Category: English

It was the third month of my kidnapping when I finally broke out. I didn’t go to the police. I didn’t go home. I went to the hospital. The ER doctor stared at me, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked like a knot. “Where is your family? I need a signature for the emergency surgery. Now.” I lay on the gurney, my eyes tracing the sterile, humming fluorescent lights on the ceiling. “My parents are dead,” I said, my voice barely a rasp. “I don’t have anyone.” That night, Victoria arrived. My wife—on paper, at least. The ice-queen CEO with a net worth in the billions. She swept into the trauma ward wearing a custom Chanel suit and four-inch Jimmy Choos, her makeup flawless, not a single hair out of place. She looked as though she had just stepped off the red carpet of some charity gala. She stood over my bed, looking down at me. Her tone carried that familiar, polished impatience. “Harry, what kind of game are you playing this time? If you were hospitalized, why didn’t you have someone call my office?” I looked at her. I didn’t panic and scramble to explain myself the second her brow twitched, the way I always used to. I didn’t scream at her. I didn’t ask why she hadn’t picked up a single one of the three hundred and seventy-four desperate phone calls I had made to her. I didn’t even ask her why, when the rumors of my brutal murder were circulating through the city’s elite, she was busy walking arm-in-arm with her untouchable first love at a private auction in Paris, dropping millions to buy him a toy. Instead, the corners of my mouth twitched. I offered her a polite, entirely hollow smile—an expression she had never seen on my face before. “Ms. Crawford, you must be mistaken.” “We don’t know each other well enough for you to be here.” 1 Victoria’s expression froze. For the first time in our three years of marriage, a crack of genuine, unfiltered shock shattered the placid surface of her dark eyes—eyes that usually saw through every corporate bluff and boardroom scheme. “What did you just say?” Her voice remained cold, but the final syllable carried a microscopic tremor. Are you deaf? I said, we’re strangers. I didn’t repeat myself. I simply turned my head, letting my gaze drift toward the heavy ink of the night sky outside the window. For three months, I had stared at a sky exactly like that through the single, mold-choked air vent of a basement cell. Back then, my only lifeline, my only sustaining thought, was that she would find me. Now, that hope—along with the battered, hollowed-out remnants of my heart—was dead. “Harry, do you have any idea who you are talking to?” Victoria was clearly insulted by my indifference. She took a step forward, the sheer, crushing weight of her presence instantly dominating the small hospital room. It was her favorite tactic. Overpower. Intimidate. Force the surrender. The old me would have crumbled under that look. I would have shrunk down, apologized profusely, and bent over backward to smooth out the crease between her brows. But right now? I just found it incredibly funny. I turned my head back to her. My eyes were as still as stagnant water. “Ms. Victoria Crawford.” I enunciated every syllable, using the most formal, distant title possible. “According to the state, we are legally married. But I don’t believe our current dynamic warrants a midnight hospital visit.” My voice was terrifyingly soft. My vocal cords had been shredded by weeks of screaming and chronic dehydration. It came out as a gravelly, broken wheeze. The sound of it drained another shade of color from Victoria’s face. It seemed she was finally noticing that I wasn’t just “hospitalized” for a routine check-up. My face was a map of fading, ugly contusions. Beneath the thin fabric of the hospital gown, my arms were wrapped in heavy gauze, blood seeping through where the blades had cut down to the bone. I was emaciated, my cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, my eyes sunken deep into their sockets. I looked like a walking corpse. 2 “Your face… your arms… who did this to you?” The anger in her eyes dissolved into shock, and perhaps, a fleeting trace of panic. Only noticing now, Victoria? What exactly do you use those eyes for? I didn’t answer her. Instead, I looked past her toward the doorway and spoke softly. “Nurse? Could you please call security?” “This woman is severely disrupting my recovery.” Victoria went totally rigid. She stared at me in absolute disbelief, as if she were looking at a madman. “Harry! Have you lost your mind?!” “I’m perfectly sane.” I looked right through her. No anger. No resentment. Just an endless, echoing void. “I just finally saw things clearly.” “I want a divorce.” Three words. I said them as casually as if I were commenting on the weather, but they detonated like a live grenade in the dead silence of the room. Victoria was utterly paralyzed. She opened her mouth, but not a single sound came out. That beautiful, calculated face—the one that maintained absolute rationality in the face of billion-dollar losses—finally fractured. For three years, I had loved her loudly, publicly, and pathetically. I was the biggest joke in our social circle—a man who had thrown away his own ambitions and pride to marry into the Crawford family, playing the role of the docile, obedient trophy husband to a woman who couldn’t stand him. Everyone was just waiting for the day she finally kicked me to the curb. And I had never once thought of giving up. Not until those three hundred and seventy-four unanswered calls. Not until I saw the news headline from Paris. What broke me wasn’t the fists of the men who beat me. It was the realization that, while I was bleeding out on a concrete floor, the woman I loved more than breathing had actively chosen to look the other way. “You want… a divorce?” Victoria finally found her voice. She let out a sharp, incredulous breath, treating it like a spectacular joke. “Is this your new strategy, Harry? Throwing a tantrum to get my attention? I don’t have the time or the patience for these pathetic little games.” A game. Right. To you, my entire existence is just a game. I closed my eyes. I was so exhausted I didn’t even have the energy to look at her anymore. “If you don’t have a divorce attorney on retainer, I can give you a few names,” I said, my voice flat. “I’ll cover your legal fees.” Without another word, I pressed the call button on the side of the bed. Within seconds, a nurse and two security guards hurried into the room. “Sir, is everything alright?” I opened my eyes, looked at Victoria, and gave a faint nod toward the door. “Please escort this woman out.” Watching the security guards awkwardly approach her, watching Victoria’s face cycle through shock, fury, and utter humiliation—I felt an unprecedented wave of relief wash over me. So this was what it felt like when your heart finally stopped beating for someone. The sky could fall, and I wouldn’t even blink. Victoria was essentially forced out by security. For a woman of her pride and status, it was the ultimate indignity. Through the thin door, I could hear her furiously barking orders at her chief of staff in the hallway, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. “Investigate this! I want to know exactly where he’s been for the last three months!” “Pull the hospital security footage. I want a list of everyone he’s spoken to!” “And get my legal team on the phone, tell them to—” She cut herself off. I knew what she had been about to say. Tell them to draft the divorce papers. But the words had died in her throat. Go ahead, Victoria. Dig. Dig until you hit the bottom. See exactly what your precious, high-and-mighty indifference almost cost me. I lay back against the pillows, numbly cataloging the sharp, stabbing pain radiating from my fractured ribs. 3 The nurse came back in to change my dressings. She had light hands and sympathetic eyes. “Your… your wife. She isn’t very kind to you,” the young woman whispered, unable to hold her tongue. I just smiled faintly. I didn’t say a word. Wasn’t she? There was a time when I had convinced myself she was. We had been married for three years. She was distant, yes, but she provided me with an incredibly lavish life. The cars I drove, the tailored suits I wore, the sprawling estate I lived in—all of it belonged to Crawford Enterprises. She allowed me to exist in her orbit. She let me play the role of “Victoria’s Husband” at insignificant galas. I used to believe that if I just tried hard enough, if I just loved her enough, I could eventually melt the glacier she kept around her heart. I learned to cook her favorite meals. I learned massage therapy for her migraines. I learned corporate management just so I could help organize her lower-level files. I was like a desperate, pathetic zealot, worshipping at the altar of a god who didn’t even know my name. Until three months ago. I had driven to a neighboring city to pick up an urgent contract she needed. On the winding mountain road back, a heavy-duty freight truck purposefully rammed my car off the cliff. It wasn’t an accident. It was a meticulously planned kidnapping. The people who took me were ruthless rivals of Victoria’s company. They didn’t want a ransom. They wanted to force Victoria Crawford to her knees. They tossed a phone at my bleeding face and told me to call her. I called. The first ring went to voicemail. The second ring went to voicemail. … On the one-hundredth call, she finally picked up. There was loud, thumping bass in the background. The clinking of crystal champagne flutes. Laughter. I screamed with everything I had left in my lungs. “Victoria, help! They’ve got me—” Click. She hung up. Then, the fists started falling. After that, I dialed that memorized number every single day. Three hundred and seventy-four times. Every single time, I got a cold, automated tone. Or the call was instantly rejected. Until the third month, when I finally saw her on the cracked screen of a guard’s discarded tablet. She was the headline on the financial news. Crawford Enterprises CEO Victoria Crawford Spends $40 Million at Paris Auction on Antique Violin for Musical Prodigy Spencer Brooks. In the photo, she had her arm linked elegantly through Spencer’s. She was smiling—a rare, gentle, indulgent smile. Spencer Brooks. The golden boy. The one who got away. The untouchable saint she kept locked in a glass box in her heart, whom no one was allowed to breathe on. In that moment, everything snapped into crystal clarity. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear my cries for help. It was that my survival simply did not register on her radar. My life meant less to her than a single smile from her first love. And so, I stopped calling. I found a rusted nail on the damp basement floor. It took me seven days and seven nights of agonizing, bloody work to saw through the thick nylon ropes binding my wrists. On a night when the rain was coming down in sheets, I broke out. The sound of gunfire chased me through three blocks of mud and darkness. I don’t even know how I survived. When I finally regained consciousness, I was here. A trucker passing through the industrial park had found me on the shoulder of the highway, brought me in, and even paid the admission deposit. I pulled out my phone and stared at Victoria’s name sitting quietly in my contacts. I didn’t call. I pressed ‘Block.’ Then, ‘Delete.’ From this second forward, Victoria Crawford was nothing but a stranger. A stranger who was about to become my ex-wife. The next morning, my hospital room became incredibly “crowded.” Victoria’s chief of staff, along with two heavily armed bodyguards, stood outside my door like sentries, blocking anyone who tried to visit. And sitting inside the room was someone I hadn’t expected to see: Dr. Wallace, the Crawford family’s private physician. Dr. Wallace was in his sixties. He had watched Victoria grow up and held immense authority within her inner circle. 4 He sat by my bed, holding my medical chart. His face was so grim it looked like it was carved from stone. “Harry, you…” He looked at me, struggling to find the words. His eyes were a chaotic mix of shock, profound pity, and a trace of carefully concealed fury. I met his gaze evenly. “Spit it out, Doc. I know exactly what shape my body is in.” Dr. Wallace let out a heavy sigh and placed the chart on the nightstand. “Severe, full-body soft tissue contusions. Three hairline fractures in your ribs. A compound fracture in your left tibia. A mild concussion. And…” He paused, lowering his voice. “Your stomach lining is completely ruined. The prolonged starvation and ingestion of contaminated water caused severe perforations and multiple ulcers. Your vocal cords have sustained heavy trauma.” He hesitated, his eyes dropping to my arms. “But the worst of it is your right hand. The tendons were intentionally severed. The surgeons managed to reattach them, but moving forward… I’m afraid you’ll never regain your previous dexterity.” My right hand… I subconsciously looked down at the heavy layers of gauze wrapping my hand. When the kidnappers realized I had been trying to escape, they decided to punish me. They took a blade to my wrists. They knew I used to be a somewhat recognized painter in the New York art scene. They hadn’t just wanted to break my body. They wanted to obliterate my soul. “I understand.” I nodded slowly. My voice was as calm as if we were discussing the weather in a foreign country. Dr. Wallace’s frown deepened. “Do you… do you even care?” I laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “Does caring change anything, Doc? Will caring fix the nerves in my hand? Will it erase the last three months of hell?” Dr. Wallace fell silent. He knew I was right. A suffocating quiet filled the room. I knew why he was really here. Victoria sent him. She didn’t trust me, but she trusted Dr. Wallace’s medical expertise unconditionally. Now, he had seen the reality of my broken body with his own eyes. This chart was going to be sitting on her mahogany desk within the hour. I wondered what kind of face she would make when she read the clinical, undeniable proof of my torture. Would she feel guilty? Would she regret it? Or… would she still assume this was all just an elaborate, self-inflicted scheme to manipulate her emotions? “Harry,” Dr. Wallace said suddenly, sounding incredibly old. “Victoria… she didn’t do this maliciously. The company has been in a state of absolute crisis these past three months. She was drowning in fires to put out, and she just—” “And that gave her the right to ignore over three hundred desperate phone calls?” I cut him off. I didn’t raise my voice, but the absolute zero temperature in my tone made Dr. Wallace snap his mouth shut. My eyes drifted past him, landing on the expensive, insulated thermos sitting on the side table. “Did she tell you to bring that?” Dr. Wallace looked profoundly uncomfortable. He nodded. “It’s a medicinal chicken broth. She made it herself. She said your body is weak and you need the nutrients.” Made it herself? Victoria? A woman who couldn’t even point out which direction her own kitchen was in? I scoffed internally, though my face remained a blank mask. I threw off the thin hospital blanket, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and slowly, painfully stood up. I walked over to the thermos. Just as Dr. Wallace’s shoulders relaxed, clearly assuming I was accepting this pathetic, belated olive branch, I unscrewed the lid. I took a brief sniff of the rich broth. Then, I walked over to the open window and tipped the thermos upside down. I poured every last drop of the steaming, golden liquid out the window and into the hospital’s decorative holly bushes two stories below. Splash. Dr. Wallace’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What… what are you doing?!” I set the empty thermos gently on the windowsill. I turned around, looked him dead in the eye, and spoke with agonizing precision. “Doctor, please pass a message along to Victoria.” 5 “Tell her that even if I were starving to death, I would never swallow another bite of food from her hands.” “And.” I paused, looking right through him, visualizing the woman sitting in her high-rise glass office, waiting for his report. “Tell her to sign the divorce papers. Quickly.” My words were a physical slap to the face, delivered entirely by proxy. Dr. Wallace was so stunned he couldn’t formulate a response. He grabbed the empty thermos and basically fled the room, his face pale and tight. I knew it was only a matter of time before the hurricane hit. Sure enough, less than thirty minutes later, my door was violently shoved open. Victoria was back. This time, the pristine armor of her designer suit was gone. She was wearing a simple beige trench coat, her hair haphazardly twisted up in a clip. Her face was completely bare of makeup, and heavy, bruised shadows hung beneath her eyes. It was obvious she hadn’t slept a wink. She stormed over to my bed, her chest heaving. Those eyes, usually locked behind a wall of permafrost, were blazing with erratic fury and… was that panic? “Harry! What exactly do you want from me?!” She slammed a thick manila folder onto my lap. “I read Wallace’s report! You got hurt, fine! I admit I was negligent! I will get you the best specialists in the country, the best private nurses. I will compensate you, I will make it right! But a divorce? Don’t even think about it!” Compensate me? What currency could possibly pay for my ruined hands? I didn’t look at the medical report. Instead, I picked up the thick folder she had thrown at me. It was a pre-drafted divorce agreement. The only thing missing were the signatures at the bottom. Clearly, she had been planning this for a while. She just never expected I would be the one demanding it first. I picked up the pen from the bedside table. With my left hand, painfully and awkwardly, I scrawled my name on the bottom line. Harry. I slid the papers back across the blanket toward her. “Sign it.” My movements, my tone—they were like a blade dipped in poison, sliding effortlessly between her ribs. All the color violently drained from Victoria’s face. “You…” She pointed a trembling finger at me, shaking with pure rage. “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re a parasite! A kept man living off my family’s money! What right do you have to demand a divorce from me? Don’t forget, Harry, every single thing you have in this world is because I allowed it! Without me, you couldn’t even afford to walk through the front doors of this hospital!” There it was. The venom. The cruelty she relied on to keep everyone beneath her. In the past, those words would have gutted me. They would have sent me spiraling into an abyss of self-doubt and agony. Now? It was just embarrassing to watch. “Victoria, I think you’re deeply confused about something.” I tilted my head, meeting her furious glare with absolute, chilling calm. “I have never lived off you. We signed an ironclad prenuptial agreement. I have never touched a single cent of your money. Everything I’ve bought in the last three years came from my own personal accounts. And as for this hospital…” I paused, a dark, mocking smile curling the corner of my mouth. “Trinity Memorial… I actually happen to own a minor equity stake in it.” Victoria’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. “Bullshit!” she snapped instantly. “Trinity Memorial is wholly owned by the Prescott Empire out of New York! What does that have to do with you?!” You really never bothered to look at me, did you? “The New York Prescotts.” I looked at her like she was a slow child. “Funny thing about that. My last name is Prescott.”

