Category: English

“I’m so sorry, but this flight is oversold. Here is a two-hundred-dollar voucher. You need to deplane immediately!” The lead flight attendant had a death grip on my carry-on roller bag. I looked at him coldly, then shifted my gaze to the woman standing next to him. She had just been escorted onto the plane, dripping in head-to-toe designer gear. “Why does she get to board late, while I, holding a full-fare ticket, am being kicked off?” I demanded. The flight attendant sneered, leaning in close to whisper sarcastically, “Because she is Chloe Sterling, of the Sterling Medical Group family. She’s rushing to New York to beg ‘The Miracle Surgeon’—the one no one can ever find—to save her life.” “You think whatever emergency you have matters compared to a life-and-death situation? If you delay Ms. Sterling, you couldn’t repay that debt in ten lifetimes. Now, get lost!” I was dragged off the plane by several beefy security guards. I watched through the terminal window as the cabin door closed. I started laughing from sheer anger. The “Ms. Sterling” he was talking about has a terminal illness. And what he didn’t know was that I am that “Miracle Surgeon.” Her family had spent three months begging on their knees before I finally agreed to fly to New York today to perform her operation. Since they kicked me off, I’m not doing the surgery. Good luck, Sterling. You’re going to need it. Chapter 1 I dragged my suitcase, step by heavy step, over to the gate agent’s counter. “I need to cancel and refund my ticket.” I slammed my ID onto the laminate countertop, my voice thick with resentment. The agent glanced at the screen, looked me up and down, and actually rolled her eyes. “So sorry, but since you ‘chose’ not to board, this is considered a voluntary cancellation. You only get back the taxes and facility fees. That’s sixty bucks. No full refund.” I was so angry I laughed. “Voluntary?” “Your airline oversold the flight and had security drag a full-fare passenger off the plane. You call that voluntary on my part?” The agent’s fingers flew across the keyboard, clacking loudly. She looked incredibly impatient. “Look, you were causing a scene in the jet bridge, disrupting order. Breaking federal regulations.” “Honestly, you should be happy you’re getting sixty bucks back. Don’t push your luck.” Just then, the sound of expensive leather shoes echoed from the terminal floor. That same lead flight attendant from before was walking over, head held high, holding his phone up, recording me. “Look at this loser, trying to scam the airline for cash after getting booted. Totally broke and desperate!” “You just want a bigger compensation voucher, don’t you? Why act so high and mighty?” The flight attendant crossed his arms, his face twisted in mockery. “Is two hundred not enough for a peasant like you?” “Maybe I should post this video online so everyone can see how pathetic you are. Who knows? Some nice person might start a GoFundMe for you. A charity case!” I stared at his insufferable face, fighting to keep my rage under control. “You are going to regret everything you did today.” The flight attendant reacted as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. He laughed so hard tears almost came out. “Regret? Me? Regret something concerning a piece of trash like you who can’t even afford Economy Plus, let alone First Class?” “Ms. Sterling chartered the entire First Class cabin. Even her bodyguards are in Business. Her security detail is worth more than your life.” “Who do you think you are, making me regret something?” He spun around, shouting at the top of his lungs to the passengers milling around the concourse. “Everyone, look at this guy!” “He’s the one who refused to cooperate during an overbooking situation and tried to blackmail the airline! Now he’s harassing the gate agents, delaying everyone. He’s a menace!” The surrounding passengers were instantly drawn in. Whispers and judging looks began to fly. “He looks decent, how can he be such a scumbag?” “Exactly. The airline offered compensation, and he still made a scene. He’s crazy for money!” “Just get out of here, stop embarrassing yourself!” I ignored the onlookers and turned back to the gate agent. “Fine. Cancel it.” “But you are going to write down, in black and white, on the receipt, that this was an Involuntary Denial of Boarding due to airline overbooking.” I needed a paper trail. When the Sterling family inevitably came looking for me, I wasn’t going to let them think I broke the contract voluntarily. I was not taking the fall for this. The flight attendant’s face darkened. He slammed his hand on the counter. “In your dreams!” “We offered you a solution, and you refused it. Now you want to slander the airline?” “Where is security? Are they deaf? Drag this lunatic out of here!” Several airport police officers immediately rushed over, grabbing my arms from both sides in a vice grip. “Let go of me!” I struggled desperately, but the cops didn’t listen. They began dragging me toward the airport exit. As they dragged me past the flight attendant, I couldn’t help but issue a final warning. “You better remember my face today. And remember every word that just came out of your mouth.” “Very soon, you’ll be on your knees begging me.” He wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he kicked my rolling suitcase over. The already damaged suitcase split completely open. Clothes and specialized, custom-compounded medications spilled across the dirty floor. The flight attendant stomped on one of the glass vials, crushing it instantly. The specialized formula inside turned to powder under his heel. It was over. That was the specialized medication I had compounded specifically for Chloe Sterling. It was the only dose in the world! Without those meds, Chloe Sterling would never survive the post-operative recovery period! “Oh my, I am so sorry,” the flight attendant mocked with fake sympathy. Countless phone cameras were aimed at me. A barrage of mockery overwhelmed me. I was thrown out of the departure terminal, landing hard on the concrete sidewalk. The flight attendant tossed my suitcase—broken and open—onto me like he was throwing out trash. “Take your garbage and get lost! You make trouble again, and we’re locking you up for disturbing the peace!” Just then, my phone began vibrating like crazy in my pocket. The second I answered, a barrage of furious questions blasted through the speaker. “What is wrong with you!” “The plane took off ages ago. I just checked the flight manifest, and your name isn’t even on it!” It was the Sterling family’s chief of staff. His tone was arrogant, demanding answers. “The Sterling family put so much effort into hiring you. We wired you a massive retainer, and you decide to play diva at the last second?” “Who do you think you are, making the Sterlings wait?” “If it weren’t for the fact that you’re supposed to be the best surgeon for this, you think you’d be worthy of treating our Ms. Chloe?” I tried to explain it was the airline’s fault, but he wouldn’t listen. “I’m warning you. Our daughter’s illness cannot wait. If you are not in the operating room at New York-Presbyterian before sundown today, don’t blame the Sterlings for getting nasty!” “You took Sterling money, you better deliver. Believe me, I can make sure you never practice medicine in this country again!” The call slammed shut. The dial tone droned in my ear. My heart was bursting with fury. I dialed the number back. The second it connected, the chief of staff’s impatient voice snapped, “What else could you possibly have to say? Figure it out and charter a private plane if you have to!” “Don’t bother,” I said, my voice cold. “If you want to know why I’m not on that plane, go ask the lead flight attendant of Chloe’s flight.” “What does that mean?” “Exactly what I said.” I hung up immediately. I opened my mobile banking app, found the three-million-dollar retainers—the “good faith payment”—the Sterlings had sent, and hit ‘Return to Sender.’ I added a four-word note: Find Someone Else. Three million might be a fortune to some, but to me, it wasn’t worth the humiliation I endured today. I blocked every Sterling family contact number. Total blackout. Looking at the crushed specialized medication scattered on the pavement, I let out a cold laugh. Chloe Sterling, your life is out of my hands. I hailed a cab and went straight back to the hospital. I had just sat down in my office when my phone started vibrating like crazy again. It was Dr. Evans, the hospital President. He was screaming the moment I answered. “Ethan Vance! What in God’s name is going on!” “The Sterling family just called me! They said you were causing a riot at the airport and tried to attack Ms. Sterling!” “The flight attendant was apparently forced to remove you from the flight to protect Ms. Sterling. Instead of being remorseful, you had the audacity to return their retainer?” I was stunned. Once it clicked, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. That flight attendant’s ability to twist the truth was world-class. To cover up the airline’s overselling mistake, he concocted a lie like that. And the hilarious part was that the Sterling family actually believed that total garbage without checking for two seconds. “Old Mrs. Sterling herself gave the order. You are to get on the next flight to New York, get on your knees, beg Chloe Sterling for forgiveness, and perform the surgery immediately!” “If you dare refuse, consider yourself fired!” I ignored the screaming through the phone. I pulled out a blank sheet of paper and quickly scrawled my letter of resignation. I walked upstairs and pushed open the President’s office door. Dr. Evans was still holding his phone, looking surprised to see me. Slap! I slammed the resignation letter hard onto his desk. “Don’t bother firing me. I resign.” Dr. Evans stared at the paper, his eyes wide. “Are you insane? You think resigning lets you off the hook with the Sterlings?” I leaned over his desk, looking down at him. “Dr. Evans, I’m burned out. I’m taking a very long vacation out of state.” “If the Sterlings have the power to revoke my medical license, let them try. If they want to blacklist me, let them.” I turned and walked out. “Wait!” “You come back here!” Dr. Evans was screaming behind me in useless rage. I didn’t look back. I walked right out of the building. I did the math in my head. It was about time. Chloe Sterling’s terminal illness was being held at bay solely by that specialized medication I compounded. Now the meds were gone, and she was at thirty thousand feet. It was time for the symptoms to flare up. When I got home, I turned off my phone, drew the curtains, and slept like the dead. Early the next morning, the moment I turned on my phone, it was flooded with missed calls from the Sterling family. Immediately, an unknown number with a local area code called. I answered, and a familiar voice came through. “Dr. Vance! Please, you have to get to the airport right now! Ms. Sterling started vomiting blood on the flight and collapsed into a coma!” “The airline has authorized a complimentary Business Class seat to fly you specifically to New York on a private charter!” It was the lead flight attendant from yesterday. I let out a cold sneer and exposed him immediately. “Complimentary Business Class? Didn’t you say yesterday I was a broke loser who only deserved to be dragged off the plane?” “Shut up!” He was panicked, but his tone was still demanding and arrogant. “The Sterling family is putting immense pressure on the airline. If I lose my job because of you, I’m coming for you! Get your ass down here now!” I hung up immediately. I blocked that number too. Less than half an hour later, a thunderous pounding erupted at my front door. Boom! Boom! Boom! Along with a strong, pungent chemical smell. “Ethan Vance! You murderous quack! Get out here!” I ripped the door open. A bucket of red paint had been thrown over my outer security door, dripping down the crevices. The flight attendant, flanked by several beefy airline security guards, stood aggressively at my doorstep. Neighbors were already gathering in the hallway, peeking out and whispering. “What a shame. He seemed like such a nice young man, but turns out he’s a corrupt doctor.” “Exactly. They’re throwing paint on his door. He must have done something truly awful!” Hearing the gossip, the flight attendant got even more smug. “Look at this quack, everyone!” “He took a patient’s money and didn’t do his job. He intentionally delayed treatment, causing the patient to be in critical condition!” “Now he’s hiding in his apartment playing dead. A corrupt doctor like this belongs in prison!” His face was contorted in fury. He was clearly being pushed to the brink by the Sterling family and was trying to use me as a scapegoat to save himself. “You think hiding works? Today, you are getting to New York even if I have to drag your corpse there!” I looked at the red paint on the floor and was about to call the police when a heavy set of footsteps echoed from the stairs. Several bodyguards in black suits roughly pushed the spectating neighbors aside. Sterling’s chief of staff walked up, looking down at me with supreme arrogance. The flight attendant immediately fawned over him. “Chief, look, I found him! This won’t delay Ms. Sterling’s treatment!” The chief of staff didn’t even give him a glance. He walked straight up to me. “Dr. Vance, are you done with your tantrum?” He pulled out a check and waved it between his fingertips. “Six million. Double the original retainer.” “Come with me right now, and the Sterlings will let bygones be bygones.” I didn’t even look at the check. I coldly spit out two words. “Not interested.” “Don’t push your luck, kid!” The chief of staff’s face instantly darkened, the polite mask slipping. “You really think you can afford to offend the Sterling family?” He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping low, filled with an icy chill. “You don’t want to go? Fine. Today, I am kidnapping you. I will strap you to that operating table myself.” “You don’t want to pick up the scalpel? The Sterlings have plenty of ways to make you.” “I heard… Dr. Vance’s father currently resides at the Cornwall Assisted Living Facility?” My entire body shuddered. They were despicable enough to track down my father’s whereabouts. “You dare touch my father, and you’re dead!” I gritted my teeth, staring at him with pure hatred. “To cure our daughter, the Sterlings will do whatever it takes.” The chief of staff sneered repeatedly, supreme arrogance on his face. “You better smarten up. Go pack your things now.” “Otherwise, I guarantee your father will be thrown out of that facility today, left on the street!” The surrounding bodyguards immediately stepped forward, restraining me. The flight attendant gloated from the sidelines. “Did you hear that? Still trying to act tough in front of the Sterlings? You really won’t give up until you see the coffin, will you?” Looking at their ugly faces, I suddenly started to laugh. The chief of staff’s brow furrowed, extremely impatient. “What are you laughing at!” “I’m laughing at how stupid you are.” I stopped smiling and looked at the flight attendant, who was still looking triumphant. “You really think I’m refusing to save Chloe Sterling because of a grudge?” “Even if I went right now, she’s already dead.” The chief of staff’s face changed dramatically. She grabbed my collar. “What do you mean!”

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On National Doctors’ Day, March 30th, I boarded an Amtrak Acela express train heading back to Washington D.C. for work. I never expected that the moment I boarded, I would find a strange man sitting in the seat I had paid for. At first, I politely asked him to move. But he decided to act like a creep, spouting some nonsense about “waiting for destiny to bring him the right person.” After several failed attempts to reason with him, I had no choice but to find the train conductor. Instead of helping, the conductor accused me of having “Princess Syndrome” and actually took the seat-stealer’s side. I stared at their ugly, smug faces in absolute shock. I pulled out my ticket confirmation and refused to back down. Suddenly, the seat-stealer exploded into a violent rage. He snatched the medical sample box out of my hands and smashed it onto the floor. “You crazy bitch! You steal my stuff and then act like a victim?! Let’s see how you like this!” He had absolutely no idea. What he just smashed was the only existing vial of KD-1 antibody serum in the entire country, specifically synthesized for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. During the struggle, I accidentally caught a glimpse of the man’s train ticket. I couldn’t help but smile. Since you love stealing seats and smashing things so much, you’d better be ready to face the absolute devastation coming your way! 1 I am a senior researcher at a National Laboratory. Shortly after the holidays, I received an urgent directive to personally transport a highly classified medical sample back to the D.C. headquarters. Because the timeline was so tight, the only ticket I could secure was a standard coach seat on the Amtrak Acela. Before I left, my department head explicitly warned me: “This sample is of paramount importance. You must bring it back intact. I have already arranged for personnel to coordinate with you along the route.” But when I boarded the train and found my assigned seat—Car 3, Seat 4A—there was a strange man sitting in it. After double-checking my ticket on my phone, I politely spoke up: “Excuse me, sir, I believe you might be in the wrong seat.” The man shot me a sideways glance, shifted his weight, and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. I assumed that because the train was packed with people returning to work after the holidays, it was just too loud and he hadn’t heard me. So, I repeated myself a little louder. The moment the words left my mouth, he didn’t even bother lifting his head. He just grunted, “Waiting for destiny!” and squeezed his eyes shut again. Seeing that he had absolutely zero intention of moving, my patience snapped. I lowered my voice and said sternly: “Sir, refusing to vacate an assigned seat on federal transit is a violation of Amtrak policy and constitutes a public disturbance. Please move immediately!” “Who the hell are you trying to scare?” The man finally opened his eyes, letting out a mocking scoff. “You buy a coach train ticket and suddenly think you’re a princess? You say this seat is yours, so it magically belongs to you? Is your name carved into the cushion?” I shoved my digital ticket screen right in his face: “Read it. Car 3, Seat 4A. My seat.” I looked him up and down. “Where’s your ticket?” The man pulled a crumpled ticket from his pocket, glanced at it, and then guiltily slouched back against the headrest. “Why are you yelling? This is a quiet car!” He then puffed out his chest, acting incredibly self-righteous: “Fine, the seat is yours. But I never said I wasn’t going to give it back! Do you know why I’m not moving?” He answered his own question: “Because your attitude was terrible! You were extremely disrespectful to me!” I actually laughed out of sheer disbelief. I set my suitcase down in the aisle. Just as I opened my mouth to argue with this absolute clown, a chorus of impatient groans erupted from the passengers bottlenecked behind me. “Hey, are you guys done up there?!” “Can you let us get to our seats before you start a screaming match?” “You’re blocking the whole aisle, what is your problem?!” The moment he heard the crowd, the man instantly switched masks. He waved his hands placatingly at the people behind me: “Sorry folks, no need to rush, take your time—” Then he turned his head and began “advising” me in a loud, patronizing tone: “Jeez, lady, look at yourself. You have a whole line of people waiting on you, aren’t you embarrassed? Even if you want to throw a hysterical tantrum, learn to read the room!” As soon as he spun the narrative, the ignorant bystanders immediately pointed their frustration at me: “Seriously, the guy is being so polite about it, why are you being so aggressive?” “It’s a morning train, everyone’s stressed. Just show a little grace!” “I’m going to be late for work! Can you stop wasting everyone’s time?!” In the chaos of people pushing past us, someone violently shoved me from behind. The force knocked the sample box off the top of my suitcase, sending it crashing to the floor. My heart stopped. This was the only existing vial of the KD-1 antibody serum in the United States. It was engineered specifically for a highly aggressive, historically untreatable strain of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Three years of grueling research. Over a thousand rounds of synthesis. Methodically eliminating over two thousand candidate strains until this single, viable culture remained. This trip to D.C. was specifically to deliver it for immediate, Phase 1 clinical trials. If successful, this serum would save the lives of thousands of children who had been issued a death sentence by their doctors. I frantically dropped to my knees, snapped the box open, and checked the structural integrity of the vials. Seeing that the vials were intact, I let out a massive breath I didn’t know I was holding. Clutching the box to my chest, I stood up and screamed at the man: “MOVE! I am telling you for the absolute last time, get out of my seat!” “Why the hell are you screaming at me?! I didn’t knock your stupid box over!” The man remained glued to the seat, utterly shameless. He even rolled up his sleeves in a blatant display of provocation. “Wow, with that kind of psychotic attitude, I really don’t feel like moving now!” My anger ignited into a roaring inferno. Just as I was about to unleash on him, a man in an Amtrak conductor’s uniform pushed his way through the crowd. “What’s all this shouting about? What’s the problem here?” The man leaped out of his seat before I could even blink, rushing up to the conductor with a face full of exaggerated grievance. “Oh, officer, thank god you’re here!” “This woman is completely unhinged! She’s been screaming at me over a seat for ten minutes! Absolutely zero class!” I didn’t have the energy to argue with his delusions. I shoved my phone with the digital ticket directly under the conductor’s nose. “He is occupying my assigned seat. Please remove him.” The conductor took my phone, stared at the screen, swiped it back and forth a few times, and frowned deeply. “Ma’am, this ticket… why is the seat number completely distorted?” I froze. I looked down at the screen. The previously crisp “Car 3, Seat 4A” was now a pixelated, corrupted blur. I suddenly remembered that when I shoved the phone in the man’s face earlier, he had grabbed it for a second, his thumb swiping aggressively across the screen. I looked up, locking eyes with him. He was wearing a sickeningly smug smirk. “Sir, may I see your ticket?” The conductor turned to the man. The man slowly pulled a paper ticket from his pocket and beckoned the conductor closer. The two of them huddled together, whispering furiously. I watched the conductor’s expression shift from confusion, to shock, and finally, to extreme deference. He nodded frantically: “Understood! Absolutely, sir! I will handle this immediately.” Before I could even process what was happening, the conductor spun around and addressed me in a cold, bureaucratic tone: “This seat has been confirmed to belong to this gentleman. Your digital ticket is corrupted and cannot verify your seating assignment.” I stared at him, my eyes wide with sheer disbelief. “Are you serious?! Every single person in this aisle just heard him admit he was sitting in my seat! He confessed to it out loud!” The conductor replied with chilling calm: “The gentleman just explained the misunderstanding to me. Currently, your digital ticket cannot prove 4A belongs to you. Do you have any other witnesses who can verify your claim?” I looked around. The passengers who had been so self-righteously indignant just moments ago were now universally staring at their phones or their shoes, completely unwilling to get involved. I let out a harsh laugh and pulled up my Amtrak app. “Fine. You can look at my purchase history in the app database—” The conductor barely glanced at it before aggressively pushing my hand away, smiling condescendingly: “Ma’am, with how advanced Photoshop and spoofing apps are these days, a screenshot on your phone doesn’t prove anything.” Before I could respond, the automated chime signaling the doors were closing echoed through the car. The conductor smirked, pointing to the only empty seat left in the entire car—the one directly next to the man. “Ma’am, I suggest you realize you made a mistake. Your seat is clearly 4B. Sit down immediately, and stop delaying the train’s departure.” “Yeah, little lady,” the man drawled, his voice dripping with condescension. “I understand you women get a little emotional sometimes. I’ll be the bigger man and let this slide.” “Sit your ass down, and stop keeping this man from doing his job!” Little thing? When standing up for my legal rights was branded as a “hysterical tantrum,” and the victim was painted as the aggressor. No matter how small the issue, I was going to fight for what was mine! “I demand you pull up the central passenger manifest on your tablet and verify exactly who purchased Seat 4A!” “Are you out of your mind?” The conductor scoffed loudly. “This is an express train, I am incredibly busy, and I have five other cars to patrol.” “If I waste my time checking the system for your ego trip, and someone in another car gets robbed or has a medical emergency, are you going to take responsibility for that?!” The moment he said that, the “champions of justice” in the car immediately found their voices again: “The conductor works so hard, we’re all just trying to get through the day. Why are you making his life miserable?” “Seriously, keep your Princess Syndrome in check. If everyone was as selfish as you, how is the train staff supposed to do their jobs?” Facing a train car full of people actively villainizing me, I felt my blood pressure spike dangerously high. I grabbed my phone, ready to dial 911. But as I did, my gaze accidentally fell on the paper ticket the man had casually tossed onto his tray table. Train K1127. Unreserved Standing Room. That was… That was the regional commuter train boarding on the opposite platform! I stared at that line of text for three full seconds. Then, I lowered my phone and smiled brightly at the conductor. “You know what? Fine. He can keep it. I’ll just wait.” I clutched my sample box and sat down heavily in the seat next to the stunned, triumphant man. “See? That wasn’t so hard! You should have just done this from the beginning instead of fighting a losing battle!” He leaned back into the plush headrest, immensely satisfied, and closed his eyes. As the Acela Express smoothly accelerated out of the station, I watched the scenery blur past the window, practically biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Since you love stealing seats so much, don’t blame me for not telling you that you’re on a non-stop train heading in the exact opposite direction of your destination! 2 The train hummed along the tracks. I kept my eyes closed, just wanting to survive this agonizing ride in peace. But the man next to me was relentless. One minute he was manspreading, driving his knee into my space. The next minute he was violently bouncing his leg, shaking the entire row of seats. And every few minutes, he would let out a deafening, wet snore that made it impossible to relax. Driven to the edge of my sanity, I finally grabbed my sample box and fled to the café car to find some quiet. As soon as I found an empty booth, my phone rang. It was the Director of the National Laboratory. “Dr. Vance, is your transit proceeding smoothly?” I gave him a brief rundown of the absolute circus I had just experienced. When I mentioned the sample box being dropped, the Director’s voice turned lethal. “Hold your position for another hour and a half. I am dispatching a federal security detail to meet you directly at Union Station to escort you to the lab.” “I will handle the situation with Amtrak administration. Your only priority is protecting that sample!” “Understood!” I had just hung up when a terrifying, guttural howl echoed from the direction of Car 3. Remembering my suitcase was still at my seat, I clutched the sample box and sprinted back. As I entered the car, I saw the seat-stealing man standing in the middle of the aisle, looking absolutely frantic: “Where is my bag?! Did anyone see my bag?!” “That bag has the medicine to save my kid’s life! I fell asleep, and now it’s gone!” He grabbed the arm of the conductor, who had just rushed over: “Officer, you have to help me find it! My kid is waiting for me!” A wave of panicked murmurs swept through the car. Passengers immediately started checking under their own seats and in the overhead bins, but the man’s bag was nowhere to be found. In the midst of his panic, the man’s eyes locked onto the metal sample box I was clutching to my chest. “It was you! You stole my medicine to get back at me, and you hid it in that box!” He charged at me like a raging bull, reaching out to snatch it from my arms: “Give me my stuff back!” I scrambled backward, instinctively shielding the box with my body. “Your things are not in here!” “Bullshit!” The man’s eyes were completely bloodshot. “You’ve been holding onto that metal box like your life depends on it since you got on!” “You were conveniently gone exactly when my bag disappeared! You definitely stole my medicine while I was asleep and hid it in there!” The conductor marched up to me, his face a mask of severe authority: “Ma’am, return this gentleman’s property immediately, or I will be forced to place you under arrest!” I stared at the conductor, absolutely appalled: “Which one of your eyes saw my box magically swallow his bag?! You can’t accuse someone of theft without a shred of evidence!” The conductor frowned, leaned in close to my ear, and hissed menacingly: “Do you have any idea who this man is?” “He is a senior researcher for the National Laboratory! He is on a highly classified federal mission to D.C.! You stole from him—are you trying to get yourself thrown in federal prison?!” My brain completely short-circuited. He was the researcher? Then who the hell was I? While I was paralyzed by shock, the conductor violently ripped the sample box from my grasp. He spun around, holding it out to the man with both hands like he was presenting a sacred artifact: “Sir, please inspect the contents. Is your property inside?” “DO NOT OPEN THAT!” I screamed. If the internal climate seals were violently breached, the consequences for the biological sample would be catastrophic! But the man ignored me completely. He grabbed the heavy latch and violently ripped the lid open. Seeing the contents, his face froze. “It’s not in here!” He glared at me, and with a roar of frustration, he hurled the metal box directly onto the hard floor. “Where the hell did you hide my stuff?!” CRASH. My heart completely stopped beating. I watched in slow motion as a splash of pale golden liquid erupted from the shattered glass inside the casing. The sound of that shattering glass felt like the sound of thousands of dying children taking their final breath. I shoved my way through the panicked crowd, dropped to my knees, and stared at the glittering shards and the golden liquid rapidly seeping into the floor mats. I was shaking so violently I couldn’t breathe. “Do you have any idea what you just did?!” I lunged upward, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt. He didn’t back down. His eyes looked like a rabid animal’s: “You have the nerve to yell at me?! So I broke a stupid glass tube! I lost the medicine that’s going to save my child’s life!” “Are you completely insane?! That is federal—” Before I could finish the sentence, a massive force wrenched my arm behind my back, and I was violently shoved face-first into the passenger seat. As the pain of a dislocated shoulder blinded me, I heard the conductor screaming into his radio: “Car 3 needs backup! Car 3 needs immediate backup! We have an active assault on a protected federal target! Get here now!” The agonizing pain radiating from my shoulder made my vision swim, but I didn’t care. I just stared at the puddle of golden liquid on the floor, my eyes burning with tears of absolute devastation. “Open your goddamn eyes and look at me—” I screamed at the conductor with every ounce of strength left in my lungs: “I AM THE RESEARCHER FROM THE NATIONAL LABORATORY!” The backup security officers who had just rushed into the car froze, looking at each other in confusion.

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Chase Sterling and I were purely platonic friends for twenty-six years. We were inseparable, but he was a relentless player who couldn’t stand being alone. So, whenever he got a new girlfriend, I would proactively distance myself and cut contact. On my twenty-seventh birthday, Chase—likely annoyed by his family constantly pressuring him to settle down—showed up at my front door bright and early. “Quinn, why don’t we just make do with each other?” I was just about to curse him out when he added, “I’m serious.” For the first time ever, Chase crossed the boundary and held his hand out to me. I looked at him and thought about it for a few seconds. “Chase, if we cross this line and become a couple, we can never be friends again if we break up.” He gave me his signature, cocky grin. “We’re not going to break up. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” And so, I took his hand. That “making do” lasted for three years. At our engagement party, Chase and his frat brother, Tyler, sneaked out to the balcony for a smoke. “Chase, I know you originally asked Quinn to be your cover because you were terrified your grandfather would go after Lily. But looking at her today… I think Quinn is actually genuinely in love with you.” “You didn’t… forget to tell her this was all just for show, did you?” The hazy cigarette smoke obscured Chase’s face. His voice was cold and indifferent. “I was in a rush that day. I forgot.” My footsteps came to a dead halt right around the corner. In my hand, I was holding the cold medicine I had just bought for him. Tyler sounded horrified. His voice spiked as he called him a bastard, then leaned in closer to ask: “So what the hell is the situation with you and Quinn now? Are you actually marrying her or not?” “Because just yesterday, right before your engagement, I saw Lily post on her private story. You were at her apartment in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, cooking her late-night snacks.” Chase let out a low chuckle. “Lily is my real girlfriend, obviously.” “As for Quinn? She’s just a strategic business merger. What’s the difference between a real marriage and a fake one?” “I knew she liked me a long time ago. Giving her a picture-perfect marriage and the title of my wife… I’d say I’m treating her pretty damn well.” The glass of water in my hand grew so hot it burned my palm. I lowered my head, feeling incredibly pathetic. I realized the cold medicine tablets I was holding had already started melting into my sweaty skin. But what burned hotter was my face. It was the absolute, crushing humiliation of having my secret, years-long crush exposed, only to be mocked and trampled on. “You know what? Quinn is actually pretty clueless. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that nobody’s breathing hitches and refuses to make eye contact when they hold hands with a purely ‘business’ partner.” “She always acts so cool and indifferent, but she’s actually incredibly patient. She lets me get away with everything.” Chase coughed softly, a hint of smug bragging in his voice. “Two days before the engagement, I lied and told her I had an emergency business trip. She didn’t suspect a thing. She even packed my suitcase for me.” “Last night, Lily and I got a little crazy by the window. When I got home at 3 AM, my head was pounding, but all my meds were expired. Quinn literally threw a winter coat over her pajamas and ran out into the freezing cold to buy me medicine. Then she brewed me ginger tea and coaxed me to sleep.” “She woke up every half hour to feel my forehead, terrified I was running a fever.” “I don’t even think she realizes how obsessed with me she is.” Tyler sucked in a sharp breath. “Chase, she’s treated you like gold for years. I refuse to believe you haven’t caught even a tiny bit of feelings for her?” I stood outside the door. I felt like the biggest joke in the world. My eyes burned, and the tears threatened to spill. But I didn’t leave. I wanted to hear Chase’s answer. Without a single second of hesitation, Chase replied with dripping sarcasm. “What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I don’t.” “I’ve known Quinn for nearly thirty years. If we were going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago. I wouldn’t have waited until I was twenty-seven.” “My type has always been the sweet, innocent, soft girls. Quinn is a tough, cold badass. She completely misses every single box on my checklist.” “Love is something that hits you at first sight. I don’t believe in ‘growing to love someone over time.’ Even if you gave me another thirty years, I would never fall for her.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette, sounding completely self-righteous. “But Quinn is my best friend for life, and soon she’ll be my family. Even if I don’t love her, I’ll definitely make sure she’s taken care of.” “I want her, and I want Lily.” My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. But I couldn’t stop myself from smiling a bitter, hollow smile. What did Chase see me as? A convenient object he could just pick up and mold to his liking? Pick it up when he needed it, toss it aside when he didn’t. Just how pathetic and low did he think I was, to assume that marrying me was some kind of generous charity? Out on the balcony, Tyler sighed and patted Chase’s shoulder. “Let’s go back inside, man. The party is starting.” “So tonight, the plan is to introduce Lily as my cousin, right?” I turned my back and quickly hurried down the stairs. I sprinted into a vacant bathroom and dry-heaved over the sink. The tears fell faster than I could wipe them away, completely ruining my carefully done makeup. The emotions I had harbored for years suddenly felt like a putrid, suffocating swamp, pulling me under and making me physically sick. My phone buzzed constantly with group chat notifications. [It’s the engagement party! Where are our main characters?] [Chase and I are walking in now. My cousin is coming tonight too.] [Since when do you have a cousin, Tyler? Where’s Quinn? She’s been MIA.] I found an empty guest room. I washed my face clean and reapplied a light, sharp layer of makeup. For years, whenever Chase dated someone new, I proactively cut contact. Tonight, I wanted to see exactly what kind of girl had stolen his heart. As for him and me? I used a cotton swab to meticulously wipe away a stray tear from the corner of my eye, making sure my foundation was flawless. Chase probably thought I was joking when I told him on day one: If we break up, we don’t stay friends. But I, Quinn, have never been desperate for friends. And I absolutely refuse to spend another second of my life standing beside someone who doesn’t love me. “Baby, what took you so long?” The second I sat down in the VIP room, Chase leaned in, whining and acting cute. “I haven’t taken my meds tonight, and my cough is getting worse.” He blinked his puppy-dog eyes and nuzzled his face into my shoulder. There wasn’t a single trace of the cold, calculating bastard from the balcony. His friends around us started hooting and hollering. “Get a room! Leave the PDA at the door!” “You two are sickeningly sweet! If you weren’t so perfect for each other, I would have kicked you out of the group chat years ago!” “This is what you call a fairy-tale ending! Childhood sweethearts to soulmates! Chase played around for his whole life, but now he’s utterly whipped by our girl Quinn. It actually makes me believe in love.” The sticky, gross residue from the melting medicine tablets was still on my palm. I suppressed my nausea and offered a faint, detached smile. I leaned forward smoothly to grab a sparkling water from the table, expertly dodging Chase’s touch. “Where’s Tyler?” Chase had been about to lean in again, but hearing me ask about Tyler made him freeze. “He went to pick up his little sister! Oh, speak of the devil.” Tyler walked in, followed by a slender, fragile-looking girl in a white sundress. They sat down a few feet away. “You lucky bastard, Tyler. Your sister is gorgeous. You gonna introduce her to the single guys here?” one of the guys joked. Tyler shot an awkward, nervous glance at Chase and replied, “This is my sister, Lily.” “She’s a little shy and not used to this kind of scene, so go easy on her.” Amidst the roaring laughter, I looked at Lily. Her large, doe-like eyes were already locked tearfully onto Chase. The man who had just been trying to nuzzle into my shoulder quietly put some distance between us, leaning back against the armrest. That dull, throbbing pain flared up in my chest again. No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, the grief and fury were overwhelming. Lily hadn’t learned how to hide her feelings. Or maybe, because she was the one who was truly loved, she felt entitled to be bold. Her gaze lingered on Chase with reckless, unapologetic longing. My best friend, Zoe, instantly noticed I was unhappy. She didn’t hesitate. She smiled sharply and said, “Little girl, you shouldn’t be staring at that one. He’s getting married.” Lily’s face instantly flushed crimson. She quickly averted her eyes, forcing an embarrassed, fragile smile. “I’m sorry. I already have a boyfriend.” Chase still had a smile on his face, but his tone carried a sharp, defensive edge. “Zoe, you like to mess around, but not every sweet, innocent girl is like you.” Zoe’s temper flared instantly. She stood up, ready to smack him. I grabbed her arm, holding her back, and smiled directly at Chase. “You talk like you’re some saint. At least Zoe has never two-timed anyone.” Chase froze. He instinctively avoided my gaze. He forced a nervous chuckle to cover his panic. “I haven’t either, baby. Why are you suddenly getting mad at me?” Seeing my visibly icy expression, Chase grabbed a shot of liquor and downed it. “My bad, I phrased that wrong. I apologize to Zoe. Let’s drop it.” As everyone started laughing and changing the subject, I watched Lily look at Chase with profound, aching heartbreak. It was as if I was some tyrannical villain, ruthlessly torturing the two star-crossed lovers. “Alright, alright, let’s play a game! Camera Roll Roulette, how about it?” Tyler jumped in to smooth things over. “If you have anything sketchy on your phone, hide it now! Don’t traumatize us.” “I’ll pick the first date: May 17, 2023!” Everyone pulled out their phones. The rule was simple: if the bottle landed on you, you had to cast your camera roll from that exact date to the big screen for everyone to see. The bottle spun and landed pointing directly at me. I cast my phone screen to the TV. Ocean waves. A sandy beach. A candlelight dinner. And a screenshot of an UberEats delivery confirmation. “That was the year you guys went to the beach for your birthday, right?!” Zoe playfully shoved my shoulder, lowering her voice. “I even asked you if after twenty-eight years of being a saint, tasting a man for the first time was mind-blowing!” I smiled at Zoe. Those memories used to be so beautiful, but looking at them now, they only tasted like ash. One of the guys had sharp eyes and pointed at the screen. “Wait, you guys ordered delivery at 2:00 AM?” “What kind of delivery, Chase?! Was it that kind of delivery?!” The whole room erupted into wolf-whistles and laughter. But Chase, who usually loved dirty jokes, wasn’t smiling. He was staring at Lily, whose face had gone completely pale. “No, it was just some cold medicine. Don’t be gross.” A sudden, vicious wave of malice surged from my chest. “We ordered that medicine because you hurt me, didn’t we?” I smiled sweetly, willing to rip my own scars open just to make them sick to their stomachs. “You were entirely too rough. I have no idea why you were so frantic. That dress was incredibly expensive, and I only got to wear it once.” “Chase, you acted like you had never slept with a woman before. Your technique was terrible.” “Is it because the innocent little girls you usually like never let you touch them?” Amidst the roaring, scandalous cheers of the crowd… I watched Lily lower her head and wipe away tears. I watched Chase’s face twist in displeased, suffocating panic. Even though I had gotten the twisted satisfaction of laughing out loud… Why did my chest feel so painfully tight? Why did my nose sting? “Next!” Tyler wiped the sweat from his forehead and spun the bottle again. It pointed straight at Lily. She forced a fragile, trembling smile. “There’s nothing interesting on my camera roll.” Zoe looked at me, then at Lily, her sharp intuition immediately picking up on the vibe. She frowned. “Little girl, if you can’t handle the game, don’t sit at the table.” Chase frowned deeply. Before he could open his mouth to defend her, I grabbed his hand. I leaned in close to his visibly angry face. From the side angle, it probably looked like we were kissing. “Puppy, I’m a little hungry. Can you go order me some food?” Chase paused for a few seconds, but eventually stood up and walked over to the server by the door to grab an iPad. “I can handle it.” I knew Lily had watched our intimate interaction. Her voice was laced with grinding teeth. She glared at me, her eyes brimming with tears. It was the first time she had looked me dead in the eye all night, and her gaze was filled with reckless, undisguised hatred. Her phone screen was cast to the big screen. The very first image was a text message screenshot. One of the nosy guys in the group read it out loud. “‘Did you sleep with her? You swore to me it was just a strategic business merger! You promised you wouldn’t touch her!’” “‘But I was only thinking of you the entire time, my Lily.’” “‘I want fries, Quinn!’” The guy’s voice reading my food order perfectly overlapped with the last two words of that text message screenshot. The entire VIP room plunged into a suffocating, dead silence. I finished ordering and handed the iPad back to the server. I placed my violently trembling hands under the table and smiled. “What a coincidence.” “But listening to that… it sounds an awful lot like Ms. Lily is a homewrecker, doesn’t it?” “QUINN!” Chase snapped, shouting my name. Meeting my perfectly calm, dead eyes, he forced an ugly, strained smile. “Quinn. Don’t speak to a young girl like that.” Before I could even reply, Lily suddenly raised her voice. “I am NOT a homewrecker.” She stared directly at Chase, her face full of stubborn defiance. “My boyfriend and I are each other’s first loves. We were each other’s first everything. The only reason we’re separated is because his family is too stubborn and refused to let us be together!” “His relationship with his fiancée is just an open, arranged business merger. She had a desperate, pathetic crush on him, and his parents forced them together!” The young girl recklessly unleashed her pent-up emotions, swiping through the photos on her screen. “The day before May 17th, we celebrated his birthday together.” “His flight was at 11:00 PM, but he stayed with me until 9:00 PM before he finally rushed to the airport. He almost missed his flight.” “Before he left, he bought me flowers. We ate cake together, and we made love for hours.” “This is the birthday present he gave me. I just glanced at it on his phone, and he bought it for me instantly.” It was a photo of a breathtaking, dazzling sapphire ring. “He told me that in this lifetime, I am the only woman he will ever buy a ring for.” I was stunned. I had been at that exact auction. I had wanted that sapphire ring too, but some anonymous buyer had outbid everyone in the room with a blank check. Chase had coaxed me afterward. He promised he would buy me an even more beautiful one. But we were literally engaged now. I rubbed my bare, empty fingers. It suddenly hit me. Chase had never, ever bought me a ring. Lily swiped back to the screenshots from the 17th. As the images flew by, the truth hit me like a freight train. Even though he was physically next to me on that beach, Chase had been texting and coaxing her from morning until night. The beautiful scenery we saw? She got photos of all of it. The gorgeous travel souvenirs I looked at? Chase noted them in his app and had them shipped directly to her. And then, there was a photo of a cake. In the shadowy background of the picture, I could clearly see my own dress and the lower half of my chin. I saw myself, hands clasped together, eyes closed, earnestly wishing that I could stay with the man I loved forever. While he was sitting right next to me, texting Lily: “This cake is amazing. I’ll buy you one next time so you can taste it.” It was absolutely, sickeningly repulsive. I grabbed Zoe’s leg under the table. From the exact second that cake photo appeared on the screen… She had silently grabbed an empty glass liquor bottle. “Quinn, that’s… that’s…!” “Don’t rush it,” I smiled at Zoe. Her eyes were shimmering with furious tears. She muttered a few muffled curses about ‘idiots’ and ‘bitches.’ The atmosphere in the VIP room was so tense it was hard to breathe. “Is Ms. Lily finished? Then let’s move to the next round.” I calmly spun the bottle on the table. “I want to select April 2, 2025.” “Who’s playing?” For the first time all night, Chase completely lost his composure. He suddenly threw his arm around my shoulders. “Baby, my head is killing me.” “I just remembered I’m on antibiotics. I can’t be drinking tonight.” “Let’s go to the hospital, okay?” I methodically peeled his fingers off my shoulder one by one, and smiled. “No.” I was the first to cast my phone to the screen. The image was the stark, blinding white walls of a hospital room. It was a photo of the post-op care instructions for a miscarriage. It was the doctor’s warnings saved in my notes app. It was a screenshot of texts I sent to my mom. [The doctor said I might never be able to have children again.] [Mom, they still haven’t found the driver who caused the crash.] [Let’s postpone the courthouse wedding for now.] April 2, 2025, was exactly five days after the accident. On the day Chase and I were driving to the courthouse to officially sign our marriage license. A woman had suddenly sprinted directly into the middle of the road. There was enough distance to brake safely. Chase was an experienced driver; he even knew how to race cars. But he panicked. He panicked so completely that he violently yanked the steering wheel. The entire passenger side of the car—my side—was smashed brutally into the steel guardrail. The baby that had just barely developed a heartbeat was gone. I was critically injured and spent three days in the ICU. When I woke up, I saw Chase kneeling by my hospital bed. He had lost so much weight. He swore to me that he didn’t care if we never had kids, but in this lifetime, no matter what happened, he was going to stay by my side. “Let’s not look at this, Quinn.” Chase gripped my hand desperately, his eyes unable to hide his sheer terror. “I really don’t feel well. Let’s just leave, please.” Lily hesitated, about to disconnect her phone, but Zoe lunged across the table and snatched it out of her hand. With vicious speed, she swiped straight to that exact date. It was a mirror selfie of Lily wearing cheap, novelty lingerie. Followed by a shaky video, the camera pointed at a messy, dirty floor. Amidst the sounds of chaotic, heavy breathing… I heard Lily crying. “You said you hated me! You said you never wanted to see me again for the rest of your life! Why did you come back?!” She was kissed into silence. “I want to fucking kill you!” The man ground his teeth, his voice hoarse as he tried to soothe her. “Lily, that was my baby. Do you know she might never be able to get pregnant again?” “I can give you a baby!” Lily’s voice sounded so incredibly wronged and pitiful. “If you really want to make it up to her, just take our baby and give it to her to raise!” A heavy sigh echoed from Chase on the video. “I love you so much… how could I ever bear to let you lose your child?” “Just consider it… a debt she and I owe you.” I finished watching the grotesque, humiliating spectacle. I took the last sip of my drink, and set the glass down. It felt as if I was finally setting down thirty years of tangled, miserable history. “Chase, we’re done. Let’s break up.” The exact second the words left my mouth, Zoe smashed Lily’s phone against the wall and hurled the heavy glass liquor bottle directly at Chase’s head. “CHASE STERLING, FUCK YOU!” Lily threw herself over Chase to protect him. Tyler grabbed Zoe’s arms, narrowly avoiding getting his face clawed off by her manicured nails. But Chase just stared at me nervously. His eyes flickered with emotions I couldn’t understand, and frankly, had zero desire to decipher. I turned around and took long, purposeful strides out of the VIP room. My driver was already waiting downstairs. We sped all the way back to the apartment Chase and I shared. I pulled out my suitcases and rapidly packed up all my belongings. Even though we had lived together for two years, I was shocked to find that my entire life fit perfectly into just two suitcases. The driver loaded the bags into the trunk and drove me back to my parents’ estate. Everything had been such a chaotic blur. It wasn’t until I was lying in my childhood bed, staring out at the unfamiliar night skyline, that my heart finally slowed down. And then, the realization hit me. Chase and I were actually broken up. The dull, heavy pain I had been suppressing in my chest completely exploded in the silence of the empty room. I sobbed until my lungs burned. It felt like someone had literally carved a piece of flesh out of my body. Even if you know the flesh is necrotic and rotting, cutting it out still hurts like absolute hell. I don’t remember what time I finally cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, my eyes were so swollen they ached. I grabbed my phone. Chase had called me four times. And sent a barrage of texts. [Quinn, can we please just sit down and talk?] [After all these years, even if we can’t be together, are we really not going to be friends anymore?] [Quinn, please don’t do this.] The timestamp on his most recent message… Was right around the time my driver and I had pulled out of the underground parking garage at his building. So I hadn’t imagined it. That really was Chase sprinting desperately toward the elevator banks as my car drove away. I hugged my blanket tight and took two deep breaths. I raised my hand and permanently deleted Chase’s contact info. Break up. Two simple words. When I said them, I was absolutely resolute. I just didn’t expect the withdrawal period to be this agonizing. The most complicated part of all this was our engagement. Our families had deeply intertwined business interests, and we had just launched a massive joint venture. A messy, public fallout would be catastrophic for both sides. My mother saw the guilt on my face after I explained everything Chase had done over the years. Her tears fell first, her heart breaking for me. “Don’t worry about the Sterling family. Your father’s lawyers and I will handle everything.” “You just focus on resting and healing.” I kept my phone turned off for several days until my emotions finally began to stabilize, and then I slowly started checking my messages again. I heard through the grapevine that Chase had shown up at my family’s estate multiple times, but the security guards wouldn’t even let him through the front gates. “Your mom gave the security team a photo of Chase, and the license plates of every single car his family owns, and put them all on a permanent blacklist,” Zoe laughed, trying to cheer me up. “And he caught the family wrath.” “His grandfather beat him so badly he snapped a leather belt on him, and now he’s under house arrest.” “Serves him right!” Then, she scratched her head, looking a little awkward. “But his older brother… the CEO, Pierce Sterling… he asked me for your contact info. He wants to meet with you.” “At first, I told him to go to hell along with his brother.” “But then he told me some things, and I decided to pass the message along.” “Do you want to see him, Quinn?” Chase’s older brother? I searched my memory for any impression of him. He was the son of Mr. Sterling and his first wife. He had a quarter European blood and looked like he was sculpted out of marble. In my memory, he had always lived abroad. He was only three years older than our group of trust-fund brats, but he was incredibly accomplished, mature, and ruthless in business. He had already taken over half of the Sterling Group’s operations.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400790”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In the tenth year after my death, my husband—a high-profile, undefeated defense attorney—received a phone call from a kidnapper. The man on the other end gave him exactly twenty-four hours to overturn my criminal conviction. If he failed, his beloved protégée and junior partner, Chloe, would be killed. In a blind panic, he kicked open the front door of our old house. “This is you, isn’t it?! I know you’ve always resented me for forcing you to take the fall for Chloe!” “If you’re mad at me, take it out on me! Why would you kidnap her?!” Seeing the house completely empty and covered in dust, he dialed my old cell phone number. A gruff voice answered. It was the groundskeeper at the local cemetery. “Evelyn Hayes was buried here ten years ago. Who is this?” My husband let out a cold, mocking scoff, hung up the phone, and drove straight to the police precinct. After hearing his frantic story, the desk sergeant looked at him in total confusion. “Evelyn Hayes? She was executed by lethal injection ten years ago!” My husband froze instantly, violently shaking his head. “Impossible! She was sentenced to ten years in prison!” “She got out on parole three years ago! Why would she… I don’t believe you!” The sergeant turned to his computer and pulled up the federal database. [Inmate: Evelyn Hayes. Convicted of the murder of Mia Foster.] [Sentence carried out via lethal injection on February 6, 2014.] Liam froze for a fraction of a second before violently slamming his fist on the precinct desk. “IMPOSSIBLE!” “She must have hacked your system! The lengths she’s willing to go to just to trick me… it’s pathological!” The sergeant looked at him like he was a psychiatric patient. “This is the secure federal law enforcement database. Who the hell could forge this?” Hearing this, Liam let out a dark, cynical laugh. “Evelyn used to be one of the top cybersecurity hackers in the country. You think altering a database file is hard for her?” “I busted my ass on the outside trying to negotiate her early release! And instead of being grateful when she got out early, she’s been hiding from me for three years, and now she actually has the nerve to kidnap Chloe?!” “Open a case right now! Track her down and throw her back in a cell! I’ll make sure she rots in there for the rest of her life!” The sergeant just shook his head in exhaustion. Just then, Liam’s phone buzzed with a text from the kidnapper. [You have 12 hours left.] Seeing that the police still didn’t believe him, he stormed out, got into his car, and drove straight to the orphanage on the outskirts of the city. But when he arrived, all he saw was a charred, blackened wasteland of rubble. He violently kicked a piece of burnt brick across the asphalt, screaming into the empty air: “Evelyn! You are a ruthless, psychotic bitch! Just to hide from me, you burned down the place you grew up in?!” I floated in the air a few feet above him, watching him lose his mind in a fit of rage. The day after I was executed, Chloe sneaked onto the orphanage grounds and set it on fire. Over thirty children and a dozen teachers were burned alive. Every single one of those people had treated Liam like family when we were young. But in this exact moment, his mind was entirely focused on worrying about the woman who murdered them. Unable to find me, Liam got back into his car. He drove straight to the home of Mr. Davis, the old orphanage director. Mr. Davis had barely survived the fire. He had suffered catastrophic third-degree burns over most of his body, and the trauma had completely shattered his mind. The second Liam burst through the front door, he charged into the bedroom and violently grabbed the old man by the collar of his pajamas. “Where is Evelyn?! Tell her to get the hell out here right now!” The frail, burned old man trembled violently in his hospital bed, whimpering and trying to hide under the thin blankets. Liam grabbed a fistful of his thinning white hair and delivered several brutal slaps across his scarred face. “Stop playing dumb with me! If Chloe loses a single hair on her head, I will make you suffer!” “I know you’re the only family Evelyn cares about! I’ll beat you to death right here! Let’s see if that drags her out of hiding!” I lunged forward, desperately trying to stop him, but my hands phased uselessly right through his solid chest. All I could do was scream at him: “STOP IT! I DIDN’T KIDNAP CHLOE! I’M ALREADY DEAD!” But he couldn’t hear a single word. Mrs. Davis heard the commotion from the kitchen and ran into the room. She forcefully shoved Liam away from the bed, screaming at the top of her lungs: “What the hell are you doing?! He’s an old, sick man! How dare you lay a hand on him! I’m calling the police!” Liam just crossed his arms over his chest and let out a cold, arrogant laugh. “Go ahead! Call them!” “You two conspired with Evelyn to kidnap Chloe! Let’s see who the cops arrest first when they get here: me, or you!” Mrs. Davis stared at him in absolute, horrified disbelief. “Are you insane?! Evelyn is dead!” The mocking sneer on Liam’s face deepened. “Still trying to play me? She was only sentenced to ten years! I literally read the sentencing documents with my own eyes!” Hearing those words, Mrs. Davis’s entire body began to tremble violently. “A brutal murder conviction like that… how could she possibly have only gotten ten years?!” “Right before her execution, the prison called your cell phone over a dozen times. You declined every single call. Finally, out of desperation, they called our house.” “The warden told me that in the very last second before she died, Evelyn was screaming your name, begging you to save her!” A momentary flash of profound shock crossed Liam’s face. He muttered under his breath: “That’s impossible…” He immediately pulled out his phone and texted his paralegal. A minute later, his assistant sent over the official case files from back then. It clearly stated: [First Instance Verdict: Sentenced to Ten Years in Federal Prison.] Liam let out a dark, furious laugh. The rage in his eyes looked ready to ignite the room. “Evelyn. Did you honestly think orchestrating this pathetic ‘faking your own death’ drama was going to fool me?” Floating in the air above him, my heart felt like it had turned to ash. During my first trial, with him aggressively defending me, I had indeed avoided the death penalty. But right before my appeals trial, Chloe orchestrated a car accident that left Liam hospitalized and unable to appear in court. While he was recovering in a hospital bed, Chloe eagerly volunteered to take over my case as my lead defense attorney. During the trial, she intentionally fed me leading questions and manipulated me into giving testimonies that directly incriminated me. Because of her deliberate sabotage, my sentence was upgraded to the death penalty! When I was sent back to death row, she paid off the other inmates to brutally beat me. They stomped on my legs until both my tibias were snapped in half! I passed out from the excruciating pain. When I woke up, the guards told me I had one final opportunity to make a phone call to my family before the execution. Dragging my shattered, useless legs and my bruised, broken body, I begged the guards to let me call Liam. One call. Two calls. Three calls… Over a dozen consecutive calls were ruthlessly declined. Finally, he blocked the prison’s number entirely. I was forced to walk to the execution chamber drowning in absolute, bottomless despair… Ring… The kidnapper suddenly initiated a FaceTime call on Liam’s phone. He scrambled to answer it. On the screen was a figure wearing a black mask. A distorted, robotic voice came through the speaker: “You have 9 hours left.” The camera panned, focusing on Chloe, who was bound tightly to a metal chair in a dark, grimy room. Her face was streaked with tears, her expression twisted in pure terror as she screamed: “Liam… Liam, please! You have to save me!” Liam frantically tried to comfort her. “Chloe, don’t be scared! I promise you, I will get you out of there!” Chloe’s tears fell continuously as she sobbed into the camera: “I know Evelyn is still holding a grudge against me for what happened at the trial ten years ago.” “But I swear, I tried everything I could to help her! Please, talk to her for me! Tell her she can have whatever she wants—any compensation she demands! As long as she doesn’t kill me, I swear to God I will never show my face in front of you ever again…” Click! The video feed was abruptly cut. Liam stared at the black screen, roaring in absolute fury: “EVELYN HAYES! I KNEW IT WAS YOU! I KNEW YOU WEREN’T DEAD!” “When I drag you out of whatever hole you’re hiding in, I am going to make you drop to your knees and beg for Chloe’s forgiveness!” He violently whipped his head around to glare at Mrs. Davis. “Talk! Where is Evelyn hiding right now?! Why the hell are you helping her do this?!” “As a former teacher, hiding a convicted felon… do you have even a shred of a conscience left?!” Mrs. Davis was shaking with apocalyptic rage. She shoved him forcefully toward the front door. “I don’t know who the kidnapper is, but it is physically impossible for it to be Evelyn! She is dead! Stop pouring your filthy lies over her grave!” Liam looked at her with pure, unadulterated disgust and violently swatted her hands away. Mrs. Davis was elderly. Caught off guard by the violent shove, she lost her balance and crashed to the floor, her forehead slamming brutally against the sharp edge of the coffee table. Blood instantly gushed from the wound. She clutched her head, crying out in agony: “Why did Evelyn ever have to meet a monster like you?! To keep your precious little protégée out of prison, you forced Evelyn to take the fall! You sent her to death row, and in the end, she didn’t even have anyone to claim her body!” “And now you have the audacity to come into my home and ask me where she is?! Are you even human?!” Hearing the commotion, the neighbors gathered in the hallway, pointing and whispering at the gruesome scene. Looking at the blood pouring down Mrs. Davis’s face, a microscopic flicker of hesitation crossed Liam’s eyes. “What exactly did she promise you to make you go this far?” “Let me remind you, conspiracy to commit kidnapping is a federal crime. You’ll be looking at a minimum of ten years in prison!” Before the words fully left his mouth, Liam’s phone buzzed again. He unlocked it, and his face instantly turned deathly pale. It was another video call from the kidnapper. He stepped out into the hallway to answer it. On the screen, blood was trickling from the corner of Chloe’s mouth. Her face was covered in fresh, dark bruises. It was glaringly obvious she had just been brutally beaten. She stared into the camera, crying out with a mixture of terror and tragic resignation: “Liam… I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said bad things about Evelyn. I deserve to die!” “Please don’t be mad at her anymore. I don’t want you two to turn on each other because of me…” Liam was so furious his eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull. He screamed into the phone: “EVELYN! YOU SICK, TWISTED BITCH!” “I was the one who forced you to take the fall! Beating Chloe proves absolutely nothing! If you want revenge, come after me!” Then, he forcibly softened his voice, trying to project strength for Chloe: “Chloe, hang in there! I swear to God, I am going to save you!” Chloe shook her head tragically on the screen, her tears mixing with the blood dripping onto the dirty floor. “If my death is what it takes for you and Evelyn to reconcile, I am willing to pay her with my life.” “I just want you to promise me you’ll take good care of yourself. Please don’t let anyone hurt you ever again…” Liam’s eyes flooded with burning red tears. He ordered fiercely: “Stop talking like that! I will absolutely not let anything happen to you!” He wanted to offer more comfort, but his phone vibrated with an incoming notification. It was his paralegal, sending over the complete, unredacted transcripts and verdicts from the appeals trial ten years ago. But Liam didn’t even have the patience to open the file. He was just about to swipe the notification away when his paralegal sent a frantic, stuttering voice memo: “Mr. Pierce… Ms. Hayes… During her appeals trial, her sentence was upgraded to the death penalty! She really is dead!” Liam’s heart slammed violently against his ribs. On the video call, Chloe clearly heard the voice memo as well. Her face instantly lost all its color, turning completely ashen. She nervously glanced sideways at the kidnapper standing just off-camera, testing the waters: “Evelyn, you must really hate me. You actually forged federal documents to make Liam think I killed you?!” “How is that possible?! She’s been locked up in this facility for seven years!” “I’ve called the prison dozens of times trying to request visitation rights, but the guards always told me she refused to see me!” Floating in the air above him, a wave of profound, icy sorrow washed over my soul. He tried to visit me because he still had feelings for me? Maybe he did. But whatever feelings he had for me were completely, utterly worthless when compared to his devotion to Chloe. Ever since Chloe became his junior associate, the two of them had quickly developed a magnetic, undeniable chemistry. I had confronted him and asked for a divorce, but he had looked at me with tears in his eyes, swearing on his life that he would cut Chloe off completely. But the very next day, all it took was one phone call from Chloe, and he went running right back to her side. His trust in Chloe was absolute. It was buried in his marrow. He never even noticed when Chloe installed intercept software on his phone. For years, any calls he made to the prison were automatically rerouted to a group of paid actors Chloe had hired to play the prison guards. In the present, the warden’s face darkened. He tapped his pen aggressively against the desk. “There is absolutely no record of her in our system. And there are certainly no logs of any visitation requests.” “If you don’t believe me, I suggest you go to the maximum-security facility where she was actually held and ask them.” Hearing this, Liam gritted his teeth in sheer, manic denial. “Evelyn. You actually have the audacity to hack a federal prison database. Your arrogance knows no bounds!” SMACK! The exact second the words left his mouth, a brutal, echoing slap struck Chloe across the face on the video feed. A cold, robotic voice followed immediately after: “You have 5 hours left.” The video feed was abruptly severed again. Liam screamed in frustration, violently hurling his phone against the precinct wall. A few seconds later, as if a terrifying realization had suddenly struck him, he sprinted down the stairs, jumped into his car, and drove like a maniac. He sped all the way to the state women’s penitentiary and barged into the warden’s office. “I need to see Evelyn Hayes’s release records! Give me the forwarding address she listed!” The warden typed her name into the federal database, his brow furrowing deeply. “This individual was never incarcerated at this facility.” Liam slammed his hands onto the warden’s desk, panicked and furious. “Maybe she was held at the county jail after the sentencing and never transferred to state! Check again!” Liam completely refused to believe it. But with absolutely zero leads, he had no choice but to drive to the county maximum-security detention center. The veteran corrections officer who had been assigned to my cell block ten years ago listened to Liam’s frantic story. His face instantly darkened into a furious scowl. “Mr. Pierce, I assure you, this kind of joke is not funny in the slightest.” “After Evelyn Hayes’s sentence was upgraded to the death penalty during the appeals trial, the Supreme Court review was expedited. She was executed on the third day.” The final, absolute sliver of denial in Liam’s eyes shattered, replaced by profound, paralyzing shock. “Impossible… that’s impossible!” “I was her husband! If she was really sentenced to death, why wasn’t I notified during the review phase?!” The corrections officer frowned deeply, opened a heavy metal filing cabinet, and pulled out a faded manila folder. “The official Notice of Execution Review was sent to your home via certified mail. Is this not your signature acknowledging receipt?” Liam stared down at the signature line. His entire body felt as though it had been struck by lightning. He froze completely solid. It was undeniably his handwriting. But he had absolutely zero memory of ever signing a document like this. A freezing, terrifying dread began to crawl up from the very depths of his soul. He frantically dialed the kidnapper’s number again, but it went straight to voicemail. He immediately called his paralegal, ordering him to file an emergency motion with the courts to obtain the raw, unedited video recordings of the appeals trial. Then, he demanded the entire physical box of case files from the original murder trial and began frantically reviewing every single microscopic detail. While examining the crime scene photos, he noticed something. On the back of the victim’s phone case, there were several deep, erratic scratches that looked like they had been gouged by fingernails. Ten years ago, the police had officially ruled those marks as standard scuff damage from the phone hitting the pavement. But Liam’s brow knotted tightly. He remembered that the victim—my younger sister, Mia—had been learning Braille. He pulled up a Braille alphabet chart on his computer. He meticulously traced the erratic scratches against the chart. His blood ran cold as the translation formed in his mind: “Chloe killed me.” I floated beside him in the air, watching as every drop of blood completely drained from his face. Ten years ago, for my sister Mia’s seventeenth birthday, Liam had invited Chloe to our house to celebrate. That night, Chloe had cornered Mia at the top of the stairs and began viciously bullying her. When Mia fought back, Chloe flew into a violent rage and literally shoved my sister down the massive, marble staircase. Afterward, Chloe fell to her knees in front of Liam, sobbing hysterically. She swore on her life that she was just drunk, and that she had accidentally bumped into Mia, causing her to fall. To save Chloe from a murder charge, Liam actually used extortion to force me to take the fall for her. “I have the city planning reports proving your childhood orphanage was expanded illegally. If I submit them to the zoning board, the entire facility will be bulldozed immediately. Dozens of orphans will be thrown onto the streets.” “All you have to do is confess to involuntary manslaughter. I promise you, with my defense, you’ll be out in three to five years max!” Backed into a corner with the lives of those children hanging over my head, I had no choice but to agree. But I never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined that this decision would cost me my life. At that exact moment, the kidnapper’s video call rang again. “Two hours left!” Chloe was sobbing hysterically, her voice raw and shredded: “Liam! Please, you have to save me… I’m still so young, I can’t die like this…” “I know I was a coward back then! I never should have let Evelyn take the fall for me…” Liam stared at her on the screen. But the deep, profound tenderness that usually filled his eyes was completely gone. “Ten years ago. Did you really just ‘accidentally’ push Mia down those stairs?” “And that Notice of Execution Review… did you forge my signature on it? Did Evelyn really…” Liam’s voice choked on the words. He couldn’t finish the sentence. Chloe’s eyes darted nervously in a micro-expression of panic, but she quickly masked it, crying even harder. “Liam, I’ve been by your side for over a decade! Don’t you know my character by now?! How could I ever intentionally murder someone?!” “Evelyn forged all those documents because she knew you had a soft heart! She wanted to manipulate you into feeling guilty for the rest of your life…” SMACK! The video feed was abruptly cut off again. Liam lost his mind. He violently swept his arm across his desk, sending files, laptops, and coffee mugs crashing to the floor. “EVELYN HAYES! Do you think I’m a complete fucking idiot?!” Just then, a memory flashed into his mind. The gruff voice of the cemetery groundskeeper from earlier today. He immediately pulled up his recent calls and dialed the number. The municipal cemetery on the outskirts of the city was desolate and bleak. The groundskeeper led Liam down a long, overgrown path, finally stopping in front of a massive, communal gravestone. “She’s buried right here. We found that old cell phone in the dirt when we were repairing the plot a few years ago. I kept it charged in the office, figuring someone might eventually come looking for it.” Liam’s eyes widened in horror. Carved deeply into the cold granite headstone were the words: [Here Lies the 37 Victims of the Sunlight Orphanage Fire, and Evelyn Hayes.]

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400806”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Right before the Christmas holidays, I texted Julian: [What day are you coming to my parents’ house?] Julian took a full four days to reply. [1] Unable to suppress my fury, I took a screenshot of the chat and posted it on Reddit, asking the internet to judge: Is this a boyfriend, or a broken chatbot? The replies were brutal: “Definitely a boyfriend. ChatGPT isn’t this stupid; even AI knows how to ask how your day was.” “That’s harsh, but true.” “Why are you even with this guy? Are you keeping him around just so you don’t have to be single for the holidays?” “Don’t bother telling her, OP is obviously obsessed. She didn’t dump him immediately, she’s posting on Reddit asking for advice. She’s still holding out hope for this robot.” I let out a bitter laugh. The comments weren’t wrong. I was actually still waiting for Julian to send a real reply. [You said you were terrified of marriage, and I waited for you for seven years. This year, you finally said you were ready to meet my parents. What is this silent treatment supposed to mean?] [Are you coming or not? Give me a straight answer!] While waiting for him to reply, I was scrolling through TikTok and stumbled across a viral video. The caption read: [My boss agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend for the holidays to get my parents off my back. Which outfit should he wear?] The video was a slideshow of eight photos. In every single one, the man’s outfit was perfectly color-coordinated to match the girl’s outfit. It was obvious the guy had put a lot of thought into it. The comments were flooded with people shipping them: [OMG, my favorite CEO x Assistant trope is finally hitting the ‘meet the parents’ arc?!] When I swiped to the sixth photo, I froze. The custom cufflinks on the man’s tailored suit… were the exact ones I had custom-designed specifically for Julian. At that exact moment, a notification popped up from Julian. It was another cold, single-character reply: [1]. I stared at that “1” for a long time. It felt utterly ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as I had been for the past seven years, constantly dropping hints that I wanted to get married. I closed his chat thread and opened my blocked contacts list. I unblocked a contact saved as: “Crazy European Stalker.” [Come to my parents’ house on December 27th. Meet the family.] [We’re getting married after the holidays.] He replied instantly: [YES! Booking my flight right now!] Julian, you don’t need to come anymore. You never have to come again. I opened Julian’s chat thread again. That glaring “1” was still the most recent message. What was the point of this? It took me seven years just to force him to agree to meet my parents for the holidays. Was I supposed to spend the next seven years forcing him to marry me? And another seven forcing him to have kids? “Let’s break up,” I typed definitively, and hit send. I put my phone down and started packing. We started dating freshman year of college. We’d been together for ten years, living together for eight. We had accumulated a mountain of stuff. But once I made the absolute decision to leave, packing went faster than any time I had moved before. Throw away the trash. Donate the rest. Soon, the three-bedroom apartment that used to be crammed with our lives felt hollow and empty. I efficiently booked a moving company and had my boxes hauled to a small, one-bedroom condo I had bought a few years ago as an investment property. With that, the physical ties to this relationship were severed. Right before I walked out the door, I took one last look around the apartment we had lived in the longest—the place we had originally planned to renovate into our marital home. A sudden, sharp wave of sorrow washed over my chest. Ten years. Just like that, it was over, ending with barely a whisper. After finishing the move, I rolled my suitcase into the airport terminal. Right then, my phone chimed with a notification tone I had assigned specifically to Julian. Despite everything, a spark of hope uncontrollably flared up, and my thumb tapped the notification faster than my brain could process it. [1] “Ha.” I let out a sharp, neurotic laugh, then immediately permanently blocked his number. The soft, acoustic music playing in the airport coffee shop filtered through the air. I thought about the last ten years. We had sweet moments, and we had brutal fights. Ending things now was probably the only way to honor how serious we used to be about each other. I couldn’t wait until Julian’s little assistant showed up at my door to finally wake up. That would be way too pathetic. While lost in thought, I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. A new post popped up on my feed. I tapped it out of habit. It was from Chloe, Julian’s young executive assistant. [AHHHHH! My boss agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend to help me deal with my parents pressuring me to get married! I am the luckiest girl in the world!] [You guys don’t even know, Mr. Vance spent forever picking out outfits just so he could come home with me for the holidays~ Who says guys hate shopping? I am so exhausted!] Attached was a carousel of nine photos showcasing Julian in different outfits. They were casual, yet still radiated that subtle, expensive aura. Hoodies, distressed denim, crisp white sneakers. It was a complete 180 from his usual, overly formal style. Just as I pressed the buttons to take a screenshot, the post vanished. She had deleted it. I let out a self-deprecating laugh, remembering when I first met Julian in college. As the Student Body President, he was already strictly adhering to a wardrobe of button-downs and slacks. I used to beg him to wear matching couple’s outfits with me, but he always refused. “My position in student government doesn’t allow me to wear that kind of flashy, childish clothing. Stop being unreasonable.” Since when were hoodies and jeans considered flashy and childish? I stared at the screenshots of Julian dressed like a frat boy, sharp pangs of pain radiating through my chest. Even though I had already broken up with him, my emotions were still being dragged around by him. The airport PA system announced my flight. I stood up and joined the boarding line. I had been taking this flight home for the holidays alone for ten years. I had been asking him to come home to meet my parents for five years. But Chloe? She had only been interning under Julian for six months. It doesn’t matter anymore, Julian. From now on, you’ll never have to rack your brain trying to invent excuses to reject me again. The plane was incredibly quiet, especially since it was a red-eye flight. Surrounded by hundreds of people, I was suddenly drowning in an overwhelming sense of isolation. I opened up the TikTok account I had accidentally discovered belonging to Chloe. Sure enough, she had posted a new storytime video titled: “When the one who loves you doesn’t need to be asked, he just knows.” “The second my boss heard my parents had set me up on a blind date for the holidays, he panicked! I hadn’t even brought up the idea of finding a fake boyfriend yet, and he volunteered to come home with me to deal with my parents!” “Omg guys, I think I’ve turned into one of those girls who gets a crush on their strict camp counselor, or falls in love with their manager. I’m so obsessed.” “But my boss treats me so incredibly well… What am I supposed to do if I’m catching real feelings?” The comments were a unified wall of encouragement and shipping. “Girl, your boss is built like a model and has the face of a CEO. He’s young, successful, and making the first move. How could you not catch feelings?!” “Verdict: OP is an oblivious, innocent sweetheart. Your boss is practically throwing himself at you, you just need to open your eyes!” “Agreed! I’ve been following OP for six months, checking every day wondering when she’s finally going to get it… When are you going to change your handle from ‘Intern Chloe Grinding Daily’ to ‘Sweet Daily Life with my CEO Hubby’?” “OP, confess your feelings right now! You guys are obviously just one step away from making it official!” … We had been together for ten years. How could I not have noticed Julian drifting away? I was just… so tired. Julian was strongly opposed to marriage. I found this out the year we graduated college. I thought about it for a week, and ultimately decided to break up with him. “I’m an only child. If I don’t get married, my parents, my grandparents—my entire family—would be absolutely devastated.” Julian’s face had gone ghostly white. “Do you really not care about me at all?” “What good does caring do?!” I had been furious—angry that he had hidden his stance against marriage. “I can’t just be your girlfriend for the rest of my life!” Julian scrambled for excuses. “Your life belongs to you. You shouldn’t have to carry the burden of your parents’ or your family’s expectations.” I held up a hand to stop him. “Who said this was just their expectation? We used to talk about having one kid and giving them all our love.” “This is what I want. I want a family. I love kids.” I glared at him coldly. “So, all those times you agreed with me, were you just talking out of your ass?” Julian had nothing to say. After that argument, we unofficially broke up. But a month later, he showed up at my corporate housing. Looking gaunt and pale, he held out a bouquet of flowers. “Anna, I don’t want to lose you.” He spoke with intense gravity. “Can you just give me some time? At least right now, I am absolutely not ready to step into a marriage.” My heart softened. He was, after all, my first love. “I never said we had to get married right this second.” “Are you sure about this?” I asked him. “Don’t change your views on marriage or your life plans just for someone else.” Julian’s deep, expressive eyes welled up. “Compared to getting married, I’m much more terrified of losing you.” He paused. “Anna, wait for me.” “I will get over this fear.” And so I waited. For seven years. I didn’t want to wait anymore. After walking out of the airport and grabbing my suitcase, I was about to call an Uber. To my surprise, the second I stepped out of the sliding doors, I got a call from my dad. “Sweetie, did you land?” “I’m parked by the bus stop near Exit 1. Walk toward this side when you get out.” “Okay, got it.” I was a little shocked. Aside from my first two years of college, my dad had never come to pick me up from the airport. “I just walked out, I’m heading your way.” I rolled my suitcase down the sidewalk and spotted my parents leaning against their SUV from a mile away, scanning the crowd. When they saw me, they rushed over. My dad grabbed my bag to put it in the trunk, while my mom kept stretching her neck, looking behind me. Seeing how eager they were, I was suddenly very glad I had called in a ringer. “Dad, Mom—” I opened the back door. “My boyfriend isn’t coming until the 27th. Stop looking.” “Oh, right, right, right—” My mom slapped her thigh. “Today’s only Christmas Eve. We gotta let the boy spend Christmas with his own family first.” My dad slapped the steering wheel. “That Julian kid is thirty now. Glad he finally realized he needs to step up.” I pursed my lips, cutting off their excited chatter about their future son-in-law Julian. “I broke up with Julian.” “I’m dating someone new. His name is Arthur.” “Make sure you get the name right.” My dad, completely ignoring the fact that he was currently driving, whipped his head around to stare at me. “But when you called last week, you said Julian was away on a business trip—” “Watch the road!” My mom expertly shoved his head back toward the windshield. “It’s not you getting a new boyfriend, why are you panicking? Our daughter said he’s coming on the 27th, so we’ll meet him on the 27th! You’re driving like a maniac, people are going to think you’ve been chugging eggnog…” I laid back against the rear seats, silently listening to my mom scold my dad. She was right. Just last week on the phone, I had told them Julian was coming home with me this year. It was a massive sudden change for them. I expected them to interrogate me, but they just bickered with each other and completely skipped over the topic. Tears blurred my vision, because I felt overwhelmingly, unconditionally loved. I dozed off in the car. When we pulled into the driveway, I was swarmed by relatives before I even stepped out of the vehicle. My grandmother on my dad’s side had five kids; my grandmother on my mom’s side had six. Both of my parents were the youngest, most spoiled children in their respective massive families. Consequently, my marital status had always been a high-priority issue for both sides of the family tree. My oldest cousin was bouncing his new grandson. “This year, I specifically brought the baby over so you and your man could get some good luck! Once you’re married, hurry up and have a kid so my aunt can finally relax.” “We will, we will. Very soon.” My two older female cousins stuck their heads into the car, looking around. “This new boyfriend of yours doesn’t seem to know the rules. How can he drag his feet like this?” They clicked their tongues in disapproval. “If he had any sense, he would have shown up today with gifts in hand. You’re treating him like a prince.” “Yeah, seriously. He’s really lacking etiquette.” My aunts and uncles crowded closer. “Where’s the new boyfriend? He didn’t come today?” “Not today. He’s coming on the 27th.” … My youngest aunt finally pulled me out of the mob. “Give the guy a break! Christmas Day and Boxing Day are for his own family! Anna already said he’s coming on the 27th. Why are you guys so impatient? Let the poor girl rest first.” Even in the freezing winter air, I was sweating from the interrogation. Crap. This Arthur guy, this European aristocrat… does he have any idea how to handle the sheer force of an American extended family? The 25th and 26th were a blur of visiting relatives’ houses. When I finally collapsed onto my bed to rest, my phone rang with an unknown number. I answered, exhausted. “Hello?” “It’s me.” It was Julian. Before I could even process it, his aggrieved voice came through the speaker. “You blocked me.” “Yeah,” I replied calmly. “We broke up. Am I supposed to keep you unblocked so I can like your Instagram posts?” “I admit I was wrong! But Anna, can you please just give me a little more time… I’m still not ready.” “You’ve done a lot of wrong things. Which one are you talking about?” I asked coldly. “You promised me you would come home with me for the holidays. If you couldn’t do it, why did you agree? And even if you changed your mind at the last minute, why didn’t you just communicate that to me?” “Ever since you agreed to come home, you either left my messages on read or ignored them completely. Go search our chat history and see how many times you just replied with ‘1’ this past year.” “You said you were terrified of marriage, that you didn’t want to meet my parents. I gave you time to prepare. Seven years! A full seven years.” I took a breath. “I was understanding and respectful of your boundaries. And you turned around and went to your assistant’s hometown with her for the holidays.” There was a loud crash over the phone, followed by Julian’s sharp intake of breath. “Ah!” “How did you know… no, wait, let me explain!” “I just came here to help Chloe avoid her parents trying to force her into an arranged marriage. She’s only 21, she shouldn’t have to…” I was sick of hearing it. I cut him off sharply. “I don’t want to hear it!” “We are already broken up. I do not want to hear your excuses!” Julian was both anxious and angry. “I admit that breaking my promise to you was my fault, but can you at least give me a chance to explain? We agreed that if we had issues, we’d talk them out. We never went to bed angry.” He was still avoiding the subject of Chloe entirely. I didn’t want to waste my precious downtime on him anymore. “There’s nothing left to explain. Julian, you deceived me about your stance on marriage, you broke your promises, you deflected blame, and you took absolutely zero accountability.” “I am unilaterally informing you: we are broken up. That’s it.” I finished speaking, immediately hung up, and blocked the number. When it came to Julian, I knew in my soul that I owed him absolutely nothing. My parents were childhood sweethearts who married for love. Their relationship was beautiful and full of mutual grace. I always believed that in a relationship, you need respect, grace, and mutual understanding. I gave Julian seven years. That was more than enough. I shifted to get comfortable and go back to sleep. A notification popped up on WhatsApp. It was Chloe, complaining that I was being too heartless. [Ms. Anna, you’ve completely misunderstood Mr. Vance.] [He really only came back with me to help me out. My parents are super traditional and are trying to force me to get married before I even graduate college.] [You’re a woman too, you should be able to understand what I’m going through.] [Mr. Vance bought a red-eye plane ticket just so he could explain things to you in person. He hasn’t slept properly in days, and he has to fly out again tonight.] [Ms. Anna, you’re his girlfriend. Don’t you feel bad for him at all?] [I am so grateful to Mr. Vance. He’s taught me so much, and I genuinely want you two to be happy together.] I forwarded her the link to her own TikTok video and added a single question: [Do Intern Chloe’s followers know she’s knowingly sleeping with her boss while he has a girlfriend of ten years?] Chloe went completely silent. She just frantically started deleting her TikTok videos. I put my phone down, deeply satisfied, and slept a dreamless sleep. The next day, I didn’t drag myself out of bed until right before lunch. Just as I opened my bedroom door, I heard a massive commotion coming from the living room. Curious, I washed my face and headed downstairs. Halfway down, I saw my entire extended family crowded around a tall, blonde man in a trench coat, treating him like royalty. “… Arthur?” I blurted his name out in shock. Across the room, the man flamboyantly swept his long hair back, turned around, and walked toward me. My relatives parted like the Red Sea, creating a clear path for him. Arthur stopped in front of me. Standing three steps up, I was a head taller than him. He bowed deeply in an exaggerated, aristocratic greeting. “At your service.” “My leading lady has finally awakened.” He took off his sunglasses, his trench coat flaring out dramatically. “Five years have passed, My Miss Ophelia.” “AHHHHH! He is so handsome! Is he like, a prince from another country?!” “Blonde hair! Six-foot-four! A Maybach! Auntie Anna really scored!” My nieces and nephews were clutching their chests and screaming. My cousin’s husband scratched his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. This guy is ridiculously good-looking.” My youngest aunt smiled maternally. “He’s very handsome. He’s definitely worthy of our Anna.” My dad grabbed Arthur’s arm. “Come on, let’s finish our game of chess. For a foreigner, you’re pretty damn good at this!” My mom rushed up the stairs and practically dragged me back into my room. “Good lord! Why did you come out here in your pajamas?! Hurry up, put on some makeup and change your clothes!” She started tearing through my closet. “You wear a trench coat too!” “You’re both tall, you both have great skin. The kids you have are going to be gorgeous! Hey, what do they call kids from different races? Mixed-race, right? Will they be American or European?” “This new boyfriend of yours has purple eyes! That’s so exotic! If it weren’t for him, I would have thought the world only had brown and blue eyes. If your kids inherit his eyes, that would be amazing. What’s the saying? ‘Rare things are precious’!” She was clearly lost in her own fantasy world. I didn’t interrupt her. My parents had deflected the family’s pressure to get married for five or six years, and they had never once pressured me themselves. I threw on a trench coat, pulled on some knee-high boots, and did some light makeup. My mom finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Take him around and introduce him to everyone. Don’t go wandering off, lunch is almost ready.” I agreed to everything and followed her downstairs. Arthur was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, good-naturedly chatting with the younger generation of my family. He really didn’t look like the psychotic maniac who, after being rejected, had tried to hold me hostage. Hearing us, he turned and held out a hand to help me down the last step. “Anna, I waited for you for a very long time.” I swatted his hand away. “Drop the theatrical act.” He didn’t get mad. He just smiled happily and squeezed in right next to me. “Your relatives are fascinating. They all really like me.” I grabbed his hand. “That’s because you’re my boyfriend.” “Follow me. I’m going to introduce you to everyone. Just repeat whatever I call them.” “It’s fine if you don’t remember their names. Just make a good impression.” Arthur looked down at our joined hands, absolutely thrilled, and agreed repeatedly. “Darling, whatever you say.” I shot him a sideways glance. What a two-faced chameleon. In reality, my nieces weren’t completely wrong. Arthur actually was a prince. More accurately, he was now a Duke. The first time I met him was during a road trip to a historic town. He was hitchhiking on the side of the road, looking like a total mess, and I pulled over. The second time was at a corporate trade negotiation. I was just a junior associate shadowing my manager to learn the ropes, and he was the lead executive for the opposing European conglomerate. Back then, I thought he was a stern, unsmiling, strictly-business type of guy. The third time, I was the lead negotiator. Due to business requirements, we started interacting a lot more. Then, we exchanged social media handles and became friends. And then… he suddenly confessed his love for me. When I rejected him, he actually had me kidnapped and taken to some undisclosed mansion. I had been furious. “This is how you show you like someone?! By violating my consent and holding me against my will?!” “We just need to spend more time together. You’ll fall in love with me eventually,” he stared at me, dangerously stubborn. “Also, I would never physically harm you.” I was rendered speechless by his bizarre, archaic views on romance. “I don’t care where you learned how to treat women, but let me make one thing crystal clear, Arthur.” “Any real relationship has to be built on free will. Affection that isn’t freely given is just submission.” “That kind of connection will evaporate the second it’s tested. Do you really want that kind of fake love?” Honestly, I hadn’t held out much hope that reasoning with him would work. After all, psychopaths aren’t exactly known for logic. To my absolute shock, after listening to me, he looked thoughtful for a moment… and then just let me go. After unlocking the ankle monitor he had put on me, he even hosted a lavish dinner for me. Before putting me in a car to send me home, he announced that he was going to pursue me properly. He pursued me relentlessly and flamboyantly for an entire year. I eventually blocked him on every single platform. Later, he told me he had to return to Europe to attend the Queen’s funeral and, coincidentally, inherit a title. That was when I found out he was literal aristocracy. On the day he left, he said, “Ophelia, you have no idea how much of a miracle your presence in my life has been.” “I beg of you, if you ever decide to get married… please consider me.” I had to admit, while his methods were deeply unhinged, he definitely made a lasting impression. Which was why, when I needed someone to swoop in and play the role of the fiancé, he was the very first person who came to mind. I led him from the living room to the kitchen, from the garden to my dad’s study. By the end of the tour, the pockets of his trench coat were stuffed with red envelopes filled with cash—traditional Chinese holiday gifts from my relatives. Halfway through the tour, when his pockets were literally overflowing, I had to find a gift bag for him to carry the rest of the envelopes. Once the tour was over and we were back in my room, Arthur started opening the red envelopes, looking absolutely ecstatic. “I love Chinese traditions. Especially the red envelopes.” I casually replied, “Well, when you get married, you’ll have to give out a lot of red envelopes yourself.” Arthur looked up at me, suddenly deadly serious. “So, when are we getting married?” I froze. “Uh,” I shifted uncomfortably under his expectant gaze. Usually, I was the one asking that question. “Whenever it’s convenient for you, I guess…” He stopped counting the cash, stood up, and pressed me. “I read that traditional Chinese weddings require a matchmaker and formal betrothal gifts! Tell me exactly what I need to do, Ophelia. I want to marry you as soon as possible.” I laughed. “It’s not that traditional anymore!” “Ophelia, marriage is incredibly sacred. I need you to take this seriously!” Being stared down by those deep purple eyes was making me a little nervous. “Okay, I…” “Anna! Arthur! Come downstairs, it’s time to eat!” My mom’s shout from downstairs interrupted us. We exchanged a look. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Food first, everything else later.” I grabbed his hand and ran downstairs. At the dinner table, Arthur ate while seriously and politely answering all my relatives’ questions. He was handling the interrogation perfectly. Suddenly, he turned to my mom. “Mrs. Evans.” “What exactly do I need to do to marry in America?” “Anna is bullying me. She won’t tell me.” “Mrs. Evans, I want to marry Anna very badly. I am willing to… become a stay-at-home husband. Please, let me be a stay-at-home husband.” The entire table went dead silent. My mom stared at Arthur, her jaw hanging open. “Huh? Oh… wow, I… uh…” She shot me a frantic look. I actually managed to translate it instantly: [What does this mean?! You don’t want to marry him?! This kid is offering to be a stay-at-home husband! Opportunities like this don’t just fall out of the sky! What are you thinking?! Give me an answer!] I sighed helplessly. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, my uncle strolled into the dining room, hands behind his back. “Oh! You guys are eating.” He pointed out the front door. “There’s a young guy out there claiming to be Anna’s boyfriend. I brought him inside.” “Anna,” he coughed awkwardly. “I know you’re a beautiful girl, but we have to have some morals here. You can’t be dating two guys at the same time! You’re treating these boys like fish in a pond!” Holy crap. Did Julian actually show up?! I shot up from my chair and practically sprinted toward the front door. Arthur immediately abandoned his food and followed right behind me. It really was him. The second I saw Julian, I wanted to grab a shovel and bury him in the septic tank! “What are you doing here?” I hissed, keeping my voice low. Arthur shadowed me closely, standing right at my shoulder. Julian didn’t answer me. He glared at Arthur and demanded, “Who is he?” Arthur grabbed my hand, standing silently and protectively behind me. The residual anger I had been harboring instantly vanished—I hadn’t even cheated on him, and I certainly hadn’t done anything to feel guilty about. What was I afraid of?! “He’s my boyfriend,” I stated calmly. “He’s here to meet my parents.” “Julian, all the promises you made? Someone else is here to fulfill them. You should be thanking him.” Arthur proudly puffed out his chest. Julian’s face twisted in agony. “What about me?” “Didn’t we break up?” “I already explained! Chloe was being forced into an arranged marriage—” “You don’t need to explain anything to me. The breakup is a done deal.” I was so sick of his cyclical, pathetic excuses. “If you had an issue with the breakup, you should have said something the day it happened. Not five days later.” I stared him down. “Do you remember what you replied?” Julian’s lips trembled, but he couldn’t speak. I answered for him. “1.” “You replied with a ‘1’.” “That means ‘Understood. Agreed,’” my niece, who was eavesdropping, helpfully explained to the older relatives standing nearby. My face instantly burned bright red. I turned around and realized that the wall next to the front gate was lined with the heads of my neighbors, all straining to listen in on the drama.

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It was 3:00 AM, and I was getting ready to head out for my night shift at the convenience store. Suddenly, a notification from a short-video app popped up on my phone. The headline read: [Show off the most bizarre gifts your significant other has ever given you] The comment section was on fire. People were roasting their partners for sending everything from live goldfish to ugly Christmas sweaters. But one comment stuck out like a sore thumb: “My wife’s gift is pretty unique. She got me my own exclusive Black Card~” Unlike the handmade photo albums or custom pillows others were posting, the card in the photo was matte black metal. Engraved in small gold letters were the words: “Baby’s Exclusive VIP,” “Unconditional Love 24/7,” “Present Card to Summon Wife.” I couldn’t help but shake my head. Are rich people really this competitive about showing off their relationships now? I was about to exit the app, but amidst a sea of rowdy comments, the user posted a video screenshot taken inside a bar. My finger froze mid-air. It felt like all the blood had been drained from my body. Under the dim, hazy lights, a woman was leaning back in a booth, holding a cocktail glass, her head turned slightly as she smiled. I would know that face anywhere, even if it were burned to ash. It was my wife, Sarah, who was supposed to be working the night shift at the hospital right now. Chapter 1 The replies in the comment section were still scrolling wildly. “Holy sh*t, is this card real? That is insanely loaded.” To prove it, the boy quietly started a live stream. In the frame, the woman, wearing a form-fitting knit dress, was behind the bar mixing a drink. Seeming to notice someone was filming, she turned back and smiled gently. Revealing Sarah’s familiar face. The boy sounded triumphant, keeping his voice low: “See that? My wife not only gives me a black card, but she also mixes drinks for me personally. Her friend owns this bar, so it’s basically our private date spot~” “Okay, I’m gonna go drink my wife’s special ‘Love Potion’ now~” The stream cut abruptly, leaving netizens howling that they hadn’t seen enough. Only my fingers grew colder, inch by inch. I picked up my phone, set it down, and picked it up again. Finally, unable to help myself, I dialed the familiar number. It rang for a long time before connecting. Sarah’s voice sounded slightly exhausted: “Liam? What’s wrong?” “Nothing… just wanted to ask, what are you doing?” Sarah let out a soft sigh: “What does it sound like? I’m on the night shift. Just finished rounds, I’m exhausted.” “Is Maya asleep? Remember to bolt the door when you leave.” “Oh, right, today is our third anniversary since we signed the papers. Once money isn’t so tight, I’ll make it up to you with a real gift.” I glanced at the time on my phone. 3:17 AM. Just as I was about to speak, a boy’s whining voice came from her end: “Honey, you promised to focus on me tonight. Why are you picking up calls again?” Sarah’s breath hitched. Her tone turned frantic: “There’s… there’s an emergency patient. The family keeps cornering me to ask about his condition. I have to go.” “And… try not to call when I’m on night shifts in the future, it’s not convenient.” With that, she hung up in a hurry. A bitter smile twisted my lips. Was it inconvenient, or was she afraid of making someone unhappy? Putting down the phone, I looked around this small, dilapidated rented apartment. After three years of marriage, this was our entire “marital home.” The paint was peeling in places, the sofa was sourced from a secondhand market, and the springs had collapsed. When I married Sarah, she had just lost a massive amount of money due to a malpractice lawsuit, burying herself in debt, and she was already saddled with a three-year-old daughter left by her ex-husband. She worked at the hospital during the day and took night shifts, wishing she could be on the clock twenty-four hours a day. Because I had to take care of the child, I couldn’t hold down a full-time job, so I took on piecemeal freelance gigs. Every night, after the child fell asleep, I went to work the night shift at the convenience store, thinking I could earn a little more, bit by bit. The jacket I was wearing was three or four years old, the collar washed out until it was white, but I couldn’t bring myself to replace it. Thinking of that high-end bar in the video, that exquisite cocktail, and the tenderness Sarah showed while mixing drinks for someone else. It felt like my chest was stuffed with waterlogged cotton. Heavy. Suffocating. “Ugh, this is so annoying. It’s the middle of the night, why aren’t you sleeping? What are you just staring at?” My stepdaughter, Maya, suddenly poked her head out of the bedroom, frowning at me. “My mom works so hard to make money for this family, and all you know how to do is slack off? You won’t even sleep properly?” “The food you make tastes awful, and you’re so poor and trashy. You don’t compare at all to—” I’ve asked myself over these past three years if I’ve done enough. I’ve been utterly submissive to her. But I don’t know when it started, this child’s eyes became filled with disdain whenever she looked at me. I always assumed she missed her biological father. But at this moment, I caught the anomaly in her words. “Compare to what?” Maya rolled her eyes, refusing to say more. She slammed the door shut, leaving behind only, “Anyway, he’s better than you.” Seeing I was about to be late, I could only tell her to lock the door and rushed out. The night shift at the convenience store was grittier than I imagined. Shelves needed stocking, expired food needed removing, and I had to deal with drunks coming in at midnight to buy beer. By the time the hand-off was done, the sky was growing pale. I was so tired I could barely straighten my back, ready to clock out. The store manager suddenly walked over with a dark expression: “Liam, I looked at your inventory sheet from last night. The numbers don’t match. Don’t leave yet. Re-count the whole thing.” I froze. I had clearly double-checked every item three times. But to avoid having my wages docked, I had to suppress my sleepiness and start counting again. Halfway through, I went to the back warehouse to get stock and heard the manager on the phone: “Mrs. Vance, don’t you worry. I did exactly as you said. I’m making him count slowly, he won’t be leaving anytime soon.” “Guaranteed that young master will get a good night’s sleep without being disturbed.” “Of course, of course. That thirty thousand is enough to cover my son’s wedding.” I leaned against the shelf, my legs heavy as lead. But no matter how heavy they were, they couldn’t compare to my heart, which was growing icy, piece by piece. Subconsciously, I opened my phone and pulled up the home security camera feed. In the frame, that boy from the photo last night was walking out of our bedroom wearing a bathrobe. Hickeys were dotted all over his neck. He wrapped his arms around Sarah’s waist from behind, whining: “Did you drop Maya off at school?” “Honey, since nobody’s here right now, come back to sleep with me for a bit~” “Stop it, I need to send you back. If Liam comes back and sees…” Sarah said no, but she didn’t push him away. The boy curled his lip disdainfully: “So what if he sees? Isn’t that loser just a free nanny you found to take care of Maya? Even your marriage certificate is fake.” “Right now, I’m not your brother-in-law. I’m your legally protected husband~” “When are you finally going to kick him out? I want to live with you in the open.” Sarah paused, then gently stroked his head: “Taking care of a child is too tiring. Liam is used to suffering since he was a kid; he’s better suited for this than you.” “You only need to be responsible for being spoiled by me. Just be a carefree kid.” My head buzzed. The phone almost slid out of my hand. Looking at that young, arrogant face, I finally remembered who he was. Sarah’s ex-husband’s younger brother—Tyler. When Sarah and I got married, because we had no money, we just got the certificate; we didn’t have a reception. Tyler came over once, saying he was checking in on behalf of his brother. He held his chin high, speaking to me in a commanding tone: “Take good care of my sister-in-law and Maya from now on. Don’t let them suffer.” At the time, I thought it was only natural for a brother-in-law to care about his brother’s widow. Now I understood that the arrogance in his eyes was the look a master gives a servant. I stumbled home in a daze. The door was unlocked. Sarah was sitting on the sofa. Standing next to her was a woman dressed professionally in a suit, speaking respectfully: “Mrs. Vance, I’ve already sent Master Tyler back.” “It’s just… yesterday was at least your wedding anniversary with Liam. Are you really not sending him anything?” “For Tyler’s birthday, you sent a sports car.” Sarah shook her head casually: “No need. Liam is someone who came up from poverty. If he finds out I have money, he’ll inevitably get greedy and try to funnel money to his family back home.” “Didn’t I choose him in the beginning because he knows how to raise a child, has no background, is easy to control, and won’t abuse Maya?” “As long as he honestly raises Maya until she’s an adult, I’ll give him a sum of money, enough for him to retire back to his hometown.” “As for Tyler, I promised his brother I’d take care of him. Naturally, I can’t let him suffer.” Sarah and I met because of an accident. That year, I was dragged back by my family to an arranged matchmaking. The other party was a woman in her late fifties who said she’d spend hundreds of thousands to make me her live-in son-in-law. I refused, and was pinned to the ground by the bodyguards she brought, getting beaten. Sarah was passing by and shouted at them to stop. She shielded me behind her, looking coldly at that gang: “He is a human being, not merchandise for you to buy and sell.” At the time, she was newly widowed, depressed all day, and didn’t know how to raise a three-year-old child on her own. She would frequently ask me, someone who came from a large family with many siblings. And I, having been used as free labor by my family since childhood, was indeed the best at raising children. To repay her, I often helped her take care of Maya. The oppression from my parents, the cold eyes of relatives. It left me insecure and starved for love down to my bones. Sarah was the first person to respect me, to protect me. Knowing full well she carried debt and still had her late husband in her heart, I married her anyway. I even quit the job I loved to better take care of the child. But I never imagined that after three years of devotion. In her eyes, I was just a free nanny. I couldn’t even compare to her late husband’s brother. I… was just an outsider. “Liam? When did you get back?” Sarah’s voice suddenly rang out, carrying a hint of panic. She gave a look to the woman in the suit, signaling her to leave. Then she managed a smile: “This is a colleague from the hospital. Shift just changed, she came by for a glass of water.” I didn’t speak. I just found it laughable. What hospital colleague would be wearing a custom suit worth tens of thousands of dollars? Sarah, seeing me silent, walked over to support me: “How are you this exhausted? Did the manager make trouble for you again?” She stuffed a breakfast burrito into my hand, her tone carrying guilt: “I’m sorry, Liam. It’s all my fault, dragging you into this kind of life.” “This is something you usually can’t bring yourself to buy. Consider it my belated anniversary gift to you.” “Once the debt is paid off in the future, I’ll make it up to you properly.” She was right. Over these three years, the money I earned went either to her “debt repayment,” or to buy Maya clothes and sign her up for tutoring classes. I couldn’t bring myself to buy even a bottle of water for myself. But after watching the security footage this morning, I knew. The moment I sent Maya to her tutoring class, she and Tyler picked her up right after, and the three went out for sushi and shopping. There was even one time she said she was taking Maya to her hometown to visit graves, but she actually went on vacation to Miami with Tyler. For Tyler’s birthday, she could casually send a sports car. And I, I only deserved a breakfast burrito. Perhaps in her heart, this was exactly what I was worth. I suddenly felt very tired. “Sarah, we…” Before I could finish, her phone suddenly rang. She glanced at it, violently shot to her feet: “Liam, eat something yourself. I have an emergency, I have to go.” A short while later, Tyler’s social media account updated. In the frame, Sarah was kneeling by the bed, gently rubbing his stomach for him. Her eyes were tender, like she was another person. “Hee hee, I just ate too much this morning and got a little bloated, and this woman got all nervous and rushed over to rub my belly~” He once again showed off that black gold membership card. An extra line of small text was added: The most precious little ancestor. My stomach suddenly churned violently. I rushed to the bathroom and dry-heaved for a long time. The phone rang; it was the school: “Hello, is this Maya Vance’s parent?” “Kindergarten is having a parent-child sports day today. Can you make it on time?” I froze for a moment. Sports day? Maya didn’t tell me. But in the end, this was a child I had raised with my own hands. I went. Arriving at the school, as soon as I stated my identity, the homeroom teacher was stunned: “You’re saying you’re Maya’s father? Then who is that gentleman inside?” I followed her gaze to the playground. Tyler was crouching next to Maya, helping her tie her shoelaces. A few little kids crowded around, sizing up my washed-out hoodie, asking disdainfully: “Maya, didn’t you say your handsome older brother was your dad? Who is this trashy, ugly old guy?” “Which one is real? We don’t play with liars!” Maya looked at Tyler’s branded streetwear, then looked at my old clothes. Her face flushed dark red. She ran over in a huff, giving me a violent push: “Who told you to come?!” “You’re just our nanny, you’re not worthy of coming to my sports day! My daddy is over there! Get out of here right now!” “Or else I’ll make my mom fire you!” Tyler, as if he had expected this long ago, curled his lip in a triumphant smile. I looked down at Maya. When she was three, her body was weak. She often had fevers in the middle of the night. The doctor said it might be because she missed her father. My heart ached for her endlessly. I held her all night long, telling her stories, coaxing her to sleep. When she was sick, I wouldn’t sleep or rest, guarding her, finding new ways to cook things she liked to eat. It could be said this child grew up in my arms. But this child, whom I regarded as my own, along with her mother, played me for a fool. Three years. I never got a single call of “Daddy,” yet Tyler got it easily. Yesterday wasn’t his first time spending the night. Otherwise, Maya wouldn’t have been in such a rush to usher me out. Perhaps, the bond of raising a child really cannot compete with bloodlines. It felt like a hole had been punctured in my chest. I spoke softly: “No need to kick me out. I’ll leave on my own.” Finishing, I didn’t acknowledge Maya’s slightly changing expression, and turned to leave. Walking to the stairwell corner, Tyler caught up. He walked up to me with a smirk, raised his hand, and slapped me right across the face: “What do you think you are? You dare come here to mark your territory?” “You heard Maya, right? You’re just a free nanny. Even the marriage certificate is fake.” “I am her legal husband.” “Sarah and I have known each other for over a decade. Maya is my brother’s child; she has Vance blood in her.” “Our bond is something you can never compare to. You only bring them shame.” Tyler got closer, lowering his voice: “You don’t actually think that child Sarah miscarried years ago was an accident, do you?” My eyes violently went wide: “What did you say?” “Sarah planned that herself. She originally could have saved her fertility, but she told the doctor to remove it.” “Because I told her, if she had your child, you would abuse Maya and fight over the estate in the future.” “Had to eliminate future trouble. She heard that, and she meekly complied.” He looked at me triumphantly: “But I’m different. I’m her late husband’s brother. Our child will have Vance blood.” “That’s why she was willing to get a certificate with me. She was thrilled when she found out I got her pregnant.” “She said we are a real family. As for you, and that dead child, you’re both outsiders.” “I heard you worked all kinds of gigs over these years to support the household? Tsk. Calling it ‘free’ is flattering you.” “Talk to a pathetic loser like you actually makes me feel dirty.” “If I were you, I’d get lost sooner rather than later, and stop getting in the way of our family’s life.” My hands were clenched and shaking. That miscarriage. That child. It was the deepest pain of my life. I held the Sarah who had just miscarried, crying my heart out, saying over and over that it was my fault. Three years of companionship. I thought we were the closest people in the world. But she set up barrier after barrier, guarding against me like I was a thief. For what? Why did my sincerity have to be trampled on like this? I raised my hand, but before it could fall, I was violently shoved aside from behind: “What are you doing?!” My knee already had an old injury; I didn’t keep my footing and rolled all the way down the stairs. Sharp pain shot through my elbow, and a warm stream flowed down from my forehead. Blood covered my face. Sarah’s eyes went wide in shock: “Liam! Are you okay? I didn’t mean to…” She wanted to come help me, but Tyler grabbed her arm tightly, saying pitifully: “Maya had her sports day today, and the teacher couldn’t get in touch with Liam no matter what. Those kids were calling Maya a fatherless bastard, so I came for her sake!” “But he came and started yelling at me for minding other people’s business, said I was an outsider, told me to get lost, and wanted to hit me!” “My brother is in heaven. If he saw me being bullied like this, how heartbreaking would that be…” Sarah’s face instantly darkened. She looked at me coldly: “Tyler is Maya’s biological uncle, they have a blood relation. If he’s an outsider, what are you?” “I don’t know what you’re busy doing all day that you can’t even attend your child’s sports day. Do you even deserve to be a parent?” “Tyler was kindly helping out, and you have the nerve to hit him?” I stumbled to my feet, wiping the blood from my face. I let out a cold laugh: “Sarah, is playing me this fun?” “If I’m not worthy of being a parent, then a lying cheat like you, who tricks people’s emotions…” “An animal who personally murders her own child, deserves to be a mother even less!” Sarah’s expression changed, just about to speak. Tyler tugged at her sleeve: “Maya is still waiting for us, don’t keep the child waiting alone. She’s wearing new shoes today; standing too long hurts her feet.” Sarah nodded, leaving behind one sentence: “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Tyler is much more sensible than you.” “Since you dislike going to Maya’s sports day so much, you don’t need to come in the future. Tyler will go.” “In the end, she’s not your biological child; you can’t compare to blood relation.” Finishing, heartbroken that Tyler’s feet might hurt. She helped him up and walked away without looking back. The glass window nearby reflected my pathetic appearance. Dried-out hair, gaunt face. Because of chronically staying up late, my skin was rough as sandpaper. But I never complained. In the end, it only bought me a scam, and the status of an “outsider.” It needs to end. I used the money saved from my freelance gigs to get my wound bandaged at the hospital. Went home to pack my bags—actually just a few old clothes. Booked a ticket on the nearest train. Sarah, I’m not playing your “pretending to be poor” game anymore.

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My mother always had a sick fascination with practical jokes, entirely oblivious to time, place, or collateral damage. At my daughter’s first birthday party, she slammed a forged paternity test onto the banquet table and sobbed a river of crocodile tears to my husband. “I know my daughter made a fool of you. I know she let you raise another man’s bastard,” she wailed, her voice echoing through the silent room. “But she promised me she’d change! Please, just give her a chance!” Our friends and family froze. The air left the room. I scrambled to explain, begging anyone to listen, but who questions the tearful confession of a biological mother? Who assumes a grandmother would manufacture such a devastating lie about her own flesh and blood? My husband, completely shattered by the sheer weight of the public humiliation and the betrayal he thought was real, broke down. The pain in his eyes was something I will never forget. Before anyone could stop him, he stepped out onto the hotel balcony. And he let go. When the screams started and the reality of a dead body on the pavement set in, my mother offered a pathetic, watery shrug. “I was just pulling a prank,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “How was I supposed to know he’d take it so seriously?” My father and brother, standing on the periphery, scoffed. “If he jumped, he must have already suspected you,” my father sneered. “Exactly,” my brother chimed in. “If you weren’t such a slut, Harper, a joke like that wouldn’t have landed.” Suffocating under the weight of my in-laws’ agonizing screams and the disgusted glares of everyone I loved, I backed away. My heel caught the edge of the threshold. I tumbled over the railing, falling into the exact same abyss that had just swallowed my husband. Given a second chance, I decided it was time my mother learned the punchline to her own joke. 1 A sharp, breathless wail ripped me from the dark. I bolted upright, my chest heaving, staring blankly at the crib where my daughter was crying. Beside me, Nathan rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He didn’t hesitate. He slid out of bed, his broad shoulders casting a warm shadow in the dim light, and scooped Mia up, swaying gently. He turned his head and gave me that soft, lopsided smile that always made my heart ache. “She’s just fussy tonight. Why don’t you go sleep in the guest room, Harper? I’ve got her. If she wakes you up again, you’ll be complaining about your dark circles all day tomorrow.” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I let him guide me out of the master bedroom, my feet moving on autopilot. It wasn’t until I stood in the hallway, staring down at the glowing date and time on my phone screen, that the reality violently clicked into place. I was back. I had woken up exactly one week before my mother, Diane, would casually destroy my entire universe with a single sentence. In one week, we were scheduled to host Mia’s first birthday. We had rented out the sunroom at a beautiful local country club. The plan, in my previous life, had been to do a little time-capsule ceremony—a moment where everyone dropped a written wish for Mia into a wooden box. But when it was my mother’s turn, she had marched to the front and slammed a manila envelope on the table. “Here’s a wish for you, sweetie,” she had said, leaning into the microphone. “I wish that one day, you get to meet your real daddy.” I had been so stunned I couldn’t even form the words to stop her. Diane had just kept going, adopting a tone of tragic martyrdom. “I can’t keep this secret anymore. It’s eating me alive. Nathan is a saint. He’s the perfect husband, the perfect father. I cannot stand by and watch my daughter play him for an absolute fool.” And then, she produced the fake DNA results. She painted a vivid, sickeningly detailed picture of my imaginary infidelity. She narrated a fictional affair, claiming I had gotten pregnant by a stranger and pinned it on Nathan to secure a comfortable life. The whispers had started immediately. Nathan, his face drained of all blood, had looked at me. He raised a hand, trembling, as if to strike me, but he couldn’t do it. The betrayal was too immense, the public spectacle too suffocating. He turned, vaulted over the balcony railing, and was gone. And I, panicked, frantic, trying to reach him, had fallen right after him. Only after the darkness took me did I realize it was just another one of Diane’s infamous “ice-breakers.” A joke. … Standing in the hallway now, listening to the muffled, soothing baritone of Nathan singing a lullaby to our daughter, the phantom sensation of the pavement rushing up to meet me vanished. In its place, a cold, crystalline resolve settled into my bones. I was not just going to save my family. I was going to force my mother to choke on her own poison. 2 The week evaporated, and the day of the party arrived, mirroring my past life perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. This time, I had upgraded the venue. The floral arrangements were taller, the guest list was twice as long, and the champagne was flowing freely. I wanted an audience. The moment Diane walked into the ballroom, her mouth was already moving. “Lord, you’d think she gave birth to the heir of the British throne,” she muttered loudly to my father, eyeing the ice sculpture. “It’s just a girl. When your brother had his son, did you throw a party this big? No.” She snatched a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. “Even if Nathan makes good money, this is gross negligence. Your brother is drowning in his mortgage, Harper. If you have this kind of cash laying around, you should be helping family first.” Nathan’s jaw tightened, a muscle feathering near his ear, but he swallowed his anger for my sake. My in-laws, Tom and Carol, who had been bouncing Mia on their knees, immediately lost their smiles. I had swallowed this exact rhetoric my entire life. I was the daughter, the burden, the one destined to be married off, while my brother Derek was the golden child, the investment. I was so used to Diane’s relentless chipping away at my self-worth that I usually just stayed quiet. But I had already died once. The fear of making a scene was buried with my first life. I planted my feet, squared my shoulders, and pointed a finger directly at her. My voice carried over the light jazz playing in the background. “Excuse me? Because I married well, I’m suddenly obligated to fund your son’s life? Where does that leave Derek and his wife? Should they call me their sister, or their sugar mama?” It was the first time in twenty-eight years I had ever raised my voice at her. Diane physically recoiled, her eyes widening in genuine shock. It took her a full ten seconds to recover. “Oh, calm down, Harper. I was just joking.” She offered a tight, condescending laugh. “Besides, everyone knows boys carry the family legacy. A daughter is nice, but she’s just a guest in the house. A girl alone doesn’t mean much.” I didn’t back down. I stepped closer, my voice ringing out clearly. “She might not mean much to you, Diane, but to my husband and his parents, she is everything. You spent your whole life acting like being a woman is a curse. Don’t you dare project your internalized misogyny onto my daughter. She is a queen in this family.” The room went dead silent. That did it. I hit the exposed nerve. Diane’s face flushed a violent, mottled red. Forgetting about the time-capsule ceremony entirely, she dropped the facade. “You have a lot of nerve acting high and mighty!” she shrieked, her voice cracking like a whip across the elegant room. “Nathan and his parents treat you like royalty, and how do you repay them? By sleeping around with God knows who, and making Nathan raise a bastard!” “You ungrateful little tramp!” 3 The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet; it was a vacuum. The waiters froze mid-pour. The string quartet stopped playing. People live for drama, but a mother publicly annihilating her daughter’s character? That was a spectacle you didn’t see every day. Every eye in the room pivoted to me—the shameless, cheating wife. Nobody in their right mind would assume a mother would fabricate something so grotesque about her own child. But Diane was not in her right mind. She lived for this. She fed off the shock value of crossing unspeakable lines and then hiding behind the shield of “I’m just kidding.” When I was twelve, she pretended to slip and fall in the shower. She screamed bloody murder, begging for help. I was terrified. I ran out of my bedroom, didn’t even stop to grab a robe, and sprinted into the hallway in just my underwear. I found her standing perfectly fine in the doorway, holding her phone up, the camera lens pointed squarely at me. She was suppressing a laugh. “Oh, honey, look at you! Say hi to my coworkers! We’re on a video call!” I nearly threw up from the humiliation. When my dad and brother came home, she spun it effortlessly. “I was just pulling a prank to see if she cared enough to rush to my rescue! How was I supposed to know she’d run out half-naked?” Later, as an “apology,” she bought me a beautiful, pristine white sundress. I wore it out to the mall with my friends, feeling pretty for the first time in months. But people kept staring. Finally, a woman pulled me into a restroom. “Honey, you’ve got a heavy leak back there.” I twisted around to look in the mirror. Someone had taken bright red acrylic paint and smeared it across the back of the skirt. I ran home crying hysterically. Diane just chuckled, sipping her coffee. “You’ve been so gloomy lately, I just wanted to lighten the mood. Why are you so sensitive?” My dad and Derek had laughed until they couldn’t breathe. “Don’t blame your mother,” my dad had wheezed. “You should have checked your clothes before you put them on.” “Yeah,” Derek added. “Mom was just trying to cheer you up. Apologize to her for yelling.” They never understood—or didn’t care—that that one “joke” resulted in me being mercilessly bullied for the rest of middle school. 4 Pulling myself out of the memory, I looked at Diane with absolute, chilling calm. “You’re saying I slept around? That I made Nathan a cuckold?” I tilted my head, my voice eerily steady. “Is this another one of your jokes, Mom? Or are you being serious?” The guests, many of whom were extended family who knew Diane’s reputation, started murmuring. “Diane, come on, that’s going too far.” “Not today, Diane. Drop the act.” This wasn’t the reaction she had scripted in her head. She shifted uncomfortably, realizing the crowd wasn’t immediately pulling out their pitchforks. She gritted her teeth. “I might have a sense of humor, Harper, but I know where to draw the line. I would never joke about this.” Nathan looked shaken, his brow furrowed in deep confusion, but—unlike my first life—he didn’t pull away. The foundation of our marriage had shifted since I woke up a week ago. I had spent the last seven days loving him fiercely, communicating with him, fortifying us. He stepped slightly in front of me, taking my hand. “Diane, I know my wife. I know who she is. Mia is my daughter.” Tom and Carol, emboldened by Nathan’s stance, moved to flank me. “Exactly,” Carol said sharply. Having my chosen family form a physical wall around me gave me a rush of adrenaline. I leaned into it. “You heard him,” I said, my voice hardening. “If you’re going to make an accusation like that, you better have the evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you can walk out those doors and never call yourself my mother again.” My father, Robert, turned purple with rage. He lunged forward, raising his hand to slap me, but Nathan caught his wrist mid-air, his grip like a vise. Denied his violence, Robert stomped his foot like a petulant child. “How dare you speak to her like that! You think your mother would just make this up?” Derek nodded vigorously. “Mom is just trying to save Nathan from wasting his life on a liar! You should be on your knees begging Nathan for forgiveness so he doesn’t throw you out on the street!” I rolled my eyes at the two of them, pulled out my phone, and tapped the screen. “Show me the proof, Diane. Right now. Or I am dialing 911 and pressing charges for criminal defamation.” Seeing I wasn’t backing down, a triumphant gleam sparked in Diane’s eyes. “You want proof? Fine. Explain this!” She unzipped her designer tote, pulled out a crisp manila envelope, and whipped out a thick stack of papers, flipping straight to the final page. “Right here! ‘Probability of Paternity: 0%.’ Sample A is the baby. Sample B is Nathan. It’s scientific proof! What do you have to say for yourself now?” 5 Diane paraded the paper around like a trophy, ensuring the people in the front row got a good look at the bold black text. “You all think Harper is this perfect little angel,” Diane announced to the room, reveling in the spotlight. “But a mother knows. I always knew what she was.” She scoffed, playing to the crowd. “When it was time for college, I found her a great local school. Safe, easy to commute, good job prospects. But no, she insisted on going to a university halfway across the country. Why? Because she wanted to be off the leash. She wanted to sleep around without me catching her.” She wasn’t entirely wrong about the college part. I did pick the furthest school possible—but it was solely to escape the suffocating, toxic hellscape of her roof. And thank God I did, because it was exactly how I met a man as decent as Nathan. The crowd, seeing the official-looking crest and the DNA sequencing on the paper, fell silent again. The murmurs changed tenor. “My God… you don’t joke with a printed lab report.” “Maybe Diane really is just trying to do the right thing…” “Now that I look at her, the baby doesn’t really have Nathan’s nose, does she?” I let my face crumple into a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. I looked at Diane, my eyes wide and wounded. “Mom, what are you doing? Are you trying to destroy my life? You know me! Nathan was my first real boyfriend. How could you even think I’d be capable of this?” Diane ignored me completely. Instead, she turned to Nathan and did the unthinkable. She dropped to her knees. “Nathan,” she wept, clutching at his pant leg. “You are such a good man. This is my fault. I failed as a mother. I didn’t raise her right. I let her become this… this tramp.” She sniffled loudly, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “But please, don’t leave her. She confessed everything to me. She promised she’ll never look at another man again. She even promised me she’d give you a son next time to make up for it. Just find it in your heart to forgive her.” Nathan, Carol, and Tom stood completely paralyzed. They exchanged bewildered, deeply uncomfortable glances. 6 Finally, the three of them looked at me, their eyes begging for an explanation to this surreal theater production. I played the cornered, desperate victim flawlessly. I looked wildly at the two men who shared my blood. “Dad? Derek? Say something! You know me. You know I would never do this.” Of course they knew. They knew exactly who I was. But as they exchanged a quick, calculating look, I saw the exact moment they realized that my ruin could be their jackpot. Suddenly, they were the picture of righteous fury. “Don’t you call me Dad!” Robert bellowed, pounding his chest. “When I told you to keep your legs closed, did you listen to me then?” He turned to Nathan, placing a heavy, sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Nathan, son. If you want a divorce, I don’t blame you. But let’s be clear—the law says the assets get split. The house, the cars, the accounts. We have to do things legally.” Derek jumped in, practically salivating. “Honestly, Nathan, cutting ties is for the best. I can even introduce you to someone better! Harper says she won’t cheat again, but once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Her promises are garbage.” They were foaming at the mouth, more eager for my divorce than Diane was. In my past life, I hadn’t understood their sudden, vicious turn. It was only after I died that the pieces clicked together. Derek’s boss—a wealthy, thrice-divorced man—had taken a liking to me at a company dinner. Derek knew that if I was suddenly single and disgraced, he could push me into his boss’s bed and secure a massive promotion. And Robert? Robert just wanted my half of the divorce settlement. He had his eye on one of the investment properties Nathan and I owned. Realizing the depths of their depravity snapped whatever lingering biological bond I felt toward them. My heart went cold. I took a slow, deep breath, reached down, and gently pulled the paternity test from Diane’s trembling hands. I stared at the paper. Then, I let my jaw drop in perfectly feigned horror. “Oh my god…” I whispered, loud enough for the microphone nearby to catch it. “Mom… did you grab the wrong envelope?” “Why does this lab report say the test was between Robert and Derek?”

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On New Year’s Day, I was sitting in a sterile hospital room, a ballpoint pen hovering over the voluntary organ donation form. Just as I was about to press the nib to the paper, a cold, synthesized voice echoed in my mind: [Hello, Host. I am your Year-End Wrap-Up System. Preparing your 2025 Journey in Review…] [This year marks the 20th anniversary of the day your adoptive mother stole you.] My brain went completely numb. The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. The surgeon was staring at me, waiting for the signature that would give my mother—the woman currently dying of kidney failure—one of mine. But my hand froze. I was exactly twenty years old. If the woman in that hospital bed wasn’t my mother, who was? The voice continued, indifferent to my internal collapse. [This year, you spent 301 days caring for an adoptive mother who was faking her symptoms. You are currently one surgery away from the morgue.] [Family comes in many forms, but yours is a “limited edition.” You have only crossed paths with your biological mother, the tech mogul Cynthia Montgomery, three times this year. Your most recent encounter was sixty seconds ago in the hallway.] I whipped my head around. Through the glass window of the door, I caught a glimpse of a woman in a sharp, charcoal-grey power suit walking briskly toward the exit. It was Cynthia Montgomery—the CEO of Montgomery Global, the richest woman in the state. 1. Even on New Year’s Day, Cynthia was the personification of “the grind,” likely here on a PR-mandated hospital visit. I turned my head back quickly, my heart hammering against my ribs. What is this? Some “Secret Heiress” delusion? Am I so terrified of the surgery that I’m hallucinating? I looked at the woman in the bed. Martha had raised me for twenty years. She was my mother. How could I even think of backing out now? I’ll check myself into the psych ward after the surgery, I told myself. I tried to blame the pressure, but the voice wouldn’t stop. [Achievement Unlocked: The Human Fountain.] [You donated blood twice this year—400cc of Type AB. You are officially the #1 contributor to your family’s medical needs.] [As the only person in your household with Type AB blood, your kindness is about to reboot a stranger’s life…] I froze. “The only one with Type AB? But when my mom had those accidents—” My mind went blank. I remembered the cold needles, the vials of my blood being rushed away, and Martha’s miraculous recoveries. I looked at Martha. She was pale, coughing weakly, the picture of a woman at death’s door. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember actually seeing her injuries during those two car accidents—accidents that had conveniently happened right when I was up for major promotions at my internship. The surgeon, Dr. Lowman, tapped the desk impatiently. “Miss Miller? Is there a problem?” Martha turned her head, her eyes watery and pathetic. “Jade, honey… are you scared? It’s okay. Mom can wait a few more days.” She was always so “understanding.” “After the surgery, I’ll have your grandparents look after me for a while. I don’t want to burden you or make you watch me recover. You just focus on resting, okay?” [Meeting is better than parting. This is your 3rd meeting this year with this bribed physician. It is also your final meeting before your ‘accidental’ death on the operating table.] I looked at Dr. Lowman. There was a subtle flicker of something in his eyes—not compassion, but calculation. I stood up so fast the chair screeched against the linoleum. “I have to go. I’m not signing this yet!” The room went silent. My grandparents, who had been hovering by the door, stared at me in shock. I had been the “perfect daughter” for two decades—the one who sent every cent of my scholarship money home, the one who worked three jobs to pay Martha’s “medical bills.” Martha’s face hardened for a split second before the mask of the doting mother slid back on. “Jade? What are you saying? This isn’t a joke. If you’re worried about the recovery, the doctor is right here…” [Your biological mother, Cynthia Montgomery, and her daughter, Brooke, checked 8 countries off their bucket list this year. They have one more trip planned…] [This is Cynthia’s last day in the country. Tomorrow, she is moving abroad permanently to seek ‘specialized treatment’ for Brooke. Congratulations! You have a truly great biological mother—she just doesn’t know you exist.] “The surgery is off. I need to leave,” I snapped. I didn’t care if the voice was real or a schizophrenic break. If it was a choice between my life and a lie, I was choosing my life. Just then, the door pushed open. A girl about my age walked in, trailing behind Cynthia’s assistants. Dr. Lowman’s posture shifted instantly. “Miss Montgomery,” he said, his voice dripping with respect. Brooke Montgomery. The girl who had lived my life. She looked at me, her eyes widening in a flash of recognition that she quickly masked with a patronizing smile. “Oh, are you here for your mother’s treatment? How sweet. Kidney failure is so tragic, but luckily, a transplant solves everything, right?” My blood ran cold. I don’t look like Martha. My grandfather used to beat Martha for it, accusing her of bringing home someone else’s brat. But Brooke? Brooke looked exactly like a younger version of the woman who had raised me. And Brooke knew exactly who I was. She knew my last name. She knew Martha’s “diagnosis.” She was here to make sure the “trash” was disposed of. My grandfather lunged forward, his face purple with rage. “Jade! You selfish little bitch! You’re going to let your mother die because you’re scared of a little scar?” “She worked herself to the bone for you!” my grandmother wailed. “Every time she was in an accident, did you come to the room? No! You were too busy ‘working,’ while she sat there crying for you! You should be more like Miss Montgomery here—look how much she cares about people!” My grandfather grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. “You’re giving her that kidney today, or you’re dead to this family!” 2. The commotion drew a crowd in the hallway. Neighbors from our old apartment complex, who happened to be at the hospital, started whispering. “Isn’t that the Miller girl? I heard she’s a total gold-digger. Her mom was in the ICU twice and she never even showed up. Just kept demanding her mom send her money for ‘tuition’ while she was out partying.” “I thought she was a straight-A student, but she’s just a narcissist. Poor Martha, raising a snake like that.” The whispers cut deep. For years, I had stayed out of the hospital rooms because Martha begged me not to see her like that. I had worked until my hands bled to send money home, only to have it twisted into this narrative. [Your 2025 Keyword is: “LIE.” Did you find the truth hidden beneath the surface this year?] [This has been your keyword for three years running. Your adoptive mother and her daughter, Brooke, have been the primary contributors to this trend.] Martha reached out, clutching my sleeve, her voice loud enough for the onlookers to hear. “Everyone, please, don’t be hard on her. Jade is just young. She’s scared. She’ll do the right thing for her mother.” I looked at Brooke. She was smirking. That was the breaking point. I ripped my arm away from Martha. “I’m not giving you a damn thing! I’m not your daughter! You stole me from the hospital twenty years ago! Why would I give a kidney to a kidnapper?” The word kidnapper hit the room like a grenade. Brooke’s face went deathly pale. “What are you talking about?” she shrieked, her voice high and panicked. “Miss Miller, just because you’re a coward doesn’t mean you can make up disgusting lies about your own mother!” Martha clutched her chest, gasping for air. “Jade… how could you? I’m your mother! Doctor! Doctor, she’s having a psychotic break! She’s dangerous!” My grandfather swung a plastic ‘Caution’ sign at me. “You ungrateful brat! I’ll knock some sense into you!” The crowd jeered. “To save herself a surgery, she’ll even claim she’s kidnapped! How low can you go?” I didn’t answer. I threw the pen on the floor and tried to bolt, but two orderlies blocked the door. Martha lunged at me, pulling me back into the room. She leaned into my ear, her voice a low, venomous hiss I’d never heard before. “I don’t know how much you think you know, but once you’re on that table, your ‘secrets’ are going to rot in a grave.” The sheer malice in her voice sent a chill down my spine. This wasn’t a mother. This was a predator. At the end of the hallway, I saw Cynthia Montgomery’s silhouette. She was inches from the exit. I used every ounce of strength I had, stomped on Martha’s foot, and sprinted out of the room. “Mrs. Montgomery! Cynthia! Help me!” Her security detail immediately stepped in, a wall of muscle blocking my path. “Stay back, ma’am. Mrs. Montgomery is busy.” Cynthia turned around, her brow furrowed in annoyance. There was no warmth in her eyes, only the cold irritation of a woman whose schedule had been interrupted. “Handle it,” she said to her assistant. “Don’t let her disturb the other patients.” She turned back to the door, ready to vanish from my life forever. [Perhaps it’s a mother’s intuition. Cynthia Montgomery’s 2025 Keyword is also “LIE.” Source: Brooke.] [What happens when a woman who hates being deceived discovers she’s been raising a cuckoo in the nest?] The system’s words gave me a surge of adrenaline. I dove past the assistant and grabbed Cynthia’s arm. Martha and Brooke were right behind me. The hospital security guards tackled me, pinning me to the floor with a tactical restraint. My grandfather was panting, apologizing profusely. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Montgomery! My granddaughter… she’s lost her mind. She’s delusional!” Martha was nodding frantically, her face a mask of tragedy. “She’s sick, Mrs. Montgomery. We’re taking her to the psych ward immediately. She won’t bother you again!” Brooke tucked her arm into Cynthia’s, playing the role of the devoted, frightened daughter. “Mom, let’s just go. This is scary.” Cynthia looked at Brooke with a softened expression, then turned to me. Her face hardened into a mask of pure disgust. She pulled her arm away from my touch as if I were a leper. “Do people think they can just harass me for a payout now? Security, get her out of my sight.” The guard slammed my head against the cold tile. I was bruised, bleeding, and utterly humiliated. But as Cynthia took a step away, I screamed at the top of my lungs: “Cynthia! I have the XM genetic marker! Ask Brooke if she has it!” 3. The name of the disorder stopped Cynthia in her tracks. She turned around slowly, her eyes like daggers. “What did you just say?” her voice was a low vibration that silenced the entire hallway. “I said… I’m your daughter,” I gasped, blood copper-tasting in my mouth. “Twenty years ago, Martha Miller swapped us in the nursery.” Cynthia laughed, but it was a sound devoid of humor. The crowd whispered. “She’s insane. Everyone knows the Montgomery baby was under 24-hour private security. A swap is impossible. She just signed her own death warrant.” [You were betrayed by ‘family’ 15 times this year, yet you still landed that high-paying internship on your own merit. Congratulations.] [Like mother, like daughter. Cynthia Montgomery handled 52 messes for Brooke this year, neutralized 3 corporate betrayals, and eliminated 6 threats to her legacy.] [She has zero tolerance for people who play the ‘family card’ to manipulate her.] “You’d invent a fairy tale just to avoid a surgery?” Cynthia walked toward me, the click of her heels sounding like a countdown. “Apologize. Now.” Martha pounced on me, pinching my arm so hard her nails drew blood. “Apologize to Mrs. Montgomery! Tell her you’re crazy! Tell her you’re a liar!” Martha was shaking. She knew the clock was ticking. She knew that if Cynthia even looked too closely at the timeline, the whole house of cards would collapse. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and stared directly into Cynthia’s cold, grey eyes—eyes that matched mine perfectly beneath the fluorescent lights. “Mrs. Montgomery, XM is a matrilineal genetic condition. It has an 80% inheritance rate. I have it. Does Brooke?” Cynthia’s expression didn’t change, but I saw her pupils dilate. It was a secret she had kept for decades—a rare, non-fatal but incurable condition that only the Montgomery women carried. Brooke’s eyes darted around in panic. “A genetic disorder? Anyone can look up a medical term online! You’re pathetic!” She gripped Cynthia’s arm tighter. “Mom, don’t listen to her. She’s just a con artist!” Cynthia’s gaze remained fixed on me. She slowly uncoupled Brooke’s hand from her arm. “Get the mobile DNA kit from the car,” she told her assistant, her voice like ice. “The rapid-sequencer we just acquired.” Then she looked down at me. “If you are lying, I will sue you for every breath you take. I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a cage.” Martha let out a strangled cry. “Mrs. Montgomery, please! This is a hospital, it’s New Year’s, it’s bad luck to draw blood like this—” “I decide what’s lucky,” Cynthia snapped. [The old year is gone, a new one begins. Your Year-End System is with you through every season.] The kit was brought in. A technician in a white coat sanitized my arm, the needle sliding into my vein. On the other side of the hallway, Cynthia held out her arm without blinking. [January 1st, 2026. This is your first blood draw of the year. You are ahead of 98.1% of the population. You are one step closer to your real family.] Beep. The technician looked at the screen. His voice was flat. “Results are in… Genetic similarity: 0.0%. No biological relationship found.” “No… that’s impossible,” I whispered. The crowd exhaled in a collective wave of mockery. “Told you. She’s a nutjob.” “Real life isn’t a soap opera, honey.” Brooke’s face transformed. The fear vanished, replaced by a triumphant, ugly sneer. She walked over to me while I was still pinned to the floor and ground her designer heel into my arm, right over the puncture wound. “You had your shot, and you missed, you freak. Did you really think you could steal my life?” I screamed in pain as blood soaked through my sleeve. I called out to the system in my head, but the voice was cold: [Identification Failed. System will now initiate auto-delete sequence. Thank you for your 20-year trial.] [Better luck in the next life.] I felt the world go dark. My heart felt like it was stopping. Martha was bowing and scraping to Cynthia. “I am so sorry! Please, do whatever you want with her! We won’t say a word!” But Cynthia Montgomery didn’t leave. She looked at the technician, then at the screen, and then she smiled. It was the most terrifying smile I had ever seen. She signaled her guards, but not to take me away. They lunged for the technician instead, slamming him against the wall. “Don’t bother checking the results,” Cynthia announced, her voice ringing through the hall. “She’s my daughter.”

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The pain was a living, breathing thing inside me. By the time my water broke and they rushed me into the maternity ward, I was already dilated to ten centimeters. My body was screaming, violently urging me to push. But my husband, Harry, refused to let me into the delivery room. “Let me push,” I sobbed, my fingers clawing at the sterile hospital sheets. “Harry, please! If I hold him in any longer, he’s going to die!” He just smiled, a terrifyingly calm expression on his face, and smoothed the damp hair away from my forehead. His eyes were dark with an unshakable, irrational stubbornness. “Just hold on a little longer, Maddie. Once we pass midnight, the moon shifts into a new astrological house. Bella’s spiritual guide was very clear—any birth before midnight carries a karmic weight that will directly clash with her aura.” He wiped a tear from my cheek. “We can’t let our baby’s arrival destroy Bella’s energy. She’s already so fragile.” I opened my mouth to scream at him, to tell him he was out of his mind, but a brutal, primal contraction ripped through me. I could feel the baby’s head instinctively crowning, fighting to enter the world. Harry’s face tightened. Without a second thought, he pressed his hand hard against me, physically trying to halt the birth. The white-hot, tearing agony of it knocked the wind out of my lungs. The world went black at the edges. And in that hazy, suffocating space between consciousness and pain, my heart quietly gave out. Seven years of loving him from afar. Three years of marriage. It had all culminated in this sickening joke. … “If this continues, we aren’t just going to lose the baby. We’re going to lose the mother.” The attending obstetrician couldn’t hide her horror, muttering the words as she hovered helplessly near the bed. Harry’s brow furrowed at the comment. I felt a weak, frantic kick against my ribs. It was my baby, fighting for his life. I forced my heavy head up and stared at the man I had married. “Harry… he can’t wait until midnight. This is your son! How can you risk our baby’s life over a pseudo-spiritual delusion? Over Bella’s energy?” Before I could finish, Harry cut me off, his voice clipped and cold. “Bella doesn’t joke about karma. She’s been through hell. You and the baby just need to endure it for another hour. Be reasonable, Maddie. He’s been in there for nine months. What’s another hour?” He gestured vaguely around the room. “I’ve got the best medical team in the state standing by. Nothing is going to happen to either of you.” He spoke with such absolute, arrogant certainty, completely dismissing the doctor’s warning. It hadn’t always been like this. When I first found out I was pregnant, Harry had been a nervous wreck. If I so much as winced, he was on the phone with the doctor. He had an entire folder on his phone dedicated to pregnancy dietary restrictions, terrified of missing a single detail. But everything changed the day Isabella Montgomery returned to the States. She was the ghost that haunted our marriage—the untouchable first love. Harry’s mother had chased her off years ago, and out of spite, Bella had run off to Europe and married a wealthy tech investor. But the marriage was abusive. She returned a shattered woman, filing for divorce and bringing her trauma straight to Harry’s doorstep. He blamed himself. He believed that if he had fought harder for her back then, she wouldn’t have suffered. He owed her a debt, and he was using my life to pay it. The day we were supposed to take our maternity photos, Bella had looked at the proofs and whispered, “I’m so jealous.” The very next day, Harry canceled on me to take her to a private studio, re-creating the bridal portraits she claimed her ex-husband had ruined. When I had my gestational diabetes test, the clinic advised bringing someone in case I felt faint. Bella called him away twenty minutes before my appointment because she’d scraped her knee at a yoga retreat. I knew it was his guilt talking. I knew he felt responsible for her. I had naively bet everything on this baby, hoping that once our son was born, Harry would remember the life we were building. But now, because of Bella’s obsession with a holistic psychic, he was trading our son’s life for her peace of mind. A suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. Inside me, the frantic movements grew weaker. I swallowed the bitter bile rising in my throat and looked into Harry’s eyes. “He is suffocating in there. If you let me have him… I swear, I’ll take him and leave. You’ll never have to see us again. We won’t be in your way, or Bella’s. Just… please.” Harry’s jaw clenched. He opened his mouth, but a soft, trembling voice beat him to it. “Harry.” Bella stepped out from the shadows of the VIP suite, looking small and deeply wounded. “I didn’t come back to tear your family apart.” She looked at me with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Maybe you should just let Maddie push. The psychic might be wrong. And even if she’s right, and the baby’s karmic entry destroys my recovery… it’s fine. I can take it.” Without hesitation, Harry pulled her into his arms, oblivious to the blood and fluid soaking my sheets. “Stop talking like that. I promised I would protect you.” Tears burned my eyes, hot and humiliating. Suddenly, a tearing, catastrophic pain ripped through my lower abdomen. The monitors erupted into a chaotic symphony of alarms. The obstetrician rushed forward, her face draining of color. “We are out of time! The amniotic fluid is nearly gone. The fetus is experiencing severe deceleration. We have to move her to the OR for an emergency C-section, now!” Harry shot a lethal look at the door. Instantly, three men from his private security detail stepped in front of the exit, forming a human wall. The medical staff froze. The boldest nurse among them stepped forward, her voice shaking. “Mr. Cole, please! The baby’s heart rate is dropping. We can still save him if we go now!” One of the security guards, eager to earn his paycheck, sneered. “Mr. Cole is the primary benefactor of this hospital’s new wing. You touch that bed without his permission, and you’ll all be blacklisted from every medical facility on the West Coast.” The threat hung in the sterile air. The doctors’ knuckles turned white as they gripped the bed rails, trading helpless, devastated looks before turning their guilt-ridden eyes to me. With the last ounce of strength in my body, I dragged myself off the bed. My knees hit the cold linoleum with a sickening thud, landing right at Harry’s feet. “I am begging you,” I gasped, blood running down my thighs. “Save him.” Harry flinched, clearly unnerved to see me kneeling in a pool of my own blood. Sensing the shift in his demeanor, Bella tightened her grip on his shirt. “Harry, just let her do it. We can just… avoid each other in the future so our energies don’t cross.” Harry knelt and tried to guide me back to the bed. He placed a warm hand on my agonizingly tight stomach, patting it softly, just like he had done a thousand times in the dark of our bedroom. “Just hold on, Maddie. You and the baby, just wait a little longer for me. Okay?” “Wait?” My voice was a hollow rasp. “Wait using my son’s life as the currency?” I shoved him away with a feral burst of adrenaline. My hand found the heavy glass water pitcher on the bedside table. With a scream that tore my throat raw, I hurled it at him. Bella shrieked, throwing herself in front of him. “Harry, watch out!” The heavy glass grazed her cheekbone before shattering against the wall. A thin, superficial line of red bloomed on her skin. She pressed a hand to her cheek, collapsing weakly against his chest. “Harry… it hurts.” Harry caught her. When he looked up at me, his eyes were devoid of anything human. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Madeline?” I slumped against the mattress, feeling the terrifying stillness in my womb. The frantic kicks had stopped. The struggle was over. “I’m out of my mind?” My voice cracked, dry as ash. “Harry… he’s gone. He stopped moving.” He didn’t even look at my stomach. His eyes were locked on the tiny scratch on Bella’s porcelain face. “Bella said we wait until midnight,” he commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Stop being hysterical. Bella’s injured now, and it’s entirely because your toxic energy is already trying to push the baby out early…” He turned his back on me, addressing his guards. “Keep an eye on my wife. No one moves her into the OR until the clock strikes twelve.” “Yes, sir.” He scooped Bella up into his arms, glaring furiously at the frozen medical staff. “What the hell are you standing around for? Do you not see the blood on her face? Get a plastic surgeon down here immediately. She can’t have a scar. She hates scars.” Within seconds, the room emptied out, leaving only the stoic guards and two weeping nurses. I stared numbly at the digital clock on the wall. 11:59. 