Category: English

Today was supposed to be our sixth wedding anniversary. It was also my oldest son Parker’s fifth birthday. We had planned a getaway to a secluded cabin in the Catskills, a day meant to be etched in our memories for all the right reasons. I never imagined Madeline would abandon us on that mountain without a word, taking with her the only medical bag that contained Parker’s emergency asthma equipment. I had been frantic, trying to reach her through her assistant, but the private transport and the security detail wouldn’t budge without her direct order. I watched, helpless, as the light left my son’s eyes. It was only after he took his last breath that I finally got through to her. She sounded tipsy, her voice slurred and distant. I couldn’t even get a word in before a man’s voice, sharp and full of life, cut through the line, vibrating with the joy of a long-awaited reunion. “Come on, Miles, don’t be so petty. I just landed back in the States today. You don’t actually mind if I take Madeline out for a ‘welcome home’ drink, do you?” I let out a soft, jagged laugh, my arms tightening around the cold, still weight of Parker in my lap. “I don’t mind at all,” I whispered. “Because as of this moment, my marriage to Madeline is over. Congratulations to you both.” … After we finally got off that mountain, I disappeared. I handled everything—the funeral arrangements, the cremation, the agonizing paperwork—entirely on my own. Meanwhile, Madeline’s social media, and that of Sebastian Rossi, were never silent. It was a non-stop parade of high-end bars and exclusive dinner parties. They were basking in the glow of their rediscovered spark. During those seven days, my mother tried calling Madeline a thousand times. Every call went straight to voicemail. My mother eventually dropped her phone onto the kitchen table, her voice trembling with rage. “That woman… her heart is made of ice.” It wasn’t until a week later, when I returned to our estate in the city carrying Parker’s urn, that I finally crossed paths with her. She wasn’t alone. Sebastian was right there with her, lounging in my living room. When they saw me—haggard, covered in the dust of the road, looking like a ghost of the man I used to be—Sebastian couldn’t even hide the smirk playing on his lips. “Miles, where the hell have you been? I’ve called you a dozen times today and you didn’t pick up once!” Madeline started, her tone a mix of a playful pout and genuine annoyance. The irony tasted like copper in my mouth. I didn’t even give them a glance. I walked straight past them toward the stairs. I was here for one thing: to pack my life into a suitcase and leave. This gilded cage of a house never belonged to a regular guy like me. I had reached too high, and I had paid the price in blood. But she wouldn’t let it go. She chased after me, grabbing my arm so hard I nearly dropped the urn. “Miles! What kind of temper tantrum is this?” Even now, she couldn’t see the wreckage. To her, I was just being difficult. I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “My mother called you for a week straight. Why didn’t you answer?” Madeline frowned, reaching into her designer handbag and pulling out a shattered phone. “My phone broke, okay? The night I picked up Sebastian, we were out, and I ended up losing it in a bet during a game. It was a whole thing.” She lived for the game. And because she wanted to play, my son was gone. “Is this really worth getting this angry about, Miles?” Madeline noticed my face turning a sickly shade of grey and tried to soften her tone, shaking my arm slightly. “So I missed a few calls. I’ll go over to your mom’s place and apologize personally tomorrow, alright?” Then, my eyes caught something. The handcrafted sandalwood bracelet on her wrist—the one I’d spent months on—was cracked in several places. It looked like it had been slammed against something. Rage, hot and blinding, surged up my throat. I grabbed her wrist. “What happened to the bracelet?” I had hiked to a remote monastery three times to get that specific wood blessed for her protection. Parker and I had sat at the kitchen table for weeks, using tiny chisels to engrave the intricate patterns she loved. Madeline was born with a silver spoon. Clothes, cars, jewelry—nothing I bought her ever meant much because she could buy the store. I had to give her things that took time. Things that had a soul. My hands still had faint scars from the slips of the blade, scars that throbbed whenever they got cold. When I gave it to her, she’d cried. She said she’d wear it forever. Now, she just flipped her hand dismissively. “Oh, that? We were out drinking last night, and I was shooting dice with Sebastian. I must have hit it against the edge of the table. It’s just a bit of wood, Miles. Don’t make a federal case out of it.” “Parker and I made that with our own hands,” I said, my voice dangerously low. Sebastian chimed in from the couch, his voice dripping with condescension. “It’s the thought that counts, right? It’s a cheap wooden trinket. How much could it possibly be worth?” Madeline patted my shoulder. “Exactly. If it means that much to you, I’ll have some premium sandalwood shipped in from overseas. You and Parker can carve a new one. It’ll be a fun little project for you guys.” She knew exactly what that bracelet represented. But to her, our love and our effort were just “projects” to keep us busy while she lived her real life. I realized then that in her heart, I was probably just a hobby, too. Six years of marriage. This was the first anniversary we were actually supposed to spend together as a family. It was the first birthday Parker was supposed to have her full attention. And she threw it all away because a ghost from her past called her cell. Yes, Sebastian wasn’t just a friend. He was the one who got away, the college heartbreak she never quite healed from. But she was a mother. How could she not realize Parker’s condition? She brought him to a mountain peak covered in pine pollen and wildflowers—his worst triggers—and then left without making sure he had his rescue inhaler. She had left me to watch our son die. My mother had warned me. She told me not to bring Parker to the city, told me that Madeline would never prioritize a child over her own whims. I had laughed at her. I told her Madeline was his mother—how could she be that cruel? God, I was so wrong. “Thanks for the offer,” I said, wrenching my arm away. I turned to go upstairs, my face a mask of stone. Her temper flared at my coldness. “What is with the attitude today? What did I do that was so terrible?” she yelled at my back. “And where’s Parker?” I stopped dead on the stairs. The irony was a physical weight. This was the first time she had asked about him, and he was already gone. I remembered that afternoon on the mountain. I had stroked Parker’s hair as he struggled to breathe, whispering, “Mommy wouldn’t miss your birthday, buddy. She loves you so much. She’s probably just out getting you a huge surprise.” Well, it was a surprise, alright. “You remember you have a son?” I turned, a bitter smile curling my lips. “I thought you’d decided you didn’t want him anymore.” Madeline winced, then snapped back. “He’s my son! How can you say that?” “I get it. You’re still sulking because I left, right? Because I had to go help Sebastian?” She stepped toward the stairs, looking up at me. “But you know the situation, Miles. He just got back from years abroad. We hadn’t seen each other in forever, and he was dealing with a massive shipping crisis at the docks. He was stressed, he was hurt… I couldn’t just leave him to handle that alone.” She tilted her head, giving me that soft, manipulative look that used to work every time. “You can understand that, can’t you?” In the past, that look would have made me fold. It would have made me move my boundaries back another inch until I had no ground left to stand on. But my son was in a jar in my hand. I was done gambling. “Madeline,” I said quietly. “I want a divorce.” The words hit her like a physical blow. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilating as she stared at me. “Miles… are you serious? You’d actually leave me over this?” “Yes. We’re done.” Madeline took a deep breath, her shock turning back into arrogance. “And what about Parker? You think you can raise him better than I can? You think you can give him this life? Your mother won’t even agree to this. Don’t turn our lives into a mess just because your feelings are hurt.” When I didn’t answer, she scoffed. “Fine. Go get Parker. Let him decide who he wants to live with.” “Parker isn’t coming,” I said. My voice broke on his name, and I had to clench my jaw to keep from sobbing. Madeline’s face twisted with sudden agitation. “What do you mean ‘he isn’t coming’? Where did you take him? Miles, if you’re using our son to get back at me, that is low, even for you.” She let out a sharp, indignant breath. “Don’t think you can threaten me with my child. I have my own life, Miles. I have my own friends. You wouldn’t understand that!” I looked at her beautiful, heartless face and realized I never knew her at all. I had raised that boy for five years. I was more of a parent than she ever dreamed of being. And yet, her first instinct was to assume I was using him as a bargaining chip. “Miles, stop torturing her!” Sebastian stood up, walking toward the stairs. “Just hand over the kid and stop acting like a psycho.” He sounded so protective, as if he were the one whose life was being upended. Madeline looked at him, touched by his “bravery,” and a single, perfect tear rolled down her cheek. “Miles, please. Just give me Parker back.” It was a performance. A sick, synchronized act. “And if I say no?” I asked, my voice trembling with suppressed fury. Sebastian didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, grabbing my collar. “Say it again! I dare you!” “Sebastian, don’t!” Madeline cried out, but she didn’t move to stop him. She stayed behind him, effectively choosing her side. I was shoved backward, stumbling against the banister. The urn wobbled in my hand, the lid nearly slipping off. I clutched it to my chest, a roar of protective instinct erupting in my lungs. If Parker hadn’t insisted on one last “memory” with his mother, I never would have brought him back to this house. “I’ve wanted to say this for a long time,” Sebastian said, pointing a finger in my face. “Look at you, Miles. You’re a loser. You’re a nobody. You don’t fit in Madeline’s world. Your son doesn’t even have her last name—why? You don’t have a penny to your name that she didn’t give you.” He sneered. “You’re just a small-town guy who got lucky and played the husband card. If you want to walk, walk. Stop holding her back.” I looked at Madeline. She was actually considering his words, looking at me with a cold, analytical gaze. It was pathetic. When I graduated, I had been recruited by a top-tier federal research lab. If it wasn’t for Madeline’s begging, I never would have thrown away my career to take a mid-level position at her firm just to be near her. And now, she was letting this man call me a parasite. I wasn’t going to starve without her. Sebastian was still shouting. “What’s the matter, Miles? Cat got your tongue? If you’re gonna leave, leave! And don’t you ever come near Madeline again, or I’ll make sure you regret it!”

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I used to think I had the most fiercely loyal, devoted girlfriend in the world. For seven years of long-distance, Caroline demanded a level of transparency that bordered on obsession. She needed my location shared at all times; she required a text if I so much as stepped out of my London office to grab a coffee. I thought it was love. I thought she just missed me. But today, Caroline vanished. I called her over a hundred times. It went straight to voicemail. I tried her executive assistant, her driver, the housekeeper at her New York estate—nothing. A cold, suffocating panic set into my chest. I bought the most expensive, earliest flight out of Heathrow, crossing the Atlantic, terrified something horrific had happened to her. When my cab finally pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of her Hamptons estate, a black Maybach was already idling in the driveway. The rear door opened, and Caroline stepped out. A wave of dizzying relief washed over me. I took a step forward, the words Why weren’t you answering? already forming on my lips. Then, she smiled. It was a radiant, intoxicating smile I hadn’t seen in person for months. She walked around to the passenger side, opened the door herself, and murmured in a voice dripping with honey, “Your carriage awaits, my prince.” A man stepped out of the car. Without missing a beat, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his chest. I froze. The breath was punched out of my lungs. Caroline was cheating on me. And the man burying his face in her neck was Tristan Cole. My estranged mother’s illegitimate son. … My hands shook so violently I had to grip my phone with both hands as I stumbled backward behind the manicured hedges. I hit her contact and pressed call. Out in the driveway, a ringtone pierced the quiet air. Caroline pulled back, glancing down at her screen. A flicker of profound annoyance crossed her perfect features. Her thumb hovered over the red ‘decline’ button. Tristan caught her wrist, his lips curling into a smirk. “You should probably answer it. Otherwise, my dear big brother is just going to keep blowing up your phone. It’s killing the mood.” Caroline let out a soft, breathless laugh. “Who was it that pinned me down yesterday and forbade me from looking at my phone? Feeling generous today, are we?” Tristan’s eyes darkened with raw, unfiltered lust. “That’s only because the sounds you were making were driving me crazy. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else hearing you.” Her gaze turned heavy, hooded with desire. “Is that so? Then we’ll just have to pick up where we left off tonight.” Only then did she swipe right to answer. Standing less than fifty feet away, I fought back the bile rising in my throat. I dug my nails into my palms, forcing my voice to stay steady. “What are you doing?” Caroline immediately let out a weak, raspy cough. “Nate, baby,” she croaked, playing the part of an invalid flawlessly. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been running a terrible fever since yesterday. I’ve been in and out of consciousness. I didn’t even hear the phone. I’m so sorry I worried you.” I squeezed my eyes shut. The darkness offered no relief. “Is that so?” I managed to choke out. “You shouldn’t be alone. Maybe I should fly back to the States to take care of you.” A microscopic pause. Then, her voice returned, gentle and entirely composed. “Your work in London is too important. I could never ask you to drop everything for me. I’m feeling much better now, really. Just focus on yourself, okay?” I stared at her through the leaves. I searched her face for a single twitch of guilt, a fleeting shadow of remorse. There was nothing. Just the calm, practiced mask of a liar. “Okay,” I whispered into the receiver. “I understand.” I hung up before the sob could break free. Seconds later, my phone buzzed. A text from Caroline. I feel awful for missing your calls, baby. I ordered a cake to be delivered to your flat. Things are crazy at the firm today, but I’ll FaceTime you the second I’m done. She attached a little pleading emoji. It looked so sincere. So deeply, convincingly loving. If I hadn’t been standing right here, watching Tristan trail his fingers down her spine, I would have believed her. I would have eaten that cake feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. A sharp, stabbing pain radiated through my chest as I watched them walk into the house, their silhouettes melting together. Why? my mind screamed. Why Tristan? Caroline knew. She knew better than anyone breathing that Tristan Cole was the physical embodiment of the worst trauma of my life. When I was fifteen, my mother had an affair. The fallout didn’t just break our family; it destroyed my father. I watched a brilliant, vibrant man wither into a hollow, depressed ghost. He drank until his liver gave out, losing fifty pounds in six months. I remember kneeling on the hardwood floor, begging my mother to come home, just to visit him. She looked at me, adjusted her designer coat, and said, Tristan’s father gets jealous easily. I can’t. I watched my dad die of a broken heart. It was slow, agonizing, and entirely their fault. Caroline grew up next door. She was my sanctuary during those dark years. When my dad passed, she held me as I thrashed and screamed, staining her shirts with my tears. She cursed my mother. She cursed Tristan and his father. She looked me in the eyes and swore, Your enemies are my enemies, Nate. One day, I’m going to ruin them for you. The ghost of her vow echoed in my ears, mocking me. Now, she was doing exactly what my mother had done. Perhaps even worse. I was shivering violently when Rosa, Caroline’s long-time housekeeper, stepped out to retrieve the mail. She jumped when she saw me standing by the gates. “Mr. Brooks! Good lord, what are you doing out here in the cold? Come inside, let me make you some tea!” She thought the cold was making me tremble. She didn’t know the ice was in my veins. I stretched my lips into a polite, agonizingly stiff smile. “I’m fine, Rosa. I’m not cold.” Rosa looked at me, her eyes darting toward the main house, then back to me. Pity pooled in her gaze. “Mr. Brooks… did you… did you see?” The confirmation felt like a physical blow. “So, they’re here often,” I stated flatly. Rosa turned pale. She wrung her hands. “Mr. Brooks, please don’t take it to heart. Miss Pierce is just… she’s just having a bit of fun. A distraction. I see the way she looks at pictures of you. You’re the one she truly loves.” My jaw felt wired shut. “Right. I understand. Please, Rosa, don’t tell her I was here.” Rosa let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “My lips are sealed. Take care of yourself, sir.” I dragged my numb legs down the winding driveway. As I passed the sprawling glass greenhouse, I stopped dead in my tracks. Years ago, Caroline had imported hundreds of rare white camellias—my late father’s favorite flower—and filled the greenhouse with them, just to make me smile. Now, the camellias were gone. The entire greenhouse was overflowing with vibrant, aggressive Birds of Paradise. Tristan’s favorite flower. If this was just a “distraction,” just a fleeting moment of physical boredom as Rosa claimed, why the flowers? Why erase my ghost from her home so entirely? A sickening dread consumed me. I stumbled to a nearby hotel, checked into a sterile room, and dialed Caroline’s number one more time. She picked up on the second ring. Her tone was light, teasing. “Miss me already, baby? I thought we were doing FaceTime later?” Hearing that bubbly, innocent voice superimposed over the image of her in Tristan’s arms made me want to rip my skin off. I dug my fingers into the hotel mattress. “I just… I was thinking about the camellias in the greenhouse. Could you send me a picture of them?” Dead silence on the line. Then, her voice pitched up in feigned surprise. “The camellias? What brought that up? Sure, hold on, I’ll take a picture when I get home.” “Okay,” I said blankly. Suddenly, the unmistakable shatter of glass echoed through the phone, followed by a man’s low curse. “Jesus, you’re so clumsy,” Caroline snapped instinctively, the sweet tone vanishing. “Just leave it, don’t touch the glass, I’ll get it—” She stopped, suddenly remembering I was on the line. “Nate, my new assistant just dropped a tray of glasses,” she lied, her breathing a little quicker now. “I have to go help him clean it up. Talk later.” Click. The dial tone hummed against my ear, a monotonous soundtrack to my absolute humiliation. Thirty minutes later, my phone dinged. An image of the greenhouse, bursting with pristine white camellias. I zoomed in. In the bottom right corner, a timestamp watermark from a photography app. October, last year. She didn’t even bother to check the photo before sending it. That was how stupid she thought I was. How easily managed. I dropped the phone. I covered my face with my hands and started to laugh. The laughter scraped against my throat, hollow and terrifying, until it broke into heavy, scalding tears that slipped through my fingers. In my mind’s eye, I was dragged back seven years. Caroline wasn’t the polished, untouchable CEO of Pierce Holdings back then. She was just a girl who followed me everywhere. Once, some older guys from a rival school harassed her. I fought three of them off, ending up with a split lip and a bruised rib. As she dabbed antiseptic on my face, she cried, calling me an idiot. But then she smiled, her eyes shining with raw adoration. You’re the best thing in this world, Nate. I’m going to cling to you for the rest of my life. When we graduated, my mother handed my father’s massive corporate empire over to her new husband and Tristan. I was left with a tiny, struggling subsidiary in London. I had to leave to salvage what was left of my father’s legacy, to become a man worthy of standing beside the heiress to the Pierce fortune. At JFK airport, Caroline sobbed into my chest. She gripped my jacket like she was trying to fuse our ribs together. Wait for me, Nate. Give me a few years to take full control of the Pierce board, and I’ll buy back everything they stole from you. We’ll bring you home. We thought it would be a year. Two, tops. It had been seven. Last year, she finally became the undisputed CEO. I asked when I could move my operations back to New York. She gave me excuses. Market volatility. Board pushback. Now the truth was painfully clear. She didn’t lack the power to bring me back. She just didn’t want me here. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father’s emaciated face. Hatred, violently mixed with the pathetic remnants of my love for Caroline, tore through me until I felt physically ill. I wondered, in the darkest hours of the morning, if this was how my father felt right before he gave up. As dawn broke, a calendar notification popped up on my screen. Anniversary. It was our seventh anniversary. I stared blankly at the screen. A few hours later, Caroline’s text arrived precisely on schedule. Happy Anniversary, my love. I had your gift flown in overnight. Make sure you sign for it. I’m so sorry I can’t fly out to see you this year. The merger is taking all my time. Be a good boy and forgive me, okay? The merger. Right. I was a glutton for punishment, so I opened my laptop. I paid a private investigator I’d used for corporate due diligence a hefty rush fee to pull all of Tristan and Caroline’s private social media accounts. For the first six years of my absence, Tristan’s feed was devoid of her. Then, last year, Tristan was appointed as a VP at Pierce Holdings. His first post about her was a photo of her corner office door. My new boss is a nightmare. She rides my ass all day. Definitely punishing me for someone else’s sins. But I don’t tap out. The posts continued, standard office grievances, until mid-May. Well. Shit. I just slept with the boss. The post had over a hundred thousand likes from his obnoxious trust-fund circle. The comments were begging for details. I scrolled down until I found his reply. Worst luck ever. She got blackout drunk at a gala. I took her back to her penthouse, and she thought I was her boyfriend. I looked at the date on the post. My blood turned to freon. May 14th. The anniversary of my father’s death. Every year on May 14th, I shut my phone off. I sit in silence. I mourn the man they broke. And on that exact day, while I was drowning in grief over my father, Caroline was in her bed, tangled in the sheets with the son of the man who killed him. It was a surgical strike to my soul. With a morbid, masochistic drive, I kept scrolling. Turns out the Ice Queen is actually a softie. She’s literally knitting me a scarf while I watch the game. Mentioned offhand that I like Birds of Paradise. Came to her place today and she’d ripped out her entire greenhouse of stupid white flowers for me. Kinda touched. And then, the most recent post. Uploaded three hours ago. Boss lady ditched her 7-year anniversary to play video games with me at the Plaza. I think we know who’s winning this war. Some of the comments called him out, telling him he was trash for being the other man. Tristan had pinned a reply to the top. Who says I’m the other man? She just said yes. Attached was a photo. Caroline, looking breathtakingly flushed and happy, holding up her left hand. On her ring finger sat a massive pink diamond. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes locked onto the dress she was wearing in the photo. It was an emerald-green silk slip. I had designed it myself. I spent three months working with a tailor in Mayfair to get the draping perfect for her body. I gave it to her for our anniversary last year. She was wearing my love letter to her while accepting another man’s ring. The hotel walls began to close in. I gripped my chest as a visceral, agonizing panic attack ripped through me. I was drowning. The post went viral within his circles. Soon, my phone began to detonate. Calls from mutual friends. Some wanting gossip, some genuinely concerned. And then, my mother’s name flashed on the screen. I swiped to answer. “Nate,” her crisp, emotionless voice came through. “I assume you’ve seen the news about your brother and Caroline.” I said nothing. I let the silence hang. “Listen to me,” she continued, her tone patronizing. “People in our tax bracket don’t operate on fairy tales. Infidelity happens. I need you to be mature about this. Don’t spiral and make a mess of things like your father did—” “Do not put his name in your mouth,” I snarled, my voice vibrating with a rage so profound it scared me. She paused, clearly irritated. “I am calling to give you reality. The Brooks and Pierce families need this alliance. Since Caroline has chosen Tristan, I expect you to bow out gracefully. Don’t throw a tantrum and embarrass me in the press.” A dark, broken laugh scraped its way out of my throat. “Oh, now you care about being embarrassed? Where was that shame when you were driving my father to put a gun in his mouth?” Knowing she couldn’t win the moral high ground, she snapped, “That was between adults. It has nothing to do with you.” I hung up. I blocked her number. My screen was a chaotic mess of notifications. That blown-up photo of her engagement ring mocked me, painting me as the ultimate, castrated fool. Then, Caroline’s name flashed on the screen. One call. Two calls. Three. Frantic, back-to-back. I stared at the screen, swiped into my settings, and blocked her across every conceivable platform. I called my executive assistant in London. My flight back wasn’t until tomorrow, but I needed out of New York now. I booked a red-eye to Texas. Everyone always said I was exactly like my father. We shared the same quiet disposition, the same fierce loyalty. But they were wrong about one thing. I wasn’t going to die over a woman who betrayed me. At 4:00 PM, a frantic pounding echoed through my hotel room door. I opened it, and before I could blink, a body slammed into my chest. Caroline wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face against my collarbone. She was trembling, her eyes red and swollen. “Why weren’t you answering?” she choked out, her voice ragged. “Do you have any idea how terrified I was? I thought something happened to you!” I stood entirely still. Slowly, mechanically, I peeled her arms off me and took a step back. “What is there left to answer?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly hollow. “Didn’t you just say yes to Tristan’s proposal?” She flinched as if I’d struck her. Panic flared in her eyes as she reached for my hand. “Nate, you have to understand. Tristan… his father was just a mistress. He grew up with nothing, no respect. I can’t let him live out his life without a proper title. I just—” She saw the utter revulsion in my eyes and switched tactics, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “The marriage laws are different in Europe, Nate. We can still be together. I’ll fly to London. We can have a private ceremony. We’ll still be legally married over there. You’ll still be my husband.” It was so absurd, so profoundly grotesque, I couldn’t even summon the energy to yell. I just stared at her. I was looking at a stranger. A monster wearing the skin of the girl I loved. Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Tristan skidded to a halt outside the door. He took one look at me, dropped to his knees, and put on a masterful theatrical display. “Nate, it’s my fault! Please, hate me, but don’t blame Caroline! I’m so sorry!” Looking down at his face—a younger, sharper version of the man who ruined my family—a primal, violent urge surged through me. I raised my fist. Caroline lunged forward, grabbing my arm with shocking strength. “Nate, stop! I’m the one who made the mistake, not him! Be rational!” My arm dropped. I looked at where her hands gripped my forearm, then slowly raised my eyes to hers. “You’re both at fault. But I’m the one bleeding. Tell me, Caroline. What exactly do you expect me to do?” Tears spilled over her lashes. Guilt and something akin to pity swam in her eyes. She squeezed my hand, practically begging. “Nate… for the sake of our seven years together. Please. Can you just find it in your heart to be forgiving?” I looked at her pleading face. I let the silence stretch until it was suffocating. Then, I gave a single, slow nod. Caroline gasped, a look of euphoric relief washing over her. She threw her arms around my torso. “I knew it,” she wept into my shirt. “I knew you were stronger than your father. I knew you would understand.” She used my dead father as a weapon to secure her own peace of mind. A chilling, terrifying calm settled over me. I smiled against the crown of her hair, my eyes dead. Suddenly, Tristan let out an exaggerated gasp, patting his pockets. “Oh no—Caroline, I think I left the security fob for the penthouse at the front desk.” Caroline pulled away instantly, wiping her eyes. She barely looked back at me as she took Tristan’s arm. “Let’s go get it. I’ll call you tonight, Nate,” she tossed over her shoulder. I watched them walk down the hall. As they turned the corner, the last miserable shred of love I harbored for Caroline Pierce evaporated into nothing. The next morning, I flew out. I didn’t go back to London. I had my security team intercept a police report of a horrific, fiery car crash on an isolated stretch of highway outside the city. Through a massive payout and some digital ghosting, my identification was planted at the scene. The only way to cleanly sever a tie this gangrenous was amputation. From today onward, Nathaniel Brooks no longer existed. It wasn’t until late that evening, after she had finished coddling Tristan, that Caroline remembered to call me. When it went straight to an automated dead line, she tried my London office. Then, starting to panic, she pulled strings to get an emergency contact at the American Embassy. “Nathaniel Brooks?” the official’s voice filtered through the line, solemn and apologetic. “Miss Pierce, I am so deeply sorry. Mr. Brooks was involved in a multi-vehicle collision early this morning on his way to the airport. There were no survivors.”

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Three hours before my wedding, my fiancé called to tell me he wasn’t coming. He didn’t just bail; he went straight to the courthouse and married Melanie Sandra—my supposed best friend. I stood there in my Vera Wang, heart-shattered, listening to the jagged whispers of three hundred guests. That was when Nigel, my fiancé’s uncle, pushed through the heavy oak doors of the hotel ballroom. He didn’t come to apologize for his nephew. He came with a fleet of black Escalades and enough long-stemmed roses to bury the scandal. He told me, in front of everyone, that he had loved me from a distance for years. He told me he’d been dreaming of the day I’d finally be his. Grateful for the lifeline, and perhaps wanting to burn my bridges with the man who humiliated me, I said yes. We’ve been married for three years now. In those three years, I’ve suffered through seven miscarriages. Each one took a piece of my soul. But then, I got pregnant again. Nigel was ecstatic. He’d spin me around the living room, whispering against my hair about how I needed to rest, how he’d protect me and this baby with his very life. He was the perfect, doting husband. Until I hit the twelve-week mark. I was headed toward his study to ask about dinner when I heard voices. Nigel was talking to our private physician, Dr. Aris. “Everything is on schedule, Mr. Montgomery,” the doctor’s voice was clinical, chilling. “Just like the last seven times. I’ve already added the abortifacient to her nightly milk.” A pause. Then the doctor spoke again, sounding genuinely confused. “I don’t understand. Melanie already has your child. Why can’t your wife be allowed to carry one to term?” I heard Nigel let out a self-deprecating, dry laugh. “Only a direct heir can inherit the Montgomery Group,” Nigel said, his voice devoid of the warmth I’d grown used to. “Jordan is sterile—everyone knows that. If I let Norma have a child, that child would be the competition. I can’t have Melanie’s life get complicated later. I won’t let anyone jeopardize her security.” The world tilted on its axis. Every “I love you,” every “be careful,” every late-night vigil by my hospital bed—it was all a curated performance. I wasn’t a wife. I was a placeholder, a sacrificial lamb on the altar of his obsession with Melanie. … “You realize,” the doctor said, hesitant now, “that by doing this, you aren’t just giving up the Chairmanship. You’ve sacrificed seven of your own children. You’ve had me falsify Jordan’s medical records for years; he doesn’t even know he’s infertile. When Melanie’s child is born, he’ll think it’s his. You’ll never be ‘Dad’ to that baby. Is it really worth it?” Nigel’s voice dropped, thick with a twisted kind of devotion. “What does it matter? I couldn’t have Melanie back then. The least I can do is curate her happiness now. No one is going to ruin her future. Not the board of directors, and certainly not a child I have with Norma.” “But sir,” the doctor pressed, “she’s had seven procedures in three years. Her body is failing. If she loses this one, she’ll likely never conceive again. The damage will be permanent.” There was a long silence. I gripped the door handle so hard my knuckles turned white, my breath hitching in my throat. “It’s fine,” Nigel finally said, his tone dismissive. “I’ll take care of her for the rest of her life. She won’t need children.” I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I turned and fled, stumbling back to our bedroom. I collapsed onto the floor, my legs giving out. For three years, I blamed myself. I thought I was weak. I thought my body was a broken vessel. I felt guilty for “failing” Nigel, for not giving him the heir his father demanded. His father had made it clear: Nigel or his nephew Jordan—whoever produced the first grandson would take control of the family empire. And Nigel… Nigel didn’t even use protection. He let me get pregnant over and over again, knowing he was going to kill the baby every single time. He watched me bleed, watched me cry, watched me wither away, all to ensure Melanie’s child—his child with Melanie—had no rivals. “Norma? Why are you sitting on the floor, sweetheart?” Nigel was in the doorway. He rushed over, lifting me with a practiced tenderness that now made my skin crawl. “I’m okay,” I managed, my voice a hollow rasp. “Just… morning sickness.” He rubbed my back, his touch feeling like ice against my spine. “I know, baby. It’s hard work, isn’t it? Next time you feel like this, call me. Don’t suffer in silence. It breaks my heart.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “This little guy is already such a troublemaker. When he’s born, I’m going to have to give him a stern talking-to for making his mommy so miserable.” He reached for the nightstand. “Here. I brought you some warm milk. It’ll help you sleep.” I looked at the white liquid in the glass. My stomach turned. Will there even be a ‘next time’? I wondered. Every time before, he had been this way. A special late-night snack, a handmade fruit bowl, a “healthy” smoothie. I thought it was love. It was just a cold-blooded execution disguised as care. “Nigel, I really don’t like the taste of milk lately. Can I skip it tonight?” He smiled, that soft, indulgent smile that never reached his eyes. “Norma, don’t be a brat. The doctor said the things you crave the least are the things your body needs the most. If you don’t sleep, the baby doesn’t rest. You love him, don’t you? Do it for our boy. Here, let me feed you.” He pressed the glass to my lips. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a command. He held it there, firm and unyielding, until I swallowed every drop. Nigel, are you really that afraid my child would stand in Melanie’s way? Or do you just hate the idea of a child that isn’t hers? I closed my eyes as the bitterness slid down my throat. Less than thirty minutes later, the cramping started. It was a familiar, agonizing bloom of heat in my abdomen. I curled into a ball, sweat soaking my sheets. Nigel called the doctor immediately—the doctor who was likely already sitting in his car in our driveway, waiting for the signal. Even though I’d been through this seven times before, the soul-crushing weight of the loss never got easier. Through the haze of pain, I heard the doctor whisper: “Mr. Montgomery, the hemorrhaging is worse this time. I think… I think the damage is done. She won’t be able to carry again.” Nigel didn’t say anything. He just gathered me into his arms, his eyes red as if he were the one grieving. “It’s okay, Norma. I’m here. Even without children, I’ll love you forever. I’ll take care of you.” This man, a CEO who had never so much as boiled an egg, personally cleaned the blood from my skin. He held me tightly through the night, murmuring into the darkness as I drifted in and out of a feverish sleep. “Don’t worry, Melanie,” he whispered into my hair, thinking I was unconscious. “I’ll make sure you get everything you ever wanted.” The tears I’d been holding back finally broke. Years ago, at that disastrous wedding, he promised to give me a life of happiness. It was all a lie to keep me quiet, to keep me out of Melanie’s way. My entire marriage was a punchline to a joke I wasn’t in on. I waited until he fell into a deep sleep, then reached for my phone. I sent a text to my best friend, Regina, who was living in Paris. Remember when you asked me to go on that trip around the world? I’m in. I’ll be there the day after tomorrow. I put the phone down, the ache in my womb a dull, constant throb. I’d just lost another child—murdered by his own father. I locked myself in the bathroom, letting the water run to drown out my sobs. As I leaned down to pick up my phone after dropping it, I noticed something tucked far back under the vanity. It was wrapped in heavy silk, hidden away like a relic. I pulled it out. It was a thick photo album. I opened it to find hundreds of photos of Melanie. From the time she was fifteen until now. I recognized the cover. I’d seen a similar one in Nigel’s office, but he’d told me it was a portfolio for a project. Nigel loved photography—it was his one true hobby. Nigel was older than Jordan and me, but only by about six years. When we were kids, he was always the cold, distant “adult” watching us play, acting like our games were beneath him. But when Melanie moved into the neighborhood and joined our circle at fifteen, everything changed. That was when Nigel started bringing his camera everywhere. I thought he was just growing up. I didn’t realize he was falling in love. The photos captured every minute detail. Melanie laughing, Melanie pouting, Melanie simply tucking her hair behind her ear. Moments I hadn’t even noticed, but Nigel had frozen in time. Since we got married, Nigel hadn’t touched a camera. Once, I asked him to take maternity photos of me. He told me he’d lost his favorite Leica and suggested I hire a professional instead. He hadn’t lost the camera. He just didn’t want to waste his lens on someone he didn’t love. My eyes were dry. I had no more tears left for him. I put the album back exactly where I found it. Then, I pulled up my banking app, booked a one-way ticket, and began drafting a digital divorce settlement. If he wanted Melanie so badly, he could have her. The next morning, my eyes were swollen like bruised plums. Nigel was the picture of a grieving, devoted husband. He made me a nutrient-rich breakfast, poached eggs exactly how I liked them, and even used chilled spoons to help the swelling under my eyes. He was so convincing, I almost doubted my own ears from the night before. But the emptiness in my gut reminded me of the truth. When I didn’t eat, he sighed. “Norma, I know you’re hurting. I’m heartbroken too. But you have to take care of yourself. Your body has been through so much. Please, eat for me.” “Where is the baby?” I asked, my voice flat. “I want to see him.” Twelve weeks. He would have been formed by now. I wanted to see the life he had extinguished. His answer was the same as the seven times before. “I’ve already made the arrangements, honey. He’s been buried privately. You’re in no state to see that. It would only traumatize you further.” He paused, stroking my hand. “My parents heard about the… accident. They’re devastated. They want us to come over for dinner tonight. It might be good to get out of the house.” The moment we walked into the Montgomery estate, I saw Melanie. She was leaning against Nigel’s mother’s arm, preening like a prize cat. When she saw me, she shifted her stance to make her six-month-old bump even more prominent. “Norma! It’s been so long,” she said, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Come, sit. I heard about your loss. You really should be more careful at your age.” Ever since the wedding debacle, I’d cut ties with Jordan and Melanie. We only came to the estate when we knew they weren’t there. Tonight was clearly an ambush. I looked at her belly—at Nigel’s child—and felt a physical pang of nausea. He had never let my children live past three months. Nigel’s mother, a sharp-featured woman in her fifties, didn’t even look at me. “Useless,” she spat. “Can’t even hold onto a pregnancy. How many times is this now? I don’t know what my son was thinking, marrying a woman who can’t even provide an heir.” She was Nigel’s mother, but only Jordan’s step-grandmother. She was bitter that Jordan—the nephew—was currently in line for the chairmanship because he had married “the right woman” first. Usually, Nigel would defend me. But today, his eyes were locked on Melanie. He looked at her with such raw, naked longing that he didn’t even hear his mother’s insults. “Grandmother, don’t be so hard on her,” Melanie said, her voice a sugary trill. “Some women just aren’t meant to be mothers. It’s a tragic lack of luck, really.” “It’s a curse, is what it is,” the older woman grumbled. Melanie stood up, acting as if she were going to help me sit down, but she feigned a stumble. Even though she steadied herself instantly, Nigel reacted like a grenade had gone off. He shoved me aside—hard—to catch her. Ignoring his parents, he pulled her into his arms. “Melanie! Are you okay? Where the hell is Jordan? Why are you wandering around alone in your condition?” Melanie smiled, a slow, triumphant thing. “Jordan’s in New York on business. He’s so busy prepping for the CEO transition, you know how it is.” She looked at me, her eyes flashing with malice, then looked back at Nigel. “Nigel, I think I twisted my ankle. It hurts…” Without a word, Nigel swept her up into a bridal carry and headed straight for the upstairs bedrooms, never once looking back at his wife. Nigel’s mother looked at me with pure disgust. “Can’t even keep your own husband’s attention. If Jordan hadn’t snatched Melanie up first, do you think Nigel would have looked at you twice? Get out of my sight. I have no appetite looking at you.” She’d always hated me. She saw me as Jordan’s “leftovers.” And because of the miscarriages, she saw me as a failure. I used to endure it because I thought Nigel was my shield. Now I realized he was the one who had sharpened her blades. I didn’t argue. I didn’t scream. I just walked upstairs. I found myself standing outside Melanie’s guest room. The door wasn’t fully closed. I peered inside. Melanie was lying on the bed, her clothes disheveled, and Nigel was pressed against her, his face buried in her neck. “Nigel,” she moaned, “you’re the only one who cares. Jordan is useless… he can’t even give me a child of my own. If I hadn’t used you, we’d never get the company. If Norma had a baby, everything would be ruined for us.” Nigel pulled back, his eyes dark with a desperate, hungry lust. “Does he treat you well? Does he touch you?” “He treats me like a queen because he thinks I’m carrying his legacy,” she giggled. “He even washes my feet. He’s so grateful.” Nigel’s expression was tortured. “As long as you’re happy. As long as you’re safe, I can live with the rest.” “Nigel,” she whispered, pulling his head down. “I couldn’t marry you, but I can give you this. Tonight, I’m yours.” I watched my husband—the man who was always so stoic, so controlled—lose his mind. I watched them disappear into each other. Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled back to our room. Nigel didn’t return that night. The next morning, he appeared in the doorway, looking remarkably refreshed. “Norma, I’m so sorry about last night. My mother kept me up for hours talking about the estate. I couldn’t get away.” I didn’t call him out. I didn’t even look at him. I just went to the front door to wait for the car I’d called. But as I stepped onto the porch, a bucket of freezing, greasy kitchen scraps and dishwater was slammed over my head. Melanie stood there, an empty bucket in her hand, laughing. “Did you enjoy the show last night, Norma?” she sneered. She’d left the door open on purpose. “Losing a baby sucks, doesn’t it? But don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with that anymore. You’re dried up now. Did you really think you could compete with me for the title of Mrs. Montgomery? Nigel gave up his inheritance for me. He gave me a child. And all those little ‘accidents’ you had? They were just fuel for my fire.” I looked up, my voice trembling through the filth dripping off my face. “What did you say?” “Oh, didn’t he tell you? Every time you lost one, Nigel told you they were buried. But he actually brought the remains to me. A certain specialist told me that… well, certain tissues are excellent for a pregnant woman’s health. Think of it as your children finally doing something useful for the real heir.” A wave of visceral horror crashed over me. Nutrients? He gave her the remains of our children to… consume? The sheer, distorted depravity of it broke something inside me. How could a human being do this? “Don’t look at me like that,” Melanie laughed. “It’s your own fault for being so pathetic. A useless mother breeds useless fruit.” I lost it. I swung my hand, aiming for her smug, beautiful face. Smack. The blow didn’t land on her. Nigel had appeared out of nowhere, pulling Melanie behind him and taking the slap across his own cheek. He shoved me back so hard I fell onto the gravel driveway. “Norma! What the hell is wrong with you?!” he roared. Melanie dissolved into theatrical sobs. “Nigel, I was just trying to comfort her! I told her not to be sad about the baby, but she started screaming that I stole her life, that she wanted me to miscarry! She threw that bucket of water at me and I just dodged—it hit her instead! And then she tried to kill me!” Nigel looked at me, his face a mask of cold fury. “Norma, I had no idea you were this shallow. This vindictive.” “You couldn’t keep a child because you’re weak. Don’t take that out on Melanie. She was being kind. Stop dreaming about things that aren’t yours and apologize to her. Now.” I’m weak? I looked at him and realized I didn’t know this man at all. He was a monster wearing the skin of the man I loved. “Nigel,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Tell me one thing. Where are the bodies of my children?” He narrowed his eyes. “I told you. They were buried. We’ve been over this.” His acting was flawless. “You’re right,” I said, standing up and wiping the grease from my face. “I shouldn’t want things that don’t belong to me. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.” I turned and walked away. Nigel stared after me, a flicker of genuine panic crossing his face for the first time. He started to follow, but Melanie grabbed his arm. “Nigel, I think I’m going to throw up. The smell… please, take me to the hospital.” He hesitated for two seconds. Then he turned his back on me to help her. I went home, packed a single suitcase, and threw every piece of jewelry and clothing he’d ever bought me into the fireplace. As I held our marriage certificate over the flames, my phone buzzed. It was a photo from Melanie. She was tucked into a hospital bed, looking radiant, eating a bowl of hand-cut fruit. Norma, I just said I felt nauseous and Nigel called in three world-renowned specialists. He even chartered a helicopter to bring in a doctor from the Mayo Clinic. Are you jealous yet? I didn’t reply. I watched the certificate turn to ash. I knew he wouldn’t be home tonight. Sure enough, he called an hour later. “Norma, Melanie had a scare. Jordan is out of town, so as the family head, I have to stay. Don’t be petty about it.” “I understand,” I said. “The baby is the priority. Stay as long as you need.” He paused, his voice softening. “Norma, I didn’t mean to be harsh earlier. I know you’re emotional. But Melanie is carrying the Montgomery bloodline. Since you and I… well, since we can’t provide that anymore, we have to protect her. For the family.” “Right. For the family.” “Be a good girl and stay home. Tomorrow is your birthday. I’ve booked the best suite at the Pierre, and I have a surprise for you. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400765”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was the first day of the semester. I was still hauling my suitcases into the dorm when Trinity Ward suddenly grabbed my hand. Her face was flushed, her eyes shimmering with a mix of nerves and a strange, triumphant heat. “Quinn,” she whispered, her voice carrying just enough to reach our other roommates. “Starting today, I’m going to be your stepmother. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.” I froze. The iced latte in my hand slipped, hitting the linoleum with a sickening thud. Plastic cracked, and brown liquid splattered across my white sneakers. “Stepmother?” I repeated, the word tasting like ash. “Trinity, you’ve got the wrong person.” I forced a dry laugh and tried to wrench my hand back. “You can’t just go around saying things like that. My father is—” Seeing my disbelief, she didn’t hesitate. She whipped out her phone and began swiping through a gallery of photos. My heart did a slow, painful roll. There he was: my father, Richard Beaumont. In every photo, Trinity was draped over him, their poses intimate enough to make my skin crawl. Finally, she pulled a folded slip of paper from her designer bag and thrust it under my nose. Trinity Ward, 22. Four months pregnant. Fetal vitals: Normal. She rested a hand on her still-flat stomach, a beatific, sickeningly sweet smile spreading across her lips. “Your dad said as soon as you were settled in for the semester, we’d go down to the courthouse and make it official.” I stared at the ultrasound report, and suddenly, I felt a laugh bubbling up in my chest. Poor Trinity. She had done her homework on the Beaumont family fortune, but she’d missed one very private, very permanent detail. My father had a vasectomy twenty years ago. … My first instinct was that this was some twisted hazing ritual. I patted her shoulder, still grinning. “Okay, okay, you got me. Truth or Dare? You’re a great actress, Trinity. For a second there, I actually thought you were serious.” Trinity cut me off, her expression shifting instantly to one of wounded innocence. “I’m not lying to you, Quinn. I know who your father is. I know he’s the CEO of Beaumont International. I know I’m ‘just’ a student and people will say I’m not good enough for him.” She took a shaky breath. “But your mother has been gone for so long, and what he and I have is real. Please, just give us your blessing.” A chill settled over me. This wasn’t a joke. My father, Richard Beaumont, was the city’s most eligible bachelor. The line of women trying to climb into his life stretched out the door of his penthouse and around the block. But in all these years, not one had ever made it past the velvet ropes. It wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful enough. It was because my father’s “garden” had been salted and burned long ago. When my mother almost died giving birth to my brother and me, the terror changed him. He couldn’t lose her again. The day we were born was the day he scheduled his vasectomy. And now, this girl was telling me he’d managed to conjure a miracle baby in his fifties? The absurdity of it was staggering. Without another word, I pulled out my phone to call him. I wanted to hear the confusion in his voice. I wanted him to shut this down. But before the call could connect, Madison Miller, our third roommate, lunged forward and snatched the phone out of my hand. “Stop it, Quinn! You can’t just call him like that!” “He’s my father, Madison. Give it back.” “Mr. Beaumont is a busy man,” Madison argued, her voice frantic. “If you call him and start accusing him of things, think of how embarrassed he’ll be. Besides, Trinity is sensitive right now. Think of the baby! Can’t we just talk this out as adults without making a scene?” I opened my mouth to explain that it was biologically impossible for Trinity to be carrying a Beaumont heir, but Trinity cut in, her voice dissolving into soft sobs. “Quinn, please don’t call Richard.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, a masterclass in performative grief. “I don’t want to cause trouble between you two. I know you’re angry… but this is real. I’m carrying his child.” “I’ll be better to you than a real mother ever could,” she choked out. “I’m begging you. Just give me a chance.” I was caught between fury and exhaustion. I tried to keep my voice level. “Trinity, we’re theater majors. Our reputations are everything. You’re young. Don’t let someone brainwash you into this. This baby… it isn’t his. If you go through with this lie, how are you going to live with yourself?” I thought I was being helpful, but I’d clearly touched a nerve. Trinity shoved my hand away, clutching her stomach as she wailed. “You just don’t want us to be together! Fine! I’ll go to the clinic tomorrow. I’ll get rid of the baby! Is that what you want? Are you happy now?” The sheer audacity of her playing the victim made my blood boil. “I’m giving you a reality check. What you do with your body is your business, but don’t you dare pin this on my family.” The words had barely left my lips when Madison rushed over to scoop Trinity into an embrace, glaring at me over her shoulder. “Quinn, that is cold, even for you! Trinity is going through enough, and you’re standing there making up lies to gaslight her? Where is your heart?” The commotion had drawn our other two roommates into the common area. They stood by the door, whispering and casting judgmental glances my way. Trinity, seeing her audience, doubled down. “I know I’m younger than Richard… I know it looks bad,” she sobbed into Madison’s shoulder. “But I love him. I didn’t mean for the pregnancy to happen, I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to take care of Quinn. Why is she being so mean? Why is she making up stories about her own father?” The “poor little pregnant girl” act was working. One of the girls by the door stepped forward. “Look, Quinn, even if you hate the idea, you shouldn’t say such hurtful things. It’s messed up.” “Exactly,” the other chimed in. “It’s the twenty-first century. If it’s true love, who cares about the age gap? You’re being so old-fashioned.” “If I were you, I’d just accept it. She’s going to be your stepmom. It’s better to have her as an ally than an enemy. Don’t make it weird.” My brain felt like it was going to short-circuit. A red veil of rage dropped over my vision. I turned on them, my voice cracking. “You want to talk about ‘weird’? How about a girl our age claiming she’s my new mommy on the first day of school? Let’s see how ‘progressive’ you feel when your dad brings home a classmate!” I stepped toward them, ready to have it out, but Madison jumped between us, playing the peacemaker. “Stop, stop! Quinn, you know how she is—she doesn’t have a filter, she didn’t mean it that way. Trinity is pregnant; she can’t be stressed like this. Can’t you just humiliate her some other time? If something happens to that baby because of your temper, can you live with that?” Trinity stopped crying just long enough to look at me with big, watery eyes. “Quinn, I know it’s a lot to take in. I can wait. I’ll wait for you to accept me. Just… stop lying about your dad. I really am pregnant with his child. I’ll be so good to you, I promise. Just believe me once.” I studied Trinity. She couldn’t hold my gaze. Her eyes flitted toward the door, then to Madison. There was a frantic edge to her “sincerity” that confirmed everything. There was a grift happening here. But why? Why target me with such a blatant, easily debunked lie? Madison began rubbing Trinity’s back, her tone shifting to that of a concerned older sister—though every word she said was a poisoned arrow aimed at me. “Come on, Quinn. Let it go. Trinity is in a fragile state. We all live together; we have to see each other every day. For the sake of the dorm, can we just move past this?” She nudged Trinity, signaling her to “try” one more time. I looked at them—the weeping “mother-to-be” and her “loyal protector”—and I started to laugh. A cold, hard sound. “The thing is, Madison, I’m not lying. My father had a vasectomy twenty-one years ago. He is sterile. I have the medical records in my digital vault. I can pull them up and project them on the wall right now if you’d like.” I turned to Trinity, my eyes turning to ice. “And you. You say you’re carrying a Beaumont. Tell me, Trinity—what’s his middle name? What’s the name of his private equity firm? Where exactly is our estate located?” The room went silent for a heartbeat. Trinity’s crying hitched. Then, she let out a howl louder than before. “You’re testing me on his name? His name is Richard Beaumont! He’s the CEO of Beaumont International! You live at 18 Seaside Drive!” She gasped for air, her words coming out in a frantic rush. “He has a silver picture frame on his nightstand. It’s a photo of your mother. The corner of the frame is dented because you dropped it when you were six, and he won’t replace it because he says it reminds him of you. He polishes it every single morning!” My heart skipped. She was right. Those were details only someone who had been inside our house—inside my father’s bedroom—would know. My mind raced. How? My father was sterile. That was a fact. But how did she know about the dented frame? Before I could process the confusion, Trinity grabbed the collar of her shirt and yanked it down, revealing a cluster of dark purple bruises on her neck. “Your dad did this,” she said, her face reddening, but her voice steady. “He said he loves seeing his mark on me. Even with the baby, he can’t keep his hands off me. Every night. Sometimes in the afternoon… I tell him to be gentle, but he just laughs and says he’s too happy to stop.” She was on a roll now, the details getting cruder. “He’s so needy. He won’t even let me get dressed after I shower. He says he just wants to hold me. One time, while I was making pasta in the kitchen, he came up behind me and—” “Okay, okay! Too much information!” Madison’s face was bright red as she covered Trinity’s mouth. The other two roommates looked stunned, their expressions a mix of secondhand embarrassment and prurient curiosity. Trinity fell quiet. Madison cleared her throat, adopting a “reasonable” tone. “Look, Quinn. I get it. This is a nightmare for you. But at the end of the day, this is family business. If this gets out, it’ll ruin the Beaumont reputation. The press will have a field day.” She leaned in closer. “Maybe you should just… give everyone a little something to keep things quiet. A hush-money gesture. We all keep our mouths shut, and this stays in this room. It’s for your own good, you see?” Trinity nodded vigorously. “Yeah, Quinn. I’ve spent so much on prenatal vitamins and private checkups. It’s so expensive.” She looked at me with a greedy glint in her eyes. “Your dad always told me how generous you are. A real socialite. A little help wouldn’t hurt you.” She started counting on her fingers. “Fifty thousand each. There are four of us. Two hundred thousand dollars. To you, that’s just the price of a Birkin bag.” “If we get the money, nobody says a word,” Madison added with a slick smile. “Your dad’s reputation stays intact, Trinity can focus on the baby, and we all stay friends. Everyone wins.” She looked at me like she was doing me the biggest favor in the world. I stood there, watching the two of them perform their little duet, and the pieces finally clicked into place. “So,” I said slowly. “This whole elaborate soap opera… was just a shakedown for cash?” Trinity’s face faltered for a second. Madison’s smile dimmed, but she held her ground. “Quinn, how can you say that? We’re thinking about your family’s name—” “Too bad,” I said, stepping back and leaning against my desk. “My father had his surgery twenty-two years ago. He can’t get anyone pregnant. Whoever’s ‘seed’ is growing in there, go find the real father and leave mine out of it.” Trinity turned pale. The two silent roommates suddenly found their voices again, their tones sharp. “Quinn, stop being delusional! We’ve seen the photos of your dad and Trinity. They’re unmistakable!” “Yeah! We even saw your dad picking her up at the campus gate last night. That black Bentley? Hard to miss. If he wasn’t there for her, then why was he even at the school?” Their certainty was unshakable. My stomach dropped. I hadn’t known my father was on campus last night. Madison sighed and patted my arm. “Quinn, honey… I know it’s hard to accept. But your dad was here. If you don’t believe us, I have the video.” She held up her phone. In the grainy footage, a black Bentley was idling near the North Gate. My father was leaning against the door, scrolling through his phone as if waiting for someone. Madison swiped through more photos. My father and Trinity at a dimly lit restaurant. In the car. Him ruffling her hair. His arm around her shoulders. Every shot was perfectly framed. I gripped my phone, my fingers icy. The photos didn’t look photoshopped. The lighting, the angles—everything looked painfully real. The air felt thin. My legs felt like they were going to give out. But a stubborn spark of intuition kept me upright. I pulled out my phone and dialed my father. Again. And again. The ringing was like a rhythmic torture. Every beeeeep made my heart hammer harder against my ribs. Just as I was about to give up, his voice—warm, familiar, and calm—filled the line. “Hey, Quinn. Sorry, sweetheart. I was in a board meeting. Is everything okay?” My throat felt tight. “Dad… were you at my school yesterday?” “I was,” he said, his voice tinged with a slight apology. “I had some business nearby and stopped by the gate to catch up with an old friend. I figured you were busy settling into the dorm, so I didn’t want to bother you.” It sounded reasonable. But it didn’t explain the photos. I gritted my teeth and asked the question that was tearing me apart. “Dad… are you seeing someone? Is there… a baby?” There was a long, heavy silence on the other end. My heart sank into my stomach. “Mr. Beaumont, the files are ready for the second session…” I heard his secretary’s voice in the background. “Quinn, I’m right in the middle of something. I’ll explain everything later, okay? Be a good girl. I have to go.” Click. The dial tone echoed in my ear. I stood there, frozen, as tears finally broke through and hot tracks ran down my face. Madison walked over and draped an arm around my shoulders. “Quinn, your mom has been gone a long time. Your dad and Trinity are both single adults. It’s natural. Don’t overthink it.” “I don’t believe it!” I shoved her away. “My father isn’t like that! He loved my mother so much he ensured he’d never have children with anyone else. He wouldn’t just… throw that away for a college student!” “It’s a lie! Trinity is lying! You’re all lying!” My mind was screaming. I had to see that pregnancy report again. It had to be a forgery. I lunged toward Trinity’s bed, reaching for her designer bag, desperate to find the paper. But before I could touch it, the other two roommates grabbed my arms, pinning me back. “Quinn, calm down! She’s pregnant! You can’t attack her!” I struggled, sobbing now, watching Trinity cower behind Madison. For a split second, the mask slipped, and I saw a flash of triumph in Trinity’s eyes. Then, a familiar voice drifted in from the hallway. “Quinn? I’m here.”

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My best friend and I got sucked into the romance novel I wrote. We were living the absolute dream. We had the two male leads—one a broad-shouldered, tailored-suit god, the other with stamina that defied human biology. We were practically drowning in perfection. Until another girl crossed over into the manuscript. Because of her, my best friend was strapped to a human roulette wheel, enduring torture that caused her to miscarry. Five separate times. I became this girl’s personal blood bank, submerged in a giant vat of liquor as a “vintage beauty,” served up for a crowd of degenerates to taste. And our two perfect men? They slowly, inexplicably, changed their hearts. The manipulative little bitch flaunted it in our faces. “So what if your babies died? So what if you’re drained of blood?” she purred, her smile razor-sharp. “One phone call. That’s all it takes for your husbands to drop everything and come running to me. Tell me, which one should I let share my bed tonight?” My best friend, Maddie, gripped my hand. She didn’t have any tears left to cry. “Heather,” she whispered, her voice hollow. “I can’t take this anymore. Let’s just pull the plug. Let’s die here so we can wake up in the real world.” I stayed completely silent. The rule was simple: finish the plot, and the System would grant our deepest wishes. I didn’t care about the eight hundred million dollars I had wished for anymore. But Maddie? In the real world, Maddie had terminal cancer. Going back early meant going back to die. I ground my teeth together, grabbed her arm, and shoved her behind me. “I’ll pull the plug. I’ll die,” I told her fiercely. “You stay alive. You survive the plot.” “The second I wake up on the other side, I’m opening my laptop and rewriting this whole damn thing. Share her bed? I’m going to scatter her ashes to the wind!” … 1 “I’m going to write a scene where she falls into a cesspool seven times. I’m going to make her run naked through the streets. I will torture her to death on the page for you, I swear to God.” A faint, desperate flicker of light finally returned to Maddie’s deadened eyes. Just for that flicker, I needed to die. Right now. I spun around and sprinted straight for the window. I was just about to throw my leg over the sill when my peripheral vision caught movement down in the courtyard. A tall, chillingly handsome man was kneeling on the pavement, tying a woman’s shoelace. Six-foot-two, sharp jawline, lean muscle. It was a silhouette I knew better than my own reflection. My husband. Declan. I ground my teeth, mentally calculating the distance to the ground. Part of me wondered if I should just aim my trajectory to crush them both on impact. Declan must have sensed something. He looked up. His eyes locked onto me, dangling halfway out the second-story window. His pupils contracted violently. “Heather!” he roared. “Get back inside right now!” I stretched my mouth into a cold, hollow smile and flipped him the bird. I closed my eyes and leaned forward into the empty air. Suddenly, something tight wrapped around my waist. A brutal force yanked me backward, dragging me violently onto the carpet. Declan’s secretary was clutching me, chest heaving, his face pale with raw panic. Seconds later, Declan burst into the room. He was ashen. “Are you out of your mind, Heather?!” he shouted, his voice cracking with rage. “Throwing a tantrum with your life?! Do you have any idea how high that is?!” He stood there panting. Then, his eyes flicked to the girl standing timidly behind him—Isabelle. Instantly, a chilling calm washed over him. “They were right. You’re becoming an absolute embarrassment,” he sneered, adjusting his cuffs. “Pulling a stunt like this in front of a guest. It’s pathetic.” I leaned back against the wall. A breathless, broken little laugh escaped my throat. “Oh. So I’m an embarrassment.” I looked at him. “And here I thought you were actually worried about me.” He stiffened, his gaze darting away uncomfortably. “Enough. It’s rare for Isabelle to visit. Stop causing a scene.” He turned his back to me. “She loves mangoes. Go cut a plate and be a decent hostess for once.” Maddie stared at him, absolutely paralyzed with shock, before turning her heartbroken eyes to me. I froze, too. Then, I smiled. A bright, compliant smile. “Sure.” Down in the kitchen, the bright, heavy mangoes sat on the cutting board. I picked up the knife. A passing maid happened to glance over. The color instantly drained from her face. She screamed, dropping her towels, and practically tackled me away from the counter before running hysterically toward the living room to beg Declan for mercy. “Mr. Declan, I am so, so sorry! The new grocery shopper didn’t know—they didn’t know Mrs. Heather is deathly allergic to mangoes! Please don’t be angry, I’ll throw them all out right now!” Declan froze. It hit him. Just touching the skin of a mango would send my throat into anaphylaxis. In the past, if a single mango ever crossed the threshold of our house, he would fire the entire kitchen staff. A complicated storm of emotions flickered in his eyes. He raised an eyebrow, his voice dropping to a freezing register. “Does she not know her own allergies? She has a mouth, doesn’t she?” He scoffed. “She just had to wait until an audience was watching to get close to them. Who is this performance for?” The corners of Isabelle’s mouth twitched upward before she quickly suppressed it. She clung to Declan’s arm, looking up at him with wide, tearful eyes. “Declan, please don’t be mad at Heather. As a woman… I understand how she feels.” She let out a delicate little sniffle. “She’s definitely doing this on purpose. She thinks if she puts herself in danger, you’ll feel sorry for her, and then… and then you won’t want to see me anymore. If she hates me being here this much, I should just go!” She was incredibly good at crying. It was the kind of crying designed to break a man’s heart. Declan’s brow furrowed in deep distress. “Apologize to Isabelle,” he demanded. Here we go again. Over the last few years, if Isabelle dropped a glass, it was because I startled her. If she rolled her ankle, it was because I pushed her. If she picked a fight with Declan, it was because I manipulated them. I’d apologized eight hundred times. If they weren’t sick of hearing it, I was certainly sick of saying it. I raised my hand and pressed the cold steel of the kitchen knife flush against my own neck. “I’ll apologize with my life,” I whispered. “Is that enough?” Declan just rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted by me. “Not this again! Heather, when are you going to get it through your head? These psychotic tantrums only make me despise you. They don’t make me pity you!” The blade rested against my pulse, but the freezing cold went straight down to my soul. I suddenly remembered a time, years ago, when I nicked my finger slicing a strawberry. Declan had practically had a panic attack. He held my hand, blowing on the tiny cut, tearing apart the bathroom to find a band-aid, and then kissing the plastic once he wrapped it. I had laughed at him. Is this really necessary? It’s just a scratch. It is, he had said, looking at me dead serious. When you hurt, I hurt. But now, holding a butcher knife to my own throat was just a “psychotic tantrum.” He had the exact same face. The exact same voice. But where did my Declan go? I looked across the room at the man staring at me with nothing but cold disgust. I smiled, letting two hot tears spill down my cheeks. “Declan,” I breathed. “I really miss you.” His eyes violently trembled. I closed my eyes and slammed my neck toward the blade. 2 A large, heavily-knuckled hand slammed over the sharp edge of the blade, stopping it dead. The metallic tang of blood instantly filled the air. “Heather, are you out of your goddamn mind?!” My older brother, Colin, glared at me, his eyes blazing with furious disbelief. He raised his uninjured hand and swung it hard toward my face. Maddie threw herself in front of me. The slap landed across her cheek with a sickening crack. Colin froze, staring at his palm. But a second later, the anger morphed into something uglier. “Maddie, look at what you’ve done to my sister!” he roared. “She throws her life around like it’s a joke! If you don’t even respect your own life, how do you expect anyone else to love you?!” His chest heaved. He struggled to catch his breath before spitting out the final, venomous words: “You’re both pathetic idiots!” I stared at him, and a hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up in my chest. This was my second male lead. The man I wrote to be gentle, refined, the ultimate protector. In my original outline, “idiot” was the absolute harshest word his character was even capable of saying. I never thought he’d use it as a weapon against us. “She doesn’t respect her own life?” I asked, my voice dropping to a dead, icy calm. “Do you have any idea how desperately she tried to protect herself and her babies?” The first baby. Isabelle “accidentally” dropped saffron into her soup. Hemorrhage. Gone. The second baby. Colin was too busy fixing a leak at Isabelle’s apartment, so he made Maddie walk home alone in a thunderstorm. She slipped. Miscarriage. Gone. The third. The fourth. The fifth… “Colin, use your goddamn brain,” I snarled. “Who exactly is it that doesn’t respect her life?!” Beside me, Maddie was shaking violently, silent sobs wracking her frail body. A flash of raw guilt crossed Colin’s eyes. He raised his hand, instinctively reaching out to wipe Maddie’s tears. But Isabelle gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in innocent horror. “Five babies? Lost?” she whispered. “That’s… well, maybe it’s just natural selection? If the genetics were that flawed, bringing them into the world would have just been cruel.” She tilted her head, her eyes wide. “Besides… isn’t it a little strange? Five times? Do you think she… maybe she did it to herself, just to get your attention?” Maddie flinched as if she’d been shot. She turned, her eyes bloodshot, screaming from the depths of her lungs. “What the hell are you saying?! I would never kill my own children for a man’s love!” “Wouldn’t you?” Colin’s hand dropped. It was obvious. He believed Isabelle. He looked at Maddie, a cold, clinical disgust rising to the surface of his eyes. Then, he turned to Isabelle, his voice softening into something like velvet. “Izzy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you to this house today. Let’s go to that private kitchen you like. I’ll cook for you myself to make up for this.” Isabelle hooked her left arm through my brother’s. She grabbed Declan’s hand with her right. She looked back at us, smiling. Sweet. Triumphant. The heavy front door slammed shut. It sounded like a gunshot. I pulled Maddie to my chest, running my hand down her back, over and over. “It’s okay. They’re just characters on a page. It’s okay. Don’t be sad.” I was lying. It felt like my ribs were caving in. Declan and Colin were the men Maddie and I had built from the ground up. We poured our ideal types into them, meticulously designing every trait, every flaw, every tender moment. They were born into this universe specifically to be our perfect matches. But my love felt like he’d been hollowed out and replaced by a parasite. I held Maddie tighter, rocking her, trying to soothe her—trying to soothe myself. “It’s going to be okay. As soon as I die and log out, I’m rewriting the manuscript. Everything will go back to normal.” I dug through Maddie’s purse and pulled out her sleeping pills. I poured a handful into my palm. I was just about to swallow them dry. Suddenly, the front door burst open. A group of furious executives stormed into our living room, pointing straight at Maddie. “You absolute psycho! You run that account, don’t you?!” 3 My brother’s corporate social media had exploded. Two weeks ago, a young woman had posted a picture of her new tattoo. The official corporate account had replied to the thread, publicly accusing her of being a sex worker. The ensuing cyberbullying had been so severe the girl had committed suicide. Now, her family and their lawyers were standing in our living room. Maddie shook her head, terrified and confused. “No, it wasn’t me. The account manager is—” “Stop lying! Your own company just released a statement! You murdered my daughter, and I’m going to make you pay!” A phone was shoved inches from our faces. It was a statement. Posted by my brother. “Due to reckless statements made by my wife while managing the corporate accounts…” At that exact second, Maddie’s phone buzzed. A text from Colin. “Maddie, Izzy is fragile and terrified. I need you to take the fall for this for now. I’ll figure something out later.” Maddie stared at the screen, her eyes wide, unable to process the absolute magnitude of the betrayal. Before she could even breathe, the mob lunged. I threw myself over Maddie, wrapping my body around hers, screaming over the chaos. “Isabelle was running the account! Go check the IP! It was Isabelle!” “Isabelle is just a junior assistant. Why would she have top-tier clearance for corporate socials?” Declan’s voice cut through the room like a glacier. He was standing in the doorway, shielding Isabelle behind him, his eyes sharp and unforgiving. “I can personally testify,” Declan said smoothly. “That account has always been managed jointly by Maddie and Heather.” Behind his broad shoulders, Isabelle shot me a wicked, victorious smirk. In that moment, whatever was left of my heart finally flatlined. The blows started raining down. Fists, boots, briefcases. Maddie and I were desperately trying to shield each other, scrambling to take the brunt of the hits. But her body was weak. I was stronger. I made sure I took every single hit. The dull, sickening thuds echoed through the room as shoes connected with my ribs. Maddie was wailing, a sound of absolute despair. “Heather, stop! Stop protecting me! I know this is breaking your heart more than mine!” she sobbed. “I don’t want to suffer anymore! Let’s just go home. I don’t care how long I have left in the real world, it’s fine, I just want to—” Gag. My body finally gave out. I violently coughed up a massive mouthful of dark blood, staining Maddie’s white shirt red. My vision tunneled into black. The world went completely silent. The exit door back to reality slowly began to materialize in my mind. But suddenly, I felt someone sprinting toward me like a madman. Arms wrapped around me, crushing me to a chest, shielding me from the mob. Then came the rhythmic, sterile beep-beep of hospital monitors. And Isabelle’s grating, falsely tearful voice. “Declan, it’s all my fault.” A sniffle. “But Heather has always been so healthy. Do you think she’s faking it again? Just to make you feel bad?” Declan didn’t answer her. Instead, I felt hot drops of water landing on my neck. They burned. They made my heart physically ache. “Heather,” Declan whispered over and over again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think this would happen. Please wake up. I’ll give you anything you want.” His voice broke. “You always loved touching my abs, right? If you wake up, I’ll let you do it every single day.” A faint, ghostly laugh echoed in my own mind. Yeah. I did. Every night before bed, I’d reach over and feel for his stomach. It was a ritual. He used to pretend to be annoyed. He’d complain that my hands were freezing, that I was being clingy. But he would always lift his shirt and pull my hands against his bare skin anyway. That was my Declan. The man sitting next to this hospital bed wasn’t him. So, it was time to leave. I let my consciousness sink deeper into the dark. But just as I was slipping away, Isabelle’s cold, mocking whisper brushed against my ear. “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. And I’m not going to let you die that easily.” “If you keep sleeping… your best friend is going to be destroyed.” Maddie’s agonizing scream suddenly ripped through the air. 4 I jolted awake, gasping for air. Isabelle was leaning over the bed, holding her phone inches from my face. A video was playing. It was my brother, Colin. He had Maddie pinned against a wall by her throat. His eyes were bloodshot with rage. “You and Heather set her up, didn’t you?! You told that mob Izzy was running the account so they’d go after her!” he roared in the video. “Do you have any idea what she’s been through these past few days? Stalked outside the office, death threats blowing up her phone! She’s practically a kid! How could you be so vicious?!” Maddie’s face cycled through shock, pain, and finally, a hollow, devastating resignation. “I did it,” she rasped. “Heather had nothing to do with it. If you want revenge, take it out on me.” The video snapped off. I was trembling so violently the bed frame rattled. I lunged forward and grabbed Isabelle by the collar. “What did you do to her?!” Isabelle giggled. “Oops. You fell for it.” In a fraction of a second, her expression contorted into sheer terror, and she began sobbing hysterically. “Heather, please! Please don’t hurt me!” The door crashed open. Declan burst in, instantly pulling her behind him, his face etched with panic. Isabelle buried her face in his shoulder. “Declan, look. I wasn’t lying.” “She was faking the coma! Whenever you leave the room, she wakes up and beats me! Look at the bruises, she did this to me!” Declan stared at me, his eyes wide with revulsion. He kicked a metal chair across the room; it slammed into the wall. “Heather! What is your goddamn problem?! I sat by this bed for three nights without sleeping, isn’t that enough for you?!” “Can’t we just have a normal life?! Why do you insist on torturing her?!” I stared back at him. This face. I had stared at the computer screen and mapped out every angle of it. The sharp brow, the straight nose, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy. Now, those eyes held nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred. And strangely, that realization brought a terrifying calm over me. “Where is Maddie?” I asked evenly. Isabelle wiped a fake tear. “You and Maddie just went too far this time.” “Declan and Colin are too soft-hearted. I couldn’t bear to see you two manipulate them anymore. So I sent her to a correctional facility. To help her learn some manners.” A loud, deafening ringing filled my ears. I vaulted out of the bed and slapped her across the face with everything I had. Declan grabbed my wrist. He squeezed so hard I thought the bones would snap. “Heather!” he roared. I looked him dead in the eye and gave him a bloody, feral smile. “I guess I’ve gone too far, too. Why don’t you send me there to join her?” The “correctional facility” was an underground nightclub. The second they dragged me through the doors, I saw her. Maddie was strapped spreadeagle to a massive wooden roulette wheel. She was the needle. The outer rim of the wheel was painted with punishments. Shots. Needles. Cigarette burns. Wherever she stopped, that was what she got. She was covered in blood and burns. When she saw me, her swollen eyes immediately filled with tears. I screamed and tried to sprint toward the stage, but two massive bouncers slammed me into the ground, pinning my arms behind my back. Isabelle didn’t even bother acting anymore. She threw her head back and laughed. “Your bestie has had a rough night! Good thing you’re here. Want to help her carry the load?” “She spins, you take the punishment. Deal?” Before I could even open my mouth, she reached out and violently spun the wheel. Maddie blurred into a circle of motion. The G-force was too much; her eyes rolled back, and she passed out completely. I was thrashing against the guards, seeing red. The wheel slowly ground to a halt. The entire club erupted into cheers. “Vintage Beauty! Vintage Beauty!” the crowd chanted. Isabelle looked at where the needle had stopped. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face as she looked me up and down. “Looks like your luck just ran out, Heather.” 5 A crew of men wheeled out an enormous, reinforced glass tank. It was filled to the brim with amber liquor that sloshed heavily under the strobe lights. “This is the club’s specialty,” Isabelle announced to the room. “We’re going to use you to flavor the whiskey. Everyone here gets a glass. A little taste of high society.” The crowd roared as I was dragged up onto the platform. Isabelle leaned in close, her eyes glittering with malice. “You think you can just pull the plug and escape to rewrite the plot?” she hissed. “In your dreams. I am going to make sure you two beg for death, and I’ll never let you have it.” I froze. How did she know about the plot? Before my brain could process it, Isabelle shoved me hard toward the edge of the tank. A split second before I fell, I grabbed fistfuls of her shirt and yanked her with me. “I didn’t come here to be tortured,” I laughed right in her face. “I came here to drag you to hell with me!” Splash! The freezing alcohol rushed into my nose and throat. The burning and the suffocation were instantaneous. But I kept my arms locked around Isabelle like a vice, sinking us both. I smiled as the bubbles escaped her screaming mouth. Then, I heard a muffled, familiar shout from above the surface. Someone plunged into the tank. Strong hands grabbed my wrist. The grip was desperate. Terrified. Like they were holding onto their entire world. I forced my burning eyes open. Through the swirling amber liquid, I saw his face. Brows pulled together in panic, lips pressed tight. Declan. He came for me? My heart gave a pathetic, hopeful flutter. But in the next second… He systematically pried my fingers apart, one by one. He ripped Isabelle out of my grip, pulled her into his chest, and kicked off the bottom. He swam toward the surface. He never looked back. I sank back to the bottom of the glass. I watched their silhouettes break the surface and disappear into the glaring lights of the club. Fine. So this is how it ends. Just as the edges of my vision started to turn black, the glass tank groaned under the pressure. CRACK. The reinforced glass shattered. Thousands of gallons of liquor exploded outward, washing me violently across the concrete floor. I collapsed on my hands and knees, violently hacking up alcohol, my lungs screaming. A heavy hand patted my back. Colin. He was drenched, chest heaving. He looked at me, and for a fraction of a second, there was genuine, agonizing heartbreak in his eyes. “Heather, you absolute idiot,” he breathed. I spat out a mouthful of whiskey and gave a weak, breathless laugh. I couldn’t believe that didn’t kill me. Across the room, Isabelle was clinging to Declan, hyperventilating in a perfectly orchestrated panic attack. “I just came to see them… I just wanted to make peace with her, but Heather tried to murder me!” Instantly, two pairs of frigid eyes locked onto me. Declan and Colin immediately started shouting for doctors. They flanked Isabelle on both sides. Wrapping her in thick towels, vigorously drying her hair, holding a cup of hot water to her lips. Absolute, gentle devotion. All for her. Meanwhile, a bouncer grabbed me by the ankle, dragged me into a dark back room, and dumped me on the floor. I pulled my knees to my chest. My heart was beating erratically. Too fast. My face felt like it was on fire. My throat was tightening. Every breath was a struggle. Through the haze, a memory hit me. The IV bag at the hospital. Ceftriaxone. Cephalosporin antibiotics. I had just inhaled and swallowed a massive amount of alcohol. I instinctively opened my mouth to call for help. Through the cracked door, I saw Declan and Colin’s backs. They were leaning over Isabelle, whispering something soothing. She was smiling, her eyes curving into sweet little crescents. Out of the corner of her eye, she shot me a smug, triumphant look. I closed my mouth. The corners of my lips slowly turned up. I went through all that trouble to find a window to jump out of. Turns out, dying was actually this easy. In the dim yellow light of the back room, I curled myself into a tight ball. I kept my eyes fixed on the backs of the men I had created, and I quietly went to sleep. I don’t know how much time passed. Eventually, a doctor declared Isabelle was perfectly fine, and I heard the two men let out long sighs of relief. Declan finally remembered I existed. “Heather,” he called out, his tone dripping with frost. “Thank God Izzy is okay. Get out here and apologize.” The figure curled in the corner didn’t move. Annoyance flashed across his face. He strode into the room, bent down, and grabbed my arm to haul me up. The second his skin touched mine, his entire body went rigid. When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting at my desk in the real world. I immediately pulled up the manuscript file, my fingers hovering over the keyboard to rewrite the nightmare. But then, my eyes snagged on the document history log in the sidebar. My brain short-circuited. I finally knew exactly who Isabelle was. No wonder she could manipulate my plot!

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400766”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It had been five years since my death, and the thing that finally woke my dormant soul was the blinding glare of a ring light. A group of ghost-hunting streamers had breached the rotting doors of the cabin. And they had found my phone. The live chat on their screen was already scrolling at a dizzying speed: “Turn it on! Maybe Jax’s ‘evil spirit’ is actually hot!” The screen flickered to life. My face, pale and smiling faintly, was still the lock screen. “Oh, what the hell. It’s that Montgomery trash. The one who pawned his dead mom’s heirloom to blow cash on high-end escorts.” The streamers didn’t stop there. They dug through the debris, their flashlights cutting through the dust, until they found my bones. One of them reached down, his gloved fingers wrapping around the hilt of the hunting knife still wedged deeply into my skull. “Karma’s a bitch,” the guy muttered, spitting on the floor. “Honestly, I kind of want to stab him a few more times myself. Hey Jax, why don’t we grind his bones to dust and scatter him? Give the internet some closure.” Jax, the lead streamer, looked dead into the camera lens with a manic grin. “Don’t worry, chat. We’ll make sure everyone goes home happy tonight.” My murder. My rotting corpse. It was nothing but a carnival to them. A digital lynching. They decided, right then and there, to air every single video saved on my phone to their tens of thousands of viewers. … “Victoria. Hey, Victoria. They found your brother.” Inside the dimly lit, velvet-lined VIP booth of a Manhattan nightclub, the music seemed to fade as every pair of eyes turned toward Victoria Montgomery. Her hand, holding a crystal martini glass, didn’t even tremble. Her eyes were chips of ice. “As far as I’m concerned, he died in the gutter years ago.” “No, Victoria, he’s actually dead.” Her friend slid a phone across the marble table. “The live chat is talking about grinding his bones to dust. It looks like he was murdered. Someone drove a knife straight through his head.” Victoria didn’t miss a beat. “He had it coming.” She took a slow sip of her drink. “He chose to wallow in his own filth rather than just apologize to Simon. And my mother’s locket… he chose to take its location to his grave. Let him rot.” Sitting practically in her lap, Simon—the adopted golden child of the Montgomery family—wrapped his arms around Victoria’s neck, his face buried in her shoulder. “Vicky, please don’t be mad,” Simon whispered, his voice trembling perfectly. A single, pristine tear slipped down his cheek. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t come into the family, you two wouldn’t have been torn apart.” “I don’t blame him anymore,” Simon continued, his voice thick with rehearsed martyrdom. “No matter what, he’s the blood heir of the Montgomerys. I’m just the charity case. I never had the right to compete with him.” Victoria’s icy exterior melted instantly. She pulled him into a fiercely protective hug. “Stop being so endlessly forgiving, Simon,” she scolded softly. “But… since he’s gone, we can’t let those internet bottom-feeders desecrate his remains. Let’s have him collected and buried properly.” She praised Simon’s gentle heart, then irritably dialed her assistant to handle the grim logistics. But as she hung up, her gaze drifted back to the livestream playing on the table. Back in the decaying cabin, Jax and his crew were tearing my final sanctuary apart. It wasn’t a large space, but they were tossing it like a DEA raid. They pried open my rusted footlocker. Inside, there were only two sets of moth-eaten clothes, and a meticulously wrapped bundle. Inside the waterproof plastic was a single, framed family portrait. “This doesn’t look like the stash of a billionaire heir,” one of the crew muttered. “You idiot, he got disowned for abusing his adopted brother. Obviously he was broke.” “Look at the photo. He literally scratched the adopted brother’s face out. Jesus, the resentment is real.” Suddenly, the cameraman hoisted my phone up like a trophy. “Yo! Chat! I got past the lock screen!” The chat exploded into a digital frenzy. “YES! Open the camera roll. Let’s see what kind of sick stash this psycho was hiding.” Chasing the dopamine hit of pure traffic, Jax eagerly obliged. He opened the photo gallery first. Back in the VIP room, Simon dug his manicured fingers into Victoria’s sleeve. “Vicky, they can’t just go through his phone! That’s his private life. What if…” His eyes darted nervously. Just then, Victoria’s phone buzzed. It was our father, Richard. “I heard they found the boy’s remains,” my father’s gruff, dismissive voice came through the speaker. “Couldn’t even die quietly without causing a scandal. I washed my hands of him years ago. Just… make sure you comfort Simon. You know how he gets night terrors just hearing Cole’s name.” My father’s words perfectly mirrored Victoria’s own thoughts. She murmured an agreement and hung up. On the livestream, Jax pulled up a scanned document from my photos. “Holy shit. Justice is served! This piece of trash had terminal stomach cancer!” “Wow, the guy who stabbed him actually did him a favor. Spared him the chemo.” “Wait, look at the date on the pathology report. That’s the exact same day Victoria Montgomery released the press statement legally severing all ties with him.” “Poetic cinema. Dumped by his family and handed a death sentence on the same day. He must have lost his mind.” The vitriol rolled across the screen in endless waves. I couldn’t feel the phantom pain of my cancer anymore. But the ache in my chest? That was entirely different. It wasn’t just the internet that had destroyed me. It was the fact that, even in death, I was forced to wear the skin of a monster. Finally, Jax tapped on the video folder. “Alright chat, let’s do this chronologically.” He tapped the very first thumbnail. It was my tenth birthday. Mom was still alive. She was radiant, her hands gently clasping an antique gold locket around my neck. “Cole, my sweet boy,” her voice crackled through the phone’s tiny speakers, warm and full of life. “My mother gave this to me, and now it belongs to you. I want it to keep you safe. I want your life to be smooth and beautiful.” She pulled me into a tight hug. Victoria was standing right beside us, grinning, while Dad looked on with a softness he rarely showed the world. We posed in front of a massive, tiered cake. It was the only photo of all of us together that I had managed to save. In the video, ten-year-old me was running around in circles, Victoria chasing after me, yelling at me not to trip. Mom and Dad were holding hands, sharing a quiet, knowing smile. I ran up to the lens, breathless and beaming. “I’m the happiest kid in the world! I wish I could spend every single birthday with Mom, Dad, and Vicky forever!” Thirteen-year-old Victoria popped into the frame, nodding fiercely. “You’re our little prince, Cole. I promise, I’ll make sure that wish comes true.” In the nightclub, someone had AirPlayed the stream to the massive flat-screen above the bar. Everyone in the room was watching. Most of them had been at that exact party. “God, who would have thought? He used to be this sweet, soft kid following Victoria around like a shadow. How did he turn into such a sociopath?” “He just didn’t know when to quit. If he had just swallowed his pride and apologized to Victoria, he’d still be alive.” “Victoria didn’t pull her punches, though. Banished over a piece of jewelry…” “You don’t get it. Their mom died saving Cole and Simon. Victoria would have forgiven Cole for burning the house down, but pawning their dead mother’s heirloom? That was the ultimate betrayal.” Victoria sat rigidly on the leather sofa, suffocating in her silence. Ever since she kicked me out, the vibrant, laughing older sister I knew had vanished. She became fiercely, ruthlessly protective—but not of me. Of Simon. Whatever I used to have, Simon got. Whatever I asked for, she bought double for him. Maybe to spite me. Maybe to break me. Every time I saw a tabloid headline about Victoria dropping millions on a new loft or a sports car for Simon, I felt nothing. We had been so perfect once. But the day they brought Simon home from the foster system, the rot began. Seeing Victoria caught in the memory, Simon panicked. He grabbed her hand. “Vicky, it’s my fault. If you hadn’t brought me into this house, Cole wouldn’t have acted out. Mom wouldn’t have died.” “Mom died because she was protecting both of you,” Victoria snapped, the nostalgic haze instantly burning away into hard anger. “Cole is the one who took her sacrifice and spat on it. He dared to do that.” “It’s just a shame,” she murmured, her voice cracking slightly. “I never found the locket.” Simon’s eyes darted away for a fraction of a second. “I actually hired an artisan to make an exact replica for you, Vicky. Maybe… maybe Cole just really needed the cash for something important.” “I had my investigators track the cash,” Victoria scoffed, her face twisting in disgust. “He blew it all on VIP bottle service and high-end escorts.” She patted Simon’s hand, her voice rising so everyone in the room could hear. “A man who sells his mother’s soul to buy a night with a whore is no brother of mine!” Her friends chimed in, eager to soothe her. “Let it go, Vic. He’s dead. Like the chat said, karma handled it.” “Wonder who actually killed him, though.” “Who cares? Victoria, if he had crawled back and told you he had cancer, would you have paid for his treatment?” Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “I would have told him to die faster.” On the stream, Jax clicked the second video. My phone didn’t have many videos. They had just watched the only happy one. The second video was pitch black. There was only audio: the deafening roar of wind, chaotic muffled sounds, and the violent screech of tires. It was the day of the car crash. Mom was driving Simon and me back from the amusement park. I had been half-asleep in the backseat. The audio captured Mom’s sharp, panicked voice: “Simon, stop! Don’t touch that!” Ever since Simon arrived, I felt like I was losing my mind. Every time he spoke to me alone, it somehow ended with me being punished. Everyone looked at me like I was broken, malicious. So, terrified and desperate, I had started wearing a tiny, discreet GoPro clipped to my jacket zipper. I recorded my days, just to have proof of reality. Especially when I was alone with Simon. This was the final moment of my mother’s life. I had never been able to watch it. I had only dumped the file onto my phone for safekeeping. Now, I was experiencing it alongside thousands of strangers. Suddenly, the black video shifted—the camera must have been knocked loose. The lens flared, catching the front seat. Simon, practically crawling over the center console, violently yanked the steering wheel toward him. “I won’t go back! You can’t send me back to the group home!” he screamed. CRASH. The horrifying sound of metal crushing metal. The car rolling. Mom took the brunt of the impact. The camera caught her pinned, bleeding heavily. But she wasn’t screaming in pain. She was desperately calling my name. The camera angle shifted dizzily as I dragged my small, battered body toward her. Mom reached out with a trembling, blood-soaked hand. She used the last ounce of breath in her lungs. “Cole… my brave boy. Live a good life. Protect your sister. And… tell your father… he has to send Simon away. Do you hear me? Send him away…” Sirens wailed in the background. The video cut out. The aftermath was a memory seared into my soul. They put a white sheet over her. Simon wailed, putting on a performance of grief so absolute it shook the police officers. Dad and Victoria arrived at the precinct, hollowed out by grief. When they asked if Mom had said anything at the end, I told them the truth. I told them her dying wish was to send Simon away. Simon threw himself onto the linoleum floor, shrieking, hyperventilating, begging Dad and Victoria not to throw him away. And then, my father slapped me across the face. “Cole Montgomery! It’s bad enough you bully your brother in private, but now you’re fabricating your mother’s dying words? She loved you both! She would never say that! You make me sick.” I had sobbed, holding my stinging cheek. “Dad, Vicky, please, I have it on camera! I can prove it!” But they were already walking away, carrying Simon in their arms. In the abandoned cabin, Jax and his crew stood frozen. “Wait,” one of the crew whispered. “This kid… he caused the crash? He murdered his adoptive mom because he didn’t want to get sent back to foster care?” “Jesus Christ. This is some psycho ‘Talented Mr. Ripley’ shit. He killed the mom, played the victim, and turned the family against the real son.” “Is this real? I thought Simon was this sweet, philanthropic actor. Did he really grab the wheel?” In the VIP room, the silence was suffocating. Victoria stared at the screen, all the blood draining from her face. Slowly, mechanically, she turned her head to look at Simon. “You,” she whispered, her voice fracturing. “You killed my mother?” “She gave you everything, and you pulled the wheel?” The realization hit her like a physical blow. “So that day at the precinct… Cole was telling the truth. Why? Why was she going to send you back?” Victoria’s chest heaved. Her mother was sacred. When Victoria had arrived at the crash site, seeing her mother crushed and her two little brothers covered in blood, she had sworn over her mother’s body that she would protect them both. And now, she was realizing that one brother was dead, and the other was the reason her mother was in the ground. Simon panicked. He dropped to his knees right there in the VIP booth, grabbing Victoria’s dress. “Vicky, please! I was just a kid! I was terrified! Mom figured out that I was the one who broke Dad’s antique vase, not Cole. She said she was going to call the agency. I just… I just wanted to stop the car so I could beg her!” “I didn’t know the car would flip! I swear to God! I’ve spent every day of my life trying to make it up to you! I’ve been repenting for a decade!” “Vicky, I’m so sorry! Please don’t hate me!” Victoria’s mind was short-circuiting. Her mother’s dying, blood-choked words echoed through the club’s speakers. Protect your sister. Send Simon away. Suddenly, Blair Kensington—my former fiancée—stepped forward, placing a manicured hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “Vic, take a breath. Simon made a horrible mistake, but he was literally a traumatized child. He’s still the brother you raised and loved.” “If your mother hadn’t threatened to abandon him over a vase, he wouldn’t have panicked. He was insecure. And let’s be honest, you guys only made Cole kneel in the hallway for a few days over the vase anyway. It wasn’t a big deal.” Victoria let out a shaky breath. Even if they had wrongly accused Cole of breaking the vase, did he really have to hold a grudge against Simon for years? Mom overreacted by threatening to send a foster kid back over something so trivial. “Get up,” Victoria said, her voice hollow. “Stop crying. We can’t change the past.” “I love you, Vicky. I’d die for you,” Simon whimpered, standing up and burying his face in his hands. He let out a breath of immense relief. He had survived the landmine. Under the table, his fingers flew across his phone, texting frantically. [Where the fuck are your guys? If they keep streaming, the rest of it is going to get out. Cut the power!] But the massive screen above them kept playing. Blair noticed Simon shaking and wrapped an arm around him. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Cole is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.” “But… he was your fiancé, Blair,” Simon murmured, looking up through his lashes. Victoria snapped her head toward Blair. The chat’s accusations of a “fake heir” destroying the “real heir” were beginning to burn like acid in her brain. How could her sweet, devoted Simon be the monster the internet was painting him as? “Let’s see what else the dead boy kept on his phone,” Victoria commanded, her voice like cracking ice. Video Three. “Tell me, Cole. If I fall into this pond right now, who is Blair going to believe? You, or me?” Simon’s voice. But it wasn’t the trembling, sweet voice he used in the VIP room. It was dripping with venom and mockery. On the screen, my own voice answered, exhausted and utterly defeated. “What more do you want from me? You stole my father. You stole my sister. Now you’re taking the woman I was supposed to marry. What is the endgame here?” Simon, leaning against the stone railing of our estate’s koi pond, smiled. It was a terrifying, dead-eyed smile. “As long as you exist, I’m in danger. The blood heir. You make me nervous. So, I need them to despise you. I need them to abuse you. I need them to want you dead. I won’t be able to sleep until you’re in the ground.” He stepped closer to the hidden camera on my chest. “Why do you get to be born into billions? I was thrown into a literal dumpster in January. If a sanitation worker hadn’t heard me crying, I would have frozen to death.” “Do you know what the group homes are like? Rich people like your parents show up around Thanksgiving, hand out cheap toys, and make us smile for the cameras so they can feel like saints. And then they use us as cautionary tales for their own spoiled brats.” Simon’s face twisted into pure malice. “The day I saw you standing in the orphanage lobby in your custom little suit, looking so soft and loved, I made a promise to myself. I was going to take your life. All of it.” My voice trembled in the recording. “You set me up… you manipulated me into bringing you to my mother so she would pity you?” “Bingo!” With that word, Simon suddenly grabbed my wrists, yanking them toward his own chest, and screamed at the top of his lungs. “Cole! No! I promise I’ll stay away from Blair! Please don’t push me!” SPLASH. He threw himself backward into the deep water. Seconds later, Blair sprinted into the frame. Without a second of hesitation, she shoved me violently into the water and dove in to rescue Simon. The camera caught the underwater chaos, and then the aftermath on the grass. Blair cradling a “shivering” Simon, shooting me a look of absolute disgust. The next cut in the video was Blair marching into Victoria’s home office. “I will not marry a psychopath who tries to drown his own brother,” Blair demanded. “The engagement is off. If our families need a merger, I’ll marry Simon. At least he has a soul.” Ever since I was twelve and someone—I never saw who—pushed me into a lake, I had been deathly afraid of water. I had almost drowned in that koi pond. But when I finally coughed up the water and opened my eyes, there was no concern. Only Victoria, standing over me, her eyes filled with revulsion. “The Kensington engagement is off. If you pull a stunt like this again, Cole, I’ll have you committed to an institution abroad.” The viewers in the livestream, and the elites in the VIP room, fell into a stunned, horrified silence. “Bro. Simon isn’t just an opportunist. He’s a straight-up predator.” “Imagine being Cole. Your own sister and your fiancé literally acting like Helen Keller when the truth is right there.” “He literally confessed to a psychological takeover of the family. He wanted the ‘true son’ dead.” “I used to think Simon was this brilliant method actor. Turns out he’s just a sociopath playing himself.” “Wait, is the sister watching this? Does she realize she’s been the attack dog for the guy who murdered her mom and destroyed her brother?” “Hold up, let’s not make Cole a saint yet. He still pawned his dead mom’s locket to buy hookers. They’re both trash.” In the club, Victoria’s fists were clenched so tight her knuckles were stark white. Everyone in the room was glancing nervously between Victoria, Blair, and Simon. “Vic,” Blair stammered, her arrogance faltering. “You… you know how manipulative Cole is. He probably deep-faked that audio. Or provoked Simon into saying it!” When Victoria didn’t answer, Blair doubled down. “Simon is gentle! He wouldn’t orchestrate something like that!” Victoria slowly turned her head. Her expression was completely unreadable. “Shut up.” She locked eyes with Simon. “Did he push you, or did you throw yourself in?” “Are you seriously interrogating him right now?” Blair shrilled. “I knew it! Deep down, you still prioritize that toxic blood brother over Simon!” “I am speaking to him,” Victoria roared, the sound cutting through the club like a gunshot. She desperately, painfully didn’t want to believe that the boy she had babied for years was the monster on that screen. “I… I don’t know,” Simon stuttered, tears welling up instantly. “Vicky, I swear, I never wanted to hurt him!” Victoria stared at him for a long, agonizing moment. Then, she let out a slow exhale. “Okay.” Blair let out a breath of relief. “See? I told you. You can’t trust anything Cole touched.” The next few videos were painfully mundane. They were recordings of my design sketches, my architectural concepts, my late-night brainstorms. And then, screenshots of those exact same designs, published under Simon’s name. He had stolen my portfolio to launch his own design firm. When I tried to fight back, I was blacklisted. Every firm in the city told me the same thing: Victoria Montgomery had personally ordered them not to hire me. To survive, I had resorted to collecting scrap metal and recycling. The audio of a phone call with Victoria played over a video of my blistered, filthy hands. “Just apologize to Simon,” her voice was tired and condescending over the line. “Admit you plagiarized his work. If you do, I’ll talk to Dad. The Montgomery trust can keep you comfortable for ten lifetimes. Why are you embarrassing us by digging through trash?” “Because he stole them from me, Vicky! Why won’t you just look at the timestamps? Why won’t you believe me?!” I had screamed, crying in an alleyway. “You’re still so stubborn. Clearly, you haven’t learned your lesson,” she snapped, and hung up. Things got worse after that. People recognized me on the street. They would kick over my recycling bags, spilling the cans I had spent all day collecting. They filmed me scrambling to pick them up. “Hey, look! It’s the Montgomery heir! Stealing jobs from the homeless now?” “That’s what you get for messing with Simon, you freak!” The video showed a group of frat boys kicking me into the pavement. I didn’t even fight back. I just curled into a ball. Finally, a kind stranger intervened, chased them off, and tried to call an ambulance. I refused. The stranger pressed a crumpled hundred-dollar bill into my bleeding hand. “Take it, kid. Everyone hits rock bottom. Don’t give up on yourself,” the man had said. The video ended with me sitting alone in a subway station, bruised, bleeding, and entirely broken. People walked a wide circle around me, repulsed by the smell of blood and grime. I pulled Mom’s gold locket from beneath my filthy shirt, clutching it to my chest, sobbing uncontrollably. “Mom,” I whispered to the camera, my voice shattered. “I don’t even know why I keep recording this. Even if someone sees it, they’ll just say I faked it. Nobody is ever going to believe me again.” In the cabin, Jax exhaled a ragged breath. His hands, holding the phone, were visibly shaking. “I believe you, man,” he whispered to the empty room. Behind him, his crew members were wiping their eyes. “Jesus, that’s just… that’s evil.” The chat was moving so fast it was a blur of text. “Simon stole his entire life. His talent, his family, his safety.” “I feel physically sick. The sister starved him out to protect a parasite.” “No way, this is all AI generated! Simon wouldn’t do this!” “Are you brain dead? You literally just watched the guy get beaten in the street because his sister blacklisted him over fake plagiarism. The Montgomerys need to be in jail.” Victoria sat frozen in the VIP room, the memories flashing behind her eyes. She dialed her executive assistant. The man answered, panting. “Ms. Montgomery, I just reached the coordinates. It’s way out in the Adirondacks. But… there’s already a crowd here. Locals, and… I think I saw Simon’s cousin by the police tape.” Victoria ignored the detail about the cousin. “Get in there. Confiscate the phone. I need my cyber-security team to verify the files.” “I can’t, ma’am. The internet is rioting. They’re demanding the police and independent experts verify it live on the stream.” “Then make sure our people are in the room when they do.” Victoria hung up. She slowly turned her gaze to Simon, who was sweating through his designer shirt. “Why are you shaking?” she asked softly. “I’m not,” Simon forced a sickly smile, leaning in to try and use his usual charm. Blair interjected again. “Vic, even if Simon made some mistakes, Cole still pawned your mother’s locket. That’s unforgivable.” The mention of the locket was like throwing gasoline on a dying fire. Victoria, who had been numb, felt the white-hot rage return. She could forgive the car crash—barely. She could maybe even forgive the corporate sabotage. But her mother’s soul? No. “Did I say I forgave him for that?” Victoria hissed. The stream had played through almost all the videos. Most of them were just quiet, sad moments of a life falling apart. Until the second to last video. I was shoved, unconscious, onto the leather sofa of a seedy karaoke bar. This was the footage I had never dared to review. The camera angle was obscured, peeking out from my jacket. Simon walked into the frame. He was impeccably dressed, looking down at my unconscious body with a smirk. He waved a hand, and four high-end escorts walked into the room. “Do whatever you want,” Simon told the women, tossing a thick stack of hundreds onto the glass table. “Just make it look messy. And if anyone asks, he paid you with the cash he got from pawning a vintage gold locket. Got it?” “Understood, Mr. Montgomery,” one of the women giggled. They descended on me, pulling at my clothes. Simon walked out of the room, and the heavy thud of the door locking echoed through the speakers.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400782”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My roommate was a kept woman. The kind who collected designer bags and slathered her face in five-hundred-dollar La Mer creams, playing house on someone else’s dime. I would stare at my own reflection in the mirror, tracing the lines of my face, knowing full well she wasn’t even half as beautiful as I was. And so, with cold, calculated precision, I maneuvered my way into Tristan Roth’s bed. I played the game perfectly. Right up until the night I stood hidden in the shadows of a velvet-lined corridor at an exclusive Upper East Side social club, listening to Tristan laugh with his friends. “Camille? Please. She’s basically a high-end escort who actually convinced herself she’s Manhattan royalty,” Tristan’s voice dripped with aristocratic disdain. “She’s even more pathetic than that roommate of hers. Throw her a few scraps and she wags her tail. You should see how she begs when she’s naked in my bed. It makes me sick.” The clinking of their scotch glasses echoed off the mahogany walls. “A gold digger like her? Toss her a few million and she’ll disappear. She isn’t even fit to tie my shoes.” I kept my head lowered in the dark. My fingertip traced the string of zeroes on the cashier’s check he had left for me, a cold, silent smile curling my lips. He was right, of course. I was entirely, unapologetically insatiable. So, it was time to find a more generous bidder. 1. I stepped out of the shadowy corridor, the thick wool carpet absorbing the sharp click of my stilettos. Pushing through the heavy brass-and-glass doors, the crisp bite of the autumn New York wind hit my face. I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address for a private wealth management branch in Midtown. In the hushed, mahogany-paneled VIP room, I slid Tristan’s signed check across the marble counter. Five million dollars. The banker’s manicured fingers danced across the keyboard, printing out the deposit receipt without a blink. Once the funds cleared, I slipped my new platinum card into my purse, walked out onto Fifth Avenue, and headed straight for Bergdorf Goodman. When I walked into the Hermès boutique, the sales associate gave my tailored but obviously off-the-rack trench coat a single, sweeping glance and remained rooted behind the counter. I didn’t say a word. I simply pointed to the latest cashmere coat in the window and a matte black Birkin on the display shelf. I handed her the card. I left my old clothes in the fitting room. When I pushed open the door to my shared apartment, Paige was sitting on the thrifted sofa, meticulously painting her nails a violent shade of red. She glanced up, her eyes immediately locking onto the silhouette of the Birkin in my hand. A cruel smirk twisted her lips. “Tristan finally pay out your severance package?” I ignored her, walking straight into my bedroom to pull out my largest suitcase. “You should have known your place,” Paige called out, blowing on her wet nails. “A family with the Roths’ pedigree was never going to let a broke college kid climb into their family tree.” I opened my closet, pulling out the few silk camisoles worth keeping, and swept the rest of my wardrobe straight into the trash bags. Paige stood up, leaning against my doorframe. “Just pack up and crawl back to whatever Midwest trailer park you came from. You got dumped.” I zipped the suitcase shut, straightened my spine, and met her eyes with dead, unwavering calm. “My half of the rent is paid through the end of the month. You’re on your own for the utilities.” I grabbed the handle of my luggage and walked past her. Behind me, I heard the sharp intake of her breath before a glass tumbler smashed against the doorframe, shards glittering as they rained down near my new leather boots. I stepped over the broken glass, pulled the door shut, and left that life behind forever. An hour later, I was sitting in a high-end real estate brokerage. I signed a lease for a glass-walled penthouse in Tribeca. Fifteen thousand a month. I paid the entire year upfront. When I finally pushed open the door to my new sanctuary, the sprawling floor-to-ceiling windows framed the bleeding neon and steel of the Manhattan skyline. I sank into the Italian leather sofa, the apartment utterly, beautifully silent. I pulled out my phone and permanently blocked every trace of Tristan Roth. Then, I opened an encrypted file on my tablet. It contained a meticulously curated list of the city’s apex predators—a dossier I had spent months compiling. My finger scrolled down the glowing screen until it stopped on a single name: Dominic Roth. Tristan’s uncle. The phantom architect of the Roth family empire. The man who actually held the strings. I tapped into his leaked itinerary. Tonight, at eight o’clock, there was an ultra-exclusive, closed-door gala at The Baccarat Hotel. I glanced at the brass clock on the wall. Three in the afternoon. Plenty of time to secure a seat at the table. I made a call to a high-society fixer I knew. Fifty thousand dollars later, a peripheral, no-name invitation was transferred to my phone. With the digital barcode secured, I went to my stylist. I didn’t choose the pure, innocent white dress Tristan always liked me to wear. I chose a custom crimson gown. Plunging back, second-skin fit. I was wearing my ambition like armor. 2. At exactly seven-thirty, I stepped into the opulent lobby of The Baccarat. The bouncer scanned my digital pass, and a waiter guided me into the grand ballroom. The Baccarat crystal chandeliers threw fractured, blinding light across a sea of tailored tuxedos and diamond-draped necks. I took a flute of champagne from a passing tray and retreated to the shadow of a marble pillar, letting my eyes sweep the room. The double doors opened. Tristan walked in, Paige clinging to his arm. She was wearing a white lace dress—the exact style he used to buy for me—and a diamond tennis necklace that practically screamed new money. They gravitated toward the center table, holding court with the usual trust-fund crowd. One of the heirs turned, catching a glimpse of my red dress through the crowd. He elbowed Tristan. Tristan turned. His eyes locked onto mine. His face darkened instantly. Tearing himself away from his sycophants, he marched toward me, pulling Paige along in his wake. “How the hell did you get in here?” Tristan hissed, his voice a lethal whisper. I took a slow, deliberate sip of my champagne. “Through the front door. Like everyone else.” Paige leaned against his arm, covering a giggling sneer with her hand. “Camille, you don’t belong here. Did you seriously use the breakup money Tristan gave you to come hunt for a new sugar daddy?” Tristan’s eyes raked over my crimson gown with utter disgust. “Was five million not enough to buy your dignity? You just had to come here and embarrass yourself?” He snapped his fingers, signaling a waiter. “Get security. Have this trespasser thrown out.” The waiter hesitated as security guards began to approach. I reached into my clutch, pulled out the heavy, gold-embossed invitation I had just bought, and slapped it flat onto the nearest cocktail table. “Registered guest. Under my own name,” I said, my voice carrying just enough to turn heads. Tristan stared at the name printed on the card, a muscle in his jaw ticking furiously. “You are such a parasite, Camille. There is no gutter too low for you to crawl through for a dollar, is there?” I stepped into his personal space, the cloying scent of his Tom Ford cologne hitting my nose. “Tristan, in this room, everyone only answers to the dollar. Don’t pretend you’re sitting on some moral high ground.” Suddenly, the ambient hum of the ballroom died. The silence rippled outward from the entrance like a shockwave. The crowd parted instinctively, leaving a wide, empty aisle. I followed their gaze. Dominic Roth had arrived. He walked in wearing a bespoke, midnight-black suit, his features carved from cold granite. He was exceptionally tall, radiating a chilling, absolute authority, flanked by four security details in earpieces. The temperature in the room plummeted. Tristan, who had been sneering at me seconds ago, immediately straightened his spine. He dropped Paige’s hand and practically jogged forward to grovel. “Uncle Dominic. You made it.” Dominic didn’t even grant him a glance. He walked right past his nephew and took his seat at the head of the main table. The power brokers of the city immediately swarmed him, offering eager toasts. I stayed exactly where I was, my champagne glass steady in my hand. The distance was too great to bridge right now. I was waiting for the breathing room. The quiet moment. Halfway through the evening, the sycophants began to bore him. Dominic waved off a CEO mid-sentence, rolling an unlit cigar between his fingers. His security detail seamlessly formed a wall, blocking anyone else from approaching. This was it. I placed my champagne glass on a passing tray, slipped a folded manila envelope from my purse, and walked directly toward the head table. A bodyguard immediately stepped into my path, a massive hand raised. “Back away, ma’am.” I didn’t stop. I simply held the envelope out to the guard. “Tell him it’s the fatal flaw in the environmental impact report for the Southport Harbor Redevelopment.” I raised my voice just enough to cut through the jazz playing in the background. “I didn’t stumble upon this. I spent months piecing together Tristan’s drunken rants and the shredded documents from his home office. The soil toxicity samples for the East Sector were falsified. The real data is in this envelope.” The movement of the cigar in Dominic’s fingers stopped. He lifted his gaze. Cold, predatory eyes bypassed his security wall and locked onto my face. I held his stare. I didn’t blink. “Let her through,” Dominic commanded. The bodyguard stepped aside. I walked up to the table, pulled out the chair directly beside him, and sat down. A collective, audible gasp echoed from the surrounding tables. A few yards away, Tristan was staring at me, his face practically vibrating with rage. He took a step forward, ready to intervene, but one of Dominic’s guards simply placed a heavy hand on Tristan’s shoulder, pinning him in place. I pushed the envelope across the linen tablecloth. Dominic opened it, his eyes scanning the first two pages. “How did you get these numbers?” he asked, his voice a low, gravelly baritone. “That doesn’t matter,” I replied, holding his gaze. “What matters is that this document just saved you three billion dollars in federal penalty fees.” Dominic slowly closed the folder. “What do you want?” “Money. A lot of it. And the exclusive procurement rights for the entire Southport Harbor supply chain.” 3. I laid my absolute bottom line on the table. He let out a low, dark chuckle. “Tristan wasn’t lying. You really are insatiable.” Hearing that, I knew Tristan had already painted a picture of me to his uncle behind closed doors. I didn’t bother defending myself. “As long as you can afford my price, Mr. Roth, I’ll prove I’m worth every penny.” Dominic picked up a heavy silver lighter. With a sharp click, a blue flame erupted. He lit his cigar, taking a slow, measured drag, the smoke curling around his sharp jawline. “Tonight. Nine o’clock. My suite.” He gave me the room number, stood up, and walked out of the ballroom. The entire room turned to look at me. The air was thick with venomous jealousy, disgust, and morbid curiosity. I smoothed the silk of my red skirt and prepared to leave. Tristan lunged into my path, his face flushed purple. “Are you out of your psychotic mind? That is my uncle.” He leaned in, spitting the words. “You think he’s some benevolent sugar daddy? He plays with people for sport. He will crush you like an insect.” I brushed his trembling hand away. “Don’t worry about me, Tristan. At least Dominic pays what I’m worth. Unlike you.” Tristan raised his hand, fully intending to strike me across the face. I didn’t flinch. His hand froze in mid-air. He knew better than to cause a physical scene at The Baccarat with half of Wall Street watching. I walked around him, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the penthouse. At exactly nine o’clock, I knocked on the mahogany door of the presidential suite. It was unlocked, left slightly ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into the dim interior. Only a single floor lamp was lit. Dominic was sitting on the velvet sofa, a crystal tumbler of amber scotch in one hand. On the coffee table in front of him rested a thick, legally bound contract. “Sit.” He nodded to the armchair opposite him. I sat. He pushed the contract toward me. “You manage the material supply for the Southport project. You take twenty percent of the net profit.” It was a far more astronomical figure than I had calculated. I skimmed through the dense legal jargon and liability waivers, my blood rushing at the sheer scale of the cut he was offering. I picked up the Montblanc pen, ready to sign. His large, heavy hand clamped down over the pages. I stopped and looked up at him. “Before we finalize this, I need a demonstration of your… unique skill set,” he said softly. “Tristan is currently heading the M&A deal for Rothstone Pharma. He’s been quietly running a shadow ledger to siphon company funds. I want the real ledger.” I frowned slightly. Rothstone Pharma was the crown jewel of the Roth family. Tristan kept those books under lock and key. “You want me to commit corporate espionage.” “Are you afraid?” He withdrew his hand, leaning back into the shadows. I didn’t hesitate. I pressed the pen to the paper and signed my name. “As long as the wire transfers clear, there’s nothing I’m afraid of.” Dominic stood up, stepped into my space, and gripped my chin. His thumb traced my jaw, the skin of his hand rough with calluses. He forced me to tilt my head up, exposing the vulnerability of my throat. “I don’t tolerate failure,” he murmured, his eyes searching mine. “If you don’t bring me that ledger, everything you just signed is ashes.” I reached up and firmly removed his hand from my face. “You’ll have the ledger on your desk within seven days.” I picked up my copy of the contract, turned on my heel, and walked out. Back in my quiet Tribeca apartment, I took a scalding shower, letting the adrenaline wash down the drain. Then I sat at my desk in the dark. Tristan was paranoid right now. Approaching him directly was suicide. I needed a wedge. I picked up my phone and scrolled through Paige’s social media. Her latest post was a gloating selfie behind the wheel of a limited-edition Porsche—Tristan’s latest bribe—tagged at an exclusive private club in the Meatpacking District. I tossed my phone onto the desk. I had my wedge. 4. The next afternoon, I parked my rented car across the street from The Onyx Club. This was Tristan’s playground, and Paige had been practically living there lately, playing the devoted girlfriend. I sat in a coffee shop across the street for three hours. Finally, Paige emerged from the brass doors alone. She looked frantic, her eyes darting nervously down the street before she hailed a yellow cab, completely ignoring the Porsche parked at the valet. I immediately tailed her. The cab pulled up to a discreet, high-end private women’s clinic on the Upper East Side. Paige hurried inside. I waited in my car for thirty minutes. When she finally walked out, she was clutching a small paper pharmacy bag. Her face was the color of chalk. Once her cab disappeared around the corner, I walked into the clinic and slid a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills across the pristine reception desk. “What kind of tests did the girl who just left order?” I asked. The receptionist discretely palmed the cash, tapped her keyboard, and lowered her voice. “Pregnancy blood panel. Positive.” I walked out of the clinic, the cold air filling my lungs. It was the ultimate leverage. There was absolutely no way Tristan would allow a liability like Paige to bear his firstborn right now. He was currently in the final stages of orchestrating a blue-blood marriage with Madeline Sinclair, a billionaire heiress. A bastard child would nuke the merger. I pulled out a burner phone and sent an anonymous text to Paige. Attached was a photo of her back as she walked into the clinic. 3:00 PM. The Plaza food court. Come alone. I dropped the burner back into my purse and started the engine. At exactly three, Paige walked into the café, hidden behind oversized Celine sunglasses and a silk scarf. She looked around like a hunted animal before sliding into the booth in the darkest corner. I walked over with a black coffee and sat across from her. She pulled down her sunglasses, her eyes widening in horror. “Camille. It’s you.” I casually stirred my coffee, sliding a photocopied stack of her lab results across the table. “Congratulations. Nothing solidifies a trust fund quite like an heir.” Paige snatched the papers, her hands trembling so violently the pages rattled. “What do you want?” she hissed, her voice cracking. “How much?” I reached across, plucked the papers from her shaking hands, folded them neatly, and tucked them back into my bag. “I want the red leather-bound ledger hidden in the safe in Tristan’s home office.” Paige shot to her feet, her knee hitting the table and knocking over her water glass. The water soaked the front of her designer blouse, but she didn’t even flinch. She leaned over the table, her voice a terrified whisper. “Are you insane? He’ll kill me.” I calmly handed her a napkin. “If you don’t get it for me tonight, these lab results will be sitting on Madeline Sinclair’s vanity by tomorrow morning. How accommodating do you think the Sinclair family will be to your little miracle?” Paige collapsed back into the leather booth. Her knuckles were white as she gripped her Birkin. “I don’t know the combination to the safe,” she choked out, tears finally spilling over. “He never lets me near it.” I leaned in, holding her panicked gaze with absolute stillness. “The code is Madeline Sinclair’s birthday. Try it.” Her eyes widened. “How could you possibly know that?” I didn’t answer. I had paid Tristan’s recently fired executive assistant a small fortune for that piece of psychological insight. “Tristan has a private dinner at eight tonight,” I instructed, my voice flat and clinical. “You get the ledger, and you bring it to the alley behind his townhouse. Hand it to me, and I swear to you, this secret dies with me.” Paige bit her lower lip so hard a bead of blood welled up. She gave one frantic nod, grabbed her bag, and practically ran out of the café. At eight o’clock, I idled my car in the dark, narrow alleyway behind Tristan’s West Village townhouse. The autumn wind carried a bitter chill. I pulled a slim cigarette from my purse and lit it, not smoking it, just watching the glowing orange cherry pulse in the pitch black. At eight-thirty, the heavy iron security door cracked open. Paige slipped out, hugging a thick manila envelope to her chest like a shield. I stepped out of the car. She practically shoved the envelope into my hands. “Take it. Delete the photos. Wipe everything,” she hyperventilated. I opened the clasp, sliding the red ledger out just far enough to catch the dim amber light of the streetlamp. I flipped to the center pages, verifying the catastrophic offshore transfers. It was exactly what Dominic wanted. The arterial bleed of Rothstone Pharma. I closed the book, pulled out my phone, and formatted the encrypted drive right in front of her face. “A pleasure doing business.” Paige stumbled backward, her face pale with terror, and slammed the heavy iron door shut. I turned back to my car. Suddenly, a blinding beam of light hit me, washing out the alley. A black Maybach glided silently into the narrow corridor, its massive grill completely blocking my exit. The doors opened. Tristan stepped out of the blinding halogen glare. Behind him, four massive security contractors stepped onto the pavement. “You really thought I was that stupid, Camille?” Tristan’s voice echoed in the brick canyon. He walked toward me, his eyes locked hungrily on the envelope in my hands. “Grab her. Break both her wrists.”

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On our first wedding anniversary, my wife, Madeline, was two hours late. When she finally walked through the door, I spotted a jagged, dark red stain on the collar of her white silk blouse. It looked like marinara—messy, careless, and intimate. I didn’t need to be a detective to know what it meant. The ghost from her past, the man she’d never quite managed to exorcise from her heart, was back in town. Sensing the weight of my gaze, Madeline didn’t offer an apology. Instead, her face hardened into a mask of practiced indignation. “Dan, I know exactly what you’re thinking,” she snapped, her voice tight with exhaustion. “For once in your life, just let me breathe!” I looked at the diamond ring sitting in its velvet box on the table, then back at her. I decided right then to give her exactly what she wanted. I would let her breathe—permanently. 1 Madeline watched me, her impatience thickening the air between us. “Dan, it’s just a dinner. Why do you have to be so… rigid all the time?” She gestured vaguely at my silhouette. “Look at you. From your head to your toes, every single hair is perfectly in place. You’re trying too hard. You’re so stiff, so flawless, it’s exhausting. It’s like living with a museum exhibit.” I didn’t say a word. I just looked at her, and apparently, that silence was enough to trigger another volley of accusations. I looked down at my bespoke suit. She had clearly forgotten. Today wasn’t just our anniversary; it was the day of the crucial contract signing with the Sterling Group. I had reminded her three times this week. She had checked her calendar. And then, she had simply erased it for him. I stood up, the chair scraping softly against the hardwood. “Madeline, save the speech for the board of directors.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “Since I’m such a bore, I’m giving you your freedom. Go to Cody. Be as ‘relaxed’ as you want.” The name hit her like a physical blow. She froze for a heartbeat before her eyes flashed with anger. “Dan, you’re doing this because I missed a dinner? Are you really that petty?” “No,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “I’m doing this because your ‘little dinner’ cost the firm the Sterling contract. Their representative pulled out an hour ago because you weren’t there to sign. Are you satisfied now?” The color drained from her face. I watched the gears turn as she finally remembered the stakes of the day. “I… I didn’t think…” She took a step toward me, reaching out, but I retreated two steps, maintaining the distance. “I’m tired, Madeline. Do whatever you want.” I left the ring on the table. It looked lonely under the soft glow of the chandelier. Upstairs, I changed into something comfortable, the silence of the house ringing in my ears. My phone buzzed. It was my father. “Madeline isn’t coming back tonight? You’ve only been married a year, Dan. What the hell is going on?” “Dad,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose, “it was an arrangement. You can’t force a woman like her to love a man like me. I’ve already moved the Sterling reps to the Peninsula. She missed her shot. We’re taking the lead on this ourselves.” My father caught on instantly. The tension in his voice softened into cold professionalism. “Understood. I’ll make the calls. Get some sleep, son.” I was lying in the dark when Madeline finally entered the bedroom. “Look,” she said, her voice small but still edged with that stubborn pride. “I’m sorry. I messed up today.” I didn’t turn around. I kept my back to her, staring at the shadows on the wall. “Go away, Madeline. I’m done.” She bristled. “Oh, for God’s sake, get over yourself! It was one dinner, Dan. I’ll go see the Sterling people tomorrow and fix it. You don’t need to give me the cold shoulder like a child.” She let out a sharp, frustrated breath. “You’re like a piece of wood. No wonder I need some air.” The door slammed shut behind her. I pulled up my phone and saw a text from my lawyer with a draft of the new agreement. I smiled into the dark. Tomorrow? By tomorrow, the world would have already moved on without her. The next morning, Madeline got exactly what she deserved: a closed door and a cold reception at the firm. By noon, she did something unprecedented—she invited me to lunch. I had things I wanted to say, papers I wanted her to see, so I went. As I approached the private dining room at the bistro, a high, lighthearted laugh drifted through the door. “Ugh, why do you eat this fancy stuff? I just want some greasy street tacos and a giant soda!” the voice cried. “Come on, Maddy, live a little. Stop being so uptight!” It was Cody. Of course. “I honestly don’t know how you stand it,” he continued. “Everyone in your circle is so… suffocating. But hey, if I’m here, is Dan going to throw a tantrum?” Madeline’s voice followed, light and dismissive. “Order whatever you want, Cody. Dan is a statue. Just looking at him makes me tired. It’s so much easier with you.” “Right? I told you! I bet he was fuming that you stayed out last night. Did he finally show some actual human emotion?” I felt a cold prickle of realization. Last night hadn’t been an accident. It had been a test. A provocation. I pushed the door open. The room went silent. It wasn’t just the two of them; a few of Madeline’s friends—the “inner circle”—were there too. They looked at me with varying degrees of guilt and amusement. “Hey, Dan’s here!” someone chirped. “Sit down, we were just about to order.” I nodded politely and sat next to Madeline. Cody was directly to her left. He caught her eye, a smug, knowing look passing between them, before he ducked his head to hide a smirk. “Is something funny?” I asked. 2 Cody immediately shifted into his “innocent victim” persona. “Sorry, Dan. I just… seeing you show up for a casual lunch in a full three-piece suit… it feels a little ‘Main Character,’ you know? Like we’re all in your movie.” He sighed dramatically. “But I get it. You were born into this. The pedigree, the expectations. It must be hard to ever just… be a person.” Madeline stepped in to defend her pet. “Dan, seriously. Can’t you just relax for once? Why the suit?” I let out a short, dry laugh. “I just came from the airport. I was seeing the Sterling representatives off. You tell me, Madeline—what should I wear when I’m trying to salvage a multi-million dollar deal that my wife blew off?” The table went quiet. Madeline’s expression crumbled, her bravado failing her for a moment. One of her friends tried to play peacemaker. “Hey, work is work! He looks great, Maddy, don’t be ungrateful.” “Exactly,” another added. “My dad wouldn’t dream of meeting a client in anything less. It’s just business.” Cody let out a snort. “Sounds like wearing a mask 24/7. How exhausting. I’m glad I’m just a ‘regular guy.’ Sometimes I’m so busy I just throw on a hoodie and go. Life’s too short to be a mannequin.” He was so proud of his “authenticity,” but all I saw was a man wearing a cheap knock-off watch and a carefully curated “disheveled” look that probably took him an hour to style. I looked at him, then back at the table, and said nothing. Madeline cleared her throat. “Anyway, let’s eat. I ordered the sea bass for you, Dan. And the oysters.” The food arrived, and for a few minutes, the only sound was the clink of silverware. Madeline even had a server crack open a king crab for me, the meat being meticulously extracted. Cody raised an eyebrow. “You guys are so polite. Seafood is meant to be eaten with your hands! That’s half the fun. Like last night—man, those spicy crawfish? The juice was everywhere!” He suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth, looking at me with wide, mock-apologetic eyes. “Oh man, I am so sorry. I totally lost track of time last night. I forgot it was your anniversary.” He leaned toward Madeline. “I told her you’d probably be mad. I just wanted her to have one night where she didn’t have to be ‘The Mrs. Thorne.’” I put my fork down and smiled at him. It was a pleasant, chilling smile. “Actually, Cody, I should thank you. Because of your little late-night snack, Madeline’s family lost about nine figures in equity. Most of which, coincidentally, ended up in my family’s portfolio this morning.” Madeline’s face went white. Cody gasped, his voice rising. “Nine figures? But you guys are married! What’s yours is hers, right? How can you talk about ‘your’ family and ‘hers’?” “Because we have a prenuptial agreement, Cody. Something you probably wouldn’t understand. Being the son of a groundskeeper, the nuances of estate law likely aren’t your forte. In families like ours, we protect our assets. Especially from people who think a casual fling entitles them to a seat at the table.” I turned to my wife. “Isn’t that right, Madeline?” Madeline slammed her hand on the table. “Enough! Just stop it!” She stood up, her eyes burning. “Fine! You want the truth? I didn’t want to spend the anniversary with you. I stayed out on purpose. You’re so arrogant, so self-righteous—and for what? Because you were born lucky? Stop talking down to everyone!” I nodded. “You’re right. Being born lucky is a skill. And unfortunately for Cody, he’s not very good at it.” Cody’s face twisted. “Dan…” “Don’t call me by my first name. We aren’t friends.” Cody turned beet red. He stammered for a moment before snapping, “You think you’re so much better than me? Madeline’s miserable with you! You have no idea, do you? On your wedding night, while you were probably checking the stock market, she was on the phone with me. We talked all night.” 3 So that was it. I remembered that night. She’d claimed she’d had too much champagne and needed to sleep in the guest suite. I’d been a gentleman. I’d let her be. I smiled. “And yet, I’m the one with the ring on her finger. If you’re so convinced she’s miserable, why don’t you tell her to divorce me?” “Dan!” Madeline shouted. The table was frozen. The “friends” were staring at their plates, wishing they were anywhere else. Madeline grabbed Cody’s arm. “We’re leaving. You don’t have to take this from him.” She dragged him out of the booth. As they walked past me, Cody gave me a look of pure, petty triumph. The friends scrambled to follow. One of them, Isabella, paused at the door. “Dan, seriously? You couldn’t just play nice? She’s a woman, she needs to feel something other than… than this. She says being with you is like being buried alive.” I looked up at her. “Isabella, you have enough problems with your father’s secret family to worry about my marriage. Close the door on your way out.” Her face went purple, and she slammed the door hard enough to rattle the glasses. I sat alone in the silent room. I looked at the server, who was hovering awkwardly. “Finish peeling those shrimp,” I said quietly. “I’m paying for them. I might as well eat.” Once I was finished, I drove straight to my parents’ estate. They looked surprised to see me. “Dad, Mom. I’m filing for divorce.” “Is this about the Sterling contract?” my father asked. “It’s a blow, but we can recover.” “It’s not just the contract. Madeline blew it, and then her father had the audacity to text me, telling me I handled the situation ‘poorly’ and that I should apologize to his wife tonight. They think they can use me as a safety net while she runs around with the help’s son.” I showed him my phone. “Cody is back. They were together all night. This marriage was a fraud from day one.” My father’s eyes turned to ice. “The audacity of that family.” I added, “They played us. They wanted our capital to shore up their weaknesses, and then they let their daughter treat our name like a joke. I’m done.” My mother sighed, looking at me with a mix of pity and pragmatism. “Marriage is a heavy thing, Dan. Just be sure. The next woman might not be any different.” “The next woman won’t be Madeline,” I said. “And I won’t be a fool twice.” I called my lawyer and started the process of surgical separation. In a world of interconnected boards and shared assets, divorce is a messy business, but I had the receipts. When I finally got back to our penthouse, I saw a pair of mud-caked, beat-up sneakers kicked carelessly into the middle of the foyer. Cody was sprawled on my Italian leather sofa, his feet up on Madeline’s lap while he played a game on his phone. He was mid-sentence, a cigarette dangling from his lip. “Maddy, save me! You’re so bad at this game!” Madeline laughed, playfully swatting his leg. The coffee table was littered with cheap snack bags and soda cans. It looked like a frat house. I felt a wave of profound disgust—not just for them, but for the version of myself that had tried to make this work. I walked in, my shoes clicking sharply on the marble. Madeline jumped like she’d been shot. “You… what are you doing here?” I let out a cold laugh. “Did I interrupt your ‘relaxation’ session?” “No, I mean… my dad said you were supposed to be at the house?” “That’s your father’s house. You go explain it to him.” I signaled to the two security guards I’d brought with me. “Pack my things. Everything in the primary suite. Now.” Madeline stood up, her face pale. “Dan, what is this? Cody just got back, he had nowhere to stay for a few days. Don’t be like this!” I looked her dead in the eye. “I’m making room, Madeline. You and Cody can be as ‘unstructured’ as you want in this house. I’m out.” “What are you saying?” “I’m saying we’re getting a divorce. I don’t want you anymore.”

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The man I had loved for a decade came home with my older sister for Thanksgiving this year. That night, nobody in the house slept. Through the painfully thin drywall of my childhood bedroom, I listened. I listened to my boyfriend, Cameron, play the innocent, bashful guest. And then, I listened to my sister be anything but. The rhythmic, agonizing squeak of the guest bed springs felt like a metronome ticking down the last seconds of my sanity. I looked down at the glowing screen of my phone. My text thread with Cameron had stalled out yesterday afternoon. So exhausted from the drive, babe. Crashing early. Then, twelve hours later, he materialized in our foyer, his fingers laced through my sister’s, his other arm loaded with expensive wine and artisanal pastries. “Harper, Roxy said you love these…” The exact moment our eyes locked, the bakery box slipped from his fingers. The pastries hit the hardwood with a sickening splat. My sister, Roxy, swooped in instantly to save him. “He’s just a little jittery. It’s his first time meeting the family, after all.” She looped her arm through his, looking at me with perfect innocence. “You don’t mind, do you, Harp?” I forced a smile that felt like shattered glass against my lips. Roxy squeezed my shoulder. “Wait, didn’t you say you were bringing your boyfriend this year? Where is he?” “Dead,” I blurted out. “He died right before the holidays.” A heavy, suffocating blanket of grief instantly fell over the room. No one asked another question about the man I’d supposedly been dating. And yet, later that night, after Cameron and my sister had exhausted themselves in the guest room, my phone buzzed in the dark. A text from him. I still love you. Before my brain could even process the sheer audacity of it, my bedroom door creaked open. The hallway light spilled in, outlining my mother. “Get dressed, sweetie,” she whispered gently. “We’re going to go pay our respects at his grave.” … 1: Going Home I stared at my mother, panic rising in my throat like bile. God, I regretted it. I’d forgotten that my mother was a woman of absolute, uncompromising action. A woman who loved fiercely and grieved deeply. I never should have claimed my boyfriend was dead just to spare myself the humiliation of a holiday confrontation. A grave! Where the hell was I supposed to find a grave? Mom and my stepdad were already bustling around the kitchen, pulling out a thermos of coffee and packing up a basket of whatever offerings they deemed appropriate for a grieving girlfriend to take to a cemetery. I locked myself in the bathroom, my thumbs flying across my phone screen as I desperately posted on a local Reddit forum. [URGENT] Does anyone know a cemetery nearby with a grave of a guy around 27 years old? Preferably with the last name Foster. I just need to stand in front of it for ten minutes. Please help!! I braced myself for the incoming wave of internet trolls. I deserved it. But I also knew my parents. They were the kind of people who wouldn’t rest until they’d seen things through. And because I had spent the last few years under the delusion that Cameron and I were heading toward marriage, I had told my parents everything about him. They knew his age, his career, his last name. Before Roxy had walked through that door, I had literally been preparing to show them the couple’s portraits Cameron and I had taken. Thank God I’d thought the lighting was a bit harsh and decided to run them through a filter first. If I had sent them to the family group chat… this Thanksgiving would have been a bloodbath. A knock rattled the bathroom door. “Harper, let’s go!” my mom called out. “Roxy and her boyfriend are dressed and waiting in the car. We’re all going to support you.” What?! I immediately pulled up Cameron’s contact and fired off a text. Do you know whose grave my mom is dragging us to visit? A single question mark popped up. Yours, I typed back. A split second later, a muffled, panicked yelp echoed from the front hallway. My phone vibrated violently. A massive wall of text from Cameron flooded the screen. Stripped of its frantic rambling, the core message was: Why the fuck did you tell them I’m dead? I typed back, my thumbs trembling with a mix of rage and adrenaline. What was I supposed to say? That you’re currently screwing my sister? Silence on his end. Outside the bathroom door, I could hear my parents whispering, entirely oblivious to the absurd tragedy unfolding. “I remember Harper mentioning him a few times. Last name Foster, right? I can’t remember his first name,” my stepdad muttered. “He promised to spend the holidays with our girl, and then he just passes away so suddenly. It’s a tragedy. We have to be there for her,” Mom replied softly. Then came Roxy’s voice, thick with a feigned, dramatic sympathy. “You’re so right, Mom. Sometimes a wound needs to be exposed to the air before it can heal. Otherwise, you carry it forever. Right, Cameron?” “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely,” Cameron choked out. 2: Waiting I sat on the closed toilet lid, praying to whatever patron saint watched over desperate, lying women that some chronically online local would come to my rescue. What if? I thought. Just what if? I hit the flush handle to buy myself time. The moment the water rushed, a notification dinged. A direct message. It was a Google Maps pin to a local memorial park, along with a plot number, a row identifier, and a name. I nearly wept with relief. Whoever this was, they were a modern-day hero. Thank you. You’re a lifesaver, I typed frantically. Can I get your Venmo? I owe you a massive drink for this. The read receipt popped up, but no reply came. I stared at the screen. Was this a prank? But as I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out into the hallway, I knew it was the only card I had left to play. I was all in. I fed the address to my stepdad as we piled into his SUV. The atmosphere in the car was suffocatingly solemn. “I had a lovely gift card set aside for him,” Mom murmured from the passenger seat, staring out the window. “Such a shame. Remind me, sweetie, how did it happen?” My mind blanked. I scrambled for the most tragic, blameless exit. “Cancer,” I said quietly. “He kept getting these headaches, but he refused to go to the doctor. By the time they caught it… it was too late.” In the driver’s seat, my stepdad let out a heavy sigh, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “That’s the problem with being young. You think you’re invincible. You think you have time. Let this be a lesson to you, Harper. You feel something wrong, you get it checked out.” I nodded, playing the part of the dutiful, grieving daughter. Beside me in the backseat, Roxy reached over and laced her fingers through mine. Her face was a portrait of deep, sisterly concern. We weren’t biologically related. I was Mom’s kid from her first marriage; Roxy was my stepdad’s daughter from his. We only saw each other a few times a year, but we’d always clicked. She had always treated me like real blood. Which was why this betrayal felt like a knife twisting in my ribs. She squeezed my hand, struggling to find the words. Finally, she looked at me softly. “If I had known your boyfriend had passed, I never would have brought Cameron home. I wouldn’t have wanted to rub it in your face.” I shook my head, my chest tight. “It’s fine. I’m not upset.” I glanced at my mother, then at my stepdad. The truth was, I loved this family. After my biological father died—a man who had been nothing but cruel to us—my stepdad had stepped in and treated me as his own. He paid for my college. He never asked me to change my last name. But my own lingering insecurities always made me keep them at an arm’s length. I never wanted to be a burden. I rarely asked for money, and I kept my visits brief. Sitting in this car, we had exchanged more words than we had in the entire past year. I offered a bitter, fragile smile. My mom caught it. “Don’t dwell in the dark, Harper,” she said softly. “Some things are just out of our hands. He didn’t have the luck to stay in this world, but maybe he’ll have better luck in the next. Like those articles say—sometimes the truest form of love is letting go.” A sharp, unexpected laugh escaped my lips. I guess those sappy Facebook quotes my mom read actually had their uses. My stepdad smiled, keeping his eyes on the road. “We just want you to be happy, kiddo. When your mom is happy, I’m happy.” I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. Up front, Cameron sat rigidly, radiating the energy of an absolute intruder. He hadn’t dared to breathe too loudly, let alone speak. Then, Roxy broke the silence. “Harp, I have to ask… after he passed, his parents didn’t give you a hard time, did they?” I shook my head slowly, leaning into the lie. “They’re dead too.” In the passenger seat, Cameron violently whipped his head around to stare at me. I tilted my head, meeting his panicked gaze with dead eyes. “What is it, Cameron? Did you have a question about my late boyfriend’s family?” Cameron forced a laugh that sounded more like a choke. “No. No, of course not. Just… what a tragic story for the poor guy.” I nodded, turning back to Roxy. “His background wasn’t great. His parents didn’t work, he supported them from the day he got his first paycheck,” I said, my voice steady, weaving the very real insecurities Cameron used to throw in my face into my narrative. “And then they decided I wasn’t good enough for him. They said my family was practically broke, that my freelance career wasn’t a ‘real’ job. Whenever I went over for dinner, they’d literally feed me table scraps.” Smack. My mom hit the dashboard so hard the plastic groaned. The entire car went dead silent. “Then they deserved to rot,” Roxy snarled, her protective older-sister instincts flaring up. In the passenger seat, Cameron looked like he was going to throw up. And then, my stepdad—the quietest, most mild-mannered man I knew—spoke up. 3: Setting Off “The sheer audacity,” my stepdad growled, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “To look down on my daughter when they didn’t even have jobs themselves? We own our home. We put you through school. Your sister makes good money. The three of us could have bought and sold that boy. It’s a good thing he’s in the ground, Harper. Because if he were breathing, I’d be driving to his house right now to beat the living hell out of him.” My breath hitched. For a decade, I had swallowed Cameron’s subtle put-downs about my background. I had absorbed them because my biological father had never once stood up for me. Whenever I had come home crying as a kid, my real father’s response was usually to scream at me for being too sensitive, or worse. I had been conditioned to digest my pain in silence. Hearing my stepdad—a man who owed me nothing—defend me with such visceral, unhesitating rage… it broke something open inside me. A sob tore from my throat. And once I started crying, I couldn’t stop. Panic ensued. Roxy and my mom were tearing apart the car looking for tissues. Within seconds, the three of us women were holding hands across the seats, sobbing collectively. Even my stepdad had to pull over onto the shoulder for a minute to aggressively wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. Amidst the tears and the stopping and starting, we finally arrived at the coordinates the stranger had sent me. It was a small, quiet, beautifully maintained cemetery on the edge of town. A place my parents had never even heard of. I checked my phone constantly, pretending I was intimately familiar with the sprawling lawns, leading them down the winding gravel paths while my heart hammered against my ribs. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Cameron. I gotta hand it to you, Harper. You’re a fucking psychopath. How did you even find this place? I deleted the text without replying. As we walked, my stepdad put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re turned around, aren’t you? It’s okay, kiddo. Grief does that to your memory.” I nodded, forcing two fresh tears to spill over my lashes. My mom wrapped her arm around my waist, guiding me forward until we reached the exact row and plot. It was a fresh grave. Perfect, I thought, mentally promising my internet savior an embarrassing amount of money. The bronze plaque looked brand new. My parents stepped closer, peering at the name and the dates. “So young,” my mom whispered, her voice cracking. “It breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” I kept my head bowed, playing the role of the shattered lover. Roxy, ever the dramatic powerhouse, stepped forward. She pulled out an expensive bottle of bourbon she’d bought for our stepdad and poured a generous splash directly onto the grass in front of the headstone. “Listen to me, Foster,” Roxy said to the dirt. “You got a raw deal. If you were still here, I was fully prepared to haze you like a proper older sister. But you’re gone. So drink up, wherever you are. And know she’s safe with us.” She stood back up, brushing her hands off, before turning her sharp gaze onto Cameron, who was hovering awkwardly at the edge of the path. “Well?” Roxy snapped. “Don’t you have anything to say to the guy who came before you?” Cameron blinked, looking like a deer in the headlights. “I—uh. I don’t…” “Get on your knees, Cameron,” Roxy demanded, pointing at the grass. “Show some respect. Don’t act like a coward.” Cameron stammered, his eyes darting to me for help. I looked away. Without warning, Roxy kicked the back of his knee. Cameron buckled, stumbling forward until he was kneeling directly in front of the headstone. “Bow your head,” she ordered. “And tell him you’ll take good care of his girl.” Cameron squeezed his eyes shut. His jaw clenched so tight I thought it might shatter. Slowly, humiliatingly, he bent forward, resting his forehead against the cold edge of the stone. “Good enough,” I muttered, honestly feeling second-hand embarrassment. “Hold on for a few more seconds,” Roxy commanded him. “Let the man hear you.” Cameron stayed frozen, his dignity entirely stripped away on the manicured lawn. Finally, he scrambled back to his feet, dusting off his designer jeans with trembling hands. “I’m fine. We’re good.” Meanwhile, my parents were busy arranging a bizarre, high-end picnic at the base of the grave. They had brought the best cuts of cured meats, expensive imported fruits, and a box of high-end cigars my stepdad had been saving. The kind of spread you’d offer a new son-in-law. “We bought all this when Harper said you were coming,” Mom said tearfully to the headstone. “You didn’t make it. But we couldn’t just leave it at the house. It belongs to you.” Watching them carefully lay out the offerings, a sharp pang of guilt finally hit me. They were pouring so much genuine love into a lie. I looked down. My phone vibrated. Cameron: You owe me so much money for this therapy bill. You literally killed off my entire family. 4: The Incident I had to suppress the urge to turn around and shove him into an open plot. For my sister and my parents’ sake, I held it together. I crouched down in front of the bronze marker. “I don’t know who sent me your information,” I whispered to the cold metal, “but you really saved me today. I’ll come back and visit you for real. We’re the same age. We probably would have been friends.” I took a small, resilient succulent I’d brought from my windowsill and nestled it into the fresh dirt near the base. “This thing is impossible to kill,” I told him softly. “I hope wherever you are, you have that same kind of stubborn life in you.” I finally read the name on the plaque. Nathaniel Foster. It was a strong name. Quiet. Enduring. There was a small QR code etched into the bottom corner of the bronze. I had seen them before—modern memorials that linked to a digitized obituary or a video tribute. Driven by an morbid, compulsive curiosity, I pulled out my phone and opened the camera. My parents stared at me, slightly horrified. “Harper, is that… appropriate?” Mom asked. “Oh, let her,” Roxy said dismissively. “It’s her boyfriend.” The phone chimed. The link opened. I instantly knew it was a bad idea, but my thumb had already tapped the play button. A video filled my screen. A young man with tired but incredibly kind eyes smiled directly into the camera. “Hey. I’m Nathaniel,” his voice drifted from my phone speaker, raspy but warm. “If you’re watching this, I’m guessing I’ve been dead for about a year. I can’t believe someone actually came to visit!” My hands started to shake. “I’m really glad you did,” the digital Nathaniel continued. “Do you think you could come back sometime? Because… my friends and my family, they’re all gone, too. It’s just me.” All the air rushed out of my lungs. When I had been spinning those lies in the car about his family being dead—I hadn’t known. I felt a horrifying wave of nausea, convinced I had somehow manifested this tragedy. Before I could even process the horror, Nathaniel offered a bright, brittle laugh. “Anyway, make sure you eat well today. Be happy. That’s the most important thing. You’re my only connection left to the living world, so you better live a long time for the both of us.” The video ended. Behind me, the dam broke. My parents—who rarely cried at even the most manipulative Hallmark movies—were openly sobbing. Roxy was letting out a sound that was half-wail, half-howl. They hadn’t even clocked the discrepancy in the timeline. They were too deeply immersed in the tragedy of it all. It took Cameron and me ten minutes to corral them back to the SUV. My stepdad was crying too hard to see the road, so Cameron had to take the wheel. About halfway home, Cameron pulled into a gas station. “I need to use the restroom,” he muttered, throwing the car into park and practically running toward the convenience store. The moment the store’s glass doors slid shut behind him, my stepdad instantly stopped crying. He sat up straight, wiped his eyes perfectly dry, unbuckled his seatbelt, and vaulted over the center console into the driver’s seat. He slammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal. I whipped around in the backseat, completely stunned. After five minutes of speeding down the highway, I finally found my voice. “Um. I think we left someone behind.” Roxy let out a dark, vicious scoff. “Good. Let the bastard rot at the Sunoco. He deserves it for what he did to you.” “Your sister saw the texts he sent you,” my mom added calmly from the front. “She told us the second we got in the house.” Roxy grabbed my hands, her eyes fierce. “Harp. Look at me. I might not be your biological sister, but I would never do some twisted soap opera bullshit and steal your guy. Mostly because I’m way out of his league, but also because… his contact in your phone is literally ‘Uber Eats Driver.’ I just thought he was dropping off your dinner.” I let out a breathless, broken laugh. Roxy smiled ruefully. “I knew something was off last night. Why would an Uber Eats driver have the exact same profile picture as you? I checked the details while he was sleeping. I saw it all.” My parents nodded in agreement. They had orchestrated this entire morning the second they found out. “I gotta ask,” I said, smiling through a fresh wave of tears. “If I hadn’t found a random grave on the internet, were you guys just going to start digging a hole in the backyard?” They were absolutely unhinged. And I loved them so much. As the warmth of my family enveloped me, my phone buzzed in my hand. The stranger from Reddit had finally replied. They sent a phone number. I quickly added the contact and sent a text. Hi, I’m Harper. Thank you so much for today. A bubble popped up immediately. Hi. I’m Nathaniel Foster. What?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400768”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I had spent eight years of my life loving Bria Hamilton. Now, we were standing at the altar, a “shotgun wedding” meant to seal our forever. The officiant cleared his throat, the sound echoing through the vaulted stone chapel. “Miles Crawford, do you take Brianna Hamilton to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The words were on the tip of my tongue, ready to be offered up like a sacrifice. But before I could speak, a tiny, high-pitched voice—sharp as a needle—exploded inside my head. [Dad! Don’t do it! Bria’s baby isn’t yours!] [The kid in her belly belongs to your brother!] My brain felt like it had short-circuited. My vision blurred for a second as those two sentences burned through my consciousness. The entire guest list was staring at me, waiting for the “I do,” but I was frozen, a statue in a designer tux. If Bria’s baby wasn’t mine… then whose voice was this? Who was this child calling me “Dad”? A split second later, the voice chimed in again, sounding exasperated. [Stupid Dad! She’s been playing you for years. If you marry her, she’s going to lock you in the basement and take everything!] [Quick! Ask for help from my mom! She’s the beautiful, rich one in the front row!] I was reeling. My eyes instinctively darted toward the front row, landing on Helena Vanderwaal. She was the “Ice Queen” of the East Coast elite—a woman who lived in a world of high-stakes acquisitions and silent retreats. She was untouchable, ethereal, and famously single. 1 Even though it was my wedding day, the gravity of the room always seemed to pull toward Helena. She sat there with a cold, detached grace that made everyone else look like they were trying too hard. I caught her gaze—crystalline and indifferent—and immediately looked away, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Little one,” I thought, my mind racing, “do you have any idea who she is? That’s Helena Vanderwaal. She’s the CEO of the Vanderwaal Group. She doesn’t have a man in her life, let alone a child. How could you be hers?” “I know things are messy with Bria, but you can’t just make things up. You can’t just pick a billionaire to be your mother. Get real.” “It’s too late to find a new mom now. Maybe in the next life, kid.” I tried to soothe the voice, assuming it was some hallucination born of cold feet and trauma. But the voice screamed back, louder this time: [Did you seriously forget that night at the St. Regis?] [Your wife and your brother drugged you! They were going to ‘gift’ you to a client to close a deal, but you stumbled into the wrong suite…] [The woman in that bed was Helena Vanderwaal!] The memory hit me like a physical blow. The St. Regis. Three months ago. I had woken up in a haze, the sheets smelling of expensive perfume and something metallic. I remembered a back covered in faint red marks and the rhythm of frantic breathing in the dark. I had thought it was Bria. I thought we had just… had a wild night. But looking at Helena now, I remembered the way she had clung to my neck, her poise shattered, her cries muffled against my shoulder. The “Ice Queen” had been molten lava that night. The officiant, sensing the awkward silence stretching too long, repeated the question: “Mr. Miles Crawford, do you take Brianna Hamilton to be your wife?” Bria squeezed my arm, her smile tight with growing concern. “Miles? What’s wrong? Just nerves?” she whispered, her voice like honeyed poison. She scratched the palm of my hand playfully. “Don’t be scared. Once we’re married, I’ll give you everything.” [Don’t believe her! she bought a house right next to your new place just so she can keep sleeping with Tristan!] The jolt of adrenaline was so sharp I nearly jumped. I took a deep breath and shouted: “I don’t!” The room erupted. The Hamiltons were old money in this town. Rejecting Bria in front of the crème de la crème of society was unthinkable. Especially since I had spent years being Bria’s “lapdog,” the guy who had shamelessly chased her until she finally said yes. I was the “wild” Crawford son who had finally been tamed. And now, at the finish line, I was walking away. Bria’s face turned a sickly shade of gray. “Miles, stop playing. This is the wedding! If you’re upset about something, we can talk after the reception…” [If you wait until after the reception, she wins! My mom is leaving the country tonight to chase after her ‘Great Lost Love’!] [Dad, time is running out! Kick the liar to the curb and get your gorgeous, rich baby-mama back!] “I’m not marrying you,” I said, my voice hardening. A son wouldn’t lie to his father. If he said Bria was a snake, she was a snake. My brother, Tristan, stepped up onto the altar then, moving with a practiced, casual grace. He stood right next to Bria. “Miles, what kind of stunt is this? Bria is doing you a favor by marrying you. Don’t be an ass.” As he got closer, I noticed the ring on his finger. It was a diamond band, nearly identical to my wedding ring. But as the light hit it, I realized mine looked like a cheap imitation compared to the fire dancing on his hand. The realization settled in my gut like lead. The baby Bria was carrying—it was their plan. Tristan was the “adopted” golden boy, the one our parents adored. He didn’t have the pedigree to marry into the Hamiltons on his own. I was the bridge. I was the tool to merge the families, and then I’d be the “happy” father raising his brother’s child while they carried on their affair next door. My parents stood up, their faces purple with rage. “Miles Crawford! Haven’t you embarrassed this family enough? You think marriage is a joke?” “You begged for this girl! And now you’re throwing a tantrum? Why can’t you be more like Tristan? He actually understands what’s at stake!” “You are marrying her today, whether you like it or not!” 2 The wedding had devolved into a circus. Guests were whispering behind their programs, their eyes gleaming with the thrill of a scandal. “The Crawford boy is finally losing it,” I heard someone hiss. “He spent years acting like her shadow, and now he wants to back out? His parents are going to disinherit him by tonight.” “The adopted one is so much more grounded. At least he knows how to play the game.” “Shame. The biological son is always the disappointment.” The words stung, but they also cleared the fog. I realized that my reputation in this town had been systematically dismantled. I used to be the refined Crawford heir, but since Tristan entered the picture, my standing had evaporated. My father and Bria had slowly turned me into a caricature of a loser. Bria grabbed my hand, ignoring my rejection as she turned to the crowd with a forced, brave smile. “Miles is just having a bit of an episode. Please, excuse us. He’s just overwhelmed. We’re going to proceed.” I saw Tristan clenching his fist out of the corner of my eye. I took a sharp breath and wrenched my hand away from Bria. “I said no! I know about you and my brother! I know that baby in your womb belongs to Tristan!” The silence that followed was deafening. It was like a bomb had gone off in the chapel. [Attaboy, Dad! Rip the masks off those two!] [Tristan’s been the one leaking those ‘drunk’ photos of you to the press for years. He’s the reason everyone thinks you’re a joke!] The voice in my head was practically cheering. “What are you saying?” Tristan gasped, clutching his chest like he’d been shot. “Miles, you’ve always been hard on me, but this? To accuse me of something so vile in front of everyone?” “How could you use Bria’s pregnancy as an excuse to run away from your responsibilities?” Bria’s eyes flickered with a moment of pure panic before she smoothed it over with a look of righteous indignation. “Miles, this is too much! If you didn’t want to marry me, fine. But don’t drag Tristan into your delusions!” My father looked at me with pure disgust. “You’re sick, Miles. Truly sick. To humiliate your brother and your bride like this? I don’t know how we raised a son like you.” “You’ve made us the laughingstock of the city!” The guests were snickering now. “Unbelievable. The guy is actually delusional. Imagine accusing your own brother of that.” I ripped the boutonniere off my lapel and threw it on the floor. I turned to leave, but three heavy-set security guards blocked the exit. Bria seized the opportunity to grab my wrist again, her fingernails digging into my skin. “Once we’re married,” she hissed under her breath, her face twisting into something monstrous, “you’ll never be able to act out like this again.” I looked around. No one was on my side. They saw a clown, a liar, a man who needed to be controlled. For the first time in years, I saw the cage for what it was. [Dad, if the ceremony finishes, she’s going to have you committed to a ‘wellness retreat’ in the mountains. It’s a prison!] [There are black SUVs waiting outside. If you leave this room without help, they’ll snatch you!] [Dad! Look at my Mommy!] Helena? I looked toward her seat, but she was already standing up, signaling her assistant to leave. [No! She’s heading to the airport! She’s going to find the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’!] She was my only lifeline. In a moment of pure desperation, I bit down hard on Bria’s hand. She shrieked and let go. I bolted, diving through the crowd toward Helena. Security lunged for me. I kicked over a table of champagne flutes, the crash of glass creating a momentary barricade of chaos. I ignored the screams and the splashing wine, focused entirely on the woman in the silk dress. Helena turned just as I reached her. I collided with her, nearly knocking her over. “Take me with you,” I gasped, clutching her shoulders. “Please.” Her face was a mask of cold porcelain. She shoved me back with surprising strength, brushing off her dress like I was a piece of filth she’d picked up in the street. “Get lost,” she said, her voice like dry ice. “I don’t do charity cases. And I certainly don’t touch men like you.” [She’s faking it, Dad! She’s totally putting on her ‘Boss Bitch’ act. Once she falls for you, she’s a total clinger!] Helena turned to walk away. I dropped to the floor and grabbed her ankle. Steps thundered behind me. Bria and the guards were closing in. My parents were staring at Helena with terror, terrified of her wrath. “We are so sorry, Ms. Vanderwaal,” my father stammered. “Our son… he’s had a mental break. We’ll handle him.” Bria chimed in, her voice trembling with fake humility. “I am so embarrassed. I’ll make sure he’s looked after, Ms. Vanderwaal. Please, forgive us.” Tristan stepped forward, looking at Helena with that thirsty, sycophantic gaze every man in the city had. Helena didn’t look at them. She looked down at my hand wrapped around her ankle. Tristan stepped up and ground his heel into the back of my hand. “Miles, let go of her! Stop embarrassing yourself!” I cried out in pain. Helena used the moment to pull her foot away, turning her back on me. As she stepped toward the door, I screamed the only thing I had left: “Helena! The baby you’re carrying is mine!” 3 Helena stopped dead. The entire room fell into a tomb-like silence. Every guest turned to look at me, and for the first time, it wasn’t mockery in their eyes—it was pity. They thought I was a dead man walking. Tristan’s mask slipped for a second, replaced by a glint of malicious joy. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Miles, if you wanted to climb the social ladder, you picked the highest cliff to jump off of.” “Helena Vanderwaal isn’t a woman you play with.” He was right. Everyone knew Helena lived like a nun. She wore a small, silver rosary around her wrist as a symbol of her detachment from the “filth” of romance. The last man who tried to force himself into her orbit had his life dismantled within forty-eight hours. “He’s literally asking for death,” someone whispered. “I thought he was just a loser, but he’s actually suicidal.” We all held our breath. Helena turned around slowly. Her lips were a thin line, her eyes freezing me in place. She began to twist the silver beads on her wrist—a sign, everyone knew, that she was losing her patience. “My baby?” she said, her voice dangerously low. “Mr. Crawford, you have a lot of nerve.” “No one in this city talks to me like that. I’ve heard about you—the pathetic groom who tries to pin his indiscretions on a woman like me to save his own skin?” The clicking of the beads was the only sound in the room. Bria lunged forward and grabbed my hair, forcing my head down toward the floor in a mock apology. “I am so sorry! He’s delusional! Miles, apologize! Now!” Bria didn’t care that I was claiming another woman’s baby. She just wanted to keep me under her thumb so she and Tristan could have their cake and eat it too. [Don’t worry, Dad! Once you prove the baby is yours, she won’t let them touch you!] [With the Vanderwaals behind you, these people are nothing!] Proof? I thought bitterly. What proof do I have? I barely even know who she is. My father stormed over and slapped me across the face—twice. “Apologize! You’re going to get us all killed!” Helena looked down at me like I was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. I looked up at her, my vision swimming, and said as calmly as I could: “Helena. I saw the birthmark. The one shaped like a rose, just below your hip.” Helena froze. Her expression didn’t change, but her pupils blown wide. That mark was in an incredibly private place. No one could have known about it unless they had been… very close. The rest of the room was confused, but Tristan was quick to pivot. “Everyone has birthmarks, Miles. You’re grasping at straws. You probably saw it in a dream or heard a rumor. You really expect us to believe you’ve been with Ms. Vanderwaal?” “If you’re so sure, why don’t we do a paternity test? Right here. Right now.” Tristan was smug. He didn’t believe for a second that a nobody like me could have touched a woman like Helena. Even her presence at this wedding was a fluke, a result of Bria’s family spending a fortune on a charitable donation to Helena’s foundation. The crowd took up the chant. “Yeah! Test him! Let’s see the liar exposed!” “Kick him out of the city! He’s a disgrace!” Helena’s eyes were dark and unreadable. She knew she was pregnant—hardly anyone else did. And this man knew about the mark. Finally, she nodded. “Fine. We’ll do the test. I want to see you realize exactly how much you’ve screwed up before I ruin you.” [Dad, you’re the man! I can’t wait to see her face when the results come in!] [I’ll show you how to handle her. She’s going to be your biggest fan soon enough!] The scandal of the century was in motion. Within an hour, a private doctor arrived. Helena and I were both sampled while the guests hovered, sensing blood. Helena’s grandfather, the patriarch of the Vanderwaal family, had arrived by then. He stood in the corner, leaning on his cane, looking strangely hopeful. “Finally,” he muttered. “My granddaughter might actually have a husband.” Helena scoffed. “Don’t get your hopes up, Grandfather. Once this is over, he won’t be in any condition to walk, let alone marry.” I sat there, bruised and exhausted, watching the blood leave my arm. My parents were huddled together, whispering about how to disown me officially. Bria looked like she wanted to murder me. [It hurts, Dad, but it’s worth it! We’re almost there!] Finally, the doctor returned. He was pale, clutching a folder like it was a live grenade. He walked straight to Helena and whispered in her ear. The “Ice Queen” looked like she’d been struck by lightning. Grandfather Vanderwaal hammered his cane on the floor. “Speak up! Is he the father of my great-grandchild or not?” Tristan chuckled. “Of course not. He’s just a—” “The results,” the doctor interrupted, his voice shaking, “show a 99.99% probability of paternity. Mr. Crawford is the father.”

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