “You told me you hated photos. We don’t even have a wedding album.” Donna froze, her hand hovering over the spray bottle. She looked away, a brief flash of discomfort crossing her face. “Frank said he was feeling depressed about his heart condition. He wanted to take some family photos to cheer himself up. It’s just a picture, Lester. Don’t be so petty.” Just an hour ago, I had seen Frank down the street, lively and dancing with the neighborhood block club. He didn’t look sick at all. I looked down. A small mason jar filled with loose change rolled out of the pile of my dad’s things, shattering against my boot. My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the floor, the tears finally spilling over. The jar still smelled faintly of the cheap peppermint and sawdust that always clung to my dad. I gathered the broken pieces and his scattered belongings into my arms. Donna sighed, adopting her usual tone of superficial sweetness. “Fine, Lester. Once Frank’s health stabilizes, I’ll take you and your dad to Europe. We can do a whole family trip. Will that make you happy?” In the past, I would have clung to that promise, begging for whatever scrap of affection she was willing to throw to my father. But now, he was gone. And I was simply too tired to care. I pushed past her, hard enough to make her stumble, and walked straight into the master bedroom, slamming the door behind me. Donna stood frozen in the hallway, staring blankly at the closed door. She had no idea that just an hour ago, I had accepted the corporate transfer to our international branch in Tokyo. Before, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind, so I had turned down the offer three separate times. Now, there was nothing left to keep me here. The flight to Tokyo was scheduled for two days later. My director, thrilled by my sudden acceptance, had authorized a three-month advance on my relocation salary. I used every penny of it to buy a beautiful, polished granite headstone for my dad. He had spent his entire life working in the cold, sacrificing everything for me. In death, he deserved a beautiful place to rest. When I got back to the house, I began packing my suitcase. There was very little of my own stuff left in the house anyway; most of it had been slowly crowded out by Tommy and Frank’s belongings over the years. Once I packed away my dad’s things, there was no trace of us left. A few minutes later, Donna walked in, the chill of the autumn air still clinging to her coat. I didn’t stop folding my shirts. She leaned against the doorframe, her brows furrowed in deep irritation. “What is this? Are you moving back to the countryside with your dad?” “Ever since Frank moved in, you’ve been throwing a tantrum. Now you’re running away? How do you think this makes me look to our friends?” I didn’t look up, refusing to absorb her misplaced anger. Sensing my absolute silence, she opened her mouth to snap at me, but a blood-curdling shriek from the guest room cut her off. “Oh my god! Help!” Tommy came rushing out, holding a large snake with a pair of BBQ tongs. “There’s a snake in my dad’s room! He has a heart condition! If anything happens to him, I’ll die!” Frank was cowering in the corner of the hallway, casting a highly calculated, terrified glance in my direction. With just one look from Tommy, Donna’s eyes snapped to me, instantly cold with accusation. “Did you put that snake in his room, Lester?” I met her gaze dead-on, my voice devoid of emotion. “You know I have a phobia of reptiles. Do you really think I would touch that?” My quiet counter-question made her hesitate for a fraction of a second. But Tommy took that moment to squeeze out a few tears, his voice trembling with victimhood. “I know Lester hates me, and I can leave if I’m not wanted. But my dad is old, and his heart can’t take this kind of shock… Lester knew that.” His sobbing voice wiped away whatever lingering doubt Donna had. Ignoring my well-known, paralyzing fear of snakes, she snatched the tongs from Tommy and stepped toward me, bringing the writhing reptile closer to my face. “So you do know how to feel afraid?” she hissed. “Then why did you do this to Frank? Are you trying to embarrass me until there’s nothing left of my reputation?” My pulse skyrocketed. Terror gripped my chest, and my hands began to shake uncontrollably. “Donna, I said it wasn’t me!” Frank whimpered from the corner. “Donna, sweetheart, maybe I should just go. I don’t want to get between you two.” Donna immediately grabbed his arm, her eyes flashing with ice as she glared at me. “I bought this house. If anyone is leaving, it’s him.” I stared at her, completely stunned. When we first bought this fixer-upper, we spent months choosing every tile, every coat of paint together. She had held my hand in the empty living room and promised me this would be our sanctuary. And now, she was throwing me out of it. I didn’t argue. I grabbed my suitcase, walked out, and slammed the door behind me. I spent the night in a cheap motel down the road. The next morning, my phone chimed with an automated alert from my bank: A foreclosure and lien notice on my dad’s old farmhouse in the country. My mind went entirely blank. Before I could process it, the bank representative called. “Mr. Crawford, we’re calling to inform you that Mrs. Crawford has leveraged your father’s property as collateral for a fifty-thousand-dollar personal loan. Since the primary account is flagged, we need to verify the repayment schedule.” A suffocating wave of dizziness hit me. When I finally stumbled my way to my dad’s old house, I found Donna and two loan inspectors standing in the yard, surveying the property. “Donna, what are you doing?” My voice was barely a whisper. She looked at me, completely unbothered. “Because of your little stunt last night, Frank had a severe panic attack. He’s in the hospital right now waiting for a heart stent.” “You made a mistake, Lester. Now you have to pay for it.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking, but the grief and rage were spilling over. “This house is the only thing my dad left me. It’s all I have left of him. You knew that.” Donna blinked, then looked around the empty yard. “Where is your dad anyway? I’d love to ask him face-to-face how he raised a son to be so vindictive.” A wild, breathless laugh escaped my throat, my eyes burning. “He… he’s dead, Donna.” Donna froze, her eyes widening. Beside her, Tommy stumbled slightly, as if trying to play up his own fragility. “Lester, please… don’t make up horrible lies just to escape responsibility. Your dad is a good man, and it’s cruel to curse him like that. I know how painful it is to worry about a father…” Seeing Tommy’s frail, pathetic act, Donna’s expression hardened once more. “Tommy stayed up all night at the hospital, terrified to close his eyes. You should understand that kind of pain, Lester. Do unto others—or did you forget that?” Years ago, when I sat outside my dad’s operating room crying my eyes out, she had told me I was overreacting. She told me it wasn’t a big deal. But now, because Tommy was crying, she suddenly understood what grief was. I walked over and stood in front of the front door, spreading my arms to block them. “Get. Out.” Donna’s face twisted with impatience. “It’s just a temporary mortgage, Lester. We aren’t tearing the place down. Don’t make a scene.” “Frank needs this surgery. Can’t you show a single shred of humanity?” I looked at her self-righteous face, and for a second, I thought I might actually lose my mind. Losing her remaining patience, Donna snatched the clipboard from the inspector and signed her name on the dotted line. She walked up to me, looking down at me with cold pity. “Don’t forget who put down the down payment for this farmhouse in the first place, Lester. I have every legal right to use it.” She pulled a stack of hundred-dollar bills from her purse and tossed them at my feet, like a master throwing a scrap to a dog. “Take this. Rent a nice apartment for you and your dad for a month. I promise I’ll clear the mortgage and give you the deed back in thirty days.” She turned, wrapping her arm around Tommy to support him as they walked back to her car. My fingers tightened around the dirt-stained bills. I collapsed onto the gravel driveway. In that quiet, dusty yard, the last remaining thread of my marriage finally snapped. For the rest of the day, Tommy’s social media was flooded with updates. Donna was at the hospital, feeding Frank soup, fluffing his pillows, playing the role of the perfect, devoted daughter-in-law. My phone buzzed repeatedly with texts from her: “I know you’re hurt about the money. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you next month, double.” “I found a lovely two-bedroom cottage near the city for you and your dad. I paid the security deposit. Move in there for now, and I’ll explain everything to your dad later.” But Donna… your money, your apologies, and you—I don’t want any of it anymore. That evening, Donna walked into the hospital room carrying takeout. Tommy smiled, leaping up to greet her. “Donna! You should have told me Lester’s dad actually passed away. We wouldn’t have had to go through all that trouble with the mortgage.” The takeout container slipped from her fingers. The plastic cracked against the linoleum, and hot soup splattered across the floor.

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Wayne and I had been fighting our divorce in court for a grueling six months. We had gone from the city’s golden couple—young, ambitious, and deeply in love—to a cautionary tale of bitter resentment. Thirty minutes before our third hearing was scheduled to begin, Wayne asked to meet. He was rubbing his temples, exhaustion etched into every line of his face. “It’s time to end this circus, Gwen. Cheryl can’t wait any longer.” “Name your price. Whatever it is, I’ll sign.” Before I could even open my mouth, his phone began to ring, shrill and demanding. He answered it, and a softness crept into his face—a gentle warmth he probably didn’t even realize was there. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. It’s just a matter of writing a bigger check.” “I’ll wrap this up soon. Wait for me at home, sweetheart.” I stared at the face that was once my home, now so utterly foreign. In that single, quiet moment, all the fight drained out of me. “Don’t worry about it.” “We’re done, Wayne. No more lawyers. I’ll sign the papers.” 1. The six-month legal battle ended not with a bang, but with a quiet surrender. The sudden settlement shocked everyone. After all, Wayne and I had been married for seven years. Fighting in court for half a year made people think we were just two stubborn souls who couldn’t let go, weaponizing the law because we couldn’t stop caring. The press had a field day. Wayne issued a perfectly polished, PR-approved statement: “I apologize for the distraction our personal matters have caused. While Gwen and I have officially finalized our divorce, we remain friends. I wish her nothing but the best in her next chapter.” My eyes lingered on the word “friends” for a long time. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. For Cheryl’s sake, Wayne had torn me to shreds more times than I could count. We could never be friends. We hadn’t even managed to salvage our dignity. Today was the kindest he had been in six months. After I gave him my answer, he sat on the plush leather sofa of the courthouse conference room for a long time, slowly stacking the negotiation folders he had prepared to use against me. “Since we’re settled, I’ll have my team draw up the final agreement,” he said. “I’ll leave you with twenty percent of the company’s shares as a settlement. And the penthouse downtown is yours.” He paused, running through a mental checklist to see if he had missed anything. Then, he stood up. Perhaps even he felt the negotiation had been jarringly fast. When he reached the door, he stopped and looked back. “Take care of yourself, Gwen.” I closed my eyes, offering him nothing but silence. Later that afternoon, my lawyer emailed over the settlement papers. A brief text followed the files: “The opposing counsel cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the grounds. A mutual, uncontested split. Under the terms, aside from the assets he personally transferred, the remaining marital property will be divided down the middle.” “Irreconcilable differences.” What a beautiful, sanitized way to package betrayal. I had still underestimated Wayne’s talent for keeping up appearances. My phone buzzed. A photo and a voice note appeared, sent from Wayne’s number. The photo showed my old desk at the office, all my personal belongings swept onto the floor. The voice note, however, belonged to a woman. “Hey, Gwen. I heard you’re finally leaving. Just thought I’d help you clear out some of this trash.” Cheryl. Her voice was sweet and melodic, with a lingering, childish lilt. It was the kind of voice men found impossible to resist. I tapped the microphone icon and replied, my voice deadpan and steady: “I may be resigning from my position, Cheryl, but I am still the largest individual shareholder of this firm. If I want to, I can have you thrown out on the street along with that trash.” The chat remained quiet for several minutes. When the next message popped up, it was Wayne’s voice, with Cheryl’s soft whimpering audible in the background. “Gwen, she didn’t mean any harm. Stop attacking her.” I didn’t bother to reply. I gathered my files, stood up, and walked out of the courthouse. As I got into my car, two more messages from Wayne flashed on my screen. Attached was a photo of a silver frame resting back on my desk. “The other stuff was old anyway, but I put this back. You should keep it.” Inside the frame was a photograph of the Northern Lights dancing over an arctic landscape. Years ago, during our first grueling year of building the business, he had printed it out and promised me: “The second we make it, Gwen, I’m taking you to the Arctic. We’ll take a photo just like this together.” Seven years had passed. Wayne had risen from a broke, struggling designer to the CEO of one of the city’s most talked-about public companies. Wealth and power were at his fingertips. But the trip to the Arctic was a promise he had buried long ago. Wayne was right about one thing, though. Old things belonged in the trash. Instead of replying, I tapped his profile and blocked his number. 2. I went to the office to finalize my exit paperwork with HR. As I reached for the brass handle of the office door, the voices of colleagues passing by stopped me cold. “Seven years of marriage, and she just walks away? What is Gwen acting so high and mighty about?” “Weren’t there rumors that someone cheated? Maybe it was her.” “Definitely. She probably got caught doing something behind Wayne’s back, which is why she settled so fast today.” “I heard Wayne even let her keep a chunk of shares. Honestly, he’s too good to her…” I stared down at my shoes, motionless. The HR director gave me an awkward, pained look. “Gwen… ignore them. They don’t know what they’re talking about.” I knew exactly what they were talking about. And I knew exactly who had planted those seeds. To pave a clean path for Cheryl’s arrival, to shield his precious little girl from public scrutiny, Wayne had thrown me to the wolves. He had made me the villain in his narrative. Sensing my silence, the HR director tried to soften the blow. “Everyone knows how much you loved Wayne. You built this company with him from the ground up when you guys had nothing. We all used to talk about how perfect you two were. They’re just gossiping. I’ll make sure their manager has a word with them.” I fell into a deeper silence. I had been willing to endure the lean, exhausting years with Wayne because he used to love me fiercely. Back then, he would insist on buying me the finest winter coat while refusing to replace his own tattered jacket. He remembered every milestone—our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, even the small, silly monthly anniversaries—while consistently forgetting his own birthday. Our wedding had been a modest affair in our small hometown, but he had spent every penny he had to make it beautiful. He always gave me the absolute best of whatever he had to offer. That was why, on our last anniversary, under the dim, romantic restaurant lights, as he stared at the little sugar figurines kissing on top of the cake and asked, “Gwen, do you honestly think this life we’re living is still worth it?”—the blow had been so crippling. I had refused to let go. I had wagered our entire history on the belief that he still loved me. I played that losing hand until we dragged each other down, turning into bitter strangers who couldn’t stand the sight of one another. I held on until he started trying to buy my exit with checks and stock options. Only then did I let myself face the truth. Pulling myself out of the memory, I shook my head at the HR director and threw open the door. The whispering employees xinstantly froze, lowering their heads in a rush of panic. But their terror wasn’t directed at me. They were looking past my shoulder, down the long corridor, where Wayne and Cheryl were walking side by side. 3. Cheryl walked a half-step behind Wayne, a brand-new ID badge pinned to her chest: “Creative Director.” The very title I had resigned from only an hour ago. She held a thick portfolio, flipping through the pages with obvious awkwardness. Wayne leaned in occasionally, patiently explaining the terms of the project to her. Oliver, Wayne’s executive assistant, walked behind them. Though he maintained a polite smile for Cheryl, the sheer exhaustion and irritation in his eyes were barely concealed. When he saw me, he froze. “Gwen.” At the sound of my name, Wayne stopped and looked up, the words dying on his lips. Cheryl immediately shrank back, her eyes welling with tears as if on cue. “Oliver, I know you don’t like me,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “But Gwen has officially resigned. It’s really not appropriate to address her that way anymore, is it? Besides, wasn’t her departure due to her own personal choices? Taking your frustration out on me is really unfair…” She emphasized “personal choices” with delicate spite. The gossiping employees exchanged knowing looks, their suspicions instantly validated. Oliver stood there, open-mouthed, utterly speechless. I folded my resignation slip and slipped it into my pocket, my tone perfectly conversational. “Oliver was just being polite, Cheryl. Why the dramatic reaction? And for the record, I never stated my reasons for resigning. Your creative little rumors are actually quite bothersome to me.” Cheryl’s face paled, and she opened her mouth to shoot back, but Wayne stepped in front of her, gently but firmly cutting her off. He looked at me, his eyes scanning my face. “It’s my fault,” he said quietly. “Let me know when you’re free. I’d like to host a proper farewell dinner for you. You’ve given years of your life to this place. Your contribution matters.” I smiled, a cold, empty thing. “Don’t bother. If I’d known anyone off the street could do this job, I wouldn’t have worked myself to the bone for seven years.” Wayne’s expression tightened. I didn’t care to watch the regret settle on his face, so I turned and walked away. Outside, a light drizzle was falling. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, a sudden wave of memory washing over me. It had been on a rainy afternoon just like this one that the last threads of our marriage had finally snapped. I had been working at my desk until 1:00 AM, my blood sugar crashing so hard I was shaking. I called Wayne, hoping he could bring me a sandwich. But when the call connected, a woman’s voice answered. That was the first time I tore down the polite facade I had fought so hard to maintain. I screamed into the phone, my voice cracking. “Why is she answering your phone? How dare you let some girl humiliate me like this? Wayne, what is wrong with you?” A long, agonizing silence stretched across the line before his voice finally came through—not with an apology, but with a heavy, exhausted sigh. That sigh froze the blood in my veins. “I’ll have Oliver drop off some food,” he said, sounding infinitely tired. “Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, we need to talk about a divorce.” I sat in the darkened, empty office, shivering from the cold and the shock. “On what grounds, Wayne? Don’t you dare forget that we built this firm together. You don’t get to—” He cut me off with quiet, brutal efficiency. “Gwen. If it weren’t for me, no agency in this city would have ever hired a designer with a black mark on her record.” The breath left my lungs. Every word died in my throat. Years ago, a prominent industry figure had accused me of copying his work after our concepts overlapped. My agency at the time fired me to save face, cementing my reputation as a plagiarist. I was blacklisted overnight. With nowhere to go, Wayne—who was actively pursuing me back then—stepped in. He told me he believed in me, that genius shouldn’t be stifled by industry politics. I had fallen for him completely, naive and desperate enough to believe he would always be my savior. Over the six months of our divorce proceedings, my authority at Vanguard was systematically stripped away. The designers I had mentored and trained were reassigned. The Creative Director position wasn’t just handed to Cheryl; Wayne had to clear-cut my entire department to build a path for her. My resignation hadn’t been a choice; it was an eviction. “Gwen!” Oliver’s voice broke my thoughts. He had run out after me, holding an umbrella. He offered it gently. “Wayne wanted you to have this. The steps are slick. Get home safe.” I smiled at him, but shook my head, stepping past the umbrella and directly into the cold, gray rain. I had survived hurricanes with Wayne. A little drizzle wasn’t going to break me. 4. To my surprise, a video of our hallway confrontation leaked online that very evening. Within hours, threads dissecting the tension between Cheryl and me began trending on social media. Initially, the speculation leaned toward Cheryl being the homewrecker who ruined my marriage. But by midnight, a highly polished “analysis” video alleging my own infidelity went viral. It laid out a terrifyingly detailed timeline of my daily movements, social circles, and meetings over the past six months. The level of detail was intimate and precise. Instantly, the public narrative flipped, and a tidal wave of vitriol crashed over me. I watched the video from start to finish. The timestamps and locations were accurate, but the commentary was pure, malicious fiction. There was only one person in the world who had access to my schedule with that kind of terrifying accuracy. I dialed Wayne’s personal cell, but it wasn’t his voice that answered. “Still calling your ex after the papers are signed? You really have no shame, do you, Gwen?” Cheryl spat, dropping her sweet act entirely. “Is the internet not dragging you hard enough? Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Her venomous tone was a far cry from the fragile girl she played in front of Wayne. “I’m recording this call, Cheryl,” I replied, my voice completely flat. “And since you’re so fond of public fabrication, look out for a defamation suit.” “You—” I hung up before she could finish. I checked the forums again. The frenzy was building. I clicked on the profile of the anonymous account that had posted the analysis video, and sure enough, thirty minutes after my call with Cheryl, they posted an update. This time, they painted me as a pathological liar and a serial cheater. They dredged up the decade-old plagiarism scandal, exposing the black mark on my career to the entire internet. The comment section became a feeding frenzy. “Oh, she’s that plagiarist from back in the day. Once a thief, always a thief. First she steals art, now she’s sneaking around behind her husband’s back.” “She owes her entire career to Wayne, and this is how she repays him? Talk about ungrateful.” “You can see it in her face. If she’s dishonest enough to steal work, she’s dishonest enough to cheat.” Reading the comments, I felt a familiar, cold dread, dragging me back to the helpless girl I had been ten years ago. With shaking fingers, I opened my messaging app, found the pending contact request Wayne had sent two days ago, and accepted it. I typed: “Did you leak my schedule to that account, Wayne?” His reply came almost instantly. “Gwen, you’re the largest shareholder of Vanguard now. You have more than enough money to disappear and live comfortably. Cheryl is just starting out here. I cannot let her reputation be ruined before she even begins.” I took a ragged, trembling breath. “You know damn well I never plagiarized that work.” The blinking dots appeared and disappeared for a long minute. Finally: “Nobody cares about the details of a ten-year-old rumor, Gwen. Let it blow over. Stop being so bitter about it.” Ten years ago, Wayne had held me in his arms and whispered, “Even if the whole world turns its back on you, I will always believe in you.” Today, he told me the truth didn’t matter. Staring at his words on the screen, the final, pathetic shred of hope I had been harboring withered away. Right then, my doorbell rang, sharp and relentless. Looking through the peephole, I saw a crowd of reporters packing the hallway, cameras aimed squarely at my door. Their voices muffled through the wood: “Gwen! Wayne just released a statement denying any involvement with Cheryl. Do you have a comment?” “Are the cheating allegations against you true?” “Gwen, can you address the rumors regarding your past plagiarism scandal?” A notification banner popped up on my phone—a massive wire transfer from Wayne’s personal account, captioned simply: “Settlement.” I took a long, deep breath and locked my phone. I reached for the door handle and pulled it open. The hallway erupted into a blinding storm of camera flashes. I stepped right into the glare, forcing a calm, polite smile onto my face. “Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Gwen.”

