Category: English

Ever since the Kensingtons’ biological daughter returned to the estate, she made it her mission to orchestrate my downfall. First, it was the jewelry her parents bought her—mysteriously lost, then miraculously discovered in my bedroom. Then, it was the severe allergic reaction to the luxury skincare I had given her. She would stand there, her face inflamed, whispering that she had no intention of stealing my boyfriends, begging me to stop trying to ruin her face. And finally, it culminated in this: she deliberately sliced her own arm with a letter opener, sank to her knees, pale and trembling, and accused me of trying to kill her. She demanded that our parents make a choice. Only one daughter could stay. I was exhausted by the relentless, chaotic noise of it all. If my adoptive parents were too paralyzed by optics to handle this toxic girl, then fine. I would simply get new parents. After all, the mayor of my biological family’s hometown had already promised that the second I came home, they would commission a bronze plaque in the town square just for me. 1 “Mom, Dad, why are you always taking her side? I’m your actual flesh and blood!” Mia clutched the bleeding cut on her forearm, her face a mask of absolute tragedy. The accusation in her eyes was heavy, suffocating. Richard and Caroline Kensington stared at the blood seeping through Mia’s fingers. Deep creases formed between my adoptive parents’ brows, but their lips remained pressed in a tight, helpless line. I was the one who finally broke the silence. I calmly bent down, picked up the silver letter opener from the Persian rug, and held it out to her. Mia instantly scrambled backward, her eyes widening in manufactured terror. “Blair, what are you doing?! Are you trying to stab me again? Do you think just because Mom and Dad favor you, you can get away with murder?” I looked at her the way one might look at a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. “Obviously,” I said, a slow, provocative smile spreading across my face. “If they didn’t favor the daughter they actually raised, why would they favor a latecomer like you?” The hatred in Mia’s eyes darkened, turning venomous. I just smiled. Go ahead and hate me, I thought. There was a distinct, sharp pleasure in watching her seethe—despising me, yet entirely powerless to defeat me. Mia had hated me from the moment she discovered she was the true Kensington heiress. She had taken a Greyhound bus straight to our gated driveway in Connecticut, demanded a DNA test, and shattered the reality I had known for eighteen years. It happened on the exact same day I had brought home the first-place trophy for the National Math Olympiad. Richard and Caroline had initially dismissed her as a con artist. It took police intervention for them to finally agree to the test. The results confirmed it. She was the real Kensington. I, of course, was the imposter. But they didn’t send me away. The investigation revealed it was a hospital clerical error—a exhausted nurse, two swapped bassinets in the dead of night. No malice, no kidnapping. I was innocent. More importantly, I was exceptional. I was the masterpiece Richard and Caroline had meticulously curated for eighteen years. I was their pride, their flawless investment. They were entirely unwilling to give me up. Especially not when I had just secured an early-admission full ride to MIT. If they sent me packing, my future glory would no longer belong to the Kensington name. From that moment on, Mia’s hatred for me solidified into an obsession. My parents, to their credit, were drowning in guilt. They felt they had failed Mia, horrified that they hadn’t even possessed the parental instinct to recognize their own child. In the beginning, they desperately tried to overcompensate. Their logic was simple: if a girl with absolutely no Kensington blood could be molded into a genius under their roof, then their actualbiological daughter would surely be extraordinary. But the longer they lived with Mia, the more they had to swallow a bitter pill. Mia possessed a certain cunning, a street-level manipulative streak, but absolutely no vision. Even her attempts to frame me were painfully amateurish. High society was already whispering about the return of the lost Kensington heiress. Expectations were sky-high. My parents were living in a constant state of low-grade panic, practically hiding Mia from the country club circuit. It was like holding a worthless, plunging stock while everyone around you congratulated you on a windfall; they couldn’t explain the truth without dying of embarrassment. So, they begged me to keep the peace. To tolerate her. To ensure no humiliating scandals leaked out of the estate. But my patience had officially expired. 2 Mia’s first attempt to frame me involved a custom gold Cartier Love bracelet. Caroline had taken her shopping and bought it as a welcome gift. Mia treated it like the Holy Grail. She had clearly never owned anything of real value before. Consequently, she made a point of casually dragging her wrist across my line of sight at every conceivable opportunity. She had noticed I rarely wore jewelry around the house, and in her mind, that equated to my parents neglecting me. When I completely ignored her glittering wrist, my message was clear: I don’t care about your jewelry, get out of my space. But Mia misread the room. She thought I was masking my crushing jealousy. She had no idea that I had an entire velvet-lined vault of similar pieces—birthday and Christmas gifts accumulated over eighteen years from my parents and grandparents. So, when she rushed down the mahogany staircase the next morning, sobbing that her bracelet had vanished, Richard and Caroline froze. “Mom, Dad,” Mia wept, her eyes shimmering with perfectly timed tears. “That bracelet was the first real gift you ever gave me. I—I can’t bear that it’s gone. Could you please help me find it?” My parents exchanged a grim look. I simply leaned against the marble kitchen island, crossing my arms, ready for the show. After they had torn through Mia’s bedroom and found nothing, she quietly suggested they search Marta’s quarters. Marta, our housekeeper, was visibly stunned. “Mr. and Mrs. Kensington,” she stammered, her hands trembling against her apron. “I have worked in this house for fifteen years. I practically raised Blair. I would never steal from this family!” Besides the sheer insult of the accusation, Marta wore a thick, solid gold bangle of her own on her wrist. My parents paid her an exorbitant salary, and her family had just sold a massive plot of real estate in Queens. She didn’t need to steal Mia’s trinket. I stepped up, my voice cutting through the tension like glass. “Mia, Marta wouldn’t touch your bracelet. You were practically shoving it in my face all day yesterday. I highly suggest you trace your own steps before you start accusing the people who keep this house running.” Mia’s lower lip quivered. “Blair, why are you so defensive? Is it because Mom and Dad bought me gold and didn’t buy you anything? I just want my bracelet back. It doesn’t mean they love me more than you. You really don’t need to be so insecure.” I stared at her. Insecure? Where on earth was she getting this script? Marta, refusing to let me take the heat, swallowed her pride. Though her face was tight with humiliation, she agreed to let Mia search her room. I rested a hand on Marta’s shoulder, my voice softening. “Don’t let it get to you, Marta. When summer break hits, I’m taking you on a vacation to Europe. Just you and me.” Marta let out a breathless, appreciative laugh. “Thank you, sweetheart.” Mia’s jaw clenched. She had likely never heard of an employer taking a housekeeper on a luxury vacation. But in our world, loyalty was rewarded. Predictably, Mia found nothing in Marta’s quarters. But she accomplished one thing: Marta would never look at her with an ounce of warmth again. “Did you find what you were looking for, miss?” Marta asked, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. Mia rubbed her red eyes. “I guess it isn’t in here…” “Apologize to Marta,” Richard ordered, his voice echoing like a whip crack down the hallway. Mia bit her lip, looking at my father as if he had just slapped her. Marta, despising Mia but refusing to let my father lose face, started to wave it off. Before she could, I spoke up. “Marta, on behalf of my little sister, I apologize. When we go abroad, you can pick out whatever you want. My treat.” Marta smiled warmly. “You’re too good to me, Blair.” Mia looked like she was choking on ash. Her entire goal had been to assert dominance, to remind Marta who the realblood of the house was. But Marta gave me everything she possessed, and gave Mia nothing. In Mia’s mind, because she was the biological daughter, the staff should instinctively bow to her. She just couldn’t comprehend why the world wasn’t rearranging itself to fit her narrative. “Blair, why do you constantly undermine me?” Mia asked later, catching me in the hall. “I just wanted to check her room. You didn’t need to buy her affection just to humiliate me. I know Marta favors you, and she hates me. But like I said, I’m just here to join the family. I never wanted to steal Mom and Dad’s love from you. Why don’t you just give the bracelet back?” I blinked. Oh. So that was the endgame. Smear the housekeeper, and when that failed, pivot the accusation to me. I almost admired the sheer audacity of it. I couldn’t wait to see how she planned to pull this off. 3 Marta had been present for Mia’s accusation. She immediately turned to my parents, appalled. “Mr. Kensington, Mrs. Kensington, I swear to you, I treat both girls exactly the same! The only difference in this house is that Mrs. Kensington designed a highly specific, nutrient-dense meal plan for Blair to support her late-night studying. Those supplements aren’t suited for Mia’s dietary needs, so I cook for them separately. That is all!” Caroline closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. “Marta is right. That was my doing. Marta treats you both fairly. Mia, please stop this nonsense. I’ll have a nutritionist draft a new menu for you tomorrow.” I raised an eyebrow. Given Mia’s absolute reliance on processed junk food and heavy meats, a Kensington-approved organic nutritional plan was going to be her own personal hell. A tear slipped down Mia’s cheek, splashing onto the floor. “Mom, I know you don’t believe me. Marta wouldn’t know any better, maybe she just doesn’t know Blair’s true character. Blair, I know you stared at my bracelet all day. It means the world to me. Please, just give it back.” I let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “It might mean the world to you, but it’s utterly useless to me. What would I even do with it?” My private academy strictly prohibited flashy jewelry. All my pieces were locked in the velvet display cases in my walk-in. Mia’s crying escalated into a theatrical, breathless sob. Out of everything she had brought into this house, her weeping was what I despised most. She cried as if the universe owed her a cosmic debt. “Blair, please! Just let me look in your room. Mom, Dad, I’m begging you. That bracelet is everything to me.” But this time, Richard didn’t indulge her. “It is a piece of metal, Mia,” he snapped, his voice hard. “Your mother will take you to Fifth Avenue tomorrow and buy you two more. The Kensingtons do not tear each other apart over pocket change.” But Mia was relentless. “Dad, to you it’s just money. To me, it’s a symbol of your love! I can’t just replace it. And I don’t want to waste your money when I haven’t earned it. Please, let me check. If it’s not in Blair’s room, I will get on my knees and apologize, and I’ll never bring it up again.” Richard’s frown deepened. He had raised me. He knew the architecture of my character. Furthermore, he deeply despised people who fixated on trivial amounts of money. To him, Mia’s hyper-fixation on a single bracelet was aggressively lower-class. I stood off to the side, enjoying the theater. I wanted to see how far she would push it. She turned her tear-streaked face to me. “Blair, I know Mom and Dad adore you. You shouldn’t disappoint them like this. Or… are you refusing to let me search because the bracelet is already in there?” I almost laughed out loud. “What are you afraid of, Blair? Why won’t you let me look? Are you guilty?” Mia pushed, stepping closer. I let a lazy smile touch my lips. I was one hundred percent certain she had already planted the bracelet in my room. “Fine,” I said smoothly. “Mom, Dad, since she’s so desperate to see my room, let her.” I pushed open my bedroom door and gestured inside, playing the gracious host. My parents looked sick with stress, but Mia was entirely oblivious. She had been dying to get inside my bedroom since she arrived. The moment she had moved in, she had demanded the primary suite, but my parents had firmly placed her in a guest wing. She stepped inside, her eyes darting over the silk drapes and original artwork. Then, she spotted the discreet paneled door leading to my walk-in closet. She pushed it open, and I watched the color drain completely from her face. The closet was practically a boutique. Rows of current-season designer garments, handbags that cost more than a luxury car, and an illuminated glass display island in the center. Every single item in that room could have bought her precious bracelet ten times over. And as for the bracelet itself? She stared through the glass case and saw an identical Cartier Love bracelet resting on a velvet pillow. Except, she knew the one she had planted was hidden somewhere else entirely.

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The condo my uncle bought for me sixteen years ago is now worth $1.2 million. When he called out of the blue saying he desperately needed $450,000 to keep his head above water, my heart sank. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help—it was the sheer scale of the number. It was a life-altering amount of money. I was still processing the shock when my husband, Scott, cut in. He didn’t even wait for me to move the phone away from my ear. “Your uncle gave you that place as a gift, right? He didn’t say anything about wanting a return on investment back then?” I nodded dumbly, my hand trembling against the receiver. Scott let out a sharp, cold laugh. “Then what right does he have to come begging now? He gave it to you. Period. Now that the market’s peaked and the property is worth a fortune, he wants to crawl back and leach off your equity? He’s dreaming.” I froze. My entire body went rigid. On the other end of the line, the silence was absolute. My uncle had heard everything. That silence traveled through the airwaves like a localized frost, settling deep in my bones. It felt like a serrated blade pressing against my eardrum. Every second that passed felt like a slow burn, a suffocating heat I couldn’t escape. I could almost see him—my kind, unassuming Uncle Pete—his face turning ashen, his pride crumbling into dust in some cramped kitchen miles away. “Uncle Pete…” I started, my voice thick. … My throat felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton. Each word was a struggle. Click. The line went dead. It wasn’t a violent hang-up, the kind fueled by rage. It was the sound of a man whose spirit had simply snapped, his fingers sliding off the phone in total exhaustion. I stayed there for a moment, my hand still suspended in mid-air, staring at the screen as it faded to black. The recessed lighting in our living room was designer-perfect, bright and warm, yet I had never felt colder. Scott, the man I’d shared a bed with for five years, was lounging on the West Elm sectional opposite me. There wasn’t a flicker of guilt on his face. Instead, he looked smug, almost triumphant. “See? He hung up the second I called him on it. Guilty conscience,” Scott said. He picked up a Honeycrisp apple from the marble coffee table and took a loud, wet bite. The crunch echoed through the room like a gunshot. “I’m doing this for your own good, Nora,” he continued, pointing the half-eaten apple at me. “You’re too soft. You let people pull at your heartstrings. These kinds of relatives—the ones who stayed in the sticks—they see you doing well, see the property values in the city, and they decide it’s harvest season. Today he wants half a million. Tomorrow it’ll be more. It’s a sinkhole, and I’m not letting us fall into it.” Every word he spoke felt like a precision strike, a poisoned needle aimed at the softest parts of my soul. I looked at him—at the sharp jawline and the confident eyes I used to find so handsome, so reliable—and felt like I was looking at a stranger. Or worse, a monster I’d invited into my house. “Scott, that is my uncle,” I said, my voice vibrating with a fury I didn’t know I possessed. “When my parents died, every other relative treated me like a biohazard. Pete was the one who liquidated everything he had to buy me this condo. He gave me a roof over my head when the world was trying to swallow me whole. You can’t put a price tag on that kind of debt.” Scott scoffed, tossing the apple core into the trash with a careless flick of his wrist. “Debt? You can’t eat ‘debt,’ Nora. Wake up. We live in the real world, not some sentimental Hallmark movie. What did he pay for this place back then? A couple hundred grand? Now it’s $1.2 million! He’s trying to turn a twenty-year-old ‘favor’ into a massive cash exit at our expense.” I saw the greed dancing in his eyes. The way he said the number—1.2 million—it sounded hungry. “Our expense?” I caught the word, a chill crawling up my spine. “Scott, this condo is a pre-marital asset. It’s mine.” His expression darkened instantly. The smugness vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory hardness. “What is that supposed to mean, Nora? We’re married. What’s yours is ours. I’ve busted my ass for this family for five years. Don’t tell me that doesn’t count for anything.” He started his usual litany of “contributions.” The long hours at the firm, the holidays spent with my family, the way he’d been a “rock.” He painted himself as a martyr of domesticity. It was a joke. A sick, twisted joke. We’d been married for five years, and I covered seventy percent of our expenses because my salary doubled his. His money was always “for his future business ventures” or “networking.” Meanwhile, I paid the property taxes, the HOA fees, and the grocery bills. And now, he was already spending the equity in my home. “Once we flip this place, we can move out to the suburbs. A real house. A yard. Maybe a pool,” he said, his voice returning to that breezy, delusional tone. “And I want to help my brother get his feet under him—he needs a down payment for a place in the city. The rest we can tuck away for the kids’ college funds. It’s a perfect plan.” He laid it out so logically, as if my uncle’s life-or-death crisis was nothing more than a convenient catalyst for his own lifestyle upgrade. The man I had loved for five years was gone. In his place sat a man for whom love, loyalty, and blood were all just variables in a spreadsheet. I didn’t want to argue anymore. You can’t reason with someone who views people as ATMs. I turned and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door. I needed to drown out the sound of his voice. I reached into the back of my nightstand and pulled out an old, battered photo album. The silk cover was frayed, the corners yellowed with age. On the very first page was a photo of me at sixteen. I was a ghost of a girl back then, rail-thin and hollow-eyed from the grief of losing my parents. In the photo, Uncle Pete has his arm around my shoulders. His hands were rough, calloused from years of manual labor, but his grip was steady. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were fixed on me with a fierce, protective love. The background was this very condo—back when the neighborhood was still gritty and the paint was fresh. I remember him pointing at the skyline and saying, “Nora, don’t be scared. This is your fortress. No one can ever take this from you.” A tear hit the plastic sleeve of the album, blurring his face. The bedroom door burst open. Scott walked in, smelling of bourbon and resentment. “I’m warning you, Nora. Do not call that man back,” he snapped. His face was flushed, his eyes narrowed. “And don’t you dare mention money. Not a cent. If I find out you’re funneling cash to him behind my back, we’re done. I mean it.” I looked at him, my vision clearing through the tears. “By what authority, Scott?” My coldness rattled him. He stepped closer, towering over me. “By the authority of being your husband! Everything you have, you have because of the life we built. You were a lonely orphan when I found you. If I hadn’t stepped up, God knows where you’d be drifting right now. Don’t act like you’re some self-made mogul. You’re part of the Miller family now, and I won’t let some deadbeat relative from your past bleed us dry!” It was like a physical blow. A slap across the face couldn’t have stung more. To him, I was still that “lonely orphan.” My only value was the rising market price of the walls around us. I started to laugh. It was a sharp, jagged sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. It was the sound of a woman watching her life crumble and realizing she didn’t mind the rubble. That night, sleep was impossible. I stared at the ceiling until the first grey light of dawn filtered through the blinds. I had made my choice. I was going to help my uncle. Even if it meant burning my world to the ground. The next morning, the doorbell rang with a frantic, aggressive rhythm. I checked the Ring camera. It was my mother-in-law, Peggy. The reinforcements had arrived. I opened the door, and Peggy practically shoved past me. “Oh, my poor boy! Scott, honey, you look terrible.” She grabbed Scott’s face, fretting over him as if he’d survived a war instead of a tantrum. Scott slumped into a chair, playing the role of the exhausted, wronged husband perfectly. Peggy turned her gaze on me. Her eyes were like two cold pebbles. “Nora, I heard the news. Your uncle is trying to shake you down for money?” “He’s in trouble, Peggy,” I said, my voice flat. “How much?” “Almost half a million.” Peggy gasped, her hand flying to her chest. “Half a million? Is he insane? He’s trying to bankrupt this family! He’s trying to rob my son!” “He’s my uncle,” I reminded her. “And it’s a loan. He’s in a corner.” Peggy sat on the edge of the sofa, her face twisting into a mask of faux-concern. “Nora, honey, you have to be smart. When people like that ask for money, it’s a black hole. You’ll never see it again. You’re a Miller now. You have to think about your family. Your husband. This condo… it might be in your name, but it’s a Miller asset now. It’s my son’s security.” The sheer audacity of her logic made my head spin. “Peggy,” I said, a smile twitching on my lips. “At what point did my house become Scott’s security?” She saw the opening and took it. Her tone shifted from “concerned mother” to “shrewd negotiator.” “Well, if you really want to protect the family—and prove you’re not just going to throw your life away on a whim—maybe it’s time to put Scott’s name on the deed. Make it official. A joint asset. That way, if your uncle comes calling again, you can just tell him it’s out of your hands. Legal protection, Nora. It’s for the best.” Finally. The mask was off. This was the real reason she was here. “No,” I said. One word. Absolute. Peggy’s face turned the color of a bruised plum. “You… you ungrateful girl! We took you in! We made you one of us!” Scott stood up then, stepping into my space again. “Nora, what are you doing? We’re a team. Why are you acting like we’re enemies? Are you already planning your exit? Is that why you’re guarding the deed like a hawk?” He was gaslighting me, painting me as the selfish one while he reached for my wallet. “A team?” I whispered, my voice trembling with rage. “My uncle is drowning, and you’re standing on his head to keep your own shoes dry. You don’t know the first thing about being a team.” Peggy jumped up, pointing a finger at my face. “Who cares about your uncle’s son? Why should my son suffer because your side of the family can’t manage their lives? We aren’t paying for their mistakes!” The words hit me like a lightning strike. I looked at them—this mother and son, so certain of their own righteousness, so devoid of basic human empathy. For the first time in five years, the word divorce didn’t feel like a tragedy. It felt like a rescue. This wasn’t my home. They weren’t my family. They were parasites waiting for the host to weaken. “Get out,” I said. They both froze. “What?” Scott asked, his eyes wide. “I said, get out of my house. Both of you.” Peggy lunged toward me, her face contorted. “You little bitch! You can’t talk to me like—” I stepped aside, catching her momentum and shoving her toward the door. I had spent years being the “quiet, grateful orphan.” That girl was dead. Scott tried to intervene, his voice rising in a mix of command and desperation. “Nora, you’ve lost your mind! You’re going to throw away your marriage for a ghost?” I didn’t answer. I just pushed. I pushed until they were both in the hallway, and then I slammed the heavy oak door. I turned the deadbolt. Click. The silence that followed was beautiful. I leaned my forehead against the cool wood of the door and let my body slide to the floor. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but my mind was clearer than it had been in years. This house was my fortress. And the siege was over. I sat there until my legs went numb. Once I stopped shaking, I did the only thing that mattered: I called my uncle back. It rang for a long time before my aunt answered. Her voice was raw from crying. “Nora?” “It’s me. Is Pete there?” A moment later, his gravelly voice came through. “Nora… honey. I’m so sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have called. I didn’t mean to cause a fight between you and Scott.” He was still protecting me. My heart broke all over again. “Uncle Pete, stop. Don’t apologize. Tell me what happened. Really.” He finally broke. My cousin, Toby, had been diagnosed with aggressive leukemia. He needed a bone marrow transplant, and even with insurance, the out-of-network costs, the travel, and the specialized post-op care were astronomical. $450,000 was the price of his life. “He’s only twenty-five, Nora,” Pete choked out. “The doctors say if we can get the funds, the success rate is high. But we don’t have it. We just don’t have it.” “You do now,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I’m going to get you the money. I promise. Just give me a few days.” After I hung up, I logged into our joint savings account to see what I could liquidate immediately. I stared at the screen. My stomach dropped. $4,217. We should have had nearly $200,000 in that account. My bonuses alone over the last three years had been six figures. I called Scott immediately. “Where is the money, Scott?” I didn’t say hello. I didn’t yell. “What are you talking about?” He sounded annoyed, but there was a tremor of guilt in his voice. “The joint account. It’s empty. Where is it?” “I… I had to help my brother with his business loan. And my parents’ roof needed replacing. We talked about this, Nora. We’re a family. It’s all one pot.” “We never talked about $190,000, Scott.” He hung up on me. The betrayal was complete. He had been draining me for years to subsidize his own family while sneering at mine. I didn’t cry this time. I opened my laptop and started searching for real estate agents. This condo—my history, my sanctuary—was going to save Toby. I think my parents would have wanted it that way. But Scott wasn’t going to make it easy. He moved back in that evening, acting as though nothing had happened, but he wasn’t alone. Peggy was with him. They became my jailers. If I went to the bathroom, Peggy stood in the hall. If I made tea, Scott was at my elbow. They took my passport. They took the physical deed from my desk. They took my car keys. “You aren’t selling this place, Nora,” Scott said, locking the documents in his personal safe. “You’re staying right here until you come to your senses.” I didn’t fight them. I didn’t scream. I just watched them. They thought they had won. They thought that without the physical papers, I was trapped. What they didn’t know was that I’d already filed for a replacement ID weeks ago after “losing” my wallet. It was tucked inside the lining of my gym bag. They didn’t know that I had digital copies of every property document stored in an encrypted cloud drive they couldn’t access. While Scott was at work and Peggy was napping, I met with an agent named Brenda. She was a shark in a Chanel suit, and she smelled blood. “Honey,” Brenda said after I told her everything. “I’ve seen it all. The missing deed is a hurdle, but with your ID and the original purchase contract—which I can pull from the county records—we can move. We’ll do an off-market pocket listing. Cash buyers only. We can close in ten days.” I signed the digital listing agreement in the back of Brenda’s Lexus while Peggy was upstairs watching The Price is Right. The counter-attack had begun.

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On the night of my birthday, my husband—who worked as a contractor for a highly classified defense intelligence agency—sent me a Zelle transfer for $5,000. [Baby, an emergency came up at the agency. I’m stuck working late. I am so sorry I can’t be there to celebrate with you.] The notification glowed on my screen. And in that exact moment, I was standing in the shadowed alcove of my own corporate building’s lobby, watching him walk through the revolving glass doors. His arm was wrapped tightly around his adopted sister. “This is the last time I’m giving in to you,” I heard him murmur, his voice echoing faintly against the marble walls. “Next year, no matter what, I’m spending her birthday with her.” Madison, his adopted sister, leaned into his side with a breathy, saccharine laugh, holding up a sleek, silver box of ultra-thin condoms. “Our very first time was in your company’s executive boardroom,” she whispered, tracing his jawline. “It’s only poetic that our last time happens in the exact same place.” My fingers tightened around my paper coffee cup until the cardboard buckled. The iced latte inside suddenly felt like battery acid in my veins. Pulling out my phone, I drafted an emergency email to my executive team, excluding only Madison, who officially worked in our marketing department. [Urgent: The client has moved up the contract signing. All department heads, meet in the main executive boardroom in twenty minutes.] If they wanted a thrill, I thought, my heart beating a slow, hollow rhythm against my ribs. If they wanted a show. I was about to give them a finale they would never, ever forget. … [Hey, Dave? Can you remotely access the dome camera in the main executive boardroom from the backend?] [Yes, exactly. I want to make sure we capture this historic signing on tape. Great, just route the live feed to my phone, please.] Hanging up, I opened the security application on my phone, my fingers trembling so badly I almost dropped the device. The live feed buffered, then snapped into crisp, high-definition color. The exact spot where Harry and Madison were currently writhing against each other was dead center of the massive mahogany conference table. Right beneath the unblinking eye of the camera. “Harry,” Madison purred, her voice tinny but clear through the audio feed. “What do you think Caroline would do if she knew… that every single year, the birthday lingerie you buy her is something I’ve already broken in for you?” She arched her back, and the camera caught the unmistakable scalloped edges of a black La Perla set. “Do you think she’d thank me for test-driving it?” Recognizing the delicate lace—the exact brand and style Harry gifted me every single birthday—a scalding heat flooded my eyes. My stomach pitched violently, the world tilting on its axis as bile rose hot and sharp in the back of my throat. I had to brace my hand against the cold plaster wall just to stay upright. We had been married for six years. And for six years, on every single birthday, he had found an excuse to be absent. I had always given him the benefit of the doubt. His work in defense intelligence was strictly confidential; he couldn’t control his hours. Or so I thought. I couldn’t have imagined, even in my darkest nightmares, that every time I sat alone in our dimly lit dining room, blowing out my candles and wishing for a long, happy life with my husband… he was locked inside my company’s boardroom with his adopted sister, desecrating every vow we had ever made. A frigid draft swept through the corridor, making me shiver uncontrollably. “Ms. Brooks?” I jumped, turning to see my executive assistant standing a few feet away, accompanied by a small camera crew. “The PR team and the corporate videographer are here,” she said, oblivious to the earthquake happening inside my chest. “With this live stream, our shareholders and the public will see us finalize the strategic partnership with Carmichael Industries in real time. It’s going to be a massive PR win for our stock.” I forced the corners of my mouth up into a smile, taking the bottle of water she offered to wash the bitter taste from my mouth. “Keep the camera discrete for now,” I instructed, my voice eerily calm. “We go live in fifteen seconds. And no matter what happens in that room, the stream does not cut. Understood?” With the stage set, I led my team toward the private executive elevators to wait for our VIPs: Harry’s father, Arthur Cole (a major shareholder); my own father, Richard Brooks; and our billionaire client, Victor Carmichael. When the elevator doors chimed and slid open, I plastered on my best professional warmth. “Dad, Victor. Right this way.” But as we stepped off the elevator and approached the boardroom wing, the pristine hallway told a different story. A pale blue women’s blazer lay crumpled on the carpet. Without missing a beat, I bent down, picking it up and draping it over my arm. A few steps later, two five-inch Louboutin stilettos lay violently discarded near the wall. And hanging off the heavy brass handle of the boardroom door? A single, sheer black stocking. As I feigned shock, clumsily trying to gather the trail of discarded clothes, the three older men stopped dead in their tracks. They looked at the messy bundle in my arms, then at me—dressed impeccably in my tailored trousers and silk blouse. Victor Carmichael cleared his throat, an uncomfortable, amused smile playing on his lips. “Well. Making your employees work on a Friday night is a bit draconian, Caroline. I hope us old men aren’t interrupting some young executives blowing off steam?” By now, the rest of my staff had arrived via the main elevators, congregating behind us in the corridor. I forced a tight, embarrassed laugh, shaking my head. I pressed my hand flat against the heavy double doors of the boardroom and pushed with all my might. “Let’s see what kind of scandal we’re walking into, shall we?” But before the door could swing fully open, someone shoved it back from the inside. Harry slipped through the narrow gap, his tie entirely gone, his dress shirt misbuttoned and untucked. His face, flushed a deep, feverish red, drained of all color the second he saw the crowd. “Dad? M-Mr. Brooks?” he stammered, his eyes darting wildly. “Isn’t it… isn’t today Friday? What are you all doing here?” Then, his gaze dropped to the shredded black stocking in my hand. He looked past me, realizing there were nearly fifty employees standing in the hallway, phones buzzing, whispers erupting. In a display of sheer, unadulterated audacity, Harry stepped forward and pulled me into a tight embrace, his hands gripping my waist like a vice. “Caroline, honey,” he said, his voice dripping with forced affection. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a meeting?” He ducked his head, pressing his mouth so close to my ear I could smell the sweat and sex on his skin. “Everyone is looking,” he hissed, his tone desperate. “Play along. It’s not what you think. I will explain everything later.” Feeling the frantic thud of his heart against my chest, a wave of profound physical revulsion washed over me. I shoved hard against his chest, breaking the embrace. “I apologize, gentlemen. How unprofessional of us,” I said loudly, projecting my voice. “Dad, Arthur, why don’t you take Victor to the VIP lounge for a few minutes? I’ll have maintenance clear the room, and we will begin the signing in five minutes.” Harry let out a breath he’d been holding, his shoulders dropping in relief. But the relief made him cocky. Instantly, his tone shifted from pleading to patronizing. “Caroline, what has gotten into you?” he scolded, playing the role of the rational husband. “You can’t make Victor wait. Doesn’t this floor have that smaller conference room down the hall? Let’s just use that one for tonight.” He shot a panicked, meaningful look at his father. Arthur Cole, a man who had built his fortune on reading between the lines and burying bodies, caught the look immediately. “Yes, exactly,” Arthur chimed in smoothly, stepping forward. “Harry is right. The small room will do just fine.” He practically bowed as he reached out to shake Victor’s hand. “My apologies, Victor. You know how disorganized the younger generation can be. Let’s head this way.” He was trying to herd everyone away. He wanted to clear the hallway so Madison—who was undoubtedly still trapped inside the main boardroom, naked and terrified—could make her escape. Not a chance in hell. “Arthur,” I said, my voice sharp enough to cut glass. “I can forgive Harry for not knowing the layout of our office, considering he doesn’t work here. But surely you know better.” I gestured to the sea of employees behind me. “The small boardroom holds twenty people. There are over fifty department heads and staff members here. Are we supposed to have them stand in the hallway during a multi-million-dollar merger?” I turned to Harry, a sweet, poisoned smile on my face. “Honestly, Harry. I work a late shift, change into something comfortable, and ask you to put my clothes away when you drop by to visit… and you just leave them scattered in the hall? You’re giving everyone the wrong idea.” I linked my arm through Victor Carmichael’s. “Victor, let’s head inside. I promised my team triple overtime for this sudden Friday night pivot. If I delay them any longer, I’m going to have a mutiny on my hands.” As the crowd surged forward toward the main doors, Harry threw his body in front of the handle, his eyes wild with terror. “Caroline, please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Just listen to me. Use the other room. Please.” My father, Richard, wasn’t an idiot. Watching my sudden, icy demeanor and Harry’s manic desperation, the pieces clicked together in his mind. His face darkened into a thundercloud. “Arthur,” my father barked, looking at Harry’s dad. “What the hell is going on in that room that your boy is so terrified of us seeing?” Without waiting for an answer, my father grabbed Harry by the shoulder, shoved him aside, and threw open the boardroom doors. He marched inside, the lights automatically flickering on. “All this sneaking around,” my father boomed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the boy had a woman hidden in—” His voice died in his throat. Right in the center of the polished mahogany table lay a crumpled bra and a torn pair of lace panties. My father didn’t hesitate. He spun around, grabbed Harry by the lapels, and drove his fist straight into Harry’s jaw. The crack echoed through the room as Harry hit the floor. “You son of a bitch!” my dad roared, kicking Harry hard in the ribs. “You actually dared to cheat on my daughter? Who is it? Who’s the whore you’ve got in here?” My dad pointed a shaking finger at the pile of clothes I had collected. “I knew the second the elevator doors opened. That blazer, those heels—Caroline wouldn’t be caught dead in that trashy garbage!” He reached for his jacket buttons, ready to drop down and beat Harry into a pulp, but Arthur grabbed him, pulling him back. “Richard, wait! Don’t do this here!” Arthur pleaded. Harry scrambled backward, blood dripping from his lip. He grabbed the underwear off the table and blindly reached under a nearby chair, pulling out a pink Victoria’s Secret shopping bag. “Dad! Mr. Brooks, you’ve got it all wrong!” Harry cried, his voice shrill. “It’s a gift! I bought it for Caroline for her birthday! It just… it fell out of the bag, and I hadn’t picked it up yet!” He looked up at me, his eyes begging me to throw him a lifeline. “Tell them, Caroline. Tell them! Haven’t I bought you a set just like this every year for the past six years?” The sheer, breathtaking cowardice of the man I married made my skin crawl. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I calmly walked over, took the crumpled lace from his shaking hands, and dropped it into the nearest trash can, along with the heels and the blazer. “Dad, stop. He’s telling the truth,” I lied smoothly. I instructed the bewildered staff to take their seats. As they filed in, I let my eyes sweep the massive room. I was hunting. Madison had to be completely naked right now. The room was sleek, modern, minimal. The only place big enough to hide a human body was under the massive oak table. But when Harry had dropped to the floor to grab the bag, I had already checked the sightlines beneath the chairs. Nothing. There was only one other place. In the far corner of the room sat our industrial-grade architectural plotter and printer—a machine the size of a small car, with a massive hollow storage chassis at the bottom meant for spare toner and oversized paper rolls. To test my theory, I casually walked toward the corner, pretending to examine the thermostat on the wall near the printer. Instantly, a cold sweat broke out on Harry’s forehead. He lunged out of his chair, grabbing my elbow with a bruising grip. “Caroline,” he said rapidly, his eyes dilated. “Did you get the Venmo I sent you? The five thousand dollars?” “What money?” I asked, playing dumb and reaching for my phone. He snatched my hand away. “Never mind. Just… look at it later. Let’s get through this meeting, and then I’m taking you out. You wanted to go to that rooftop restaurant to see the fireworks, right? We’ll go tonight. Just the two of us.” I forced a smile, looking deeply into his panicked eyes. “Okay.” I was certain now. Madison was curled up inside the belly of that printer. I turned back to the table and signaled for my assistant to pause. “Victor, I am so sorry,” I announced loudly. “There is a glaring typo on page four of the financial disclosures. It’s an unacceptable oversight by my team, and it will be dealt with.” I looked at my assistant. “I need ten minutes. Have someone print a fresh, corrected copy of the contract right now. Use the machine in the corner.” “No!” The shout came from both Harry and his father simultaneously. No? I thought, a cold, dead calm settling over my heart. I don’t think you get a say in this anymore. I knew Arthur. I knew he had recognized Madison’s blazer in the hallway. I knew he had put the pieces together. The only reason he was playing along, pretending this was just a misunderstanding, was because he assumed I would protect the family’s reputation. He assumed I was a good, compliant wife who would rather swallow glass than cause a public scandal. What neither of them understood was that beneath my polished exterior, I was uncompromising. If you crossed my bottom line, I would burn the earth to ash to make you pay. I shot a subtle, loaded look at my father. He read my face instantly. “Victor, don’t worry,” my dad stepped in, his voice booming with authority. “We will have the corrected documents in your hands in less than ten minutes.” Arthur stepped forward, his face pale and sweating. “Is that the only printer in the building?” he snapped at my assistant. “Go use the one in marketing! You’re going to disturb Victor with that loud machine in here.” Arthur frantically poured a glass of water, offering it to Victor with a shaky hand. “Kids these days, Victor. No sense of decorum. Forgive them.” My assistant froze, looking at me for direction. My father leaned back in his leather chair, crossing his arms. He looked at Arthur with a predatory smirk. “Arthur, why are you sweating? It’s just a printer.” I tilted my head, adopting a look of innocent confusion. “Honestly, Harry, you and your dad are acting so bizarrely tonight. Is there something you’re hiding from me?” I crossed my arms, subtly angling my body so the videographer’s camera had a clear, unobstructed shot of the machine. “Are you really hiding a woman in here, like my dad said?” I teased, walking in a slow circle around the room. “But where would she be? The room is practically empty.” I stopped directly in front of the massive printer, staring at the ventilation grates on the lower housing. “It’s not like she could fit inside the paper tray, right?” Arthur’s face turned a sickly shade of gray. Harry held his hands up, his voice cracking with hysteria. “I swear to God, Caroline, I haven’t betrayed you! You’re taking this joke too far! Victor is our most important client, you’re being incredibly disrespectful!” He was still trying to gaslight me. He was still banking on my obedience. If Arthur and Harry were so determined to bury their heads in the sand, I was going to force their hand. Madison had two choices. One: She could push the hatch open, crawl out completely naked in front of fifty people and a live-streaming camera, and admit to the world that she had been sleeping with her adoptive brother. Two: She could stay inside the machine. And when the massive industrial gears and rollers fired up, she could see how much pressure human bone could take. I stared into Arthur’s eyes, entirely deadpan. “Three minutes have passed,” I said coldly. “Victor has a nine o’clock flight back to New York.”

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Since Cole Miller and Serena Vale became the nation’s favorite on-screen couple, I—Cole’s legal wife—have become a magnet for “accidents.” The first time, funeral wreaths were piled high against our front door, and the “Welcome” mat was soaked in what smelled like rot. The second time, I was cornered outside my office and doused in a bucket of thick, metallic-smelling animal blood. The third time, a car “lost control” on the sidewalk, sending me flying. I spent three months shattered in a hospital bed. Every time I cried to him, Cole’s response was a cool, detached shrug. “They’re just fans, Nicole. They get a little overzealous. Maybe if you stayed home like I told you, this wouldn’t happen.” Then came the tenth time. A “mysterious” fire broke out in our house while I was sleeping. I woke up to a wall of flames and ended up in the ICU for seven days, clinging to life with burns covering my body. The day I was discharged, Cole didn’t offer a hand to help me into the car. He offered a pen. He slid a divorce settlement across the seat. “Serena and I have a few more months of promotion. We need to get married to keep the momentum of the show alive. We’ll divorce now, and once the ‘showmance’ peak passes, we’ll quietly remarry.” He looked at me with those eyes the world fell in love with—eyes that used to belong to me. “It’s just PR, Nicole. You know that.” This time, I didn’t scream. I didn’t beg. I simply took the pen and signed my name. 1 “Nicole, honey, you can’t do this. You can’t leave Cole!” My mother-in-law, Margaret, rushed to the hospital the moment she heard. She grabbed my hands, her face a mask of genuine distress. “You two have been through everything together. You built this life from nothing.” “I know you’re hurting because of the rumors about him and Serena. I’ll call him right now. I’ll make him apologize!” Maybe Cole thought the same thing. He thought our history—the years of struggling in cramped Studio City apartments, sharing cheap ramen—was an unbreakable chain. He thought I’d never actually walk away. But I just shook my head, a tired, hollow smile touching my lips. I pulled out my phone and played a video. The room was dimly lit, but the figures were unmistakable. Cole and Serena, their bodies tangled, breathless and desperate. “Cole… I wish we could stay in the script forever,” Serena moaned. “I never want to leave this.” Cole kissed her, his voice a low, gravelly rasp I hadn’t heard in years. “If only I’d met you sooner. If only things were different.” I placed the phone on the bed and pushed the signed papers toward Margaret. My voice was a whisper. “His heart found a new home a long time ago. It’s time I let mine do the same.” The day I left the hospital was the day of Cole and Serena’s “Century Wedding.” The internet was a sea of blue hearts and celebratory hashtags. Every digital billboard in the city seemed to be looping the footage of their grand, romantic ceremony. The sun caught the massive sapphire on Serena’s finger, the glare so sharp it made my eyes ache. When we started, we were just two nobodies working as extras on the backlots of Burbank. We shared a dream, and that dream was the glue that held us together. When we got our marriage license, we didn’t have money for a ceremony, let alone a ring. We eventually scrounged enough to buy a thin silver band. It was a little too small, a little too plain. But back then, he’d gripped my hand and promised, “One day, Nicole, I’m going to give you the biggest diamond in the world. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret choosing me.” Now, he was fulfilling that promise to a different woman. The first time the tabloids caught them, I cried. He held me, smelling of guilt and expensive cologne, promising it was just “method acting” and that he’d set boundaries. The second time they were caught sharing an “intimate dinner,” he snapped at me. He told me they were “workshopping the script” and called me paranoid for “making something out of nothing.” The third time… I was alone in a cold clinic recovering from an ectopic pregnancy surgery when a video was DM’d to me. It showed them entering a hotel suite at 2:00 AM. When I confronted him, Cole didn’t even blink. “We were running lines, Nicole! Jesus, stop being so small-minded. I’m a public figure now. If you can’t handle the heat of this life, maybe you shouldn’t have married an actor.” When the show wrapped, a photo of them kissing on set—tearful and passionate—blew up globally. The comments were a unanimous chorus of adoration. [Look at them. That’s not acting. That’s true love. My ship has finally sailed!] [Cole Miller is the only man I’d forgive for cheating. He and Serena are soulmates!] [Can Cole’s wife just get out of the way already? How can some plain, retired extra even stand next to an Emmy winner?] That was the day the stalking intensified. The day the threats became physical. And every time I begged Cole for help, he just looked at me with cold, bored eyes. “My fans are rational people, Nicole. They wouldn’t do that. Maybe you should look at your own life and see who you’ve pissed off.” Then came the fire. When I woke up from the smoke inhalation and the burns, he was standing there with the divorce papers. “Serena and I need the buzz. It’s just a role.” “Be a good girl. Give me a month. Once the PR cycle ends, we’ll remarry.” I realized then that our marriage hadn’t just hit a wall. It had burned to ash in that house. 2 The day after I was discharged, my phone buzzed. It was Cole. “Nicole, did you forget to tell my mother that this is temporary? She’s making things impossible for Serena!” His voice was sharp, entitled. “You need to go over there right now and fix this, or don’t even think about us remarrying.” In the past, no matter who was at fault, I was always the one to bow my head first. But now, hearing the arrogance in his voice, I just said calmly, “Fine. Then let’s not remarry.” There was a stunned silence on the other end. Then he let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Don’t play hard to get, Nicole. It doesn’t suit you. We both know you’ll be crawling back to me in a week.” I remembered a time when the rumors were everywhere. We had planned a quiet dinner for my birthday, but Serena called. She had a “panic attack,” she said. Cole left before the appetizers arrived. That was our biggest fight. I screamed that I wanted a divorce. Cole’s eyes turned to ice. “Don’t you dare threaten me, Nicole. You’ll regret it.” He didn’t come home for three months. He blocked me everywhere. Desperate, I went to his hotel to find him, but he looked me in the eye and told the security guards he didn’t know who I was. I was arrested for stalking. I spent seven days in a holding cell—cold, hungry, and terrified—until Cole finally showed up to bail me out. He looked down at me, looking like a mess, and whispered, “Let that be a lesson, Nicole. Watch your mouth.” That was the day my heart shattered for the first time. After that, I stopped fighting about Serena. I became the perfect, quiet wife. I stayed in my lane. But in the end, I still lost everything. It was a family dinner at the estate. Margaret had called, begging me to come over for a “final” family meal. I couldn’t say no to her; she was the only person in that family who had ever been kind to me. But the moment I walked in, I saw Cole sitting at the table, meticulously peeling shrimp for Serena. I froze. Cole used to hate “messy” food. He hated the effort. But here he was, breaking his own rules for her. When he saw me, his forehead creased in irritation. “We’re divorced, Nicole. What are you doing here? If the paparazzi see you, it’ll ruin Serena’s image!” “I invited her,” Margaret said firmly, gesturing for me to sit beside her. Her expression was pained. Serena suddenly spoke up, her voice dripping with mock-sweetness. “Nicole, I heard you used to be an actress too. Is it true you quit because of that… incident with the director? The ‘casting couch’ thing?” The room went deathly silent. My body went rigid. That was my first real gig. A director had spiked my drink at a wrap party. I’d managed to text Cole my location before I blacked out. He’d found me in time, but the trauma had been paralyzing. Cole had taken two months off to stay with me, telling me I should just stay home where it was safe. That was why I quit. Serena tilted her head, her eyes gleaming. “I mean, some girls try to sleep their way to the top and then cry ‘assault’ when the deal falls through. I always wondered… you were already half-undressed when Cole found you, weren’t you? Who knows what really happened?” 3 Cole slammed his glass onto the table. The glass shattered, shards flying across the tablecloth. One sliced into my finger, but I didn’t feel it. I was too busy watching Cole’s face, which had turned a sickly shade of gray. A month after that trauma, I’d discovered I was pregnant. Cole had said he believed me back then, but I’d find him on the balcony at 3:00 AM, smoking in silence, looking at me with suspicion. We fought constantly. I lost the baby shortly after. After the miscarriage, the distance between us became a canyon. Cole’s voice cut through the air, cold and sharp. “Nicole. I’m asking you one more time. That night… were you actually raped?” The question was a knife, twisting in an old wound. “You never believed me, did you, Cole?” He stared at me, his jaw tight. “I just want the truth. I need to know the truth before I can commit to remarrying you.” I started to laugh—a soft, broken sound. “I’m not remarrying you, Cole. Ever.” “If you believe her so much, then stay with her. You deserve each other.” Cole sneered, his voice dropping to a cruel, tender tone. “Stop the theatrics. You have no career, no income. I’m the only thing keeping you from the gutter. You don’t have the guts to leave me.” Finally, the ugly truth was out. “Enough!” Margaret shouted, slamming her hand on the table. She reached over to comfort me, but as she took a bite of her salad, her face suddenly flushed a deep, terrifying red. She began to cough violently, gasping for air. “Mom!” Cole rushed to her side. He looked at the plate, then turned on me with a primal fury. “You knew she was deathly allergic to celery! She’s forgetful lately, but you—you did this on purpose!” “I didn’t—” He didn’t let me finish. He shoved me, hard. I tumbled backward, my hand landing on the jagged edge of the broken glass. Blood bloomed across my palm instantly. Cole paused for a fraction of a second, but then he looked away, his face hardening. He scooped Margaret up. “Serena, let’s get her to the hospital. Now!” I followed them, desperate to know she was okay. At the hospital, Margaret was stabilized. Through the thin walls of the observation room, I heard Serena sobbing. “It’s all my fault, Cole… I didn’t know about the celery.” “It’s fine, baby,” Cole’s voice was hauntingly gentle. “We’ll just tell everyone Nicole did it. Mom loves her; she won’t press charges. It’ll be okay.” I stood in the hallway, the blood from my hand dripping onto the white linoleum. I was his shield. His scapegoat. His trash. Over the next few weeks, I couldn’t escape them. They were on every talk show, every “Day in the Life” segment. They visited orphanages together, looking like the perfect young family. Late one night, Serena posted a photo from a hotel room. It was a shot of Cole sleeping, his arm draped over her. Both of them were covered in “love bites.” She deleted it within seconds, but the internet caught it. The fans went wild, asking when the “real” wedding was happening. I just smiled. The pain was finally being replaced by a strange, hollow peace. On the final day of his “month,” Cole called. His voice sounded wrecked. “Meet me at the courthouse. I’m divorcing Serena today, and we’re going to get our license again.” “Nicole, isn’t this what you wanted?” I hung up. I didn’t go. An hour later, my front door was nearly kicked off its hinges. Cole was there, his eyes bloodshot, his grip bruising as he grabbed my arm. “I told you I was coming back! And you… to get back at Serena, you hired people to hurt her? How could you be so vile?” “If anything happens to her, I will destroy you!” 4 I stared at him, genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?” He dragged me to the hospital. Serena was there, huddled in a corner of a private suite, shaking uncontrollably. Cole’s eyes filled with tears. He threw me aside and ran to her, pulling her into his arms. “It’s okay, Serena. I’ve already dealt with them. No one will ever touch you again.” When Serena saw me, she let out a blood-curdling shriek. She scrambled out of bed and knelt at my feet, sobbing. “Nicole, please… please don’t let those men come back. I’ll quit. I’ll leave the industry. I’ll never see Cole again, just please…” Her neck and arms were covered in dark bruises. Her face was swollen. I looked at her, my heart hammering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Slap! The force of Cole’s hand sent me spinning to the floor. My ears rang. Cole loomed over me, his face twisted in a mask of pure hatred. “Because it happened to you, you wanted it to happen to her? You’re sick, Nicole! I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for you!” “I should have never saved you that night at the hotel.” That sentence… it was the one that finally killed the last part of me that loved him. “I didn’t do this…” I whispered. He didn’t hear me. Or he didn’t care. He signaled to his security team. They hauled me into a car and drove me to the very hotel where everything had ended for me years ago. He threw me into the exact same room. “Since you love this place so much, since you love playing the victim, why don’t you stay here and reminisce?” The furniture was the same. The smell was the same. My body began to shake with a violent, primal terror. I grabbed his sleeve, my voice breaking. “I won’t remarry you. I’ll sign anything. Just please, take me away from here.” Cole leaned in, his voice a cold, terrifying whisper. “You want to know why you really lost that baby, Nicole?” “Serena told me that if I couldn’t look at you without wondering whose kid it was, I shouldn’t have it. So I slipped something into your water. I ended it myself.” The world tilted. The air left my lungs. I screamed—a raw, guttural sound of agony. “That was your child, Cole! You murdered your own child!” Because of that “miscarriage” and my previous surgery, the doctors had told me I could never conceive again. He hadn’t just killed a baby; he had killed my entire future. Suddenly, a guard burst in. “Mr. Miller! Miss Vale is hysterical—she just tried to jump from the second-floor balcony!” Cole’s face went pale. He turned and ran without a second glance. At the door, he paused. “Rot in here, Nicole. See how it feels.” The door slammed shut. I heard the lock click. I pounded on the wood until my knuckles bled. Then, I felt a presence behind me. A pair of large, heavy hands grabbed my waist. I was thrown onto the bed. I looked up and the scream died in my throat. It was him. The director from all those years ago. He grinned, showing yellowed teeth. “You ruined my career, you little bitch. You made me a pariah.” “Let’s see who saves you this time.” I lunged for the door, but he caught my hair, dragging me back. I screamed for help, but the walls were soundproofed. He pinned my wrists with his boots, the pain searing. He began tearing at my clothes. As he moved closer, his hand clamped over my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe. The world began to go black. Just as my consciousness started to slip, I heard a thundering crash. The door flew off its hinges. After he settled Serena down, a strange, gnawing anxiety began to eat at Cole. He remembered the look in my eyes when he left. He told himself he was just teaching me a lesson, but something felt wrong. He drove back to the hotel. He expected to find me crying. Instead, he found a nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

