Category: English

In the seventh year of my marriage to Timothy Carmichael, the mahogany-paneled waiting room of my divorce attorney became my most frequented sanctuary. Thirty times in thirty days. The final time was the day Lexi—Timothy’s adopted sister—turned up pregnant by some nameless fling, and Timothy, without missing a beat, publicly claimed the child was his. When I demanded to know why he would do something so insanely destructive, he just rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling a breath heavy with manufactured exhaustion. He told me Lexi’s biotech start-up was finally getting off the ground, and a scandal of an out-of-wedlock baby with a deadbeat would ruin her image with investors. “You’re a woman, Norma,” he had said, his eyes pleading for a grace he hadn’t earned. “Can’t you find it in you to just understand?” In that precise moment, I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I didn’t threaten to call the lawyers like I had the twenty-nine times before. I simply reached into my bag, pulled out the pre-nuptial divorce agreement he had signed years ago as a grand romantic gesture of trust, and calmly, fluidly, signed my name at the bottom. Then, I walked out, dialed my former PI and current research partner, Simon, and told him my bags were packed. I was ready to join his research expedition in Iceland. Looking back, the first time I almost filed for divorce was when Lexi stole my lab data and patented my experimental results under her own name. Instead of defending me, Timothy hired a shark of a corporate lawyer to defend her. He had held me that night, kissing my hair, whispering that if Lexi got a criminal record, her life would be over, that he was just “protecting the family.” The second time was after my miscarriage. He left me bleeding and hollow in a sterile hospital bed to fly to Paris with Lexi because she was having a “severe depressive episode.” His excuse was always the same perfectly rehearsed script: she had relied on him since childhood. She was fragile. She was just a sister to him. Cancel the filing, Norma. Please. ………… 1 Simon’s voice crackled through the phone, thick with relief. “Norma, finally. A whole month of this madness, and you’ve finally woken up.” He paused, the protective edge returning to his tone. “Does Timothy know? Do you want me to handle him? This Iceland fellowship is a once-in-a-lifetime spot, it’s going to put your career back on the map—” “You don’t have to do that, Simon. I’ll handle him. Don’t worry.” I cut him off softly, my voice shockingly steady. Simon let out a heavy breath, muttered an affirmative, and hung up. A minute later, a first-class itinerary pinged into my inbox. Departure: three days from now. I stared at the boarding pass on my screen, then down at the fully executed divorce papers in my hand. A bitter, jagged laugh clawed its way up my throat. Would Timothy object? He wouldn’t even notice I was gone. People always talk about the seven-year itch, and for the longest time, I thought it was a suburban myth. Timothy and I had been the golden couple. We practically never fought. We existed in a bubble of effortless, breathless devotion. Until Lexi moved back from London a month ago. Then, the bubble violently burst. In thirty short days, I had threatened divorce thirty times. And Timothy’s reaction had morphed from desperate, patient coaxing into irritated, callous fatigue. “Lexi made a mistake. You want her to get rid of the baby and ruin her body?” “Where is your empathy, Norma? You’ve become so cold lately.” “If you’re going to keep threatening me with the lawyers, then just do it. I’m so damn tired.” Remembering the raw disdain etched into his features, a strange, weightless peace suddenly settled over my chest. The man standing before me today, bending over backward for Lexi, shared absolutely no resemblance with the man who had, without a second thought, donated his kidney to save my life. I had given him thirty chances. Thirty get-out-of-jail-free cards out of loyalty to the scar on my abdomen. He had burned through every single one. If the debt was paid, what was left to mourn? The soft click of the front door opening pulled me from my thoughts. Timothy walked into the kitchen, smelling faintly of expensive scotch and tobacco. He came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, burying his face in my neck. His voice was gravelly. “I know Lexi was awful to you in the past. I know she bullied you. But she was just a dumb kid back then. It’s been years, Norma. You have to let it go.” He tightened his grip. “I sent her halfway across the world for you, against my parents’ dying wishes. Wasn’t that enough?” He turned me around to face him. “We didn’t fight for seven years. She’s been back for a month and you’ve dragged me to the brink of divorce thirty times. Aren’t you exhausted?” Exhausted. God, yes. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew those thirty threats were thirty desperate pleas for him to choose me. He could be ruthless to anyone in the world, except Lexi. But this time, the fight had bled entirely out of me. I gently placed my hands on his chest and pushed him away. My eyes dropped to his left hand. The pale indentation of his wedding band was visible, but the ring was gone. I smiled. Timothy froze, instinctively hiding his hand behind his back, panic flashing in his eyes. “Lexi’s depression is spiraling. She… she can’t process the reality that I’m married. I can’t trigger her right now.” He stammered, the words tumbling out too fast. “I usually wear it, Norma, I swear I do—” Before he could finish the lie, his phone erupted. A custom ringtone. Lexi’s. Timothy didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. He answered it, and her shrill, theatrical sobbing immediately pierced the quiet of our kitchen. “Timothy! Everyone in my circle knows I’m pregnant! My reputation in the valley is completely destroyed, what am I going to do, please—” He stepped away from me, his voice dropping into a register of sickeningly sweet patience. “Hey, hey, breathe. I’m right here. Nobody is going to say a single bad word about you.” He paced toward the window. “I promised you, didn’t I? We’ll stage a wedding. I’ll publicly claim the baby. Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?” The crying stopped instantly, replaced by a giddy, breathless squeal of victory. I picked up my purse to leave the kitchen, but Timothy reached out and caught my wrist. He hung up the phone, looking at me with an agonizing mix of guilt and defiance. “No one knows we’re legally married, Norma. Lexi is in a really dark place. I have to announce us as a couple to the press. My hands are tied.” Seven years of marriage. And the world thought I was just his long-term girlfriend. Why? Because his precious, fragile little sister living in London “wouldn’t be able to handle the shock.” “I exiled her for you,” he used to tell me, stroking my hair. “What if she hurts herself over there? Just give her time. I’ll announce you to the world eventually. I promise.” And I, utterly drunk on the illusion of our love, had stupidly agreed to remain a ghost in my own life. We hadn’t even had a wedding. I looked at the hand gripping my wrist, then up into his desperate eyes. I let my expression go completely slack. I nodded. “I understand. Go marry her. It doesn’t matter to me anymore.” Timothy went rigid. His hand dropped from my arm as he stared at me, thoroughly utterly bewildered. “You’re… you’re not going to fight me on this?” 2 I offered him a small, empty smile. I didn’t say a word. Timothy scowled, studying my face for a long, heavy minute. Frustration began to leak through his confusion. “Are you being sarcastic? Is this some passive-aggressive game?” he snapped. “I told you, I owe Lexi. I have to look out for her. Haven’t I treated you like a queen for the last seven years? What the hell are you still throwing a tantrum for—” His phone chimed again. A text. He glanced at the screen and immediately moved toward the door. He didn’t forget to toss a parting shot over his shoulder. “Throw whatever fit you want. Go file the damn papers if you’re so brave.” Watching his retreating back, the anger rolling off him in waves, I let out a dry chuckle. I wouldn’t be filing the papers. Because my lawyer had already finalized the paperwork and submitted it to the courts. It was done. A second later, my own phone buzzed. It was the manager of Le Bernardin. “Ms. Sullivan? You rented out the private dining room for your seventh anniversary tonight. I just wanted to confirm what time we should expect you?” I blinked. It hit me like a physical blow. Today was our anniversary. “I’m heading there now.” I drove through the neon-lit streets of Manhattan alone. For seven years, we had celebrated at this exact table. I figured I owed the ghost of our marriage a proper burial. Let it end where it began. Half an hour into my wait, a text from Timothy lit up my screen. “Just checking on Lexi’s vitals. I’ll be at the restaurant soon.” I replied with a single, simple “Okay.” I sat there, staring at the extravagant spread of food, letting my mind drift. In my memories, Timothy was a god who worshipped at my altar. He was the man who, when my kidneys failed and I tried to break up with him to spare him the burden, dragged me to the hospital and forced the doctors to test his blood. He was a match. He gave me a piece of his own body. I remember waking up from the surgery, high on painkillers, and seeing him weeping by my bedside—weeping harder than I was. “I will never let you go,” he had sworn, burying his wet face in my palm. “Even if it kills me, you are not leaving me. I gave you my kidney. We share a body now. I will love you until the day I die.” Because of that kidney, I had planned to tell him the truth tonight. To tell him I was leaving the country. To give him a proper goodbye. But the hours bled into the deep, dark quiet of midnight. My phone screen remained completely dark. After reheating the food for what felt like the thirtieth time, the waiter finally offered me a sympathetic, pitying look. “Ma’am, if I heat this again, it’s going to be completely ruined.” I snapped out of my trance. I picked up my silver fork and began putting the food into my mouth, bite by agonizing bite. It was delicious. It tasted exactly the way it did seven years ago. It was just a little salty. I wiped the tears that had leaked down to the corners of my mouth, swallowed the final bite of risotto, and set down the fork. My phone rang. Simon. His voice was tightly coiled with disbelief and rage. “What the hell is Timothy doing?!” I frowned. A news alert dropped down from the top of my screen. TECH BILLIONAIRE TIMOTHY CARMICHAEL BUYS OUT TIMES SQUARE TO PROPOSE TO PREGNANT FIANCÉE! I tapped the video. Every massive digital billboard in Times Square was glowing neon pink, spelling out Lexi’s name. Hundreds of drones swarmed the night sky, rearranging themselves into the words: SAY YES. It was a spectacle of biblical proportions. New York City was brought to a standstill. The internet was losing its collective mind, celebrating the fairytale ending of the brilliant CEO and his beloved. In the entire world, only Simon knew that the man proposing on those screens was legally my husband. I murmured a few calming words to Simon and hung up. Before I could even put the phone down, a waitress stormed into the private room and violently hurled a glass of ice water directly into my face. “You’re the bitch who framed his fiancée for stealing your research, aren’t you?!” she spat, trembling with righteous internet fury. “How dare you show your face here?!” I sat perfectly still, water dripping from my eyelashes, soaking into the silk of my dress. I looked down at my phone. The number one trending topic on Twitter was my name next to Lexi’s. The headline was painted in blinding, violent red: CARMICHAEL PUBLICLY CLEARS FIANCÉE’S NAME: REVEALS NORMA SULLIVAN WAS THE REAL THIEF BEHIND BIOTECH SCANDAL! 3 The internet had crowned Lexi the “Tragic Genius of the Biotech World.” A small crowd of waitstaff had gathered by the door, pointing at me, their faces twisted in disgust. I didn’t argue. I didn’t defend myself. I calmly took a napkin, dried my face, paid the exorbitant bill, and walked out into the biting night air. Timothy didn’t come home until the sky outside the penthouse windows was turning a bruised, pre-dawn purple. When he walked into the living room and saw me sitting rigidly on the velvet sofa, he flinched. “You… you’re still awake?” A second later, he hastily pulled a slightly crushed bouquet of red roses from behind his back. “Lexi threatened to hurt herself tonight. I couldn’t leave her. I had to break our plans, but see? I didn’t forget our anniversary.” I stared at the crumpled petals. A hollow, breathy laugh slipped out of me. “Are you giving me the leftover props from your Times Square proposal?” His expression instantly darkened. The guilt vanished, replaced by a defensive, volatile rage. He threw the flowers onto the glass coffee table, exasperated. “I brought you flowers, Norma. Can you stop being so damn cynical for one second?” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “You didn’t file the divorce papers today, which means you accepted the situation. So why are you still sulking?” He sneered. “I missed one dinner. Do you really need to give me this attitude?” Looking at this man, still desperately trying to gaslight me, I felt a bone-deep weariness. I couldn’t even summon the energy to play his games. “I saw the news.” I kept my voice flat, devoid of any emotional currency. “When you hired those corporate sharks to sue me on her behalf, you promised you would keep my name out of the press. You promised you would just win the patent for her and leave it at that.” I looked into his eyes. “I was stupid back then. I swallowed my pride. I took the hit to my career to protect your precious sister. But tonight? You doxed me to the entire world just to make her smile? You destroyed my life to crown her the rising star of the industry?” Timothy’s jaw ticked. He exhaled sharply, the fight draining out of him, and he sank into the armchair opposite me, rubbing his temples. “The press was hounding us, Norma. They were asking too many questions about the discrepancy in the patent timelines. I had to give them a name. Otherwise, they would have ripped Lexi apart. I had to protect her.” “And what about me?” The words broke past my lips, a fragile, trembling whisper. Timothy let out a heavy, suffering sigh. “Lexi’s last round of intensive therapy ends next month. Once she’s medically cleared, I’ll announce that we called off the engagement. I’ll tell the world about you. Is that what you want to hear?” The absolute condescension in his voice—the way he spoke as if he were tossing scraps to a starving dog—made me feel utterly, violently hollow. When I didn’t reply, Timothy took my silence as submission. He visibly relaxed, leaning forward to gently cover my cold hands with his warm ones. He hesitated, then spoke in a low, coaxing murmur. “The damage is already done, Norma.” He stroked my knuckles. “Listen to me. Lexi… she needs you to publicly confess to stealing her research.” I stopped breathing. “Don’t panic,” he rushed on. “I’ve already paid off the right people. You won’t see the inside of a courtroom. Lexi will sign a formal letter of forgiveness. You just need to stand in front of the cameras and admit it was you. I’ll handle the fallout.” “Just this once, Norma. Please.” The dam inside me finally shattered. I yanked my hands away from him, staring at him as if he were a monster wearing my husband’s skin. “You want me to plead guilty?!” My voice tore through the quiet room. “Timothy, you know exactly what I sacrificed for my research! You watched me bleed for those experiments for seven years! If I confess to academic theft, even if I don’t go to prison, I will be blacklisted globally! My entire life’s work… my dream… it’ll be dead! How could you even form those words in your mouth?!” The moment I raised my voice, Timothy’s face hardened into a mask of cruel, absolute authority. “Are you done?” he snapped, his eyes turning to ice. “I told you I’d keep you out of jail!” He stood up, towering over me, his chin tilted in an arrogant, mocking angle. “Don’t forget, Norma. You only have a life right now because I gave it to you.” The room fell deathly silent. Seven years. For seven years, whenever the guilt of the transplant gnawed at me, he would shush me. “I did it because I love you,” he used to whisper. “I don’t want anything in return except your heart.” And now, here he was. Cashing in his kidney. Trading an organ for a false confession to destroy my life. We stared at each other for a long, agonizing minute. The ghost of the boy who had loved me evaporated entirely. And then, I smiled. “Okay.” Timothy blinked, stunned. “After the press conference,” I said softly, “my debt to you is paid in full.” 4 The press conference was scheduled for the exact same day my flight left for Iceland. Timothy had rented out the grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. Every major news outlet, biotech investor, and tech blogger in New York was practically vibrating with excitement, cameras poised like loaded weapons. “I’m getting the front page on this one,” a reporter muttered near me. “Defending the Carmichael empire’s new queen. We’ll get exclusive access for a year.” They were vampires, thrilled by the smell of blood. And I was the corpse. I sat alone in the shadows at the edge of the room, completely ignored. My phone buzzed in my lap. Simon. “Everything is in place. Trust me.” The suffocating weight on my chest suddenly vanished. I took a deep, steadying breath. The ballroom lights dimmed. Timothy walked out onto the stage, his arm wrapped protectively around a glowing, impossibly smug Lexi. He looked the picture of the triumphant, devoted hero. “Thank you all for being here today to witness justice for my beautiful fiancée,” Timothy spoke smoothly into the microphone. “I ask that the media show some restraint. Ms. Sullivan made a terrible, desperate mistake, driven by jealousy. But my fiancée is a woman of immense grace, and she has already drafted a formal letter of forgiveness.” Timothy’s gaze swept the room until it found me in the dark. A flicker of anxiety crossed his features. Was he worried I would go off script? Or was he, deep down in some buried, rotting part of his soul, actually worried about me? It didn’t matter. I truly didn’t care anymore. I stood up and walked down the center aisle. The blinding flash of a hundred cameras exploded in my face, threatening to induce a seizure. I climbed the steps to the podium. Lexi shot me a vicious, triumphant smirk, stepping aside to give me the mic. I looked out at the sea of flashing lights. I smiled. “It’s true. I did it.” The room erupted into furious typing and gasps. “I stole Ms. Carmichael’s research. I was desperate to become the rising star of the biotech world. I stand before you today to confess my crimes.” Timothy visibly exhaled, his shoulders dropping. He leaned in, his breath warm against my ear. “I’m sorry to put you through this, Norma. But don’t worry, you’re safe now—” The heavy oak doors of the ballroom slammed open with the force of a gunshot. A squad of uniformed NYPD officers and federal agents flooded the room. The chaotic chatter of the press died instantly. The silence was deafening. Timothy stepped forward, raising his hands in a placating gesture, his PR smile firmly in place. “Officers, there’s been a misunderstanding. My fiancée has signed a letter of forgiveness. We aren’t pressing charges against Ms. Sullivan—” The lead detective walked right past him. He stepped onto the stage, grabbed Lexi by the arm, and slapped a pair of steel handcuffs onto her wrists. The ballroom erupted. “What is going on?!” “Why are they arresting Lexi?!” “Isn’t Norma Sullivan the thief?!” I calmly reached into my pocket, pulled out a small remote, and pressed the button. The massive projector screen behind us flickered to life. An audio file began to play. The crystal-clear recording of Timothy’s voice from our living room echoed off the crystal chandeliers. “Lexi needs you to publicly confess to stealing her research… You only have a life right now because I gave it to you.” Timothy’s face drained of all color. Lexi looked like she was going to vomit. They stared at me, absolute horror violently contorting their features. “Norma, you lied to me—” Timothy choked out, stepping toward me. “I didn’t lie,” I replied, my voice carrying clearly through the mic. “You told me to confess, and I did. It’s just that the police are actually quite good at discerning the truth.” I turned on my heel and began to walk off the stage. Timothy lunged forward, grabbing my arm in a vice grip. His eyes were bloodshot, wild with panic. “How could you do this?! What’s going to happen to Lexi?!” he hissed, his voice breaking. “Sign a recantation! Tell them you forged the tape! I’ll pretend this never happened, I’ll forgive you—” I looked at his hand on my arm, then up at his frantic eyes. “Why don’t you ask the detective if Lexi ever actually signed that letter of forgiveness?” Timothy froze. He whipped his head around to look at Lexi, who was currently hyperventilating as an officer read her her Miranda rights. The lead detective stepped between me and Timothy, his face a mask of disgust. “Mr. Carmichael,” the detective said coldly. “Lexi Carmichael never drafted a letter of forgiveness. In fact, she called our precinct an hour ago, demanding we come here to arrest Ms. Sullivan live on television.” He paused, letting the weight of the betrayal sink in. “If Ms. Sullivan hadn’t preemptively handed over irrefutable proof of the framing, she would be the one in the back of my cruiser right now.” The detective signaled to another officer. “And as for you, Mr. Carmichael. You’re coming with us for conspiracy and witness tampering.” Timothy looked like he had been shot. “That’s impossible… Lexi, you didn’t sign it?!” He stumbled back, staring at the crying woman as if he had never seen her before. “You lied to me?! You were going to send Norma to federal prison?! How could you do that?!” I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the Greek tragedy unfold. I nodded politely to the detective, slipped out the side door, and walked out into the crisp New York morning. When I reached JFK and found Simon waiting by the VIP lounge, the tension finally snapped. I let out a long, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Simon.” He smiled, a warm, grounding expression, and gently ruffled my hair. “I told you I had you, Norma. I would never let them touch you.” The moment our plane lifted off the tarmac, the news alerts hit my phone. Denied bail. Federal indictment. Simon’s influence in the global scientific community was staggering; he had made sure the evidence was airtight and fast-tracked. This time, Timothy and I were truly, completely finished. The debt of my life, the weight of that kidney, had been brutally extracted and paid in full. From this second on, we owed each other nothing.

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At the family dinner, my stepsister Lexi couldn’t stop glowing. She had just announced her biggest “get” yet: she’d managed to hire Dante, the internet’s most coveted livestreamer, for her personal brand launch. I sat across from them, nursing a glass of Pinot Noir, watching the man I had spent nearly a million dollars supporting over the last three years. To his millions of fans, he was a god. To me, he was supposed to be a partner. But tonight, I was invisible. Dante was busy peeling shrimp for Lexi, his movements practiced and tender. He laughed as he shared “insider” tips on product selection, and even made a show of pouring a special artisanal herbal blend for my father, playing the part of the perfect, dutiful guest. He even went as far as adding our housekeeper on Snapchat, charming everyone in the room. Everyone except me. When I finally raised my glass, intending to offer a professional greeting, the warmth vanished from his face. He leaned in, turning his head so only I could hear his venom. “No amount of money can buy back your youth, Jade,” he whispered. “Stop trying.” Lexi smirked, pulling out her phone to show off her chat logs with him. There were photos of Dante—shirtless, wearing nothing but an apron—cooking dinner for her. She bragged that he had driven across the entire tri-state area just to deliver a home-cooked meal to her doorstep. “Jade, did you know?” Lexi asked, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Dante told me his top donor is some pathetic, middle-aged woman going through a mid-life crisis. He says she uses every order as an excuse to harass him. Just because she has a little cash, she thinks she owns him.” I felt a coldness settle in my chest. For three years, I had been his silent engine. I bought every product he endorsed, cleared his inventory, and pushed his metrics to the moon. Yet, he never once accepted my friend requests. His only communication was through the platform’s cold, automated system: “New drop live. Go buy.” Even at industry events, he looked through me like I was made of glass. I realized then that he wasn’t a cold person. He was just cold to me. I offered a thin, effortless smile and looked down at my phone. With a few taps, I pulled up the dashboard for the man who had been stuck in second place behind Dante for three years—a creator named Kit. I pushed him to the top of the featured homepage. Then, I sent a single message to a private group chat. Within seconds, three hundred major brand reps responded. The pivot was instantaneous. If Dante found me so embarrassing, I saw no reason to keep his throne warm. … After Lexi finished her little taunt, I didn’t bother replying. I kept my head down, typing into the group chat: Cancel Dante’s ten-million-dollar contract. Reallocate the budget. The chat went silent for three seconds. Then: Who’s the replacement? I scrolled through the platform until I found a familiar face. Kit. He’d been in the industry for a decade. For the first seven years, he and Dante had been neck-and-neck. Then, three years ago, Dante met me. Kit had spent the last three years being suffocated by Dante’s shadow—a shadow I had cast. I had met Kit once. It was at a gala where someone had accidentally spilled red wine down my dress. I had instinctively looked to Dante for help, but he had jerked his head away, pretending to be deep in conversation with a CEO. It was Kit who had stepped in. He politely asked if I needed assistance, led me to a private suite to change, and then stood guard outside the door for twenty minutes to ensure my privacy. That night, I rewarded him by fast-tracking a contract for him. When Dante found out, he blocked my number for two weeks. Thinking of that now, I typed: Give it to Kit. The chat exploded. Notifications blurred past, but I put the phone away. The dinner continued. Dante, who was always stoic and unreadable with me, was currently making my father roar with laughter. Lexi playfully tugged at his sleeve, and he caught her hand, giving her a look so full of adoration it turned my stomach. Lexi shot me a triumphant look. “I heard you and Dante were acquainted, Jade. Why are you so quiet?” Dante’s expression turned to stone. He didn’t even glance my way. “I don’t know her,” he said flatly. Three years. A million dollars. And I didn’t even warrant a “hello.” I said nothing, stood up, and walked to the restroom. When I came out, Dante was waiting in the hallway. His brow was furrowed in disgust. “If you continue to stalk me like this, I’m calling the police,” he snapped. I almost laughed. “This is my house, Dante.” “It’s Lexi’s house,” he countered, cutting me off. “She told me everything. How your mother stole another woman’s husband and occupied the position of ‘Mrs. Summer’ for twenty years. If she hadn’t died early, Lexi wouldn’t have even been allowed to reclaim her rightful name.” He stepped closer, his eyes threatening. “I’ll let it slide this time. But if there’s a next time…” He brushed past me, his pace quick, as if he were afraid my “desperation” might be contagious. I watched him go, offering no explanation. That evening, Dante posted a status: Saw someone I love today. Feeling great. Going live at 7 PM. I checked the time. It was 6:30. Usually, I’d be in the digital waiting room by now, ready to drop ninety-nine “Grand Finale” gifts to prime the algorithm for him. Dante would always act like he didn’t see the screen-filling effects, never saying a word of thanks. If I commented, he would intentionally reply to the person right above or below me, never me. My assistant sent a text: The deal with Kit is inked. He wants to add you to say thank you personally. I replied ‘Sure’ and went to sleep. A while later, someone started pounding on my bedroom door. Lexi’s voice was shrill. “Jade! What are you doing? Dante is live! Why aren’t you in there supporting him? If he gets angry, don’t come crying to me!” I pulled the door open. “Why should I support him? I don’t even know the man.” She choked on her next word, then sneered. “Fine. Be petty. But don’t regret it later. Dante has a high pride. If you offend him now, it’ll be more than a two-week block.” My heart sank—not for Dante, but at the realization. My history with Dante… she knew everything. When did they start conspiring together? Lexi isn’t blood-related to me or my father. Five years ago, after my mother passed, my father remarried. Lydia brought Lexi into our lives, changed her last name to Summer, and Lexi started playing the part of the “perfect, helpful daughter.” They had tried to wiggle into the family company multiple times, but my father never relented. They thought it was my father holding them back. They didn’t realize the company was founded by my mother, and her shares passed entirely to me. My father didn’t refuse them; he simply didn’t have the authority to say yes. Lexi must have been feeding Dante lies, making him believe the Summer empire belonged to her. I closed the door and checked my phone. I tried to enter Dante’s stream just to see the wreckage, only to find I was blocked again. This time, I didn’t send an apology. I blocked him back. Dante’s fan forums were already tagging me. “Where is the Queen Patron today? Is something wrong?” A familiar avatar popped up in the comments. It was Lexi. “We don’t need her. Let’s show him we can carry the room ourselves!” The fans tried to rally, but the energy was limp. When Dante finally ended his stream, the hashtag #DantesBust started trending. Without my massive opening donations, the major brands hadn’t bothered to show up. He was used to being the king, but he had neglected his community management. Now that I was gone, the house of cards was folding. His peak viewership wasn’t even hitting the numbers of a C-list influencer. While Dante’s fans were begging for my return, I was looking at a message from Kit. He had sent over an exhaustive list of brand partners. His 8 PM “Mega-Drop” was going live with discounts even lower than Dante’s best days. The internet caught fire. Everyone was speculating on who Kit’s new “Angel Investor” was. Meanwhile, Dante’s camp was silent. His team hadn’t even announced a lineup for the night. At 8:00 sharp, I entered Kit’s room and dropped gifts for ten minutes straight. Dante’s team officially canceled his broadcast for the night. I didn’t look back. I watched Kit’s numbers climb to an eye-watering 500,000 concurrent viewers. Kit was different from Dante. Dante used to sit there, bored, letting his assistants do the talking. If he got annoyed, he’d just walk off-camera, and his fans would call it “authentic.” Kit, however, was in the trenches. Before the stream, he had sent me a twenty-seven-thousand-word strategy brief, timed to the minute. The sales ticker started rolling. Thirty million. Fifty million. Eighty million. The moment it crossed a hundred million, the chat went feral. Kit’s eyes turned red. His voice trembled. “Thank you, Jade. Thank you so much…” Three hours later, the stream ended. He was the number one trending topic in the country. I exited the app only to find my DMs exploding. Dante’s fans had invaded. “You shameless bitch. You leave Dante to go hook up with another guy? Where’s your loyalty?” “You were Dante’s top fan. You owe him a handwritten apology on video, or we’re coming for you.” “Disgusting. How many times did you have to sleep with Kit for this?” Someone asked Dante for his take. He posted a brief, chilly response: “Some fans spend a little money and think they own the creator. Honestly, it’s terrifying.” That was the spark. The fans went rabid. “So that woman, Jade Summer, tried to force Dante into a relationship just because she bought some stuff?!” “Gross. She’s giving all women a bad name.” Within an hour, my photos were leaked. They were edited to look like funeral portraits, captioned with slurs like “Old Whore” and “Sugar Mommy.” My phone started ringing incessantly. “I heard your mom is dead. Good. She deserved to die for raising a snake like you!” I gripped the phone, my knuckles white. Despite the harassment, Dante said nothing. He watched the world burn my reputation and didn’t lift a finger. The last flicker of warmth I felt for him died right then. I wasn’t going to play nice anymore. Suddenly, Kit posted to his Twitter and Instagram. “Jade is my most important partner. Anyone who insults her insults me. My success belongs to her, and I won’t tolerate this harassment. If you want to talk shit, come for me.” His fanbase immediately clashed with Dante’s. My legal team already had the cease-and-desist orders ready. I retweeted them and shut off my phone. The moment I walked into the house, Lexi’s voice cut through the air. “Jade! Are you insane? You’re trying to make Dante jealous by doing this? You’ve lost it!” She practically shoved her phone into my face. “Who gave you permission to send Dante a legal threat? Do you have any idea what this does to his reputation?” “Withdraw it now. Publicly apologize to him. Say you were out of your mind and promise to triple your donations next time he goes live!” I didn’t hesitate. I slapped her hand away from my face. “Are you done telling me how to run my business?” A flash of pure hatred crossed Lexi’s face, but she shrank back. I went upstairs and checked the metrics. It had been a good night. Kit had gained 400,000 followers, and the engagement was off the charts. A Tier-1 luxury brand had already reached out—they wanted to host their new product launch exclusively in Kit’s studio. As the owner of the media firm, I scheduled a meeting for both parties to sign the contracts at my office the next morning. The next day, I arrived to find two uninvited guests in my lobby. Lexi smirked at me. “Jade, I brought Dante here. Just apologize to him. For my sake, he’ll forgive you, and we can put this ugly mess behind us.” Dante didn’t look at me. He was sipping a coffee, chin tilted up, waiting for me to come crawling over. I was exhausted by the delusion. Before I could speak, Lexi’s eyes snagged the folder in my hand. She snatched it. Her eyes lit up. “Oh, I see! You were playing the long game. Using Kit to create a buzz, just so you could hand this luxury contract to Dante as a ‘peace offering.’ Clever.” Dante’s expression softened. He took the contract and signed his name in a sweeping, arrogant scrawl before I could even process the theft. Then, he tossed the folder at my chest. He chuckled darkly. “I’m taking this contract because I’m the best, not because you gave it to me,” he said. “Don’t get it twisted. And don’t try this pathetic ‘jealousy’ stunt again. It’s beneath you.” I frowned. “That contract wasn’t for you.” Dante looked at me with pure condescension. “Jade, you got my attention. You won. But don’t push your luck.” Lexi chimed in, “Seriously, Jade, stop the act. You’re obsessed with him. You can’t breathe without Dante. If he actually walked away, you’d crumble. Just be grateful he’s giving you another chance.” I had once liked Dante. I had built him up because I admired his talent, and yes, his market value was high. But “couldn’t breathe”? Please. Dante stood up to leave. “I don’t need an apology from someone who doesn’t matter,” he said over his shoulder. Lexi shot me a smug look. “I’ll talk him down for you, Jade. He listens to me.” After they left, I called my legal team to void the signature and draft a fresh copy. As the broadcast time approached, Kit messaged me, sounding panicked. “Jade, I… am I supposed to be co-hosting the launch with Dante?” I went to Dante’s page. He had posted a promotional poster: Exclusive Luxury Launch. Tonight at 8 PM. I sighed and sent him a private message: That contract wasn’t for you. It’s a legal violation. Take the post down now. He didn’t reply privately. He screenshotted my message and posted it to his millions of followers, tagging me. “Just because I chose your sister over you, you’re trying to sabotage my career? You’re the daughter of a mistress, Jade. You owe Lexi everything. Have some dignity.” The internet exploded. “A mistress’s daughter? That explains everything.” “Spending the family’s money on a man who hates her. Pathetic.” Lexi followed up with a post of her own: “The past is the past. My mother and I just want peace. Please don’t dig into the family drama. Thank you for the love.” She attached a “family” photo: her, my father, and her mother. I was nowhere to be seen. The comments hailed her as a saint. Lexi called me, gloating. “Jade, you should probably go into hiding for a few days. People are looking for you. Dante is going to address everything tonight on his stream. Don’t watch—it’ll only hurt your feelings.” I hung up without a word. Shortly after, Kit’s official account announced the luxury pre-sale. The public was confused. “Who’s doing the drop? Kit or Dante?” “Are they co-streaming? No way, they’re rivals.” “Who actually signed the deal?” The brand’s official account settled it. They tagged Kit: “Thrilled to announce our exclusive partner for the new collection, @Kit. See you at 8 PM.” Then, a second post, tagging Dante: “Regarding the unauthorized use of our brand name for promotion: this is a formal notice of trademark infringement. Remove all related materials immediately or face legal action.” My phone began to vibrate violently. It was Dante. When I picked up, his voice was a low, vibrating growl of suppressed rage. “Jade Summer. Have you had enough yet?”

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When I opened my eyes again, the world was swimming in the harsh, fluorescent light of my high school hallway. My sister was laughing, her hand wrapped tightly around a boy’s wrist as she dragged him toward me to make the introduction. “This is the guy I picked out for you,” she said, her eyes glittering with a manic, almost eerie enthusiasm. Gia and I had always viewed love from opposite sides of a fault line. She believed romance was supposed to be a wildfire. To her, a relationship wasn’t real unless it was loud and destructive. In our previous life, for the sake of that blazing, chaotic love, she had endured abortions, threatened to throw herself off balconies, and watched her lovers take literal punches and hospital stints for her. Yet, when the smoke finally cleared, she was always left standing entirely alone. I, on the other hand, had always craved the quiet, steady hum of a slow-burning companionship. I had chosen a man who looked like solid ground. We built a life together, had children, and lived what the rest of the world saw as a picture-perfect, suburban dream. That is, until my deathbed. It was there, in the quiet sterile hum of the hospice room, that my husband shattered the illusion of my entire existence with a voice as cold as winter rain. He told me our life together had been suffocating. He told me he only married me to fulfill a promise he’d made to Gia. Every milestone, every quiet evening, every vow—it had all been orchestrated by my sister. He begged me to let him go in the next life. He begged for the chance to finally live for himself, to chase the intoxicating, reckless love he had actually wanted all along. The decades of mutual support, the quiet devotion I thought we shared—it was nothing but a calculated compromise. It was a lie, spun from Gia’s fingertips. 1. Gia and I were only a year apart in age. Because it was easier for my parents, they started me in kindergarten a year early so we could be in the same grade. Though we shared the same blood, Gia got all the light. She was a striking mosaic of our parents’ best features. I was just plain. My only redeeming quality was the quiet, sharp machinery of my brain. Gia pulled boys into her orbit like gravity. In elementary school, boys shoved each other into the dirt just to sit next to her at lunch. In middle school, I was practically a courier service for the love notes and pastries left at her locker. By high school, boys were literally doing her homework just for the chance to breathe the same air. I was just the unremarkable bookworm standing in her shadow, flanked by a small circle of equally invisible friends. Perhaps that was why our views on love fractured so violently. She needed the drama. She thrived on it. In the life before this one, Gia’s pursuit of that epic romance destroyed her. She ran through toxic boyfriends, terminated pregnancies, and let the stress and heartbreak physically hollow her out. By the time she was diagnosed with cancer in her early forties, she was a ghost of her former self. I remember visiting her in the oncology ward. The room smelled of bleach and wilting flowers. I asked her if she regretted it. Her face was gaunt, but she managed a weak, beautiful smile. “No regrets. I’d do it all exactly the same. My only heartbreak is that I didn’t leave him a child to remember me by. He sacrificed so much for me.” At the time, I had just shaken my head, unable to comprehend that level of romantic delusion. In that same past life, I had chosen the safe harbor. I chose Simon, a friend Gia had introduced me to when we were young. Simon was respectful. He was family-oriented. We raised two children and lived a life wrapped in beige, comfortable predictability. Until the very end. As I lay dying, my husband held my frail hand, and I leaned in to catch his final words to me. “Jo, my life has been so incredibly dull,” he whispered, his grip entirely devoid of warmth. “I did it all to keep my promise to your sister. I followed every script she wrote for me. Including you.” “In the next life, I want to chase real love. Even if it ruins me, at least I’ll know I’m alive. Jo… please, just let me go.” My dying body went rigid. I stared at the man sitting by my bed, the man I had shared a home, a bed, and a lifetime with, realizing I had never known him at all. What I thought was a quiet, happy life had been his prison sentence. It suddenly made agonizing sense. The lack of physical touch. The way conception felt like a clinical appointment rather than making love. The way he eventually moved into the guest room, citing my “light sleeping habits” as an excuse. We had no inside jokes, no sweeping romantic anniversaries, no late-night whispered confessions. We just had the grocery list and the mortgage. I had convinced myself that true marital happiness was found in that calm. I didn’t realize it was just the silence of a man who had never loved me. With a few whispered words, Simon erased my entire existence. And now, I was blinking against the harsh school lights, staring at Gia’s glowing face as she pulled a teenage Simon toward me. “Jo, this is Simon,” she said, practically vibrating with excitement. “He’s one of my best guys. Totally loyal.” She leaned in, her breath hot against my ear, and whispered, “He literally wrote all my AP English essays last semester. If it weren’t for him, that psycho teacher would have flunked me.” 2. The air trapped itself in my throat. I slowly lifted my gaze to meet Simon’s. Gia had literally told me from day one. She had handed me the truth on a silver platter: Simon was the obsessed boy who did her homework. In my past life, I had been naive enough to believe they were just “best guys.” Gia had always kept a strict, invisible boundary between her platonic male friends and her romantic targets, so I never questioned it. But watching him now, the truth was blinding. The way Simon looked at Gia—it was a burning, suffocating heat. It had always been there. I had been so terribly blind. I had wasted his life, and I had condemned myself to decades of a loveless marriage. When I didn’t say anything, Gia nudged me and looked at Simon. “Simon, this is Jo. My little sister. She’s a bit of an introvert, but she’s a total genius, just like you. Keep an eye out for her, yeah?” Simon gave me a polite, incredibly stiff nod. “Nice to meet you.” He was wearing thick, dark-rimmed glasses, his dark hair falling slightly over his eyebrows. He rarely smiled. Gia used to joke that he was just the male version of me. Now, I understood the brutal reality of the world. Like repels like; opposites attract. A man as quiet and brooding as Simon would only ever be drawn to a girl as blinding and chaotic as my sister. This time, I didn’t extend my hand. I just gave him a cool, detached look. “Hey.” He flinched slightly and immediately averted his eyes. In that microsecond, I knew. He remembered too. He had been reborn. Over the next few days, Gia constantly tried to push us together. At lunch, she dragged me into the cafeteria with her arm slung over my shoulder. Simon was already sitting at a table, three bowls of soup waiting. As I sat down, he and I simultaneously looked away from each other. Right there, over the plastic cafeteria table, I drew the line. “Gia,” I said, my voice steady. “I need to focus entirely on college apps. I don’t have time for dating or any of this setup nonsense.” Gia rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “Oh, come on. You’re really turning down Simon? If you keep your standards this high, you’re gonna end up a crazy cat lady.” “If romance is off the table, you guys can still be friends,” she pushed. I didn’t answer. I reached for my spoon, intent on just eating and getting out of there. But as I glanced down, I froze. Simon was meticulously using his chopsticks to pick every single piece of cilantro out of Gia’s bowl. He remembered that Gia hated the taste of cilantro. But he had completely forgotten that I was deathly allergic to it. My own bowl was full of it. Suddenly, the whole situation just felt deeply, profoundly pathetic. I set my spoon down. “Sorry. I have a quiz to study for. I’m going to the library.” As I stood up to leave, I caught sight of Gia throwing her arm around Simon’s neck, pulling him laughing against her shoulder. “Don’t mind Jo! She’s always like that. More food for us!” A week later, the school handed out the schedule request forms for our junior year. We had to declare our primary tracks—whether we were pushing toward STEM or Humanities. In my past life, Simon and Gia both chose the AP Humanities track. Gia chose it because she was terrible at math; Simon chose it just to stay close to Gia. Back then, I had desperately wanted to stay with them. I abandoned my top-tier rankings in physics and calculus and forced myself into AP Literature and History. At first, Simon would tutor both of us. But then Gia got caught up in a massive, school-wide scandal over a reckless romance, got suspended, and dropped out of the study group entirely. Immediately after, Simon told me he was “too busy” to tutor me anymore. Looking back, he was just mourning the loss of the girl he actually wanted. He had no reason to spend time with me without her there. I had spent my high school years destroying my sleep schedule, studying until 2 AM every night, just trying to keep up with him in classes I hated. Gia’s grades had tanked, and our parents eventually panicked and enrolled her in a private performing arts conservatory just to make sure she got into some kind of college. When the college acceptance letters arrived in that past life, Simon had finally asked me out. I was thrilled. When he found out Gia and I were moving to the same city for college, he immediately committed to my university, taking a different major just to be near us. This time, history was trying to repeat itself. Gia dragged Simon to my locker during passing period. “Jo! What track are you picking?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the white-out on Simon’s form. He had originally checked the STEM boxes, but he had erased them to check Humanities. This time, I didn’t even blink. “STEM,” I said. “All AP Sciences.” 3. A memory surfaced from my past life. I was sitting in my mother-in-law’s kitchen. She was laughing, telling me how shocked they were when Simon chose the Humanities track in high school. He had always been brilliant at math, and they wanted him to go into engineering or finance. He wasn’t naturally gifted at writing or history. He had to bleed over his textbooks to get the grades needed for a good university. His parents only gave in when he promised he would go to law school and pass the bar. His mother had smiled at me over her teacup, her tone teasing. “You know, looking back, I bet the only reason that stubborn boy forced himself through those writing classes was because of you, Jo.” Gia had been sitting at the table with us, immediately chiming in. “Right? Simon was playing the long game! He’s been in love with our Jo since we were kids. What a romantic.” Simon had turned crimson and snapped at his mother to drop it. I had blushed furiously, staring down at my lap, assuming he was just shy. Now, the memory made me sick to my stomach. He wasn’t blushing out of shyness. He was terrified Gia would realize the truth. He snapped at his mother to protect his secret obsession. The signs had been there, painted on the walls of my entire life, and I had simply chosen to paint over them. “Aw, that sucks!” Gia whined, pulling me out of the memory. “Simon and I are doing the Humanities track. We won’t have any classes together.” I glanced at Simon, keeping my tone entirely conversational. “It’s fine. We weren’t in the same classes before anyway. I’m not going to sabotage my college prospects just to hang out with you guys.” Gia opened her mouth to argue, but a voice called out from down the hall. It was a senior boy. Damon. The man who, in my past life, would become Gia’s deeply toxic, on-again-off-again obsession for the next twenty years. As Gia ran off toward Damon, I watched Simon’s eyes darken. The mask slipped for a second, revealing a raw, ugly jealousy before he turned and walked away. That afternoon, I went to fill my water bottle at the fountains near the gym. Simon was waiting for me. He stepped into my path, effectively cornering me. “Jo, we need to talk. Come here.” I raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it here.” He grabbed my arm, pulling me into an empty classroom, and shut the door. He didn’t waste time. “I know you remember too,” he said, his voice low. “But you don’t need to push me away like this.” I stared at him, genuinely baffled by his audacity. “What do you expect me to do? If you’re in love with my sister, then grow a spine and pursue her. Stay away from me.” I turned for the door, but he lunged, slamming his hand against the wood by my head, trapping me. “Yes, the woman I love is Gia,” he said, his breathing shallow. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. We lived together for decades. We had children together, Jo. We’re family.” “Just take the Humanities track. We can all be in the same classes. I can look out for both of you. If you go into the upper-level math and physics classes, you’re going to be surrounded by guys, and I won’t be able to keep an eye on you.”

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The moment I stood on the edge of the rooftop, ready to let the wind take me, a ledger crystallized in my mind. Cold. Precise. Irrefutable. It whispered a truth I hadn’t been able to see: I was nothing more than a “disposable muse”—the tragic, short-lived “pure heart” in some twisted redemption arc. And my boyfriend, Grayson? He wasn’t the struggling student he pretended to be. He was the crown prince of a Manhattan real estate empire, a man who could buy and sell the very building I was standing on. For four years, he had played the role of the starving artist, watching me get bullied and overworked with a detached, chilling silence. As it turned out, my suffering was merely his “test.” The most sickening part? According to the script of his life, after my death, he would reclaim his throne and unleash a wave of “vengeful” grief. He’d probably light a hundred-dollar bill at my grave, sighing about how I was the only girl who ever loved him for his soul and not his billions. But the reality? For those four years, I was his benefactor. He ate, slept, and breathed on my dime. Even that five-figure designer watch on his wrist was something I’d bought by maxing out three different credit cards. I didn’t jump. I stepped back from the ledge. I walked down those stairs, found him in the middle of the crowded quad, and slammed a stack of itemized bills—years of accumulated debt—right into his face. “Hey, Grayson. It’s time to settle up. Fifty thousand dollars. I want every cent.” 01 The spreadsheets, crisp and cold, fluttered against his face before hitting the pavement. Grayson’s expression darkened instantly. “Nina, haven’t you had enough of this tantrum?” He reached out to grab my wrist, but I wrenched it away with a force that surprised even me. My skin burned where he’d touched it. “Nina, honey, don’t be like this. If it’s about money, we can talk,” Isabelle stepped forward, her hand sliding possessively into the crook of Grayson’s arm. She looked at me with that pitying, “bless your heart” smile she always used for the help. “Grayson didn’t mean to hurt you.” I laughed. My eyes landed on the limited-edition jacket she was wearing. Grayson had told me it was a birthday gift for her. A “high-end knockoff,” he’d called it. Coincidentally, he’d taken five thousand dollars from me last month. Claimed it was a “family emergency.” “That jacket he bought you last month? I’m pretty sure I paid for that too,” I said, my voice cutting through the humid afternoon air. “Tell him to pay me back for that, as well.” The smile on Isabelle’s face cracked, piece by piece. “What are you talking about?” “Nina, you’ve lost it!” one of Grayson’s hangers-on shouted, stepping into my personal space. “You think a guy like Grayson needs your money?” “Exactly! You got dumped, so now you’re throwing dirt? It’s pathetic,” another chimed in. They circled me like vultures, their faces full of righteous indignation. To them, I was the gold-digger. The jealous ex. The girl who couldn’t handle being told no. I turned to the first one. “Caleb.” “Last week, you bought that new gaming rig. You asked Grayson for five hundred. He told you he was broke and took my card to pay for it.” I pivoted to the next one. “Brooks. Two nights ago at The Onyx. You put a two-thousand-dollar tab on a card Grayson said was his. Want me to pull up the bank statement for the group?” The quad went silent. Only the rustle of the wind and the hushed whispers of the gathering crowd remained. Grayson stared at me, his eyes twin pits of ice. “Nina, four years of everything we shared… and all you see is money?” What a performance. If it weren’t for that ledger burning in my brain, I might have actually believed him. “Yes,” I replied. “Our ‘love’ has a price tag now.” I pulled out my phone, opened the calculator app, and shoved the staggering total in his face. “Fifty thousand. Not a penny less. Venmo? Zelle? Or do you need to ask your daddy for an advance?” The murmurs grew louder. Dozens of phones were out, lenses trained on us. “Holy shit, check the school’s Sidechat!” “It’s going viral! The architecture prodigy has been ‘charity-funding’ the secret billionaire heir for four years?” “Billionaire? Which one?” Just then, a black Maybach glided silently to the curb. The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a sharp charcoal suit and white gloves stepped out. He ignored everyone, walked straight to Grayson, and opened a black silk umbrella over his head. He bowed slightly. “Mr. Grayson, your father expects you home.” Grayson straightened his collar, smoothing out the wrinkles where I’d grabbed him. He looked at me, and for a second, the mask of the “struggling artist” was gone. “Nina,” he said, his voice flat and terrifyingly calm. “The game is over.” 02 Back in the dorm, I couldn’t stop shaking. “Nina!” Paige jumped down from her loft bed and threw her arms around me. “That was legendary! I’m staying up all night to help you draft the legal notice.” We started organizing the folder. It was a museum of his lies. October 2020: Designer sneakers, $1,200. March 2021: Isabelle’s birthday party at ‘The Onyx,’ $4,500. September 2021: Art gallery rental fees, $8,000. My phone lit up. Grayson. [You have twenty-four hours to take down those posts on the forum, or there will be consequences. Don’t test me.] I screenshotted it and sent it to Paige. “Perfect. Direct evidence of a threat. He’s just adding time to his own sentence.” Paige told me to block his entire circle. I was about to, but Isabelle’s name flashed on the screen. I hit speakerphone. “Nina, please…” her voice was weak, trembling with fake tears. “Just delete the post, okay? Grayson loves you. This was just… a test. He was going to propose after graduation. He already had the ring picked out…” I almost choked on a laugh. Paige was typing furiously, but she didn’t miss a beat. “Isabelle, are you paying the fifty grand? No? Then shut up and hang up.” “I’m trying to help Nina!” Isabelle’s voice spiked. “You have no idea what his family is capable of. Nina is going to get hurt! You can’t win against them. Is the money really worth ruining your life?” Before I could answer, a notification popped up from an anonymous group chat on the university forum. It was a leak of the group chat Grayson’s friends used. Brooks: [Holy shit, Nina is actually going nuclear? Crazy bitch.] Caleb: [She really thinks she’s special? Grayson was just slumming it. She’s just a broke architecture student with no connections.] Brooks: [For real. Grayson letting her hang around for four years was charity. Now she wants a payout? Hilarious.] And then, a reply from Isabelle. A “shy” emoji followed by: [Aww, don’t be mean guys. Nina is actually kind of pitiful.] I remembered the night of Grayson’s gallery opening. Isabelle was wearing a gown I’d paid for, smiling at him while they toasted his “genius.” I was in the corner, sallow-faced from pulling double shifts at the cafe, getting mocked by his friends for my “cheap” clothes. Grayson hadn’t defended me. He’d told me to go back to the dorm early so I wouldn’t “embarrass” him. “Nina?” Paige broke my trance. I hung up on Isabelle. I found Grayson’s contact. Block. Delete. One by one, I scrubbed his friends from my life. Ding. A message from an unknown number. [Ms. Nina, I am Grayson’s mother. Regarding the… misunderstandings between you and my son, I believe we should talk. Name your price. Fifty thousand? I’ll give you seventy-five to end this. Delete the posts and disappear.] I stared at the screen for a long time. I handed it to Paige. She read it and let out a sharp, dry laugh. “Nina, the accounting has just begun. Don’t worry. With me on your side, we’re going to discuss the interest on this debt.” 03 The next morning, my advisor called me into her office. She pushed a cup of lukewarm tea toward me. “Nina, your recent behavior has been… erratic. People are concerned about your mental state. Perhaps you should take a leave of absence? Just to get your head straight?” I started to speak, but a knock at the door cut me off. Isabelle walked in, carrying an expensive-looking fruit basket. “Professor, I just wanted to check on Nina. She’s been so volatile lately. I’m worried she might do something desperate.” She turned to me, eyes brimming with tears. “Nina, I know you’re hurting, but you can’t keep lashing out at Grayson like this. Just delete the post. We’ll find a way to handle the money, I promise.” The advisor nodded in agreement. They were playing “good cop, bad cop” with practiced ease. When I refused to budge, the advisor’s tone shifted from “concerned” to “impatient.” Every time I tried to argue, they talked over me. So this was what Grayson’s mother meant by “ending this.” Seventy-five thousand dollars to buy my silence, my exit, and a “mentally unstable” label to follow me for life. Suddenly, the office door was shoved open with a loud bang. Paige stood there, followed by a very grim-looking Dean of Students. She slammed her phone onto the desk. Grayson’s text was on the screen: [You have twenty-four hours… or there will be consequences.] Paige tapped the screen again. An audio file began to play. It was Isabelle’s voice from the group chat: “Aww, don’t be mean guys. Nina is actually kind of pitiful.” Then, a different recording. A private voice note: “It’s disgusting how broke she looks. Did she really think Grayson liked her? She’s just a walking ATM. My mom already talked to the advisor—she’s getting kicked out today. Who does she think she is, trying to take down a family like ours?” The fruit basket slipped from Isabelle’s hand, apples and oranges rolling across the floor. The advisor froze, her lips trembling, unable to find a single word. Paige tucked her phone away. “The evidence we’ve gathered is enough to prove that my client, Nina, is being subjected to premeditated, organized harassment and psychological coercion. And considering your role in this, Professor, we’ll be reserving the right to pursue legal action against you personally.” For the first time, I felt the true power of using the rules as a weapon. As we left the office, the Dean called out to me. He looked at Paige, then at me, his expression complicated. “The Grayson family… they have deep roots in this city, Nina. This isn’t going to end easily.” 04 Within ten minutes of leaving the office, the university forum had a new pinned post in bright red. EXPOSED: Architecture Student Nina Accused of Extorting Ex-Boyfriend for $50k After Being Dumped! The post was a work of fiction. It painted me as a calculating social climber who had drained Grayson’s “modest” savings and was now lashing out because he couldn’t satisfy my greed. It framed Grayson as the victim—a guy blinded by love, who gave me everything only to be betrayed. The comments were a cesspool. [I knew it. Grayson is way too hot for her. He was definitely doing her a favor.] [Fifty thousand? Who does she think she is? A Kardashian?] [This girl is toxic. Cancel her.] Paige grabbed my phone, her face a mask of cold fury as she scrolled. Isabelle’s “mean girls” squad had joined the fray. They posted photos of me from freshman and sophomore year—wearing faded T-shirts, eating ramen in the library, pulling all-nighters in the studio with messy hair. I looked plain. Tired. Average. The caption: [Some people have been planning the ‘victim’ act since day one. Look at the ‘innocent’ act. The real Nina is the one screaming for cash now.] Paige handed the phone back. “It’s time.” She logged into my account and hit ‘post.’ Subject: Four Years, Fifty Thousand Dollars. The Ledger of a ‘Charity Case.’ The post contained a single, massive image: an Excel spreadsheet. It was an endless, meticulously detailed scroll. Date. Item. Amount. Payment Method. Notes. From fifty-dollar skins for his video games to five-hundred-dollar “boys’ dinners” to thousand-dollar tech upgrades. And behind every single entry was a screenshot of a text message. Grayson begging, wheedling, or simply demanding. The evidence of my “sweet burden” was now the evidence of his parasitic nature. At the very bottom was the watch. $12,000. Next to it was the credit card statement, and the subsequent “overdue” notices from the bank. The forum went dead silent for three seconds. Then, it exploded. The narrative didn’t just shift; it was obliterated. [Holy… my eyes… This isn’t charity. This is a scam.] [Four years? He sucked her dry.] [I take it back. Nina isn’t an ex; she’s a saint. Most tragic partner of the year.] [I’m gonna puke. Isabelle is wearing gifts bought with another girl’s credit card debt?] I watched the comments roll in, and for the first time in years, I felt a strange, hollow peace. 05 Apologies and messages of support flooded my DMs. I felt like I could finally see the light. Until a high-pitched roar of an Aston Martin engine tore through the quiet of the dorm parking lot. The light died. Grayson stepped out of the car. He was wearing a bespoke suit, looking every bit the billionaire heir—a world away from the guy in the “thrifted” tees I’d loved. The crowd of students parted for him like the Red Sea. He walked up to me, pulled a black card from his wallet, and tossed it at my feet. “A hundred thousand. Is that enough?” He looked down at me as if I were an ant he’d accidentally stepped on. “Nina, stop embarrassing yourself.” I smiled. My phone was already recording, the red light blinking silently. “So, the last four years… it was all an act?” His handsome face finally showed something other than boredom: annoyance. “It was a test, Nina. One you failed.” “I was too good to you. I let you forget your place. I gave you a thousand chances. If you’d just stayed quiet, stayed humble, we could have actually made it.” “I even thought that if you passed the final test, I’d tell you everything. I’d bring you to the estate. I’d let you marry into the family.” He spoke as if he were granting me a divine blessing. The crowd began to whisper. The eyes that had just pitied me were now filled with a sickening envy. “A test?” I repeated, stepping forward until my shoe touched the black card. “When I stayed up all night drawing blueprints so I could split my scholarship money with you, was that a test?” “When I worked three jobs to buy you that phone and my hands were literally peeling from the industrial soap in the kitchen, was that a test?” “When I was eating plain bread for a week because my card was maxed out, and you were taking Isabelle to a two-hundred-dollar-a-seat musical using my money—was that a test too?” With every question, his face grew more twisted. He had no answer. His patience snapped. He waved a hand dismissively. “Enough! Nina, stop obsessing over these petty details! It was a game. You lost.” I tucked my phone away and turned my back on him. I didn’t look back. I sent the video to Paige. Five minutes later, the hashtag #TrustFundPrinceTestsGirlfriend hit the top of the trending charts.

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The engagement party had finally begun to wind down, the heavy scent of lilies and expensive perfume hanging in the stagnant air of the ballroom. We had just taken our seats at the head table—my family, the man I was supposed to spend my life with, and his parents. Then, he did it. Without a word, he reached for a plate in the center of the table and grabbed one of the signature honey-glazed wings—the Whitaker family’s pride, a recipe that had built our restaurant empire. He started eating it. Not just eating it, but devouring it with a feral, mindless speed that made my stomach turn. I froze, a chill crawling up my spine. “Oliver,” I whispered, my voice tight. “Why are you eating the wings?” He didn’t even look up, wiping a smear of glaze from his chin with the back of his hand. He sounded bored, dismissive. “They’re just wings, Norah. My family eats what we want. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. The noise of the ballroom—the clinking of crystal, the polite laughter of three hundred guests—faded into a dull hum. I felt a sudden, terrifying clarity. “The engagement is off,” I said, my voice ringing out across the table. “Right now.” … The man I knew as Oliver Donovan froze. The half-eaten wing hovered in mid-air, a gruesome little trophy. He blinked, finally sensing the shift in the atmosphere. He dropped the wing back onto the fine china and shifted into that persona he’d used since we were kids—the one that always worked. “Norah, honey, come on. I’ve been up since five this morning. I’m starving. Is this some weird Whitaker family tradition I missed? You never told me I had to ask permission to eat an appetizer.” I didn’t answer immediately. I looked down at the mangled piece of poultry on his plate, then back up at him. I was looking for a ghost. “Why,” I asked, my voice eerily calm, “did you choose to eat that?” He laughed, a nervous, jagged sound, and reached for my arm. I flinched away. “I told you! I’m hungry. It’s just a wing! Is there a law against it?” I pulled my hand back and rested it in my lap, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Oliver, I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you sure you’re allowed to eat that?” The smile on his face curdled. He looked toward my mother, sitting to my left, and reached for her hand with a performative whine. “Diane! Please, tell Norah she’s being ridiculous. It’s a wing. She’s acting like I just insulted the family crest. Do I really not ‘deserve’ to eat at my own engagement party?” My parents had treated Oliver like a son since the day he was born. Our families were old money, old friends; they doted on him, blinded by decades of shared history. My mother reached over and patted his head, her eyes softening. “It’s just a wing, sweetheart. Of course you deserve it. The Whitaker Grill is practically yours now, anyway. If you love them that much, I’ll have the chef send a crate of them to your house tomorrow.” He shot me a triumphant, smug look. I felt a pang of nausea. “You really don’t know, do you?” His patience snapped. He stood up, walked toward the buffet line, grabbed another wing, and literally tossed it into my lap. “You want one, Norah? Is that what this is? You’re throwing a tantrum because you wanted the last one? I knew the Whitaker wings were exclusive, but this is insane. I told the kitchen to make extra just for us!” His mother, Mrs. Donovan, rushed to his side, rubbing his shoulder as if he were the one being bullied. Before I could speak, she turned her venom on me. “Is this a power play, Norah? Are you trying to humiliate my son on his big day? Is the Whitaker family so bankrupt that you’re rationing food now? I won’t have Oliver treated this way!” My mother’s face hardened. She looked at me with a mixture of embarrassment and fury. “Norah Whitaker, stop this! You are making a scene over a piece of chicken. You’re being a spoiled brat. Apologize to Oliver right now!” Oliver stood there, his face flushed red, looking like the victim of a grand injustice. I looked at him, then at the sea of faces in the ballroom. With a slow, deliberate motion, I stood up and shoved the table. It didn’t flip, but the screech of wood on marble was like a gunshot. “Fine,” I said, the words tasting like copper. “It’s about the wing. And because of it, I’m done. There is no wedding.” The room exploded. The hushed whispers of the elite turned into a roar. “Did she just dump him over an appetizer?” “I bet she has someone else. She’s just looking for an excuse.” The whispers were like thorns. Oliver rushed toward me, trying to grab my hands, his eyes welling with tears. “Norah, please! Don’t do this! I won’t eat them again, I swear! We were going to grow old together. Don’t you remember our promises?” I pushed him back with a force that surprised even me. “Grow old with you? I’d rather die. You don’t deserve to stand where he stood.” The room went silent. Just for a second. Then the chaos doubled. My father, who had been silent until now, surged to his feet. His face was a dangerous shade of purple. “Norah! What is wrong with you? We aren’t the kind of family that fights over food! Get a grip on yourself!” Oliver started to sob—real, heavy tears. He reached for me again, and I stepped back as if he were a leper. “Keep your hands off me, Oliver. Or whoever you are. This engagement is over because you aren’t fit to be my husband. You aren’t fit to be in this room.” Mr. Donovan slammed his fist onto the table. “My son has given you years of his life! You’re going to throw it away over a snack? Are you even human?” Oliver turned to my mother, clutching her sleeve like a child. “Diane, you know how hard I worked on this party. I was just hungry. What did I do wrong?” My mother’s heart shattered for him. She shielded him behind her, glaring at me. “Norah, enough. You’ve wanted this since you were a little girl. You finally got your dream, and now you’re destroying it over nothing. Stop acting out!” I pulled out a chair and sat down, crossing my legs, looking at him with pure, unadulterated coldness. “The fact that you don’t even know what you did wrong is the funniest part of this whole pathetic charade,” I said. Then, to my mother: “I did want to marry Oliver. But I don’t want to marry this.” Oliver dropped to his knees in front of my mother. “I don’t understand! Why can’t I eat a wing? Why is she doing this to me today?” Mrs. Donovan was dabbing her eyes with a silk handkerchief. “We have never let our son be treated like this. If this is how the Whitakers behave, Norah, then maybe there shouldn’t be a wedding!” Oliver panicked. He scrambled up and tried to lean his head on my shoulder, his voice a desperate whisper. “Norah, stop playing. I love you. I want to marry you.” I stood up so fast he stumbled, falling onto the floor. I looked down at him. “In your dreams. Get out of my sight.” I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me—cold, sharp, and stripped of the whining. “You walk out that door, Norah, and those photos go public.” He stood up, brushing the dust off his tuxedo, his eyes narrowing. “I have the private shots from your bedroom, Norah. You really want the world to see those?” My mother froze. She rushed over to him, her face pale. “Oliver, sweetheart, don’t say that. We’ll fix this. Norah, apologize!” The crowd gasped. “Private photos? Oh, she’s finished.” “Poor Oliver, pushed to the brink by that ice queen.” I felt a surge of rage, but I suppressed it. I looked at his face. If he had photos, they had to be old. Very old. “What photos?” I asked, my voice light. “When did you take them?” He saw me “soften” and let out a breath of relief. He patted his pocket. “That night you were wasted… I wanted to save them as a surprise for tonight, but you forced my hand.” I took a deep breath. “There won’t be a surprise. Delete them now, or I’ll make sure you never walk again.” Oliver’s face went white. He started shaking, pointing a finger at me. “How can you be so heartless? I kept those because I loved you! They were my most precious memories, and you treat them like trash!” My mother snapped. She marched over to me and delivered a slap that echoed through the entire ballroom. My head snapped to the side. “Norah Whitaker, that is enough! You started a fight over a wing, and now you’re attacking him for wanting to keep memories of you? Apologize!” I held my cheek. It didn’t hurt. Not compared to the hollow ache in my chest. I just laughed. “You want me to apologize to this blackmailer? Never. I will never marry you. Do your worst.” Mr. Donovan stepped forward. “Norah, you have dragged our name through the mud today. You will get on your knees and apologize to my son, or those photos will be on every news site by midnight.” Oliver looked shaken, as if he hadn’t expected his father to go that far, but he didn’t stop him. Then my father moved. He grabbed my collar and shoved me, his voice a low growl. “If you want to stay a Whitaker, you kneel. If those photos get out, you’re dead to this family. Don’t think for a second we’ll protect you.” I wiped a streak of blood from my lip. “I’m not afraid of him.” Oliver screamed at me then, his voice cracking. “Norah! You’re forcing me to do this! I know why you’re doing this! It’s him, isn’t it?” He paused, then switched back to that pathetic, hurt expression. “Norah, don’t be stupid. Cut ties with that… that spa boy. That towel boy you’ve been seeing behind my back.” I froze. My mind went blank for a second. My mother went nuclear. She surged forward, shielding Oliver again. “You’re seeing a masseur? A towel boy? So this isn’t about food at all! You’re just trying to cheat your way out of a marriage to a good man!” Suddenly, the doors burst open. A swarm of paparazzi, tipped off by someone, flooded in, flashes strobing like lightning. The Whitaker Heiress and the Spa Boy. It was the scandal of the decade. I frowned, realizing the trap was closing. They thought they had me. They thought they could break me. “So what if I like the towel boy?” I yelled over the cameras. “He’s ten times the man you are! If he were here, I’d marry him right now just to get away from you!” Oliver pulled out his phone, a cold smirk finally breaking through his mask. “You asked for this, Norah.” He tapped the screen, and a video began to play on the large monitors meant for our ‘Love Story’ slideshow. It was a grainy video of me in a dark lounge, sitting close to a man, my hands wandering over his shoulders. Then, an audio recording played—my voice, clear and sharp. “Oliver, if you tell anyone about this, you’re dead. I’ll ruin the Donovans. I’m in love with Finn, and I’m calling off the wedding.” Mrs. Donovan shrieked. “All this drama! All this lying! Just so she could run off with a servant! She’s been planning to sabotage this since day one!” The reporters swarmed me, microphones thrust into my face. “Norah, is it true?” “Are you leaving a Donovan for a masseur?” “What about the photos?” I stood there, nodding slowly. “Yes. The engagement is off. He can post whatever photos he wants.” My father’s face was unrecognizable with rage. He grabbed a crystal vase from a nearby table and smashed it on the floor. “Norah Whitaker, you are no longer my daughter. Don’t ever come back to this house. You’re a disgrace!” I ignored the cameras. I walked straight up to the man who looked like Oliver and spoke in a voice only he could hear. “That was a good move. But it won’t work. It just makes me want to see you burn. The Donovans are finished. Remember I said that.” He looked startled, then went back to his ‘wounded puppy’ act. “Norah, you’re destroying your own reputation just to hurt me. I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t threatened me first. If you leave, we’re done for good!” I didn’t care. I turned to walk away, but my father signaled the security guards. Three of them blocked my path, then grabbed my arms, forcing me to the floor. “Norah!” my father barked. “You aren’t going anywhere until you explain yourself!” I struggled against the marble floor, looking up at the man I was supposed to marry. “You really want to know why I’m doing this?” I spat. “Fine. I’ll tell everyone.”

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The night before my wedding, my groomsmen dragged me into a high-end adult boutique, buzzing with the chaotic energy of a bachelor party. The moment I stepped through the neon-lit doorway, the laughter died in my throat. My fiancée was standing by the register. And right beside her was her childhood best friend—the one that got away. They were having their own little pre-wedding celebration. He was pressing a sleek, elegantly packaged toy into her hands. He leaned in, his voice low but loud enough to catch over the store’s ambient music. He told her it was custom-made to his exact measurements. A stand-in, he said, to keep her company when he couldn’t be there. Camilla’s cheeks flushed a deep, rosy pink. She took the box. She murmured something about how he needed to stop telling her to call off the wedding, adding that she would just tell me she bought it for herself so I wouldn’t get upset. Hearing that, a pathetic, desperate part of me actually felt a wave of relief. She’s still marrying me, I thought. She still cares about my feelings. But then, out of nowhere, glowing text began to float across my field of vision, scrolling like a digital ticker tape in the air: [Wake up, man! That’s not a rejection. She’s keeping him on the hook! She’s telling him she can’t marry him, but he still owns her heart!] I blinked, stunned by the hallucinatory words. But as I looked back at Camilla—at the coy, half-resisting, half-inviting way she looked at him—the truth hit me like a physical blow. The veil was gone. I understood everything. My face felt numb. I pulled out my phone, snapped a crystal-clear photo, and took a short video. I uploaded it straight to my Instagram story, making sure to tag him directly. No need to wait for the future, I typed. You can marry her tomorrow. I hit post. Then, I dialed the wedding planner. “Cancel everything for tomorrow,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Keep the deposit for the venue. Consider it my wedding gift to them.” … 1 An hour later, the heavy oak door of our townhouse was thrown open, hitting the wall with a violent thud. Camilla stormed in. She was unsteady on her heels, smelling sharply of tequila and a heavy, expensive men’s cologne that definitely wasn’t mine. “Theo! Have you lost your mind?!” she screamed, her eyes red-rimmed and wide with disbelief. “Why the hell did you cancel the wedding?!” I was sitting in the unlit living room, letting the shadows swallow me. I looked at her with an ice-cold stare. “You know exactly why. So why are you asking?” Camilla choked on her next breath. It was the first time in eight years I had ever spoken to her with anything less than total devotion. She dragged a frustrated hand through her perfectly styled hair. “Because of Thomas’s gift? You’re calling off a wedding and humiliating us in front of everyone over a stupid little joke?!” The glowing text scrolled past my eyes again. [Holy shit, a ‘stupid little joke’?! She comes home reeking of another man’s cologne and has the nerve to interrogate her fiancé? The audacity is astronomical!] [She doesn’t think she did anything wrong. It’s always the guy’s fault for being ‘insecure.’ Classic narcissist! Textbook gaslighting!] [She just wants to have her cake and eat it too. Don’t cave, man! Emotional cheating is still cheating!] I read the floating words and nodded, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. “Yeah. Over a stupid little joke.” Seeing the immovable wall of my posture, Camilla faltered. Her tone immediately softened, slipping into the sweet, placating cadence she always used when she needed me to yield. She walked over, instinctively reaching out to take my hand. “Theo, stop this. If something was going to happen between me and Thomas, it would have happened years ago. Why would I wait until the day before our wedding?” “Just be a good guy, take down the post, and let’s get married tomorrow. Okay?” I pulled my hand away before she could touch me. I shook my head. “Before you even walked through that door, I had already notified everyone that the wedding is off. The venue is canceled.” I stood up. “I’ll pack my things and be out of here as soon as possible.” Camilla froze. Her lips parted, her eyes wide with genuine, unadulterated shock. “You’re moving out? Theo, do you even hear yourself?” I couldn’t blame her for being surprised. Anyone in our Upper East Side circle would have dropped their jaw hearing that I was the one walking away. Back in college, when Thomas moved to Paris, Camilla had sobbed until she threw up, unilaterally announcing that her life was over. I was the clown who jumped into a freezing lake in the middle of January just to fish out a silver ring Thomas had given her. I spent three days running a 104-degree fever, just happy she let me keep her company while she mourned him. Everyone in our circle called me Camilla’s lapdog. I didn’t care. As long as she smiled, nothing else mattered. Eventually, she looked at me and asked, “Do you want to try being together?” I had been ecstatic. I thought I had finally loved her enough to make her mine. For eight years, I held her like she was made of spun glass. I anticipated her every need, terrified she might break. Until a month ago. We were shopping for wedding bands when Thomas moved back to New York. That afternoon, Camilla was driving us to Whole Foods. Suddenly, Thomas’s name lit up on the car’s display screen. I will never forget that exact second. Camilla took one look at the screen, and her breathing hitched. Her hands jerked violently on the steering wheel. Her eyes were glued to his name, completely oblivious to the fact that the lane ahead of us had stopped. “Camilla! Watch out!” I yelled. The sound of screeching tires tore through the air. The car spun out of control, slamming brutally into a concrete median. 2 Crash. The impact was violent. Instinct took over; I unbuckled my belt and threw my body over the driver’s seat, shielding Camilla with everything I had. My forehead smashed into the windshield. Blood instantly poured into my eyes, turning the world a hazy, terrifying red. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears, and my ribs screamed in agony. Fighting through the pain, I turned to check on Camilla. She didn’t have a scratch on her. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her knuckles were white as she gripped her phone, her eyes locked on the text message on the screen. It took her a full five seconds to finally look over and see my face covered in blood. “Theo! You’re bleeding!” she cried, hastily shoving the phone into her purse. Her voice shook as she fumbled to start the ruined car, panicked about getting me to a hospital. I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my throat, but my chest hurt infinitely worse than the gash on my head. In a life-or-death moment, her first instinct wasn’t my safety. It was his message. The ER smelled sharply of bleach and antiseptic. The nurse picked shards of safety glass out of my forehead. It hurt so badly a cold sweat broke out over my body, my fingernails digging half-moons into my palms. I turned my head to look at Camilla. She was sitting on a plastic waiting room chair, her head bowed, thumbs flying furiously across her screen. She didn’t even spare me a passing glance. “Camilla,” I asked, my voice raspy. “Is everything okay?” She flinched, quickly flipping her phone face down on her lap. She forced a stiff, unnatural smile. “It’s fine. My parents are just having a massive fight. It’s bad.” Looking at her evasive eyes, a pathetic, hopeful part of me wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her distraction had nothing to do with Thomas. “You should go deal with that,” I told her. “I’ll come to your parents’ place after I get stitched up.” She looked at me like I had just granted her a pardon. She grabbed her designer bag and fled, not even stopping to ask if I needed anything for the pain. Half an hour later, my head wrapped in gauze, I showed up at her parents’ brownstone. They were sitting on the couch watching Netflix. They looked at me in total confusion. “Camilla hasn’t been here,” her mother said. “And we certainly haven’t been fighting.” I froze in the doorway, a bone-deep chill washing over me. Camilla didn’t come home that entire night. I sat in our pitch-black living room, dialing her number forty-seven times. Every single call went straight to voicemail. A suffocating wave of panic pulled me under. At 2:00 AM, my phone finally illuminated the dark room. It wasn’t a text from her. It was an Instagram update from Thomas. The photo showed a man’s hand gently pulling a duvet over a sleeping woman’s shoulder. On the woman’s wrist was the vintage Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet I had given Camilla last month as an early wedding gift. The caption was a knife to the gut: [People who have loved deeply will always find their way back to each other.] I gripped my phone until my knuckles turned white. I wasn’t angry. I was terrified. Terrified that eight years of unwavering devotion couldn’t compete with the ghost of her first love. Camilla finally came home the next evening. I was sitting at the dining table. I slid my phone across the wood, stopping right in front of her. Thomas’s post glowed on the screen. I looked at her, my voice eerily steady. “Camilla, if you want to start over with him, I’ll step aside.” All the color drained from her face. “I know,” I continued softly, “that if he hadn’t left, I probably never would have had a chance with you. So if—” Before I could finish, she raised her hand and slapped me across the face. Hard. “Theo! What the hell is wrong with you?!” she yelled, her eyes welling with angry tears, her voice shaking. “Thomas and I did nothing! I got too drunk yesterday and just slept in his guest room! You really have zero faith in me?!” She grabbed the collar of my shirt, practically screaming into my face. “I am only marrying you! Theo, do you hear me? Only you!” I looked at her tears and clung to them like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood. “Okay,” I whispered. “As long as you choose me, I will never let you down.” That night, we swore we would only ever love each other. We held each other in the quiet dark. I kissed her forehead, and she made a solemn vow against my chest. I thought that was the end of it. But memories are like scalpels; they cut clean and deep. “Theo, say something!” I snapped back to the present, looking at the woman standing before me, reeking of alcohol and betrayal. She took a step forward, gripping the hem of my shirt in a desperate plea. “I swear, I only love you. Thomas was just drunk and posted that out of context. Please don’t be mad. Please?” Seeing her frantic, pleading eyes, I felt an involuntary softening in my chest. Eight years is a lifetime. You don’t just amputate a limb without phantom pain. But right then, the neon letters scrolled across my vision again. [Classic cheater playbook: Get caught, shift the blame, make him feel guilty, then keep treating him like a backup plan!] [Tears + Promises + Pouting = He falls for it every time. Wake up! Don’t let her manipulate you!] [If you forgive her this time, you’re going to be miserable for the rest of your life!] Any lingering warmth in my heart instantly turned to ash. Slowly, deliberately, I peeled her fingers off my shirt, one by one. “You’re drunk. You’re not thinking straight,” I said, taking a step back to put cold, empty space between us. My voice was entirely devoid of emotion. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, we’ll sit down and figure out the logistics of our breakup.” 3 Instead of letting go, Camilla threw her arms around my waist from behind, burying her face into my back. She was sobbing. “Theo, do you remember our sophomore winter? You jumped into that freezing lake for me. You almost died.” Her tears soaked through my shirt, burning hot against my skin. “We’ve been together for eight years. How can you just throw that away?” “Please don’t cancel the wedding. Just tell everyone it was a misunderstanding. We have to exchange our vows tomorrow…” My throat tightened. Eight years of memories tore at my nerves, begging me to stay. And then, the familiar text floated through the room: [Here we go again! Is she going to milk the ‘lake’ story for the rest of her life?] [Emotional blackmail at its finest! She treated him like garbage until she realized she was losing her safety net!] [She doesn’t miss you! She misses her personal ATM and emotional punching bag!] I closed my eyes and swallowed the bitter lump in my throat. Once again, I pried her fingers off my body. “It’s late. Go to bed.” The living room fell into a suffocating silence. I collapsed onto the sofa and lit a cigarette, my hands trembling slightly. The harsh smoke filled my lungs, but it couldn’t stop the flood of memories. The first time she burned her finger trying to cook me dinner. The way her eyes shone with tears when I proposed. The radiant joy on her face when she found her wedding dress. I took a sharp drag. The nicotine burned, but the pain in my chest was sharper. Am I really throwing away eight years? I thought. Maybe nothing really happened between her and Thomas. Just as I hovered on the edge of giving her—giving myself—one last, pathetic chance, the doorbell rang. The sound shattered the heavy silence. I crushed the cigarette into the ashtray and went to open the door. Thomas was standing on the porch. He smelled strongly of whiskey. In his hand, he held a sleek, black boutique shopping bag. “Hey, Theo. Is Milla asleep?” I stared at him with dead eyes. “She’s asleep. Whatever it is, say it tomorrow.” “Ah, wait.” Thomas wedged his leather loafer into the doorframe. He lifted the black bag with a smirk. “Milla left in such a hurry, she forgot something in my room. I didn’t want her to be without it for the wedding night, so I brought it over.” My brow furrowed. “Leave it on the porch. Now get out.” Thomas didn’t move. The corners of his mouth curled into a malicious, arrogant smile. “Don’t you want to know what she left behind, Theo?” Slowly, theatrically, he reached into the bag and pulled out a piece of black lace lingerie. “Milla is so forgetful. Leaving her undergarments lying around.” The blood in my veins turned to ice, then rushed to my head in a blinding flash of heat. That lingerie. I had bought it for her. I had gone to the boutique with her just last week and picked it out myself. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. My stomach violently churned, and I dug my nails so deeply into my palms I felt the skin break. This wasn’t just a provocation. This was Thomas stripping me of my dignity and stomping it into the dirt. “Thomas! What the hell are you doing?!” Camilla came sprinting out of the hallway, barefoot. She stared at the black lace in his hand, her face draining of all color until she looked like a corpse. Smack! She lunged forward and slapped Thomas across the face with everything she had. “Get out! Why did you come back to ruin my life?!” Thomas’s head snapped to the side. Instantly, his eyes went red. Camilla’s hand hovered in the air. Her fingers trembled just a fraction, a flash of undeniable panic crossing her features. “I’m sorry, Milla! It’s my fault!” Thomas cried out. “I was just out of my mind with jealousy! I couldn’t control myself! I can’t let you go!” Then, in a sickening display, Thomas raised his hand and violently slapped his own face twice. His voice cracked with emotion. “But can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you felt nothing when you looked at me tonight?” He stared at her, his eyes wild, tortured, and completely obsessed. Camilla opened her mouth, but no sound came out. The phantom comments exploded in my vision: [Gross! What is this, a cheap soap opera?!] [Give her an Oscar! She’s playing the tragic, torn heroine right in front of her fiancé!] [Run, Theo! Let these two toxic freaks destroy each other!] I watched this melodramatic display of star-crossed lovers, feeling nothing but a profound, acidic nausea. I turned my back to them and grabbed my coat off the back of the sofa. “Take your time,” I said. “I’ll give you two some privacy.” Camilla lunged, wrapping her arms around my waist in a death grip, her nails digging painfully through my shirt. “Theo! Don’t leave! You’re the only one I love! We’re getting married tomorrow!” She whipped her head around and screamed hysterically at Thomas: “Get the fuck out! I only love Theo!” Hearing that, Thomas’s face twisted into something ugly and unhinged. A dark, extreme madness flashed in his eyes. He suddenly reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a switchblade, and closed the distance between us in three long strides. He grabbed my right hand, forced the handle of the knife into my grip, and pointed the blade directly at his own stomach. “Theo! It’s all my fault! I couldn’t help myself!” he screamed. “Kill me! If it makes you feel better, if it means you’ll forgive Milla, I’ll die right here!” My pupils dilated. I yanked my arm back to throw the knife away. But in the next split second. A dull, wet tearing sound echoed through the silent room. Hot, thick blood sprayed across the back of my hand. 4 “Ahhh!” Camilla’s shriek shattered the room. Hot, sticky blood slid down my fingers, dripping onto the hardwood floor. I stood frozen, my mind entirely blank for one surreal second. “I didn’t do that,” I said, my voice purely instinctual. Camilla shoved past me, pushing me back with brutal force. Her eyes were bloodshot, her voice vibrating with panic. “Theo! Why would you do this to him?!” Thomas clutched his bleeding abdomen and slid down the doorframe, collapsing onto the floor. He leaned against the wall and offered Camilla a weak, tragically pale smile. “Milla, don’t be mad at Theo… It’s my fault. I made him angry.” The ticker tape went wild: [Holy shit! This guy is psycho! He stabbed himself just to frame the fiancé?!] [She actually believes him?! Does she have mashed potatoes for brains?!] [Get out of there, Theo! Let them have each other. This is insane!] I looked at the blood on my hand, then at the tragic, intertwined couple on the floor. A cold, cynical laugh clawed its way up my throat. I grabbed a tissue from the console table, wiped the blood off my skin with utter detachment, and dialed 911. On the floor, Camilla was pressing both of her hands over Thomas’s wound, her tears falling in a torrential downpour. “Thomas, hold on! You’re going to be okay!” Thomas raised a trembling hand, his bloody fingers gently brushing her cheek. “Milla… if I can’t have you in this life, I’d rather die today. At least… at least I’ll always have a place in your heart.” Camilla completely broke down. She pulled him against her chest, and right in front of me—the man she was supposed to marry in twelve hours—she wailed, “Stop talking like that! I love you! I’ve always loved you! Just stay with me, and I’ll do whatever you want!” The floating words returned: [Vomiting everywhere. Confessing their eternal love while her fiancé stands right there? Have they no shame?!] [The mask is finally off! Theo just got the biggest, brightest pair of horns ever!] [Burn it all down. Watching this is giving me an aneurysm.] Watching her weep over another man, the absolute last thread of attachment I had to her snapped. The resentment, the hope, the desperation—it all evaporated into cold, thin air. The wail of the ambulance sirens soon pierced the neighborhood’s quiet. Paramedics rushed in, loaded Thomas onto a stretcher, and hauled him out. Camilla didn’t even stop to put on shoes. Dressed only in a thin silk slip, her bare feet hit the freezing pavement as she chased the stretcher out into the biting wind. Watching her frantic, desperate silhouette disappear into the night, a memory from three years ago flashed in my mind. I had broken my leg pulling her away from a falling scaffolding. I was in agony, covered in cold sweat. But she had covered her eyes, refusing to even look at me, murmuring over and over, “It’s too awful. The blood… I hate blood.” I thought she was just squeamish. I had even comforted her while waiting for the ambulance. Now I knew the truth. She wasn’t afraid of blood. She just didn’t care enough because the man bleeding wasn’t him. Under the weight of that realization, the blood in my veins turned to ice. A gust of wind blew through the open door, snapping me back to reality. Footsteps rushed up the porch. Camilla had run back inside to grab her phone and wallet off the coffee table. “Theo, wait for me to get back. We will talk about this tomorrow,” she tossed over her shoulder. She didn’t even wait for a response before sprinting back out the door. At the hospital, Thomas’s wound turned out to be superficial. After a few stitches, he was perfectly fine. Sitting in his room, Camilla looked at his pale face, her heart breaking for him. She was convinced I had stabbed him in a jealous rage, and a seed of resentment toward me had sprouted in her chest. But remembering the canceled wedding, she pulled out her phone and sent me a few voice memos. “Theo, Thomas is fine. I know you just snapped because you were angry, so I won’t hold it against you. But he’s really weak right now, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving him alone. I’m going to bring him back to our house so I can take care of him for a few days. Pick up some good bone broth on your way home, and just apologize to him. We can put this whole mess behind us.” She hit send. There was no reply. Camilla frowned, assuming I was just throwing a tantrum. Two hours later, carefully supporting Thomas’s weight, she pushed open the door to our townhouse. “Theo, we’re back.” The house was dead silent. There was no smell of dinner cooking. I wasn’t waiting in the foyer to take her coat. Irritated, she settled Thomas onto the couch and marched straight to the master bedroom, fully prepared to give me a piece of her mind. “Theo, are you done acting like a—” Her voice cut off. She stood in the doorway, her pupils dilating in pure shock.

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A phone call from my old neighbor in the States was the first thing to pierce the sun-drenched silence of my life abroad. The voice on the other end was frantic, hushed, as if relaying state secrets. She told me there was a woman at my front door—very pregnant, very loud—claiming to be the “one true love” of my late husband. I told the neighbor to hand her the phone. I didn’t raise my voice. I simply told her that I was Xavier’s ex-wife, and that before he passed, he’d made me promise that if his “soulmate” ever came looking for him, I should step aside and let them be together. I even told her where he kept the spare key: tucked inside the oversized ceramic planter by the porch. On the phone, she played the part of the fragile, wronged heroine. She whimpered about how she never wanted to break up a family, but the baby changed everything. She bragged that “Xavy” told her she could come to him anytime. She even had the audacity to suggest I just wasn’t young or vibrant enough to hold a man like him. I felt a cold, sharp smile tugging at my lips. Of course, I would help them fulfill their “destiny.” After all, there was nothing left in that house except for Xavier’s corpse, which had been liquefying into the floorboards for three years. On his deathbed, he’d begged me. He told me that if the woman he’d been keeping in the shadows ever came for him, I should give her the company, the house, and his ashes. He wanted to be hers in the end. I’d cried beautiful, crocodile tears and promised him everything. But the second he stopped breathing, I took the keys to the kingdom. I consolidated the company, packed my daughter’s bags, and moved to the Mediterranean to live the life he’d tried to deny me. I didn’t even bother calling the morgue. I wasn’t about to waste a cent on a man who’d spent our marriage dreaming of someone else. I just locked the door and left him there. Now, his “true love” had finally arrived. I figured it was only fair to let her have exactly what she asked for. … 1 Back then, I couldn’t bring myself to pay the funeral costs or the transport fees for Xavier’s remains. So, I let him stay in that secluded suburban “love nest” he’d built for his mistress. To the outside world, I played the grieving, noble widow. I told anyone who asked that I wasn’t burying him yet because I was waiting—holding out hope that his “true heart’s desire” would show up to say one last goodbye. I waited three years. And for three years, Xavier rotted. He sat in that house, the one he’d designed as a sanctuary for his infidelity, slowly turning into a biological hazard while I lived my best life. I was currently in a villa overlooking the Amalfi Coast, my fingers tangled in the hair of a gorgeous Italian twenty-something named Luca, thinking Xavier would never actually get his reunion. Then the phone rang. “My god, Katherine! Your husband’s little plaything is here. She’s at least six months along. What do I do?” It was simple. She’d waited three years to come looking for him, which meant she was either out of money or out of options. She wanted the man? She could have him. I’m not a petty woman. The neighbor handed over the phone. I listened to the girl’s pathetic attempts at intimidation, calmly gave her the location of the key, and hung up. I pushed Luca’s perfect abs away with a newfound surge of adrenaline and opened the Nest security app on my laptop. I wasn’t going to miss the season finale of this drama. “Cara, what is it?” Luca pouted, trying to pull me back into the silk sheets. “Not now, baby,” I said, my eyes glued to the screen. “I have a front-row seat to a haunting.” The camera resolution was crystal clear. I could see Hailey’s smug expression, the way she patted her protruding stomach as if it were a trophy. She was wearing four-inch heels and swinging the house key around her finger like she’d just won the lottery. She stood at the front door, her hand on the knob. Then, her face shifted. Her hand flew to her mouth. She scrambled back toward the bushes, and I watched in high-definition as she retched. The “trophy wife” facade crumbled instantly. At first, she probably thought it was just severe morning sickness. But every time she tried to step back onto the porch, her body revolted. The stench of three years of stagnant, unventilated decay is not something a human nose can rationalize. She vomited five times before she finally stood there, pale and trembling. “Xavier said he’d wait for me forever,” she whispered to herself, loud enough for the porch mic to catch. “Why does it smell like something died in there?” Then, she started gasping for air, clutching her stomach, brainwashing herself. “It’s just the pregnancy. It’s just me.” She was determined. Xavier had gone silent three years ago—no texts, no wire transfers, nothing. She assumed he’d been locked away by his “bitter old wife.” She’d spent those three years going through grueling rounds of IVF with the samples he’d frozen, desperate to produce an heir. Now, she was back to claim her throne. She believed that once Xavier saw his son, he’d hand over the Ronald empire on a silver platter. Hailey gritted her teeth, the veins in her neck bulging as she fought the urge to vomit again. She turned the key. The door swung open. She stepped into the foyer and called out in a sing-song, sugary voice: “Xavy! Come see your girl and your little prince!” The moment she opened her mouth to speak, the concentrated, pressurized wall of death from inside the house rushed into her lungs. 2 “Oh god—Xavier! Gag—” I was laughing so hard in Italy that tears were streaming down my face. On the screen, Hailey’s legs looked like overcooked noodles. She collapsed onto the porch, her face twisted in a mask of pure agony. She was clutching her belly, terrified for the baby, but she couldn’t stay away. She crawled back a few feet, staring at the dark hallway of the house with a mix of longing and horror. She scrambled for her phone and called me back, her voice a screeching wreck. “You old hag! Where did you hide him? Where is Xavier?” “I’m carrying his child! You can’t keep us apart anymore! Half of everything he owns belongs to my son!” My fingers traced the lines of Luca’s tattoos as I leaned back. “Hailey, honey, he’s right there in the house. Didn’t you see him?” I couldn’t help it. I let out a sharp, melodic laugh. That sound was the breaking point for her. She started screaming into the receiver. “What are you laughing at? You’re a pathetic, discarded housewife! Just wait until I tell Xavier how you’ve treated me! He’s going to divorce you and leave you with nothing!” “Go ahead,” I said, my voice dripping with mock-sincerity. “Go tell him everything. Ask his family if you don’t believe me—he’s been waiting in that house for you for a long, long time.” I hung up. My daughter, Jade, walked into the room, adjusting her designer sunglasses. She looked at me with that sharp, teenage cynicism she’d inherited from me. “When are we going back to deal with that bitch?” “Language, Jade,” I corrected her, though I wasn’t really annoyed. It was time to go home. I couldn’t let the “true love” reunion happen without being there to witness the fallout. Xavier wanted me to “set them free.” Hailey could have her inheritance. She could have exactly what was left of him—a three-year-old biological weapon. 3 I found out about the affair when I was three months pregnant with Jade. It was a difficult pregnancy; my stomach was a roadmap of bruises and needle marks from the hormone shots. Xavier walked in on me one night while I was changing. He looked at my bruised, swollen skin and actually recoiled. He made a face of pure disgust. “Kat, you’re honestly repulsive,” he’d said. He stopped coming home after that. I spent my entire pregnancy in a cold, quiet house. The day I went into labor, the headlines in New York were splashed with photos of him at a gala with a “young, mysterious muse.” After the birth, I tried to leave. I wanted a divorce, a clean break. But Xavier knew exactly how to hurt me. He knew my daughter was the only thing I had left. “You can divorce me,” he’d told me, eyes cold as ice. “But you’ll leave the kid. Do you really think the courts will give a ‘depressed, unstable’ mother custody against a man with my resources?” He didn’t care about Jade. He just cared about his image. “Keep your mouth shut, play the part of the happy wife, and you get to keep your daughter. If you ever harass Hailey, I’ll make sure you never see the girl again.” So, I checked out. For years, I treated him like he was already dead. Maybe it was karma that his brain turned against him. He was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma and spent his final months wasting away. When his family came to visit him in the hospital, I played the grieving saint. The moment they left, I had the nurses wheel his bed into the hallway next to the public restrooms. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t complain. To the world, I was the devoted wife. To him, I was the last thing he’d ever see—a woman who no longer felt anything for him. Before he died, he had one final “spark” of life. He’d crawled out of bed and somehow made it to that suburban house, hoping to find Hailey. But she’d vanished the moment the money stopped flowing. He died in that house, crying for her. His last words were a plea for me to “give her everything” if she ever returned. I smiled at him as the light left his eyes. In his blurry vision, I’m sure I looked like I was weeping. “I’ll make sure you’re together forever,” I’d promised. And I kept that promise. I let him stay right there, in their “love nest,” waiting for his queen. As for the money? I’d moved every cent of the Ronald fortune into offshore accounts and trust funds for Jade years ago. He died in the morning. By that afternoon, I was on a private jet to Europe, tasting salt and freedom for the first time in a decade. 4 To keep the company’s stock from plummeting, I never officially announced Xavier’s death. I told the board he was “recuperating in seclusion.” Only a few close family members knew the truth. Hailey had spent the last week digging, eventually confirming that Xavier was indeed at the house. She didn’t notice the strange, pitying looks the neighbors gave her. Under my strict instructions, nobody told her he was dead. Hailey convinced herself that Xavier was waiting for her in their house of memories. Because she’d been vomiting so much from the “smell,” her doctor put her on bed rest, so she spent her days writing flowery, delusional letters to him and mailing them to the house. She wrote pages about how much she hated me and how he needed to “punish” me. I had someone collect those letters and burn them over Xavier’s remains. It felt poetic. The day Hailey was cleared to leave the clinic was the day I landed back in the States. She decided to make an event of it. She showed up at the house with a pack of tabloid reporters in tow, ready to “expose” my cruelty and claim her place as the true Mrs. Ronald. The press followed her into the gated community, but as they got closer to the house, their faces began to pale. Hailey kept gagging. She turned to a reporter from a major gossip site and gave a weak, practiced smile. “Excuse me. My pregnancy cravings are just… a bit intense today.” One of the younger cameramen looked around, squinting. “Is Mr. Ronald really in there?” Hailey straightened her back, radiating false confidence. “Of course! This house was our private sanctuary. He built it for me.” Gag. A veteran journalist in the back had already figured it out. He’d covered crime scenes before. He quietly adjusted his body cam and pulled a mask out of his pocket. He recognized that smell. It wasn’t “morning sickness.” It was putrefaction. He tried to probe. “Miss West, do you notice a… peculiar odor?” Hailey was terrified the press would leave before she got her “big reveal.” She forced herself to take a deep breath, her face turning a sickly shade of grey. “Odor? I don’t smell anything. You’re just being dramatic.” We arrived at the porch. Hailey pulled a key from her designer bag. Just as she lined it up with the lock, I stepped out from behind a tree, wearing a high-grade charcoal mask. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I called out. I stayed a good thirty feet away. Hailey sneered at me. “Oh, look who it is. The old hag finally showed up to try and stop me.” I shook my head. “Is being a mistress an addiction for you? You couldn’t get enough three years ago, and now you’re trying to force a dead man to father your child? You’re really committed to the bit, aren’t you?” Hailey patted her stomach, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Watch your mouth. When Xavier sees me, I’m going to have him destroy you. And that daughter of yours? I’ll make sure he ships her off to some boarding school in the middle of nowhere.” She smiled, a sharp, ugly thing. “Her inheritance will be my son’s welcome-to-the-world gift.” The reporters went silent. The cameras were rolling, catching every word. I pressed my lips together, keeping my temper in check for the sake of the recording. “Fine. You want to go in? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” “Xavier couldn’t even close his eyes when he died because he was waiting for you. Go ahead. Be with him.” Hailey hesitated for a fraction of a second, a flicker of doubt crossing her eyes. But the thought of the Ronald billions was too strong. “Liars like you always try to play mind games. I’m going in.” She turned the key. “Xavier told me if I ever got pregnant, he’d give me the world! He only wanted my children. Not yours!” I watched her silhouette disappear into the dark foyer. The second the door closed behind her, her voice changed. “Xavy? Where are you? Your mean old wife is being so scary! I have our baby, and she’s so jealous—” The voice cut off. A heartbeat later, a scream erupted from the house—a sound of primal, bone-deep terror.

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At three in the morning, I was dead to the world when Gavin suddenly ripped the covers off me and dragged me out of bed. His words tumbled out in a frantic rush—he said I was O-negative, that Brooke was hemorrhaging, and the hospital’s blood bank was completely tapped out. I winced, rubbing my eyes, and told him I was severely anemic. My body couldn’t handle a blood donation. He didn’t listen. He just started shoving my arms into my winter coat, rushing me toward the door, insisting they only needed a pint and that Brooke was fading fast. Sitting in the passenger seat of his SUV, the streetlights blurring into streaks of yellow against the dark glass, the name Brooke acted like a physical barb in my chest. Instantly, it dragged me back to the darkest, bloodiest memory of my high school years. She was the ringleader. The girl who tormented me, who ultimately shoved me down a flight of concrete stairs, shattering my leg and permanently robbing me of my future in dance. It was Gavin who had called the police back then. Because of him, the school couldn’t just sweep it under the rug. Brooke was expelled, and she practically vanished from the earth. I never imagined that seven years later, I would hear her name in Gavin’s mouth again—and certainly not like this. I turned my head to look at his sharp profile. I asked him if he remembered the months I spent in the hospital during my junior year. He stiffened. His eyes darted away from mine, fixing on the road. He muttered that Brooke hadn’t had an easy life these past few years, and at the end of the day, a life was a life. A hollow, broken laugh escaped my lips. I didn’t say another word. Later, the moment the thick needle pierced the vein in my arm, a sharp, electronic chime echoed directly inside my skull. A synthesized voice spoke. It told me that even though I was currently playing the role of the tragic heroine in a cheap melodrama, I still needed to respect my own body. It told me I had to learn how to say no. I flinched, my breath hitching. In a terrified whisper, I asked it what I was supposed to do. The electronic voice instantly spiked in volume, ordering me to pull the IV needle out right this second, walk out the front doors, take a left, and spend twenty bucks on a lottery ticket. 1. I stared at the plastic tubing taped to my inner arm, my hand shaking violently. The System urged me in my head. “Pull it out! Trust me!” But I was terrified. If I pulled it out, how would Gavin look at me? Would he think I was a monster? Would he think I was selfish? Would he… leave me? The glare of the hospital lights overhead was blinding. It reminded me of the lights from seven years ago. I had been lying in a pool of my own blood, watching Brooke’s silhouette disappear at the top of the stairs. When the paramedics finally arrived, the ER doctor had looked at my charts and said, “Compound fractures. I’m sorry, sweetie, but you’re never going to dance again.” Gavin was the one who stayed by my side. He came to the hospital every single day. He held my hand through the agonizing physical therapy, told me terrible jokes to make me smile through the tears. I remember him brushing the hair from my sweaty forehead, whispering, “It’s okay, June. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be right here.” Because of that, for the five years we had been together, he had been my entire universe. I painted for him, I cooked his favorite meals, I waited by the window for him to come home. I bent my life to fit into the spaces he left for me. And now, he was forcing me to bleed for the girl who broke me. “Do it now!” the System commanded. I squeezed my eyes shut, gripped the plastic hub of the needle, and ripped it out. Dark crimson blood immediately welled up and spilled over my skin. A nurse down the hall shrieked and started running toward me. The door slammed open. Gavin froze in the threshold. “June, what the hell are you doing?!” I looked up at him. For the first time in my life, I found the strength to say, “I don’t want to do this.” “You…” The color drained from his face, replaced by a dark, furious disbelief. “Do you realize she is dying in there?” “I know.” I stood up. My bad left leg trembled under my weight, the old aches flaring, but I locked my knee and held my ground. “But I’m dying too.” He reached out to grab my arm. I flinched away. As I limped out of the ER, his voice cracked like a whip down the tiled hallway: “You are being incredibly selfish, June!” I didn’t look back. The air outside the hospital was bitter cold. The wind bit into my bad leg, making a deep, familiar ache settle in the bone. “Fifty yards to your left. There’s a bodega that sells lotto tickets,” the System instructed. I dragged my leg down the sidewalk. As I passed the wing where Brooke’s room was, I looked up and saw a lit window on the third floor. My heart slammed against my ribs. Seven years. I thought I had buried that terror. But just looking at the glass, my mind was flooded with the sensation of freefall, the sickening crack of my bones on the concrete. I clamped a hand over my mouth, bile rising in my throat. 2. The guy behind the counter at the bodega raised an eyebrow as I bought a twenty-dollar scratch-off. “Late night for a walk, hon, especially with that limp.” I just nodded, keeping my eyes down. “You’re going to win five million dollars,” the System said matter-of-factly. I didn’t believe it, but I clutched the ticket anyway. On the walk back to our apartment, my phone vibrated constantly. Gavin. I let it ring. When I finally reached our front door, he was already there, leaning against the frame, radiating anger. “What is wrong with you tonight?” he snapped. “Brooke almost died. Do you get that?” “I have anemia.” I stared at his shoes. “I could have died, too.” “It was a single pint of blood, June, it wouldn’t have killed you!” His voice echoed in the quiet hallway. “You just couldn’t bring yourself to help her!” I stopped talking. What could I even say? Tell him I was terrified of her? Tell him my leg throbbed with a phantom agony every time her name was spoken? Tell him I wished, just once, he would look at my frail, broken body with the same desperate panic he had just shown for her? The words wouldn’t come. Seeing my silence, his jaw tightened. “Fine. Play the victim.” He shoved past me, got back into his car, and drove off. I sat alone in our dark living room. The streetlights cast the shadows of the large oak tree outside across the hardwood floor, swaying like ghosts. Seven years. From the day my leg was shattered until now, that tree had shed its leaves seven times. And I was still trapped at the bottom of the staircase. “You did the right thing,” the System murmured. “Nothing is more important than your own survival.” But my chest felt like it was caving in. The next morning, I scratched the ticket. I held my phone in one hand, comparing the numbers, my fingers trembling so badly I almost dropped it. Five million dollars. It was real. “See?” the System said, sounding deeply smug. “I told you. This is the down payment on your new life.” I stared at the iridescent foil shavings on my kitchen counter, completely speechless. Gavin didn’t come home for the next three days. He sent one text: “I’m at the hospital with Brooke. Her condition is unstable.” I replied: “Okay.” He didn’t text back. I opened the leather-bound journal I kept in my nightstand. The pages were filled with my meticulous, desperate handwriting, documenting every late night he’d had over the past six months. October 3rd. Said he was working late at the firm. Came home at 2 AM. October 10th. Client dinner. Home at 1 AM. October 18th. Said an employee was hospitalized, went to check on them. Never came home. I read the lines, one by one. A strange, broken giggle bubbled up in my throat, but the tears fell faster than the laughter could form. Outside the window, the oak leaves were falling again. I remembered how he had held my waist during physical therapy, promising he would be my crutch forever. Now, he wouldn’t even come home to sleep in our bed. The System paused, recalibrating. When it spoke again, the electronic hum was softer, tinged with a strange, synthetic sorrow. “He changed, June.” Listening to its awkward, robotic empathy, I nodded slowly. “I know.” That evening, Gavin finally texted: “Brooke is being discharged tomorrow. I’m going to pick her up.” I stared at the glowing pixels. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard before typing: “Can I come with you?” Sent. One minute passed. Three minutes. Five. He left me on read. 3. I went to the hospital anyway. He didn’t stop me from getting in the car, but he didn’t welcome me, either. The drive was suffocatingly silent. When we walked into the ward, the heavy stench of antiseptic made my stomach churn. I pressed my hand over my nose and mouth. It was the exact same smell from seven years ago. Lying in that stark white bed, the orthopedic surgeon looking down at me with pity. “Comminuted fracture of the left femur and tibia. The joint is irreparably damaged. She won’t dance again.” I had screamed until my throat bled. I had been dancing since I was a toddler. My mother used to brush my hair and tell me, “June is going to be the most beautiful prima ballerina in the world.” Brooke shoved me down the stairs, and the music stopped forever. “We’re here,” Gavin said, stopping abruptly. I looked up. Brooke was standing in the doorway of her private room. She was drowning in an oversized hospital gown, her face pale, looking agonizingly fragile. My bad leg buckled slightly, a tremor radiating up my spine. Cold sweat broke out across my neck. It felt like the ceiling was slowly crushing me. It was her. It was really her. Seven years, and she still had the exact same face. My mind flashed to her cruel, glittering smile as she stood over me. “Trash belongs in the gutter.” I remembered the sharp point of her stiletto grinding into my knuckles. The sudden, violent force of her hands on my shoulders. I couldn’t breathe. “June?” Gavin noticed my pallor and instinctively reached out to steady me. “What’s wrong?” I couldn’t form words. Brooke saw me. She froze for a fraction of a second before a soft, deeply apologetic smile bloomed on her face. “June… about everything that happened back then… I’m so sorry.” She took a hesitant step forward, reaching out as if to take my hand. I recoiled violently. She dropped her hand, looking utterly heartbroken. “June, do you still hate me? I know I was wrong. We were just kids, I was so stupid and mean… but life has punished me. I’ve eaten dirt for the last seven years. I think about what I did to you every single day…” As she spoke, tears welled up in her large, doe-like eyes, spilling over her pale cheeks. Gavin sighed, a heavy, protective sound. “June, Brooke already owned up to her mistakes.” Brooke? Since when did he drop her last name and say it with such tender familiarity? Brooke aggressively wiped at her eyes, her voice trembling. “June, I know you despise me. But I’ve changed, I swear. All these years, working bottle service at seedy clubs, letting disgusting men grope and humiliate me… every time they put their hands on me, I thought of you. I told myself it was karma. I deserved it.” Gavin’s eyes softened completely. The hardness in his jaw melted away. I looked back and forth between them. I felt a hysterical urge to laugh. The System’s voice crackled sharply in my head. “Do not buy a word of this. She is acting.” I know. But no one else believed me. After he finished the discharge paperwork, Brooke reached out and grabbed Gavin’s sleeve. “Thank you for taking care of me these past few days.” Her hands were delicate, her nails painted a soft, innocent pink. Gavin didn’t pull away. Instead, he shifted his grip. I watched his fingers lace through hers. Right there in the hospital corridor, in front of the nurses, in front of God, in front of me, their fingers intertwined. My crippled leg flared with a blinding, white-hot agony. 4. Walking down the hospital steps, my knee finally gave out. I stumbled forward, bracing for impact. Gavin didn’t catch me. He was too busy holding the door for Brooke. Brooke, with four perfectly functioning limbs, practically skipped to the passenger side of his SUV and pulled the door open. I stood on the pavement, frozen, staring at the empty space in front of me. It wasn’t until Gavin looked over, a crease of annoyance between his brows, that the spell broke. “Are you getting in or what?” Brooke suddenly gasped, covering her mouth as she shot me a sickly-sweet, apologetic smile. “Oh my gosh, June, I’m so sorry! I totally forgot this is your seat. It’s just… I get terrible motion sickness in the back. Do you mind if I take shotgun?” She pressed her palms together in a pleading gesture, giving me a playful little wink. Numb, I dragged myself into the back seat. My entire body was shaking violently. All I could see was their laced fingers. Brooke glanced at me in the rearview mirror, her eyes wide with faux concern. “June, are you cold? Why are you shaking so much?” My breath caught. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the car anymore. I was back in the dim, damp locker room behind the gym seven years ago. Brooke had been smiling that exact same sweet smile as she gripped my hair, forced my school shirt off, and used a black Sharpie to write “MUTT” across my chest. She had asked me the exact same question then: “June, are you cold? Why are you shaking so much?” My fingernails dug so hard into my palms that they broke the skin. The metallic tang of blood filled my mouth where I had bitten the inside of my cheek. Brooke was still talking. “June, I get the feeling you really… hate me. And it’s totally fair! I hate the person I used to be, too. If I could, I’d become your servant just to make up for the pain I caused you.” Her eyes were the picture of earnestness. I still couldn’t speak. It felt like someone had shoved a fistful of raw cotton down my throat. Gavin let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s just an old condition she has. Don’t worry about it.” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Mixed in with a superficial layer of concern was an emotion I couldn’t quite decipher—annoyance? Pity? Resentment? The drive home was suffocating. I remained mute in the back, Gavin drove in silence, while Brooke effortlessly filled the dead air, playing the charming, reformed survivor, telling self-deprecating stories about her struggles in the service industry. Gavin listened, a faint, fond smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were heavy with a protective ache for her. He dropped me off at our apartment first. He looked at my deathly pale face, and his tone cooled, tinged with a deep exhaustion. “Brooke is still really weak. I need to get her settled at her place.” I nodded slowly. “Okay.” “Just go upstairs,” he said, not even looking me in the eye. “I’ll be back later.” “Oh,” I whispered. I stood on the curb, the cold wind whipping my hair, and watched his taillights disappear down the avenue. “She’s manipulating you, and she’s manipulating him,” the System said. I wrapped my arms around myself. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it?” “I am an advanced algorithm, June, I don’t ‘read into things’!” the System snapped. “She is putting on a masterclass in gaslighting!” “Maybe… maybe she really did change?” I sat on the floor of my living room, pulling my knees to my chest. “People grow up.” “You—” The System cut off, too frustrated to formulate a response. I spent the afternoon in my makeshift art studio. I tried to paint. I tried to paint the girl from seven years ago, in her white tulle skirt, standing center stage under the hot lights. But I couldn’t get it right. Every time I painted the left leg, it came out crooked. Broken. Bent at an unnatural angle. I hurled my brushes across the room and buried my face in my arms on the desk. Outside, the oak tree had lost the last of its leaves. Gavin didn’t come home until ten o’clock that night. “Is Brooke feeling better?” I asked quietly from the couch. “She’s okay.” He shrugged off his jacket. It smelled heavily of cheap cigarette smoke. “She lives in this dump of a studio. It’s really rough on her.” I wanted to scream. What about me? I sat in this empty apartment all day waiting for you. Is that not rough on me? But I swallowed the words. I was terrified of making him angry. “Say it!” the System yelled in my head. “Scream at him! Call him a bastard, call him a narcissist, call him a piece of shit!” “You are his fiancé! You have every right to demand to know why he’s prioritizing the woman who crippled you!” I shook my head imperceptibly. I was afraid if I pushed him, he’d roll his eyes and call me petty. I was afraid he’d say: Look at you. You’re not even half the woman Brooke is. I was terrified of losing him. After the year of relentless bullying, after being pushed down those stairs, I had developed severe clinical depression. My self-worth was practically non-existent. I didn’t dare speak up. I just turned the knife inward, asking myself over and over: Am I being too sensitive? Should I just be the bigger person and forgive her? Around midnight, as we lay in bed, his phone lit up on the nightstand. It was a text from Brooke: “Gav, I’m feeling really dizzy…” He threw the covers back and sat up instantly. “I need to go check on her.” Over the System’s deafening, screeching alarm in my head, I forced the words past my lips. “Can you… not go?” He paused, one arm in his sweater. “Just get some sleep, June. I’ll be back soon.” “Can I come with you, then?” Gavin exhaled sharply, a sound dripping with condescension. “I am just checking on her to make sure she doesn’t pass out. It’s basic human decency. Could you please stop being so paranoid? Your leg is bad enough, you don’t need to be dragging yourself out into the cold.” And then he walked out. I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. A single tear slipped out of the corner of my eye, tracking hotly into my hairline. The System let out a long, static-laced sigh. It didn’t say another word. 5. After Gavin left, the silence in the apartment was deafening. I couldn’t sleep. I dragged myself out of bed and limped into the studio. On the easel sat my half-finished canvas. The stage, the bright spotlights, the faceless audience in the dark. And the girl in the white dress. I stared at her twisted, broken leg. A sudden, violent sob ripped from my throat. I grabbed a palette knife and slashed it across the canvas, right over the leg. It wasn’t enough. I ripped the canvas off the frame. I grabbed the sketches off the wall. I tore the second one, then the third, ripping the heavy paper into shreds. The studio floor was soon buried in torn paper and snapped pencils. I collapsed against the wall, sliding down until I hit the floorboards, my leg throbbing in relentless agony. The System shrieked, “Stop it! June, breathe! Stop hurting yourself! Put your hands down!” I couldn’t calm down. Brooke was back. And this time, Gavin hadn’t stood in front of me like a shield. He had stepped out of the way to catch her instead. The nightmare from seven years ago was playing on a loop, and I was trapped inside it. I fumbled for my phone and dialed Gavin. It rang out. I called again. Voicemail. I called him fifteen times. Finally, a text came through: “Brooke’s running a fever. I’ll be home when I can.” I stared at the glowing blue bubbles. A laugh ripped out of me, harsh and jagged. A fever. She had a fever, so she needed him to hold her hand through the night. What about me? I was drowning, suffocating on the floor of our home. Where was he? I typed: “I’m hurting too.” He replied instantly: “Take some Tylenol and go to sleep.” Nothing else. I let the phone slip from my fingers. It clattered against the wood. Through the studio window, the city skyline glittered against the dark, alive and careless. But I felt totally consumed by the blackness. Just like that night seven years ago, bleeding out on the cold concrete, the darkness pressing in from all sides. I pulled my knees to my chest, curling into a tight ball in the corner. My bones ached. My heart felt like it was tearing down the middle. “Stop crying,” the System whispered. “I’m not crying,” I lied. But the tears poured down my face, hot and relentless. The System let out a soft, humming sigh. “I ordered you some flowers.” I looked up, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “What?” “Sunflowers,” its voice was incredibly gentle now, stripped of all its electronic edge. “It’s a shame I’m just lines of code. If I had arms, I’d try to hug you right now.” I sat there, stunned. After a long time, I whispered, “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me,” it replied. “You need to learn how to love yourself.” “He is not your savior, June. Only you can save you.” Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery courier. A massive bouquet of bright, golden sunflowers. Nestled among the heavy petals was a small card. It read: You deserve to be fiercely loved. Holding the flowers to my chest, the dam broke, and I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. The weight of the sunflowers was heavy and real in my arms. I traced the edge of a golden petal and whispered into the empty room, “Are you disappointed in me?” It took a moment, but the System’s voice returned, sounding slightly muffled. “Yes.” “But June, you are just sick right now. And people can heal.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “440962”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The wedding was supposed to start in ten minutes. I was standing in the bridal suite, drowning in a sea of white tulle and pure, unadulterated joy, when my brother, Luke, suddenly looked at me with a deep scowl. He told me I was heartless. Before I could even process the venom in his voice, Parker, my fiancé, reached up and unbuttoned his custom tuxedo jacket. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, Sadie. We can’t do this today. The wedding is off.” Panic flared in my chest. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I grabbed the hem of Parker’s jacket, begging them both to stop. I told them this was a sick joke, and it wasn’t funny. Parker just sighed, looking at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. He asked me if I ever spared a thought for the girl whose life I had destroyed while I was casually dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on a fairytale wedding just to show off. I froze, my mind going blank. He kept going, his voice cutting through the air. “You got Lexi expelled back in high school. You ruined her life. Do you have any idea how hard she’s had it all these years because of you?” Hearing Lexi’s name was like a physical blow. I stood there, paralyzed. She was the one who had bullied me. She was the reason I had to take a leave of absence, the reason I spiraled so deep into depression that I almost ended my own life. The jagged, ugly scars across my wrists—the ones Parker used to trace with tears in his eyes, promising to protect me forever—seemed to burn. Inside my bridal clutch was a positive pregnancy test, a surprise I had planned to give him today. Now, looking at his cold face, it felt like a cruel cosmic joke. … Parker wouldn’t stop talking, and every time he mentioned Lexi, his eyes filled with an undeniable, aching tenderness. “Her family didn’t have money, Sadie. After she was expelled, she had to work illegal, grueling jobs just to survive.” He stepped closer, his voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “You’ve been pampered your whole life. How could a girl like you ever understand what a beautiful, defenseless young woman has to endure in this world just to get by?” Dizziness washed over me. None of this felt real. I stared at him, my voice small and shaking. “Parker… she tormented me. I begged Luke to report her to the school board because I couldn’t breathe anymore. You supported me back then. You knew…” “Enough!” Luke snapped, cutting me off. The harshness of his shout made my eyes sting instantly. Our parents died when we were kids. Luke was the one who had held my hand at their graves and sworn to spend his life taking care of me. To make enough money to give me a good life, he had worked himself to the bone, destroying his kidneys in the process. I had secretly gone through the donor matching process and gave him one of my kidneys, keeping it a secret from everyone. I had only ever seen my big brother cry once. It was when he found out about the kidney. He had broken down, hugging me so tight my bones ached, whispering, Sadie, I will protect you for the rest of my life. I guess a lifetime is much shorter than I thought. Luke pulled out his phone and shoved a picture in front of my face. It was a hospital room. A woman lay on the bed, emaciated and pale as a ghost. Parker was sitting by her side, holding her hand with an intimacy that shattered my heart. “Do you know that Lexi developed severe depression after what you did?” Luke demanded. “Look at her. She’s living a waking nightmare, and you, the person responsible for it all, have the nerve to throw yourself a million-dollar wedding?” I looked at the face in the photo. It was the face that had haunted my nightmares for a decade. Reflexively, I took a step back, knocking the phone out of Luke’s hand. A cold sweat broke out across my skin. “No!” I whispered. The word that wanted to follow was I’m sorry. Because back then, I wasn’t allowed to fight back. That was the rule Lexi had hammered into me. The first time she targeted me was over a pair of shoes. Lexi was the queen bee, showing off her brand-new designer sneakers to a crowd of girls in the dorm. But another girl, eagle-eyed and blunt, looked at my feet and spoke up. “Wait, Sadie’s are the real deal. Lexi, yours look like knockoffs.” I had tried to laugh it off and make an excuse to save Lexi’s pride, but she just stood there, her face dark and silent. Later that night, I was distracted, putting on my sneakers to go to the library. A blinding, white-hot pain shot through my foot. I looked down. Two thumbtacks were lodged deep in the sole of my foot, slick with blood. Terrified, I had gone to Lexi to apologize, practicing my words all night. But when I found her, she just smirked at me, looking me up and down. “I never noticed how big your boobs are, Sadie. Do you let guys feel them up all the time?” She sneered. “I mean, how else does an orphan with no parents afford shoes that expensive?” The surrounding girls erupted in laughter. No matter how much I explained that my brother bought them for me, the narrative was set. From that day on, the entire school “knew” that I had an older, wealthy benefactor who was definitely not my brother. The suffocating shame of that memory rushed back to the present. My hands gripped the expensive fabric of my wedding dress, crushing it into a ruined heap. Seeing me like this, a flicker of guilt finally crossed Parker’s face. He reached out, gently wiping a tear from my cheek. “It’s just a wedding, Sadie. We can always reschedule and do it later,” he said, his voice soothing, manipulative. “But Lexi is in a really bad place right now. If she finds out we went through with this today, she might actually kill herself. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone’s death, would you? Be a good girl.” Outside the heavy oak doors of the suite, the guests were getting restless. The murmur of the crowd grew louder. “Is this wedding happening or what? Why are they taking so long?” “Did someone get cold feet? Oh, this is going to be good gossip.” I looked at Parker, the man I had loved for half my life, my voice cracking with a final plea. “You know how much today meant to me. Please, don’t do this to me…” Before I could finish, Luke’s phone rang. The panicked voice of a nurse blared through the speaker. “Mr. Evans! Miss Lexi is having another episode! Please come quickly, she’s trying to hurt herself!” In the background, I heard a woman screaming hysterically. “Let me die! Why does the person who ruined me get to be happy?! Let me die!” The last trace of guilt evaporated from Parker’s eyes. He didn’t even look at me again as he turned and strode out of the room toward the stage to face the crowd. Moments later, a wave of gasps and shocked whispers echoed from the ballroom as Parker calmly announced that the wedding was canceled. Luke didn’t yell at me before he left. He just looked at me with a profound disappointment that screamed, Why are you being so selfish? Then, they both ran out, their retreating backs so familiar. It was funny. Back in high school, these were the exact same two men who had hated Lexi on my behalf. Luke had been too busy working to notice the shift in me at first, so I had confided in Parker, my childhood sweetheart. He had stroked my hair, his eyes burning with protective fury. “Don’t worry, Sadie. As long as I’m here, no one will ever hurt you again.” The next day at school, my desk was clean. No slurs scrawled in permanent marker, no missing textbooks. My desk mate had nudged me, whispering, “Some hot guy just transferred to the class next door. Lexi is already trying to flirt with him, but he totally ignored her. It was brutal.” A cold dread had pooled in my stomach. Sure enough, Parker appeared at my classroom door a moment later, smiling brightly. “Surprise, Sadie! I begged my parents to let me transfer here to protect you!” My heart had plummeted. I turned around instinctively. Lexi was staring at me from across the room, her eyes so full of pure, dark malice it made me shiver. I still remembered that day vividly. After school, it was pouring rain. I was waiting for the car Parker had called for me when a violent force shoved me from behind. I slammed into the wet asphalt and was dragged like a stray dog into a dark alleyway. Terrified, I looked up. Lexi was smiling down at me, a sickening, predatory grin on her face. “Strip her,” Lexi commanded the group of kids behind her. “Let’s see if she really has the body to keep hooking all these men.” The memories of that day were fragmented, suppressed by years of trauma therapy and medication. I only remembered flashes in my nightmares. Rough hands roaming over my body. Blinding camera flashes. Tears mixing with freezing rain. Lexi had crouched down, slapping my cheek lightly. “Aw, Sadie. You can’t say ‘no.’ You have to say ‘I’m sorry.’ Haven’t you learned that yet?” The smell of blood in the air. The agonizing sting of a blade across my wrists, over and over. The last thing I remembered was Parker’s face when he finally found me. It was twisted with a grief so raw it looked like madness. He had held me so tight I thought he would crush my bones, swearing to God he would kill Lexi for what she did to me. Luke had sworn it, too. He promised he would make sure Lexi never knew a day of peace again. Because of the two men who loved me most, I had found the strength to rebuild myself from the ashes. I had survived. And now, ten years later… I was the villain, and the woman who had almost destroyed my soul was their precious, fragile flower. How utterly laughable. I pulled out my phone and stared at an email. It was a job offer for a senior management position overseas, a relocation opportunity I had turned down because of the wedding, because of them. I stared at the screen until my eyes burned. Then, I typed out a reply and hit send: I accept the transfer. I can start immediately. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How could Luke and Parker, who had witnessed my destruction firsthand, forgive this monster? How could they care about her more than me? Driven by a morbid need to understand, I paid a driver to take me to the private facility where Lexi was staying. It was a luxury sanitarium that cost hundreds of thousands a year. I looked at the billing records at the front desk. The signature on the payments was painfully familiar. The same signature had been at the bottom of every love letter I received as a teenager. The nurse saw me staring and smiled politely. “Are you a relative of Miss Lexi’s too? I haven’t seen you here before, though the other two gentlemen come by all the time.” I forced a polite smile, though my chest felt tight. “Is that so? How long has that been going on?” The nurse thought about it. “About three years now. When she first came in, she was in terrible shape. Her brother—well, the older gentleman—was quite cold at first and didn’t visit much.” “But I guess he saw how pitiful she was, so he started coming more. And then her boyfriend started coming along too.” My breathing stopped. “Boyfriend?” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. The nurse nodded, a gossipy glint in her eye. “Well, that’s just what we call him privately. He’s never officially admitted it, but a few times after his visits, he asked us to delete the security footage. You know how it is.” I felt like I had been struck by lightning. Dizzy and nauseous, I stumbled down the hallway toward her room. Three years ago. Three years ago, Luke had thrown me a lavish 25th birthday party that was the talk of the town, declaring to the world that I was his princess. Three years ago, Parker had gotten down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and when I said yes, he had set off a firework show that lasted all weekend. While I was drowning in a sea of absolute bliss, believing I was the luckiest woman alive, they were secretly seeing Lexi. Suddenly, all the strange anomalies from the past few months that I had desperately tried to ignore came rushing back. Parker’s increasingly frequent business trips. His short, cold text messages. Even Luke had started sighing in front of me, saying things like, “Sadie, I feel like we’ve spoiled you too much. You need to realize that not everyone in this world is as lucky and blessed as you are.” I had felt so anxious, thinking I had done something wrong. I had walked on eggshells, trying to please them, to make them smile again. And all that time, they were giving the warmth that belonged to me to the woman who had broken me. Suddenly, a soft, intimate sound drifted from inside the room. “Lexi, who gave you permission to hurt yourself again?” It was a man’s voice, thick with repressed, agonizing passion. A wave of bone-deep cold washed over me. For years, that exact same voice had whispered sweet nothings into my ear in the dark. Lexi let out a soft groan. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be off enjoying your wedding night with your perfect little bride? Go away!” A heavy sigh followed. “Stop crying. The wedding is canceled. Are you happy now?” I was shaking so hard I couldn’t breathe. I turned on my heel, desperate to escape this suffocating nightmare, only to crash violently into a broad chest at the corner of the hallway. I looked up through a blur of tears. It was Luke. An overwhelming, childish wave of grief crashed over me. I opened my mouth, desperate to find comfort. “Luke…” But before I could speak, my brother reached up and wiped away my tears. His face was full of exhaustion. “Let it go, Sadie,” he said quietly. Let it go? I stared at him in disbelief. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Since you found your way here, I’ll be blunt. Parker and I have been keeping tabs on her for years. We wanted to make sure she was miserable. We didn’t want her to have a good life.” “But we didn’t even need to do anything. She’s beautiful, but she had no education. Her deadbeat family kicked her out and forced her to work in underground hostess clubs. Sadie, if we hadn’t stepped in to save her three years ago, those men would have literally played her to death.” Luke’s eyes filled with a sickening wave of pity. “Compared to what she’s been through, what happened to you in high school was nothing. Stop holding onto the past, Sadie. You’re being vindictive.” He paused, looking at me critically. “Besides, you were a spoiled brat growing up. You probably provoked her back then. Why else would she have singled you out to bully?” The world turned cold. A dull, heavy ache blossomed in my lower abdomen. I felt all the strength drain from my body. Maybe seeing how pale I was, Luke sighed again. “I’ll have the driver take you home. Be a good girl.” I didn’t say a word. I just looked down at my phone. A tear fell onto the screen, perfectly blurring the countdown timer for my flight. I had 24 hours until the plane took off. I went back to the house in a trance and walked straight into Parker’s home office. The computer password was easy. It was my birthday. With shaking hands, I clicked on a hidden folder. It was filled with thousands of photos of Lexi over the past ten years. Covert shots, candid moments, tracing her entire life. The further down I scrolled, the softer Parker’s notes became, and the colder my heart grew. [Lexi’s family sold her to a nightclub. She deserves it. I paid off the manager to make sure they give her a hard time.] [She was groped by some old creep today. The girl is clever, though. She managed to talk her way out of it.] [Lexi is being bullied by the other girls. I secretly had someone move her to a different club. She still looks so sad.] I started laughing. I laughed so hard that tears streamed down my face. They were so incredibly kind. So noble that they could magnanimously forgive my abuser on my behalf. So righteous that they were willing to betray me to save a monster. I shut down the computer, went to the bedroom, and packed a single suitcase with a few clothes. When my hand brushed against the positive pregnancy test, I paused. Then, with absolute, cold finality, I ripped it in half and threw it in the trash can. The sun had long set by the time Parker finally came home. I looked up from the couch. Lexi was standing right behind him, wearing a pristine white dress. I flinched violently, shrinking back into the cushions. Parker immediately rushed forward, trying to pull me into his arms. “It’s okay, Sadie. Don’t be scared.” His embrace didn’t smell like the man I knew. It was coated in the heavy, cloying scent of her perfume. My lips were trembling with pure rage. “Parker… you brought her into our home. How dare you!” Parker pursed his lips, looking incredibly pained. “Sadie, I… I need you to apologize to her.” He avoided my incredulous stare, speaking in a low, placating tone. “You don’t understand. Lexi is in a really fragile state. She has severe self-harm tendencies. She told me that if you just apologize to her, she will cooperate with the doctors and take her meds. After all, you were the one who got her expelled back then.” The dull ache in my abdomen suddenly flared into sharp, agonizing spasms. I looked at Parker and laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “You want me to apologize to the person who traumatized me? Parker, have you lost your goddamn mind?” Parker’s brows furrowed. Before he could speak, Lexi spoke up from the doorway. “Forget it if she doesn’t want to. I don’t want to live anyway. I’m sorry for causing trouble, Sadie.” Her tone was playful, mocking. Hearing those familiar words from her mouth made my blood boil. I stood up, consumed by a feral urge to slap the smirk off her face. But Parker immediately grabbed me, pinning my arms to my sides to hold me back. Lexi looked at me and smiled. “Wow, Sadie. You really were a straight-A student. You still remember everything I taught you, don’t you?” Parker frowned as I struggled against him, my eyes wild. “Calm down, Sadie.” He pulled out his phone. “Look, I’ve already booked a new venue. I’m going to throw you an even bigger, more lavish wedding to make it up to you, okay?” He looked at me as if I were a throwing a temper tantrum over a toy. “It’s just a simple apology, Sadie. Is it really that hard to say?” My breathing became shallow and rapid. I was back in that alleyway in the pouring rain. Her voice was whispering in my ear like a demon. Sadie, when I beat you, you have to say I’m sorry. Got it? The pain in my stomach was now a tearing sensation. “Parker…” I gasped out, clutching my stomach. Seeing me like this, Lexi’s eyes gleamed with malice. She suddenly spoke up loudly, interrupting me. “I don’t feel well. I want to go back to the clinic.” Parker, who had been about to look at me, immediately let go of my arms. “I’ll take you back.” With the last of my strength, I lunged forward and grabbed his sleeve. “Parker, please… my stomach hurts so bad…” He looked down at me, his eyes full of impatience and annoyance. “Sadie, enough. You refuse to apologize, and now you’re faking a medical emergency to manipulate me? Luke was right. We really have spoiled you rotten.” With that, he violently shook off my hand, wrapped his arm around Lexi, and walked out the door. I collapsed onto the floor, staring blankly at the closed door. I looked down. The white rug beneath me was stained with a bright, terrifying crimson. The child I had loved and dreamed of was leaving me, washing away in a pool of blood on the living room floor. The very last tear I would ever shed for these people fell. My heart turned to ash. Let the world be as wide as it may. I was done with them. I never wanted anything to do with either of them ever again. Late the next night, Parker dragged his exhausted body back home. But the moment he opened the front door, a heavy, metallic scent of blood and dampness hit him. A sudden, violent wave of dread washed over his soul.

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I was born to inherit a criminal empire, but through a bizarre twist of fate, I was “reclaimed” by the Wentworths—a family of old-money aristocrats who thought they were doing me a favor. Back at the Wentworth estate, I was the “real” daughter who felt like a ghost in my own home. Meanwhile, they had Madison. Madison was the “fake” daughter they’d raised in my absence—a girl who played the part of the fragile, wide-eyed porcelain doll to perfection. Madison had a fiancé, Tyler. To help her secure her spot and drive me out, Tyler decided to seduce me. It was a classic trap. I played along. I leaned into the role of the naive girl from the streets, letting myself get tangled up in his web. I wanted to see how far he’d go. I didn’t have to wait long. He took our most private, intimate photos and put them up for sale at an underground auction house, intending to incinerate my reputation and leave me with nothing but ashes. When the news leaked, I became the city’s favorite target. My name was dragged through the mud. But the Wentworths? They didn’t protect me. Instead, they turned on each other, using me as the ammunition. “I told you nothing good comes from the gutter! Why did we even bring her back?” my father barked. “She’s your flesh and blood, isn’t she? Don’t you dare pin this on me!” my mother shrieked back. Madison sat there, dabbing at fake tears, playing the peacemaker. “Poor Lexi… she’s just from a different world. She doesn’t understand our values. She’ll learn, eventually.” That was the final straw. I was kicked out of the Wentworth mansion that night, and like clockwork, Tyler and Madison’s engagement was reinstated. With nowhere else to go—or so they thought—I went back to the only life that ever made sense. I stepped back into the family business and took over the very underground auction house Tyler thought he was using to destroy me. The night of the grand auction arrived. Madison and Tyler showed up, dressed to the nines, likely expecting to watch my public execution from the VIP lounge. They froze when they saw me standing on that stage, gavel in hand, bathed in the spotlight. I cleared my throat, the microphone carrying my voice to every corner of the darkened room. “Our next lot is titled ‘The Counterfeits.’ We have a collection of explicit, unfiltered photos of our very own ‘Prince Charming,’ Tyler, and the Wentworths’ darling Madison.” “Standard rules apply. Highest bidder takes the prize.” … 1 I had just hung up on my biological father—a man who ran the city’s shadows and had been begging me to come home—when I headed over to Tyler’s place for a date. I was smiling, playing the part, until I reached the door and heard voices from inside. “Tyler, look at what she did! Lexi is so… animalistic. How could she leave these marks on you?” It was Madison. She was pointing at the dark, bruised hickeys and bite marks on Tyler’s neck, her voice trembling with performative heartbreak. Tyler’s handsome face flushed. He tried to adjust his collar, coughing awkwardly before pulling Madison into a gentle embrace. “It’s okay, Maddy. If this is what it takes to get her out of the house so you can keep your place as the only Wentworth daughter, I’ll endure it. It’s a small sacrifice.” He paused, his ears turning a deep crimson. “The marks… they’ll fade. Stop crying, babe.” Madison buried her face in his chest, her voice dropping into a hiss. “Promise me you won’t fall for her. You’re mine.” I leaned against the doorframe, biting back a cold laugh. This counterfeit girl had spent years basking in the wealth and love that belonged to me, and even now, she felt entitled to every scrap of it. Tyler agreed immediately. His lack of hesitation sent a sharp, sudden pang through my chest. So, all that effort? All the sweet words and the calculated seduction? It was all for her. He was a martyr for his little princess. Then, he pulled out a USB drive and handed it to her. He stroked her hair, his voice dripping with faux-chivalry. “Every photo is in here. Whether you want to blackmail her into leaving or just burn her world down publicly, I’m with you. I’d do anything to make you happy, Maddy.” My hand tightened on the doorknob. My blood felt like it was turning into shards of ice. Last night, we were “intimate.” Today, he was handing over the knife to slit my throat. Rage and humiliation warred in my gut, sharp as a blade. I was ready to burst in and end them both right there, but Madison’s next words stopped me cold. “Tyler, I want to send these to The Onyx—the underground auction. We can tip off the press, build the hype… Lexi won’t just be gone. She’ll be buried.” The Onyx. The underground auction house my father gave me for my eighteenth birthday. Madison looked up at him, eyes wide with hope. Tyler hesitated for a second. “Do you think I’m evil?” she whispered, clutching his sleeve. “If we don’t do this, she’s the one who marries you. I can’t lose you.” She lowered her head, a sob catching in her throat. “Some white-trash girl from the middle of nowhere comes in and steals my life, my name… even my fiancé. I just want to be your wife, Tyler.” Tyler’s heart clearly melted. He pulled her closer. “Fine. Whatever you want. I’ll help you.” By that evening, the rumor mill in the city was on fire. Word had spread that “The Lost Wentworth Daughter” was the star of an upcoming erotic auction at The Onyx. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. The manager of the auction house was sweating through his suit when he finally got me on the line. “The files are already in our system, Boss. Do you want me to scrub it? If the Big Man finds out your photos are being circulated in our own house, he’ll have my head. Please, save me!” I smiled, a cold, sharp expression. “Why are you scared? I’m right here.” “But… the photos—” “Don’t scrub them,” I interrupted. “In fact, fan the flames. Make sure the whole world is watching. I want this bridge to burn bright enough to see from space.” 2 When I walked into the Wentworth dining room that evening, the air was thick enough to choke on. I sat down and started eating as if it were any other Tuesday. My father slammed his glass onto the table, the wine splashing onto the white linen like blood. “You disgrace! How dare you show your face here?” Madison smirked almost imperceptibly before dropping her fork to rub my father’s back. “Dad, please, your heart…” She turned to me, her eyes flashing with a cruel triumph masked as moral outrage. “Lexi, don’t you have any dignity? Think of your fiancé! Think of the family! How could you be so… desperate? To let yourself be filmed like that?” “Since when does a counterfeit get to lecture me?” I asked quietly. Before Madison could squeeze out a tear, my mother jumped up. She hovered over Madison like a protective hen, glaring at me with pure loathing. “She has been my daughter for twenty years! She is a princess in this house! You have no right to speak to her like that!” She spat the word “daughter” at me, emphasizing that my blood meant nothing compared to the bond she shared with Madison. I looked at them—these people who were supposed to be my parents. My heart felt like a lump of cold iron. Faced with a scandal that could ruin my life, they had zero questions, zero desire to help. Just blame. I picked up my knife and fork, pushed a shard of broken glass aside, and calmly cut into my steak. My father and mother were vibrating with rage at being ignored. They started shouting at each other instead. “I told you! You can’t take the ‘street’ out of a girl. Why did you insist on bringing this mess into our lives?” “She came out of your womb, didn’t she? Don’t blame me for her trashy genes!” Madison watched me, looking like she’d already won. A moment later, Tyler stormed in, his face a mask of righteous fury. “Lexi! How could you do this to me?” He stared at me, his voice trembling with “betrayal.” “How many other men have been in your bed? Was it someone from your old life? Or someone new?” I looked at the faint marks on his neck—marks I had left there—and the irony was almost too much to bear. He was such a good actor. He really leaned into the role of the scorned lover. But why? Why did I have to be the sacrifice for his grand romance with Madison? When I didn’t answer, he seemed to get even angrier. He lunged forward, grabbing my arm, his voice actually shaking now. “Why aren’t you defending yourself? Is it true? Are you really—” Madison cut him off. “Since Tyler is here, Mom, Dad… I think the family owes him an explanation. And a solution.” Her eyes were shining. Tyler stiffened, slowly letting go of my arm. The scandal was the perfect excuse. My mother glared at me one last time before turning to Tyler, her voice softening into an apologetic coo. “Tyler, dear, we are so sorry. You know… Lexi might be our biological child, but she’s been a wild animal for years. She has habits we can’t break. It breaks our hearts, really.” “Wild animal.” The words stung. They were the ones who lost me. I was seven years old, wandering the streets alone, terrified, until Frank found me and brought me into the Syndicate. I still have nightmares about those nights. And now, they used it as an insult. I gritted my teeth, swallowing the bitterness. My father spoke up then. “Lexi is too manipulative, too stained for a man like you. Tyler, you’ve been wronged. As an apology… we’d like to reinstate the original arrangement. The engagement will pass back to Madison. There will only be one Wentworth daughter from now on. As for Lexi… we are done with her.” Madison beamed, looking at Tyler with pure adoration. But Tyler’s gaze lingered on the marks on his neck for a split second, and his expression darkened. He looked at me. “Do you have anything to say?” What was there to say? Right then, my phone vibrated. I stood up and walked toward the door. As I stepped into the hall, I heard Tyler’s voice behind me, cold and final. “I agree. The engagement is with Madison.” I stopped in my tracks. I hit ‘accept’ on the call. “Boss,” the voice on the other end said urgently. “We found it. Everything.” 3 The rumor that my private photos were being auctioned was the final nail in the coffin. By kicking me out, the Wentworths had essentially confirmed it was true. The internet was a cesspool. People called me every name in the book. I even got DMs asking for my “hourly rate.” I didn’t stay silent. I posted one sentence on my socials: Tomorrow night at The Onyx, I’m auctioning off ‘The Counterfeit Couple’—the private collection of Tyler Blackwood and Madison Wentworth. Don’t miss the show. Tyler was the first to hit back, tagging me from his official account: Delusion is a sad look, Lexi. You’re the one who betrayed us. Don’t try to drag Madison into your mess. The Wentworths didn’t stay quiet either. They put out a three-page press release “vouching” for Madison’s purity and threatening me with a defamation lawsuit. The public was firmly on their side. Perfect. I needed them to feel safe. I needed them to show up. If the whole cast wasn’t there, the finale wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying. The next night, The Onyx was packed. The energy was electric, a mix of high-society voyeurism and dark-web cruelty. Tyler arrived looking grim, followed by a phalanx of security guards carrying briefcases of cash. My auction house had a “cash only” rule—an old tradition I kept because I liked the weight of it. Madison and the Wentworths arrived through the private entrance, also carrying several cases. They were here to buy my silence, to bury whatever I thought I had. When I stepped out onto the stage in a sleek, black silk dress, the room went silent. I felt every predatory eye on me. I welcomed them. My biological parents charged toward the stage. My father raised his hand to slap me, but before he could connect, my manager—a man who had seen more blood than a surgeon—intercepted him. He caught my father’s wrist in a grip that looked like it might snap bone. “You forgot the rules? Should I have my men show you the exit?” Madison stepped forward, looking like a wilted flower. “Dad is just emotional, please. Lexi… why are you doing this to me?” She looked at me, tears welling up. “Why are you so cruel?” The manager looked at me. I gave him a tiny nod, and he let go, backing away with a final warning. They couldn’t touch me on stage, so they resorted to psychological warfare. My mother stepped closer, her voice a hushed, manipulative whisper. “Lexi, honey, stop this. You can’t play with Madison’s reputation like this. You’re sisters. I know you’ve had a hard life, and you’re worried about the inheritance, but this is beneath you.” She leaned in, her eyes cold. “If you come down now, tell everyone this was a prank born out of jealousy, and get the manager to cancel the lot… we’ll let you come home.” I looked at her, tilting my head. “You’ve been around this world long enough to know the rules, Mother. If I cancel an auction after the gavel is up, the house takes my hands or my feet. Is that what you want?” My mother’s face paled for a second before she masked it with a shrug. “Oh, surely they wouldn’t do that to a girl. They’re just… being dramatic, right?” Madison’s face twisted with spite. “It’s what you deserve for being a snake!” I got it. They wanted me to gamble my limbs to save Madison’s “good name.” They didn’t care if I bled out in the alleyway as long as their precious princess remained untarnished. It was hilarious. Truly. I didn’t waste another breath. I walked to the center of the stage and picked up the heavy, silver-plated gavel. “Our first item tonight,” I announced, my voice amplified throughout the hall, “is a collection from ‘The Counterfeit Couple’—starring our very own fraud, Tyler Blackwood, and the fake heiress, Madison Wentworth.” “Standard rules. High bidder wins.” 4 The room erupted. The Onyx didn’t hire “auctioneers.” They had a reputation for being ruthless and honest. The fact that I was the one holding the gavel changed everything. But it was my phrasing—”Fake Tyler”—that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Tyler Blackwood was the sole heir to the Blackwood shipping empire. And I had just called him a fraud. Tyler stormed the stage, grabbing my wrist. “Lexi! You’ve fallen so low you’re working in a place like this? Get your things. We’re leaving.” I used my free hand to deliver a slap that echoed like a gunshot. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” I hissed. “You’re just a piece of meat I decided to play with. Did you really think you meant something to me?” I leaned into the mic. “Or are you just nervous, Tyler? Afraid of what’s in the vault?” Tyler gritted his teeth, his eyes burning with hate. “Fine. If you want to rot in the mud, be my guest. Don’t crawl back to me when you’re nothing.” He walked off the stage. I smiled and slammed the gavel down. “Lot One: A series of candid photos of Tyler Blackwood. Starting bid: Ten cents.” It was an insult. A starting bid that low for a man of his stature was a slap in the face. And because it was an anonymous auction, the rich socialites in the room didn’t mind humiliating him. The price climbed quickly. A group of wealthy cougars pushed it to three million. Tyler, looking like he wanted to murder everyone in the room, finally bid thirty million just to shut them up. Sold. I did the same with Madison’s photos. Before the Wentworths could even open their mouths, Tyler dropped another thirty million to save her. He was playing the hero, basking in the pity of the crowd. But then, I dropped the real bomb. “Next lot: Evidence of the Wentworth family’s systemic tax evasion and offshore money laundering. Starting bid: One hundred million dollars.” The room went dead silent. The Onyx only auctioned verified items. If it was on the block, it was real. This was a bomb that would level the Wentworth legacy. The family panicked. They started bidding against themselves, but they didn’t have the liquid cash. Madison turned to Tyler, begging him to use the Blackwood accounts. But I wasn’t done. “And for a combined lot,” I said, a predatory grin spreading across my face, “we have the ultimate secret: The identity of the real Blackwood heir.” “Starting bid: Ten billion dollars.” I reached back, and a tall, shadow-dressed man stepped through the velvet curtains.

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