Category: English

Fiona, a friend of my mother’s, had run out of options. Fleeing a marriage filled with infidelity and domestic abuse, she brought her daughter to our estate to seek refuge. My mother had originally planned a romantic candlelight dinner with my father. To keep Fiona company and offer her comfort, my mother canceled those plans. My father was furious. He gave my mother the silent treatment for weeks. Fiona, playing the part of the perfect, unobtrusive guest, volunteered to stay in the smallest guest room on the ground floor, the only one without an en-suite bathroom. Because of this, she always waited until the dead of night to shower. One night, she stepped out of the communal bathroom just as my father returned late from the office. She was completely naked. Letting out a startled gasp, she covered herself and sprinted back to her room. My father didn’t say a word. A few days later, he returned from a business trip. Along with a bottle of imported perfume for my mother, he casually handed Fiona a designer lipstick. My mother just smiled, remarking on how generous and open-minded my father had become. That fleeting happiness didn’t last. Three months later, on the exact date of my parents’ wedding anniversary, my mother suffered a massive psychological break. She ended her own life. 01 My mother, Eleanor, was never a picky woman, but if there was one thing she despised with every fiber of her being, it was fennel. My father, Charlie Valmont, loved my mother. For years, fennel was practically banned from the Valmont estate simply because the smell made her nauseous. Yet, a month before her death, my father suddenly developed a massive craving for roasted beef with fennel. Eager to please him, my mother ordered bags of the stuff on their anniversary. She was going to cook him a feast. Fiona stood in the kitchen, offering a sickly sweet smile as she praised my mother for finally catching on to what a man truly wanted. I was only seven at the time. My memories from back then are hazy in places, but I was always more observant than my mother. I vaguely remember one undeniable fact. Fiona’s favorite dish in the world was roasted beef with fennel. When I pointed this out to my mother, she just stroked my cheek with a gentle hand. She told me I was such a thoughtful little girl, Serena, and that she would make sure to leave a large portion just for Auntie Fiona. My mother was hopelessly oblivious. Since the day she married my father, she was kept like a prized canary in a gilded cage. She never lifted a finger, spending her days shopping, traveling, and floating through life. She never cared about my report cards. Whenever she picked me up from school, she would be dressed to the nines, only asking if I had fun that day. When I handed her a test with a perfect score, pouting because she didn’t seem to care, she would just pull me into a tight hug and promise to take me out for ice cream. Her hugs always smelled like expensive vanilla. They were warm. Safe. After she died, I would squeeze my eyes shut, desperately trying to recall the warmth of her embrace. But all I could smell was the lingering, pungent stench of fennel coming from the kitchen. 02 My father was a capable, high-powered CEO. To the outside world, he was utterly devoted to his wife. When my mother died, he played the part of the grieving widower perfectly. At the funeral, he wept until his knees gave out, leaning on a tombstone as the cold rain fell. But a CEO is always busy. Once the tears dried, he washed his face and adjusted his tie. He had a multimillion-dollar acquisition dinner to attend that evening. Back at the sprawling estate, our head housekeeper held me as I cried. Fiona was busy hugging her own daughter, weeping softly. When Fiona finished crying, she knelt in front of me. She looked me in the eye and promised that Auntie Fiona would love me just as much as my mother did. The housekeeper glared at her, shoving her away with a protective arm. When my father returned that night, Fiona looked up at him with tear-filled, pitiful eyes. My father let out a heavy sigh, lifting a hand to brush a stray tear from her cheek. She took a step back, her voice barely a whisper. She told him they couldn’t keep making mistakes. My father’s expression darkened. He suddenly pulled her into a fierce embrace, his voice thick with authority. He asked if the living were supposed to spend the rest of their lives suffocating in guilt, insisting that she needed to stop putting everyone else first. Fiona buried her face in his chest, sobbing quietly. My father reached into his coat and pulled out a velvet-lined jewelry box. He murmured sweet nothings, telling her he had flown halfway across the country just to get this custom necklace for her. He asked if it made her happy. Fiona’s tears vanished, replaced by a radiant smile. She leaned up and kissed my father squarely on the lips. 03 Four months after my mother’s death, Fiona officially moved into the master bedroom. Her stomach was already showing a slight bump. At their intimate, lavish wedding, her smile outshone the diamond on her finger. When reading his vows, my father actually teared up. I heard the guests whispering. They said Fiona wasn’t a brainless trophy wife like Eleanor. They called her Charlie’s right-hand woman. Everyone agreed she was a force to be reckoned with. And just like that, she entered the Valmont family, carrying the male heir my father always wanted. Her daughter’s last name was legally changed. Little Lily was now the eldest young lady of the Valmont household. Without making a sound, Fiona systematically erased every trace of my mother. The clothes, the photos, the vanilla scented candles. All gone. I was too young to grasp the twisted games of adults. I only knew my mother was gone, and my chest physically ached from missing her. One night, unable to sleep, I sat at the top of the grand staircase, rolling my collection of glass marbles back and forth. They slipped from my fingers, scattering across the carpeted hallway and cascading down the polished wooden steps. The next morning, Fiona woke up early for her usual pregnancy stroll. She didn’t look down. Her foot caught a marble. She let out a blood-curdling scream as she tumbled down the entire flight of stairs. Fiona lost the baby. The doctors said she would never be able to conceive again. My father found me in the hallway. His eyes were bloodshot. He backhanded me so hard I tasted copper, pointing a trembling finger at my face. He screamed at me to go to hell and apologize to my unborn brother. I was terrified. I broke down sobbing, choking on my tears as I told him I just missed my mommy, and that mommy used to play marbles with me. The mention of her name acted like ice water. My father froze. Tears spilled from his eyes as he turned away, slamming his fist into the expensive wallpaper over and over again. 04 My father decided to ship me off to a boarding school in Europe. My grandmother was furious. She demanded to know how he could exile his own flesh and blood across the ocean at such a young age. My father’s voice was like frost. He told her that my very presence in the house was a trigger for Fiona’s trauma. He assured her I would have a trust fund and nannies, and that he had done his duty as a father. Grandmother just sighed, defeated. Lily had been eavesdropping. She trotted over, wrapping her little arms around my father’s leg. With a sugary sweet voice, she told him not to cry. She promised that even though the baby brother was gone, he still had his Lily. My father’s eyes softened. He patted her head, praising her for being such a good girl. He told her to start calling him Dad. I was outside in the courtyard, blindly kicking a soccer ball against the brick wall. The boy from the neighboring estate, Tristan Sinclair, hopped the wrought-iron fence. He walked up to me and held out a sparkling set of hair clips. He noticed that I hadn’t changed my hair accessories in days. He remembered that when Auntie Eleanor was around, I had a different ribbon for every day of the week. I pushed his hand away. I told him I didn’t want them because I couldn’t pay him back. He told me he didn’t care about being paid back. I still refused. When he asked why, I bit my lip and looked at my shoes. I told him I was being sent away, and that I was never coming back. Tristan stared at the grass for a long time. Then, he looked me dead in the eye and swore he was coming with me. He was a boy of his word. I have no idea what kind of war he waged with his wealthy parents, but a month later, he was on the same flight to London. Before we left, Lily cornered him in the driveway. Playing the polite, concerned angel, she warned him not to go. She called me a psycho who murdered her baby brother, asking if Tristan wanted to be the bad guy too. Tristan literally spat at her feet. He told her that her mother moved in with a fat belly while my mom’s grave was still fresh, and that they were the real monsters. Lily’s face turned beetroot red. 05 Tristan and I grew up in London together. Middle school, high school, and eventually university. He never left my side. One lazy afternoon, while he was watching me sketch in my studio, his phone buzzed. He took the call out in the hall. When he came back, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He mumbled some excuse about a buddy needing a massive favor and said he had to leave. I gave him a perfectly understanding smile and told him to go do what he had to do. Later that evening, Lily’s Instagram feed, which she had blocked me from seeing for years, suddenly became public. There was a fresh post. The caption read: Received a runner-up prize for my painting and cried all night. Dad canceled all his meetings and flew out with Mom just to cheer me up! I’m the luckiest girl in the world! Attached was a photo of Lily, Fiona, and my father. A picture-perfect family standing in front of Big Ben. Lily was sticking her tongue out playfully while my father looked at her with pure adoration. I picked up my phone and dialed his number. Keeping my tone light, I asked if he was in London. There was a dead silence on the line. Several agonizing seconds passed before he cleared his throat. He claimed he didn’t want to distract me from my art projects, so he kept it quiet. What a remarkably considerate father. The Michelin-star restaurant they were dining at was exactly two blocks away from my flat. He crossed an ocean but couldn’t cross two streets to see his own flesh and blood. 06 Tristan came back to my flat hours past midnight. He reeked of expensive scotch. He slumped into a chair, staring blankly at me as I cleaned my brushes. After an eternity, the silence broke. He told me he couldn’t stay by my side anymore. I just looked at him. He swallowed hard, confessing that he was flying back to the States with Lily. As if terrified I would scream or beg, he rushed through his speech. He apologized for breaking his promise to marry me, claiming that it would break Lily’s heart if we stayed together. The studio window had blown open at some point. The London night air seeped in. It was freezing. I walked over to latch the window. Tristan was still sitting there, waiting for the explosion. Instead, I gave him a soft smile. I simply said okay, and told him he should pack his things. He froze. He clearly hadn’t expected me to let him off the hook so easily. His brain short-circuited. He nervously asked if I was planning some kind of revenge. I shook my head, my smile never wavering. I thanked him for keeping me company all these years and wished him nothing but happiness. Tristan studied my face. Seeing no trace of malice, he finally nodded. A flicker of pity crossed his eyes as he grabbed his coat. He told me that if I ever ran into trouble, his door was always open. I said sure. And then he was gone. I quietly took the two VIP concert tickets for his favorite indie band, the ones I had waited in the rain to buy for his birthday, and tossed them in the trash. My heart rate remained perfectly steady. It was the exact same feeling I had the day I accidentally saw the secret folder on his phone, the one filled with candid photos of Lily sleeping. Like absolutely nothing had happened. 07 But things do happen. Memories don’t just vanish. I still remembered the image of Fiona slipping out of the bathroom, moonlight casting a translucent glow over her bare skin. I remembered my father staring at her, completely captivated. I remembered how he stood in the hallway for a long time before marching into my mother’s bedroom. My mother had groaned in her sleep, sleepily asking him why he was so riled up in the middle of the night. He hadn’t answered. The only sound that followed was the heavy, animalistic panting echoing through the walls. Why did I remember that night so vividly? Because earlier that day, Lily had thrown a tantrum over my favorite porcelain doll. My mother, being the peacemaker, bought her an identical one. But Lily didn’t want the new one. She wanted mine. That night, I woke up to find my doll missing. I padded down the hall to Lily’s room and saw my doll tucked under her arm. Her bedroom door was wide open. That was when Fiona stepped out of the bathroom, putting on her little show of panic before scurrying back. I was just a kid. My mother was too pure for her own good. Pure to the point of sheer stupidity. When I babbled the story to her the next morning, trying to explain what I saw, she just laughed and ruffled my hair. She said it was no big deal, and that she would just move Auntie Fiona to a room with a private bath. I stammered, insisting that Fiona hadn’t been wearing any clothes. My mother shrugged it off, assuming Fiona had just run out of body wash and didn’t bother grabbing a robe since it was late and the house was asleep. Before I could argue, my mother spun her laptop around, pointing at designer dresses. She asked which one I wanted her to order for me. She was always smiling. Her eyes would crinkle at the corners. The maids would slack off right in front of her, gossiping in the kitchen about how clueless the madam was. She had a low tolerance for pain. If she nicked her finger slicing an apple, she would make a huge fuss. The staff would roll their eyes and call her a spoiled princess. But on the day she died, those same maids cried genuine tears. She was so obsessed with looking pretty. If she had known how grotesque a body looks after death, it would have broken her heart. 08 Six months ago, Tristan took a solo trip back to the States. He attended a high-profile charity gala and ran into a very sophisticated, elegant Lily. She was no longer the annoying brat from our childhood. She had been molded by obscene wealth and unconditional love. She went to Ivy League schools, could hold her own in conversations about modern art or hedge funds, and oozed confidence. When she saw Tristan, she didn’t flinch. She simply held out a manicured hand with a dazzling smile, suggesting they reintroduce themselves. Tristan was mesmerized. During his time back home, they stayed up late talking about their dreams, their passions, their futures. Lily played the role of the ultimate empath. She told him that I was fragile, that I needed him more than she did. She urged him to fly back to London to take care of me. Tristan’s throat tightened. Under the pale moonlight, he looked into her perfectly crafted, tragically beautiful eyes. For a long time, he couldn’t speak. Eventually, he gave a slow nod. When my private investigator sent me the surveillance photos of them that night, I casually texted Tristan, asking where he was. He replied that he was just chilling at home. He lied without missing a beat. He was walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Lily under the blooming magnolias. They were soulmates crossing paths at the wrong time. Half an hour later, Lily would fall asleep against the passenger window of his sports car. And he would pull out his phone, open his camera app, and take the only portrait photo he had ever taken in his life. 09 I learned at a very young age that absolutely no one in this world is reliable. The mother who called me her everything abandoned me because she couldn’t handle her own demons. The father who used to carry me on his shoulders abandoned me for a shinier, more obedient daughter. Who was left to trust? Over the years, my father practically pretended I didn’t exist. But I was a smart girl. I played the part of the dutiful, invisible daughter. If he didn’t want to see me, I stayed out of sight. But staying out of sight still required funding. I wasn’t like my mother. I didn’t throw tantrums or cry when I was wronged. I was perfectly content with the scraps I was given. If my father couldn’t give me love, I made sure he gave me cash. The quieter and more compliant I became, the more his underlying guilt gnawed at him. By the time I graduated, my bank accounts were incredibly healthy. Shortly after Tristan moved back to the States, I booked a flight home too. I brought back carefully selected gifts. A limited-edition watch for my father, a seasonal Birkin for Fiona, and a silk Hermès scarf for Lily. And for my mother’s memorial altar in the living room, I laid down a fresh bundle of fennel. My father’s face drained of color when he saw the pungent greens. I ignored his shock, turning to him with a bright smile. I cheerfully mentioned that since mom was in heaven, her allergies were probably gone, and she should finally get to taste the dish he loved so much. At dinner that night, Lily walked in with her arm looped through Tristan’s. Tristan immediately shifted, putting himself slightly in front of her like a human shield. Lily looked at me with a perfectly calculated expression of guilt. She softly reminded me that since Tristan and I had broken up, he was free to date whoever he wanted. She asked if I was mad at her. I offered a polite nod and a warm smile. I told her of course not. To ensure they bought it, I let out a self-deprecating sigh, asking if they really thought I was that petty. A shadow passed over Lily’s eyes. Tristan looked visibly relieved, but heavily burdened with guilt. He told me he was glad I was being mature about it, adding that Lily was totally innocent in all this. I chuckled. I agreed with him, stating I never blamed her. Then, I turned to Tristan and told him I had a gift for him too. I pulled out a beautifully framed, sealed canvas and handed it to him. I told him it was the painting I promised him. Tristan’s breath hitched. I took half a step closer, lowering my voice so only he could hear. I whispered that he didn’t have to worry—I left it completely unsigned, just like he wanted. Tristan gripped the frame tightly. For some reason, he couldn’t look me in the eye. 10 After dinner, my father called me into his private study. He wanted a one-on-one. He paced the Persian rug, clearing his throat. He said that since I was back, he wanted to finalize his will. He admitted that the bulk of his shares in the Valmont Corporation rightfully belonged to me. I put on a mask of hesitation. I asked about Fiona and Lily, reminding him that Fiona had helped build the company and had been by his side for over a decade. My father frowned, waving his hand dismissively. He acknowledged Fiona’s hard work and promised they would have trust funds to keep them comfortable. But at the end of the day, he looked at me and said I was his actual blood. His eyes were filled with a sudden, overwhelming paternal warmth as he told me I was the only one he truly trusted. When I had walked into the study, I deliberately left the heavy oak door slightly ajar. Right on cue, there was the faintest clink of fine china rattling against a saucer out in the hallway. I ducked my head, hiding a smirk, and let out a reluctant sigh. I told him that if that was what he wanted, I would accept it. Men are incredibly pragmatic creatures. He could spoil Fiona and Lily rotten, showering them with diamonds and affection. But when it came to his empire, the core of his power, blood was the only currency that mattered. It was only in matters of inheritance that he suddenly remembered the daughter he had tossed aside. A gentle knock interrupted us. Fiona glided into the room, carrying a tray of chamomile tea. She looked my father dead in the eye and smiled. She announced she was pregnant. 11 My father bolted out of his leather chair. The sheer joy on his face was blinding. He rushed over, practically shoving me out of the way, and scooped Fiona into his arms. He spun her around. The aging billionaire suddenly looked like a teenager who had just won the lottery. He demanded to know why she kept such miraculous news a secret. Fiona swatted his chest playfully. She claimed the pregnancy was early and she wanted to surprise him. Then, she let her gaze drift toward me. My father caught the look. The joy in the room plummeted into an icy tension. Fiona quickly smoothed things over. She mentioned she was two months along, and with Serena back home, it was a double celebration. My father kissed her forehead, declaring that she and the baby were the only celebration that mattered. Fiona then brought up Lily. She casually mentioned that Lily had submitted a piece to a prestigious international art competition. If she won, she expected my father to give her a massive reward. My father pinched Fiona’s nose affectionately, teasing that Lily’s art was just a cute hobby and she was just playing around. Fiona pouted, demanding to know what he would give her if she actually won. My father pretended to think about it. Then, as if finally remembering I was still standing there, his tone went flat. He turned to me and ordered me to leave, saying he had private matters to discuss with his wife. As my hand touched the brass doorknob, he called out to me one last time. His voice was devoid of any of the warmth from five minutes ago. He told me to forget everything he had said about the will, blaming it on the scotch. 