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On the morning of the state finals—the exams that would determine our college admissions and our futures—my brother handed me a bottle of milk. I took it, my chest tightening with a rare, sweet rush of gratitude, until a glowing string of text suddenly began scrolling across my vision, like a phantom live-chat projected directly into my mind. [Don’t drink it, babygirl! If she drinks that, the charity case gets x-ray vision to copy her answers!] [And she’ll slowly lose her mind. In seven days, her brain will turn to mush and her body will shut down.] My hand trembled. The bottle suddenly felt heavy, slick with condensation. Right beside us, my childhood best friend smiled softly and held out a braided luck-charm bracelet. The glowing text flared violently in my field of vision again: [The childhood bestie is trash too! If she wears that, the charity case gets an automatic twenty-point bump over her.] [The charity case will breeze into an Ivy League, while our girl gets locked in a psych ward with no memory, abused until she dies!] I blinked, the neon letters burning behind my eyelids. I looked up. Both of them were staring at me. It wasn’t the look of a loving older brother, nor the tender gaze of the boy I had secretly loved since we were ten. It was the calculated, breathless stare of hunters watching their prey step into a snare. … I didn’t say a word. I just took the milk and the bracelet, turned on my heel, and walked straight over to Raquel, the reigning queen of the school’s mean girls, who currently sat dead last in our class rankings. Fine, I thought, the ice spreading through my veins. If this is the game we are playing, then it’s my own fault if I don’t play it to the bitter end. “What are you standing around for? Drink the milk and review your flashcards. Every second counts.” Tristan had followed me. He twisted the cap off the bottle and shoved it toward me. The look in his eyes wasn’t protective; it was suffocatingly annoyed. For years, I had excused Tristan’s sharp edges, convincing myself that beneath his biting words was a fiercely loyal older brother who just didn’t know how to show he cared. Only now, staring at the poison in his hand, did I realize the truth. Every bottle of milk he had ever given me before an exam was a trap, meticulously laid for the sake of the girl he had placed on an untouchable pedestal. “I don’t have an appetite,” I said, my voice shockingly level. “Keep it for yourself. I’m going inside.” I turned away, but a hand violently seized a fistful of my hair from behind. My knees buckled, and I hit the pavement hard. “You dare talk back to me? Have you lost your damn mind?” Tristan roared, his face twisting into something ugly. “Don’t think I’m going to coddle you just because it’s finals week! Who the hell do you think you are?” “Throwing a tantrum and giving me attitude? I’ll teach you a lesson right here in front of everyone!” Heated whispers broke out around us as parents and test-takers turned to watch. Tristan, emboldened by the audience, snatched my backpack, raising it as if to smash it across my face. A hand caught his arm. It was Miles, rushing over, playing the peacemaker. “Tristan, man, come on! It’s exam day. If you scare Blair half to death, how is she going to test?” Miles knelt beside me, his face a perfect mask of concern. He gently brushed the dirt from my cheek, his touch as soft and familiar as it had always been. “Don’t take it to heart, Blair. He’s just stressed. He wants you to have enough energy for the exam,” Miles murmured. “Look, I went out of my way to get this luck bracelet blessed just for you. Put it on. I promise it’ll bring you the highest score.” He reached for my wrist to tie it on, but I snatched it from his fingers, burying it in my palm. These two men. One was my adopted brother, the person I had viewed as my closest family. The other was the boy who owned my heart. They had used my family’s American Express Black Cards to parade around the city’s elite circles as untouchable trust-fund gods. Yet, they had both fallen obsessively in love with the impoverished scholarship student I had personally sponsored, to the point where they were willing to join hands to destroy me. “Thank you both for your beautiful wishes. I will absolutely do my best.” I stared dead into their eyes, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “And when these exams are over, I promise I will repay you both. Thoroughly.” Tristan glared at me, his jaw tight, looking as though my very existence was an endurance test for him. Miles’s eyes glinted with the dark, hidden thrill of a successful setup. Feeling a scorching gaze from the periphery, I quickened my pace and passed through the school gates. Sure enough, I hadn’t made it far down the walkway before heavy footsteps rushed up behind me. A hand spun me around, and a stinging slap cracked across my cheek. “Didn’t I warn you to stay the hell away from Miles? Why are you always throwing yourself at him? Are you that desperate?” Raquel. The school’s ultimate bully. Just like always, she resorted to physical violence and sheer humiliation the second she felt threatened. I looked at her face, contorted with jealousy, and calmly extended the milk and the bracelet. “Don’t be mad,” I said, my voice dripping with earnest submission. “Look, everything Miles gives me, I save for you. I listened to what you told me.” I widened my eyes, playing the pathetic victim to perfection. “I promise, I’ll help you get him. Once finals are over, I’ll set up a date for you guys.” The hostility on Raquel’s face faltered, smoothing into a cruel, satisfied smirk. She snatched the items from my hands. “At least you know your place. Remember, a boring little nerd like you doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as him. Stay out of his sight.” She shoved her shoulder hard into mine as she walked past. My cheek burned with a fiery ache. If being a minor was the umbrella that protected monsters like her from the consequences of their actions… then I would gladly use their own dark, twisted methods to carve out my revenge. … When the morning Literature and Composition exam ended, the hallways were choked with exhausted students. “Oh my god, what do we do? That essay prompt was insane. The reading comprehension made no sense,” someone whined. “I know, right? The multiple choice felt like every single answer was correct. I’m dreading Math this afternoon.” Amidst the chorus of despair, a soft, musical laugh rose from the center of the crowd. “It wasn’t that bad, guys,” the girl said, her voice a soothing balm of false modesty. “I thought it was actually pretty straightforward.” I looked up and met her eyes. Harper had been the school’s most famous charity case until I stepped in. Meeting me had completely altered the trajectory of her life. My gaze dropped to the Cartier Love bracelet gleaming on her wrist. It was the birthday present I had received last month, worth over twenty thousand dollars. It had mysteriously vanished from my vanity a few weeks ago. Sensing my stare, Harper smoothly slipped her hand back into the cuff of her sweater. “Harper is practically a genius,” a girl next to her sighed enviously. “Of course a test like that was easy for you.” I almost laughed out loud. Straightforward? Was it straightforward because Raquel had spent the entire exam tossing her an eraser with the multiple-choice answers written on it? Perhaps stung by the quiet disdain in my eyes, Harper’s fingers curled into fists. She stared me down, raising her voice so it echoed down the hall. “I’m securing the Valedictorian spot this year. I’m going to make everyone who ever looked down on me open their eyes and realize they have to kneel just to look at me!” After the morning session, I stopped by a local boutique and bought a cheap braided bracelet that perfectly mirrored the one Miles had given me. To save time, I ducked into a cramped, greasy diner across the street from campus. I was eating a cheap bowl of soup, my eyes glued to a calculus prep book, when a shadow fell over my table. “Wow, Blair. You really are just trash. It’s the biggest week of our lives and you’re eating at a dump like this.” I looked up. Harper and her entourage were standing over me. The girl who had spoken was sneering, her eyes raking over the peeling linoleum and sticky tables. “The bacteria in here is probably enough to kill a person. Then again, if you die, your family would probably be thrilled to sue this place for a payout.” Because my family had once dealt with a horrific extortion attempt after an uncle flaunted his wealth, I had been strictly forbidden from showing off our money. Aside from Harper, everyone at school genuinely believed I was poor. At this age, where vanity and cruelty were worn like badges of honor, they spoke to me with zero restraint. I let out a low, cold laugh and looked directly at the ringleader. “Harper. How do you feel about what your friend just said?” Her eyes darted away for a fraction of a second before a sickeningly sweet smile stretched across her face. “We’re all classmates, Blair. Don’t be so sensitive.” She patted the table. “Anyway, keep studying. Look over your mistakes. We’re going to head next door for lunch.” Next door was a Michelin-starred bistro where lunch ran about five hundred dollars a head. Harper really had no shame. I didn’t have the energy to argue with ghosts. I put my head back down, maximizing every second to review my formulas. When the afternoon Math exam finished, the hallways erupted into the exact wailing I expected. One boy literally punched a locker, his knuckles turning red. “What the actual hell! Did the state board write that test just to drive us to suicide?!” Harper was once again flanked by a crying, panicked crowd, all lamenting their mental breakdowns during the multiple-choice section. “Oh, guys, it’s okay. It’s just math,” Harper said, the triumphant gleam in her eyes impossible to hide. “Tell you what. I’ll treat you all to an amazing dinner tonight. To make up for the trauma.” “Harper, you’re the best! Ugh, hopefully a good meal will help me bounce back tomorrow!” “You are so generous! Honestly, if I couldn’t do it, I’m sure my competitors couldn’t either!” As Harper led her entourage down the hall like a conquering queen, I hung back. I watched Raquel step out of the girls’ restroom. She was coughing around a vape pen, awkwardly adjusting the braided bracelet on her wrist. Her eyes were glazed with a bizarre, feverish joy. I almost had to hand it to Raquel. Even when she had no idea what she was doing, she had managed to fill out her entire scantron, giving Harper the illusion of a perfect cheat sheet. Someone walking by asked, “Hey Raquel, you filled out every bubble today. Think you pulled off a miracle?” Raquel didn’t even look up, her speech slightly slurred. “Whatever. I just bubbled random crap. Realized at the end I messed up the numbering on the free response anyway. Let’s see how much partial credit they give me.” Standing in the shadows, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. That night, the classroom was mostly empty. I finally had a moment of quiet to study. I was just finishing my review of my mistake log, preparing to tackle a few high-level practice problems, when the doors banged open and the crowd surged back in. “Harper is so rich! She ordered literally every signature dish on the menu. I am so stuffed!” “I never thought I’d get to eat a three-hundred-dollar slice of cake. I’m going to brag about this forever!” They knew Harper hated me. Seeing me sitting quietly, studying, was an invitation. One of them stormed over and snatched the prep book right out from under my pen. “Look at Blair, working so hard. Too bad no matter how much you kill yourself studying, our Harper will always score higher than you.” “Harper is a natural genius. Not like this dumb pig who just memorizes textbooks. Harper could sleep through the year and still get into Harvard.” They started tossing my prep book back and forth like a football. One of them deliberately dropped it and stepped on it, leaving a dirty footprint across the cover. “Harper. Call off your dogs.” I set my pen down on the desk with a sharp clack. My voice dropped an octave, cutting through the noise. “If you keep this up, I’m going home right now. I won’t show up for the exams tomorrow, and none of you will have anyone left to push around.” The room erupted into laughter. They slammed their hands on the desks. “Then don’t show up! Who cares?” “Please, drop out! One less person means my class rank goes up. Go home, loser!” But Harper’s smile vanished. Her face went rigid. If I didn’t test, who was she going to copy from? She immediately stepped forward, her voice sharp. “Enough! Stop messing around. It’s a good thing Blair works so hard. You have to let the students who don’t have natural talent try their best.” She glared at her followers. “I’m actually getting mad. Whoever bothers Blair while she’s studying is uninvited from the post-exam victory party.” It worked like magic. Someone even wiped the footprint off my book and slammed it back onto my desk with an eye roll. Harper then pulled out a brand-new, expensive set of final mock exams. She slid them onto my desk, an unspoken command. I smiled coldly, accepting the gift. Thanks to her warning, the rest of exam week went perfectly smoothly. No one dared to breathe in my direction. When the final bell rang on the last day, I capped my pen. A tidal wave of cheers and screams erupted from the halls, shaking the very walls of the school. The sky outside was burning with a brilliant, fiery sunset. The school gates were mobbed with local news reporters and parents clutching massive bouquets. I walked out slowly. Through the crowd, I spotted Tristan. He was handing a massive arrangement of imported roses to Harper. “Congratulations on surviving, Harper,” he said, his voice carrying. “Hidden in the flowers is that necklace from the auction you loved. I had it flown in from overseas just for you.” He smiled, a perfect picture of devotion. “I hope this is the start of an incredible summer.” Gasps rippled through the crowd. Phones were whipped out to record the fairy-tale moment. Even the local reporters swarmed in, cameras flashing. Through the sea of people, both of them made eye contact with me. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t try to hide. Of course they didn’t. As far as they were concerned, my usefulness had been entirely drained. All they had to do now was wait seven days for my brain to rot and my body to die. I turned away, only to catch sight of Miles standing near the edge of the crowd. He looked sullen, a dark cloud hanging over him. He was like a completely different person. He looked right through me, pretending I didn’t exist. “Move. You’re in my way,” he snarled, shoving past me to push his way toward Harper’s side. Standing there beneath the heavy shade of the oak trees, I felt like the entire world had abandoned me. And yet, I felt like I held the entire world in the palm of my hand. Even if I was entirely isolated, as long as my mind belonged to me, I could walk through fire alone and feel like an army. Before, I had been too focused on my future to deal with them. But now? Now it was my turn to systematically dismantle them. The moment I got in the car, I made the calls. I canceled their supplementary Black Cards. I called the estate manager and had the security codes to the mansion changed, revoking all guest access. “From today on, Tristan is no longer my brother. He is an adopted ward who has continuously crossed the line, and his time under our roof is over,” I ordered coldly over the phone. “Seize every asset currently in his name. Freeze his accounts. If anyone on staff so much as opens a door for him, they’re fired.” That evening, I ate a quiet meal prepared by our private French chef. I drew a bath with rose petals, soaking until the tension melted from my muscles, and then sank into my sprawling bed. When I finally checked my phone, my feed was choked with Harper’s posts. A drone light show. A private yacht party. Photos of absurdly expensive, rare gifts casually tossed on velvet cushions. Her caption read: [Graduation & Adulthood gifts. A magical night.] It really was quite the production. The class group chat was losing its collective mind: [Omg Harper, you kept saying you weren’t a billionaire heiress! This is literally out of a movie.] [I told you guys Harper was different. She’s old money, she just stays humble.] [So jealous. Beautiful, a genius, AND loaded. Did God even give you a flaw?] [Please don’t forget us little people, Harper! Let me work for you someday!] And of course, they couldn’t praise her without dragging me down. [Where is Blair? Didn’t she always hate Harper for taking first place? Why so quiet now?] [Lmao, she probably bombed the exams and is too ashamed to show her face. People who just grind textbooks can never beat real talent.] [That broke loser is probably scrubbing dishes at some diner right now to pay for community college tuition.] I scrolled past the malice without a flicker of emotion. My attention was solely focused on a text message I had received half an hour ago from the manager of the Four Seasons. [Miss Prescott, the young master arrived with a young lady and requested the Presidential Suite along with our highest-tier service package. However, his cards are declining. He asked us to put it on your tab. Do you authorize this?] I almost threw up. You want to sleep with her, and you want me to pay for the room? The sheer audacity. I held down the microphone button and replied. “What young master? There is only one heir to the Prescott family, and that is me. If this stranger wants to play pretend billionaire but doesn’t have the cash, tell him to take out a payday loan.”

