Category: English

The moment I got the ultrasound report, my boyfriend Jason—the Don—suddenly said: “Alice, there’s something important I need to tell you.” My heart skipped a beat. My hand drifted instinctively to my belly. After eight years of waiting, I thought he’d finally convinced the family. That he was going to marry me. Give me the title of Donna. “I’ve already married the Black family’s daughter.” I froze. The ultrasound slipped from my fingers and fluttered down to the marble floor. “What did you just say?” Jason rushed forward and pulled me into a tight embrace. “It’s just a family alliance. A marriage in name only.” “I can give you everything else—half the underground operations in New York. You’ll still be my Donna.” “You and the baby—you’re my real family.” I pushed him away. My cold gaze swept across the faint red marks barely visible above his shirt collar. “Jason, we’re done.” “And the baby—I’m getting rid of it.” …… “Have you lost your mind?!” Jason’s roar exploded through the hallway of the medical center. He seized my wrist, his grip so crushing I could feel the bones grinding together. His eyes bored into mine, wild with disbelief. “That’s my child! Capone blood! Who the hell gave you the right to decide that?!” I tried to shake his hand off. I couldn’t. “Your child? Jason, you married into the Black family! You want an heir—have your Donna give you one!” “Alice, stop this!” “I’m not doing anything.” He stared at me, eyes rimmed red. “Private jets, villas, vineyards, a laundered trust fund your grandchildren couldn’t burn through—I can give you everything except that marriage certificate!” “What more do you want from me?!” I looked at him. Eight years ago, behind the back gate at Yale, Jason was just another street kid in a wrinkled shirt, clutching a crumpled bouquet of red roses. Nervously telling me he’d had a crush on me for three years. That he knew he wasn’t good enough for a doctoral candidate like Miss Renaud, but he’d work hard to close the gap between us. Eight years later, he had more wealth and power than he could ever spend—and he was telling his pregnant girlfriend he was marrying another woman. “Jason Capone.” I heard my own voice, hoarse and raw. “I have never been anyone’s mistress, and I’m not about to start with you.” His face darkened instantly. “Mistress?!” “I told you—you are the one I recognize as my Donna!” “But as long as I keep this baby, that’s exactly what I’ll be. A mistress hidden in the shadows.” My expression didn’t waver. I held his gaze. “A mistress in the eyes of the Capone family. A mistress in the eyes of your wife. And someday, when this child grows up and asks me, ‘Mom, why isn’t my name on the family register?’” “What am I supposed to say? That he’s the Don’s bastard?!” Jason stood there as if the words had struck him physically. A vein throbbed at his temple. He said nothing for a long time. Long enough that the armed guard stationed at the end of the hall and the nurses all poked their heads out nervously, faces full of dread. Finally, he slowly raised his head. The tenderness and sorrow were gone from his eyes, replaced by the cold, alien gaze of the Don. “Alice, if you get rid of that baby, we’re finished.” “We were finished a long time ago.” “The day you married Sofia Black for control of the docks—that was the end.” He stepped closer. His tall shadow swallowed me whole. I didn’t flinch. I looked straight into those hawk-sharp eyes. Jason’s lips curled into a cruel, cold smile. “Alice, why do you think your father’s shipping company has been operating safely at the port—without any protection?” My heart plummeted. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t answer directly, but the contempt in his eyes said everything. He was using my parents’ lives—our family’s entire logistics business—as bargaining chips in this game. I didn’t say another word. I turned and walked toward the exam room. Behind me, he shouted, losing control: “Alice!” I didn’t stop. “Stop right there! That’s an order from the Don!” I pushed open the steel door of the exam room. Inside sat a woman in a white coat. She looked up at me, startled. “Can I help you?” “I need an abortion. Can you schedule it today?” The doctor looked past my shoulder at Jason standing in the doorway. Her hand trembled so violently that her pen dragged a jagged line of ink across the chart. “Do you… do you have an appointment?” “No. I’m making one now.” She flipped through the appointment book with shaking hands, her voice barely holding together: “Today’s… today’s fully booked. The earliest would be three days from now.” I turned and cast a cold glance at Jason, standing in the shadows. “Three days, then.”

For those three days, I didn’t leave the apartment. I pulled the blackout curtains shut and lost track of day and night. I sat by the window, gently touching my still-flat stomach, where a Capone bloodline was quietly growing. My phone buzzed relentlessly on the table— Missed calls: 47. iMessages: 93. All from Jason Capone. The earliest ones were voice messages. I didn’t play them. The later ones were texts: *Alice, listen to me. I’ll handle things with Sofia. Just give me some time.* *She and I really are just a political marriage. Once the docks are fully under our control, I’ll take care of everything. I promise.* *The baby is innocent. Please don’t do anything rash.* As the days wore on, the tone of the Mafia heir’s messages shifted: *Do you really have to push me like this?* *I already said I’d handle it. What more do you want from me?* The last message came this afternoon. A single cold line: *Surgery’s tomorrow, right? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.* I stared at those words for a long time. After he’d risen from Made Man to Underboss, women threw themselves at him constantly—pressing up against him during business meetings, slipping potent aphrodisiacs into his drinks. Every time, he’d have them tossed into the freezing harbor to sober up. Then he’d find me, kiss me with a desperate hunger, take me completely. Promise me he’d never change. Now, as Don, he was resorting to threats against me because of Sofia. I didn’t reply. On the day of the surgery, I sat on the long bench in the hallway, the appointment slip damp with sweat in my clenched fist. With ten minutes to go, hurried footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. I looked up and saw my mother. Her hair was a mess. Two of Jason’s men trailed behind her. “Alice!” She rushed over. “Mom? What are you doing here?” She was panting. “Jason called me.” “He said you two had a fight. That you’re going to terminate the pregnancy.” “Alice—” She grabbed my hands. “Couples fight, that’s normal. But you don’t want to cross the Capone family in New York—that’s no joke. And it’s a life we’re talking about. Don’t take it out on the baby…” “Mom, let go of me first.” She wouldn’t. That was when I got a good look at her face. Her eyes were swollen, ringed with dark, bruise-like circles. “Mom, what happened? What’s going on?” Her gaze flickered. “Nothing. I was just worried about you, couldn’t sleep…” “That’s not it.” I stared at her. “Tell me the truth.” She opened her mouth, then her eyes turned red, her voice dropping to almost nothing: “Your father… your father’s company is in trouble. Several shipments got seized by Customs and the Federal Task Force. Suspected smuggling and money laundering… The penalties are more than we can pay. We might have to sell the house to cover the debts.” “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to worry…” The blood drained from my body in an instant. “Mom, sit here and wait for me. I need to use the restroom.” I walked to the stairwell at the end of the hallway. I dialed Jason’s number. “Made up your mind?” His voice came through perfectly steady, as if he’d been sitting by the phone waiting. “What happened to my father’s company—that was you.” A soft laugh from the other end. “Your father ran into some compliance issues at the docks. Normally, one word from me would’ve fixed it. But you insisted on cutting ties with me.” “So under the circumstances, I really don’t see why I should help. Do you?” His voice was gentle, conversational—like he was chatting about the weather. But it sent ice crawling down my spine. “Jason, you’re threatening me with my parents’ lives.” His voice finally dropped, the pretense gone: “I can make your father’s problems go away. But if you insist on breaking up with me and aborting the baby—why would I lift a finger for a stranger?” “Alice, I’m not that broke kid at the bottom of the food chain anymore. Tens of thousands of men depend on me for their livelihood. If I go soft for you, who’s going to go soft for me?” “I’ve already swallowed my pride to come to you. Doesn’t that prove how much I love you?” “And what about Sofia?” A beat of silence on the other end. “I’ll handle it. Give me time.” I closed my eyes. The stairwell was dark. Only the light above the operating room door glowed in the distance. “Fine. I’ll keep the baby.” On the other end, he let out a long, slow breath. Then he said: “Alice, thank you. I’ll send the lawyers over right away. Your father’s company will be stabilized by tonight.” I said nothing. He added: “I know you hate me right now.” “But someday you’ll understand—in this jungle where the weak are nothing but meat, everything I’m doing is for our future.” I hung up. I stood in the stairwell, gripping my phone, perfectly still. *For our future.* I looked down at my belly. Still flat, but something was taking root inside—a life he’d forced me to keep through power and threats. I laughed. And as I laughed, the tears fell. He said he’d handle Sofia. He said to wait. But not once—not a single time—did he say: *I’ll divorce Sofia for you.*

Jason was a man of his word. Three days later, my father’s company was out of danger. The seized shipments cleared customs. The federal investigation was dropped. That afternoon, my phone buzzed. Jason’s iMessage: *Coming to see you tonight. What do you feel like eating?* I didn’t reply. For the past two weeks, he’d texted every day. I answered maybe one in ten. When he came to the apartment, I let him in but wouldn’t let him stay the night. He never got angry. Before leaving, it was always the same line: “Get some rest. Call the guards if you need anything.” Like a caring boyfriend. Like the perfect lover. As if the man who’d leveraged my family against me had never existed. Then one day, my phone exploded. Texts first—hundreds of messages flooding in, all vicious: “Homewrecker, go die!” “Ivy League degree and you’re still a dirty side piece? You sure you didn’t sleep your way into Yale?” “Wrecking the Capone-Black marriage—enjoy getting dumped in the ocean to feed the fish! A slut like you deserves to die a thousand times over!” Then someone tagged me on Twitter. I tapped through to a gossip account’s exposé post. My photo was the header image. The headline read: **EXPOSED: Ivy League PhD Clings to Mafia Don, Gets Pregnant to Force Donna Out** The article claimed I’d known about Jason and Sofia’s engagement all along but refused to let go, using my pregnancy to pressure him into divorce. It said Sofia had been so distraught she’d been hospitalized. It said the apartment I lived in was bought by Jason. Every single comment was people cursing me out. My hands started shaking. I scrolled further—my father’s shipping company address had been doxxed. Someone was calling for people to “go throw blood on their docks and smash their cargo ships.” My stomach lurched violently. I barely made it to the toilet before I was retching until the world went black. I knew. This was Sofia Black’s doing. When the vomiting stopped, I sat on the floor. The marble tiles were cold, but my mind had never been clearer. I went back to the living room and opened the cloud-synced photo album on my laptop. April 2018, outside the Yale library—Jason with his arm around me, smiling warm and bright. The day he finally won me over. December 2019, my birthday—he’d bought me a cake by the sea. 2020—our first apartment together. Him in the kitchen making curry beef pasta. 2021—he came home with me to meet my parents. 2023—he’d taken a bullet for the previous Don, earned his way to Underboss. Shirtless, bandages wrapped around his wounds, pulling me close and flashing a peace sign at the camera. 2024—he’d won a hundred-million-dollar pink diamond necklace at a black-market auction and clasped it around my neck. I’d snuck a photo of his profile. Every single photo had an unalterable timestamp. Every single one proved that we’d been in love for six years before 2024. Jason and Black’s marriage certificate was dated this March. I picked nine timestamped photos and posted them in a grid, with one line of text: *Who’s really the one who came between someone else’s relationship? See for yourselves.* I tossed my phone on the couch. When I picked it up again, that post had been shared over ten thousand times. Public opinion had flipped completely: “Wait—according to this timeline, they were together for six years. Sofia’s the one who used her family’s power to force her way in!” “Desperate to be the other woman, then has the nerve to smear the real girlfriend? This is what Black family class looks like?” The comments section erupted. Sofia Black’s reputation cratered overnight. She was being mocked as a clown who’d bullied her way into a marriage through family connections. Within half an hour, #SofiaIsTheHomewrecker was trending number one on Twitter. My phone rang. Mom. “Alice! I saw everything! Are you okay?” Her voice was urgent, aching with concern. “I’m fine, Mom.” “Who does that Sofia woman think she is? How dare she bully my daughter?!” I blinked—my mother never swore. “Mom, are you really okay?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” Her voice was full of fire. “Just now a bunch of dockworkers who owe your father favors showed up at the office with flowers—said something about ‘standing with Alice against cyberbullying’!” I held the phone, tears rolling down one by one. “Alice, I almost misjudged you. I thought you’d really gone and become someone’s mistress…” She didn’t finish. “It’s okay, Mom.”

That evening, Jason came. Impeccable suit, but the dark circles under his eyes were brutal—like he hadn’t slept in days. “Alice.” I said nothing. He looked at me, his expression tangled with something complicated: “Black family stocks have tanked hard. Offshore shadow banks are pulling out. The Blacks and the Council of Elders are both putting pressure on me.” “And?” He took a deep breath, pulled his phone from his pocket, swiped a few times, and handed it to me. On the screen was a pre-drafted statement. I took it and read line by line: *This is Alice. I want to set the record straight about recent events.* *Jason Capone and I were together once, but that was a long time ago.* *We broke up before his marriage to Sofia Black this year. I’m the one who couldn’t let go—I kept pursuing him.* *I reached out to him, trying to win him back. I drugged Jason to get pregnant, hoping to use the baby to force a divorce.* *When Donna Sofia found out, she was understandably furious. Her post was meant to make me back off. This is entirely my fault. Sofia has nothing to do with it.* I looked up at Jason. “You want me to post this?” “The Black family needs an explanation.” Jason gripped my shoulders, his voice urgent. “If you say this, Sofia becomes the victim—the deceived wife. The Capone-Black alliance holds. The stock recovers. You know how many wolves are circling, waiting for me to slip up so they can tear the Blacks apart and feast.” “And if I don’t?” “Right now, you’re the only one who can defuse this. Post it, and the Blacks calm down. Your father’s business stays under my protection. Don’t post it, and neither side can walk away clean.” “Alice, don’t make me use family methods.” Jason gave me three days to think it over. Three days later, he texted: *Alice, have you decided?* I didn’t reply. He called. I declined. He texted again: *Alice, don’t push me.* Still no response. I was gambling—betting on eight years of love, betting on his last shred of conscience. But the Don of a Mafia family has no conscience. I lost. On the seventh day, my father’s shipping company was forcibly liquidated and shut down. The Federal Task Force raided overnight, citing severe accounting irregularities and money-laundering channels. The fabricated evidence had materialized out of thin air. Dad called. His voice was destroyed. “Alice, the company’s gone.” I stood at the window, gripping my phone. “Dad…” “A team from the Task Force just came through. Took all the books. They’re talking about major money laundering—could be thirty years…” He couldn’t go on. “Dad, don’t panic. Let me think of something…” “Alice.” He cut me off. His voice went suddenly, deathly calm. “Tell me the truth.” My heart sank. “What?” “Is this because of that man from the Capone family?” I said nothing. “The day the company first got hit—that was the day you broke up with him. Then suddenly everything was fine again—that was the day you got back together. And now it’s happening again…” His voice was shaking. “Alice, is he using me to threaten you?” I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. “Dad…” “Don’t lie to me.” I closed my eyes. Tears poured out. “…Yes.” Dead silence on the other end. After what felt like forever, he said: “Alice, I understand now.” “Dad, listen to me, I still have options—” The line went dead. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until three in the morning. My phone erupted—Dad’s number. I picked up, but it wasn’t his voice on the other end. It was the wail of sirens and the chaos of a crowd. A stranger’s voice: “Hello? Is this Alice Renaud?” “Yes. Who is this? Where’s my father?” Several minutes of silence before he spoke. “Your father, Mr. Renaud, jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. The body has been recovered. I’m sorry for your loss…”

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I was finishing a handmade anniversary gift for my husband, Dominic, when my second-in-command brought me our son Marco’s drawing titled My Family. In the center, Dominic and a brown-haired woman kissed Marco’s cheeks. At the edge stood a blond woman like me, labeled Fake Mommy. The gift slipped from my hands. I ran to Marco’s room and heard him bragging to a classmate. “You only have one mom, but I have two. The fake mom at home takes care of me and Daddy—she’s like an unpaid babysitter.” “My real mom is far away doing important things. She’s the one my dad and I really love.” I clutched the drawing, my fingers shaking. Dominic appeared behind me. The moment he saw the drawing, he tried to rip it from my hands. “Marco’s just messing around. Maybe he drew one of his teachers.” I didn’t let go. Dominic’s reaction told me Marco might actually be telling the truth. I was the fake mommy—then who was the real one, and where was the child I’d actually given birth to? … “Serena? What are you spacing out about?” Dominic waved a hand in front of my face. “It’s our tenth anniversary. What did you get me?” I looked at him in silence, then reached into my bag and pulled out the velvet box I’d been carrying all day. He couldn’t wait to lift the lid. Inside lay the Beretta I’d prepared for him myself—mother-of-pearl grip, engraved with his initials. In our world, a weapon meant trust. It meant entrusting your very life to another person. “God, Serena. It’s beautiful.” He pulled me into his arms and kissed my cheek. “Lock it in the safe for me, would you?” I took the gun back. The cold metal sat heavy in my palm. I had never forgotten a single anniversary or birthday. I always chose something for him. He had never once done the same for me. I had always told myself that was just the kind of man he was: someone who expressed love through presence rather than ceremony. But then I remembered what Marco had said. “Dad loves giving Real Mommy presents. He says picking out a gift for the person you love is more important than the gift itself.” A child’s innocent chatter. But each word dragged across my chest like a dull blade. So it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to show love. It was that his love had never been meant for me. “Dominic.” My voice came out strained. I held his gaze, giving him one final chance to tell me the truth. “I’m going to ask you once. Is there anything you’re keeping from me?” His body stiffened for just a fraction of a second. Then he turned, his expression shifting to impatience. “Serena, are you really questioning my loyalty over a child’s drawing?” “The kid scribbled something on a piece of paper, and you’re turning it into an accusation?” I opened my mouth to say more, but he had already walked away, disappearing into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. I watched his retreating back and felt, for the first time in ten years, just how vast the distance between us truly was. Years of protecting his pride had made Dominic forget who I was. I was Don Enzo Valentini’s only daughter, the woman he had publicly named as his successor. Dominic had married into our power. He had never owned it. That night, Dominic fell asleep quickly. I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot toward his study. In ten years, I had never once set foot inside that room uninvited—only because he had once said he wanted a space where he could handle his own affairs alone. But tonight, I pushed the door open. The study was spare enough to take in at a glance. I walked straight toward the safe—then stopped short at the sight of a framed photograph on the desk. It was a portrait of the three of us. Our family. A study I had never set foot in—and yet a family photo sat on the desk. Was I imagining things after all? Marco was just a child. It was nothing but a few careless words. I picked up the frame, my fingertips brushing lightly over the man’s face in the photograph. And then, the backing of the frame suddenly came loose. My heart plummeted. Before I could react, my hands had already pried the frame open. A photograph slid out from inside. It showed the same man—but the woman was different. She had long brown hair, the same color as the hair in Marco’s drawing. With trembling hands, I turned the photograph over. It was Dominic’s handwriting—unmistakably his: Natalia—no matter whose ring sits on my finger, my heart will always belong to you. The date was the day before our wedding.

