Category: English

My husband, Silas Thorne, was having an affair. To get back at him, I spent six months making the nightlife scene my permanent address, partying at clubs every single night. Silas couldn’t care less. He just kept throwing money at me to shut me up. The day I finally asked him for a divorce, I got another incoming wire transfer notification for two hundred thousand dollars. Then, a text: “Mrs. Thorne, the little thing is quite demanding tonight. I won’t be home.” I stared at the screen calmly, then made a U-turn and headed to the exclusive club where I knew he’d be. Stepping up to the private room, I heard one of his friends joking inside: “Silas, man, how many is this now? Aren’t you afraid of pushing Rylee too far? She might actually run off with one of those boytoys she’s been seeing at the clubs.” Silas fiddled with the cigar between his fingers, giving a careless, arrogant smirk. “Rylee loves money. As long as I compensate her well enough, she’ll never let go of the title of Mrs. Thorne.” The room erupted in laughter. As I pushed the door open and walked in, Silas immediately reached out to wrap an arm around me. “What, two hundred grand wasn’t enough? You had to chase me down here for more? Rylee, playing hard to get has its limits.” I dodged his touch and held out the manila envelope containing the divorce papers. “The girl outside is making a scene. You need to sign this right now so I can give her an answer.” … As soon as I spoke, the VIP room fell completely silent. Silas’s smirk vanished inch by inch. He leaned back into the plush leather sofa, staring at me coldly. “Rylee, I didn’t care how hard you played on the outside before. But this act today? It’s a bit over the line, don’t you think?” “Or did those club kids develop a bigger appetite, forcing you to come back to me for an upgrade?” A round of snickers went around the room among his friends, their eyes raking over me with crude curiosity. Everyone in this circle knew how wild I had gone over the past six months to retaliate against Silas’s infidelity. I wasn’t just hitting the most expensive clubs every night; I was spending money like water, surrounded by attractive men. Silas never lifted a finger to stop me. He just thought I was throwing a tantrum, using this method to fight for his attention. I calmly pushed the envelope forward on the low table. “I’m serious. Sign, Mr. Thorne.” Just then, a head popped out from behind Silas. It was a girl with a short bob haircut, a lollipop dangling from her mouth. She looked incredibly young, maybe barely twenty-one. “So this is the wife? She looks so uptight and refined. How’d she get such a explosive temper?” She spoke casually, leaning her entire body weight onto Silas like she had no bones. “Si, I told you you can’t spoil women, right?” “See? You spoil them, and they develop issues. Threatening divorce the second they don’t get their way.” Her name was Chloe Davis. She was the “little thing” Silas was currently infatuated with. She wasn’t the glamorous, seductive type I had expected, nor a weeping willows type. But Silas was clearly eating up her act. “Hear that?” Silas said, glancing at Chloe. “Even the kid knows you’re just being unreasonable. Come on, Rylee. Just say it. How much more do you want?” Chloe giggled, took the lollipop out of her mouth, and shoved it directly into Silas’s. “Have some candy, Si. Cool down.” “The wife is probably just on her period. Hormonal imbalance.” Silas frowned slightly at the shared candy, but he didn’t spit it out. Instead, he kept it in his mouth, looking at me with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Rylee, take your garbage papers and get out.” “I’ll pretend tonight never happened. Don’t make me say it twice.” Watching this scene play out, a wave of revulsion washed over me. “If you won’t sign, fine. I’ll file the papers and we’ll go to court.” With that, I turned on my heel to leave. Behind me, I heard the crash of a heavy crystal glass shattering against the floor. “Rylee Croft! If you push this too far, there’s no coming back. Think long and hard before you walk out that door.” I didn’t even pause. My hand was just settling on the brass door handle when I heard Chloe’s exaggerated, high-pitched gasp: “Oh my god, Si, don’t be mad! The wife is just way too stiff. Unlike me—I just want to make you happy.” “Tell you what, you should stop giving her money. Cut off her credit cards for two months, let’s see if she still dares to be so arrogant with you.” Silas gave a cold laugh. “You’re right. Some people do need a little discipline to learn their place.” I had barely walked out of the club when my phone started vibrating incessantly. Notifications from various credit card companies were popping up one after another, informing me that my accounts had been frozen. Yet, my heart remained surprisingly calm. Just as I stepped onto the sidewalk, a familiar Ferrari roared to a halt right in front of me. The passenger window rolled down. Chloe blew a bubble with her gum, then popped it, jerking her chin at me with a smirk. “Hey, Mrs. Thorne. No ride home? Want us to give you a lift?” “Though this car only has two seats. Guess you’ll have to crouch in the trunk, huh?” Her shrill laughter filled the quiet street. Silas gave me a cold, indifferent look from the driver’s seat. “Rylee, it’s not too late to admit you were wrong.” “Just apologize for ruining everyone’s night back there, and I’ll take you home.” 2 I tightened my trench coat around me. “No thanks. I don’t want to get dirty.” Chloe gasped dramatically, slapping the leather steering wheel. “Si, look at her! I was being nice, trying to offer her a ride, and she calls me dirty!” “I don’t care, I’m upset. Does your wife think it’s embarrassing that I’m friends with you?” Silas chuckled and ran a hand through Chloe’s short hair. “Rylee, I’ve really cleaned up my act since the last time you made a scene.” “I’m just taking care of the kid because she’s spunky and naive. She’s like a little sister. We haven’t slept together!” Right, they hadn’t slept together. But they had done everything but that in public. Five years ago, when I first caught Silas cheating, I had thrown a massive fit. I even forced the woman to get an abortion. He hadn’t gotten angry at me back then. He let me scream, let me hit him. He promised he would never sleep with another woman again. The very next month, I caught him getting intimate with his female secretary. That was when I became truly cold toward him. That was when I started my six-month bender, drowning my sorrows in clubs and other men. He thought I was just copying him, trying to get revenge, forcing him to come back to me. But this time, he was dead wrong. Seeing my silence, Silas turned to one of his bodyguards who had followed us out. “Since Mrs. Thorne thinks my car is dirty, she can walk back.” “Watch her. Make sure nobody gives her a ride.” With a roar of the engine, the Ferrari sped off. The bodyguards immediately flanked me, motioning away a few curious onlookers. I sighed, took off my high heels, and started walking home barefoot in the chilly night air. I walked for nearly three hours. By the time I reached our gated community, my feet were covered in blisters, each step causing a sharp, stinging pain. The sky was already turning gray with the coming dawn when I pushed open the front door. Chloe was lying sprawled out on the sofa in the living room, wearing my expensive silk robe, resting her head on Silas’s lap. “Look who it is! The wife’s back,” Chloe chirped. “Nice endurance. Are you training for a marathon?” Silas looked down at my feet, which were covered in dirt and dried blood. He looked stunned for a second. “Do you know your mistake now?” He gestured to the coffee table. “There’s a bowl of oatmeal there. The kid made it special for you.” “Eat it, and we’ll put this behind us.” I looked at the living room. The bowl of oatmeal on the table was a disgusting mess, mixed with cigar ash, spilled whiskey, and the half-eaten lollipop Chloe had been sucking on earlier. I ignored them both and headed straight for the stairs. Silas’s voice went instantly cold. “I said, eat it!” Chloe jumped up from the sofa, bare feet padding on the hardwood floor. “Hey, I made this with my own two hands! I don’t usually go in the kitchen, but I wanted to be nice.” She was giggling as she shoved the bowl toward my face. The sour, rancid smell hit my nose immediately. I jerked my head away to avoid it. Chloe’s hand twisted, and she dumped the entire bowl over my head and trench coat! “Oops! Oh my god, I’m such a clutz. My hands must be sore from taking care of Si earlier. He just wouldn’t let me go.” “Si, it’s your fault. You took so long earlier. Come blow on my poor hands!” Silas strode over, shoving me hard. I was already unsteady on my painful feet, and I went crashing into the foyer cabinet behind me. He didn’t even glance at me. Instead, he actually started gently blowing on Chloe’s hands with a tender expression. “Rylee Croft, the kid left food for you out of the goodness of her heart. If you don’t want to show gratitude, fine. But who are you trying to depress with that dead look on your face?” “Apologize. Right now.” 3 I looked at him calmly. “I’ll apologize, as soon as you sign the divorce papers.” Silas was pushed completely over the edge. “Rylee! Are you giving me face and refusing it?” “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re a damn nobody from the middle of nowhere. Without Silas Thorne, what the hell are you worth?” Chloe hid behind him, making a face at me, her mouth forming silent words: “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Die mad about it.” I smiled, casually peeling off the filth-covered trench coat and dropping it directly into the trash can next to the foyer. “If you hate looking at me so much, sign the paper. You think I want to look at the two of you?” A resounding slap landed squarely on my face. One side went completely numb instantly. Silas withdrew his hand, pulled a crumpled, signed envelope out of his pocket—the one I had given him at the club—and threw it directly into my face. “You’ve been trying to control me for too long. Did you really think I had no temper left?” Chloe was bouncing up and down with excitement. “Whoa! Go Si! Hardcore! A true man’s man!” Ignoring the throbbing in my cheek, I bent down and picked the divorce envelope up off the floor. Since he had actually signed it, the slap was worth it. I dragged my painful, blistered feet out of that house and never looked back. I had no money on me, no ID, nothing but the phone in my hand. I debated calling him. He would probably lose control, come over here, and tear Silas Thorne to pieces. Before I could decide, Chloe’s malicious call came through. “Hey, Rylee. Si was so angry after you left. He actually threw that fluffy ragdoll cat of yours into the alligator pond.” “Oh my god, the sound… it was so bloody. I was terrified. I actually cried.” My hand started to shake violently, and the phone almost slipped from my grasp. “What did you say!” 4 That Ragdoll cat was named Marshmallow. It had been my mother’s absolute favorite. On her deathbed, she had entrusted it to me, saying that looking at it was like looking at her. For seven years, Marshmallow had been my constant companion through countless lonely nights. To me, it wasn’t just a pet; it was family. On the other end of the line came Chloe’s heartless giggle, and I could even hear faint, sharp animal shrieks in the background. Then, Silas’s cold voice came through: “Rylee Croft, Marshmallow is just the beginning. Tomorrow is Chloe’s birthday bash. If you don’t get your ass back here and beg for forgiveness…” “The next thing going into the alligator pond will be your grandmother, the vegetable in the nursing home.” My entire body was shaking. “Silas Thorne! The divorce is final! Why won’t you let me go!” But the line had already gone dead. I scrambled to the nursing home, heart hammering in my chest. When I burst into the room, it was empty. Medical equipment lay overturned on the floor, IV tubes were ripped out, and there were shocking smears of blood on the ground. A nurse was cowering in a corner, terrified. “Miss Croft, Mr. Thorne sent men here. They said they were transferring her to a different facility.” “We couldn’t stop them… they had guns…” Everything went black, and I almost fainted. She was my only remaining family, my life! By the time I rushed back to the estate, the sound of laughter and cheering filled the air. A group of rich, young socialites were gathered around something, cheering. Seeing me enter, Chloe clapped her hands with excitement. “Look, Si! I told you this trick would work, right? Didn’t she come rolling right back here to admit her mistake?” Grandma was tied into a wheelchair, which had been pushed right to the edge of the alligator pond in the backyard. The protective iron railing had been lowered. I was shaking from head to toe. “Silas Thorne, what do you want? Come at me! Leave them alone!” Silas lazily raised his eyelids, looking at me with total indifference. “Rylee, your attitude last night made me very unhappy.” “Want to save her? Then from right there, get down on your hands and knees. Crawl all the way to everyone’s feet, kowtow to the ground, and beg for forgiveness.” The group around us immediately erupted in jeers. “Silas, man, Rylee pushed you to sign the divorce papers. Did she really have someone else on the outside?” “She’s been sleeping around. Don’t let her bring some dirty disease back here. Forget her, Silas. Chloe’s great. Why not make her the new Mrs. Thorne?” But Silas stepped forward and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close. “A little woman throwing a tantrum, that’s all. Rylee, as long as you admit your mistake, we’ll go remarry first thing tomorrow morning.” “But if you don’t know what’s good for you…” The bodyguard standing by the alligator pond gave the wheelchair a violent kick. The wheelchair instantly rolled toward the water’s edge, half of one tire already hanging in the air over the snapping reptiles! “No!” I screamed, my voice raw. My legs gave out, and I dropped directly onto my knees on the pavement. Silas gave a satisfied smile. “Good girl. Everyone’s watching, Rylee. You’ve held my face under water for so long; I need to regain some pride.” “If you don’t like Chloe, after you admit your mistake, I’ll let you slash her face myself to make you feel better.” As he spoke, Silas planted his foot onto my back, pressing down, forcing me to bow my head to the ground. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to scream. I wanted to take a knife and murder every single one of these animals. But in the distance, the wheelchair wobbled again. All my rage instantly turned into absolute despair. “Fine. I’ll kowtow. I’ll admit my mistake.” The group cheered with excitement, some even pulling out their phones to film it. “Holy shit, Silas! You’re a beast! Masterclass in wife-taming! No woman is too tough for you!” “Rylee, hurry up and kowtow! Make sure we can film it clearly!” Just as I was about to touch my forehead to the dirt, there was a deafening crash as the front gates of the estate were rammed open. A booming voice filled the yard: “You Thorne piece of trash. You’ve got a lot of nerve.” “Touching my wife?”

