Category: English

The new estate manager claimed he was a “Narrative Hijacker.” To max out Madeline’s love meter and steal the heroine’s affection, he saved her life eight times. And eight times, he died right in front of her. On his ninth resurrection, the manager collapsed at Madeline’s feet, his voice raw and desperate. “Please, ma’am. Just love me this once. If I fail again, the System will erase me completely.” Madeline kicked him out without a second of hesitation. She threw herself into my arms, her eyes wide and earnest. “Cole, I swear to you,” she whispered against my chest. “You are the only man I will ever love in this lifetime. It’s just you and me.” Then, the earthquake hit. It was a sudden, localized anomaly. I was buried under the rubble of our collapsing sunroom. Madeline fell to her knees, digging through the jagged concrete until her fingers were shredded and bloody. Her screams echoed through the dust. “If Cole dies, I don’t want to live!” Everyone who witnessed it wept. They thought her love for me was etched into her very bones. But when I was finally pulled from the wreckage, barely clinging to life, I accidentally overheard Madeline talking to the manager in the shadows of the hospital corridor. “Maddie, you and Cole are the protagonists of a strict, monogamous romance algorithm,” he said. “The narrative rules dictate you can only love him. Every time you sleep with another man, the universe registers a glitch. It retaliates with catastrophic accidents.” “I know,” Madeline replied, her voice eerily calm. “But I used the System to transfer the physical punishment entirely onto him. Tell me… seeing him crushed like that, did it make your heart ache for me?” His answer was the wet, desperate sound of lips crashing together. I listened to the sickening rhythm of their bodies pressing against the wall. “You died eight times to save me,” Madeline murmured, her voice laced with a dark, intoxicating sweetness. “He’s just absorbing the narrative punishment for a year. You said it yourself—he’s the male lead. The plot won’t let him die. When your mission ends in a year, I’ll go right back to being the Madeline who only loves Cole.” The truth was a cold knife to the gut. She had already given him her heart. I felt the ground tremble beneath me once more. Another anomaly. I looked up at the sterile ceiling, staring into the invisible void of the narrative matrix. Good, I thought. I can finally go home. 1 The Price of Betrayal When the room began to shake violently again, I knew instantly. Madeline was in another man’s bed. The muffled sounds of heavy breathing and moans drifted through the thin hospital walls, drilling directly into my skull. My head throbbed. The next second, the heavy steel frame of my hospital bed snapped. The mattress buckled. My half-healed wounds tore open in a spectacular rip of agony, hot blood instantly soaking the back of my gown. The IV needle violently jerked out of my vein, leaving a massive, angry purple welt on my hand. The deafening crash brought the nurses running. They found me crumpled on the linoleum, pale and gasping for air. Panic set in as they scrambled to lift me. “What the hell happened? How did the bed just collapse?” “I checked this room top to bottom before he was admitted! This bed is brand new. There is zero mechanical reason for this!” “Oh my god, if Madeline finds out, we are all getting fired. You know how protective she is of her husband.” The youngest nurse was on the verge of tears. I looked at her terrified face and opened my mouth to offer a hollow reassurance. But before I could speak, the heavy metal IV pole tipped over, the steel base slamming directly into my forehead. The world went black. When I blinked my eyes open again, Madeline was sitting at my bedside. Her back was to me. Both of her thumbs were flying across her phone screen, and even from this angle, I could see the soft, unmistakable curve of a smile on her lips. “Water…” I rasped, my throat feeling like sandpaper. Madeline jumped. She hastily shoved her phone into her purse and poured a glass of steaming hot water from the thermos. Then, she immediately called the doctors in to check my vitals. As I looked at the unfamiliar faces of the medical staff, she sighed, brushing a hand through her hair. “The last shift was incredibly negligent. I can’t believe they let you get hurt. I’ve already had the hospital administration terminate all of them.” I managed a weak, bitter smile. My eyes drifted to the pristine white collar of her blouse. Just above the fabric, blooming against the delicate skin of her neck, were fresh, unmistakable red marks. She was completely oblivious to them. “Your neck…” I started to say. Before the words fully left my mouth, a ringtone shattered the tension. Madeline glanced at the caller ID and quickly hit decline. A second later, a text chimed. She opened it, her bright eyes widening for a fraction of a second before a deep, undeniable flush crept up her cheeks. She pocketed the phone and leaned over to tuck the blankets around my chest. “There’s an emergency at the company,” she said smoothly. “I’ll come back to see you tomorrow.” “Can’t you handle it from the hospital?” I asked quietly. She paused. “It’s highly time-sensitive. Don’t worry, Cole. Tomorrow, I’ll clear my entire schedule and stay with you all day.” She turned to leave. As she did, her elbow caught the edge of the tray table. The glass of scalding hot water she had poured for me tipped over, splashing directly onto my bruised, swollen hand where the IV had been ripped out. The skin instantly turned a furious, blistering red. My entire body violently spasmed from the pain. “Maddie. It burns. God, it hurts.” She stopped in the doorway. “I’ll go get the doctor.” She didn’t come back with them. I knew she wouldn’t. I watched as the new doctor frantically applied burn ointment and wrapped my hand. Once he thoroughly inspected the room to ensure nothing else could possibly malfunction, he let out a long sigh of relief. The moment the breath left his lungs, the fluorescent light fixture above my bed exploded. Sparks showered down. The electrical surge blew the outlet next to the bedside table, causing the heavy glass water boiler to shatter. Boiling water and jagged shards of glass rained down onto my broken body. 2 The Truth in the Wounds I was a mess of blood and ruin. Crimson soaked deep into the white hospital sheets. The boiling water had fused the fabric to my scalded skin. When they tried to move me, a massive layer of tissue peeled away with the blanket. The attending physician frantically dialed Madeline’s number to report the critical complication. When she answered, she only asked one question: “Is it life-threatening?” The doctor looked at my mangled body, his face pale. “No, not life-threatening, but…” Madeline cut him off, her tone sharp and impatient. “I pay your hospital a premium to fix problems. If you can handle it, don’t interrupt me.” “But—” “If you let my husband suffer permanent damage, you can all pack your bags. Do your jobs.” The line went dead. I drifted in and out of consciousness, listening to the dial tone echo in the room. I closed my eyes, a mocking laugh dying in my throat. The nurses whispered above me, their voices filled with confusion. “I thought she was obsessed with him? A year ago, he got a tiny paper cut and she practically shut down the boardroom.” “I know. Remember when he burned his finger on the stove? She took a red-eye flight back from Europe just to be the one to change his Band-Aid. Why is she…” A younger nurse leaned in, her voice dropping to a hush. “When she answered the phone just now… I swear I heard another man’s voice in the background.” No one said another word, but the heavy silence confirmed what they were all thinking. Dozens of tiny glass shards were embedded deep into my boiled, blistered flesh. Because of my erratic vitals, they couldn’t risk putting me under general anesthesia. The doctor had to use surgical tweezers to extract the glass, piece by agonizing piece. I was entirely, brutally awake. I felt every jagged edge dragging against my raw nerves as the glass pulled free from my muscle. I clamped my jaw shut, trembling violently as cold sweat poured from my face. The white pillow beneath my head was thoroughly soaked. I couldn’t tell if it was sweat, or tears. When the grueling procedure finally ended, the doctor wiped his brow and gestured for the nurses to prep a new room. “Don’t bother,” I rasped, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m going home.” 3 The Breaking Point I called Madeline three times. It went straight to voicemail. I arranged for private medical transport to take me back to our house. Miraculously, the narrative algorithm spared me any accidents on the drive. When I finally wheeled myself through the front door, the scene was exactly what I expected. Clothes strewn across the hardwood floor. Unidentifiable wet spots on the rug. The heavy, unmistakable scent of musk, sweat, and sex hung thick in the air, suffocating the beautiful home we had built together. From the master bathroom, the slick sounds of skin slapping against skin sent a fresh spike of agony through my skull. “Maddie, your love meter for me is already at ninety percent,” a male voice purred. “That means Cole’s narrative punishment is going to double. Don’t you want to swing by the hospital and check on him?” “The male lead can’t die,” came Madeline’s breathless reply, punctuated by soft moans. “But physical pain can break a man’s mind.” “He’s just taking a few cuts and bruises. You died eight times for me, Gavin. You bled out right in front of my eyes. Compared to the trauma you went through, his little injuries are nothing.” “Then you better make it up to me,” Gavin groaned. “Push that meter to a hundred.” “I will. For this entire year, you are the only man I touch.” The second the promise left her lips, the massive, twenty-pound crystal chandelier suspended above the living room ceiling gave a violent groan. The reinforced chain snapped. Trapped in my wheelchair, I had nowhere to run. I could only watch the mountain of glass and brass plummet directly toward me. The impact was deafening. I heard my own bones splintering. The wheelchair collapsed under the weight, sending me crashing to the floor in a grotesque, unnatural angle. Countless shards of crystal pierced my skin, embedding themselves into every inch of my body. The pain was so absolute, so blinding, I couldn’t even push the scream out of my lungs. The thunderous crash startled the two in the bathroom. Madeline burst into the living room, clutching a towel to her chest. She froze. She saw the devastation. She saw me pinned beneath the ruined chandelier, a pool of dark red expanding rapidly across our imported rug. Her pupils dilated in sheer horror. I reached a trembling, blood-soaked hand toward her. “Maddie… help me.” But before she could move, a loud thud came from the bathroom. Madeline didn’t hesitate. She ripped her eyes away from my mangled body, turned her back, and sprinted toward the bathroom. I watched her retreating silhouette. A moment later, Gavin emerged, leaning heavily on her shoulder. He was completely naked, wearing a flawlessly executed expression of distress, while Madeline looked at him with frantic, obsessive concern. In that moment, the final piece clicked into place. Madeline didn’t love me anymore. Gavin looked over her shoulder, meeting my eyes. He shot me a wicked, triumphant smirk, and pressed his bare chest closer to my wife. The pain finally dragged me under, and the world went beautifully, mercifully dark. 4 Prelude to an Exit While I was unconscious, a mechanical voice looped endlessly in my head. [Plot trajectory deviating. Plot trajectory deviating. Commencing repairs. Commencing repairs…] I forced my eyes open. I was floating in a stark, blindingly white void. A metallic, humanoid entity—an Administrator—was frantically smashing its hands against a floating holographic keyboard, trying to patch the broken code of this universe. “I have a solution,” I told it. The Administrator paused, turning its blank face toward me. I laid out my plan. It processed the data, then gave a slow, mechanical nod. “But once the bugs are fixed,” I said firmly, “I want to be extracted. I want to go back to my original world.” Madeline didn’t know this, but I wasn’t from this universe. I had accidentally transmigrated into this romance novel years ago. Over time, living in Cole’s skin, breathing his air, and experiencing Madeline’s overwhelming affection, I had truly fallen in love with her. I embraced my role. But I never expected her to betray the very foundation of this world. Even though the narrative was hard-coded to make her strictly monogamous, she couldn’t resist the allure of a new player dropping into her life. She compromised her soul. She weaponized the universe to torture me. I saw reality for what it was. I wasn’t going to cling to the rotting scraps of her affection, begging for her to turn back. With the deal struck, I woke up. This time, Madeline wasn’t by my bed. Instead, the living room was alive with conversation. “The doctor said the impact from the chandelier practically shattered his spine,” Gavin was saying. “He’s likely going to be paralyzed, Maddie. Are you really going to spend the rest of your life tied to a cripple?” “Then you stay,” Madeline replied softly. “If he’s paralyzed, he can’t interfere with us anymore.” “Maddie…” “Don’t leave me, Gavin. A year isn’t enough. I want you by my side forever.” Her confession hit me like a phantom limb. A dull, aching echo of something that used to be whole. I remembered the early days of our marriage. We were curled up on the sofa, her head resting on my chest as she aimlessly scrolled on her phone. I had kissed the top of her head and asked, “Hey, what if I just vanished one day? Would you come looking for me?” She had dropped her phone instantly, her arms locking around my neck in a panicked grip. “Don’t ever say things like that. I can’t even process the thought of you gone. I would lose my mind, Cole.” She had looked up at me, her eyes shining. “We are going to be together forever. One lifetime isn’t enough. I’m going to find you in the next one, too.” Oh, Maddie. The version of you in this lifetime doesn’t love me anymore. It was time for me to go. 5 The Wedding Trap In the days that followed, they stopped hiding. Perhaps because I was entirely bedridden, functioning as little more than a breathing corpse, Madeline and Gavin threw caution to the wind. They practically lived on top of each other, constantly tangled together like teenagers in the throes of first love. And for me, the universe’s wrath became a daily occurrence. If a wardrobe wasn’t collapsing on me, a freak electrical fire was breaking out in my room. A gas leak nearly suffocated me. Even when I was simply wheeled onto the patio to feel the sun, a stray hunting knife from the neighbor’s yard inexplicably launched over the fence and embedded itself in my chest. A month blurred by. I was wrapped in thick, blood-stained gauze from head to toe. Not a single hospital in the city would admit me. The whispers said I was cursed, a magnet for death, and they were terrified I would die on their watch and ruin their statistics. I didn’t care about the rumors. I was just waiting. Counting the seconds until my extraction. Until Gavin came into my room alone. He leaned over the bed, tracing a heavy gold band on his middle finger. His eyes gleamed with malice. “You know, Cole, Madeline’s love meter for me has hit ninety-nine percent. For that final one percent, she told me she wants to give me a wedding. She wants to be my wife.” He chuckled, a dark, venomous sound. “You really failed, didn’t you? Even with the Author’s algorithm hard-coding her to be obsessed with you, she’s willing to break reality just to walk down the aisle for me. To make sure I leave with no regrets.” I stared up at him from my fortress of bandages. My voice was raspy, hollow. “Gavin… is your mission really just about making her love you?” His smug expression faltered for a fraction of a second. Then, he leaned in so close I could smell the mint on his breath. “Does it matter? Once her love meter hits one hundred, I get everything I came for.” “Then I wish you a beautiful marriage,” I whispered. “May you two be deeply, madly in love for the rest of your lives. Forever tied together. Never to be parted.” My blessing wiped the smile off his face. He grabbed my throat, his grip tight enough to cut off my oxygen. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who wants to be stuck in this simulated hellscape tied down to one woman for a whole lifetime? Only a pathetic idiot like you actually believes a woman’s promises mean forever.”