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Seven years of marriage, and my husband finally agreed to spend the holidays with my parents. But for the seventh year in a row, the car pulled up in front of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment complex. “I took a wrong turn,” Miles said, his eyes never leaving his phone. “Since we’re already here, we might as well grab lunch with them.” Bridget’s mother was already at the door, beaming. She reached out and grasped Miles’s wrist with practiced familiarity. “My favorite son-in-law! You’re finally here.” When she saw our son, her smile widened. “Max, honey, did you miss your Grandma?” Max chirped a greeting and ran into her arms. I was left standing in the foyer, still clutching the gift baskets I’d bought for my own mother. This was the seventh time he had “accidentally” taken a wrong turn. Looking at the three of them, a cold realization washed over me. Maybe it was time I took a different road, too. … “Oh, Diana. You’re here as well?” Mrs. Gable’s eyes flickered with a hint of annoyance before she masked it with a polite, hollow smile. “You’re getting older, dear. Why are you still following your brother around every year?” I clenched my fists so hard my nails bit into my palms. It was a sick joke, really. I had been married to Miles for seven years, and every holiday season, he brought me here. He told everyone I was his sister. In front of Bridget’s mother, I was the tag-along sibling. Even my own son, Max, was coached to call me “Aunt Diana” whenever we were in this house. “Ma, don’t worry about her,” Miles said with a light chuckle, walking inside like he owned the place. “Where’s Bridget?” Right on cue, Bridget stepped out of the bedroom. She glided over and naturally looped her arm through Miles’s. “Hey, baby.” Max saw her and immediately lunged, hugging her knees. “Mommy! I missed you!” Miles looked down at them, a smile tugging at his lips. His eyes held a warmth, a gentle tenderness, that I had never once seen directed at me. My chest tightened, the air leaving my lungs as if someone were squeezing the life out of me. As Mrs. Gable headed into the kitchen, I caught Miles’s sleeve and lowered my voice. “You said… you said we were going to my parents’ place this year.” He didn’t even look at me. “I’m just used to the drive. It was a mistake.” Max, playing with blocks on the rug, piped up in his sweet, high-pitched voice. “Mommy is here. I like it here. I don’t want to go to your house.” I froze. The words were soft, innocent, but they twisted in my gut like a serrated blade. Bridget leaned in, her face a mask of performative guilt. “Diana, I’m so sorry. Don’t listen to him, he’s just a kid.” She sighed, her eyes welling with tears. “I feel terrible… if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have to deal with all this.” Miles’s face hardened instantly. He pulled her against his shoulder. “How is any of this your fault?” He gently wiped a stray tear from her cheek before turning to me, his brow furrowed in a scowl. “Diana, don’t start drama. Not today.” I looked away, my gaze landing on a framed photo on the side table. It was the three of them—Miles, Bridget, and Max—grinning at a park. Miles and I didn’t have a single photo together. He always said he hated being in pictures. The truth was, he just hated being in them with me. I had loved Miles for fifteen years. When he and Bridget broke up years ago over a misunderstanding, he married me in a fit of spite and familial pressure. I was ecstatic, foolishly thinking I could win him over. But on our wedding night, he had looked at me with chilling indifference and said, “I don’t love you. I never will.” I didn’t believe him. I stayed. I tried. The day Max was born, Miles stood by the hospital bed for two minutes. “Good job,” he’d said. It was the kindest thing he’d ever told me. I thought it was a start. I thought we were finally becoming a family. Then Bridget came back. She had thrown herself into his arms, sobbing about her mother’s terminal illness—a diagnosis that seemed to conveniently linger for years without change. “Miles, please,” she’d begged. “My mom’s last wish is to see us together. Can you just… play along for her sake?” He had agreed without a second thought. And for years, he used the “wrong turn” excuse to trap me in this charade. The sounds of laughter and the sizzle of garlic drifted from the kitchen. Miles and Bridget were helping Mrs. Gable, and Max was perched on a stool, giggling as Mrs. Gable snuck him a piece of bacon. They looked like a perfect family. And I was the ghost haunting the hallway. The weight in my chest became unbearable. When Miles came out to grab some silverware, I blocked his path. “I’m leaving.” He stopped, his eyebrows twitching upward. “Lunch isn’t even ready. Where are you going?” “I can’t stay here, Miles.” “Don’t be ridiculous. If you leave now, it’ll look like Mrs. Gable was a bad hostess. Just sit down.” He tried to brush past me. I grabbed his arm. “I mean it. I’m going home.” He looked down at my hand on his sleeve, his expression darkening. “What is wrong with you lately? You’ve been doing this for years. Stop being so sensitive. We’ll leave after we eat.” I didn’t let go. “I want to leave now.” The air between us turned icy. Miles let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Fine. Go. See how far you get.” I was stunned that he actually gave in, but I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. I turned and walked out the door. The winter air hit me like a physical blow, but I welcomed it. I pulled out my phone and opened a rideshare app. The screen spun for a second before a notification popped up: [Transaction Declined: Insufficient Funds] My blood ran cold. I turned around. Miles was standing on the porch, leaning against the railing, watching me with a calm, predatory stillness. He had done it on purpose. He let me walk out because he knew I had nowhere to go. He had frozen my cards. “Done throwing your tantrum?” he asked, his voice flat. “Get back inside. Food’s getting cold.” I felt a wave of humiliation so intense I thought I might be sick. “Daddy!” Max ran out the door, followed by Bridget. He looked at me with a scowl. “Grandma says come eat!” Bridget hovered behind them, her eyes darting between Miles and me. “Is everything okay? Diana, did I do something to upset you? I’m so, so sorry… please don’t be mad…” Seeing Bridget’s “distress,” Max stepped in front of her, glaring at me. “You’re a mean lady! Stop being mean to my Mommy!” I felt my heart shatter into a million jagged pieces. This was the child I had carried for nine months. Miles hadn’t wanted a baby. He only gave in because his parents were relentless. I had spent my pregnancy in and out of the ER with severe morning sickness, often lying on a hospital cot at 3:00 AM completely alone. Miles never showed up. I didn’t mind then. I thought the baby would be my anchor. I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom, giving up my financial independence to raise him. And now, my son looked at me like I was a villain. “Let’s go. Inside. Now,” Miles commanded. “No,” I said, my voice trembling but firm. “I’m going home, Miles.” The silence that followed was heavy. Miles stared at me for a long time, his gaze turning into something sharp and cruel. “Fine. Walk, then.” He turned, taking Bridget’s hand and leading Max back into the warm house. The door clicked shut, but I could still hear Bridget’s voice through the wood. “Miles, is she going to be okay out there?” “She’s fine. She just needs to cool her head.” “Yeah, Mommy, don’t worry about that mean lady!” The first snowflake drifted down, landing on my hand. My house was thirty miles away. He was telling me to walk thirty miles in a blizzard. I looked down, my vision blurring. A hot tear traced a searing line down my frozen cheek. My phone buzzed. It was my mother. “Diana? Honey, where are you? We’ve been waiting.” I bit my lip, trying to swallow the sob rising in my throat. “I’m sorry, Mom. Miles… he took a wrong turn. We’re not going to make it today.” There was a long silence on the other end. Then, a forced, cheerful sigh. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. We’ll see you after the holidays. Just… take care of yourself, okay? Don’t let yourself get pushed around.” I hung up, unable to speak. I crumpled onto the snowy curb, shivering. This neighborhood was in the far suburbs. On the day after Christmas, everything was closed. The streets were deserted. There was nowhere to hide from the cold. I don’t know how much time passed before a pair of boots appeared in my peripheral vision. Miles sighed and scooped me up into his arms. His touch was unexpectedly gentle. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?” he muttered. “You’re freezing.” I didn’t answer. I just let the tears fall silently as he carried me to the car and cranked the heat. As the warmth rushed over me, my frozen fingers began to throb with pain. He glanced at me. “Max wants to spend the night with Bridget. I’ll pick him up tomorrow. He doesn’t like being around you when you’re like this, Diana. You really should reflect on why your own son prefers someone else.” I let out a hollow laugh. The reason was simple: I was the one who made him do his homework and eat his vegetables. Bridget was the one who gave him candy and told him stories about how “Aunt Diana” was a bitter woman. I had nothing to reflect on. Miles’s tone softened. “I only come here because Bridget’s mom is sick. It doesn’t mean anything else. Don’t be mad, okay?” He reached into his pocket and tossed a small velvet box into my lap. “I bought you that necklace you liked. Consider it an apology. Now stop the act.” I opened the box. Inside was a diamond pendant I’d seen in a magazine once. A limited-edition piece. I stared at his profile. He couldn’t remember our anniversary, but he remembered a random page I’d flipped past. He didn’t love me, but he knew exactly how to keep me on the hook. “Better?” He reached over and ruffled my hair. “You’re so easy to please.” I opened my mouth to speak, but his phone rang. He answered it immediately. Bridget’s frantic sobbing filled the car. “Miles… I tripped on the stairs… my ankle, it hurts so bad… can you come back? Please?” Miles’s face transformed. Without a word of explanation to me, he slammed the car into reverse and sped back to the apartment. “Stay here,” he said as he jumped out. “She’s fragile. She needs me.” I watched through the window as he ran to the door and gathered Bridget into his arms. She buried her face in his chest. Max stood beside them, patting Bridget’s arm, mimicking his father’s protective stance. I couldn’t hear them, but I didn’t need to. They were a unit. A family. And I was an intruder. My fingers hovered over the phone screen. I opened a draft and typed seven words: Have the divorce papers ready by Monday. Miles didn’t get home until after midnight. I was waiting in the living room, ready to end it, but the door opened and Bridget walked in, leaning on his arm, with Max trailing behind. “Her ankle is bad,” Miles said defensively. “She’s staying here for a few days so I can look after her.” Max cheered. “Mommy! Can you stay forever?” He looked at me with a sneer. “I don’t like her! I want you to be my real mommy!” Miles chuckled softly. Then, noticing my expression, he frowned. “It’s just for a few days. Don’t be petty. Besides, I pay the mortgage. I decide who stays here.” I felt a strange, numbing calm settle over me. The pain had reached a peak and simply snapped. “Fine,” I said. “She can stay.” “What?” Miles blinked, surprised by my lack of resistance. “I said fine. In fact, why don’t the three of you take the master bedroom? I’ll move into the guest room.” Miles’s face went pale. “What the hell are you talking about?” Bridget started to cry again, her voice trembling. “Diana… please don’t be like that… if I’m not welcome, I’ll go… I’ll just crawl back to my place…” Max hugged her waist, screaming at me. “Mommy stays here! You mean lady! You’re just mean!” I stood up and grabbed a blanket from the closet. “I’m serious. Stay as long as you want. Like you said, Miles—it’s your house.” I walked into the guest room and locked the door, muffling the sound of Max’s cheers and Bridget’s faux-protests. A few minutes later, Miles knocked. “Diana? Open up. What’s wrong with you?” I opened the door and smiled at him. It was the most honest smile I’d given him in years. “Nothing is wrong. I’m great.” “You’re obviously pissed. Bridget is just a guest. Don’t make this weird.” I nodded. “I’m not making it weird. I truly don’t care.” He searched my face, his eyes narrowing. After a moment, he sighed. “Look, I know you’re still upset about the holiday thing. How about this: I’ll take you to your parents’ tomorrow. Just the two of us. Okay?” I stared at him. For seven years, my mother had called him every holiday, and for seven years, he was “too busy.” Now, he was offering it like a scrap of meat to a dog. “No thanks,” I said. “Stay here with Bridget.” He looked frustrated. “I said I’d go. I’m trying here, Diana.” “I have a gift for you tomorrow instead,” I said softly. “A gift? For what?” “You’ll see. I think you’re really going to like it.” He looked relieved. He stepped forward and tried to pull me into a hug. “There she is. Stop being a brat. Go to sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.” I didn’t hug him back. The next morning, I woke up to an empty house. A text from Miles was waiting on my phone: [Bridget’s ankle was acting up, took her to the clinic. Wait for me, I’ll be back in an hour and then we can go to your mom’s. Stay put.] I didn’t reply. I had spent fifteen years waiting for him. I was done. I packed my suitcase, walked into the kitchen, and placed the envelope on the marble island. The “gift” he had wanted for years: his freedom. I took one last look at the house that never felt like a home, and I walked out. I was leaving the man I’d loved for half my life, and I was never coming back.

