Category: English

Every year for my birthday, my boyfriend would team up with his childhood best friend to throw me a “surprise.” Last year, they rented out an escape room, claiming it was for my birthday party. I went inside and was locked in there for four hours. Outside, they were watching the security monitors, laughing so hard they couldn’t stand up. Inside, I was shivering uncontrollably from sheer terror. By the time the staff finally pulled me out, my legs were complete jelly. I’ve had severe claustrophobia ever since. Afterward, my boyfriend held me and apologized profusely, swearing he would never do something like that again, promising that this year, he would give me a proper, wonderful birthday. So, when my birthday rolled around this year, and he mysteriously invited me out to a bar… I specifically got my hair blown out, bought a brand new dress, and even busted my ass at work to make sure I could leave early. But the moment I happily pushed open the door to the private VIP room, a bucket of rancid, foul-smelling liquid poured directly onto my head. I stood frozen in the doorway. A thick, sticky red substance dripped down my hair and over my face. It was watered-down ketchup, mixed with crushed eggshells that were now clinging to my bare shoulders. The entire room erupted into exaggerated, booming laughter. “I told you she’d wear a dress tonight! Liam, you lose!” Liam stepped out from the crowd of his friends, holding out a napkin to me, acting exactly like he always did. “You dressed up so nice, too. What a shame.” “I made a bet with the guys on whether you’d wear a dress tonight. I bet you wouldn’t. If I won, I was going to take you out to pick your birthday present. If I lost, you’d have to wait until next year.” “Sorry about that. Since you wore a dress, no present for you this year.” The pungent, sour smell invaded my nose. I stared at him in absolute, dead silence. “So, you did know it was my birthday today?” He laughed, reaching out to playfully ruffle my ruined hair. “Of course I know. We’ve been together for six years, how could I forget?” The foul-smelling liquid dripped steadily down the hem of my dress. In that exact moment, I felt a profound, overwhelming wave of absolute disgust. My birthday was nothing but the punchline to a prank. Just like how my feelings were nothing compared to his childhood best friend. I reached up and unclasped the necklace around my throat. It was the very first birthday gift he had ever given me. “Then let’s break up.” 1 The sound of the delicate necklace hitting the floor was completely drowned out by the roaring laughter in the room. Liam frowned slightly. “Don’t be dramatic. It’s just a little juice. I’ll help you wash it out when we get home. You know how Chloe is, she’s been a prankster since we were kids. Honestly, she went easy on you this time.” “It’s so hard to get everyone together. Don’t make my friends think I’m dating someone who can’t take a joke.” Chloe, his childhood best friend, pouted and sauntered over. “Geez, Chloe, it was just a prank. If you hate it that much, we won’t do it again, okay? Don’t just throw around the word ‘breakup’.” “I told Liam you couldn’t handle it, but he insisted you come. Look what happened.” She huffed and threw herself onto the nearest leather sofa, puffing her cheeks out. Instantly, the gaze of everyone in the room shifted to me, their expressions turning judgmental and knowing. Chloe was the only daughter of a wealthy family in their elite, old-money neighborhood. She grew up pampered, the undeniable princess of their social circle. Whenever she was unhappy, everyone scrambled to coddle her. Liam was no exception. The first time I met her, she organized a game of Mafia. Everyone else drew standard character cards. But when it came to me, she secretly slipped me the ‘Siren’ card, leaned into my ear, and whispered: “When it’s your turn, read the lines for this character. Make sure you act really slutty.” I completely froze. I pushed the card back to her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Her face instantly dropped. She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Can’t handle a game? Whatever. Forget it.” The way the rest of the group looked at me instantly shifted. I heard someone mutter, “Why is she acting like such a prude?” Liam frowned at me too. “It’s just a game, Chloe. Is this really necessary?” In the end, I didn’t play. I sat alone in a corner drinking soda for the entire night. Meanwhile, Chloe was laughing hysterically, eventually revealing that there was no ‘Siren’ card in the deck—she had just made it up to mess with me. Feeling exhausted by the bullying, I casually remarked that it wasn’t a very fun way to play. Chloe’s eyes instantly welled up with tears, and she ran out of the room crying. The entire group chased after her to comfort her, including Liam. What was supposed to be a welcoming party for me ended with me sitting in an empty room, entirely alone. Liam didn’t say anything about it afterward, but for future gatherings, unless Chloe explicitly gave the green light, he never brought me along. And now, Liam was glaring at me, his brows knitted in frustration. “Chloe, apologize to her.” In the past, just to fit into his world. Just to save him from embarrassment in front of his friends, I would have swallowed my pride. I would have apologized and smoothed things over before he even had to ask. But right now, standing here covered in garbage, I realized that me ending our six-year relationship carried less weight than Chloe experiencing a minor moment of displeasure. I finally understood that, from the very beginning, our entire relationship meant absolutely nothing to Liam compared to his bond with his precious childhood best friend. I reached down and picked up the small clutch I had bought specifically for tonight. I met their judgmental, mocking stares. “Liam, we are done. I mean it. It’s over.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the door, the hem of my dress still dripping sticky red fluid onto the floor. Behind me, I heard Chloe’s teasing laugh. “Your little ‘pick-me’ girlfriend is leaving. You really aren’t going to chase her?” Liam let out a cold scoff. “She’s just throwing a tantrum. If I actually chase her, what happens to you?” “Besides, she doesn’t have anyone else but me. She’s easy to calm down.” My heart, already sliced open, was burning. His words were like freezing wind scraping against an open wound. Six years ago, Liam had confessed his love to me right in this very bar, swearing I was the only girl for him. When I was seventeen, my parents divorced and immediately started new families. I was dumped at my grandmother’s house. After my grandmother passed away, I went through high school completely alone. I was terrified of relationships. I was terrified of relying on anyone. I rejected Liam five times. The last time, I was trying to pull laundry off the balcony line, lost my footing, and fell. He sprinted forward and caught me, but the momentum slammed the back of his head into the brick wall. He needed seven stitches. When I went to see him at the hospital, his eyes were red. “Chloe, why do you always have to act so tough? Can’t you just let me protect you?” In that exact moment, my walls crumbled. I thought that maybe, if I dated someone this gentle, life wouldn’t be so bad. That same day, he took me to the amusement park and officially asked me out. When he heard me say “yes,” this guy—who was usually so composed and serious—picked me up and spun me around like a little kid. We spun until we were dizzy, both collapsing onto the grassy lawn. He used his body to shield mine so the rocks on the ground wouldn’t hurt me. Sitting under the Ferris wheel, he swore to the starry sky above us that as long as he was around, I would never be lonely, and I would never be abandoned again. But now, the deep, vulnerable wounds I had finally gathered the courage to show him, the wounds that had finally started to heal, were being viciously ripped open by him all over again. I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. I pulled out my phone, opened my email, and clicked on the international job offer that was about to expire. [Accept Offer.] Turns out, clicking those two words wasn’t hard at all. I looked up at the night sky, heavily polluted by the city’s neon lights. Liam, I actually wasn’t easy to calm down at all. And from now on, I will never need you to try. My flight was booked for the morning after next. I didn’t have much time. As soon as I got back to our apartment, I rushed to shower off the disgusting, sticky mess, and then immediately started packing. I didn’t own a lot of things. Packing was quick. One large suitcase and one carry-on, and I was done. At 2:00 AM, I booked a room at a nearby hotel. Just as I grabbed my bags to walk out the door, I ran straight into Liam, who was just getting back from the bar. He dumped a heavily intoxicated, stumbling Chloe onto the sofa, pulled a packet of brown sugar from his pocket, and handed it to me. “Good thing you’re still awake. She’s got her period but still insisted on drinking. Go boil some ginger and brown sugar water for her, or she’s going to have brutal cramps tomorrow.” I stood perfectly still, not moving an inch. When we first moved in together, my period cramps were so severe I was practically rolling on the floor. He had been a frantic, anxious mess trying to take care of me. In the middle of the night, I had tried to get up to boil my own ginger water. Because I was dizzy and distracted with pain, I ended up severely burning my hand on the stove. When he saw the burn, his sleepiness vanished instantly. Seeing me sweating from the pain, he was heartbroken and consumed with guilt. From that day on, he never let me touch anything remotely dangerous in the kitchen. Even when he was craving a home-cooked meal, he would rather order takeout than let me cook. For the past few years, I hadn’t stepped foot in the kitchen to cook a single meal. He even pre-cut all my fruit before handing it to me. To this day, there was still a sticker he made hanging on the kitchen door: [DANGER ZONE: CHLOE KEEP OUT.] I let out a dry laugh, walked over, ripped the sticker off the door, and threw it in the trash can. “Sorry, not my job. If her stomach hurts, she can boil it herself.” With that, I grabbed the handles of my suitcases, ready to leave. He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist in a vice grip, pinning me against the front door. “Okay, Chloe, enough. Talk is one thing, but packing your bags? I already told you it was just a joke, stop being so dramatic.” “I know you were really looking forward to celebrating your birthday with me. I wanted to, too. Next year. We’ll celebrate together next year, okay?” His breath, laced with the smell of alcohol, brushed against my neck. But unlike the past, a few soft words weren’t going to fix this. I shoved him hard in the chest and slapped him squarely across the face. “Liam, I made myself perfectly clear. We are breaking up. I am not marrying you!” The slap didn’t just sober him up; it seemed to shock Chloe out of her drunken stupor on the sofa. She stumbled over, raising her hand to slap me back. “Who the hell do you think you are?! Who gave you the right to hit Liam?!” “Break up then! There are plenty of good girls out there! You… you’re nothing but a piece of trash!” A burning, stinging pain erupted across my cheek. My eyes blazing, I raised my hand to strike back. But Liam grabbed my wrist with terrifying force and violently shoved me away. The small of my back slammed hard into the metal door handle, a sharp pain radiating through my entire body. He shielded Chloe behind him, his expression filled with intense irritation. “She’s drunk! Why are you fighting with a drunk person?!” “Enough. Go outside and cool off. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” I stared at his complete apathy in sheer disbelief. He was treating me like an annoying, irrelevant stranger. He never looked at me again. Instead, he lowered his voice, gently comforting the drunk, erratic Chloe. He saved all of his tenderness for her. I dug my nails so deeply into my palms they almost drew blood. I grabbed my suitcases and walked out the door. After checking into the nearest hotel, I didn’t close my eyes until dawn. When I woke up, my phone was blowing up with notifications. Besides birthday wishes from friends, it was mostly messages from coworkers asking why I wasn’t at work, gossiping about whether I had some “good news” to share. My heart gave a painful throb. I typed a quick reply saying we broke up. I felt profoundly, deeply exhausted. The ping, ping, ping of notifications continued. Some thought I was joking. Some said it was impossible. Some even told me not to throw away a good relationship just because I didn’t get an engagement ring. After all, in their eyes, Liam was gentle, considerate, and eternally reliable. A rare, perfect catch. But they didn’t know that this “perfect catch”… On our two-year anniversary, arranged a romantic stargazing camping trip, only to use it as a setup for Chloe’s prank, having a fake “ghost” jump out of the woods and nearly giving me a heart attack. And on our five-year anniversary, he watched as rancid, rotting liquid was dumped all over me. He had his reliable moments, yes. But the person he was reliable for was never me. In the past, I had automatically blocked out all these awful moments, constantly gaslighting myself into believing that, aside from the Chloe situation, he was truly good to me. But now that I was awake, I realized that a relationship like this wouldn’t survive a marriage anyway. I offered a bitter smile and, out of habit, opened Instagram. Amidst the sea of birthday posts, Chloe’s photo carousel was the most prominent. Liam took her stargazing, rode roller coasters with her, and ate cake with her. Even though in the past he would always finish humoring Chloe before coming to celebrate my birthday… He had never, ever done any of those things with me. He always claimed those activities were too childish, that staying home and watching a movie was more meaningful. I thought it was just a sign of his maturity, so I suppressed all my girlish, romantic hopes. But now, looking at the relaxed, genuine smile on his face in those photos… I realized it wasn’t that those activities were childish. It was that doing them with me was a chore. The comment section was a miles-long parade of people calling them a perfect match. All our mutual friends had liked the post. It had more likes than our official relationship announcement did. Just as I was about to close the app, a message popped up. It was from Liam. 【Don’t get the wrong idea. I just took her out to clear her head. Come by the apartment when you have time, she said she wants to apologize to you.】 I frowned, my fingers hovering over the keyboard to type No thanks. A delivery notification suddenly popped up at the top of my screen. I tapped it. It was for the birthday present I had bought for myself weeks ago. The shipping address was still set to his apartment. I thought about it. I did need to make things crystal clear. And I needed to return his keys. A clean break. I got ready quickly and hurried over. But the second I stepped through the door, Chloe sprinted toward me and grabbed my hand. “Chloe, come here! I have a surprise for you!” Before I could react, she dragged me toward the balcony, shoved me outside, and— The door slammed shut. The lock clicked from the inside. It was a chilly March night. The wind was biting. I was only wearing a thin sweater, standing barefoot on the freezing balcony tiles. Through the glass door, I saw Chloe making a grotesque face at me, mouthing the words: “Happy Birthday!” I pounded on the glass, screaming her name. She just giggled, shook her head, and turned back to the living room. From inside, I could hear their laughter. Someone turned the music up. I heard the clinking of glasses. I pounded on the door for ten minutes. My hands were bright red. No one came. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. I started shivering violently. I didn’t know if it was the cold or the panic. I have severe claustrophobia. Liam knows this. Ever since Chloe locked me in that escape room, my claustrophobia had gotten exponentially worse. But right now, he was drinking and laughing with his friends. He had completely forgotten I was on the balcony. I curled into a tight ball in the corner, my body shaking uncontrollably. My throat was so tight I couldn’t even force a sound out. Until my vision went completely white. Right as my eyes fluttered shut, I heard a familiar voice through the glass. “Chloe!” When I woke up again, it was evening. My heart was still hammering against my ribs, the suffocating terror of confinement still lingering from my dreams. My movement woke Liam, who was dozing in the chair beside the hospital bed. “Chloe, you’re finally awake! You terrified me. The doctor said being in a confined space for too long, combined with extreme emotional distress, caused hypoxia and made you pass out.” “She really does want to apologize. You know she’s been spoiled since she was a kid, she doesn’t know where the line is sometimes. But she didn’t mean any real harm. Please don’t hold this against her, okay?” In his desperate, rapid-fire rambling, there wasn’t a single shred of concern about whether this trauma would permanently worsen my claustrophobia. Only excuses for her. I looked at him. I looked at the face I had loved for so many years, a face that now felt completely alien to me. Tears suddenly spilled down my cheeks. “I’m not angry. I just feel profound regret. I never, ever should have dated you.” He froze. He opened his mouth to speak, but his phone screen lit up. Seeing the name [Chloe B.], Liam instantly swallowed his emotions. “I need to step out for a second. Get some rest. I’ll be right back.” He walked out quickly. Driven by a morbid impulse, I pulled myself out of bed and followed him. Through the crack in the heavy fire doors of the stairwell… I saw him sitting next to Chloe. “It’s okay, stop beating yourself up. She won’t be mad. She always gets over it.” Chloe punched him lightly on the arm. “If she can’t even handle this, imagine if she knew you only asked her out because we made a bet! A bet on whether you could get her to sleep with you in a month! She’d absolutely lose her mind!” In that split second, it felt like a bomb detonated inside my skull. Besides a deafening ringing, I couldn’t hear a single thing. Liam covered her mouth, looking around nervously. “Shh! Keep your voice down! That was years ago, take that to your grave!” My legs gave out. It felt like every bone in my body had been vaporized; I couldn’t even stand. The questions that had tormented me for years finally had their answers. Why, when forced to choose between the two of us, I was always the one discarded. Why Liam, who swore he loved me, could stand by and watch her hurt me over and over again. I had been stupid enough to believe he was just naturally non-confrontational and didn’t know how to say no to a friend. I never imagined that every single thing he gave me was a lie. Even what I thought was our beautiful, cinematic meet-cute… was just a predatory bet, and I was the prey. To them, I was never Liam’s girlfriend. I was just a pathetic clown performing for their amusement. In that moment, every last shred of my dignity was annihilated. I clamped my hand over my trembling mouth. I had to leave. Leave this suffocating, fraudulent nightmare. I took a cab back to the hotel, grabbed my luggage, and headed straight for the airport. I changed my ticket to the earliest available international flight. Right before takeoff, a message from Liam popped up on my screen: 【The doctor said you need to stay overnight for observation. Don’t wander off. Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.】 Looking at his hypocritical, sickening concern, I laughed until there were tears in my eyes. I didn’t reply. I blocked his number, blocked Chloe’s number, and deleted every single mutual friend we shared. Liam. I’m officially tapping out of your sick little game.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400797”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was the third month since Declan and I had gotten remarried. I found a dried, dark red bloodstain on the soft leather cushion of his car seat. Declan raised an eyebrow, his tone incredibly casual. “She was a virgin.” Unlike my usual hysterical, screaming meltdowns, I simply asked in a gentle voice, “Should I have this detailed?” Later, while accompanying Declan to an elite socialite gathering, his friends loudly discussed the young college girl he had been keeping on the side. “Dec, man! The girl you’re keeping is actually a virgin? And in the car, no less? You really know how to have a good time!” Someone whispered a warning: “Keep it down, man. His wife is right here.” But the guy purposely raised his voice even louder: “What wife? After the divorce, she couldn’t handle being broke. She came crawling right back, begging Dec to remarry her. All that ‘pride’ and ‘dignity’ shattered into a million pieces the exact second her family went bankrupt!” Faced with the overwhelming, public humiliation… I maintained a perfectly elegant smile, sipping my champagne. I didn’t lose my mind and start screaming curses at them like I used to. On the ride home, I closed my eyes to rest. Declan frowned, interrogating me. “Chloe, why didn’t you say anything back to those insulting comments tonight?” He had probably forgotten that the last time I screamed myself hoarse fighting back against them, the result was the total annihilation of my family’s business and a set of divorce papers. I had my AirPods in, my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Declan sighed, a hint of helplessness in his voice. “The jokes they made today were definitely out of line. No matter what, you are my wife. They should have given you basic respect.” He paused, then continued: “That college girl… she comes from a desperately poor family. Her mother is severely ill and needs money for life-saving surgery. It’s just a transaction. We both get what we need. There are no real feelings involved. Even if there were, she could never threaten your position as my wife.” It was a rare explanation from him. But in that moment, I couldn’t find the energy to care. Seeing no reaction from me, he raised his voice. “Chloe, are you listening to me?” “I’m listening.” My tone was completely exhausted, but I could still feel Declan’s probing, analyzing gaze landing heavily on me. When I opened my eyes to look at him, I reverted to the perfect, docile obedience I had cultivated lately. “Didn’t you tell me before that when they say those things, there’s no real malice behind it? That I shouldn’t be so petty and hold grudges?” “That girl is quite pitiful, and she doesn’t have much life experience. You should be gentle with her.” I thought that by echoing exactly what Declan wanted to hear, he would nod in satisfaction and praise me for being a good, obedient wife. But to my utter shock, the last remaining trace of a smile completely vanished from his face. The luxury car violently slammed to a halt on the side of the road. Declan’s voice dropped several degrees. “Chloe, I honestly have no idea what kind of tantrum you’re throwing right now.” I froze. I slowly took out my AirPods. “Declan, I haven’t thrown a single tantrum all night.” “Could you really not tell that I was wishing you two the best?” My perfectly logical answer didn’t extinguish his inexplicable, sudden rage. Instead, those words seemed to pour gasoline directly onto the fire. He ground his teeth together as he spat out my name: “CHLOE STERLING!” I looked at Declan, quietly waiting to see what he would do next. Suddenly, a torrential downpour unleashed over the city. The massive raindrops violently smashed against the car windows. The atmosphere inside the car became even more suffocating and oppressive with the pounding of the