My husband, Julian Croft… the man who makes Wall Street tremble. He has an adopted sister, Chloe. An angel-faced code wizard who’s nothing but trouble. For eight years, their dynamic has never changed. Chloe uses her keyboard to cause chaos, and Julian uses his money and power to wipe it all clean. Their toxic bond slowly choked out our marriage. Until today… when she finally targeted me. I was cruising the coast when her malware hijacked my Tesla’s autopilot. The steering wheel jerked on its own. The car spun out of control, tore through the guardrail, and left me dangling over a 300-foot drop. I woke up in the hospital, hooked up to a dozen tubes. Julian stood by my bed, signing a surgical consent form. His Armani suit was perfectly tailored. He just looked a little tired. He sighed. “Eleanor, don’t be mad at Chloe. She was just playing a prank.” “She did her research. The car has world-class airbags and safety features. She just wanted to give you a… surprise.” The second he finished signing, his assistant called. Chloe was being harassed by some punks at an exclusive Manhattan club. Julian bolted out the door instantly. He was in such a rush, he didn’t even notice the fatal mistake he made on my medical chart. Under my blood type, he checked “Type A”. A cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in my mind. It was the System, back after all these years. [Trigger Activated: Fatal hemolytic reaction from incorrect blood transfusion. Outcome: Manslaughter by Male Lead. Do you accept this route?] I looked at the blood bag the nurse rolled in. The tag clearly said “A”. But I am Type O. I smiled, and said softly, “Do it.” …… “Mrs. Croft, this bag is Type A. Are you absolutely sure?” The young nurse looked a bit uneasy, holding the bag of blood. “I’m sure.” My voice was as calm as if I were discussing the weather. “My husband confirmed it himself. There’s no mistake.” The nurse hesitated, but ultimately trusted the paperwork. The cold needle pierced my skin. That dark red liquid dripped, drop by drop, crawling down the clear IV tube and seeping into my bloodstream. [Route Confirmed. Fatal hemolytic reaction countdown initiated.] [Estimated survival time: 72 hours.] I closed my eyes, feeling an alien, chaotic burn surging through my veins. In less than half an hour, an agonizing pain ripped through my back, like a thousand ants gnawing away at my kidneys. Violent chills racked my body until my teeth rattled in my skull. The hospital door burst open, and Julian strode in. He smelled like an expensive mix of whiskey and cigars from the club, laced with a faint trace of women’s perfume. Some cheap body glitter was stuck to his handcrafted white dress shirt. Behind him stood Chloe, completely unharmed. Trembling in a sexy slip dress, she clung to the hem of Julian’s jacket, her face still streaked with crocodile tears. “What kind of stunt are you pulling now?” Julian stood by the bed, staring down at me, his brows tightly furrowed. “The doctor said you only had a mild concussion and a few scrapes. What’s with the dramatic shaking? Who are you putting on a show for?!”
I clenched my jaw against a piercing spike of pain, cold sweat beading on my forehead. “I’m cold,” I choked out. “Cold?” Julian scoffed, irritably tugging at his collar. “The room is set to 78 degrees, and you’re telling me you’re cold?” He turned to Chloe, his tone instantly softening. “Baby, go turn off the AC before she finds another excuse to throw a tantrum.” Chloe nodded obediently. She flicked off the AC switch, then turned to me with a kicked-puppy look. “Eleanor, I’m so sorry… I really didn’t mean it. I just wanted to run a test on a new backdoor program I wrote…” Tears began to roll down her cheeks again. “Julian already yelled at me. Please don’t be mad, okay?” Julian instantly shielded her behind him. “Enough. Why are you apologizing? She’s lying right here, perfectly fine, isn’t she?” He turned back to me, his eyes hardening into ice. “Eleanor, Chloe almost got assaulted at the club. She’s completely traumatized, but she still came all the way here to see you. And you can’t even crack a smile? You’re seriously out of line.” Looking at his self-righteous face, I suddenly found the whole thing utterly absurd. My car almost plunged into the Pacific Ocean. I was teetering on the edge of death. And him? He only gave a damn that his precious sister got catcalled. “She’s traumatized?” I forced a weak smirk, my voice hoarse. “Going to a club, drinking, dancing, and getting hit on by guys— that’s what you call traumatized?” “Then what about me? Trapped in the driver’s seat, forced to watch myself hurtle toward a cliff— what was that? A fun VR experience?” Julian’s scowl deepened, sheer disgust radiating from him. “Can you stop being so bitter? Is throwing the word ‘death’ around really that fun for you? Didn’t I just hire the best medical team for you?” “Besides, Chloe ran the calculations. With that speed and angle, your life was never actually in danger.” She ran the calculations? I stared down at the IV bag, watching it drip its so-called “life-saving” fluid into my veins. Yeah. Her calculations were spot on. She even perfectly calculated that I was going to die today. “Julian,” I called his name, my voice barely a whisper. “What if I actually die?”
He froze for a second. Then, sheer irritation took over. “Here we go again. Every time Chloe messes up even a little bit, you start playing these mind games to get at me. Jesus, Eleanor, do you have any idea how pathetic this is?” He pulled up a chair and crossed his legs, oozing arrogance. “Enough. Drop the act. If you’re really that uncomfortable, I’ll have the doctor prescribe you some painkillers. Chloe was terrified tonight, so I need to go stay with her. You just stay here and think about how you’ve been acting.” I didn’t say another word. A sudden, searing heat washed over me. The world blurred at the edges, and a roaring fire tore through my chest. Textbook early symptoms of a hemolytic reaction. “Eleanor… your face is so red,” Chloe mumbled, peeking out from behind him. “Are you running a fever?” Julian barely gave me a passing glance. “A fever? No, that’s just anger. She’s mad I’m not staying here to hold her hand.” He stood up, stepping closer to the bed. His gaze was pure ice. “Eleanor, I am warning you one last time. Stop begging for attention with this cheap act. Chloe is the only real family I have, and it’s my job to protect her. You ever come after her again, I won’t give a damn that you’re my wife.” I looked up at him, forcing a hollow smile. “Fine.” “Then you better… watch her closely.” Julian let out a cold scoff, taking Chloe’s hand. “Let’s go. Just ignore her, she’s out of her mind.” The door slammed shut. I looked at the nearly empty bag of blood, and closed my eyes. “System,” I spoke inside my mind. “Activate pain nullification. Maximum setting.” The cold, mechanical voice echoed. [Command received. Enjoy your journey.]
The sharp click of heels echoed down the hallway, drawing closer. Chloe had returned. Without Julian around, her innocent little-girl act dropped instantly. I ignored her. The fever had drained every ounce of strength from my body. Chloe walked up to the bed. She flicked my IV tube with a neon-pink manicured nail. “Tsk, tsk… how pathetic.” She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Did you know? Even out in the hallway, Jules was just complaining about how dramatic and manipulative you are. He said compared to me, you’re basically nothing.” I forced my eyes open and gave her a dead stare. “Are you done? Then get out.” Instead of being angry, her smile only grew wider. “Aww, don’t be so mad, Eleanor. Enjoy acting tough while you can. It won’t be for much longer anyway.” She pulled out a tablet from her Birkin bag. Her fingers flew across the screen, a stream of glowing blue code flashing past. “Jules thinks you’re faking, but honestly? You look half-dead. How about I do you a favor… and make your vitals look a little more realistic?” The second the words left her mouth, the vital sign monitor beside my bed suddenly erupted in a piercing alarm. “Beep—! Beep—! Beep—!” Red warning lights flashed wildly. The heart rate on the screen spiked to 180 as my blood pressure completely tanked. The deafening alarm instantly blared through the entire floor. The sound of chaotic footsteps rushed down the hallway. Julian was the first one to burst through the door, his face livid. “What the hell is going on?!” Right before he crossed the threshold, Chloe had slipped the tablet back into her bag. Instantly, she clamped her hands over her ears, screaming in terror. “Jules! I don’t know! The machine just went crazy! It’s so scary!”
She buried her face deep in Julian’s chest, crying perfect, delicate tears. Doctors and nurses swarmed the bed, frantically checking every machine. “This is strange… the patient’s vitals are perfectly stable. Why did the alarm go off?” A flustered doctor hit the restart switch on the monitor, and the numbers instantly reset to normal. Julian’s face morphed into rage. After soothing Chloe in his arms, he turned back to me, his gaze digging in like daggers. “Eleanor! When is enough finally enough for you?! Hacking the hospital equipment just to force me to come back? Have you completely lost your mind?!” I lay still, looking up at his enraged face. “You really think I did this?” “Who else could it be?!” he sneered. “You’re so jealous of Chloe you’d actually frame her!” He marched forward and ripped the blanket off my body. “Get up! Apologize to Chloe. Right now!” The frigid air hit my burning skin. I couldn’t hold back a violent fit of coughing, the heavy metallic stench of blood rising thick in my throat. Swallowing it down, I looked up at him, fixing him with the gaze you’d give a dead man. “Julian,” I said calmly. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” He froze. In three years of marriage, I had never spoken to him with a tone like that. “What did you just say?” “I called you a complete idiot.” I reached over and pulled the plug on the monitor. The piercing alarm died instantly. “The next time you two want to play mind games, don’t bother me.” I turned away, giving him my back. “It’s disgusting.” “Fine. Perfect.” Julian was shaking with fury. “Since you’re so tough now, Eleanor, you can stay here by yourself. Let’s see how long you can keep this up!” He grabbed Chloe’s hand and stormed out, not even looking back. His footsteps faded. I closed my eyes, forcing down another mouthful of blood. “System, how much time do I have?” [Remaining survival time: 60 hours.] I smiled. “Finally, it’s almost over. ”
On the wall-mounted TV in my private suite, a CNN anchor was delivering a breaking news report. “The ‘Odyssey’ autonomous driving system, developed by Croft Industries, was exposed today for harboring a fatal security backdoor.” “During this morning’s rush hour on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, dozens of vehicles utilizing the system suffered critical logic failures, resulting in a multi-car pileup and several devastating collisions. The current casualty count remains unknown. The NTSB has reportedly launched a federal investigation…” I leaned heavily against the soft pillows, struggling to wipe the blood from my mouth. The hemolysis was tearing me apart from the inside. My retinas were detaching, fracturing the world into a doubling blur. My husband, Julian Croft, stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling window across the room. With his back turned to me, he barked into his cell phone. “Is the entire PR department run by absolute morons?!” “I don’t care how much it costs! Scrub this off Google and Twitter! I want it gone in thirty minutes!” “Find a scapegoat! Blame the outsourced dev team for a structural bug, fire them all!” He furiously ripped off his four-figure Hermes tie, slamming it down onto the sofa like trash. His precious sister, Chloe, was curled up in the corner of the couch like a frightened little kitten. “Julian… I’m so sorry…” “I just thought the underlying firewall for Odyssey was way too boring… so I just… added a tiny little backdoor to test its AI limits.” “I thought it would be a fun surprise! How was I supposed to know they couldn’t even drive…” She pouted, her voice entirely devoid of a single shred of remorse. Julian’s rigid jawline softened. He walked over and ruffled her perfect flaxen curls. “It’s okay. Shhh. I’m right here.” “Next time, no more reckless little games, alright?” “The media always blows things wildly out of proportion. It’s just a few fender benders. The insurance companies will handle everything.” Listening to his casual dismissal, a violently sick feeling turned my stomach over. That so-called “little game” probably just destroyed dozens of families. To him, deadly prank was just another mess to buy off.
Fighting back the tearing pain of multiple organ failure, I reached under my pillow and pulled out my highly encrypted MacBook Air. The bite of the cold metal snapped me out of my daze. My fingers flew across the keyboard. Julian would use every connection to scrub Chloe’s digital footprint clean. I had to lock down every shred of her crimes— from the server hacks to the market manipulation—before he could. The progress bar on the screen inched forward, slow but steady. My vision was getting darker by the second. I was practically blind-typing, relying entirely on raw muscle memory. “What the hell are you doing now?” Julian hung up, His freezing gaze instantly locked onto my laptop. He lunged across the room, slamming the laptop shut with a deafening crack. “The company is burning to the ground over a ‘little mistake,’ and you’re just sitting there scrolling?!” “Eleanor, do you have any humanity left in you at all?!” I slowly raised my head, meeting his furious gaze. “Humanity?” I let out a cold laugh, coughing up a mouthful of blood. “Julian Croft… you’re covering for a criminal who qualifies as a domestic terrorist… and you’re questioning my humanity?” His expression turned lethal. The air between us turned to ice. “What the fuck are you talking about?!” “Chloe is just a spoiled kid! What could she possibly understand?!” “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re a housewife. You have no idea how a hundred-billion-dollar company actually works.”
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