The next morning, I dropped Marco off at St. Xavier’s, watched him disappear behind the oak doors, and then called Valentina from the car. Val had been with me since I was sixteen—not just my assistant, but the second-in-command my father, Don Enzo, had personally chosen to stand beside me when I inherited the family. “Val. Pull Dominic’s communication records. Last six months. Every call, every text.” By evening, a sealed envelope sat on my desk at the Red Hook office. I opened it. Hundreds of entries. And I saw it at once—a New Jersey number, recurring like a pulse. Always between midnight and three a.m. Calls ranging from fifteen minutes to over an hour. I noted the number and locked the records in the drawer. Dominic came home late that night, reeking of whiskey. “Business with Caruso’s people.” He kissed my forehead and disappeared into the bathroom. His phone was left on the nightstand. I tried our wedding anniversary. Wrong. His birthday, Marco’s birthday—wrong. Then, with a bitterness rising in my throat like bile, I entered the date written on the back of the photograph. The screen unlocked. The carrier records showed dozens of calls to the New Jersey number. His phone showed none. He had deleted every trace. I entered the number into a messaging app. A profile page opened. The avatar was a photo of a sunset—perfectly ordinary. But the banner image showed the silhouettes of three people against a golden dusk—two adults, a small child between them, walking hand in hand along a shoreline. The man’s face was hidden, but the Valentini signet ring on his right hand caught the light. It was Dominic. I set the phone back exactly as I’d found it, locked myself in the other bathroom, and gripped the edge of the sink until my arms stopped shaking. Then I walked into Marco’s room. He was asleep, curled up, clutching his stuffed bear. Dominic always said Marco had my eyes, my smile. But when I really looked now—there wasn’t a trace of me in that face. Carefully, I plucked a few strands of hair from his scalp, roots and all, and sent them, along with a sample of my own, to a private forensic lab. Three to five business days for results. Those days stretched on like years. That week, Dominic began coming home later and later. Tony wanted to renegotiate. Sal’s crew had a problem. The meeting with Caruso ran long. Every excuse delivered with easy composure. But one thing changed: every night before he left, he stood in front of the mirror, smoothing his hair, switching cologne, changing shirts twice. He had never done that for me. One evening, the moment he pulled out of the driveway, I quietly followed. Dominic drove south, deep into New Jersey, then turned into the Pine Barrens—down a dirt road, all the way to a small cabin nestled in the woods. I knew this land. It belonged to the Valentini family. My father used to hold meetings at that cabin—meetings that could never take place anywhere that might be bugged. Dominic parked. A woman stepped out of the cabin. Even from that distance, I recognized her at once. The white sundress had been replaced by a beige coat, but the face was exactly the same. The woman from the photograph. He took the handbag from her shoulder with practiced familiarity, his other hand settling at her waist. He bent his head and murmured something in her ear. Even in the dim light, I could see the color rise in her cheeks. Together, they walked into the cabin. My phone buzzed. An email from the lab. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely open the attachment. I skipped past the methodology, the graphs, straight to the last page. Serena Valentini is excluded as the biological mother of Sample B (Marco Valentini). One sentence. The child I had raised for six years. The child I had held through fevers, the child I had soothed to sleep. Not mine. I shoved the car door open and threw up on the gravel. When the retching stopped, I sat back and stared at the cabin. My father’s cabin. My family’s land. He was fucking her on Valentini ground. Suddenly, I remembered the day I gave birth. Just as my contractions began, the private clinic I had arranged with in advance was attacked by a rival family. My contractions were only minutes apart, and my guards had rushed me to the nearest maternity hospital—a chaotic, understaffed place full of strangers. So on the day Marco was born, I had my family’s own doctor personally collect DNA samples from both of us, and I sent them, under his direct supervision, to a private lab. I even had one of my men stationed outside the nursery, twenty-four hours a day. The maternity test confirmed that the baby was mine. Then how could the boy I had raised for six years carry another woman’s blood? Unless—the report had been forged from the very beginning. Unless Dominic had already bought off the doctor, the nurse, and the lab technician before I ever held that baby in my arms. Unless every precaution I had taken had already been factored into their plan. Dominic had switched my child. I had to find him. And every traitor was going to pay.

I took out my phone and called Val. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “Two things. First—dig up everything on a woman named Natalia Ferro, and every connection between her and Marco. Second—find my son. At any cost. Whatever it takes.” “Understood.” The call ended. For the next several days, I wore a mask that would have made even my father proud. I smiled at Dominic across the breakfast table, asked him how his day had gone, and didn’t flinch when he kissed me goodbye. But at night, I moved into the guest room at the end of the hall—my excuse a persistent migraine and a draining project. He watched me with those blue eyes of his but said nothing. Good. Let him keep believing everything was fine. A week later, Val laid a sealed envelope on my desk. “We recovered DNA from a coffee cup Natalia discarded at a café in Hoboken. The lab compared it with Marco’s retained sample. She’s his biological mother.” I had been expecting it, but the moment the final confirmation was in my hand, the pain still cut like a knife. Six years. Every goodnight kiss, every scraped knee, every birthday cake—every ounce of love I had poured out had gone to a child carrying another woman’s blood. And then the more terrible truth hit me. Marco hadn’t just been raised as my son—he had been formally presented to the entire family as the grandson of Don Enzo Valentini. Everyone believed he would inherit the family after me. “One more thing.” Val’s jaw tightened. “Natalia Ferro was admitted to the same maternity ward that night—the same night you gave birth. She delivered a boy a few hours after you did. The emergency contact listed on her admission form was Dominic Valentini.” “And her child? What happened to him?” “Official records show he died on the third day. Heart failure.” The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place—one dark truth strung after another, like beads on a string. Val’s voice went on. “There was a nurse working in the ward that night. Her name was Agnes Russo. She left the hospital soon afterward and later entered a convent on Staten Island. ” “Take me to her.” … Two days later, I sat across from Sister Agnes in the Sacred Heart Convent. She was very old, her eyes cloudy, but the guilt of years shone through them. “Tell me what happened that night.” She drew a trembling breath. “Two women went into labor that night, almost at the same time. You delivered a healthy baby boy first. The other one—Miss Ferro—had a harder labor, but her child was born alive too. I held him myself. He was small, but he was breathing.” Her voice dropped. “Then your husband arrived. He sent the guards away, spoke to the doctor alone, and I saw an envelope change hands. And then, with my own eyes, I watched that woman lift your baby out of the bassinet with her own hands, and put her child in his place.” The room fell into a dead silence. “My son. What did they do to him?” “They said he had died. But I saw that woman walk out of the hospital that night carrying a living child.” Her voice broke. “Dominic paid me to keep quiet. I took the money. May God forgive me.” Val and I sat in the car in silence for a long time. “Find him. Alive or dead, bring me the truth.” … Three days later, Val called at two in the morning. “Found him. A Catholic orphanage in rural Pennsylvania—St. Michael’s Home for Boys. Six years ago, an infant boy was left there. No name, no listed parents. The timing matches down to the day.” I left that night. Four hours of dark highway, the needle pinned at a hundred. By six in the morning, I was being led into a small walled courtyard. Children were playing in the pale morning light. My eyes moved across face after face. And then I saw him. In the farthest corner, a small figure curled against the wall. Knees drawn to his chest, drowned in a sweater three sizes too big, the cuffs falling past his hands—hands blue with cold. The nun followed my gaze and let out a soft sigh. “When he was brought to us six years ago, he was wrapped in a blanket marked Holy Cross Hospital. He was only a few days old, badly dehydrated, and covered in bruises.” Even across that courtyard, I knew him at once—the shape of that face, the set of those eyes, the line of that jaw. He was mine. My son. He had spent six years in that cold, forgotten corner—while I had poured all my love into another woman’s child. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. Dominic. Natalia. You stole my life. And for six years, my child has carried the weight of your sins. I will make you pay for every single day.

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My stepsister Vivian came sobbing to my three older brothers and my fiancé, telling them she could see the Comments. She said the Comments had told her I suffered from persecutory delusional disorder, and that at my eighteenth birthday gala my condition would worsen and I would strangle her to death with my own hands. Even the doctor said Vivian had suffered a shock and was hallucinating. But no one believed I wasn’t sick. They think I should be sent to a mental hospital, as Vivian suggested. Julian, my eldest brother, signed the Involuntary Commitment Form on the spot. Ethan, my second brother, called ahead to a private psychiatric facility. Caleb, my third brother, and my fiancé Sebastian Hayes personally dragged me inside as I cried and begged. “It’s only a year.” “Once Vivian gets through her birthday safely, we’ll bring you home.” But every time the day came to bring me home, Vivian cried and said the Comments were still there. One year became three. Inside the facility, they forced pills down my throat. Every time I denied being sick, they ordered another round of ECT. By the end, all it took was hearing the name Vivian Lockhart, and I would drop to my knees and confess. Three years later, Vivian finally said the Comments were gone. Only then did my three brothers and Sebastian come to collect me. Then did they finally come to take me home. Sebastian held out his hand. “She’s safe now. You’re home. It’s time we got married.” But at the word home, I dropped to my knees and hid my hands behind my back. “I confess.” “I wanted to kill Vivian Lockhart.” “Please don’t shock me anymore.” They froze in stunned silence. Sebastian’s outstretched hand froze in midair, his face drained of color. They all thought Vivian was the one who could see the Comments. But when I lifted my head, a line only I could see was drifting across my vision. 【Life Countdown: 7 Days.】 【When the countdown ends, you may return to your original world.】 *** Vivian couldn’t see the Comments at all. I was the one who could. This world, to me, was nothing more than a livestream someone was watching. I didn’t belong here. Seven more days, and I could go back to my real home. In the car on the way back, Sebastian sat beside me. Several times he reached for my hand. The moment his fingertips brushed mine, I pulled my hands behind my back, lowered my head, and waited for him to fasten the restraint straps. Every treatment at the facility had started exactly that way. No struggling. No arguing. Never look the doctor in the eye, or they’d turn the current up. Sebastian looked at the layered scars on my wrists, and his eyes went red. “Never again.” “No one is ever going to lock you up or hurt you again.” Three years ago, he had said the same thing. And then he had personally forced me into the transport van. The car pulled up in front of the Lockhart house. Julian told me they had renovated the entire ground floor to welcome me home. But when the door opened, what I saw wasn’t a bedroom. It was a Seclusion Room. Transparent isolation door. Twenty-four-hour surveillance. A lock that could only be opened from the outside. A narrow meal slot cut into the wall. Not a single mirror, pane of glass, or sharp object inside. Identical to the room where I had lived for three years. Julian followed my gaze and explained under his breath. “Vivian only just confirmed the Comments are gone.” “We can’t take away all the safety measures at once.” My old bedroom had become Vivian’s walk-in closet. The racks were full of her dresses. The piano my mother had left me was buried under her unopened gifts. Caleb said quietly. “Vivian has had nightmares for three years.” “She can only sleep in your room, where she can be sure you aren’t there.” “She’s used to it now. Just let her have it.” That evening’s welcome dinner, Sebastian had wanted me at the table with everyone else. I sat down, but I didn’t touch the silverware. At the facility, you only ate after the bell rang. Reaching early counted as trying to steal food. Ethan placed a piece of fish on my plate. “This used to be your favorite.” “You’re home now. You don’t have to wait. Eat whenever you want.” I was staring at the fish, had just picked up my fork, when footsteps came down the staircase. Vivian was coming down. The moment she saw me, the color drained from her face. “The Comments…” She clutched her chest, her voice trembling. “The Comments say Elise is going to poison the soup.” The dining room went silent. Every dish had been prepared by the household staff. I hadn’t gone near the kitchen since I came home. Julian knew perfectly well it was impossible. He still set down his silverware. “If Vivian is afraid, then we check.” Ethan took my plate away and carefully searched my pockets. “It’s a routine check.” “Just cooperate.” Caleb crouched beside me, his eyes rimmed red. “Vivian only just started getting better.” “Be good one more time. For me?” In the end, it was Sebastian who guided me into the Seclusion Room. When we were children, some classmates had once locked me in a supply closet. He was the one who broke down the door and carried me out, exhausted from crying. Back then, he had said. “As long as I’m here, I’ll never let anyone lock you away again.” Now, he closed the transparent isolation door himself. He even bent down to check the lock twice. “Just a few days.” “When Vivian isn’t afraid anymore, I’ll let you out.” Through the transparent glass, I watched them go back to the dinner table. Vivian sat in what used to be my seat. My three brothers gathered around her, coaxing her not to be afraid. Sebastian gently rubbed her back. Vivian, eyes wet, had the staff pass my food through the meal slot. “Even through the door, Elise is having this family dinner with us.” Everyone praised how kind she was. When the lights in the Seclusion Room went out, everything went black. I hugged my knees and curled up quietly in the corner. The Comments drifted into view again. 【Life Countdown: 6 Days.】 For the first time, I wasn’t afraid of being locked in. It was fine. Six more days, and I would go home. I would leave this world for good.

Two days later, Caleb said he wanted to make up for the debutante ball I had missed by three years. He had a gown sent over, and told me sorrowfully. “Every birthday you missed in these three years, I’ll make it up to you.” But when I arrived at the venue, I saw what was written on the invitations. 【A Celebration for Vivian Lockhart.】 Julian’s tone was calm. “Vivian was tormented by the Comments for three years.” “Now that the Comments are gone, our friends and family want to celebrate her coming of age.” “Your debutante ball fits in perfectly. It’s festive, and it clears up any misunderstandings people have about the Lockhart family.” Vivian sat at the center of the head table with Sebastian beside her. My three brothers took turns serving her food and deflecting toasts. My seat was in the corner nearest the exit. No porcelain in front of me. No knife. Just the plastic bowl and spoon the facility used to prevent patients from hurting anyone. Julian noticed and offered a mild explanation. “Our friends don’t know yet that you’ve recovered.” “Better safe than sorry, so everyone can relax.” Once the reception began, a relative asked me where I’d been for the past three years. Vivian’s face went pale. She grabbed Sebastian’s sleeve. “The Comments are back.” “They say the death prophecy won’t disappear until Elise publicly admits she was ill, and admits she wanted to kill me.” Julian had someone open the livestream on the Lockhart family’s official account. Ethan set a sedative on the table. “Don’t get worked up.” “Lose control now, and everyone will think you aren’t really better.” Caleb handed me a confession Vivian had prepared in advance and coached me through it line by line. Sebastian personally placed the microphone in front of me. “Cooperate, get through it, and the past is wiped clean.” “Once you’re fully recovered, I’ll still marry you.” I lifted my head and looked at Julian. In high school, someone had spread a rumor that I had cheated on an exam. He had reviewed every second of school surveillance overnight. And in front of the entire school he had said. “No one bears a false name against the Lockhart family.” Now, to clear Vivian’s name, he was asking me to destroy my own with my own mouth. The camera zoomed in on my face. Viewers in the comment section were already pressing for answers. I held the scripted confession, my fingers trembling badly. Caleb settled a hand on my shoulder. His touch was gentle, but his fingertips slowly tightened. “Just like they taught you at the hospital.” “Read it well.” The blinding lights, the cold restraint straps, the sound of electric current, all rushed back into my mind. I didn’t dare hesitate. I opened my mouth to the camera and spoke mechanically. “I suffer from persecutory delusional disorder.” “I once tried to harm Vivian Lockhart.” “My three brothers committed me to save my life.” “Every treatment over these three years was voluntary.” “Vivian has never lied.” The moment I finished, the comment section flooded with abuse. Some called me a psychopath who had tried to commit murder. Some praised Vivian’s kindness, saying it was incredible she could forgive the sister who had tried to kill her. Others said the Lockhart family had already gone above and beyond by taking me back. Vivian sobbed and threw herself into Sebastian’s arms. “I don’t have to be afraid anymore.” My three brothers were surrounded by guests. Everyone praised them for standing by me for three years, for being so devoted to their ill sister. Once the livestream ended, Julian had the confession video pinned permanently to the top of the account. Vivian watched the view count climb, and a faint smile flickered in her eyes. The next moment, she was clutching Sebastian’s sleeve again. “The Comments say…” “Elise’s confession just now was also an act.” Four faces changed at once. And the real Comments only I could see slowly drifted into view. 【Life Countdown: 4 Days.】

