Category: English

For the sake of her sick first love, Osborn Abraham, my wife, Leila Shaw, pretended to be poor for thirty years. When our son, Ward Altman, fell ill and required hospitalization, I, Peter Altman, I borrowed money from every relative and friend I knew. I was only two hundred yuan short of the surgery fee. No matter how much I begged, Leila simply said she had no money to give me. To cover the cost, my mother secretly sold the medicine she needed the most. She gave up her treatment—and died because of it. I handled my mother’s funeral alone. When I went to pick up my son from the hospital, I accidentally found the shopping receipts my wife had accumulated over the years in the closet. Custom-tailored suits, watches worth hundreds of millions, even a private jet… Clutching those receipts, I stormed up to Leila to demand an explanation, but my son Ward stopped me. “Dad, Osborn isn’t in good health. Mom is just taking good care of him. Why are you making a fuss?” I looked at the son whose life had just been bought with my mother’s death, and a piercing pain stabbed through my chest. Leila, standing beside him, said indifferently, “Osborn is well-educated. Of course he needs the best of everything.” “Unlike you. You are just a househusband throwing a tantrum over a few hundred dollars.” “See? I didn’t give you any money, and our son turned out fine anyway.” Fine. Since both mother and son thought this way, there was no reason for me to stay in this family any longer.

After throwing the receipts to the floor, I walked out the door. Leila chased after me and thrust a basket into my hands. “Our son has just recovered. Remember to buy some ribs.” “I’ve already given you this month’s grocery allowance. Don’t ask me for more.” Her face wore that same smile, as if nothing had happened, as if my sacrifices were nothing out of the ordinary. Thirty-five years ago, when Leila’s monthly salary was a hundred dollars, she had happily given me thirty to run the house. But now, her monthly salary had long since exceeded six figures, yet the money she gave me for groceries was still only thirty bucks. She said research at the school was expensive, that our child’s education cost a lot. But she never told me that she actually had so much money—money she had been giving to another man. I looked down at the basket and laughed bitterly. “I don’t feel like cooking tonight. You two can fend for yourselves.” Leila’s expression darkened instantly. “Pete, are you still making a fuss over those two hundred dollars?” “Fine, no ribs then. Just go back and stew a chicken for us. We’ll make do.” After thirty-five years of marriage, Leila had grown entitled and detached. But she wasn’t always like this. Thirty-five years ago, when we first got married, she had told me, “Pete, let’s work together to build the best life.” o what exactly was that “best life”? Was it spending all my savings to buy her books and supplements? Was it me standing on a stool all night, holding a basin to catch the dripping rainwater from the roof so she could study in peace? Before I even turned thirty, I developed severe joint pain. On rainy days, the pain was so excruciating I would foam at the mouth. When I asked Leila Shaw for some money to buy medicine, she only said, “People get like this when they get older. Just bear with it and it’ll pass.” All the while, she was spending two-thirds of her salary on medication for Osborn. I only learned the truth today. The irony felt unbearable. I lifted my eyes and said, “Leila, let’s get a divorce.” Leila was stunned. Then, she doubled over laughing, as if I had told the funniest joke in the world. “Pete, do you know what you’re saying?” “Divorce? That isn’t a word for someone like you.” “Fine. If you don’t want to cook, then don’t. Go buy something for us to eat.” She dug into her pocket, pulled out two crumpled ten-dollar notes, and stuffed them into my palm. “I remember you like that sesame cake. Buy yourself one. And pick up some pizza while you’re at it. Ward wants some.” Her tone was earnest. I couldn’t tell if it was because I had mentioned divorce, or if she actually felt a shred of guilt. In thirty-five years of marriage, this was the first time she had ever voluntarily given me extra money. I stood rooted in the doorway, the bills a dead weight in my hand. When I finally looked up, Leila was gone, the door sealed shut behind her. Trapped in the hall, I could only listen to the distant, muffled sound of Ward’s indignant protests from the other side. “Mom, you shouldn’t have given Dad anything.” “He only dares to make a scene because you indulge him.” “If you ask me, don’t give him a single cent. Let him spend his pension.” Leila fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly. “Your father’s pension has been going to Osborn for years.” “You know Osborn is a man of dignity. If he knew he had nothing left, that his pension was gone after the factory fired him, the shock would kill him.” It sounded like she really felt sorry for him. I gripped the handle of the patchwork basket until my knuckles turned white. Only then did I remember the past. That year, just after Leila had given birth to our daughter, Esther Altman, and was still recovering at home, I had received the news: I had been fired from the factory. Bearing the weight of a new family, I couldn’t accept it, so I planned to demand an explanation from the director. But Leila had gripped my hand, weeping, begging me not to go. She told me to think about our newborn child. To think about my own health. She said she had already finished graduate school, and once she recovered from childbirth, she would earn money to support both me and the baby. She asked me to stay home and take care of the family and our child. Yet it wasn’t me who had been fired all those years ago. It was Osborn! It was Leila Shaw who secretly manipulated everything, letting Osborn take my identity and continue working in my place. But the factory refused to keep his benefits or enroll him in a pension plan. It was Leila who transferred my pension to him month after month. For twenty-five years, I was a househusband with no income. For twenty-five years, I blamed myself. For twenty-five years, I resented myself. I never understood why I had been kicked out. It turned out that it was all orchestrated by the person I loved the most! The basket slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. I pulled out my phone and dialed my neighbor, Rex Trollpoe, a lawyer. “Rex, I’d like to ask about filing for a litigated divorce.”

When I returned from Rex’s house, Leila was sitting in the living room, her face livid as she watched TV. Under the bright lights of the house, I realized that though she was no longer young, she was still as graceful and beautiful as ever. Apart from her graying hair and the lines around her eyes, time seemed to have spared her. I recalled that just a month ago, I had seen Osborn’s posts on social media. He was in France. The man in the photos looked vibrant, nothing like someone approaching sixty. I had mentioned it to Leila with a tinge of envy. “Why is it that when people get older, they can travel and enjoy life, while we’re stuck in this tiny little world?” Leila had smiled at me. “Our son isn’t married yet. Let’s save more money first. Once he’s settled down, the two of us can travel together too.” That day, I had actually looked forward to it. I pictured Leila and me traveling hand in hand in our old age. I had worked even harder at odd jobs, scraping together every cent for Ward’s future, thinking I was building a dream for us. But I never could have imagined that the other half of Osborn’s photo, the part cropped out of the frame, had featured Leila in a flowing silk dress. They wore matching colors, looking like a couple who had walked through decades together. Meanwhile, I stood by the stove in our drafty apartment, choking on cooking fumes. All I could do was ask Ward, who was always impatient, what foreign countries were really like. When I came back, Leila turned off the TV and crossed her arms over her chest, clearly ready to lecture me. I knew she was angry that I hadn’t brought back dinner. If this had been in the past, I would have apologized immediately and cooked a full table of dishes to make up for being late. But not tonight. I pretended not to notice her expression, changed my shoes, and headed toward the bedroom. Leila’s rage spiraled instantly. She slammed the remote onto the coffee table with a crack and pointed a finger at my nose, ready to sold me. But she stopped when she saw the calmness on my face. “, if you’re unhappy about something, just say it. We’ve been together for so many years. You don’t have to beat around the bush.” Her surprise was genuine. She didn’t believe I would really be upset over two hundred dollars. Nor did she believe that, after discovering evidence of her affair, I would actually leave her. I laughed bitterly. “I’ve made myself clear, Leila. We are getting a divorce. It’s that simple.” Now that I brought it up again, Leila flew into a rage from humiliation. “Pete! Ward was right. I’ve been too lenient with you all these years!” “Divorce? What would you even do after a divorce? Can you even support yourself?” It was true. All these years, the meager earnings from my odd jobs had gone into supporting this house and our children. Even my pension had been used by her to please another man. I lifted my head and pointed at everything in the house. “Which thing in this house wasn’t bought with the money I earned from odd jobs?” “Leila, where has all your money gone over the years? Don’t you know that in your own heart?” As our quarrel continued, Ward burst out of his room wearing headphones. He pointed a finger at me. “That’s enough, Dad! Aren’t you just accusing Mom of cheating?” “Let’s get one thing straight: Osborn and Mom are just friends. Only someone as filthy-minded as you would think otherwise!” My fingers curled tight into white-knuckled fists before I even knew it. My gaze fixed on Ward, the very boy for whom my mother had traded her life, and the memory crashed over me. Before my mother died, she had pressed a wad of crumpled bills into my hand, money she had earned from collecting scrap metal. “Ward is growing up. Buy him good food. He needs to build his strength.” I could no longer hold back my emotions. I raised my hand and slapped my son across the face, tears streaming down as I shouted, “Do you even know that just because your mother refused to give me two hundred dollars… Your grandma sold the very medicine that was keeping her alive! She is dead!” Ward froze for an instant, then sneered with cold contempt. “Dad, that’s ridiculous. Just to get money from Mom, you’d even joke about Grandma’s death? Did you lose your mind?” At that moment, the calmness on Leila’s face disappeared as well. She wrenched open her wallet, pulled out two hundred dollars, and shoved it at me. “Alright, Pete. It’s just two hundred dollars. How long are you going to make a scene about it?” “I’ll give it to you, okay? Let’s drop this matter. We won’t bring it up again.” She turned to comfort Ward, as if she were truly a reasonable, understanding mother. I looked at the bills in my hand. Slowly, I shook my head. “This can’t be brushed aside. This… won’t pass.”

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I followed the mob boss, Hector Wayne, for ten years. One day, he told me to protect a girl, Caroline Parker. “You’re used to living and dying beside me,” he said. “Caroline isn’t. She’s… different. She’s innocent.” Then he added, without hesitation: “If you die, it doesn’t matter. I only need her to live.” He once saved my life. I couldn’t refuse his request. But later, when we were ambushed by our rivals, ten years of instinct took over. Without thinking, I stepped in front of him and took the fatal shot meant for his heart. The gunfire sent Caroline into a panic. She ran blindly—straight off a cliff. Her fate unknown. From that moment on, Hector hated me to the bone. When I was kidnapped by enemy forces again, he did something unprecedented. He didn’t come to save me. Instead, he had someone bring me a message. “Fiona, the thing I regret most in my life is saving you back then.” “You owe Caroline. Now you’re gonna pay it back with your life.” My heart completely died. I was tortured to death by the enemy and dumped in the wilderness. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Hector told me to protect that girl. This time, I refused without hesitation. “I can’t protect her. My family is waiting for me to go home and get married.” The life I owed him was repaid in my previous life. In this one, I chose a different path. I would marry someone else, and leave him to chase the regret he carried from before. At my words, a flicker of expression finally crossed Hector Wayne’s usually impassive face. He let out a cold, dismissive laugh. “Fiona Lester. You’ve been with me this long—your reputation’s already worn thin. Who else would want you?” “When I retire and marry Caroline, you can still stay by my side like you do now. Just don’t push it too far. That’s when it stops being fun.” His tone was certain I was bluffing. But he forgot that I have never lied. Years ago, my parents had already arranged everything overseas. They’d found me a suitable man and were simply waiting for me to finish playing at danger and come home to marry. Caroline, dressed in a white dress, walked up to me. Tears filled her eyes as she held my hand. “Fiona, I know you don’t like me. But you shouldn’t embarrass me in front of so many of Hector’s brothers. I heard you used to help Hector take care of many girls before.” She paused, then lifted her eyes. Her gaze turned sharp. “Taking care of me should be easy for you too, shouldn’t it?” There had always been women around Hector. And yes, I had handled more than my share of trouble for him. But they were not Caroline. He cherished her differently. Guarded her differently. I pulled my hand free and met Hector’s assessing stare. “You’re right,” I said evenly. “I’m not young anymore. I can’t keep playing house without a name or a future.” “We’re done.” As soon as the words fell, the entire room went silent. Hector frowned almost imperceptibly. Impatience filled his eyes. Most of the people present were brothers who had once fought impossible battles with Hector and me. The atmosphere grew tense. Someone gave an awkward laugh and tried to smooth things over. “Fiona, don’t mess with us. Boss can’t manage without you. We’ve shared so many years together. There’s no need to make things like this over an outsider.” “Yeah, Fiona. You’ve been with Hector for ten years. We brothers already set aside wedding money for you two. Leaving now really isn’t appropriate…” Before he could finish, Hector casually picked up an ashtray from the table and smashed it at the speaker. After a horrifying dull thud, the man’s head split open and blood poured out. The entire room fell silent. No one dared to speak another word for me. Hector pulled Caroline behind him. His expression was grave. “What do you mean I can’t manage without Fiona? You think you’re all being fed by her?” “The gang can run without anyone. From now on, Caroline will take over Fiona’s position as second-in-command. Don’t you say one more word about it. Let’s see whether my gun’s harder, or your skull is.” I gave a bitter smile. In ten years, Hector had never defended me like this in front of others. Even when the enemy humiliated me, he still didn’t care. To me, he always said one thing. “It’s not like you haven’t been seriously injured before. What’s a few insults? It’s not like you’ll lose a piece of flesh.” Thinking of this, I let out a self-mocking laugh and turned away without hesitation. Hector chased after me and gripped my wrist tightly. “Fiona, think it through. Once you walk out that door, don’t even think about coming back!” When he saw me staring at him without saying a word, he completely lost his temper. “Fine, Fiona. You’ve got guts!” He leaned down close, voice low and edged with fury, every word bitten off: “Since you wanna leave, then go as far away as possible.” His eyes darkened. “Don’t come back and get in my way like you did in the last life!”

I froze for a moment. So he had been reborn too. I hadn’t expected that even with a second life, his hatred for me would remain untouched. No, sharper than before. I stood there in silence, watching him wrap an arm around Caroline and walk out of my sight. Only after he left did his brothers dare to come over and comfort me. “Fiona, Boss just likes something new. You two go way back. There’s no way he’d actually marry some barely-grown girl.” “Yeah, Fiona. Just coax Boss a bit more. He listens to you the most. He can’t seriously let a young girl run the gang. That’s ridiculous.” I walked over to the window and lit a cigarette. Smoke curled around my fingers before the wind tore it apart. “The transition is already handled,” I said calmly. “This is the key to the confidential cabinet. Give it back to Hector when you see him.” I casually handed the key to Nick and turned to leave. “Fiona, so when will you come back?” he called after me. My steps paused. “I’m not coming back.” *** I went back to pack my things at a time when Hector wasn’t home. Ten years left me with very little. The Polaroid we bought together for the first time. The bracelet he bought me after earning his first fortune. The instrument he could never blow properly when he confessed to me. I put them all into a wooden box and burned everything to ashes. When Hector stormed in to find me, I was just stepping out with a pitifully small suitcase. The moment he saw me, he grabbed my neck with deadly force. In an instant, I felt the closeness of death. “Fiona, didn’t I warn you not to harm Caroline? Did you take my words as a joke?” “Who gave you the nerve to poison her?” “If anything happens to her because of you, I don’t mind killing you one more time!” I shook my head desperately and forced out half a sentence. “No, I didn’t…” His rough fingers scraped hard across the edge of my ear, leaving a long, bloody gash. “Fiona, this is the last chance I’m giving you. Get to the hospital, kneel down in front of Caroline, and apologize until she forgives you.” “Otherwise, I have a hundred ways to make your life worse than death.” As soon as he finished speaking, he seized my wrist and shoved me into the car. He drove at full speed all the way to the hospital. In the intensive care unit, I saw Caroline lying on the hospital bed. Her face was so pale it had no color at all. When she saw me come in, she instinctively shrank back. Panic filled her expression. “Fiona, I know I was wrong. Please don’t feed me pesticide again, okay? I’ll be obedient. I’ll stay far away from Hector…” “My life was saved by Hector. Even if you wanna kill me, at least let me see Hector one last time, okay?” I was stunned by the groundless accusation. Hector, however, walked over to Caroline, full of tenderness. He carefully pulled her into his arms and soothed her. “Caroline, don’t be afraid. I’m here. No one can harm you.” “If someone wants to bully you, I’ll bully them back twice as hard.” The next second, his tone turned sharp. He looked at me coldly. “Kneel.” I shook my head with tears in my eyes. “I said it already. I didn’t poison her. Why do you never believe me?” “Fiona, I only care about the result. Caroline almost lost her life because of you. You should atone for it.” He kicked the back of my knee and forced my head down. He smashed it hard against the tiled floor. Dizzy pain exploded through me, unbearable and overwhelming. Again. And again. Hector’s commanding voice came into my ears like a demon’s decree. “Apologize to Caroline. Don’t stop until she forgives you.” Warm tears slid down my cheeks and slammed onto the floor. “I was wrong. Please forgive me.” “I’ll never appear in front of you again. I promise I’ll disappear completely and never get in your way again.” When he heard me say I would disappear, Hector’s face darkened. I wiped the blood that had flowed into my eyes and stubbornly lifted my head. “Are you happy now?” Hector frowned and looked at me with a complicated expression. “There’s no need to pretend to be pitiful in front of me. I haven’t forgotten how you caused Caroline’s death in the last life. I already lost her once. I can’t lose her again.” “Since you’ve apologized, get lost now.” He flung me to the ground like a piece of trash. I looked at him one last time. I braced myself against the wall and struggled to stand. With the last of my strength, I pulled open the hospital room door. Then, before I lost consciousness, I completely disappeared from his sight.

While I lay unconscious, memories of my first life drifted back to when I first met Hector Wayne. Back then, I had been running from a marriage my family arranged for me and ended up trapped deep in the mountains. It was eighteen-year-old Hector who appeared like something out of a legend and pulled me out alive. He wore a black T-shirt faded from too many washes, a half-burned cigarette always caught between his fingers. When I insisted on following him, reckless and stubborn, he let out a soft laugh. “I’m just a street thug,” he said. “Some days I eat, some days I don’t. You’re too delicate. There’s no future with me.” I didn’t care. I threw myself into his arms and said, with absolute certainty, “I’m going anywhere you are.” He paused when he was about to push me away. In the end, he pulled me tightly into his embrace. That year, I walked away from the multimillion-dollar career and political marriage my family had prepared for me. Without regret, I moved into a damp basement apartment that cost five hundred a month and called it home with Hector. The place was so run-down that even a light rain would leak through the ceiling. In that air thick with humidity, we clung to each other night after night. Through countless dawns, he lifted me high enough to make the world disappear. And in the heat of it all, he once said he loved me. For ten years, I saw his hands soaked in blood. I also saw him cry late at night. I became an indispensable part of his life. Until the day he brought Caroline in front of me. Caroline looked a lot like me when I was younger. She was stubborn, resilient, pure, and beautiful. Her appearance shattered the fragile balance between Hector and me. When he calmly told me to protect her, my heart clenched with sudden pain. But he had saved my life. I had no reason to refuse him. Later, during the gunfight while we were escaping our enemies, I instinctively used my body to block a fatal shot for him. Caroline was startled by the gunfire. She panicked, lost her footing, and fell off a cliff. None of us knew if she survived. From that moment on, Hector hated me to the bone. So much so that before an enemy’s bullet pierced my forehead, he still had someone pass on a message to me. “Fiona, the thing I regret most in my life is saving you back then.” “What you owe Caroline, you’ll repay with your life.” *** I snapped awake as if from a dream. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw Caroline standing by my bed. She was playing with the metal wristwatch I had once given to Hector. Seeing that I was awake, she stopped pretending. “I heard this was some kind of family heirloom. Hector treasured it so much. What a pity. I only mentioned that Happie needed a collar accessory for his birthday, and he gave the watch to me.” She tilted her head, smiling. “Oh right, Happie is the golden retriever Hector and I are raising together. You should feel honored.” She leaned down with a smile and whispered into my ear. “Who he loves is already obvious, isn’t it? Why are you still shamelessly clinging to him?” “Was the lesson you got in your last life not enough?” I stared at her with widened eyes. “You were reborn too?” She laughed so hard and then looked at me with pity. “Fiona, you don’t really think I’m some naive little girl, do you?” “If I hadn’t faked my death once in the last life to make Hector see where his heart truly lay, do you think he would’ve had the resolve to finish you off?” “If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being too much of an eyesore.” I frowned at her. “But you already have what you wanted. I’ve decided to leave Hector and never come back. Why do you still…” Before I could finish, she cut me off. “That’s far from enough! As long as you’re alive, there will always be a corner of his heart reserved for you. I can never fully have him!” “So you must die!” She picked up the fruit knife from the table and pressed it against my face. The icy touch made every hair on my body stand on end. I looked at her in terror. Her smile only grew more unhinged. The next second, she turned the blade around and stabbed it straight into her own chest. The knife pierced her flesh. Blood soaked through her snow-white dress. She cried and said, “Fiona, I know you hate me. I really didn’t mean to harm you or something. I just wanted to come see you. How could you treat me like this…” I froze. Almost instantly, Hector pushed the door open while carrying a lunch box. He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face. “Fiona, if anything happens to Caroline, I’ll take your life!” He didn’t hold back. The force split my lip and sent blood streaming from my nose. The dark muzzle of his gun pressed against my forehead. His eyes were bloodshot as he said, each word trembling with fury, “Caroline is the one I cherish most. You hurt her—you know the rules.” “This is on you.” The gunshot exploded through the room. A searing pain tore through my left leg. Blood poured out, soaking the floor as agony ripped through my body. I collapsed, stunned, watching as Hector carefully lifted Caroline into his arms and carried her out of my sight. Cradled against his chest, she mouthed two words at me. You lost. My nails dug into my palms until they hurt. I let out a hollow laugh at myself. At my own stupidity, and at how completely I had lost. I had already decided to leave, and yet, somewhere deep down, I had still gambled on one thing. That he might trust me. Even a little. I wiped the tears from the corner of my eyes and made up my mind. This would be the last time. That night, numb, I bandaged my wound. Then, without hesitation, I dialed the number of the man waiting for me across the ocean—the fiancé my family had chosen.

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The engagement party was in full swing when my fiance’s childhood friend Zoe arrived carrying a velvet box. “I brought you something special, Harper,” she purred, her voice sticky-sweet. Out of politeness, I opened the box. Inside were chocolate-covered cannoli. I took one bite. Then another. Something was wrong. The texture. The taste. Zoe and her friends burst into hysterical laughter. “This stupid bitch can’t even taste fingernails,” one of them shrieked. My stomach turned inside out. Shock. Rage. I didn’t think. I reached into my clutch and pulled out the small silver pistol I always carried. A Beretta .22. In our Mafia world, only women of high status are allowed to carry handguns. How dare she play with me? I pressed the cold barrel against Zoe’s temple. The room gasped. Zoe froze, her smile dying. “Harper—” she whispered. Before I could pull the trigger, my fiance Liam’s hand shot out. He grabbed my wrist and twisted it viciously. The gun clattered across the marble floor. Then his hand cracked across my face. The slap echoed through the ballroom. I stumbled backward, my cheek burning. Zoe sobbed dramatically. “Liam, she tried to kill me! She’s insane!” Liam looked at me with pure disgust. “Harper. Are you out of your fucking mind?” “It’s just a joke!” I spat blood onto the white marble. “A joke? She put fingernails in my food and made me eat them in front of everyone!” Liam’s eyes went cold. “So what? You’re not dead, are you?” “Stop being dramatic.” Something inside me shattered. My heart. My hope. My love. All of it turned to ice. I pulled out my phone and texted a number I’d saved months ago: “The wedding is ready. I need a new bridegroom. Not Liam. Just come. I’ll marry you.” It was just an arranged marriage between Liam and me; I didn’t necessarily have to choose that bastard Liam as my fiance! — The room had gone silent. Everyone stared. Liam helped Zoe to her feet. She was still crying, milking every second. “Harper hurt me!” she wailed, though there wasn’t a mark on her face. Liam didn’t even check if she was hurt. He just believed her. Without warning, he slapped me right on my left face. Liam was ex-military. Former Special Forces turned boss of a small mob. Was he serious now? I was a Mafia princess, and my dad would let him pay for this! The blow knocked the air from my lungs. I flew backward into the champagne tower. Glass exploded. Champagne soaked my dress. Shards cut into my arms, my back, my legs. Blood mixed with wine on the white marble floor. “Have you lost your mind?” Liam stood over me, towering. His face was twisted with rage. “Zoe put some fingernails in a cannoli. It was a prank. A fucking prank.” “You pull a gun on her? She’s not a woman from the Mafia world! Not as cruel and disgusting as you!” I stared up at him from the broken glass. He knew this beforehand?

Of course he knew. And he said I was disgusting? The nausea was replaced by something worse. Heartbreak. I started gagging. Retching. Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t control it. Zoe watched me with satisfaction. Liam looked disgusted. “Look at you. Acting like Zoe murdered your mother. When will you stop playing the victim?” Zoe suddenly clutched her chest. “Liam, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset Harper so badly. I’ll slap myself. I deserve it.” She raised her hand to her own face. Liam caught her wrist. “Don’t. You did nothing wrong. She’s just oversensitive.” I laughed. A bitter, broken sound. I spat more blood and struggled to my feet. Glass fell from my dress. “You call putting fingernails in food and making me eat them in public a ‘small prank’? She humiliated me! Liam, don’t forget who I am! You begged my father to marry me to you! Don’t you need my father’s connections to help your gang’s business?” For a second, Liam’s expression flickered. Maybe he understood. But then Zoe clutched her head and whimpered. “My head… Liam, it hurts so much… I think she gave me a concussion…” Liam’s face darkened. He jabbed his finger at me. “Harper. You tried to murder Zoe in front of the entire family. Are you trying to embarrass me? Everyone’s watching.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “If you care about my reputation at all, you’ll kneel down right now and beg Zoe for forgiveness.” “Kneel for her!” “Then maybe I’ll forget this happened.” My heart turned to stone. Zoe spoke up again, her voice saccharine. “Liam, even if Harper bows, everyone will know you forced her.” “How about this—make her eat all the cannoli.” “Then everyone will see how forgiving she is.” Liam’s eyes lit up. “Perfect.” He snapped his fingers. “Hold her down.” Four of his men grabbed me. They forced me to my knees on the blood-soaked floor. Liam pried open my jaw. He shoved cannoli after cannoli into my mouth. I choked. I gagged. I couldn’t breathe. But he didn’t stop. Not until the box was empty. Finally, he released me. I collapsed on the floor, vomiting. Liam stood over me, his voice cold and emotionless. “You embarrassed Zoe. You ruined my night.” “I don’t feel like marrying you today.” “Starting tomorrow, you’ll kneel in our room. Every day.” “When I’ve forgiven you, we’ll talk about the wedding.” He turned to leave with Zoe on his arm. I forced myself to speak. “Liam.” He stopped. “If you’re going to protect that woman over me, then this marriage is off.” “Forever.”

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I stared at the patent application for the anti-cancer drug I’d spent five years developing. The name in the inventor column made my blood run cold. Ryan Brooks. Not Dr. Julian Vance. Not the oncologist who’d sacrificed countless nights, missed family gatherings, and poured his soul into this research. Ryan Brooks. A medical resident who’d been at Sterling Memorial Hospital for barely six months. I stormed into my wife’s office, patent application clutched in my fist. Elena Sterling sat behind her desk, perfectly composed in her CEO power suit. She didn’t even look up from her laptop. “Elena, what the hell is this?” She glanced at the paper, then back to her screen. “Oh, that. I had Ryan submit it under his name. What’s the problem?” “What’s the problem?” I could barely keep my voice steady. “This is my research. Five years of my life. You put his name on it?” “Ryan needs this, Julian.” Her tone was casual, dismissive. “He’s young, ambitious. This kind of breakthrough will launch his career.” “Launch his career? This is intellectual property theft!” “Don’t be so dramatic.” She finally looked at me, her expression cold. “Can’t you stop being so petty for once? Give the new generation a chance.” “Petty? This is academic fraud, Elena. This could destroy both of our careers—” “Effective immediately, you’re relieved of your position as Department Head of Oncology.” Her words cut like a scalpel. “Report to General Logistics and Maintenance. You’ll be reassigned to janitorial duties.” The room spun. “You’re demoting me to… you’re making me a janitor?” “Maybe some time cleaning toilets will teach you about humility and teamwork.” She returned to her laptop. “We’re done here.” I walked out in a daze. My phone buzzed—a notification from Instagram. Ryan Brooks had posted a new photo. The image showed two hands intertwined on white sheets.One hand wore a wedding ring. I recognized that ring instantly—the custom-designed platinum band with microscopic engravings I’d commissioned for our fifth anniversary. There was only one in the world. The caption read: “My boss. My lover. ❤️” I didn’t hesitate. I liked the post and commented: “Congratulations to you and CEO Sterling. Wishing you a lifetime of happiness together.” The next day, they announced Ryan’s promotion to Department Head at the morning meeting. I showed up with two envelopes. The first was a lawyer’s letter citing intellectual property theft and demanding a full investigation. The second was a divorce petition with Elena’s signature from a month ago—she’d signed it without reading, too eager to rush off to check on Ryan’s parents’ blood pressure. I slammed both documents on the conference table and walked out. On my way to the parking lot, I sent my father a text: “Pull the investment. All of it.”

My phone vibrated. The restaurant hostess calling to confirm my reservation. “Dr. Vance, we’re confirming your party of two for seven PM this evening.” I looked at the empty seat across from me at the coffee shop. Elena was supposed to join me tonight to celebrate the patent filing. That plan died the moment I saw Ryan’s name on the application. “Change it to a table for one.” I ended the call. Another notification popped up—a video in the hospital’s staff group chat. Ryan’s face filled the screen, eyes red and glistening with theatrical tears. “Dr. Vance, I’m so sorry you misunderstood. That Instagram post was about my girlfriend. I thought CEO Sterling’s ring design was beautiful, so I had a replica made for her. I should have told you first. Please forgive me.” Below his video, Elena had commented: “No apologies needed, Ryan. Small minds see corruption everywhere.” The group chat exploded with ass-kissing responses. “We never doubted you for a second, Ryan!” “Some people are just too insecure to handle young talent.” “Dr. Brooks and CEO Sterling are beyond reproach. Certain individuals need to check their jealousy.” I almost laughed. Everyone at Sterling Memorial knew about Elena and Ryan’s “mentorship.” These hypocrites were just hedging their bets with the person who controlled their paychecks. From Department Head to janitor in one day. How could I compete with the CEO and her boy toy? I didn’t bother replying in the chat. Instead, I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the divorce papers. Elena had signed them a month ago without reading—she’d been in a rush to accompany Ryan to his parents’ house for a “routine check-up.” When did Ryan’s needs become more important than our marriage? Didn’t matter now. This farce was over. My phone rang again. Elena’s name flashed on the screen. She’d called ten times already. Part of me wondered if she’d finally realized how badly she’d screwed up. Maybe she wanted to apologize. I answered. “Where the hell are you, Julian?” Her voice dripped with fury. “Do you know what time it is? You’re AWOL. Get back to the hospital immediately!” My brief flicker of hope died. “AWOL? Elena, you demoted me to janitorial staff. I don’t have a shift today. Your new Department Head, Dr. Brooks, is supposed to be on call.” Silence on her end. She clearly hadn’t expected me to push back. “The night shift is understaffed. Ryan has a family emergency. I need you to cover.” Of course. She’d forgotten about our dinner reservation. Or maybe she’d never bothered to listen when I told her about it. “Dr. Brooks has an emergency, and you need coverage?” I kept my voice level. “Perhaps you should handle it personally. After all, you’re his boss and his lover. Isn’t that what his post said?” “Julian, you—” I hung up and blocked her number. I checked the time. My restaurant reservation was in twenty minutes. I gathered my things and headed out. The restaurant was elegant and quiet.I sat alone at my table, surrounded by dishes I’d ordered for two. The irony wasn’t lost on me. How many years had I believed we were unshakeable? That our relationship would never fall victim to something as cliché as an affair? Then Ryan Brooks showed up, and everything changed. I’d hoped the novelty would wear off. That Elena would remember what we’d built together. I was a fool. I picked up my chopsticks, tried to eat. The food tasted like ash. Through the thin wall separating the private dining rooms, I heard champagne glasses clinking and voices raised in celebration. “Congratulations to Dr. Brooks on his breakthrough anti-cancer drug development!”

I gripped my fork so hard my knuckles went white. The voices next door grew louder, more exuberant. “Dr. Brooks, you’re a prodigy! This kind of achievement at your age—unprecedented!” “CEO Sterling, you have an incredible eye for talent. Promoting Dr. Brooks was a masterstroke!” “Hey, where’s Dr. Vance tonight?” someone asked. “I heard CEO Sterling reassigned him to…janitorial duties?” The speaker lowered their voice, but the contempt was clear. “Probably too embarrassed to show his face. Can’t handle the competition.” “Good riddance. Let’s not ruin the mood talking about jealous has-beens.” I heard Elena’s voice, warm and affectionate in a way she hadn’t spoken to me in months. “Ryan, don’t let the pressure get to you. This success is yours. You earned it.” “Thank you, Elena.” Ryan’s voice oozed false modesty. “I couldn’t have done it without your support. This achievement belongs to everyone here!” The food in front of me looked delicious. My stomach churned with nausea. I dropped my fork. The clatter echoed in my empty room. I couldn’t stay here another second. I pushed back from the table and headed for the exit. As I rounded the corner, the bathroom door opened. Elena stepped out, her face flushed from wine. She froze when she saw me. “Julian?” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here? Are you following me?” Following her. Of course that’s what she’d think. “Your imagination is working overtime, Elena.” I turned to face her fully. “You forgot. This time, this place—this was supposed to be MY celebration dinner. The one you scheduled with me two weeks ago.” Her expression crumbled. A flash of panic and embarrassment crossed her face. “I’ve been swamped with work. I forgot about—look, Ryan really needed this patent to establish himself. The hospital needed a young success story to showcase. The research would have brought prestige regardless of whose name was on it. As long as I knew the truth, what’s the harm?” She took a step toward me, her voice softening. “Julian, I know you’re upset. But think about the bigger picture. Once things calm down, I’ll reinstate you as Department H—” “Don’t bother.” I cut her off, “Keep the position. Keep the patent. You and your protégé Ryan deserve each other.” Shock flickered across her face. She’d expected me to cave, to swallow my pride for the sake of our marriage and her precious “bigger picture.” “Julian! Stop being so childish! I’m trying to give you an out here—” Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen. Her entire demeanor shifted in an instant—the anger and impatience vanished, replaced by warmth and concern. “Hey, Ryan. I’ll be right there…” Her voice turned syrupy sweet. “Don’t worry, I’m just outside. You can’t survive five minutes without me? Silly boy… okay, okay, I’m coming now.” She turned toward the private room without another glance at me. As if I’d ceased to exist the moment Ryan’s name appeared on her screen. “Wait for me, sweetheart. I’ll be right there.” The hallway fell silent. I was alone again. I looked at the closed door of their celebration one last time. Then I walked out of the restaurant and didn’t look back. My phone buzzed. A message from my doctoral advisor, Dr. Marcus Johnson . “Julian, please tell me you haven’t submitted that patent application. There’s a critical flaw in the compound interaction data.”

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“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” That’s what I heard when I opened the door to my own house. My husband-Gavin kissing a 21-year-old girl deeply. Three hours ago, this man canceled our anniversary trip to take care of his sick mother. Now he’s taking care of a different girl. So where’s his mother—the one who’s been dead for three months? **** Three hours earlier at the airport, Gavin’s phone buzzed just as we were about to board to enjoy our wedding anniversary trip. “Babe, I’m so sorry. My mom’s sick. I need to go back. Can’t make this trip.” I was disappointed. But his mom came first. I said okay. Gavin left. I tore up the ticket. Then I remembered—his mom died three months ago. Time to see what kind of “sick” a dead woman gets. I followed Gavin’s car. All the way to our house. I didn’t get out. I checked my phone instead. Tiffany,our housekeeper’s daughter was blasting Instagram stories. [Best 21st birthday EVER. Thank you for spoiling me rotten. ❤️] The photo: White lace dress. Leaning into a man’s chest. The man was my devoted husband. I cracked my knuckles. Got out. Walked to the door and opened it. Balloons everywhere. A dozen people crowding around two persons in the center. They were chanting,”Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Gavin grabbed Tiffany’s waist and kissed her. The crowd went wild. When they finally broke apart, Gavin was still stroking her lips with his thumb. Then he looked up. And saw me standing in the front row. His eyes went wide. He shoved Tiffany back. I was faster. Slap. Slap. Two clean hits across his face. The room went silent. Tiffany spun around. Saw me. Screamed. Grabbed Gavin’s arm and hid behind him. I smiled. “Didn’t know you had a new mom, Gavin.”

He stammered. Tried to explain. A girl with short hair shoved me hard. “Who the hell are you? You can’t just barge into someone’s house and hit people! Apologize to Tiffany’s boyfriend. Now.” The others joined in,”Yeah, assault is illegal. She should apologize. Or we call the cops.” “I bet she has priors. Who knows what she’ll do next?” “How did this psycho even get in here? Does she know who she just hit?” I looked at them. Smiled wider. Then turned to Gavin. “You think I shouldn’t have slapped you?” Gavin licked his lips. Started to speak. Tiffany tugged his sleeve. Shook her head. I saw it all. Curious what game they’d play. Gavin glared at me. “Scarlett, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s Tiffany’s birthday. Whatever you want to say, say it later. Stop embarrassing yourself. Get out!” Protecting his mistress in front of her friends. How sweet. I laughed. Cold. “Get out? Are you two hiding something?” Tiffany started crying. “Scarlett, I know you’ve always had a crush on Gavin. I know it hurts to see us together. But love is mutual. Gavin loves me. We’ve been together for two years. He promised to marry me after I graduate. Please stop chasing him.” Gavin’s face twitched. He didn’t expect her to say that. He glanced at me. I froze. We’d been married for two years and one month. They’d been together for two years. He cheated one month after our wedding. And hired Mrs. Higgins as our housekeeper just to move Tiffany in. Two years. I’d been played for two years. The short-haired girl spoke again. “Oh my God. You’re the housekeeper who has a crush on Tiffany’s boyfriend. Pathetic. Trying to steal him in public?” I laughed. Actually laughed. “Tiffany, still dreaming? What makes you think you’re worth me working as your maid?”

Before I could say another word, someone threw a drink in my face. The short-haired girl held an empty glass. Smirking. “You’re the one who needs to wake up!” “We all know who Tiffany is. Her mom runs a huge business. Her boyfriend owns a company. This whole villa is hers.” “And you? Look at what you’re wearing. Cheap knockoffs. No brand labels. You’re only good for scrubbing floors.” Cheap knockoffs? My clothes had no labels because they were custom couture. Hand-designed by masters. The other girls piled on, “Exactly. Apologize to Tiffany. Or you’ll lose your job too.” A guy spoke up. Sleazy tone: “Lady, you’re way too old to be competing with Tiffany. If you’re that desperate for a man, I can help. I’ve never tried someone in their thirties. One hundred dollars for the night?” Everyone laughed. I wiped the drink off my face. Stared at Gavin. “Gavin. I’m your wife. You’re going to stand there and let them insult me for your mistress? Don’t you dare regret this.” Gavin’s face was ice. “Tiffany’s my girlfriend. You brought this on yourself.” Vague. Cowardly. Tiffany stood taller. Seeing all her friends back her up, seeing Gavin on her side, she got bold. “Scarlett, I call you that because you’re older. But don’t forget your place. You can throw tantrums at home all you want. I don’t care if you disrespect me today. But Gavin is a man. All these people are watching. He’s a CEO. You slapped him in public. Did you think about his feelings?” She turned to Gavin. Voice soft. “Gavin, I may be young, but I know how to protect my man. I give you respect in public. Unlike… some people.” Double meaning. Hitting his ego. His insecurity. I laughed coldly. “You’re right. I forgot to slap you.” I grabbed her hair. Slap. Slap. Two hard hits across her face. Tiffany screamed. Covered her cheek. Sobbing. “You hit me! I won’t let you get away with this!” “Keep barking.” I raised my hand again. Gavin grabbed my wrist. Shoved me hard. I stumbled backward into the champagne tower. Crashed to the floor. Glass shards buried in my palm. Gavin didn’t even look at me. He pulled Tiffany into his arms. “Scarlett. Apologize to Tiffany. Now.” I stared at my bleeding hand. Bit down on the pain. Pulled the glass out piece by piece. Two years of marriage. Like glass shards. Cutting into me. Tiffany smiled at me from his arms. Triumphant. My voice went cold. “Gavin. You threw a birthday party for your mistress in my house. You cheated on me and now you want me to apologize to her? Are you brain-dead? Or do you think I’m a pushover? Don’t forget, I’m your legal wife. I gave you everything. I can take it all back. I can make you a broke nobody.”

Gavin’s eyes flickered. Tiffany jumped in first. “Scarlett, Gavin built his company with his own hard work and talent. He earned his wealth through his own ability. Don’t act like you helped him.” He couldn’t even read a basic business project. Talent? When he started his company, I gave him $100,000 from my family. I got him million-dollar contracts from my dad’s company. I didn’t want to hurt his pride, so I secretly transferred top managers from my dad’s firm to Gavin’s startup. He thought he was a genius. Why else would industry elites join his tiny company? It was all me. Without me, he’d never have gone from a startup to a company about to go public in two years. The guests started whispering, “She said this is her house. That Tiffany’s the mistress. Think it’s true?” “Maybe. The guy’s way older than Tiffany. I always said something was off.” “But he’s protecting her. Would a cheater be this bold?” “Let’s just watch. We’ll find out.” The short-haired girl snapped, “Stop speculating! This is Tiffany’s house. I’ve been here dozens of times. I’ve seen them sleep in the master bedroom. I’ve even met her mom. A real socialite.” I understood now. They’d been rolling around in my bed. Disgusting. Tiffany flashed the diamond ring on her finger. “This is my house. Everyone here can confirm it. You’re the one who should leave. Gavin, I don’t want to see her. Make her go.” Gavin nodded. “This is your house. Whatever makes you happy.” The short-haired girl grabbed my hair. Dragged me toward the door. “Have some self-awareness, lady. You can’t just steal someone’s boyfriend. Pathetic.” She yelled to the others, “Want to see what this homewrecker looks like naked? Let’s strip her! For Tiffany!” My eyes went wide. I covered my chest. Some of the guys moved forward. Started pulling at my clothes. I fought back. Screamed at Gavin. Begged him to stop them. Gavin frowned. Started to raise his hand. Tiffany grabbed it. “Gavin, relax. My friends know what they’re doing. They’re just standing up for me. And this way, you’ll have leverage over her later.” Gavin nodded. Pinched her cheek. They both watched as my clothes were torn apart. “Let me go! This is illegal!” The short-haired girl slapped me. “We’re doing you a favor. You like stealing men? We’ve got plenty of guys here. You should be grateful.” Her words hung in the air. I felt hands all over me. I was losing hope. Then a voice came from the door. “How’s my princess’s birthday going? Mommy’s gift just arrived.”

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So, my child was not my child; my husband was not really my husband. I found the blood donation certificate while cleaning out my son’s room. I almost didn’t notice it. Caleb was away at college. His room had been empty for months, but I still went in every week to dust, to vacuum, to pretend my child still needed me. The certificate was tucked inside an old textbook. I almost threw it away without looking. Then I saw the blood type. Type B. I picked it up. I read it again. I stared at the letter for a long time. My vision tunneled. The walls of the room seemed to press in. I am Type O. Julian is Type O. I drove home with the certificate in my pocket. My hands were numb on the steering wheel. — Julian came home at seven. He’d poured himself two fingers of bourbon, until he’d lowered himself into the leather chair he liked best with the small exhale of a man who believed his day was finished. He looked up when I walked in. “You’re back early.” Then I set the donor card on the coffee table between us. “Caleb’s blood type is B,” I said. “We’re both O.” He didn’t look at the paper. He looked at me. And for one second—I saw something I had never seen in eighteen years of marriage. Fear. Then his face hardened. “What are you trying to say?” “I want a paternity test.” I had practiced them on the drive home, a hundred times, a thousand. They still tasted like broken glass. Then Julian was on his feet, and the bourbon glass was on the table. The man I had married—the man who used to hold my hand under the table at dinner—was gone. recognize. Julian’s voice was dangerous. “He’s our son. And you want to do this now?” “I want the truth.” “You need to see somebody.” He hit me. Twice. He’d never raised his hand to me before, not in eighteen years, not once. The first slap snapped my head to the side. The second sent me stumbling into the arm of the couch. I tasted blood. When I looked at him again, he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at his hand. “You’re sick,” he said. He was breathing hard. “Aria, do you hear me? I have been *patient*, and I am *done*.” He walked out. Then I heard the sound I had never, in eighteen years of marriage, heard from the other side of my own front door: The deadbolt turning. He had locked me in. I sat on the floor of our living room for a long time after that. My cheek throbbed. My ear rang. And then, I started to laugh. I had always work tirelessly year after year, building his business empire for his family, his corporation, and his operations, without ever asking for my name to be written in history. Moreover, I had never received a single penny of patent royalties. For the sake of my child and him, I was willing to remain an anonymous figure behind the Vance Group. And now, this is the consequence. I laughed until my ribs hurt and my mouth tasted like blood and my mascara was running into my hairline. Then I picked up my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found a name I had saved years ago but never called. Adrian Cole. Julian’s greatest enemy. The man who had tried to buy my patents a dozen times. The man Julian warned me about like a curse. I dialed. He answered on the second ring. “Aria.” Not a question. He knew my voice. “Adrian.” “It’s been a while.” “I know.” He waited. He’d always been good at waiting. “I agree to transfer the patents to Ashford Frontier. Exclusive license.” The line went quiet. For a moment, I thought he had hung up. When Adrian Cole spoke again, his voice was different—low. “Welcome back, Aria.” “I’ve been keeping something ready for you for a long time.”

I sat on the couch until the sky outside turned the color of cold ash. Julian had come home sometime after midnight, but he didn’t turn on the light. He walked past me without a word, and I didn’t call out to him. Eighteen years. We had good years once. When he was first building Vance Group, We had eaten cold takeout off the floor while I sketched circuit diagrams on the back of his résumé. We’d had nothing then. *When the company takes off,* he used to say, *I’ll give you the world, Aria.* The company got big. He stopped coming home. I said the apartment felt empty. He said, “You have Caleb.” I said I wanted to go to a concert. He said, “Have the assistant take you. I can’t get away.” Eventually, I stopped asking. I told myself this was what marriage was supposed to be—the heat cooling into companionship, passion settling into something quieter. Now I wondered if I had been the only one who turned into family. And he had turned into something else. At seven a.m., I heard the kitchen come alive. The sound of bread going into the toaster, the soft thud of the refrigerator door. When I came out in my robe, he was at the stove in a fresh shirt, sleeves rolled neatly to the forearm, plating two eggs onto two plates with the focused care of a man who hadn’t cooked breakfast in years. “You’re up,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Dark circles under his eyes. “I made you something.” I sat. The table held milk, toast, and eggs—the edges a little burnt, the way he knew I liked them. He sat down across from me. Neither of us mentioned yesterday. “Cal’s coming home next weekend.” His voice was gentle. He had always done this—reset a conversation by force of pleasantness. I wrapped both hands around the warm cup of coffee he’d set in front of me “I know.” “Aria.” His tone softened to the one he used in boardroom he’d carefully rehearsed. I looked up at him. This face—I had watched it for eighteen years, from young man to middle age. I used to know exactly when he was lying. Now I couldn’t read him at all. “I need you to know I’m sorry about last night. I—I lost my head.” “I know that.” “Then can we please—” He set down his fork. “Can we please put this behind us? I know I haven’t been around. I’m going to fix that.” I looked down at my toast and sipped my coffee. “When will you do the DNA test?” The tenderness on his face froze. “You’re really doing this?” His chopsticks clattered against the porcelain. For one half-second—I could see his mind running the options the way it ran a quarterly forecast. Not angry. Not hurt. Calculating. Then the mask slid back on. “Fine. Do your test. But don’t expect it to change anything.” “Maybe.” “You’re going to be embarrassed when it comes back, Aria.” He pushed back his chair and walked out of the kitchen. He almost said something. He thought better of it. The front door closed behind him without slamming. Good. Now we both knew where we stood. …… I remembered something then. When Caleb was small, everyone said he looked just like Julian. No one ever said he looked like me. I stood up and walked to the balcony. Julian’s car pulled out of the garage, the taillights bleeding red through the gray morning. I watched him go. Then I turned and walked to his study. On the desk, I placed two documents: a divorce papers and a proposed asset division. The patents that kept Vance Group alive—I held one hundred percent of the rights. But Julian had been using them for so long, he had started treating them as his own. My phone buzzed. My mother. “Aria, are you feeling better?” Her voice was light, almost cheerful. “Celeste is flying back next week. Julian knew you’ve been down, so he bought her a ticket. He’s even setting her up with a director position at Vance Group. Isn’t that wonderful? You two haven’t seen each other in ages. We’ll all have dinner.” I said nothing. Celeste. The name made my jaw tighten. Not since the last time she’d flown home, eaten dinner in my apartment, kissed the top of Caleb’s head at the door. Now the moment she returned, she landed a office—at the company I had built with my patents. I kept my voice steady. “What time?” “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll bring everything. Just rest.” She paused. “And Aria, baby—be sweet to Julian tonight. Men need to feel admired. You know how he is.” I couldn’t listen anymore. I made a vague sound and hung up. Then I opened my phone and booked a rush DNA test at a private lab outside the city—one Julian’s people couldn’t reach. I went to Caleb’s room and collected strands of hair from his brush. I sealed them in an envelope and sent them out. Then I messaged the private investigator I had hired three days ago. *Run Julian’s financials. Everything. Offshore accounts, personal gifts, anything going to Celeste.* The PI replied within minutes: *Understood. Initial read in twenty‑four hours.* I set down the phone and looked out the window. Eighteen years. Enough waiting. Tomorrow, I would start finding out who I had really been married to. — That night, I didn’t go to bed. I sat in the study, the divorce papers still on the desk, and waited. At 11:47 p.m., my phone buzzed with an email from the lab. *Your results are ready.* I opened the link. The page loaded slowly—too slowly. I went straight to the last line. *“Aria Sinclair is excluded as the biological mother of the tested subject.”* Eighteen years. One sentence. I read the line three times. Then I closed the report and set down my phone. My hands were shaking. Not because I had been wrong. Because I had been right. Then I picked up my phone. I forwarded the report to three places. The first was my attorney. The second was the private investigator. The third was a single name in my contacts under no last name at all. **Adrian.** I walked to the window. The city lights stretched out beneath me—Ashford at night, cold and indifferent. Somewhere out there, my husband was probably still at his office, or maybe he had gone to the apartment he kept for “late nights.” Somewhere out there, Celeste was packing for her flight home. And somewhere I didn’t even know existed—there was a child who should have been mine. I pressed my palm against the cold glass. Tomorrow, I would tell Julian I wanted to go to the old house. I would find whatever Celeste had left behind. And I would start digging up every secret they had buried.

The weekend arrived faster than I wanted. My mother had called three times to confirm the menu, though she kept saying they would bring everything themselves. “Just set the table, Aria. Don’t lift a finger.” I didn’t lift a finger. I sat by the window and watched the street until their car pulled up. My father parked. My mother got out first, carrying two bags of groceries. Then the back door opened. Celeste stepped out in a cream wool coat, her hair fresh from a salon, a gift box in her gloved hands. I opened the door before they rang the bell. “Aria.” My mother kissed my cheek. “You look pale. Are you sleeping?” “Fine,” I said. My father grunted from behind her. He had looked at me for the last twenty years—with the evaluative expression of a man calculating whether his daughter was going to be a problem today or not. “Dad.” “Aria.” He kissed my cheek the way he always did. Once. Done. Celeste walked past him and stopped in front of me. She smiled—wide, practiced, the same smile she had worn since we were teenagers. “Sister.” She opened her arms. “It’s so good to see you.” I stepped sideways, smoothly, and took the gift bag out of her hand instead. “You shouldn’t have.” The smile flickered. She recovered before either of our parents noticed. “It’s just a little something. From LA.” I set the bag on the console table without looking at it. “Let’s eat.” — Dinner was the production it always was in my mother’s hands—four courses, three wineglasses per place setting, a centerpiece she’d brought from her own dining room because she didn’t trust mine. Julian sat at the head of the table. Celeste sat at his right hand. I sat at the other end, which is to say across from my husband, which is to say where I could watch both of them at the same time without turning my head. They were good. I’ll give them that. They had been doing this for so long that the choreography of it had become invisible—the way Julian poured Celeste’s wine without being asked, the way she laughed half a second before his joke landed. Now I had only just learned what I was looking at. We were halfway through the main course when Celeste reached across the table for the bread basket, and the cuff of her cream silk jacket slipped back from her wrist. The bracelet caught the light. I knew that bracelet. It was an emerald cuff—Cartier, vintage Trinity collection, the deep cabochon stones set in eighteen-karat gold so soft you could mark it with a thumbnail. I had seen it two years ago, in a glass case at a Sotheby’s preview in New York, while Julian stood beside me with one hand at the small of my back and asked me three times if I wanted it. I had said no. I had said it was too much. I had said it was the kind of piece a woman wears once a decade to a gala, and that it would sit in a safe the other three thousand six hundred and forty-nine days of the year. He had told me later, on the drive home, that someone else had bought it before he could go back. Now it was on my sister’s wrist. I lifted my wineglass and drank, slowly, and did not let a single muscle in my face move. Across the table, Julian was lifting his soup spoon to his mouth. Celeste noticed me staring. She turned her wrist a little, idly. “Do you like it, Aria?” Her voice was warm, conversational. “Julian gave it to me as a welcome-home present. He said the color suited me.” Julian choked on his soup. His face went a deep, expensive red. My mother fluttered her hands and said *oh dear oh dear* and reached for the water pitcher. Celeste lowered her eyes demurely to her plate. I didn’t look at her. I looked at Julian. But he did not look at me. He did not look at her. Celeste smiled again. “Some things just look better on the right person, don’t you think? Like this bracelet—it’s clearer on my skin than it ever was in the collection.” She was looking at Julian when she said it. The look was familiar. I had seen it before—on other women, at other dinners, in the way they glanced at men who weren’t theirs. But this was my sister. And this was my husband. I picked up my wine glass. “Excuse me. I have something to say.” …… I set my fork down. “Mom. Dad.” The table quieted. My mother turned to me with the small, anxious smile she wore whenever she suspected I was about to be difficult. “Yes, baby?” “I had a paternity test done on Caleb.” The silence that fell over the dining room was the kind that happens in the half-second between when a glass slips out of your hand and when it hits the floor. Celeste’s fork paused above her plate. Julian’s wineglass paused at his lips. My mother’s mouth opened. “He isn’t mine.” I said it gently, almost conversationally. “He never has been. The probability is zero.” For one long moment, no one moved. Then my father slammed his palm flat against the table. The wineglasses jumped. “Aria.” “Yes, Dad.” “Have you lost your mind?” I lifted my eyes to his. He was furious. Not surprised. Not stricken. Not horrified on my behalf, the way a father is supposed to be horrified when his daughter tells him her child has been stolen. Furious. The way a man is furious when his daughter has embarrassed him at the dinner table. “You sit here in your own dining room,” he said, low and shaking, “in front of your husband, in front of your mother, in front of your sister, and you make an accusation like that—based on what? A *blood type?*” “Based on a lab report from—” “You need to see a doctor, Aria. A real one. Tonight.” My mother’s hand fluttered to her chest. “Please—You’re not well. You have been sick for months. Julian has been telling me for months.” I looked at my husband. Julian was very, very carefully not looking at me. He was looking at the centerpiece my mother had brought from her own dining room. I turned to my mother. She was crying, prettily, into her napkin. She had always cried prettily. It was one of her gifts. “Mom,” I said. She didn’t look up. “*Mom.*” She lifted her face. Her mascara was still perfect. Of course it was. “Look at me. Look at my face. And tell me you didn’t already know.” She opened her mouth. She closed it. She looked at my father. That was the answer. I stood up from the table. I walked to the foyer. I took my coat off the hook. I did not look back at any of them. At the door, I paused. “Tomorrow,” I said, without turning, “I’m going to the old house. To tidy up some old things. Anyone want to come with me?” Behind me, no one spoke. “But I guess none of you probably wouldn’t.” The lock clicked shut behind me. — I didn’t go back to the apartment that night. I checked into a hotel two blocks from the old house, ordered a glass of wine I didn’t drink, and lay on top of the covers in my coat with the lights off, listening to the city forty floors below me hum the way only Ashford could hum at midnight—port, money, and quiet violence, all running on the same current. My phone buzzed twice on the nightstand. *Aria. Please. Pick up.* — Julian. *Aria. I never meant to upset you.* — Mom. I read both. I deleted both. I turned the phone facedown. I waited until 5:47 a.m. Then I got up, washed my face in cold water, put my hair back, and drove out to the old Sinclair house.

The house had been empty for almost a decade. I grew up there—before marriage, before Julian, before I became someone I no longer recognized. My parents had moved to a newer development years ago, but they never sold this place. Too much history, my mother said. I wondered now if that was the real reason, or if she had simply forgotten it existed. I let myself in with the spare key. Dust layered the furniture. The air was stale, heavy with disuse. I climbed the narrow stairs to the attic. The attic was crowded with old boxes, broken lamps, furniture no one wanted. I searched methodically—first the trunks, then the stacked bins, then the loose items scattered near the window. I found it in a leather suitcase shoved against the far wall where Celeste’d left it the summer she’d flown to Los Angeles. Inside: journals, photographs, and a small metal box. I opened the box. Dozens of Letters, folded neatly, envelopes yellowed with age. The top one was addressed in a handwriting I knew too well. *To Julian.* I pulled out the first sheet. *Julian, you came to the house again today. You looked at her the way I wish you would look at me. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I can’t stop.* The next one was dated weeks later. *I heard you’re going to marry her. My sister is so lucky. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I had met you first?* My hands began to shake. I kept digging. The letters went deeper—some from before the wedding, some from after. The handwriting grew more confident, the words less careful. At the bottom of the box, beneath the letters, I found a photograph. Celeste and Julian standing side by side under a cherry blossom tree. Her head rested against his shoulder. One hand lay on her stomach—rounded, unmistakable. I turned the photo over. On the back, in Celeste’s looping script: *”The unloved one is the mistress.”* It was the line of a girl who had spent her entire life knowing, in the deepest and most unforgivable part of herself, that she had not. She had not won. She had only stolen. I stood there in the dim attic, the photograph pressed between my fingers, and felt the floor tilt beneath me. I read it. I read it again. Not a theory anymore. Not a suspicion. She had been pregnant before I ever was. And eighteen years ago, the same year I gave birth to that child I was told was mine—she had gone abroad. —but it was not my kid. My hands started shaking. *Then where in the entire world was my child?* I pulled out my phone and messaged the private investigator. *Check the hospital records for the day my daughter was born. June 21, 3:00 to 5:00 PM. Also check Celeste’s overseas records. Anything about a birth.* I hit send and sat down on a dusty trunk. The phone in my pocket buzzed. It wasn’t anybody. Rither not the investigator—a notification from my home security app. > ***Living Room camera: Motion detected. 9:14 a.m.*** I frowned. Julian had said he would be at the office. The housekeeper had the day off. I tapped the live feed. The video loaded slowly, then resolved into color. …… The live feed loaded in stages, one frozen frame at a time, the way bad news always loaded—buffering, buffering, finally clearing. Our living room. Julian sat at one end, his tie loose, his head tipped back against the cushions. He looked exhausted. Then Celeste walked into the frame. She wasn’t in the cream silk suit she’d worn to my dinner table. She was in a slip of black silk that ended mid-thigh, the straps thin as wire, the kind of thing a woman wore at home for one audience of one. She sat down beside him, then shifted onto his lap. Her fingers found the top button of his shirt and worked it open. Julian did not push her away. His hand slid up her back, into her hair, then down to her waist. He pulled her closer. She leaned in, her mouth near his ear. I couldn’t hear what she said. But I could see him react. His breathing changed. His hands tightened. “Celeste,” he said—loud enough for the mic to catch. “Not here.” But he didn’t stop her. She laughed, soft and low, and kept unbuttoning his shirt. I watched the screen and gripped of my phone with both hands and watched her thread her fingers into his hair the way I had not threaded my fingers into his hair in six years. “Julian.” Her voice came through the speaker, thin and tinny. “When Cal calls me *Auntie*, I—you don’t know how much it hurts.” “*Celeste.*” Julian’s voice was low. “He should be calling me *Mom.*” I watched my husband of eighteen years close his eyes. The camera kept rolling. The room kept rolling. My husband and my sister did, on the couch I had picked out, what they had apparently been doing somewhere or other for the last nineteen years. My hands weren’t shaking now. They were steady. I tapped the small red button at the bottom of the screen. ***Recording.*** The phone in my hand vibrated softly to confirm. I walked to the attic bathroom and leaned over the sink. Nothing came up. Just dry heaves that left my throat burning. But i still held the phone steady against the sink and let it run. — The recording ran for nine minutes and forty-one seconds before I closed the app. I did not throw up. I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up. I rinsed my mouth with tap water. I splashed cold water on my face. Then I walked back into the kitchen, opened my laptop on the breakfast bar, and forwarded the entire nine-minute file to three places. My attorney. The private investigator. Adrian. I did not write a message to my attorney. The video was the message. — I had not slept. The investigator’s email came in at 2:47 a.m. *Found her.*

I opened the email with the same calm I had once used to open exam results. A file downloaded. Pages of records, then photographs. The first photo: a girl, maybe eight or nine, standing in front of a restaurant. Her clothes were too big. Her face was thin. The second: the same girl, older now—seventeen or eighteen—lifting a garbage bag in a back alley. Her hair was lank. Her arms were covered in bruises. The third: a close-up of an arm. Old and new, layered like she had never stopped being hit. A cigarette burn the size of a dime on the inside of the elbow. *Name: Nora. Works in a Chinatown restaurant in Los Angeles. No legal status. Now lives in a basement room. No windows.* *Celestine Sinclaircollects most of her wages through an intermediary.* I did not cry. I sat very still in the dark while the small, hot, brilliant rage that had been waiting under my breastbone for the last seventy-two hours finally bloomed all the way out into my hands. Eighteen years. Someone had been hitting my daughter for eighteen years, and the woman who had been wearing my Cartier emeralds at my dinner table on Sunday was the one who had been pocketing her wages. I had raised Celeste’s son. I had clothed him, fed him, paid for his school, loved him like my own. And my daughter—my real daughter—had been thrown away. I closed the email. I gathered the letters, the photograph, everything from the metal box, and put them in my bag. Then I walked out of the attic, down the stairs, and out of the old house. In the car, I just sat there, gripping the steering wheel, until my knuckles went white. Then I made one calls. To Adrian Cole. “I’m going to bring my daughter home.” There was a pause on the line. “What do you need me to do for you?” “I need a plane ticket that none of them know about.” “5:42 a.m. Direct to LAX. And then I’ll have a car waiting at LAX. Don’t go into Chinatown alone.” I hung up and finally let myself cry. Not for long. I had a lot of work to do. ….. I didn’t sleep on the flight to Los Angeles. The investigator’s file sat open on my tray table. Page after page of a life I should have been part of. **Subject: SINCLAIR, NORA. Female. DOB: June 21.** **Place of birth:** Ashford General, Ashford City. (*Records of original maternity ward closed; archive lost in 2009 fire.*) **Recorded guardian, age 0–1:** SINCLAIR, CELESTE. **Recorded relocation:** Los Angeles, California. November of birth year. **Education:** Public school district 17, Los Angeles. Attendance erratic ages 8–13. Withdrew at 16. **Employment, ages 8 to present:** – Dishwasher, two restaurants, off the books – Laundry, one dry cleaner, off the books – Current: prep cook / dishwasher, *The Hill Garden*, 815 Hill Street, Chinatown. Lives on premises. Underground room behind walk-in cooler. No window. No lock from inside. **Wages:** $4.50/hour, cash. Ninety percent collected monthly by intermediary on behalf of C. Sinclair, deposited into offshore account. **Medical:** Three documented ER visits. Broken wrist, age 11. Concussion, age 14. Lacerations to back of shoulder, age 16, twenty-two stitches, signed out against medical advice. **Police record:** None as offender. One filed report at age 12, alleging assault by guardian. Withdrawn within 48 hours. I closed the file before I got to the photographs. I took a deep breath. — The plane landed at LAX just after five in the morning. The car Adrian had promised was waiting at the curb in passenger pickup, exactly where he’d said it would be—a black SUV with tinted windows and a driver in a dark suit who did not introduce himself, did not take my luggage, did not say a single word to me. He held the back door open. He waited. I got in. He shut the door, walked around to the driver’s seat, and pulled out into the morning traffic. I leaned forward and unlatched the glove compartment. There was a manila envelope inside. I pulled it out and felt the weight of it on my lap. I opened the flap. Inside was a banded brick of one-hundred-dollar bills—twenty thousand dollars, give or take—and beneath it, a single folded sheet of paper that turned out to be a notarized statement of voluntary employment release, drafted in legalese, dated for today, with one blank line for a signature. Adrian had thought of everything. He had thought of the buyout. He had thought of the paperwork. I had not asked him for any of it. I sat back against the leather and watched the palm trees go past the window and let myself feel, for one brief and dangerous second, the warmth of being prepared for by someone who was not Julian. Then I closed the envelope. I tucked it under my arm. I leaned forward. I said. “Eight-fifteen. Pull around to the alley. Park where I can see the back door without them seeing the car.” The driver nodded once into the rearview mirror. We drove east.

A side alley ran between the restaurant and the building next door. I got out of the car and walked toward it. And there she was. My daughter. The alley smelled like rot. Cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. A metal dumpster near the back. And leaning against the dumpster, a young woman in a worn gray hoodie, stuffing two black garbage bags into the bin, with the practiced grunt of a body that had been doing this since it was eight years old. Her arms, where the sleeves of the T-shirt fell back, were marked the way the photographs had said they would be marked. She was too thin. Her jeans hung loose at the waist. Her hands were red and chapped from the cold. I stopped at the mouth of the alley. She turned her head. Our eyes met across twenty feet of cracked asphalt. She had my face. Not the shape of Celeste’s soft cheeks or Julian’s sharp jaw. My face—the same eyes, the same brow, the same way of looking at the world like she was waiting for someone to disappoint her. She blinked. Then she looked away, wiped her hands on her jeans, and started toward the back door of the restaurant. “Wait.” My voice came out rough. I hadn’t spoken in hours. She stopped. Looked back at me. Her expression was wary—not afraid, but guarded, like she had learned to expect bad news from strangers. “Are you Nora?” I asked. “Who’s asking?” I stepped closer. “I’m from the East Coast. I came here to find you.” Her eyes hardened. “Did Celeste send you? I already sent her this month’s money. I don’t have anything else.” “No. Not Celeste.” I took a breath. “I’m your mother. Your real mother.” She stared at me. A door banged open behind her at the back of the restaurant. A man’s voice, thick with impatience. “Nora! You little—where the hell did you—Where are the clean buckets? Get inside!” She flinched. Then she turned and walked past me, toward the dumpster, as if I was nothing. “Stay where you are,” I said. She didn’t stop. The owner came out of the back door in a stained apron and rubber sandals, scratching the side of his neck, his eyes already finding her before they found me. “What the hell is going on out here? Who is this?” “Are you the owner?” “Who’s asking?” I reached inside my coat. The manila envelope. I held it up. I didn’t open it. “Twenty thousand dollars,” I said. “Cash. American.” He stopped scratching his neck. “For her release. Effective immediately.” “She owes me—” “She doesn’t owe you anything.” I took one step forward. “But I’m offering you twenty thousand because I don’t have time to argue with you, and because the alternative is that the man in that car”—I tilted my head, fractionally, toward the SUV idling at the alley mouth—”makes a phone call to a friend of his in this city. And then *you* owe somebody. And it is not a debt you want.” He looked at the SUV. He looked at me. He looked at the SUV again. Whatever he saw there—the unmoving silhouette in the driver’s seat, the plate that wasn’t a plate any rental company would have issued, the particular stillness of a car that did not belong to a tourist—he straightened. “Lady,” he said carefully, “you take her. I don’t want trouble.” “There’s also a release form.” I handed him the notarized page from the envelope. I handed him the pen. He signed it on the rim of the dumpster, with his apron still on, in a hand that was steadier than I’d expected. I took the page back. I tucked it into the envelope. I held the envelope out to him. He took it without counting. “Get your things,” he said to her. Not unkindly. Not kindly either. Just the way a man speaks to a thing he is finished with. “Get out of my back room. Don’t come back tomorrow.” She didn’t move. He looked at her one more time, almost as if he wanted to say something else, and didn’t. Then he walked back into the kitchen and pulled the door closed behind him. The alley was very quiet. I turned back to her. “Nora.” She was looking at the ground. Her shoulders were still drawn up. Her hands were still fists. “Sweetheart. Look at me.” She didn’t. “I know what this looks like. I know I’m a stranger who just walked into the alley behind your job and bought you like a piece of furniture. I know you have no reason in the world to get in that car with me. But I need you to listen to me for thirty seconds, and then you can decide.” I made myself say the rest of it. “You were born to me, Nora. The records are on my phone. I have the lab results. I have the hospital archive. I have photographs of Celeste leaving the country eight days after I gave birth, with an infant girl who was not on any flight manifest she’d boarded going in. I have nineteen years of bank transfers from my husband to her offshore account. I have all of it.” “I am not asking you to come home with me.” “I’m asking you to come to a hotel. With a hot shower and a doctor and a bed. For one night. Tomorrow morning, if you want to walk out of that hotel and never see me again, I will hand you a check and the rest of the cash in this envelope and a passport in your own name and I will leave you alone for the rest of your life. I swear to God.” I waited. The wind moved through the alley. A piece of newspaper turned over near the dumpster. She lifted her face. She looked at me the way she had looked at me through the car window five minutes ago, and the look was not the same. Something underneath it had shifted. Not trust. Not anything as warm as trust. Just the smallest, most exhausted opening of a door that had been bolted shut for so long the hinges had rusted into the frame. “I don’t have anything to get,” she said. “What?” “In the back room. I don’t have anything to get.” “…All right.” “There’s a bag,” she said, almost as an afterthought. “Under the cot. There’s a bag.” “I’ll come with you.” “No.” She said it sharply. Then, softer: “No. I’ll get it myself.” She slipped past me through the back door of the kitchen. I stood in the alley and let myself breathe for the first time in three days. When she came back up the stairs, she was carrying a black canvas bag the size of a school backpack. Inside it, by the way she carried it, were perhaps three pounds of belongings. Eighteen years of life. Three pounds. I held the back door of the SUV open for her. She paused on the threshold of the car. “What do I call you?” The question stopped me. I had not let myself rehearse this part. I had not let myself imagine her using any word for me at all. “Whatever you want.” I walked around to the other side, slid in beside her, and pulled the door shut behind me. The driver met my eyes once in the rearview mirror. I nodded. The SUV pulled out of the alley. Nora sat very still beside me, her hands folded in her lap, her duffel bag wedged between her sneakers. She did not look at me. She did not look out the window. I did not reach for her hand. I did not touch her hair. I did not say anything else. I sat beside my daughter in the back of a stranger’s car and watched the morning sun climb the sides of buildings I had never seen before in a city three thousand miles from the apartment where my husband and my sister and the boy who was not my son were, at that very moment, very likely still asleep. Somewhere, my phone was buzzing in my pocket. I did not take it out. I had already won the only thing this morning that mattered.

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Rayna Shaw and Ethan Chase were the famous couple who most hated each other in the entire Shaw mafia. Not because they were madly in love. But because they had spent eight years of marriage trying to kill each other. She put poison in his whiskey. He hid needles under her pillow. They spat venom with every breath and cursed each other to an early grave every single night. She hated him for being a stone she could never warm—a man whose heart had always belonged to another woman. He hated her for using her father’s power to foce him into marriage, for shoving her way in, for being the reason his beloved had been driven away. But when a deal went wrong and capture became certain, he did something she never expected. He took off his only bulletproof vest and shoved it into her arms. “Run, Ray!” Then he turned and ran the opposite direction, gunfire tearing after him. She watched him look back one last time, his lips moving. *I’m going to see Mia now. Next life… let’s not meet again. My heart only has room for one.* By the time she returned with reinforcements, all she found was his shattered body. She spent the next six months alone—luring the Vossberg soldiers, destroying their command center from the inside, and finally becoming nothing more than a name carved into the Shaw family mausoleum. Then she opened her eyes. She was back in her father’s office. The date on the wall told her everything. She reborned. Without a word, she found the current mafia don her father, and said the words she had never spoken before: “I want to cancel the engagement to Ethan Chase,” Rayna repeated. Her voice did not shake. “Mine and Ethan’s. And I want to take the undercover assignment in Mia’s place.” —

Don Shaw stared at his daughter for a long time. “You want to take Mia’s place? You’re not marrying Ethan?” “Rayna.” Her father took off his glasses. “Do you know what you’re saying.” “I know exactly what I’m saying.” He didn’t believe her. No one in the compound would. Rayna had spent years declaring to anyone who would listen that she would marry Ethan Chase or no one at all. She had shoved Mia into walls, screamed at her in hallways, and made it absolutely clear that she would burn the world down before letting her sister touch the man she loved. For her to give up the engagement and walk into enemy territory in Mia’s place — impossible. “Your wedding is in ten days,” her father said slowly. “Are you sure about this?” Rayna paused. Then she smiled—a small, tired thing. “You’re always telling me that Mia lost her father and I should let her have things. Isn’t that what you want?” Her father’s expression shifted through something complicated. Guilt, maybe. Or surprise that his headstrong daughter had finally listened. She didn’t wait for his answer. She turned and walked out. Ever since he had remarried, he had made a habit of telling her to rein in her temper, to be kinder to Mia, terrified she might feel unwelcome under their roof. In her last life, if she hadn’t thrown her dead mother — the woman who had died saving him — across his desk, he would have simply rewritten the drawing of lots and put her name on the slip. This time, she was saving him the trouble. So finally he added her name to the infiltration file instead. The hallway outside the Don’s office was cold, She had barely taken three steps when someone slammed into her shoulder hard enough to bruise. Ethan Chase. He looked frantic. His uniform was stained with mud, as if he had just dropped to his knees somewhere. She knew exactly where—in her past life, she had found him begging her father to take Mia’s name off the mission roster. She had dragged him to a priest that same day and forced him to sign the engagement contract. Now she just rubbed her shoulder and stepped aside. Ethan shot out an arm to stop her. Anger and confusion flashed through his eyes. “Rayna.” She pulled free. “The mission was decided by lottery. Those are the rules.” His jaw tightened. “If the Don just gave me more time, I could find another way. We don’t have to send a woman into his bed.” She almost laughed. Time? How much time did he think they had? The war between the families had been bleeding men for three years. Every day they delayed, more of their people would end up in the river. Right now, putting one woman — her or Mia — into Silas Price’s house to lift the ledger was the path with the fewest losses, the highest chance of success. “One of us is going,” she said quietly. “Mia or me. You can beg on your knees all day, Ethan. It won’t change anything.” His grip tightened on her wrist. His voice dropped. “”As long as you don’t go running to the Commander to make things worse, there may still be another way.” She pulled away again. This time, she didn’t look back. “Have it your way. The application’s already in. You’ll be satisfied when the day comes.” She walked off, leaving Ethan standing there, stunned. Behind her, she heard him call her name once. Twice. She kept walking. She had meant to tell him the truth. Now she didn’t want to. In her last life he had wished her dead. A few more hours of his hatred wouldn’t make much difference. When the wedding day came and he saw the bride wasn’t her — he’d probably be a little happier, even. But remembering how he had buckled his only vest onto her, shoved her out of the encirclement, and taken every bullet and shell himself — her throat still tightened. She had spent eight years believing that if she just kept him close, the bitterness would eventually turn sweet. But he had only left her the chance to live, and chosen to die in the dirt beside Mia. *Ethan Chase. You saved my life once. This time, let’s call it even.*

When back home, the first thing she did was spread out the Vossberg files across her desk. The target’s name was underlined in red: **Silas Price**. Silas Price held a ledger the Shaw family had been hunting for three years — the full record of his alliances, his foreign accounts, the names of every made man on his payroll. They had never gotten close. Now the head of the German Vossberg Cartel. Her mission was simple in theory: get close. Extract intelligence. Don’t get killed. In practice? No one had ever come back from an operation against him. In her last life, Mia had been exposed within three months and tortured to death. They hadn’t gotten the intel. They had exposed their own positions instead. The war had reignited from there, and the casualties had been catastrophic — until, in the end, Ethan had died under enemy fire shielding her. She sat at her desk and thought it through, hour after hour, without sleeping. At dawn, she changed into a simple black dress and headed for the door. The second she pulled the door open, the cold metal pressed against her forehead. A gun. “Why can’t you just leave your sister alone?” Ethan’s voice was raw, nearly shaking. For half a second she froze. She reached up to knock the gun away — and Ethan twisted her arm, locking it across her chest. The strength behind it forced a hiss through her teeth. “Ethan — let go!” She kicked back hard. He pressed her tighter. “You think I don’t know what you did? You went to your father and made sure Mia got the dangerous mission so you could keep me for yourself?” “You’re so selfish and cold—how can you expect anyone to love you?” She went still. Those words. She had heard them before. In a marriage that lasted eight years too long. In fights that left her bleeding on the inside. She came back to herself, drove her heel into his stomach, snatched up the pistol he dropped, and turned the muzzle on his forehead. “You want to shoot me, Ethan? On Shaw property?” The pain knocked the heat out of him. His eyes dropped to her trembling hand, still red where he’d twisted her wrist, and the anger in his face folded into regret. His voice came out softer than he meant. “I’m sorry…” “I lost my head.” She didn’t answer. She threw the gun at his feet. “It’s an assignment. Someone has to go. You don’t need to take it out on me. Maybe things will turn out exactly the way you want. Go home — focus on your wedding. You’ll be happy with the outcome.” He didn’t catch the bitterness in her voice. He bent down and picked up the pistol, gave a small, self-mocking smile. “You think everyone’s as cold-blooded as you, calm enough to plan a wedding at a time like this…” She drew a long breath and walked away, face carefully blank, her molars ached from clenching her jaw. *Ethan Chase. This life, I’ll give you everything you want.*

Outside her window, the long black cars came and went through the Shaw gates the way they always did, headlights sliding across the wallpaper. That night, someone left a small box outside her door. Inside was a tray of butterfly pastries—her favorite. The kind you couldn’t buy inside the compound. He must have driven all the way into the city to get them. She didn’t eat a single one. She knew why he did it. Not because he loved her. Because her mother had taken him in when he was an orphan boy, fed him, raised him like a son. He was only trying to repay a debt. She had always been a burden he tolerated out of gratitude. *I’m done being that burden.* The mission approval came through quickly. But her engagement cancellation was kept quiet—at her request. She had asked the Don for that herself. She told her father to inform Mia privately, let Mia sign her own marriage contract with Ethan’s name on it.The rest of the family — the Consigliere, the Capo, the gossiping wives in the long-island houses — would not find out until the morning of the wedding itself, when Ethan Chase lifted the veil and saw the wrong face under it. Every file the Shaw lawyers had built on Silas Price, every dossier on the Vossberg Cartel, every floor plan of his estate — she read once and burned in her own fireplace. Consider it her wedding surprise to him. Ethan, for his part, knew none of it. He moved through the compound like a man with a stone tied to his chest. He pulled men off the rotation just to corner her father in his study. He took up smoking again, the way he hadn’t since he was sixteen, and stubbed half the cigarettes out before they were done. He went to the Don’s office every day, argued with anyone who would listen, begged for more time, another solution. *Let me trade in for her. There has to be another way at Price.* Rayna heard about it from the maids. She did not look up from her tea. — It was a clear, cold afternoon when she came out of the canteen and meet them in the garden pavilion. Mia was sitting on the stone bench in a pale blue dress, her hands folded in her lap, the way she always sat when she wanted to look small. Ethan was bent over the table opposite her, sleeves pushed to the elbow, fingers working a tangle of dried grass into shape. Mia was glowing. She had been told, then. She had been told she was going to marry him. “Ethan.” Mia asked, leaning over his hands. “What are you making? I’ve never seen you do that before.” Ethan’s fingers moved without looking. Loop, twist, tuck. “Nothing,” he said. “Just some scrap.” Rayna stopped at the edge of the gravel path. *Scrap.* Her mother had taught him that *scrap.* On the long summer afternoons before the war between the families had bled into their own house, on the back porch of the old place, Rayna’s mother had sat with a teenage boy who had come in off a Brooklyn curb with a black eye and no last name, and had pressed a handful of dried grass into his hands and shown him, slow, how to braid. *Make her something pretty, Ethan. She’s still half a child.* After her mother had died, the only person who had still made those little woven things for Rayna had been Ethan. Until Mia came along. Rayna had hated that. She had thrown tantrums over it. She had ordered Ethan, with all the petulance of a Don’s daughter, not to weave a single thing for the new stepsister. And Ethan, calm and cool, had told her she was being unreasonable. He had told her that a great many times, in eight years of marriage. “What do you want?” Ethan asked Mia now, gentle. Mia’s eyes slid sideways. She found Rayna at the edge of the garden, and the corner of her mouth lifted, just a little. A smile only Rayna would catch. “A rabbit,” Mia said, sweet as syrup. “Make me a rabbit.” Ethan’s hands stopped. He didn’t say no. Rayna turned and walked away. A woven straw rabbit. Of all the things. Her mother had made her one, the last summer before the war took her — a small, lopsided thing with one ear bent. After the warehouse fire had taken their old house down to the studs, that rabbit had been the only piece of her mother Rayna had managed to dig out of the ash. It sat now on the top shelf of her wardrobe, in a velvet-lined box, where only one person in the world besides her knew to look. Mia had never cared about woven grass in her life. She was not asking for a toy. She just want to put her thumb on Rayna’s pain, because she saw her. Rayna did not hide. She did not duck down a side path. She walked straight back across the gravel with her chin up, and at the moment she passed the pavilion, she felt Ethan’s eyes lift and follow her. She did not turn her head. “Childish,” Rayna said aloud, to the empty hallway. Her voice was steady. She stepped over the box and shut her door. The next morning, the rabbit was still there. Untouched. The dew had not even gotten to it; someone had set a sheet of waxed paper underneath the box. She stared at it for a long moment, the cold tile under her bare feet. Then she bent down, picked the rabbit up, and slipped it into the inside pocket of her jacket, against her ribs.

The Don Shaw threw her a quiet send-off in the family ballroom. Quiet, for the Shaws, meant fifty people and a string quartet. Black suits, cigars, the smell of old whiskey and gun oil clinging to the men’s lapels even in their Sunday best. The big chandelier had been polished. The capos’ wives wore their second-best pearls — first-best was for funerals — and watched the door like hawks. By the time Rayna came down from the training wing, Mia was already in the center of the room, surrounded. A handkerchief in her hand. Eyes very wet, very bright. The picture of a brave young woman about to walk into the lion’s mouth for her family. “I didn’t think the draw would land on you, sweetheart.” One of the older wives was patting her wrist. “Rayna’s the Don’s blood daughter — she should have been the first to step up. Instead she’s running around the city forcing poor Ethan to marry her. Our Mia’s the one paying for it.” “That’s the truth of it,” another woman sniffed. “And Mia is the one risking her life, and she can’t even come say goodbye?”” Rayna watched Mia’s eyes shine through the tears — and underneath the shine, the small, satisfied glint of a girl who had spent her entire childhood learning exactly how to be pitied. Then Mia looked up, saw Rayna in the doorway, and froze. She had not expected her to come. Rayna smiled — a small, amused thing — and walked across the floor as if she had been invited. The whispers changed pitch around her. “What is she doing here —” “Showing off. What else.” “Don’t look at her like that. Mia’s just better than she is. Spoiled little thing — won’t even lift a finger while her own sister goes into Vossberg territory. God knows how the Don raised a daughter that cold.” Rayna did not break stride. She did not answer. She took a glass of champagne off a passing tray, sipped it once, and set it down again, untouched. After a while the chatter and the laughter began to bore her. She turned for the door. “Rayna.” Mia’s voice, behind her. Soft. Rayna stopped. She did not turn until Mia had crossed the floor and slid an arm through hers, easy, intimate, the way sisters did in photographs. “Dad told me,” Mia murmured against her ear. Her perfume was something light and floral; up close it smelled cheap. “He told me you gave up the engagement on your own. But Ethan’s always loved me, you know. So I can’t really say I stole him from you, can I?” Rayna let her arm be held. “The draw came up my name,” Mia went on, “but I gave you this once-in-a-lifetime chance to make your name in the family. Surely I’m allowed a few words with the soldiers before I go.” Rayna laughed. It came out short, low, genuinely amused, and Mia’s smile faltered for the first time. “Make your name,” Rayna repeated. She tilted her head, studied her stepsister like a curious specimen. “You think you could make a name on this chance .” Mia blinked. “Mia, sweetheart.” Rayna’s voice did not rise. It didn’t need to. “You can’t shoot. You can’t take a punch. You have never run a mile in your life. You think Silas Price’s bedroom is a tea party? You think a Vossberg house is somewhere a girl like you survives a week?” “The only reason you’re even in this life is because my dad protects you.” Her smile thinned. “I stepped in to clean up the mess that would have been you. I didn’t realize you were stupid enough to mistake that for a favor.” Mia’s face drained of color. For one long second they stood there, arm in arm, smiling for the room, while underneath the smiles something cold passed between them.

Then Mia’s eyes shifted. Just a flicker. A look past Rayna’s shoulder, toward the doorway behind her. Rayna saw the calculation land. Mia gripped her wrist tighter — and yanked Rayna’s own hand up and slapped herself across the face. The slap rang through the ballroom. “Rayna —” Mia’s voice broke beautifully. Tears spilled. “Why would you —!” Rayna opened her mouth to say something cutting about — And a body slammed into her from the side. She didn’t see him coming. She felt the shove — hard, deliberate, no half-measure in it — and then her back hit the carved stone edge of the fireplace mantel, low against her spine, and pain blew white through her whole body. The whole ballroom had gone quiet. Fifty pairs of eyes. The capos’ wives had even stopped pretending not to listen. Rayna saw, with a small distant part of her mind, that the string quartet had stopped playing. “You’ve been like this your whole life,” Ethan said. Quiet now. Cold. Each word landing exactly where he wanted it. “Spoiled. Cruel. Proud. I told myself for years there was something good underneath it. And now I see is a jealous, spiteful woman” Rayna stared at him. Her back throbbed. Her vision blurred. “Two girls raised under one roof,” he said over her, “and Mia comes out loyal, comes out brave, comes out willing to die for this family — and you come out this.” He drew a breath. “I don’t know who taught you to be this person,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what I think. I think your mother died of you.” The world went silent. Then her hand connected with his face. Eight years. Eight years of marriage, in another life. Eight years of curses across the breakfast table, eight years of pins under his pillow and his arm thrown across her in his sleep anyway, eight years of every cruel thing two people could find to say to each other. He had never crossed this line. Not once. Not even at the end. The slap was clean. It rang. His head jerked half a degree to the side, and a red bloom rose at once along his cheekbone. “You,” she said. Her voice was perfectly level. “Of every person in this room, are the one with no right to speak about my mother.” She did not wait to see his face. She turned, set her hand against the stone for balance, and started walking — slow, even, one foot in front of the other, because her lower back was screaming and she would die before she limped in front of any of these people. She made it ten steps before her knees buckled. Ethan was there before she went down. He caught her without a word. He swept her up off her feet — one arm under her knees, one behind her shoulders — the way he had carried her exactly once in their first life, on the night of the last mission, after he had buckled his vest onto her. His hands were shaking. Behind them, Mia called after him—“Ethan, wait!”—but he didn’t stop. He did not turn his head. He did not slow down. He carried Rayna all the way to the estate’s infirmary without another word. The family doctor patched up her back. Bruised, not broken. Ethan stood in the doorway, hands hanging at his sides. When the doctor had gone, he opened his mouth. “I didn’t mean it,” he said to the floor. Rayna did not look at him. She rolled onto her side, away from the door, and pulled the blanket up to her shoulder. “Get out. I’m sleeping.” A long silence. “I’m sorry, Rayna.” She did not answer. After a moment, the door clicked shut. She lay still in the dark, listening. A moment later, a muffled smack came from the hallway—the sound of a palm hitting a face. Ethan had hit himself. Rayna closed her eyes. Two more days. Then I leave. Then he marries Mia. Then everyone gets what they want. Everyone except me.

The morning of her departure arrived before dawn. She had laid everything out on the bed — the false papers, the fake jewelry, the small velvet box of pearl earrings that were a parting gift from her father and also, she suspected, a tracker. And the last one, the most important, the one that had survived fire and betrayal. But when Rayna reached for it, the drawer was empty. She knew, without needing to think, who had taken it. She knew, without needing to think, who had told her. She found Mia in the side garden. Mia was sitting on the low stone bench in a pale dress, the sun in her hair, a small pile of dry grass on her lap. “Mia.” The name came out of Rayna’s throat low and shaking. Mia’s hand jerked. The last of the woven body came apart in her fingers. The straw fell into her lap in a small, dead heap, and there was nothing recognizable left of it at all. Mia looked up with wet eyes. “Rayna—” The word was small, watery, prettily broken. “Please don’t be angry. I wanted to make Ethan something to remember me by — just a little keepsake — I didn’t think you’d —” She rose to her feet as she spoke. Apologetic. Trembling. Both hands lifted, palms out, as if she were the one being threatened. And as she rose, the toe of her shoe came forward — perfectly aimed — and ground down on what was left of the straw on the gravel. Carefully. The way a woman crushes out a cigarette. The last of the rabbit’s shape disappeared under her shoe. Rayna’s vision went white at the edges. She moved before she thought. Her hand went to the small holster at her hip, and the pistol came up, and she took two steps forward with the muzzle already rising. A hand closed around her wrist from behind and twisted hard. She knew that grip before she saw the face. Ethan locked her arm across her own chest, pinning the gun against her ribs, and his voice was low and tight against her ear. “It’s a straw rabbit, Rayna. You’re going to pull a gun on family over a straw rabbit?” She turned her head. Her eyes were burning. “You gave it to her,” Rayna said. Not a question. “You told her where I kept it.” He didn’t answer. Ethan’s silence was the only answer she needed. “Let me go,” she whispered. He didn’t. “Ethan. Let. Me. Go.” He held on tighter. “Because of you, Mia might die on that mission. Does a pile of straw really matter more than her life?” “A pile of straw.” Rayna repeated it, very quietly. “You know exactly what that was. You know who made it.” His jaw clenched. “It was my mother’s.” Ethan flinched. His grip loosened—just a fraction. “I’ll make you another one,” he said. “A better one.” Rayna wrenched her wrist free and lunged for Mia. “I don’t want anything from you.” In a single motion Ethan drew his sidearm and leveled it at her chest.“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” She stopped. She looked at the gun. She looked at the man holding it. The second time, now. The second time he’d put a gun on her under this roof. She laughed—a thin, wild laugh—and she kept walking. Ethan saw something in her face and flinched. His arm jerked. The pistol kicked in his hand before he could catch it. The crack of the shot rang off the marble. The bullet tore past her shoulder, grazing skin. Blood soaked through her sleeve. Time stopped. Rayna looked down at her own hand—still holding the training pistol she had grabbed. Ethan’s gun clattered to the ground. His face went gray. He had just realized. The pistol in her hand was a training replica. It couldn’t have fired a round if she’d begged it to. “You weren’t going to shoot,” he breathed. “You never… you never had bullets. Why didn’t you shoot me, Rayna? You hate me. Why didn’t you pull the trigger?” She didn’t answer. Her legs gave out. She fell into his arms before she could stop herself. Ethan caught her. She felt his arms close around her, felt how badly his hands were shaking. She had held back tears for two days. Now one slipped down and broke against the back of his hand. He flinched as if she’d burned him. “Sorry,” he said. “God, I’m sorry.” She weren’t even armed. Why was he so certain she’d kill him? She tried to speak. Her eyelids were too heavy. Something was rising in his chest that he couldn’t name and couldn’t swallow, something that locked his throat shut. In Ethan Chase’s arms, in the wreckage of a straw rabbit, Rayna closed her eyes.

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In my last life, she caused me to lose my arms and legs. Now that I’d been reborn, I was going to take revenge. In my past life, right after graduation, Ashley used the promise of high pay to recruit our entire class to work summer jobs at her family’s factory. She even promised that after working the summer, we’d get fast-tracked into management positions at her family’s company after college. But two days into the job, a machine malfunctioned and severed both my arms and legs. By the time I got to the hospital, it was too late. When my parents confronted Ashley, she showed zero remorse. “I warned her not to touch the machines. It’s her own fault for being clumsy and stupid.” My childhood friend Ryan defended her too. “Everyone else was fine. She’s the only one who got hurt. Obviously she’s just trying to scam money.” The entire class split my settlement money and testified against me. My parents believed I was a con artist. Ashamed of me, they abandoned my body in the morgue. They even gave our entire family inheritance to Ashley as “emotional damages.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day Ashley invited us all to work at her factory. — “Don’t you guys want to earn money? Well, I pulled some strings to get our entire class jobs at my family’s factory—over ten thousand a month!” “And if you work this summer, after college graduation you can go straight into management at my company. Pretty generous of me, right?” Ashley’s smug announcement made me realize—I’d been given a second chance. Everyone cheered, thanking her for the opportunity. But my body still remembered the electric shock from the machinery, the agony of my limbs being ground to pulp. I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. Ashley’s hand shot out, catching my arm. “Emma, where are you going? Everyone agreed to work at my family’s factory. You’re the only one who hasn’t answered.” I yanked my arm away. “I’m not going. I’ve got other plans.” Ryan crossed his arms and stepped beside her, his voice dripping with disapproval. “Where’s your sense of gratitude? Your parents spent years paying for your education. You should be jumping at the chance to earn money and pay them back!” My fists clenched. “I borrowed some money online before finals. This summer I have to go to Mexico to pay it back. I already signed the contract. People from there are coming specifically to find me.” Ashley’s eyes narrowed, looking me up and down skeptically. “Mexico? That place is crawling with criminals. You’re asking to get killed.” Her fake concern made my skin crawl. Still better than her sabotaging me, letting a machine tear me apart so she could pocket the insurance money. I shrugged, playing regretful. “But I already gave my word. If I don’t go, their boss will come looking for me here, and everyone will get dragged into it.” When the class heard Mexican gangsters might show up, they immediately backed off. “If she doesn’t want the opportunity, forget her! Ashley, we’ll all go without her!” But Ashley wouldn’t let it drop. “Problem is, I already applied for all of you. My dad will only hire the group if everyone comes. We can’t be missing anyone.” “So you’re saying you want the whole class to lose this money-making opportunity because of you?” The same classmates who’d just dismissed me now shot me resentful glares. Ryan tore into me. “What Mexican gangsters? If they come for anyone, it’s you. Get yourself to that factory first and make up the headcount. Don’t drag the rest of us down with your problems!” Everyone else piled on, like they wanted to rip me apart. “Ashley worked so hard to get us this opportunity! If you don’t go, we’ll report you for abusing your position as class president to bully students. We’ll get you expelled from college!” “Exactly! We’re counting on working our way into management at Ashley’s family company! If you ruin our futures, we’ll make you pay!” They closed in on me like a mob. Ashley raised an eyebrow, her voice dripping with pressure. “Emma, this isn’t just about you anymore. You’re hurting everyone’s interests. Want the whole class to hate you forever?” I clenched my fists and finally nodded, buying myself time. “Fine. I’ll go to her family’s factory with you.”

The second I got home, I bought a plane ticket to Mexico. No way was I going to that factory when I knew Ashley was after my insurance payout. Once I left the country, I could avoid my past life’s fate. The day I was supposed to leave for the airport, the entire class showed up at my front door. Ryan cheerfully dragged me outside, telling my parents, “Mr. and Mrs. White, we’re all working at the Davis factory this summer. Emma won’t be home for two months!” My parents had trusted Ryan since we were kids. Seeing the whole group of students, they agreed without a second thought. Ashley fake-politely pulled me onto the bus, waving to my parents to reassure them. Ryan, terrified I’d escape, wrapped the seatbelt around me several times. “Don’t worry, Emma. Ashley’s factory is way out in the middle of nowhere. Even if those Mexican guys come looking, they’ll never find you!” “After you finish these two months, you can pay off your debt! Then you should get on your knees and thank Ashley. She’s your boss!” Ashley waved her hand, laughing with hidden meaning. “She’s OUR boss! We’re all getting paid because of her!” The class burst into laughter, thinking she was mocking me. Only I knew—she meant every word. The bus was about to merge onto the highway. If I didn’t get off now, once we reached the factory gates, there’d be no escape. I forced myself to stay calm and shouted, “Tell the driver to stop! I need to use the bathroom!” Ashley glared at me, annoyed. “Hold it. We’re almost there.” “It’s your family’s factory—what’s a few minutes? Unless you’re planning to treat us like slaves from day one?” My sharp retort made the other students nod in agreement. Reluctantly, Ashley told the driver to stop at a gas station. “You can use the bathroom, but everyone hands me their phones first. Just to make sure nobody tries to run off. We’re all in this together, right?” I glared at her, teeth clenched. She was clearly targeting me. Ryan was first to hand over his phone, frowning at me. “Hand it over! You’re always causing problems!” Everyone stared me down, pressuring me. “Come on! We all gave ours up. Ashley’s just trying to keep things fair!” We were on the outskirts now, not too far from the airport. If I could just get off this bus, I could run there and still make my flight. Reluctantly, I pulled out my phone and tossed it to her, then tried to dash off the bus. Ashley suddenly screamed, “Grab her!” Ryan and the others yanked me back by my collar. She slammed my phone against my forehead. “I knew she was up to something! She bought a ticket to Mexico—for this afternoon at 2 PM! She was planning to run!” The class looked at the boarding notification on my screen, then shoved me back into my seat. “Emma! If you make us lose this money-making opportunity, you’re dead!” “You better sit still! Or we’ll tie you up ourselves!” Ryan pulled out rope from somewhere and bound me tightly to the seat. “I knew you’d try something! No way you’re getting away! Ashley promised we’d all interview together. Every single one of us!” I struggled hard, but the ropes didn’t budge. Watching Ryan and Ashley exchange congratulatory looks made my blood run cold. At Ashley’s signal, the driver pulled back onto the road. As the city disappeared behind us, my heart sank.

When we arrived at the factory, everyone happily dragged their luggage off the bus. Some planned how they’d spend their paychecks after two months. Others grinned about landing management positions at the Davis company after college. Only I stared at this decrepit, ominous factory, my entire body trembling. I had to escape today. Tomorrow, I’d die here just like in my past life. Ashley yanked on the rope dragging me along. Unable to break free, I tried warning the others. “Why do these machines look so old? Ashley, you sure your family’s equipment won’t kill someone?!” Everyone paused. Ryan immediately defended her. “Don’t be dramatic! Ashley’s from the richest family in the City. The machines just look old—they’re obviously state-of-the-art!” The others looked at her adoringly. “Exactly! Everything the Davis family owns is top quality. You’re just poor and jealous. Talk trash about Ashley again and we’ll all turn on you!” “Ashley’s giving you this opportunity out of kindness. One more bad word and we’re cutting you off completely!” Ashley, who’d looked nervous at my question, relaxed when everyone defended her. She laughed, yanking my hair. “Emma, you’re poor and haven’t seen anything nice, so I’ll forgive you! But since you bad-mouthed my family, you better lick my shoes clean when you get your paycheck!” My scalp burned. Watching everyone eagerly fill out interview forms, I realized—no one was going to help me. While everyone crowded around the interview table, completely ignoring me, I saw my chance. Ashley had my phone, but I still had my smartwatch. I crept into a corner and dialed 911. When someone answered, I whispered urgently, “Officer! There’s illegal labor trafficking here. My life is in danger! We’re at—” Before I could finish the address, Ashley ripped the watch off my wrist and smashed it. “Emma! You called the cops?!” Everyone stopped their interviews, shooting hateful glares my way. Ryan crushed the watch under his heel and slapped me across the face. “You idiot! Are you trying to destroy all of us?! Can’t stand seeing us succeed, can you!” The slap left me dizzy. I bit out, “If this factory’s legit, why can’t I call the cops?! What are you hiding that you’re so scared of police investigating?!” Ryan’s eyes shifted, and my heart plummeted. He was in on it with Ashley. He knew I’d been brought here to die in a machine “accident” so they could split the insurance money. But Ashley didn’t even flinch. She said coldly, “The Davis family is the richest in the City. We can handle anything. I just don’t want cops wasting everyone’s work time!” “If we lose even a dollar, will you compensate us?! Besides, we signed contracts—we have to complete two months before we can intern at my company!” Everyone turned on me, shoving me around. “You troublemaker! You’re trying to ruin everything for us!” I stumbled and hit my head on a machine, pain exploding in my skull. Ashley stepped on my head, self-righteous and furious. “We can’t let her destroy our futures! I propose we make her sign a contract—if she leaves the factory, she pays each of us a hundred thousand dollars. That’ll keep her here!” My eyes widened. “That’s illegal! That contract wouldn’t hold up!” Ashley smiled coldly, holding a handwritten note. “Once you sign and fingerprint it, it’s binding. Emma, unless you’re planning something, why won’t you sign?” Ryan and the others grabbed my wrists, forcing my hand toward the paper. “Ashley just wants a guarantee from you! As long as you don’t leave, nothing happens. Just sign!” “Ashley’s looking out for us! Our patience is running out!” As my hand got closer to the paper, I panicked and threw myself toward a bottle of acid in the corner. I knocked it over with both hands, the acid eating away my fingerprints instantly. Gasping with relief, I said shakily, “No fingerprints now. And I won’t sign.” Ashley’s eyes went ice cold, her laugh chilling. “I was going easy on you. Just wanted a signature for everyone’s peace of mind. Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” She pulled a syringe from her bag, advancing on me with murderous intent. “This is something my family developed. One injection and you’ll be brain-dead for life, only capable of repeating one action over and over.” My teeth chattered as I struggled desperately. But Ryan and the others held my arms down, preventing any resistance. Just as the cold needle touched my arm, police sirens wailed outside.

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At eighteen, Damian Knight pulled my little sister and me out of the underground market. That was the day I started to love him. That was also the day I started to die for him. Also from that day on, I bled for him. I burned for him. I took the bullets and the blades without a word. On the day I was promoted to underboss of the Knight family. The youngest in Knight history. The only woman. I thought that meant something. Then he brought a girl home. I remember because I’d just walked in from a job. There was still blood on my collar, drying tacky against my throat. He walked in with a girl on his arm instead. “Selene,” he said, looking at my blood‑soaked clothes with disgust, “go clean yourself up. You’re frightening my baby.” That girl became his obsession. His soldiers quietly started calling her Mrs. Knight. Damian took the guns from my hands. Then he tied an apron around my waist — ridiculous — and tightened the bow at the small of my back with hands that didn’t tremble at all. From then on, I was her personal servant. When she didn’t want to eat, Damian made me kneel at her feet and feed her bite by bite. Every scar she got, he carved ten more into my skin for failing to protect her. I never cried. I never fought back. Because years ago, he had asked me: “You want to repay me? Do one hundred things for me.” I pulled out the worn notebook. I was looking at the last two lines. Soon, I would owe him nothing. I was carrying a tray of food to Iris Vale’s room when Damian stopped me. “Selene, go get your sister’s bracelet. Iris wants it.” That bracelet was the only thing my parents left for Luna. Luna slept with it under her pillow. He saw my red eyes and his face went dark. “Selene.” When Damian used my full name, it meant he was furious. And everyone in the family knew what happened when he lost his temper. I thought of two days ago, I had refused to hand over my sunglasses to Iris at the riding ground. Damian had me tied behind a Iris’s horse and dragged across the field for an afternoon. The way the gravel had felt against my back for an entire afternoon. I turned and went to Luna’s room. I slipped the bracelet onto Iris’s wrist from my younger sister. “It suits you.” Damian smiled, pleased. He pulled Iris against his chest and said, “I have hundreds of men. And not one of them is as obedient as she is.” “As long as you keep her happy, Selene, maybe we can still talk about our wedding.” Before I could respond, Iris slammed the bracelet onto the floor. “Damian! You promised you would marry only me!” Tears streamed down her face. Damian’s heart crumbled. He pulled her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. I fell to my knees and gathered the shattered pieces. My fingers bled. The people around me watched like they were at a show. Even I knew how ridiculous I looked. Last month, I had nearly died on a mission. Damian stood over my hospital bed, tubes running out of every part of my body, and said coldly, “You’ve gotten weak, Selene. A handful of men did this to you? Then again, Iris needs a new maid.” I grabbed the broken pieces tighter. My eyes were redder than the blood on my hands. That night, Luna saw her mother’s bracelet destroyed. She cried until she nearly passed out. I held her and promised, “Just hold on a little longer. We’ll be free soon.” The door was kicked open. Damian stood there, his face dark. “Stop crying! You woke up Iris.” He jerked his head. “Take your sister and go to the house on the west. Now.” Before I could argue, his men shoved us into a car. Luna screamed at him, “Damian! You weren’t like this before— please—!” He froze for a second. The air in the corridor turned to glass. I clamped my hand over Luna’s mouth. Her tears wet my fingers. After Iris came, I had learned to keep my mouth shut. When I begged Damian to come back to the compound, he announced to everyone that I was no longer underboss. All my years of hard work had come to nothing. When I asked Iris not to go to the shooting range for playing, he aimed a gun at my forehead and told me to remember my place. When he was wounded and I brought him soup, he threw the bowl at the door. “Stop caring about me. Iris will get the wrong idea.” But he had been the one to say he loved me first. He had been the one to say he wanted to marry me. I pulled my hand away from Luna’s mouth. She was still crying softly. The house on the west was located in a border zone, right between warring families. A death trap. I jumped out of the car and ran back to the villa. When I knocked on the door, the sounds inside room stopped. A glass bottle shattered against my forehead. I bit down on the pain and bowed. “Miss Vale, I apologize for my sister. I promise she won’t disturb you again.” Damian looked at the blood running down my face. He’s chest rose and fell. “Who are you trying to fool with that pathetic act? People will think Iris was the one who hurt you.” I ignored him and kept apologizing to Iris. Finally, I knelt and pressed my forehead to the floor three times. She smiled. “I’m tired, Damian. Just let her go.” Damian kissed her forehead and shook his head. “You’re too soft, sweetheart. People will walk all over you.” He turned to me. “You care about your sister so much, then you can walk her there yourself.” That night, Luna’s fever hit a hundred and four. I carried her on my back through a blizzard for hours. In the hospital waiting room, I pulled out the notebook and wrote two words under the list. Bracelet. Two more things. Then I would be free.

The house on the west was far from the family compound. Before dawn the next morning, I was already on my feet, heading back to the villa to prepare Iris’s breakfast. The snow had stopped, but the cold was still brutal. I had barely stepped through the kitchen door when Damian’s men grabbed me. They bound my hands, shoved a gag in my mouth, and threw me into the back of an armored SUV. When they pulled me out, I was kneeling in the middle of a private shooting range. Oak trees bare of leaves. Targets lined up at fifty yards. And at the far end, Damian stood with his arm around Iris, whispering something in her ear. He looked at me like I was livestock. “Go stand over there,” he said, pointing at the target board. My head snapped up. “She’s never handled a gun in her life. I’ll die.” Iris’s face fell. She pressed herself against Damian’s chest. “Damian, Selene’s right. I am so useless. Maybe I shouldn’t—” “Don’t say that.” Damian kissed her temple. “You’ll be a marksman. I promise.” Then, over the crown of her head, without looking up “What are you waiting for? When did you start ignoring my orders?” I didn’t move. My old wounds throbbed under the bandages. Every bullet I had ever taken for him seemed to burn again. He saw me shaking. Then he stepped away from Iris, walked across the gravel, and took my jaw in his hand. “If you don’t go, I’ll put Luna out there instead. She owes me a life too.” He meant it. If I refused again, my ten‑year‑old sister would be the next target. I closed my eyes and swallowed the bile in my throat. “She’s small. I’m bigger. Miss Vale will have more fun.” Damian’s grip loosened. “Good girl.” He turned back to Iris, showing her how to load the revolver. She giggled nervously. “What if I miss, baby? Would you be angry at me?” He spun the chamber, one bullet at a time. “Don’t worry. She won’t die. She’s taken hundreds of rounds for me. A few from you will barely tickle.” Then, the first bullet tore through my knee. I collapsed onto the frozen dirt. I could feel the blood pulsing out of my leg in slow, warm thuds, soaking through the wool of my coat. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard her. Laughing. Damian didn’t even blink. “Again.” The second shot went into my left shoulder. I hit the ground face‑first, gasping. Blood soaked through my white dress. His men exchanged uncertain looks. No one helped me. “Get her up,” Damian said flatly. Two soldiers hauled me to my feet. My legs barely held. Third shot. My left abdomen. I coughed blood onto the snow. Fourth. My right arm. Iris raised the revolver for the fifth time. She was grinning now, her teeth white, her eyes bright. “Enough,” Damian said, taking the gun from her hand. A flicker of jealousy crossed her face, Iris stomped her foot. “But I was just starting to get the feel of it!” He hesitated. Then he glanced at one of his men. “Bring Luna.” “No…” I tried to scream, but the blood in my throat came out as a gurgle. “She’s only ten. She’s still sick. Please…” Damian’s face flickered—for just a moment. Then he turned away. “She’ll be fine. Iris needs more practice.” I watched through a blur of tears as two soldiers dragged my sister onto the range. They had her by the elbows, the way they’d had me. Her bare feet didn’t touch the ground between them. She was so small. Her hair was still wet from the fever. She screamed my name. “Selene! Please!” “Selene! Help me—” The revolver fired. Her voice stopped.

I woke up in a hospital bed. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. Tubes ran into my arms. The heart monitor beeped a slow, steady rhythm. Every inch of my body felt like it had been set on fire and stamped out half‑way. “Luna!” I shot upright. My elbow caught the edge of a tray, and a bowl of broth went flying. Soup splashed across the floor. Damian stood at the foot of the bed, wiping his sleeve. His face was tight, but not with anger—something else. Something I hadn’t seen in a long time. I grabbed his wrist with the little strength I had left. “Where is she? Take me to her.” “She’s alive,” he said quietly. He didn’t pull away. “She’s in surgery. You’ll see her when she’s stable.” “Surgery?” My voice cracked. “You put a ten‑year‑old girl on a firing range. You let that woman—” “Iris didn’t know the gun was loaded with real rounds.” His jaw tightened. “It was a mistake.” “A mistake.” I laughed. It came out like a sob. He knelt beside the bed and picked up a new bowl of soup from the nightstand. “You need to eat. You lost a lot of blood.” I turned my head away. He didn’t get angry. He didn’t throw the bowl. He just sat there, holding it, waiting. For three days, he stayed. He brought me photographs of Luna in her hospital bed—bandaged, unconscious, but alive. He spoon‑fed me broth when I refused to eat. When I pressed my lips shut, he drank the soup himself and kissed me, forcing it down my throat. I wiped my lips on the back of my hand. I tore the bowl out of his grip and finished it myself. He blinked, surprised. Then, slowly, he smiled. He didn’t say anything. For three days, he was the man I had fallen in love with. I let myself believe him. — Iris Vale came to visit on the fourth day. She walked into my room in a pale pink dress, her hair curled, her cheeks flushed. She looked like she had just come from a garden party, not from nearly murdering a child. She stood up suddenly when saw me open eyes. Smoothed her dress slowly. And picked up the small crystal vase from my bedside — the one Damian had refilled with white roses every morning for four days. It hit the floor and shattered. She gasped —and pressed her palm down hard against the shards. I watched her do it. I watched her watch *me* do it. By the time she lifted her hand, her palm was a mess of bright red and broken crystal, and her cheeks were already wet with tears she had not had two seconds ago. “*Selene!*” she sobbed. “Why would you push me —Damian, help—” The door burst open. Damian saw the glass first. Then Iris. On her knees. Bleeding into the rug. Then me. Half-upright in the hospital bed. Bandaged. Still hooked to the IV. Hands empty. “What happened?” He rushed to her side. The man who had spent four days holding my hand at night vanished-*that* man came back. Damian’s head snapped toward me. “Selene Ashford. Have you lost your mind?” He pulled Iris into his arms, her cheek against his collar, his palm cradling the back of her head. His eyes — over the crown of her hair — were murderous. “Apologize to her.” I stared at him. “I didn’t do anything.” Iris pulled at his sleeve. “Damian, please don’t be angry with her. She’s so sick.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re too soft.” “Have I spoiled you?” he said, low. “Have I been too soft with you lately? You think you can defy me now?” I didn’t move. His voice went cold. “If you don’t want me to pull the plug on Luna’s ventilator, you will kneel.”

My hand, gripping the bed rail, went white at the knuckles. Under the hospital gown, my nails sank into the soft skin of my own palm. I slid off the bed and onto the cold tile floor. The kindness of the last four days collapsed in on itself. It had never been kindness. Iris watched me from the safety of his arms. Her lips curved—just a little. “Say you’re sorry,” Damian said. “I’m sorry.” My voice was flat. He frowned. “Kneel lower.” I pressed my forehead to the ground. “Say it again.” “I’m sorry.” “Again.” “I’m sorry.” I lost count of how many times I said it until the inside of my throat was raw. He didn’t tell me to stop. He just stood there, holding Iris, stroking her hair, while I knelt at their feet like a dog. When he finally looked down at me, his eyes were empty. “Get out.” I stayed on the floor. He picked Iris up and carried her out of the room, murmuring about getting her hand stitched. The door swung shut behind them. I crawled to the nightstand and pulled out my notebook. I stayed on my knees in the floor. I didn’t get up until I was sure his footsteps had faded all the way down the corridor. When I finally did, my legs would not quite hold me. I caught the edge of the bed with both hands. A single shard of crystal had embedded itself in my knee. I pulled it out without looking. The blood that ran down my shin was the same color as the blood Iris had smeared across her palm. The same color, exactly. It almost made me laugh. I limped to the wardrobe. I opened the bottom drawer. Under a folded sweater, wrapped in a square of black silk, was the notebook. I sat down on the floor with it in my lap. My hand was shaking so badly the pen wouldn’t write at first. I had to brace my wrist against my thigh. Below the line that said *the pearls*, I wrote two words. *Be a human taget.* Then, on the line below that — in handwriting that no longer looked like mine — The door creaked. “What are you doing?” I went still. The doorframe shifted behind me — and I felt a peple shadow fall across the back of my neck like a blade. I closed the notebook. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

I shoved the notebook back into the drawer, but he had already seen it. Damian leaned against the doorframe and gave a soft, dismissive snort. “Writing in your little book again? More of that self-pitying garbage?” He stepped past me, bent down, and picked up the bracelet Iris had dropped on the floor. “Tomorrow you’re going dress shopping with her,” he said without looking up. “You’ve been a bride-to-be before. Help her pick something.” He walked out. I stared at the door for a long time after it closed. A few months ago, I had said I wanted to try on wedding dresses. Just once. Just to feel what it was like. Damian had given me a dozen reasons why we couldn’t. Too busy. Too dangerous. Too early. Soon. I let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. Then I nodded, slowly, to no one. — The next morning, Damian sent a car for me. I was still weak from surgery, still bleeding through my bandages. But the soldiers who came to my room didn’t care. They pulled me into the back seat and drove me to a bridal boutique in the old quarter of Verenza City. Iris was already there, standing in front of a three‑way mirror in a white gown. Damian sat in a velvet chair by the window, watching her spin. The shop assistants whispered behind their hands. “Look at her face. You’d think she was picking out funeral clothes.” “She’s the Don’s mistress, I heard. The other one.” “A mistress? With a face like that?” I said nothing. I walked to the rack and started sliding hangers. Iris tried on one dress after another. Damian used words I had never heard him speak to anyone. It seems he used all the words of praise he had here. She threw the fifth dress on the floor in a heap of white silk and pearls and turned to me with a little pout. “I’m tired. Selene, you try it on. Show me how it looks.” Before Damian could protest, I picked up the gown and walked into the fitting room. — When I pulled back the curtain, the room went silent. The dress was white—the same white as Iris’s. But on me, it was different. The fabric clung to my body, and my body was a map of violence. Black bruises covered my arms. Three fresh bullet wounds on my left shoulder, still seeping red through the bandages. A long, jagged scar across my right side where a knife had opened me up two years ago. Iris backed away, her hand over her mouth. “What is that? Damian, it’s hideous. I’m going to be sick.” Damian’s face went dark. “What are you standing there for? Cover yourself up.” I didn’t move. “Are you deaf?” He stood up, his chair scraping against the marble floor. “You’re disgusting. Put your clothes back on.” I turned and walked back into the fitting room. The fabric pulled against my wounds. It hurt. Everything hurt. I peeled off the gown and put on my own clothes—the same gray sweater, the same worn boots. When I came out, Iris had already moved on to accessories. In the end, she couldn’t choose. Damian bought every dress in the boutique. I picked up a small pink dress from the children’s section. A gift for Luna, when she finally woke up. Iris snatched it from my hand. “Buying this?” She smiled. “To burn at her grave?”

My blood went cold. “What did you say?” She pulled out her phone and opened her photo gallery. One image after another. Luna on the range. Luna on the ground. Luna’s small body covered in blood. “I only shot her once,” Iris said, scrolling slowly. “She was quiet after that. Much better behaved than you. One more bullet and she would have been completely silent.” I went still. “The last shot was Damian’s.” Her mouth curved up. “She was crying, calling him *brother, please* — and he just pulled the trigger. So cold. So beautiful. I finally understood why he likes guns so much.” I lunged. My hands closed around her throat. I slammed her against the wall and lifted her off the floor. She clawed at my arms, her face turning red. “Selene!” Damian’s voice roared from somewhere behind me. I didn’t let go. The shop assistants screamed. I heard chairs overturn. Then Damian’s boot connected with my ribs, and I flew sideways into a display rack. Glass shattered around me. He had a gun in his hand, pointed at my forehead. “Selene Ashford.” His voice was very cold. “Have you lost your mind?” He was shaking with rage. “All she did was call you ugly, and you try to kill her? I’ve been too soft with you.” Iris was sobbing on the floor. Damian knelt beside her, cradling her against his chest. I spat blood onto the tiles. “She killed my sister.” “Your sister is alive,” he snapped. “Barely. And if you ever raise a hand to Iris again, I’ll make sure Luna stays that way.” I stared at him. At the gun in his hand. At the woman in his arms, who was smiling over his shoulder. “Then kill me.” My voice cracked. “Do it. Damian.” His finger twitched on the trigger. I watched his face—waiting for the bullet. Then his eyes found my face — really found it, tears and blood and all — and his whole body locked up. Instead, he shoved the gun back into his holster. “Get her back to the compound. Lock her in the basement.” Soldiers grabbed me by the arms. I didn’t fight. As they dragged me out, Damian called after me, “I’ll deal with you after the wedding.” I didn’t look back. — I thought he would tear me apart. I had seen him take a man’s hand off at the wrist for less. Instead he locked me in the basement. No one came to see me. No food. No water. Just the dripping of a leaky pipe somewhere above my head and the rustle of rats in the corners. I sat on the cold concrete floor with the bag of broken pearls in my lap and let the tears come. After a while, I started to laugh. Damian. Damian Knight. I was sorry. I was sorry I hadn’t run sooner. I was sorry I’d ever taken his hand in the back of that car. I was sorry I had spent seven years writing his name across my own heart in scar tissue with the other way. Most of all — I was sorry I had let him save me. Maybe Luna would still be whole. Maybe she would have grown up in some quiet little town somewhere, in a house with a yard, with a mother who lived through a fever, with knees that had never known what a bullet felt like. I heard that the soldiers outside the door whispered to each other. *He’s busy with the wedding.* *Reception’s tomorrow. Roses just got delivered.* I curled tighter around the pearls. Tomorrow. He was marrying her tomorrow.

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“The wedding is off.” “I’m in love with your sister. I want to be with her.” My groom announced this at our wedding in front of everyone. I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. Because my sister was only two years old. The hall erupted into chaos. I stood there in my white dress, my mind completely blank. He looked at me, guilt written all over his face. “Aria, look… I know this isn’t fair to you.” “But from the moment I first saw your sister, I knew she was the one.” I stared at him in shock. His voice softened, almost pleading. “Aria, please. Just let me be with your sister.” I finally moved my lips, but no words came out. “Aria, I know you’re crazy about me.” “But I don’t love you anymore. She’s the only one I want.” “Whatever, you’re just a fake heiress. You were never good enough for me anyway.” Caleb looked down at me, his eyes filled with contempt. The guests were buzzing. “He’s calling off the wedding? Oh, this is going to be good.” “Cheating but with Aria’s sister? You can’t make this stuff up.” “I mean, can you blame him? Didn’t you hear? Aria’s just a fake heiress!” “Caleb’s a top graduate, a rising star. Why would he marry a fraud? That’s just embarrassing.” Hearing this, Caleb seemed to stand a little taller. His voice turned coaxing. “Aria, don’t take it too hard.” “You’re just a fake heiress. But I’m going to be one of the most successful men in this city.” “Look around you. This is our wedding, and not a single person from your family bothered to show up. That should tell you something about how little you matter to them.” “A fake is a fake. You were never be my wife.” I listened to his absurd words, still unable to wrap my head around what was happening. Caleb and I had been together since college. Right after graduation, we started planning our wedding. But my parents had always looked down on him. They never wanted me to marry him. That’s why they didn’t come today. I never expected Caleb to twist their absence into this. A fake heiress? I was my parents’ biological daughter. How could I possibly be fake? And my sister… she was only two years old! How could he possibly be with her… I pressed my fingers to my temple, completely bewildered. “When did you even meet my sister?” “She’s only… how could you two possibly…” “What do you mean?” Caleb cut me off with a cold snort. “I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her.” “She’s sweet, she’s the true heiress of the Sterling family. She’s the kind of woman who actually deserves to be with me.” “And just so you know, we’ve been together for three years.” My jaw nearly hit the floor. Three years? Three years ago, my sister was still in my mother’s womb! I took a deep breath and studied Caleb from head to toe. So he was cheating. But his mistress sure as hell wasn’t my two-year-old sister. My nails dug into my palms and smiled coldly a cold smile crept across my face. “Caleb, someone’s been playing you.” “Cut the crap!” Caleb shot back, anger flashing in his eyes. “You don’t believe me?” “Look at this!” He slapped a photo down in front of me. “Still going to tell me this isn’t your sister?”

All eyes locked onto the photo. I just stood there, frozen, unable to speak. “Is this the Sterling family’s true heiress?” “I guess she’s pretty, but her vibe isn’t even as classy as Aria’s…” “Please. Old money doesn’t need to show off.” Caleb turned to me with a smirk. “Now do you believe your sister and I are really together?” “Aria, I know this is hard for you to accept.” He sighed, his voice dripping with fake sympathy. “But it is what it is. A fake heiress like you was never good enough for me. Your sister and I are in love. We’re meant to—” “Who said she’s my sister?” I couldn’t help it. I cut him off with a frown. “I’ve never seen this woman before in my life. She’s NOT my sister.” Caleb’s face froze. But a second later, he burst out laughing like he’d just heard the funniest joke. “Never seen her? Wow, Aria. I didn’t know you had it in you.” “You’d really pretend you don’t know your own sister just to keep me?” “Give it up, come on. I never would’ve been with you if I’d known you were just a fake heiress!” I frowned, a bitter taste in my mouth. When Caleb and I first got together, he was the one who chased me for months. Texting me every day, checking in, being the perfect gentleman. That’s how he won me over. When my parents found out, they didn’t approve. But I was stubborn. Blinded by love. I insisted on marrying this broke nobody. And now? Now I find out he’s nothing but a shallow, gold-digging piece of shit. He thought I was a fake heiress, so he cheated on me for three years behind my back. And now he was dumping me at my own wedding. “Aria, I know how much you love me.” “We’ve been together for years. Of course I still care about you.” “Your sister’s even willing to be generous about it. She’ll be my wife, and you… well, you can stay in the picture.” “Just keep a low profile, stay out of her way, and she’s fine with me coming to see you.” My fists clenched so hard my knuckles turned white. The little bitter I’d felt turned into a wave of pure disgust. I never thought Caleb could actually say something like this out loud! What a shameless piece of shit! “Nothing to say? I knew you’d come around.” Caleb looked at me with that mocking smile, his tone playful. “I knew it. Women like you are all the same—get dumped and still come begging for scraps. This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it? Just be a good girl, and I’ll—” “Fuck you!” I lost it. I slapped him so hard across the face my palm stung. SLAP! The sound echoed through the entire hall. Caleb’s head snapped to the side. Five red fingerprints bloomed across his cheek. “What the fuck?! Did you just hit me?!” Caleb clutched his face, staring at me in disbelief. I laughed coldly and didn’t hesitate to kick him hard right where it hurts. “AHHH—!” His scream pierced the air. I lifted my foot, ready to stomp down on him. But just then— “STOP!” An enraged voice exploded from the back of the crowd.

#{3|The Real Sister} # “Caleb! Are you okay?” A woman rushed over and helped him up, then turned to glare at me with teary eyes. “How could you hit him?” “If you want to blame someone, blame me. I’m the one who wants to be with him.” “I’m so sorry… Caleb, this is all my fault. That’s all because of me…” Tears streamed down her face. “How is any of this your fault?” Caleb pulled her into his arms. “I’m the one who fell for you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Aria.” Then he whipped his head toward me, his voice turning ice cold: “Apologize to Harper. Now.” I paused, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. These two shameless cheaters actually had the nerve to blame me. They cheat, and somehow it’s my fault? “I’m so sorry!” Harper suddenly threw herself at me, eyes red and brimming with tears. “I know you’ve always been insecure about being a fake heiress.” “You’ve bullied me our whole lives, taken everything that was mine. I never held it against you.” “But please… I really love Caleb. I’m begging you, just let him go. Please?” She sounded so sincere, so heartbroken, that the crowd immediately started taking her side. “Oh my god, the true heiress got bullied this badly by a fake? Aria’s a monster!” “A fraud is a fraud! Stealing her things since childhood, and now even trying to steal her man!” “At least the real heiress has a good heart. After all that abuse, she’s still calling her ‘sister.’ If it were me? I would’ve slapped her across the face!” The whispers grew louder and louder. Everyone was looking at me like I was the villain. Like I was the homewrecker. Caleb looked heartbroken, pulling Harper closer to wipe her tears. I stood there, feeling like I’d stepped into some alternate reality. This woman, standing here calling me her sister and claiming to be the true heiress— I had never seen her before in my life. “Please, just let him—” “Who the hell are your sister?” I took a deep breath and stared at her coldly. “I don’t know you. Stop pretending we’re related.” “Aria!” Harper cried out, looking like I’d just stabbed her in the heart. Fresh tears spilled over. “I know you’re angry. I know you don’t want me to be with Caleb.” “But you can’t… you can’t just pretend you don’t know me!” She grabbed my hand, her voice trembling with desperation. “I’m sorry, okay? Please, just let me be with Caleb!” Seeing her play the victim so perfectly, the crowd started piling on. “Enough, Aria! You can’t force someone to love you. They’re happy together—why do you have to ruin it?” “Exactly! You’re just a fraud. What gives you the right to compete with the real heiress for a man?” “She’s your sister! Are you really going to throw away family over some guy?” I listened to the accusations flying at me, my nails digging into my palms. Finally, I looked at Harper and smiled. “Fine. If you’re my sister, sure, I’ll let you have Caleb.” “So do you have any proof?” The murmuring stopped. All eyes shifted to Harper. She looked away nervously, then cleared her throat. “Of course I have proof!” She pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and put it on speaker. “Hey, sweetheart! Why are you calling now?” I froze. My whole body went rigid.

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