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Ever since we were children, my fiancé, Burke, wore a tiny silver bell on a chain around his neck. Whenever I rang my matching silver chime, he would appear before me, no matter what. I always thought he was my superhero. But his mother, Mrs. Chapman, disabused me of that fairy tale with a cold smile. “Isla, darling, it’s a leash. A dog collar.” “If he hadn’t been so reckless as a boy and knocked your pregnant mother down the stairs, you wouldn’t have been born premature. You wouldn’t have this failing heart.” I didn’t understand what a leash meant back then. I only knew that whenever I needed Burke, he was there to fix things. Until our engagement party. Mrs. Chapman brought a frail, pale girl before me. “Isla, this is your wedding gift. She has volunteered to be your heart donor.” “After the transplant, you and Burke can be together forever.” Before I could even process her words, the girl dropped to her knees, though her spine remained rigidly straight. “I will give you my heart,” she said, her voice shaking but resolute. “On one condition. Let Burke go. Free him.” The room erupted into whispers. But the most shocking thing was Burke. His eyes, usually so stoic, welled with tears. He reached up, ripped the silver bell from his neck, and hurled it to the floor. It shattered into useless, glittering shards. “Isla,” he hissed, his voice laced with a venom I’d never heard before. “I have spent my entire life paying for my mistake. I mortgaged my future to you to atone. Why do you still have to hurt Melanie?” The sheer hatred in his eyes pinned me to the spot. I could only watch, paralyzed, as he grabbed her hand and stormed out of the ballroom. But what Burke didn’t know was that my “forever” was already running out. I only had seven days left. … The laughter of the high-society crowd echoed around the ballroom, swelling in waves. Every eye was pinned on me. “Burke finally snapped. Can you blame him? Carrying that dead weight around for years.” “She actually thought she could keep him chained to her forever like a dog. Look at her now.” I stood frozen in the center of the room. The humiliation was physical, like being stripped bare under the harsh chandeliers. My fingernails dug so hard into my palms that they nearly drew blood. Mrs. Chapman’s face twisted in fury. She snapped at the security guards standing nearby. “What are you waiting for? Drag that boy back here! He’s lost his mind.” Then, she stepped toward me, wrapping her cold hands around mine, trying to offer comfort. “Isla, sweetheart, I will make this right. I promise you.” “Once we get Burke back, you can punish him however you like. I won’t stop you.” All my life, I had been the “fragile burden,” the tragic girl everyone pitied. Only Burke had ever protected me, pampered me. But now I knew. His kindness was never love. It was just penance. And now that he had decided his sentence was served, it was time for me to wake up from my beautiful, fragile dream. I looked down, slipped the heavy diamond ring off my finger, and placed it gently into Mrs. Chapman’s palm. “It’s fine, Mrs. Chapman. Let’s just call off the wedding.” I didn’t wait to see her reaction. I gathered the heavy tulle of my gown, turned, and walked out. When I got back to the empty family estate, the silence was deafening. Looking around my room, packed with the plush stuffed animals Burke had bought me over the years, I did something I hadn’t done in months. I called my mother, who lived thousands of miles away in Europe. “Isla! Darling, today is your engagement day, isn’t it? Oh, my beautiful girl must look like an absolute angel.” A sudden, sharp ache bloomed in my chest. A wave of childish, pathetic longing washed over me. My throat tightened, and a sob slipped out. “Mom… the wedding is off.” “I miss you so much. Can I… can I come stay with you guys?” “No, sweetie.” The warmth in her voice vanished, replaced by a tense, practiced cheerfulness. “Your father and I are in the middle of a massive expansion here to pay for your medical bills. You need to be good and stay with Mrs. Chapman, okay? Burke has sacrificed so much to care for you all these years. Don’t be selfish, Isla.” She kept rambling, her voice a background hum of excuses, but I stopped listening. In the background of the video call, a tiny, high-pitched voice had cut through her words. “Mommy.” A toddler’s voice. But I was an only child. “Mom,” I whispered, my heart freezing. “Who was that?” Her face stiffened. The lie died on her lips, and she let out a long, weary sigh. “Isla… it’s your little brother.” “He’s still so small. I can’t leave him right now. You understand, don’t you, baby? You aren’t mad at Mommy, are you?” My mind went completely blank. A brother. The line went dead before I could even reply. That familiar, crushing pain flared up in my chest. Instinctively, my hand reached down to shake the silver bell I always kept on my nightstand. But my fingers met empty air. Burke had smashed it. My parents had abandoned me. And Burke, the boy who had spent a lifetime holding me when I cried, had walked away too. My chest felt hollow, as if my heart had already been carved out, leaving nothing but a ragged, painful void. The sudden ring of my phone shattered the silence. It was Burke. I answered it instantly, my heart leaping with a pathetic spark of hope. But his voice on the other end was like ice. “Isla, did you seriously run to your mother to complain again?” “Hasn’t my family played your personal servants long enough? Why do you have to drag Melanie into your sick little games?” I listened to his trembling, furious voice, feeling strangely detached. “I didn’t complain, Burke. The wedding is canceled.” “I rejected the transplant. You can come back now. Don’t fight with your mother because of me.” There was a rare, heavy silence on the line. He seemed to catch his breath. I took a slow, painful breath and continued. “Burke… thank you for taking care of me all these years. The doctors say I only have seven days left. Can you… would you please spend these last seven days with me?” I held my breath, waiting, hoping for just a sliver of the boy I used to know. But before he could speak, Melanie’s voice drifted through the receiver, dripping with mocking pity. “Burke, don’t let her play you. His mother has guards looking for us everywhere. They’re downstairs right now.” Burke’s tone turned instantly frigid. “Isla, does torturing me make you feel powerful?” The line went dead with a sharp click. I slowly lowered the phone, my fingers stiff and cold. The tiny spark of light inside me flickered once, and went entirely dark. The next morning, I went to the hospital for my routine check-up. After the examination, the doctor’s face was incredibly grim. “Miss Brandt, your heart has reached its absolute limit. You need surgery immediately.” “I heard Mr. Chapman purchased an artificial heart for you. You need to contact him to have it delivered right away.” My heart trembled. I gripped my phone, hesitated for a long time, and finally dialed Burke’s number. Before the line could even ring, a hand snatched the phone from my grip and slammed it onto the tile floor. It shattered into pieces. I turned. Burke stood there, his eyes bloodshot, glaring at me with raw hatred. He grabbed my jaw, his fingers digging in with bruising force. “Isla, when the hell are you going to let me go?” “Are you really this pathetic? We’ve been apart for less than twenty-four hours, and you’re already stalking me to the hospital?” His grip was so tight I couldn’t speak. Tears welled in my eyes, spilling over. “I… didn’t…” He let go of me as if I were toxic, pulling out a wet wipe and scrubbing his hands with deep disgust. “I came for my regular check-up. I wasn’t following you,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. But my explanation only seemed to feed his rage. He swung his hand and slapped me across the face. Hard. “Still lying!” “If you weren’t stalking me, how did Melanie get clipped by a car in the parking lot? She saw you, Isla. She said she saw you.” The force of the blow knocked me to the floor. My vision spun. My chest tightened, a crushing weight cutting off my oxygen. I gasped for air, reaching a trembling hand toward his blurred figure. “I didn’t… my chest… it hurts…” A flicker of panic crossed Burke’s face. He took a half-step forward, as if to check on me. But then his phone rang. Melanie’s whimpering voice echoed from the speaker. “Burke… the doctor says my leg is broken. I have to get a cast. It hurts so bad…” Thinking of Melanie’s supposedly bloody injury, the panic in Burke’s eyes instantly crystallized into cold indifference. He turned away, leaving me on the floor without a single backward glance. When I opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital ceiling blinded me. The doctor looked down at me with deep pity. “Miss Brandt, your heart is failing. We need to perform the transplant now, or else…” Or else I would die. A bitter smile touched my lips. My phone was smashed, and even if it weren’t, Burke had made it clear he never wanted to see me again. I slowly shook my head and closed my eyes. Suddenly, the door to the patient room was kicked open. Burke strode in, his expression cold as stone. Two burly security guards grabbed my arms, hauling me out of bed and forcing me onto my knees on the cold floor. “You’re getting bolder, aren’t you? First you try to ruin Melanie, and now you’re going after her family.” “Isla, did I not warn you to leave them alone?” He forced my head down, his frigid gaze boring into mine. I didn’t struggle. I just looked at him, my voice flat and hollow. “I didn’t do anything. I won’t confess to something I didn’t do.” A flash of irritation crossed his eyes, followed by a harsh sneer. “Still playing innocent? Let’s see how long you can keep it up.” He pulled out his phone and pressed play on an audio recording. “Melanie thinks she can do whatever she wants just because Burke is protecting her? Let’s ruin her. Ruin her entire family. Let’s see how smug she is then. Just do it, I’ll cover the fallout. I’ll transfer the five hundred thousand dollars once it’s done.” The voice on the recording was unmistakably mine. My eyes widened in horror. I shook my head frantically. “That’s not me… that isn’t…” Burke didn’t listen. He turned to his guards. “Since she has so much free time to scheme, she doesn’t need to stay in this hospital. Take her.” I was dragged out of the hospital and locked inside the empty Chapman manor. Guarded by heavy security, I couldn’t leave. Burke walked up to me, looking down at me as if I were a piece of trash. “Isla, you will stay here until Melanie’s surgery is complete.” “If you try another stunt, you can kiss that artificial heart goodbye.” He turned to the guards. “Watch her. Don’t let anyone in.” I lay on the cold hardwood floor, silent, watching the heavy oak doors slam shut. The suffocation was worse now. My heart was giving out. I crawled across the floor, searching for my emergency medication, but Burke had left it behind at the hospital. Exhausted, I let my eyes close, letting the darkness take me. At midnight, a guard shook me awake. “Miss Brandt, Mr. Chapman ordered me to give you this.” I forced my eyes open. It was a small, beautifully decorated cake. Every year on my birthday, Burke would bake me a cake. He never missed a year, each one unique. I had assumed this year would be different. Looking at the little icing figure in a ballgown, memories of our childhood flooded my mind. For a brief, foolish second, I thought the sweet, protective Burke had come back. My heart gave a painful flutter. I dragged myself to the landline on the wall and dialed the number I knew by heart. After several agonizing rings, the call connected. “Burke? It’s my birthday. I was wondering if you…” A young, breathless, purring female voice interrupted me. “Who is this? Stop ruining our night.” I heard Burke chuckle, a low, husky sound, before he leaned in to kiss her. The wet, intimate sounds of their kissing filled the receiver. After what felt like an eternity, his voice drifted over, lazy and uncaring. “Don’t worry about it, babe. Just a wrong number. Hang up.” I swallowed the rest of my words. I opened the cake and forced a few bites down my throat. My tears dripped onto the frosting, making it taste bitter and salty. The next morning, a bucket of freezing water was dumped over my head. I sat shivering, gasping from the shock. Melanie stood over me, tilting her head to show off the dark purple bruises on her neck. She smiled triumphantly. “You called last night, didn’t you, Isla?” “Too bad Burke didn’t have time for you. He was a little occupied taking care of me.” The sight of those marks made my eyes burn, but I forced myself to look straight at her. “I did. So what?” Melanie let out a soft laugh and leaned down, whispering in my ear. “I’m going to make sure Burke never pities you again. And I’m going to make sure you never get that heart transplant.” Before I could react, she grabbed my hand and pulled it toward her chest, throwing herself backward with a dramatic scream. She fell hard against the marble edge of the console table. Blood began to pool beneath her dress. Melanie turned deathly pale, clutching her stomach and crying out in agony. Suddenly, a massive force threw me aside. Burke rushed into the room, scooping Melanie into his arms, his eyes blazing with pure hatred as he looked at me. “Isla, how can you be so evil? Melanie’s baby was her only chance to harvest the stem cells for her leukemia treatment!” “Since you killed her child, you will pay her back with your own bone marrow.” My vision went black, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. My silence only fueled his rage. He ordered the guards to hoist me up and drag me out to a private medical facility. It was only when they strapped me down onto the cold operating table that my mind cleared. “Burke, what are you doing?” “I told you, Isla. You killed Melanie’s baby. You owe her your marrow.” I stared at him in utter disbelief as the heavy, cold needle pierced my spine. As the paralysis crept through my limbs, I felt the sickening slice of the scalpel, felt them extracting the marrow from my bones. The agony was a white-hot iron, keeping me painfully conscious even as my body tried to shut down. Am I dying? Panic rose like a tidal wave. With the last of my strength, my fingers found the small silver bell on my wrist and shook it. “Chime.” Burke glanced at me. But he looked away immediately, turning his back on me to comfort Melanie. The bell slipped from my limp fingers, shattering on the tile floor, just like the love I had carried for him my entire life. I closed my eyes, letting the darkness pull me under. In the fading light of my consciousness, I heard the doctor’s terrified voice. “Mr. Chapman… her heart has stopped.” I felt my spirit detach from my broken shell, hovering in the cold, sterile air of the operating room. I watched my own heart stop on the monitor, a flat, green line accompanied by a long, continuous beep. I saw the doctor panic, saw Burke’s shoulders stiffen. A sudden, sharp dread flickered in his eyes. “What do you mean, stopped?” he muttered. Before the doctor could answer, Melanie grabbed his sleeve, her voice dripping with irritation. “She’s probably faking it again, Burke. I saw her yesterday, perfectly fine, and she pushed me so hard. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have lost the baby and had to undergo this emergency procedure anyway. If you feel bad, what will your mother say?” Hearing Melanie’s whimpering complaints, the brief panic in Burke’s eyes dissolved into cold skepticism. He turned away from my lifeless body, barking into his phone. “Tell Isla to stop playing these cheap games. Once she’s done throwing her tantrum, tell her to prepare for the wedding.” Then he turned to his assistant. “Get the artificial heart delivered to her room. I believe her scheduled surgery is in a couple of days.” I watched him carry Melanie out to his car, cradling her gently. They drove back to his villa, but before they could even step inside, his phone rang again. It was the courier delivering the artificial heart. The assistant answered, and his face drained of all color. He handed the phone to Burke with a trembling hand. “Sir… the courier says… Miss Brandt is dead.” “That’s impossible!” Burke roared, knocking a vase off the entryway table. It shattered into pieces. Melanie hid a small, triumphant smile, whispering softly, “Burke, calm down. The delivery guy is Walter, right? He’s been loyal to the Brandt family for decades. He and Isla are probably just trying to trick you.” But Melanie’s words couldn’t quiet the roaring in Burke’s ears. The dark premonition in his chest grew until it was suffocating. Before he could even make a move to leave, the front doors of the villa were slammed open. Mrs. Chapman burst in, flanked by security. She strode up to her son and delivered a stinging slap to his face. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Isla is dead!”