12:00. The nurses finally surged forward, desperately wheeling my bed down the hall toward the OR. But it was chaos. “Where is the surgeon?!” a nurse screamed. “They were all pulled to the VIP wing!” “The fetal heartbeat is gone! We’re losing the mother, she’s hemorrhaging!” “Are you kidding me?!” another nurse sobbed. “That woman had a paper cut on her face, and they pulled the entire obstetrics team?!” “Tell Mr. Cole! His wife is bleeding out!” I listened to their panicked shouts, feeling the cold seep into my bones. Any lingering hope, any shred of love I had left for Harry Cole, bled out of me onto those hospital sheets. I closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me. When I finally drifted back to consciousness, the world felt distorted. I was lying on the hardwood floor in the foyer of Harry’s sprawling estate. Beneath me, the floor was littered with shattered glass from a broken vase. From the living room, the faint, melodic sound of Bella’s laughter drifted through the air, mingling with Harry’s low voice. I tried to push myself up, but my palms pressed into the shards. I looked down. My hands and forearms were covered in tiny, weeping lacerations. Pieces of glass were embedded in my skin. I didn’t care. I felt absolutely nothing. There was only one thought pulsing in my hollow, aching brain. “My baby…” My voice sounded like dry leaves scraping against stone. “Where is my baby?” I dragged myself toward the living room. Harry stood near the fireplace. When he saw me—a ghost of a woman, soaked in dried blood and shivering—a flicker of something dark and unreadable crossed his eyes. But then he glanced at Bella, who was sitting on the sofa with a microscopic bandage on her cheek, and his expression hardened into ice. “You really crossed the line this time, Maddie,” he said coldly. “Having the nurses scream for the doctors while Bella was getting treated? You traumatized her.” He pointed to the floor in front of the sofa. “Walk over there and apologize to her. Once you do, we’ll put this behind us.” I stared at him. This man, whom I had loved in secret for seven years, whom I had built a home with for three. He was a complete stranger. The agonizing pain of the glass in my flesh was a fraction of the agony in my chest. “You’re right. I made a mistake.” I swayed on my feet. “My mistake was ever marrying you.” I held out my bleeding hand. “Give me my son. And then I want a divorce.” Harry’s jaw tightened. A muscle feathered in his cheek. “The baby… was a stillbirth.” A high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears. “What did you say?” “He was gone before he was born.” “You’re lying!” I screamed, my voice shattering the quiet elegance of the room. “You’re lying!” “I’m not.” My entire body began to violently shake. “No… no…” “Maddie, don’t let grief make you irrational.” Harry took a step toward me, reaching out to steady me. I slapped his hand away with a viciousness that startled him. Annoyance flashed in his eyes. “We can always have another one. Honestly, given how deeply this pregnancy clashed with Bella’s aura, he likely would have had severe health issues anyway. Once you recover, we can try again. You can have as many kids as you want.” I stared at him. And then, a broken, breathless laugh bubbled up from my throat. I laughed until the tears carved tracks through the grime on my face. “I don’t want another child. I want him. Give me my son’s body, Harry.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was dealing with an unruly toddler. “Madeline, calm down—” “I am calm!” I shrieked. “Where is my baby?!” He looked away, staring at the manicured lawns outside the window. “I already gave the remains to Bella. Don’t worry about it.” I froze. The air left the room. “Why,” I whispered, the words trembling, “would you give my dead child to Isabella?” “Because his karmic energy is what caused the complications,” Harry said, his tone infuriatingly measured. “You can’t just bury something like that in a normal cemetery. Bella consulted her spiritual guide. They have a holistic way of cleansing his spirit before returning him to the earth.” Bella looked at me with wide, sympathetic eyes that couldn’t quite mask the sick, triumphant gleam beneath them. “Maddie, I really hated to do this. But the guide said your baby held a lot of resentment. If we didn’t perform the release ritual, my trauma recovery would completely regress—” “Shut your mouth!” I roared. “What gives you the right to touch my child?!” Bella shrank back against the cushions. Harry instantly stepped in front of her, shielding her. “That is enough!” His voice cracked like a whip. “The baby is gone, Madeline! What exactly is this performance going to achieve?” My heart was already a graveyard, but watching him protect her still managed to twist the knife deeper. “A performance?” I laughed again, a wet, ragged sound. “Harry, that was your flesh and blood. Your son.” “I know that,” he snapped. “But he’s gone. Did you want Bella to be dragged down into the dark with him?!” He’s gone. The words anchored me to the floor. I turned on my heel and walked up the sweeping staircase, leaving bloody footprints on the pristine carpet. I walked into the nursery. The room I had spent months perfecting. Cream-colored wainscoting. A handmade oak crib. A closet full of tiny, perfectly folded clothes. I opened the dresser drawers. I pulled out the onesies. The tiny socks. The knit beanies. I had picked out every single piece with Harry. He used to laugh and say, “I’m going to give this kid the entire world.” Now, his son was dead, and he didn’t even flinch. I gathered the clothes into a massive pile, dragged them out to the upstairs landing, and flicked my lighter. I dropped the flame onto the cotton. “Madeline, what the hell are you doing?!” Harry’s voice roared from the bottom of the stairs. I ignored him, tossing more clothes into the growing blaze. The fire leaped up, casting an orange glow against the walls, illuminating the tiny embroidered bears and stars. “She’s psychotic! She’s trying to burn the house down!” Bella screamed in terror. Harry took the stairs two at a time, tackling me to the floor and ripping the lighter from my bloody hands. The unburned clothes scattered across the hardwood. Harry looked at the tiny, singed socks, and for a fraction of a second, his face went pale. His voice softened. “Maddie… please. He’s gone. Bella’s psychic said the next baby will perfectly align with our lives. When that happens—” I looked up at him with dead, hollow eyes. “There will be no next baby. I am divorcing you. Now, give me back my son.” “I am not signing divorce papers,” Harry said firmly. Bella peeked out from behind him, her voice dripping with calculated sweetness. “Maddie, don’t use the D-word just to manipulate him. It’s not like you can’t have the baby back.” My head snapped up. She smiled, a tiny, venomous curve of her lips. “Since the dark energy originated in your womb, the guide said you can absorb the karmic backlash yourself. If you do the Penance Trail, you can take the remains.” “Fine,” I said instantly, without a second of hesitation. “Tell me what to do.” “You have to walk the gravel trail up to the sanctuary in Sedona. Barefoot. And to show true submission to the universe, you have to drop to your bare knees every three steps until you reach the altar.” “Done.” I stood up and stumbled past them, heading straight for the door. Harry caught my arm, his eyes lingering on my blood-soaked hospital gown. A flicker of real hesitation crossed his face. “Maddie, don’t do this. The baby is already dead, why would you torture yourself—” I didn’t look back. I just pulled my arm free and said, “He may be dead, but he is still my son. And I am bringing him home.” The sun in the high desert was merciless, beating down on my back like a hammer. Every third step. Drop to the knees. The jagged, unpaved gravel of the sanctuary trail tore through my thin hospital gown in minutes. The skin on my knees flayed open, leaving bright red streaks of blood on the white stones behind me. Tourists and wealthy retreat guests paused on the path, pointing and whispering. “What kind of cult is this?” “My god, look at her legs…” Harry walked parallel to me on the smooth grass, holding a UV-protection umbrella over Bella. I saw the muscle in his jaw ticking. I saw the sickening flash of pity in his eyes. “Harry,” Bella murmured softly, leaning against him. “Maybe we should just give it to her. If her bad karma bounces back onto me, you’ll just have to plan my funeral, that’s all.” Harry was quiet for a long, suffocating moment. “She chose to walk,” he said tightly. “Let her walk.” I don’t know how many hours passed. By the time I reached the wooden gates of the hilltop sanctuary, I was operating on nothing but the primal, animal instinct of a mother. Bella stood by the altar, holding a small, linen-wrapped bundle. Harry stood beside her. “You made it,” Bella smiled, holding out a ceremonial slip of paper and a lighter. “You just need to burn the release cipher at the altar, and he’s yours.” I ignored her fake, cloying tone. I dragged my bleeding legs to the altar, took the paper, and tried to flick the lighter. My hands were trembling so violently, slick with my own blood and sweat, that the spark wouldn’t catch. Over and over, my thumb slipped. “Oh, no,” Bella sighed in mock despair. “The universe won’t let it light. The karma is too dark. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” She looked down at the bundle. “You know the concept of ‘dust to dust,’ right, Maddie? The sanctuary has a wild nature preserve out back. Leaving him to the earth… it’s the ultimate mercy.” A bomb went off in my brain. She wanted to throw my baby’s body to the wild animals. With a guttural, feral scream, I lunged forward and ripped the bundle from her arms. Caught off guard, Bella stumbled backward, twisting her ankle and falling to the dirt. “Get the bundle back!” Harry roared. Two of his massive private security guards descended on me, tackling me to the earth and pinning my arms behind my back. One of them snatched the linen bundle from my chest. “Madeline, why can’t you just listen?” Harry knelt in the dirt, looking into my manic, tear-streaked face. “Once the energy is cleared, I’ll pay for a proper memorial. Okay? We’ll have another baby. We can have a whole soccer team of kids.” He sounded so gentle. Like he was soothing a petulant child. “I don’t want another baby!” I thrashed wildly against the guards. “I want him!” “Stop being dramatic,” Bella sniffled, letting Harry pull her to her feet. “Just leave the remains in the preserve. The owner keeps a Cane Corso back there to guard the grounds. Let nature take its course.” Harry scooped Bella up into his arms. He nodded at the guard holding my son. “Take it out back.” He looked down at me one last time, his voice a soft, suffocating blanket. “Just stay here, Maddie. Don’t watch. You’ll only upset yourself.” As the guard walked toward the heavy iron gates of the preserve, the men holding me let go. I didn’t hesitate. I scrambled to my feet and ran, tearing after the guard like a madwoman. He unlatched the gate and tossed the linen bundle into the tall grass. A massive, muscular black dog—150 pounds of pure aggression—charged out from the brush, zeroing in on the bundle. Without a single thought, I threw my body over the linen. The dog, thinking I was stealing its kill, lunged. Its jaws clamped down around my throat. As the hot spray of my own blood hit my face, the last thing I heard was Harry Cole screaming my name with a sound that tore the sky in half. “Maddie—!”

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It started with the color of my car. Back when it was wrapped in a soft, custom blush-pink, I was a target. Every morning on my commute, I was tailgated, brake-checked, and aggressively cut off. My husband told me I was a terrible driver. He told me I had a persecution complex. It wasn’t until I surrendered, taking the car into the shop and having it painted a standard, invisible corporate black, that the road rage miraculously stopped. Until the day my car was nearly run off the highway and into a ditch. That was the day I found out someone had posted about me on a local community board. The post claimed I was a homewrecker—the “commute work-wife” who was seducing her husband. The proof? A photo of my license plate. She claimed I intentionally followed her husband every single morning, that we coordinated our routes, that we stopped at the same drive-thru for coffee and breakfast. The comment section was a cesspool of vile, violent misogyny directed entirely at me. But I didn’t know this man. I had never spoken to him. Our only connection was that, by sheer geographic coincidence, we drove down the same stretch of Seattle interstate at the exact same time every morning. But the internet didn’t care about coincidence. And worse, my own family didn’t believe me. When they looked at me, they didn’t see a victim; they saw a liability. They cursed me out and turned their backs. Pushed to the absolute edge of my sanity, I finally broke. And then, I fought back. 1 The morning started like any other. I was merging onto the I-5 south, the sky a bruised, rainy gray. Just as I hit the mainline, a black Nissan swerved violently from the right lane, cutting the nose of my car so close I had to slam my foot onto the brake pedal. The seatbelt locked, biting hard into my collarbone. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” I screamed into the empty cabin, but the Nissan was already speeding away, weaving recklessly through the morning traffic. I gripped the steering wheel, forcing a deep breath into my lungs. Don’t engage, I told myself. Just let the idiots go. But less than a mile down the road, a white sedan aggressively squeezed in from my left blind spot, practically grazing my side mirror. I hit the brakes again. My head snapped back, nearly bouncing off the headrest. “Jesus Christ!” I watched the white sedan speed off, a heavy, suffocating knot forming in my chest. Ever since I bought this car, it felt like I was marked. First, it was the pink wrap. I was a young woman in a brightly colored car, which apparently meant I was open season for every ego-fragile driver on the road. At first, I was just angry. Why should I have to change? Why was I the one being bullied? But principle doesn’t protect you from a four-car pileup. For the sake of my own safety, I compromised. I painted over the pink I loved so much, settling for a glossy, anonymous black. It worked, for a while. The commute became boring again. But today? Today felt different. It felt coordinated. By the time I finally pulled into the parking garage beneath my office building, my hands were shaking. I put the car in park, leaned my head against the steering wheel, and took five slow, shuddering breaths just to get my heart rate down. The drive had felt like a survival mission. Because of the near-misses, I clocked in fifteen minutes late. The receptionist immediately flagged it. Valerie was the director of my department. From the day I was hired, she had looked at me like I was a stain on the carpet. I never knew why, and honestly, I never cared enough to ask. “Harper,” Valerie said, her voice dripping with that saccharine corporate condescension. “There are twenty-five people in this department. Funny how you’re the only one who couldn’t manage to get here on time.” “I kept getting cut off on the highway. Aggressively.” She offered a thin, mocking smile. “Funny how nobody else is getting cut off. Just you.” I didn’t answer. Because I wanted to know the answer, too. 2 When I got home, my husband, Derek, was already horizontal on the living room sofa, a gaming controller in his hands. From the kitchen, the heavy drone of the exhaust fan competed with the sound of his mother, Diane, clattering pots on the stove. I dropped my bag by the entryway, kicking off my heels. I walked over and sat on the edge of the sofa near his feet, desperate for a sliver of comfort. “God, my commute today was a nightmare. People kept trying to run me off the road.” He didn’t take his eyes off the TV screen. “Yeah.” I nudged his leg. “Are you even listening to me?” He finally shifted his gaze, though his thumbs kept working the joysticks. “I’m listening. You said people are cutting you off.” “Doesn’t that strike you as weird?” “What’s weird about it?” he sighed, his voice thick with boredom. “You’re a timid driver, Harper. You cruise in the passing lane, people are in a rush to get to work. Of course they’re gonna cut you off.” “It’s not my driving—” “Look,” he interrupted, his tone sharpening. “I drive that same highway and this never happens to me. You overthink everything. You always think the world is out to get you.” From the kitchen, Diane’s voice cut through the tension. “Derek! Dinner’s ready!” He paused his game, dropping the controller on the coffee table, and walked toward the smell of garlic and roasting meat. I stayed on the sofa, staring at the indentation he’d left in the cushions. A bone-deep exhaustion washed over me. This was his default setting. Every time I brought him a problem, it was somehow my fault. When I told him I felt excluded by my coworkers, he said I was being too sensitive. When I tried to explain how his mother’s passive-aggressive comments hurt me, he said I was being petty. Now, I was telling him I felt physically unsafe on the road, and it was just my “persecution complex.” Later, at the dinner table, I tried again. I recounted the near-accidents. Diane stopped chewing. She set her fork down and leveled a look at me. “Harper, honey, driving is all about mindset. If you go out there thinking everyone is out to get you, you’re going to drive nervously. And nervous drivers cause accidents. When you crash that car, the only person paying the deductible is going to be you.” “Diane, it’s not my mindset—” “Alright, alright, it’s not your mindset,” she waved her hand dismissively, picking up her fork again. “Just pay better attention out there. That’s all I’m saying.” I looked down at my plate. I didn’t say another word. 3 Over the next two weeks, it escalated. It wasn’t just getting cut off anymore. It was targeted harassment. I had to call the highway patrol twice, but without license plates, there was nothing they could do. But the most bizarre incident happened off the highway, on the suburban roads near my office. It involved a woman on a mint-green Vespa-style scooter. She looked to be in her early thirties, with a small child, maybe four or five, clinging to her waist on the back seat. She started appearing on my route. Sometimes she would dart out from a side street, forcing me to slam on the brakes. Other times, she would ride aggressively close to my rear bumper, leaning on her horn for blocks at a time. Then came a Tuesday. I was stopped at a red light. She pulled her scooter right up to the driver’s side of my car. She turned her head and looked me dead in the eye. Then, she hawked, and spit. A thick glob of saliva hit my driver’s side window. She screamed something muffled through the glass—a curse word, a slur, I couldn’t tell. I sat there, paralyzed. The light turned green. She revved the scooter and sped off. My first instinct was to floor the gas, chase her down, and demand to know what the hell her problem was. But a glance in my rearview mirror showed a line of angry cars piling up behind me. I had no choice but to press the accelerator and keep moving forward. That night, the second I walked through the door, I told Derek. “A woman on a scooter literally spit on my car today!” Derek was watching a basketball game. He didn’t even turn his head. “You probably saw it wrong,” he said flatly. “Who the hell is going around spitting on cars?” “I didn’t see it wrong, Derek. She looked right at me and—” “Enough, Harper,” he snapped, finally turning to face me. His features were twisted in overt irritation. “What is going on with you lately? Every day you come home with some new manufactured drama. People cutting you off, your boss hating you, now a mother on a moped is targeting you? Who do you think you are? Do you honestly think the entire universe revolves around you?” I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat. Because a tiny, insidious part of me wondered if he was right. Why me? Why is it always me? I could chalk up the aggressive cars to men hating female drivers. But the woman on the scooter? With her child? I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. 4 Friday was my flex day off. Late morning, I went to the local Whole Foods. It was quiet, just a few people scattered in the checkout lanes. I was standing at the end of a line of three, leaning heavily against the handle of my shopping cart, mindlessly scrolling through my phone. The two women in front of me were talking loudly. “Did you see that thread? On the community Facebook page?” “Oh my god, yes. The homewrecker one, right? Somebody actually doxxed her license plate. I memorized it, just in case I ever see her out and about.” “I saved the post. Honestly, women like that? If I see her, I’ll key her car myself.” I kept my eyes on my phone. I didn’t really care. The internet was a toxic place; someone was always getting dragged for something. “The mistress drives a black Golf,” the first woman continued. “Washington plates. It starts with…” My thumb froze on my screen. That was my plate number. I slowly raised my head, staring at the backs of the two women. They were still gossiping, their voices carrying easily over the hum of the grocery store refrigerators. “What goes through a woman’s head? She knows the guy is married and she still throws herself at him.” “She’s a slut, that’s what goes through her head.” “The husband is an idiot, too. Parading her around right under his wife’s nose.” “Ha! Maybe they’re into that. Maybe the husband and the mistress are laughing about it.” I stood perfectly still. The canvas tote bags in my cart suddenly looked incredibly heavy. The line moved up. The cashier called, “Next in line, please.” I pushed my cart forward like a machine. I placed my groceries on the belt like a machine. I tapped my credit card on the reader like a machine. The moment I got home, I threw the groceries on the counter, practically sprinted to my laptop, and opened the local community forum. Right at the top of the page, pinned and trending, was a thread. The title was bolded in stark black text: [VENT] My husband is sleeping with his “commute buddy”. What do I do? I clicked on it. The post was massive. The original poster had written it with the dramatic flair of a cheap romance novelist. “I’ve been married to my husband for five years. We have a three-year-old. My husband is just a normal guy. He commutes down I-5 every morning. A few months ago, a mutual friend dropped a hint that my husband was driving to work with another woman every single day. That they were grabbing coffee together. When I confronted him, he played it off. Said she was just a ‘commute buddy.’ That they just happened to drive the same route and it was harmless. So, I played detective. I followed him one morning. I watched his car pull up next to a black Golf by a coffee stand. I saw the woman inside. I saw the way she looked at him. She was smiling. That specific, sickening smile a woman only uses when she knows she has another woman’s husband wrapped around her finger. I knew right then. It wasn’t a coincidence. They were planning this.” I stared at the screen, a high-pitched ringing starting in my ears. I scrolled down. Page after page of comments. I hit page five. “OP, do you know the homewrecker’s name?” The original poster replied: “No. I just know she drives a black Golf. Here is her license plate.” The replies came flooding in: “Got the plate! Let’s go to work, ladies!” “I have a friend who runs background checks at a dealership. Give me five minutes.” I kept scrolling. My vision blurred. Page eight. Someone had uploaded a photo. It was me. Taken at a Chevron gas station. I was pumping gas, looking down at my phone. The lighting was perfect; my face was entirely recognizable.

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