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My husband gave me two snakes as pets. The eerie part? Whenever they realize I’m watching, they start mating—ferociously, shamelessly. It’s enough to make me turn away in a flush of heat. Then, out of nowhere, the Feed flickers into my vision like a digital hallucination. [Wow, the female lead is a genius. Getting the System to turn them into snakes so they can flaunt their “love” right under the wife’s nose? Iconic.] [LOL, they’re going at it like it’s a honeymoon, and the poor side-character wife is just standing there playing house. She has no idea he’s going to use that snake tail to strangle her tonight.] [Once she’s out of the picture, he inherits her millions and marries the “real” lead. A classic move.] A chill raced down my spine. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled out my phone and dialed the number of a local game processor—a man known for his lack of mercy toward reptiles. “Hey, Silas? I’ve got two fat ones for you. I hear the meat is great for a winter stew.” 1 I was jolted awake by a wet, rhythmic slithering sound—the sound of scales grinding against scales. I opened my eyes to find two six-foot, iridescent “spicy noodles” dangling from my crystal chandelier. They were entwined in a tight, DNA-like spiral, their heads swaying with a sickening sort of ecstasy, tongues flicking against one another. Their eyes looked… drunken. Almost human. Almost as if they were smiling. A few drops of murky, white fluid dripped from their tails, landing right on the silk of my nightgown. Again. This was the eighteenth time they’d pulled this stunt in my bedroom. I sat up, frustrated, and called my husband. No answer. I left a voice memo, my voice tight with irritation. “Mark, where did you even find these things? They’re shameless. They’re doing it in my room every single day.” “Seriously, I don’t think they’re even snakes. They don’t act like them. They don’t even care about the cold.” Suddenly, the air in front of me distorted. Neon text bled into my retinas. [Hahaha… Congrats, you guessed it! They aren’t snakes, honey. That’s your husband and your best friend. Surprise!] [They’re hitting the high notes while you’re playing pet-owner. They aren’t your pets—they’re your executioners!] [My girl Bridget is a mastermind. Before she cut ties with the System, she used her last points to get two transformation pills. Pure brilliance!] [They’re literally doing it on the wife’s clothes for the thrill of it, then making her “clean” them afterward. It’s so twisted, I love it!] [Bridget is already pregnant. It’s time to get rid of the wife. Can’t have a baby bump showing in the wedding dress, right?] [Don’t worry, the kill happens tonight. Mark strangles her, shifts back to human form, inherits the estate, and takes Bridget home. Happily ever after!] The words left me paralyzed with a bone-deep cold. I looked up at the female snake. She was staring at me with a look of triumphant malice, and for a split second, I saw the shadow of Bridget—my “soul sister,” my bridesmaid—in those slit pupils. According to the Feed, Bridget was the “Protagonist” of this world. She was supposed to be building some grand empire with a supernatural System, but she’d decided she wanted Mark instead. She wanted my life. The System had abandoned her, but not before giving her the means to replace me. The ice in my veins turned to fire. I swear I could hear Bridget’s voice whispering in my mind: “Look at her, Mark. Look at how stupid she is, just watching us. It’s so hot.” Then, the male snake’s tail tightened around her, and I heard Mark’s low, familiar rumble: “Let her watch. That’s the point. I’m going to fill you with so many legacies while she watches her world burn.” I bit my lip until it bled, using the pain to anchor myself. I picked up the phone again. “Silas? You said these two were big enough for a feast? They’re yours. Come get them.” 2 Silas was silent for a long beat. Everyone in our gated community knew we were rivals. I was the “animal lover” who rescued strays; he was the man who ate anything that crawled, often tormenting the creature before he butchered it. When Mark first brought the snakes home, Silas had smelled them from across the street. He’d offered me two thousand bucks on the spot. I’d told him to go to hell. “Cassidy?” Silas finally rasped. “What kind of game are you playing? Is this a trap?” “You want them or not? If you don’t show up in ten minutes, I’m calling the guy in the next county over.” “Wait, wait! Don’t you dare give those beauties to anyone else. I’m coming. Keep them locked up. I’m on my way!” The moment I hung up, the snakes tumbled from the chandelier. They began to slither across the bed in a frantic, panicked mess. Bridget’s shrill voice echoed in the room: “Is she crazy? Why is she selling us?!” Mark’s voice was more hesitant, analytical: “Relax. We know how much she loves animals. She’s spent two months nursing us like babies. That doesn’t just change.” “Then what is she doing?!” “It’s a play. She hates Silas. She’s probably setting him up. She’s told me a dozen times she wanted to take that man down.” “Right. She told me the same thing.” Bridget seemed to exhale. Her tail brushed against him again. They started up again, right in front of me. The female snake arched her neck like a concubine seeking favor in an old period drama. “Baby, the antidote from the System arrives today. We need to hurry up and finish her off before we shift back, right?” Mark’s yellow eyes drifted toward me. His black tongue flicked out, tasting the air near my face. He didn’t speak. Bridget hissed at him. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Are you getting soft? You still love her, don’t you? I knew it! You’re just using me!” The female snake slithered over to my dresser, her coils wrapping around a silver-framed document. She looked back at Mark, her eyes welling with a strange, reptilian moisture. “You kept your ‘anniversary’ souvenir. You can’t bring yourself to kill her!” Before she could finish, Mark’s tail whipped out like a thunderbolt, shattering the glass. The shards pierced the paper. It felt like they were piercing my heart, too. Everyone knew the story. Mark was the high school dropout who cleaned up his act to impress me. He studied until his eyes bled just to get into the same university. We’d kept our acceptance letters framed together for years—a symbol of his “devotion.” Now, his tail slammed into my letter with a pure, unadulterated venom. His voice was a ghostly growl: “She’s terrified of water. I’m going to coil around her throat with this body she loves so much, and I’m going to hold her under until the light leaves her eyes.” I stood there, stunned by the sheer depth of his cold-bloodedness. I had been nothing but a savior to him. When his business failed, I bankrolled his lifestyle. When he was depressed, I gave him space and luxury. I had treated him better than I treated myself. Why did he hate me so much? I looked at the Feed. [I knew he hated her! The more she helped him, the more he loathed her. No ‘Alpha’ male can handle his wife being the breadwinner and the brains.] [That acceptance letter? It’s a reminder that she’s better than him. Every cent of her money he spends feels like a slap to his ego. Love died a long time ago; only resentment remains.] [Hahaha, she deserves it. What’s the point of having money if you don’t know how to act like a submissive wife? Bridget is smarter—she knows how to stroke a man’s ego to get what she wants.] I let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. My kindness was his cage. My generosity was his insult. I walked straight toward the snakes. They thought I was going to stroke them, to apologize. They were motionless as I grabbed them and shoved them into a heavy burlap sack. But as I went to pull the drawstring, Mark’s head shot out. He moved with lightning speed, coiling his cold, muscular body around my neck. 3 The icy pressure tightened around my throat. His head rose, his eyes fixed on mine, his tongue lashing against the tip of my nose. His tail tightened around my wrist like a handcuff. I was ready to fight, ready for everything to end right here. But then, his eyes shifted. “Mark, what are you waiting for? Do it!” Bridget screamed from inside the bag. Mark didn’t tighten his grip. Instead, he slid his coils down to my abdomen, hovering there as if protecting a kill. “She’s pregnant.” The words hit me like a physical blow. I looked down at my flat stomach. Impossible. Mark had been “traveling” for months. We hadn’t been together in ages. Bridget hissed, her voice dripping with fury. “I knew it! She’s been playing the loyal wife while sleeping around with some loser!” “The child is mine.” Shock after shock. My mind raced back to a dream I’d had two months ago. A dream of a massive serpent coiling around me in the dark, the weight of it crushing the breath from my lungs. I’d woken up drenched in sweat. It wasn’t a dream. It was him. “Oh, I see.” Bridget’s voice turned small, wounded. “If she’s carrying your baby, I’ll just go. I know you won’t hurt your own blood. I’ll leave you three to your happy family. Everything we had was just a dream.” Mark immediately hooked his tail around the bag to comfort her. “Don’t do that. When did I say I’d choose her? I only want children from you. Her baby? It’s just an ant I haven’t stepped on yet.” He looked back at me, his eyes dead. “We’ll send them both to the afterlife together. They can keep each other company on the long walk down.” I clenched my fists. At that moment, the doorbell rang. Silas’s rough voice boomed through the door: “Cassidy! Open up! I’m here for my meat!” 4 The two snakes froze. With a coordinated movement, they slithered out of the bag and back up to the high rafters of the living room, coiling out of reach. I opened the door and let Silas in. “They’re inside,” I said, my voice hollow. “Catch them yourself. Do whatever you want with them. I don’t want to know.” I turned and walked toward the kitchen, closing the door behind me. The Feed went into a frenzy. [Wait, is she really leaving? Is she actually selling the protagonists? No way.] [Mark and Bridget are panicking. They were going to kill her the second Silas left, but if she leaves the room, they can’t get to her!] [Oh no! Silas has a machete!] [Wait! The antidote just arrived! Bridget, quick—eat it!] [If they turn human now, Silas can’t touch them!] [Eat it! There are only two pills. If you miss this window, you stay snakes forever!] Antidote? My nerves caught fire. If they shifted back now, I was a dead woman. I spun around and threw the door open.

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My mother’s body wasn’t even cold when I put my billionaire father’s “One Who Got Away” up for sale on the internet. [For just $888, unlock the complete dossier on Harrison Blackwood’s first love. The look, the scent, the secrets. Perfect the imitation, and you might just become the next Mrs. Blackwood.] In my previous life, shortly after my mother passed, my father held my hands and promised, “You’re my only child, Remi. Everything I’ve built—the estates, the company, the legacy—it’s all yours.” But his “Golden Girl” from the past, Isabella Rossi, didn’t stay a memory for long. She showed up on our doorstep, playing the part of the grieving soulmate, and they picked up exactly where they’d left off twenty years ago. Isabella didn’t just replace my mother; she systematically dismantled my life. She tormented me behind closed doors while whispering poison into my father’s ear. Eventually, she gave him the one thing he always wanted—a son. I was stripped of my inheritance, cast out of the Blackwood dynasty, and left to starve to death in the rain, collapsed over my mother’s neglected grave. Now that I’ve been sent back, I will protect my place as the sole heir of this empire by any means necessary. The “Isabella Starter Pack” went viral instantly. I sold over 9,999 copies. Suddenly, New York was crawling with Isabella look-alikes. Women were getting filler, reshaping their jawlines, and adopting that specific “innocent-yet-haughty” Italian-American lilt just to catch my father’s eye. It turned his life into a chaotic hall of mirrors. Later, when the real Isabella Rossi finally made her grand return, my father didn’t run to her with open arms. Instead, he shoved me forward. “Another plastic clone, Remi. Get rid of her. I’m exhausted.” 1 When I saw the real Isabella Rossi standing there, that familiar surge of hatred boiled in my veins. Without a second thought, I stepped forward and delivered a stinging slap across her face. “Don’t think a trip to a surgeon and a vintage dress is going to get you into this house,” I spat. “Get lost.” Isabella clutched her cheek, her eyes wide with genuine shock. “Are you insane? How dare you touch me! I’m the woman your father has spent half his life dreaming about!” I crossed my arms and let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “That’s what the last three hundred girls said. You need a new script, honey. This one is vintage, and not in a good way.” Isabella looked utterly bewildered. She didn’t understand how she had been categorized as a ‘fake.’ Desperate, she screamed past me toward the foyer. “Harrison! Harrison, look at me! It’s really me! It’s Isabella!” But my father was leaning against the grand piano, rubbing his temples. He’d heard this exact performance ten times this week already. He didn’t even bother to look up. I suppressed a smile. So what if the real Isabella was finally here? Ever since I’d turned her identity into a commodity, the world was saturated with her likeness. Social climbers and gold-diggers had spent thousands to mimic her personality and study her old social media footprints. They bought my father’s schedule on the black market, staging “chance encounters” at his favorite bistros. At first, my father was mesmerized by these ghosts. He indulged them, showered them with Cartier bracelets and six-figure wire transfers, chasing the emotional high of his youth. But as the Isabella clones multiplied like weeds, he started to get suspicious. “Why are there so many of them, Remi? It’s… it’s eerie. They all look like her. They even smell like that specific perfume she used to wear.” That was when I stepped in, handing him a meticulously curated folder. “You’re right to be suspicious, Dad. These women are hunting you. They knew Mom was gone and figured the best way to get to your bank account was to wear the face of your first love. It’s a calculated play for the Blackwood fortune.” Harrison was livid. He felt violated, his sacred memory turned into a cheap trend. He threw them all out. The constant influx of “Isabellas” had turned his nostalgia into a physiological aversion. Now, whenever a woman with dark curls and doe eyes appeared, my father would delegate the dirty work to me. “Handle it, Remi. Consider it training. You’re going to run this empire one day; you can’t let these vultures win.” So, just like the dozens of times before, I blocked Isabella’s path. “I’ve seen your type all month. You’re the 99th ‘Isabella’ I’ve had to kick off the property this week.” My father waved a hand dismissively from the hallway. “Remi, don’t waste your breath. Just release the dogs.” “You got it, Dad!” I signaled the security detail, and within seconds, three massive Dobermans were circling Isabella. As the dogs growled, ready to spring, she frantically fumbled with her Chanel clutch and pulled out a stack of documents. “Harrison, look! My passport, my birth certificate! Look at the dates! I’m the real Isabella Rossi!” My father finally looked up, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her. 2 Isabella’s face lit up with a flash of triumph. She waved the documents in the air like a flag of surrender. “I have everything to prove who I am. Just look at them!” When my father didn’t move, she tossed her hair back with that practiced, effortless grace. “Fakes can’t recreate the soul, Harrison. You used to say you could find me in a dark room just by the way I breathe. Look into my eyes. You know it’s me.” My heart hammered against my ribs. She was right—logic could only go so far. Eventually, the truth has a way of vibrating at a different frequency. I stayed calm. I snatched the documents out of her hand and dropped them into the gravel. “Dad, this is the thirty-eighth woman to bring ‘authentic’ forged documents. The black market for fake IDs is getting terrifyingly good. We should probably call the DA.” Because a few of the earlier “clones” had been particularly clever, my father didn’t even bother to check the papers. He stared at Isabella for a long moment, then sighed heavily. “Remi, modern surgery is a miracle. This one… she actually looks like the memory I had. It’s almost impressive.” Isabella’s voice turned into a shriek. “Harrison, are you senile? It’s me! What do I have to do to make you believe me?” Her screaming agitated the Dobermans. They lunged forward, barking furiously, forcing her to stumble back toward the gate. I turned to my father, playing the role of the concerned daughter. “Dad, remember the one from last Tuesday? You said the same thing about her. Honestly, I think the other girl’s nose was more natural.” Harrison gave a weary, cynical laugh. “I can’t tell anymore. I’ve seen this face so much lately I’m starting to get sick of it.” He cast a cold, final look at Isabella. “If you aren’t off my property in sixty seconds, I’m letting the dogs finish their job. I don’t care how much you spent on that face; it’s not worth a trip to the ER.” He turned away, patting my shoulder as we walked back into the mansion. “Thank God I have you, Remi. I’d be drowning in these lunatics without you. Go back to those quarterly reports. If you keep this up, the board won’t have any choice but to recognize you as my successor.” Isabella stood at the gate, trembling with rage. She hadn’t flown all the way from Italy to be treated like a cheap knock-off. In my last life, she had used her “First Love” status to waltz into our lives and marry my father within months. She’d started small—hiding my medications, putting tacks in my shoes, making me look like the “troubled daughter.” Then, once she was pregnant with his “true heir,” she turned him completely against me. This time, I was the one holding the cards. As the gate began to hiss shut, she turned and locked eyes with me. “Remi Blackwood,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “I know your father isn’t this cynical on his own. You’re behind this. You enjoy your little victory for now, but I’m going to make him realize who I am. And when I’m your stepmother, I’m going to make you wish you’d died with your mother.” 3 I watched her silhouette disappear down the driveway, a cold weight settling in my stomach. If Isabella was going to play the long game, she’d eventually find a way to break through. She had memories I couldn’t fake—private moments, inside jokes. Eventually, the “clones” wouldn’t be enough of a distraction. A fierce, protective fire ignited in my chest. I wouldn’t lose my home again. I wouldn’t let her take the Blackwood name. That night, I put my father up for sale, too. [For $666, unlock Harrison Blackwood’s ‘Type.’ His favorite wines, his secret turn-ons, the specific way he likes to be flattered, and his complete social calendar for the next three months.] Every gala, every charity auction, every private dinner—I leaked it all to the most ambitious social climbers in Manhattan. The “product” sold out within hours. Any woman with a designer dress and a dream was now equipped with a roadmap to my father’s heart. I wanted Isabella to have so much competition that she couldn’t even get in the room. A week later, Isabella showed up at a high-end charity gala for the Met, looking radiant in a custom gown. But when she walked in, she froze. My father was already the center of a literal swarm of beautiful women. “Harrison,” purred a twenty-two-year-old NYU grad with a face like an angel. “I’m the girl you sponsored through that scholarship program years ago. I’ve always wanted to thank you… properly.” Harrison lingered on her for a moment. Youth was a powerful drug. “Mr. Blackwood, you look like you’ve been working too hard,” cooed a sophisticated thirty-something divorcee with a voice like velvet. “A man in your position needs someone who understands the pressure.” “Your shoes are dusty, sir,” whispered a stunning model, kneeling down to “fix” his lace, giving him a deliberate view of her cleavage. Isabella was forty. No matter how much Botox she had, she couldn’t compete with the raw, hungry energy of these twenty-something predators who had my “Isabella Dossier” memorized. I spotted her standing by the bar, clutching her champagne glass so hard I thought it might shatter. I sauntered over. “Still trying, Isabella? You’re looking a little… tired. My dad is busy with his fan club.” She turned to me, her lip curling. “How can you stand this, Remi? Your mother hasn’t been gone for half a year, and you’re acting as a pimp for your father? These women are vultures. You should be helping him, not encouraging this circus!” I laughed, the sound sharp and cold. “I’m a big girl, Isabella. My dad is in his prime; why shouldn’t he enjoy himself? I’d much rather he have a hundred girlfriends than one manipulative stepmother.” As long as my father was distracted by a rotating cast of “fun” women, he wouldn’t settle down. He knew these girls were just for show, and they didn’t require an emotional commitment. Plus, I had been slipping long-term male contraceptives into his daily “longevity supplements.” There would be no surprise heirs this time. Isabella left the gala in tears. For months, the plan worked perfectly. My father was so preoccupied with his social life that he started handing over more and more corporate responsibility to me. I solidified my alliances with the board and secured the loyalty of our biggest clients. Isabella vanished from the scene. I thought I’d won. Then, one morning, my father walked into the breakfast nook looking uncharacteristically nervous. “The strangest thing happened, Remi. My old prep school mentor is organizing a small ‘legacy’ reunion tonight. He insisted I come for old time’s sake.” A cold chill ran down my spine. The reunion. In the first life, that was where Isabella had cornered him. She’d orchestrated the whole event, got him drunk, and ended up in his bed. That night was the beginning of my nightmare. 4 Isabella Rossi was nothing if not persistent. I leaned in and forced a sweet, concerned smile. “Oh, Dad, you know those reunions always end in too much scotch. Why don’t I come with you? I’ll be your designated driver and keep the boring stories at bay.” “My girl,” he beamed. “You really are my rock. It’ll be good to show you off—everyone needs to see who’s really running the show at Blackwood Inc. these days.” Before we left, I made sure he took his “supplements.” We walked into the private room at the University Club, and the trap was sprung immediately. His old professor steered him toward the center of the room, where a woman stood waiting. She was wearing a simple, modest white dress. Her hair was in a soft, nostalgic braid. She looked exactly like a Polaroid from 1998. “Harrison,” she whispered, her eyes glistening. “It’s been a lifetime.” My father stopped dead. The “clones” had been too much—too loud, too aggressive. But this? This was the quiet, understated ghost of his youth. The “supplement” I’d given him hadn’t kicked in yet, or perhaps the alcohol hit faster. “Isabella,” he breathed, pulling her into a fierce hug. “It’s really you. I knew it. Those other girls… they were just static. You’re the melody.” Isabella blinked innocently, leaning into his chest. “What girls, darling? I’ve been in Italy, just trying to find my way back to you.” The room erupted in cheers and “Awws.” Someone shouted, “You’re both single now—it’s fate! Pick up where you left off!” Isabella looked at me over my father’s shoulder, a venomous spark of victory in her eyes. “Oh, Harrison, your daughter is right there. We shouldn’t talk like this in front of her.” My father didn’t even look at me. “Remi is the most supportive daughter in the world. She just wants me to be happy. She won’t mind.” A few months ago, when he was cycling through models, I’d told him I just wanted him to find “true joy” to secure my position. Now, those words were coming back to haunt me. I clenched my fists until my nails drew blood in my palms. “A daughter just wants what’s best for her father,” I said, my voice tight but steady. Isabella smirked and spent the rest of the night glued to his side. They were drinking, whispering, and reliving a past that I was determined to bury. That night, Harrison took her to a hotel. I wasn’t too worried about a “miracle baby” yet because of the meds, but I needed to break their momentum. The next day, I called in the “Isabella Clones”—the top ten most ambitious ones. “Each of you gets $50,000 if you can occupy his time,” I told them. “I don’t care what you do. Don’t let him spend a single hour alone with Isabella Rossi.” The war began. One girl took him on a yacht party; another lured him to a weekend at a private vineyard. Isabella was being out-hustled by her own reflections. I thought I had managed to stall her again. But then, while my father was in a suite at the St. Regis with a lingerie model I’d “vetted,” Isabella burst through the door. I was waiting in the hallway. “Which little bitch is it this time?” Isabella snarled, trying to shove past me. “Move, Remi!” I looked at her like she was a stain on the carpet. “Watch your mouth. These ‘beautiful women’ are my father’s guests. They have a title. You? You’re just a ghost who doesn’t know she’s dead.” I expected her to crumble. Instead, she looked at me with a sickening, pitying smile. “Remi, you really should learn some respect for your future stepmother. Otherwise, you’re going to be crying very soon.” She pulled out her phone and dialed my father. I laughed. “He’s busy. He doesn’t want to see a woman who reminds him of his mortgage and his mid-life crisis. Get out before I call security.” I reached for the house phone to make good on my threat. But then, the suite door swung open. My father stepped out, pulling his silk robe shut. He looked at me with a coldness I hadn’t seen in this lifetime. “Remi, stop it. Isabella is going to be your stepmother. You will show her the respect she deserves.” I froze. Isabella caught my eye and winked.