Vivian said as long as I still remembered the grudge from three years ago, I would come back and kill her. The only solution the Comments offered was to make me forget her completely. That same night, Julian took me back to the facility. The director read through my treatment history from the past three years and, for the first time, refused. “She has already received prolonged, excessive treatment.” “Any more high-intensity ECT or pharmacological intervention could cause permanent memory loss and language deterioration.” “In severe cases, she may not even recognize her own family.” Julian was silent for a long time. In the end, he picked up the pen and signed his name on the High-Risk Treatment Consent Form. “Memory can come back over time.” “Vivian only has one life.” Ethan, a doctor, knew perfectly well there was no medical indication for treatment, and still signed off in the signed off on the medical recommendation. Caleb held me, begging through his tears. “Be good one last time.” “When the treatment is done, I swear I’ll take you home.” Only Sebastian didn’t agree right away. He blocked the door to the treatment room, and for the first time his voice carried real anger. “We’ve already destroyed three years of her life.” “This can’t go on.” I thought that maybe this time, at last, he was going to choose me. Then Vivian’s call came through. She sobbed into the phone. “If Elise forgets Sebastian, won’t she hate me even more?” Then she swallowed the sleeping pills she had hidden in advance. Not a lethal dose. But enough to strip all four of them of any remaining reason. Sebastian was silent for a long time, then walked over to me. He slid the ring off my finger. “Just forget the hatred.” “Even if you forget me, I’ll make you fall in love with me all over again.” Then he lifted me himself onto the treatment bed, and the cold restraint straps closed around my wrists and ankles. Before the treatment began, I handed Ethan the photograph my mother had left me. “Keep it safe for me.” “Don’t lose it.” When the current hit, my body arched violently. The pain tore through my skull. I wanted to scream stop, but only broken sobs came out of my throat. Through the glass, I could see my three brothers and Sebastian standing outside. Caleb was crying with a hand over his mouth. Ethan turned his face away. Julian’s fists were clenched white. Sebastian raised his hand several times, as if to shove the treatment room door open. But messages kept coming from Vivian. 【The Comments are fading.】 【Just hold on a little longer.】 【Elise won’t hate me for much longer.】 Not one of them hit the stop button. When it was over, I woke up in the hospital bed. Ethan held the photograph in front of me. “Elise, do you know who this is?” I stared at the woman in the picture for a long time. Her smile was very gentle. I couldn’t remember who she was. In the end, all I could do was shake my head, lost. Caleb broke down sobbing on the spot. Sebastian took my hand again. “What about me?” “Do you remember me?” I flinched, pulled my hand back, and hid both behind me. “Doctor.” “I’ll cooperate with the treatment.” His face went white in an instant. They had wanted me to forget the hatred for Vivian. What they erased instead was every trace of the fact that I had ever loved them. Even so, Vivian said the Comments hadn’t disappeared entirely. Julian decided to keep me in for further observation. When the lights went out in the ward, I lay on the cold bed. The last day of the countdown appeared before my eyes. 【Life Countdown: 1 Day.】

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I have always lived my life a beat behind. My childhood friend, Piper, and my best friend, Chase, were the opposite—always operating in fast-forward, breathless and impatient. When we ate out, I’d barely be halfway through my meal before they’d already finished, clamoring to head to the arcade next door, leaving me alone at the table. When we went swimming, my leg cramped up halfway across the lake. I cried out for help, only to look up and realize they had already dried off, packed up, and vanished. Even when it came to submitting our college decisions, I hadn’t even logged into the portal yet when they finalized theirs, clicked submit, and stood up in unison. “Theo, you’re moving like molasses,” Piper said, her eyes already glued to her phone. “I have to help Chase grab Taylor Swift tickets, so we can’t wait. We committed to Columbia. Make sure you don’t mess up your application.” Before her words could even settle, Chase grabbed her hand and they bolted out the door. They were running so fast she never heard my quiet reply. “I’m not going to Columbia.” “And you don’t ever have to wait for me again.” … It is true; I really do take longer than most. By the time I finally hit submit on my college portal and glanced at the clock, it was the very last minute before the deadline. There was no turning back. The realization hit me like a physical ache: for the next four years, Piper and I would be separated by nearly two thousand miles. My chest tightened, a bitter sting rising in my throat. Right in the middle of my grief, my phone buzzed. “Theo, what is taking you so long?” Piper’s voice crackled through the speaker, sharp with impatience. “The graduation party started at six. Everyone is waiting on us. Can you please just hurry up for once?” Listening to her familiar, irritated sigh, I scrambled to my feet and rushed out the door. I moved so frantically that the sharp edge of the kitchen chair gouged a line down my calf, but I didn’t even stop to look down. But even with all that rushing, by the time I reached the school gates, all that was left for me was the red glow of taillights fading into the evening traffic. I stood there, frozen on the curb, as my phone rang again. It was Piper’s contact photo flashing, but when I answered, Chase’s voice came through. “Hey, sorry, Theo. Our Uber got here, and the driver said he’d charge us an extra waiting fee if we lingered. We had to jump in. Just grab yourself another ride, alright? See you there.” My heart sank, heavy as a stone. It was always like this. They promised they would wait, yet they always managed to leave exactly two minutes before I arrived. When we went to the amusement park, they did this. When we went hiking, they did this. Did those two minutes really matter that much to them? I didn’t know. All I knew was the lump forming in my throat, tasting of old, bitter disappointment. “Hey, kid. You friends with that couple who just left?” I blinked, turning to face the school’s security guard walking over. He reached into his pocket and handed me a glossy photo booth strip. The date stamped on the bottom was today. The faces grinning back at me were Piper and Chase, their heads tilted together, laughing, intimately close. Staring at it, Piper’s voice from yesterday echoed in my mind. “Theo, I know you’ve been dying to get those cheesy photo booth pictures. Tomorrow, after we submit our decisions, I’ll go with you.” In all three years of high school, she had never once been the one to initiate a plan with me. I had stayed up late, giddy with excitement, and even spent thirty minutes this morning watching a tutorial just to do my hair and look nice. But she hadn’t waited for me to submit my application. And she had gone and done the very thing she promised me—with someone else. A hollow ache bloomed in my chest. I couldn’t find the words to speak. I just stood there, rooted to the pavement, listening to the guard ramble on. “Smart kids, those two,” the guard said, shaking his head in admiration. “Heard them talking about going to Columbia. Good for them, not letting a relationship get in the way of their grades. They make a handsome couple, don’t they?” He paused, his eyes drifting down to my oversized t-shirt and slightly flushed, ordinary face. “Funny, though. You look so… average. Wouldn’t have guessed you ran in the same circle.” A sudden, sharp humiliation burned through me. I forced a tight, empty smile. “Yeah. Honestly, neither did I.” Leaving him behind, I hailed a cab, my mind drifting. When I finally walked into the restaurant’s private dining room, I realized Piper had lied. The room was barely half full; most of our classmates hadn’t even arrived yet. But Piper and Chase were already there, tucked into a booth in the corner, their shoulders pressed together as they huddled over a phone, whispering and laughing. “Theo, don’t just stand there by the door. Find a seat!” someone called out. Hearing my name, Piper finally looked up. She waved me over, entirely unfazed, as if nothing had happened. “Come here! Look at this meme Chase found. It’s hilarious.” Out of sheer habit, my feet carried me toward her. But just as I slid into the booth, the class president grinned and teased, “So, Piper, you three have been joined at the hip all through high school. Are you going to keep being a package deal in college, too?” My mind flashed to my submission to CU Boulder. I opened my mouth to say “not anymore”, but before I could, Piper threw her arms out, draping one over my shoulder and the other over Chase’s. “Of course,” she declared brightly. “Theo is so slow at everything, and he’s way too soft-spoken. If he doesn’t have Chase and me looking out for him at the same school, he’ll get eaten alive.” Chase laughed, chiming in, “Seriously. Theo spent a fortune on private tutors all senior year just to keep up with our grades.” Beside me, I felt Piper’s arm stiffen slightly. Around the room, quiet whispers broke out. I caught muffled words like “third wheel” and “hanger-on”. I pretended not to hear. I just sat there, thinking of the past year. I had survived on fewer than four hours of sleep a night, wearing out my eyesight and needing a stronger prescription, all so I wouldn’t be left behind by her. And in the end, I had chosen a school nearly two thousand miles away. My chest felt tight and heavy. Suddenly, a voice cut through the chatter. “Hey, Piper! We’re graduated now. You can finally tell us—who’s actually dating who? And who’s the odd man out?” Piper froze. Her eyes darted instinctively to me. That single, hesitant glance was all the room needed. The class erupted into laughter. “I knew it! Theo’s the ultimate third wheel!” “Classic case of the childhood friend losing to the new guy!” “So when did you and Chase actually make it official, Piper?” A hot, suffocating wave of embarrassment rushed to my face. Beneath the table, my hands clenched into tight fists. Maybe she sensed my distress, because Piper suddenly slammed her glass onto the table with a sharp clink. “Shut up, guys. There’s nothing going on. The three of us are just a trio. That’s it.” “Oh, sure… ‘just friends,’” the class president drawled. Chase quickly waved his hands, a sheepish smile on his face. “Come on, guys, don’t start rumors. My mom had a strict rule about no dating until college. High school was strictly off-limits.” His attempt at a denial only fueled the fire. “Oh, so it’s just because of Chase’s family rules! Well, high school is over now. Perfect time to confess!” “Yeah, the chemistry is right there! Don’t be a coward, Piper!” The chanting grew louder, but Piper remained silent, staring at her lap. “Hey, Theo, why the long face? Afraid she’s going to say yes?” one of Chase’s close friends teased. My mind went completely blank. Before I could scramble for a response, another boy chimed in: “Come on, Piper. A real best friend is happy when you find love, right, Theo? You wouldn’t mind, would you?” They had backed me into a corner, holding me up to the light of public expectation. I managed a tight, fragile nod. “Right. I wouldn’t mind.” Almost the second the words left my mouth, Piper’s face darkened. “I don’t do public confessions,” she said coldly. Chase looked visibly deflated, but he quickly forced a bright, casual grin. “Exactly. Pure friendship, guys. Stop teasing and let’s order some food.” With the main subjects deflecting, the crowd let it drop, settling down to look at the menus. When the menu finally made its way toward my side of the table, I reached out my hand. But Chase snatched it right before I could touch it, offering me a helpful wink. “Theo, you take forever to decide. Piper and I will just order for you. We already know what you like anyway.” Without giving me a chance to protest, the two of them bent their heads together, murmuring. “Spicy crawfish, chili-boiled pork, and the hot-and-sour fish soup,” Chase read off. Piper glanced up at me. “One favorite dish for each of us,” she said softly, before passing the menu along. I looked down at the angry, itchy red eczema flaring up across my knuckles and nodded bitterly. Yes, I loved the sour fish soup. But the doctor had explicitly told me yesterday that with this flare-up, I had to avoid seafood and spicy food completely. Yesterday, I had asked Piper to go to the clinic with me. But because I took one minute too long putting on my shoes, she left to play pool with Chase instead. When I asked her later why she couldn’t have just waited, she had been entirely dismissive. “If it were a real emergency, you wouldn’t be moving like a snail. If you can afford to linger, it’s clearly not that urgent.” So, I had gone to the clinic alone. Registered alone. Sat in the waiting room alone. “Oh my god, Piper! You and Chase actually got tickets to Taylor Swift?!” A classmate’s excited shriek snapped me back to the present. I pulled out my phone and opened Instagram. When I saw the feed, my breath caught. Two identical photos of concert tickets, posted minutes apart. The person who had promised me since middle school that we would go to our very first concert together hadn’t even grasped a third ticket. Noticing me staring at my screen, Piper nudged my elbow. Her voice sounded slightly strained. “The reception near the school gates was terrible. The site kept crashing; we could only buy them one by one. If you really want to go, I can look for a reseller ticket. It just… probably won’t be in our section.” Chase quickly chimed in with an apologetic look. “Man, don’t be mad, Theo. Honestly, if you want to go that bad, you can have my ticket. I don’t mind.” “No way!” Piper cut him off immediately, shooting me an annoyed glance. “Chase, you’ve wanted to see this tour forever. Why should you give up your seat? Theo, don’t be selfish.” I hadn’t said a single word, yet here I was, branded as the selfish one. A rare spark of anger flared in my chest. “I don’t even want to go,” I said, my voice flat. It was the truth. Even though I had loved Taylor Swift for a decade, the concert was scheduled for the night before move-in day, all the way in New York. With Boulder being nearly two thousand miles away in the opposite direction, there was no logical way I could make it. I meant what I said, but Piper just rolled her eyes, reading it as a tantrum. “I already told you I’d find you a ticket. Stop acting like a child. Honestly, without Chase and me, with how slow you are and how easily you get lost, you’d probably manage to miss the opening act anyway.” We had known each other for over ten years. Hearing her say those words out loud, in front of everyone, brought a sudden, stinging burn to the backs of my eyes. “Theo…” she started, her expression softening slightly, but the waiter arrived, balancing heavy plates. “Excuse me, coming through…” Piper looked at me, looking a little lost, and quietly slid the sour fish soup closer to my side of the table. But because of my flare-up, I didn’t touch it. I sat through the entire dinner without eating a single bite. Even when Piper secretly picked out the bones from a piece of fish and slid it onto my plate when no one was looking, I ignored it completely, leaving the fish to go cold. “Hey, Piper, if you don’t have plans before college starts, we should all plan a road trip!” the class president suggested as we gathered our coats at the end of the night. Piper froze, biting her lip. Chase offered an awkward scratch of his neck. “Actually, sorry, man. Piper and I already booked tickets to Miami for tomorrow morning…” Beside me, Piper’s voice rushed in, thick with guilt. “Theo, don’t get the wrong idea. We only didn’t tell you because we know how much you hate the ocean. It wasn’t to exclude you. Besides, we’re both going to Columbia. Once winter break rolls around, I’ll go anywhere you want. Just the two of us. We don’t even have to invite Chase.” I looked up at her. Her eyes were bright, filled with a sweet, naive expectation of our future together. The truth I had held back all night finally burned its way to my lips. “Piper, I’m not going—” “Piper! Have you seen our photo booth strip?” Chase’s frantic voice cut me off as he patted down his pockets. “Did we leave it with the security guard when we showed him earlier?” I reached into my bag, my fingers brushing against the smooth, glossy paper of the strip the guard had given me. But before I could pull it out, Chase grabbed Piper’s hand and pulled her out into the street. A minute later, my phone vibrated. [Those pictures… Chase made me take them while we were waiting for you. I’ll take better ones with you later, okay?] [It’s getting late. I ordered you an Uber. Here’s the plate number. Text me when you get in.] I stared at the screen for a long time. Then, I handed the photo booth strip to the class president. “Can you make sure Piper gets this?” I asked quietly. Then, I pulled up her contact and tapped “Block”. On the quiet cab ride home, staring out at the passing streetlights, I bought a train ticket to Mount Elbert. Back in sophomore year of high school, Piper and I had made a pact: if we both got into our dream schools, we would spend our final summer hiking the Five Great Summits of the Rockies. She had forgotten. But I hadn’t. If she was going to break her promise, I would keep it alone. I tried to convince myself I was being strong, independent. But as I packed my duffel bag and my eyes fell on the faded plush rabbit keychain dangling from the zipper, the tears came, hot and silent. The keychain had been a gift from Piper in the first grade. That summer, our families had gone to the beach together. Piper had chased a wave out too far and swept into an undertow. The adults had been too far away to hear. I had jumped in after her. I dragged her to the shallow water, but I swallowed so much saltwater and suffered such severe oxygen deprivation that I spent three days in the ICU fighting for my life. I survived, but the doctors told my parents that I would develop a little slower than other kids from then on. My brain had paid the price for saving her. Back then, neither of us understood what “slower” really meant. We thought it just meant I walked slowly. I remember little Piper holding my hand, her eyes wide with tears, promising me: “Don’t worry, Theo. If you’re slow, I’ll just wait for you. Always.” And to her credit, she hadn’t lied. She had waited for me for twelve years. From the first grade all the way to our freshman year of high school. But on our first day of high school, I had arrived early for the first time in my life. She was five minutes late. When she finally rode up on her bike, Chase was sitting on the back rack, laughing. She explained that she had run into Chase, who had missed his bus, and figured since they were going to the same school, she’d give him a lift. From that day on, she stopped waiting for me. Instead, I spent the next three years exhausting myself trying to keep up with her. She had almost drowned once, yet she still loved the ocean. So, swallowing my trauma, I forced myself to learn how to swim just to be near her. But when my leg seized up in the water and I was genuinely drowning, she had already walked away with Chase. That was the day I decided I was done running. I didn’t sleep at all. When I dragged my suitcase out the front door the next morning, I was shocked to find Piper waiting on the porch. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice heavy with hurt. “Theo, you blocked me. I stayed up all night and bought you a ticket to Miami. I know you hate the beach, but there are tons of other things we can do there.” I stood there, momentarily frozen. With a quiet sigh, I raised my phone and showed her the confirmation screen of my train ticket to Colorado. Piper’s face went completely pale. I saw the exact moment she remembered our sophomore pact. She bit her lip, her shoulders trembling. “I’ll go with you,” she blurted out. “Unblock me. I’ll meet you at the station in an hour.” Before I could say a word, she spun on her heel and bolted down the driveway. Maybe it was the desperate conviction in her eyes. I let myself believe her one last time. I unblocked her number and waited by the security gates at the station for an hour and a half. I didn’t get a text from her. Instead, I saw Chase’s newly uploaded Instagram story. A video of him and Piper, boarding a flight to Miami, laughing as they held up their boarding passes. The very last thread of affection I held for her snapped, silent and clean. I turned around, handed my ticket to the gate agent, and walked toward the train. From now on, I would climb my mountains. And she could have her ocean.

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The night my family’s company collapsed and the loan sharks cornered us with nowhere left to run, I quietly signed the marriage contract with Naomi Albright, the eldest daughter of the Albright empire. I didn’t say a single word. Outside the Albright estate, Cynthia stood in the pouring rain, her eyes glued to the breaking news on her phone—headlines flashing pictures of Naomi and me together, side by side. Years later, Cynthia tore down every obstacle in her path, built her own corporate empire from the ashes, and used the most ruthless leverage imaginable to force me to become her husband. Everyone in our circle mocked me. They whispered that Jesse Edmund was nothing but a spineless gold-digger riding on his good looks, that Cynthia’s desperate obsession with claiming me was merely a craving for my pretty face. But I knew the truth better than anyone. She hated me. She hated me for choosing wealth over her, for what she saw as a cold, calculating betrayal. From the moment I moved into her cavernous, freezing mansion, she surrounded herself with a revolving door of young, beautiful boys. I never reacted. In fact, every morning before dawn, I would slip out to run my humble breakfast cart on the corner of the old district, simply to give her and those boys their space. Yet, my indifference only made Cynthia more volatile. Once, she pinned me hard against the narrow kitchen sink, her eyes bloodshot, her teeth gritted as she hissed, “Jesse, is that heart of yours made of stone?” I only managed a numb, hollow smile. Cynthia didn’t know that my time was running out. While she spent every day plotting new ways to watch me break, I was using every ounce of my remaining strength just to see another sunrise. … I met Tyler for the first time at the gala celebrating the third anniversary of Cynthia’s conglomerate going public. He was wearing an ill-fitting, cheap suit, clumsily balancing a champagne flute, looking entirely out of place in a room packed with the city’s elite. I noticed him instantly. Not because he looked ridiculous, but because of the stubborn pride and raw innocence radiating from him—a look I recognized too well. It was the exact quality Cynthia had fallen in love with when we were young. I let out a dry laugh, adjusting my tie. No wonder Cynthia had demanded my presence tonight. I wasn’t the guest of honor; I was just the spectator. I watched Tyler “accidentally” spill champagne onto Cynthia’s custom Dior coat. They locked eyes, a charged, teasing gaze passing between them. Claiming a sudden stomach ache, I took it as my cue to slip away, leaving them to their quiet, simmering space. But Cynthia’s secretary blocked me in the hallway, her expression icy. “Mr. Edmund, I should warn you. Tyler has been with Ms. Shaw for over six months now. She never brought the other boys to public events. This time, she might actually be serious.” “Mr. Edmund! You… you’re bleeding! Your nose…” Her strictly professional facade crumbled in an instant, her hands shaking as she fumbled in her purse for a tissue. I slowly touched my upper lip. My hand came away smeared with dark crimson. A bitter wave washed over me; the body of a dying man is a ruin that refuses to be hidden. I took the tissue, pressing it hard against my nose, and offered her a reassuring, weary smile. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.” “Honestly, I hope Cynthia finds a few more boys like him. Maybe if she’s in a good mood, she’ll throw some extra allowance my way.” I tilted my head back, letting the metallic taste of blood seep into my throat. Severely anemic as I was, I couldn’t afford to lose this much blood. Ignoring the secretary’s mix of disgust and bewilderment, I turned toward the VIP lounge. Tonight was a rare opportunity to ask for money. Cynthia was pleased, softened by her new favorite. Maybe to get rid of me, she’d blindly sign a check without a second thought. Compared to Cynthia’s ghost of an affection, money was the only thing that mattered to me now. Only money could afford the imported pain pump—the only thing that could offer a shred of relief when the agony clawed at my bones in the dead of night, leaving me writhing on the floor. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I was terrified of the pain. The feeling of my bones being slowly chiseled open, piece by piece, haunted my very nightmares. My oncologist had already delivered the final verdict: even with the most expensive targeted therapies, I wouldn’t survive past winter. I wanted to leave this world with some dignity, but I couldn’t even afford the medication to keep the pain at bay. So, tonight, I had to swallow what little pride I had left and beg Cynthia. … Standing outside the slightly ajar door of the private lounge, I heard Tyler’s bright, unrestrained laughter. I could easily picture the smug expression on his face. Just as I raised my hand to knock, Tyler’s voice carried through the gap, talking to someone inside. “Honestly, why does Jesse always look so miserable and washed out? He dresses like a cheap street vendor. What does Cynthia even see in him?” “When I first joined the company, people told me my profile looked like Mr. Edmund’s. I thought he’d be some legendary figure. Seeing him today? What a joke. If I ever ended up that pathetic and useless, I’d throw myself off a bridge. No wonder Cynthia only has eyes for me now.” A male assistant lowered his voice, cautioning him, “Tyler, shut up. Mr. Edmund is still her legal husband. Besides, back in the day, Cynthia almost died for him. Don’t let this go to your head.” “So what if they’re married?” Tyler scoffed. “Just watch. Cynthia’s going to kick him to the curb sooner or later.” Listening to the chatter, I realized I’d come to the wrong room. It was only Tyler changing clothes with his assistant; Cynthia wasn’t even there. “What are you doing lurking outside my door?” An icy voice sliced through the air behind me. I turned around and met Cynthia’s eyes, cold and thick with disgust. Swallowing the bitter taste rising in my throat, I spoke calmly. “I need some money.” Before the words could fully settle, Tyler stepped out of the lounge and let out a sharp sneer. “How direct, Mr. Edmund. Begging for scraps right outside the dressing room? Anyone would think Cynthia was starving you.” Tyler looked at me defiantly, leaning familiarly into Cynthia’s space, his eyes alight with the smug confidence of a favorite toy. Sensing the shift in the air, the young assistant kept his head down and quickly slipped away. I kept my eyes lowered, ignoring Tyler’s performance entirely. “You really have grown spineless over the years,” Cynthia said, her words dripping with malice, her gaze cutting into me like glass. “Years ago, you crawled like a dog to lick Naomi Albright’s boots for a check. Now you’ve learned to play the begging husband with me? Tell me, how much is your dignity worth this time?” I met her gaze, a self-deprecating smile gracing my lips. “As much as you can spare, of course. With a net worth in the billions, surely Ms. Shaw won’t miss a few crumbs.” The temperature in Cynthia’s eyes plummeted to absolute zero. She lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my faded, worn shirt, her voice vibrating with quiet fury. “When you sold yourself to the Albrights, did they not toss you enough bones? Or are you just born this pathetic?” A sudden spasm gripped my chest. My vision blurred into blackness, and my knees buckled slightly. I took a ragged breath, my face draining of what little color it had, and spoke the quiet truth: “She never gave me a single dime.” Cynthia let out a harsh laugh, her disgust deepening. “Then what makes you think I would waste a single cent on an absolute piece of trash like you? Jesse, you’re lower than dirt.” As if looking at me made her physically ill, she released my collar with a shove and turned to leave. I dug my fingernails hard into my thigh to keep from collapsing, the image of the empty pill bottles in my dingy apartment flashing before my eyes. Digging deep for any shred of humility, I whispered, “Cynthia… please.” My voice was so faint it barely carried through the hallway. She didn’t even slow down. But Tyler heard it. He stepped up to me, his face glowing with a victor’s smugness. “Save your breath, Mr. Edmund. Look in a mirror. Look at what a wreck you are. How do you expect to compete with me?” “The senior staff at the office told me how Cynthia used to worship the ground you walked on, holding you like you were made of glass. I thought you were some kind of god. Turns out, you’re just a desperate street beggar.” “You know, Cynthia is incredibly generous.” Tyler raised his wrist, angling a blinding Patek Philippe toward me. “See this? She gave it to me tonight.” “A guy who slings cheap breakfast sandwiches on a street corner couldn’t afford this in ten lifetimes. The money you beg for on your knees? I get it just by asking nicely.” “To think people actually compare my looks to yours. It’s an insult.” Tyler turned his wrist again, the polished gold catching the light and stinging my eyes. I genuinely envied him. The value of that single watch was enough to secure my remaining days, to save me from curling up like a dying dog in the dark, shivering in agony. Cynthia was indeed generous with him. The other boys before him had been mere distractions, but Tyler was different. She brought him to high-profile events and stood by, allowing him to mock me to my face. But what did any of that matter to a man with one foot in the grave? “You’re right, it is an insult,” I said, a faint, tired smile on my lips. “You only care about how much she spends on you. But tell me—if she actually valued you, why hasn’t she ever taken you home? You’re a passing distraction, Tyler. Nothing more. Do you really think you have the right to look down on me?” “My dear boy, instead of barking at me, why don’t you beg her to divorce me first? Once you have a marriage certificate with your name on it, then you can talk to me about status.” My voice was weak, but I watched as Tyler’s face flushed red, then drained into an angry, bruised purple. “What do you know, you half-dead relic!” Tyler spat. “Cynthia loves me! You think a line on a marriage certificate makes you special? If you hadn’t gotten lucky and met her first, she wouldn’t even look at a pathetic wreck like you!” I gave him a hollow, pitying look. “Why do you think she chose you? When you throw a tantrum, the way the corner of your eyes flares up is identical to mine when I was twenty. Without me, you wouldn’t even be worth a second glance. Learn your place.” I had said enough. I didn’t want to waste another ounce of energy on him, so I turned to walk away. The truth tore right through Tyler’s fragile ego. He snapped, lunging at me like a wild animal. “I’m nobody’s replacement! I’ll tear that dead-eyed look right off your face!” He shoved me with all his weight. I stepped aside, and with no traction on the polished floor, he tripped over the thick edge of the rug, crashing headfirst into a heavy marble display pedestal. With a dull thud, Tyler hit the floor, clutching his forehead. Dark red blood began to ooze between his fingers. Cynthia, who hadn’t walked far, rushed back at the sound of the impact. She shoved me out of the way, dropping to her knees, cradling Tyler’s face. She pressed an expensive silk handkerchief to his wound, her eyes wide with frantic worry. She never once looked at me, completely ignoring how my body swayed on the verge of collapsing. Only when she was sure Tyler wasn’t severely injured did she slowly rise, her eyes fixing on me with absolute, murderous coldness. “Jesse. Did you push him?” I let out a long, exhausted breath. I didn’t even have the strength to defend myself. “Think whatever you want. He lunged at me and tripped.” Before Cynthia could erupt, Tyler began to sob from the floor. “Cynthia… don’t blame Mr. Edmund. It was my fault, I was careless. I just… I love you so much. I don’t care about a title, I just want to be with you. Even if he hits me, even if he hates me, I won’t leave…” His crying was soft and performative, tears mixing with the blood on his cheek. He looked up at her with big, watery eyes, his hands desperately clutching the hem of her coat. I watched Cynthia’s expression soften. The absolute, fragile devotion Tyler was displaying was the exact thing she had once begged from me and never received. “Don’t worry, Tyler,” she murmured, her voice steadying. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again.” In those words, I heard her final decision. She was ready to throw me out to make room for him. I looked down at my scuffed, worn-out leather shoes. There wasn’t even a ripple of emotion in my heart. My lack of reaction only seemed to fuel Cynthia’s rage. “You’d stoop this low for money, Jesse? Fine. You hurt Tyler. How do you plan to pay for his medical bills and his distress?” “I don’t have any money,” I said, stating a simple fact. I barely knew where my next meal was coming from. “Then let me offer you a way out. Get on your knees. Bow to Tyler three times, apologize, and admit what a pathetic, miserable coward you are. The moment he forgives you, I’ll transfer three million dollars into your account.” “Three bows for three million. You won’t find a better bargain in this world. And if you’re worried I’ll go back on my word, I can pay you a deposit right now.” Cynthia reached down and unclasped a diamond tennis bracelet from her wrist, letting it drop carelessly at my feet. “Consider this the down payment. Don’t bother standing back up once you pick it up. Just stay down and bow.” I stared at the glittering piece of jewelry resting on the carpet. A quiet, breathy laugh escaped my lips—laughing at her arrogance, laughing at the utter absurdity of my life. “Keep your money, Cynthia. It’s too dirty for me.” I turned away, dragging my heavy, protesting legs step by step toward the exit. As I rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of Cynthia lifting Tyler into her arms. I wondered, when I was nothing but a pile of ash, if she ever found out that the bracelet she threw on the floor could have bought me a few extra days free from the agonizing pain that made me wish for death… would she feel victorious? Or would she feel a sliver of regret? But that was a question for after I was gone. I wouldn’t be around to see it. I was reaching my limit. The last dose of pain medication had completely worn off. Cold sweat soaked through my clothes, and every step sent a violent spasm through my chest. … Back in my drafty, single-room apartment, I spent the longest night of my life. I writhed on the narrow twin bed, too weak to even scream. Caught between fever dreams and pure agony, my mind drifted, slipping back to when I was twenty. In the dream, Cynthia was still that bright-eyed, hardworking student, her forehead beaded with sweat. Back then, her eyes held nothing but gentle tenderness and fierce, protective love for me. I reached out blindly, trying to grasp the fading illusion, as if those long-dead memories could somehow numb the raw pain tearing through my flesh. “Cynthia… where’s the red string bracelet you made me?” As the whisper left my lips, I realized why I had stared so hard at Tyler’s wrist tonight. The design of that luxury watch was strikingly similar to the cheap digital watch Cynthia had bought me for my twentieth birthday. That year, my family had been pressuring me into arranged dates, and I was miserable. To cheer me up, Cynthia had spent an entire month hauling bricks at a scorching construction site in the dead of summer. Her skin had peeled, and her hands were covered in bloody blisters, all just to buy me a halfway decent digital watch. I remembered crying as I applied ointment to her raw hands, calling her a fool. She had just grinned, her teeth white against her sunburnt face, promising me that as long as we were together, she would build a beautiful life for us. She swore she’d never let me suffer. When we were twenty, I believed her promises would last a lifetime. The physical pain clawed at my nerves again, forcing tears and sweat onto my mildewed pillow. “Cynthia… I saw you give that watch to someone else tonight. It hurts so much…” “Jesse, don’t cry.” The Cynthia in my dream panicked, gently wiping away my tears as if I were made of porcelain. “I promise, I’ll never let you cry again.” I sobbed, holding onto that warm shadow with everything I had, because in my heart, I knew that this dying dream was the only place I would ever see that girl again. When morning came, I woke to the same broken, decaying body. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. When I opened my eyes, my throat felt like dry sand. I reached instinctively for the cracked glass on my nightstand. “Jesse, here. Drink some water.” Through the haze, a familiar yet distant face came into focus. Cynthia was sitting there, the icy, arrogant mask she usually wore completely gone. There was a soft, aching warmth in her eyes, reminiscent of the girl she was at twenty. Believing I was still trapped in my fever dream, I leaned forward and let her guide the glass, swallowing the cool water. “Jesse, look,” she whispered, pushing a velvet box into my hands. “I found your old digital watch. And Tyler’s Patek Philippe—it’s in here too. Let’s stop fighting, okay? Let’s just go back to how we were.” I stared down at the yellowed, cheap plastic watch resting beside the dazzling diamond timepiece. The water I had just swallowed felt like liquid nitrogen, freezing my throat and stabbing into my lungs. There was no going back. The three years of systematic humiliation, the way she had trampled my remaining pride outside the lounge last night—every single blow was permanently etched into my bones. With a sudden burst of energy, I slapped the velvet box out of her hand, sending it flying across the room. “Are you insane, Cynthia?” I rasped, laughing coldly. “I mailed that piece of garbage back to you the exact day I signed the contract with Naomi Albright. Why on earth are you digging up my trash now?” The room went dead silent. The fragile warmth in Cynthia’s eyes shattered, replaced by a dark, bloodshot rage. She lunged, grabbing my shirt collar and pinning me hard against the mold-stained wall. “You’re playing with me?” she hissed, her voice shaking. “Last night, you were burning up, crying for this watch, begging through your tears… and it was all a goddamn act?” It took me a second to realize that last night hadn’t been a dream after all. But to a dying man, what difference did it make? I curled my lips into a mocking smile. “Of course, Ms. Shaw. I just wanted to see how far I could string along a powerful, ruthless executive like you. Do you see how pathetic you look right now?” We had been entangled for seven years; I knew exactly where to twist the knife to cause the most pain. Cynthia was a proud woman. She could never tolerate being played for a fool. “Shut up!” She lost all control, crashing her mouth against mine in a desperate, punishing kiss. She bit down hard, and the sharp, metallic taste of blood instantly bloomed between us. I had no strength to fight her off, letting the iron-like taste wash over my tongue. When she finally pulled away, her chest was heaving, her eyes wild. “Three years, Jesse. Do you even have a heart left in there?” “I paraded all those boys in front of you. Why didn’t you get jealous? Why didn’t you scream at me?” “Would it kill you to just bend a little? To admit that you still care about me?” “Do you have any idea how happy I was when I heard you crying for that cheap watch last night…” “How dare you lie to me, Jesse!” Her voice cracked on my name, thin and laced with a suffocating, desperate sorrow. Even though I was determined to take my secrets to the grave, my chest throbbed with a dull, heavy ache that left me speechless. In the stifling silence of our standoff, Tyler’s voice suddenly drifted from the hallway. “Cynthia? Are you in there? Why did you change the door code? My wrist hurts… are you mad at me?” The vulnerability in Cynthia’s eyes vanished instantly, locked away behind her familiar wall of ice. “I’m done wasting my time on you,” she said coldly. “Starting today, Tyler is moving into the estate. He’s taking your place.” She let go of my collar and turned toward the door. “You actually gave him the door code…” Before I could finish the sentence, a sudden, hot rush surged from the back of my throat. I coughed violently, and a spray of dark crimson blood splattered across the faded linoleum. Cynthia stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around, her brow furrowing as she stared at me with a cold sneer. “You missed your calling, Jesse. You should have been an actor. Did you actually prepare a fake blood pack? You’ll do anything for money, won’t you? Did you put on this kind of show for Naomi Albright, too?” She thought it was a trick. But I knew the reality: my fragile body couldn’t handle the strain of these emotional storms. That single fit had drained what little life I had left. Clawing my way onto the edge of the mattress, I managed to stand, gripping the bed frame for support. I snatched the velvet box from the floor and hurled it at her. “Get your trash out of here! You and Tyler can both rot! I’m still breathing—don’t you dare ruin my home!” Cynthia let out a dark, mocking laugh. “You think you still have a home? Tomorrow, I’m having Tyler set up right across from your breakfast cart. The more miserable you are, the happier I’ll be!” A blinding wave of fury washed over me, and another deep cough tore a fresh mouthful of blood from my lips. My vision began to dim. “Cynthia… you don’t know the first thing about love. Did you ever bother to look into why I went to the Albrights? Do you honestly believe those loan sharks hounding your father just magically grew a conscience and walked away?!” “You’ve spent years treating me like dirt… Cynthia, you are going to regret this for the rest of your life!” Crimson stained my shirt front, pooling fast. The sneer wiped clean off Cynthia’s face. Panic took hold of her, her body trembling violently as she lunged forward to catch my collapsing frame. Her voice cracked, barely recognizable. “Jesse! Jesse, look at me! Don’t close your eyes, please… I’m taking you to the hospital right now!”

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My mother passed away early, leaving me in the care of my three billionaire uncles. The oldest, Charles, is an AI tech mogul. The middle, Alistair, runs the largest fine art and antique auction house in the country. The youngest, Brody, is a culinary empire giant. These three powerhouse bachelors have spoiled me rotten, single-handedly raising me to be a thoroughly useless heiress. I fully expected to spend the rest of my life coasting as a luxury-class slacker. Until last night, right before bed, when I was dragged into a bizarre group chat titled The Underworld Cannon Fodder Support Group. The pinned announcement flashed my name in dripping, neon-red numbers: [Member: Maeve Callahan. Time remaining until forced offline: 30 days.] [Cause of Death: Fatal car crash plunge into the ocean, orchestrated by three Destined Heroines.] I thought it was a spam bot or some elaborate prank. But then, three candid photos popped up in the chat. The first was taken in Charles’s office. The timestamp read 11:40 PM. A woman in a cream trench coat carrying two coffees was smiling as she pushed the door open. Below it was a line of text: Victoria, 31, Stanford PhD, Lead Algorithm Engineer at Callahan Tech. Transferred three weeks ago. Note: The girl on page three of Charles’s high school yearbook. My heart skipped a beat. Sleep vanished instantly. The second photo was Alistair’s private appraisal room. A woman in an elegant, deep-emerald silk dress was leaning in close to whisper in Alistair’s ear, their faces mere inches apart. Isabel, Alistair’s high school sweetheart. Recently left her post at the British Museum to become the auction house’s chief appraiser. The third was even more direct. Outside Brody’s townhouse, a woman with a high ponytail was hauling two large duffel bags, smiling brighter than the morning sun. Note: Cassidy, the “tomboy best friend” Brody swore was like a sister. Just moved in next door under the guise of starting a joint restaurant venture. The group announcement scrolled on mercilessly: [These three women will collaborate to eliminate the host within a month to secure their hold on the Callahan fortune and affection. Meanwhile, your love-struck uncles, blinded by nostalgia, remain entirely oblivious.] [Once the host is dead, they will divide the Callahan estate, and their personal influence will skyrocket.] I stared at the screen, my fingers hovering over the dial button to call Charles. But I hesitated. … What would I even say? “Hey Uncle Charles, it’s 1:00 AM, and a ghost chat told me the girl from your yearbook is going to murder me”? With his hyper-rational, tech-CEO brain, he’d have me booked for a full brain CT scan and a mandatory mental health retreat by morning. Alistair would laugh and ask if I’d been watching too many psychological thrillers. Brody would call Cassidy over to cook me a warm meal and tell me to stop drinking iced energy drinks before bed. I tossed the phone onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t fight them directly. I had to outsmart them. They wanted to play a game? Fine. I would simply turn my three starry-eyed uncles into spinning tops that only rotated around me. The next morning at ten, wearing deep dark circles under my eyes, I stormed into the Callahan Tech high-rise. As the elevator let me out on the penthouse suite, Charles’s secretary, Frank, greeted me with a warm smile. “Morning, Miss Maeve. Mr. Callahan just finished his morning brief—” “Frank,” I interrupted, “what’s in the empty suite right next to my uncle’s office?” Frank blinked, startled. “That’s reserved for incoming executives. It’s currently vacant. Why?” “I’m leasing it. Actually, I’m buying it.” Frank froze as if someone had hit pause on his life. “Buying it? For what?” “A studio,” I said, entirely serious. “Music production. Heavy metal.” His mouth opened, but no words came out. I didn’t wait for him to recover. I pushed past him and opened the double doors to Charles’s office. Charles sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, reviewing a stack of data sheets. His gold wire-rimmed glasses caught the morning light, giving him a clean, untouchable look. At thirty-six, he easily carried the effortless grace of someone ten years younger. Hearing the door, he looked up. When he saw it was me, he set his pen down. “What are you doing here at this hour? Have you eaten?” “Yes,” I said, hopping onto the corner of his desk and swinging my legs. “Uncle Charles, I’m getting into music.” “Alright.” He looked back down at his documents. “What kind?” “Heavy metal.” The tip of his pen paused on the paper. “Where?” “Right next door.” Before Charles could reply, there was a soft knock, and the office door opened. “Mr. Callahan, I have the revised system architecture report—” Victoria walked in, wearing a crisp cream silk blouse, her dark hair draped over her shoulder. She held a folder in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other. Her gaze lingered on me for a fraction of a second before she offered a warm, polished smile. “And who is this?” “My niece, Maeve,” Charles said without looking up. “Maeve, say hello to Victoria.” Victoria’s smile widened slightly, savoring the polite distance of the introduction. “Hi, Victoria,” I said, beaming. Then I turned right back to my uncle. “So, about the room next door…” “Go see Frank for the paperwork,” Charles said, taking the folder from Victoria. “Make a list of whatever equipment you need. Run the invoice through company procurement.” Victoria’s grip on the coffee cups tightened ever so slightly. I slid off the desk, blew my uncle a kiss, and headed for the exit. As I passed Victoria, I caught her eye. Her smile remained perfectly composed, but beneath the surface, a tiny crack of irritation had opened. I didn’t miss it. The drum kit arrived three days later. Along with it came two electric guitars, a bass, and a pair of professional studio monitors standing nearly six feet tall. I timed my practice sessions to start exactly during Charles’s “deep focus hours”—two to four in the afternoon. When the first bass kick echoed, the entire floor’s glass partitions began to hum. The leaves of the potted plants in the corridor visibly trembled. In less than four minutes, the sharp click of high heels sounded outside. Victoria stood in my doorway, her smile still intact but looking distinctly strained. “Maeve, your uncle is running a critical algorithmic simulation right now. The noise is a bit…” “What?” I pulled one ear of my headphones off, tilting my head. “Victoria, what did you say? I can’t hear you over the track.” She took a slow, controlled breath. “I asked if you could turn it down.” “Turn it down?” I pointed at the massive monitors. “Have you ever heard quiet heavy metal? That’s not metal, Victoria. That’s a lullaby.” Her jaw tightened. Right then, the door to the executive office swung open. Charles stepped out, his suit immaculate, holding a sheet of messy scribbles. Victoria turned immediately, her voice softening. “Mr. Callahan, I was just trying to work things out with Maeve—” Charles ignored her, walking straight up to me. He took the drumsticks from my hands. Then, he sat down and played a flawless, driving four-four metal rhythm. Clean, precise, and heavy. I stared at him, my eyes wide. “You actually know how to play?” “College band,” he said, handing the sticks back and straightening his sleeves. “I’ll move my focus hours to the evenings. Practice whenever you want during the day.” He turned and went back inside his office, shutting the door behind him. Victoria stood frozen in the hallway, looking like a statue that had suddenly lost power. I spun the drumstick in my hand, caught it, and gave her a polite nod. “Sorry to disrupt your work, Victoria. Take care.” That evening, my phone buzzed. [28 Days Remaining. Threat levels updated: Target Victoria’s status toward the host has changed from ‘irrelevant bystander’ to ‘active threat’. Please exercise caution.] I rested the phone against my chest, staring at the ceiling as a slow smile spread across my face. An active threat. That was much better. If I didn’t get in her way, I’d never break her game. Just as I finished adjusting the cymbals, another notification popped up. [27 Days Remaining. Target Isabel will have lunch with Alistair in the VIP Appraisal Room today at 12:00 PM. Agenda: Establishing a joint valuation studio.] I stared at the screen for three seconds, grabbed my keys, and headed straight to the garage. It was time to pay Alistair a visit. Alistair’s auction house occupied the top floors of a sleek glass tower downtown. As I walked down the quiet, carpeted gallery hall, I caught sight of Isabel. She was carrying two small gourmet dessert bowls toward Alistair’s private appraisal room, wearing a tailored emerald-green dress, her hair swept up elegantly. “Maeve?” She stopped, looking surprised before offering a soft smile. “What brings you here?” “Looking for Uncle Alistair,” I replied, flashing a bright, innocent grin. “Hello, Aunt Isabel.” The word Aunt made Isabel’s hand stiffen visibly on the dessert tray. She was thirty-four, only two years younger than Alistair. Calling her “Aunt” was mathematically reasonable, but socially devastating. She kept her composure, though her smile slipped a fraction of a millimeter. “You can just call me Isabel, dear.” “Of course, Aunt Isabel,” I said earnestly, nodding. “He’s inside, right? I’ll let myself in. Don’t let me keep you.” With a quick step, I slipped past her, leaving her and her desserts out in the hallway. Inside, Alistair was leaning over a delicate blue-and-white porcelain vase with intricate lotus scrolls. He was a man of quiet, vintage elegance—equally comfortable in a tailored three-piece suit or a relaxed silk smoking jacket. Hearing the door, he didn’t look up. “Just set it down, Isabel.” “Uncle Alistair, it’s me.” He raised his head, his eyes warming instantly. “Maeve. What are you doing here?” I sat down on the antique rosewood chair across from his work table. “I’ve decided to get into metal sculpting.” “Oh?” “Industrial style,” I said, leaning forward. “Welding, scrap metal, blowtorches. The whole thing.” He set his magnifying glass down. “And where is this studio going to be?” “Right here.” His eyebrows rose. “This is a climate-controlled secure vault, Maeve.” “I know,” I said, entirely reasonable. “But I need inspiration. This room is practically dripping with history. If I stay here for a month, I’ll produce ten masterpieces.” Alistair stared at me for a few seconds, then let out a low laugh. “Fine.” “Fine?” “Yes,” he said, picking up his glass again. “The east wing storage is empty. I’ll have the staff move some welding equipment in. But there’s one rule.” “What?” “Touch a vase, and I lock you out.” “Deal.” Just then, the door pushed open. Isabel entered, carrying the now slightly cooled desserts, her expression soft and accommodating. “Alistair, I brought these up from the cafe downstairs—” Her eyes fell on the desk, landing on the joint-appraisal proposal she had spent two weeks drafting. It was currently buried under a messy, hand-drawn sketch of “Maeve’s Industrial Art Lab” taking up the entire east wing. “Alistair,” Isabel said, her voice dropping to a gentle, pleading register, “I thought we discussed using the east wing for our joint-venture office?” Alistair didn’t look up from his ancient text. “I changed my mind.” “Changed your mind?” “Maeve needs the space,” he said simply. “We can delay your project, or find another location.” Isabel’s fingers turned white against the edge of the dessert tray. I leaned over the table, looking helpful. “Aunt Isabel, those desserts look delicious. Can I have one?” She handed a bowl over with a stiff, mechanical movement. I took a bite and sighed happily. “Wow, so sweet. Uncle Alistair, do you want a taste?” Alistair took the spoon from my hand, sampled a tiny bit, and frowned. “Too sweet. Isabel, you know I don’t eat sugar.” Isabel’s face went pale. They had spent years together in high school, yet she had forgotten his basic aversion to sweets. Or perhaps she was still holding onto the memory of a seventeen-year-old boy who would eat sugar just to please her. But people change. Only those blinded by nostalgia stay in the past. As I left the auction house, my phone buzzed again. [26 Days Remaining. Target Isabel’s status updated: Alert. Host has successfully intervened in the second territory.] I slipped the phone into my pocket, intending to call a car, when Brody’s name flashed on the screen. “Maeve!” his booming voice echoed through the speaker. “The soft opening for the new restaurant is tomorrow. Come get some food! Oh, and Cassidy’s here. You two need to get to know each other—she’s my absolute ride-or-die.” I stared at the screen and smiled. Perfect timing. It was time to meet the third player. Brody’s new restaurant occupied a massive three-story corner space in the city’s trendiest culinary district. I arrived at four in the afternoon, an hour before the private soft opening. As my car pulled up, I saw Cassidy standing by the entrance, directing workers hanging a massive custom sign. She was wearing a white chef’s coat, her sleeves rolled up to reveal toned forearms, her high ponytail swinging as she laughed. She spotted me immediately and walked over. “Well, look who it is! Maeve, right? Brody’s little princess!” She reached out to hug me, but I took a step back, smoothly avoiding the contact. “Hello, Aunt Cassidy,” I said, offering a polite smile. “Is Uncle Brody inside?” Her hand remained suspended in the air for a second before she drew it back, her smile tightening. “Just call me Cassidy, sweetie. ‘Aunt’ sounds so formal. Your uncle and I grew up together. If we’re talking about seniority—” “But respect is important,” I interrupted, keeping my voice sweet. “I lost my parents young, so Uncle Brody has basically been a father to me. Since you’re his childhood friend, that makes you family. Like an aunt.” The corner of Cassidy’s mouth twitched. She was thirty-two, a year younger than Brody. Being labeled an aunt clearly wasn’t part of her plan. Inside, Brody was behind the open kitchen counter, tossing a heavy copper wok. When he saw me, he nearly dropped his spatula. “Maeve! You’re here! Are you hungry? Let me make you some garlic ribs!” Brody was the most rugged of my uncles—standing six-foot-three with athletic shoulders—but the moment he stepped into a kitchen, he became a gentle giant. I sat at the counter. “Uncle Brody, I have an idea.” “Let’s hear it.” “I want to study molecular gastronomy.” “Sure, sounds fun.” “I want to take over your kitchen.” Brody’s wok came to a halt. “Take over?” “Just for a week,” I said, putting on my best pleading look. “I want to set up an experimental lab. Liquid nitrogen ice cream, reverse-spherification caviar, things like that. I’ll give it back to you in perfect condition.” “But the soft opening—” “Can we delay it for a week?” I leaned in. “Please, Uncle Brody?” Brody sighed, waving his spatula in defeat. “Fine, fine. Whatever you want.” “Brody.” Cassidy’s voice cut through from behind us. She walked over, holding a tray of prepped ingredients, her expression strained. “We’ve been planning this opening for three months. The food critics are already booked. A delay is going to look highly unprofessional.” “Then we’ll reschedule them,” Brody said without looking up from his stove. “My niece wants the kitchen. Everything else can wait.” Cassidy’s grip on the tray turned her knuckles white. I turned to her with a helpful smile. “Don’t worry, Aunt Cassidy. I’ll have Uncle Charles’s secretary handle the critics. We’ll pay them triple their appearance fees and give them VIP passes to the Callahan hotels. They’ll be happy to wait.” She forced a laugh. “There’s no need to go to such trouble—” “It’s no trouble at all,” I said warmly. “After all, it’s your hard work we’re talking about.” I made sure to emphasize the “Aunt” once more. By seven that evening, I was in the kitchen directing a crew installing liquid nitrogen tanks when Cassidy walked in carrying a covered bowl. “Maeve,” she said softly, “your uncle simmered some chicken broth earlier. I brought a bowl over for you. Drink it while it’s hot.” I took the bowl and set it down on the stainless steel counter without tasting it. “Aunt Cassidy,” I said, looking up at her. “Can I ask you something?” “Of course.” “You and my uncle grew up together, right?” “We did.” “Then you must know about his severe peanut allergy.” Cassidy’s expression froze. She didn’t know. Brody’s allergy had developed during his college years, a period when she had been living abroad and they had lost touch for nearly six years. Her entire “ride-or-die” dynamic was built on childhood memories that no longer matched reality. “I—” “And,” I continued, pointing to the bowl, “you didn’t ask about his dietary restrictions before bringing this, did you? There are green onions in this broth.” “Yes… just a few.” “Brody hasn’t touched green onions in twenty years,” I said gently. Cassidy stood there, her face flushing red, then pale. Before she could speak, the kitchen doors swung open. Brody walked in, his expression uncharacteristically dark. Behind him stood Charles and Alistair. Three of the city’s most powerful men stood lined up at the kitchen entrance. Charles, looking cold behind his gold-rimmed glasses, fixed his gaze on Cassidy. “Who authorized that broth?” Alistair adjusted his cuffs, his voice deceptively calm. “I was just told downstairs that someone was calling my niece a ‘little princess’?” Brody untied his apron, tossing it onto the counter, his voice flat. “Cassidy, the three of us need to talk.”

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My sister and I have birthdays only two days apart. For her birthday, there was always a tiered cake from the French bakery uptown. For mine, there was a single, stale grocery-store muffin. But this year, my eighteenth, my parents finally promised me a real cake. A chocolate one with buttercream frosting, just like the ones they got for Lottie. So, on the evening of my birthday, I waited. And waited. But there was nothing. No pink boxes on the counter, no sweet scent of sugar baking in the oven. I finally walked into the kitchen, swallowing my pride. “Mom, where’s my cake?” My mother didn’t even look up from the stove, her face tight with immediate irritation. “Didn’t I buy you those blueberry muffins yesterday?” “But you promised—” “Do you have any idea how hard your father works?” she snapped, slamming a pot down. “You want us to throw money away on fancy bakeries when we have bills to pay?” Before I could speak, Lottie glided into the kitchen, her voice dripping with soft, patronizing concern. “Wren, sweetie, you know how tight things are. You have to be understanding.” Even Connor, my childhood best friend who had been hanging out in the living room, chimed in. “Yeah, Wren. Your mom made you a fried egg this morning. Don’t be ungrateful.” I looked at the three of them, and a cold, heavy weight sank into my chest. Every year, Lottie got a custom cake, a new designer dress, and a dinner reservation at a steakhouse downtown. I had spent eighteen years in her shadow, eating day-old muffins, and I had never once complained. How much more understanding was I supposed to be? I didn’t argue. I just turned around, walked back to my tiny room, and shut the door. I took a single, thin wax candle and drove it straight into the middle of the stale muffin. As I reached for the matches, I made a silent vow. Next year, I would be gone. I would buy my own cake. I would never rely on any of them again. … But before I could even strike a match, my bedroom door burst open. My mother marched in. Without a word, she snatched the muffin off my desk and hurled it onto the hardwood floor. “Wren, who do you think you are?” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “Walking out on us? Giving me that attitude in my own house?” The muffin shattered into dry, pathetic crumbs, scattering across the dusty floor. Sticky. Ruined. “I don’t have an attitude,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I just think you’re unfair. You’ve always been unfair.” “Unfair?” My mother gasped, as if I had slapped her. “Wren, I carried you for nine months. I brought you into this world, and this is how you speak to me? You are a curse. An ungrateful curse.” My father rushed in behind her, his face flushed with anger. Before I could move, he shoved me hard. I lost my footing and fell, my hands scraping against the floorboards. “Wren! How dare you speak to your mother like that?” he yelled. My palm pressed directly into the sticky remains of the smashed muffin. Tears welled in my eyes, hot and bitter. “A curse.” That was what they called me. Growing up, because Lottie was the beautiful, brilliant golden child, she got the sweet, juicy tips of the strawberries while I was left with the sour, white stems. When Lottie sneezed, they panicked and took her to the emergency room for a full workup. When I had a fever so high my teeth chattered, they handed me an expired bottle of Motrin from the back of the medicine cabinet and told me to sleep it off. Lottie took dance, piano, and tennis lessons. The only reason I was allowed to take a basic art class was because my aunt had secretly paid for it. My mother even kept a physical ledger—a worn black notebook where she recorded every penny she had ever spent on me, starting with a fifty-cent pack of gum I begged for when I was four years old. But if you added up every single entry in that book over eighteen years, it didn’t even reach three hundred dollars. Meanwhile, Lottie’s closet was lined with designer handbags, each one costing thousands. But I was the one who was a financial burden. Lottie stepped into the room, looking down at me with pity. “Wren, don’t be mad at Mom and Dad. They work so hard. Look, if you really want a cake, I’ll go buy you one right now. I’ll use my own allowance.” She made a show of grabbing her purse, but Connor immediately stepped in, catching her by the arm. “Lottie, don’t,” Connor said, glaring at me. “Someone as ungrateful as her doesn’t deserve it.” My parents nodded in agreement. “She’s right, Lottie. Don’t waste your money on her.” I stared up at them from the floor. The last lingering warmth in my chest died. With a heavy thud, my father slammed the door shut, leaving me alone in the dark. I sat there for a long time, my hands shaking. Finally, I pulled out my phone and logged into the state’s academic portal. Because Lottie was already in college, my parents didn’t even realize what day it was. Today was the day the standardized state exam scores were released. A few seconds later, the webpage loaded. I scrolled down to my name. There, in bold letters at the top of the screen, was my score. Underneath, a small system note read: “Rank: 1st in State.” I quickly pressed my hand over my mouth, choking back a sob. It meant everything. It meant that starting today, I could use my credentials to get high-paying tutoring jobs. I could support myself. The invisible chains binding me to this house were finally starting to snap. I messaged a classmate, asking them to post the state-wide honors list to our school’s parent group chat. Almost immediately, the sound of loud laughter drifted in from the living room. I heard my mother’s voice, thick with dramatic, emotional tears. “Oh, Lottie, you’re such an angel. To think you used your own money to buy us a gift on “your” birthday week. Why is it that two girls from the same womb can be so entirely different?” I sat on the edge of my bed, silent. Of course Lottie could afford gifts. Her monthly allowance was a thousand dollars. Mine was ten. I began packing my things into a small duffel bag when my mother knocked sharply on the door. “Wren? What are you doing in there? Get out here and clear the table. Your sister just got her nails done and can’t do the dishes.” My stomach growled painfully. I opened the door. The dining table was covered in the remnants of a massive seafood boil—empty lobster shells, crab claws, and pools of butter. My mother pointed at a plate with a few cold, broken pieces of crab meat. “There. Eat that. Lest you go around telling people we starve you.” I stared at the plate, my throat tightening. “I can’t eat that,” I said quietly. “I’m allergic to shellfish.” When I was two, I had ended up in the ER after eating shrimp. The bill had been a hundred dollars, and my mother had complained about it for years, logging it into her black ledger. Yet, she couldn’t remember the allergy itself. “Well, if you’re not going to eat, start cleaning,” she snapped. “Lottie can’t stand a messy house.” “I’m allergic,” I repeated, staring directly into her eyes, desperately hoping to see a flicker of guilt, or at least recognition. She blinked, caught off guard for a fraction of a second, before her face hardened again. “Well, you should have said something sooner. How are your father and I supposed to read your mind?” I gathered the greasy plates and carried them into the kitchen. I turned on the faucet, letting the rush of running water drown out her voice as she continued to mutter complaints from the hallway. I “had” told them. I had told them dozens of times. But just like the birthday cake, they chose to forget. Or maybe they remembered and simply didn’t care. When you don’t care about someone, forgetting is easy. By the time I finished the dishes, my father was opening the front door to a delivery courier. He signed for two packages, carrying them into the living room, and tossed one onto the couch near me. “Here,” he said carelessly. “That dress you wanted for your birthday.” A spark of genuine hope flared in my chest. I reached for the box, but before I could open it, Lottie let out a squeal of delight. “Dad! Oh my god! How did you know I wanted this bag?” “A father knows,” he said, puffing out his chest. “It’s been sold out for weeks, but I made sure to get it for my favorite girl.” “Thank you, Dad!” Lottie threw her arms around him. She ripped open the elegant, ribbon-tied box to reveal a designer leather tote—the one endorsed by her favorite actress. It was easily a three-thousand-dollar bag. I stood frozen, my fingers tightening around the cardboard mailer in my hands. My nail tore through the cheap, thin plastic packaging. I looked down through the tear. Inside was a synthetic, poorly made dress, and right across the front was a massive, gaping rip along the seam. A hot tear slipped down my cheek, landing on the torn fabric. My father glanced over at me, his tone sour. “Some people in this house could learn a thing or two about gratitude. I buy her a gift, and she doesn’t even have the decency to say thank you.” I kept my eyes glued to the floor, my jaw clenched. Say thank you? For a ruined piece of trash? Did he think I hadn’t seen his phone screen when he signed for the delivery? The cheap dress had been ordered from a discount clearance site. $9.99, free shipping. Sensing the tension, Lottie quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. “Come on, let’s go out. We don’t want to ruin Dad’s mood.” She leaned in close, whispering to me and Connor. “Let’s go to The Velvet Lounge. I have a VIP annual pass.” I paused. The Velvet Lounge was the most exclusive club uptown. A monthly membership cost hundreds of dollars; an annual pass was thousands. Our parents would never allow Lottie to go to a place like that. “Lottie,” I asked, “how do you have an annual pass? Mom and Dad would lose their minds.” Lottie glanced at Connor, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink. “Connor got it for me,” she murmured. “As an early birthday present.” I looked down at the cheap, tarnished wire bracelet on my wrist. It was my birthday present from Connor, bought from a dollar-store bin. He had told me he was completely broke and couldn’t afford anything else. I had spent the last year wondering why he was always short on cash despite working a part-time job after school. I had worried about him. I had even given him every single dollar of my savings—$1,012—money I had painstakingly saved from odd tutoring jobs over three years. It hadn’t been much, but it was everything I had. And he had taken it to buy my sister a VIP pass to an exclusive lounge. Before I could process the betrayal, Lottie dragged me toward the car. When we arrived, Lottie immediately grabbed Connor’s hand and pulled him through the velvet ropes. I watched their retreating backs, the music pulsing through the heavy doors. I couldn’t do this. I turned to leave, but as I stepped away from the entrance, a heavily intoxicated man stumbled out of the shadows. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like iron. “Help! Thief!” he screamed, his breath reeking of cheap whiskey. “She stole my wallet! Somebody call the cops!” Dozens of eyes turned toward us. I struggled wildly, trying to wrench my arm free, but he only squeezed tighter, digging his fingers into my flesh. “Let go of me!” I cried, panic rising in my throat. Connor suddenly appeared, stepping between us and pushing the man back. “What do you think you’re doing?” Connor demanded. “She took it!” the drunk slurred, pointing a finger at me. “She stole my wallet right out of my pocket!” I shrank behind Connor, my entire body trembling with terror. But then, I felt Connor’s protective stance falter. The tension in his shoulders faded, and his grip on my hand began to loosen. He turned around to look at me. “Wren… is that true? Did you take it?” I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You don’t believe me? Connor, you’ve known me my whole life.” The drunk man stepped closer. “Let’s go. We’re going to the police station.” Lottie, standing safely behind Connor, sighed. “Wren, if you took his wallet, just give it back. Otherwise, Mom and Dad are going to have to get involved.” I looked at Connor, waiting for him to defend me. To say something. Anything. But he just looked away. I remembered when we were kids. My parents never gave me lunch money, so I used to sit alone, watching the other kids eat. When some money went missing from the classroom, the teacher had immediately suspected me. Back then, Connor had been the first to stand up, putting himself between me and the teacher’s accusations. It was the first time I had ever felt protected. The first time I felt like I mattered to someone. But that boy was gone. Half an hour later, we were all sitting in a sterile room at the local police precinct. The moment my father walked through the door, he didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t check to see if I was okay. He simply marched over and struck me across the face. “You absolute embarrassment!” he roared. My mother sank into a plastic chair nearby, her finger pointed at my face. “Wren! You have dragged our family name through the dirt! I wish to God I had never had you!” I fell back onto the cold linoleum floor. The chill seeped through my thin clothes, straight into my bones. My wrist was already turning a deep, ugly purple where the man had grabbed me. A slow trickle of blood dripped from my lip, staining the white tile like a blooming poppy. They hadn’t asked for my side of the story. They didn’t care about the bruises on my arms. They only cared about their pride. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. Seeing my reaction, the drunk man grew bolder. “She stole my wallet. There was three thousand dollars in cash in there. You pay me back tonight, or I press charges.” Lottie walked over, her voice soft and pleading. “Wren, please. Just give him the wallet. Stealing is wrong.” Connor stood by the door, his eyes cold. “Wren, I really didn’t think you’d sink this low.” I wiped the blood from my lip, staring up at him. “Sink this low? Connor, did any of you look for proof? Did anyone even think to look at the security cameras?” My father’s face turned purple with rage. “You shameless brat!” He kicked my leg, sending me sprawling across the floor again. “You deal with this yourself! Don’t expect your mother and me to clean up your mess!” My mother glared at me. “Give him the money, Wren. Don’t make us say it again.” A bitter smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I was stupid,” I whispered to myself. “I was stupid to think, even for a second, that any of you would stand by me.” I slowly pushed myself up. I pulled out my phone and began texting the few friends I had, desperately asking to borrow money. I managed to scrape together a thousand dollars from classmates. For the remaining two thousand, I opened a high-interest lending app on my phone and submitted an emergency application. Two thousand dollars, with interest, meant I would owe twenty-three hundred. Three hundred dollars was more than my allowance for the last three years combined. As soon as the transfer cleared, I sent the money to the man’s account. My parents didn’t wait. My father grabbed Lottie’s hand and started walking toward the exit. “Leave her,” my mother spit out, not even looking back. “With an attitude like that, I don’t have a second daughter.” After that night, they completely washed their hands of me. They packed their bags and took Lottie on a lavish vacation—first to Miami, then to a boutique resort in Sedona. They had money for luxury hotels. They had money for three-hundred-dollar dinners. But they had never had fifty dollars for my birthday cake. But the pain didn’t sting the way it used to. I was numb to it now. With my state test scores officially published, the offers for tutoring came pouring in. Parents of wealthy high schoolers were willing to pay premium hourly rates for the state’s top scholar. Within weeks, I paid back every dollar I owed my friends and cleared the balance on the lending app. Because of my academic standing, Columbia University offered me a full-tuition scholarship. All I needed to do now was save enough for my living expenses. On the day my parents and Lottie returned from their trip, I was sitting on the sofa in our living room, being interviewed live by a state news crew. When the front door opened and they walked in, carrying their expensive luggage, I smiled directly at the camera. “Oh, look,” I said, my voice sweet and clear. “My parents and sister are back.” I stood up, opening the door wider so the camera operator could get a clear shot. The lens focused on Lottie’s three-thousand-dollar designer bag. It captured my parents’ sun-bronzed, glowing faces, and the expensive linen clothes they had bought on vacation. And then, the camera panned back to me—standing in our cramped living room, wearing a cheap, synthetic dress with a visible rip sewn together by hand. The contrast was glaring, undeniable, and broadcast live to thousands of viewers.

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My mother was the housekeeper for the Whitmores. From the moment I was old enough to walk, Hudson Whitmore treated me as his shadow. In elementary school, while other kids went home to watch cartoons, I was dragged along to his private tutoring sessions. In middle school, I stood by him during a chaotic street fight. He walked away without a single scratch, but a stray wooden plank caught me right across the forehead. Hudson cried the entire time he carried me on his back, running to three different emergency rooms in the pouring rain. The wound eventually healed, but it left a permanent white scar. By high school, the age of sudden flushes and secret pining, Hudson fell hard for the school’s golden girl. With an infectious, bright-eyed excitement, he enlisted me to draft his love letters, pick up her favorite breakfasts, and help him select the perfect gifts. I became his silent, loyal accomplice—a shadow he couldn’t shake—forced to choreograph every beat of his courtship. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, right before our final college prep exams, he turned to m and said: “Isla mentioned she’s always wanted a personal assistant like I have. Why don’t you go help her out for a few months?” For the first time in my life, I said no. He frowned, annoyed. “Cassie, don’t you love me? Why can’t you just do this one little thing for me?” The second the words left his mouth, he froze, realizing exactly what he had let slip. I looked at him, slowly. He knew. He had always known. … Loving Hudson Whitmore was the most agonizing, helpless secret of my youth. He was the golden heir to a real estate empire; I was just the stray dog living under his family’s roof. I was three when we first met. My parents had just divorced, and my mother, red-eyed and trembling, carried me into the Whitmore estate. Four-year-old Hudson sat on the plush living room rug playing with Lego bricks. He frowned up at my mother and said, “I don’t like crying kids. Make her be quiet.” My mother quickly pulled me close, bowing her head to apologize to the four-year-old heir. Then, she ushered me into her small, windowless bedroom off the kitchen. For many years, that windowless room was my world, and I learned to be incredibly quiet. I trailed behind Hudson like a keychain dangling from his backpack—a convenient, disposable fixture in his life. In elementary school, he would grab my arm as soon as the bell rang. “Advanced math tutoring today,” he’d announce, taking it for granted. I hated those classes. They were designed for elite kids. The instructors flew through the material, I struggled to keep up, and nobody ever spoke to me—except to whisper giggles and call me the “charity case.” But Hudson refused to let me leave. Once, while packing up my bag, I gathered the courage to ask him in a small voice, “Why do you always make me come with you?” Without looking up from his textbooks, he muttered, “Because I get bored alone.” Because he got bored. That single, selfish whim tethered my entire childhood to his side. Whenever classmates asked who I was, Hudson would offer a dismissive shrug: “Just the housekeeper’s kid. My shadow.” The moment those words were spoken, the pitying or contemptuous stares would settle over me like heavy dust. My elementary school years were entirely defined by those looks. Once, I asked my mother if we could rent a place of our own. She rubbed her calloused hands together, looking so terribly conflicted as she sat on our narrow single bed, scanning cheap rental listings on her phone late into the night. I didn’t sleep a wink either. The next morning, I pretended it was all a joke. “I was just being silly yesterday,” I told her, offering a practiced smile. “The Whitmores’ place is great, and Hudson is really nice to me.” I don’t know if she believed me, but she smiled, stroked my hair with her rough fingers, and hurried to the kitchen to prepare Hudson’s breakfast. I understood from a very young age: Hudson was gold, and I was dirt. The chasm between us was insurmountable. To fall in love with him despite knowing this was nothing short of emotional masochism. But love is rarely logical, and when the shift happened, I was entirely off guard. It was our freshman year of high school when Hudson got into a fight with a group of older boys from the vocational school down the street. In the chaotic blur of fists, someone swung a heavy wooden bat toward his head. I didn’t think; my body just moved on instinct. I threw myself over him. The next second, a blinding agony struck my temple, the world went black, and warm blood began pouring down my face. Everything dissolved into panic. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Hudson scream my name: “Cassie!” In the dim streetlights, I saw his beautiful, terrified face. He scooped me onto his back and ran through the downpour, trying three different emergency rooms before finding one that could take me. When I finally woke up, the first thing I saw was his bloodshot, tear-swollen eyes. He was kneeling by the hospital bed, completely drenched, his voice raw and cracking. “Does it hurt?” It hurt terribly. But seeing him look so utterly broken, I shook my head, entirely under his spell. The doctor told us there would be a permanent scar. Hudson sat in silence for a long time before whispering, “Cassie, I’m sorry.” It was the very first time he had ever apologized to me. Watching this proud, rumpled boy crying over me, my heart felt strangely, foolishly light. “It’s not your fault,” I whispered back. “The wood was just too hard.” As high school progressed, Hudson grew even more magnetic and popular, yet he still demanded my presence at every turn. He even playfully threatened me, insisting I had to get into Columbia University with him. When I agreed, his smile was so radiant it eclipsed everything around us, making my chest tighten with a dangerous hope. I believed this was our forever. I actually allowed myself to dream. Then, during our junior year, a transfer student arrived: Isla. She was brilliant, effortlessly beautiful, and immediately knocked Hudson off his throne as the top humanities student in our class. At first, Hudson dismissed her as a try-hard, but soon, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. One evening during study hall, Hudson stopped me. His ears were flushed a deep crimson as he slid a pale blue envelope across the desk. “Cassie, read this for me. Tell me if the letter sounds right.” My heart dropped into a hollow pit, but I reached out and took it. “Who’s it for?” “Isla.” In that exact moment, the old scar on my forehead flared, aching as if the wound had been ripped wide open again. I breathed through the pain, kept my face perfectly still, and said, “Okay.” From then on, I was the architect of his courtship. When he struggled with his prose, I polished his love letters. When he didn’t know what pastries she liked, I quietly found out. When he couldn’t choose a gift, I spent hours scanning storefronts with him. I swallowed the bitter, metallic taste of jealousy, wearing a placid mask of indifference while managing the logistics of his romance. I couldn’t let a single soul—least of all Hudson—discover my pathetic, unrequited, teenage pining. And so, for an entire year, I carried my own heart’s execution orders to the girl he wanted. But even as our final exams loomed, Isla hadn’t accepted him. Hudson grew restless and irritable. One afternoon, he sighed and said, “Isla told me she thinks it’s so cool that I have someone looking out for me all the time. Cassie, why don’t you go be her assistant for a few months? Just to help me win her over.” The air in the room suddenly felt freezing. My fingers turned numb. I looked at him, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t nod. Oblivious to the shift, his tone remained casually cruel. “I mean, what’s the difference? If Isla and I end up together, she’ll basically be your boss anyway.” I lifted my chin, my voice barely a whisper as I spoke the words I should have said years ago. “No. I won’t do that.” Hudson blinked, stunned. His expression hardened. “What do you mean, no?” I couldn’t begin to explain the quiet, humiliating agony of my teenage heart. I merely repeated, “I don’t want to.” He stared down at me, his voice dropping an octave. “It’s a simple favor, Cassie. Why are you making a federal case out of it?” I turned to walk away, but his hand shot out, wrapping tightly around my wrist. In the tense silence, a cold, mocking laugh escaped his lips. “Come on. You’re in love with me, aren’t you? Why can’t you do this one little thing for me if you care so much?” Every muscle in my body locked. My deepest, most fragile secret had been ripped open and exposed to the harsh light of day. I couldn’t even attempt to cover it. I just stared at him in sheer, horrified disbelief. He knew. He had always known how I felt, yet he still made me write those letters. He still made me buy those gifts. To him, my devotion wasn’t something to protect—it was a cheap tool he could exploit. Seeing the blood drain from my face, his smugness vanished, replaced by sudden panic. He dropped my wrist as if it burned him. “Look… if you don’t want to, forget it. Just go home and study. Don’t forget, we promised we’re going to Columbia together.” I didn’t say a word. Go to Columbia? For what? To spend another four years playing the unpaid maid to his perfect love story with Isla? That afternoon, I left school without waiting for him for the very first time. Halfway down the block, Isla stepped out to block my path. “I heard you and Hudson had a fight because of me,” she said gently. “You don’t need to do that. I’m never going to date him anyway. I like someone else.” Gathering her courage, she looked toward the shadow of a maple tree a few yards away. A boy was leaning against the trunk under the dim streetlight. Even in the gloom, I recognized him instantly: Wright Mercer, the brilliant, quiet valedictorian of the science department. He was aloof, strikingly handsome, with a sharp, guarded edge—like fresh snow on a high mountain peak. He stood in the cool evening air, his calm eyes fixed on us. Isla’s cheeks flushed. “So,” she whispered, “please don’t let him make you feel small on my account.” With that, she turned and hurried away. Wright didn’t leave. Instead, he began walking toward me. I stood frozen; though we shared a few classes, we had barely spoken, aside from the occasional times I’d asked him to explain a difficult physics problem. He stopped a foot away, looking down at my tear-rimmed eyes. His voice was level, almost detached. “Stop helping other people chase after what they want.” He paused. “It’s a bad look on you.” A sharp, bitter ache flared in my chest. “No wonder he barely talks,” I thought miserably. “When he does, he’s incredibly blunt.” I turned to leave, but then I spotted Hudson stepping out of the school gates, scanning the street anxiously. My stomach dropped; I couldn’t face him right now. Before I could panic, Wright shifted his weight, his tall frame perfectly blocking me from Hudson’s line of sight. “…Thank you,” I murmured. “Don’t mention it,” Wright replied, his tone as steady as ever. “Are you really going to Columbia?” “I…” “Columbia is fine for humanities, but Emory has a far better program for your major. Columbia isn’t your best option.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hudson give up his search and head down the street. I took a step back from Wright. “I know.” When I got home, I helped my mother prep dinner for the Whitmores before retreating to my windowless room. On my desk lay a fresh stack of scientific journals. It was Hudson’s classic way of offering an olive branch. When we were kids and I couldn’t afford books, he would hand down his old ones. But those gestures were never free. They were always offered right after he had done something particularly thoughtless, a quiet transaction to buy my forgiveness. He had always treated me this way—even his charity carried a price tag. If I kept the journals, it meant I was erasing the slate. No matter how deeply he had cut me. The next morning, Hudson was waiting for me in the dining room, looking exactly as he always did. In his mind, because the journals were on my desk, all was forgiven. He fell right back into his old, demanding rhythm. “Why were you walking with Wright Mercer yesterday?” he asked, pouring himself orange juice. “He’s a stick in the mud. What could you possibly have to say to him? Stay away from him.” I quieted for a beat. “That’s between Wright and me.” Hudson’s brow furrowed. “Between you and him? Since when do you have secrets from me? Besides, what could you possibly have going on with him? You’re “my” shadow.” I remained silent. His tone grew frantic, a note of desperation creeping in. “Are you still mad at me? Cassie… I didn’t mean it like that yesterday.” “I know,” I said softly. “It’s fine.” Once the illusion is shattered, nothing really matters anymore. I thought about those hand-me-down books. I used to treasure them, treating them like a quiet, private language between us. Every time he gave me one, a foolish warmth would bloom in my chest, followed quickly by guilt. I had told myself I was projecting, that I was the one making things complicated because of my unrequited feelings. I assumed Hudson was just being friendly, entirely unaware of my heart. But if he had known all along… then those gestures weren’t innocent. They were deliberate, cruel breadcrumbs. While I was agonizing over every brush of his shoulder, what had he been doing? Standing on the sidelines, amused by my devotion? Watching my quiet longing, my quiet grief, my entire universe revolving around his whims? It made me sick to my stomach to think about it. Hudson let out a sigh of relief. “I knew you wouldn’t hold a grudge. You’re not like that. Listen, once exams are over, we’re moving to Boston. My dad bought an apartment near Columbia, and there’s a room in it for you. Isla will probably move in too, and we can all go to class together. If you miss your mom, I’ll have my mom send her up to Boston too. She can cook for the three of us every day.” A cold, hollow laugh bubbled up in my throat. “We’ll see,” I said. I took a step back, opened the door, and walked out ahead of him. The final exams came and went in a blur. Even after graduation, Isla still hadn’t given Hudson a chance. Yet he kept trying to pull me into his efforts. I couldn’t understand his obsession with inserting me into their dynamic. If he bought a gift for Isla, he’d buy a duplicate for me. When we sat down for meals, he spent more time watching my reactions than hers. When he wanted to play video games with her, he insisted I log on to play support. One evening, I refused. Wright was on the line, helping me compare university programs. Hudson frowned, hovering by my door. “Who are you talking to? You’ve been on the phone for an hour.” “Wright,” I said evenly. “We’re discussing college applications.” “Why are you still talking to him? I told you to stay away from that guy,” Hudson said, his voice tightening with possessiveness. “And what is there to discuss anyway? You’re going to Columbia. The apartment is already set up. True, your room there doesn’t have a window, but you’re used to that, right? Hang up the phone and come play with us.” I glanced at the digital clock on my desk. Three days until our scores were released. Seventy days until the start of the fall semester. Not much longer now. I said goodbye to Wright, hung up, and went to play the game, just as Hudson wanted. The day our scores came out, my phone rang the second I logged off the portal. “Cassie, what did you get?” Hudson demanded. I read out my scores. On the other end of the line, he let out a loud, triumphant shout. “Yes! That’s a lock. We’re definitely going to Columbia together!” I let out a soft, humorless laugh. “What about Isla? What did she get?” “Oh… I haven’t asked her yet. I’ll text her in a bit. I was just worried about you because you always stress out over exams. I wanted to check on you first.” “Thanks,” I muttered, and hung up. Sixty-seven days. By the time our acceptance letters arrived, Hudson was away on a graduation trip in Europe. He had tried to drag me along, but I had flatly refused. I tucked my acceptance letter from Emory deep into my desk drawer. Forty-three days left. When Hudson returned, he brought back a sleek, designer suitcase. “It’s identical to mine,” he said proudly, sliding it toward me. “That way, when we arrive at Columbia, everyone will know you’re with me. It’ll keep the random guys from hitting on you so you can actually focus on keeping me organized.” I managed a polite smile and accepted the suitcase. Seventeen days left. On my final night in that house, I packed the scientific journals he had given me back into that beautiful, matching suitcase. I rolled it down the hall and left it right outside his bedroom door. The next morning, acceptance letter in hand, I boarded a flight to the South, bound for Emory. Hudson, this time, there is no forgiveness.

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The ninth time I caught Corey Dwight in bed with another woman, he played the exact same card. He fell to his knees, slapping his own face until his cheeks were raw, begging for my forgiveness with bloodshot eyes. Just as I was about to soften—again—a dry, raspy voice echoed in my head. It was a voice that sounded old, withered, and entirely too much like my own. “Why?” the voice asked. “You already have a grandson with him. Why won’t you just leave?” I froze. A grandson? Whose grandson? Then came the avalanche of regrets, whispered in my mind like a dying breath: “Corey, when we were twenty-six, I got pregnant. You told me you hated kids, and that very night, you dragged me to the clinic to get rid of it.” “At thirty, Melanie cried to you about some imaginary slight, and you wrapped your hands around my throat, telling me to just go die.” “At forty, I nearly died giving birth to our daughter. But she was only born so her bone marrow could save Melanie’s son. After the biopsy, you took everyone and left, leaving our baby girl to die of an infection in an empty hospital room.” “You even locked me inside the house during your grandson’s hundred-day banquet, making me miss my own mother’s final breath.” The voice grew thicker with a forty-year-old hatred while the young Corey knelt before me, swearing his undying love. “I don’t owe you anything anymore,” the voice wept. “If I could do it all over again, I would rather have died at twenty. I would have let myself rot in that abandoned construction site before I ever agreed to marry you.” A cold shiver ran down my spine. Every single word the voice spoke felt like a prophecy of my own future. The abandoned construction site at twenty? That was exactly where Corey and I had started. … Corey had blood at the corner of his mouth. He knelt, his eyes desperate, his voice raw. “Grace, I’m so sorry. I was drunk. I swear to God, I was drunk.” Drunk? But every single time he slipped up, it was with Melanie. Melanie sat on the edge of the mattress, the strap of her silk slip hanging loosely off her shoulder. She shrugged, entirely unbothered. “Your husband’s pretty good, honey. You’re welcome.” She walked over to me, her eyes dripping with condescension. “But honestly, why do you even care? You’re damaged goods anyway. You can’t expect a guy like him to keep his hands off fresh meat.” A soft, heavy sigh echoed in my mind again. “Corey, let’s just let the fire burn us both to ash. If I could start over, I’d never let you touch me. If I hadn’t held onto hope this ninth time… if I had just let you have Melanie, would we both have ended up differently?” The ninth time? That was right now. The sound of crackling flames roared in my ears, and for a split second, a searing, suffocating heat washed over me, as if bridging a forty-year gap. My hand moved before I could think. I slapped Melanie across the face. Usually, no matter how angry I got, I only took it out on Corey. I had never touched Melanie. We had both survived that hellish basement years ago, and that shared trauma had always held me back. She stared at me, shocked, her hand rising to strike back, but I caught her wrist mid-air. “Do you love Corey?” I asked. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Do you think everyone is as pathetic as you, Grace? Love? We’re adults. We just use each other.” My voice trembled, but a cold smile touched my lips. “Good. Because he loves you.” I turned to Corey, slipped the diamond ring off my finger, and dropped it into his palm. “Corey, we’re done. I want a divorce.” The room fell deathly quiet. Corey went stiff, staring at the ring in his hand as if it were a live grenade. Then, he scrambled toward me on his knees, desperately trying to force the ring back onto my finger. I pushed him away. He began to unravel, his eyes darting frantically around the room. “Grace, I don’t love her! I don’t care about her at all!” His eyes landed on the paring knife sitting on the fruit platter on the coffee table. “You don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove you’re the only one.” Before I could react, he grabbed the handle and drove the silver blade straight into his own chest. He collapsed to his knees, blood coughing up from his throat, but he still crawled toward me, inch by inch. “Grace… is this… enough?” he gasped, his voice a wet, painful rattle. It was his favorite trick. From the moment we escaped that half-built building when I was twenty, to now at twenty-four, he had accumulated dozens of scars. Every time he went too far, he would hurt himself to make me pity him, to force me to forgive him. But today, the spell was broken. I had no desire to die in a house fire with him forty years from now. He stared into my eyes, searching for even a flicker of panic, of the desperate love I usually showed. But there was nothing. Just a flat, empty gaze. He cracked. A look of sheer, agonizing defeat crossed his face. He grabbed the hilt, twisted the blade inside his flesh, and ripped it out. When I still didn’t flinch, he raised the knife to plunge it in again. At the last second, Melanie grabbed the bare blade with her hand. “Are you out of your mind, Corey?” she screamed, blood dripping from her palm. “She’s just a used-up piece of trash! You said so yourself!” I stepped around them, walking toward the door without looking back. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers. See you tomorrow.” “If you leave me,” his roar echoed from behind, “you leave in a body bag!” I paused, turned back, and walked over to him. I knelt down. He smirked, thinking he had won again, that I was about to bend. But instead, I snatched the knife from his hand and aimed it directly at my own heart. The blow never landed. His hand clamped around the blade, his knuckles white, his veins bulging on his neck. He roared at me: “Get the hell out!” The next morning, I rolled my suitcase out of the bedroom. The living room downstairs was loud. Corey was there, his face pale as death, surrounded by a group of his sleazy friends. He pointed a finger at me and sneered. “Your parents have been dead for three years, Grace. For three years, you’ve lived off my dime, eaten my food, and used my money. Now that you’ve bled me dry, you think you can just pack up and walk away? Is that how the Callahan family raises their daughters? No shame at all?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase tighter. “What do you want, Corey?” He looked at the blond guy next to him and let out a cruel laugh. “Make my boys happy. Once they’re satisfied, we’ll call it even. You can go wherever the hell you want.” Last night he wanted me dead, and I hadn’t shed a tear. But now, a bitter, choking sorrow clawed its way up my throat. Seeing me hesitate, he leaned in, his voice dripping with venom. “Oh, what, are we acting pure now? Those videos of you with those guys are still all over the internet. Everyone’s seen them. You’ve got ‘whore’ written all over you, Grace. Who are you trying to play the virgin for?” My entire body went rigid. The air left my lungs. He really knew how to hurt me. He was the love of my youth, the man I had given everything to, and he knew exactly where to twist the knife. The blond guy stepped forward, whistling as he looked me up and down. He smirked at Corey. “You serious, man? You’re really letting us have a turn?” Before the guy could finish, Corey’s fist flew out, cracking against the guy’s jaw. “Shut your mouth!” Corey snarled, his eyes wild. “She’s a piece of trash that’s been ridden by a dozen guys. I get sick just looking at her.” The blond guy clutched his bleeding face, nodding quickly. “Right, right. Sorry, man.” Corey turned back to me, his sneer returning. “When those videos leaked, your dad had a heart attack and died on the spot. You had no problem putting on a show back then. Have you forgotten how to do it after a few years of luxury?” Something inside me snapped. I let go of my suitcase and walked straight toward him. “I just wanted to survive, Corey. Was that my crime? If you wanted me dead so badly, why did you even bother saving me from that basement?” His face flushed a violent red. He grabbed my jaw, squeezing so hard I felt my bones creak. His eyes looked like they wanted to tear me apart. “To survive? Melanie was locked up in that basement for two weeks too. Did she sleep with those bastards? No! Grace, do you think I’m blind? Melanie heard everything. She heard you begging them. You practically stripped for them yourself!” Slap. The sound echoed through the room. My hand stung before I even realized I had swung it. “That was because I thought…” I choked on the words, swallowing the truth down. Back then, those monsters had pointed at Melanie, who was shivering in the dark corner, and threatened to kill her. I thought she was Corey’s younger sister, Rosalie. So, even though I knew it would ruin my life, even though I knew the world would spit on me, I swallowed my disgust and did whatever those beasts wanted to keep her safe. But two weeks later, when Corey broke through the doors, covered in blood, I found out the truth. Rosalie had tried to draw the kidnappers away from us, got pushed off a cliff, and was lying in a coma. The girl in the corner wasn’t Rosalie at all. It was Melanie, who just happened to have the same frame and hair. Corey claimed he didn’t care about the videos, but he punished me every single day. He slept with Melanie, compared me to her, and convinced himself that I was just a cheap, loose woman. Suddenly, the fight drained out of me. It was all so incredibly pointless. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. “You’re right. I’m just a cheap whore.” I turned, pushing the blond guy down onto the sofa. My loose shirt slid down my shoulder, exposing my collarbone, my hair falling over my face. The guy’s eyes lit up with lust, but he kept glancing nervously at Corey, his hands twitching, unsure if he should touch me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him. Crash! A heavy glass vase shattered against the wall behind us. Water and shards of glass exploded across the room. A sharp, burning pain sliced through my forearm. Blood began to drip down my skin. Corey lunged forward, grabbing my wrist with brutal force and ripping me off the man. “You want to die, Grace?!” he roared. He slammed me backward, his chest colliding with my injured arm. I couldn’t help the small, painful whimper that escaped my lips. Corey froze for a fraction of a second, staring at the smear of red on his shirt. But the warmth vanished instantly, replaced by that familiar, icy mask of hatred. “Is that it? Any guy with a pulse will do?” My heart squeezed, then went completely numb. Maybe he had loved me once. Maybe he had cared. But this twisted, suffocating version of love? I didn’t want it anymore. I pushed his hand away and climbed back onto the blond guy. Corey snapped. He dragged me off the couch by my hair and threw me onto the floor, then turned to his men, screaming like a lunatic: “Break his hands! Throw him out of Chicago!” The blond guy’s desperate screams echoed down the hallway as the guards dragged him away. Corey hovered over me, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers digging into my shoulders so hard they bruised. “You’re unbelievable, Grace! If your father could see you now, he’d die all over again.” I stared back at him, empty. “Are you happy now?” He seemed to have forgotten his own words, looking at me with a sudden, confused desperation. “No. If you want them so bad, I can bring them back.” I glanced at the other guys shivering in the corner. Corey realized what I meant, his chest heaving with rage. “Get out! All of you, get the fuck out!” He kicked a glass coffee table, shattering it, throwing a wild, helpless tantrum to release his inexplicable fury. I picked up my purse, pulled out the divorce agreement, and held it out to him. “If you’re done, sign it.” In the next second, he snatched the papers and tore them to shreds, throwing the confetti into the air. His massive hand wrapped around my throat, pinning me against the wall. “My sister is still lying in a vegetative state because of you, Grace. What makes you think you get to just walk away and be happy?” Why did I get to walk away? Four years ago, Corey was the rising star of Chicago’s business world. He had plenty of admirers, but even more enemies. Someone put a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head. Everyone knew his sister, Rosalie, was his Achilles’ heel. When I realized we were being followed that day, I made Rosalie swap jackets with me. Just as I planned, they thought I was her and chased me. When they threw me into the back of that van, I actually felt a sick sense of relief, thinking I had saved the person he loved most. But I never could have predicted that Rosalie, trying to draw the rest of the gang away, would scream out her real identity. They chased her to the edge of a cliff, and she jumped. She had been in a coma ever since. We were both victims. But because Rosalie was his sister, she was the martyr. And I, the girlfriend who survived, had to bear the cross of his hatred for the rest of my life. I laughed, my throat tight under his grip. “Then what do you want, Corey? Do you want me to kill myself to pay her back?” He let go of me, a storm raging in his dark eyes. “No. Death is too easy. You want to leave? I won’t let you. I will keep you here for the rest of your life. Even if you rot, even if you lose your mind, you are never stepping foot out of this house.” It wasn’t until I heard the heavy thuds of hammers outside, watching the light slowly vanish from the windows, that I realized what he was doing. I threw myself at him like a wild animal, screaming, clawing at his chest. “Corey! This is kidnapping! It’s illegal!” He looked down at me, his smile cold and mocking. “I’m just a devoted husband caring for his sick, unstable wife. Who’s going to stop me?” I slid to the floor, completely drained of strength. I didn’t even hear him leave. He had the windows boarded up. Not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate the house. He fired all the staff, leaving only a cleaning lady who came for an hour every evening. But the moment she tried to whisper a sympathetic word to me, Corey fired her too. After that, my world fell into absolute, suffocating silence. Two weeks later, Corey came back. He sat on the edge of my bed, gently brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “If you promise not to leave, I’ll have the boards taken down. We can go back to how things used to be.” I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him. He slammed his fist into the drywall, leaving a crater, and stormed out. In the middle of the night, a loud crash woke me. The overhead lights flickered on, blinding me. Corey kicked the door open, dragging Melanie inside. He pinned her against the door, kissing her with a desperate, violent hunger. He ripped his shirt off, his voice thick and raspy as he sneered at me: “This is my house, Grace. If you don’t want to watch, get the hell out. Or do you want to see exactly how I make love to Melanie?” Melanie gasped for air, flashing me a brilliant, triumphant smile. “You have no idea how wild Corey gets, Grace. I’d hate for you to feel left out. After all, when he’s holding me, he doesn’t have to think about all those disgusting men who had their hands on you.” For four years, they had tortured me. Under their relentless cruelty, I had spent every single day asking myself why I hadn’t just died in that half-built building. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms until they bled, just to keep from breaking down in front of them. As I tried to slip past them to go downstairs, Corey’s phone rang. He answered it impatiently, but the moment he heard the voice on the other end, he pushed Melanie away. “What did you say?” his voice shook. “Rosalie is awake?” My heart stopped. His sister was awake. She was finally awake. The crushing weight of guilt that had suffocated me for four years suddenly lifted. He scrambled to grab his clothes, running down the stairs with a light, frantic step—happier than I had seen him in years. Melanie ran after him, and within seconds, the villa fell back into that familiar, deadly silence. My chest heaved. I couldn’t tell if I was crying or laughing. Rosalie was awake. Whatever debts I owed, they were paid. I began tearing through the house, searching for a way out. No matter how tightly he had boarded up the windows, there had to be a weak spot. Hours passed. Without the sun, I couldn’t tell day from night. After dozens of failed attempts, the last of my sanity snapped. I grabbed whatever I could find—vases, chairs, lamps—and hurled them at the boarded-up windows. I stepped on shattered glass, but I couldn’t feel the pain. But Corey had been thorough. Behind the wooden boards were heavy steel security grates, and behind those were even more bars. I was trapped. Truly, utterly trapped. In a manic haze of despair, grief, and hatred, I grabbed a lighter and set the curtains on fire. The flames spread rapidly, climbing the walls, swallowing the room in a hungry, golden roar. Even though I had heard the warning of my older self in my head, I still couldn’t escape my fate. I was going to burn to death. My only regret was that I couldn’t drag Corey into the fire with me.

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Working through the night to pull the project across the finish line left me running on fumes. My first instinct when it was over was to text Willie, to ask him out for a nice dinner and celebrate. But opening our chat, the reality of us hit me: we hadn’t spoken in nearly two weeks. The little digital spark that kept our thread alive had flickered out three years ago. The screen still held his last messages: [Bella, stop being mad over such a petty thing.] [I have to help my mentee prep her competition portfolio tonight. Don’t wait up, I’ll bring you an iced latte on my way back.] He was busy guiding a young girl through her career. I was busy working, chasing deadlines, squeezing onto crowded subway cars. I’d forgotten to reply. I’d even forgotten what little thing had triggered our latest silent war. Staring at the glowing screen, a quiet realization washed over me—I had, without a sound, slipped right out of his life. … I locked my phone and went to get fondue at a cozy spot downtown I hadn’t visited in ages. The waitress was wiping down a table when I walked in. She froze, rag in hand. “Oh,” she said, looking up. “You haven’t been here in a month, right?” I hesitated for a second. “Yeah. Been busy.” She glanced behind me. “Just one? Where’s your boyfriend?” My hand paused on the back of the chair. “We broke up.” Those words, once so terrifying to speak, slipped out of my mouth with an almost eerie ease. Natural. Light. She let out a soft “oh,” her face tightening with a brief, awkward sympathy. “Then… where would you like to sit? Your usual spot?” “Yes, please.” She led me to the booth by the window. It was a table set for two, with an extra, useless set of forks and a dipping plate resting on the opposite side. As I sat down, my mind drifted. Right after high school graduation, when we first started dating, we stumbled across a meme listing the ‘ten levels of loneliness.’ Eating fondue alone was level eight. I had forwarded it to him with a crying emoji. He replied instantly: [Don’t worry, you’ll never hit level eight.] [Why?] I had asked. [Because I’ll always be sitting right across from you, cooking your steak skewers.] Followed by three little pig emojis. I had laughed for a long time, saving a screenshot of that exchange. And for a long time, I really never ate fondue alone. From high school through college, and then into our working years, he was always there. He would always snatch the meat out of the boiling broth just as it cooked, dipping it in the garlic-butter sauce and putting it on my plate with a familiar tease: “Look at you, so clumsy.” But eventually, I learned to ride the subway alone. I worked until midnight alone. I sat in the ER with an IV drip alone. I spent birthdays and anniversaries alone. I even went to try on wedding dresses alone. Being alone, I realized, wasn’t actually that hard. The pot arrived, the seasoned broth bubbling in the center of the table. I lowered a beef skewer into the broth, watching it cook. He used to insist on doing this, claiming his timing kept the meat tender. I lifted a piece to my mouth, the hot broth stinging the tip of my tongue, numbing it. The numbness let my thoughts wander. Was this actually a breakup? Neither of us had uttered the words. I couldn’t even remember the details of our last fight. I just remembered slamming the door, him leaving for the lab to review data, and then those final two texts. He had brought home the iced latte that night. I didn’t drink it, and he never asked why. We became like two roommates sharing a lease, polite enough to take turns changing the trash bags, but nothing more. I didn’t know who stopped talking first. I just remembered coming home late one night to the sound of his voice echoing from the study. He was on a Zoom call, his tone incredibly patient, explaining a concept, punctuated by a couple of light, easy laughs. I stood by the door for a moment before going in to grab my charger. He looked up, gave a brief nod, and immediately returned his eyes to the screen. It was a shared presentation. In the corner of the screen was the avatar that used to trigger an instant argument within three seconds—his mentee, Daisy. He didn’t bother to hide it, and I no longer cared. I grabbed the charger and walked out. That night, we lay in bed, a pillow’s worth of empty space stretching between us. He slept with his back to me, his breathing steady and even. I stared at the back of his head for what felt like hours, wondering: if I spoke right now, would he turn around? But I forgot if I ever made a sound. The next morning, he was gone before I woke, the sheets cold. On the kitchen island lay some breakfast, pinned down by a sticky note: [Meeting tonight. Won’t be home for dinner.] And that was how we lived. The waitress came over to refill the broth. “Miss, your couples’ membership is about to expire,” she said, holding the heavy metal pitcher as steam billowed from the spout. “It’s the ten-year anniversary promotion we ran—deposit five hundred, get a thousand. There’s still about two hundred dollars left on it. I asked the manager, and you can still renew it with the bonus if you do it today.” Before I could answer, the chimes above the door jingled. Willie walked in, followed by a young woman. Ponytail, white jacket, a camera slung around her neck. “Stand under the light, Boss! Let me take a quick photo,” she said, tugging lightly at his sleeve. “Let’s eat first. You’ve been starving yourself these past few days.” “No way! You’ve been mentoring me for three whole years, practically living at my place to help me prep. Now that I’ve won the gold prize, I need a picture to commemorate this,” she insisted. He shook his head with a fond smile, reaching out to gently disentangle her camera strap from her jacket zipper. “Watch what you say.” “I’m serious,” she said, clicking the shutter and peering at the screen. “Oh, by the way, isn’t today your anniversary with your girlfriend? Won’t she be upset that you’re celebrating with me?” He paused. “It’s fine. She knows I’m busy. She doesn’t mind.” “Really?” Daisy beamed, grabbing his arm. “That’s great! Let’s order. I want the triple cheese fondue.” He took a couple of steps with her, then his eyes drifted up and locked onto me. His footsteps halted. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, then slipped it back in. “Bella. You’re here.” I didn’t stand up. My fork held a roasted potato wedge. “Yeah,” I said. “Having fondue.” Ten years of shared habits meant we even picked the exact same restaurant to celebrate. He was celebrating his mentee’s big win. I was celebrating the completion of a project that would secure my partnership at the firm. But both of us had forgotten that today was our ten-year anniversary. Daisy leaned over to look at my table. “Oh, a split-pot broth. You’re so cute, sitting all by yourself with a half-Cajun, half-garlic-wine broth.” Willie stood by the edge of the booth, silent. Daisy had already raised her camera, snapping photos of the bubbling cheese, then turning to the window to photograph the streetlights and passersby. “Let me take one of you,” she said, aiming the lens directly at my face. “I’ll title it: ‘Eating Fondue Alone: Which Level of Loneliness Is This?’” The shutter clicked. My hand froze. The potato wedge slipped back into the boiling broth, splashing a tiny drop of hot liquid onto the table. “Delete it.” Daisy blinked, lowering the camera. “Excuse me?” “The photo. Delete it.” Daisy looked at the camera screen, then up at Willie. He stood there, a slight crease forming between his brows. “Bella, it’s just a picture. Don’t make a scene.” “I said, delete it,” I repeated, staring directly at him. Willie’s frown deepened. “Why do you always have to make things difficult for her? It’s just a photo. It’s not like she’s going to post it anywhere.” I stood up, stepped around the table, and reached for the camera. Daisy took a step back, feigning a stumble, her elbow jerking outward. The camera strap whipped across my wrist. My hand swerved, knocking directly into the dipping ramekin on the edge of the table. Warm garlic butter splattered across the wood, some of it catching my hand. I winced, pulling back. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Daisy cried. “Are you okay?” Willie stepped forward, reaching for my wrist. “Did you get burned? Let me see—” I ignored him, snatched the camera from her hands, and deleted the photo myself. Daisy bit her lower lip, her voice dropping to a meek whisper. “I really didn’t mean to… I just tripped…” Willie looked at me, his gaze briefly passing over my reddened hand. “Clean yourself up. I’ll get her settled at another table and come right back.” They walked to a table three rows over. The waitress hurried over with some burn ointment. “About the membership card…” she said awkwardly. “Should we… renew it?” I looked down at the bubbling broth. “No. Don’t renew it.” I pulled out my phone and sent a text to my boss: [I’ll take the partner track. A girl’s got to afford her own fondue.] As I looked up, I caught Willie watching me from a distance. It was the same look he always gave me whenever I threw a tantrum—patient, slightly amused, waiting for me to cool down and soothe myself. I wondered how he could be so distracted. After all, the new favorite was right beside him; the old love was just background noise. He always prided himself on ‘knowing what mattered.’ The first time I realized there was a new girl in his lab was when she called him, sobbing because her PowerPoint wouldn’t open. That night, I was meeting his parents for the very first time. He left halfway through dinner, leaving me to face them alone. Back then, though frustrated, I convinced myself to be understanding. She was just a rookie; mentors had to mentor. But then she started calling him at midnight to ‘discuss sudden inspiration.’ He would slip on a jacket, head out to the balcony, and talk for two hours. Then she began using his database credentials. To make things easy, he changed his password to her birthday. By the time she claimed the front passenger seat of his car as her personal spot, we had fought more times than I could count. I was never good at arguing. I would repeat the same line: “Can you please remember who your actual girlfriend is?” He wasn’t good at arguing either. He would always shoot back: “She’s just a student. Stop being so petty.” Afterward, he would lock himself in the study, and I would cry in the living room. Eventually, the screaming stopped, replaced by cold silence. One day, three days, a week… neither of us would speak. Until I would ask him to bring me a cup of coffee. Even though he knew my order by heart, he would still ask me what kind of milk I wanted, every single time. And that was how we ‘made up.’ It felt like if I didn’t bow my head first, this relationship would simply cease to exist. … Daisy tugged at Willie’s sleeve, pointing at the menu. He leaned down, his profile softening, his dimples vanishing into a smile. I ate my last piece of potato, stood up, and went to the front counter to pay. The cashier looked up. “Oh, your table has already been paid for, ma’am. Your boyfriend,” she pointed toward their table, “that gentleman over there paid.” I glanced over. He was currently dipping a fresh piece of chicken into cheese for Daisy, teasing her: “Look at you, suddenly losing your appetite when the food actually gets here.” Daisy laughed, pushing his shoulder. I turned back to the cashier. “Ex-boyfriend.” The cashier blinked. “Oh… then…” “It’s fine.” I pulled out my phone to Venmo him the money. I typed out: [Sending you the money for dinner. We—] The cursor blinked. That was when I noticed the green bubble at the bottom of our chat. [I’ll take the partner track. A girl’s got to afford her own fondue.] My fingers froze for two long seconds. In my rush, I had sent the message meant for my boss to Willie. His chat was still pinned to the top of my list. We had texted about date nights thousands of times over the years. [Fondue tonight?] [My treat, you pay.] My thumbs had simply acted on a decade of muscle memory. No wonder he had paid my bill. He actually thought I couldn’t afford dinner. I stared at the text, letting out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. I turned and walked out. As the door swung open, the warm, savory aroma of the restaurant hit my back like a gentle push, nudging me out into the cool night. I had only reached the streetlamp when I heard hurried footsteps behind me. He was running, his coat fluttering in the wind. “I told you to wait for me,” he said, a touch of exasperated affection in his voice—the exact tone he used whenever he did something nice and I failed to show proper gratitude. “Why did you just leave?” I stopped. He stood in front of me, slipping off his jacket to drape it over my shoulders. “Look at you, moving up in the world,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips. “Making partner? No wonder you’re working so hard. You can eat all the fondue you want now.” He patted my shoulder. “Come on. The car’s parked over there.” He took a few steps, then paused, expecting me to follow. It was so natural. Just like all those times he locked himself in the study, waiting for me to finish crying before I’d go knock on his door to ask him to open a bottle of water for me. He assumed this time would be no different. The words gathered in my throat. But before I could speak, a sharp gasp came from the steps nearby. Daisy was leaning against a billboard, clutching her ankle, keeping her foot off the ground. She looked over, her voice laced with panic. “Boss… I’m okay. I just twisted it a little…” Willie froze. Daisy waved her hand dismissively. “Go ahead. I’ll just sit here for a bit. Don’t worry about me…” She tried to take a step, stumbled, and grabbed the billboard again. Willie looked at me. It was a glance so fleeting I didn’t even have time to utter the word ‘breakup’ before he turned and ran back to her. “Don’t move,” he called out. “Stay right there. Let me look.” The wind swept under the streetlamp. The jacket he had draped over my shoulders slipped, falling silently onto the pavement. I bent down, picked it up, brushed off the dust, and hung it over the metal railing nearby. Then I turned and walked away. When we first got together, there was no grand confession. We were having fondue, he put a piece of steak on my plate and said, “Let’s eat like this forever,” and I said, “Okay.” It was as natural as water flowing downstream. And so was the end. We didn’t need a formal date to sit down and discuss it. Every time he looked at his phone instead of listening to me, every time he shut the study door, every time he ran to her side… those two words had already been written. I had just refused to read them. I pulled out my phone as I walked. My boss’s contact had a red notification dot. I tapped it. [To become a partner, you must accept an overseas relocation. It’s a three-year minimum at the London office. Think it over carefully.] The cursor blinked in the input box. I typed: [Are flights reimbursed?] The phone buzzed instantly with a facepalm emoji from my boss, followed by a thumbs-up. [Only you would ask about that.] I locked the screen and slipped the phone into my pocket. At the intersection ahead, a right turn led to the subway; a left turn led back to the apartment we shared. I turned right. Standing behind the yellow line on the platform, I watched my reflection in the glass barrier doors. My expression was flat—neither crying nor smiling, just tired. My bags were already packed and stored at the office. I had known this partnership was mine for the taking. And I had known, for a long time, that I didn’t want him anymore.

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