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Before the sterile lights of the operating room flared to life, I tucked my final letter under Cheryl’s pillow. “Cheryl,” “I wanted so badly to stay by your side forever.” “But Mom and Dad work so hard for every dollar. I couldn’t bear to watch them drain their life savings just to keep me on treatment.” “And the chemo hurts so much. My hair is entirely gone, and I don’t even recognize the hollow boy looking back at me in the mirror anymore.” “I saved up some money from my allowance—it’s under your mattress. Please use it to buy that heated massage chair for Mom and Dad. Their backs always ache after a long day.” “Keep whatever is left for yourself. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Cheryl. It’s your turn to look after them for me now.” Two years. More than six hundred days and nights of pure agony. I had made peace with letting go a long time ago. As I lay there, quietly waiting for the poison I had swallowed to take effect, I heard Cheryl’s hushed, urgent whisper from just outside the curtain: “Double the dosage of the injections. Once Toby’s Stanford nomination is officially transferred to Zach, I’ll find him the absolute best specialists in the country. We will cure him, I promise.” My mother’s choked sob was followed by a sharp slap. “You’re going to destroy him! Look at him—he’s been suffering for a year, Cheryl! He’s nothing but skin and bones!” Cheryl’s voice trembled, but she pressed on. “Mom, Zach doesn’t have Toby’s natural talent. If we don’t hold Toby back for these two years, Zach will never have a real chance to stand out.” “I’ll hire the finest physical therapists for Toby’s recovery. If anything goes wrong with his health, I’ll give him my own blood, my own organs. We’ll sign over the two lakefront properties in Lake Tahoe to him. Everything will be his.” So, Mom and Dad were actually wealthy. So, I never had leukemia. I was never truly paralyzed. But Cheryl… I’ve already swallowed the poison. There is no saving me now. … I lay silently on the freezing operating table. The anesthesiologist had already slipped the sharp needle into my vein, murmuring reassuringly, “Don’t worry, buddy. Just close your eyes. You’ll be asleep in no time.” I nodded. I wasn’t afraid at all. If anything, I felt a profound sense of relief. Because right before they wheeled me in, I had swallowed an entire bottle of pesticide. I had no intention of waking up. My parents didn’t know. They had stroked my face with trembling hands, trying to bolster my courage. “Don’t be scared, Toby. Mom and Dad will be right outside waiting for you.” Cheryl didn’t know either. She had gently squeezed my skeletal arm, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Our little prince is the bravest boy in the world. When you get out, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” I blinked back my own tears, forcing a weak smile. “Okay,” I whispered. But in my heart, I was screaming apologies. “Mom, Dad, Cheryl. I’m sorry. I’m not that strong. And I can’t let myself be a burden to this family anymore.” I lingered on their faces—the three people I loved most in the world—tracing every line and feature. I wanted to etch them into my mind for the final moments. I had always believed that my family loved me more than life itself. We lived modestly, or so I thought, but whenever I wanted something, my parents never hesitated. They wore threadbare clothes themselves, yet they always bought me the best jackets and the newest art supplies without ever looking at the price tag. When I first fell in love with painting, I tried to keep it to myself, knowing how expensive private art instruction was. But my parents refused to let my dream die. They scraped together enough to send me to the most prestigious private tutor in the city. That summer, Dad worked construction shifts until his back was practically ruined. Mom ran her seafood stall at the wet market all day and woke up at four in the morning to prep breakfast boxes, her eyes permanently bloodshot with exhaustion. When I cried and lied to them, saying I hated painting and wanted to quit, Mom had simply held me close, her voice a soothing balm. “Our little prince deserves the world, Toby. Helping you fly is our greatest joy. It’s never a burden, baby.” Cheryl had spoiled me just as much. She always saved the best treats for me. When my legs grew tired on the long walk home from school, she’d hoist me onto her back and carry me the rest of the way. To her, it was simple: “You’re my little brother. Of course I’m going to take care of you.” As we got older, she stayed up past midnight tailoring study guides to help me with my academic classes. She took on extra shifts to buy me a high-end drawing tablet for my birthday—something she would never have bought for herself. So when I finally overheard the truth, my world fractured. I honestly thought I was hallucinating. They weren’t poor at all. They were incredibly wealthy, hiding it behind a carefully constructed facade. Their grueling sacrifices to “support my dreams” had been nothing but an elaborate, staged performance. The expensive, “hard-won” injections they administered to me daily weren’t medicine to cure me. They were the very chemical cocktails keeping me sick, systematically destroying my body to clear the path for Zach’s guaranteed Stanford nomination. It started two years ago when I began having mysterious spells of fatigue and nausea. Dad had carried me on his back to the community clinic. When the doctor handed down the “leukemia” diagnosis, I had wept in utter terror. My parents cried with me, holding me tight. “It’s going to be okay, Toby,” they sobbed into my hair. “We will cure you. No matter how much it costs, we will never give up on you.” Cheryl’s hand had trembled violently as she held mine, though her voice remained steady, artificially bright. “It’s fine, Toby. You have us. We won’t let anything happen to you.” Looking back, of course I wouldn’t die from the “disease.” Because I never had leukemia in the first place. But the “treatment” they put me through was very real. Month after month, cold metal needles pierced my flesh, leaving my once-smooth arms bruised, battered, and covered in a map of tiny dark puncture wounds. I swallowed handfuls of bitter pills that coated my throat in a medicinal film, keeping my stomach in a perpetual state of low-grade nausea. I had always been terrified of pain and hated taking medicine. But to spare my family any extra grief, I never made a sound when the needles went in. I swallowed the pills without a single complaint. Whenever I saw the pain in their eyes, I’d force a brave smile. “I’m okay, Mom. I’m strong. This won’t beat me.” Every month, they took me for simulated “chemo” sessions. The chemical cocktails they pumped into my system made me violently sick. I couldn’t keep anything down. Whenever I managed to swallow a few bites of food, I’d end up huddled over the toilet, throwing up bile, half-digested broth, and eventually, streaks of dark red blood. My hair began to fall out in thick, horrifying clumps. Soon, my once-thick curls were entirely gone, and I had to wear a beanie to hide my bald, sickly scalp. The pain was a living, breathing thing that kept me awake through the endless dark hours of the night. But I refused to let my parents or Cheryl hear me suffer. On the nights when the agony was too sharp to bear, I would bite down hard on the edge of my comforter, muffling my dry, desperate sobs into the fabric. I convinced myself that they were already carrying too heavy a burden. I couldn’t bear to be the source of their sadness. And yet, despite how perfectly I followed every medical order, living on a diet of tasteless broths and plain rice porridge, my body withered away day by day. I used to be a boy who laughed easily, a boy whose fingers were always stained with acrylics and charcoal. Now, I didn’t even have the strength to lift a paintbrush. My legs would buckle if I tried to stand, leaving me entirely bedridden. My schoolwork, which I used to master with ease, became an impossible fog. The words on the pages swam and distorted, turning into blinding, painful blurs that made my head throb. I lost my health. I lost my hair. At first, my high school friends would drop by to visit. But as the months stretched on and I remained confined to my room, the visits dwindled to texts, then to nothing at all. I lost my friends, too. My entire world shrank to the dimensions of my mattress, my family, and the relentless cycle of medication and simulated hospital visits. One afternoon, after throwing up until my throat burned with dry heaves, I broke down. “Mom, Dad,” I wept, gripping their hands. “Am I ever going to get better? I don’t want to do this anymore.” I had started this journey with so much hope, but as my body deteriorated, those hopes turned into a dark, suffocating despair. I couldn’t stand the thought of dragging my supposedly low-income family into financial ruin. Mom pulled me into her arms, sobbing against my neck, repeating the same empty refrain over and over. “Oh, my sweet boy. You’re going to get better. Of course you are. Don’t talk like that.” Dad’s eyes brimmed with tears. He turned his face away, unable to meet my gaze, his deep voice cracking. “We’re going to cure you, Toby. We will never give up on you.” Cheryl bought me sketchbooks and model kits to cheer me up. She tried to slide a premium set of drawing pencils into my hand, but my fingers were too weak to hold them. The set slipped and clattered to the floor. With a trembling hand, she quietly set the sketchbook on my nightstand. She stroked my gaunt cheek, her voice thick with emotion. “I know it hurts, Toby. But you’re the strongest boy I know. Just keep fighting. We’ll get through this.” They took turns sitting by my bedside, cooking delicate meals, wiping my feverish forehead, and whispering words of encouragement. In just a few months, they all lost a significant amount of weight. Watching their hollowed-out eyes and exhausted faces, a quiet resolution bloomed in my mind: I wanted to die. It wasn’t just the physical agony anymore—it was the crushing weight of guilt. I was destroying my family. More than once, I buried my face in my mother’s lap, my tears soaking her skirt. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Cheryl. Just let me go. It’s my fault… I must have been a bad kid, not eating my vegetables, being stubborn. I’m so sorry I’m making you suffer like this.” Mom’s tears flowed uncontrollably, her chest heaving with violent sobs. “No, sweetie, no. If anyone should apologize, it’s us. We did this to you… we let you get sick…” Cheryl choked back a sob, her voice raw. “Toby, you are the best brother in the world. Don’t ever say such foolish things.” We held each other and wept in the sterile hospital room for what felt like hours. Back then, I thought they were crying out of sheer love and heartbreak. Only now did I realize those tears were born of guilt—a desperate, pathetic attempt to ask for forgiveness for what they were actively doing to me. I never doubted their love. But knowing the truth now, that love felt like a mouthful of ash. Yesterday, I had shattered my old ceramic piggy bank. Twenties, tens, fives, and a mountain of quarters and dimes spilled across my bed. I had saved every cent over the years—academic achievement stipends, birthday cash from relatives, and the lunch money I frequently skipped to save a little extra. It came out to exactly one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two dollars and fifty cents. My nose had started bleeding halfway through, but I wiped the blood away and kept counting, eventually packing the cash into a thick envelope and hiding it beneath Cheryl’s pillow. I wanted them to use that money to buy a high-end massage chair. Mom stood at that cold fish stall from dawn to dusk, her lower back constantly locked in pain. Dad supposedly hauled heavy drywall and bricks on construction sites, his shoulders permanently plastered with pain-relief patches. I wanted Cheryl to buy herself that designer dress she’d stared at online for months. Or they could use it for whatever they needed. As for me… I figured I’d watch over them from somewhere far above the clouds. After sealing the letter, I swallowed the entire bottle of pesticide. I remembered seeing Dad use it years ago on our small backyard garden. He would dilute the thick chemical with water and spray it on the weeds. Within hours, the stubborn weeds would shrivel up and die. As a curious child, I had asked him what was in the spray bottle. I vividly remember him holding the canister, carrying me piggyback, and speaking in a rare, stern tone. “Toby, this is poison. You must never, ever touch it. If you swallow even a drop, you’ll go to sleep and never see Mom, Dad, or Cheryl again.” My young self had shuddered and clung to his broad shoulders, nodding vigorously. “I promise, Dad. I’ll never touch it.” Years later, in chemistry class, I learned the science behind it. Organophosphates. They trigger rapid, irreversible multi-organ failure. Your lungs fill with fluid, your respiratory system shuts down, and the death is excruciatingly painful. With a lethal dose, there is no antidote. I went to the back cupboard, found the bottle I had feared my entire childhood, and drank it all. I wanted to make absolutely sure there was no coming back. Finding out that my agonizing illness was self-inflicted by the people I trusted most was devastating. But surprisingly, I didn’t hate them. I knew the love they had given me over the last thirteen years was real. They had taken me out of a cold municipal orphanage when I was five, named me Toby, and raised me as their own. They supported my schooling, bought my expensive canvases, and showered me with affection. You can’t fake a lifetime of tenderness. Even if they kept their true wealth a secret from me. Even if I now knew their love for me was merely a proxy for another boy. Years before they adopted me, they had lost their biological son. They had taken him to an amusement park, and in the overwhelming summer crowds, he slipped away. They put up missing flyers, appeared on national search programs, and spent a fortune trying to track him down. For years, there was only silence. When they adopted me, it was because I shared a striking resemblance to that lost boy, and we were the exact same age. In a way, all the love they poured into me was a desperate attempt to patch the bleeding wound of their guilt. I just never expected the world to be this small. The son they had spent a decade searching for ended up sitting next to me in my sophomore homeroom. I knew the crushing guilt they harbored. They wanted so desperately to make it up to him. So when the school announced there was only one early-admission nomination for Stanford, they resorted to this horrific plan to secure Zach’s future. I chose to believe they didn’t want to permanently break me. Under the weight of their immense guilt, Zach simply became their priority, and they figured they would make it up to me later. What they didn’t account for, however, was that I would die on this table. They would never get their chance. As they wheeled me toward the double doors, Mom’s face was wet with tears. “Toby, don’t be scared. Mom is going to be right outside the whole time.” Dad jogged alongside the gurney, his breathing heavy. “Don’t worry, son. Just a quick nap. When you wake up, we’ll get you whatever you want. Those new clothes you liked, remember? And that trip to New Orleans for real gumbo you’ve been begging for? We’ll pack the car the second you’re discharged.” My father, usually a man of few words, kept talking and talking, desperately trying to fill the silence. Cheryl’s eyes were raw. “Toby, we’re right here.” My heart swelled with a painful mix of grief and gratitude. I could only nod through my tears. “I know. Mom, Dad, Cheryl… I love you guys. Always.” “Toby… we love you too.” Their tears fell faster. But the moment the heavy doors swung shut behind me, the poison finally tore through my defenses, and I retched, coughing up a mouthful of dark, metallic blood. The chemical was in my bloodstream now. A white-hot agony bloomed in my chest and radiated outward, claiming every nerve ending. My lungs hardened, refusing to expand. I gasped, clawing at the air, but nothing came. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy. The blinding, clinical glare of the surgical lamp began to fracture into shimmering halos of light. Then, the pain faded, replaced by a strange weightlessness, as if I were drifting upward, leaving my broken body behind. I felt like I was back in the sun-drenched days before the sickness. Fragments of old memories drifted through my mind like dust motes. Dad hoisting me onto his broad shoulders, my childish laughter echoing through the park. Mom gently running a comb through my thick curls, dressing me in smart little outfits, kissing my forehead and whispering that I was her handsome little man. Cheryl teasing me, chasing me down gravel paths until we were breathless. She always let me win, eventually carrying me home on her back when my energy finally fizzled out. I could still smell the sweet scent of cut grass and warm asphalt on those summer breezes. I remembered the oil painting I did of the four of us standing by the lake—the one that won first place in the county exhibition. Slowly, the edges of my consciousness dissolved. The last thing I heard was the frantic, distorted shout of the lead surgeon. “Wait, something’s wrong! He’s in respiratory distress! His heart rate and blood pressure are plummeting!”

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My cousin’s fiancée was a self-styled fairy princess, and she had made it clear she wanted an exclusive, magical snowfall for her midsummer engagement party. To save money while maximizing the aesthetic for her Instagram feed, my cousin had hauled in a truckload of cottonwood fluff, scattering it across the entire living room of my villa. In my past life, I had tried to warn them that cottonwood fluff was highly flammable. But my aunt had pointed her finger at my face, screaming that I was just a bitter, single spinster jealous of another woman’s romance. Tyler had accused me of ruining the mood, shoving me into the cluttered basement and locking the door from the outside. When the fire erupted, they thought only of saving their own skins, leaving me behind to be burned alive into a charred corpse. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Tyler was spreading the fluff across the floor. I swallowed the burning hatred in my chest. This time, I didn’t stop them. I even went out and bought two boxes of indoor cold sparklers with my own money. “Tyler, what’s a snowfall without a little magic? A proposal needs sparklers!” “I even disabled the smoke detectors for you. We wouldn’t want the HOA ruining the fun.” Tyler’s eyes lit up, praising me for finally coming to my senses. My aunt scoffed triumphantly. “At least you know your place. If you did anything to ruin my future daughter-in-law’s special night, I would have made you pay.” That evening, Tyler led his blindfolded fiancée into the center of the room, stepping through ankle-deep fluff. I applauded softly, quietly stepping out the front door. Since they loved romance so much, they could keep the doors closed and enjoy their private winter wonderland to their hearts’ content. Even if it cost them their lives. … Three day-laborers carried heavy woven sacks into the living room, unzipping the tops to dump out massive drifts of white cottonwood fluff. The industrial fan in the corner hummed loudly, sending the fluff swirling through the spacious room, settling over the sofa, the coffee table, and the hardwood floors. Tyler had his arm wrapped around Tiffany at the entryway. Tiffany pinched her nose, waving her hand in front of her face. “It’s not thick enough,” she complained. “It doesn’t have that deep, sinking-in feeling when you step on it.” Tyler turned to the workers. “Go get two more truckloads. I want it ankle-deep.” One of the workers wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking uneasy. “Man, this stuff is incredibly light. To get it ankle-deep, you’re talking dozens of sacks. It’s probably going to clog up your HVAC vents.” Tyler pulled a crisp five-hundred-dollar bill from his wallet, slapping it onto the entryway console. He looked thoroughly annoyed. “Cut the crap. Here’s extra. Just go get it.” The worker grabbed the cash and hurried out the door. I walked in carrying the groceries I’d just bought, my shoes sinking into the white, feathery layer covering my hardwood floor. Tyler frowned the second he saw me, his expression twisting into disgust. “Erica, your shoes are covered in dirt. Don’t ruin the snow I set up for Tiffany.” My aunt, Sharon, emerged from the kitchen holding a platter of sliced fruit, placing it on the edge of the dining table where the fluff hadn’t yet reached. She rolled her eyes and pointed at me. “Are you blind? Can’t you see Tyler is busy setting up his proposal?” I set the grocery bags down on the floor, the horrific memories of my past life flashing before my eyes. In my previous life, seeing the house filled with cottonwood fluff had terrified me. I had immediately shut off the fan and warned them that this fluff was basically kindling—highly volatile and prone to explosive ignition at the slightest spark. But Aunt Sharon had sneered, calling me a bitter, unmarried prude who couldn’t stand to see anyone else happy. Tyler had lost his temper, shouting that I was ruining the magic, before violently shoving me into the basement storage room filled with old furniture and locking me in. That night, during the proposal, a stray spark from the cold sparklers ignited the fluff. The fire spread in seconds, and the three of them ran for their lives, leaving me trapped in the basement to burn to death. Now, back on this exact day, I stared down at the white fuzz clinging to the tips of my shoes and slowly stepped back onto the doormat. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t paying attention.” Tiffany pouted, leaning heavily into Tyler’s chest with a pathetic whine. “Tyler, look at her. She looks so miserable. I bet she doesn’t even want to lend us her villa for our engagement.” Tyler patted her shoulder, whispering sweet nothings. “She wouldn’t dare. The deed might have her name on it, but Mom gave her twenty grand when she bought this place. Half of this house belongs to us.” Aunt Sharon walked over, nudging my grocery bag with the toe of her shoe, letting out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Tiffany’s right. Erica, are you just bitter because Tyler found someone so beautiful and successful, while you’re still entirely alone?” I forced a smile, looking up at them. “Of course not. Tyler getting engaged is a huge milestone. I’m thrilled for him.” I turned around, walked out to my car, and pulled two heavy cardboard boxes from the trunk. I carried them into the foyer and set them down on the floor. When I tore open the packaging, dozens of bundled, cylindrical indoor cold sparklers were revealed. “Tyler, what’s a snowfall without a little magic? A proposal needs sparklers.” Tyler’s eyes lit up as he picked one up, inspecting it. “These are perfect. The photos are going to look insane.” Tiffany squealed, grabbing a bundle and hugging it to her chest, her face splitting into a massive grin. “Oh, Erica, you really outdid yourself! This is going to feel exactly like “Frozen”.” I pointed up at the white plastic disc on the ceiling, claiming my credit. “I even disabled the smoke detectors for you. We wouldn’t want the HOA or the fire department ruining the fun.” Tyler nodded eagerly, thoroughly pleased. “Wow, Erica. You actually did something useful for once.” Aunt Sharon lifted her chin, scoffing. “At least you have some common sense. If you did anything to ruin my future daughter-in-law’s special night, I would have made you pay.” I took a step back, giving them space. “You guys keep decorating. I’m going upstairs to pack a few things. I won’t get in your way.” I walked up to the second floor, entered the master bedroom, and locked the door behind me. I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed. I packed my property deed, my passport, my jewelry, and a few luxury watches, tucking them safely into the inner lining of the suitcase. Then I opened my laptop, logged into my smart home dashboard, and adjusted the five security cameras on the first floor to their optimal angles. I enabled the automatic cloud backup feature. Downstairs, I could hear the workers shouting as another dozen sacks of cottonwood fluff were dumped into the center of the living room. I closed my laptop and slid it into my backpack. “Since you love romance so much, enjoy your private winter wonderland to your hearts’ content. Even if it costs you your lives.” I dragged my suitcase downstairs. The fluff in the living room was incredibly thick now. With every step, the soft white fuzz swallowed more than half of my shoes. Tyler was busy directing two workers on ladders. “Seal up every single window seam,” Tyler instructed. “Use the heavy-duty tape. I don’t want a single draft coming through.” One worker was wrapping wide black duct tape tightly along the edges of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Tiffany was spinning around the room, holding her selfie stick high. “Hey guys! Look at the midsummer snowfall my fiancé set up for me! Isn’t it incredibly romantic?” She pouted at the camera. “The proposal livestream starts at eight tonight. Make sure to tune in to catch some of this magic!” Aunt Sharon, who was wiping down the sofa armrests with a rag, frowned the moment she saw my suitcase. “Where do you think you’re going with that?” I stood the suitcase up by the door. “Work emergency. I have to go out of town for a business trip for a few days.” Aunt Sharon clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Of all the days to leave. You really are a dark cloud over this family.” Tyler walked over from the ladder to chime in. “Let her go, Mom. It’s better she’s not here to ruin the shot tonight. Tiffany has over a hundred thousand followers tuning in.” Tiffany lowered her selfie stick and wrapped her arm around Tyler’s. “Exactly. And my bridesmaids are coming soon. They’ve been dying to see this place.” She eyed my canvas sneakers with disgust. “Erica, watch where you step. My wedding dress is a rental, and if it gets dirty, the deposit is gone.” I nodded, keeping my feet firmly on the doormat. “Don’t worry. I’m not coming in.” The worker climbed down the ladder. “All the windows are sealed, boss. Not even a fly is getting through.” Tyler clapped his hands, satisfied. “Great. Go seal the back door and the basement door too. Wrap it thick.” I pointed toward the hallway under the stairs. “Tyler, the back door gets a lot of wind. Tape alone might not hold it.” Tyler looked worried. “What should we do? If the wind leaks in, it’ll ruin the snow effect.” I gestured to a pile of empty cardboard appliance boxes in the corner. “Just stack those empty boxes against the door to block the draft.” Tyler waved his hand at the workers. “Did you hear her? Do what she said. Block the door.” The two workers pushed the large, heavy cardboard boxes over to the back door, stacking them high against the handle. Aunt Sharon walked over to the smart control panel on the wall, grumbling. “Why are the HVAC and central air still running? Do you think electricity grows on trees?” Tyler rushed over to stop her. “Mom, if we turn off the AC, we’re going to suffocate in here with all these people.” Aunt Sharon glared at him. “Once the main lights are off, we’ll just have the ambient lighting. It won’t get that hot.” She reached out and flipped the main breaker switch on the panel. The hum of the house died instantly, and the air grew completely still. Tiffany smiled, agreeing with her. “Sharon’s right, Tyler. Too much air current will blow the snow around. It looks much prettier when it falls quietly.” Tyler rubbed his neck, giving in. “Fine, turn it off. And lock the front door too. We don’t want any nosey HOA security guards wandering in.” I adjusted my backpack and grabbed the handle of my suitcase. “I’ll take off then. Good luck tonight.” With that, I pushed open the front door and walked down the steps. As soon as I got outside, my phone buzzed with a notification from the family group chat. Aunt Sharon had posted a video. The clip showed the living room covered in cottonwood fluff, with the cold sparklers piled high on the coffee table. Aunt Sharon: [Tyler is proposing tonight! Everyone make sure to tune into Tiffany’s stream to support them!] Uncle Richard replied first: [Wow, that looks incredible. Tyler’s really moving up in the world.] Aunt Peggy followed: [What a gorgeous place. Tiffany is a lucky girl.] Aunt Sharon immediately sent a bragging voice note: “Of course she is. We bought this place in cash. Unlike some people who are in their thirties, completely single, and slinking off on ‘business trips’ today.” The chat went quiet for a few seconds before Aunt Peggy replied: [What’s the point of a girl getting so much education if she can’t even find a husband?] I stared at the messages but didn’t reply. I slid my phone into my pocket, walked over to my car, and loaded my suitcase into the trunk. I climbed into the driver’s seat, closing the door to shut out the summer heat. I rolled the window down just a crack, keeping my eyes fixed on the villa. The heavy front door was shut tight. With the blackout film on the second-floor windows and the thick tape sealing the first-floor glass, the entire house was now an airtight vault. As dusk fell, the streetlights began to flicker on. I opened the security app on my phone. The screen split into five crystal-clear feeds of the villa’s first floor. The main chandelier was off, leaving only the wall sconces casting a dim, warm glow. The cottonwood fluff on the floor gleamed white in the dim light, burying their ankles. Tiffany’s four bridesmaids, dressed in matching dresses, were sitting on the couch touching up their makeup, while Tyler adjusted his bow tie in his white tuxedo. Aunt Sharon, wearing a tight, crimson silk sheath dress and a pearl necklace, was fluttering around the room. She walked to the entryway, turned the deadbolt to lock the front door, and then twisted the extra security latch. “There, locked tight. Let’s see if anyone tries to interrupt our Tiffany’s livestream now.” Tyler watched her, complaining slightly. “Mom, why did you lock it so tight? We still have to go out for celebratory drinks after this.” Aunt Sharon slapped his hand away. “What do you know? The HOA sent an alert saying there’s too much cottonwood fluff in the neighborhood and they’re sending inspectors. If they barge in and see this, they’ll fine us a fortune.” Tyler shrugged. “Let them. Tonight’s worth it.” Tiffany floated down the stairs in a white gown with a massive tulle train that dragged behind her through the fluff. She wore a rhinestone tiara and held her selfie stick high. Her bridesmaids immediately squealed in jealousy. “Oh my god, Tiffany, you look stunning!” “That dress must have cost thousands! Tyler is treating you like a queen.” Tiffany smirked, clearly enjoying the attention. “Of course. And this entire villa is his engagement gift to me.” She walked to the center of the living room and mounted her phone onto a tripod. “Alright guys, I’m going live!” I switched over to her social media app. The very first recommended live stream was Tiffany’s. The title read: “Exclusive Snowfall in a Multi-Million Dollar Mansion: Witnessing True Love.” I tapped into the stream. Tiffany was standing in the middle of the drifting fluff, the industrial fan on its lowest setting gently blowing the white fibers around her. The viewer count surged quickly, jumping from five thousand to thirty thousand. The comment section was scrolling at warp speed: [Oh my god, is this actually inside a house? That is so romantic!] [How much did this cost? I am too poor for this world.] [He’s so handsome, she’s so gorgeous. Absolute couple goals!] Tiffany blew a kiss to the camera, blushing. “Thank you all so much. My fiancé bought this place in cash, and he set up this entire winter wonderland just to surprise me.” Aunt Sharon squeezed her way into the frame, grinning ear to ear. “Make sure to hit that follow button, everyone! My Tyler is quite the catch.” Meanwhile, the family group chat was blowing up again. Uncle Richard: [Look at Sharon on camera! That dress is so elegant.] Aunt Peggy: [With this many followers, Tiffany’s going to make a fortune doing brand deals.] Aunt Sharon, feeling generous, dropped a digital gift card link into the group chat: [A little celebration for everyone!] I tapped the link and claimed my fifty cents. On the camera feed, Tyler walked over to the corner, picked up the box of cold sparklers from the coffee table, and ripped it open. “Girls, come here. Take two each. The moment I get down on one knee, light them up.” The four bridesmaids scrambled over to grab their sparklers, while Tyler stuffed the largest bundle into his jacket pocket. He checked his watch. “It’s time.” He walked up to Tiffany, pulling a black silk ribbon from his pocket. “Close your eyes, babe. I have a surprise for you.” Tiffany giggled and closed her eyes as Tyler tied the ribbon snugly behind her head. He took her hand, leading her slowly to the exact center of the room. Her train carved a deep path through the thick fluff. I leaned back in my car seat, turning up the volume on my phone. The viewer count on the live stream cracked a hundred thousand. Tyler stopped Tiffany in the center of the room. The fluff beneath their feet was packed tight, but the surrounding piles remained massive. Aunt Sharon stood by the couch, filming with her own phone, while the bridesmaids took their positions at the four corners, holding the sparklers. The comments were a blur of excitement: [This is like a movie!] [Is that a ring box in his pocket?] [One hundred thousand people watching. I’m crying!] Tyler took a deep breath, let go of Tiffany’s hand, took a half-step back, and sank to one knee into the drift. The white fluff swallowed his shin. He pulled out the red velvet box and popped it open, the diamond ring catching the dim ambient light. “Babe, you can take off the blindfold.” Tiffany reached up and pulled the ribbon away. Seeing Tyler on one knee, she gasped, wrapping her hands over her mouth as tears welled in her eyes. “Tyler…” Tyler looked up, his voice thick with rehearsed emotion. “Tiffany, from the moment I met you, I promised to give you the world. This mansion, this snowfall—it’s all my promise to you. Will you marry me?” Tiffany nodded frantically, sobbing. “Yes! Yes, a million times yes!” Tyler stood up, slid the ring onto her finger, and pulled her into a tight embrace. Aunt Sharon clapped loudly, cheering. “Yes! Beautiful! A perfect match!” The bridesmaids screamed in delight, and virtual gifts—sports cars, yachts—flooded the live stream screen. Tyler let go of Tiffany and turned to the camera, shouting, “Thank you to all hundred thousand of you witnessing this!” He pulled the giant bundle of cold sparklers from his pocket. “But babe, the romance isn’t over yet.” He nodded to the bridesmaids in the corners. “Get ready.” The bridesmaids raised the sparklers high, forming a circle around the couple. Tiffany held her dress, her face full of anticipation. The chat was in a frenzy: [Here comes the magic!] [Light them up! Light them up!] [Real-life Disney princess!] Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, windproof metal lighter. He flicked the cover open, spinning the wheel to produce a bright, steady flame. He held the sparkler fuses right over it. He looked up at Tiffany, giving her a smug, confident grin. And then, he pressed the ignition.