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Tonight, the rain was a relentless gray curtain over the city. I was finishing my shift, driving my Lyft XL, when I picked up a high-end fare from The Sovereign—the kind of exclusive members-only club where the initiation fee alone could buy a house. The destination, however, was a jarring contrast: a crumbling block in the East End, a place the locals called “The Sink,” where the streetlights were mostly shadows and the air tasted like damp concrete. A man, dressed in a suit that cost more than my car, helped a woman into the backseat. She was breathtaking, draped in silk and smelling of expensive gin and expensive secrets, her head lolling in a drunken haze. I couldn’t help but wonder what two people who belonged in a penthouse were doing heading toward the slums. I kept my voice neutral as I pulled away from the curb. “Rough neighborhood for a night out, isn’t it?” The man sighed, a sound of affectionate exasperation. He adjusted her head onto his shoulder. “Tell me about it. My wife… she’s stubborn. Refuses to accept the family inheritance. Insists on ‘making it on her own’ in the trenches.” He looked down at her, his eyes softening with a proprietary kind of love. “But the charade is almost over. We’re having the official ceremony in two weeks. A real society wedding.” I managed a small, tight smile. “Congratulations. My wedding is in two weeks, too.” As we drove past the Montgomery Plazas—the two glass-and-steel monoliths that dominated the skyline—the man pointed a polished finger at them. “See those towers? Those belong to her family. The Montgomery Group.” I glanced up. Montgomery. It was the same last name as my fiancée, Kat. A coincidence, I told myself. A common enough name in this circle. “Baby, are we there yet?” the woman suddenly slurred. The sound of her voice hit me like a physical blow. My heart didn’t just skip a beat; it stopped. My grip tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “Almost there, honey,” the man whispered, brushing a stray hair from her face. Then, she lifted her head. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror. For a second, the world outside the car vanished. The rain, the city, the engine—everything went silent. Someone tell me. Someone explain how my fiancée—the woman who was supposed to be pulling twelve-hour shifts on a dusty construction site to save up for our future—was sitting in the back of my car, draped in the wealth of a dynasty. 1 Kat’s pupils contracted sharply. I saw the flash of pure, unadulterated panic in her eyes before she masked it. I slammed on the brakes. The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt, the car fishtailing slightly before jerking to a halt. “Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?” the man shouted, bracing himself against the front seat. “Do you have any idea who is sitting back here? Learn how to drive or find a new job!” I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. I was staring at the woman in the mirror. She looked so elegant, so refined—a stranger. There was no trace of the soot-stained, exhausted girl who used to come home to me, complaining about the physical toll of the site. “Who is she?” my voice came out raw, a jagged edge of itself. The man let out a sharp, condescending laugh. He leaned back, pulling Kat closer to his chest as if displaying a trophy. “The Montgomery Group. Ring a bell? My wife is the sole heir to the entire empire.” “Is that right?” I said, my gaze locked on Kat, refusing to let her look away. “Funny. I didn’t know that.” Kat finally found her voice. The panic was gone, replaced by a cold, brittle composure. She reached out and wrapped her arms around the man, leaning into him. “Sweetheart,” she murmured to him, her voice smooth as velvet. “We don’t need to explain ourselves to the help.” Then she looked at me. The warmth I had lived for over the last five years was gone. In its place was a sharp, clinical warning. “Just drive, Leo. Don’t ask questions that aren’t yours to ask.” My blood turned to ice. The help. This was the woman who, only this morning, had clung to me in our cramped kitchen, her eyes brimming with faux-guilt. “I’m so sorry you have to work so hard, Nate,” she’d whispered. “I swear, I’ll find a way to give us a better life. You won’t have to break your back forever.” I had a thousand questions screaming in my throat. I wanted to ask if this was a mistake. I wanted to ask if this man was delusional. But under her icy, indifferent stare, the words felt like broken glass in my mouth. I put the car back in gear and drove. The man, Tyler, didn’t stop talking. He was drunk on his own ego, eager to narrate his fairy-tale life to a captive audience. “You wouldn’t believe it, man,” Tyler chuckled, rubbing Kat’s shoulder. “When we got our marriage license last year, Kat handed out thousand-dollar bonuses to everyone in the clerk’s office. Just to hear them wish us a happy life. Cost her over fifty grand in five minutes.” He kissed her temple. “I love you, Kat. Why are you so good to me?” Kat flicked a glance toward the front, then patted his cheek. “Hush now.” I felt the color drain from my face. My stomach dropped into a hollow pit. Fifty-two thousand dollars. Exactly six months ago, I had needed forty-eight thousand for the surgery to save my pinky finger after an accident on a freelance gig. We didn’t have the money. I had to choose between the debt and the digit. I lost the finger. It turns out, that was just pocket change to her. A tip for strangers. During the days after the amputation, Kat had never left my side. She had cried as she watched the nurse change the bandages. “I’m so sorry, Nate. I’m so useless. I couldn’t even find the money for your surgery.” She had kissed my scarred hand, her eyes shining with what I thought was soul-deep sincerity. “From now on, I’ll be your hand. I’ll carry everything for you.” What was that, then? A performance? An exercise in Method acting? I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached, fighting the urge to drive the car off a bridge. Tyler wasn’t done. He gave a shy, boyish laugh. “And get this—she proposed to me in a cathedral in Italy. She said it was the only place holy enough to hold her love for me.” A dull ache throbbed in my chest. My dream wedding had always been a simple church ceremony. I’d mentioned it once, years ago. Kat had brushed it off, saying she didn’t believe in the performative nature of religion, that a church felt too cold, too restrictive. I guess it wasn’t the church she hated. It was the idea of being there with me. She’d already sworn her soul to another man before a cross. Two hours later, we reached the outskirts of The Hollows. “Finally,” Tyler groaned. “Kat, when are you coming home for real? I hate having to sneak around these projects just to see you.” Kat opened the door, stepping out with a grace that didn’t belong in the mud. “Not now, Tyler. Go on.” She turned back, flicked a hundred-dollar bill through the driver’s side window onto my lap, and walked away without a word. I stared at the bill. My fingers trembled as I picked it up. Then, my phone chimed. A text from Kat. Stay in the car. I watched them. I watched them walk into the building—into the apartment that I had spent three years paying for, the place we called our home. They walked in together, her arm draped intimately around his waist. Minutes ticked by like slow-turning knives. Eventually, Tyler emerged. A black town car was waiting for him at the curb. He got in and disappeared into the night. My phone buzzed again. Two words, cold and command-like: Come up. 2 When I walked into the apartment, Kat was sitting on our secondhand sofa. She didn’t look like a construction worker anymore. She looked like a queen surveying a peasant. She beckoned me with a flick of her wrist. “Sit down, Nate. We need to talk.” I walked over, but I didn’t sit. As I stood near her, I could smell it—the lingering scent of Tyler’s heavy cologne on her neck. It made my skin crawl. The fact that she wasn’t even trying to apologize, that she sat there with such casual indifference after being caught in a five-year lie, made a hot, jagged rage flare in my chest. I recoiled, stepping back as if she were something venomous. “You’ve been lying to me for five years, Kat. Five years of ‘struggling’ together, five years of me working double shifts so you could ‘rest.’ And all you have to say is ‘we need to talk’?” Her dark eyes, usually so soft, turned flat and hard. “And what do you want me to say?” She kicked off her heels and leaned back, crossing her legs. “Don’t overplay your hand, Nate Miller.” I felt the floor shift beneath me. This Kat was a stranger. This arrogant, entitled creature was the polar opposite of the warm, supportive woman I’d loved. And yet, the face was the same. “Why?” I choked out, my eyes stinging. I felt small. I felt pathetic. “You’re a Montgomery. You’re the heir to a fortune. Why did you watch me lose my finger? Why didn’t you help me?” She let out a short, dry chuckle and stood up. She walked toward me, placing her hands on my shoulders. Her touch felt like ice. “Because the Kat you were with was a girl on a construction site,” she said, her voice dripping with a terrifying kind of logic. “She didn’t have fifty thousand dollars. And Nate… if you really loved me, you wouldn’t be questioning the money. Unless, of course, you’re only interested in the inheritance?” Slap. The sound echoed through the small room, sharp as a gunshot. The air turned frigid. My breath hitched, my vision blurring with tears of pure fury. “I’m interested in the money? Kat, look me in the eye and say that again. Look at the man who sold his blood and his time for you!” Kat’s head stayed turned to the side, her jaw tight. Slowly, she looked back at me, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “Calm down, Nate.” I shook my head, stumbling back. “I can’t be calm! Do you think this is a joke? While you were sipping hundred-dollar vintages at the Sovereign, were you laughing at me? Was my love just a punchline for your rich friends?” Kat’s patience snapped. She shoved me back and headed for the door. “Talk to me when you’ve stopped being hysterical.” She paused at the threshold, looking back at me with a chilling, clinical gaze. “If you want, I can keep you. You’d be a very comfortable mistress, Nate. Think about it.” The door slammed with a force that shook the walls. Then, silence. I sat on the floor for a long time, a hollow laugh escaping my throat. Searching for the truth is easy when you have a name. I found Tyler Preston’s Instagram. The top post was a photo of their marriage certificate—filed in New York a year ago. I stumbled into our bedroom and opened the small floor safe. I pulled out two documents. They were symbolic “marriage certificates” from a trip we took to a remote village in Ireland two years ago. She had held my face that night, the stars reflecting in her eyes. “In this village, Nate, the old traditions say a vow is forever. There is no such thing as divorce here. I brought you here to tell you that we are bound for eternity.” I finally understood. She didn’t want to marry me in the States because she was already married. The trip to Ireland, the “forever vow”—it was all a smokescreen to keep me compliant, to give me the illusion of commitment without the legal reality. A bitter, jagged laugh escaped me. The stress of the revelation triggered a familiar, searing pain in my wrist. An old injury from when I’d shielded her from a falling pallet on a job site years ago. It had never healed properly because I couldn’t afford the physical therapy. I pulled out my phone and texted her: The old injury is flaring up. It’s bad, Kat. I can barely breathe. In less than thirty minutes, she was back. Her expression was dark, her movements hurried. She grabbed my arm. “Get in the car. We’re going to the clinic.” My heart jumped. Was there a spark of the old Kat left? “Why the sudden concern?” She didn’t look at me as she dragged me toward the door. “You can’t be a mess right now. Not with Tyler around. I need you healthy enough to stand upright and not look like a charity case. We’re going to get you a steroid shot to suppress the pain. You are not going to ruin things by falling apart in public.” She looked at me, a flicker of something—guilt? Pity?—crossing her face. “Be a good boy, Nate. I’ll make it up to you later.” The coldness that washed over me was absolute. “No… Kat, the doctor said if I keep suppressing the inflammation with drugs, I’ll lose the use of the hand entirely. It needs rest, not a mask.” I tried to pull away. “My hand, it’s—” “Enough!” Kat snapped, her voice echoing in the hallway. “Nate Miller, you don’t have the luxury of choice anymore. You’re coming with me.” 3 I was sedated and taken to a private wing of a hospital I didn’t recognize. Kat had the doctors pump me full of high-dose painkillers and nerve blockers to “mask” the injury. When I woke up, the sun was streaming through the window. I was alone. The door pushed open, and a doctor I’d seen months ago at the free clinic walked in. He looked at my chart, then at me, his face a mask of grim frustration. “What were you thinking?” he asked, his voice low. “I told you after the accident that you needed rest and careful rehab. Now? These high-potency suppressants have scorched the nerves. You…” He took a deep breath, looking away. “You’re likely going to lose all motor function in this hand. You won’t be able to lift a coffee cup, let alone work.” I stared at my hand under the sheets. It felt heavy, like a piece of dead wood attached to my arm. Tears blurred my vision. “I didn’t have a choice…” The woman I loved had systematically dismantled the only thing I had left—my ability to provide for myself. The doctor sighed. “There’s more. The nerve damage is permanent, and the complications from the old injury are going to cause you chronic, systemic pain. You need to prepare yourself for a very difficult road ahead.” The door burst open the second the doctor left. A figure blurred toward me, grabbing me by the hair and snapping my head back. Slap. “You pathetic little leach!” Tyler Preston was shaking with rage, his face contorted. “I knew it. You’re not just some driver—you’re Kat’s little side-piece! That apartment in the Hollows? That was yours, wasn’t it?” I winced, the pain in my neck sharp and sudden. I was almost pulled off the bed. I looked him in the eye, my voice trembling but clear. “Tyler, I’m not the one who lied to you.” He laughed, a shrill, ugly sound. “You think I care? Look at you. A crippled nobody trying to climb the Montgomery ladder. Kat didn’t even tell you who she was! She kept you in a cage because she knew you were a gold-digger!” I gripped the bedsheets, my body shaking. Before I could retort, Kat appeared in the doorway. She looked at the scene—Tyler hovering over me—and her expression merely went flat. She stepped forward, putting a protective arm around Tyler. “Tyler, stop. It’s not what you think.” Tyler turned to her, his eyes brimming with performative tears. “You’re still defending him!” Kat saw his tears and immediately softened. She began wiping them away with her thumb, her voice a coo of pure devotion. “No, baby… I’m not.” She sighed, a look of utter surrender on her face. “Tell me what I can do to make it up to you.” Tyler turned back to me, a cruel, triumphant smirk playing on his lips. He looked at my pale, ghost-like face and made his demand. “I want him at the wedding. Not in the back. I want him to be my Best Man. I want him to stand there and watch every second of us becoming one. I want him to see what a real marriage looks like.” “Done,” Kat said. “No,” I whispered. The two words collided. I looked at Kat, the pain in my chest eclipsing the pain in my arm. “Kat, do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? My hand… I can never use it again. I’m going to be in pain for the rest of my life because of what you did yesterday.” “That’s enough,” she interrupted, her voice like a sheet of lead. “You don’t have the right to refuse, Nate. Behave yourself.” She turned back to Tyler, smiling. “There. Satisfied?” I closed my eyes, a cold stone settling in my gut. “I said no. I won’t go.” “Get out,” I told them, my voice devoid of emotion. “Both of you. Get out.” They didn’t move. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, determined to leave, even if I had to crawl. Then, Kat’s voice stopped me. It was a low, vibrationless threat. “Nate Miller. Your brother, Ben? He’s still at that university in Chicago, isn’t he? Accidents happen on campuses every day. Muggings, hit-and-runs… it’s a dangerous world.” I froze. My hand gripped the doorframe so hard the wood groaned. I turned back, my gaze filled with a sudden, sharp hatred. “You wouldn’t.” “Try me,” she said. I looked at her—really looked at her—and realized I had been in love with a ghost for five years. The woman standing there was a monster. “Fine,” I spat. “I’ll go. Just leave him alone.” She nodded, satisfied. Tyler grinned. “Rehearsal is tomorrow. At the Stone Creek Chapel. Don’t be late.” The next day, I dragged my broken body and my shattered spirit to the chapel. I didn’t expect that a “rehearsal” would involve Tyler’s entire inner circle of trust-fund vultures. 4 The moment they saw me, the air filled with sneers. “So this is the guy who tried to seduce Kat?” a guy in a tailored vest smirked. “Looks like a stray dog. Where do they even find these people?” “Should we teach him some manners, Tyler? He looks like he needs a reminder of where he belongs.” Tyler looked at me with a fake, weary sigh. He was wearing a custom-tailored suit that made Kat’s lace gown look even more luminous. “Let it go, guys,” Tyler said, though his eyes were dancing with malice. “I just want to have a beautiful day with my Kat. I don’t want any trouble.” His friends weren’t about to let their “brother” be insulted by my mere existence. A guy with a shock of red hair stepped forward, his eyes narrowed with disdain. Without a word of warning, his hand blurred. The slap was so hard it sent me reeling. Between the painkillers and my weakened state, I didn’t have the balance to stay upright. I crashed into a row of wooden pews, my forehead slamming against the sharp corner of the oak. Warm blood immediately began to trickle down my face. The red-haired guy didn’t even flinch. He spat on the floor near my head. “Trash.” The others moved in, mocking me, shoving me, their hands stinging as they pinched and pulled at my clothes as if I were a rag doll. “What’s going on?” Kat walked in, her brow furrowing as she saw the commotion. Tyler immediately turned on the waterworks. He looked at her with huge, shimmering eyes. “Kat… Nate is angry. He doesn’t want to be the Best Man. He started screaming at me, saying you don’t really love me, that it’s all a lie. My friends… they just couldn’t stand to hear him talk to me like that.” Kat’s gaze moved to me. I was on the floor, bleeding and broken. Her eyes flickered for a fraction of a second—a ghost of a memory—before turning to cold stone. “Nate Miller,” she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous register. “It seems you don’t care about your brother’s safety after all.” I looked up at her through the blood, a cold dread seizing my heart. “What do you mean?” I tried to crawl toward her, my voice a desperate rasp. “Kat, please. Don’t hurt him. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll stand there, I’ll smile, just please—” She didn’t move. She didn’t blink. I turned and dropped to my knees before Tyler. I lowered my head, the ultimate humiliation. “Mr. Preston… I’m sorry. Please. I was wrong. Just let my brother go.” After a long, agonizing silence, Tyler chuckled. “Geez, Nate, don’t be so dramatic. Fine. Let’s get on with the rehearsal.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. As long as Ben was safe, I didn’t care about my dignity. He was the only family I had left in the world. I remembered Kat once telling me: “Nate, from now on, my family is yours. I’ll always be your rock.” What a joke. We were halfway through the ceremony walk-through when Kat’s assistant burst through the chapel doors, her face white as a sheet. “Ms. Montgomery… there’s been an incident. Nate’s brother, Ben… he was picked up by some men. There was a high-speed chase. His car rolled. He… he’s gone.” The world tilted. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Kat’s face tightened. “Who picked him up? I didn’t give that order yet.” The assistant hesitated, glancing at Tyler. Tyler shrugged, looking bored. “I did. I just wanted to move him to a more ‘secure’ location to make sure Nate behaved. I didn’t know the kid would freak out and try to run. It was an accident.” The grief hit me like a physical explosion. I felt the blood rush to my head, my vision turning red. I lunged at Tyler, a primal scream tearing from my throat. “I’ll kill you!” Thump. Before I could even touch him, Kat’s foot connected with my ribs. I was thrown back, hitting the floor like a broken bird. “He didn’t do it on purpose!” Kat snapped. She looked at me, a flicker of something that might have been regret crossing her face, but it was quickly buried under her cold pragmatism. “I’ll pay for the funeral. A top-tier service.” She looked away. “Think about your position. The wedding is in ten days. Don’t be late. I’ll make it up to you after the honeymoon.” She took Tyler’s hand and walked out, leaving me in the dirt. Ben was dead. I had nothing. No hand, no family, no love. The pain was so absolute it was numbing. I walked out of the chapel, toward the highway. I saw a semi-truck barreling down the road at sixty miles an hour. I closed my eyes and stepped into the light. The next morning, the chapel coordinator called Kat. “Ms. Montgomery? We might need to discuss moving the venue. There was a… situation at the chapel. It might be bad luck.” Kat felt a sudden, sharp pang in her chest. “What do you mean?” “A man committed suicide on the road right outside the gates yesterday. It was… messy. He seemed completely out of his mind.”

