Category: English

1 My mother was the rightful heiress. Thirty years ago, her own parents conspired with her fiancé to steal her academic records, handing the life she had earned over to an adopted impostor. Armed with my mother’s stolen credentials, the impostor climbed the social ladder to become a celebrated prima ballerina, lecturing on national television about dreams and hard work. My mother, meanwhile, was cast out and abandoned in the rugged hills of Appalachia under the pretense of being too unrefined. She died in a dilapidated trailer, never receiving a single word of apology. Three decades have passed. I carried her unfulfilled dreams out of those mountains and became the lead developer of a groundbreaking medical algorithm. On the day the core data was finalized, a spoiled heiress was parachuted into our lab. She brought a co-authorship agreement, backed by her family’s massive resources, intending to buy out the research I had spent three grueling years building. But when I flipped the agreement open and saw the names of the primary investors, I smiled. I had been waiting for this day for a very long time. … “Are you done staring? If you are, sign it.” Ella’s high heel kicked my computer tower, sending a dull thud through the metal casing. She wore a full face of flawless makeup, holding a Starbucks cup. The diamonds on her manicured nails caught the sterile fluorescent light of the lab, flashing aggressively. “Nora, this agreement is the closest you’ll ever get to real money in your life.” She tossed a thick folder onto my keyboard. “Sign it. I take first author credits on the project, and you can stay on as second author.” She looked down at me, her eyes dripping with condescension. “Fifty thousand dollars. That is more than enough for you to build a nice little house back in whatever swamp you crawled out of.” I didn’t move. My eyes slowly traced the names of the investment firms listed on the paper: Apex Medical Group and Aurora Media. Apex was owned by Randy. Aurora was owned by Vivian. One was the impostor who had stolen my mother’s life. The other was the bastard who had trampled his own fiancée to secure his future. Now, their daughter stood before me, demanding to buy out the source code I had spent three years of sleepless nights writing. “What? Not enough?” Ella let out a sharp scoff at my silence. “Director Briggs told me all about you. Your mother was a backwoods farmhand who didn’t even finish high school, and you only made it this far on student loans.” She tapped my monitor with a long, glittering nail. “Scientific research is a luxury for the wealthy. People like you shouldn’t waste your time dreaming about changing the world. Take the cash and run. It is better for everyone.” The lab was dead silent. My teammates, the very people who had survived on instant ramen and cold coffee beside me for years, kept their heads down, staring intensely at their screens. Director Briggs waddled into the room, his face creased into a slimy grin. “Nora, Ella is offering you a very generous deal.” He stepped up beside her, bowing slightly. “Apex Medical just donated twenty million dollars in equipment to our institute. This project wouldn’t even have a launchpad without her father’s support.” He turned to me, his voice dropping into a thinly veiled threat. “Be smart, Nora. What difference does it make who gets first author? Once the project succeeds, your name will still be on the secondary list. Don’t let your selfishness ruin this.” I raised my head and met his gaze. “This is a federally funded, high-priority medical algorithm,” I said, my voice flat and even. “I wrote every single line of the core logic. First authorship designates the actual controller of the project.” I slid the folder back across the desk. “She doesn’t even understand the basic architecture of the model. If she signs off on this and the clinical data deviates later, who takes the fall?” Ella’s face darkened instantly. “Who do you think you are to question me?” She slammed her Starbucks cup onto the desk. Coffee splashed over the wood, staining my mousepad. “Let me tell you something, Nora.” She leaned down, her shadow falling over me. “Hard work doesn’t win in the real world. My family name is gold. My grandfather retired from the Department of Health, and my father is the chief of surgery at a major hospital. My presence alone is an honor to this project.” “You won’t sign?” She stood up straight, smoothing her designer top with a sneer. “Director Briggs, it seems your lead developer doesn’t understand how the world works.” Briggs broke into a cold sweat. He pointed a trembling, nicotine-stained finger at my face. “Nora! Do not push your luck! Sign the paper right now, or you are off this project entirely!” I stared at his finger. “Are you sure you want to suspend me?” I asked quietly. “The core database is locked in my private cloud. Without me, the data models you’ve run for the past three years are nothing but useless, corrupted junk.” Briggs froze. But Ella merely laughed, pulling out her phone and dialing a number. “Steve, bring your team in.” The heavy lab door pushed open, and three IT specialists in suits walked in. “Crack her private cloud,” Ella commanded, pointing at my terminal. “Copy every piece of data on that system.” She turned back to me, her eyes bright with malicious triumph. “Nora, I am not just taking your work. I am going to make sure you never work in this industry again.” She leaned casually against Briggs’s desk and gave a lazy wave of her hand. “Throw her out.” 2 I didn’t fight the security guards when they escorted me out. I simply powered down my monitor, slipped the small black USB drive next to my mouse into my pocket, and stood up. “Stop!” Ella’s sharp eyes caught my movement. “Search her. She doesn’t leave this building with so much as a scrap of paper!” The two guards hesitated. Briggs frowned. “Nora, play by the rules. Empty your pockets.” I looked at them, pulled the tiny USB drive out, and tossed it onto the desk. “It is a backup of my digital receipts from breakfast,” I said coldly. “Would you like me to open it and show you?” Ella rolled her eyes and waved her hand in dismissive disgust. The guards escorted me out of the building like a criminal. The afternoon sun was blindingly bright. I stood outside the iron gates of the institute, looking up at the facility where I had poured out three years of my life. My phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number. Nora, this is called knowing your place. A stray dog can never become royalty. You and your dead mother belong in the dirt. I stared at the screen. My dead mother. The words felt like a rusted needle driving straight into my chest. My mother did die in the dirt, ravaged by late-stage lung cancer. On her deathbed, she was nothing but skin and bones, but her fingers had been wrapped tightly around a faded high school graduation photo. In the center of that photo, she was smiling brightly. Standing right next to her was Vivian, the woman who would later steal her name and her future. And next to Vivian was Randy, the man who had promised to marry my mother, only to push her into an abyss for his own gain. I put my phone away and hailed a cab back to my cramped apartment. But as I reached the entrance of the run-down brick building, I stopped. A sleek, black Maybach was parked along the curb of the dilapidated street, looking entirely out of place. A middle-aged man in a bespoke suit stood beside the car, a cigar clamped between his fingers. He looked every bit the picture of distinguished authority. Randy. Seeing me approach, he stubbed out the cigar and brushed a speck of ash from his lapel. “Nora?” His voice carried the smooth, heavy arrogance of a man used to being obeyed. “Yes,” I said, keeping a distance of two paces. He scanned me from head to toe. His gaze lingered on my worn sneakers and faded jeans, a flicker of pure disdain passing through his eyes. “Ella told me about the incident at the lab.” He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a leather checkbook, and uncapped a fountain pen. “Young people are hot-headed. I understand. You worked hard for three years, and it is natural to feel slighted.” He scribbled a quick string of zeros, tore the check free, and held it out to me. “One hundred thousand dollars.” His tone was so casual it felt like he was tossing scraps to a stray dog. “Take this, give us the password to the cloud, and leave the city. You grew up in the backwoods. You should know that this is more money than your family could make in three lifetimes.” I looked at the slip of paper fluttering slightly in the breeze. I didn’t reach for it. “Dr. Randy,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Are you really that confident that your money can buy everything?” Randy’s brow furrowed. He withdrew the check, his gaze turning icy. “Don’t get greedy, girl.” His voice carried a dark warning. “I don’t like people who don’t know when to submit. In this field, I have a hundred ways to destroy your career. Asking for the password is me giving you a way out.” “A way out?” A laugh escaped my throat, sounding sharp and hollow in the narrow alley. I looked at his manicured face and thought of my mother, coughing up blood onto her threadbare blankets. “Thirty years ago, did you use the exact same speech to give yourself a way out?” I took a step closer, my voice dropping. “Stealing someone else’s achievements, stepping on their bones to climb the ladder. Tell me, Doctor, when you sleep at night, are you ever afraid that the dead will come back to claim what is theirs?” Randy’s pupils contracted. The mask of calm composure cracked, revealing a flash of raw panic. “What did you say?” “Nothing.” I stepped back. “Tell your daughter I won’t hand over the data, and I won’t sign the papers.” “If you want to blackball me, go ahead.” I turned toward the stairwell. Behind me, Randy’s voice exploded in a rare display of fury. “You arrogant little brat! If you want to ruin your own life, don’t blame me for what happens next!” 3 Randy was a man of his word. Within twenty-four hours, I was transformed from a promising young researcher into an academic pariah. By the next morning, coordinated articles flooded every major news outlet and social platform. Young Genius Ella Solves Major Medical Algorithm Breakthrough Rogue Assistant Nora Accused of Attempting to Steal Team Research The Cancer of Academia: The Mountain Girl Who Tried to Sell National Secrets I sat in my dark apartment, watching the notifications cascade across my phone screen. On a live-streamed press conference, Ella sat under the flashing lights of the reporters’ cameras, wearing a pristine white blazer. Her eyes were red, presenting a picture of fragile vulnerability. “For three years, my team and I worked tirelessly to solve the core logic. But…” She bit her lip, looking down. “I never expected that Nora, a colleague I trusted completely, would lock us out of the database at the final hour. We have reason to believe she was planning to sell the algorithm to foreign corporations.” A reporter thrust a microphone forward, voice dripping with outrage. “Ella, how do you plan to handle such academic betrayal?” Ella took a deep breath, her expression hardening into brave resolve. “We have already contacted the authorities, and a joint blacklist has been issued to all major research facilities. I will not allow anyone to desecrate the sanctity of medical progress.” The comment section went wild. Absolutely disgusting! You can take the girl out of the swamp, but you can’t take the swamp out of the girl. Stealing research to sell abroad? Put her in federal prison! My heart breaks for Ella. She’s so brilliant and kind, yet she had to deal with this parasite. Blacklist her permanently! Someone should investigate how she even got into the institute in the first place. My phone buzzed constantly with notifications from the lab’s group chat. I had already been removed, but before the ban, the screen had been filled with messages from people who used to call me their mentor. You really never know a person. She acted so humble, but she’s just a thief. Thank goodness Ella caught her in time, or our three years of work would have been ruined. Did her mother never teach her not to take things that don’t belong to her? Oh, wait. She doesn’t have a family anymore. The last message was from Zack, a junior developer whose buggy code would have crashed the system last month if I hadn’t stayed up for forty-eight hours straight to rebuild it. I flipped my phone face down. I opened my old laptop and plugged in the small black USB drive, the one I had claimed was a receipt backup. A complex encryption prompt popped up on the screen. They thought that by seizing my workstation and locking my account, they had secured the algorithm. They didn’t know that the core logic bomb had been woven into the deepest architecture of the system since the day I wrote the first line of code. My phone rang. It was Professor Reynolds, my graduate advisor and the mentor who had brought me into the institute. I answered. “Professor.” “Don’t call me that!” Reynolds’s voice was tight with stress and anger. “Nora, what on earth have you done? The entire industry is calling you a fraud!” “Dr. Randy called me personally. He said if you don’t surrender the access keys, even my department will face budget cuts!” I remained quiet for a moment. “Do you believe them, Professor?” “It doesn’t matter what I believe!” Reynolds shouted. “Of all the people to cross, why did you have to anger the Randy family? They have deep roots in this city!” “Give them the data, write a formal apology to Ella, and go back home. Find a quiet job outside of academia and stay out of sight!” The line went dead. I looked at the black screen. I didn’t feel sad; I only felt a cold, sharp amusement. This was how Randy operated. Using money to crush, using power to silence, cutting off every social connection until his target was left helpless, forced to beg for mercy on their knees. Thirty years ago, they had used the exact same methods to drive my mother into exile. A notification popped up in the bottom corner of my laptop screen. It was an email from the committee of the Prometheus Cup, the national medical research competition. Dear Audrey Nora, due to recent allegations of academic misconduct, the committee has decided to revoke your presentation credentials for the upcoming finals. Right on cue, a text from Ella came through. Surprise. The finals are tomorrow morning, and I will be standing on that stage accepting the award with your algorithm. While you watch from the gutter like a sewer rat. This is what happens when you cross me. I stared at the text. My fingers danced across the keyboard, typing the final execution command into the terminal. I hit enter. A green progress bar flashed on the screen, loading to completion in a fraction of a second. “Ella,” I whispered to the empty room. “See you tomorrow.” 4 The next morning. The Metropolitan Convention Center was buzzing. The finals of the Prometheus Cup, the most prestigious medical research award in the country, were about to begin. Reporters and camera crews crowded the entrance. I wore a plain black trench coat and a baseball cap pulled low, blending into the crowd near the marble pillars outside the main hall. Several heavy-set security guards patrolled the doors, checking credentials. “Did you hear? The Randy heiress is presenting the closing project today,” a young intern reporter muttered to his colleague. “Of course. Word is if her project wins, Apex Medical’s stock is going to skyrocket tomorrow morning.” “That girl Nora got what she deserved. Trying to hijack a major medical breakthrough after working as a mere assistant.” “Honestly, she’s lucky the Randy family didn’t press charges. She should be in a cell right now.” I ignored the whispers and checked my watch. It was time. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. “Dr. Prescott,” I said quietly. “I am outside the entrance.” The deep, gravelly voice of Dr. Alan Prescott answered. “Use the side loading dock. My assistant is waiting there for you. Nora, those anomalies you sent me yesterday, I analyzed them all night. If your claims are correct, this isn’t just plagiarism; it is public endangerment.” Dr. Prescott was the head of the judging panel. He was also famous for his uncompromising ethics. He was a wall that Randy’s money could not penetrate. “I understand,” I replied. “Today, everything comes to light.” Ten minutes later, guided by Dr. Prescott’s assistant, I slipped into the back of the auditorium, taking a seat in the dim shadows of the back row. The stage lights were dazzling. Ella stood before a massive projection screen, dressed in a tailored Chanel suit, holding a laser pointer. She looked confident, radiant, and utterly untouchable. Randy sat in the front row, a proud, satisfied smile on his face. “Our neural-network-based medical algorithm is the result of three years of rigorous development and countless clinical simulations,” Ella announced, clicking to the next slide. The screen displayed a complex data visualization flow. “It increases the accuracy of early tumor detection by thirty-five percent. This is a monumental leap forward for oncology.” The hall erupted into thunderous applause. Several judges in the front row nodded in approval. Ella basked in the adulation, her chin tilting upward. “I want to take this opportunity to thank my father, who gave me the courage to pursue my dreams. And I want to make it clear that true science will never be compromised by those who seek to steal the hard work of others.” The audience murmured in agreement. Everyone knew exactly who she was referencing. As the applause died down, the floor opened for the judges’ questions. Dr. Prescott sat in the center of the panel, flipping through the printed report with a deep frown. “Ella,” he spoke into his microphone, his voice echoing through the speakers. “The performance metrics you presented are impressive. However, I have a question regarding the core architecture. In the event of a sudden embolic mutation, why does your D-7 code segment lack a fail-safe redundancy?” A sudden silence fell over the room. The question was highly technical, striking directly at the heart of the algorithm. Ella’s smile stiffened. Her fingers tightened around the presenter remote. “Well…” She glanced toward her father in the front row. “Dr. Prescott, we optimized the D-7 segment. In our tests, we found that a traditional redundancy wasn’t necessary because we implemented a more advanced filtering protocol.” “What kind of filtering protocol?” Prescott pressed, his eyes narrowing. “Can you explain the basic logic of that segment?” Beads of sweat formed along Ella’s hairline. “Those baseline codes were handled by our junior technicians,” she stammered, trying to maintain her poise. “As the principal investigator, my role was to manage the macro-framework and…” “The macro-framework?” A clear, cold voice cut through the auditorium from the very back. My wireless microphone, which I had patched into the house audio system minutes before, projected my voice perfectly into every corner of the hall. “Ella,” I said, standing up and taking off my cap. Under the collective gaze of hundreds of bewildered spectators, I walked down the center aisle toward the brightly lit stage. “You can’t even see that the D-7 segment is a logic loop designed to fail.” I looked at her pale face. “If you are going to steal my work, you should at least learn how to read it.”

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1 Ten years into the zombie apocalypse, the eighty-odd residents of our town hid inside an abandoned coal mine. We survived day by day, licking moisture off the cave walls. In the end, only seven of us were left alive. After another neighbor mutated and was torn apart, I pressed my hands against the rock face in the deepest part of the mine. My fingers brushed against a piece of hard plastic. Three words were printed on it. Props Department. I stared at the plastic tag in my hand, my fingernails digging so hard into my palm they almost drew blood. On the back of the tag was a pristine barcode sticker. The date of purchase was printed beneath it in crisp, black ink. Purchased October 2032. But the year the virus broke out, the year the world ended, was 2024. We had been down here for a decade. Where the hell did a brand new plastic tag come from? “Mack, come look at this.” I gripped the plastic tag so tightly my knuckles turned white. My voice was a low, breathless whisper, shaking with an emotion I could not quite name. Mack was my childhood best friend. He had just used his pickaxe to smash a mutated rat scurrying through the tunnels, prepping it for our pathetic dinner. His face was smeared with soot and grime. He dragged his bad leg over to me, a permanent limp from a zombie scratch that never healed right. He stared at the tag in my hand. For three seconds, he just blinked. “What the hell is that? Where did you get it?” Mack’s voice spiked, sharp and frantic. “Bottom level, right out of the rock wall in Pit Seven,” I said. “It was sealed behind a thick layer of waterproof cement. I dug it out where the water was leaking through.” Mack snatched the tag from my hand, turning it over and over. When he held it up to the dying yellow light of our emergency lantern and read the 2032 date, his knees gave out. He collapsed onto the jagged gravel, his eyes bulging wide enough to pop out of his skull. “Two thousand thirty-two…” he repeated like a broken record, his lips trembling violently. “The outbreak was twenty twenty-four. We have been rotting in this hole for almost ten years.” I stayed silent, holding his panicked gaze. “So this was made after the world ended?!” Mack suddenly let out a strangled, broken roar. “People are still making plastic tags out there?! And calling them props?! What the hell is going on?!” I crouched down and clamped my hand hard over his mouth, snatching the tag back and shoving it deep into my pocket. “Keep your voice down,” I hissed, staring him dead in the eye. “Go get the others. Get Gary, the Mayor, and Martha. Something is wrong.” This abandoned mine used to be the main coal shaft behind our town. Ten years ago, the zombie horde washed over our homes like a plague of locusts. Limbs were torn apart in the streets. Monsters shrieked in the blood-soaked mud. The Mayor led the surviving eighty people into this mine in a desperate bid for life. A decade later, those eighty people had been reduced to seven. Some mutated. Some starved. Some died of fever. The upper tunnels were piled high with their rotting bones. Just last week, Pete the butcher went out looking for an underground spring and got his throat ripped out by a stray lurker. Now, the only ones breathing were me, Mack, the Mayor, our old town accountant Gary, a widow named Martha, her eight-year-old deformed son Toby who was born in the dark, and a sickly old man coughing his lungs out in the corner. By the time Gary and the Mayor limped over, Martha was huddled in the shadows, holding skin-and-bones Toby tight against her chest. She saw the pale, haunted looks on our faces and squeezed her boy even tighter. “What happened? Are those things banging on the blast doors again?” Martha asked, her voice cracking with terror. I did not answer. I just pulled the tag out and handed it to Gary. Gary was the only guy among us who used to work a desk job. He took the tag, squinting at the front. It did not register. Then he flipped it over. The barcode. The date. His entire body went rigid as if he had been struck by lightning. “Luke, where did you find this?” Gary snapped his head up to look at me, his voice quivering. “Bottom level. Pit Seven. Behind the concrete wall that leaks.” The moment the words “Pit Seven” left my mouth, Gary and the Mayor turned the color of ash. I remembered it perfectly. Pit Seven was completely sealed off eight years ago. That was the year the horde somehow found our ventilation shafts. Monsters poured into the mid-level sector. We lost a dozen people in one night. We were on the verge of being completely wiped out. The Mayor made the call. He took a crew, rigged some old mining explosives, and collapsed the upper tunnels. Then, using tons of rubble and quick-dry cement, they completely sealed off the only deep shaft leading to Pit Seven. He told us it was the only way to stop the monsters from crawling up through the underground river system. “Mayor.” Mack pushed himself off the ground. His eyes, sunken deep into his skull from years of oxygen deprivation and starvation, flared with a terrifying, bloodshot rage. He stalked toward the old man, step by step. “You led the crew to pour that cement eight years ago. Did you hide this tag in there?!” “Did you know something back then?! Did you seal out the zombies, or did you seal our only way out?!” Faced with Mack’s desperate, suffocating interrogation, the Mayor’s wrinkled face twitched violently. He backed up against the freezing rock wall. He stayed silent for a full minute before burying his face in his filthy hands. “I did not know. I swear I did not know what was out there.” The Mayor’s voice broke into a hoarse, jagged sob. “Eight years ago, when I was pouring that concrete. I felt something in the rock fissures. I felt thick, heavy cables.” “They were not the kind of cables you find in an old coal mine. They were brand new. Like fiber optic lines from the big cities.” “I wanted to dig following those lines. But the monsters were already clawing at the barricades! Pete’s wife got half her face bitten off right in front of my eyes!” “What else could I do?! I had to pour the cement. I had to seal the wall!” The Mayor dropped to his knees, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on his cheeks. “I never told a soul. For ten years, I kept my mouth shut. I convinced myself I was hallucinating. I told myself everyone out there was dead, and those were just leftover mining wires.” “You convinced yourself?!” I let out a cold, venomous laugh, cutting his confession short. “You convinced yourself, and you let eighty people live like rats in a sewer for a decade!” I looked at Toby, huddled in the corner, gnawing on his own dirty fingers just to dull the hunger pains. I looked at the hollow, dead emptiness in Martha’s eyes. A violent, apocalyptic rage ignited in my chest, burning through my veins like wildfire. “Get the picks.” I turned to Mack, my eyes locked in a dead, absolute resolve. “Get the iron picks, the steel bars, every single thing we can use to smash stone.” “I do not care if there are zombies behind that wall. I do not care if it is fiber optic cables, or God himself.” “Even if it costs me my life, I am tearing that wall down today!” Breaking through that concrete was a brutal, soul-crushing ordeal. Eight years ago, fueled by the terror of being eaten alive, the Mayor’s crew had poured three thick layers of quick-dry cement, packing it with solid granite boulders. All we had were a few rusted pickaxes and crowbars. But driven by sheer, rabid desperation and an absolute hunger for the truth, nobody felt the fatigue. Mack and I took turns swinging the heavy pickaxe. Every strike against the rock sent shockwaves up our arms, splitting the skin between our thumbs and index fingers until blood coated the wooden handles. Gary and the Mayor hauled the broken chunks of rock away. Even Martha strapped Toby to her back and smashed at the cement with a heavy stone. Hour one. We broke through the first layer of cement. Hour two. The pickaxe blades curled and dulled. We resorted to using steel bars as chisels. Hour three. Mack raised the pickaxe high above his head, ready to strike, but froze mid-swing. “Luke. Listen.” Mack’s voice was sandpaper dry. He stared unblinking at a crack in the wall. Every single one of us stopped moving. We held our breath. The enclosed cavern was dead silent, save for the ragged, wheezing sound of our own lungs. Then we heard it. Leaking through the two-inch crack we had just hammered open, a faint noise drifted into the dark. It definitely did not belong in an abandoned coal mine. It was a sharp burst of radio static. It sounded exactly like a security guard adjusting the frequency on a walkie-talkie. But that was not all. A draft of air pushed through the crack. It did not smell like rotting corpses, or damp moss, or human waste. It was a rich, warm, intoxicating aroma. I inhaled sharply, my pupils contracting into pinpricks. It was the smell of freshly brewed espresso. And underneath it, the rich, savory scent of roasted meat and hot takeout food. “That is not the smell of the dead.” Martha’s tears broke like a dam. She clamped both hands over her mouth, biting her palms to keep from sobbing out loud. Mack’s hands began to shake violently. The heavy iron pickaxe clattered to the rocky floor. “There are people out there. They are drinking coffee.” If there were walkie-talkies out there. If there were people sipping espresso and eating hot meals. Then what the hell were we doing for the last ten years? What about the neighbors who strangled each other over a single sip of dirty water? What about the family members torn to shreds by those monsters in the dark? What was it all for?! “Smash it!” My eyes went completely red. I snatched the pickaxe off the ground and swung it at the crack like a deranged madman. “Tear this entire damn wall down!!” Mack and the Mayor snapped out of their trance. They let out guttural, animalistic roars, grabbing whatever tools were left and hurling themselves at the barricade. Rocks splintered. Concrete dust and droplets of our own blood flew through the air. The hole grew larger. The light bleeding through became painfully bright. It was the harsh, artificial glare of fluorescent studio lights. “Let me look.” Mack pushed me aside. He pressed his pale, sun-starved face directly against the jagged opening. He peered through. Just one look. Mack’s body went completely rigid.

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1 After driving eight straight hours down the interstate, I safely delivered my son’s family of three to their five-star beachfront resort in Miami. When I went to check us in, the front desk clerk informed me that there was only one reservation on file: a single deluxe oceanfront suite. My son wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and looked me dead in the eye. “Mom, peak season rates are insane right now. You used to work graveyard shifts at the grocery store anyway, so just rough it in the car for a few nights.” My daughter-in-law rolled her eyes, chiming in right on cue. “We’re here to enjoy a romantic getaway. Why are you trying to be a third wheel? You really don’t know how to read the room.” My little grandson even spat at my shoes. “Grandma smells gross! I don’t wanna room with Grandma!” I looked at this pack of ungrateful parasites who were burning through my life savings while treating me like an unpaid chauffeur. Without a single word, I turned around and took the car keys. I drove straight to a used car lot and sold the vehicle for cash. Then, I booked myself a first-class ticket to Paris. If you all love the ocean breeze so much, you can sit on the sand and drink it in for the rest of your lives. My hands were still trembling against the steering wheel. From Atlanta to Miami, the GPS showed over six hundred miles. We had only stopped once at a rest area the entire trip, and not because I needed a break, but because little Tom had to use the bathroom. My son Derek and his wife Ashley lounged in the back seat the whole way. Not once did either of them offer to take a shift behind the wheel. Not once did they hand me a bottle of water. While we were at the rest stop, Tom started whining for ice cream. I pulled out twelve dollars and bought two artisanal bars, handing one to my grandson and the other to my daughter-in-law. Ashley glanced at it, her face twisting in pure disgust. “Take it away! Seriously, Mom? Twelve dollars for this gas station garbage? It’s loaded with artificial dyes and preservatives. What if it gives him a stomachache? Tom, spit that out right now, don’t eat her dirty food.” Derek frowned beside her, shooting me an impatient glare. “Mom, can you look at the brand names before you buy things? Stop being so cheap, it’s embarrassing.” I swallowed my words and kept driving. When we finally pulled up to the resort entrance, Derek pushed the door open and stretched his arms. His very first words to me were, “Mom, go find a parking spot. We’re going inside to check in.” Ashley hooked her two-thousand-dollar designer tote over her shoulder and clicked her high heels toward the grand lobby without looking back. Tom sprinted after her, his shoelaces completely untied. I called out, “Tom, your shoes!” but he didn’t even twitch. It took me twenty minutes of circling the resort’s massive parking garage to find a spot. I hauled three heavy suitcases out of the trunk by myself. Two of them belonged to Ashley, packed to the brim with her vacation dresses and luxury cosmetics. My own luggage was a single canvas duffel bag wedged into the dusty corner of the trunk. By the time I dragged all three suitcases into the air-conditioned lobby, my lower back was screaming in agony. The young receptionist pulled up the booking details, looked up, and said politely, “You have one deluxe oceanfront suite reserved under this name.” I thought I had misheard her and asked her to check again. “Yes, ma’am. Just the one suite.” I turned to look at Derek. He kept his arm snugly around Ashley’s waist, explaining it to me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Mom, peak season rates are killer. This single room was over twelve hundred a night. You’re used to working overnight inventory shifts at the grocery store anyway, so just sleep in the car. Keep the AC running, it’s practically the same thing.” Rough it in the car for a few nights? I am fifty-eight years old. I had just driven eight hours straight down the highway, and my own son was telling me to sleep in the back seat of a sedan. Ashley scoffed. “We’re here for a private couple’s retreat. Why are you trying to tag along and ruin the vibe? Zero self-awareness.” Tom hid behind his mother’s designer skirt, sticking his tongue out at me. “Grandma smells gross! I don’t wanna sleep near Grandma!” I stood frozen in the middle of the polished marble lobby. The young receptionist cast a sympathetic glance my way before quickly lowering her head. I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat felt completely closed off. Not a single sound came out. How did this entire vacation start a month ago? Ashley had been scrolling through her phone at the dinner table when she suddenly shoved the screen into Derek’s face. “Look at this influencer! Her husband booked her a penthouse beachfront suite in Miami! What about you?” Derek chewed the pot roast I had spent hours cooking, mumbling around his food. “No money.” Ashley dropped her fork and turned her sharp gaze toward me. I knew that look intimately. Every single time their household ran out of cash, she looked at me just like that. “Doesn’t Mom get her monthly pension?” The very next day, Derek sat on the edge of my bed, his voice dripping with honeyed persuasion. “Mom, you know how hard Ashley works taking care of Tom all day. She really needs a change of scenery to unwind…” He didn’t even need to finish the sentence. I understood the assignment. I went to the bank and withdrew fifteen thousand dollars. Even the car we drove down in was bought the exact same way. Two years ago, Ashley complained that taking rideshares was beneath her standard of living. She demanded a vehicle. Derek came to me instantly. “Mom, we need your help.” A thirty-thousand-dollar car. The down payment and every single monthly installment came straight out of my bank account. The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. The three of them stepped inside. Not a single one of them looked back. 2 When the metallic elevator doors sealed shut, I was left standing entirely alone in the cavernous resort lobby, holding a plastic bag of leftover road trip snacks they had left behind. That night, I curled up on the leather back seat inside the concrete parking garage. July in South Florida was unforgiving. The air inside the cabin grew thick and suffocating. I rolled the windows down just a fraction, but the humid night breeze only dragged swarms of mosquitoes inside with it. My back was drenched in sweat, sticking painfully to the upholstery, itching and burning. At three in the morning, someone came to pick up a vehicle parked in the adjacent stall. The harsh beam of a flashlight swept across my face. The man froze for two solid seconds, clearly astonished to find a gray-haired woman curled up like a stray dog inside a vehicle parked at a luxury beachfront resort. Daylight finally broke. My phone buzzed against the console. It was a text from Derek: [Mom, call down to the desk and order room service for us. Two steak omelets. Get yourself whatever you want.] I massaged my stiff, aching neck and sat upright in the driver’s seat for ten minutes. After placing their gourmet breakfast order, I sat in a quiet corner of the resort lobby and broke apart two plain wheat rolls I had packed from home. The bread was stale and dense. I forced it down my throat bite by bite, washing it down with bottled tap water. The first day’s itinerary was entirely curated by Ashley. She had spent weeks bookmarking trendy social media spots: a viral seafood establishment, luxury outdoor shopping pavilions, and sunset photography lookouts. Not a single activity involved my input. Around noon, we headed to the seafood restaurant. There was a thirty-minute wait outside the entrance. I was the only one standing in the line. Derek took Ashley and Tom into an air-conditioned boba shop next door. They ordered three iced matcha lattes and never once asked if I was thirsty. I stood baking under the subtropical sun with six groups ahead of me. A younger woman tried to cut in front of me, and when I politely told her the line started at the back, she shot me a filthy look and stormed off. When our number was finally called, I hurried inside the boba shop to get them. Ashley rose from her plush armchair with excruciating slowness. “Stop rushing us. I haven’t even finished my drink.” We sat down at our table. Ashley snatched the menu, flipped past the first two pages, and began rattling off orders to the waiter. Australian lobster, one hundred and fifty dollars. Alaskan king crab, two hundred dollars. Geoduck clams, one hundred and twenty. Two bottles of vintage white wine, two hundred and fifty. I reached out, hoping to check the menu for a simple, affordable stir-fried vegetable dish, but she yanked the leather binder right out of my reach. “Relax, Mom. This is plenty. You don’t know the first thing about fine seafood anyway, so don’t ruin the order.” The dishes arrived, crowding the tabletop. The second I reached my chopsticks toward a piece of shrimp, Tom shrieked at the top of his lungs. “That’s mine! Grandma, don’t touch it!” Ashley immediately backed him up. “Mom, don’t fight a child for food. You don’t even like seafood anyway, remember?” When had I ever uttered the words I don’t like seafood? What I had actually said, years ago, was: It’s too expensive, I can’t bring myself to buy it. Surrounded by a decadent feast, I quietly ate a small bowl of steamed white rice and a few slices of pickled cucumber. Derek sat gorging himself, his chin glistening with butter as he held up his phone to capture the spread for his social media feed: [Treating the wifey and kiddo to a feast! Happy wife, happy life!] Nine carefully filtered photos. I wasn’t in a single one. The bill arrived. One thousand four hundred dollars. Ashley casually picked at her teeth with a wooden toothpick while Derek didn’t even bother lifting his eyes from his screen. “Mom, put it on your card.” My fingers trembled slightly as I placed my debit card onto the silver tray, staring at the line item showing two hundred and fifty dollars spent purely on fermented grape juice. When I accidentally mistyped my PIN on the portable terminal, Ashley sighed loudly. “What’s the holdup, Mom? Does it physically hurt you to spend a little cash? You’re acting like we keep you chained in a basement.” One thousand four hundred dollars. Back when I worked the graveyard security shifts at the distribution warehouse, my entire monthly paycheck was barely nine hundred dollars. That afternoon, we toured a coastal nature preserve. Ashley hung her heavy designer tote over my left arm, strapped Tom’s insulated water jug over my right shoulder, and shoved cans of SPF spray, wet wipes, extra toddler clothes, and snack pouches into both of my hands. I looked like a pack mule carrying half a dozen bags, trailing behind them as they climbed the scenic wooden boardwalks. Derek and Ashley posed by the water for an elaborate family portrait session. The three of them. Just the three of them. I stood ten feet away in the scorching sand, holding four pairs of discarded sandals. “Move slightly left!” “Tilt your chin down!” “Your shadow is ruining the lighting!” Ashley made Derek retake the shots nine times before she was satisfied. She grabbed her device, applied her preferred aesthetic filters, uploaded the post, and walked away without sparing me a glance. Passing a high-end resort boutique, Ashley halted in front of the glass display window. Her eyes locked onto a cultured pearl necklace priced at eight hundred dollars. She stared at the jewelry, then turned her gaze to Derek. Derek checked the price tag, then turned his gaze to me. “Mom, Ashley really loves it. We’re on vacation, don’t be a killjoy.” 3 I pulled out my card again. Ashley fastened the delicate pearls around her neck, admiring her reflection in the gilded store mirror, turning left and right with a satisfied smirk. She didn’t offer me a single syllable of gratitude. By evening, we returned to the resort property. Exhaustion was gnawing at my bones. I finally gathered the courage to ask, “Can we please book a standard double room tonight? My back is locking up, I really cannot sleep in the sedan again.” Ashley cut me off instantly. “Book another room? Do you have any idea how much a basic room costs here? It’s over three hundred bucks!” Derek chimed in to reinforce the boundary. “Mom, it’s just a couple more days. Tough it out. You survived those freezing warehouse floors just fine.” The warehouse again. For ten straight years, I volunteered for the grueling overnight inventory shifts just to earn an extra four hundred dollars a month in hazard pay. Every single cent of that hard-earned money went directly to him. His university tuition, his fraternity dues, his apartment security deposits. And now he weaponized my past sacrifices to shut me up? For dinner, the three of them headed to the resort’s exclusive seafood pavilion. One hundred and twenty dollars per person. Derek sent me a quick payment request on his phone for three hundred and sixty dollars. I authorized the transfer. Alone in the dark parking garage, I tore open a packet of dry instant noodles I had brought from my kitchen pantry. I didn’t even have access to hot water. I simply gnawed on the crunchy, seasoned brick of dehydrated wheat until my stomach stopped growling. Sitting in the back seat, I opened my phone’s photo gallery. I scrolled back to a picture taken when Tom was barely a year old. He was resting peacefully on my chest, drooling and giggling up at the camera. Back then, the moment I walked into the room, he would reach his chubby little arms out, demanding to be held, following me around the house babbling Nana, Nana. Now, he looked at me and said Grandma smells gross. I stared at that digital screen until my eyes burned. Day three. Ashley’s closest college friend, Rachel, happened to be vacationing in Miami as well. She and her husband had rented a sprawling hillside estate overlooking the bay. Rachel extended an invitation for afternoon tea. Before we left the resort, Ashley actually turned to me. “Mom, you can come along.” Surprise flickered in my chest—she was actually including me? I changed into my cleanest blouse and followed them out. The private villa was nestled into the coastal cliffs, boasting white stucco walls, terracotta tiles, and an infinity swimming pool. As we approached the grand entrance, Ashley linked her arm through Derek’s, leading Tom up the stone pathway. Rachel greeted them at the double doors, radiating warmth and hospitality. Then her eyes drifted to me. She paused, smiling politely. “And who is this?” Ashley waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, this is just our live-in nanny. She helps out with Tom.” Nanny. Rachel beamed, immediately reaching out to shake my hand. “Hello there! Wow, your family found such a tidy, reliable helper!” Derek stood right beside them. He glanced at my face. He didn’t utter a single word to correct her. I slowly slid my hand out of Rachel’s grip, my fingernails digging deep into the flesh of my palms. The expansive living room table was laid out with imported pastries, charcuterie, and fresh fruit platters. Ashley ushered Derek and Tom to the plush sectional sofa, the three of them crowding around the coffee table. I stepped forward to pull up an accent chair, but Ashley caught my eye and shot me a sharp warning look. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “You! Go sit out on the patio deck. There really isn’t enough seating around this table.” Not enough seating. There was a perfectly upholstered armchair sitting completely empty right at the edge of the rug. I held my tongue, turned on my heel, and walked out through the sliding glass doors onto the sun-drenched patio. Through the heavy double-paned glass, the sound of their cheerful laughter filtered out in muffled bursts. Rachel knelt down to offer Tom a macaron. “Tom sweetie, do you like your nanny?” Tom’s voice pierced right through the glass, loud and shrill. “She’s just a baby-sitter! Mommy told me she’s super broke!” The living room went dead silent for one heartbeat. Then, the collective laughter erupted louder than before. I sat on a woven wicker patio chair, gripping the armrests until my knuckles turned stark white. Before leaving Georgia, I had specifically visited a local department store to purchase a new top—a fifty-dollar pastel floral blouse that the sales associate promised made me look vibrant. When I tried it on for Ashley back at the hotel, she sneered. “That looks horribly tacky. Don’t wear that out, you’ll embarrass us.” She forced me to change back into my faded, pilled gray cotton tee that I had owned for five years. The heavy glass patio door slid open. Rachel stepped out holding a delicate porcelain teacup, her expression tight and uncomfortable. She hesitated, lowering her voice as she approached my chair. “Ma’am… wait, are you actually Derek’s mother?” I kept my eyes fixed on the distant ocean horizon. She studied my profile, then looked back through the glass at Derek lounging on the sofa. The air turned glacial. Ashley’s face instantly shifted. 4 Ashley stormed out onto the deck. “Mom! What on earth is that facial expression supposed to mean? Are you deliberately trying to make people get the wrong idea?” I looked up calmly. “What expression?” “Sitting out here looking like a martyr! Someone asks you a simple question and you put on this pathetic, victimized act? You are an absolute embarrassment!” I stared at her flushed, indignant face without giving her a single syllable in response. Derek dragged me by the arm into the side hallway, his tone sharp and reprimanding. “Mom, stop being so overly sensitive. Ashley just misspoke in the moment. Look at how you dress yourself—it’s completely natural for people to assume… Why don’t you take any pride in your personal appearance?” Wasn’t she the one who demanded I change my clothes? I looked into my son’s eyes. Thirty years ago, when this creature was kicking inside my womb, I truly believed I was nurturing a human being. Now I realized I had raised a parasite. On the drive back to the resort, I took the wheel. From the back seat, Derek sent a casual voice note. “Hey Rachel, my bad about earlier. My mom is naturally introverted and doesn’t really know how to socialize in polite company. Sorry things got weird.” Ashley leaned over to snatch the device, adding her own commentary. “Yeah girl, my mother-in-law is straight out of the rural backwoods. Don’t take it personally.” The rural backwoods. Fine. At dawn on the fourth day, my phone rang. It was Ashley. [Mom! I just found the most breathtaking beachfront rental property! It’s fifteen hundred a night! Go to the front desk, check us out of this resort, and transfer our luggage over there. There’s actually a bed for you to sleep in this time~] Fifteen hundred dollars a night. But she explicitly promised there’s a bed for you to sleep in. I weighed my options for a moment, then drove over. The rental was a standalone luxury bungalow right on the sand, featuring one master bedroom and an open-concept living space. The moment we unlocked the door, Ashley bypassed the living room and threw herself onto the king-sized mattress. “Oh, this bed is heaven!” I asked quietly, “Where do I sleep?” Derek pointed toward a narrow utility closet tucked behind the front entry corridor. “There’s a folding metal cot in there. Make do.” I pushed the narrow door open. It was barely thirty square feet. The floor was cluttered with commercial mop buckets, dirty cleaning rags, and industrial jugs of floor stripper. The sharp, toxic stench of concentrated bleach assaulted my nostrils. In the corner leaned a rusted metal folding frame covered in a thick layer of drywall dust. A fifteen-hundred-dollar beachfront bungalow. Funded entirely by my bank account. And they relegated me to the janitor’s closet. I stood on the threshold. I did not take a single step inside. Yet, I said nothing. At noon, Ashley went live on her social media feed, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “We brought my wonderful mother-in-law down to Miami for a family retreat! I paid for the entire vacation out of my own pocket, aren’t I just the best daughter-in-law?” She spun the camera lens toward me, waving her manicured fingers. “Mom, come say hi to my subscribers~” Yesterday I was the hired help. Today, when she needed props for her digital audience, I was Mom again. That afternoon, they booked a private yacht excursion. Three tickets came out to eighteen hundred dollars. Derek held his smartphone out toward me with practiced indifference. “Mom, double-click for Apple Pay.” I authenticated the charge. Between the rental deposits, the dining bills, and the luxury shopping, I had bled nearly fifteen thousand dollars on this trip alone. That evening, Derek had a few drinks. He and Ashley were lounging on a woven hammock strung across the bungalow’s oceanfront deck, chatting casually into the night. They had no idea that the utility closet shared a paper-thin interior wall with the exterior deck. Every single word vibrated straight into my space. Ashley chuckled. “We’ve burned through almost fifteen grand on this trip, haven’t we?” Derek let out a soft alcoholic hiccup. “Give or take.” “Honestly, her wallet is her only redeeming quality. If it weren’t for her bank account, why on earth would I let her tag along? She’s nearly sixty, her driving is terrifying, she almost rear-ended a truck yesterday and gave me a heart attack.” They both dissolved into quiet, mocking laughter. Why on earth would I let her tag along. Those words hammered into my skull, strike after strike, shattering every remaining illusion. I wasn’t their mother. I was an ATM that doubled as an unpaid chauffeur. I didn’t close my eyes for a single second that night. Long before dawn, while the coastal sky was still a bruised, dusky charcoal, I silently gathered my canvas duffel bag. When I stepped out into the main living corridor, Tom’s soft breathing echoed from the sofa bed. The master bedroom door remained firmly shut. Zero movement. I picked up the car keys from the kitchen island. I turned the ignition, reversed out of the sandy driveway, and merged onto the deserted, pre-dawn streets of coastal Miami. The used car dealership opened its gates at eight o’clock flat. I sat waiting on the curb for forty minutes. The lot manager inspected the vehicle’s clean history and offered fourteen thousand dollars cash. It was a thirty-thousand-dollar sedan with less than twenty thousand miles on the odometer. I told him we had a deal. While signing the title transfer documentation, the manager paused, eyeing my face with genuine concern. “Ma’am, are you absolutely certain about this? This vehicle is practically brand new.” “I am certain,” I replied firmly. Watching the confirmation notification flash across my screen showing fourteen thousand dollars successfully deposited into my checking account, I hailed a taxi straight to Miami International Airport. I stood before the international ticketing counter for ten quiet minutes. The airline agent looked up with a welcoming smile. “Good morning, ma’am. Where are we flying today?” “Do you have any outgoing flights to Paris?” I asked. She clicked through her terminal for a few moments. “I have an itinerary connecting through JFK landing at Charles de Gaulle tomorrow morning. There are two first-class cabin seats still available.” I slid my debit card across the counter. By this point, my own actions felt entirely detached from reality. I felt like I was watching a stranger live my life. Yet, the transaction was approved. Sitting in the sunlit departure concourse, my mobile device began vibrating violently against my palm. Incoming call from Derek. I answered it. “Mom?! Where the hell are you? Where is the car?! Why is my driveway empty?!” “Did you take my car?! Bring it back to the bungalow this instant!” I spoke into the receiver with crystal clarity. “Derek, I paid the down payment and every monthly bill for that vehicle out of my own account. I sold it.” Dead silence stretched over the line for three seconds. Then his voice cracked, skyrocketing an octave into pure panic. “YOU SOLD IT?! Are you out of your mind?! That was my car! You can’t just—” The boarding announcement chimed overhead through the PA system. I ended the call. Gripping the handle of my simple canvas duffel, I stepped onto the jet bridge.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “501390”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 At six, my father was brainwashed by his mistress Victoria and threw my mother and me into a brutal reformatory to break us. To escape the endless abuse, my mother grabbed me and fled into the dead of night. Victoria hunted us down in her SUV and released vicious guard dogs into the woods. She shoved me to safety and stayed behind, letting herself be mauled to death so I could survive. Rescued by the revered spiritual guide Madam Agnes, I spent twenty years on her secluded estate. Now I have returned as the ultimate corporate good luck charm. The business world calls me the Midas Touch. My name alone sends stock prices skyrocketing without me working a single day. Today, Victoria arrived at my door to offer me a job, not recognizing the girl she had once tried to kill. Her husband ran Crawford Enterprises, and my apprentice whispered that signing with them would be a jackpot. Victoria slid the contract across the table with a smug smile, claiming her empire was already booming and I was just the finishing touch. The terms were lavish—a seven-figure salary, luxury cars, and a penthouse suite. I picked up the contract and ripped it cleanly down the middle. Your family’s luck is running out. Your business is doomed to fail, and I will take my talents elsewhere. Victoria had brought a swarm of media reporters and rival CEOs to my living room. Snagging the famous Midas Touch was a massive PR stunt she did not want to miss. She thought she had me in the bag. She never expected me to tear up her golden ticket in front of flashing cameras. Her confident smile completely froze. The reporters started murmuring, and the rival executives exchanged gloating looks. Victoria’s face darkened. “Excuse me, Miss Bennett? I do not think I heard you correctly.” Isabella tugged at my sleeve, whispering nervously. “Sera, the Crawfords are top-tier elites. We cannot afford to offend them. Even if you do not sign, at least play nice and give her an out.” I ignored her advice. I locked eyes with Victoria, my mind flooding with the toxic memories of her cruelty. That night, she was behind the wheel, screaming that she was going to run us over. We scrambled into the woods, and she let the dogs loose. My mother was dragged down into the darkness by those massive beasts. She was torn apart, bleeding everywhere, but she did not scream in pain. She only begged me to run, to live. I stumbled blindly into the night, Victoria’s wicked laughter echoing behind me. Those memories made my fists clench so hard my nails dug into my palms. I took a deep breath, enunciating every single word. “Your family is cursed with bad karma. Bankruptcy is knocking at your door, and you cannot handle my blessings. Get out. I will never join your company.” Victoria was absolutely livid. But with the cameras rolling, she forced down her rage and tossed a sleek business card onto the ruined contract. “Miss Bennett, you clearly misunderstand the situation. Do you know who I am?” She tapped a manicured finger against the card. “I am the Vice President of Crawford Enterprises. I am Anderson Crawford’s wife.” She leaned in, dropping her voice to a venomous whisper. “This is your second and final chance. Know when to fold.” “Please leave,” I replied coldly. Without warning, Victoria grabbed the cup of steaming tea from the table and splashed it directly into my face. Isabella shrieked in anger. “What is wrong with you? Get out of my sister’s house!” Isabella frantically grabbed a cold towel, dabbing at my burning skin. Victoria pointed a finger at me, completely dropping her elegant facade. “You think you are magic? When we hype you up, you are a lucky star. When we drop you, you are nothing but trash!” She spun on her heels and stormed out. At the door, she yelled to the crowd. “Are you all blind? Are you really going to worship this con artist? A lucky constitution? It is absolute garbage.” A few people hesitated and scuffled out behind her. But the majority stayed planted in my living room. They watched me with burning curiosity, waiting for my reaction. Isabella looked at my red skin with tears in her eyes. “Sera, she completely ruined the vibe. I think these CEOs are doubting your abilities now. What do we do?” I picked up a hand mirror, examining the red blotches on my cheek. “Turn on the TV. If I am right, there should be some breaking news.” Isabella flicked on the flat screen. Instantly, the entire room gasped. A special news bulletin was flashing across the screen. Crawford Enterprises had just been busted for a massive supply chain failure. Their flagship products were exposed for containing toxic, counterfeit materials. The company’s stock was currently in a terrifying freefall, and class-action lawsuits were already piling up. I spoke without raising my voice. “Victoria attacked a blessed charm. Looks like karma works fast.” What I did not say was this. This is only the beginning. The real show has not even started. The executives remaining in my house looked at me with pure awe. One CEO rushed forward, his eyes burning with desperation. “Miss Bennett, please join my firm. Whatever the Crawfords offered, I will add thirty percent.” The others panicked and started shouting their own bids. “I will add fifty percent!” “Eighty percent!” “I will double it!” I did not accept any of them. I simply waved my hand. “I am tired. We can discuss this another day.” These men were opportunists who swayed with the wind. I had zero affection for them, so I politely kicked them out. Surprisingly, they were not angry. Being dismissed only deepened their reverence. To them, a true Midas Touch was supposed to be cold and untouchable. As they walked out the door, I heard their excited whispers. “She is the real deal. Whoever gets her on their payroll is set for life.” “Anderson Crawford is a blind fool. Sending his arrogant wife to insult the Midas Touch? He is finished.” “Did you hear her prophecy? The Crawfords are cursed. They will be bankrupt before the quarter ends.” Isabella closed the front gate and turned to me, her voice hushed. “Sera, are the Crawfords really going to go bankrupt?” “Their empire was built on rotten foundations,” I said calmly. “The universe always collects its debts. They will not escape this.” Isabella nodded in agreement. Less than ten minutes later, a violent pounding echoed from the front yard. Before we could even unlock the deadbolt, the heavy wooden doors were kicked open. A swarm of men in dark suits stormed into the courtyard. They parted like the red sea, allowing one man to step forward. Anderson Crawford. Seeing that face made my jaw clench. He was the monster who tossed my mother and me into that hellish reformatory. I still remember the day my mother fell to her knees, pressing her forehead against the floor, begging him. “Lock me in here until I die, I do not care. Just take our daughter with you! Do not leave her in this abusive nightmare!” Anderson’s face was made of stone. He kicked my mother squarely in the chest, knocking her to the dirt. I cried, pulling at his tailored suit. “Daddy, do you not love me anymore? Do you not love Mommy?” He looked down at me with pure disgust. “Get off me! I never want to see either of your faces again.” The bitter memory faded as Anderson stopped right in front of me. He stared at me with cold, calculating eyes. “So, you are Seraphina Bennett.” I nodded slowly. After Madam Agnes rescued me, I dropped the Crawford name entirely. I took my mother’s maiden name, Bennett. I even threw away the childhood name Anderson had given me, asking my mentor to bless me with a new identity. Seraphina. Anderson let out a harsh, mocking laugh. He looked me up and down like he was interrogating a criminal. “I built a billion-dollar empire from the ground up, and you dare call me cursed? Tell me, who paid you to short my stock? Who ordered you to spread these rumors?” I narrowed my eyes. “Who said they were rumors?” Anderson raised his voice, his face flushing red. “Answer the question! Who is pulling your strings?” I glanced at Isabella calmly. “Call the police. Tell them we have a home invasion.” Anderson ignored the threat, consumed by his own rage. “Crawford Enterprises is my life’s work! Nobody has the power to destroy it!” “You planted the toxic seeds,” I said smoothly. “Now you are choking on the harvest. You did this to yourself.” Anderson sneered. “I have heard the legends about your little ‘Midas Touch.’ I admit, it is a neat parlor trick. But you need to understand something. A billionaire’s wrath is not something a little girl can survive.” He took a menacing step closer. “It does not matter how magical you are. If you are dead, your constitution is useless.” I smiled. “How exactly do you plan to kill me? Are you going to lock me in an abusive boot camp until I waste away? Or are you going to unleash a pack of dogs to tear my throat out?” Anderson’s face went completely pale. His lips trembled. “Who the hell are you?” “You will find out very soon,” I said coldly. Anderson quickly regained his composure, masking his shock with a sneer. “It does not matter who you are. Going against my family is suicide.” He pulled a crumpled contract from his jacket pocket and slammed it onto the table. “Sign it. We can still play nice, and your compensation stays the same.” I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Did you honestly think bursting into my home and shouting at me would make me submit? Besides, your company is moments away from filing for Chapter 11. Why would I want a job on a sinking ship?” Anderson exploded. “You ungrateful little bitch!” He raised his hand to strike me across the face. But right at that moment, the wail of police sirens echoed down the street. Anderson froze. He lowered his hand, glaring at me with pure venom. “I will dig up everything about your past, Seraphina. Nobody in this world is perfectly clean. Once I find your dirty secrets, I will wait for you to come crawling to me on your knees.” He turned and marched out with his men. Isabella and I obviously did not let him off the hook. We followed the officers to the precinct and filed a detailed police report for trespassing and assault. By the time we finished giving our statements, the sky was pitch black. I smiled at Isabella. “Come on. Let me treat you to a nice dinner. You earned it today.” Isabella gripped her purse tightly. “Sera, I am a little scared. The people in this city are so vicious. Maybe we should just go back to the sanctuary and stay with Madam Agnes.” I shook my head. “I have unfinished business here.” We hailed a cab and headed toward the downtown restaurant district. But halfway through the ride, headlights flashed aggressively in our rearview mirror. A massive black SUV accelerated out of nowhere, slamming violently into our rear bumper. Our cab spun out of control and flipped. Shattered glass rained down. Blood dripped into my eyes. Before I could process the crash, the doors were pried open. Isabella and I were dragged out of the wreckage like dead weight and thrown onto the asphalt. Someone slapped my face hard. “Are you dead? Open your eyes.” I forced my eyes open, blinking through the blood. A young man with a nasty sneer crouched over me. He grabbed me by the throat, laughing darkly. “Do you know who I am? My father is Anderson Crawford!” It all made sense now. This was Preston. Anderson and Victoria’s precious son. Victoria had secured her place in the Crawford empire by giving Anderson a male heir. Preston was the anchor that gave her the power to exile my mother and me. Preston unscrewed a bottle of cheap liquor and poured it directly over my bleeding face. The alcohol burned my open wounds, forcing tears from my eyes. Preston threw his head back and laughed. “I heard you like playing God! How does the pain feel now?” He snapped his fingers, and a group of thugs stepped out of the shadows. They grabbed my arms and legs, pinning me to the pavement. Rough hands started tearing at my jacket. “What are you doing?!” I screamed, thrashing wildly. Preston smiled, a sick look in his eyes. “My parents tried to negotiate with you nicely, but you were too stupid to listen. So, I am going to teach you a lesson.” “Let us see if your little Midas Touch still works after my guys are done having their fun with you.” He pulled out his phone, holding it up with the flash on, recording the nightmare. The thugs laughed, their hands ripping at my clothes. Just as my shirt collar gave way, a furious voice shattered the darkness. “Get your hands off her! Back off!” A tall silhouette charged out of the shadows. He was swinging a heavy steel baton, bringing it down ruthlessly on the thugs. At first, the gang tried to fight back, assuming it was just one guy. But this stranger fought like a man with absolutely nothing to lose. He cracked ribs and shattered knees, leaving the thugs howling in pain. They scrambled away from me, yelling at Preston. “Hey, man! You paid us five hundred bucks to rough up some girl! You didn’t say we were going to get murdered!” The thugs bolted into the night, and Preston immediately jumped back into his damaged SUV, flooring the gas pedal to escape. The stranger dropped his baton and immediately dialed 911 for an ambulance. Later, in the bright lights of the hospital ward, we finally exchanged names. He was Alec Harrington, the heir to the Harrington Group. He stared at my bandaged face for a long time before speaking. “You look familiar. Are you… the Midas Touch?” I smiled and nodded. Isabella chimed in, exasperated. “Your family runs a major corporation, right? How could you not know my sister? Were you not at the elite networking banquet last week?” Alec rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. “My family’s business has been targeted and crushed by the Crawfords for years. We are bleeding money. We could never afford to match the salary demands of a Midas Touch, so we stayed home to avoid the humiliation.” I looked at him warmly, a plan already forming in my mind. Alec had a heart of gold. I could absolutely save his family’s empire. Suddenly, Isabella shot up from her hospital bed, letting out a terrified gasp. “Sera! Oh my god, look at this!” I was startled. “What is wrong?” She handed me her phone, her hands trembling. I looked at the screen, and my vision swam. The internet was completely flooded with smear campaigns against me. The accusations were wild, but coordinated. One post claimed I was a master fraudster, stealing millions from desperate companies under the guise of being a lucky charm. Another viral thread accused me of corporate extortion. It claimed that if CEOs refused to pay my exorbitant fees, I would intentionally spread rumors and tank their stock prices. Predictably, anonymous accounts started defending the Crawfords. They claimed the toxic materials scandal was entirely fabricated by me because Anderson refused to be blackmailed. The gullible public took the bait instantly. “I knew it! That is why she predicted their bankruptcy! The Crawfords are billionaires, why would they risk their reputation over cheap materials?” “So the Midas Touch is just a corporate terrorist. Glad she messed with the wrong family this time.” Then came the final, devastating blow. High-resolution photos flooded the timeline, claiming to expose my “disgusting private life.” They were screenshots from the attack tonight. It showed me pinned to the ground with torn clothes, surrounded by men. But the malicious captions completely warped the reality. They framed it as me participating in twisted, underground orgies. The slut-shaming was instantaneous and brutal. “My name is John. Seraphina was my girlfriend. I dumped her because she could not stop cheating.” “I know her background. Her mother was a notorious homewrecker. She is a bastard child with zero morals.” “I bought her for a night at a shady club. Cheap. Only two hundred bucks. I have no idea how she rebranded herself as a lucky charm.” The comments were incredibly vile. Reading those disgusting lies, I felt a lump form in my throat. My phone buzzed. It was Anderson Crawford. His voice dripped with arrogance. “Miss Bennett, I assume you have seen the news?” “The power of a billionaire is beyond your comprehension. Work with me, or the torment is only going to get worse.” “Is this your idea of extortion?” I asked coldly. Anderson scoffed. “I am offering you a lifeline, and you call it extortion? Talk about biting the hand that feeds.” “I am giving you a warning. In less than a week, your reputation will be radioactive. You will be begging for a janitor job, and nobody will hire you.” “You have thirty minutes to think about it.” Thirty minutes later, my phone rang again. I answered and gave him a one-word reply. “Rot.” Anderson hung up with a vicious click. Ten minutes later, Isabella came into my room, her eyes red from crying. “Sera, they are going too far. People are showing up at our front gate.” A mob of paid actors had gathered outside my residence, holding banners claiming I had scammed them out of their life savings. They were screaming into megaphones. The chaos attracted online streamers and clout-chasers. They turned my home into a circus, filming, cursing, and throwing trash over the walls. The very executives who had begged on their knees to hire me yesterday released public statements completely cutting ties with me. The only family that stood by my side was the Harringtons. Alec quickly arranged for a covert transfer, moving Isabella and me to a private, highly secure hospital owned by his family’s medical branch. Our identities were locked down, shielding us from the mob. Alec’s father, Richard Harrington, personally visited my room with a basket of fruit. He patted his chest, swearing that he would support me with whatever resources I needed. I thanked him genuinely. “I only have one request. I want to leave this hospital, go back into the public eye, and clear my name.” Richard looked shocked. “Miss Bennett, you cannot show your face right now.” “The internet is a vicious, fickle beast. The outrage burns hot, but it fades quickly. The best strategy is silence. If you hide for three months, everyone will forget this ever happened.” “If you speak out now, every single word will be twisted, and the fire will only spread.” I smiled. “I am not afraid of the fire spreading. I want it to burn down the entire forest.” “Some secrets need to be blasted into the spotlight.” Seeing my absolute certainty, Richard finally nodded. Alec looked at me with cautious curiosity. “So what is your plan to clear your name?” I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. “I just need a little cooperation from a certain someone.” Alec glanced at the screen, and the color instantly drained from his face. He lunged forward and snatched the phone right out of my hand. “Are you insane? How could you call him?”

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1 During our first year of marriage, he personally wrote on the first aid kit in bold red marker: Audrey’s Emergency Meds: Cat Allergy / Asthma Inhaler. By the second year, the kit had been moved from the entryway to the utility closet. He said we rarely used it and it was just cluttering the hallway. In our third year, Simon stood before me, cradling a fluffy Ragdoll cat in his arms, a warm smile on his face. “I have a severe cat allergy,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Did you forget?” His hand froze mid-stroke. “Wait, aren’t you afraid of dogs?” I had never been afraid of dogs. The one afraid of dogs was not me. But I knew exactly who loved cats. His first love, Fiona. I did not push him further. I just swallowed my antihistamine with practiced ease and slipped on a face mask. He let out a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was settled. Late that night, after he drifted off to sleep, I placed the bottle of allergy medication right next to the black coffee mug he used every single morning. If he saw the bottle while pouring his coffee and asked me about it, it would mean he still cared enough to recognize what it was. But if he just picked up his mug, his gaze sliding right past the bottle as if it were nothing but an annoying piece of clutter, then I suppose I was nothing but clutter to him too. “Simon, what time are you leaving this morning?” He was putting on his shoes in the hallway, not even bothering to look up. His eyes briefly swept over the prescription bottle sitting on the kitchen counter. “Seven-thirty. Why?” “Nothing.” I stood by the kitchen door, clutching the empty bottle. He had rinsed his mug, leaving wet rings on the counter, but the bottle remained exactly where I had placed it, untouched and ignored. I unscrewed the cap and dumped the last few pills down the drain. They rattled softly against the stainless steel sink. Before heading out, he planted a quick kiss on my forehead. “Don’t wait up for me tonight. I have plans.” His gaze had not lingered on my lifeline for even a fraction of a second. I walked over to the utility closet. The first aid kit had been shoved deep into the back, buried beneath a folding stool and an unopened bag of cat litter. He claimed the cat was gone, but the cat litter remained. The bag was neatly tied, looking far from discarded. I set the folding stool aside and dragged the kit out. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, but the red lettering on the lid was still visible: Audrey’s Emergency Meds: Cat Allergy / Asthma Inhaler. The year we got married, I accidentally touched a friend’s cat and nearly went into anaphylactic shock. He had rushed downstairs barefoot in the middle of the night to buy me medicine. Once the danger passed, he knelt on the floor with bloodshot eyes, carefully writing those words. “Audrey, just in case. I am not taking a single risk with your life.” Now, the box holding my survival was rotting in a corner, weighed down by unused cat litter. With trembling fingers, I wiped away the dust and popped the lid open. The asthma inhaler had expired eight months ago. The antihistamines were completely empty. The protective sleeve of the EpiPen had yellowed, a clear sign of poor storage conditions. This was a critical issue because these injectors lose potency when exposed to temperatures above seventy-seven degrees. During the summer, the utility closet was a sweltering oven without any air conditioning. Slumping against the wall, I stared at the useless medical waste scattered on the floor, a literal countdown to my own demise. It was almost laughable. He used to have a recurring alarm on his phone every three months to check my meds. It had been silenced long ago, deleted without a trace. I carried the open kit back to the entryway table, arranging the expired medications with their labels facing upward. Then, I went to pack my things. Three years of marriage, and my belongings were shockingly sparse. A few seasonal coats, an inhaler that was about a third full, my ID and passport, and a small notebook containing my financial codes. My twenty inch carry-on suitcase was only half full. I stood by the door for a moment, looking at the open kit on the table, and then at the red handwriting I had just dusted off. It was time to leave. At nine that evening, Simon called. His voice dripped with annoyance. “What are you doing? Why are all the lights off?” “I am not home.” “Where are you?” “Staying somewhere else.” Silence hung on the line for a second before his tone shifted to a mix of worry and exasperation. “What is it this time? Why are you throwing a tantrum in the middle of the night?” “I left the first aid kit on the entryway table. You must have seen it when you walked in.” “What about it?” “The medicine inside is expired, Simon. It has been expired for a very long time.” The line went dead silent for a long five seconds. “Audrey, can you speak like a rational human being? You packed up and left in the middle of the night over a first aid kit?” A rational human being. “Maybe I am not rational, Simon.” 2 My voice trembled with rising emotion. “I have a severe cat allergy. Don’t tell me you forgot. That EpiPen and inhaler in the kit are things I have to carry with me for the rest of my life.” He did not answer. “You used to care. But now, you want a cat, or maybe you want something else entirely.” “Audrey, I…” A long pause stretched over the line before his voice crackled through the speaker again. “I didn’t mean to. I just forgot.” “Save your breath, Simon. You didn’t forget. You just stopped caring. Go back to your cat-loving first love. She doesn’t need a first aid kit.” With that, I hung up. The moment the screen went dark, I blocked his number. On the evening of the third day, I went back to the apartment to retrieve my health insurance card. Judging by his usual schedule, he should not have been home yet. But when I slid my key into the lock, I noticed warm light spilling from beneath the door. Simon was standing in the kitchen, his apron tied slightly askew. Two pots simmered on the stove, one with soup bubbling inside, the other holding a half-cooked stir-fry left to cool. Hearing the door, he turned around, spatula in hand. “You’re back?” His tone was perfectly casual, as if nothing had happened. “I’m just grabbing something and leaving.” I walked straight past him toward the bedroom, refusing to waste another second. By the time I found the card and came back out, he had set the dishes on the dining table and pulled out a chair. “Sit down and eat. It’s warm. I bet you’ve only had instant noodles since yesterday.” Ignoring him, I grabbed my bag and headed for the front door. Suddenly, he rushed up from behind and wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Audrey, I know I messed up. Please stop fighting with me, okay?” Before I could even struggle to free myself, a sharp, familiar irritation invaded my sinuses. My airways constricted instantly. My chest tightened as a suffocating wave of panic rushed up my throat. Summoning every ounce of strength, I shoved him away, clutching my chest as a high-pitched wheeze escaped my throat. Looking down, I saw several long, white hairs clinging to the front of his knit sweater. “You saw Fiona today,” I gasped, staring at him as I struggled to draw breath. His face froze. He took a half-step back, his voice turning raspy. “What are you talking about? I was at the office all day.” “There is Ragdoll fur all over your sweater!” I leaned against the wall, my vision beginning to blur. “What was her cat’s name again? Snowball, right?” “There was a stray cat outside the office. During lunch, I went out and…” “A long-haired stray?” I scoffed, a violent cough ripping through my chest, tearing at my raw airways. “Simon, do you think I don’t know what a purebred Ragdoll looks like?” He fell silent, tugging at the hem of his sweater. His eyes darted to the side, a telltale sign of his dishonesty. He was lying. I did not have the energy to argue. Stumbling into the bathroom, I fumbled through my bag for my backup antihistamines and a newly opened inhaler, swallowing the pills with a mouthful of tap water. “Audrey,” he said, following me to the hallway, his voice tight. “Are you really making this big of a deal out of it?” “My lungs are failing because you are covered in deadly allergens!” I tried to make a break for the door, but a sudden wave of dizziness pinned me to the spot. The heavy sedative effect of the antihistamines, combined with the lack of oxygen and the sheer exhaustion of not eating for a day, drained the remaining strength from my limbs. My knees buckled. I stumbled into the guest room and collapsed onto the bed, too weak to even lock the door behind me. I do not know how much time passed before the door clicked open in my semi-conscious haze. He had changed into fresh pajamas, smelling of soap and the damp warmth of a recent shower. “I showered and changed everything. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.” My body felt like lead. Unable to lift a single finger, I watched helplessly as he climbed into bed beside me, pulling me close and draping a heavy arm over my shoulder. Before long, his breathing evened out, and he drifted off to sleep. Trapped in his embrace, I stared blankly at the ceiling, my eyes wide open. The cat hair was gone from his clothes, and the unfamiliar scent of jasmine perfume had washed away, but a faint red scratch on the side of his right index finger remained highly visible. It was the unmistakable mark of a cat’s claw, left behind when the pampered creature had kicked off from his chest. 3 I turned my head away and shut my eyes. In the hazy quiet of the night, his wedding proposal echoed in my mind. “I will protect you for the rest of our lives. I’ll never let anything hurt you.” The air purifier we bought for our new home sat in the corner of the master bedroom, plugged in with its green indicator light glowing. I could not remember the last time the filter had been changed. He probably did not even know it had one. A week later, my health took a turn for the worse. The lingering allergens had contaminated every square inch of the apartment. I called a cab and headed straight for the emergency room. The attending physician took my medical chart, flipped through the pages, and stared at me for a long moment. “Audrey?” It took me several seconds of peering through the fog of my nebulizer mask to recognize him. Marcus. We had been lab partners in biology class back in college. A faint twitch played at the corner of his mouth, a flash of surprise lighting up his eyes before he quickly composed himself. He did not ask what I was doing there. After adjusting the nebulizer settings, he pulled up a chair beside my bed and opened my allergy history, his tone as professional and detached as ever. “This is your third acute attack this month. I just reviewed the logs from your last two visits.” “Yeah.” “Every single one was triggered by cat dander, yet your residential profile says there are no pets in your home.” He closed the folder. “When did this start?” I thought about it. “About three months ago.” He flipped to my medication sheet and studied it for a moment. “You’re only taking oral antihistamines. What about your emergency plan? Do you have an EpiPen?” “It’s in the kit, but it might be expired.” He looked down and scribbled a few notes. “For cat allergies, we can start you on immunotherapy shots. It won’t cure you completely, but it will raise your tolerance threshold so that daily life isn’t affected. The treatment takes six months to a year. You’ll get shots once a week for the first three months, then once every two weeks. You’ll need to stay for a thirty minute observation after each dose.” He placed a business card next to my hand. “This is my clinic info. Come see me if you want to start.” I held the card, sitting in silence for a moment. “Marcus, how did you end up in allergy and immunology?” “I switched specialties during my residency.” He stood up and slid the chair back into place. “How did things get this bad? Your chart shows you’ve been visiting the ER almost every month lately.” I bit my lip and remained silent. He did not press for answers. He had always been that way in college, knowing when to stop asking when he knew I would not answer. Once, I had an attack in the campus library and could not find my inhaler in my backpack. He had dug it out from the side pocket of my purse. Later, he told me: “You should always make sure someone next to you knows exactly where your medicine is.” On the way home, my best friend, Sienna, came to pick me up. She glanced at me with concern. “How many times has this been this week?” “Four times.” “What about the cat? I thought you said he gave it away.” I kept quiet, leaning against the window and watching the streetlights blur past. Simon was not home that night. I went into the walk-in closet and searched the pockets of the winter coat he wore most often. In one of the pockets, I found a long strand of hair. It was not mine. I placed the strand back, hung up the coat, and went to check the logs of our smart doorbell camera. Someone had visited last Thursday afternoon. Simon was not home, but a long-haired woman was at the door. Before entering, she shook out her coat, cradled the white Ragdoll cat, and paused at the threshold. She deliberately rubbed the cat against my coat hanging in the entryway, then looked directly into the camera lens with a smug, knowing smile before stepping inside. Three hours later, she and Simon walked out of the apartment together. She knew exactly where the camera was, she knew our door code, and she knew my marriage was already dead in the water. 4 When I saw the live feed on my phone later, I stopped dead in my tracks in the hallway. Fiona was lounging on our living room sofa, the Ragdoll cat curled up on her lap. Simon was in the kitchen brewing tea, unable to hide the sheer delight on his face. Standing in the corridor, I unlocked my phone and dialed 911. The dispatcher picked up. “I am a severe asthmatic with a life-threatening cat allergy. Someone has brought a lethal allergen into my home. I am heading inside now, and I need police dispatch to record this call and send officers immediately.” The dispatcher told me officers would arrive in ten to fifteen minutes and instructed me to keep the line open. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Fiona was the first to spot me. She stood up gracefully. The cat leaped from her lap, landing softly on the carpet, and began to saunter toward me with slow, lazy strides. White fur drifted through the sunbeams. Even my double face mask was useless against it. Microscopic dander penetrated my defenses, and in less than a minute, my throat began to constrict violently. “Oh, Audrey. You’re home,” Fiona said. Her voice was sickeningly sweet, though her eyes were sharp and calculated. “I just stopped by for a chat. I hope you don’t mind.” Mind? Of course I minded, but I could not even speak. My brain was running a frantic calculation. How long could my lungs hold out? Where was the kit? Was the EpiPen still functional? As I stumbled toward the entryway, the cat took another step closer, brushing against my ankles. The first aid kit was gone from the entryway table. I had left it there, but someone must have shoved it back into the dark corners of the utility closet. I flung the closet door open, digging through the clutter with fingers that were already going numb from lack of oxygen. An inhaler, an EpiPen, anything to save my life. The scent of jasmine perfume drew closer behind me. “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Can’t breathe?” Fiona’s voice was dripping with venomous concern as she hurried over in her high heels. “Let me help you with that. Don’t worry…” “Get away from me,” I wheezed. My voice was a raspy choke, but I gripped the edges of the first aid kit, shielding it with my body. Her hand clamped down on mine, her grip far tighter than anyone trying to help would ever use. Gasping uselessly for air, my fingertips finally brushed against the plastic casing of the auto-injector. In that split second, Fiona made a sudden, violent swiping motion under the guise of steadying me. The first aid kit crashed onto the hard tile floor, the latches popping open. The EpiPen rolled out, spinning across the floor, its casing gleaming under the ceiling light. I lunged forward, throwing my entire weight toward it. Just as my fingers were about to close around it, Fiona shrieked, “Watch out!” Her stiletto heel came down with pinpoint accuracy, stomping directly onto the cylinder. There was a sharp, sickening crunch. It was the sound of shattering glass, and with it, my final lifeline was destroyed. The clear medication mingled with the tiny shards of glass, seeping into the grout lines in a useless puddle. Fiona gasped, instantly covering her mouth as crocodile tears welled up in her eyes. She turned to Simon, who had just rushed out of the kitchen at the noise, her voice trembling with mock terror. “Simon, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, I panicked and stepped on it. She won’t hate me, will she?” Simon stood there, looking at Fiona with a deep frown. “How could you be so careless?” He reached out to help me, but I waved him off, stumbling backward. He was covered in the very particles that were killing me. “Meds… Simon…” I slumped against the wall, every attempt to draw breath a violent struggle. “Don’t panic. I’ll look. There has to be more…” He shoved past Fiona to search the apartment. But then his gaze fell on the phone clutched in my trembling hand. The call with the dispatcher was still active, the screen glowing in the dim light. The panic drained from his eyes instantly, replaced by cold disbelief. “Audrey, are you out of your mind? You called the police over this?” A horrific, guttural wheeze tore from my throat. Every desperate breath felt like razor blades shredding my trachea. Staring at them, I used the absolute last bit of oxygen in my lungs to force out a few broken words. “Breaking in with a lethal allergen… destroying emergency medication…” I glared at him, a trace of bloody foam bubbling at the corner of my lips. “Simon… attempted murder… you’re going to prison…” “You’re completely overreacting…” Before he could finish his sentence, the shrill wail of approaching sirens pierced the walls of the apartment. The sound choked the rest of his words back down his throat, freezing the annoyance right on his face.

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The incubus I bought online was a complete bait and switch. The product page promised a sweet, obedient, and thoroughly domesticated companion. What I actually got was a feral menace. I pictured coming home to a hot meal, a spotless apartment, and someone eager to warm my bed. Instead, I came home to cold leftovers, a wrecked living room, and a shrieking disaster of a demon. Warming my bed? I wouldn’t let this guy near my sheets in a million years. Just as I was about to completely lose my mind, a direct message popped up on my phone from the seller. “So sorry about that, ma’am! We accidentally shipped you the wrong inventory. Would you like to process a return or exchange?” I looked up. Jax was currently tangled up in the living room drapes, dramatically threatening to hurl himself out the second-story window if I didn’t give him my undivided attention. My vision literally went dark with rage. “Return it! Come get him right now!” 1 I was typing my furious reply to the seller single-handedly while trying to pry the feral demon out of my curtains with the other. By the time I dug him out of the expensive fabric, I hit send on my final message. I finally turned my attention to him. His demonic tail was whipping back and forth in a frenzy, and he glared at me with absolute outrage. “Blair, what are you doing? Let me go!” “Are you an idiot?” I snapped. “If you fall and break your neck on my property, I’m the one going to supernatural prison.” Incubi were a rare and heavily regulated species. That legal red tape was the only reason I hadn’t seriously humbled Jax during the absolute hell he had put me through these past few weeks. My words left him sputtering. He choked on his own rage for a second before his face flushed bright red. “Don’t try reverse psychology on me! I have my pride, you know! I would rather die than submit to you!” “Let me go this instant! I don’t want anything to do with you! I hate you!” My phone buzzed in my hand. I caught a glimpse of the seller’s confirmation message on the lock screen. A massive wave of relief washed over me. I didn’t bother arguing. I didn’t even care how hard he was thrashing in my grip. I just opened my hands and dropped him. Jax hit the hardwood floor with a loud, undignified yelp. Ignoring his angry shouts about how I dared to drop him, I turned my back, dragged my exhausted body into my bedroom, and locked the door behind me. But a few minutes later, I stepped back out. Jax looked up, his expression screaming I knew you’d come crawling back. I completely ignored him. Keeping my face deadpan, I walked through the apartment, deadbolting the front door, locking all the windows, securing the cabinets, and packing away every single fragile item I owned. I yanked the half-shredded drapes off the rod and tossed them in the trash. Finally, I flipped the main circuit breaker, plunging the entire apartment into darkness. I clicked on a heavy-duty flashlight, pointing the beam directly at Jax’s bewildered face. “You can stop throwing your little tantrums, Jax. I am officially done playing nice.” I walked back to my bedroom door and delivered my final ultimatum over my shoulder. “I already processed your return. The agency will be here in a few days to collect you.” “Since you hate me so much, you are free to go.” “Pack up whatever garbage you brought with you. You’re moving out.” With that, I slammed the bedroom door shut, locking him out of my sight and my life for good. 2 That night, I had nightmares about that chaotic demon. Looking back, Jax and I hadn’t even lived together for a full three months. It all started when my best friend, Stella, saw how much the corporate grind was destroying my soul. She insisted I look into the paranormal companion market. “Blair, you have to trust me on this. The modern incubi they breed now are incredibly sweet. They are literally domestic perfection. They just want to take care of you.” “They aren’t even that expensive anymore. Just get one. It will take so much stress off your plate.” To prove her point, she practically dragged me over to her condo to meet her own supernatural househusband. Despite her nagging, I was skeptical. Work was absolutely crushing me, but I didn’t see how buying a magical roommate would fix anything. Who could possibly take care of my life better than me? But after spending one evening at Stella’s place, my entire perspective shifted. Her incubus greeted us at the door with a warm smile, handed us silk pajamas, poured us perfectly temperature-controlled water, and drew a steaming, lavender-scented bath. By the time we stepped out of the bathroom, he had a gourmet dinner waiting on the table. During our post-dinner gossip session, his presence was flawless. He chimed in at all the right moments, matching our energy, laughing when we laughed, and validating every complaint we had about our bosses. Right before bed, he gave Stella a gentle, expert shoulder massage. The combination of his magic, the soothing ambient music, and the incense he burned had me sleeping like a rock. The next morning, a hot breakfast was waiting for us. On our way out the door, this absolute saint of a demon wrapped Stella in a tight, affectionate hug. Walking to the subway, my mind was entirely blown. That level of care was intoxicating. Buying one of these guys seemed like the ultimate life hack. Stella nudged my ribs with her elbow, flashing a smug grin. “See? Told you. Order one tonight. You won’t regret it.” That very evening, I used the exclusive referral link Stella sent me and placed an order. The profile I selected featured a stunning, elegant man with soft eyes and a gentle smile. According to the bio, his temperament was top-tier. I messaged the agency for details, and the handler immediately bombarded me with glowing photos and endless praise for this specific incubus. “Just a quick heads-up,” the seller typed. “He can be a little possessive. If you adopt him, you absolutely cannot bring another incubus into your home.” “Not a problem,” I replied. “All sales are final once shipped. No refunds.” “Got it.” The transaction went through seamlessly. In my mind, I had it all mapped out. I would come home to a warm, peaceful house. We would take care of each other and build a quiet life together. He could share my bed if he wanted, but no pressure if he preferred his own space. But I never could have predicted the absolute holy terror that would show up on my doorstep. 3 When Jax first arrived, he was undeniably breathtaking. His features were sharp and striking, matching the agency photos perfectly. The only difference was a tiny notch missing from his right eyebrow, something I assumed happened during transit. His physique was flawless. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and incredibly long legs. He was built like a Greek god, with muscle definition that belonged on a magazine cover. He was definitely broader and more muscular than his pictures suggested, but I didn’t care. I figured it was just the camera angle. I was so excited to welcome him that I actually took a day off work to catch up on sleep, determined to be well-rested and in a great mood for his arrival. After all, this was the creature I planned to spend the rest of my life with. The delivery handlers dropped his enchanted transport crate in my living room. Trying to contain my excitement, I carefully unlocked the heavy iron latch and reached my hand inside to guide him out. “Welcome home. I promise we’re going to have a great life toge…” Before I could finish the sentence, he lunged. His teeth clamped down viciously on my fingers. I screamed in pain, ripping my hand out of his mouth with a violent jerk. Blood dripped down my knuckles. He crouched in the shadows of the crate, his eyes glowing a cold, menacing violet in the dim light. I cradled my throbbing hand against my chest. My heart was pounding, and the pain radiating from my torn skin was intense. But seeing him curled up like a frightened, cornered animal, I swallowed the angry words burning on my tongue. We stayed locked in a tense standoff until I finally backed down. Figuring he was just severely traumatized by the shipping process, I opened the door to the spare bedroom, left him alone, and retreated to the kitchen to bandage my hand. For the next twenty-four hours, I watched him through the security camera I had installed in the hallway. He stayed huddled in the darkest corner of his room, refusing to move. Worried he might be sick, I tried cracking the door open just to talk to him. But the second the hinges creaked, his head snapped up. He glared at me with such intense, suffocating hostility that my stomach dropped. The memory of his teeth sinking into my flesh was still too fresh. I didn’t dare push my luck. I quietly closed the door and backed away. This exhausting dance dragged on until Sunday evening. I was sprawled on the couch, brainstorming a marketing pitch, when I heard the spare bedroom door click open. I instantly leaped to my feet. He flinched, taking a defensive step backward into the shadows. I immediately threw my hands up in surrender. “Don’t panic! I’m not going to hurt you!” Patience won out in the end. That night was the first time he actually spoke to me. He told me his name was Jax. It suited him. We exchanged a few basic words, and I gave him a quick tour of the apartment layout. Sensing that his defensive walls were finally lowering, I pulled a sleek black debit card out of my pocket and placed it on the TV stand right in front of him. I offered him my warmest, most genuine smile. “Jax, from now on, you’re in charge of running this house. Don’t stress about money. That account has plenty of funds for groceries and whatever else you need. I’ll handle the earning.” I took a slight step forward, tentatively opening my arms. “We’re a team now, okay?” Jax was a solid half-head taller than me. I looked up at his handsome face, hoping for a breakthrough. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him subtly shifting his weight backward, recoiling from my approach. What was his problem? I frowned, opening my mouth to ask if he was okay. Before I could speak, he snatched the debit card off the console, took three massive steps back to put a solid distance between us, and actively avoided my gaze. “Whatever,” he muttered. 4 For a while, I genuinely believed he was just shy. I convinced myself he needed time to adjust before he felt comfortable with any physical affection. I thought the worst of our friction was behind us. I massively underestimated Jax. I was in the middle of a crucial strategy meeting at work when my phone blew up. It was my frantic next-door neighbor, screaming that my apartment reeked of natural gas. I burned rubber getting home, only to discover that Jax had tried to cook a meal, completely failed, and left the stove burners running on full blast without a flame. He was inches away from suffocating himself. “How is this even possible?” I yelled, ripping every window in the apartment open to air out the toxic fumes. “Your bio literally said you were a master in the kitchen!” I dragged him by the collar into the center of the room, lecturing him at the top of my lungs about basic fire safety. He just stood there in absolute silence, staring at the floor, still clutching a blackened, melted spatula in his hand. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were brimming with defiant resentment. “I don’t know how to cook,” he mumbled defensively. “Incubi don’t even eat human food. You don’t actually care about me at all.” His voice was so low I barely caught it. “What did you say?” Those words seemed to trigger something volatile inside him. He violently hurled the burnt spatula across the kitchen, didn’t even bother taking off his apron, and stormed down the hall. He slammed his bedroom door so hard the framed pictures on the wall rattled. I stood in the kitchen, completely bewildered. I had zero clue what he was throwing a tantrum over. To make matters worse, my boss was blowing up my phone, demanding I get back to the office immediately to salvage the meeting. Trapped between a furious boss and a sulking demon, I resorted to knocking gently on his door. Because of his “shyness,” we slept in separate rooms, meaning I couldn’t just walk in when he threw the deadbolt. I swallowed my frustration and tried to coax him out. “Jax? Are you mad? I wasn’t trying to yell at you, I was just terrified you were going to get hurt. I’m sorry, I should have controlled my temper better.” Dead silence from the other side of the wood. I kept pleading for a few more minutes, but the notification pings from my boss were becoming increasingly unhinged. Left with no choice, I shouted, “Order some takeout on the card!” before grabbing my purse and sprinting back to the office. That was just the prologue to my misery. From that day forward, a switch flipped in his brain. If I left the apartment for five minutes, he would miraculously cause a disaster that required my immediate return. The second I sat down at my desk, a crisis would unfold, forcing me to hail a cab straight back home. Once, while I was buried in paperwork, he pulled a stunt so ridiculous I refused to leave. I demanded over the phone to know if he genuinely had a death wish. He went dead silent, hung up on me, and then spammed my messages with texts reading: I hate you. All the shy, timid behavior he displayed on his first day completely vanished. He evolved into an absolute tyrant. He refused to communicate like an adult, relying solely on variations of “I hate you!” to express his feelings. I tried sitting him down for a rational conversation. It was utterly useless. My words went in one ear and out the other. He was committed to chaos. It got to the point where I started questioning his motives. Maybe he wasn’t trying to get himself killed. Maybe he was actively trying to put me in an early grave. Whenever I was on the brink of closing a massive deal, my phone would ring with an emergency dispatch notifying me that my incubus was in critical danger. I was legally obligated to drop everything and rush to his side. The authorities warned me that ignoring these calls could result in criminal charges for magical neglect. This exact nightmare scenario played out seven different times. By the time my boss finally pulled me into his office and screamed at me until his face turned purple, I walked out feeling entirely numb. I wasn’t even angry at the demon anymore. I was just questioning my entire existence. Jax was put on this earth to destroy my life. And now, here we were. After finally sleeping peacefully alone in my dark apartment, I woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in months. I grabbed my phone and typed a quick response to the seller: I’ll be ready for the pickup. I stepped out of my bedroom, expecting to deal with more of Jax’s attitude. Instead, the apartment was completely empty. The front door was wide open, swinging back and forth on its hinges in the morning breeze. I stood frozen in the hallway, my jaw dropping. The living room window was shattered. The front door was breached. The console table drawer where I kept the emergency cash? Gone. The entire drawer was ripped out. And stuck to the wall directly across from my bedroom door was a crumpled piece of paper. Stop trying reverse psychology on me. I’m running away. You are the worst! That absolute bastard. I slammed my fist into the doorframe and immediately dialed the paranormal authorities. “Hello?! I need to report a robbery!” 5 Jax and I sat on opposite ends of my ruined living room, covered in drywall dust. To prevent another psychotic episode, I had secured every door in the house and locked all my valuables inside the heavy steel safe in my bedroom. Now, sitting in an apartment that looked like a bomb had gone off, I unscrewed the lid of my thermos, took a slow sip of tea, and stared him down. “Give me my money back.” Jax set his jaw. “No.” “Then pay me for the broken window.” “No.” “Then stop terrorizing my life for the next three days!” “No!” I inhaled a massive, shaky breath. “Then what the hell do you want from me?!” Jax went completely silent. The tension in the living room was suffocating. I forced my racing heart to slow down, pinching the bridge of my nose before trying again. “Jax, let’s just talk about this calmly, like normal friends.” That specific phrase somehow triggered him all over again. His head snapped up, his eyebrows pulling together in a fierce scowl. “What do you mean, ‘friends’?!” I paused mid-sip, my fingers tightening around the metal thermos. I stared at him for a long moment before slowly nodding. “Fine. You’re right. That was a bad choice of words.” Jax’s expression instantly relaxed. “Exactly. You…” “We shouldn’t use the word ‘friends’,” I continued, trying my absolute hardest to view this from his twisted perspective. “Considering how much you despise my existence, ‘friends’ is a massive overstatement.” “How about ‘casual enemies’? Does that work better for you?” Jax looked at me like I had lost my mind. “What?” “Wait, you…” I cut him off, completely out of patience for his semantic games. “Okay, Jax. Let’s talk it out like casual enemies.” “Do you just inherently hate my personality, or did I do something specific to piss you off?” “I’ll admit I don’t know the first thing about taking care of an incubus. If you hate my guts, just say it. You’re getting shipped back to the agency in a few days anyway. We might as well clear the air so we can part ways without wanting to murder each other.” To my absolute shock, Jax panicked. “You’re actually sending me back?! Where am I supposed to go?!” I rubbed my temples, the exhaustion seeping into my bones. “Where are you supposed to go? How is that my problem? You’re a fully grown demon, you’ll figure it out. Besides, if you stay here, I’m the one who’s going to end up dead!” My temper flared, and my words came out infinitely harsher than I intended. Jax’s eyes widened in genuine disbelief. He couldn’t process why the woman who had spent months coddling and appeasing him was suddenly speaking to him like he was garbage. I took another long drink of tea, trying to cool the fire in my chest. I needed a minute to collect my thoughts before trying to reason with him again. Suddenly, the front door creaked open. Jax and I both whipped our heads toward the entryway. The cold, fluorescent light from the hallway spilled into the apartment. Standing right in the doorway was an incubus whose facial features were a near-perfect mirror image of Jax’s. “Blair.” The newcomer’s voice was like warm honey. He wasn’t confined to a shipping crate; he simply carried a sleek leather duffel bag over his shoulder. He looked exhausted from travel, yet his eyes crinkled into a breathtaking, affectionate smile the second he saw me. “I apologize for the intrusion. I simply couldn’t wait to see you, so I caught an earlier flight.” “I picked up some fresh groceries on the way. What are you craving? I’d love to cook for you.” I was still trying to process why my front door was unlocked, completely incapable of forming a coherent sentence. But Jax practically exploded off the sofa. He stared at the newcomer, absolute horror washing over his face. “Silas?!” 6 The second that name left his mouth, combined with the uncanny resemblance between the two demons, all the puzzle pieces clicked perfectly into place. It explained why the product page promised a domestic angel, but the delivery box contained a feral nightmare. It explained why the demon I received was noticeably more muscular than his photos. It even explained the tiny scar missing from the edge of Jax’s right eyebrow. My brain worked in overdrive, finally realizing the massive logistical screw-up that had ruined my life. But the two demons were already locked in a bitter standoff. Silas stepped gracefully into the apartment, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He turned his warm, flawless smile toward Jax. “Hello, little brother,” he said gently, though his words were laced with ice. “I was informed about the shipping error.” Jax was furious. “She bought you too?!” Silas didn’t blink. “No. She requested a return on her defective product. It is time for you to go home.” “Why the hell is she returning me?!” “It’s time for you to go home.” “I was here first! I belong here!” “It is time for you to go home.” “…” I sat on the couch, completely dumbfounded. Were these two actually related? Even though Silas didn’t seem like the most forgiving guy on the planet, his demeanor was already lightyears better than Jax’s. I set my thermos on the coffee table and stood up, ready to formally evict Jax from my property. “Please, allow me. You shouldn’t strain yourself,” Silas said smoothly. Before I could take a step, Silas crossed the room in a blur, clamped his hand around Jax’s bicep, and physically dragged him toward the open door. Jax, despite his massive frame, was hauled several feet across the floor before his brain caught up with his body. He started thrashing wildly. “Silas! Let go of me!” “Jax, be a good boy. Stop making a fool of yourself.” “Let me go! You don’t understand anything!” Silas’s grip was like a steel vise. Panicking, Jax pulled his arm back, balling his hand into a heavy fist, aiming straight for his brother’s face. My instincts kicked in. I cleared the distance between us in three massive strides, pulling my arm back as far as it would go. Smack! The sharp crack of my hand connecting with Jax’s cheek echoed through the silent apartment. The sheer force of the blow sent him stumbling backward. He caught his balance, clutching his rapidly swelling face, staring at me in absolute shock. “Did you… did you just hit me?” he stammered. “I sure did,” I replied, my voice dropping to a dangerous chill. “And you deserved it.” I had trained in kickboxing for eight years. I wasn’t some fragile pushover. I stepped firmly in front of Silas, shielding him. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I tapped the screen and shoved my digital termination certificate right in Jax’s face. “Our legal binding contract has been officially severed. You are trespassing on private property, and you just attempted to assault my incubus. That slap was self-defense, and I am perfectly willing to defend myself again.” I didn’t give him an inch of breathing room. “Now. Drop my money on the floor, and get the hell out of my house before I count to three.” Jax opened his mouth to argue, but I raised my voice, cutting him off like a whip. “Three!” The sheer venom in my tone visibly rattled him. He flinched, taking a half-step backward. For a fleeting second, a flash of genuine hurt crossed his eyes. I didn’t care. “Two!” He gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling. He violently threw my stolen credit cards and cash onto the hardwood floor, spinning on his heel and marching toward the hallway. “One.” I finished the countdown, my expression completely blank. Jax stopped in the doorway, standing exactly where Silas had been moments before. He looked back at us standing shoulder to shoulder, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. The edges of his eyes were rimmed with red. “You’re going to regret this, Blair. My brother isn’t the saint you think he is…” I wasn’t in the mood for any more of his desperate manipulation. I looked over my shoulder at Silas. “Close the door.”

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On my very first day at the new job, a fellow intern heavily hinted that she was the Chairman’s daughter. Instantly, the whole office was practically kissing her feet. Me? I got dragged through the mud, with rumors flying around that I was some old guy’s sugar baby. Furious, I dialed the Chairman’s number. “Dad, they’re calling you a wrinkly old creep, and saying you’re having an affair…” 1 Right after graduation, my dad waved his hand and tossed me straight into the lowest rung of our corporate ladder. He called it character building. Said it would sharpen my edge. I whined and complained to his face, but deep down, I was actually pretty stoked to finally spread my wings. But barely an hour into my first day, I caught snippets of office gossip in the breakroom. “Did you hear? Chairman Crawford’s daughter is hiding in our batch of interns.” “Seriously? That’s kind of harsh for a billionaire dad. You’d think he’d at least let his little princess start as a regional manager.” I froze, genuinely caught off guard. Who leaked my cover? Luckily, the wild guessing game fizzled out quickly, and the vultures moved on to other topics. That was, until the intern orientation. A girl strolled in fifteen minutes late and offered a sickeningly sweet smile. “Hi everyone, I’m Tessa Crawford.” “Crawford? Wait, are you the Chairman’s daughter?” The girl sitting next to her practically shrieked, slapping a hand over her mouth. The entire conference room erupted. It wasn’t a hard sell. Tessa was dripping in designer labels from head to toe, and a brand new Cartier Ballon Bleu watch rested on her wrist. She looked every inch the trust fund baby. Tessa looked down, offering a coy, perfectly practiced smile that totally dodged the question. “My dad always taught me to keep a low profile. Honestly, I’m just here to fulfill his wishes.” “Wow, you can just tell she was born with a silver spoon. That aura is totally different!” “Tessa, please don’t forget about us little people once the internship is over!” I sat there, literally speechless. Wasn’t I an only child? When the hell did my dad adopt a second daughter? 2 I guess it was an easy mistake for them to make. I took my mother’s maiden name, Bennett, to stay under the radar. Tessa was the only intern in the entire batch with the surname Crawford. And just like that, she was crowned the queen bee of the office. I watched her soak up the adoration, her smile bright and completely fake. I didn’t rush to expose her. The chaotic chatter only died down when the department supervisor walked in. Right off the bat, I noticed something off. The way the supervisor looked at Tessa was noticeably… different. Sweeter. More indulgent. Before the meeting was even over, he appointed her as the intern team lead, giving her full authority to delegate our tasks. I wasn’t about to swallow that kind of blatant favoritism. I stood up, keeping my tone deadpan. “Shouldn’t we keep things fair? A quick vote seems more appropriate.” “The company doesn’t have time to hold elections,” the supervisor snapped back. “Tessa’s resume is the most outstanding out of all of you. It makes perfect sense for her to take the lead.” I practically choked on a laugh. Just last night, my dad had patted my shoulder in his study and told me, “Harper, your portfolio blew the rest of the applicants out of the water. I know you’re going to shine.” Faced with the supervisor’s bold-faced lie, I bit my tongue. Just like I held off on exposing Tessa’s fake heiress routine. Some lies are way more satisfying to watch when the liar finally runs out of runway. I really wanted to see what kind of “outstanding” skills Tessa actually possessed. But before she could show off, I became public enemy number one. A stack of folders halfway up to my chin was slammed onto my desk. Tessa stood over me, looking down her nose. “I need all of these digitized, sorted chronologically, and in my inbox before tomorrow morning.” She turned on her heel, pausing just long enough to throw a glance over her shoulder. “Oh, and grab me a coffee on your way back.” The sheer entitlement in her voice made my skin crawl. “Are your legs broken?” I asked. Not even my own father had the privilege of ordering me to fetch his coffee. “It’s on your way. Why are you being so difficult?” Gwen, another intern who had glued herself to Tessa’s side all morning, instantly jumped to her defense. “Yeah, it’s just a cup of coffee. Don’t be so petty.” Listening to them, you’d think I was the one bullying the poor, defenseless rich girl. I picked up the empty mug and shoved it right into Gwen’s chest. “If it’s no big deal, you do it.” Whoever wanted to play the maid could go right ahead. Gwen’s face flushed an ugly red. “What the hell is your problem, Harper? Are you trying to start a fight on your first day?” Before I could even fire back, Tessa gracefully stepped between us. “It’s okay, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have asked Harper for a favor. Please, let’s not ruin the team spirit over me.” Look at her, playing the martyr. I didn’t actually care about making coffee. I just refused to bow down to her snobby, condescending attitude. Gwen fanned her face, glaring at me like I was a piece of trash. “If you can’t even handle basic teamwork, I have no idea how you passed the interview.” “I got hired to do my job,” I shot back, “not to act as a glorified barista.” “You…” “Tell you what!” Tessa clapped her hands together. “I’ll treat everyone to afternoon tea later. Let’s all just get back to work!” With her audience appeased, Tessa took a step closer to me. “Harper, please don’t be mad at me, okay?” The sugary sweetness in her voice made me want to gag. I brushed past her and walked away, a heavy knot of annoyance tight in my chest. How could someone be this fake? But the real shocker came later. Walking back from the rooftop terrace, I took the stairwell to avoid the elevator crowd. That’s when I stumbled right into Tessa and the supervisor. 3 “That Harper girl is such a bitch. Complaining about me being team lead this morning, and then totally disrespecting me in front of everyone.” “She did that?” The supervisor had Tessa pinned against the concrete wall in the shadowy corner of the landing, his hands roaming dangerously low on her waist. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. I promise you, Harper won’t last till the end of this internship.” What followed was a symphony of breathy, explicit noises echoing off the cinderblock walls. My stomach churned in disgust, but at the same time, I almost wanted to laugh. I couldn’t wait to see exactly how they planned to get rid of me. Sure enough, the very next morning, I was summoned to the supervisor’s office. “Where are the digitized files I asked for yesterday? If you can’t even handle the most basic data entry, there is absolutely no reason for you to stick around.” I had expected some sort of corporate mastermind move. Instead, I got this lazy garbage. I stared him down, my expression freezing over. “Did Tessa come crying to you?” “She gave an objective report on your performance, and I am handling this impartially.” Impartially. What an absolute joke. “Those files are case studies from fifteen years ago. They’ve been fully archived on the company’s internal server for a decade. A simple search pulls them up instantly. Digitizing them again is a massive waste of company time.” I leaned forward, resting my hands on his desk. “Tell me, have you ever actually logged into our own intranet?” “I… of course I have!” Clearly not expecting me to have done my homework, his face mottled an embarrassing shade of purple. “I was simply testing your work ethic!” He was desperately trying to save face, and it was pathetic. I didn’t push it further. I still wanted to spend this internship doing real work and proving my worth on paper. The supervisor cleared his throat aggressively. “I also heard you were causing drama in the bullpen yesterday.” “I know you resent my decisions, but in the real corporate world, things don’t always go your way. You are young, Harper. You have a lot to learn about respect.” If I hadn’t literally caught him swallowing Tessa’s face in a stairwell, I might have actually believed his pseudo-mentor act. 4 Walking out of his office, I headed back to the bullpen. A large crowd had gathered right around my desk. The moment Gwen spotted me, she raised her voice so the whole floor could hear. “Some people are just shameless! They act all high and mighty, but behind closed doors, they’re total lowlifes!” Tessa tugged at Gwen’s sleeve, her eyes wide and innocent. “Gwen, don’t be mean. We have to work together. Maybe Harper was just curious and wanted to try it on.” “Curious? She’s a thief, Tessa! Stop defending her.” What fresh hell was this? I frowned and pushed my way through the circle of gossiping interns. Gwen didn’t back down. “You stole Tessa’s Cartier watch, Harper! How do you even have the nerve to show your face right now?” I paused. A Cartier? I had a velvet display case full of those back at my penthouse. Most of them were too flashy for my taste anyway. Why would I steal one? “Which one of your eyes saw me steal anything?” I asked coldly. “Keep your mouth shut if you don’t have proof.” “Then open your drawer and prove us wrong!” Tessa stepped forward, playing the gentle peacemaker. “Harper, look, if you really love the watch that much, I can buy you a brand new one. But that specific one was a gift from my late mother. It holds a lot of sentimental value.” They had rehearsed this perfectly. It was a flawless guilt trip. A cold realization hit me. The watch was definitely inside my drawer. There was no other way Gwen would be screaming with this much confidence. Every intern’s drawer had a lock, but given Tessa’s intimate connection with the supervisor, getting a master key would take her two seconds. Taking my silence as guilt, Gwen crossed her arms triumphantly. “What’s wrong? Scared, you little thief?” I glanced up at the ceiling, making sure the small, black dome of the security camera was angled right at us. I let out a sharp laugh. “Whoever planted it knows exactly what they did.” I unlocked the drawer and pulled it open. Right on top of my notebooks rested a silver and sapphire Cartier Ballon Bleu. But as I looked closer, my breath hitched. Etched right into the side of the metal casing were two tiny letters. H.B. My initials. Before I could even process the coincidence, Gwen snatched the watch right out of the drawer. “Look, Tessa! Is this the one you lost?” “Yes! This is exactly the one my mother gave me.” Tessa’s eyes welled up with perfectly timed tears. She looked at me, a picture of absolute betrayal. “Harper, how could you?” The crowd murmured in sympathy for her. I had to hand it to her. The sheer audacity was almost impressive. “Your mother gave you a watch engraved with my initials?” The office went dead silent. Everyone crowded in closer to look at the side of the watch where Gwen was holding it. Half a month ago, for my birthday, a social-climbing frenemy from college had custom-ordered this exact watch to suck up to me. But since I already owned three variations of it, I tossed it up on Poshmark for a fraction of the retail price. I remembered the buyer vividly. She haggled with me in the DMs for two hours straight. I finally got bored and knocked an extra hundred bucks off just to make her go away. I never in a million years thought the cheapskate on the other end of the screen was Tessa Crawford. “Who says H.B. stands for Harper Bennett? You’re delusional!” Gwen was grasping at straws now. “Stop trying to change the subject! We caught you red-handed with stolen property. You’re done!” “You’re right, I’m done talking,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Let’s just pull the security footage. You guys do realize there are cameras right above us, right?” Judging by their suddenly pale faces, they had absolutely no idea. “Should I call the cops now, or wait until security brings the tape up?” I hovered my thumb over the keypad. Gwen looked like she was going to throw up. “What is going on out here! This is a workplace, not a playground!” The supervisor stormed out of his office right on cue. Tessa immediately pivoted, looking at me with big, apologetic eyes. “Oh my gosh, someone must have just placed it in the wrong desk by mistake! I am so sorry for the misunderstanding, Harper. Please be the bigger person and don’t hold this against us, okay?” She orchestrated a literal frame-up, and now she was asking me to be the bigger person? Buying my second-hand cast-offs and acting like royalty. I scoffed, tossing the watch back onto the desk. I wasn’t going to waste my breath arguing with them right now. But the battle lines were officially drawn. 5 The next evening, the entire department had to work overtime. Tessa took charge of ordering dinner for everyone with the intern budget. But when the takeout bags were passed around, my desk remained empty. “Oh no, I swear I counted thirteen people when I ordered! How could they forget one?” Tessa frowned, her voice dripping with fake concern. My name was right in the middle of the roster. It wasn’t at the top, wasn’t at the bottom. But somehow, mine was the only one skipped? “Tell you what, I’ll just order you a fresh one from my own pocket,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Oh… wait. Delivery won’t get here until seven, and we have the big strategy meeting in ten minutes.” I smirked. This kind of middle-school bullying was genuinely embarrassing. “Simple solution,” I said loudly. “Whoever messed up the order gives up their meal. I’ll take yours.” I didn’t even want her cheap takeout. I just wanted to see her squirm. Before Tessa could say a word, her loyal lapdog Gwen bared her teeth. “Are you insane? First you try to steal her luxury watch, and now you want to steal her dinner?” Gwen’s voice practically echoed through the bullpen. Everyone stopped eating and stared at us. I kept my voice icy and level. “First of all, I didn’t steal anything. The camera footage is sitting right there if you ever want to test that theory. Second, who exactly is stealing food?” Gwen stuttered, clearly not expecting me to push back so hard in front of an audience. Tessa swooped in to play the angel again. “Harper, don’t take it to heart. Gwen just speaks without a filter. She doesn’t mean any harm.” I looked at the two of them, absolutely disgusted by the synchronized routine. I grabbed my notes and walked straight into the conference room. Out of sight, out of mind. But by nine o’clock, my stomach was roaring, and my vision was practically blurring. Under the table, I aggressively texted my mom. [I am starving! I need a massive dry-aged Ribeye, creamy lobster mac and cheese, loaded truffle fries, and a whole chocolate lava cake! Oh, and extra carbs!] By the time we finally dragged ourselves out of the building, it was nearing midnight. Everyone was exhausted, shuffling toward the subway station in dead silence. Suddenly, a sleek, jet-black Bentley idling by the curb caught everyone’s attention. “Oh my god, Tessa, is that your family’s car? Your dad is so sweet, sending a driver to pick you up so late!” Gwen practically drooled over the shiny hood. Tessa tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled demurely. “Oh, stop it…” I ignored them. The driver stepped out of the Bentley, locked eyes with me, and gave a small wave. I picked up my pace and walked straight toward the car. “Wait, what is happening? Why is she getting in?” I heard Gwen’s confused shriek right as I closed the heavy car door. I didn’t even bother looking out the window. “Just drive, George,” I told the chauffeur. When I got home to the penthouse, the dining table was covered in a feast fit for a king. I completely forgot about the miserable day and dug in like a wild animal. My dad walked in a few minutes later, loosening his tie. Seeing me inhaling a ribeye, he sat down and asked how my first couple of days were going. I paused, a piece of steak hovering halfway to my mouth. I almost spilled everything. But I swallowed it down. “It’s going great. Just wait, I’m going to blow them all away.” Tessa’s pathetic little parlor tricks weren’t worth my dad’s time. I wanted to wait for the absolute perfect moment. I wanted to watch Tessa’s fragile house of cards collapse while she was standing right inside it. Calling in the airstrike now would ruin the fun.

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1 As the most recognizable face among the new generation of supermodels, every single runway I walked became the center of the fashion world’s attention. But just hours before the most critical show of my career, my boyfriend, Rahm Denton, gave away my custom haute couture dress. He handed the exclusive, first-in-the-world debut piece to his childhood best friend. When I confronted him in the middle of our penthouse, Rahm just looked irritated. “Daisy just entered the industry. Wearing a global debut piece will put her on the map. She wants it, so I am giving it to her.” “You are already an established supermodel. What difference does one dress make to you?” I stared dead into Rahm’s eyes, refusing to take even half a step back. This specific gown was custom-fitted for me by Celestia, the most prestigious lingerie and couture brand on the planet. Tonight’s runway would determine if I became the very first supermodel from our agency to sign an exclusive, multi-million dollar global contract with them. Rahm knew exactly what was at stake. Seeing my absolute refusal, Rahm furrowed his brows. His limited patience was completely gone. “I am an heir to the Denton empire. As long as you are with me, what could you possibly lack?” “Anna, remember your place. Stop screaming at me. Without my backing, you are nothing.” In that exact moment, the ugly truth finally clicked into place. My dreams, the career I had bled for, were nothing more than a childish game in Rahm’s eyes. “I have never relied on your money or your name, Rahm.” “With or without you, I am still Anna. I built myself.” I kept my spine perfectly straight, standing my ground in the center of the living room. Rahm rubbed his temples in aggressive frustration. “Are you seriously going to throw a tantrum over this?” “It is just a piece of fabric. Daisy needs this opportunity infinitely more than you do.” Before I could even open my mouth to fire back, Daisy interrupted with a soft, trembling voice. “Forget it, Rahm. It is totally fine if Anna does not want to share.” “I am already so lucky just to share the same stage with her. How could I ever dream of wearing the global debut piece?” Rahm’s dark expression instantly softened. He looked down at her with undisguised tenderness. “Do not worry about it. The stage, the dress, it is yours.” “As long as you want it, I will give it to you. Trust me.” I watched the two of them with eyes colder than ice. They were casually deciding the fate of a masterpiece that rightfully belonged to me, acting like I was completely invisible. Rahm turned his gaze back to me. “Anna, as long as you marry me, you will have the world at your fingertips. Why be so obsessed with one dress?” “Enough. The decision is made. I will have my assistant deliver the gown to her dressing room tomorrow.” I took a deep, shaky breath, tilting my chin up to glare right through him. “You know exactly what this runway means to me. You know what my dream has been since the day we met.” “This is not just a piece of clothing. It is my golden ticket to becoming a signed Celestia Angel.” A rare flicker of guilt flashed across Rahm’s handsome face. But when he met Daisy’s wide, expectant eyes, he chose to completely crush my dream without hesitation. “Daisy and I grew up together. She wants a shot at the spotlight, and obviously, I am going to help her.” “So what if you don’t walk for Celestia? Does it even matter?” “Once you marry me, you will be the wife of a Denton. A meaningless modeling title is nothing compared to that.” With those words, the very last shred of love I held for Rahm turned to ash. He despised my profession. He looked down on me. When Daisy wanted to be a model, he moved mountains to pave her way. But every agonizing step I had taken over the last six years meant absolutely nothing to him compared to the title of ‘Mrs. Denton’. To him, I was just an accessory. I was completely done talking. I turned on my heel, marched straight to the front door, and yanked it wide open. “I am not an accessory to anyone. I have my own empire and my own ambitions.” “Rahm, with or without you, I will always be Anna. I am in no way inferior to you.” “Now, both of you need to get the hell out of my apartment. I have the most important runway of my life tomorrow, and I need my sleep.” Rahm’s face flushed with anger. He took a step forward to argue, but I shut him down instantly. “Get out!” “Get out of my house, and get out of my life.” This time, I left absolutely no room for negotiation. His ego severely bruised, Rahm grabbed Daisy by the wrist and dragged her out into the hallway. He glared back at me, his jaw clenched tight. “You are going to regret this, Anna.” I stood frozen in the doorway, staring at their retreating backs until they disappeared into the elevator. The tears I had fought so hard to hold back finally spilled over, dropping heavily onto the hardwood floor. I had loved him deeply for three years. But if he was going to deny my worth, sabotage my career, and mock my dreams… Then I did not want a man like him. Early the next morning, my assistant Ruby and I arrived perfectly on time at the VIP dressing rooms backstage. But the moment we reached my door, a massive bodyguard stepped in front of us. “Apologies. This room is currently occupied.” “You will need to find another space.” I frowned in pure disbelief, but Ruby was already furious. “What is that supposed to mean? Everyone in this building knows this is Anna’s exclusive suite! Who else would be in there?” “Are you expecting her to do her makeup in the public hallway? Move out of the way!” The bodyguard did not say a single word. He just stood there like a brick wall, making his orders abundantly clear. Ruby was shaking with rage and prepared to scream. I didn’t waste my breath. I reached out, shoved the man hard in the shoulder to unbalance him, and twisted the door handle open. Inside, Daisy was sitting comfortably in my makeup chair. Standing right next to her, gently holding her shoulder, was Rahm. And applying her foundation was my personal, exclusive makeup artist. I walked straight into the room. “Who gave you permission to be in here?” “Was stealing my couture dress not enough? Now you have to steal my artist and my room?” Rahm scowled at me. “Anna, can you drop the toxic attitude for one second?” “Daisy is a rookie. She does not have a private suite assigned to her. What is the big deal about her borrowing yours for an hour?” I ignored his pathetic excuse and looked down at the vanity counter. My premium, custom-ordered cosmetics were scattered everywhere, completely unsealed and used. I pointed a shaking finger at the mess. “Is this what you call borrowing?” “For a high-stakes show like this, you let your artist rip open and contaminate all of my personal products. How am I supposed to use them now? Do you expect me to walk the runway barefaced?” Whether it was a commercial shoot or a global runway, models required heavy, layered theatrical makeup. After six grueling years in the industry, my skin barrier was dangerously sensitive. Whenever I attended major events, my cosmetics were strictly sanitized and reserved only for my face. A single breakout or allergic reaction could destroy a campaign. Rahm knew all of this. The very first time I suffered a severe allergic reaction, he had held my swollen, red face in his hands, his eyes full of heartbreak. He had sworn to me, “From now on, your suite and your products will be totally exclusive. I will never let this happen to you again.” Hearing my furious question, a brief flash of guilt crossed Rahm’s eyes. But he quickly swallowed it down and masked it with arrogance. “She used it once. It is not going to kill you. Your skin is not made of spun glass.” “Stop throwing a fit. Daisy is almost done. She will give you the chair in a minute.” I glanced at the glowing digital clock on the wall, then back at Daisy. They were barely blending her eyeshadow. Her hair had not even been touched. If I waited for her to finish, the show would be over before I even got dressed. I refused to waste another second breathing the same air as Rahm. I unzipped my personal travel bag, pulled out my emergency backup cosmetics, and walked over to the secondary mirror in the corner. I sat down and began aggressively applying my own makeup. I thought that would be the end of the morning drama. But suddenly, Daisy started crying softly. “Rahm, did I make Anna mad again?” “This is all my fault. I should have hired my own team so I wouldn’t have to steal hers.” “But you know this is my very first time on a stage like this. I do not know how any of this works, and now she hates me.” Rahm immediately leaned down, wiping away her tears and whispering sweet, protective comforts into her ear. The sound of their voices made my blood boil. I spun around in my chair. “Borrow? I never agreed to lend you a damn thing. Taking without asking is called stealing.” “Whether you are truly clueless or doing this on purpose, you know the truth better than anyone, Daisy.” “If you want to cry, get out into the hallway and cry. Stop polluting my air and ruining my focus.” My words were razor-sharp. Rahm stepped forward, his fists clenched, ready to defend his precious childhood friend. But Daisy grabbed his sleeve, looking up at him with wide, tear-filled, innocent eyes, slowly shaking her head. I had a strikingly sharp, high-fashion face. It wasn’t traditionally sweet. Daisy, on the other hand, had pale, porcelain skin and soft, youthful features. She looked like a fragile doll. Seeing her bite her lip in silent suffering, even a stranger would feel an urge to protect her. “Let’s go, Rahm. She is right, this is my fault. We shouldn’t disturb her preparation anymore.” Rahm glared at me with absolute venom, but ultimately kept his mouth shut. He wrapped his arm around Daisy and escorted her and the makeup artist out the door. Two hours later, the music started pounding. The show had begun. As the reigning queen of the runway, I was meant to close the segment. I was wearing the heavy, breathtaking global debut piece that Celestia had designed exclusively for my proportions. My spot in the lineup was the undeniable center. I lifted the heavy silk train of my dress and stepped out into the blinding stage lights. But the very second my foot hit the polished glass runway, Daisy, who had been placed directly behind me, completely lost her footing. She slammed violently into my back. I was carrying a massive pair of mechanical wings and wearing six-inch stilettos. My center of gravity vanished. I pitched forward, crashing brutally onto the crystal-clear runway. My bare knees hit the solid glass with a sickening crack. The blinding pain paralyzed me, making it impossible to push myself up immediately. At the exact same moment, the sharp heel of Daisy’s shoe came down hard on my silk train, ripping a massive, jagged hole right up the center of the gown. The heavy wings detached and slammed down hard against the back of my head. A collective gasp of absolute horror echoed through the VIP audience. With the heavy metal frame pressing my head into the glass, I slowly, agonizingly looked up into the crowd. I saw the disappointment, the shock, the pity in their eyes. I knew the brutal reality. This single fall had shattered my reputation as a flawless supermodel. It had also destroyed my golden ticket to signing with Celestia. But the heavy bass of the runway music was still pounding through the speakers. My walk was not over. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, forcing my trembling body to stand. I grabbed the broken mechanical wings and tucked them fiercely under my left arm. I looked down at the shredded, ruined silk of my gown. Without a second thought, I grabbed the torn fabric with my right hand and violently ripped the damaged train clean off. I took a deep, steadying breath and plastered a lethal, breathtaking smile onto my face. Clutching the broken wings to my side, flourishing the ripped silk in my hand, I locked my eyes onto the cameras and stomped down the rest of that runway perfectly on beat. The moment I stepped past the backstage curtain, my adrenaline completely vanished. My knees buckled. I collapsed onto the concrete floor, burying my face in my hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Daisy stood a few feet away, her hands clasped together, trembling like a frightened mouse. “I am so sorry, Anna. I swear I didn’t mean to do it. My ankle just gave out.” “You know this is my first time walking. I don’t have the muscle memory…” I didn’t even have the breath in my lungs to scream at her. My mind was completely consumed by the agonizing realization that my entire career was dead. Ruby dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around me. She glared up at Daisy with absolute hatred, cutting off her pathetic excuses. “You know exactly what you did, Daisy!” “Not on purpose? Does your fake apology fix the fact that you just destroyed her entire life?!” Rahm immediately stepped out of the shadows, pulling the weeping Daisy into his chest, shielding her from our anger. “Watch your mouth! Daisy already said she was sorry. What more do you want?” “If you really want to assign blame, blame yourself. Daisy is a rookie. You are supposed to be the veteran supermodel.” “Your own balance and core strength failed you, and now you are trying to project your incompetence onto a terrified girl? Is this how you handle pressure?” I forced myself to take three deep, shuddering breaths. The oxygen slowly cleared the red haze of pain from my mind. I pushed myself off the floor. I was completely done holding back. I raised my hand and delivered a vicious, echoing slap directly across Daisy’s face. Daisy shrieked in pain, but I did not give her a single second to play the victim. “According to the director’s lineup, you were not supposed to be walking behind me.” “You know exactly what you did, and you know exactly why you did it.” “Keep your pathetic, fragile little innocent act to yourself. It might work on a gullible idiot like Rahm, but it does absolutely nothing for me.” Rahm’s eyes widened in fury. He shoved Daisy behind his back. “Anna!” “She already apologized! What gives you the right to put your hands on her?!” I laughed, a cold, bitter sound, even as hot tears continued to stream down my face. “What gives me the right? She just slaughtered six years of my blood, sweat, and tears.” “Is that a good enough reason for you?” A brief shadow of pity finally crossed Rahm’s eyes as he looked at my bleeding knees. “Anna, calm down. I am here. I will not let your career die.” “I will have my PR team bury the videos and spin the narrative. You just need to…” I did not want to hear another word. I raised my hand high into the air again. This time, my palm connected violently with Rahm’s jaw. “Daisy is a snake, and you are absolute garbage.” “I made myself perfectly clear last night. We are done.” “For six years, I built my own name. I never relied on your money, and I sure as hell won’t start now.” Without waiting for his reaction, I turned my back on both of them, pushing through the crowd of shocked stagehands and walking toward the exit. Rahm’s dark, threatening voice echoed through the concrete hallway behind me. “I am giving you exactly one second to take back what you just said.” “If you drop to your knees and beg me right now, I might still save you.” I didn’t even bother to turn around. I just stood in the hallway and laughed loudly, the sound bouncing off the walls. When I finally caught my breath, my voice was raw but steady. “You are not worthy of my apologies.” “I will never bow to you.” The consequences of rejecting the Denton heir were swift and brutal. By nightfall, my name was dominating the top trending spots across every major social media platform. Anna Runway Fall. Anna Incompetence. Those two phrases sat comfortably at number one and number two. Clicking on the hashtags revealed thousands of high-definition clips of me crashing into the glass. Trolls had already edited the footage into humiliating compilations, looping my agonizing fall to comedic background music. The comment sections were a bloodbath. “Celestia is definitely going to drop her. She is a total embarrassment to our fashion industry.” “Right? Her PR team hyped her up for years as our nation’s top model, and she can’t even walk in a straight line. What a joke.” “If this is the standard for supermodels, I could walk the runway in my pajamas.” Thousands of comments ripped my professional abilities to shreds. Simultaneously, my phone began ringing off the hook. Every single luxury brand I represented demanded immediate contract terminations. In a single night, my endorsements, my commercials, and my billboards vanished. I sat on my living room floor, staring blankly at the endless stream of hate. Ruby paced back and forth across the rug, practically hyperventilating with rage. “This is a coordinated smear campaign! Look at the accounts, they are all paid bots!” “Anna, he is trying to permanently bury you so you can never make a comeback.” I let out a tired, hollow laugh. “My career is already in ruins. Does it really matter if he pays people to throw dirt on the ashes?” “Go home, Ruby. Get some sleep. We have to go to the agency tomorrow morning to negotiate my termination.” Early the next morning, I walked through the glass doors of my modeling agency. Standing right in the lobby, wearing oversized designer sunglasses, were Daisy and Rahm. Rahm frowned the moment he saw me. “Anna, what are you doing here?” I actually smiled at the sheer audacity of his question. “Do you really have the nerve to ask me that? Am I not here because of the hit job you ordered?” I walked right past them, heading for the elevators. As I brushed past his shoulder, Rahm reached out and clamped his hand around my wrist. “I am willing to pretend yesterday never happened.” “As long as you lower your head and apologize, I will make all of this go away.” “You know the power I have. I am a Denton…” I ripped my arm free and backhanded him across the face, cutting off his pathetic monologue. “Clearly, I didn’t hit you hard enough yesterday if you are still spewing this garbage in my presence.” “All day long, you hide behind your family name. Without the Denton wealth, what exactly do you have to offer?” “If you leave your family, you are nothing but an empty suit. But I am different. If I leave you, I am still Anna.” I didn’t spare them a second glance as I stepped into the elevator and let the doors slide shut. My physical retaliation completely destroyed the last ounce of Rahm’s patience. That evening, the second wave of coordinated attacks hit the internet. Every single brand that had just terminated my contract released synchronized public statements. They proudly announced Daisy as their brand new global ambassador. The promotional photos flooded the timelines. The comment sections were heavily manipulated, designed specifically to crush me while elevating her. “Oh my god, this new girl is breathtaking. She has that perfect, sweet innocent look. A million times better than that aggressive, washed-up Anna.” “Agreed! I never understood the hype around Anna’s ‘high-fashion’ face. She looks too mean. Daisy is beautiful.” “Watching a toxic model lose everything is the greatest karma ever. We love to see it.” Conspiracy theories began brewing, heavily guided by paid accounts. “Was Anna actually a top model, or did she just sleep her way to the top to block rookies from getting a chance?” “Exactly. The minute Anna gets canceled, this gorgeous new girl instantly gets booked. Anna has definitely been bullying the new talent behind the scenes.” “Isn’t that just workplace abuse?” And right on cue, a leaked video surfaced. It was the footage of me slapping Daisy backstage. The video had no audio. It had no context. It was perfectly cropped to only show me raising my hand and striking the fragile, weeping rookie. Instantly, a tidal wave of death threats and pure venom flooded my personal accounts. My name was dragged through the mud on every single platform. In the midst of the chaos, a text message from Rahm lit up my phone screen. “This is the absolute last chance I am giving you.” “Beg.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “501378”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The boy next door had a vicious tongue, always mocking my weight for laughs. At our high school graduation dinner, someone joked that Cory and I were childhood sweethearts. He slammed his fork down, face twisting in disgust. “Are you insane? Who’d like a whale like Wendy? I hang out with her out of pity.” The table roared. Carter, our class president, frowned. “You’re blind, Cory. Wendy’s bone structure is better than anyone here. If she lost the weight, you wouldn’t be fit to tie her shoes.” Silence flickered, then laughter exploded again. “Serious, Carter? Her?” Cory scoffed, eyeing me mockingly. “If she loses weight and looks half as good as Bella, I’ll kneel and apologize. But we all know that’ll never happen.” More howls of laughter. Under the table, my fists clenched. Eight years of secret feelings shattered in that instant. That night, I stood before my full-length mirror. Five-eight, two hundred pounds. I made two quiet decisions. One: I would lose the weight. Two: I would not follow him to Columbia. … Back at the restaurant, Bella, the reigning prom queen, had laughed the loudest. She deliberately dropped a greasy piece of pork belly onto my plate. “Don’t be sad, Wendy. Eat up. A full stomach makes you forget everything.” Someone else immediately chimed in. “Exactly! Our Wendy doesn’t need a boyfriend. A plate of ribs is all she needs.” The table exploded again. Cory leaned back in his chair, a lingering smirk playing on his lips as he scrolled through his phone. He acted completely detached, like the humiliation he just orchestrated had nothing to do with him. Carter shot him a dark look but chose not to start a fight. Meanwhile, Bella leaned over and whispered something directly into Cory’s ear. Cory let out a low, husky chuckle. It wasn’t loud, but in the chaotic room, I heard it perfectly. I set my chopsticks down on the ceramic rest. “I’m heading out.” Bella instantly plastered on a mask of fake concern. “Wendy, please don’t be mad. We were honestly just joking around…” I ignored her completely. I grabbed my purse and walked toward the exit. As I passed Cory’s chair, he didn’t even bother to look up. He was too busy texting Bella. I stopped right beside him. “Cory.” He finally lifted his head, his eyes laced with heavy impatience. “What?” I just looked at him. My mind flashed back to when we were six years old. He had just moved into the house next door and scraped his knee on the pavement. I was the one who crouched in the dirt, digging desperately through my tiny backpack just to find my only band-aid for him. When he put it on, he gave me a brilliant, toothy smile. I held onto that single smile for eight years. “Every single word you said today.” My voice was eerily quiet. “One day, you are going to regret them.” He raised an eyebrow, letting out a dismissive scoff. “Me? Regret? I guarantee you I will never…” I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. I pushed the heavy restaurant doors open and walked out into the night. The street was suffocatingly quiet. My hands were shaking violently, but I refused to let a single tear fall. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the pain. It was because it hurt so deeply that crying felt completely useless. My best friend Gemma chased after me, grabbing my wrist tightly. “Wendy, I swear to God I will go back in there right now and dump a drink on his…” “Gemma.” I cut her off, my voice raw and scraped hollow. “Just walk with me.” The amber streetlights stretched our shadows out across the pavement. We walked for a long time before I finally spoke again. “He’s right about one thing. I am two hundred pounds.” “But he said I could never lose it.” “I am going to make him eat those words.” Gemma bit her lip hard and didn’t say a word. She just squeezed my hand tighter. When I finally got home, the house was completely dark. My parents were already asleep. I stood alone in the bathroom under the harsh fluorescent lights. I actually had a medium frame, but it was completely buried. My face was dangerously round, my jawline practically non-existent. But as I leaned closer to the glass, I saw the truth. My eye shape was striking. The bridge of my nose was naturally high. And there was a tiny, delicate beauty mark resting right beneath the outer corner of my eye. Carter’s words echoed in my ears. “If she ever lost the weight, you wouldn’t even be fit to tie her shoelaces.” Was it true? I didn’t know. But tonight, my mind was set. First, I was dropping the weight. My goal was one hundred and fifteen pounds. Second, I unlocked my phone and logged straight into the university admission portal. My cursor hovered over Columbia University’s Fine Arts program. I stared at those glowing letters for a long time. I picked that major three years ago solely to stay close to Cory. I spent countless sleepless nights perfecting my portfolio just to make sure we ended up in the same city. Enough. I hit delete. In the search bar, I typed: UCLA. Distance: Three thousand miles away. My thumb hovered over the confirm button. One second. Two seconds. I pressed it. Status: Submitted. I tossed my phone onto the mattress, switched off the lamp, and stared up at the dark ceiling. I didn’t shed a single tear. Instead, an unfamiliar, absolute peace washed over my chest. Wendy, starting tomorrow, you are living for yourself. The alarm dragged me out of bed at five in the morning. The sky outside was still pitch black. I laced up my running shoes, stepped out into the freezing air, and started jogging along the river trail. On the first day, I barely made it a mile before I felt like my lungs were collapsing. By the third day, I pushed it to two miles. My knees throbbed so badly I could barely walk up the stairs. On the fifth day, I finished three miles and immediately threw up in the bushes. But I never skipped a single morning. On the evening of the sixth day, I was stretching against the brick wall outside my apartment building when Cory walked up. He was returning from the basketball court, spinning a ball on his finger. He stopped and looked me up and down. “Why are you dripping in sweat?” I didn’t answer. I just switched legs and kept stretching. He leaned casually against the wall, his tone dripping with his usual careless arrogance. “People in the group chat are saying you’re actually trying to run to lose weight?” I stayed completely silent. He just kept talking, convinced he knew everything. “If you’re serious, just buy a gym membership. Jogging on the street won’t do anything for a baseline like yours. Honestly… just forget it.” He paused, then shifted the topic. “Anyway, Columbia’s orientation is September 3rd. Did you join the freshman group chat yet?” My hands briefly stalled. He fully believed I was still going to Columbia. Everyone did. I stood up straight, keeping my face completely blank, and walked toward the lobby doors. He called out from behind me. “Hey, did you join or not? I can send you the invite link…” The heavy glass door clicked shut, instantly cutting off his voice. As I walked up the stairs, the corners of my mouth curled up into a cold smile. Keep waiting, Cory. When September 3rd rolls around, you’ll figure it out. On the eighth night, someone dropped a video into our high school group chat. It was a clip of me running along the river. Heavy, ragged breathing. A sweat-drenched t-shirt clinging to my back. Everything jiggling violently with every heavy step. Whoever filmed it intentionally zoomed in from the most unflattering angle possible. [I am screaming laughing. Wendy is actually trying to exercise!!] [Cory’s comment at dinner really did a number on her.] [Didn’t Carter say she had potential? I’m using a magnifying glass and I still can’t find a single cheekbone.] Bella chimed in: [Keep it up, Wendy! Columbia’s art department is packed with gorgeous girls. If you don’t slim down before orientation, you’re going to feel so insecure. Smiley face.] Then, Cory’s name popped up. My heart skipped a tiny beat. He wrote: [Stop posting this childish crap.] Someone immediately teased: [Aww, is Cory catching feelings?] He replied instantly: [You guys have way too much free time. Let her do whatever she wants. What she does has absolutely nothing to do with me.] Nothing to do with me. Right. It never had anything to do with him. I secretly loved him for eight years, and he said it had nothing to do with him. I bled over my sketchbooks for three years to get into his dream school, and he said it had nothing to do with him. Fine. From now on, I truly have nothing to do with you. I muted the group chat. I opened Gemma’s messages: [I’m going to my grandma’s cabin in Montana until college starts. Keep it a secret. If anyone asks, you don’t know anything.] Gemma: [My lips are sealed. Just promise me you’ll come back alive.] I smiled and sent an OK emoji. Then, I opened my text thread with Cory. I scrolled through three years of pathetic, one-sided messages. “My mom made your favorite ribs. Want to come over for dinner?” “It started raining. I brought an umbrella to the court for you.” “Goodnight.” Every single message was left on read. Occasionally, he would reply with a cold “Yeah,” “Got it,” or “Stop bothering me.” I took a deep breath. Delete contact. Block number. I didn’t hesitate for a single second. The next morning, I dragged my suitcase out to the sidewalk. I ran straight into Cory’s mother checking her mailbox. “Wendy, honey, where are you off to?” “I’m staying with my grandma for the summer, Mrs. Davis.” “Oh, well, when Cory comes over for dinner next week…” “Mrs. Davis,” I smiled politely, “Cory is eighteen now. I don’t think he needs my mom cooking for him anymore.” As I dragged my luggage toward the waiting taxi, a window slid open on the second floor of the house next door. I knew exactly whose bedroom that was. But I didn’t look back. Not even once. My grandma’s cabin was buried deep in the mountains. Cell service was basically a myth, and Wi-Fi simply did not exist. The moment I arrived, I turned my phone off and locked it in a drawer. Every single morning, I woke up at five and ran the brutal mountain trails. In the afternoons, I swam laps in the freezing lake. By evening, I was chopping firewood and hauling soil for my grandma’s garden. My diet was violently strict. Boiled chicken breast, steamed vegetables, and small portions of complex carbs. Week one, I dropped eight pounds. Down to 192. Week two, another seven. Down to 185. By week three, the weight loss started slowing down. I forced myself to add an extra mile to my morning run and started doing bodyweight strength training in the dirt. Week four, 175. In exactly one month, I had lost twenty-five pounds. The mirror showed progress, but it wasn’t earth-shattering yet. My face wasn’t as bloated, but my jawline was still buried. My clothes hung loosely off my frame, making me look like a deflated balloon. I didn’t let it break my focus. Keep going. Week five, 168. Week six, 160. I turned my phone on for the very first time. Dozens of texts flooded the screen. They were all from Gemma. [Cory texted me! He asked where you went! I played dumb!] [He asked me again today! He even asked if you changed your number!] [LMAO guess what he told the guys. He said, “She’s just throwing a tantrum. Give it a few days and she’ll come running back.”] I let out a harsh laugh. Throwing a tantrum? Cory, you really think you are the center of the universe. I kept scrolling. Gemma sent another update: [He’s getting super close with Bella. Today Bella posted a picture of them getting smoothies after his game. The whole group chat is asking if they’re officially dating.] I stared at the message. I waited for the familiar twist of jealousy in my gut. Surprisingly, there was nothing. It didn’t hurt. It genuinely did not hurt anymore. I powered down the phone and went back to training. Week seven, 150. Week eight, 142. The reflection in the mirror started changing violently. My jawline carved itself out, sharp and defined. My cheekbones surfaced, making it look like my entire face had been re-sculpted from clay. My proportions finally made sense. My collarbones were visible. My legs went from stocky to long and lean. But it wasn’t enough. I knew my absolute best was still hiding underneath. Keep going. Week nine, 135. I drove my grandma’s rusty truck down to the local pharmacy to pick up her medication. When I handed the prescription to the young girl at the counter, she froze. She stared at my face for an uncomfortably long time. “Are you… an actress? You look exactly like that girl from…” My grandma quickly grabbed the bag and pulled me out the door. When we got back to the cabin, my grandma sat on the porch, looking deeply troubled. “Your mother was exactly like this,” she muttered. “Before middle school, she was just a chubby, harmless little thing. Then she lost the baby fat over a single summer, and the entire town went absolutely crazy.” “But you are much more dangerous than your mother.” I laughed it off, thinking she was just being dramatic. Week ten, 128. I turned on my phone for the second time. A fresh text from Gemma: [Cory told me to warn you that if you don’t join the Columbia freshman group soon, you’re going to miss room selections. His exact words: “Is she really still throwing a fit? Tell her I’m not going to babysit her on campus, so she better drop the attitude.”] Reading those words, I couldn’t help but smile. He still fully believed I was heading to New York. He still thought I was going to follow him around like a lost puppy. Cory, what kind of fever dream are you living in? I typed a quick reply to Gemma: [Don’t tell a single soul I’m going to UCLA. Especially him. Let him figure it out the hard way.] Gemma replied with a string of laughing emojis: [Yes ma’am! I cannot wait to see the look on his stupid face!!!] Week eleven, 120. My grandma officially banned me from going into town. “The day before yesterday, when you were reading by the lake, three boys from the neighboring ranch sat in their truck and stared at you for four straight hours. Did you even notice?” “…It’s not that serious, Grandma.” “Go look in the damn mirror!” I did. And then I fell completely silent. The girl staring back at me was a stranger. Five foot eight, one hundred and twenty pounds. The weight loss had unlocked every genetic advantage my bone structure possessed. My features were so sharp they looked completely painted on. My eyes tipped up slightly at the corners, framed by thick lashes. My lips were a natural, soft rose color. My collarbones looked like resting butterfly wings, and my waist was impossibly narrow. And that tiny beauty mark by the corner of my eye was the final, lethal touch that pushed the face from simply “pretty” to absolutely breathtaking. I stood there for a long time. Carter was right all along. Week twelve, 115. My grandma stood behind me in the mirror and let out a heavy sigh. “What a tragedy. Your parents spent a decade feeding you good food, and you ruined it all in three months.” I finally spun around. “What are you even talking about? What happened when I was little?!” My grandma just shook her head and refused to elaborate. She just mumbled, “When you get to campus, wear a hat. Keep your head down. Don’t cause trouble.” I replied with a soft “Okay.” But in my head, I was already picturing it. Cory. On September 3rd, you are going to stand in the massive crowd at Columbia orientation, looking for me. You’re going to scan every single studio in the Fine Arts building. You’re going to search the entire freshman registry. But you will never find Wendy. Because I am gone. And I will never walk in your shadow again. The day before my flight to Los Angeles. Gemma sent me a massive flood of screenshots. They were all from the high school group chat. Bella had posted a photo of her and Cory standing in front of the iconic Columbia University gates. She was leaning heavily against his shoulder, flashing a brilliant smile. The caption read: [Ready for the next four years together! ~] The chat immediately exploded with gossip. [Wait, are you guys officially a couple now?!] [You guys look amazing together! The ultimate power couple of Columbia!] Cory rarely ever engaged in the chat, but this time he replied, his tone arrogant and relaxed: [Chill out, we’re just friends.] Someone else quickly typed: [Hey, where’s Wendy? Didn’t she get into Columbia too? I haven’t seen her in any of the freshman orientation posts.] Bella replied instantly: [She’s probably still busy trying to lose weight LOL. I mean, the art department is packed with models. If she showed up weighing 200 pounds…] She followed it up with a string of crying-laughing emojis. Cory’s reply came seconds later: [She’s still throwing a tantrum. She’ll show up in a day or two.] Someone teased: [You know her so well, Cory~] He replied: [We grew up together. I know exactly how her brain works. Give her two days and she’ll cave.] I stared at that specific message for a very long time. “I know exactly how her brain works.” Cory. You literally know absolutely nothing about me. You don’t know that I dropped eighty-five pounds. You don’t know that I am currently boarding a flight three thousand miles away. And you definitely don’t know that the Wendy who would have died for your attention is already dead. I closed the screenshots and calmly packed my outfit for tomorrow. A crisp white button-down. A flowing black maxi skirt. That was all I needed. September 1st. UCLA’s Freshman Welcome Gala. The massive campus auditorium was packed with three thousand students. The Fashion Design department’s runway show was slotted right before the finale. I was walking as the closing model. The backstage area was absolute chaos. The girls walking before me were sweating through their makeup, shaking with nerves. I felt nothing but absolute, freezing calm. Five foot eight. One hundred and fifteen pounds. I tucked the white silk shirt into the high-waisted black skirt. It made my legs look endless. The senior makeup artist’s hands were literally trembling as she dusted powder over my cheekbones. “Are you… seriously a freshman?” I offered a small smile but didn’t say a word. The last thought that drifted through my mind before the music swelled was that Cory was probably still scrolling through the Columbia group chats, waiting for my name to pop up. Keep waiting. “And our final look, presented by freshman design major… Wendy.” I stepped out onto the runway directly on the heavy bass drop. The exact second the blinding spotlights hit my body. Three thousand people collectively lost their voices. It wasn’t just quiet. It was absolute, suffocating silence. Like the entire room had suddenly forgotten how to breathe. I wore no heavy makeup. No glittering jewelry. Just a clean, flawless face, an effortless ponytail, and that tiny beauty mark resting by my eye. I walked down the center of the runway, my heels clicking rhythmically against the glass floor. The dead silence lasted for three agonizing seconds. And then, the auditorium exploded.

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At our college reunion, I lost a Truth or Dare game and had to hand over my unlocked phone. They scrolled straight to my texts with Charles. Years of messages filled the thread. “Classic you two,” Marcus laughed. “In college, you passed ten pages of notes per lecture. Six years married and still obsessed.” “Read the juicy stuff!” someone shouted. Marcus tapped the screen. The past two years showed only one message—from Charles: Need appendix surgery. Come to the hospital? He frowned. “Got a new phone?” “No cloud backup? All those memories gone,” another friend said. I looked across the room. Charles sat in the corner, drinking whiskey in silence. Beside him was Dana, the quiet girl who’d chased him through college. They sat close, shoulders nearly touching. Two years earlier, I’d walked in on them together in bed. “I did replace something,” I said evenly. Not my phone. My husband. The heavy tension in the room instantly evaporated into nervous laughter. People started talking over each other to break the ice. “Oh, I thought it was a software bug.” “Note to self, always back up your iCloud when upgrading.” But a few people stayed dead silent. They glanced at me, then looked over at Charles’s pale, rigid face. They definitely had their suspicions. After all, before everything fell apart, Charles and I were joined at the hip. At every single social gathering, we were practically breathing each other’s air. Since the incident, I hadn’t attended a single reunion for two years. I only agreed to show up tonight because Charles and I had legally remarried this year, and he wired five million dollars to my bank account just to buy my presence. It was a business transaction. He wanted to save face. But I hadn’t spoken a single word to him all night. Looking utterly defeated, he just hid in the shadows, letting the alcohol burn down his throat. “Next round! Let’s go!” The empty beer bottle spun on the mahogany table. Just my luck. It pointed right at me again. “Alright, Serena, your turn for a Truth,” Marcus said, sliding the deck of cards across the table. I picked a card at random and flipped it over. It read: [What is the boldest thing you have ever done?] I pretended to think about it. But the only image that filled my mind was the blinding fluorescent lights of the operating room, and the feeling of the pen in my hand as I signed the abortion consent forms all by myself. That was the baby Charles and I had spent four agonizing years trying to conceive. I just closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the surgical basin was half full of my tears. The baby was gone. To this day, nobody knew I had even been pregnant. “I once ate a raw, beating snake heart on a trip to Mexico,” I said, using a bright smile to bury a pain that had already turned into thick scar tissue. “Does that count?” “Hell yeah, that counts!” The bottle spun again. This time, the glass neck aimed straight at Charles. “Dare time for the golden boy!” Marcus clapped his hands together. “Charles, you have to pick someone in this room right now and sing ‘Perfect’ to them!” Everybody knew the history behind that song. It was the exact acoustic track Charles had played on his guitar when he asked me to be his girlfriend all those years ago. They all knew he had to choose me. Marcus was intentionally trying to play matchmaker. He noticed the freezing atmosphere between Charles and me, and he wanted to throw us a lifeline. “Charles…” Dana reached out and gently tugged at the hem of Charles’s designer shirt. Charles suddenly stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. “Something came up. I need to head home.” He looked at me. “Let’s go, darling.” Out in the dimly lit hallway, I couldn’t resist mocking him. “What, couldn’t bear to see Dana looking so heartbroken?” “You’re paying awfully close attention to her…” Charles suddenly grabbed my wrist and pinned me against the wallpaper. A heavy wave of bourbon washed over my face, and I immediately scrunched my nose in disgust. “Get off me.” “This kind of physical contact costs extra.” His mouth twisted into a bitter, self-deprecating smile. “Is money really the only thing we can talk about anymore?” “What else is there?” I shot back. He had used his massive wealth to force my second husband out of the picture. He had used dirty corporate tactics to back me into a corner until I agreed to remarry him. Did he honestly believe there was an ounce of love left between us? The crushing grip on my wrist instantly loosened. Charles lowered his eyes, trying to hide a flash of sheer devastation. Right then, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the notification light up the screen. It was a text from Dana. [Dana: We finally get to see each other tonight. Can’t you stay with me a little longer?] “You should go to her,” I said smoothly. “If you’re worried about getting caught by the paparazzi and causing a PR nightmare, I can book a hotel for you.” “I just got Diamond status at the Hilton, actually.” I pulled out my phone, opened the app, and specifically scrolled until I found their Presidential Suite. “This one looks nice.” “It’s way bigger than that boutique motel you guys used to sneak around in. Better room service, too. If you two get exhausted from screwing all night, they’ll roll a breakfast cart right up to the bed.” With every word that left my mouth, the color drained further from Charles’s face. By the time I looked up at him, his expression was so dark it looked like a storm was about to break. “Are you really that desperate to push me into another woman’s bed?” “Serena, I have explained it to you a thousand times. That night was an accident.” “I had too much to drink, and I just…” I played dumb. “Well, you’ve had plenty to drink tonight, too.” “The alcohol will definitely make things more fun for you guys.” “Go on. I’ll drive over and pick you up in the morning. Half a million dollars for the chauffeur service. Make sure it hits my account by dawn.” I reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the keys to his car, and turned on my heel, walking away without a backward glance. The custom matte-yellow Maybach stood out like a beacon in the underground garage. It was a pathetic gesture. After we remarried, Charles had the entire car wrapped in my favorite color, desperately trying to cater to my tastes. I drove the luxury car out into the freezing night, speeding down the empty avenues. While waiting at a red light, my gaze drifted to a row of sticky residue marks lining the passenger side dashboard. That spot used to be covered in those cheap, ugly little figurines Dana loved so much. The glove compartment used to be overflowing with her lip glosses and trinkets. The passenger seat used to be draped in a fluffy pink lambskin blanket, with her fuzzy slippers resting on the floor mats. And back then, I was probably the one clinging to the outside of the window, screaming like a lunatic, chasing after their car as it drove away. A loud honk from the vehicle behind me ripped me back to reality. When I finally got home, the moment I pushed the front door open, a gust of wind knocked a sticky note off the entryway wall. It fluttered to the ground. It read: Welcome home, $20,000. The entire penthouse was covered in them. On the stainless steel refrigerator: Having dinner together, $50,000. On the flat-screen TV: Watching a movie together, $30,000 an hour. Right on the master bedroom door: Sleeping in the same bed, absolutely no physical contact, $150,000 a night. Sometimes he threw money at me so randomly that I couldn’t be bothered to keep track. Eventually, I just gave him a flat rate. Spending one full day with him cost one million dollars. My phone suddenly chimed with a massive bank transfer notification. It was from Charles. The memo attached read: [You booked the hotel room for me, but you didn’t order the ultra-thin condoms?] A wave of pure nausea hit the back of my throat. I gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white, taking several deep, shaky breaths before I opened an overnight delivery app. I typed in his specific size, added a box to the cart, and hit purchase. Watching the GPS tracker show the delivery driver getting closer to the Hilton, I threw my phone onto the marble counter and sprinted into the bathroom. I pumped handfuls of antibacterial soap, scrubbing my hands raw under the scalding water. I scrubbed until the flesh was bright red. I scrubbed until the skin started peeling off. The stinging pain throbbed all the way up my arms. My brain was trapped in an endless loop, flashing the image of my hand ripping the duvet off their naked bodies that night. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. It felt like I was back in that cramped, suffocating bathroom from two years ago, with Charles pounding frantically on the door from the outside. He was begging for forgiveness. Dana was weeping hysterically. And I was inside, dry-heaving over the toilet, desperately trying to wash my hands in the bowl just to feel clean. Crash. My elbow knocked into the glass display shelf. More than a dozen imported perfume bottles Charles had bought for me shattered across the tiles, the overpowering mixture of floral and musk suffocating the air. I simply stepped out, pulled the bathroom door shut, and left the mess for him to clean up whenever he crawled back. I picked my phone off the counter. The screen showed the delivery was complete. My fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out the very first text I had sent to Charles all year. [If one box isn’t enough, you can always pay me to order more.] I never in a million years thought Charles would end up sleeping with Dana. Back in college, she was completely invisible. She was painfully introverted, possessed absolutely zero talents, and had totally mediocre grades. She shrank away from everything and everyone, yet she had stubbornly trailed after Charles like a lost puppy for three years. But Charles was secretly in love with me. He found Dana’s relentless pursuing utterly pathetic and even considered it a stain on his reputation. Once, when Charles coldly tossed a homemade breakfast Dana had baked for him straight into the campus trash can, I dragged him aside and tore into him. “You do not treat a girl like that.” “You don’t have to date her, but you can’t just humiliate her in public. It breaks people.” Only then did Charles soften his attitude toward her. Eventually, Charles and I made things official. The night he confessed his feelings to me, Dana stood at the edge of the cheering crowd. She was clutching a stuffed bear she never got the courage to give him, crying so hard she could barely breathe. The very next week, she transferred to another university. What I didn’t know back then was that she and Charles had exchanged private numbers, and they kept in secret contact the entire time. By the time I saw Dana again, eight years had passed. She had already been working at Charles’s corporate headquarters for six months. She was his executive secretary, spending every waking hour glued to his side. “She applied for the job, and I figured I’d help out an old classmate,” he had explained smoothly over dinner. “Plus, I was a real jerk to her back in college. Consider this me making amends.” Charles, a man who was arrogant to his very bones, was actually reflecting on his past mistakes. I didn’t think much of it. Not until I noticed that Charles was taking longer and longer to text me back. I was the kind of person who wanted to share everything with my husband. A blooming flower on the sidewalk, a weirdly shaped cloud, I sent it all to him. Usually, he replied within seconds. We easily sent a hundred texts a day. But then, messages I sent at dawn wouldn’t get a reply until midnight. I sent him eighty texts. He replied with a single, cold “Yeah.” Gradually, it shifted from one reply a day, to one reply every three days. Eventually, our chat log was just a wall of my green speech bubbles crying out into the void. I drove down to his office, only to be told by HR that he and Dana had gone on a ‘business trip.’ It wasn’t a business trip. It was a month-long vacation in the Maldives. He lied to my face, spending thirty days in paradise with her. I later found the hidden, encrypted album on his laptop. It was entirely filled with candid shots of Dana laughing on the beach. And at the bottom, a note he had typed out: If I hadn’t been so cruel to you back then, would everything be different now? When I confronted him with the evidence, we tore the house apart. Charles didn’t even try to deny it. Reeking of expensive scotch, he pointed a shaking finger right at my face and roared, “I am so sick of this!” “Why do I have to spend my whole life bowing down to you?” “Back in college, I followed you around like a dog! You whistled, I came running. You told me to get lost, I vanished! Do you really think you’re some kind of royalty?” “If I hadn’t spent years inflating your massive ego, you wouldn’t have the guts to stand here and scream at me!” After that earth-shattering fight, I locked myself in the house and cried for three days straight. During those three days, he took Dana on a private jet to see the Swiss Alps. So, the second he walked back through the front door, I handed him divorce papers. That was when the reality set in for Charles. He panicked. He dropped to his knees, clutching my legs, sobbing and apologizing. “I was drunk! I was just saying hurtful things to win the fight, I swear!” He slapped himself across the face, over and over, swearing on his life he would cut Dana off completely. “Then fire her,” I demanded. Charles froze. “Darling, I can’t do that to her.” “You were the one who taught me. A ruthless rejection like that… it breaks people. Besides, she hasn’t made any mistakes at work.” The very words I had spoken to protect her all those years ago had turned into a poisoned blade, driving straight into my own heart. Dana was soft. She was yielding. She stayed by Charles’s side, wrapping around him like warm water, pulling him deeper and deeper until he was drowning in her, completely unable to escape. After surviving that first major crisis, Charles just grew bolder. He permanently gave Dana the passenger seat of his car. He bought her diamond necklaces, completely renovated his executive office to match her aesthetic, and even brought her to our house. He would look me dead in the eye, say they had urgent corporate matters to discuss, and then lock the study door right in my face. They became each other’s pinned contacts. He showed her the world. He took her to see the oceans and the mountains. And sitting around a roaring bonfire on a private beach, he sang “Perfect” to her. Yes. The exact same song he used to win my heart. Now, the melody belonged to Dana. I had been standing in the shadows behind the crowd that night. The ultrasound report slipped from my trembling fingers, falling into the sand, where it was trampled to shreds by the passing tourists. Catching them in bed together was only a matter of time. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast. The very next day, he flew back to the city. He took me out for a lavish anniversary dinner, kissed my cheek, and said he had to go back to the office to finish a merger. I felt a sickening knot in my stomach. I secretly followed his car. And I walked right into a nightmare that would brand itself into my brain until the day I died. That night, it felt like I shed every tear my body was capable of producing. My memories warped and twisted into a suffocating loop. One second, it was the teenage Charles promising to love me forever. The next, it was the cold, distant Charles calling me an overbearing bitch. Six years of dating. Six years of marriage. Twelve years of history, slaughtered in a single night. I hated him with every fiber of my being. I swore on my own life I would never, ever forgive Charles. When I woke up the next morning, my muscle memory kicked in. I unlocked my phone to check if Charles had transferred the daily allowance. Instead, I saw forty missed calls from him, all placed between 2 AM and 4 AM. When I didn’t answer, he left one single text: [You’re truly heartless.] Below that were frantic messages from his best friend, Blake. [Blake: Serena, please! You gotta help. Charles locked himself in a hotel room and he’s drinking himself to death. I can’t stop him!] [Blake: He’s got severe alcohol poisoning! I’m sending you the hospital address!] Five hours had already passed since those texts.

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