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For eight long years, I loved Wyatt Hayes. Yet, we never wed. Our Western Frontier has a sacred tradition: a couple wishing to marry must climb the snowy peaks to seek a blessing from the Mountain Oracle. Usually, it takes a couple only a try or two before the Oracle grants them a Winter Rose, a rare bloom symbolizing divine favor. But for eight years straight, Wyatt came back empty-handed. I became the laughingstock of the Frontier’s ruling family, but Wyatt never left my side, treating me with doubled devotion. This time, I secretly followed him up the mountain. I decided that if the Oracle refused to bless us again, I would give up my title as the Governor’s daughter and elope with him. When I saw a Winter Rose finally placed into his hands, I was so ecstatic I nearly fainted. But Wyatt’s expression was agonizingly cold and indifferent. “It is you I love,” he whispered, “but I cannot betray Hazel after her eight years of companionship.” Then, the man who had looked at me with tender devotion only this morning took the sacred flower and forced himself upon the Oracle! The petals were crushed under his rough movements, the crimson juice of the rose staining the Oracle’s snow-white skin. “This is our last time…” he groaned. “Once you are sent to the Eastern Coalition as a treaty bride, I will cut my ties and marry her.” It turned out, he hadn’t delayed marrying me for eight years because of a curse. He was simply addicted to his once-a-year tryst with the Oracle. Numb and hollow, I stumbled back to the grand estate and knelt before my father. “The Frontier cannot survive a day without its Oracle. I will take her place as the treaty bride. Let me marry the Eastern Heir.” 1. Beatrice, the sister who always hated me, was the first to laugh out loud. “Have you lost your mind, sister? Your engagement to General Hayes is already the biggest joke in the family!” “If we send an unwanted old maid to the East, aren’t you afraid they’ll see it as an insult?” A bitter, humiliating emotion rushed up my chest, suffocating me so much I couldn’t speak. Once, I was hailed as the brightest pearl of the Western Frontier. But after Wyatt failed to get the Oracle’s blessing for eight consecutive years, I became the embodiment of bad luck and disaster. Thinking of how Wyatt had unhesitatingly crushed that Winter Rose—the flower I had dreamed of—against the Oracle’s skin, I bowed my head deeply to my father again. “I am not destined for General Hayes. Let me serve our land through this marriage and secure peace for the Frontier.” My aging father looked toward my older brother, Arthur, the man slated to be the next Governor. “Arthur, what do you think?” My heart clenched tightly. Arthur had always doted on me. If he refused to let me go… “I think this is an excellent idea, Father.” The moment my brother spoke, the blood in my veins froze. Before I could recover from the massive wave of shock, my brother continued, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. “The Oracle is the guiding star of our Frontier. How could my sister ever compare to her?” “Besides, she is a jinx who couldn’t secure a marriage for eight years. Sending her to the Easterners might just bring a curse upon them!” Large tears rolled from my eyes. I trembled so violently I could barely sit up straight. Was this still the brother who protected me at every turn, who never allowed anyone to mock me? First Wyatt, then Arthur. Why was all this happening? My father’s eyes grew dark. He dismissed everyone else, leaving only me in the room. “Although you are a more suitable bride for the East than the Oracle, I do not feel safe leaving her here in the West.” I looked up, stunned, as my father brought up a chilly early spring from eight years ago. Wyatt and I had privately pledged ourselves to each other. Arthur, who had always been close friends with him, was furious and attacked him. In Arthur’s eyes, the best man in the world wasn’t good enough for me. The two men brawled on the plains, fists striking flesh. Just then, the Oracle came down from the mountain. Dressed in her pure white ceremonial robes, she used her fragile body to stand between them. Without saying a word, her expression calm and merciful, she bandaged their wounds. Then she drifted away, returning to the untouched snows to be the immaculate Oracle. But that beautiful silhouette had permanently rooted itself in the hearts of both my brother and Wyatt. It turned out, the signs were always there. Since that was the case, I would ride alone to the East and let them have exactly what they wanted. 2. Seeing me emerge from my father’s study, Arthur quickly came to meet me. “Did Father agree to let you go…” I interrupted him coldly, “Arthur, did you really want me to leave that badly?” Or was it just that he couldn’t bear to part with the snow lily in his heart? A flash of panic crossed Arthur’s eyes before he regained his composure. “Didn’t you want to go? I only said those things to Father to help you get your wish.” Ridiculous. He threw me to the wolves to shield his sweetheart, and he had the nerve to say he was helping me. If that was how he wanted to play it, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I shook my head. “Father said no.” Right then, Wyatt came galloping toward us from a distance, unconcealable guilt plastered across his face. “I’m sorry… I still couldn’t get the Winter Rose.” “Next year…” I stared blankly at the blue sky and the circling falcons. “There’s no need.” By this time next year, I would probably already be living in the Eastern Capital. Wyatt let his hand drop in a daze, a fleeting look of deep regret in his eyes. “Don’t say such foolish things. Next year… I will definitely get it.” The Winter Rose was granted every single year. It was just my weight in his heart that grew lighter with each passing season. This double betrayal was like a raging fire, burning all the hope and expectation in my heart to ashes. That night, I was helping Arthur prepare the ceremonial items for the annual Harvest Moon Festival. I watched him stare vacantly at the Oracle’s ceremonial robes. I finally couldn’t hold back my mockery. “Arthur, the Oracle you’re so obsessed with has already been claimed by Wyatt.” “I saw it with my own eyes today. He crushed the Winter Rose against her thigh…” Before I could finish, a powerful arrow whistled past my cheek. After a sharp pain, bright red blood flowed down my neck and into my collar. “You can’t get the blessing because of your own lacking morals, and yet you dare invent such filthy lies to defile the Oracle!” “If there is a next time, I will shoot your head clean off.” Arthur’s eyes held a furious, boiling hatred I had never seen before. He slung his bow over his shoulder and left, dropping one final sentence. “Why couldn’t the one being sent to the East be a useless waste like you!” I covered my bleeding face and laughed at myself, laughing until the tears streamed down. I finally understood completely. In the hearts of Wyatt and Arthur, the Oracle would always be holy and beautiful. She was their faith, and their deepest, darkest desire. And compared to her, I was just the most insignificant grain of sand. Wyatt found me and brought me back to my tent. He touched my arrow-grazed cheek, looking utterly heartbroken. “Who did this!?” Looking at his seemingly genuine distress and deep affection, my heart felt like it was being pierced by thousands of needles. Everything today was his fault. What was he pretending to be so deeply in love for now? Years ago, he saved me from the jaws of a wild wolf, and I fell in love with him at first sight. From then on, the proud daughter who never bowed to anyone began to chase him relentlessly. He was the bravest general on the Frontier, so I learned martial arts from scratch. My palms bled, my skin tore from falling, but I never backed down. But now, looking at his hypocritical face, I suddenly realized I couldn’t love him anymore. I looked quietly into his eyes. “Wyatt, let’s call off the engagement.” 3. Wyatt’s face instantly froze. He stared intensely into my eyes, as if trying to find a shred of reluctance on my face. I looked back at him calmly. “The Oracle hasn’t granted us a flower in eight years. I suppose we truly aren’t meant to be.” Since that was the case, it was better to part ways and find our own happiness. Wyatt grabbed my hand, his tone tinged with guilt. “Hazel, don’t worry. Next year, I promise I’ll get the Oracle’s blessing.” I closed my eyes wearily. Marrying him had once been my biggest dream. And now, if I just pretended nothing had happened, he could smoothly marry me once the Oracle was sent away to the East. I opened my mouth. “I…” From outside the tent came the shout of Wyatt’s lieutenant. “General, the sacred artifacts for the Harvest Moon Festival have arrived!” Wyatt’s expression hardened. Without sparing me another glance, he ran out. I gave a self-deprecating smile, which instantly turned into tears. He was willing to ruin my reputation just to indulge in his taboo, once-a-year affair. How could he ever truly settle down and spend the rest of his life peacefully with me? It wasn’t that we didn’t get the Oracle’s blessing; it was just that I had bet on the wrong man’s heart. That was all. Wyatt returned quickly, gripping my hand tightly. “Hazel, the Harvest Moon is almost here. Let’s do the bloodletting quickly this year.” “The heavens will be moved by our sincerity, and next year we can marry!” To pray for good fortune, I would donate my blood every time he failed to get the flower. But now that the truth was out, doubts sprouted wildly in my mind. If seeking the blessing was a lie, why was he in such a rush to get my blood? I drew my dagger and unhesitatingly slashed my left wrist. Bright red blood dripped steadily into a white porcelain bowl. The guilt on Wyatt’s face deepened. “Thank you for this… Just wait one more year, and we can be together forever.” The very last ounce of affection I had for him drained away with that blood. I desperately wanted to tell him that there would be no ‘forever’ for us. After Wyatt left, I quietly followed him. And then I watched helplessly as he submerged the sacred artifacts into my blood! I remembered the legend: only the blood of a virgin could nourish the holy relics. The Oracle had lost her purity to him long ago. So, his refusal to touch me all these years wasn’t out of chivalry—he just needed me as a blood bank for the Oracle! The world spun around me. My riddled heart was pierced by a sharp blade once again. The night wind of the plains chilled me to the bone, much like these past eight years that had turned me from a vibrant girl into a lifeless shadow. I returned to my quarters like a wandering ghost and packed my bags for the East. Aside from my clothes, I only took the silver locket my mother left me. Then, I gathered everything related to Wyatt from all these years and threw it into the fire. The flames illuminated my tear-streaked face, burning away the absolute last trace of hesitation in my heart. I turned and walked out toward the plains. The old woman who helped raise my hunting falcon ran toward me. “Miss Hazel… Young Master Arthur is trying to take your falcon!” I frowned and rushed to the mews, arriving just in time to see the Oracle, dressed in her pure white robes, bowing gracefully to my brother. “I have nothing left tying me here as I leave for the East. I simply cannot bear to see my own falcon sacrificed tomorrow.” “Thank you, Young Master, for swapping the birds… I will remember this kindness.” My falcon had been hunting and riding with me since I was eight. I absolutely refused to lose it. Storming into the mews, ignoring the shocked looks of everyone around, I drew my bow and shot an arrow right through the chains holding my falcon! The bird circled me reluctantly, then let out a piercing cry and bolted into the dark night sky. As Arthur pinned me to the ground in a rage, I looked up at the sky and laughed until I cried. “Every single one of you hurts me just for the Oracle. But why can’t you win a single war?” “If you hadn’t been beaten back by the Easterners time and time again, you wouldn’t need to send the Oracle away as a bride!” This decaying, absurdly rotten Frontier was no longer my beautiful homeland. Then I would go over the mountains and find a way to save this country myself! 4. Arthur locked me in an empty barn. In the distance, the sound of war drums echoed. The current Oracle was completing her final sacrifice. Servants walked past me in twos and threes, making no effort to hide their contempt and hatred. “Why wasn’t this useless girl the one sent to the East? The heavens are blind!” “The Oracle ruined her health praying for the Frontier. What if she dies on the journey…” I closed my eyes, blocking out the tidal wave of malice. After a shrill, agonizing scream, the Oracle’s falcon was sacrificed. Wyatt rushed to the front of the barn, his eyes full of disappointment and fury. “Why did you purposely release your falcon last night!? The Oracle is about to leave, she just wanted to preserve a memory, and you couldn’t even grant her that?” Looking at his face, twisted with anger, I suddenly looked forward to seeing his expression when he realized I was the one going to the East. “What about me? She wanted to keep a memory, but do my feelings not matter?” His beloved was about to leave, and he couldn’t even bother pretending anymore. Wyatt’s chest heaved violently. “You haven’t hunted in years. What use do you have for a falcon?” He must have forgotten that I used to be the greatest huntress on the Frontier. I only stopped killing because our marriage was never blessed, and I thought sparing lives would earn us favor. I looked at the complete stranger standing before me and suddenly smiled softly. “Wyatt, you all will get your wish very soon.” Wyatt looked confused, but was suddenly pulled away by one of Arthur’s men. “The ritual failed! Something happened to the Oracle!” The Oracle had to be a pure virgin. Since she had slept with Wyatt just that morning, how could the heavens not punish them? It was getting late, and the guards were distracted. It was time to leave. After Wyatt left, I easily climbed out of the barn and snuck back to my tent to grab my luggage. But my most important possession, the silver locket, was gone! That was my mother’s heirloom, meant to keep me safe! My hands shook with panic, until I overheard the servants whispering. “The Young Master really cares for the Oracle. For this trip, he prepared seven or eight protective amulets for her.” By the time I snapped out of it, my face was covered in tears. I knew the Oracle was precious to him, but I never imagined he would strip me of my mother’s only heirloom! He felt my selfishness had killed the Oracle’s falcon, so he took half my life to compensate her. But from start to finish, I was the only one losing everything! The guards had discovered my escape. I had no time left. I threw on a red riding cloak and let out a sharp whistle. My falcon dove down from the sky and landed on my shoulder. My warhorse broke its tether, jumped the fence, and lowered its head to me. Dressed in crimson, a falcon on my left shoulder, I grabbed the reins with my right hand and galloped furiously toward the Capital! If there was no road left for me here, I would forge my own path in the wider world! This time, I didn’t look back. Meanwhile, on the Frontier, crowds fell to their knees around the altar, surrounding the Oracle, who was spitting blood with an agonized expression. “The heavens are furious! This is a disaster!” “Tens of thousands of cattle froze last winter, we are losing the war with the East…” “The Oracle represents the Frontier… Could it be the Oracle… Ah!” Arthur shot an arrow straight through the throat of the man who spoke. For a moment, everyone was dead silent. Wyatt’s face was so dark it looked like it could drip ink. “For centuries, the West has been protected by generations of Oracles.” “Anyone who dares slander her purity will be killed on the spot!” But the crowd wasn’t suppressed; they boiled over even more violently. “Then who angered the gods? We must cut them to pieces and burn them alive to calm the spirits’ wrath!” “Exactly! Give us peace!” Arthur and Wyatt knew better than anyone that they needed a scapegoat to bear the people’s fury. They looked at each other simultaneously and closed their eyes in pain. “Go bring Hazel.” Less than fifteen minutes later, my aging father, draped in a heavy coat, stood in the center of the crowd. “Hazel volunteered to go to the East as the treaty bride. She left the Frontier thirty miles ago.” 5. As soon as my father’s words fell, Wyatt lunged forward, his handsome face twisted in pure disbelief. “Impossible! Why would Hazel actually go? She explicitly promised she would only ever marry me.” Arthur’s fists clenched tightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His voice was frantic yet insistent. “Father must be lying to us. No matter how angry she is, she wouldn’t joke about the rest of her life.” They exchanged a look, both finding the same stubborn denial in each other’s eyes. They practically ran off the altar, Wyatt still muttering to himself. “She’s just punishing me. She’s saying this to scare us.” Arthur nodded in agreement, though his feet moved faster and faster. “Let’s check her room. She’s probably hiding inside, crying.” But when they burst into my quarters, they found only an empty bed and cold ashes in the hearth. Everything related to Wyatt had been burned to dust, scattered across the floor. Arthur’s heart plummeted. He turned and sprinted toward the grassy ridge I loved. “She loves watching the falcons from there. She has to be there!” Wyatt followed closely, clinging to a thread of hope. He remembered how I used to rest on his shoulder, my eyes shining as I said: “Wyatt, when we get the Winter Rose next year, we’ll have the grandest wedding.” Those words were still echoing in his ears. How could I just leave? They ran to every place I frequented. The valley of bluebells where I taught him to weave crowns; the clear stream where we sailed paper boats; the old oak tree where I hid my love letters to him. But at every spot, there was only the wind. No sign of me. “Where is she? Where did she go!?” Arthur’s voice started to shake, his composed facade entirely shattered. Wyatt’s face grew paler and paler. His fists were clenched so tight his fingertips were freezing. “Impossible. She couldn’t have left. We’re getting married next year.” This was his obsession, his unwavering certainty. Why would I suddenly give up? Just then, my father’s personal guard hurried over, carrying a wooden lockbox. “General, Young Master. This is the letter breaking the engagement that Hazel left behind, along with the silver ring the General gave her years ago.” The box was opened. The handwriting on the letter was neat but absolute. The ring still gleamed, carrying the faint warmth of having been worn by me for years. Wyatt shuddered violently, as if struck by lightning, and stumbled backward. “Breaking the engagement? She really wants to break it off?” He muttered to himself, his heart feeling as though it was being crushed by an invisible hand, hurting so much he couldn’t breathe. Arthur snatched the letter. After one glance, his eyes went entirely red: “She really left… She really went to the East…” Father stood behind them without them noticing, his eyes deep and unreadable. “The bridal escort left early. They will meet up with her tomorrow and head straight for the Capital.” “She prepared for this long ago. You two… simply hurt her too deeply.” Arthur suddenly spun around, staring at Wyatt with bloodshot eyes, his suppressed emotions exploding. “This is your fault! If you hadn’t failed to get that flower for eight years, she wouldn’t have been mocked! If you hadn’t treated her terribly, she wouldn’t have been so determined to leave!” 6. He grabbed Wyatt by the collar, pulling his fist back to strike. “We depended on each other since we were kids. How could she leave on such a massive journey without telling me? She must hate you!” Wyatt was stunned by the yelling, a flash of panic crossing his face before he, too, grew furious. “Blame me? How are you any better? For the Oracle, you said those vicious things to her, and you shot an arrow at her face!” He shoved Arthur away, his voice dripping with accusation. “You’re her actual brother, yet you were crueler than a stranger!” With weapons almost drawn, right as they were about to tear into each other, a figure in pure white quietly appeared. The Oracle stood between them, maintaining her sorrowful, merciful expression, and gently pulled at their sleeves. “Please, do not fight because of me. I bandaged your wounds years ago, and I don’t want to see you turn on each other today.” Her voice was soft, as if their fierce argument was entirely about her. Arthur and Wyatt both froze. Looking at the Oracle’s holy face, their expressions grew incredibly complicated. Wyatt took a deep breath, his tone freezing over: “Our fight has nothing to do with you.” Arthur shook off the Oracle’s hand, his eyes filled with exhaustion and deep regret. “We are talking about Hazel. We are talking about my sister.” The Oracle’s face stiffened. She clearly hadn’t expected this response. She stood frozen, looking at the suffocating anxiety and remorse rolling between the two men, suddenly at a loss for words. Arthur turned back to Wyatt, his gaze sharp as a knife. “Hazel loved you since she was a girl. For you, she learned to fight, and never complained no matter how much she suffered.” “She wouldn’t inexplicably abandon you and go to the East.” He stared intensely into Wyatt’s eyes. “Did you do something unforgivable to her?” All the color drained from Wyatt’s face. His eyes darted away, afraid to meet Arthur’s gaze. On the snowy mountain that morning, he had crushed the flower and told the Oracle that I was just a temporary companion. He used my virgin blood to nourish the artifacts. When I asked to cancel the engagement, he had just brushed me off. All these memories collided, leaving him entirely unable to defend himself. Seeing him like this, Arthur knew the answer, and his rage ignited once more. “I knew it! You bastard! What exactly did you do to her?” He drove his fist into Wyatt’s face, knocking him into the dirt. “She loved you so much, how could you bear to hurt her?” Wyatt didn’t fight back. He let Arthur’s fists rain down on his body. The physical pain was a fraction of the agony tearing apart his chest. He covered his face, letting out a stifled sob from his throat as the tears finally broke free. “I was wrong… I shouldn’t have lied to her… I shouldn’t have used her…” He regretted it. He truly, deeply regretted it. The two men brawled in the dirt, kicking up dust, until all their energy was spent and they collapsed on the ground. Arthur gasped for air, looking into the distance, his voice hoarse: “We can’t let her go to the East. Absolutely not!” Wyatt pushed himself up, his eyes hardening with resolve: “We’ll ride after her. We’ll bring her back.” The Oracle walked over and spoke softly. “This was originally my duty. Since this happened because of me, I am willing to go with you to take her place and bring Hazel back.” Her tone was incredibly righteous, as if she were saving the world. Arthur and Wyatt exchanged a look and didn’t refuse. Right now, as long as they could bring me back, they would do anything. The three immediately mounted their horses, took a squad of elite cavalry, and galloped frantically toward the Capital.

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When I resigned, a coworker set his sights on the Apple Pro Display XDR I had bought with my own money. I ignored him and packed it up to leave. The next day, that same coworker reported me for embezzling company property. My manager immediately called the police on behalf of the company: “Ethan, the company has nurtured you for years. How could you do something so illegal? Hand the monitor over right now, and we can handle this internally without putting a felony on your criminal record.” I calmly pulled a stack of documents from my briefcase and slid them across the table to the mediating police officer. “Here are the official Apple store purchase records, the digital receipts, and my personal credit card statements for the Pro Display XDR and the Pro Stand. The total comes to exactly $6,998.” Later, during the company’s multi-million dollar Series A funding press conference, I legally revoked the core algorithm patent I had previously allowed them to use for free. A project worth hundreds of millions of dollars completely collapsed because of it. 1 Friday at 3:00 PM. I pressed Enter, sending the final handover documentation to the department’s shared email. A “Sent Successfully” notification popped up on the screen. I took off my glasses and massaged the bridge of my nose, preparing to pack up the 32-inch Pro Display XDR sitting on my desk. Two years ago, I couldn’t stand the terrible color accuracy of the cheap monitors the company provided. It was ruining my design rendering work, so I spent $6,998 of my own money to buy this one. Now that I was leaving, I was naturally taking it with me. Click. I unplugged the Thunderbolt 4 cable from the back, and the screen instantly went dark. Suddenly, a thick-knuckled hand slammed down on the edge of my desk. “Packing up, Ethan?” Brad Miller leaned in, his eyes glued greedily to my monitor. “Yeah,” I replied flatly, not looking up. I continued to untangle the messy cables on my desk, tying them neatly with velcro straps. “Ethan, this monitor…” Brad swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I didn’t see it on the handover inventory list. Didn’t Manager Davis say all equipment from departing employees has to go back to IT to be reallocated?” He deliberately emphasized the word reallocated. The entire open-plan office instantly went dead silent. The clatter of keyboards from the surrounding cubicles ceased. I could feel several pairs of eyes peering through the gaps between their computer screens, quietly watching the drama unfold. Brad’s desk was usually covered in cheap, plastic anime figures. He used the standard, heavily color-distorted, hundred-dollar monitor the company bought in bulk. He had been coveting my equipment for a long time. Over the past six months, he had made countless excuses to “sync up” or “align our deliverables,” just to hover by my desk and drool over this screen. “It’s not on the company’s asset list,” I said, picking up a microfiber cloth to meticulously wipe down the aluminum bezel. “Not on the list?” Brad’s voice jumped an octave, sounding like a rat whose tail had just been stepped on. “Come on, Ethan, don’t be like that. We’re all wage slaves here. You’re leaving, but if you leave the equipment, the rest of the team can still use it. Taking everything with you isn’t exactly a class act, is it?” He turned his head, throwing his hands up to address the rest of the office loudly: “Everyone, be the judge here! The company spent big money to get this top-tier equipment, and now that he’s quitting, he’s trying to swipe it. Isn’t that stealing from the company?” A few muffled snickers drifted over from the corner. I stopped what I was doing, turned around, and looked at him coldly. “Brad.” My voice wasn’t loud, but in the silent office, it was crystal clear. “First, on my very first day here, I bought this monitor with my own money because the company equipment was trash. Second, keep your eyes off my property.” Brad’s face stiffened, then flushed a bright, angry red. He stuck his neck out and argued back, “Just because you say you bought it means you bought it? Everyone knows this thing costs thousands of dollars! Like a regular employee would drop that kind of cash. Besides, you’ve had it plugged into the company’s wall, using the company’s electricity every single day. That makes it public property!” His bottom-feeder logic was truly breathtaking. I couldn’t be bothered to waste another breath on him. Reasoning with a fool is a waste of a life. From under my desk, I pulled out a custom aluminum flight case I had prepared in advance. I detached the heavy Pro Stand and nestled it securely into the foam groove. Then, I lifted the monitor panel. Before sliding it into the case, I ran my long fingers lightly over the bottom right corner of the back panel. Right there, completely hidden from plain sight, was a tiny holographic security sticker. Printed on it was an independent serial number that only I knew. Clack. I closed the case, the metal latches snapping shut with a crisp sound. Brad stared at the silver case, his eyes a toxic mix of greed and resentment. He pulled out his phone, his thumbs flying furiously across the screen. I didn’t even need to look to know he was in the department Slack channel, dramatically exaggerating my “crimes” of stealing company assets. I picked up the heavy case, grabbed my tailored briefcase, and walked straight toward the elevators. Behind me, Manager Davis’s signature, nasal cough echoed as he stepped out of his private office. “What’s going on? What’s all this noise?” Davis asked, holding his Yeti thermos. “Manager Davis! Ethan just took that seven-thousand-dollar monitor! That’s the most expensive piece of hardware our department owns!” Brad yelled, tattling like he had just caught a bank robber. The elevator doors slowly slid shut. Through the narrowing gap, I saw Manager Davis’s chubby face twist in outrage, and the malicious gleam shining in Brad’s eyes. 2 Saturday, 9:00 AM. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a warm glow on the Persian rug in my living room. Compared to the formaldehyde-scented, backstabbing cubicles of my former employer, the air here felt incredibly free. Buzz—Buzz— My phone vibrated aggressively. An unfamiliar local landline number flashed on the screen. I swiped to answer. “Hello, is this Ethan Hayes?” A stern male voice came through the receiver. In the background, I could hear the clatter of keyboards and chaotic chatter. “Speaking.” “This is the local police precinct. We received a report from your former employer claiming you are suspected of corporate embezzlement and the illegal misappropriation of high-value company assets. We need you to bring the item in question to the precinct immediately for an investigation.” The officer’s tone was strictly business, entirely devoid of emotion. I picked up my coffee and took a sip. The bitter liquid slid down my throat, making my mind instantly razor-sharp. They actually called the cops? I originally thought Brad’s greed and ignorance were just loud barking, and that Manager Davis’s corporate posturing was just a way to flex his authority in front of the team. But I had underestimated the sheer insanity of low-level opportunists. To claim something that wasn’t theirs, they were willing to easily cross legal boundaries. “Understood, Officer. I’ll be right there.” I walked into my walk-in closet and changed into a perfectly tailored, dark gray suit. Then, I opened my safe and pulled out a manila envelope. Inside was the complete set of purchase records for the monitor, the shipping invoices, and a printed copy of the “Declaration of Personal Work Equipment” email I had sent to HR on my first week. I grabbed the heavy aluminum flight case and headed down to the underground garage. “Attorney Sterling,” I said as the Bluetooth connected in my car. “Good morning, Ethan. What can I do for you?” Robert Sterling’s voice was as steady and professional as always. “I’m heading to the local precinct. My former employer just reported me for corporate embezzlement.” I watched the red light countdown at the intersection, my tone completely flat. There was a second of silence on the other end, followed by a light chuckle. “That has to be a joke. Do you need me to come down there?” “Not yet. Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” I said, tapping my fingers rhythmically against the steering wheel. “But I need you to draft two documents. First, a cease and desist and a defamation lawsuit against an individual named Brad Miller. The second…” I paused, my eyes turning ice-cold. “Draft a legal notice to revoke a patent license. Yes, the core image-rendering algorithm they are currently using for their flagship project. I licensed it to them for free back then to speed up the development timeline. Now that I’ve resigned, that authorization is officially revoked.” “Understood. I’ll have them in your inbox in thirty minutes.” I hung up. The light turned green. The Porsche Panamera let out a low, guttural roar, shooting forward like a waking black panther toward the police station. 3 Local Precinct. Mediation Room. The air smelled faintly of bleach and old paper. When I pushed the door open, Manager Davis and Brad were already sitting across the long table. Brad had deliberately worn a slightly cleaner polo shirt today. He was sitting up straight, but his shifty eyes betrayed his nervous excitement. The moment he saw me walk in carrying the silver flight case, his eyes lit up like a vulture spotting rotting meat. Manager Davis sat back in his chair, clutching his chipped thermos, looking like a man who had already won. Officer Chen, the mediator, pointed to the empty chair in front of me. “Have a seat. Mr. Hayes, your former company is accusing you of embezzling a professional monitor worth around seven thousand dollars. What do you have to say for yourself?” “Officer, why are you even asking him? The stolen property is right there in that box!” Brad jumped up eagerly, pointing at the case by my feet. “That’s the stolen goods! He secretly packed up equipment our company purchased. If that’s not theft, what is?” Manager Davis coughed and pressed a hand down in the air, signaling Brad to sit. He put on a look of deep, theatrical disappointment. “Ethan, your performance at work was always solid, and the company valued you. But you can’t let your emotions about resigning push you to do something this foolish. As long as you return the property to the company and apologize right now, I’ll personally beg the CEO to handle this internally. We won’t press criminal charges. After all, if this goes to trial, your life is ruined.” What a masterful display of manipulative blackmail. Looking at Manager Davis’s hypocritical face, I suddenly felt a bit nauseous. I ignored them completely. Instead, I placed the manila envelope on the table and unwound the string closure. “Officer Chen, I purchased this Apple Pro Display XDR entirely with my own funds two years ago when I first joined the company, because the hardware they provided could not meet my professional color-calibration needs.” “Bullshit!” Brad slammed his hand on the table, rattling Davis’s thermos. “Seven thousand dollars! Do you even know what your monthly salary is? You couldn’t afford that! That monitor was specifically approved through a special procurement process for that massive project last year! Manager Davis signed off on it himself!” Brad turned to Davis for backup. Davis nodded without blinking. “That’s right, Officer. This equipment is absolutely fixed corporate property. Because the project was an emergency, IT didn’t have time to put an asset tag on it, so it was placed directly on Ethan’s desk.” “Oh? Is that so?” I sneered. From the envelope, I pulled out a copy of an invoice bearing an official red stamp and slid it over to Officer Chen. “This is a printed copy of the official Apple digital receipt. Purchaser: Ethan Hayes. Date of purchase: April 15th, two years ago.” Next, I pulled out a bank statement. “This is the billing statement from my personal Chase credit card. The charge is exactly $6,998. Merchant: Apple Inc.” Officer Chen picked up the documents, carefully matching the names and dates. He frowned slightly. Brad’s face dropped. He shot up from his chair, leaning over the table trying to look at the papers. “Impossible! He forged those! You can use Photoshop to fake anything these days!” “Forging financial documents and bank statements is a federal crime, Brad. Do you know anything about the law?” I stared at him coldly. “If you think they’re fake, you can call the IRS and report me right now.” Brad shrank back under my icy glare, but he still wasn’t willing to give up. He turned to Davis in a panic. “Manager, you… you said the company bought this!” Fine beads of sweat began to form on Manager Davis’s forehead. He set his thermos down, his fingers nervously tapping the table as he scrambled for an excuse. “This… perhaps I misremembered. But Officer, even if he bought the machine, he used it at the office for two years! What about the desk space? The electricity? This is a blending of personal and corporate resources, the boundaries are completely blurred!” “The boundaries are blurred?” I pulled the final document from the envelope. “This is a printed copy of an email I sent to the HR department and Manager Davis on my third day of work. The subject line is: ‘Declaration of Personal Work Equipment for Office Use.’ The attachment clearly lists the model and serial number of this exact monitor. Furthermore, HR replied to this email stating: ‘Approved for record.’” I slammed the piece of paper heavily onto the table. The sharp smack echoed in the room. “Manager Davis, do you need me to log into my email and show it to you live in front of the officer?” The mediation room fell into a deathly silence. Brad collapsed into his chair like a deflated balloon, his face ashen. Manager Davis stared wide-eyed at the printed email, his lips trembling, unable to form a single word. Officer Chen closed the case file, his expression turning severe. “Manager Davis, Brad Miller. Do you realize what the consequences are for filing a false police report and wasting police resources?” Davis shot up, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. “A misunderstanding! Officer, this is an absolute misunderstanding! It was a failure in our internal communication, a mistake in our asset inventory. We are so sorry. We withdraw the complaint immediately.” “Withdraw the complaint?” A mocking smile crept onto my lips. “You think the law is a revolving door you can just walk in and out of whenever you please?” I stood up, looking down at them from across the table. “Officer Chen, I’m done presenting my evidence. Now, I want to file a report.” I pointed directly at Manager Davis and Brad. “First, citing an ‘incomplete handover process,’ my former employer has illegally confiscated three Montblanc fountain pens, an Hermes tie, and several private design drafts that were in my desk drawer. The total value exceeds $15,000. That is the illegal embezzlement of private property.” “Second, without verifying any facts, Brad Miller publicly fabricated lies in a 150-person company Slack channel, defaming me as a thief. This has caused severe, malicious damage to my personal reputation. I have already had the chat logs notarized.” I looked into Brad’s suddenly terrified eyes and enunciated every word clearly: “Brad, expect a letter from my lawyer. I’ll see you in court.” 4 Monday, 10:00 AM. Former Company HQ, Conference Room 1. Today was the critical day my former employer was supposed to sign a Series A funding agreement with Sequoia Capital, one of the top venture capital firms in the country. As long as the agreement was signed, the company’s valuation would double, and Manager Davis would finally be able to cash out his long-awaited stock options. At the front of the conference room, a massive LED screen was running the company’s pride and joy—an AI-based dynamic image rendering engine. The VC representatives sat in leather swivel chairs, nodding frequently, clearly impressed by the engine’s rendering speed and color accuracy. Manager Davis stood by the screen in a sharp suit, his face glowing red with excitement. He was rambling endlessly about the company’s “technological moats” and “future blueprints.” Brad, acting as one of the department’s “key players,” stood in the corner, tasked with clicking through the PowerPoint slides. Even though he had been terrified out of his mind at the police station over the weekend, today, in this setting, he had regained his arrogant, sycophantic swagger. “Investors, what you are seeing now is our company’s proprietary, in-house rendering algorithm. This algorithm leads the industry in…” Before Davis could finish his sentence, the giant LED screen behind him flickered violently. Instantly, the smoothly running, high-definition 3D model froze, and the image tore apart into thousands of pixelated, mosaic blocks. “What’s going on? Brad! Switch the screen!” The smile froze on Davis’s face as he hissed under his breath. Sweating profusely, Brad mashed the keyboard and furiously clicked the mouse. “M-Manager, I can’t switch it! The system is throwing an error!” The screen went completely black. A few seconds later, a cold, white line of code appeared in the center of the display: Error: License Expired or Revoked. Auth Key Invalid. The air in the conference room instantly solidified. The investors looked at each other, their previously admiring gazes turning into suspicion and scrutiny. “Tech department! Get the CTO in here right now!” Davis panicked completely, screaming at an assistant by the door. Three minutes later, the CTO ran into the conference room, sweating bullets, carrying a laptop. He took one look at the error code on the screen, and his face turned whiter than a sheet of paper. “Mr. Davis…” The CTO’s voice was shaking. Davis grabbed the CTO by his collar. “What the hell is going on? Did the servers crash? Reboot them, now!” The CTO swallowed hard and closed his eyes in despair. “It… it’s not a server issue.” “The license for the base algorithm has been revoked. Our core rendering module… the underlying architecture calls an API from Ethan Hayes’s personal patented code.” “What did you just say?!” Davis looked like he had been struck by lightning. He abruptly let go of the CTO’s collar. “Back then, to meet the project deadline, the company didn’t have time to develop the base logic from scratch. Ethan let us use an image processing patent he registered in college for free. The licensing agreement clearly stated that the authorization automatically terminates the moment he resigns. Unless…” “Unless what?!” “Unless the company buys it out, or he agrees to renew it. Five minutes ago, I received an official letter from Ethan’s lawyer. He has unilaterally revoked all patent authorizations and demanded we cease usage immediately, or he will sue us for intellectual property infringement.” Clatter! The laser pointer in Manager Davis’s hand dropped to the floor, shattering into pieces. The lead representative from Sequoia Capital stood up. He adjusted his suit jacket, his tone freezing cold. “Mr. Davis, it appears your ‘proprietary technology’ and ‘tech moats’ have severe legal flaws. Until these intellectual property issues are resolved, today’s signing ceremony is canceled.” Without another word, the investors turned and walked out of the conference room without a shred of hesitation. “It’s over… It’s all over…” Davis collapsed into his chair, his eyes glazed over. That was tens of millions of dollars in funding! All because of a monitor. Because of one stupid, petty scheme, the entire future of the company went up in smoke. He violently whipped his head around, glaring murderously at Brad, who was shivering in the corner. “This is all because of you, you absolute moron! Out of everything in the world, you just had to covet his damn monitor! Now look! You killed the entire company!” Davis charged forward like a rabid boar and slapped Brad across the face with all his might. Smack! The sharp sound of the slap echoed through the empty conference room. Brad clutched his face, too terrified to even breathe.

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The notification from the Van Cleef & Arpels customer service app popped up on my phone. “Your Alhambra jewelry set has been serviced and is ready for pickup at our South Lake Avenue boutique.” I read the message three times. The Alhambra set was a family heirloom left to me by my mother. It was currently locked inside the safe in my house. I certainly hadn’t sent it in for servicing. And I had never set foot in the South Lake Avenue boutique in my life. I picked up my phone and called the store. “Hello, could you tell me who dropped off this set for servicing?” The associate checked the system. “Ma’am, it was dropped off by a Ms. Chloe Davis last Thursday.” Chloe Davis. I didn’t know anyone named Chloe Davis. But my jewelry was in her possession. 1. I didn’t rush home to check the safe. Instead, I drove straight to the South Lake Avenue boutique. The Van Cleef & Arpels sales associate was very polite and pulled up the service record for me. “This is the client,” she said, showing me the registration details. Chloe Davis. I didn’t recognize the phone number. The last four digits of her Social Security Number were listed on the intake form. “She mentioned her boyfriend gifted it to her and asked us to do a deep clean,” the associate added with a smile. “Boyfriend?” “Yes, she said her boyfriend spoils her rotten, buying her the entire matching set.” I nodded slowly. “Is the set currently here in the store?” “Yes, it’s all polished and ready for pickup anytime.” I stared into the display case where they kept serviced items. There it was—the Alhambra set I knew intimately: the necklace, earrings, bracelet, and ring. My mother had bought it at their flagship store in New York back in 2015. The original receipt was sitting in a drawer at my house. “I won’t pick it up today,” I told her. “I’ll let Ms. Davis come get it.” After leaving the boutique, I sat in my car for ten minutes. Then, I opened my phone and started scrolling through my husband’s Instagram and Facebook feeds. Mark’s social media had always looked perfectly clean. But he utilized custom friend lists and privacy settings. In the posts hidden from my view, was there a woman named Chloe Davis? I didn’t snoop through his phone. I did something much more effective. I opened the Chase banking app to check the statement for his secondary credit card. He had voluntarily given me this authorized user card years ago to help me track household expenses. He had probably forgotten that as an authorized user, I could also view the transaction history of the primary cardholder. I started scrolling back. One month ago. Two months ago. Three months ago. Line by line. Florist—Every Friday, the exact same shop, $188. Hotels—At least twice a month, always the same luxury boutique hotel, always on the weekends he claimed he was traveling for “business.” Women’s Apparel—Max Mara, Sandro, Self-Portrait. None of them were my size. I wore a Medium. Every purchase on the statement was a Size Small. Then, the most glaring transaction hit me: Three months ago, at a custom jewelry atelier: $6,800. The memo read: Engraving service. He had never gotten anything engraved for me. In our ten years of marriage, the most expensive gift he ever bought me was a two-thousand-dollar handbag. His exact words had been: “You’re not really into dressing up anyway, why spend so much on luxury stuff?” I closed the app. My hands weren’t shaking. My heart was racing, but my mind was terrifyingly clear. Mark, how long have you been lying to me? I reopened the statement and scrolled further back. Six months. A year. A year and a half. The weekly florist charges started exactly a year and a half ago. Every single Friday. Like clockwork. For eighteen months. I took a deep breath. Okay. Now I knew. 2. I didn’t confront Mark. Instead, I did something else—I started investigating Chloe Davis. The method was simple. Every Friday night, Mark “worked late.” This Friday, I took the afternoon off. At 5:30 PM, I parked across the street from his office building. At 5:50 PM, he walked out. He was holding a bouquet of flowers. Pink roses. He got into his car and headed toward the South Lake district. I tailed him from a safe distance. He pulled up to the gated entrance of a luxury condo complex. South Lake Gardens. A woman in a white sundress hurried out to meet him. She was young. Maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. She smiled brightly, took the flowers, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. Mark wrapped his arm around her waist, and the two of them walked through the lobby doors together. I sat in my car, watching them disappear into the building. Around the woman’s neck hung a necklace. From sixty feet away, I couldn’t make out the exact design. But I recognized the distinct luster of the chain. It was the unmistakable gleam of platinum. I waited for an hour. They didn’t come back out. I pulled out my phone and took a photo of the complex entrance. South Lake Gardens, Building B. Then, I looked up the phone number for the property management office. The next day, under the guise of a “misdelivered package,” I tried to fish for resident information in Building B. Property management refused to give me any details. So, I tried a different approach—I staked out the front gate for two days. On the afternoon of the second day, I saw the woman come out to pick up a package from a delivery driver. I managed to catch a glimpse of the shipping label: Chloe Davis. The address: South Lake Gardens, Building B, Unit 1502. Chloe Davis. The woman who had taken my jewelry to Van Cleef & Arpels for servicing. I got back into my car and searched her name online. I didn’t find much. But I did run a public property records search for Unit 1502 in Building B of South Lake Gardens. The registered owner: Mark Sterling. Date of purchase: 2023. We got married in 2014. He had bought this condo during our marriage. Where did the money come from? I checked the credit card statements again. There were no massive withdrawals or down payment charges. He hadn’t used his credit cards to buy the condo. So where did the cash come from? I opened another app—our joint high-yield savings account. I scrolled back. Late 2022, a massive outbound transfer: $120,000. Transfer destination: Mark Sterling’s personal checking account. Memo: Investment. I had asked him about it at the time. He had told me, “It’s a buddy’s startup project. Very low risk. We’ll see a return in six months.” Six months later, I asked about the ROI. He said, “It’s still scaling up. Needs more time.” I hadn’t brought it up again. $120,000. Combined with a standard mortgage, it was more than enough for a down payment on a two-bedroom condo at South Lake Gardens. I sat in the driver’s seat and let out a dark laugh. Mark. You used our money to buy a condo for your mistress. You stole my jewelry to let your mistress flaunt it around town. And you had the nerve to tell me, “You’re not into dressing up.” Alright. Perfect. I started the engine. I didn’t go home. I drove straight to the law firm of my best friend, Rachel. 3. Rachel was my college roommate. She had been a high-powered divorce and family law attorney for eight years. I laid all the evidence out on her desk. The credit card statements. The property records. The joint account transfer logs. The screenshots from the Van Cleef & Arpels app. She reviewed the documents in silence for ten minutes. Then, she looked up at me. “The jewelry from your dowry—do you have an itemized inventory?” “Yes.” “What about proof of purchase?” “It’s all in my mother’s safe deposit box. Original receipts, certificates of authenticity, everything.” “Did your mother ever have it legally notarized as a gift?” I paused, stunned for a second. “She did.” It suddenly came rushing back to me. My mother was an incredibly meticulous woman. Before she got sick, she had a lawyer draft a notarized deed of gift—explicitly stating that these pieces of jewelry were gifted to me as my sole and separate property prior to marriage, completely exempt from any future marital or community property claims. At the time, I thought she was being overly paranoid. Now, I understood. She saw much further down the road than I ever could. Rachel nodded approvingly. “Do you have the notarized documents?” “Yes. They are filed with the receipts.” “Then this just became very straightforward,” Rachel said, her eyes sharp. “That jewelry is your premarital, separate property. You have the notarized deed, the receipts, and the certificates of authenticity. Mark took them without your consent and gave them to a third party. Under the law, this isn’t ‘mismanagement of marital assets.’ This is grand larceny.” “Grand larceny?” “Exactly.” Rachel leaned forward. “The value exceeds half a million dollars. That’s a massive felony. He’s looking at three to ten years in state prison.” I stared at her, processing the weight of it. “I’m not calling the cops just yet.” Rachel raised an eyebrow. “I need to confirm one thing first.” “What is it?” “Whether the rest of the jewelry is still in the safe at home.” Rachel instantly understood. “You think he swapped them out?” I nodded. “My mother left me twelve pieces in total. We know the four-piece Alhambra set is currently in that woman’s possession. As for the other eight…” I trailed off. Rachel slid a business card across the desk. “David Chen. Certified master gemologist and appraiser. Take whatever is left in your safe to him. He’ll tell you if they’re authentic.” I pocketed the card. “One more thing,” Rachel warned me. “When you go home tonight, act completely normal. Don’t say a word. Don’t ask any questions.” “I know.” “Make him believe you are completely oblivious.” “I know.” “Once we have all the evidence secured, we drop the hammer.” Drop the hammer. Those words gave me a profound sense of grim satisfaction. 4. When I got home, Mark was lounging on the sofa, watching TV. “Working late today?” he asked casually. “Yeah, pulling extra hours.” I walked into the master bedroom and locked the door behind me. I stood in front of the heavy steel safe in the closet. We had bought this safe during our second year of marriage. My mother had told me, “Your jewelry is highly valuable. You need to keep it secure.” The original passcode was my birthday. Later, Mark insisted that wasn’t secure enough and changed it to his birthday. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Looking back, he was already plotting his heist the day he changed that code. I punched in his birthday and pulled the heavy door open. The velvet jewelry boxes were all there. Not a single one was missing. The jade bangle. The diamond tennis necklace. The ruby drop earrings. The Mikimoto pearl set. … At first glance, everything was accounted for. But I didn’t touch them. I took out my phone and meticulously photographed every single piece in its box. The next day, while Mark was at work, I packed every piece from the safe into a discreet tote bag and drove to David Chen’s office. David was a man in his late fifties. Wearing a jeweler’s loupe, he examined each piece, one by one. The first item: the jade bangle. He examined it under harsh lighting for two minutes. He set it down. He looked up at me. “This is a replica.” My stomach dropped. “It’s Grade A treated jade, very well-crafted, but it’s not natural untreated jadeite. The color distribution on an authentic piece of this caliber wouldn’t be this unnaturally uniform.” The second item: the diamond necklace. He examined it for barely a minute. “Moissanite. Not diamonds.” The third item. The fourth. The fifth. Every single time he set a piece down, he shook his head. Out of the twelve pieces of jewelry, subtracting the four Alhambra pieces currently held by Chloe Davis… Eight pieces remained. All eight were counterfeits. Not a single genuine piece was left in the safe. I sat in the appraisal office, staring at the row of worthless fakes lined up on the velvet tray. David drafted the official appraisal reports for me. Eight separate reports. Every single one concluded: Non-natural / Replica / Counterfeit. My mother’s jade bangle. She had sold her childhood home in the suburbs to buy it for me. It had cost fifty-eight thousand dollars. She had told me, “This is your safety net. No matter what happens in your marriage, as long as you have this bangle, you have a way out.” She wore it for twenty years before taking it off her wrist and placing it on mine right before she passed away. Now, I had no idea where the real one was. Sitting in my safe was a cheap, mass-produced fake worth maybe a few hundred bucks. I carefully folded the appraisal reports and placed them in my bag. I didn’t shed a single tear. When I walked out of the appraisal office, the afternoon sun was blindingly bright. I stood on the sidewalk and texted Rachel: “Eight pieces. All fake.” Rachel replied instantly: “We have enough evidence. Next step: audit his company.”

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It all started because my billionaire father smiled during a prime-time interview and said, “Honestly, the road to success has been incredibly smooth for me.” Those words hunted him down. A man twisted by extreme hatred for the rich broke into our home and beheaded him. He violated my mother, too. Hiding in the closet, I watched her emerald ring soaking in a pool of blood. I didn’t dare let a single tear fall. It was my boyfriend, Caleb Vance, who also happened to be my therapist, who pulled me out of that suffocating shadow. Until a movie hit the theaters, based entirely on my family’s tragedy. In this adaptation, my father was twisted into a corrupt, heartless capitalist. My mother was depicted as a homewrecking mistress. And I? I was portrayed as a vicious bully. The brutal, cold-blooded killer was whitewashed into a poor victim of circumstance, driven to desperate measures by poverty. On the night of the movie premiere, I went. I never expected to find out that the screenwriter was Caleb’s childhood sweetheart, Elara Vance. She smiled as she clung to Caleb’s arm, introducing him to the crowd: “This is the city’s finest psychologist, and the inspirational muse behind my film. He provided the incredible, raw material that allowed me to complete this masterpiece.” The theater erupted in thunderous applause. Ignoring Caleb’s look of absolute horror, I slowly raised my hand. “I have a question for this ‘muse’.” … Caleb’s face went completely rigid. He obviously hadn’t expected me to show up. I recognized the panic swirling in his eyes instantly. Two days ago, we had agreed to take a trip to a tropical island. The day before we were supposed to leave, he claimed an urgent crisis had come up at work. He apologized with such tenderness: “Rylee, just give me one day. One day.” “You go ahead. I’ll handle this and meet you there immediately.” I believed him. Until my best friend sent me a video link. There were Caleb and Elara, appearing together at the movie premiere. Striking an intimate pose, looking like lovers. Forgetting about the trip, I rushed here, only to watch a movie where my family was twisted into villains. Then, the realization hit me like a physical blow. He wasn’t busy. He just needed me out of town. Caleb’s eyes locked with mine. He immediately ripped his gaze away, not daring to look at me. So, he was capable of fear. Fear of me knowing. Fear of facing my fury. Yet he did it anyway. For Elara. I curled my lips in a bitter smile. “Dr. Vance, I’m just purely curious. As a psychologist, where exactly did you get the ‘real-life subject material’ you provided to Ms. Vance for this screenplay?” I wanted to hear his explanation. I was giving him one last chance. Caleb’s mind seemed to go blank for a second. The next moment, his voice was flat. “Just an experience of an old friend.” I stunned for a few seconds, then let out a low, bitter laugh. Caleb, I’m always the soft-hearted one, but thank God, you are far more ruthless than me. I was such a fool. I already knew the answer, yet I still wanted to hear how he would lie to me. Caleb saw my eyes turning red, and a note of worry crept into his voice. “I…” Suddenly, Elara’s slightly shrill voice cut him off. “What a wonderful question! It seems you are a deep admirer of our film. Why don’t I share the story of Caleb and I’s creative journey?” She started talking, completely self-absorbed. “The story in the movie was so heavy, I was stuck for the longest time, unable to put pen to paper.” “Until I met Caleb.” She turned her gaze to him, the adoration in her eyes thick and unmistakable. “As a top psychologist, he analyzed the raw, inner world of those suffering from PTSD for me. We explored the complexities of human nature, the boundaries of crime and punishment.” “He stayed up with me through countless late nights. Honestly, without him, this movie wouldn’t have a soul.” When she finished, she looked at Caleb with deep affection. Caleb glanced at me, then immediately pulled away as if burned, not daring to meet my eyes. Yet, he still nodded stiffly, playing along with Elara. The audience erupted in applause, mixed with envious whispers. “Oh my god, they’re soulmates!” I quietly stared at that face and laughed at myself. Six years of knowing Caleb, four years of being in love. Now, I was just an “old friend.” The scars I had once revealed to him in total trust had been served up to Elara. He used my wounds to please another woman. Chapter 2 When the applause died down, I forced myself to calm down. “Exploring human nature, analyzing psychology. That sounds so profound.” “But Dr. Vance, as a professional psychologist, using your patient’s private life as material for someone else—” I paused, my voice turning to ice. “Is that, perhaps, a violation of your professional ethics?!” As the words fell, the faces of the audience members, who had just been gushing over the “romance,” shifted. That’s right. Leaking a patient’s privacy was an absolute taboo for a therapist! The reporters reacted instantly, turning their cameras and microphones toward Caleb on the stage. “Dr. Vance, is what this young lady saying true?” “Did you really leak a patient’s private sessions to Ms. Vance to use as screenplay material?” Caleb panicked, frantically waving his hands, his voice pitching up. “No! No, that’s not right! Everyone is misunderstanding. This isn’t a patient’s private life!” Elara immediately chimed in, putting on a victim act. “This movie is adapted from actual social events. How could it be a patient’s private life? This young lady must be confused about something.” “Oh? Adapted from actual events?” I smiled. “Then can Ms. Vance tell everyone how you learned about these ‘actual events’?” Years ago, due to a massive error by the investigators, the killer almost got away. Because of that, the case was completely buried and never reported. Aside from Caleb as the source, Elara couldn’t have known. Elara froze, falling silent. She couldn’t say she heard it from Caleb, because that would confirm he leaked the information. She could only glare at me with venom. The air solidified. Elara looked to Caleb with a pleading expression. He took a deep look at me, seemingly having made some kind of decision. “The person involved was an old friend of mine. She didn’t want to be mentioned again, so I didn’t want to say much.” “Since this young lady is so persistent, I will clear this up.” My heart dropped. By instinct, he still chose to protect Elara. I had lost completely. “My old friend was deeply aware of the mistakes her parents had made. For years, she carried a massive moral burden, which led to severe depression.” “She came to me to pour everything out and begged me to find a way to make this matter public, to serve as a warning to the world. It was her way of seeking atonement for the victims.” He paused, pitching his voice up a bit, carrying an air of righteous indignation. “So, this was not a leak.” “Elara and I were simply helping a tragic girl achieve her self-redemption.” I stared at Caleb, dumbfounded. A sharp pain shot through my heart. I was so hurt I could barely breathe. After my parents’ brutal murder, I got sick. Depression. Living was more painful than dying. I swallowed sleeping pills, slit my wrists, and looked down from rooftops countless times. Every time, I was pulled back. Until one time, after getting my stomach pumped, the doctor couldn’t take it anymore and brought in Caleb. He told me, “You are a survivor, not a sinner.” Some people in life are like gifts. With his companionship, I was slowly healed. And now, his face had become just as repulsive as the killer’s from that day. I held back my tears, my voice shaking. “Caleb Vance, you truly have no soul.” “So righteous, aren’t you? Casting yourself as the big hero.” I let out an abrupt laugh, asking him with a raspy voice: “But you twist the truth and reverse black and white. When you’re asleep at night, does your conscience really never trouble you?!” Chapter 3 The crowd grew noisy. “What does she mean by that? Is she saying the movie is maliciously whitewashing a criminal?” “The depiction of the criminal in the movie did make me feel uncomfortable.” “Yeah, and the victims were so stereotypical, it felt like victim-blaming…” Hearing the whispers, Elara’s face flashed with panic, her grip on Caleb’s arm tightening slightly. Seeing this, Caleb’s eyes darkened. “Rylee Croft! Do you have to cause a scene out here?” “What happened to your parents was years ago. Why can’t you just let it go? Why do you insist on not letting them rest in peace!” I snapped my head up to look at him. The look in his eyes was one of disappointment, anger, and even a slight tinge of blame. There was not a single trace of the tenderness and heartbreak he once had. I was stunned. All those years, I thought of him as my salvation. In his most缱绻 (tender) voice, he had told me over and over again: “Rylee, don’t be afraid. You have me.” “Rylee, look. The sun is out. Let’s go out and get some sun, and I’ll read you poetry.” I blankly raised my hand and touched my face. The bitterness I had held back for too long had now coalesced into tears, crawling all over my face. Caleb saw my tears. He froze for a few seconds, and a look of pain flashed across his face. He instinctively raised his hand, as if wanting to wipe away the tears as he had countless times in the past. But he realized we were too far apart. He was on the stage, the center of attention. I was down here, isolated and helpless. He awkwardly dropped his hand. Across the noisy crowd, his lips moved, and though I couldn’t hear him, I understood clearly: Rylee, don’t make a scene. Let’s go home and talk. Hah. After he and Elara had pinned my entire family to a pillar of shame. Was there any “home” left between us? I curled my lips in a mocking smile, walked up onto the stage step by step, and faced Caleb. “My parents have been slandered as criminals who deserved to die. You are the ones not letting them rest in peace!” “Caleb Vance, if it were you, could you let it go?” His mouth opened, his Adam’s apple moving with difficulty. His voice was raspy. “Rylee, I’m doing this for your own good. What happened to your parents needs more attention. A truth is needed eventually.” Absurd. A short, sharp laugh escaped my throat. “The truth?” “Is the truth beautifying the crime and the killer while attacking the victims?” “Or is the truth slandering my parents, making my father a sweatshop boss, my mother a homewrecking mistress, and me a vicious bully who abused her classmates?” My voice suddenly went high. “Caleb Vance, does it taste good? Living off the blood of the dead?” The atmosphere around us solidified. Caleb’s shaking voice rang out. “Rylee, that’s not what I meant. I just got anxious earlier.” His eyes turned red, as if he truly was repenting. But the next second, he said urgently, “But this movie is very important to Elara. Nothing can go wrong. Rylee, just step back this once, okay?” “After this, we’ll get married.” I slowly looked up at him, burning tears slipping from the corner of my eyes. But I was laughing so hard my whole body was shaking. “Step back? How do you expect me to step back! You know how painful the last six years have been for me. You know!” Caleb heard my laughter, and his tone became impatient. “Then what exactly do you want?” “Do you want to destroy my career, destroy Elara’s most important work, before you’re satisfied?” His eyes were full of disappointment. “When did you become so unreasonable?” I froze on the spot. Looking at that face that once gave me so much peace, I suddenly found it frighteningly alien. “In your heart, her slandering my entire life is called ‘work’?” “And I, the victim you’ve trampled under your feet and sucked dry, I become the sinner?” My interrogation made his face even uglier. He avoided my gaze, not daring to look into my eyes again. Seeing this, Elara frowned, her tone full of disdain. “Ms. Croft, why are you speaking so harshly? Caleb and I are giving this matter more discussion, recording it through film.” The venom in her eyes flashed by. “You are so hopelessly disruptive. Anyone who didn’t know better would think you are that daughter who bullied her classmate and caused them to jump off a building.” So, Elara knew everything. She just wanted me to admit my identity and humiliate me publicly. Chapter 4 I had always hated Elara Vance. And she hated me. In front of my face, she would tell Caleb pointedly, “Caleb, pity isn’t love. Don’t be fooled by a patient.” I was already insecure, and she made it so I could never find peace. I had to confirm with Caleb over and over again: “Do you only pity me?” “Caleb Vance, will you one day abandon me?” Caleb would pull me into his arms with helpless adoration. “You silly girl, what are you imagining? How could I ever bring myself to leave you.” Now, he was standing against me, protecting another woman. So, it wasn’t that he couldn’t bring himself to leave. It was just that the person he couldn’t leave was not me. I met Elara’s malicious gaze and smiled. “Yes, I am that person. The daughter in the movie.” Her grin froze. She hadn’t expected me to admit it so easily. Immediately, she smiled again, faking surprise. “Oh dear, so Ms. Croft really is that bully.” The venue exploded. “Ms. Croft, was your father really a cold-blooded capitalist? Was your mother really a mistress?” “Ms. Croft, was your family’s tragedy retribution for you bullying others?” The reporters were incredibly excited. But they weren’t trying to find the truth. They wanted a gimmick, a shocking headline. The crowd surged forward. I was pushed down to the ground with massive force, my head hitting the floor hard. Buzz! The world instantly went silent. As the room spun, twisted, magnified faces blurred before my eyes, merging with the face of the demon from deep in my memory. I was back in that blood-colored afternoon, pinned inside the closet by my parents. Through that narrow crack in the door, I saw— My father on the ground, his head a bloody mess. My mother pushed to the ground, her skirt violently torn open, the demon’s face turning depraved. When her eyes met mine, they instantly filled with resolve. She actively thrust the knife in the crazed robber’s hand into her own heart. Then, step by step, she dragged herself through the blood covering the floor, crawling to the closet. Using her body to block that crack in the door, blocking the demon’s searching gaze. Blood seeped in, inch by inch, warm, thick… “Ah!” I clutched my head and let out a scream, my body shaking uncontrollably. That suffocating feeling of being close to death returned. The crowd was terrified by my reaction. They stopped pushing forward and backed away with strange looks on their faces. I finally got some breathing room. “Rylee!” Caleb noticed something was wrong. His face changed dramatically, and he tried to rush over to help me. “Don’t touch me!” I violently took a step back to avoid him. His hand froze in mid-air, his face full of hurt and disbelief. I raised my head, staring at him with blood-red eyes. “Is it fun? Turning everything I told you into gossip to tell her?” Caleb’s face turned slightly red, looking as if he were embarrassed or angry. “Rylee Croft!” “Not everyone is like you, always twisting every ounce of goodwill into malice.” I dully dragged myself up and said to him, one word at a time: “Caleb Vance, is it that hard to treat people with the same sincerity you started with?” “How did the old me not realize you were actually this disgusting.” His eyes began to dodge mine. This reaction fell into the eyes of the crowd, looking meaningful. “Now it really does look like Ms. Croft is the one being bled dry.” “I knew this movie was wrong. That’s a murdering demon; why are they whitewashing him?” “Exactly. And putting him right in the middle of the promotional poster. Their intentions are way too obvious.” The whispers of doubt grew louder. Elara completely panicked. Her voice went sharp as she screamed, “Don’t believe her! She’s crazy!” “She’s a patient of Caleb’s. She has a delusional obsession with him, and now she’s fabricating all this to destroy us!” The crowd frowned, barely able to keep up with the reversals. Elara shook Caleb’s arm urgently. “Caleb, don’t play along with her. You’ve done more than enough. She’s trying to destroy us!” “Don’t you have her medical records for her delusions? Stop being soft-hearted! Tell everyone the truth, everything I said is true!” In an instant, everyone’s gaze concentrated on Caleb Vance. After a long silence, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, all emotion had faded, leaving only indifference. He looked at me and said quietly: “Yes. She… is suffering from severe delusions. She is one of my patients.” “She has been obsessively harassing me…”

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A year ago, he threw out a casual, “I don’t think we’re a good fit,” and walked away without looking back. There were two coffees on the table. He hadn’t touched his. He left me the bill. A year later, he was standing at my office door. His face was ghost-white. His hands were shaking. “Ms…. Ms. Miller?” I looked at him and smiled. “Come in. And close the door.” Chapter 1 The story has to start with a blind date a year ago. My mom had been nagging me on the phone for three months straight. “You’re twenty-seven, Chloe! If you don’t start dating seriously now, all the good ones will be taken!” “Mom, I’m busy with work—” “Busy, busy, busy. You’ll know what ‘busy’ really means when you’re thirty and dying alone!” I couldn’t win against her. So, I went. His name was Brad Hudson, twenty-eight, a sales supervisor at a tech firm. My mom’s exact words were: “He’s a top-tier university grad, makes over six figures, and he’s sharp-looking. Put your best foot forward.” I arrived five minutes early. Ordered two coffees and sat waiting. I waited ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Forty minutes. Just as I was about to get up and leave, he walked in. Suit, dress shoes, a Longines watch on his wrist. He scanned the restaurant upon entering, then spotted me. I noticed his expression. It was brief, maybe half a second. But I saw it clearly. Disappointment. That “you don’t look like your profile picture” kind of disappointment. Actually, the photo was me. Five-foot-two, slightly chubby, wearing glasses, average skin. But on dating apps, who doesn’t touch up their photos a bit? He obviously felt I had touched mine up too much. He sat down, offering no apology for being late. “Are you Chloe Miller?” “Yes, hi.” “Hmm.” He picked up the menu, flipped through it twice, then put it back down. “What do you do?” “Project management.” “Which company?” “A tech firm, Nexus Digital.” He thought about it. “Never heard of it. Big company?” “It’s alright.” “What’s your salary?” I paused, stunned. Seriously? This direct? “It’s enough to get by.” “I mean a specific number.” He leaned back in his chair. “Don’t mind me, I just want to understand the situation. We’re both adults; discussing terms is normal.” “A little over fifty thousand.” I was talking about my base salary. I didn’t count bonuses, project dividends, and stock options. But he didn’t need to know that. “A little over fifty…” He nodded, a look I was all too familiar with. That’s it? “Education?” “Bachelor’s.” “Where from?” “State University.” “Just a state school?” “Yes.” He nodded again. A silence stretched for about five seconds. Then his phone rang. He picked up. “Hey? Oh, right. Okay, I’m on my way.” He hung up, looking at me. “Sorry, some urgent business came up at the office.” He stood up. “I don’t think we’re a very good fit. Don’t take it personally.” He grabbed his car keys off the table. “You can have the coffee. I didn’t touch mine.” And then he left. From the time he sat down to the time he left was a total of eight minutes. I sat there, watching his back disappear through the doorway. Two coffees on the table. The bill was twelve dollars. He didn’t pay. I called the waiter over. “Check, please.” Walking out of the coffee shop, I wasn’t actually that sad. It was a setup; it’s normal not to click. But one thing happened that made me truly angry. It was three days later. My mom called me. Her voice was trembling. “Chloe… that guy you met… did you offend him somehow?” “What’s wrong?” “Aunt Sarah sent me a screenshot…” My mom forwarded the screenshot to me. It was an iMessage group chat. The group was named “The Boys’ Night Out.” Brad had posted a photo. It was my photo. A sneaky picture he took the moment he walked in, while I was sitting in the coffee shop waiting for him. Below the photo was a paragraph of text: “Look at who my mom set me up with, I’m dying laughing. Barely five-foot-two, fat, wearing glasses like a high schooler, state school grad, making fifty grand. With these conditions, she still comes out on dates? I sat for eight minutes and ran, Hahahahaha.” A row of replies followed: “Hahahahaha, your mom really isn’t picky.” “Bro, you suffered.” “If this photo gets out, she won’t come looking for you, will she?” “What’s there to be afraid of? She doesn’t know us.” I stared at the screen. My fingers went cold. Not out of sadness. But out of rage. He could dislike me. But he had no right to take my photo to amuse a bunch of guys. My mom was crying on the other end of the phone. “Chloe, Mom is so sorry, I shouldn’t have made you go…” “Mom, it’s fine.” My voice was flat. “What was his name again? Brad? Brad what?” “Brad Hudson…” “Which company?” “He said something called… Apex or something…” “Got it.” I hung up the phone. I opened my laptop and searched for “Brad Hudson.” He was on LinkedIn. Apex Technology, Midwest Regional Sales Supervisor. I searched for Apex Technology. I saw a piece of information. And smiled. Apex Technology is a subsidiary under the Sterling Group umbrella. And Sterling Group’s fully-owned technology subsidiary is called Nexus Digital. The exact “never heard of it” little company I worked for. I shut down my laptop. No rush. We will meet eventually. Chapter 2 A year later. I stood at the entrance of Apex Technology’s Midwest branch. My reflection showed on the glass doors. Still five-foot-two. But I’d lost fifteen pounds. Contacts replaced the glasses. My hair was cut short, just reaching my shoulders. I was wearing a black blazer over a crisp white shirt. Carrying a laptop bag in my hand. My corporate badge read: Sterling Group · Project Management Department · Director · Chloe Miller. A year ago, Brad Hudson asked me my salary, and I said a little over fifty thousand. That was the base salary. Adding bonuses, project dividends, and year-end payouts, I took home nearly two hundred thousand last year. Earlier this year, the corporate group underwent an organizational restructuring. I was promoted to Director of Project Management, responsible for overseeing project operations for all subsidiaries in the Midwest region. Including Apex Technology. The transfer order came down last month. Signed personally by the Group VP. “Several Midwest subsidiaries have anomalies in their business data. Go investigate. Clean house if you need to, replace people if you need to.” I said okay. Then I looked at Apex Technology’s Midwest branch employee roster. Sales Team 2 Supervisor: Brad Hudson. I stared at the computer screen for three seconds. Then I closed it and moved on to the next file. No rush. See you on Monday. Monday morning, 9:00 AM. Apex Technology Midwest branch, third-floor conference room. The Regional Director, Gary Vance, led me in. He was in his early fifties, with a beer belly and a loud, booming voice. “Everyone, let me introduce someone. This is Ms. Chloe Miller sent from corporate headquarters. She will be responsible for our project management and operational oversight here in the Midwest from now on.” He glanced at me, a look I was all too familiar with. Skepticism. What could a twenty-eight-year-old girl manage? I didn’t care. “Everyone cooperate fully with Ms. Miller. If you need anything, just speak up.” Gary finished and smiled at me. “Ms. Miller, want to say a few words to everyone?” I stood up, scanning the conference room. Over twenty people. When my gaze swept to the third row by the window, it paused for a moment. Brad Hudson. He was also looking at me. But he obviously hadn’t recognized me yet. A year apart, I had changed quite a bit. He, on the other hand, hadn’t changed much at all. Still that arrogant, confident look, dressed sharply in a suit, that Longines watch still on his wrist. “Hi everyone, I’m Chloe Miller.” My voice wasn’t loud, but the conference room was dead silent. “For the next little while, I will be based here in the Midwest, primarily responsible for analyzing and optimizing project operations. I look forward to your cooperation.” Brief. I don’t like wasting words. After the meeting adjourned, Brad walked right past me. He took an extra look at me. Walked two steps, then turned his head to look again. I didn’t look at him. He probably felt I looked a bit familiar. But he couldn’t remember where he’d seen me. It didn’t matter. He would remember. In the afternoon. I was in my office organizing the project reports for the Midwest from the last six months. There was a knock on the door. “Ms. Miller, I’m Brad Hudson from Sales Team 2.” He pushed the door open and entered, wearing a standard corporate smile. “Mr. Vance asked me to come coordinate Team 2’s business data with you.” He placed the file on my desk. I took it, flipping through two pages. “Sit.” He sat down. I continued looking at the file, not speaking. He waited for a while. “Ms. Miller, you look… quite familiar.” I flipped a page. “Oh?” “Have we met somewhere before?” I lifted my head, looking at him. He studied me carefully for a few seconds. Then his expression changed. From “social curiosity” to “I might have seen her somewhere.” Then to “She looks a bit like—” And finally froze on “No way.” “You…” His voice got stuck in his throat. “Are you…” “Supervisor Hudson, the Q3 collections data in this report doesn’t match the system.” I lowered my head, pointing at a number on the document. “Verify this for me.” He was stunned for two seconds. “O… Okay.” He stood up, taking the document. When he reached the door, he looked back at me. I didn’t lift my head. He went out. The door closed. I heard him standing in the hallway for a long time. Before his footsteps finally walked away. Chapter 3 That night. I guessed Brad was definitely scrolling through his phone. Scrolling through his blind date history from a year ago. Scrolling through the chat logs in “The Boys’ Night Out” group. Scrolling to that photo he secretly took of me. And then comparing it to the person sitting in the director’s office today. Sure enough. First thing the next morning, he came to find me. His face didn’t look good. “Ms. Miller…” He stood at the door, hesitating. “Are you… last year… did we…” “What?” I looked at him. He swallowed hard. “Nothing, I verified the report. The data was entered incorrectly. I’ve already fixed it.” He put the file down and almost fled from the room. I watched his retreating back. Exactly the same as a year ago. Never looking back. Except a year ago, he walked away in disgust. Today, he ran away in fear. After Brad recognized me, his attitude completely shifted. He became exceptionally attentive. Every morning, he was the first in the office, brewing tea for me. At noon, he proactively asked if I wanted him to pick up lunch for me. When reporting his work, he was deferential and respectful. But I noticed something else. While he was being attentive to me, he was doing something else too. For example—getting much closer to Gary Vance. On my third day at Apex, Brad took Gary out for a fancy dinner. I knew, because the next day Gary said something to me. “Ms. Miller, Brad is a good kid. Very capable. He’s our sales benchmark in the Midwest. If you have any questions looking at the data, don’t jump to conclusions. You can always ask me first.” I smiled. “Understood, Mr. Vance.” He still didn’t know why I was really here. During the first week, I didn’t make any big moves. I just looked at data. Reviewing it file by file. Apex Technology Midwest branch: four sales teams, totaling over forty people. The first thing I looked at was Brad’s Sales Team 2. Not because of a personal grudge. But because Team 2’s data was indeed the “prettiest.” Ranked number one in performance for three consecutive quarters. Brad personally held the title of top sales rep for two years running. It was too pretty. Pretty to the point of being abnormal. I pulled up Team 2’s client ledgers for the past year and reviewed them one by one. I saw some very interesting things. There was a girl on Team 2 named Mia Jenkins. She’d been here two years, and her performance was always at the bottom. But three clients she followed up on last year were all “transferred” to Brad right before the contracts were signed. The system record showed: “Client proactively requested a change of representative.” Three clients, all with the exact same reason. Too coincidental. I checked others. Another Team 2 member, Tom Weaver, a veteran who had been here for five years and had a lot of legacy clients. Last year, eight of his legacy clients renewed their contracts. For three of those renewals, the “Sales Representative” on the contract had changed to Brad Hudson. Notes: Resource consolidation. I flipped through Brad’s performance evaluation forms. Gary Vance’s signature was on them. “Brad Hudson exhibits outstanding business capabilities and excels at resource consolidation. He is an exemplary sales representative for the Midwest region.” Resource consolidation. What a nice way to phrase it.

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When Declan Pierce and I exchanged wedding rings, he had adult toys in his pocket meant for his young stepmother. To get back at him, I slept with his best friend on our wedding night. I deliberately left marks on my body. But when Declan saw the hickeys on my neck, he just casually dialed his best friend’s number: “Declan, your wife is incredible,” his friend laughed. “I’m already addicted.” Declan sounded completely indifferent: “You like her? How about sleeping with her again tonight?” Like a madwoman, I smashed his phone to pieces. For the next five years, we became the most notorious, hate-filled couple in high society. That was until he drove my family’s company into bankruptcy. My dad went to prison, my brother died in a car crash, and my mother, who used to dote on me, went insane overnight, hating me to the bone: “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t picked fights with Declan, the Kensington family would never have ended up like this!” “Why don’t you just die?!” That night, Declan pinned me under him, kissing the corner of my mouth fiercely: “Harper, whatever other tricks you have up your sleeve, bring them on.” My heart had finally turned to ash. The bottle of sleeping pills under my pillow pressed uncomfortably against my head. I was done fighting. This time, I planned to listen to my mother… …and go die. 01 My tears fell onto the pillow, but Declan didn’t notice at all. He roughly unbuttoned my pajama top: “Harper, you’ve been throwing tantrums for five years. It’s about time you learned to be obedient.” Obedient… My eyes shifted slightly. If it were the past, I would have shoved him away like a madwoman, slapped him twice, and told him I’d never give him a day of peace for the rest of his life. But now, just like he said, I had quieted down. I lay on the bed like a dead fish, letting him do whatever he wanted. Seeing my lack of reaction, Declan unusually stopped his movements. He frowned, a flash of surprise in his eyes. “Since when did you become so boring?” “You were pretty loud when you were in Rowan’s bed back then, weren’t you?” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him, but his fingers met a patch of wetness. Declan’s fingers paused: “Why are you crying?” The scent of Vanessa’s perfume on him made me nauseous. I let my gaze fall on him. From his disheveled clothes to his bobbing Adam’s apple, to the lips that had just kissed me so aggressively, and finally, his eyes. Our eyes met, and I immediately looked away. I opened my mouth: “If you want to get off, hurry up. I want to go to sleep.” The hand pinching my cheek suddenly tightened. The teasing look in his eyes instantly darkened. “What did you say?” He was angry… But my throat felt tight. What is he angry about? Wasn’t I quieting down, exactly like he wanted? Declan stared at me darkly for a long time. The pressure on my face loosened as the seconds ticked by in silence. Finally, he sneered: “Harper, you really are full of tricks. You even learned how to play hard to get.” He got up and started fixing his clothes. A square box bulged in his pants pocket. Declan’s fingers paused, then he tossed the box in front of me, looking down from above: “Since you’re my wife in name, I suppose I owe you a little compensation for bankrupting your family.” “Harper, as long as you behave, the position of Mrs. Pierce is still yours.” When the gift box landed, its sharp corner hit my shoulder. It hurt a little. But I still didn’t move. I didn’t even look at it. Declan stared at me for a moment and scoffed coldly: “You brought this upon your family yourself, so you have to endure it. Stop giving me that dead-fish look.” “As for the gift, take it or leave it.” He grabbed his suit jacket and turned to leave. A long time after he was gone, I pulled the bottle of sleeping pills from under my pillow and stared at it blankly. When should I take them? Tomorrow night, I guess… Tomorrow is Mom’s birthday. I’ll go see her one last time. 02 The next day, I carried a cake to the psychiatric hospital. When I saw my mom, I forced a smile for her. “Mom, I came to see you.” Mom’s back stiffened on the bed. She ignored me. Holding back the bitter ache in my heart, I opened the cake box: “Mom, I came to celebrate your birthday today. The cake is strawberry flavored. It used to be your favorite.” “Get up and have a bite.” I spent four hours making it. Just one bite is fine, Mom. This is the last time, Mom… But before I could finish speaking, the back of my head felt heavy. The next second, my entire face was shoved into the cake. “Get lost!” Mom shoved me toward the door frantically. “Go die! Go join Leo in hell!” The thick cream smeared all over my face, sticky and suffocating, making it hard to even breathe. I opened my mouth to say something. “Mom…” I stumbled, shoved so hard by her that I crashed into the doorframe. Mom screamed hysterically: “Declan is sleeping with Vanessa! Couldn’t you have just pretended you didn’t know?! Why did you have to throw a tantrum and fight with him?!” “How did I give birth to such an ungrateful, worthless thing?!” “Harper, go die! Hurry up and die!” Tears finally fell uncontrollably. My hands were trembling. In the past, she loved me the most. She used to say… no matter what I wanted to do, the Kensington family would always have my back. But now, she hated me to the point of madness. She hated me enough to tell me to die. Was everything I did over these years really completely wrong…? I lowered my head, looking away, and it took a long time before I could speak: “Okay.” I’ll listen to you. I’ll go die. Perhaps the aura of death in my eyes was too heavy, because she actually quieted down for a second. The next second, with a loud bang, she slammed the door in my face. I stood stiffly outside the door for a long time before I found my strength again. Then, step by step, I dragged myself to the restroom to wash the frosting off my face. As the icy water splashed against my skin, I slowly regained some clarity. I stared at my face in the mirror, speechless for a long time. Maybe my decision to marry Declan all those years ago was a mistake to begin with. So now, this mistake should finally come to an end. It ends tonight. When I left the psychiatric hospital, it had started raining. I didn’t have an umbrella, and I couldn’t be bothered to call a cab. I walked alone in a daze for I don’t know how long. Just as I was completely soaked and feeling cold, a figure suddenly appeared in front of me. The rain instantly stopped hitting me. I looked up and saw Declan holding an umbrella, staring at me with dark, unreadable eyes. Through the glass window of the building beside us, I could see Vanessa, Rowan, and several of his close friends. 03 Declan pulled me into their private booth at the bar. “What, the great heiress Harper is bankrupt and can’t even afford an umbrella?” Rowan looked at me with a mocking smirk. “How about you sleep with me again, and I’ll buy you one?” Roars of laughter erupted around the booth. Someone nudged Rowan with their elbow, teasing: “Come on, man. Just how wild was Harper five years ago that you’re still obsessing over her?” “Declan, since you don’t care about her anyway, why don’t you let Harper entertain all of us? It’s not like we won’t pay.” The explicit, piercing insults came one after another. Declan sat in the booth, silent. After a long while, the corner of his mouth twitched: “Do whatever you want.” As soon as he said that, a chorus of hoots and jeers broke out. The smug smile on Vanessa’s face grew even more radiant, though she feigned glaring at them: “Alright, boys, enough. What kind of men bully a little girl?” She leaned close to Declan. “Speaking of which, I’m technically your mother-in-law. You’ve been married to Declan for five years, and I never gave you a welcoming gift.” As soon as she said that, Declan’s expression changed, his eyes even showing a hint of jealousy as he looked at Vanessa. If it were before, I would have definitely caused a massive, crazy scene in a situation like this. But now, all my fiery hatred and pride had burned out. I just wanted to end all of this quickly. I turned to leave, but Vanessa, who had stood up, grabbed my wrist. “Since we ran into each other today, I’ll give you the Pierce family’s heirloom jade bracelet.” With that, she slipped the bracelet off her wrist and pulled my hand to put it on me. The next second, the jade bracelet crashed to the floor and shattered! Vanessa stumbled back a few steps, stepped on nothing, and fell directly into Declan’s arms. The tears came right on cue: “Harper, I’m technically your mother-in-law in name. Even if you hate me, you shouldn’t have shoved me, let alone smash the family heirloom…” Her voice choked with sobs: “Declan, I think I sprained my ankle.” This trick again. Over the past five years, I don’t know how many times Vanessa had framed me like this. Her acting was clumsy, her excuses sloppy. But Declan always believed her. Unsurprisingly, this time was no different. Declan grabbed my wrist, his face dark. “Harper, are my methods still not harsh enough? Are you still completely unrepentant after everything?” “Apologize to Vanessa.” I lowered my eyes, my gaze falling on the hand he was using to grip me. “Okay.” I looked up at him: “How do you want me to apologize?” “Kneel? Grovel? Or service these guys…” I used to have sky-high pride, but now I felt that all these humiliations were nothing compared to dying. I continued, looking at his friends in the booth. “If you want me to service them, please make it quick. I want to go home before dark.” “Harper!” Declan violently threw my hand away. The atmosphere instantly fell into a dead silence. A long time passed before someone muttered: “Damn, she’s hardcore.” The voice wasn’t loud, but it was crystal clear in the quiet booth. “Enough.” Declan shot the man a dark, murderous glare. “Watch your damn mouth.” He stared at me for a long time, until Vanessa tugged at his shirt, crying: “Declan, my ankle hurts so much.” Declan finally snapped out of it, picked her up, and walked toward the exit. “I’ll take you to the hospital first.” Before leaving, he turned back to look at me for the first time after walking away, his eyes filled with obscure emotions. Not long after, a text message popped up on my phone. Declan: [Wait for me at home tonight. About today… I’ll listen to your explanation.] I gave a hollow smile. Declan, you want me to explain, but tonight… I’m destined not to wait for you. 04 Once Declan left, the others tactfully cleared out as well. I was the only one left in the booth. I stared at that text message for a while, then silently deleted it along with Declan’s contact info. Then I went home alone to organize my belongings. Piece by piece… When I reached the very bottom of a box, my hands suddenly stopped. It was a thick stack of old, un-sent love letters. I had written them to Declan when I was a teenager. Although Declan and I had an arranged marriage, no one knew that I had secretly loved him for many years. Even during the long, messy, and toxic period of our marriage, I hadn’t let him go. But now, looking at the bold, arrogant line on one of the letters: [Declan Pierce, just wait until I make you mine], it felt like a lifetime ago. Waste paper. Expressionless, I was about to throw them all into the trash can when a sudden force snatched them away. Rowan looked at the stack of love letters with a meaningful smirk. I was too exhausted to ask when he had entered the house. I just held out my hand blankly: “Give them back.” His eyes swept over the letters, his lips curling into a sneer: “You want them?” “Harper, so the reason you’ve been fighting tooth and nail with Declan all these years was because you harbored these dirty little feelings. But don’t worry… in Declan’s heart, you’re probably worth less than a dog.” His words sounded familiar. I suddenly remembered the year we got married, during a fight, the icy look in Declan’s eyes as he looked at me: “Harper, throwing all these tantrums, aren’t you just trying to get me to look at you more?” “But do you deserve it? To me, you’re just a dog wagging its tail, begging for pity…” I remained silent for a second. When I spoke again, my voice was as calm as stagnant water. “What exactly do you want?” Rowan reeked of alcohol. He smiled maliciously. “Harper… sleep with me one more time.” As he spoke, he opened the video recording app on his phone: “Look at the camera, let’s do it again.” Rowan forcefully pushed me onto the bed, speaking frivolously: “Actually, I’ve always regretted something. You moaned so well that first time, why didn’t I record it?” I felt completely numb and didn’t resist, but my hand gripped the bottle of sleeping pills under the pillow tightly. …… When Declan returned to his villa, he saw that I hadn’t replied to his text. There wasn’t even a routine curse word from me. He frowned: [Harper, I’m home.] [I told you the position of Mrs. Pierce is still yours. Don’t throw your heiress tantrums next time.] But the only response he got was the red exclamation mark showing he had been deleted. “Harper!” The next second, the pool of blood by the doorway violently pierced his eyes. Declan’s pupils shrank abruptly. He violently kicked open the bedroom door—

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At 11:59 PM, fighting down the annoyance of being woken up by my phone, I pushed open the heavy mahogany doors of the VIP lounge. “Excuse me, everyone. So sorry to interrupt. I’m just here to pick up my husband.” The next second, the entire room’s New Year’s countdown died in their throats. Dozens of eyes belonging to the city’s corporate elite snapped toward me, pinning me to the spot. Sitting dead center in the VIP booth was a man in a razor-sharp bespoke suit, his features striking and cold, slowly turning a crystal whiskey glass in his hand. “…Maya Evans?” Someone finally broke the dead silence. “Tonight is an Ivy League alumni New Year’s mixer, not a shelter for community college dropouts.” The room erupted in mocking laughter. “Wait, isn’t she the girl from the ‘Manifest Destiny’ scandal? The one where the valedictorian intentionally tanked his entire AP History final just to prove a point to the teacher and make her smile?” “I heard she spent years manipulating her way into her stepbrother’s bed and trapped him into marriage. Why else would he marry an academic failure like her? Now that he’s with Chloe, who actually has a Ph.D. from Oxford, they’re a true power couple. How does she even have the nerve to show her face here?” The stares from across the table felt like thousands of tiny needles. They would never know the truth. Julian Vance used to be dead last in our high school class. He worked himself to the bone, grinding his way to the top of the academic ladder, entirely for me. But the past didn’t matter anymore. Meeting their hostile gazes, I didn’t show the humiliation they were expecting. I just offered a slight, tight smile and said calmly: “I’m not here to ring in the New Year with you elites. I’m here to pick up my husband and take him home.” Julian finally lifted his eyes, his gaze dark and heavy. “Maya, we’ve been divorced for three years.” I let the corners of my mouth curve up into a perfectly polite, practiced smile. “I know.” “Which is why I never said I was here to pick you up, Mr. Vance.” 1 “Have you no shame? You’re divorced, and you’re still trying to leech off Julian.” A few suppressed snickers echoed through the lounge. Carter struck a match, lit his cigarette, and looked at me with lazy disdain. “This is the first time I’ve seen someone actually volunteer to be the other woman.” Carter was Julian and I’s best friend in high school. He used to be the second-best person to me in the entire world. But when Julian and I were going through our vicious divorce, he didn’t hesitate for a second to take Julian’s side. Because the girl Carter had been in love with for years was the exact same woman who had destroyed my marriage. And he had been helping Julian hide their affair the entire time. I was the only one kept in the dark, playing the fool from start to finish. “Carter, enough,” Julian snapped, his lips pressed into a thin line. Carter refused to back down, aggressively putting out his cigarette. “Why shouldn’t I say it? An idiot like Maya Evans can’t even begin to compare to a brilliant woman like Chloe.” “You were the only one blind enough to look twice at a moron like her, letting her drag you down for all those years.” Julian met my eyes, his voice low. “Maya isn’t a moron.” Maya isn’t a moron. Hearing that from a certified genius like Julian. It actually sounded completely ridiculous. But back when I was sixteen, I believed those words with my whole heart. The summer before freshman year of high school, my mom married Julian’s dad. Julian and I were the same age, so we ended up at the same public high school. We were even placed in the same homeroom. He was ranked dead last; I was comfortably in the middle. Julian hated me, so he completely ignored my existence. I constantly saw him getting into fights and ending up in the principal’s office. Immediately following those fights, my mom would be called in, forced to bow her head and swallow insults from furious parents and administrators. One night, I got up to get a glass of water and saw my mom sitting alone in the dark living room, wiping away tears. “Maya, what do I have to do to make Julian accept me?” I didn’t know the answer. I only knew that after that night. The fragile, distant peace between Julian and me evaporated into open warfare. I put hot sauce in his Gatorade, dumped muddy water into his backpack, and spiked his lunch with laxatives. Julian laid down the law, his voice dripping with venom. “Is that all you’ve got? Let me tell you something, Maya. If you don’t break me, I’m going to break your mother!” We stayed locked in that toxic standoff for half a year. I thought I would hate Julian Vance for the rest of my life. But in the end, he became the only person in this world who still loved me. 2 Julian and I’s war ended abruptly after a brutal incident of domestic violence. Julian’s dad beat my mom so badly she had to be hospitalized. When they were loading her into the ambulance, his dad was still screaming abuse. “I chased you for two years! You’re nothing but a pretty face! You’re completely useless!” My mom was almost forty. She had been spoiled rotten by my biological father for the first half of her life, so naturally, she lacked basic survival skills. When Julian heard his dad screaming those words, his cold, hostile demeanor completely shattered. He looked at me in shock, muttering to himself. “It wasn’t your mom who seduced my dad…” Julian hated my mom because he always believed she was the homewrecker who had driven his own mother away. None of that mattered anymore. Because after that day. I didn’t have a mother, either. When I carried my mom’s favorite white gerbera daisies to the hospital, I found out she had bolted. She didn’t take a single thing with her. And she didn’t take me. Maya Evans no longer had a home. I had nowhere to go. I was wandering the freezing streets in the middle of the night when Julian finally found me. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked incredibly angry. Terrified he was going to hit me, I curled myself into a tight ball on the sidewalk. Amidst my panic, his warm arms wrapped tightly around me. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak so gently. “Maya, come home with me.” “From now on, I’ll be your whole world.” I took his outstretched hand and held on tight. So, starting from the year I was sixteen. Maya Evans’s entire world consisted solely of Julian Vance. 3 After my mom left, Julian’s dad’s temper grew even more violent. Terrified that I would get hurt, Julian took me and moved us out into a tiny, rundown apartment. Our lives continued, but everything was different. I stopped playing practical jokes, and Julian’s harsh edges softened. He started spending more and more time reading and studying. I couldn’t help but ask him one day. “You used to hate reading. You hated going to class.” He looked at me with intense seriousness, then helplessly pinched my cheek, his voice soft. “Maya, I want to give you a better life.” Looking at the tips of his ears turning red, I nodded emphatically. Maya Evans absolutely refused to drag Julian down. So I threw myself into my studies with everything I had. But when Julian skyrocketed from dead last to valedictorian… I was still barely hovering in the middle of the pack. Julian would stay up until midnight tutoring me. I stared at the calculus problems on the page and just shook my head. He said, “Maya, you really are a bit of an idiot.” “But, I love it when you’re a little dumb. It’s incredibly cute.” Exhaustion crashed over me, and the pen slipped from my limp fingers. I mumbled sleepily. “Julian, can you please slow down? I’m not going to be able to catch up to you.” Julian said: I would never have to chase him. He would wait for me, forever. He didn’t keep that promise. Because later, he absolutely despised how “dumb” I was. I became a nuisance. 4 “She’s not dumb? You busted your ass tutoring her, and she still only managed to scrape into some no-name state school.” Carter flicked his lighter, keeping the insults coming. I scanned the lounge but didn’t see my husband, Liam Thorne, anywhere. Liam had gone to the same university as Julian, but he was in the business school. They wouldn’t naturally run in the same circles. I figured he must have texted me the wrong address. I was too exhausted to dredge up the past. “Excuse me,” I said, turning on my heel to leave. I texted Liam, but he didn’t reply. My calls went straight to voicemail. I decided to just head home. Just as I reached for the handle of the lounge door, a hand shot out and gripped my wrist tight. “Maya, please forgive me.” Julian stared down at me, his eyes swirling with an emotion I couldn’t decipher. Hearing him use my name like that… It used to make me blush. It used to be the perfect, intimate way to flirt with someone as rigid as Julian. But later, those exact same words were the ones that destroyed me. “Julian, are you addicted to acting?” I shook off his hand, my face blank. “I don’t know you.” As the tension in the room thickened, a soft scoff broke the awkward silence. “Maya Evans. I didn’t expect to see you here.” Chloe walked over in her designer heels, as arrogant and aggressive as ever. In the past, I would have been intimidated by her presence. I would have been envious, looking up to her, and inevitably feeling a deep sense of inferiority. But now, after agonizing over that toxic past a million times, all that was left was a dead, flat calm. “Maya, why don’t you come home with Julian and me? Your mother misses you so much.” Even I was surprised by how calmly I could respond to that after three years. “I don’t have a mother.” My supposed family. They had all chosen Chloe. And I… had long since decided I didn’t need them either. Chloe grabbed my wrist, “accidentally” displaying the vintage emerald bracelet on her arm. It was the heirloom Julian’s mother had left him. I had worn that bracelet for ten years. My relationship with Julian had only lasted ten years. 5 Carter was right. I really was an idiot. Even with Julian pouring every ounce of his energy into tutoring me, I still only managed to get into a mediocre state college. Julian, however, secured the highest SAT score in the state and went straight to the Ivy League. We were both in the Northeast, so the distance wasn’t terrible. Even though we couldn’t be together every day, our time was sweet and intensely close. It was the simplest kind of happiness, and it remains a memory I will never be able to fully erase. Julian was handsome, brilliant, and constantly pursued. But he gave me absolute, unwavering security. During college, I often visited him on his campus. He was too famous. Every little thing he did drew everyone’s attention. Gradually, rumors started spreading on the campus forums that I wasn’t good enough for him. They said I had nothing but a pretty face. No skills, no background, just a total idiot who didn’t deserve to stand next to a god like him. Julian had already made our relationship completely public. When he saw the comments, he was furious. He said they just didn’t understand how wonderful I was. So, on his final exam for AP European History. He intentionally answered every single question about “Manifest Destiny” incorrectly, twisting the historical facts into a bizarre, romanticized essay dedicated to me. He nearly failed the class and was officially reprimanded by the department head for being “obsessed with a high school romance.” The incident sent shockwaves through the entire campus. Julian wanted to make absolutely certain that everyone knew I was his girlfriend. But when it came time to get married, he said: “Maya, let’s keep the marriage quiet for now.” “Just give me a few more years. When I’ve made it to the top, I’ll give you the grandest wedding imaginable.” I agreed. By our fourth anniversary, Julian had already built a highly successful tech firm. I never got the grand wedding I was dreaming of. Instead, I got his infidelity. 6 On our fourth anniversary, Julian exploded in a terrifying rage. Because I had lost the emerald bracelet he gave me. He stormed out of the house, furious. It was the first time in his life he had ever spoken to me so cruelly. It was pouring rain that night. I searched every single place we had been to. I suddenly remembered the tiny, rundown apartment we had shared during high school. Julian had bought that apartment years ago. Because the walls inside were covered with thousands of photos of us from those three years. The moment I pushed the door open. I saw Julian pinning another woman to the bed. Thrusting into her with primal intensity. In that exact moment, my scalp went numb, and I lost the ability to scream. I knew who she was. Chloe. Julian had mentioned her to me, but rarely. At first, he told me Chloe’s dad had forced her onto his corporate board, and he thought she was just going to be a massive headache. But later, he said Chloe was actually incredibly competent. Brilliant, even. And it was right around that time that Julian started treating me like I was stupid. Our shared interests dwindled to nothing, and Julian would constantly say: “Can you just stop asking? Even if I explain it, you won’t understand.” “Maya, you really are an idiot.” But I was genuinely happy that he had found a business partner who matched his intellect. Yet now, Chloe was wearing that emerald bracelet, her eyes filled with blatant, triumphant mockery. I had been tortured by guilt, crawling on my hands and knees like a dog, searching everywhere for that bracelet. It turned out I hadn’t lost it. Julian had simply taken it and placed it on someone else’s wrist. She slowly, elegantly sat up, leaning back against Julian’s chest. “What are you so shocked about?” “In your bed at the penthouse, in the shower, against the floor-to-ceiling windows… we’ve done it everywhere.” “Tonight, we just wanted to see what it felt like to do it in the place where you two had your first time.” A deafening roar filled my ears, and all the strength instantly drained from my body. Operating on pure, visceral instinct, I grabbed a framed photo from the nightstand and hurled it at them. Julian shielded her with his body, his eyes blazing with fury. “Maya, have you lost your fucking mind?!” The man who had once promised to be my entire world. Shoved me violently to the floor. My hands were covered in bloody shards of glass from the shattered photo frame. It was the very first photo Julian and I had ever taken together. He had his arms wrapped around me, looking incredibly smug, like he was showing off a prize. But now, it was shattered. And the eyes of the man standing in front of me held nothing but absolute disgust. Before I could even process what was happening, another bombshell detonated in my ears. “Maya, can you stop throwing a tantrum? You are completely suffocating. No wonder your own mother abandoned you!” It turned out my mother had remarried years ago. She had married Chloe’s father. For ten years, she had showered Chloe with all the love and affection I had desperately craved. My decade of fantasies… had officially become a living nightmare. Later, when Julian demanded a divorce. I refused to give them what they wanted, but I was completely powerless against them. Every single person I loved had turned their weapons on me. My husband. My best friend. And my mother.

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The double doors of the operating room were swinging open when the cardiac surgeon paused and glanced back at me. “She hasn’t had anything to eat this morning, right? Routine NPO check.” I was about to shake my head, ready to give the standard confirmation we’d rehearsed for weeks. Then my mother stepped forward, flashing a bright, casual smile. “Actually, she did. I saw her drink a bottle of milk about an hour ago.” The entire hallway went dead silent. My daughter, Maya, has suffered from congenital heart disease since birth. We had spent five agonizing years on the transplant list. Today, against all odds, we finally had a matching heart. My husband and I had just finished the mountain of admission paperwork and paid the staggering deposit, leaving my mother in the hospital room to watch Maya for just twenty minutes. All the pre-op physicals were perfect. The doctor was just performing a final, routine check before pushing the gurney through. And then my mother open her mouth. It was her oldest, ugliest habit resurfacing at the worst possible moment. 1 My brain started to buzz, the sound drowning out the hospital ambiance. I couldn’t tell if my mother was making a sick joke or telling the truth. Her entire life, she had been a compulsive, pathological liar. It didn’t matter the setting or the stakes; she had to insert herself, twist the narrative, and command attention. She wouldn’t stop until she pushed people to their absolute breaking point. And when they finally snapped, she’d put on that mask of wide-eyed innocence and laugh. “Oh, relax. Can’t you take a joke? I was just playing with you.” But this wasn’t Thanksgiving dinner. This was different. My daughter, Maya, was at the end of her rope. Born with a failing heart, we had waited five years for this transplant. The donor heart was on a timer, rapidly degrading with every minute it was out of ice. Before the surgery, the transplant coordinator had emphasized NPO status—nothing by mouth—fifty times. Eating before an organ transplant isn’t just a complication; it ruins the surgery’s chance of success and can kill the patient during anesthesia. Maya was too weak to even argue. She lay on the gurney, her face a ghostly gray, her lips tinged with a terrifying shade of blue. She was dying. There was no time for jokes. Sure enough, the surgeon’s expression plummeted. He looked from my mother to me, his voice stern. “I am asking again, for the record. Has this child ingested anything since midnight?” I opened my mouth to say no, but my mother chirped in again, actually chuckling this time. “She did. Just a small bottle of milk. Aren’t you doctors supposed to be smart? Can’t you just test for that?” My husband and I stood rooted to the spot, completely paralyzed. The surgeon’s face went grim. He turned to the head nurse immediately. “Roll her back out. Scrub the surgery. We need a full gastric re-evaluation.” Maya lay under the thin hospital sheet, too weak to speak, her eyes fluttering shut. Seeing her like that sent a tremor through my entire body. “Mom!” I screamed, the panic stripping my voice raw. “What is wrong with you? Why would you lie about this? The tests were all clear! Just say she didn’t eat, and she can go in!” “Maya has waited five years! If she doesn’t get this heart now, she won’t survive!” Hearing this, my mother actually started laughing. “Who’s lying? I have never lied in my life. Cross my heart and hope to die.” My mother-in-law, standing nearby, whispered, terror in her voice, “She didn’t really eat, did she? The doctors were so clear about the dangers. Eating before surgery is a death sentence.” I looked at my mother-in-law, my fists clenching so hard my nails drew blood. I knew Maya hadn’t eaten. I had收收收 (cleaned out) the entire room myself. But my mother was doubling down, insisting Maya had a bottle of milk. Even though the pre-op physical was fine, the hospital couldn’t take the risk. They had to assume NPO was violated. Cardiac transplants are races against a stopwatch. Maya’s biological heart was running out of time. She was only seven years old. Because of her condition, she’d never had ice cream, never run through a sprinkler, never gone to a playground. Just last night, she had whispered to me, hoping the surgery would work so I could finally teach her how to ride a bike. If we missed this donor heart… would she ever get another chance? As the head nurse started to turn the gurney around, I lunged forward, grabbing the side rail, my voice shaking. “Doctor, Maya did not eat. I swear to you on my life.” “My mother… she has issues. Ever since my father died, she’s become a pathological liar. Please, do not listen to her.” “I’ve had the NPO requirements memorized for years. I haven’t let a single drop of water touch her lips since last night. How could I possibly let her have milk?” Tears streamed down my face, hot and fast. “Doctor, my daughter has waited five years for this heart. We finally have hope. Please, please don’t abandon her because of my mother’s delusion!” Maya was so tiny under the sheets, shivering, unable to even cry out loud. The surgeon paused, scowling. He looked at me, then turned his gaze to my mother. Suddenly, Maya’s monitor let out a sharp, warning beep. The head nurse checked the readings, her face going pale. “Chief, her O2 stats are dropping fast.” She stared at the monitor, took a deep breath, and shouted to the hallway, demanding an answer. “I am asking one last time! From last night until now, did the patient ingest anything?” “This is not a joke. If she is disqualified for the transplant, this heart goes to the next person on the list immediately.” 2 Pathological lying. Over the years, I had suffered immensely because of my mother’s sickness. On my wedding day. My mother took my husband’s hand, crying, and told him how sorry she was that he wasn’t the first man to lie with me. My husband’s face went rigid. Seeing his reaction, my mother clapped her hands, laughing. “Oh, look at you! I meant her father, you idiot.” I was so angry I threatened to legally sever ties right then and there. It was my husband who held me back, saying, “It was just a bad joke, honey. Don’t take it so seriously. It’s fine.” After Maya was born, I rarely saw my mother. But when she found out about the surgery, she forced her way into the hospital, insisting on seeing her granddaughter. I only found out she was there after I finished paying the admission fees. My heart sank, but I consoled myself. Maya was her own flesh and blood; she wouldn’t gamble with her granddaughter’s life. Everything was going smoothly. All the physicals were green-lit. We were home free. Then, just as Maya was being pushed into the operating room, my mother’s old sickness flared up. I walked over to her, my vision blurred by tears, my voice shaking uncontrollably. “Mom, I am begging you. Tell the truth, please.” “After I paid the bills, I never left Maya’s side. I know she didn’t eat. Stop lying, please.” My husband rushed over too, his eyes red and frantic. “Mom, please. Just tell the truth. If Maya misses this heart, she won’t get another chance!” My mother leaned against the hospital wall, crossing her arms and shrugging. “Why is everyone so tense? I was just trying to lighten the mood, make everyone smile.” “You know what they say: laughter is the best medicine.” Maya’s gurney was moving down the hall, headed back for gastric tests she couldn’t afford. My mother finally dropped the smirk, lazily waving a hand. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop playing.” Relief flooded through me, momentarily. Then she looked at me, taking her sweet time before adding: “She did drink it, though. If you don’t believe me, smell her hands. They still smell like milk.” The surgeon’s face was total granite. He turned and marched toward the phone at the nurse’s station. I ran and blocked his path. “Doctor! Please, wait just one more minute! I can fix this, I can get the truth!” He looked at me, eyes blazing with fury. “Transplant surgery is not playtime! Do you understand that every minute you waste here is a minute of ischemic time on that donor heart? You are literally throwing away her chance at survival!” I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Behind me, my mother’s voice floated through the hallway. “Oh, honestly, you’re a doctor. Can’t you take a joke? Look at you all, hysterical over nothing.” “Fine, I’ll stop lying to you.” “Maya didn’t actually have milk. But she did say she was thirsty this morning, so I slipped her a cup of water when you weren’t looking.” With that, she actually giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. My brain felt like it was going to explode. The room spun. To prevent Maya from accidentally eating or drinking anything before surgery, I had removed everything from the hospital room. Not even a bottle of water was left. Even the nightstand drawers were empty. I had checked my mother’s purse three times myself. It contained a portable charger, her blood pressure meds, and a pack of tissues. Nothing else. Where could she have gotten a cup of water to give Maya? My husband realized the logic error at the same time I did. He stared at her, eyes red with fury. “Mom, are you sure about this?” “We specifically收 (removed) all food and water from the room. Maya couldn’t have had any water. Where would you have gotten it?” Hearing his accusation, my mother instantly went on the defensive, her logic evaporating into narcissistic rage. “What does that mean? Are you calling me a liar?” “When I got to the hospital this morning, Maya was begging for water, wasn’t she? Her voice was hoarse. You parents might be cold-hearted enough to watch your own child suffer, but I am her grandmother! I cannot stand by and watch my granddaughter suffer!” “I was kind enough to give her a sip of water, and you dare blame me? Since you all hate me so much, maybe I should just run headfirst into this wall and end it all.” With that, she turned toward the hospital wall, acting as if she were about to ram it with her head. My husband turned pale and frantically rushed to grab her. “Mom, I didn’t mean it like that, please, don’t be angry…” My mother-in-law also rushed over to restrain her. “Please, Susan, don’t be impulsive.” With them physically holding her back, my mother’s dramatic episode subsided into sniffles. The medical staff stood watching this insane drama, completely unsure of what to do. But Maya’s clock was ticking. The donor heart was degrading. The longer we waited, the lower the success rate. The head nurse finally spoke up, her voice stern. “Ma’am, are you absolutely certain you gave the child water?” Instead of answering, my mother rolled her eyes. “You want to know? Go test her. You’re a hospital. Don’t you have scanners and CT machines that can see inside her? Stop asking me and do your job!” Then she turned to me with a triumphant look. “See? You think I’m making things up? Let the doctor test her. Then we’ll all know the truth!” I knew we could re-test her. I knew a simple ultrasound could confirm an empty stomach. But Maya didn’t just need this heart. Other patients on the list needed it too. If Maya was wheeled back for re-testing, she would be officially disqualified, flagged as non-compliant with NPO protocol. Maya would never get another chance. I stared at my mother, fighting back the urge to physically attack her. “Mom, I want you to swear to me. Swear on your life, swear on Dad’s memory, that you actually gave Maya water.” My mother was deeply, intensely superstitious. Hearing this request, she shut her mouth instantly. The arrogance left her eyes, replaced by stubborn silence. The surgeon, having seen enough of these family dynamics, understood immediately. He turned to the head nurse and ordered, “Gastric test results stand as negative. Proceed with NPO protocol. Get her in the operating room. Now.” With that, he and the nurses quickly began pushing the gurney toward the operating doors. I exhaled, stepping back against the wall to get out of the way. But then, my mother screamed. “Wait! Chloe! The doctor just said that patients who drink water can’t have surgery!” “You’re lying to the surgeon just so Maya can get this heart!” “For my own granddaughter’s safety, I must speak the truth today!” She yanked open her purse and pulled out a half-empty bottle of water. “You said Maya didn’t have any water, Chloe?” “Then what the hell is this?!” 3 The sight of that water bottle froze the hallway. The surgeon’s face went black. He shouted to his staff. “Cancel the surgery! Patient violation of NPO protocol! Inform the operating room immediately.” “And call the Organ Procurement Organization. Release this heart to the next candidate on the list.” With that, he spun around and started walking away. Seeing the doctor cancel the surgery, my mother’s dramatic facade instantly crumbled into panic. “No… wait… Doctor… you can’t be serious! You’re just going to cancel the surgery based on my word?” “I was just playing around! Why didn’t you verify it first?” “What about my granddaughter? She needs that surgery to save her life!” The fury that I had been suppressing finally erupted. I pointed my finger at her nose, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Are you done yet? Have you had enough fun?!” “Because of your insane need for attention, the doctor now has to assume NPO status was violated! The surgery is cancelled!” “Are you happy now? Are you?!” A look of genuine panic finally flashed across my mother’s face. “I… I didn’t mean for this to happen… I was just playing, why did they believe me…” “Just playing?!” My husband, usually the passive peacemaker, was shaking with pure, unadulterated rage. He looked at my mother, his eyes red with fury. “This is a hospital, Susan! Is this your idea of playtime? Your lies kill people! Do you understand that? Your granddaughter is going to die because you wanted to play a game!” “I… I wasn’t trying to do this…” my mother stammered, looking down. But I didn’t have time for her performance art. Under the bright hospital lights, Maya’s skin was turning a deeper gray. Her tiny hand, exposed on the sheet, was beginning to feel cold to the touch. “Doctor!” I spun toward the surgeon, dropping to my knees on the cold hospital floor. “I swear to you. From 10:00 last night until this exact moment, Maya has not had a single drop of water, not a single bite of food.” “I collected every single item in that room myself. I don’t know where that water bottle came from, but I can guarantee Maya never touched it.” “Please, Doctor. If Maya misses this surgery, she dies. There are no other chances for her. Please, I am begging you, save my daughter’s life…” This surgeon had managed Maya’s care since the day she was born. He knew her case better than anyone. He knew that if she didn’t get this heart today, she wouldn’t survive the week. He looked at me kneeling on the floor, then looked back at Maya’s gurney. He stood silent for two agonizing seconds, then his jaw set. “Mrs. Peterson, get up.” He barked an order to the head nurse. “Get Maya into Operating Room 3 immediately. Tell the anesthesia team to perform a rapid-sequence induction and gastric ultrasound re-evaluation, stat! We are proceeding.” As I was helped to my feet, my mother was still screaming down the hallway. “Maya drank water! She can’t have surgery! There will be complications!” “You’re so stubborn! Are you trying to kill your own daughter?!” She kept screaming, her voice raw. I didn’t answer. I didn’t even look at her. My eyes were locked on the ‘OR’ doors as the bright red light above them turned on. I began to pray, silently begging for my daughter to survive. Time stretched. Minutes felt like hours. The hospital corridor fell into a hushed silence, the only sound the soft hum of the HVAC system. And then, a thunderous crash echoed from a different floor, and the hospital was plunged into darkness. Chaos immediately erupted. Patients screamed, nurses shouted, and footsteps pounded on the stairs. A moment later, through the emergency lights, I saw my mother running toward me down the hallway, screaming at the top of her lungs, triumphant and insane. “Chloe! I did it! I shut off the main power breaker!” “Now Maya is safe! She won’t have to get the surgery!” 4 Inside the operating room, the surgical lights died. The ventilators and monitors let out one final, agonizing beep before they went silent. Maya’s vital signs were crashing. The surgeon shouted above the sudden commotion, “Switch to manual ventilation! Get the backup generators online, now!” The hallway outside was pure pandemonium. Emergency battery lights flickered to life, casting long, eerie shadows. Through the darkness, my mother appeared, her voice clear and terrifyingly rational. “Chloe, I fixed it. I went downstairs and flipped the main breaker. Now Maya won’t have to have that dangerous surgery.” My brain stalled. I stared at her, unable to process the words. “Mom… you’re telling me… you did this? You shut off the power to the entire hospital?” My mother nodded proudly, as if she had just saved the day. “Aren’t you glad? I told you she ate something. You can’t perform surgery on a child who has eaten. You refused to listen, so I had to stop the doctors myself.” My vision blurred. I almost fainted from the sheer audacity of it. My husband had to physically support me, turning a look of absolute horror toward my mother. “Mom, have you lost your mind?!” “Maya finally got her heart! She’s moments away from being free of this disease, and you cut the power? If she dies during surgery now because of this, what do we do? What is wrong with you?” My mother scoffed, crossing her arms. “Why is everyone so tens? I had a psychic reading yesterday. She said my granddaughter has a strong aura; nothing bad is going to happen to her.” “And honestly, Chloe, look around. Hospitals are just businesses. Maya’s been on meds for years and she isn’t any better, proves doctors are just in it for the money.” “If the surgery fails because of a power outage, the hospital has to refund all our money. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. I’m doing this for your own good.” For our own good? Hearing those words, I lost control. I stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face. “You’re doing this for my good? Just like when you told my wedding guests I wasn’t a virgin?” “You’re doing this for my good, knowing Maya has waited five years for this heart, and you lie to the doctors and cut the power during her transplant?!” “Are you doing this for my good? Or is your gambling debt due again, and you decided to pull another insurance scam, just like you did with Dad?!” The words spilled out of me, raw and unfiltered. I looked at this woman, this monster who claimed to be my mother. My senior year of high school, my father needed routine appendix surgery. It was supposed to be a standard procedure. But my mother insisted on feeding him a big bowl of clam chowder right before the ambulance arrived. During surgery, he aspirated the chowder into his lungs and died of pneumonia on the table. I rushed from my SAT exams to the hospital, arriving too late to even say goodbye. My mother’s first reaction wasn’t grief. It was dramatic narcissism. She threw herself onto the hospital lobby floor, screaming. “You’re trying to blame me?! I gave him soup out of love! He was hungry! You doctors just messed up and you’re trying to cover it up!” The hospital ended up giving her a settlement to avoid a public, nasty lawsuit. For years, she bragged to relatives about the money she “won.” She even boasted that her husband was fed before he left this world, unlike other “poor souls.” That was the reason I chose a college 2,000 miles away. I worked three jobs to pay my own tuition. I barely went home. It was my husband who insisted I invite her to the wedding, saying I might regret it. When Maya was born, my mother actually drove to our state, but when she found out Maya was born with severe heart defects, she turned around and went back to the train station without even seeing her granddaughter. For five years, she hadn’t made a single effort to see us. Until now, when she found out about the expensive transplant. I finally realized the truth. Her first instinct might have been pathologically lying just to lighten the mood. But when she saw an opportunity, she pulled the breaker. She wanted the surgery to fail due to a power outage, just so she could sue the hospital for a massive settlement, just like she did when my father died. The realization made my entire body go numb. Is this woman even human? Maya is her own granddaughter. How could she do this? Did I really have to legally sever ties with her to protect my family? I stared at her, my eyes cold. “Have you had enough, Susan? Have you had your fun?” “Because of you, the doctors don’t know if Maya actually ate. Because of you, the entire hospital is dark. Are you happy now?” A look of genuine panic finally appeared on her face. “No… Chloe… I didn’t mean it like that…” She reached out to touch my arm, but I recoiled as if she were a venomous snake. “Don’t touch me.” My voice was quiet, lethal. “This is the last time you will ever see me, or my husband, or Maya.” “And if Maya dies in that operating room because the backup generator failed… I will call the police myself and testify that you intentionally sabotaged this hospital. I swear to you on my father’s grave.” With that, I turned my back on her. I walked away, ignoring her hysterical screams from down the hallway.

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Three months postpartum, I fractured my leg. My husband, Liam, was so worried about me that he spent a fortune booking the most sought-after postpartum doula in the city. He even put down a $7,000 deposit. My mom was looking at the doula’s impressive resume, singing her praises, and was just about to call and tell her to start tomorrow. I reached out and pressed the end-call button on her phone. “Don’t bother,” I said. “Aunt Susan is about to come over and hijack her.” Ever since I could remember, my mother had been a “bleeding heart.” Whenever Aunt Susan’s family cried poor or played the victim, my mom would make sure they got the best of whatever our family had to offer. My mom always touted herself as a “saint who loved helping others,” completely oblivious to the fact that Aunt Susan laughed behind her back, calling her a gullible sucker. But my mom thought I was just being cynical. She insisted Aunt Susan wasn’t like that, raised her phone, and prepared to dial again. Right at that moment, Aunt Susan burst through the front door. She grabbed my mom’s hands and immediately started squeezing out fake tears, whining about how her daughter-in-law wasn’t producing breastmilk and begging my mom to let them have the doula. My mom stood there, phone in hand, looking incredibly awkward. I crossed my arms and sneered. “Well, Mom. Are you going to say yes or no this time?” Chapter 1 Aunt Susan wiped away her non-existent tears while using her peripheral vision to gauge my mother’s reaction. “Brenda, you know my new grandson was born premature. He’s got a weak constitution, and my daughter-in-law’s milk hasn’t come in. If we don’t have a professional looking after him, the poor boy might…” She trailed off, swallowing the word “die,” expertly tossing the panic squarely onto my mother’s shoulders. My mom fell for it hook, line, and sinker. She glanced at my leg, hoisted up in a heavy plaster cast, and then at my newborn daughter, sleeping soundly in the bassinet nearby. My mom gritted her teeth and turned to me. “Chloe, you heard her. Your aunt’s situation is a matter of life and death.” “Your leg is already broken anyway, you just need to rest. But if that baby doesn’t make it, it would be an absolute tragedy.” I laughed out of pure disbelief. I pointed at my cast, then at the bassinet. “Mom, I am your biological daughter. I also just gave birth, I have a broken leg, and I literally cannot care for myself right now.” “Liam put down a seven-thousand-dollar deposit for this doula specifically to take care of me and the baby because she has specialized rehabilitation credentials.” “And you want me to just give her away? Then what am I supposed to do? What is your granddaughter supposed to do?” My mom furrowed her brow, looking at me like I was being entirely unreasonable. “How can you be so selfish?” “You guys have money, just hire another one. Your aunt’s family is struggling; they can’t afford this.” “Doing a good deed saves lives, don’t you understand that?” Seeing my mom cave, Aunt Susan immediately seized the opportunity. “Exactly, Chloe! Auntie knows you’re successful, unlike us, who are scraping the bottom of the barrel.” “As for the doula’s salary… we can chip in a hundred bucks as a token of appreciation, and you guys can cover the rest…” Unbelievable. Not only did she want to steal my nurse, but she also wanted me to subsidize her salary. She expected me to pay out of my own pocket for someone to serve her grandson? And my mom was actually nodding along. “A hundred bucks is still a nice gesture. Chloe doesn’t care about the money anyway.” The anger in my chest exploded into a raging inferno. Was this really my biological mother? She acted more like an unpaid employee of Aunt Susan’s household. I grabbed the ceramic teacup next to me and hurled it at the floor. Smash! The sharp crack echoed through the room. Hot tea splattered everywhere, and porcelain shards skittered right to Aunt Susan’s feet. Aunt Susan shrieked and jumped back. “Oh my god! Are you trying to kill someone?!” My mom flinched, her face instantly darkening. “Chloe! What on earth are you doing?! Do you have any manners at all?!” “You want to talk about manners? Fine.” “This doula signed an exclusive contract with us. The breach of contract fee is fifteen thousand dollars.” “Whoever wants to take her away needs to slap fifteen grand on this table right now.” “Also, this doula was hired using a specialized corporate benefit through Liam’s company. Transferring her privately constitutes corporate fraud. Let’s call the cops right now and see what the judge has to say.” Hearing “fifteen thousand” and “cops,” Aunt Susan’s face instantly went pale. People like her were terrified of spending money, and even more terrified of going to jail. Her eyes darted around shiftily before she started throwing a tantrum. “Oh, Brenda, look at your daughter! The richer she gets, the cheaper she acts! Who is she trying to scare…” “If you won’t lend her to us, fine! You don’t have to act like a psycho! So typical—you get a little money and suddenly you don’t recognize your poor relatives!” Aunt Susan cursed all the way out the door, spitting aggressively on our welcome mat before leaving. I thought my mom might check if I had aggravated my injury during the outburst. Instead, she stood there with a black expression, pointing a finger at my nose and scolding me. “You chased your aunt away over something so trivial! How am I supposed to face our relatives now?” “Everyone always praises me for having a saint’s heart, but you! You completely humiliated me!” My mom berated me for a solid half hour. Until Liam walked through the door. He was holding a box of my favorite strawberry shortcake, looking exhausted from his commute. The moment he stepped inside, he sensed the toxic atmosphere. The broken porcelain was still on the floor, my mom was sitting on the sofa wiping away dramatic tears, and I was lying in bed with a freezing expression. Liam’s face changed. Before he even took off his shoes, he rushed to my bedside. “Honey, what’s wrong? Is your leg hurting?” He anxiously checked my cast, then checked our sleeping daughter, only breathing a sigh of relief when he confirmed we were physically okay. Seeing Liam return, my mom immediately found a new target to vent to. “Liam, please, talk some sense into her.” “Chloe is getting more and more selfish. Her own flesh and blood hit a rough patch, what’s the big deal with helping them out?” “Her aunt was practically on her knees begging, and Chloe threatened to call the cops on her!” Hearing the full story, the usual gentle warmth vanished from Liam’s face. He stood up, blocking me from her view, his tone turning hard and icy: “Mom, that doula was hired to take care of Chloe and the baby.” “Chloe has a fractured leg. She is precisely the one who needs professional care right now. If we give the nurse away and Chloe suffers permanent nerve damage, who is going to take responsibility?” “You are Chloe’s biological mother. Is an outsider’s pride really more important than your daughter’s leg?” My mom choked on her words. She clearly didn’t expect her usually mild-mannered son-in-law to confront her so directly. She froze for a few seconds before turning her embarrassment into anger, immediately playing the victim card. “Fine! So you two are ganging up to bully an old woman!” “Do you think it’s been easy for me to support our relatives all these years? Everyone praises me for being a generous soul, is that a crime?!” “Who do you think I do it for? I do it to build good karma for Chloe!” “Good karma?” I finally lost it. I asked Liam to go into the study and bring out an old ledger I kept in my desk. It was the “record of blood and tears” I had been documenting since I was a teenager. I told Liam to open it and read it out loud, line by line, so my mother could hear. “Sophomore year of college. I worked three jobs and earned a $1,200 scholarship. You stole it to buy my cousin Tyler the newest gaming console. You told me it was a ‘loan.’ It has never been repaid.” “My first year working. My company gave me a premium imported seafood gift basket. Before I even opened the box, you hauled it over to Aunt Susan’s house. I never even saw a shrimp shell.” “The two-bedroom condo I bought before my wedding. You guilt-tripped me into letting Aunt Susan use it as Tyler’s marital home, saying it was just temporary. They lived there for three years. I never saw a dime in rent, and I was the one paying their utility bills!” The more Liam read, the darker his face became. “Mom, your ‘good reputation’ was bought entirely by slicing pieces of meat off my bones.” “I am your daughter, not your personal blood bank!” Having all her dirty laundry aired out, my mom’s pride was entirely shattered. She shot up from the sofa, snatched the ledger from Liam’s hands, and threw it violently onto the floor. “I raised you! What’s wrong with spending some of your money?! You’re exactly like your deadbeat father—ungrateful and heartless!” With that, she stormed into the guest room, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. Liam hugged me gently, patting my back. “Don’t be angry, it’s bad for your recovery. You have me now. I won’t let them leech off you ever again.” His embrace was warm, but the chilling cold in my heart refused to dissipate. Late that night. My phone buzzed. It was a voice memo from Aunt Susan. Her tone held zero trace of the afternoon’s hostility. Instead, it was dripping with an entitled, greedy sweetness. “Chloe, sweetheart! Don’t worry about the doula, I don’t need her anymore. But I heard you guys have some fancy imported physical therapy machine? Your sister-in-law is recovering from childbirth and feeling very weak. Can we borrow it?” “Your leg is already messed up anyway, so skipping it for a couple of days won’t hurt.” This family were literal leeches. Once they latched on, they never let go. Early the next morning, right after Liam left for the office, Aunt Susan showed up at our door with my cousin, Tyler. This time they played it smart. They didn’t come empty-handed; they brought a basket of bruised, rotting apples. “Oh, Chloe, I was just too anxious yesterday, I spoke out of turn. Don’t take it to heart.” Aunt Susan dropped the apples on the table and immediately started scanning the room. Finally, her eyes locked onto the physical therapy machine running next to my leg. It was a medical-grade CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine that Liam had specially flown in from Germany for $12,000. It was designed specifically to prevent muscle atrophy after my type of surgery. The doctor had given strict orders: I had to use it for at least four hours every single day. “Is this that therapy machine? Looks fancy.” Aunt Susan marched over and reached for the power plug. “Perfect timing. My husband’s back has been acting up, and my daughter-in-law is in pain too. We’ll take it back so the whole family can get some use out of it.” I slammed my hand down on the machine. “No.” “This is medical equipment, not a toy. If you use it wrong, you could seriously injure someone. And I am in the middle of my rehabilitation. I cannot stop using it.” Aunt Susan’s face instantly dropped. “Chloe, why do you have to be so stingy? Lending it out for a bit isn’t going to break it!” Tyler, who had been silent until now, suddenly lunged forward and forcefully shoved my hand away. “Mom, why are you wasting your breath on her?! Aunt Brenda already promised we could take it!” Saying that, he moved to lift the heavy machine. I panicked. Ignoring the heavy cast on my leg, I struggled forward to block them. “This is my property! I am not lending it to you! This is robbery!” Right at that moment, my mom walked out of the kitchen. She was still holding a spatula. Without even looking at me, she barked: “Chloe! Let go of it!” “It’s just a stupid machine! Let your cousin use it for a couple of days, what’s the big deal?!” “Your sister-in-law is recovering from a hard labor! You skipping your little leg massage for two days isn’t going to kill you!” I stared at my mother in utter disbelief. “Mom, this is my lifeline! The doctor said if I stop for even a day, my muscles could permanently atrophy!” My mom walked over, rolling her eyes impatiently. “Stop listening to doctors trying to scare you! You’re just being a drama queen!” In her desperation to help Tyler wrestle the machine away from me, she reached out and shoved me hard. “I said let go! Why are you being such a brat?!” I was sitting in a wheelchair. Her shove hit me squarely in the shoulder. The wheelchair tipped over. I crashed heavily onto the marble floor. The freshly set bone in my leg slammed violently against the hard stone. CRACK! An agonizing pain, like thousands of volts of electricity, shot through my entire body. I let out a blood-curdling scream. Cold sweat instantly soaked my clothes. Aunt Susan and Tyler jumped, almost dropping the machine. But they didn’t stop. Instead, they took the opportunity to grab the heavy device and sprint toward the door. Tyler yelled over his shoulder, “She fell on her own! It has nothing to do with us!” Aunt Susan ran faster than a rabbit. “Exactly! Brenda, you saw it! We didn’t even touch her!” They grabbed my medical lifeline and bolted out the front door. And my own biological mother stood frozen in place, looking down at me collapsed on the floor. A flash of panic crossed her eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by irritation. “Stop screaming! You’re perfectly fine!” “You just had to fight with your own family! If you fell, you brought it on yourself!” The excruciating pain made my vision go black in waves. I felt a warm, thick liquid slide down inside the cast, quickly soaking through the fabric of my pajama pants, blooming into a dark red stain. The bone had displaced. It had likely punctured an artery. My screams terrified my baby daughter in the bassinet, and she began wailing at the top of her lungs. I weakly lifted my head and looked at my mother. “Mom… help me…” “There’s so much blood… take me to the hospital…” My mom saw the blood pooling on the floor, and her face changed. She instinctively took a step toward me, reaching her hands out to help. But at that exact moment, Aunt Susan’s frantic voice echoed from the hallway outside: “Brenda! Hurry up and come help us! This machine is too heavy, we can’t fit it in the trunk!” My mom’s footsteps halted. She looked down at me, drenched in cold sweat and hovering on the edge of unconsciousness. Then she looked toward the door. Aunt Susan urged her again: “Brenda! Hurry up! Don’t let that brat Chloe change her mind and chase after us!” My mom hesitated for exactly one second. She turned around, pointed her finger at me, and spat: “Stop faking it! A little blood isn’t going to kill you!” “I’m going to help your aunt load this downstairs, then I’ll come back and deal with you!” With that, she turned her back and walked out. I watched in total despair as the front door clicked shut. This was my biological mother. As I lay there fighting for my life, she chose to go help robbers load their stolen goods. The agony was making my consciousness fade. But I couldn’t die. My daughter was still crying. I bit down on my lip until it bled, using my elbows to drag my body across the floor, inch by agonizing inch, toward the coffee table. Behind me, a long, horrific trail of blood painted the marble floor. Finally, my trembling fingers brushed against my phone. I tried to unlock it, my blood-slicked thumb slipping against the sensor several times before it worked. I dialed Liam’s number. “Hello? Honey?” The moment the call connected, I used my last breath to force out a single word: “Help…” The phone slipped from my grasp. Darkness swallowed me whole. I don’t know how much time passed. I vaguely heard the deafening sound of the front door being violently smashed open. “CHLOE!!!” It was Liam’s voice, tearing out of his throat in pure agony. That was followed by chaotic, rushing footsteps and the horrified shouts of the building’s security guards. Right then, a voice humming a light, cheerful tune drifted from the hallway. It was my mom. She had finished loading the stolen goods and was returning at her leisure. “What’s all this racket? You’re going to tear the door off its hinges!” “She just fell down, is a huge scene really necessary…” Her voice abruptly died in her throat the moment she saw the crowd of people and the massive pool of blood covering the living room floor. Liam, holding my blood-soaked body in his arms, slowly raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot and feral as he locked onto her. I wasn’t “faking it.” I was actually dying.

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