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My mother always had a sick fascination with practical jokes, entirely oblivious to time, place, or collateral damage. At my daughter’s first birthday party, she slammed a forged paternity test onto the banquet table and sobbed a river of crocodile tears to my husband. “I know my daughter made a fool of you. I know she let you raise another man’s bastard,” she wailed, her voice echoing through the silent room. “But she promised me she’d change! Please, just give her a chance!” Our friends and family froze. The air left the room. I scrambled to explain, begging anyone to listen, but who questions the tearful confession of a biological mother? Who assumes a grandmother would manufacture such a devastating lie about her own flesh and blood? My husband, completely shattered by the sheer weight of the public humiliation and the betrayal he thought was real, broke down. The pain in his eyes was something I will never forget. Before anyone could stop him, he stepped out onto the hotel balcony. And he let go. When the screams started and the reality of a dead body on the pavement set in, my mother offered a pathetic, watery shrug. “I was just pulling a prank,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “How was I supposed to know he’d take it so seriously?” My father and brother, standing on the periphery, scoffed. “If he jumped, he must have already suspected you,” my father sneered. “Exactly,” my brother chimed in. “If you weren’t such a slut, Harper, a joke like that wouldn’t have landed.” Suffocating under the weight of my in-laws’ agonizing screams and the disgusted glares of everyone I loved, I backed away. My heel caught the edge of the threshold. I tumbled over the railing, falling into the exact same abyss that had just swallowed my husband. Given a second chance, I decided it was time my mother learned the punchline to her own joke. 1 A sharp, breathless wail ripped me from the dark. I bolted upright, my chest heaving, staring blankly at the crib where my daughter was crying. Beside me, Nathan rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He didn’t hesitate. He slid out of bed, his broad shoulders casting a warm shadow in the dim light, and scooped Mia up, swaying gently. He turned his head and gave me that soft, lopsided smile that always made my heart ache. “She’s just fussy tonight. Why don’t you go sleep in the guest room, Harper? I’ve got her. If she wakes you up again, you’ll be complaining about your dark circles all day tomorrow.” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I let him guide me out of the master bedroom, my feet moving on autopilot. It wasn’t until I stood in the hallway, staring down at the glowing date and time on my phone screen, that the reality violently clicked into place. I was back. I had woken up exactly one week before my mother, Diane, would casually destroy my entire universe with a single sentence. In one week, we were scheduled to host Mia’s first birthday. We had rented out the sunroom at a beautiful local country club. The plan, in my previous life, had been to do a little time-capsule ceremony—a moment where everyone dropped a written wish for Mia into a wooden box. But when it was my mother’s turn, she had marched to the front and slammed a manila envelope on the table. “Here’s a wish for you, sweetie,” she had said, leaning into the microphone. “I wish that one day, you get to meet your real daddy.” I had been so stunned I couldn’t even form the words to stop her. Diane had just kept going, adopting a tone of tragic martyrdom. “I can’t keep this secret anymore. It’s eating me alive. Nathan is a saint. He’s the perfect husband, the perfect father. I cannot stand by and watch my daughter play him for an absolute fool.” And then, she produced the fake DNA results. She painted a vivid, sickeningly detailed picture of my imaginary infidelity. She narrated a fictional affair, claiming I had gotten pregnant by a stranger and pinned it on Nathan to secure a comfortable life. The whispers had started immediately. Nathan, his face drained of all blood, had looked at me. He raised a hand, trembling, as if to strike me, but he couldn’t do it. The betrayal was too immense, the public spectacle too suffocating. He turned, vaulted over the balcony railing, and was gone. And I, panicked, frantic, trying to reach him, had fallen right after him. Only after the darkness took me did I realize it was just another one of Diane’s infamous “ice-breakers.” A joke. … Standing in the hallway now, listening to the muffled, soothing baritone of Nathan singing a lullaby to our daughter, the phantom sensation of the pavement rushing up to meet me vanished. In its place, a cold, crystalline resolve settled into my bones. I was not just going to save my family. I was going to force my mother to choke on her own poison. 2 The week evaporated, and the day of the party arrived, mirroring my past life perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. This time, I had upgraded the venue. The floral arrangements were taller, the guest list was twice as long, and the champagne was flowing freely. I wanted an audience. The moment Diane walked into the ballroom, her mouth was already moving. “Lord, you’d think she gave birth to the heir of the British throne,” she muttered loudly to my father, eyeing the ice sculpture. “It’s just a girl. When your brother had his son, did you throw a party this big? No.” She snatched a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. “Even if Nathan makes good money, this is gross negligence. Your brother is drowning in his mortgage, Harper. If you have this kind of cash laying around, you should be helping family first.” Nathan’s jaw tightened, a muscle feathering near his ear, but he swallowed his anger for my sake. My in-laws, Tom and Carol, who had been bouncing Mia on their knees, immediately lost their smiles. I had swallowed this exact rhetoric my entire life. I was the daughter, the burden, the one destined to be married off, while my brother Derek was the golden child, the investment. I was so used to Diane’s relentless chipping away at my self-worth that I usually just stayed quiet. But I had already died once. The fear of making a scene was buried with my first life. I planted my feet, squared my shoulders, and pointed a finger directly at her. My voice carried over the light jazz playing in the background. “Excuse me? Because I married well, I’m suddenly obligated to fund your son’s life? Where does that leave Derek and his wife? Should they call me their sister, or their sugar mama?” It was the first time in twenty-eight years I had ever raised my voice at her. Diane physically recoiled, her eyes widening in genuine shock. It took her a full ten seconds to recover. “Oh, calm down, Harper. I was just joking.” She offered a tight, condescending laugh. “Besides, everyone knows boys carry the family legacy. A daughter is nice, but she’s just a guest in the house. A girl alone doesn’t mean much.” I didn’t back down. I stepped closer, my voice ringing out clearly. “She might not mean much to you, Diane, but to my husband and his parents, she is everything. You spent your whole life acting like being a woman is a curse. Don’t you dare project your internalized misogyny onto my daughter. She is a queen in this family.” The room went dead silent. That did it. I hit the exposed nerve. Diane’s face flushed a violent, mottled red. Forgetting about the time-capsule ceremony entirely, she dropped the facade. “You have a lot of nerve acting high and mighty!” she shrieked, her voice cracking like a whip across the elegant room. “Nathan and his parents treat you like royalty, and how do you repay them? By sleeping around with God knows who, and making Nathan raise a bastard!” “You ungrateful little tramp!” 3 The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet; it was a vacuum. The waiters froze mid-pour. The string quartet stopped playing. People live for drama, but a mother publicly annihilating her daughter’s character? That was a spectacle you didn’t see every day. Every eye in the room pivoted to me—the shameless, cheating wife. Nobody in their right mind would assume a mother would fabricate something so grotesque about her own child. But Diane was not in her right mind. She lived for this. She fed off the shock value of crossing unspeakable lines and then hiding behind the shield of “I’m just kidding.” When I was twelve, she pretended to slip and fall in the shower. She screamed bloody murder, begging for help. I was terrified. I ran out of my bedroom, didn’t even stop to grab a robe, and sprinted into the hallway in just my underwear. I found her standing perfectly fine in the doorway, holding her phone up, the camera lens pointed squarely at me. She was suppressing a laugh. “Oh, honey, look at you! Say hi to my coworkers! We’re on a video call!” I nearly threw up from the humiliation. When my dad and brother came home, she spun it effortlessly. “I was just pulling a prank to see if she cared enough to rush to my rescue! How was I supposed to know she’d run out half-naked?” Later, as an “apology,” she bought me a beautiful, pristine white sundress. I wore it out to the mall with my friends, feeling pretty for the first time in months. But people kept staring. Finally, a woman pulled me into a restroom. “Honey, you’ve got a heavy leak back there.” I twisted around to look in the mirror. Someone had taken bright red acrylic paint and smeared it across the back of the skirt. I ran home crying hysterically. Diane just chuckled, sipping her coffee. “You’ve been so gloomy lately, I just wanted to lighten the mood. Why are you so sensitive?” My dad and Derek had laughed until they couldn’t breathe. “Don’t blame your mother,” my dad had wheezed. “You should have checked your clothes before you put them on.” “Yeah,” Derek added. “Mom was just trying to cheer you up. Apologize to her for yelling.” They never understood—or didn’t care—that that one “joke” resulted in me being mercilessly bullied for the rest of middle school. 4 Pulling myself out of the memory, I looked at Diane with absolute, chilling calm. “You’re saying I slept around? That I made Nathan a cuckold?” I tilted my head, my voice eerily steady. “Is this another one of your jokes, Mom? Or are you being serious?” The guests, many of whom were extended family who knew Diane’s reputation, started murmuring. “Diane, come on, that’s going too far.” “Not today, Diane. Drop the act.” This wasn’t the reaction she had scripted in her head. She shifted uncomfortably, realizing the crowd wasn’t immediately pulling out their pitchforks. She gritted her teeth. “I might have a sense of humor, Harper, but I know where to draw the line. I would never joke about this.” Nathan looked shaken, his brow furrowed in deep confusion, but—unlike my first life—he didn’t pull away. The foundation of our marriage had shifted since I woke up a week ago. I had spent the last seven days loving him fiercely, communicating with him, fortifying us. He stepped slightly in front of me, taking my hand. “Diane, I know my wife. I know who she is. Mia is my daughter.” Tom and Carol, emboldened by Nathan’s stance, moved to flank me. “Exactly,” Carol said sharply. Having my chosen family form a physical wall around me gave me a rush of adrenaline. I leaned into it. “You heard him,” I said, my voice hardening. “If you’re going to make an accusation like that, you better have the evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you can walk out those doors and never call yourself my mother again.” My father, Robert, turned purple with rage. He lunged forward, raising his hand to slap me, but Nathan caught his wrist mid-air, his grip like a vise. Denied his violence, Robert stomped his foot like a petulant child. “How dare you speak to her like that! You think your mother would just make this up?” Derek nodded vigorously. “Mom is just trying to save Nathan from wasting his life on a liar! You should be on your knees begging Nathan for forgiveness so he doesn’t throw you out on the street!” I rolled my eyes at the two of them, pulled out my phone, and tapped the screen. “Show me the proof, Diane. Right now. Or I am dialing 911 and pressing charges for criminal defamation.” Seeing I wasn’t backing down, a triumphant gleam sparked in Diane’s eyes. “You want proof? Fine. Explain this!” She unzipped her designer tote, pulled out a crisp manila envelope, and whipped out a thick stack of papers, flipping straight to the final page. “Right here! ‘Probability of Paternity: 0%.’ Sample A is the baby. Sample B is Nathan. It’s scientific proof! What do you have to say for yourself now?” 5 Diane paraded the paper around like a trophy, ensuring the people in the front row got a good look at the bold black text. “You all think Harper is this perfect little angel,” Diane announced to the room, reveling in the spotlight. “But a mother knows. I always knew what she was.” She scoffed, playing to the crowd. “When it was time for college, I found her a great local school. Safe, easy to commute, good job prospects. But no, she insisted on going to a university halfway across the country. Why? Because she wanted to be off the leash. She wanted to sleep around without me catching her.” She wasn’t entirely wrong about the college part. I did pick the furthest school possible—but it was solely to escape the suffocating, toxic hellscape of her roof. And thank God I did, because it was exactly how I met a man as decent as Nathan. The crowd, seeing the official-looking crest and the DNA sequencing on the paper, fell silent again. The murmurs changed tenor. “My God… you don’t joke with a printed lab report.” “Maybe Diane really is just trying to do the right thing…” “Now that I look at her, the baby doesn’t really have Nathan’s nose, does she?” I let my face crumple into a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. I looked at Diane, my eyes wide and wounded. “Mom, what are you doing? Are you trying to destroy my life? You know me! Nathan was my first real boyfriend. How could you even think I’d be capable of this?” Diane ignored me completely. Instead, she turned to Nathan and did the unthinkable. She dropped to her knees. “Nathan,” she wept, clutching at his pant leg. “You are such a good man. This is my fault. I failed as a mother. I didn’t raise her right. I let her become this… this tramp.” She sniffled loudly, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “But please, don’t leave her. She confessed everything to me. She promised she’ll never look at another man again. She even promised me she’d give you a son next time to make up for it. Just find it in your heart to forgive her.” Nathan, Carol, and Tom stood completely paralyzed. They exchanged bewildered, deeply uncomfortable glances. 6 Finally, the three of them looked at me, their eyes begging for an explanation to this surreal theater production. I played the cornered, desperate victim flawlessly. I looked wildly at the two men who shared my blood. “Dad? Derek? Say something! You know me. You know I would never do this.” Of course they knew. They knew exactly who I was. But as they exchanged a quick, calculating look, I saw the exact moment they realized that my ruin could be their jackpot. Suddenly, they were the picture of righteous fury. “Don’t you call me Dad!” Robert bellowed, pounding his chest. “When I told you to keep your legs closed, did you listen to me then?” He turned to Nathan, placing a heavy, sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Nathan, son. If you want a divorce, I don’t blame you. But let’s be clear—the law says the assets get split. The house, the cars, the accounts. We have to do things legally.” Derek jumped in, practically salivating. “Honestly, Nathan, cutting ties is for the best. I can even introduce you to someone better! Harper says she won’t cheat again, but once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Her promises are garbage.” They were foaming at the mouth, more eager for my divorce than Diane was. In my past life, I hadn’t understood their sudden, vicious turn. It was only after I died that the pieces clicked together. Derek’s boss—a wealthy, thrice-divorced man—had taken a liking to me at a company dinner. Derek knew that if I was suddenly single and disgraced, he could push me into his boss’s bed and secure a massive promotion. And Robert? Robert just wanted my half of the divorce settlement. He had his eye on one of the investment properties Nathan and I owned. Realizing the depths of their depravity snapped whatever lingering biological bond I felt toward them. My heart went cold. I took a slow, deep breath, reached down, and gently pulled the paternity test from Diane’s trembling hands. I stared at the paper. Then, I let my jaw drop in perfectly feigned horror. “Oh my god…” I whispered, loud enough for the microphone nearby to catch it. “Mom… did you grab the wrong envelope?” “Why does this lab report say the test was between Robert and Derek?”

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On New Year’s Day, I was sitting in a sterile hospital room, a ballpoint pen hovering over the voluntary organ donation form. Just as I was about to press the nib to the paper, a cold, synthesized voice echoed in my mind: [Hello, Host. I am your Year-End Wrap-Up System. Preparing your 2025 Journey in Review…] [This year marks the 20th anniversary of the day your adoptive mother stole you.] My brain went completely numb. The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. The surgeon was staring at me, waiting for the signature that would give my mother—the woman currently dying of kidney failure—one of mine. But my hand froze. I was exactly twenty years old. If the woman in that hospital bed wasn’t my mother, who was? The voice continued, indifferent to my internal collapse. [This year, you spent 301 days caring for an adoptive mother who was faking her symptoms. You are currently one surgery away from the morgue.] [Family comes in many forms, but yours is a “limited edition.” You have only crossed paths with your biological mother, the tech mogul Cynthia Montgomery, three times this year. Your most recent encounter was sixty seconds ago in the hallway.] I whipped my head around. Through the glass window of the door, I caught a glimpse of a woman in a sharp, charcoal-grey power suit walking briskly toward the exit. It was Cynthia Montgomery—the CEO of Montgomery Global, the richest woman in the state. 1. Even on New Year’s Day, Cynthia was the personification of “the grind,” likely here on a PR-mandated hospital visit. I turned my head back quickly, my heart hammering against my ribs. What is this? Some “Secret Heiress” delusion? Am I so terrified of the surgery that I’m hallucinating? I looked at the woman in the bed. Martha had raised me for twenty years. She was my mother. How could I even think of backing out now? I’ll check myself into the psych ward after the surgery, I told myself. I tried to blame the pressure, but the voice wouldn’t stop. [Achievement Unlocked: The Human Fountain.] [You donated blood twice this year—400cc of Type AB. You are officially the #1 contributor to your family’s medical needs.] [As the only person in your household with Type AB blood, your kindness is about to reboot a stranger’s life…] I froze. “The only one with Type AB? But when my mom had those accidents—” My mind went blank. I remembered the cold needles, the vials of my blood being rushed away, and Martha’s miraculous recoveries. I looked at Martha. She was pale, coughing weakly, the picture of a woman at death’s door. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember actually seeing her injuries during those two car accidents—accidents that had conveniently happened right when I was up for major promotions at my internship. The surgeon, Dr. Lowman, tapped the desk impatiently. “Miss Miller? Is there a problem?” Martha turned her head, her eyes watery and pathetic. “Jade, honey… are you scared? It’s okay. Mom can wait a few more days.” She was always so “understanding.” “After the surgery, I’ll have your grandparents look after me for a while. I don’t want to burden you or make you watch me recover. You just focus on resting, okay?” [Meeting is better than parting. This is your 3rd meeting this year with this bribed physician. It is also your final meeting before your ‘accidental’ death on the operating table.] I looked at Dr. Lowman. There was a subtle flicker of something in his eyes—not compassion, but calculation. I stood up so fast the chair screeched against the linoleum. “I have to go. I’m not signing this yet!” The room went silent. My grandparents, who had been hovering by the door, stared at me in shock. I had been the “perfect daughter” for two decades—the one who sent every cent of my scholarship money home, the one who worked three jobs to pay Martha’s “medical bills.” Martha’s face hardened for a split second before the mask of the doting mother slid back on. “Jade? What are you saying? This isn’t a joke. If you’re worried about the recovery, the doctor is right here…” [Your biological mother, Cynthia Montgomery, and her daughter, Brooke, checked 8 countries off their bucket list this year. They have one more trip planned…] [This is Cynthia’s last day in the country. Tomorrow, she is moving abroad permanently to seek ‘specialized treatment’ for Brooke. Congratulations! You have a truly great biological mother—she just doesn’t know you exist.] “The surgery is off. I need to leave,” I snapped. I didn’t care if the voice was real or a schizophrenic break. If it was a choice between my life and a lie, I was choosing my life. Just then, the door pushed open. A girl about my age walked in, trailing behind Cynthia’s assistants. Dr. Lowman’s posture shifted instantly. “Miss Montgomery,” he said, his voice dripping with respect. Brooke Montgomery. The girl who had lived my life. She looked at me, her eyes widening in a flash of recognition that she quickly masked with a patronizing smile. “Oh, are you here for your mother’s treatment? How sweet. Kidney failure is so tragic, but luckily, a transplant solves everything, right?” My blood ran cold. I don’t look like Martha. My grandfather used to beat Martha for it, accusing her of bringing home someone else’s brat. But Brooke? Brooke looked exactly like a younger version of the woman who had raised me. And Brooke knew exactly who I was. She knew my last name. She knew Martha’s “diagnosis.” She was here to make sure the “trash” was disposed of. My grandfather lunged forward, his face purple with rage. “Jade! You selfish little bitch! You’re going to let your mother die because you’re scared of a little scar?” “She worked herself to the bone for you!” my grandmother wailed. “Every time she was in an accident, did you come to the room? No! You were too busy ‘working,’ while she sat there crying for you! You should be more like Miss Montgomery here—look how much she cares about people!” My grandfather grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. “You’re giving her that kidney today, or you’re dead to this family!” 2. The commotion drew a crowd in the hallway. Neighbors from our old apartment complex, who happened to be at the hospital, started whispering. “Isn’t that the Miller girl? I heard she’s a total gold-digger. Her mom was in the ICU twice and she never even showed up. Just kept demanding her mom send her money for ‘tuition’ while she was out partying.” “I thought she was a straight-A student, but she’s just a narcissist. Poor Martha, raising a snake like that.” The whispers cut deep. For years, I had stayed out of the hospital rooms because Martha begged me not to see her like that. I had worked until my hands bled to send money home, only to have it twisted into this narrative. [Your 2025 Keyword is: “LIE.” Did you find the truth hidden beneath the surface this year?] [This has been your keyword for three years running. Your adoptive mother and her daughter, Brooke, have been the primary contributors to this trend.] Martha reached out, clutching my sleeve, her voice loud enough for the onlookers to hear. “Everyone, please, don’t be hard on her. Jade is just young. She’s scared. She’ll do the right thing for her mother.” I looked at Brooke. She was smirking. That was the breaking point. I ripped my arm away from Martha. “I’m not giving you a damn thing! I’m not your daughter! You stole me from the hospital twenty years ago! Why would I give a kidney to a kidnapper?” The word kidnapper hit the room like a grenade. Brooke’s face went deathly pale. “What are you talking about?” she shrieked, her voice high and panicked. “Miss Miller, just because you’re a coward doesn’t mean you can make up disgusting lies about your own mother!” Martha clutched her chest, gasping for air. “Jade… how could you? I’m your mother! Doctor! Doctor, she’s having a psychotic break! She’s dangerous!” My grandfather swung a plastic ‘Caution’ sign at me. “You ungrateful brat! I’ll knock some sense into you!” The crowd jeered. “To save herself a surgery, she’ll even claim she’s kidnapped! How low can you go?” I didn’t answer. I threw the pen on the floor and tried to bolt, but two orderlies blocked the door. Martha lunged at me, pulling me back into the room. She leaned into my ear, her voice a low, venomous hiss I’d never heard before. “I don’t know how much you think you know, but once you’re on that table, your ‘secrets’ are going to rot in a grave.” The sheer malice in her voice sent a chill down my spine. This wasn’t a mother. This was a predator. At the end of the hallway, I saw Cynthia Montgomery’s silhouette. She was inches from the exit. I used every ounce of strength I had, stomped on Martha’s foot, and sprinted out of the room. “Mrs. Montgomery! Cynthia! Help me!” Her security detail immediately stepped in, a wall of muscle blocking my path. “Stay back, ma’am. Mrs. Montgomery is busy.” Cynthia turned around, her brow furrowed in annoyance. There was no warmth in her eyes, only the cold irritation of a woman whose schedule had been interrupted. “Handle it,” she said to her assistant. “Don’t let her disturb the other patients.” She turned back to the door, ready to vanish from my life forever. [Perhaps it’s a mother’s intuition. Cynthia Montgomery’s 2025 Keyword is also “LIE.” Source: Brooke.] [What happens when a woman who hates being deceived discovers she’s been raising a cuckoo in the nest?] The system’s words gave me a surge of adrenaline. I dove past the assistant and grabbed Cynthia’s arm. Martha and Brooke were right behind me. The hospital security guards tackled me, pinning me to the floor with a tactical restraint. My grandfather was panting, apologizing profusely. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Montgomery! My granddaughter… she’s lost her mind. She’s delusional!” Martha was nodding frantically, her face a mask of tragedy. “She’s sick, Mrs. Montgomery. We’re taking her to the psych ward immediately. She won’t bother you again!” Brooke tucked her arm into Cynthia’s, playing the role of the devoted, frightened daughter. “Mom, let’s just go. This is scary.” Cynthia looked at Brooke with a softened expression, then turned to me. Her face hardened into a mask of pure disgust. She pulled her arm away from my touch as if I were a leper. “Do people think they can just harass me for a payout now? Security, get her out of my sight.” The guard slammed my head against the cold tile. I was bruised, bleeding, and utterly humiliated. But as Cynthia took a step away, I screamed at the top of my lungs: “Cynthia! I have the XM genetic marker! Ask Brooke if she has it!” 3. The name of the disorder stopped Cynthia in her tracks. She turned around slowly, her eyes like daggers. “What did you just say?” her voice was a low vibration that silenced the entire hallway. “I said… I’m your daughter,” I gasped, blood copper-tasting in my mouth. “Twenty years ago, Martha Miller swapped us in the nursery.” Cynthia laughed, but it was a sound devoid of humor. The crowd whispered. “She’s insane. Everyone knows the Montgomery baby was under 24-hour private security. A swap is impossible. She just signed her own death warrant.” [You were betrayed by ‘family’ 15 times this year, yet you still landed that high-paying internship on your own merit. Congratulations.] [Like mother, like daughter. Cynthia Montgomery handled 52 messes for Brooke this year, neutralized 3 corporate betrayals, and eliminated 6 threats to her legacy.] [She has zero tolerance for people who play the ‘family card’ to manipulate her.] “You’d invent a fairy tale just to avoid a surgery?” Cynthia walked toward me, the click of her heels sounding like a countdown. “Apologize. Now.” Martha pounced on me, pinching my arm so hard her nails drew blood. “Apologize to Mrs. Montgomery! Tell her you’re crazy! Tell her you’re a liar!” Martha was shaking. She knew the clock was ticking. She knew that if Cynthia even looked too closely at the timeline, the whole house of cards would collapse. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and stared directly into Cynthia’s cold, grey eyes—eyes that matched mine perfectly beneath the fluorescent lights. “Mrs. Montgomery, XM is a matrilineal genetic condition. It has an 80% inheritance rate. I have it. Does Brooke?” Cynthia’s expression didn’t change, but I saw her pupils dilate. It was a secret she had kept for decades—a rare, non-fatal but incurable condition that only the Montgomery women carried. Brooke’s eyes darted around in panic. “A genetic disorder? Anyone can look up a medical term online! You’re pathetic!” She gripped Cynthia’s arm tighter. “Mom, don’t listen to her. She’s just a con artist!” Cynthia’s gaze remained fixed on me. She slowly uncoupled Brooke’s hand from her arm. “Get the mobile DNA kit from the car,” she told her assistant, her voice like ice. “The rapid-sequencer we just acquired.” Then she looked down at me. “If you are lying, I will sue you for every breath you take. I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a cage.” Martha let out a strangled cry. “Mrs. Montgomery, please! This is a hospital, it’s New Year’s, it’s bad luck to draw blood like this—” “I decide what’s lucky,” Cynthia snapped. [The old year is gone, a new one begins. Your Year-End System is with you through every season.] The kit was brought in. A technician in a white coat sanitized my arm, the needle sliding into my vein. On the other side of the hallway, Cynthia held out her arm without blinking. [January 1st, 2026. This is your first blood draw of the year. You are ahead of 98.1% of the population. You are one step closer to your real family.] Beep. The technician looked at the screen. His voice was flat. “Results are in… Genetic similarity: 0.0%. No biological relationship found.” “No… that’s impossible,” I whispered. The crowd exhaled in a collective wave of mockery. “Told you. She’s a nutjob.” “Real life isn’t a soap opera, honey.” Brooke’s face transformed. The fear vanished, replaced by a triumphant, ugly sneer. She walked over to me while I was still pinned to the floor and ground her designer heel into my arm, right over the puncture wound. “You had your shot, and you missed, you freak. Did you really think you could steal my life?” I screamed in pain as blood soaked through my sleeve. I called out to the system in my head, but the voice was cold: [Identification Failed. System will now initiate auto-delete sequence. Thank you for your 20-year trial.] [Better luck in the next life.] I felt the world go dark. My heart felt like it was stopping. Martha was bowing and scraping to Cynthia. “I am so sorry! Please, do whatever you want with her! We won’t say a word!” But Cynthia Montgomery didn’t leave. She looked at the technician, then at the screen, and then she smiled. It was the most terrifying smile I had ever seen. She signaled her guards, but not to take me away. They lunged for the technician instead, slamming him against the wall. “Don’t bother checking the results,” Cynthia announced, her voice ringing through the hall. “She’s my daughter.”

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The pain was a living, breathing thing inside me. By the time my water broke and they rushed me into the maternity ward, I was already dilated to ten centimeters. My body was screaming, violently urging me to push. But my husband, Harry, refused to let me into the delivery room. “Let me push,” I sobbed, my fingers clawing at the sterile hospital sheets. “Harry, please! If I hold him in any longer, he’s going to die!” He just smiled, a terrifyingly calm expression on his face, and smoothed the damp hair away from my forehead. His eyes were dark with an unshakable, irrational stubbornness. “Just hold on a little longer, Maddie. Once we pass midnight, the moon shifts into a new astrological house. Bella’s spiritual guide was very clear—any birth before midnight carries a karmic weight that will directly clash with her aura.” He wiped a tear from my cheek. “We can’t let our baby’s arrival destroy Bella’s energy. She’s already so fragile.” I opened my mouth to scream at him, to tell him he was out of his mind, but a brutal, primal contraction ripped through me. I could feel the baby’s head instinctively crowning, fighting to enter the world. Harry’s face tightened. Without a second thought, he pressed his hand hard against me, physically trying to halt the birth. The white-hot, tearing agony of it knocked the wind out of my lungs. The world went black at the edges. And in that hazy, suffocating space between consciousness and pain, my heart quietly gave out. Seven years of loving him from afar. Three years of marriage. It had all culminated in this sickening joke. … “If this continues, we aren’t just going to lose the baby. We’re going to lose the mother.” The attending obstetrician couldn’t hide her horror, muttering the words as she hovered helplessly near the bed. Harry’s brow furrowed at the comment. I felt a weak, frantic kick against my ribs. It was my baby, fighting for his life. I forced my heavy head up and stared at the man I had married. “Harry… he can’t wait until midnight. This is your son! How can you risk our baby’s life over a pseudo-spiritual delusion? Over Bella’s energy?” Before I could finish, Harry cut me off, his voice clipped and cold. “Bella doesn’t joke about karma. She’s been through hell. You and the baby just need to endure it for another hour. Be reasonable, Maddie. He’s been in there for nine months. What’s another hour?” He gestured vaguely around the room. “I’ve got the best medical team in the state standing by. Nothing is going to happen to either of you.” He spoke with such absolute, arrogant certainty, completely dismissing the doctor’s warning. It hadn’t always been like this. When I first found out I was pregnant, Harry had been a nervous wreck. If I so much as winced, he was on the phone with the doctor. He had an entire folder on his phone dedicated to pregnancy dietary restrictions, terrified of missing a single detail. But everything changed the day Isabella Montgomery returned to the States. She was the ghost that haunted our marriage—the untouchable first love. Harry’s mother had chased her off years ago, and out of spite, Bella had run off to Europe and married a wealthy tech investor. But the marriage was abusive. She returned a shattered woman, filing for divorce and bringing her trauma straight to Harry’s doorstep. He blamed himself. He believed that if he had fought harder for her back then, she wouldn’t have suffered. He owed her a debt, and he was using my life to pay it. The day we were supposed to take our maternity photos, Bella had looked at the proofs and whispered, “I’m so jealous.” The very next day, Harry canceled on me to take her to a private studio, re-creating the bridal portraits she claimed her ex-husband had ruined. When I had my gestational diabetes test, the clinic advised bringing someone in case I felt faint. Bella called him away twenty minutes before my appointment because she’d scraped her knee at a yoga retreat. I knew it was his guilt talking. I knew he felt responsible for her. I had naively bet everything on this baby, hoping that once our son was born, Harry would remember the life we were building. But now, because of Bella’s obsession with a holistic psychic, he was trading our son’s life for her peace of mind. A suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. Inside me, the frantic movements grew weaker. I swallowed the bitter bile rising in my throat and looked into Harry’s eyes. “He is suffocating in there. If you let me have him… I swear, I’ll take him and leave. You’ll never have to see us again. We won’t be in your way, or Bella’s. Just… please.” Harry’s jaw clenched. He opened his mouth, but a soft, trembling voice beat him to it. “Harry.” Bella stepped out from the shadows of the VIP suite, looking small and deeply wounded. “I didn’t come back to tear your family apart.” She looked at me with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Maybe you should just let Maddie push. The psychic might be wrong. And even if she’s right, and the baby’s karmic entry destroys my recovery… it’s fine. I can take it.” Without hesitation, Harry pulled her into his arms, oblivious to the blood and fluid soaking my sheets. “Stop talking like that. I promised I would protect you.” Tears burned my eyes, hot and humiliating. Suddenly, a tearing, catastrophic pain ripped through my lower abdomen. The monitors erupted into a chaotic symphony of alarms. The obstetrician rushed forward, her face draining of color. “We are out of time! The amniotic fluid is nearly gone. The fetus is experiencing severe deceleration. We have to move her to the OR for an emergency C-section, now!” Harry shot a lethal look at the door. Instantly, three men from his private security detail stepped in front of the exit, forming a human wall. The medical staff froze. The boldest nurse among them stepped forward, her voice shaking. “Mr. Cole, please! The baby’s heart rate is dropping. We can still save him if we go now!” One of the security guards, eager to earn his paycheck, sneered. “Mr. Cole is the primary benefactor of this hospital’s new wing. You touch that bed without his permission, and you’ll all be blacklisted from every medical facility on the West Coast.” The threat hung in the sterile air. The doctors’ knuckles turned white as they gripped the bed rails, trading helpless, devastated looks before turning their guilt-ridden eyes to me. With the last ounce of strength in my body, I dragged myself off the bed. My knees hit the cold linoleum with a sickening thud, landing right at Harry’s feet. “I am begging you,” I gasped, blood running down my thighs. “Save him.” Harry flinched, clearly unnerved to see me kneeling in a pool of my own blood. Sensing the shift in his demeanor, Bella tightened her grip on his shirt. “Harry, just let her do it. We can just… avoid each other in the future so our energies don’t cross.” Harry knelt and tried to guide me back to the bed. He placed a warm hand on my agonizingly tight stomach, patting it softly, just like he had done a thousand times in the dark of our bedroom. “Just hold on, Maddie. You and the baby, just wait a little longer for me. Okay?” “Wait?” My voice was a hollow rasp. “Wait using my son’s life as the currency?” I shoved him away with a feral burst of adrenaline. My hand found the heavy glass water pitcher on the bedside table. With a scream that tore my throat raw, I hurled it at him. Bella shrieked, throwing herself in front of him. “Harry, watch out!” The heavy glass grazed her cheekbone before shattering against the wall. A thin, superficial line of red bloomed on her skin. She pressed a hand to her cheek, collapsing weakly against his chest. “Harry… it hurts.” Harry caught her. When he looked up at me, his eyes were devoid of anything human. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Madeline?” I slumped against the mattress, feeling the terrifying stillness in my womb. The frantic kicks had stopped. The struggle was over. “I’m out of my mind?” My voice cracked, dry as ash. “Harry… he’s gone. He stopped moving.” He didn’t even look at my stomach. His eyes were locked on the tiny scratch on Bella’s porcelain face. “Bella said we wait until midnight,” he commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Stop being hysterical. Bella’s injured now, and it’s entirely because your toxic energy is already trying to push the baby out early…” He turned his back on me, addressing his guards. “Keep an eye on my wife. No one moves her into the OR until the clock strikes twelve.” “Yes, sir.” He scooped Bella up into his arms, glaring furiously at the frozen medical staff. “What the hell are you standing around for? Do you not see the blood on her face? Get a plastic surgeon down here immediately. She can’t have a scar. She hates scars.” Within seconds, the room emptied out, leaving only the stoic guards and two weeping nurses. I stared numbly at the digital clock on the wall. 11:59. 12:00. The nurses finally surged forward, desperately wheeling my bed down the hall toward the OR. But it was chaos. “Where is the surgeon?!” a nurse screamed. “They were all pulled to the VIP wing!” “The fetal heartbeat is gone! We’re losing the mother, she’s hemorrhaging!” “Are you kidding me?!” another nurse sobbed. “That woman had a paper cut on her face, and they pulled the entire obstetrics team?!” “Tell Mr. Cole! His wife is bleeding out!” I listened to their panicked shouts, feeling the cold seep into my bones. Any lingering hope, any shred of love I had left for Harry Cole, bled out of me onto those hospital sheets. I closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me. When I finally drifted back to consciousness, the world felt distorted. I was lying on the hardwood floor in the foyer of Harry’s sprawling estate. Beneath me, the floor was littered with shattered glass from a broken vase. From the living room, the faint, melodic sound of Bella’s laughter drifted through the air, mingling with Harry’s low voice. I tried to push myself up, but my palms pressed into the shards. I looked down. My hands and forearms were covered in tiny, weeping lacerations. Pieces of glass were embedded in my skin. I didn’t care. I felt absolutely nothing. There was only one thought pulsing in my hollow, aching brain. “My baby…” My voice sounded like dry leaves scraping against stone. “Where is my baby?” I dragged myself toward the living room. Harry stood near the fireplace. When he saw me—a ghost of a woman, soaked in dried blood and shivering—a flicker of something dark and unreadable crossed his eyes. But then he glanced at Bella, who was sitting on the sofa with a microscopic bandage on her cheek, and his expression hardened into ice. “You really crossed the line this time, Maddie,” he said coldly. “Having the nurses scream for the doctors while Bella was getting treated? You traumatized her.” He pointed to the floor in front of the sofa. “Walk over there and apologize to her. Once you do, we’ll put this behind us.” I stared at him. This man, whom I had loved in secret for seven years, whom I had built a home with for three. He was a complete stranger. The agonizing pain of the glass in my flesh was a fraction of the agony in my chest. “You’re right. I made a mistake.” I swayed on my feet. “My mistake was ever marrying you.” I held out my bleeding hand. “Give me my son. And then I want a divorce.” Harry’s jaw tightened. A muscle feathered in his cheek. “The baby… was a stillbirth.” A high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears. “What did you say?” “He was gone before he was born.” “You’re lying!” I screamed, my voice shattering the quiet elegance of the room. “You’re lying!” “I’m not.” My entire body began to violently shake. “No… no…” “Maddie, don’t let grief make you irrational.” Harry took a step toward me, reaching out to steady me. I slapped his hand away with a viciousness that startled him. Annoyance flashed in his eyes. “We can always have another one. Honestly, given how deeply this pregnancy clashed with Bella’s aura, he likely would have had severe health issues anyway. Once you recover, we can try again. You can have as many kids as you want.” I stared at him. And then, a broken, breathless laugh bubbled up from my throat. I laughed until the tears carved tracks through the grime on my face. “I don’t want another child. I want him. Give me my son’s body, Harry.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was dealing with an unruly toddler. “Madeline, calm down—” “I am calm!” I shrieked. “Where is my baby?!” He looked away, staring at the manicured lawns outside the window. “I already gave the remains to Bella. Don’t worry about it.” I froze. The air left the room. “Why,” I whispered, the words trembling, “would you give my dead child to Isabella?” “Because his karmic energy is what caused the complications,” Harry said, his tone infuriatingly measured. “You can’t just bury something like that in a normal cemetery. Bella consulted her spiritual guide. They have a holistic way of cleansing his spirit before returning him to the earth.” Bella looked at me with wide, sympathetic eyes that couldn’t quite mask the sick, triumphant gleam beneath them. “Maddie, I really hated to do this. But the guide said your baby held a lot of resentment. If we didn’t perform the release ritual, my trauma recovery would completely regress—” “Shut your mouth!” I roared. “What gives you the right to touch my child?!” Bella shrank back against the cushions. Harry instantly stepped in front of her, shielding her. “That is enough!” His voice cracked like a whip. “The baby is gone, Madeline! What exactly is this performance going to achieve?” My heart was already a graveyard, but watching him protect her still managed to twist the knife deeper. “A performance?” I laughed again, a wet, ragged sound. “Harry, that was your flesh and blood. Your son.” “I know that,” he snapped. “But he’s gone. Did you want Bella to be dragged down into the dark with him?!” He’s gone. The words anchored me to the floor. I turned on my heel and walked up the sweeping staircase, leaving bloody footprints on the pristine carpet. I walked into the nursery. The room I had spent months perfecting. Cream-colored wainscoting. A handmade oak crib. A closet full of tiny, perfectly folded clothes. I opened the dresser drawers. I pulled out the onesies. The tiny socks. The knit beanies. I had picked out every single piece with Harry. He used to laugh and say, “I’m going to give this kid the entire world.” Now, his son was dead, and he didn’t even flinch. I gathered the clothes into a massive pile, dragged them out to the upstairs landing, and flicked my lighter. I dropped the flame onto the cotton. “Madeline, what the hell are you doing?!” Harry’s voice roared from the bottom of the stairs. I ignored him, tossing more clothes into the growing blaze. The fire leaped up, casting an orange glow against the walls, illuminating the tiny embroidered bears and stars. “She’s psychotic! She’s trying to burn the house down!” Bella screamed in terror. Harry took the stairs two at a time, tackling me to the floor and ripping the lighter from my bloody hands. The unburned clothes scattered across the hardwood. Harry looked at the tiny, singed socks, and for a fraction of a second, his face went pale. His voice softened. “Maddie… please. He’s gone. Bella’s psychic said the next baby will perfectly align with our lives. When that happens—” I looked up at him with dead, hollow eyes. “There will be no next baby. I am divorcing you. Now, give me back my son.” “I am not signing divorce papers,” Harry said firmly. Bella peeked out from behind him, her voice dripping with calculated sweetness. “Maddie, don’t use the D-word just to manipulate him. It’s not like you can’t have the baby back.” My head snapped up. She smiled, a tiny, venomous curve of her lips. “Since the dark energy originated in your womb, the guide said you can absorb the karmic backlash yourself. If you do the Penance Trail, you can take the remains.” “Fine,” I said instantly, without a second of hesitation. “Tell me what to do.” “You have to walk the gravel trail up to the sanctuary in Sedona. Barefoot. And to show true submission to the universe, you have to drop to your bare knees every three steps until you reach the altar.” “Done.” I stood up and stumbled past them, heading straight for the door. Harry caught my arm, his eyes lingering on my blood-soaked hospital gown. A flicker of real hesitation crossed his face. “Maddie, don’t do this. The baby is already dead, why would you torture yourself—” I didn’t look back. I just pulled my arm free and said, “He may be dead, but he is still my son. And I am bringing him home.” The sun in the high desert was merciless, beating down on my back like a hammer. Every third step. Drop to the knees. The jagged, unpaved gravel of the sanctuary trail tore through my thin hospital gown in minutes. The skin on my knees flayed open, leaving bright red streaks of blood on the white stones behind me. Tourists and wealthy retreat guests paused on the path, pointing and whispering. “What kind of cult is this?” “My god, look at her legs…” Harry walked parallel to me on the smooth grass, holding a UV-protection umbrella over Bella. I saw the muscle in his jaw ticking. I saw the sickening flash of pity in his eyes. “Harry,” Bella murmured softly, leaning against him. “Maybe we should just give it to her. If her bad karma bounces back onto me, you’ll just have to plan my funeral, that’s all.” Harry was quiet for a long, suffocating moment. “She chose to walk,” he said tightly. “Let her walk.” I don’t know how many hours passed. By the time I reached the wooden gates of the hilltop sanctuary, I was operating on nothing but the primal, animal instinct of a mother. Bella stood by the altar, holding a small, linen-wrapped bundle. Harry stood beside her. “You made it,” Bella smiled, holding out a ceremonial slip of paper and a lighter. “You just need to burn the release cipher at the altar, and he’s yours.” I ignored her fake, cloying tone. I dragged my bleeding legs to the altar, took the paper, and tried to flick the lighter. My hands were trembling so violently, slick with my own blood and sweat, that the spark wouldn’t catch. Over and over, my thumb slipped. “Oh, no,” Bella sighed in mock despair. “The universe won’t let it light. The karma is too dark. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” She looked down at the bundle. “You know the concept of ‘dust to dust,’ right, Maddie? The sanctuary has a wild nature preserve out back. Leaving him to the earth… it’s the ultimate mercy.” A bomb went off in my brain. She wanted to throw my baby’s body to the wild animals. With a guttural, feral scream, I lunged forward and ripped the bundle from her arms. Caught off guard, Bella stumbled backward, twisting her ankle and falling to the dirt. “Get the bundle back!” Harry roared. Two of his massive private security guards descended on me, tackling me to the earth and pinning my arms behind my back. One of them snatched the linen bundle from my chest. “Madeline, why can’t you just listen?” Harry knelt in the dirt, looking into my manic, tear-streaked face. “Once the energy is cleared, I’ll pay for a proper memorial. Okay? We’ll have another baby. We can have a whole soccer team of kids.” He sounded so gentle. Like he was soothing a petulant child. “I don’t want another baby!” I thrashed wildly against the guards. “I want him!” “Stop being dramatic,” Bella sniffled, letting Harry pull her to her feet. “Just leave the remains in the preserve. The owner keeps a Cane Corso back there to guard the grounds. Let nature take its course.” Harry scooped Bella up into his arms. He nodded at the guard holding my son. “Take it out back.” He looked down at me one last time, his voice a soft, suffocating blanket. “Just stay here, Maddie. Don’t watch. You’ll only upset yourself.” As the guard walked toward the heavy iron gates of the preserve, the men holding me let go. I didn’t hesitate. I scrambled to my feet and ran, tearing after the guard like a madwoman. He unlatched the gate and tossed the linen bundle into the tall grass. A massive, muscular black dog—150 pounds of pure aggression—charged out from the brush, zeroing in on the bundle. Without a single thought, I threw my body over the linen. The dog, thinking I was stealing its kill, lunged. Its jaws clamped down around my throat. As the hot spray of my own blood hit my face, the last thing I heard was Harry Cole screaming my name with a sound that tore the sky in half. “Maddie—!”

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It started with the color of my car. Back when it was wrapped in a soft, custom blush-pink, I was a target. Every morning on my commute, I was tailgated, brake-checked, and aggressively cut off. My husband told me I was a terrible driver. He told me I had a persecution complex. It wasn’t until I surrendered, taking the car into the shop and having it painted a standard, invisible corporate black, that the road rage miraculously stopped. Until the day my car was nearly run off the highway and into a ditch. That was the day I found out someone had posted about me on a local community board. The post claimed I was a homewrecker—the “commute work-wife” who was seducing her husband. The proof? A photo of my license plate. She claimed I intentionally followed her husband every single morning, that we coordinated our routes, that we stopped at the same drive-thru for coffee and breakfast. The comment section was a cesspool of vile, violent misogyny directed entirely at me. But I didn’t know this man. I had never spoken to him. Our only connection was that, by sheer geographic coincidence, we drove down the same stretch of Seattle interstate at the exact same time every morning. But the internet didn’t care about coincidence. And worse, my own family didn’t believe me. When they looked at me, they didn’t see a victim; they saw a liability. They cursed me out and turned their backs. Pushed to the absolute edge of my sanity, I finally broke. And then, I fought back. 1 The morning started like any other. I was merging onto the I-5 south, the sky a bruised, rainy gray. Just as I hit the mainline, a black Nissan swerved violently from the right lane, cutting the nose of my car so close I had to slam my foot onto the brake pedal. The seatbelt locked, biting hard into my collarbone. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” I screamed into the empty cabin, but the Nissan was already speeding away, weaving recklessly through the morning traffic. I gripped the steering wheel, forcing a deep breath into my lungs. Don’t engage, I told myself. Just let the idiots go. But less than a mile down the road, a white sedan aggressively squeezed in from my left blind spot, practically grazing my side mirror. I hit the brakes again. My head snapped back, nearly bouncing off the headrest. “Jesus Christ!” I watched the white sedan speed off, a heavy, suffocating knot forming in my chest. Ever since I bought this car, it felt like I was marked. First, it was the pink wrap. I was a young woman in a brightly colored car, which apparently meant I was open season for every ego-fragile driver on the road. At first, I was just angry. Why should I have to change? Why was I the one being bullied? But principle doesn’t protect you from a four-car pileup. For the sake of my own safety, I compromised. I painted over the pink I loved so much, settling for a glossy, anonymous black. It worked, for a while. The commute became boring again. But today? Today felt different. It felt coordinated. By the time I finally pulled into the parking garage beneath my office building, my hands were shaking. I put the car in park, leaned my head against the steering wheel, and took five slow, shuddering breaths just to get my heart rate down. The drive had felt like a survival mission. Because of the near-misses, I clocked in fifteen minutes late. The receptionist immediately flagged it. Valerie was the director of my department. From the day I was hired, she had looked at me like I was a stain on the carpet. I never knew why, and honestly, I never cared enough to ask. “Harper,” Valerie said, her voice dripping with that saccharine corporate condescension. “There are twenty-five people in this department. Funny how you’re the only one who couldn’t manage to get here on time.” “I kept getting cut off on the highway. Aggressively.” She offered a thin, mocking smile. “Funny how nobody else is getting cut off. Just you.” I didn’t answer. Because I wanted to know the answer, too. 2 When I got home, my husband, Derek, was already horizontal on the living room sofa, a gaming controller in his hands. From the kitchen, the heavy drone of the exhaust fan competed with the sound of his mother, Diane, clattering pots on the stove. I dropped my bag by the entryway, kicking off my heels. I walked over and sat on the edge of the sofa near his feet, desperate for a sliver of comfort. “God, my commute today was a nightmare. People kept trying to run me off the road.” He didn’t take his eyes off the TV screen. “Yeah.” I nudged his leg. “Are you even listening to me?” He finally shifted his gaze, though his thumbs kept working the joysticks. “I’m listening. You said people are cutting you off.” “Doesn’t that strike you as weird?” “What’s weird about it?” he sighed, his voice thick with boredom. “You’re a timid driver, Harper. You cruise in the passing lane, people are in a rush to get to work. Of course they’re gonna cut you off.” “It’s not my driving—” “Look,” he interrupted, his tone sharpening. “I drive that same highway and this never happens to me. You overthink everything. You always think the world is out to get you.” From the kitchen, Diane’s voice cut through the tension. “Derek! Dinner’s ready!” He paused his game, dropping the controller on the coffee table, and walked toward the smell of garlic and roasting meat. I stayed on the sofa, staring at the indentation he’d left in the cushions. A bone-deep exhaustion washed over me. This was his default setting. Every time I brought him a problem, it was somehow my fault. When I told him I felt excluded by my coworkers, he said I was being too sensitive. When I tried to explain how his mother’s passive-aggressive comments hurt me, he said I was being petty. Now, I was telling him I felt physically unsafe on the road, and it was just my “persecution complex.” Later, at the dinner table, I tried again. I recounted the near-accidents. Diane stopped chewing. She set her fork down and leveled a look at me. “Harper, honey, driving is all about mindset. If you go out there thinking everyone is out to get you, you’re going to drive nervously. And nervous drivers cause accidents. When you crash that car, the only person paying the deductible is going to be you.” “Diane, it’s not my mindset—” “Alright, alright, it’s not your mindset,” she waved her hand dismissively, picking up her fork again. “Just pay better attention out there. That’s all I’m saying.” I looked down at my plate. I didn’t say another word. 3 Over the next two weeks, it escalated. It wasn’t just getting cut off anymore. It was targeted harassment. I had to call the highway patrol twice, but without license plates, there was nothing they could do. But the most bizarre incident happened off the highway, on the suburban roads near my office. It involved a woman on a mint-green Vespa-style scooter. She looked to be in her early thirties, with a small child, maybe four or five, clinging to her waist on the back seat. She started appearing on my route. Sometimes she would dart out from a side street, forcing me to slam on the brakes. Other times, she would ride aggressively close to my rear bumper, leaning on her horn for blocks at a time. Then came a Tuesday. I was stopped at a red light. She pulled her scooter right up to the driver’s side of my car. She turned her head and looked me dead in the eye. Then, she hawked, and spit. A thick glob of saliva hit my driver’s side window. She screamed something muffled through the glass—a curse word, a slur, I couldn’t tell. I sat there, paralyzed. The light turned green. She revved the scooter and sped off. My first instinct was to floor the gas, chase her down, and demand to know what the hell her problem was. But a glance in my rearview mirror showed a line of angry cars piling up behind me. I had no choice but to press the accelerator and keep moving forward. That night, the second I walked through the door, I told Derek. “A woman on a scooter literally spit on my car today!” Derek was watching a basketball game. He didn’t even turn his head. “You probably saw it wrong,” he said flatly. “Who the hell is going around spitting on cars?” “I didn’t see it wrong, Derek. She looked right at me and—” “Enough, Harper,” he snapped, finally turning to face me. His features were twisted in overt irritation. “What is going on with you lately? Every day you come home with some new manufactured drama. People cutting you off, your boss hating you, now a mother on a moped is targeting you? Who do you think you are? Do you honestly think the entire universe revolves around you?” I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat. Because a tiny, insidious part of me wondered if he was right. Why me? Why is it always me? I could chalk up the aggressive cars to men hating female drivers. But the woman on the scooter? With her child? I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. 4 Friday was my flex day off. Late morning, I went to the local Whole Foods. It was quiet, just a few people scattered in the checkout lanes. I was standing at the end of a line of three, leaning heavily against the handle of my shopping cart, mindlessly scrolling through my phone. The two women in front of me were talking loudly. “Did you see that thread? On the community Facebook page?” “Oh my god, yes. The homewrecker one, right? Somebody actually doxxed her license plate. I memorized it, just in case I ever see her out and about.” “I saved the post. Honestly, women like that? If I see her, I’ll key her car myself.” I kept my eyes on my phone. I didn’t really care. The internet was a toxic place; someone was always getting dragged for something. “The mistress drives a black Golf,” the first woman continued. “Washington plates. It starts with…” My thumb froze on my screen. That was my plate number. I slowly raised my head, staring at the backs of the two women. They were still gossiping, their voices carrying easily over the hum of the grocery store refrigerators. “What goes through a woman’s head? She knows the guy is married and she still throws herself at him.” “She’s a slut, that’s what goes through her head.” “The husband is an idiot, too. Parading her around right under his wife’s nose.” “Ha! Maybe they’re into that. Maybe the husband and the mistress are laughing about it.” I stood perfectly still. The canvas tote bags in my cart suddenly looked incredibly heavy. The line moved up. The cashier called, “Next in line, please.” I pushed my cart forward like a machine. I placed my groceries on the belt like a machine. I tapped my credit card on the reader like a machine. The moment I got home, I threw the groceries on the counter, practically sprinted to my laptop, and opened the local community forum. Right at the top of the page, pinned and trending, was a thread. The title was bolded in stark black text: [VENT] My husband is sleeping with his “commute buddy”. What do I do? I clicked on it. The post was massive. The original poster had written it with the dramatic flair of a cheap romance novelist. “I’ve been married to my husband for five years. We have a three-year-old. My husband is just a normal guy. He commutes down I-5 every morning. A few months ago, a mutual friend dropped a hint that my husband was driving to work with another woman every single day. That they were grabbing coffee together. When I confronted him, he played it off. Said she was just a ‘commute buddy.’ That they just happened to drive the same route and it was harmless. So, I played detective. I followed him one morning. I watched his car pull up next to a black Golf by a coffee stand. I saw the woman inside. I saw the way she looked at him. She was smiling. That specific, sickening smile a woman only uses when she knows she has another woman’s husband wrapped around her finger. I knew right then. It wasn’t a coincidence. They were planning this.” I stared at the screen, a high-pitched ringing starting in my ears. I scrolled down. Page after page of comments. I hit page five. “OP, do you know the homewrecker’s name?” The original poster replied: “No. I just know she drives a black Golf. Here is her license plate.” The replies came flooding in: “Got the plate! Let’s go to work, ladies!” “I have a friend who runs background checks at a dealership. Give me five minutes.” I kept scrolling. My vision blurred. Page eight. Someone had uploaded a photo. It was me. Taken at a Chevron gas station. I was pumping gas, looking down at my phone. The lighting was perfect; my face was entirely recognizable.

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Today was supposed to be our sixth wedding anniversary. It was also my oldest son Parker’s fifth birthday. We had planned a getaway to a secluded cabin in the Catskills, a day meant to be etched in our memories for all the right reasons. I never imagined Madeline would abandon us on that mountain without a word, taking with her the only medical bag that contained Parker’s emergency asthma equipment. I had been frantic, trying to reach her through her assistant, but the private transport and the security detail wouldn’t budge without her direct order. I watched, helpless, as the light left my son’s eyes. It was only after he took his last breath that I finally got through to her. She sounded tipsy, her voice slurred and distant. I couldn’t even get a word in before a man’s voice, sharp and full of life, cut through the line, vibrating with the joy of a long-awaited reunion. “Come on, Miles, don’t be so petty. I just landed back in the States today. You don’t actually mind if I take Madeline out for a ‘welcome home’ drink, do you?” I let out a soft, jagged laugh, my arms tightening around the cold, still weight of Parker in my lap. “I don’t mind at all,” I whispered. “Because as of this moment, my marriage to Madeline is over. Congratulations to you both.” … After we finally got off that mountain, I disappeared. I handled everything—the funeral arrangements, the cremation, the agonizing paperwork—entirely on my own. Meanwhile, Madeline’s social media, and that of Sebastian Rossi, were never silent. It was a non-stop parade of high-end bars and exclusive dinner parties. They were basking in the glow of their rediscovered spark. During those seven days, my mother tried calling Madeline a thousand times. Every call went straight to voicemail. My mother eventually dropped her phone onto the kitchen table, her voice trembling with rage. “That woman… her heart is made of ice.” It wasn’t until a week later, when I returned to our estate in the city carrying Parker’s urn, that I finally crossed paths with her. She wasn’t alone. Sebastian was right there with her, lounging in my living room. When they saw me—haggard, covered in the dust of the road, looking like a ghost of the man I used to be—Sebastian couldn’t even hide the smirk playing on his lips. “Miles, where the hell have you been? I’ve called you a dozen times today and you didn’t pick up once!” Madeline started, her tone a mix of a playful pout and genuine annoyance. The irony tasted like copper in my mouth. I didn’t even give them a glance. I walked straight past them toward the stairs. I was here for one thing: to pack my life into a suitcase and leave. This gilded cage of a house never belonged to a regular guy like me. I had reached too high, and I had paid the price in blood. But she wouldn’t let it go. She chased after me, grabbing my arm so hard I nearly dropped the urn. “Miles! What kind of temper tantrum is this?” Even now, she couldn’t see the wreckage. To her, I was just being difficult. I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “My mother called you for a week straight. Why didn’t you answer?” Madeline frowned, reaching into her designer handbag and pulling out a shattered phone. “My phone broke, okay? The night I picked up Sebastian, we were out, and I ended up losing it in a bet during a game. It was a whole thing.” She lived for the game. And because she wanted to play, my son was gone. “Is this really worth getting this angry about, Miles?” Madeline noticed my face turning a sickly shade of grey and tried to soften her tone, shaking my arm slightly. “So I missed a few calls. I’ll go over to your mom’s place and apologize personally tomorrow, alright?” Then, my eyes caught something. The handcrafted sandalwood bracelet on her wrist—the one I’d spent months on—was cracked in several places. It looked like it had been slammed against something. Rage, hot and blinding, surged up my throat. I grabbed her wrist. “What happened to the bracelet?” I had hiked to a remote monastery three times to get that specific wood blessed for her protection. Parker and I had sat at the kitchen table for weeks, using tiny chisels to engrave the intricate patterns she loved. Madeline was born with a silver spoon. Clothes, cars, jewelry—nothing I bought her ever meant much because she could buy the store. I had to give her things that took time. Things that had a soul. My hands still had faint scars from the slips of the blade, scars that throbbed whenever they got cold. When I gave it to her, she’d cried. She said she’d wear it forever. Now, she just flipped her hand dismissively. “Oh, that? We were out drinking last night, and I was shooting dice with Sebastian. I must have hit it against the edge of the table. It’s just a bit of wood, Miles. Don’t make a federal case out of it.” “Parker and I made that with our own hands,” I said, my voice dangerously low. Sebastian chimed in from the couch, his voice dripping with condescension. “It’s the thought that counts, right? It’s a cheap wooden trinket. How much could it possibly be worth?” Madeline patted my shoulder. “Exactly. If it means that much to you, I’ll have some premium sandalwood shipped in from overseas. You and Parker can carve a new one. It’ll be a fun little project for you guys.” She knew exactly what that bracelet represented. But to her, our love and our effort were just “projects” to keep us busy while she lived her real life. I realized then that in her heart, I was probably just a hobby, too. Six years of marriage. This was the first anniversary we were actually supposed to spend together as a family. It was the first birthday Parker was supposed to have her full attention. And she threw it all away because a ghost from her past called her cell. Yes, Sebastian wasn’t just a friend. He was the one who got away, the college heartbreak she never quite healed from. But she was a mother. How could she not realize Parker’s condition? She brought him to a mountain peak covered in pine pollen and wildflowers—his worst triggers—and then left without making sure he had his rescue inhaler. She had left me to watch our son die. My mother had warned me. She told me not to bring Parker to the city, told me that Madeline would never prioritize a child over her own whims. I had laughed at her. I told her Madeline was his mother—how could she be that cruel? God, I was so wrong. “Thanks for the offer,” I said, wrenching my arm away. I turned to go upstairs, my face a mask of stone. Her temper flared at my coldness. “What is with the attitude today? What did I do that was so terrible?” she yelled at my back. “And where’s Parker?” I stopped dead on the stairs. The irony was a physical weight. This was the first time she had asked about him, and he was already gone. I remembered that afternoon on the mountain. I had stroked Parker’s hair as he struggled to breathe, whispering, “Mommy wouldn’t miss your birthday, buddy. She loves you so much. She’s probably just out getting you a huge surprise.” Well, it was a surprise, alright. “You remember you have a son?” I turned, a bitter smile curling my lips. “I thought you’d decided you didn’t want him anymore.” Madeline winced, then snapped back. “He’s my son! How can you say that?” “I get it. You’re still sulking because I left, right? Because I had to go help Sebastian?” She stepped toward the stairs, looking up at me. “But you know the situation, Miles. He just got back from years abroad. We hadn’t seen each other in forever, and he was dealing with a massive shipping crisis at the docks. He was stressed, he was hurt… I couldn’t just leave him to handle that alone.” She tilted her head, giving me that soft, manipulative look that used to work every time. “You can understand that, can’t you?” In the past, that look would have made me fold. It would have made me move my boundaries back another inch until I had no ground left to stand on. But my son was in a jar in my hand. I was done gambling. “Madeline,” I said quietly. “I want a divorce.” The words hit her like a physical blow. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilating as she stared at me. “Miles… are you serious? You’d actually leave me over this?” “Yes. We’re done.” Madeline took a deep breath, her shock turning back into arrogance. “And what about Parker? You think you can raise him better than I can? You think you can give him this life? Your mother won’t even agree to this. Don’t turn our lives into a mess just because your feelings are hurt.” When I didn’t answer, she scoffed. “Fine. Go get Parker. Let him decide who he wants to live with.” “Parker isn’t coming,” I said. My voice broke on his name, and I had to clench my jaw to keep from sobbing. Madeline’s face twisted with sudden agitation. “What do you mean ‘he isn’t coming’? Where did you take him? Miles, if you’re using our son to get back at me, that is low, even for you.” She let out a sharp, indignant breath. “Don’t think you can threaten me with my child. I have my own life, Miles. I have my own friends. You wouldn’t understand that!” I looked at her beautiful, heartless face and realized I never knew her at all. I had raised that boy for five years. I was more of a parent than she ever dreamed of being. And yet, her first instinct was to assume I was using him as a bargaining chip. “Miles, stop torturing her!” Sebastian stood up, walking toward the stairs. “Just hand over the kid and stop acting like a psycho.” He sounded so protective, as if he were the one whose life was being upended. Madeline looked at him, touched by his “bravery,” and a single, perfect tear rolled down her cheek. “Miles, please. Just give me Parker back.” It was a performance. A sick, synchronized act. “And if I say no?” I asked, my voice trembling with suppressed fury. Sebastian didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, grabbing my collar. “Say it again! I dare you!” “Sebastian, don’t!” Madeline cried out, but she didn’t move to stop him. She stayed behind him, effectively choosing her side. I was shoved backward, stumbling against the banister. The urn wobbled in my hand, the lid nearly slipping off. I clutched it to my chest, a roar of protective instinct erupting in my lungs. If Parker hadn’t insisted on one last “memory” with his mother, I never would have brought him back to this house. “I’ve wanted to say this for a long time,” Sebastian said, pointing a finger in my face. “Look at you, Miles. You’re a loser. You’re a nobody. You don’t fit in Madeline’s world. Your son doesn’t even have her last name—why? You don’t have a penny to your name that she didn’t give you.” He sneered. “You’re just a small-town guy who got lucky and played the husband card. If you want to walk, walk. Stop holding her back.” I looked at Madeline. She was actually considering his words, looking at me with a cold, analytical gaze. It was pathetic. When I graduated, I had been recruited by a top-tier federal research lab. If it wasn’t for Madeline’s begging, I never would have thrown away my career to take a mid-level position at her firm just to be near her. And now, she was letting this man call me a parasite. I wasn’t going to starve without her. Sebastian was still shouting. “What’s the matter, Miles? Cat got your tongue? If you’re gonna leave, leave! And don’t you ever come near Madeline again, or I’ll make sure you regret it!”

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I used to think I had the most fiercely loyal, devoted girlfriend in the world. For seven years of long-distance, Caroline demanded a level of transparency that bordered on obsession. She needed my location shared at all times; she required a text if I so much as stepped out of my London office to grab a coffee. I thought it was love. I thought she just missed me. But today, Caroline vanished. I called her over a hundred times. It went straight to voicemail. I tried her executive assistant, her driver, the housekeeper at her New York estate—nothing. A cold, suffocating panic set into my chest. I bought the most expensive, earliest flight out of Heathrow, crossing the Atlantic, terrified something horrific had happened to her. When my cab finally pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of her Hamptons estate, a black Maybach was already idling in the driveway. The rear door opened, and Caroline stepped out. A wave of dizzying relief washed over me. I took a step forward, the words Why weren’t you answering? already forming on my lips. Then, she smiled. It was a radiant, intoxicating smile I hadn’t seen in person for months. She walked around to the passenger side, opened the door herself, and murmured in a voice dripping with honey, “Your carriage awaits, my prince.” A man stepped out of the car. Without missing a beat, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his chest. I froze. The breath was punched out of my lungs. Caroline was cheating on me. And the man burying his face in her neck was Tristan Cole. My estranged mother’s illegitimate son. … My hands shook so violently I had to grip my phone with both hands as I stumbled backward behind the manicured hedges. I hit her contact and pressed call. Out in the driveway, a ringtone pierced the quiet air. Caroline pulled back, glancing down at her screen. A flicker of profound annoyance crossed her perfect features. Her thumb hovered over the red ‘decline’ button. Tristan caught her wrist, his lips curling into a smirk. “You should probably answer it. Otherwise, my dear big brother is just going to keep blowing up your phone. It’s killing the mood.” Caroline let out a soft, breathless laugh. “Who was it that pinned me down yesterday and forbade me from looking at my phone? Feeling generous today, are we?” Tristan’s eyes darkened with raw, unfiltered lust. “That’s only because the sounds you were making were driving me crazy. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else hearing you.” Her gaze turned heavy, hooded with desire. “Is that so? Then we’ll just have to pick up where we left off tonight.” Only then did she swipe right to answer. Standing less than fifty feet away, I fought back the bile rising in my throat. I dug my nails into my palms, forcing my voice to stay steady. “What are you doing?” Caroline immediately let out a weak, raspy cough. “Nate, baby,” she croaked, playing the part of an invalid flawlessly. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been running a terrible fever since yesterday. I’ve been in and out of consciousness. I didn’t even hear the phone. I’m so sorry I worried you.” I squeezed my eyes shut. The darkness offered no relief. “Is that so?” I managed to choke out. “You shouldn’t be alone. Maybe I should fly back to the States to take care of you.” A microscopic pause. Then, her voice returned, gentle and entirely composed. “Your work in London is too important. I could never ask you to drop everything for me. I’m feeling much better now, really. Just focus on yourself, okay?” I stared at her through the leaves. I searched her face for a single twitch of guilt, a fleeting shadow of remorse. There was nothing. Just the calm, practiced mask of a liar. “Okay,” I whispered into the receiver. “I understand.” I hung up before the sob could break free. Seconds later, my phone buzzed. A text from Caroline. I feel awful for missing your calls, baby. I ordered a cake to be delivered to your flat. Things are crazy at the firm today, but I’ll FaceTime you the second I’m done. She attached a little pleading emoji. It looked so sincere. So deeply, convincingly loving. If I hadn’t been standing right here, watching Tristan trail his fingers down her spine, I would have believed her. I would have eaten that cake feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. A sharp, stabbing pain radiated through my chest as I watched them walk into the house, their silhouettes melting together. Why? my mind screamed. Why Tristan? Caroline knew. She knew better than anyone breathing that Tristan Cole was the physical embodiment of the worst trauma of my life. When I was fifteen, my mother had an affair. The fallout didn’t just break our family; it destroyed my father. I watched a brilliant, vibrant man wither into a hollow, depressed ghost. He drank until his liver gave out, losing fifty pounds in six months. I remember kneeling on the hardwood floor, begging my mother to come home, just to visit him. She looked at me, adjusted her designer coat, and said, Tristan’s father gets jealous easily. I can’t. I watched my dad die of a broken heart. It was slow, agonizing, and entirely their fault. Caroline grew up next door. She was my sanctuary during those dark years. When my dad passed, she held me as I thrashed and screamed, staining her shirts with my tears. She cursed my mother. She cursed Tristan and his father. She looked me in the eyes and swore, Your enemies are my enemies, Nate. One day, I’m going to ruin them for you. The ghost of her vow echoed in my ears, mocking me. Now, she was doing exactly what my mother had done. Perhaps even worse. I was shivering violently when Rosa, Caroline’s long-time housekeeper, stepped out to retrieve the mail. She jumped when she saw me standing by the gates. “Mr. Brooks! Good lord, what are you doing out here in the cold? Come inside, let me make you some tea!” She thought the cold was making me tremble. She didn’t know the ice was in my veins. I stretched my lips into a polite, agonizingly stiff smile. “I’m fine, Rosa. I’m not cold.” Rosa looked at me, her eyes darting toward the main house, then back to me. Pity pooled in her gaze. “Mr. Brooks… did you… did you see?” The confirmation felt like a physical blow. “So, they’re here often,” I stated flatly. Rosa turned pale. She wrung her hands. “Mr. Brooks, please don’t take it to heart. Miss Pierce is just… she’s just having a bit of fun. A distraction. I see the way she looks at pictures of you. You’re the one she truly loves.” My jaw felt wired shut. “Right. I understand. Please, Rosa, don’t tell her I was here.” Rosa let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “My lips are sealed. Take care of yourself, sir.” I dragged my numb legs down the winding driveway. As I passed the sprawling glass greenhouse, I stopped dead in my tracks. Years ago, Caroline had imported hundreds of rare white camellias—my late father’s favorite flower—and filled the greenhouse with them, just to make me smile. Now, the camellias were gone. The entire greenhouse was overflowing with vibrant, aggressive Birds of Paradise. Tristan’s favorite flower. If this was just a “distraction,” just a fleeting moment of physical boredom as Rosa claimed, why the flowers? Why erase my ghost from her home so entirely? A sickening dread consumed me. I stumbled to a nearby hotel, checked into a sterile room, and dialed Caroline’s number one more time. She picked up on the second ring. Her tone was light, teasing. “Miss me already, baby? I thought we were doing FaceTime later?” Hearing that bubbly, innocent voice superimposed over the image of her in Tristan’s arms made me want to rip my skin off. I dug my fingers into the hotel mattress. “I just… I was thinking about the camellias in the greenhouse. Could you send me a picture of them?” Dead silence on the line. Then, her voice pitched up in feigned surprise. “The camellias? What brought that up? Sure, hold on, I’ll take a picture when I get home.” “Okay,” I said blankly. Suddenly, the unmistakable shatter of glass echoed through the phone, followed by a man’s low curse. “Jesus, you’re so clumsy,” Caroline snapped instinctively, the sweet tone vanishing. “Just leave it, don’t touch the glass, I’ll get it—” She stopped, suddenly remembering I was on the line. “Nate, my new assistant just dropped a tray of glasses,” she lied, her breathing a little quicker now. “I have to go help him clean it up. Talk later.” Click. The dial tone hummed against my ear, a monotonous soundtrack to my absolute humiliation. Thirty minutes later, my phone dinged. An image of the greenhouse, bursting with pristine white camellias. I zoomed in. In the bottom right corner, a timestamp watermark from a photography app. October, last year. She didn’t even bother to check the photo before sending it. That was how stupid she thought I was. How easily managed. I dropped the phone. I covered my face with my hands and started to laugh. The laughter scraped against my throat, hollow and terrifying, until it broke into heavy, scalding tears that slipped through my fingers. In my mind’s eye, I was dragged back seven years. Caroline wasn’t the polished, untouchable CEO of Pierce Holdings back then. She was just a girl who followed me everywhere. Once, some older guys from a rival school harassed her. I fought three of them off, ending up with a split lip and a bruised rib. As she dabbed antiseptic on my face, she cried, calling me an idiot. But then she smiled, her eyes shining with raw adoration. You’re the best thing in this world, Nate. I’m going to cling to you for the rest of my life. When we graduated, my mother handed my father’s massive corporate empire over to her new husband and Tristan. I was left with a tiny, struggling subsidiary in London. I had to leave to salvage what was left of my father’s legacy, to become a man worthy of standing beside the heiress to the Pierce fortune. At JFK airport, Caroline sobbed into my chest. She gripped my jacket like she was trying to fuse our ribs together. Wait for me, Nate. Give me a few years to take full control of the Pierce board, and I’ll buy back everything they stole from you. We’ll bring you home. We thought it would be a year. Two, tops. It had been seven. Last year, she finally became the undisputed CEO. I asked when I could move my operations back to New York. She gave me excuses. Market volatility. Board pushback. Now the truth was painfully clear. She didn’t lack the power to bring me back. She just didn’t want me here. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father’s emaciated face. Hatred, violently mixed with the pathetic remnants of my love for Caroline, tore through me until I felt physically ill. I wondered, in the darkest hours of the morning, if this was how my father felt right before he gave up. As dawn broke, a calendar notification popped up on my screen. Anniversary. It was our seventh anniversary. I stared blankly at the screen. A few hours later, Caroline’s text arrived precisely on schedule. Happy Anniversary, my love. I had your gift flown in overnight. Make sure you sign for it. I’m so sorry I can’t fly out to see you this year. The merger is taking all my time. Be a good boy and forgive me, okay? The merger. Right. I was a glutton for punishment, so I opened my laptop. I paid a private investigator I’d used for corporate due diligence a hefty rush fee to pull all of Tristan and Caroline’s private social media accounts. For the first six years of my absence, Tristan’s feed was devoid of her. Then, last year, Tristan was appointed as a VP at Pierce Holdings. His first post about her was a photo of her corner office door. My new boss is a nightmare. She rides my ass all day. Definitely punishing me for someone else’s sins. But I don’t tap out. The posts continued, standard office grievances, until mid-May. Well. Shit. I just slept with the boss. The post had over a hundred thousand likes from his obnoxious trust-fund circle. The comments were begging for details. I scrolled down until I found his reply. Worst luck ever. She got blackout drunk at a gala. I took her back to her penthouse, and she thought I was her boyfriend. I looked at the date on the post. My blood turned to freon. May 14th. The anniversary of my father’s death. Every year on May 14th, I shut my phone off. I sit in silence. I mourn the man they broke. And on that exact day, while I was drowning in grief over my father, Caroline was in her bed, tangled in the sheets with the son of the man who killed him. It was a surgical strike to my soul. With a morbid, masochistic drive, I kept scrolling. Turns out the Ice Queen is actually a softie. She’s literally knitting me a scarf while I watch the game. Mentioned offhand that I like Birds of Paradise. Came to her place today and she’d ripped out her entire greenhouse of stupid white flowers for me. Kinda touched. And then, the most recent post. Uploaded three hours ago. Boss lady ditched her 7-year anniversary to play video games with me at the Plaza. I think we know who’s winning this war. Some of the comments called him out, telling him he was trash for being the other man. Tristan had pinned a reply to the top. Who says I’m the other man? She just said yes. Attached was a photo. Caroline, looking breathtakingly flushed and happy, holding up her left hand. On her ring finger sat a massive pink diamond. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes locked onto the dress she was wearing in the photo. It was an emerald-green silk slip. I had designed it myself. I spent three months working with a tailor in Mayfair to get the draping perfect for her body. I gave it to her for our anniversary last year. She was wearing my love letter to her while accepting another man’s ring. The hotel walls began to close in. I gripped my chest as a visceral, agonizing panic attack ripped through me. I was drowning. The post went viral within his circles. Soon, my phone began to detonate. Calls from mutual friends. Some wanting gossip, some genuinely concerned. And then, my mother’s name flashed on the screen. I swiped to answer. “Nate,” her crisp, emotionless voice came through. “I assume you’ve seen the news about your brother and Caroline.” I said nothing. I let the silence hang. “Listen to me,” she continued, her tone patronizing. “People in our tax bracket don’t operate on fairy tales. Infidelity happens. I need you to be mature about this. Don’t spiral and make a mess of things like your father did—” “Do not put his name in your mouth,” I snarled, my voice vibrating with a rage so profound it scared me. She paused, clearly irritated. “I am calling to give you reality. The Brooks and Pierce families need this alliance. Since Caroline has chosen Tristan, I expect you to bow out gracefully. Don’t throw a tantrum and embarrass me in the press.” A dark, broken laugh scraped its way out of my throat. “Oh, now you care about being embarrassed? Where was that shame when you were driving my father to put a gun in his mouth?” Knowing she couldn’t win the moral high ground, she snapped, “That was between adults. It has nothing to do with you.” I hung up. I blocked her number. My screen was a chaotic mess of notifications. That blown-up photo of her engagement ring mocked me, painting me as the ultimate, castrated fool. Then, Caroline’s name flashed on the screen. One call. Two calls. Three. Frantic, back-to-back. I stared at the screen, swiped into my settings, and blocked her across every conceivable platform. I called my executive assistant in London. My flight back wasn’t until tomorrow, but I needed out of New York now. I booked a red-eye to Texas. Everyone always said I was exactly like my father. We shared the same quiet disposition, the same fierce loyalty. But they were wrong about one thing. I wasn’t going to die over a woman who betrayed me. At 4:00 PM, a frantic pounding echoed through my hotel room door. I opened it, and before I could blink, a body slammed into my chest. Caroline wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face against my collarbone. She was trembling, her eyes red and swollen. “Why weren’t you answering?” she choked out, her voice ragged. “Do you have any idea how terrified I was? I thought something happened to you!” I stood entirely still. Slowly, mechanically, I peeled her arms off me and took a step back. “What is there left to answer?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly hollow. “Didn’t you just say yes to Tristan’s proposal?” She flinched as if I’d struck her. Panic flared in her eyes as she reached for my hand. “Nate, you have to understand. Tristan… his father was just a mistress. He grew up with nothing, no respect. I can’t let him live out his life without a proper title. I just—” She saw the utter revulsion in my eyes and switched tactics, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “The marriage laws are different in Europe, Nate. We can still be together. I’ll fly to London. We can have a private ceremony. We’ll still be legally married over there. You’ll still be my husband.” It was so absurd, so profoundly grotesque, I couldn’t even summon the energy to yell. I just stared at her. I was looking at a stranger. A monster wearing the skin of the girl I loved. Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Tristan skidded to a halt outside the door. He took one look at me, dropped to his knees, and put on a masterful theatrical display. “Nate, it’s my fault! Please, hate me, but don’t blame Caroline! I’m so sorry!” Looking down at his face—a younger, sharper version of the man who ruined my family—a primal, violent urge surged through me. I raised my fist. Caroline lunged forward, grabbing my arm with shocking strength. “Nate, stop! I’m the one who made the mistake, not him! Be rational!” My arm dropped. I looked at where her hands gripped my forearm, then slowly raised my eyes to hers. “You’re both at fault. But I’m the one bleeding. Tell me, Caroline. What exactly do you expect me to do?” Tears spilled over her lashes. Guilt and something akin to pity swam in her eyes. She squeezed my hand, practically begging. “Nate… for the sake of our seven years together. Please. Can you just find it in your heart to be forgiving?” I looked at her pleading face. I let the silence stretch until it was suffocating. Then, I gave a single, slow nod. Caroline gasped, a look of euphoric relief washing over her. She threw her arms around my torso. “I knew it,” she wept into my shirt. “I knew you were stronger than your father. I knew you would understand.” She used my dead father as a weapon to secure her own peace of mind. A chilling, terrifying calm settled over me. I smiled against the crown of her hair, my eyes dead. Suddenly, Tristan let out an exaggerated gasp, patting his pockets. “Oh no—Caroline, I think I left the security fob for the penthouse at the front desk.” Caroline pulled away instantly, wiping her eyes. She barely looked back at me as she took Tristan’s arm. “Let’s go get it. I’ll call you tonight, Nate,” she tossed over her shoulder. I watched them walk down the hall. As they turned the corner, the last miserable shred of love I harbored for Caroline Pierce evaporated into nothing. The next morning, I flew out. I didn’t go back to London. I had my security team intercept a police report of a horrific, fiery car crash on an isolated stretch of highway outside the city. Through a massive payout and some digital ghosting, my identification was planted at the scene. The only way to cleanly sever a tie this gangrenous was amputation. From today onward, Nathaniel Brooks no longer existed. It wasn’t until late that evening, after she had finished coddling Tristan, that Caroline remembered to call me. When it went straight to an automated dead line, she tried my London office. Then, starting to panic, she pulled strings to get an emergency contact at the American Embassy. “Nathaniel Brooks?” the official’s voice filtered through the line, solemn and apologetic. “Miss Pierce, I am so deeply sorry. Mr. Brooks was involved in a multi-vehicle collision early this morning on his way to the airport. There were no survivors.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “400780”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Three hours before my wedding, my fiancé called to tell me he wasn’t coming. He didn’t just bail; he went straight to the courthouse and married Melanie Sandra—my supposed best friend. I stood there in my Vera Wang, heart-shattered, listening to the jagged whispers of three hundred guests. That was when Nigel, my fiancé’s uncle, pushed through the heavy oak doors of the hotel ballroom. He didn’t come to apologize for his nephew. He came with a fleet of black Escalades and enough long-stemmed roses to bury the scandal. He told me, in front of everyone, that he had loved me from a distance for years. He told me he’d been dreaming of the day I’d finally be his. Grateful for the lifeline, and perhaps wanting to burn my bridges with the man who humiliated me, I said yes. We’ve been married for three years now. In those three years, I’ve suffered through seven miscarriages. Each one took a piece of my soul. But then, I got pregnant again. Nigel was ecstatic. He’d spin me around the living room, whispering against my hair about how I needed to rest, how he’d protect me and this baby with his very life. He was the perfect, doting husband. Until I hit the twelve-week mark. I was headed toward his study to ask about dinner when I heard voices. Nigel was talking to our private physician, Dr. Aris. “Everything is on schedule, Mr. Montgomery,” the doctor’s voice was clinical, chilling. “Just like the last seven times. I’ve already added the abortifacient to her nightly milk.” A pause. Then the doctor spoke again, sounding genuinely confused. “I don’t understand. Melanie already has your child. Why can’t your wife be allowed to carry one to term?” I heard Nigel let out a self-deprecating, dry laugh. “Only a direct heir can inherit the Montgomery Group,” Nigel said, his voice devoid of the warmth I’d grown used to. “Jordan is sterile—everyone knows that. If I let Norma have a child, that child would be the competition. I can’t have Melanie’s life get complicated later. I won’t let anyone jeopardize her security.” The world tilted on its axis. Every “I love you,” every “be careful,” every late-night vigil by my hospital bed—it was all a curated performance. I wasn’t a wife. I was a placeholder, a sacrificial lamb on the altar of his obsession with Melanie. … “You realize,” the doctor said, hesitant now, “that by doing this, you aren’t just giving up the Chairmanship. You’ve sacrificed seven of your own children. You’ve had me falsify Jordan’s medical records for years; he doesn’t even know he’s infertile. When Melanie’s child is born, he’ll think it’s his. You’ll never be ‘Dad’ to that baby. Is it really worth it?” Nigel’s voice dropped, thick with a twisted kind of devotion. “What does it matter? I couldn’t have Melanie back then. The least I can do is curate her happiness now. No one is going to ruin her future. Not the board of directors, and certainly not a child I have with Norma.” “But sir,” the doctor pressed, “she’s had seven procedures in three years. Her body is failing. If she loses this one, she’ll likely never conceive again. The damage will be permanent.” There was a long silence. I gripped the door handle so hard my knuckles turned white, my breath hitching in my throat. “It’s fine,” Nigel finally said, his tone dismissive. “I’ll take care of her for the rest of her life. She won’t need children.” I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I turned and fled, stumbling back to our bedroom. I collapsed onto the floor, my legs giving out. For three years, I blamed myself. I thought I was weak. I thought my body was a broken vessel. I felt guilty for “failing” Nigel, for not giving him the heir his father demanded. His father had made it clear: Nigel or his nephew Jordan—whoever produced the first grandson would take control of the family empire. And Nigel… Nigel didn’t even use protection. He let me get pregnant over and over again, knowing he was going to kill the baby every single time. He watched me bleed, watched me cry, watched me wither away, all to ensure Melanie’s child—his child with Melanie—had no rivals. “Norma? Why are you sitting on the floor, sweetheart?” Nigel was in the doorway. He rushed over, lifting me with a practiced tenderness that now made my skin crawl. “I’m okay,” I managed, my voice a hollow rasp. “Just… morning sickness.” He rubbed my back, his touch feeling like ice against my spine. “I know, baby. It’s hard work, isn’t it? Next time you feel like this, call me. Don’t suffer in silence. It breaks my heart.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “This little guy is already such a troublemaker. When he’s born, I’m going to have to give him a stern talking-to for making his mommy so miserable.” He reached for the nightstand. “Here. I brought you some warm milk. It’ll help you sleep.” I looked at the white liquid in the glass. My stomach turned. Will there even be a ‘next time’? I wondered. Every time before, he had been this way. A special late-night snack, a handmade fruit bowl, a “healthy” smoothie. I thought it was love. It was just a cold-blooded execution disguised as care. “Nigel, I really don’t like the taste of milk lately. Can I skip it tonight?” He smiled, that soft, indulgent smile that never reached his eyes. “Norma, don’t be a brat. The doctor said the things you crave the least are the things your body needs the most. If you don’t sleep, the baby doesn’t rest. You love him, don’t you? Do it for our boy. Here, let me feed you.” He pressed the glass to my lips. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a command. He held it there, firm and unyielding, until I swallowed every drop. Nigel, are you really that afraid my child would stand in Melanie’s way? Or do you just hate the idea of a child that isn’t hers? I closed my eyes as the bitterness slid down my throat. Less than thirty minutes later, the cramping started. It was a familiar, agonizing bloom of heat in my abdomen. I curled into a ball, sweat soaking my sheets. Nigel called the doctor immediately—the doctor who was likely already sitting in his car in our driveway, waiting for the signal. Even though I’d been through this seven times before, the soul-crushing weight of the loss never got easier. Through the haze of pain, I heard the doctor whisper: “Mr. Montgomery, the hemorrhaging is worse this time. I think… I think the damage is done. She won’t be able to carry again.” Nigel didn’t say anything. He just gathered me into his arms, his eyes red as if he were the one grieving. “It’s okay, Norma. I’m here. Even without children, I’ll love you forever. I’ll take care of you.” This man, a CEO who had never so much as boiled an egg, personally cleaned the blood from my skin. He held me tightly through the night, murmuring into the darkness as I drifted in and out of a feverish sleep. “Don’t worry, Melanie,” he whispered into my hair, thinking I was unconscious. “I’ll make sure you get everything you ever wanted.” The tears I’d been holding back finally broke. Years ago, at that disastrous wedding, he promised to give me a life of happiness. It was all a lie to keep me quiet, to keep me out of Melanie’s way. My entire marriage was a punchline to a joke I wasn’t in on. I waited until he fell into a deep sleep, then reached for my phone. I sent a text to my best friend, Regina, who was living in Paris. Remember when you asked me to go on that trip around the world? I’m in. I’ll be there the day after tomorrow. I put the phone down, the ache in my womb a dull, constant throb. I’d just lost another child—murdered by his own father. I locked myself in the bathroom, letting the water run to drown out my sobs. As I leaned down to pick up my phone after dropping it, I noticed something tucked far back under the vanity. It was wrapped in heavy silk, hidden away like a relic. I pulled it out. It was a thick photo album. I opened it to find hundreds of photos of Melanie. From the time she was fifteen until now. I recognized the cover. I’d seen a similar one in Nigel’s office, but he’d told me it was a portfolio for a project. Nigel loved photography—it was his one true hobby. Nigel was older than Jordan and me, but only by about six years. When we were kids, he was always the cold, distant “adult” watching us play, acting like our games were beneath him. But when Melanie moved into the neighborhood and joined our circle at fifteen, everything changed. That was when Nigel started bringing his camera everywhere. I thought he was just growing up. I didn’t realize he was falling in love. The photos captured every minute detail. Melanie laughing, Melanie pouting, Melanie simply tucking her hair behind her ear. Moments I hadn’t even noticed, but Nigel had frozen in time. Since we got married, Nigel hadn’t touched a camera. Once, I asked him to take maternity photos of me. He told me he’d lost his favorite Leica and suggested I hire a professional instead. He hadn’t lost the camera. He just didn’t want to waste his lens on someone he didn’t love. My eyes were dry. I had no more tears left for him. I put the album back exactly where I found it. Then, I pulled up my banking app, booked a one-way ticket, and began drafting a digital divorce settlement. If he wanted Melanie so badly, he could have her. The next morning, my eyes were swollen like bruised plums. Nigel was the picture of a grieving, devoted husband. He made me a nutrient-rich breakfast, poached eggs exactly how I liked them, and even used chilled spoons to help the swelling under my eyes. He was so convincing, I almost doubted my own ears from the night before. But the emptiness in my gut reminded me of the truth. When I didn’t eat, he sighed. “Norma, I know you’re hurting. I’m heartbroken too. But you have to take care of yourself. Your body has been through so much. Please, eat for me.” “Where is the baby?” I asked, my voice flat. “I want to see him.” Twelve weeks. He would have been formed by now. I wanted to see the life he had extinguished. His answer was the same as the seven times before. “I’ve already made the arrangements, honey. He’s been buried privately. You’re in no state to see that. It would only traumatize you further.” He paused, stroking my hand. “My parents heard about the… accident. They’re devastated. They want us to come over for dinner tonight. It might be good to get out of the house.” The moment we walked into the Montgomery estate, I saw Melanie. She was leaning against Nigel’s mother’s arm, preening like a prize cat. When she saw me, she shifted her stance to make her six-month-old bump even more prominent. “Norma! It’s been so long,” she said, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Come, sit. I heard about your loss. You really should be more careful at your age.” Ever since the wedding debacle, I’d cut ties with Jordan and Melanie. We only came to the estate when we knew they weren’t there. Tonight was clearly an ambush. I looked at her belly—at Nigel’s child—and felt a physical pang of nausea. He had never let my children live past three months. Nigel’s mother, a sharp-featured woman in her fifties, didn’t even look at me. “Useless,” she spat. “Can’t even hold onto a pregnancy. How many times is this now? I don’t know what my son was thinking, marrying a woman who can’t even provide an heir.” She was Nigel’s mother, but only Jordan’s step-grandmother. She was bitter that Jordan—the nephew—was currently in line for the chairmanship because he had married “the right woman” first. Usually, Nigel would defend me. But today, his eyes were locked on Melanie. He looked at her with such raw, naked longing that he didn’t even hear his mother’s insults. “Grandmother, don’t be so hard on her,” Melanie said, her voice a sugary trill. “Some women just aren’t meant to be mothers. It’s a tragic lack of luck, really.” “It’s a curse, is what it is,” the older woman grumbled. Melanie stood up, acting as if she were going to help me sit down, but she feigned a stumble. Even though she steadied herself instantly, Nigel reacted like a grenade had gone off. He shoved me aside—hard—to catch her. Ignoring his parents, he pulled her into his arms. “Melanie! Are you okay? Where the hell is Jordan? Why are you wandering around alone in your condition?” Melanie smiled, a slow, triumphant thing. “Jordan’s in New York on business. He’s so busy prepping for the CEO transition, you know how it is.” She looked at me, her eyes flashing with malice, then looked back at Nigel. “Nigel, I think I twisted my ankle. It hurts…” Without a word, Nigel swept her up into a bridal carry and headed straight for the upstairs bedrooms, never once looking back at his wife. Nigel’s mother looked at me with pure disgust. “Can’t even keep your own husband’s attention. If Jordan hadn’t snatched Melanie up first, do you think Nigel would have looked at you twice? Get out of my sight. I have no appetite looking at you.” She’d always hated me. She saw me as Jordan’s “leftovers.” And because of the miscarriages, she saw me as a failure. I used to endure it because I thought Nigel was my shield. Now I realized he was the one who had sharpened her blades. I didn’t argue. I didn’t scream. I just walked upstairs. I found myself standing outside Melanie’s guest room. The door wasn’t fully closed. I peered inside. Melanie was lying on the bed, her clothes disheveled, and Nigel was pressed against her, his face buried in her neck. “Nigel,” she moaned, “you’re the only one who cares. Jordan is useless… he can’t even give me a child of my own. If I hadn’t used you, we’d never get the company. If Norma had a baby, everything would be ruined for us.” Nigel pulled back, his eyes dark with a desperate, hungry lust. “Does he treat you well? Does he touch you?” “He treats me like a queen because he thinks I’m carrying his legacy,” she giggled. “He even washes my feet. He’s so grateful.” Nigel’s expression was tortured. “As long as you’re happy. As long as you’re safe, I can live with the rest.” “Nigel,” she whispered, pulling his head down. “I couldn’t marry you, but I can give you this. Tonight, I’m yours.” I watched my husband—the man who was always so stoic, so controlled—lose his mind. I watched them disappear into each other. Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled back to our room. Nigel didn’t return that night. The next morning, he appeared in the doorway, looking remarkably refreshed. “Norma, I’m so sorry about last night. My mother kept me up for hours talking about the estate. I couldn’t get away.” I didn’t call him out. I didn’t even look at him. I just went to the front door to wait for the car I’d called. But as I stepped onto the porch, a bucket of freezing, greasy kitchen scraps and dishwater was slammed over my head. Melanie stood there, an empty bucket in her hand, laughing. “Did you enjoy the show last night, Norma?” she sneered. She’d left the door open on purpose. “Losing a baby sucks, doesn’t it? But don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with that anymore. You’re dried up now. Did you really think you could compete with me for the title of Mrs. Montgomery? Nigel gave up his inheritance for me. He gave me a child. And all those little ‘accidents’ you had? They were just fuel for my fire.” I looked up, my voice trembling through the filth dripping off my face. “What did you say?” “Oh, didn’t he tell you? Every time you lost one, Nigel told you they were buried. But he actually brought the remains to me. A certain specialist told me that… well, certain tissues are excellent for a pregnant woman’s health. Think of it as your children finally doing something useful for the real heir.” A wave of visceral horror crashed over me. Nutrients? He gave her the remains of our children to… consume? The sheer, distorted depravity of it broke something inside me. How could a human being do this? “Don’t look at me like that,” Melanie laughed. “It’s your own fault for being so pathetic. A useless mother breeds useless fruit.” I lost it. I swung my hand, aiming for her smug, beautiful face. Smack. The blow didn’t land on her. Nigel had appeared out of nowhere, pulling Melanie behind him and taking the slap across his own cheek. He shoved me back so hard I fell onto the gravel driveway. “Norma! What the hell is wrong with you?!” he roared. Melanie dissolved into theatrical sobs. “Nigel, I was just trying to comfort her! I told her not to be sad about the baby, but she started screaming that I stole her life, that she wanted me to miscarry! She threw that bucket of water at me and I just dodged—it hit her instead! And then she tried to kill me!” Nigel looked at me, his face a mask of cold fury. “Norma, I had no idea you were this shallow. This vindictive.” “You couldn’t keep a child because you’re weak. Don’t take that out on Melanie. She was being kind. Stop dreaming about things that aren’t yours and apologize to her. Now.” I’m weak? I looked at him and realized I didn’t know this man at all. He was a monster wearing the skin of the man I loved. “Nigel,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Tell me one thing. Where are the bodies of my children?” He narrowed his eyes. “I told you. They were buried. We’ve been over this.” His acting was flawless. “You’re right,” I said, standing up and wiping the grease from my face. “I shouldn’t want things that don’t belong to me. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.” I turned and walked away. Nigel stared after me, a flicker of genuine panic crossing his face for the first time. He started to follow, but Melanie grabbed his arm. “Nigel, I think I’m going to throw up. The smell… please, take me to the hospital.” He hesitated for two seconds. Then he turned his back on me to help her. I went home, packed a single suitcase, and threw every piece of jewelry and clothing he’d ever bought me into the fireplace. As I held our marriage certificate over the flames, my phone buzzed. It was a photo from Melanie. She was tucked into a hospital bed, looking radiant, eating a bowl of hand-cut fruit. Norma, I just said I felt nauseous and Nigel called in three world-renowned specialists. He even chartered a helicopter to bring in a doctor from the Mayo Clinic. Are you jealous yet? I didn’t reply. I watched the certificate turn to ash. I knew he wouldn’t be home tonight. Sure enough, he called an hour later. “Norma, Melanie had a scare. Jordan is out of town, so as the family head, I have to stay. Don’t be petty about it.” “I understand,” I said. “The baby is the priority. Stay as long as you need.” He paused, his voice softening. “Norma, I didn’t mean to be harsh earlier. I know you’re emotional. But Melanie is carrying the Montgomery bloodline. Since you and I… well, since we can’t provide that anymore, we have to protect her. For the family.” “Right. For the family.” “Be a good girl and stay home. Tomorrow is your birthday. I’ve booked the best suite at the Pierre, and I have a surprise for you. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

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It was the first day of the semester. I was still hauling my suitcases into the dorm when Trinity Ward suddenly grabbed my hand. Her face was flushed, her eyes shimmering with a mix of nerves and a strange, triumphant heat. “Quinn,” she whispered, her voice carrying just enough to reach our other roommates. “Starting today, I’m going to be your stepmother. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.” I froze. The iced latte in my hand slipped, hitting the linoleum with a sickening thud. Plastic cracked, and brown liquid splattered across my white sneakers. “Stepmother?” I repeated, the word tasting like ash. “Trinity, you’ve got the wrong person.” I forced a dry laugh and tried to wrench my hand back. “You can’t just go around saying things like that. My father is—” Seeing my disbelief, she didn’t hesitate. She whipped out her phone and began swiping through a gallery of photos. My heart did a slow, painful roll. There he was: my father, Richard Beaumont. In every photo, Trinity was draped over him, their poses intimate enough to make my skin crawl. Finally, she pulled a folded slip of paper from her designer bag and thrust it under my nose. Trinity Ward, 22. Four months pregnant. Fetal vitals: Normal. She rested a hand on her still-flat stomach, a beatific, sickeningly sweet smile spreading across her lips. “Your dad said as soon as you were settled in for the semester, we’d go down to the courthouse and make it official.” I stared at the ultrasound report, and suddenly, I felt a laugh bubbling up in my chest. Poor Trinity. She had done her homework on the Beaumont family fortune, but she’d missed one very private, very permanent detail. My father had a vasectomy twenty years ago. … My first instinct was that this was some twisted hazing ritual. I patted her shoulder, still grinning. “Okay, okay, you got me. Truth or Dare? You’re a great actress, Trinity. For a second there, I actually thought you were serious.” Trinity cut me off, her expression shifting instantly to one of wounded innocence. “I’m not lying to you, Quinn. I know who your father is. I know he’s the CEO of Beaumont International. I know I’m ‘just’ a student and people will say I’m not good enough for him.” She took a shaky breath. “But your mother has been gone for so long, and what he and I have is real. Please, just give us your blessing.” A chill settled over me. This wasn’t a joke. My father, Richard Beaumont, was the city’s most eligible bachelor. The line of women trying to climb into his life stretched out the door of his penthouse and around the block. But in all these years, not one had ever made it past the velvet ropes. It wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful enough. It was because my father’s “garden” had been salted and burned long ago. When my mother almost died giving birth to my brother and me, the terror changed him. He couldn’t lose her again. The day we were born was the day he scheduled his vasectomy. And now, this girl was telling me he’d managed to conjure a miracle baby in his fifties? The absurdity of it was staggering. Without another word, I pulled out my phone to call him. I wanted to hear the confusion in his voice. I wanted him to shut this down. But before the call could connect, Madison Miller, our third roommate, lunged forward and snatched the phone out of my hand. “Stop it, Quinn! You can’t just call him like that!” “He’s my father, Madison. Give it back.” “Mr. Beaumont is a busy man,” Madison argued, her voice frantic. “If you call him and start accusing him of things, think of how embarrassed he’ll be. Besides, Trinity is sensitive right now. Think of the baby! Can’t we just talk this out as adults without making a scene?” I opened my mouth to explain that it was biologically impossible for Trinity to be carrying a Beaumont heir, but Trinity cut in, her voice dissolving into soft sobs. “Quinn, please don’t call Richard.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, a masterclass in performative grief. “I don’t want to cause trouble between you two. I know you’re angry… but this is real. I’m carrying his child.” “I’ll be better to you than a real mother ever could,” she choked out. “I’m begging you. Just give me a chance.” I was caught between fury and exhaustion. I tried to keep my voice level. “Trinity, we’re theater majors. Our reputations are everything. You’re young. Don’t let someone brainwash you into this. This baby… it isn’t his. If you go through with this lie, how are you going to live with yourself?” I thought I was being helpful, but I’d clearly touched a nerve. Trinity shoved my hand away, clutching her stomach as she wailed. “You just don’t want us to be together! Fine! I’ll go to the clinic tomorrow. I’ll get rid of the baby! Is that what you want? Are you happy now?” The sheer audacity of her playing the victim made my blood boil. “I’m giving you a reality check. What you do with your body is your business, but don’t you dare pin this on my family.” The words had barely left my lips when Madison rushed over to scoop Trinity into an embrace, glaring at me over her shoulder. “Quinn, that is cold, even for you! Trinity is going through enough, and you’re standing there making up lies to gaslight her? Where is your heart?” The commotion had drawn our other two roommates into the common area. They stood by the door, whispering and casting judgmental glances my way. Trinity, seeing her audience, doubled down. “I know I’m younger than Richard… I know it looks bad,” she sobbed into Madison’s shoulder. “But I love him. I didn’t mean for the pregnancy to happen, I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to take care of Quinn. Why is she being so mean? Why is she making up stories about her own father?” The “poor little pregnant girl” act was working. One of the girls by the door stepped forward. “Look, Quinn, even if you hate the idea, you shouldn’t say such hurtful things. It’s messed up.” “Exactly,” the other chimed in. “It’s the twenty-first century. If it’s true love, who cares about the age gap? You’re being so old-fashioned.” “If I were you, I’d just accept it. She’s going to be your stepmom. It’s better to have her as an ally than an enemy. Don’t make it weird.” My brain felt like it was going to short-circuit. A red veil of rage dropped over my vision. I turned on them, my voice cracking. “You want to talk about ‘weird’? How about a girl our age claiming she’s my new mommy on the first day of school? Let’s see how ‘progressive’ you feel when your dad brings home a classmate!” I stepped toward them, ready to have it out, but Madison jumped between us, playing the peacemaker. “Stop, stop! Quinn, you know how she is—she doesn’t have a filter, she didn’t mean it that way. Trinity is pregnant; she can’t be stressed like this. Can’t you just humiliate her some other time? If something happens to that baby because of your temper, can you live with that?” Trinity stopped crying just long enough to look at me with big, watery eyes. “Quinn, I know it’s a lot to take in. I can wait. I’ll wait for you to accept me. Just… stop lying about your dad. I really am pregnant with his child. I’ll be so good to you, I promise. Just believe me once.” I studied Trinity. She couldn’t hold my gaze. Her eyes flitted toward the door, then to Madison. There was a frantic edge to her “sincerity” that confirmed everything. There was a grift happening here. But why? Why target me with such a blatant, easily debunked lie? Madison began rubbing Trinity’s back, her tone shifting to that of a concerned older sister—though every word she said was a poisoned arrow aimed at me. “Come on, Quinn. Let it go. Trinity is in a fragile state. We all live together; we have to see each other every day. For the sake of the dorm, can we just move past this?” She nudged Trinity, signaling her to “try” one more time. I looked at them—the weeping “mother-to-be” and her “loyal protector”—and I started to laugh. A cold, hard sound. “The thing is, Madison, I’m not lying. My father had a vasectomy twenty-one years ago. He is sterile. I have the medical records in my digital vault. I can pull them up and project them on the wall right now if you’d like.” I turned to Trinity, my eyes turning to ice. “And you. You say you’re carrying a Beaumont. Tell me, Trinity—what’s his middle name? What’s the name of his private equity firm? Where exactly is our estate located?” The room went silent for a heartbeat. Trinity’s crying hitched. Then, she let out a howl louder than before. “You’re testing me on his name? His name is Richard Beaumont! He’s the CEO of Beaumont International! You live at 18 Seaside Drive!” She gasped for air, her words coming out in a frantic rush. “He has a silver picture frame on his nightstand. It’s a photo of your mother. The corner of the frame is dented because you dropped it when you were six, and he won’t replace it because he says it reminds him of you. He polishes it every single morning!” My heart skipped. She was right. Those were details only someone who had been inside our house—inside my father’s bedroom—would know. My mind raced. How? My father was sterile. That was a fact. But how did she know about the dented frame? Before I could process the confusion, Trinity grabbed the collar of her shirt and yanked it down, revealing a cluster of dark purple bruises on her neck. “Your dad did this,” she said, her face reddening, but her voice steady. “He said he loves seeing his mark on me. Even with the baby, he can’t keep his hands off me. Every night. Sometimes in the afternoon… I tell him to be gentle, but he just laughs and says he’s too happy to stop.” She was on a roll now, the details getting cruder. “He’s so needy. He won’t even let me get dressed after I shower. He says he just wants to hold me. One time, while I was making pasta in the kitchen, he came up behind me and—” “Okay, okay! Too much information!” Madison’s face was bright red as she covered Trinity’s mouth. The other two roommates looked stunned, their expressions a mix of secondhand embarrassment and prurient curiosity. Trinity fell quiet. Madison cleared her throat, adopting a “reasonable” tone. “Look, Quinn. I get it. This is a nightmare for you. But at the end of the day, this is family business. If this gets out, it’ll ruin the Beaumont reputation. The press will have a field day.” She leaned in closer. “Maybe you should just… give everyone a little something to keep things quiet. A hush-money gesture. We all keep our mouths shut, and this stays in this room. It’s for your own good, you see?” Trinity nodded vigorously. “Yeah, Quinn. I’ve spent so much on prenatal vitamins and private checkups. It’s so expensive.” She looked at me with a greedy glint in her eyes. “Your dad always told me how generous you are. A real socialite. A little help wouldn’t hurt you.” She started counting on her fingers. “Fifty thousand each. There are four of us. Two hundred thousand dollars. To you, that’s just the price of a Birkin bag.” “If we get the money, nobody says a word,” Madison added with a slick smile. “Your dad’s reputation stays intact, Trinity can focus on the baby, and we all stay friends. Everyone wins.” She looked at me like she was doing me the biggest favor in the world. I stood there, watching the two of them perform their little duet, and the pieces finally clicked into place. “So,” I said slowly. “This whole elaborate soap opera… was just a shakedown for cash?” Trinity’s face faltered for a second. Madison’s smile dimmed, but she held her ground. “Quinn, how can you say that? We’re thinking about your family’s name—” “Too bad,” I said, stepping back and leaning against my desk. “My father had his surgery twenty-two years ago. He can’t get anyone pregnant. Whoever’s ‘seed’ is growing in there, go find the real father and leave mine out of it.” Trinity turned pale. The two silent roommates suddenly found their voices again, their tones sharp. “Quinn, stop being delusional! We’ve seen the photos of your dad and Trinity. They’re unmistakable!” “Yeah! We even saw your dad picking her up at the campus gate last night. That black Bentley? Hard to miss. If he wasn’t there for her, then why was he even at the school?” Their certainty was unshakable. My stomach dropped. I hadn’t known my father was on campus last night. Madison sighed and patted my arm. “Quinn, honey… I know it’s hard to accept. But your dad was here. If you don’t believe us, I have the video.” She held up her phone. In the grainy footage, a black Bentley was idling near the North Gate. My father was leaning against the door, scrolling through his phone as if waiting for someone. Madison swiped through more photos. My father and Trinity at a dimly lit restaurant. In the car. Him ruffling her hair. His arm around her shoulders. Every shot was perfectly framed. I gripped my phone, my fingers icy. The photos didn’t look photoshopped. The lighting, the angles—everything looked painfully real. The air felt thin. My legs felt like they were going to give out. But a stubborn spark of intuition kept me upright. I pulled out my phone and dialed my father. Again. And again. The ringing was like a rhythmic torture. Every beeeeep made my heart hammer harder against my ribs. Just as I was about to give up, his voice—warm, familiar, and calm—filled the line. “Hey, Quinn. Sorry, sweetheart. I was in a board meeting. Is everything okay?” My throat felt tight. “Dad… were you at my school yesterday?” “I was,” he said, his voice tinged with a slight apology. “I had some business nearby and stopped by the gate to catch up with an old friend. I figured you were busy settling into the dorm, so I didn’t want to bother you.” It sounded reasonable. But it didn’t explain the photos. I gritted my teeth and asked the question that was tearing me apart. “Dad… are you seeing someone? Is there… a baby?” There was a long, heavy silence on the other end. My heart sank into my stomach. “Mr. Beaumont, the files are ready for the second session…” I heard his secretary’s voice in the background. “Quinn, I’m right in the middle of something. I’ll explain everything later, okay? Be a good girl. I have to go.” Click. The dial tone echoed in my ear. I stood there, frozen, as tears finally broke through and hot tracks ran down my face. Madison walked over and draped an arm around my shoulders. “Quinn, your mom has been gone a long time. Your dad and Trinity are both single adults. It’s natural. Don’t overthink it.” “I don’t believe it!” I shoved her away. “My father isn’t like that! He loved my mother so much he ensured he’d never have children with anyone else. He wouldn’t just… throw that away for a college student!” “It’s a lie! Trinity is lying! You’re all lying!” My mind was screaming. I had to see that pregnancy report again. It had to be a forgery. I lunged toward Trinity’s bed, reaching for her designer bag, desperate to find the paper. But before I could touch it, the other two roommates grabbed my arms, pinning me back. “Quinn, calm down! She’s pregnant! You can’t attack her!” I struggled, sobbing now, watching Trinity cower behind Madison. For a split second, the mask slipped, and I saw a flash of triumph in Trinity’s eyes. Then, a familiar voice drifted in from the hallway. “Quinn? I’m here.”

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My best friend and I got sucked into the romance novel I wrote. We were living the absolute dream. We had the two male leads—one a broad-shouldered, tailored-suit god, the other with stamina that defied human biology. We were practically drowning in perfection. Until another girl crossed over into the manuscript. Because of her, my best friend was strapped to a human roulette wheel, enduring torture that caused her to miscarry. Five separate times. I became this girl’s personal blood bank, submerged in a giant vat of liquor as a “vintage beauty,” served up for a crowd of degenerates to taste. And our two perfect men? They slowly, inexplicably, changed their hearts. The manipulative little bitch flaunted it in our faces. “So what if your babies died? So what if you’re drained of blood?” she purred, her smile razor-sharp. “One phone call. That’s all it takes for your husbands to drop everything and come running to me. Tell me, which one should I let share my bed tonight?” My best friend, Maddie, gripped my hand. She didn’t have any tears left to cry. “Heather,” she whispered, her voice hollow. “I can’t take this anymore. Let’s just pull the plug. Let’s die here so we can wake up in the real world.” I stayed completely silent. The rule was simple: finish the plot, and the System would grant our deepest wishes. I didn’t care about the eight hundred million dollars I had wished for anymore. But Maddie? In the real world, Maddie had terminal cancer. Going back early meant going back to die. I ground my teeth together, grabbed her arm, and shoved her behind me. “I’ll pull the plug. I’ll die,” I told her fiercely. “You stay alive. You survive the plot.” “The second I wake up on the other side, I’m opening my laptop and rewriting this whole damn thing. Share her bed? I’m going to scatter her ashes to the wind!” … 1 “I’m going to write a scene where she falls into a cesspool seven times. I’m going to make her run naked through the streets. I will torture her to death on the page for you, I swear to God.” A faint, desperate flicker of light finally returned to Maddie’s deadened eyes. Just for that flicker, I needed to die. Right now. I spun around and sprinted straight for the window. I was just about to throw my leg over the sill when my peripheral vision caught movement down in the courtyard. A tall, chillingly handsome man was kneeling on the pavement, tying a woman’s shoelace. Six-foot-two, sharp jawline, lean muscle. It was a silhouette I knew better than my own reflection. My husband. Declan. I ground my teeth, mentally calculating the distance to the ground. Part of me wondered if I should just aim my trajectory to crush them both on impact. Declan must have sensed something. He looked up. His eyes locked onto me, dangling halfway out the second-story window. His pupils contracted violently. “Heather!” he roared. “Get back inside right now!” I stretched my mouth into a cold, hollow smile and flipped him the bird. I closed my eyes and leaned forward into the empty air. Suddenly, something tight wrapped around my waist. A brutal force yanked me backward, dragging me violently onto the carpet. Declan’s secretary was clutching me, chest heaving, his face pale with raw panic. Seconds later, Declan burst into the room. He was ashen. “Are you out of your mind, Heather?!” he shouted, his voice cracking with rage. “Throwing a tantrum with your life?! Do you have any idea how high that is?!” He stood there panting. Then, his eyes flicked to the girl standing timidly behind him—Isabelle. Instantly, a chilling calm washed over him. “They were right. You’re becoming an absolute embarrassment,” he sneered, adjusting his cuffs. “Pulling a stunt like this in front of a guest. It’s pathetic.” I leaned back against the wall. A breathless, broken little laugh escaped my throat. “Oh. So I’m an embarrassment.” I looked at him. “And here I thought you were actually worried about me.” He stiffened, his gaze darting away uncomfortably. “Enough. It’s rare for Isabelle to visit. Stop causing a scene.” He turned his back to me. “She loves mangoes. Go cut a plate and be a decent hostess for once.” Maddie stared at him, absolutely paralyzed with shock, before turning her heartbroken eyes to me. I froze, too. Then, I smiled. A bright, compliant smile. “Sure.” Down in the kitchen, the bright, heavy mangoes sat on the cutting board. I picked up the knife. A passing maid happened to glance over. The color instantly drained from her face. She screamed, dropping her towels, and practically tackled me away from the counter before running hysterically toward the living room to beg Declan for mercy. “Mr. Declan, I am so, so sorry! The new grocery shopper didn’t know—they didn’t know Mrs. Heather is deathly allergic to mangoes! Please don’t be angry, I’ll throw them all out right now!” Declan froze. It hit him. Just touching the skin of a mango would send my throat into anaphylaxis. In the past, if a single mango ever crossed the threshold of our house, he would fire the entire kitchen staff. A complicated storm of emotions flickered in his eyes. He raised an eyebrow, his voice dropping to a freezing register. “Does she not know her own allergies? She has a mouth, doesn’t she?” He scoffed. “She just had to wait until an audience was watching to get close to them. Who is this performance for?” The corners of Isabelle’s mouth twitched upward before she quickly suppressed it. She clung to Declan’s arm, looking up at him with wide, tearful eyes. “Declan, please don’t be mad at Heather. As a woman… I understand how she feels.” She let out a delicate little sniffle. “She’s definitely doing this on purpose. She thinks if she puts herself in danger, you’ll feel sorry for her, and then… and then you won’t want to see me anymore. If she hates me being here this much, I should just go!” She was incredibly good at crying. It was the kind of crying designed to break a man’s heart. Declan’s brow furrowed in deep distress. “Apologize to Isabelle,” he demanded. Here we go again. Over the last few years, if Isabelle dropped a glass, it was because I startled her. If she rolled her ankle, it was because I pushed her. If she picked a fight with Declan, it was because I manipulated them. I’d apologized eight hundred times. If they weren’t sick of hearing it, I was certainly sick of saying it. I raised my hand and pressed the cold steel of the kitchen knife flush against my own neck. “I’ll apologize with my life,” I whispered. “Is that enough?” Declan just rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted by me. “Not this again! Heather, when are you going to get it through your head? These psychotic tantrums only make me despise you. They don’t make me pity you!” The blade rested against my pulse, but the freezing cold went straight down to my soul. I suddenly remembered a time, years ago, when I nicked my finger slicing a strawberry. Declan had practically had a panic attack. He held my hand, blowing on the tiny cut, tearing apart the bathroom to find a band-aid, and then kissing the plastic once he wrapped it. I had laughed at him. Is this really necessary? It’s just a scratch. It is, he had said, looking at me dead serious. When you hurt, I hurt. But now, holding a butcher knife to my own throat was just a “psychotic tantrum.” He had the exact same face. The exact same voice. But where did my Declan go? I looked across the room at the man staring at me with nothing but cold disgust. I smiled, letting two hot tears spill down my cheeks. “Declan,” I breathed. “I really miss you.” His eyes violently trembled. I closed my eyes and slammed my neck toward the blade. 2 A large, heavily-knuckled hand slammed over the sharp edge of the blade, stopping it dead. The metallic tang of blood instantly filled the air. “Heather, are you out of your goddamn mind?!” My older brother, Colin, glared at me, his eyes blazing with furious disbelief. He raised his uninjured hand and swung it hard toward my face. Maddie threw herself in front of me. The slap landed across her cheek with a sickening crack. Colin froze, staring at his palm. But a second later, the anger morphed into something uglier. “Maddie, look at what you’ve done to my sister!” he roared. “She throws her life around like it’s a joke! If you don’t even respect your own life, how do you expect anyone else to love you?!” His chest heaved. He struggled to catch his breath before spitting out the final, venomous words: “You’re both pathetic idiots!” I stared at him, and a hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up in my chest. This was my second male lead. The man I wrote to be gentle, refined, the ultimate protector. In my original outline, “idiot” was the absolute harshest word his character was even capable of saying. I never thought he’d use it as a weapon against us. “She doesn’t respect her own life?” I asked, my voice dropping to a dead, icy calm. “Do you have any idea how desperately she tried to protect herself and her babies?” The first baby. Isabelle “accidentally” dropped saffron into her soup. Hemorrhage. Gone. The second baby. Colin was too busy fixing a leak at Isabelle’s apartment, so he made Maddie walk home alone in a thunderstorm. She slipped. Miscarriage. Gone. The third. The fourth. The fifth… “Colin, use your goddamn brain,” I snarled. “Who exactly is it that doesn’t respect her life?!” Beside me, Maddie was shaking violently, silent sobs wracking her frail body. A flash of raw guilt crossed Colin’s eyes. He raised his hand, instinctively reaching out to wipe Maddie’s tears. But Isabelle gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in innocent horror. “Five babies? Lost?” she whispered. “That’s… well, maybe it’s just natural selection? If the genetics were that flawed, bringing them into the world would have just been cruel.” She tilted her head, her eyes wide. “Besides… isn’t it a little strange? Five times? Do you think she… maybe she did it to herself, just to get your attention?” Maddie flinched as if she’d been shot. She turned, her eyes bloodshot, screaming from the depths of her lungs. “What the hell are you saying?! I would never kill my own children for a man’s love!” “Wouldn’t you?” Colin’s hand dropped. It was obvious. He believed Isabelle. He looked at Maddie, a cold, clinical disgust rising to the surface of his eyes. Then, he turned to Isabelle, his voice softening into something like velvet. “Izzy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you to this house today. Let’s go to that private kitchen you like. I’ll cook for you myself to make up for this.” Isabelle hooked her left arm through my brother’s. She grabbed Declan’s hand with her right. She looked back at us, smiling. Sweet. Triumphant. The heavy front door slammed shut. It sounded like a gunshot. I pulled Maddie to my chest, running my hand down her back, over and over. “It’s okay. They’re just characters on a page. It’s okay. Don’t be sad.” I was lying. It felt like my ribs were caving in. Declan and Colin were the men Maddie and I had built from the ground up. We poured our ideal types into them, meticulously designing every trait, every flaw, every tender moment. They were born into this universe specifically to be our perfect matches. But my love felt like he’d been hollowed out and replaced by a parasite. I held Maddie tighter, rocking her, trying to soothe her—trying to soothe myself. “It’s going to be okay. As soon as I die and log out, I’m rewriting the manuscript. Everything will go back to normal.” I dug through Maddie’s purse and pulled out her sleeping pills. I poured a handful into my palm. I was just about to swallow them dry. Suddenly, the front door burst open. A group of furious executives stormed into our living room, pointing straight at Maddie. “You absolute psycho! You run that account, don’t you?!” 3 My brother’s corporate social media had exploded. Two weeks ago, a young woman had posted a picture of her new tattoo. The official corporate account had replied to the thread, publicly accusing her of being a sex worker. The ensuing cyberbullying had been so severe the girl had committed suicide. Now, her family and their lawyers were standing in our living room. Maddie shook her head, terrified and confused. “No, it wasn’t me. The account manager is—” “Stop lying! Your own company just released a statement! You murdered my daughter, and I’m going to make you pay!” A phone was shoved inches from our faces. It was a statement. Posted by my brother. “Due to reckless statements made by my wife while managing the corporate accounts…” At that exact second, Maddie’s phone buzzed. A text from Colin. “Maddie, Izzy is fragile and terrified. I need you to take the fall for this for now. I’ll figure something out later.” Maddie stared at the screen, her eyes wide, unable to process the absolute magnitude of the betrayal. Before she could even breathe, the mob lunged. I threw myself over Maddie, wrapping my body around hers, screaming over the chaos. “Isabelle was running the account! Go check the IP! It was Isabelle!” “Isabelle is just a junior assistant. Why would she have top-tier clearance for corporate socials?” Declan’s voice cut through the room like a glacier. He was standing in the doorway, shielding Isabelle behind him, his eyes sharp and unforgiving. “I can personally testify,” Declan said smoothly. “That account has always been managed jointly by Maddie and Heather.” Behind his broad shoulders, Isabelle shot me a wicked, victorious smirk. In that moment, whatever was left of my heart finally flatlined. The blows started raining down. Fists, boots, briefcases. Maddie and I were desperately trying to shield each other, scrambling to take the brunt of the hits. But her body was weak. I was stronger. I made sure I took every single hit. The dull, sickening thuds echoed through the room as shoes connected with my ribs. Maddie was wailing, a sound of absolute despair. “Heather, stop! Stop protecting me! I know this is breaking your heart more than mine!” she sobbed. “I don’t want to suffer anymore! Let’s just go home. I don’t care how long I have left in the real world, it’s fine, I just want to—” Gag. My body finally gave out. I violently coughed up a massive mouthful of dark blood, staining Maddie’s white shirt red. My vision tunneled into black. The world went completely silent. The exit door back to reality slowly began to materialize in my mind. But suddenly, I felt someone sprinting toward me like a madman. Arms wrapped around me, crushing me to a chest, shielding me from the mob. Then came the rhythmic, sterile beep-beep of hospital monitors. And Isabelle’s grating, falsely tearful voice. “Declan, it’s all my fault.” A sniffle. “But Heather has always been so healthy. Do you think she’s faking it again? Just to make you feel bad?” Declan didn’t answer her. Instead, I felt hot drops of water landing on my neck. They burned. They made my heart physically ache. “Heather,” Declan whispered over and over again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think this would happen. Please wake up. I’ll give you anything you want.” His voice broke. “You always loved touching my abs, right? If you wake up, I’ll let you do it every single day.” A faint, ghostly laugh echoed in my own mind. Yeah. I did. Every night before bed, I’d reach over and feel for his stomach. It was a ritual. He used to pretend to be annoyed. He’d complain that my hands were freezing, that I was being clingy. But he would always lift his shirt and pull my hands against his bare skin anyway. That was my Declan. The man sitting next to this hospital bed wasn’t him. So, it was time to leave. I let my consciousness sink deeper into the dark. But just as I was slipping away, Isabelle’s cold, mocking whisper brushed against my ear. “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. And I’m not going to let you die that easily.” “If you keep sleeping… your best friend is going to be destroyed.” Maddie’s agonizing scream suddenly ripped through the air. 4 I jolted awake, gasping for air. Isabelle was leaning over the bed, holding her phone inches from my face. A video was playing. It was my brother, Colin. He had Maddie pinned against a wall by her throat. His eyes were bloodshot with rage. “You and Heather set her up, didn’t you?! You told that mob Izzy was running the account so they’d go after her!” he roared in the video. “Do you have any idea what she’s been through these past few days? Stalked outside the office, death threats blowing up her phone! She’s practically a kid! How could you be so vicious?!” Maddie’s face cycled through shock, pain, and finally, a hollow, devastating resignation. “I did it,” she rasped. “Heather had nothing to do with it. If you want revenge, take it out on me.” The video snapped off. I was trembling so violently the bed frame rattled. I lunged forward and grabbed Isabelle by the collar. “What did you do to her?!” Isabelle giggled. “Oops. You fell for it.” In a fraction of a second, her expression contorted into sheer terror, and she began sobbing hysterically. “Heather, please! Please don’t hurt me!” The door crashed open. Declan burst in, instantly pulling her behind him, his face etched with panic. Isabelle buried her face in his shoulder. “Declan, look. I wasn’t lying.” “She was faking the coma! Whenever you leave the room, she wakes up and beats me! Look at the bruises, she did this to me!” Declan stared at me, his eyes wide with revulsion. He kicked a metal chair across the room; it slammed into the wall. “Heather! What is your goddamn problem?! I sat by this bed for three nights without sleeping, isn’t that enough for you?!” “Can’t we just have a normal life?! Why do you insist on torturing her?!” I stared back at him. This face. I had stared at the computer screen and mapped out every angle of it. The sharp brow, the straight nose, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy. Now, those eyes held nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred. And strangely, that realization brought a terrifying calm over me. “Where is Maddie?” I asked evenly. Isabelle wiped a fake tear. “You and Maddie just went too far this time.” “Declan and Colin are too soft-hearted. I couldn’t bear to see you two manipulate them anymore. So I sent her to a correctional facility. To help her learn some manners.” A loud, deafening ringing filled my ears. I vaulted out of the bed and slapped her across the face with everything I had. Declan grabbed my wrist. He squeezed so hard I thought the bones would snap. “Heather!” he roared. I looked him dead in the eye and gave him a bloody, feral smile. “I guess I’ve gone too far, too. Why don’t you send me there to join her?” The “correctional facility” was an underground nightclub. The second they dragged me through the doors, I saw her. Maddie was strapped spreadeagle to a massive wooden roulette wheel. She was the needle. The outer rim of the wheel was painted with punishments. Shots. Needles. Cigarette burns. Wherever she stopped, that was what she got. She was covered in blood and burns. When she saw me, her swollen eyes immediately filled with tears. I screamed and tried to sprint toward the stage, but two massive bouncers slammed me into the ground, pinning my arms behind my back. Isabelle didn’t even bother acting anymore. She threw her head back and laughed. “Your bestie has had a rough night! Good thing you’re here. Want to help her carry the load?” “She spins, you take the punishment. Deal?” Before I could even open my mouth, she reached out and violently spun the wheel. Maddie blurred into a circle of motion. The G-force was too much; her eyes rolled back, and she passed out completely. I was thrashing against the guards, seeing red. The wheel slowly ground to a halt. The entire club erupted into cheers. “Vintage Beauty! Vintage Beauty!” the crowd chanted. Isabelle looked at where the needle had stopped. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face as she looked me up and down. “Looks like your luck just ran out, Heather.” 5 A crew of men wheeled out an enormous, reinforced glass tank. It was filled to the brim with amber liquor that sloshed heavily under the strobe lights. “This is the club’s specialty,” Isabelle announced to the room. “We’re going to use you to flavor the whiskey. Everyone here gets a glass. A little taste of high society.” The crowd roared as I was dragged up onto the platform. Isabelle leaned in close, her eyes glittering with malice. “You think you can just pull the plug and escape to rewrite the plot?” she hissed. “In your dreams. I am going to make sure you two beg for death, and I’ll never let you have it.” I froze. How did she know about the plot? Before my brain could process it, Isabelle shoved me hard toward the edge of the tank. A split second before I fell, I grabbed fistfuls of her shirt and yanked her with me. “I didn’t come here to be tortured,” I laughed right in her face. “I came here to drag you to hell with me!” Splash! The freezing alcohol rushed into my nose and throat. The burning and the suffocation were instantaneous. But I kept my arms locked around Isabelle like a vice, sinking us both. I smiled as the bubbles escaped her screaming mouth. Then, I heard a muffled, familiar shout from above the surface. Someone plunged into the tank. Strong hands grabbed my wrist. The grip was desperate. Terrified. Like they were holding onto their entire world. I forced my burning eyes open. Through the swirling amber liquid, I saw his face. Brows pulled together in panic, lips pressed tight. Declan. He came for me? My heart gave a pathetic, hopeful flutter. But in the next second… He systematically pried my fingers apart, one by one. He ripped Isabelle out of my grip, pulled her into his chest, and kicked off the bottom. He swam toward the surface. He never looked back. I sank back to the bottom of the glass. I watched their silhouettes break the surface and disappear into the glaring lights of the club. Fine. So this is how it ends. Just as the edges of my vision started to turn black, the glass tank groaned under the pressure. CRACK. The reinforced glass shattered. Thousands of gallons of liquor exploded outward, washing me violently across the concrete floor. I collapsed on my hands and knees, violently hacking up alcohol, my lungs screaming. A heavy hand patted my back. Colin. He was drenched, chest heaving. He looked at me, and for a fraction of a second, there was genuine, agonizing heartbreak in his eyes. “Heather, you absolute idiot,” he breathed. I spat out a mouthful of whiskey and gave a weak, breathless laugh. I couldn’t believe that didn’t kill me. Across the room, Isabelle was clinging to Declan, hyperventilating in a perfectly orchestrated panic attack. “I just came to see them… I just wanted to make peace with her, but Heather tried to murder me!” Instantly, two pairs of frigid eyes locked onto me. Declan and Colin immediately started shouting for doctors. They flanked Isabelle on both sides. Wrapping her in thick towels, vigorously drying her hair, holding a cup of hot water to her lips. Absolute, gentle devotion. All for her. Meanwhile, a bouncer grabbed me by the ankle, dragged me into a dark back room, and dumped me on the floor. I pulled my knees to my chest. My heart was beating erratically. Too fast. My face felt like it was on fire. My throat was tightening. Every breath was a struggle. Through the haze, a memory hit me. The IV bag at the hospital. Ceftriaxone. Cephalosporin antibiotics. I had just inhaled and swallowed a massive amount of alcohol. I instinctively opened my mouth to call for help. Through the cracked door, I saw Declan and Colin’s backs. They were leaning over Isabelle, whispering something soothing. She was smiling, her eyes curving into sweet little crescents. Out of the corner of her eye, she shot me a smug, triumphant look. I closed my mouth. The corners of my lips slowly turned up. I went through all that trouble to find a window to jump out of. Turns out, dying was actually this easy. In the dim yellow light of the back room, I curled myself into a tight ball. I kept my eyes fixed on the backs of the men I had created, and I quietly went to sleep. I don’t know how much time passed. Eventually, a doctor declared Isabelle was perfectly fine, and I heard the two men let out long sighs of relief. Declan finally remembered I existed. “Heather,” he called out, his tone dripping with frost. “Thank God Izzy is okay. Get out here and apologize.” The figure curled in the corner didn’t move. Annoyance flashed across his face. He strode into the room, bent down, and grabbed my arm to haul me up. The second his skin touched mine, his entire body went rigid. When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting at my desk in the real world. I immediately pulled up the manuscript file, my fingers hovering over the keyboard to rewrite the nightmare. But then, my eyes snagged on the document history log in the sidebar. My brain short-circuited. I finally knew exactly who Isabelle was. No wonder she could manipulate my plot!

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