12 I have an internal ledger. I remember everything people say, carefully weighing the value of their words to see how I can use them. Six months ago, when Tristan was packing his bags to leave London, he stopped by the door and asked for a birthday present. He asked for one of my paintings. I had always been an introvert, bordering on socially dead. I practically lived in my studio, which used to drive Tristan crazy. He used to hate my art. He constantly complained that my canvases stole the attention that rightfully belonged to him. But on that specific day, he begged for a piece. He explicitly asked me not to sign it. He claimed he wanted to appreciate the raw art without a signature distracting from the composition. I had looked at him, flashing a bright, innocent smile, and agreed. Tristan had whipped his head away like he’d been slapped. His words carried heavy weight on my ledger. So, I kept them locked in my memory. I delivered exactly what I promised. My father’s words carried weight, too. I wouldn’t forget them. I always keep my promises to others. And I make damn sure they reap what they sow.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443076”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The moment the conference room doors closed, I knew the thirty-million-dollar contract was in the bag. I had barely snapped my laptop shut when my department manager, Valerie, marched over. She crossed her arms, her eyes raking over me with a sneer dripping in condescension. “Nice battle armor,” she mocked. “But honestly, as highly educated women in the corporate world, we really shouldn’t be subjecting ourselves to the male gaze.” I paused, genuinely confused, and offered a polite explanation. “I was hosting VIP clients. Dressing professionally is just basic respect, isn’t it? Besides, it was the pitch itself that won them over.” She immediately raised her voice, making sure the entire floor could hear. “Respect? The clients were all men, and you are the only woman in the office wearing a fitted dress today. Do you really think your little motives aren’t obvious? Stop being such a pick-me and wake up!” A male colleague tried to diffuse the tension. “Come on, Valerie, that is a bit harsh. Her presentation was completely flawless today…” She cut him off with a sharp glare. “Of course you men are defending her! This is textbook internalized misogyny. She has been completely conditioned by the patriarchy, and yet she stands there thinking she is just being a dedicated professional!” “If we women want to be taken seriously in this industry, we have to shed this toxic mindset.” She turned her venom back to me. “I suggest you come in bare-faced next time and let your actual skills do the talking. Stop embarrassing the rest of us.” … 1 When you reach a certain level of sheer, unadulterated disbelief, you really cannot help but laugh out loud. I had put on a little light makeup and worn a perfectly tailored, modest pencil dress, and suddenly I was the poster child for setting women back a century. “Valerie, I think you need to spend a little less time scrolling through internet buzzwords,” I said, my voice cool and even. “You just regurgitate whatever you hear online without actually understanding what the words mean.” “With your binary, black-and-white way of thinking, you are the one who desperately needs some corporate retraining.” Her face instantly mottled into an ugly shade of plum. Clearly, she had never been talked back to by a subordinate in public before. “Audrey Sinclair! How dare you speak to me like that?!” She slammed her hand on the desk, her manicured finger pointing inches from my nose. “I am your superior! Have you completely forgotten your place?” I didn’t back down an inch. I threw her own logic right back in her face. “My place? Didn’t you just say we should let our skills do the talking? I just closed a thirty-million-dollar deal. Mind showing me what your skills have accomplished lately?” She was a nepotism hire dropped into the manager role out of nowhere. She had absolutely nothing to show for her time here. Furious and entirely out of arguments, she raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face. The crack echoed through the silent office. My cheek instantly burned, the sting radiating down my jaw before I could even process what had happened. Having resorted to violence, she suddenly seemed to find her twisted sense of confidence again. She stood over me, panting heavily as she shrieked. “Let me tell you something, Audrey! I know you bring in numbers! But every single person in this office knows exactly how you get those numbers!” “While you are in this building, I am your boss! You will learn some respect! Do not think for a second that just because you use a pretty face to seduce men into signing a few contracts, you can parade around my department acting like you own the place!” The moment the words left her mouth, a few coworkers who were always deeply jealous of my commission checks swarmed in like vultures, eagerly backing her up. “Exactly. Who knows what kind of ‘skills’ she is using behind closed doors. Gutter tactics will never earn real respect.” “Who was she even dressing up for? Valerie was trying to do her a favor by calling her out, and she just threw it in her face.” “Right? The rest of us make a living on actual talent, not by throwing ourselves at clients. You should be thanking her, Audrey.” I pressed a hand to my burning cheek. A hot, suffocating rage clawed up my throat, and I was about to tear into all of them, consequences be damned. Suddenly, Director Collins grabbed my arm, his grip tight. “Alright, alright, that is enough. Audrey, just let it go for now. You worked hard today. Come on, let’s grab some lunch and cool off.” He practically dragged me toward the elevators, lowering his voice to a frantic whisper. “Why are you going head-to-head with her? She is Richard Harrington’s only daughter! We are just employees here, Audrey. We cannot afford to piss off the CEO’s kid!” Richard Harrington’s daughter? That was funny. When exactly did my father have another daughter without telling me? 2 Before I could voice my amusement, Director Collins had already dragged me into the employee cafeteria. He spent the next ten minutes nervously lecturing me about keeping my head down and surviving corporate politics, while I pushed my salad around my plate, entirely devoid of an appetite. Suddenly, my phone buzzed violently against the table. The company’s massive group chat was blowing up, notifications rolling in like a slot machine. I unlocked the screen. The most recent messages were photos and voice notes sent by Valerie. She had gone into my cubicle the second I left. The photos were entirely of my private belongings hidden in my desk drawers. A pair of spare pantyhose I had meant to take home to wash, a pair of emergency stilettos I kept under my desk, my favorite lipstick, and a bottle of expensive perfume. Right below the photos was a voice note. I pressed play, and Valerie’s sickly sweet, theatrical voice poured out of my speaker. “Attention everyone! From now on, our department is officially cracking down on toxic workplace culture! We will absolutely not tolerate anyone selling their bodies or playing into the male gaze! Things like lipstick, perfume, and sheer pantyhose are hereby banned from this office!” “Now, I just confiscated some filthy contraband from a certain coworker’s desk. In the spirit of recycling, I am hosting a little auction right here in the chat!” “Does anyone want to bid on our resident ‘Project Goddess’s’ personal items? Highest bidder takes all!” My stomach violently turned over. Pure disgust hit me so hard I thought I was going to throw up my lunch. To make it infinitely worse, a few of the creepier guys from the IT and sales departments were actually responding in the chat, dropping dollar amounts and bidding on my things. I cursed under my breath, shoved my chair back, and sprinted all the way back to the department floor. When I reached my desk, the scene waiting for me made my blood boil over. Valerie hadn’t just raided my drawers. She was currently sitting in my chair, swiping aggressively through my personal, password-protected laptop. “What the hell do you think you are doing?!” I lunged forward and slammed the laptop shut, nearly catching her fingers in the keyboard. “That is my personal computer! You have absolutely no right to touch it!” Valerie jumped, startled by my sudden appearance, but immediately recovered, tilting her chin up with sickening entitlement. “What am I doing? A routine inspection! You bring this device into my office, so I have every right to make sure you aren’t stealing company secrets. Or, you know, maybe you were trading insider info with that client earlier today? After all, with women like you… well, who knows what you are capable of?” I was trembling with rage. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of my laptop, opening my mouth to rip her to shreds. Before I could speak, a guy from accounting with thick glasses and a sleazy smile sidled up to the desk. “Hey, Valerie, I just sent the Venmo. I am here for the pantyhose.” Valerie gave him a knowing smirk, pulled my sheer tights out of my drawer, and handed them right over to him. “You look like such a quiet guy, who knew you were into this kind of trash? Take them. Just make sure the payment clears.” “Valerie Harrington!” I screamed, my voice echoing through the open floor plan. “You have no right to sell my property! I am not selling anything!” “No right? I have every right! This pathetic, male-gaze garbage does not belong in my office! I am purifying our workplace environment!” The audacity was blinding. I fired back, making sure my voice carried. “Basic grooming and professional attire are standard corporate etiquette! Because I wear a fitted dress and want to look nice, suddenly I am catering to men? By your insane logic, should I be wearing thermal sweatpants under a skirt just to prove I am a decent woman?!” My voice was loud enough to draw a crowd. The coworkers who had been quietly watching the drama unfold started whispering among themselves. A few people couldn’t suppress a snicker, clearly realizing just how unhinged Valerie’s crusade was actually becoming. Her face burned under the shifting attention. Her eyes darkened with absolute malice. “Are you psychotic, Audrey?! Watch your mouth, or I promise I will make sure you never work in this industry again!” I was done entertaining her delusions. “Move. I have actual work to do.” I kept my face like stone, reaching out to pack away my laptop. 3 Instead of moving, she slammed her hands down hard on the lid of my laptop, stopping me from taking it. With her other hand, she quickly snatched my phone off the desk, using my face to unlock it before I could react, and pulled up my messages. “Work? You mean messaging various CEO’s and offering your ‘deep, personal’ services?” Her voice was shrill, projecting to the entire room. “Here, let me read a little excerpt so we can all learn from our top performer!” She cleared her throat, putting on a sickeningly breathy, mocking tone. “‘Mr. Sterling, thank you so much for everything today. I would love to treat you to dinner sometime soon!’ Wow, look at that! A blatant, shameless invitation! Tell me, Audrey, did you not know Mr. Sterling is a married man? His wife is notoriously vicious, and you are throwing yourself at him? You really have no shame, do you?” I was honestly amazed by her stupidity. “It is a standard business pleasantry after closing a deal. How else am I supposed to phrase it?” “Pleasantries? Then explain this!” She tapped on a different chat. The contact name was saved as Papa Sinclair. The messages in that thread were obviously casual. It was me complaining about how exhausting work was, and the other person gently reminding me to eat on time. It was deeply affectionate. “Oh, wow! Look how intimate you are with this ‘Papa Sinclair’ character! You are literally whining to him like a spoiled brat!” “Calling him Daddy? That is disgusting! Is this your twisted little kink? Which filthy rich old man is keeping you on his payroll, Audrey? No wonder you keep landing massive accounts. I bet your little sugar daddy is pulling all the strings behind the scenes!” I stared at her face, completely twisted with jealousy and spite, and the cold smirk on my lips only grew wider. What an absolute idiot. She couldn’t even recognize my father’s profile picture or the way he texted, yet she was parading around pretending to be his daughter? When I graduated college, my dad and I made a bet. I promised I would join the company undercover, without using his name, and secure one hundred million dollars in contracts purely on my own merit. If I did, I would immediately take over as the General Manager. I was literally one day away from crossing the finish line, only to be publicly degraded by this clown pretending to be the heiress to the empire. Alright, ‘sister’, I thought. If you want to play pretend, I will play along. Let’s see how much longer you can enjoy the spotlight. Seeing that she had absolutely no intention of getting out of my chair, and was instead scrolling deeper into my private messages looking for more ammunition, my patience snapped completely. I turned on my heel, marched straight into her private glass office, grabbed her unlocked MacBook from her desk, and walked right back out. “What are you doing?! Put my laptop down!” she shrieked, genuine panic lacing her voice. I ignored her completely, my fingers swiping rapidly across her trackpad. I had heard the nasty little rumors floating around the water cooler about Valerie’s late-night extracurricular activities in the office. Everyone knew, but because of her title, no one dared to say a word. I found a hidden folder on her desktop and double-clicked the video file inside. A second later, the unmistakable, explicit sounds of heavy panting and moaning blasted at maximum volume from her laptop speakers. “Holy shit… is that Valerie’s voice?” “Wow, she really gets wild… she filmed herself hooking up right here in the office?” The crowd of coworkers instantly erupted into chaos. Shocked gasps and loud whispers filled the room. All the blood drained from Valerie’s face. She lunged at me, practically tackling me to snatch the laptop away and slam it shut. She was shaking violently, pointing a trembling finger at my face. “Audrey Sinclair! Stop trying to frame me! I am completely innocent! You definitely snuck that filthy file onto my computer just now to ruin my reputation!” “For all we know, you are the star of that video! We all know there is nothing you won’t do to close a deal!” But the damage was done. The way the staff was looking at her now was dripping with suspicion and disgust. Realizing she was losing control, she straightened her spine and loudly played her ultimate trump card. “I didn’t want to have to reveal this to everyone, but I am the CEO’s daughter! I came into this company undercover specifically to clean up the toxic culture my father hates! Employees like Audrey, who sleep their way to the top and maliciously slander their superiors, are exactly the kind of trash I am here to take out!” She glared at the crowd, her threat crystal clear. “Anyone standing here laughing at me right now better think long and hard about whether they still want a paycheck from my father’s company tomorrow!” 4 Her little display of power worked instantly. The coworkers who had just been snickering at her suddenly went dead silent, their faces draining of color. A few of the women who had always hated my success were the first to jump back onto her sinking ship. “That is so vicious! Audrey is dirty herself, so she tries to drag our manager down with her!” “Exactly! Trying to ruin another woman’s reputation with a fake video is pure evil!” “And she calls herself a professional? She just hates women! She wants us all to be desperate for male validation like she is! She is the ultimate pick-me!” I didn’t even bother looking back at the flock of pathetic kiss-asses buzzing around her. I packed up my personal laptop, grabbed the printed contracts, and walked out the door to go finalize my thirty-million-dollar deal. The meeting went incredibly smooth. As we signed the final page, the client’s representative offered me a sympathetic smile. “Miss Sinclair, we have heard some of the nasty rumors floating around your office. But let me assure you, your expertise and the brilliant strategy you pitched speak entirely for themselves. It is a pleasure doing business with you.” On my drive back to the office, I pulled out my phone and called my dad. “Hey Dad. Mission accomplished. I officially crossed the hundred-million mark today. Time for you to keep your end of the bet and start the handover, right?” His booming, proud laugh echoed through the car speakers. “Hahaha! That’s my girl! A promise is a promise. I am getting the paperwork ready now!” I paused for a second, then casually threw a curveball. “Hey Dad… you never stepped out on Mom, did you?” My dad’s voice instantly shot up an octave, dripping with pure survival instinct. “What?! Absolutely not! I swear on my life, your mother is the only woman I have ever loved! Who the hell is filling your head with that garbage?” “Nothing, just checking.” I hung up the phone, a frigid smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. The second I stepped off the elevator and back onto my department floor, I could hear Valerie holding court, surrounded by her loyal subjects. “The executive board is holding a leadership transition meeting in a few days. I am pretty sure they are going to announce my promotion to General Manager,” she said, coyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do not worry, I remember exactly who stood by me today. There will be plenty of perks for all of you once I am in charge.” The flattery rolled in like a tidal wave. “You are amazing, Valerie! This is what it looks like when a strong woman rises on her own merit, without needing a man!” “Exactly! So much better than certain people who have to use the casting couch to get ahead!” “We will follow you anywhere, Valerie!” She caught me walking past and shot me a triumphant, mocking glare. “What is wrong, Audrey? Jealous? Girls who rely on men will never, ever reach the top floor.” I ignored her completely, walking to my desk to focus on polishing my final executive report. Keep dancing, I thought. The higher you climb, the harder the concrete is going to feel when you hit it. Over the next few days, the office turned into a minefield of petty sabotage. My morning coffee suddenly tasted like dirty dishwater. Dead cockroaches mysteriously appeared on my keyboard. Important printed documents vanished into thin air. I didn’t waste energy fighting invisible ghosts. I simply packed my laptop and worked out of the coffee shop downstairs. Soon enough, the day of the executive board meeting arrived. I chose a razor-sharp, immaculate designer suit. My makeup was flawless, my heels clicked with authority, and I walked into the lobby radiating absolute control. I barely made it past the security gates before Valerie stepped into my path. She looked me up and down, a flash of pure envy in her eyes before she forced her face into a scowl. “Audrey! How many times do I have to tell you?! You are forbidden from dressing like a cheap escort in this building! Who exactly are you trying to seduce today?” I looked at her. She was wearing a highly extravagant, incredibly expensive dress that practically screamed for attention. I smiled coldly. “Manager Harrington, you seem pretty dressed up yourself today.” She lifted her chin, practically suffocating on her own superiority complex. “Me? I am entirely bare-faced! I am all natural. Unlike some people who have to spackle on chemicals to hide how ugly they are on the inside!” I laughed. Without a moment of hesitation, I unzipped my tote bag, pulled out a small travel bottle of micellar cleansing water, popped the cap, and splashed it directly into her face. Valerie let out a bloodcurdling shriek. The liquid cascaded down her cheeks, instantly melting her meticulous eyeliner and thick mascara into black rivers. Her heavy foundation washed away in patches, leaving her face a blotchy, disastrous mess resembling a ruined oil painting. “Bare-faced, huh? Then what exactly is melting off your chin right now?” “Audrey Sinclair! I am going to kill you!” she screamed, her body trembling with absolute fury as she lunged forward, claws out, aiming for my face. Director Collins materialized out of nowhere and grabbed her arms, pulling her back. “Valerie! Stop! The board meeting is starting in ten minutes! Go to the bathroom and fix your face, right now!” She let herself be dragged away, throwing a look of pure, homicidal hatred over her shoulder that could have burned a hole through my chest. I calmly adjusted my lapels and stepped into the private elevator, taking it to the top floor executive suites. As I approached the grand mahogany doors of the main boardroom, a receptionist stepped in front of me with a tight, practiced smile. “I apologize, Miss Sinclair. Today’s executive transition meeting is strictly by invitation only. Your name is not on the clearance list, so I cannot let you inside.” Valerie, having scrubbed the worst of the disaster off her face, arrived down the hall with her little entourage just in time to hear it. She immediately started gloating. “Well, well. Look who had the nerve to show up.” “You really don’t know when to quit, do you? Did you actually think they would let trash like you into the boardroom?” I looked at the receptionist, a calm, amused smile playing on my lips. “Why don’t you make a quick phone call upstairs and double-check that list?” The receptionist’s smile faltered into annoyance. She clearly thought I was just being difficult. With a dramatic sigh, she picked up the internal phone on her podium and murmured a question to the executive secretary inside. A few seconds later, the color completely drained from her face. She slammed the phone down, practically jogged out from behind the podium, and bowed to me at a perfect ninety-degree angle, her voice shaking violently. “Miss Sinclair! I am so sorry, please go right in! Your seat is at the absolute head of the table. Let me escort you!