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The day I was released from the correctional facility, my wife, Serena, was there to meet me. She stood by her sleek black Porsche, lighting a cigarette. Through the swirling grey smoke, her expression was a mask of cold indifference. “Miles,” she said, her voice devoid of any warmth. “While you were away, I started sponsoring an underprivileged student.” She paused, watching a hawk circle the perimeter of the prison. “He’s an orphan. All his life, all he ever wanted was a family. In the three years you were gone, we… we had a child together.” The world seemed to tilt on its axis. I stood there, my duffel bag heavy in my hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. “And what about me? I’m your husband, Serena. What am I supposed to be in this little fantasy?” She flicked her ash onto the pavement, her eyes never meeting mine. “It doesn’t matter if you agree or not. Everyone in our circle—the investors, the board, the press—thinks he’s my husband.” She stepped closer, the scent of her expensive perfume clashing with the sterile smell of the prison gates. “You have nowhere to go. Your family’s name is mud, and your bank accounts are frozen. You can stay at the house as a live-in helper—a housekeeper. But if you try to make a scene, if you breathe a word of the truth, I’ll have you back behind bars before sunset. Don’t think for a second I won’t.” I looked at her and felt a slow, jagged smile spread across my face. Serena didn’t realize one simple thing. If I was capable of throwing away three years of my life in a cell for her, I was just as capable of burning her entire world to the ground. 1 Seeing me tremble, Serena stepped forward and pulled me into a hollow embrace. “There, there. I know your ‘golden boy’ pride can’t take this right now,” she whispered against my ear. “But you’ll get used to it once we’re home. My son, Milo… he’s beautiful. You’ll learn to love him.” The drive to our estate was silent and fast. The rolling hills of the Westchester suburbs hadn’t changed, but the man waiting at the front door of our mansion certainly had. A man in his early twenties stood there, cradling a toddler. He watched me with the guarded suspicion of a stray dog protecting its territory. Serena climbed out of the car and naturally took the child from him, kissing his forehead. “This is the new help,” she told him, her voice casual. “He’ll be taking over the heavy lifting around the house. You need to focus on your health, Theo. Just rest.” Theo scanned me from head to toe, a smirk playing on his lips. “He looks a bit rough, Serena. Like he crawled out of a refugee camp. Where on earth did you find him?” I stood in the grand foyer, watching their domestic intimacy with a cold, detached gaze. Serena glanced at me, a sharp warning in her eyes. She remembered the old Miles—the hot-headed heir to a real estate empire who never took an insult lying down. But I didn’t snap. I simply bent down and straightened her discarded heels by the door. “Where is my room, Ms. Victor?” I asked quietly. Serena blinked, clearly caught off guard by my sudden docility. An flicker of annoyance crossed her face. She pointed toward a small, cramped door near the back of the kitchen. “Theo likes his privacy. You’ll stay in the utility room. It’s closer to the kitchen anyway; you’ll need to be up early to start breakfast.” Theo stepped forward, wrapping an arm around Serena’s waist. “Make sure you scrub your hands, old man. The baby has a sensitive stomach. We can’t have any… prison germs near him.” Suddenly, the little boy threw a heavy wooden block directly at my face. “Bad man! Get out of my house!” The sharp edge of the block caught me right above the eye. I felt the hot sting of blood beginning to trickle down my forehead. Theo gasped, but not for me. “Oh, Milo! Did you hurt your hand? Don’t throw your toys, baby. If you break them, Mommy has to work even harder to buy new ones.” Serena looked at the cut on my head and then pushed me toward the utility room. “Miles, don’t look at me like that. We never even had a formal wedding before you went away. As far as the world is concerned, Theo is the father of my child. My grandfather adores Milo; he’s already planning to name me the sole heir of the Victor Group. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to outshine the other illegitimate cousins?” Hard? If I hadn’t taken the fall for her embezzlement three years ago, she would have been the one in a jumpsuit, cast out of the family long ago. That would have been hard. But as I opened my mouth to demand a divorce, Serena reached out and touched the wound on my forehead. Her voice softened, manipulative as ever. “Theo has been through a lot to be with me. Just… stay out of his way. He and Milo are everything to me now.” She patted my shoulder, and when I flinched, her voice turned to ice. “The house of your father is bankrupt, Miles. Everyone you know has turned their back on you. Without me, you’re a vagrant. Stay in your place, and you’ll at least have a roof over your head.” I looked at my shoes and said nothing. She turned and walked away, her heels clicking against the marble. I slid down the wall of the utility room until I hit the floor. Serena thought I was broken. She thought I was a stray she could keep on a leash. She was wrong. Three years in a cage teaches you one thing: when you finally strike, you make sure it’s fatal. 2 The utility room was packed with Theo’s Amazon boxes and discarded gym equipment. I cleared a small space and lay down on a thin folding cot. Through the door, I could hear the sounds of a happy family. The muffled laughter from a sitcom on the TV, the sound of Theo feeding Serena fruit, their voices hushed and intimate. That used to be my life. When Serena’s first startup failed and she was facing a decade of fraud charges, I stepped in. I told the investigators the offshore accounts were mine. “Miles,” she had sobbed the night before I turned myself in. “Trust me. I’ll get you out in a month. I just need time to move the money.” One month turned into thirty-six. “Miles! Are you done moping? Get out here and make dinner!” Serena’s voice barked from the hallway. When I emerged, Theo was splayed out on the velvet sofa, buffing his nails. He pointedly stretched his legs out as I passed. “Ugh, this rug is filthy. Serena, I can feel the dust on my feet.” Serena didn’t look up from her phone. “Miles, scrub the rug.” I didn’t argue. I filled a bucket, grabbed a brush, and knelt on the floor. Theo’s foot intentionally nudged my shoulder as I worked. “So, what did you do before the ‘big house,’ anyway? You’re so… rugged,” he mocked. I kept my head down, my movements mechanical. “I was a guest of the state.” Theo jumped up with exaggerated horror. “Oh my god, like a murderer? Serena, having someone like this in the house…” Serena pulled him into her lap, giving me a smirk. “White-collar crime. He’d do anything for a quick buck. But don’t worry, Theo. If he steps out of line, I have the warden on speed dial.” My hand tightened on the brush. Three years ago, Serena was the “poor relation,” the illegitimate daughter the Victors ignored. My family was at the top of the social ladder. My father was alive. I was the heir apparent. Back then, Serena looked at me like I was the sun. She used to cry at the thought of me being uncomfortable. I wondered when, exactly, her heart had rotted through. My thoughts were shattered by Theo’s voice. “Oh, Serena, this jade pendant you gave me is so tacky. It looks so old. Can I just toss it? Buy me a Chrome Hearts one instead?” I looked up, my blood turning to ice. The pendant around his neck—it was my father’s. The only thing left of my family’s legacy after the bankruptcy. I lunged forward, a roar building in my chest. I snatched the pendant from his neck, my hand shaking. I raised my other hand to strike Serena, but she was faster. She grabbed my wrist, her grip like a vice. She slammed me against the wall, whispering harshly. “It’s just a piece of jewelry. Theo liked it, so I gave it to him. Miles, I know I owe you, and I’ll take care of you, but don’t you ever touch Theo’s things again.” Theo scoffed, muttering that the “junk” wasn’t worth the drama anyway, and led Serena upstairs. The next morning, while I was prepping breakfast, Theo leaned against the kitchen doorway wearing my old silk robe. It was too big for him, slipping off his shoulders to reveal dark, fresh bruises on his neck. He wanted me to see them. “Miles, right? Serena told me about you. The great fallen prince of Manhattan. She says you were always so… stiff. Boring. A ‘wooden’ lover, she called you. Doesn’t matter how long you were together; you never really satisfied her.” He smirked, stepping closer. “Unlike me. I barely have to try, and she’s obsessed.” My knife moved rhythmically against the cutting board. My hands were steady. “Is that so? Her taste must have shifted. She used to tell me she hated needy, parasitic little boys. She called them ‘nuisances.’” Theo’s face distorted with rage. “You don’t know anything! She loves me! I’m the father of her child. I’m the one she actually married.” I plated the ham and turned to look him in the eye. “Really? Did you get a marriage certificate, or just a promise?” 3 Theo’s facade cracked instantly. “A piece of paper doesn’t matter! I’m the one in her bed! I’m the one she loves!” He lunged at me, trying to shove me. I stepped aside with the grace of someone who had learned to fight in a concrete yard. He stumbled, knocking a stack of porcelain plates to the floor. The crash echoed through the house, bringing Serena running. She saw the mess and immediately shoved me back. “Miles! What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you attacking him?” My back hit the marble counter, a sharp pain radiating through my spine—an old prison injury acting up. Theo collapsed against her, sobbing theatrically. “Serena, I know I’m just an orphan… I know I’m not ‘high society’ like him. but I’m not some piece of trash! Our son isn’t a mistake!” Serena’s face darkened. She stepped toward me and delivered a stinging slap across my face. “You ungrateful prick,” she hissed. “Theo and Milo are the most important people in my world. Who gave you the right to talk to them like that? Apologize. Now.” I wiped a trail of blood from my lip with the back of my hand. “And if I don’t?” Serena laughed coldly, pulling out her phone. “No apology? Fine. Then I’ll stop the payments for your mother’s care facility. I heard her condition is worsening. Without those specialized meds, she won’t last through the winter.” I clenched my fists so hard my nails drew blood. Before I went to prison, I had entrusted my dying mother to Serena. She was the only reason I had come back to this house. Serena waved the phone in front of my face. “Get on your knees and beg Theo for forgiveness. Otherwise, you’ll never see your mother again.” I looked at the woman I once loved more than life itself. I took a deep breath and slowly lowered my knees to the cold floor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Victor,” I said, the words tasting like ash. Theo smiled triumphantly. He walked over and used the toe of his slipper to lift my chin. “Remember this. In this house, you’re the dog. I’m the master.” He leaned down, whispering so only I could hear: “Since you were so polite, I’ll let you in on a secret. Your mother? That old bitch died a year ago. Guess where her ashes are? Probably in a landfill by now.” The world went white. I surged upward, grabbing the chef’s knife from the counter, and drove it toward his chest. 4 The blade didn’t hit Theo. It sank into Serena’s shoulder. She had thrown herself in front of him, shielding him with her own body. Serena turned to me, her eyes filled with a mixture of pain and profound disappointment. “Miles… I thought three years would have knocked the violence out of you. I see you haven’t learned a thing. It’s time you learned how to behave.” She barked an order, and two heavy-set security guards burst into the kitchen. I fought, screaming her name. “Serena! Where is my mother? Tell me where she is!” Her expression flickered with something strange, but her voice remained cold. “Throw him in the basement. No food, no water for three days. Let him rot until he remembers who owns him.” The basement was a damp, windowless void. My back throbbed, and the hunger began to gnaw at me within hours. I lost track of time. I hallucinated my mother’s voice, her gentle hand on my hair. But I couldn’t die here. Not yet. I felt along the walls in the dark until I found a rusted ventilation grate. I used every ounce of my remaining strength to pry it open, the jagged metal slicing my palms. I crawled through the narrow, dusty shaft and out into the cold night air. I spent the next twenty-four hours walking. I visited every high-end care facility in the tri-state area until I found the last one on my list. The nurse at the front desk looked at me with pity as she checked the records. “I’m so sorry, sir. Your mother passed away a year ago due to complications after her medication was discontinued for non-payment. We contacted the family representative, a Ms. Serena Victor. She requested immediate cremation and handed the remains over to a Mr. Theo Victor.” I stood frozen, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had suffered in that hellhole for her. I had let men beat me and break me, all to keep my mother safe. And Serena had let her die like a discarded bill. The phone on the desk rang. The nurse looked startled, then handed it to me. “It’s for you. A woman.” Serena’s voice came through the line, sharp and commanding. “Miles, how dare you run away? I’ll explain everything about your mother when you get back. Now, stop being dramatic. I’m not even charging you for the stabbing. I’m taking Theo to my grandfather’s heir-apparent ceremony. Get back here right now and watch the baby.” I listened until my vision blurred with tears. Then, I wiped them away and looked toward the city skyline. “Serena,” I whispered to the empty air. “I am going to take everything from you.”

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