rain. Just a split second before Declan’s temper was about to explode, a frail, pathetic figure frantically trying to escape the rain on the sidewalk abruptly entered his line of sight. It only took one second. His explosive rage was forcefully swallowed by an overwhelming, visible wave of extreme anxiety. His face turned as dark as a storm cloud as he ordered me out of the car. I didn’t act like I used to—I didn’t get teary-eyed, and I didn’t scream, asking him why. I simply did exactly as he commanded and stepped out into the storm. The freezing rain ruthlessly battered my body. It stung. A few moments later, Declan stepped out of the car too. His jaw was clenched tight. Holding an umbrella, he walked directly toward that fragile, shivering silhouette. There was no conversation. He simply, dominantly grabbed the girl by the wrist and pulled her toward the car. I had heard people whispering about her. This girl’s name was Serena Vance. Suddenly, a conversation from a young couple walking behind me drifted into my ears. The girl frowned, her face full of hesitation. “A tattoo… is it going to hurt really badly?” The boy affectionately pulled her into his arms. “If you’re scared of the pain, we won’t get it.” Hearing that, the tattoo I got on the side of my waist when I was eighteen suddenly felt like it was burning. That tattoo was the wildly romantic, impulsive proof of my and Declan’s first love as teenagers. It’s just a tragic shame that the romance only survived until our third year of marriage. When I discovered his very first affair, my entire world instantly collapsed. Three years into our marriage. The brand-new executive assistant he had hired less than a month ago climbed into his bed. The image of their intertwined, naked bodies on the sheets felt like countless, brutal slaps directly to my face. I cried until I choked, acting like an absolute lunatic, screaming the most vicious, venomous curses in the world at the two of them. Declan calmly absorbed my screaming. “In elite society, a man having women on the side is the most normal thing in the world. Besides, didn’t your own father cheat on your mom when you were just a year old? Your mother played blind for decades. She never told you a word about it until the day she died. And didn’t you all just keep living your lives?” “Chloe, be smart. Grow up. Don’t scream and shout like a crazy person and ruin my mood.” In that exact moment, my blood practically froze in my veins. The curses I was about to scream got stuck in my throat. I couldn’t spit them out, and I couldn’t swallow them down. The man who had once loved me to the absolute marrow of his bones was now callously using the deepest, most agonizing trauma of my entire life just to shut me up. Chapter 2 By the time I finally made it back to the estate, it was midnight. The moment I pushed the heavy front doors open, the girl lounging on the sofa instantly jolted awake, looking like a startled deer. She was exactly Declan’s current type. Pure, beautiful, young. Yet, on her innocent face was a stubborn, unyielding defiance. I was soaked from the freezing rain, my head spinning with a fever. Yet, I forced a perfect, graceful smile onto my face. I considerately called the head housekeeper and told him to go upstairs and prepare a luxury guest suite for her. Seeing the tubes of medicinal ointment and the chaotic, messy aftermath scattered across the coffee table… I knew exactly how wild Declan had been with her. I let out a silent sigh, turned around, and walked upstairs. After we remarried, I proactively requested separate bedrooms. As I walked past his master suite, I heard him sharply, aggressively interrogating his executive assistant, Arthur. “Why the hell was Serena working a part-time job in the pouring rain today?! Didn’t I tell you to wire a million dollars into her account?!” I have no idea how Arthur replied, and I had absolutely no desire to know. At 3:00 AM, my head was splitting open, making it impossible to sleep. I decided to go downstairs to grab some Tylenol. But as I reached the landing, I saw Declan. He had both hands pressed against the wall on either side of Serena, aggressively trapping her. Her face was flushed bright red. He was forcefully demanding she make three promises. “Promise me you will take care of your body.” “Promise me you will spend my money every single day.” “Promise me you will love me forever.” But after making the promises, Serena looked incredibly aggrieved. “You’re wearing the wedding ring you gave to your wife, but you’re forcing me to say these things. What am I to you? Just a mistress?” Hearing this, Declan let out a mocking scoff. He pulled off the custom wedding band he had personally designed years ago and casually tossed it directly into the trash can. “Are you satisfied now?” The dizzying wave of nausea from my high fever made my stomach violently churn. I stumbled back, awkwardly shutting my bedroom door, and collapsed back onto the mattress. I pressed my hand hard against my chest. My heart felt like it was being carved open by a serrated knife. But in the end, the tears still pathetically betrayed me, slipping down my cheeks. Before we remarried, I naively thought that as long as I didn’t look, as long as I didn’t listen, everything would be fine. As long as I could get my mother’s heirloom back, I didn’t care if I had to play deaf and blind. But in this exact moment, I finally realized that some feelings are simply impossible to control. I knew my fever was spiking, but masochistically, I forced myself to endure it. Just endure it a little longer. I don’t know if I actually fell asleep, or if the fever just caused me to hallucinate. I dreamt of eighteen-year-old Declan. The summer right after high school graduation. We had finally thrown off the crushing weight of our college prep classes, traded our stiff school uniforms for mature suits and elegant evening gowns, and went to the highest revolving restaurant in the city. There, he formally and solemnly confessed his love to me for the very first time. The night sky couldn’t hide his flushed, nervous face. In front of those massive floor-to-ceiling windows, we were wild and passionate, over and over again. When we were finally exhausted, he pointed up at the moon and swore an oath. He swore he would love me for the rest of his life. It’s a tragic shame. Oaths are never eternal. And neither is love. When I opened my eyes again, I was greeted by the familiar stark white walls and the sterile smell of antiseptic. “What exactly is the point of treating your own body like garbage? You have a massive fever, you refuse to take medication, and you just suffer through it alone in your room. Does that accomplish anything?” Declan’s tone was entirely devoid of politeness, dripping with heavy, undisguised mockery. In the past, if I caught even a mild seasonal cold, Declan would be an absolute nervous wreck. Back then, he would frown in deep distress, pressing his warm palm against my forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Did you take your meds? Does your head hurt? Do you want some water?” But now. I stared at Declan for a very long time. In the depths of his eyes, there were so many complex emotions. Sarcasm. Mockery. Disdain. The only thing missing was even a single shred of heartache. My heart felt like it was being roasted over an open, nameless flame. Before we remarried, I had warned myself a million times in my head: Do not ever beg for Declan’s love again. I forced a flawless smile. “I’m sorry. I wasted your time. Honestly, having the housekeeper drop me off at the hospital would have been perfectly fine.” Declan raised an eyebrow, seemingly caught off guard by my completely passive attitude. I still vividly remember the day we remarried. He stood outside the courthouse, smiling with arrogant, absolute superiority. “See? Without me, you are absolutely nothing. You can’t pay off your family’s massive debts. You can’t afford to eat at high-end restaurants. Hell, the place you were renting was worse than the servant’s quarters at my estate.” “I protected you too well all these years. You never had to suffer. You had no idea how brutal the real world is. I actually wanted to keep spoiling you, but your demands just kept piling up. So much so that I started to despise you.” “If, after we remarry, you can fix that pathetic temper and personality of yours… that would be ideal.” Well, I fixed it. I no longer clung to him, begging him to do childish things with me. I no longer demanded he check in with me every day. I stopped checking his phone. I stopped acting cute and vulnerable around him. And right now, I no longer needed his concern. Methodically slicing away a passionate, genuine love, piece by piece, is a long, excruciatingly agonizing process. Fortunately, in this exact moment, I felt like I was finally about to succeed. After finishing my IV drip and returning home, Serena came bursting out of Declan’s home office. Her eyes were bloodshot as she blocked my path at the top of the stairs. “Did you post these photos on the university forum?!” “Ms. Sterling, I honestly thought you were exactly as indifferent as you act!” “I never imagined you were this vicious!” “If Declan hadn’t caught it early, my life would have been completely destroyed by you!” Her shrill, piercing voice echoed violently through the hallway, incredibly grating on the ears. A stack of glossy photographs was violently hurled directly into my face. I glanced down. The explicit nature of the photos was so extreme that just a single glance would make anyone blush. I patiently explained: “Ms. Vance, I don’t even know what university you attend. How could I possibly post these photos?” But Serena had completely lost her mind. She sobbed hysterically and lunged at me, using every ounce of her strength to beat me. “Who else hates me this much besides you?! You hate the fact that Declan doesn’t love you! You hate the fact that he treats me well! So you used this disgusting method to destroy me!” Her fists, fast and heavy, rained down on me. I instinctively raised my arms to block the blows. But the next second, her foot missed a step. As she panicked and lost her balance, she made sure to grab onto me to break her fall. A terrifying, dizzying wave of weightlessness and sheer terror exploded through my system. My back slammed brutally against the floor. After a sickening, heavy THUD, my body finally stopped falling. Pain, like a torrential tidal wave, instantly rushed through every nerve in my body. In my hazy, semi-conscious state, I heard footsteps rushing toward us. Fast. Frantic. Declan’s voice was laced with absolute terror and incoherent panic. But the piercing, high-pitched ringing in my ears made it impossible to understand what he was saying. The last time I heard Declan sound this panicked… Was the day I discovered my father cheating. I was crying, screaming for justice for my mother, and my father delivered a brutal, resounding slap across my face. Declan had instantly stepped in, shielding me behind his back. He repeatedly, frantically checked to make sure I was okay, and then used the massive corporate leverage of his family’s empire to force my father to bow his head and apologize to me. The piercing ringing in my ears finally began to fade, and Declan’s words finally became clear. “Chloe, you are absolutely disgusting.” “I literally just finished scrubbing those photos off the internet to protect your reputation, and now you’re trying to murder her.” Declan’s words crashed down like a thunderbolt, completely and violently shattering the illusion of the dream I had just been living in. My explanation was weak and pathetic. My voice trembled uncontrollably from the agonizing pain. “It really wasn’t me…” But Declan refused to listen to a single word I said. Before he carried Serena out the door, I fought with everything I had to swallow my sobs. Suppressing my fading consciousness, I called out to him. “Declan, the auction tomorrow…” Declan’s body stiffened for a fraction of a second. His voice was pure, teeth-grinding fury. “I’ll go. But only on the condition that Serena is completely fine.” The heavy front doors slammed shut with a deafening crash. Only then did the terrified servants finally dare to scream and call 911. The next day, completely ignoring the doctor’s orders, I snuck out of the hospital. Early this morning, Arthur, Declan’s assistant, had texted me. He said Declan had arranged for Serena to undergo a massive, full-body medical workup. All her vitals were perfectly normal. She just had a minor sprain in her ankle. While feeling a wave of relief, I desperately tried to comfort myself in my own mind. He’s going to come. He’ll definitely come. But standing outside the auction house, watching the crowds of people come and go, I never saw that familiar silhouette. I waited from sunset until the moonlight washed over the pavement. The person I was desperately hoping for never showed up. Winter in New York is brutal. The biting, freezing, damp wind whipped relentlessly across my body. My body and my soul were both agonizingly numb. A voice in the very depths of my heart kept tirelessly repeating: He’s not coming. Tears welled up, spinning in my eyes. Even taking a breath sent sharp, stabbing pain through my chest. “Mrs. Pierce? Why are you still standing out here?” I turned my head stiffly. The moment I saw Arthur, a tiny, pathetic shred of hope inexplicably flared up in my heart. I grabbed his hand frantically, my words tumbling out in a mess. “Did… did Declan send you to bid at the auction?” Under my eyes, burning with desperate expectation, Arthur slowly nodded. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through the list of items Declan had ordered him to win today. Out of thirty-two lots, Declan had Arthur successfully bid on thirty-one. My eyes, filled with desperate hope, scanned all the way down to the final line. I never saw the jade bracelet. The blood that had just begun to boil in my veins instantly froze solid. In a fraction of a second, I realized I was the biggest joke in the world. “Today is Ms. Vance’s birthday. They’re throwing a massive party at the estate. Mr. Pierce was in a rush to get these items back to surprise her, so he paid a massive premium to have the auction house expedite the entire process…” “As for the jade bracelet… Ms. Vance said items that belonged to dead people were bad luck. So she told him to pass on that lot…” I stood in the freezing, biting wind. My face was completely numb from the cold. I had lost count of how many times tears had blurred my vision today. Only one thought remained in my mind: Declan broke his promise. I didn’t get my mother’s heirloom back. This entire remarriage had lost its only meaning. I don’t know how much time passed. I stiffly pulled out my phone and sent Declan a single text: “Declan. Let’s get a divorce.” The message said Delivered. The reply was almost instantaneous: “Suit yourself.” Suddenly, someone roughly slammed their shoulder into mine. “Are you Declan Pierce’s wife?” I honestly didn’t know whether to nod or shake my head. But the person suddenly pulled out the exact jade bracelet I had been dreaming of getting back.

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On the first Monday back after the holidays, the entire company was in a frenzy, sprinting to hit our Q1 targets. Except for me. I was blatantly staring out the window, lost in thought. No one bothered me. Because last year, I was the sole reason the company’s revenue spiked by thirty million dollars. The CEO himself had granted me a special privilege: “You can do whatever the hell you want.” But our newly hired Director of Operations didn’t know that. He smashed my personal laptop in front of the entire floor and demanded I pay a three-thousand-dollar fine to set an example. I didn’t say a word. I just made one phone call, packed up my desk, and walked out. The very next morning, my former CEO drove to my apartment himself, begging me to come back to work. Because the number I dialed yesterday… Belonged to the private cell phone of his biggest rival’s CEO. On the first Monday back after the New Year, the whole company was scrambling. I was the only one leaning against the window, staring at the skyline. Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed down the hallway. Someone was trying very hard to make their presence known. “Just her?” “Yes, Mr. Thorne. This is our ‘special’ employee, Elena Vance.” I recognized the second voice. It was Derek Hayes, the recently promoted Deputy Director. I turned around. A man in his early thirties was standing in front of me. Derek trailed right behind him. Both men stood with the exact same arrogant, puffed-out posture. Derek tipped his chin up. “Elena, this is our newly appointed Director of Operations, Marcus Thorne.” Marcus didn’t say hello. His eyes landed on the laptop resting on the windowsill behind me. “Yours?” I didn’t answer. Derek immediately stepped forward. “Mr. Thorne, that’s her personal laptop. She refuses to use the company-issued hardware…” Before Derek could finish his sentence, Marcus reached out and picked up my laptop. “So, if you use your own laptop, that gives you the right to zone out during company time?” He raised his arm high. And let go. The laptop slammed against the hardwood floor. The sound of the screen shattering was crisp and deafening. The entire open-plan office instantly plunged into a dead silence. Marcus stepped right over the shards of glass and walked up to me. “Elena, I hear your numbers were great last year. That was last year. It’s a new fiscal year, which means new rules.” Derek immediately threw gasoline on the fire. “Mr. Thorne, she’s always acting entitled! Just because she closed a few deals, she never attends team-building events. Slacking off on the most important day of the quarter? She needs to be disciplined!” Marcus pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and shoved it in my face. It was a memo on the company’s Slack channel. Posted three days ago by Marcus Thorne. “Read it carefully,” he sneered. “Rule number three: Anyone caught slacking during business hours will be fined a hundred dollars. Anyone publicly violating company policy and causing a severe negative impact will face aggravated penalties, starting at one thousand dollars.” He pocketed his phone. “Your behavior constitutes a severe negative impact. You are fined three thousand dollars. Pay it to the finance department by the end of the day. If you can’t pay it, pack your shit and get out.” I looked down at the shattered remains of my laptop. Then, I pulled out my phone and dialed Richard Sterling, our CEO. He answered on the second ring, sounding surprised. “Elena? Happy New Year…” I cut him off. “Richard, the new Director of Operations just smashed my laptop and demanded I pay a three-thousand-dollar fine, or I’m fired. I’m just calling to confirm: is this your directive?” The line went dead silent for two seconds. Then, Richard’s voice spiked. “What?! Marcus did what? Hold on, I’m calling him right now!” I hung up. Marcus and Derek were still standing there. Marcus had a smug smirk on his face. “Calling the CEO? Cute. I’ll wait.” He turned and started walking toward his glass-walled office. After a few steps, he glanced back. “Derek, stay here and keep Ms. Vance company while we wait.” Five minutes later, the phone in Marcus’s office rang. He picked it up, murmured a few words, and his posture visibly relaxed. When he hung up, he walked back out, hands shoved deep into his tailored pockets, looking down his nose at me. “Keep waiting.” Just two words. Then, he and Derek strolled off down the corridor. A second later, my phone vibrated. Richard Sterling. I answered. Richard’s voice was suddenly diplomatic, even laced with a nervous little chuckle. “Elena, hey… I just got off the phone with Marcus to get his side of the story. He said you were slacking off, just staring out the window first thing in the morning?” I didn’t say a word. “Look, he’s new, he’s trying to establish some discipline for the good of the company. Your numbers were beautiful last year, but it’s a fresh start. You need to get your head back in the game. Are you… maybe overreacting a little? Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. We’re all on the same team here.” My knuckles turned white as I gripped the phone. I looked down the hall. Marcus and Derek were standing by the corner, sharing a victorious, mocking laugh. I looked at my shattered computer on the floor and spoke softly. “I understand, Richard.” My phone buzzed against my ear. A text from a headhunter: [Victor Cole from Vanguard Tech is asking if you’ve made a decision yet?] I swiped the notification away. I didn’t reply. The next afternoon, the company held its Q1 kickoff meeting. The massive conference room was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with employees. I sat in the very last row, pressed against the wall. I had two Band-Aids wrapped around my fingers from picking up the glass yesterday. Marcus stood at the podium, his suit buttoned tight. Behind him, the projector displayed a massive, bold title: [New Beginnings. New Rules. New Heights.] He grabbed the microphone, scanning the crowd before locking his eyes directly on my section of the room. “I am well aware that this company used to harbor certain ‘special’ employees. People who relied on past achievements to stroll in late, leave early, skip team events, and treat company policy like a joke.” The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Marcus brought the mic closer to his mouth, raising his voice. “Starting today, all special privileges are revoked! Every single employee will clock in, attend meetings, and submit daily and weekly performance reports!” He paused, his gaze pinning me to the wall like a dagger. “And that includes those who think they are above the law.” A few people in the front row started clapping. Derek stood up, clapping louder than anyone else, repeatedly turning around to sneer at me. A smattering of nervous applause followed. I didn’t move a muscle. When the meeting ended, the crowd began to filter out. I was the last one to stand up. Just as I reached the door, Derek jogged up to me, clutching a pink slip of paper. “Elena, hold up.” He slapped the slip directly onto my chest. “Three thousand dollars. Pay it to finance before you clock out today, or it counts as a no-show. Mr. Thorne said rules are rules. No exceptions.” I glanced down at the penalty slip, then back up at his smug face. “My computer is smashed. How exactly am I supposed to work?” Derek’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “Was it a company computer? Figure it out yourself. Since you love using your own gear so much, just go buy a new one. It’s not like you’re broke.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his head. “Oh, by the way. Your desk has been moved to the spot by the restrooms. We need your old office for a new senior hire starting this afternoon. Better start packing.” I didn’t argue. I walked past him and headed into the bullpen. When I reached my desk, I bent down and started pulling things out of my drawers. A few notebooks, my coffee mug, a box of unopened pens, and the crystal trophy I was awarded at last year’s gala. Engraved on the glass: Apex Innovations – Employee of the Year. I placed the trophy into a cardboard box. I could feel the eyes of my coworkers on me. They would steal quick glances and immediately look away when I turned. Marcus strolled down the aisle, stopping about ten feet away. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Derek, crossing his arms and watching me pack. I carried my box toward the back of the floor, to the cramped desk right next to the bathrooms. The desk was tiny, covered in a layer of dust. Two massive boxes of printer paper were stacked in the corner, smelling faintly of mildew. I set my box down. At 2:00 PM, I was called into the HR office. The HR manager didn’t even look up as she slid a clipboard across the desk. “Elena, Mr. Thorne has assigned you to reorganize the basement storage archives this afternoon. Character-building exercise. Everyone has to do it.” I took the clipboard. The basement was a windowless dungeon, packed to the ceiling with expired legal files, broken office chairs, and promotional t-shirts from five years ago. I spent the entire afternoon hauling boxes alone. The sharp edges of the cardboard sliced into my hands, drawing fresh blood. I blindly wrapped them in paper towels and kept lifting. By 7:00 PM, I was finally home. I didn’t even bother turning on the lights. I collapsed onto my sofa, opened my contacts, and scrolled down to [Victor Cole]. My thumb hovered over the call button. I suddenly remembered what Richard Sterling had told me at the company gala last year. He was holding a glass of champagne, his face flushed with alcohol and success, patting my shoulder and laughing so hard I could see his molars. “Elena! From now on, whatever you want, you get it! The company rules don’t apply to you. You ARE the rule!” I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh and locked my phone. The next morning, I had barely sat down at my dusty desk by the restrooms when footsteps echoed down the hall. Marcus led the charge, holding a manila folder. Derek flanked him like a loyal guard dog. They stopped right in front of me. Marcus tossed the folder onto my desk. A few pages slid out, scattering across my keyboard. “Elena. This is the Q4 audit report on the accounts you managed last year. Several of the financial metrics don’t add up. We strongly suspect you fabricated your performance numbers. The company is launching a formal investigation. You are suspended pending the results.” I looked down at the papers. I knew those numbers backward and forward. I could recite them in my sleep. But the spreadsheets in front of me had been completely doctored. The gross revenue was slashed by 30%. Operating costs were inflated by 20%. The net profit margin was literally in the red. Derek stepped up beside my chair, crossing his arms, his voice dripping with venomous glee. “Elena, I never thought I’d see the day. You were so high and mighty last year. The CEO practically served you tea himself. Look at you now.” The surrounding coworkers kept their heads down, but the frantic clicking of their keyboards noticeably slowed. Everyone was listening. I looked up, staring dead into Marcus’s eyes. “Are you sure you want to play this game?” Marcus stood up straight, stepped around my chair, and leaned in close. His voice dropped to a sinister whisper only I could hear. “Let me spell it out for you, Elena. Richard doesn’t give a damn about you anymore. I had drinks with him last night. He told me he paid you way too much last year and it went to your head. This is my company now.” He stood back up, casually dusting off his immaculate suit jacket. “Pack your things. Don’t bother coming in during the investigation. Hand over your keycard.” I didn’t move. I could feel the stares of everyone on the floor. Pity. Indifference. Most of them were just enjoying the free entertainment. I slowly stood up from my chair. I reached into my bag and pulled out my phone. Right in front of Marcus’s smug face, I opened my contacts, found the number I had left uncalled for three months, and hit dial. It rang twice. A deep, steady voice answered. “Elena? You finally decided to call.” “Victor. I accept your terms.” The line was quiet for exactly one second before a rich laugh echoed through the speaker. “Excellent! I’ve been waiting three months for those words. I’ll send a car to pick you up tomorrow at 8:00 AM.” I hung up. Marcus stood completely still. The arrogant smile hadn’t fully faded from his face, but his eyes were suddenly laced with uncertainty. Derek leaned in and whispered frantically, “Mr. Thorne, who did she just call?” Marcus ignored him, glaring daggers at me. I started packing my bag. There really wasn’t much to take. My laptop was already dead. I shoved a few notebooks into my purse. Then, I picked up the heavy crystal Employee of the Year trophy. I walked right past Marcus without a second glance. As I reached the elevator banks, Marcus’s voice echoed down the hall, intentionally loud enough for the whole floor to hear. “Let her posture! What kind of waves does she think she can make?” Derek laughed loudly, the sound bouncing off the walls. I didn’t look back. THUD. I tossed the crystal trophy directly into the metal trash can by the elevators. That afternoon, I put my phone on silent and tossed it into my purse. Derek called me five times. I didn’t answer a single one. At that exact moment, I was sitting in a luxury boardroom on the 27th floor of Vanguard Tech’s global headquarters. Sitting across from me was Victor Cole. He personally poured me a cup of artisan tea. “The paperwork is all finalized. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM, my driver will be downstairs.” I picked up the teacup. “Perfect.” Meanwhile, back at Apex Innovations, Derek was pacing nervously outside Marcus’s office, clutching his phone. “Mr. Thorne, she’s not answering.” Marcus didn’t even look away from his monitors. “Let her ignore us. What is she going to do, destroy the company?” “But the audit file…” Marcus waved his hand dismissively. “Have someone else redo it. I’m glad she’s gone. I was sick of looking at her. She’s just a sales rep who thinks she’s a god.” Derek opened his mouth, swallowed his words, and walked away. The next morning. 7:58 AM. Richard Sterling walked into the Apex executive conference room holding a mug of black coffee. The long table was packed with department heads. The projector was humming. The morning sync was about to begin. The second he sat down, his phone started vibrating. Message after message. He frowned and opened the first text. [Industry Breaking News: Apex Innovations’ Star Rainmaker Elena Vance Officially Joins Vanguard Tech as General Manager of Strategic Development.] Attached was a high-res photo of me shaking hands with Victor Cole. All the color drained from Richard’s face. The coffee mug slipped from his trembling hand, crashing onto the mahogany table. Hot coffee splattered everywhere. Everyone in the boardroom stared at him in shock. He ignored them. His fingers shook violently as he dialed my number. [The number you have dialed is currently powered off.] He immediately dialed Victor Cole. It rang twice before Victor answered, his voice dripping with amusement. “Richard! How’s the new quarter treating you?” “Victor! What the hell are you playing at?! Elena signed a non-compete agreement with us!” Victor let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Richard, when she closed her first mega-deal for you, you publicly declared that the rules didn’t apply to her. A verbal waiver takes precedence. Everyone in the industry knows you said it.” “And as for that non-compete… you might want to check with your HR department. Are you absolutely certain you actually had her sign one?” “Don’t be so arrogant, Richard.” Richard’s phone nearly slipped from his sweaty grip. Victor added one final, twisting knife. “Oh, by the way. Thanks for hand-delivering me your best weapon.”

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My younger brother put someone in the hospital, and the victim’s family demanded $20,000 to drop the charges. To raise the money, my parents tried to force me into an arranged marriage to collect a dowry. I refused. I went to my boyfriend and begged him to lend me the $20,000. Not only did he refuse, but he verbally humiliated me in front of all his friends. Without the money, my parents dragged me back home by force. In my desperate attempt to escape, I almost died. After I survived, terrified that my parents would track me down again, I legally changed my name, moved across the country, and cut ties with every single person I knew. In this new city, I started over. I got married, had a daughter, and built a life. Just when I thought I would live happily ever after, my husband’s tech startup was suddenly and maliciously targeted, pushing us to the brink of bankruptcy. My daughter, Lily, was crying, demanding to FaceTime her dad. I tried calling Arthur at least half a dozen times, but it kept going straight to voicemail. By the time I finally managed to coax Lily to sleep, it was past 10 PM. I stepped out of her bedroom and tried Arthur’s number again. Still voicemail. I texted him. No reply. I remembered him mentioning a high-stakes dinner meeting tonight, so I decided to wait a bit longer. But an hour later, there was still no text back. After another unanswered call, I dialed his executive assistant, Ben. Ben picked up almost immediately. “Hey, Anna. Calling pretty late, is everything okay?” “I can’t get ahold of Arthur. Did something happen to him?” “No, no, nothing like that. Arthur just… he had a bit too much to drink at the dinner, so he’s already passed out in his hotel room.” Ben’s voice sounded incredibly strained. Suspicious, I pressed him. “Let’s FaceTime. I just want to see him to make sure he’s okay.” Ben panicked. “No! We can’t!” “Why not?” “Um… well… I’m already in my own room, in bed. It’s been an insanely long day, and we have back-to-back meetings tomorrow. Please, Anna, have a heart, don’t make me get dressed and walk all the way down the hall.” “Ben, tell me the truth right now. Or I am booking the next flight out there to see for myself.” Knowing he couldn’t hide it anymore, Ben caved. “Arthur had a severe gastric hemorrhage. He’s at the hospital.” “Are you kidding me?! Why would you hide something this serious from me?!” “Arthur ordered me not to tell you!” “Text me the address of the hospital. I’m on my way.” After hanging up, Ben put his hands together in a prayer motion, looking at the unconscious Arthur on the hospital bed. “Boss, Anna is just too sharp. You can’t blame me for this when you wake up.” There were no flights out that late, so I booked the earliest Amtrak Acela ticket I could find. I threw a few changes of clothes into an overnight bag and rushed out the door. On the way to the station, I texted my mother-in-law, asking her to come over and watch Lily for a few days. When I finally arrived at the hospital, it was just past 6 AM. I grabbed some coffee and breakfast from the cafeteria downstairs before heading up. Arthur was in a private room. Ben was asleep on the uncomfortable vinyl chair bed next to him. Trying not to wake them, I quietly walked over to Arthur’s bed. His lips were cracked and peeling from dehydration. I slipped out of the room, found a vending machine, and bought a pack of cotton swabs. When I got back, Ben was awake. Seeing me, he whispered, “Anna, when did you get here?” “Just a few minutes ago. I brought breakfast. Eat up.” “Thanks, Anna.” I dipped a cotton swab in a cup of water and gently moistened Arthur’s lips. Then, I sat down and waited for Ben to finish his food. Once he was done, I asked, “I thought you guys flew out there to sign a contract? How does a contract negotiation end with a bleeding stomach in the ER?” Seeing him hesitate, I narrowed my eyes. “Arthur told you to keep your mouth shut about this too?” He nodded. “Ben, tell me exactly what he told you to hide. I’m here now. He won’t dare give you any crap for it.” That was exactly what Ben was waiting to hear. He spilled everything. “At the beginning of this month, three of our primary component suppliers abruptly terminated their contracts without cause. They just stopped shipping to us. “Without those components, our manufacturing grinds to a halt. We have massive fulfillment deadlines coming up. “Arthur tried meeting with them multiple times, but they stonewalled him. He spent the last two weeks desperately trying to find alternative suppliers, but every single firm in the industry suddenly refused to do business with us. It’s a total blacklist. “Finally, a few days ago, one supplier agreed to a sit-down. That was the dinner last night. “We had all the terms hammered out. But right at the end, the supplier brought out a bottle of hard liquor. He told Arthur that if he could drink him under the table, he’d sign the contract on the spot. “Arthur was so desperate to save the company, he agreed to the drinking contest. He drank until his stomach lining gave out.” “Someone is obviously coordinating this blacklist to destroy him. Do you have any idea who?” Ben shook his head. “No. Arthur said the only priority right now is keeping the company afloat. We can worry about who’s behind it later.” When Arthur finally woke up, the first thing he did was glare at Ben. “I told you to keep your mouth shut! Why did you…” I cut him off. “Don’t you dare yell at him! The company is falling apart and you hid it from me. You end up in the hospital and you hide it from me. You hide everything from me! Am I just some outsider to you?!” Arthur grabbed my hand, offering a weak, apologetic smile. “No, of course not. I just didn’t want you to stress out. I thought I could handle it.” “Handle it by drinking until your stomach bleeds?! How many times have I told you that no business deal is worth your health?! If something happens to you, what are Lily, your mom, and I supposed to do?!” My eyes welled up with tears. Arthur panicked and immediately started apologizing. “I know I messed up, honey. I promise, it will never happen again.” “You better remember that. If there’s a next time, I’m filing for divorce!” “There won’t be a next time. Please don’t say things like that.” Seeing him so pale and trying so hard to comfort me, my heart instantly softened. “Does your stomach hurt? Do you want me to get the doctor?” “No, I’m okay.” “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Ben, who had been trying to make himself invisible in the corner, chimed in. “Anna, the doctor said the boss can’t have any solid food for twenty-four hours.” Arthur added, “Stop worrying about me. You took the red-eye train out here, you must be exhausted. Let Ben take you to the hotel so you can get some sleep.” “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here to take care of you.” Arthur knew he couldn’t win that argument, so he let me stay. At 9:00 AM, Arthur picked up his phone and called the supplier from the night before. “Mr. Torres, it’s Arthur Davis. When would be a good time for you to sign that contract?” Torres’s voice came through the speaker, lazy and dismissive. “I don’t have any contract to sign with you.” “Last night, you explicitly said if I won the drinking contest, you’d sign.” “I did say that. But I’ve decided I don’t want to do business with you.” Arthur suppressed his anger and kept his tone professional. “Mr. Torres, business is built on trust. Going back on your word like this isn’t exactly ethical.” “Look, I never had any intention of signing with you. I just wanted to make you realize the reality of your situation. Unless you do exactly what he wants, you have zero options.” Torres seemed genuinely baffled as to why Arthur was risking his life when the solution was supposedly simple. Arthur gripped his phone tightly. “Understood. Then perhaps we can collaborate in the future.” “As long as that guy doesn’t give the green light, your company is dead in the water. Take my advice…” Arthur didn’t wait for Torres to finish. He hung up. “He backed out?” I asked. Arthur nodded. Ben was furious. “How can a CEO act like that?! He gave his word!” I was equally angry, but Arthur was surprisingly calm. “If he backs out, he backs out. We’ll just find someone else.” Arthur stayed in the hospital for two more days before being discharged. As soon as he was cleared, we took the train back to Boston. When we arrived, he dropped me off at the house and immediately headed straight to the office without even coming inside. Late that night, I woke up to feel him pulling me into his arms. Habit took over, and I rolled over, burying my face in his chest to go back to sleep. The next morning, I walked into the kitchen to find Arthur helping his mother make breakfast. Lily, who hadn’t seen him in almost a week, was clinging to his leg like a koala bear. He was struggling to walk, but he couldn’t bear to make her let go, so he just dragged his leg around the kitchen. When he saw me, he smiled. “You’re up. Breakfast is almost ready.” After we ate, we dropped Lily off at preschool together. He drove me back to the house before heading to the office, and then he came home surprisingly early that afternoon. It felt incredibly wrong. That night in bed, I finally asked him, “Why do you have so much free time today? Isn’t the company in crisis mode?” “I’ve already found a solution.” “What solution?” “I’m going to sell the company.” I sat bolt upright in bed. “Sell the company?! Why?!” Arthur sat up too, speaking slowly and deliberately. “I’ve been thinking about this since the crisis first started. I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger back then.” “Is it really beyond saving?” “I’ve exhausted every possible option. If I keep dragging this out, the financial hemorrhage is only going to get worse. Selling it now, while it still has some value, is the best move.” Arthur wrapped his arms around me. “As long as our family is together, nothing else matters.” The negotiations to sell the startup moved incredibly fast. But the night before he was scheduled to sign the acquisition paperwork, Arthur received a text from an unknown number. He was in the shower. His phone was on the nightstand, and the screen lit up with the message. I saw it. It read: Change your mind now, and your company can still be saved. When Arthur walked out of the bathroom, he saw me staring intensely at his phone. “What’s wrong?” I held the phone up. “What exactly does this text mean?” Arthur was furious internally. He had blocked the guy’s number, yet he kept buying burners to harass him! Like a ghost that wouldn’t leave him alone! “Do I really have to say?” If he didn’t want to tell me, that meant it involved me. “Yes. If you don’t tell me, I’m calling this number right now to ask.” “I don’t know exactly who he is. I just know he’s the one orchestrating the blacklist against my company. He called me a few weeks ago and told me that if I wanted the blacklist lifted, I had to divorce you. I told him to go to hell!” Arthur’s tone turned incredibly serious. “I can survive losing my company. I can always find another way to provide. But if I lose you, this family is destroyed.” The area code on the text was from New York. But it was a number I didn’t recognize. I only had a handful of ties to New York. Who could it be? “Let’s find out exactly who this is.” I dialed the number and put it on speaker. The person on the other end seemed to have been waiting by the phone. They picked up instantly. “Mr. Davis, have you finally come to your senses?” The second I heard that voice, I knew exactly who it was. But Arthur spoke first. “Who the hell are you? Why are you so obsessed with forcing me to get a divorce?” “You just need to follow the instructions. As for the rest…” “Eric.” I said his name coldly. The voice on the other end instantly fell silent. I continued, “Julian Sterling ordered you to do this, didn’t he?” Eric, Julian’s right-hand man, didn’t dare confirm it. He played dead on the line. “Give me Julian’s direct line,” I demanded. “I need to speak to him.” “I… I need to request authorization from Mr. Sterling first.” “Then go request it.” I hung up. Arthur looked at me. “Julian Sterling… is that the ex-boyfriend you told me about?” “Yes.” I hadn’t expected him to connect the dots so fast, but I wasn’t going to lie to him. Getting confirmation, Arthur looked deeply worried. Was Julian doing this for revenge? Or had he discovered the truth and wanted me back? Back in New York, Eric wanted to cry. This idiot Arthur actually called while Anna was right next to him! He’s going to get me killed! Eric dialed his boss’s number, bracing himself. “Mr. Sterling, Arthur Davis just called. Anna was with him. She recognized my voice. She asked for your direct line. Should I give it to her?” Julian’s voice was like glacial ice. “No. Tell her if she wants to talk, she has to come see me in person.” The line clicked dead. Eric shadow-boxed the air in frustration. “What a terrible attitude! No wonder she dumped you!” After his minor tantrum, Eric texted Arthur’s phone: Tell Ms. Anna that if she wishes to speak with Mr. Sterling, she must come to New York in person. Reading the text, I immediately pulled up a travel app. “We’re delaying the acquisition signing tomorrow. We’re going to New York to see Julian first.” “I’m not letting you go alone. I’m coming with you.” “Okay. We’ll go together.” The next day, Arthur and I took the train to New York and headed straight for Julian’s corporate headquarters. The front desk security refused to let us up, so I called Eric. Eric got the call, realized I was already in the lobby, and rushed to Julian’s office. “Mr. Sterling, Ms. Anna is downstairs. She’s demanding to see you.” “Tell her to wait.” Julian’s face was a mask of utter indifference, but the way his expensive fountain pen was practically tearing through the paper on his desk betrayed his internal chaos. Eric tried to sugarcoat it when he came down to the lobby. “Ms. Anna, Mr. Sterling is currently in a very important meeting. It’s going to be a little while.” “You answer my calls on the first ring, and you’re running messages back and forth in record time. Do you honestly expect me to believe he’s ‘in a meeting’?” Eric realized he was outmatched. He dropped the act and gave it to me straight. “Mr. Sterling said to tell you to wait.” “Is he standing right next to you?” “No.” “Take your phone and go to his office. I’m going to say one sentence to him.” “Just tell me, I’ll pass the message along.” “You really don’t want to be the middleman for this. If I just tell him directly, he won’t have the time to punish you for it.” Eric cautiously walked back into Julian’s massive corner office and nervously placed his phone on the mahogany desk. “Mr. Sterling, Ms. Anna is on the line.” He didn’t put it on speaker. After setting the phone down, he rapidly backed away, putting as much distance between himself and the desk as possible. He was not going to eavesdrop on anything above his pay grade! Julian picked up the phone and held it to his ear, saying nothing. Eric heard total silence from his end, but I knew Julian was listening. “I was pregnant with your child.” That single sentence hit Julian like a sledgehammer. The phone slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the hardwood floor. He didn’t care about the phone. He didn’t care about anything. He just needed to see Anna now. “I was pregnant with your child” looped endlessly in his brain. When Eric had first investigated Anna and reported that she was married with a five-year-old daughter, Julian had been consumed by a venomous rage. How could she dump him and immediately run off to marry someone else and start a family?! But now, the timeline clicked into place. The truth was highly likely that Anna had discovered she was pregnant with his child and, in a panic, was forced to find someone—anyone—to marry immediately! The more Julian thought about it, the more certain he became that this was the truth. A wave of overwhelming, ecstatic joy crashed over him. Watching Julian frantically sprint out of the office, almost tripping over his own expensive rug, Eric praised whatever god was listening that he hadn’t overheard the call. Then he remembered he had just bought that phone a few days ago. He rushed to the desk, picked it up, and inspected it meticulously. Finding no cracks, he clutched it to his chest. “Thank god.” I didn’t get a response after I dropped the bomb, but the chaotic sound of the phone hitting the floor, followed by the rapid, frantic clicking of dress shoes sprinting down a hallway, told me everything I needed to know. Julian was coming. Sure enough, minutes later, Julian appeared in the lobby, looking slightly disheveled despite his custom Tom Ford suit. Suppressing his intense emotional high, he forced a composed greeting. “Anna. It’s been a long time.”