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443060”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 Two hours ago, Josh was still wearing a frayed cotton t-shirt. He kissed my forehead, wearing a perfectly guilty look. “Babe, sorry—I have to work a shift at the site today, even on my birthday,” he whispered. “When I get paid, I’ll take you to a nice dinner,” he added with a tense smile. For his birthday, I’d spent six months of savings on the drone he’d always wanted. I took a bus to the suburbs to test it and film a birthday surprise. The drone rose, and the live feed showed a stunning multimillion-dollar mansion. Its backyard was set for a luxurious birthday party. A little boy ran and hugged a man tightly, shouting, “Daddy!” The man lifted the boy with adoration, kissing his cheek. Beside them, a woman in silk adjusted the man’s expensive tie. They shared a slow, intimate kiss. The perfect family looked like a movie scene. But miles away, sitting in the grass, I stared at the screen, feeling thrown into ice. Through the clear lens, the man’s profile was unmistakable. It was my husband, Josh. … I gripped the controller so hard my knuckles turned white. A massive, suffocating wave of absurdity crashed over me. My hands shook violently as I dialed Josh’s number. On the live feed, the man who had just been smiling like a loving father felt his pocket vibrate. His expression immediately shifted. He quickly walked behind a massive marble pillar on the patio, making absolutely sure the mother and son could not see him before pulling out his phone. “Hey baby, why are you calling me right now?” Through the speaker, he intentionally breathed heavily, making his voice sound exhausted and out of breath. I stared right at his relaxed, completely composed face on my screen. I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted copper, forcing myself to stay calm. “Honey, it is your birthday today. Do you want me to bring you some food?” “No! Please don’t!” His tone grew urgent, dripping with fake, desperate apology. “The site manager is breathing down my neck. We are unloading cement right now. The dust is terrible, and I do not want you breathing it in. We will just have to skip my birthday this year. I am so sorry, babe.” On the screen, he was casually leaning against a cold marble pillar, lazily loosening the collar of his spotless, custom tailored suit. The second I hung up the phone, a heavy tear smashed onto my screen. Seven years of bleeding myself dry for this man had just morphed into a vicious slap across the face, shattering every single illusion I had ever built. I took a deep breath and pushed the joystick. The drone silently glided closer. I tapped the capture button, snapping crystal clear photos of the villa’s address plaque, the license plate of the Porsche parked in the driveway, and a front facing shot of the woman. After recalling the drone, I took another shaky breath and immediately sent the three photos to Riley, an old college friend who now worked in high-end real estate. I need you to look up the owner of this house and this car. It is an emergency. Less than five minutes later, Riley called me back. Her voice was thick with barely contained gossip. “Sienna, why are you digging into this? This is literally the most exclusive neighborhood in the city. Riverside Estates, Villa Eight. That is the marital home of Genevieve Kensington, the heiress to the Kensington Empire. The car is registered under her name too.” My hands and feet were freezing. My voice came out like cracked glass. “And her husband… what is his name?” “The heir to the Roth Group! Josh Roth!” Riley clicked her tongue through the speaker. “They had a massive corporate merger masquerading as a wedding five years ago. It was on the front page of every magazine. Hang on, I will send you a screenshot of the article right now.” My phone buzzed. A news clipping popped up on my screen. The bold headline read: Roth and Kensington Empires Unite. Josh Roth Spends Millions to Marry Genevieve Kensington. In the attached photo, the man wearing a bespoke tuxedo, smiling with aristocratic grace, was none other than the “broke” husband who ate cheap ramen with me in our tiny apartment every single night. I stared unblinkingly at the screen. The entire world started spinning. The heir to the Roth Group? Five years ago, he fell to his knees in front of me, covered in fake blood. He told me he made a catastrophic mistake at the construction site and destroyed a highly sensitive piece of equipment. He said if he did not pay them three hundred thousand dollars, he would rot in prison. To save him, I didn’t hesitate. I sold the only thing my dead parents left me, my childhood home, at a massive loss just to get him the cash. For the last seven years, he only gave me three hundred dollars a month for groceries. I was too terrified to even go to a doctor when I was sick. I worked three brutal jobs, burning my youth away to help him pay off a debt that never existed. He was never poor. He was a filthy rich heir playing a sick game. 2 I walked back into that claustrophobic, sunless, four hundred square foot apartment. I completely emptied the bottom drawer of my dresser to find our marriage certificate. I remembered the day we met seven years ago. He was just a “broke” college student working three jobs. But when I fell violently ill, he spent his last ten dollars to buy me fever medicine. I truly believed I had found the most genuine man on earth. I ate thousands of meals of plain pasta with him, believing I was supporting a struggling entrepreneur. I had no idea I was just a prop in his little game of house. I had cherished this little red booklet like a holy relic. I snapped a photo of the inside page and texted it to a friend who worked as a lawyer. Is this marriage license legally binding? The reply popped up in seconds. Your name is not in the system. This certificate is completely fake. It is the kind you buy off the street for twenty bucks. Those few words twisted in my chest like a rusted blade. Fake. I remembered the day we “signed” it. He was supposedly flat broke. He slipped the pull tab of an aluminum soda can onto my ring finger. With tears in his eyes, he swore to me. “Babe, I know you are suffering now. But one day, even if it kills me, I am going to make you the most envied Mrs. Roth in the entire world!” I was a sobbing mess back then. I thought that as long as we had love, this rotting apartment felt like a palace. For the last seven years, I worked three jobs a day for him. I ate boiled cabbage. I completely destroyed my physical health. From the very beginning, I was nothing but an illegal, non existent mistress. At eleven o’clock that night, the front door rattled. Josh walked in, wearing his dusty, cheap clothes. He even had realistic looking white drywall dust smeared on his pant legs. He was holding a tiny, five dollar grocery store cupcake. “Babe, I am home. The foreman absolutely refused to let me leave early. I am so sorry I put you through this life.” He walked toward me, his face painted with pure sorrow, opening his arms for a hug. Smelling the artificial dust he had deliberately rubbed on himself, I took a quiet half step back. I turned around, pulled the heavy box containing the DJI drone from the cabinet, and handed it to him. Josh froze. His eyes instantly welled up with tears. He grabbed my hands, his voice thick with emotion. “Babe, how much did this cost? We are still trying to save for a house down payment. You barely even eat meat to save pennies… Return it. I don’t deserve something this nice.” His acting was flawless. The guilt in his eyes was perfectly calibrated. But a split second later, without even opening the box to look at the drone, he casually tossed it onto the corner of our junk filled sofa. Of course he didn’t care. Why would a man who drove a Porsche to a luxury villa give a damn about a cheap, entry level toy? “I am going to take a shower. I am filthy.” He wiped a hand over his face and turned into our cramped bathroom. The shower water started running. My face was completely blank. I walked over to the table and picked up his backup phone, the one with the cracked screen. He guarded his passwords like his life depended on it, but I didn’t even try to unlock it. I woke the screen up and swiped right, pulling up the widget menu that didn’t require a passcode. The built-in health app displayed his step count for the day. 2105 steps. A manual laborer who spent the entire afternoon hauling cement only walked two thousand steps? I let out a cold laugh. My finger swiped further down, opening the smart travel widget cache. A navigation route that ended exactly two hours ago glared brightly on the screen. Destination: Riverside Estates, Villa Eight. From inside the bathroom, I could hear Josh happily humming a pop song over the running water. He was clearly in a fantastic mood. 3 The next morning, I put on a faded uniform and knocked on the grand front doors of Villa Eight in Riverside Estates, posing as a temp cleaner. The local domestic workers group chat had mentioned this house was desperately hiring extra hands for an upcoming fifth wedding anniversary party. With years of part time cleaning experience under my belt, I blended in perfectly. Genevieve had zero arrogance. When she saw me wiping down the jewelry cabinet in the master bedroom, she actually smiled and handed me a bottle of cold water. “Excuse me, could you please place that sapphire necklace back into the safe? I don’t want it gathering dust.” She looked at the blindingly bright necklace, her eyes softening with absolute adoration. “Three years ago, I had a massive hemorrhage after giving birth. My husband was terrified. He canceled a multi million dollar contract and stayed awake by my bed for half a month straight. He bought me this necklace as a blessing for my health.” Hearing the timeline of three years ago, the rag in my hand froze. My fingertips turned to ice. Three years ago, my appendix ruptured. I rolled around on the floor of our apartment, screaming in agony. Josh rushed me to the emergency room. He paid for the absolute cheapest bed available in the hallway. Right after, he answered his phone, sweating profusely. He held my hand, his eyes completely bloodshot. “Babe, the foreman says I have to lead the crew on this job, but he is offering double pay. I am going to grind for two weeks straight. When I get back, I will buy you all the meat you want to help you recover.” For those next two weeks, I dragged my unhealed, bleeding stitches out of bed to fetch my own hot water, crying from the sheer pain. But my heart ached entirely for him, thinking about him burning in the hot sun on a construction site. He was never hauling bricks. He was sitting in this perfectly air conditioned mansion, holding someone else’s hand, playing the deeply devoted husband. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted hot blood, forcing a dry, hollow smile onto my face. “Your husband… is very generous to you.” Genevieve laughed softly, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. “Actually, he is incredibly frugal with himself. Aside from the fifteen thousand dollars he transfers to my account every month for household expenses, he refuses to even buy himself a nice watch. He always says having me is enough.” Fifteen thousand dollars a month. I stared blankly at that blinding sapphire necklace, feeling like a thousand arrows had just impaled my chest. On the first of every single month, Josh would transfer exactly three hundred dollars to my phone for living expenses. He would always say it with such deep affection. “Babe, I know it is hard, but please budget carefully. I am putting the rest of my wages into a locked savings account for our future house. Once we get through these tough years, we will never have to live in this dump again.” To make those three hundred dollars stretch, I ignored my illnesses. I never bought new clothes. I intentionally dug through the bruised, expired vegetables at the farmer’s market just to save cents. It was hilarious. The future I had sacrificed half my life to save for was nothing but the loose change he dropped while transferring thousands to this woman. After Genevieve walked downstairs to take a phone call, I swallowed the tears burning in my eyes and pushed open the door to the study. On the massive mahogany desk sat a professional portrait of their family of three. Josh was wearing a bespoke suit. His smile was refined and considerate. There was absolutely no trace of the pathetic, humble poor man he played in our apartment. And resting inside a half open drawer was a flash of bright crimson. My hands violently shook as I pulled the drawer open. Inside were two gold embossed marriage certificates. I flipped the cover open. The embossed steel seal was crystal clear. The red stamp from the civil affairs bureau was authentic. The names were written in black ink. Josh Roth and Genevieve Kensington. Date of registration: five years ago. So this is what a real marriage certificate looked like. I pulled out my phone and took high resolution photos of the family portrait and the real marriage license. When my phone screen went dark, the black glass reflected my own face. A body completely drained, withered, and yellowed by seven years of brutal poverty. I looked like a walking, talking joke. 4 Three days later, Josh’s fifth wedding anniversary party was held at a premier luxury estate on the outskirts of the city. At six in the morning, wearing his frayed t-shirt, he kissed my cheek. “Babe, I am heading to the site. Do not wait up for me for dinner tonight.” I looked at his disgusting, hypocritical face and smiled, handing him a bowl of cheap, plain noodles. “Okay. Be safe out there.” The second he walked out the door, I grabbed my coat and followed him. I watched with my own two eyes as he walked into the dark, second level basement of our apartment complex. He sneakily climbed into the backseat of a dust covered, beat up minivan. A few minutes later, the man who stepped out of that van had miraculously transformed. He was now President Roth, dressed in impeccable tailoring with perfectly styled hair. At eight o’clock that night, I stood at the entrance of the estate’s magnificent banquet hall. The room was filled with the scent of expensive perfume and the soft, elegant melody of live violins. Josh had changed into a custom Armani suit. Not a single hair was out of place. A fifty thousand dollar watch rested on his wrist. He was standing by a massive champagne tower, looking at Genevieve with profound, undeniable devotion. “These past five years, Genevieve has been the absolute light of my life. Without her, I would not be the man I am today.” He raised his crystal flute, delivering a flawless romantic confession. The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, showering the perfect billionaire couple with praise. I let out a cold laugh and walked straight into the room. I was wearing my cheap, mass produced windbreaker and faded jeans. The soles of my shoes were still stained with the muddy water from outside my apartment building. I wore zero makeup. In this room full of diamonds and silk, I looked like a feral animal crashing a royal ball. The loud, chaotic chatter of the hall instantly died. Every single pair of eyes locked onto me like I was a freak of nature. On the stage, Josh’s gaze swept over the crowd. The exact second he recognized my face, his perfect smile froze. All the blood drained from his cheeks. He instinctively took a massive step backward. His hand jerked so violently that champagne splashed all over his expensive lapel. “Where did this crazy woman come from!” Josh pointed a shaking finger at me, screaming into a nearby security radio with absolute panic. “Where is security! What am I paying you for! Drag this lunatic out of here!” Several men in sharp security uniforms immediately rushed toward me, reaching out to grab my arms. I didn’t try to run. Instead, I casually grabbed a heavy bottle of red wine from the nearest table and smashed it directly into the towering glass champagne pyramid. The deafening sound of shattering crystal echoed through the silent hall. Dark red wine bled into the pristine white carpet like fresh blood. The security guards were completely paralyzed by my sudden violence. They stopped in their tracks. The little three year old boy burst into terrified tears. He ran over and hugged Josh’s leg tightly, crying out for his daddy. Looking at that kid’s face, which shared a striking resemblance to Josh’s, I remembered the baby I had miscarried years ago from hauling heavy boxes at my second job. The hatred burning in my chest turned into an inferno. Genevieve furrowed her brows. She pushed past the frozen guards and walked right up to me. She was clearly unhappy, but her wealthy upbringing kept her tone relatively polite. “Miss, I believe you have the wrong venue. This is a private event.” “I am exactly where I need to be, Genevieve.” I looked right past her, locking my eyes entirely on the trembling man on the stage. I unzipped my cheap windbreaker, reached into my inner pocket, and pulled out a thick stack of photos along with that pathetic red booklet. I slammed them violently onto the nearest dining table. They were photos of us crammed into our four hundred square foot apartment, right next to the fake marriage certificate he had bought for me. “The man standing on that stage, the one who just swore he only loved you for his entire life, ate a bowl of plain boiled noodles I cooked for him just this morning!” My voice was shaking, but every word struck like a hammer. “I know he has a birthmark the size of a quarter on his lower left back! And this morning, I watched him crawl into a broken down minivan in my apartment’s basement, take off his dirty t-shirt, and change into the exact suit he is wearing right now!” The entire banquet hall was dead silent. You could clearly hear the sharp gasps of the wealthy guests. Genevieve whipped her head around, staring at Josh in absolute disbelief. Josh was shaking uncontrollably. Cold sweat rolled down his forehead, dripping onto the floor. His lips trembled, but he couldn’t force a single syllable out of his throat. Looking at him standing there like a pathetic, cornered rat, I felt an incredibly satisfying, yet deeply tragic rush of adrenaline. My eyes burned hot with tears. I took a massive step forward, staring right into his terrified eyes, and asked the question slowly, word by word. “Honey, you clearly married me seven years ago. So what exactly is this fifth anniversary you are celebrating today?!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443077”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 Seven years with Alan ended when he said he had a low sex drive. Before each time we were intimate, I would brew him a special herbal tonic. He drank it without refusing and even saw specialists. Then one day, as I entered with the steaming mug, I heard him scoff, “Are you really that desperate for a man?” A woman’s laugh came from his phone. She said, “Alan does not have a low sex drive. He was with me all afternoon. He just pictures you from high school, stripped bare on that bathroom floor, and it kills his mood.” Alan chuckled and pulled me close, telling me not to listen. But on the FaceTime screen, I saw her face—the same girl who had humiliated me years ago. Blind with rage, I grabbed the scalding tonic and forced it down his throat. … Alan choked, his face turning an angry shade of crimson as he clutched his chest. He glared at me, his voice a furious roar. “Rowan, are you insane? I told you she was joking. Can you not understand English?” The ceramic mug shattered at my feet. Sharp fragments nicked my ankles, leaving trails of red. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a twisted smile. “I am joking too. Is it funny?” His expression faltered. From the phone on the bed, the woman’s giggles continued. “Relax, Rowan. I just want his body, not his heart.” “He literally did not want to pull out of me earlier. I was the one who had to convince him to go home to you. Besides, this kind of thing is only fun when both people want it. No one likes a desperate girl forcing herself on a guy. Did those girls in high school not teach you your place?” Memories I had spent years burying clawed their way back to the surface. I lunged at the bed like a madwoman and ended the call. Looking at the mess on the floor, Alan picked up his phone, his eyes freezing over. “Are you done throwing a tantrum?” “If I knew you were this unhinged, I never would have saved you back then. You deserved to be stripped.” The moment the words left his mouth, a flicker of regret crossed his eyes. Not regret for cheating on me. Regret for getting involved in my mess back in high school and letting me attach myself to him. Right before our final exams, because I had beaten Sloane for the valedictorian spot, her little group of mean girls cornered me in the locker room. They tore my clothes off and threatened to take photos. In my most desperate, humiliating moment, Alan appeared like a savior. He chased them off and promised he would never tell a soul. I could still vividly remember the shy flush on his cheeks as he kept his eyes squeezed shut and wrapped his varsity jacket tightly around my trembling shoulders. He was the one who pulled me out of the darkness back then. And now, because of Sloane, he was shoving me right back into the abyss. Tears blurred my vision. I wiped them away frantically, my eyes red and burning as I stared him down. “Do you even know who she is?” He frowned, reaching out to wipe a tear from my cheek. “I know.” “But Sloane told me she was just young and stupid back then. She knows she was wrong. She wanted to make it up to you, but she knew seeing her would only trigger you. So when she found out we were having bedroom issues, she decided to make it up to me instead.” A sickening look of reminiscence washed over his face. “She is a true trust-fund girl, Rowan. Her skin is so soft it bruises if you just grip it. Being with her… that is the first time I actually felt like a real man.” “Today in the parking garage, she was straddling me, begging me to tell her who made me feel better. Ro, do you honestly think there is a comparison?” His face was plastered with absolute infatuation for Sloane. He looked nothing like the boy who had once held me, his own eyes red with sympathetic tears, swearing he would protect me and make Sloane pay for what she did. I lost whatever control I had left. I grabbed his shirt collar, shaking him. “Alan, what gives you the right to forgive her for me? What gives you the right…” He swatted my hands away. My interrogation was clearly starting to annoy him. “Ro, it has been years. Do you really need to hold onto a grudge for this long?” “Besides, Sloane knows she messed up. If it is really that big of a deal, I will have her apologize to you in person.” One flimsy apology. That was his solution to erase years of my trauma. A wave of pure nausea hit me. I sprinted to the master bathroom and dry heaved over the sink. He followed me, standing behind me to gently rub my back. He actually looked a little concerned. “Are you okay?” I slapped his hand away, my eyes blazing with disgust. He simply gathered my hair, pulling it over my shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me from behind, whispering into my ear. “Ro, instead of wasting energy being mad, you should figure out how to please me. If you were not so boring in bed, I would not have had to fake an impotence issue just to go sleep with Sloane.” “But do not worry. Going to her place is just a hobby. You are still the one I love.” Then, with absolute audacity, he opened his phone and shoved a video right into my line of sight. It was a video of them in his car. Sloane was moving on top of him, her face flushed with pleasure, her messy hair making her look effortlessly seductive. “Watch her and take notes, Ro. Once you learn how to do that, I will cut her off.” A suffocating sense of absurdity crashed down on me. I shoved his phone away and splashed cold tap water directly into his face. He scowled, wiping the water from his eyes. “If you do not want to watch her, then go watch some porn.” “Sometimes, you cannot just blame a man for stepping out. You need to look in the mirror and figure out what you are doing wrong.” I looked down at the red burn marks on my ankle. My chest hurt so much I could barely pull air into my lungs. So all those nights I stayed up late, sick with anxiety over his condition, boiling herbs and researching doctors… he was out holding the girl who had destroyed my life. His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and immediately started throwing on his jacket. “Sloane got spooked by you screaming earlier. I am going to go check on her.” “Study those videos. I expect to see some results when I get back.” Watching him walk out the door, I walked over to the bed, pulled the positive pregnancy test out from under my pillow, and threw it straight into the trash can. Then I pulled up my messages and found a familiar contact. “You do not need to prepare the next batch of supplements.” Reading the doctor’s quick confirmation, I let out a long breath. Just as I was about to lock my screen, a friend request popped up. “It is Sloane. Alan said you tried to force more weird liquids down his throat. Do you want me to teach you how to actually take care of a man in bed?” I stared at her profile picture for a long time. It was a photo of a man’s large, veiny hand gripping a woman’s tiny waist. It was aggressively intimate. The small birthmark on the man’s thumb was identical to Alan’s. I hit decline and immediately blocked her. Moments later, Alan’s calls started rolling in, one after another. The second I answered, his angry accusations blasted through the speaker. “Sloane tried to add you. Why did you decline?” “She is being the bigger person and offering to help you, and you are throwing it in her face? Add her back and apologize.” Listening to him defend her without a second of hesitation left my hands shaking so badly I could not even form a word. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of clothing shifting came through the receiver, followed by Alan’s low, heavy breathing. “Sloane, stop it, I am on the phone…” His breath hitched. “What are you afraid of? Since she does not want to add me, we might as well teach her a lesson right now.” The sound of his breathing grew heavier and rougher with every second. I slammed the end call button. The sounds of their intimacy looped endlessly in my brain like a nightmare. I curled into a tight ball under the covers, staring into the dark until the sun came up. Early the next morning, with swollen, red eyes, I drove to our new house—the one we were supposed to move into after the wedding—to check on the renovations. The door opened. Sloane was standing there. She was wearing a sheer silk slip. Her neck was painted with dark bruises and bite marks. She leaned against the doorframe, looking down at me with pure arrogance. “We got a little carried away last night. Oops, we accidentally got your wedding dress dirty.” “I heard it was the last thing your mom left you before she died? Whatever, it could not have been worth much anyway. I will just buy you a couture gown to replace it…” I did not hear the rest of her sentence. I shoved her hard out of the way and ran into the living room. There it was. The dress my mother had spent her final days designing for me, crumpled into a heap on the hardwood floor. The pristine white fabric was covered in undeniable, disgusting stains. The last string holding my sanity together snapped. I lunged at Sloane and wrapped my hands around her throat. “I am going to kill you.” “Alan… help me…” she gasped. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back. Alan locked me against his chest, looking entirely exhausted by me. “Ro, if it is dirty, just throw it away. I said I will buy you a new one.” Sloane rubbed her throat, pouting as she pressed herself into his side. “I literally offered to buy her a custom designer dress, and she still attacked me. She is just psychotic.” Alan looked at the red marks on her neck, and his expression turned ice-cold. “Rowan, you crossed the line.” I dropped to the floor, pulling the ruined dress into my arms, tears pooling in my eyes. Two years ago, when my mother was losing her battle with illness, Alan was there every single day, running errands and taking care of her. When he found out her biggest regret was not living to see me get married, he spent weeks tracking down fabrics and sketches so she could personally design my dress from her hospital bed. I remembered seeing his bloodshot eyes back then. I was so touched, my heart ached for him. I begged him to go sleep. “Alan, you do not have to do all this. As long as I get to marry you, I do not care what the dress looks like.” He had laid his head in my lap, looking exhausted but smiling so brightly. “Ro, it breaks my heart that she will not be there to walk you down the aisle. You wearing this dress on our wedding day will be a way to honor both of our wishes.” But now, looking at the dress, his eyes held nothing but disgust. Meeting his cold stare, I hugged the fabric tighter to my chest. “I only want this one.” He scowled, pulling a thick stack of cash from his wallet and throwing it at me. “Then take it to a dry cleaner. I am paying for it.” Bills fluttered to the floor around me. It was laughable. Three years ago, when he poured his heart and soul into making this dress a reality for my dying mother, I never could have imagined it would end up as a literal rag for him and another woman to ruin. As I turned around with the dress in my arms, my phone calendar alarm went off. It was the reminder for Alan’s routine clinic visit. I was just about to tell him, but Sloane suddenly grabbed her stomach and whined. “Alan, my OB-GYN appointment is in twenty minutes. We need to go.” My feet glued themselves to the floor. As she walked past me, her eyes dropped to the glowing screen of my phone. Her smile was loaded with poison. “Rowan, do you know when my last ultrasound was?” My stomach plummeted. I already knew the answer. Sloane stroked her flat stomach, her smile widening. “Last Sunday. Three in the afternoon.” That was the day of our seventh anniversary. I had spent two hours doing my makeup, bought a new dress, booked a Michelin-star restaurant, and told him I wanted to go to his clinic appointment with him before our date. He had smiled, kissed my forehead, and told me to just wait for him at the restaurant. I thought he just felt emasculated and did not want me in the room with the doctor. I had happily agreed. Now I knew the truth. He was terrified I would find out Sloane was pregnant. Watching Alan wrap his arm around Sloane’s waist as they walked to his car, I unlocked my phone and deleted the calendar app entirely. By the time I got the dress back from the specialty cleaners, Alan walked through the door holding a garment bag. “Picked this out just for you. Do you like it?” When I did not even blink, he held the glamorous evening gown up against my body, his voice softening. “Ro, stop being stubborn. I have a surprise for you later.” He essentially dragged me to the rooftop garden of an upscale hotel. Sloane, dressed in a stunning white gown, walked out of a crowd of cheering people and looped her arm through Alan’s. Her eyes scanned the dress he had bought me, flashing with mockery. “Rowan, Alan told me I had to apologize to you before he would propose to me. Do you like the dress I picked out for you?” “I stripped your clothes off back then. Today, I am dressing you.” Her sharp giggles drilled into my ears. It felt like literal acid burning through whatever dignity I had left. I looked at Alan. He gave me a flat, emotionless look. Those eyes that used to look at me with so much love were now filled with a dark, silent warning. Trembling, I backed up until I hit a corner wall. “Damn, Alan, only you could pull this off. Bringing the main girlfriend to propose to the side piece? Are you not afraid they are going to kill each other?” one of his friends laughed. Alan took a sip of his whiskey, glancing in my direction. “Rowan has been with me for seven years. She does not care about a title. But Sloane comes from a strict, old-money family. Since she is pregnant, I have to give her people an answer.” “I know I am putting Ro in a tough spot right now. I will make it up to her later.” His voice was low. But not low enough. Everyone around them heard it and started jeering. “Man, you really have the school valedictorian wrapped around your finger. But making her watch you put a ring on someone else? With her pride, she might actually snap. Do not push your luck.” Alan swirled the amber liquid in his glass, smiling with absolute, unshakeable confidence. “You guys have no idea. I have a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card with her.” “If it was not for me, photos of her naked body would have been plastered all over the internet. She owes me her life.” A wave of knowing smirks rippled through the group. My deepest, most agonizing trauma had just become his favorite party trick to show off how loyal I was. My nails bit so hard into my palms they drew blood as I walked straight up to him. The whispering stopped immediately. “Alan, is this your grand surprise? Bringing me here so you and your friends can humiliate me?” He set his glass down. Ignoring the crowd of people watching us like a reality show, he grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “Ro, this proposal is just a show for the Kensington family. I am not actually going to marry her.” “She wanted you to be the officiant for the proposal. She is carrying my kid, Ro. I have to give her this one win.” He shoved a folded piece of paper into my hand. It was a speech. Line after line of sickeningly sweet vows dedicated to Sloane. “Read over it. Do not ruin this for me.” I had pictured his proposal a thousand times over the last seven years. I never could have imagined a reality this vile. I ripped the speech into shreds and threw the confetti of paper directly at his chest. “Alan, go to hell.” His eyes went dark with fury. He grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising. “Rowan, do you honestly have to make a scene and embarrass everyone right now?” “I told you she is pregnant. I have to do this for her.” Staring straight into his furious eyes, I slowly brought my free hand down to rest over my own stomach. “What if I told you… I am pregnant too?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443061”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My arranged marriage husband suddenly lost his memory. Every ounce of his past obsession and ruthless pursuit of me vanished from his mind. Now, he looks at me like I am a total stranger. Furious, I slapped divorce papers onto his desk. Then, I packed my bags and dragged my best friend on a singles cruise to let loose. But on the night of the party, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, backing me into a corner. In a tone that left zero room for argument, he whispered. Isla, there is no divorce in this marriage. Only widowhood. 1 When I rushed into the hospital corridor, Victor’s assistant was already waiting by the door. I practically jumped out of the elevator, my voice laced with a frantic edge I didn’t even recognize. “How is he? Is it serious?” Simon offered a brief glance, his tone as steady and practiced as ever. “Please do not worry, Mrs. Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair is fine physically, but…” “But what?” “He forgot a few things.” Pushing open the heavy door, I saw Victor sitting up in the hospital bed. He turned his head at the sound of my entrance. A square of white gauze covered his temple, and a few shallow scrapes marred his sharp jawline. He lifted his heavy eyelids. His gaze washed over me, perfectly calm and terrifyingly cold. I froze in my tracks. Victor Sinclair had never looked at me like that. Whenever his eyes found mine, he looked like a starving wolf locking onto its prey, burning with an intense, suffocating possessiveness. This was the first time I had ever seen such absolute indifference in his expression. That was the exact moment I realized I was part of the “few things” he had forgotten. The neurologist explained that Victor’s amnesia was a result of the trauma to his head during the car crash. It was fragmented memory loss. It would not affect his daily routine or his ability to run his corporate empire. However, the recovery timeline was entirely unpredictable. It could take days, months, or years. He might never remember. And in a twist of cruel irony, every single memory of me had been completely wiped clean. When I stepped back into the private suite, Victor was alone, casually leaning against the pillows while flipping through a stack of legal documents. I took a hesitant step closer. “The doctor said they need to keep you for a few days of observation. If you need anything from home, I can bring it by.” Victor studied me in silence for a long moment before asking a question. “Are we happily married?” I looked down, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher. “It is terrible.” The room plunged into a deafening silence. “Why is it terrible?” His face remained expressionless, asking the question with the genuine curiosity of a man who truly did not know the answer. A sudden, inexplicable spike of irritation flared in my chest. I set the water glass down onto the bedside table with a sharp thud. “A forced match is never sweet.” Victor held my gaze, one dark eyebrow slowly arching upward. “How fortunate. I despise sweet things.” 2 I almost forgot. Delivering the most shameless remarks with an utterly straight face had always been Victor’s greatest talent. Back then, the Sinclair Enterprise’s sole condition for bailing out my family’s failing gallery was my hand in marriage. Even knowing I was deeply in love with my boyfriend, he refused to back down an inch. “Leave him. I am a much better fit for you.” Victor and I were virtually strangers. As the youngest heir and ruthless CEO of his family’s empire, he was notoriously unpredictable and fiercely guarded. I had only seen him once from a distance at a charity gala. We had never even shared a conversation. “With your wealth and status, you could have anyone you want. Why force a woman who does not love you?” He had leaned back in his leather chair, staring at me until a slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “That sounds like a personal problem, Miss Isla. Am I truly that impossible to love?” He played the perfect gentleman that day. When I rejected him, he did not lose his temper. He even put on a flawless mask of understanding, claiming he respected my choice. It wasn’t until our family’s debt spiraled out of control, and not a single bank in Boston dared to offer us a loan, that I understood the reality. Victor held the city in his palm. The moment he extended an olive branch to my family, he silently banned anyone else from stepping in. He made it look like I had a choice, but he systematically burned down every other bridge until his path was the only one left. I had no choice but to surrender. The day I broke up with my boyfriend, the rain was pouring in sheets. I sat in the passenger seat of Victor’s Maybach, sobbing until my chest ached. Victor lowered his dark eyes, patiently using his expensive silk handkerchief to wipe the muddy water off my bare calves. “There is actually another way you can be with him.” “After we get married, you can slip a slow acting poison into my morning coffee. Once I am dead, your lovely boyfriend can take my place.” His tone was thick with dark humor, but his eyes were completely serious. For a terrifying second, I couldn’t tell if he was joking. I just stared at him, paralyzed. Then, a low chuckle rumbled in his chest, genuine amusement dancing in his eyes. “You really want to kill me, don’t you?” “I suppose I would allow it.” I glared at him through my tears. “You are despicable.” The smile never left his face. He simply reached over, intertwining his long fingers with mine, completely ignoring my resistance. He looked incredibly satisfied. “You can think whatever you want about me. It does not matter.” “All that matters, Isla, is that you are going to be my wife.” Victor leaned back against the hospital pillows, that exact same half smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It was the exact same arrogant smirk from three years ago. I took a deep breath, swallowing down the curse words burning on my tongue. I could not yell at him. The man literally had brain damage. Grabbing my designer tote, I turned to leave, nearly colliding with Simon as he walked in. He held out a sleek, rectangular velvet box. “Mrs. Sinclair, Mr. Sinclair asked me to bring this for you.” Inside rested a vintage Italian sable watercolor brush. I had lingered on a picture of it in an art magazine for maybe two extra seconds last week. It was always like this. Whenever I showed the slightest flicker of interest in something, it miraculously appeared in my hands a few days later. I cast a sideways glance at the man in the bed. He was deeply engrossed in his paperwork, acting as if the entire exchange had nothing to do with him. That familiar, suffocating knot tightened in my throat again. I tossed the velvet box onto the edge of his mattress. “I do not accept gifts from strangers.” 3 The sky outside the studio window slowly bled into a bruised purple. I had been sitting at my easel all afternoon, ruining sketch after sketch. My mind was an absolute mess. Victor losing his memory should have felt like a massive victory. But instead, a heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. It wasn’t sadness. It wasn’t pity. It was a bizarre, irrational wave of anger. It felt like… I actually cared that he had forgotten me. When he asked about our marriage today, my answer wasn’t entirely a lie. In the beginning, it truly was terrible. For the first two months of our marriage, I refused to eat at the same table as him. I treated him like a ghost haunting my own house. Even when I caught a horrific fever in the middle of the night, and he scooped me out of bed to force medicine down my throat, I just slapped him across the face. He didn’t even flinch. He just took the hit, his expression completely blank, and muttered, “You have no strength left. Take the pills, then you can hit me again.” Victor seemed to possess an infinite threshold for my anger. And somewhere along the way, my bitter resentment slowly morphed into a quiet, reluctant reliance. When exactly did the shift happen? I couldn’t pinpoint the exact day. Maybe it was the night of that corporate gala, when he introduced me to his ruthless business partners as “Isla, the brilliant artist,” rather than “Mrs. Sinclair.” Maybe it was during the Autumn Art Expo, when a rival gallery intentionally moved my pieces to a dark, hidden corner. Victor canceled a multi million dollar board meeting just to show up and tear the organizers apart. Or maybe it was the time I went on a mountain retreat to paint and got caught in a massive mudslide. The roads collapsed, the bridges washed out, and he walked five miles through a torrential downpour just to find me. Three years. He moved into my life like water, silently seeping into every single crack and crevice. By the time I finally noticed, he was everywhere. But now, he had wiped the slate clean. We were right back at square one. I sat in the dark for a few more minutes before throwing my brushes into the sink and grabbing my coat. The crisp night air hit my face, carrying the sweet scent of blooming jasmine. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar black luxury car idling near the curb. I froze. Simon quickly stepped out and opened the rear door for me. And there, sitting in the leather backseat instead of a hospital bed, was Victor. “What are you doing here?” The white gauze was still taped to his temple, though his color looked much better. “I was on my way.” I didn’t even have the energy to roll my eyes. “This road leads to a dead end. Where exactly were you heading?” Victor let out a low chuckle. “Who said it leads to nowhere? It led me straight to you, didn’t it?” I ignored his smooth talking and slid into the seat next to him. The amber glow of the streetlights flickered across the tinted windows, illuminating the sharp angles of his face in flashes. “What do you want for dinner?” I turned my head to stare out the window. “I am not hungry.” Victor gave a soft laugh. “Are you not hungry, or do you just not want to eat with me?” I couldn’t stop myself from shooting him a deadly glare. His eyes only crinkled with deeper amusement. “Well, that is a shame, because I really want to eat with you.” “You are just going to have to suffer through it.” Even with his memories completely wiped, his ability to get under my skin remained absolutely flawless. 4 The Maybach pulled up to an exclusive French bistro downtown. The hostess guided us to a private booth by the floor to ceiling windows. While we waited for our appetizers, we sat in total silence. The only sound was the soft, melancholic melody drifting from the grand piano in the center of the room. Victor studied my face for a long time before casually tilting his head. “Were our dinners always this quiet?” “I don’t remember.” “Have we eaten here before?” “I have no idea.” “Do we go out on dates often?” “I couldn’t tell you.” Victor let out a quiet sigh. “Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I am the one with amnesia.” That single sentence acted like a match to gasoline. I fell silent for a heavy second before flipping my phone face down onto the marble table. “And? Do you want a medal for forgetting?” Victor clearly didn’t expect the raw hostility in my voice. His playful demeanor vanished, replaced by a serious intensity. “Isla, that is not what I meant.” “I don’t care what you meant.” “Victor, I am not obligated to tutor you on our past. If you want to remember, figure it out yourself. If you can’t, then just let it go.” The rest of the meal tasted like cardboard. I set down my silverware and pushed my chair back. “I am going to the restroom.” The restrooms were tucked away at the back of the restaurant, past a dimly lit corridor lined with towering monstera plants. I kept my head down as I washed my hands, the cold water splashing against my skin. I didn’t notice the quiet footsteps approaching until a tall figure stepped up beside me. He didn’t turn on the faucet. I instinctively glanced up, meeting a pair of eyes in the mirror that were both deeply familiar and completely foreign. He was dressed in a tailored, expensive suit, radiating a quiet, refined maturity. He looked absolutely nothing like the struggling, broke college student I used to know. “Isla?” The unexpected reunion clearly caught Oliver off guard. His voice wavered with a hint of disbelief. I hadn’t expected to run into him here either. After he left me three years ago, we cut all contact. I only heard through mutual friends that he had moved to Europe. “It has been a long time, Oliver.” “A very long time.” Oliver pressed his lips together. He looked like a man drowning in a thousand unspoken words. His gaze eventually drifted down, landing heavily on the diamond ring flashing on my left hand. He swallowed hard. “Have you… been doing well these past few years?” I offered a polite, distant smile and tossed my paper towel into the trash bin. “I have been great.” “That is good.” After those three words, the air between us completely died. I noticed a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He kept twirling it nervously, making no move to light it. “I should get back to my table.” Oliver blinked, snapping out of his daze, and nodded quickly. “Right. Take care.” When I returned to the booth, Victor was leaning back in his chair, slowly swirling the ice water in his crystal glass. Seeing me approach, he set the glass down, his dark eyes locking onto my face for a split second. He asked the question entirely too casually. “What took you so long?” “There was a line.” “Do you want to order dessert?” “No, I am full. Let’s go home.” He didn’t press the issue. He simply stood up, wrapped his warm hand around mine, and led me toward the exit. Deep in the shadows of the corridor we had just left, a solitary figure leaned against the textured wallpaper. A tiny spark flared in the dark as the cigarette finally ignited, the cherry glowing dull red through the leaves of the monstera plant. 5 The Boston Autumn Art Salon was the biggest event of the year, and I was honored to be featured among the invited artists. Usually, Victor would be hovering right over my shoulder at these events, but today, he was nowhere to be found. Halfway through the exhibition, the gallery curator approached me, whispering that a VIP collector was extremely interested in one of my pieces and requested a private chat. When I stepped into the viewing area, I immediately recognized the broad shoulders facing my canvas. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit, a Patek Philippe watch gleaming subtly on his wrist. He looked like the epitome of low key wealth. Hearing my footsteps, Oliver turned around, a soft, nostalgic smile playing on his lips. “We meet again.” We both turned our attention back to the canvas. It was an oil painting of an old, ivy covered gazebo on our college campus. I had painted it six months ago, right after being invited back to the university to give an alumni speech. Oliver’s eyes softened completely. “The rain was pouring so hard that day. I still remember your canvas shoes were completely soaked.” The memory hit me instantly. That gazebo was the exact spot where Oliver and I had first crossed paths. We had both sprinted under the wooden roof to escape a sudden thunderstorm. It was an impossibly cliché, ridiculously perfect coincidence. I stayed quiet for a long moment before offering a tight, polite smile. “That is all in the past now.” Oliver looked down at me, the corners of his mouth curving upward. “Is it in the past? Because I remember every single detail.” He knew exactly when to pull back. He dropped the heavy nostalgia and seamlessly transitioned into a professional discussion about purchasing the artwork. We had only exchanged a few sentences about pricing when a chilling voice drifted from behind us. “Isla.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443078”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1. I took the bullet for Richard when his pet project crashed and burned. In exchange, he promised me a year-end promotion and a hefty raise. Yet the moment the layoff rumors started circulating, I was the very first person called into his office. “Harper, corporate is restructuring. Your metrics are at the bottom of the barrel, so we have to let you go.” I stared at the termination agreement. The words “Stack Ranking Elimination” glared back at me. I did not argue with him. I simply packed my things in silence. And then I took a seat in the office directly across from his. The one with the frosted glass marked “Exclusive Corporate Auditor.” … “Harper, regarding the restructuring, you are the first on the list.” Richard’s voice was completely devoid of warmth. I sat across from him in the conference room. The air conditioning was cranked up so high the chill seeped right into my bones. He slid a manila folder across the mahogany table. It was a formal termination notice. The words “Performance-Based Termination” stung my eyes. “Richard, I recall the performance reviews for this month. I was nowhere near the bottom.” My voice was dead calm. Richard barely lifted his eyes from his phone. “The company looks at the big picture, Harper. It is not just about raw sales.” “Besides, you know exactly how much money your mistakes cost us on Project Apex.” I stared at him, my mind going completely blank for a fraction of a second. Project Apex was his brainchild. His flawed decision-making nearly cost the firm ten million dollars. It was me who stayed up for three consecutive nights with my team, rebuilding the entire data model from scratch to stop the bleeding. And it was him who stood in my office, looked me dead in the eye, and said those exact words. “Harper, just take the bullet for me on this one. I swear I will make you Vice Director by December.” Now, that very same project was the weapon he was using to execute my career. The HR Manager, Davis, cleared his throat from the corner of the room. “Harper, our hands are tied here. You have to understand the business side of things.” “Just sign the paperwork. We are offering a very standard severance package to make this easy.” I did not even glance at the contract. My gaze drifted right past Richard and landed on Sophie, the new intern standing by the filing cabinet. Sophie was looking down, pretending to sort papers, but a smug smirk was plastered across her glossy lips. She was wearing a brand-new designer dress. The exact same limited-edition dress Richard had bought during his business trip last week. Even the potted monstera plant I had nurtured on my desk for three years had already been relocated to her cubicle. Richard sighed, tapping his expensive watch in annoyance. “Do not waste our time, Harper. We have a long list of people to get through today.” “Your performance is dragging the whole department down. People have been complaining to me for weeks.” I took a deep breath and stood up. “Understood.” I left the pen on the table, turned around, and walked out. Back at my desk, the bullpen was dead silent. My colleagues kept their heads glued to their monitors, typing aggressively to avoid making eye contact with me. A thick, suffocating awkwardness hung in the air. I began dropping my life into a cardboard box. Piles of market research, client files, and the crystal trophy engraved with my name. Richard had handed me that trophy himself after I secured the massive Southside Development deal. At the celebration dinner, he had raised his glass and announced to the whole room. “Harper is the lucky charm of this division! She is my absolute right-hand woman!” Now, he was chopping off his right hand just to save his own skin. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a Slack message from Greg. “Harper, what the hell is going on? I just heard you got pulled into the firing squad?” “How can they PIP you? You were literally the top biller last quarter!” I typed back. “It is about Project Apex.” Greg instantly tried to call me. I hit decline. I was not in the mood to talk. A wall of furious text popped up on my screen a second later. “Are you kidding me! If it wasn’t for you, corporate would have fired his incompetent ass months ago!” “He forced that project through against everyone’s advice, and you cleaned up his mess!” “You cannot just let him get away with this, Harper! Go to corporate HR! File an appeal!” I kept my fingers steady as I replied. “Calm down, Greg.” “He did this because he thinks I have zero leverage.” “This termination notice was a theatrical performance.” The clack of high heels interrupted me. Sophie sauntered over, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “Do you need some help with that, Harper?” She pointed a manicured finger at my master project binder. “Those files are highly confidential. Richard told me to take over your accounts, so you can just hand that over to me.” Her eyes sparkled with naked ambition and petty triumph. I looked at her the way one might look at a clown performing a cheap trick. I picked up the heavy binder and shoved it into her chest. “Good luck.” She hugged the binder like she had just won the lottery. “Thanks! I will definitely work super hard so I don’t disappoint Richard.” Richard stepped out of the glass conference room and clapped his hands loudly to get the floor’s attention. “Everyone, stop what you are doing for a second. I have an announcement.” “Effective immediately, Harper is leaving us due to personal reasons. Sophie will be taking over all her active accounts.” “Also, let us congratulate Sophie. She has officially passed her probation and is being promoted to Project Lead.” The title he had promised me was handed to a twenty-two-year-old intern who had been here for three months. You could hear a pin drop in the office. I picked up my cardboard box and walked toward the exit, feeling the weight of a dozen stares burning into my back. As I walked past Richard, he did not even bother to look in my direction. He was already leaning in, whispering softly to Sophie. “Where do you want to go for your celebration dinner tonight?” 2. I carried my box out the revolving glass doors. The glaring afternoon sun made my eyes water. Instead of going home, I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address to the corporate headquarters downtown. Greg called me again. This time, I answered. “Harper! Are you seriously just walking away? How can you swallow this?” His voice was shaking with pure outrage. “I am furious! Richard and that little intern are treating you like absolute dirt!” I leaned against the cool metal wall of the elevator, my initial shock having completely crystallized into cold clarity. “Greg, he fired me because I know too much. He wants me gone.” “If I throw a tantrum in the lobby, he will just have security drag me out.” “He planned this perfectly.” Greg was practically growling into the receiver. “So what? You made this company millions! Now he throws a bucket of dirty water on your head and kicks you to the curb?” I watched the digital floor numbers climbing higher and higher. “Of course I am not letting it go, Greg.” “Then what are you going to do? Tell me!” I hung up the phone. I opened the PDF of my termination notice that HR had just emailed me. I took a clean screenshot. Then, I logged into a hidden corporate email portal on my phone. An administrative account I had never used before. The recipient was Bennett, the Secretary of the Board of Directors. I attached the screenshot, along with a massive encrypted zip file containing every single piece of raw data from Project Apex. I also attached a crystal-clear audio recording of Richard begging me to be his fall guy in his office. In the body of the email, I typed a single, simple sentence. “My name is Harper. I am officially activating my Corporate Auditor protocol.” I hit send and powered off my phone. A year ago, Richard was managing a failing branch. They had bled money for three consecutive quarters. Headquarters had issued an ultimatum. One more quarter in the red, and the entire branch would be liquidated. I was the one who stepped up. I led a skeleton crew, worked through the holidays, and secured the Southside Development, landing the biggest contract in the branch’s history. I practically spoon-fed Richard. I taught him how to analyze the market data, how to forecast trends, and how to write the executive presentations he gave to the Board. Thanks to me, our branch became the crown jewel of the enterprise. His throne was finally secure. And suddenly, the architect who built his throne became a threat. I knew all his weak spots, so I had to be eliminated. My phone buzzed as I turned it back on. Greg was spamming me with screenshots. “Harper! Look at the company Slack! It is a warzone!” “Richard just posted a company-wide announcement saying you were fired for gross negligence. He is actively implying you were embezzling funds!” I did not even bother opening the app. I knew exactly what was happening. Sophie, lacking any actual brain cells, had probably whispered poison in his ear. She wanted to be the new right-hand woman, which meant she needed to bury the predecessor six feet under. They were a match made in heaven. Two absolute fools. Richard’s days of playing king were officially over. I walked into a pristine office on the top floor and slowly wiped a speck of dust off the mahogany desk. 3. At two o’clock the following afternoon, I returned to the branch office. This time, I wore the title of Corporate Auditor. I did not give anyone a heads-up. When I pushed through the double glass doors, the receptionist dropped her pen, her jaw practically hitting the desk. She stared at the unfamiliar solid gold corporate badge clipped to my lapel, entirely unsure if she was supposed to call security. I walked right past her without breaking stride. Richard was standing outside his office, looking incredibly smug as he explained something to Sophie. When he saw me, he froze. His smug smile warped into a deep, ugly scowl. “Harper? What the hell are you doing here? You don’t work here anymore.” He stepped forward to block my path, his tone dripping with the arrogant authority of a man protecting his territory. I kept my face completely blank and walked right past him. I could hear him barking orders behind my back. “Who let her in? Get security up here now! Throw her out!” “You got fired for being dead last in performance, and you still have the nerve to show your face?” The new hires who didn’t know me watched the scene unfold with wide, fearful eyes, clearly intimidated by Richard’s rage. I turned the corner and stopped in front of the door directly opposite his office. It was a room that had been locked for years. The frosted glass read “Exclusive Corporate Auditor.” I lifted my new gold badge and tapped it against the security scanner. A soft beep echoed through the dead silent office floor. The heavy magnetic lock clicked open. I pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed it firmly behind me, making sure everyone got a good look. The entire bullpen plunged into absolute, suffocating silence. I could hear someone gasp in the cubicles. Richard’s aggressive shouting was instantly choked off, as if someone had wrapped a hand around his throat. I could only imagine the spectacular color of his face at that exact moment. My laptop chimed. Greg was messaging me on the encrypted internal server. “Holy shit! Harper! Are you a Corporate Auditor?” “I just saw you walk in! The entire floor is losing their minds!” Greg followed up seconds later. “I bet Richard’s little stunt yesterday triggered some alarms at HQ!” “He thought he was invincible once he kicked you out. He is so dead!” I allowed a small smirk to touch my lips. I booted up the desktop and logged directly into the enterprise’s highest-clearance administrative portal. Outside, the whispers were spreading like wildfire. Every single person in the building had witnessed me unlocking that door. Chaos was beginning to brew inside Richard’s office. Greg’s live updates kept rolling in. “Richard locked himself in his office. He has been on the phone for thirty minutes.” “He just bolted out of his room looking like a ghost. He was screaming at HR Davis, asking where your personnel file was.” “Davis is sweating bullets. He told Richard that corporate HQ confiscated your physical file yesterday afternoon.” Within thirty minutes, a parade of nervous department heads began scurrying in and out of Richard’s office. The panic was finally setting in. 4. Desperate for damage control, Richard made Sophie post an announcement in the main Slack channel. “Tagging everyone. Please focus on your deliverables and do not listen to office gossip.” “Just because certain individuals use shady tactics to sneak back into the building does not change the fact that they were fired for dead-last performance.” “Management will strictly penalize anyone caught disrupting the workplace environment.” He actually believed that if he lied aggressively enough, people would blindly accept it. Greg messaged me again. “Harper, this bastard is still doubling down!” “He is such a moron!” “He is definitely panicking now, though. I just caught him ordering Davis to permanently delete your PIP evaluation records from the server.” Richard was completely losing his grip on reality. He started making frantic, loud phone calls with his office door wide open. “Hello? Secretary Bennett? Yes, this is Richard. I just wanted to inquire about the new Corporate Auditor situation…” “What? You are in a meeting? No, wait, I just need a second to ask about Harper…” I couldn’t hear the response, but Richard’s voice instantly shrank to a pathetic squeak. “Yes, sir. Understood, sir. I apologize for interrupting.” He hung up the phone. His face had gone from pale to a sickly shade of gray. Finally, one of the newly promoted team leads couldn’t take the suspense anymore. He knocked tentatively on Richard’s door. “Richard, what exactly is Harper’s status here?” “The whole floor is freaking out. We need some clarity.” That question was the spark that lit the powder keg. Richard pretended he didn’t hear him. Instead, he frantically typed out a bonus announcement in the general chat. “Thanks to our heroic efforts on Project Apex, everyone involved is getting a double bonus this month!” The team lead standing in his doorway asked again. “Richard? Are you listening? Everyone is waiting for an explanation!” Richard’s pathetic attempt to play dumb finally pushed Greg over the edge. Greg couldn’t hold back anymore. He stood up in the middle of the bullpen and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Stop acting like an idiot, Richard! Harper is the Corporate Auditor sent by the Board to investigate you! What are you playing at?” Those words hit the office like a bomb. The floor erupted. “Wait, what? Corporate Auditor?” “No way! Didn’t he say she was fired for incompetence?” “Oh my god! That means everything Richard said yesterday was a complete lie!” A few of the veteran analysts I had personally mentored immediately caught on. “Exactly! I knew there was no way Harper was at the bottom of the metrics!” “Tagging Richard. Say something! You can’t just burn bridges and expect us to stay quiet!” “Keep your dirty bonus money! I don’t want a dime of it! Tagging Richard.” Dozens of eyes were currently drilling holes into Richard’s glass office. He was still trying to play dead. Greg let out a loud scoff. He pulled up the email screenshot I had sent to the Board Secretary and posted it anonymously into the massive company-wide channel. “Hard evidence! What is your excuse now, Richard?” With the undeniable proof glaring on their screens, the employees finally snapped. The notifications pinged relentlessly as a tidal wave of outrage forced Richard out of hiding.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443062”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 The night I accepted his proposal, a message flashed from an unknown number. The sender’s name chilled me: “Samuel, from the future.” I brushed it off as a joke, texting back, asking with a laugh if he’d finally married me, and whether we’d had a cute baby. There was a long pause before the reply came. He said we did marry, becoming the envy of everyone. Then the messages turned dark. He admitted to cheating—with my own sister, Victoria. On the night of our engagement, they’d gotten drunk, and he confused her for me. It became an “unforgettable night.” He described her wild passion, so unlike my reserve. He claimed his heart was mine, but he craved her body. They continued the affair in secret—until Victoria became pregnant. The day I went into labor, he bribed the doctor to swap my stillborn baby with Victoria’s healthy one. My mind said it was a prank, but my heart felt pierced by ice. As I tried to close the chat, a new link appeared: If you don’t believe me, click to see the truth. … Some unseen force guided my thumb, and I clicked. My world plunged into darkness. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital. A flood of unfamiliar memories was forced into my mind. I was in labor. The baby was coming. Samuel was holding my hand, his grip tight. He leaned in and whispered, his words a venomous secret meant only for me. “Victoria’s child is mine. I promised her I’d give the baby my name.” “Be a good girl, Amelia. Our next baby, I’ll let you keep that one.” I thought the pain was making me hallucinate. Then, the doctor pulled a lifeless bundle of flesh from between my legs and shook his head. “What a shame, it was a boy. If we try to resuscitate now… there might still be a chance.” Samuel’s voice was as cold as a morgue slab. “Don’t. Just save my wife.” And then, I passed out. I fumbled for my phone. The screen displayed the date: October 11th, 2029. Had I really traveled three years into the future? The deep, aching soreness in my body confirmed it. This was no dream. Suddenly, an address materialized in my thoughts. It was the house Samuel and I would share in this future. The dream home we’d always talked about, now a physical reality. A pathetic flicker of joy ignited within me, and I hailed a cab. The moment I pushed open the front door, that flicker was extinguished, and my world shattered. A pair of scarlet stilettos. A rumpled dress shirt. A creased tie. A trail of debauchery led from the foyer, through the living room, and up the stairs to the master bedroom. Through the slightly ajar door, every sound was a new twist of the knife in my heart. “Vicky, I swear, you’re even better after giving birth…” “You’re so soft… God, I just want to hold you like this every single day.” Victoria’s voice was a sugary purr. “Oh, stop. Aren’t you afraid Amelia will find out and lose her mind?” “Baby, can you please focus on me? Don’t mention other people…” My hand shook as I pushed the door open. The scene inside was even more heated than I’d imagined. They were a tangle of limbs, moving from the bed to the floor and back again, completely lost in each other. They hadn’t noticed me. Bile rose in my throat. I grabbed a picture frame from the nightstand and hurled it at them. The sound of shattering glass sliced through the air. A sharp fragment flew back and cut my cheek. Samuel instinctively pulled Victoria into his arms, shielding her. He looked at me, a flash of surprise in his eyes, before he quickened his pace, finished, and then gently laid the now-sleeping Victoria on the bed. He lit a cigarette, his expression indifferent as he watched the blood trickle down my face. “Vicky’s exhausted. If you’re going to have a meltdown, get the hell out and do it somewhere else.” He kicked at a piece of broken glass on the floor, his eyes filled with contempt. “And take this trash with you. I don’t want her to get hurt.” My gaze fell to the debris on the floor. A shattered photograph of us glinted up at me. It was the only picture of the two of us in the entire house. On the day of our wedding photoshoot, I had been in the hospital, trying to prevent a miscarriage. So Victoria had stood in for me, wearing my gown, for the entire session. “AI is so advanced now, we’ll just swap her face with yours later,” he’d said. “Besides, Vicky has a better figure. The dress looks better on her anyway.” On our wedding night, not only had the photos not been changed, but Victoria had also taken my place in the marriage bed. My vision blurred as tears streamed silently down my face. Seeing me cry, Samuel seemed to soften for a moment. He offered me a tissue. “Don’t cry. After all these years, I still can’t stand to see you cry.” I flinched away from his hand. “Samuel,” I said, my voice quiet but firm, “I want a divorce.” He froze. His expression shifted from shock to disbelief, then to something close to horror. “So… you really are the Amelia from three years ago?” he whispered. “You actually clicked that link?” I was just as stunned. “How did you know?” He let out a low, bitter laugh, the mockery in his eyes undisguised. “Because the Amelia of this time would never look at me like that,” he said. “And she would never, ever ask for a divorce.” He was right. The Amelia of this time had her heart ground to dust by years of betrayal. She had chosen to let her marriage fester into a toxic swamp, determined to drag him down into the muck with her. She wanted Victoria forever branded as a home-wrecker. She wanted the cheating husband to be reviled by the world until the day he died. But the Amelia from three years ago… she just wanted out. More memories flooded in, connecting to that night on the beach, three years ago. Under a sky full of stars, Samuel knelt and proposed. But halfway through, his phone rang. He took the call and vanished for the entire night. I later found out it was Victoria who had called. He’d told me, “Wait for me, I’ll be right back.” I waited all night, the cold sea breeze chilling me to the bone. By morning, I was sick. When I woke up, both Samuel and Victoria were by my bedside, their eyes red-rimmed. Victoria’s lips were slightly swollen, her neck covered in angry, red marks. Samuel’s hair was a mess, his arms crisscrossed with scratches. The evidence was everywhere, screaming at me. But then Victoria burst into tears, claiming she’d been tricked and beaten by a scumbag boyfriend, and that Samuel had saved her life. And because of that, I let my suspicions go. To make up for abandoning me, Samuel bought me a one-of-a-kind wedding gown, a breathtaking creation covered entirely in diamonds. It was a fairy tale. But as I was basking in my happiness, I got the call. My father had died of a sudden heart attack. I collapsed. After my mother passed, my father was all I had. His condition had been stable for years. Something must have triggered it. I searched every inch of our security footage but found nothing. Then, in a box of his old things, I found his camera. He’d taken up photography after he retired. A sixth sense made my hands tremble as I turned it on and pressed play. The scene that unfolded on the small screen shattered my soul. Samuel was pinning Victoria to the living room sofa, both of them naked. Victoria’s red bra was hanging from Samuel’s neck, swinging back and forth like a triumphant flag. The camera shook violently. Then came the sound of my father hitting the floor. A sharp pain lanced through my chest, and the world spun. I coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed. When I woke up, the doctor told me I was pregnant. I was only two months along, but I was already showing signs of a miscarriage. Samuel knelt by my bed, slapping himself across the face, over and over. “I’m so sorry. Vicky was in a bad place and asked me to stay with her.” “We both had too much to drink, and we… we crossed a line.” “But we didn’t… we didn’t go all the way before…” Before my father caught you. I started laughing, a wild, unhinged sound, and began to beat my own stomach. “You killed my father, Samuel! Now I’m going to kill your child!” He just held me, letting my fists and nails rain down on his face and chest. It was only when Victoria came in to “apologize” that he reacted. I lunged at her, ready to tear her apart, but Samuel shoved me. Hard. My stomach slammed into the corner of a table. I crumpled to the ground as blood poured down my thighs. “Vicky’s pregnant,” he said, his voice flat. “I can’t let you hurt her.” I laughed, the sound cold and broken. So Victoria’s child was precious. But mine was disposable. The doctors rushed in and gave me a sedative. As my consciousness faded, I saw him lift Victoria into his arms and walk away without a backward glance. After that, Samuel kept me in a private VIP hospital room. A prisoner, force-fed medications, subjected to endless treatments to save a pregnancy he never wanted. He refused to let me lose the baby, but not because he loved it. He needed my child as a cover, a way to legitimize the one Victoria was carrying. He married me, giving me a title and a ring, but our marriage was a sham. Then he turned around and gave Victoria the wedding of the century. Everyone thought she was Mrs. Price. I was just the crazy woman locked away in a hospital, dependent on drugs to survive. The agonizing memories flashed through my mind, one after another. Samuel leaned down and gently kissed the tears from my eyes. “Amelia, I’m so sorry you have to remember all of that.” “But it’s in the past. We can start over now. Okay?” Just then, Victoria stirred. She saw Samuel holding me, and a flash of hatred crossed her face. Then, she threw herself at my feet, sobbing. “Sister, please, for the sake of our childhood, you have to forgive me!” “Samuel and I talked. This was the last time. We’re done.” “You two can be happy together. Don’t worry about me. Just… just pretend I’m dead!” I sneered. “Then why don’t you go die?” Samuel pulled her to her feet and roared at me. “That’s enough! Vicky has been through hell with her own husband. I was just comforting her. Don’t you dare push your luck!” “If it weren’t for her, you would have died years ago! What’s the big deal about giving her one child?” He was right. When I was five, I was diagnosed with a rare blood disease. My father found Victoria in an orphanage and adopted her so she could be my bone marrow donor. She saved my life. A debt of life should be repaid. But our family raised her for eighteen years. My father treated her like his own flesh and blood, showering her with affection and even giving her half of the family inheritance. But she knew about my father’s weak heart. She knew any shock could kill him. And she brought Samuel into our home and had sex with him anyway. She was my mortal enemy. I wanted to see her suffer. Victoria grabbed my hand again. “Amelia, I’m sorry. I’ll do anything, just please forgive me.” A wave of pure hatred washed over me. I seized her by the hair and slammed her head against the wall. “Then die,” I hissed. “Die, and then I’ll forgive you.” Samuel rushed over and threw me to the ground. “Amelia, are you insane? That’s your sister!” Victoria continued her act, weeping pitifully. She took the baby from the nanny and held him out to me. “Sister, this is my son with Samuel.” “I’m putting him under your name on the birth certificate. Consider it my apology.” She leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper only I could hear. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Samuel was worried you might have another child of your own one day and mistreat my precious baby.” “So while you were unconscious, he had you sterilized.” “You’ll never be a mother, Amelia. Everything you have now will belong to my son. Doesn’t that just eat you alive?” “Get away from me!” I screamed, shoving her away. The baby let out a piercing wail. Victoria immediately started crying. “Sister, I know you’re angry, but take it out on me! The baby is so small, why would you pinch him?!” Before she even finished the sentence, a hand cracked across my face. “You venomous bitch,” Samuel spat, his eyes blazing. “You’d even harm a newborn?” “If I had known you were this vile, I would have locked you in that hospital and thrown away the key!” He gathered Victoria and the baby into his arms and delivered his cold command. “Drag her to the basement. Don’t let her out until I say so.” He knew. He knew I’d had severe claustrophobia since I was a child, that I was terrified of the dark. But he let them drag me away, ignoring my desperate, broken sobs as he locked the door, sealing me in the darkness. That night, I cried until I had no tears left. I watched the video my father had left behind, over and over again. And a plan, a seed of pure vengeance, began to grow in my mind. At dawn, Samuel came down with a bowl of porridge. He looked exhausted. “I was wrong yesterday,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have hit Vicky.” “She did nothing wrong. It was all my fault.” “Tomorrow is the baby’s christening. I want you to be there.” “I’ve broken things off with her. From now on, things will be good between us. Please, stop fighting, okay?” I clutched my phone. Tomorrow? Good. At the christening, I will give you and Victoria a surprise you’ll never forget.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443079”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1. Lately, I’ve been dealing with an absolute nightmare. It started when my neighbor realized our morning commutes aligned. From then on, she hitched a ride with me every single day. I found it annoying, but since it was on my way, I was too polite to complain. With Labor Day weekend approaching, I was planning a getaway with my best friend. Out of nowhere, my neighbor sent me a massive PDF file. I opened it—it was a detailed itinerary for her family’s holiday trip. Attached was a text: “Olivia, here’s our schedule. Make sure you know the driving routes.” Another message popped up instantly: “Holiday traffic will be a nightmare. We’re leaving a day early, so make sure you request time off work.” I stared at my phone, caught between fury and disbelief. Was she really treating me like her unpaid chauffeur? I took a deep breath, about to shut her down, when another text appeared: “I saw a notification on your phone about those concert tickets you got. I canceled them for you.” Then the kicker: “You really shouldn’t waste money chasing pop stars at your age.” Before I could process that, she made an even crazier demand: “If you’ve got that much money to burn, our family vacation will cost around eighteen grand. You can just cover it for us.” I felt my blood literally boiling. That was the farewell tour of an artist I had worshipped for ten straight years. I had pulled every string imaginable and stayed up until dawn just to secure those VIP tickets. This morning, Martha had knocked on my door claiming her phone was completely dead and she desperately needed to call her relatives out of state. Like a fool, I lent her my phone. I never imagined she would maliciously snoop through my apps and cancel my once-in-a-lifetime tickets just to force me into being her family driver. My hands were shaking so badly I had to jab the screen three times before I finally managed to dial her number. It rang forever before she picked up with a sickeningly sweet drawl. “Well hey there Olivia! Did you read through the itinerary? Don’t you think my family planned a fabulous trip?” I swallowed the absolute rage clawing at my throat and yelled into the receiver. “Who gave you the right to touch my phone and cancel my tickets without my permission!” Martha’s voice floated back, completely and utterly unbothered. “Oh honey, why are you being so ungrateful? I was looking out for you!” “You are young. You will need that money for important things down the road. Blowing a thousand bucks to watch someone sing? Have you lost your mind?” “I figured I would do you a huge favor and save you some cash, so I just hit the refund button.” “Besides, you are going to be driving us to the coast for the holiday anyway. You wouldn’t have time for a concert. You can just put those refunded dollars toward our vacation expenses instead.” I was genuinely speechless. Cancel my tickets, then expect me to foot the bill for their eighteen thousand dollar family vacation? The sheer delusion was astronomical! “It is my money, and I will spend it however I damn well please! I do not need you making financial decisions for me!” “And for the record, I never agreed to go anywhere with your trashy family. I am not paying a single dime of that eighteen grand!” Martha’s tone shifted instantly, her voice turning shrill and defensive. “Excuse me, little girl? Is that how you speak to your elders!” “I see you going to work and coming home all alone every single day. I was doing you a favor by taking pity on you! I didn’t want you sitting alone in your apartment like a loser for the holiday, so I was generous enough to let you tag along and show you a good time.” “Since you are coming with us, it is only right that you cover the expenses. We are basically babysitting you!” I laughed out loud, a harsh and bitter sound. Suddenly, all the disgusting things she had done while hitching free rides flashed through my mind. If we agreed to leave at seven, she would always drag her feet until half past. The moment I rushed her, she would roll her eyes and guilt trip me about having to cook breakfast for her husband and son. Once inside my pristine car, she would always bring the most pungent and offensive foods. Greasy garlic kebabs or stinky tuna salads that left a lingering stench in the cabin for days. She would stuff her greasy wrappers into my door compartments, smearing my expensive leather seats without a single word of apology. If I had to brake a little too hard during rush hour, she would make snide, passive-aggressive remarks about my terrible driving making her carsick. I had kept my mouth shut all this time simply to keep the peace. But my silence had only bred her monstrous entitlement. I took a massive breath, forcing my heart rate down. “Listen to me very carefully Martha. I have absolutely zero interest in your pathetic family vacation, and I am not giving you a single cent!” “As for you messing with my phone and refunding my tickets, I am gathering the evidence and I will hold you legally responsible.” “And starting today, do not even think about getting near my car again!” Without giving her a single second to respond, I hung up. 2. The second the call ended, Martha’s texts started flooding in. [What is that supposed to mean? You aren’t coming?] [If you weren’t coming, why didn’t you say so earlier! Our itinerary is totally locked in and the hotels are booked. Backing out now is just sick and twisted!] [Because you ghosted us, all the budget flights are sold out! Now my family has to buy last-minute premium tickets!] [You are going to cover this loss! The flights plus the vacation packages come out to twenty-five grand. Wire me the money right now!] I did not even have the energy to entertain her lunacy. I blocked her number immediately. Half an hour later, my phone started buzzing relentlessly. It was the community HOA WhatsApp group. I was being tagged endlessly. I opened the app and saw Martha aggressively playing the victim, typing out massive paragraphs for everyone to see. [Neighbors, I need you all to weigh in on this! I was generous enough to invite Olivia from downstairs to join my family on our Labor Day vacation.] [I paid out of pocket to book the hotels and plan the routes. But right before the holiday, she completely ghosts us!] [Because of her, the cheap flights are gone and we are forced to buy expensive tickets. When I asked her to cover the damages she caused, she had the nerve to block me!] [Young women these days are so unbelievably selfish. Zero integrity!] Right on cue, the nosy neighborhood gossips leaped into the fray. [Oh my goodness, young people are just so unreliable lately.] [If you made a promise to someone, you have to follow through. Making them lose all that money is awful.] [Olivia honey, you really messed up here. You should just pay them back.] [Exactly. We all have to live next to each other. Don’t make the living situation toxic over some money.] I stared at the screen, physically nauseated by the barrage of holier-than-thou comments. My fingers flew across the keyboard. [Martha, are you completely out of your mind?] [When did I ever agree to go anywhere with you? You sent me an itinerary completely unsolicited, demanded I be your unpaid chauffeur, and told me to foot your eighteen thousand dollar bill!] [You bum rides in my car every day, trash my interior without apologizing, and this morning you stole my phone to cancel the concert tickets I fought tooth and nail to get!] [And now you want to extort me for twenty-five grand? Keep dreaming!] The group chat went dead silent for a long moment. But soon enough, the fence-sitters who usually played cards with Martha started typing again. [Even if Martha was a bit pushy, she was just worried you would be lonely!] [Right! Since your tickets are gone anyway and you have nowhere to go, you might as well just join them on their trip.] [Everyone looks out for each other here. It’s totally fine for you to pitch in some money since they are bringing you along.] [Olivia, be the bigger person. Just apologize and let it go.] Reading these ridiculously tone-deaf comments made my stomach churn. It is always so easy to be generous when it is not your money on the line, isn’t it? I scoffed, typing out one final message. [Since you all love charity and helping neighbors so much, why don’t you guys pool together twenty-five grand and pay her yourselves!] I hit send and immediately permanently exited the group chat. 3. After leaving the chat, my stomach let out a loud rumble. Thanks to Martha’s psychotic behavior, I had completely forgotten to eat dinner. I grabbed my car keys, deciding to treat myself to some takeout from my favorite upscale bistro to blow off some steam. Walking down into the underground parking garage, I clicked my key fob. The headlights flashed in the dim lighting. But as I got closer, my heart dropped. There was a massive, heavy-duty metal boot locked tightly around my front left tire. My blood pressure spiked instantly. I immediately called the HOA security desk to send someone down with bolt cutters. Ten minutes later, a security guard hurried over accompanied by a local locksmith. The locksmith had just pulled out his tools when Martha suddenly came sprinting out from behind a concrete pillar, violently shoving the poor guy away. “Don’t you dare unlock that! Leave it alone!” I glared at her, my voice turning to ice. “Martha, did you put that boot on my car?” Martha crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her chin up with a smug, defiant smirk. “I sure did. What are you going to do about it?” “My family needs to use this vehicle tomorrow morning for our trip. You are not moving it!” I let out a dry, disbelieving laugh. “Are you completely insane? This is my personal property. What gives you the right to hold my car hostage?” Martha spat on the ground near my shoes. “Who cares whose car it is? If you refuse to pay us the money you owe us, then we are taking the car as collateral!” “My husband can drive perfectly fine anyway. We don’t need a spoiled brat like you behind the wheel.” I whipped my head around to look at the security guard. “Is this how building management handles things? You just let random people boot the residents’ cars?” The guard coughed awkwardly, refusing to meet my eyes, and actually had the nerve to try and mediate. “Miss Olivia, we are all neighbors here. Let’s just talk this out calmly.” “Martha here says she desperately needs a vehicle. Why don’t you just let them borrow it for the weekend? It’s good to help out the community.” My eyes widened in pure shock. “Help out? She is literally hijacking my vehicle in broad daylight, and you call that borrowing?” “Is this how you protect the residents?” The guard flushed red, looking incredibly guilty as he mumbled. “Look, you guys need to sort this out yourselves. I can’t get involved.” Seeing the guard back down only fueled Martha’s ego. She practically glowed with triumph. “You better listen to reason and hand over those keys right now, Olivia. Otherwise, this car is never leaving this garage again!” I took a deep breath, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Fine. If we cannot communicate like civilized adults, I am calling 911. Grand theft auto and extortion. I am pretty sure the dollar amount involved will get you a cozy cell for a few years.” I dialed the numbers, my thumb hovering over the call button. Martha’s face drained of color. The threat of actual police clearly terrified her. “What are you doing! Don’t call the cops! It’s not even a big deal!” She lunged forward, trying to snatch my phone from my hand, but I easily sidestepped her. “If you do not want to be arrested tonight, you will take that boot off my car right now!” Martha glared at me, her teeth grinding together so loudly I could hear it. We stood in a tense standoff for a few agonizing seconds before she finally reached into her pocket. She pulled out a rusty key and angrily unlocked the heavy metal clamp. “You better watch your back, Olivia! This isn’t over!” She delivered a hard kick to my tire before stomping away, muttering curses under her breath. I looked down at the fresh scratches on my rims, a wave of deep exhaustion washing over me. I made a mental note to drive the car to the official dealership first thing in the morning. Leaving it at the shop for a few days seemed like the safest way to keep it out of her psycho clutches. 4. The next morning, I got dressed and headed downstairs. The moment I stepped out of the elevator into the garage, I saw Martha standing right next to my parking spot. She was beaming, looking prouder than a peacock. A heavy pit formed in my stomach. I broke into a run. What I saw made my vision go entirely red. My windshield was completely shattered, a spiderweb of violently bashed-in glass. The entire body of the car was covered in deep, jagged scratches that dug all the way down to the primer. And scrawled across the side doors in dripping, blood-red spray paint were three massive words: “PAY UP BITCH!” The adrenaline rushed straight to my head, and my hands began to tremble uncontrollably. “Aww, does that hurt your feelings?” Martha’s lips curled into a vicious, malicious grin. Her eyes danced with provocation. “I told you this wasn’t over.” “You think you are so special just because you have a fancy car?” “Since you refused to pay us the cash, and you refused to let us take the car, then nobody gets to drive it.” I turned my head slowly to look at her. “You did this?” Martha jutted her chin out, entirely fearless. “So what if I did?” “Let me make something very clear to you, Olivia. You better wire me that twenty-five grand right now. Otherwise, next time, it won’t just be the car getting smashed!” I stared directly into her eyes, my voice deadly calm. “This is felony vandalism and destruction of private property.” “You will pay for every single cent of this damage. I will make sure you rot for this.” Martha let out a loud, mocking cackle. “Pay you? Keep dreaming!” “Do you have any actual proof I did this?” “In case you forgot, my husband is the property manager for this entire complex. I already had him shut off the security cameras down here.” I did not even waste my breath arguing with her. I pulled out my phone and immediately dialed 911. “Hello, police? I am at the underground garage of the Riverfront complex. Someone has maliciously vandalized my vehicle. The monetary damage is extreme. Please send officers immediately.” Hearing me actually call the cops, Martha’s confident smirk faltered for a second, but she quickly masked it with renewed arrogance. “Go ahead! Call them! Let’s see what the cops can actually do to me!” Less than ten minutes later, a cruiser roared down the concrete ramp, lights flashing. Two uniformed officers stepped out quickly. Almost simultaneously, Gary, Martha’s husband and the building manager, arrived at the scene with three security guards trailing behind him. The moment Martha saw her husband and the cops, her entire demeanor flipped like a light switch. Her eyes welled up with dramatic tears, and she threw herself violently into Gary’s arms. “Gary! Thank God you’re here! This woman is terrorizing me!” “Officers, please, you have to help me!” “I was just walking to my car, and I saw her vehicle was damaged. I kindly walked over to ask if she needed any help.” “And out of absolutely nowhere, this psychotic woman grabbed me and started accusing me of smashing it! She is trying to extort me for money!” “She is an awful person who causes trouble with everyone in the building. Someone else obviously wanted revenge on her, and now she’s trying to pin the blame on an innocent mother!” Gary wrapped his arms protectively around his wife, shooting me a disgustingly hostile glare. “Miss Olivia, you need to have some decency. I understand you are upset about your car, but you cannot just throw wild accusations and slander my wife!” The lead officer frowned deeply, taking in the absolutely brutalized state of the vehicle before turning to Gary. “You are the building manager? Pull up the surveillance footage for this sector immediately.” Gary let out a heavy, theatrical sigh, spreading his hands in a gesture of fake helplessness. “I am so sorry, Officer. But we had a terrible thunderstorm last night. The wiring for the cameras in this specific zone shorted out. They are completely fried.” Martha peeked out from Gary’s chest, shooting me a triumphant, venomous look. “Did you hear that? You have zero proof. How dare you accuse me! I should sue you for defamation!” I looked at the two of them, putting on the performance of a lifetime, and I simply smiled. I walked calmly over to the wreckage of my car and pointed to the tiny, seamlessly integrated camera hidden near the side mirror. “The building’s security cameras are broken, huh?” “That is perfectly fine. My car’s twenty-four-hour Sentry Mode camera has been recording everything.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443063”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Ever since I was little, I’ve been called a human ledger. I never let anyone take a dime of advantage. When the neighbor’s kid ruined my new sundress with a firecracker, I made sure his family couldn’t cook a peaceful meal for a week — they had to eat the overpriced delivery food I sent, complete with an “emotional distress” bill. When a college group project fell apart, I calmly showed the receipts, pinning the blame so precisely on our slacking team leader that he ended up begging the professor not to fail him. My parents called me a cold-blooded shark, worried I’d never find a husband. We fought badly. I moved out and didn’t look back for eight years. Then, as a senior corporate mediator, I got a call from my mother, sobbing hysterically. “Tiana, come home! Your sister’s going to prison! Her boss is making her take the fall for three million in missing funds, and he and his mistress are suing her for harassment!” Reading through my sister’s messy documents, a cold smile spread on my face. The next morning, I slipped into their company conference room, stood before her bosses and colleagues, and opened my phone’s calculator with a bright smile. “Hold on, everyone. Let’s settle the tab first — starting with the first artisanal latte my sister ever bought you.” 1 When I kicked the conference room door wide open, I saw my sister surrounded by a pack of wolves. Sophie had her head bowed. Her shoulders were trembling uncontrollably, looking like a little bird left out in a freezing storm. A slicked-back, greasy looking man in a tailored suit was pointing a finger right in her face, spitting venom with every word. “Sophie! You tanked this project yourself, and now you want to cry about it? This company isn’t a charity! Nobody here is going to baby you!” This charming guy was my sister’s department manager, Marcus. He caught sight of me and furrowed his brow. For a split second, he froze, clearly thrown off by how identical my face was to Sophie’s. Then, he waved his hand with sheer disgust. “You her family or something? Grab her and get out. Stop making a scene in my office.” I did not even look at him. I walked straight past the executives, grabbed Sophie by the arm, and pulled her safely behind my back. Then, under the glaring eyes of the entire room, I pulled out my phone and slowly tapped open my calculator app. “Let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?” My voice was not loud, but it carried a razor sharp edge that instantly silenced the chaotic room. I turned the screen toward Marcus, letting a mocking smirk play on my lips. “Manager Marcus. Let’s start with you.” “Last month, you complained about wrist pain and ‘borrowed’ a forty dollar ergonomic mousepad from my sister. You said you’d return it in two days.” “Assuming eight hours of heavy daily use with a standard depreciation rate, across twenty two working days, that comes out to exactly fifty cents in wear and tear.” “Oh, and you also hijacked the premium Costa Rican coffee beans my sister brought back from her vacation, claiming you just wanted a ‘quick taste’.” “At thirty grams of beans per cup, factoring in the specialty filter paper and the Evian water you insisted on using, that is three bucks a cup.” “You drank it every single morning for three months. Sixty six working days. That brings your coffee tab to one hundred and ninety eight dollars.” “Right, almost forgot. When your girl had her birthday last month, you swiped a bottle of Baccarat Rouge 540 from my sister’s desk. A bottle she hadn’t even dared to open for herself. You called it a ‘workplace emergency’.” “That perfume runs three hundred and twenty dollars at Saks Fifth Avenue. I’ll be generous and waive the interest.” The room was dead silent. Marcus’s face morphed from cherry red to a sickly gray, and finally to a furious purple. It was a spectacular color show. He let out a low, guttural growl. “Why the hell are you calculating all this! It is just petty office stuff. Are you insane!” “Oh, it matters.” My smile grew blindingly sweet. “Even the best of friends need clear ledgers.” I dismissed him entirely and shifted my gaze to a female colleague who had been snickering in the corner just moments ago. “Jessica, right?” “Last week, my sister fronted the bill for the department’s afternoon pastry run. You specifically requested the artisanal matcha crepe cake. Twelve bucks.” “When my sister dropped her Venmo link in the group chat, did your finger ‘accidentally’ slip? Because you only sent her two dollars.” Jessica’s smug smile froze on her perfectly contoured face. She stammered, unable to form a single word. “You owe her ten bucks. Are you Venmoing her right now, or should I call the cops and report petty fraud?” Under the amused and judging eyes of the entire room, Jessica’s face burned crimson. She frantically pulled out her phone and sent the remaining ten dollars. A crisp notification chime echoed in the room. Like a queen inspecting her conquered territory, I paraded around the conference table with my phone raised high. “Dave, my sister printed your quarterly report. Over three hundred pages. She used her own premium copy paper. Paper and ink costs come to five bucks. Pay up.” “And you, Sarah. My sister picked up your sweetgreen salads for six straight months. You covered the food cost occasionally, but the wear and tear on her insulated delivery bags is about twenty cents a day. Thirty six dollars total. Not unreasonable, right?” Within ten minutes, my sister’s phone was pinging like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. Over a dozen transactions flowed in, ranging from a few bucks to a couple hundred. The entire department, aside from Sophie, had their heads glued to the floor. Nobody dared to meet my eyes, and nobody dared to look at Marcus, who was now utterly isolated in the center of the room, shaking with pure rage. Just then, Jessica suddenly stepped forward. She gently touched my arm, her face painting a picture of pure, heartfelt concern. “Oh honey, you must be Sophie’s sister. Please don’t be so angry. We are all a work family here. We see each other every single day. Let’s not ruin our lovely dynamic over some silly little pennies.” 2 Jessica had a flawless face full of expensive makeup. Her big doe eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and her voice was so sickly sweet it could cause a cavity. She looked like the absolute textbook definition of a supportive, empathetic work bestie. This was exactly the mask that had fooled my sister into sharing all her deepest insecurities with her. I glanced at her manicured hand on my arm and let out a short laugh. “Of course you don’t want to ruin the dynamic.” “After all, your dynamic with Manager Marcus is so lovely it practically melted the hotel bedsheets, didn’t it?” You could hear a pin drop in that conference room. Every single pair of eyes aggressively ping-ponged between Marcus and Jessica. The drama was intoxicating. “You psychotic bitch!” Marcus was the first to explode, pointing a shaking finger right between my eyes. Jessica, however, was a far superior actress. Her eyes instantly flooded with genuine tears. She swayed slightly on her high heels, looking like a fragile flower about to wilt under a harsh winter wind. “Sophie… she is your sister. How can she say such vile things about me… We are best friends…” “Best friends? You mean the kind of best friend who steals her client roster, sleeps with her boss, and then helps frame her for a multi million dollar fraud?” I ignored her Oscar worthy performance. I simply grabbed the HDMI cable from the table and plugged it straight into my phone. A second later, a massive, ultra high definition photo splashed across the projector screen. It was a beach photo Marcus had posted on his Instagram last week. The caption read, “Team building retreat. Grinding for the next quarter.” “What the hell is wrong with that picture!” Marcus bellowed, though his voice cracked with a terrifying hint of panic. “Patience is a virtue, Marcus.” I tapped my screen, zooming in on the image. Deeper, closer, until the reflection in his mirrored aviator sunglasses took up the entire wall. In the reflection, Jessica was wearing a tiny, string bikini. She was clinging to Marcus’s bare arm, laughing like a woman deeply in love. And right behind them, clearly visible in the background, was the glowing neon logo of the Eros Boutique Hotel, the city’s most notorious adult playground. I spoke with a slow, agonizing drawl. “Manager Marcus. You took your ‘team’ to a love hotel last Friday. And you expensed it under the corporate account, didn’t you?” “You categorized it as ‘Client Entertainment’. The bill was quite hefty. Eight hundred and fifty dollars.” “I am just dying to know. Which high-profile client required that level of specialized entertainment?” My voice bounced off the soundproof walls, dripping with icy sarcasm. “Did this client require the velvet handcuffs from the bedside drawer? Or was the french maid lingerie absolutely vital to closing the deal?” The room erupted. The executives and colleagues were looking at the two of them with naked disgust. Their so-called corporate retreat was just a dirty weekend getaway funded by company money. “Ahhh!” Jessica snapped. She shrieked like a banshee and lunged at me, clawing wildly to rip the phone out of my hands. Marcus completely lost his mind as well. His face twisted into a demonic snarl as he charged forward, raising his heavy hand to slap the life out of me. I was more than ready. The second he entered my strike zone, I casually sidestepped his swinging palm. I planted my stiletto firmly into the carpet, raised my knee, and drove the pointed toe of my designer heel directly into his groin with everything I had. “Oooogh!” Marcus let out a sound that resembled a dying walrus. He clutched his crotch and dropped straight to his knees, his face scrunching up like a dried walnut. Right at that beautiful moment, the heavy double doors swung open again. The Director of HR, flanked by three burly security guards, stormed into the room. Seeing the absolute carnage, the Director’s face turned the color of week old concrete. 3 The immediate aftermath was entirely predictable. Marcus was suspended on the spot pending a full investigation for “misappropriation of company funds” and “attempted workplace violence.” Jessica was strongly advised to clear out her desk by the end of the day due to “complicity in financial misconduct” and “blatant ethical violations.” I thought the battle was won. I packed up my shell shocked sister and drove her home. I had no idea the real war was just beginning. The very next morning, a massive thread blew up on the company’s internal Blind forum, quickly spilling over to local Reddit pages and industry networking groups. Title: The Truth About My Social Climbing Coworker and Her Psychotic Sister. It was posted anonymously. But the pathetic, victim blaming tone practically had Jessica’s signature stamped all over it. In the post, she tearfully claimed that Sophie was desperate to land a massive tech client and had set her sights on their male executive. She accused my sister of encouraging and even initiating inappropriate sexual banter with the client to secure the contract. She painted Marcus as a tragic hero. He was just a good man who couldn’t stand seeing Jessica bullied by Sophie. He tried to protect her, only to be violently assaulted and framed by the manipulative sisters. The most venomous part of the post was aimed directly at me. “…her mediator sister is even worse. To help Sophie secure her promotion, she actually sent Manager Marcus explicit photos of herself to seduce him! When he firmly rejected her advances, she completely lost her mind and photoshopped those fake reflections to ruin his life out of pure spite…” Attached at the bottom of the post was a heavily blurred, highly suggestive photograph of a woman. The woman in the picture was wearing completely sheer lingerie, posed provocatively on a bed. The face was completely pixelated, but the body type and hair color were an exact match to mine. The smear campaign was ruthless and brutally effective. It perfectly weaponized society’s deep rooted misogyny, twisting a clear cut case of corporate corruption into a trashy soap opera about two aggressive tramps framing an honest, hardworking man. Overnight, the post went viral across multiple platforms. The comment sections were absolute toxic waste. “Takes two to tango. Good girls don’t end up in these situations.” “That sister looked like a total homewrecker anyway. Look at the way she dresses.” “Anyone got the unblurred pics? Asking for a friend.” “Found the sister’s phone number! Let’s ruin these bitches!” Sophie’s phone didn’t stop ringing. Every call was a barrage of disgusting, violent threats. Someone actually drove by her apartment and threw a garbage bag at her front door, writing “Whore” on her mailbox with a sharpie. It took exactly forty eight hours for my sister to completely break down. She locked herself in her bedroom, sobbing into her pillow, refusing to eat or speak. I realized then that Marcus and Jessica were burning the house down with them. Even if they were going down for embezzlement, they were determined to drag our reputations through the mud so we could never show our faces in this city again. They knew the game too well. For a woman, slut shaming is the deadliest weapon in the arsenal. It is the one accusation that is almost impossible to wash off. 4 Under immense pressure from the online fallout, the company executives called an emergency internal disciplinary hearing. Inside the sterile boardroom, Marcus and Jessica had completely dropped their previous arrogance. They were dressed in cheap, drab clothing, looking exhausted and deeply traumatized. “Every word we said is the god’s honest truth!” Marcus pounded his chest, looking pleadingly at the HR Director and the rest of the board. “I have bled for this company for eight years! Why would I throw away my career for a cheap thrill?” “It was Sophie! She wanted the commission so badly she tried to force Jessica to sleep with the client! When I stepped in, she swore she would destroy me!” Jessica immediately provided the backup vocals, sobbing violently and pointing a trembling finger at my sister. “Sophie… I loved you like a sister. How could you feed me to the wolves like that…” “And your sister sending those disgusting photos to my Marcus… Have you no shame at all!” Our legal counsel calmly interjected, stating that the opposition had presented zero factual evidence and was relying entirely on defamation. The opposing lawyer scoffed and fired back immediately. “Evidence? Public opinion is the evidence!” “Your client, Tiana, physically assaulted my client in front of dozens of witnesses. She then produced heavily manipulated, digitally altered images to destroy his career!” “My clients are seeking psychiatric help for severe emotional trauma. What more do you people want?” The senior executives shifted uncomfortably in their expensive leather chairs, exchanging tired glances. I knew exactly what they were thinking. They did not care about the truth. They just wanted the PR nightmare to vanish. Throwing a mid level employee like Sophie under the bus was the cheapest, cleanest way to make the headlines disappear. Sophie sat next to me, her face pale as a ghost. She looked at me with total despair, her lips trembling so violently she couldn’t make a sound. Marcus and Jessica shared a fleeting, triumphant look. The entire room thought I was out of ammo. Marcus even had the audacity to stand up and walk over to my side of the table. He stared down at me, his face twisted in an arrogant, victorious sneer. “What’s wrong, Madam Mediator? Cat got your tongue?” He leaned in close, whispering so only the two of us could hear his toxic gloating. “Let me teach you a lesson, sweetheart. Once the mud is on you, you can never wash it off.” “You and your sister are going to stink for the rest of your pathetic lives.” I didn’t flinch at his threat. I didn’t even look at the pitying eyes of the lawyers around me. I simply stood up, smooth and slow. I reached over and gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind my sister’s ear. Then, I tilted my head up, looked right into Marcus’s smug little eyes, and smiled. “Are you quite done performing, Marcus?” “Because if you’re done, it’s my turn.” Before he could react, I looked him dead in the eye and silently mouthed two words. Every single drop of blood drained from Marcus and Jessica’s faces in a fraction of a second.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443080”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Kristen’s funeral wasn’t even over yet. The scent of white roses and burning wax still hung heavy in the chapel. But I simply reached out, took her best friend Sarah’s hand, and walked right to the front of the grieving crowd. “I am going to marry Sarah,” I announced. I pulled out the diamond ring I had originally bought for Kristen years ago and slid it onto Sarah’s finger. Kristen’s older brother, Carter, charged at me with bloodshot eyes. “Doug Blake! Are you even human?!” My bodyguards immediately intercepted him, pinning him back. He thrashed against them, his voice tearing through the chapel. “My sister is lying right there in that casket!” “You are proposing to this slut right in front of her?!” “Have you two been sleeping together this whole time?!” I calmly shifted my gaze to Kristen’s black-and-white portrait resting on the altar. “This was Kristen’s dying wish.” “She wanted the two people she loved most to support each other and walk the rest of this life together.” The crowd erupted. The entire chapel was filled with gasps, curses, and people calling me a twisted liar. But nobody understood what I really meant. 1 “Doug, you have lost your damn mind!” Kristen’s mother clutched her chest, gasping for air before collapsing straight toward the floor. Relatives rushed to catch her, chaotic shouts echoing as they fanned her and rubbed her back. Her cloudy, tear-filled eyes locked onto me with pure venom. “My daughter just passed away! Her body isn’t even cold yet!” “And you couldn’t wait to parade this woman in front of everyone? You want to give everything my daughter owned to this homewrecker?!” “How can you face Kristen in the afterlife?!” Sarah’s hand was trembling violently inside my grip. I just squeezed it tighter, raising my eyes to scan the room full of furious faces. “Like I said, the wedding will be scheduled soon.” “Everything under Kristen’s name, the mansion in the East End, her company shares, and all the cash in her personal accounts, will go entirely to Sarah.” “You animal! You are a literal animal!” Carter broke free from the bodyguards for a split second, the veins bulging on his forehead. His eyes were so red they looked ready to bleed. “Do you remember how my sister treated you?!” “When your first startup failed, she pawned her wedding jewelry to help you pay off your debts.” “When you were hospitalized, she sat by your bed for three days and three nights without closing her eyes!” “Now that she is gone, this is how you repay her?!” “Stealing her inheritance, marrying her best friend… do you even have a heart?!” He lunged forward again, but the guards quickly wrapped their arms around his waist, dragging him back. Carter thrashed wildly. His roars were so loud they made the white floral arrangements shudder. “Sarah! You filthy bitch!” “My sister treated you like her own flesh and blood! She shared everything with you, and this is how you pay her back?!” “Stealing her man and swallowing her fortune the second she is gone? Aren’t you afraid of going to hell?!” Sarah’s face drained of all color. Her lips parted as she tried to say something, but her voice was instantly drowned out by the tidal wave of insults. “You ungrateful piece of trash!” An elderly uncle, shaking with rage, pointed his cane right at my nose. “If Kristen is watching from heaven, she will crawl back down just to rip the faces off you two!” “They definitely hooked up ages ago!” Someone whispered the accusation loudly. It wasn’t a scream, but it acted like gasoline on an open fire. “Exactly! They probably killed Kristen so they could be together!” “Otherwise, why would they be so brazen about it?!” Someone accidentally knocked over the memorial candle stand. Hot wax and ashes spilled across the floor, mixing with scattered funeral programs, making the scene look incredibly pathetic. A relative grabbed a handful of white carnations from the altar and hurled them violently at us. The petals shattered, landing in Sarah’s hair and on the shoulders of my tailored black suit, like a silent, mocking judgment. And in that moment, the absolute chaos of the chapel was already being recorded. Several people had their phones up, lenses zoomed in perfectly. They captured Carter’s roars, the elders’ curses, and the cold silence of Sarah and me. Within minutes, those clips were edited, slapped with the title “Trashing the Dead: Husband Marries Mistress at Wife’s Funeral,” and uploaded across every major social media platform. It took less than half an hour. #FuneralProposal #DougBlakeGivesMillionsToMistress #JusticeForKristen The three hashtags skyrocketed like rockets, dominating the top trending spots on Twitter and TikTok, glowing with that blinding red “Viral” tag. 2 The comment sections were a total warzone. The sheer volume of rage practically melted the servers. [What kind of absolute garbage human being is Doug Blake?] [His wife is literally lying in a casket in the same room, and he couldn’t wait to marry her bestie and split her money? He is a psychopath!] [Sarah is disgusting. Stealing your best friend’s man and her money? This had to be premeditated.] [My heart breaks for Kristen. She loved the wrong man and trusted the wrong friend.] [Hold on… is it possible Kristen didn’t die of natural causes?] [They are way too eager. It’s almost like they couldn’t wait for her to die!] [The police need to investigate! Scum like this deserves to be ruined and locked up forever!] My phone buzzed relentlessly against my chest. Texts, calls, and emails flooded in, packed with curses and interrogations. Random unknown numbers started ringing, and the second I answered, people would just scream death threats into my ear. My company’s PR department was having a collective meltdown. They sent me dozens of urgent messages begging for a crisis management strategy. Our stock price had already started to plummet off a cliff. But I ignored all of it. I casually turned off my phone and slipped it back into my suit’s breast pocket. I looked down and gently brushed a crushed white petal out of Sarah’s hair. My fingertips brushed against her ice-cold skin. She looked up at me, her eyes brimming with panic and dread. “Doug, maybe we should just leave?” I shook my head and reached out to smooth her wrinkled collar. “Don’t be afraid.” Then I turned back to face the crowd, meeting their furious, murderous glares. My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the deafening noise. “I have said what I needed to say.” “The wedding will be held when the time is right.” “I have already decided where the inheritance goes.” “My lawyers will expedite the legal paperwork.” “Whether you believe me, or how much you want to curse me, that is entirely up to you.” My eyes drifted to Kristen’s black-and-white portrait. She was smiling so gently in that picture. “When the time comes, I will give everyone, including Kristen, a complete explanation.” “An explanation?! What kind of sick explanation could you possibly give?!” Carter was trembling with rage, still pinned down by the security team. “You murdered her! I am calling the cops! I am going to make you and this bitch pay!” I let out a relaxed, easy smile. “Call the cops?” “Go ahead. I am more than happy to cooperate.” The second the circus at the funeral ended, I booked the earliest flight out. I took Sarah straight to a luxury tropical island. Sunshine, white sandy beaches, crystal clear water. I held Sarah’s hand, posing for a picture under a palm tree. She was wearing a flowing white sundress, smiling softly, with Kristen’s diamond ring sparkling on her finger. The caption read: “To the rest of our lives. Please take care of me.” I posted it directly to my personal accounts. No privacy settings, entirely public. The internet exploded all over again. The backlash was ten times more violent than the day of the funeral. [Doug Blake, are you even a human being?!] [Going on a honeymoon right after your wife’s funeral? And you have the nerve to post pictures showing off?!] [Looking at Sarah’s face makes me sick. Wearing a dead woman’s ring.] [Living in a dead woman’s house and she can still smile like that?] [Do these two even have a conscience?!] [The grass hasn’t even grown over Kristen’s grave yet!] [Cancel his company! Society needs to permanently blacklist this piece of trash!] My direct messages were flooded with the most vile threats imaginable. People photoshopped my face onto crime scene photos. Internet sleuths tracked down our resort location, threatening to fly out and “teach us a lesson.” But I didn’t care. In fact, I kept posting daily updates. A photo of Sarah’s silhouette by the ocean. A close-up of us sharing an expensive gelato. Our hands intertwined under a golden sunset. Every single post was like pouring aviation fuel straight onto the internet’s raging fire. 3 Ten days later, the honeymoon was over. I brought Sarah back to the corporate headquarters. When I pushed open the double doors to my executive office suite, it looked like a disaster zone. More than half the cubicles were completely empty. Files were scattered across the floor. Several department heads were actively leading their teams in packing up their desks. “Mr. Blake, we are resigning.” The Marketing Director spoke first, his tone dripping with absolute disgust. “We fundamentally disagree with the kind of person you are, and we refuse to work for you a second longer.” “Exactly, we are walking out too!” “Protecting a mistress and stealing your dead wife’s money? We don’t serve bosses like that!” “Either you step down, or we walk. We choose the latter!” The employees chimed in one after another, their eyes filled with a mix of contempt and bitter disappointment. The massive office was practically hollowed out. Only a few veteran employees stood awkwardly in the corners, hesitating. I leaned casually against my mahogany desk, drumming my fingers lightly against the surface. I kept my voice perfectly level. “That is perfectly fine. Anyone who wants to leave is free to go.” I turned to my secretary and told her to bring out the severance packages I had drafted beforehand. “For those who have been here for over three years, you will receive an extra three months of severance pay. For those over five years, six months.” “All unused PTO and sick days will be cashed out fully and added to your final check.” The second those words left my mouth, the entire floor went dead silent. Even the people who were carrying their cardboard boxes toward the elevators froze in their tracks. The news of my massive payout leaked to the internet almost instantly. The netizens lost their minds even more. [Is Doug Blake actually insane?] [He betrays his wife, gives her parents a heart attack, but acts like a saint to his employees?!] [This is wild. Doing the most villainous things in his personal life, but throwing around cash to buy loyalty at work? Terrifying!] [Is he trying to use money to shut everyone up?] [Too bad we aren’t buying it!] [Treating his staff so well but being so ruthless to his dead wife. What is this guy’s brain made of?] [Hypocrite!] [Fake saint!] [He is a psychopath!] Negative labels washed over me like a tsunami. I scrolled through the brutal comments on my phone, then looked up at the employees slowly filtering out of the office with their generous checks. A faint, subtle smile curled the corner of my mouth. Sarah stood next to me, her face deathly pale. “Doug, if this keeps up, the entire company is going to collapse…” I reached out and patted her shoulder, my voice smooth and unbothered. “If it collapses, I will just build another one.” They didn’t understand. I never cared about saving this company, nor did I care about public approval. What I wanted was to make the rats hiding in the dark panic. And this entire circus? It was only just the beginning. The heavy glass doors to my office were suddenly shoved open. I was in the middle of signing the very last severance agreement. A squad of federal financial investigators walked in wearing dark suits, their expressions stone-cold. “Doug Blake, we received a highly detailed anonymous tip. Your company is suspected of massive financial fraud and severe tax evasion. We are here to conduct an official investigation.” Stacks of ledgers and banking documents were slapped onto my desk. Every single highlighted number was shocking. When they presented the final calculation, even I was genuinely taken aback for a second. “The back taxes and federal penalties owed total exactly fifteen million dollars.” The news grew wings and flew across the internet in seconds. #DougBlakeCompanyRaided #FifteenMillionDollarFine The hashtags hit number one instantly. The internet threw a massive party. The comment sections were filled with people cheering and popping digital champagne. [Karma never misses! The trash finally got what he deserved!] [This is what you get for betraying your wife! The money is gone, the company is dead. Serves him right!] [Just throw him in a federal prison already. Let him rot in a cell for the rest of his life!] Hearing the blood in the water, Kristen’s family rushed over. 4 Carter showed up at the corporate lobby leading a pack of angry relatives. He wore a twisted smile of pure vindication, his voice echoing off the marble walls. “Doug Blake, this is exactly what you deserve!” “But before the government seizes your assets, you are going to spit out my sister’s inheritance! And you are going to pay the Collins family extra for emotional damages!” “Otherwise, Kristen will never rest in peace down there!” The netizens watching the live streams enthusiastically backed him up. [He is absolutely right! The family should squeeze every penny out of him. Don’t let this scumbag off easy!] [The money was Kristen’s to begin with. He needs to use it to pay for his sins!] [Support the Collins family! Drain Doug Blake until he has absolutely nothing left!] Right at that moment, the wail of police sirens approached the building. Two uniformed detectives walked straight into my office and flashed their badges. “Mr. Blake, the sheer amount of money involved in your company’s fraud elevates this to a major criminal offense. Please come with us to the precinct.” Carter and his relatives immediately started cheering. The live chat on the streams scrolled so fast it was just a blur of text. But I calmly raised my hand, stopping the detectives in their tracks. My face didn’t show a hint of panic. “Hold on.” “This fraud is not my responsibility.” Carter let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Not your responsibility? What, did a ghost do it?!” “Doug, have some damn shame! You are backed into a corner and you are still trying to pass the buck?!” I ignored his taunts. My gaze swept slowly across the room, making eye contact with everyone present. “It is my wife, Kristen’s responsibility.” “She knows the details of this fraud much better than I do.” The whispers in the room and the raging comments online erupted simultaneously. “He is insane! He has officially lost his mind!” “Blaming a dead woman?! This man truly has no bottom line!” “Throwing dirty water on Kristen when she is already in the ground… Doug Blake is going to burn in hell!” The lead detective frowned deeply. “Mr. Blake, please cooperate with the investigation. Do not spout nonsense.” I didn’t argue. I pulled out my phone and dialed a heavily encrypted international number. I tapped the call button and put the phone on speaker, resting it on my mahogany desk. Carter’s voice was dripping with pure disdain. The millions of people watching the live streams were practically eating popcorn, waiting for my final, pathetic joke to play out. “Is he actually dialing a number? Who is he calling? A ghost?!” “What a clown! Let’s see how he tries to spin this lie!” The ringing tone echoed through the speaker. One ring. Two rings. Three rings… Just when everyone was convinced it would go to voicemail. A clear, female voice suddenly came through the speaker. It even carried a hint of lazy, husky arrogance. “Hello? Who is this?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “443064”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel