Category: English

On the night of our seventh anniversary, I didn’t get a candlelit dinner. I got a call from the precinct. A couple had filed a criminal complaint against my company, claiming our flagship organic line had hospitalized their child with severe food poisoning. When I walked into the station, the world tilted on its axis. Standing there was Dorian—Lydia’s “one who got away,” the man who had haunted the periphery of our marriage for years. And standing right beside him, her hand resting protectively on his arm, was my wife, Lydia. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even have the grace to look guilty. She looked at me with a terrifying, flat calm and said, “We have a three-year-old son together. That’s the reality of the situation.” A jagged, hysterical laugh escaped my throat. We had reconciled four years ago, and for every second of those four years, she had kept this life—this child—a secret. The math was the cruelest part. The boy was three. She had betrayed me the moment she stepped back into our home. Lydia’s best friend actually had the audacity to pull me aside later to “soften the blow.” She told me I should be grateful that Lydia at least had the “decency” to hide the affair from me for so long. I reached into my bag and pulled out a tattered folder. Inside was the divorce agreement from four years ago—the one I had ripped up in a moment of weakness. Looking at it now, I felt like a fool who had mistaken a predator’s blink for a lover’s wink. “If that’s how it is,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash, “then she’s free to go live the life she’s already built with him.” Four years ago, I thought we had found our turning point. We’d been married for three years then, a volatile cycle of pain. She had sent me to the police station ten times because I’d gotten into fights with Dorian—her “soulmate.” And every time I came home, our arguments were so explosive she ended up in the ER eleven times from the sheer stress and physical toll of our mutual destruction. Then came the business trip to Dubai. The explosion happened at noon. I remember the roar, the heat, and the ceiling coming down. She threw herself over me, shielding me from the shrapnel that shredded her back. I used every ounce of my strength to hold up a collapsing support beam so she wouldn’t be crushed. We ended up in adjacent hospital beds, our hands stretched across the narrow aisle, gripping each other like lifelines. “No more fighting,” she had sobbed, her face pale against the white pillows. “I’ll send him away, Cade. I promise. Let’s just be us. Let’s have a real life, okay?” Looking at our shared scars, my heart broke for her. With trembling hands, I tore up the divorce papers I’d prepared. “One last try,” I had whispered. That day, Dorian was erased. He was fired, blocked, and scrubbed from her life. To prove her devotion, she even had my name tattooed over her heart, swearing she would never make me regret staying. Now, I realized those vows were just lines in a script she had long since stopped following. … Dorian eventually stormed out of the station, clutching his son and fuming. My legal team had dismantled his “evidence” within minutes. Facing my knowledge of food safety regulations and liability law, he looked like a panicked amateur. He was livid because he couldn’t play the victim. As we entered our house, I strode ahead. Lydia followed, her heels clicking sharply on the marble. “Could you not have been a little more empathetic?” she snapped, her brow furrowed. “Bullying a father and his sick child—is that who you are now?” “Bullying?” I spun around so fast she stumbled back. “My company’s formulas are pristine, Lydia. He clearly fed that kid something he shouldn’t have and tried to frame me for a payout. You’re telling me you couldn’t see through that? Who is bullying whom?” Lydia sighed, a sound of weary disappointment. “You know exactly how clean my manufacturing process is,” I stepped closer, my voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. “And yet, you helped them file the report. You’re exactly who you’ve always been, aren’t you?” “Cade,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Sometimes you truly lack basic human empathy.” I froze. “The boy is three,” she continued. “Dorian is a first-time father. When a child is that sick, you don’t think straight. Instead of being understanding, you attacked a single father for a minor mistake. You…” She looked me up and down, a mocking curl hitting her lip. “Oh, right. I forgot. You’re a man who will never be a father. I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand what it feels like to care about a child.” The world went white. The next thing I knew, the sound of a sharp crack echoed through the foyer. My hand was stinging. I had slapped her. “Lydia! Don’t you dare act like you don’t know why I’ll never be a father!” She flinched, her eyes dropping to the floor. The guilt finally flickered in her expression, but I wouldn’t let her hide. “College,” I barked. “You got drunk and picked a fight with the wrong people. They came at you with a broken bottle. I stepped in front of it. That bottle severed my vas deferens. I had to get a vasectomy because the damage was irreparable! I gave up my future for yours!” A bitter laugh choked me. “If I had known back then that you were fighting over Dorian that night, I would have let them move me out of the way. I would have never saved you.” “I… I’m sorry,” she stammered, looking small. “I shouldn’t have said that.” “You’ve said a lot of the wrong things over the last seven years.” I stared at her, feeling a coldness settle in my bones. “The truth is, you never cared. Not about me, and certainly not about this marriage. If you did, those words wouldn’t have been so easy to spit out. Tell me, do you ever say ‘the wrong thing’ to Dorian?” Silence. “That’s what I thought,” I whispered. “Cade—” “Stop lying, Lydia. You didn’t value our ‘last chance.’ You just got better at hiding the truth.” I looked at her chest, at the spot where my name was tattooed. I sneered. “You just said what you needed to say to keep your safety net while you kept him in the basement of your life.” “I moved him underground for us!” she suddenly shouted, her frustration boiling over. “In the last four years, did you ever see a shadow of them? No! I kept my lives separate so you wouldn’t be hurt!” I stared at her, horrified. “Lydia… listen to yourself.” “Enough, Cade.” She crossed her arms. “If you hadn’t been so petty and litigious today, you would never have found out. We could have gone on like this forever. We were happy. You’re the one destroying our peace.” When you reach the peak of fury, you don’t scream. You laugh. The report against my company should have been handled by the legal department. I only stepped in because the complainant’s number looked familiar. I had checked it. I had followed the trail. And it led straight back to her. Lydia sighed again, reaching out as if to touch my arm. “Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen. Don’t throw away everything we’ve rebuilt over a misunderstanding.” I laughed again, louder this time, and slammed a new set of divorce papers onto the console table. “If you actually valued ‘us,’ he wouldn’t exist in your world.” “What is this?” Her breath hitched as she saw the header. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. “Take it back.” She reached for the papers to tear them, but I pinned them down with my palm. “Four years ago was the last chance, Lydia. I meant it.” “Cade…” “Three days,” I said, my voice dead. “Give me your answer in three days.” I walked out without looking back. I left her standing there, her fingers trembling as they brushed the edge of the document. I waited two days. She didn’t call. She didn’t text. On the third day, I went back to the house to end it. But as I reached the door, I heard the sound of clinking glasses and laughter from inside. “Lydia, today’s the deadline for the papers,” a woman’s voice—one of her friends—said. “What’s the plan?” “The plan?” Lydia’s voice was cold, sharp. “He’s being dramatic. He’s the one who owes me an apology for this little stunt.” I froze, my hand tightening on the doorknob. “We’ve been married for seven years,” Lydia continued. “I know I overstepped by bringing Dorian around, but Cade is obsessed with me. We’ve been more ‘in love’ these last four years than most couples are in a lifetime. He’s used to me; he’s never actually threatened divorce before. He’s just trying to scare me.” She must have waved the papers in the air. “He hasn’t even considered how much this ‘performance’ is damaging our relationship.” I felt my heart hammering against my ribs, fueled by pure, unadulterated rage. One of her friends glanced toward the door. She saw the shadow but chose not to say anything. Instead, she asked, “But what if he’s serious this time?” Lydia laughed. “We’ve literally bled for each other, Sarah. People who save each other’s lives don’t just walk away. We’re bonded in a way you couldn’t understand.” “Then why did you have a baby with Dorian? I thought you were actually going straight this time.” I heard the clink of a toast. “A bond that deep doesn’t need to be fragile,” Lydia said. “We saved each other’s lives. He belongs to me, and I belong to him. He isn’t going anywhere.” I took a deep breath, my chest aching. I didn’t open the door. I turned around and walked away. It was time to stop playing games and start the litigation. As my team prepared the filings, a message from Lydia finally came through on the third day: [Instead of wasting time throwing a tantrum, you should focus on paying Dorian for the damages to his reputation.] Attached was a court summons. Dorian was suing my company for food safety violations. He wasn’t giving up. But I knew he didn’t have the brains to do this alone. I called Lydia immediately. “You’re the one who filed this for him, aren’t you?” Lydia let out a soft, melodic hum. She didn’t need to say yes. “And if I refuse to settle?” “Honey,” she said, her voice dropping into a patronizing purr, “you should think carefully. My firm’s top litigation team is handling this. Don’t be stubborn. Just sign the check and let it go.” I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. “This company was founded by my grandfather. It’s been a household name for a century. You want me to admit to a lie and destroy the Thorne family legacy just to give your lover a payday?” Lydia sighed. “Why must you make things so difficult for them?” “They are the ones making things difficult for me!” I shouted. “Dorian poisoned his own kid with something else just to get to me!” Silence. When she spoke again, her voice was ice. “Fine. Have it your way. Good luck, Cade.” The line went dead. My lead counsel, Parker, looked at me with worry. “Sir, Lydia’s firm just sent over the formal notice. Her team has never lost a case of this scale. We’re in trouble.” I straightened my tie. “Prepare the files. I’m handling the defense myself.” Parker’s eyes widened. On the day of the hearing, when I stepped up as both the defendant and the lead counsel, Lydia’s jaw practically hit the floor. She had forgotten—or perhaps never cared enough to know—that I held a law degree from the best school in the country. I had just chosen to run the business instead of practicing. My phone buzzed. A text from her. I ignored it. I tore her legal team apart. By the time I was finished, Lydia’s “invincible” lawyers looked like first-year interns. The judge dismissed Dorian’s claim with prejudice. As the courtroom cleared, Dorian was red-faced with fury. I glanced at Lydia. Her expression was unreadable, but as I walked toward the exit, she caught me at the door. She smiled, a strange, lingering look. “Mr. Thorne. You’re much more formidable than I remembered.” “What’s the matter, Lydia? Going to file an appeal for your boy toy?” “No,” she laughed. “If my husband is this brilliant, why would I fight him?” She turned to leave, tossing a final remark over her shoulder. “Good luck with the business, Cade. I hope it keeps growing.” I frowned. What is she playing at? That night, I stayed at the office. I personally audited the warehouse, checked the security feeds, and verified the fire safety protocols. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a single crack in the foundation. Parker stayed late with me. “Thank god for you, sir. If they’d won, they would have drained our entire quarterly profit to pay that loser. Lydia actually tried to argue for a total asset seizure as compensation! Talk about biased. Whose wife is she, anyway?” One of the junior associates whispered, “Yeah, she’s clearly picked her side.” I stiffened, then forced a smile. “It’s fine. Let’s go home.” But as we walked out toward the parking lot, a deafening BOOM shook the ground. A wall of hot air slammed into my back. I spun around. The warehouse—my family’s legacy—was a pillar of fire reaching for the night sky. “My parents! Their things!” I screamed, lunging toward the flames. Parker and the others tackled me, pinning me to the pavement. “Sir! It’s too dangerous! You can’t go in!” “Everything is in there! The original records, the family archives—everything!” “Cade, stop! It’s gone!” The sirens drowned out my screams. Fire trucks and police cruisers swarmed the area. I watched the orange glow consume the only things I had left of my mother and father. My strength vanished. I stopped fighting. Then, I saw it. A black Rolls Royce parked just outside the police line. A familiar face appeared behind the tinted glass. Lydia was there, a slim cigarette between her fingers, watching the carnage with terrifying detachment. When she saw me look, she picked up the child in the backseat and blew me a playful kiss. In the driver’s seat, Dorian was finally grinning. Lydia stepped out of the car. “You embarrassed Dorian in court,” she said, her voice carrying over the crackle of the fire. “He needed a little compensation for his hurt feelings.” I couldn’t breathe. “The inventory is gone, but don’t worry—I’ll give you the money to rebuild later. Don’t blame him, Cade. This was my idea.” My throat tightened. That building wasn’t just inventory. It was my history. I remembered being five years old, my father holding my hand as he walked me through those aisles, telling me the story of how our family built something from nothing. Take care of it, Cade, they had told me. “Mom… Dad… I’m sorry,” I whispered. The world began to spin. The blackness crept into the edges of my vision. Lydia’s smug expression was the last thing I saw before it shattered. “Cade!” I heard her voice, suddenly sharp with panic, right before I hit the ground. When I woke up, I coughed up a spray of blood. I stared blankly at the doctor, then at Lydia, who was sitting by my bed. The doctor sighed. “Acute cardiac and pulmonary distress, triggered by extreme emotional shock. You have old scarring on your heart, Mr. Thorne. Why weren’t you taking care of yourself? One more night of stress like this and you could lose everything. Do you understand?” I closed my eyes. The old scarring. Another gift from Lydia. Back in college, when she was constantly getting into trouble with local thugs, I was always the one who stepped in. I’d been stabbed and beaten more times than I could count. The scar on my heart was from a fruit knife meant for her. I hadn’t known then that she was only in those fights to protect Dorian’s interests. Once the doctor left, Lydia grabbed my hand, her grip frantic. “Cade, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… I…” Her voice broke. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I shouldn’t have let them burn the warehouse…” “Does it matter now?” I asked, staring at the ceiling. Twelve years of my life, gone in an instant because she wanted to soothe her lover’s ego. She looked frantic. “Cade, I’ll send him away. This time, I mean it. He’s gone.” Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it, and her face went pale. “I have to go. I’ll be right back.” “Where?” I asked, my eyes burning. “To Dorian?” She hesitated. “It’s not him. The baby has a fever.” “And what about me?” I grabbed her wrist, my fingers digging into her skin. “You burn down my life and you’re just going to walk out?” She paused, then slowly, one by one, she pried my fingers off her. “I’ll be back. I promise.” I watched her walk out. She had a home to go to. Dorian had a home. I had nothing. When Parker came to check on me, I was already dragging myself out of bed. “Sir! I’ll call the doctor!” “No.” I looked him dead in the eye. “We’re leaving. Now.” I stood in front of the house—the “reconciliation” home I had bought for Lydia. I was wrapped in a heavy coat, holding a torch. “Sir,” Parker whispered. “Are you sure?” I tossed the torch into the dry brush near the porch. “Positive.” I had carried her across this threshold once. I had thought we were building a sanctuary. Now, the memories were just poison. If I was leaving, I was leaving nothing behind. “Do you want to say goodbye to her?” “No.” A private jet was waiting at the local airfield. I handed him a signed set of papers. “Just give her these.” As the plane climbed into the night sky, the fire below was still raging. I didn’t look back. I was never coming back.

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It was past midnight. I was lying in bed, mindlessly scrolling through my phone, when I accidentally tapped into a late-night advice livestream on TikTok. The caller—a man with a digitally altered voice—was mid-confession. He was telling the host, and thousands of listeners, that he was having an affair. And not just with anyone. He was sleeping with the drunk driver who had struck and crippled his wife years ago. At the words car crash and crippled, my left hand instinctively reached across my chest, my fingers brushing against the flat, empty fabric of my right sleeve. The phantom ache of the amputated limb flared up, a dull throb echoing a nightmare I lived every single day. The man on the screen kept talking, his words a stream of casual cruelty. He confessed that he could only make love to his wife in pitch darkness. He said that whenever his hand brushed against the stump of her arm, he felt a wave of visceral disgust. He complained that ever since the accident, his wife had become a lifeless, suffocating presence. Nothing like the bright, vibrant girl he was seeing on the side. A cold prickle of unease washed over me. I reached out to swipe past the video, but his next sentence stopped my heart entirely. It felt like an ice pick driving straight through my ribs. “I mean, she lost her arm saving my mom’s life. But I can’t just sacrifice my own happiness forever out of gratitude, can I?” He sighed, the sound heavy with self-pity. “I admit I still love her. But I just can’t stand looking at her anymore. She’s half a ghost.” The words hit me like a physical blow. I froze. The pregnancy test I had been clutching in my hand slipped from my fingers, clattering loudly against the hardwood floor. Because five years ago, I threw myself in front of a speeding car to save my mother-in-law, and lost my right arm in the process. And the man in this livestream, the man complaining to the internet that my sacrifice had “ruined his life”—was Simon. My husband. The boy I had loved for twenty years. … 1 He was using a voice modifier, but the cadence of his speech, the slight pause he took before defending himself—it was unmistakably Simon. The live chat was scrolling so fast it was a blur. [Are you insane? You’re disgusted by the woman who saved your family?] [Sleeping with the driver who crippled her?! I don’t even have words for how evil that is.] [I hope karma destroys you, you absolute monster.] A violent chill seized my entire body. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. The man who had always treated me like fragile glass, who swore he would protect me with his life, was currently venting his revulsion for me to fifty thousand strangers. When he talked about the young girl’s bubbly, energetic nature, his voice dripped with an unmistakable, sickening fondness. My stomach violently heaved. I scrambled out of bed, sprinting to the master bathroom, and threw up until there was nothing left but bitter bile. The bathroom door swung open. Simon—who was supposed to be at an academic conference two states away—rushed in. “Catherine? Honey, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” He gathered me into his arms. His hands, large and warm, instinctively reached for the stump of my right arm, massaging the scarred tissue with practiced ease. “I’m sorry I was away these past few days. No one was here to massage it for you. Has it been aching terribly?” His eyes were pooling with gentle, agonizing concern. But all I could hear, looping endlessly in my mind, was his voice from the livestream: Whenever I touch it, I feel disgusted. Five years ago, his mother and I were struck by a drunk driver. I pushed her out of the way and lost my arm. In the dark, suffocating months that followed, I tried to end my life more times than I could count. I swallowed pills. I took a razor to my remaining wrist. Every single time, Simon pulled me back from the ledge. He would hold me, his eyes bloodshot from crying, begging me to stay, swearing that if I died, he would follow me. Since then, unless he was traveling for work, he massaged my shoulder every morning and every night to ease the nerve pain. I had thought those moments were the purest expression of his love. Now I knew that every time he touched me, he was swallowing down bile. He leaned in to kiss my forehead. I flinched, pulling away. “What is it, Catherine?” he asked, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air. He rubbed his cheek against the curve of my neck. “Did I do something wrong? Are you upset with me?” I looked at him, forcing my voice to stay level. “You’re a tenured professor now. A public figure. Doesn’t it embarrass you to have a crippled wife?” “How could you even say that?” he murmured, pulling me tighter. “You gave up everything for my family. And we’ve been together since we were kids. Don’t you know how much I love you?” Staring into his eyes, a terrifying vertigo washed over me. Which Simon was real? The devoted husband rubbing my shoulder in the dead of night, or the man on the internet who wished I was dead? The urge to scream, to confront him about the affair, tasted like pennies on my tongue. But for a fleeting, tragic second, I actually wondered if I was the villain. Maybe I really was just a dead weight dragging down a brilliant, shining man. He ruffled my hair affectionately and pulled a velvet box and a small designer shopping bag from his coat pocket. “I passed by the boutique at the airport. Thought of you.” It was a bottle of high-end perfume and a delicate silver bracelet. It took me one glance to realize the fragrance was a sickly-sweet floral, the kind of scent a twenty-year-old girl would wear to a college party. It wasn’t me at all. When he stepped into the shower, I went through his coat pockets and found the receipt. He had spent ten thousand dollars on a custom, limited-edition jewelry set. The bracelet he gave me was listed at the bottom. It was the complimentary freebie given with the purchase. I stared at the crumpled slip of paper, and a hollow, broken laugh escaped my throat. When we were in college, I had casually pointed out a necklace in a shop window. Simon worked five part-time jobs, running himself into the ground just to buy it for me, telling me that Catherine deserves the absolute best. But now, the absolute best was for someone else. For Brianna. And I, his crippled wife, was only worthy of the scraps she didn’t want. From the bathroom, I heard him humming a soft lullaby over the sound of the running water. It was the song he had written for me years ago. He wasn’t singing it for me anymore. I sat in the dark living room until the sun came up. At dawn, my phone buzzed. The private investigator I had hired on a whim months ago—when Simon’s late nights first started—finally sent over the file. When I saw the name of the driver who hit me, the bottom fell out of my world. I first heard Brianna’s name two years ago. Simon used to come home rubbing his temples, complaining endlessly about his new grad student. “I’ve never met anyone so clumsy, Catherine. If she isn’t knocking over expensive lab equipment, she’s botching the data entry.” He had been on the verge of kicking her out of his research program. I was the one who felt bad for her. I was the one who told him to give her a little grace, to be patient. I never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined that my husband would fall in love with her. That he would love the girl who tore off my arm so much, he would cover up her crimes. 