Category: English

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” The chants at the party echoed through the crowded bar, loud and relentless. I stood at the edge of the crowd, quietly watching my wife of three years, Kylie. She giggled, took a mouthful of whiskey, and leaned in close to her male friend, Robertson. Moving her lips to his, she slowly poured the alcohol directly into his mouth. Once the drink was transferred, Robertson wrapped his arm around her waist. He gave her cheek a playful, teasing pinch. “Aren’t you afraid of being allergic to my spit?” Kylie patted his hand away, her eyes crinkling into beautiful crescents as she spoke in a sweet, whiny tone. “Why would I be? I’d never be allergic to yours.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and pulled him into a deep, ten-second French kiss. My mind went completely blank. In that instant, my mind flashed back to our wedding three years ago. I had merely brushed my lips against hers at the altar, and she had immediately gone into anaphylactic shock. She was rushed straight to the ICU. The doctors told me she had a severe saliva allergy. Even the slightest contact with someone else’s spit could be fatal. Since then, during every single intimate moment, she forced me to wear a sealed silicone mask. She wouldn’t even let my lips touch a millimeter of her skin. Because of her “condition,” rumors spread like wildfire in our social circles that I had chronic bad breath or some kind of contagious stomach bacteria. They said I was the one who forced Kylie to live like a nun. To protect her self-esteem, I silently took the blame. I endured the whispers and mocking glances for three whole years. But right now, looking at her smudged lipstick, I finally got it. She wasn’t allergic to saliva. She was only allergic to me.

If I hadn’t happened to walk into that exact bar tonight, I would have never known. I would have never seen Kylie—who told me she was working late at the office—holding alcohol in her mouth and feeding it to Robertson without a single shred of hesitation. After she finished feeding him the whiskey, the crowd around them went wild. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” And Kylie actually did it. Egged on by the crowd, she pressed her lips against his. She closed her eyes, tilting her head to change angles several times. She even leaned in deeper, completely lost in the moment. I stood there, frozen. At our wedding, when our guests chanted for us to kiss, she had flatly refused, using her deadly saliva allergy as the perfect excuse. I clenched my fists and started walking toward them. But after only a few steps, I lost my footing and crashed straight into the bar counter. Glasses shattered, sending a loud clatter through the room. Instantly, every eye in the bar turned to me. The kissing couple stopped. Robertson, looking like a smug winner, raised an eyebrow. He walked over and stretched out a hand, pretending to help me up. “Well, if it isn’t Howard? What’s wrong, buddy? Can’t even walk straight?” I slapped his hand away. “Get out of my face!” Robertson shrugged, putting on a perfectly innocent act. “Hey, don’t be mad. We were just playing a game. You know Kylie and I have been like this since we were kids…” I swung my fist at his face. But before my punch could land, Kylie threw herself in front of Robertson, completely ignoring how humiliating this was for me. “This is a private party with all our friends. Have you thrown enough of a tantrum? Get the hell home right now!” I let out a cold, humorless laugh. I walked straight past them, took a seat right in the middle of her friend group, and sat down. “A gathering of friends? As your husband, don’t I deserve a seat at the table?” A heavy silence fell over the group. The two people sitting closest to me instinctively slid their chairs a few inches away. “You have chronic bad breath and H. pylori bacteria, and yet you still have the nerve to crash our game? Aren’t you afraid of infecting all of us?” The guy sitting next to Robertson spoke up, his voice dripping with righteous indignation. The others exchanged awkward glances. I looked at Kylie. She was sitting right next to Robertson, smiling and nodding along with the insult. Because Kylie had refused to let me touch her all these years, the rumors about my “disgusting bacteria” and “terrible breath” had run rampant. To save her face, I had never once defended myself. And now, a secret so private was being thrown in my face as a joke by her friends to mock me. And she just sat there, refusing to say a single word in my defense. I pulled out my phone, opened my medical app, and flashed my latest digital health report. “Take a good look. I don’t have any bacteria, and my breath is perfectly fine. So, I’m joining the next round.” Kylie stood up, trying to snatch my phone. “Stop it, Howard! Why are you being so childish?” “Oh? And what about your saliva allergy, Kylie? Seems like you can kiss whenever you want now!” Dozens of curious, gossiping eyes instantly locked onto us. Kylie’s ears turned bright red. She grabbed my arm, trying to force me to shut up. I shook her hand off. This time, she didn’t try to stop me from joining the game. I grabbed the dice cup and shook it violently. When I lifted it, I revealed the highest possible roll. Everyone stared in utter shock. Including Kylie. She rarely brought me to her social gatherings. She had no idea how good I actually was at these bar games. “I win,” I said coldly. Robertson, who had been looking smug next to Kylie just a second ago, was now frozen like a statue. “Robertson, since you love mouth-to-mouth so much, why don’t you give Hillary a kiss?” The rule of the game was simple: the winner could choose anyone at the table for a Dare. Robertson couldn’t back out, but his face turned incredibly sour. Kylie had told me before that Hillary had been chasing Robertson for years. This dare should have been a favor to her. But Kylie immediately spoke up to defend him. “Babe, come on. Robertson is shy. Let’s just skip this round, okay?” I felt my chest tighten, my voice turning incredibly cold. “You play, you pay. Why is it okay for Robertson to kiss my wife, but he can’t kiss anyone else?” Robertson clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. “It’s just a game, Howard. Don’t make things difficult for Robertson,” Kylie pleaded, throwing me under the bus just to protect his feelings. My stomach started to churn with a sickening pain, but I refused to lose my ground. “He’s the one with bad luck. Why is that my fault?” Unable to take it anymore, Robertson stood up and stormed out of the bar in a rage. Kylie stood up immediately. She threw a freezing glare at me. “Are you happy now?” With that, she ran out after him. The party fell apart because of me. Strangely, I didn’t feel like a winner at all. I only felt a deep, crushing exhaustion. I slowly stood up, the pain in my stomach growing sharper by the second. By the time I stumbled into the restroom, I was vomiting nothing but burning, sour bile.

I don’t even remember how I got to the hospital. When I finally opened my eyes, a doctor was already standing over my bed, his voice urgent. “Mr. Vance, you have severe gastrointestinal bleeding. It’s an emergency. We need your family to sign the consent forms for surgery immediately!” I didn’t want to call Kylie. “Doctor… can’t I just sign it myself?” The doctor shook his head. “You are in critical condition. You cannot make these medical decisions alone.” I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and dialed Kylie’s number. The first few times, the call went through but was left unanswered. After that, her phone was turned off completely. “What’s taking so long? Where is your family?” the nurse urged. I silently dialed her number over and over again. The irony was unbearable. While Kylie was ignoring my life-or-death calls, she had just posted an update on Instagram. The caption read: “Best friends for life! ” The picture showed the back of her and Robertson, clinking glasses at a cozy lounge. I slowly lowered my phone and closed my eyes. A few minutes later, Robertson sent me a Snapchat video. In the video, on the bed I swept and made every single day, messy clothes were scattered all over the floor. Kylie and Robertson were snuggled up together under the same blanket. To top it off, Robertson sent a text: “Hey Howard, is there something urgent? Kylie is exhausted. She’s already asleep.” I stared at the ceiling for a long time. “We can’t wait any longer. The bleeding is getting worse. Where is your wife?” the nurse pressed anxiously. I shook my head. “No one is coming. My wife… she can’t make it.” Hearing this, the nurse’s annoyed expression instantly softened into shock and deep pity. In the end, I signed the consent form myself and was wheeled into the operating room alone. I had no idea how long the surgery took. But the moment I regained consciousness, my phone was buzzing non-stop. I checked. It was Kylie. Instead of calling her back, I blocked her number on every single app. During my five days in the hospital, my bedside remained completely empty. The nurse, unable to watch me suffer alone, helped me hire a private caregiver. While tending to me, the caregiver gently asked, “Where is your family, dear?” I stared blankly out the window. “They’re not here. It’s a long flight, and they’re getting old. I didn’t want to worry them.” The caregiver patted my hand gently, saying nothing. Suddenly, I missed home. My fingers hovered over my phone, and I accidentally dialed my father’s number. The moment I realized what I had done, I hung up in a panic. He was probably buried in work, trying to rebuild his business. I couldn’t let him see me in this pathetic state. A moment later, my father called back. I swallowed my tears and let the phone ring until it went silent. The day I was discharged, I rushed straight back to our apartment to pack my bags and leave. But to my surprise, I ran into Robertson.

When I opened the door, Robertson was sitting comfortably in my favorite spot on the couch, eating popcorn and spilling it all over the floor. He wasn’t even surprised to see me. He casually gestured for me to sit down, as if he were the master of this house. I kicked his shoes out of the doorway and walked straight past him into the bedroom. But he followed me in. “Haven’t seen Kylie in a few days. Are you throwin’ a tantrum?” Treating him like air, I opened the closet. That was when I realized how little of my stuff was actually left in this house. “Don’t worry, Kylie is doing great at my place. Honestly, she doesn’t really want to come back here anyway.” I still ignored him, silently packing my suitcase. Seeing my silence, he lost his cool. He stepped right in front of me, blocking my path. “Kylie loves me, Howard. Just face it and get out.” I honestly couldn’t comprehend this man. One minute he was claiming they were “just friends,” and the next he was demanding I step aside. I stopped packing and looked him dead in the eye. “Are you done?” He blinked, taken aback. “If you’re done, get out. I need to pack.” Robertson’s face twisted in anger, his voice turning sharp and nasty. “Damn, Howard. You really are a pathetic coward, aren’t you? Your wife is sleeping with another man, and all you can do is pack your bags?” BANG! I slammed my fist against the closet door right next to his head. The heavy wood let out a deafening boom. Robertson gasped, stumbling back two steps in terror. “You’re right. I can’t take it anymore,” I said, my face completely expressionless. “But even if I leave, it doesn’t mean a piece of trash like you gets to act tough in front of me.” Right then, I heard the sound of keys jingling at the front door. Kylie walked in. The second she saw a pale Robertson standing by the bedroom door, she didn’t even ask what happened. She immediately started lecturing me. “What is wrong with you, Howard? You block my number, you don’t come home for days…” “Robertson was worried about you! He’s been waiting here for days just to make sure you’re okay, and you decide to bully him the second you get back?” “I’m bullying him?” I laughed, completely exhausted. I didn’t even want to explain. “Fine. Since you love him so much, go live with him!” At that moment, Robertson started playing the victim again. “Kylie, maybe I shouldn’t be here. I’m just making Howard uncomfortable. He hates me anyway. I’ll just leave…” “Look at you, Howard. We’ve been friends for so many years, and you’re still acting so childish,” Kylie said, grabbing Robertson’s hand before turning to glare at me. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Robertson and I are just best friends. If we wanted to be together, we would have done it long before you came along!” She always used that line. But whenever Robertson snapped his fingers, she would drop everything and run to him. On our engagement day, Robertson had just returned to the country. One phone call from him, and Kylie abandoned our families at the restaurant to pick him up from the airport. On our wedding day, Robertson couldn’t stand seeing us get married, so he threw a tantrum and went missing. Kylie literally paused the ceremony, demanding everyone search the venue just to find him. And now, it was the exact same thing.

“Kylie, since you think I’m not as important as him, let’s get a divorce.” “What did you say?” Her voice was filled with disbelief, laced with a mocking laugh. “Sign the papers. Let’s divorce. Since you feel so free with Robertson, you can finally be with him legally.” I pulled out the divorce papers I had drafted while lying in the hospital bed. “Howard, stop playing games. Robertson could never replace you!” Seeing that I wasn’t backing down, she let out a cold sneer. “Do you really think you can just divorce me, Howard? Have you forgotten what your father told you?” She actually had the nerve to bring up my father! Five years ago, if my father’s company hadn’t been targeted by a massive corporate rival, Kylie would have never received his $5 million seed funding. Without that money, Kylie’s startup would have crashed and burned. She would never have achieved the success she has today. Back then, with her status, she would have never been able to marry into my family. My father had made Kylie promise to take me away from our hometown to protect me, telling me not to come back unless the storm cleared. So for five years, no matter how hard things got, I never went back. I stayed quietly by Kylie’s side, playing the role of a perfect, obedient husband. She knew exactly why I was staying, and she used it to walk all over me. Seeing that I didn’t respond, Kylie smirked, feeling victorious. “Besides, even if you don’t care about yourself, think about your dad. He’s getting old. Can his heart take the stress of you running back like a failure?” With a slow, deliberate movement, she tore my divorce papers into shreds. “So, forget about a divorce. Just be a good husband and keep quiet, okay?” “Sure,” I said quietly, looking past her at Robertson. Robertson’s face was incredibly sour. He had realized that Kylie was refusing to divorce me, which meant he was still just the sidepiece. He immediately threw another silent tantrum, and Kylie quickly left my side to comfort him. I silently swept up the torn pieces of paper and threw them into the trash. I knew Kylie too well. She would never willingly sign those papers. So, I stopped arguing with her. She thought I had finally submitted to her will, and she lowered her guard. A few days later, while she was away on a business trip, I held my phone for a long time before finally dialing my father’s number. “Dad… I want to come home.” In that single moment, all the pain and exhaustion I had bottled up for years finally overflowed. I didn’t tell him what happened. He was silent for a few seconds, then said softly, “I’ll have a car waiting for you at the airport.” I took one last look at the city I had lived in for five years, and walked through the boarding gate.

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I had just stepped out of a grueling six-hour surgery when a text from my girlfriend, Catherine, popped up on my screen. She wanted to go out for a proper, candlelit date. I immediately headed to the chief’s office to request a shift swap. But just as I pulled off my scrubs, my phone rang. The caller ID was a string of scrambled, unrecognizable digits. I picked up, only to hear a desperate, breathless voice on the other end. “I’m on death row, Jared. They’re executing me today. The person who framed me is Catherine!” “Dustin screwed up. He tried to show off during a coronary bypass and lacerated the patient’s heart. The family is incredibly powerful—political royalty. Catherine was terrified he’d go down for it, so she lured you there to take the fall!” “She has everything ready—the OR logs, a forged suicide note, even a scalpel with your prints on it. The moment you walk into OR 5, the police will arrest you. You’ll be convicted, and the family’s retaliation will destroy Mom and Dad. They’ll die because of this!” Hearing the raw, blood-curdling panic in my own voice made my chest tighten. My hand began to shake. I hung up and immediately cancelled my shift swap request, but a cold, gnawing dread lingered in my gut. Right then, a sudden commotion erupted in the hospital lobby. A man was screaming, brandishing a blade, charging right at one of our nurses. Watching him lunging with the knife, I didn’t think. I grabbed a heavy red fire extinguisher from the wall and slammed it into the back of his head. By the time the police escorted me out of the building for questioning, my phone was blowing up with frantic, impatient texts from Catherine. I stared at the screen and let out a cold, sharp laugh. I wanted to see how she planned to frame me for a shredded heart when I was sitting locked inside a police interrogation room. 1 “You’re telling me you’re me from the future, and I’m about to face a firing squad? Stop messing with me…” I scoffed into the receiver, unable to mask my disbelief. Who was he kidding? I’d been a law-abiding citizen my entire life. How could I ever end up on death row like some hardened, violent sociopath? I was just about to press ‘end call’ when the voice spoke again, dropping a detail that turned my blood to ice. “When you were fifteen, you had a massive crush on a girl from the swim team. You finally built up the courage to write her a three-page love letter. Then, at a family Thanksgiving dinner, you realized she was your second cousin.” “You were so mortified you wanted to swallow a handful of glass. It scarred you so badly you couldn’t even look at a beautiful woman without sweating. That’s why you remained single until you were twenty-eight.” My brain went completely blank. A loud, rushing sound filled my ears. He was right. Every single word. It was a humiliating secret I had never breathed to a single soul. Not to my best friends, not to a therapist. My parents never understood why I was so intensely avoidant when it came to dating. It had taken my mother staging a full-blown intervention—practically threatening a heart attack—to get me to agree to a blind setup. That was how I met Catherine. She was a brilliant cardiothoracic professor. Since we were both in medicine, we understood the brutal hours, and she was transitionally striking. Over time, I let my guard down. I fell for her. So… was that really me on the phone? And if it was… did that mean her plan to destroy me was real too? I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned a bloodless white. I desperately wanted to tell myself that this was absurd. No girlfriend would frame her partner to save her childhood golden boy. But then, the voice on the line rattled off a string of numbers. As a doctor, I recognized it instantly: a patient medical record ID. “Look up the system right now,” the voice rasped. I sat down at my terminal and typed in the ID. The file popped up. It was a patient scheduled for an emergency coronary artery bypass graft. The date of the surgery was today. The scheduled time was right now. And the lead surgeon listed? Dustin Coleman. Catherine’s childhood sweetheart, the golden boy she’d brought into our hospital. Everything aligned perfectly. My mind screamed at me to deny it, but the future version of me let out a hollow, broken laugh. “I don’t have time to convince you. They’re coming for me. My time is up.” “Just listen to me. If you don’t want to become a disgraced scapegoat who ruined his own life and killed his parents with grief, get yourself an alibi. A rock-solid, undeniable alibi. Now!” Before I could press for more details, a sharp beep echoed, and the call cut out. I frantically hit redial, only for an automated recording to tell me the number didn’t exist. Was he… already gone? Had they just executed him? As I sat there, paralyzed by the sheer terror of it all, my phone buzzed. A text from Catherine: Hey babe, I’m stuck with a follow-up patient and can’t get away. I left my coat in the operating room. Could you grab it for me? It’s on the shelf in OR 5. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, reflexively starting to type Sure. But then my eyes drifted back to the active surgery monitor. The room assigned for the bypass surgery was OR 5. A cold shudder ran down my spine, followed by a sudden, fierce clarity. It didn’t matter if the phone call was some elaborate hallucination or a cosmic anomaly. I couldn’t afford to take the risk. The stakes were too high. I marched straight back into Dr. Davis’s office and pulled my shift swap request. Dr. Davis looked up from his paperwork, thoroughly confused. “I thought you were leaving early for a romantic candlelit dinner with Catherine? Why the sudden change of heart?” I forced a casual, easy smile, hiding the frantic hammering of my heart. “You know how it is, Chief. Patients come first. Romance can wait.” Dr. Davis beamed, clearly thrilled by my dedication. He tore up my request and immediately put me back on the schedule for three back-to-back orthopedic consultations. I let out a quiet breath. I was an orthopedic surgeon. Our clinic was in the North Wing, far away from the cardiac unit. With nurses, residents, and patients witnessing my presence, Catherine wouldn’t be able to pin anything on me. But then, my eyes caught the updated digital operating schedule on the screen. My breath caught in my throat. The lead surgeon for the bypass in OR 5 had just been changed. It no longer read Dustin Coleman. It read Jared Abbott. 2 In surgical procedures, the doctor whose name is on the charts carries the ultimate legal responsibility. If a patient dies under that name, they are the first one the medical board and the DA prosecute. A coronary bypass is cardiothoracic territory. I was a bone guy—orthopedics. Even if the hospital’s database had a massive glitch, it wouldn’t cross departments like this. There was only one explanation: manual override. And as a senior professor and clinical director, Catherine had the administrative clearance to do exactly that. What’s worse, our system didn’t allow a surgeon to be in two places at once. I tried to log into my own portal, only to find that the consults Dr. Davis had assigned me were already canceled and reassigned to another resident. According to the system, I was currently scrubbed in and operating in OR 5. My alibi was being systematically dismantled before it even began. A cold sweat broke out across my neck. She was closing every exit, trapping me in a corner. I forced myself to breathe, desperately trying to think. What else could I do? Go out for a public lunch? I wasn’t a social butterfly; I kept to myself. Catherine, on the other hand, was incredibly popular and well-connected. If she pointed the finger, the staff would instinctively take her side. Security cameras? As a department head, she had the authority to request footage or claim a “temporary system lag.” Was I truly trapped? Just as panic began to claw at my throat, a loud, violent crash shattered the quiet of the main lobby downstairs. “You greedy, bloodsucking parasites! You just want to drain every single cent I have! I told you I have a stomach ache, all I needed was some damn Tylenol, and you’re forcing me to get a CT scan and blood work? You’re running a scam!” I rushed out to the balcony overlooking the atrium. A middle-aged man in his fifties was screaming, frantically waving a folding knife in the air. He had backed a young nurse into the corner. It was Ellie, a fresh residency graduate. She had never faced anything like this. Her shoulders shook, and she could only stammer out the hospital’s standard protocols in a trembling voice. But her compliance only seemed to enrage him further. “You’re still trying to lie to me! You wicked little bitch!” He lunged, the blade flashing in the fluorescent light. My instinct, drilled into us by security training, was to back away and call for backup. We weren’t supposed to engage. Even if it was self-defense, getting physical with a patient meant administrative leave, internal investigations, and losing our annual bonuses. Wait. An investigation. My eyes widened. Where is the one place with absolute, tamper-proof security cameras? The one place where no hospital administrator, not even Catherine, could touch the records? The police station. Suddenly, this raging, dangerous man didn’t look like a threat anymore. He looked like my savior. Without a second thought, I ripped a heavy red fire extinguisher off its wall bracket. I slipped down the stairs, quietly circling around behind the hysterical man. Before he could drive the knife into Ellie, I swung the extinguisher with everything I had, aiming precisely for the sweet spot at the base of his skull. As an orthopedic surgeon, I knew exactly how to incapacitate a man without causing permanent neurological damage. The man crumpled instantly, knocking his head against the tile floor as he went out cold. Ellie stared at me with wide, tear-filled eyes before collapsing to her knees in pure shock. The lobby erupted into applause. Patients and visitors cheered. “So brave! That doctor saved her life!” I stood up straight, making sure my face was fully visible to the dozen onlookers who had their phones out, recording the whole thing. Excellent. More evidence. Within minutes, the sirens wailed, and two officers rushed through the sliding doors. They looked at the unconscious man, then at me, their faces grim. One of them tapped my shoulder. “Sir, even in self-defense, we’re going to need you to come down to the precinct for an official statement. We have to file a report.” 3 “We aren’t treating you like a suspect, Doctor. It’s just standard procedure…” The officer began to explain, likely expecting me to complain or demand a lawyer. But before he could even finish his sentence, I had already opened the door of the cruiser and climbed into the back seat. “Absolutely, officer. I completely understand. Let’s make sure everything is documented thoroughly. It’s best for everyone.” The officers blinked, completely caught off guard by my enthusiasm. Leaving a detail behind to handle the scene, the officer got behind the wheel and drove me toward the local precinct. As the hospital shrank in the rearview mirror, the adrenaline began to fade, replaced by a cold knot of anxiety. What if the phone call really was a hoax? What if I had just torpedoed my career and caught an assault charge over a misunderstanding? Then, my phone buzzed. Another message from Catherine: Jared, where are you? Get to OR 5 right now. We found a bone tumor during a chest opening. I need an orthopedic consult immediately. It’s an emergency! When I didn’t reply within thirty seconds, her texts grew frantic, almost hostile: Jared! A man’s life is on the line! Stop slacking off. If you don’t show up in the next five minutes, we are done. I cannot be with a man who has zero medical ethics. She sounded like a passionate, dedicated doctor fighting to save a patient. But if you stripped away the desperation, it made no sense. There were three other orthopedic surgeons on duty today. Why was she so utterly obsessed with getting me into that specific room? I took a breath and typed a quick reply: My stomach is killing me. I’ve been stuck in the bathroom for the last hour. Call Dr. Adams. Then, I turned the phone completely off. When we arrived at the precinct, they escorted me into an interrogation room. “Alright, take a breath. No need to be nervous…” the detective began, opening his notepad. But before he could ask his first question, I launched into a highly detailed, incredibly thorough monologue. I started from the exact moment I heard the shouting, walked him through my cognitive assessment of the threat level, explained the biomechanics of my strike to ensure minimum lethality, and described my emotional state in vivid detail. I had never been this articulate during my residency board defense. The detective sat frozen for a moment, then hurriedly began typing on his computer. Twice, he had to ask me to slow down so he could keep up. By the time we finished, his fingers were practically cramping. He glanced at the clock, then at his screen, letting out a bewildered chuckle. “Dr. Abbott, you certainly have a way with words. In my ten years on the force, I’ve never had a simple witness statement take five hours. I think I’ve typed nearly thirty thousand words here.” I ignored his fatigue and leaned forward. “So, my name is officially logged in the state database? The timestamp is locked? Nobody can edit or delete this report, right?” The detective frowned, slightly offended. “This is a secured federal network, Doc. Nobody touches these files unless they want to spend a decade in federal prison.” A wave of pure, sweet relief washed over me. I shook his hand warmly, thanked him profusely, and walked out to hail a cab back to the hospital. But the moment I stepped into the hospital lobby, two massive men in dark suits stepped out from the shadows, blocking my path. “Are you Jared Abbott? The orthopedic surgeon?” My stomach dropped, but I forced myself to nod. “Yes. Who are you?” “You incompetent butcher,” one of them growled, grabbing me by the collar and lifting me nearly off my feet. “You killed our young master, and you’re still walking around acting like nothing happened?” The sudden commotion drew a crowd of onlookers. “Killed someone? But… surgeries have risks. Doctors aren’t miracle workers,” a bystander murmured, trying to defend me. But then, a voice, dripping with profound grief and authority, boomed from the center of the lobby: “If he had actually tried to save my son, I would accept it as God’s will! But this orthopedic hack wanted to show off in front of me! He forced his way into a cardiothoracic surgery he wasn’t qualified for!” “And then he took a scalpel and shredded my boy’s heart, letting him bleed to death on the table!” “This monster needs to pay with his life!” 4 Someone in the crowd gasped, recognizing the elderly gentleman in the tailored wool coat. “Oh my god… that’s Dr. Richard Kingsley. He’s a living legend in thoracic surgery!” Dr. Kingsley nodded slowly, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow with grief. At this moment, he wasn’t a world-renowned medical authority; he was just a devastated father looking for vengeance. “I trusted the reputation of this hospital,” Dr. Kingsley whispered, his voice trembling with rage. “I never imagined my son would be murdered by a reckless, unethical clown. I will personally see to it that you face the absolute maximum penalty under the law.” The crowd immediately turned on me. “Dr. Kingsley saved my grandmother’s life years ago! To think his own son was killed by a negligent idiot…” “He should go to jail!” The bodyguards tightened their grip, dragging me toward the exit. The sharp pain in my shoulder snapped me out of my shock. The horror of the future had actually manifested, but instead of panic, a strange, burning adrenaline took over. I looked up, staring directly into Dr. Kingsley’s eyes. “Dr. Kingsley, I understand you are in agonizing pain. But I am not the man who killed your son.” “When your son was on that table, I wasn’t even in the building. I was—” Before I could finish, a sharp voice cut through the crowd. “Jared! How can you still lie at a time like this?” Catherine pushed her way to the front, looking at me with a perfect mixture of heartbreak and disgust. “You wanted to impress Dr. Kingsley so badly that you took over the surgery, and now that you’ve butchered his son, you’re trying to squirm out of it? You are a coward and a monster!” “I must have been blind to ever love a man as soulless as you.” I looked at her—at the cold, calculated venom behind her eyes—and let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “One of us was blind, Catherine. But it was me. I was blind to what a parasitic, vicious snake you really are.” “You know exactly who killed that boy. Every word you just said applies to you. Turn yourself in now. It’s your only way out.” Someone in the crowd whispered, “Wait, what does he mean? Is he saying he didn’t do it?” Suddenly, Dustin stepped forward. He looked pale, but he held himself with an air of righteous indignation, holding up a manila folder. “Dr. Abbott, the charts don’t lie. Your signature is right here on the surgical log as the lead surgeon.” He showed the paper to the crowd, pointing at my forged signature with a trembling, theatrical finger. “How can you accuse Professor Catherine of lying when your own hand signed the document?” His performance was flawless, earning nods of sympathy from the onlookers. Dr. Kingsley snatched the folder, his knuckles turning white as he stared at the signature. “If you didn’t perform the surgery, why is your name on this paper?” “Dr. Kingsley, please listen to me. I have proof—undeniable proof—that I was nowhere near OR 5 when your son died—” I struggled against the bodyguards, but Catherine stepped closer, leaning in so only I could hear her whisper: “The security footage in the hallway has already been wiped, Jared. You’re taking this fall, whether you like it or not.” She stepped back, raising her voice for the crowd. “He’s completely unrepentant! Dr. Kingsley, I will use every resource I have to make sure he pays for what he did to your family!” Just then, someone shouted from the back, “The police are here!” Two uniformed officers pushed through the crowd, their faces stern. Dr. Kingsley stepped forward, swallowing his grief. “Officers, I am the one who called. Please arrest this man. He butchered my son.” The officers nodded grimly. “We’ll handle it, sir.” They pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Catherine stood with a cold, detached expression. Behind her, Dustin caught my eye and let out a tiny, mocking smirk, mouth silent but clear: Thanks for taking the bullet, fall guy. But as the officer stepped up to cuff me, his eyes locked onto my face. He froze. “Wait… Abbott? Is that you?”

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Since my second chance at life, I ignored every single one of Michelle’s calls. The texts she sent, I deleted the second they hit my screen. Instead, I spent my nights drowned in the neon haze of local dive bars, flanked by cheap booze and a rotating crowd of young, wide-eyed girls who hung on my every word. It was on my eighth night of binging, as I stumbled up the driveway of our estate, barely holding myself upright, that I found Michelle blocking the front door. Her shadow stretched long and menacing under the porch light. “The girl who bought you drinks tonight,” Michelle said, her voice like grinding stones. “Where did she touch you?” I let out a wet, drunken giggle, my vision swimming. “My hands, Michelle. Obviously. The dice shaker doesn’t rattle itself.” A sudden storm flared in her dark eyes. Without looking back, she barked an order to the shadows behind her: “Find her. Take her hands off.” I let out a dry whistle and brushed past her into the house. “Do whatever the hell you want.” In my past life, we had been married for eight years. They used to call me the Sovereign Sharp. I was the one who won the Obsidian Syndicate its crown jewel—the grandest underground casino on the East Coast. I was the one who bled with her, running from the law until we finally carved out an empire and sat together on a throne of dirt and gold. But once the throne was secure, she grew bored of the blood. She became obsessed with a new card-shuffler at the VIP tables. His name was Milo. He had been bought out of a human trafficking ring like a piece of livestock—fragile, easily bruised, and clean as a blank sheet of paper. Michelle tucked him away in the private salons, personally teaching him how to handle the deck, how to read the chips. I ignored the rumors until the day I logged into the syndicate’s internal database and saw my own file. My marital status had been updated to Divorced. When I confronted her, she didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “Milo has no one,” she had said, her tone dripping with casual indifference. “Giving him a legal title keeps the sharks from tearing him apart. Everyone in our circle already knows you’re my husband, Adam. Why are you making a scene over a piece of paper?” Driven mad by the humiliation, I stormed into the VIP lounge and slapped Milo across the face in front of her entire crew. That same night, my younger sister, Lucy—who had spent years pulling shifts in Michelle’s roughest smuggling docks—was dragged into the warehouse. They broke both of her legs right in front of me and threw her into the muddy back alley like trash. “This is your lesson, Adam,” Michelle had whispered into my ear as I screamed. “Keep your hands off Milo.” I knelt in the dirt, begging her to stop, but she walked away. I watched the color drain from Lucy’s face until she took her last, shuddering breath in my arms. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day I discovered the altered database. This time, there were no tears. No screaming matches. I quietly pawned every piece of jewelry I had hidden away, booked two international flights, and began planning. I was going to take Lucy and run as far away from Michelle’s gilded cage as humanly possible. … 1 The moment I confirmed the database status at the courthouse, the reality of my rebirth settled over me like ice. “Mr. Corin,” the clerk had said, peering over her glasses. “According to our system, your divorce was finalized on the fourteenth.” The fourteenth. My birthday. I remembered that day from my previous life. I had rented out the highest revolving restaurant in the city, ordered a custom fireworks display, and sat alone in a tailored suit from sunset until dawn. She never showed. It turned out she was busy signing her name to a document that systematically erased my existence. Stepping out of the memory, I walked back toward the Obsidian Casino. A sleek black Maybach was idling near the entrance. In my past life, I would have rushed toward it, demanding answers. But back then, Michelle was so terrified of Milo seeing me that she had kicked me hard into the ribs before the boy could even step out of the passenger seat, leaving me gasping in the dirt. This time, I slipped silently behind the shadow of a massive concrete pillar. The driver’s side door opened, and Michelle stepped out. She walked around to the passenger side and opened the door herself, her movements gentler than I had ever seen them. A boy in a soft blue button-down stepped out, looking small and terrified against the backdrop of the flashing neon lights. Milo. Michelle slipped her tailored blazer over his thin shoulders and wrapped an arm around his waist, guiding him toward the heavy glass doors. “Michelle…” Milo hesitated, his voice trembling. “I have nothing left but you. I can’t afford to lose this bet.” Michelle pulled him tight against her chest, her voice carrying a tenderness she had never granted me. “What is there to fear? You’re the master of this house now. No one else has the right to stand where you stand. If you grow tired of the noise, I’ll buy you a stretch of coast and build you a resort to play in.” The same guards who used to bow to me and call me boss now lined the hallway, bending low for the boy. “Good evening, sir,” their voices echoed, loud and sycophantic. They ushered the frightened lamb into the gilded slaughterhouse. I waited until the doors hissed shut before I let myself stumble out of the shadows. I wiped a single stray tear from my cheek. Any lingering warmth I had held for her died the moment she gave away my home. I hailed a cab and rode to the private clinic where Lucy was recovering. Fortunately, in this timeline, her current assignment had only left her with minor scrapes. She would be fit to travel soon. I wouldn’t let her die a second time. Using an encrypted browser, I paid a premium for two black-market tickets to a non-extradition country, scheduled for three days later. Going through official customs would have triggered Michelle’s tripwires instantly. I then called my only trusted contact in the city, handing him a stack of cash to arrange Lucy’s quiet discharge the following night. With the pieces on the board set, I felt a rare moment of peace. I took a cab back, asking the driver to drop me off several blocks away from the estate—a habit born from years of dodging Michelle’s rivals. But the moment I stepped onto the dark curb, a heavy hand clamped over my mouth from behind, dragging me into the darkness. I thrashed against the grip, breaking free for a fraction of a second, but before I could run, a jagged piece of metal sliced deep into my lower back. The pain exploded, hot and blinding, as blood began to soak through my shirt. It was one of Michelle’s rivals. She had taken so much territory over the years that the list of people wanting her dead—or wanting to hurt the people close to her—stretched down to the harbor. I reached for the tactical knife in my coat, but my arms were pinned back with a sickening crack. My phone was ripped from my pocket and smashed boot-heel deep into the asphalt. “Shut up and move,” a voice hissed near my ear, dragging me toward a rusted cargo van parked at the curb. Just as my vision began to tunnel, the headlights of a familiar black Maybach swept around the corner. Michelle’s car. With a final, desperate surge of adrenaline, I screamed her name, thrashing against the hands holding me down. The Maybach slowed. The brakes squealed slightly. She saw me. I knew she did. But a second later, the engine roared, and the car accelerated, speeding past the mouth of the alley without stopping. Through the tinted glass, I caught a glimpse of Michelle pulling Milo’s head down to her chest, shielding his eyes from the window. She didn’t want him to look at the ugly scene outside. To her, it wasn’t her bleeding husband being dragged into a van; it was just a dirty street brawl, unworthy of her darling’s pure eyes. The fight drained out of my limbs. The cold rushed in, and the darkness took me. I woke up in a sterile room, the smell of antiseptic burning my throat. The door was cracked open, and low voices drifted in from the hallway. “The laceration is deep, boss. If he finds out about the kid…” It was Dr. Lawson, Michelle’s personal physician. “Keep your mouth shut,” Michelle snapped, her voice cold. “Your job is to patch him up, not ask questions. Adam has been in this game for a decade. He knows how the world works. He’s survived worse.” She paused, her tone dropping an octave. “Milo isn’t like him. Milo is fragile. He wouldn’t survive Adam’s claws. If Adam starts making trouble when he wakes up, bring his sister to the estate. She’s the only leverage he cares about. He’ll fall in line.” I clutched the sheets, my teeth digging into my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I remembered the night we took over the city’s largest dock. She had held my hands and whispered, “Adam, from this day on, no one in this city will ever touch a hair on your head.” The same promise, the same protective instinct. She had just swapped the target. Now, the man who had built her empire was the monster she had to protect her lamb from. I closed my eyes as the door clicked open, pretending to stir just as she approached the bed. “You’re awake,” she said, tossing a folder onto my lap. “We found the guys. Some low-level crew from the docks trying to settle an old score. Sign these settlement papers, and they’ll hand over the lease to the East End docks.” The East End. A quiet, coastal strip. No casinos, no smuggling, no blood. I remembered her promise to Milo: “I’ll buy you a stretch of coast and build you a resort.” My blood, my broken bones, were just currency to buy her new toy a playground. “Michelle,” I croaked, my throat dry. “When did you negotiate this deal?” Was it before or after she watched me get dragged into that alley? Or had she planned to use my body as a bargaining chip all along? Her brow furrowed, irritation flickering across her face. I pulled my lips into a thin, humorless smile and looked away. The answer didn’t matter anymore. For the next two days, perhaps out of some lingering sense of guilt, she stayed by my bedside, working on her laptop. But her phone was never more than an inch from her hand. Every time she ate, she would snap a photo of her plate and send it, a soft, rare smile touching her lips as she waited for a reply. I watched her profile against the window, thinking back to eight years ago. We hadn’t met in a casino. It was a wet, narrow alley behind a dive bar. She had been caught cheating at a high-stakes table, and half a dozen men with knives had her cornered. I had just won a small fortune myself, and for some stupid reason, I stepped in and pulled her out, bringing her back to my cramped apartment. Later, when my father was hunted down by cartels over his debts, they came for me next. They had a dirty needle hovering over my jugular when Michelle stormed the basement with a shotgun and dragged me out. She gave me a home. I gave her my hands, becoming the silent shadow behind her rise. I helped her swallow every rival, drain every vault. I knew my hands were dirty. The grease of the tables and the blood of her enemies had settled deep into my skin. But even if the whole world thought I was filthy, she was the one person who never had the right to say it. After my discharge, Michelle disappeared, citing “business at the docks.” With only twenty-four hours left before my flight, I used her absence to slip back to the casino’s penthouse office. I needed my passport and the emergency funds hidden in the safe behind the mahogany desk. But as I stepped out of the private elevator into the lobby, my knees buckled, the lingering weakness from my stab wound catching up to me. I braced for the hard marble floor, but a pair of soft hands caught my shoulders, steadying me. “Are you okay?” a gentle voice asked, laced with genuine concern. I looked up into Milo’s wide, clear eyes. He was wearing the casino’s dealer uniform, but he looked entirely out of place, like a child dressed in his father’s clothes. He didn’t recognize me; he likely assumed I was just another gambler who had lost his shirt at the baccarat tables. “I’m fine. Thank you,” I said, trying to pull away. He didn’t let go. Instead, he gently guided me toward the employee lounge. “You look incredibly pale. Let’s get you some water.” For some reason, I didn’t fight him. He poured me a warm cup of water and set a small pack of dried mangoes and a wrapped pastry on the table in front of me. “Eat something,” he said softly. “Losing money hurts, but you should go home. Your family must be worried about you.” When I didn’t answer, he reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a few crumpled twenty-dollar bills, and pressed them into my palm. “It’s not much, but it’ll get you a cab… I wish I could do more, but I don’t have access to the main accounts.” My throat tightened. I wanted to tell him to run. I wanted to tell him that the woman he thought was his savior was a viper, that her love was a slow-acting poison wrapped in silk. But the words stayed trapped behind my teeth. If I told him who I was, he would confront Michelle. The fragile peace would shatter, and I would be dragged back into the blast radius. I couldn’t risk Lucy’s life. I took the bills, whispered a quiet thank you, and slipped out the back exit into the humid afternoon air. But before I could even reach the street, a cold piece of iron pressed hard against my temple. A gun barrel. I tried to turn, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Milo’s body hit the concrete floor of the corridor behind me. Before I could draw my pocket blade, a heavy pistol-whipping caught me behind the ear, and the world went dark. When I woke up, the smell of damp rot and gasoline filled my nose. Milo and I were bound to two rusty support pillars in an abandoned shipyard warehouse. Milo was sobbing softly beside me. “Who are you? What do you want from us?” A man with a jagged scar running from his ear to his chin stepped into the light, backhanding the boy across the face. “Shut up! You can thank your pretty boss, Michelle,” the scar-faced man spat. “She took our West End routes. Cut off our supply lines.” So it was the West End crew. The territory Michelle had just seized using my blood as collateral. They didn’t recognize me—I had always operated in the shadows—but Milo’s face had been plastered all over her social circles recently. He was the perfect target. I worked my fingers behind my back, using the micro-blade concealed beneath my thumbnail to slowly saw through the hemp rope. A trick from my early days. The scar-faced man turned to me, sneering. “As for you, bad luck, pal. Wrong place, wrong time. Give me a number. Five million, or you don’t leave this room.” Milo looked at me through his tears. “I’m so sorry… this is my fault. But don’t worry, Michelle is coming. She’s powerful. She’ll save us.” I didn’t waste my breath. I just kept sawing at the fibers. The leader’s phone rang, but whoever was on the other end apparently didn’t pick up. He cursed, kicking a rusted oil drum across the floor. “Damn bitch isn’t answering! Looks like we need to send her a souvenir to wake her up.” He drew a long, serrated hunting knife, his eyes crawling over Milo’s trembling frame. “I heard you’re her favorite. Let’s see how much she likes you without your fingers.” Milo shrieked, his face turning gray. “No! Please! Don’t!” The men chuckled, stepping closer. In that split second, my ropes frayed and parted. I lunged forward like a coiled spring, driving my elbow hard into the leader’s throat. With my other hand, I snatched his knife, sliced Milo’s binds in one clean motion, and pushed the boy behind me. “Kill him!” the leader choked out, clutching his throat. Five men closed in, heavy iron pipes in hand. I knew how to fight, but my body was still weak from the stab wound, and the odds were entirely against me. A pipe caught me across the collarbone, sending me to my knees. I didn’t let them reach Milo. I kept my body positioned over him, absorbing the heavy blows as they rained down on my back and shoulders. Losing patience, the scar-faced leader pulled his pistol, aiming it straight at my chest. “Die, you bastard.” Before his finger could squeeze the trigger— The heavy steel doors of the warehouse blew inward with a deafening crash. Michelle’s enforcers flooded the room, gunfire erupting instantly. She came through the smoke like a wolf, ignoring the bullets, and threw her arms around Milo, pulling him to his feet. “Milo, baby, I’m here. You’re safe.” Milo let out a weak sob and went limp in her arms, fainting from sheer terror. Michelle carried him gently to her car, laying him across the backseat like a piece of priceless porcelain. Then, she turned and walked back toward me. “Adam,” she said, her voice dripping with ice. “What the hell were you doing here?” I leaned against the rusted pillar, coughing up dark blood, and met her clinical gaze with a cold laugh. “Are you accusing me?” Before the words could fully leave my mouth, her hand cracked across my face. The force of the blow sent me sprawling into the dirt, my vision blurring as blood pooled in my mouth. “I knew it,” she whispered, her eyes dark with disgust. “You set this up. You wanted to get rid of him. You wanted him dead.” I spat the blood onto her boots. “I didn’t do shit.” She dragged one of the groaning, wounded thugs by his collar, pressing her gun to his forehead. “Tell me. Who paid you to take the boy?” The thug looked at me, terror shining in his eyes, and seized the only lie that might save his life. “Him! It was him! He gave us the tip… said to teach the kid a lesson…” My blood ran cold. Michelle didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger, dropping the man’s limp body back into the dirt. She stepped over the corpse, her heavy heel coming down on my right hand—my throwing hand, my shuffling hand. The bones popped under her weight, a white-hot agony screaming up my arm. “This hand…” she murmured, her voice almost sad. “It used to be so useful. Why did you have to use it to hurt the person I love?” She pulled a long, gleaming combat knife from her belt. “I told you, Adam. Never touch what’s mine.” The blade came down. The world stopped. The steel tore through my palm, pinning my hand flush against the concrete floor. I screamed—a raw, animal sound that tore my throat raw. Through the red haze of pain, I stared up at her face, looking for any shred of the woman who had once saved me. There was nothing. “Michelle!” I choked out, my body shaking with dry heaves. “I should have left you in that alley eight years ago! I should have let them butcher you!” She didn’t answer. She simply turned her back on my screams, walking toward her car without a single backward glance. When the sound of her engine faded, I reached into my inner pocket with my left hand, pulled out the micro-tracker Lucy’s contact had given me, and pressed the button. Ten minutes later, my contact was kneeling beside me, his eyes wide with horror as he pulled the knife from the floor. My right hand was a ruined, bloody mess. “Sir…” he whispered, his hands shaking. “Burn it,” I gasped, the cold finally taking the edge off the pain. “Burn the warehouse. Let her think I died here.” “From this day on, there is no Sovereign Sharp. Adam Corin is dead.”

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On my birthday, my husband gifted me a pristine, snow-white snake. I immediately took it to an apothecary in Chinatown and had it drowned in a jar of high-proof medicinal liquor. Because this time, I woke up with my memory intact. I was reborn. In my past life, I pampered this snake like royalty. She ate the finest delicacies and slept in a custom, heated jade terrarium that cost me a small fortune. Yet, out of everyone, she only ever chose to bite me. At first, it was just a nightly habit. She would wind around my wrist, drawing a few drops of blood. But eventually, she began slithering under my duvet, sinking her fangs into my throat, draining me day by day until my face was a ghostly, hollow white. I begged my husband to get rid of her, but he only sneered and called me petty. “Bibi is my anniversary gift to you,” Denis said. “Can’t you even tolerate a harmless little snake?” Our daughter, Ruby, would stand in front of the terrarium, crying and shielding it. “Mommy is mean! Bibi is way sweeter than you!” On our wedding anniversary, I was finally drained of my life force, dying a quiet, agonizing death on the bathroom floor. After I died, my soul lingered. I watched as the white snake slithered off my cold corpse, her scales splitting apart to reveal a delicate, fragile woman who threw herself into my husband’s arms. With tear-brimming eyes, Denis kissed her. “Bianca, my love. I’m so sorry you had to pretend to be a snake for all these months. Now that you’ve drained her essence, you’re finally human again.” And Ruby clung to her, joyfully calling her “Mommy.” That was when the truth finally shattered my heart. That white snake wasn’t a pet. She was Bianca—Denis’s tragic first love, the one that got away. And I was nothing but a biological blood bag they kept alive just long enough to feed her. 1 On the morning of my birthday, Denis presented me with a pristine, snow-white snake. His voice was laced with that familiar, honeyed warmth. “Linda, I searched everywhere for this rare spirit snake. They only appear once in a lifetime. She’s incredibly intuitive—keeping her close will soothe your nerves, preserve your youth, and protect our home. Do you love her?” Our seven-year-old daughter, Ruby, was already pressed against the glass, her eyes sparkling. “Mommy, I already named her! I’m calling her Bibi. Isn’t it pretty?” I looked down. Inside the custom terrarium, the small white snake was curled into a perfect spiral. Her scales were a blinding, porcelain white, but her beady eyes gleamed with a chilling, intelligent blackness. “Touch her, Mommy! She’s so good.” I forced a polite smile and reached my hand in. In a flash, the snake lunged, sinking her fangs deep into my fingertip. A bright bead of blood welled up instantly. Ruby let out a sharp gasp, but her panic wasn’t for me. She threw her arms around the glass tank, scowling up at me. “Mommy, stop moving! You scared Bibi!” Denis rushed over, grabbing my wrist. His eyes darted first to the snake, inspecting her for any harm, before casting a brief, dismissive glance at my bleeding finger. He let out a visible sigh of relief. “It’s nothing. A snake’s way of bonding. The fact that Bibi bit you means she’s drawn to you. She likes you.” I stared at him. She likes me? In my past life, he said the exact same thing. And like a fool, I had believed him. I was terrified of reptiles. But back then, desperately wanting to be a good wife and to keep my daughter happy, I swallowed my revulsion and poured my heart into caring for her. I fed her the most expensive organic delicacies. She slept in a heated, custom-cut jade terrarium that had cost me a six-figure sum at an auction. I even used warm silk cloths to gently polish every single one of her pristine scales. Yet, she chose only to bite me. At first, it was just a subtle pressure around my wrist in the dead of night, followed by a sharp prick as she took a few drops of my blood. I foolishly thought she was just hungry. Then, she began slipping beneath the covers, sinking her teeth into the hollow of my throat. Eventually, she stayed coiled around me all night. Her cold, heavy body would constrict around my waist, her fangs buried deep in my flesh, slowly draining my life force until I was perpetually dizzy and pale. I begged Denis to rehome her. But his face would harden into a mask of disgust. “Linda, Bibi is my anniversary present to you. Can’t you tolerate a single pet without making a dramatic scene?” Ruby would throw herself in front of the tank, sobbing. “Mommy is mean! Bibi is way better than you!” The torment left me with chronic insomnia and severe vertigo; I could barely walk down the hallway without leaning against the wall for support. The doctors couldn’t find a medical cause. Denis used that to gaslight me, claiming I was paranoid and fabricating an illness for attention. Until our anniversary. I had stayed home, wanting to surprise him with a quiet dinner. But by the time he walked through the door, I was already collapsed on the cold bathroom tile, my body freezing, my neck covered in a constellation of tiny, neat puncture wounds. My spirit hovered over the room, unable to leave. I watched the little white snake slowly slither off my lifeless chest. Her pristine skin began to split and peel away. Following a flash of ethereal light, a woman in a delicate white dress materialized and threw herself into Denis’s waiting arms. Denis kissed her passionately, tears streaming down his face. “Bianca, my darling. I’m so sorry I made you play the snake for all these months. Now that she’s drained dry, your soul is finally anchored. You’re human again.” Even Ruby rushed forward, hugging her waist. “Mommy Bianca! You’re finally back!” That was the exact moment I realized the grotesque truth. The “spirit snake” was actually the vessel housing Bianca, the dead woman Denis had mourned for a decade. And I, his devoted wife, was nothing more than a biological incubator—a walking blood bag raised to nourish her transition back to life. But I have been given a second chance. And this time, I will not let them step over my corpse to build their twisted family portrait. I watched Denis act the part of a caring husband, dabbing a cotton swab over my finger. In her green jade terrarium, the white snake swayed slightly, her pink tongue flicking. The smug, human triumph in her beady eyes was barely concealed. I pulled my hand back and slowly wiped away the remaining blood. “Since she’s so prone to biting, we should get rid of her.” The living room fell into a dead silence. Denis froze. Ruby immediately threw herself over the glass tank, her voice rising to a frantic shriek. “No! You can’t!” Denis swallowed hard, masking his sudden panic with a rehearsed, gentle tone. “Linda, sweetheart, she’s just stressed from the move. Give her a few days to adjust. Besides, Ruby and I spent weeks looking for her. You wouldn’t want to break our daughter’s heart, would you?” I looked down at them. My husband. My daughter. Both of them were hyperventilating over a reptile. It was almost comical. It was as if I weren’t threatening to rehome a pet, but rather banishing their true wife and mother. After a long moment, I let out a soft laugh. “You’re right. Since it’s a gift from the two of you, I’ll make sure to take very, very good care of her.” Both Denis and Ruby exhaled, their faces relaxing into matching smiles. Only the white snake in the terrarium raised her head slowly, her tongue darting out in a lazy flick. It felt like a silent taunt: Smart move. I stared back at her, my smile deepening. Bianca. Let’s see who survives the game this time. Denis insisted on carrying the heavy jade terrarium into our master bedroom himself. I leaned against the doorframe, watching him set it up on the nightstand. “Does she really have to sleep in our room?” Denis’s hands faltered for a fraction of a second. “Bibi is sensitive to drafts. The climate control in here is the most stable.” Ruby wrapped her small arms around my leg, tugging at my jeans. “Mommy, Bibi is so shy and scared. Please don’t banish her to the hallway, please?” Shy? She certainly wasn’t shy when she was sinking her fangs into my jugular in my past life. I walked over to the nightstand, bending down to look inside. The white snake lay coiled, still as a strip of white silk. But as soon as my face drew near, her jaw unhinged, and she lunged at the glass. I didn’t flinch. Instead, I slid the screen lid back, reached in, and clamped two fingers precisely around her neck, pinning her down right at the sweet spot of her spine. The snake went completely rigid. Then, her tail thrashed wildly, whipping against the jade walls with loud, hollow thuds. Ruby burst into tears, horrified. “Mommy! Stop! You’re hurting her!” Denis’s face drained of color. He lunged forward, shoving me aside. “Linda! What the hell are you doing?” I released my grip. The white snake instantly retreated to the absolute corner of the tank, her thin body trembling. Denis bent over the glass, his voice dropping to a soothing, tender whisper that made my stomach turn. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Shh… I’m here. I’ll protect you.” A wave of nausea hit me. In all our years of marriage, he had never once spoken to me with that level of tenderness. When I was pregnant and burning with a 104-degree fever, he had told me to stop being dramatic. When I collapsed from severe anemia, he blamed my poor constitution. Yet now, because a snake had been pinched, he looked as though his own heart had been ripped out. I blinked at him, softening my expression into one of innocent confusion. “But didn’t you say she was highly intuitive? I was just trying to bond with her.” Denis’s jaw tightened, his throat bobbing as he swallowed his rage. Ruby glared at me with pure hostility. “Mommy, you’re not allowed to bully her ever again!” I knelt down, level with the little girl I had spent thirty-six hours in hard labor to bring into this world. “Ruby, she bit Mommy.” Ruby hesitated for a split second, then lifted her chin defiantly. “Then you must have done something bad. Bibi never bites me, and she never bites Daddy.” The exact same words from my past life. And yet, hearing them again, my chest still felt a cold, hollow ache. In my first life, I died wondering why the child I carried for nine months loved a reptile more than her own mother. It wasn’t until I was a ghost that I heard her voice the truth. It was so painfully simple, it was laughable: I didn’t let her eat candy because of her cavities. But Denis had promised her that “Auntie Bianca” would buy her an entire room filled with sweets. And just like that, my daughter became an accomplice to my murder. She hadn’t even cried when she saw my cold body. She had simply kicked my leg twice to see if I was really gone. The phantom pain of those kicks hardened my gaze. The fake smile slipped from my face. Sensing the sudden shift in the room, Denis quickly pulled Ruby behind his back. “She’s just a child, Linda. Don’t take it personally.” I didn’t say a word. I turned on my heel and walked into the walk-in closet. Closing the door behind me, I reached into the deepest corner of the top shelf and pulled out a small black velvet pouch. It was the first thing I had secured after waking up in this timeline—a trip to the secluded Taoist temple upstate. I pulled a small porcelain vial from the pouch. Through the closet door, Denis’s low, conspiratorial murmur drifted in from the bedroom. “Just hang on a little longer, Bianca… wait until she’s asleep…” A faint, dry hiss answered him from the terrarium. It sounded terrifyingly like a woman’s soft chuckle. That night, Denis was uncharacteristically attentive. He insisted I rest early so my bitten finger could heal, offering to handle Ruby’s bedtime routine himself. I watched him place the jade terrarium right beside my side of the bed, my heart turning to ice. In my past life, this was always his routine. Every time the snake bit me, he would become the perfect, doting husband—pouring me warm water, wrapping me in the blankets, kissing my forehead. I used to think it was remorse. Now, I knew it was just the gentle handling of livestock before slaughter. I turned off the bedside lamp, closed my eyes, and forced my breathing into the slow, heavy rhythm of deep sleep. It didn’t take long. A soft, dry scraping sound echoed in the dark. The heavy lid of the jade terrarium was being nudged open from within. A cold, slender weight slithered onto the wood of the nightstand, then transferred noiselessly onto the mattress. A sudden patch of icy skin touched my bare wrist. The snake began to coil. She was highly practiced at this; first looping around my forearm, then positioning herself right over my radial artery. She unhinged her jaw, aiming her thin fangs at the delicate skin. Just like she had done night after night in my previous life. My blood was her spiritual nourishment. Every drop she took bound her soul more tightly to the physical realm. The day my body finally gave out was the day she would fully manifest in the flesh. I opened my eyes. The sharp tip of her fang had just grazed my skin. In one swift movement, my hand whipped out from under the pillow, holding a heavy red cord soaked in cinnabar. I looped it around her neck and yanked it tight. The snake froze instantly, paralyzed by the spiritual property of the cinnabar. Her body began to thrash violently against the sheets, but the knot only tightened. Her jaw stretched wide in a silent scream, but what came out was not a reptilian hiss. It was a faint, muffled sob of a woman. The bedroom door flew open. Denis barged in, barefoot and frantic. Seeing the white snake thrashing in the red cord, his eyes went wild. “Linda! Are you out of your mind? Let her go!” Ruby trailed in right behind him, crying hysterically. “Mommy is mean! Why are you always hurting Bibi!” I sat up, lifting my arm so the moonlight caught the thin, bleeding scratch on my wrist. “She slithered into my bed. She was trying to bite me.” Denis faltered, but his face quickly hardened again. “She’s a pet, Linda. She was probably just hungry. She’s tiny—how much damage could she possibly do?” I let out a cold laugh. “So because she’s hungry, I’m supposed to let her feed on my blood?” Denis looked away, unable to meet my eyes. But Ruby screamed, her small fists clenched. “It’s just a little bit of blood! You won’t die! Bibi is sick—she needs Mommy’s blood!” The words hung in the air. The room went dead silent. Denis’s face drained of color, and he slapped his hand over Ruby’s mouth, but the damage was already done. I slowly turned my gaze to my daughter. “Who told you that?” Ruby’s eyes darted around in panic, and she buried her face in her father’s chest. “She’s just talking nonsense,” Denis stammered, his voice tight. “She… she watches too many fantasy cartoons.” I looked at the two of them, feeling a bizarre urge to laugh. To think that in my past life, I had wept bitter tears over their emotional neglect. Taking advantage of my silence, Denis lunged to grab the snake. I jerked the cinnabar cord. The snake’s spine arched in agony. Denis froze mid-air, terror written all over his face. “Linda, please. Let Bibi go. I swear, I won’t let her near your bed again. Just put her down.” I stared at his pale, sweating face. When I died in our previous life, he hadn’t looked even a fraction as terrified as he did right now. I opened my hand. The snake slipped from the cord, falling into his arms like a limp piece of white rope. Denis cradled her close, his hands trembling with genuine terror. Ruby pressed close to his side, gently blowing on the snake’s scales to soothe her. I calmly got out of bed and walked into the master bathroom. I turned on the faucet, letting the cool water wash the blood off my wrist. In the mirror, my reflection was pale, but my eyes had never been clearer. Through the cracked door, Denis’s hushed whisper floated in. “Don’t worry, my love. Tomorrow night, I’ll slip a sedative into her dinner.” “Once she’s out cold, you can feed as much as you need.” I turned off the tap. The rush of water ceased. Tomorrow night? He had no idea that Bianca wouldn’t survive to see tomorrow night. The next morning, Denis handed me a warm mug of milk with an unusually sweet smile. Across the kitchen, Ruby was cradling the jade terrarium, gently stroking the glass. “Bibi, I’ll come play with you the second I get home from school. Wait for me, okay?” I took small, slow sips of the milk, keeping my expression perfectly neutral. In my past life, this was the exact day Denis began spiking my food and drinks with liquid Ambien. My sleeping hours stretched longer and longer. The snake stopped restricting herself to my wrists. Every time I struggled awake from those drug-induced slumbers, I would find fresh, burning punctures on my neck, my collarbones, and over my heart. And when Denis saw my skin turning translucent, he would only smile warmly and say, “Linda, sweetie, you look tired. Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep?” While Ruby watched from the corner, giggling into her tiny hands. This time, I looked up from my mug and smiled. “You two should head out. Don’t worry about Bibi, I’ll take care of her today.” Denis’s smile widened with relief. But Ruby remained suspicious. She marched over, clutching the terrarium tightly. “You promise you won’t bully her, Mommy? You have to feed her the imported organic blend later, and make sure to refresh her warm water every hour.” I leaned down, looking into her dark eyes. “And what else?” Ruby thought about it seriously for a moment. “If she wants to bite you, you can’t run away. Daddy said Bibi biting you is how she cures her illness.” Denis’s face instantly darkened. He cleared his throat sharply, and Ruby bit her lip, shutting up. I just smiled, smoothing a stray hair behind her ear. “Alright. Mommy will keep that in mind.” Before they left, Denis reached in to stroke the white snake affectionately. Standing beside him, I mirrored his movement and reached out my own hand. The white snake lunged immediately, sinking her teeth deep into my wrist. Ruby shoved me away instantly. “Mommy is so stupid! Bibi doesn’t want you touching her!” She reached her own tiny hand in and stroked the white scales with an air of smug triumph. The snake remained perfectly still, preening under her touch. I lowered my eyes to hide the curl of my lips. A few minutes later, the front door clicked shut. Denis and Ruby were gone. The sprawling, empty suburban house grew quiet, leaving only me and the white snake. Inside the jade terrarium, the snake slowly raised her head. But as she went to flick her tongue, her entire body suddenly began to shudder. She had no idea that on the very first day of my rebirth, I had poured a generous amount of the spirit-severing oil into every bottle of body wash and hand soap Denis and Ruby used. Every single touch from my husband and daughter was a slow, agonizing drop of poison, dragging Bianca closer to her permanent grave. Realizing something was wrong, the snake slammed violently against the mesh lid, knocking it open as she lunged at me. But I was ready. The cinnabar cord whipped through the air, binding her tightly at her vital spot. She thrashed frantically, her tail sweeping across the coffee table, sending glass coasters crashing to the hardwood floor. Shards rained down. I didn’t even blink. “I wonder,” I whispered, tightening the knot. “What kind of faces will they make when they come home and find your cold, dead body?” The snake froze. She understood. For the first time, a very human terror flashed in those tiny, black bead eyes. I lifted her up by the cord and walked out of the house. I drove down to the old Chinatown district, stopping at the very end of a narrow, historic alley where an ancient, traditional apothecary sat nestled between the brick buildings. It was run by Mr. Matt, a man famous for crafting potent, high-grade medicinal liquors. Mr. Matt took one look at the thrashing white snake in my hand, nodded silently, and swept aside the heavy bamboo curtain leading to the back room. The air there was thick and suffocating with the scent of dried roots, bitter herbs, and strong grain alcohol. Rows of dark ceramic jars lined the wooden shelves. The white snake went wild, writhing desperately in my grip. Her jaw unhinged, and from the depths of her throat, a choked, raspy woman’s voice clawed its way out: “Help… me…” Mr. Matt’s hand paused on a jar. He shot me a sharp, questioning look. I offered him a calm, polite smile. “She’s a rare specimen. Highly spiritual. The tincture she makes will be incredibly potent.” Mr. Matt studied the snake for a moment, then reached up to the highest shelf and pulled down a heavy, black clay urn. “This contains the strongest grain spirit in my shop,” he said, his voice flat and ancient. “If you throw an ordinary snake in, she’ll drown within minutes. No art in that. But a creature with spiritual energy? That’s different.” “The moment she goes into the clay, the alcohol will seep through the micro-spaces between her scales. It will soak into her bones, inch by inch. Her flesh won’t rot immediately, and her breath won’t cut off right away.” “She will remain fully awake. She’ll feel her life essence being slowly extracted by the herbs, her soul dragged down into the liquid. She will want to die, but won’t be able to. She will want to flee, but there will be nowhere to go.” The white snake understood every word. She began slamming her body frantically against the rim of the clay jar, her spine twisting into grotesque angles. I opened my mouth to reply, but my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Denis. When I answered, his voice was tight, vibrating with a suppressed panic. “Linda? Why isn’t Bibi in her tank?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “497706”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was born without the ability to sleep. For nineteen years, my brain has not shut down for a single second. My neural pathways simply do not possess a sleep mode. When I was sixteen, the Lockwell family took me out of the state foster care system and moved me into a fully sealed, high-security medical wing on the penthouse floor of the Lockwell Medical Center. They did it because Adrian Lockwell’s brainstem had been crushed in a devastating car accident. The cutting-edge neural AI keeping his consciousness tethered to reality required a constant, uninterrupted human brainwave to act as its real-time anchor. If I woke, he lived. If I slept, he died. A year ago, a nurse accidentally mixed a trace amount of a sedative into my daily nutrient IV. My consciousness drifted for exactly three seconds. Seven floors down, in the middle of a board meeting, Adrian collapsed. His heart rate flatlined instantly. By the next morning, the nurse’s license was permanently revoked, and the pharmaceutical supplier was blacklisted from the industry. After that, the air composition in my room was monitored second by second. Even hand creams containing lavender oil were added to the strict contraband list. Everything changed when Adrian flew to the Middle East for a summit, leaving his fiancée, Virginia Carl, in charge of the facility under a temporary power of attorney. She scoffed as she flipped through my monthly eight-figure medical invoices. “Is this what the Lockwells are paying for?” she sneered, looking at me. “A useless, staring burden?” She dismissed the night nursing staff, ripped out the neural transmission cables, and dragged me out of my temperature-controlled pod. Then, she pried my jaw open and forced a whole blister pack of sleeping pills down my throat. “You don’t need sleep, right? Let’s put that to the test.” I collapsed to my knees, clawing at my throat, but at least three of the pills had already dissolved in my stomach. For the first time in nineteen years, my eyelids grew incredibly heavy. The neural anchor system flashed a violent, crimson warning on the monitors. Virginia reached over and casually flipped the master switch to off. She had no idea. Seven time zones away, Adrian’s consciousness was fading into the dark right along with mine. 1 “Miss Carl!” Simon Marvin, the lead engineer on duty, burst into the room. He stared at the disconnected cables on the floor, then at me kneeling on the ground. The color drained from his face instantly. “Who authorized you to unplug those cables?” Virginia’s expression darkened. “Do you know who you’re talking to?” Simon ignored her, dropping to his knees beside me and reaching for the transmission line. “Julie, don’t close your eyes! Do you hear me? Look at me, keep them open!” I tried. I desperately tried to focus on his face, but my eyelids felt as heavy as lead. Virginia stepped forward, her designer heel pinning the cable to the floor. “Did I say you could plug her back in?” Simon snapped his head up. “Miss Carl, stop playing games! That isn’t a standard monitoring line. That is Mr. Lockwell’s neural anchor channel.” “If Julie slips into a deep sleep, Mr. Lockwell’s neural AI will completely lose its connection.” “If it goes on too long, his consciousness will drift away entirely. He will be gone.” Virginia looked entirely indifferent, her expression dripping with disbelief. “So?” She bent down, picked up the cable, and wound it lazily around her finger. “The great Adrian Lockwell’s life depends on whether this girl keeps her eyes open? Please.” Simon grit his teeth. “Yes. It does.” The cold amusement on Virginia’s face sharpened into something ugly. “Then the Lockwells really are keeping a goddess up here, aren’t they?” She turned her gaze back to me. “Julie, tell me, how did you pull this off? A nameless orphan from a state home, living in the most exclusive penthouse wing, using their most expensive equipment, with an entire neuro-engineering team catering to your every whim.” “And now, Adrian’s life belongs to you too?” I wanted to explain. I wanted to tell her the truth, but my throat was thick with the bitter, chalky taste of the pills and a metallic tang of blood. The sedatives were taking hold. My brainwaves were plummeting. I could feel it because the physical implant embedded behind my left ear was beginning to burn. It was a direct connection between my mind and Adrian’s. Right now, seven time zones away in a Riyadh conference hall, Adrian had to be feeling the exact same fire. Simon’s eyes were bloodshot with panic. “Miss Carl, you can check the security logs, or you can wait until Old Mr. Lockwell gets back. But right now, we have to reconnect this line. Every minute we delay puts Mr. Lockwell in mortal danger.” For a fraction of a second, Virginia’s composure wavered. But then, her phone rang. The screen illuminated with an encrypted call. The caller ID read: Riyadh Medical Escort Team Simon looked at the screen like a drowning man catching sight of a life raft. “Answer it! Answer it now! It has to be Adrian’s team!” Virginia stared at the flashing screen for two seconds. Then, right in front of us, she swiped to decline the call. Simon froze. I felt the last of my hope wither. Virginia turned the phone face-down on the table. “Adrian gave me temporary management of this facility before he left because he trusted me. While he is away, what I say goes.” She looked at the security guards standing by the doorway. “Please escort Mr. Marvin out.” Simon’s voice cracked with rage. “Virginia Carl, you are going to regret this!” Virginia let out a soft, mocking laugh. “The only thing I regret is not finding out sooner that the Lockwell family was hiding a piece of property like this.” Property. She spoke about me as if I were a piece of hardware. The guards stepped forward, dragging Simon toward the exit. He struggled so violently that the veins in his neck bulged. “Julie! Don’t sleep!” “Do you hear me? Fight it! Mr. Lockwell has always protected you!” The heavy door slammed shut, cutting off his voice. The silence of the room settled around us, leaving only Virginia, me, and the dirty, discarded cable on the floor. I summoned the absolute last of my physical strength and began to crawl forward. Just as my fingertips brushed the metal connector, Virginia stepped down hard on my hand. I felt the delicate bones in my fingers click under the pressure. A sharp gasp of pain escaped my lips. “Still acting?” She crouched down, tapping my cheek with a manicured finger. “I thought you were born without the ability to sleep.” “So prove it to me.” I stared up at her, my vision blurring into a haze of shapes and shadows. “Ad… Adrian…” Virginia’s eyes flashed with venom. “You think you have the right to speak his name?” She grabbed my hair, pulling my face upward to force me to look at her. “Listen to me, Julie. Adrian Lockwell is my fiancé. You are nothing but a human machine paid for by his family.” “And machines need to remember their place.” I wanted to speak. I wanted to defend myself, but a sudden, deafening screech of static erupted inside my head. It wasn’t an alarm in the room. It was Adrian’s neural AI, transmitting through our failing interface, echoing in the quietest chambers of my mind. It was faint, breaking apart. [Julie…] [Don’t… sleep…] Tears spilled over my eyelashes. Adrian was still awake. He was still fighting to find me. With the absolute last ounce of my strength, I reached out and clutched the hem of Virginia’s sleeve. “Plug it… back in…” “Please…” Virginia sneered, wrenching her arm away from my grasp. “You’re begging me?” She stood up, looking down at me with utter contempt. “Then stay on your knees.” “Once I’m satisfied, maybe I’ll consider letting you continue this little charade.” My body gave out completely. My forehead hit the cold floor. My consciousness felt as though it were being dragged down into a deep, fathomless body of water. For nineteen years, I had never known what sleep felt like. I had always assumed it was a gentle thing. But this wasn’t gentle. It felt like death, slowly extinguishing the light. In my final second of awareness, I heard the room’s backup system automatically rebooting. A stark red light flooded the ceiling. [Anchor brainwave dropped below safety threshold.] [Target consciousness drift: 37%…] [Target consciousness drift: 61%…] [Target consciousness drift: 89%…] Virginia’s brow finally furrowed. “What is that noise?” No one answered her. Seven time zones away, at the Riyadh summit. Adrian Lockwell sat in his wheelchair, speaking through his neural AI to close a major acquisition with a foreign conglomerate. One second, he was calmly turning the final page of the contract. The next, his pupils dilated and lost focus. The mechanical exoskeleton supporting his frame lost its feed, collapsing under him as he crashed to the floor. The room erupted into chaos. His private medical team rushed forward, their faces turning pale as they looked at the portable monitors. Adrian’s heart was still beating, but the golden wave representing his consciousness was flattening into a straight line. The lead doctor, hands trembling, dialed Virginia’s number. The first call was declined. The second went straight to voicemail. The third time, the phone was turned off. Back in the penthouse suite of the medical center, Virginia looked at the flashing red alerts, her patience entirely gone. “Turn off these ridiculous alarms,” she ordered. She turned on her heel and walked toward the door. “First thing tomorrow morning, I want a full audit of Julie’s medical expenses over the last three years.” “The Lockwells are not a charity.” “And we certainly aren’t going to keep spending millions on a liar who pretends to die the moment she closes her eyes.” She did not know. The moment the heavy door clicked shut behind her, the very last trace of Adrian’s consciousness went dark. 2 I didn’t fully fall asleep. Rather, because my brain had never learned how to sleep, the heavy dose of sedatives could only trap me in a horrific, twilight state of near-death. I couldn’t hear distinct sounds. I only heard the fragmented, synthetic voice of the machine. [Anchor brainwaves continuing to deteriorate.] [Target consciousness reconnection: Failed.] [Please restore primary anchor channel immediately.] I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like they were made of stone. The bitter taste of the pills lingered in my throat, and dry heaves racked my stomach in painful spasms. I had no concept of how much time had passed. Suddenly, someone slapped my cheek hard. “Julie.” “Wake up.” “Stop playing dead.” Virginia’s voice drifted in from a great distance, completely devoid of warmth. I forced my eyes open. The overhead lights were blindingly bright, sending a sharp pain through my temples. Virginia stood over the bed, flanked by two guards and a young resident doctor she had pulled from the lower floors. The doctor looked at my vitals, his expression deeply concerned. “Miss Carl, her pupillary response is incredibly weak, and her blood pressure is dropping fast. We need to pump her stomach immediately.” Virginia frowned. “I called you up here to prove she is faking, not to listen to your exaggerations.” “But she has clearly ingested an overdose of heavy sedatives,” the doctor protested. “An overdose?” Virginia laughed coldly. “I thought she was born unable to sleep. If she can’t sleep, how can a few sleeping pills be considered an overdose?” The doctor went quiet, unsure of how to argue. I parted my dry lips, my voice barely a whisper. “The… cable…” Virginia looked down at me. “Still thinking about that wire?” I used every bit of energy I had left to glance toward the corner of the room. The neural transmission cable was still lying there on the floor. If they just plugged it back in. If they just reconnected it. Maybe Adrian still had a chance. I tried to push myself up on my elbows, but my limbs felt like water. The moment I moved, a white-hot, tearing pain flared at the base of my neck where the interface was implanted. “Don’t move!” The doctor instinctively stepped forward to hold me steady. “Her neural interface is overheating. If we don’t stabilize her, she will suffer permanent, irreversible brain damage.” “Irreversible?” Virginia looked almost amused. She walked closer to the bed, leaning in to look at me. “Julie, haven’t you been using this little plug behind your ear to drain the Lockwell family fortune for years?” “Let’s see if you can keep up the act without it.” My breath caught in my throat. “No… please…” From outside the heavy suite doors, a sudden, violent banging echoed through the room. “Miss Carl! Open the door!” It was Simon. His voice sounded hoarse, raw with panic. “We’ve lost all contact with Mr. Lockwell! The Riyadh medical team has sent twelve consecutive red-level emergency alerts!” “We need to reconnect Julie right now!” Virginia’s face went cold. She turned to the guards. “Why is he still on the penthouse floor?” “Mr. Marvin’s security clearance is too high,” the guard murmured. “The lower floor security gates couldn’t stop him.” Virginia let out a cold laugh. “Then terminate his access.” She picked up the temporary administrative terminal from the table and pressed the authorization key. The pounding outside stopped instantly. A heavy silence fell, followed by Simon’s voice, which had gone completely hollow. “Virginia Carl… did you just lock out the neuro-engineering team?” “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Virginia walked over to the door, speaking through the security intercom. “It means that from this moment on, the penthouse wing is no longer a playground where you run up invoices in Adrian’s name.” “Miss Carl!” Simon screamed. “You are going to kill him!” “Enough!” Virginia’s voice cracked like a whip. “You all keep screaming about how he’s going to die, how she can’t sleep. But Adrian Lockwell is my fiancé!” “If his life were actually in danger, why has he never told me about her?” There was a long, terrible silence on the other side of the door. Then, Simon spoke, his voice trembling. “Because Mr. Lockwell didn’t want you to know about Julie’s existence.” Virginia’s face went entirely white. She gripped the terminal, her knuckles turning translucent. “What did you say?” Simon had clearly decided he had nothing left to lose. “Adrian signed a top-level non-disclosure agreement. Only seven people in the world know Julie’s actual purpose. You are not on that list.” “Miss Carl, whether you want to accept it or not—in Adrian’s life-support network, Julie is far more important than you will ever be.” The words were a direct hit to the center of Virginia’s pride. The thin veneer of elegance she always wore began to crack, piece by piece. “More important than me?” She slowly turned around to look at me lying on the bed. In that moment, a cold dread settled deep in my stomach. She hadn’t been reasoned with. She had been pushed over the edge. She walked over to my bedside, her eyes entirely devoid of warmth. “Julie.” “Did you hear that?” “They think you are more important than me.” I tried to shake my head, but my muscles refused to cooperate. Virginia reached down, her fingers digging violently into my jawline. “You? A nameless orphan nobody wanted? On what grounds?” She forced my head back, making me look directly into her eyes. “Because of this pretty face?” “Or because of the machine parts they shoved inside your head?” My eyes widened in terror. Virginia saw my reaction, and a slow, cruel smile spread across her face. “So there really is something in there.” The doctor’s face drained of color. “Miss Carl, we cannot touch the neural interface. Especially not now while she is sedated. Any forced manipulation could cause massive neurological trauma.” “An examination?” Virginia released her grip on my face, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper. “No.” “I am calling an internal hearing.” “Tomorrow morning at nine, I want every senior executive and board member of the Lockwell Medical Center in the main conference hall.” “I want everyone to see exactly what kind of monster this family has been keeping in the attic.” The doctor took a step forward. “But she needs medical intervention right now!” Virginia cast a chilling look at him. “Is she dead?” The doctor stopped. “No, but—” “Then she can wait until tomorrow.” With that, she turned and walked out. As the heavy doors locked shut, my world drifted back into the cold dark. But this time, deep in the silence, I heard a faint, distant whisper. It sounded as if someone were calling my name from across an ocean. [Julie.] [Hold on.] A single tear slid down my cheek. Adrian. You are still there. So I cannot sleep. 3 The next morning at nine, I was wheeled into the seventh-floor executive conference room. I wasn’t allowed to sit up. Instead, I was strapped down to a mobile examination bed, completely restrained. The room was filled with people. The medical administration, the financial directors, the legal counsels, and several senior board members of the Lockwell Corporation I had never seen before. The way they looked at me was a mixture of clinical curiosity, disgust, and mild fear. Virginia stood at the head of the long mahogany table, a massive projection of my medical billing history illuminated behind her. The numbers were staggering. The maintenance of the temperature-controlled pod. The specialized replacement parts for the neural interface. The operations cost of the real-time synchronization servers. The twenty-four-hour nursing rotation. The constant filtration and monitoring of the air quality. Each line item cost more than an average family would see in a lifetime. Virginia tapped the screen with a red laser pointer. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is what Julie has cost the Lockwell family over the last three years.” “An average of eight figures every single month.” “And the invaluable service she provides in return? Laying in a penthouse pod, staring at the wall with her eyes open.” A quiet murmur rippled through the boardroom. “How is it even possible for a human to never sleep?” “I always thought the penthouse project was incredibly suspicious.” “With Adrian incapacitated, those expenses were never properly audited.” “Could this be a massive embezzlement scheme?” Listening to their whispers, my chest tightened. They didn’t know the truth. And none of them had the clearance to access it. Virginia had calculated this perfectly. She was going to use their ignorance to destroy me. One of the senior board members cleared his throat. “Miss Carl, while Adrian did grant you temporary power of attorney, the penthouse wing has always been under the personal oversight of Old Mr. Lockwell. Is a public hearing like this entirely appropriate?” Virginia smiled warmly. “It is precisely because Mr. Lockwell is getting older that he is more vulnerable to being deceived.” “As Adrian’s fiancée, it is my duty to protect this family from predators.” She turned her gaze directly onto me. “Julie, I will give you one chance.” “Admit to everyone in this room that you and the neuro-engineering team fabricated your condition, falsified the brainwave data, and systematically drained the Lockwell family’s resources.” My throat was so dry it felt like paper. “I didn’t…” My voice was too quiet, swallowed up by the low chatter of the room. Virginia walked over and tossed a thick document onto my chest. “Sign it.” I looked down at the cover page. Confession of Medical Fraud and Misappropriation. Everything had already been laid out for me. Falsification of rare medical records. Conspiracy with the engineering staff to embezzle medical funds. Using a fabricated neurological condition to occupy Lockwell properties. Consent to the immediate removal of all neural implants and cooperation with the subsequent criminal investigation. My fingers trembled against the straps. “You can’t take it out…” Virginia leaned over the bed. “And why is that?” I used every ounce of breath I had left. “He will die.” A heavy silence fell over the room. Then, someone near the back let out a sharp chuckle. “She actually believes she controls the president’s life.” “This isn’t just fraud anymore. It’s severe delusion.” Virginia smiled, pleased with the reaction. This was exactly what she wanted. By pushing me to state the truth, she made me sound completely insane. Suddenly, the double doors of the conference room were shoved open. Simon was struggling against two security guards at the threshold, holding a portable neural diagnostics terminal. Sweat was pouring down his face. “Virginia, let me in!” “Adrian’s consciousness cloud fractured three times last night!” “The main servers can’t locate his signal! The Riyadh team has initiated maximum-level resuscitation protocols!” The room erupted into quiet panic. Virginia’s face went cold. “Who let him up here?” Simon stared at her with raw fury. “I am going to say this one last time: Julie is not a fraud.” “She is the sole anchor keeping Adrian’s neural AI online.” “When you drugged her last night, you essentially signed his death warrant.” The word murder seemed to echo in the high ceilings. Virginia merely smiled. “Mr. Marvin, do you understand the gravity of what you are claiming?” “I do,” Simon said, his voice shaking. “And I am prepared to take full legal responsibility for every single word.” Virginia nodded slowly. “Excellent.” She turned to the corporate legal counsel. “Take that down. Simon Marvin, an employee of the neuro-engineering division, is attempting to cover up a massive medical fraud by using threats against Adrian’s life.” Simon’s face went pale. “You are completely out of your mind!” Virginia ignored him. She walked back to the center of the room, her eyes sweeping over the board members. “Since there is so much debate, we will proceed with the most direct verification method.” My heart hammered against my ribs. Virginia spoke clearly. “Julie has a neural implant at the base of her neck.” “Mr. Marvin claims that chip is Adrian’s lifeline.” “Personally, I find it hard to believe that a tiny piece of metal in an orphan’s head dictates the survival of the Lockwell empire.” She looked at the medical team standing near the door. “Prepare to extract the implant.” The room went dead silent. The resident doctor she had brought up looked terrified. “Miss Carl, this violates every medical protocol. She was heavily sedated last night, and her neural activity is highly erratic. Any invasive procedure right now could be fatal.” Virginia looked at him coldly. “Are you a licensed physician, or are you her accomplice?” The doctor looked down, unable to answer. Virginia raised her administrative terminal. “I hold the temporary executive power of attorney. Anyone who refuses to carry out my orders will be terminated immediately.” A cold sweat broke out across my skin. I wasn’t afraid of the pain. I was terrified because I knew that if that chip was forcibly removed, Adrian might never find his way back. I began to thrash against the leather straps, tears streaming down my face. “Don’t… please…” Virginia walked up to the side of my bed, looking down at me with a soft, venomous smile. “Now you’re begging?” Her finger brushed against the cool sterile patch on the back of my neck. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I thought you couldn’t sleep, Julie.” “Once we take this out, I’m going to let you sleep for a very long time.”

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In the fifth year of my marriage to Darnell, I suddenly began to see the leaderboards inside everyone’s minds. In my mother’s heart, I was number one. In my best friend’s, I was number two, second only to her newborn daughter. Even the barista at the coffee shop down the street ranked me at number six. Naturally, I looked at Darnell’s list with nothing but anticipation. Number one: his mother. Number two: Hannah. Me. I was right there at number two. I couldn’t stop smiling all day. Until my eyes drifted down to number six: Gina. A name I had never heard in my life. I told myself it didn’t matter. I was number two. She was just a distant sixth. But over the next few days, her name began to climb. Inch by inch. Up until she was almost neck-and-neck with me. That night, Darnell came home and wrapped his arms around me from behind, just like he always did. “I missed you,” he whispered. I looked up at the leaderboard hovering silently above his head. Gina—now sitting at number three—was still rising. “Darnell.” “Who is Gina?” The arms around my waist stiffened. Just for a fraction of a second. … 1 It was so brief. So fleeting that I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it. Darnell quickly looked down at me, his face a mask of effortless calm. “She’s a new designer on the team,” he said, smoothing my hair with a familiar, easy touch. “We’re co-managing a new account, so I’ve been showing her the ropes.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Why? You’re not actually jealous of a colleague, are you?” I looked up at him. Above his head, Gina’s name sat solidly at number three, completely untroubled. If she were really just a coworker, a sudden question from his wife should have caused at least a tiny tremor in his mental ranking. A flicker of anxiety, a shift. But there was nothing. It was perfectly still. “Oh,” I murmured, lowering my head to take a sip of water. I held the rim of the glass against my lips for a long, silent moment. The next morning, Darnell left the house twenty minutes earlier than usual. He said the morning rush hour had been brutal lately. On the dining table, he had left the usual breakfast—warm milk, a perfectly fried egg, and toast with the crusts neatly trimmed off. He had done this every single day of our five-year marriage. I stood by the door, waving goodbye and telling him to drive safely. But the moment his taillights vanished around the corner, a strange, hollow impulse made me open the location-sharing app on my phone. His car wasn’t heading toward his office. Instead, it stopped in a residential neighborhood I didn’t recognize, idling there for about fifteen minutes before starting up again. I stared at the tiny blue dot on the map, my chest tightening. The third day, it was the same time, the exact same detour. By the fourth day, I no longer stood by the window to wave him goodbye. I just watched him leave, then watched the dot on my screen pause in that unfamiliar neighborhood. Every morning after he stepped out the door, Gina’s name crept a little closer to mine. Not by leaps and bounds. Just an agonizing millimeter at a time. It was enough to keep me on edge all day. It happened at night, too. Twice, he claimed he had to work late, but his location showed him parked at a condo complex miles away from his office. I stared at the address on my screen until my eyes burned. Later that week, I sat at the dining table, watching him brew pour-over coffee in the kitchen. A sweet, floral aroma of lavender drifted through the air, settling into every corner of our apartment. It was a scent that didn’t belong to me. It didn’t belong to us. Darnell walked over, setting the mug down beside my hand. There was a faint, almost imperceptible tension in his eyes. “Try it.” I took a sip. It was sweet, smooth, with a delicate hint of lavender and steamed milk. It was a far cry from the black Americanos we both always drank. I looked up. “Since when do you like lavender lattes?” He froze for a fraction of a beat before offering a quick smile. “Just wanted to try something new.” That tiny, hesitant beat pierced my heart like a needle. That night, while he was in the shower, he left his phone on the sofa with his notes app still open. I didn’t want to pry, but my eyes caught the screen. Lavender syrup to milk ratio: 3 to 7. She likes it a bit sweeter. She. Not a name. Just a carefully placed pronoun. My finger hovered over the screen, paralyzed. The sound of running water echoed from the bathroom. I set the phone back down exactly as it was, pretending I had seen nothing. Later, we curled up on the couch to watch a movie. My head rested on his shoulder. On the screen, the characters were laughing, but I couldn’t process a single line of dialogue. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and a soft, barely visible smile played on his lips as he typed a quick reply. The entire exchange took less than five seconds. But in those five seconds, Gina’s name leaped forward on his leaderboard, pressing directly against my second-place spot. Resting against his chest, I felt his heart skip a beat. Not because of me. When he put his phone away, he instinctively tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer. It felt like an act of compensation. Or perhaps, an attempt to suppress his own guilt. I couldn’t sleep that night. A sliver of streetlamp light filtered through the curtains, illuminating his profile. He slept peacefully, his features relaxed, a soft trace of a smile lingering on his lips. I used to love watching him sleep. But that night, my gaze drifted upward. The leaderboard hung silently in the darkness above him. Number one: his mother. Number two: Hannah. Number two: Gina. Tied. I stared at those two names sitting side-by-side. It felt like a physical blow to my chest. Five years of marriage, balanced on the exact same scale as a woman he had probably known for only a few months. Gently, I pried his arm off my waist, turned my back to him, and faced the wall. I kept my eyes wide open until the room filled with morning light. The next day, while sorting the laundry, I found a crumpled receipt in his coat pocket. The name of the coffee shop was unfamiliar. The time stamp read 7:48 AM. Exactly during those twenty minutes he had started leaving early. I slowly smoothed out the paper. Two lavender honey lattes. Darnell and I only drank black coffee. He hadn’t been practicing a new recipe at home out of curiosity. He had been trying to perfect another woman’s favorite drink. Sunlight streamed over the laundry basket, but as I held that thin slip of paper, my fingers went completely numb. Eventually, I folded the receipt back up and slipped it back into his pocket. Then, I sat on the balcony, pulling my knees to my chest, staring into nothing for hours. The leaderboard didn’t lie. The receipt didn’t lie. The only liar in this house was him. Later, I looked up the coffee shop online. Following the location tags, it didn’t take long to find Gina’s Instagram profile. Her feed was filled with film photography. Pictures of stray cats, clear skies, riverfront nightscapes, and artisanal coffee. Everything looked serene, clean—like a blank sheet of paper. I scrolled down, post by post, until I reached a photo of a waterfront skyline. My thumb froze. I knew that riverbank all too well. During our college years in Boston, Darnell and I had walked along that exact stretch of the Charles River countless times. The green iron railings, the vintage streetlamps, the distant silhouette of the bridge—I could recognize them with my eyes closed. The caption was simple: “Someone took me to see the most beautiful view of the city tonight.” My breathing hitched. That was my place. Our place. But he had taken someone else, retracing the steps we had carved together. I kept scrolling. Another photo showed her study desk, and in the corner lay a fountain pen. Black body, silver clip. It was the Montblanc I had gifted Darnell years ago. When he got accepted into his graduate program, I had spent months scraping together enough money to buy it for him. I remembered how he had held my wrist, kissing it gently, and whispered, “Every time I use this, I’ll be thinking of you.” Months ago, he told me he must have misplaced it at the office. I had spent an entire weekend tearing the apartment apart trying to find it for him. It wasn’t lost. He had given it away. I touched my wrist, feeling a sudden chill seep deep into my skin. In another post, Gina had shared a screenshot of a French indie documentary—the exact same one Darnell had suddenly started streaming in the evenings. I had asked him to watch movies with me so many times over the years. He always complained they were boring, a waste of time, that he’d rather sleep. I had spent five years trying to share things with him, and I hadn’t managed to change a single one of his habits. Gina had been in his life for three months, and he had already remade his tastes and hobbies to match hers. I slowly looked up, my eyes drifting to our bedroom closet. Recently, he had bought several new shirts—sharper cuts, brighter colors, nothing like his usual muted grays. I remembered dragging him to a department store once, picking out a beautiful tailored coat for him. He had shrugged it off, saying, “I’m a guy, who cares about that stuff?” I had bought us couple’s gym memberships; he never went once. I had bought him hand creams for his dry skin; he left them unopened, complaining they felt greasy. Yet lately, he had started working out. He was wearing cologne. He was taking care of his hands, keeping them clean and moisturized. Five years of marriage couldn’t make him change. But the moment Gina arrived, he eagerly remade himself from the ground up. He wasn’t incapable of effort. He was just unwilling to put in that effort for me. That afternoon, I pulled out our wedding video. On the screen, a younger Darnell stood under the soft venue lights in a classic black tux, holding my hands. His eyes were incredibly red, brimming with tears. He had looked straight at me and said, “In my heart, you will always be number one. If that ever changes, it’ll only be because I’m no longer breathing.” I had sobbed uncontrollably. He wiped my tears away as our guests erupted into applause. I closed the video and laid my laptop face down on the table. When I closed my eyes and pictured the leaderboard, Gina’s name was now pressed tightly against mine. Darnell came home very late that night. There was a faint, pale red mark on the side of his neck. Before I could even ask, he offered a quick, casual explanation: “The collar on that new shirt is incredibly stiff. Kept chafing all day.” With that, he walked straight into the bathroom, washing away whatever scent he carried. He changed into his pajamas, slid into bed, and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Tired today, sweetie?” He kissed the sensitive spot behind my ear. His breath was warm, his touch practiced and familiar. It felt exactly like every other night of the last five years. But once his breathing slowed and he fell asleep, I looked above his head. Number two: Gina. Number three: Hannah. I had finally been dethroned. On the very night he held me, called me his wife, and kissed me. I stared into the dark. No tears fell. There was only a cold, hollow numbness spreading from the back of my eyes, slowly freezing my entire body. The next morning, I opened Gina’s Instagram again and looked at that riverfront photo. The longer I stared at the streetlamps and railings, the more familiar they felt. Then it clicked. Just around the bend of that riverbank sat the little Italian bistro we used to frequent during our college days. It wasn’t just the pen. It wasn’t just the flavor of coffee. Even the paths we had walked a thousand times, he had retraced with someone else. I stared at the photo for a long time. There was no anger left, no burning resentment. Only a quiet, resolute thought: I have to see it for myself. I needed to see how much of his sincerity remained when he recycled our sacred memories to woo another woman. Over the weekend, I suggested going back to that Italian bistro near campus. “It’s been so long since we went to Bella’s,” I said. “I’m craving their pasta.” Darnell agreed instantly. The owner, an older Italian man named Mario, recognized us immediately. “Look who finally decided to come back!” he cheered. Darnell laughed, pulling out my chair with practiced grace. He ordered all my favorites: the truffle gnocchi, the roasted garlic bread, and chicken piccata. He even remembered to tell the kitchen to leave out the rosemary, knowing I disliked the strong herb. He chatted with Mario about our college days, recalling how I always insisted on sitting by the window, and how I’d nervously drink three cups of chamomile tea before my midterms. He sounded so natural, as if nothing had changed between us. But my eyes were fixed on the leaderboard above his head. Gina sat firmly at number two, completely unmoved. I forced myself to laugh, to jump in with nostalgic details, trying desperately to piece our past back together. But throughout the entire dinner, I couldn’t claw my way back up by even a single inch. Halfway through the meal, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “Just a quick work call,” he said, stepping outside. Through the glass door, I watched him stand under the awning, one hand tucked casually into his pocket, his shoulders relaxed. At some point in the conversation, he looked down and smiled. I knew that smile. It was unguarded, soft, the kind of smile he only reserved for someone he held incredibly close. I looked down at the food on our table. It was everything I loved. But the steam was fading, the dishes growing cold. While he stood just outside the glass, his heart had wandered miles away. On the leaderboard, Gina’s name was slowly drifting closer to the number one spot. When he returned, he immediately sensed the shift in my mood. His compensation mechanism kicked in instantly. He piled food onto my plate, offering soft apologies, blaming a demanding client. Then, looking at me as if searching for reassurance, he added, “By the way, for our anniversary next month, I took three days off. I’m taking you to Maui, just like you’ve always wanted.” The moment he said it, I instinctively looked up at the leaderboard. My name actually budged, floating up a fraction of an inch. Just a tiny, pitiful fraction. And suddenly, it became painfully clear. His kindness wasn’t a sign of returning love. It was guilt. A three-day trip to buy back his peace of mind. A beautiful, expensive receipt to clear the ledger of his betrayal. I offered a faint smile. “That sounds lovely.” My own voice sounded hollow, like a stranger’s. As we left the bistro, we passed a young couple on the sidewalk. The boy was holding the girl’s hand, his laughter bright and clear. Hovering over his head was a single, pristine name at number one: the girl walking beside him. No one else was on his list. Outside our apartment complex, an elderly couple was slowly crossing the street. The husband held his wife’s elbow, guiding her step by step. Above his head, her name sat at number one, a placement that had clearly remained unchanged for decades. I stopped walking, a sudden ache blooming in my chest. So that’s what it looks like to be someone’s absolute first choice. I turned to look at Darnell. He was looking down at his phone, typing away. Number one: his mother. Number two: Gina. Number three: Hannah. I had never actually been his first choice. Back at the apartment, he retreated into his study, claiming he had paperwork to wrap up. I sat alone in the living room without turning on the lights. In the quiet dark, the weight of reality finally settled over me. I wasn’t going to wait around anymore. I refused to watch myself slide further and further down a ranking system in my own marriage. I pulled out my phone, scrolled through a few corporate event photos Gina had posted, and figured out where she spent her lunch breaks. It was that boutique coffee shop. The next afternoon, I arrived early at the coffee shop. I ordered a black coffee and took a table in the far corner, waiting. Just past noon, Gina walked in. Short hair, a simple white blouse, minimal makeup. She sat down quietly and ordered a lavender honey latte. She looked ordinary, almost plain. But my eyes immediately locked onto the leaderboard hovering above her head. Number one: Darnell. My husband was the most important person in her world. And she was rapidly becoming the most important person in his. Their lists locked together perfectly, forming a closed, exclusive loop. And I was left standing completely on the outside. Gina opened her laptop, beginning to review some design drafts. I stood up to use the restroom. As I walked past her table, my eyes caught her phone lying face down. Tucked inside her clear phone case was a polaroid. Two silhouettes, standing side-by-side along the Charles River. The railing, the streetlamp—it was the view I knew by heart. And on her wrist, a delicate silver chain. I recognized the brand instantly. It was the same jewelry boutique where Darnell bought my gifts every Christmas. I walked into the restroom, leaned over the sink, and turned on the tap. I splashed cold water onto my face, watching it drip from my chin. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. When I came out, I picked up my coffee, walked over to her table, and slid into the empty seat opposite her. “Hi. I notice you come here quite often.” Gina blinked in surprise, but quickly offered a polite, gentle smile. “Oh, yes. I’m a bit obsessed with their lavender lattes.” I looked down at the milky, lavender-scented drink in front of her, feeling a dull ache in my chest. We exchanged a few pleasantries—chatting about the autumn weather, local bakeries, and the stray cats around the neighborhood. Her voice was soft, deliberate, completely lacking any malice or pretense. The kinder and sweeter she seemed, the tighter my throat became. “Are you here alone today?” I asked, keeping my voice light. Gina looked down, a soft blush warming her cheeks. “No, actually. My boyfriend has a lunch meeting, but he’s stopping by to pick me up soon.” Boyfriend. The word echoed in my mind, freezing me in place. She didn’t know. She had absolutely no idea. In her world, Darnell was a single, loving boyfriend. Not someone else’s husband of five years. Not a man with a home, a mortgage, and a wife waiting for him. In the narrative he had spun for her, my entire existence had been thoroughly erased. I wasn’t even a footnote. Gina’s phone buzzed on the table. She picked it up, her voice softening with affection. “Hey. Yeah, I’m at our usual spot. You’re close? Perfect. See you in a minute.” She hung up and gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. He’s here. He’s really the sweet type, always insists on grabbing me a coffee.” Before I could find my voice, the bell above the door chimed. Darnell walked in. He was holding a paper carrier with two lavender lattes. His eyes scanned the room, automatically finding Gina, a relaxed, boyish smile already forming on his lips. Then, his gaze shifted a fraction of an inch. When he saw me sitting across from her, he froze. The smile vanished, the color draining from his face in a terrifying wave. His fingers went limp. The paper carrier slipped from his grasp, crashing to the tiled floor. The lids popped off, and warm purple-tinted liquid splattered across the tiles. The sweet, heavy scent of lavender instantly filled the air. The entire café fell dead silent. Gina looked back and forth between us, entirely lost. Darnell stood near the door, looking as though he had been turned to stone. I slowly pushed my chair back, stood up, and walked toward him. The spilled coffee pooled around his leather shoes, spreading like the ruins of a dream I was finally waking up from. I stopped a foot away from him, looking up at his head one last time. Number one: Gina. Number two: his mother. Number three: Hannah. I let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Darnell,” I said, my voice remarkably steady. “Do you have any idea where I rank in your heart right now?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “497708”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On the afternoon of my college move-in day, my phone buzzed with a FaceTime call from my mother. Only, it wasn’t the mother I knew. It was her—eighteen years in the past. She was gently caressing her slightly rounded stomach, her eyes bright and filled with a luminous, teary hope. “Sweetheart,” she whispered, looking at the screen as if she could see right through time. “Your father took me to the clinic today. The doctor says everything looks perfect. Soon, the three of us will finally be together.” She looked at me, her eyes tracing my face with longing. “Tell me, sweetheart. In the future, do you follow in my footsteps and dance? Or did you inherit your father’s business mind?” A bitter, dry laugh caught in my throat. I slowly tilted the camera downward. The canary-yellow delivery vest felt stiff and smelled faintly of stale fries and cold grease. My name tag hung crookedly over my chest, a cheap piece of plastic declaring my state-assigned role. DoorDash Runner #9: Isabel. When I tilted the camera back up, meeting her bewildered, frozen gaze, my voice was as flat and cold as a stagnant pond. “I’m sorry, Mom. You didn’t guess right on either.” “I was just kicked out of the house. Ruby tore up my college acceptance letter.” “And eighteen years from now, you’re still lying in a hospital bed, waiting for me to scrape together enough cash to cover your medical bills.” My throat tightened, a sob threatening to break through. “Mom,” I choked out, “if you can hear me… please. Abort this pregnancy. Divorce him. Leave, and never look back.” 1 My mother forced a fragile, trembling smile. “Izzy, what kind of joke is that?” she chuckled softly, though her hand shook. “Your father and I are engaged. Why on earth would he marry Ruby?” She raised her hand, showing off the massive, glittering diamond ring on her finger. “Look. This is the family heirloom. He placed it on my finger himself.” “He told me that the day you are born, he’s going to give me the grand wedding of my dreams.” I had seen that ring. Countless times. Every time my mother’s depressive episodes took hold, she would clutch that ring, white-knuckled, until the storm in her mind passed. But the tragedy was that this ring—the one she cherished like her very soul—would eventually be ripped from her hand and slipped onto Ruby’s finger. And the marriage certificate she spent eighteen years begging for? It was signed the very day after I was born. While my mother was recovering in her hospital bed, my father and Ruby made a detour to City Hall on their way to visit her. They got married. When my mother found out and screamed herself hoarse, demanding to know why, his response was a dismissive, casual shrug. “Ruby is the adopted daughter,” he’d said. “Without this marriage, high society will always look down on her. To the world, you’re still my real partner, and our child is still the heir to the family fortune. It’s just a piece of paper, Margot. Why make such a fuss?” I didn’t argue with her. Instead, I flipped the camera, carrying a pastry box up the steps of the old family estate. I knocked on the heavy oak door. “Delivery for unit 4B. Delivery under the name Charles.” Through my earbuds, my mother let out a small, startled gasp, her voice laced with sudden joy. “That’s my mother’s old house! The estate she left me as a dowry! Charles promised me he’d take care of it… I can’t believe it’s still standing, looking exactly the same eighteen years later!” The door clicked open, and her joyful words died in her throat. My father stood there. For a fraction of a second, surprise flickered in his eyes. “Izzy? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at your dorm registration?” A soft, petulant voice drifted from behind him. Ruby appeared, her lower lip trembling with practiced vulnerability. “Charles, don’t blame her. It’s my fault. This morning, Izzy called me a homewrecker and knocked over the cake you bought me. I only scolded her a little, but she got so angry she ran away to do… whatever this is.” A shadow of disgust crossed my father’s face. He didn’t even bother to ask for my side of the story. “Well, maybe some hard labor will cure her of that attitude,” he muttered coldly. “She’s starting to sound just like her hysterical mother. Bring the cake in and put it on the table.” I kept my head down and followed them inside. On the screen, the camera captured the room. The exquisite, hand-carved marble desk—the one my grandmother had passed down to my mother—had been painted a gaudy pink and converted into a plush bed for Ruby’s toy poodle. In my ear, my mother’s voice trembled with a ragged, weeping breath. “How… how could he? Charles promised me he would honor my mother’s memory… How could he let her treat my inheritance like garbage?” But I felt nothing. I was entirely numb. On their first wedding anniversary, during one of my mother’s severe depressive episodes, she had pushed Ruby in a fit of panic. Ruby fell, suffered a miscarriage, and was told she could never have children again. From that day on, my mother was labeled a criminal. And on every subsequent anniversary, Charles would bring Ruby to this very house, using the desk my grandmother loved to indulge their desires, leaving their marks all over it. Afterward, he would force my mother to kneel, weeping, and scrub the wood clean. He systematically broke her, piece by piece, forcing her to watch exactly how much he adored another woman. I placed the cake box down and spoke in a flat, customer-service drone. “Please remember to leave a five-star review on the app. Have a good day.” As I turned to leave, the ragged sobbing in my ear grew louder, shaking the tiny speaker. “Why would Charles do this? He loved me. When we were younger and those thugs cornered me, he took a knife for me. He nearly lost a kidney protecting me!” “Izzy, please tell me this is a joke. It’s a prank, right? It has to be!” I let out a hollow, bitter smile. So that was where his scar came from. He had saved her. No wonder that very scar later became his deepest source of resentment. My throat felt dry, choked with unshed tears. I didn’t know what to say. Footsteps echoed behind me. My father caught up to me in the hallway, pulling a thin stack of bills from his leather wallet. He thrust them toward me, his expression dark. “That’s enough of this little drama. If you need pocket money, just ask. Don’t play the martyr like your mother. It’s pathetic.” I reached out and took only the smallest bill—a ten-dollar bill—and offered him a polite, hollow nod. “Thank you for the tip. I’ll take the trash out on my way. Enjoy your evening.” His jaw clenched, irritation flaring in his eyes. “Did she teach you that passive-aggressive tone, too? Eighteen years, and her tricks are still as cheap as ever.” “I’m warning you one last time. As long as you don’t touch Ruby, I don’t care what you do. But if you dare hurt her again, I won’t hesitate to ruin you.” With that parting threat, he slammed the door. On my phone screen, my mother’s eyes were wide, red-rimmed with utter disbelief. “How… how did he become this monster?” “But if it’s true… if things really get this bad… why didn’t I take you and leave?” “I’m a principal ballerina! I have my own career, my own money! Why would I stay and endure this torture?” My silence slowly drained the last embers of hope from her face. The terrible truth began to dawn on her. “So… eighteen years from now… I don’t dance anymore, do I?” Before I could answer, my phone vibrated, interrupting our call with an incoming line. It was the hospital nurse, her voice clipped and impatient. “Isabel? Your mother’s medical bill is still short three hundred dollars. Today is the absolute deadline. How much longer before you get here?” My voice was barely a whisper. “I have the money. I’m on my way.” Hanging up, I looked back at the video call, staring deep into the eyes of the young mother on the screen. “Come,” I said softly. “Let me show you who you are in eighteen years.” I walked down the sterile hospital corridor and stopped outside room 302. I angled my phone camera through the small glass pane of the door. The woman inside sat in a wheelchair. She was so emaciated her hospital gown practically swallowed her. Her face was hollow, devoid of life. When the draft from the AC blew, the right pant leg of her pajamas fluttered, completely empty. In my ear, my mother’s voice was a terrified shiver. “Izzy… is that… me? Her right leg…” “It’s gone,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Charles had someone break it.” My mother gasped, a sound of pure agony. “He knew… he knew dancing was my entire life. Why would he do that? What happened?” I smiled, the taste of salt on my lips. “Because Ruby claimed you put sewing needles in her ballet slippers. Charles didn’t even bother to check. He just took a lead pipe to your knee.” Silence stretched across the eighteen-year gap. It was absurd. On a single, unverified accusation, he had shattered her legs, and along with them, her dream of ever standing on a stage again. I pushed the heavy door open and entered the room. The moment the woman in the wheelchair saw me, her eyes clouded with sudden, manic rage. She grabbed a ceramic vase from the bedside table and hurled it at my head. I ducked, but the vase shattered against the doorframe, a stray shard slicing a clean line across my cheek. My mother—the eighteen-years-older version—began to scream at me, her voice cracked and hysterical. “Charles! You bastard! Aren’t you supposed to be in bed with that whore? Why are you here to mock me? Get out! Get out!” I calmly wiped the bead of blood from my cheek, speaking softly to the terrified young woman still on my phone screen. “I look too much like him. Whenever she has an episode, she mistakes me for my father.” “Now do you see? It’s not that you didn’t want to take me and leave. It’s that you were too sick. You couldn’t.” On the screen, my young mother bit her lip until it bled. “When… when did it start? The sickness?” I thought back. “The night you found out you were pregnant with me. You came home to surprise him and caught them together. The shock triggered your first psychotic break.” “After that, whenever Charles wanted to spend the night with Ruby without being disturbed, he’d have you committed to the psychiatric ward for a few days.” Looking at her devastated face, I asked gently, “Do you want to talk to her?” She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “No. There’s no point.” “Is there really nothing we can do? Are we completely helpless?” In the heavy, suffocating silence of the hospital room, I whispered the only truth left to us. “For us, yes. It’s too late. But for you… you still have a choice. Abort the baby. Pack your bags. Leave tonight, and never let him find you.” “Break it off cleanly, and never look back.” She fell silent. Suddenly, through the speaker, I heard a man’s voice calling out from eighteen years ago—my father’s voice, warm and full of false tenderness. “Margot? Who are you talking to? You’ve been on the phone forever.” The line went dead. I tucked my phone away and firmly but gently forced the woman in the wheelchair to take her medication. As the sedatives took hold, the manic red left her eyes. She looked at my bleeding cheek, her face crumpling with guilt. “Izzy… I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you again?” I shook my head. “It’s okay, Mom.” She reached into her thin hospital gown, pulling out a faded cloth pouch and stuffing it into my hands with desperate urgency. “This is all the money I’ve managed to hide over the years. Take it. Go to college. Don’t worry about me anymore!” Then, her eyes fell on my bright yellow delivery vest, and she froze. “Izzy… why are you wearing that? Weren’t you supposed to register at the dorms today?” My heart ached, but I forced a reassuring smile and lied. “My classes don’t start for another two weeks, Mom. I’m just doing some food delivery to earn extra pocket money.” I pushed the pouch back into her hands. “I have money. And you’re my mother. Even if I leave, I’m taking you with me.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re such a good girl, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I ruined your life.” “If there is a next life, promise me you’ll be born to a better mother. Don’t choose someone like me.” I frowned, cutting her off gently. “Mom, stop talking like that. I’m going to the cafeteria to get us some dinner. Stay here and be good, okay?” She nodded, looking small in her bed. But as I walked back down the hall with a tray of food, I ran straight into Ruby. She was resting her hand on her flat stomach, a smug, venomous smile on her lips. “Izzy. I have wonderful news. You’re going to have a little brother.” “Charles hasn’t stopped trying for eighteen years, and all those fertility treatments finally paid off.” I stared at her coldly. “Congratulations. Now get out of my way, I need to feed my mother.” Ruby covered her mouth, letting out a soft, mocking laugh. “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that anymore.” My chest tightened. She let out a cruel, airy giggle. “Your mother is in the ICU right now. I don’t think she has much of an appetite.” The plastic tray slipped from my hands, shattering on the tile floor. I bolted toward the emergency wing. Just as I arrived, the double doors swung open, and the doctor stepped out, removing his surgical mask. He offered me a grim, apologetic bow. “Isabel… I’m so sorry. The blunt force trauma to her skull was too severe. We did everything we could.” My world shattered into a thousand silent pieces. In a blind, suffocating rage, I lunged forward, grabbing Ruby by her collar and screaming, “What did you do to her?!” She didn’t even flinch. She just smiled, her voice dripping with artificial innocence. “I only told her the truth, Izzy. I told her that I tore up your college acceptance letter and took all your money. I told her you had to drop out of school to pay her bills. She got so hysterical she threw herself headfirst against the concrete wall.” My fingers trembled, every fiber of my being wanting to strangle the life out of her. “Isabel! Stop it right now!” A heavy hand ripped me away. My father stood there, shielding Ruby, his eyes blazing with fury. “Is is how Margot raised you? To assault your elders? To have absolutely no respect?” “If I had known you’d turn out like this, I would have never let her give birth to you.” His words were a jagged blade, twisting into the last remaining pieces of my heart. This face—the face my mother had loved more than her own life—was utterly monstrous. I let out a wet, hollow laugh, tears burning my eyes. “Dad… she killed her…” “Oh, Charles, my stomach… it hurts so much. I think I’m losing the baby!” Ruby gasped, collapsing into his arms. Panic seized my father. He scooped her up in his arms, running down the hall without looking back, leaving me alone with my mother’s ghost. A nurse stepped up beside me, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Isabel… right before your mother lost consciousness, she asked me to give you a message.” “She said she didn’t want to be a burden to you anymore. She hid a life insurance policy in the second drawer of her bedside table. She wants you to take the payout and go to college.” I wheeled my mother’s sheet-covered body toward the morgue, sobbing uncontrollably. Suddenly, my phone rang. On the screen, the eighteen-year-old version of my mother was pale, her face stripped of all color, but her jaw was set with fierce determination. “Izzy, you were right. Charles told me he had to work late tonight.” “I was planning to surprise him with some homemade soup. That must have been how I caught them in your timeline.” “I threw the soup out. I’m at the airport. My flight to Austin, Texas leaves in thirty minutes.” I wiped my tears, a broken, hysterical laugh escaping my throat. “That’s wonderful, Mom! You’re free! You’re finally free!” But as she looked at me, she noticed the white sheet draped over the gurney behind me. Her eyes widened in horror. “Izzy… what is that?” I told her the truth. I told her everything. Her voice shook with a terrible, violent grief. “Sweetheart, don’t worry. I swear to you, I will never let that happen again.” Suddenly, the gurney was blocked. A sharp, stinging slap cracked across my face, sending me stumbling. I looked up to see my father, his face contorted in absolute rage. “Isabel, did your mother tell you to poison the cake? Is that why Ruby is having an allergic reaction?” “Ruby is hemorrhaging. Call your mother right now. We need her for a blood transfusion.” I cupped my burning cheek, staring at him. With all the strength I had left, I pushed the gurney directly into his chest. “Here,” I whispered, my voice dripping with venom. “Here she is. Take her.” My father’s scowl deepened, his teeth grinding together. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Your mother was just spotted out with another man, and now you’re playing dead?” He pulled out his phone, shoving a social media post in my face. On the screen, a photo from today showed my mother smiling radiantly, snuggled into the arms of a handsome man. The caption read: Snuck out of the psych ward. Finally realized what real happiness feels like. In my earbud, my mother’s voice was sharp with panic. “My body is right there! How could I post that? That’s Ruby’s doing. She must have used AI to fake that photo!” “Izzy, pull back the sheet! Show him! Show him my body!” I let out a tired, cynical laugh. It was always the same tricks. Ruby had used them for eighteen years. Whenever my mother went to therapy, Ruby rumored she was sleeping with her therapist. When my mother got into a car accident, Ruby claimed she was too busy staring at a handsome pedestrian to watch the road. And Charles believed every single lie. He was the one who personally signed the papers to put her on the electroshock table. “You like men so much? Let’s see if a few hundred volts can cure your cravings,” he had sneered. My mother had screamed all night. And I had sat outside the steel door, listening to every single volt tear through her brain. My chest burned with the memory of that agonizing pain. Charles stood before me, laughing coldly. “What’s the matter? Forgot to coordinate your stories? Or did Margot forget to give you your script?” In my ear, my young mother was crying out. “Izzy, pull the sheet down! No matter how much he hates me, he won’t be able to deny the truth when he sees me!” She was still so young. She still held onto a shred of naive hope that there was a shred of humanity left in him. I sighed and pulled the white sheet down. Charles froze. Every muscle in his body turned to stone. “Margot?” His hand trembled, his fingers reaching out to touch her cold, grey cheek. Suddenly, a hand yanked at his sleeve. Ruby was sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse. Her face was pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Charles… the nurse told me a few days ago that Margot ordered a hyper-realistic silicone doll of her own corpse. I didn’t believe it, but she actually did it… just to get out of saving me.” “Even if she hates me, she didn’t have to curse herself like this…” “Charles, let her go. My baby and I don’t need her blood. I’d rather buy a coffin and bury us both.” Ruby sobbed, trying to turn the wheelchair away, but Charles grabbed her. His eyes turned incredibly cold as he looked back at me. “I didn’t think your mother could stoop this low. If she won’t give her blood, then you will.” “She claims to love you so much. Let’s see how long she can hide while her daughter bleeds for us.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the clinic room. In my ear, my young mother’s screams were deafening. “No! Charles, don’t touch my daughter! Let her go!” But he didn’t hear her. He pinned me to the chair, and the cold needle slid into my vein. He took my blood and rushed back to Ruby. I collapsed onto the cold, tiled floor, draining of strength. In my ear, my mother was weeping, her heart breaking over the static of eighteen years. A generic airport announcement crackled in the background of her call. “Final boarding call for Flight 442 to Austin. All remaining passengers please proceed to gate 12 immediately.” As my vision began to fade into black, a small, genuine smile touched my lips. “Congratulations, Mom,” I whispered. “You’re finally free.”

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After an accidental one-night stand, I was dragging my suitcase toward the door, ready to skip town. Just as my hand touched the brass knob, a glowing stream of bullet comments drifted across my vision. [Why is he running? If he runs, he’s a dead man!] [Jeff is such a brainless side character. The female lead is literally carrying his baby, and he’s trying to hide.] [After her car crash, she was told she could never have kids. The baby in her womb is the heir the Moreau family has been desperately praying for.] [If he runs, the male lead will swoop in and take credit. He’ll become the savior of the Moreau family, marry in, and use the kid to secure his fortune forever.] My foot froze mid-step. Half a minute later, I kicked my suitcase back into the walk-in closet, ran out of the building, and headed straight for the penthouse of the Moreau Group headquarters. Michelle Moreau was in the middle of a board meeting. I threw the conference room doors wide open, marched inside, and stared right into her eyes. “Michelle, you’re pregnant.” “And it’s mine.” … You could have heard a pin drop in that massive boardroom. Dozens of pairs of eyes turned to me in perfect unison. Michelle sat at the head of the long mahogany table, her crisp white shirt buttoned all the way to the top. Her features were cold, aristocratic, like a marble statue carved from arctic ice. But everyone in the New York elite knew that behind that porcelain face lay a woman who was ruthless, cutthroat, and completely unyielding. Three years ago, a horrific car crash had nearly claimed her life. She survived, but the Moreau family’s private physicians delivered a devastating diagnosis: Michelle was virtually sterile. For a family whose dynasty was riding entirely on her shoulders—Michelle being the sole heir—this was a catastrophe. Her grandmother, Lady Enid, had desperately summoned every specialist in the hemisphere and even tried setting Michelle up on blind dates, only for Michelle to throw them out with a glacial glare. So, when I dropped my bombshell, the executives’ faces went through a spectrum of shock far more entertaining than my reaction to the floating chat comments. Michelle picked up the document she was reading, studied it for two seconds, and then looked up. “Mr. Beckett, please leave.” I choked on my breath. “You don’t believe me?” She raised her eyes, entirely devoid of warmth. “What is it you want?” The question stung worse than a slap. I, Jeff Beckett, was the spoiled youngest son of the Beckett family. I’d spent my life doing exactly what I wanted, earning a reputation as a reckless playboy. I had spent ten years desperately chasing Fiona MacAllister. And last night, in a stupid, drug-addled attempt to make Fiona jealous after being slipped a spiked drink at a party, I had stumbled into Michelle’s arms instead. When I woke up this morning, my first instinct had been to run. If my parents found out I had compromised the terrifying Michelle Moreau, they would tear me to pieces. But the floating comments said that if I ran, I’d die. And Alan would steal my child. Alan was the supposed “hero” of this story—hardworking, gentle, the perfect, soft-spoken contrast to Michelle’s cold exterior. In the original timeline, he was destined to become the love of her life, while I was just the disposable side character whose only purpose was to pave their way. The chat stream flashed again. [Jeff, play the victim! Cry a little—Michelle is weak for soft boys!] [Don’t back down. You’re the only man who could ever give her a child.] [Alan is already buttering up the grandmother. If you’re a second too late, your wife and kid are gone!] I dug my nails into my palms, forcing my eyes to brim with tears. “Michelle… you don’t believe it was me that night?” Someone in the room let out a sharp gasp. Michelle’s eyelids flickered, a subtle crack in her icy composure. I walked around the massive table, stopped right beside her chair, and gently pressed my hand flat against her lower stomach. “You don’t have to believe me yet… but you have to keep me close.” Michelle froze, her fingers stiffening over her documents. I stared down at her, my heart hammering so hard it physically hurt. She looked up at me, her gaze lingering on my face for what felt like an eternity. “Meeting adjourned,” she said quietly. The board members scrambled out of the room, their heads low. The heavy doors clicked shut. She pulled her hand back and picked up the office phone to dial her personal line. “Have the chief of obstetrics come up to my office immediately.” I finally let out a breath. But before I could relax, the door swung open again. A man in a crisp white linen shirt stood in the doorway, holding a high-end insulated lunchbox. “Michelle? Did I catch you at a bad time?” The chat stream erupted instantly. [Alan is here!] Alan had that clean-cut, boy-next-door look. Dark hair, soft eyes, a gentle smile. Standing next to someone as cold as Michelle, he looked like a ray of pure sunshine. When his eyes fell on me standing so close to Michelle, his eyelashes fluttered with a brief flash of distress. “Michelle, are you feeling unwell?” I glared at him, letting my irritation show. “What’s it to you?” Alan’s face paled slightly. “I’m only worried about Michelle.” Michelle’s voice was flat. “Who gave you permission to come up here?” “Your grandmother asked me to bring you some broth,” Alan said softly, his tone incredibly patient. “The doctor mentioned your stomach has been acting up lately.” Michelle’s expression grew even colder. “Leave it on the table. And get out.” “Michelle, your grandmother also mentioned she wants you to come over to the estate tonight.” The stream went into overdrive. [Here it comes! Lady Enid wants to play matchmaker for Alan and Michelle.] [Alan saved the grandmother’s life once. She absolutely adores him.] [Jeff, throw a tantrum! If you annoy Michelle, she’ll kick you out!] I immediately leaned closer to Michelle, practically brushing shoulders with her. “You can’t go tonight.” Michelle looked down at me, her brow arching. “Are you trying to control me?” I tilted my chin up, meeting her gaze defiantly. “You’re carrying my baby. Of course I am.” The remaining color drained from Alan’s face. Michelle stared at me, her eyes calm and analytical, as if she were reviewing a contract filled with loopholes. “Jeff, you had better be very clear about the consequences of lying to me.” I was terrified of her. But I was more terrified of dying. I squared my shoulders, doing my best to look completely vindicated. “Then test me. Right now.” Ten minutes later, the chief of obstetrics arrived at Michelle’s private office suite, accompanied by a nurse and a portable ultrasound machine. Blood tests, urine samples, an ultrasound. Michelle lay on the medical daybed, her dark skirt draped over her lap. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, keeping my back rigidly straight to hide the fact that my palms were slick with sweat. Alan hadn’t left; he was lingering in the hallway, peering in through the partially open door. When the initial quick-screen tests were complete, the doctor held the charts, his expression a mixture of awe and disbelief. “Ms. Moreau… you are indeed pregnant.” Michelle froze, staring blankly ahead. “According to the gestational age,” the doctor continued, “the timeline aligns perfectly.” I turned around immediately, a smug grin plastered on my face. “See? What did I tell you?” But Michelle was still staring at the doctor. “Can we confirm the paternity?” The doctor swallowed hard under her intense gaze. “An invasive prenatal paternity test is not recommended at this early stage. However, we can schedule a non-invasive prenatal paternity test in a few weeks.” My smile faltered. “Michelle, you still don’t believe me?” She remained silent. Alan stepped into the room, his voice dripping with gentle reason. “Please don’t be upset, Jeff. Michelle’s situation is unique. It’s only natural for her to be cautious.” I grabbed a decorative throw pillow from the sofa and hurled it directly at his face. “Who the hell asked you?” The pillow hit Alan, forcing him back a step. His eyes instantly pooled with hurt tears. Michelle frowned. A wave of bitter frustration washed over me, and I marched toward the door. “Fine. I’m leaving.” But as I turned to storm out, a wave of dizziness hit me, and the world spun into darkness. I stumbled, my knees giving way. Before I could hit the floor, Michelle was there, catching me in her arms. “Doctor!” her voice cracked with sudden panic. I grabbed her wrist, my own eyes burning with tears. “Let go of me.” Michelle went entirely rigid. An instant later, the sharp, rhythmic click of a cane echoed down the hall. Grandmother Enid had arrived. She marched into the suite, her sharp eyes locking instantly onto Michelle’s stomach. “Whose child is carrying the Moreau name?” Lady Enid was in her late seventies, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, her posture immaculate. But as soon as her eyes shifted to me, she stared at me as if I were a solid gold statue. I tried to pull away from Michelle’s grip, but her hold only tightened. “Don’t move,” she whispered near my ear. The old matriarch hurried over to the bed. “How far along?” “About six weeks,” the doctor answered quickly. The string of pearls in Enid’s hand trembled. “She’s truly pregnant?” The doctor nodded. Tears welled up in the old lady’s eyes. Alan quickly stepped forward to support her, murmuring softly, “Enid, please don’t get too worked up. We still need to verify the paternity.” The joy on the grandmother’s face flickered. She looked at Michelle. Michelle guided me gently to a plush armchair, pulling a soft cashmere throw over my legs. “We are not doing any risky procedures during the first trimester.” Her grandmother frowned. “Michelle, this concerns the future of our family bloodline.” Michelle’s voice was cold and heavy. “And this baby concerns my life.” Silence blanketed the room. The chat comments drifted lazily across my vision. [Michelle believes him? Alan is panicking now.] [In the original story, Lady Enid was grooming Alan to be her grandson-in-law. Now Jeff has completely hijacked the plot.] [Jeff, don’t get cocky. The greedy extended Moreau family is already on their way to fight for the inheritance.] Lady Enid sat down on the edge of the seat next to me, taking my hand in her warm, papery ones. “Jeff, dear. What would you like to eat? Where would you like to stay? You looked so pale just now.” I opened my mouth to say it didn’t matter. But Alan beat me to it. “The family estate is quiet and perfect for rest. I could stay there and keep Jeff company.” I let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “You? Keep me company?” Alan nodded smoothly. “I only worry you might feel out of place on your own.” I turned my eyes to Michelle. “I’m not going to the estate.” Lady Enid’s expression soured. “And why is that, Jeff?” I forced my eyes to water again, my voice dropping to a vulnerable whisper. “I’m scared.” “Scared of what, darling?” I pointed a trembling finger at Alan. “Of him.” Alan froze. Even the grandmother looked taken aback. I looked down at Michelle’s belly with tear-filled eyes. “The second he walked in, he was obsessed with testing the baby, and now he wants me hidden away at the estate. What if something happens to the baby while I’m away from Michelle?” “Jeff, you’re completely misinterpreting my intentions,” Alan pleaded, panic leaking into his voice. I wrapped my arms around Michelle’s waist, burying my face against her. “Look at him. He’s glaring at me again.” Alan: “…” Michelle looked down at me, a faint, almost imperceptible trace of amusement dancing in her eyes before she quickly masked it. Lady Enid turned to Alan, her expression noticeably cooler. “Alan. Go home for now.” Alan’s lips parted, pale and dry. “Enid, I—” “I said, go home.” Alan picked up his untouched insulated box and left. The moment the door clicked shut, the grandmother’s stern facade dissolved. She clasped my hand warmly. “Jeff, sweetheart, you can stay wherever makes you feel safest.” I looked up at Michelle. “I want to stay at her place.” Michelle’s brow furrowed slightly. But her grandmother didn’t hesitate. “Done. You’ll stay with her.” “I didn’t agree to that,” Michelle said, her voice dropping an octave. Lady Enid slammed her cane against the hardwood floor. “Hush up.” I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. The chat stream drifted by: [Step one of using the baby to secure the bag: Complete.] [Too bad the Beckett family hasn’t made their move yet.] Right on cue, my phone began to vibrate. My mother’s name flashed on the screen. I stared at it, frozen. Michelle glanced down at the screen. “Scared of your parents?” “Who’s scared?” I lied. The call timed out, but two seconds later, it started ringing again. This time it was my father. If I didn’t answer, the Becketts would storm the Moreau building themselves. Taking a deep breath, I swiped to accept the call. My mother’s voice was shrill enough to shatter glass. “Jeff! Where on earth are you?” I stole a glance at Michelle. “Just… shopping.” “Shopping on the penthouse floor of the Moreau Group?” A cold chill ran down my spine. Had Fiona ratted me out? Sure enough, my mother’s next words confirmed my fears. “Fiona told me you went to see Michelle Moreau.” I held the phone a few inches away from my ear. “Is she pregnant?” she shrieked. Lady Enid’s ears must have been fine-tuned for drama; she instantly leaned closer to the receiver. I closed my eyes. “Yeah.” The line went completely dead for three agonizing seconds. Then, my mother burst into tears. “Have you lost your mind? What is going on between you and Michelle?” Before I could answer, Michelle reached out and took the phone from my hand. “Mrs. Beckett, I am on the line as well.” My mother choked back her sobs, silenced by the sheer authority in Michelle’s voice. A moment later, my father’s deep voice boomed through the speaker. “Michelle, send Jeff home. Immediately.” Michelle looked down at me. I shook my head frantically. She spoke back into the phone, “That is not possible right now.” My father let out a harsh laugh. “You have no right to hold my son hostage.” Michelle’s expression remained utterly blank. “If he wishes to leave, I won’t stop him.” I grabbed her sleeve, tight. “I’m not leaving.” The sound of glass shattering echoed from the other end. My mother’s voice trembled with absolute fury. “Jeff Beckett, you wait right there.” The line went dead. I buried my face in my hands. I was screwed. Lady Enid patted my shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t you worry, dear. The Moreaus will protect you.” I looked at her dryly. “You were just trying to banish me to the estate a minute ago.” The old matriarch coughed, suddenly finding the wallpaper very interesting. Michelle cleared her throat. “Let’s head to my place first.” I knew she was incredibly wealthy, but when the town car pulled into the ultra-exclusive gated community where every square foot cost more than my entire trust fund, I couldn’t help but let out a quiet “Wow.” My mood instantly brightened. “Michelle, I have to admit, your place is perfect for recovery.” She set her designer bag on the console table. “You can take the master bedroom.” I plopped onto the plush sofa, hugging a velvet accent pillow. “Where are you sleeping?” “The guest room.” I frowned. “That’s too far. What if you get hungry in the middle of the night?” Michelle stopped and looked at me, her dark eyes unreadable. “Where exactly do you want me to sleep?” I pointed a finger toward the massive king-sized bed in the master suite. “The bed is huge.” Her gaze darkened, a subtle, dangerous warmth flickering in her eyes. “Jeff. Don’t push me.” I shut my mouth instantly. Later that night, my stomach woke me up. I crept downstairs barefoot to raid the kitchen. The fridge was packed with high-end, organic ingredients, none of which I knew how to cook. I finally found a container of fresh strawberries. I was just taking a bite of one when Michelle’s quiet voice sounded from behind me. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” I jumped, dropping the strawberry onto the cold hardwood floor. She walked over, kneeling down without a word, and used a clean kitchen towel to wipe my feet. Her movements were incredibly gentle. Looking down at her dark lashes and softened features, my heart skipped a sudden, erratic beat. Suddenly, the chat comments flared up in bright red text. [Friendly warning: Fiona is downstairs.] [She brought the Beckett family with her.] The doorbell rang. Michelle slid a pair of warm slippers onto my feet and stood up. “Go back to the bedroom.” “No way,” I muttered. “I want to watch the drama.” She sighed, taking her soft cashmere coat from the chair and draping it over my shoulders. She opened the front door. My parents stood on the porch, flanked by Fiona. Fiona was wearing a classic camel coat, her soft features looking tired and worn. When she saw me, her eyes softened. “Jeff.” Once, just hearing her say my name would make my entire week. Now, my only instinct was to shrink behind Michelle. When my mother saw Michelle’s coat wrapped around me, her eyes flooded with tears. “Jeff, get over here.” I shook my head. My father’s face was set in granite. “Michelle, the Becketts and the MacAllisters are already in the middle of arranging a marriage. By keeping him here, are you trying to start a war with both of our families?” Michelle stood firm, her tone completely level. “Jeff hasn’t agreed to any marriage.” Fiona looked at me, her eyes searching mine. “Jeff, you told me you wanted to marry me.” My throat tightened. It was true. I had written her countless love letters, bought her expensive gifts, and made an absolute fool of myself fighting with Alan over her attention. But the floating comments had already warned me of the original plot: I would chase her until I lost my family, my fortune, and my life, and she would only show up at my funeral to drop a single white rose on my casket. Looking at Fiona now, a wave of cold reality washed over me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. “My eyesight wasn’t great back then.” Fiona’s face froze. My mother stepped forward, frantic. “Jeff, stop talking nonsense.” I stepped out from behind Michelle and wrapped my arms around her waist. “She’s pregnant with my baby.” My father’s hand flew up, swinging a heavy slap aimed directly at me. But Michelle moved instantly, throwing herself in front of me and taking the full force of the blow. The sharp crack echoed through the foyer. Even my father stared at his hand, stunned by what he had done. Michelle’s head was turned to the side, a small bead of blood forming where her lip had split. A sharp pain pierced my chest. “Dad!” Michelle grabbed my wrist, her grip steady. “Don’t.” My eyes burned. “Are you out of your mind? Why did you do that?” The chat stream flashed across my vision: [Oh no, Jeff is softening up.] [Fiona’s face is literally green with jealousy.] [Alan tipped off the Moreau family’s greedy relatives. Round two of the drama has arrived.] The private elevator at the end of the hall chimed open. Several men in sharp, tailored suits stepped out. The middle-aged man leading them cast a cold, calculating look at Michelle’s abdomen. “Michelle, dear. A miracle like this, and you didn’t think to inform your Uncle Alistair?” Michelle’s eyes went utterly black. “You have no right to speak to me.” Uncle Alistair’s expression darkened. “The Moreau bloodline cannot be compromised by some low-rent scandal. This boy needs to be locked down at the estate.” My parents’ faces grew even more hostile at the suggestion. Fiona stepped forward, her voice tight. “We don’t even have proof that this child belongs to a Beckett.” Alistair sneered. “Then we run a DNA test.” Every single person in the room stared at Michelle’s stomach as if it were a prize trophy—or a piece of meat. Suddenly, Michelle threw the front door wide open. “If you want to negotiate, we do it in the living room.” She squeezed my hand, her voice dropping to a low murmur that only I could hear. “Don’t be afraid.” But the moment we sat down, a maid brought over a tray with a glass of warm milk. In my vision, the glass was suddenly highlighted in a flashing, warning red by the chat comments. [Don’t drink it.] [There’s something in it.]

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In the celestial waiting room, standing in the queue for reincarnation, I saw a baby crib encrusted with real diamonds, destined for the country’s wealthiest family. Without a second thought, I elbowed my way to the front and jumped right into their golden lineage. But wealth, I soon learned, comes with a brutal price tag. By the time I was almost a year old, my parents were dangling solid gold bars in front of my face, testing me. “Sweetheart,” they’d coo, “when you finally speak, are you going to say ‘Dada’ or ‘Mama’ first?” In my first life, I said “Mama” first. My father’s face darkened instantly. “I spent millions on your trust fund and the best doctors in Manhattan,” he snarled, “you should have said Dada!” In his petty fury, he kicked my hand-carved Italian crib. It tipped over, and the fall ended my first shot at luxury before it even began. In my second life, I learned my lesson. I looked right at him and squeaked “Dada.” He cheered, but my mother’s eyes turned to ice. She called me a cold, ungrateful little leech. Within weeks, she checked into a fertility clinic to prepare for a “do-over baby.” Discarded and forgotten in the nursery, I caught a severe fever that no one bothered to treat, and died in shivering neglect. In my third life, I tried to play the long game. The real power in the Bradford dynasty lay with Grandmother Emily, the formidable matriarch who controlled the family fortune. I’ll say ‘Nana’ first, I thought. Surely that’s safe. But when I did, Emily stared at me through her designer spectacles and shook her head. “A child who doesn’t bond with her own parents is cold-hearted. She’s calculated. Send her away to boarding school in Switzerland; she’ll never be one of us.” The sheer terror of being exiled squeezed my tiny lungs. I panicked, stopped breathing, and literally suffocated on my own fear. Now, this is my fourth attempt. Here we are again. The entire family is gathered around my crib, holding their breath, waiting for me to speak. I keep my lips pressed tight, terrified to let out even a squeak. Who on earth do I call out to first… just to survive in this billionaire circus? 1 Seeing me remain stubbornly silent, my mother, Victoria, gently pinched my cheek. “I went through thirty-six hours of grueling labor, darling, and I haven’t slept a full night since you were born. You’re going to say ‘Mama’ first, aren’t you?” Her smile was soft, radiating the kind of manicured maternal warmth that belongs on a magazine cover. But looking into her eyes, terror rippled through my tiny chest. I remembered my first life all too clearly. Back then, I’d looked at her tired eyes, felt that primal infant pull toward the woman who carried me, and chirped “Mama” without a second thought. Who could have guessed that a single word would trigger my father’s insatiable, competitive ego? To him, my choice was a public humiliation, a sign that he had lost. The memory of his face, veins bulging as he kicked my crib, made me instinctively pull my head back into my shoulders. No. I had fought too hard to get back into this tax bracket. I couldn’t afford to offend my billionaire father. But my father, Thomas, was also waiting, leaning over the railing with an expectant grin. Seeing the sheer hesitation on my face, he chuckled. “Look at that clever little expression. She’s actually weighing her options. She’s thinking, Dada bought me a custom yacht and a brownstone in the West Village before I could even crawl. I’d better play my cards right. She’s definitely going to say ‘Dada’ first.” I forced a toothless, awkward grin, screaming internally. Oh, if only he knew. In my second life, I had figured he was my ultimate meal ticket. If I wanted to inherit the Bradford billions, I had to stroke his ego. So I ignored my mother and happily cooed “Dada.” He was ecstatic. He literally called his broker to buy me a yacht on the spot. But my mother’s heart shattered. That very night, she dragged him into their dressing room, declaring they needed to “try again” for a baby who would actually love her. I thought she was just being dramatic. But from that day on, I became a ghost in my own home. She poured all her energy into IVF treatments, completely freezing me out. She didn’t even notice when my temperature spiked to a lethal hundred and four. Those two brutal demises taught me a cold, hard truth: choosing either parent was a death sentence. Seeing my expression wobble between a smile and a grimace, Grandmother Emily let out a dry, patrician laugh. “Who says Charlotte will choose either of you? What if her very first word is ‘Nana’?” She lifted me from the crib, cradling me with an air of absolute authority. “Listen to me, little one. You say ‘Nana’ first, and I’ll rewrite the family trust tomorrow. You will be the sole heir to the Bradford empire.” The temptation was astronomical. And a cold sweat broke out across my back. 2 In my third life, I had fallen for that exact trap. I had assumed her fondness was genuine, that securing the matriarch’s favor was the ultimate shield. But when I squeaked out “Nana,” my parents didn’t even have time to react before Emily’s face hardened. “A child should love her parents above all else,” she had declared coldly to the room. “To ignore them and fawning over an old woman… it’s unnatural. She is far too calculating, too opportunistic. That kind of greed can’t be nurtured. We should quietly send her away before she becomes a liability.” In the Bradford family, when Grandmother Emily suggested “sending someone away,” it was as good as done. The sheer injustice of it, mixed with the terror of losing everything, had literally suffocated me right there. Recalling those three miserable, absurd deaths, I made a firm decision: I was going to play dumb. I would play the mute. Keep my mouth shut, offend absolutely no one, and buy myself some time. Once this immediate crisis passed, I could figure out a long-term strategy. So, I let out a loud, bubbly baby giggle and reached my hands high into the air. My parents leaned in close, their eyes wide. “What is she doing?” I timed it perfectly. The moment my tiny hands reached their peak, I grabbed. Left hand wrapped around my father’s thumb; right hand clamped onto my mother’s index finger. Both of them instantly lit up, their rivalries melting into sheer delight. “Oh, look at our clever girl! She’s barely a year old and she already knows how to keep the peace!” But I wasn’t done. To make sure my bases were fully covered, I tilted my head back and sweetly nudged my forehead against Grandmother Emily’s chin. The three of them erupted into laughter, passing me around like a prized trophy. For the moment, the dreaded question of “Dada” or “Mama” was successfully shelved. I had survived the fatal trap of my past lives. I thought I could finally catch my breath. But that very night, the peace shattered. My bedroom door creaked open, and my father slipped quietly to the side of my crib. “Hey there, Charlotte,” he whispered, holding up his phone with an eager, recording grin. “Just give Dada one little word. Just a quick ‘Dada’ so I can show the guys at the club, okay?” He leaned over, shining the screen light in my eyes. “All my partners’ kids said ‘Mama’ first. If you say ‘Dada’ first, I’ll have bragging rights for the next ten years. Besides, I already told the board you’re a daddy’s girl. Don’t make me look like a fool, sweetheart.” I stared at him, my eyelids twitching. So that was why he had lost his mind in my first life. It wasn’t about love; it was about his fragile, billionaire ego at the country club. I let out a silent, weary sigh. The man had a net worth of fifty billion dollars, and he was losing sleep over a toddler’s vocabulary. But then I shook myself. If solving this petty insecurity was the key to spending the rest of my life lounging on a private island, I had to pull myself together. I stared up at him, my brain working at warp speed. Think, think, think. How do I make him happy without making Mom want to replace me? “I set up a fifty-million-dollar trust for you the day you were born, Charlotte. I bought you a penthouse, a fleet of strollers, and I’m transferring shares to your name for your first birthday. I do all of this, and you won’t even say ‘Dada’ for me?” Seeing the dangerous shade of disappointment creeping onto his face, my survival instincts kicked in. I scrambled around my crib, grabbed the heavy gold Cartier bracelet my mother had left on my dresser, and shoved it into his hand. Before he could process that, I piled my favorite stuffed bear, my teething rings, and my custom rattle into his arms, babbling frantically in baby talk. My father stood frozen for what felt like an eternity, staring at the pile in his hands. Finally, a slow, ecstatic realization washed over him. “Are you… are you giving me your favorite things, Charlotte?” My cheeks flushed red as I nodded vigorously. He looked like he had just won the lottery. “You’re barely a year old, and you’re already showing gratitude? You’re giving your own father gifts?” He scooped me up, kissing my cheeks repeatedly, before frantically snapping selfies. “Look at this! My daughter is giving me presents! Take that, you guys!” He spent the next hour bragging in his group chats, ordering ten more designer toys for me on his phone before finally slipping out of the room. I collapsed back onto my mattress, exhaling a sigh of relief. But the door clicked open again. My mother walked in, her face clouded with quiet resentment. “Charlotte… how could you do that to me?” 3 My breath hitched in my throat. That look of deep, stinging disappointment on her face was identical to the one from my second life. “Your father might have the money, but I gave you life,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she sat on the edge of the crib. “I went through body-altering physical changes for you. I tore, I bled, I lost sleep to nurse you, and you give him gifts while I get nothing?” She pulled me into her arms, pouring out her grievances. But I wasn’t really listening to the words anymore; I was analyzing the situation. Her tone wasn’t as icy as it had been in my second life. She wasn’t planning to replace me yet; she was just deeply hurt, reacting like a child who had been left out of a game. There was still room to fix this. I wiggled out of her embrace and crawled as fast as my chubby limbs could carry me toward the nightstand. I knew that in the bottom drawer, my parents kept the deed to my custom-built nursery mansion in the Hamptons and the spare keys to the family’s armored Rolls-Royce. I tugged at the drawer with all my might, grunting with exertion. Seeing me struggle, my mother wiped a stray tear and opened it for me. “Charlotte, what are you looking for? Mommy can help—” Before she could finish, I grabbed the heavy leather-bound deed and dropped it right onto her lap. While she stared at it in shock, I reached back in, grabbed the heavy silver Rolls-Royce keys, and plonked them into her palm. Just like with my father, I didn’t say a single word. I simply looked up at her with the most innocent, adoring baby-eyed smile I could muster, babbling happily. My mother looked from the keys to the deed, her eyes suddenly welling with tears. “Oh my god… Charlotte, are you giving me your mansion and the Rolls? You’re giving away your most expensive assets without a second thought… You really are Mommy’s little angel, aren’t you?” She practically floated out of the room, shouting down the hallway: “Thomas! You bragged too early! Charlotte loves me way more! She gave you plastic toys, but she just gave me a mansion and a Rolls-Royce!” I collapsed back onto my pillow. So that was it. My father’s loud-mouthed bragging had triggered her insecurity. Now, both of them were thrilled, reverting to a childish debate over who was truly the favorite. “She gave me her favorite bear first, Victoria! That means I’m number one!” “She gave me real estate, Thomas! Real estate!” Even so, the fundamental problem remained: they were still waiting for that first spoken word. I had no solution, so I kept playing the mute, dragging it out day by day. But a few days later, my stalling tactics caught up with me. My parents marched me into a private clinic, sitting me down in front of a team of world-renowned pediatric neuroscientists. “Is there something wrong with our daughter?” my mother asked anxiously. “We did prenatal classical music, high-end sensory training, and early development classes. She’s clearly highly intelligent, so why hasn’t she spoken a single word to us?” After a battery of tests, the lead specialist turned to them. “Physically, she is in perfect health. Her neural pathways are fully developed, and her cognitive recognition is off the charts. The delay isn’t physical. It might be psychological.” I froze. Should I just speak now to prove I wasn’t broken? But the memory of my three sudden deaths flashed before my eyes, and I kept my jaw locked shut. After visiting three more specialists, my parents came to a terrifying conclusion: their daughter might have a developmental disorder. Grandmother Emily’s reaction was swift and merciless. “A Bradford heir cannot have a cognitive defect,” she declared coldly over Sunday brunch. My parents paced the floor of the drawing room in a panic. “Exactly. Most kids are babbling ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’ by ten months. What is wrong with our Charlotte?” “Next week is her first birthday gala,” my father groaned, rubbing his temples. “We invited the elite of New York. We were planning to show her off, to prove we’ve bred the perfect successor. If she’s… quiet, what do we tell them?” “Is she really defective? Do we just keep waiting?” Their anxiety was palpable, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I had completely forgotten about the first-birthday gala. My father had invited every billionaire, politician, and socialite in the city. He wanted to use me as his ultimate trophy. Grandmother Emily set down her porcelain teacup with a sharp clink, delivering her final ultimatum. “The gala is her final test. If Charlotte does not speak by then, we will assume she is unfit for the succession. A family of our stature requires a healthy, capable heir. If she is compromised, we will quietly make arrangements to place her in a specialized facility upstate, and you two can start focusing on a second child.” 4 The cold familiarity of her words sent a violent shiver down my spine. A lump formed in my throat, and I had to fight back the urge to cry. The gala was going to be a massive, high-pressure event, and my father’s pride was entirely on the line. If I remained mute, his embarrassment would turn to resentment. But if I spoke and called out to a stranger or a nanny to avoid choosing between them, Grandmother Emily would label me “unattached” and exile me anyway. I was cornered. Seeing my tiny face crumple with distress, my parents exchanged a softened look. Even in their shallow vanity, they still cared for me in their own way. They tried to throw me a lifeline. “Maybe the excitement of the gala will spark something,” my mother murmured, pulling me into her arms. “With everyone there, if we coax her gently, she might just open up.” “Yes, exactly,” my father agreed quickly, looking at Emily. “Mother, let’s not rush to conclusions. Let’s see how she handles the crowd at the gala.” Seeing them defend me, a tiny warmth bloomed in my chest. At least this time, they were standing by me. Their vanity and competitive natures were frustrating, but I could work with that. It was a language I understood. Once we were back in the nursery, I listened to the muffled sound of their worried voices through the heavy mahogany door, and I began to plan. If I absolutely couldn’t say “Mama” or “Dada”… But I could perform some other, mind-blowing cognitive feat… would that satisfy them? If I could do something so extraordinary that it made them swell with pride, proving beyond a doubt that I was a genius, they wouldn’t dare discard me. A high-risk, high-reward idea slowly took shape in my toddler brain. Starting that very night, the moment the house grew quiet and the nanny drifted off to sleep, I slipped out of my crib. I crawled over to my interactive learning tablet, tapping away at the early-literacy programs. My parents saw the activity on the baby monitor, but they assumed I was just a restless toddler playing with a screen, thinking nothing of it. After a grueling week of midnight training, the day of the first-birthday gala arrived. The grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel was packed with the city’s elite, all carrying boxes wrapped in silk and velvet. I was dressed from head to toe in custom Chanel, cradled in my parents’ arms as we made the rounds, collecting trust-fund checks and diamond rattles. Naturally, the only question on anyone’s lips was: “Has she spoken yet? Is she a daddy’s girl or a mommy’s girl?” Every time, my parents laughed nervously, brushing the questions off with vague excuses. Finally, before the main course was served, my parents carried me up to the stage microphone. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. “Alright, everyone,” my father said into the mic, trying to sound jovial despite his stiff posture. “We know there’s been a lot of speculation about our little Charlotte’s first word.” One of my father’s business rivals yelled from the front table, “She looks just like you, Thomas! Ten grand says she says ‘Dada’!” My mother’s high-society friends chimed in instantly. “Double that! She’s a mommy’s girl through and through. It’s going to be ‘Mama’!” “I’ll bet my new Porsche it’s ‘Dada’! The girl knows who signs the checks!” The room erupted into laughter and playful bidding. Sensing the rising stakes, my father leaned down, his whisper desperate in my ear. “Charlotte, please. Just say ‘Dada.’ Don’t let me down in front of these people.” My mother squeezed my hand, her eyes pleading. “Charlotte, I carried you for nine months. Don’t be ungrateful. Say ‘Mama’ first…” Their suffocating expectations pressed in on me from both sides. And at the VIP table, Grandmother Emily sat like an ice queen, her sharp eyes dissecting my every micro-expression. The memories of my three past lives flashed before my eyes in vivid, terrifying detail. I had fought so hard to secure this life of luxury. I refused to let it end in a cold, sterile institution or a forgotten boarding school. I didn’t know if my gamble would pay off. But as the silence stretched and a thousand eyes locked onto me, I had no choice but to leap. Taking a deep, trembling breath, I opened my mouth…

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The building’s WhatsApp group chat was usually a boring feed of package-delivery complaints and noise warnings. But that night, a message popped up that made me stop scrolling. It was from Derrick, the guy who lived directly across the hall from me on the eighth floor. He tagged the entire building. “Looking for someone to keep my wife company. Duties include chatting and cooking dinner every night. I’ll pay $3,000 a month cash, plus a brand-new bottle of Hermès Terre d’Hermès cologne.” The chat went dead silent. No emojis, no thumbs-up. Just absolute, stunned silence. Then came the second notification. This time, he tagged me directly. “@Lewis, I think you’d be perfect for this. You’re single, and I see you heading to the gym all the time. I’ve already left the cologne outside your door. Just come on over tonight.” I walked over to my front door and opened it. Sure enough, sitting on my welcome mat was a perfectly wrapped orange Hermès gift box. A dry, disbelief-fueled laugh escaped my throat. I picked up the box, walked it straight to the trash chute down the hall, and tossed it in. Then I opened the app and replied to the group thread: “You’re out of your mind.” I thought it was just a bizarre, isolated stunt. A joke in poor taste. I was wrong. It was the first quiet creak of a door opening into a nightmare. … The next morning at seven, I grabbed my briefcase and opened my door, ready to head to the office. “Lewis. You took the cologne. Why didn’t you show up to keep my wife company last night?” Derrick was already standing there, blocking the hallway. He was wearing a silk pajama set, his hands planted firmly on his hips, glaring at me like a disappointed boss. I frowned, taking a step back. “Are you seriously out of your mind?” Derrick’s eyes went wide. “Why are you being so hostile? I went out of my way to buy you an expensive designer cologne, and you take it but don’t do the job? Where’s your integrity?” I pointed toward the trash chute at the end of the hall. “The box is in the garbage. Go dig it out yourself if you want it back. And get out of my way.” I tried to squeeze past him toward the elevator, but he took a sharp step forward, grabbing the strap of my messenger bag. “Hold on! Is it the money? You think three grand isn’t enough?” Derrick held on tight, his fingers sinking into the canvas strap. “Let me tell you, three thousand dollars is a lot of cash! How much do you even make at your little design firm anyway? Just cook some dinner for my wife, talk to her for a few hours. It’s not going to kill you!” My face went cold. I knocked his hand off my bag. “Derrick, I’m going to say this exactly once. I have zero interest in your wife, and I don’t want your money. If you touch me or harass me again, I’m calling the police.” “Go ahead! Call them!” Instead of backing down, he pressed closer, his breath smelling faintly of stale coffee. “My wife is pregnant! What are the cops going to do to me? You touch me, even a finger, and I’ll sue you for everything you have!” Our voices had been echoing down the concrete hallway, and the racket finally drew attention. The door to the apartment below us clicked open, and Jerry, an elderly neighbor who lived on the seventh floor, poked his head out, clutching a reusable grocery bag. “Oh, Lewis, what’s going on up there? Quite a loud morning, isn’t it?” Derrick immediately pointed a finger at me and shouted down the stairs. “Jerry! You be the judge here! This guy took my gift, agreed to keep my wife company, and now he’s backing out of the deal!” My hands began to tremble with pure rage. How could someone distort reality so seamlessly? I pulled out my phone and swiped open the building’s group chat, showing the screen to Jerry as he walked up the stairs. “Jerry, look at this. He posted this crazy proposal in the group chat last night. I didn’t even let him in. I threw his box straight into the trash chute.” Jerry squinted at my screen, then shifted his gaze to Derrick. His expression warped into deep embarrassment. “Derrick… come on, man. This is… it’s a bit much. Who looks for a ‘companion’ for their own wife like this?” “How is it a bit much?” Derrick’s voice grew even more shrill. “My wife is pregnant! She’s hormonal, she’s stressed, and she can’t stand the sight of me right now. Why shouldn’t I find someone to keep her happy? That’s what a good husband does!” He sneered at me, looking me up and down. “Look at him. A single guy, always showing off his muscles at the gym. He’s practically begging for female attention. I’m giving him an opportunity, and he’s acting like he’s too pure for it!” I took a slow, deep breath, dialing the building’s property management office. “Yes, this is Lewis Matthew in Unit 802. There’s a resident harassing me outside my door. Send security up right now. If they aren’t here in three minutes, I’m calling 911.” Hearing the word security made Derrick’s expression flicker. “Call them! You think I’m scared? My wife’s family has real money, Lewis. They could crush you like a bug!” Five minutes later, two security guards rushed out of the elevator, panting. I pointed at Derrick. “Get him away from my door. I have to go to work. If he blocks my path again, I will file a formal complaint against management for failing to maintain a safe environment.” The guards looked uncomfortable, offering placating smiles. “Uh… Mr. Collins, let’s calm down. Why don’t we head back inside your apartment?” Derrick shoved one of the guard’s hands away, pointing his finger right at my nose. “You think this is over, Lewis? It’s not. You reject me, you humiliate me, I will make sure you can’t show your face in this building again!” I kept my expression entirely blank, walked past him, and stepped into the elevator. I truly believed that if I just ignored him, he’d get tired of the drama and stop. But I had severely underestimated how low he was willing to go. I got back from the office around eight that night after pulling a long shift. The moment I stepped out of the elevator, a sharp, chemical stench hit my nose. It smelled like fresh paint, heavy and toxic. I walked down the corridor to my door and stopped dead. My door was covered in thick, dripping crimson paint. Scrawled across the center in jagged, mocking letters were the words: DIE, BOY TOY. And hanging from the doorknob by a bright red string was a dead, blood-smeared rat. I stood there, the air leaving my lungs. My stomach violently churned. Before I could even process the horror, my phone vibrated in my palm. I swiped to answer. Derrick’s voice, smug and dripping with satisfaction, filled my ear. “Hey, Lewis. Do you like my little housewarming gift?” My voice was a frozen whisper. “Did you do this? Are you admitting you vandalized my door?” On the other end, he let out a sharp, arrogant laugh. “What door? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just happened to walk past your place and saw a mess. Thought I’d call and check in on my neighbor.” He paused, his tone shifting into something darker. “But honestly, plenty of people in this building are sick of looking at your smug face. Maybe some good Samaritan decided to do something about it.” I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Derrick, do you honestly think because there isn’t a working camera in this hallway, you’re going to get away with this?” “Go ahead and try to prove it! Management hasn’t fixed those hallway cameras in months,” he sneered. “Listen to me, Lewis. You wash up, clean yourself up, and go knock on my wife’s door tonight. We can let bygones be bygones.” “And if I don’t?” “Then tomorrow, it won’t just be paint on your door.” I hung up on him, instantly blocking his number, and dialed 911. Ten minutes later, two police officers arrived at the scene. I laid out everything—the screenshots from the building’s WhatsApp group, the context of our morning confrontation, and the audio recording of the phone call I had just received. The two young officers stared at the dripping red door, their brows furrowing deeply. “I’ve got to admit, this is a first,” one of them said, before walking over and knocking on Derrick’s door. The door swung open. Derrick stood there in his silk pajamas again, holding a bowl of freshly washed green grapes. Seeing the police, his face instantly morphed into a picture of innocent concern. “Officers? Oh my goodness, what happened?” The officer pointed at my door. “Did you do this?” Derrick gasped, covering his mouth. “Oh, that’s horrible! Who would do such a thing? Lewis, have you been getting involved with the wrong crowd? Is someone after you?” I stared at him. “That’s not what you said on the phone five minutes ago.” The officer pulled out my phone and played the call recording right in front of him. When the audio finished, Derrick squeezed his eyes shut, looking like a victim of a grave injustice. “Officers, listen to that. Did I confess to anything? Not at all.” He wiped a fake tear from his eye. “I was just frustrated because this guy is always trying to hit on my wife. I was throwing some shade. Is it a crime to talk trash to a guy who’s eyeing your pregnant wife? I’m a respected tenant here. I wouldn’t touch paint.” The officers exchanged a look of frustration. Without direct eyewitnesses or functional hallway cameras, and with Derrick’s clever wording in the recording, their hands were legally tied. “Mr. Collins, your behavior and statements are bordering on criminal harassment,” the officer warned, his voice stern. “Watch your step. If we receive another call regarding your conduct, you will be brought down to the station.” Derrick nodded quickly, his head bobbing like a toy. “Of course, officer. Absolutely. I understand.” Once the police left, the hallway fell silent again. Derrick’s fake remorse evaporated instantly. He leaned against his doorframe, a nasty, victorious smirk spreading across his face. “See that, Lewis? Even the cops can’t touch me.” He stepped closer, dropping his voice to a low, venomous whisper. “My wife is carrying the sole heir to the entire inheritance of her family. You want this to stop? You do what you’re told. Go keep her happy.” I looked at him, and to my own surprise, a quiet laugh slipped out. “Is that so? We’ll see about that.” I didn’t waste another word on him. I called a locksmith to change my locks, and hired an emergency cleaning crew to power-wash the crimson paint off my door. The next morning, the moment I stepped into the lobby of my design firm, the young receptionist, Toby, rushed over and grabbed my arm. “Lewis, man, you need to check the company-wide Slack channel right now.” My stomach dropped. I pulled out my phone. An anonymous user had posted a long, detailed thread in the main channel. The headline read: The Secret Life of a Star Designer: The Self-Righteous Lewis Matthew is a Home-Wrecker Preying on Pregnant Women. The post included my headshot from our company website, alongside a cropped screenshot of the message Derrick had sent in the building’s chat. The text underneath was pure venom: “This man will do anything for money—even target a pregnant woman. He accepted expensive designer gifts from her husband, but when he realized the cash wasn’t enough, he backed out of the deal and tried to frame the husband by calling the police. This is the kind of predator we work with.” The office was already a hornets’ nest. When I walked past the open cubicles, the whispering started. People turned away, pointing, murmuring behind their hands. I gripped my phone and walked straight into the creative director’s office. My boss, Richard, was a no-nonsense man in his late forties. He looked up as I entered, then closed his laptop. I handed him my phone, showing him the full, uncropped chat logs and the police report from the night before. His expression grew incredibly grim. “Lewis, I’ve known you for five years. I know your character,” Richard said, his voice measured but serious. “But this post has already circulated. We’ve got clients calling, asking what’s going on with their lead designer.” “I know,” I said, taking a steadying breath. “I’ll handle this. Completely and legally. If I can’t resolve it within the week, I’ll resign.” Richard gave a slow nod. “Go handle it. I’ll have IT scrub the post and block the IP.” Leaving his office, I immediately called an attorney friend of mine. Defamation. Stalking. Sexual harassment. I packed a bag and checked into a boutique hotel near the office, refusing to go back to my apartment. For a few weeks, Derrick went quiet. No more messages, no more online posts. The silence was a relief. I started to think they had finally realized they had crossed a line. I thought they were scared. But I was incredibly naive. A month later, on a chilly Friday afternoon, I stepped out of the office building. Before I could even reach my car, a figure stepped out from the shadow of the parking garage, blocking my path. It was a woman in a designer maternity dress, wearing gold-rimmed glasses. She was visibly pregnant. She looked at me, a tight, apologetic smile plastered across her face. “Mr. Matthew. Hello. I’m Aurora, Derrick’s wife.” I stopped, my guard immediately going up. “What do you want?” Aurora sighed, reaching into her Chanel bag to pull out a beautifully wrapped package, holding it out to me with both hands. “I came here to apologize to you in person,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “My husband… since we found out about the pregnancy, his mental state has been incredibly fragile. He does erratic things. I’ve been staying at my parents’ estate upstate to rest, and I had no idea he was causing you so much trouble. I am truly, deeply sorry.” I didn’t move to take the box. “Save your apology. I’ve already hired a lawyer. We’ll settle this in court.” At the word lawyer, a sharp flash of calculation crossed Aurora’s eyes. She slowly retracted the gift box, took a step closer, and lowered her voice. “Lewis, a lawsuit is so tedious, don’t you think? It takes forever, and honestly, a public court battle won’t do much for a handsome, single young man’s reputation.” She pushed her gold-rimmed glasses up her nose, her eyes scanning my chest and shoulders with a slow, predatory appraisal. “Besides… Derrick’s idea might have been poorly phrased, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad opportunity for you.” I froze, wondering if I was actually losing my mind. “What did you just say?” Aurora smiled, a cold, empty expression. “Come on, Lewis. You’re a talented guy, but working this hard to pay rent must be exhausting. Derrick… well, his physique isn’t exactly thrilling, and he certainly can’t satisfy me.” She reached out, her fingers hovering just inches from my jawline. “If you agree, we can forget about the three thousand. I’ll pay you thirty thousand dollars a month. All you have to do is come over and spend a few nights a week with me.” She gave a soft laugh. “Derrick is a bit simple-minded. He actually believes this is his duty as a husband to keep me happy. You see? My entire household is welcoming you with open arms. Why be difficult?” A cold shiver raced up my spine. This couple was a nightmare of epic proportions. One was a self-righteous pimp; the other was a casual solicitor. The sheer disgust boiled over. I violently slapped her hand away. Slap! My hand caught the side of her face. Aurora’s head snapped to the side. She stumbled back, clutching her cheek, her polite facade crumbling instantly. Her eyes turned black with venom. “Lewis Matthew, don’t play hard to get. I offered you a golden ticket.” She spat on the pavement next to my shoe. “Believe me, I have a hundred different ways to make you crawl to my bed on your knees.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a threat. I met her gaze, a cold smile touching my lips. “Then I suggest you try them. Let’s see who breaks first.” I turned on my heel and walked away. The moment I got back to my hotel room, I called my lawyer to document the encounter. But the storm hit sooner than I expected. At two in the morning, I was dead asleep when a deafening racket shattered the quiet of my hotel room. Bang! Bang! Bang! “Lewis! Open the door, you pathetic piece of trash!” It was Derrick. I sat straight up in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs. How did they find out which hotel I was staying at? “Open the door! You try to steal my wife? You lay your hands on her? Get out here!” The pounding on the door grew more violent, shaking the frame. Derrick’s slurred, hysterical insults echoed through the hallway. I grabbed my phone, immediately dialed 911, and then patched through to the front desk. “This is room 802. There is a man trying to kick my door down. Send security up right now!” Outside, the shouting escalated. I heard Aurora’s voice join in. “Lewis, open up! You think you’re so high and mighty? You had the guts to hit me, but you don’t have the guts to face us?” Her voice sounded thick, slurred with alcohol. I pressed my back against the locked door, my hand trembling as I gripped the can of pepper spray I kept in my bag. Five minutes felt like five hours. Finally, the muffled voices of security guards echoed in the hall, followed by the heavy, authoritative footsteps of police officers. I let out a long, shaky breath and turned the lock, stepping out. The hallway was a scene of pure chaos. Derrick was thrashing wildly, trying to tear himself away from two police officers who were attempting to cuff him. Aurora stood to the side, trying to smooth things over with a third officer. “Officer, please, this is all just a misunderstanding. My husband is just incredibly protective. He thought his wife’s lover was in there, that’s all.” I stepped forward, pointing at them. “Officers, this isn’t a misunderstanding. This is criminal harassment. They’ve been stalking and harassing me for over a month.” The officer dealing with Aurora looked at Derrick, recognition dawning on his face. “Wait. Are you the guy from the paint vandalism call last month? And now you’re bringing the drama to a hotel?” Derrick’s face flushed a deep, violent purple. He lunged toward me, spit flying from his mouth. “You home-wrecking coward! You hit my wife! I’ll kill you!” The officers slammed him against the wall. “Stop resisting! Calm down!” But then, Derrick suddenly went limp. He stared down at Aurora. My eyes followed his gaze. A dark, crimson pool of blood was rapidly spreading down the fabric of Aurora’s maternity dress, staining her shoes and the carpet. “Oh my god…” Derrick whispered, his voice cracking. “My baby… Aurora…” The entire hallway froze. Aurora’s face drained of color. She collapsed against the wall, clutching her stomach. “My baby… it hurts… oh god, it hurts…” The officers immediately radioed for an ambulance. The hallway dissolved into a frenzy of shouting and medical jargon. As the paramedics arrived and loaded Aurora onto a gurney, Derrick turned back to me. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a primal, terrifying hatred. “Lewis Matthew,” he hissed, his voice trembling with a terrifying promise. “If my baby dies, I will take your life.”

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