Category: English

I have been feeling like there is a pair of eyes rummaging through my brain lately. It feels exactly like someone flipping through my private diary in the dead of night. Memories that should be carved into my bones are slipping away. My apartment passcode, my parents’ phone numbers, even my own name feels blurry sometimes. It all started when our new coworker, Erik, showed up. He wears crisp, tailored suits and a textbook perfect smile that makes my stomach turn. The most terrifying part happened during our project pitch. I suddenly blanked on the core algorithm steps, and he recited them word for word, exactly as I had conceptualized them in my head. “You have been a bit forgetful lately, Rainey,” he said with fake concern. “Am I?” I stared dead into his eyes. “Then how do you know the exact ideas I have never told a single soul about?” He panicked, averted his gaze, and practically ran out of the conference room. I finally understood. He was using some kind of neural interface to hack my mind. My three years of blood, sweat, and tears were being siphoned away drop by drop. This monster in a tailored suit was using my intellect as a stepping stone to climb the corporate ladder. But he didn’t know one crucial detail. Memory transfer is a two-way street. While he was digging through my head for secrets, I caught a glimpse of his own filthy skeletons. 01 Erik parachuted into the company three months ago. He is tall, maybe six foot two, always rocking a perfectly pressed suit and flashing that blinding, rehearsed smile. The girls in the office swooned over him, gossiping about his relationship status by the water cooler. But he rubbed me the wrong way from day one. It was a subtle feeling. The way he looked at me wasn’t friendly. He looked at me like I was a commodity on a shelf, calculating my exact market value. I never thought it would get this bad. I got booted from the core engineering team and tossed onto a dead-end project. Meanwhile, Erik, a guy who hadn’t even been here a hundred days, took over the exact project I had poured three years of my life into. I dragged my heavy feet home tonight, only to realize I couldn’t even remember my own front door code. I had to pull up my phone notes just to get inside. The second the door clicked shut, I collapsed onto my bed, tears spilling out uncontrollably. I unlocked my phone to call my parents and vent, but my mind drew a complete blank on their numbers. I scrolled through my contacts, realizing with absolute horror that I couldn’t even tell which number belonged to my dad and which to my mom. It was terrifying. I grabbed a notebook and frantically started scribbling down the day’s events. “April 12. Project pitch failed. Severe memory glitches.” “Erik knew things only I could possibly know. I suspect he has something to do with my missing memories.” I ripped the page out and taped it right above my pillow. Starting tomorrow, I was going to document every single anomaly. My phone buzzed. It was Maggie from HR. “Rainey, are you okay? That meeting today was rough.” “Maggie, I think I am losing my mind.” I spilled everything about my memory gaps. The line went dead quiet for a few seconds. “You need to see a neurologist. I will go with you.” “It is not a medical issue.” I pulled at my hair in frustration. “I swear it is Erik. He knows what is inside my head.” “Are you saying he snooped through your files?” “No. He knows ideas I haven’t written down anywhere. It is like he literally stole my memories.” Maggie stayed silent for a much longer time. “Rainey, listen to yourself. That is completely impossible.” “I know it sounds insane, but I need you to trust me. Just do a deep background check on Erik, please?” “I will see what I can do. But you seriously need to see a doctor.” I hung up and started tearing my apartment apart. I dug up every single old work journal and reviewed every project detail, absolutely terrified I would wake up tomorrow and forget something crucial again. That night, I had a bizarre dream. I was standing in a strange, high-end apartment, staring at a monitor filled with code. My fingers were flying across the keyboard, tweaking a predictive algorithm. But it didn’t feel like my hands. They were the hands of a man. Then I walked into the bathroom. The face staring back at me in the mirror was Erik. 02 The next morning, I showed up at the office two hours early and made a beeline for the main conference room. I had an epiphany last night. If my memories were really bleeding into Erik’s brain, he should be able to answer a question only I knew the answer to. I needed to test this crazy theory. I grabbed a marker and drew a complex math equation on the whiteboard. It was a personal shorthand system I invented back in college. Absolutely nobody else could decipher it. I snapped a quick photo on my phone and erased it spotless. At exactly nine o’clock, Erik strolled into the bullpen, looking sharp and wearing his signature fake smile. “Morning, Rainey.” He gave a polite nod, his tone dripping with a winner’s superiority. “Morning, Erik.” I squeezed out a smile faker than his. “Thanks for bailing me out in the meeting yesterday.” “Anytime.” He stopped by the espresso machine. “You have been looking pretty exhausted lately, though. Memory loss is usually the first sign of severe burnout.” He heavily emphasized the words “memory loss”, a sly glint flashing in his eyes. “Maybe.” I kept my voice casual. “Hey, by the way, what do you make of this formula?” I held up the photo I just took. Erik glanced at the screen, and his face instantly tightened. “That is your custom shorthand for the core predictive logic. You have been using that exact syntax since your sophomore year of college.” My stomach dropped to the floor. There was zero chance he could know that. Unless… “How do you know that?” My voice actually shook. He narrowed his eyes. “You must have mentioned it to me at some point.” He quickly turned on his heel and walked away, his stiff posture betraying his panic. I immediately pulled out my pocket notebook and logged the interaction. A horrifying reality was taking shape in my mind. My memories were genuinely being hijacked. At noon, Maggie dragged me to a quiet coffee shop down the street. “I dug up some dirt,” she whispered, leaning over the table. “His resume is completely cooked.” “He claimed he spent five years at Google, but I reached out to a buddy in their HR. He was there for two years, tops.” “And he left his last startup incredibly abruptly. Word on the street is he caused a massive disaster on a classified project.” “What kind of project?” I asked. “No idea. They scrubbed the data clean,” Maggie frowned. “But here is the real kicker. His graduate research at MIT wasn’t in Artificial Intelligence. His thesis was on Neural Interfaces and Memory Storage.” The ceramic mug nearly slipped out of my hand. “There is more,” Maggie continued. “I pulled the security logs for the building. For the past month, he has been staying late almost every single night. He usually doesn’t badge out until three or four in the morning.” I flipped open my notebook, matching the dates of my memory glitches. A perfect match. Every single time I woke up with a mental fog, Erik had been alone in the office until the early hours of the morning. “Maggie, do you believe me now? About the memories?” She hesitated. “I don’t know if the sci-fi stuff is possible. But I know you wouldn’t get this paranoid over nothing.” “If your gut says he is dirty, then he is dirty.” “I need hard proof. I am staying late tonight to see exactly what he is doing in the dark.” 03 That night, I packed my bag and pretended to leave for the day, but I actually just camped out at a diner across the street. By ten-thirty, the entire building was mostly dark. I slipped back in through the loading dock, using a spare keycard I borrowed from Gary, the night shift security guard. Gary was a sweet older guy who always appreciated the donuts I brought him on Fridays. “Rainey? Burning the midnight oil again?” “Yeah, tight deadline. Hey, is the new director still up there?” “Oh yeah. Guy practically lives here.” Gary lowered his voice. “He is a weird one. Always locks himself in the back lab and refuses to let the cleaning crew inside.” “The lab? What is he even doing in there?” “Beats me. Claims it is highly classified.” My suspicion deepened. The lab was supposed to be a shared testing space. Who gave Erik the right to claim it as his personal fortress? I took the service elevator up and crept barefoot toward my cubicle. The main floor was pitch black, except for a sliver of blue light spilling from under the lab door at the far end of the hall. I tiptoed closer, holding my breath, and peeked through the frosted glass panel. Erik had his back to the door. He was tinkering with a massive piece of hardware I had never seen before. It looked like a sleek, metallic helmet, wired directly into a stack of high-powered servers. The main monitor displayed a dizzying stream of raw data flowing into a glowing 3D model of a human brain. I pulled out my phone and quietly snapped a few photos. Suddenly, Erik spun around. I threw myself flat against the wall, but I was a second too slow. “Who is out there?” he snapped. I pressed my hands over my mouth, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. His heavy footsteps echoed as he marched toward the door. Just as the handle clicked, a voice called out from the opposite end of the corridor. “Mr. Mercer? Your food delivery is downstairs.” It was Gary. The footsteps stopped, then pivoted away. I seized the window and bolted into the women’s restroom, shaking uncontrollably. Once the coast was clear, I snuck out of the building and ran all the way to my apartment, too terrified to even look over my shoulder. Safe inside, I immediately checked my camera roll. Most of the shots were blurry garbage, but one captured the main monitor perfectly. I zoomed in. Right above the glowing 3D brain model was a distinct file name. Target: Rainey Woods. My phone hit the floor. I was right. Erik was literally hacking into my mind. But how was he doing it without touching me? And why me? My hands shook as I grabbed my notebook. I logged everything I saw, then set three aggressive alarms, absolutely terrified of what I might forget by morning. Right before I shut my eyes, I made a desperate move. I wrote a message on the last page, ripped it out, and shoved it under my mattress. “If you are reading this, remember. Erik is stealing your memories. The proof is in your photo gallery.” 04 I woke up feeling groggy. I couldn’t remember my dreams, but one specific visual was burned into my mind. I was in a dark, unfamiliar room, staring at a computer screen, editing a highly encrypted file. The document title was “Rainey Woods Memory Extraction Progress”. I bolted upright in bed, grabbed my notebook, and read the entry from last night. Seeing the photos on my phone brought the entire nightmare crashing back. I called Maggie immediately. “Maggie, I need a massive favor. Dig up everything you can find on Erik’s MIT research. Neural interfaces, memory extraction. Leave no stone unturned.” “What happened? You sound like you are about to have a panic attack.” “I saw him in the lab last night. He has this insane rig, and my name was literally on the monitor.” “I am completely positive he is using experimental tech to download my brain.” She went quiet. “Are you sure you didn’t just see a project file?” “Maggie, please. Just find the files.” “Okay. I will look. Just watch your back.” Hanging up, I made a solid decision. I was going to play the clueless victim today, but I was setting a lethal trap. When I got to work, I took a deliberate detour past Erik’s office. He wasn’t at his desk. His workspace was sterile, wiped completely clean. The only personal item was a heavy, biometric briefcase. I was just debating if I should risk touching it when a smooth voice echoed behind me. “Looking for something, Rainey?” I spun around, keeping my face perfectly neutral. “Oh, hey Erik. I brought over the weekly metrics, but I wasn’t sure if I should just leave them on your chair.” He took the invisible “metrics” from my empty hand with a knowing, condescending smirk. “Thanks. But maybe knock next time.” “Of course. Sorry for intruding.” I turned to walk away. “Hold on,” he called out. “Sleep well last night? Have any… vivid dreams?” My heart skipped a beat, but I forced a look of pure confusion. “Not really. Slept like a rock. Why?” “Just making conversation.” That slick, fake smile made me want to punch him. Back at my desk, I executed my plan. I opened my code editor and created a massive file named “Core Algorithm Final Build”. I stuffed it with thousands of lines of incredibly complex, totally useless garbage code. I pretended to review it obsessively, waiting to see if he would take the bait. At lunch, I faked a bathroom trip and looped past his glass office. Sure enough, he was glued to his monitors, typing frantically with a disgustingly smug look on his face. At three o’clock, our CEO, Mr. Harrison, called the engineering heads into the boardroom. Erik sat at the right hand of the boss, practically glowing with confidence. He shot me a smug glance across the table. “Alright team,” Mr. Harrison started. “We pitch the algorithm prototype to the venture capitalists next week.” “Erik, where do we stand?” Erik stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and projected his laptop to the big screen. “We are in perfect shape. I just finished optimizing the final core logic, and the efficiency metrics are blowing our projections out of the water.” He began flipping through a deck of complex diagrams and data sets. It was word-for-word the garbage data I had planted in my fake file that morning. I clenched my fists under the mahogany table. He took the bait. The second the meeting wrapped, I texted Maggie. “Massive breakthrough. Meet me after work.” She replied instantly. “I have something huge too. See you at six.” At seven, Maggie drove us to a run-down diner on the edge of town, making sure nobody from the office could track us. “I pulled some serious strings,” she said, sliding a thick manila folder across the sticky table. “His MIT project was called ‘Cognitive Extraction and Transfer Protocols’. The university shut it down three years ago for severe ethical violations.” “His lead professor testified that the tech violated basic human rights and had terrifying potential for corporate espionage.” “I knew it!” I flipped through the classified documents, my pulse racing. “He is using that exact tech to strip-mine my brain!” “It gets worse.” Maggie pointed at a redacted NDA form. “His last employer? Horizon Dynamics. Our biggest market rival.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “He is a corporate rat.” “Exactly. I talked to my industry contacts. Horizon has been trying to launch a predictive model just like ours.” “But their backend is years behind us. If he steals your technical knowledge…” “He hands them the keys to crush us,” I finished her sentence. “And the dead-end project I am on right now? It actually houses the foundational architecture for our entire ecosystem.” “We have to take this to Mr. Harrison.” I shook my head. “Without hard proof, Harrison will laugh us out of the room. He thinks Erik walks on water.” “Then what do we do?” I stared at my cold coffee. “I have a plan.” “If he wants to dig around in my head, I am going to serve him something incredibly toxic.”

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The year my mother and father’s mistress fell to their deaths, I cut off my family and followed Jake to New York. Broke back then, he gave me everything after years of struggle. Near the anniversary of my mother’s death, he said, “Anna, I’m moving the company to London. Will you be upset?” Touched, I told him to go ahead and set things up. Two months later, I was pregnant. I secretly flew to London to surprise him. At his townhouse, I heard a familiar voice—Sophie, my half-sister, the other woman’s daughter. “Honey, are we staying here?” she asked. Jake replied, “Yes. You and the baby are here. I couldn’t leave.” My blood ran cold. I hid as they came out. He helped her, her bump clearly showing. He fussed over her, calling himself an overprotective first-time dad. The way he looked at her was how he once looked at me. After they left, I wandered to my mother’s old house and sat in the dark until Jake called. “Anna,” he asked gently, “sleeping okay?” I couldn’t speak. “No, Jake. I haven’t been feeling well lately. When are you coming back to New York?” “Not feeling well? What’s wrong? Did you go see a doctor?” He sounded so frantic. So worried. If I hadn’t seen that devastating scene with my own eyes, I would have instantly comforted him, told him I was fine, told him not to stress. “I can’t sleep. I have no appetite, and I keep throwing up. Jake… I think I’m pregnant.” The line went dead silent. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke. His tone was tight, edged with agitation. “Anna, I’m right in the middle of the most chaotic phase of the corporate move. This is a really bad time for a baby.” He paused, forcing his voice to soften. “Be a good girl. The pregnancy is still early. Go to a clinic and take care of it. Once we’re fully settled back in the UK, we can plan for a family. Okay?” I let out a broken laugh, swiping at the wetness completely covering my face. “Are you saying it’s a bad time for a baby, or is it just a bad time for my baby?” “What the hell is that supposed to mean! I told you, the timing is terrible. Why can’t you just be understanding for once?” I hung up the phone. I opened my laptop, pulled up the UK visa application site, and began filling out the forms. Under marital status, I selected ‘Married’. A line of glaring red text popped up on the screen. “The information provided does not match system records. Please verify and resubmit.” Thinking I had typed the marriage certificate number wrong, I entered it again. Same red text. I stared at the glowing screen for several seconds. My fingers were trembling uncontrollably as I clicked the dropdown menu and changed it to ‘Single’. Approved. So, when Sophie called him her husband, she meant it legally. And the courthouse wedding Jake and I had in Brooklyn three years ago was a complete fake. When we got “married,” Jake had told me the process in the States was incredibly streamlined. No officiant needed, no witnesses required, just signing some papers and getting a certificate. I had trusted him implicitly. I never harbored a single doubt. It turned out he had been playing me for a fool from the very beginning. I booked the next flight back to New York. I dug out that flimsy, pathetic excuse for a marriage certificate. The whole room started spinning. When I finally opened my eyes again, I was blinded by hospital white. “Anna, you’re awake!” Seeing the mix of anxiety and relief in Jake’s eyes made my stomach violently turn. I weakly raised my fists, pummeling his chest. “Why! Why did you lie to me! The marriage certificate is fake! It’s all fake! You legally married Sophie in London. I saw everything! You’re a piece of trash, Jake!” A flash of pure panic crossed his face. “Anna… please calm down. Just let me explain…” Smack. My palm collided with his cheek, draining the last ounce of my strength. Jake pinned my wrists down, the words spilling out of him in a rushed frenzy. “Sophie had a terrible life. Everywhere she went, people treated her like dirt because she was an illegitimate child. Your dad came to me. He begged me to give her a legitimate status. But I love you, Anna. It’s always been you. Once Sophie has the baby, I’ll divorce her immediately, and we’ll get properly married…” I clutched my head, a raw scream tearing from my throat. “Her mother killed my mother! Did you forget that?! My mother paid for your college tuition! Why would you help our enemy? Why!” Jake yanked my hands away. A look of deep impatience settled over his features, and his volume spiked. “Her mother is dead too! Anna, can you not have an ounce of empathy? You’re both victims in this, there is no right or wrong. You have me for the rest of your life. She has absolutely nothing. I just felt sorry for her. I couldn’t let my gratitude to your mother blind me to basic human decency.” I went completely still. I looked at him, my eyes devoid of anything but dead ash. “I’m going back to London.” There were too many things I needed to uncover. The car ride from Heathrow Airport headed toward the suburbs. “That townhouse is in Sophie’s name. I’ve arranged a new place for you,” Jake explained from the driver’s seat. “How many months along is she?” The car jerked to a violent halt. I slammed my head against the dashboard. Pain and dizziness hit me simultaneously. “What are you trying to do?” he snapped. In the past, if I even got a paper cut, he would coddle me for hours. Now, his only concern was whether I posed a threat to Sophie. I laughed out loud. “When exactly did you two start screwing each other? Three years ago? Five?” Humiliation tightened Jake’s jaw. “Anna, what’s done is done. Digging up the past is pointless. If you want to keep your baby, I won’t force you to get rid of it. But I’m warning you, you will not lay a finger on Sophie’s child.” That last sentence was a flat-out threat. I thought my heart was already dead, but those words still sent a vicious, stabbing pain straight through my chest. The second I walked into the new house, I saw Sophie. She was wearing a tight knit maxi dress, proudly jutting out her belly, standing right in the middle of the living room like she owned the place. “Sis, you’re back!” Jake immediately rushed to her side, supporting her lower back. His tone was laced with gentle reprimand. “Why didn’t you stay home and rest? What are you doing here?” Sophie smiled softly, trailing her fingers down his arm. “The baby has been so good today, not kicking too hard. Don’t be such a worrywart.” Jake pinched her nose. “You’re acting like a kid yourself. I swear I can’t handle you.” Sophie shot a sideways glance at me, acting entirely bashful. “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me. My sister is right there.” I stood there like an unwanted guest, forced to watch their disgusting display of domestic bliss. Despite my best efforts, my eyes burned with hot tears. A dull ache started pulsing in my lower abdomen. “Does the deed to this house have my name on it?” I asked. Jake guided Sophie to the plush sofa, settling her down before looking at me. “Of course it’s yours.” I placed a protective hand over my stomach and took a deep breath. “In that case, I want everyone who doesn’t belong here to get out of my house.” Jake’s brow furrowed. Sophie’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. “It’s my fault. I just missed you so much since we haven’t seen each other in forever. If you don’t want me here, Sis, I’ll leave right now.” She made a dramatic show of struggling to stand up, which sent Jake into a full panic. “Sophie is your younger sister. You shouldn’t treat her like this.” The rage I had been suppressing violently boiled over. I screamed at the top of my lungs. “I don’t have a sister! My mother only gave birth to one daughter!” Sophie buried her face in Jake’s chest, her voice trembling with manufactured sobs. “Hubby, just let me go home. Please don’t upset her anymore.” “I’ll drive you back.” He supported her weight as they walked past me, dropping his voice into a low, disappointed register. “I really hope you can get your emotions under control.” The front door clicked shut. I collapsed onto the couch, buried my face in my hands, and cried until I was completely hollowed out. Jake didn’t come back that night. Instead, my phone lit up with a video message from Sophie. [My pregnancy is making things difficult, but he was so worried about my needs, he insisted on helping me out like this.] The video showed them in bed. I didn’t need to watch the rest. [Sis, do you think he’ll be this attentive when your belly gets big too?] A foul wave of nausea hit the back of my throat. I bolted to the bathroom, dry heaving over the toilet bowl. Everything that had happened over the past few weeks felt like a twisted fever dream. I honestly didn’t know what my next move should be. Suddenly, there was a tiny flutter in my belly. It was a kick. My baby’s first movement. Right then and there, I made my decision. I was keeping this child. But this baby would have absolutely nothing to do with Jake. The next morning, I went straight to the sprawling estate of the man I had disowned. My biological father, Richard. “I’m here to take back the shares of the family trust my mother left for me.” A flicker of guilt crossed Richard’s face. “When you ran off five years ago, I already transferred your mother’s portion to Sophie.” My stomach plummeted. “That belonged to my mother! What right did you have to give it to the daughter of a homewrecker!” “Jake knew about it. In fact, it was his suggestion.” Jake… When his tech company went public in New York, I had asked him to help me fly back to London to reclaim my mother’s shares. At the time, he told me Richard had used a corporate loophole to buy them out at a rock-bottom price, and that he could only salvage a cash payout for me. Why? My mother had paid for his entire Ivy League education. He used to tell me she was like a second mother to him. He promised her he would protect me for the rest of his life. How could a human being rot so completely from the inside out? When I got back to the house, Jake was already there. He walked over, reaching out to grab my hand. I sidestepped, letting his fingers grasp empty air. “Exactly how many things are you hiding from me?” He looked me dead in the eye, perfectly composed. “Aside from marrying Sophie, absolutely nothing.” I lost it. I threw myself at him, slamming my fists into his chest. “Liar! Liar! You told my father to give my mother’s trust fund to Sophie! You gaslighted me for years! Who the hell are you, Jake? If you were skilled enough to play me for five years, why didn’t you have the guts to lie to me for the rest of my life!” “Anna, stop it! You have me! I’ll make sure you never have to worry about money for as long as you live. But Sophie has nothing. She needed a safety net. Can you just let this go? We still have a life to build together. If you keep acting like a hysterical maniac every single day, who could possibly stand being around you?” “If you can’t stand it, then get the hell out! I never want to see your face again! Ah…” A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach. I doubled over. “Take me… to the hospital…” Jake’s face drained of color. He reached out to catch me, but his phone rang. “Hubby, my stomach is hurting so bad… please come back, I’m so scared…” His entire demeanor shifted in a heartbeat. “Don’t move! I’m on my way!” He looked down at me. “Anna, Sophie is further along, she can’t handle any stress. Stop throwing tantrums. Let me go check on her, and I’ll come right back to you.” Without a backward glance, he sprinted out the door. “Jake…” I pulled out my phone with trembling, sweaty fingers and dialed emergency services. “The baby is fine,” the doctor told me later. “A few days of bed rest and you’ll be okay. But you cannot afford these massive emotional spikes. The baby feels whatever the mother feels. For the sake of your child, you need to find a way to stay calm.” I exhaled a massive, shaky breath. “Thank you, doctor.” During my days recovering in the sterile hospital room, Jake didn’t call once. Instead, Sophie bombarded my phone with taunts. “All I had to do was say the baby kicked, and he lost his mind with worry. Sis, there’s no point staying by his side as a pregnant mistress with no legal standing. You should just leave. He’s never going to divorce me.” For the sake of the life growing inside me, I locked my phone away and forced myself to breathe through the anger. Once I was discharged and back at the house, I started packing. I was leaving. I would figure out the rest later. Just as I zipped up my suitcase, Sophie let herself in. “Glad to see you finally came to your senses, Sis. But you probably still have some lingering questions. I came over to clear things up for you.” She looked down, gently stroking her swollen belly. Her voice was terrifyingly soft. “Actually, the night before you two flew out to the States? We slept together.” The words hit me like a physical blow. “You must think it’s impossible, right? Since he hated me so much back then. I went to his apartment with a bottle of whiskey to say goodbye. I told him I had no mother, I’d never get a dime of the family money, and I was doomed to be mocked as an illegitimate bastard for the rest of my life. “He felt sorry for me. He drank glass after glass. When he got drunk, it just… happened naturally. “But Sis, do you really think a black-out drunk man can perform? He knew it was me the whole time. “So you see, you lost to me before you even got on that plane.” I stood glued to the floor. I had imagined a thousand different timelines, but I never thought the betrayal ran this deep. On our flight to New York, Jake had been incredibly distracted. I thought he was just anxious about leaving his home country. Now I knew he was leaving a piece of his heart behind. It was pathetic. I had spent the last five years treating him as my safe harbor. Trusting him unconditionally. I was nothing but a spectacular, colossal joke. Seeing the devastation on my face, Sophie smiled. She slowly pushed up the sleeve of her designer cardigan, revealing an exquisite, vintage Cartier bangle on her wrist. That was my mother’s heirloom. When the homewrecker stole it and sold it years ago, it vanished. Later, I heard it surfaced at a private auction in London. I had begged Jake to fly back and bid on it for me. He had returned looking absolutely gutted, telling me he got outbid by an anonymous buyer. Because his startup was struggling, I swallowed my heartbreak and comforted him. I told him if my mother was watching over us, the bracelet would find its way back to me eventually. “Figured it out yet?” Sophie whispered. “He fought tooth and nail in a bidding war to buy this for me. And he lied straight to your face. From the very beginning, you’ve always been second place.” I lunged at her. “Give it back! Give it back to me!” We grappled. In the chaotic shoving, my foot slipped. I crashed hard onto the hardwood floor. A blinding, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen. A thick, terrifying warmth spread between my legs. The metallic scent of blood hit the air. My baby… Sophie immediately threw herself onto the floor and started screaming at the top of her lungs. “Ah! It hurts! Sis, why did you push me?!” “Sophie! What happened?! Don’t be scared, I’ll get you to the hospital right now!” Jake had arrived. He didn’t even look at me. He only had eyes for her. Clutching my stomach, fighting through the blinding agony, I begged him. “I’m bleeding… my baby is dying…” Jake finally turned his head. His eyes were a twisted mixture of disappointment and pure rage. His voice dropped to a sinister, chilling octave I had never heard before. “If anything happens to Sophie or my child, I will make you pay.” “Don’t go…” I watched helplessly as Jake scooped Sophie into his arms and bolted. Before he turned the corner, Sophie’s lips curled into a victorious smirk. She silently mouthed the words: You lose again.

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I was reborn. Brought back to the exact moment the hospital laboratory went up in flames. Fire devoured everything in sight. Christian and I were trapped inside the burning room. Then Stella appeared. She was my girlfriend. But without a single second of hesitation, she chose to save Christian first, treating me like I was completely invisible. I did not stop her. I did not beg. Because the memories of my past life were still burned into my brain. Back then, I revealed my secret identity as the hospital director’s son, using her career to force her to save me. Christian was left behind in that inferno forever. Afterward, she weaponized my guilt, slowly draining every single cent of my family’s wealth. In the end, she locked me inside a lab and set the room on fire. As I begged for my life in sheer despair, she flashed a twisted, demonic smile. “Rowan! If you hadn’t used your family’s power to threaten me, Christian would never have died that horrible death!” “Every ounce of pain he felt in those flames, I am going to make you pay back a thousand times over!” This time, I chose to let her have exactly what she wanted. And in doing so, I would save myself. … 01 A deafening crash shook the room. The heavy steel cabinet slammed into my body, the agonizing pain instantly snapping me fully awake. Ignoring the blinding agony, I desperately tried to make sense of my surroundings. Thick, toxic smoke forced my eyes shut. I could only cover my mouth, coughing so hard my lungs felt like they were bleeding. A dull, throbbing pain radiated from my right leg. I instinctively threw my arms over my head to protect myself. “No!” But my arms, which had been charred to the bone in my past life, were perfectly intact. How was this possible? Before my brain could process anything, a frantic, desperate voice pierced through the roar of the flames. “Christian! Christian! Are you okay?!” Why did that voice sound so agonizingly familiar? A second later, Christian’s weak, pathetic voice drifted over. “Stella… please help me…” I forced my head up in total disbelief. Through the haze, I saw Stella kneeling next to Christian, frantically shoving a fallen desk off his body. Watching the two of them, I literally couldn’t catch my breath. Wait. Wasn’t I just locked in a lab, burning to a crisp while Stella laughed at me? The realization hit me so hard I curled into a ball, my entire body violently shaking. From the lab doorway, my best friend Ben screamed until his voice cracked. “Stella! Are you completely out of your mind?! Save Rowan! He is your boyfriend!” The raw heat on my skin and the smoke stinging my eyes made it undeniably real. This wasn’t a nightmare. I was reborn. Brought back to the very day Christian, the hospital’s golden boy, and I were trapped in the fire. With a loud scrape of metal, Stella finally pushed the desk away. Without so much as a glance in my direction, she hauled Christian up and dragged him toward the exit. A bitter, mocking laugh escaped my throat. In my last life, this was exactly what she did. I was supposed to be the man she loved, but her eyes only ever saw him. It made sense. Christian was gorgeous. He was practically worshipped by the staff, and rumors constantly swirled that he was the sole heir to the Harrington Medical Empire. Even if Stella wasn’t single, she had probably fallen for him a long time ago. I struggled to stand, but the steel cabinet had my leg pinned to the floor. Shards of broken glass had sliced my calf open, and blood was pooling beneath me. I couldn’t move an inch. Stella finally seemed to notice I existed. But there was zero concern in her eyes. Only pure annoyance. She wrinkled her nose. “Christian is the sole heir to the Harrington family. If he dies here, this entire hospital goes down with him!” “I am looking at the bigger picture!” “Your injuries aren’t even that bad. Once I get Christian to safety, I will come back for you.” I laughed again. If I hadn’t already lived through this hell once, I might have actually believed her garbage excuse about “the bigger picture.” I was covered in my own blood, yet to her, my injuries “weren’t that bad.” Ben didn’t hesitate. He tried to charge straight into the fire, but a group of panicked nurses dragged him back. “Ben! Stop! The lab is full of combustible chemicals! It’s going to blow!” They were right. In my memory, this room had roughly fifteen minutes before it detonated. In my past life, after I was dragged out, I immediately screamed for everyone to evacuate, saving dozens of lives. Stella had actually wanted to run back in for Christian, but the flames grew too wild, and she chickened out. So why the hell would I ever believe she was coming back for me this time? I knew she wouldn’t. But I refused to drag the people who actually cared about me down into the grave. I propped myself up on my bloody elbows, screaming at the door with everything I had. “Ben, stay back! It’s going to blow! All of you, run!” Hearing the word “blow,” Stella froze in her tracks. She snapped her head back, glaring at me with eyes so cold she looked like a total stranger. “Rowan, since when did you become such a manipulative liar?!” “The fire department will be here in half an hour to contain this. If you scream about explosions, what are all the colleagues outside going to think of me?!” “Can’t you be a little more like Christian and show some actual basic human decency?!” Her absolute hypocrisy made my blood boil. “You didn’t call me manipulative when you were in my bed!” Hearing that, Christian weakly tugged at Stella’s collar, his voice trembling. “Stella, it hurts so much…” The moment Christian spoke, Stella immediately broke eye contact with me, her gaze softening entirely. “Hold on, Christian. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” And just like that, she practically carried him out the door. She never looked back. 02 I gritted my teeth and pushed against the crushing weight of the cabinet. A blinding, drilling pain shot up my spine. But compared to being burned alive in my past life, this was absolutely nothing. Watching Stella abandon me, Ben collapsed to his knees in the hallway, his face pale with disbelief. “Stella! You are sick in the head!” “The Chief of Medicine is going to ruin you for this!” Ben was the only person in the entire hospital who knew my real identity. But his threat only earned a cruel, mocking sneer from Stella. “The Chief is going to ruin me? Hilarious.” “Christian is the only son of the Harrington Medical group! If he dies, the Chief will be the one begging for mercy!” I dragged my bleeding body through the narrow gap beneath the cabinet. The jagged edges tore my wound open further, soaking my clothes in fresh blood. But I didn’t care. I needed to live. Seeing the clock ticking down, I screamed at Ben. “Stop talking to her! Get out of here!” I would never forget the look in Stella’s eyes when she poured gasoline over my head in my past life. There was no love left. Only absolute, psychotic hatred. She ignored my begging. She ignored our years together. She just struck the match. That was when I realized she had blamed me for Christian’s death every single day since the fire. She despised me. Before I could fully shake off that agonizing memory, Ben broke through the crowd and charged straight into the burning room. “Rowan! Stay with me!” Toxic smoke filled my lungs, blurring my vision. The only clear thing in the world was Ben’s figure pushing through the orange flames. “Are you insane?! Get out!” I roared. Ben ignored me. He gritted his teeth, hoisted half my weight onto his shoulder, and began dragging me toward the exit. The blistering heat scorched our skin. I watched a lock of his hair catch fire, glowing with orange embers, but he acted like he couldn’t feel a thing. He just kept pulling. Looking at his soot-stained face, a massive wave of guilt crashed over me. I weakly lifted my arm to check my watch. Time was up. If we didn’t move now, we were dead. I took a deep, ragged breath and screamed in his ear. “Listen to me! I am going to count down from three. When I hit one, we dive for the door. Do not look back at me, do you understand?!” Ben didn’t even turn his head. “Keep screaming! I am not letting go of you!” A knot of emotion tightened in my throat. I stopped arguing and locked my eyes on the doorway. Our only way out. Three! Two! One! “Jump!” I roared with every ounce of strength left in my broken body, dragging Ben with me as we launched ourselves through the door. Boom! The exact second we cleared the threshold, a catastrophic explosion detonated behind us. The massive shockwave blasted us across the hallway. My eardrums felt like they had ruptured. My vision went completely white. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. Just a high-pitched, endless ringing echoing in my skull. “Rowan! Rowan! Can you hear me?!” I don’t know how long I blacked out, but Ben’s panicked voice eventually broke through the static. I forced my eyes open. “I’m fine… just my leg…” Ben followed my gaze down. His face instantly drained of color. “It’s bad. Don’t look at it. Just… wait right here!” He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the hall. A few minutes later, Ben returned with a team of colleagues carrying a stretcher. When they saw the state of my leg, every single one of them gasped. One of the male nurses covered his mouth. “Oh my god… how many stitches is that going to take?!” My entire body felt shattered, but my mind was violently clear. As they wheeled me past the emergency triage, I saw Stella. She had her arms wrapped tenderly around Christian’s shoulders, whispering sweet comfort into his ear, acting like the horrors of the last twenty minutes never happened. Acting like I didn’t exist. The head nurse, who had always treated me well, began examining my wounds. She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “Rowan… what kind of karma is this? You have so many fractured bones. It’s going to take at least a year of physical therapy to walk right…” Her voice cracked into a sob. “Thank God your right hand is safe. Once you heal, you can still operate.” I managed a weak, bloodstained smile, wanting to comfort her, but the pain robbed me of my voice. The head nurse lowered her voice, glancing nervously toward the triage bay. “That Christian guy… I heard it’s just a few minor scratches! And look at Dr. Stella treating him like he’s dying. Disgusting…” Hearing that, Ben completely snapped. He marched right up to triage, pointing a shaking finger directly at Stella’s face. “Stella! You make me sick to my stomach!” Before Ben could even finish his sentence, Christian let out a pathetic, breathy cough. “Stella… I’m feeling really weak…” Stella immediately went into panic mode, stroking his hair. “Just hold on, Christian. The specialists will be here any second.” Then, she slowly looked up, glaring daggers at Ben. “Rowan is fine, isn’t he?!” “Rowan is my boyfriend. Whatever happens between us is our business. Why do you always have to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?!” I stared at Stella’s repulsive, self-righteous face from my stretcher. My voice was hoarse, but it cut through the room like a knife. “We are done.” “We are breaking up.” Ben nodded aggressively. “Good! No point reasoning with trash!” Stella froze. She clearly hadn’t expected me to drop the hammer in front of everyone. Her brow furrowed in deep annoyance. “Rowan, what is your problem now? Are you playing games with me?” I let out a cold, raspy laugh. “Playing games? You aren’t worth the effort.” I forced the tears back, staring dead at Christian hiding behind her. “You would rather save another man than save my life. And you have the nerve to call yourself my girlfriend?!” Christian, a grown man, immediately forced tears into his eyes like a victim. “Rowan… how could you say that to her?” “She just knows you’re stronger than me. She believed in you. She simply chose to save the person who needed her the most…” The ER erupted into chaotic whispers. Stella’s aggressive defense and Christian’s pathetic weeping drew a massive crowd of onlookers. “Well, the golden boy has a point. He’s so fragile, obviously he needed help first!” “Exactly. Dr. Stella was just making the logical choice. Why is Dr. Rowan being so incredibly bitter?” “No kidding. Christian is the heir to the Harrington Empire. Saving him is objectively more important!” Just then, my father rushed into the ER, having caught the first flight back from his overseas conference. Seeing him, Stella instantly dropped her defensive attitude and rushed over, putting on a professional, respectful face. “Chief Thomas! The lab exploded, and I… I risked my life to pull Christian out of the flames.” “Christian just promised me he would have Harrington Medical double their funding for our hospital!” My dad’s face was completely black. “Where is Rowan?!” Assuming the Chief was looking for someone to blame, Stella eagerly threw me to the wolves. “Sir, it was just Rowan and Christian in the lab. Christian is flawless with his protocols, so this incident is entirely Rowan’s fault.” “They just pulled him out. His injuries aren’t severe. But honestly, I strongly recommend banning him from the research labs going forward. Christian is more than capable of leading the projects alone.” My father’s expression turned murderous. Lying on the stretcher, I just smiled coldly to myself. Just wait, Stella. Once I am out of the picture, your life is going to become a living hell. Before I could even see my dad’s reaction, the darkness pulled me under, and I passed out cold. When I woke up, it was already dusk the following day. My arms and legs were encased in heavy plaster and bandages. I couldn’t move, but breathing the sterile hospital air, I felt completely reborn. “Rowan!” Ben walked up to my bed, looking exhausted but incredibly relieved. I tried to lift my hand to greet him, but a sharp spike of pain forced me to stop. Seeing me wince, Ben lost his composure. “You absolute idiot! Do you have any idea how close you were to dying?!” I offered a weak smile. “At least… I’m still breathing…” In this life, I didn’t owe Stella a damn thing. And neither my dad nor I were going to die. “Man,” Ben sighed heavily, pulling up a chair. “I already told your dad exactly what happened. He was so furious he called an emergency disciplinary board meeting for tomorrow morning!” Hearing about my dad, hot tears finally spilled over my eyelashes. In my past life, my blind trust in Stella eventually led to my father’s tragic death. “Ben…” I took a shaky breath, steadying my voice. “I need you to do one last thing for me.” “Name it.” “The security cameras… inside my private lab. I need you to pull the footage from right before the fire…” Ben grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Already on it, brother.” “We hit a small firewall, but don’t worry. I completely bypassed it. We have the video.” Looking at him, a tidal wave of guilt practically crushed my chest. In my past life, Stella had brainwashed me into believing Ben was jealous of me. She convinced me he was trying to sabotage my career. I got into a massive screaming match with him, cut him out of my life, and died before I ever had the chance to apologize. I was so blind. I threw away gold for a piece of trash. I was just about to close my eyes and rest when the door swung open. Stella walked in. And of course, Christian was trailing right behind her. He stood there looking absolutely flawless, adjusting the collar of his designer shirt, drawing the admiring eyes of the passing nurses. Then there was me. Mummified in plaster, broken on a hospital bed.

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The divorce from my ex-husband six years ago was the single most humiliating chapter of my life. He’d lost his mind back then, spewing the vilest curses, swearing I’d never find happiness. I was shaking with rage. That same day, I bought a one-way ticket and fled the country. It wasn’t until a high school reunion last week that I set foot in this city again. During dinner, someone enthusiastically tried to pour me a glass of wine. But Daniel, my ex, who was sitting right next to me, shot his hand out to block the bottle. “Don’t,” he said, his voice low but shockingly firm. “She’s allergic to alcohol.” 1 The moment he said it, the lively chatter in our private dining room died, replaced by a thick, awkward silence. Every eye in the room darted between me and Daniel. After all, our breakup had been a spectacular train wreck. Six years ago, Daniel had an affair with my best friend, Jessica. He claimed he didn’t want to hurt either of us and actually suggested the three of us could learn to coexist peacefully. The idea was so warped it shattered my reality. After a massive fight, I left the country in a storm of fury. And I hadn’t been back until today. Everyone knew the story, which is why they’d been carefully avoiding any sensitive topics during the initial pleasantries. But here was Daniel, practically begging for attention. After vetoing the wine, he took it upon himself to stand up and fill my glass with iced tea. Mike, one of our old friends, shot him a disapproving look but didn’t say anything when I remained silent. He just forced a smile and tried to smooth things over. “No worries, no worries! If Sophie can’t drink, she can’t drink. A toast with tea is just as good.” “Yeah, totally,” others chimed in, desperate to move past the cringeworthy moment. A reunion was a rare thing, and no one wanted our personal drama to ruin it. I didn’t want to make a scene either. I gracefully raised my glass of tea and took a sip. As I set it down, I caught a flicker of a smile in Daniel’s eyes, as if my simple act of drinking the tea he poured meant something more. I refused to overthink it and calmly looked away. Just then, the waiters began bringing in the food. I was surprised to see they were all my favorite dishes. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Daniel had been the one to place the order. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He was leaning back in his chair, a smug, expectant look on his face, as if he’d been waiting for me to notice his grand gesture. It all clicked into place. Every single thing he’d done tonight was a calculated move to get close to me. And honestly? It was making my skin crawl. A good ex is a dead ex. They should vanish from your world completely, not pop up trying to play the knight in shining armor. Especially not when, less than a month after I left the country, Daniel had married Jessica. As far as I knew, they were still very much together. A married man making repeated, suggestive moves on his ex-wife? That wasn’t just inappropriate. It was disgusting. Trying to avoid any more drama, I coldly flagged down a waiter and ordered an orange juice. For the rest of the night, whenever a toast was made, I drank that, letting the iced tea Daniel had poured for me grow warm and forgotten. I thought my message was loud and clear. But then, Daniel suddenly reached across the table with his chopsticks and expertly placed a piece of brisket on my plate. “You’ve gotten so thin,” he said, his tone sickeningly intimate. “You must not have been eating well over there.” I stared at the meat in my bowl as if it were something rotten, unable to bring myself to touch it. But Daniel, acting completely oblivious, proceeded to serve me a little of everything, piling my plate high until it was a small mountain of food. Now, everyone was staring. 2 “What’s with those two? You think they got back together?” “No way! Isn’t Daniel still married?” “So what? They were the real couple. If it wasn’t for that Jessica butting in, they’d still be together.” “Man, nothing beats the original, you know?” Thanks to Daniel’s little performance, my former classmates were now convinced we were secretly hooking up again. Some even whispered that I’d come back to the country just for him. And the man himself, the architect of all this gossip, just sat there, watching it all unfold with a calm, detached expression. He didn’t say a word, content to let the rumors solidify into fact. I had no idea what his game was, but I wanted absolutely no part of it. I opened my mouth, ready to shut it all down by announcing that I was already married. But before I could speak, the door to the room swung open. Jessica stood there, a thundercloud on her face. Her eyes met mine, and for a second, she froze. Then, her expression shifted instantly, her face contorting into a sickly sweet smile. “Sophie! You’re back! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She sauntered in like she owned the place and slid into the seat next to Daniel. The moment she sat down, her gaze fell on the dishes covering the table. As my best friend for years, she knew my tastes intimately. Her face went pale with humiliation. But just as quickly, she shot a venomous glare in my direction, as if I had personally orchestrated the menu just to embarrass her. A bitter irony washed over me. The Jessica I remembered wasn’t like this. I remember in tenth-grade gym class, I got my period and bled through my pants. A group of boys started pointing and laughing. “Hey, look! Sophie’s butt is bleeding!” “Ew, that’s so gross.” It was the first time I’d ever been publicly mocked like that. My back went rigid, and I froze on the spot, utterly clueless about what to do. Suddenly, Jessica charged in, whipped off her own jacket, and tied it around my waist. Then she spun around and roared at the boys. “What the hell are you laughing at? It’s called a period. It’s normal! If you’re that clueless, maybe you should pay attention in health class instead of acting like ignorant jerks.” The boys fell silent immediately. Later, I gave her a box of candy to thank her. She took it and thumped her chest, promising, “Anyone ever messes with you again, you just come find me. I’ll take care of them!” I thought she was just kidding, but Jessica was true to her word. Back then, Daniel and I were childhood sweethearts, practically joined at the hip. Our closeness fueled a lot of gossip. Someone even started a rumor that we had already gone all the way. At first, I ignored it. But we were still teenagers, and our skins weren’t as thick as they are now. Hearing it over and over started to get to me, making me feel miserable and wronged. So one day, after another crude joke was thrown my way, I finally broke. I walked to the front of the classroom and tearfully told everyone that Daniel and I had never crossed that line. Daniel stood up to defend me, but that only made things worse. The gossips exchanged gleeful looks and started jeering. “Ooh, look at that. Say two words about the girl and the guy jumps up to protect her. And you say nothing’s going on?” “They walk home together every day. Who knows what they’re doing in private!” “Hahaha.” Another wave of laughter crashed over me. I stood there, frozen, feeling like I’d been struck by lightning. That’s when Jessica slammed her hand on her desk. She stood up, marched over to the group of guys, looked them up and down, and then flashed a lewd grin. “Ooh, look at you three, always going to the bathroom together. Who knows what you guys are doing in there, huh?” She leaned in, her voice dripping with insinuation. “I heard real ‘bros’ are supposed to take care of each other when they’re in need. You guys been taking good care of each other?” If straight romance was a storm in our high school, a gay rumor was a full-blown apocalypse. The boys’ faces went white with panic. They immediately turned to me and Daniel, stammering apologies. After that, they never breathed another word about us. And from that day on, Jessica and I were inseparable. She was the kind of person who was optimistic, kind, and fiercely righteous. She was the one who would charge into battle for me. But the woman standing here today? For a man, she’d not only abandoned her own sense of justice but was now slinging mud at me without a second thought. “Sophie, are you still mad at me for taking Daniel all those years ago? Is that why you came back without saying a word to me?” I was so taken aback by her accusation that I didn’t know how to respond. She seized the opportunity, raising her voice into a pathetic, whiny tone. “I tried to talk to you when I came in, but you just ignored me. You just wanted to humiliate me, didn’t you?” Her voice rose to a crescendo, filled with theatrical self-pity. “I know you’ve never gotten over Daniel, but he’s my husband now! Are you really trying to seduce him right in front of my face?” The room erupted in gasps. Curious eyes bounced back and forth between me and Jessica. But what truly surprised me was Daniel’s reaction. He did absolutely nothing to stop Jessica’s lies. Instead, he just rested his chin on his hand, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips as he watched me. It was a look of pure anticipation. As if he was actually hoping I would try to seduce him. How could he look at me like that? Had he forgotten how he had cursed me, how he had wished me a life of misery? 3 I found out Jessica’s secret boyfriend was Daniel on the day she tried to kill herself. By then, I was already married to Daniel and five months pregnant with our child. She sent me a horrifying photo of her sliced wrist with a simple text: I’m so sorry. I can’t live anymore. The image of raw, red flesh made my scalp tingle with fear. I immediately called an ambulance. At the hospital, I was a wreck, pacing uselessly, not knowing what to do. I just knelt on the cold floor, my pregnant belly heavy, and sobbed, begging the doctors to save her. Thankfully, they managed to stabilize her. I finally let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My relief quickly turned to rage. I was going to find the man who did this to her and make him pay. But I didn’t even know his name. All I had to go on were Jessica’s tear-swollen eyes from our last conversation. After composing myself, I went to her dorm to get her phone. My plan was to lure the bastard out and beat him to a pulp. But when I held her phone in my hand, my world tilted on its axis. The lock screen was a picture of two hands, fingers intertwined. On the man’s ring finger was a wedding band. I recognized it instantly. It was my wedding ring. The one I’d given Daniel. So… the man was Daniel? No. It couldn’t be. Impossible. My hands trembling, I frantically typed in my own birthday to unlock the phone. Password incorrect. I tried Jessica’s birthday. Still incorrect. Finally, with a shaking hand, I entered Daniel’s birthday. The phone unlocked. At that point, the truth was already screaming at me, but a tiny, desperate part of my heart clung to hope. Maybe it’s not Daniel’s hand, just someone with a similar ring… Maybe the password is just a random coincidence… But all my flimsy excuses were obliterated by the thousands of photos in her gallery. Over a thousand pictures of Daniel and Jessica together. Eating at restaurants. Vacationing on a beach. Lying in bed, tangled in sheets. And then… the one that broke me. A snapshot of a white bedsheet stained with a single, damning crimson blotch. A picture taken after the first time they’d slept together. The date stamp was from four months ago. The same day I found out I was pregnant. I remembered it so clearly. When I told Daniel the news, he was so ecstatic he lifted me up and spun me around. Jessica was there, too, excitedly declaring she would be the baby’s godmother. It had been the happiest day of my life. I was carrying new life, with the man I loved and the friend I cherished by my side. I had shared my joy with them in the morning. And that very afternoon, they had betrayed me together. What a fucking joke. The two people who had been my entire world, who had walked with me through my entire youth, had been lying to me all along. And I, in my blissful ignorance, had never suspected a thing. If I hadn’t been trying to play the hero for Jessica, would I have ever found out? The thought that just hours ago, I was on my knees, pregnant and desperate, begging doctors to save her… it made me want to laugh. But the laughter died in my throat. A cold, chilling thought sliced through my mind. Jessica’s suicide attempt… was it a calculated move to force my hand?

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I have been dead for three years. Today, my lawyer wife showed up at my overgrown childhood home in the countryside, clutching a printed plea deal. She couldn’t find me anywhere, so she eventually had to knock on a neighbor’s door to ask for my whereabouts. “Mike has been dead for a long time,” the neighbor told her flatly. “Word is, right after he got out of prison, the victims’ families tracked him down and beat him to death.” My wife refused to believe a single word. She was convinced the neighbor and I were running some kind of sick con. She scoffed, her face twisting with absolute disgust. “He spent a couple of years behind bars, and now he’s got the nerve to fake his own death to avoid me?” “You tell him something for me. If he doesn’t show up in court this Monday, his crazy mother locked up in that asylum won’t see another dime of my money!” With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off. The neighbor watched her stubborn, retreating figure and let out a heavy sigh. “But his mother already starved to death in that ward a long time ago…” 01 I floated in the weed-choked yard of my old estate, watching Diana stumble awkwardly through the dead grass in her designer stilettos. She was tightly gripping a few sheets of paper. A confession form, I figured, meant to make me take the fall one more time. “Mike! Get out here! Do you think hiding in this dump is funny?” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Her voice bounced off the empty, decaying walls of the farmhouse. “If I hadn’t pulled strings back then, you would have been beaten to a pulp inside! Now I actually need you, and you have the guts to hide from me?” Listening to Diana talk about the past with zero remorse felt like an ice pick driving straight into my chest. Three years ago, she said the exact same things. Back then, Oliver had driven drunk and hit someone. Diana came to me with fake evidence and a cold ultimatum. “It’s just two years. You go in for two years, and I guarantee your mother gets the absolute best medical care. But if you say no…” I remember staring at her in pure disbelief. We fought until I flipped the dining table. “Diana! I am your husband! How could you throw me in a cell just to save him?” She didn’t even bother to explain herself. She just looked at me with a sickening amount of contempt. “Either sign the confession, or watch your mother’s treatment get cut off today. Take your pick.” And now, here she was again, wearing the exact same ugly expression. It was late into the night, but Diana was still yelling. The noise finally woke up Mrs. Gable next door. The older woman shoved her window open and poked her head out. “What is all that screaming about at this hour? Nobody lives there anymore!” Diana immediately aimed her hostility at the old woman. “You know Mike, don’t you? Is he hiding in there?” Mrs. Gable squinted through her reading glasses for a good while before letting out a soft sound of realization. “Oh, you mean Mike? He passed away almost three years ago.” Diana’s face froze for a fraction of a second. “What did you just say? Dead?” “That’s right. He didn’t even make it two days out of prison before he was killed. People say it was the family of the victims from that old case. Beat him till he stopped breathing right on the spot.” Mrs. Gable frowned, her tone turning sour. “Who exactly are you to him? How do you not know this?” “Impossible!” Diana’s voice suddenly spiked in pitch. “Someone like him wouldn’t just…” Before she could even finish her sentence, her hands were shaking as she pulled out her phone. She dialed Oliver’s number. She put it on speaker. Oliver’s smooth voice drifted out into the cold night air. “Hey D, what’s wrong?” “Oliver, that fifty grand you said you gave to the victim’s family. Did you actually hand it over?” There was a half-second pause on the other end, followed by Oliver’s confident reply. “Of course I did. Handed it to them myself. Why?” I hovered right next to the phone, so close I could hear the static, and almost let out a string of curses. He didn’t do a damn thing. When I was released, those relatives showed up at my door, screaming about getting blood for blood. It was only as I was being beaten within an inch of my life that I realized Oliver had never paid them a single cent. They hadn’t even heard the word “settlement.” I died in Oliver’s place. Hearing his lie, the tension drained out of Diana’s face. She snapped her head back toward Mrs. Gable, glaring with pure revulsion. “I knew it. You and Mike are just teaming up to play me!” “So what if he had to sit in a cell for two years? Now he’s playing dead to hide from me?” “You tell him, Mrs. Gable. If he doesn’t show his face in court next Monday, that crazy mother of his can rot!” She spun around and marched away, her heels clicking sharply against the stone path with absolute finality. Mrs. Gable watched her go, shaking her head at the empty air. “Love really makes a fool out of people. Mike’s poor mother passed on ages ago. Heard nobody even checked her room for days. Starved right to the bone.” 02 Diana practically fled the old property, totally missing Mrs. Gable’s final words. My soul, tethered to her by some invisible, suffocating thread, had no choice but to drift along. Her cab sped through the city, eventually pulling up to Oliver’s downtown penthouse overlooking the bay. The moment the door swung open, Oliver was right there, a desperate, eager smile plastered across his face. “D, how did it go? Did Mike agree?” Diana paused as she took off her coat, avoiding his eyes. “He… wasn’t home.” The smile slid off Oliver’s face, instantly replaced by a masterfully crafted look of guilt. “Is he still mad at me? Mad about the time I made him take the fall? I know I put him through hell.” He looked down, his voice dropping to a miserable mumble as his eyes perfectly welled up with tears. “Maybe we should just drop it. It’s my mess anyway. I can’t drag him down again.” “It’s just… if I really get locked up, what are you going to do all by yourself…” Diana always crumbled when he played this card. She immediately pulled him into a tight hug, her brow furrowing with protective anger. “Stop talking like that. What right does he have to be mad?” “I paid him a massive amount of hush money last time, and I took care of the victims’ families! It was just a couple of years inside. It’s not like I asked him to die for you. He has absolutely no reason to be difficult!” She gripped Oliver’s shoulders, her tone absolute. “Don’t worry. I will find him. He has to take the heat for you this time, no matter what.” Floating right beside the living room chandelier, I caught the fleeting, smug smirk on Oliver’s lips. A coldness seeped into my ghostly core. I never saw a penny of that money. And those “taken care of” families were the reapers who took my life. Oliver buried his face in the crook of Diana’s neck, smiling his victorious little smile right where she couldn’t see. I reached out, desperately wanting to wrap my hands around his throat, but my fingers just phased through his flesh like smoke. “Trust me,” Diana whispered, rubbing his back. “I’ll track him down. He is going to fix this.” Determined to dig me out of whatever hole she thought I was in, Diana drove back to my old farmhouse at the crack of dawn. Morning light spilled through the shattered windowpanes of the decaying house. She stood in the overgrown yard, her frown deepening by the second. “These flowers…” She crouched down, running a finger over a massive bush of dead, blackened roses. She knew how much I worshipped my garden. Unless something physically stopped me, I would never have let them wither like this. I hovered behind her as she pulled out her phone, taking photos of the cobwebs thick on the window sills. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long time before she finally called her assistant. “I need you to trace every move Mike has made. Dig up everything.” She hung up and took a few steps closer to the porch. My heart would have hammered in my chest if I still had one. Right there, just past the corner, the concrete was still stained with my dried, blackened blood from three years ago. Just two more steps. Suddenly, a piercing ringtone shattered the silence. It was her custom ringtone for Oliver. She answered, and Oliver’s panicked voice blasted through the speaker. “D! I just heard the victims got their hands on new evidence. If we don’t handle this right now, I’m completely screwed!” “What?!” Diana’s face drained of color. “I’m heading back right now!” She turned and sprinted for the car, abandoning the bloodstain and the dead roses without a second thought. I could only laugh bitterly. It didn’t matter what was happening; her precious Oliver always came first. 03 I was dragged along as Diana pushed her car well past the speed limit, the city blurring into gray streaks outside the window. She drummed her manicured nails frantically against the steering wheel, muttering to herself. “We have time. We have to have time…” The Bluetooth clicked on. Her assistant’s voice filled the cabin. “Diana, I still can’t find a single trace of Mike anywhere in the system. It’s almost like he really is…” “Useless!” she screamed, slamming her palm against the horn. “Keep digging! Hack into the city’s traffic grids if you have to!” She killed the call, her breathing ragged. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up. It was that familiar, calculating look she always got right before she won a tough case. She dialed Oliver, her voice actually trembling with excitement. “Oliver, I figured it out! That old bat is still locked up in the psychiatric ward. Mike cares about her more than anything in the world…” My soul violently violently shook. The image of my mother, reduced to skin and bones, flashed before my eyes. After all these years, she still wanted to use my mother as a bargaining chip! I screamed at her to stop, but she couldn’t hear a thing. Intoxicated by the thrill of finding my weak point, she slammed on the gas and aimed the car straight for the asylum. Her heels echoed like gunshots down the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallways. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of bleach and stale urine. Diana pinched her nose in disgust and raised her voice. “Somebody get out here! Where is Mike’s mother? Bring her out to me right now.” A middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses rushed out of an office. “Counselor, what an unexpected surprise…” “Cut the crap, Dr. Lawson,” she snapped. “Which room is Eleanor in? I’m taking her with me.” Dr. Lawson’s face hardened, a thin layer of sweat instantly breaking out across his forehead. “Well… you might not be aware, but Eleanor is…” “She’s what? Oliver was just here last month paying ten grand for her care! Take me to her right now!” My spirit twisted in agony. That ten grand went straight into Oliver and Lawson’s pockets. Dr. Lawson scrambled to his desk, frantically clicking through his patient database until a death certificate popped up on the monitor. [Time of Death: March 15, 2023. Cause of Death: Severe Malnutrition.] “Counselor… Eleanor passed away two years ago.” “Bullshit!” Diana shoved him aside and grabbed the mouse, her eyes boring into the screen. I watched her pupils dilate, her fingers trembling slightly against the plastic mouse. But a second later, she let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Wow. How much did Mike pay you to forge this, Doctor?” She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a lethal whisper. “Do you know the maximum sentence for falsifying medical records?” Dr. Lawson looked like his knees were about to give out. “I swear to God, this is the official system! You can check the registry number with the state…” “Shut up.” Diana slammed the laptop shut and marched toward the door. “I’ll look into this myself. And if I find out you two are playing games with me…” She didn’t finish the threat, but Lawson already looked like a corpse. I knew exactly what he was terrified of. He was the one who personally injected my mother with fatal doses of sedatives. When Diana got back into her car, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely turn the key. She called Oliver, her voice sickeningly sweet. “Hey babe, don’t panic. I will find that old hag. Mike does whatever she says…” Sitting in the passenger seat, watching the absolute devotion in her eyes, a wave of hatred so pure it burned washed over me. If ghosts could cry, I would have wept blood. 04 But Diana only ever saved her gentleness for him. The moment she hung up, her foot went flat to the floor. She tore through the streets, blowing past three red lights. She screamed at her assistant over the phone, gripping the leather wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Investigate that hospital right now! I want a full audit! Mike definitely bribed them to hide her!” I looked at her twisted, furious profile and couldn’t help but laugh. The irony was staggering. The hospital did fake the records. But it wasn’t my money. And they weren’t protecting me. They were covering up for her precious, untouchable Oliver. Watching the city blur past, I remembered a rainy night three years ago. Oliver had his arm wrapped around Diana’s waist. “That old woman is a massive problem,” he had whispered to her. “She’s at the precinct every single day. If she keeps making noise, she’s going to blow our whole cover.” Diana hadn’t even looked up from her phone. “Handle it however you want,” she had replied, utterly indifferent. And just like that, Oliver slapped a fake psychiatric hold on my mother and locked her in a living hell, stripping away her freedom and eventually her life. The violent screech of tires yanked me back to the present. Diana had slammed the brakes near City Hall, but she made no move to get out. She was staring at a text from Oliver. “D, the trial is tomorrow. Why haven’t we found Mike yet?” Her manicured fingers tapped a frantic rhythm on the steering wheel before she finally called him back. “Oliver, listen to me. We have to trigger an emergency to push the court date back.” Oliver sounded confused. “An emergency?” “Yes. A sudden illness, a severe accident, something undeniable that forces the judge to delay…” Oliver went dead silent on the line. A minute later, a blood-curdling scream erupted from the phone, followed by the heavy, sickening thud of someone tumbling down a flight of wooden stairs. All the blood drained from Diana’s face. “Oliver? Oliver!” There was a chaotic shuffling sound, and then a panic-stricken voice came through. “Ms. Diana! Mr. Oliver… he just fell down the entire staircase!” I floated behind her as she sprinted through the sliding doors of the emergency room. Oliver was lying on a gurney, his right leg already in a thick plaster cast, looking as pale as a ghost. Diana threw herself over him, tears freely pouring down her cheeks. “Are you insane? We could have figured something else out! Why would you hurt yourself like this?” Oliver managed to put on a weak, tragic smile. “I just… I owe you too much. I couldn’t bear watching you run yourself ragged trying to fix my mistakes.” Diana let out a ragged breath and kissed his forehead tenderly. “You idiot. But… the doctor said your tibia is fractured. You need two weeks of bed rest. That pushes the trial back by at least half a month.” “You just focus on healing. I’ll handle the rest.” By the time she walked out of the hospital, the cold, ruthless lawyer was back. She called her assistant. “What did you find? Good. Now scrub every location Mike might be hiding. His old friends, his favorite bars, anywhere…” I hovered in her shadow as she slid into the driver’s seat. She would never guess that the man she was tearing the city apart to find was sitting right beside her.

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For fifteen years, I was fiercely protective of my brother. But then came the twist of the century: he turned out to be the switched-at-birth heir to a billionaire family. When his biological parents arrived, I lost it. Crying, I grabbed his hand and swore blood didn’t matter—I’d always be the sister who loved him most. I warned him rich families often prefer the child they raised, and gave him a handwritten “True Heir Survival Guide,” promising our dogs, cats, and even the town’s angry geese would always have his back. My brother and his father looked ready to burst. Then his father cleared his throat and said I was coming too. I beamed, hugging my brother’s arm, already cheering about storming high society together to crush the “fake son.” My brother fell silent. The “fake son” I wanted to destroy was actually my own biological brother. 1 Gordon and I grew up scraping by in a forgotten, run-down town deep in the Appalachian mountains. Our parents passed away when we were young. We survived by sticking to the shadows, living off canned beans and stale bread. Gordon was the silent type. Even if the sky was falling, he wouldn’t make a sound. But if we only had one bite of food left, he would always force it into my mouth. I was the exact opposite. I had a sharp tongue, a wild temper, and I ran our neighborhood like a boss. If anyone dared to lay a finger on Gordon, I would chase them all the way to the county line, screaming insults until they couldn’t show their faces again. So when that sleek, pitch-black town car pulled up in front of our rotting wooden porch, my first instinct was to shove Gordon behind me. A man stepped out. He was dressed in a pristine tailored suit, his hair slicked back so perfectly it looked painted on. One look, and you knew he didn’t drink tap water like the rest of us. He introduced himself as Victor Sinclair. He was Gordon’s biological father. Gordon was the true heir the Sinclair family had accidentally swapped at the hospital sixteen years ago. What happened next played out exactly like the opening chapter of my survival guide. I cried until my face was a mess, Victor Sinclair looked at me with an expression dark as thunder, and finally barked out that the sister was coming too. I wiped my tears in a flash, grabbed Gordon’s hand, and hopped into the leather seats. It was my first time in a car that smelled like expensive cologne instead of gasoline, and I was definitely intimidated. But I was more terrified for Gordon. Plunging this innocent guy into a mansion full of billionaires was like throwing a rabbit into a shark tank. I leaned close to his ear, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Gordon, don’t panic. What is rule number one in my survival guide?” Gordon nervously picked at his cuticles, his lips trembling. “Watch more, speak less, play mute.” I nodded in approval and leaned in a little closer. “Then why do you think he brought me along?” Gordon just stared at me blankly. I puffed out my chest, mimicking his rich dad’s deep voice. “He obviously saw my potential! He knows I’m a natural-born business shark and wants to groom me as his protege!” The driver’s hands jerked, making the luxury car swerve slightly across the yellow line. Victor’s temple twitched. He shot me an ice-cold glare through the rearview mirror. “Say one more word of nonsense, and I will throw you out to feed the coyotes.” I shut my mouth, but in my head, I was reciting rule number two. Billionaire patriarchs are moody control freaks. Agreeing with them makes you a pushover. You have to play hard to get. A few silent minutes passed before I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Hey, mister. Does this mean there’s a fake heir sitting in your house right now? Let me guess, he’s a two-faced, manipulative little angel who acts sweet in front of you but stabs people in the back.” I squeezed Gordon’s hand tight. “Don’t worry, bro. I’ll read his every move. As long as we stick together, we’ll crush him.” The temperature inside the car seemed to drop below freezing. Victor didn’t say a word. I was on a roll now, poking Gordon in the ribs. “And get this, Gordon. That fake heir is technically my actual biological brother.” Gordon froze. His brain completely short-circuited. The drive took nearly three hours. I even managed to take a nap, but when I woke up, Gordon still looked like he was on his way to the electric chair. His brow was furrowed so deeply it could crush a walnut. When we finally parked, he reached out and desperately grabbed Victor’s expensive sleeve. “Sir, if he and I get into a fight, whose side are you taking?” “Let’s get one thing straight. You and I share blood, but to him, you’re just tap water. No playing favorites.” The veins on Victor’s forehead throbbed like angry worms. “Relax. You are not going to fight.” Victor just didn’t want to admit that the only fight he was worried about was between himself and his biological son. I curled my lip, clearly not buying it. “Look at that. We haven’t even walked through the front door, and he’s already biased.” I couldn’t wait to see what kind of monster had this grumpy billionaire so completely brainwashed. 2 The fake heir, my biological brother Sebastian, was infinitely more manipulative than I could have ever imagined. He was dressed in a flawless white cashmere sweater, standing in front of the massive mahogany double doors. A pure, angelic smile was plastered across his face. His skin was paler than milk, and his eyes were glistening, looking like he was ready to shed a sympathetic tear at any given second. Standing next to Gordon, the contrast was brutal. Gordon looked like a potato freshly dug out of the dirt, while Sebastian was a perfectly manicured greenhouse lily. All my aggressive energy instantly evaporated. This guy’s combat level was way too high. Gordon was sweating through his cheap shirt. He instinctively hid behind my shoulder, only peeking out with wide, terrified eyes. Sebastian bypassed me entirely, stepping right up to Gordon with a slight, respectful bow. His voice was soft enough to melt butter. “You must be Gordon. I am Sebastian. We are going to be a family from now on.” He reached out, offering a polite handshake. I reflexively stepped in front of Gordon, glaring at the polished boy like a guard dog. “What do you think you’re doing? My brother is shy. Keep your hands to yourself.” Sebastian blinked in surprise. Instantly, his eyes went red. He looked at me with absolute heartbreak. “Sister, do you hate me? I am so sorry. I know I took his rightful place. This is all my fault.” I sucked in a sharp breath. Good grief. This was exactly what I wrote in the guide. The ultimate manipulative tactic. Act weak and farm for sympathy. Gordon, the absolute fool, fell for it immediately. He tugged at the back of my shirt. “Lexi, I don’t think he means any harm.” I shot him a glare of pure disappointment. Dinner was even more bizarre. Sitting at the incredibly long dining table, Sebastian eagerly piled food onto Gordon’s pristine china plate. Every single thing he picked was something I knew Gordon hated. “Brother, you must have never tasted anything like this out in the country. Eat up. You need the nutrition.” “This is Maine lobster, and this is foie gras. Here, let me show you how to hold your silverware.” Gordon gripped the heavy silver knife and fork, his hands shaking like he had tremors. His face was burning a humiliated crimson. I slammed my fork down on the table, pushing my own plate right in front of Gordon. “My brother doesn’t like this fancy European garbage. He likes the hearty beef stew on my plate.” I stabbed the biggest chunk of tender beef and shoved it directly into Gordon’s mouth. Sebastian’s polite smile completely froze. The unshed tears in his eyes began to well up again. He looked toward the head of the table, silently begging Victor for help. Victor finally broke his silence. “Gordon is sixteen now. I have already instructed the staff to transfer both of your academic records to Oakridge Academy. You will be attending the same prep school as Sebastian.” I let out a scoff, just about to reject the offer, but Sebastian beat me to the punch. “Dad, do you really think that is a good idea? The curriculum at Oakridge is incredibly demanding. Brother just got here from a rural public school, he will definitely struggle. What if people make fun of him?” He wore a mask of deep concern, but there was a distinct, undeniable layer of superiority bleeding into his tone. “Maybe we should enroll him in a middle school first? Building a solid foundation is what truly matters.” I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Sure thing. Me and my brother are going to Oakridge. I would love to see which blind idiot dares to make fun of us. Even starting from absolute zero, we are ten times better than some spoiled rich kids with empty heads.” The tension in the dining room spiked. I could feel Victor’s sharp, calculating gaze burning into the side of my head. Sebastian shrank back in his expensive chair, looking like I had just physically assaulted him. I didn’t care. I wanted to stir the pot. I needed everyone in this house to understand one simple fact. Nobody messes with Lexi’s brother. 3 Victor had the staff arrange our bedrooms. Gordon’s room was massive and luxurious, basically a presidential suite. But it was located at the absolute end of the hallway, isolated from the rest of the family. My room was slightly smaller, but conveniently placed right next door to Sebastian’s. I hugged my faded cartoon pillow tightly against my chest, standing stubbornly in Gordon’s doorway, refusing to leave. “I am sleeping in my brother’s room.” The head butler looked deeply uncomfortable. “Miss Lexi, that violates the household protocols.” “What protocols? In our house, the only protocol is that I stay where my brother stays.” Sebastian heard the commotion and stepped out of his room. He was wearing silk pajamas, his hair slightly damp from the shower, making him look even more fragile and pathetic. “Sister, what is wrong? Do you feel claustrophobic in your room? It is okay, my suite is very spacious. We can switch.” I rolled my eyes. I didn’t even have the energy to play along with his act. “I am worried my brother will have nightmares. He has always been afraid of the dark.” Sebastian’s eyes instantly welled up with moisture again. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have come back tonight and startled him.” He turned to Victor, who was standing a few yards away, his expression unreadable. “Dad, please let her stay with him. Everything is new to them, they must be so overwhelmed.” Look at that. A masterclass in manipulation. He got to play the generous, forgiving saint, while simultaneously painting us as uncultured hillbillies who couldn’t handle sleeping in a nice bed. Victor gave me a freezing glare. “Do whatever you want.” I successfully claimed the left half of Gordon’s massive California King bed. In the middle of the night, a quiet rustling sound woke me up. Gordon wasn’t asleep. He was sitting by the large bay window, staring blankly at the moon. “Gordon, what’s going on in your head?” He looked over his shoulder. The moonlight caught his face, highlighting the deep insecurity and fear in his eyes. “Lexi, this place is too big. It scares me.” “I feel like a criminal. Like I broke in and stole someone else’s life.” My chest tightened painfully. I crawled across the mattress and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “Shut up. You are not a thief. You just finally came home. Everything in this house was supposed to be yours from the start.” “Sebastian is the real thief. He stole sixteen years of your life.” Gordon shook his head, burying his face into my shoulder. His voice was muffled and small. “But their dad likes him better.” I patted his back, my voice completely unwavering. “Who cares who he likes? I like you, and that is all that matters. Trust me, Gordon. We are going to win.” Early the next morning, Sebastian knocked on our door. He was holding a steaming mug of milk, a bright, welcoming smile on his face. “Good morning, brother, sister. Dad sent me to bring you down for breakfast.” He offered the mug to Gordon. “Brother, I had the chef prepare this warm milk just for you. It is excellent for your digestion.” I stared at that mug, the alarm bells from rule number three ringing wildly in my head. Beware of the fake heir’s random acts of kindness. Sugar-coated bullets are always the deadliest. I snatched the mug right out of his hands and, while they both watched in stunned silence, poured the entire thing directly into a large potted fern by the door. “My brother is lactose intolerant. He can’t drink this.” I lied without even blinking. All the color drained from Sebastian’s face. He stood there, completely out of his depth. “I am so sorry, brother. I had no idea.” I let out a cold laugh, grabbing Gordon by the wrist and pulling him past Sebastian into the hallway. “There is a lot of stuff you don’t know. Stay away from my brother.” As we walked down the corridor, I could feel two distinct gazes burning into my back. One was Sebastian’s manufactured victimhood. The other was Victor’s cold, calculating scrutiny. Good. I wanted them to know exactly who they were dealing with. Lexi doesn’t play nice. 4 Transferring to Oakridge Academy went much smoother than I expected. Victor probably just wanted us out of the house so he didn’t have to look at us. On our very first day, Sebastian immediately tried to put on a show of brotherly love. He gathered a massive crowd of his elite friends and blocked us right at the classroom door. “Everyone, I want to introduce you to my brother, Gordon. He just moved back home. And this is his sister, Lexi.” The boys and girls standing behind him were dripping in designer brands. They looked at us like we were some exotic animals freshly imported to the zoo. “Wow, so that’s the true heir from the mountains?” “He looks so incredibly trashy.” “His sister looks like a feral dog.” Sebastian put on a fake stern voice and scolded them. “Do not say things like that. They are my family.” Then, he pulled out a beautifully wrapped luxury box and offered it to Gordon. “Brother, this is a welcome gift. It is the newest model smartwatch. It connects directly to the campus mainframe, it will really help you catch up on your studies.” Gordon stared at the high-tech device, his hands awkwardly hovering in the air, not knowing what to do. I saw right through Sebastian’s little game. Gordon had never even owned a smartphone. Handing him a complex piece of tech in front of a crowd was just a setup to watch him struggle and embarrass himself. I shoved the box right back into Sebastian’s chest. “No thanks. My brother isn’t used to this flashy junk.” I reached into my faded canvas backpack and pulled out an object wrapped in crumpled newspaper. I pressed it firmly into Gordon’s hands. “Here, bro. I brought this for you. It isn’t expensive, but it’s a hell of a lot better than something that just looks pretty.” Gordon carefully peeled back the newspaper. Inside was a beautifully hand-carved wooden wolf. The wolf’s eyes were dark and fierce, its posture powerful and alive. Gordon had stayed up for four straight nights carving it by the light of a single bulb. Gordon’s eyes instantly lit up. He cradled the small wooden carving like it was the most precious artifact in the entire world. The hallway went dead silent. Sebastian’s face shifted through three different shades of pale before settling on a sickly green. A bleach-blonde prep standing behind him couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped up, pointing a manicured finger right at my face. “What is your problem? Sebastian is trying to be nice, and you’re acting like ungrateful trash.” I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Are we legally required to accept his gifts? Did your dad buy the entire school, or do you just like sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?” “You little—” Before things could escalate into a physical fight, the morning bell echoed through the halls. Sebastian grabbed the blonde kid’s arm, pulling him back. He shot me one long, heavy look. The fake victim routine was gone, replaced by pure, freezing venom. He led his entourage away. I knew the war had officially begun. After the final bell, I deliberately dragged Gordon out the back exit, trying to avoid being cornered. But it didn’t work. Sebastian was waiting for us in a blind spot near the parking lot. He was completely alone this time. No audience. He blocked our path, staring down at the wooden wolf still clutched in Gordon’s hand. He let out a harsh, arrogant scoff. “White trash will always be white trash. You are only fit to play with mud and sticks.” All the blood rushed out of Gordon’s face. He instinctively hid the carving behind his back. A white-hot rage exploded in my chest. “Who the hell are you calling white trash? You are a cuckoo bird who stole another family’s nest. What gives you the right to look down on anyone?” “The food you eat, the clothes on your back, the bed you sleep in. Every single thing belongs to my brother. What exactly are you so proud of?” Sebastian turned purple. I doubt anyone had ever spoken to him like that in his entire pampered life. He shook with anger, pointing a trembling finger at me. “You… you are going to regret this.” Right at that exact second, Victor’s sleek town car silently rolled to a stop right behind us. Victor stepped out of the backseat, his expression dark as a storm cloud. The second Sebastian saw him, it was like a switch flipped. Tears instantly flooded his eyes. He practically threw himself at Victor, sobbing beautifully. “Dad, I was just trying to talk to them, I wanted us to be a real family. But Lexi hates me so much. Is it because I took his place? Dad, maybe I should just pack my things and leave. I will give everything back to him.” He choked on his tears, looking like he had suffered the greatest injustice in human history. Victor’s expression darkened even further. His sharp, predatory gaze locked directly onto me. His voice was as cold as a frozen lake. “Lexi. Apologize to your brother.”

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1 My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, blurring my vision. Just yesterday, I took a freelance makeup gig. My client turned out to be a sweet young girl in a wheelchair, secretly in love with my boyfriend. She, just like me, viewed Nolan as the absolute light of her life. He was my anchor, the man who had pulled me out of my darkest psychological depths step by step. But today, the brutal truth finally hit me. His boundless warmth wasn’t exclusive to me. It was a public commodity. He held the young girl’s hand, looking at me with utter disappointment. “Alyson, she’s struggling. Can’t you just show a little empathy for once?” I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, choked back my tears, and boarded a flight across the ocean to get the psychiatric help I desperately needed. It all started with that makeup appointment. The client was a vibrant girl who had recently lost the use of her legs. Her eyes sparkled with a naive, contagious hope. “Could you give me a soft, romantic look?” she had asked, her cheeks flushing. “I want to confess my feelings to the guy I like.” Looking at her, I felt a pang of nostalgia. She reminded me of myself when I first fell for Nolan. On a rare whim, I decided to stick around and watch her big moment. “Sure,” I told her. “Having someone there might give you a little courage.” I hid behind a cluster of manicured hedges in the park, ready to witness this girl’s fiery declaration of love. But when the man turned around, the breath was knocked right out of my lungs. It was Nolan. My boyfriend. When their lips met, my mind short circuited into a deafening static. “So, does this mean my boyfriend can kiss me?” the girl asked softly. Nolan crouched down, gently cupping the back of her head, and pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss. The girl’s earlier words echoed in my ears like a broken record. “He’s such an amazing guy. Most people look at my wheelchair with pity or disgust, but he treats me like a normal human being. He told me we all have one mouth and two eyes, and I’m no different from anyone else. I was terrified to tell him how I felt, but he’s so good to me. He’s worth risking a broken heart.” Those words were practically identical to how I used to talk about Nolan. She was physically broken. I was psychologically broken. We were both just lucky enough to cross paths with a saint like him. Except reality was currently chewing me up and spitting me out. The man I worshipped was making out with someone else in broad daylight. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. I just turned around and walked away, completely hollowed out. When I got back to our apartment, I grabbed my brushes and painted the exact scene of them kissing. I left the canvas right in the middle of the living room. Nolan had been incredibly busy lately. He told me he was assigned a new case, a devastated young woman named Daisy. She was in her early twenties, right in the prime of her life, when an accident took her legs. She was spiraling into a deep depression, and the community outreach program assigned Nolan to be her dedicated social worker. He even reassured me before he left. He said my bipolar episodes had been stable lately, so I should be fine on my own. Just call him if I needed anything. I always supported his career. I genuinely wanted people trapped in the dark to find their way out, just like I did. But he conveniently left out the part where his therapy sessions required tongue. Daisy was a chronic oversharer. After that makeup session, she flooded my phone with texts about her and Nolan. That was before I knew the “amazing guy” she was talking about was my boyfriend. But looking at the video she just sent, a clip of Nolan tenderly massaging her atrophied legs, a sick feeling twisted in my gut. Was she doing this on purpose? Was she rubbing it in my face, or did she genuinely just think we were friends and wanted to share her joy? People like me don’t have many friends. Nobody wants to deal with a ticking time bomb who could have a mental breakdown at any given second. My phone buzzed. A text from Nolan. [Her mental state is really fragile today. I need to stay and make sure she’s safe. Don’t forget to take your meds.] I stared at the neatly organized pill organizers on the kitchen counter. He had sorted them all for me. Every time my emotions went off the rails, I would inevitably knock those bottles to the floor in a fit of rage. And every single time, he would patiently pull me into his arms and sweep up the mess. But today, the apartment was dead silent. He wasn’t coming home. 2 “Why are you sleeping out here?” Nolan’s voice was as gentle as ever when he finally walked in. He draped a warm blanket over my shoulders, then sighed with a helpless smile as he noticed the scattered pills across the floor. “What’s wrong, Alyson? Are you mad I worked late?” I didn’t say a word. I just picked up the canvas from the table. “Nolan, do you think this painting is beautiful?” His pupils shrank the moment the image registered. A heavy silence stretched out before he forced a laugh and reached for my hand. “Why are you painting stuff like this? I thought you were working on those portraits for our anniversary.” I dodged his hand and stubbornly held up the canvas. “I asked you a question. Is it beautiful?” Before he could craft a lie, the doorbell rang. “Let me get that,” he muttered, practically sprinting away. The person at the door made both of us freeze. Daisy was sitting in her wheelchair, a bright, bubbly smile on her face. She rolled herself inside and naturally grabbed Nolan’s hand. “Hey! I came to drop off your wallet. You left it on my couch.” She paused, blinking at me in surprise. “Oh, hey! You’re here too? Wait, are you one of his assigned cases as well?” I kept my mouth shut. My eyes were locked onto Nolan. He didn’t drop her hand. Instead, he gave her a soft, affectionate pat on the head. “Yeah. She is.” He looked down at Daisy. “You shouldn’t have come all this way in the cold. Just text me next time, and I’ll come pick it up.” Daisy’s eyes drifted to the canvas I was holding. Her face lit up. “Oh my gosh, that’s gorgeous! Is that us? Did you paint this for us? Wow, I love it so much!” I stared at Nolan. He looked away, completely mute. My phone dinged in my pocket. It was a text from him, sent right there in the living room. [Daisy is highly unstable right now. Do not trigger her.] Do not trigger her? So I was just supposed to stand here and watch another woman act like a lovesick puppy with my boyfriend in my own living room? A wave of absolute exhaustion washed over me. I looked at Daisy. “Yeah. You two make a perfect match.” “Aw, thank you! I think so too.” Daisy tugged at Nolan’s fingers, lacing hers with his. “I’m starving. Come get late night takeout with me.” Nolan shot me a warning glance, then turned to leave with her. My hands were shaking uncontrollably now. I made one final, desperate attempt to pull him back. “Nolan, I haven’t taken my meds today. My chest hurts. The panic is starting again.” His footsteps didn’t even slow down. He didn’t even look back. “You’ve been doing great lately. One night won’t kill you.” But he was wrong. I was slipping back into the dark. I was waking up at 3 AM drenched in cold sweat, my hands trembling so badly I couldn’t even hold a paintbrush. He didn’t know any of this. Because for the past few weeks, he had been glued to Daisy’s side, terrified that the reality of her disability would push her over the edge. But what about me? I was his client once too. I was his girlfriend. Why was I always the one getting pushed to the back of the line? I walked over to my laptop and opened an email from a highly specialized psychiatric facility in Europe. My condition had plateaued here. The local treatments weren’t doing enough anymore, and I had been considering this overseas program for months. But Nolan’s whole life and career were here, and having him around used to keep me grounded. I had initially declined the offer for him. Tonight, I changed my mind. Nolan’s compassion was a bottomless well for everyone else. He put his clients on a pedestal, willing to sacrifice anything to fix them. Even if it meant playing the role of someone else’s boyfriend. And me? The actual girlfriend? I was just a ghost haunting his apartment. The next morning, I was dragging my suitcase toward the front door when the lock clicked. Nolan walked in. “Where are you going?” he demanded, his brow furrowing. “This isn’t my home. I’m going back to my own place.” He stepped forward and gripped the handle of my luggage, stopping me in my tracks. “Stop making a scene, please. I already explained this to you. Daisy is in a really dark place. She needs me right now.” “But Nolan, I’m sick too. I need you too.” The tears I had been fighting finally broke free. “You’re perfectly stable right now. You’ve been sleeping through the night, haven’t you?” His absolute ignorance felt like a bucket of ice water to the chest. I violently yanked my hand away from his, shoving my sleeve up to my shoulder to expose the mottled bruises and raw scratches on my arms, the physical aftermath of my recent panic attacks. “Before we got together, you actually cared. You hovered over me, terrified I would have a breakdown and hurt myself. But the second I became yours, all your energy went to saving other people. You’re so dedicated to your job you’ll just play boyfriend to a patient?” “Kissing? Holding hands? Is that standard protocol for a social worker now?” I fired the questions at him like bullets. Nolan stood there, his jaw tight, unable to form a single excuse. A heavy silence stretched between us until his phone started buzzing in his pocket. “Yeah, I’m here. Don’t panic, Daisy. I’m on my way back right now.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. His eyes were cold, completely drained of the warmth I used to love. “Alyson, grow up. Do you have any idea how young she is?” “You’re almost thirty. She barely just hit twenty. And you’ve been managing your condition for years. This is her first time dealing with trauma. I kissed her to calm her down, to give her some hope. Stop being so damn heartless.” He reached out and roughly grabbed my bruised arm, inspecting the marks with a scoff. “Scratches? You haven’t had an episode in months, and the second I start spending time with Daisy, you suddenly magically relapse?” “Alyson, you’re disappointing me.” I said absolutely nothing. I just rolled down my sleeve. Grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I walked out the door and never looked back.

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The medical report was sitting right inside my desk drawer. It stated clearly that yesterday’s tactical drill had severely damaged my retinas, rendering me legally blind. My twin brother, Neil, was the team leader of our elite EOD unit. Right now, he was being held hostage by an underground syndicate. The cartel had strapped forty pounds of high-grade explosives to his chest and dumped him right outside our forward operating base. The timer was ticking down, and it could detonate at any given second. As the top bomb technician in the unit, I held multiple patents for defusal tech. I had even invented the Micro-Optic Rig, a device capable of pinpointing the exact trigger wire in complex circuits. Theoretically, I was the only person on earth who could save him. Yet, I was sitting in the barracks, my face completely expressionless. My fingers were dancing over a training simulator covered in obscure symbols. Ten seconds. That was all it took for me to clear the puzzle. My wife, Darby, practically kicked the door off its hinges. She rushed in, screaming at me, demanding I get off my ass and go save Neil. My father, Ziggy, who also served as the commanding officer of our division, was pacing frantically. He yelled that Neil was only on that mission because he took my shift. He demanded to know how I could just sit there and let my own flesh and blood die. I didn’t even flinch. I slowly lifted my head, my eyes out of focus, and told them the truth. I was blind. I couldn’t defuse a damn thing. 1 “Blind?” My father gasped. He reached out, waving a hand wildly in front of my face, and sucked in a sharp breath when my eyes didn’t track the movement. “How did this happen? Why didn’t anyone report this to me?” Darby froze. A flash of pure guilt crossed her face, and she quickly stared at the floor. I let out a cold, hollow laugh. “Yesterday, Darby demanded I hand over my spot on this high-profile mission to Neil. I refused. So, they rigged my visor during the live-fire drill. The flashbang cooked my eyes.” I leaned back in my chair. “I didn’t call in sick today. They deliberately buried the incident report so Neil could steal my deployment.” When I first met Darby, she was just a civilian clerk at the precinct. We fell fast and hard, got married, and my parents pulled some strings to get her transferred into the tactical division to work alongside me. But the moment she got her clearance, her attitude toward me turned ice-cold. Instead, she spent all her time fawning over Neil, the golden-boy team leader. That was when I realized the sick truth. She had always been in love with my twin. Marrying me was just her stepping stone to get into the unit and get closer to him. But I never imagined that just to hand him a medal, they would conspire to leave me permanently disabled. Hearing my accusation, Darby panicked. Her voice spiked an octave as she fought back. “You’re lying! You’re just jealous that Neil outranks you, so you’re stalling for time to let him die!” She stepped closer, peering at my face, her confidence suddenly returning. She puffed out her chest. “Your acting is pathetic. If you’re really blind, how are you playing with a defusal simulator?” She turned to my father. “Captain, yesterday’s drill was just a minor malfunction. That’s why I didn’t file a report. Since he’s faking a disability to avoid duty, let me do it. If I use his Micro-Optic Rig, I know I can save Neil.” “Yes, exactly. We do what Darby says.” My father nodded rapidly. Seeing that I wasn’t moving to help, his face darkened. He slammed his fist onto my desk, rattling my coffee mug. “Liam! Did you hear her? Hand over the rig right now. That is a direct order!” Ziggy had always favored Neil. I was the one who practically carried the squad, racking up commendations, but my father secretly crossed my name off the promotion lists and handed the leadership role to his golden boy instead. I raised an eyebrow, my tone deadpan. “I locked the rig behind a dynamic biometric firewall. You have to beat a randomized defusal sequence to unlock it. I can’t see the screen. I can’t open it.” “You are trying to murder your own brother!” The blood drained from my father’s face. He was breathing heavily, clutching his chest. I ignored him, my thumbs resting on the simulator in my lap. I cleared the puzzle again. This time, it took me exactly eight seconds. Darby grinded her teeth in rage. She slapped the device out of my hands, grabbed me by the collar, and shook me violently. Her voice was pure hysteria. “Bring the rig out! I’ll read the visual patterns to you, and you can talk me through the sequence! Or is this just another excuse to run out the clock?” My father’s anxiety peaked. His eyes darted between my milky gaze and the device clattering on the floor. His expression hardened into something ugly. “Liam,” he growled, the threat heavy in his chest. “I don’t give a damn if you’re actually blind or not. If you don’t cooperate, I will have you court-martialed for treason!” I knew he wasn’t bluffing. I took a slow breath and offered a flat reply. “Fine. I’ll help. But you have to agree to one condition.” Before I even finished my sentence, my father scoffed with absolute disgust. “The team leader position belongs to Neil. Don’t even think about using this sick hostage situation to extort a promotion.” Extort? He called me sick? He conveniently forgot who abused his command authority to steal my career in the first place. Just then, Darby’s radio crackled. She answered it, her hands trembling so badly she nearly dropped it. “Captain, the timer just engaged. We have less than five minutes. We have to move!” The air in the room grew suffocating. My father couldn’t afford to waste another second. “I agree to your condition! Just as long as you don’t touch Neil’s rank.” “Deal.” I smirked internally. Compared to my eyesight, a pathetic squad leader title was dirt beneath my boots. 2 With my verbal guidance, Darby managed to crack the firewall on the Micro-Optic Rig. I talked her through the mechanics over the comms. In under three minutes, she located the primary trigger wire and successfully pulled Neil back from the brink of death. The moment he was safe, the entire unit packed up. They boarded the medevac chopper and flew back to the city for a hero’s welcome, completely abandoning me at the forward camp. Because my eyes were deeply infected and untreated, I spent the entire night crawling around the floor, blindly feeling for a landline to call for a civilian ambulance. I was rushed to the ICU. That night, the doctors issued three separate critical condition notices. I tried calling my parents and Darby over and over. No one answered. While I was lying in a hospital bed, Darby became a national sensation. I became the dirt on the bottom of the city’s shoe. The news cycled constantly. “Darby Garrison is a true patriot, utilizing unimaginable courage to save her commanding officer.” “She is a national hero. It’s just a tragedy she’s married to such a coward.” “Absolutely. Liam Garrison was too terrified to take the mission, forced his brother to step in, and then refused to help. He’s less of a man than anyone in that unit. Darby needs to divorce that dead weight immediately.” “I heard he faked going blind out of pure jealousy. What a disgusting, narrow-minded traitor.” The hatred wasn’t just online. Some civilians recognized me while I was waiting in line for an MRI. When the orderly stepped away to grab my chart, a group of men grabbed the handles of my wheelchair and shoved me straight down a flight of concrete stairs. My collarbone and two ribs snapped on impact. I woke up hours later to the hushed gossip of the nursing staff. To my absolute shock, the heavy fog in my vision had slightly cleared. I could see the blurry silhouettes of the room. They were changing my IV, completely unaware that I was conscious. “It’s so sad. The guy actually lost his sight and nearly died on those stairs, but his wife and parents are next door throwing a party for his brother, who doesn’t even have a scratch on him.” “Don’t waste your pity. He brought it on himself. The guy is a jealous coward.” Lying there, the cold seeped into my bones, freezing my blood. The next morning, the media dropped another bombshell. “Congratulations to Darby Garrison for successfully patenting the Micro-Optic Rig! Insider sources say Captain Garrison personally fast-tracked the paperwork.” “Good for her. She needs to protect her intellectual property before some jealous coward tries to steal the credit.” That headline completely severed the last pathetic thread of hope I held for my family. A month later, I was discharged and returned to the precinct. My teammates looked at me like I was a rotting corpse. “Why is this piece of garbage back? He shares a face with our Captain, but his soul is rotten to the core.” “Darby is a saint for putting up with him. Going blind was karma. He should have just died.” They hawked spit into my lunch tray. They poured sand in my coffee. They deliberately pushed office chairs into my path, erupting into cruel laughter whenever I tripped and hit the floor. My father saw the whole thing happen one afternoon. He just gave me a blank look. “Liam, my office. Now.” I clenched my fists, using my cane to navigate into his room. “The public backlash is too severe right now,” Ziggy said coldly. “Brass wants you suspended without pay until the heat dies down.” Hearing that, the last shred of respect I had for the man evaporated. I lifted my chin, staring directly at the blurry outline of his face, and let out a harsh scoff. “Is that Brass talking, or is that you?” “Are you afraid I’ll make a scene about the stolen patent, or are you terrified I’ll press federal charges for your golden boy blinding me?” A sharp crack echoed through the room. Ziggy slapped me so hard I tasted copper. “You ungrateful bastard! Is that how you speak to your commanding officer?” I pressed my lips into a thin line, keeping my face turned away, offering nothing but silence. Meeting my dead, frosted eyes, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Stop being paranoid. The suspension is final. Go home and rest.” I let out a low, self-deprecating laugh, forcing my heart rate to slow. Just as my hand touched the doorknob, he called out. “Liam. Tomorrow night is Neil’s official commendation banquet. You are required to attend.” “The press will be swarming the place. For the sake of this family, you will behave. Do not cause a scene, do not feed the rumors, and most importantly, you will show Neil the respect he deserves.” It was a total setup. If I showed up, it would officially validate their narrative. It would cement me as the cowardly brother crawling back to beg for forgiveness. I stopped in the doorway and looked over my shoulder. “Captain. When I unlocked that rig for you, you promised me one condition. You haven’t forgotten, have you?” I had never addressed him so formally. He froze for three full seconds before nodding cautiously. “I remember. Name your price.” A dark, dangerous amusement flickered in my chest. I let out a soft chuckle. “Captain, I want to make a bet.” 3 The next evening, I walked into the private banquet hall. Neil was sitting in the VIP chair that technically belonged to me, whispering intimately into Darby’s ear. They looked exactly like a happily married couple. The sickening part was that everyone in our unit was sitting at the tables, completely ignoring the blatant infidelity. The moment I stepped inside, the press swarmed. Camera flashes fired like strobe lights, blinding my already damaged eyes. “Liam! Are you here to publicly confess? Are you actually blind, or was it a tactical lie to let your brother die? Don’t you feel any guilt?” “Your wife just secured the patent for a revolutionary bomb disposal tool! Does this prove the unit has outgrown you and you’re officially obsolete?” The questions were vicious, designed to draw blood. Not a single teammate stood up to intervene. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, Ziggy grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the main table. His tone was uncharacteristically gentle, playing for the cameras. “Liam, your public image is a disaster right now. I had to let Darby register the patent to protect the tech.” “Just hand the physical prototype over to her. The media requested a live demonstration, and I couldn’t say no.” The entire hall fell dead silent. Everyone was waiting for me to surrender. I had reached my absolute limit. I raised my voice, letting it echo off the walls. “No. My wife is openly flirting with another man. You sabotaged my gear and blinded me. You stole my life’s work. And now you expect me to smile and clean up your mess? Do I look like an idiot to you?” They never expected me to fight back in public. The sheer force of my words left them paralyzed. Ziggy’s face turned a violent shade of purple, his lips trembling in pure rage. Sensing the shift in the atmosphere, the reporters shoved their microphones closer to our table. Darby’s face flushed with panic. She immediately forced tears into her eyes, playing the victim perfectly. “Watch your mouth! Neil and I are strictly professionals. You only see dirt because your own mind is filthy!” That was her signature move. Whenever she was backed into a corner, she played the bleeding heart. Before I could even respond, she started sobbing loudly. The entire room glared at me with absolute disgust, treating me like a monster abusing his saint of a wife. Neil slammed his hands on the table and stood up, wrapping a protective arm around Darby’s shoulders. “I wanted to leave you some dignity, brother. But you have crossed the line.” Neil looked directly into the cameras. “The truth is, my location was compromised during my undercover op because Liam sold my tactical coordinates to the cartel the night before.” The room erupted. Venomous glares pierced through me. If looks could kill, I would have been shredded to pieces. Only Ziggy remained silent. He stared at Neil with a complicated, deeply conflicted expression. Darby wiped her fake tears, her voice dripping with poison. “I can’t believe I married a traitor. I want a divorce!” With her lighting the match, the room exploded into chaos. “I thought it was just petty jealousy, but he’s a literal terrorist sympathizer! Lock him up!” “Arrest him! Call the MPs!” I sat calmly in my chair, a dark smile playing on my lips. “Darby. I was blinded in the training drill first thing that morning. I was put under heavy anesthesia and slept through the next forty-eight hours. You were supposed to be watching me. You know better than anyone that I couldn’t have contacted the cartel.” Under the table, hidden from the cameras, her fingers were tightly intertwined with Neil’s. A second ago, she was the weeping victim. Now, her eyes were cold and utterly ruthless. “You’re a manipulator. I couldn’t watch you twenty-four hours a day. I can’t vouch for you.” With that single sentence, she hammered the final nail into my coffin. Suddenly, a sharp ringtone pierced the screaming crowd. Ziggy answered his phone. His face drained of all color. He stared at me in absolute, paralyzed horror. Darby, too impatient to wait, urged him on. “Captain! The crowd is going to riot. Give the order to arrest him!” At the same time, the parents of a bomb tech who died in a previous operation rushed forward. They tackled me to the floor, raining heavy punches onto my face. “Give me my son back! You traitorous scum!” “You look like a soldier but you’re worse than a dog! Rot in hell!” A heavy boot caught my temple. Blood poured down the side of my face, staining the carpet. Darby watched me bleed, her face completely void of emotion. She didn’t even blink. I started laughing. A loud, desperate, chilling laugh. Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the banquet hall were kicked open. A dozen Federal Agents in tactical gear stormed the room, flashing their badges. “Federal Bureau of Investigation! We received a high-priority tip regarding an internal mole selling classified tactical data to domestic terrorists! Who made the call?” Darby and Neil exchanged a smug, knowing look. They were practically glowing with victory, ready to hand me over on a silver platter. Ziggy snapped out of his trance. He looked at Neil, then frantically shook his head at the agents. “Officers, there’s been a misunderstanding. There is no mole.” “I made the call.” I pushed myself off the bloody floor, completely ignoring my father’s pleading eyes, and spoke with absolute clarity.

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1 At my elementary school reunion, my old desk mate, whom I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, gripped my hand warmly. “I heard you’re dating someone super rich now, like, the CEO of a publicly traded company?” Out of politeness, I gave a small nod. The moment dinner was served, Ashley suddenly pulled me up. “Everyone, please be our witnesses!” “Evening, you’re about to marry your boyfriend, so when are you moving out of that house of yours?” I simply said, “No rush.” But in the next second, Ashley’s eyes flared. “How can you say ‘no rush’? You’ve been squatting in my house for so many years, and you still refuse to leave?!” My head was full of question marks. Since when did our Norvell family house have anything to do with you? … While planning my engagement party, I got an unexpected call. The person claimed to be an old elementary school classmate and invited me to a tri-annual reunion. Before heading out, I thought it was for the private school my family invested in. But when I arrived, I realized it was the school where I’d only briefly attended for two months in second grade. “Who are you? This is our class reunion. Did you get the wrong place?” Hearing that, I looked up at the banner. It was indeed the school I’d attended. The timing was right too. Before I could even speak, a girl burst out from inside, running and shouting, “I invited her!” “This is Evening Norvell, from our second-grade class! Don’t you remember her?” At Ashley’s reminder, everyone started whispering, but their comments weren’t flattering. “I remember her! The one who always wore flowery dresses, had braids, and got picked up by luxury cars.” “I just remember she acted like she was too good for us.” “More than that! She loved tattling on teachers. I just tugged her braid, and she ran to the teacher to get my parents involved. So petty.” Those voices made me deeply uncomfortable. I just wanted to turn and leave. But Ashley grabbed my hand. “We’re all old classmates, let’s not be so nitpicky, right? It’s rare to get together.” Ashley gave subtle eye signals to the others as she said the last two words. I still didn’t leave, but it wasn’t because of Ashley’s insistent pleas. My driver, who was supposed to pick me up, had a breakdown midway. “Evening, I heard you’re getting married?” Ashley pulled me to a seat with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I heard your fiancé is super rich, the CEO of a publicly traded company.” I just nodded, not saying much. But the other classmates overheard and started constantly raising their glasses to toast me. I knew their actions were simply an attempt to butter me up, to gain some advantage for themselves. Just moments ago, they were sneering; now they’d completely changed their tune. Such is the way of the world. But I despise such people, so I couldn’t be bothered to entertain them. The moment dinner was served, I received a message from my driver. [Miss Norvell, the car is at the hotel entrance.] So I turned to Ashley and said, “I have something to take care of. I’ll be leaving now. You all have fun.” “Don’t rush off, Evening!” Ashley suddenly grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. Then she gestured for a classmate who was singing to hand over the microphone. “Everyone, listen to me for a moment!” “First, let’s welcome our long-unseen classmate, Evening Norvell. Even though we were only classmates for two months, we share a deep bond.” “Second, I want you all to witness something for me.” Ashley turned to me. “When are you going to give me back your family’s mansion?” I was speechless, just coldly asking Ashley, “What does my house have to do with you?” I turned to leave, letting Ashley shout my name behind me. But as soon as I reached the door, a group of classmates blocked my way. “Don’t be in such a hurry to leave, Miss Norvell. First, tell us how you’re going to repay the house you owe our class president.” “Anyway, your family’s house must be mine.” “Evening, why don’t you just marry your boyfriend already? Hand over the house sooner. I’m waiting to move in!” I completely ignored these crazed people. If they wouldn’t let me leave, I’d just have my driver come up to get me. Before I left, Ashley blocked me again. “Evening, you’re so rich. Why don’t you just pay for everyone’s tab today? It’s just pocket change for you, and you wouldn’t want everyone to call you cheap, right?” Ashley’s entitled attitude instantly turned me off. I just told her, “I am rich, but I don’t want to spend my money on you.” Ashley and the group of classmates were so loud that I could still hear their shouting even after I got into the elevator. Back home, I mentioned the day’s events to my boyfriend, Leo. He simply advised me to “let sleeping dogs lie.” I thought it was just a brief farce, but the next day, right after I woke up, there was a frantic banging on the door. When I opened it, I was met with Ashley’s eyes. “Finally! I’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes!” Ashley pushed past me, dragging her suitcase inside, constantly looking around. “Evening, I remember your house being quite big. Why does it look so… ordinary now? Is this enough for my family of seven? I still need to decorate a room as a dance studio!” 2 “You’re insane.” I rolled my eyes, pushing her out with a sleepy haze still clinging to me. Then Ashley got frantic. “Evening, how dare you kick me out of my house? You’re the one who should be leaving!” “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how did my house become yours?” Ashley put her hands on her hips, listened, then turned and pulled a piece of paper from her bag. The paper looked old, with crooked writing around the edges, stating: [Evening Norvell’s house is to be given to Ashley.] My signature was underneath. “You promised this yourself back then. You can’t go back on your word now, can you?” I was so infuriated I didn’t know what to say. Not only was this from when I was in second grade, but thinking back now, I remembered exactly what happened that day. When I temporarily transferred in second grade, the other kids came from different backgrounds and had different perspectives than mine, so they weren’t too fond of me. Only Ashley constantly pestered me with questions. This paper was also inexplicably slipped to me after class, with her saying, “Leave me a signature before you transfer. I’ll miss you so much.” Then, after I signed, she laughed loudly. “Evening, your house will be mine now!” I didn’t take it seriously at the time, it didn’t even register in my memory. But I never imagined this had been Ashley’s long-standing obsession. Fifteen years ago, Ashley was mischievous, always up to no good. Fifteen years later, Ashley brandished the slip of paper triumphantly. “If you don’t give me the house, I’ll tell the police, the media. I’m not afraid of embarrassment, but you and your fiancé’s family are.” Ashley let out a few laughs. “You figure it out yourself!” To further threaten me, Ashley showed me her social media account. With 200,000 followers, she was a minor influencer. “To be honest, I’ve already teased this on my live stream. Hundreds of thousands of people are waiting to see what happens next, and many are waiting for a good laugh at the Norvell Group and the Burgi Group.” Looking at the seemingly decent Ashley in front of me, it was hard to imagine the true person underneath. She pressed on, even going into my house and freely rummaging through my belongings. “These clothes are all designer brands! They’d definitely look better on me than on you.” “A whole wine cellar full of such old vintages! Selling them would be a huge profit. Evening, the house, and everything in it, is mine. Do you hear me?” Ashley was unusually excited as she explored my house, while I sat on the sofa, nodding along. “Mmhmm.” The next second, the front door opened. My bodyguards walked in with a team of officers, immediately spotting Ashley rummaging through my things. “Ma’am, you’ve trespassed and committed burglary. Please come with us to the police station.” “Why are you arresting me? How is taking things in my own home burglary? If anyone should be arrested, it’s Evening! She’s squatting in my house and won’t leave…” She maintained this story even after arriving at the police station. But besides her stubbornness and that piece of paper with no legal validity, Ashley had nothing. Unlike me, with connections, resources, and irrefutable proof of ownership in the form of a property deed, Ashley wanted to fight me? Simply impossible. Although Ashley caused me no actual harm, she still earned herself three months in prison. That stack of civil service exam prep books at her house would gather dust. Leo and my engagement party proceeded as planned, at the most luxurious skyscraper in A-City. Promotions had been running city-wide for days, our engagement photos plastered on every commercial screen across A-City. #NorvellGroupAndBurgiGroupAllianceToday #LeoBurgiEveningNorvell These trending topics stayed high on social media. The engagement party was going smoothly, until all the guests arrived, and the trending topics on social media shifted. #NorvellGroupHeiressEveningNorvellDefaultsOnDebtConfrontedAtEngagement “Everyone, don’t be fooled by Evening Norvell. She’s not at all what you see.” Ashley burst onto the stage, megaphone in hand. “The Norvell family is so rich, yet she’s been defaulting on a debt to me for fifteen years. To avoid paying, Evening even schemed to have me locked up by the police!” Ashley truly was a performer. She started crying for the cameras. “How difficult it is for a girl from the slums like me! The only thing that could change my life was this debt, but Evening keeps pushing, does she want to push me to my death?” I, who was just moments ago surrounded by well-wishers, instantly became the target of public scrutiny. Reporters swarmed me, asking blunt, aggressive questions. “Miss Norvell, do you really think power and wealth can solve everything? Do you truly disregard the lives of ordinary people?” Someone even pressed Leo, “Mr. Burgi, are you really going to marry this spoiled heiress, Evening Norvell?” Leo glanced at me, then coldly spoke. “No.” 3 Leo’s answer stunned every guest. What did he mean, “No”? Was Leo not marrying Evening anymore? “While Evening and I were betrothed by our families, I have many requirements for my future wife. The most important is her character.” Leo turned to me. “A spoiled, overbearing temperament like hers? My family, the Burgi, won’t tolerate it.” When the live stream hit the internet, comments were sharply divided. [I thought Evening Norvell was a socialite, but she’s so vicious, won’t even spare an ordinary person.] [Mr. Burgi has such integrity! He should dump a woman like that without hesitation. Such a handsome Mr. Burgi deserves better!] “Leo, are you sure you want to call off our engagement?” “Absolutely.” Leo announced again to the guests and countless viewers, “From this day forward, Leo Burgi and Evening Norvell have no further connection. Whatever outrageous things she does, please do not involve the Burgi family.” Watching Leo lead his entire family away, I hadn’t even had a chance to explain when my mother rushed over and slapped me. “You’re an utter disgrace!” “I don’t owe Ashley anything. Not a single word she said was true.” “Do you think someone as smart as Leo can’t tell truth from lies? If you didn’t do it, why would he break off the engagement with you?” My mother’s face was puffed with anger. “I think we spoiled you too much, that’s why you’re so lawless!” If my father hadn’t held her back, my mother would have continued to scold me publicly. The live stream had been stopped, but the on-site chatter hadn’t. Meanwhile, the instigator, Ashley, was secretly smirking in front of the cameras. When she saw me looking, she immediately lunged forward and knelt at my feet. “Please, Miss Norvell, keep your promise and give me back the house!” “If you promised, you should give it back.” “They’re so rich, a house is like a bottle of water to the Norvells, but it’s her lifeline. Don’t you have any conscience?” The more the surrounding whispers grew, the uglier my mother’s face became. She was about to flare up again, but my sister, Anne Norvell, grabbed her arm. “It’s fine, Mom, don’t be mad at Sis. She’s just being impulsive.” “You two are sisters, Anne is so sensible, but you only cause trouble every day!” My mother stormed off. Only my father remained from the Norvell family, his face grim as he dealt with the media. The public opinion was already ignited, and I couldn’t quell it quickly. Just like if I told the world that Ashley was pressuring me for a house with a legally invalid paper from second grade, not a single person online would believe me. The night the engagement ended, Anne, on behalf of the Norvell family, transferred the property deed to Ashley’s name. I had no choice but to move out that night. But I had moved there to live alone because of disagreements with my family. Now that Ashley and her family of seven had taken over, and my other properties were frozen by my mother, I could only return to the old family estate. The moment I dragged my suitcase through the door, I heard my mother’s voice. “Marcy, close the door. Don’t let any riff-raff sneak into the house.” I watched as the front door closed in front of me. As I turned and walked onto the main road, a black sports car pulled up. Ethan Brown rolled down the window. “Hop in, Miss Norvell. I’ll give you a ride.” Twenty years ago, my family wasn’t as well-off as it is now. Although my grandfather’s side had been wealthy for generations, they favored my uncle, which left my father to build his wealth from scratch with my mother after they married. When I was young, nannies raised me. My parents were always out entertaining clients and working late. They built their empire, but completely missed my childhood. In contrast, my sister, Anne, was born when the company earned its first fortune, so Anne was seen as their “lucky star” from birth. My parents always said, “We’ve already missed one daughter’s growth; we can’t miss a second.” So they took Anne everywhere. Anne was their darling daughter. I only returned to their side when I was twelve, and we were very distant. They favored Anne, prioritizing her in everything. After they scolded me countless times for Anne’s mistakes, I moved out. Three years passed before we saw each other again, for my engagement to Leo, but it ended badly.

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When I opened my eyes, I realized I had returned to that day—the day my boyfriend’s childhood sweetheart brought a white tiger cub into our home. The tragedy hadn’t happened yet. I could still stop it. Sienna was obsessed with fantasy novels, convinced she was meant to be a beast tamer. To please her, my boyfriend agreed to keep the cub. In my past life, I’d warned them it was illegal and dangerous—a wild predator didn’t belong in an apartment. I begged them to call a rescue. But the cub was unnaturally intelligent. It understood I wanted it gone and held a vicious grudge. My life became a nightmare. Animal remains and filth appeared on my bed. Then the tiger attacked my mother, infecting her so badly she died. I was consumed with rage, determined to kill it. Instead, Sienna and my boyfriend drugged me and set the tiger free. Five years later, I returned to my childhood home. It was destroyed, a den for over a dozen grown white tigers—led by that same cub. My father lay mauled on the floor. Before I could react, the lead tiger lunged. Its jaws closed on my throat, and everything went dark. 1 “Look at those intelligent eyes. This little guy is definitely going to evolve into a legendary guardian beast.” Sienna held the white tiger cub up by its front legs, shoving it right into my face. A low, guttural growl vibrated in the cub’s throat as its striking eyes locked onto mine with an unsettling thrill. The phantom pain of fangs tearing into my flesh came rushing back. I flinched violently, a cold sweat breaking out across my spine. Sienna just looked at me and let out a mocking laugh. “This tiger is going to be my official Familiar. You guys have to help me raise him right.” I turned my gaze to my boyfriend, Blake. He forced a stiff smile. “Well, if he’s your Familiar, Sienna, then of course we’ll take great care of him.” Right after saying that, he shot me a heavy, pointed look. I simply pretended I didn’t see his pathetic little signal. I shrugged my shoulders. “Sure, I’m on board.” “But since Sienna’s place is way too cramped, we should just keep him here in our new house.” Blake’s face drained of color the second the words left my mouth. He stepped close to me, his voice dropping to an angry, frantic whisper. “What the hell are you doing? You promised me you’d be the one to tell her no!” I let out a cold, cynical laugh in my head. He was too much of a coward to reject his precious childhood friend himself, so he wanted to use me as the bad guy. In my last life, I actually listened to him. God knows where Sienna got that tiger, but it reeked of rotting meat. Parting its fur revealed a crawling mass of parasites. Its festering wounds were completely infected, making the poor thing look like a walking biohazard. And even as a cub, a wild predator is dangerous. A bite might not kill an adult instantly, but it could easily maim them for life. Besides, it was an endangered species. There was zero justification for keeping it as a house pet. But Sienna had completely lost her grip on reality. She thought she was the chosen protagonist of a fantasy series, blessed with magical taming abilities. When I told her she was living in a fictional delusion, she accused me of being jealous of her aura. She even went behind my back and locked the tiger in the storage room of our new home. I was shaking with rage when I found out. I literally threw both Sienna and the tiger out on the street. But Blake couldn’t bear to see her suffer. He secretly rented the apartment right beneath ours just so she could keep the beast. I caught them once in the stairwell. I heard Sienna whispering venom to the animal. “See her? That’s the wicked woman who kicked you out. She’s the reason you’re starving. If it weren’t for her, you would have ascended to a higher magical tier by now.” It sounded like a bad joke. I brushed it off at the time. I never expected the animal to actually understand human speech and harbor a vendetta. Brainwashed by Sienna, the tiger made me its target. Whenever she took it for a walk, it would break away, sneak into my apartment, shred my furniture, and leave bloody animal remains under my sheets. Pushed to my absolute limit, I told Blake to make her get rid of it. Blake just waved it off. “What’s the big deal? It hasn’t actually bitten anyone. Sienna is just training its bite force. With jaws like that, it’s going to be the strongest Familiar in the world.” I had no idea what kind of brain rot Blake was suffering from, but talking to them was useless. I called the cops. But when the police searched the downstairs apartment, they found absolutely nothing. Sienna played the innocent victim flawlessly. With no evidence, the police had to drop it. Half a year later, Blake and I were busy planning our wedding. My mom traveled all the way from our hometown to visit. While her back was turned, the tiger ambushed her. I rushed her to the ER, but the wounds were too severe. She didn’t make it. My sanity snapped. All I wanted was to end that tiger and avenge my mother. Knowing I couldn’t overpower it with brute strength, I bought a massive steel bear trap and hid it near Sienna’s patio. Finally, the jaws snapped shut. The tiger went down howling. I charged at it with a heavy meat cleaver, completely blinded by rage. But Blake tackled me from behind, pinning me hard into the dirt. “Are you insane? That’s Sienna’s precious Familiar!” Sienna used the distraction to pry the trap open. With red, tearful eyes, she screamed at the bleeding beast. “Run, Snow! Go heal your magic and come back to make them pay!” The tiger limped away into the darkness. Just before it vanished, it threw a look over its shoulder. Its golden eyes were completely saturated with murderous intent. The wedding was permanently canceled after that. Traumatized and paranoid, I moved from city to city, constantly looking over my shoulder. Five years later, I finally went back to my hometown, only to find that beast waiting for me. It had claimed my family home, bringing a dozen full-grown predators with it. Remembering my father’s mutilated body made my eyes sting with unshed tears. In this life, if she wants to play beast tamer, she can knock herself out. I’m taking myself out of the narrative. 2 Sienna looked genuinely taken aback by my approval. Her eyes darted around suspiciously. “Well, aren’t you surprisingly compliant today. Don’t go back on your word later. If you have a problem, spit it out now.” I offered the tiger a calm, collected glance and smiled. “No problems here. It’s the most spirited Familiar I’ve ever seen. Looks incredibly smart and brave.” Blake frowned, opening his mouth to intervene. Before he could speak, I bent down and scooped up Smudge, my silver tabby cat, from under the coffee table. “Look here, Smudge. This big guy is your new sidekick. You two better get along, alright?” Sienna’s face contorted in sheer offense. “My tiger is a once-in-a-century magical beast. Do not compare him to your mundane little livestock.” “Sure thing.” I turned around, carried Smudge into the dedicated cat room, double-locked the door, and headed straight to work. Once I was gone, Blake finally lost his composure. “Sienna, is keeping it here really the best idea? This is supposed to be my home with Nora.” Sienna crossed her arms, glaring at him. “It’s your house, isn’t it? What’s the problem? Besides, Nora said she was fine with it. Or are you saying you don’t want me around?” Seeing Sienna narrow her eyes made Blake deflate instantly. They grew up together, and he had spent his entire life acting as her loyal lapdog. She even crashed our dates. If we went to a restaurant, she sat right across from us. If we took a walk, she wedged herself between us. Even the very first time Blake and I booked a hotel room for the weekend, he booked the room right next door for Sienna. She knocked on our door three times in the middle of the night, demanding he come fix her TV. Eventually, she just casually moved into our new house, treating the place like she owned it. Her end goal was always to break us up so she could take the girlfriend spot. But Blake stubbornly refused to let me go, which meant she constantly picked fights with me and made passive-aggressive comments at every turn. Only when I got back from my shift did the reality of my rebirth truly settle in. I worked as a caretaker at the local wildlife conservation center. When I unlocked the front door, Sienna was nowhere to be seen. The tiger cub had been dumped on the cold hardwood floor. Its wounds were actively festering, its breathing dangerously shallow. I let out a heavy sigh and crouched down to check on it. Just then, Blake’s bedroom door swung open. “What is wrong with you?” he hissed. “This is our place! Look at that thing. It’s probably carrying a dozen different plagues. What if we get infected?” The cub let out a weak whimper. I grabbed some raw meat from the kitchen and placed it near its nose. “But didn’t you agree that this tiger has a magical aura? Who knows, maybe it really is an ancient god reincarnated.” Blake stared at the filthy animal with absolute disgust. “Magical my ass. It’s a filthy street mutt. It’s repulsive. You need to tell Sienna to get rid of it. It creeps me out just having it in the house.” I looked up from the tiger and tossed the problem right back at him. “You two share a brain, don’t you? You’ve known her forever. You tell her.” Blake scowled, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know how she is. We’ve been friends for too long. If I kick her pet out, it’s going to ruin our friendship.” “Right. And how exactly is that my problem?” I stood up, dusting off my jeans. “If you hate looking at it, deal with it yourself. I’m not doing your dirty work. When she gets back, you can do the explaining.” I stepped into my room and shut the door right in his face. “You bitch!” Blake pounded on my door, his voice thick with frustration. “I don’t know why I ever settled for someone like you!” Honestly, I didn’t know why he chose me either. But looking back, I must have been completely blind to ever settle for him. He was far closer to Sienna. He could have easily talked to her, or even called her parents. Instead, he wanted me to play the villain and take all of Sienna’s heat. 3 Blake paced around the living room cursing under his breath for a solid thirty minutes. But the moment the front door clicked open and Sienna walked in, he completely flipped the script. He practically tripped over himself to pour her water and offer her a shoulder massage, not daring to utter a single complaint about the tiger. Late that night, a violent crashing sound echoed from the living room, followed by the awful screech of wooden chairs dragging across the ceramic tiles. “What the hell was that?” Sienna asked, her voice laced with panic. Blake whispered back, “Probably the tiger. I think I heard it growling earlier. They have crazy energy, and you didn’t feed it dinner, right?” She groaned loudly. “No! I’m starving myself on a diet, why would I care about feeding a stupid animal? Besides, if it can’t handle a little hunger, it’s not worthy of being my Familiar.” Right on cue, the sound of sharp claws frantically scratching the tiles echoed down the hall. The noise made Sienna lose her mind. Hating having her sleep interrupted, she stormed into the kitchen, grabbed a heavy wooden rolling pin, and started viciously beating the cub’s head. “Shut up! All you do is eat, you useless piece of trash! Make one more sound and I’ll starve you to death!” The tiger went dead silent. I lay in bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Things were changing. In my past life, Sienna babied that tiger. She hand-fed it premium meat and bottled water, even sneaking it out at midnight for walks to burn off its energy. Now, she couldn’t care less about it. Was it because I didn’t put up a fight? Since I didn’t act threatened by her “taming skills,” she lost interest in showing off. Thinking back, my intense fear in the previous timeline must have fed her ego. She thought she had commanded a truly terrifying beast. In this life, my total indifference made her view the tiger as a useless prop. Over the next few days, my theory was proven correct. She ignored the animal entirely, only occasionally trying to command it to sit or bow like a circus dog. The cub was already on death’s door. It barely had the energy to breathe, let alone obey her ridiculous commands. Sienna kicked it hard in the ribs. “Useless trash! You can’t even follow basic instructions. You’re dumber than a mutt!” After that, she abandoned it entirely. She ignored its rotting wounds and left it to starve on the floor. I honestly thought it would just pass away quietly. But on Sunday night, I heard a weak shuffling outside my door. The cub had regained a tiny bit of strength and was desperately trying to claw its way toward the front door. When it saw me, its entire demeanor shifted. Its eyes were sharp. This wasn’t a normal animal. It was incredibly intelligent, and it remembered everything. I hesitated for a second, then pulled a slab of raw beef from the freezer and tossed it on the floor. The tiger devoured it in massive, frantic bites. When I came home from the conservation center the next evening, I brought back specialized medication and more fresh meat. The cub was absolutely crawling with parasites. I gently parted the fur on its head to reveal where Sienna had struck it. The skin was ruptured and oozing pus. When I applied the antiseptic, it bared its teeth and let out a warning growl. “Hold still. I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to clean this out.” The tiger studied my face for a long moment before slowly resting its chin on its paws, allowing me to work. After treating it, I chopped the meat into small chunks and hand-fed it. It swallowed the food whole, then looked up at me with such desperate eyes that I ended up giving it the entire batch. From that day forward, I secretly brought food home every evening. Its condition improved dramatically. Sienna noticed it looking healthier and tried to boss it around again a few times. But the tiger just stared at her with blank, cold eyes. Furious, Sienna declared she was going to throw it out as soon as she found a “better” magical beast. My plan was simply to wait until the cub was fully healed, then arrange for my wildlife rescue to confiscate it properly. I didn’t expect Sienna to suddenly show up at my workplace to ruin my life. 4 I was in the middle of cleaning one of the enclosures when a coworker ran over, telling me the Director needed me in the main office immediately. When I walked in, I saw Sienna and Blake standing right by the desk. Sienna lifted her chin, flashing me a deeply arrogant smirk. Before I could even ask what was going on, the Director slammed his hand on the desk. “Nora, are you illegally housing a white tiger in your apartment?” I shook my head and pointed a finger straight at Sienna. “Absolutely not. She brought that tiger into the house.” Sienna immediately puffed up her chest. “Do you have any proof? How dare you slander me without evidence! I’m just a normal citizen, where would I even get a tiger? But you work at a zoo. You have the connections. Don’t try to pin your own crimes on me!” The Director looked at me with deep disappointment. “Nora, you’ve worked in conservation for years. You know white tigers are highly protected under federal law. Furthermore, they are apex predators. If that animal gets loose and kills someone, are you prepared to take the fall for it?” I forced down the burning rage in my chest and turned to Blake. “He’s my boyfriend. Ask him. He lives there. He knows she’s the one keeping it.” I thought Blake would take my side. After all, he had been whining about wanting the tiger gone for weeks. Instead, he actively avoided my gaze. “I mean… it’s probably Nora’s.” “I see her feeding it every single day. The tiger even plays with her cat.” A violent tremor wrecked my body. I marched up to him and shoved him hard by the shoulders. “Look me in the eyes and say that again, you coward!” Blake slapped my hands away, glaring at me with aggressive hostility. “Are you done making a scene? It’s your tiger! Do you understand me?” The Director pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nora, this is unacceptable. It’s bad enough you smuggled an animal, but lying right to my face makes it so much worse.” “I am not lying!” I practically shouted. “We have a witness right here! Are you going to keep playing dumb?” Seeing the Director lose his temper, a few of my coworkers stepped in front of me, trying to run interference. “Sir, Nora is the most responsible tech we have. She practically lives for the animals. There’s no way she would do something this reckless.” Sienna rolled her eyes loudly. “Of course you guys are taking her side, you’re all in on it together. Her own boyfriend just confessed she’s the guilty one. You all need to shut up.” She turned back to the Director, her voice dripping with fake concern. “This is a serious felony. She’s a professional who knowingly broke the law to keep a deadly pet. You have to call the police and press charges!” The Director looked at me, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. “Nora, you crossed a massive line here. You were next in line for a promotion. Now, whether you go to prison or not is out of my hands, but you are officially terminated effective immediately.” Sienna wrapped her arms tightly around Blake’s bicep and gave me a sickeningly sweet pout. “Just confess, Nora. If you turn yourself in, the judge might go easy on you.” I let out a long, exhausted sigh. “I swear to God, I didn’t bring that tiger home.” “Enough, Nora. Give it up.” A slow, chilling smile spread across my face. “Do you need me to throw the evidence right in your goddamn faces?”

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