2 The next morning, Simon took a phone call, hastily threw on his coat, and rushed toward the door. “I made reservations for tonight,” he called out. “Don’t forget, it’s our anniversary.” He didn’t go to the university. He drove straight to a boutique pottery studio across town. Through the glass window, I saw Brianna. She was wearing heavy, youthful makeup and an over-the-top, frilly cottagecore dress—the exact aesthetic Simon used to mercilessly mock as childish and ridiculous. Yet now, looking at her, there wasn’t a trace of judgment in his eyes. When they walked up the steps, he actually bent down to lift the hem of her ridiculous dress so she wouldn’t trip. Inside, Brianna was clumsily smearing clay all over the worktable, her hands a mess. Simon, a man who demanded absolute perfection in his lab, wasn’t annoyed in the slightest. He stood behind her, enveloping her hands with his own, patiently guiding her fingers. He leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to her temple. He was a man in his late thirties, grinning like a love-struck teenager. I stood rooted to the pavement outside, the cold seeping into my bones. It wasn’t that he had forgotten how to love. He just didn’t love me that way anymore. Driven by a morbid, masochistic curiosity, I pulled my baseball cap low, slipped on a medical mask, and walked into the shop, taking a seat in the far corner. Memories of our past flickered behind my eyes like a dying film reel. The shop owner noticed me staring at them and ambled over, leaning in with a conspiratorial smile. “Cute, right? I practically watched that girl wear him down. He used to be so cold and guarded, but she completely won him over. They come in at least once a week now.” At least once a week. During the most agonizing phase of my physical therapy, I had begged Simon to come to the rehab center with me just once. He told me the faculty board was breathing down his neck and he simply couldn’t spare the time. He had time. It just didn’t belong to me. The owner pulled out her phone and tilted the screen toward me. “Look at this. He stayed up for three nights straight rendering this AI animation for her birthday.” On the screen, a cartoon version of Simon stood in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella over Brianna’s head, waiting in an endless line to buy her favorite boba tea. I had known Simon for twenty years, and I had never seen that version of him. My vision blurred with hot tears. A few feet away, Brianna leaned back against his chest, her voice a sickly-sweet whine. “Can you please stay with me tonight? Don’t go home.” Simon didn’t even hesitate. “Okay.” “But isn’t it your anniversary? Won’t your… one-armed bandit get mad?” She was laughing. She was mocking my mutilation, and Simon just smiled, fondly tapping her nose. “She depends on me to survive,” he said softly. “She’d never dare throw a temper tantrum.” Brianna sighed, burying her face in his neck. “I’m so sorry, Professor. If I hadn’t been drinking that night, I wouldn’t have almost hit your mom. Thank God your wife stepped in…” I clamped my left hand clamped over my mouth, biting down hard on my own fingers to stop the sob from tearing out of my throat. So it was true. She had been driving drunk. Simon, a man who prided himself on absolute moral integrity, had buried the truth to protect her. When I was first trying to re-enter the world after the amputation, I couldn’t find a job anywhere. Desperate, I had swallowed my pride and begged Simon to pull some strings, just to get me a low-level administrative role in the university’s back office. He had frowned, his expression stern and disappointed. “Catherine, there are procedures for these things. You know I play by the rules.” But his sacred rules instantly disintegrated the moment Brianna needed him. “Don’t carry that guilt, Brianna,” Simon murmured, kissing her hair. “Maybe it was just Catherine’s fate. It has nothing to do with you.” He said it so casually. As if he were comforting her over a failed pop quiz, not the destruction of my entire life. Thinking of the nights I had laid on the bathroom tiles, bleeding out from my own wrists, I couldn’t take it anymore. I shot up from my seat. My chair tipped backward, crashing against the floor with a deafening clatter. From behind me, Simon’s voice called out, “Wait a second.” A spike of pure terror shot through me. I wasn’t ready to face him. I didn’t know how to play this. Was I supposed to scream? Cry? Play the martyr and give them my blessing? Footsteps approached. A hand reached out into my peripheral vision, holding a silver chain. “Miss, you dropped your necklace.” He didn’t recognize me behind the mask. He didn’t even recognize the necklace, which held the diamond wedding band I could no longer wear on my right hand. I looked down. On the hand extending my wedding ring to me, Simon was wearing a misshapen, brightly painted clay ring made by Brianna. My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from him. [Catherine, emergency faculty meeting came up. Going to have to cancel dinner tonight. I’m sorry.] In that split second, the shattered remains of my heart calcified into pure, unadulterated rage. I walked out of the shop, pulled out my phone, and dialed the university’s ethics hotline. “I need to report an inappropriate relationship between Professor Simon Hayes and his graduate student, Brianna Davis.” 3 To my surprise, he didn’t call me to scream or interrogate me. Instead, that evening, he simply unlocked the front door and walked Brianna straight into our living room. The moment she saw me, Brianna dropped to her knees, tears spilling down her heavily rouged cheeks. “Please, Mrs. Hayes, I’m begging you, don’t ruin my academic career! The accident was all my fault, I know that. I’ll do anything to make it up to you, I’ll be your servant—” Simon scowled, gripping her arms and pulling her forcefully to her feet. He poured her a glass of warm water, handing it to her before turning a cold glare on me. “Catherine, Brianna has no one else in this city. Your little phone call nearly destroyed my career, and you’re trying to destroy her future over a misunderstanding.” He spoke as if he had entirely forgotten how that car crash had destroyed my future. He leaned down, reaching out to hug me. As his arm extended, his sleeve rode up, revealing a cheap, bright pink hair tie around his wrist. He noticed my eyes track the movement and awkwardly tugged his cuff down to hide it. I stared him dead in the eyes, my voice dripping with venom. “I’m ruining her? Didn’t she ruin me? She drove drunk, crippled me, destroyed my career, and now she wants to steal my husband?” I swung my left arm with everything I had and slapped him directly across the face. The sharp crack echoed loudly through the silent living room. Simon froze, his head turned from the impact, the righteous indignation in his eyes fracturing. “You… you know?” he stammered. “About me and her…?” Brianna clutched at my shirt, sobbing violently. “I’m so sorry! I know it’s wrong, but fate is just so cruel. Two loving hearts just can’t stop themselves from being drawn together!” The words made me nauseous. Years ago, when Simon had knelt in front of my parents, begging for their blessing to marry me, he had used that exact phrase. Now, he had packaged it up and handed it to his shiny new toy. I started laughing. I laughed so hard that the tears began to stream down my face uncontrollably. “Simon, my God… my biggest regret in this life is fighting so hard to marry you.” He panicked. He lunged forward, wrapping his arms around me in a crushing grip. “Catherine, listen to me, Brianna has nothing to do with us! We’re just soulmates, it’s a spiritual connection—” “Get your hands off me!” “I swear to God, Catherine, I have never slept with her! It’s purely platonic! My body has never betrayed you!” I thrashed violently against him, sinking my teeth into his shoulder until I tasted blood, but he refused to let go. His body might not have betrayed me, but his heart had packed its bags and left a long, long time ago. “I want a divorce, Simon.” I looked at him with absolute, dead calm. The frantic desperation on his face vanished, replaced instantly by a dark, surging anger. “Why do you always use divorce to threaten me?” he yelled, his voice echoing off the walls. “I told you, the title of my wife belongs to you and only you! Isn’t that enough?!” A blinding rage took over. I raised my left hand, aiming a vicious slap right at Brianna’s tear-stained face. I wanted to hurt the people who had dismantled my life. The slap never landed. Simon moved entirely on instinct. He shoved me backward, throwing himself in front of Brianna to protect her. I lost my balance. Having no right arm to catch myself, I went down hard, my side slamming violently into the sharp corner of the glass coffee table. For a fraction of a second, a flash of guilt crossed his face. “Catherine, stop being so hysterical.” I tried to push myself up, but my single arm was shaking too hard to support my weight. A deep, tearing pain bloomed low in my abdomen. It came in waves, sharp and agonizing. “Simon…” I gasped, clutching my stomach. “Help me up… I’m pregnant…” His pupils contracted. To my horror, beneath the shock, a flicker of genuine relief—even joy—flashed in his eyes. From behind his shoulder, Brianna spoke up, her voice small and delicate. “You don’t know, do you? The doctors said the trauma from the crash made you completely infertile.” The air left my lungs. For the past year, I had been religiously tracking my ovulation. I had choked down bowls of bitter, foul-tasting fertility teas every single morning, desperate to give Simon the family he said he wanted. And he had known. He had watched me torture myself, watching me act like an idiot, and said absolutely nothing. Before I could even find the breath to ask him why, Simon looked down at me, his expression hardening. “There’s no need to lie about a baby just to manipulate me into staying, Catherine.” He adjusted his collar, looking down at me as if I were a stranger. “Look, if you really want a child that badly, Brianna and I can have one for you. You can still be a mother.” The boy I had loved was gone. The creature standing in front of me wore his face, but he was a monster, delivering the most depraved insults with a calm, academic detachment. Using the last ounce of my strength, I pulled the divorce papers from my bag and hurled them at him. The pages fluttered, scattering across the floor. Simon just laughed. It was a cold, arrogant, dismissive sound. “We’ve known each other for twenty years, Catherine. You think I don’t know who you are? You are entirely dependent on me. You’ll never leave.” I stared up at him from the floor, the pain in my stomach intensifying, and realized I didn’t even have the energy to cry anymore. The boy I had spent twenty years loving finally, definitively, died right in front of me. 4 By the time the ambulance got me to the hospital, my dress was soaked through with blood. My phone buzzed on the bedside table. Brianna had sent me a video. It was Simon—the aloof, intellectual professor who claimed he couldn’t boil water—wearing an apron, carefully chopping vegetables to cook a meal for his precious girl. I miscarried that night. The morning I woke up, a notification popped onto my screen. Simon had transferred ten thousand dollars into my account. [Catherine, don’t worry, I won’t abandon you. But Brianna’s future is on the line. I need you to go to the dean’s office today and tell them your phone call was a misunderstanding. Tell them you had a mental breakdown and imagined it.] I didn’t reply. I hit block. Early the next morning, I hired a professional printing company and a few men. We marched right up to the main gates of the university and unfurled a massive red banner. “Brianna Davis: Innocent Grad Student by Day, Home-Wrecking Mistress by Night.” It was right in the middle of the morning rush. Within minutes, hundreds of students had gathered, pointing, whispering, and snapping photos. Brianna saw the banner and immediately burst into perfectly choreographed tears. As campus journalists rushed forward with recorders, Simon came sprinting out of the administration building, pushing through the crowd to shield her with his body. “I apologize to everyone for this disruption,” Simon announced, his voice projecting over the murmurs. “Ever since the car accident that took her arm, my wife has suffered from severe, untreated paranoia and mental illness.” He held up a stamped psychiatric evaluation for the cameras to see. It felt like someone had driven a stake through my chest, leaving a gaping hole for the winter wind to howl through. He had planned this. He had fabricated a psychiatric hold to discredit me, just in case I ever became a threat to Brianna. “To prove my absolute innocence, and to protect Ms. Davis from these baseless accusations,” Simon declared solemnly, “I am officially resigning from my tenure at this university, effective immediately.” He paused, looking deeply aggrieved. “I need to focus on getting my wife the psychiatric help she so desperately needs.” His eyes were sincere, his tone heavy with sacrifice. He looked exactly like the earnest young man who had promised my parents he would cherish me forever. But out of the corner of his eye, he was watching Brianna, making sure she was safe. The moment the crowd dispersed, he grabbed my left arm, dragging me ruthlessly into a secluded alleyway between two buildings. “What the hell is wrong with you, Catherine?” he hissed, pinning me against the brick wall. “I told you I wasn’t going to divorce you! Why can’t you just let her go?!” I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “So refusing to divorce me is supposed to be a reward? Simon, you’re the one sleeping with another woman. Where do you get this absolute audacity?” The last shred of his patience snapped. “Because I’m sick of it!” he roared. “I’m sick of coming home every single day to look at your depressing, dead-eyed face! You used to be fun! You used to smile and laugh! Now look at you! All you do is wallow in self-pity!” Brianna came jogging into the alley, gasping for air between her dramatic sobs. “Professor! My parents saw the photos on Twitter… my dad almost had a heart attack!” Simon’s fury instantly melted into frantic, desperate panic. “Look at what you’ve done,” he snarled at me. “Apologize to her right now!” “Are you insane?” I spat. “She’s a homewrecker and a drunk driver. Why would I apologize for telling the truth?” Simon’s hand suddenly shot out. He gripped my right shoulder, his fingers digging viciously into the sensitive, scarred flesh right where my arm had been amputated. That spot was a web of damaged nerves. The slightest pressure sent blinding, white-hot agony shooting through my body. He used to massage it so gently, terrified of causing me pain. Now, he was intentionally crushing it, using my trauma as a weapon to force me to bow to the woman who crippled me. “Apologize!” he ordered. Cold sweat broke out across my forehead. The pain was unbearable, but I clamped my jaw shut, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. “Don’t push me, Catherine,” he whispered dangerously. “You can’t even dress yourself without help. Where exactly do you think you’re going to go if we divorce?” He leaned in close. “I’m going to say this one last time. I am not divorcing you. And I am not leaving Brianna.” The absolute certainty in his eyes was nauseating. He genuinely believed I was a pathetic, broken creature who would endure any humiliation just to keep him. The pain in my nerves was causing black spots to dance in my vision. I couldn’t breathe. Just to get his hand off me, I squeezed my eyes shut and choked out, “I’m sorry.” Satisfied, Simon released his grip. “Good girl. Go home and wait for me.” He adjusted his jacket. “I need to go do damage control with Brianna’s parents.” I nodded slowly. The moment they walked away, I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me straight to the airport. As I sat in the backseat, I opened my phone and set the emails I had drafted to send on an automated timer. Simon. I hope to God I never see your face again.

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My husband once handed me a “Permission to Stray” agreement. It was a cold, clinical piece of paper with one particularly grotesque clause: he was allotted twelve “incidents” of infidelity per year. Any unused credits would be converted into a cash payout at the end of the fiscal year. I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw a glass. I simply offered him a faint, practiced smile and signed my name in elegant cursive. From that day on, I became the ghost of his penthouse. I was the one who stripped the silk sheets after his “guests” left, the one who bleached the scent of foreign perfume out of his Tom Ford shirts, and the one who stocked the bedside drawer with the finest Italian prophylactics. I took care of him and his revolving door of mistresses with the kind of devotion usually reserved for the dying. Those women loved to parade their youth in front of me. They’d whisper just loud enough for me to hear, mocking the “high school sweetheart” who had withered into a “hollowed-out trophy wife.” They thought they were winning. They thought they were the reason Steven stayed. I endured every insult with a spine of steel. I never cried, and I never sought revenge in the arms of another man. I just waited. Every year, I quietly accepted the thirty-six-million-dollar “payout” for his unused indiscretions. I hoarded that money like a dragon in a cave. I was waiting for the clock to run out. Every second of every day, I was praying for Steven Blackwood to die. There was one thing he didn’t know, though. His latest blood work? It had already come back positive for HIV. … Incident number sixty-eight. The sickening, rhythmic sounds from the master suite finally faded into a heavy silence. I swallowed my dose of PEP—the post-exposure prophylaxis I took religiously—and pulled on a pair of medical-grade latex gloves. Only then did I dare push the door open to scrub away the remains of his afternoon tryst. A second later, the frosted glass door of the walk-in shower slid open. Steven emerged, shirtless and radiating a dark, satisfied energy. He had his arm looped around a young girl who looked like she could barely stand on her own two feet. “God, I told you it was my first time,” she whimpered, a half-smile playing on her lips. “You didn’t have to be so rough.” It was Lesleydsay, the new intern at the firm. She was fresh, radiant, and sharp—like a rose that hadn’t realized its thorns were being clipped. They were flirting, lost in their own world, until Steven’s eyes landed on me. The warmth in his gaze vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling frost. “You’re fast today,” he noted dryly. He reached for his wallet, pulled out a black Amex, and tossed it onto the tangled, sweat-stained sheets. There was a small, dark smear of blood near the pillow. “Get the most expensive thread count you can find to replace these. Use the rest to buy yourself a couple of Birkins.” His voice carried the casual dismissiveness of a man tossing a coin to a beggar. I walked over, moved with a numbness that had become my second skin, and picked up the card. I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a scene. Because Steven had no idea. Six months ago, I had intercepted the medical report of his sixty-seventh mistress. Positive. I hadn’t said a word. Instead, I spent my days in a state of quiet, prayerful observation, waiting until the day I finally got my hands on Steven’s own secret labs. Positive. We were the “Golden Couple” of the city. We had built an empire together. After seven years of marriage, I never thought I’d be the one counting the days until his funeral. Seven years ago, Steven had used half of my family’s estate as seed money to become the king of the Chicago tech scene. Back then, he had knelt before me, swearing I was the only woman he would ever see. He once flew twelve hours through a blizzard just because I mentioned I missed the way he made pasta carbonara. But as soon as my father’s business collapsed, the man who worshipped me disappeared. In his place was a stranger who handed me an “infidelity contract” and turned me from a queen into a janitor for his sins. If love could be faked, then I would win an Oscar. I would play the doting, pathetic wife until he was bled dry. The countdown was in its final month. I was one step away from total annihilation. “Finish up here. I have a call,” Steven said, his phone buzzing. He gave Lesleydsay a lingering, deep kiss, ignored me entirely, and disappeared into his study. The vast bedroom fell silent, leaving me alone with Lesleydsay. She didn’t even try to cover herself. Instead, she sat at my vanity, picking up my expensive serums and slathering them onto her neck—the same neck Steven had just been biting. I forced a smile. “If you like them, take the whole set.” Lesleydsay looked at me through the mirror, her eyes full of a cruel, youthful triumph. “At least you know your place. What was it they called you? The high school sweetheart? Honey, you’re just a relic now.” She leaned back, admiring her reflection. “Steven told me that since I gave him my ‘first,’ I’m his only real love. He said he’d rather die than lose me.” “So, Lydia,” she sneered, using my name like an insult, “did you really think a marriage license was enough to keep a man like him?” Real love… I almost laughed. Didn’t she realize? She was Steven’s sixty-eighth “real love.” I looked at her young, ignorant face. I thought about the “first time” she was so proud of. For a fleeting second, a shred of pity pierced through my cold heart. “Steven has had too many women, Lesleydsay. He’s… not clean,” I said, my voice raspy. “If you’re smart, you’ll pack your things and never look back.” The words hit her like a physical blow, but not in the way I intended. Lesleydsay lunged to her feet, her pretty face contorting into a mask of rage. She swung her hand and caught me squarely across the jaw. Slap! The sound echoed in the empty room. My cheek burned, and the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth. “Leave? You bitch! You’re just jealous! You can’t stand that he actually loves me!” She started screaming, her eyes welling with crocodile tears. She turned and sprinted toward the study, wailing at the top of her lungs. “Steven! She’s being mean to me! She called me disgusting! She’s trying to kick me out!” The study door slammed open. Steven stormed out, his face a map of irritation and simmering fury. He didn’t ask for an explanation. He saw Lesleydsay sobbing and he saw me holding my face. He didn’t hesitate. He swung his hand and struck my other cheek, harder than Lesleydsay had. “Lydia, I don’t care how jealous you are. You will fulfill that contract! I pay the bills, you do the cleaning. Do you understand?” I fell to the floor, my ears ringing. Through a blur of tears, I watched Lesleydsay throw herself into his arms, wrapping her limbs around him with a smug grin. “Steven, don’t be mad. Let’s go back inside… I want to give you a baby. I want us to have a family.” “Anything you want, sweetheart,” Steven murmured, kissing her forehead. Before they retreated back into the room, he looked down at me as if I were a piece of trash caught on his shoe. “When we’re done, make sure those sheets are bleached. I want them spotless.” “I will,” I whispered, nodding slowly. If Lesleydsay wouldn’t listen to a warning, then whatever happened next was on her. That night, after the professional sanitization crew had finished with the penthouse, I had just changed into my silk robe when the front door clicked. Steven was back. He smelled of heavy cologne, expensive bourbon, and the lingering scent of another woman. He stumbled slightly as he walked. I tried to slip away into the guest room, but he lunged forward, catching me from behind. He pressed his hot, bourbon-laced breath against my ear, his voice dropping into that predatory husk he used when he wanted something. “Lydia… watching me with her today… did it make you miss me?” He squeezed me tighter. “Tonight, I’ll take care of you. How does that sound?” He turned me around, his mouth crashing down onto mine. In that instant, my stomach did a violent somersault. It wasn’t just disgust—it was pure, unadulterated terror. I knew better than anyone how poisoned his blood was. “I’m… it’s that time of the month,” I gasped, shoving against his chest, my nails digging into my palms. Steven froze. I took the opportunity to slide out of his grip, keeping my voice low and steady. “I’m messy right now. You wouldn’t like it.” He stepped back, the lust in his eyes instantly replaced by a cold, sharpened loathing. “Always an excuse. You think you’re so pure, don’t you?” He tugged at his collar, scanning me from head to toe like I was a piece of expired produce. “Fine. You don’t want me? There are a thousand women lined up outside who would kill for this. You’re going to regret this, Lydia. One day, you’ll be begging for me to touch you.” He let out a sharp, mocking laugh, grabbed his keys, and slammed the door as he left. The moment the roar of his Ferrari faded, I picked up the phone. The “deep-clean” crew was back at the door within twenty minutes. As the scent of industrial-grade disinfectant filled the air, I reached into my robe pocket and touched the folded piece of paper. It was a blank equity transfer agreement. Tomorrow, all I needed was his signature. Three of his core holding companies—the heart of his empire—would be moved into a shell corporation I had spent years building. This was the reason I had endured sixty-eight incidents. This was the light at the end of the tunnel. The next morning, at the Blackwood Tower. As the CFO, I stepped off the elevator and noticed the double doors to the CEO’s office were wide open. Lesleydsay was there, wearing a sundress that left nothing to the imagination. She was perched on the edge of Steven’s mahogany desk, swinging her legs while barking orders at the head of HR. “The budget for the retreat is too low. Steven said I get to pick the venue. I’ve booked the Waldorf, and the per-head cost is four thousand. Fix the numbers.” The HR manager looked at me, eyes pleading for help. Lesleydsay saw me and smirked. It was the look of a cat who had finally caught the mouse. She hopped off the desk and strutted over, waving a stack of receipts in my face. “Hey, Lydia. Be a doll and sign these reimbursements. Last month’s personal expenses—Steven said to run them through the company.” I took the stack and scanned them. Eighty-six thousand dollars. Luxury boutiques, med-spa treatments, and a receipt for a couple’s weekend at a private hot spring. “These exceed the discretionary limit. They aren’t compliant. I can’t sign them,” I said, handing the papers back. Lesleydsay’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second before she whirled around and disappeared into the inner office. Ten seconds later, Steven marched out, his face darkened with rage. Three senior VPs were standing in the hallway, fresh out of a meeting. In front of everyone, he snatched the receipts and slammed them against my chest. They scattered across the floor like confetti. One sharp edge of a paper grazed my cheek, leaving a stinging line. “Lydia, is your brain rotting?” “Lesleydsay is mine. Don’t start playing the ‘proper wife’ card over a few pennies. Sign the damn papers.” The hallway went dead silent, the only sound the low hum of the HVAC system. The VPs looked at their shoes, too afraid to breathe. Seven years ago, I was the one who infused this company with the capital it needed to survive. This building, this office, the very ground he stood on—it was all bought with my dowry. And now, he was humiliating me in front of the team I had built, forcing me to subsidize his mistress. I knelt down, slowly picking up the receipts one by one. “Fine,” I said softly. “I’ll sign.” Go ahead, Steven. Spend it all. Because when you’re dead, I’m taking every cent back. When the crowd dispersed, Lesleydsay lingered. She leaned in close, her voice a honey-coated needle in my ear. “He came to me last night, Lydia. Right after you turned him down.” She smoothed her hand over her flat stomach, her eyes gleaming with malice. “He’s so… vigorous. If I end up pregnant… I wonder how much longer you’ll be holding onto that ‘Mrs.’ title?” Pregnant? A thrill of pure, dark electricity shot through me. I didn’t argue. I didn’t snap. I simply gave her a submissive, almost pathetic smile. “You’re right, Lesleydsay. Steven… he clearly adores you.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the blank equity agreement, sliding it under the reimbursement forms. I held them out to her with both hands, the picture of a broken woman. “Could you have him sign these financial reports as well? It’ll save me the trouble of going back in.” Lesleydsay blinked, surprised by my sudden obedience. She snatched the papers with a triumphant huff. “See? Was that so hard? You might as well get used to it. I’m the future of this company anyway.” A few minutes later, Steven emerged with his arm draped over Lesleydsay’s shoulders. He tossed the folder at me. There it was. His signature—bold, arrogant, and sprawling. Right on the line that transferred thirty-four percent of his empire to me. “Oh, and Lydia…” Steven looked up as if he had just remembered something trivial. “We have the executive physicals tomorrow. I’ve added Lesleydsay to the list as a family dependent.” He looked at her, pinching her chin affectionately. “We might have a little ‘surprise’ on the way, babe. Better to get everything checked out now.” Physicals. Blood work. Full panels. My heart hammered against my ribs. If Steven gave blood tomorrow, the results would be back within forty-eight hours. With his ego, he wouldn’t feel fear first—he’d feel rage. He’d launch an investigation. He’d check the sources, he’d check everyone around him, he’d freeze the company’s assets. The final transfer of funds I was middle of moving would be flagged. Five years of planning. Sixty-eight incidents of hell. All of it would go up in flames. I couldn’t let him go to that appointment. At six a.m. the next morning, I stood in the kitchen, my fingers trembling as I held a small packet of brown powder. Senna extract. Concentrated, tasteless, and odorless. Mixed into warm milk, it would cause hours of violent, uncontrollable cramping and diarrhea—nothing a doctor could trace back to anything but a bad oyster. I set the milk on Steven’s usual black coaster. I knew his routine better than he knew himself. At seven sharp, Steven came downstairs, dressed in a bespoke navy suit. He sat down, reaching for the glass. But before his hand touched the rim— “Steven!” Lesleydsay ran into the room, still in her silk pajamas. She plopped herself onto his lap and playfully snatched the glass from his hand. “I want some! I’m the lady of the house now, I should get the first sip of everything.” She shot me a look of pure spite before tilting her head back and draining the entire glass. I stood frozen, holding a tray of fruit, my heart stopping in my chest. Sure enough, by the time we were supposed to leave, Lesleydsay’s face had turned a sickly shade of grey. As the car pulled onto the expressway, she clutched her stomach, breaking out into a cold sweat. “Steven… I think I’m going to be sick…” Steven’s expression shifted instantly to one of intense panic. “Turn around!” he barked at the driver. “Get us to the nearest ER!” Lesleydsay threw up three times before we reached the hospital. By the time they wheeled her in, she was semi-conscious and limp in Steven’s arms. He stayed with her, his eyes red with worry. I was the one who got the call ten minutes later. “Lydia, you useless bitch! You can’t even make a simple breakfast? Did you do this on purpose? Did you poison her?” His roar was so loud the taxi driver flinched. When I arrived at the VIP wing, Steven was kneeling by Lesleydsay’s bed, tucking the blanket around her with a tenderness I hadn’t seen in years. He heard my footsteps and bolted upright. A cup of ice water flew through the air, drenching me. The force of it knocked me back against the wall. Cold water dripped from my hair, soaking into my blouse. My forehead stung where the rim of the glass had clipped me. In front of three nurses and the attending physician, he shoved his finger into my face. “If it weren’t for the fact that your father is dead, I would have thrown you out on the street years ago!” My father. He had the nerve to mention him? The man who needed three million dollars to save his legacy, a pittance Steven could have provided, but instead watched as my father jumped from his office balcony. I looked down, water dripping from my eyelashes like tears. They weren’t. “If anything happens to her…” Steven grabbed my jaw, his grip so tight I thought my teeth would shatter. “I will make you pay with your life.” “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a fake, submissive fear. “It was my fault. Should we… should we reschedule the physicals at the center?” “Are you kidding?” he spat, waving his hand dismissively. “We’re staying here until Lesleydsay is cleared. Push the physicals to next week.” He turned back to her, lacing his fingers with hers. It was a beautiful, tender scene. It reminded me of three years ago, when I was hemorrhaging in an ER after a miscarriage. I had called him seventeen times. He never picked up. I found out later he was celebrating the birthday of mistress number thirty-four. Buzz. Steven’s phone erupted. He frowned, answering it with a snap. Within five seconds, the color drained from his face, turning from a furious red to a ghostly white. “What do you mean?” Even from where I stood, I could hear the voice of the head of accounting, trembling over the line. “Mr. Blackwood… there’s a three-hundred-million-dollar discrepancy in the accounts. The system shows the approval came from… the CFO. Your wife.” The air in the room curdled. Steven slowly turned his head, his bloodshot eyes locking onto mine like heat-seeking missiles. “Lydia. Explain. Now.” The only sound in the room was the rhythmic beep… beep… beep of Lesleydsay’s heart monitor. I let my face crumple. I let my hands shake. Panic. That was the only acceptable response. I fumbled with my bag, pulling out a folder and handing it to him with trembling fingers. “I… I found this last week,” I stammered, my voice perfectly pitched with cowardice. “I’ve been investigating it. Someone stole my credentials for the approval system. The funds… they were routed to an account linked to the Greenwich estate.” Steven’s pupils contracted. Greenwich. That was the residence of Jade, mistress number sixty-seven—the one he had dumped in a spectacular, ugly fashion a month ago. She had threatened to ruin him, and he had buried her under a mountain of legal threats. Steven snatched the report, his eyes flying over the data. “That goddamn snake!” he roared, throwing the papers across the room. He didn’t look at me again. Because in Steven’s world, Lydia was a dog. And dogs didn’t plot. Dogs didn’t steal. That night, I sat in the darkness of the study, the blue light of the laptop reflecting in my eyes. When I hit the ‘Enter’ key for the final time, my hands were as steady as a surgeon’s. Over the last thirty days, my father’s old loyalists had helped me complete the final phase of the asset swap. The core of the Blackwood empire had been hollowed out, thread by thread, over five long years. From the outside, the company looked magnificent. But the bones were gone. I walked to the window, looking out over the city lights. Everything was ready. I just needed the wind to blow in the right direction. One month later. The Blackwood Group’s Year-End Gala. Under the crystal chandeliers, Steven walked the red carpet with Lesleydsay on his arm. The flashbulbs were a constant, blinding strobe. I was tucked away at a table in the far corner, reserved for “unassigned guests.” No nameplate. I was seated with three drivers from the logistics department. On stage, Steven raised a glass of vintage Cristal, glowing with the arrogance of a man who thought he owned the world. He looked terrible, though. His eyes were sunken, his skin sallow. He had been suffering from night sweats and a persistent fever. He had even developed small, swollen nodes on his neck. He told himself it was just stress. He had finally gone for that physical a few days ago, then spent the afternoon on a private IV drip, popping fever reducers like candy. I hadn’t stopped the physical this time. I didn’t need to. At the height of the party, Steven suddenly called my name. The ballroom went silent. He tossed a document onto the table in front of me, his tone like he was ordering a maid to refill his water. “Sign this. It’s just a formality. Lesleydsay loves the garden at your family’s old estate. I’ve transferred the deed to her name. You’re the ‘big sister’ here, Lydia. You don’t mind, right?” I looked down. The Transfer of Title for the Lesley Ancestral Home. The last thing my father had left before he jumped. The garden where my mother had spent twenty years planting magnolias. The only place in this seven-year hell that I could still call home. My composure slipped. My hands began to shake—for real this time. I looked up at him, my eyes burning. “Steven… do you have to be this cruel?” He looked down at me like I was an ant in his path. “Lydia, don’t be ungrateful. Without me, you wouldn’t even be allowed in this room. Sign it, and you’re still Mrs. Blackwood.” “And if I don’t?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Lesleydsay sauntered over, clinking her glass against his. She smoothed the silk of her dress over her waist, grinning. “Lydia, Steven adores me now. If you want to keep your title, be a good girl and sign.” I bit my lip, the pen hovering over the paper. Three hundred pairs of eyes were on me. Some were pitying, some were cold, most were just hungry for the drama. Just as my nib touched the paper— SLAM! The side doors of the ballroom burst open. The private physician I had “consulted” rushed in, his face ghostly white, clutching a red-stamped folder. He was trembling so hard he nearly tripped over the carpet. His voice tore through the music and the chatter, a frantic, jagged edge: “Mr. Blackwood! Stop! There’s… there’s an emergency. Your lab results…” I froze, the pen still poised. The wind had finally arrived.

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My sister officially recognized a bionic experiment as her brother in front of a swarm of flashing cameras, declaring she would leave her entire estate to him. She did it for one reason: to flush me out of hiding. She had already filed a lawsuit against me over a heart transplant, claiming I’d defrauded her by swapping her ten-million-dollar mechanical heart for a defective biological one. But when the court date arrived, I was a no-show. Desperate and furious, she tracked down my last known place of employment—a sprawling, grease-stained graveyard of a factory on the industrial outskirts of the city. She grabbed the first person she saw and demanded to know where I was. the floor manager looked at her, his face a mask of bewilderment. “You mean Emmett? Lady, Emmett died three years ago. Sudden cardiac arrest.” He paused, a grimace flickering across his features. “It was a mess. He got pulled right into the intake of one of the heavy presses. There wasn’t enough left of him to bury.” All of this happened in the seventh year since I had “exchanged” hearts with my sister’s prized bionic project. For seven years, the experiments had been failing due to rejection issues. And for seven years, my sister had laid every ounce of blame at my feet, cursing me for “hiding” the fact that my own heart was diseased from the start. 1 Vicky froze for a split second, then waved her hand dismissively, her face twisting into a mask of impatient scorn. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least make it logical,” she snapped. “I personally designed that mechanical heart. With regular maintenance and charging, it’s built to beat for over a hundred years. It doesn’t just ‘stop.’” She let out a sharp, cold laugh, her eyes sharp with disbelief. “Emmett is such a drama queen. Faking a job in a dump like this to play the victim is one thing, but hiring an actor to tell me he’s dead? That’s low, even for him.” The manager shifted uncomfortably, rubbing his grease-stained hands together. “Ma’am, I’m not joking. Emmett is gone. I don’t know what he was to you—did the kid owe you money or something?” He hesitated, then added in a hushed tone, “A few debt collectors came by a while back, looking to squeeze him for cash. But once they saw the police report, even they had to give it up.” Vicky’s brow furrowed when she heard him call me a “kid,” but the second half of his sentence set her temper ablaze. “What exactly are you implying? That he was into loan sharks?” Her face darkened instantly. “I wired him nearly a million dollars a month for living expenses. How could he possibly burn through that and end up owing collectors?!” She spun around, shouting at the empty, echoing rafters of the factory. “Emmett! Get out here right now! Did you pick up some disgusting habit? Is that why you’re hiding? A son of the Stanley family, hunted for debts—don’t you have any shame?” When only the rhythmic clanking of machinery answered her, she lunged forward, grabbing the manager by his collar. Her eyes were feral. “Stop the act. I’m his sister. Tell him to get out here this second!” “The heart he gave Sam is failing. It’s causing Sam constant pain. He needs to answer for what he did in court, right now!” The manager gasped for air, his face turning a mottled purple. “Ma’am… please… let go… I’m telling you the truth. Emmett is dead!” Vicky shoved him away with a disgusted grunt. “Enough. Take me to where he stayed. I want to see exactly how long he thinks he can keep this charade up.” Resigned, the manager led her deeper into the bowels of the plant. They moved past deafening workstations and rows of dilapidated employee housing that looked more like shipping containers than homes. Vicky held a silk handkerchief to her nose, her eyes scanning the squalor with elitist disdain. “Hiding in a hole like this just to avoid a deposition… you’ve really grown a spine since I last saw you, Emmett,” she muttered under her breath. Finally, they stopped near a literal heap of scrap metal and refuse. The manager pointed to a few dust-covered cardboard boxes tucked into a corner. “There. That’s everything he left behind. Nobody ever came to claim it, so we just piled it here.” Inside the boxes were a few faded t-shirts, a pair of sneakers with soles peeling off like dead skin, and some rusted tin lunchboxes. Vicky looked at my meager belongings, a smirk playing on her lips. “The commitment to the bit is impressive. You even got the props right.” She kicked one of the boxes over. “Do you really take me for a fool? As a Stanley, he had insurance on every hair on his head by the time he was five. You expect me to believe he’d touch this trash?” The old clothes spilled into the dirt. A sneaker rolled into a muddy puddle. A lunchbox clattered across the concrete, its lid popping open to reveal a few crawling beetles. Vicky’s jaw tightened. “Emmett, if you don’t show yourself in the next ten seconds, don’t bother calling me your sister ever again!” She screamed into the void, but the only response was the indifferent roar of the machines. Just then, a gust of wind swirled through the alleyway, carrying the faint, sweet scent of sandalwood incense. Vicky paused, her nostrils flaring. She followed the scent, her heels clicking sharply against the cracked pavement, until she reached a tiny, sagging shack behind the dormitories. She pushed the door open. The space was barely six feet wide. There was a cot made of plywood and a scarred wooden desk. On the desk sat a black-and-white photograph in a simple frame. In the picture, a young man was smiling—a peaceful, gentle expression I hadn’t worn in years. It was my funeral portrait. 2 Vicky stared at the photo, her gaze turning icy. She snatched the frame and slammed it onto the floor with a violent crash. “Are you serious, Emmett? This is pathetic. You screw up, you give Sam a defective heart, and now you stage this morbid little theater piece to guilt-trip me?” She spat the words out. “Photoshopping your own memorial photo? Do you have any idea how cursed that is?” No one answered. The flame of the small prayer candle on the desk flickered in the draft. Infuriated by the silence, Vicky stomped on the frame. The glass shattered into a thousand glittering diamonds, and the photo slid out. She leaned down, picked up the black-and-white image with a look of pure loathing, and tossed it into the small brass charcoal burner nearby. The paper caught instantly. The edges curled and blackened, the fire licking across the bridge of my nose, erasing my smile. Suddenly, there was a noise behind her. Vicky spun around, a cold, triumphant smirk forming. “So, you finally found your conscience. Step out.” The door burst open. An elderly woman, white-haired and clutching a heavy kitchen cleaver, charged in. She looked like a cornered animal. “You heartless monster! How dare you come back here for my Emmett!” The blade flashed. Vicky ducked, her reflexes sharp. she grabbed the old woman’s wrist and twisted, sending the cleaver clattering to the floor. “Who the hell are you? Do you have any idea who I am?” Vicky barked. I drifted in the air above them, frantic, my spirit vibrating with a useless energy. Mrs. Henderson! Please! Stop! Don’t provoke her! But they couldn’t hear me. Vicky shoved the old woman away, looking down at her with chilling arrogance. “You’re the one who’s been hiding him, aren’t you, you old bat?” She brushed the dust off her sleeve, her eyes dripping with contempt. “Tell him to come out and face the music. If he leaves for the courthouse now, I might consider dropping the fraud charges for this little ‘death’ stunt.” Mrs. Henderson stumbled, catching herself against the wall. Her eyes were bloodshot, weeping with a rage so deep it looked like grief. “How can you be this cruel? Emmett has been dead for seven years! You stole his heart, and now you want to drag his ghost into a courtroom for the sake of that… that thing you built?” Vicky’s face went pale with anger. “Stop saying he’s dead. None of you are allowed to say that.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. “And let’s get one thing straight. He gave that heart willingly. He donated a sub-standard organ on purpose, leaving Sam in agony for years. He’s a saboteur, and he’s going to pay.” Mrs. Henderson trembled so hard her teeth chattered. She reached for the cleaver again. Vicky kicked it across the room and then, without a hint of hesitation, landed a sharp kick to the old woman’s ribs. Mrs. Henderson collapsed, groaning in pain. “Grandma! Grandma, I’m coming!” A younger woman burst through the door. Her eyes were wide and vacant, her movements uncoordinated. She threw herself over Mrs. Henderson, shielding her. Then, like a wild thing, she lunged at Vicky, sinking her teeth into Vicky’s forearm. “Get away from Grandma! Leave Emmett alone! Bad person! Hurting Emmett!” Vicky let out a cry of pain and fury. She grabbed the woman by her hair, yanking her back. The woman fought, her teeth locked tight until Vicky delivered a stinging slap across her face. The girl fell to the floor, stunned and silent. I screamed, diving toward them, trying to catch Vicky’s hand, but my fingers passed through her like smoke. Stop it! Don’t hurt Lila! Please, Vicky, stop! Vicky looked down at the girl, a cruel chuckle escaping her throat. “Oh, I see. She’s a half-wit.” She surveyed the cramped, miserable shack one last time, her eyes landing on the dazed girl. “Emmett… in a few years, you’ve managed to find yourself a new sister. A broken, useless one. Are you really that desperate for a family?” When I still didn’t appear, she shouted at the walls. “I know you’re watching! If you care about this freak and this old hag, then you’d better show yourself, or things are about to get very ugly.” Two of Vicky’s security guards stepped into the room. At her nod, they began to kick and punch the two women on the floor. Lila didn’t say a word; she just curled her body around Mrs. Henderson, taking every blow. Mrs. Henderson looked up, her face a mask of bloody defiance. “You’re a fool…” she wheezed, the words forced through gritted teeth. “My poor, sweet Emmett… how did he end up with a monster like you for a sister?” Vicky’s face turned livid. “Hit them harder! What am I paying you for?” The guards intensified their assault. Lila looked up from the floor, her eyes fixed on the empty air where I was floating. A strange, knowing look crossed her face. “Don’t worry, Emmett,” she whispered, blood trickling from her lip. “He’s gone to the other world. You’ll never find him. Not in a thousand years.” Vicky sneered. She knelt down, gripping Lila’s chin in a painful hold. “Since you’re so convinced he’s dead, where’s the body?” “If he’s dead, show me the corpse!” 3 Mrs. Henderson’s clouded eyes seemed to bleed with sorrow. “He was… he was caught in the machine! He was torn apart… there was nothing left to bury!” Vicky stood up, brushing her hands together as if she’d just finished a chore. “A convenient excuse. No body, no death. You’re all just very dedicated actors in his little play.” She turned her back on them, bored. Just then, her phone chimed. A soft, melodic voice came through the speaker—a voice that sounded exactly like mine used to, but with an artificial sweetness that made my skin crawl. “Vicky? Is Emmett still refusing to come home? My chest… it hurts so much today. I think the heart is stopping.” The transformation in Vicky was instant. Her face softened into a mask of frantic maternal worry. “Sam, don’t be scared. I’m coming back right now. Just hold on.” She hurried toward the door, pausing only to bark an order at her guards. “Watch them. Don’t let them leave this property.” I followed her as she sped back to her sprawling glass-and-steel mansion. Sam was sitting on a designer velvet sofa, looking pale and fragile. When Vicky walked in, his eyes—perfectly calibrated bionic lenses—welled with tears. “Did you find him?” he asked, his voice trembling. Vicky shook her head, her heart breaking for the machine. Sam began to weep. The tears were chemically identical to human salt water, leaking from his mechanical ducts. “I gave Emmett my hundred-year heart so he could live,” Sam sobbed, playing the martyr. “And he gave me this… this broken thing on purpose. I don’t know what I did wrong, Vicky. Why does he hate me?” Vicky pulled him into a hug, her voice thick with guilt. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him, even if I have to scour the earth. He’s the one who betrayed us. I’ll make him get on his knees and beg for your forgiveness.” I stood beside them, watching the display with a hollow, bitter irony. My heart had been perfectly fine. I remembered the day Sam said he “wanted to feel the warmth of a human pulse.” Vicky hadn’t asked me; she had commanded me. I was the “defective” biological brother, and Sam was the “perfected” version. I was conscious when they took it. I watched, paralyzed by anesthesia, as my own heart was lifted from my chest and placed into the cold, titanium cavity of a machine. I hadn’t sabotaged anything. Vicky’s voice snapped me back to the present. She was pacing, her frustration mounting. “He even convinced those people to lie for him. Saying the mechanical heart was ‘scrapped.’ I wired him a fortune every month to keep it charged, and he has the nerve to say it failed?” Her anger flared again. “The manager said he was in debt. He probably spent all that money on that ‘sister’ of his. This time, I’m not just suing him—I’m going to make sure he pays back every cent of that allowance.” Sam leaned his head on her shoulder, a flicker of something cold and calculating passing through his eyes. “You were so good to him, Vicky. How could he choose them over you?” The phone rang again. It was the guard at the factory. “Ma’am, the two women… they’re doing something strange.” Vicky stood up abruptly. “Finally. Emmett is showing himself, isn’t he?” I followed her back to the factory. In the distance, I saw them. Mrs. Henderson and Lila were on their knees in the dirt, performing a grueling ritual of penance. Every few steps, they bowed until their foreheads hit the stone, leaving smears of blood. Lila held something high above her head, her expression one of pure, holy devotion. The sun caught the object, creating a blinding flash of white light. It was my silver bracelet. The one I’d worn since I was a child. Vicky charged forward, snatching the bracelet from Lila’s hands. But Lila gripped it with surprising strength. “It’s Emmett’s! Not for you! You’re the bad one!” Vicky tugged, her face darkening. She stared into Lila’s vacant eyes. “Emmett, I know you’re lurking somewhere nearby. Are you really going to let this poor girl suffer for you?” 4 Vicky raised her boot and brought it down hard on Lila’s leg. A sickening crack echoed through the alley. Lila screamed, a sound of pure agony, but her fingers remained locked around the silver bracelet. I screamed in the sky, a silent roar of fury. I threw myself at Vicky, trying to shove her, trying to break her balance, but I was nothing but a ripple in the air. Lila’s leg was twisted at a grotesque angle. She looked up at the space where I was floating, her eyes shimmering with tears, but her gaze was strangely direct. It was as if she could finally see me. “Emmett… see? I’m holding it. I didn’t let her take it.” My heart—the spirit of it—broke. In a moment of absolute desperation, I did something forbidden. I ignited half of my soul, burning my spiritual essence to create a surge of energy. I focused everything on that mechanical heart miles away. Just for one second. One pulse. That was enough. A moment later, Vicky’s lead guard checked his tablet. “Ma’am! We just picked up a ping from the mechanical heart’s GPS!” “It’s beating! The signal is coming from right nearby… and it’s moving!” Vicky looked at the red dot on her screen and let out a triumphant laugh. “I knew it. I knew he was faking. Let’s go. I’ve got you now, Emmett.” As she turned to run to her car, Lila’s voice drifted after her. “Emmett… where are you going?” Vicky paused. She looked back and saw Lila staring into the empty air, reaching out with a trembling hand as if trying to grab someone’s sleeve. “Emmett! Emmett! Wait for me!” Vicky’s face twisted in disgust. “Useless freak. Stop playing games.” She walked back and stomped on Lila’s other leg. Another crack. Another scream. I collapsed in the air, my vision blurring. Igniting my soul had drained me of everything. My form was fading, becoming translucent, as a strange, cold vacuum began to pull me away. I don’t know how much time passed before Vicky reached the coordinates. She found herself in a dusty vacant lot where a group of neighborhood kids were kicking something around in the dirt. Her breath hitched. The red dot on her screen was right on top of her. As she approached the children, the dot stopped moving. “Hey!” she shouted. “Give me that!” She grabbed the “ball” from the kids. A light rain began to fall, washing away the grime and mud from the object. Familiar brushed-metal housing emerged. A cold, sickening dread washed over her. She pressed the manual override switch on the side of the heart. This time, there was no pulse. No whirring of gears. Only silence.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “424247”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When my consciousness finally clawed its way out of the fog, I found myself in the body of a broke college student about to sign her life away as a billionaire’s kept woman. My supposed best friend was currently standing flush in front of me, her chest heaving with righteous indignation as she glared at the man across the table. She declared loudly that even if the Sinclair family went entirely bankrupt, Megan would never stoop so low as to become his trophy pet. The man sitting opposite us possessed a dark, volatile energy. A cynical smirk played on his lips as he picked up the sugar-baby contract, his long fingers gripping the heavy parchment, ready to tear it to shreds. I stared at his face. It was a face etched into the deepest marrow of my bones. A suffocating wave of grievance crashed over me. My vision immediately blurred with hot tears. Before anyone in the opulent VIP room could process what was happening, I lunged across the mahogany table and desperately tore at his tailored shirt. “Where did you go? I’ve been starving to death!” I wailed, my voice cracking. In my past life, I was one of the infected. The walking dead. A monster. Yet, I had kept a human as a pet. During the day, he would brave the apocalyptic wasteland to scavenge for supplies. At night, he would wash himself spotless, climb into bed, and obediently let me pin him down to drink his blood. Then, one day, he just vanished. I starved until I was nothing but a husk. Driven by the agonizing hollow in my gut, I finally gathered the courage to push open the heavy apartment door and search for him. But the second I stepped out, a voice screamed: “That human traitor was harboring a monster! Kill it!” I wanted to explain that they had it backwards. I was the one harboring the human. But when I opened my mouth, the only sound that scraped from my dead throat was a guttural, wet groan. Before I could articulate my defense, a bullet tore through my skull. … 1 A suffocating, eerie silence descended upon the VIP room. Gideon violently snapped out of his shock and shoved me away. A deeply mocking sneer twisted his handsome features. “Just a minute ago, you were playing the tragic martyr, ready to die before submitting. What happened? Decided to just throw yourself at me instead?” Beside me, the original owner’s so-called best friend, Valerie, let out an ear-piercing shriek. Her eyes bulged as she stared at me. “Megan Sinclair! How could you degrade yourself like this? You’re actually agreeing to be Gideon Mercer’s kept woman?” “No! I forbid it! You are leaving with me right now.” She grabbed my arm, attempting to drag me out of the suite. I stumbled a few steps, then violently wrenched my arm free. I spun around, threw my arms around Gideon’s waist, and locked my grip, refusing to let go. I glared at Valerie, thoroughly annoyed. Was this girl out of her mind? I had finally—finally—found my pet human. I hadn’t even taken a single bite yet. Why the hell would I leave? “I’m hungry!” I announced loudly. A low, dark chuckle rumbled from the chest pressed against my cheek. Gideon clapped his hands. The heavy mahogany doors swung open, and a line of servers filed in, carrying silver platters of Michelin-starred cuisine. The room filled with the rich aromas of truffles and seared Wagyu, but I didn’t spare the feast a single glance. My eyes remained locked, utterly fixated, on Gideon. “I don’t eat that.” Gideon’s brow twitched with impatience. “Then what do you want? Pretty demanding for a girl who just sold herself—” “I want to eat you,” I said, pointing a finger squarely at his chest. Gideon choked on his own breath, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief. Beside us, Valerie practically vaulted into the air. She stomped her foot, her face flushed with fury. “Megan! You were an honors student! Did you leave your brain in the gutter? How can you say something so utterly shameless?” “If your parents knew you were whoring yourself out for money like this, they’d jump off a building out of sheer humiliation!” My patience was fraying. Before the original Megan had left the house today, her parents had explicitly instructed her to do whatever it took to please Gideon Mercer. Valerie knew perfectly well that offending Gideon would mean the final, crushing nail in the Sinclair family’s coffin. She also knew the original Megan was fiercely prideful. She was saying these things on purpose, trying to trigger a reaction. Even with a brain that had once been rotting inside a zombie’s skull, I could tell this girl was bad news. I ignored her completely. Instead, I reached my arms up toward Gideon, demanding to be held. “I’m tired. Take me home.” Back in that cramped, apocalyptic apartment, Gideon used to carry me around on his back all the time. He was my human. Bossing him around was my absolute right. Gideon stared at me, uncomprehending for a second. When my demand finally registered, a vein throbbed visibly at his temple. He shrugged off my grip, adjusting his ruined cuffs. “Keep up, then.” I bared my teeth at his retreating back. Just as I thought. Humans needed to be disciplined daily. Leave them outside for too long, and they go completely feral. My stomach gave a violent, hollow rumble. Seeing that Gideon had absolutely no intention of stopping to carry me, I swallowed my pride and trailed after him. I had barely taken two steps when Valerie lunged forward and seized my wrist. Her face was a mask of exaggerated, frantic concern. “Megan, I can’t let you be alone with a man like him. We’re best friends. Don’t worry, I will protect you.” She positioned herself slightly in front of me, a tragic heroine protecting the weak, and lifted her chin defiantly at Gideon. “I am moving into the mansion with Megan. Otherwise, you aren’t taking her anywhere.” Gideon’s dark, predatory gaze swept over the two of us. A slow, enigmatic smile curved his lips. “Fine.” 2 The new house was a sprawling, gated estate—exponentially more magnificent than our old, dingy hundred-square-foot apartment. I nodded in deep satisfaction. The moment we stepped into my assigned bedroom, Valerie’s mask of concern morphed into a severe interrogation. “Megan, you were just putting on an act today to pacify him, right? Someone as proud as you would never willingly be his little toy.” I stared at her, blinking slowly. Toy? Captive? My tongue darted out to lick the corner of my mouth. Whatever it was called, it sounded delicious. I nodded firmly. “I’m doing it.” Valerie looked like she might actually pass out from the sheer audacity. She dug her manicured nails into my shoulders, her eyes burning with a manic intensity. “Are you insane? I’ve told you the rumors! Gideon Mercer is a psychopath—” She dropped her voice to a theatrical, trembling whisper. “He drinks raw blood. He eats raw meat.” I swallowed audibly. A phantom drop of drool practically pooled at the corner of my mouth. I hadn’t tasted blood in three months. Shortly after the apocalypse began, I had found Gideon and hoarded him for myself. Because of him, I never had to roam the dangerous streets hunting humans. I had a steady, warm supply of fresh blood. But ever since he vanished, I hadn’t had a single drop. Now, I had finally found him, but it seemed he had entirely forgotten his place as my pet. Feeling a profound sense of melancholy, I gave Valerie a dismissive wave. “Don’t kink-shame, Valerie. We should respect other people’s dietary preferences.” Valerie’s jaw practically unhinged. “I’m going to sleep. Get out,” I said, shoving her out the door and locking it. When I stepped out of the en-suite bathroom, enveloped in a cloud of steam, I found Gideon lounging on my bed, smoking a cigar. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, his dark, brooding features partially obscured by the curling gray smoke. Seeing me frozen in the doorway, he exhaled a slow plume of smoke, his eyes glinting with dark amusement. “Didn’t you say you wanted to be my devoted little captive? What are you standing there for? Come here and entertain me.” I wrinkled my nose, my expression instantly souring. “Throw it away.” Gideon’s hand stalled mid-air. He looked at me, a dangerous edge sharpening his gaze. “Are you giving me orders in my own house?” I marched over, leaned over him, and pressed my nose to his neck, taking a deep inhale. Just as I suspected. That intoxicating, mouth-watering scent was completely buried under the stench of ash. My scowl deepened. I grabbed his arm and began dragging him toward the bathroom. “Go wash yourself right now. How am I supposed to take a bite out of you when you smell like this?” Gideon’s intimidating aura shattered into sheer bewilderment. Before he could process what was happening, I had shoved him into the master bathroom. A few moments later, the sound of the shower echoed through the door. I stood right outside, waiting with the agonizing anticipation of a starving dog. The second the door clicked open, I pounced. I practically tackled him, tearing at the lapels of his plush bathrobe. I aimed straight for the firm expanse of his chest and sank my teeth in. “Hiss!” Gideon flinched in pain and violently shoved me off him. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, his voice thick with anger. I couldn’t tell if it was from the steam of the shower or the shock, but the tips of his ears, hidden beneath his damp hair, were burning red. I looked up at him with total self-righteousness. “I’m entertaining you.” In our past life, Gideon always took the initiative to strip down and lie on the bed waiting for me. Now, I was the one doing all the heavy lifting to undress him. How was that not entertaining him? Gideon let out a harsh, incredulous laugh at my twisted logic. But when his eyes dropped to the faint smear of crimson at the corner of my mouth, his gaze suddenly darkened, shifting into something entirely unfathomable. He snatched the discarded bathrobe from the floor, threw it over my head to cover my face, and spoke in a voice that was suddenly tight and gravelly. “Wipe your face.” By the time I frantically wrestled the heavy terrycloth off my head, Gideon was already under the covers, lying as far away from me as possible, wrapped up tighter than a mummy. He was firmly refusing to be my dinner. Brimming with absolute grievance, I curled up on the opposite edge of the mattress, pulled out the new phone he had given me, and angrily typed into an anonymous forum: [What do you do when the human you keep as a pet goes on strike and refuses to let you drink his blood?] 3 The comment section immediately flooded with replies: [Damn, you guys play rough.] [Roleplay level: Expert.] Furious, I tossed the phone aside. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, my consciousness began to drift, and I felt a long-forgotten sensation: sleepiness. Hovering in the liminal space between waking and dreaming, a memory from my past life violently pierced my mind. I had just finished my nightly feeding. I was sitting by the cracked window of our apartment, bathing in the moonlight to absorb the night’s energy. (Mostly because zombies didn’t need to sleep, and I literally had nothing else to do with my time). As I sat there with my eyes closed, Gideon, who was sitting quietly beside me, suddenly spoke. “Little Fang, I wish I could just turn into one of the infected. That way, we could be together forever.” I opened my eyes and looked at him, completely baffled. He smiled, that soft, sad smile of his, and reached out to ruffle my messy hair. “But if I turned, what would happen to you? Who would take care of you then?” I bared my teeth at him in absolute outrage. The sheer audacity! My pet human thought he was the one taking care of me? To prove my dominance, I had immediately tackled him and bitten his chest again. Gideon had been so obedient then. He hadn’t dared to dodge. He just lay there, perfectly still, letting me take what I wanted. I slowly opened my eyes in the dark bedroom. The corners of my eyes felt strangely damp. After staring blankly into space for a moment, I scrambled across the massive mattress and crept right up to Gideon’s ear. His eyes snapped open instantly. He stared at me with hyper-vigilance, his hand instinctively flying up to grip the collar of his pajamas. “Gideon,” I whispered conspicuously, “do you like drinking blood now too?” In a fraction of a second, the last dregs of sleep vanished from his eyes. The vigilance on his face melted away, replaced by a terrifying, volatile darkness. His hand shot out, his long fingers wrapping tightly around my throat. The air supply cut off instantly. Heat rushed to my face as I choked. “What are you doing?!” I slapped at his hand, glaring at him with maximum intensity. “Let me go!” A visible twitch spasmed across Gideon’s brow. He clearly hadn’t expected me to look at him with such utter lack of fear while he was literally strangling me. Subconsciously, his grip loosened. I shoved his hand away, coughing violently for a few seconds before puffing my cheeks in irritation. “You’re so stingy. I was just asking if we share the same dietary preferences now. It’s not like I’m going to steal your food.” Gideon froze completely. For a long, suffocating moment, he just stared at me. Then, he doubled over, letting out a raw, manic laugh that bordered on unhinged. “God, Megan, you truly are a piece of work.” He looked at me, his eyes dripping with pure venom and mockery. “The lengths you’ll go to secure your place here. The lies you’ll spin to cater to my… reputation.” “Did you honestly think that pretending to share my madness would make me fall in love with you?” Looking at his twisted, self-deprecating smile, a surge of profound irritation flared in my chest. He was the one who had literally said he wanted to be a monster with me. I didn’t bother arguing. I just flipped over, pinned him to the mattress, and ripped his silk pajama shirt open, exposing the faint red crescent of teeth marks on his chest. I swallowed the heavy pool of saliva in my mouth, my eyes practically glowing green with hunger in the dark. “If you don’t believe me,” I whispered, “let me take one more bite.” Faced with the naked, primal hunger in my eyes, Gideon fell dead silent. After a heavy pause, he abruptly flipped us over, dumping me onto the mattress. Without a word, he pulled his shirt tightly shut. “Go to sleep.” His voice was harsh, defensive. “If you say one more insane thing, or try to pull another stunt like this, I will have my men throw you out onto the street.” Suitably chastised, I retreated to my side of the bed, pulled out my phone, and typed: [My pet human is trying to stage a coup. He won’t let me strip his clothes off anymore. Help! Emergency!] The same degenerates from earlier replied instantly. [If he won’t let you take off his shirt, it’s obviously a psychological block. Try taking off his pants instead. He’ll definitely surrender.] I locked the screen, deeply in thought. 4 When I woke up the next morning, Gideon’s side of the bed was cold. The moment I wandered down the grand staircase, the estate’s impeccably dressed head butler greeted me. With a warm, practiced smile and a respectful bow, he said, “Miss Sinclair, before Mr. Mercer departed this morning, he arranged for several boutiques to send over their latest collections for your selection.” He clapped his hands gently. A line of estate staff marched into the grand foyer, carrying velvet trays and garment bags. Brooches, diamond earrings, heavy sapphire necklaces, tennis bracelets. The sheer brilliance of the jewels in the morning light was almost blinding. Following the jewelry came rolling racks of haute couture and limited-edition handbags that practically swallowed the massive living room. Just then, Valerie stepped out of her guest room. The moment her eyes landed on the display of wealth, her face twisted into something ugly. “Gideon gave you all this?” she asked, her voice cracking up an octave. The butler offered her a deeply unimpressed, fleeting glance. Valerie struggled to forcibly mold her raw jealousy into a mask of sisterly outrage. She pointed a trembling finger at the racks. “Megan, he is deliberately humiliating you! You absolutely cannot accept these things, or you will never be able to hold your head up in polite society again!” I couldn’t help but slowly tilt my head, stretching my neck as I looked at her like she was an alien. The butler dropped his polite smile entirely. His tone laced with polite poison, he said, “Miss Valerie, Mr. Mercer only permitted you to stay on these grounds out of respect for Miss Sinclair. If you continue to make highly inappropriate remarks, I will be forced to have security escort you off the premises.” Valerie snapped her mouth shut, her eyes burning with resentment. She waited until the butler stepped away before sidling up to me. Leaning in close, her voice tight with a sick, eager anticipation, she whispered: “Did Gideon have an episode last night?” I used my previously-rotted zombie brain to process the question. In my past life, I opened my apartment door and caught a bullet to the brain instantly. The lesson was clear: in this life, I had to guard the secret of my true nature with my life. And since Gideon had clearly developed the same hunger, he was my kind now. I had to protect him, too. I looked her dead in the eye and shook my head with absolute solemnity. “No.” Valerie’s face immediately fell in deep disappointment. “How is that possible?” she muttered to herself, turning away in bitter frustration. For a zombie who had spent three years locked inside a hundred-square-foot apartment without taking a single step outside, this sprawling estate was a paradise. I wandered the gardens, explored the massive library, and tested the bounce of every sofa. The day passed in a blissful blur. That evening, Gideon returned to the estate. I was just about to run over and greet my food source when Valerie beat me to it. Carrying a heavy, covered silver cloche, she intercepted Gideon in the grand hallway, a secretive, malicious gleam in her eyes. My nose twitched. The heavy, metallic tang of fresh blood hit the air. Gideon, whose steps had been light, stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes locked onto the silver tray in Valerie’s hands. With a sickeningly sweet smile, Valerie lifted the lid. Sitting on the pristine silver platter was a massive cut of raw, bloody beef, practically swimming in its own juices. Next to it sat a crystal tumbler filled to the brim with fresh, dark venison blood. Staring at that glass of blood, the whites of Gideon’s eyes slowly bled red. His classically handsome face contorted into something vicious and terrifying. “Get out!” He suddenly snapped, violently backhanding a priceless Ming vase off a nearby pedestal. It shattered into a thousand pieces. “Everyone, get the fuck out!” I was still busy drooling at the sight of the venison blood when Gideon’s sudden violent outburst made me jump. Before I could react, Valerie grabbed my arm and practically dragged me out of the room. But instead of fleeing the house, she pulled me toward the veranda, pressing me against the French doors and leaving a tiny crack open so we could see inside. “See?” she whispered frantically, her voice trembling with morbid triumph. “I didn’t lie to you. He is a literal monster.” Inside the room, Gideon was staring at the glass of blood, his eyes locked in a violent war between desperate craving and agonizing self-loathing. I could see his throat working as he swallowed heavily. Suddenly, he snatched a steak knife from the tray and viciously drove it into his own forearm. Blood sprayed across the marble floor. The intense physical pain seemed to momentarily ground him, bringing a desperate clarity to his eyes. But it didn’t last. Within seconds, his breathing turned ragged and heavy. Unable to fight the overwhelming compulsion any longer, he dropped the knife, grabbed the raw, bloody slab of meat with his bare hands, and began tearing into it with a ravenous, animalistic desperation. “Oh my god!” Valerie shrieked, stumbling back. Even though she had orchestrated the entire scene, witnessing the sheer, grotesque reality of it broke her nerve. She let out a scream of pure terror. Gideon’s head snapped up. His eyes, devoid of any human warmth, locked dead onto my face through the glass. Valerie’s grip on my wrist tightened painfully as she yanked me toward the front gates. “Run!” “Stop them.” The chilling, dead voice drifted out from the house. Instantly, a wall of heavily armed security guards materialized, blocking our path. A moment later, Gideon stood before me. The dark, manic energy radiating from him was suffocating. His cold, bloodstained hand slowly reached up to wrap around my throat. A fractured, psychotic smile stretched across his face. “You lied to me. You want to leave me too, don’t you?”

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When the Vice President kicked my office door open, I was clutching an X-Acto knife, my hands shaking uncontrollably. He shoved his phone inches from my face. In the grainy security footage, a figure was rifling through files in the server room. The silhouette, the posture, the tan trench coat—it was unmistakably me. “You backstabbing bitch! We caught you red-handed on camera. Get ready to rot in a cell!” His roar hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I stared at the screen, watching my “ghost” skulk around, and then, inexplicably, I started to laugh. A sharp, jagged sound that cut through the tension. So, for the last half hour, I’d supposedly been playing corporate spy. That meant the person who had just wired $200 million of the firm’s capital into a fraudulent, frozen account definitely wasn’t me. The X-Acto knife hit the floor with a metallic clatter. My heart, which had been lodged in my throat for the last ten minutes, finally dropped back into my chest. The notification for the frozen funds was still flashing on my monitor, but suddenly, that didn’t seem like my problem anymore. 1 Bill Henderson looked at the knife on the floor and let out a cold, jagged laugh. “What? Scared now?” “If you’re smart, you’ll make this easy for both of us.” He reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a formal memo, slamming it onto my desk. The header was bold and unforgiving: Termination of Employment – Chief Financial Officer, Summer Beckett. The grounds for firing were laid out in black and white: Suspected theft of core trade secrets, gross violation of non-disclosure agreements, and breach of conduct. He kept one hand pressed firmly on the document while the other signaled toward the hallway. Two security guards filed in, flanking my desk like pillars of stone. “Hand over the corporate keys and your digital signature token,” Bill said, curling his fingers in a ‘give it here’ gesture. A crowd had already gathered at the door. People who, just this morning, were calling me “Ms. Beckett” with practiced smiles were now wearing masks of disgust. “I knew something was off with her,” someone whispered loud enough for me to hear. “Always staying until midnight. Now we know what she was actually doing.” “No wonder we lost that last bidding war. We had a mole in the C-suite.” “She deserves whatever’s coming to her.” I ignored them. My eyes were fixed on the timestamp of the security still on Bill’s phone. 14:15. The figure in the tan trench coat—my tan trench coat—had slipped into the server room then. I thought back to 14:10. Maya, Bill’s niece who was currently “interning” in the marketing department, had walked into my office with two lattes. “Summer, I thought you could use a caffeine boost,” she’d said, her voice sweet and syrupy. Then, she “tripped.” An entire cup of scorching latte drenched the trench coat I had draped over the back of my chair. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry! Summer, don’t be mad—let me take it to the dry cleaner’s downstairs right now!” She’d scooped up the coat and ran out before I could even process the mess. At the time, I thought she was just a clumsy, well-meaning kid. Now I realized that five minutes later, that coat was on someone else’s back. And while that “someone” was in the server room from 14:15 to 14:25, I was sitting right here at my desk, authorizing a wire transfer of $200 million into a dead end. Bill had spent weeks digging a grave to bury me in. He just didn’t realize that the ground beneath us had already opened up into a much deeper abyss. That $200 million? That was the company’s lifeline. We’d liquidated assets and mortgaged the factory to get that bridge funding from our VCs. Now, it was sitting in a court-ordered frozen account. To get it back through legal channels would take eighteen months, minimum. The company had two months of runway, tops. According to the clawback clauses and the fiduciary responsibility agreement I’d signed, every cent of that loss would be pinned on me. My house, my savings, the fund I’d spent three years building for my mother’s dialysis—all of it would be gone. But by trying to frame me for a petty theft at the exact moment the money vanished, Bill hadn’t pushed me into the pit. He had accidentally built a wall between me and the crime. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling. Bill saw the flicker in my eyes and mistook it for surrender. “Finally realized there’s no way out, haven’t you?” He slowly pulled another stack of papers from his bag. 2 Two documents sat on my desk now. The first was a Voluntary Waiver of All Stock Options and Performance Bonuses. The second was a Confession of Trade Secret Theft. It was written with clinical coldness: I, Summer Beckett, admit that between 14:15 and 14:25 today, I left my workstation and entered the core server room to steal confidential bidding documents. Bill slid a pen toward me. He sighed, putting on his best “disappointed mentor” face. “Summer, I watched you climb the ladder from a junior accountant. Honestly, it breaks my heart to see it end like this.” He shook his head, the picture of grief. “But you did this. If I don’t handle this, how do I explain it to the Board? How do I look at the hundred employees whose livelihoods you put at risk?” He was a phenomenal actor. If I didn’t know for a fact that he was the reason we lost the bidding war last month, I might have even felt a twinge of guilt. “Look, Summer,” he leaned in, lowering his voice so only I could hear. “I know how much your mom’s hospital bills are. You go to prison, who’s going to take care of her? They’ll pull her off that machine within three days.” My knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of the desk. He straightened up, resuming his role as the benevolent leader. He patted my shoulder in front of everyone. “Sign the papers, walk away quietly, and I’ll convince the CEO not to call the police. We’ll call it a wash—your years of service in exchange for your freedom. I’ll even personally cut you a check for $5,000 to help with your mother’s transition.” A murmur of admiration went through the crowd in the hallway. “Bill is being way too generous.” “Anyone else would’ve had her in handcuffs by now.” “She’s lucky she has a boss like him.” I didn’t say a word. I let the silence stretch for a few agonizing seconds until Bill tipped his head toward the door. “Luke, come in here.” My heart skipped a beat. Luke. My cousin. Three years ago, I’d found him rotting in a dive bar in our hometown. No degree, no skills, no future. I brought him to the city, paid his rent, and got him a job in the IT department. When he needed $10,000 for his wedding because his fiancée’s family was threatening to call it off, I took it out of my mother’s medical fund and handed it to him. He’d hugged me with tears in his eyes and told me I was the only real family he had. Now, Luke stood behind Bill, chest out, chin up. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Summer, just admit it,” he said, his voice forced. “Don’t make me choose between my family and the truth.” He took a deep breath, addressing the room. “I saw her. At 2:10 PM, she locked her screen and headed toward the server room. Her desk was empty for at least fifteen minutes.” The office went graveyard quiet. Then the whispers turned into a dull roar. “Even her own cousin can’t lie for her!” “It’s over!” “Just sign the damn papers!” Luke finished his speech and moved half a step closer to Bill’s side. He looked like a dog waiting for a treat after successfully fetching a kill. I stared at him for a long time. Long enough for him to start fidgeting with his fingers. Then, I looked down. Fine. Every debt of blood and gratitude we had? It was settled today. 3 “I won’t admit to something I didn’t do!” I screamed. “I was at my desk the entire time! I was processing wires! I never left!” My eyes were red, my body shaking. I played the part perfectly: a woman pushed into a corner by a lie, hysterical and desperate. It was exactly what they wanted to see. Bill actually chuckled. “Still stubborn? We have you on video. We have an eyewitness. How are you going to argue with that?” I didn’t answer him with words. I spun around and ripped the hardware security key—the U-key—out of my computer’s USB port. “This!” I held it up like a holy relic. “The high-value transfer system requires this physical key to operate. Every single payment requires a fingerprint confirmation on this device! It has biometric logs! It records the exact second of every interaction!” I was hyperventilating now. “This key will prove that between 2:15 and 2:25 PM, the finger pressed against this sensor belonged to me, Summer Beckett! I was here! I couldn’t have been in the server room!” Before they could react, I grabbed a thick stack of printed authorization forms from my desk and clutched them to my chest. “And these! Every one of these wire approvals has my physical signature and the corporate seal from ten minutes ago! The ink is still wet! A forensics test could prove exactly when these were signed!” “Call the police!” I shrieked. “Call the FBI! Let them check the fingerprints on the U-key! Let them check the timestamps on these papers! See what happens when you try to frame me!” I was a mess. A pathetic, drowning rat. But inside, I was cold. I knew those logs would prove I was at my desk. But they would also prove that I was the one who sent the $200 million into the void. The U-key and the papers weren’t my lifelines. They were the poison I was feeding to Bill. I knew that the more I acted like these were my “proof of innocence,” the more Bill would fear them. Because if the authorities got involved and verified my prints, not only would his body-double-in-a-trench-coat trick fail, but his entire narrative would collapse. He couldn’t let that evidence stay in this office. Sure enough, Bill’s smile vanished. His eyes turned dark and predatory. He looked at the U-key in my hand, then at the papers I was “protecting.” He looked at Luke and gave a slight jerk of his head. “Since Ms. Beckett has clearly lost her mind, help her clean up her desk. We wouldn’t want her hurting herself.” 4 Luke didn’t hesitate. He stepped toward me with a grim sense of purpose. “Summer, just let it go,” he said, reaching for the U-key. I scrambled back, but he was stronger. He pried my fingers open and snatched the small black device. “No! Please! That’s the only thing that proves I was here!” I screamed, struggling against him. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar. Luke held the U-key and looked at Bill. Bill gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. Then, Luke dropped the U-key on the hardwood floor. He lifted his heavy boot and slammed it down. Crackle. The internal chip snapped. The plastic casing shattered into a dozen pieces. Components scattered across the floor like digital dust. I collapsed into my chair, staring at the wreckage. My face was a mask of pure despair. But in my head, I was counting the wins. He didn’t just destroy my “innocence.” He destroyed the only evidence that could link me to the $200 million crime.

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I have always possessed a heart made of spun glass. The slightest tremor, the quietest rejection, and the fractures would spiderweb through my chest until I simply didn’t want to exist anymore. Once, when I caught my boyfriend with the girl I called my best friend, the betrayal shattered me so thoroughly that I decided we should all just leave this earth together. When my mother, suffocating and controlling, secretly logged in and changed my college applications to suit her own desires, the despair was so heavy I simply walked up to the roof and stepped into the open air. When my father, a man made of debts and empty promises, accused me of stealing the grocery money he had actually gambled away, the injustice of it burned so hot that I threw myself headfirst into the drywall. That was the pattern. Over the years, I had racked up a staggering tally: one hundred and eight attempts to end it all. One hundred and eight times I should have died. And then, one day, the wealthiest man in the country—a man I’d only ever seen on the covers of financial magazines—kicked down my door and begged to marry me. On my first day living in his estate, his socialite ex-girlfriend stormed in, painting her lips crimson and pointing a manicured finger at my face, calling me a homewrecker. The familiar sting of injustice flared. My chest tightened. Almost on autopilot, I reached for the silver fruit knife resting on the mahogany table, ready to drag it across my wrist. The billionaire didn’t hesitate. He lunged across the room, slapping the woman’s hand away with a fury that made the windows rattle. “If anyone so much as looks at her wrong,” he roared, his voice trembling with a terrifying rage, “I will dismantle their entire life.” Then, he turned to me. The most powerful man in the city dropped to his knees, his expensive suit pooling on the hardwood. He wrapped his arms around my legs, burying his face in my skirt. “Christ, Cheryl,” he choked out, sounding utterly broken. “You’ve died a hundred and eight times already. Please, I am begging you. Just let me keep you alive.” 1 I was born with a fatal flaw in my psychological wiring. Whenever the world pushed back, even slightly, my instinct was to pull the ripcord. To fade out. To die. It started small. When I was a little girl, a neighbor offhandedly mentioned that I was “such a solemn, unsmiling child.” My fragile little ego fractured. I ran home, hid beneath my quilt, and genuinely lay in the dark calculating how to slip away without it hurting. In middle school, an older girl got jealous that my essay won the district competition instead of hers. She cornered me in the alley behind the gymnasium, shoving me against the brick. I cried hot, humiliating tears and shoved the certificate into her chest. Walking home, the shame fermented into a dark, heavy sludge. I stared at the rushing traffic, thinking how easy it would be to just step off the curb. But the real breaking point came during my freshman year of high school. My father, a degenerate gambler, stole my mother’s emergency cash and blamed it on me. My glass heart didn’t just crack that day; it pulverized. I turned and rammed my head into the living room wall with everything I had. But the strange thing was—while the drywall dented, peeling away in chalky white flakes, and the room spun dizzily, I was perfectly fine. Not a drop of blood. Not a concussion. Once you realize you can survive the impossible, the barrier to trying again drops drastically. When a teacher humiliated me in front of the entire class, I went on a hunger strike. Five days without a drop of water, yet I woke up on the sixth day feeling energized and completely hydrated. When I bombed my SATs, I filled the bathtub, submerged myself, and waited for the dark. Hours later, I woke up beneath the water, having simply taken a peaceful nap. Not a single drop had entered my lungs. Then came the college application disaster. My mother altered my choices, forcing me into a teaching program I despised. I sobbed until my throat bled, tuned out her suffocating lectures, ran up the stairwell of our apartment building, and threw myself off the twentieth floor. I didn’t turn into a smear on the pavement. I didn’t even cough up blood. I just stood up, dusted off my jeans, and walked away. Pills, carbon monoxide, leaping—nothing worked. I was entirely, frustratingly immortal. My one hundred and ninth attempt was catalyzed by catching Charles, my college boyfriend, tangled in the sheets with my supposed best friend. I didn’t say a word. I just walked to the kitchen, grabbed the sharpest paring knife I could find, and charged back into the bedroom, my vision tunneled in red. Just as the tip of the blade was about to graze Charles’s bare chest, the apartment door exploded inward. I whipped around to see Berton Sinclair. The Berton Sinclair. Tech mogul, billionaire, a man whose face I’d seen on billboards in Times Square. He was sprinting down the narrow hallway of my cheap apartment, trailing a team of frantic paramedics in white coats. When Berton saw the knife in my fist, the blood drained from his face. He stumbled toward me, his hands raised in surrender. “Cheryl, please. Stop. Just put the knife down,” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “Think about your parents. If you die, think of what it would do to them.” I paused for exactly two seconds. I thought about my father, shaking me down for casino money. I thought about my mother, checking my phone logs and dictating my breathing. The memory made the knife feel lighter. I adjusted my grip. Seeing the shift in my eyes, the billionaire looked like he was about to weep. He threw out a lifeline, desperate and frantic. “Whatever you want,” Berton gasped out. “As long as it’s legal, I will give it to you. A penthouse, sports cars, blank checks. I don’t care. Just… please don’t kill yourself.” I stared at him, my mind short-circuiting. Was he just so obscenely wealthy that he played vigilante savior for fun? Sensing my hesitation, Berton doubled down. “Money solves ninety-nine percent of the world’s problems, Cheryl. Stay alive, and I swear on my life, you will never want for anything again. Hell, if you want to work at my company with your boyfriend, or just sit on the payroll and collect a massive salary, it’s yours.” That last sentence was a mistake. I glared at Berton, the betrayal twisting tight in my gut. He was in on it. He was friends with my cheating scum of a boyfriend. Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, I turned the blade inward and drove it straight into my own chest. Hot blood rushed over my fingers, blooming instantly across my shirt. Pain, sharp and blinding, ripped through me. The world tilted, and I collapsed against the cheap linoleum. As the darkness swallowed me, I heard Berton’s voice, thick with agony and absolute despair: “A hundred and eight times… wasn’t that enough? Why do you want to die so badly?!” 2 When I opened my eyes, I was drowning in the softest Egyptian cotton sheets I had ever felt. For a brief, euphoric moment, I thought the afterlife had excellent thread counts. Then, my eyes focused on Berton Sinclair’s exhausted, furious face. Seeing me awake, he rolled his eyes toward the vaulted ceiling, but the irritation quickly melted into a hyper-vigilant stare. He watched my hands, my breathing, as if terrified I might spontaneously combust. The disappointment settled heavy in my bones. I was still alive. I ignored his glare, overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion and self-loathing. What kind of cosmic joke was I? I had plunged a knife directly into my heart, and the universe had just spit me back out. The harder it was to die, the more the obsession clawed at me. I scanned the luxurious bedroom. No sharp objects. No glass vases. Berton followed my gaze, his jaw ticking. “What are you looking for? Are you hungry?” he demanded, his voice tight. “Tell me what you want. I’ll have the private chef make it right now.” I didn’t want to talk to this bizarre, intrusive billionaire. I just wanted to find a solid surface, shatter my skull, and leave this miserable, disappointing world behind. I threw off the covers, planted my feet, and sprinted full-force toward the pristine white wall. Thud. The impact didn’t feel like drywall. It was warm. It smelled of cedar and expensive cologne. And it let out a sharp, winded gasp. Had Berton’s house come alive? I opened my eyes in a panic, only to realize something far worse. I hadn’t hit the wall. I had rammed headfirst into Berton’s chest. No wonder it hadn’t cracked my skull open. But Berton looked like he was in agony. Tears actually pricked the corners of his eyes. Mortified, I rubbed my nose and tried to step back. He wasn’t having it. His hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist with an iron grip. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I gave a weak tug, but he wouldn’t let go. Defeated, my shoulders slumped. “I want to die.” The words seemed to ignite something volatile inside him. “You are in your twenties! Why is your first instinct always to end it? Do you have any idea what this does to your parents? What it does to… to the people who care about you?” I looked up at him, genuinely bewildered. Why was he weaponizing the people who broke me? My father didn’t care about me; he cared about his next hand of blackjack. The dull ache in my ribs on rainy days was a permanent reminder of the time he kicked me for refusing to hand over my paycheck. And my mother? She controlled me like a puppet. Growing up, I was only allowed to speak to children with high GPAs. In college, she demanded my passwords to read my texts. When I finally graduated, she threatened to swallow pills if I didn’t move back home, take a mundane office job, and marry a man of her choosing. When I didn’t answer, Berton’s anger seemed to evaporate. He leaned in, his eyes scanning my pale face with an intensity that made my breath hitch. I took a defensive step back. I didn’t know this man. Why did he care? “Because I… I have more money than I know what to do with, and I want to play savior. Is that a crime?” I blinked, realizing I had spoken my thoughts out loud. Too much money and wants to play savior. What an utterly bizarre, detached reality the one percent lived in. Seeing my lingering suspicion, Berton sighed, reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit, and pulled out a card. It was sleek, heavy, and matte black. My eyes locked onto it. Was that an actual, no-limit Centurion card? Berton let out a breath, looking almost relieved. Thank God she still cares about money, his eyes seemed to say. He pressed the cold metal into my palm. “It’s yours. Buy whatever you want. Max it out. I don’t care.” My heart gave a violent, pathetic flutter. Damn it. Was this the corrupting power of capitalism? It was incredibly tempting. Maybe dying could wait until the weekend? I immediately pulled out my phone, opened the voice memo app, and shoved it toward his face, looking at him with bright, expectant eyes. Berton coughed, suddenly looking very awkward. He raised a brow. “What? You want my number?” “No,” I said, entirely serious. “I need you to repeat what you just said on the record. Otherwise, you’re going to claim it was a loan and sue me for the balance later.” Berton’s face darkened with a mixture of disbelief and offense, but he grumbled into the microphone, repeating his offer. Satisfied, I slipped the phone into my pocket and followed him downstairs to the dining room. Over the next few days, Berton went full Mother Teresa on me. He handled the fallout with my ex, broke my lease, and absolutely refused to let me return to my cramped apartment. He insisted I stay in his sprawling, quiet estate. Between the exhaustion of fighting him, the undeniable comfort of the mansion, and the fact that it was a much shorter commute to my job, I gave in. For almost a week, the quiet luxury of the house worked like a balm. The urge to fade away dialed down to a low hum. Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, my boss called me into his glass-walled office. For two grueling hours, he stood over my desk, screaming at me, waving a pitch deck I had revised thirty-six times. He tore my work apart, calling me incompetent, lazy, and a waste of payroll. The kicker? The client ended up choosing my very first draft. How was that my fault? I had lost sleep, skipped meals, and bled over those revisions because he told me to. I hadn’t even raised my voice, and here he was, humiliating me in front of the entire bullpen, accusing me of wasting his time. The injustice of it felt like shards of glass in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t take it anymore. When the clock struck five, I walked out of the office, took the elevator up to the roof, and stepped off the ledge. 3 I woke up in Berton’s guest room. Again. I threw a pillow across the room and screamed at the ceiling, “I hate corporate America! They treat us like absolute livestock!” From the dark corner of the room, a low, moody voice replied, “So, you want to be the boss.” I jumped, clutching the duvet to my chest. Berton stepped out of the shadows. He looked exhausted, his handsome face tight with frustration. “I gave you an unlimited credit card, Cheryl,” he said, pacing toward the foot of the bed. “If you want to be the boss, buy a damn company. If someone yells at you, yell back. You have me backing you, and you’re still letting these mid-level managers walk all over you? Have you never learned how to throw your weight around?” I paused. He made a fair point. Then, my shoulders slumped. “Forget it. I don’t know the first thing about running a business. And I couldn’t be ruthless. If I can’t be a cutthroat capitalist, I’d just ruin the market.” Berton let out an exasperated sigh, pulled out his phone, fired off a rapid series of texts, and shoved it back into his pocket. He caught me staring and scowled. “Go to sleep. Now.” I flinched, stuttering slightly. “I… I can’t sleep with you standing there.” Usually, Berton was the picture of refined elegance, treating everyone from board members to the housekeeping staff with polite detachment. Right now, he looked like a powder keg about to blow, glaring at me with zero gentlemanly restraint. “I am not moving from this chair,” he snapped. “I am staying right here so you don’t decide to fling yourself out a window over some microscopic inconvenience at 3 A.M.” My throat tightened. A familiar prickle of tears burned my eyes. It wasn’t like I enjoyed wanting to die. It was just that the world always felt too heavy, too loud, too cruel. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to. Seeing my eyes well up, the powder keg instantly deflated. Berton scrubbed a hand over his face, walked over, and half-knelt beside the bed. His voice dropped to a low, desperate murmur. “Cheryl… please. Stop overthinking. Just close your eyes. When you wake up, I’m going to take you to get your revenge.” Revenge? My curiosity spiked. I wanted to ask what he meant, to tell him I wasn’t tired, but one look at the sheer exhaustion lining his eyes made me swallow the words. I lay down and squeezed my eyes shut. Oddly enough, within minutes, a heavy, dreamless sleep pulled me under. When I woke up, the sunlight was streaming in, and Berton was gone. I padded down to the dining room. He was sitting at the head of the long table, sipping black coffee. He slid a thick manila folder toward my plate. “Sign,” he said simply. I frowned, opening the cover. My eyes went wide. It was an acquisition contract for the marketing firm I worked for. Berton made a soft clicking sound with his tongue, looking at me like I was a feral cat he’d just brought indoors. “Sign the paper, Cheryl. The company becomes yours. When you walk in there today, your boss will have to bow to you. I shouldn’t have to teach you how to make his life miserable, right?” I tried to refuse, stammering about the cost, but his glare grew so intensely impatient that I finally picked up the Montblanc pen and scribbled my name, my hand shaking. But as the ink dried, I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from ticking upward. News travels fast. By the time I walked through the glass doors of my former purgatory, the atmosphere was electric with panic. My boss—my former tormentor—was practically sweating through his suit. He bowed, ushering me into the conference room and pouring me a cup of his prized, ridiculously expensive loose-leaf tea. The other employees watched through the blinds, their eyes wide with envy and shock. I took a sip of the bitter tea. It tasted like absolute victory. Being a cutthroat capitalist? Maybe not so bad after all. When I finally left the building, Berton was idling by the curb in his sleek black SUV to pick me up. My phone buzzed. I pulled it out. The company group chat, which I hadn’t been removed from yet, had over 99 unread messages. Thinking I was gone, they were tearing me apart. Did you see her? Definitely a sugar baby. Slept her way to the top, obviously. Someone had even posted screenshots of Charles’s Instagram story. My ex was claiming that my “sudden wealth” was the reason I had coldly abandoned him after years of dating. The air rushed out of my lungs. That absolute bastard. He cheated on me, and now he was playing the victim to make me look like a gold digger? The rage blinded me. Without a second thought, I turned toward the concrete wall of the parking garage and launched myself forward. Through my peripheral vision, I saw Berton leap out of the SUV, his face twisted in horror. As my skull connected with the concrete, the world didn’t go black for me. Instead, I saw Berton clutch his forehead, his knees buckling as he collapsed limply onto the pavement. 4 When I opened my eyes next, I was back in Berton’s bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the mattress, scrolling through his phone. There was a stark white gauze bandage taped over his forehead. He looked up, catching me awake, and shot me a glare. But beneath the anger, there was a profound, aching resentment in his eyes. I shrank back. Why was he looking at me like I had just broken his heart? The memory of the group chat flooded back, and that familiar, suffocating weight settled on my chest. I wanted to disappear again. Berton let out a breath that sounded more like a groan. He leaned over, gently catching my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him. “Alright. Let’s hear it. Who pissed you off this time and made you want to die?” The warmth of his fingers made my eyes well up. I looked at the bandage on his head. “What happened to your forehead? Did you trip trying to catch me?” Berton’s expression darkened. He lifted a finger and flicked me sharply on the forehead. “You have a lot of nerve asking me that!” I winced, rubbing my head, feeling guilty but also strangely… cared for. I spilled the entire story—the group chat, the rumors, Charles’s pathetic Instagram posts. Berton sat in silence for a long time, his jaw working as he processed it. Just when I thought he might lecture me again, a slow, dark smile spread across his face. It was completely out of character. “Perfect timing,” he murmured. “Your ex-boyfriend interviewed at my company a few days ago. He’s up for a final round. You want to ruin his day?” Berton Sinclair rarely smiled. When he did, it was usually the polite, polished curve of a CEO navigating a gala. But this—this was wicked, vengeful, and devastatingly attractive. I couldn’t look away. Knowing Berton was actively handing me the weapon to exact my own revenge sparked a fire in me I hadn’t felt in years. For the first time, the will to survive overshadowed the urge to die. I stopped sighing around the house. I even asked for seconds at dinner. A few days later, Sinclair Enterprises held their final executive interviews. From the security feeds in the lobby, I watched Charles stride in, his chest puffed out, an arrogant smirk on his face. He looked like a man who believed the world owed him a favor. When he finally walked into the boardroom, I was already seated at the center of the interview panel. I wore a dark blazer, a low-brimmed cap, and kept my head down, pretending to review his file. He didn’t even look at me. He just launched into his rehearsed, self-aggrandizing speech about his “visionary marketing strategies.” When he finally paused for breath, I slowly lifted my head. The color drained from his face so fast it was comical. I leaned back in the leather ergonomic chair, a sweet, venomous smile on my lips. “I’m sorry, Mr. Charles,” I said, my voice dripping with faux regret. “But you simply do not meet the standards of this company.”

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The package room in the lobby of our corporate headquarters was dead empty. It was only then that my supervisor—who had just returned from a business trip—finally remembered the existence of the employee whose phone number he had blocked. When I picked up the office line, his voice was frantic, a man whose world was actively catching fire. He demanded to know where the five cases of premium liquor were for tonight’s executive dinner—the one meant to seal a ten-million-dollar contract. He practically screamed into the receiver, accusing me of hiding the shipment. The irony was thick enough to choke on. This whole disaster had started exactly three days ago. Claiming his corporate cards were maxed out, he had ordered me to front nearly ten thousand dollars of my own money to purchase five cases of reserve vintage Scotch and a custom corporate embosser. He told me it was a life-or-death emergency for a signing event the following week. I had bitten my lip, drained my savings, and paid for it. The next morning, when I bumped into him in the breakroom, he brushed me off, promising to authorize the reimbursement by the end of the day. The day after that, he claimed he was dizzy from back-to-back meetings. Just wait one more day, Paige, he had said. On the third day, he crossed the line. He left on a business trip without a word, ignored all my messages, and sent my calls straight to voicemail. So, sitting in the stairwell with the cold, automated tone of a blocked call ringing in my ear, I had made a singular, split-second decision. I opened the shipping app, intercepted the packages, and canceled the entire order. 1 “Paige, are you allergic to your notifications?” The sharp rap of knuckles against my desk startled me. I pulled my eyes away from the architectural blueprints scattered across my workspace and looked up. Bradley, my direct supervisor, was staring down at me. His tone was perfectly mild, his face arranged into a mask of corporate friendliness, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. For the past half hour, the messaging icon on my monitor had been flashing relentlessly. I had ignored it, knowing from a year of bitter experience that Bradley reaching out directly never meant anything good. I had simply kept my head down, burying myself deeper into the CAD files. I just hadn’t expected him to actually walk out of his glass-walled sanctuary to confront me. Without waiting for an invitation, he leaned over my shoulder, the overpowering scent of his designer cologne invading my space. He took my mouse, jiggling it to wake the screen, and clicked open the chat window I had been so desperately trying to ignore. “I need you to cover this invoice for me, Paige,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s all stuff for the big signing next week. My limits are totally frozen right now.” He said it with such breathtaking entitlement. If he had known my passcode, I’m half-convinced he would have processed the payment himself right then and there. I couldn’t even count how many times we had played this exact game. During my very first week as a junior designer, he had forwarded me a cart containing three boxes of premium binder clips. It was thirty bucks. I was eager to please, terrified of making a bad impression, so I paid it without a second thought. I didn’t realize that in doing so, I had bled in shark-infested waters. A few days later, it was a hundred-dollar order. Mostly random, disparate office supplies. Back then, I had tried to maintain my professional boundaries, offering a polite, tentative refusal. “Brad, does the company actually reimburse us for these kinds of individual orders?” I had asked. “I’m still waiting on the money for those binder clips from last week.” He had frozen, a flash of genuine annoyance crossing his features. “Paige, these are essentials for our department,” he had snapped, his voice carrying just enough for the surrounding desks to hear. “It’s practically pennies. Why are you being so difficult about this? Just fill out an expense report, bring it to accounting, and I’ll sign off on it. Easy.” With that, he had turned on his heel, effectively ending the conversation. As he walked away, I distinctly heard him mutter, “So damn emotional.” I had swallowed my pride, quietly canceled the sweetgreen salad I had scheduled for lunch, and bought a stale sandwich from the lobby vending machine instead. My checking account barely had enough to cover his “pennies.” Yes, the company technically reimbursed us. But the bureaucratic red tape was a nightmare. The money always took weeks, sometimes over a month, to hit my account. Bradley’s demands had only grown more frequent, the amounts steadily climbing, and I was drowning under the weight of it. So today, when I saw his name flashing on my screen, a knot of dread had formed in my stomach. But nothing could have prepared me for the number staring back at me now. Nine thousand, five hundred dollars. I stared at the screen, my vision tunneling. A custom corporate embosser. And… Scotch? Five entire cases of limited-edition, twenty-year reserve Macallan? When I didn’t immediately speak, Bradley sighed, a harsh, impatient sound. “Paige, I told you, this is for the signing next week. You know exactly what’s at stake here. This is a ten-million-dollar contract. If we land this, the bonuses for our department are going to be astronomical. This is a drop in the bucket, and you’ll get it all back through Concur anyway.” A drop in the bucket? I almost laughed out loud. I was a junior employee barely making rent. Nine and a half thousand dollars was everything I had to my name. It was my safety net. It was my mother’s medical fund. Bradley stamped his foot, an ugly flash of panic in his eyes. “Look, I just need you to float it! If you can’t wait for the corporate reimbursement cycle, I will personally wire you the cash tomorrow morning. Do you want me to pause the entire workflow and have the whole floor pitch in like a bake sale?” It was rare to hear actual desperation in his voice. We were in the eleventh hour of a massive push, and the tension on the floor was palpable. A few of my colleagues, exhausted and running on fumes, looked up from their monitors. “Just do it, Paige. Don’t be the bottleneck,” Kevin, a senior architect, muttered loudly, shooting me a glare. A murmur of agreement rippled through the pod. Surrounded by the heavy, judgmental stares of my team, and looking at Bradley’s dead-serious expression, the fight drained out of me. My hands shook as I picked up my phone. I double-clicked the side button. FaceID authenticated. Payment Successful. The moment the green checkmark appeared, Bradley practically sprinted back to his office. But as I watched his retreating back, a cold, sickening weight settled deep in my bones. 2 I survived the next workday entirely on nervous adrenaline. I sat rigidly at my desk, my eyes darting toward Bradley’s office every few minutes. He never showed up. His lights remained off, the glass doors securely shut. Just as the panic began to curdle in my throat, just as I was drafting a carefully worded text to demand my money, I bumped into him by the espresso machine in the breakroom. Before I could even open my mouth, he went on the offensive. “Hey, Paige, I’m glad I caught you,” he said smoothly, pouring a double shot. “My schedule is completely insane today. I have to head to corporate HQ in twenty minutes, and I won’t have time to deal with the bank. My transfer limit is still locked up.” He offered me a reassuring, easy smile. “Don’t stress. I’ll come find you first thing tomorrow, and I’ll wire you the funds directly. I promise.” He had brought it up first. He looked me in the eye and swore he’d handle it. It was just enough to quiet the screaming alarm bells in my head. I forced myself to breathe, walked back to my desk, and threw myself into my drafts. But Thursday came and went, and Bradley never approached my desk. His office door was wide open. I saw him pacing, taking calls, laughing with the senior partners. Several times, we made direct eye contact through the glass. Every time, his gaze slid right past me, frictionless, as if I were part of the drywall. By 5:00 PM, the nausea was unbearable. I walked up to his door and knocked twice. “Brad, about that invoice—” He rubbed his temples, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders. He let out a long, theatrical sigh and waved a hand at me. “I’ve been in meetings for eight hours, Paige. I can barely see straight. We’ll handle it tomorrow.” He looked so deeply inconvenienced by my existence that I just backed away. Tomorrow is Friday, I told myself. I will not leave this building without that money. I needed it. Desperately. Because Friday night, right after work, I had an appointment with the billing department at my mother’s oncology ward to settle her monthly copays. But when I arrived at the office on Friday morning, Bradley’s office was dark. His door was locked. I asked around, trying to keep my voice casual, only to have Kevin casually mention that Bradley was out of town. Not a sudden emergency. A scheduled, multi-day trip he had known about all week. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A sterile, automated text from the hospital reminding me of my outstanding balance. Something inside me snapped. I retreated to the quiet hum of the fire stairwell and opened my messages. I typed out a firm, urgent demand for the transfer. I waited ten minutes. Sent another. Over the next hour, I sent ten messages. Nothing. Total silence. The read receipts were glaring. At one point, the little typing bubbles appeared, dancing on the screen for three agonizing minutes, only to vanish into nothingness. My legendary patience evaporated. I hit the call button. It rang through the full cycle. Voicemail. Fine. I can do this all day. I hit redial. I was prepared to blow up his phone until the sheer annoyance forced him to answer. But on the third try, there was no ringing. Just a sharp, single beep, followed immediately by the automated operator. The number you have reached is unavailable… I lowered the phone. The air in the stairwell suddenly felt freezing. He had blocked me. I sank down onto the concrete steps, hugging my knees to my chest. My mind raced, piecing together the breadcrumbs I had been too naive, or too intimidated, to see. Did top-tier liquor even qualify for standard corporate reimbursement? Looking back at the months of random receipts, the pattern was glaringly obvious. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was expensing items that blatantly violated company policy, using me as a buffer, an untraceable middleman. When it was twenty bucks here, fifty bucks there, I had swallowed it. Even when it hit a few hundred, and he held my upcoming performance review over my head, I wrote it off as the unspoken cost of surviving in a cutthroat firm. But this was nearly ten thousand dollars. My lifeline. I stared at the red exclamation point next to my final, undelivered text message. The panic was gone, replaced by something much colder. Much sharper. 3 I opened the shipping app. The order status read: In Transit – Arriving at Local Sorting Facility. Because it was high-value freight, it required multiple checkpoints and signatures. I hit the customer service icon, bypassed the chatbot, and got a live agent on the phone. I explained there was a critical error with the billing and requested an immediate, hard intercept on the shipment. Since the pallets hadn’t yet been loaded onto the local delivery trucks, the intercept was approved. Twenty minutes later, my phone vibrated in my palm. Refund processed. $9,500.00 has been credited to your account. I stared at the numbers. The relief was so intense my knees went weak. I felt like I could finally draw a full breath into my lungs. When I pushed open the heavy stairwell door and walked back onto the floor, I felt invincible. I tore through my remaining revisions with a kind of manic clarity, finishing my entire weekly workload an hour before the clock hit five. Leaning back in my ergonomic chair, I let the quiet satisfaction wash over me. I should have drawn this boundary months ago. But late was better than never. By the time I packed my bag, there were still zero notifications from Bradley. With my bank account safely restored, I decided we deserved a victory. On the way to the hospital, I stopped at an upscale grocer. I bought a crate of Rainier cherries—the obscenely expensive ones—and a pound of thick-cut, artisan roast beef. That night, sitting in the quiet, sterile glow of my mother’s hospital room, we ate like queens. The entire weekend passed in absolute bliss. Bradley didn’t try to reach me. Monday and Tuesday at the office were a revelation. Without him prowling the aisles, no one was timing our bathroom breaks. No one was breathing down our necks, demanding performative overtime just to show “hustle.” The air in the studio literally felt lighter. But the peace shattered on Wednesday evening. I was pulling my coat off the back of my chair when my cell rang. A frantic, blocked number. I answered, and Bradley’s voice exploded through the speaker. “Paige! Where the hell are you? I’m standing downstairs at the loading dock!” He was breathing heavily, panic bleeding into every syllable. “Where did you stash the delivery? The executive dinner starts in three hours!” I actually had to admire the sheer audacity of the man. When I needed my money to keep my mother in care, he played dumb and blocked my number. But now that he was staring down the barrel of a ruined VIP event, I was suddenly his best friend. I let out a soft, dry laugh. “What delivery?” His voice spiked an octave. “The order from last week! The Scotch! The tracking said it shipped days ago. Did the freight guy not call you?” I let a beat of total silence hang on the line. Then, I spoke, keeping my voice perfectly, terribly calm. “Oh, that. I canceled the order.” The silence on his end was absolute. For three long seconds, I wondered if he had dropped his phone. Then, a sound clawed out of his throat—half-gasp, half-shriek. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!” “I don’t know what to tell you, Brad—” “I told you exactly what that was for!” he screamed. Behind him, I could hear the muted chaos of a hotel lobby. “This is a ten-million-dollar deal! Ten million! The entire executive board is going to be there!” He tried to say something else, but a voice in the background cut him off, urgently telling him they needed to leave. He didn’t even hang up. I just listened to the rustle of fabric as someone dragged him away. By the time I unlocked my apartment door, my screen was drowning in notifications. Paige, I don’t care if you have to go to every high-end liquor store in the tri-state area. Find me twenty-year-old reserve right now and bring it to this address! Forget five cases. Bring one. Just bring me two bottles! God damn it, answer me! When I left him on read, the desperation curdled into pure venom. The texts dissolved into an unhinged string of profanity. I scrolled to the very bottom. The final message sat there, heavy and menacing: You killed the project. Enjoy getting sued by corporate, you stupid bitch. 4 I stared at the chaotic mix of voice memos and unhinged texts. Even through the screen, I could vividly picture him unraveling in real-time. His later messages barely even made sense, riddled with typos and frantic autocorrects. I had no idea what kind of disaster was unfolding in that private dining room, but the fallout hit our department’s group chat like a bomb. Kevin was the first to strike, tagging me directly in the main channel. Kevin: What the hell is wrong with you, Paige? You just tanked months of everyone’s hard work because you wanted to throw a tantrum? Kevin was Bradley’s golden boy. I imagined Bradley had just called him, weeping in a bathroom stall somewhere, spinning a wild narrative of my betrayal. Then Lauren, another senior associate, chimed in. Lauren: Wait, the deal fell through? How is that even possible? Kevin took the opening and ran with it, painting a picture of a catastrophic dinner ruined entirely by my insubordination. He made it perfectly clear: if I hadn’t gone rogue, the ink on that ten-million-dollar contract would be drying right now. No one else in the chat said a word. They were either too terrified to intervene or quietly enjoying the bloodshed. I locked my phone and went to sleep. The next morning, I walked into the office exactly at 8:55 AM. The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the low hum of office chatter vanished. The silence was deafening. Everyone was staring at me. Kevin and Lauren didn’t even try to hide their disgust, looking at me like I had tracked dog shit onto their carpets. I considered defending myself, but standing in the middle of the floor screaming about expense fraud felt a little unhinged. So, I walked to my desk, sat down, and opened AutoCAD. My utter lack of visible guilt pushed Kevin over the edge. He stormed across the aisle, slammed his hands down on my desk, and swept a stack of my printed schematics onto the floor. “How do you even have the nerve to show your face here?” he hissed. I looked up at him, my expression blank. “What exactly did I do, Kevin?” His face flushed a dark, furious red. “You sabotaged the executive dinner! Because of you, the clients walked. All of our late nights, all of our overtime—wiped out because you wanted to be petty!” He was trembling with rage. For a second, he raised a hand, looking like he might actually take a swing at me. A few people gasped, but no one stepped in to pull him back. Before things could escalate, a sharp, authoritative voice cut through the air. “Who is Paige?” Kevin froze. Standing in the doorway was Victor Caldwell, the Managing Director from corporate HQ. His face was carved out of granite, and his tone was absolute zero. The entire floor pointed at me in terrified unison. Kevin practically shoved me forward, stepping back with a smug, vindictive smirk, eager to watch my execution. I followed Mr. Caldwell into the main conference room. The moment I stepped inside, I saw Bradley. He looked awful—sweaty, pale, and desperate. The second he saw me, he pointed a trembling finger. “That’s her! That’s the one!” he practically yelled, turning to the panel of executives seated at the table. “I laid everything out for her perfectly last week. I sourced the vendor, I approved the vintage, all she had to do was process the payment. And she deliberately canceled the order behind my back!” He was hyperventilating, entirely off script. “The whole floor can back me up! I streamlined the entire logistical process for her. What kind of psychopath does something like this? Ask anyone out there—they all know she’s the reason we lost the client!” Bradley was a cornered animal, using volume to mask his terror. The executives at the table—four very expensive suits from headquarters—stared at me with cold, open hostility. The collective weight of their glares was meant to crush me. Standing alone in the center of that room, I felt physically small. Bradley noticed my rigid posture. A tiny, triumphant sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Paige, your actions have resulted in catastrophic consequences for this firm.” It was Mr. Caldwell who spoke, sitting at the head of the table. He didn’t ask for my side of the story. He delivered the verdict as a statement of fact. “This was a ten-million-dollar acquisition,” Caldwell continued, his voice echoing off the glass walls. “A junior employee does not have the authority, nor the capacity, to make decisions of this magnitude.” Every word was a nail in my coffin. It wasn’t my job. It was never my responsibility. But Bradley had spun a brilliant, desperate lie, turning me into a rogue employee who had maliciously destroyed a corporate merger. “Given the severity of your interference, we are preparing to take immediate legal action against you for damages.” It was over. They had made up their minds before I even walked in the door. Caldwell closed his folder and stood up, signaling the end of the tribunal. Bradley exhaled, a long, shuddering breath of relief, and hurried to open the door for the executives. But as Caldwell reached for the handle, I found my voice. I had been quiet my whole life. I hated conflict. I hated being perceived. But I looked at Bradley’s smug face, and a strange, cold fire lit up in my chest. “Mr. Caldwell,” I said, my voice ringing out, clear and steady. Everyone stopped. “I just have one question. For a dinner with two client representatives… did you really need thirty bottles of vintage Scotch?”

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I suffered every imaginable torment in that foreign penitentiary, waiting for a justice that never came. When the embassy finally contacted Chloe to claim my body, she laughed. She told the magistrate it was a sick prank, a silicone dummy I’d commissioned just to torture her. “That piece of trash violated me,” she sneered through the phone, her voice dripping with a cruelty that used to break my heart. “Even if his rotting corpse gets flushed down a storm drain, I wouldn’t waste a single breath looking at him.” What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t hiding. I was really, truly dead. Three years ago, after she was assaulted on that yacht, her trauma fractured her reality. She became hysterical, pointing a trembling finger at me, accusing me of being the monster who ruined her. Both of our families knew the truth. They knew the real culprit was inextricably tied to Brady—the golden boy, the untouchable center of her universe. Yet, they all looked away. They fed me to the wolves to satisfy her need for vengeance. They left me to rot in a sun-baked hellhole halfway across the world. And while I was bleeding on concrete floors, Chloe liquidated the tech company I had built from nothing, using my money to bury the evidence and keep her true love out of prison. I often wondered what she would do when she realized the truth. I imagined her holding my skeletal remains, laughing in manic triumph. I imagined her laughing so hard that eventually, the laughter would break, and the tears wouldn’t stop falling. 1. My remains were extradited back to the States. My wife, Chloe, received the formal notice to identify the body. She walked down the stark, fluorescent-lit hallway of the county morgue. As they approached the heavy metal doors, the faint, unmistakable stench of decay leaked into the air. She hesitated. Her stunning features twisted into a mask of pure revulsion. “Does he really think this is going to work?” she muttered, her heels clicking aggressively against the linoleum. “He fakes his death to guilt-trip me into forgiving a rapist? In his dreams.” In the end, she only made it through the doors because Brady had his arms wrapped securely around her waist. My soul drifted silently behind them. I watched, numb, as Chloe playfully bit Brady’s neck, right there in the morgue, as if she were trying to purge the sterile air from her lungs. Then, realizing she might have bitten too hard, she soothed the red mark with her tongue, letting out a soft, breathy giggle. A phantom pressure seized my chest. I couldn’t breathe, even though I had no lungs left to fill. She was flirting with her lover mere feet from my corpse. The medical examiner shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat to enforce some semblance of respect. Chloe pulled away from Brady, rolling her eyes. She spat a curse under her breath and finally yanked back the white sheet covering the steel table. Just one look. My nonexistent breath hitched. It wasn’t just that I was dead. It was that I had died with zero dignity. My remains were grotesque. “A rotting silicone dummy, Holden. Really?” Chloe’s voice was sharp, bouncing off the tiled walls. “You think you’ve fooled everyone, don’t you? You’re probably hiding in some pathetic little motel right now, laughing at my family. Laughing at the woman you brutalized. You make me sick!” “You might fool the embassy, Holden, but you can’t fool me!” she screamed at the mutilated flesh. “I wish you were dead. I wish you died so thoroughly that your soul wouldn’t even dare cross the border back into this country!” No, Chloe! I’m not lying to you! I surged forward, desperate, reaching out to grab her shoulders. But my translucent hands passed right through the expensive wool of her coat. She turned away from the table and buried her face in Brady’s chest, pressing a lingering kiss to his collarbone. “Let him play dead,” she whispered. “At least now we don’t have to hide anymore.” Brady carried her into the morgue, and he carried her out. The entire walk back to the administrative desk, she stroked his jaw, his neck, kissing him repeatedly as if demanding compensation for having to look at my face. At the front desk, the clerk handed them a thick manila envelope containing my autopsy reports and biometric data. Dozens of pages of irrefutable DNA matches and dental records. If she had bothered to look at even the first page, she would have known the body couldn’t be faked. Instead, Chloe shoved the envelope into her designer tote like it was garbage. Brady stroked her hair, his eyes heavy with practiced sorrow. “Three years ago, Holden almost dragged me down with him. If it weren’t for you fighting for me, exhausting yourself to clear my name… I would have been ruined. I owe you everything.” Chloe shook her head, her gaze softening. “Don’t say that. It wasn’t a big deal. I just spent a little money… liquidated a few of Holden’s start-ups. It didn’t cost my family a dime.” The tech firm I had bled for. The company I worked hundred-hour weeks to build from a garage to a high-rise office—gone in an afternoon. Sold off by my wife to buy the freedom of another man. The dead aren’t supposed to feel anything. So why did it hurt so much? Why did the sheer memory of her voice feel like glass in my veins? Forget it, I told myself. I built that company to afford the experimental treatments for her severe respiratory condition anyway. At least the money was used. “Holden owed me,” Chloe gritted her teeth, her eyes darkening. “Selling off his little vanity projects was letting him off easy.” Brady glanced back down the hallway toward the cold storage rooms. “Are you sure you don’t want to take one last look? Once you sign the release, they’ll bury him. Whatever he did, he was your husband once. He loved you in his own way.” Brady sighed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. “Man to man… I almost pity him.” Chloe spat on the ground, her face contorting with disgust. “God, Brady, you’re too kind for your own good. Why are you defending a monster who tried to destroy us? He forced himself on me! Marital rape is still rape!” Her voice trembled, pitching up with genuine, manufactured trauma. “You fought him off. You saved me, and you almost went to prison for assault because of it! He doesn’t even deserve to have his name spoken.” The heavy doors of the morgue slowly swung shut. The clerk slid a clipboard across the counter. “Ma’am, I just need your signature on the release forms.” Chloe picked up the pen. Then, suddenly, her hand froze. She slammed the pen down and backed away. “I am not tying my name to that man.” “Excuse me?” the clerk asked. “Even if he is dead—which he isn’t—I will not put my name on a document as his wife. I have nothing to do with him!” She spun on her heel and stormed out. The clerk looked bewildered and chased after her. “Ma’am! You are legally married. By state law, the spouse must claim the remains—” Chloe paused at the automatic doors. She didn’t look back. “I don’t have a husband. Let his body rot in there. Let the rats eat him. It’s exactly what he deserves.” She threw open the door of her Porsche 911, slammed it shut, and peeled out of the parking lot, the engine roaring in defiance. In the passenger seat, Brady’s phone began to ring incessantly. The police. The morgue. Chloe glanced at the caller ID and shook her head sharply. “Ignore it. Just thinking about him makes my skin crawl. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back on the deck of that yacht, crying, begging him to stop, and he just… he didn’t care. I could kill him myself.” My spirit trembled. Watching the absolute, venomous hatred radiate from her eyes, listening to her rewrite history until it justified grinding my bones to dust—it was a bitter, suffocating pill to swallow. Chloe was my wife, yet she had convinced the world, and herself, that I was a rapist. But I wasn’t. It happened shortly after our wedding, on a luxury cruise through a lawless stretch of international waters in the Caribbean. Armed mercenaries boarded the ship. Chloe was dragged up to the upper deck. By the time I tore through the ship like a madman and finally found her, it was over. She was catatonic, bleeding heavily onto the teakwood floor. The ship’s doctor later told me the trauma had been so severe, the internal damage so catastrophic, that she would never be able to carry a child. I was consumed by a blinding, agonizing guilt. I wanted to rip my own heart out and give it to her if it would make her whole again. But when Chloe finally woke up in the hospital, her mind had snapped. She screamed the moment she saw me. She threw things. She clawed at her own face, demanding that I die to atone for what I had done to her. Her trauma had completely rewritten her memories. She truly believed I was the one who had attacked her. I closed my ghostly eyes, letting the memory wash over me. To give her peace, I let her and her influential family lock me away in a brutal offshore prison. It was a cage built for the worst of humanity. Cartel enforcers, murderers, monsters. And in a place like that, a convicted rapist is the lowest link on the food chain. For three years, I was subjected to torture that defied human comprehension. And on the very night I was finally scheduled to be released, I was given my final release. I died in unimaginable agony. My body was beaten until it was no longer recognizable as human. … Brady drove like a maniac, eventually pulling up to the driveway of my sprawling estate in the suburbs. As Chloe stepped out into the freezing rain, he pulled her flush against his chest, kissing her deeply, hungrily. “It’s okay. Shhh, it’s over now. You’re safe,” he murmured. They held each other tightly in the downpour. I remembered my final moments on earth. I had begged a sympathetic guard to let me make one last phone call. Please… I had choked out into the receiver, blood bubbling in my lungs. Please, just pick up. I’m dying. This is my last chance, Chloe. My last chance to hear your voice… If she had answered. Even if she had picked up just to tell me how much she hated me. Even if she called me pathetic, manipulative, a coward trying to play the victim! If I had just heard her voice, I would have fought. I would have clawed my way back to life just to breathe the same air as her. But the phone just kept ringing. I died in absolute, suffocating despair. I died one day before my sentence was up. Now, I was a wandering ghost. An exile, tethered to the woman who put me in the ground. 2. My soul followed Chloe into the house. I stood in the corners of my own home, watching her and Brady live as husband and wife. They shared coffee in the mornings. They tangled their limbs together at night. Once, I watched Brady carry a heavily intoxicated Chloe through the front door. A visceral, territorial jealousy flared up inside me, and I glared at him, wishing I could tear him apart. But then I remembered Chloe’s sharp slap to my face years ago, her voice ringing in my ears: “Brady and I are just childhood friends! Only someone with a filthy mind would see something dirty in that!” But… do friends sleep in the same bed? Do friends kiss each other with that kind of desperate hunger when no one else is looking? Under the warm glow of the living room lamps, Chloe meticulously ironed Brady’s suit for the next day, folding it neatly over the back of the sofa. She looked like the perfect, devoted wife. That used to be my job. Before every gala, every board meeting, I would lay out her dresses. I would curate her jewelry, making sure every diamond and pearl perfectly complemented her mood. Chloe had always dismissed my efforts with a scoff. “You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but he still acts like the help,” she used to mock me to her friends. “He calls himself a Montgomery, but he has the soul of a butler.” Yet here she was, doing the exact same ‘servant’s work’ for Brady, and looking at him like he hung the moon. I guess that was the difference between being tolerated and being loved. Brady took her hands, bringing her knuckles to his lips for a soft kiss. Chloe closed her eyes, letting out a contented sigh. “Brady, I’m coming with you to the Montgomery estate tomorrow,” she whispered fiercely. “You are the true son of that family. No one is going to take that from you anymore. I’ll stand by you while you take back everything that belongs to you.” Watching her declare her absolute loyalty, I caught a fleeting, calculating shadow cross Brady’s face. I suddenly remembered how it all started. For twenty-something years, Brady was the pampered, adored heir to the Montgomery fortune. Until the day I was found in a dusty Appalachian town and brought back to the sprawling Boston estate. I remembered the look of profound disappointment in my biological parents’ eyes when they saw me in my faded flannel and scuffed boots. They couldn’t believe this rough, quiet mechanic was their actual flesh and blood. That afternoon, Brady had dramatically packed his bags, standing in the foyer with tears in his eyes. “I know we don’t share the same blood,” he had told my parents, his voice breaking perfectly. “But I’ve been a Montgomery my whole life. Even if you cast me out, I will always pray for your health and happiness.” We had been switched at birth. The rundown farmhouse I grew up in—the one with the leaky roof and the endless chores—was where Brady truly belonged. Tom and Mary O’Connor were his parents. But when the Montgomerys looked at me, their eyes begging me to be the bigger person, I caved. “If you want him to stay, let him stay,” I had said, shifting uncomfortably in my cheap sneakers. “Having two sons to take care of you isn’t a bad thing.” I meant it back then. But I regretted it almost immediately. Because Brady became a ghost that haunted my life, a shadow I could never escape, especially when it came to Chloe. At every high-society event, every charity gala, the moment Brady walked into the room, Chloe’s eyes would lock onto him like a magnet. Standing beside her, I—the actual heir to the Montgomery dynasty—faded into a pathetic, invisible joke. Chloe opened her eyes, her gaze practically overflowing with adoration. “It was always supposed to be you,” she told Brady, her voice thick with emotion. “We grew up together. You were the one I was supposed to marry. If that redneck hadn’t shown up and ruined everything, we would be married by now. We would have kids.” Her face hardened. “He stole my future. But it’s not too late. I’m going to divorce him, Brady. I’ll drag him out of hiding and force him to sign the papers, and then we can finally be together.” They stared into each other’s eyes, the air between them growing thick and heavy. Soon, the quiet whispers turned into heavy breathing. Watching them tear at each other’s clothes on the rug of my living room, I closed my eyes and let out a bitter, silent laugh. I always knew she didn’t love me. Her marriage contract was forged with the Montgomery heir. When my identity was revealed, she was legally bound to me. She was Boston royalty—cold, brilliant, and breathtakingly beautiful. I was a grease monkey who didn’t know which fork to use at dinner. How could I ever expect her to love me? I was so naive. I used to tell myself that if I just loved her hard enough, if I was patient and kind, year after year, maybe, just maybe, she would eventually look at me and smile. I was so incredibly wrong. When Chloe was assaulted, her parents had come to me. The aristocratic, untouchable Lynn family had fallen to their knees on my hardwood floor, weeping. “Please, Holden,” her father had begged. “Chloe is too proud. Her mind is shattered. If she knows she was taken by random thugs, she’ll kill herself. She has completely blocked out the real attackers!” “If you just confess,” her mother sobbed, clutching my pant leg. “If you let her believe it was you… her anger will keep her alive. She’ll have someone to hate. Please… it’s the only way she survives this.” Human nature is inherently selfish. If I confessed to a crime I didn’t commit, my life was over. I would be a pariah, a monster in the eyes of the world. I told them no. But I underestimated the depths of my own family’s betrayal. When I went to the Montgomery estate for help, my father locked himself in his study and refused to look at me. My mother threw herself on the floor, weeping hysterically, before swallowing a handful of sleeping pills right in front of me. As she was being pumped full of charcoal in the ER, she confessed the sickening truth. The attack on the yacht hadn’t been random. Brady had gambling debts. He had made a deal with the mercenaries, giving them the security codes to the yacht. It was his fault the pirates boarded. “I raised Brady,” my mother wept, clutching my hands with a desperate, bruising grip. “I love him more than my own life. If he goes to federal prison for this, Holden… I will kill myself. I swear to God, I will die.” Cornered by the people who brought me into the world, suffocated by the tears of the family I had married into, I broke. I took the plea deal. I “confessed.” And I died for it. I paid for their sins with my blood, dying alone in a country where I didn’t even speak the language. If my body hadn’t been deported by a bureaucratic technicality, my soul would have been lost in the dark forever. I tried to find comfort in the finality of it. I’m dead, I told myself. The truth is buried with me. Chloe will never know, and so she will never have to bear the pain of reality. But the phantom knife in my chest kept twisting. After the “incident,” Chloe had developed a severe psychological block. Her doctors called it trauma-induced delusion. Her subconscious had actively rewritten the narrative, turning me into the ultimate villain so she didn’t have to face the chaotic, senseless horror of what actually happened. Her parents enabled the delusion. My parents endorsed it. I did nothing wrong. I loved her perfectly. But the world decided that sacrificing Holden O’Connor was the easiest way to keep everyone else’s lives immaculate. During the private hearings, Chloe hired a ruthless legal team to crucify me. But the American judges weren’t blind. The evidence was circumstantial, the forensics didn’t match, and her case was thrown out repeatedly. Frustrated by the law, the two families pooled their vast resources. They used offshore connections, pulled political strings, and had me illegally extradited and thrown into that South American hellhole. My parents personally flew down to see me handed over to the guards. On that final day, my mother touched my face, her eyes brimming with sorrow. “Just hold on, sweet boy. Three years. We’ll bring you home, and you’ll go back to being a Montgomery.” My father patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Adversity builds character, son. I took my lumps building the empire. A few years roughing it won’t kill you.” As the heavy iron gates slammed shut, I saw Brady standing by the black SUV, waiting for them. He turned his head and looked at me. It was just one look. But it was entirely composed of arrogant, sneering triumph. He had stolen my parents. He had stolen my wife. And he left me to be devoured by the monsters in the dark. And everyone lived happily ever after. Because the right person had been sacrificed. 3. For weeks, my soul drifted aimlessly behind Chloe. I watched her move through the house I had meticulously designed for her, sleeping in the bed I had picked out, laughing with another man. Every corner of the house, right down to the ornate bronze oil diffuser in the hallway, had been placed there by me. Brady stepped out of the shower one evening, toweling his hair. As he walked past, his foot shot out, casually kicking the heavy bronze diffuser. It clattered against the wall, the glass reservoir shattering across the hardwood. “What happened?” Chloe called out, stepping out of the bedroom. Brady looked down at the mess, his expression the picture of innocent dismay. “Oh, damn. This was one of Holden’s little projects, wasn’t it? Supposed to be romantic or something. My bad, Chloe. Total accident.” Chloe stared at the broken glass for a moment. Then, she let out a dismissive scoff. “Typical Holden. Always wasting his time on useless, flashy garbage just so he could play the martyr. He loved putting on a show to prove how much he ‘suffered’ for me. Never once stopped to ask if I actually wanted his help.” My spectral hands curled into fists. The ache in my chest was a physical, pulsing thing. I just loved putting on a show? Chloe had severe, chronic asthma, complicated by a rare allergy. Whenever the seasons changed, or when the stress of running her company peaked, she would spend nights gasping for air, her face pale, terrifyingly close to suffocation. I hated seeing her in pain. I scoured the country for holistic specialists, finally tracking down a retired herbalist in the Pacific Northwest who formulated a customized, eucalyptus-based medicinal wax. Every night, I would set it in that diffuser, letting the slow heat fill the room with a vapor that opened her lungs. Once, after a brutal business trip, she collapsed from a severe respiratory attack, burning with a high fever. I lit the diffuser and sat by her bed, trying to keep the vapor near her face. But she was delirious, thrashing wildly, cursing my name, refusing to let me near her. Terrified she would knock the scalding oil onto her face, I took the medicinal wax, smeared it directly onto my own forearm, and held it over the open candle flame, letting the heat vaporize the medicine from my skin. I sat there like that all night, breathing with her. The hot wax and the open flame blistered my arm terribly. But I would have set myself on fire if it meant Chloe could breathe. When she woke up the next morning, her lungs were clear. My arm, however, was covered in weeping, agonized burns. I didn’t complain. A husband is supposed to protect his wife. You don’t hand the woman you love an invoice for your sacrifices. But when Chloe saw my bandaged arm, she simply rolled her eyes, told me I was clumsy, and walked out of the room. Now, I watched Chloe nudge a piece of the broken glass with her slipper. “Sweep it up and throw it out,” she told the maid coldly. “Holden is trash, everything he touched is trash. It all belongs in the dumpster.” She turned and curled into Brady’s chest, smiling up at him. “He’s such a coward. He doesn’t even have the guts to face me. Going through all the trouble to fake a corpse, just because he knows the second I see him, I’m shoving divorce papers down his throat.” “He knows his entire status in Boston rests on his marriage to me. His parents tolerate him because he’s tied to the Lynn family. If I dump him, he’s back to being nobody.” She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. “But he’s an idiot if he thinks hiding in some rat-infested motel will save him. I’ll drag him back by his hair if I have to.” I listened to her speech with a tired, hollow smile. I gave her my soul, and in return, she saw me as a pathetic, gold-digging coward clinging to her coattails. Brady’s eyes flickered, calculating. “Have your private investigators found anything yet? Chloe… is it possible the body was real? What if he actually is…” “Impossible!” Chloe snapped, suddenly stepping away from him, her body rigid. “If it weren’t for him, I never would have endured what I went through! Dying is too easy for him! He doesn’t get to just die!” She paced the room, her chest heaving. “That thing in the morgue was a prop. It’s a sick joke. He’s probably watching from somewhere, getting off on my reaction.” Suddenly, she spun around, throwing her arms around Brady’s neck and pressing her lips aggressively against his. “Distract me, Brady. Wash the thought of him out of my head. He makes me sick.” Brady let out a low laugh, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her toward the bedroom. “Happy to oblige.” They crashed onto the mattress, tearing at each other with a frantic, desperate energy. Chloe’s screams of pleasure echoed off the vaulted ceiling. I stood by the doorway, gripping the frame. I thought I had run out of tears. I thought ghosts couldn’t cry. But the agony tearing through me was so absolute, it felt like I was dying all over again. 4. Chloe’s private investigators turned up nothing. Naturally. My body was still lying in the cold storage drawer at the county morgue. The precinct captain and the medical examiner called her constantly, pleading with her to sign the paperwork so I could be laid to rest. But Chloe lived in a reality of her own making. She was fundamentally convinced the corpse was a fake, and that I was playing a cruel game of hide-and-seek. After hanging up on the police for the fourth time that week, Chloe threw a crystal vase at the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces. My parents, Richard and Patricia Montgomery, visited the house shortly after. They had no idea I was dead. They assumed I had been quietly released from the offshore prison and was just laying low. They believed that because I loved Chloe so much—because I was willing to go to jail for her—I would inevitably come crawling back. But Brady handled their visit beautifully. He poured their tea, he reminisced about his childhood in their home, and he spun a masterful web of casual lies. “You know how Holden is,” Brady chuckled warmly. “He probably needed to blow off steam after everything. He’s out in Europe somewhere, spending money, enjoying the beaches. He’ll come home when he gets bored.” My mother smiled, completely reassured. “Well, he always was a bit… wild. Growing up in that rural environment, he never really learned responsibility. Let him get it out of his system. It’s good that he’s exploring the world.” My spirit froze. For three years, I was beaten with lead pipes. I was starved. I froze in the winters and baked in the summers. I lived a reality so horrifying it stripped away my humanity. And in my mother’s mind, I was just a wild kid backpacking through Saint-Tropez. “We’re getting older,” my mother continued, reaching out to pat Brady’s hand. “Honestly, having you here to take care of us is a blessing, Brady. You understand tradition. You understand duty. You’ll be the one to look after us when we’re gone.” My parents left the estate in good spirits. They never mentioned my name again. But Chloe was unraveling. Every day her investigators came back empty-handed, she grew more frantic. By day, she screamed at her staff. By night, she dragged Brady into her bed, demanding a physical intensity that was bordering on violent. You could see the exhaustion settling into Brady’s bones. She even posted a bounty on her social media. Ten thousand dollars to anyone with a confirmed sighting of Holden O’Connor. 5. After a particularly aggressive session in the bedroom, Brady collapsed back against the pillows, gasping for air. He pulled Chloe to his chest. “Chloe… I don’t think he’s hiding from you on purpose. What if he’s in trouble? Maybe he owes money to the wrong people abroad? Maybe he’s too scared to come back?” “Bullshit!” Chloe shrieked, shoving him away and sitting up violently. “If he needed money, he’d crawl back here! It’s not like the Montgomerys would let him starve. And if they did, he’d beg me for it!” She dug her nails into her palms. “He loves me! He’s obsessed with me! The only reason he’s staying away is because he knows I’ll divorce him the second I see his face. He’s dragging this out!” Her eyes darted around the room, manic and bright. “Fine. If he won’t come out, I’ll start burning down everything he cares about. He still has those hillbilly adoptive parents, doesn’t he? Go get them. Lock them in the basement. Let’s see how long he stays hidden when they start starving.” Brady stared at her, a flicker of genuine unease in his eyes. “Chloe, are you… are you starting to care about him? Is this about getting a divorce, or are you just desperate for him to look at you again?” I held my breath. For a split second, a pathetic, dying ember of hope flared in my chest. “Are you insane?!” Chloe roared, her face flushing with pure rage. “I just want this over! I want the divorce finalized so I never have to look at his disgusting face again! I want to be entirely clean of him!” Brady reached out, cupping her cheek, playing the wounded lover to perfection. “You’ve been acting so erratic lately. If… if you really still have feelings for him, Chloe, just tell me. I’ll pack my things. I’ll walk away and let you two fix your marriage.” “I am not married to him! Who in their right mind would love a piece of white trash like that?!” She caught herself, taking a deep breath to rein in her hysteria. She leaned down and kissed Brady’s forehead. “I’ll prove it to you, Brady. I’ll prove exactly how much I hate him.” I found out very quickly how she planned to prove it. That night, Tom and Mary O’Connor—the gentle, quiet people who had raised me—were dragged out of a black van, black hoods pulled over their heads. They were thrown onto the marble floor of Chloe’s living room like sacks of garbage. “D… daughter-in-law?” my mother stammered, her voice shaking violently as the hood was yanked off. She had lived a quiet life in rural Ohio. She was terrified. “Don’t call me that!” Chloe snatched a heavy crystal tumbler off the table and hurled it. It shattered against my mother’s forehead, drawing a sharp line of blood. My father let out a raw, guttural cry and threw himself over his wife, using his broad shoulders to shield her head. Chloe sneered, her eyes locking onto my father’s hands—hands that were permanently calloused and stained with engine grease and soil from working three jobs to keep me fed. “Filthy,” she muttered in disgust. She crossed her arms, looking down at them like insects. “Your pathetic son is hiding from me because he refuses to sign the divorce papers. Since he clearly has no spine, I’m holding you responsible. You’re not leaving this house until he shows his face.” My father looked up, his weathered face tight with indignation. “Holden is a good boy! He spent his whole life breaking his back to help us put food on the table! You don’t get to talk about my son that way!” Chloe’s eyes went dead. “Holden is a rapist. He violated me. It cost me millions in legal fees just to get him locked in a foreign cage where he belonged! His three years are up. He should be on his knees outside my door, begging for my mercy. But he’s too much of a coward to even face me. Calling him half a man is giving him too much credit!” “No! You’re lying! My boy would never do that! I don’t believe you!” My father, a man who had never raised his voice in his life, suddenly surged forward, his face red with protective fury. Chloe stumbled back, startled. But her security team reacted instantly. Three massive bodyguards tackled my aging father to the ground, slamming his face into the marble. Brady hurried down the stairs, tying his robe. “Chloe, what’s going on? Should we really be doing this? They’re old…” Chloe’s voice was ice. “Trash breeds trash. Break his legs.” “Chloe, wait—” Brady started. “If you raise a monster, you pay the price,” she barked at the guards. “Do it! It’s a public service!” No! Don’t touch them! Leave them alone! Rage, hot and blinding, erupted in my chest. My vision went entirely red. I threw myself at the guards, swinging wildly, screaming at the top of my lungs. But my fists just passed through empty air. I was forced to stand there and watch as they took a baton to my father’s knees. The crack of his bones echoed through the cavernous room. He didn’t scream. He just bit down on his lip until it bled. The jagged white edge of a fractured bone pierced through the fabric of his jeans. My mother began to scream—a high, piercing wail of absolute agony—before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed, coughing up blood. Chloe watched the entire scene with dead, bored eyes. She even gestured for her assistant to pull out a phone and start recording. The anger inside me was so absolute it felt like it was tearing my soul apart. How could I have ever loved this woman? How could I have ever thought there was a heart buried beneath that ice? Suddenly, the front door exploded inward. “Police! Nobody move!” A SWAT team flooded the foyer, assault rifles raised. “Chloe Lynn! We received a tip about a kidnapping at this residence. Drop the phone and put your hands behind your back!” Paramedics rushed in behind the cops, immediately swarming my parents. My father had passed out from the shock. My mother regained consciousness as they loa

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There are three men in my life who blush with delightful ease. First, there is my husband, Declan—a man of strict upbringing, rigid routines, and a stoicism so thick it feels like a physical wall. Then, there are our two sons, who inherited his exact brand of solemn, miniature-adult seriousness. Teasing the three of them—watching the tips of their ears burn a violent shade of pink while they desperately try to maintain their composure—is the absolute greatest joy of my life. Especially during our nightly bedtime routine. Every evening, without fail, my boys and my husband wait with flushed anticipation for my goodnight kiss. But tonight was different. Tonight, as I leaned over to press my lips to my youngest son’s forehead, my vision suddenly fractured. A flood of glowing, scrolling text—like a live comment feed from some bizarre, phantom social media app—projected itself directly into my mind’s eye, floating in the air between me and my family. The Comments told me that my parents had found their biological daughter. That they had reunited a month ago, and I was the only one kept entirely in the dark. The scrolling text gleefully predicted that once I met this “true daughter,” I would spiral into a villainous rage, frame her for theft, and ultimately be publicly exposed by my own husband—who would then have me committed to a psychiatric ward. Someone in the Feed was even typing out strings of laughing emojis, mocking the way I would eventually escape the asylum only to be dragged back, claiming they had re-watched that specific downfall five times because it was just that satisfying. My lips, still puckered for a kiss, froze. A slight, involuntary twitch pulled at the corner of my mouth. Right in front of me, three expectant faces were still waiting for their affection. I swallowed the sudden, metallic taste of panic in my mouth. I silently turned my back on them, climbed into the center of the sprawling mattress, and pulled the Egyptian cotton duvet up over my nose until only my eyes were visible. Then, my voice muffled by the down feathers, I announced that effective immediately, goodnight kisses were canceled. 1 Three faces shared a singular, identical expression: a slight, perplexed furrowing of the brows. Declan and my eldest son, Benedict, just stared at me, their faces completely unreadable, silent in their disapproval. It was my youngest, Blake, who broke first. His lower lip wobbled. “Mommy, why no kisses?” I rolled over, turning my back to them entirely. “Everyone out. I need to sleep.” Silence hung thick in the room for several seconds before Declan’s voice cut through it. Low. Measured. Restrained. “Benedict, take your brother to your room. It’s time for sleep.” The sound of their footsteps receded. The heavy bedroom door didn’t latch all the way, and the muffled whispers of my two little boys drifted in from the hallway. “Benedict, why doesn’t Mom want to kiss us anymore?” “I don’t know.” “Is it because we cover her mouth when she says inappropriate things?” “No.” “Then… did Dad make her mad?” My older boy paused, clearly turning the logistics over in his logical little brain. “That is a strong possibility.” Blake suddenly whisper-shouted, “Then Dad shouldn’t get a kiss either! It has to be fair for all three of us!” A laugh bubbled up in my throat, but I bit down hard on the inside of my lip to kill it. Because right then, the Feed in my vision started scrolling frantically again: [Did the female lead get possessed? Usually during bedtime, she’s practically glued to the three of them, saying the most shameless, teasing things.] [Poor little stoic baby, being harassed by his mom and still making excuses for her. You can tell he’s used to coddling her.] [It’s fine! The True Daughter outshines this fake in every way. Give it a few days, and those boys will be calling the True Daughter ‘Mom.’] I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart physically ached, squeezing tight in my chest like a bruised fist. The bedroom door clicked open again. The mattress dipped beside me, the weight familiar and grounding. Declan’s hand reached out, resting lightly on the curve of my waist. It was a rare moment of initiation for him. His fingers brushed against the cool silk of my slip, tracing a slow, almost hesitant circle. “Why are you wearing this one again?” he asked, his voice rougher than usual. I turned my head and glared at his handsome, impossibly repressed face. Three years of marriage, and the man’s repertoire in bed was something you could count on one hand. He didn’t like changing positions. He refused to do it anywhere outside the bedroom. Whenever I pushed him to the edge with my teasing, his only defense mechanism was to go take a freezing cold shower. Even the two kids I bore him shared his exact, maddening temperament. A sudden, fierce irritation flared in my chest. I yanked the duvet tightly around myself. “I didn’t put it on for you,” I snapped, puffing out my cheeks. “Get out.” Declan’s hand froze mid-air. Normally, this was the part where he would sigh, gently haul me out from under the covers, pin me against the headboard, and lecture me on propriety. Then I would barrage him with filthy whispers until his self-control shattered, leading to a long, breathless night. But tonight, he just sat there in silence for a few long, agonizing seconds. He reached out, carefully tucked in the edge of the duvet I had kicked loose, and stood up. He walked out. The door clicked shut. The Feed erupted in a digital cheer. [SO SATISFYING. The male lead is finally freezing her out. He’s keeping himself pure for the True Daughter.] [I mean, I’ve always said it. A classless orphan like her never deserved to marry into the Wright family anyway. If she hadn’t taken the wrong glass that night, accidentally drugged herself, crawled into his bed, and conveniently gotten pregnant with twins, he never would have married her.] [Exactly. Genetics don’t lie. No matter how hard she plays the part, she’ll never be the real heiress. She needs to pack her bags and crawl back to the orphanage while she still has her miserable life.] 2 I watched the phantom text scroll past, a heavy, suffocating weight pressing down on my chest. The truth was, I already knew I wasn’t my parents’ biological child. I found out during a routine medical exam my freshman year of college. My blood type was A. But both my parents were type O. Two type O parents cannot produce a type A child. It is a biological impossibility. I had quietly hired a private investigator to look into my origins. I learned I was an orphan, dropped at a group home from birth, parents unknown, before eventually being adopted by the wealthy Wentworth family. I remember sitting in front of my laptop in my dorm room, staring at the investigator’s email until the sun came up. When morning broke, I deleted every file, cleared my cache, and pretended absolutely nothing had happened. I did it because my parents loved me. They loved me so completely, so fiercely, that I convinced myself blood didn’t matter. I used to have nightmares that they would find their missing biological daughter and stop loving me. But I never, not even in my darkest anxieties, imagined they would find her and purposely hide her from me. When I finally opened my eyes, the room was bathed in morning light. I washed up and went downstairs to the dining room. The three men of the house were already seated. Benedict and Blake sat with their backs ramrod straight, their hands folded, waiting obediently for me. Declan was scanning the Wall Street Journal. He glanced up at the sound of my heels, then dropped his eyes back to the page. I pulled out my chair, sat down, picked up my fork, and began to eat. Instantly, three pairs of eyes snapped toward me. I calmly speared a piece of asparagus and chewed it, ignoring them. The Feed began to drift across my vision: [Wait, she’s acting so weird. Doesn’t she usually go around the table and kiss everyone?] [Yeah, she usually leaves the two little stoics covered in lipstick while they look like they want to cry. They secretly hate it.] [No goodnight kiss yesterday, no good morning kiss today. I bet she’s brewing some toxic scheme.] [(+1)] Reading the conspiracy theories floating in the air, I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. Then, out of my peripheral vision, I noticed Blake taking tiny, hesitant bites of his oatmeal, his big eyes darting toward me every few seconds. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed his small porcelain plate slightly toward me. “Mommy. A shrimp dumpling.” I looked down. Two perfectly plump dim sum dumplings sat on his plate. On any normal day, I would have cooed, Let Mommy feed you, baby! just to watch him blush and declare, I can feed myself, Mother. But today, the well was dry. I pushed the plate back. “Eat it yourself.” Blake froze. He turned his head, shooting a desperate, pleading look at his older brother. Benedict maintained his serious little scowl. He didn’t intervene, but his spoon remained hovering over his bowl, entirely forgotten. At the head of the table, Declan lowered his newspaper. He leveled a look at me. It was a silent question: What is going on with you? I pretended to be deeply engrossed in my breakfast. The Feed flared up again: [She’s terrifyingly quiet today. Doesn’t she usually spend breakfast sexually harassing her husband and babying her kids? She usually talks so much trash I want to mute her.] [What about under the table? She loves rubbing her foot up the male lead’s leg. I bet fifty cents she’s doing it right now!] [Reporting in: I checked. She’s not. She’s sitting there rigid as a board.] The phantom voices couldn’t figure me out. And strangely, that felt incredibly empowering. I calmly dabbed my mouth with a linen napkin and stood up to head upstairs. “Wait,” Declan’s voice stopped me. “There’s a gala tonight. You need to get ready.” I paused on the bottom step, feigning total ignorance. “What gala?” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. His tone was perfectly flat. “Your parents found their long-lost daughter. They’re hosting a welcome-home reception for her.” I slowly turned to look at him. He stood by the mahogany table, the morning light catching the sharp angle of his jaw, hiding his eyes in shadow. My sons tilted their little faces up at me, their expressions laced with a sudden, palpable nervous energy. Ah. So they all knew. The big one, and the little ones. My fingers tightened around the oak banister until my knuckles turned white. A slow, sharp smile curved my lips. “Understood.” The Feed practically shrieked: [HOLY SHIT. Look at that sinister smile. That is the textbook evil-step-sister smirk. Terrifying.] [I mean, she’s the fake. She stole someone else’s life for twenty-something years. She’s rotten to the core.] [I cannot WAIT to see her lose her mind with jealousy tonight. Let the husband and kids see her true, ugly colors so he can finally file for divorce!] [In the True vs. Fake Daughter trope, I am always team True Daughter. The fake deserves to burn!] I pulled my gaze away from the empty air and continued up the stairs. Jealousy? Rage? No. I just wanted to see her. I wanted to see the sister my parents had hidden away for an entire month. I wanted to see what she looked like. I wanted to see if she looked like the ghost in my nightmares. That was all. 3 I chose a black couture gown. The tailoring was aggressive and architectural, the plunging V-neckline holding to my curves with weaponized precision. When I descended the grand staircase, my boys and my husband were already waiting in the foyer. Declan looked up. Instantly, a deep crease formed between his brows. The two little stoics were dressed in matching, immaculate white miniature tuxedos. When they saw me, their eyes lit up like stars. The Feed, however, was vicious: [Is she insane? Why is she dressed like she’s walking a red carpet?] [Oh, I get it. She knows the True Daughter grew up poor in the country and probably dresses plain. She’s trying to upstage her. Shameless bitch.] [Even the husband and kids are frowning. They know she looks too slutty for a family event.] Declan’s eyes swept over me, taking in every inch of the dress. He stepped toward me, his voice a low, vibrating murmur. “That dress isn’t appropriate. Change.” I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze. “What’s inappropriate about it?” “It’s too formal,” he said flatly. I let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Is a welcome-home gala not a formal occasion?” Without waiting for his answer, I swept past him toward the door. Declan stood frozen in the foyer. The boys immediately broke ranks, their little dress shoes pitter-pattering across the marble floor as they scrambled to flank me, each grabbing one of my hands. Benedict, who almost never offered unprompted praise, looked up at me with profound seriousness. “Mother, you look very beautiful today.” Blake nodded furiously in agreement, his round cheeks suddenly flushing pink. I squeezed their tiny, warm hands. “Let’s go, boys.” Once we were in the back of the Maybach, I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, watching the city blur by. The three of them sat opposite me, stealing glances at me every few minutes. In the past, no matter where we were, I couldn’t resist poking at them. I loved watching them get flustered while trying to maintain their dignified facades. But after reading the venom in the Feed, a quiet, insidious doubt had crept into my mind. Was my behavior actually bad for the kids? Was I overwhelming them? The silence in the car was so absolute I could hear the rhythmic ticking of Declan’s Patek Philippe watch. “Mommy.” Blake’s voice was barely a whisper. I gave a soft, lazy hmm? “Are you feeling sick?” Before I could even process the question, Declan leaned across the space between us. The cool back of his hand pressed firmly against my forehead. I flinched, instinctively pulling my head back to break the contact. “I’m fine,” I said. Benedict was staring at me too. “But Mother, you’ve been holding your chest the whole ride.” I looked down. My left hand was pressed tightly, unconsciously, over my heart. I slowly lowered my hand to my lap, forcing my voice to stay gentle. “I promise, I’m okay.” Then I turned my face back to the window. In the reflection of the glass, I could see all three of them still watching me. Their expressions were tight, laced with a strange, heavy concern. The Feed drifted by, dripping with sarcasm: [Wow, the little stoics actually care about her. Giving birth to two good kids is the only good karma she has.] [Um… is it just me, or does the male lead look really worried too? The kid said one thing, and he immediately jumped across the car.] [Worried? Please. Those three are geniuses. They know she’s putting on an act and they’re just playing along to humor her.] I closed my eyes and let the darkness take the words away. 4 The reception was held on the top floor penthouse of the St. Regis. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the glittering sprawl of the city skyline, a sea of lights stretching to the horizon like a silent, breathless celebration. Half of the city’s elite were in attendance. I linked my arm through Declan’s as we walked through the double doors, the boys trailing perfectly at our sides. As we navigated the room, I felt the weight of a hundred stares sticking to my skin. The whispers rustled through the crowd like wind through dry leaves. After all, the circumstances of my marriage weren’t exactly a closely guarded secret among the upper crust. There were those who envied me, and those who despised me. I was used to the scrutiny. I kept my spine straight and my face impassive. My parents were standing by the head table, greeting a minor tech CEO. When my mother saw me, her polished, practiced smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She recovered instantly. “Jocelyn, darling. You made it.” I nodded, my gaze sliding past her to rest on the girl standing slightly behind her. The girl was wearing a plain, starkly conservative white dress. The fabric hung a bit awkwardly; it clearly wasn’t custom, or even designer. Standing next to me in my architectural black silk, the contrast was violently stark. A sudden wave of awkwardness washed over me. The Feed was losing its mind: [Oh my God, the contrast is brutal. My heart breaks for the True Daughter. She’s the main character, and she’s being totally eclipsed by this fake!] [The female lead is such a bitch. Dressing like that to sabotage her big night? Does she want everyone to know how manipulative she is?] [Don’t even call her the female lead anymore. She doesn’t deserve the title.] I lowered my eyes, a bitter, hollow laugh threatening to bubble up in my throat. How was I supposed to know she would be dressed like that? I had assumed my parents—with their endless wealth and obsession with appearances—would have commissioned a bespoke gown for her. I assumed they would want her to shine like a diamond. The dress I was wearing was from a three-year-old runway collection. By high-society standards, it was practically vintage. After a beat of heavy silence, my mother reached out, took the girl’s hand, and pulled her forward to introduce her to Declan and me. “This is your sister. Sabrina.” Sabrina looked at me, a bright, open smile spreading across her face. “Jocelyn!” She stepped forward, opening her arms for an embrace. But my mother quickly lifted a hand, blocking her path. “Sabrina, darling, you have to give your speech soon. Let’s not ruin your hair.” Sabrina dropped her arms awkwardly. She reached up, nervously touching a curl near her cheek, and offered me a sheepish, apologetic smile. My own hand was caught in no-man’s-land—halfway up to return the hug, not sure how to retreat. Feeling incredibly foolish, I mirrored her movement, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I gave her a warm, tentative smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Sabrina.” I turned to look at Declan, and my breath caught in my throat. Declan was staring at Sabrina. His eyes were wide, fixed on her with a look of profound, undisguised shock. And he kept looking. For a long, long time. 5 “Father.” Blake’s little voice, soft and sweet, broke the spell. It snapped Declan out of his trance. Declan blinked, his mask slamming back into place, and he pulled a small, black velvet Cartier box from his inner jacket pocket. “A small token,” Declan said, his voice smooth and professional. “From Jocelyn and myself.” Sabrina looked at my parents, clearly overwhelmed. My mother beamed and nodded encouragingly. Sabrina took the box and clicked it open. Inside lay a breathtaking vintage diamond and emerald necklace. The clarity was flawless. The Comments immediately flooded with jealousy: [Whoa, the male lead is dropping serious cash. Is he trying to apologize for his wife’s terrible behavior?] [Apologize? No, he’s trying to make a good impression on the True Daughter. After all, she’s the real heiress now.] [Keep cooking! The male lead is officially ignoring the fake wife. The romance arc with the True Daughter begins now!] Sabrina’s eyes suddenly dropped, landing on the two little boys standing by my skirt. She crouched down until she was eye-level with them. “Hi there,” she said softly. “I’m your Aunt Sabrina.” Benedict kept his face perfectly impassive, but his manners were ingrained. “Hello, Aunt Sabrina.” Blake looked up at me, his big eyes searching my face for permission. I gently stroked the back of his little head. “Alright, boys. Tonight is Aunt Sabrina’s big night. Let’s go sit down and give her some space.” My mother opened her mouth, looking as though she wanted to say something to me. I just smiled at her, took my boys by the hands, and walked toward our assigned table. Almost the second Declan sat down next to me, a venture capitalist swooped in to talk mergers. I was annoyed, and the noise of the room was giving me a headache. Declan noticed. He leaned close to my ear. “I need to step away for a moment.” I rested my elbow on the linen tablecloth and made a dismissive shooing motion with my hand under the table. Declan caught my hand beneath the linen. He squeezed my fingertips tightly for three seconds, then let go and walked away. The moment he was gone, my youngest son’s hand shot out and grabbed mine. He looked at his older brother, a triumphant grin on his face. “I got Mom’s hand first!” I looked over at Benedict. His little eyebrows were pulled tightly together. “Do you want to hold a hand too, Benedict?” I asked softly. He turned his face away, looking fiercely at the centerpiece. “No.” But a second later, the corners of his mouth betrayed him, pressing into a tiny, secret smile. I laughed quietly, reached across the table, and gently wrapped my fingers around his. “That’s a shame,” I teased. “Because Mommy really wanted to hold your hand.” Benedict’s hand went stiff for a second, and the tips of his ears burned a bright, glowing pink. I drank three glasses of sparkling water before Declan finally returned to the table. He had barely sat down and spoken two words to me when his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and a subtle frown deepened the lines around his mouth. I was just about to ask who it was when the Feed lit up with frantic energy: [Is it the True Daughter calling?] [Omg, when did they exchange numbers?!] Driven by the phantom text, the words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Who is it?” He looked at me. “Sabrina.” That invisible string inside my chest pulled taut, sharp as a razor. But I kept my face smooth, perfectly bored. “Oh? And how exactly did you get her number?”

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