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When my male neighbor found out I was a small business owner who only worked three hours a day, he rapid-fired sixty-eight text messages to me in the middle of the night. “I saw you bought more makeup. Who gave you permission to spend money like that?” “Don’t think you’re special just because you make good money! Let me remind you, your income needs to go toward supporting our future family!” I was completely bewildered, and naturally, my response wasn’t exactly polite. “That’s absolutely none of your business, is it?” The moment I sent that, he exploded. “How is it none of my business?! You’re going to be my wife! Every extra dollar you spend now is a dollar missing from my bank account!” “Also, about the dowry. We’re thinking eighty grand in cash and a brand new Audi A8. Have you saved up enough yet?” “Oh, and by the way, I’m not sexist or anything, but I want the perfect family. We must have both a son and a daughter!” He unleashed this insane barrage of texts, making my blood boil. I didn’t even bother replying; I just blocked his number immediately. But I never expected this guy to be a lingering nightmare. Days later, he showed up at my company as the lead project manager to negotiate a contract. Watching him sit across from me, confidently running his mouth and demanding endless concessions, I simply waved my hand. “I think we’re done here. Let’s cancel this partnership.” As soon as the words left my mouth, the atmosphere in the conference room plummeted below freezing. The smug smile on the face of my neighbor, Caleb Vance, instantly froze. The regional director who had come with him offered a panicked, apologetic smile and asked cautiously, “Ms. Evans, our collaboration on this project has been going perfectly so far.” “Why the sudden decision to terminate?” He rubbed his hands together nervously. “There must be a reason, right? Otherwise… it’s going to be very hard for me to explain this to the board!” I offered a dry, sarcastic smile, lazily pointing a finger at Caleb. “The reason is very simple. It’s because of him…” “Chloe Evans! Are you ever going to stop?!” Caleb violently shot up from his chair, slamming his palm against the conference table with a loud thud. He glared at me, his face red with anger. “There are a lot of people here today! I won’t say anything too harsh!” “If you want to throw little tantrums with me at home, fine!” “But today is a professional setting! Reel in your terrible attitude right now!” He then picked up the contract file and slammed it back down onto the table. “I’m finalizing this deal right now! It’s settled!” The regional director looked at Caleb with absolute awe, then frantically pushed the contract toward me. Conversely, my own managers sitting next to me were looking around in utter confusion. One of them opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand to stop him. I pressed my lips together into a thin line. “Caleb Vance, who the hell are you to me? What gives you the right to make decisions on my behalf?” “Do we even know each other?” A flash of intense embarrassment crossed Caleb’s eyes, but he stubbornly pushed through, attempting to soften his tone. “Alright, Chloe, stop being mad at me!” “There are people watching! I’m still your man!” “Can’t you at least leave me a little dignity?” Hearing that, every single person in the room gasped audibly. The regional director immediately jumped on the opportunity. “Ms. Evans, we totally understand that you and Caleb are having a little lover’s spat.” “But we’re on company time right now. We have to prioritize the work. You absolutely cannot let personal feelings ruin this deal!” Before he even finished his sentence, the conference room door swung open. Six security guards marched in in perfect formation. My executive assistant, who also happened to be my best friend, stood behind me and gestured to the guards, speaking with absolute coldness. “I’m sorry, but our CEO has spoken. This partnership is terminated.” “You can either leave on your own two feet, or I can have security escort you out.” The regional director was stunned. He frantically elbowed Caleb in the ribs, hissing, “Say something!” “Hurry up and sweet-talk your girlfriend! If this deal falls through, you know exactly what the consequences are!” Caleb grew even more aggressive. He reached out and grabbed my arm, his voice thick with irritation. “That’s enough!” “I tolerate it when you blow money on stupid things!” “Are you really trying to push me to the edge today?!” My patience had completely evaporated. I violently shoved him away. “Caleb, are you clinically insane?!” “We don’t even know each other! Doesn’t it feel completely pathetic to walk in here and announce yourself as my boyfriend?” The regional director’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Ms. Evans, please don’t say things you’ll regret in anger!” “Did Caleb do something to upset you? Please, just calm down! Calm down!” I found the entire situation hilariously absurd. “Is there something wrong with your ears, or am I not speaking English?” “I have absolutely zero relationship with Caleb Vance!” “He’s entirely delusional, trying to manifest his way into being my boyfriend!” “Chloe Evans!” Caleb roared, staring at me with bulging, furious eyes. “Don’t push it!” “Keep acting like this and I’ll break up with you!” Seeing that he was still completely submerged in his own psychotic fantasy, and having no desire to waste another second on him, I gave the order: “Escort them out.” As he was being dragged away, Caleb was still shouting threats. “You stupid bitch! You haven’t been put in your place for a few days and you’re getting itchy, aren’t you?!” “You dare disrespect me like this?! Just wait until we get home! I’ll beat the living hell out of you!” The regional director seemed to finally realize something was horribly wrong. He remained silent, his face dark as a thundercloud. Once the walking plague was finally gone, my assistant—my best friend, Maya—leaned in. “Chloe, who the hell was that guy?” “Is he a psychopath? Why was he calling himself your boyfriend?!” I rubbed my temples, completely exhausted. “I have no idea!” “He wasn’t this unhinged before.” “In fact, he initially acted like I was completely beneath him!” About six months ago, I moved back into an older, working-class apartment complex. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy. They asked me why, when I was so wealthy and owned a massive luxury condo downtown, I would choose to live in an old, inconvenient building. “I built my business from nothing. That apartment holds too many beautiful memories from my early struggle.” So, the very first thing I did when I made it big was buy back my old apartment. During my first week there, my neighbor, Mrs. Vance, brought her son over to introduce us. She even thoughtfully presented our “credentials” to each other. “This is Chloe. She’s twenty-seven. What did you say you did for a living again, sweetie?” We didn’t know each other well, so I just gave a vague, non-committal answer and laughed it off. I didn’t expect that the second I finished speaking, Caleb would flick his cigarette ash right by my feet. “Mom! How many times have I told you? Stop trying to set me up with these low-quality women!” “I’m a senior corporate executive! I know you want grandkids, but you can’t just drag any random nobody off the street and expect me to settle!” Finally, he looked me dead in the face and sneered mercilessly, “Bringing me out to look at trash like this is a total waste of my time.” The second he walked away, Mrs. Vance grabbed my hands, bowing repeatedly to apologize. “Chloe, I am so sorry! I raised a fool! Please don’t be angry!” “Let me apologize on his behalf!” I have a soft heart, and I can’t stand seeing an older woman grovel like that, so naturally, I didn’t hold it against her. But I never expected that, two days ago, Caleb would suddenly add me on the community WhatsApp group. “You’re Chloe, right?” “I’m your neighbor, Mrs. Vance’s son. Caleb!” At the time, I was reviewing contract details. The moment I saw his name, I knew he was the lead manager for the opposing firm. Just as I was preparing to shift into a professional gear to discuss the project details, a barrage of unhinged accusations flooded my screen. “My mom told me you run a small business and make decent money?” “What’s the point of making money? The important thing is knowing how to save it and hoard it!” “By the way, how is your fertility? Are you healthy? Are you still pure?” Staring at the endless stream of psychotic texts, I was completely shell-shocked. Remembering all this, I handed my phone to Maya. “Look at what he sent me.” Maya scrolled through the chat logs, her jaw dropping. “This guy is clinically insane.” Right at that moment, the CEO of Caleb’s company called my private line. His voice dripped with blatant flattery. “Ms. Evans, I was hoping to understand how our partnership suddenly fell apart.” “You’ve always been known for keeping business and personal matters strictly separate. Why let emotions dictate things today?” “Caleb told me all about the little spat between you two. If you ask me, couples fight, but it never lasts overnight…” “Mr. Davis.” I interrupted him, my patience completely gone. “I think you have a massive misunderstanding. I have absolutely no relationship with Caleb Vance!” “We don’t even know each other!” After I briefly explained the situation, I could feel the suffocating silence radiating through the phone. Sure enough, five minutes later, Mr. Davis sent me a photo. It was Caleb Vance’s termination notice. “Ms. Evans, I am deeply apologetic that something like this occurred. I have already fired Caleb!” “As for the profit margins, to make up for this unpleasantness, I am willing to concede an additional five percent.” “Regarding the contract, could we perhaps sit down and renegotiate?” He was showing immense sincerity, and it would be bad business to refuse. That very night, we set a time and booked a high-end restaurant. But just as I arrived at the restaurant entrance, Mrs. Vance suddenly grabbed my arm, her face drenched in tears. “Chloe, my son made a terrible mistake! He wronged you!” “But you can’t be this ruthless!” “At the end of the day, you two are husband and wife! What kind of grudge could possibly be this deep?!” Right beside her, Caleb dropped to his knees in front of a crowd of people, wrapping his arms around my calves in a vice grip. “Wife!” “I was wrong! I know I was wrong!” “Please, just forgive me, okay?” The restaurant entrance was busy, and pedestrians instinctively stopped, staring at us with insatiable curiosity. Caleb pressed his face desperately against my leg. The warm, damp sensation of his tears made me feel incredibly nauseous. “Wife! If you want to be mad at me, be mad! But why would you tell people we don’t know each other?!” Mrs. Vance aggressively joined the performance. She collapsed onto the sidewalk, slapping her thighs in dramatic, theatrical despair. “Oh, dear God!” “What sin did I commit in a past life to deserve this?!” “Chloe, have I been a bad mother to you?” “Why are you doing this?!” She sobbed loudly, addressing the growing crowd. “Everyone, look at this!” “Who has a more unfilial daughter-in-law than me?!” “Just because my son criticized her for spending too much money, not only did she tell everyone she doesn’t know him, but she actually made his boss fire him!” The moment she finished, the crowd didn’t even give me a chance to explain. They immediately turned their righteous fury on me. “That is disgusting! Getting your husband fired over a petty argument? If that was my wife, I would have beaten her half to death!” “You can tell just by looking at her face that she’s bad news. She looks like a gold-digger!” “Look at how glamorous she’s dressed, and look at her husband in cheap clothes. This woman is completely ungrateful!” I was burning with fury. I desperately tried to explain to the crowd, “I do not know this man!” “Please, someone call 911!” I was sweating profusely from panic, but someone in the crowd loudly voiced their doubts. “She doesn’t look like she’s faking it… maybe we should call the police?” “I agree, this seems like something the cops should handle!” “Chloe! Can you please stop this?!” Caleb looked at me with an expression of deep, tortured devotion. Then, he pulled two bright red, official-looking marriage certificates from his pocket. “She is my wife!” “We are legally married!” I stared at those two marriage certificates, completely dumbfounded. To ensure the crowd believed him, he flipped them open. “Look, the people in this photo are us.” “This is fake! I don’t even know him!” “Chloe! Has it really come to this?! Are you still refusing to forgive my son?” Mrs. Vance’s voice cracked, shrill with panic. “Do you want him to die right in front of you before you admit he’s your husband?!” I was losing my mind. All I could do was silently pray that someone had actually called 911 and that the police would arrive quickly. Caleb had one hand gripping my leg, and his other hand locked around my wrist. He leaned his entire body weight against me, dropping his voice so only I could hear. “Let me tell you right now, you are not escaping today!” “The one thing you women care about most is your reputation, right?” “I’m going to completely destroy your reputation. Let’s see if you submit to me then!” I turned my head and locked eyes with his venomous, psychotic glare. In a split second, his eyes filled with tears again. Before I could react, he grabbed my hand and started violently slapping his own face with it. “Wife! Hit me! Beat me to death!” “As long as you forgive me, I’ll do anything!” Mrs. Vance practically crawled to my feet. “Chloe! If you’re still angry, beat me!” “I’m old and useless! But I’m not blind!” “My only wish is to see you and Caleb living happily together!” My attempts to defend myself were instantly drowned out by the roar of the crowd’s condemnation. “This woman is absolute trash!” “Yeah, and the guy is an idiot too. Can’t he just divorce her?” “What do you know? That’s true love!” As the crowd swelled, all I could do was scream at the top of my lungs, “They are trying to kidnap me! Please, call 911!” “I really don’t know him!” Suddenly, a booming voice echoed from the crowd. “I can vouch for him!” “The woman standing right there…” Looking at that familiar face, a wave of relief washed over me. But a second later, he laughed and said: “Is 100% this man’s wife!” “They are a married couple!” My voice caught in my throat, coming out as a hoarse shriek. “You’re lying!” “Mr. Davis! You know exactly what my relationship with Caleb is! Why are you lying?!” Mr. Davis casually adjusted his expensive watch, speaking with absolute entitlement. “You’re the one lying, aren’t you?” “If Caleb hadn’t shown me your wedding photos, I really would have fallen for your act!” Caleb nodded in solemn agreement. “Thank you, Mr. Davis!” “If you hadn’t helped me trick Chloe into coming here, I really wouldn’t have known what to do!” “Chloe, please just be reasonable, okay? Forgive me, please?” “I know I messed up!” His grip on my wrist was brutal, the pain radiating up my arm making it hard to breathe. I had no idea where Caleb had hidden my phone during the scuffle. My last sliver of hope rested entirely on the crowd. “I swear to God, I don’t know him! Please, someone call 911!” There was a time when I would scroll through true crime videos online about women being kidnapped in broad daylight, and I could never understand why they couldn’t just run away. Now, living it in real time, I finally understood. In this kind of chaotic, overwhelming situation, compounded by Caleb’s manipulative victim-playing, Mrs. Vance’s hysterical crying, and a “credible” witness validating their story… It was nearly impossible for me to escape. Caleb gripped my wrist like a vice, a sickeningly smug smile on his face. “Stop wasting your energy! No one is going to believe you.” Sensing an opening, I lunged forward and bit down as hard as I could on his forearm. The metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth instantly, spreading rapidly. Caleb gasped in excruciating pain and instinctively shoved me to the ground. I broke free and scrambled to my feet, sprinting away as fast as I could. But the crowd was too thick, mostly comprised of men. They formed a human wall, physically blocking my path and refusing to let me through. “Everyone, help me stop her!” Furious, Caleb lunged forward and grabbed me again, dragging me back. Gritting his teeth, he delivered a brutal backhand slap across my face. “Bitch! I’m trying to give you an out and you spit in my face!” “You want to run?!” “Fine! Give me back my dowry and every single dollar I ever spent on you!” Mrs. Vance wailed theatrically, “This is marriage fraud! This is marriage fraud!” Hearing this, the crowd’s disgust toward me reached an absolute fever pitch. “This is literally a gold-digger in the flesh!” “Wow, this is wild! This woman has zero shame!” “How much money did you steal from him?! Pay him back right now!” I had barely opened my mouth to speak when Caleb delivered another vicious slap. “You dirty whore! I was completely blind to marry you!” Just as the words left his mouth, the wail of police sirens pierced the air in the distance. I let out a massive sigh of relief, using every ounce of energy I had left to scream for help. The police quickly pushed through the crowd and reached us. By this point, my face was swollen like a balloon, but I forced myself to stay conscious to report the incident. But the moment I managed to choke out the word “Officer,” the tears began falling like broken pearls. “My husb—” Before I could finish the sentence, Caleb stepped forcefully in front of me, lifting his chin arrogantly. “What?” “Are the police getting involved in domestic disputes now?” “I am simply disciplining my own wife!” The lead officer, his face carved from stone, stared at him. “You’re saying she’s your wife?” Caleb nodded arrogantly. “Obviously.” “Who gave you the right to— AHHHH! IT HURTS!” The officer’s hand clamped down like a steel trap on Caleb’s shoulder, violently spinning him around to face me. “Her name is Chloe Evans, and she is my legally wedded wife!” “Are you implying that my wife would leave me for a pathetic piece of trash like you?”

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On New Year’s Eve, my little sister kept pestering me to play hide-and-seek. I covered my eyes. Right as I counted to thirty, the eraser in my brain moved again. I stood frozen in the middle of the living room for a few seconds. Then, I turned around, went back to the couch, and started watching TV. An hour later, Mom crouched down in front of me. “Sweetie, where did your sister go?” Sister? I blinked at her. “I don’t have a sister.” Mom’s face instantly changed. The family abandoned the holiday dinner. They rushed out into the heavy snow. But they couldn’t find my sister anywhere. Mom raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face. Her eyes were completely red. “Didn’t I tell you to watch your sister?! Didn’t I tell you not to let her out of your sight?!” “Where is she now?! Which way did she go?! Tell me!” The force of the slap shoved me backward. I fell onto the freezing, snow-covered porch. “Why couldn’t you be the one who went missing, you idiot?! You don’t remember anything anyway!” “This time you forgot your sister! What about next time?! Are you going to forget me and your father?!” Mom lunged forward to hit me again, but Dad grabbed her arm. They were both crying hysterically. My chest hurt so badly. She was right… why wasn’t I the idiot who went missing? … Mom’s hand stopped inches from my cheek, gripped tightly by Dad. “That’s enough!” Dad’s voice was hoarse. “She’s sick! You know she’s sick!” “It’s exactly because she’s sick that I told her not to let her sister step foot outside the house!” Mom violently yanked her arm out of his grasp, but she didn’t step closer to me. She just glared at me with those bloodshot, terrifying eyes. “She’s only four years old… In a blizzard like this, where could she possibly go?!” Four years old? I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Is that sister four years old? But there was truly, absolutely nothing in my head. Nothing except the New Year’s Eve broadcast replaying on the TV, and the snow swirling wildly outside the window. Hearing the commotion, our neighbors rushed over. “Keep looking! A little kid can’t get far. Did she go to a friend’s house?” Dad grabbed Mom’s arm and pulled her up. “Why are you still sitting here?! Get up and help us look! Yelling at her won’t do any good!” Clarity flashed in Mom’s eyes for a split second. “Yes! I have to find my Lily…” Mom didn’t look at me again. She grabbed a flashlight and sprinted out into the snow. The crowd of people echoed through the neighborhood, shouting my sister’s name. I stood alone on the porch, my mind completely, entirely blank. “Lily… isn’t Lily my name?” My memory drifted back to when I was three. Back then, Mom and Dad called me Lily, too. “Mia! Why are you just standing there like an idiot?! Hurry up and help us find your sister!” Mia. Why did my name change again? Whatever. If I can’t figure it out, I won’t think about it. I had just taken a step off the porch when I heard a shout from the distance. “Found her! Lily is over here!” Everyone rushed toward the old oak tree at the entrance of the subdivision. There was a shallow ditch hidden by the accumulating snow. My sister was inside it. Her face was purple. Her hair was covered in icicles. Mom let out a guttural wail and threw herself into the ditch. “Lily… my baby Lily!” As if sensing her presence, my sister slowly opened her eyes. But she looked straight past Mom, staring directly at me. “Sister… why didn’t you come find me?” She started crying. “You promised you would come find me after you counted to thirty. I hid so well. I was waiting for you the whole time…” Mom violently snapped her head around to glare at me. She gently set my sister down and marched toward me. Smack! The slap landed squarely on my cheek. My left ear instantly started ringing. “Are you satisfied now?” Mom’s voice was shaking with pure, unadulterated rage. “You saw her almost freeze to death. Are you happy now?!” “How could I have given birth to a monster like you?” “This disease… this goddamn disease! It makes you forget your sister, it makes you forget us! Would it be better if you just forgot who you were entirely?!” Her tears finally broke, streaming down her face. “Or… did you do this on purpose? Did you pretend to forget, just so you could leave her out here in the freezing snow to die?” “Enough.” Dad finally spoke, but he only pulled my sister tighter into his heavy winter coat. “Let’s get Lily inside by the heater first. The paramedics are almost here.” Not a single person spoke up for me. And I didn’t know how to defend myself. This really was my fault. Mom shot me a look of pure, venomous hatred. “You stay right here. Stand in the snow and feel exactly how cold and terrified your sister was just now!” They turned and walked away. Seeing the situation, the neighbors didn’t know what to say. They all awkwardly shuffled back to their own houses. The snow was falling harder now. I slowly crouched down, mimicking the way my sister had curled up, and huddled into that shallow ditch. The freezing snow instantly soaked through my clothes. So this is how cold it was. I’m such a horrible person. How could I have forgotten something so important? But… I’m just sick. The doctor said it’s an incredibly rare, progressive memory disorder. It’s like something is slowly, constantly eating away at the hippocampus in my brain. New memories can’t be stored, and old memories are vanishing bit by bit. Mom calls it an eraser. But I don’t know why there’s an eraser inside my head. All I know is that things I remember clearly in the morning become blurry by noon. Mom says I’m an idiot. Maybe I am. The sky grew darker and darker. The lights in the houses down the street flickered on one by one. I could hear the faint, scattered pops of New Year’s fireworks. It was time to go home. I shifted my freezing, stiff legs. But the moment I stood up, that familiar, terrifying sensation hit me again. I blinked, looking around wildly. The trees were white. The road was white. I turned around, then turned back. What was I… what was I about to do again? Go home. Right, go home. But… where is my home? My heart started hammering against my ribs. I pressed my hand against my chest, gasping for air. Think. Today is New Year’s Eve. My sister wanted to play hide-and-seek. Then Mom hit me… And then what? I couldn’t remember. Forget it. I’ll just wait. When they realize I haven’t come back, they’ll come looking for me. Just like they looked for my sister. I sat back down in the ditch, hugging my knees to my chest, counting the distant pops of the fireworks. One, two… when I got to seventeen, I forgot what the number before it was. I sat there until the midnight countdown rang out from a distant TV. Massive fireworks exploded in the sky, lighting up the entire neighborhood. It was so beautiful. On past New Year’s Eves, Dad used to set off fireworks for me and tell me to make a wish. But what did I wish for? I forgot that, too. I curled myself into an even tighter ball. I should have felt incredibly cold, but somehow, I was getting hotter and hotter. I took off my winter coat. Then I took off my sweater. But I was still so hot. It wasn’t until I stripped down to just my thermal undershirt that I suddenly felt like I was floating. I blinked, and I was back inside my house. The New Year’s Eve broadcast was still playing on the TV. Mom was sitting on the sofa, holding my sister, feeding her hot ginger tea from a spoon. “Be a good girl, Lily. Take one more sip. It’ll warm you up.” The color had returned to my sister’s little face. She was wrapped in a thick, fluffy blanket, with only her eyes peeking out. “Where’s my sister?” she suddenly asked. Mom’s hand paused. “Don’t talk about her.” “But she hasn’t come back yet…” “She deserves it! She needs to learn what it feels like to freeze in the snow! She’s a grown teenager, and she can’t even watch her own little sister.” I wanted to walk over and say I was sorry, but I walked straight through the coffee table. I froze. “Mia still isn’t back.” Dad was standing by the window, staring outside. “The snow is coming down harder…” “Oh, now you’re worried?” Mom didn’t even look up. “What if Lily had actually died today? What then? Tell me, what then?” Dad fell silent. “She did it on purpose! She’s jealous of her sister, so she pretended to forget! That disease… who knows if it’s even real? The doctors themselves said they’ve never seen a case this bizarre…” “The doctors said it’s organic brain damage,” Dad said quietly. “Organic brain damage that conveniently makes her forget her sister, but remember how to watch TV?! Does that make any sense?!” Mom’s voice spiked aggressively. “She hates that we had a second child! She hates that we gave our love to Lily!” My sister was startled by the shouting and shrank deeper into Mom’s arms. Mom instantly softened her voice, gently patting my sister’s back. “Don’t be scared, baby. Mommy isn’t yelling at you… my sweet, perfect Lily…” Dad stood by the window for a long time before finally turning away. “When she gets back, I need to have a serious talk with her.” “Talk about what? Talk about how she tried to murder her sister?” Mom sneered. “If you ask me, we should just institutionalize her! She can’t remember anything anyway, what difference does it make where she lives?” Dad didn’t reply. I stood to the side, opening my mouth. “I…” No sound came out. I reached out to touch Mom’s shoulder, but my hand passed completely through her body. Oh. I’m dead. Well, that’s okay. At least now I won’t forget anything ever again.

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Harrison Vance, a billionaire titan in the city, sponsored two underprivileged students from my university. One was Christopher, a brilliant, top-of-his-class senior destined for Wall Street. The other was me—Chloe. Just empty beauty, with a GPA that barely kept me enrolled. During our first meeting, Harrison asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I answered honestly: “I want to marry a rich man just like you.” Harrison rolled his eyes. “Rich men aren’t blind, sweetheart. Thanks, but no thanks.” But later, I saw him with his Italian leather shoe pressing down on Christopher’s hand, crushing it into the pavement. His voice was like dry ice as he warned him: “Are you blind? Can’t you see Chloe belongs to me?” Chapter 1 Since I was a little girl, my only dream was to marry into high society. And today, it looked like it was actually happening. The water was running in the hotel bathroom. Harrison had me pinned against the steamed-up mirror, kissing me so deeply I could taste the expensive scotch on his breath. His breathing was ragged, a hectic flush spreading across his handsome face. It was obvious: someone had roofied him. Morality told me I shouldn’t take advantage of a man in this state. But cold, hard logic told me I’d be an idiot not to. Harrison Vance was the ultimate prize. If I didn’t take this shot, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. Especially since he was the one initiating it… But just as my hand settled on the leather belt around his waist, something bizarre happened. Lines of glowing text suddenly floated across my vision like a live stream chat: 【Stop, you dumb home-wrecker! He’s hallucinating. He thinks you’re the main character, not the villain.】 【This side-piece is so shameless. If Harrison hadn’t picked her name through a random lottery for the sponsorship, she wouldn’t even be in this room. Now she thinks she’s going to go from rags to riches?】 【Don’t worry, when he wakes up and realizes he slept with the wrong girl, he’s going to throw her to the sharks!!】 Thrown to the sharks? My hand trembled with fear, but Harrison grabbed it, holding it steady. His voice was hoarse as he whispered against my ear, coaxing me: “Baby, please. Help me.” I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But I was terrified of becoming shark bait. Breaking away from his grip, I shoved him into the bathroom and locked the door from the outside. Then, crying, I dialed Christopher’s number. “Chris, you have to come to the hotel. Now. Mr. Vance… I think someone drugged him.” Waiting in the VIP hospital wing later that night, I kept my eyes on the floor, praying Harrison wouldn’t remember what happened when he woke up. He already didn’t care for me much. Christopher saw how anxious I was and tried to comfort me. “Don’t be scared, Chloe. Mr. Vance is strong. He’ll be fine.” Before he could finish, the long lashes of the man on the bed fluttered. Harrison… was waking up. I gripped the hem of my dress, heart in my throat, trying to think of what to say, when an anxious female voice cut through the air— “Harrison!” A second later, I was shoved aside violently. I stumbled, nearly going down, but Christopher caught me just in time. It was Maya, his secretary, dressed in a sharp black blazer. She was already frantically opening her laptop bag, rambling about some minor emergency at the firm. Harrison leaned back against the pillows, rubbing his temples with his long fingers. He gave her a lazy, barely interested response. The text chat floating in my eyes spiked again— 【LOL, Maya is such a girl-boss. She loves work more than Harrison does. True main character energy!】 【Maya would get up from her deathbed to check stock options!】 【You guys don’t get it. Harrison only admires successful, career-oriented women. Not like the pointless, ambitionless side-character. She’s insufferable to look at.】 I rolled my eyes mentally. Okay, I get it, she’s great. Do you have to drag me to lift her up? People have different goals in life! Suddenly, my eyes caught a specific line in the chat: 【Is no one looking at Christopher in the corner? He’s been secretly in love with Chloe since freshman orientation. He finally got to hold her hand today to save her from falling. Bet he’s on cloud nine right now.】 Christopher is in love with me?! Before I could process the shock, Harrison’s dark, fathomless eyes locked onto mine. His gaze shifted from my face down to my hand, which Christopher was still holding. His expression suddenly soured, his tone turning irritable. “How long do you two plan on making a scene in here?” Yes, irritable. I had realized a long time ago that Harrison particularly loathed me being near Christopher. We were both sponsored by him. Christopher was valedictorian material. I was the girl who fell asleep the second I opened a math textbook. When Harrison launched his foundation, he said he would help us find our respective paths in life before we turned twenty. In a pristine, glass-walled conference room, Harrison’s assistant had laid out various personalized life plans for us. I picked the “Marry Wealthy” plan immediately. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?” Harrison asked, leaning back, tapping a cigarette on his lighter. I was staring at his face, completely lost in his looks, and my true thoughts slipped out. “I just want to marry a rich man like you.” Predictably, he sneered. Through the drifting smoke, Harrison half-closed his eyes, scanning me from head to toe. “Breathtaking beauty, undeniable class, exceptional personal ability, and a powerful family background. A successful trophy wife needs at least two of those four things.” “Which one do you have?” Back then, I was wearing a faded T-shirt and worn-out jeans, my hair dry and brassy. I looked completely out of place in his world. But I was stubborn. “How will I know if I don’t try?” Harrison said nothing more. But his assistant murmured with obvious disappointment, “What a total waste of a sponsorship slot.” And so, every day after that, Christopher worked tirelessly on finance cases and investment research, planning his entry into the business world. I, on the other hand, worked tirelessly on fashion trends and makeup techniques, planning my entry into high society. Over time, Harrison started looking at me more often. His gaze was strange, impossible to read. I allowed myself to think he didn’t hate me as much anymore. Until the day I accidentally stumbled upon him reprimanding Christopher. Harrison was sitting imperiously behind his desk, his expression unreadable as he said, “Stay away from Chloe. You two are not walking the same path.” From that moment on, I understood. Harrison was terrified that a “bad apple” like me would ruin the masterpiece he was carefully cultivating in Christopher. Harrison was discharged later that afternoon. Christopher offered to help me take him home. When Harrison heard this, he frowned with obvious displeasure. “Did you finish that market analysis I assigned you?” Christopher scratched his head awkwardly. “Not… not yet.” Defeated, I had to take him home alone. Inside the town car, Harrison and I sat in the back. He was close. The clean, scent of cedarwood from his cologne filled my nose. It inexplicably reminded me of that hot, mirror-steaming kiss… I immediately rolled down the window halfway. I needed air. I also secretly watched Harrison’s reaction through the reflection. Since he woke up, he hadn’t mentioned it once. It seemed he really didn’t remember. That evening, I cooked a few light, healthy dishes. “Not much brainpower, a coward, but at least you can cook,” Harrison remarked. He was unusually biting today. Sometimes, I really wanted to drug him. Just with something to shut him up permanently. As I was clearing the table, the floating text appeared again. 【To be fair, she really knows how to take care of him. And she’s gotten so much prettier over the last year. I actually support her marrying rich, as long as she stays away from Harrison.】 【Girl, look at Christopher instead. He might be broke now, but he’s Harrison’s protégé. His future is limitless!!】 【By the end of the book, Christopher opens his own firm. He’s making millions.】 I stared at the text, losing my train of thought. The rich men I currently had access to all had flaws. The loyal ones were too old; the young ones were too wild and slept around. Harrison was perfect in every aspect, but he would never want me. Thinking it over, Christopher was actually the best option I could realistically reach. He was always good to me. But if I wanted to be with Christopher… I’d probably have to get through Harrison first. Perhaps encouraged by the text, I glanced at his study. The light was still on. I put on some flawless makeup, then knocked on the study door. A short “Come in” followed. Harrison was working and didn’t even look up. I gathered my courage and called his name. “Mr. Vance…” Only a single desk lamp lit the room. He finally looked up. I gripped the hem of my dress, looking directly at him. “Do you think I’m beautiful now?” Harrison was silent for a long moment, his Adam’s apple moving slightly. “…You’re alright.” My cheeks flushed hot, but I kept going. “Then, do you think I can marry into wealth now?” Another long silence. He stared at me with an unreadable expression before giving an ambiguous answer. “Maybe.” I was shocked. Harrison didn’t immediately shoot me down. Emboldened, my eyes lit up. “Then, do you think Christopher and I make a good match?” Harrison’s warm gaze instantly turned to ice. “So, the rich man you want to marry is Christopher?” Chapter 2 “So, the rich man you want to marry is Christopher?” When those words came out of Harrison’s mouth, the desk lamp flickered. It wasn’t because the bulb was bad; his hand had slammed down on the base of the lamp. I didn’t notice that detail. My mind was too busy trying to figure out how to say this right. “Christopher has great character, he’s driven, and he treats me—” “I asked you,” Harrison interrupted me, his voice not loud, but the study was so quiet I could hear myself swallow, “if the man you want to marry is Christopher.” It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a demand for confirmation. I nodded. Harrison said nothing. He turned and pulled a tan accordion file from the very bottom shelf of the bookcase. He threw the file onto the desk with force. It hit so hard my phone slid to the edge, nearly falling off. “Open it to page fourteen.” I stood frozen for two seconds before opening the file. It was the original sponsorship agreement I had signed years ago. To be honest, I never read it. It was twenty pages of dense legalese; I would have fallen asleep by the second line. Page fourteen, section three. “During the term of sponsorship, the recipient must obtain written consent from the sponsor for any major life decisions, including, but not limited to, the establishment of romantic relationships.” I read that sentence three times. Then I looked up at Harrison. “This can’t be right.” “What’s not right?” “The life plan you set for me was to marry rich,” I pointed to the other plan in the file, “yet this says I need your written permission to date—so do you want me to get married or not?” Harrison reached for his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and clicked his lighter twice. No flame. He threw the lighter down and kept the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “Christopher does not qualify as ‘wealthy’.” “Then who does?” “We’ll talk about that when he actually makes something of himself.” I let out a frustrated laugh. “Mr. Vance, what kind of man do you actually want me to marry?” He didn’t answer. “Or—” I took a step forward, testing the waters, “do you just not want me to marry anyone at all?” The study went silent for a very long time. It was so long I didn’t think he would ever answer. Harrison put the unlit cigarette back into the pack, closed the lid, and tapped his fingers twice on the surface of the box. When he spoke, it was a complete non-sequitur. “That lipstick you’re wearing today. Don’t wear it again.” I stood my ground. He hadn’t looked at me once since I came in. How did he know I was wearing lipstick? The text chat floated by again. 【He saw her the second she came in. The lamp flickered because his hand shook when he realized she had made herself up for him.】 【The sponsorship agreement clauses contradict each other. Harrison knew that when he wrote them. It’s a logical trap—she can never get married because he will never agree to anyone.】 I stared at the text, a cold chill slowly creeping up my spine. This agreement was a cage from the very beginning. The next day, I asked Christopher to meet me. The coffee shop was just outside the university’s east gate. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall; our knees nearly hit the table legs when we sat down. Christopher arrived wearing a new button-down shirt. The creases from the packaging were still visible; he clearly just bought it. After sitting down, he stirred his coffee three times but didn’t take a sip. I didn’t drink mine either. “Chris, I need to ask you something.” “Shoot.” “Do you think… you and I are a good fit?” The spoon in his coffee stopped moving. He didn’t look at me. His ears turned a brilliant red, spreading to the tips. It wasn’t a shy pink; it was the deep red of holding something in for too long that was suddenly exposed. “Chloe, why are you asking this so suddenly—” “Just wondering.” He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He started stirring the coffee again, twice as fast as before. The text chat exploded in my eyes. 【Christopher has been in love with her since freshman orientation. During military drills, he stood in the third row, she was in the first, and he stared at the back of her head for seven days straight.】 【The last line of his senior thesis acknowledgments originally read, “And to Ms. Chloe Evans, for being the light in my darkest days.” Harrison saw it and made him change it to “To all who helped me.”】 【Do you guys know why he brings her breakfast every time they meet? Because she nearly fainted from low blood sugar in the cafeteria once freshman year, and he’s never let her skip a meal since.】 I looked at the boy across from me, who was stirring his coffee so hard he was practically drilling a hole through the cup. He loved me. It wasn’t just the word “crush” that the text used. It was four years of hot soy milk at the cafeteria entrance every morning. It was never saying no when I asked for help. It was coming to meet me today, even though Harrison had warned him off and he was clearly terrified. My original plan was to confirm his feelings and then team up with him to negotiate terms with Harrison. But sitting here, watching him unable to even form a complete sentence because he was so nervous, that plan suddenly felt disgusting. I was using him. I was using four years of sincere devotion as a bargaining chip. “Chris,” I stood up, the chair screeching harshly against the floor. “I just remembered I have to be somewhere.” He snapped his head up. “You deserve someone who actually loves you back,” I said, grabbing my purse, unable to look him in the eye. “That’s not me.” Pushing open the glass door of the coffee shop, the outside wind rushed in. I walked ten or fifteen paces before my phone buzzed. It wasn’t Christopher. It was Harrison. No text. Just a photo. It was a side profile shot of Christopher and me sitting across the table. The angle was from across the street. It was so sharp I could see the foam art in my cup. I stood on the curb, my thumb hovering over the screen for five seconds. Then I typed: “Good shot. Want me to pose next time?” Harrison replied instantly. “No need. I already saved the one where you’re smiling.” I hadn’t smiled the entire time. Which photo did he save? I stared at that text for a long time. “I already saved the one where you’re smiling.” I definitely hadn’t smiled in the coffee shop today. Either he was lying, or the photo he saved wasn’t from today. The thought made my skin crawl. I didn’t reply. I shoved the phone back into my purse and walked quickly back to the university. By the time I returned to Harrison’s townhome, it was 7:00 PM. The living room lights were off. There was an extra pair of women’s high heels next to the shoe rack in the entryway. Black, stiletto heels, a size larger than mine. I changed into my slippers and walked in. The dining room lights were on. Maya, Harrison’s secretary, was sitting at the table. A file was spread open in front of her, and an untouched glass of water sat next to it. When she saw me, her expression was calm. It wasn’t the calm of someone waiting for a person; it was the calm of a judge waiting to deliver a verdict she already knew. “Ms. Evans, please, have a seat.” I didn’t sit. “Where’s Mr. Vance?” “Mr. Vance is out of town on business. His flight just took off.” She pushed the file towards me. “This is the termination notice for your sponsorship agreement. Mr. Vance has already signed it. You have one week to move out.” I looked down at the termination notice. The formatting was very formal—company letterhead, serial number, date. At the very bottom was Harrison’s electronic signature. The reason for termination read: “Recipient has substantially achieved the development goals; sponsorship relationship naturally concludes.” I read every word. Then I flipped to page two, page three. “Ms. Evans, do you need me to explain any of the clauses?” Maya’s voice was steady. Too steady. I had seen her report to Harrison. She spoke fast, was organized, and would occasionally swallow nervously under Harrison’s gaze. But sitting here, facing me alone, she was far more composed than she ever was with him. “Maya,” I laid the file down, “the reason says ‘development goals substantially achieved’.” “Yes.” “My agreement stated the conclusion criteria as ‘marrying into high society’.” I looked her in the eye. “I haven’t married anyone yet. How is it achieved?” Maya’s finger twitched. A tiny movement; her index finger lifted slightly from the table and dropped back down, as if she had been pricked. “Ms. Evans, development goals and conclusion criteria are not the same concept. Mr. Vance believes your current personal cultivation has—” “Mr. Vance believes?” I interrupted. “Or you believe?” The dining room went silent for a few seconds. I pulled out my phone to call Harrison. “His phone is off,” Maya was faster than me. “You won’t reach him until he lands.” “Then I’ll wait.” “The one-week notice starts tomorrow,” Maya stood up, picking up her glass. “I suggest you start looking for a new place.” As she walked to the entryway to change her shoes, I opened the original sponsorship agreement—the tan accordion file Harrison had pulled from the shelf last night. It was still on his desk. I read it from beginning to end. On the very last page, in the bottom right corner, was a line of handwritten text. The handwriting was Harrison’s; I knew his hard, angular script. “This project has no set expiration date.” By the time I grabbed the agreement and ran out, Maya was gone. The clicking sound of her high heels on the steps outside grew fainter and fainter. I took a picture of the handwritten line and texted it to Harrison. I wrote: “Your handwritten note says ‘no set expiration date,’ your secretary says I move out in a week. Which of you runs this show?” The message was sent, shown as delivered. No “read” receipt. Of course not; he was on a plane. The text chat floated by just then, a single line. 【Maya forged Harrison’s electronic signature. She has authorization to sign business documents on his behalf, but a sponsorship agreement is not a business document.】 I put the phone down and re-examined the signature on the termination notice. Then I opened the photo Harrison had texted me earlier—the one in the coffee shop. I zoomed in on the bottom right corner, on the watermark. Harrison didn’t take that photo. The watermark had a tiny logo. It was the brand of Maya’s phone case. I didn’t sleep at all that night. It wasn’t out of fear. I was thinking about one thing: Why did Maya want to kick me out? If it was Harrison’s idea, he didn’t need to use his secretary. He could have told me to my face in the study last night. If it wasn’t Harrison’s idea… for a secretary to forge her boss’s signature to kick out someone he was sponsoring—that takes incredible nerve. Unless she had a reason more important than keeping her job. Around 4:00 AM, the text appeared again. 【Maya has been secretly in love with Harrison for six years. Since the first day she started as an intern.】 【She used to think she knew Harrison better than anyone. Until Chloe Evans arrived. Harrison started changing his schedule for a poor student, pushing meetings, even cooking for her—things he had never done for anyone.】 I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. So this wasn’t a business move. It was a jealousy move. At 7:00 AM, I didn’t pack a single bag. I went to the kitchen and made coffee and breakfast. Then I sat at the dining room table and waited. At 8:10 AM, Harrison’s plane landed. At 8:43 AM, my phone rang. Harrison. I didn’t answer. I texted him: “Breakfast first. Coffee is on the counter, food is on the table.” At 9:30 AM, the front door opened. Harrison walked in, carrying his blazer. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms. He looked more like he hadn’t slept than I did; the left side of his shirt collar was messed up, standing askew. He looked at the food on the table, then at me. “You’re still here.” “Why wouldn’t I be?” He draped his coat over the back of a chair and sat down. He picked up his fork, took a bite of eggs, and chewed slowly. “That thing Maya gave you. I saw it.” “You saw it, but you have nothing to say?” “I was on a plane.” “And after you landed?” Harrison put his fork down. “After I landed, I made a phone call.” “To who?” “To Maya.” When he said her name, his tone was flat, like he was remarking on the weather. “Her signing authority was revoked as of this morning. The termination notice is void.” I let out a breath, but only halfway. “And the photo?” Harrison’s hand paused for a second as he reached for his coffee. “What photo?” “The one in the coffee shop. You texted ‘I already saved the one where you’re smiling’—Maya took that photo, not you. Right?” I pushed my phone towards him, zoomed in on the watermark. Harrison looked at it for three seconds. Then he did something I completely didn’t expect. He flipped my phone over, screen-down, onto the table. “She took the photo.” “And the text? Did she send the text too?” “I sent the text.” “So you looked at a photo she took of me, and then used your own phone to text me that sentence?” “Yes.” “Don’t you think that’s incredibly—” “Incredibly what?” I swallowed the words. I was going to say “incredibly creepy.” But I couldn’t say it looking at him. He wasn’t aggressive, or cold. He was watching me with an intensity that was almost… honest. Like he didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. Like in his mind, monitoring where I went, saving photos of me, stopping me from marrying someone else—it was all perfectly logical. The text floated by just then. 【Harrison remembers everything from the bathroom incident. He’s been waiting for Chloe to admit it herself.】 The fork in my hand clattered onto the table, bounced, and rolled onto the floor. Harrison looked down at the fork. “Why are you nervous?” “I’m… I’m not.” “Then why are your hands shaking?” I hid my hands under the table. He didn’t press the issue and went back to his breakfast. After a few bites, without looking up, he said one more thing. “Next time you do your makeup, don’t use that shade of lipstick Christopher complimented you on. Use a different color.” I had never told him Christopher had complimented my lipstick.

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I spent ten years trapped in a cage, poked, prodded, and torn apart in the name of psychic research. When I finally broke free, I stepped out into a world that had already ended. A zombie apocalypse had ravaged the surface while I was underground. Now, I’ve found my old best friend from the orphanage. But her husband, a newly awakened “evolved” human with powers of his own, is bullying her into giving up her last scrap of food. “Everyone else chipped in, Sarah. Don’t be selfish. Are you really trying to hide those candy bars?” Sarah protested in a weak whisper, “I was saving them for JJ.” A young girl standing next to the husband interrupted with a cold sneer. “Come on, Sarah. You always use your son as an excuse when you get greedy. It’s pathetic.” As the crowd glared at her with disdain, I stepped out of the shadows. I threw a heavy backpack right at the girl’s head. It struck her hard, sending her stumbling. “Is that enough?” I asked, my voice dead and flat. “Say one more word, and I’ll kill you all.” Chapter 1 The zipper on the backpack hadn’t been closed properly. Loose chocolate bars scattered across the dirty floor. “Who the hell are you?! How dare you talk to me like that?” the girl screamed, her face flushed with rage and shock. No one answered her. Every eye in the room was glued to the chocolate on the floor. The sound of involuntary swallowing echoed through the quiet factory. “Chocolate… an entire backpack full of chocolate…” “I checked with my sensory abilities,” a guy whispered nearby. “It’s real. It’s not an illusion.” They surged forward, completely ignoring the girl’s outrage, scrambling to grab the candy. She bit her lip, grabbing the tall man next to her by his arm, shaking it. “Elias, look at them!” The man, Elias, frowned, his voice dropping to a low command. “Stop. Don’t touch it.” “All supplies must be turned in. They go into Chloe’s sub-space storage for rationed distribution. Have you all forgotten the squad rules?” The scavengers froze, reluctantly stopping their grab for the candy. The girl, Chloe, giggled. She walked over to confiscate the chocolate bars from their hands. As she touched them, I saw faint blue sparks flicker in her palm. Spatial manipulation. Storage power. Through all of this, my friend Sarah—whose face was so pale she looked bloodless—didn’t spare a single glance at the food. She was staring only at me. Her voice trembled, filled with absolute disbelief. “Nova? Is that really you? Are you alive?” She rushed forward and threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly. I felt distant, confused by the physical contact. Yet, a dormant instinct kicked in, and I brought my hands up to pat her back gently. “My name… is it Nova?” “You don’t remember?” She pulled back from the hug, her hands frantically roaming over me, checking for injuries, laughing through her tears. “Back at the home, the director said you were adopted. I asked by who, but he absolutely refused to say. I tried looking for you later, but I couldn’t find a single trace…” I remained silent as she rambled. Of course she couldn’t find me. For the last ten years, I had been in a top-secret underground laboratory. I was subjected to extreme human experimentation to unlock psychic potential. I don’t know how many times they cut open my brain, how many chips they implanted, or how many serums they injected. My memories and emotions were fractured, dulled to almost nothing. I didn’t even remember my own name. I only had a vague, hazy recollection that before I was taken, I had a best friend named Sarah. And she… loved me very much. “Who are you? How do you have this many resources?” While Sarah was still fussing over me, checking if I was okay, the tall man walked over. His eyes were sharp with suspicion as he eyed me. I thought about it for a second. “I was passing through the city center. Just picked it up.” Elias narrowed his eyes. “Just picked it up? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there…” Before he could finish, Sarah spun around, spreading her arms to shield me. “Elias, stop. She’s my friend. I told you about her—she’s my best friend in the whole world.” She looked back at me. “Nova, this is my husband, Elias King. We got married five years ago.” After the introductions, she looked earnestly at Elias. “Please, let her join our squad!” Elias didn’t say anything. Behind him, Chloe, the spatial user, walked over. “Sarah, I don’t mean to be harsh, but we are an elite squad. Carrying you—an ordinary human with no powers—already holds us back severely.” “If we take your friend too, are we ever going to make it to the safe zone in the capital?” Sarah’s face turned cold. “Chloe, if you won’t take her, then give her back her chocolate.” “Why, you—!” Chloe’s face turned red with anger. She turned back to Elias, whining. “Elias, look at Sarah! Why is she taking an outsider’s side against us?” “Enough. Stop fighting.” Elias issued his final command. “She turned over her supplies, so we have an obligation to protect her. Sarah, your friend can come with us. It’s settled. I don’t want to hear another word about it.” Sarah’s eyes crinkled with a smile. Beside her, Chloe’s face fell, and she rolled her eyes at me. I scanned her with my mental acuity. Her energy signature was incredibly weak. Chloe’s spatial storage was less than three cubic meters. It was the lowest tier of spatial power. I could kill her with a single thought. But I looked at Sarah standing next to her. …I decided to let it go for now. We drove for two days before entering a small town. Sarah still loved to talk, just like when we were kids. Along the way, I pieced together her life from her stories. After I was “adopted,” she got into college. She started dating Elias during her sophomore year and married him right after graduation. Two months ago, the zombie virus erupted globally. Elias awakened a rare metal-manipulation power, allowing him to control metal for combat. As for Chloe, she was Elias’s step-sister from a remarriage. They weren’t blood-related. “They have such a tight bond,” Sarah sighed. “Sometimes I’m actually jealous. After you left, I was always alone.” “I have a son, too. JJ. He’s four, just started preschool. On the day the outbreak started, he was on a summer camping trip at the coast. I begged Elias to go get him, but Elias said he couldn’t find him in the chaos. Later, Elias got in touch with the camp organizers through the radio. They said due to a change in plans, the group had flown to the capital safe zone early.” “So, we’re heading to the large safety base in the capital. Once we get there, you can meet him.” Sarah smiled brightly, resting her chin on her hands as she looked at me. “JJ knows about you, Nova! I always tell him, ‘Mommy has a wonderful, dear friend named Nova.’ I told him so many stories about us growing up in the orphanage. He knows you like origami, and he’s folded hundreds of paper cranes. He said he wants to give them to Auntie Nova.” I looked at her smile. Something shifted in my mind, like a block of ice that had been frozen for ages finally starting to melt at the edges. “Okay.” I held out my hand to her. In my palm lay a few chocolate bars. Sarah’s eyes went wide. I smiled slightly. “Saving these for JJ.” That night, we rested in an abandoned factory. Sarah came to find me, clutching two loaves of bread. “Nova, eat this.” After countless physical modifications, my body barely needed food to function. But looking at her shining eyes, I took the bread anyway. Sarah sat down next to me and took a bite of her bread. “Where have you been for the last ten years? How did you suddenly show up here?” I remained silent for a moment, staring at the soft, warm bread in my hand. Images of the cold, sterile lab flashed in my mind. Endless precise machinery, researchers in white coats walking back and forth. “Attempting to inject the latest serum into Subject 09!” “Increase the chip stimulation current!” “Oh no! She’s spiraling!! System breach!” There had been a deafening explosion. My mental powers were so intense they shattered the glass of my containment tank. By the time my sanity returned, the lab was deserted. Corpses lay scattered everywhere. I had grabbed some clothes off the floor, put them on, and stared blankly into the distance. “Sarah… I need to find Sarah…” … “I was in a special place,” I said vaguely. “It wasn’t convenient to contact the outside world during that time.” “Later, I got out. I wanted to see you, so I came looking.” “Nova~” Sarah suddenly threw herself into my arms, nuzzling against me. “I knew you loved me the most. Hmph. Elias kept saying you were probably adopted by some rich family and were living the good life, that’s why you didn’t want to contact me. I didn’t believe him for a second! I told him he just doesn’t understand the bond we have.” Yes, who could understand? During those ten years of experimentation, not even the world’s top scientists understood. The agonizing pain caused by excessive doses of neural drugs was enough to kill a normal person. Yet I had survived hundreds of injections. Of the hundred subjects brought in with me, I was the only one left alive at the end. I often heard them through the glass, saying, “Subject 09 is a gift from God.” There is no God. I just vaguely remembered someone saying to me: “Nova, we’ll still be best friends when we’re a hundred years old.” I had to live to be a hundred. I couldn’t break my promise. In the middle of the night, Sarah fell asleep leaning against me. I carefully adjusted her position so she was comfortable, then stood up. In the darkness, I locked eyes with Elias, who was watching me with a scrutinizing glare. He began walking toward me. Psychic energy condensed into an invisible blade, gathering in the palm of my hand. The next second, a piercing siren shattered the night! “Crap!! It’s a horde!!” The factory doors, which had been barricaded with vehicles, were forced open. Densely packed zombies surged inside. Everyone in the squad woke up instantly, utilizing their powers to fight. There were six evolved humans in this squad. Aside from Elias, who had mid-tier metal manipulation, the others only had low-tier powers. Their mental stamina was depleted almost immediately. The defensive line collapsed. Several zombies, clawing and gnashing, lunged toward Chloe and Sarah. “Elias!!” Chloe shrieked. “Elias!” Sarah cried out. Hearing Chloe’s blood-curdling scream, Elias didn’t even hesitate. The metal spike in his hand drove through the skull of the zombie lunging at his step-sister. Then, as if realizing Sarah was crying for help too, he whipped his head toward us. Just in time to see— Thwack— The rebar in my hand drove through the brains of two zombies consecutively. They tottered and fell to the ground. Sarah grabbed the hem of my jacket, her face utterly colorless. “Nova, are you okay? Are you hurt??” “I’m fine.” I casually wiped the foul, dark blood that had splashed onto my face, noticing even more zombies surrounding us. “Get in the car, I’ll cover the rear!” Elias gritted his teeth. “Let’s move!! Drive out of here!” Chapter 2 Sarah remained silent throughout the drive. After dawn, we finally escaped the zombie horde. We found an abandoned, empty house nearby to rest and regroup. Sarah kept rubbing the cuff of her sleeve nervously. I gently took her hand, looking into her eyes. “I will protect you.” Sarah looked up at me. The scene in the factory hung between us. When Sarah and Chloe both needed protection at the same time, Elias had chosen his step-sister. “All our supplies are in Chloe’s sub-space. She has to be prioritized for protection. It’s not that I don’t understand that, logically. It’s just… it’s just…” Sarah sobbed, “Nova, am I being selfish?” I shook my head. “You are good.” In my heart, Sarah was the best person in the whole world. I was dumped at the orphanage door when I was four years old because my biological parents realized I wouldn’t speak. A trip to the hospital confirmed I was on the autism spectrum. After the orphanage took me in, the older kids bullied me. It was Sarah, three years older than me, who grabbed a brick and chased them all over the yard, ready to fight. “Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare touch her!” One night, when I was nine, the director called me into his office. He said he had brought a doctor in to give me a physical exam. I went. There were two strange middle-aged men in the room. They told me to take off my dress for the exam. The director was standing nearby, smiling. “She can’t talk. It’s perfectly safe.” Right then, the office door was slammed open. Sarah charged in waving a massive, filthy shovel meant for the septic tank. She swung it wildly at the director and the two men. “AHHHHH! Get away from my Nova! I’ll kill you!” Amidst their screams of surprise and disgust, the shovel cracked open their skulls. The incident caused a huge scandal. The director and the two men were arrested. That night, in the dark, Sarah held my hand, repeatedly stroking my messy hair. She said, “Don’t be scared, Nova. When there’s danger, just shout my name!” … I awkwardly tried to imitate the tone she used back then. “Don’t be scared, Sarah. When there’s danger… just shout my name.” She stared at me, stunned. Her lips began to tremble. “Nova…” Before Sarah could say another word, the light in front of us was suddenly cut off. I looked up. Elias and several other evolved squad members had surrounded us. Sarah immediately pushed me behind her, shielding me. “What’s going on?” Chloe spoke up. “Sarah, I know you want to believe in your friend, but haven’t you noticed how weird things are?” Sarah frowned. “Weird? How?” Chloe shot Elias a look of concern. Elias didn’t speak. He just used his power to condense a metal spike, holding it ready in his hand. A rat-faced man next to him said, “Sarah, think about it. Outside, it’s crawling with zombies. It’s nearly impossible for us to find a scrap of food. Yet your friend here is lugging around a whole backpack full of chocolate, surviving all alone in the middle of a zombie infested city for two months.” “She claims to be an ordinary person with no powers. How is that possible?” Sarah grabbed my hand even tighter. “So, what are you actually trying to say?” Elias took a step forward, dropping his voice to a low rumble. “Sarah, I know she’s an important friend to you. But these are dangerous times. We have to be cautious.” “Our squad has been traveling for nearly a month. We specifically picked low-population rural routes and barely ran into any zombies. It’s too coincidental that the very night your friend joins us, we get hit by a massive horde.” “The military radio broadcast mentioned a few days ago that zombies are evolving. They’ve confirmed high-level zombies that are indistinguishable from humans, and even Zombie Kings capable of commanding legions.” He raised the metal spike, aiming it right at my eyes. “I suspect your friend… is a legendary Zombie King.” “Impossible!” Sarah retorted immediately, without even a moment’s hesitation. “If she were a Zombie King, she would have bitten me ages ago! I’m still standing here fine, aren’t I?” “Sarah, you are so naive.” Chloe looked at her, shaking her head and sighing, acting as if she were counseling a clueless child. Elias said in a low voice, “Sarah, step aside.” The metal spike grew brighter. Sarah continued to shield me, her voice cracking with desperate emotion. “Are you all insane?! Elias, last night when those two zombies lunged at me, you ran to save your sister. If Nova hadn’t killed them to save me, I’d be dead right now! How could she possibly be the Zombie King you’re talking about?!” At the mention of last night, Elias’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Chloe smirked. “Sarah, you’re not blaming Elias for saving me, are you?” Sarah gritted her teeth. “I didn’t say that.” “If you want your friend to keep traveling with us and ease everyone’s fears, then let her go outside and prove herself.” Chloe pointed a finger toward the few zombies visible outside the door. Sensing the presence of living humans, they were slowly converging on our location. “If she’s not the Zombie King, if she’s not one of them, those zombies will definitely attack her. How about it?” Sarah’s hand clamped onto my wrist like an iron vise, her nails digging into my flesh. “I won’t let you go out there.” Her voice was shaking, her eyes red and desperate. “Nova, you can’t go out. There are zombies outside—” “Sarah, if you truly care about your friend, don’t stand in her way.” Chloe leaned in behind Elias, her tone casual. “If she’s clean, the zombies will attack her, and we’ll just pull her back inside. It’s easy.” “Bullshit!” Sarah spun around and screamed at her, her voice raw. “One bite and you’re infected! You make it sound so simple!” “Well, if she doesn’t go out, how can she prove it?” Chloe shrugged. “Right, Elias?” Elias didn’t respond. But he never lowered the metal spike. Several other evolved members had scattered, taking positions that implicitly formed a semi-circle around us. They weren’t waiting for an answer; they were waiting for the signal to attack. I looked down at Sarah’s hand. Every finger was straining, as if she believed that as long as she didn’t let go, no one could take me away. I pried her fingers open, one by one. She held on tightly, refusing to let go, so I had to apply a little pressure. “Let go.” I looked into her eyes. “You can’t protect me.” Sarah looked like she had been slapped. Her fingers went rigid. Then, one by one, they loosened their grip. As her hand fell away, a flash of a memory from twenty years ago crossed my mind. That night, two men in white coats were dragging me toward a car. Sarah had chased after us, grabbing my arm with both hands, gripping with all her might. She lost a shoe, her knees got scraped bloody on the concrete, and even after being kicked away, she got back up to keep chasing. She chased us for three blocks. Later, I heard her say something over the phone to someone; she thought I couldn’t hear. She said, “I couldn’t hold on to her.” It wasn’t a statement of fact. It sounded like a confession of guilt. This time, she couldn’t hold on either. I turned and walked toward the door.

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The seventh time Arthur Vance locked me in the estate’s freezing attic to “reflect on my sins,” the long-delayed System finally spoke to me: As long as you die, you can return to your original world. And so, I became the perfect, emotionless high-society wife. I stopped caring that Arthur frequently spent his nights in his widowed sister-in-law’s bedroom. I stopped fighting for his broken promise of monogamy, and I stopped fighting for control over the estate’s finances. When my own son knocked over the meal I had spent hours cooking for him in absolute disgust, I didn’t scold him. I simply had the maid wipe his hands and calmly told him I would never cook for him again. Even when the head butler brought me that cup of abortifacient tea—even knowing I was already pregnant—I drank it down without a single second of hesitation. By the time Arthur rushed into the room, all he saw was a blinding pool of crimson on the floor. He drew his tactical blade, pointing it directly at my throat. His usually calm, authoritative voice was trembling with a total mental breakdown. “Claire Bennett, do you really hate me this much?!” “You grew up studying medicine! You knew how lethal that drug was, yet you’re so vicious you couldn’t even tolerate our own flesh and blood?!” Looking at the gleaming edge of the blade, I let out a relieved smile. And then, I thrust my body directly onto the knife. …… The exact second the blade pierced my flesh, Arthur’s pupils violently shrank. He desperately yanked the knife back. But he was a fraction of a second too late. The razor-sharp edge sliced across my neck. Beads of crimson blood rolled down, staining the pure white collar of my dress. With a loud clatter, the blade dropped to the floor. Arthur fell to one knee, frantically pressing his hands against my neck to stop the bleeding. “Claire! Have you completely lost your mind?!” I sighed internally. What a shame. Seeing that I hadn’t managed to kill myself, I finally answered his first question. “Mr. Vance, you told me yourself that having one son was more than enough.” “If I were to give birth to another child, wouldn’t that make your widowed sister-in-law—who only managed to give you a daughter—look bad?” Arthur’s breath hitched violently in his throat. “What did you just call me?” I fell silent. It was only then that I realized just how incredibly estranged Arthur and I had become. After we got married, I always loved calling him by his first name. Because of that, his elitist mother constantly ridiculed me for being a low-class commoner with no respect for authority. But I had always stubbornly refused to change. Now, I had finally learned my place. The fingers pressing against my neck suddenly tightened. I let out a gasp of pain, and only then did he loosen his grip slightly. Arthur’s voice, grinding through clenched teeth, echoed in my ear. “I told you. My older brother dying in that accident was a tragedy. Me stepping in as a surrogate to provide his widow with an heir was an absolute, desperate necessity to secure her portion of the family trust.” “As soon as my brother’s line has a male heir, I swear I will never touch Serena again.” “I am begging you, just wait a little longer. Please?” That single word—wait—kept me sleeping in an empty, freezing bed for three entire years. From visiting her once a month, it escalated to him spending almost every single night in her room. My only companions were burnt-out candles and endless, exhausted tears. When Serena finally got pregnant, I thought the nightmare was over. But Arthur used the excuse of “taking care of his fragile sister-in-law” to permanently move his belongings into the West Wing. I waited through another agonizing year of seasons changing. But the child Serena gave birth to was a daughter, Mia. Seeing that Arthur was preparing to continue sleeping in her room to try again, I couldn’t wait anymore. I started throwing tantrums. I forbade him from stepping foot in the West Wing. I acted like a hysterical, screaming lunatic, sobbing and threatening to end my own life. I did all of those things because I just wanted a husband who belonged solely to me. But in Arthur’s eyes, my desperation morphed into the unforgivable, toxic actions of a jealous, petty woman. Yet, when he proposed to me years ago, he swore that what he loved most about me was my fiery, unapologetic personality. He promised me that after we married, I would be his only woman. He swore he would never take a mistress, and that he would never lock me away in a gilded cage. But in our seventh year of marriage, in order to establish absolute authority for the widowed Serena, Arthur locked me in the freezing attic in front of the entire household staff. Over and over again. He told me I needed to learn to be as gentle and magnanimous as Serena. He told me I needed to learn how a true high-society matriarch behaved. My knees were bruised black and blue from kneeling on the hardwood. My hands shook in agony from being forced to transcribe hundreds of pages of etiquette manuscripts and apologies. And all I got in return was his disappointed sigh: “Claire, when are you finally going to grow up and be reasonable?” Even the child currently bleeding out of my womb was an accident. It happened after Mia’s one-month milestone party, when a blackout-drunk Arthur stumbled into the wrong bedroom. At the time, I foolishly thought he had come to make peace, and I allowed him to have his way with me. But right as he reached his climax, he slurred the name of his sister-in-law. The suffocating agony of the past surged up my throat. I swallowed it down along with the metallic taste of blood. I looked up at him, enunciating every single word: “Mr. Vance, you no longer need to feed me these fake promises to placate me.” “From this day forward, wherever you want to go, go. Whoever you want to sleep with, sleep with them. I will not utter a single word of complaint.” “And if you are still dissatisfied, I am perfectly willing to sign the divorce papers and step aside so you two lovers can finally be together.” Arthur’s chest heaved violently, the veins in his neck bulging. “Claire Bennett, how much longer are you going to torture me?!” “Serena and I are strictly family! There is absolutely zero romantic affection between us!” Listening to those words, one might actually believe he loved me to death. Yet he addressed me, his legal, lawfully wedded wife, by my full, cold name—Claire Bennett. But he affectionately called his sister-in-law “Serena.” I shook my head. “You’re overthinking it, Mr. Vance. I am being entirely sincere.” I don’t know which of my words triggered his fury again. Arthur violently let go of me. The back of my head slammed hard against the sharp edge of a wooden stool. I gasped as a blinding spike of pain shot through my skull. Panic flashed across his face, and he reached out to help me up. A freezing, mechanical voice echoed in my brain. [Host’s vital signs dropping rapidly. Estimated time until death countdown: 24 hours.] It turned out that the abortifacient tea, combined with the blood loss from the blade, had struck a fatal blow to my core. I shoved Arthur’s hand away, bracing myself against the floor as I shakily stood up. “Please leave, Mr. Vance. I am tired.” I walked right past him, heading toward the inner bedroom to rest. With every step I took, the blood dripping from beneath my skirt left a winding, horrific trail on the floorboards. Right at that moment, seven-year-old Noah burst through the doorway. He violently hurled his wooden toy sword directly at me. The jagged wood slashed across my cheek, leaving a stinging, bleeding scratch. Arthur was completely paralyzed by the sudden chaos for a second. Then, he aggressively snatched Noah up by the collar and delivered a harsh smack to his backside. “You little brat! What the hell are you doing?!” Noah wailed at the top of his lungs, but he stubbornly refused to admit he was wrong. “Dad, I don’t want this evil woman as my mom!” “Why can’t she just stay locked in the attic and never come out for the rest of her life?!” Arthur’s face turned livid. He barked coldly: “Who taught you to say such disrespectful things?!” Noah struggled out of Arthur’s grip, puffing out his cheeks in fury. “Dad, you told me yourself that you hate her!” “If she hadn’t saved your life at the bottom of that mountain, you never would have married a cheap, common doctor!” “Plus, she’s a petty, jealous witch who’s always bullying Aunt Serena! She doesn’t deserve to be the mother of this family at all!” Noah grew more energized the more he spoke. He pointed a tiny finger directly at my nose, his young, childish face contorted with absolute disgust. “You evil witch! Dad and I both hate you! Just disappear already!” They say children speak the unvarnished truth. His words acted like a meat grinder, taking the very last, microscopic shred of hope in my heart and shredding it to dust. Years ago, Arthur’s private military convoy was ambushed and pinned down in a lethal cartel zone in the valley. Ignoring the fact that I was seven months pregnant, I led a heavily armed extraction team to rescue him. We barely survived the bloodbath. I took dozens of knife wounds during the extraction. The trauma triggered premature labor. As I bled out on the delivery table, Arthur gripped my hand, his eyes burning red as he begged me: “Claire, please don’t leave me.” “If you die and leave me alone in this world, I’ll put a bullet in my own head and follow you.” Just to honor those words, I bit down on my lip and fought through the agony. Basin after basin of bloody water was carried out of the room. I miraculously survived the gates of hell. But because Noah was born so severely premature, the estate’s top pediatricians declared he wouldn’t live past three days. They told me to prepare a tiny coffin. I refused to believe them. Dragging my broken, unhealed body out of bed, I took care of him day and night. During that time, I read until the bindings of my medical textbooks fell apart, searching the world for the rarest, most potent medicines. Yet Noah’s cries only grew weaker and weaker. Driven to absolute desperation, I placed my final hope in a higher power. I did a grueling, agonizing pilgrimage to the St. Jude Mountain Sanctuary. Three steps, one bow. Five steps, one prostration. To this day, the five thousand stone steps leading up to the sanctuary still bear the faded stains of the blood from my knees and forehead. Perhaps the heavens were moved by my sincerity. After that day, Noah’s health miraculously began to stabilize. However, his immune system would always be significantly weaker than a full-term child’s. Whenever the temperature dropped, I would strictly confine him to his heated room to read and study. Serena, on the other hand, constantly indulged his every whim. Even in the dead of a freezing winter, she allowed him to gorge himself on bowls of ice cream. Within three days, Noah spiked a terrifyingly high fever, coughing so hard it sounded like his lungs were tearing. Arthur was busy with corporate warfare. Serena avoided the boy like the plague, terrified of catching whatever virus he had. I was the one who sat by his bedside for days without sleeping a wink. I sponge-bathed him over and over to lower his temperature, constantly inventing new, creative ways to brew foul-tasting medicines so he could keep them down. When he finally recovered, Noah blamed the entire miserable experience entirely on me. He threw tantrums, violently knocking over the bowls of medicine I had stayed up all night brewing for him. The boiling hot liquid splashed onto the back of my hand, leaving a massive, blistering burn scar. He grew to passionately hate me—the woman who forced him to drink bitter medicine. Yet he absolutely adored Serena, the woman who only ever gave him sweet treats and was the literal reason he got sick in the first place. Arthur’s face instantly darkened, and he aggressively shouted Noah down. “Noah, shut your mouth! Stop speaking nonsense!” Then, he looked at me with frantic panic, desperately trying to explain. “Noah is just a kid, he definitely heard the maids gossiping…” In the past, hearing those words would have shattered my heart. I would have put on a stern face and tried to teach Noah right from wrong. And every single time, all I got in return was a glare filled with pure, unadulterated hatred. Now, I was just so incredibly tired. I didn’t care to parent him anymore. Arthur also sensed that something was fundamentally wrong with my reaction. He frowned, studying my face, before stubbornly concluding that I was just playing hard to get. “Claire, what exactly are you trying to pull now?” “Putting on this ‘dead inside,’ indifferent act is just a pathetic, cheap imitation. You’re making a fool of yourself.” “Since the baby is already gone, you will stay confined to your quarters and rest your body. Stop constantly plotting against Serena and her daughter!” He grabbed Noah’s hand and stormed out of the room, violently flicking his coat. The exact second they crossed the threshold, the father and son began cheerfully discussing the widow and her daughter. Arthur mentioned he was going to buy Serena a breathtaking vintage diamond necklace at an exclusive auction. Noah said he was going to use his allowance to buy a solid gold locket for his new little sister. Meanwhile, pinned in my own hair, was the simple, cheap silver clip Arthur had given me when we first got engaged. Back then, he had looked at me nervously, telling me he crafted it with his own hands and begging me not to despise it. He swore that one day, he would buy me the most expensive, beautiful jewelry in the world. Back then, my heart was overflowing with sweet joy. I genuinely believed I had married the perfect man. But ten years had passed. The delicate plum blossoms carved into the silver clip had long since been worn completely smooth. And I had yet to see a single piece of the “new jewelry” Arthur had promised me. At the elite high-society galas, I was always the most poorly dressed, pathetic-looking wife in the room. Whenever I finally gathered the courage to ask for a budget to buy some jewelry, Arthur would instantly reject it, citing the estate’s massive overhead costs and the need for me to be frugal and responsible. Yet he would turn around and drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on imported, ultra-rare skincare serums just to make Serena smile. Looking back on it now, all my blind, desperate devotion had been thrown into a black hole. The freezing, mechanical voice echoed in my mind once again. [Detecting Host’s severe emotional depression. Countdown to world detachment: 10 hours.] I sat at my vanity, staring at the woman in the antique bronze mirror. Her face was haggard, her eyes swimming in a deep, lifeless exhaustion. I pulled the worn-out silver hair clip from my hair. My fingertips gently traced the faded, smooth lines where the plum blossoms used to be. Then, with a sharp twist of my wrist. SNAP. The silver clip broke into two pieces. I casually tossed them into the burning fireplace in the corner of the room. After dealing with that, I forced my failing body up and began cleaning the bedroom. I dug out all the custom ties, the hand-knitted scarves I had made for Arthur over the years, and all the tiny, handmade clothes I had sewn for Noah. Two massive, overflowing trunks. Every single stitch was woven with my desperate hopes for this family. But right now, I just wanted to watch it all burn. The roaring flames illuminated my body, bringing a profound, comforting warmth that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I waited until the very last ember disintegrated into ash. Then, I laid down on my bed, quietly waiting for the System’s countdown to reach zero. Suddenly, the bedroom door was violently kicked open. Arthur had returned. He stormed into the room, his face a mask of pure fury, and violently dragged me off the mattress. “Claire Bennett, I knew you couldn’t just sit quietly and behave!” A Voodoo doll, completely covered in long, silver sewing needles, was hurled directly at my feet. Serena was standing in the doorway, clutching her infant daughter to her chest, looking as if she were about to pass out from crying into Arthur’s shoulder. “Arthur, I refuse to believe Claire would do something this evil.” “But this doll has so many needles shoved into it, and Mia’s exact birth date and time are written on the back… I can’t help but be terrified…” Before she could even finish her sentence, Arthur’s face had darkened to the color of a thundercloud. He raised his heavy boot and delivered a brutal, full-force kick directly to my chest. “Claire, I tolerated your petty jealousy and your tantrums!” “But I never imagined you were malicious enough to use disgusting, dark magic curses on an innocent baby!” A massive mouthful of blood exploded from my lips, splattering across the floor. The wound on my neck violently ripped open again. Arthur looked down at me with absolute, towering superiority, his eyes filled with overwhelming disappointment. “What? Too terrified to even try and explain yourself now?” I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth. My gaze swept over the supposed “evidence,” and I let out a low, dark chuckle. “The fabric used to make this doll is exclusive Parisian haute couture silk. Even the A-list celebrities in Hollywood are waitlisted for months just to get a single yard of it.” “Mr. Vance, your heart bled so deeply for your sister-in-law that you took every single roll of that silk in the estate’s vault and had it delivered directly to the West Wing.” “So please, enlighten me: how did it magically turn into evidence of me cursing your niece?” Hearing this, Arthur’s face drastically changed. His eyes remained glued to the Voodoo doll on the floor for a very long time. Serena’s face, which had just been a masterpiece of tragic, weeping beauty, instantly turned as white as a sheet of paper. “What are you implying? Are you accusing me of framing you?!” “I did use that fabric to make dresses, but I lost the scraps a few days ago…” “ENOUGH!” Arthur barked, violently cutting her off. It was glaringly obvious he had absolutely no desire to investigate the gaping plot holes in this setup. In his heart, Serena was a fragile, gentle angel who would never lie or harm another living soul. Therefore, I had to be the one who was wrong. “Claire, how much longer are you going to twist the truth and argue?!” “Mia was just born, and Serena’s health is incredibly fragile. How could she possibly withstand your toxic, psychotic scheming?!” “Since you cannot tolerate the people in this house, this house will no longer tolerate you.” He waved his hand with absolute, dictatorial finality. “Guards! Drag her to the cellar and force her to her knees!” “Without my explicit permission, do not give her a single drop of water or a single grain of rice!” “When she finally admits she’s wrong, you can let her out!” I didn’t bother defending myself again. I had pointed out the massive, glaring holes in the evidence, and Arthur had deliberately chosen to play blind. Honestly, the cellar was quiet. It was the perfect place to sit and wait for death. But as the rough, brutish guards began aggressively dragging me across the floor, Arthur’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat. “Wait!” I paused my steps, but I didn’t turn around. “Does Mr. Vance have any further instructions? Are you going to divorce this evil, toxic woman, or are you going to demand I pay with my life?” Arthur opened his mouth, but he had absolutely no idea what to say. Finally, he waved his hand in deep, agitated frustration, barking an order to the butler standing nearby. “Make sure the private trauma surgeon takes a look at her wounds. I don’t want any ugly rumors spreading to the press.” I let out a mocking, cynical laugh. A brutal beating, followed by a piece of candy? It was a tragic shame. Even if God Himself descended from heaven, He wouldn’t be able to save my life now. That brutal kick from Arthur had completely shattered the remaining fragile arteries around my heart. The System whispered: I had exactly three hours left to live. The cellar was pitch black. The agonizing physical pain in my body was slowly mutating into a heavy numbness. For some reason, I started thinking about all those days and nights I had spent locked in the attic. In the beginning, I knelt and prayed with absolute devotion, begging for nothing but Noah’s safety and health. Later, when I was locked up as a punishment, my heart was filled with nothing but suffocating injustice. Back then, I always prayed for the time to pass quickly. I wanted to get out so I could see Arthur, so I could desperately explain myself and clear my name. I wanted time with Noah, terrified that if we were apart too long, my son would become estranged from me. Right now, I was still praying for the time to pass quickly. So I could die faster, and finally return to the modern, equitable era where I truly belonged. I don’t know how much time passed, but a blistering fever consumed my body. In my hazy, delirious state, I heard a massive, chaotic commotion exploding outside the cellar. I fought with everything I had to force my eyes open. Through the cracks in the rotting wooden door, I saw my father. He looked exhausted, having clearly rushed straight here. He was clutching his medical bag, but he was being physically blocked in the courtyard by a wall of estate guards. Serena was standing safely under the covered walkway, her eyes dripping with pure, unadulterated malice. “Mr. Vance has given absolute orders. No one is permitted to visit.” Arthur rushed to the scene upon hearing the noise, his brow furrowing deeply as he took in the standoff. Before my father could even open his mouth to explain, Serena threw herself dramatically into Arthur’s arms, violently shaking in fake terror. “This man just trespassed into the private family quarters! He tried to sexually assault me!” “Arthur, you have to get justice for me!” My father trembled with apocalyptic rage. “You lying, venomous snake!” “I am an old man! Why on earth would I do something so repulsive?!” Arthur’s face turned to absolute ice. “Claire is locked in solitary confinement because she committed a severe crime.” “And you come bursting in here with absolutely zero respect for the law. If the press gets ahold of this, her reputation will be completely destroyed.” “Guards! Give him thirty strikes with the cane! Let this be a warning to anyone else who tries to break my rules!” Thirty strikes with a heavy cane. That was more than enough to literally beat an elderly man to death. “DAD—!” I desperately, frantically pounded my bleeding fists against the wooden window frame. Arthur shot a glare toward the cellar, but then coldly, indifferently looked away. The old man who had protected me from every storm my entire life was brutally shoved face-down into the freezing snow. The heavy, sickening THWACK of the wooden cane hitting flesh and bone slammed into my heart over and over again. Arthur Vance. You are a heartless, psychopathic monster. [Host’s vital signs are in catastrophic failure. You have exactly three minutes remaining.] A thin, fragile silhouette came stumbling frantically toward the cellar. It was Sarah. The loyal maid who had accompanied me into the Vance estate on the day I married. She had waited until the guards were distracted, stolen the heavy iron key to the cellar, and sprinted here. But just as she managed to unlock the heavy door, a guard noticed her and brought a tactical machete down in a brutal arc, completely severing her right hand. That was the exact hand that had embroidered handkerchiefs for me. The hand that had held my medicine bowls when I was sick. Sarah’s face went ghastly white from the sheer, incomprehensible agony, but she used her remaining left hand to fiercely grip the doorframe. “Ms. Claire, run! Go to the back gate, I already have a car waiting for you…” Before she could finish her sentence, the guard drove the blade brutally through Sarah’s chest. Sarah’s entire body collapsed backward onto the snow. By the time I dragged my broken body out of the cellar and collapsed beside her, Sarah… wasn’t breathing anymore. An apocalyptic, towering inferno of hatred exploded in my chest. I ripped the bloody blade from the guard’s hands and stumbled wildly into the courtyard. In the center of the estate, Arthur was standing with his arms crossed, watching my father being beaten half to death with cold, dead eyes. Hearing the commotion, he whipped his head around and barked aggressively: “Claire Bennett! Who the hell let you out?!” I threw my body over my father’s fading, bloodied form, shielding him from the blows. “ALL OF YOU, STOP IT RIGHT NOW!” A dark, dangerous fury began to pool in Arthur’s eyes. “Claire. Are you genuinely so arrogant that you think I won’t severely punish you?” Right in front of his eyes, I pulled the heavy, blood-soaked blade from the folds of my ruined dress. Arthur let out a cold, mocking laugh. “What? Threatening suicide again?” “You’ve used this pathetic trick a million times. I’m completely sick of looking at it.” “If you actually have the guts, then go ahead and…” [Detachment from current world countdown: 10 seconds.] [9, 8, 7…] Before he could finish his sentence, I drove the heavy steel blade brutally and flawlessly directly into my own heart. “Thirty strikes with the cane. I am paying you back, with interest, using my own life!” Crimson blood erupted like a geyser from my chest, violently splattering directly across Arthur’s face. The arrogant, mocking superiority in his eyes instantly shattered, replaced by a massive, apocalyptic tidal wave of absolute terror.

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Everyone in the military base housing envied me. I was the “slow” girl, yet I was going to be the wife of Captain Liam Hayes. But they didn’t know that when I was eight years old, I took a hit meant for him. That incident nearly cost me my life, and it permanently froze my mental development at that age. Knowing he owed me an unpayable debt, Liam promised to marry me. He promised to treat me well for the rest of his life. And for a long time, he actually did. While the other officers’ wives were elegant, sophisticated, and perfectly poised, Liam never found me embarrassing. He never minded how slow or clumsy I was. Once, during a devastating flash flood, he even gave up his spot on the rescue chopper for me. Until… Mia showed up. Her arrival made Liam’s trips home fewer and farther between. Even the little boy we had adopted together started saying: “I wish Auntie Mia was my mom. I don’t want a stupid girl for a mother!” Before I even had time to process the heartbreak, I was sent away to a rundown cabin in the country, where I died alone in the freezing drafts. When I opened my eyes again, I was unexpectedly back on the exact day Liam was supposed to fulfill his childhood promise. But this time, I didn’t want his guilt. And I didn’t want to marry him anymore. I didn’t understand why, but I should have been dead. Dead in that dilapidated, freezing cabin. But when I opened my eyes, I saw Liam, standing tall and handsome in his crisp military uniform. He asked me gently, “Ellie, let me take care of you forever, okay?” I lowered my eyes, knowing this meant we would spend the rest of our lives together. Because the last time he asked, I agreed, and not long after, I put on a white wedding dress. Honestly, marrying Liam was something I used to be thrilled about. It had been my birthday wish every single year since I was eight. But my head was spinning. It felt like I had just woken up from a vivid, identical dream. In that dream, Liam said the exact same thing. Then he married me, but shortly after our wedding, he regretted it. The very last time I saw him in that dream, I was crying, clutching his hand, begging him not to throw me away. He coldly shook me off. His voice was so tired, so utterly exhausted. “Ellie, please, just let me go.” “You took that hit for me when we were kids. I owe you, I know. But I’ve poured my heart and soul into taking care of you for all these years. Isn’t the debt paid by now?” “Just have some mercy. Sign the divorce papers. Let Mia and me be together.” Mia was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In my memories, Liam was always by her side. I heard the other wives on the base whispering about her. They said Mia was incredible. She was a brilliant, highly educated researcher who had just returned from studying in Europe. The kind of person I could never compare to in a million lifetimes. They also said she and Liam were a match made in heaven, unlike him and me—a slow girl who could barely even read. I had pouted. I felt so wronged. Actually… I wasn’t born slow. I grew up with Liam. We went to elementary school together, and teachers used to call me bright. But when I was eight, I drank a glass of poisoned cider that was meant for him. When I woke up, a crowd was gathered around my hospital bed. A doctor with a white beard shook his head and sighed. “There’s no cure. Severe neurological damage. She’ll be like this for the rest of her life.” Back then, I didn’t understand what “the rest of her life” meant. But I remember Liam holding me tight, crying endlessly. He shed so many tears. Finally, the little boy made a promise: “Ellie, I’m so sorry.” “When you grow up, we’ll get married. I’ll take care of you forever.” I didn’t know what marriage really meant, but Liam said marriage meant two people getting to stay together forever. My eyes instantly lit up. I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt. That sounded wonderful. I loved Liam more than anything. I wanted us to be together forever. But for some reason, after that day, the kids on the base stopped playing with me. They walked around me. They would huddle in groups far away and secretly point and laugh. I ran to Liam and asked him why. He comforted me so patiently: “It’s okay. Our Ellie is just a little sick right now. When you get better, your friends will come back.” “Besides, you have me, right? I’ll play with you.” “I’ll always stay with you, Ellie.” And he kept his word. He took care of my every need. When I turned nineteen, Liam kept his promise and married me. But shortly after, he met Mia. And he regretted it. The very first time I heard the phrase “love of my life” come out of Liam’s mouth… It was when he was describing Mia. Liam didn’t know that on the day he asked for a divorce, I wasn’t plotting anything. I had no intention of clinging to him. I just wanted to ask if he could please not send me back to that empty cabin in the country, because it was too lonely there. But the more anxious I got, the harder it was to form a complete sentence. Huge tears just kept rolling down my cheeks. That was when little Noah stepped forward. He was the son of Liam’s fallen squadmate. Liam and I had adopted him together. I knew the little guy never liked me. He thought I was an embarrassment. So when Liam brought up the divorce, Noah quickly shoved me away. He glared at me viciously. “You burden! You’re just dead weight! How much longer are you going to drag my dad down?” “Get out! Get out of our house! Auntie Mia is coming over soon, and she’s going to be my real mom! I don’t want a stupid girl for a mother!” Liam was also disgusted by my crying. In the end, I was sent away to the country, where I died in that broken-down cabin. A cold sweat broke out across my back. The dream felt too real. So real that it chilled me to the bone. I didn’t want to die. So I gently pushed Liam away and waved my hands frantically. “Let’s not do that, Liam.” For the first time, a look of utter confusion crossed his face. Before he could ask why, two soldiers in uniform walked in and saluted him. They told him there was a new mission. Liam hastily said goodbye, telling me to take good care of myself before he left. I watched his back as he walked away. If I remembered correctly, this was the exact rescue mission where he was going to meet Mia. I really didn’t expect Mia and I to cross paths so soon. A week later, she showed up at my door with gifts. She said she wanted to thank Liam for saving her life. She covered my table with beautiful, delicate pastries. Mrs. Higgins, the sweet older lady who lived next door, pulled me aside to warn me. “Ellie, honey, you need to keep your eyes open. You aren’t officially married yet, and you have no idea how many women are gunning for your Captain.” When she said that, her eyes were locked onto Mia. Seeing that I still didn’t react, Mrs. Higgins patted my head and sighed. “Oh, you poor, sweet girl.” Then, she turned her head and quietly spat in Mia’s direction, muttering, “Homewrecker.” Mrs. Higgins told me that after Liam saved Mia, she had used “gratitude” as an excuse to invite him out to dinner multiple times. People had spotted them alone at the local diner more than once. Mrs. Higgins knew I had saved Liam’s life, and she knew about our arrangement, so she was trying to help me guard against Mia. But I just shook my head. After that vivid dream, I was more certain than ever that I couldn’t use a childhood debt to hold Liam hostage. He deserved to choose his own life. And I wanted my freedom, too. I didn’t want to stay in the Hayes household anymore. After all, besides Liam, no one there actually liked me. In stark contrast to me, Mia was incredibly popular. Liam’s grandmother absolutely adored her. How much? She would constantly hold Mia’s hand, pushing her toward Liam, saying the family was just missing a granddaughter-in-law exactly like her. During their very first meeting, Grandma Hayes even gave Mia the antique diamond bracelet that had been passed down through the family for generations. I remembered Liam telling me that bracelet was meant for his future wife. Liam happened to be walking downstairs when it happened. Hearing his grandmother’s words, he frowned, clearly displeased. He stopped her. “Grandma, stop talking nonsense. I’m marrying Ellie.” But even though Liam said he was marrying me, he and Mia were becoming increasingly inseparable. Coincidentally, Liam’s newest assignment was to act as the protective detail for this brilliant researcher. As a result, they were glued to each other. The people on the base laughed at me constantly. They would walk right up to my face and joke: “Ellie, your man took Mia to the movies again.” “Hey there, slowpoke, the Captain took someone to the mall today.” “Does the Captain even want you anymore? We all saw him buy Mia a gorgeous dress. Did he buy you one?” Whenever they started talking like that, I would run out and sit under the old oak tree by the gate. I wouldn’t say I was heartbroken. I really was fine with not marrying Liam. But could he please not abandon me? I didn’t want to be completely alone. I… needed family. Liam treated me well, and he was all I had left. If we couldn’t be husband and wife, could I just be his little sister? I picked up a twig and drew circles in the dirt. The answer was no. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Grandma Hayes took Noah and me to the department store downtown. She wanted to buy some holiday treats and toys. And right there, we bumped into Liam. And Mia. At that exact moment, he was looking at her with absolute tenderness, gently helping her tie a silk scarf around her neck. From the back, they looked like a perfect, beautiful match. Little Noah immediately squeezed next to me, gloating proudly. “See that? That’s the kind of person who actually deserves my dad.” “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pack your bags and leave, you dead weight.” Mhm… Noah loved calling me that. Dead weight. A burden. I bit my lip, just about to pinch his cheek and tell him: Listen here, kid. I can be really mean. I’m not someone you want to mess with. But when I looked up, I locked eyes with Liam. Seeing me, he completely panicked, instantly putting a massive distance between himself and Mia. He rushed over to explain, “Look, Ellie, it’s not what you think. Mia and I are just…” I didn’t wait for him to finish. I just nodded. I didn’t blame him. Truly. Ever since that dream, I knew that the Liam who met Mia was no longer just my Liam. I just didn’t expect Mia to take him away so absolutely, so completely. Because that night, I came down with a terrifyingly high fever. Maybe I hadn’t worn enough clothes at the mall. Usually, when I got sick, Liam would make me hot tea, stay right by my bed, and tell me stories until I fell asleep. But this time, a single phone call from Mia changed everything. I heard her crying through the receiver. “Liam, I sprained my ankle. It hurts so badly. Can you take me to the ER?” Liam didn’t hesitate for a second. As he headed for the door, I made one last, desperate attempt. “Liam, can you not go? I feel really sick too.” Liam grabbed his truck keys, not even turning around. He brushed me off. “Be a good girl, Ellie. I need to get Mia to the hospital, it’s an emergency.” “I’ll bring you your favorite caramel apples when I get back.” And then he was gone. The house he left behind was suffocatingly quiet. Not a single sound. I rolled over in bed, tears streaming down my face. I cried because, once again, I had no family. It was true. Liam… my Liam, was no longer my family. I knew I wasn’t smart. But when my mom was still alive, she told me: No matter what happens, family will never abandon you when you need them most. Liam’s excuse—it’s an emergency—translated to one simple truth: Mia was more important than me. I curled into a tight ball under the covers. I waited, and waited. By the time the middle of the night rolled around, Liam still hadn’t returned. I was dizzy with fever, my throat parched and burning. I had to get out of bed to boil some water myself. I guess I really am just clumsy and stupid. So stupid that I tripped over my own feet just trying to get a glass of water. I hit my head hard against the edge of the cabinet. I saw stars. I finally understood why, in my dream, Liam had slowly grown to resent me. Just like Noah said, I really was a burden. I was dead weight. I couldn’t do anything right. I bit down hard on my lip to stop myself from crying out loud. It hurt… It hurt so much. My forehead was throbbing. I mimicked the way my mom used to comfort me when I was little, whispering to myself: Don’t cry, Ellie. Be a good girl. Ellie is the bravest. Ellie is… is very strong. But the more I whispered, the faster the tears fell. Mom, I miss you so much. I miss you and Dad. You were the only ones who never thought I was stupid. I crouched on the floor, sobbing quietly. That night, the moon and stars were completely hidden behind dark storm clouds. I dug through my closet and pulled out a floral dress my mom had made for me years ago. I used it as a pillow, and finally cried myself into a heavy sleep. My fever raged on and off for days. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving arrived that I finally started feeling better. During that entire time, Liam stayed by Mia’s side. He didn’t forget I was sick, though. But every time he showed even the slightest inclination to come check on me, Mia conveniently found a reason to call him away. I got used to it. In my dream, this exact scenario had played out countless times. Perhaps out of guilt for abandoning me while I was sick, Liam went out of his way to buy me a bunch of my favorite pastries. And peanut butter cups. I had a massive sweet tooth. Ever since my parents passed away, candy was the only thing that could reach the bitter depths of my heart. Sitting on the sofa, Noah rolled his eyes at me. “Are you a baby? I stopped eating that childish junk years ago.” I pressed my lips together, clutching a crumpled candy wrapper in my hand, saying nothing. Of course Noah didn’t need candy. Even though he didn’t have his biological parents, he had Liam to dote on him. He had Grandma Hayes to spoil him. I was different. I only had candy. It was the only sweetness I could actually hold onto. Later that evening, the Thanksgiving family dinner began. Liam finally came home. He wasn’t alone. He brought Mia with him. Liam explained that it was Mia’s first holiday back in the States, her family was still in Europe, and she didn’t have many friends around here yet. So, he just brought her home. Mia walked up to me with a brilliant smile, handing me a beautifully wrapped gift box. “Ellie, I heard you love sweets. This is my Thanksgiving gift to you.” She winked at me. “I had a friend specifically send these from a boutique down south. You have to try them.” I didn’t want them. But after glancing at the warning look on Liam’s face, I took the box. Pecan pralines. All the color drained from my face. There was absolutely no way Liam didn’t know that I had a severe, life-threatening allergy to pecans. I realized then that I truly despised Mia. Especially when she tried to force me to eat something that could kill me. When it was just the two of us left in the living room, she aggressively pushed her gift on me. “Ellie, just take one bite. Don’t you love candy?” I ignored her, shifting my seat further away. She followed me. “Ellie, it was so hard to get these imported. Why are you being so disrespectful?” Mia aggressively tried to shove one of the pralines toward my mouth. I slapped her hand away. During the scuffle, a glass cup on the side table was knocked to the floor. It shattered into a dozen pieces. It was a custom, matching couple’s cup I had hand-painted for Liam and me. Now it was shattered, just like the far-from-perfect ending Liam and I had in my dream. Mia reached down to pick up the pieces, and a shard of glass sliced her finger. It was a long, bleeding cut. Her eyes instantly welled up with tears of pain. Liam walked into the room at that exact moment. Mia stood pitifully next to the broken glass. She pointed a trembling finger at me. “Liam, I just wanted Ellie to try the candy I brought her, and she aggressively refused. Does your family really hate me being here that much?” Before Liam could even speak, Noah rushed over. “Auntie Mia, it’s not your fault! Evelyn is just a weirdo, none of us like her anyway!” “She’s stupid. Don’t let her get to you.” “Does your finger hurt?” Seeing Mia bleeding, Liam’s face turned terrifyingly dark. “Ellie, apologize.” I didn’t understand. I just didn’t want to eat the candy that would make me deathly ill. Why did I have to apologize? I refused. But the price of not apologizing was that I had to eat the pecan pralines. Liam said that eating them was the only way to prove I wasn’t intentionally disrespecting Mia’s kindness. I stood frozen in the middle of the room. My throat bobbed. I wanted to scream, Why? Why are you treating me like this? Didn’t you say you’d treat me well for the rest of your life? Didn’t you say Ellie was the most important thing to you? But Liam was unyielding. Either I apologized, or I ate the candy. Noah stood protectively in front of Mia. The two of them, father and son, stood like a united front, guarding a woman they had only known for a few months.

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