Category: English

The Feds took the parents in handcuffs, leaving behind a ten-thousand-square-foot McMansion and a trust fund baby who couldn’t even butter his own toast. I was packing my bags, ready to bolt, when a string of glowing, neon text floated across my vision like a ticker tape on a news channel: [This family’s foundations run deep. Even the crumbs falling from their table are enough to feed a normal person for a lifetime.] [Pity about the kid. Parents are looking at twenty-to-life. He’s essentially an orphan now.] I’m not the most educated woman in the world, but I caught the keywords: Foundations deep. Feed for a lifetime. Fine. For the money, I’d raise the kid. 1 I’d only been working at the Remington estate for two months when the sirens cut through the quiet hum of the Greenwich suburbs. “Martha! I’m leaving Preston in your hands!” Mrs. Remington wailed as she was shoved into the back of a black SUV. Her makeup was running in streaks down her face. I was about to wave my hand and say hell no, but then those glowing words popped up in the air again. I didn’t fully grasp the legal intricacies of “Federal Indictment,” but I understood the word “Money.” As long as the check clears, I can handle anything. I waved at the receding police cruiser. “Don’t you worry, Ma’am! I’ll keep the young master fed and watered!” That evening, Preston came home from his private prep school. The kid tossed his monogrammed backpack onto the marble floor of the foyer, didn’t bother taking off his designer sneakers, and screamed at the ceiling. “I want organic fruit snacks! Now! Immediately!” This kid was spoiled rotten, eyes always looking down at people like they were furniture. I didn’t even look at him. I pulled a packet of fruit gummies from the sub-zero fridge, tore the lid off, and slurped one down myself. Strawberry. Sweet. “Pick up the bag,” I said, “or no dinner.” Preston’s eyes went wide, like he’d seen a ghost. “You ate my snacks? I’m telling my mom. You’re fired!” He stormed off to find her. [This housekeeper has guts. Kicking him while he’s down.] [ Does the kid not realize the sky has fallen? Truly a hothouse flower.] [If the housekeeper sticks it out, the salary for the next three years is guaranteed. A starving camel is still bigger than a horse.] Three years? Salary? I felt a sudden calm settle in my chest. Preston did a lap of the house. Finding the echoing emptiness of the mansion, the panic finally set in. “Where’s my mom?” I licked the foil lid of the fruit snacks clean. “Your parents went on a sabbatical to Europe. They said they’ll be back when you start middle school.” “Liar!” He rushed to the landline. Dead air. Preston collapsed onto the Italian leather sofa, his face draining of color. “Hungry?” I asked. “No!” “Gonna pick up the bag?” “Why should I? You always pick it up!” I crossed my legs, settling into the armchair. “Before, your parents paid my salary. Now? I run this house. Don’t pick it up? Then the Wi-Fi password changes.” If the floating text hadn’t promised there was still meat on this bone, I’d be back in Ohio growing corn. By dinner, Preston folded. He picked up the bag, sulking the whole time. “Hey, are they really going to be gone a long time?” “I have a name. It’s Martha. Or Ms. Martha. You call me ‘Hey’ again, you lose the chicken drumstick.” Preston held his tongue. Looking at his small, defeated posture, I felt a twinge of something soft in my chest. “Don’t look so down. Three years goes by in a blink. It’s fast.” After dinner, Preston pulled out his homework. He chewed on the end of his pen, staring at a blank page. “Martha, this is too hard.” I leaned over. The words were dancing like ants. Common Core math. It gave me a headache just looking at it. But I couldn’t show weakness. How would I command respect? “Read it out loud,” I lied effortlessly. “I forgot my reading glasses.” “Aren’t they in your pocket?” “Those are sunglasses! Read!” Preston pointed at the book. “A pool has an intake pipe that fills it in 5 hours, and a drain pipe that empties it in 8 hours. If both are open, how long until it fills?” I laughed out loud. “Who is this idiot? Filling it while draining it? Is water free? Sounds like another trust fund baby wasting resources.” Preston blinked. “So what do I write for the answer?” “Write: ‘Waste of natural resources. Suggest EPA fine.’” “…Okay.” Next question. “Johnny climbs from the first floor to the fourth floor in 3 minutes. How long to get to the eighth floor?” “Johnny’s got good knees,” I said, cracking a sunflower seed between my teeth. “But is the elevator broken? Living on the eighth floor is a hike. Write: ‘Take the elevator, thirty seconds.’” I directed him with this brand of nonsense until I couldn’t fake it anymore. I sent him to watch TV and grabbed the pen myself to fill in the blanks. For the words I didn’t know, I drew circles or sounded them out phonetically. I figured, it’s third-grade homework. How hard could it be? Two weeks later, the homeroom teacher called. “Is this Preston’s guardian?” “That’s right. I’m the housekeeper.” “Right. Well, we suggest you take the child for… cognitive testing,” the teacher said, her voice dripping with diplomatic concern. “His recent homework… well, the logic is fascinating. It’s almost primal.” Me: “…” I hung up and looked at Preston, who was laughing at a cartoon. I felt a little guilty. “From now on, do your own homework. Ask a classmate if you’re stuck.” Preston didn’t argue. He turned off the TV and went to his desk. [The kid is actually pitiful. He’s getting bullied at school and won’t say a word.] [Parents are gone. What’s the use of telling a nanny?] [It’s the status drop. Yesterday he was royalty, today he’s the son of felons.] Bullied? I caught the keyword. I grabbed Preston by the arm. “Who hit you?” Preston kept his head down, eyes red. “No one.” “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to the school with a megaphone.” Preston looked terrified. He burst into tears. “They said my parents are bad people! That they’re in prison and never coming back!” I sighed, pulling a tissue to wipe his face. “Since you know, I won’t lie to you.” Preston sniffled, looking up at me. “Your parents didn’t commit a crime. They felt like… they messed up on their first try—I mean, they wanted to give you a sibling. But the regulations here are strict, so they went abroad to have a second baby in secret.” I lied with a straight face. “They only said they were arrested to avoid the paparazzi.” “Really?” “Why would I lie? If I had that kind of energy, I’d eat another pork chop.” Preston believed it. The light came back into his eyes. “So who hit you? You can tell me now.” “Carter.” The next day, I was at the school gates. Near the corner store, a husky kid was shoving beef jerky into his mouth. I sized him up. Solid build. A linebacker in the making. “Hey kid, is that jerky good?” The husky kid nodded. “Yeah.” I waved my hand and bought twenty packs, piling them in front of him. “Do me a favor. These are all yours.” The kid’s eyes went round. “Lady, I don’t do anything illegal.” “Nothing like that. Just look out for Preston. If anyone messes with him, you handle it. Especially a kid named Carter.” The kid thumped his chest, red spices smeared on his mouth. “Deal! As long as the jerky keeps coming, Preston is my brother from another mother!” [This nanny plays dirty. Violence for violence?] [Honestly, sometimes simple and crude works best.] [Satisfying to watch! That Carter kid is a menace.] A few days later, Carter’s mom cornered me in the principal’s office. “How are you raising that child? You let that fat relative of yours beat up my son?” The woman was dripping in gold and diamonds, spit flying everywhere. I channeled my best calm, detached persona. “Kids will be kids. Roughhousing is normal. They fight today, they’re friends tomorrow. Adults shouldn’t interfere.” Carter’s mom choked on her rage. “You…” The teacher tried to mediate, but I cut in. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Crabtree? Boys build character through conflict.” Walking out of the office, I saw Carter hiding behind his mom, looking with terror at the husky kid—let’s call him Tank—eating jerky nearby. I walked over and patted Tank on the shoulder. “Good work. Don’t leave right after school. I’m buying you a soda.” Tank saluted. “Mission accomplished!” That night, Preston awkwardly used his chopsticks to put a piece of broccoli in my bowl. “Martha, you’re awesome.” “Ms. Martha.” “Martha makes you sound like family,” Preston mumbled, shoveling rice. “Carter walked the long way around the hall when he saw me today. Tank even gave me Carter’s eraser.” Seeing his face beaming, I felt satisfied. “Don’t bottle things up. Your parents pay me, so I have to do right by that money.” Mentioning money, Preston ran upstairs and came down hugging a heavy, golden piggy bank. “Martha, this is my savings. If your salary doesn’t come through, take it from here.” I weighed it in my hands. Heavy. The floating text was right. The family had reserves. But the gold pig was beautifully made. Smashing it seemed like a waste. “Keep it for now. We’ll settle the bill at the end of the year.” 2 Good times don’t last. A week later, men in suits showed up. US Marshals. “This property is being seized. Vacate immediately. Personal clothing only. No valuables.” [It’s over. Hitting the streets.] [The housekeeper is going to run. Who wants to drag around an anchor like this kid?] [Poor kid. Truly has nothing now.] I watched the scrolling text, calculating. “Officer, clothes are allowed, right?” “Clothing is fine.” I dragged Preston into the walk-in closet. “Martha, where are we going?” Preston’s voice wobbled. “Wherever. We won’t starve.” I opened the wardrobe and started layering. Thermal underwear first. Then cashmere sweaters. Then a fleece. Then the Master’s trench coat over everything. “Don’t stare, put them on! Wear as much as you can! We can sell this stuff later!” Preston sniffled and started pulling things on. His mother’s mink coat, his father’s silk robes. We didn’t care about fashion; we just piled it on. “This… this looks expensive.” Preston pulled out a handful of colorful, tiny pieces of fabric from a drawer. “It has beads. And chains.” I glanced at it. Skimpy fabric. God knows where you wear that. “Take it! Every penny counts. Someone might buy it!” When we waddled downstairs, the Marshals stared, dumbfounded. Preston and I looked like two walking spheres. We couldn’t put our arms down. We took one step and gasped for breath three times. “Ma’am, are you moving out or preparing for the apocalypse?” “I have poor circulation. Is it a crime to be cold?” I asked indignantly. We stepped out the front door into the blazing July heat. The humidity hit us like a wall. Two steps in, Preston started walking funny. Like a duck. “What is it? You hurt?” I stopped to wipe sweat from my forehead. Preston’s face was beet red. He pointed to his rear end. “Martha, it’s wedged.” “What’s wedged?” “That tiny cloth with the beads… you said it was worth money, so I put it on first layer… it’s cutting me in half…”

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I fell for Nate Cross the moment he walked into my dad’s dive bar looking for a part-time shift. I was nineteen, persistent, and perhaps a little too enamored with the brooding intensity in his eyes. It took six months of my relentless chasing before he finally gave in and asked me out. A few weeks before his graduation, we were at the same cramped, hourly-rate motel near campus we always frequented. The air smelled of cheap bleach and stale cigarettes. After we finished, he rolled away, lit a cigarette, and stared at the peeling wallpaper. Out of nowhere, he asked, “So, when girls like you finally decide to ‘retire,’ do you just go back to some small town and find a boring, honest guy to marry?” I sat up, pulling the thin sheet over my chest. “What do you mean, ‘girls like me’? And what defines an ‘honest guy’?” He took a long drag, the cherry of his cigarette glowing in the dim light. “You know. A guy who doesn’t ask too many questions about your past. Someone willing to pay your siblings’ tuition. Someone… blissfully dim-witted.” I walked out of that motel room and never looked back. I blocked his number before I even hit the sidewalk. We didn’t cross paths again until four years later. By then, my father’s old dive bar had been gutted, renovated, and reborn as The Gilded Lily—the most exclusive private club in the city. I had just finished a training session with the floor staff when the heavy mahogany doors swung open. Nate walked in, flanking a high-profile client. He looked the same, yet entirely different. He caught my eye, his brow arching in a look that was both surprised and mockingly familiar. “Still here, Tracy?” he said, his voice carrying that old, condescending edge. “I figured you’d have aged out of the business by now. Beauty like yours has a short shelf life.” He turned to the man beside him with a smirk. “Mr. Sterling, why don’t we have her join us tonight? She used to be quite the bargain back in the day—a hundred and fifty a night. Given her age now, maybe I’ll offer you a flat hundred, Tracy? For old times’ sake.” I looked past him to the man at his side. The client—Xavier Knight—was watching the exchange with a strange, unreadable expression. “A hundred dollars?” Xavier asked, his voice low and dangerous. “Will a million get you to at least sit down and have a drink with me tonight, Tracy?” 1. Nate glanced back at Xavier, his star client, looking utterly bewildered. Then he looked at me, waiting for a reaction. When I remained silent, he quickly masked his confusion with a professional grin and ushered Xavier toward the VIP lounge. Xavier didn’t move immediately. He looked at me with a pouting, almost puppy-like desperation until I gave him a sharp, warning glare. Only then did he let out a long sigh and slowly trail after Nate. I turned to head back to my office, but Nate slipped out of the lounge before the door could fully close. He caught my arm, though I pulled away instantly. “Hey, if you set us up with the premium bottle service, do you get a commission on that?” he asked, leaning against the velvet wallpaper. “I assume the kickbacks here are better than they were at the old bar.” Since he was technically a paying guest, I kept my tone professional. “No, I don’t. But you’re right; the sales margins in a place like this are significantly higher.” He clearly still hadn’t grasped the reality of the situation. He thought I was just a glorified hostess. To be honest, four years is both an eternity and a heartbeat. Nate had changed. He still had that “love at first sight” face, but the clean-cut, academic charm had fermented into something greasy. There was a desperate, calculating look in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “The guy inside is a whale,” Nate whispered, leaning in as if sharing a secret. “My entire year’s performance review hinges on this deal. He’s loaded, but he’s a total snob. Don’t take what he said about the million bucks seriously—he’s just showing off. Don’t let him play you.” He paused, then let out a dry, cynical laugh. “Then again, you’ve been in these clubs for years. You’ve probably seen every trick in the book. Why am I even worrying about you? It’s almost funny.” He straightened his tie, looking back toward the lounge. “Just go in there, get us the good scotch, and find some of the younger girls. Someone pretty, someone fresh. Tell them to take extra care of Mr. Knight. No offense, but girls who’ve been in the game as long as you have… well, you tend to get a bit jaded. You forget how to put on a real show.” I gave him a thin, joyless smile. “I’m afraid you can’t afford my appearance fee, Nate.” He snorted. “A million dollars a drink? Right. Don’t let your ego get ahead of your paycheck, babe.” 2. I watched him walk away, a strange sense of vertigo washing over me. It was a jarring realization: the man who had whispered “I love you” against my neck in a cramped dorm room was the same man who just tried to price me out like a used car. The breakup had been a slow, agonizing death. For months, I had lived in a state of mourning, my pillow soaked with tears, wondering what I had done to deserve his sudden cruelty. It took years for the salt to wash out of the wound. I stared at the closed door of the lounge for a moment before waving over one of the floor managers. “If the guests in 512 ask for me, tell them I’m unavailable. Don’t offer any explanations.” I turned to leave, but a hand clapped onto my shoulder. I spun around to see a woman with a bright, predatory smile. “Harlan? No, wait—Tracy! It is you,” she chirped. “I can’t believe you’re still working this circuit. I guess the old man’s bar getting a facelift means you got a promotion to ‘Head Hostess’ or something?” It was Brooke Harrington, Nate’s old college mentee. Her father owned a series of pet food manufacturing plants—wealthy, but the kind of wealthy that always felt like it was trying too hard. “Did you see Nate?” she continued, not waiting for an answer. “He’s in there with a huge client. My dad set the whole thing up. Nate’s about to hit the big leagues. It makes you think, doesn’t it? If he had stayed with you, he’d probably be behind the bar right now, instead of being served at it.” She emphasized the word “served” with a look that suggested she knew exactly what kind of “services” she thought I provided. I never quite understood why Nate’s time working at my dad’s bar was framed as a “inspiring story of a self-made man,” while my time working there was treated like a criminal record. “Anyway, I’ve got to get in there,” Brooke said, smoothing her silk dress. “You probably shouldn’t come back in. Your perfume is a little… drugstore. It might ruin the vibe.” 3. I had known about Brooke since the day I started dating Nate. He was the golden boy of the Economics department—tall, handsome, and brilliantly sharp. It was only natural that girls like Brooke would hover around him. At the time, I wasn’t threatened. I was young and naive enough to believe that being the “pretty one” was an invincible shield. And I was pretty. I took after my mother, a B-list actress who had retired from the screen to marry my father. I had her bone structure and her haunting, cinematic eyes. When Nate first accepted my advances, he told me, “You’re breathtaking. I noticed you the second I walked into that bar.” He was my first real love. I was all in. I wanted every second of his time, but he could never give it to me. He had classes, student council, and three different part-time jobs. He was fiercely, stubbornly proud. He never talked about his family, and he never applied for financial aid, but the frayed cuffs of his shirts and his thrift-store shoes told the story of his poverty. To spend more time with him, I started sitting in on his lectures. I helped him with student events. I worked side-by-side with him at my dad’s bar. Because I was always there, hustling for tips and wearing off-brand clothes to blend in, he assumed I was just like him—a girl from the wrong side of the tracks trying to scrape together enough for tuition. The closer we got, the harder it became to tell him the truth. I kept waiting for the “right moment,” but that moment kept getting pushed further away by his pride and my fear of losing the connection we shared. 4. As graduation approached, Nate became a ghost of himself. He was juggling his own thesis, ghostwriting papers for wealthy slackers to make extra cash, and dealing with constant, frantic calls from his parents. They had just had another baby—a “miracle” child that Nate saw only as another mouth he would have to feed. I overheard a call once. His mother’s voice was thin and shrill through the receiver. “You’re the eldest son, Nate. The whole family is counting on you to bring us into the light. Once you graduate, we expect five hundred a month. Don’t go wasting your money on girls. Stay frugal. Your father and I have sacrificed everything for this day.” After those calls, Nate would spiral into a dark, suffocating silence. He would stare at me—or through me—with a look of profound resentment. He started spending more time with Brooke. She was “recruiting” clients for his ghostwriting business, acting as his gatekeeper to the wealthy students. I tried to cheer him up. I bought him a high-end leather briefcase and a designer watch for his upcoming interviews. I thought he’d be happy. Instead, his face contorted with anger. “Where did you get the money for this, Tracy?” Before I could answer, Brooke walked up, eyeing the gifts with a sneer. “Oh, Nate, look at the stitching. They’re obviously knockoffs from a street corner. Those girls who work the lounges always buy fake luxury to make themselves feel ‘high-end.’ It’s a classic status play.” Nate’s eyes turned cold. I could see the wheels turning in his head. If I told him they were real, he’d assume I’d earned the money in some illicit, shameful way. “If you don’t like them, I’ll just return them,” I whispered, my heart breaking. 5. When people are under immense pressure, they look for an outlet. During those final weeks, Nate’s physical affection for me turned into something desperate and almost violent. He was obsessed with me in a way that felt like he was trying to reclaim something he was losing. I mistook that desperation for passion. I thought it meant he loved me. Then came that afternoon at the motel. The “honest man” comment. “What exactly is ‘a girl like me’?” I had asked him, standing there shivering in the cold AC. He looked me up and down, his gaze stripped of all tenderness. “Girls like you. From some backwater town, clawing your way up, using your body as your only collateral.” I felt the blood drain from my face. “You think I’m… selling myself? After all this time, that’s what you think of me?” I realized then that all the “firsts” I had given him—moments I thought were sacred—were, in his eyes, just cheap, used-up scraps. The irony was sickening. I walked out. I sent the breakup text. I moved on. Or so I thought, until a floor runner burst into my office four years later. “Ms. Rosemary, there’s a fight in Lounge 512. Guests are getting violent.” 6. I sprinted toward the VIP wing, barking orders at the runner. “Don’t call the police yet. Let me see if I can de-escalate. If things get out of hand, hit the silent alarm for security.” The runner looked terrified. “Shouldn’t we call the owner? Or at least the bouncers? You going in there alone is dangerous.” “It’s fine,” I said, my voice steady. “I know the people involved. They aren’t that brave.” I threw open the doors to 512. Nate was huddled in the corner, clutching his forehead, blood seeping through his fingers. Shards of a crystal tumbler were scattered across the floor. Before I could say a word, Xavier Knight stood up, smoothing his Italian suit jacket. He looked at me with the most indignant, “who, me?” expression I had ever seen. “Tracy, I swear, I didn’t want to cause a scene,” Xavier said, sounding like a victim. “But I couldn’t sit here and listen to their filth anymore. If I’d known these were the kind of people I was dealing with, I never would have agreed to this meeting.” He stepped over the glass toward me. “My schedule didn’t even have this on it. An old partner begged me to meet this ‘rising star,’ and since it was at your place, I thought, why not? But let the record show: it was self-defense. I’m not the aggressor here.” Nate let out a strangled groan from the corner. “Self-defense? You hit me with a glass! I didn’t even touch you!” Brooke jumped in, pointing a manicured finger at me. “You! You’re the manager, right? Do your job! We paid for this room to conduct business, and our guest was assaulted. You are liable for this!” Xavier suddenly stepped closer to me, his tone shifting to something soft and almost whiny. “Honey, they were talking shit about you. They were dragging your name through the mud, and I just… I lost it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make a mess at your work.”

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The year Dominic loved Hailey most, everyone in our circle was placing bets on when he’d hand me the divorce papers. Yet, less than a month after I caught them together, he severed ties with her completely. He chose to return home, playing the part of the devoted husband, focusing all his attention on me and the life growing inside my womb. Three years later, we were at the pier’s amusement park, watching our daughter, Sophie, on the carousel. That’s when I saw her. Hailey was standing by the entrance, manning a rusted street-food cart. Gone was the polished, ethereal girl from the gala photos. Her face was sallow, slick with sweat and grease from the grill, her hair matted as she shouted over the music. “Hot dogs! Three dollars each! Two for five!” I instinctively gripped the hem of my sundress, my eyes darting to Dominic. I braced for a flinch, a lingering look—anything. But he stood there like a statue, his doting gaze fixed entirely on our daughter. “Sophie, hold onto the pole, sweetie. Don’t let go.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Relieved, I stepped away to buy a bottle of water. But when I turned back, the world tilted. Dominic was standing at the cart. They were staring at each other across the sizzling grill, an unspoken, desperate longing written in the lines of their faces. I stood frozen in the wind, feeling the scar on my heart—the one I thought had finally healed—tear wide open. This marriage, held together by stitches and lies, had finally reached its end. … 1 “Mommy!” Sophie lost her grip and tumbled off the painted horse. I felt a sharp jolt in my chest and sprinted toward her, scooping her small body into my arms. Her forehead had hit the platform, a purple knot already swelling larger than my fist. She was sobbing, the kind of breathless wail that makes a mother’s blood run cold. Dominic hurried over, his face pale. He stood there like a child caught in a lie. “I’m so sorry. Someone tried to grab my phone, and I chased after him… I looked away for one second, Elena. I’m sorry.” He looked sincere, his chest heaving as if he’d actually been running. But I knew better. He wasn’t breathless from chasing a thief; he was breathless from the rush of seeing her. I said nothing. I just held Sophie tighter and started walking toward the exit. As we passed the gate, a group of local punks surrounded Hailey’s cart. One of them snatched a hot dog, took a huge bite, and leaned in close to her face, a predatory grin on his lips. “Hey, beautiful. It’s that time of the month. Where’s our ‘protection’ fee?” Hailey knit her brows, her voice trembling but defiant. “I just paid you three days ago. I don’t have anything left.” “No pay, no play, sweetheart. Not on our block.” The leader’s face darkened. With one violent shove, he flipped the cart. The smell of hot grease hit the air, and Hailey screamed as the boiling oil splashed onto her arms. I saw Dominic’s jaw lock. The veins in his neck bulged, his knuckles turning white. He took a reflexive step toward her. I reached out and grabbed his arm, my voice low and steady. “Sophie is bleeding, Dominic. We need to get her to the ER. Now.” He blinked, like a man waking from a trance. His expression smoothed over instantly. He walked to the car and opened the door for me, his movements mechanical. Just as he was about to get into the driver’s seat, he hesitated. He turned to me, his eyes wide with a manufactured panic. “Elena, wait. I think I dropped the keys back by the carousel when I was running. I have to go back. I’ll be two minutes.” Before I could even respond, he slammed the door and vanished into the crowd. A woman’s intuition isn’t a guess; it’s a sentence. I knew exactly where he was going. I settled Sophie into her car seat, kissed her forehead, and followed him. I found them behind the row of concession stands. The thugs were cornering Hailey, their hands reaching for her, but before they could touch her, Dominic launched himself at them. He’d spent years in high-end boxing gyms, and it showed. He moved with a brutal, calculated grace, dropping two of them before they even realized they were in a fight. The rest scrambled away, cursing into the night. Hailey, her face streaked with tears and soot, threw herself into his arms. “Dom… I knew you’d come. You still care, don’t you? You never stopped.” 2 Dominic went rigid, his hands hovering over her back before he finally pushed her away, albeit gently. “Don’t. She’s in the car.” But Hailey was like a magnet, clinging to his shirt. “It’s been years, Dom. Don’t tell me you don’t miss me. I haven’t slept a full night since we broke up. You love me—I know you do. Why won’t you just leave Elena? Am I really that much of a mistake?” Dominic’s resolve crumbled. He reached out, his thumb catching a tear on her cheek. “Don’t ever call yourself a mistake. In my head, you’re still the best thing that ever happened to me.” “If I’m so great,” Hailey whispered, tilting her chin up, “then kiss me.” He hesitated for a heartbeat, his eyes locked on her mouth. Then, Hailey grabbed his collar, pulled him down, and pressed her lips to his. Dominic’s eyes blew wide, but within seconds, a frantic, starving hunger took over. He cupped the back of her head, pulling her into him as if he were trying to merge their very souls. Watching them, I felt my heart physically shatter. I had spent three years meticulously sewing the pieces of our life back together, and Hailey had shredded it into rags in less than three minutes. They were so lost in each other that when I dialed his number, he didn’t even look at the screen before hitting ‘ignore.’ He forgot about his injured daughter. He forgot about the woman who had stood by him through everything. I didn’t wait. I walked back to the car, called an Uber, and took Sophie to the hospital myself. By the time Dominic found us in the pediatric wing, Sophie had already been stitched up and was asleep in the plastic hospital bed. He looked at her, his face a mask of practiced guilt. “I’m so sorry, Elena. I couldn’t find the keys for the longest time. I’m such an idiot. I won’t let it happen again.” I looked up at him. His lips were slightly swollen, his collar askew. I wanted to scream, to demand the truth, to tear him apart. Instead, I just said, “She’s sleeping. Don’t wake her.” I should have known then. Infidelity isn’t a one-time mistake; it’s a character flaw. It was zero or infinite. My belief in him had been nothing but a stubborn delusion. I met Dominic when I was fifteen. He was the scholarship kid, the orphan everyone picked on. I found him in an alley behind the school, being beaten by a group of seniors, and I stepped in. From that day on, he was my shadow. He followed me everywhere. If anyone so much as looked at me wrong, he’d throw himself into the fray, reckless and devoted. At eighteen, he used every cent of his tutoring money to buy a modest ring and tell me I was his world. At twenty, he brought me the first million he’d made in tech, begging me to say yes to a life with him. At twenty-two, he gave me a wedding that was the talk of the city, swearing to love me for all eternity. I thought we were the exception to the rule. The shift happened three years ago. I had just found out I was pregnant. Dominic was ecstatic—he dropped a multi-million dollar deal to rush to the hospital to see the first ultrasound. On the way, he had a minor fender-bender with a girl in a beat-up sedan. Hailey. It was one of those “meant-to-be” encounters you see in movies. They exchanged numbers under the guise of insurance. Then they exchanged texts. Then they exchanged everything else. While I was crippled with morning sickness, they were in hotel rooms. While I was setting the table for our anniversary dinner, he was “working late” in her bed. And when my parents died in that horrific car accident—when I needed him most—he was in Cabo with her, exploring new ways to forget he had a wife. 3 A marriage for two had become a game for three. “Mommy… thirsty…” Sophie’s voice pulled me back to the present. I stood up to pour her a glass of water, but my gaze caught a silhouette in the parking lot through the window. Hailey was sitting in the passenger seat of a black SUV. My SUV—the one I’d bought Dominic for his birthday last year. She was kicking her legs playfully, looking like a girl without a care in the world. She must have felt my eyes on her. She looked up, locked onto me, and flashed a slow, triumphant smile. It was a silent declaration: Look at me. I won again. My hand shook, and the hot water from the dispenser splashed over my knuckles. Dominic was at my side in a second, dragging me to the sink and shoving my hand under the cold tap. “Elena! What are you doing? You have to be more careful. You’re going to burn yourself.” I watched his face, full of feigned concern, while all I could see was Hailey’s smirk. I’d seen that look before. Three years ago, on his birthday. I had planned a surprise party at his office, thinking I was being the perfect, supportive wife. I walked in with balloons and half his staff, only to find him on his leather sofa, Hailey in his lap wearing nothing but a silk robe. He was whispering things to her—dirty, intimate things he’d never said to me. I had frozen, the “Happy Birthday” banner slipping from my hands. Dominic’s first instinct wasn’t to apologize to me. It was to shield her. He stepped in front of her, hiding her nakedness from our eyes. I had snapped. I lunged at her, screaming, tearing at her hair. Dominic shoved me back—hard. “I love her, Elena,” he had said, his voice cold and flat. “If you can’t live with that, then we’re done.” The look on Hailey’s face that day was the exact same one she was wearing now. The sneer of the victor. A wave of pure, cold fury washed over me. I ripped my hand out of his. “Don’t touch me.” Dominic blinked, confused. “Elena, what—” “Sophie is thirsty,” I interrupted, my voice brittle. “Give her the water.” He nodded slowly, turning to the bedside. I watched him check the temperature of the water, gently lifting Sophie’s head to help her drink. It was such a tender, domestic scene. If only his mistress wasn’t waiting for him downstairs. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from an unknown number. [You saw us at the park, didn’t you? It doesn’t matter that you forced him back into your “perfect family.” Every time I show up, he comes crawling. He can’t help himself.] [Actually, we got to the hospital before you did. I told him I burned my arm and didn’t have money for the clinic. He didn’t hesitate to leave your daughter for me. Hahaha. You lose. Again.] [Want to bet I can keep him away from home for a week? Just watch.] As the last message popped up, Dominic walked over to me, checking his watch. His “serious businessman” mask was back on. “Elena, something came up with the London office. A major server crash. I have to fly out tonight. I’ll probably be gone for a week.” He leaned in to kiss my forehead. “Be a good girl for Mommy, Sophie. I’ll bring you back something special.” I gripped my phone so hard the screen almost cracked. I looked him dead in the eye. 4 “You have a whole team of engineers in London, Dominic. Sophie is hurt. She needs her father. Are you really going to walk out on her right now?” His expression soured instantly. The “devoted dad” act vanished, replaced by irritation. “The doctor said she’s fine. It’s just a bump. You’re perfectly capable of handling this alone. Don’t be dramatic.” He turned to leave. “If you walk out that door,” I said, my voice echoing in the quiet room, “we are finished. For real this time.” Dominic paused, his hand on the handle. He looked back over his shoulder. “What did you say?” I opened my mouth to repeat it, but his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, and a look of urgent hunger crossed his face. “I have to go. It’s the office.” Five minutes after he left, my phone buzzed with a FaceTime request. I looked at Sophie, who was drifting back to sleep, and stepped into the hospital bathroom. I hit ‘Accept.’ I didn’t see Hailey’s face. I saw the ceiling of a car—his car. I heard the rustle of clothes, the heavy, wet sound of kissing. My blood turned to ice. Then, Hailey’s voice, high and breathless: “Who do you love more? Me or the wife?” Dominic didn’t even pause. “You. Always you. She’s just… she’s the mother of my child. You’re the woman I breathe for.” Then came the sounds of them together, visceral and loud, a symphony of betrayal. I hung up. I collapsed against the bathroom door, the tears finally breaking through. This was his “urgent business.” He wasn’t going to London. He was going to a motel. Suddenly, the door creaked open. Sophie stood there, her eyes red, her little face crumpled. She saw me on the floor and ran to me, throwing her small arms around my neck. “Don’t cry, Mommy. Please don’t cry.” I pulled her into my lap, my voice thick with salt and grief. “Sophie… if Mommy and Daddy don’t live together anymore… would you want to come with me?” She didn’t hesitate. She pulled back and looked at me with a gravity no three-year-old should possess. “I go where you go, Mommy. Always.” Over the next few days, Dominic stayed “in London.” Hailey sent me photos every day. Them at breakfast. Him sleeping. A shot of her legs draped over his. I didn’t reply to a single one. Instead, I called my lawyer, Arthur Bennett. I asked him to pull a specific folder from my safe. Inside was a yellowed, three-year-old divorce settlement. Dominic had given it to me the day after I caught them the first time. He had been so cold then. He’d told me, “Sign it. I’ll leave you everything. I just want out.” I had been five months pregnant. I had asked him, “What about our baby?” And he had looked at me with total indifference. “Get an abortion. Even if you have it, the kid will just grow up in a broken home without a father who cares.” I had lost my mind then. I broke every dish in the house, but I refused to sign. I was convinced I could “fix” him. He’d disappeared for weeks, saying the next time we saw each other would be in court. But then, Hailey’s life fell apart. I had used my influence to make sure every firm in the city knew she was a home-wrecker. She lost her job. She got desperate. She tried to have me kidnapped to extort money. I’d bought off the guys she hired. They confessed in court. Dominic had come crawling back then. He said Hailey was young and stupid, and that if I dropped the charges, he’d come home and never speak to her again. 5 I had agreed. And those papers had been buried in the back of the safe. Until now. Arthur reviewed the document. “The terms are iron-clad, Elena. Since he signed this back then and it was never officially withdrawn, if you sign it now, it’s done. By five p.m. tomorrow, you’ll have the decree.” As Arthur was leaving my house, Dominic pulled into the driveway. They brushed past each other, but Dominic was so busy texting that he didn’t even look up. He walked into the house and tossed two shopping bags onto the counter. “Gifts from the duty-free shop. For you and Sophie.” I opened the boxes. A toy for Sophie. A silk nightgown for me. But the nightgown wasn’t new. It was wrinkled, and as I pulled it out, a few stray, curly hairs fell from the fabric. My stomach turned. I gagged, leaning over the sink. Dominic finally looked up from his phone. “Elena? You okay?” I pointed at the nightgown, my mouth open to scream, but then his phone rang. Hailey’s voice, frantic and shrill, filled the kitchen. “Dom! Someone’s at my door! I think it’s those guys from the park coming for revenge! I’m so scared!” Dominic’s face transformed. “I have to go back to the office. Something’s wrong. I’ll be back later to tuck Sophie in.” He ran out the door without looking back. Seconds later, my front door was kicked open. The punks from the pier were standing in my foyer. The leader glared at me, his eyes full of malice. “You’re the wife of that hero, right? He humiliated us. He broke my brother’s jaw. Now nobody in the neighborhood respects us. That debt needs to be paid.” Before I could reach for the alarm, they grabbed me by the hair. They threw me against the wall, the slaps coming so hard my vision blurred. Sophie started screaming. I fought back, shielding her with my body as they kicked me. “You want to be a hero like your husband?” the leader spat. “Let’s see how he likes you now!” The pain was blinding. I felt things breaking inside me. I fumbled for my phone in my pocket and hit speed-dial for Dominic. He’d only been gone a minute. He could still save us. Once. Twice. Three times. No answer. The leader saw what I was doing and crushed the phone under his boot. “Looking for help, bitch?” He dragged me toward the second-floor balcony. “Go find him in hell!” He kicked me through the railing. I hit the pavement below with a sickening thud. Blood pooled in my vision. I heard Sophie’s scream cut off as she fainted from terror. As my consciousness faded, I saw a black SUV parked just down the street. His car. The car was rocking rhythmically. Through the tinted glass, I could see two silhouettes tangled together. He hadn’t left for the office. He hadn’t even left the block. He was ignoring my dying calls because he was busy with her. The fury kept me alive just long enough to realize: I was done being the victim. Then, everything went black. I woke up the next afternoon in a hospital bed. Sophie was sitting by my side, her eyes swollen. She told me that a neighbor had seen the men fleeing and called 911. Dominic had never come home. 6 I laughed. A cold, hollow sound that turned into tears. A moment later, Arthur walked in. He handed me a blue folder containing two finalized divorce certificates. “It’s over, Elena. You and Dominic are legally strangers. Every asset—the company, the houses, the accounts—will be in your name within seventy-two hours. Congratulations. You’re free.” I took a deep breath. I put Dominic’s copy in an envelope and sent it via courier to Hailey’s apartment. Then, I checked out of the hospital, packed our bags, and took my daughter to the airport. Goodbye, Dominic. I hope she was worth it. For the next two weeks, Dominic and Hailey were inseparable. It was as if he were trying to make up for three years of lost time with his body. Then, one morning, an alarm went off on his phone. He looked at the screen. It was a reminder: Elena’s Birthday. He realized with a jolt that he hadn’t been home or checked on his family in nearly fifteen days. He opened his chat with me, expecting a barrage of angry texts or missed calls he could guilt-trip me about. The thread was empty. I hadn’t sent a single word. Unease settled in his gut. He told Hailey he had to check on “the business” and drove back to our estate. When he got to the front gate, his code wouldn’t work. He tried our anniversary. He tried Sophie’s birthday. Nothing. On the fifth try, the gate buzzed open, but not because of the code. A man he’d never seen before walked out.

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The first time I went to my CEO girlfriend’s house, her mother served me a bowl of premium bird’s nest soup. It was the kind of delicacy that costs more per ounce than the rent on my college apartment. I took a sip, shrugged, and said, “Thanks, Mrs. Sampson. This is some great chicken noodle soup.” The silence that followed was skeletal. The atmosphere in the living room didn’t just drop; it froze solid. After dinner, Heather led me down to the curb. Her voice was as sharp as a winter wind in Manhattan. “Ben, we’re done. My mother was right. A man with your lack of… refinement… is just a liability. You’re an embarrassment I can’t afford.” The very next day, her engagement to Miller Thorne—a trust-fund prince whose family pedigree matched her own—was splashed all over the social pages. I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg. I felt a hollowed-out kind of peace. I quit my corporate job and moved back home to help my father manage his “little organic farm.” Years later, Heather showed up at the gates. She was there to secure an exclusive distribution deal for the world’s most elite organic produce. I was wearing a rough linen work shirt, preping a tea service, when she saw me. The disdain in her eyes was a familiar old friend. “Ben? You’ve really bottomed out, haven’t you? Playing servant in a place like this?” She looked around the rustic-chic pavilion, her lip curling. “I guess life without me hasn’t been kind.” She picked up a teacup, blew on it, and gave me a pitying look. “There’s a hierarchy to the world, Ben. You have to understand that. Bird’s nest and noodles—they’re just not the same thing. No matter how much you want them to be.” I leaned over and handed her a freshly steeped cup of Ceylon black tea. She took a sip and immediately wrinkled her nose. “What is this? It tastes like… old, rotting wood.” “That, Ms. Sampson, is authentic Ceylon black tea from the original mother trees. It’s valued at over ten thousand dollars per gram.” She let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Years later and you’re still a pathological liar. People like you are only fit for drinking rotten wood.” 1 Three days ago, I was in New Zealand, chairing an international summit on the future of regenerative agriculture, when my father called me with an “emergency.” He told me he’d found a promising young partner for me. He praised her character and her business acumen. Her family owned some of the most prestigious luxury hospitality brands in the world—a perfect vertical integration for our family’s holdings. “Dad, I’m not doing a blind date,” I told him. “It’s not a date, Ben,” he chuckled, sounding like the silver-tongued fox he was. “It’s a collaboration. We’re about to break ground on ‘The Aether’—that ultra-luxe eco-resort in Big Sur, remember? The Montgomery family is our biggest partner. Just go. Consider it a soft-launch for the partnership.” He’d arranged for me to go undercover as the resort’s lead tea specialist. “Remember,” he warned, “keep that ‘crown prince’ attitude in check. Don’t scare her off. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Your happiness comes before the project.” I agreed. It was a ten-year strategic play for our empire; I needed to see the Montgomery heir for myself. But I never expected to run into Heather Sampson before I even met Saskia Montgomery. I was in the tea room, adjusting my linen tunic, when Heather walked in. She was draped in a white silk dress that probably cost more than the car I used to drive. Her eyes locked onto mine, a sneer spreading across her perfectly contoured face. “Ben. Long time no see.” I gave her a curt nod and turned to leave. “Stay right there.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of a woman used to being obeyed. “Is there something you need, Ms. Sampson?” I asked, my voice flat. She frowned, her expression darkening. “So, three years later and we’re skipping the pleasantries? Is this how you treat guests here? What’s your employee ID? I’m filing a complaint.” I said nothing. She let her gaze rake over my simple cotton work clothes. A slow, cruel smile spread across her lips. “No name tag. You’re just a temp, then?” “Makes sense. You never had any real ambition back at the firm. If I hadn’t carried you, you’d still be stuck in the basement making slide decks. Though, I suppose landing a temp gig at a place as exclusive as The Aether takes a certain kind of low-level hustle.” “Go get your manager. Your service is already making me uncomfortable. It’s ruined my mood.” I tightened my grip on the tea towel. The urge to pour the boiling kettle over her sense of self-importance was briefly, dangerously tempting. But I remembered my father’s face. I forced a professional, hollow smile. “I’ve been doing alright, Ms. Sampson. Traveling for conferences, mostly. The jet lag is the only real complaint I have.” “Ambition? I have plenty.” As the sole heir to the Vanguard Eco-Empire, destined to oversee the largest network of organic estates and luxury sanctuaries on the planet, “ambition” was an understatement. It was my birthright. She scoffed. “A temp attending global conferences? Three years and you’re still addicted to the fantasy, Ben. You’re still that boy who called bird’s nest ‘noodle soup’ and humiliated me in front of my mother.” “My family isn’t the Rockefellers, but we have a reputation. Did you really think a boy from a ‘nobody’ family could keep up? What were you so insecure about?” She was still stuck on that soup? I took a deep breath, refusing to explain myself again. “I told the truth then, and I’m telling it now.” She stared at me for a long beat, her mockery shifting into a cold, clinical kind of pity. “Fine. There’s no point in expecting anything from someone living in a delusion. Just… make me a tea.” “The most expensive one on the menu.” “Put it on my tab. I’ll leave you a thousand-dollar tip. That should cover about half a month’s rent for a guy like you, right?” I didn’t move. She arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “What? Not enough? Or does a temp like you not even have the clearance to touch the high-end leaves?” “Right away, Ms. Sampson.” I stepped into the climate-controlled vault and pulled out a small tin of my father’s private reserve Ceylon black tea—the tea I was supposed to use to welcome Saskia. I carefully measured out three grams and brewed it with mineral water from our own spring. When I returned to the tea room, I saw a familiar, peacock-like figure draped over Heather’s shoulder. Miller Thorne. He was wearing a bespoke suit, the diamond ring on his finger catching the light with an obnoxious glint. When he saw me, he gasped with theatrical shock. “Oh my god! Ben? What are you doing here?!” 2 Miller’s eyes were wide with a faux-concern that didn’t reach his pupils. “I thought you were some big-shot white-collar guy in the city? What are you doing playing servant in the mountains?” “I mean, I know your family was… modest… but is the money really this bad? Are you in trouble, man?” I set the tea in front of Heather, ignored him, and turned to walk away. “Wait a sec,” Miller drawled, his voice oily. “I want one too. Same as hers. Thanks, pal.” As I turned to head back to the vault, he reached up, unclasped a heavy gold chain from his neck, and tossed it onto my service tray. “It’s Bulgari. Limited edition. Retails for about forty grand. Consider it a ‘hardship bonus’ for your trouble.” I looked down at the gold. It was a discontinued model from last year—the kind of thing boutiques dump at private clearance sales for preferred clients. I slid the tray back toward him, my voice cool. “That style is a bit dated, don’t you think? I have a crate of those in my family’s storage. Most were gifts from vendors. The design was always a bit… loud for my taste.” Miller froze. Then he let out a high-pitched, manic laugh, leaning into Heather. “Hear that, babe? He thinks it’s ‘loud.’ Ben, this is real gold, not the flea-market knockoffs you used to buy.” Heather’s eyes were brimming with contempt. “Just take it, Ben. Sell it. It’ll save you five years of labor. Miller is being generous; don’t let your pride make you look even more pathetic.” “Are you sure you want me to have this?” I asked, a hint of a challenge in my voice. Miller propped his chin on his hand, looking like a king handing a coin to a peasant. “Absolutely.” I picked up the chain and, with a flick of my wrist, tossed it into the woven bamboo trash bin by the window. “Sorry. Resort policy. Staff aren’t allowed to accept personal gifts from guests.” “Ben!” Miller shrieked. He scrambled toward the trash bin, fishing the chain out with frantic, trembling hands. He waved it in my face, his face turning a blotchy red. “A forty-thousand-dollar necklace and you just throw it away? Are you insane? Do you know how many square feet of your shitty little apartment this could buy?” I looked at him, amused. “Is it that precious to you? I can write you a check for the value. Though, since it’s an old model, I might have to check the secondary market for the current depreciated price.” Miller was speechless, his mouth working but no sound coming out. Heather let out a sharp, cold laugh. “Stop playing the billionaire, Ben. You couldn’t afford the tax on that necklace if you sold your soul.” My expression went cold. “Give me your Venmo. I’ll have my assistant transfer the funds right—” “Enough!” Heather snapped, cutting me off. “Stop this ridiculous act. It’s embarrassing. If people hear you talking like this, they’ll think you’ve had a mental breakdown.” Miller jumped back in. “Seriously, Heather, I forgot how much he loved to make things up. It’s gotten worse. It’s actually sad.” He shook his head with a patronizing sigh. “Forget it. We’re in a different league. We can’t hold a crazy person accountable for his words, right?” Heather reached over and smoothed Miller’s hair, her eyes lingering on me with a flicker of something—maybe regret, but mostly annoyance. “Miller is a better man than you, Ben. He has grace. You? You’re just bitter and stubborn.” Miller let out a sigh of mock-exhaustion. “Look, my dad is tight with the procurement director here at The Aether. Why don’t I give him a call? Maybe I can get you moved from ‘temp’ to ‘full-time’?” “No,” I said firmly. “Come on, we’re old colleagues! Back at the firm, we were practically bros.” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s just a phone call. No big deal.” If he made that call, my cover was blown, and my father’s entire plan would go up in smoke. As Miller actually pulled out his phone to dial, I stepped forward and pressed my hand down on his screen. “I said no. Stay out of my business.” I remembered him all too well. Back at the firm, he was always “hanging out” with me, only to turn around and whisper in the breakroom after Heather’s mother humiliated me. “Poor Ben. He’s so out of his depth. Heather’s mom says he has no class. He’s just not ‘Sampson material,’ you know?” And the irony? The second Heather dumped me, she was posting engagement photos with Miller. When I resigned, Miller was the one who walked me to the elevator. “Ben, Heather realized a long time ago you couldn’t give her the life she needs. Someone like me—with the right background—we’re a power couple. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” “You know, that whole bird’s nest thing? That was just her excuse to finally pull the trigger…” I didn’t need him to remind me. I had seen their “flirting” long before the breakup. I just hadn’t wanted to believe it. “Ben!” Miller’s voice rose to a shrill pitch. “Why are you being such an ungrateful prick? I’m trying to help you! Do you even know what’s good for you?” Help? All I saw was a desperate need to gloat. I looked him dead in the eye. “Is that so? Because if you don’t stop harassing me, I might just have to throw you in the lake to see if you can swim as well as you talk.” 3 I turned my back on them, but Miller’s screeching followed me like a siren. “Manager! Manager! I want to report a threat! This server is threatening me! He’s a lunatic!” Heather was on me in a second, grabbing my wrist with a grip that was surprisingly strong. “Miller is being a saint, and you’re acting like a thug? Apologize. Now.” I’d had enough. My patience, usually a deep well, had run dry. “Heather, keep your lapdog on a leash. If he pushes me again, I’ll make sure he regrets ever stepping foot on this property.” Even the senior executives who had served my father for decades spoke to me with deferred respect. Who the hell was Miller Thorne to bark at me? Heather’s grip faltered for a second. “Who said he’s my lapdog? We’re just engaged.” “Doesn’t matter!” I shook her off, my voice dropping an octave. “Control your man.” Heather’s face clouded over. She let out a hollow laugh. “Ben, I shouldn’t have come here. I saw your face in one of the resort’s promotional brochures and I canceled a multi-million dollar contract just to see if it was really you.” I froze. I didn’t understand. “So you came all this way just to bring your trophy fiancé to humiliate me?” She looked like she’d been slapped. For a moment, she couldn’t find her words. Before I could walk away, Miller lunged forward. Crack. The sound of his palm hitting my face echoed through the tea room. My cheek burned. My vision blurred for a split second. I raised my hand to strike back, but Heather threw herself between us, wrapping her arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides. “You can’t touch him, Ben,” she hissed into my ear. “The Thornes will destroy you. Just take the hit and walk away. I’ll fix this. Unless you want to lose this job too.” I struggled against her. “The Thornes? They’re mid-tier contractors. You think I’m afraid of them?” With one word from my father, the Thorne family would be blacklisted from every major development in the state. But Heather held on tighter. “Ben, you have a poor man’s bank account and a rich man’s ego! It’s a deadly combination. How am I supposed to protect you when you’re this reckless?” Miller, seeing her holding me, turned a shade of envious purple. “Manager! Where the hell is everyone? This little ‘home-wrecker’ is threatening me and trying to seduce my fiancée!” His shouting drew a crowd of other wealthy guests. “My god, this is supposed to be a five-star resort. Why is the staff so aggressive?” “I saw it! That young man tried to give him a gold necklace and the waiter threw it in the trash!” “A homewrecker? Disgusting. He should be fired.” Miller, sensing the crowd was on his side, puffed out his chest. “Still want to act tough, Ben?” I didn’t care what they thought. These people were a chorus of the uninformed. But Heather was still clinging to me, and I couldn’t move without hurting her. I used what leverage I had to kick out at Miller. My shoe caught the hem of his trousers, and Heather shoved me away, rushing to check on him. I stumbled back, hitting the floor hard. The crowd looked down at me from their high horses. “Attacking guests in broad daylight?” “This place has gone to hell.” “Complaint! We’re all filing complaints! Get him out of here!” “Fine,” I said, slowly standing up and brushing the dust off my linen pants. I looked at the sea of judgmental faces. “I’ll walk you to the manager’s office myself.” 4 Heather looked at me with pure disbelief. “Ben, just swallow your pride for once! Do you have any idea what a collective complaint will do to you?” “You’ll be blacklisted from the entire hospitality industry. You won’t even be able to get a job at a roadside motel, let alone a place like this.” She turned to the crowd, her voice softening into her professional “CEO” tone. “Everyone, please. This is a misunderstanding. He’s… he’s an ex-boyfriend. He’s a bit unstable, and he clearly needs this job. For my sake, let’s just let it go.” Miller pouted. “Heather! Why are you still defending him?” Heather rubbed his arm. “Miller, your kindness is what I love most about you. Unlike him… well, let’s just move on.” Her “defense” was a masterclass in condescension. She was painting me as a pathetic, obsessive stalker who couldn’t let go of the “queen” who had outgrown him. Three years later, and she still saw me as that same “nobody” boy who needed her scraps of mercy. The situation felt suddenly, deeply exhausting. There were a thousand ways to crush Miller. Why was I letting myself look this ragged in front of these people? Miller smirked, triumphant. “Hear that, Ben? You’re a low-life. Even the owner’s daughter, Saskia Montgomery—who my father happens to be very close with—wouldn’t give you the time of day.” I glanced at him. “Is that so? Maybe I should call her and ask her exactly how much ‘respect’ she has for your father.” I pulled out my phone, and as I did, a small parchment packet of tea leaves fell out of my pocket and scattered across the floor. Heather looked down, and her face went pale. “Is that… what you served me?” “Yeah,” I said. “The stuff that tastes like ‘rotting wood,’ remember?” “Ben!” Heather clutched her chest. “You know I have a sensitive stomach! I never drink low-grade, unbranded tea!” “I didn’t know,” I said. “It’s been three years. I stopped keeping track of your ‘delicate’ requirements a long time ago.” Her eyes flickered with a strange hurt. “Of course. You were always heartless. Just like when you walked away from me without looking back.” I was baffled. She was the one who dumped me. Now it was my fault? Before I could process that, Miller started yelling again. “Oh my god! We ordered the ‘Reserve’ tea, and you served us this floor-sweepings? How much of the difference are you pocketing, you thief?” The crowd started murmuring again. “Wait, is our tea fake too?” “This place is a scam!” Just then, the Resort Director arrived with two security guards. She didn’t hesitate. She signaled the guards to restrain me, then turned to the guests and bowed deeply. “My deepest apologies, ladies and gentlemen. ‘The Aether’ only serves certified organic, premium teas. This employee brought in his own unauthorized leaves. We will deal with this with the utmost severity.” “As an apology, all tea service today is on the house. Please, enjoy the rest of your stay.” Her polished apology worked. The crowd began to disperse, satisfied with the “justice” served. I went to pull away from the guards, but Miller stepped in. “He threatened me. He’s a physical danger. A reprimand isn’t enough.” “I want him fired and trespassed. Now. I don’t feel safe with a violent lunatic on the grounds.” He gave me a nasty look. “It’s a long walk back to civilization, Ben. Hope you like hiking in the dark. Maybe you can share your ‘rotting wood’ tea with the mountain lions.” The Director looked conflicted. “Mr. Thorne, this is private property, but kicking him out after dark is… it’s a liability.” Heather looked uneasy. “Miller, don’t be cruel. He could get hurt.” Seeing Heather’s flicker of concern, Miller doubled down. “Then at least fire him. That’s not too much to ask, is it?” The Director sighed. “I can’t. He was… he was sent here by the Executive Board. I don’t have the authority to terminate him.” I felt a wave of relief. My father hadn’t totally left me to the wolves. He’d made sure the local management knew I was “protected,” even if they didn’t know exactly who I was. Miller laughed. “The Board? Do you know who my father is? Arthur Thorne? We supply the timber for this entire expansion! If I tell my dad to pull the contract, your Board will be begging me to fire this guy.” “Don’t tell me what you ‘can’t’ do. I’m calling my father right now.” Heather frowned at the Director. “Which board member sent him? Give me a name.” The Director kept her head down. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sampson. Orders were to keep it confidential.” The guards, sensing the shift in power, loosened their grip on me. I straightened my shirt, smoothed my hair, and pulled out my phone to dial a number. Miller sneered, pointing at me. “I don’t care if the Pope sent you. You’re done!” The call connected. I put it on speaker and held the phone out toward him. “Why don’t you tell her yourself? Ask her to fire me.”

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On my thirtieth birthday, I decided to stop waiting for a man who didn’t exist and bought one instead. I ordered a top-of-the-line, fully customizable synthetic companion—a “Life-Like Partner”—online. To my surprise, the company was running a “Buy One, Get One” anniversary special. Suddenly, I had two. I tried to be fair. Every night, I alternated between their rooms, making sure neither felt neglected. But as the weeks bled into months, the differences became impossible to ignore. Dominic was the premium model. He was graceful, attentive, and followed every directive with surgical precision, always finding the exact rhythm that left me breathless. Kai, the “free” model, was a different story. He was quieter, almost shy, but lately, Dominic had started to change. He became rough—violent, even. On more than one occasion, right when I was on the brink of release, he would glitch, his eyes flashing a deep, warning red as he entered “Aggressive Mode.” Frustrated, I called customer service. “Ma’am,” the rep said with a practiced, saccharine tone, “technically, our units are programmed for absolute compliance. However, high-end models possess a learning AI. Occasionally, they require… breaking in. A bit of behavioral conditioning, if you will.” “And if that doesn’t work?” I asked, looking at the bruise on my wrist. “If you’re unsatisfied, we can process a return. Please note that for privacy and security reasons, returned units are not resold. They are sent for immediate thermal decommissioning—complete incineration.” I hesitated. Despite the glitches, they felt like people. I decided I would try to “tame” Dominic. Tonight was supposed to be his night. Instead, I put on my sheerest lace nightgown and opened the door to Kai’s room. … Kai, who had already powered down for the night, looked up in genuine shock. “Jade? Tonight isn’t my…” I didn’t let him finish. I leaned into him, seeking the comfort of his steady, cool skin. He was so gentle, so eager to please in his own quiet way. Then, the door was slammed open. Dominic stood in the frame, backlit by the hallway lights, his expression twisted into a dark scowl. “Are you serious?” he snapped. “Is thirty the age where your brain starts to rot? There are only two rooms in this house—how did you get lost?” I didn’t answer. I reached for the interface on his forearm, swiping open his status panel. There it was: [AGGRESSIVE MODE: ACTIVE]. It was happening again. Ever since he arrived, his system would override his pleasure protocols and jump straight to hostility. Last week, because I’d forgotten to wear the specific perfume he “preferred,” he had intentionally shut down right at the climax, leaving me cold and aching. I’d searched the forums for other owners. “Impossible!” one user wrote. “My unit is a beast in the sheets and a literal puppy in the streets.” “Maybe you got a refurbished dud?” suggested another. Customer service insisted the units were programmed for my total satisfaction. But no matter how many times I reset him, Dominic only grew more resentful. A chilling thought began to take root: what if I wasn’t the “Master” Dominic had chosen to recognize? Dominic swatted my hand away, closing his interface with a sharp click. “I’m the premium model, Jade. He’s the bargain-bin throw-in. I suggest you remember who the real prize is.” He swept a row of expensive crystal vases off my vanity in a fit of pique. Just as the glass shattered, the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find Serena, my father’s “other” daughter—the walking, breathing reminder of the affair that killed my mother. “Oh, Jade,” she purred, looking past me. “If you can’t handle two of them, don’t be greedy. I’m sure Dominic wouldn’t mind staying with me for a while.” My blood ran cold. How did she even know he was here? I turned and saw a faint, rhythmic blue light pulsing from Dominic’s chest. The realization hit me like a physical blow. He wasn’t glitching. He had set a new primary user. He was sending a distress signal to his “true” mistress. I gripped the door handle until my knuckles turned white. “He belongs to me. I paid for him. Get out.” As I tried to shove the door shut, Dominic’s heavy arm blocked it. “I can’t stand you,” he spat, his voice dripping with vitriol. “You’re just a desperate, aging woman clinging to a machine. Why are you making things hard for Serena?” Aging woman. The words stung more than they should have. “If you hate me so much,” I whispered, “why did you come home with me? You begged for it at the showroom.” Back then, he had been perfect. He had knelt at my feet, whispering, “Please, Jade, take me home. I want to belong to you.” I had spent a fortune on him, then millions more on his maintenance and upgrades to keep him in peak condition. And now, I was a “desperate woman,” while he looked at Serena with a gaze so intense his internal cooling fans kicked into overdrive. Dominic covered his indicator light, looking almost guilty for a split second, before he pushed past me to escort Serena out. I stood there, trembling, until I felt a pair of warm arms wrap around me. Kai was there, silent and steady, wiping a tear from my eye with his thumb. His internal heaters flared, offering the only warmth in the house. Decision made. I pulled out my phone and dialed customer service. “Dominic isn’t working out. Send a team to pick him up for decommissioning.” “Certainly, Ms. Sharon. As per protocol, the unit will be incinerated immediately to protect your data. We’ll be there tomorrow.” “Good.” When Dominic finally swaggared back into the house an hour later, I was waiting. He looked at me with pure exhaustion, as if my presence were a chore. “If you want to do this, make it quick,” he said, beginning to unbutton his shirt. “I have things to do tomorrow.” He stopped, glancing at the nightstand. “Where’s the oil? I told you, I only use the $20,000-a-bottle synthetic joint lubricant. Where is it?” For months, I had pampered him, buying the most expensive supplies to keep his skin soft and his movements fluid. Meanwhile, Kai had never complained once about the $50 generic brand. “Use the cheap stuff,” I said, tossing a plastic bottle of drugstore oil at his feet. “Or don’t. I don’t care.” I walked out and slammed the door. Behind me, I heard the sound of more glass breaking. The next morning, Dominic did something unprecedented: he made breakfast. He stood by the stove, smirking as he saw a pile of high-end mechanical crates delivered to the foyer. “I knew you were just being dramatic,” he said, flipping a pancake. “I saw you ordered the designer maintenance kit. I’ll overlook your attitude from last night.” I realized then that he thought the crates were for him. He didn’t realize I’d ordered them specifically for Kai’s serial numbers. I didn’t bother explaining. I looked down at the plate he set before me and felt a wave of nausea. “Dominic… I hate mackerel. And mangoes. And kale.” He froze. Those were Serena’s favorites. I pulled up his control panel remotely. My heart sank. His entire “Preferences” database had been overwritten. Favorite Foods: Mackerel, Mango, Kale… Primary User: Serena. I searched for my own name in his system. It came up as a string of corrupted, unreadable code. To him, I was no longer his owner. I was a bug in his system. “You’re low on power,” I said coldly. Before he could react, I activated his “Safe Mode” and locked him in the basement. That night, I was woken up by a sound that made my skin crawl—the high-pitched, breathless giggling of a woman. I followed the sound to the basement. I threw open the door to find Dominic kneeling on the floor, kissing Serena’s shins with a terrifying, programmed devotion. “Mistress,” he whispered. The “Servant Protocol.” It was a feature meant to allow the units to cater to their owner’s every whim, a deep-dive into total submission. With me, Dominic had always been impatient, asking “Are we done yet?” every time we were together. But for Serena, he was a slave. I kicked the door frame. “Get out.” Serena scrambled to button her blouse, her face a mask of fake innocence. “Jade, don’t be mean. If you don’t appreciate Dominic, you shouldn’t lock him in a dark basement. He was so lonely… I was just helping him.” She stood up, smoothing her skirt. “Besides, Dad said if I really liked him, I should just take him. He said you’ve always been too greedy for your own good.” Three years ago, Serena’s mother had systematically dismantled my mother’s life until her heart gave out. After the funeral, my father married the mistress and stopped looking at me entirely. Not a dime of child support, not a word of kindness. I lived off the inheritance from my mother’s family. And now, Serena thought she could take this, too. “I bought him,” I said, pointing to the stairs. “Even if I sell him for scrap metal, he’s mine. Leave.” Dominic’s face contorted. “Scrap?” “You’re lying just to hurt Serena!” he shouted. “If you really thought I was scrap, you wouldn’t have bought all those expensive upgrades in the foyer!” I didn’t have the energy to argue. I grabbed Serena’s arm to pull her toward the door. In a flash of movement, Dominic lunged. He didn’t hold back. He kicked me square in the chest, sending me flying back into the dark corner of the basement. The heavy steel door slammed shut, and I heard the bolt slide home. He knew I was claustrophobic. It was in my medical file—one of the “Fatal Data” points that units were supposed to protect. “Let me out!” I screamed, clawing at the door. I couldn’t breathe. The walls felt like they were shrinking. Dominic’s voice came through the door, cold and annoyed. “That’s what you get for touching her. It’s my duty to protect my Mistress. You brought this on yourself.” I heard him kneeling down, his voice softening as he checked Serena for “injuries.” “Open the door,” I gasped, my lungs seizing. “Please… I can’t breathe…” “Stop faking it!” Dominic roared. “You’re just a pathetic woman who uses tears to get what she wants. You want help? Go find that budget-model ‘brother’ of mine.” His words reminded me. I fumbled for my phone and hit the emergency bypass button I’d synced to Kai. Three seconds later, the basement door was torn off its hinges. Kai didn’t hesitate; he scooped me up in a bridal carry and sprinted out into the fresh air of the living room. Dominic didn’t even look up. He was gently massaging Serena’s knee. Whenever I had been hurt, he’d pushed me away, claiming his “strength parameters” were too hard to control. It had always been Kai who patched me up. Serena looked up, feigning shock. “Oh, Jade! I’m so sorry. I must have accidentally deleted your medical files from Dominic’s system. I totally forgot about your little phobia. You’re not mad, are you?” Accidentally deleted. You couldn’t “accidentally” delete Fatal Data. It required a deliberate override. I’d had enough. I pulled out my phone and sent a recording of the entire incident—and the evidence of the system tampering—to the family group chat, CC’ing my father’s legal team. Under pressure from the elder board of our estate, my father was forced to act to avoid a public scandal. He cut Serena’s allowance and moved her curfew to 4:00 PM. Serena was livid. Dominic’s protective protocols went into overdrive. “When are you going to stop acting like a spoiled brat?” Dominic demanded, stalking toward me. “Serena was just playing around. Why do you have to be such a bully?” He really believed he was the master of this house. He’d forgotten he was a machine bought to serve. Serena started crying as she saw the notifications from her socialite friends mocking her downfall. “Jade, please! If people think I’m broke, they’ll ruin me!” Dominic’s chest plates began to glow a dull, angry red. “Look what you’ve done to her! Undo it. Now.” I sat on the sofa, calmly sipping water. I wasn’t going to negotiate with a toaster that was scheduled for incineration. Dominic lunged forward and grabbed me by the throat, forcing me to look at the interface on his arm. A holographic image flickered to life. “Apologize,” he hissed, his voice a demonic rasp, “or I’ll remotely trigger the demolition of your mother’s memorial garden.” My heart stopped. The hologram showed the mausoleum where my mother’s ashes were kept. He had accessed my private security network. His “Servant Protocol” had evolved into something truly predatory. “You’ve read my manual, Jade,” he whispered, his eyes gleaming. “Toppling a few marble pillars is child’s play for me.” I closed my eyes, my body shaking with rage and grief. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to the family group chat, claiming it was all a misunderstanding and asking them to reinstate Serena’s funds. My father’s reply was instantaneous and cruel: You’re just as petty as your mother was. Always whining. I’m leaving everything to Serena. You won’t get another cent. I turned off the screen, a dull ache spreading through my chest. “Not enough,” Dominic said, smirking. “Apologize to her. On your knees, Ms. Sharon.” “Don’t push me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. Serena, sensing her victory, grabbed a silver paring knife from the fruit bowl on the table. “Jade is the ‘real’ Sharon daughter,” she sobbed. “I’m just the mistake. I don’t deserve an apology!” She made a theatrical motion to stab herself in the heart. It was a bluff, and we both knew it. “Do it then,” I said coldly. She hesitated, the knife trembling. But Dominic didn’t hesitate. He shoved me forward with a violent burst of strength. I stumbled, and the knife Serena was holding plunged deep into my abdomen. Dominic stood over me, holding the remote trigger for the mausoleum. “I said apologize. From now on, I run this house.” Blood began to soak through my shirt. I clutched my stomach, the world spinning. I looked up at Serena’s smug face and whispered the words. “I. Am. Sorry.” Serena rolled her eyes, tucked the knife away, and climbed into Dominic’s lap. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the ceiling fan spinning, faster and faster, until the world went dark. When I woke up, the wound in my stomach was almost entirely healed—synthetic tissue grafts from the emergency med-kit. Dominic was standing over me, wearing nothing but a towel. He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head away, gagged by the smell of the cheap, rancid oil on his skin. “Isn’t this what you bought me for?” he asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “Fine. As long as you stay out of Serena’s way, I’ll take turns with the ‘gift’ model to keep you happy.” “Get out,” I rasped. “I don’t want you.” Dominic scoffed. He walked over to the new high-end charging station I’d bought for Kai and tried to force his connector into it. When it didn’t fit, he started slamming his fist against the console. “Did you buy the wrong model, you senile bitch? This doesn’t fit! Go exchange it!” The doorbell rang. Dominic followed me downstairs, still ranting. “See? I told you. You’re already calling the courier to fix your mistake. At least you’re learning…” He stopped as I opened the door. It wasn’t a courier. It was the decommissioning team. “Ms. Sharon?” the man asked, holding out a digital tablet. “We’re here for the T-9 unit, name: Dominic? For the… thermal disposal?”

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The moment my retirement statement hit the wires, the industry exhaled a collective sigh of relief. The comment sections were a bloodbath of “good riddance” and “finally.” Only one person staged a protest: Dominic Blackwood, the industry’s new “it-boy” singer-songwriter and the man my girlfriend was rumored to be sleeping with. He stood before a sea of cameras, his face a mask of performative grief. “It’s all a tragic misunderstanding,” Dominic told the reporters, his voice dripping with faux-sincerity. “Nathan West is an indispensable titan of the music world. My only wish is to see him reclaim his throne.” I clicked my phone screen off, the silence of my apartment swallowing his lies. In my past life, I hadn’t ignored him. In that life, his “original” breakout single had been a note-for-note carbon copy of mine. The internet branded me a thief, a parasite, a hack. They told me to crawl into a hole and die. I had fought back with everything I had. I posted voice memos, dated lyric scraps, and Logic Pro session files. None of it mattered. In the court of public opinion, the only metric that counted was the timestamp on the release. His song had gone live ten minutes before mine. Those ten minutes cost me everything. People sent funeral wreaths to my doorstep. They photoshopped my face onto corpses. Someone even splashed red gloss paint across my front door, a screaming “JUDAS” in crimson. The years of relentless cyberbullying fractured my mind. Depression became the air I breathed. My parents poured their life savings into legal fees to clear my name, but the fans were faster. They were a cult, a wildfire. A group of “stans” set fire to my parents’ house in a fit of righteous fury. My parents never made it out. On the night Dominic stood on a stage, weeping as he accepted the Grammy for Song of the Year—for my song—I stepped off the roof of a twenty-story building. I expected darkness. Instead, I opened my eyes to the blinding sun of a Tuesday morning I’d lived once before. The day of the release. … 1 “Noon today. High noon, and the world changes.” “Relax, Nate. With a track this good, the Vanguard Award for Best Songwriter is basically in your pocket.” Mitch, my manager, clapped a hand on my shoulder. I gasped, lungs burning as if I’d just been hauled out of the ocean. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I stared at the familiar crown molding of my living room, then at Mitch’s confused face. The realization hit me like a physical blow: I was back. It was the morning of the disaster. “You’ve been burning the candle at both ends with this record,” Mitch said, his voice softening. “I’ll clear your schedule for the next few days. Just get some sleep.” “Wait!” I caught Mitch’s arm as he turned for the door. My eyes were glued to the wall clock. The second hand ticked—a heartbeat in the silence. When the minute hand hit the ten-minute mark, I pulled up my phone and went straight to Dominic Blackwood’s social media. Just like last time, the post was there. A link to a streaming site. The caption: ‘Sunlight in the Ruins.’ My soul, laid bare. Listen now. I tapped the link. The haunting, melodic acoustic intro filled the room. “What the hell?” Mitch lunged forward, snatching the phone from my hand. “That’s your track. That’s—Nate, that’s your entire hook! The lyrics, the bridge… everything. How the hell did Dominic get an advance copy?” “He didn’t just get a copy, Mitch. He’s claiming it’s his.” “Maybe someone at the studio leaked the stems? Someone’s head is going to roll for this. I’m calling the label—” “No,” I said, my voice cold and sharp. “Tell the label we’re pulling the release. Cancel everything.” In my first life, I had released my version anyway, thinking the truth would protect me. I was a fool. To the world, I was just the guy who saw a hit and tried to claim it ten minutes too late. I remembered the comments like they were tattooed on my brain: “Stole it and then faked the ‘process’ photos? How desperate can you get?” “Thief. Disappear.” Mitch and my engineers had tried to testify for me, and the internet had torn them apart too. And then there was Camille. Camille Vane, my A-list actress girlfriend who had kept our relationship “discreet” for the sake of her brand. That afternoon, she had gone live on Instagram. She didn’t just distance herself from me; she declared her love for Dominic. She wept on camera, condemning my “unethical behavior” and praising Dominic’s “purity of spirit.” It was the ultimate betrayal. I had played the song for her weeks before anyone else. She knew the truth, and she chose to bury me to elevate him. The industry blackballed me within forty-eight hours. My awards were rescinded. My label dropped me under the weight of the PR nightmare. Every time Dominic released a new “hit,” I was dragged back into the light to be mocked all over again. The wreaths. The paint. The fire. The jump. “Nate, the label spent a fortune on the promo for this single,” Mitch said, pacing the room. “The billboards in Times Square, the Spotify takeover… I can’t just tell them ‘never mind’ without a reason.” “Tell them the master is corrupted. Tell them I’m having a breakdown. I don’t care. Just don’t put that song out.” “Okay, okay. I’ll look into the leak quietly. In the meantime… you need to write something else. Fast. Give them a reason not to sue us for breach of contract.” After Mitch left, I sat in the silence of my home, a ghost in my own life. Dominic was Camille’s “childhood friend.” They grew up in the same posh Hamptons circle. When he graduated from Berklee, Camille used her influence to slide him into the industry’s inner sanctum. He signed with Apex Media, the biggest powerhouse in the country. His debut was a soundtrack for a Scorsese film. I was the self-made guy, the one who’d clawed his way up from playing dive bars. I’d been jealous of their “friendship” for years, but Camille always told me I was being insecure. “Our families are old friends, Nate. If I don’t help him, I look like the bitch of the family.” I had swallowed my pride to keep her happy. I didn’t realize Dominic was the one she’d always wanted. I grabbed my laptop and began scouring Dominic’s old posts, looking for the glitch in the matrix. I found it in a photo from a month ago. August 26th. A picture of his mahogany desk, a whiskey glass, and the caption: In the flow. I zoomed in until the pixels screamed. On the legal pad in the corner of the frame, I saw my own handwriting—or a perfect imitation of it. My exact structural notes. Even a lyric I had scratched out and replaced was there, preserved on his page. This song was my autobiography. It was about the loss of my sister, about the specific salt-air smell of the Oregon coast. It was impossible for someone else to “coincidentally” write it. Did Dominic jump back in time too? No. That didn’t fit. Dominic was a New Yorker through and through. He’d never set foot in the small coastal town where those lyrics were born. Mitch called an hour later. “Nothing. The studio is airtight. The engineers are clean. It’s like the song just… manifested in his head.” I was cornered. Mitch was right about one thing: the label’s investment was too high to ignore. If I didn’t produce a replacement, I was finished anyway. I locked myself in my home studio. I picked up my Fender, my fingers trembling. This time, I wouldn’t write about grief or ghosts. I would write about vengeance. I would be Nemesis. I spent forty-eight hours in a fever dream of caffeine and adrenaline. I didn’t use my main computer. I didn’t use the cloud. I recorded a raw, gritty rock demo on an old, offline handheld recorder. I sent the file to Mitch. He replied within seconds with a string of fire emojis. “Rock? Nate, this is visceral. It’s genius. I didn’t know you had this much rage in you.” He booked a session at a private, high-security studio an hour later. By the time we walked out of the booth, the sun was creeping over the horizon. “The label wants to wait,” Mitch said, rubbing his eyes. “Next week is a holiday weekend. They want to drop this on the following Tuesday to maximize the charts. You okay with that?” I didn’t answer immediately. “What’s Dominic doing?” “My contact at Apex says he’s gone dark. No promo tour, no interviews. He’s just… lurking.” It was too strange. If you have the biggest song in the country, you run the victory lap. You don’t hide. “Fine,” I said. “Wait a week. Let’s see what happens.” I went home and slept for fourteen hours. It was the first time I hadn’t dreamt of fire. I was woken up by a frantic pounding on my front door. It was Mitch. His face was ghostly pale. “Nate. It happened again.” My heart stopped. “What?” “Dominic just dropped a surprise second single. It’s the track we recorded yesterday. Every note. Every lyric. It’s a carbon copy.” The air left the room. My courage, my “rebirth” plan, it all crumbled. How? I’d avoided the cloud. I’d kept my phone on the balcony. I’d used an analog recorder. How was he inside my head? Dominic Blackwood was now the undisputed king of the charts. He held the #1 and #2 spots simultaneously. He was the “voice of a generation.” Fans flooded his comments, asking about the sudden shift from folk-pop to gritty rock. His response was chillingly calculated: “My first track was leaked and plagiarized by someone I used to respect. Luckily, I moved my release up. This new song is a warning. Talent is the one thing you can’t steal, and I am the standard you will never reach.” The internet didn’t need a name to know he meant me. They found my label’s old “coming soon” teasers and swarmed. “He was talking about you, wasn’t he? Where’s your ‘original’ music now, Nate? Too busy hitting ‘copy-paste’?” My loyalists tried to defend me, but without a song to show, they were fighting a losing war. Dominic’s star was rising so fast it was blinding. Then, the woman I once loved finally called. “Dominic is having his release party tomorrow night,” Camille said, her voice hard as flint. “You’re coming.” I laughed, a jagged, bitter sound. “Why the hell would I do that?” “Because your fans are harassing him, and he’s been a mess because of it. If you still want a career—if you still want me—you’ll show up, shake his hand, and put these ‘plagiarism’ rumors to bed.” He stole my soul, and she wanted me to thank him for it. “I’ll be there,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. I needed to see him. I needed to look into his eyes and figure out what kind of monster I was dealing with. The party was held at a penthouse in Soho. Camille was draped over Dominic’s arm, looking every bit the Oscar-winner she was. The room was packed with the industry’s elite. “Two singles, two records broken in one week,” someone gushed. “The lyricism in the second one… that rock edge? It’s soul-shattering, Dom.”

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I spent every cent of my savings on a high-tier incubus from the Underground. As it turned out, he hated me for being poor. He despised the cramped, drafty apartment I called home. I once overheard him complaining to his brother: “A woman with no money and even less beauty? I wouldn’t take her if she were gift-wrapped.” I stood in the shadows that day, looking at his brother—a man who walked with a slight limp but possessed the kindest eyes I’d ever seen—and I realized I’d invested in the wrong person. Later, I sold my place and brought the brother home, too. That’s when the first one panicked. With eyes rimmed in red, he grabbed my sleeve and whispered, “Are you… are you throwing me away?” 1 My pet incubus was a nightmare. He didn’t listen, he was cruel, and last night, he bit me. When I woke up and stood before the bathroom mirror to brush my teeth, I couldn’t stop staring at the mark on my neck. It had deepened into a bruised, sickly purple. I hissed as my fingers brushed against it. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter, that it would fade in a few days, but then I looked at my own face in the glass—plain, tired, unremarkable—and my eyes filled with tears. Rylan loathed me. He loathed everything about me. He hated my voice, my face, and especially this tiny, ancient apartment in a neighborhood that had seen better decades. We’d had a blowout fight last night. In the heat of it, he finally stopped pretending and let the truth bleed out. “Maddie, you’re the one who liquidated your entire life to buy me,” he’d spat, his voice laced with venom. “I didn’t choose you. If I had a choice, I’d never have taken you as a Mistress, and I damn sure wouldn’t be rotting away in this pathetic dump.” I’d been desperate then, still clinging to a ghost of hope. “But it’s been a year, Rylan. Don’t you feel anything for me?” “Nothing. Not a single thing.” He was tied to the headboard at the time, unable to move, but his eyes were predatory and sharp. His answer was instantaneous. That was the moment the last flicker of warmth in my chest went cold. I splashed freezing water on my face, taking deep breaths until the tears retreated. Then, I dug through my drawer for a heavy-duty concealer, layering it over the bite mark until the shame was hidden beneath a beige mask. 2 Rylan was still locked in the bedroom. Before heading to the office, I went in to untie him. He was sitting on the rug, his head down, long lashes fluttering. He was faking sleep; I knew his tells by now. I knelt beside him and began working on the restraints around his wrists. “Rylan,” I said softly. He didn’t move. He kept his eyes clamped shut. “I’m going to work. I’m letting you go, but you have to promise me you’ll stay put. Just stay home today.” “Ha. If you don’t want to let me go, just say it. Stop acting like you’re doing me a favor.” Rylan opened his eyes, his face a mask of pure irritation. I didn’t argue. I just gave him a tired, sad smile and clicked the last buckle open. He seemed stunned by how quickly I gave in. He sat there, his dark, almond-shaped eyes fixed on me. “You’re actually letting me go? I never said I’d be here when you got back.” He was always trying to run. Even though I held his contract and he couldn’t get far, catching him was a chore I was starting to lose the energy for. I nodded, feeling a weight in my bones that sleep couldn’t fix. “Fine. Just… take the house keys.” 3 I’d bought Rylan last winter in the Underground. There wasn’t some grand romantic reason for it. He was just breathtakingly beautiful—tall, broad-shouldered, with a waist so lean it looked sculpted. At the auction, I’d seen his brother, Jude. They were twins, almost identical, except for one thing: Rylan was physically perfect, while Jude’s left leg was mangled, leaving him with a permanent limp. I only had enough money for one. I figured if I was going to spend my life with an incubus, I shouldn’t settle for “damaged goods.” I paid the premium and took the “perfect” one. But a year later, my life was a mess of anxiety and heartache. Sitting at my desk at work, staring blankly at my computer screen, I pulled up my banking app. A few thousand dollars. That was all I had left. I sighed. Maybe I should stop daydreaming about “what ifs.” 4 “Maddie, the boss is grabbing drinks tonight. You in?” My coworker, Sarah, popped over to my cubicle as the clock neared five. I shook my head. She tapped her temple and grinned. “Right, I forgot. You’ve got that gorgeous specimen waiting at home. I bet he’s already got dinner on the table, huh?” Rylan? Cooking? He was more likely to burn the building down out of spite. I forced a smile, but before I could explain, Sarah sighed dreamily. “I’m so jealous. It really makes the 9-to-5 worth it, doesn’t it? I’m saving up for a premium model myself.” I didn’t want to crush her spirit, so I just offered one piece of advice: “When you buy, go to a licensed agency. Stay away from the black markets. There’s no return policy there.” “Got it. Noted!” Usually, I was the first one out the door. Today, I lingered for thirty minutes, slowly packing my bag. I checked the home security feed on my phone. Empty. Rylan was gone again. My heart felt like a tangled knot. Instead of going home to an empty apartment, I started walking. I walked until the neon lights of the city faded into the dim, flickering lanterns of the Underground. 5 The place was a labyrinth of shadows and rot. The air smelled of damp earth and something metallic. The stalls were lined with cages—beast-kin, half-shifters, some looking sickly, their horns sawed off, their spirits broken. “Hey, lady! Take a look at this one. Purebred fae-blood, half price!” I looked away, quickening my pace. I was broke; I couldn’t help them even if I wanted to. I followed the familiar, grimy path to the shop where I’d bought Rylan. The shop was still open. The owner was dozing in a chair by the door. I slipped past him, moving quietly toward the back courtyard where the “stock” was kept. I hadn’t even reached the gate when I heard a familiar voice. “Jude, has anyone even looked at you lately?” It was Rylan. He hadn’t run away to be free; he’d run here to see his brother. 6 I stayed hidden behind the heavy iron door, listening. “A client came by twice last week,” Jude’s voice was raspy, softer than Rylan’s. “But she didn’t want to pay the processing fee. Not for a cripple. Nobody wants a broken toy, Rylan.” “If you hadn’t tried to save me when we were kids… if those traffickers hadn’t broken your leg to keep you from running… it’s my fault, Jude. I’m so sorry.” “Stop it. It was never your fault.” Jude was in a cage, the heavy collar around his neck making it difficult for him to speak, yet his tone remained incredibly gentle. “I don’t regret it. You’re free now, Rylan. You aren’t ‘merchandise’ anymore. Forget about the past.” Rylan spat on the ground, his voice dripping with bitterness. “Free? You think I’m free? The woman who bought me keeps me on a shorter leash than the shop owner did. She’s terrified I’ll bolt.” Hearing him talk about me made my chest tighten. My heart began to hammer against my ribs. “She’s exhausting. Honestly, I’d rather be back here in the cage than stuck with her.” Rylan groaned. “She’s plain, she’s poor… the clothes she buys me are literal rags. I’ve only been there a year and I already can’t imagine spending the rest of my life like this. It’s pathetic.” “Don’t talk like that,” Jude interrupted. “Beginnings are always hard. The woman I saw that day… she looked kind. I think she’ll treat you well if you let her.” “Kind? She’s a nightmare. She ties me up every night. Look, I still have the marks on my wrists.” Rylan rolled up his sleeves. “I’m done with it, Jude. I wish you could take my place. I wish you had to deal with that ugly woman instead of me.” “She’s your Mistress, Rylan. It’s her right. And she isn’t ugly. Don’t be cruel.” “It’s just the truth. She’s nothing.” 7 Every word felt like a serrated blade across my skin. A bitter, acidic taste rose in my throat. I couldn’t listen anymore. I turned to leave, but my foot caught an empty tin can. Clang. Both men went silent. Their eyes snapped toward the door. Jude saw me first. He froze, then his lips curved into a heartbreakingly submissive, tentative smile. Rylan, however, looked like he’d been slapped. His face went pale, then turned a deep, embarrassed red. “You… what are you doing here?” I forced my voice to remain steady. “I came to bring you home.” Without waiting for a response, I turned and bolted back toward the street. 8 “Hey! Maddie!” Rylan caught up to me, grabbing my sleeve. “Why are you walking so fast?” I didn’t look at him. I jerked my arm away and kept moving. But all I could see was Jude’s smile. He was so different from Rylan. Jude had a tiny beauty mark just beneath his left eye; when he smiled, it moved in a way that felt… genuine. “How long were you standing there?” Rylan asked, his voice wavering. “Did you hear what I said to my brother?” Jude’s leg. He’d lost his mobility saving his brother. He was the one who deserved a life. Not Rylan. “Hey! Answer me! Stop acting like a statue.” Rylan’s voice rose, grating on my nerves. I stopped and looked at him. “I heard it. All of it.” Rylan choked on his next breath. He looked panicked for a split second before his arrogance returned. “Well… it’s the truth. You do tie me up.” “Yes. It’s all true. I’m ugly, I’m poor, and I’m a monster. In your eyes, I’m the villain of your story.” I didn’t yell. I didn’t even sound angry. I just sounded hollow. Rylan went quiet. He followed me the rest of the way home with his head down, not saying another word. As we walked, I stole glances at him. He was striking—easily the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. But the black hoodie he was wearing was a cheap, twenty-dollar find from a discount bin. It was pilling at the cuffs. It matched the one I was wearing. He was right. If a wealthy socialite had bought him, he’d be draped in silk and living in a penthouse. I couldn’t blame him for hating me. 9 When we got back to the apartment, I didn’t reach for the restraints. I didn’t lecture him about running off. I showered, went straight to the bedroom, and locked the door behind me. My mind was racing, but for the first time in a year, it wasn’t about Rylan. Knock. Knock. Knock. In the middle of the night, a voice drifted through the door. “Maddie? Are you awake?” “What do you want, Rylan?” “Open the door. I want to talk to you.” I stayed under the covers, staring at the wall. I must have drifted off, because when I opened my eyes again, a dark silhouette was standing by my bed. Rylan had found the spare key. He stood there, perfectly still, watching me. I sat up, pulling the duvet to my chest. “What are you doing?” Rylan’s throat worked as he swallowed hard. His tail flicked nervously behind him. “About earlier…” “I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rush, as if they burned his tongue. I yawned and waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. I forgive you. Now get out.” He didn’t move. I patted the pillow beside me. “What, do you want to sleep here?” Despite his hatred for me, we’d slept in the same bed every night for a year. Even when we fought, we shared the space. Now that I was pushing him away, he seemed lost. Rylan climbed in, shedding his hoodie. His arms found their usual place around my waist, his tail curling tentatively around my ankle. “I’m exhausted. Just go to sleep.” I shifted, creating a deliberate gap between our bodies. Rylan stiffened. “Oh, come on. You think I want to be touching you?” I moved even further away, toward the very edge of the mattress. Rylan let out a frustrated growl. “Fine! You’re being so dramatic today!” He yanked the covers over his head and turned his back to me.

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He glanced at me once, then immediately dropped his eyes back to his phone. He hadn’t even been in the chair long enough to warm it up, but he’d already scrolled through three social media feeds, replied to two texts, and asked the waiter to refill his water. I sat across from him, my menu still closed. “So… what do you do for a living?” I tried, breaking the silence. “Hmm?” He didn’t even look up. “Tech. Mostly startups.” Then, his phone buzzed. He picked it up right in front of me. “Hey man, don’t even get me started—” He lowered his voice, but in a small ramen shop, every word carries. “My aunt set it up. Said she was a ‘great catch.’ A catch? Look, man—” He paused. I looked at him. He didn’t look back. “—Next time, you’ve gotta vet them for me. She didn’t even send a photo. I had no idea what I was walking into until I got here.” 1. He hung up, his expression unchanged. He even offered me a quick, practiced smile. “Sorry about that. Work emergency.” I nodded. I knew then that this dinner was a dead end. But I was here, and I didn’t want to be the one to make things awkward. I opened the menu. “What are you in the mood for?” “Whatever’s fast,” he said, leaning back and placing his phone face-down on the table—a gesture of temporary mercy. “I’ve got something else to get to, so let’s keep it simple.” He’d been there ten minutes and was already checking for the exit. I ordered two appetizers and a main. He didn’t even glance at the menu. When the food arrived, he shoveled a few bites of rice into his mouth, his chopsticks never once touching the spicy green beans I’d ordered to share. “And you?” he asked casually, like a guy making small talk with a stranger at an airport gate. “What’s your deal?” “Product Manager. Fintech.” “Oh,” he said, chewing. “Lots of overtime, I bet.” “It varies.” The conversation died there. He set his chopsticks down and tapped his phone screen to check the time. “Listen, I’ve got a thing I can’t miss. I’m gonna head out.” Twenty-two minutes. I’d checked my watch. He stood up before his jacket was even fully off his shoulders. “Look, let me…” He patted his pocket, the universal gesture of someone pretending to look for a wallet. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it,” I said. He didn’t insist. “Cool. Well, thanks. See ya.” He reached the door and took another call. This time, he didn’t bother lowering his voice. He probably thought he was far enough away. But the distance from the door to my table was barely twenty feet. “…Nothing to talk about. Totally average, dressed like she was heading to a board meeting—zero sex appeal. I don’t know what my aunt was thinking, settting me up with someone so… bland.” My chopsticks froze mid-air. The green beans were blistered and fragrant, the steam still rising in salty clouds. I set my chopsticks down. I called the server over and paid the check. For both of us. Fifty-eight dollars. By the time I walked out of the restaurant, he was long gone. The street was quiet. The late March wind had a bite to it, and I realized I’d forgotten my coat in my rush to not be late. I passed a storefront window. My reflection stared back. Short hair, a crisp button-down, dark trousers, a leather tote. I did look like I was at work. I shifted my gaze and kept walking. My phone vibrated. A text from my Aunt Sarah. “Joanna, how’s it going with Kyle? His dad is a huge real estate developer. Very well-off family.” I didn’t reply. Then, a text from my mother. “Your aunt went to a lot of trouble to set this up. Please be on your best behavior.” A third text, also from Mom. “You’re thirty-two, Jo. Stop being so picky. Just make it work.” I shoved the phone into my bag. The wind picked up. At the subway entrance, I paused for a moment. A young couple sat on a nearby bench; the girl was tucked into the boy’s shoulder, and he was shielding her from the draft with his arm. I walked down the stairs. Swiped my card. Entered the station. Three months later. Monday morning, 9:00 AM. I opened my inbox to find the HR department’s intern placement list. Product Department: I was assigned two. The first: Mia Chen, undergrad, Stanford. The second— My finger stalled on the trackpad. Kyle Virgil. Male, 25. MBA candidate, University of Chicago. The headshot was a standard professional photo. Square jaw, thick brows, a sharp, clean hairline. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been wearing a grey turtleneck with a tiny loose thread at the cuff, and his eyes had never left his phone. It was him. I looked at the face on the screen and slowly leaned back in my chair. Three months ago, he couldn’t finish a meal with me. Three months later, he was going to have to call me “Ms. Olivia.” I closed the email and opened today’s project roadmap. 2. My mother found out how the date went the next morning. Not from me, but from Aunt Sarah. “Eleanor, Kyle’s side said… it’s not a match.” I was eating breakfast in the kitchen, listening to my mother on the phone in her bedroom. The walls were thin enough that I heard every word. “Why not?” Mom asked. “Kyle said Joanna… doesn’t really know how to present herself. Said she was a bit too ‘plain.’” Sarah didn’t use the word ugly, but “too plain” was loud enough. Mom hung up and walked into the kitchen. I kept my head down, staring at my oatmeal. “What did you wear yesterday?” “A blouse.” “Which one?” “The blue one. With the collar.” Mom let out a sharp sigh. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Jo. Dress up for these things. You never listen.” I put my spoon down. “Mom, it wasn’t the clothes.” “Then what was it?” I didn’t say anything. “Look at your cousin Riley. Every time she leaves the house, she’s polished. Hair done, makeup on. And you? You spend all year looking like you’re about to file taxes—” “I was going to work.” Mom glared at me. “Don’t get smart with me. He’s a catch. His family owns half the commercial real estate in the city—” “Mom, he took a phone call in the middle of dinner to tell his friend I was unattractive.” Mom blinked. Just once. “Men say things. Don’t take it so personally. They’re visual creatures. If you just put in a little effort—” “I don’t want to ‘put in effort’ for someone like that.” “Then you’ll be alone for the rest of your life!” My spoon clinked against the bowl. I stood up and took it to the sink. Behind me, my mother said something quietly, but it cut through the air like a knife. “If you were more like Riley, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.” I turned on the faucet. I let the water run over the bowl. Slowly. My cousin Riley was twenty-seven, married for three years, with a toddler. She was Sarah’s daughter. Sarah bragged about her to anyone with ears: “Our Riley hit the jackpot. Her husband is a VP at Chase, and she gets to stay home and raise the baby. She’s living the dream.” At the family dinner for Easter, we were all there. Thirteen of us at the big table. Riley sat near the head of the table with the baby, the center of the universe. “Riley, the baby is getting so big.” “He has his father’s eyes.” “Riley is so lucky. Such a perfect life.” No one asked me anything. Until midway through the ham, my Uncle Jim, having had a few glasses of wine, turned to me. “So, Jo. You’re thirty-two now, right? Any lucky guys on the horizon?” The table went silent for two beats. “Not right now,” I said. “No rush, no rush,” Uncle Jim said. “It’s good for girls to be independent these days—” Sarah cut him off. “No rush? She’s thirty-two. Last month I set her up with a literal prince of a guy, and he thought she was—” She stopped herself, catching my eye. “—Well, he thought they weren’t compatible.” I took a bite of my potatoes. “Joanna is just… too focused on her career,” Sarah told the table. “Always working late, never spends a dime on a nice dress. Men look at one thing first, and that’s the face—” “Aunt Sarah,” I said, setting my fork down. “I’d really rather not discuss this here.” The table went quiet again. My mother kicked my foot under the table. “Your aunt is just trying to help,” she hissed. Riley was across from me, cooing at her baby. She didn’t look up, but I saw the corner of her mouth twitch. After dinner, I went to the kitchen to help clean. I was the only one at the sink. The laughter from the living room drifted in—everyone playing with the baby. The soap suds piled up on the back of my hand. I washed the plates as slowly as possible, because I knew that once I was done, I’d have to go back out there. Back to where Sarah would keep talking. Back to where Mom would keep nodding. Back to where my relatives would look at me with that unbearable pity. On the drive home, Mom stared out the passenger window. “Your aunt means well.” I drove in silence. “Don’t be mad because she tells the truth. A woman over thirty… if you don’t hurry—” “Mom.” “Just one more thing.” She looked at me. “With your personality, and your… look… if you don’t learn to compromise, who’s going to want you?” My grip tightened on the steering wheel. Only for a second. A red light appeared. I slowed to a stop. I watched the taillights in front of me—perfect, glowing red circles. “I got promoted to Lead Product Manager last month,” I said. Mom turned her head. “How many people do you manage?” “The product group, plus the external contractors. About thirty people total.” Mom made a small noise of acknowledgment. Then she said: “What good is a promotion? Can a promotion take care of you when you’re old?” The light turned green. I pressed the gas and kept driving. 3. Monday morning, 9:15 AM. Product Weekly. I projected my slide deck, presenting last week’s metrics and this week’s roadmap to the twelve people in the room. Data, bottlenecks, ownership—I wrapped it up in twenty minutes. The Director, Mr. Henderson, sat in the back. As the meeting broke up, he clapped me on the shoulder. “Jo, keep an eye on the version 2.0 timeline. I need the master schedule by Wednesday.” “On it.” “By the way, two interns started today. They’re assigned to your pod. Get them spun up; mid-term evals are at the end of the month.” “Got it.” I went back to my desk. Beth, the senior-most PM in the department, walked over with her coffee. Beth was thirty-eight, brilliant, and intentionally avoided management because she “didn’t want the headache.” But everyone knew a project didn’t move unless Beth blessed it. “New interns?” Beth asked. “Reporting on Wednesday.” “What’s the pedigree?” “One Stanford undergrad, one UChicago MBA.” “MBA?” Beth raised an eyebrow. “Those types are usually just here for the resume padding. Prepare yourself.” “I know.” “You’ll be fine. The intern you had last year got the highest score on the final defense. HR is still singing your praises.” I smiled. I turned to my computer and found seventeen unread messages in the project Slack channel. This was my world. From nine to six-thirty. Schedules, reviews, cross-departmental friction, bug priorities, PRDs. I managed thirty people’s workloads. My strategy last year saved the firm four hundred thousand dollars in vendor costs. My interns had a 100% hire-back rate. None of those things had anything to do with my face. But in my mother’s eyes, and in my aunt’s mouth, the weight of all those achievements was less than a coat of mascara. 10:00 PM. I got home after a long day and grabbed a package from the lobby. I opened the front door to find a sticky note on the fridge. My mom’s handwriting. “Soup’s in the fridge. Your aunt found another one. 37, divorced, no kids, civil engineer. Info is on the coffee table.” I walked over to the table. A single sheet of paper. Photo, height, salary, assets. In the top left corner, Sarah had scrawled in blue pen: “This one isn’t too picky. Don’t screw it up again.” I flipped the paper over, face down. I went to the kitchen and had a bowl of soup. The soup was warm. Mom had made it and put it away, knowing I’d be late. That was her. She’d make you soup, and then leave a resume for a husband right next to it. She loved me, but her love was a blueprint for a person I wasn’t. I washed the bowl. Dried my hands. Checked my phone.

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I woke up exactly twenty-four hours before Kaylee stole my Social Security card and my passport to marry Hunter Valentine. In her head, she thought she’d hit the jackpot with some billionaire’s son she met on a gaming Discord. She wanted to lock him down, take a cut of the family fortune, and disappear. So, she swiped my identity to tie the knot. What she didn’t know was that Hunter wasn’t a prince. He was a bottom-feeding fraud. When the “glamorous” life didn’t materialize, she ditched him and vanished into the night. But Hunter didn’t go looking for Kaylee. He came looking for me. He had the marriage license with my name on it. He’d seen photos of Kaylee, and since we shared the same build and she’d spent months meticulously mimicking my style, he thought I was her. The first time he found me on campus, he didn’t ask questions. He nearly broke my jaw. He dragged my reputation through the dirt, calling me a “cheating whore” to anyone who would listen. When the Dean tried to intervene, Hunter produced the marriage certificate—my name, my legal info, and a photo that looked enough like me to pass. The university, terrified of a “domestic dispute” lawsuit, stood by as he dragged me off campus. He took me to his “hometown”—a decaying, isolated trailer park deep in the Appalachian wilderness, miles from the nearest paved road. For months, I was his property. I was forced into his bed. My life became a cycle of bruises, silence, and survival. Even when I was pregnant, the beatings didn’t stop. I died on a blood-soaked mattress during a botched home birth, the smell of copper and pine needles the last things I knew. Then, I blinked. The air was no longer stale and rotting; it smelled like cheap vanilla body spray and overpriced laundry detergent. I was back in the dorm. … “Tara, babe, can I borrow your ID for a sec? The mall is doing this VIP membership thing where you get a free skincare set if you sign up. If I use yours, I can double up on the points.” I was still shaking, my nerves raw from the phantom pain of the mountains. My mouth moved before my brain could catch up. “No.” “God, okay. Stingy much?” I looked at Kaylee. She was pouting, adjusting her eyeliner in the mirror. In my previous life, she had stayed hidden for years to avoid Hunter. Looking at her now, I felt a surge of hatred so violent I thought I might actually get sick. She didn’t notice. She was too busy perfecting her “it girl” facade. “Whatever. I’m going to dinner with my boyfriend anyway,” she said, flashing a smug smile. “It’s a five-star place. I was going to offer to take you guys sometime so you could actually see how the other half lives, but I guess you’re too busy clutching your precious ID like it’s a bar of gold. So suburban.” She grabbed her designer knock-off bag and strutted out. She was going to meet Hunter. I sat on the edge of my bed for a long minute, then grabbed my phone and left. I found a number from one of those “Specialty Printing” flyers tucked under a windshield wiper near the campus edge. I called. They told me they could handle “novelty” documents for a price. I went into the class directory, pulled Kaylee’s information, and slightly tweaked my own name. Instead of Tara Jean Harlow, I became Tara Jane Harlowe. Just enough to be different, but close enough to be a “clerical error.” Kaylee had spent the last year becoming my shadow. She wore the same brands, cut her hair into the same blunt bob, and even mastered my specific way of walking. From behind, even our friends couldn’t tell us apart. I took a digital photo of myself, edited out my signature beauty mark near my eye, and softened my features to look more like Kaylee’s softer, rounder face. It was a hybrid. It could be me. It could be her. I paid triple for the rush job. The next morning, I had a “new” ID in my hand. Kaylee didn’t come back that night. She was likely basking in the glow of her “billionaire” boyfriend’s lies. I followed my usual routine. I went to the library, leaving my wallet in my unlocked desk drawer. That evening, when I returned with my roommate Becca, I “discovered” my ID was gone. Kaylee wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. She hadn’t even checked the numbers. She didn’t realize she’d stolen a ghost’s identity. 2. For the next two months, I was a ghost. I was never alone. I was always with Becca—classes, the dining hall, the gym, the library. I made sure to mention, repeatedly and loudly, how traditional my parents were and that I wasn’t interested in dating until after graduation. Kaylee, meanwhile, was rarely on campus. She skipped classes, relying on a girl named Natalie—whom she’d bribed with a used Gucci belt—to check her into lectures. Then, one day, Kaylee suddenly reappeared. She was back in the dorm, acting “normal.” I knew the honeymoon was over. I immediately filed for a week-long emergency leave, telling the administration my mother was having surgery. In my last life, Mom actually did have a minor procedure around this time, but they hadn’t told me because they didn’t want me to worry. This time, I wasn’t going to be a victim of Hunter’s arrival. I was going home to be her shield. On my third day home, Becca called me, her voice frantic. “Tara, you need to get back here. There’s some guy on campus… he’s going crazy. He’s asking everyone where you are. He’s telling people he’s your husband.” My heart did a slow, heavy thud. It had begun. “Husband? Becca, you’ve been with me 24/7 for months. You know I don’t even have a boyfriend.” “I know that! But he’s telling everyone you’re a total sociopath. He says you’re a gold-digger who cheated on him and ran off with his money. It’s getting ugly, Tara.” I felt a wave of warmth for Becca. In a world of chaos, she was the only one who truly saw me. “Are you sure it’s me he’s looking for?” I asked, playing it cool. “There are thousands of students here. Maybe it’s someone else with a similar name?” “Maybe… look, I’ll check the campus Discord and see if I can get a full name. I’ll try to clear your name, babe.” I hung up and opened the campus “Tea” thread. It was a bloodbath. “Spotted: The campus sweetheart is actually a black widow. Poor guy got played for every cent.” The post was detailed. My major, my year, my dorm. The OP wrote with a strange, vicarious rage, painting a picture of a predatory woman who had seduced and abandoned a “good man.” The comments were exactly what you’d expect from the internet. “Always the quiet ones. Probably a pro at faking it.” “Married before graduation? Trash.” “Gold diggers deserve whatever they get. Hope he finds her.” A few girls tried to defend me. “This guy has zero proof. You’re all just looking for a reason to hate a pretty girl.” “I bet he’s just a stalker. Y’all are gullible.” Then came the “proof.” “I saw the marriage license. It’s real. Name, photo, everything.” “She’s not just a cheat; she’s a scammer. He’s suicidal because she drained his accounts.” “The Black Widow of the Econ Dept.” Someone eventually posted a blurry photo of the license. “Just got this from the guy himself. Real deal. Real name. Real bitch.” My classmates chimed in: “Wait, isn’t she the one who said she was ‘traditional’? Guess that meant ‘traditionally deceptive.’” “If you have enough money, she’ll marry you too, I guess.” Finally, I saw Becca’s handle pop up in the sea of hate: “You idiots, look at the name on the ID! That’s not how Tara Jean spells it! Use your eyes!” Her comment was buried within seconds. It didn’t matter. They didn’t want the truth. They wanted a villain to burn. 3. When my week was up, I walked back onto campus. My advisor had left me a dozen voicemails, demanding I come in to “resolve the situation.” I told her over the phone I had no idea who this man was. “Regardless, Tara, you have to handle this,” she’d snapped. “Why would he pick you to lie about if there’s no connection?” I walked into the Dean of Students’ office. A moment later, I heard heavy, aggressive footsteps in the hallway. “You finally found her? Or were you too busy protecting this little slut?” The door swung open. I turned around and saw the face of my nightmares. Hunter. The second his eyes landed on me, he lunged. His hand flew up, a reflex of pure, unadulterated violence. I didn’t flinch. I glared at him with a coldness that made him hesitate for a fraction of a second. Crack. The slap sent my head spinning. My ear rang, and my cheek went numb, replaced instantly by a throbbing heat. Then came the flurry of fists. “Bitch! You thought you could run? Thought I wouldn’t find you?” “Looking at me like that… after you bled me dry!” “You cut your hair? You think that changes anything? I remember how you looked when you were begging for it.” “Told me you were gonna drop out and be a good little housewife, then you ghost me? Not a chance.” I doubled over, the familiar agony of his strikes echoing through my bones. I wanted to scream, to tell him he had the wrong woman. But I waited. “Stop! Someone call security!” the Dean screamed, finally realizing this wasn’t just a “talk.” Hunter stopped, chest heaving, looking around the room with a terrifying sense of entitlement. “This is a domestic matter,” he spat. “I’m her husband. I can do whatever I want. The cops can’t touch me for disciplining my own wife.” “And you,” he pointed at the Dean, “you’re harboring a fugitive. Does she sleep with you, too? Is that how she stays enrolled?” The Dean went pale, the bravado of an academic failing in the face of a backwoods brawler. Hunter took the silence as a victory. “I’m here to withdraw my wife from this school. We’re going home.” I forced myself upright, trembling, and pulled out my phone. “What are you doing, you little bitch?” Before he could grab it, I hit the emergency dial. “911. I’m at the University, Dean’s Office. I’m being assaulted and there’s a man trying to kidnap me. His name is Hunter Valentine. Please, help! Third floor, Miller Hall! Help me!” “You’re dead!” Hunter lunged, snatching the phone and smashing it against the floor. He backhanded me again for good measure. I looked at the shattered remains of my phone and smiled through the blood in my mouth. “You think a fake marriage license gives you the right to traffic women?” I whispered. “I don’t even know your name.” “The school might be stupid enough to fall for your act, Hunter. But the police won’t be.” I scrambled behind my advisor. “Dr. Miller, if you let him take me before the cops get here, you’re an accomplice.” Hunter tried to reach for me, but Dr. Miller finally stepped in, getting shoved for his trouble. “You’re all in on it!” Hunter roared. “She’s a whore, and you’re all her johns!” When the police burst in ten minutes later, they found Hunter standing in the middle of the room, shouting about how much he’d paid for “each session” with me. “I’m telling you, 200 bucks a pop! That’s the student rate!” “Is this a domestic dispute or a racketeering operation?” one of the officers asked, his hand on his holster.

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It was the height of summer, and I’d taken my son to our private stretch of coastline for a diving trip. I wanted him to see the world beneath the waves, a place where the noise of the city couldn’t reach us. Then, the peace was shattered. A rising star actor and his entourage forced their way onto the sand, acting as if they owned the horizon. “This beach was a special favor from Madeline for me to host my VIPs,” he sneered, his voice cutting through the salt air like a serrated blade. “You two nobodies need to pack your trash and get lost. Now.” He was arrogant, wielding my wife’s name like a weapon against me. And when he realized who I was—or who he thought I was—he laughed in my face, calling me a parasite, a trophy husband living off a successful woman’s charity. I almost laughed back. Me? The sole heir to the Blackwood empire, one of the most powerful dynasties in the country? A man whose shadow loomed over every skyscraper in the city? Since when did I become a “kept man”? The irony was bitter. My wife’s entire media empire, every resource she used to climb the social ladder, had been a gift from me. But when she finally arrived, she didn’t stand by me. She stood by him. She went as far as trying to force our son to perform for a group of greasy investors, treating our child like a circus animal to seal a deal. I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg. I simply touched the dial on my watch—a piece of tech reserved only for the true heads of the family. “Mako Unit. Crescent Cove. Clear the area. Now.” … “Jamie, look what I found!” I turned around, clutching two chilled coconuts, only to feel my heart drop. My seven-year-old son, Jamie, was cornered in the knee-deep shallows. His small face was pale, his eyes wide with a terror no child should know. Blocking his path was a young man in a loud, silk floral shirt, his hair bleached a trendy, obnoxious platinum. A pack of heavy-set bodyguards stood behind him like a wall of cheap suits. The blonde guy—Jaxson, if I recalled the tabloids correctly—pointed a finger at Jamie with a look of pure disgust. “Where did this brat come from? Get lost!” “Jaxson’s hosting a private party here today,” a lanky sycophant chimed in, stepping forward to loom over my son. “Move it, kid. Don’t go staining the sand with your cheap presence.” Jaxson? The name clicked. He was the newest ‘it-boy’ at Madeline’s talent agency. Rumor had it he’d become an overnight sensation after a teen drama went viral, and his ego had ballooned to match his follower count. I felt a cold fire ignite in my chest. I dropped the coconuts and moved, placing myself firmly between the thugs and my son. I pulled Jamie behind my back, feeling his small hands trembling as they gripped the hem of my shirt. “This is a private beach,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “The only people leaving are you.” I was trying to keep it together for Jamie’s sake. But some people just don’t know when to stop digging their own graves. “You?” Jaxson scoffed, eyeing me from head to toe. He took in my faded T-shirt—the one Jamie loved because it was soft—and my plain board shorts. A slow, mocking smirk spread across his face. “You think this is your beach? Buddy, look in a mirror. You look like you’re one step away from asking for spare change.” I narrowed my eyes, stepping closer. The air between us turned brittle. “Do you have any idea who I am?” For a fleeting second, my tone made Jaxson flinch. But then the tall guy leaned in and whispered something in his ear. The flicker of fear died, replaced by a malicious grin. “Oh, I know exactly who you are now,” Jaxson laughed, the sound sharp and ugly. “You’re Nate Cross. Madeline’s little charity project. The stay-at-home husband she keeps in the attic so you don’t embarrass her in public.” The bodyguards behind him erupted into a chorus of mocking laughter. “Didn’t Madeline tell you?” Jaxson took a step forward, his voice rising so the people gathering on the pier could hear. “She gave me the keys to the cove today. I’m entertaining real people. Important people.” He leaned in, his breath smelling of expensive gin and entitlement. “In fact, she probably forgot you even existed. That’s the thing about being a trophy husband, Nate—you’re only useful when you’re quiet. Now, take your little mistake of a kid and get the hell out of here before I have my guys throw you out.” The way he looked at my son made my stomach turn. I glanced past him. A group of well-dressed socialites was watching from the deck of a nearby yacht, pointing and whispering. Among them was a middle-aged man with a protruding gut and a heavy gold chain, his eyes fixed on Jamie with a predatory, unsettling intensity. Jaxson caught the look and immediately shifted into a sickeningly submissive posture toward the fat man. “Mr. Henderson! See something you like?” He turned back to me, his eyes gleaming with malice. “Tell you what. Why don’t the kid give us a little show? A little deep-sea diving, maybe fetch some shells for the guests? If he makes Mr. Henderson happy, maybe I’ll ask Madeline to give you an extra allowance this month.” “You piece of trash,” I spat. I lunged for him, but two of the bodyguards were on me instantly, pinning my arms behind my back. My vision went red. Jaxson didn’t even look at me. He gave a sharp nod to the men nearest Jamie. They began to herd my son further into the water, preventing him from reaching the shore. Jamie had never seen anything like this. He started to sob, his small body shaking as the water rose to his waist. “Daddy! Daddy, help me! I don’t want to! I’m scared!” “Let him go!” I roared, struggling against the grip of the guards. Slap. My head snapped to the side. Jaxson rubbed his knuckles, his expression bored. “You should worry about yourself, Nate. You’re ruining the vibe.” I watched, helpless for a heartbeat, as they shoved my son into the deeper water. Jamie tripped, his head going under for a second. He came up sputtering, coughing out salt water, his eyes wide with panic. My heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest. I stopped struggling and looked Jaxson dead in the eyes. My voice was no longer a roar; it was a cold, dead promise. “I am telling you one last time. Get my son out of that water. Now. Or you will lose everything you have ever touched.” Jaxson threw his head back and laughed. “Lose everything? From you? A man who begs for his grocery money? Listen to me, you pathetic loser. If he doesn’t entertain my guests, he doesn’t come out. And even if he drowns… Madeline wouldn’t shed a single tear for your brat. She’s too busy making sure I’m happy. She told me herself—you’re a drag. She’s looking for real excitement now.” “If Madeline saw what you were doing to her child, she would end you,” I said, though a cold dread was starting to seep into my bones. “Please,” Jaxson sneered. “Maddy told me months ago that she regrets the day she met you. She says you’re old news. She loves me. Hell, I might even give her a kid she actually wants once I’m done with you.” I stopped talking. There was no point in communicating with a rabid dog. With a sudden burst of strength, I threw my weight backward, catching the guards off guard. I broke free, ignored their shouts, and dove into the ocean. The cold water hit me, but it couldn’t touch the fire in my blood. I swam to Jamie, pulling his shivering, small body into my arms. He clung to my neck, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Daddy… I’m sorry… I was so scared…” “I’ve got you, Jamie. I’ve got you.” I held him tight, shielding him from the wind. Back on the shore, Jaxson was fuming. “Are you kidding me? Who told you to bring him up? You’re ruining the deal! Do you have any idea what Mr. Henderson is worth? I’m calling Madeline right now. You’re done. Both of you are out on the street tonight!” He fumbled for his phone, his face twisted in a mask of rage. Before he could dial, the low, rhythmic thrum of an engine echoed across the water. A sleek, white speedboat tore toward the cove, its hull cutting through the waves like a knife. It pulled up to the pier, and a woman stepped out, flanked by assistants holding umbrellas and designer bags. Madeline. She looked perfect, as always. Designer sunglasses, a flowing silk cover-up, the very image of a media mogul. Jaxson’s demeanor changed instantly. He sprinted toward her, his face shifting from rage to a practiced, pathetic pout. He grabbed her arm, his voice turning into a high-pitched whine that made my skin crawl. “Maddy! Thank God you’re here! You won’t believe it—this man and his kid just appeared out of nowhere. He’s claiming this is his beach! He’s being so aggressive, Maddy. He tried to hit me! He’s embarrassing us in front of the investors!” His acting was flawless. A total reversal of the truth. Madeline took off her sunglasses. She didn’t look at Jaxson with love; she looked at the situation with pure, unadulterated annoyance. She glanced at the investors on the yacht, noting their displeased expressions. Then, finally, her gaze landed on me—soaked, holding our shivering son. “Maddy…” I started. “Mommy…” Jamie whispered. Her brow furrowed. There was no warmth in her eyes. Only shame. “What are you two doing here?” she demanded, her voice cold. “I told you I had the cove booked for a corporate retreat. Do you have any idea how much this contract is worth? Take the boy and leave. You’re making a scene.” Jamie’s breath hitched. The mother he knew was gone. In her place was a stranger wearing her face. I stood there, paralyzed by the sheer weight of her betrayal. “Madeline, this is my private property. How can you possibly—” “Enough!” she snapped, waving a hand as if to brush us away like flies. She turned her back on us, facing the yacht with a bright, fake smile. “Mr. Henderson, Mr. Miller, I am so incredibly sorry. These people don’t know their place. I’ll have them removed immediately so we can get back to the festivities.” I looked at her, truly seeing her for the first time in years. Jamie huddled against my chest. “Daddy, why is Mommy calling us those names? Does she… does she not want us anymore?” A chill that had nothing to do with the ocean settled in my marrow. Everything I had done for her—the companies I’d built for her, the quiet life I’d led so she could shine—it was all a joke to her. She thought she was the one in power. She’d forgotten who gave her the throne. I smiled. It wasn’t a happy expression. “Madeline,” I said, my voice eerily calm. She paused, but didn’t turn around. “Are you really going to pretend you don’t know me? Are you going to pretend you don’t know the son you carried for nine months?” She stiffened. I saw her shoulders tremble for a fraction of a second, a flicker of panic entering her eyes. But she didn’t turn. She couldn’t lose face in front of her “important” friends. Jaxson, seeing her silence as permission, got even bolder. He started barking orders at the guards. “You heard the lady! Drag these beggars out of here! Now! Throw them in the parking lot for all I care!” I looked at Jaxson. Then I looked at the back of the woman I used to love. “Fine,” I whispered. “This was your choice.” I raised my left wrist. I pressed a sequence on the discreet, matte-black watch—the one with the family crest etched into the underside of the band. The line picked up on the first vibration. A deep, gravelly voice answered: “Sir?” I said seven words.

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