Category: English

The sudden mudslide left me and my department director stranded in the middle of nowhere on a business trip. When the cell service finally flickered back to life, the texts from my boyfriend flooded in like a breached dam. Why aren’t you answering? What the hell are you doing? You out of town or just in another guy’s bed? You enjoying it too much to text back? Those ugly, vile words glaring at me from the illuminated screen were the final nail in the coffin. Once upon a time, I had mistaken his suffocating possessiveness for a fierce, passionate love. Whether it was a completely normal conversation with a male friend, a necessary work interaction with a colleague, or even just my eyes accidentally lingering on a passing stranger on the sidewalk, it would trigger an episode of unhinged paranoia in him. Only now, sitting in the freezing dark, did I finally understand. That wasn’t love. That was control. 1 The regional site visit was a last-minute directive from corporate, and I was paired up with Bowen, the director of my department. Before we hit the road, I specifically sent a text to Chad to let him know. He replied instantly: Which coworker? A guy or a girl? Cara, I swear to God, don’t lie to me. I know people at your office. I’ll call your boss myself to check. I stared at the screen, a familiar, sickening wave of exhaustion washing over me. I had already rearranged my entire social life to avoid one-on-one contact with the opposite sex. But it was the twenty-first century—was I supposed to march into corporate and demand they excuse me from working with any male colleagues? After agonizing over the keyboard, I simply typed back: I really am just going on a business trip. Chad didn’t reply. The meetings went smoothly, and we decided to drive back that same night to beat the weekend traffic. But no one could have predicted the freak storm that descended on us as we wound our way through the mountain pass. The sky bruised into a violent purple-black. Lightning fractured the clouds, followed by bone-rattling thunder. Bowen drove through the torrential downpour with white-knuckled focus for what felt like hours, until he suddenly slammed on the brakes. “Mudslide ahead,” he said, his voice tight. “The hillside gave way. The road is completely blocked.” We were forced to detour into a remote highway rest stop. There wasn’t even a convenience store—just an empty, rain-slicked parking lot rapidly filling with other stranded vehicles. The rain showed zero signs of letting up, and within minutes, the power grid for the rest area blew out. We were plunged into pitch blackness. The only illumination came from the erratic flashes of lightning, briefly revealing the sea of thick, churning mud completely cutting off the exit ramps. But the truest despair hit me when I looked at my phone. No Service. My stomach plummeted. In the past, if I went dark for ten minutes, Chad would go absolutely nuclear. Now, completely cut off from the grid, I couldn’t even fathom the scale of the meltdown he was having. I turned my head toward Bowen, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice. “Bowen, do you have any bars? I’ve got absolutely nothing. I need to text my boyfriend to let him know I’m safe, or he’s going to lose his mind.” Bowen pulled his phone from the center console and tapped the screen to show me. SOS Only. “The whole grid is down. The mudslide probably took out the nearest cell tower,” he said quietly. “It’s not going to be fixed anytime soon.” “What am I supposed to do…” My chest felt suffocatingly tight. “If my boyfriend can’t reach me, he’s going to imagine the worst.” Bowen was silent for a few seconds. “Worrying about that right now won’t change the outcome. Let’s just focus on staying safe.” The wind howled, battering the car. Every so often, the terrifying rumble of earth and rock sliding down the distant mountain echoed through the dark, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The temperature in the cabin was plummeting. I was only wearing a thin silk blouse, and goosebumps rapidly populated my arms. Bowen didn’t say a word. He simply unzipped his heavy wool jacket, shrugged it off, and draped it across my lap. “Thank you,” I murmured, feeling entirely out of my depth. He gave a low “Mm” in acknowledgment. Silence swallowed the car again. It was an eerie, heavy quiet, punctuated only by the aggressive drumming of rain against the windshield and the distant cracks of thunder. I sat there, clutching my cold, useless phone, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Half of me was terrified of the mountain collapsing on us. The other half was terrified of Chad’s wrath. 2 We were stuck in that parking lot well past midnight. Just as my eyelids grew impossibly heavy, my phone vibrated in my palm with a sharp buzz. I jolted awake, slamming my thumb against the screen. One trembling bar of service had miraculously appeared. A split second later, my phone practically detonated. Ding. Ding. Buzz. A terrifying cascade of missed calls, voicemails, and iMessages jammed my lock screen, coming in so fast the phone began to freeze. Every single one was from Chad. I rushed to open the chat. Where the hell are you? Pick up the phone. Who are you whoring around with? You can’t even send a text? Cara, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Are you dead? Fucking someone else on company time? You’re unbelievable. Don’t bother coming back to my place. The messages grew progressively more aggressive, each one uglier than the last. As I read them, a freezing numbness spread from my chest out to my fingertips. My hands were shaking so badly I kept hitting the wrong keys. Terrified the signal would drop again, I swallowed the massive lump of humiliation in my throat and started typing. The road was blocked by a mudslide. We’re trapped at a rest stop. There was no service until just now… Before I could even hit send, an incoming FaceTime call overtook the screen. Chad. Fumbling, I hit accept. “Hey, Chady, I—” His eyes were wild, dark with fury, and he immediately cut me off with a vicious shout. “Oh, so you finally pick up?! Where the fuck have you been?!” I rushed to explain, the words tumbling out of me. “There was a massive storm. A mudslide took out the highway, and the cell towers went down, I had no signal…” “A mudslide?” Chad let out a harsh, cruel laugh. “Could you come up with a more pathetic excuse? Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?” His eyes darted to the corner of his screen, catching the silhouette of Bowen sitting in the driver’s seat next to me. His face darkened into something truly ugly. “Oh. Well, that explains why you weren’t answering.” The corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. “You’ve got company.” “No, it’s not like that! Just listen to me, he’s my director, we’re on a work—” “Director?” Chad barked, cutting me off again. “Trapped in a car in the middle of the night with your male boss? No power, no service? You guys having a good time, Cara?” “I’m not! We are literally trapped by a natural disaster!” Hot tears were pricking the corners of my eyes, born of sheer, desperate frustration. “Right. Keep acting.” He scoffed. And then he hung up. When I tried to call him right back, it went straight to an automated message. He had blocked me. The car fell deathly silent once more. I sat there, my arm still suspended in mid-air holding the phone, feeling as though I had been encased in ice. The illusion of peace I had worked so hard to maintain had just been violently dismantled in front of my boss. In that moment, a profound, heavy wave of defeat washed over me. If he had just asked if I was okay—just a single question about my safety—I could have found a way to forgive his paranoia. But he didn’t. 3 I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, terrified of letting out a sob. I could only let the tears fall, hot and silent, splashing against my jeans and leaving dark, wet stains on the denim. I shrank into the passenger seat, keeping my head bowed, dreading the moment Bowen would ask what was going on, or worse, give me a look of pity or disgust. But he didn’t say a word. He didn’t ask about my boyfriend. He didn’t offer unsolicited advice about the fight. He didn’t show a hint of judgment or morbid curiosity. After a long stretch of quiet, Bowen leaned over, awkwardly twisting his tall frame to reach into the cramped back seat. The rear of the SUV was packed to the roof with our presentation boards and sample cases, leaving practically no room to maneuver. I watched him through blurred vision, confused. He wrestled with a duffel bag for a moment before finally straightening back up. He opened his hand. He was holding a can of Coca-Cola. It was the single can he had brought from his apartment that morning, forgotten at the bottom of his bag. Settling back into the driver’s seat, he hooked his finger under the tab and popped it. The sharp tss-crack of the carbonation hissed into the suffocating quiet of the car. Then, without a single word of commentary, he slid the cold aluminum can across the center console until it rested gently against the back of my hand. The sudden chill against my skin jolted me out of my spiraling thoughts. I looked down at the Coke, and for some reason, the simple, quiet kindness of the gesture shattered the last of my composure. The tears fell harder. I sniffled, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve. “Bowen… thank you. Seriously. Thank you.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Don’t mention it. Drink some sugar. It’ll help you center yourself. The sun will be up soon.” With that, he turned his gaze back to the pitch-black windshield, giving me the privacy I so desperately needed. I took small, shaky sips of the soda. The sharp, sweet carbonation burned pleasantly down my throat, washing away the tight, suffocating knot of humiliation in my chest. Outside, the storm was still raging, the wind screaming against the metal frame of the car. But sitting there, clutching that cold red can, I suddenly felt that this cramped, dimly lit cabin was the safest place in the world. 4 When the sky finally bruised into the pale gray of dawn, the Department of Transportation trucks arrived. A temporary lane was cleared through the mudslide, and Bowen and I drove straight back to the city without stopping. I was physically exhausted, but my brain was buzzing with a toxic, manic energy. Chad’s vicious accusations from the night before played on a continuous, agonizing loop in my head. My chest felt like it was stuffed with wet, heavy cotton—aching and suffocating. Every breath tasted bitter. The moment I unlocked my front door and stepped inside my apartment, the tension that had been holding my spine rigid all night finally collapsed. The first thing I did was connect my phone to the Wi-Fi. Chad had apparently unblocked me. The second the signal hit full bars, a barrage of missed text notifications blew up my screen. But I didn’t have the energy to read a single one. After taking a hot shower to wash the chill out of my bones, I collapsed onto the sofa. I just wanted to mindlessly scroll social media to numb my brain. Two swipes down my Instagram feed, I saw Lexi’s post from last night. The timestamp was right in the middle of the worst part of the storm. There were three photos in the carousel: the first was a perfectly plated steak and two glasses of red wine at a high-end restaurant; the second was two movie tickets held against a steering wheel; the third was a mirror selfie of her pouting at the camera. The caption read: Rainy nights feel so safe when you have someone by your side. No need to be scared, and no need to stay up alone. I stared at that mirror selfie, my breath completely stalling in my throat. In the reflection, draped over the back of the velvet sofa behind her, was a black bomber jacket. It was the exact jacket I had saved up for months to buy for Chad’s birthday. And resting on the arm of the sofa, just barely visible at the edge of the frame, was a man’s wrist wearing a silver watch. A very specific, brushed-steel chronometer that Chad wore every single day. The time, the place, the items—it all lined up perfectly. The blood in my veins rushed to my head in a deafening roar, only to instantly plummet down to my toes, leaving me freezing cold. All those frantic calls. All those furious texts. He wasn’t desperately trying to contact me because he was worried about my safety. He was frantically trying to pinpoint my location to ensure I wouldn’t walk in on him. He was sitting in a warm, romantic restaurant with another woman, drinking wine and watching movies, perfectly comfortable and content. He tracked me down because he was terrified of getting caught. So the second I had service, rather than asking if I survived a natural disaster, he preemptively attacked me. He shamed me, accused me of cheating, and projected all of his own guilt onto me so I would be too busy defending myself to question him. Suddenly, all the memories I had meticulously buried at the back of my mind floated to the surface. During our first year together, he was genuinely attentive. But soon, the dynamic began to sour. That was right around the time Lexi began slowly, methodically infiltrating our lives. She was always calling him “Chady,” weaponizing her sweet, baby-soft voice to ask for his help with everything. Fixing her laptop, helping her move boxes, texting him at 2 A.M. because she was “having a panic attack and felt so alone.” She would post cryptic Instagram stories that only he understood, accompanied by wide-eyed, innocent selfies. At first, I gaslit myself. I told myself I was being the crazy, insecure girlfriend. Until the day I accidentally saw a text pop up on his lock screen: Hey Chady, your girlfriend is out of town tonight, right? Can I come over and hang out? I confronted him, holding the phone out. Instead of looking even remotely apologetic, he snatched the phone out of my hand, his face twisting in disgust as he exploded at me. “Cara, can you stop being so completely paranoid for one second of your life?” “She’s alone in the city and needs a friend. What is wrong with you?” “Why are you so toxic?” He backed me into a corner until I was the one apologizing. I was drowning in betrayal, yet somehow I was made to feel like the villain. I had tried to push back: “But the way she talks to you crosses a line. Why does she need to come over in the middle of the night?” “Crosses a line? The only thing crossing a line is your sick imagination! You see filth in everything!” he screamed. “We are just friends. If you want to twist it into something sick, that’s your problem! Can you grow up? Stop policing my phone and my friends. It’s exhausting!” He hammered me with accusations, shifting 100% of the blame onto my shoulders. He told me I was too sensitive. He told me I was controlling. He told me I was holding him back. He broke me down until I actually questioned my own reality. I genuinely started to believe that I was just a jealous, possessive partner who didn’t know how to be supportive. After that, he got bolder. When Lexi sent him a picture of a latte, he would reply, Looks good, next one is on me. When she got a cold, he drove across town to drop off medicine and cook her soup. On my birthday, he went shopping with Lexi and showed up to my dinner over an hour late. When I finally snapped and cried, he turned it around on me: “It’s just a birthday, Cara. Are we really doing this right now? You’re a grown adult, stop acting like a spoiled brat.” Every time I questioned him, I was met with a wall of aggressive deflection. He used rage to shut down my grief. He used pure audacity to normalize his emotional affairs. I had been so desperate to hold onto the relationship that I let him manipulate me into lowering my boundaries again and again. I kept forgiving him. I kept rationalizing it. I honestly believed that if I just swallowed my pride, if I was just a little more understanding, he would realize how much I loved him and stop. But my endless compromises only gave him permission to betray me further. My forgiveness became his weapon. I had actually sat in that freezing car last night, crying tears of guilt over him. I felt bad that I hadn’t texted him fast enough. From beginning to end, I was the only fool in this relationship. The man I had loved for two years had been playing me for a fool the entire time. 5 The relationship was dead, but I still had a career to maintain. I forced myself off the couch to finish getting ready for work. I sat at my vanity, doing my makeup on autopilot. But right as I reached for my favorite lip color, I paused. The limited-edition Charlotte Tilbury lipstick I bought last week was gone. I tore apart my makeup bag, checked the pockets of my coats, dumped out my purse. Nothing. It vanished into thin air. My heart did a strange, cold flutter. The first person who came to mind was Chad. No one else had a key to my apartment. Swallowing the bile rising in my throat, I called his number. When he answered, I forced my voice to remain completely flat. “Chad, did you come by my place yesterday? Did you take a tube of lipstick from my vanity? It’s a new, limited-edition shade.” I just wanted him to tell the truth once. Instead, he went ballistic. “Why the fuck would I take your lipstick?! Are you psychotic, Cara? I’m a guy, what am I going to do with your makeup?” I kept my tone even. “I’m just asking if you saw it. Think about it. It was really expensive.” “No!” he snapped, his voice dripping with condescension. “You misplace your own shit because you’re a mess, and now you’re trying to pin it on me? Are you trying to extort me for cash now?” I froze, stunned by the sheer audacity. I lose something in my own apartment, I ask him a simple question, and suddenly I’m extorting him? The humiliation of crying in the mudslide, the devastating betrayal of the Instagram post, and now, the gaslighting over a stolen item—it all collided in my chest into a blinding, white-hot rage. I was done shrinking myself. “Chad, I am going to ask you one last time. Did you take it or not?” “No! Stop making shit up!” he barked, instantly pivoting to the attack. “You know what, I bet you’ve been spending too much time with your little boss. He’s filling your head with paranoia. You’re always looking for a reason to start drama!” He had the nerve to bring Bowen into this. Any remaining warmth in my heart instantly turned to ash. I didn’t even have the energy to scream at him. I suddenly remembered something. Two days ago, after hearing reports of package thefts in my building, I had impulsively installed a small indoor Ring camera facing the entryway and the living room. I hadn’t even mentioned it to anyone yet, not even him. Without another word, I hung up on him. I opened the security app on my phone and pulled up yesterday’s cloud footage. I only had to scrub through a few minutes before the high-definition video popped up on the screen. There was Chad. He let himself into my empty apartment, walked straight past the living room, and went directly to my vanity. He rummaged around for a few seconds, grabbed that exact tube of lipstick, examined it, and shoved it into his pocket. He moved with a practiced ease. It didn’t look like the first time he had taken something. The naked truth was playing right in front of my eyes. He stole from me. He took something I bought for myself, just to give it to Lexi. My hands were shaking, not from sorrow, but from a rage so pure it made my teeth ache. Watching him act so entitled on the footage, and comparing it to the vicious lies he just fed me on the phone, made my stomach violently turn. Whatever love, whatever history, whatever affection I thought we shared—it all dissolved into an absolute joke. I didn’t even need to argue with him anymore. The video footage was a resounding slap in the face. He wasn’t just insecure, a cheater, and emotionally abusive. He was fundamentally lacking in basic human decency. In that exact moment, I knew with crystalline certainty: this man did not deserve another second of my life.

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The cold April rain lashed against the headstone, soaking through my coat. I stood there, clutching a bouquet of white lilies, waiting for Samuel. He was supposed to meet me here, like he had every year for the past five. But his Maybach was already parked by the cemetery gates, the engine idling low. As I approached, I noticed the rear window was cracked open just a hair. A soft, rhythmic sound drifted out—a sound that made my blood turn to ice in my veins. Through the tinted glass, I saw them. Two silhouettes, tangled and desperate. Samuel’s voice, low and gravelly, cut through the patter of the rain. It held a tenderness he hadn’t shown me once in our five years of marriage. “Izzy, Nancy has been punished enough.” My heart stopped. “She doesn’t dare look at what’s yours anymore,” he continued, his voice breathless. “Just give me a little more time. I’m waiting for the right moment to bring you back, to restore your name. I think… I think she’s finally learned her lesson.” The lilies slipped from my numb fingers. The white petals fell into the mud, crushed and soiled, looking exactly like my life: a beautiful thing discarded in the dirt. The kidnapping five years ago—the one where my sister, Isabelle, supposedly died saving me—was a lie. It was a play they’d written together. I had married Samuel wearing a face that looked like a ghost of hers, thinking he was my anchor in a sea of guilt. I thought our marriage was a mutual healing. Instead, it was a meticulously designed cage. A five-year sentence for a crime I never committed. Every night I spent kneeling in front of Isabelle’s portrait in our hallway, sobbing in repentance… every time Samuel had gently applied ointment to my bruised knees, looking so pained… it was all a joke. He wasn’t mourning with me. He was savoring my ruin. “Nancy, don’t torture yourself. Izzy wouldn’t want this.” “Five years of mourning, Nancy. After this, we’ll finally start our real life together.” Those words, which I once thought were my salvation, were nothing but poison coated in sugar. My sister’s “sacrifice” wasn’t my second chance. It was the beginning of my descent into hell. 1 The windows were fogged with heat, but they couldn’t hide the truth. The man inside was my husband of five years. The woman straddling him, her skin flushed, her movements frantic… was my sister. The sister who had been buried in an empty casket for half a decade. “Next month,” Samuel whispered, “there’s going to be a wedding like this city has never seen. I’m going to make you the Mrs. Montgomery you were always meant to be.” A wedding. The words felt like a physical blow to my chest. Five years ago, our wedding had been a hollow, somber affair. No photos, no celebration, just a quick trip to the courthouse because “it wouldn’t be right to celebrate while we’re mourning Izzy.” Samuel had promised me that once the five years of mourning were up, he’d give me the world. It was all a script. Samuel reached into the glove box and pulled out a manila envelope. He handed it to her. “Look, Izzy. I’ve had the divorce papers ready for months. The second you’re ready to step back into the light, she’s out. With nothing.” “Good,” Isabelle purred, leaning down to kiss him. Samuel pulled her closer, his voice thick with obsession. “It’s always been you, Izzy. These five years… it was just a performance. A little theater to make her pay for even thinking she could have what belongs to you.” He pulled a velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a diamond that caught the gray light of the rain, brilliant and mocking. I recognized the design. I’d found the sketches in his office months ago. I had been stupid enough to think it was a fifth-anniversary gift for me. Now, I watched him slide it onto Isabelle’s finger with a reverence he had never shown me. The sounds from the car grew louder, more uninhibited. I thought about the thousands of hours I’d spent in that dark hallway, staring at her photo until my eyes burned. Every time my knees hit the floor, Samuel would find me. He would lift me up with such feigned gentleness. “Nancy, stop. Izzy wouldn’t want to see you like this.” He wasn’t comforting me. He was admiring the craftsmanship of my misery. I wanted to scream, to tear the door open, but the damp cold of the cemetery had settled into my bones. My joints, ruined by years of forced penance on cold marble, throbbed with a dull, agonizing ache. I was frozen, a spectator to my own execution. I waited until the car grew still. I watched him help her dress, his movements as domestic as a husband’s. A minute later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. 2 A text from Samuel. “Nancy, the roads are slick. Drive carefully. Don’t forget the lilies—they were Izzy’s favorite. It’s been five years, honey. After today, the vigil is over. I’ve asked the cook to make that pot roast you like. See you at home.” The hypocrisy was a blade, carving out the last of my heart. I fled. I didn’t know where I was going, my feet splashing through puddles, my vision blurred by a cocktail of rain and tears. My phone lit up again. It wasn’t a text this time. It was an anonymous link to a cloud drive. My thumb hovered over the screen. I clicked. The photos hit me like a succession of stabs. The first one was from five years ago. Samuel and Isabelle, wrapped in each other’s arms at JFK, glowing with the excitement of a getaway. My memory fractured. Five years ago, I had been hopelessly in love with Samuel, and I thought he felt the same. Then, overnight, he went cold. He started dating Isabelle. I was devastated but silent. Then, I found the medical records. Isabelle had forged a history of burn treatments. She had stolen the credit for pulling Samuel out of that warehouse fire ten years ago—a fire where I was the one who nearly died saving him. I had the evidence. I was on my way to tell him the truth when I was snatched off the street. When I woke up, I was told the kidnappers had killed Isabelle. Because of me. Because I was the “target.” Now, looking at the photos, the truth was laid bare. The kidnapping was her exit strategy. A way to fake her death, pin the guilt on me, and keep me under Samuel’s thumb as a “living apology” while she lived a secret, pampered life on his dime. I scrolled through the album. A kiss under the Eiffel Tower. Sun-drenched smiles on a yacht in the Mediterranean. Tangled limbs in a chalet in the Swiss Alps. Every night I had spent trembling with nightmares and guilt, they were halfway across the world, celebrating my living death. The last photo was a family portrait. Samuel, Isabelle, and my parents. All of them, gathered around a dinner table, laughing. Radiating happiness. The realization was a physical nausea. My parents had spent five years calling me a murderer. They had slapped me, shamed me, and forced me to my knees to “atone” for the loss of their golden daughter. They knew. They all knew. They had collectively pushed me into a grave so they could play house with Isabelle. I hailed a cab, my body moving on autopilot. When I reached my parents’ house in the suburbs, my mother opened the door. She took one look at my drenched, bedraggled state and sighed with irritation. “Look at you. People will think we mistreat you. Get inside.” I stared at her, my voice a jagged shard of glass. “Is Isabelle alive, Mom?” Her face went bone-white for a split second before hardening into a mask of indignation. “What kind of sick nonsense is that? Your sister has been gone for five years, Nancy. Don’t start.” I gritted my teeth. “I saw them. At the cemetery. In the car. I saw her and Samuel.” “So what if you did?” she snapped, the mask finally dropping. Her voice was sharp, devoid of any maternal warmth. “You think you have a right to be upset? If it weren’t for your selfishness, Izzy wouldn’t have had to hide for five years. You owe her everything!” I looked at her, truly seeing her for the first time. “I gave her everything. My clothes, my toys, your love—I stepped back so she could have it all. But Samuel? He was the one thing that was mine. He loved me first!” My mother let out a cold, mocking laugh. 3 “You think Samuel is an idiot?” she sneered. “You think a man like him wouldn’t notice Izzy’s little games? He knew, Nancy. He chose her.” The world turned to ice. I dragged my numb body back to the mansion I called home. In the center of the grand foyer hung the massive black-and-white portrait of Isabelle. She looked so innocent, so ethereal. Memories I’d suppressed began to bubble to the surface. Three years ago, when the depression became a physical weight I couldn’t carry, I had locked myself in the bathroom and shattered a glass. I’d opened my wrists, watching the red clouds bloom in the bathwater. Samuel had kicked the door in. He’d looked terrified. He’d held my wrists, screaming for an ambulance, his eyes bloodshot. He stayed by my bed all night. After that, he’d come into my room in the small hours of the morning, gently changing my bandages while I pretended to sleep. I’d felt his fingertips trembling. I’d seen the shadow of pain in his eyes. I had convinced myself that if I just held on, if I just finished my penance, he would love me again. Like the boy who used to hold an umbrella over me in the rain when our parents punished us. The boy who spent his allowance on dolls for me when Isabelle broke mine. But it was all part of the game. The “care” was just a way to keep his toy from breaking before the play was over. The front door opened. Samuel walked in, shedding his wet coat. He walked over and draped his cashmere sweater over my shoulders. “Why are you sitting in the dark? Your hands are like ice.” He took my hands in his, rubbing them with a warmth that felt like a mockery. I looked him straight in the eyes. “Samuel, you promised we’d have a real wedding next month. Our five years are up.” His frame stiffened almost imperceptibly. “Work is insane right now, Nancy. A huge merger. We have to push it back.” The tears finally came, hot and stinging. My phone began to vibrate violently. It was my mother. I answered. “What?” “Nancy, you listen to me,” she hissed. “You go to Samuel right now and tell him you want a divorce. Do it quietly.” “Why?” I whispered. “Why are you all doing this to me?” “Because you owe her! You will never pay back what you took from Izzy. If you make a scene, your father and I are done with you. You’ll be dead to us. Do you hear me?” She hung up. I closed my eyes, and a memory from our wedding night flashed behind my lids. 4 Samuel had been drunk. He’d looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read and whispered, “If only it had been you that day.” I hadn’t understood then. I thought he meant he wished I was the one who had ‘died’ so he wouldn’t have to live with the guilt. Now I realized he knew the truth all along. He knew I was the one who saved him ten years ago, but he still chose Isabelle’s polished lie over my messy truth. He chose to nail me to a cross of shame for five years just because it suited his narrative. I opened my eyes to confront him, but his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and without a single word of explanation, he turned and walked out the door. I didn’t need to see the caller ID. I knew it was her. I looked at the glass of milk he’d left on the side table. I felt a wave of nausea so violent I had to steady myself. Every “kind” gesture, every soft word from the last five years was a maggot crawling under my skin. I took the milk and poured it down the drain. It swirled away, white and useless. Just like my love for him. I went to my safe and pulled out an old, cracked burner phone. On it was a single image I’d saved from a decade ago: a grainy still from a security camera at the warehouse fire. It was blurry, but clear enough to show me—not Isabelle—dragging Samuel’s unconscious body through the flames. I sent the photo to Isabelle. “Meet me at the bluffs. Let’s finish this.” I wasn’t naive. I knew she wouldn’t come to talk. Women like Isabelle only know how to bury their secrets deeper. I was counting on it. I needed her to move. On the way to the coast, a black van swerved in front of my car. Men piled out. A sharp pain in the back of my neck, and the world went black. When I woke up, I was on the edge of the cliffs. The wind was howling, smelling of salt and impending rain. My wrists were raw, bound tight with coarse hemp rope. Isabelle stood over me, a cruel, beautiful smile on her lips. “Oh, little sister. You always were so dramatic. If you wanted a reunion, you should have just asked.” Behind her, three men held knives, their faces masked. Isabelle took a second rope and began binding herself—loosely. Then, she pulled out her phone and started a video call with Samuel. The second he picked up, she transformed. She was a sobbing, terrified victim. “Samuel! Help us! They have me and Nancy! Please!” It took less than twenty minutes for Samuel to roar onto the scene. When he saw us both balanced on the jagged edge of the cliff, he looked like a man possessed. “Let them go! I’ll give you whatever you want! Just name the price!” The lead kidnapper laughed. “We don’t want money, Mr. Montgomery. We want a choice. Two women, one rope. You can only save one.” The wind gusted. “Samuel! I’m so scared!” Isabelle shrieked. As the rope holding us both began to fray against the rock, Samuel lunged forward. For a split second, he reached for me. “Samuel!” Isabelle’s scream turned feral. “Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten who walked through the fire for you ten years ago? I’m carrying your child, Samuel!” The words hit him like a lightning strike. I saw the moment his resolve broke. I saw the calculated, cold cruelty return to his eyes. He let go of my rope. He turned his back on me and threw his entire weight toward Isabelle. The sensation of falling—the weightlessness—was almost peaceful. I looked up at him as I slipped into the abyss. I didn’t scream. I smiled. “Samuel,” I called out, my voice carrying over the wind. “You really are a pathetic, gullible fool.” I saw him freeze. I saw his eyes drop to my bared arm, where the jagged, silver scars of the warehouse fire were finally visible in the moonlight—scars Isabelle didn’t have. His scream of my name was the last thing I heard before I hit the dark water below.

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I am a licensed relationship therapist. Right now, I’m sitting across from a young girl whose face is a roadmap of smeared mascara and desperation. Between jagged sobs, she tells me she’s drowning in a forbidden love. The man has a family. “He says his life at home is like a stagnant pond,” she chokes out, twisting a damp tissue. “He says he’s suffocating. That I’m the only one who makes him feel like he’s actually alive.” I offer her a practiced, comforting smile. I recognize the script. I tell her it’s a classic “Refuge Effect”—a man looking for an escape from the mundanity he helped create. “You have to understand,” I say, my voice steady and authoritative, “this ‘profound love’ he claims to have is built entirely on the wreckage of his wife’s trust. A truly self-respecting woman doesn’t tolerate a husband who seeks solace elsewhere. Marriage is a partnership, not a puzzle for a third party to solve.” The girl looks up slowly. Her crying stops with a chilling suddenness. She reaches into her designer bag and pulls out a phone with a shattered screen. She taps a recording. The voice that fills the room makes my blood turn to ice. It’s David. My David. My gentle, somewhat dull, dependable husband. “Don’t leave me,” his voice gasps through the speaker, raw with a hunger I haven’t heard in years. “My wife is so controlling… so cold. Only with you, Lexi, do I feel like a real man…” … The recording plays on, David’s voice—a voice I know as intimately as my own heartbeat—spitting out venomous words I never thought him capable of. “Brooke is an iceberg. Her heart is cold, and her blood is colder.” “Having sex with her feels like a performance review. Like I’m just helping her meet a quarterly KPI.” “It’s only you, Lexi. You’re the only one who makes me feel alive.” The audio cuts off. I’m paralyzed in my leather swivel chair. My fingers are trembling, a fine, rhythmic shudder I can’t suppress. I can’t breathe. I can’t believe this is real. Across from me, Lexi deliberately puts her phone away and dabs at her eyes. The “suicidal” girl is gone. In her place is a predator with a shark-like grin. She looks at me, her lips curling into a taunt. “So, Dr. Hollingsworth,” she purrs, “you were saying? ‘A self-respecting woman doesn’t tolerate a husband who seeks solace elsewhere’?” “So… how are you going to handle your husband now?” I stare at her, my throat feeling like it’s been packed with dry cotton. Ten minutes ago, I saw her as a victim in need of professional guidance. Now, I see her for what she is: the woman holding the knife she just plunged into my chest. Lexi stands up. She glances dismissively at the “Therapist of the Year” trophy on my desk. “David is taking me out for seafood tonight, Brooke.” “He said it’s your tenth anniversary. Apparently, he wants to ‘compensate’ me for all the time he’s had to spend pretending with you.” She walks to the door, stopping to glance back over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up. He doesn’t belong to you tonight.” The door slams shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot. I collapse back into my chair, my strength deserting me. My eyes drift to the calendar on my desk: March 16th. Ten years since we said “I do” in that little chapel in Napa. Half an hour ago, David sent me a text: Hey babe, stuck in an emergency board meeting. Might be a late one. I sent a little something to your office—make sure you sign for it. Love you. I look at the orange Hermès box sitting on my sofa. It’s a joke. Is this an anniversary gift, or hush money for an affair I wasn’t supposed to find out about? My phone vibrates. It’s a FaceTime call from David. I answer. His face appears—handsome, scholarly, framed by his gold-rimmed glasses. Behind him is a whiteboard covered in architectural diagrams. “Hey, beautiful. Did the gift arrive? Do you love it?” He’s smiling so sincerely. His eyes are full of that practiced adoration. If I hadn’t just heard that recording, I would have fallen right back into the warm, suffocating trap of his “devotion.” “David, where are you right now?” I interrupt, my voice brittle. He blinks, a brief flash of confusion crossing his face. He turns the camera to show his desk, his half-empty coffee mug, the office window. “At the office, babe. Why? Everything okay?” I look at him, my heart a lead weight in my chest. “Who is Lexi?” On the screen, David’s expression freezes. Just for a micro-second, but I’m a therapist. I’m trained to catch the flicker of a lie before it’s even told. My world turns gray. He adjusts his glasses, his tone smoothing out into practiced normalcy. “Lexi? Brooke, I don’t know who that is. A client?” “Is that so? Maybe I got the name wrong. Get home early, David.” I hang up immediately. A second later, a text arrives from an unknown number. It’s a photo. It’s the interior of The Blue Oyster, the most exclusive restaurant in the city. David is leaning across the table, tenderly peeling a lobster tail for Lexi. The caption reads: [Looks like David’s ‘board meeting’ is a lesson in fine dining, Dr. Hollingsworth!] I stand up so fast my chair hits the wall. A wave of nausea rolls over me. Ten years. Ten years of my life, and to him, it was “stagnant water.” It was “suffocation.” It was a “KPI.” I grab my keys and drive through the deepening twilight. When I pull up to the restaurant, I see them through the floor-to-ceiling glass. They’re at a corner table. David is holding Lexi’s hand, bringing it to his lips. His eyes… he has this look of raw, hungry intensity. A look I haven’t seen directed at me in years. It wasn’t that he’d grown dull or “wooden” with age. He was just saving all his fire for someone else. I walk into the restaurant, brushing past the hostess. “David!” I stand over their table, my voice a low, vibrating blade of anger. David’s head snaps up. He drops Lexi’s hand like it’s a live wire. “Brooke! What… what are you doing here?” Lexi doesn’t even flinch. She actually nods at me, a polite, mocking tilt of the head. “You’re fast, Dr. Hollingsworth.” David’s face pales. He looks at Lexi, then back at me, his voice trembling. “Brooke, let me explain…” “Explain what?” I pull out a chair and sit down, staring him straight in the eye. “Is she your ‘refuge’? Your ‘antidote’ to the life that was suffocating you?” David’s lips quiver. He can’t find the words. Lexi reaches over and pours me a glass of water, her voice sickeningly sweet. “David, she knows. Stop hiding. There’s no point anymore.” “David?” I repeat, turning to her. “You were calling me ‘Dr. Hollingsworth’ an hour ago. Now we’re on a first-name basis?” Lexi bites her lip, her eyes suddenly welling with tears as she reaches for David’s sleeve. “David, I’m scared.” Without thinking, David shifts, shielding her from me. The sight of it—that protective instinct, used against me—is a physical blow. Before I can speak, David seems to find a sudden, desperate resolve. He looks at me, his jaw set. “Brooke, since it’s all out in the open… I’m done lying. I want a divorce.” My heart physically winces. The pain radiates down my arms, into my fingertips. “A divorce?” “You think this is all on me?” David suddenly snaps, his voice rising, drawing the eyes of the other diners. “Every time I come home, it’s like being interrogated by the FBI. I show a little fatigue, and you start giving me a ‘clinical consultation’ in that robotic therapist voice of yours.” “I didn’t need a shrink, Brooke! I needed a wife!” He points at Lexi, his eyes wild. “Lexi doesn’t have your degrees or your fancy practice, but she admires me. She looks at me like I’m a man. Everything you took from me—my dignity, my pride—I found it with her!” I wipe a stray tear, looking at the man in front of me as if he’s a total stranger. “So, you went looking for your dignity in a dumpster?” “Who are you calling a dumpster?” Lexi shrieks. She grabs a glass of red wine and throws it at me. I flinch, most of it splashing onto my blazer, the smell of fermented grapes filling the air. “Enough!” David slams his hand on the table. He stands up and grabs Lexi’s hand. “Look at yourself, Brooke. Selfish, bitter, and manipulative. My lawyer will be in touch.” He leads her out of the restaurant without a backward glance. I am left sitting there, draped in wine, under the heavy weight of the room’s pity. My phone vibrates again. A notification from Instagram. As a therapist with over a million followers, my digital footprint is massive. A new account called SweetLexi has just posted a video. The caption: [Is this the ‘Relationship Guru’ you all look up to? The real Brooke Hollingsworth exposed.] The video is edited. It shows me looking “menacing” as I dodge the wine, and cuts directly to David saying, “If I stay with you any longer, I’ll die.” The internet explodes. My phone begins to chime incessantly—calls from my partners, texts from clients, a tidal wave of vitriol in my DMs. [I paid five hundred an hour for your advice, and your own husband can’t stand you?] [Look at him in the video… poor guy looks like he’s been emotionally abused for years. Total PUA vibes from her.] I sit in my car, staring at the screen, my hands and feet turning cold. Lexi didn’t just want my husband. She wanted to burn my entire world to the ground. The next morning, the sidewalk in front of my clinic is a sea of reporters. “Dr. Hollingsworth, is the video accurate?” “Were you emotionally controlling your husband for years?” I try to push through the crowd, my face a mask of false composure. Then, a black Bentley pulls up. David steps out. He’s not wearing his glasses. He looks haggard, weary—but when he sees the cameras, he offers a perfect, sad little smile. “Please, don’t be hard on Brooke,” he tells the reporters. “She… she just needs to be in control of everything. She doesn’t mean to be cruel.” “It’s my fault. I wasn’t strong enough to meet her standards.” The reporters go into a frenzy. David lowers his head, his voice cracking. “I just wanted a normal life. Lexi is a good person. She’s taken so much heat just for trying to save me. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame me.” I stand two feet away, watching his performance. “David,” I say, my voice a cold scalpel. The crowd goes silent. He looks at me, and for a split second, I see the flicker of guilt. I reach for my phone, ready to play the recording Lexi left in my office. But Lexi appears out of nowhere. She’s wearing a thin white sundress, her face pale, a bandage wrapped around her forehead. She stumbles toward David, collapsing at his feet. “David, please… take me away! She sent people to threaten me. She said if I didn’t leave you, she’d make sure I could never work in this city again!” She’s sobbing, pointing at the bandage. “She had someone hit me last night… she said she’d ruin my face…” “Lexi, you’re lying!” My blood boils. I was alone in a hotel room until dawn. When would I have hired anyone? David shoves me aside—hard. I stumble, hitting the edge of a stone planter. He gathers Lexi in his arms, his eyes filled with pure loathing. “You’re insane, Brooke! If you have a problem, come for me. Why would you hurt an innocent girl?” “Innocent?” I stand up, clutching my side, a hysterical laugh bubbling in my throat. “David, open your eyes! Look at the performance she’s putting on!” “Enough!” he roars. He points at the sign for my practice. “I’m filing a formal complaint with the licensing board. I want the world to know what a monster ‘The Relationship Expert’ really is!” The shutters of the cameras are deafening. I look at David—the man I loved for a decade—and feel a sharp, metallic tang in the back of my throat. My phone rings. It’s Margot, my senior partner. Her voice is like ice. “Brooke, don’t come into the office.” “The investors just pulled out. Every single client is demanding a refund. Your license has been suspended pending an investigation.” I hold the phone, watching the Bentley pull away. In twenty-four hours, the life I spent ten years building—my reputation, my career, my home—has turned to ash. The doors to my clinic are taped shut. I stand on the sidewalk, still wearing the blazer stained with wine. People point. Someone recognizes me and curses under their breath as they pass. I call David ninety-nine times. On the hundredth, he picks up. “David, we need to talk. At the house. Now.” “What game are you playing now, Brooke?” “That house was an inheritance from my parents. It’s my home. Be there in thirty minutes.” I hang up. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely fit the key into the ignition. When I get to the house, the locks have been changed. I find David in the living room. Lexi is wearing my silk robe, curled up on the sofa, sipping tea. The sight of it is a physical sting to my eyes. “Give me my things,” I say, my voice raspy. David doesn’t even look up. He points toward the entryway where several black trash bags are piled. “Your clothes and your trash are over there.” “Everything else—the furniture, the art—I paid for that over the last few years. It stays.” I lunged for the bags, tearing one open. It’s not just clothes. It’s my textbooks, my certifications… and the only photo I have of my parents. The glass frame is shattered. A shard slices my finger. “Do you have a soul, David?” I hold up the ruined photo, tears finally spilling over. “For ten years, I bankrolled your firm. I worked eighteen-hour days to fill the holes in your company’s accounts! Half of what you have was bought with my blood and sweat!” David laughs, a cold, hollow sound. He stands up and walks over to me. “Blood and sweat? You helped me because you wanted to own me. It was just another way to keep me under your thumb.” “The money? I’ve already had my accountant look at it. I’ll pay you back your ‘investment’ at the standard bank interest rate. But this house? Forget it.” Lexi puts down her tea and clings to David’s arm, looking at me with triumph. “David said he’s putting my name on the deed, Brooke. After all, I’m carrying his child. A baby needs a stable home.” My head spins. A baby? David and I tried for three years. Every specialist, every hormone treatment, every heartbreak. He used to hold me and say, “It’s okay, Brooke. I just need you. A baby would just be a distraction.” He didn’t hate the idea of a child. He just didn’t want my child. “Get out, Brooke,” David says, his voice full of disgust. “Maybe it’s divine intervention you couldn’t get pregnant. A woman like you shouldn’t be a mother. Stop making a scene and leave.” He shoves me toward the door. I lose my balance, my back slamming against the sharp edge of the doorframe. Pain flares through my spine. My vision blurs. “You’ll regret this, David,” I whisper. David just laughs. “The only thing I regret is not cutting you out of my life sooner.” He slams the door in my face. I collapse in the hallway, my blood dripping onto the shattered photo of my parents. My phone screen lights up. One final notification from the State Board: [Following a preliminary review of professional misconduct, the license of Brooke Hollingsworth is hereby revoked. Permanent ban from practice effective immediately.] I sit there in the dark, listening to the muffled sound of their laughter from inside my home. In that moment, the last shred of my professional decorum, my “clinical” calm, and my mercy… it all dies. I wipe my eyes. I stand up, leaning against the cold wall. I dial a number I haven’t called in years. “Xavier? I need a favor.”

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In the elite circles of Manhattan, my jealousy was legendary. It was a running joke among our friends—if my fiancé, Brooks, went more than two hours without a text or a kiss, I’d make his life a living hell for the rest of the night. I leaned into the persona of the high-maintenance heiress because it felt safer than admitting I was terrified of losing him. But a single alumni gala shattered that illusion. I was at Brooks’s side, playing the part of the devoted partner, when I discovered the truth: his brother’s widow, Diana, wasn’t just family. She was his first love. The one who got away. The ghost that haunted the halls of his heart. During dinner, a classmate had too much martinis and let slip a cruel comment about Diana being a “black widow,” implying she’d climbed her way into the family only to outlive her husband. The reaction was instantaneous. Brooks, usually the picture of Ivy League composure, slammed his fist onto the table so hard the crystal rattled. He didn’t just defend her; he looked ready to burn the room down for her. I felt the blood drain from my face. My voice was a low, frozen blade. “Brooks. That’s enough. Sit down.” He didn’t look at me with guilt. He looked at me with pure, unadulterated loathing. He pointed a finger at my face, his voice thick with bourbon and rage, calling me “suffocating,” “possessive,” and “petty.” Diana, ever the martyr, stepped in with a soft, practiced grace. She placed a hand on my arm—a touch that felt like a snake’s belly—and whispered, “Margot, honey, he’s just had too much to drink. Don’t take it out on him.” I forced myself to stay silent, the humiliation burning in my throat like acid. Later, the group started a drunken game of “Never Have I Ever.” When it was Diana’s turn, she didn’t look at the crowd. She looked directly at me, her eyes shimmering with a predatory triumph. She looked at Brooks and said, slowly, “Never have I ever… had you kiss my feet.” … 1 The penthouse suite went graveyard silent. Every head turned, eyes darting between the three of us. The air felt heavy, charged with the kind of scandal that ruins reputations. The alcohol seemed to vanish from Brooks’s system in a heartbeat. His face went pale, then a mottled, guilty red. He looked at me, and for the first time in three years, I didn’t see my fiancé. I saw a stranger who had been playing a role. I sat perfectly still. My hands were blocks of ice in my lap. Then, Diana let out a forced, melodic laugh, waving her hand dismissively. “Oh, stop! Everyone looks so serious. It was a joke, guys. A total joke.” Brooks jumped on it like a lifeline. “Right. Yeah. She’s just messing around. Margot, don’t take it seriously.” He reached out to take my hand, his palm sweaty. Before he could make contact, I jerked my arm back. The sound of my palm connecting with his cheek was like a gunshot in the small room. Silence again. Deeper this time. “Brooks,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Do you think that joke was funny?” Diana’s “sweet” facade cracked instantly. Seeing Brooks holding his face, she stepped in front of him like a shield, her voice rising in a sharp, protective screech. “What is wrong with you? How dare you hit him?” She turned to him, her fingers fluttering over his cheek with a tenderness she had never shown her late husband. “Brooks, are you okay? Did she hurt you?” I let out a short, jagged laugh. It sounded cold, even to me. “Diana, who exactly do you think you are in this equation? The grieving widow? The ex-girlfriend? Or just the help?” Diana stiffened, her jaw setting. “I am his family! And as his sister-in-law, I won’t stand by while you treat him like your personal punching bag because you’re too insecure to handle a joke.” I smiled. It wasn’t a happy expression. Brooks, emboldened by her defense, found his voice again. His brow furrowed with deep resentment. “Enough, Margot. If you apologize right now—humbly—I’ll forget this happened. I’ll give you one chance to fix this.” I looked up at him, my eyes tracing the features I used to love. “Apologize? Not in this lifetime.” Diana scoffed, loud and theatrical. “She’s so dramatic. Honestly, Brooks, I see it now. She’s too volatile for someone like you. She doesn’t understand our world. You deserve someone who actually supports you, not someone who suffocates you.” Brooks didn’t look away from me. “I’m serious, Margot. Apologize, and we go back to the way things were.” I stared him down, the last threads of my affection snapping. “I said no.” “You have the heart of a flea,” Diana hissed. “You can’t even take a little humor.” “Oh, you like humor?” I pulled my phone from my clutch. My voice was steady, projecting to every person in that room. “Let’s see if this lands.” I hit a speed dial. The phone rang once. “Uncle Silas,” I said, my voice echoing. “I’m calling off the wedding with Brooks.” I didn’t wait for a reply from the billionaire patriarch on the other end. “Tell my father the merger is off. I’m done with the junior varsity. If I’m going to be part of this family, I’d rather be with a man who actually knows how to lead. I’m coming to see you.” The room was so quiet you could hear the air conditioning hum. Brooks’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. For the first time, I heard real, jagged panic in his voice. “You’ve lost your mind! You can’t say that to him! Stop this ‘joke’ right now!” I peeled his fingers off me one by one. I tilted my head, a flash of something dark and playful in my eyes, masking the absolute hollowed-out cavern in my chest. “A joke, Brooks? I thought you loved jokes.” “What’s the matter?” I whispered. “Isn’t it funny anymore?” 2 I hung up and walked out. I didn’t look back at the room full of socialites whose jaws were practically on the floor. Brooks tried to follow me to the elevator, but one look from me—cold enough to freeze the blood in his veins—made him stumble back. Ten minutes later, a black Bentley Mulsanne pulled up to the curb of the club. Silas stood by the open door. He was in a charcoal overcoat, tall, imposing, with eyes like flint. He was the man Brooks spent his life trying to impress and failing. He didn’t say a word. He just gestured to the seat. “Get in.” As the door closed, I saw Brooks through the tinted glass. He was standing on the sidewalk, looking smaller than I’d ever seen him. He looked terrified. In the car, I didn’t explain, and Silas didn’t ask. He simply dropped me at my penthouse. I thanked him and retreated into my sanctuary. The rest of the night, my phone was a graveyard of Brooks’s frantic texts and voicemails. I blocked his number before the sun came up. The next morning, I needed air. I drove out to a quiet, secluded stone chapel in the countryside—a place my mother used to take me. I needed to breathe. But as I walked through the iron gates, the morning mist clinging to the grass, I saw the two people I wanted to see least in this world. Brooks was there, draped in a black cashmere coat, standing by a memorial plaque. He was holding Diana. His hand was resting on the small of her back, his other hand gently tucking a stray hair behind her ear. He looked at her with a raw, aching tenderness that I had spent three years begging for. Diana leaned into his shoulder, her smile soft and victorious. To any passerby, they looked like a grieving couple finding solace in each other. They looked… right. Brooks turned and caught my eye. He froze. He let go of Diana so fast she almost stumbled. He scrambled toward me, his voice a frantic mess. “Margot, wait! It’s not what it looks like. I’m just helping her pay respects to my brother. It’s a family thing, I swear.” I looked at him and felt… nothing. No spark of anger, no flare of jealousy. Just a vast, empty boredom. I walked past him toward the small rectory office. I wasn’t there to fight. I sat down in the quiet room, waiting for the attendant, but Diana burst in behind me. She walked to the window, looking out at the foggy valley, and turned to me with a smile that was sharp as a razor. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she whispered. Before I could process her words, she lunged forward, grabbed my wrist with surprising strength, and threw herself toward the open window ledge. “Help!” Her scream tore through the silence of the chapel grounds. I stood there, paralyzed. My brain went white. Brooks was up the stairs in seconds. He burst into the room and saw me standing by the window, and Diana sprawled on the grass a story below, wailing in pain. He didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t look for evidence. He just turned to me, his face contorted with a monstrous rage. “Did you push her?!” I felt a chill settle in my bones. “No, Brooks. I didn’t touch her.” “Liar!” His shout echoed off the stone walls. “How could you be so vicious? She’s already lost everything, and you still can’t let her be! I knew you were spoiled, Margot, but I didn’t know you were a monster.” The noise drew a small crowd of visitors and staff. They stood at the door, whispering, pointing. “She looks so sweet, but she’s a psycho.” “She pushed a widow? That’s low.” “Someone call the police.” The accusations felt like needles under my skin. I stood in the center of the room, completely alone. I looked Brooks in the eye, my voice trembling but clear. “Brooks, for the last time. I didn’t do it.” He wouldn’t even look at me. “Give it up, Margot. I’m done with your games.” In that moment, it felt like someone had scooped out a piece of my soul. It wasn’t just that he didn’t believe me—it was that he wanted me to be the villain. It made his betrayal of me easier to justify. To him, I had always been the “difficult” one, the “jealous” one. And now, I was the “evil” one. 3 I looked at him, and I stopped trying. “Brooks,” I asked, “do you really believe I’m capable of this?” He spat the words out. “The evidence is right there. How could I believe anything else?” I started to laugh. It wasn’t a sane sound. “Fine.” Before he could react, I stepped forward and cracked a backhand across his face. It was harder than the first one. The room gasped. Brooks stumbled back, clutching his jaw, staring at me in shock. I wiped a stray tear from my cheek, my eyes turning to flint. “That was for being blind.” “That was for being a coward.” “And that was for never actually knowing who I was.” The crowd murmured. I shoved past him. “You think I pushed her? Fine. Call the cops. Check the security. This is a historic site—there are cameras in the eaves of the roof and the hallway. Check the angles, Brooks.” I paused at the door, looking down at Diana, who was being tended to by a medic. She looked pale, but her eyes met mine for a split second, and the fear in them was delicious. “You love protecting her so much?” I said to Brooks. “Let’s see how you protect her when the footage shows she jumped.” Brooks’s face shifted. He looked at Diana, then at the camera dome in the corner of the ceiling. He wasn’t stupid. The realization began to sink in. I didn’t wait for his epiphany. I pulled out my phone and called my family’s attorney. “Arthur, get to the countryside chapel. I’m filing charges. Slander against Brooks, and attempted fraud and malicious prosecution against Diana.” I walked down the hill and didn’t look back. The next day, the legal papers were served. I was officially done. I wanted an apology and a public retraction. Instead, Brooks showed up at my door. He didn’t look sorry; he looked annoyed. “Drop the suit, Margot. Let’s just move on. I’ll forget about the chapel if you forget about the lawyer.” I looked at him through the crack in the door. “No.” His expression darkened. His voice dropped to a threatening silk. “Don’t push me, Margot. You don’t want to see what happens when I stop being ‘nice.’” I ignored him. I thought it was just the bluster of a rich boy losing his grip. I was wrong. The next morning, the internet exploded. Dozens of “leaked” photos of me—explicit, compromising, and horrifyingly realistic—began circulating on every social media platform. The headlines were brutal: [The Heiress’s Secret Life] [Brooks’s Ex-Fiancée Caught in Scandal] [No Wonder He Left Her: The Real Margot] They were deepfakes. AI-generated filth. But they were good enough to pass at a glance. I sat on my floor, my phone shaking in my hands. The shame was physical, a weight crushing my chest. I hadn’t done any of it, but in the court of public opinion, I was already convicted. Within hours, my family’s stock began to dip. Partners were calling to “evaluate” our contracts. My father called me, screaming, his voice distorted by rage. “Fix this, Margot! The whole city is laughing at us! Go back to Brooks, marry him, do whatever it takes to bury this!” “I won’t marry him, Dad,” I whispered. “You don’t have a choice!” he roared. I felt the walls closing in. I reached out to a contact in tech. It took two hours to trace the source. The photos had been uploaded from a shell company linked directly to Brooks’s private office. My blood turned to ice. I had thought he was weak, or biased, or confused. I hadn’t realized he was malicious. To protect Diana and force me into submission, he was willing to incinerate my life. I dialed his number. He picked up on the first ring. “The photos, Brooks,” I said, my voice thick with unshed tears. “That was you.” There was a long silence. Then, his voice came through—cold, transactional, and devoid of any humanity. “It was me.” “Why?” I choked out. “Because you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “Drop the charges against Diana. Drop the suit against me. Do it now, and I’ll have the ‘hacker’ remove the images. Otherwise… I have a lot more where those came from.” I was backed into a corner. My family, my reputation, my soul—it was all on the line. “Fine,” I rasped. “I’ll drop it.” “Good girl,” he said, his tone shifting to something possessive and sickening. “But that’s not enough. You want the photos gone? You come to me. Personally.” He gave me a hotel room number. “Come tonight. Only then do the photos disappear.” 4 I stood outside the hotel suite, the key card heavy in my hand. I had to be here. For my father. For the company. For the slim hope of getting my dignity back. I pushed the door open, but Brooks wasn’t there. Diana was. She was lounging on the sofa, a glass of vintage wine in her hand. Her eyes were like a predator’s. “You finally made it.” “Where is he?” I demanded. “He’ll be here,” she said, standing up and circling me. “I thought marrying his brother would be my golden ticket, but the idiot had to go and die early. So, I used what I had. Brooks. He’s always been obsessed with me. I just had to remind him.” She leaned in close, her breath smelling of grapes and malice. “You were never going to win. The seat at the head of the table? It’s always been mine.” I tried to back away, but she grabbed my hand. In a blur of movement, she pressed a paring knife into my palm. “What are you—” Before I could finish, she grabbed my wrist and plunged the blade into her own side. “AHHHHH!” Blood bloomed across her white dress. The door burst open. Brooks charged in, his timing too perfect to be an accident. He saw me holding the knife. He saw Diana slumped on the floor, bleeding. “Help!” she gasped, pointing a trembling finger at me. “She tried to kill me!” I dropped the knife, my hands stained red. “Brooks, no… she did it herself! She grabbed me!” Brooks’s face was a mask of pure, murderous hatred. He didn’t look at the angle of the wound or the way Diana was smirking behind her tears. “I saw you,” he hissed. “I saw it with my own eyes.” My heart broke. Not for him, but for the girl I used to be, who thought this man was her harbor. “Call the police!” Diana wailed. Brooks looked at me, then at the guards he’d brought with him. “Don’t call the cops yet. Bind her.” Two men grabbed me. They tied my wrists to the bedpost, the cord biting into my skin. I was a prisoner in a five-star suite. Brooks walked over, holding his phone up. He looked at me with a twisted, triumphant smile. “You like being a star, Margot? How about we go live? Let the world see the ‘real’ you in this state?” He reached for my clothes. I screamed, I pleaded, I sobbed. I had never felt more humiliated, more discarded, more like an object. He laughed, his finger hovering over the screen. I closed my eyes, praying for the world to end. Then, the door didn’t just open. It exploded off its hinges. A shadow fell over the room. Cold, towering, and radiating a quiet, lethal authority. Silas.

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It was past 2:00 AM, and the city of Seattle was draped in a cold, relentless drizzle. I had just picked up a high-end designated driver request. A young woman was sprawled across the backseat of a pristine Porsche, her phone held high as she FaceTimed someone. She looked like she’d stepped out of a glossy magazine—effortless, expensive, and entirely oblivious to the world I inhabited. “I told you a used car would be fine for practice,” she pouted into the screen, her voice a melodic whine. “Why did you have to send a Porsche? I know you’re a CEO and money is just a number to you, but I wanted to save up my own ‘bride price’ before I officially said yes.” Her voice softened, honeyed with flirtation. She glanced toward the driver’s seat and added, “The driver is a woman, honey. Don’t forget to leave her a massive tip later.” I caught her eye in the rearview mirror and offered a tight, professional smile. Inside, I felt a flicker of envy for that kind of sweet, uncomplicated arrogance. As the GPS guided me toward the exclusive gated community on the outskirts of the city, I looked up at the towering wrought-iron gates. My heart stopped. There, standing under the glow of a streetlamp, was a familiar silhouette. Brian. What was he doing here? Five years ago, a car accident had stolen his sight. He was supposed to be at the service dog training center, undergoing an intensive six-week program to bond with his new guide. He didn’t seem to notice the car. He was smiling, waving toward us with a precision that didn’t match a man lost in darkness. … I parked the car, my movements mechanical, driven by years of muscle memory. My eyes were locked on the man illuminated by the headlights. It was Brian Marcus. He had the kind of bone structure that looked like it had been chiseled from marble, striking even in the shadows of the night. In the six years we had been together, I had traced every line of that face a thousand times. I couldn’t be wrong. He began to walk toward the car. I opened my mouth to call his name, but the girl in the back beat me to it. She leaned out the window, her laughter bright and piercing. “Babe! I missed you so much!” The invisible thread holding my life together finally snapped. Brian reached for the door handle, but it was locked. He rapped his knuckles against the driver’s side window. “Could you unlock the door, please?” I turned my head slowly. I saw his face—curious, impatient—and I saw my own reflection in the glass. I was wearing a mask and thick-rimmed glasses, but they couldn’t hide the hollow exhaustion etched into my skin. I looked like a ghost of the woman he used to love. “Ma’am? Unlock the door so my boyfriend can get in,” the girl said, her voice rising with a hint of annoyance. “Sorry,” I whispered, my voice raspy. I hit the unlock button. The girl laughed again, a triumphant, airy sound. “I bet you’re shocked by how handsome he is, right? Last time I took him to dinner with my friends, they nearly fainted. They thought I was dating a movie star.” In our six years together, Brian had never met my friends. Six years ago, when he was still the golden boy of the Marcus empire, he was too arrogant to bother. Then came the accident—the night we tried to run away together. He had shielded me with his body, losing his sight in the process. After that, he became a recluse, too ashamed to be seen. “Stop talking nonsense,” Brian said, his tone playful as he climbed in. “You stayed out so late. How are you going to have the energy to try on wedding dresses tomorrow?” “I couldn’t just leave! It was my best friend’s birthday.” “You have to try them on. I designed them myself. But remember, agreeing to the dress doesn’t mean I’ve officially accepted the proposal yet!” I wanted to scream. I wanted to demand answers. But the crushing weight of five years of double shifts—the construction sites, the late-night bartending, the endless driving—had paralyzed me. My throat felt like it had been cauterized shut. Before the accident, Brian had been a rising star in the fashion world. He used to hold me and promise that when we married, he would design everything—the gown, the rings, the life we’d lead. After he went blind, he never spoke of those dreams again. Or so I thought. We reached the destination—a mansion in the hills. I got out to retrieve my folding electric scooter from the trunk. In the driveway, Brian wrapped his arms around the girl, pulling her close. She giggled and pushed him toward me. “Pay her, babe. Give her a good tip.” Brian didn’t even spare me a glance. His eyes—those deep, dark eyes that were supposed to be vacant—flickered with a cold indifference. “Anything for you. But you better behave later tonight.” “You’re so bad!” she squealed. My knees buckled. I nearly collapsed onto the pavement as I watched them walk into the house, arms entwined. On my way back to the city, my phone chimed. A three-hundred-dollar tip had been added to the fare. Three hundred dollars. That could pay for six of Brian’s physical therapy sessions. It could mean I wouldn’t have to pull an all-nighter for at least three days. Then, another notification. A voice memo from Brian. “I can’t sleep when you’re not next to me, Winnie. I miss you.” I gripped the handlebars of my scooter so hard my knuckles turned white. My vision blurred. A week ago, the guide dog foundation had finally called. After years on the waiting list, a dog was ready for us. Brian had been ecstatic, insisting on going to the training facility alone to build a bond with the animal. I had worked myself to the bone for five years to afford this. I had turned our cramped rental into a sanctuary for a blind man—smart home voice commands, non-slip mats everywhere, padded corners on every piece of furniture. I had a pile of dog supplies waiting by the door. But Brian wasn’t blind. He was lying in a silk-sheeted bed in a mansion, holding another woman, telling me he couldn’t sleep without me. At 4:00 AM, sleep was a foreign concept. My internal clock was shattered by years of graveyard shifts. I started packing. It took less than thirty minutes. One suitcase held the entirety of my life for the last five years. At 6:00 AM, I took the trash down and ran into my landlord, Mrs. Gable, walking her dog. I had messaged her about ending the lease, but she hadn’t replied. “Moving out? Are you joking?” Mrs. Gable looked at me with confusion. “Your boyfriend bought this place five years ago.” I froze. I pulled out my phone and went to my messages with the “landlord.” “That’s impossible. I’ve been Venmoing rent every month. When I renovated the place for his accessibility, she—you—told me it was an unauthorized modification and raised my rent.” Mrs. Gable shook her head, her expression shifting from confusion to a deep, pitying sympathy. “Sweetie, that’s not my number. After your boyfriend bought the unit, he asked me to give him your contact info. He told me he’d handle everything from there.” The silence that followed was deafening. My phone felt like a hot coal in my hand. The rent was $1,500 a month. Over five years, including the “penalties” for the renovations, I had paid back nearly $100,000. To him. I was shaking so violently I had to gasp for air. “I don’t get you kids,” Mrs. Gable sighed. “He has a car service pick him up every day. He bought this place in cash five years ago. If he’s that loaded, why are you out there killing yourself working three jobs?” “A car service?” I whispered. “You didn’t know? Well, I guess since you work all night, you wouldn’t see him leave during the day.” The night shifts paid the most. I was usually home by 7:00 AM, stopping at the farmer’s market to buy fresh produce for Brian’s meals. I’d wake him up, help him wash, eat breakfast together, and then prep his lunch and dinner so he only had to heat them up. We only had an hour or two of “together” time every day. He used to complain that I worked too much, that I didn’t spend enough time with him. I forced a smile. “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Gable.” “Honey, take care of yourself. You’ve got too much pride for your own good.” Pride? No. It wasn’t pride. Before the accident, I was a girl who didn’t know how to boil an egg. I was a girl who only knew how to spend money. I looked down at my pajamas—a set Brian had bought me five years ago. The colors were faded to a dull gray, the hem frayed and dragging. They barely hid the slight curve of my stomach. I had been waiting for him to come back from “training” to tell him about the pregnancy. At 7:00 AM, I went to the market out of habit. The vendor handed me a bunch of green onions. “No fish today?” I shook my head. Brian loved fish. I hated it. But after five years of deboning it for him, I had forgotten how to cook anything else. When I got back to the apartment, the door was unlocked. Brian was sitting on the sofa. When he heard me enter, he turned his head toward me. “Winnie?” I didn’t say a word. I just looked at him. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. His dark, almond-shaped eyes were vacant, staring at nothing. He stood up, reaching out tentatively, his movements perfectly mimicking the hesitation of a blind man. His performance was so flawless it was terrifying. I couldn’t even tell when his sight had returned. “Winnie?” he called again. He was only six feet away now. “Why are you back?” I asked. My voice was dead. Brian faltered, a look of practiced vulnerability crossing his face. “You didn’t reply to my message last night. I was worried sick. I was afraid something happened to you.” He moved toward me, his brow furrowed with a concern that looked so real it made me sick. In this apartment, over the last five years, I had been hit by a car while delivering food. I had been harassed by drunks while driving. I had been cheated by contractors. In the beginning, I used to call him, sobbing, looking for comfort. But then he got into a minor accident trying to “find” me in the dark. He had made everything worse. The other driver had screamed at him, calling him a “useless cripple” who should be kept on a leash. I had jumped in, fighting the man until the police came. We paid a fortune in a settlement. After that, Brian cried for days, saying he was a burden, that he should just leave so I could have a real life. I had held him, begged him to stay, and promised I would take care of everything. I learned to handle the world alone so he wouldn’t have to. And all the while, he was watching. “I’m fine,” I said coldly. “Do you need me to drive you back to the training center?” He sensed the shift in my tone and grabbed my hand. “You’re upset. Did something happen at work? Winnie, let’s stop the treatments. Don’t push yourself so hard. I don’t care if I never see again, as long as I have you.” The same script. I had heard it a thousand times. And for the first time, it tasted like poison. I started laughing. Hard. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “How long were you planning to keep this up?” The rage, five years in the making, finally erupted. I lunged forward and slapped him across the face. Suddenly, a gust of wind seemed to hit me from behind. A massive force slammed into my side, throwing me to the floor. A searing pain exploded in my abdomen. I curled into a ball, gasping. “You bitch!” a voice shrieked. “No wonder you were staring at my boyfriend last night. You’re the little ‘charity case’ living in his apartment!” Brian’s eyes widened. He froze, his hand halfway to reaching for me. “Paige? What are you doing here?” Paige rushed to his side, cradling his face. “You told me you had a tenant who was stalking you! I saw the message she sent last night about moving out. I came here to give her a piece of my mind, and I find her hitting you?” She looked at me with pure venom. “We should call the cops. Lock this old hag up! Look at his face—it’s already swelling. Did she try to force herself on you because you’re ‘blind’?” She raised her foot to kick me. Brian grabbed her waist, pulling her back. “I’ll handle it, Paige. I’ll make sure she pays. Go downstairs and wait for me. We have an appointment, remember?” Paige huffed, gave me one last look of disgust, and slammed the door. Brian sighed, his voice returning to that smooth, aristocratic lilt. “Paige is young and impulsive. Don’t take it personally.” He turned to follow her. I reached out with the last of my strength and grabbed his pant leg. “Hospital… please…” “Winnie, stop the drama,” he said, shaking me off. “You’re a tough girl. You’ve survived worse than a little fall. I’ll come back later and explain everything.” The door clicked shut. I tried to reach for my phone, but my fingers cramped with pain. Darkness swarmed my vision, and the world went black. When I woke up, it was night. The agonizing pain had faded into a dull, hollow ache. I was soaked in a cold sweat. I looked down. There was blood on the non-slip mats I had installed for him. My phone screen lit up in the dark. It was a photo from Paige. She was in a lace wedding gown, her arm looped through Brian’s. They were both beaming at the camera. “Give it up, grandma. You’re not some young starlet anymore. Did you really think a man like him would ever actually want you?” “We’re getting married. Get out of his apartment, or I’ll make sure you regret it.” I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt like they were filled with lead. Suddenly, the front door swung open. “Why is there still a woman in here?” Men in jumpsuits walked in carrying cleaning supplies and tools. “Ignore her. The owner said we only have six hours to gut the place. If we aren’t done, we don’t get paid.” They began tearing down the smart-home sensors. They ripped up the mats. They threw my suitcase into the hallway. I watched, clutching my chest, until my heart simply stopped fighting.

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The night before our engagement party, I found myself scrolling through my phone, a mindless habit to quiet the pre-wedding jitters. A headline caught my eye, stopping my thumb mid-swipe: “I’ve fallen for my daily commute partner—what do I do?” I clicked. The poster described her “commute partner” as a guy she saw every day, always driving a Maybach. She wrote about how they’d shared small moments at stoplights for months. Then, she mentioned an accident—how she’d been clipped by a car while on her bike, and he had leapt out of his luxury sedan to gather her in his arms, staying with her until she felt safe. The top comment, with thousands of likes, read: “If you don’t tell her how you feel, how will she ever know?” Beneath it, a reply: “I bet she’s already secretly in love with you.” I scrolled down further. The poster had attached a photo of the accident scene, likely taken by a bystander. The focus was sharp on a hand reaching out to help the girl. Around that wrist was a bracelet—a limited-edition Van Cleef & Arpels piece. I knew that bracelet. I knew it because I had spent three months tracking it down as an engagement gift. I had even paid a premium to have our initials—mine and Camilla’s—engraved on the inner clasp. I pinched the screen, zooming in until the pixels blurred, staring at that gold chain until my heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold, iron fist. … The post had been live for months, but the engagement remained high. I clicked on the poster’s profile. It was a digital diary of a young man’s agonizing, sweet unrequited love. About six months ago, he had thanked his followers for the courage to confess. He told them they were officially together. After that, the feed became a highlight reel of their romance. Buying her peonies. Spending weekends at a secluded cabin. Last month, he posted a photo of a ring. Their fingers were interlaced, her hand resting over his. “I put it on her finger today,” he wrote. “I’m just waiting for the perfect moment to officially propose.” I enlarged the image. I stared at it until my eyes burned and the room went dim. I had designed that ring. I had gone through nine drafts, pulling countless all-nighters to get the setting just right. Every time I felt like giving up, Camilla would wrap her arms around my neck from behind, pressing a soft kiss to my temple. I’d pull her into my lap and whisper, “Almost there. Just one more revision.” She’d murmur, “I’m right here with you,” and sit beside me, working on her laptop until the sun came up. The original blueprints were still on my desktop. The design was one-of-a-kind. But weeks ago, Camilla told me the jeweler had lost the custom piece. I had been naive enough to believe her. I’d actually cried, devastated that the symbol of our future was gone. Camilla had been so tender then, wiping the tears from my cheeks, promising she’d find a better ring, telling me not to worry. It wasn’t lost. It was on her hand. She had taken my soul’s work and given it to another man to claim as his own. Two days ago, the boy posted again: “She’s been so busy lately. Hardly any time for her boyfriend.” I swiped past it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t comment. I just turned my phone face down on the mahogany desk and watched the rain streak against the window. She was busy, alright. Busy planning our engagement gala. The phone buzzed. A new post. A location tag for a high-end French bistro downtown. “She told me to meet her here at eight. She’s finally going to introduce me to her inner circle.” The evidence was absolute. The bracelet I bought, the ring I bled for. And yet, a pathetic part of me still couldn’t believe it was her. Not my Camilla. Driven by a ghost of hope or perhaps a need for total destruction, I changed my clothes. I called for the car and asked the driver to take me to the restaurant. 7:20 PM. I arrived early. The hostess gave me a rehearsed smile. I gave her Camilla’s phone number for the reservation. She checked the system and led me toward a private back room. The hallway was long, carpeted in a deep, blood-red velvet that swallowed the sound of my footsteps. I reached the door. It wasn’t fully latched. Voices drifted through the gap. “Camilla, you’re really going all out for the ‘husband-to-be,’ huh? An 8:00 PM dinner, and you had the girls get here at 7:30 just to prep?” “He’s shy,” Camilla’s voice rang out—smooth, authoritative, effortless. “I wanted you all here first so he doesn’t feel overwhelmed. And please, watch your mouths tonight.” “Don’t worry, we’ll be on our best behavior.” Laughter followed, the crystalline clink of expensive wine glasses. Then, someone brought up my name. “But Cami, what about the one at home? What about Emmett? We all grew up with the guy.” “Please,” another woman scoffed. “Let’s call it what it is. Emmett is the son of the man who saved Camilla’s life. In the nicest terms, he’s a legacy ward. In reality? He’s just a stray her father left behind.” “He’s a childhood playmate at best,” someone added. I stood frozen, waiting for Camilla to shut them down. I remembered high school, when a bully called me an orphan. Camilla had tackled the guy, pinning him to the dirt until he apologized. She had turned to me afterward, her eyes red with protective fury, promising me, “If anyone ever says that again, I’ll destroy them.” I waited for that Camilla to speak. I waited for her to tell them I wasn’t a stray. “Harsh, but not inaccurate,” Camilla said. Her voice was light, casual. Like she was commenting on the weather. “But,” she paused, “don’t say it to his face. He’s sensitive. Thin-skinned.” The room erupted in giggles. “Aww, is Cami catching feelings for the charity case?” “Hardly,” she drawled. “It was my mother’s dying wish that I look after him. He lives in my house, I provide for him—it’s what’s expected. Think of him as a pet. He’s low-maintenance enough.” More laughter. I stood in the hallway, hot tears blurring my vision, my entire body trembling. A pet. I didn’t care how pathetic I looked. I pushed the door open. The laughter died instantly. Camilla sat at the head of the table, twirling a wine glass between her fingers. When she saw me, her mask slipped for a fraction of a second. “Emmett.” She stood up. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay home and rest.” The other women at the table went silent, looking at their plates. I let out a jagged, hollow laugh. My face was wet with tears, and I probably looked like a madman. “Is that what I am, Camilla? A pet?” Her lips parted. “Emmett, let me explain—” “Explain what? That I’m just an extra mouth to feed? That I’m ‘low-maintenance’?” The words caught in my throat. I choked on a sob. “Or should you explain that my father died saving your life, and in return, you view him as nothing more than a servant?” Her expression shifted. It wasn’t guilt. It was something else—something I’d seen her use on beggars on the street. A look of profound annoyance. Disgust. The look of someone tired of a recurring nuisance. She looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. She didn’t say a word. But that look said everything. One of the women glanced at her watch. “Camilla, it’s almost eight.” Camilla nodded. She didn’t move toward me. After a few moments, she spoke, her tone dripping with bored condescension. “Emmett, go home. The engagement party is still happening tomorrow. You’ll get everything you’ve ever wanted. Just stop making a scene.” Everything I wanted… I opened my mouth to scream, to rail against the injustice of it. She raised a hand, cutting me off. Her eyes fell to my hands, which were beet-red from the cold and shaking uncontrollably. She frowned and picked up her blazer from the back of her chair. “It’s freezing out,” she said, draping the jacket over my shoulders. The movement was brisk, almost clinical, as if she were afraid she’d regret the kindness if she lingered. The jacket still held the warmth of her body. I looked up at her, startled. She met my gaze, and for a heartbeat, something flickered in her eyes. It was gone too fast for me to tell if it was pity or just twenty years of habit. “Go home,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “Just be ready for tomorrow.” The security guards stepped forward. I didn’t move. I stood there, wrapped in her scent, waiting for her to say one real thing. Waiting for that flicker of light to return. It didn’t. Instead, the guards took my arms. They marched me toward the elevators. As the doors slid open, a young man was standing inside. He was looking at his phone, the screen glowing with a photo of him and Camilla kissing. As we passed each other, he gave me a curious, fleeting glance. “Cami!” I heard him shout from behind me. He ran into the room and swept her into a hug. She hugged him back. She laughed—a genuine, bright sound I hadn’t heard in years. The elevator doors closed. I couldn’t see them anymore. I could only see my own reflection in the polished steel. Face streaked with tears. Pathetic. The jacket on my shoulders was warm, but I couldn’t stop shivering. I walked out of the restaurant into a downpour. A guard tried to hold an umbrella over me, but I shoved it away. The rain hit me with bone-chilling force. I didn’t want to hide from it. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to wash away twenty years of devotion. By the time I got back to the estate, I was soaked to the bone. I pulled her jacket off and collapsed onto the bed. I was so cold. My brain felt numb. Eventually, the world turned grey, and my eyelids grew heavy. When I woke, the world was spinning. My skin felt like it was on fire. My head throbbed as if it were being split by an axe. I touched my forehead. Burning. A fever. Fever dreams began to bleed into reality. The day I was seven. My father was gone, and I had been brought to the house. Camilla, three years older, stood at the door. She looked like a princess in a storybook. She reached out her hand. “Don’t be scared,” she whispered. “I’m here.” The night I turned eighteen. She had bought a cake in secret. Just the two of us. She lit the candles and said, “Make a wish.” I asked, “What should I wish for?” She looked at me, her voice steady and sure. “Wish that we’re always together.” Then, the dream curdled. I saw my father in a pool of blood. The car had been barreling toward Camilla, and he had shoved her out of the way. He couldn’t save himself. She had knelt in the street, her hands stained red. I had run to him, clutching his body. His last words to me: “Emmett, take care of yourself.” I was crying in my sleep. The tears were drying almost instantly against my feverish skin. I wanted Camilla. I only wanted her. I wanted to hear her say “I’m here” one last time. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I fumbled for it, my vision blurred. I pressed answer. It wasn’t her voice. It was a man’s. Heavy, rhythmic breathing. I gripped the phone, tears soaking into the pillow. The line went quiet for a second. Then Camilla’s voice came through, laced with a post-coital laziness and a hint of a laugh. “Oh, sorry. Wrong button.” Click. I stared at the ceiling as the room tilted. My stomach surged. I tried to sit up, tried to get to the bathroom, but I didn’t make it. I vomited over the side of the bed. Since I hadn’t eaten, it was just bitter bile and tears. I collapsed back, shaking. The world was a whirlwind of my father’s dying face and the sound of that man’s breath. I retched again, my body cramping with the effort. I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me. When I woke up again, I was in a hospital bed. The fever had broken, but my body felt like lead. Camilla was there. She was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, looking like she’d been there all morning. I shifted slightly. She opened her eyes. For a second, she looked dazed, as if she’d forgotten everything that happened at the bistro. Then she stood up and touched my forehead. Her palm was shockingly cold. “The fever is down,” she said, her voice raspy. I tried to speak, but my throat felt like I’d swallowed glass. She looked into my eyes. “Why didn’t you call the doctor?” “…” “Why didn’t you call me?” “…” “Emmett, do you have any idea how high your temperature was?” When I didn’t answer, she sighed. “The engagement party is canceled. Happy now?” I blinked. “I…” “Forget it.” She tucked the blanket around me. “Just stop making my life difficult.” The door burst open. “Cami! Who the hell is this?” It was the boy from the elevator. Tyler. “Tyler, what are you doing here?” “A buddy of mine works here! If he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known you were keeping a secret boyfriend on the side!” Tyler’s voice was high, piercing. It made my head throb. He rushed over, pointing a finger at my face. “You pathetic loser. Didn’t your parents teach you anything? You don’t steal other people’s girlfriends!” Before anyone could react, his hand flew out. Slap. My head snapped to the side. A searing, white-hot pain radiated across my cheek. My ears rang. No parents. He said I had no parents to teach me. The image of my father in the street flashed before my eyes. The world started to go black. I heard myself gasping. Shallow, desperate lunges for air. My heart was a frantic bird hitting the walls of its cage. “Tyler!” Camilla’s voice sounded miles away. “Are you insane?” “Me? He’s the one trying to take my girl!” “He’s sick in a hospital bed, you idiot!” “So? Anyone can play the victim!” The voices faded into a dull hum. Before I lost consciousness, I felt a hand on my cheek. Light. Terrified. A cold finger brushed the place where I’d been struck. When I woke again, the room was empty. Camilla was gone. The sun was gone. Outside, the sky was a bruised grey. I heard voices at the door—nurses talking in the hall. “The guy in 402?” “Yeah, that’s him.” “I heard he’s trying to trap that tech heiress? Using his dead dad as leverage?” “More than that. Apparently, his dad died saving her, and now the son thinks he’s entitled to her hand in marriage. Talk about predatory.” “Shameless. Using a dead man to guilt-trip a woman into a wedding.” I lay there, paralyzed. Tyler had posted a video. I fumbled for my phone and found the thread. Millions of views. He was on camera, eyes red, looking like the victim of a grand conspiracy. “His father saved my girlfriend once, and we’ve always been grateful,” he sobbed. “But he’s using that debt to blackmail her. He’s forcing her to marry him. She’s too kind-hearted to say no. He’s a parasite.” The comments were a bloodbath. “This guy is disgusting.” “His father is probably rolling in his grave.” “Dox him. Make sure he can never show his face again.” They found my name. Emmett Vance. They found the old police reports of my father’s accident. “Single father, one kid… I bet the dad planned the whole thing. A ‘heroic’ suicide to get his kid into a rich family.” “Like father, like son. Con artists.” I set the phone down. No parents to teach me. He was right. My father was dead. But my father didn’t save her for a reward. His last words weren’t “Make her pay.” They were “Take care of yourself.” It was Camilla’s mother who insisted I stay. It was the family who insisted on the debt. Not him. My father was a good man. The door was kicked open. A woman in a nurse’s uniform rushed in, holding her phone up. “Here he is, guys! Live!” “Emmett Vance! The blackmailer!” “Tell the truth—was your dad’s ‘accident’ just a failed insurance scam?” The comments on her screen were scrolling so fast I couldn’t read them. I only had one thought: Find Camilla. Make her tell them it’s not true. Make her tell them it was an accident. If she said it, I could leave. I could disappear forever. I just needed my father’s name to be clean. I ripped the IV out of my hand. Blood bubbled up, but I didn’t feel it. I ran out of the room. “Hey! Stop him!” I didn’t stop. The hallway was an endless stretch of white. My bare feet hit the cold linoleum. I had to find her. I burst through the lobby, past the screaming nurse, and out into the street. I didn’t know where she was, but I had to look. The hospital lights were blinding. I leaned against a wall, my feet bleeding on the pavement. Wait for me, Dad. I’m going to fix this. I saw the light turn green. I saw the flash of a car. I didn’t see anything else. CRACK. My body went airborne, then hit the asphalt with a sickening thud.

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“I’m getting married, Brian.” I choked out the words, wiping the tears from my eyes with a cold, mocking laugh as he finally stepped into the hospital room. The sun was already up. He looked pale, his face a mask of practiced concern as he leaned over me, whispering that we could always try again, that there would be other babies. “Don’t be ridiculous, Paige. There’s no way you’re pregnant,” he had snapped over the phone just hours ago, his voice dripping with irritation. “I’m busy. I’ll make up for your birthday later.” I had been standing on the stairs then, my hands slick with blood, my body shaking as I listened to the dial tone. Then, my foot slipped. The physical pain of the fall was nothing compared to the suffocating ache in my chest. “I’m not actually going to marry Isabelle,” I’d heard him tell his friends in a leaked video only yesterday. He was laughing, that light, careless sound that used to make me melt. “She’s just a pretty thing I keep around to stay entertained. She’s obedient enough, so I’ll keep her for a few more years. If Isabelle doesn’t like it, I’ll clear her out.” The video Isabelle sent me showed Brian—my Brian—carefully sliding a diamond onto her finger. They were at the courthouse, glowing, signing their marriage license. The timestamp on the screen was yesterday. My birthday. I had waited all night for him. And all I got was proof that I was nothing more than a ghost in his real life. I’d spent nine years by Brian Montgomery’s side. I’d lost three pregnancies. In our social circle, I was the joke—the over-the-hill mistress, the “permanent girlfriend” who was never going to get the ring. Six months ago, on his birthday, I found out I was pregnant again. I’d hidden the test in a bouquet of flowers, ready to finally ask him to choose me. I’d gone soft. I’d chosen to believe his lies one more time. “Paige, trust me. This is the last time. I will marry you,” he’d promised, on his knees, after I tried to leave him the last time his friends mocked me. And here we were. 1 A phone ringing muffled my declaration. Brian was distracted. He only caught the word “marriage.” His brow furrowed, a look of bored indulgence crossing his face. “Marriage? Sure, Paige. Once you’re back on your feet, we’ll make it happen. Just heal up first.” He held up his phone, mouthed the word “work,” and turned his back on me to walk out into the hall. I watched his retreating figure and let out a jagged, self-deprecating laugh. The caller ID flashing on his screen didn’t say Work. It said Wife. He’d even changed his lock screen to a photo of Isabelle. How could I have been so blind? How many times did I let him sell me the same lie? The first time, his mother pointed a finger at me and told me I wasn’t enough, then forced me into a clinic. The second time, he’d crashed his car racing in the Hamptons; the shock alone cost me the baby. The third time, the doctor told me my uterine lining was too thin, that I might never carry to term again. Brian just held my hand and told me to wait. I wouldn’t wait anymore. I pulled up my airline app and booked a one-way ticket. A sharp cramp twisted through my abdomen, but beneath the pain, I felt a hollow, terrifying sense of relief. As I left the ward after my IV drip finished, I heard the nurses whispering at the station. “The girl in Room 2? The miscarriage?” the young one sighed. “I heard her husband on the phone. He said it wasn’t her first time, that she’s just being dramatic and he’d buy her something shiny to shut her up.” The older nurse scoffed. “Husband? Honey, she’s just the side piece. She’s been trying to trap him with a baby for years. Now that she’s wrecked her body, her dream of being a billionaire’s wife is officially dead.” “Side piece?” the other murmured. “She’s thirty-three. Same age as me. My kid’s starting second grade.” They saw me then. Their faces froze in awkward silence. I gave them a weak, empty smile. “I’m checking out.” I’d heard the whispers for years. I’d spent a decade training myself not to care, becoming numb to the labels. But hearing those words come out of Brian’s own mouth… that was the red-hot blade that finally pierced my heart. When I got back to the penthouse, the table was still set with the cold dinner I’d prepared. The Lisianthus flowers were wilting. I felt a wave of nausea. For nine years, Brian had only ever sent me those specific flowers. I thought it was ‘our’ thing. But yesterday, I realized Isabelle’s social media handle was Lisianthus_In_The_Clouds. Every time he tucked a flower behind my ear with that tender look in his eyes, who was he actually seeing? The door opened. It was Brian’s personal assistant, coming to fetch a specific bottle of vintage red for a celebration. The bottle I had opened and started drinking alone yesterday. The assistant looked panicked, unable to reach Brian on his cell. “I’ll take it to him,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I’ll explain it in person.” I wanted to have one last drink to the happy couple. Or rather, the old couple made new. Brian’s face went white when he opened the door to his private suite and saw me standing there. “What are you doing here?” I tilted my head and handed him the half-empty bottle of wine. “Happy wedding day, Brian.” I smiled, though it didn’t reach my eyes. “And goodbye. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going back home to get married.” 2 Brian’s face darkened, a flash of suppressed rage flickering in his eyes. “Stop making a scene, Paige. Go back to the hospital. I’ll explain everything later.” Wait. It was always wait. I had waited until my youth was gone. I had waited until I was a “medical impossibility.” I had waited until my reputation was dragged through the mud, moving from “secret girlfriend” to “homewrecker.” Isabelle appeared behind him, her hand sliding naturally, possessively, into the crook of his arm. “Paige! Come in, join the party. You know everyone here.” As soon as I stepped inside, the room fell into a heavy, mocking silence. “Oh, I didn’t realize the theme for tonight was ‘pajamas and hospital bracelets,’” one of Brian’s friends drawled, looking me up and down. The girl next to him giggled. “She’s ‘organic,’ remember? Not materialistic like us. Don’t men just love a fragile little flower?” “Right. Clearly, we aren’t in the same tax bracket. Let’s not let our ‘filthy money’ ruin her vibe.” The room erupted in laughter. My face burned, and my vision blurred behind a thin veil of tears. I knew they despised me, but they never used to dare insult me to my face when Brian was around. Brian used to get angry. He used to protect me. Now, he just stood there, his expression unreadable, doing nothing. I dug my nails into my palms until it hurt. This wasn’t my first time in this house. In our second year together, Brian got drunk on his birthday and told the driver to come here. When I tried to help him inside, he’d blocked the door. “Let the driver take you home,” he’d muttered. “She’s a clean freak. She doesn’t like strangers in the house.” I hadn’t even known who “she” was then. But when he started to get sick, I pushed past him. “Can’t you hear me? Get the hell out!” He had shoved me so hard I hit the corner of a marble cabinet. The impact caused severe nerve damage in my left eye. To this day, it’s mostly light and shadows. Brian had been devastated then. He’d apologized for weeks, put a condo in my name, showered me with gifts. But he never mentioned “her” again. He wasn’t over his ex-wife. He never had been. And I never had the right to ask. Isabelle led me to a chair and handed me a cup of tea. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Paige. I only came back to help Brian out. The marriage certificate? It’s just a formality. Something to make his mother’s final days a bit easier.” I froze, looking at Brian. He finally spoke, his voice cold. “My mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer two months ago. She’s in chemo. It’s bad.” “You know she never liked you,” he added, as if it were my fault. “She wouldn’t agree to treatment unless I made things ‘right’ with Isabelle.” I sat there, stunned. I knew nothing. I was never allowed to know. Years ago, when his mother found out I was pregnant the first time, she’d had me snatched off the street and taken to a clinic. When Brian found out, he’d flown back, screaming at her. “If you touch a hair on her head again, you’ll lose your son forever.” The scar on his forehead was from the glass vase his mother threw at him that day. I had cried for him. He had held me and told me I was safe. Now, that same Brian shoved a cup of tea into my hands. “Drink this. Then I’m taking you back to the clinic.” The glass was scalding. My hands shook, and the cup slipped, shattering on the floor. Hot water splashed onto Isabelle’s designer shoes. Brian didn’t even look at me. He lunged forward, grabbing Isabelle, his voice thick with panic as he rushed her toward the bathroom. I tripped over a chair, falling onto the hard floor. My glasses slid off. Without them, the world was a smear of colors. I felt a sob rising in my throat. I thought of the baby I’d just lost. It had been healthy. I’d already bought the tiny clothes, the little stuffed bear. Brian had been happy, too. Until the day I had morning sickness at dinner, and he’d looked at me and said, “Maybe we shouldn’t keep this one.” I’d turned white. I asked him why. “You’re too tired, Paige. You’ve lost weight. It’s too much for you.” I didn’t believe him. I pushed and pushed until he finally admitted his parents had changed their will. They were blackmailing him. “Just give me more time, Paige.” He’d begged. But I never really had a choice. 3 The next day, my manager at the bookstore called me, sounding terrified. Someone was causing a scene. I rushed over, my body still aching. It was Isabelle’s cousin, a girl who had been at the party the night before. The moment she saw me, she shoved a phone camera into my face. “Look, everyone! This is the owner of the famous ‘Breeze & Bound’ bookstore. Her name is Paige. If you’re ever looking for a place to find a husband who belongs to someone else, this is the spot. Put all your orders on my tab!” “Can we get a discount, Paige?” she sneered. “My followers want to know: how many books do we have to buy to get the ‘special’ service you provide?” I told her to leave. I tried to call Brian. He wouldn’t pick up. The cousin laughed. “Not answering? Brian and my sister are doing their wedding photoshoot today. Did he forget to mention that? I guess he didn’t want a weeping mistress ruining the lighting.” My heart constricted. For the last six months, Brian had been “busy.” Late texts, sudden hang-ups. It wasn’t just work. The cousin began reading the live comments on her stream. “‘The sugar daddy dumped her, so she crashed his wedding party. How pathetic.’” “‘She looks so classy, who knew she was such trash?’ Wow, Paige, you’re trending.” She giggled, leaning in close. “Of course she’s trash. Her lady parts are probably scarred for life from all those ‘accidents.’ I bet the whole store smells like a clinic.” “‘If she were my daughter, I’d have drowned her at birth,’” she read. “Oh, her mother wouldn’t do that,” the cousin mocked. “Her mother is too busy living in that fifty-thousand-a-month private care facility Paige’s ‘services’ paid for.” I broke. I lunged forward and smashed her phone onto the pavement. But there were ten more phones recording. The cousin screamed, grabbed my hair, and slammed me into the ground. I felt her heel grind into my fingers. “You bitch!” Her friends joined in. They tore the store apart, throwing books, kicking me. I spiraled into the dark. When I woke up, I heard Brian’s voice. I saw the blur of police uniforms. “Miss, can you tell us what happened? How did you get these injuries?” an officer asked. I tried to move my bandaged hand. Everything hurt. Brian leaned over and kissed my forehead—a gesture that used to feel like love, but now felt like a cold needle. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice low and threatening. “I shouldn’t have missed the call. If your mother saw you like this, it would break her heart. She’d blame me for not protecting you.” He was using my mother to silence me. I wanted to laugh. I didn’t want to fight anymore. Even if I told the truth, they were the Montgomerys. They were untouchable. “It was a personal disagreement,” I rasped to the police. “I’m not pressing charges. We’ll settle it privately.” The police left. The tension in the room turned freezing. “You went too far, Paige,” Brian said, his voice like ice. My heart hammered. “I didn’t call the cops. I didn’t say a word. What more do you want?” Then, I heard a recording. My own voice. “Isabelle is a lying bitch! She’s the one who stole my man, she killed my baby, she deserves to die…” It wasn’t me. I had never said those things. The realization made my blood run cold. They’d faked it. “Brian, you have to know that isn’t me—” The door swung open. Isabelle walked in. “Brian, stop being so moody. You’re scaring her.” She turned to me, her face full of false pity. “I’m so sorry, Paige. My cousin is young and impulsive. She heard the things you said about me and she just lost it. She was trying to defend my honor.” She bowed her head slightly. “I’ll pay for all the damages at the store. Just name your price.” When I didn’t answer, Brian’s rage boiled over. “Paige! You were so loud on that recording, and now you’re mute? This is your last chance. Apologize to Isabelle.” I grit my teeth. “I have nothing to apologize for.” Brian let out a sharp, jagged laugh. He pulled out his phone and made a call. “Yeah. Send the crew to the back of the house. Cut down that Magnolia tree. Now.” 4 “No!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Brian, you can’t!” That tree… my sister and I had planted it together before she passed away. She had been too weak to hold the shovel, so she just cupped the soil in her hands. “This tree is me, Paige,” she’d whispered. “I’ll always be with you. You’ll see me every morning when you open the curtains.” Half of her ashes were buried beneath its roots. That tree was my only anchor. When I had been drowning in grief after her death, Brian had held me. He’d put a ring on my finger. “I’ve had this for a while, just waiting for the right moment,” he’d said then. “You still have me, Paige. I’m your family now.” He’d told me we’d get married under that tree. That our children would play on a swing set beneath its branches. I began to shake, biting my lip until I tasted blood. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I got out of bed and bowed to Isabelle. “Please… forgive me. I didn’t mean it.” Isabelle sighed, looking at Brian with disappointment. “Brian, she’s clearly suffered enough. You’re being unreasonable.” She walked out, and Brian, fueled by a strange, frantic guilt, chased after her. I collapsed back onto the bed, waiting for the vertigo to pass. I had to get out. I had to take my mother and disappear to some small town in the South where no one knew our names. But when I took a cab back to the house, I saw the industrial truck. Brian’s promises were worth nothing. The Magnolia tree was already down. The trunk was sliced, the roots exposed to the air. “No!” I lunged toward it, but it was too late. I tried to call Brian, but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t hit the numbers. A worker handed me his phone. Brian’s voice came through. “My mother talked to a fortune teller consultant. She thinks those trees are the reason for her illness. They have to go, Paige.” I started to laugh. It was a sick, hysterical sound. I retched, vomiting bile onto the dirt. Then my phone rang. It was the nursing home. “Miss, a woman claiming to be your future mother-in-law came to see your mother today. She said she was family.” “After she left, your mother… she suffered a break. She slipped out of the facility. We’ve called the police, but we can’t find her.” My head spun. I ran. When I reached the bookstore, a crowd was already there. The windows were plastered with screenshots from the cousin’s live stream. My mother was huddled in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands over her ears, chanting: “I’m not crazy. My daughter isn’t a whore. I’m not crazy…” I pushed through the crowd and grabbed her. My mother had lost her mind after my father died in a trucking accident while trying to work extra shifts to pay for my sister’s surgery. She didn’t even recognize me half the time. And now, Brian’s family had hunted her down. “The mom’s a nutcase, the daughter’s a slut. Like mother, like daughter,” someone shouted. “They shouldn’t be allowed to sell books. It’s a disgrace to the neighborhood!” I tried to shield her. I tried to pull her away. But someone grabbed my injured arm, twisting it. “Hey! You broke my phone! That’s a thousand bucks, sweetheart. How are you gonna pay?” The crowd laughed, a dark, predatory sound. Suddenly, my mother grabbed the man’s phone and bolted. She ran toward the street, a frantic, confused smile on her face. A screech of tires. The world went silent. I tried to move, but my legs gave out. As the darkness took me, I saw a pair of boots. “Paige, I’m so sorry. I’m here…”

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The world ended not with a bang, but with a slow, suffocating decay. And in the middle of it, I was kneeling on the bed, my hands buried in the thick, coarse fur of my boyfriend’s neck, trying to soothe him. My fingers glowed with a faint, pulsing blue—my “gift,” if you could call it that. I was a sponge for pain, a sensory empath who could pull the agony out of someone else and tuck it into my own marrow. Suddenly, my mind wasn’t my own. A jagged stream of text, like a hijacked social media feed, flickered across my consciousness. It was a “Stream” of comments from an audience I couldn’t see, and they were vicious. [God, she’s such a blind waste of space. How can she not tell it’s the wrong man?] [Look at her, using her “healing” as an excuse to feel him up. She’s pathetic.] [She thinks he’s a Golden Retriever shifter, but he’s a Wolf. He’s playing her for a fool.] My heart hammered against my ribs. The Stream grew louder, more frantic. [Just wait until the Real Heroine shows up. Maeve’s little pain-transfer trick is a joke. She’s just a placeholder until Raina arrives.] [She’s going to die in the Verdant Tide. Eaten by a man-eater plant. That’s what she gets for trying to steal the Main Lead.] The words hit me like a physical blow. Every strange, nagging feeling I’d suppressed over the last week suddenly crystallized. The way his scent had changed from cedar to something sharper, like ozone and rain. The way his skin felt—harder, leaner. I let go of the soft, pointed ears I had been stroking. My hands shook as I scrambled back, nearly falling off the bed. “Put your clothes on,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I faked a cough, trying to hide the tremor. “I… I think I can do this from a distance now. I don’t need to touch you. You’re going to catch a chill.” 1 The man shifted. I could hear the rustle of the sheets, the heavy, deliberate thud of his feet hitting the floor. The air in the room grew cold, thick with a sudden, sharp tension. “Maeve, what kind of nonsense are you talking now?” The sound of metal rattled—the light iron shackles I’d insisted he wear “for his own safety” while I treated his supposed internal injuries. His voice was tight, vibrating with an impatience that made my skin crawl. “You’ve been ‘checking’ me for five days,” he growled. “Five days of you crawling all over me, claiming you can’t find the source of the pain. And now you can do it from across the room? Dammit, are you playing games with me?” My breath hitched. He knew. The truth was, I’d been lying. Becket wasn’t actually hurt. But I knew Becket didn’t love me—not the way I loved him. For him, I was a responsibility, a burden he took on because of a promise. I’d faked the diagnosis just to have a reason to touch him, to feel close to someone before he inevitably realized I was a dead weight and left me behind. But the Stream… the Stream said this wasn’t Becket. It said I was being hunted by a “Main Lead” and that my obsession would be my death. In this post-apocalyptic hellscape, a blind girl with a non-combat gift is a liability. When the Shift happened, Becket had changed into a canine-shifter—strong, fast, and fiercely protective. But ten days ago, he’d become agitated, insisting on scouting for other survivors. When “he” came back that night, he was crankier, sure, but he let me touch him. He let me hold him. I thought I’d finally broken through his icy exterior. But if this wasn’t Becket… then who had I been sleeping next to for a week? “Becket?” I started, choosing my words like I was walking through a minefield. “I was just thinking… do you remember our first date? I’m having a bit of a brain fog. My memory is slipping.” The man went still. I could feel his gaze, sharp as a scalpel, tracing the line of my throat. A long silence followed. Then, a low, dark chuckle. “First your eyes go, now your brain? You’re a mess, Maeve.” He sighed, the sound heavy with something I couldn’t identify. “It was the Freshman Gala. My brother was giving the keynote speech. You were so mesmerized you almost tripped over a folding chair. I caught your hand before you hit the floor.” He paused. “That was the first time I held you.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It was him. The memory was perfect. Relief washed over me, warm and dizzying. I lunged forward, throwing my arms around him. My God, he must have been training in secret. His chest felt like a marble wall, and the heat radiating from his skin was intense. The little devil on my shoulder whispered that now was the time. “Becket,” I whispered, blushing. “Remember that outfit I bought? The one you said was too… much? Would you wear it for me? Just once?” His body turned to stone beneath my touch. The hand on my waist tightened, his fingers digging into my skin. I waited, my heart singing. Then, the chains rattled violently. He stood up abruptly, shoving me away. His voice was muffled, thick with suppressed emotion. “Enough, Maeve. Don’t push your luck just because you know I care about you. Do you even realize… forget it. Button your shirt. Come here and unlock these damn chains.” I blinked, the rejection stinging like a slap. “Oh. Okay.” I crawled toward him, my fingers fumbling with the locks. His breath was coming in ragged, shallow gasps. “I heard a noise in the bathroom,” he said, his voice rasping. “I need to check it out. Stay here. No matter what you hear, do not come in.” The moment the shackles fell away, he was gone. 2 The Stream exploded with mockery: [Hahaha, honestly, being blind is a blessing for her. She doesn’t have to see how much he hates her touch.] [Look at him! His hands were literally shaking from the effort of not punching her. He’s suffering through this for the sake of his brother.] [If he weren’t doing this as a favor to keep her safe while the brother is away, he’d have tossed her to the zombies days ago.] [Wait… why didn’t he just tell her he’s the wrong brother?] [Please, she’s a clingy idiot. If she knew the truth, she’d freak out and wouldn’t let him in. It’s the apocalypse—he needs a place to stay too.] I sat frozen on the bed. The realization hit me like ice water. This wasn’t Becket. It couldn’t be. Because the real Becket would never admit he “cared” about me. Everything felt different now. The Becket I knew complained about my cooking, calling it “slop” and eating canned rations instead. This man complained, but he finished every bowl of noodles I made and then washed the dishes. The real Becket jumped if I so much as grazed his arm. This man… he lingered. Who was he? And how did he know about the Gala? The water in the bathroom stopped running. Before I could process it, a pair of cold, powerful hands grabbed my ankles. “Stop daydreaming,” he said. “It’s time to wash your feet.” The real Becket would never wash my feet. He’d told me a thousand times he wasn’t my servant. But this man had given in after I’d asked just once. Panic, cold and sharp, flared in my chest. If he was only doing this to keep a roof over his head, then I was a hostage to his “kindness.” “No!” I shrieked, kicking out. I knocked the basin over, water splashing everywhere. I tried to bolt, but I didn’t get two steps before a thick, powerful tail—stronger than any dog’s—wrapped around my waist. He hoisted me into the air effortlessly. I dangled there, trembling. Cold water dripped from his hair onto my neck. His voice was a low vibration against my spine. “Where are you running, Maeve? You’re the one who begged me to do this.” “Come back here. Don’t make me say it twice.” The Stream flickered: [God, she’s so dramatic. He’s literally doing her a favor and she spills the water? Water is a luxury now!] [She’s a brat. She forced the younger brother into a relationship using a ‘life-saving debt,’ and now she’s bothering the older one? Low class.] 3 I realized then that if I kept acting out, I’d force him to drop the mask. And whatever was under that mask was terrifying. I forced myself to go limp. I lowered my head, projecting an image of submissive guilt. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice thick with unshed tears. “I just… I realized you were right. You aren’t my servant. I should do it myself. I’ll be better, I promise.” The air went dead silent. Even without sight, I felt his eyes boring into me, a predator watching its prey. “I’m not washing them!” I blurted out, backing away until I hit the headboard. “Water is precious. I won’t waste it. I’ll never ask again!” He watched me for a long time. Finally, without a word, he cleaned up the mess and walked out. I curled into a ball, shaking. I thought I’d escaped. But five minutes later, the door creaked open again. “Stop being difficult, Maeve.” “I put rose petals in the water this time. It’s warm. And stop with the ‘precious water’ excuse. As long as I’m here, you’ll have what you need. If you don’t soak your feet, they’ll stay cold all night, and you’ll just end up freezing me out of the bed.” Every argument died in my throat. His fingers, long and calloused, wrapped around my ankle. The temperature was perfect. The scent of roses filled the room. I forgot to fight. I let him dry my skin with a soft towel, my heart hammering a confused rhythm against my ribs. The moment he let go, I dove under the covers. I heard a faint, ghost of a chuckle before the door closed. The Stream scrolled by: [I can’t believe he actually went out and found roses. In this world? Those aren’t normal flowers—they’re all mutated predators.] [He literally got stabbed by thorns to get those for her. His arms are covered in scratches, but she’s too busy acting like a princess to notice.] [Oh no… he’s been marked by a SSS-rank Man-Eater. It tracked him back from the rose bush. He’s a dead man walking.] [Ugh, when is this girl going to die? She’s literally a death sentence for everyone around her.] 4 The scent of roses felt like a floral shroud. I gripped the sheets, my knuckles white. He had risked his life for a flower? I had been the one to ask Becket out. I was the one who bought him gifts, who asked for a single rose as a symbol of something real. Becket always told me it was pointless. You can’t even see it, Maeve. You’ll just prick your finger. It’s a waste of credits. And now, a man wearing Becket’s face had bled for them. The door opened again. A soft, warm glow permeated the room. [Wait, is that a nightlight?] [It’s a little wolf! That’s so cute, I want one.] [I was wondering why he stopped at that raided pharmacy. He stole a battery-operated nightlight?] Electricity was a memory. We lived by candlelight and scavenged batteries. But I had always been terrified of the dark. The scent of fresh blood hit my nose—the scratches the Stream mentioned. My heart softened, despite my terror. I reached out, my fingers searching for him. He flinched back instantly, as if my touch was fire. [LMAO, she thinks he wants to hold her hand. He’s disgusted.] [The nightlight isn’t for her, idiots. It’s for Raina. The Heroine is arriving tomorrow, and she’s the one who’s actually afraid of the dark. He’s just testing it out on the ‘spare’ tonight.] I pulled my hand back, my face burning. “I… I just wanted to help. I can take the pain of your scratches. I can transfer it…” “No.” His voice was like a sheet of ice. “Listen to me, Maeve. Whether I am hurt or not, you are never to use your gift on me. Do you understand? Never.” [Look at him protecting himself. He won’t even let her touch his pain. That’s a real man—saving himself for the one he actually loves.] A dull ache throbbed in my chest. I nodded silently. He set the nightlight on the bedside table and lay down beside me. “Fine,” he sighed. “Come here.” I froze. “What?” “Don’t play coy,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt with a weary sigh. “You won’t sleep until you get your ‘goodnight kiss.’ Let’s just get it over with. I’m exhausted.” My stomach did a somersault. I used to force Becket to hold me, to kiss me, because I was so desperate for a sign that I wasn’t alone in the world. But I didn’t know then that this wasn’t Becket. I scrambled backward, clutching my collar. “No! I… I’ve been thinking. I was wrong. We should have boundaries. You’re right. I shouldn’t force you.” 5 The silence was deafening. “Boundaries?” he repeated. His voice was dangerously low.

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My husband Leon is the Alpha heir of Stonehowl Pack. While I was in labor, he was on a private island with his mistress Aisling. On the third day, he finally came home to see the baby. “The kid’s pretty tough. By the way, I heard you were in so much pain during delivery you almost had a miscarriage?” “That’s because Aisling and I specifically chose the time you were giving birth to have sex.” I stared at him in disbelief as he continued. “Don’t be mad. The baby was born healthy, wasn’t he? Aisling won’t change the fact that you’re my wife.” Watching his retreating figure, I didn’t cry or make a scene. I’d already received fifty-two million dollars in compensation. I could divorce him with peace of mind now. Leon pushed his phone toward me with a restrained smile. The photo on the screen captured my shocked expression from moments ago when I’d heard how he nearly caused my miscarriage during delivery. My swollen eyes and sallow face were magnified countless times in the landscape orientation. I instinctively reached to grab his phone and delete the photo. He easily dodged away. “I finally got that candid shot. I told her I’d capture your expression when you heard this news.” “She’s been sulking for three days since you gave birth to a son and won’t let me touch her. No choice but to use you to cheer her up.” His smug expression was like a knife slowly stripping away my dignity. He talked about his affair so casually, like he was planning what to eat tomorrow. Like he’d never loved me at all. Leon and I were fated mates. We fell for each other at first sight and quickly fell in love. On our wedding day, he told all the guests he would only love me for the rest of his life. Until Aisling became his new secretary. Then he became madly infatuated with her and began betraying me again and again. The man who said he’d only love me for life ultimately broke his vows. A chime sounded. His special notification tone. Aisling saw me and looked horrified. “Why does Clara look so awful? Women really do get ugly after having babies. I never want to have children!” “I’m ordering you to always use protection with me from now on! I refuse to let my body go to hell and look all haggard!” His eyes crinkled with amusement. Gone was the anger he’d shown the first time he heard Aisling taunt that I was too plain to deserve him. “Of course. Clara’s job is having babies. As my mistress, you just need to keep me satisfied.” “Not mad anymore, right? Practice that position from last time more. In a bit, wash up and put on that transparent lingerie and wait for me!” The voice message ended. He turned off his phone, savoring the moment. Seeing my reddening eyes, he chuckled and pinched my cheek. “It is a bit loose. All right, it’s not the first time you’ve heard me flirt with her. Why be upset? She’s just a diversion. Once the novelty wears off, I’ll replace her. We have a child now. No one can shake your position. Look on the bright side.” With that, he put his hands in his pockets and left casually. He made it sound easy, but over these two years, his “novelty” never seemed to run out. The position no one could shake was an identity anyone could provoke. Ten minutes later, my phone showed a charge notification from the pharmacy. The purchased items were three boxes of strawberry-flavored ultra-thin condoms. Immediately after, he sent me a message. “The pharmacy account is almost empty. We’ve been using a lot of condoms lately. Remember to add more funds.” Looking at this nearly provocative message. I no longer felt the anger and impulse that made me storm his affair scene with righteous fury the first time I received a contraceptive purchase notification. I simply ordered five more boxes to Aisling’s address. Half an hour later, my account received two million dollars as a “reward.” The total was now exactly fifty-two million. I calmly took a screenshot of the transfer records and sent it to Leon’s father, Alpha James. “That’s enough money. Please process my divorce and find a witch to break the mate bond between Leon and me.”

The first time I received Leon’s “compensation” transfer was the first time I experienced his infidelity. I was three months pregnant then. Leon said he was busy with work and told me to do my prenatal checkup and go home alone. On my way home alone, I was attacked by Rogues. My body and mind suddenly transmitted immense pain. By the time Leon heard the news and rushed to find me, the Rogues had left. They’d beaten me until I didn’t have a single patch of unmarked skin, and I’d lost the baby. My first child was lost because of Leon’s infidelity. That night, he transferred all his assets to me and knelt before me, begging for another chance. I didn’t take it. I just told him: “From now on, transfer me two million dollars every time you wrong me. When it reaches fifty-two million, I’ll leave you completely!” He thought I was joking out of spite. I never told him that Alpha James had asked me not to divorce before Leon did. Back when Leon married me, he’d paid off tens of millions in gambling debts for my dying, gambling-addicted father. Alpha James said that when I paid back the debt money, he’d agree to our divorce. I knew he wasn’t deliberately making things difficult or demanding repayment. It was because I was Leon’s fated mate. Leon maintaining his marriage with his fated mate would consolidate his position as Alpha heir. After the first child’s accidental miscarriage, when I found out I was pregnant again, I was devastated. I didn’t want this child born into a broken family, a family where the father only cheated with mistresses. But Leon suddenly returned to family life, caring for me attentively like during our courtship, saying he wanted a family. Until my fifth month of pregnancy, while Leon was giving me a massage at home, Aisling suddenly showed up in the pouring rain. Drenched, Aisling wore only a dress. Her curvy figure was perfectly displayed by the dress clinging to her body. Aisling clung to the villa’s doorframe, looking pitiful, saying she missed Leon and accusing him of abandoning her. Leon’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He told me, “I’ll go talk to her. I’ll be right back.” But Leon never came back that night. After that, naturally, the two of them returned to their old ways and continued their affair. A message notification pulled me from my memories. Alpha James sent me a draft of the electronic divorce agreement. I breathed a sigh of relief. During my hospital nights, I’d felt physical and emotional pain again, knowing Leon was having sex with Aisling. The pain made me clutch my pillow, cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. I could only hope in my heart that Alpha James would quickly find a witch to break the mate bond between Leon and me. On discharge day, Leon came to pick us up. The nurse held the baby and a pile of infant supplies in the back seat. I sat in the passenger seat I hadn’t occupied in a long time. The seat was adjusted wide. When I reached to touch the knob, I pulled out a pair of torn pearl lace panties. “Aisling’s too wild. She wants to try it everywhere.” He raised an eyebrow at me. Expecting to see the uncontrolled madness in my eyes. But I just released my grip expressionlessly, leaving the thing where it was. He froze for a moment, then sneered. “Your composure is pretty good lately. You’ve become much more generous too. Good thing you sent those five extra boxes of condoms last time, or with how clingy she is, we wouldn’t have had enough.” “If you’d been this sensible earlier, we might’ve had a second child by now.” I didn’t respond, just closed my eyes to rest. After a while, that familiar ringtone sounded. I had an ominous feeling. Sure enough, he hit the brakes and stopped the car on a shortcut road. “You guys wait here. Aisling’s not feeling well. I’m taking her to the hospital first. I’ll come back for you soon.” He opened the car door and dumped everything by the roadside, pulling me out in two or three moves. With a whoosh, the car sped away. Meeting the nurse’s confused and angry expression, I pointed to the car turning the corner behind us. “Take that one. My father-in-law’s car.” She looked at me in surprise. I smiled. A year ago when he abandoned me halfway, I’d believed his words to wait. I’d encountered several drunk werewolves who beat people. In the end, those drunk werewolf thugs injured me. When I was sent to the hospital, he complained that I was inflexible and that the police call had disturbed him while he was comforting Aisling. After that, I avoided riding in his car whenever possible. Even when I did, I had to be prepared to be abandoned at any moment. I’d grown used to these accidents. That evening, Leon came back panting after returning to the original route and not finding us. “Why didn’t you tell me you got a cab? I went back to look for you for ages.” “I sent you a message. You didn’t see it.” He flared up immediately. “Don’t you know how to call? I thought something happened to you.” I paused, then quickly recovered. “Didn’t you say not to disturb you when you’re with Aisling?”

At my last prenatal checkup, the baby was misdiagnosed with Down syndrome. I was so scared I could barely walk. When I called him, Aisling switched to video mode. She wore a tight nurse costume, laughing seductively. “Leon says if you’re sick, get treatment. Calling him won’t help.” “We’re role-playing. We don’t have time for you.” “He also said to stop using these excuses to find him. If you like hearing sounds so much, he’ll record one for you as a prenatal lullaby.” Shortly after she hung up, Leon sent me a message. “Text me if you need anything. If I don’t reply, I’m with someone else. Stop calling to interrupt us.” He froze for a moment, looking somewhat satisfied. “You finally listened. Good, worth praising. But I really didn’t know about Kael that time. I wouldn’t have let her talk nonsense otherwise.” He pulled out two necklaces from his pocket. One pure gold necklace for our son Kael. Unfortunately, Kael cried the moment Leon touched him, as if thoroughly disgusted. Rebuffed, Leon gave me the other necklace with crushed diamonds. “Here, I was with Aisling at an auction yesterday and saw this necklace. Should look good on you.” It was true he’d gotten it at the auction. But I’d seen on Aisling’s social media yesterday that this was a free add-on gift with that two-million-dollar pink diamond. It wasn’t worth much at all. As he spoke, he moved to put the necklace around my neck. I flinched and dodged. He frowned, displeasure in his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean? I praise you twice and you’re already playing hard to get?” A trace of mockery rose in my heart. He always thought he could appease me with his occasional gestures. “You misunderstood. I’ve always been allergic to this material.” His expression stiffened. He seemed to have forgotten how he once spent tens of millions just to create a non-allergenic gold diamond ring for me. Back when I most hoped he’d change his heart, I accepted whatever he gave me, even if I was allergic, even if it was uncomfortable. As long as he showed me a pleasant face, I absolutely wouldn’t reject him. For that bit of lingering love, I made myself a complete mess. In the end, the result was what it was. After that day, he seemed to find a suitable excuse and stopped visiting us. I was happy with the peace, focusing on recovery, postpartum rehabilitation, and playing with the baby. But on social media, I could often see him riding the Ferris wheel with Aisling today. Tomorrow shooting a commercial with her. Cooking for her in the morning, accompanying her to trendy restaurants in the afternoon. Sometimes there were even rich, exciting nightlife activities in the early morning hours. People in the pack all said this was the mistress who’d stayed with him the longest. They all speculated when he’d kick me, his devoted wife, out for her. Actually, from my fifth month of pregnancy until before delivery, I’d mentioned divorce countless times, breaking the mate bond countless times. But Leon refused. He didn’t want to give up his happy family. If he’d really agree, I wouldn’t be opposed to being kicked out. The day before receiving the divorce decree was Kael’s Sip-and-See Party. Leon showed up with Aisling in a high-profile entrance. He even arranged her seat next to his. The hostess’s position. He played with Kael for a long time. Aisling leaned in, looking at the baby with him. “Hello, I’m your mother.” At those words, everyone’s expression changed. But before anyone could speak, Leon smiled at me. “Forgot to tell you, Aisling prepared a recognition gift. She’ll be Kael’s godmother from now on.” Aisling put a gold bracelet on his hand. Smiling brightly at me. “From now on, Clara and I will take care of the baby together.” Hearing her provocative statement, I smiled faintly and took Kael from their hands. “Perfect timing. A few days ago I met a witch who said Kael might face misfortune soon and needs a godmother to share his burden.” “Aisling really is a great philanthropist, solving so many problems for me. I’ll accept the gift. Thank you.” Both their faces instantly turned ugly. Aisling’s eyes reddened, her voice choked. “It’s okay. Being able to do something for Leon’s child is my good fortune. Sharing his misfortune is nothing. I’d even be willing to die.” “Someone who carries misfortune like me should leave early, so I don’t spread bad luck to everyone.” She spoke while looking at Leon pitifully and taking her bag to leave. Leon looked at me with displeasure, preparing to chase after her. Alpha James looked at him with sharp eyes. “Today is your son’s Sip-and-See Party. In front of so many people, you’re chasing after a mistress? Where does that put your family?” He paused, about to speak. I smiled at Alpha James. “Let him go. Kael is today’s main character.” He paused and sighed. “Get lost. If you bring these shameful things here again, don’t bother coming home!” Leon’s gaze was probing, as if trying to see in my eyes the same entanglement and bitterness that used to reassure him. But I had none. I withdrew my gaze. This Sip-and-See Party wasn’t too dignified, but fortunately Kael was still young and wouldn’t feel hurt. I wasn’t hurt either. Tomorrow I’d receive the divorce decree. Alpha James also said a witch could help break the mate bond tomorrow. After that, everything would be over.

Alpha James brought us to the old mansion to spend one last night with him. Kael fell asleep on the sofa. Alpha James went to get a handmade cotton blanket for him. Suddenly, the mansion’s front door banged open. Leon stormed in furiously, carrying Aisling. “Clara! I really underestimated you. Where’s that bracelet? Give it back now. Do you know Aisling had a mysterious headache this afternoon and got into a car accident on the way to the hospital?” “I thought it was too coincidental at first, until I met a witch and learned you tampered with the bracelet and cursed her! How can you be so vicious?” I sneered. “Just some offhand remarks to provoke you. You actually believed them? Where’s this witch who so conveniently let you meet them? Ask them which witch I hired to curse Aisling.” He was speechless, about to speak. Aisling sobbed and walked over to Kael. “It’s okay, maybe it really is my poor health and I just happened to encounter these things. I just want my gold bracelet back.” I stepped to block her. “I’ll return the bracelet tomorrow. Kael is already asleep. Please leave now.” Leon glared at me. “Why can’t you give it now? What else do you need it for?” I frowned, about to speak, when Leon instantly picked up the sleeping child. “What are you doing! Don’t touch him!” Aisling grabbed Kael’s arm and forcibly removed the bracelet. “Clara, this is for your own good. No matter how much you hate me, you can’t use the child. You used the gold bracelet I gave the baby to curse me. What if… what if the curse backfires on the child? What will you do then?” “Better to take it off now.” Kael was hurt and his crying made my heart clench. I rushed forward and slapped her to the ground. “What nonsense are you talking! I told you there’s nothing. Don’t you dare touch my child!” She looked at Leon tearfully. The next second, his eyes reddened. He pushed me down hard and casually tossed the baby onto the sofa. He helped Aisling up tenderly. “We’re reducing your and Kael’s karma, and look at you acting crazy!” He used too much force. My lower back hit the corner of the coffee table, and excruciating pain spread throughout my body. But what chilled my heart more was how callous he was toward his own flesh and blood. Alpha James, who’d rushed over at the sound, helped me up. He picked up Kael, whose face was red from crying. He slapped Leon across the face. “You animal! Abusing your own son for a mistress!” “You’ll regret this one day! Get out! Get out of my sight!” “She started it…” Leon’s originally dark gaze suddenly froze. He paused. “What do you mean, what ‘last’…” But before he could finish, Aisling collapsed on the ground and fainted. He instantly panicked and quickly picked her up. But as he was leaving, he suddenly looked back at me. Unease flashed in his eyes. “I’ll come back for the bracelet tomorrow. Don’t try anything!” Alpha James slammed the door shut. Early the next morning, the butler brought back the freshly stamped divorce decree. The witch also severed the mate bond between Leon and me. I didn’t disturb Alpha James. I placed the divorce decree under the gold bracelet, put it in the large box that once held the ring Leon gave me years ago. I set it in a prominent position on the coffee table. Looking at Kael in his swaddling clothes, my tone was more relaxed than ever before. “Baby, let’s start a new life together.” He suddenly broke into a smile, his eyes curved like crescent moons. In his innocent, unknowing laughter, we boarded the plane to a new world.

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On Valentine’s night, I treated a patient with a foreign object stuck in her vagina. Seeing her blushing face and anxious expression, I spoke softly to comfort her during the extraction process. But the next second, my movements suddenly froze. Because I saw something too familiar. My husband Ethan Moore’s wedding ring. Looking at the ring engraved with my initials, my eyes flew wide open, and my blood ran cold. Claire’s POV On Valentine’s night, I treated a patient with a foreign object stuck in her vagina. Seeing the young woman’s blushing face and anxious expression, I spoke softly to comfort her during the extraction process. But the next second, my movements suddenly froze. I saw something all too familiar. My husband Ethan Moore’s wedding ring. Looking at the ring engraved with my initials, my eyes flew wide open, and the blood in my veins seemed to freeze. Just then, voices of several of Ethan’s friends drifted in from outside. “Ethan! I just remembered. Your wife works at this hospital too, right? What if she runs into you?” “What are the odds? She’s just a former heiress from a falling family, and she’s been divorced before. She’s lucky Ethan even married her! I bet even if she does find out, she’ll make a fuss at most. Don’t worry about it, Ethan.” At those words, I looked up toward the man. Just an hour ago, he had texted me apologizing for not being able to spend Valentine’s Day with me. Now he stood there with a darkened expression, taking it all in without saying a single word in my defense. A ringing filled my ears, and my heart sank bit by bit along with his silence. They weren’t wrong. I had been married to someone else before. But that was for Ethan’s sake. We had been together for years and should have smoothly entered marriage. But three years ago, his father suddenly passed away. Other members of the Moore family went so far as to harm Ethan in their fight for the inheritance, causing him to fall into a coma from a severe car accident. In that critical moment, the only man with a compatible liver who agreed to donate to him made me a proposal. Marriage. “Just one year. To deal with my family pressuring me to get married. After marriage, we won’t interfere with each other’s lives.” To save Ethan, I agreed. A year later, the marriage was dissolved. When Ethan woke up, I confessed everything to him right away. Back then, he looked at me with reddened eyes and said, “I don’t mind. My Claire suffered because of me. I’ll make it up to you from now on.” And he kept his word. After reclaiming the company, he not only married me in a high-profile ceremony but also spent an enormous sum to give me a lavish wedding that caught the world’s attention. I thought our love had finally reached its happy ending. I never imagined that his claim of “not minding” was a lie. Deep down, he had always cared that I’d been married once before. Suddenly, the examination room door was pushed open. I looked up into that face I’d loved for so many years. Seeing me, Ethan’s anxious expression froze. Then he noticed the ring on the tray beside me, and his gaze shifted away. “So you know everything?” Before I could answer, the curtain behind me was pulled back, instantly drawing Ethan’s attention. He brushed past my shoulder and strode forward, his tone full of concern. “Rachel, are you okay?” The girl named Rachel Connors shook her head shyly. “Ethan, I’m fine. It’s just… down there still hurts a little.” At that, Ethan’s expression grew tense. He turned to look at me suspiciously, his voice ice-cold. “I know you’re angry, but take it out on me. You’re a doctor. You shouldn’t and can’t make things difficult for Rachel.” I froze, barely able to believe what I was hearing. He had not only cheated and betrayed our marriage and our relationship, but now he was also insulting the profession I took such pride in! Ignoring the hurt written all over my face, Ethan offered no explanation or apology. He wrapped his arm around Rachel and strode out. I took leave and returned home, staring at the wedding photos hanging on the wall that once represented happiness. Now they felt piercing. I still remembered how joyful Ethan had looked at our wedding. He had held me tight, his voice choked with emotion. “Claire, marrying you has been my dream since I was sixteen. And now it’s finally come true.” At that memory, tears had already blurred my vision. I wiped them away and let out a bitter laugh. Everything. It could never go back. I sent a photo of our marriage certificate to my lawyer and asked him to prepare divorce papers. The message was sent, and I quickly received a reply. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore. I can’t process your divorce. The marriage certificate you have is fake.”

Claire’s POV “What did you say? The marriage certificate is fake? How is that possible?!” I thought it was absurd, but the lawyer’s next message made my face go deathly pale. “Since you were referred by a friend, I’ll tell you this. The Mr. Moore you mentioned is indeed legally married. But the registration date wasn’t two years ago. It was one week ago. And the spouse listed isn’t Claire, it’s someone named Rachel Connors.” Crash! Those two sentences hit me like a sledgehammer. My hand holding the phone began to tremble. For two whole years, my marriage had been nothing but a lie. From the very beginning, Ethan had never truly married me. He had even registered his marriage with another woman just days ago. I didn’t know how much time had passed when the sound of the door lock turning snapped me out of my chaotic thoughts. Ethan was home. Seeing me sitting on the sofa in a daze, he took off his coat, sat down beside me, and spoke. “It’s so late. Why aren’t you asleep yet?” When I didn’t respond, his tone softened. “What, still upset?” “Honey, men like novelty sometimes. You have to allow me to make mistakes.” “Mistakes?” I repeated with bitter self-mockery. “How could you be wrong?” He was with his legal wife. How could that be wrong? Ethan assumed I was just throwing a tantrum. He continued. “Alright, honey. Yes, I really like Rachel right now. But I promise her presence won’t affect your position. After all, you’re my wife. That will never change. I promise.” I looked up at him in disbelief. “Wife.” “My position.” How ironic those words sounded! He’d been lying to me for two whole years. And even now, he was still lying! I shook off Ethan’s hand and went to sleep in the guest bedroom alone. As I lay in bed thinking about where I should go after this relationship ended, the door opened without me noticing. Ethan, breathing heavily, wrapped his arm around my waist. I jumped in fright. “What are you doing?! Don’t touch me!” But no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t escape being pinned to the bed. I was nearly exhausted when I saw something in the trash can by the bed. A used condom! We had never stayed in this guest room. The only possibility was that Ethan had used it with someone else. I felt all the blood in my body rush to my head. Rage gave me the strength to break free from his grip. “Get off me!” Ethan seemed surprised when I pushed him away, as if he hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. His brow furrowed, and a flash of impatience crossed his eyes. “What’s wrong with you now? Stop making a scene.” My eyes turned red, and my voice cracked with emotion. “I’ve been with you since I was seventeen, Ethan. You didn’t just betray me. You brought her into our home. How can you be so disgusting?” Ethan paused, then actually sneered and pointed at himself. “Claire, you’re calling me disgusting?” He looked down at me and spoke words that stabbed into my heart like knives. “You think you’re not disgusting?” “When I was in a coma, you climbed into another man’s bed and stayed there for a year. Claire, what right do you have to call me disgusting?” As he spoke, he pressed my face into the mattress as if venting his anger, so hard that my vision went black. “Don’t move.” His voice was low and hoarse, laced with impatience. The moment he finished speaking, he roughly tore open my nightgown and thrust himself inside me. I had no strength left to struggle. I could only close my eyes and endure this prolonged assault, letting tears slide down from the corners of my eyes. After several muffled grunts from the man, the obscene sounds stopped along with his violent movements. After releasing, Ethan let out a long breath. Looking down at me curled up on the bed, he seemed to soften a bit. “Honey, you were married to another man for a year, so I’m just playing around for a year too. That’s fair, isn’t it? After a year, I’ll come back to the family. We’ll live well together after that.” He pulled out and left to wash up, leaving me lying on the bed with dead eyes, the parts of my body he’d treated roughly aching faintly. But nothing compared to the pain in my chest. I stared toward the doorway and forced my lips into a bitter smile. “But Ethan, there can never be an ‘after’ for us anymore.” I got up and called the hospital director. “The overseas training program. If I agree to participate now, is it too late?” I received an affirmative answer from the other end. “Good. I’ll be ready to leave in one week.”

Claire’s POV This training program would keep me abroad for three full years, so early the next morning, I began preparations for my departure. I first went out to handle my visa, then returned to the hospital to process my transfer paperwork. But as soon as I arrived at the hospital, a colleague called me over, saying a patient had come for a follow-up and specifically requested me. I quickly changed and rushed to the department, only to discover that the patient who’d requested me was Rachel Connors. In the examination room, I forced down the churning emotions inside and tried my best to treat Rachel as just an ordinary patient. But Rachel wasn’t about to let me off that easily. After the examination, she spoke up. “Dr. Anderson, my body… it’s okay, right?” “Nothing serious. Just some swelling. Just avoid sex for the next few days.” Seeing my calm demeanor, a flash of surprise and unwillingness crossed Rachel’s eyes. “How can that work? My husband has a very high sex drive. Last night we even had a video call and…” She trailed off as if embarrassed. “But I was considerate enough to suggest he find another woman.” My hand froze as I removed my gloves. Thinking of what happened last night, disgust and humiliation swept through my entire body. “Dr. Anderson, are you alright? You look so pale.” Rachel’s words seemed concerned, but her eyes couldn’t hide her smugness. “I’m fine. If there’s nothing else, you can leave now.” I gripped the edge of the desk to steady myself as I issued the dismissal, but Rachel acted as if she hadn’t heard. She walked over to me, dropping the innocent and shy act she put on in front of Ethan. Her expression turned provocative as she spoke in a voice only the two of us could hear. “Dr. Anderson, do you know what Ethan says about you when he’s with me? He says every time he thinks about you being married to someone else, he feels disgusted. He also said you’re nothing but trash.” The malice in her words was obvious. My eyes widened and my pupils contracted sharply. Just as Rachel thought she’d achieved her goal and turned to leave, I spoke. “If he finds me so repulsive and likes you so much, why haven’t you made him kick me out? Is it that you don’t want to?” Rachel choked on those words. The smug smile on her lips instantly froze, and her expression turned ugly. “Don’t get too proud! I’ll replace you sooner or later. Just you wait!” I didn’t respond. Rachel slammed the door and stormed out. After finishing the paperwork and handing over my duties, the sky had already darkened. I stood by the hospital window, hesitating for a long time before finally dialing a number I hadn’t contacted in ages. “Claire? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” On the other end, my father’s voice sounded clearly surprised. “Dad, I just wanted to let you know I’m about to move to another city for work. I probably won’t be able to come home for the holidays.” “Why so sudden?” My father’s tone held a note of probing. “Ethan… is he going with you?” Hearing that name, I fell silent for a moment. “No. Just me. We’re… not husband and wife anymore.” We should never have been, actually. Silence stretched on the other end of the line. After a long pause, he simply responded, “Alright.” After hanging up, I stood there for a while. I remembered how my father used to love me when I was little. But after my mother passed away and his company went bankrupt due to poor management, and after he started a new family, we grew more and more distant. That’s why, from my teens onward, I learned to take care of myself. Later, when I met Ethan, I clung to him like a drowning person grasping at driftwood, loving him and giving everything for him. At that thought, I let out a self-mocking smile and got up to gather my things. But when I pushed open the door to my home, I unexpectedly heard Rachel’s voice inside. Ethan didn’t even bother pretending anymore. Seeing me return, he actually smiled and asked. “The girl was curious about where I live, so I’m letting her stay for a few days. You… don’t mind, right?”

Claire’s POV I stood in the entryway, looking at the man I thought I could rely on for a lifetime, and at this “home” I believed would shelter me forever. Suddenly, I laughed. “Of course I don’t mind.” I was leaving soon anyway. After that, whoever he wanted to bring home would have nothing to do with me. Hearing such an answer, Ethan froze, his expression blank for a moment. He probably expected me to fight, to scream, to break down crying. Not to agree so easily. Ignoring his searching gaze, I walked straight toward the bedroom and began packing. When my suitcase was filled, Ethan suddenly walked in. Seeing my luggage, his brow furrowed. “Honey, what are you doing?” “Packing.” I didn’t look back, my tone flat. “Creating space for you two.” Ethan’s expression darkened further. He slammed his hand down on my suitcase. “Can you stop making a scene? Besides staying with me, where else can you even go?” My movements stilled. My voice grew even colder. “That’s none of your business.” Ethan laughed in anger. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he released the suitcase, his tone taking on a confident edge. “Fine. You want to leave, right? Then what about this? Are you going to leave it behind too?” He pulled out a pendant from around his neck. My gaze fell on it, and I froze completely. It was the pendant my mother left me before she died. I’d given it to Ethan the year of his accident. I’d hoped the pendant would accompany him in my place. But now it was being used to threaten me. “Give it back.” Seeing me finally react, Ethan’s lips curved slightly. “I can. But you’re not a child anymore. Running away from home is too immature, don’t you think?” I stood there pressing my lips together, my nails digging deep into my palms. Ethan assumed I’d agreed to stay. His expression softened slightly as he walked out. Over the next few days, I watched with my own eyes how intimate Ethan was with Rachel. The meals he once swore he’d only cook for me in this lifetime were now made daily to make Rachel happy. The sweet words I’d heard in our youth were now spoken word-for-word to another woman. They kissed and embraced right in front of me without restraint. At night, I was forced to listen to the sounds of them having sex. Just one wall away, I buried myself under the covers, but it still couldn’t block out those gasps and moans piercing my eardrums like red-hot needles. Every minute, every second of this life was torture for me. But Ethan wouldn’t let me leave. Even that night, after they finished, he came to my door in his robe, his face full of satisfaction, and knocked. “Rachel wants foie gras. You make it well. Get up and cook it for her.” I was about to refuse when I saw the pendant hanging around his neck. The words stuck in my throat. “Fine.” I got up and went to the kitchen. After preparing the foie gras, I turned to head back upstairs. I hadn’t even fallen asleep when my door was kicked open. Ethan was furious. He grabbed me by the throat and yanked me out of bed. “You put something in the foie gras, didn’t you? Otherwise why would Rachel keep throwing up?!” I instinctively shook my head in denial, which only made him angrier. “Still won’t admit it? If not you, then who?! You’re a doctor, and you’d poison someone out of jealousy. Get up right now. You’re coming with us to the hospital.” His voice roared as he dragged me outside without care. Even when my shin slammed into a cabinet and opened a bloody gash, he didn’t spare me a glance. In the hospital corridor, I sat on a bench in my nightgown, barefoot. The blood from my wound had dried, but still the two of them hadn’t emerged. I could only walk to the hospital room door to hear the results, but instead I saw Ethan, who’d been full of rage just moments ago, now wearing a completely different expression. He held Rachel’s hand, his face showing undisguised joy. “That’s wonderful, Rachel. You’re carrying my child. I promise he’ll be my only heir.” Rachel’s eyes flashed with wild delight, though she tried hard to hide it. “But when Dr. Anderson was pregnant, you arranged for her to have an accident and miscarry. I thought you didn’t like children.” Ethan’s smile remained warm, but his words struck me like icicles, leaving me frozen to the bone. I watched the man I’d loved for ten years speak the cruelest words in that familiar voice. “How can she compare to you? Only you are worthy of bearing my child.”

Claire’s POV I stood outside the hospital room door, my face deathly pale at those words. So the child I couldn’t keep wasn’t an accident after all. That was half a year ago. I’d looked at the two lines on the pregnancy test with pure joy, thinking we were finally welcoming the fruit of our love. But then the maid knocked me down the stairs. When I woke up, Ethan looked at me with regret and told me the baby couldn’t be saved. I grieved for so long, crying every day. It was Ethan who held me through the nights, softly comforting me. He said, “Don’t cry, honey. We’ll have more children in the future.” But I still felt it was my own carelessness that cost us the baby. I’d felt guilty about it ever since. It turned out everything was arranged by him. Simply because he thought I wasn’t worthy of bearing his child… But I’d told him that the one-year marriage was only on paper. I never lived with that man. He said he believed me. He knew better than anyone how desperately I longed for a family. Thinking of my pain back then, and Ethan’s false tears. I suddenly felt nauseated. I covered my mouth and staggered into the restroom, collapsing over the toilet and dry heaving. Nothing came up. Just my stomach convulsing and tears streaming down my face. The sound drew the two people out of the hospital room. Ethan stood in the doorway. Seeing my state, he froze for a moment. “What’s wrong?” He was about to step forward to help me when a scream suddenly came from behind him. Rachel ran off crying. Ethan immediately withdrew his hand and chased after her. By the time I left the hospital, it was already deep into the night. The night wind blew against me, making me ice-cold all over. I hadn’t walked more than a few steps when a dull thud rang out. Pain shot through the back of my head and I instantly lost consciousness. When I came to, I found myself inside a burlap sack. My limbs were bound and my mouth was sealed with tape so I couldn’t speak. Suddenly someone viciously kicked my stomach. The pain made cold sweat instantly break out on my forehead. But the beating was far from over. Several people began savagely punching and kicking me. I had nowhere to hide. I could only curl up helplessly on the ground and endure it all. It wasn’t until the inside of my cheek was bitten through and bleeding, and my insides felt like they’d been ground to pieces, that the violence finally stopped. The thugs’ words sounded like they were talking to someone. “She took such a heavy beating and there’s no bleeding from down there. Looks like she really isn’t pregnant.” After a few seconds of silence, a familiar voice drilled clearly into my ears. It was Ethan. “Did you hear that, Rachel? Now you can relax.” Rachel answered obediently, “Mm-hmm. You’re so good to me, Ethan.” The two of them walked away laughing. The surroundings fell silent. I lay on the cold ground, tears and blood mixing together and falling. But suddenly I let out a low laugh. That teenage boy who once said he’d protect me forever when I confessed. That lover whose eyes would redden with heartache if I even frowned. That man I’d loved for ten years. He died three years ago. … After barely enduring that wave of severe pain, I struggled to untie the ropes. But even after my wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding, I still couldn’t get the ropes loose. Just then, Ethan rushed over. He undid my restraints in a few moves and said urgently, “I just found out you were kidnapped and came to rescue you right away. Honey, are you okay?” I forced a smile at him, but didn’t have the strength to expose his lies. Seeing me like this, Ethan suddenly grew flustered. He quickly looked away from my gaze. “Alright, it’s over now. I’m taking you home.” Perhaps out of guilt, he stayed in my room for the next two days, feeding me medicine and bringing me water. Until the third day, when Rachel insisted he accompany her on a trip. Ethan looked conflicted, but I said understandingly. “I’m fine. You two go.” He paused. “You mean it? I knew you were the most considerate. Rest well at home while you recover. I’ll be back soon.” After seeing him off, I put on the pendant I’d secretly taken from him when he wasn’t paying attention. I made up an excuse to send the housekeeper away, then threw off the covers and got out of bed. The training program’s departure time was this afternoon. I couldn’t be late. After packing my documents and essentials, I dragged my body to the door with difficulty. The moment I gripped the doorknob, I breathed a sigh of relief. All of this was finally ending. I took one last look at this home, then reached out and turned the knob. Clang! My suitcase fell to the floor. I stared straight ahead, my eyes trembling violently, all color draining from my face. Outside the door stood a crowd of people! At the front, Ethan wore a black suit, his expression twisted. “Claire, you didn’t actually think you could leave me, did you?”

Claire’s POV He walked up to me and gripped my chin, forcing me to lift my head. His voice was ice-cold. “You actually wanted to leave me. How dare you? If your father hadn’t told me in time, you really would’ve gotten away.” I froze completely. The news of my departure. My own father had told Ethan?! Just then, my father’s figure emerged from the back of the crowd, his expression a mixture of flattery and guilt. “Claire,” he began, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m doing this for your own good. Instead of living well with Ethan, what are you throwing a tantrum for?” “Just think about it. You’re a woman who’s been divorced. What else can you do? Ethan is so capable. He can take care of you, take care of us. What more could you want?” I closed my eyes in utter disappointment. I understood everything now. In the past, to pave the way for his son, my father had come to me more than once asking me to appeal to Ethan. Now it seemed he’d achieved his goal. Even if the price was selling out his own daughter. “Dad… he lied to me… betrayed me, threw away years of our relationship, even brought another woman into our home… hurt and humiliated me at will. And you think I’m ungrateful?” My throat felt like it was choked with razor blades. Those two short sentences left my heart unbearably bitter. Seeing my grief, my father turned his face away as if unable to bear it. Ethan’s brow furrowed too. Finally, a phone ringtone broke the deadlock. It was Rachel calling to hurry him along. That brought Ethan back to his senses. “I have to go. Rachel’s waiting for me. Anyway, you should calm down first. We’ll talk about whatever it is when I get back.” For some reason, his eyes looked somewhat panicked. He gestured to the bodyguards to confiscate my bag and phone. “I’ll keep these for you to prevent you from running around.” Ethan turned and walked out, then suddenly paused. “Oh, right,” he said as if remembering something. “I already handled your resignation at the hospital. You won’t have to work so hard anymore. Just rest well at home from now on.” My head snapped up. “No, you can’t do this… You have no right to make decisions for me.” Hearing that only made him walk faster. Everyone assumed he was rushing off to meet his mistress. After Ethan left, my father quickly ran off too. A bodyguard opened the villa door. “Please, Mrs. Moore.” I looked at this house that once held my happiness, then witnessed all my suffering. The thought of being imprisoned here made it impossible to breathe. But now I had no documents, no phone, no money. I couldn’t go anywhere. I walked through the door in despair, only to be pinned to the sofa by two bodyguards the moment the door closed. “What are you doing? Let me go!” But my struggles and shouts. They ignored everything. When I scratched one of their faces, he actually slapped me hard. Smack! The blow sent my face to the side, my vision going dark in waves. Just then, I heard their conversation. “Miss Connors only told us to film her. Hitting her isn’t good, right?” The one who’d struck me sneered. “What are you afraid of? Miss Connors said once Mr. Moore sees the video, he’ll definitely never be with her again. By that time, do you think anyone will speak up for her?” After hearing that, the previously worried man laughed. “You’re right. Let’s have some fun with her tonight.” He busied himself setting up the camera while the other started undressing. I seized the chance and jumped up, running out desperately. My clothes were disheveled. I didn’t dare look back, afraid danger would catch me at any moment. I could only run forward with all my might. Just when I was most desperate, a car suddenly pulled up and stopped in front of me. The rear window rolled down. I saw a familiar face and was filled with immense surprise. Adrian Sinclair. The man I’d once had a brief marriage with. My ex-husband.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “386752”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster