Category: English

After my attempts to negotiate a divorce with my wife over her very public affair went nowhere, I started aggressively swiping her black card, trying to force her hand. I was at the jeweler, signing the receipt for my fifth luxury watch of the day, when my phone buzzed. It was her lover, calling to reprimand me. “Do you have any idea how to be a husband? At a time like this, you’re out buying Patek Philippes?” “The company’s cash flow is incredibly tight right now. Victoria is losing sleep over this every single night.” “You’re her husband, for God’s sake. Don’t you have a single ounce of empathy for her?” In the background, I could hear Victoria’s voice, low and soothing, murmuring something to calm him down. This was the fifty-ninth time he had called to lecture me about my spending. He was her company’s Chief Financial Officer. He was also the affair she refused to end. And for three years, we had been locked in a bitter, suffocating stalemate over a divorce she wouldn’t grant. I didn’t scream. I didn’t justify myself. I simply pressed the red button and cut him off. Then, I walked out of the boutique, drove straight to a high-end interior design showroom, and swiped the card for another $1.5 million on custom furniture and imported appliances. Moments later, Victoria called. I answered, and she let out a heavy, exhausted sigh—the kind reserved for a disobedient child. “From now on, Cameron is managing your accounts,” she announced, her tone clipped and authoritative. “If you need money, you submit a request to him. He’s the CFO. Maybe having to ask him will cure you of this absurd spending addiction.” I listened in silence. The quiet stretched, and my lack of a reaction began to irritate her. “What are you even trying to prove with all that garbage you bought? Can’t we just live our lives in peace?” “I’m just reminding you of our deal,” I said, my voice perfectly level. “Didn’t you say that the second I found someone else who actually wanted me, you’d let me go? You’d sign the papers?” I paused, looking at my reflection in the glass doors of the showroom. “Every dollar I spent today was to buy a dowry for my next wife.” “Honey, I found my true love.” …… There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line, followed by a soft, incredulous scoff. “Is this the only trick you have left?” Victoria asked, her voice dripping with disdain. “I really don’t have the energy for your tantrums today, Carter. We’re dealing with a crisis at the firm. I don’t expect you to understand the pressure, let alone help, but the least you can do is stay out of the way. Stop trying to get my attention by maxing out the Amex.” She sighed again, a calculated mix of exasperation and barely suppressed anger. “I’ve told you a thousand times. Your position as my husband is completely secure. Stop acting out. Please.” She was always like this. So suffocatingly certain of her own reality. She had been exactly like this three years ago, and she hadn’t changed a bit. In the background, I heard Cameron’s voice, laced with a mocking smirk. “You don’t think he actually found someone to step out on you with, do you?” “Please,” Victoria laughed, a sound full of supreme, unshakeable confidence. “Who else would have him? With his temper, I’m the only woman on earth who could tolerate him.” She always loved to tell people I had a bad temper. She never stopped to consider that it was her who had taken a mild-mannered, patient man and driven him to the edge of insanity. Years ago, when she spoke to me like this, I would lose my mind. I would scream until my throat bled. I had even stormed into the corporate headquarters, causing a massive scene, intent on humiliating both her and Cameron in front of the board. But now? Now, looking into the void of my own heart, I felt absolutely nothing. From the day I discovered her infidelity, I washed my hands of her company. I stopped caring if it thrived or burned to the ground. I stopped caring about her. For three years, she and Cameron paraded around town. Galas, charity dinners, industry events where I, as her husband, should have been standing by her side—she took him instead. She even brought him to family holidays, introducing him to her relatives while I was left at home. I became the ultimate punchline among the city’s elite. Yet, even when I was fighting tooth and nail, bleeding myself dry to force a divorce, she refused. She clung to the marriage, insisting I was the most important thing in her life. She had been so smug the day she laid down her challenge. “I know I’m the only one in your heart, Carter. You don’t have room for anyone else. If you really want a divorce, go find someone else first. Then we’ll talk.” She vastly overestimated her worth. And she tragically underestimated mine. The woman I had found was lightyears beyond her—in grace, in character, in everything that mattered. The line went dead. Still feeling a lingering itch of irritation, I walked into a luxury jeweler and asked to see a diamond tennis necklace. I handed over the card. The associate swiped it, frowned, and looked up with an apologetic wince. “Sir, I’m so sorry. It appears a limit has been placed on this account. It will only authorize transactions under fifty dollars.” My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from Cameron. I hope you understand. Victoria is under an immense amount of stress right now. Once the company weathers this storm, I’ll see about raising your daily allowance above fifty bucks. Carter, please. Show some compassion for your wife and stop causing trouble for her. I stared at the screen and actually let out a laugh. A kept man, a home-wrecker, lecturing the lawful husband about showing compassion to his wife. He was playing the saint while actively rolling in the mud. And the worst part was, the rest of the world bought it. In high society, I was the useless, emasculated husband, while the entire extended family had tacitly accepted Cameron, even praising his business acumen. To her family, I was nothing but a discarded pawn—the son of a ruined dynasty whose parents were facing federal indictment, stripped of all my social and financial value. When I finally drove back to the sprawling estate I had called home for seven years, it felt like walking into a meat locker. Victoria and Cameron were sitting on the living room sofa, waiting for me. They were pressed together, thigh to thigh. Cameron’s hand rested casually on Victoria’s leg, his thumb lazily stroking her skin. It was a sight I had grown so numb to that it barely registered on my pulse. Seeing me walk in empty-handed, Cameron chuckled, patting Victoria’s leg as if he’d won a bet. “You called it. He was just throwing another tantrum.” Victoria let out a soft sigh, playing the role of the endlessly forgiving, exhausted wife. She stood up, Cameron rising with her, and took two steps toward me. I didn’t want to breathe the same air as them. I bypassed them, heading for the stairs. “Carter,” Victoria called out, her tone sharpening. “We need to talk.” I paused on the first step and looked back, a faint smile touching my lips. “About the divorce? Give me a second, let me conference in my attorney.” I threw it out just to shut her up. It was the only way to ensure our conversations ended before they began. Instantly, the color drained from Victoria’s face, a flicker of genuine, wounded panic flashing in her dark eyes. “Oh, stop with the dramatics,” she snapped, her expression hardening back into contempt. She grabbed a manila folder from the coffee table and shoved it toward me. “We need to cut costs at home. Cameron put together a budget plan for you. From now on, any personal expenses need to be submitted to him. If he approves the expense, he’ll transfer the funds.” I caught the fleeting, bitter shadow that crossed Cameron’s eyes. Every time I brought up divorce and Victoria vehemently shot it down, I could see the jealous rage practically eating him alive. But on the surface, he played the perfect, reasonable gentleman. “Carter,” Cameron said softly, “you don’t run the business, so you don’t understand the realities of keeping this empire afloat. Yes, there’s money, but liquidity is tight right now. Every dollar counts. We just need you to be a team player.” I gave a dry, dismissive scoff, ignoring Cameron entirely. I looked straight at Victoria. “Clear your schedule,” I said. “It’s time you met my fiancée.” Since she refused to believe me, I would just have to put it right in front of her face. Victoria sneered, her expression twisting as if she’d tasted something vile. “Did you skip the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf when you were a kid? Is this fun for you? Do you feel seen?” It was true. In the early days, when I was desperate to hurt her the way she had hurt me, I had faked having an affair to force a reaction. I used that childish tactic three times. By the fourth, she realized it was a bluff. So now, when I was dead serious, she still thought it was a desperate ploy for her attention. Cameron smoothly interjected. “Carter, did you find out Victoria is pregnant with my child? Is that why you’re lashing out? Just to hurt her?” A cold shock rippled through my chest. She was pregnant. Four years ago, Victoria’s desperate promise still echoed in my ears: “Carter, I swear to you, I will never carry another man’s child. You are the only man who will ever be the father of my children. Even if it happened by accident, I’d take care of it immediately. Please, believe me.” And yet, here she stood, looking at me with a weary exasperation. “Carter, reign in your temper,” she ordered. “I am pregnant. I can’t afford the stress, so don’t push me right now.” I forced the muscles in my face to relax into a smooth, unbothered smile. “What a coincidence. My girlfriend is pregnant, too. I really don’t have the free time to worry about your stress levels.” Both of them let out incredulous laughs. Neither of them believed a single word. Victoria’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen and walked out toward the terrace to take the call. The moment the glass door slid shut, the polite smile vanished from Cameron’s face. He stepped into my space, dropping his voice to a venomous whisper. “She refuses to divorce you because she pities you, Carter. You’re an orphan. A washed-up loser. Her family keeping you around is no different than taking in a stray dog.” He leaned closer. “You want to know where a woman’s heart is? Look at where her money is. She has entrusted every dime of her personal fortune to me. The company might be strapped for cash, but she’s quietly funneled enough money into my offshore accounts to last me ten lifetimes.” He smirked, his eyes gleaming with malicious triumph. “I put you on an allowance because I don’t think you deserve to spend her money. So don’t get arrogant thinking she can’t bear to lose you.” “A piece of paper means nothing to me. I have her money. I have her heart. And my child is going to inherit this entire empire.” His arrogance was suffocating, practically radiating off him. “Oh, by the way. I almost forgot. Victoria promised me that after she delivers this baby, she’s getting her tubes tied. So you can give up that pathetic fantasy of her ever giving you a child.” I listened to him, utterly unfazed. My lack of reaction only made him push harder, a sneer twisting his features. “Even if she didn’t get the surgery, it’s not like she’d ever let a monk like you touch her anyway.” His smugness was almost comical. It wasn’t that Victoria wouldn’t touch me. It was that I refused to touch her. It had been a point of massive contention between us. She had thrown violent fits over it, smashing the house to pieces, making her mother believe I was physically abusing her. The police had even been called. Since that day, whenever she tried to initiate anything, she would tentatively ask, “Can we?” One dead, freezing look from me was all it took for her to back off. It had been three years since her affair began. Three years without so much as our fingers brushing. “Sure,” I said, a faint, careless smile playing on my lips. “She only loves you.” Seeing that he couldn’t break me, couldn’t make me scream or throw a punch, Cameron’s face flushed with frustrated rage. As I turned back to the stairs, he stepped into my path, desperate to land a lethal blow. “There’s something else you don’t know,” he hissed. “Your parents’ bail? That eight-million-dollar bond to keep them out of federal lockup? Victoria could have easily paid it.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air. “She didn’t. Instead, she took that exact amount and bought an entire private art collection for me in Europe. Just because I casually mentioned I liked the artist.” “Your parents’ freedom was worth less to her than a passing comment I made about some paintings.” A sharp, jagged pain sliced through my chest. Even though I had long since emotionally detached from her infidelity, this was different. The reality that she had willingly dropped eight million dollars to buy a smile from her toyboy, while watching me drown three years ago trying to save my parents from prison, felt like a knife twisting in my gut. Four years ago, she had watched me beg the old-money families of this city, humiliating myself, getting doors slammed in my face. She watched me go gray in my twenties from the stress, staying awake for days on end, terrified of what was happening to them behind bars. Back then, she had played the role of the devastated, helpless wife, claiming the company’s assets were tied up and she simply couldn’t liquidate the cash. Even though it was my parents who had funded her first startup. It was my parents who had mentored her, pulling strings to elevate her above her siblings so she could take the throne of her family’s empire. She had sworn to me, on her life, that if my family ever needed anything, she would walk through fire for us. And she had tossed us aside for a few canvases. Thank God I had found my own way out. Three months ago, I had finally secured the leverage and the capital to clear their names and bring them home. I looked at Cameron, my eyes turning to ice. “She gave you the world, and yet she refuses to give you her name. What a fascinating way to love someone.” My sarcasm hit its mark. His face darkened furiously. Just then, the front door swung open, and Victoria’s mother, Beatrice, walked in. Seeing the tension, she immediately assumed the worst. “Carter!” she barked, her voice echoing off the marble floors. “Are you out of your mind again? Cameron has been nothing but respectful to you. If you lay a hand on him, I swear to God I will make you regret it.” My relationship with my mother-in-law used to be warm. But the moment Cameron entered the picture, it turned into a war zone. Cameron immediately shrank back, playing the victimized, gentle soul, validating Beatrice’s assumption that I was bullying him. Victoria slid the glass door open and walked back in. Without asking a single question, she defaulted to her usual routine. “Carter. Apologize to Cameron right now.” I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. Beatrice glared at me as if she wanted me dead. “What is an apology going to do? He’s a parasite! Victoria, you’re pregnant with Cameron’s child now. He needs to move into the primary suite.” She paused, looking me up and down like I was trash on her shoe. “For the sake of peace, Carter, you’re relocating to the Oakwood property.” Oakwood. A three-hundred-square-foot, dingy studio apartment in a bad part of town. Beatrice had bought it specifically to humiliate me. She had threatened me with it countless times. “If you can’t tolerate Cameron, I’ll lock you in that dog cage at Oakwood.” To a family of billionaires, a place like that truly was a dog cage. I looked at Victoria. In the past, she would have stepped in, telling her mother she was taking it too far. But today, she looked at me and said, “Listen to my mother. You stay there for now. Once the baby is born, you can come back.” I felt absolutely nothing. “Okay,” I said quietly. Victoria froze. Her eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. She had expected a war. Cameron looked equally stunned. When I walked out of that house, Victoria truly believed I had gone to the Oakwood apartment. She allowed Cameron to freeze all my accounts, dropping my limit to twenty dollars a day. She really thought she had locked her disobedient dog in his cage to learn a lesson. It wasn’t until a month after she gave birth to a baby boy, when she finally drove out to the studio to retrieve me, that she realized I had never set foot in the place. She called me, her voice tight with an unfamiliar anxiety. “Carter, where are you?” “Just get to the point,” I answered coldly. Suddenly, Cameron’s voice came through the speaker. “Carter. Victoria and I had our son. We’re throwing a massive month-old celebration banquet. We’d love for you to come.” He was practically purring with malice. “We thought some of our good fortune might rub off on you.” I didn’t decline. This was the exact day I had been waiting for. “Absolutely. We’ll be there to offer our congratulations.” I heard Victoria exhale a breath of relief in the background. “See? Sending him away was the right move. He’s finally learning how to behave.” I just smiled to myself. On the day of the baby shower, I walked into the grand ballroom of the Four Seasons, my hand intertwined with my heavily pregnant fiancée. Victoria, radiant and smiling as she held her newborn, looked up. The moment her eyes locked onto us, all the blood drained from her face. She looked like she had been struck by lightning. “Carter,” Cameron stammered, his eyes darting between me and the woman at my side. “What… who is this?” Every guest in the room fell dead silent, all eyes locked on me and Serena. I smiled, smooth and completely at ease, and looked directly at Victoria. “Wife,” I said, my voice carrying clearly across the room. “Allow me to officially introduce you. This is the love of my life, my fiancée, and the mother of my child—Serena Kensington.”

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Three years of long-distance. I flew back to Boston a week early, heart in my throat, ready to surprise my fiancé. On the cab ride over, I was mindlessly scrolling through a local viral thread on a gossip subreddit. [UPDATE: Faking a confession to my boss so I wouldn’t get laid off.] “You guys can stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. We’re officially together.” “Two years of enemies-to-lovers tension. Turns out, even the coldest corporate king can be brought to his knees. ;)” The photo attached to the post was meant to be a casual flex—two hands intertwined, showing off matching couple’s rings. My thumb froze over the screen. Right there, on the webbing of the man’s hand between his thumb and index finger, was a faint, jagged scar. My fiancé had the exact same one. “We got into a stupid fight yesterday and he’s been icing me out. Ugh. But a smart woman knows when to drop her ego and coax her man.” “Anyway, I’m literally standing outside his gated community right now.” The image on my screen slowly bled into the reality unfolding in front of me. I looked up, dazed. A gorgeous, vibrant girl in her early twenties was standing just outside the wrought-iron pedestrian gate, flashing me a brilliant smile. “Hey! Could you do me a huge favor and scan me in?” 1 The scanner beeped, recognizing my face, and the heavy iron gate clicked open. The girl thanked me profusely, took two steps inside, and then spun back around. “Oh, by the way, do you know which way Phase Two, Unit Three is?” She stuck her tongue out playfully. “I came completely unannounced. Trying to give my boyfriend a surprise.” Phase Two was a newly developed, ultra-exclusive row of townhouses. There were only a handful of units in that specific section. Carter Dalton lived in Unit Three. A familiar scar. A matching address. My fingertips went numb. A surreal, hysterical feeling bubbled up in my chest. It’s impossible. I looked at the girl. Her username was Kelsey. She was a vision of youthful, effortless beauty. Voluminous beach waves, a flawless natural makeup look, and pristine French tips. The spring air was still biting and cold, but she was braving it in a tiny pleated skirt. Anyone looking at her would smile at the sheer, unstoppable force of young love. I pointed her in the right direction, and she beamed. “Wait, which way are you heading?” she asked. I swallowed the sandpaper in my throat. “That way, actually.” “Oh, perfect!” She immediately looped her arm through mine, pressing in close like we were old friends. “I was low-key terrified of walking through this massive place by myself.” Kelsey was exactly like her online persona: a relentless chatterbox. In the short walk down the manicured path, she filled the silence. Every third sentence circled back to her boyfriend. “He’s actually the VP of our division. When I first started, my numbers were awful, so I fake-confessed my love to him just to make him uncomfortable. But guess what? The tips of his ears turned bright red!” “After that, he magically crossed my name off the layoff list.” “He acts so tough, but he’s incredibly possessive. Once, I wore a dress that was a little too low-cut to a client dinner. He looked like he wanted to murder someone, dragged me into the hallway by the restrooms, and kissed me breathless.” As I listened, the suffocating cloud of dread in my chest began to dissipate. Her boyfriend got jealous. He lost his temper. He picked petty fights that lasted until dawn. That sounded absolutely nothing like Carter. My Carter was a baseline of steady, unwavering gentleness. I almost laughed at my own paranoia. Right. A scar on the hand wasn’t exactly a one-of-a-kind birthmark. And Carter wasn’t the only person who owned property in this zip code. Long-distance really did make people crazy. It made you invent ghosts in the dark. How could I ever doubt the boy who had literally taken a knife for me? Thank God, I thought, the tension bleeding out of my shoulders. Thank God I’m home. Kelsey pouted, letting out a dramatic sigh. “We fought all night yesterday, and he wouldn’t even reply to my texts. So here I am, delivering myself to his doorstep as an apology.” She shook her designer tote bag, revealing the corner of a familiar dark blue box. She caught me looking, her eyes dropping to the modest diamond on my left ring finger, and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Let me guess, you’ve been away from your husband for a while? Do you have any of these at home? I can spare a few if you need them.” Heat rushed to my face, and I looked away. “N-no, I’m good.” Kelsey giggled, playfully trying to press the box into my hands. “Take some! I bought two jumbo packs. We’ll never get through all of them.” My hands froze mid-push. It was a specific luxury brand. A specific ultra-thin line. Carter hated change. He only ever bought this exact kind. My heart dropped like a stone. Suddenly, a phone rang. Kelsey answered it, her voice instantly dropping into a coquettish whine. “Mmm? How did you know I was outside your house?” A pause. “Are you tracking my location again? Honestly, Mr. Dalton, you need to reel in your control issues.” Mr. Dalton. My feet stopped moving. I felt anchored to the concrete. “Okay, okay, I know. Just forgive me this once, please?” She hung up, gave me a hurried, ecstatic wave, and practically skipped toward the heavy oak door of Unit Three. The door opened. She flew like a joyful little bird straight into the arms of the man standing in the foyer. He looked down, his arm circling her waist with practiced ease. Through the half-open wrought-iron gate of his courtyard, from barely ten feet away, I had a front-row seat. It was clear as day. It was my Carter. 2 “You’re freezing. You never dress for the weather.” The words were a reprimand, but the tone was thick with indulgence. Carter stripped off his cardigan and draped it over her shoulders in one fluid, habitual motion. As if sensing a shift in the air, his eyes flicked upward toward the gate. “Who’s that behind—” Kelsey cut him off, wrapping her arms around his neck and breathing against his jaw. “I hand-delivered myself to you, and you’re looking at someone else?” “Mr. Dalton,” she whispered, loud enough to carry through the crisp spring air. “I bought a new set. Today… I’ll let you do it anywhere you want.” “The kitchen island, the sofa, the balcony… let’s try them all.” Carter didn’t say a word. But I knew the subtle darkening of his eyes. I knew the way his jaw tensed. He was turned on. The heavy front door slammed shut. It locked out the rest of the world, leaving me standing alone in the biting wind, surrounded by the blooming spring I had been so desperate to return to. How? How could it be him? But my eyes didn’t lie. When I was three years old, my parents moved us to a house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Five-year-old Carter Dalton had marched right up to me, pinched my cheek, and then blushed furiously. “Are you going to live next door?” When we were nine, playing house in his backyard, I claimed the role of the mom. Carter shoved the other boys aside, smiling that easy, brilliant smile. “If Natalie is the mom, then I have to be the dad.” When I was eighteen, a home invasion turned violent. A man cornered me in the kitchen. In the second before the blade sliced across my neck, Carter lunged, grabbing the raw edge of the knife with his bare hand. Blood poured down his wrist, staining my shirt crimson. By the time the paramedics arrived, he was ghost-pale, yet he still managed to smile at me while they bandaged his ruined hand. “Don’t cry, Nat. You’re safe. Your protector isn’t hurting at all.” The nerve damage left him with a permanent tremor in that hand. I chose to go to medical school because of him. During our undergrad years at different colleges, every guy who tried to ask me out was “coincidentally” intercepted by Carter. He played the role of the overprotective older boy next door, scaring them all away. Until one night, smelling of cheap beer and desperation, he pinned me against the wall outside my dorm, his voice ragged. He said it over and over. “Natalie, I don’t want to just be the boy next door anymore. I can’t do it.” Four years after we officially got together, I was accepted into a prestigious medical fellowship in London. Knowing how heartbroken I was to leave, Carter gathered both our families and all our closest friends for a massive farewell dinner. Right there, in front of everyone, he dropped to one knee. His eyes were entirely mine. “Nat, go chase your dream. When your fellowship is over and you come back to me, we’re getting married.” I believed him. I suppose fate loves nothing more than making a mockery of fools who believe in things too deeply. It only took one look. Twenty years of devotion, of shared history, of an unbreakable bond. Obliterated in a single, earth-shattering second. The spring rain started to fall. Fine, misty droplets hit the pavement. I couldn’t tell if my face was wet from the rain or from my own tears. It wasn’t until I pulled out my phone that I realized my hands were shaking violently. It took me four tries to hit his contact name. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail. I didn’t stop. I knew he was up there. Separated from me by nothing but brick and drywall. But I didn’t have the courage to walk up to that door and confront them. So I just stood in the rain, pressing redial. Over and over. Like a complete idiot. Half an hour later, he finally picked up. His voice was rushed, the underlying breathlessness poorly concealed. “Nat? Hey, baby, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” I swallowed the jagged glass in my throat. “Nothing… I just missed you.” “Where are you?” I heard the subtle exhale of relief on his end. “I’m still at the office. Things are just crazy right now, lots of fires to put out…” He didn’t even get to finish his lie. A sickeningly sweet female voice drifted through the receiver, entirely too close to the mic. “Mr. Dalton, this project is very urgent. We really shouldn’t waste any time.” The muffled friction of skin and sheets cut through my ear like a serrated blade. Carter cursed under his breath and hurried to hang up. “Nat, I’ve got to go handle this. I’ll call you back later tonight. I love you.” Every single time we hung up, Carter ended it with “I love you.” Today was the day I learned the truth. I learned that he could say those three words to me, while physically inside someone else. My phone vibrated again in my palm. I frantically wiped my eyes. “Mom.” “Yes. My flight landed. I’m back.” She was practically glowing through the phone. “Oh, honey! Have you seen Carter yet? Have you guys set a firm date for the wedding?” It was spring. The cherry blossoms were blooming everywhere. On a FaceTime call last year, Carter had planned it all out: “Nat, you’ll be back right when the weather turns. We’ll do an outdoor garden wedding. It’ll be perfect.” I opened my mouth, but only the bitter taste of ash came out. “Mom.” “There’s not going to be a wedding.” 3 It wasn’t until I was back in my childhood bedroom that the freezing dampness of the rain began to fade. My mother hovered in the doorway, her face etched with careful concern. “Did you two have a fight?” When I didn’t answer, she seemed to take it as confirmation, her shoulders relaxing slightly. “Natalie, listen to me. When two people have been together as long as you have, friction is normal.” “Your father and I watched Carter grow up. You two have practically spent your whole lives together. You don’t just throw away a wedding over a little spat.” Right. From the time we were three, up until today—my twenty-seventh birthday. Every single brilliant, sunlit memory of my life was tethered to Carter Dalton. When did it rot? When did the foundation turn to sand? I stopped listening to my mother’s reassurances. I offered a hollow nod and gently closed the door. I turned my phone back on. I pulled up Kelsey’s profile. I scrolled all the way to the very first post, and I started reading. She hadn’t lied about a single thing. It had all started with that ridiculous, brazen confession to save her job. Carter’s attitude toward her had slowly shifted into something ambiguous. Something dangerous. He had saved her job, then promoted her three times in two years, bumping her all the way up to his executive assistant. Drunk on her own success, Kelsey had only grown bolder. “I complained yesterday that I couldn’t sleep without someone next to me, and he brought me back this custom room spray from his business trip! Does anyone recognize the brand?” My finger hovered over the photo. It wasn’t a brand. I had made it myself. Carter had always struggled with insomnia. While studying in London, I took an apothecary class, carefully blending lavender, cedarwood, and chamomile, and tucked the bottle into his suitcase the last time he visited. When I asked him on the phone if it helped him sleep, he had evaded the question, his voice dropping low. “Nothing works when you aren’t here.” I had been too busy blushing at the compliment to realize he had handed my handmade devotion straight to his assistant. The betrayal had started so long ago. Fighting the sharp, agonizing spasms in my chest, I kept scrolling. Last March, Kelsey had been hospitalized for an acute stomach ulcer. I recognized the extravagant arrangement of pink Stargazer lilies in the corner of her hospital room photo. I had ordered them. That was the night Carter called me at 3 AM London time, frantic, saying a close friend had collapsed. I spent hours on the phone, leveraging connections with visiting American doctors to get his “friend” bumped into a VIP private room. I sat awake in my cold apartment the entire night, terrified that he was the one who was sick and hiding it from me. It was her. It was always her. And then, the post from two days ago. Kelsey standing under a massive, sprawling oak tree. “My boss finally brought me to his childhood home.” “I dug up the time capsule he buried ten years ago. Honestly, who cares about a childhood sweetheart? I am his future now, and as of today, I’ve claimed his past too.” The caption was aggressive. Pointed. I understood exactly what she was doing. My heart, piece by piece, turned to ice. Inside that time capsule was a Polaroid of me and Carter. On the back, in his messy handwriting, he had written: “To my Natalie. Now and forever.” Kelsey knew exactly who I was. Our encounter at the gate wasn’t an accident. It was an ambush. A notification popped up at the top of the screen. Kelsey had just posted a new update. A selfie of her flushed, glowing face, with torn blue wrappers scattered across the hardwood floor behind her. It wasn’t even subtle anymore. A wave of pure nausea hit me, so violently I had to grip the edge of the desk. I forced myself to breathe. Then, I dialed Carter’s number. “Nat, baby, I’m so sorry, I was just slammed with—” “Carter,” I interrupted him, my voice dead flat. “You once told me you would do anything for me. Is that true?” “…” “Of course it is.” “Your new executive assistant. I don’t like her.” “Fire her. Right now.” 4 Dead silence on the other end of the line. When Carter finally spoke, his voice was tight. Defensive. “…Where is this coming from?” “Who’s been talking to you?” He was struggling to keep his temper in check. “Kelsey is just an assistant. I kept her on because she gets the job done. It’s not easy for a young girl trying to make it in the corporate world. You expect me to just fire her on a whim?” Perhaps realizing how harshly he was snapping at me, he took a breath and softened his tone. “Nat, is this just pre-wedding jitters? Are you feeling insecure because we’ve been apart for so long?” “I promise you, I only have eyes for yo—” I let out a breathless, broken laugh. The tears were falling freely now, hot and fast. “Carter.” “I never even told you her name.” Before he could say another word, I ended the call. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, walked over to my safe, and opened it. When my fingers brushed the cold, heavy gold of the vintage bangle inside, I froze. During my medical rotations, I had seen so much death. Unrequited love, bitter divorces, grudges held for decades, the inability to let go. In the end, it all just turned into ash by a hospital bed. Life is too short. Loving someone fiercely is never a mistake. And walking away when it’s broken isn’t a failure either. Even if… even if it ends as ugly as this. Making the decision took less than a second. I opened my contacts and sent a mass text to every single family member and close friend who had attended our engagement dinner. The next afternoon. The private dining room of our favorite country club slowly filled up. Everyone who walked in greeted me with a knowing, teasing smile. “Well look who’s back! Planning a massive surprise for Carter, huh? Absence makes the heart grow fonder!” Every single person in that room thought I had called them here to fast-track the wedding. Only Carter’s parents looked slightly confused. “Natalie, sweetheart, why all the secrecy? The courthouse is already closed today, isn’t it?” Mrs. Dalton asked. “Are you two planning an elopement? Wait, where are your parents?” I didn’t answer her directly. I poured her a cup of tea and set it gently in front of her. “Mr. and Mrs. Dalton. My parents felt it was best they didn’t attend today.” Mrs. Dalton frowned, opening her mouth to ask another question, when the heavy mahogany doors burst open. Carter rushed in, his hair disheveled. He made a beeline for me, grabbing my hands, panic radiating off him. “Nat, when did you get back? Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” “Whatever you heard about her, I swear to God it’s just office rumors, you have to belie—” He cut himself off. He finally looked around the room, the color draining from his face. “What… why is everyone here? Mom? Dad?” For a few agonizing seconds, he just stared. And then, his panicked expression smoothed out into a fond, exasperated smile. His eyes filled with that familiar, indulgent warmth. “Oh, I get it. You were just messing with me yesterday, weren’t you? Making me sweat for this big surprise.” The jagged scar on his hand was pressed directly into my palm. I looked down at it. Then I looked up, meeting his incredibly convincing, deeply affectionate gaze, trying to find the man I thought I knew. Kelsey’s aggressively floral perfume still clung to his collar. On his right hand, the silver band she had bought him was gone, leaving only a faint indent in his skin. I wanted to ask him how he did it. How he could look me in the eye and pretend absolutely nothing had happened. But I realized that asking him would only invite more lies, stretching this nightmare out indefinitely. I was done. I slowly, deliberately pulled my hands out of his grip. I picked up the heavy velvet box and slid the heirloom Dalton bangle across the table to his parents. The room went dead silent. Every person in our circle knew exactly what that bangle meant. “Mr. and Mrs. Dalton. The wedding is off.” Carter’s pupils blew wide. The charming smile contorted into genuine anger. “Natalie! Do not make jokes like this in front of my parents!” “The wedding is off? Twenty years of our lives, and you’re just throwing it away? Over what? Office gossip?” I looked him dead in the eye, my voice barely above a whisper. “Over what?” “Carter. When you were balls-deep in Kelsey Monroe yesterday, playing me for an absolute fool, did you think about our twenty years then?”

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My boyfriend, Derek, had been dead for two years. Or so I thought, until he showed up at my front door, holding my sister’s hand. That night, I had been busy. I was finally hitting ‘delete’ on the digital memoir I’d spent two years writing—a soul-crushing tribute to a “fallen hero.” I was staring at the last text he’d ever sent me before the accident, my eyes blurred with the kind of tears that never really dry. Then, I heard it. From the guest room upstairs, the rhythmic, sickening creak of floorboards. It was the sound of a passionate confession, followed by the unmistakable noise of a bed frame hitting the wall. He was upstairs, professing his undying love to my sister, Morgan. I was the one who had organized his funeral. I was the one whose face his parents had screamed into, sobbing, demanding I give them back their son. How the hell was he standing in my foyer now, wearing a designer suit and an engagement ring on his finger—the twin to the one on Morgan’s hand? He acted like he’d never left. “Hey, little sister,” he said, his voice smooth as expensive bourbon. “Morgan and I picked this out for you. We knew you’d love it.” He slipped off his sunglasses, and for a second, time stopped. When he realized it was me—really me—the gift in his hand hit the floor, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. Morgan tugged at his sleeve, her voice a mix of possessive and patronizing. “Don’t be mad, Piper. He’s always been a bit clumsy. I’ll make it up to you later, okay?” My parents ushered him in like he was royalty. The whole house was suddenly vibrating with a celebration I wasn’t invited to. Morgan started spinning the tale of their “epic romance.” Apparently, the day after I buried his empty casket, he had staged a grand, cinematic confession to her. They’d been living a secret life while I was drowning in grief. Later, Derek caught me in the hallway, pinning me into a corner when no one was looking. “You know,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear, “your sister is sweet, but she’s not nearly as much fun as you were. Her performance in bed? A bit lacking.” I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I kicked him squarely in the shin, shoved past him, and sprinted for the tool shed in the backyard. I grabbed the heavy garden spade, my knuckles white. My mother caught me at the back door. “Piper? What on earth are you doing with that?” I looked her dead in the eye, my chin trembling with a fury so cold it felt like ice. “I’m going to the cemetery. I’m digging up the grave.” … My mom, still holding a spatula from the feast she was preparing for her “new” son-in-law, wiped her hands on her apron. She rushed out, screaming for my step-dad, Jim. She grabbed my arm, trying to hold me back, but I was pure adrenaline. Jim appeared, his movements quick and practiced. He snatched the spade from my hands before I could do any real damage. “Piper! Sweetie, stop. Think for a second. You paid a fortune for that plot. Don’t waste the manual labor.” I looked at my parents, then looked past them to the doorway where Derek stood, a smug, punchable smirk playing on his lips. Two years ago, Derek was supposed to come home and meet my parents for the first time. I’d hyped him up to be this legendary figure—the perfect man. My parents had been so excited. “Show us a picture of this mystery guy,” they’d say. I remembered sitting on the sofa that night, scrolling through my phone. From lunch until dinner, I searched every folder, every cloud backup. I couldn’t find a single photo where his face was clear. It was always a profile, a blur, or him standing in shadows. I remember the look on my parents’ faces shifting from anticipation to concern. They eventually stopped asking and started quietly leaving brochures for grief counselors on the kitchen island. After he “died,” my parents barely even remembered his name. Whenever it came up, they’d just sigh. “Piper’s boyfriend… what was it? Something with a D? Poor kid, gone too soon.” I mocked myself silently. Why was I letting this grifter ruin my life again? I was about to drop the spade and walk away, to just let the irony swallow me whole, when Morgan stepped forward. She wasn’t holding a drink anymore. She was holding a heavy-duty pickaxe she’d grabbed from the garage. “I get it, P,” she said, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp clarity. “If we’re digging, we’re digging. Tell me whose head we’re taking off first.” I looked at my sister. “Derek,” I whispered. “I’m digging up Derek.” “What?” Morgan’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Your ‘dead’ boyfriend’s name was Derek? Derek Barret?” I nodded slowly. Morgan turned her gaze toward the man she’d just been in bed with. He remained remarkably calm, leaning against the doorframe. “Oh? Really?” he mused. “Small world.” My fists clenched so hard my nails drew blood. The veil was so thin it was practically transparent, yet he was still playing the role. How had I never noticed what a sociopath he was? I was about to scream the truth—that he’d faked his death, that he’d scammed me—when he casually tapped his phone screen and turned it toward me. It was a private photo. One of those intimate, vulnerable moments I’d shared with him when I thought he was the love of my life. The caption he’d typed but hadn’t sent: If you open your mouth, the whole family sees the collection. And trust me, I have a lot. “What’s going on?” Mom and Morgan asked in unison. I forced a smile, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Nothing. I just… Derek told me in a dream that he wanted his ashes scattered. I thought I needed to go get them.” My parents exchanged a look of pure pity. Morgan, surprisingly, nodded. “Well, if that’s his wish, let’s help the guy out.” Before I knew it, we were all in the SUV. My parents had packed a literal trunk full of gardening tools, and we were speeding toward the cemetery. The plot wasn’t large, but it was in the most expensive section of the valley. When the “accident” happened, the story was that he was rushing to see me for the holidays and crashed. The car fire was supposedly so intense that the body was unrecognizable. His parents had descended on me like vultures. They didn’t pay a cent for the funeral, leaving it all to me. But their demands were endless. First, a state-of-the-art burial. Second, they insisted on buying two adjacent plots for themselves, “so we can be with our boy.” I was at my most broken. I agreed to everything. I didn’t even tell my parents; I didn’t want to burden them with the cost of my “shame” for being the reason he was on the road that night. I spent every penny of my savings. I lived in a state of collapse for months, convinced I had killed the man I loved. Looking back now, it was so transparent. So stupid. I reached up and slapped myself, hard. Mom’s hand caught mine mid-air. She didn’t say a word. She just squeezed my hand, over and over, the way she used to when I was a little girl. I remembered my biological father—the drunk who would come home and turn the house into a war zone. Mom would hold my hand just like this and whisper, “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ll protect you.” The memory flickered through my mind like a jagged reel of film. I looked at her, and she was still staring straight ahead at the road, but her grip was like iron. Morgan caught my eye in the rearview mirror. She didn’t say anything, but she gave me a tiny, sharp nod. I felt a strange warmth spread through my chest, like I was being wrapped in a thick, protective blanket. In the front seat, Jim was trying to lighten the mood. “I almost met this guy, you know. Had the grill seasoned and everything.” He glanced at Derek in the passenger seat. “It’s a shame. Just a freak accident, right?” Jim chuckled, though it didn’t sound particularly friendly. “What are the odds? Two daughters, two guys named Derek. Derek, you better be careful on the road. Wouldn’t want you to… snap… just like the other one.” I watched Derek. He was trying to act cool, sipping a latte he’d grabbed at the gas station. When Jim said snap, Derek choked, spraying coffee all over the dashboard. Morgan’s temper flared instantly. She kicked the back of his seat. “That’s a brand-new car, you idiot! You’re paying for the detailing!” Derek apologized profusely, scrubbing at the leather. Jim watched him through the mirror, his expression unreadable. I wondered… did Jim know? Before I could process it, we were at the cemetery gates. It was a quiet Tuesday. The security guard was dozing in his booth. A stray black ribbon from a recent funeral drifted across the grass. We walked toward the back, toward the premium plots that caught the morning sun. Morgan’s pickaxe was drawing stares, but no one stopped us. When we reached the site, I froze. There were fresh yellow chrysanthemums on the headstone. And the two “empty” plots next to it? They had names on them now. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. These people were absolute monsters. “Morgan! The pickaxe!” I had said it in a fit of pique, but seeing those names—his “dead” parents’ names—on plots I had paid for while they were likely sipping margaritas on my dime? The rage was volcanic. I took the tool and slammed it into the concrete seal of the first vault. I wanted to see what was really inside. My parents stood back, silent. Derek stood to the side, looking bored, as if he didn’t care that his entire life of lies was being unearthed. His arrogance fueled me. I broke open all three. Morgan helped me heave the stone slabs aside. The first one? An urn. The second one? An urn. My stomach dropped. A weird, heavy sensation settled over the air, as if a hundred eyes were watching us from the trees. Was I committing an unspeakable sin? Were his parents actually dead? No. Impossible. His mom had literally sent me a “Save 20%” link on a shopping app three days ago. My hands trembling, I pulled out my phone and messaged his mother. Are you dead? She replied almost instantly with a phone call. I put it on speaker and looked at Derek. “Are you insane?” her voice shrieked. “You killed my son with your bad luck, and now you’re cursing us? We’ll outlive you, you little brat!” “Then why,” I said, my voice trembling, “am I standing over your graves right now?” The line went dead. Morgan understood immediately. She slammed her tool into the third vault—Derek’s. When he “died,” they told me the body was cremated because it was too damaged for a viewing. This was supposed to be a cenotaph—a memorial with his belongings. But there was an urn inside. A real one. “What is this?” I whispered. I knew exactly what I’d put in there—his favorite watch, a photo. There shouldn’t be ashes. Derek was leaning against a tree, wearing a cold, eerie smile. For a second, he didn’t look human. He looked like something that had crawled out of the dirt. A sudden, freezing wind whipped through the cemetery. We all shivered. I looked down at the headstone, wiping away the dirt I’d kicked up. The name wasn’t Derek Barret. It was Derrick Barry. My heart stopped. Is it possible? Such a stupid, coincidental mistake? But these were my plots. I bought them. How did Derrick Barry end up in Derek Barret’s spot? Derek stepped forward, his voice a low hiss. “Looks like you’ve got the wrong guy, little sister. Maybe you were too busy crying to read the contract?” I looked up, ready to scream at him, when a cold, clear male voice rang out from behind us. “Why are you desecrating my family’s resting place?”

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In my third year as a high-end wedding planner, I hit a wall. I’d presented five different design concepts to a difficult client, and she’d rejected every single one of them with a wave of her manicured hand. Then, she saw it. My personal booking for my own wedding venue. “Why don’t you just give it to me?” she asked, her voice airy as if she were asking to borrow a pen. “I’ll pay five times whatever you put down.” She leaned back, admiring the photos of the venue on my desk. “The date is perfect for me and my husband. I want to surprise him.” I thought about what it took to secure the Conservatory at The Heights. I’d worked myself to the point of physical exhaustion, pulling double shifts for months just to scrape together the non-refundable deposit. My fiancé was three thousand miles away, working a grueling corporate job in London just so we could afford a life together. The venue wasn’t just a space. it was the summit of our five-year climb. I didn’t even have to think about it. I politely declined. The next day, she showed up at the front of my apartment building. This time, she wasn’t alone. She was draped in designer labels, clinging to her husband’s arm and pouting like a spoiled child. “That planner is being completely unreasonable, honey. You have to do something,” she whimpered, her voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear. “If I don’t get the Conservatory, I’m not having a wedding at all!” The man looked down at her with indulgent adoration. “I’ll pay a hundred times the price if I have to, princess. Your wish is my command.” He patted her hand, a smug smile playing on his lips. “I’ll handle her. No one says no to my girl.” As he stepped closer, laughing at something she whispered, he looked up. The smile died on his face. The air seemed to get sucked out of the street. We both froze. This was the man who claimed he was broke. The man who said he had to live in a cramped flat across the ocean for five years just to save for our future. My fiancé, Simon. 1 For a split second, I saw a flash of pure, unadulterated panic in Simon’s eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a sharp, warning glance. Camilla, oblivious to the earthquake happening beneath our feet, pulled a checkbook from her Chanel bag and thrust it toward me. “Let’s be real,” she said, her tone dripping with condescension. “Write down any number you want. I want the Conservatory, and my husband is paying the bill.” I looked past her, searching Simon’s face for a shred of guilt. A hint of remorse. Anything. There was nothing. I remembered standing in line for three days and nights in the freezing rain just to get that booking. My skin had broken out in hives from the cold; my feet had gone numb. When a spot finally opened up because another couple canceled, I’d cried with relief. I hadn’t slept that night. I’d stayed up until dawn on a video call with Simon, describing every detail of the glass ceiling and the way the moonlight would hit the dance floor. We’d dreamed about our future together until the sun came up. Now, looking at him, I realized he had never even opened the floor plans I’d sent. He didn’t care that I chose the Conservatory because it was exactly five blocks from where we had our very first date. I didn’t take the check. Simon spoke finally, his voice deep and unsettlingly calm. “Are you in such a hurry to get married?” I didn’t know who was asking—the man I’d loved for five years, or the stranger standing next to a socialite. He knew my parents had been haunting me about a wedding date since our third anniversary. He knew how many times I’d forced a smile and told my mother, “Not yet, Mom. We’re just waiting until we have enough saved.” He knew I was losing my hair from the stress of the distance. He knew I was barely holding on, all because I didn’t want to pressure him while he was “struggling” abroad. I let out a sharp, hollow laugh. “Not anymore. I’m not in a hurry at all.” Simon’s expression shifted, something dark and complex crossing his features. Camilla beamed, reaching up to plant a victory kiss on his cheek. “See? I told you my husband could handle anything!” She scribbled a number on the check that I had never seen in my bank account: one million dollars. “Take it,” she said, tucking the slip of paper into my coat pocket. “I spend more than this on my nails in a year. My husband and I are spending forty million on this vow renewal. The Conservatory is the only place classy enough for us.” She looked me up and down, her lip curling in pity. “Honey, don’t try so hard to live a life you can’t afford. Take your little boyfriend to a nice bistro or something. It’s more your speed.” I was wearing a coat from three seasons ago. I looked like a ghost standing next to her. But that coat was the only “expensive” gift Simon had ever given me for my birthday. Simon gave her arm a gentle tug, and she finally took the hint to leave. “I’m just a blunt person, don’t take it personally,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Oh, and here’s my husband’s card. We still need to finalize the details for his tuxedo.” I looked down at the heavy, embossed cardstock. Simon Montgomery, CEO of Montgomery International. The man I knew wore the same three t-shirts until they were threadbare. He cut his own hair in the bathroom to save twenty bucks. Every time I’d bragged about winning a hundred-dollar gift card at work, he must have been laughing at me behind my back. I watched them walk away, their silhouettes merging into one as they stepped into a waiting Maybach. Five years of long distance. Five years of working myself to the bone to save for a life that was already a lie. My phone buzzed in my hand. A text from Simon. Meet my assistant at the villa in an hour. We need to talk. 2 The fury in my chest was a living thing, clawing at my throat. I fired off message after message. Why did you lie? Why didn’t you tell me you were married? What was I to you? Just a hobby? The messages went unread. The “delivered” status felt like a slap in the face. Simon’s assistant—a man who looked at me like I was a piece of gum stuck to his shoe—shoved me into a black car and drove me to a secluded estate on the outskirts of the city. “This is a private property the Mrs. doesn’t know about,” he said coldly. “Wait for Mr. Montgomery inside.” As I walked through the iron gates, the staff’s eyes followed me. I could see the judgment in their stares. To them, I wasn’t a fiancé. I was a “kept woman.” A mistress. The interior of the villa was a masterpiece of marble and gold. It was a suffocating display of the wealth he’d hidden from me. I thought of the drafty, leaking basement apartment I’d lived in for five years to save three hundred dollars a month in rent. I thought of the nights I’d eaten instant noodles so I could send him “care packages” in London. Then, I saw it. On the mahogany nightstand in the master bedroom: a marriage certificate in a silver frame. The date they were married… it was the day my father died. I remembered that day with agonizing clarity. I had collapsed on the floor of the hospital, sobbing into the phone, begging Simon to come home. “I can’t, Norma,” he’d said, his voice sounding so pained, so convincing. “The office is on lockdown for the merger. If I leave now, I lose everything we’ve worked for.” He hadn’t been at an office. He’d been at an altar. When the door clicked open, Simon walked in. He reached for me, trying to pull me into his arms with that same familiar rhythm I used to crave. “Norma, listen to me,” he whispered. “She’s a family connection. It was a merger of interests. I had no choice.” He looked at me with those soulful eyes that I had once trusted with my life. “I know how understanding you are. You’ve always been my rock. Can you just try to understand this?” I shoved him back, my vision blurring with hot, angry tears. “Five years, Simon! What were we? What was I?” “I’m a bastard, okay?” he snapped, his patience fraying. “That’s why I’m doing this. I’m going to take care of you. You’ll live here. You’ll have everything you ever wanted. As long as Camilla doesn’t find out, we can have our life.” I looked around the room—at the expensive linens that smelled like another woman’s perfume, at the life he’d built on a foundation of my misery. “You want me to be your secret?” I laughed, the sound jagged and raw. “You want me to be the ‘other woman’ in a life I helped you build?” I swung my hand with every ounce of strength I had left, the crack of my palm against his cheek echoing through the room. “In your dreams, Simon!” Suddenly, there was a noise at the door. “Ma’am, you can’t go in there—” Camilla stood in the doorway, her face a mask of shock that quickly curdled into rage. She marched toward me before I could even breathe, her hand coming down across my face so hard I tasted copper. “You pathetic slut!” she shrieked. “I wondered why he smelled like that cheap perfume. I should have known he was keeping a little toy on the side.” Simon panicked, stepping between us, trying to shield me. “Camilla, let me explain—” She shoved him aside with a manic strength, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me toward the landing of the grand staircase. “Get out of my house! Get out!” I clawed at her hands, trying to find my footing, but the marble was slick. My heel caught on the edge of the top step. The world tilted. I felt the sickening rush of air before the first impact. My scream tore through the silence of the villa as I tumbled down the long, cold flight of stairs. Simon started to run down after me, his face pale with horror. But then, Camilla let out a sharp cry of her own, clutching her stomach. “Simon… the baby… I think something’s wrong…” With those three words, Simon stopped. He didn’t look back at me. He didn’t see me lying broken at the bottom of the stairs. He scooped Camilla up in his arms and stepped right over my body, rushing for the door. I lay in a pool of my own blood, my bones feeling like shattered glass. I called his name, a broken, wheezing sound, but he didn’t even turn his head. I looked to the servants for help. They just turned away, whispering the word “mistress” like a curse. Five years of devotion crumbled into the red puddle on the floor. I dragged myself toward my phone with trembling fingers. I dialed a number I hadn’t called in half a decade—a man from my past who had once promised me a way out. “You said there would always be a place for me,” I whispered into the receiver. “Does that offer still stand?” The line went quiet for a second before a calm, steady voice replied, “Always. Where are you?” Before I could answer, a notification flashed across my screen. A high-priority alert from the hospital. My mother’s heart was failing. 3 By the time I crawled into the hospital, I was a ghost of a person. My mother lay in the ICU, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. “Norma…” she rasped, her eyes filled with a devastating shame. “Why? Why would you do that to another woman?” I froze. “Mom, please, let me explain—” She turned her head away, unable to even look at me. On the small television above her bed, the local news was scrolling. Camilla had gone public. She had posted their marriage certificate alongside a tearful video, accusing a “predatory wedding planner” of trying to dismantle her marriage and endanger her unborn child. The comments section was a bloodbath. Homewrecker. Slut. Social climber. The physical pain from my fall combined with the crushing weight of the betrayal was too much. The room began to spin, the sound of the heart monitor fading into a dull roar. I collapsed into the blackness. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed of my own. Simon was sitting in the chair beside me, dark circles under his eyes. There was no warmth in his gaze. Only a cold, calculated threat. “You need to post an apology to Camilla,” he said, his voice flat. “She said if you admit you were the aggressor and beg for her forgiveness, she’ll let this go. She might even let me keep you around.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. Five years of my life had been stolen, and now he wanted me to sign a confession for the crime he committed. “You’re a monster,” I spat, the words catching on the soreness of my throat. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase. Medical bills. My mother’s records. “I’ve been paying for her treatment for years, Norma. If you don’t cooperate, the funding stops today. I think we both know she won’t survive the week without it.” I stared at the bills. This was the man who once swore that as long as he was alive, I’d never have to worry about money again. I nodded, my soul feeling hollowed out. The moment I posted the statement, the internet descended like vultures. My phone didn’t stop vibrating with death threats. People mailed razor blades to my apartment. I didn’t leave my room for days, until the silent alarm for my shop went off. I rushed to the studio, my heart hammering against my ribs. As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk, a bucket of red paint splashed over my head, stinging my eyes. “Homewrecker! You almost killed a pregnant woman!” “You used your job to seduce a married man! You’re disgusting!” Inside, my life’s work—the mood boards, the fabric swatches, the dreams of a hundred brides—was being torn to shreds by a mob of “moral crusaders.” “Stop it! Please!” I screamed. Camilla appeared from the crowd, her hair artfully disheveled, tears streaming down her face. “You knew we were getting ready for our big day,” she sobbed for the cameras. “You threw my custom gown into the sewer just to hurt me. You can hate me, but how could you try to ruin a wedding?” She pulled back her sleeve, revealing faint, fresh scratches on her arm. “You’re a psycho.” The crowd growled. Camilla turned to Simon, who was standing by his car, watching the spectacle. “Simon, if you won’t protect me from her, then the wedding is off! I’ll just leave so she can have you!” My heart lurched. I waited for him to say something. To tell them the truth. To remember the girl he used to love. Simon stepped forward, his eyes burning with a dark, cold fury as he looked at me. “I thought your apology was real. I didn’t realize you were planning to sabotage her behind my back.” He turned to the men standing behind him—three large security guards. “Since she refuses to learn her lesson, give her something to remember it by.” A cold dread settled in my stomach. The guards pinned me to the pavement. I felt a sharp, agonizing snap as they began to break my fingers, one by one. The sound of my own screams filled the air, but Simon didn’t blink. He just watched, his face a mask of indifference. “You’re a coward!” I shrieked through the pain. “You’re a pathetic, soulless coward!” Simon turned his back on me. “Break three fingers every day,” he told the guards. “Don’t let her out until she truly understands what she did wrong.” As Camilla followed him to the car, she looked back at me. The tears were gone. In their place was a smirk of pure, triumphant malice. 4 I was a prisoner in my own ruins. For days, I huddled in the corner of my destroyed shop, waiting for the guards to return for their daily ritual of cruelty. By the time Camilla returned, my hands were mangled, my legs broken from a “fall” the guards orchestrated. I was a broken doll tossed in the dirt. She stood over me, draped in a white fur coat. “How does it feel to be the most hated woman in the city? Do you finally get it? Simon loves me. He’d burn the world down to keep me happy.” I closed my eyes. The pain was so constant it had become a rhythm. “You think because he did this to me, it means he loves you?” I whispered. “It just means he’s a monster. And eventually, he’ll turn on you, too.” She laughed, a sharp, tinkling sound. “Oh, honey. You still don’t know the best part, do you?” She leaned down, her voice a poisonous whisper. “While you were ‘recovering’ in the hospital after your fall? Simon had the doctors perform a little procedure. You don’t have a uterus anymore, Norma. You’re never going to be a mother. You’re just a broken toy now.” The world went silent. I reached down, my trembling, broken fingers feeling the jagged scar beneath my clothes that I had been too traumatized to investigate. “He said a woman like you—a common mistress—didn’t have the right to carry a Montgomery heir,” she sneered, patting her own stomach. “There’s only room for one child in his life.” I couldn’t even scream. The betrayal was so deep it bypassed the vocal cords and went straight to the soul. Every “I love you” he’d ever whispered was a lie. Every dream of a family we’d shared was a weapon he’d used to gut me. Then, she dropped a final piece of paper onto my lap. A death certificate. “Your mother died this morning, Norma. The doctors said she just lost the will to live. Or maybe she was just embarrassed to have a daughter like you.” A low, guttural wail broke from my throat. I lunged for her, but my broken legs gave out. I fell into the red paint on the floor, sobbing into the dust. “You’ll pay for this,” I wheezed. “Both of you.” “I doubt it,” Camilla said, stepping toward the door. “I can’t have you lingering around, reminding him of his mistakes.” She slipped out and locked the heavy deadbolt from the outside. Seconds later, the sharp, cloying scent of gas filled the room. I scrambled toward the door, my broken fingers clawing at the wood until my fingernails ripped away, leaving ten bloody streaks on the frame. Boom. A wall of heat slammed into me. The orange glow of the fire reflected in my eyes as the shop—my life, my memories, my grief—began to melt. As the smoke filled my lungs, I had a hallucination. I saw Simon, years ago, kneeling in the rain with a ring, promising me forever. I realized then that the girl who loved him had already died a long time ago.

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“Mrs. Davis, the man who murdered your daughter—can you really not remember his face?” I hovered near the ceiling, listening to the detective’s question as a familiar chill crept into my chest. I was ten years old when I died in that alleyway. Mom walked in just as the killer was leaving. The gruesome, bloody scene broke her completely. The trauma triggered acute stress disorder, locking the killer’s face away in a dark corner of her mind. People told her not to push it. They said the memories would return in time. But five years slipped by in a blink. Now, facing the police again, she gently stroked the hair of my three-year-old sister. Her voice was terrifyingly flat. “I have a new family now. A new daughter. Whatever happened in the past… let it stay in the past.” 1. Hearing those words ache, but I understood. The two officers clearly didn’t. They froze. The older one, Detective Miller, wasn’t ready to let it go. “Mrs. Davis, we know it hasn’t been easy for you. We know you’ve fought hard to build a new life, and the last thing we want to do is intrude.” He leaned forward. “But last week, there was another vicious attack on a little girl on the outskirts of town. The M.O. is practically identical to what happened to your daughter. We have reason to believe it’s the same man.” He paused, letting the weight of it settle. “This case has been cold for five years. He’s still out there. He might hurt more kids. Can you please just try to remember? Even a fragment. The smallest detail could break this wide open for us.” Before Mom could respond, the younger cop—Officer Harris—spoke up. His voice was sharp with frustration. “Mrs. Davis, that was your own flesh and blood. She died a horrific death. Can you really just wash your hands of it? If it were me, I’d tear the world apart looking for the guy.” The words struck like a match to a powder keg. Mom’s unnervingly calm face twisted. The gentle light in her eyes was instantly swallowed by raw, suffocating terror. She shot up from the couch, grabbing her hair with both hands, and let out a guttural, hysterical scream. “Stop asking! I’m begging you, stop! I can’t remember! I swear to God, I can’t remember!” Tears streamed down her face in chaotic rivers. She shook violently, stumbling backward. In an instant, she was entirely broken, dragged right back to that blood-soaked evening. My spirit shuddered. The memories crashed over me, a tidal wave so heavy I couldn’t breathe. I was ten. Fifth grade. I was just turning the corner into our alleyway after school when a rough, calloused hand clamped over my nose and mouth. The acrid, chemical stench burned my nostrils. I didn’t even have the strength to thrash before the world went black. When I woke up, I was already floating. A ghost. I looked down to see the concrete stained crimson. My body lay there, unrecognizable. And Mom was collapsed beside me, screaming until her vocal cords tore. Not far away, a blurry figure hurried into the shadows at the end of the alley. In the months that followed, Mom was a ghost herself. She cried until she couldn’t, clutching my picture, refusing to eat or sleep. I hovered beside her back then. I screamed her name, I tried to stroke her face, I tried so hard to comfort her. But she couldn’t feel me. She bore the agonizing, tearing pain entirely alone. She looked exactly the same right now. Beside her, my little sister burst into terrified wails. My stepdad rushed into the room. He grabbed Mom, wrapping his arms tightly around her trembling frame, rubbing her back. When he looked at the cops, his eyes were blazing. “That’s enough!” he barked, his voice thick with fury. “It’s been five years since it happened. Five years you’ve been looking, and you have nothing. Your incompetence isn’t an excuse to come in here and interrogate my wife. What do you want? Do you want to drive her insane?” He shielded Mom, pulling my crying sister into his chest. He waved his hand at the door. “Get out. You are not welcome here. If you come near her again, I’m filing a formal complaint.” Officer Harris opened his mouth, but Miller held up a hand to stop him. Miller looked at my shattered mother, his face lined with guilt. He offered my stepdad a tight nod of apology. “I’m sorry. We crossed a line. We’ll show ourselves out.” He grabbed his rookie by the arm and marched out the door. I stayed near the ceiling, watching Mom shake against my stepdad’s chest. The tangle of emotions in my chest was impossible to untie. 2. The memory of that evening five years ago pulled me under again. The alley smelled like copper. Mom sat in the dirt, staring at my body, making sounds that weren’t quite human. A uniform stood over her with a notepad. “Ma’am, I need you to focus. The suspect’s height, build, what he was wearing. Anything. A single detail could give us a lead.” I floated right next to her ear, desperate. “Mom, tell him! You saw him! Tell the police!” But she couldn’t hear me. She bit her lip so hard it bled. Her whole body spasmed as tears dropped silently onto my school uniform. “I… I don’t…” Her voice was shredded, her head bowed so low. “I can’t remember anything…” “There are no cameras in this part of the neighborhood. You’re the only witness,” the officer sighed, his voice heavy with defeat. “If we lose the trail here, we’re never going to catch him. For the little girl’s sake, ma’am. Please. Try.” That sentence snapped the last frayed string of her sanity. She snatched my bloody jacket, hugged it to her chest, and wailed. “I can’t remember! I can’t remember!” She pulled at her own hair like a madwoman, gasping for air until her eyes rolled back and she passed out on the concrete. They put her in therapy after that. The doctors called it acute stress disorder. That specific memory was a locked vault; trying to force it open only made the trauma worse. The police tried a few more times, but her condition was so fragile they eventually backed off. Relatives and neighbors paraded through the house, patting her hand. “Don’t rush it, Sarah. It’ll come back to you.” She heard none of it. She locked herself in my room, tracing the covers of my books, holding my stuffed animals, staying awake for days at a time. She would stare at the empty corners of the room and whisper, “I’m so useless. I couldn’t protect you, and I can’t even remember the monster who did it…” She forced herself to relive that evening over and over, trying to unearth the face. Every time, it ended in a complete mental collapse. She wasted away. The light in her eyes died, a little more every day. I watched her torture herself, completely powerless. I sat beside her from dusk until dawn, drowning in my own helplessness. I had wanted her to remember. I wanted the police to drag him out in cuffs. But I didn’t realize that my obsession with justice was going to kill her. It was raining. The apartment was suffocatingly quiet. Mom was sitting in the armchair on the balcony, holding a paring knife. Panic seized me. I threw myself at her, screaming for her to drop it, but she was completely hollowed out. The blade sliced across her wrist. The blood welled up instantly, soaking into her sleeve, turning my vision red. “Mom! No!” I shrieked, but I could only watch. I couldn’t even touch her. Just as the despair swallowed me whole, the front door crashed open. My stepdad—just a coworker back then, a man who had asked her out once and been politely turned down because she was focused on raising me—ran in. He had been quietly checking in on her since I died, dropping off groceries, making sure she survived. He saw the blood and went pale. He didn’t say a word. He grabbed a towel, clamped it down on her arm, scooped her up, and ran. “Sarah! Stay with me! Sarah!” The hospital smelled like bleach. When Mom finally opened her eyes, they were empty. Her wrist was wrapped in thick gauze. She stared at the ceiling in total silence. He sat beside the bed. His voice was incredibly soft. No judgment. “If you can’t remember, stop forcing it. No one blames you. You have to keep living. If Mia is out there somewhere, looking down… seeing you do this to yourself would break her heart.” A single tear slipped down Mom’s cheek. “I failed her. I don’t even know who did it. What’s the point of being here?” “It is not your fault. It is his,” he said, taking her uninjured hand. His grip was steady. “Living your life is the best thing you can do for her. Stop punishing yourself.” Hovering over the hospital bed, looking at her bone-white face, my desperate need for the truth evaporated. If justice meant my mother dying, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything anymore. I just wanted her to live. I’ve stayed with her ever since. I watched her slowly climb out of the dark. I watched her marry him. I watched her stomach swell, her face softening with a new, quiet joy. I watched my baby sister come into the world, safely held against her chest. She seemed to have truly forgotten me. Her world was her new husband, her new daughter, her new life. I tried to tell myself that ghosts don’t have hearts. If she forgot, she forgot. As long as she was happy. 3. While I was lost in the past, my stepdad had managed to calm them down. He held my crying sister on his hip, rubbing Mom’s back with his free hand. When her breathing finally slowed, he spoke softly. “It’s okay. They’re gone.” Mom buried her face in his shoulder, nodding through her hiccups, her fingers still twisted in his shirt. The terror hadn’t completely left her eyes. He wiped a tear from her cheek, his expression full of love. “Didn’t you say you were craving that dim sum place downtown? Let’s go. We’ll order everything you like. How does that sound?” She gave a raspy hum of agreement. He took her hand, still holding my sister, and walked them out the door. I drifted behind them, looking around the bright, spacious four-bedroom house, a bitter ache blooming in my chest. Five years ago, Mom and I didn’t have anything like this. We were crammed into a tiny, peeling apartment on the bad side of town. The furniture was old and stained. But that little apartment was packed wall-to-wall with love. Back then, when Mom got off work, she would catch me as I ran at her, lifting me up and kissing my cheeks. “There’s my girl! Were you good at school today?” On freezing winter nights, she would tuck my icy hands into her sweater to warm them up. She would sit on the edge of my bed, reading me stories until I drifted off to the sound of her voice. After she got together with him, he quit his safe job to start his own business. He worked himself to the bone to move her into this house. Things got better and better. The restaurant was warm and noisy. In the booth, my stepdad strapped my sister into a highchair, tied a bib around her neck, and slid the menu over to Mom. “Get whatever you want.” She smiled, waving it away, her eyes entirely on the baby. “Just enough for us. Let’s not waste food. Get the pasta for the baby first.” The food came quickly. Mom held a tiny spoon, blowing on the pasta until it was cool before offering it to my sister. Her movements were so careful, so patient. My sister chewed happily, giggling, her chubby hands grabbing at Mom’s fingers. I floated over the empty chair across from them. My chest felt hollow and tight all at once. Before my real dad died, we used to go out to eat just like this. Mom used to do that for me. She would blow on my food until it was safe to eat. I used to be exactly like that little girl—clinging to Mom, pulling at her sleeves, having her entire, undivided heart. Full and happy, my sister kicked her little legs and whined happily. “Mama~” Looking at her sweet, spoiled face, a childish, petty jealousy flared up inside me. I sat on the hard edge of the chair, muttering to myself. “She used to take care of me like that. She loved me even more than she loves you.” “She used to braid my hair. She bought me strawberry candy. She gave me piggyback rides home. If it wasn’t for that alley, I’d still be sitting right there…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. My nose stung. It felt like the loneliness was physically wrapping around my spirit, suffocating me. The warmth of the restaurant faded away, leaving me in the freezing cold. The meal was perfect. Mom’s face finally relaxed; even the tone of her voice lightened. My stepdad put food on her plate and made my sister laugh. A perfect, happy family. I watched them in silence. The sharp pain dulled, leaving only a deep, settling melancholy. 4. Night fell. After putting my sister to bed, Mom didn’t go to her own room. Instead, she walked to the very end of the hallway, to the door that was always locked. My room. Or, the room where my things were kept. She hadn’t opened the door since they moved into this house. When she pushed it open, dust fell from the doorframe, tickling the nose. There was my desk. My little bed. My stuffed animals. Everything was buried under a thick layer of dust. The room felt dead. Mom stood in the center, staring blankly at the objects as if they weren’t the last physical traces of her first child, but just a pile of useless junk. My stepdad appeared in the doorway a moment later, looking worried. “Sarah? Are you okay? Did something trigger you again?” “No,” she said flatly. “I just realized there’s no point in keeping this stuff. I’m calling a junk removal guy tomorrow. I want it all gone.” He stared at her, stunned. “Gone? But this is Mia’s stuff. Are you sure…” “Yes.” Her eyes were hard, unmoving. “She’s been gone for five years. Keeping this old junk just makes me miserable. I don’t want to think about the past anymore.” She walked out without looking back. I hovered in the dusty air, staring at the things that had been my whole childhood. My chest violently convulsed, but I couldn’t make a sound. The next morning, the junk guys actually showed up. I floated next to them, staring at my things as they carried them out, screaming in my head, praying she would change her mind. She tossed my backpack—the one with the little bunny embroidered on it—into the truck herself. Mom, don’t throw away my backpack. You gave me that for my birthday… Then she threw out my teddy bear. The one with the torn ear that she had sewn back together for me. That’s my favorite bear. Did you forget? You said if I held it, it was like you were hugging me… My notebooks, my fairy tales, my hair ribbons. One by one, piece by piece, she threw them all away without hesitating. The truck drove off down the street, piled high with my life, until it disappeared around the corner. I chased it for a long time, but eventually, I could only watch it vanish. A few days later, my stepdad had the room painted a soft pink. It was filled with my sister’s toys, her picture books, a little rocking horse. It was a playroom now. My sister ran around barefoot, laughing as she hugged a brand new doll. Mom stood in the doorway, her eyes soft and full of light, as if she had never had another daughter at all. It was early evening. The house smelled like dinner. Mom was wearing an apron, simmering a pot of short rib soup for the baby. Her phone suddenly started ringing in her pocket, the shrill noise cutting through the quiet bubbling of the pot. She wiped her hands and pulled it out. Her brow furrowed instantly. It was Detective Miller. She moved to decline the call, but it rang again. And again. Relentlessly. My sister waddled over, tugging at her apron, calling for her. Mom sighed in frustration and finally answered. “What do you want?” she snapped. “I told you, I don’t remember anything. Stop calling me.” Detective Miller’s voice was low and tight. “Mrs. Davis. I’m sorry to bother you again. But I had to call. We ran the files from similar cases over the last five years.” “Combined with the new evidence… we think we have him. We think the man who killed Mia is in custody.”

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In the eleven years I’d been with Valerie, she had never once thrown me a birthday party. But on the evening of my twenty-ninth birthday, her private driver dropped me off at the entrance of a lavish banquet hall. It was a sensory overload of imported orchids and a towering, decadent dessert bar. The vibrant, dopamine-inducing color palette made the entire venue feel like a scene pulled straight from a glossy Manhattan society magazine—expensive, intoxicating, and deeply romantic. I was just pulling out my phone to call her when the massive LED screen at the front of the room flared to life. A high-fashion editorial slideshow of Beckett began to play. “Mr. Beckett, this is a birthday gift from Ms. Valerie. She wishes you the happiest of birthdays!” Valerie’s executive assistant brushed past me, walking straight toward Beckett, who was dressed to the nines in a bespoke tuxedo. The velvet box was snapped open. Nestled inside was the exact set of jewelry I had once told Valerie was my ultimate dream to own. My gaze slowly lifted, locking onto Beckett’s eyes. They were gleaming with a sharp, triumphant provocation. In that singular, crystal-clear moment, I finally understood where his hostility had come from since the day we met. Valerie had betrayed our love. And she had done it a long time ago. 1 “Mr. Samuel, I am so sorry. I forgot I swapped shifts with Tommy today. He was supposed to drop Mr. Beckett here, and I was supposed to take you to the Upper East Side to have dinner with the Dowager. Should we head out now?” Valerie’s driver, panicked at the realization that he had brought me to the wrong address, hurried up behind me. He was practically wiping the nervous sweat from his forehead, his eyes darting to my face to gauge my reaction. “It’s fine,” I said. I forced a mechanical smile, waiting for the icy numbness to bloom in my left ventricle, spreading out to my fingertips before slowly receding. I finally found my voice. I didn’t make a scene or give the driver a hard time. Knowing this opulent party was not for me, I turned on my heel to leave. “Samuel, don’t misunderstand. Beckett is my right-hand man. I threw him this party to reward his dedication to the company.” Valerie approached from the other side of the room. She naturally, almost gravitationally, positioned herself right next to Beckett. She frowned, throwing an explanation at me like a bone to a dog, while simultaneously shoving a stained suit jacket into my arms. “Someone spilled wine on this earlier. Take it home, hand-wash it, and have the driver bring it back. I have an industry mixer with Beckett later tonight, and this jacket pairs perfectly with his tuxedo. Do me this favor.” Her mouth said the words do me a favor, but her eyes held zero warmth, zero remorse, zero tenderness. “Valerie, we’re done. Wash his clothes yourself.” I offered a faint, hollow smile and took a deliberate step back, letting the jacket drop. I didn’t reach out to catch it like I always had before. “Can you stop being so goddamn sensitive? I just explained it to you. What more do you want?” She was so used to my absolute subservience. Seeing me refuse, her eyes widened, brimming with a mix of disbelief and sudden anger. “So what? You throw an excuse at me, and I’m just supposed to swallow it?” I used to think that if this day ever came, I would be hysterical. I thought I would scream, demand answers, ask why him, why not me? But looking at her standing there—how, when forced to choose a physical space between me and Beckett, she instinctively anchored herself to him—I felt a profound, sweeping sense of relief. Sand that you cannot hold is better left to the wind. “Happy birthday, Beckett.” I didn’t bother wasting another glance on Valerie. I merely lifted my heavy eyelids, gave the smug, preening Beckett a passing look, and walked out of the hall. The second I got into the back of the town car, I dialed Beatrice, Valerie’s grandmother. I gently explained that I wouldn’t be able to make it to dinner tonight. Then, taking a steadying breath, I told her that Valerie and I had broken up, and that she needed to take good care of herself from now on. Hearing the news, Beatrice sounded utterly heartbroken. She pressed me for the reason. I told her the truth. Not long after I hung up, my phone lit up with Valerie’s name. “Samuel, what the hell are you playing at?” “When did I ever agree to a breakup?” “Is this about the jewelry? I bought him a set you liked. So what? It’s his birthday. What’s wrong with a boss buying her employee a nice gift?” Valerie was practically screaming into the receiver. Clearly, Beatrice had just torn into her. Every word out of her mouth was entirely centered on her own twisted logic. “So, you did remember that I wanted that set.” A bitter laugh scraped its way out of my throat. I had thought, maybe, she had just forgotten. I had told her years ago. I designed that jewelry. Before my career was derailed, my blueprints had been stolen by a rival. I knew I would never get my name on the patent, but I had told Valerie that owning a physical set of my own stolen masterpiece would finally give me some closure. Back then, she had held me in her arms, kissing my temple. With a soft, aching tenderness, she had promised me that the second it hit the market, she would buy the very first set for me. A week ago, the launch campaign went live. I had stared at the screen for ten solid minutes. Valerie had seen me. She had promised to buy it. I just never imagined she would buy my stolen legacy to drape over her lover’s neck. “If you really want it that badly, I’ll buy you another set tomorrow. Just stop throwing a tantrum.” “Go straight to the Upper East Side and have dinner with Grandma. Her arthritis is acting up again, and no one else knows the right massage techniques. Only you can soothe it.” There it was. The real reason she was calling. When did it start? When did her calls become nothing more than a string of transactional demands? I’m craving that soup you make. Bring a thermos to the office. I drank too much. Bring me that hangover remedy you brew. I got into a fender-bender and I’m late for a client meeting. Wait on the side of the highway in the freezing wind for the insurance guy and handle it for me. There were even times when she, drunk and belligerent, had gotten into physical altercations at clubs, and it was me who had to show up to apologize and pay off the victims. My friends used to joke about it. Those who knew our history remembered we were a couple. Those who didn’t thought I was her unpaid, live-in personal assistant. On call, twenty-four seven. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. No sick days. “I’m going to say this one last time, Valerie. We are breaking up. Do not call me again.” “I just texted you the video tutorial on how to relieve Beatrice’s arthritis. If you actually give a damn about your grandmother, you’ll go take care of her yourself.” “If your love for her is just lip service, then that’s your problem. I’ve spent eleven years with you. My conscience is clear. I owe nothing to you, and nothing to your family.” “Are you forcing me to call your mother? Samuel, you know exactly how desperately your mother wants you to marry me. If we break up, aren’t you terrified of the hell she’ll rain down on you?” Realizing I was actually walking away, Valerie dropped her voice. It was a low, venomous threat. “She’s going to find out eventually. She’ll just have to learn to live with it,” I replied, though the mere mention of my mother made my scalp prickle with anxiety. When Valerie and I first started dating, my mother was violently opposed to it. Valerie was a struggling entrepreneur back then, drowning in debt. My mother had wanted me to follow her script—to marry a wealthy, divorced woman in our hometown who could provide for our family. But I chose Valerie. I threw myself into helping her build her startup, alienating myself from my family for three grueling years. By the fourth year, my mother saw Valerie on the cover of Forbes Midas List. Suddenly, she showed up in New York, practically begging Valerie to lock me down with a wedding. Over time, my mother started bypassing me entirely, calling Valerie directly to chat. It was through their growing alliance that Valerie learned the darkest truths about my childhood—how my mother had always neglected me, constantly draining my resources to pave a golden path for my younger brother, all under the guise of “family duty.” “Your mother is currently waiting for me to wire the money for your brother’s wedding. Are you seriously telling me she’s going to ‘live with it’ right now?” “…” Hearing that my brother was actually at the altar, I froze for a fraction of a second. “Samuel, don’t blame me for not taking you seriously. Your own mother doesn’t even love you. How do you expect me to cherish you?” “Be a good boy. Go home and wait for me. I’ll make it up to you tonight. I’ll admit, yes, I have feelings for Beckett. But I never planned on leaving you. Beckett doesn’t mind sharing, so why can’t you be a little generous? Stop letting his existence bother you.” She took my silence as submission. “So, what is this? A modern-day corporate queen with her harem? Valerie, my brother is a grown man. If he wants to get married, he needs to earn his own life. I’m done fixing his messes, and I will certainly not be buying his wife with my dignity.” “You don’t own me anymore.” I could hardly believe the sheer, unadulterated audacity coming from the woman I had worshipped for over a decade. I was suddenly profoundly grateful that the driver had accidentally taken me to Beckett’s party. Otherwise, I might still be rotting in the dark. The fiery, passionate girl I fell in love with had been completely devoured by the ruthless corporate world and the intoxicating fumes of power. She was unrecognizable. I couldn’t even conjure the memory of the girl she used to be. “You haven’t held down a real job in years. If you leave me, how exactly do you plan on surviving out there? Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. With me, you’ll never have to worry about your allowance.” “Step outside my shadow, and you’ll realize just how brutal the real world is to people like you.” She had forgotten. She had forgotten that I built the foundation of her company. She had forgotten that I was the one who secured her very first venture capital check. All she remembered was that I hadn’t worked a 9-to-5 in years. What she didn’t know was that in the endless, lonely nights waiting for her to come home, I had quietly clawed my way back into my own profession, building a quiet but lucrative freelance portfolio. As her empire expanded, the only thing that occupied her heart was herself. She stopped caring about me. She stopped knowing me. “That is my problem, Ms. Valerie. We are officially strangers. Have a nice life.” I didn’t bother defending myself. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the money I had made. The “allowance” she gave me was sitting in an envelope in the nightstand of our master bedroom. I had never touched a single cent of it. For years, every household expense, every grocery run, every electric bill—I had paid it all out of my own pocket. I used to be too proud to touch her money. But now? Now I realized it was back pay. Realizing it was a substantial amount, I tapped the glass partition and told the driver to reroute to our newly purchased penthouse. The renovations had just finished, and we had only been living there for a month. Every single tile, every piece of custom furniture, every piece of art—I had picked them all out with meticulous love. I used to sit on that velvet sofa and dream about us growing old in that space. Now… The fantasy cracked. And finally, my eyes were open. I grabbed the debit card from the nightstand, packed my minimal clothes into a duffel bag, and headed for the door. Just as I stepped out, the private elevator doors parted. Valerie stepped out, her arm wrapped tightly around Beckett’s waist. Six eyes met in the hallway. The air instantly violently flatlined. I was the first to recover. I stepped sideways, giving them a wide berth to pass. We were broken up. It was her penthouse. Who she brought home to screw was her business. I felt absolutely nothing. “Samuel, I knew you were just throwing a fit. I knew you wouldn’t actually leave.” Misreading the duffel bag and my presence, Valerie’s eyes lit up with a sickening flash of relief. She dropped Beckett’s waist, lunging forward to grab my wrist, trying to bury her face against my chest. “Get off me!” My voice was absolute ice. My eyes swept over her with naked disgust. She reeked of that heavy, musky scent. I didn’t even have to guess—they had already slept together in a hotel room before coming back here to shower. The thought of those hands, the same hands that had just been tracing Beckett’s skin, touching me… It made my stomach violently heave. I yanked my arm away. “Still pouting? Beckett agreed to let you have the jewelry. Look, just stop making a scene, okay?” Valerie extended her hand, taking the velvet box Beckett smoothly offered her. She shoved the diamonds—the ones I had poured my soul into designing—against my chest, expecting me to light up with gratitude. I stared down at the blinding stones. Then, I swiped my hand, sending the box clattering violently across the marble floor. “We may have been together for eleven years, Valerie, but clearly, you know nothing about me.” “I don’t do second-hand goods. Not objects. And definitely not people.” I turned to step into the elevator. Suddenly, Beckett lunged, grabbing me by the collar and violently hauling me out of the elevator bay. He dragged me to the door of the adjacent penthouse. He punched in a code, shoving me inside. The layout was identical to the home I had just meticulously designed for Valerie and me. The exact same fixtures. The exact same wallpaper. But hanging on the wall of the foyer was a massive, professionally framed wedding portrait of Valerie and Beckett. During our renovations, I knew the neighbor’s unit was also being gutted, but I had never bothered to look inside. I never knew that, separated by merely six inches of drywall, Valerie had built herself two parallel lives. A biting, terrifying chill seeped into my marrow. I gasped for air, staring at the wedding photos—taken with the exact same photography studio package we had used—and stumbled backward onto the sofa. “What exactly are you playing the victim for, Samuel?” “I am willing to accept you! Why can’t you tolerate me?” “Since we both love her, why can’t we just coexist? She bought both these penthouses, designed them exactly the same—it proves we are completely equal in her heart!” Beckett looked down at me with an expression of bizarre, twisted self-righteousness. He actually pointed around the room, detailing the furniture, the decor, the styling of the photos. “Do you know how much I sacrificed? I told her I wanted a traditional black-tie wedding shoot, but because you liked the vintage aesthetic, she made me compromise.” “When we first got together, she promised me we’d get legally married. But then she said you were better suited as the ‘official’ husband for the press, and she gave the marriage certificate to you. I swallowed my pride and agreed.” “And this building? I fucking hate this neighborhood. But so she could easily walk between our beds, I bit my tongue and moved in. Piece by piece, compromise by compromise—I have been nothing but accommodating to you! Don’t push your luck, Samuel!” As the shock slowly wore off and I could breathe again, I subtly slid my hand into my pocket and hit record on my phone. Listening to his deranged monologue, watching his face—completely devoid of shame, genuinely believing this twisted reality was logical—I had a fleeting moment of vertigo. Was I the crazy one? Were they right? But the fog cleared instantly. Valerie and Beckett were sick. They were morally bankrupt and profoundly broken. They were the monsters. Not me. I pulled my phone out completely, recording a clear, sweeping video of the room and their wedding portraits. “Since you two are so deeply in love, I’m stepping aside. You should be thrilled.” I was much calmer than I expected. I looked at Valerie, and my heart was a completely stagnant pool of water. It was strange. The very second I truly committed to walking away, she morphed into a stranger. And whatever insane, shameless things a stranger did on the street had nothing to do with me. “You are the one choosing to leave! Don’t you dare regret this! Even if you come crawling back on your knees, I won’t take you back! Think very carefully about what you’re doing!” Valerie’s jaw clenched. She hadn’t anticipated that even after Beckett’s “generous” compromises, I would still walk away. She yanked the front door open, gesturing violently for me to get out. I walked past them without a sideways glance. “Tommy! He is no longer my boyfriend. You are forbidden from driving him! Let him walk!” Valerie spat the words through her teeth, her voice trembling with barely suppressed rage.

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When Preston Carmichael’s little sidepiece threatened to kill herself for the umpteenth time, he postponed our wedding. Again. That made nine times in five months. My stomach was so swollen by now that anyone with eyes could see I was carrying his child. This time, I didn’t shrink back. I looked him dead in the eye and asked, “Are we getting married or not?” In my past life, my chronic weakness allowed him to push the date back until it became a cruel joke. It dragged on until my mother, sick with the stress and humiliation of it all, was hospitalized. Desperate, heavily pregnant, I had gone to beg his mistress to leave us be. Instead, she spun a web of lies, claiming I was bullying her to the brink of death. Then, with a calculated shove, she pushed me down a flight of concrete stairs. I lost the baby. I lost my ability to ever become a mother again. And Preston? He didn’t seek justice. He blamed me. He said my own toxicity had killed our child. The grief and rage had been so violently suffocating that it triggered a massive heart attack, stopping my heart right there on the hospital floor. Given a second chance, waking up in this timeline, the fog has completely lifted. I am not going to bury my one, precious life for a monster. … 1 Preston’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing into cold, judgmental slits. “Are you giving me an ultimatum? Susie, do you have any idea what’s at stake here? It’s a matter of life and death. Will you only be satisfied if she actually ends it?” His voice was pure ice, devoid of an ounce of empathy, looking at me as if I were the one committing some unspeakable crime. The hand resting on my belly trembled slightly, but a soft, hollow laugh escaped my throat. “I’m driving her to death? You’ve canceled our wedding nine times, Preston. I think you’re the one trying to kill me.” It was a mirror image of my past life. As my bump grew larger, the vicious whispers in our social circle grew louder. “I bet the kid isn’t even a Carmichael. Why else would he keep delaying? He’s just making a fool out of her.” “That’s what happens when a charity case tries to marry into generational wealth. She thought a pretty face could trap him. Joke’s on her!” My pregnancy had always been high-risk. Back then, the anxiety had eaten me alive, leaving me vomiting until I couldn’t even stand. Yet Preston had never bothered to defend my honor or just sign the damn papers. Instead, he had blamed me for forgetting my pill, for saddling him with “this inconvenience.” Hearing my challenge now, his brow furrowed deeply. He stared at me, his gaze dark and chilling. “You’re blaming me?” His tone was razor-sharp, but as his eyes dropped to my stomach, his expression shifted into a flippant, patronizing smile. “It’s just a party, Susie. Is it really that deep? If it comes down to it, we’ll just throw the wedding after the baby is born. It’s the same difference.” He reached out, carelessly stroking my hair, his tone softening into a faux-gentle cadence. “The girls on the outside are just fleeting distractions. You’re the only one who gets to be Mrs. Carmichael.” The moment the words left his mouth, his phone shattered the silence. Preston instantly pulled his hand away, turning his back on me to rush toward the door. I knew immediately. Madison was threatening to end it all again. Feeling absolutely nothing—no panic, no heartbreak—I called an Uber and headed to the women’s clinic. Right before I went back to the procedure room, I saw Madison’s latest Instagram story. “Never fails! Like I always say, if a man truly loves you, he won’t let you suffer for a single second. I barely scratched my wrist, and he dropped everything to rush to my side.” Under the blinding weight of that contrast, my battered heart still managed a sharp, phantom twinge of pain. I closed my heavy, exhausted eyes and powered off my phone. Two hours later, I was wheeled into recovery, swimming in a numb, anesthetic haze. The nurses, assuming I was still completely under, didn’t bother lowering their voices. “That’s her, right? The society bride whose fiancé postponed nine times?” “It’s her. It was all over Page Six. God, I don’t know why she puts up with it. The guy obviously doesn’t give a damn about her.” They sighed in mutual pity. Suddenly, one of them gasped, pointing toward the pharmacy wing through the glass doors. “Oh my god, look. That’s Preston Carmichael out there picking up meds with some girl. He’s treating her like she’s made of glass.” I forced my eyes open, turning my head. Sure enough, it was Preston. His arm was wrapped protectively around Madison’s waist, whispering sweet nothings to soothe her, acting every bit the devoted partner. I had been five months pregnant. In all that time, he hadn’t accompanied me to a single doctor’s appointment. The nurse noticed I was awake. A flash of profound pity crossed her eyes. “Honey, do you want me to go out there and tell him you’re here?” “No.” My voice was barely a whisper. I closed my eyes and sank back into the dark. I don’t know how much time passed before my phone finally buzzed. 2 Preston had sent ten thousand dollars over Venmo. It was his signature move, his way of buying absolution. Just like years ago, when he claimed he was roofied at a party, cornered me, and assaulted me. His first act of “contrition” was writing a check to cover my entire college tuition. I had sobbed until I choked, telling him I wasn’t something to be bought. Preston had just pulled me into his chest, petting me as a dark, obsessive fire burned in his eyes. “Oh, sweet Susie, of course you aren’t. I’ve been crazy about you for a long time. Once you graduate, I’m going to put a ring on your finger.” He had kept that promise, technically. But putting a ring on my finger never stopped him from treating Manhattan like his personal tasting menu. After a few minutes of radio silence from my end, another text popped up. “Why aren’t you at the penthouse? Where did you go?” My head was spinning from the lingering anesthesia. I didn’t reply. A while later, I discharged myself and took a cab to our shared penthouse. But when the front door swung open, it wasn’t Preston standing there. It was Madison. She was wrapped in my La Perla silk robe, her eyes flashing with a territorial hostility. But the moment Preston’s footsteps echoed from the hallway, her face melted into a mask of trembling innocence. “Susie, I swear I didn’t mean to intrude on your space! I just got caught in the pouring rain, and Preston said I could use the guest shower.” It was such a blatant, pathetic performance. Does rain somehow cause fresh, bruising hickeys along a woman’s collarbone? Noticing my gaze dropping to her neck, Madison pushed her chest out just a fraction, a triumphant gleam in her eye. Before I could even speak, Preston stepped in front of her, physically shielding her like a knight protecting his ward. His face was rigid with defensive anger. “I’m the one who brought her here. If you have a problem, take it out on me—” “Excuse me. I need to pack.” I didn’t let him finish. I breezed right past them into the foyer, not sparing him a single glance. Preston froze, his face dropping into a stunned, ugly scowl. He stepped away from Madison and followed me into the master bedroom. He stood there, watching my silhouette as I quietly folded my clothes into a suitcase. “So you come home and immediately throw a tantrum?” his voice dropped into a menacing, icy register. “Can’t you just let me have one moment of peace?” He pulled out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a drag. When he looked up, I hadn’t paused my packing for even a second. He clenched his jaw, muttering a curse under his breath. “Fine! I’ll call her a car right now, okay? You’re heavily pregnant, what the hell are you doing dragging a suitcase around?” My hands paused. A dry, jagged laugh escaped my lips. He didn’t even notice my stomach was completely flat under my loose sweater. Playing the concerned father was just another act. My eyes stung. There was no baby anymore. Seeing the strange, eerie smile on my face, a flicker of unease crossed his expression. But before he could process it, Madison suddenly burst into the room and threw herself to her knees right in front of me. “Susie, please don’t be mad at Preston! It’s all my fault! If you need to hit someone, hit me!” She grabbed my hand, trying to forcefully slap her own cheek with it. Seeing her degrade herself, Preston barked a sharp command, yanking Madison up from the floor. “Enough! If she wants to leave, let her leave! We’ll see who regrets it tomorrow!” Then, his eyes dropped to Madison’s knee with sickening tenderness. “Did you scrape your knee on the hardwood? Come here, let me put some Neosporin on it.” Madison blushed, shaking her head with a sickly sweet smile. “Oh, that’s not from the floor. That’s from earlier, on the bed…” Panic flashed in Preston’s eyes. He instantly shot a look at me. But I remained perfectly, beautifully hollow. Suddenly, Madison let out a sharp cry of pain, dramatically pulling her arm away. “Preston, you’re holding my wrist too tight!” Preston didn’t even hear her. He was already running out the door, chasing after me. 3 “Susie, where the hell do you think you’re going?” He grabbed my forearm, the veins in his hand bulging with force. I stood perfectly still for two seconds. Then, I looked up and met his gaze with dead eyes. “We’re done, Preston. We never signed the papers, so it’s clean. It’s over.” The blood drained from Preston’s face. He stood paralyzed, as if I had suddenly started speaking a foreign language. “Is this a joke to you? What about the baby?!” His anger flared, and he reached out, instinctively trying to press his hand against my stomach. But in that exact second, Madison dramatically swooned in the hallway, collapsing onto the floor in a heap. The moment Preston whipped his head around to look at her, I slammed the door of my Uber shut and told the driver to step on it. In the rearview mirror, I watched him standing in the driveway, completely frozen. Once I got to my own small apartment, I took pictures of my designer wedding gown and listed it on StillWhite. Then, I sent a mass BCC email to our bridal party and family, stating the wedding was permanently canceled. When it was all done, I let out a long, shaky breath and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Monday morning, I went back to work at the prep school where I taught literature. But the second I stepped onto the campus, I could feel the suffocating weight of staring eyes. “I can’t believe Ms. Montgomery is actually like that. She seemed so normal.” “She grew up dirt poor, and her mom is chronically ill. How do you think she afforded all those designer bags in college? She’s a sugar baby.” “I heard she even got knocked up and had to get rid of it. She’s total trash. No wonder her fiancé keeps leaving her at the altar.” “Honestly, I bet she slept her way into this job, too.” A loud ringing erupted in my ears. White-hot fury spiked through my veins, and I reached for my phone, ready to call the police for harassment and defamation. But before I could, Madison came rushing out from the courtyard, tears streaming beautifully down her face as she pleaded with me. “Ms. Montgomery, please, just give me my necklace back! It was my mother’s sweet sixteen gift to me, and she’s dead! It’s the only thing I have left of her!” Students and faculty began to circle us, their faces twisted in disgust and moral superiority. “Susie, why are you stealing from a young girl? Give it back!” one of my colleagues snapped. “Have some basic human decency. We all know your own mother is in the hospital—you should be praying for some good karma, not stealing!” At those words, a vicious, calculating shadow passed through Madison’s tear-filled eyes. She pulled out her phone, dialing a number. “I’ll just call your mom. I’m sure she’ll understand my pain.” Pure terror gripped me. I lunged forward, snatching the phone from her hand. “My mother is in the ICU! Are you trying to kill her?!” Madison fell backward onto the pavement, sobbing with theatrical despair. The crowd swelled, their whispers turning into shouts. A cold realization washed over me—this was a highly coordinated, premeditated hit to destroy my life. I turned to push my way out of the crowd, but Madison wrapped her arms around my legs, anchoring me to the ground. Suddenly, a furious roar shattered the chaos. A bouquet of expensive white lilies dropped to the concrete as Preston shoved through the crowd, scooping Madison into his arms. He glared at me, his chest heaving with disappointment, his lips trembling with rage. “I actually came here to apologize to you, Susie. But look at you. You are so vicious, so vindictive!” Madison buried her face in his shirt, weeping hysterically. “Susie, please, I’m begging you. It’s my mother’s dying memento.” The crowd’s condemnation crashed over me like a tidal wave. I bit down on my tongue until I tasted copper, turning my back on them to walk away. “This is absolute insanity.” But a split second later, a searing pain shot through my arm. Preston yanked me backward with brutal force, shoving me down so hard my knees slammed into the rough asphalt. He towered over me, barking, “Susie, you don’t want to lose your career over this. I am going to say this one last time. Apologize!” The skin on my knees was scraped raw and burning. With red-rimmed eyes, I looked up at the man I had spent my twenties loving, only to see him look away with cold indifference. The voices around me swelled. Dirty, malicious, degrading. “God, did she really just sleep her way to the top?” “She’s been bad news since high school. Guess the rumors were true.” I suddenly doubled over, my organs twisting into knots, nausea rising in my throat. Preston knew. He knew better than anyone that when I was nineteen, the vicious cyberbullying at my university had driven me to slit my own wrists. He was the one who had found me covered in blood and rushed me to the ER. He was the one who had cleared his schedule for three months, sitting by my bedside, pulling me back from the ledge. And now, just to avenge his bruised ego and placate his mistress, he was leading the mob to crucify me over a lie. I would rather die than confess to something I didn’t do. I lunged forward, sinking my teeth violently into the hand he had clamped down on my shoulder. Preston screamed, violently jerking back. Madison shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me. “Are you an animal?! You almost took a chunk out of his arm! We’re calling the cops!” I tilted my head, spitting a mouthful of his blood onto the pavement. I didn’t say a single word. I simply pushed myself off the ground and walked away. I went home, emailed HR requesting a one-week leave of absence, and collapsed into my bed, letting the darkness take me. 4 I was jolted awake by the relentless ringing of my phone. I shook my heavy head, fully expecting to hear Preston screaming at me. Instead, the first thing he said was, “I think I was a little too rough today. Are you okay? If you’re hurting, go to the hospital. Don’t let your stubborn pride get in the way. The baby’s safety is what matters.” Hearing the word baby, a dry laugh cracked from my throat. There hasn’t been a baby for days. Unwilling to waste another syllable on him, I hung up. I quickly washed my face and took a cab straight to the hospital to check on my mom. But before I even reached her ward, I heard my mother’s frail, desperate sobs echoing down the hallway. “You’re lying! My daughter is a good person! Cough, cough You’re lying!” Every alarm bell in my nervous system went off. I shoved past the nurses and burst into the room. The first thing I saw was my mother crumpled on the linoleum floor, coughing up blood. “Mom!” My vision went red. I rushed over, gathering her frail body into my arms. My mother looked up at me through tear-soaked eyes, her hands trembling as she grabbed my shirt. “Susie… this girl came in… she said you stole her necklace. Tell Mom the truth. You didn’t take it, did you?” My mother had lived a life of quiet, unshakeable integrity. After my father left, she raised me on her own, every single dollar she earned washed in honest sweat. The thought of her beloved daughter being branded a thief was literally breaking her heart. I whipped my head around to look at the architect of this nightmare. Madison stood by the door, arms crossed, a smug, contemptuous smirk playing on her lips. “Do yourself a favor and stop trying to seduce Preston. Take your sick mother and get the hell out of the city. Otherwise, I will make sure neither of you ever find peace.” She let out a scoff, turning on her heel to leave. A high, thin ringing filled my brain. I looked down at the blood staining my hands. She had ruined my career. And now, she was torturing my dying mother. I lunged. I tackled her to the floor, my hands immediately finding her throat. I clamped down, squeezing with every ounce of strength I possessed. Madison’s face turned a violent shade of crimson. Her manicured nails clawed uselessly at my arms, tearing my skin. Suddenly, a massive force ripped me backward, throwing me onto the ground. Preston stood there, his face pale with horror, his hands shaking violently. “Are you insane?! You almost killed her!” In my peripheral vision, my mother lay unconscious on the floor, her life slipping away, while Preston stood over me, fiercely guarding his mistress, terrified I might scratch her again. The dam finally broke. Hot, bitter tears streamed down my face as I screamed from the depths of my soul, “THEN SHE SHOULD DIE!” Smack. The force of his hand across my face sent me crashing sideways onto the hard floor. Preston froze. He looked down at his own trembling hand, a look of profound disbelief washing over his features. He stumbled toward me, his voice breaking into a panicked stutter. “I’m sorry. Susie, God, I’m so sorry. I just saw red, I—” But his voice abruptly died in his throat. Because of the fall, my oversized sweater had ridden up, exposing my bare stomach. It was perfectly flat. In that second, the color completely drained from Preston’s face.

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My boyfriend’s childhood best friend found out I was severely allergic to cilantro, so she secretly poured cilantro extract into every single dish at the dinner party. Almost immediately after taking a bite, a fiery rash exploded across my skin. Panic setting in, I shoved my hand into my pocket, pulled out my small pillbox, and threw a tablet into my mouth. But a second later, the blood drained from my face. The antihistamine—my lifeline—had been swapped out for a strawberry gummy. Seeing my face swell and turn a mottled red, my boyfriend’s best friend erupted into laughter. “Hahaha, surprise! I had Valentine swap them out especially for you!” “You’re such a drama queen. Who actually dies from a little cilantro?” I snapped my head toward my boyfriend, gasping hard, my chest tight. “Valentine,” I wheezed, “if you don’t give me the pills right now, I’m actually going to die!” Valentine just frowned, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. “Do you really have to play the fragile little princess all the time? I’ve never heard of anyone dying from a damn herb.” “Chloe is right. You’re just putting on a show. It’s pathetic.” I realized then that arguing was useless. With trembling fingers, I reached for the panic button hidden in my necklace and pressed it hard. 1 Valentine caught the movement. His eyes narrowed slightly. “What did you just press? Don’t tell me you’re calling the cops over a stupid prank.” He reached out and yanked the small bear pendant right off my neck. He inspected it for a moment, turning it over in his hand. Finding nothing obviously electronic about it, he scoffed, tossed it onto the floor, and crushed it under his heel. I reached out, trying to grab the broken pieces, but my throat was already closing up. My movements were becoming sluggish, heavy. “I’m having an anaphylactic reaction,” I gasped out, my voice raspy. “Please. Give me the medicine.” Chloe crossed her arms, watching me with an amused smirk, completely unbothered. “Are you really in that much pain, Lady Stacey? Or are you just trying to steal Valentine’s attention again?” “I mean, it’s one thing when you make up excuses to monopolize him on a normal day, but today is his birthday. Could you stop being such a buzzkill for five minutes?” It felt like invisible hands were wrapping tightly around my windpipe. I stared at Chloe, entirely helpless. She and Valentine had grown up together. They always played the “we’re basically siblings” card. Whenever I expressed even a hint of insecurity, Valentine was quick to shut it down. “She’s just like a little sister to me, Stacey. If there was ever going to be anything between us, it would have happened years ago.” And Chloe would chime in, playing the perfect tomboy best friend, to prove how platonic they were. “Honestly, only a saint like you would put up with a dense, unromantic guy like Valentine.” Like a fool, I believed them. I genuinely thought it was just a pure, lifelong friendship. But slowly, the cracks started to show. At every group hangout, whenever I tried to talk to Valentine, she would accidentally-on-purpose interrupt. Then, she would pivot the conversation to some inside joke, some shared memory only the two of them understood, effectively shutting me out. I would just sit there in silence, unable to get a word in edgewise. And right on cue, she would throw me a bone—laced with poison. “Oh no, Stacey, you aren’t mad that Valentine and I are having fun, are you?” “Girl, we practically shared a crib. You can’t be this insecure, can you?” When the hostility became too obvious to ignore, I tried bringing it up to Valentine. He just laughed and called me paranoid. And now, that hostility wasn’t just obvious; it was weaponized. She was wearing her malice like a badge of honor. “No tiara, but all the princess syndrome. Does it physically hurt you if Valentine doesn’t revolve his entire universe around you for one day?” “So now you’re faking a severe allergy just to get him to pity you?” A few of Valentine’s friends chuckled, the sound ugly and mocking in the private dining room. “I really am allergic to cilantro,” I forced out, my voice tearing into a raw, desperate scream. “Give me the medicine!” The room fell silent for a single heartbeat. Then, a wave of uproarious, mocking laughter crashed over me. Among all the jeers, Chloe’s voice was the loudest, dripping with pure venom. “Hahaha, you’re really committing to the bit, aren’t you? This performance belongs in an acting masterclass!” “Valentine, don’t tell me you’re actually falling for this?” Before Valentine could even open his mouth, his frat brothers chimed in. “Oh man, if you start babying her now, you’re doomed for life!” “Bro, you aren’t really whipped by this drama queen, are you? You can’t indulge this kind of toxic behavior!” Spurred on by his friends’ taunts, any hesitation Valentine might have felt vanished completely. He tilted his head back, looking down his nose at me. “Who says I’m babying her? Frankly, I think we let her off too easy.” He lightly nudged my leg with his foot. “Drop the act, Stacey. Seriously. One more second of this and I’m actually going to be pissed.” When I didn’t—couldn’t—respond, a flicker of doubt finally crossed his face. He started to lean forward, but Chloe immediately grabbed his arm. “I told you she was a good actress. You almost bought it! Who turns purple from an allergy anyway?” I struggled to lift my head, forcing the words through a throat that felt like it was packed with wet sand. “The pills… please…” Before I could finish, Chloe shoved my head back down. She slapped my cheek—hard, twice. My face, already swollen, burned a violent red. “Is this what you want?” She pulled a small, familiar plastic bottle from her pocket, tipped the little white pills into her palm, and tossed them lightly in the air, taunting me. My eyes tracked the pills like they were my only salvation. “Give them… to me…” My breathing was shallow and erratic. I used every ounce of strength I had left to reach for her hand. But just as my fingers grazed the plastic, Chloe snatched her hand back and danced out of reach. I collapsed sideways onto the leather sofa. My vision blurred, but I could still see clearly enough to watch Chloe dump every single pill into a dirty ashtray on the coffee table. Then, she poured half a glass of stale beer over them. The pristine white pills dissolved into a muddy, toxic sludge, dark bubbles clinging to the edge of the glass. My stomach heaved, and I dry-heaved, the violent motion tearing at my swollen throat. 2 “Oh, look at that! She still knows how to act disgusted. Doesn’t look like an allergic reaction to me!” Chloe glared at me, her face twisting with impatience. Valentine’s expression darkened, his eyes reflecting pure irritation. “Stacey, enough! Can you just stop making a scene and let me have one normal birthday?” One of Chloe’s friends rolled her eyes, groaning. “Seriously, we used to pull this kind of stunt in middle school. Can’t you come up with some new material?” My entire body began to convulse. Every breath I fought for felt like swallowing broken glass. “I’m not… I’m really… allergic…” I prayed, silently screaming for someone, anyone in that room to help me. But no one moved. Chloe grabbed Valentine’s arm and pulled him toward the lounge area on the other side of the room. “Just ignore her. Let’s go cut the cake. Once she realizes she doesn’t have an audience, she’ll magically recover.” Valentine sliced the cake. And then, whether by accident or entirely on purpose, the slice slipped from Chloe’s hand. A massive dollop of frosting landed squarely on her chest. The room erupted into catcalls and whistles. “Chloe! Giving us a free show for dessert?” “Don’t waste napkins, let Valentine clean it up!” “That’s not a punishment, that’s a reward! Hahaha!” “Wait, won’t Valentine’s little girlfriend get jealous?” “Nah, she’s too busy pretending to die. She won’t even notice!” They laughed, a chorus of cruel, careless sound. My vision was tunneling, the edges going dark. But through the blur, I saw Valentine shoot a glance in my direction. Then, he lowered his head toward Chloe’s chest. Amidst the roaring cheers, I watched their silhouettes merge. It felt like a million fire ants were marching through my veins. Every inch of my skin felt pierced by hot needles. I clawed at the sofa, trying to drag myself toward the door, but the moment I lifted my head, the last of my strength evaporated. Just as despair threatened to swallow me whole, a memory flashed: A few days ago, one of the pills had slipped out of the box and fallen into the lining of my jacket pocket. I scrambled frantically, my numb fingers digging into the fabric. When my fingertip brushed against the chalky surface of the pill, my breath caught. I clamped my hand around it, slowly drawing it out of my pocket. As I brought it toward my lips, my heart pounded so hard I thought it might crack my ribs. I was going to live. But my hand was shaking violently. My grip slipped. The little white pill bounced off my collarbone and rolled onto the floor. I dove for it, but a designer heel slammed down before I could reach it. Chloe pivoted on her toe, grinding her heel directly into my swollen, sausage-like fingers. The pain was blinding. I didn’t even have the breath left to scream. Why? Why was she doing this to me? Chloe crouched down, bringing her face level with mine. “Word is, your family is pretty loaded. And you’re an only child. Say you happened to tragically pass away tonight… wouldn’t your grieving parents eventually leave everything to your devoted, heartbroken fiancé?” “And then, if I just so happened to marry your fiancé… wouldn’t all that money end up with me?” A white-hot rage flared in my chest. I wanted to kill her. She wasn’t pulling a prank. She had fully intended for me to die. But her twisted little fantasy was flawed. Yes, I was my parents’ only child, but the Scott Group was a massive corporate empire with branches run by extended family. Even if I died, another Scott heir would step up. She wouldn’t see a dime. My eyes practically burned with fury. But to Chloe, my anger just looked pathetic. She smiled—a slow, terrifying smirk that belonged on a demon. “You’re really hard to kill, aren’t you? Let me help you along.” 3 Chloe reached for me. Her cold fingers clamped around my throat, applying pressure. Maybe it was the sheer terror of death closing in, but a sudden, primal surge of adrenaline flooded my system. I roared with everything I had left: “Get off! GET OFF!” Pushing off the sofa, I lurched upwards, swaying wildly. The commotion wasn’t loud, but it was enough to make Valentine turn his head. “What’s going on?” Chloe shot me a venomous glare and quickly dropped her hands. Losing my balance, I slumped heavily against her. She gave a sickly sweet smile and suddenly threw herself backward. My dead weight carried us both down, and I crashed on top of her. Chloe shoved me off violently. “Look at all that energy! I thought you were dying of anaphylaxis? You’re not even trying to make this believable anymore!” My forehead slammed directly into the sharp bottom edge of the glass coffee table. A welt the size of a golf ball formed instantly. Valentine walked over and stood above me. He looked down, his eyes filled with absolute disappointment. “Stacey, when does this end? My patience has a limit.” But as he took in the greenish, mottled hue of my face, a tiny sliver of unease flickered in his eyes. He started to bend down to help me up, but Chloe snatched his hand. “Valentine! Are you an idiot? She’s playing you!” “If she’s actually having an allergic reaction, I will chop my head off and let you kick it like a soccer ball.” Valentine still hesitated. “But… she looks like she’s in a lot of pain. Maybe we should just give her the medicine.” Chloe clapped her hands together like she had just heard the funniest joke in the world. “Wait, you actually believed her? Hahaha, we were just messing around!” She grabbed my arm and shook me like a ragdoll. “Look at her face! Red one minute, green the next. She’s really putting her back into this performance.” “Oh, right! Earlier Stacey said she was thirsty. That’s probably why she looks so faint.” The tension immediately drained from Valentine’s face. “Just thirsty? Well, that makes sense.” He quickly grabbed a glass of ice water from the table. As the freezing glass touched my lips, I shook my head frantically. My throat was swollen shut, feeling like it was packed tightly with cotton. Even a microscopic movement caused agonizing pain. Valentine’s hand hovered in the air, a shadow of doubt crossing his face again. “See? She’s faking again!” Chloe snatched the glass from his hand. “Valentine, you don’t understand girls. When they play hard to get, it means they want you to force them.” She pinched my jaw, her knuckles white, her fingernails digging deep into my swollen skin. Freezing water and crushed ice poured violently down my throat. I choked, a brutal, racking cough tearing out of me. The water spilled down my chin and into my collar, the sudden cold raising a fresh wave of angry red hives across my chest. Chloe just laughed harder. “Look at her! Doesn’t she look much more energetic after some water?” My vision went completely black at the edges. I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms that they broke the skin. But Valentine just smiled and nodded. “Yeah, much better. Guess she was just dehydrated.” He turned to walk back to the party, but I clamped my hand around his pant leg, gripping the fabric like a vise. I forced my eyelids open, using the absolute last dregs of my strength to push the broken syllables past my lips: “Help… me… I am… the heir… to the Scott… Group…” He looked down at me like I was a circus animal performing a trick. He let out a sharp, derisive snort. “The Scott heir? Why don’t you just tell us you’re the Queen of England while you’re at it?” The laughter in the room hit a deafening crescendo. Someone banged their fist on the table. “Man, she is really committing to the role! Should we get her an Oscar for this soap opera?” Another voice chimed in: “With how pathetic she looks, the only thing she’s inheriting is a cardboard box under a bridge!” Chloe was laughing so hard she was bent double. Suddenly, she grabbed a handful of my sweat-drenched hair and slammed my head toward the table leg. “Still pretending to be a billionaire heiress? I’ll let you inherit this table leg!” My wounded forehead cracked against the solid wood. Blood mixed with cold sweat, running into my eyes, burning like acid. “Say it! Tell us again about your fake inheritance!” She yanked my hair again, throwing me face-first onto the floor. My face smashed into the discarded cake scraps. Buttercream and blood smeared across my cheeks. Valentine stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his voice light and unbothered. “Take it easy, Chloe. Don’t actually leave a mark.” He didn’t sound worried about me. He sounded worried that his favorite toy was going to break too soon. I felt the oxygen being slowly, agonizingly vacuumed from my lungs. It felt like I had swallowed a burning coal that was lodged permanently in my windpipe. Every breath tasted like rust. Chloe’s manic grin, Valentine’s cold indifference, the roaring laughter of the crowd. They swirled in my fading consciousness like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from. I stared up at the warm, amber lighting of the private room, but the light felt millions of miles away. I felt untethered, like my soul was slowly peeling away from my broken body, drifting upward toward the ceiling. Just as my eyes slipped shut, a familiar, thunderous voice shattered the noise. “STACEY!” A second later, the heavy oak doors of the private room burst open, and blinding light from the hallway flooded in.

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On a community forum I frequented, a girl posted a listing: “One mature, steady Golden Retriever.” “Unable to keep him due to personal reasons.” “Any ladies interested, DM me. First come, first served!” Knowing how much my husband loved Golden Retrievers, I immediately sent her a private message. The next day, I showed up at the address she gave me. I had barely knocked when the door clicked and swung open a crack. A man wearing a plush Golden Retriever mask was on his hands and knees. He nudged his head affectionately against the girl’s hand, rubbing his face into her palm. “Stacey, I’m your dog. Only yours. You can’t give me away.” “I’m not married. That marriage certificate is a fake.” The girl whimpered softly, looking incredibly wronged. “What does it matter if the certificate is fake?” “You’ll still live with her. You’ll have children together.” The man’s face tightened with panic. He hurriedly reached up to wipe away her tears. “I slipped her something. She can’t have kids.” “As soon as my company goes public, I’ll leave her.” The girl’s tears vanished, replaced by a radiant smile. She mentioned hearing my knock and urged him to open the door fully. When the door swung wide, I froze. My husband was playing dog for another woman. 1 The air went deathly quiet. A flash of shock and sheer panic seized Carter’s face. He lunged to slam the door, but I grabbed the handle, my knuckles turning white. “Carter, you…” I stared at him, my vision tunneling. Before I could finish, the girl stepped into the entryway. “You must be the lady who messaged yesterday about picking up the dog.” “I am so sorry about this.” “My boyfriend and I had a fight. The Golden Retriever I posted about… is actually him.” She looked at me, her expression practically dripping with apologetic sweetness. “We made up today. I completely forgot to tell you not to come.” My gaze darted back and forth between Carter and the girl. My mind was a screaming blank. I couldn’t process a single word she was saying. I opened my mouth, desperate to form a sound, but Carter shot me a warning glare that cut me to the bone. Seeing me speechless, the girl playfully punched Carter in the chest. “This is all your fault. You made this poor woman come all the way out here for nothing.” Carter soaked up her touch like a sponge. He immediately wrapped his arms around her waist, his voice dripping with indulgent affection. “Stacey, you’re right. It’s all my fault.” “Punish me however you want, but please, don’t give me away.” “I’m your dog. I only answer to you.” I snapped back to reality, a plastic, strained smile stretching across my face. Stacey unclipped a slender silk scarf from her handbag and held it out to me. “Here, to make up for the trouble, take this.” Before I could react, she took a step forward and deftly looped the fabric around my neck. “It’s a Hermes Twilly.” “We went out on December 3rd and my boyfriend was late, so he bought this for me to hit the quota for a bag.” I stopped breathing. The silk was cool against my skin, but my neck burned as if scorched by an iron. December 3rd was my birthday. Carter had been out of state, supposedly drowning in meetings for the IPO. He had offered to fly back just to celebrate with me, but, worried about him taking a red-eye flight, I had told him: “You’re working too hard, honey. We can celebrate when you get back.” Right after we hung up, a small silk scarf had been delivered to our apartment. The exact same scarf now tied around my neck. I had held that little piece of silk like it was a holy relic. I stared at it until my eyes blurred, terrified of ruining it. I had silently vowed, right then and there, to do whatever it took to help him get his company off the ground. Only now did I realize that the gift I cherished like a treasure was nothing more than a leftover consolation prize he had bought for his mistress. Before I could find my voice, Stacey chimed in with breathless enthusiasm. “You must be a massive dog lover to drive all the way out here.” “My boyfriend loves dogs too. Golden Retrievers are his favorite.” “If you ever find a real one, you have to send me a picture!” My face felt entirely drained of blood. Carter cleared his throat softly. “She came a long way. It wasn’t an easy drive.” “It’s getting late. We should let her head home.” Stacey gave a theatrical, exaggerated pout. “Fine, fine. Whatever you say.” “You men are so clueless. You don’t understand girls at all. You’re so annoying!” As she pushed the door shut, Stacey leaned up and planted a quick, echoing kiss on Carter’s cheek. Listening to their muffled laughter from behind the closed door, my gaze dropped to my stomach. Tears finally breached the dam, blurring my vision. No wonder we hadn’t been able to conceive all these years. I pulled the IPO application files out of my tote bag. I stared at the thick stack of paper. For months, I had been quietly working behind the scenes, untangling the legal red tape for his company. This final application was all that was left. It was supposed to be my grand surprise for him. But now, there was no point. I tore the documents down the middle, again and again, until my hands ached, and shoved the pieces into a nearby trash can. As I walked out of her apartment complex, my phone buzzed. A text from Carter. [Wait for me. Let’s go home together. I’ll explain everything.] 2 I didn’t reply. He fired off three more texts in rapid succession. I powered off my phone. When I finally got back to our apartment, I turned it back on. A notification popped up immediately. [‘Golden Retriever Breeder’ has followed you back.] It was Stacey. She had followed my social media account. We had been together for eight years. Married for six. Driven by a morbid, masochistic curiosity, I tapped into her profile. [May 20, 2021: Met my absolute crush today. Should I make the first move?] [May 20, 2022: Finally dating my crush! I went for it, and I got him.] [May 20, 2023: One-year anniversary! He got me a Hermes bag. Beyond happy!] May 20th. Our wedding anniversary. It was also the day Carter started his relationship with another woman. The dates burned my eyes. I realized, with a sickening jolt, that we hadn’t actually celebrated our anniversary in years. On May 20, 2021, Carter was in the early, desperate stages of his startup. I had attended a grueling dinner with potential investors on his behalf, drinking until I vomited blood and ended up in the ER with a gastric hemorrhage. On May 20, 2022, I worked a double shift to cover our rent. Walking home in the dark, I was harassed by two men and narrowly escaped being assaulted. When I called Carter, trembling and terrified, he told me he was busy and hastily hung up. On May 20, 2023, he finally promised we’d have time to celebrate. I waited up until past midnight. I got a phone call instead of a husband. I ordered a plain bowl of noodles and ate it alone at the kitchen counter to ring in our third anniversary. And the years after that… 2024, 2025… I barely even remembered them. Six years of marriage. Five years of infidelity. A wave of sheer, suffocating despair crashed over me, pulling me under. Late that night, Carter finally came home. Seeing me sitting barefoot on the hardwood floor, his brow furrowed in that familiar, protective way. He scooped me into his arms. “You’re going to catch a cold sitting on the floor like this.” “Chloe, you’re doing this just to make me worry, aren’t you?” Tears spilling down my cheeks, I shoved him away with all my strength. “Stop acting. Do you really give a damn about me?” “Drugging me. Cheating on me for five out of our six years of marriage.” “That was all you, wasn’t it?” “Oh, wait. We aren’t even married, are we?” Huge, heavy tears dropped from my face, splashing onto the wood. It felt like someone was physically tearing my heart in two. Carter lunged forward and grabbed me in a tight embrace. “Chloe, calm down. It’s not what you think.” “My future was so uncertain back then. I didn’t want you gambling your life on me. I didn’t want to trap you in a marriage.” “As for Stacey… once the company goes public, I promise I’ll give you a proper explanation.” My control shattered. Ignoring the sharp, twisting pain flaring in my stomach, I screamed at him. “Do you think I’m that pathetic?” Carter’s face darkened with anger. He opened his mouth to snap back, but his phone started ringing frantically. He answered it. Stacey’s shrill, furious voice echoed from the speaker. “Carter, are you with that old woman right now?” “I knew you were lying to me earlier.” Carter looked momentarily annoyed, but his voice instantly dropped into a soft, coaxing purr. “I’m not with her.” “I’m out taking care of some business. I’ll be right back.” Listening to him lie so effortlessly, a bitter, breathless laugh escaped my lips. Five years. Countless days and nights. This was exactly how he had been lying to me. Stacey’s voice spiked in volume. “That old hag is right there next to you!” “Carter, you’re still lying to me!” Carter froze, realizing what she meant. His voice turned ice-cold. “How do you know that?” Stacey broke into dramatic, heaving sobs. “You installed spyware on my phone to make me feel ‘secure,’ remember?!” “And now you’re mad at me!” She sounded like she was on the verge of a total breakdown. “Carter, I trusted you! How could you lie to me?” “You come back here right now, or I swear to God, I’ll jump off the balcony!” Right at that moment, a cold sweat broke out across my body. The pain in my stomach exploded into agony. My legs gave out, and I crumpled to the floor. Carter caught me just in time. His face was a mask of sheer panic and conflict. “Stacey, Chloe just collapsed.” “I think she’s really sick…” Before he could finish, a photo came through. Stacey, sitting precariously on the ledge of a high-rise window. “Carter, if you aren’t here in five minutes, I’m jumping.” Carter bolted for the door. Just before I lost consciousness, I heard him say: “Chloe, call an ambulance.” “I know Stacey. If she doesn’t see me, she’ll actually do it.” 3 When I opened my eyes again, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room blinded me. I forced myself to sit up, my mouth dry as dust. “Where’s my laptop bag?” The doctor standing near the bed sighed in exasperation. “You young people treat your bodies like garbage.” “You nearly went into hypovolemic shock from a severe gastric bleed, and the first thing you ask about is work?” His words dragged me fully back to reality. I used to work myself to the bone just to ease Carter’s burdens. Now… now it all felt like a sick, twisted joke I had played on myself. The doctor gave me a few stern instructions and left the room. As the door swung shut, I caught the hushed gossip of two nurses passing by in the hallway. “It’s crazy how different patients get treated.” “The girl in Room 3 with the stomach bleed? She almost died.” “When we called her husband, he actually told us gastric bleeding only happens from binge drinking and told her to stop faking it.” “But that young girl in the VIP suite? She just scraped her knee.” “Her boyfriend completely lost his mind. Demanded a consultation from every department head in the building.” “I heard he’s the CEO of the Carter Group.” “God, she’s so lucky. That’s the kind of man you want to marry.” I rolled over, curling into a tight ball, clutching my aching chest. The man who had brought me stomach medicine yesterday, gently scolding me to eat on time. Today, he was the hospital’s shining example of a perfect, devoted partner to someone else. Carter. You made my entire existence feel like a punchline. Before I could dwell on it, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. “Did you start those rumors online about Stacey being a homewrecker?” “Her DMs are flooded with death threats.” “She’s just a young girl, Chloe. She can’t handle this kind of abuse.” “You’ve gone too far this time.” The interrogation hit me like a physical blow. Carter’s rage was palpable through the speaker. Cheated on for years. Robbed of my ability to have children. And now, branded a cyberbully. I couldn’t stop myself from defending what little dignity I had left. “Carter, I wouldn’t waste my time doing something like that.” “If you don’t believe me, hire someone to trace the IP address.” He let out a harsh, dismissive scoff. “The truth doesn’t matter anymore.” “Stacey is hysterical. You need to apologize to her, publicly.” My voice shook. “Why the hell should I?” Tears slipped silently onto my pillow. A memory flashed in my mind—Carter at twenty years old. We were so broke back then. Working back-to-back shifts just to survive. Once, my boss at the convenience store grabbed me inappropriately. When I told Carter, he didn’t say a word. He just marched down to the store and laid the guy out with two punches. He ended up in a holding cell that night. But when I visited him, he wasn’t scared. He just cupped my face through the bars and said so softly: “Chloe, don’t cry. It’ll be okay.” “I swear, I will always protect you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” Eight years. In just eight short years, the boy who swore to protect me had become the man destroying me. Carter laughed, a cold, empty sound. “Fine. Don’t apologize.” “But it’s going to be a real shame when all of your sister’s academic research mysteriously goes up in smoke.” A wave of pure, paralyzing terror washed over me. Every breath felt like inhaling glass. “Mia and I only have each other. You know she has Asperger’s.” “Her biology research is her entire world. If you ruin that, you ruin her life.” Carter’s voice was utterly devoid of emotion. “Whether Mia is hailed as a brilliant young scholar or exposed as an ‘academic fraud’ who slept her way to the top… that’s entirely up to you.” “Make your choice, Chloe.” I choked back a sob, my nails digging into my palms until they bled. “I’ll apologize.” 4 Following Carter’s orders, I walked into Stacey’s VIP suite. It was massive—a full bedroom and a sprawling lounge area. The lounge was packed wall-to-wall with reporters, their camera lenses trained like weapons. Carter pulled me aside, his grip bruising my arm. His eyes were dark with warning. “Apologize properly. Once Stacey forgives you, this all goes away.” I looked up at him, my vision swimming with tears. “How exactly do you want me to apologize so that ‘Miss Stacey’ is satisfied?” “Do I say I made it all up? Or do I admit that I am the actual mistress?” A flicker of hesitation—maybe even guilt—crossed Carter’s face. “You don’t have to call yourself a mistress. That’s a bit…” Stacey strolled into the lounge, cutting him off effortlessly. “Of course she has to admit she’s the mistress. I want her to know exactly how it feels.” She didn’t look remotely surprised to see me. She practically melted into Carter’s side. “Carter, I need her to admit she’s the other woman. It’s the only way I’ll feel better.” “Otherwise…” She didn’t finish the threat, but Carter’s posture instantly went rigid. His face hardened into stone. “Do what Stacey says.” The reporters readied their mics. The live streams were up. Thousands of people were pouring into the feeds. Standing in the center of that room, under the glare of the ring lights, I felt myself free-falling into an abyss. I opened my mouth. “Hello, everyone. I am the person who spread the malicious rumors about Miss Stacey being a homewrecker.” “I am here to apologize to Miss Stacey.” “I apologize for being with a man for six years, only to be cheated on for five. I apologize for being handed a fake marriage certificate. And I apologize for letting a monster secretly drug me until I was permanently infertile.” Chaos erupted. The live stream chats exploded with hashtags: #[StaceyHomewrecker], #[StaceyApologize]. Stacey’s phone began pinging incessantly, a relentless barrage of incoming hate. Carter Group’s stock price immediately began to tank in real-time. Carter scrambled, screaming at the media to cut the feeds. He turned to me, his teeth bared like a cornered animal. “Chloe, are you really forcing my hand?” A second later, my phone rang. It was Mia. She was sobbing hysterically. “Chloe, everyone at school is looking at me weird.” “They’re calling me a fraud. They’re saying I slept with the professors to get my papers published.” “Why are they saying that, Chloe?” “Did I do something wrong? Did I make them mad?” “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” I could hear the sickening thud, thud, thud of Mia hitting herself in the head. Every strike felt like a sledgehammer to my own skull. Mia’s world consisted of two things: her biology research, and me. If they took her research, she wouldn’t survive it. I hadn’t expected Carter to pull the trigger so fast. “Mia, sweetie, listen to me. They’re just jealous of how smart you are. I’m going to fix this right now, okay?” I fought to keep my voice steady, bolting toward the hospital doors as I spoke. But before I even made it to the lobby, Carter’s security team intercepted me. They dragged me backward, locking my arms behind my back. As the minutes ticked by, I felt the true, chilling extent of Carter’s cruelty. “Carter, I’m sorry. Please, let my sister go.” “I’ll go back out there right now. I’ll say I’m the mistress.” He let out a harsh, breathless laugh. “Five minutes. You cost my company millions in five minutes.” “If you want to apologize now, you have to tell them you suffer from severe schizophrenia.” “I think you know exactly what story to tell to make the internet believe you.” I knew exactly what he meant. It was my deepest, most agonizing scar. I had only ever told one person in my entire life. Carter. And now, he was taking that secret, sharpening it into a blade, and plunging it into my chest. My entire body shook violently. My fingernails bit into my palms, slick with my own blood. “I know.” In the center of the lounge, the cameras were back on. “Hello everyone. I am Chloe. I am an employee of the Carter Group, and I am the one who fabricated the rumors about Miss Stacey.” “I confess that everything I said about her was a lie.” “When I was a child, I was sexually assaulted by my cousin. It caused me to develop severe schizophrenia. Mr. Carter saved my life once.” “I fell in love with him. Because my feelings were unrequited, I grew insanely jealous of Miss Stacey and tried to ruin her reputation.” “I sincerely apologize to Mr. Carter and Miss Stacey.” I forced every word out of my throat. Within a minute, the narrative flipped. The internet rallied, branding me a delusional, ungrateful psychopath. And worse—someone leaked Mia’s condition. The mob demanded a full investigation into the “mentally ill” sister’s academic credentials. I used every ounce of strength I had left to dial Carter’s number, but it rang out. I needed him to retract the fake evidence against Mia, but his and Stacey’s suite was heavily guarded. No one was allowed in. His voice drifted through the heavy wooden door. “You can leave when Stacey decides she’s ready to forgive you.” The guards forced me to my knees in the hallway. Finally, someone picked up my phone. “Are you the next of kin for the deceased? Please come down to the precinct to identify the body.” The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the floor. The voice on the other end kept talking, but I couldn’t hear the words anymore. I threw my entire body weight forward, violently breaking free from the guard’s grip. I sprinted toward the window at the end of the corridor. And I jumped. Carter. In this life or the next, I hope to God I never see your face again.

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My husband didn’t ask for my permission. He just took it—a vial of my blood, stolen while I slept, to see if I was a match for his “One Who Got Away.” That night, he came home practically vibrating with a manic sort of joy. He pulled me into a crushing hug, his breath smelling of expensive scotch and desperation. “Elena, it’s a miracle. You’re a perfect match. You can save Serena. You can give her the bone marrow she needs.” I looked into Miles’s eyes, searching for a flicker of the man I thought I’d married three years ago. All I saw was a stranger obsessed with a ghost from his past. I placed a hand on my stomach and whispered, “Miles, I’m pregnant.” His expression didn’t even soften. “We can have another baby later,” he said, his voice dropping into that smooth, manipulative register he used when he wanted a deal closed. “But if Serena misses this window, she’s gone. She’ll never recover.” He gripped my shoulders, his fingers digging in. “Elena, if you ever truly loved me, don’t make me live the rest of my life with this regret. Don’t let her die.” I looked at him for a long beat, the silence stretching between us like a physical chasm. Finally, I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.” ………… “Have you lost your mind? You’re seven months along, Elena. You’re talking about terminating a third-trimester pregnancy for a transplant?” Dr. Joanna Miller slammed her water glass onto the mahogany desk, the sharp crack echoing through the sterile private clinic. Joanna had been my mother’s best friend for decades; she’d seen me through every scraped knee and every heartbreak. Now, she looked at me with a mixture of terror and fury. “This isn’t just irresponsible to the baby,” she hissed, her eyes bright with tears. “It’s a death wish for you. You’ve always had a delicate system. An induction this late? You’re looking at permanent infertility, or worse. Hemorrhage, sepsis—the risks are astronomical.” I sat on the edge of the examination table, my fingers tracing the hem of my maternity top. I felt hollow, as if the soul had already left the room. “I don’t want the baby anymore, Joanna. Just… please. Help me end it.” Joanna slumped into her chair, her face aging a decade in seconds. She didn’t say another word; she just picked up the phone and dialed my mother. A moment later, the door swung open. Miles marched in, checking his Rolex with an air of clinical impatience. “Are we done yet? How long does a simple procedure take? Serena’s vitals are dipping. She needs that marrow yesterday.” Joanna’s head snapped up. She took in Miles’s expensive suit and his callous expression, and the pieces clicked together. “Elena, tell me you aren’t doing this for her,” she whispered. “Tell me you aren’t sacrificing your child for his mistress.” I kept my head down, staring at my shoes. Miles let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to perform the surgery or not, Doctor? If you’re too ‘emotional’ for the job, stop wasting our time. There are plenty of other clinics in the city.” “I will not be a party to this butchery,” Joanna said, her voice trembling with cold rage. “Fine. Expect a formal complaint for patient abandonment,” Miles snapped. He turned on his heel and stormed out. As the door swung, I saw the faces in the waiting room. They had heard the shouting. I saw the way they looked at Miles—pure, unadulterated disgust. Then they looked at me, and their pity felt like acid on my skin. One older woman even stepped forward as Miles disappeared down the hall. “Honey,” she whispered, leaning into the room. “Don’t do this. That man… he isn’t worth the dirt on your boots.” “Is it true?” another woman chimed in from the hallway. “You’re giving up your child for his ex? That’s not love, sweetie. That’s… well, it’s pathetic.” I swallowed hard, my voice a mere ghost. “You don’t understand him. He’s just… stressed.” Joanna stood up and slammed the door shut, cutting off the whispers. She grabbed my shoulders, checking my arms, my neck, her eyes searching for bruises. “Elena, look at me. Is he hurting you? Is he blackmailing you? I will call the police right now.” I shook my head, a small, jagged smile playing on my lips. “I just want him to be happy, Joanna. If he’s happy, nothing else matters.” Before I could finish the lie, a sharp, stinging pain erupted across my shoulders. I spun around. My mother, Katherine, was standing there in her wheelchair, her face a mask of grief and fury. She was gripping her cane, her knuckles white. She swung it again, hitting my arm with a desperate, clumsy force. “I’ll kill you myself!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “I’ll kill you before I let you be this foolish! You disgraceful, spineless girl!” I stood there and took it. I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I was an only child. Three years ago, my parents were involved in a horrific car accident while scouting a new location for our family’s textile empire. My mother lost the use of her legs. My father ended up in the ICU, clinging to life by a thread. On his deathbed, Miles had proposed to me. He had knelt by the beeping monitors and sworn to my father that he would take my name, protect our legacy, and care for my mother until her last breath. My father, moved to tears, changed his will. The company went to Miles and me. My mother was left with the real estate, but she didn’t care. She just wanted me to be loved. She wanted a grandchild to fill the silence of the house my father left behind. And today, I was destroying everything she lived for. “Get on your knees,” my mother sobbed. I sank to the floor. She cupped my face with her trembling hands, her tears falling onto my cheeks. “Why, Elena? If he has something on you, tell me. I’ll give him everything. I’ll give him every house, every cent, just tell me the truth. Don’t do this.” “Mom,” I whispered, my heart feeling like it was being squeezed by hot pliers. “I just love him. I’d do anything for him.” Her hand came down across my face—a sharp, ringing slap. Miles burst back into the room then, grabbing my arm and yanking me up. He stepped between us, shielding me from my mother. “Katherine, enough! You’ll bruise the donor site. She has a procedure to get to.” My mother looked like she was having a heart attack. Her finger shook as she pointed at him. “You think we don’t know? Everyone knows you’ve been sneaking around with Serena Vance for months. But I never thought you were a monster, Miles. This is your child. Your son.” Miles’s face darkened, turning into a mask of cold arrogance. “Katherine, Serena and I are friends. If you keep spreading these sordid rumors, you’re only embarrassing your daughter. Not me.” He looked at me then, a flicker of triumph in his eyes. He knew he had me. He had always known. I was the rich girl who had chased him, the “trophy husband” from the wrong side of the tracks. I had spent our entire marriage trying to prove I wasn’t looking down on him, and in doing so, I’d given him the whip to lash me with. “Elena,” my mother begged, grabbing my hand. “Leave him. Divorce him. Have this baby. He can have the Lynn name, he can be our legacy. Just don’t do this.” I pulled my hand away slowly. “I’m an adult, Mom. Let me make my own choices. If you keep pushing me… I’ll have to cut you out of my life.” The color drained from her face. She looked like she had aged twenty years in a heartbeat. Just then, my mother-in-law arrived. She didn’t even look at me; she just grabbed the handles of my mother’s wheelchair and started pushing her toward the exit. “Oh, hush now, Katherine. They can have another one. A baby is just a baby. I had four miscarriages and three abortions trying to get a boy before Miles came along. It’s no big deal.” “Stop! Let go of me!” my mother screamed. In her desperation, she tried to hurl herself out of the moving wheelchair. She hit the floor hard, her cane skittering across the linoleum. Her designer handbag fell open, and out tumbled a pair of tiny, hand-knitted baby booties and a small, quilted blanket. She had spent months on them. She told me that a baby who wears shoes knitted by their grandmother will always find their way home… Now, they were just trash on a hospital floor. My mother crawled toward me, holding up one of the tiny blue booties. “Elena, please. Look at these. Do you really have the heart?” I bit my lip until I tasted blood and turned away. I looked at Joanna. “Do it, Joanna. I won’t go to another doctor. I want you to do it.” I grabbed the consent forms and scrawled my signature before anyone could stop me. “Elena…” my mother gave one last, haunting cry before she fainted. Joanna sighed, a sound of pure defeat. She knew if she didn’t do it, Miles would take me to some back-alley clinic where I’d likely bleed out. I lay on the cold operating table, the induction medication coursing through my veins. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever imagined—as if my body was being physically ripped in half by a dull blade. I drifted in and out of consciousness, sweat stinging my eyes. Then, a sudden, sickening lightness. Something was gone. I heard the nurse whisper, her voice thick with pity. “It was a boy. Perfect little thing. What a waste…” A single tear slid into my ear. After the procedure, I was a ghost. I was weak, hollowed out, but Miles didn’t care. He had me transferred to another hospital within hours. Serena was there. Waiting for my marrow. I didn’t see Miles for those three days. I didn’t see Serena. My mother sat by my bed in her wheelchair, her eyes red and swollen. She didn’t tell me what was happening, but I heard the nurses gossiping in the hall. Miles had apparently been screaming at the surgeons to operate the moment I arrived. But the doctors refused. They told him I was too weak, that I might die on the table if they harvested the marrow now. He had spent those three days in Serena’s room, holding her hand, whispered sweet nothings while I recovered enough to be harvested. I stared at the ceiling, feeling nothing. No anger. No sadness. Just a cold, dead vacuum where my heart used to be. My mother went to get some soup, leaving the room silent. I closed my eyes, trying to disappear. “Elena? Hey, big sister. We came to say thanks.” I opened my eyes. Miles and Serena were standing there, their fingers interlaced. Serena was glowing. She was wearing full makeup and a silk robe that had clearly been tailored to look like a hospital gown—flirty, delicate, seductive. She didn’t look like someone on the brink of death. She looked like she was at a spa. Compared to her, I was a wreck—pale, hair matted with sweat, smelling of antiseptic and grief. Miles didn’t even look at me. His eyes were glued to Serena, as if she were the only source of light in the world. He didn’t notice the door was open, or the freezing draft from the hallway that made me shiver under the thin sheets. “Get out,” a voice cracked like a whip. My mother was back. She used her cane to shove Miles away from the bed, and then she threw the container of hot soup right at Serena. Serena shrieked, ducking behind Miles. The soup splashed harmlessly on the floor, but she acted as if she’d been doused in acid, clinging to Miles’s chest. “I’ve tolerated your disrespect because you’re family,” Miles growled at my mother, his eyes flashing with a dangerous light. “But if you touch Serena again, I don’t care how old you are. I’ll make you regret it.” My mother began to sob, the sound raw and broken. Then, a tall, imposing man stepped into the room. He moved with a quiet authority that instantly changed the air. He stepped next to my mother, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. “Is there a problem here, Miles?” he asked. “Are you really threatening a woman in a wheelchair?” It was Arthur Bennett. My father’s oldest friend, the COO of our company, and a man who had known me since I was in diapers. He set a bag of groceries on my nightstand, his eyes softening as he looked at my pale face. He walked over and firmly shut the door. Miles cleared his throat, clearly intimidated but trying to hide it. “Serena has something to say to Elena.” Serena reached into her designer bag and pulled out a stack of legal documents. She handed them to me with a shy, faux-innocent smile. “Elena, please don’t take this the wrong way. But I’ve read stories online… about donors who give once and then refuse to help if there’s a relapse. For my peace of mind, could you sign this? It’s just an agreement that if I need another transplant in a few years, you’ll be there for me.” My mother began to cough violently, her face turning purple with rage. Arthur looked like he wanted to throw Miles out the window. I looked at the papers, then at Miles. I smiled—a small, chilling thing. “Of course. I’ll sign. I’m happy to help.” Arthur froze. My mother looked at me with pure despair. “I should have died with your father,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have lived to see this.” My chest tightened, but I didn’t stop. I signed my name in a firm, clear hand: Elena Lynn. Miles’s face lit up with greedy satisfaction. He pulled out another folder. “Since you’re going to be recovering for a while, Elena, you won’t have the energy for the company. I’ve prepared some documents to give me full power of attorney over your shares. It’ll make things easier.” Arthur slammed his hand down on the papers. “Elena, don’t. I came here to tell you—this boy has been draining the company accounts for months. He’s stripping the assets, moving them into shell companies. If you sign this, the Lynn legacy is gone. He’s gutting us.” I looked at Arthur, my expression serene. “Arthur, you’re being paranoid. Miles loves me. He’s my husband. Why would he hurt me? It doesn’t matter whose name is on the paperwork, right?” I signed the second set of papers. Arthur slumped into a chair, a mountain of a man reduced to tears. “Oh, Edward… I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save your home.” The moment the ink was dry, Miles grabbed the folders and headed for the door. In the hallway, I heard him barking at a passing doctor. “Start the harvest! Now!” “But Mr. Scott, her vitals are still—” “I said now! If she dies, she dies. Just get the marrow!” I went under the knife in a haze of betrayal. I didn’t see Miles again after the surgery. Two weeks later, while my mother was finalizing my discharge papers, I slipped out of the hospital and took a cab to our house. When I walked through the front door, I stopped. Miles was on the velvet sofa, Serena curled up in his lap. They were laughing at a comedy special on TV. Miles looked up, his brow furrowing as if I were a telemarketer who had interrupted his dinner. “What are you doing here?” I smiled. “I missed you.” He rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t have called? You’re ruining the mood.” Serena ran a hand down Miles’s arm. “Oh, don’t be grumpy, babe. It’s fine that Elena’s back. I’ve actually been craving her signature seafood chowder.” Miles glanced at me. “Well? You heard her. Go on.” I was ushered into the kitchen like a servant to cook for them. I listened to their laughter echoing from the living room. That night, Miles took Serena into our master bedroom. I lay in the guest room, staring at the wall, listening to the sounds of their intimacy through the thin drywall. They weren’t even trying to be quiet. Eventually, I got up, threw on a robe, and knocked on their door. Miles ripped the door open, looking like a feral animal. “Are you insane? It’s two in the morning! What is wrong with you?” I looked at him, my voice flat. “I lost my baby and gave up my health for your girlfriend. And this is how you treat me?” Miles let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “You’re barren now, Elena. The doctors said the induction did too much damage. I need an heir. Serena told me that when she has my baby, she’ll let you be the godmother. You should be thanking her for being so generous. Without her, you’d die alone in a gutter with no one to claim your body.” “And what am I to you?” I asked quietly. “What is she?” He sneered. “I knew your ‘kindness’ was an act. You’re finally showing your true colors, trying to cling to a title you don’t deserve. You Lynns always looked down on me. The ‘charity case’ husband. Well, I’m done. Get out.” He reached into a drawer and threw a packet of papers at my chest. “I don’t want anything from your pathetic family.” I looked at the papers. In the divorce settlement, I got the company back. He kept everything else—the real estate, the liquid cash, the cars. He had already finished the asset transfer. He had left me a hollowed-out shell of a business. Without a word, I signed. He signed: Miles Scott. The second the ink dried, Serena’s “sweet girl” persona vanished. She stood up, her eyes gleaming with malice, and began throwing my clothes and suitcases out onto the driveway. “Now,” she spat. “Get the hell out of my house.”

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