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At our engagement gala, Liam’s assistant burst into the hall, screaming, “Summer has been kidnapped.” Liam immediately let go of my hand, leaving a hall full of high-society guests behind as he bolted toward the exit. I blocked his way. “Today is our engagement. Are you really going to abandon me for your mistress?” His eyes were bloodshot as he shoved me aside. “She is dying. Can you stop being so damn selfish for once?” I let go of him and smiled. “Liam, if you walk out of that door today, I will never wait for you again.” He hesitated for a single second, then rushed out without looking back. The crowd erupted into whispers. I turned around, picked up the microphone, and looked at the man standing in the dark corner of the hall. “Ethan Hudson.” The entire room went dead silent. Ethan, the man I had abandoned at the altar three years ago, stepped out of the shadows. His gaze was as cold as a knife. I extended my hand to him. “Let’s change the groom for this gala. Do you dare?”

Chloe’s POV The smell of disinfectant was overwhelming. During the stitches, I didn’t let the doctor use anesthesia. The needle pierced my skin, pulling the thread through. It hurt, but I didn’t even flinch. The young ER doctor kept glancing at me as if I were a monster who couldn’t feel pain. “The cut is deep. It almost nicked the nerve.” The doctor cut the thread, his voice laced with suspicion. “How did this happen?” “I was carving something, and the knife slipped,” I replied flatly. I wasn’t lying. To prepare a wedding gift for Liam, I had hand-carved a pair of obsidian cufflinks. The stone was too hard. The carving knife slipped and went straight through my left hand. Blood had splattered everywhere. After bandaging the wound, I used my uninjured right hand to pull out my phone. The screen lit up. No missed calls, no messages. Liam had been completely unreachable for three whole days. Our wedding was less than a month away. I stood up, preparing to pay the bill. A TV mounted on the ER wall was broadcasting the local news. “Today’s torrential rain has caused severe flooding across several areas of New York…” The screen flashed to a live reporter on site. My steps froze. In the pouring rain on the screen, a man in a black suit held a massive black umbrella, shielding a petite woman tightly in his arms. The rain soaked half of his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to care. He looked down at the woman in his arms. His gaze held a level of intensity and tenderness that I, after knowing him for seven years and loving him for three, had never once seen. That was Liam. The heir to the Hudson Group, proud, arrogant, and cold. And the woman in his arms was someone I knew too. Summer Evans. A well-known digital reporter. She had built a massive online following on Twitter and TikTok with her “never tells a lie” persona. On screen, Summer was soaked, still clutching her camera. Her voice trembled, yet she sounded defiant. “Mr. Hudson, I was just doing my job. I don’t need your pity.” Liam let out a low chuckle. That laugh echoed through the TV speaker, stabbing right into my ears. “I don’t pity you,” Liam’s voice was deep and commanding. “I care about you.” The people watching TV in the lobby gasped. “Who is that guy? He’s so hot!” “That’s the CEO of Hudson Group! Oh my god, a billionaire and a reporter! So romantic!” I stood there, staring at the screen. The wound on my left hand suddenly throbbed violently. It hurt so much my fingertips went numb. I pulled out my phone and dialed Liam’s number. It rang for a long time, but no one answered. I hung up and tried again. This time, the call was instantly declined. A second later, a text message popped up on SnapChat. Liam: I’m busy. Stop annoying me. I stared at the words and curled my lips. Busy. Busy holding an umbrella for another woman in the pouring rain. I didn’t reply. I turned and walked out of the hospital. It was still raining. I didn’t use an umbrella. I just got straight into my car. I placed the box containing the cufflinks on the passenger seat and started the engine. Half an hour later, the car pulled up in front of a private lounge in Manhattan. This was Liam’s usual hangout spot. I pushed the door open and walked straight inside. The bouncers at the VIP entrance paled when they saw me, quickly stepping forward to block my path. “Miss Vance, what are you doing here?” “Move,” my voice was quiet but dripping with ice. “Mr. Hudson gave strict orders. He doesn’t want to be disturbed today…” Sweat beaded on the bouncer’s forehead. I ignored him, shoved past his arm, and walked down the hallway to the private suite. Bang! I kicked the door open. The laughter inside stopped instantly. On the couch, Liam was gently drying Summer’s wet hair with a towel. Summer shrunk into his chest like a frightened little deer. Several of Liam’s wealthy friends sat around them, wearing smirks on their faces. Seeing me, everyone froze. Liam’s hand paused, his brow instantly furrowing. “What are you doing here?” His tone was filled with utter impatience. I walked over. I was soaked. Rain dripped from my hair, and my face was pale. But my spine was perfectly straight. “I came to deliver something.” I handed him the box. Liam didn’t reach for it. He glanced at my bandaged, bleeding left hand. His eyes didn’t show a single flicker of concern. “What could be so urgent that you had to bring it here now?” “A wedding gift,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I made it myself.” The room fell into a dead silence. Summer peeked out from Liam’s arms, staring at me. “Miss Vance, please don’t misunderstand. I got caught in the storm during an interview, and my gear broke. Mr. Hudson was just passing by and helped me out…” “I didn’t ask you,” I cut her off, my eyes locked on Liam. “Take it.” “Just leave it on the table,” Liam said coldly. I didn’t move. My hand remained suspended in the air. Summer bit her lip and reached out. “Miss Vance, let me help you put it…” The moment her hand brushed the box, Liam suddenly lashed out, slapping the box away. Clatter. The box hit the floor, bursting open. Two cufflinks rolled out. On the pure black stone, my dried blood was still visible. “Don’t touch it,” Liam pulled Summer behind him, glaring at me coldly. “Who knows if that thing is even clean.” I stared at the cufflinks on the floor. I had pulled three consecutive all-nighters, carving them millimeter by millimeter. Every cut held my hope for our upcoming marriage. Now, they lay at someone else’s feet like trash.

Chloe’s POV “Liam,” my voice was barely a whisper. “We are getting married next month.” “So what?” Liam sneered. “It’s just a piece of paper. Do you really think of yourself as Mrs. Hudson already?” He stood up, looking down at me. “Chloe, you are so boring. You’re like a programmed machine. You never make mistakes, but you never surprise me either.” He pointed to Summer behind him. “Summer is different. She is real, she is alive, and she never lies. With her, I actually feel like a living human being.” I looked at him. For a long, long time. “Are you done staring? If you’re done, get out.” Liam turned around and stepped directly on one of the cufflinks. Crack. The sound of stone shattering. My heart shattered completely along with that sharp noise. I didn’t cry. I didn’t throw a tantrum. I simply bent down, using my uninjured right hand to pick up the broken pieces one by one, squeezing them in my palm. The sharp shards sliced into my skin. But I felt no pain. “Sorry to bother you.” I stood up and walked out of the suite. The moment the door closed, I heard Summer’s soft voice from inside. “Liam, treating Chloe like that… won’t she be really sad?” “Why care about her? A woman like her doesn’t have a heart.” I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath. When I opened them again, there was nothing left but icy silence. Liam, you’re right. I don’t have a heart anymore. The next day. I went to work as usual. I am the CEO of the Vance Group. Though the Vance family isn’t as massive as the Hudson conglomerate, we are still a highly respected prominent family in New York. However, over the last few years, our cash flow had run into issues, and we had been relying on joint projects with the Hudson Group to stay afloat. That was why everyone in our social circle said I was marrying up. At 10:00 AM. My office door was pushed open. Liam walked in. He was wearing a tailored suit, his hair perfectly styled. He looked nothing like the man from the bar last night. He walked straight over to the couch, sat down, and crossed his legs like he owned the place. “Is there something you need?” I didn’t even look up from my documents. Liam frowned. “Summer’s media channel is doing a special feature on prominent New York entrepreneurs,” Liam got straight to the point. “She needs a high-profile interview subject.” My hand pausing on the page. “And?” “You will accept her interview,” Liam said, his tone commanding. I raised my head and looked at him. I looked at him as if he were a complete stranger. “Liam, have you lost your mind?” Liam’s face darkened. “Chloe, watch your mouth.” “Watch my mouth?” I let out a cold laugh. “You want me to do an interview with your mistress just to help boost her career? What do you take me for?” “She is not a mistress! Stop using such disgusting words!” Liam stood up abruptly. “Summer is a professional reporter! She just needs an opportunity to prove herself!” “If she wants to prove herself, why does she have to step on me to do it?” “Chloe, stop throwing a tantrum.” Liam walked over to my desk, leaning over to stare down at me. “You must do this interview.” I leaned back in my chair, meeting his gaze without flinching. “And if I refuse?” Liam narrowed his eyes, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “The Vance Group is currently developing the Brooklyn Waterfront Project, right? You still have a three-hundred-million-dollar funding gap. If the Hudson Group pulls its investment right now…” My face paled instantly. The Brooklyn Waterfront Project was my father’s lifelong dream. If the funding cut, the Vance Group would go bankrupt. Liam knew exactly where my weakness lay. He was using my father’s dream to blackmail me into pleasing another woman. Looking at this man, I felt utterly disgusted. “Liam, you are despicable.” “Say whatever you want.” Liam stood up and straightened his suit jacket. “Summer will bring her team here at two this afternoon. You better cooperate.” With that, he turned and walked out. The door clicked shut. I sat in my chair, my body freezing cold. The wound on my left hand began to throb again. I opened my drawer, pulled out a bottle of painkillers, and swallowed two pills dry.

Chloe’s POV At 2:00 PM. Summer arrived at my office right on time with her camera crew. She was wearing a sleek professional blazer today, with flawless makeup. She looked both innocent and professional. Liam was right behind her. “Miss Vance, sorry to disturb you,” Summer smiled sweetly. I ignored her, pointing to the seat opposite me. “Let’s begin.” The cameras were set up. The red recording light turned on. The smile on Summer’s face vanished, replaced by a sharp, professional mask. “Miss Vance, rumors say that the Vance Group’s recent growth relies heavily on the support of the Hudson Group. Is this true?” The very first question was a direct attack. I remained calm. “The Vance Group and the Hudson Group share a standard, mutually beneficial business partnership.” “Is that so?” Summer flipped through her tablet. “But according to my sources, over sixty percent of your profits over the past three years came from projects outsourced by the Hudson Group. Doesn’t that count as dependency?” I frowned slightly. This data was a trade secret. How could a digital reporter like Summer access it? I instinctively looked at Liam, who was standing behind the camera. Liam avoided my eyes. I understood. Liam had handed her my company’s financial data just so she could humiliate me. “Miss Evans, I don’t care where you got your fabricated data,” my voice grew cold. “If you only came here today to audit my company’s finances, this interview is over.” “Please don’t be angry, Miss Vance. I am just seeking the truth.” Summer blinked innocently, throwing an even sharper question. “Since the Vance Group is so dependent on the Hudsons, rumors say you used underhanded tactics to force Mr. Hudson into this marriage. How do you respond to that?” The air in the office froze instantly. Even the cameraman gasped. This wasn’t an interview. This was a public execution. My fingers clenched tightly. My nails dug into my palms. The pain kept me focused. Looking at Summer’s smug, provocative face, I suddenly smiled. “Miss Evans, you claim you never lie. Do you dare to look into that camera and say you have absolutely no personal motive behind these questions today?” Summer’s face stiffened. “I… of course I don’t! I am just asking on behalf of the public!” “The public isn’t that interested in my private life.” I stood up, looking down at her. “The only people interested are those hiding in the shadows, desperately plotting to steal the title of Mrs. Hudson.” “You!” Summer’s eyes welled with tears instantly. “Chloe!” Liam strode over, pulling Summer behind his back. He glared at me, looking like he wanted to tear me apart. “Have you lost your mind? Summer is just doing a standard interview!” “A standard interview?” I pointed at the camera. “A standard interview asks if I forced you into marriage? Liam, do you dare deny that you authorized these questions?” Exposed, Liam’s face turned an ugly shade of red. “So what if I did? Did she say anything wrong? If your grandfather hadn’t used his deathbed wish to force my grandfather into this arrangement, do you think I would ever marry you?” Those words felt like a dagger driving straight into my heart. I looked at Liam. For three years. For his sake, I had swallowed my pride and learned how to be the perfect fiancée. I thought even a cold stone could be warmed up. But a stone is just a stone. “Fine,” I nodded, my voice incredibly calm. “Since you feel so victimized, we don’t have to get married.” Liam froze. He obviously didn’t expect me to say that. After all, in his eyes, I loved him so desperately that I had no dignity left. How could I ever call off the wedding? “Don’t try to threaten me with calling off the wedding,” Liam sneered. “Do you think I’m scared?” “I am not threatening you.” I sat back down and pressed the intercom on my desk. “Security, escort these intruders out.” “Chloe, how dare you!” “Watch me.” I looked up, my eyes as cold as ice. “Liam, take your woman and get the hell out of my company.”

Chloe’s POV The interview video was released anyway. Summer’s team was highly skilled at editing. They cut out all of my counterattacks, leaving only Summer’s sharp questions and my silent, tense expressions. The video was posted with a highly provocative title: The Truth Behind the Billionaire Alliance: Love, or a Financial Trap? Once published, it immediately went viral on Twitter and TikTok. Summer’s fans shared it like crazy, dragging my name through the mud. “So she did force him into marriage! How shameless!” “No wonder Mr. Hudson doesn’t love her. Who would want a gold-digger who blackmails her way into a family?” “I feel so bad for Summer. She got bullied by this evil CEO just for exposing the truth!” “Liam and Summer are the real soulmates! Boycott the forced marriage!” I sat in my dark apartment, watching the vicious comments stream down my phone screen. My expression remained blank. It felt like I was reading a story about someone else. On the coffee table lay a stack of wedding invitations. Our names, “Liam Hudson” and “Chloe Vance,” were printed side-by-side. It looked like a massive joke now. My phone buzzed. It was a message from Liam. Liam: Don’t worry about the video. Summer needs the publicity right now. Once the hype dies down, I’ll have PR handle it. Looking at the text, I found it laughably absurd. He had pushed me off a cliff, letting the entire internet tear me apart, just to generate traffic for his mistress. And then he casually dismissed it with “don’t worry.” I didn’t reply. I tossed my phone aside, stood up, and walked into my study. Inside the safe lay a dusty wooden box. I opened it to find an old, discontinued phone model. I plugged in the charger and powered it on. The lock screen lit up, showing a blurry photo of a man’s back. He was wearing a black trench coat, his posture tall and imposing, radiating a dangerous, untouchable coldness. Ethan Hudson. The true, formidable heir of the Hudson family, and Liam’s older half-brother. He was also… my former fiancé. Three years ago. On the eve of my wedding to Ethan. Liam had knelt outside the Vance mansion in a torrential storm for an entire day and night. He had grabbed my hand, his eyes red as he begged me, “Chloe, don’t marry him. I love you. Run away with me.” Back then, I was blinded by Liam’s dramatic display of affection. In a moment of madness, I made the most reckless decision of my life. I ran away from my own wedding. I abandoned Ethan, the ruthless, terrifying man everyone feared, and ran away with Liam. The Hudson family was furious. Ethan became the laughingstock of New York high society. Yet, he didn’t unleash his wrath. He didn’t send men to hunt me down. He simply stood at the wedding venue, calmly announced the cancellation, and boarded a flight out of the country that very day. It had been three years. Ethan had never returned. And I had paid a devastating price for my impulsive mistake. I thought I was running toward love. Instead, I had leaped straight into an abyss. I took a deep breath, my fingers trembling as I dialed the number I hadn’t touched in three years. The line rang for a long time. So long that I feared he had changed his number. Just as I was about to hang up, the call connected. There was no greeting. Only the sound of faint breathing and the sharp click of a lighter. I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. “…Ethan,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. The other end remained silent for two seconds. Then, a deep, magnetic, and freezing voice cut through the line. “Chloe Vance.” Just hearing him speak my name made my chest tighten with a suffocating pressure. “It’s me,” I said, closing my eyes. “Is there a reason you’re calling?” Ethan’s voice was completely flat, as if he were talking to a stranger. “How… how have you been?” I didn’t know how to start. “If you called just to make small talk, you can hang up.” “Wait!” I blurted out. I bit my lip, making up my mind. “Ethan, do you want to make a bet with me?” A faint, mocking chuckle came from the other end. “What makes you think I would ever play games with you again?” “Because you didn’t destroy me three years ago,” my voice steadied. “Ethan, I know you hate me. I am giving you a chance to get your revenge.” “Speak.” “Next month on the eighth, it’s my wedding with Liam.” I paused. “If he abandons me at the altar, I will marry you right then and there.” The air seemed to freeze. Even across half the globe, I could feel the terrifying chill radiating from Ethan. “Chloe, what do you think I am?” Ethan’s voice dropped low, laced with dangerous anger. “A trash bin for my brother’s leftovers?” “No,” I opened my eyes, my gaze resolute. “I am treating you as my only way out.” The line fell silent again. Only the rhythmic click, click of his lighter echoed in the quiet night. Every flick of the flame seemed to beat against my heart. After what felt like an eternity. Ethan finally spoke. “And if he doesn’t abandon you?” “Then I will transfer thirty percent of the Vance Group’s shares to you, free of charge,” I said without hesitation. “Chloe, you are out of your mind.” “Do you dare to bet?” “Fine,” Ethan’s voice held a trace of ruthless amusement. “I’ll be there on the eighth. Chloe, this is your last chance. If you dare to play me again…” “I won’t,” I interrupted. “Ethan, I’ll be waiting.” I hung up. My strength evaporated, and I slid down onto the cold floor. My back was drenched in sweat. I knew I was playing with fire. Ethan was a sleeping beast. Once provoked, he would tear me apart without leaving even a bone behind. But I didn’t care anymore. If Liam wanted to drag my dignity through the mud. Then I would flip the table and make sure everyone burned with me.

Chloe’s POV With one week left until the wedding. Liam seemed to have completely forgotten our past arguments. He began showing up constantly, playing the role of a doting groom. It was as if the online hate and Summer’s provocations were just a figment of my imagination. At a high-end bridal boutique downtown. I sat on the couch, watching the clock on the wall. 3:00 PM. Liam was already a full hour late. The consultant carefully served a cup of coffee. “Miss Vance, would you like to try on the dress first? Mr. Hudson might be stuck in traffic.” “No, I’ll wait,” I said calmly. At 3:30 PM. The bell at the entrance finally chimed. Liam rushed in, bringing in the cold draft from outside. Along with a faint scent of citrus perfume. That was Summer’s favorite scent. “Sorry, an urgent meeting came up at the office,” Liam walked over, leaning down to kiss my forehead. I tilted my head, avoiding him. Liam’s hand froze in mid-air. A flash of annoyance crossed his eyes, but he quickly masked it. “Still mad? I’ll take you to that French place you love tonight to make it up to you, okay?” “No need. Let’s just try the dress.” I stood up and followed the consultant into the fitting room. When I stepped out wearing the custom gown designed by a top French designer, Liam gasped. The pure white skirt was encrusted with tiny diamonds, shimmering under the boutique lights. The gown accentuated my collarbones and slender neck, making me look like an untouchable, regal queen. “Beautiful,” Liam stepped forward, genuine admiration in his eyes. He reached out, wanting to wrap his hand around my waist. Right then. A loud ringtone broke the silence. It was Liam’s phone. The custom ringtone he had set exclusively for Summer. Liam’s movement froze. He looked at me, then at the phone in his pocket. “Answer it,” I said, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My voice didn’t hold a single drop of emotion. Liam pulled out his phone and stepped aside to answer. “Summer, what’s wrong?” I couldn’t hear the other side, but Liam’s face instantly paled. “Don’t cry! I’m coming right now! Stay where you are and don’t move!” He hung up and turned to me, his face frantic. “Chloe, Summer is trapped at an interview site by some aggressive men. I have to go.” I looked at him. “We are fitting my wedding dress.” “The dress fits perfectly, no adjustments needed,” Liam said impatiently, tugging at his tie. “Summer is in danger. She can’t handle this alone.” “Liam,” I turned around, looking straight into his eyes. “If you walk out of this door today, I will never wear this dress again.” Liam frowned, clearly thinking I was just throwing a childish tantrum. “Chloe, can you be reasonable for once? This is an emergency, and you’re choosing now to act jealous?” “Reasonable?” I smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach my eyes. “Fine. Go.” Liam gave me a long look, then turned and bolted out of the boutique. Without a shred of hesitation. I watched his figure disappear through the glass doors. I turned to the consultant. “Help me take it off.” “Miss Vance, the gown…” “Pack it up and send it to the Hudson estate,” I said flatly. “I don’t need it.” After changing back into my clothes, I walked out of the store. My phone buzzed. It was an image message. Sender: Summer. In the photo, Liam had his sleeves rolled up, standing in a cramped kitchen cooking soup. His profile was incredibly soft and focused. Below the photo was a text: Miss Vance, I’m so sorry for ruining your dress fitting. But my stomach ulcer flared up so badly, and Liam insisted that takeout isn’t clean enough. He insisted on making me soup himself. You don’t mind, right? I stared at the photo. There were no aggressive men trapping her. It was just another one of Summer’s pathetic games to secure his attention. And Liam had willingly played right along. My fingers flew across the keyboard as I replied: You two deserve each other. I hit send and blocked her number instantly. At 11:00 PM. Liam returned to our apartment. The place was pitch black. He turned on the lights and saw me sitting on the couch, holding a glass of red wine. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” Liam walked over, trying to soften his tone. “Summer was really shaken up today, so I stayed to keep her company for a bit.” “Shaken up, or was it just her stomach ulcer?” I took a sip of wine and asked quietly. Liam’s face stiffened. “Are you tracking me?” “I’m not that bored.” I set the glass down. “Liam, aren’t you tired?” “What do you mean?” “Lying to both sides, placating both sides. You might not be tired, but I’m exhausted just watching you.” I stood up and faced him. “You can just call off the wedding and be with her.” “Chloe Vance!” Liam snapped. “Do you have to pick a fight right now? The invitations are already out. All of New York knows we are getting married. You want to cancel now?” “Are you just afraid of losing face?” “I am doing this for the reputation of both our families!” Liam took a deep breath, forcing his anger down. “Chloe, I admit I have feelings for Summer. But the position of Mrs. Hudson will only ever belong to you. Just behave, and I will treat you well.” Just behave. The words sounded incredibly repulsive. “Sure,” I suddenly smiled. My smile was bright and dazzling. “Liam, remember what you said today.” I walked past him and went into the bedroom.

Chloe’s POV The night before the wedding. Our families hosted a massive rehearsal dinner at the most luxurious hotel in Manhattan. All our relatives, friends, and business partners were there. The crystal chandeliers gleamed, and the champagne towers sparkled under the lights. I wore a stunning red gown, socializing with the guests with a flawless smile on my face. Liam stood beside me, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. He kept checking his watch and pulling out his phone. “Liam, what is wrong with you?” Liam’s mother walked over, whispering sharply. “Today is a big day for you and Chloe. Focus.” “I’m fine, Mom,” Liam brushed her off, slipping his phone back into his pocket. A waiter carrying a tray accidentally bumped into me. The red wine spilled, splashing onto my skirt. “I am so sorry! Miss Vance, I am so sorry!” The waiter apologized profusely, trembling. Before I could speak, Liam suddenly exploded. “How do you do your job? Are you blind?!” He violently shoved the waiter, his voice echoing across the quieted ballroom. Everyone turned to look at us. I frowned slightly. Liam was overreacting. He wasn’t acting out of concern for me. He was just using this as an excuse to vent his pent-up anxiety. “I’m fine,” I grabbed Liam’s arm. “I’ll just go to the restroom and clean up.” Right then, the phone in Liam’s pocket began to vibrate frantically. As if grabbing onto his last lifeline, he snatched it out immediately. Seeing the name on the screen, his face drained of all color. He violently threw my hand off and answered. “Summer? What’s wrong? Speak to me!” Summer’s terrified screams echoed faintly from the receiver. “Liam! Help me! Someone is breaking down my door! They’re inside… Ah!” The call cut off. Liam’s eyes went completely wild. He turned and bolted toward the exit like a madman. “Liam! Where do you think you’re going?!” his father, Charles Hudson, roared. “Summer is in danger! I have to save her!” Liam didn’t even turn his head. “Stop right there! Do you have any idea what night it is? If you dare walk out of that door, don’t ever call yourself a Hudson again!” Liam paused. He turned around, looking at the room full of guests, his furious parents, and finally, his gaze landed on me. I stood there, watching him. I didn’t stop him, nor did I beg him to stay. My gaze was as cold as if I were looking at a corpse. “I’m sorry,” Liam gritted his teeth. “I can’t let her die.” With that, he ran out of the ballroom. The heavy doors slammed shut with a resounding thud. The room fell into a dead silence before erupting into a frenzy of whispers. “Oh my god, did the groom just run away?” “For a reporter? This is insane!” “The Vance family’s reputation is completely ruined…” Liam’s father looked like he was about to have a stroke. My father, Arthur, looked furious. He strode over to me. “Chloe, what on earth is going on?!” “Dad, it’s fine,” I supported my father, my voice completely steady. “Let the guests enjoy their dinner. It’s just a minor hiccup.” I turned back to the room, raising my wine glass high. “Apologies for the drama, everyone. Mr. Hudson had an emergency to handle. Tomorrow’s wedding will proceed as scheduled. Please, enjoy your evening.” I drained the glass of red wine in one gulp. My movements were sharp and elegant, without a hint of desperation. After calming the guests, I slipped away and walked out onto the hotel terrace. The night wind was freezing. It cleared the alcohol from my mind. I leaned against the railing, looking down at the city streets. Liam’s car was already gone. I closed my eyes, letting out a long, slow breath. It was over. The very last shred of hope I had for Liam had died completely tonight. Click. The sharp sound of a lighter echoed behind me. It was startlingly loud in the quiet night. I spun around. In the shadows of the terrace stood a tall man. He wore a long black trench coat, holding a freshly lit cigarette between his fingers. The glowing red tip flickered in the dark. He stepped out of the shadows. The hallway light hit his face, carving out his sharp, aristocratic features. His eyes were dark, dangerous, and dripping with raw intensity as he stared at me. Ethan. He really came back. My heart skipped a beat. After three years, his aura had become even more terrifying. Ethan walked over, looming over me. His gaze swept over my red gown, finally landing on my bandaged left hand. He reached out, his long fingers gently wrapping around my wrist. His touch was as cold as ice. “Does it still hurt?” His voice was deep, gravelly, and laced with a subtle danger. I tried to pull my hand back, but his grip tightened. “It doesn’t,” I met his gaze. Ethan let out a low chuckle. He took a drag of his cigarette and slowly blew the smoke into my face. The bitter scent of tobacco enveloped me instantly. “He abandoned you at your rehearsal dinner for another woman,” Ethan’s voice held no effort to hide his mockery. “Chloe, is this the man you ran away with three years ago?” My face paled. “I made a mistake,” I admitted frankly, offering no excuses. “And you think a simple confession wipes away those three years?” Ethan suddenly lunged forward, pinning me against the terrace railing.

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I was born with a terrible sense of direction. Not only do I get lost easily, but I can’t tell north from south. Sasha refused to believe it. She claimed she would cure my “bad habit.” She even dragged Julian, my foster brother, and Ethan, my childhood neighbor, into her “special training.” Once, on a trip, they got off the train early and left me alone at the subway station. Another time, at the mall, they slipped out of a different exit without saying a word. They left me wandering like a headless chicken, desperately searching for them. They called it “helping me find my way.” Today, during dinner, I went to the restroom. When I came back, all three of them were gone. Even the table had been completely cleared. I wanted to call them. But when I reached into my pocket, I remembered I had handed my phone to Sasha earlier. I went to the front desk. The hostess handed me a note Sasha had left. It had only two sentences. “We’ve walked this path with you twice. I know you’ve memorized it by now. Go, Chloe!” “The three of us are waiting for you at home.” Suddenly, I found this “training” incredibly boring. Honestly, what’s so bad about having a poor sense of direction? As long as I have Google Maps, I can find my way without anyone else.

It was already evening when I got home. The three of them were sitting in the living room, eating ice cream and watching a movie. Sasha looked up and saw me walk in. She smirked victoriously at the other two. “I told you Chloe would make it home before seven.” “You guys lost. You have to let me plan our entire trip next month.” “Besides, since your term papers are basically done, it’s fine if we head back to campus a few days late.” Julian clicked his tongue. “Chloe, did you team up with Sasha to play us?” “Last time at the mall, it took you four hours to get back.” “This time, it didn’t even take you two.” Julian was my foster brother. My dad took him in when we were kids. His parents had a nasty divorce when he was in second grade, and neither of them wanted him. Growing up, my biggest wish was for my parents to give me an older brother. So, after making sure his mother really had abandoned him, I begged my parents to let him stay. At first, my dad didn’t agree. He tried to reason with me. “Chloe, he’s a human being, not a stray puppy. We can’t just take him in.” But Julian swore right in front of them that he would be the best brother to me. Seeing that the poor kid didn’t even have a warm meal to eat, my dad finally relented and took him in. And now, he had become Sasha’s “brother.” “Exactly. Be honest, Chloe. Did Sasha leave you hints?” The speaker was Ethan, my next-door neighbor. We grew up together. When we were kids, our parents used to joke that we were destined to marry each other. Ethan took it to heart. Knowing I had no sense of direction, he would wait for me every day after school to walk home together. Before Sasha showed up, from first grade to junior year of high school, we walked hand-in-hand for ten years. He had even promised me, “As long as I’m here, you’ll always find your way home.” But lately, he was the one who abandoned me the most. “I knew you two would make excuses for losing,” Sasha said, tossing my phone onto the coffee table. “That’s why I took Chloe’s phone in advance. Now you have to admit defeat.” The smile on Julian’s face stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to do that?” Ethan’s expression darkened too. “What if something happened to Chloe? We wouldn’t even have been able to reach her.” Sasha looked confused and annoyed. “What is wrong with you two?” “Didn’t we agree to train Chloe together? You’re betraying the team.” Julian paused before speaking up. “Well, Chloe’s home safe, so let’s drop it.” “But don’t take her phone again next time.” Ethan remained quiet for a moment, then walked over to me. He grabbed my hands, checking me over to make sure I was okay. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief. “Sasha meant well. Don’t be mad at her.” “Julian left some watermelon in the fridge for you. I’ll go get it.” “No, thanks.” I grabbed my phone from the table and headed straight for my bedroom. “I’m tired. I want to rest.” Sasha froze, turning to Julian. “Is Chloe mad at me?” She looked a bit embarrassed and stood up to leave. “Maybe I should go. She probably doesn’t want to see me right now.” Ethan followed her. “It’s late. It’s not safe for you to walk home alone. I’ll drive you.” “I can drive her too,” Julian chipped in, not wanting to be left out. He quickly grabbed his shoes. Ethan pushed him back inside. “Come on, Sasha’s place is on my way. You live here, so there’s no need for you to go.” Julian glared at him. “Stop making excuses. You live next door. How is that on your way?” How ridiculous. Both of my childhood protectors were fighting over who got to drive her home. Yet, neither of them had asked me… How a girl with no phone and a horrible sense of direction had managed to find her way back on her own.

In the end, they forced Julian to stay behind. Once I was back in my room, I opened my phone, went to the student portal, and submitted my application for the study abroad program. At eight, my dad came home and made dinner. Julian knocked on my door to call me out. Seeing that I was ignoring him, he sighed. “Are you still mad at Sasha? You know how she is.” “She might be loud and dramatic, but she really cares about you.” During our junior year of high school, Sasha transferred to our school because of her parents’ jobs. On her very first exam, she blew everyone away, taking my spot in the top three alongside Ethan and Julian. A classmate who disliked me sneered in my ear. “Some people act so smug just because they have two guys protecting them. Now look at you. You can’t even hold onto third place.” Sasha happened to walk by and heard it. She immediately started a physical fight with the girl. Both of their parents were called in. But I was drawn to Sasha’s fiercely loyal, no-nonsense personality, and we became best friends. From then on, our trio became a squad of four. We even ended up going to the same college. Until I slowly realized… I was being pushed out of their world. Julian pulled the blanket off my head. “Alright, get up and eat.” My stomach rumbled. Believing that I shouldn’t punish my stomach just because I was upset, I got up to wash my hands and eat. At the table, Julian casually mentioned, “A new amusement park just opened in town. It has a massive Ferris wheel.” “Sasha invited us to go tomorrow.” I was about to decline when my dad spoke up. “My coworkers were talking about that place. You should go, Chloe.” “I remember how much you loved Ferris wheels when you saw them on TV as a kid. It’s a shame we never had one nearby. I was always too busy with work to take you out of town.” Since my dad put it that way, I swallowed my refusal. After dinner, our group chat was blowing up. Sasha was agonizing over what to wear for photos. She posted several pictures of different outfits. Julian and Ethan couldn’t agree. They had spammed over a hundred messages arguing about which was better. Finally, Sasha sent an angry voice note. “Who asked you two? I posted those for Chloe.” Then she added in a softer tone, “Chloe, you’re not still mad, right? I promise I’ll never do it again.” Ethan replied instantly on her behalf. “Don’t worry, Chloe isn’t that petty.” “You helped her with her directional issues. She should be thanking you.” “Right, Chloe?” Sasha believed him. She kept messaging me to pick the best dress. Ethan nudged me in the chat. “Don’t you think the blue dress suits Sasha perfectly? Even the store clerk praised her when she tried it on.” Julian, sitting next to me on the couch, muttered, “The clerk was just being polite. Ethan is such an idiot to believe them.” “That blue dress makes Sasha look washed out. The yellow one I picked is way better.” “She loved it when she tried it on, too.” “Chloe, we live under the same roof. You have to back me up.” I paused, then asked, “You guys bought those dresses in person?” “When? Why didn’t I know about this?” Julian was busy replying to Sasha. Without looking up, he said, “At the mall, on the third floor. You were there too. How did you forget so quickly?”

I froze, a self-deprecating smile forming on my lips. That day at the mall… I had only gone to grab our boba order. When I came back, they were gone. So while I was wandering like a headless chicken looking for them, they were busy helping Sasha try on dresses. No wonder none of them answered my calls or messages. Julian finally realized what he had just admitted. His fingers froze on the screen, and a look of embarrassment crossed his face. “My bad, I misremembered. You weren’t there.” “I wanted to call you, but that store only sells dresses, and you don’t really wear them.” I didn’t say a word. I just stared at him. He reached out to pat my head, but I flinched away. “Are you jealous?” “I’ll take you shopping next week and buy you a couple of outfits. How does that sound?” Maybe because I hadn’t replied in the chat for a while, Sasha initiated a group FaceTime call. I didn’t answer. Julian picked up and handed the phone to me. “Chloe, why aren’t you picking?” Sasha asked. “Is it really that hard?” Julian whispered next to me, “Just pick one. Otherwise, she’ll think you haven’t forgiven her, and she won’t sleep tonight.” I let out a soft laugh, refusing to give him what he wanted. “They both look great. Pick whichever you want.” Sasha complained that I was being half-hearted, but when we met at the amusement park entrance the next day, she was wearing the blue dress. She had chosen Ethan’s pick. A flicker of disappointment crossed Julian’s face. Sasha sent the two guys off to buy drinks and queue up, while she held my hand, walking slowly behind. “I knew you wouldn’t really hold a grudge. After all, we’re best friends.” I just smiled and didn’t reply. Since it was opening day, the park was packed. Most people were there for the giant Ferris wheel. But when it was finally our turn, Ethan and Julian started arguing over who would sit with Sasha. Ethan said, “You’re Chloe’s brother. Of course you should sit with her.” Julian retorted stubbornly, “Sasha wore the dress you picked. To be fair, she should sit with me.” The people in line behind us were getting impatient. Some began to grumble. “Are you guys getting on or what? Go argue somewhere else.” “Are they stupid? Why don’t the three of them just share one carriage? Is there really a need to fight?” The two of them snapped back in unison, “Who wants to sit with him?” But in the end, the three of them got into one carriage anyway. Their excuse was that a single carriage would be roomier for me. So, Julian and Ethan “generously” let me ride alone. Sasha pressed her face against the glass, looking down at me with puppy-dog eyes. “I’m so jealous that you get a whole carriage to yourself while I have to squeeze in with these two.” The girl standing behind me in line whispered to her boyfriend, “Is she serious? That’s such an obvious, disgusting humble brag.” “Keep your eyes open. That right there is a toxic girl. If you ever fall for that kind of act, I will kill you.” I instinctively looked back at her. She looked a bit embarrassed and quickly apologized. “Sorry, I was just joking. Don’t mind me.” I didn’t blame her. After all, she was just telling the truth.

The ticket collector couldn’t stand it either. He chimed in kindly, “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ll call my son to come over and ride with you. Heck, you can go around twice.” He actually pulled out his phone. I smiled and waved my hand. “It’s fine, thank you. I actually prefer being alone.” When I got off the Ferris wheel, the three of them were gone again. This time, I didn’t panic or look for them. I calmly pulled out my phone and ordered an Uber home. My dad was home on his day off. He was surprised to see me back so early. “Back already? Have you eaten? Where’s Julian?” I didn’t answer. I sat down next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Dad, I want to go on an exchange program abroad next semester. What do you think?” “Of course. Go see the world while you’re young. It’s a great opportunity.” “With Julian with you, I’ll feel safe.” I shook my head. “Julian isn’t going.” “We’re adults now, Dad. We have our own paths. I can’t drag him into something he doesn’t want to do.” My dad hesitated. “But you’ve never traveled far by yourself. Going abroad all of a sudden…” I quickly explained, “I won’t be alone. There are other students from my college going too. I’ve already made a friend to travel with.” Only then did he reluctantly agree. Julian didn’t get home until evening. “Chloe, we just went to grab water. Why did you leave on your own?” I was filling out my study abroad documents and didn’t even bother to look up. “It was too hot. I didn’t want to wait.” Once I submitted everything, I noticed our group chat was at 99+ notifications. They were excitedly discussing what to pack, what sunscreen to buy, car rentals, and local food spots. I stared at the screen for a moment, then messaged: “Where are you guys going?” Down the hall, I heard Julian curse. He rushed into my room. “We bought tickets for a trip this afternoon… Since you weren’t there, we forgot to buy yours.” “Let me see if I can get you a standby ticket right now.” Sasha’s voice note played right then. “Don’t bother. Those were the last three tickets available. It’s all your fault, you two were arguing in my ear, making me forget the most important thing.” Seeing that they were about to bicker again, I texted: “No need to look for tickets. It’s too hot anyway. I’d rather stay home.” Julian, sitting next to me, let out a quiet sigh of relief and closed the ticketing app. “Yeah, this summer is brutal. It’s fine, I’ll take photos for you. If I see any cool souvenirs, I’ll bring them back.” The day they left for their trip was the same day I boarded my flight to go abroad. Before leaving, Julian nagged me. “Don’t eat too much cold stuff. Since Dad’s busy, don’t buy whole watermelons you can’t finish. Oh, and keep the door locked.” Ethan walked down the stairs, smirking. “Keep playing mother hen. I’m going to meet up with Sasha.” Julian gritted his teeth and followed him out. I watched their car disappear down the street. Only then did I roll my suitcase out of my room and head downstairs. Finally… I didn’t have to be the awkward third wheel in their three-person world anymore.

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I had just closed a massive deal and was taking a rare day off at home, chatting with my housekeeper, Maria. Suddenly, she grabbed my hands, her face filled with deep emotion as she praised me. “Ma’am, you are truly an angel. You’re so busy with work, yet you still make sure to take such good care of your cousin.” She looked at me, her eyes full of admiration. I froze for a second. “Mr. Miller is such a wonderful man, too. Not only is he amazing to you, but he treats your family so well! He’s even taking your cousin to her prenatal appointments himself!” She paused, then added with a smile. “I heard she’s having a boy!” “Don’t worry, Ma’am. I’ll make sure to prepare the post-pregnancy organic meal preps and premium supplements using only the finest ingredients, just like you ordered!” But wait. Since when did I have a pregnant cousin? Maria was still listing off expensive organic brands and high-end catering services. I couldn’t hear a single word. Seeing my expression change, she gently pulled my sleeve, looking worried. “Ma’am? Are you okay? Are you just tired? Did… did I say something wrong?” She stood there, suddenly anxious and fidgeting. I looked at her and asked, “Which cousin?” Maria blinked, confused. “Mr. Miller told me she’s your distant cousin from your hometown. He said her parents passed away early, and she’s been struggling to make it in the city alone. He said you wanted him to look after her.” Seeing the coldness in my eyes, Maria asked cautiously. “Ma’am… did I run my mouth?” “No,” I replied, forcing my emotions down as I transferred ten thousand dollars to her account via PayPal. “You’ve been working hard lately. Go buy yourself something nice.” She gasped, waving her hands in a panic. I forced the phone into her hand, making her accept it. “You deserve it. Just… don’t tell Ethan I asked about this. He’s sensitive. I don’t want him to feel like he didn’t handle my family matters well.” Maria nodded quickly. “I get it, I get it. Men like Mr. Miller have a lot of pride.” I looked out the window, my heart sinking. For the past few years, the two most important men in my life were the husband I built from scratch, and the father who raised me. Years ago, Ethan was just a broke college kid. I was the only daughter of the Vance family, the sole heiress to the Vance empire. I had always been the golden girl — Ivy League graduate, taking over the family business at a young age. But I fell for Ethan. We met during a hostile corporate bid. Back then, he was just a low-level project manager at a small firm, yet he had the guts to publicly argue with me over a pitch. Two stubborn people slowly fell in love. I brought him home to my father. I promised my dad, “He has nothing right now, but in less than ten years, he will be the brightest star in the business world.” And Ethan did it. He worked harder than anyone. With the resources I handed him on a silver platter, he secured a solid foothold in the company within just a few years. Even though he was always busy, he was always gentle and attentive to me. He would quietly leave late-night snacks in my office when I worked overtime. He would bring me hot chocolate when I was on my period. Back then, his eyes were full of stars whenever he looked at me. I opened my banking app on Snapchat. My heart turned to ice. Over the past six months, there had been dozens of large transfers from our joint account. The largest one was three months ago — five million dollars. I knew that amount too well. It was the seed money I personally approved for his new project. Now, it seemed that money had gone somewhere else. I called my assistant, my voice shaking uncontrollably. “Leo, track the GPS on Ethan’s Bentley. Find out where it is right now.” Half an hour later, Leo called back, his tone hesitating. “Olivia… the car is currently in the parking lot of St. Jude’s Women’s Hospital.” He paused, adding carefully, “I also checked his corporate card. He booked a top-tier luxury VIP suite and a premium postpartum care package at a private maternity clinic. The due date is next month. The registered mother is Chloe Jenkins.” Hearing that name, my chest tightened. She went to the same college as Ethan. After graduation, Ethan personally recruited her into the marketing department as his direct subordinate. A month ago, she submitted her resignation, claiming health issues. Ethan had sighed to me at the time, “What a waste of talent.” I hadn’t thought much of it then. Now, looking back, the warning signs were everywhere.

I grabbed my car keys and sped out of the house. I found them immediately in the VIP wing of the maternity clinic. Ethan was carefully holding Chloe. She was wearing a loose white maternity dress, her baby bump clearly showing. He was whispering in her ear, his eyes full of the same tenderness he used to reserve only for me. But today, he was wearing a bespoke suit, and the cufflinks on his wrists were a six-figure pair I had bought at an auction. The nervous, broke boy I once knew had been completely replaced by this pampered, wealthy businessman. For a second, my mind drifted. I remembered the first time I brought him to meet my father. He wore a faded, washed-out jacket, his palms sweating from anxiety. I walked toward them, step by step. “Ethan.” He whipped his head around, his grip on Chloe’s arm tightening instantly. Chloe saw me and shrank behind his back, her voice trembling. “Olivia…” I smiled, my eyes locking onto her swollen belly. “What are you doing here?” Ethan stepped in front of Chloe, shielding her. He frowned deeply. “If I didn’t come, were you planning to bring the baby home next month and have him call me mommy?” His face darkened, and he lowered his voice. “Olivia! Don’t make a scene here!” I laughed, amused by his sheer audacity. “Ethan, don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” He scoffed, his eyes coldly scanning me. After a long silence, he took a step forward, trying to hug me the way he used to. I stepped aside. His arms froze in mid-air, and his expression grew even uglier. “Fine, I admit it. I’m with Chloe.” He tilted his head, clenching his jaw. “She’s pregnant. The doctor said the pregnancy is high-risk and she needs constant care. What was I supposed to do?” Hearing him admit it still felt like a physical blow. I stared at him. “So? Ethan, let me remind you, we are married! You are cheating on me. That child she’s carrying is a bastard!” “I know!” he suddenly yelled, his patience snapping. “I’m not divorcing you! You will always be my wife!” “But what about her? She’s a young girl fresh out of college, completely alone in this city. Now she’s carrying my child. I can’t just abandon her!” He stared at me, his tone turning accusatory. “Olivia, you have everything. You have the Vance family backing you, endless resources. You are the golden girl, always looking down on everyone. But Chloe is different. She only has me. I cannot leave her.” I laughed out of sheer anger. “So, buying her a house and a car… was all to feed your fragile male ego?” My voice was ice cold. “But Ethan, you used my money to support your mistress, and now you want me to understand your ‘predicament’? The world doesn’t work that way.” Ethan’s face completely hardened. “Yes, I used your money.” “Olivia, I’ve never denied your ability, but this is reality. Your father is old. Vance Enterprises will be mine sooner or later. If I want to, I can make sure you end up with nothing very soon.” “Think about it.” “So,” I said, pausing after every word, “I deserve to be betrayed?” He stayed silent. Behind him, Chloe began to sob. “Olivia, please, I beg you. Just let us be together!” I glared at her. “Shut up. You don’t get a say here.”

I turned around and walked away without looking back. Back home, I looked at our wedding photo in the living room. Ethan was holding me tightly, smiling brightly against a backdrop of snowy mountains. That was right after he helped me close a massive European deal. We went on a trip to celebrate. He had told me, “You are my entire world. I will never betray you.” How pathetic. I sat in the dark living room, wide awake all night. The next morning, the doorbell rang. When I opened it, Chloe was standing there. She was wearing a white maternity dress, her belly prominent. Her eyes were red, and her voice was shaky. “Olivia… can we talk?” I poured her a glass of plain water and pulled out a chair. Chloe kept her head down, nervously wringing her hands. “We… we really love each other. Ethan told me that there’s no love left between you two. You’re only together because of corporate interests.” “And that money… I just thought, you’re so rich, you wouldn’t care about that pocket change…” I stared at her quietly, my eyes landing on her stomach. Deep down, I always knew Ethan stayed with me for the Vance family. My father was a titan in the business world. Countless people tried to climb their way up to him. Ever since I took over Ethan’s career, I gave him the platform, the resources, and paved every single road for him. I watched him grow from a nervous kid who couldn’t even deliver a proper toast, to the confident “Mr. Miller” who could charm any boardroom. He had told me a thousand times, “Marrying you is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.” Chloe clutched the glass, summoning the courage to look up at me. “Olivia, you already have so much. But Ethan is different. He doesn’t want to live in your shadow, or the Vance family’s shadow, for the rest of his life. He needs a woman who can look up to him, who worships him. Besides, you’re such a career-driven woman. Family and kids don’t even matter to you, do they?” My face instantly went cold. I slammed my glass onto the table. “Get out.” Chloe gasped, startled. My voice dropped to a freezing register. “Get. Out.” Her eyes welled with tears again. She stood up clumsily. Just as she reached for the door, I called out to her. “Chloe, Ethan and I are not divorced. You are, and will always be, just a homewrecker. Also, it took me seven years to groom him into the man he is today. You’re just picking up my trash. You should be thanking me.” I watched her walk away, feeling absolutely nothing. A few minutes later, Ethan called. His voice was laced with frustration. “Chloe came back crying. You’re so cold-hearted, Olivia. She’s a pregnant woman. Your words are like knives.” I let out a cold laugh. “You’re the one who caused all of this, and now you’re lecturing me?” He was silent for a moment, then sighed. “Olivia, we didn’t have to end up like this. Why can’t you just be happy as Mrs. Vance? In our circle, which man doesn’t have a side piece?” “I don’t. I guess I’m just different.” “Cut the crap, Ethan. You disgust me.” A soft sigh came through the receiver. “Olivia, then don’t blame me for what comes next.” The next morning, Leo called, his voice panicked. “Olivia, we have a massive problem! The merger with Astra Tech… has been blocked!” My heart sank. That project was something my team and I had worked on for six months. It was an $80 million acquisition — our most important strategic move for the second half of the year.

Leo’s voice was cracking. “Astra Tech just sent over a cease-and-desist letter from their lawyers. They claim we leaked their core trade secrets, causing their stock price to plunge! Not only are they pulling out of the merger, but they are also suing us for $30 million in damages!” I closed my eyes. The only person who could access those core files on my computer was someone closest to me. And Astra Tech’s main rival was none other than Carter Davis’s new startup — Ethan’s childhood best friend. This was a trap Ethan had set for me. Using my money to sabotage my project. What a brilliant play. I gripped my phone and drove straight to the office. The atmosphere in the boardroom was suffocating. Every single board member was present. My father sat at the head of the table, his face pale with rage. Ethan stood beside him, looking deeply remorseful. “Olivia, you’re here.” He immediately walked up to me, frowning with faux concern. “This is bad. Astra Tech is taking a very hard line. I’ve already contacted Carter to see if he can pull some strings to help us out.” He played his part so well. So well that even my father seemed to believe him. My dad looked at me, disappointment heavy in his eyes. I ignored Ethan, walked straight to the front of the table, scanned the room, and looked directly at my husband. “This was my mistake. I take full responsibility, and I resign.” My father slammed his hands on the table and stood up. “Nonsense! Olivia, is this the time to play the blame game?” Even Ethan was stunned. He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance. “Dad, board members, I caused this massive loss to the company, and I am willing to bear the consequences.” I bowed deeply to the room. “As of today, I am stepping down from the board and resigning from all my positions at Vance Enterprises.” “I am handing all operations over to Ethan.” I looked up and smiled. “Thank you all for your support over the years. I wish the company nothing but success.” Ethan stood up, taking a step forward. “Olivia…” “Ethan,” I looked at him, my voice calm. “You win.” After that day, I never went back to the office. Rumors about my downfall spread like wildfire through high society. Ethan naturally took over my position, becoming the new face of Vance Enterprises, basked in glory. Someone snapped a picture of him and Chloe at a gala. He had his arm wrapped around her waist, gently touching her baby bump. They looked like the perfect power couple. People in our social circles were gossiping. “I told you, Olivia was too intimidating. What man could stand that?” “So what if she’s a billionaire heiress? Once her powerful father stepped back, the husband she raised for seven years took everything. She ended up with nothing.” “I heard she’s living in a tiny apartment now, crying herself to sleep every day.” I did move back to the small apartment we lived in when we first started out. But I wasn’t crying. I was just waiting for the right moment. Three months later, on Chloe’s birthday, Leo sent me an address. “Olivia, I found it. Ethan bought Chloe a mansion in the Hamptons. He’s throwing her a massive birthday bash there tonight.” I looked at the dark sky outside and smiled. “The game is over.” The mansion in the Hamptons was lit up like a Christmas tree. I pushed open the heavy front doors and immediately spotted Ethan in the center of the living room. He was holding Chloe’s hand, helping her cut a massive birthday cake. His friend, Carter, was standing right next to them. The moment I walked in, the room went dead silent. The smile on Ethan’s face froze. Chloe instinctively hid behind him. Ethan frowned, his voice dripping with annoyance. “What are you doing here?” I smiled, taking a step toward them. “How could I miss my ‘cousin’s’ birthday?” “And I didn’t come alone. Look who else is here.”

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