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My father loved to play God under the guise of perfect fairness. To ensure he never showed “favoritism,” every choice between my sister and me was left entirely to a blind draw. From who got to go on the middle school trip to Washington D.C., to which one of us he would help pay for college. Somehow, I was always the one with the worst luck. Even when my mother was diagnosed with leukemia and desperately needed a bone marrow transplant—and both my sister and I were confirmed as perfect matches—he still brought out that antique mahogany humidor. He forced us into a “fair” lottery of life and death. And when my sister pulled the white slip from the box, the one that meant she didn’t have to be the donor, something inside me finally snapped. I was done playing his game. … 1 The cold, white wooden slip fluttered from my sister Betty’s fingertips, drifting down like a snowflake sent to seal my fate. My father, Richard, let out a long, shuddering breath. His face washed over with the sanctimonious relief of a high priest whose prayers had just been answered. “The universe has spoken,” he declared. He turned to me. There wasn’t a trace of paternal warmth in his eyes, only an ironclad command that brokered no argument. “Heather, get ready for the surgery.” My mother, Evelyn, lay in the sterile hospital bed, her face as pale as the sheets beneath her. She reached out and grasped my hand, her grip as weak as a newborn kitten’s. “Heather, sweetheart…” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Listen to your father…” Betty hurried over to my other side, her eyes rimmed with perfectly timed, cinematic tears. She took my free hand. “I’m so sorry, Heather… It’s so unfair to you,” she murmured, her voice thick with practiced sympathy. “If I hadn’t been so lucky just now, it would be me lying on that operating table.” Her words were dressed up as comfort, but they only made the bile rise in my throat. Lucky. What absolute bullshit. For as long as I could remember, every ounce of “luck” in our house had fallen onto Betty’s lap. The last slice of birthday cake, the brand-new dress for the holidays, the only college tuition fund we had. Every single time, my father would bring out that polished wooden box, shake those little birchwood slips, and use the word fairness to gag me into submission. And now, it was my bone marrow on the line. I yanked my hands away from both of them and stood up. “I’m not doing it.” Three words. They dropped into the quiet hum of the hospital room like a live grenade. My father’s face darkened instantly, the veins in his neck pulling taut. “What did you just say?” “I said, I’m not donating,” I repeated, enunciating every syllable. “If you want a piece of spine so badly, you give it. Leave me out of it.” “You ungrateful little bitch!” He lunged forward, raising his hand to strike me. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even blink. The slap never landed. Not because he found a shred of mercy in his heart, but because Betty caught his arm. “Dad! Don’t! She’s just scared, she doesn’t mean it!” Betty pivoted toward me, the tears now flowing freely, a picture of tragic innocence. “Heather, I know you’re upset. But this is Mom! How can you just stand there and watch her die?” “If you keep this up, you’re no daughter of mine!” my father roared, pointing a trembling finger an inch from my nose. “If you dare defy the will of the universe and kill your mother, you are dead to this family! I will disown you!” “The will of the universe? Dead to the family?” A hollow, jagged laugh scraped its way out of my throat. “Dad, your ‘universe’ is just a wooden box on a bedside table.” I walked over and picked up the mahogany humidor he treated like the Holy Grail. “If fate is so infallible, let’s draw again,” I challenged, staring him dead in the eye. “If I pull the red slip this time, I won’t say another word. I’ll march straight into the OR.” “But if Betty pulls it…” I shifted my gaze to my sister, watching the color instantly drain from her cheeks. I offered her a freezing smile. “Then Betty can make the ‘sacrifice’ for Mom this time.” Betty went completely ghost-white. She stumbled backward, instinctively hiding behind my father’s broad shoulders. My father glared at me, his eyes burning with a hatred so intense it felt physical. “Blasphemy!” He snatched the wooden box from my hands, clutching it to his chest like a priceless artifact. “The universe has already decided! I will not let you make a mockery of it!” He looked down at me with an expression I had memorized over a lifetime—a suffocating cocktail of profound disappointment and utter disdain. “Heather, I have taught you since you were a little girl. You are the star, and your sister is the moon. Stars exist to guard the moon. They exist to burn themselves out so the night sky is dark enough for her to shine.” “Betty is the moon. She is singular. Why can’t you just know your place and be the backdrop you were born to be?” “Sacrificing yourself just this once for your mother… is that really too much to ask?” 2 He asked me that with the righteous indignation of a saint. Sacrificing yourself just this once. He tossed the phrase around like he was asking me to pick up the dry cleaning. I looked at him clutching his sacred box. I looked at Betty cowering behind him, trembling like a fragile leaf. And then I looked at my mother on the bed, her breath shallow and reedy, slipping further away with every tick of the wall clock. In that moment, whatever warmth was left in my heart crystallized into solid ice. From the day I formally refused to donate my bone marrow, our house turned into an arctic wasteland. My father stopped speaking to me altogether. Whenever he had to look at me, his eyes slid over me like I was a tumor he was waiting to have excised. Betty, however, made a habit of visiting my bedroom to perform her daily theatrical sighs. “Heather, Mom’s getting worse. The doctors say she doesn’t have much time,” she’d whimper from my doorway. “Just take pity on me, please? I’m so terrified of surgeries…” She’d start weeping again, her shoulders shaking. I sat by the window, staring at the suburban street below, offering her nothing but silence. When she realized the guilt trip wasn’t working, the mask slipped. “You know, Heather, don’t think I don’t know what this is really about. You’re just jealous of me,” Betty spat, her voice suddenly sharp and venomous. “You’re jealous that Dad loves me more. You’re jealous that my luck is better than yours.” “But what is there to be jealous of? It’s just destiny! Dad said it himself—my destiny is simply better than yours!” I finally turned my head to look at her. “Are you done? Get the hell out of my room.” She choked on her next insult, stamped her foot in frustration, and ran out, sobbing loudly for my father’s benefit. Seconds later, his muffled roar vibrated through the floorboards. “Look what you’ve done to your sister! You cold-blooded sociopath!” Later that night, my mother called me into her room. She was fading fast, her body reduced to sharp angles and translucent skin under the duvet. She gripped my hand, her chest heaving as she struggled for air. “Heather… please…” she rasped. “I know… it’s been so unfair to you…” “But… but she’s your father’s lifeline… his most precious secret…” I froze. “Mom, what are you talking about?” What did she mean… his precious secret? My mother’s eyes darted away. Her cracked lips moved, but no sound came out. Instead, a violent, rattling cough seized her chest, sounding as if she were coughing up shards of glass. I panicked, gently rubbing her back to soothe her, but that phrase had already hooked itself deep into my brain, sharp and nagging. The next morning, I pretended to leave for work but quietly slipped back through the kitchen door. I crept up the stairs and hid in the cluttered alcove near the attic. From there, I watched my father unlock the door to his home office—a sanctuary neither Betty nor I were ever permitted to enter. A few minutes later, Betty tiptoed down the hall and slipped inside after him. I pressed myself against the wall, creeping toward the heavy oak door, and laid my ear against the sliver of space at the jamb. I heard my father’s voice. It was hushed, vibrating with a giddy excitement I hadn’t heard in years. “Betty, look. Look what Daddy got for you.” “An acceptance letter to the Parsons School of Design in Paris! I had to pull every string I had, but I got it.” “Once your mother… once the situation with the house is settled, I’m putting you on a plane. You’re going to live the life you were always meant to live.” The blood in my veins turned to liquid nitrogen. My mother was suffocating to death in the bedroom downstairs, and he was already paving a golden road for Betty’s Parisian fantasy. “Dad… isn’t that going to cost a fortune?” Betty’s voice asked, feigning hesitation. “Don’t you worry about the money, sweetheart,” my father cooed, his tone dripping with an indulgence he had never once directed at me. “I’ve had it safely tucked away for a long time. Nobody can touch it. It’s the money your grandparents left. It belongs to you.” Grandparents? My mother’s parents died when I was a toddler, and they died penniless. What money? A deafening ringing started in my ears. An absurd, terrifying realization began to form in the back of my mind. I bolted downstairs, throwing open the door to my mother’s bedroom. She was heavily sedated, deep in an anesthetic sleep. I dropped to my knees and began tearing through her bedside table, her closet, sliding my hands under the heavy mattress. Finally, tucked deep inside a concealed slit in the box spring, my fingers brushed against cold metal. I pulled out a small, rusted tin box wrapped in a faded handkerchief. My hands shook violently as I pried the lid open. Inside was a stack of yellowing letters and a single, sharply folded piece of official stationery. I unfolded it. Certificate of Paternity & Confidential Custody Agreement. Child: Betty. 3 CRACK— A sharp clap of thunder rattled the bedroom windows. The heavy, official paper slipped from my trembling fingers and fluttered to the carpet. Betty wasn’t my mother’s daughter. She was my father’s child, born from an affair with another woman. The “moon and the stars.” The “will of the universe.” The sacred altar of “fairness.” It was all a grotesque, meticulously crafted lie. He didn’t worship fairness. He worshipped his own ego. He engineered this entire charade so he could shamelessly siphon the lifeblood from my mother and me, funneling every dollar, every opportunity, and every drop of devotion to his golden, illegitimate child. I snatched the paper off the floor and stormed back upstairs, throwing my weight against the locked door of his office. Inside, I could hear them laughing—a warm, cozy chuckle between a father and daughter charting out a glorious, European future. Meanwhile, the woman who had raised her, the woman whose marriage he had desecrated, was rotting away a few walls over. “Open the door!” I pounded my fists against the wood until my knuckles cracked and bled. “Richard! Open this goddamn door!” The laughter inside cut off abruptly. A heavy silence followed before the lock finally clicked, and the door swung open. My father stood in the doorway. His eyes dropped to the crumpled paternity test in my bleeding hand, and all the color drained from his face, leaving him a sickly, ashen gray. Behind him, Betty clutched the edge of the mahogany desk, her eyes wide with a panicked, cornered look. “Where… where did you get that?” he demanded, his voice tight. I ignored the question, shoved past him into the sanctum of his office, and slammed the paper down onto his immaculate leather blotter. “Is this your fairness?” I screamed, my voice tearing at the seams. “Is this the will of the universe?” I pointed a shaking, bloodied finger at Betty. “To give your little bastard a glamorous life, you were willing to sacrifice me? To sacrifice Mom?” “Are you even human?!” “Shut your mouth!” His face flushed a violent, mottled purple. He lunged at me, raising his hand high. This time, Betty didn’t step in. SMACK. The back of his hand connected squarely with my jaw. The sheer force of the blow sent me crashing into the bookshelf and down to the hardwood floor. The right side of my face went entirely numb, and the hot, metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. He stood over me, his chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot and feral. “I told you from the very beginning. She is the moon, and you are just a star!” “A star’s only job is to stay in the background! You were put on this earth to give her everything she needs!” “Your mother should be on her knees thanking God that her pathetic life could help build Betty’s future!” He was finally done pretending. He had ripped off the mask of the benevolent, spiritually enlightened patriarch, revealing the rotting, profoundly selfish monster underneath. Betty stood behind him, looking down at me. The panic in her eyes had dissolved, replaced by a chilling mixture of triumphant gloating and condescending pity. Right at that moment, the office door pushed open wider. My mother stood in the doorway. She gripped the doorframe with skeletal hands, looking less like a person and more like a ghost tethered to the earth by sheer willpower. She had heard every word. Those cloudy, sunken eyes didn’t hold anger or sorrow. They were completely, devastatingly hollow. A total dead zone. She looked at my father, taking in his twisted, rage-fueled face. Slowly, agonizingly, she dragged her failing body across the floor until she stood right in front of him. She raised her frail, paper-thin hand. Smack. It was a pathetic, barely audible sound. A slap with no physical force behind it. But it broke my father’s brain. He stared at her, utterly bewildered. He couldn’t comprehend that this woman—the woman who had bowed her head and swallowed his poison for decades—dared to strike him. His shock instantly curdled into volcanic rage, and he needed a target. He spun around, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and hauled me off the floor. “This is all your fault! You little plague!” he spat, spittle flying onto my face. “You’re killing your mother!” With a guttural roar, he shoved me backward with all his strength. My spine hit the edge of the heavy desk, and the back of my skull slammed violently against the paneled wall. A brilliant flash of white light exploded behind my eyes, followed by a suffocating darkness. Right before I lost consciousness, I saw my mother staring at me, her eyes stretched wide in horror. The very last flicker of life in her gaze snuffed out. She collapsed backward, stiff and sudden, like a felled tree crashing to the forest floor. 4 The house was dead silent. My father stood in the center of the room, his breath coming in ragged, heavy pants. He looked down at his wife’s lifeless body on the rug. Then he looked at me, slumped against the wall, a line of warm blood trickling down my temple. And then, he did something that will haunt me until the day I die. He raised his hands and calmly, methodically, straightened the collar of his dress shirt. He moved with the casual indifference of a man who had just finished taking out the trash. He cleared his throat and delivered his final, absolute verdict to the empty room. “She was always too weak for this world.” My mother’s funeral was a barren, clinical affair. My father’s excuse was that she “preferred quiet settings.” But I knew the truth. He didn’t want to spend the money. Every penny saved on her casket was another penny going toward his golden child’s Parisian tuition. I knelt at the front of the empty funeral parlor, wearing a shapeless black dress, methodically tossing memorial cards into the small brazier. My face felt like a stone mask. I didn’t shed a single tear. My grief had burned so hot it had calcified into something terrifyingly cold. My father paced the back of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, acting like a regional manager inspecting a poorly performing retail branch. He complained to the funeral director that the font on the program was too cheap, and that the floral arrangements were underwhelming. My Uncle Dave, my mother’s brother, couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped up to confront him. My father waved him off with a sneer of profound irritation. “When you’re dead, you’re dead. What’s the point of all this performative nonsense?” he scoffed. “If you’ve got so much energy to burn, you should focus on the living.” He turned his gaze toward Betty, who was sitting in the front row in an expensive black designer dress, scrolling mindlessly on her phone. “Betty, sweetheart, did the school get your visa paperwork sorted? We can’t let this little detour delay your future.” The entire room went dead silent. The few extended relatives present stared at him as if he had just sprouted horns. Uncle Dave, who had been chain-smoking in agonizing silence all morning, suddenly threw his cigarette to the floor. “Richard! You psychotic son of a bitch!” My father glanced at him, rolling his eyes. “What now? I’m securing my daughter’s future. Is it a crime to be a good father?” “I’ll show you a goddamn future!” Uncle Dave saw red. He lunged across the aisle, his fist connecting with my father’s jaw with a sickening, meaty thud. My father stumbled backward, knocking over a towering arrangement of white lilies before crashing to the floor. He clutched his bleeding lip, screaming in disbelief. “You hit me?! Do you know who I am?!” Uncle Dave stood over him, trembling with a rage so deep it looked like it was tearing him apart. “My sister was bled dry by you! You parasite! You killed her!” “Lunatics! You’re all lunatics!” My father scrambled to his feet, furiously brushing the dust off his suit as if he were flicking away insects. “I am surrounded by irrational peasants!” He glared at the room, spun on his heel, and walked out of the parlor. He couldn’t even be bothered to stay for the rest of his own wife’s funeral. After the service, I locked myself inside my mother’s bedroom. The air still smelled faintly of lavender and sterile rubbing alcohol. I moved through the room like a ghost, quietly packing up her life. Her favorite flannel shirt. The wooden hairbrush she’d used for fifteen years. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her pillow to my chest, burying my face in it. As I squeezed the fabric, something hard and sharp dug into my palm through the cotton casing. Frowning, I grabbed a pair of scissors from the nightstand and sliced open the seams of the pillow. Buried deep inside the dense memory foam was a tiny cloth pouch made from an old handkerchief. I unrolled it. Inside were a handful of tightly folded, heavily creased Post-it notes. They were written in my mother’s handwriting. The first note: “He used the box to decide Heather’s after-school activities today… Why is it that the red slips always favor Betty?” The second note: “I waited until he left and tried drawing from the box myself. It feels completely normal… Am I going crazy? Is it truly just fate?” The third note: “He has a locked drawer in the oak desk. He told me never to touch it. What is he hiding? My chest feels tight just thinking about it.” My hands began to tremble violently. The handwriting on the final note was frantic, jagged, the ink almost tearing through the yellow paper. It looked like the desperate scrawl of a woman running out of time. When I read the words, the blood froze in my veins.

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In my past life, my piano teacher clawed her way into our family by playing the part of the doting caregiver, eventually becoming my stepmother. I never saw it coming. Once she married my father and fell pregnant, her true colors bled through. To ensure her unborn child would be the sole heir to the Whitman fortune, she orchestrated a nightmare. She conspired with kidnappers to have me poisoned, and then she watched as they dumped my body in the wilderness like trash. But then, I opened my eyes. I’ve been reborn. This time, I won’t be the stepping stone she uses to reach the top. I’m going to make her wish she had stayed in the gutter where she belongs. … My mother died bringing me into this world, but my father, Arthur, never entertained the idea of remarrying. It wasn’t out of some grand, eternal devotion. Theirs had been a strategic merger—a business arrangement between two powerful dynasties. There was no passion, and certainly no reason for him to remain a monk in her memory. He simply felt that since he already had an heir—me—a wife was an unnecessary complication. At my christening, in front of the crème de la crème of Manhattan high society, my father declared me the sole successor to the Whitman empire. He doted on me, giving me the world on a silver platter; my grandmother, the formidable Diana Whitman, treated me like the crown jewel of the family. But even a child who has everything still craves a mother’s touch. When I was five, they hired a piano teacher named Lydia. She was soft-spoken, attentive, and always seemed to know exactly when I needed a hug or a kind word. To my five-year-old self, she felt like the warmth I’d been missing. I didn’t realize it was a performance. She was using me as a Trojan horse to get to my father, desperate to trade her sheet music for the title of Mrs. Whitman. She eventually escalated her game, drugging my father’s drink one night and orchestrating a “scandalous” encounter. She thought a night in his bed would force his hand. She was wrong. My father was a man of the world. He’d seen every trick, every social climber, and every honey trap in the book. He saw through Lydia’s clumsy power play immediately. He didn’t even get angry; he just intended to write her a severance check and show her the door. But Lydia wasn’t going to let the golden goose go that easily. She came to me, weeping, telling me she was being forced to leave. By then, she had woven herself into the fabric of my daily life. I was addicted to her “love.” I refused to let her go. She seized the moment, whispering in my ear that if I begged my father to marry her, she could stay with me forever. My five-year-old brain, fueled by a desperate need for a mother, fell for it. I staged a hunger strike, screaming that I wanted her to be my new mom. My father had no desire to marry her, but he couldn’t stand to see me suffer. He relented. Lydia got her ring, though it was a quiet, private affair with no public announcement. For ten years, she played the part of the perfect wife. She was diligent, kind, and unfailingly “loving.” I truly looked at her as my mother. Then, she got pregnant. To clear the path for her own child, she “accidentally” fed me something laced with almonds. My anaphylactic shock was violent. While I was gasping for air, she coordinated with outsiders to kidnap me, intending to leave my corpse in the woods. As they threw me into the trunk of a car, I drifted back into a moment of agonizing clarity. I heard her hushed voice, cold and sharp, conspiring with the men. That was the moment the mask fell. But it was too late. Without an EpiPen, I was a dead girl walking. Even knowing my father would eventually avenge me, the unfairness of it burned. Fortunately, the universe decided to give me a second chance. Just before the darkness took me, a blinding white light swallowed the world. I woke to a voice—deep, cold, and achingly familiar. I opened my eyes to find myself curled in my father’s lap. He was idly playing with my small, chubby hand, his gaze icy as he looked down at Lydia, who was kneeling on the floor, trembling. “I don’t know what kind of spell you’ve cast on Celine to make her insist on having you as a mother,” my father said, his voice dripping with boredom. “But since my daughter has asked, I will grant her wish.” Lydia’s face was a mask of flustered humility. “Mr. Whitman, you’re joking. I truly love Celine, and I… I have feelings for you, too. It’s not a spell; it’s genuine.” My father’s patience snapped. “I don’t care about your ‘genuine’ feelings. If you want to be Mrs. Whitman so badly, fine. But remember this: your only currency in this house is Celine. You say you love her? Then you will spend every waking breath pleasing her.” “If you fail,” he added, his voice dropping an octave, “I will personally drop you back into the dirt you crawled out of.” Lydia went pale and whispered her assent. I chose that moment to rub my eyes and let out a soft, sleepy mumble. “Daddy?” The second he saw I was awake, the predatory hardness in his eyes vanished. He turned into the doting father I knew. “I’m here, sweetie. You’re awake. Are you hungry?” I nodded slowly. He patted my back, stood up, and began carrying me toward the dining room. Lydia scrambled to her feet, trying to follow. “Celine, are you hungry? Do you want me to feed you, sweetie?” she called out, her voice pitching up in that fake, sugary tone. Before she could take three steps, Barnaby, the butler, stepped in her path. I didn’t look at her. I just buried my face in my father’s shoulder, clinging to him. He paused, glancing back at the butler with a silent, sharp look. Barnaby understood immediately. He signaled to the nearby security staff. They stepped forward, clamped their hands over Lydia’s mouth, and dragged her toward the foyer. Lydia’s eyes went wide with terror, her muffled screams echoing as she struggled against them. It was useless. Our staff were professionals—they knew exactly how to handle a nuisance. Soon, the faint, rhythmic sound of slaps and Lydia’s stifled cries drifted through the hall. Barnaby’s voice followed, cold and instructional. “You common little thing,” he hissed. “You think because you crawled into a bed you can speak without permission? Today, we’re going to teach you the rules of this house. Again. Harder!” My father had agreed to let her stay, but she was a “Mrs. Whitman” in name only. In reality, she was a glorified, live-in nanny. My father knew she had manipulated me, and he was going to make her pay for that audacity while using the punishment to establish my absolute authority over her. In my last life, Lydia had also been “disciplined” by the staff early on. That brutality had kept her in line for a decade—until her pregnancy gave her the delusion of leverage. I sat in my high chair, slowly sipping my organic oatmeal while my father cut up fresh fruit for me. I looked up at him and gave him a bright, innocent smile. “Thank you, Daddy!” He beamed, ruffling my hair. Lydia, I thought, watching the door. Let’s see if you can survive this life without me protecting you. The next morning, I woke up in my sprawling bedroom—a sanctuary of blush silks, designer plushies, and custom-built dollhouses. I stood in front of the full-length mirror. The girl looking back was porcelain-perfect, but her eyes held a depth of cold calculation that no five-year-old should possess. Lydia wanted the life of a socialite. I was going to let her see the gold, let her smell the luxury, but I would make sure she could never truly touch it. She would be a ghost in a silk cage. Voices drifted up from downstairs. “Where is she?” It was Grandmother. Diana was here. “She’s still sleeping, ma’am,” Barnaby replied respectfully. “Let her sleep. Children need their rest. Now, bring that little social climber to me. I want to see exactly what kind of trash my son has let into this house.” To my grandmother, I was the perfect angel—the “Good Whitman.” I was the child who always asked for her advice, who never threw tantrums in public, and who was the envy of every other matriarch in the Hamptons. My grandmother lived for that prestige. My mother’s death had been a blow to her, especially since the Whitman-Price prenuptial agreement stated there would be only one heir, regardless of gender. My grandmother might have preferred a grandson, but since I was her only link to the future and brought her nothing but social credit, she adored me. Lydia, however, was about to become her favorite punching bag. I crept to the top of the stairs to watch. Lydia was standing in the center of the marble foyer, wearing a simple white sundress. Her face was haggard, her eyes bloodshot, and her cheeks were still swollen from the “lesson” she’d received the day before. Grandmother sat on the Louis XIV sofa, took a slow sip of her Earl Grey, and set the porcelain cup down with a deliberate clink. Only then did she look up. “So, you’re the girl? Lydia?” Grandmother’s voice was like a razor. “You’ve got that desperate, hungry look. You thought you could fly high, didn’t you? But you didn’t check if you had the wings for it.” She stood up and walked over to Lydia, plucking at the hem of her white dress. She spotted the designer tag and scoffed. “Wearing labels you couldn’t afford in three lifetimes. You must be feeling very smug right now, thinking you’ve made it.” Lydia shook her head frantically, eyes glued to the floor. “Celine is a Whitman,” Grandmother continued, her voice dropping. “To use a child’s innocence to secure your position… you have more nerve than I gave you credit for. You’ll stay in this house, but you won’t be enjoying any of its comforts. You will be paying for them in sweat.” She turned back to the sofa. “Martha, come in.” A sturdy, middle-aged woman walked in. Martha had been my grandmother’s personal maid for thirty years. She was as loyal as a wolf and twice as sharp. “Lydia, you said you love Celine, right? You wanted to be her ‘mother’? Fine. From now on, you are responsible for her every need. Martha will be your shadow, teaching you how to serve properly. If you so much as look at my granddaughter the wrong way, you’re out.” Lydia looked up, her bruised face twisted in shock. “But… there are housekeepers. Why do I have to do it? I’m Arthur’s wife now. We’ve signed the papers.” Grandmother let out a short, bark-like laugh. “Wife? You’re a legal technicality, darling. You aren’t a member of this family. You’re a domestic worker with a ring. If you want to stay, you serve. If not, I’ll throw you out and let Celine cry for a few days. She’ll forget you by next Christmas.” Lydia collapsed inward, her spirit breaking. She whispered her agreement. Grandmother then picked up a phone from the side table—it was Lydia’s. She scrolled through a social media page where Lydia had already begun posting coy, subtle hints about her “new life in luxury.” “Is this yours?” Grandmother asked, her brow furrowing. “This house is not a backdrop for your vanity. If you show this much lack of discretion again, I’ll have Barnaby remind you of the rules. I’m sure he’d love to leave a few more marks on that pretty face.” Lydia flinched, backing away and nodding frantically. Grandmother huffed and turned toward the stairs. I scrambled back to my room and dove under the covers, pretending to be fast asleep. Downstairs, the silence was broken only by Lydia’s quiet, pathetic sobbing.

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The phone buzzed on my nightstand at 3:00 AM, a frantic, persistent vibration that cut through the silence of the bedroom. I fumbled for it, my eyes stinging from sleep. It was a delivery driver. His voice was hushed, carrying a suggestive, conspiratorial edge. He asked if I was the one who’d ordered the box of ultra-thin, “barely-there” lubricants and a pack of Trojans. “Hey, man, I’m downstairs,” he whispered. “Don’t keep the lady waiting. It’s freezing out here.” The sleep evaporated instantly. My heart did a slow, heavy roll in my chest, and a high-pitched ringing started in my ears. For a second, I just sat there in the dark, the silence of the house feeling suddenly predatory. I tried to shove the thought down—the obvious, sickening realization clawing at my throat—and dialed my wife’s number instead. “Hey,” I said when she finally picked up. My voice was steady, though my hands were shaking. “Did you order something? A delivery guy just called me.” On the other end, there was a sharp, jagged intake of breath. I heard a muffled rustle, the sound of someone holding their breath, trying to stifle a physical reaction. After a long pause, her voice came through, sharp and impatient. “I was hungry. I ordered some takeout. Did you really have to call me in the middle of a business trip to ask about a sandwich?” I didn’t argue. I didn’t point out that the delivery guy hadn’t mentioned food. I just hung up. I called the driver back, my voice turning to ice. “Don’t drop that order off yet.” “Oh? Everything okay, man?” “I’m in a hurry,” I said, grabbing my keys. “I’ll come down and get it from you myself.” … I drove like a man possessed to the Marriott where my wife was supposedly staying for her “leadership conference.” When I pulled up, the delivery guy was waiting by the curb. He saw me and gave me that look—the “bro, I get it” smirk that made me want to break his jaw. I gave him the order digits, took the small, plastic bag, and walked into the lobby. At the front desk, I channeled every ounce of professional calm I possessed. “Hi. I’m the husband of the guest in Room 1908,” I told the night manager. “She just realized she lost an extremely expensive diamond necklace at the desk earlier. I need you to help me check the security footage so we can see if someone picked it up.” I could see the hesitation in her eyes, so I pulled out my wallet and laid our marriage certificate—a digital copy I kept for travel—on the counter. I looked like a worried, wealthy husband. I looked like someone who belonged there. She sighed, gave me a professional, pitying smile, and led me back to the security room. The shift in the room was palpable the moment the footage scrolled back to ten o’clock that evening. The manager’s face went pale. On the screen, my wife, Madeline, wasn’t alone. She was draped over a younger man, his hand resting low on her waist as they stepped into the elevator. The manager realized then that there was no necklace. She saw me pull out my phone to record the screen, her mouth opening to protest, but then she looked at my face and stopped. She didn’t turn away. In fact, she seemed mesmerized by the unfolding train wreck, her eyes darting between the screen and the tightening muscles in my jaw. “Want to see how this ends in person?” I asked, my voice sounding like it was coming from miles away. I pulled ten one-hundred-dollar bills from my clip and set them on the desk. “Take this bag to Room 1908. Tell them it’s the ‘special delivery’ they’ve been waiting for. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.” The manager looked at the money, then at the Trojans in the bag. The thrill of the drama outweighed the risk of the job. She took the bag, got into the elevator, and headed to the 19th floor. I followed a minute later. I stood in the shadows of the hallway, watching as she knocked. The door opened. I caught a glimpse of a stranger’s face—young, lean, arrogant. He muttered a complaint about the delay, grabbed the bag, and slammed the door. I leaned against the cold wallpaper of the hallway, listening. I waited until I heard Madeline’s voice—a low, breathless sound of arrival, a sound she hadn’t made for me in years. That was the moment the last string snapped. I went to the front desk, booked the room directly next door, and sat in the dark. I listened to the muffled rhythm of her betrayal, a self-inflicted torture. She was loud. She was uninhibited. She was a woman I didn’t recognize. I let out a short, jagged laugh. It was amazing how quickly the “filter” of love could disintegrate. When I judged they were at the height of it, I called her. It took five rings. When she answered, her voice was a forced, shaky mask of “professional” exhaustion. “Emmett? What is it? Is something wrong?” She was panting. Just slightly. A shallow, rhythmic wheezing she tried to hide by pressing the phone tight to her ear. Suddenly, a thousand memories flooded back. Every night she had been “away.” Every time I called and heard that same labored breathing. I’d always asked if her asthma was flaring up. She’d always laugh it off, change the subject, and tell me she loved me. The signs had been there for years. I had just been too blinded by my own loyalty to read them. I had treated her like a queen for nearly half a decade, and all the while, the crown was a joke. “Are you actually working, Madeline?” I asked quietly. There was a beat of silence. “What kind of question is that? Do you not trust me? Look, if this isn’t urgent, I need to go. I’m… I’m in the middle of reviewing some files. Ah—” The line went dead. My heart didn’t break; it turned to stone. I pulled up my contacts and called my new executive assistant. “I’m sending you a photo of a man,” I said, my voice vibrating with a cold, New York edge. “I want everything on him. Now.” “On it, Boss,” she said, her voice instantly sharp. Ten minutes later, a PDF hit my inbox. “He’s one of our interns, Emmett. Tristan Liang. Apparently, his family owns a small boutique firm upstate, but nobody knows why he’s slumming it in our junior program. Why are we looking into a kid?” I didn’t answer. I stared at the name. Tristan Liang. It sounded familiar. Too familiar. I dug through my personal records and found it. Three years ago, Madeline had begged me to sponsor a gifted student from her alma mater. She’d called him a “diamond in the rough.” I thought the connection had ended when he graduated. I had no idea she had secretly ushered him into my own company, nursing him like a viper in my own garden. “Do you have his socials?” I messaged my assistant. She sent over a zipped file of screenshots from his private Instagram. September 7, 2019. A photo of him at a beach house in the Hamptons. A woman’s hand was visible in the frame, stroking his hair. The caption: My kitten follows me everywhere. I recognized the vintage Cartier watch on that wrist. I’d given it to her for our third anniversary. That was the night she’d told me she had an emergency board meeting and left me with a table full of her favorite food and a custom-designed emerald necklace. I scrolled. It was a three-year map of my own humiliation. Tristan was clever. He never showed her face, respecting her wish for a “discreet” affair, but he left breadcrumbs for his ego. Whenever coworkers asked who the mystery woman was, he’d just smirk and say, “You all know her.” He had been marking his territory for three years, and I had been the oblivious landlord paying the mortgage on their playground. Four years of marriage. Three years of infidelity. The math was brutal. I closed my laptop and took a long, shaky breath. I spent thirty minutes absorbing the reality, then checked out of the hotel. I drove home, moved with mechanical precision, and began packing her things. I threw her designer bags and clothes into heavy-duty trash liners and hauled them to the curb. When I reached her laptop, I paused. Her password was still her birthday. It clicked open instantly. I found the chat logs. My heart skipped a beat, then plummeted. Madeline wasn’t just sleeping with him. She was planning to steal my latest, unreleased jewelry collection—the “Elysian” line I’d spent a year crafting—and present it at the Manhattan Jewelry Gala under Tristan’s name. She was going to use my genius to build his throne. The irony was a physical weight in my chest. I spent the rest of the night documenting everything. I pulled the company’s financial records and her credit card statements. The deeper I dug, the worse it got. This year alone, she had checked into hotels with him over two hundred times across the country. She had even embezzled company funds to buy him a luxury condo in the Gold Coast district. Millions. She had spent millions of my hard-earned money on a boy who wasn’t even out of his twenties. I’d always trusted her. I never questioned her spending because I wanted her to have the world. Now, the world felt like a sick joke. No wonder she kept her home office locked. No wonder she acted like it was her private sanctuary. I’d had to crowbar the door open tonight, and the “surprise” inside was a life-altering betrayal. I called my attorney and told him to start drafting the most aggressive divorce papers in the history of the state. As the sun began to rise, I stood by the window, a glass of neat bourbon in my hand, staring out at the skyline. My phone rang. It was her. “Are you awake yet, babe?” Her voice was back to its honey-smooth, nurturing tone. “It’s freezing out here, make sure you wear that cashmere overcoat I bought you.” The bile rose in my throat. “I’m in the city,” I said, my voice flat. There was a sharp silence. “What are you doing in the city?” “Meeting a friend.” She let out a breathy laugh, relieved. “Oh, okay. Well, have fun. I’ll see you tonight.” I hung up, booked a flight, and headed straight for the Manhattan Jewelry Gala. The venue was a sea of black ties and silk gowns. The elite of the industry were there, circling the pedestals like sharks. I sat in a dim corner, a shadow among the glittering lights, and watched. At 10:00 AM, Madeline arrived. She looked radiant, draped in a gown that cost more than a mid-sized sedan. Beside her, Tristan walked with the unearned confidence of a prince. The room shifted toward them. But it wasn’t just their presence—it was the necklace around Madeline’s neck. A stunning, deep-forest emerald set in a tension mount of white gold. My “Elysian” masterpiece. “Madeline, that piece is breathtaking,” a rival CEO gushed. “Is this Emmett’s new direction? The fire in those stones is incredible.” Madeline touched the emerald, her smile sweet and rehearsed. “Actually, no,” she said, her voice carrying across the circle. “My husband is brilliant, of course, but this piece… this is the debut of our newest talent, Tristan Liang.” She stepped aside, positioning Tristan in the center of the spotlight. “I’ve mentored Tristan from the beginning. His vision, his raw talent… it’s something you only see once in a generation. Honestly? He’s surpassed what my husband was doing at his age.” A murmur of shock and admiration rippled through the crowd. People looked at Tristan with new eyes—the “prodigy.” They began offering him business cards, asking about his process, inviting him to collaborate. I watched from the shadows and felt a cold, dark laugh bubble up in my chest. She was using the very heart of my creative soul to pave the way for her lover. She really thought she could build a kingdom on a foundation of lies. She didn’t realize that a house of cards only needs one gust of wind to collapse. The presentation began. The moderator invited Tristan onto the stage to discuss his “design philosophy.” He stepped up, looking every bit the modern artist, and began a rehearsed, flowery speech about “nature’s organic silhouettes” and “the emotional resonance of the emerald.” And Madeline? The woman who had once told me she hated modeling—who called it “being a monkey in a zoo” when I asked her to wear my pieces for clients—stood there like a silent, proud pedestal, basking in the gaze of the crowd. “The inspiration for this piece,” Tristan continued, his eyes locking onto Madeline’s with a sickening, public intimacy, “came from my muse. My boss, my mentor, and the woman who gave a simple intern the space to become an artist.” The applause was deafening. Madeline looked at him with the dewy-eyed adoration of a schoolgirl. “Unbelievable,” someone whispered near me. “To think a kid did that. Emmett’s going to have a run for his money.” I stood up. The floorboards didn’t creak, but the atmosphere in my immediate vicinity seemed to drop ten degrees. “It’s fascinating,” I said, my voice cutting through the applause like a razor. “I didn’t realize that translating my private design journals from English into… whatever ‘vision’ you’re claiming… counted as an original philosophy.” The room went dead silent. The high-ranking executives in the front row turned, their faces going ashen when they saw me. A reporter recognized me immediately, swinging a heavy lens in my direction. “My god, it’s Emmett Benson.”

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Every time my mother packed a bag to run away from home, she’d make it exactly halfway before finding an excuse to turn back. The first time, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving behind half a watermelon that was about to go bad in the fridge. The second time, we actually made it onto the Greyhound bus before she gasped and said we had to go back to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. The third time, I saw that familiar, sickeningly anxious look wash over her face again. Looking back at those first two attempts, I would have had to be completely blind not to figure it out. She never really wanted to leave the man who beat her. She was just using my heartbreak and panic to satisfy her own desperate need to feel like a martyr. 1 I stood outside the sliding glass doors of the regional bus depot, watching my mother’s hands tremble as she clutched the ticket to my grandmother’s town. She looked back over her shoulder. One. Two. Three times. “Heather, I forgot to turn off the stove.” Her voice was frail, laced with that precise pitch of hesitation I had grown so accustomed to that it made my stomach turn. I didn’t say a word. My phone screen was still glowing in my palm with a text from Nana: Come on down, baby. Got the spare room all made up for you and your mama. Nana was seventy-three. Her knees were shot. But she had made my Uncle Dave spend his whole afternoon clearing out the dusty guest room just for us. And my mother was standing here saying she forgot to turn off the stove. Last month, Rick—I had stopped calling him Dad a long time ago—threw her down a flight of stairs. Her elbow had been swollen to the size of a grapefruit for a week. When I was rubbing arnica cream into the bruised skin, she had forced a smile and told me she just tripped over her own two feet. I was seventeen. Not seven. “Are you coming or not?” I asked her. My mother looked down at the crumpled ticket, then back up at me. Her lips parted, pressing together again before she spoke. “Heather, honey, maybe… maybe we should just go tomorrow?” I laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was just a rush of air forced out of a chest so tight I felt like my ribs were cracking. “Joanne, you do this every single time.” I used her first name. She froze. For the first time in seventeen years, I didn’t call her Mom. “The first time you took me away, we made it three blocks before you said you couldn’t stand wasting half a rotten watermelon in the fridge. Did you really think I bought that?” “The second time, you were literally sitting on the bus. You said the wet clothes were sitting in the washing machine. I moved them to the dryer for you, did you know that? I did it before we walked out the door. You didn’t even listen to me.” “And the third time, right now. The stove? I stood in the kitchen and watched you turn the dials to off before we walked out.” A flush of red crept up her neck. It wasn’t the blush of a modest woman; it was the hot, humiliating flush of being entirely seen through. She stopped talking. The paper ticket was practically disintegrating in her sweaty grip. Over the intercom, a garbled voice announced the final boarding for the bus heading downstate to Oakhaven. Nana’s town. I gripped the plastic handle of my rolling suitcase and gave her one last look. “If you’re not going, I am.” As I turned my back on her, I heard her voice crack behind me. “Heather! Heather, wait for me!” I didn’t stop. Because I knew, deep in my bones, that even if I stopped, she would never actually step foot on that bus. Three steps. Five steps. Ten steps. Just as I suspected, I didn’t hear her footsteps following me. When I finally glanced back, she was standing frozen on the concrete, the evening sun casting a long, hollow shadow behind her. She looked impossibly fragile, her shoulders caved in, still clutching that ruined ticket. For a split second, my heart genuinely ached for her. But when the ache passed, I was left with a clarity sharper than glass. It wasn’t that she couldn’t leave. It was that she didn’t want to. I got on the bus alone, making my way to the very back row and pressing myself against the window. As the bus rumbled to life, I sent a text to Nana. It’s just me coming. She replied instantly. Where’s your mother? I turned my phone off. The city skyline blurred into suburbs, the suburbs melting into vast stretches of dark, empty fields. I rested my forehead against the cool glass and thought about the first time I ever saw a bruise on my mother’s face. I was eight. She told me she walked into a doorframe. I believed her for nine years. Until last winter, when I walked into the hallway and saw Rick gripping her by the hair, slamming her skull against the drywall. Nine years. She had lied to me for nine years. And it took three failed escapes for me to finally understand that she didn’t want to be saved. 2 The bus ride took two and a half hours. By the time we pulled into Oakhaven, the sky was pitch black. Uncle Dave was waiting for me in his beat-up Ford pickup. When he saw me step off the curb alone, the hopeful expectation on his face melted into a heavy, tired pity. “She didn’t come again?” “Yeah.” He didn’t push it. He just grabbed my suitcase, tossed it into the truck bed, and we started the drive out to the county line. There were no streetlights out here, just the yellow sweep of the truck’s headlights cutting through the dark. The wind whipping through the cracked window was biting and cold. “Your Nana made a chicken pot pie,” Dave said quietly, keeping his eyes on the road. “The kind with the biscuit crust. Your favorite when you were a kid.” “Mhm,” I murmured. When we pulled into the gravel driveway, the old woman was standing on the porch, leaning heavily on her cane. The second she saw I was alone, her eyes welled up with tears. “Heather, baby, your mama…” “Nana, I’m starving.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have this conversation tonight. Nana quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and hobbled into the kitchen to pull the pie from the oven. The steaming food was set on the worn wooden table. I kept my head down, eating mechanically, while Nana sat across from me, just watching. “Heather, your mother… she’s always been like this.” I took another bite. I didn’t say a word. “When your grandpa was alive, he had a temper on him too. He’d throw plates. Smash things. Sometimes, he used his hands. And back then, I…” Her voice trailed off, swallowed by the quiet ticking of the kitchen clock. I looked up at her. The harsh overhead light threw the deep lines of her face into sharp relief. “I never left either,” she whispered. I put my fork down. The metallic clink was loud in the silent room. “So what are you saying, Nana? It’s genetic?” “It’s not genetics.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s a habit. Your mother grew up watching me swallow my pride and take it. She learned that enduring it was just what you did. It’s not that she doesn’t want to leave. It’s that she can’t comprehend where she would even go.” “She could come here.” “Here?” Nana let out a dry, bitter laugh. “What’s here? A crumbling house on an acre of dirt. Your uncle Dave works at the lumber yard making barely enough to keep the lights on for his own kids. We scrape by.” I fell silent. “Your mother… she always thought leaving just meant becoming someone else’s burden. She’d rather suffer it herself.” “What about me?” My voice cracked like a whip in the quiet kitchen. “She suffers it, but what about me? Did she ever stop to think about me?” Nana opened her mouth, but nothing came out. “Since I was eight years old, I’ve watched the bruises on her face turn black and purple, getting worse every single year. I put the ice packs on her. I helped her lie to the school guidance counselor. I swept up the shattered dinner plates after Rick lost his mind.” “I said, Mom, let’s go. And she said, Okay, let’s go.” “And then what? Three times. Three times she abandoned me and ran right back to him.” “Every time she said we were leaving, I felt like I could finally breathe. I folded all my clothes perfectly. I packed my textbooks. I took every dollar I’d saved from my weekend job and shoved it in my pockets.” “And every single time, she left me standing there.” By the time I finished, my voice was shaking violently. But I didn’t cry. I was way past the age where crying fixed anything. Nana sat in silence for a very long time. “Heather, you just stay here for a few days. Let me try calling her again. Maybe I can talk some sense into her.” “Don’t bother.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “You can’t talk her out of it. She likes how it feels.” “Likes how what feels?” “The sacrifice. She likes feeling like she’s throwing herself on the sword for our family. She likes being the tragic victim who takes all the hits so she can sit around waiting for everyone to feel sorry for her.” Nana didn’t have a response to that. I walked down the hall to the guest room she had prepared and shut the door behind me. The bed was made with freshly washed sheets that smelled like laundry detergent and sunshine. My phone buzzed against my thigh. A text from my mother. Heather, I’m back home. Your dad didn’t even drink tonight, he’s being so good. Be safe at Nana’s. I stared at the glowing letters in the dark for a long time. And then, I turned the screen off without replying a single word. 3 On my third day at Nana’s, my mother finally called me. “Heather, come home. Your dad promised he’s never going to lay a hand on me again.” It was the exact same script. Every single time. “He said that last time,” I replied, my voice flat. “This time is different. He wrote it down. A whole letter of apology.” “He wrote one last year too. He even signed it.” The line went dead silent for a few seconds. “Heather, if you don’t come back, your dad said…” Her voice dropped to a frantic, hushed whisper. “Said what?” “He said he’s going to go down to your high school and make a scene.” My breath hitched. Rick always knew exactly how to play my mother. He’d beat her bloody, then hand her a bouquet of flowers. But with me, he used a different currency: terror. He knew I was a senior. He knew I was in the top ten percent of my class, applying to colleges. And he knew that if he showed up drunk and screaming in the middle of the school day, I would never be able to look my classmates in the eye again. “Let him come.” I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words were out of my mouth. “I’m not scared of him.” My mother panicked. “Heather, please, stop being so stubborn! Just come home, I’m begging you.” “You’re begging me?” My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. “I am the last person you should be begging. You should be begging the police. You should be at the courthouse. You should be begging the people whose actual job it is to save you.” “What the hell am I supposed to do? I’m seventeen. You want me to come home and act as your human shield?” “Heather—” “Don’t. If you want to stay in that house, then stay. But don’t you dare drag me down to drown with you.” I hung up. My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone. I turned around to find Nana standing in the doorway. She was leaning against the frame, a paring knife in one hand and a half-peeled apple in the other. “That was your mother?” “Yeah.” “That bastard feeding her sweet talk again?” “He said he’s going to show up at my school and ruin my life.” The knife in Nana’s hand stopped moving. The blood drained from her face, replaced by a fierce, terrifying anger. “He wouldn’t dare.” “Of course he would,” I said hollowly. “Is there a line he hasn’t crossed?” Nana set the apple down on the dresser. She turned around and marched into the hallway. A moment later, I heard her shouting into the landline. “Listen to me, Rick. If you so much as step foot near Heather’s school, I swear to God I will drag my dying bones to the police station and have you locked in a cage!” I could faintly hear Rick’s voice barking back through the receiver, slurred and muffled, but I caught the gist: Mind your own damn business, you old bitch. Nana’s lips were trembling with sheer rage. Uncle Dave came rushing in from the porch, wiping grease off his hands, and snatched the receiver from her. “Rick. You listen to me. If you touch my sister or my niece again, I will put you in the ground myself.” Click. The line went dead. Dave’s face was a violent shade of crimson. “Mom, we can’t just let this keep happening.” Nana collapsed into the armchair, burying her face in her hands, completely silent. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom, looking out the window at the dilapidated little backyard. There was a stack of chopped firewood against the fence, clothes flapping in the breeze on a rusted line. This was the furthest I could run. Two and a half hours away. A distance my mother couldn’t even manage to cross. The next morning at sunrise, Uncle Dave drove me back into town. “You sure you wanna go back, kid?” “I’m not going back to that apartment,” I said. “I’m going to the school.” “The school? Classes don’t start for another week.” “I need to talk to my homeroom teacher.” Dave shot me a look, but he didn’t argue. The bus station in town looked exactly the same as it had yesterday. Run-down and miserable. I bought a one-way ticket back to the city. Right before I stepped onto the bus, I sent my mother a text. I’m going back to school. I’m not coming home. She replied instantly. Okay. Just one word. No punctuation. No emojis. I didn’t know if she was relieved that she didn’t have to protect me, or disappointed that she’d lost her buffer. It was probably both. 4 It was 2:00 PM when I dragged my suitcase onto the campus. The security guard at the front gate knew me from the honor roll assemblies. He buzzed me in. “Heather? What are you doing here so early? The dorms aren’t even open yet.” “I need to see Mrs. Gallagher.” Mrs. Gallagher, my AP English teacher and homeroom advisor, lived in the faculty apartments right across the street. When I knocked on her door, she answered with a red pen in her hand, looking utterly baffled. “Heather? Honey, what’s wrong?” I stood on her welcome mat, suddenly entirely unsure of how to form the words. What was I supposed to say? Hey, my mom is a battered wife. I ran away from home. And my abusive father is threatening to terrorize the campus. Every single variation of the truth tasted like ash and humiliation. But I had burned all my bridges. I was standing at the edge of the cliff. “Mrs. Gallagher, I need to tell you something.” She ushered me inside immediately and poured me a glass of water. I sat down at her small dining table and pulled my phone from my pocket. I opened the hidden album in my camera roll. A close-up of the horrific, mottled purple bruising on my mother’s elbow. A shattered ceramic vase strewn across the living room rug. A fist-sized crater punched straight through the hallway drywall. And then, the worst one. The one of my mother’s face. I took it last winter, after Rick came home drunk from a sports bar and decided his dinner was too cold. One backhand had sent her flying. Her head clipped the sharp corner of the glass coffee table. Her temple had split open, bleeding freely. I had been hiding in the dark of my bedroom, capturing the photo through the crack in the door hinges. Mrs. Gallagher flipped through the photos. With every swipe, the color drained from her face until she looked physically ill. “Is… is this your mother?” “Yes.” “How long?” “At least nine years. Probably longer.” “Has she ever called the police?” “No.” “Why on earth not?” I let the silence hang in the air for a moment. “Because she doesn’t want to.” Mrs. Gallagher looked at me, her eyes brimming with a total, absolute lack of comprehension. I couldn’t blame her. How do you explain the psychology of that? A woman beaten like a dog for a decade, who will violently defend the man holding the leash. Who would believe it if they didn’t live it? “Mrs. Gallagher, I’m not here to ask you to help my mom.” She blinked, startled. “Then why are you…” “I need you to help me.” I told her exactly what Rick had threatened to do. The shock on her face hardened instantly into cold, righteous fury. “He thinks he can come onto this campus? I’ll have the squad cars waiting for him before he even steps out of his vehicle.” “It’s not him coming here that scares me, Mrs. Gallagher. It’s…” I swallowed hard. “What is it?” “I’m terrified that my mom will use his threats as an excuse to force me to go back.” Mrs. Gallagher went very quiet. She was in her late forties. Divorced. Raising a teenage daughter entirely on her own. I think she understood the dark, unspoken subtext of what I couldn’t say out loud. “Heather, you’re going to stay in the dorms. I’ll go speak with administration right now and get your room unlocked early.” “Thank you, Mrs. Gallagher.” “And those photos on your phone? Text every single one of them to me right now.” “Why?” “So I have a paper trail. If that man shows his face anywhere near these gates, I am handing my phone straight to the precinct captain.” I AirDropped the files to her. That night, I slept in a desolate, echoing dormitory. A room meant for two girls, entirely empty except for me. It was so quiet I could hear the blood pumping through the veins in my ears. My phone vibrated on the mattress. It wasn’t my mother. It was Rick. Heather, get your ass home right now. I didn’t answer. He called seven times in a row. On the eighth ring, I picked up. “If you call this number one more time, I’m dialing 911.” The line went dead quiet for two seconds. Then, a low, cruel chuckle crackled through the speaker. “Call the cops? Go ahead. Let’s see who looks like the white trash family on the evening news.” “You think I’m the one who should be embarrassed?” “You think you’re pretty tough, huh, little girl? You keep pushing, and I swear to God I will beat your mother so bad you won’t even recognize her face.” The blood rushed to my head so fast I felt dizzy. My palms were slick with cold sweat. But when I spoke, my voice was dead calm. “You touch her, I call the cops. Every time you lay a finger on her, I make a report. I have the photos. I have audio recordings. I have a video of you taking a baseball bat to the television. You want to test me? Let’s see whose life gets ruined first.” Silence on the other end. Heavy, breathing silence. Then he muttered a vile string of curses and slammed the phone down. I dropped my phone onto the thin mattress. My hands were shaking violently. My heart was beating out of my chest. But I knew, sitting there in the dark… this was only the beginning.

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For seven years after the Montgomery family finally found me, I was never allowed to step foot inside their home. And for seven years, the fake heiress never moved out. It was an archaic, eccentric tradition of the old-money Montgomerys: whenever a family member returned from a long journey—or a long absence—the head of the estate had to cast the antique silver dollars. Only if the silver eagles landed face-up, signaling a blessing, could the wanderer cross the threshold. My biological brother, Alistair, cast the coins for me ninety-nine times. Not once did they land on a blessing. On the hundredth time, peering through a crack in the heavy oak doors of his study, I saw it. Two silver eagles, gleaming under the lamplight. A perfect, joyous omen. Yet Alistair stared at the coins, a heavy silence stretching across the room, before he finally murmured, “It has to be a bad omen.” “Evie was raised in this house. She’s fragile. She’s never known hardship,” he whispered to the empty room. “If Josie comes home, and Evie has to move out… she won’t survive it.” In that crushing, quiet moment, the truth finally crystallized. It wasn’t the coins keeping me out. It was him. He just didn’t want me to come home. And you know what? That was fine. Because suddenly, I didn’t want to come home either. I packed my bags and bought a train ticket heading down South, back to the military base in Georgia. Down there was the man who had raised me, my adoptive brother. I’d heard he was sick. I just wanted to go see him. 1 The air in the study was thick with the scent of burning cedar, casting a dim, solemn haze over the room. I stood soundlessly outside the door, my eyes fixed on the two silver coins resting on the mahogany desk. Two heads. A blessing. Alistair Montgomery had tossed them five times. Five times, the result was exactly the same. But the cold detachment in his voice had already rewritten the fate the coins had decreed. A sudden draft swept through the grand hallway, stinging my eyes, making them ache with a sudden, sharp wetness. For a long, agonizing minute, Alistair’s face was a portrait of rigid hesitation. But ultimately, he reached out. His fingers hovered over one of the silver eagles before gently, deliberately, flipping it over. The blessing became a curse. The door remained shut. As he straightened up, he muttered under his breath, “She’ll never know. It’s been seven years… no one has ever noticed.” So this was it. The hundredth casting I had waited for with bated breath, my heart full of foolish, desperate hope. It was nothing but the hundredth lie designed to lock me out of the Montgomery estate. My mind was a chaotic, static hum. Until, from the courtyard behind me, Evangeline’s sickly-sweet voice pierced the air. “Josie! What are you doing in the hallway?” she gasped, her tone fluttering like a startled bird. “Alistair is casting the coins. You know you aren’t supposed to be here!” Her voice was pitched high, engineered to carry. Instantly, the heavy oak doors swung open. Alistair stood there. A deep frown marred his handsome features, and for a fleeting second, raw panic flickered in his dark eyes. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked. 2 I slipped my trembling hands into the pockets of my wool coat, letting my fingernails dig soundlessly into my palms until the pain grounded me. I met his gaze with a deadened calm. “Just got here,” I lied smoothly. “Dinner’s almost ready. I came to get you.” It was New Year’s Eve. The one day of the year the Montgomery family deigned to leave their grand estate and come to the modest apartment they rented for me, playing the part of a united family. For the past seven years, Alistair had fed me the same lines. He told me that even if the coins wouldn’t let me cross the threshold of the main house, I was still a Montgomery. I was still his only biological sister. And on New Year’s Eve, a family belongs together. Once upon a time, those words had moved me to tears. Hearing my answer, Alistair exhaled, the tension bleeding from his shoulders, though a trace of guilt lingered in his eyes. He reached out with the same hand that had just falsified my future, his broad palm stiffly wrapping around my wrist. His voice returned to its usual, manufactured warmth. “Let’s go, then. Let’s have dinner.” The words barely left his mouth before Evangeline burst into the hallway, her eyes already swimming with tears. She looked at Alistair, a picture of tragic, breathless terror. “Did you finish the reading, Alistair?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is Josie… is she finally moving into the house?” Alistair met her pleading gaze. For a long moment, the air in the hallway felt suffocatingly heavy. Evie’s lower lip quivered. A single, perfect tear rolled down her cheek. “I… I understand. Congratulations, Josie. You finally get to go home. I’ll… I’ll go pack my things right now.” She spun around, sprinting toward the door with a theatrical sob. Her foot caught the edge of an expensive ceramic planter, and she went crashing to the floor. Alistair’s grip on my wrist instantly loosened. His body jerked forward, a visceral, instinctive urge to rush to her side. But he forced himself to stay planted, watching as the housekeeper scrambled to help Evie up. It took him a long time to speak, his voice dropping into a stern, heavy register. “The result is the same as always.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “But Evie, you need to remember: Josie is the true daughter of this family. When the day comes that the coins show a blessing, you will have to leave. And there will be no tantrums. The Montgomerys owe you nothing.” Evie bit her lip, looking utterly devastated, before sobbing into her hands and running out of the room. Alistair stood frozen, his face a mask of cold authority. He didn’t chase after her. But the fingers still loosely circling my wrist? They were trembling. You can never truly hide who you care about. Years ago, down in Georgia, I had broken a rule on the base. My adoptive brother, Bennett, made me stand at attention in the sweltering Southern heat as punishment. But terrified that the sun would be too harsh on me, he had walked over and stood directly in front of me, using his own broad shoulders to cast a shadow over my face. He had looked just like this—silent, stern, and unyielding. But with my head bowed, I had seen his fingertips twitching at his sides, aching to reach out and pull me inside. 3 The dining table was crowded with Montgomery aunts, uncles, and cousins. Someone sighed heavily into their wine glass. “Evie is still out on the porch crying. She hasn’t eaten a bite. The poor girl is going to starve.” Alistair ignored them, methodically placing a portion of roasted vegetables onto my plate and ladling soup into my bowl. He didn’t even look up as he spoke. “Leave her. If she doesn’t want to eat, she can go hungry.” A hushed, uncomfortable silence fell over the table. The holiday dinner dragged on, cold and awkward. Honestly, it didn’t feel much different from the nights I ate alone in this apartment. Evangeline and I were the exact same age. She had been brought into the Montgomery family when she was four. Even if the family refused to say it out loud, the truth was obvious: twenty years of shared history had forged a bond far thicker than the blood I shared with them. As the dinner wound down, I reached for my favorite dish—the glazed duck confit. There were only three pieces left. An older aunt cleared her throat. “Leave some of the duck for Evie, please. It’s her favorite, too. Besides, Josie… you’ve already had quite enough.” Alistair’s head snapped up, his eyes flashing with a sudden, glacial warning. Without a word, he reached across the table, picked up the platter, and scraped the remaining duck directly onto my plate. “We are not catering to her tantrums,” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. It was a fierce defense. But the moment he set his fork down, his mind was clearly a million miles away. When the housekeeper tied up the trash bags from the kitchen, preparing to take them out into the freezing night, Alistair suddenly stood up. “I’ll take it,” he murmured. The housekeeper blinked in surprise but handed over the bags. Once Alistair was gone, the tension in the room evaporated. The Montgomerys broke into small clusters, laughing and chatting effortlessly among themselves. To them, I was a stranger wearing their last name. I had absolutely nothing to say to any of them. Feeling suffocated, I stood up and slipped out the back door for some air. I wandered aimlessly until I approached the rear courtyard. Through the biting chill, I heard Evie’s muffled, pathetic sobbing, intertwined with Alistair’s low, soothing voice. I stopped at the top of the stone steps. The first snow of the season had begun to fall over Boston. Alistair and Evie were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a wrought-iron bench. Between them was a takeout container of glazed duck. He raised a hand, his palm gently, adoringly brushing a few stray snowflakes from her hair. Evie’s eyes were red-rimmed. She pushed lightly at his chest, looking up at him with immense grievance. “You’re about to throw me out on the street. Why do you even care if I eat?” Alistair was caught off guard by the push, swaying slightly, but there was no anger in his face. Only a bottomless, indulgent warmth. It was a look he had never given me. The smiles he offered me were always meticulously constructed, stiff with obligation. This? This was real. He sighed, a fond, helpless sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been a part of this family for nearly twenty years. Do you honestly think I’d ever let you be thrown out?” 4 Evie let out a wet sob and buried her face into the crook of his shoulder. Alistair picked up a piece of duck with his fork and brought it to her lips. “I had the head chef at the country club make this specifically for you. It’s vastly better than what the housekeeper threw together.” The taste of the housekeeper’s duck was still lingering on my tongue. Evie took a bite, her sobs slowly quieting down. Alistair’s voice dropped lower, reasoning with her in the dark. “Josie is different from you, Evie. She grew up wandering on the outside. She’s never known what it means to be truly loved or spoiled.” He paused, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Giving her a few pieces of meat… it makes her happy. It keeps her pacified. And as long as she’s grateful for these little crumbs, it ensures you can stay safely in the Montgomery house.” So that was it. Over the last seven years, whenever he had taken my side in some trivial, meaningless argument, it hadn’t been out of love. It was a calculated strategy. He genuinely believed I was so starved for affection, so desperate for scraps, that a few kind words would keep me weeping with gratitude while they locked me out in the cold. But he was wrong. Before the Montgomerys dragged me back to Boston, I was loved. Fiercely. Down in the humid, sprawling military base in Georgia, I had been cherished. The base commanders’ wives treated me like their own. And my adoptive brother, Bennett? He had been my father, my protector, my entire world. He never let a single ounce of suffering touch me. If there was a prime cut of meat on the table, it was always pushed onto my plate. I never lacked for toys, clothes, or joy. Bennett lived a rugged, unforgiving life as a soldier, yet he always remembered to bring home pink ribbons and strawberry shortcake for me. If it hadn’t been for the illness that suddenly ravaged his body, he never would have let the Montgomerys take me. I remember the day I left. He had looked at me, his stoic face pale, and said, “Josie, he is your blood. Your parents are gone. If you don’t go back, Alistair will be entirely alone in this world.” He had forced a smile. “Besides, I’m sick now, kid. Knowing you have a massive, wealthy family up North to look after you… it gives me peace.” And so, I followed Alistair to Boston. Then came the family rule. The coin toss. The very first time Alistair prepared to cast the coins, Evie had stormed into the foyer, a weeping, hyperventilating mess, screaming, “If it’s a blessing, I’ll pack my bags and disappear forever!” I still remember the way Alistair’s body violently seized up at her words. He went into the study. He came out and said it was a curse. He did it ten times. A hundred times. It was always a curse. Honestly? I didn’t feel much back then. Not anger, not devastation. I had been lost when I was three years old. I had zero memories of the Montgomerys and even less emotional attachment to them. Back then, I had just looked up at Alistair and asked quietly, “Then… can you just buy me a ticket back to Georgia?” 5 Just a month before they found me, Aunt Martha down on the base had promised me that as soon as the school term ended, she was going to make her famous Southern braised short ribs. She told me to run straight to the barracks, grab Bennett, and come over for dinner. I had been looking forward to it for weeks. Instead, I was abruptly uprooted by strangers claiming to be my blood and dragged thousands of miles away to the freezing, manicured streets of Boston. When Alistair told me the coins had forbidden my entry, I was secretly desperate for him to say yes, to send me back. But Alistair had just walked over, his eyes overflowing with this gentle, tragic pity. He wrapped his hand around my wrist and murmured, “Don’t cry, Josie. I can toss the coins every month. A blessing will come eventually. In the meantime, I’ve set up a gorgeous apartment for you. I’ll be there constantly.” I tried to tell him I wasn’t crying. I didn’t want an apartment. I wanted to go home to the base where the cicadas hummed and the air smelled like pine. But then Alistair said, “I’ll stay with you tonight. Mom and Dad are gone. Just… keep your big brother company, okay?” He looked so gutted. So incredibly lonely. Exactly like Bennett had warned me. And Bennett had made it clear: legally, I was a Montgomery now. Under the law, Bennett had no right to keep me in military housing. I didn’t have a choice. So, I nodded. I enrolled in a prep school in Boston. The coursework was suffocating. To his credit, Alistair was meticulous in his care for me. No matter how demanding his schedule running the family empire was, he always made time to personally accompany me on the grueling, multi-day train rides down South to visit Bennett a few times a year. Aside from the fact that he could never seem to cast a blessing, never bring me into the estate, and never ask Evie to leave, I couldn’t point to a single flaw in his performance as an older brother. But I wasn’t stupid. And I wasn’t numb. Seven years is a long time. It was impossible not to notice the cracks in the facade. It was impossible not to finally peek through the crack in that oak door and see the truth for myself. Honestly, finding out wasn’t even a shock. Once you poke a hole in paper, you can see the entire rotting room behind it. 6 I pulled myself back to the present, my eyes fixed on the two figures huddled together in the snow-dusted courtyard. Alistair had a terrible stomach. He rarely ate large portions. He had already had dinner, yet half of Evie’s takeout box ended up in his mouth. People always say food tastes better when you eat it with someone you love. I turned around and walked silently back inside. The Montgomery relatives were still drinking and laughing. Not a single person noticed I had returned, just as no one had noticed I’d left. I bypassed the living room and climbed the stairs to my solitary bedroom, sitting down by the frosted window. The snow was falling heavier now, the Boston skyline turning into a gray blur. It was funny. The apartment was packed with people today, yet I felt colder and more isolated than ever. In the reflection of the windowpane, my mind conjured Bennett. I remembered New Year’s Eve back in Georgia. He had poured himself a glass of cheap bourbon and handed me a glass of Coca-Cola. Through the steam of the chili pot bubbling on the stove, he tapped his glass against mine. “Happy New Year, Josie. Stay safe. Stay mine.” The men in his platoon always said Captain Bennett was made of ice and iron. He had this permanent, terrifying scowl that made the fresh recruits physically shake. But to me? He was just warm. He only ever called me Josie. Sometimes it was a low, indulgent rumble. Other times, it was laced with exasperation. But it was always, always mine. I picked up an empty water glass from my nightstand and tapped it against the glass, right where his reflection hovered. “Happy New Year, Bennett,” I whispered. My fingers touched the cold pane. The illusion shattered. I missed him. An ache so deep it hollowed out my chest. I realized it rarely snowed in Georgia; he had probably never seen a real blizzard. I pulled out a sheet of stationery and started writing a letter. I didn’t even know what to say. If I said I was doing great, it would feel like ash in my mouth—I was a terrible liar. If I said I was miserable, it would only break his heart. After staring at the blank page for twenty minutes, I wrote three lines: Bennett, it’s snowing in Boston. It’s beautiful. If I roll a snowball and bring it down South, do you think it would survive the trip so I could show you? I folded the letter, shoved it into an envelope, threw on my coat, and walked down the street to drop it into the blue mailbox. By the time I returned, the sky had gone pitch black. The living room was still roaring with conversation. Alistair and Evie were standing by the bay window. He was murmuring something that had her bent double with laughter. Exhausted by the charade, I headed for the stairs. But then I saw what was in Evie’s hands. It was small. Familiar. Panic spiked in my chest. I whipped my head toward the bookshelf on the landing. The glass display dome was empty. She was holding my wooden figurine. Years ago, a local woodcarver had visited the base. Bennett had spent weeks, his massive, calloused hands fumbling with tiny whittling knives, just to carve a miniature wooden doll that looked like me. I had kept it under a tinted glass dome for seven years, terrified that sunlight or dust would ruin it. Now, the glass dome was tossed carelessly onto a side table. My heart seized. I lunged forward, taking the stairs two at a time. As I got closer, I heard Evie giggling. “God, it’s so ugly. It doesn’t look anything like you, Josie.” Alistair smiled affectionately, shaking his head. “Alright, put it back before she—” Before he could finish, a raw, primal scream tore from my throat. “Give it back!” Evie gasped, whirling around to face me, her eyes wide with manufactured, innocent shock. I lunged to rip it from her hands. But before my fingers could even graze it, she acted as if I had violently startled her. Her fingers simply opened. The wooden doll hit the hardwood floor. A loud crack echoed through the room as one of its carved arms snapped clean off. It felt like a bomb went off inside my skull. My vision went entirely red. Shaking with pure, unfiltered rage, I raised my hand and swung at Evie’s face. But Alistair didn’t pretend to be the impartial brother this time. His reflexes were razor-sharp. He stepped in, violently shoving Evie behind his back. Under my bloodshot glare, a flicker of genuine guilt and panic crossed his face. “J-Josie, it was an accident. Her hand slipped. I’ll buy you a—” Accident? I wasn’t blind. I stared at him, my voice a ragged, breathless hiss. “Get out of my way.” 7 The raucous laughter in the living room died instantly. A suffocating silence swallowed the apartment. The Montgomery aunts and uncles swarmed the stairs, their voices a cacophony of useless platitudes. “Josie, calm down! You’re hysterical.” “It’s New Year’s Eve, for heaven’s sake. Evie obviously didn’t mean to do it. Don’t ruin the holiday.” Every single one of them was stepping in to protect her. They were an impenetrable wall of armor for Evangeline. I didn’t care. I threw myself forward, clawing wildly, trying to drag Evie out from behind Alistair’s back. Alistair caught my wrists, holding me back. The aunts grabbed my shoulders, pulling and tugging at my clothes, their voices blurring into a chaotic buzz. A high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears. I couldn’t hear them anymore. Someone—I didn’t know who—yanked my arm too hard, or maybe shoved me. I ripped myself free from their grip, lost my balance, and stumbled backward. My head slammed hard against the edge of the stair railing. White hot pain flared behind my eyes, and my vision swam. Evie pressed herself against the wall and started to wail. Alistair’s face drained of color. He dropped to his knees beside me, his hands hovering over my shoulders, his voice shaking. “Josie… let me see. Where did you hit your head? Let me look.” I stared up at his face. This incredibly handsome, wealthy man. This face practically radiating hypocritical, suffocating concern. It was the exact same face he had worn seven years ago when he arrived in Georgia to claim me. I had been so perfectly fine before he came. I hadn’t needed him to rescue me. I hadn’t needed to be this completely, utterly alone. I had people who loved me. People who cared if I lived or died. In that moment, seven years of silent humiliation, of swallowing my pride, of waiting by cracked doors for silver coins to fall… it all violently boiled over. Acid rose in my throat. As he leaned in to touch me, I swung my arm with everything I had left. SMACK. The slap echoed like a gunshot. Alistair froze, still crouched over me, his hand suspended in mid-air. The red imprint of my hand bloomed across his pale cheek. My chest heaved, tears of absolute fury spilling down my face as I screamed at him. “Why did you take me?!” “If you never wanted me in your house, why did you drag me away from mine?!” Pure terror flashed through Alistair’s eyes. “Did you… did you…” For a split second, he knew I had seen through the lie. But before he could speak, the Montgomery elders rushed to his defense. “Josie, how dare you!” an uncle barked. “The coins have dictated against it! Do you think Alistair enjoys this? Do you think he’s lying to you? To lie about the family casting is a sin against the ancestors! He’d be cursed!” A hysterical, broken laugh clawed its way out of my throat. Cursed? If lying about the coins brought a curse, Alistair should have been struck by lightning a hundred times over. He hadn’t needed to do this. He could have just left me in Georgia. He could have just pretended he never found me. But no, he needed the grand performance. He needed to use the “omens” as a shield to prove to Evie just how much she meant to him—that he loved her so much, he’d leave his own flesh and blood rotting on the doorstep for seven years. I hadn’t even been allowed into the estate to see our parents’ graves. Alistair finally snapped out of his shock. Perhaps deciding I was just lashing out in grief, he looked down at me, his eyes swimming in a pathetic, desperate swirl of guilt. “I’ll… I’ll get a blessing for you, Josie. Very soon. I promise.” I looked dead into his eyes. A small, genuine smile touched my lips. “Who the hell cares?” 8 Utter shock washed over Alistair’s face. To him, his promise was an act of divine mercy. Granting me the right to enter the Montgomery estate should have had me weeping with joy at his feet. I slowly pushed myself up and knelt on the hardwood floor. With trembling fingers, I picked up the splintered pieces of my wooden doll. It was probably ruined forever, but I was going to take it with me anyway. The Montgomery relatives were still hovering, their voices tight with barely concealed disgust at my behavior. I tuned them out completely. But Evie just couldn’t help herself. She had to play the martyr one last time. Assuming the danger had passed, she took a hesitant step forward, tears tracking perfectly down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Josie. Here, let me help you put it back together.” She leaned down and reached out, her manicured fingers brushing against a piece of the broken wood. I shot up to my feet, snatched the wood from her hand, and slapped her. Hard. Evie threw her body into a violently exaggerated spin. As she stumbled backward, her hip clipped the hallway console table, knocking over a ceramic mug. It shattered against the floor. Evie collapsed into the shards, letting out a blood-curdling shriek as a tiny sliver of ceramic grazed her forehead. Chaos erupted. The Montgomerys shrieked, scrambling over each other to lift her off the floor, to check her pulse, to dab at her skin. A sharp voice cut through the noise, aimed directly at me. “Josie! Are you out of your mind?!” Alistair stared at the single drop of blood trickling down Evie’s forehead. His face went dead, his eyes hardening into flint. For the first time in seven years, he dropped the act. “I told you I would get you your blessing,” he snarled at me, his voice dripping with venom. “You didn’t need to take your jealousy out on Evie.” The moment I laid a hand on his precious Evangeline, the facade of the loving, torn brother completely shattered. Evie slumped against the wall, clutching her head and whimpering that she felt dizzy. Alistair didn’t spare me another glance. He scooped Evie up into his arms, bursting through the front door into the freezing night. Despite the fact that her ‘injury’ required a band-aid at best. It was exactly like he had said. She was a delicate flower raised in a greenhouse. I was a weed. One by one, the relatives grabbed their coats and hurried out the door after them. Within sixty seconds, the crowded, suffocating apartment was entirely, perfectly empty. I stood alone in the deafening silence. Surprisingly, my heart rate began to slow. A profound, chilling calm washed over me. It was just like I had thought seven years ago. I never truly loved the Montgomerys. I didn’t care about Alistair. Maybe his fake warmth had tricked me into believing in the fantasy of a biological family for a little while. Maybe I had genuinely wanted to belong. But now? The fantasy was dead. At least now I was free to walk away. I was twenty-four years old. I had graduated from medical school and was completing my residency at a local hospital. There was no law on earth that could force me to stay tethered to Alistair Montgomery. I thought about the letter I had just dropped in the mailbox. I should just bring the snow to him. I couldn’t wait another second. First thing tomorrow morning, the moment the Amtrak station opened, I was buying a ticket back to Georgia. A violent, desperate homesickness crashed into me. I wanted my real home. I wanted to see Bennett. I wanted Aunt Martha’s braised short ribs. She promised them to me seven years ago, and I never got to eat them. Bennett always told me a soldier never breaks a promise. Aunt Martha was a military wife; she wouldn’t break hers either. I carefully placed the broken pieces of my wooden doll into my coat pocket. My eyes burned with unshed tears. For seven years, this expensive apartment in Boston was just a waiting room. It had never been home. I walked into my bedroom, grabbed a duffel bag, and started packing.

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Three years after my murder, my mother came looking for me to take the fall for my adopted brother’s crimes. Again. She had already mastered the art of the smear campaign. Working in tandem with my wife—who also happened to be my former manager—she had bought the trending hashtags and fueled the rumors that I, a disgraced former Hollywood A-lister, had assaulted yet another fan. Riding the wave of public outrage, she barged into my apartment, clutching a drafted confession with my name on it. But when she took in the sight of the dust-coated, dead-silent living room, her face darkened. “You swore up and down you’d take care of me for the rest of my life,” she snapped to the empty air. “And now look at you. You don’t even want your own home?” Growing impatient, she grabbed the arm of the building super who was passing by in the hall, demanding to know where I was. The super jingled a ring of keys and gave her a flat, pitying look. “Cameron Cole? He’s been gone for three years, lady.” “That scandal with the fan got so ugly… the obsessive stans tracked him down here and hacked him to death.” … 1 “Hacked to death?” My mother froze for a fraction of a second. Then, she let out a harsh, echoing laugh at the empty room. “Wow, Cameron. You’ve really outdone yourself! You hate your brother so much you’ve learned to curse yourself with a fake death?” “Why not just tell the press Spencer was the one who killed you while you’re at it?” She yelled as she stalked deeper into the apartment, her voice rising in indignation. “I gave you life! I raised you for thirty years! What is the big deal about doing two measly years in prison for your brother?” “Spencer’s parents died to save my life. You are my son. It is your absolute duty to pay off my debt!” “But no, you decide to play dead? You hire actors to lie to me? Have you completely lost your mind?” The super impatiently rattled his keys again. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but nobody has the time to play make-believe with you.” “I stood right there and watched them load him into the coroner’s van. His ashes are literally sitting right there in that jar.” “Impossible!” My mother’s voice spiked into a shrill shriek. “He wires me money for living expenses every single month! How does a dead man send wire transfers?” She pointed a rigid, accusatory finger at the super. “You go back and tell Cameron to drag his ass out here and sign this paper.” “If he keeps hiding, I will go on national television every single day and drag his name through the mud! I’ll let the whole world see the ungrateful parasite I raised!” I floated near the ceiling, a phantom lump forming in a throat I no longer had. The money she received every month… that was the payout from the life insurance policy I’d bought. I never imagined my final act of providing for my family would become her ultimate proof that I was faking my death. The super looked at her like she was completely unhinged, took a phone call, and muttered curses under his breath as he walked away. The moment he was gone, my mother started tearing the place apart. She kicked chairs. She yanked drawers entirely out of their tracks. She moved like a cornered, enraged animal. “Cameron! Get out here! Sign the damn confession!” “The internet is ripping Spencer apart! He’s so stressed he can’t sleep, and you have the nerve to hide from us?” Three years ago, Spencer forced himself on a groupie. The paparazzi caught it on tape. But by the next morning, every piece of evidence had been meticulously altered to point to me. I went away for two years. I fell from an Academy Award-winning actor to an inmate. The night I was finally released, I walked into my home only to see a drunken Spencer kick my young son so hard the boy fell backward. From Spencer’s slurred, boastful taunts, I learned the truth: the entire setup, from the beginning, had been orchestrated by my mother. And my wife, Natalie, had executed it. I scooped up my bruised, crying son and fled into the night. For three years, my mother never offered a single word of explanation or apology. And now, her first words to me were a demand to be the scapegoat once again. “Alright, that’s enough! Come out, I won’t yell at you anymore.” Finding nothing in the bedroom, she stood in the hallway, hands on her hips, negotiating with the air. “Cameron, I know how you tick. You’re just throwing a tantrum because you think I favor Spencer, right?” “Fine. I promise you, once this blows over, I’ll pay more attention to you.” When silence was her only answer, a layer of petulant hurt crept into her voice. “Cam… are you really not going to come out?” “I bled myself dry raising you. I paved the way for your career. And now you’re going to abandon your own mother?” Her anger flared anew, hot and blinding. She swiped her hand across a shelf, sending a framed photo of me crashing to the floor. Then she grabbed my Best Actor trophy and hurled it directly at the only family portrait hanging on the wall. The glass shattered outward in a violent spray. “Are you coming out or not?!” “If you don’t, we are done! You can go rot for all I care. I no longer have a son!” I instinctively dove forward to stop her, but my ghostly hands slipped right through her shoulders. Mom, please! This apartment is the only safe haven my boy has left… he’s only six… please, stop… But she couldn’t hear me. She didn’t care. She marched over to the table and snatched up the heavy, white ceramic urn. When she realized what it was supposed to be, a cold, mocking smirk twisted her lips. “You really went all out, didn’t you, Cam? You even bought fake ashes?” “You used to threaten suicide to get me to kick Spencer out of the house. Now you’re hiding behind a pile of dust? Who do you think you’re fooling?” Tears of frustration spilled over her lashes, but her voice remained like iron. “I am your mother, not your enemy. Is all this theater really necessary?” “Fine. You want to act? I’ll play along!” She raised the heavy urn high above her head, ready to smash it against the hardwood. I could only offer a bitter, silent laugh. In her mind, every single thing I did was a manipulative ploy to drive Spencer away. Just like the night I got out of prison. I had walked onto the terrace and found Natalie wrapped in Spencer’s arms, whispering softly that she wanted to give him a child. My reality fractured. I stood on the edge of the roof, ready to step off. My mother had looked at me with the exact same expression of annoyed condemnation. I didn’t jump. I didn’t jump because the smartwatch on my wrist crackled, and I heard my son crying out for his daddy. At the thought of my boy, a faint creak echoed from behind the bedroom door. 2 My mother’s raised hands paused in mid-air. “Oh, finally breaking character? Come on out, Cameron. Or I swear to God I will burn this place to the ground, ashes and all.” A hand as thin as a brittle twig slowly pushed the door open. A timid, trembling voice followed. “Grandma… Daddy is… he’s really dead.” My mother stared at the child in front of her, completely derailed. My son was swallowed by an oversized, moth-eaten sweater. His neck looked like a fragile reed, barely able to support the weight of his head. He swayed slightly on his feet. My ghostly chest tightened so violently I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to rush forward and wrap my arms around him, to shield him from the storm that was about to break. I knew my mother’s madness too well. Years ago, a twenty-three-year-old Spencer had casually complained that my son was glaring at him. My mother’s response was to slap my three-year-old boy to the floor and force him to kneel in the corner for the entire night. Now, her gaze swept over the filthy, emaciated boy with a mixture of disgust and complex emotion. “What has Cameron been doing to you? You look like a street rat! He doesn’t deserve to be a father!” She took two aggressive steps forward and seized my son by the arm. “Where is your dad? Tell Grandma. If you tell me, I’ll take you home and feed you a proper meal.” Toby shrank back in terror, massive tears spilling down his hollow cheeks. “Daddy… is really dead…” He pointed a shaking finger at the white ceramic jar. “That’s… that’s Daddy’s ashes.” “Bullshit!” My mother’s patience instantly evaporated. She violently hurled the urn at the floor. It shattered with a deafening crack. “Cameron is probably hiding in a closet laughing his ass off! I can’t believe he’s teaching you to lie to my face!” Staring at the gray-white powder dusting the floorboards, Toby let out a guttural sob. He threw himself onto the ground, desperately trying to scoop the powder back together with his tiny hands. “Daddy! Daddy—” My mother yanked him away by his collar. She lifted her designer heel and stomped squarely onto the pile of ashes, grinding her sole into the powder. “Stop crying! He is not fit to be your father! Using his own flesh and blood just to spite his brother? He’s a monster!” Toby lay sprawled next to the ruined ashes, gasping for air between hysterical sobs. “He isn’t! Daddy died… so many people came in and cut him… I got cut too…” He pulled up the hem of his oversized sweater. Two jagged, violently purple scars crawled across his protruding ribcage. My mother’s foot froze in the ashes. With trembling fingers, Toby pulled a crinkled envelope from his pocket. “Daddy gave this to me… he told me to find Grandma… he said if Grandma read it, she would understand…” It was the lifeline letter I had written to my son in my final days. It contained the absolute truth of everything. I had hoped that, eventually, he could trade that letter for a shred of their mercy. But he had never gone to them. He stayed here, terrified that if he left, I would be lonely in this empty apartment. My mother stared at the envelope, then back down at the skeletal child. A flicker of genuine pain crossed her face. Her hand shook as she reached out to take the letter. “Don’t listen to a word of it!” The front door slammed open. My wife, Natalie, strode in, her arm wrapped tightly around a pale, swaying Spencer. She crossed the room in two strides and snatched the letter right out of Toby’s hand. “Cameron is really sinking to new lows, using a kid as a shield.” Natalie pulled out her phone and swiped to a screenshot. “Mom, look at this. Thank God Spencer has connections. A tabloid photographer just leaked this to him.” “Cameron booked a flight out of the country for today. He’s trying to take the company money and run!” Right on cue, Spencer fell into a fit of breathless coughing, squeezing a few strategic tears from the corners of his eyes. “Mom, Nat… just let it go. Cam obviously still hates me.” “Please don’t fight with him over me. Just let me go to prison. As long as you two are happy…” His knees buckled, and he sagged toward the floor, playing the part of a boy entirely drained of his will to live. My mother scrambled to catch him, frantically rubbing his back to soothe him. “Don’t say such stupid things! You are a superstar now. Your future is blindingly bright. How could you ever survive prison?” Natalie held him close, her eyes brimming with fierce protectiveness. “Exactly. Your heart condition is too fragile. You’d die in a place like that.” “Cameron isn’t going anywhere. I promise you, I will drag him back here myself.” She reached down and violently hauled Toby up from the floor by his arm. “Enough with the theatrics.” “What’s so great about your ex-con father anyway? Talk! Where is he hiding?” Toby stumbled, his entire little body vibrating with fear. But he shook his head violently, tears flying in every direction. It felt as though a blade was methodically slicing my soul into ribbons. I lunged at Natalie, trying to pry her fingers off my son, but I was nothing but air. Just like the night I died, desperately trying to dodge the blades of the mob. Because Spencer had bribed the guards on the inside, I was released from prison with three broken ribs and a shattered wrist. That night, my son—who had narrowly escaped the attackers’ knives—cradled my bleeding, dying body. He used his smartwatch to call for help. He called again and again. Finally, they answered. He got Natalie snapping, “Stop bothering me.” And my mother sighing, “Your father brought this on himself.” He held me as I bled out on the asphalt, shivering and crying into my chest. It was an exact mirror of the moment unfolding before me now. And they remained just as utterly heartless. Toby pointed frantically at the letter crumpled in Natalie’s fist, his voice hiccuping. “The… the letter says it… Daddy said, if you read it, you’ll know…” A fleeting shadow of guilt brushed across Natalie’s eyes. Her lips parted. My mother couldn’t help but interject. “Maybe we should just read it? It won’t take a minute.” Natalie hesitated, her thumb sliding under the seal of the envelope. In that exact second, Spencer suddenly clutched his chest and went limp, sliding heavily toward the floor. “Nat… my heart is racing… I can’t breathe…” The color drained entirely from his face, his eyes rolling upward. Natalie instantly dropped the letter, the paper completely forgotten. She and my mother dove for him, grabbing him under his arms to keep him upright. “Hurry! It’s his heart! Get him to the car!” “Spencer! Spencer, look at Mom, stay with me!” They hoisted him up and bolted out the door without a single backward glance. The envelope drifted to the ground, landing squarely in the scattered ashes. In the chaotic rush to the door, Toby was knocked backward. His small head struck the jagged edge of the broken ceramic urn. 3 Natalie slammed her foot on the gas pedal, weaving recklessly toward Central Hospital. Spencer lay slumped against the passenger window, pale and breathing in shallow, raspy gasps. “Mom… Nat… stop worrying about me…” “I’m never going to get a donor heart in time anyway. I don’t have long left.” “Just take me to the police station. Let me turn myself in. That way, Cam won’t feel like he has to run away just to punish me.” He offered a weak, trembling wave of his hand, tears clinging to his lashes. “I know… I know I never truly belonged in this family anyway.” “I stole Cameron’s entire life… just let me do this. Once I’m dead, I can finally see my real parents again.” It was his signature move. No matter how catastrophic his mistakes, as long as he cried about his dead parents, my mother’s forgiveness was absolute. And Natalie, who had started out as an assistant in my mother’s shadow, always took her cues from the matriarch. Right on cue, my mother leaned forward from the backseat and gripped his shoulder, her voice cracking. “Stop talking nonsense! I will lay down my own life before I let you go to jail. I will find Cameron and I will force a pen into his hand!” Natalie kept one hand on the steering wheel and reached over to stroke his leg. “Stop spiraling, Spence. I’ve already pulled every string in the city looking for a donor heart. You are going to live a long, beautiful life.” Spencer lowered his eyes and nodded. A microsecond of smug satisfaction touched his lips. When he turned back to look at my mother, the tragic, wounded boy had returned. “Mom… Nat… you two are too good to me. I could spend ten lifetimes working like a dog, and I could never repay you.” He paused, testing the waters carefully. “…I’ve been watching the company’s stock… Cam’s latest scandal is tanking our shares. Should we… maybe vote to strip his equity? Just temporarily. To protect the family…” My mother’s face hardened. “That won’t be necessary.” A heavy silence stretched. Then, her voice dropped to a low, bruised whisper. “I know he hates me… but I am his mother. When he was a little boy and caught that terrible fever, I stayed awake for three days and three nights holding him…” She looked up, her eyes rimmed with red. “He owes me his life. He can never repay that debt. All I asked was for him to carry a little bit of the weight for our family, and this is how he treats me?” Natalie opened her mouth to chime in, but my mother waved her off. Her tone turned sharp again. “Enough. We’re not talking about this anymore. When I track him down, I’m going to set him straight. He is still my son. And I still have a grandson.” Natalie nodded in agreement. “Cameron’s reputation is in the gutter, but I know he really loved me. Once this is all over, I’ll make it up to him.” “Spence, you just focus on resting. We’ll handle the dirt.” My translucent form went entirely rigid. One sacrificed me relentlessly under the guise of paying a debt. The other played the accomplice without a shred of moral boundary. And they thought they could torture me to death and then simply “make it up to me”? A wave of phantom nausea rolled through whatever was left of my soul. Spencer’s face contorted violently for a fraction of a second, but almost instantly, his eyes welled with tears again. “You’re right, Mom. I’m overthinking it… Cam is a good guy. This is all my fault…” My mother cooed, pulling him into an awkward embrace over the center console. Natalie was about to offer more comfort when her cell phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth. “Hello, this is the building management at Providence Manor. Your son, Toby Cole, has suffered a severe head trauma and is unconscious. We need you to—” “Injured?” Natalie scoffed, her face twisting into an ugly sneer. “He was perfectly fine five minutes ago. How exactly did he get injured?” “Did Cameron tell you to make this call? Tell him to drop the act. I’m not playing these games.” “Ma’am, I am the building super. The boy’s injuries are critical, you need to—” Natalie’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. She opened her mouth to snap back. But Spencer leaned heavily toward her, his voice a pathetic whine. “Nat… is Cam mad at me again? Maybe… maybe you should go. I’ll… I’ll be fine by myself…” “I know the super works for him… but what if it’s real? Toby is just a little boy…” He made a grand, straining show of trying to unbuckle his seatbelt to get out of the moving car. My mother grabbed him, her eyes shining with fierce affection. “Look at you! You’re in this much pain and you’re still worrying about everyone else!” Natalie’s face flushed with fury. The veins in her neck went taut. “Cameron, you are unbelievable. Lying through your teeth, using your own son to fake an emergency!” “Tell him to drop dead! I don’t have time for his amateur hour theater!” She aggressively hit the button on the steering wheel, terminating the call. I threw myself against the dashboard, screaming, trying desperately to grab the wheel and spin the car around. Natalie! That’s your son! He smashed his head on the urn! Go back for him! My hands phased right through the leather. She didn’t blink. Instead, my mother’s voice filled the cabin, absolute and merciless. “This is outrageous! Nat, when we get to the hospital, just forge his signature on the confession. We’ll hand it straight to the police.” “If he refuses to show his face and keeps pulling these sick stunts, then he doesn’t get to complain when we play hardball.” Natalie nodded sharply. “Fine. I can forge his handwriting in my sleep. He was the one who taught me how to write properly anyway.” I stared at them, drowning in despair. Natalie had been a scholarship student from a dirt-poor background, sponsored by my family. I had spent hours sitting behind her, my hand over hers, patiently correcting her penmanship. And now she was using that exact handwriting to forge my criminal confession. The car screeched to a halt in front of Central Hospital. They flanked Spencer on either side and rushed him straight to the cardiology wing. The attending physician looked over Spencer’s chart, his brow deeply furrowed. “Mr. Cole’s condition… he really does need a transplant as soon as possible. Miraculously, we just received a donor heart that is a perfect match.” My mother’s eyes widened, practically glowing. “Are you serious? Name your price! We have money, we can negotiate with the family!” The doctor shifted uncomfortably. “The issue is… the donor is a child. And he is currently still alive.” “The boy was brought into the ER with catastrophic brain trauma. However, his father is deceased, and his mother… has abandoned him.” Natalie raised an eyebrow and let out a sharp, cold laugh. “A kid whose parents don’t even want him? He’s a burden alive anyway. Take the heart.” The doctor opened his mouth to protest, but Spencer suddenly clutched his chest, letting out an agonized groan. My mother seized the doctor by his coat lapels. “Did you hear him? He’s out of time! Go prep the child for extraction, and get my son into the OR!” “We have waited too long for this. I am getting this heart for my son, whatever the cost!” 4 The doctor didn’t argue further. He turned and rushed down the hall to prepare the surgical team. The moment the door clicked shut, a vicious smirk flashed across Spencer’s face. But he quickly smoothed his features back into a mask of noble sorrow. “Mom… Nat… please don’t hurt an innocent kid just for me… I’m going to prison soon anyway, it’s not worth it…” His hands trembling flawlessly, he pulled his phone out and swiped to a new set of photos. “Look what I just got from my contact at the tabloids. Cam is at the airport right now. He’s taking the whole family and fleeing the country.” In the photograph, I was standing in a brightly lit international terminal. My arm was wrapped around a tall, elegant woman. Toby was nestled happily in the woman’s arms, a massive, carefree smile on his face. Standing next to us was my father—the man who had walked out on my mother and me decades ago. My mother took one look at the screen and the blood drained from her face, leaving a terrifying, ashen rage behind. “Unbelievable! Cameron!” “He played us all for fools! He’s running off with that old bastard to live it up overseas?! After everything I did for him?!” The humiliation and fury utterly destroyed whatever reason she had left. She shot up from the chair, nearly dropping the phone. “I am going to the precinct right now! Let’s see how far he gets when the police flag his passport!” Natalie stared at the unknown woman in the photo. Her eyes went completely dead, dark and terrifying. “You dare replace me, Cameron? You’re making my son call another woman ‘Mom’? I will end you.” “I’m taking full custody! I’m taking everything you own!” At that exact moment, Natalie’s phone began to ring. “Mommy… someone wants to take my heart out… I’m so scared… Mommy, please save me…” “Toby?” Natalie froze for a second. “What are you talking about? Who wants to take your heart?” “It’s true… the doctor said they’re going to take it out… Mommy, please, I’m scared…” Natalie’s lip curled. Her anger flared into a blinding white heat. “You are still lying to me?! Your father is at the airport with his new whore getting ready to board a flight, and you’re still playing these sick games?!” “Go to hell! You are no son of mine!” She violently threw her phone against the wall. The screen shattered. It was in that moment I finally understood why Spencer had looked so smug. I realized whose heart the doctor meant. The “abandoned” child. It was Toby. I threw myself at Natalie like a madman, trying to claw the phone back from the floor, but my hands just passed through the plastic. I screamed at my mother. I fell to my knees, begging her, tearing my throat raw, but she didn’t even glance in my direction. Toby called back. Again and again. She rejected the call every single time. After hanging up on him for the twenty-third time, my mother blocked the number in annoyance. She turned back to stroke Spencer’s hair. “Spence, don’t you worry. Mom will never forget that I owe your parents my life.” “Nobody is going to ruin this for you. I will secure this heart, and I will clear your name. I promise you.” Spencer’s eyes were wet with perfectly timed tears. He nodded like an obedient child and buried his face in my mother’s shoulder, a sick smile hidden against her jacket. Why? Why did this keep happening? Why was I foolish enough to believe they possessed a shred of humanity? Tears of blood leaked from my eyes as I broke down completely. My mother walked over to the bed and gently cupped Spencer’s cheek. “Have a good sleep, sweetheart. When you wake up from the surgery, Mom has a big surprise for you.” Sharing a resolute look with Natalie, my mother swept out of the room. They marched straight to the police precinct. She slammed the signed confession onto the front desk. “Officer, I am here to report a crime! My son, Cameron Cole, sexually assaulted a fan!” The desk sergeant picked up the paper, read it, and then looked at it again. “Who exactly are you trying to press charges against?” Natalie squared her shoulders, her tone hard and unwavering. “Cameron Cole. My husband. He assaulted a fan. We are requesting an immediate warrant for his arrest.” The officer stared at them in absolute disbelief. He looked at them like they belonged in a psychiatric ward. “Did you two print this out at home as a joke?” My mother’s heart skipped a beat, but she recovered quickly, her voice dripping with authority. “What do you mean a joke? He signed this himself! He’s currently at the airport trying to flee the country. Add evading arrest to the charges!” The officer reached into a deep drawer, pulled out a thick, sealed manila folder, and dropped it heavily onto the counter. “Cameron Cole died three years ago. I was the lead detective on the case.” “We couldn’t reach any next of kin. I was the one who personally handed his ashes over to his son.” “The kid couldn’t have been more than four. He looked like a skeleton. That urn was bigger than his head, and he just… dragged it out of here, one step at a time.” Natalie’s face turned the color of bone. The arrogant smirk melted off my mother’s face, leaving a frozen, grotesque mask. Right at that moment, the precinct dispatch radio cracked loudly to life. “We’ve got a 10-54 at Central. Anonymous tip reporting an illegal organ harvesting in progress. The victim is a pediatric patient… male child.”

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When my adoptive parents finally brought home their biological daughter, I knew the drill. I didn’t wait for the awkward “we need to talk” dinner; I started packing my bags, planning to move into one of my other properties. But when Hailey—the girl who was supposed to be the “real” version of me—found out I was leaving, she didn’t cheer. Instead, her eyes welled up with practiced precision. “I’m here to join this family,” she sobbed, clutching my mother’s hand. “Not to break it apart. Please, don’t leave because of me.” I was moved. I actually believed her. I chose to stay. But the honeymoon phase didn’t even last a week. Hailey began a campaign of petty, amateur frame-ups. And my parents? They didn’t just take her side; they built a fortress around her, leaving me out in the cold. I finally realized that she didn’t want me to stay because she loved me. She wanted me to stay so she could watch me be stripped of everything until I was forced out with nothing but the clothes on my back. The moment that realization clicked, I started packing again. Only this time, I wasn’t packing my own suitcases. I was packing hers. And my parents’. After all, they seemed to have forgotten one minor detail. I don’t just live in this estate. I own it. … A sharp, jagged scream sliced through my sleep. I threw on a robe and hurried into the hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn’t even have time to ask what was wrong before my adoptive mother, Lydia, was in my face. Her expression was a mask of fury I’d never seen before. In the fifteen years I’d lived with them, Lydia had always been the embodiment of soft-spoken grace. She didn’t raise her voice; she didn’t need to. Until now. “Paige, how could you?” she hissed, her voice trembling with a terrifying heat. “How could you be so cruel to Hailey? She’s been suffering for over a decade in the shadows, and now that she’s finally home, this is how you treat her? Like garbage?” I blinked, looking past her at the scene in the hallway. “Cruel? What are you even talking about?” My lack of immediate repentance only fueled the fire. Lydia’s face turned a dangerous shade of red. My father, Charles, stood by the railing, looking at me with a profound, soul-crushing disappointment. Even Mrs. Gable, our housekeeper, was there, biting her lip and looking away, caught between her loyalty to me and her paycheck. And there was Hailey. The “true” daughter we’d welcomed home only seven days ago. She was huddled behind Lydia, trembling, her eyes red-rimmed and leaking tears. “Mom, please, don’t get mad at Paige,” Hailey whimpered, her voice small and broken. “It was… it was my choice. I just wanted…” “Don’t you dare defend her!” Lydia snapped, though her hand was gentle as she reached back to pat Hailey’s shoulder. She turned back to me, her eyes cold as flint. “Look at your sister. Even now, she’s trying to protect you. I spent fifteen years raising you, giving you everything, and you turned out to be a bully?” Before I could get a word in edgewise, Lydia softened her voice for Hailey. “Hailey, sweetheart, I know you’re a good person. I know you don’t want any trouble. But this is your home. You are the one who belongs here, and you should never, ever have to settle for less than the best. I’m going to make this right.” She shot a look at Charles. “Are you just going to stand there? Your daughter is being mistreated under your own roof!” I felt a surge of genuine anger. It was 5:00 AM. I was exhausted, and I was tired of the charades. “Can someone please stop the performance and tell me exactly what the ‘crime’ is? I’m not in the mood for riddles.” Mrs. Gable couldn’t stay quiet any longer. She blurted out, “Paige, dear, Hailey told them you forced her to sleep in the utility closet. Mrs. Fairchild found her there this morning during her early workout.” I almost laughed. I had read about this kind of pathetic drama in airport paperbacks, but I never thought I’d be the protagonist of one. I knew that if I got angry, I’d look guilty. If I screamed, I’d look like the villain they were already painting me to be. “I personally showed you to the south-facing guest suite, Hailey,” I said, my voice measured and calm. “It’s the same size as the master bedroom. Why on earth would I tell you to sleep in a closet?” Hailey looked at me like a cornered rabbit, her breath hitching. “Yes… you’re right. It’s all my fault. I just… I felt like I didn’t deserve a nice room. Please, Dad, Mom, don’t be mad at Paige. If you fight because of me, I…” She trailed off, leaving the rest to their imaginations. “If we fight, what?” I challenged, stepping closer. “What happens then, Hailey?” “I’ll just… I’ll feel so guilty,” she whispered, looking at the floor. A cold, dry laugh escaped my throat. “Guilty? You’re standing there spinning a web of lies to make them think I’ve been abusing you, and you’re worried about guilt?” “How dare you threaten her right in front of us!” Lydia cried. “If this is how you act when we’re watching, I can only imagine what you do when our backs are turned.” Charles finally spoke up, his voice heavy. “Paige, Hailey is a gentle soul. Do you really expect us to believe she chose to sleep in a dirty closet when a luxury suite was available? Nobody would do that. I want an explanation, and I want it now. Or else…” I didn’t bother explaining further. I simply pointed to the small, discreet dome in the corner of the ceiling. “Hailey hasn’t been here long, so she probably didn’t realize this house is equipped with a top-tier security system. There are cameras in every hallway. We’ve only been home a week. Let’s go to the security room and watch the footage, frame by frame. Let’s see exactly who went into that closet and when.” Lydia and Charles exchanged a glance. “Fine,” Lydia snapped. “I’m so angry I forgot about the cameras. Let’s go. And when the footage shows the truth, don’t expect me to be so forgiving.” As we turned toward the stairs, Hailey’s knees suddenly hit the floor. “Wait! Please!” she sobbed, clutching at Lydia’s robe. “Paige didn’t know. I… I lied. She did give me a beautiful room. But I’ve spent my whole life in tiny, dark places. I didn’t feel like I belonged in that big bed. I snuck into the closet after everyone was asleep because it felt… safe. It’s my fault. I’m just so used to suffering that I don’t know how to be happy.” Silence fell over the hallway. Charles frowned, looking confused. “Then why did you imply it was Paige’s doing earlier?” Hailey shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t mean to. I saw how angry you were, and I got scared. I’ve lived in fear for so long… I just say things. Everything is my fault. I’m the one who doesn’t belong.” I stood there, frozen, waiting for the apology. Waiting for Lydia and Charles to turn to me and say they were sorry for accusing me of being a monster. Instead, they both knelt down and gathered Hailey into their arms. “Oh, my poor baby,” Lydia cooed, her voice thick with emotion. “You’ve been through so much. We’re so sorry. We’ll make it up to you, I promise. You’re home now. You never have to be afraid again.” The three of them stayed there, a tableau of biological unity, while Mrs. Gable and I stood awkwardly to the side. A hollow ache started in my chest. Was the fifteen years of love they’d given me really that fragile? Was it just a placeholder until the “real” thing arrived? Mrs. Gable waited until they had disappeared into Hailey’s room before whispering, “That girl is trouble, Paige. Last week, when you mentioned moving out to your other place, she was the one who begged you to stay. ‘I’m here to join the family, not break it,’ she said. And now this? It’s a setup.” I forced a tight smile. “She’s new, Mrs. Gable. My parents are just overwhelmed with guilt for the years she missed. I’m not going to let it get to me. They’ve been good to me for a long time… let’s just see how this plays out.” But deep down, I knew. The wind had shifted. In the weeks that followed, Hailey treated me with a terrifying, wide-eyed “fear.” She acted like I was a ticking time bomb, occasionally dropping cryptic, passive-aggressive comments that made my skin crawl. My parents, realizing they’d been a bit too hasty during the closet incident, tried to buy my forgiveness with expensive jewelry and designer bags. Then came the invitations for Hailey’s official “Welcome Home” gala. The day before the party, she crept into my room. “Paige? Can we talk? I’m so sorry about before. It wasn’t my fault—Mom and Dad just jumped to conclusions. I’ve been trying to tell them you’re wonderful.” She held out a garment bag. “I bought this for you. As a peace offering. Please wear it to the party tomorrow. It would mean so much to the parents to see us standing together, looking like sisters.” I looked at the bag. Hailey had actually done her homework; the brand was my favorite, the style was exactly what I usually wore. But I knew her. I knew the look in her eyes. I took the dress, and with a sudden, sharp yank at the side seam, the whole thing disintegrated. The threads had been pre-cut or treated with some kind of acid. If I had walked into a crowded ballroom in that dress, it would have literally fallen off my body within an hour. Hailey’s face went pale, but her eyes stayed cold. “I… I didn’t do that! It must have been the boutique—” “Give it a rest, Hailey,” I said, tossing the ruined fabric at her feet. “This is getting boring. Did the closet incident not teach you anything?” She looked around my room, making sure the door was shut, and then her entire demeanor changed. The “scared rabbit” vanished, replaced by a predatory sneer. “You’re nothing but a placeholder, Paige,” she whispered. “A temporary fix from an orphanage to fill a hole in their hearts. But I’m back now. And as long as I’m here, there is no room for you in this family.” I almost had to admire her nerve. “Is that so?” She stepped closer, her voice a low hiss. “Last time, you had the cameras. You got lucky. But this time? There are no cameras in your bedroom. Watch what happens.” Before I could react, she raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap to her own face. Then another. She was hitting herself with a frantic, desperate energy. “You think I’m a pushover?” she panted, her face beginning to swell. “You think I actually wanted you to wear that dress? No. I want you gone. Not just out of this house, but out of their lives. You came here with nothing, and you’re going to leave with nothing. The love, the money, the clothes, the jewelry… and your precious fiancé, Bennett? I’m taking it all back.” She looked around, spotted a pair of crafting scissors on my vanity, and hesitated. “If you want them to believe you, you’ll need blood,” I said calmly, pointing at the blades. “A few bruises won’t be enough.” Hailey took a ragged breath, grabbed the scissors, and plunged the tip into her own palm. She gasped, trembling with pain, but she wasn’t done. She ran toward my full-length mirror and threw herself into it. The glass shattered in a deafening explosion. She lay there among the shards, bleeding from a dozen small cuts, her hair matted, her face bruised. She looked like the victim of a brutal assault. Satisfied, she lunged at me, wiping her bloody hands all over my white sweater before letting out a blood-curdling scream. “Help! Mom! Dad! Please, help me!” Lydia and Charles burst through the door seconds later. Their affection for me had been wavering for weeks, and I knew this was the final test. I stood there, motionless, watching them. I wanted to see if they would choose the daughter they had raised or the daughter who shared their blood. Lydia screamed as she saw Hailey on the floor. “Paige! My God, what have you done?” I shrugged, my voice flat. “It’s not what it looks like. She did this to herself. It’s the closet incident, part two.” Hailey looked up, her voice a weak, guttering flame. “Mom… it’s okay. I just came to give her the dress… she hated it… she said I was trying to replace her… she just started hitting me…” Charles was already on his phone, shouting for Mrs. Gable to call an ambulance. He stepped between me and Hailey, his face twisted with loathing. “I am so ashamed of you, Paige. We gave you everything. How could you be this demonic?” Hailey let out a sob. “Don’t be mad at her, Dad. It’s my fault. I’m the outsider. I’ll move out as soon as I’m healed… I don’t want to cause trouble…” I nodded slowly. “You’re right. You should leave.” Charles turned and slapped me. The force of it knocked my head to the side, my cheek stinging with a heat that reached all the way to my soul. “How dare you,” he breathed. “After everything she’s tried to do for you.” I held my face, a cold, hard knot forming where my heart used to be. The parents I had loved were gone. They had been replaced by strangers blinded by biology. The paramedics arrived and whisked Hailey away. Lydia and Charles didn’t even look at me as they followed the stretcher. At the door, Charles stopped and looked back, his eyes dead. “I expect you to be gone by the time we get back.” Mrs. Gable stood in the doorway, her eyes filled with tears. “I saw her go in there with those scissors, Paige. I know you didn’t do it.” “I know,” I said quietly. “Help me pack, will you?” Because of Hailey’s “injuries,” the gala was canceled. It took a week for them to bring her home. When they walked through the front door, leaning on each other, they saw the mountain of luggage in the foyer. Lydia frowned. “You’re still here? I told you to leave a week ago.” Hailey, draped in a silk wrap with her hand in a heavy bandage, sighed dramatically. “Oh, Paige, don’t be like that. Dad was just upset. You don’t have to leave. I’m fine now. I’m just a ‘stray,’ right? I can handle a little beating. Just apologize to Mom and Dad, and I’m sure they’ll let you stay in the guest house.” I smiled. It was a sharp, dangerous thing. “Who said I was leaving?” Hailey blinked, her rehearsed pity faltering. “Then why is all this luggage here? You’re not seriously trying to stay where you’re not wanted, are you?” “Oh, no,” I said, stepping toward them. “You’ve finally caught on, Hailey. You’re smarter than you look. These aren’t my bags. They’re yours. All three of you. I’ve had them packed and ready since Tuesday.” Hailey laughed, a shrill, nervous sound. “What are you talking about? This is the Fairchild estate. You can’t kick us out of our own home.” Mrs. Gable stepped forward, holding a thick leather folder. “Actually, Miss Hailey, this is the Paige Fairchild estate. The name on the deed isn’t Charles or Lydia. It’s Paige.” And it wasn’t just the house. I was the majority shareholder of the entire family empire. The color drained from their faces in a synchronized wave of shock. “That’s impossible,” Hailey whispered.

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I married Sebastian White in my sister Isabelle’s place seven years ago. The day Isabelle returned to the country, she smiled at me and said, “Give me back my position as Mrs. White.” My parents knelt and begged me to step aside. I thought the most painful thing was being discarded like trash by my own parents. Then Sebastian coldly said to me, “She’s your sister. What’s wrong with making a sacrifice for her?” It turned out that after seven years of marriage, the woman in his heart had always been my sister. So I chose to let him go. But when the divorce papers were signed, Sebastian knelt on broken glass, his eyes red, begging, “Do you really not love me anymore?” Claire’s POV “Claire, I’ve had my fun abroad. Thank you for taking care of Sebastian these seven years. Now that I’m back, you can give me back my position as Mrs. White.” This was the first thing Isabelle said to me after disappearing for seven years. I stood in the foyer, still holding the supplements I’d just bought for my mother, Margaret. “Had your fun and now you want to come home?” I asked with a cold laugh, my gaze sweeping over my parents standing nearby. My father, Victor, kept his head down, smoking, playing deaf and dumb. My mother, Margaret, had red-rimmed eyes but didn’t dare look at me. Isabelle stood up, walked over to me, and reached out to take my hand. I dodged to the side. She didn’t get angry. She withdrew her hand, smoothed her skirt, and smiled with innocent cruelty. “Yes, abroad wasn’t all that great after all.” “Connor is my biological son, and Sebastian loves me. Claire, you’ve occupied the position of Mrs. White long enough. It’s time to let our family of three reunite.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Isabelle, are you still asleep?” “Sebastian and I are legally married. You think one sentence from you can make me step aside? You think this is a game?” “Claire!” Victor, who had been silent, suddenly slammed the table. The cups rattled loudly. His face was full of displeasure. “Is that how you talk to your sister? You can’t be too greedy! If Isabelle hadn’t left back then, would this wealth have been yours?” My mother Margaret burst into tears and rushed over to grab my hand. “Claire, just do it for the family. Your sister suffered abroad. Now it’s time to give her man back.” Seven years ago, Isabelle got pregnant by some random man and fled the country overnight with the family’s cash. The White family was furious, and the family business faced a broken capital chain. They knelt before me, begging me to marry in her place. Victor held a shard of porcelain to his throat to force me. Margaret knelt on the ground crying. Back then, they said, “Claire, you’re this family’s savior.” Now that their beloved eldest daughter Isabelle was back, I had become an unimportant villain. I shook off Margaret’s hand. “Mom, don’t go too far.” “These seven years, I’ve been in the White family, helping the family secure how many projects, filling how many holes. Don’t you know that in your hearts?” “Now you want me to step aside? Fine.” I looked around at these bloodsuckers. “Have Sebastian come talk to me himself. Besides the law and him personally, no one can make me leave.” With that, I turned and walked away. Behind me came Isabelle’s aggrieved crying and Victor’s furious cursing. “Bitch! Ungrateful bitch!” Walking out of the villa, I realized my whole body was trembling. I took a deep breath of cold air to suppress the nausea rising in my chest. I wasn’t afraid of the family making trouble. Their current wealth and glory all came from me. Cut off the supply and they’d naturally quiet down. What I really couldn’t predict was Sebastian White. What if he also thought that now the original had returned, I, the substitute, should exit? When I drove back to the White family estate, the villa’s lights were blazing. I’d just pushed open the front door when a small figure rushed out from the living room and dove into my arms. “Mom! Why are you only coming back now?” The seven-year-old boy had already grown quite tall, but in front of me he was still like a clingy kitten. He hugged my waist, his tone full of grievance. “I finished all my math problems and wanted you to check them, but I’ve been waiting until now.” Looking at this face that vaguely resembled Isabelle in some features, my heart ached, yet instantly softened. To run away with her lover, Isabelle gave birth and abandoned the baby at the hospital without even nursing him once. I was the one who brought his wrinkled little body home, fed him his first bottle, watched him learn to walk, stayed up with him through his first fever, attended his first parent-teacher conference. These seven years, all his joys and sorrows were connected to me. Now Isabelle wanted to erase all of this with one sentence about being his biological mother? Dream on. I crouched down and smoothed his messy hair, speaking gently. “Sorry, I had something that delayed me. Go to sleep now, and tomorrow morning I will make you something delicious.” “Really?” Connor’s eyes lit up. He leaned over and planted a loud kiss on my cheek. “Mom’s the best! Then I’ll go to sleep first. Good night, Mom!” Watching the child’s happy figure run upstairs, I took a deep breath. This was my son. Regardless of blood relation, no one could take away the child I raised.

Claire’s POV I adjusted my expression and pushed open the master bedroom door. Only a floor lamp was lit in the room, the lighting dim. Sebastian was sitting on the sofa, holding a report in his hand. Hearing the door open, he unhurriedly turned a page. This excessive quietness made my scalp tingle instead. “You’re back?” He finally spoke, his voice low and unreadable. I changed out of my coat, trying to keep my voice steady. “Yes, I went back to the family.” The sound of turning pages stopped abruptly. Sebastian closed the file and casually tossed it onto the side table. He looked up, his deep eyes landing on me. In that instant, I had the illusion of being trapped. “Come here.” He leaned back in his chair and extended his hand toward me. I stiffly walked over and stood before him. Sebastian grabbed my wrist and pulled. I lost my balance and fell onto the armrest of the sofa, forced into close proximity with him. “Your hands are so cold?” My heartbeat skipped. “It’s a bit cold outside.” I lied, turning my head away, not daring to look into his eyes. Sebastian let out a soft laugh, though the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. He forced me to turn my head and face him. “Claire, you’re very distracted today.” His fingers slid down my cheek and pinched gently. “Did something happen?” I bit my lip lightly and swallowed back the words that had reached my mouth. I wasn’t sure if he knew Isabelle had returned, much less how to bring up this matter. “No.” I met his gaze, forcing a smile. “Maybe I’m just tired.” Sebastian stared at me for a long time, then released his hand. “If you’re tired, rest early.” In the morning when I left for work, just as I drove out of the residential complex’s underground parking garage, a figure suddenly rushed out. I braked in shock, looking up to see Isabelle’s twisted face pressed against the windshield. She pounded on the hood violently, looking exactly like a madwoman. “Claire! Get out here!” “You shameless woman! Stealing your sister’s husband, stealing your sister’s son. Give them back to me!” It was rush hour, and people were coming and going at the complex entrance. Passing pedestrians and security guards all stopped, pointing and whispering. Isabelle’s hair was disheveled, making her look pitiful. “I’m the child’s mother! She stole my husband, stole my child!” Public opinion exploded instantly. “Oh my God, is this the wife coming to collect a debt?” “So the current Mrs. White was a mistress who seized the position?” I sat in the car, coldly watching her performance. I locked the doors and lowered the window just a crack. “Make any more trouble and I’ll call the police.” My voice wasn’t loud, but in the noisy environment it was exceptionally clear. Isabelle’s movements paused. She pressed against the window, revealing a strange smile. Through the glass, she mouthed the words to me. “The son is mine by birth. You can’t steal blood ties.” Those words were like a needle, precisely stabbing into the most painful place in my heart. My fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly. Security finally reacted and rushed forward to pull her away. “Move!” I hit the gas, and the car shot forward, its body brushing past Isabelle’s skirt hem. In the rearview mirror, Isabelle was still smiling, triumphant. When I got to the company, I sat in my office holding cold coffee, my heartbeat still not settled. Images from childhood flashed through my mind. Isabelle was the family jewel, I was the pedestal. When she got in trouble, I took the blame. When she didn’t want to do her homework, I did it for her. Seven years ago, she got pregnant out of wedlock and eloped. The family collapsed. To preserve their wealth and glory, my parents pushed me out to fill the hole. I knelt on the ground begging them, saying I’d just graduated, I had my own life. Father slapped me awake. “Isabelle is gone, you have to take her place! The family didn’t raise you all these years to be a freeloader!” Mother just cried. “Claire, the family can’t fall. Just think of it as saving your mother.” I thought about dying. It was Sebastian who added terms to the prenuptial agreement. He would help the family pay off debts, give me the dignity and power of Mrs. White, on the condition that I must be a perfect wife and treat Connor as my own. This was a transaction where I traded my dignity and seven years of youth. Now Isabelle wanted to come back and pick the fruit? Dream on. Since they forced me to sacrifice to create this situation, don’t think I’ll give it up easily now. I don’t owe the family anything. The family owes me. Just as I was thinking, the office door was pushed open. Besides Sebastian, no one dared enter my office without knocking. I quickly adjusted my expression. “Sebastian? What brings you here?” Sebastian wore a dark gray custom suit, carrying the cold air from outside. He didn’t answer, walking straight behind me. A pair of large hands encircled my waist. My body stiffened for a moment, then I forced myself to relax. This was his territory, and I was his possession. “Passing by, came to check on you.” His chin rested in the hollow of my neck, warm breath spraying at my ear. “That recent acquisition case was well done.” “As it should be.” “Connor keeps asking to see you.” He suddenly mentioned the child. My heart tightened. Did he know Isabelle had gone to see the child? Or was he hinting at something? “I’ll go home to spend time with him tonight.” I turned around and straightened his tie, my movements practiced and natural. Sebastian looked down at me, his eyes deep. “As long as you’re obedient.” He patted my face, his tone meaningful. “No one can take your place as Mrs. White.” With that, he released me and turned to leave. It wasn’t until the door closed that I felt a cold sweat on my back. He knew everything, as expected. As long as I behaved and didn’t let Isabelle make things blow up, I would still be Mrs. White. I looked at the city beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, my gaze gradually turning cold. Relying on a man was indeed not as good as relying on myself.

Claire’s POV The winds in the social circle had changed. People began spreading rumors about the real and fake heiresses. Some hinted that I was a substitute who stole my sister’s man, saying now that she was back, I, the impostor, should leave. Isabelle was clever. She befriended some wealthy heirs and heiresses, crying to them about her tragic experience, fabricating herself as someone who sacrificed for love. The annual White Corporation charity gala was about to be held. I went to a top beauty salon for treatments, preparing for the gala. I’d just laid down when a sarcastic voice came from the next bed. “I heard Sebastian White’s legitimate wife is back? Some bitch occupied the position for seven years. It’s time to give it back, right?” The speaker was Mrs. Walsh, whose family made their fortune in coal mining. She’d always wanted to break into the core social circle and disliked me. So recently she’d been getting close to Isabelle. Several other society ladies stopped their treatments, waiting to watch the show. I didn’t even lift an eyelid, keeping my eyes closed while enjoying the technician’s massage. “Use more pressure.” I instructed coolly. Seeing me ignore her, Mrs. Walsh’s voice rose eight octaves in anger. “Stop pretending! Everyone knows you just picked up the leftovers! Once the real wife takes her position, let’s see how arrogant you’ll be then!” The noise was too loud, affecting my mood. I opened my eyes and sat up. Without even glancing at Mrs. Walsh, I beckoned the manager over. “Miss Hart, how may I help you?” The manager rushed over at a trot, bowing ninety degrees. “Don’t let these kinds of riffraff into the VIP area anymore.” I adjusted my robe. “Too noisy. Lowers the class of the place.” The manager’s face changed instantly, immediately turning to Mrs. Walsh. “Mrs. Walsh, I’m sorry, but please move to the regular area, or…” “You dare kick me out?” Mrs. Walsh’s face instantly darkened. “I have a membership card!” “Your card level isn’t sufficient.” The manager’s tone was firm. “Please don’t disturb Miss Hart’s rest.” Under the security guards’ watchful eyes, Mrs. Walsh was driven out cursing like she’d swallowed a fly. The surroundings instantly quieted. Those ladies who’d been waiting to watch me make a fool of myself immediately put on fawning smiles without shame. “Miss Hart is so formidable.” “Exactly, how dare someone like Mrs. Walsh try to cause trouble.” I lay back down. In this circle, you don’t rely on talk. You rely on real financial power and influence. Gossip couldn’t hurt me in the slightest. As long as I still sat in the position of Mrs. White, they had to butter me up. Back in the car, I opened my tablet. The private investigator had sent an encrypted folder. All photos. Isabelle’s seven years abroad were hardly spent suffering. In the photos, she wore heavy makeup, mixing in various underground casinos and nightclubs, with different men by her side. There were also several abortion medical records. The time span was large, with the most recent one from just six months ago. Looking at this evidence, I found it utterly ironic. This was her so-called sacrifice for true love? This was what my parents called suffering hardship? She’d turned her life into mud, and now she wanted to come back and play the victim. Isabelle, if you insist on coming to the gala to seek death, then I’ll grant your wish. When I got home, I heard the sound of a paper shredder as soon as I entered. Connor was sitting on the carpet, feeding a photo into the machine. “Connor, what are you doing?” Connor looked up, his face full of disgust. “Mom, after school today a weird lady stopped me and insisted on giving me a gift. She even said she was my mom.” My heart sank. “What gift?” “A bottle of perfume. It smelled terrible.”

Claire’s POV Connor pointed to the empty box on the table. “And this photo.” I picked up the box. Inside was a photo of Isabelle holding infant Connor, with four twisted words written on the back. “Mommy loves you.” “That lady was so scary. I didn’t want it.” Connor buried himself in my arms, his small hands gripping my clothes tightly. “Mom, I don’t know her. I only have you as my mom.” I held my son tightly, my eyes stinging. Isabelle wanted to play the family card, not knowing that seven years of companionship had long surpassed blood ties. The child wasn’t stupid. He knew in his heart who treated him well. “It’s okay. Stay away from that lady from now on.” I watched the shredder swallow that photo, clenching my fists. Isabelle, you shouldn’t have, you absolutely shouldn’t have reached your hand toward the child. When Sebastian came home, he glanced at the shredded paper in the trash can, seeming to guess what had happened. But he said nothing, just took an invitation from his briefcase and handed it to me. “You’re the hostess for tomorrow night’s gala.” He looked at me steadily. “Don’t disappoint me.” I took the invitation, my fingertips tracing over the words “Mrs. White.” “Don’t worry.” I smiled at him. The charity gala venue. A giant backdrop board was being hoisted up by workers, printed with some real estate company’s huge logo. “Who authorized this to be hung?” I asked. The project director rushed over, sweating profusely. “This was just forcibly requested by the sponsor’s representative. They said Mr. Lee specially approved it…” I didn’t even lift an eyelid, pointing at the board. “Take it down.” “But…” “No buts.” A middle-aged man emerged from behind the scaffolding, an oily smile on his face. “This is a promotional spot specially approved by Mr. Lee. If you take it down, I’m afraid next year’s sponsorship funding won’t be easy to negotiate.” The man deliberately emphasized the words “sponsorship funding,” his eyes showing some contempt for me. One minute later. The man’s phone rang. He answered, and his face instantly turned deathly pale. “What? Bought out? Refund?” I put away my phone. “Now this advertising spot belongs to me.” I stepped forward, my high heels clicking crisply on the marble floor. “Take your garbage and get out of my venue.” The man opened his mouth, looked at the security gathering behind me, and finally slunk away. After dealing with the sponsor, I walked toward the back corridor. The security chief was already waiting with a team of men in black. I handed him a photo. The photo showed Isabelle, an old photo from seven years ago, her expression frivolous. “Burn this face into your memory.” “No matter who brings her in, if this person appears in the banquet hall, your entire security team is fired.” The chief took the photo, breaking into a cold sweat. “Yes, Miss Hart.” VIP lounge. During rehearsal breaks, I sat on the sofa massaging my aching ankles. Several society ladies who’d just received entry tickets were gathered together touching up their makeup. A woman from a wealthy mining family approached with champagne. “Miss Hart, I heard your sister returned to the country? She used to be our trendsetter. Why isn’t she here?” Her voice was loud, and the surroundings instantly quieted. Everyone pricked up their ears. I was looking at the event schedule. Hearing this, I only glanced up briefly without responding. The air froze for three seconds. She realized she might have stepped on a landmine and awkwardly tried to cover. “Oh, I mean, you have much more of the Mrs. White presence now…” I closed the folder and smiled at my assistant beside me. “Re-evaluate Mr. Smith’s membership eligibility for next year.” Mrs. Smith’s face turned deathly pale. Those around who’d wanted to watch the excitement immediately scattered, afraid of being implicated. The main hall doors were pushed open. Sebastian entered with his executive team. He wore an impeccably tailored custom suit, like a star surrounded by admirers. I immediately shoved my feet back into my high heels, enduring the severe pain as I stood up. Sebastian walked straight to the main stage, looking up to check the lighting. From beginning to end, he didn’t look at me once. “Well done.”

Isabelle’s POV Late at night, the TV was playing preview news of the gala, with glamorous images of Claire on screen. A vase smashed into the screen, glass shattering everywhere. I rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a fruit knife. “I don’t want to live anymore!” I pressed the knife against my carotid artery. “If you can’t get me in, I’ll die right here at home! When the police come, I’ll say you forced your biological daughter to death to make way for that substitute!” Mom collapsed on the floor in fright, crying and trying to grab the knife. “Isabelle, don’t do anything foolish! I’ll find a way, I’ll definitely find a way!” The knife in my hand broke the skin slightly, blood beading up. Dad looked at my crazed state, his face iron-gray. After weighing the pros and cons, he gritted his teeth and went to rummage through a drawer. “Put the knife down! I still have a supplier’s debt contract. This is the only opening left.” Only then was I satisfied. This was a desperate gambler’s bet. I had no way back. Mr. Walsh, the supplier, sounded reluctant on the phone. “Mr. Hart, there’s definitely no way through the main entrance. You can only go through the cargo passage.” I looked at my well-maintained fingers, instinctively wanting to scream in refusal. That was a path for lower-class people. But turning to see Claire’s superior attitude on TV, jealousy conquered my pretentiousness. As long as I could get in. Even if I had to crawl through the sewers, I would smash that stage. “I’ll go.” I said through gritted teeth, the words squeezing out from between my teeth. Mom took out a newly purchased haute couture gown from the current season. “Isabelle, wear this. You’ll definitely outshine everyone.” I pushed the new clothes away. I rummaged through boxes and drawers, dragging out a slightly yellowed dress from the very bottom. “This was the first gift Sebastian gave me seven years ago.” I obsessively caressed the hem of the dress. “He wasn’t that rich back then, but this represents that I was his first love.” Mom frowned. “But this one is a bit old…” “What do you know!” I shouted, forcibly squeezing my body into the dress that was already too small. “That substitute can wear expensive clothes but she’s still a fake. As long as I appear in this, Sebastian will remember how much he loved me.” I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. The next evening, a cargo truck stopped at the back door of the Hart family villa. I wore an oversized work coat, hiding that white gown underneath. I wore a mask and baseball cap, climbing into the cargo hold that reeked of lily fragrance and earth. Dad handed me an envelope. “This contains what you need. You can only succeed. Whether the Hart family can turn things around depends on tonight.” The cargo truck drove on the highway, jolting badly. I huddled between flower buckets, enduring the fishy smell of earth. I took out my phone and clicked on the gala’s red carpet live stream. On screen, flashbulbs fell like a waterfall. Claire walked the red carpet on Sebastian’s arm. The sapphire necklace around her neck sparkled brilliantly under the lights. That was a White family heirloom-level unique piece. I stared fixedly at the screen, my nails digging into my palms. I was hiding in a cargo hold like a rat. While that sister who once served me stood on a cloud receiving worship. All of this should have been mine! The necklace was mine, the position was mine, the glory was mine too! Since I couldn’t have it, then I’d destroy it in front of the whole world.

Claire’s POV I appeared in the banquet hall on Sebastian’s arm. Reporters’ cameras focused on us. Someone boldly asked a question. “Mr. White, recent rumors say Isabelle has returned to the country. Will this affect the relationship between the White and Hart families?” Sebastian’s hand at my waist suddenly tightened. He faced the cameras with a smile. “The relationship between the White and Hart families depends entirely on my wife. Without her, there would be no current cooperation.” I cooperatively turned my head to gaze lovingly at Sebastian. “This is my duty as Mrs. White.” We completed a perfect display of affection before the cameras. Directly blocking rumors about divorce. Flashbulbs went crazy. At an angle no one could see, Sebastian’s fingers lightly caressed my waist. That was some kind of reward signal. Connor tugged at my dress hem, muttering quietly. “Mom, I’m hungry.” I looked down at my son, my heart softening. “Be good, go to the back lounge.” I called over the nanny and crouched down to straighten Connor’s bow tie. “When it’s over, I will take you for late-night snacks. We’ll get your favorite strawberry cake.” Connor’s eyes brightened. He obediently followed the nanny. Watching my son’s small figure disappear through the side door, I was about to stand when I caught something unusual in my peripheral vision. The side door was originally assigned two security personnel. Now, it was empty. White family security never made such basic mistakes. Unless someone deliberately drew them away. “What’s wrong?” Sebastian noticed my stiffness and looked at me. “Nothing.” I suppressed the unease in my heart, though my fingers unconsciously gripped my clutch tighter. On stage, the host was passionately introducing. “Next, please welcome Mr. Sebastian White and Mrs. White to the stage for remarks!” Spotlights instantly hit us. Thunderous applause. Sebastian gallantly extended his hand. I took a deep breath and placed my hand in his palm. Just as we stepped onto the stairs. Sudden chaos erupted. A white figure rapidly broke through the security line. Isabelle wore an old-fashioned white gown, the hem yellowed, looking shabby and pathetic. She stumbled and fell heavily at the edge of the stage. Thump. Through the microphone, this dull sound was amplified countless times. Hundreds of eyes, dozens of cameras, instantly moved from us to focus on this intruder. Isabelle lay on the ground, shoulders trembling, looking as fragile as wet paper. She slowly lifted her head, that face pale as a ghost, but tears hung perfectly on her lashes. She looked at Sebastian, her gaze mournful. “Sebastian…” Her voice carried through the microphone across the entire venue, trembling but crystal clear. “Have you forgotten our anniversary?” My hand instantly tightened, nails digging into my palm. Sebastian stood beside me, motionless. Media surged crazily toward the stage edge. Flashbulbs merged into one blinding mass. Isabelle knelt on the ground, ignoring my existence, staring straight at the cameras. “I’m Connor’s biological mother.” She cried with tears streaming down her face, but her voice carried a vicious edge. “These seven years, someone stole my life.” The crowd below exploded. Those who’d just smiled warmly at me were now whispering, their eyes full of excitement at the drama. “No wonder Mr. White used to be so promiscuous. Turns out the one at home is a thief.” “The son’s real mother came back. The stepmother really should step aside.” “Now there’s a good show. She stole someone’s things for so many years. It’s time to pay the debt.” Isabelle crawled two steps forward, reaching out to grab Sebastian’s pant leg, her fingers deathly pale. “Sebastian, look at me. I’m your Isabelle.” Flashbulbs flashed wildly, casting Sebastian’s cold face in a harsh white glare. I turned to look at him. He was frowning, his gaze passing over Isabelle to look at the PR director in the distance. In that instant, something inside me froze. How could I forget? To him, the White family’s reputation always mattered more than my dignity. I took out my phone. Before I could do anything, the crowd erupted again. “Let us through! Everyone move!”

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I was chatting enthusiastically with my classmate from Germany when Mom suddenly chimed in: “What are you talking about?” I froze. Mom was indeed a housewife. But in her youth, she had spent five years in Germany. Her German was even more fluent than mine. Yet she couldn’t recognize that I had just called her name. Was she really my mother? No one knew that Mom had lived in Germany—no one except me. When I decided to study abroad in Germany, I started learning German in advance. There was one word I kept mispronouncing no matter how many times I tried. While trimming vegetables, Mom corrected my pronunciation with perfect, fluent German. I asked her how she knew German. She said she’d spent a few years in Germany and even had a name there—”Elara.” I wanted to ask more, but she seemed reluctant to discuss it. I didn’t think much of it at the time and gradually forgot about it. Until today, when my German classmate called. Halfway through our conversation, I went to get some water. Passing through the living room, I suddenly felt playful and called out “Elara.” She didn’t react at all. I called again, a bit louder this time. She looked up at me: “What are you saying? Finished chatting with your friend?” I stood frozen. Her German was so good—how could she not understand my conversation with my classmate? And even if her German had gotten rusty over time, how could she forget her own name? I stared at her for a few seconds. She lowered her head to peel an apple, her knife technique skilled, the peel coming off in one long, continuous strip. That was her habit. Nothing wrong there. On her middle finger was a faint scar, left there when I was six years old. The finger matched too, but something felt off. I just couldn’t put my finger on what. She noticed my gaze and looked up: “Hurry and eat. I made your favorite chocolate nut cake.” I sat at the dining table, my heart pounding. “Mom, did you put peanuts in it? I’m allergic to peanuts.” She glanced up at me, her tone calm: “Didn’t your allergy clear up? Peanuts add texture to nut cake.” I exhaled in relief. If she weren’t my mom, hearing me mention a peanut allergy would have made her say something like “Oh shoot, I forgot you can’t eat peanuts.” But she remembered that my allergy had cleared up two years ago. I silently laughed at myself for being paranoid. Dad emerged from his room, and his eyes lit up when he saw the chocolate nut cake. “Chocolate nut cake again! Millia’s favorite.” He cut me a large slice. I smiled and took a bite. The cake was delicious, but my smile froze on my face. Something was wrong! Completely wrong! She wasn’t my mother!

Dad noticed me spacing out and asked: “What’s wrong? Your mom’s cake not good?” I forced a smile and swallowed the cake: “It’s good. Tastes just like always.” It really was delicious—rich chocolate, plenty of crushed nuts, no problems there. But the almond slices hadn’t been removed. Mom liked almond slices, but because I didn’t, she never included them when making nut cake. She’d done this for over twenty years without a single mistake. But today, I tasted the bitter almond slices. Mom sat across from me, nagging Dad about smoking less and reminding me not to stay up late in Germany, just like always. She even gossiped about the neighbor Mary’s daughter. I smiled and responded, but inside I was growing cold. She showed no signs of being different. Even certain small habits and her tone of voice were identical to Mom’s. But I clearly sensed she wasn’t Mom at all. I stole a glance at Dad. He kept his head down, eating, occasionally looking up to respond. If Mom had been replaced, he should be the first to notice. Yet he sat there peacefully, completely oblivious. After dinner, I made an excuse to return to my room. I opened my phone and pulled up Mom’s social media account. Her last post was three days ago—the day I returned home. She’d posted a photo of an airplane with a caption: “My little bird is finally coming home.” Very ordinary, very normal, in Mom’s usual tone. But the photo was wrong. It was too casual—the plane was crooked in the frame, the horizon tilted. I zoomed in. The composition was completely haphazard. It looked like someone had randomly raised their phone and pressed the shutter. But Mom wasn’t like that. She was meticulous about everything, with high standards for all tasks. Even photographing a tree required her to adjust the angle for ages, ensuring every line in the frame was perfectly straight. This photo wasn’t taken by her. It looked more like something deliberately taken to show me, to prove she was my mother. My heart went cold. I kept scrolling. On April 1st, Mom had posted a photo. It was of roses in the garden. The edges of the petals were outlined in golden sunlight, the background perfectly blurred, the horizon perfectly level. This one was right. I enlarged the photo, searching for differences bit by bit. Suddenly I noticed something in the shadow of the rose stems in the lower left corner—a note, pressed under the flowerpot. I zoomed in further. The note had a line of small text, in German. Jeder Mensch ist geheimnisvoll. Every person is mysterious. Was this sentence a clue Mom deliberately left, or just coincidence? I sent the sentence to my German classmate, who quickly replied. Jeder Mensch ist geheimnisvoll. Du hast gar keine Ahnung, wie gut oder schlecht er ist, bis du ihn wirklich kennst und die Wahrheit siehst. Every person is mysterious. You have no idea how good or bad they are until you truly know them and see the truth. Why would Mom leave this sentence? I suddenly remembered something from two years ago when Mom and I watched a TV show at home. In the show, the female lead wanted a divorce, but the male lead coveted her family’s wealth. He not only killed her but pushed her parents off a cliff. When Mom saw that scene, she said this exact sentence. And coincidentally, Dad really was a poor boy who married a rich girl. Could it be that Mom had a conflict with Dad and wanted a divorce, which was why she wrote this? If Mom wanted a divorce, what would she do first? I sat bolt upright. If I were Mom and wanted to leave a dangerous person, I’d transfer my assets first. Then find a safe place. Germany? I immediately called the airline’s customer service. “Hello, can you check if Chloe booked a flight to Germany in April?” “Yes, Ms. Chloe booked a one-way ticket to Berlin on the evening of April 2nd.” My heart raced faster: “Did she board the flight?” “This ticket shows as unused.” I hung up. The rose photo was posted April 1st. The ticket was for April 2nd. But Mom never boarded. Perhaps she never even left the house!

I didn’t dare think further. This mom in the house was definitely fake. So where was my real mother? Had they hidden her, or had she already been killed? Mom was so smart. She couldn’t have left nothing behind. I closed my eyes, desperately trying to remember. Growing up, Mom and I had shared many things no one else knew about. Some moments only she and I knew. If she really wanted to leave a clue, she would put it somewhere only I could find. My eyes shot open. As a child, I had a tin box where I kept my collection of stickers and marbles. Once, Mom joked that if she ever needed to leave me a secret, she’d put it in that box. Because Dad would never bother going through my junk. I quietly went up to the attic and pulled the tin box from the back of the storage shelf. Inside were the marbles I’d played with as a child, along with an additional note. It contained only a string of numbers—an unfamiliar phone number. I dialed the number. “Hello, I’m Millia. Do you know Chloe?” Silence on the other end for a second. “I’m Attorney Lehman. Ms. Chloe previously commissioned me to draft a will. She planned to leave all her assets to you.” “However… she didn’t show up on the appointed day.” “When was the appointment?” “April 2nd in the afternoon. Ms. Chloe said she needed to go to the hospital in the morning, so she could only schedule the afternoon.” Hospital. My head buzzed. “Was she sick?” “Ms. Chloe didn’t specify the reason. She only mentioned needing to get a checkup.” “Which hospital?” “I’m sorry, that’s Ms. Chloe’s private matter. I don’t know.” He hung up. I gripped my phone, blood rushing backward through my body. I opened my phone and quickly searched for “hospital.” There were three hospitals near our house: First Hospital, Howard Hospital, and the Maternal and Child Health Center. I called all three hospitals. But only one responded—that Ms. Chloe had not visited the hospital on April 2nd. I sat on the floor, my mind racing. April 1st: photographed roses, sent a distress signal. Then scheduled an appointment with a lawyer to draft a will. April 2nd morning: planned to go to the hospital for a checkup but didn’t go—or perhaps Mom never intended to go to the hospital and it was just an excuse. April 2nd afternoon: planned to go to the law office for asset certification, but didn’t go. April 2nd evening: planned to fly to Germany to find me, also didn’t go. But the ticket was booked, meaning Mom definitely intended to go. So something must have happened between the afternoon of April 1st and the morning of April 2nd! What happened in those less than twenty-four hours? As I pondered this, I caught sight of a figure at the attic entrance. I whipped my head around. Dad stood there, leaning against the doorframe, watching me quietly. His eyes were calm, as if he’d been watching me for a long time. “Who were you calling?” He smiled faintly at me, like a leopard that had locked onto its prey. My back was already drenched in cold sweat.

I clenched the note tightly in my palm. Suppressing my panic, I kept my voice as steady as possible: “Nothing. Just chatting with a classmate. Need to write a paper.” Dad nodded without saying more, his thumb gently rubbing the corner of his shirt. That was something he only did when nervous. I decided to test him. “Dad, don’t you think Mom’s been a bit different lately?” A flicker of panic flashed through his eyes. “Not at all. Your mom’s been looking forward to you coming home. Maybe she just missed you too much.” I smiled: “Maybe I’m overthinking it. I missed you guys too.” Then I faked a yawn and rubbed my eyes: “I’m so tired. I’m going to bed.” I walked past him calmly, my steps measured. Down from the attic, through the hallway, into my room. The moment I closed the door, my whole body trembled. I immediately pulled out my phone: “Hello, I need to report something to the police.” “My mother is missing. I suspect she’s been kidnapped or killed, and the perpetrator is in the house right now.” I gave them my address. The police said they’d dispatch officers immediately. I breathed a slight sigh of relief. Just then, I heard rustling outside the door. I pressed my ear against the door. “She’s too smart, just like her mother. She must have discovered something.” “Hide the medicine first. Don’t let her see it.” “Give this to her. Only when she’s completely silenced will we be safe.” My heart went cold. They were going to drug me. In that instant, countless thoughts raced through my mind. They must know I’m suspicious, so they want to silence me permanently. As I considered how to escape, the door was suddenly knocked. “Millia, I’ve warmed up some milk for you. Come out.” The doorknob moved but didn’t turn. “Millia, why did you lock the door? Open up!”

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