“Congratulations, you’ve been optimized.” When HR said this with a smile, I was still trying to decide between a sandwich or salad for lunch. I’d spent five years at this company. N+1 severance. Out by the end of the month. As I was packing up my box, my mom called— “Perfect timing—you’re free now. Go collect rent from those tenants at our business park who are behind on payments.” I looked at my termination letter, then at the list of delinquent tenants she’d sent me. Third on the list was the company that had just fired me. Three months overdue. Eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars. I lit a cigarette and stood at the bottom of the office building, laughing for a good while. **Chapter One** “Congratulations, you’ve been optimized.” When Hayley Chase said this, the curve of her smile was precise enough to have been measured. Eight teeth showing. Exactly like the day she interviewed me five years ago. So this smile comes as a package deal, I guess. One when you enter, another when you leave. “N+1. Just finish the exit procedures before the end of the month.” She slid the agreement across the table, her fingernail tapping the signature line. “Sign here, Ethan.” I’d worked at Apex Interactive for five years. We specialized in short video content operations. After Series B funding, we never secured Series C. Translation: we were running out of money. “Optimization” had become the company’s most frequently used word this year. More than “let’s go,” more than “hit those targets,” more than the “conserve paper” signs in the bathroom. Last month, half of marketing got cut. The month before, customer service was completely eliminated. I’d always thought that as a five-year veteran, I’d at least be in one of the last batches. Turns out I was first. The door opened. Marcus Hayes, the Operations Director, walked in carrying an americano. His tie was impeccably knotted, his hair slicked back enough to use as a mirror. “Ethan, thanks for everything, man.” He patted my shoulder. His tone had that tragic quality of sending a comrade to his death. I glanced down at his hand. It was shaking. You patted my shoulder, you made the face, but the trembling hand is a bit much. A month ago, I’d pulled two all-nighters on a user growth proposal. He copied it word-for-word into his weekly presentation. The cover read “Operations Director Marcus Hayes” in 48-point font, bold, centered. My name appeared on page thirty-seven in the bottom right corner. Six-point font. Light gray. You’d need to zoom in 200% to even see it. He won Best Manager of the Quarter with that proposal. Twenty thousand dollar bonus. Not a cent of it came my way. Then at the layoff committee meeting, he was the first to raise his hand. His reasoning: “This position has low output. Eliminating it won’t significantly impact the department.” I knew why he was so eager to kick me out. Keeping me around meant keeping a witness. If I ever let something slip, the whole proposal situation would come out. “Just sign.” He crossed his legs and sat on the sofa. “The company’s compensation package is very generous. N+1.” I looked at the agreement. N+1, five years of service—theoretically six months’ salary. But after deducting perfect attendance bonuses, downgrading performance coefficients, and something called an “optimization contribution fee”— I’d get four and a half months. “What’s this ‘optimization contribution fee’?” I asked. Hayley didn’t even look up. “Company policy.” So I’m getting laid off and still have to pay into it? Should I thank the company for firing me while I’m at it? I didn’t argue. I picked up the pen. Signed. There was no point arguing. I’d seen this play out before. Back at my desk to pack up. The entire floor was as quiet as a morgue. About twenty people, none of them looked up. The clatter of keyboards filled the air as everyone pretended to be busy. An intern snuck a glance at me, got elbowed by the person next to him, and quickly ducked his head back down. Doug from the next cubicle reached over with his hand, a crumpled paper ball in his palm. I opened it. “BBQ tonight, my treat. Don’t be down.” Below it he’d drawn a pile of poop and a stick figure flipping the bird. I pocketed the note. With that artistic ability, his optimization is just a matter of time. I didn’t have much. A thermos, a dying succulent, a USB drive. Five years. This was all I’d accumulated. I carried the box toward the elevator. Passing Marcus’s office, the door was half-open. He was on the phone, voice low, but I could hear clearly— “Handled. No drama. People like that, just throw enough money at them…” I didn’t stop. When the elevator doors closed, I was alone inside. Walking out of the building, the sunlight made me squint. The twenty-six-story glass facade gleamed in the sun. The sign at the entrance read: Kingston Tech Park, Building A. Standing there, I felt like expired bubble tea that had been thrown out. Unwanted, but somehow not really a big deal. My phone rang. My mom. “Sweetheart! What are you up to?” “Just… got off work.” “Perfect!” Her tone was suspiciously excited, like she’d been waiting for this. “Your dad’s back is acting up. Some tenants at the park are behind on rent. Go collect it for us.” “What park?” “The one where you work! Kingston Tech Park! We own it!” I looked at the building in front of me. Then down at the box in my hands. “…Mom, say that again?” “Kingston Tech Park! Your dad bought it fifteen years ago. You rode a tricycle around the construction site when you were little! I’ve told you this eight hundred times, but every time you just go ‘uh-huh’ and keep playing video games—” “Wait.” I opened my messages. Scrolled to the family group chat, “The Shaw Family Circle.” Three days ago, my mom had sent a spreadsheet. My response below it— “Got it, thanks.” It was an auto-reply. I’d set up keyword triggers. I opened the spreadsheet. Delinquent tenant list. Seven companies total. Third row. Three months overdue, totaling $870,000. Company name: Apex Interactive Technologies, Inc. Legal representative: Richard Kane. I stared at that name for ten seconds. Then put down the box. Pulled out a cigarette. Lit it. Took a drag. Another drag. Then, cigarette between my fingers, I tilted my head back and looked up at that twenty-six-story glass facade— And laughed. I actually laughed out loud. Fired by my own family’s tenant. **Chapter Two** 7:30 PM. BBQ joint. Doug slammed two beers on the table, his face screaming “Bro, don’t be sad, Doug’s here for you.” I chewed on a lamb skewer and played my mom’s voicemail on speaker. “Your dad took you to see it when you were little! You drew Sun Wukong on a pillar in the Building A lobby with crayons—it’s still there!” “Don’t remember.” “Of course you don’t, you were only four. But the pillar’s still there! Go to the lobby tomorrow and look, third one on the left—” I paused it. Doug’s skewer dropped half its meat onto the table. He stared at me, mouth open, a piece of asparagus dangling from his lip. “Your… your family owns it? All of Kingston Tech Park?” “My mom says so.” “All of it? Not just a small office?” “All of it.” “Building A, B, and C? Plus the cafeteria in the middle?” “Plus the parking lot.” He chugged his beer. “Ethan, what the hell were you doing working at that company for five years?” “I only found out today too.” “Your parents didn’t tell you?” “They did.” I showed him the chat history. “My mom sent a voice message last year, forty-seven seconds. I replied with ‘okay.’” “Did you listen to it?” “No. Forty-seven seconds was too long.” Doug slammed his chopsticks on the table. “You deserved to get optimized.” Thanks, man. Really appreciate you giving me the most honest assessment at my most vulnerable moment. He spent five minutes processing this, chugging three beers before finally accepting reality. Then he leaned forward, lowered his voice, eyes gleaming— “So what are you going to do?” “Collect rent.” “And then?” “No ‘and then.’ My mom asked me to collect rent, so I’ll collect rent.” “You’re not going to get revenge? That bastard Marcus stealing your proposal—” “That’s separate. I’ll be a good landlord first.” Doug stared at me for a few seconds. “You’re scheming something.” “I’m eating BBQ.” That night when I got home, my mom had already prepared everything. Property deed, lease agreement, property management authorization—all neatly arranged on the coffee table. Next to them sat a bowl of white fungus and lotus seed soup. My dad was on the sofa watching TV, a medicated patch on his back. When he saw me, he said one thing— “Don’t be too aggressive collecting rent. Business is about relationships.” My mom shouted from the kitClark: “What relationships! Debts must be paid! You’re too soft—three months overdue and you haven’t said a word!” She poked her head out. “Son, when you go tomorrow, stand tall. You represent the Shaw family!” I flipped through the contracts and found Apex Interactive’s. Monthly rent: $290,000. Three-year lease, expiring next June. But they’d stopped paying three months ago. The contract clearly stated: consecutive non-payment exceeding two months gives the lessor the right to unilaterally terminate the agreement. I stared at that clause. Thought back to Marcus’s phone call in his office today. “People like that, just throw enough money at them.” I turned to page two of the property management authorization. It bore the seal of Shaw Property Management, Inc. The agent line was blank. My mom handed me a pen. “Fill in your name.” I did. As the pen touched paper, I suddenly found it oddly fascinating. Yesterday I’d been the lowest-level operations specialist in that building. Tomorrow I’d walk in as the landlord’s representative to collect rent. I leaned back in my chair, looking out at the night. “Mom, besides this park, do we have other properties?” “Sure, your dad has two mixed-use buildings in the south district. Why?” “…Nothing.” “Oh right, you know about your grandmother’s situation, right?” “Doesn’t Grandma run a grain and oil shop?” Two seconds of silence. “Well… sort of.” She carried a plate back to the kitClark, her voice fading. “Sort of.” That hesitant “sort of” gave me a vague sense of unease. That night I had a dream. I was in Apex Interactive’s lobby. On the third pillar from the left, there was a crayon drawing of Sun Wukong. The lines were crooked. Marcus stood nearby, holding a rag, trying to erase it. In my dream, I said one thing— “Don’t erase it. That pillar is mine.” **Chapter Three** The next day, 10 AM. I wore a white dress shirt, carried a briefcase, and stood in the Kingston Tech Park Building A lobby. Looked down. Third pillar from the left. Near the bottom, there was a faint crayon mark. If you didn’t look carefully, you couldn’t tell it was supposed to be Sun Wukong. It looked like melted ice cream with two legs. I confirmed it. It really was my drawing. Deep breath. Walked toward reception. The receptionist was Emily Lane. Started last year. I knew her. She knew me too. “E… Ethan?” Emily’s eyes widened, bouncing between my face and briefcase. “Weren’t you yesterday…” “Laid off yesterday, yes.” I smiled and handed her my business card. “Here in a different capacity today. Shaw Property Management Company. I’m Ethan Shaw, the property owner’s representative.” She took the card. Looked at it for three seconds. Looked at me for three seconds. “…You’re joking, right?” “Contract number JH-2022-A1703. Your company leases the entire 17th floor of Kingston Tech Park Building A. Monthly rent $290,000, three consecutive months overdue, totaling $870,000. I’m here to discuss this matter. Please notify Mr. Kane or whoever handles administration.” Emily’s hand hovered over the phone, frozen. Her expression was like watching a cat walk in and claim to be checking the water meter. “You’re… serious?” I placed the authorization and property deed copies on the reception desk. “Could you make the call? I’m not in a hurry.” Five minutes later. The elevator opened. Hayley Chase walked out in high heels, wearing her standard HR smile. But that smile, the instant she saw me— Cracked. Yes. Like a perfect mirror that suddenly went “crack” down the middle. “Ethan?” “Hi, Hayley.” “What are you… doing here?” “Collecting rent.” Her footsteps stopped. Her heel made a sharp “click” on the marble floor, then silence. I handed her the authorization. She didn’t take it. Her eyes focused on the header—”Shaw Property Management, Inc.”—then moved to the agent signature—”Ethan Shaw.” Read it three times. “This is…” “Your company’s overdue rent. Three months. $870,000 total. Per contract, consecutive non-payment exceeding two months gives the lessor the right to terminate. I’m not discussing termination today—just when you can settle the debt.” I paused, adding with a smile, “For now.” Hayley’s hand holding the document trembled slightly. Not from fear. It was that involuntary muscle response when someone’s worldview suddenly collapses. She opened her mouth to speak. The first-floor lobby was very quiet. Emily pretended to look at her computer, eyes practically flying toward me. Hayley took a deep breath. “Wait here. I need to… notify management.” She turned toward the elevator. Her heels clicked rapidly and erratically. Two steps away, she glanced back at me. That look was complex. Translation: “Are you seriously not messing with me right now?” I nodded at her. Expression sincere. She got in the elevator. After the doors closed, Emily finally couldn’t hold it in. She covered her face with a folder, peering at me from behind it. “Ethan…” “Yeah?” “Did you know yesterday?” “Found out last night.” She swallowed hard. “When you signed the exit agreement yesterday…” “I didn’t know.” “When you came to collect rent today…” “I knew.” She lowered the folder. Face flushed red. Couldn’t tell if she was excited for me or scared for the company. “Badass.” She said. Voice very small. But I heard it. **Chapter Four** Five minutes later, the elevator opened again. Hayley led the way, followed by someone else. Marcus. He strode over, suit crisp, chin raised—the same posture as when he’d patted my shoulder yesterday. Only difference: he wasn’t holding an americano. He was gripping a document. “Ethan?” He stood before me, looking me up and down. A smirk played at his lips—the kind of smile someone in power gives to a farce. “You got laid off and came back to scam us?” “Mr. Hayes.” I handed him the authorization. “Please review this.” He took it and glanced casually. Then a second glance. The second took much longer. “What is this?” “Property deed copy, property management authorization, my identification. Your company owes three months’ rent on Kingston Tech Park. I’m here on behalf of the owner to negotiate.” Marcus flipped it over to check the back. Flipped back to the front. His eyes bounced between “Shaw Property Management, Inc.” and “Agent: Ethan Shaw” at least four times. He laughed. But the laugh sounded wrong. “Your last name is Shaw, the company’s name is Shaw, so it’s your family’s?” “The name on the property deed matches my father’s identification. The authorization bears the corporate seal and notary stamp. If you have doubts, you can verify at the Real Estate Registry.” My tone was calm. Like presenting a PowerPoint—though all my previous PowerPoints had been stolen by him. Hayley stood nearby, hands wringing together. She interjected: “Mr. Hayes, this document… I did a preliminary check. It appears legitimate.” Marcus’s expression looked like he’d swallowed a live fly. And the fly was still buzzing. “Are you kidding me?” He stared at me, voice rising half an octave. “Fired yesterday, today you show up claiming this building is yours? If you’re going to make up a story, at least make it believable—” “Mr. Hayes.” I cut him off, pulling another document from my briefcase. “This is the lease agreement your company signed three years ago. Lessor: Shaw Property Management, Inc. Lessee: Apex Interactive Technologies, Inc., legal representative Richard Kane. Monthly rent $290,000, three months’ deposit plus one month advance.” I turned to the last page. “The seal here matches the seal on my authorization. You can compare them yourself.” The lobby went silent. Marcus stopped talking. The document in his hand was shaking. Subtle, but I could see it. Hayley stole a glance at him, then at me. Emily pretended to answer a call, holding the receiver upside down. About ten seconds of silence. The elevator chimed again. This time Richard Kane emerged. Mr. Kane. Apex Interactive CEO. Forty-five, slightly overweight, balding. Always wore a gray polo shirt. Today: gray polo shirt. As he approached, his face radiated that “I’ll handle everything” executive aura. “Hayley, what’s going on?” Hayley opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Marcus opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I answered for them. “Hello, Mr. Kane. I’m Ethan Shaw. I left your company yesterday. Here today about the rent. Your company is three months overdue, totaling $870,000.” Kane’s steps faltered. He looked at me, then at the document in Marcus’s hand, and took it. He read much more slowly than Marcus. Page by page. At the property deed, his brow furrowed. At the authorization, it knotted into a tight ball. He looked up. This was the first time in five years Richard Kane had truly looked at me. “Ethan.” Five years. First time calling me “Ethan.” Not “what’s-his-name,” not “that operations kid.” “Ethan.” “This matter…” He rolled up the documents, gripping them, and forced a smile. “Let’s go upstairs to talk. Not convenient in the lobby.” He turned toward the elevator. Passing Marcus, he tapped his arm with the rolled documents. “You come up too.” Marcus’s face turned ashen. I followed them into the elevator. The instant the doors closed, I saw Hayley’s reflection in the polished walls. She was biting her lip. Biting it white. Emily finally put down the upside-down receiver. I heard her murmur behind me— “Ethan, you really did come back from the dead.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “407874”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

My desk was occupied by someone else. On the last day of my maternity leave, I came to the office early to report back. When I pushed open the project department door, a woman with a ponytail was typing at my computer at my workstation. The desk nameplate had been changed. Three words on it—Vivian Moore. Below it was a smaller line: Project Director. Before my maternity leave, I had been Project Manager. I’d never heard this name before. **1.** I stood at the entrance to the project department, carrying the celebration cookies I’d brought for my colleagues. The nameplate was newly made—the plastic cover still had its protective film on. My personal belongings—my mug, photo frame, desk calendar—had been packed into a moving box and tossed in the corner of the break room. A sticky note on the box read “Emma Sullivan · Personal Items · Awaiting Pickup.” The handwriting belonged to Lisa, the receptionist. I didn’t touch the box. I turned and headed to HR. Rachel was inside. The company’s HR Director, in her early forties with pearl earrings, always spoke with a smile. “Emma! You’re here? Sit, sit, sit.” She poured me a glass of water. I said, “Someone else is sitting at my desk.” She smiled slightly. “The company did a restructuring in Q3. Your position was consolidated.” “Consolidated?” “The Horizon Project now reports to Vivian Moore. She’s our new Project Director. Your Project Manager position has been eliminated.” I stared at her. “The employment contract I signed before my maternity leave listed my position as Project Manager.” “Contracts can be amended.” Rachel pulled a document from her drawer and pushed it toward me. “The company has arranged a new position for you—Administrative Support Specialist. Take a look.” I looked down at the transfer agreement. Monthly salary: $6,500. Before my maternity leave, my monthly salary had been $18,000. I said, “My position is Project Manager with a salary of $18,000. It’s clearly stated in my employment contract.” Rachel’s smile faded. “Emma, let me be frank. You’ve been gone for 98 days. The company doesn’t support freeloaders. Projects can’t stop, clients can’t wait. During the three months you were away, the team has established a new rhythm.” She pushed the transfer agreement closer to me. “Administrative Specialist is also a formal position. It’s stable, no overtime, suitable for your current situation.” “What situation?” “You just had a baby.” She smiled. “Managing projects is stressful. What if your milk supply—” I didn’t let her finish. “When did I sign a position change notice?” “Well…” “When did the company consult with me about the transfer?” “We’re consulting now, aren’t we?” “Consulting isn’t notifying me of a decision that’s already been made.” Rachel’s smile remained, but her eyebrow twitched. “Emma, don’t take this so seriously. The transfer is based on the company’s business needs. Look over the agreement and consider it.” I didn’t take the pen. I pushed the agreement back, untouched. “I’ve considered it.” “Yes?” “I’m not signing.” I stood up. Before leaving, I took out my phone, opened the recording app, and pressed pause. The recording had been running since the moment I entered HR. This was a conversation I participated in. I had the right to record it. Walking to the break room, I crouched down and opened the box. My mug was still there. On the bottom of my cup was a small note I’d stuck there before my maternity leave—with the phone number of my college friend, Michelle Chase. Michelle, a labor attorney. During my third trimester, we’d had dinner and she said something: “If the company messes with your position when you return from maternity leave, call me immediately.” I’d laughed at her for being paranoid then. I dialed. She answered after three rings. “Michelle, I’m back from maternity leave. My position is gone.” “Did you record it?” “Yes.” “Did you sign the transfer agreement?” “No.” “Good.” Her voice was steady. “Photograph the agreement and send it to me. I’ll review it tonight and call you back.” After hanging up, I moved the box to the cabinet at the back of the break room. I didn’t take it with me. I walked back to the project department. The woman named Vivian Moore was still typing at my workstation. I didn’t look at her. I opened my phone and logged into the company’s project management system. Horizon Group Smart Logistics Platform Project—the project I’d led for eight months. I clicked on the project details page. The project lead section had a different photo. An unfamiliar face. Below it, the name: Vivian Moore. **2.** I sat in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the office building and took screenshots of the project system pages. Sent them to Michelle. Then sent another message: “I managed this project from initiation to contract signing. $3.8 million.” Michelle replied with three words: “Keep digging.” I opened WhatsApp and searched for the project group chat. “Horizon Group Project Team”—I’d been removed. When I tried to access it, there was only one gray line: “You have been removed from this group by the administrator.” I checked when I’d been removed. April 17th. Day 15 of my maternity leave. That was three days after I’d left the postpartum care center. My phone vibrated. Jenny. Jenny was a junior project manager in the project department. I’d mentored her for six months. Before my maternity leave, she’d helped me follow up on the final payment confirmation for the Horizon Project. The message was brief: “Emma, you’re back? Can we talk?” I replied: “I’m at the coffee shop downstairs.” Five minutes later, she came down. She sat down, stirring her coffee, not looking at me. “Emma, there’s something I don’t know if I should tell you.” “Tell me.” She opened her phone, searched for a while, then pulled up a photo and handed it to me. It was from last Friday’s project review meeting—a photo of the projection screen. The PPT cover read: **Horizon Group Smart Logistics Platform Project Review Report** The bottom right corner credited: Project Director Vivian Moore I said, “Scroll through.” She flipped to page 7. Client pain point analysis diagram. I’d drawn it. A month before my maternity leave, I’d worked from home until 2 AM, creating three versions in Visio before settling on the third. Flipped to page 12. Technical solution comparison matrix. Every vendor’s score, weight, and unit price—I’d filled them in line by line. Flipped to page 23. Project Phase II expansion plan. I’d written this during my last week before maternity leave. I finished at 3 AM. Contractions had already started. Every page had the same credit in the bottom right corner: Vivian Moore. Jenny didn’t dare look at me. “At the review meeting, Vivian presented everything. Deputy Director Anderson sat below, nodding the whole time.” “During the presentation, did she mention my name at all?” Jenny shook her head. “What about the others?” “Nobody mentioned you.” I handed her phone back. “Emma, what are you going to do?” “Can you do me a favor?” “Name it.” “The review meeting PPT—can you get me the electronic file somehow?” Jenny hesitated, then said, “It’s archived in the meeting system. I don’t have access… but I can photograph all the projected slides for you.” “That’s enough.” I continued, “One more thing.” “Yes?” “You’ve worked in the project department for six months. You followed the Horizon Project from initiation to contract signing. You know who wrote the proposal?” “Of course you wrote it.” Jenny said, “Every time we revised the proposal, you sent it to me to verify the data. I still have all the versions you sent in my email.” “Keep those emails safe.” “Emma…” “I’m not asking you to pick sides. I only need one fact—who created this proposal? If one day you need to tell the truth, would you be willing?” Jenny looked at me for three seconds. “Yes.” I got home, nursed the baby, and put her to sleep. I opened my personal email account. Before my maternity leave, I’d forwarded all Horizon Project correspondence to my personal email. Not because I anticipated today. But because after working on a project for eight months, these materials felt like a diary to me. I opened the first email. Date: July 6th, last year. Subject: Horizon Group Smart Logistics Platform Project · Initiation Application. Sender: Emma Sullivan. Recipients: Deputy Director Anderson, CEO Shaw from Horizon Group. This email was dated eight full months before Vivian Moore’s hire date. I opened the last email before my maternity leave. Date: March 12th this year, 2:07 AM. Subject: Horizon Project Phase II Expansion Plan (Final Draft). Sender: Emma Sullivan. Recipient: CEO Shaw, Horizon Group. CC: None. Three days later, I started my maternity leave. I sorted all the emails by timestamp and took screenshots one by one. Then I opened the photos of the projected PPT and looked for the file properties. Jenny had photographed carefully. The file properties showed one line: Created by: Emma Sullivan. Last modified by: Vivian Moore. Modified date: May 20th. Day 35 of my maternity leave. She’d changed my attribution, used my proposal, and reported my achievements. I packaged all the screenshots and sent them to Michelle. Michelle replied ten minutes later: “The evidence chain is basically formed. But I need you to confirm one more thing—can you still log into your company email?” I tried. Password incorrect. Tried again. Account locked by administrator. My heart sank. I immediately opened my personal email and searched for all the forwarded Horizon Project emails. They were all there. Not one missing. But the original emails in my company account were now inaccessible. Someone with administrator privileges had accessed my email. **3.** Michelle said, “You’re certain all the emails you forwarded before maternity leave are intact?” “All there. My personal email has complete forwarding records with complete timestamps.” “Good. Don’t make a fuss about the locked company email yet. You need to do something now—check your company email login records.” “I can’t log in anymore.” “You don’t need to log in. Log into the WhatsApp admin backend and check the operation logs using your employee ID. Your ID hasn’t been deactivated, right?” I tried. My employee ID was still active. I navigated to the company email operation logs. April 18th, 10:14 AM. Operator: System Administrator. Operation: Batch delete emails (filter condition: contains keyword “Horizon”). Number deleted: 47 emails. I stared at that number. 47 emails. From project initiation to contract signing, all correspondence. All deleted. The operator was System Administrator. Only two people in the company had company email administrator privileges—IT Manager Ryan Lee and HR Director Rachel. I took a screenshot. Then scrolled down. April 18th, 10:31 AM. Operator: System Administrator. Operation: Changed password for user “Emma Sullivan.” April 18th, 10:33 AM. Operator: System Administrator. Operation: Locked company email for user “Emma Sullivan.” Seventeen minutes total. Delete emails, change password, lock account. Day 16 of my maternity leave. That morning at ten o’clock, I’d been at the postpartum center changing my baby’s diaper. Michelle said, “Send me the screenshots. This operation record itself is evidence—it shows the other party deliberately destroyed your work trail.” “But the administrator privileges belong to the IT manager and HR. How do I prove who ordered it?” “You don’t need to prove who ordered it. You only need to prove two things: First, 47 work emails were deleted from your company email without your knowledge. Second, your personal email has complete forwarded backups with timestamps earlier than the deletion time.” “What does that prove?” “It proves someone systematically erased your work trail during your maternity leave. Combined with the position adjustment, project attribution changes, and salary reduction, this is a coordinated attack.” I put down my phone. The baby slept peacefully beside me. I picked up a pen and wrote a line in my notebook: “Day 15 of maternity leave: removed from project group. Day 16: email deleted and locked. Day 35: PPT attribution changed. Day 98: workstation gone.” Four timestamps. One line. This wasn’t “restructuring.” This was a pre-planned purge. The next day I went to the company. Didn’t go to the project department. Went straight to the IT department in the administrative building. Ryan was at his workstation. I didn’t mention the email issue. I smiled and said, “Ryan, I can’t log into the system after returning from maternity leave. Could you check my employee ID status?” Ryan clicked his mouse a few times. “Your ID is still active, but your email is locked.” “Who locked it?” Ryan hesitated. “It was an administrator operation. I can’t see from here whose directive it was.” “Did you do it?” He shook his head. “Not me. I was on a business trip for a week during that time. I gave my password to administration.” “Who in administration?” “Someone from Rachel’s team.” I didn’t ask more. I thanked him and left. Downstairs, I documented Ryan’s words in text, noting the date, time, and location. Sent it to Michelle. Michelle replied with one word: “Solid.” That evening, Jenny sent me a new screenshot. It was from an internal department group chat. Date: April 15th. Day 13 of my maternity leave. Deputy Director Anderson had posted a message: “All of Emma Sullivan’s project permissions are transferred to Vivian Moore, effective immediately. All future Horizon Group coordination will be handled by Vivian Moore.” Below, Rachel replied: “Processed.” Further down, Vivian responded with a “received” emoji. In the entire message chain, no one mentioned “whether Emma knows.” No one mentioned “handover.” Nobody @’d me. Because I’d already been removed from that group. **4.** I didn’t act immediately. Michelle said to gather all evidence first and not alert them. I spent three days doing one thing. I compiled all my work from the eight months before maternity leave. Every email, every version of the proposal, every client meeting minutes—I had forwarded backups in my personal email. 47 emails total. Additionally, I pulled up my SnapChat conversation history with CEO Shaw from Horizon Group. From our first meeting to contract signing, all communication was here. CEO Shaw had only worked with one person throughout—me. I didn’t contact CEO Shaw. Not the right time. I was doing something else. I looked up Vivian Moore’s hire date. The company intranet directory still showed it. Vivian Moore, hire date: March 8th. My due date was March 22nd. I started maternity leave on March 15th. Which meant— Vivian Moore was hired during my last week at the office. She was hired while I was still working at the company. I recalled the situation during that last week. March 12th, I sent the Phase II proposal final draft at 2 AM. March 13th, I had my last project briefing with Deputy Director Anderson before maternity leave. That day, Deputy Director Anderson said: “Don’t worry about the project while you’re on leave. I’ll keep an eye on it.” March 14th, I organized handover documents at my workstation. That afternoon, an administrator brought a new person to the project department. Ponytail, polite smile. “This is our new hire, Vivian Moore. She’s getting familiar with the environment.” I nodded at her. Didn’t think much of it. I assumed she was a new project assistant. March 15th, I started maternity leave. Looking back now— Vivian Moore hired March 8th. Deputy Director Anderson tells me on March 13th “I’ll keep an eye on the project.” I leave March 15th. April 15th—day 13 of my leave—Deputy Director Anderson posts in the group that project permissions are transferred to Vivian Moore. April 18th, my email is wiped. May 20th, PPT attribution changed. July 1st, I return. My workstation is gone. The entire timeline was crystal clear. This wasn’t a “temporary arrangement” after I left. This was arranged before I even left. I organized the timeline into a table and sent it to Michelle. Michelle sent back a long message: “This is worse than I anticipated. This isn’t simple maternity leave discrimination. This is premeditated position replacement. They arranged someone to be hired, waited for you to leave, then transferred permissions, deleted traces, changed attributions, and finally forced you to transfer or resign. The evidence chain is sufficient to initiate labor arbitration, but you still need one key piece of evidence—motive. You need to figure out Vivian Moore’s background and why Deputy Director Anderson would do this.” That evening, Jenny sent me another message. “Emma, I found something out.” “What?” “Vivian Moore used to be a project assistant at Prosperity Tech. The VP at Prosperity Tech is college friends with Deputy Director Anderson.” “You’re sure?” “Positive. At the department dinner last month, Vivian got drunk and said it herself. She said she got this job because ‘Director Anderson put in a good word.’” I closed my eyes. Deputy Director Anderson brought in his own person, pushed me out of my position, and used my project achievements to elevate her. I’d been set up. From the day I got pregnant.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “407873”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

The night before getting my marriage license, I had a dream. A woman who looked exactly like me swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills with a pale face, then stared at me intently. I asked her in a trembling voice who she was. The woman smiled grotesquely. “I’m you seven years from now, Chloe. You’re a complete fool! Played like a dog by Ethan and Lily, and you’re willing to accept it all.” “The one Ethan really wants to marry is his foster sister. He’s only with you because the Johnson family won’t approve of them being together. Your marriage to him is fake, and you’re still overjoyed, taking care of Lily with him.” “You couldn’t even protect your own child, and ended up raising Lily’s child for six years.” “In the end, when Ethan’s parents died, they didn’t need you as their shield anymore. They kicked you out without giving you a single penny, and you had no choice but to swallow pills and kill yourself like me!” She finally coughed up blood that sprayed onto my face. I jerked awake, my back soaked in cold sweat.

The moonlight outside the window was like gauze, layer upon layer pressing down on me until I could barely breathe. I clutched my chest and took deep breaths for a while before I felt like I’d come back to life. Ethan, who should have been lying next to me in bed, was nowhere to be seen. The sheets were cold as ice. He’d been gone for quite a while. My mind still echoed with my future self’s desperate screams—that Ethan married me not out of love, but to use me as a shield for his affair with the Johnson family’s foster daughter, Lily. My heart grew cold. This was too much of a coincidence. Ever since Lily came home from college for break and moved into the new house Ethan and I shared, he’d been disappearing at night. I used to ask him where he was going. Ethan would smile and pinch the tip of my nose. “Just going out for a smoke. You have rhinitis and can’t stand the smell, and I can’t bear to make you uncomfortable.” The hand he reached out indeed carried a faint scent of tobacco. Usually at times like this, I’d be deeply moved, thinking Ethan was gentle and considerate. But now… I quietly got up, pushed open the master bedroom door, and approached Lily’s guest room, trying to hear something that would confirm the prophecy my dream-self had given me. There was no sound at all, only the hum of the refrigerator still running in the deep night. “Chloe, what are you doing?” A voice suddenly sounded behind me. I shuddered all over and turned to see Ethan standing in the shadows holding the inner pot of a rice cooker, his expression unclear. I clenched my fists to suppress my heart that nearly jumped out of my chest, and slowly spoke. “I had a nightmare and woke up scared. When I didn’t see you, I came to find you.” “Silly girl, dreams are fake.” Ethan chuckled lightly, walked out from the shadows, and stood in front of me with gentle eyes, raising his hand to ruffle my hair. “At dinner you said you wanted eight-treasure porridge for breakfast. I forgot to set it before bed, and only remembered while smoking in the middle of the night, so I rushed to program the rice cooker for tomorrow’s breakfast. That’s why I was late getting back.” “You go back to bed first. I’ll come back after I put the pot away. Don’t be scared.” I lowered my eyes and indeed saw rice with water added in the rice cooker. Because I didn’t like peanuts, Ethan had even carefully picked out the peanuts that came pre-mixed with the rice. Just a casual remark, yet someone had taken it so seriously to heart. My nose stung, and I felt very guilty. It was just a dream, yet I’d started suspecting my lover of having an affair with his foster sister. Ethan’s kindness to me was the kind that everyone who heard about it would envy. Whenever I needed him, he’d appear by my side immediately—whether I had menstrual cramps or when my car got scratched and a male driver stood outside my car pointing at my nose and cursing. I only needed to call Ethan. “Ethan, I’m so scared.” He would always respond with two words. “Wait for me.” So as long as I was with Ethan, I had endless security. He was also very generous with me. When gold prices were at their highest, I casually mentioned wanting a gold bracelet. The next day, that bracelet would appear on my wrist, along with a matching necklace and ring. When I said it was too expensive, moved, Ethan would hold me and comfort me indulgently. “As long as Chloe is happy, these pieces of jewelry have value.” And in my impression, although Ethan doted on his foster sister Lily, he’d always maintained clear boundaries with her. I’d seen their chat records—they were all very mundane, like his parents calling him home for dinner, or Lily wanting him to bring something home, ending with a “thank you.” When eating at the Johnson house, the shrimp Ethan peeled would first appear in my bowl, with Lily getting the second one. Even when alone together in the same room, every time I pushed open the door, I’d see them sitting far apart. I once jokingly teased them. “Why are you sitting so far apart? You’re not strangers.” Afterward, Ethan pulled me into his arms and explained carefully. “Men and women should maintain distance. What’s more, Lily is just my foster sister—I need to keep even more distance from her. Besides, wouldn’t you be jealous if Lily and I sat close together? Don’t tell me my little jealous baby wouldn’t cry about it later.” My heart warmed, and I pouted, saying I wouldn’t be jealous at all. Lily was also very polite to me. Every time we met, she’d call me “sister-in-law.” Even if she wanted to go out to eat alone with Ethan, she’d tell me in advance. So when she suggested staying at Ethan’s and my new house for a while during her break, I agreed without hesitation. Perhaps dreams and reality really are opposites.

I bit my lip, lifted my head to kiss Ethan on the lips, then nodded while yawning. “Okay, I’ll go back to bed and wait for you.” But the moment I closed the door, my legs gave out and I collapsed on the floor. After a long while, I raised my trembling hand. My fingertip brushed across my lips, where a bit of rose-scented lip balm stuck to it, sticky and nauseating. I didn’t wear lip balm at night, and neither did Ethan. Only Lily, because she was prone to cheilitis, would apply a thick layer of lip balm to her lips every night. That lip balm was even a birthday gift from me. I’d specifically asked Ethan. “What should I get Lily for her birthday? Give me some recommendations.” Ethan had answered without hesitation. “Lip balm. She has cheilitis and needs to use it often.” Then I carefully selected a rose-scented lip balm and gave it to Lily. But I never imagined it would end up on Ethan’s lips today. My heart felt like it was being squeezed. I covered my stomach and dry-heaved a few times, even bringing moisture to the corners of my eyes. But years of feelings still made me immediately reject my own thoughts. I shook my head frantically, murmuring to myself. “It can’t be, it can’t be.” Yet my body stood up and walked toward the master bathroom window, which was very close to the kitchen window. Usually it was closed, but when opened, you could hear sounds from the kitchen. I slowly placed my hand on it. After a long while, I finally worked up the courage to push it open. “Mmm~ Brother.” A suppressed moan reached my ears. The color drained from my face instantly. It was Lily and Ethan. “Lily, if you can’t hold back, you can bite my shoulder.” “Do you… do this with… sister-in-law too?” “Every night… ah… do you… bully people like this?” Lily was clearly being pushed too hard, her voice carrying a sob, yet she was still jealous of me. Ethan gave a muffled laugh. “If it weren’t to keep her from getting suspicious, I wouldn’t even want to touch her. Lily, you’re the only one I like. Once Mom and Dad are too old to control me, I’ll kick Chloe out.” No wonder Ethan only agreed to be with me once a month. No matter how I tried to seduce him the rest of the time, he remained unmoved. I thought he had a low sex drive, but it turned out he was using all his energy on Lily. The things I’d done in the past were like slaps to my face, drowning me in shame and humiliation. “Lily, we’ll be together forever.” Lily answered softly. “Okay, brother, we’ll be together forever.” I dug my nails into my palms until they turned white, yet calmly ended the recording on my phone. In my past life, they not only used me as a shield to avoid suspicion, but also caused the death of me and my child. This couldn’t just be forgotten. I lowered my eyes and stiffly lay back in bed. I don’t know how long passed before someone rustled into bed beside me. I forced down my nausea and kept my eyes open until dawn. Early the next morning, I went to eat the eight-treasure porridge Ethan had used as an excuse, sporting two dark circles under my eyes. The temperature was neither too hot nor too cold—just right for eating. Ethan was always so considerate, which was also why I fell in love with him and was willing to marry him. But this consideration had now become the sharpest knife, cutting me to pieces. I stared blankly at the food in front of me, forcing myself not to cry. “What’s wrong, Chloe? Are you not feeling well? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Ethan leaned over and reached out to feel my forehead. I instinctively dodged and lowered my head to make an excuse. “Last night’s nightmare kept me from sleeping well. It’s nothing, I don’t need to go to the hospital.” As I spoke, Lily opened her door and walked out, though her posture was a bit awkward. This time I knew the reason. Many times before, Lily would stiffen when I touched her. I used to think she didn’t like being touched by people, but now I knew it was because Ethan had loved her too intensely. I didn’t turn my head and continued picking up my chopsticks to stir the eight-treasure porridge in my bowl. Seeing this, Ethan immediately stood up and got a cushion, placing it on the chair. Through the reflection on the kitchen glass door, I saw Lily pinch Ethan’s arm in embarrassment. Ethan immediately raised both hands in surrender and gently rubbed her waist. Only then did Lily give a light huff and sit down. Everything was so natural. Their distance in front of me had all been an act. In places I couldn’t see, the two were intimate and sweet, like a pair of natural lovers. I couldn’t help it—a bitter smile appeared at the corner of my mouth, a self-mocking one aimed at myself. Mocking myself for being fooled like an idiot for so many years, dying unjustly in the end. Even my soul after death couldn’t rest, crossing time to warn myself in a dream to stay away.

“Sister-in-law.” Lily called me sweetly, looking completely innocent. No one would know that last night she was still jealous about her brother’s intimate moments with me. I gave a very light “mm,” and Lily continued speaking. “Sister-in-law, don’t be too nervous. Ethan is a good person. After you get your license today, you’ll definitely be happy together.” Her eyes looked at me brightly. “Mom said that tonight after getting the license, both families’ parents should have dinner together. Uncle and Aunt have already been picked up and brought to the house. Mom said sister-in-law hasn’t replied to her messages, so she asked me to tell you.” Mrs. Johnson. I’d almost forgotten about her, and remembered how more than once, she’d hinted to me. “Chloe, what do you think of Ethan and Lily’s relationship?” At that time, I couldn’t hear the probing behind those words and answered honestly. “Lily and Ethan have a very good relationship and are very proper with boundaries. Mrs. Johnson, your two children are both excellent.” She looked at me for a long time, staring until I felt confused, before nodding lightly. “Yes, they’re both excellent. Chloe, thank you for being willing to marry Ethan.” So she’d known the truth all along and had been testing me repeatedly. Knowing that her foster daughter and son had an unspeakable secret, she still couldn’t bear to send either of them away. Instead, she dragged me into this quagmire, ultimately leading to my death. I gripped my chopsticks tightly, then looked up with a gentle smile on my lips. “Okay, I happen to have a surprise I want to give Uncle and Aunt.” “Mm!” Lily nodded vigorously. After she finished eating, Ethan drove both Lily and me to the civil affairs bureau. When we got out of the car, Lily waved at us. “Ethan, sister-in-law, you go get your license. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Ethan nodded and told her not to wander off, then took my hand into the civil affairs bureau. When taking photos, he cupped my face, his eyes full of tenderness. “Chloe, I’m really so happy.” “We can be together for a lifetime from now on. Live together, die together, never parting until our hair turns white.” I looked into his eyes. My face was clearly smiling, but my throat was filled with countless bitter feelings, choking me until I could barely speak. I desperately bit my tongue to avoid showing anything unusual, and responded lightly. “Mm, never parting until our hair turns white.” Just not with me as the partner. The staff brought over two forms. I filled them out in order, verified them at the window, and Ethan helped me to a seat to rest. “Chloe, you don’t look well. I’ll go get the marriage certificates. Just wait here for me.” My hand gripping his sleeve tightened and loosened repeatedly. After a long while, I finally let go and smiled. “Okay.” I didn’t wait long before Ethan came back with two red booklets. I opened them to look—the official seal was clear, and the photo was the one we’d just taken. Very authentic. But no matter how real a fake looks, it can never be genuine. I lowered my head and suddenly spoke. “Ethan, I want to use the restroom. Can you wait for me in the car?” He agreed without hesitation. Only after I couldn’t see his back anymore did I return to the window with the marriage certificate, determined to see the final truth with my own eyes. I couldn’t give up until then. The staff member took what I handed over and looked at it carefully for a while before stating with certainty. “Although it looks very similar, this marriage certificate is fake. In the system, Mr. Ethan Johnson’s registered spouse is Miss Lily Johnson. Miss Chloe, I think you’ve been deceived.” The staff member looked at me with pity. I felt all the strength drain from my body and slumped in the chair, my face wet—tears were falling uncontrollably. Yes, I’d been deceived. My body felt like it had been torn into pieces by my feelings for Ethan. The pain made my face turn pale, but after the pain came relief and a sense of liberation. At least I wouldn’t be fooled again. The staff member quickly handed me tissues. I thanked them hoarsely, forced myself to calm down, used cold water to reduce the redness in my eyes, and then returned to the car. Ethan drove back to the Johnson house. Mrs. Johnson enthusiastically came up to me, holding my hand and praising me as a good girl. My parents stood behind, looking at us with relief. Mom even wiped the corner of her eye. My throat tightened—I felt I’d let my parents down. This dinner was destined not to go well. She pulled me into the living room. The table was filled with foods I liked to eat—you could tell the Johnson family had put in great effort. After we all sat down, Mr. Johnson raised his wine glass and happily announced. “From today on, the Johnsons and the Parkers are one family!” “In-laws, rest assured, from now on we’ll love Chloe like our own daughter and absolutely won’t let her suffer any grievance.” Mrs. Johnson said with a smile. “If Ethan makes you angry, Chloe, just tell us. Mom and Dad will back you up.” My parents also immediately stood up, smiling and nodding. “It’s Chloe’s blessing to marry Ethan. We just hope that in the future, the young couple will have a happy and fulfilling life.” Lily also congratulated me, but I heard a trace of jealousy in her voice. “Sister-in-law, happy wedding.” Ethan raised his wine glass, looking at me affectionately. “Chloe, from now on, I’ll walk the road ahead with you.” Everyone looked at me, their faces wearing real or fake smiles. Only I sat steadily in my chair, surveying everyone present, and gave a light laugh. “Uncle, Aunt, you’re calling the wrong person.” In the suddenly quiet air, only my voice continued calmly and unhurriedly. “Ethan’s legal wife isn’t me, but your other child—Lily.” As soon as the words fell, a moan came from my phone.

That suppressed moan was exactly what I’d recorded last night by the bathroom window. Ethan’s coaxing, Lily’s moans—in the silent living room, they were particularly jarring. Ethan’s face instantly turned deathly pale. The wine glass in his hand crashed onto the table with a clang. “Chloe! Have you lost your mind? Where did this nonsense come from!” He shot to his feet, his eyes filled only with panic and violence. Lily was scared into trembling all over, her face paler than paper. She grabbed Ethan’s arm hard, her eyes brimming with tears, her voice carrying a sob: “Brother, it’s not true. Sister-in-law is slandering us. We didn’t…” My parents’ faces turned ashen. Dad clenched his fists. Mom stepped forward and grabbed my hand, her voice trembling: “Chloe, what’s going on? Explain this clearly!” Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had also lost their earlier enthusiasm. Mrs. Johnson forced herself to stay calm and sternly rebuked me: “Chloe, stop this nonsense! Ethan and Lily are siblings. How can you fabricate such filthy lies and ruin their reputations!” I gave a cold laugh, released Mom’s hand, pulled the fake marriage certificate from my bag, and slammed it hard on the table. “Nonsense?” I picked up the marriage certificate and flipped to the page with the official seal: “At the civil affairs bureau earlier, the staff clearly told me this is fake! Ethan’s registered spouse in the system is Lily, not me!” I clicked on the recording on my phone again and continued playing it. The later content was even more explicit—Ethan saying “once Mom and Dad are old, I’ll kick Chloe out,” and Lily’s coquettish jealousy, all clearly audible. The living room fell into complete silence. The Johnson family’s faces turned alternately green and white. Mr. Johnson was so angry his whole body shook. He pointed at Ethan, unable to say a word for a long time. Seeing she couldn’t hide it anymore, Lily simply gave up, released Ethan’s arm, and cried out: “So what if it’s true! Brother and I are in love! If you all hadn’t disagreed, we would have been together long ago!” “Chloe is just a shield! A tool you use to deal with outsiders. Why should she get to stand openly by my brother’s side while I have to hide in the shadows?” Ethan stopped pretending too and glared at me viciously: “Chloe, since you know everything, I won’t hide it anymore. Lily and I truly love each other. Marrying you was just a stopgap measure. If you’re smart, you’ll bow out voluntarily. Don’t force me to be rude to you.” Looking at this pair of scum in front of me, I felt nothing but disgust. I raised an eyebrow: “Why should I bow out? You deceived my feelings, used me as a shield, even plotted to kick me out once Mr. and Mrs. Johnson died. Did you really think I was a soft persimmon you could squeeze?” I turned to look at my parents, my eyes reddening: “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry for disappointing you. I almost jumped into this fire pit. But please believe me—today I will get justice.” Dad patted my shoulder, his eyes firm: “Chloe, don’t be afraid. Mom and Dad are here. No one can bully you! The Johnson family deceived you like this—we absolutely won’t let this go!” Seeing this, Mrs. Johnson immediately softened her tone and grabbed my hand pleadingly: “Chloe, Aunt was wrong. We were confused. Please forgive Ethan and Lily just this once, okay? We’ll compensate you. Any amount of money is fine.” I shook off her hand: “I was deceived by you all for so many years. Can money make up for the feelings and sincerity I gave? Seven years from now, you drove me to swallow pills and kill myself. I couldn’t even protect my own child. How will you repay this debt?” This statement was like a thunderbolt, shocking the Johnson family speechless. Ethan’s face changed dramatically: “You… how do you know all this?” I didn’t answer him. I just took out my phone and clicked on the recording I’d prepared earlier. It was the civil affairs bureau staff member’s confirmation, plus the confession I’d just recorded from Lily and Ethan. “Today, either you publicly apologize and compensate me for my emotional damages, or I’ll hand over these recordings and the fake marriage certificate to the media and let everyone see the Johnson family’s true face!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “407872”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

In the heavy, gasoline-scented air of the highway-adjacent service station, I stood in my grease-stained blue coveralls. My head was bowed, fingers blindly tracing the step-by-step instructions I had painstakingly written in black Sharpie on my left cuff. Suddenly, a flawlessly dressed couple walked toward me. The sharp, rhythmic click-clack of the woman’s stilettos against the oil-slicked concrete cut through the ambient hum of the highway. She stopped right in front of me. She looked down, her gaze sweeping over me with a sneer that didn’t bother hiding its venom. “Hudson. You were so damn capable five years ago when you tried to kill me for the insurance payout,” she said, her voice sharp enough to draw blood. I froze. The woman staring at me was a total stranger. She called me “Hudson,” which I knew was my name, but the things she was saying meant absolutely nothing to me. My memory is a bucket with a hole in the bottom. It can’t hold onto anything. I survive solely on the faded ink tattooed on my forearm, a stack of Polaroid pictures in my chest pocket, and a battered leather journal filled with frantic handwriting. “It’s actually pathetic. You orchestrated this massive scheme, and you walked away with absolutely nothing.” When I didn’t react, she pressed closer to the man beside her, wrapping her manicured hand around his arm. The man looked refined. Expensive peacoat, wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like an Ivy League academic. “What, Mr. Taft? Are we playing the amnesia card to dodge the consequences?” the woman scoffed, a cold, hollow sound. “I have to admit, the acting is Oscar-worthy.” I stared at her, my mind a brilliant, blinding blank. Habit took over. It was the only thing I had left. “Ma’am, do you need premium or regular?” I asked mechanically. “Fill it,” she snapped, her eyes burning into mine. “Every last drop. Don’t you dare spill a single ounce.” I nodded. I looked down at my cuff, following the Sharpie guide, step by step, to begin the fueling process. The truth is, I have a rare, aggressive form of rapid neurocognitive decline. I can’t remember much of anything anymore. That includes the girlfriend from five years ago—the one this woman claimed I had tried to murder by pulling the plug on her ventilator. I’d written in my journal that a brilliant young doctor doing his rounds had saved her life that night. Not long after, she married him. Looking at the couple standing under the harsh fluorescent lights of the gas canopy, I figured they must be them. 1 “Keep the nozzle steady. Don’t drip on my husband’s shoes.” The woman’s icy voice floated above my head. I looked down at the bespoke Italian leather oxfords near my work boots and carefully angled the nozzle away. “Yes, ma’am.” I checked the guide on my sleeve one more time, unscrewed the gas cap, and inserted the nozzle. The digital numbers on the pump began to blur and spin. “Jo, why are you even wasting your breath on him?” The man holding her spoke in a soft, cultured voice dripping with disgust. “Look at the state of him. He smells like an oil spill. He’s going to ruin your coat.” Jocelyn St. James let out a low, breathy laugh. “Tim, you’re always too soft-hearted.” “Some people never change. Five years later, he’s still poor, but his pathetic little tricks to get a woman’s attention have hit a new rock bottom.” Every word she spoke felt like a poisoned needle, but I didn’t understand the context. I only knew my job was to pump the gas. “Ma’am, what make is the vehicle?” I looked up to ask. Different high-end cars sometimes required a manual override on the vapor recovery system. Jocelyn’s face instantly darkened. Storm clouds gathering. “Why the hell are you asking me that?” Tim chuckled, a patronizing sound. “Mr. Taft, this custom McLaren was commissioned in the exact shade of midnight blue you used to obsess over. It’s a one-of-one in the world.” “Don’t tell me your little act includes forgetting that, too?” I looked at him, completely lost. “I don’t know you.” “Jo, look. He’s doing it again.” Tim shook his head with theatrical pity, resting his chin on Jocelyn’s shoulder. “He’s so committed to the bit, I almost believe him.” Jocelyn’s eyes were glacial. She reached into her designer bag, pulled out a matte black Centurion card, and tossed it onto the dirty concrete at my feet. “When you’re done pumping, clean my rims.” “Wipe them with your sleeve.” My breath hitched. On my left cuff, in thick black ink, were the steps I needed to survive my shift. If I wiped the rims with it, the oil would erase the words. I would forget how to do my job. “I can’t.” I whispered the refusal. “Excuse me?” Jocelyn looked at me like I was the punchline to a terrible joke. “Hudson Taft, what did you just say?” I looked at the black card in the dirt, then at my sleeve. I planted my feet. “I can’t.” “I can’t get my sleeve dirty.” Jocelyn’s patience snapped. She lunged forward, her fingers wrapping around my wrist like a steel vice. She squeezed so hard I thought my bones would splinter. “Five years, and you still think you can tell me ‘I can’t’?” “You didn’t say ‘I can’t’ when you pulled the plug on my life support!” Her scream echoed across the station, turning the heads of the few customers at the pumps. I winced, pain shooting up my arm. The heavy gas nozzle nearly slipped from my grip. Just then, a woman in the same blue coveralls sprinted out from the convenience store. “Let him go!” She shoved Jocelyn hard, planting herself firmly between me and the wealthy woman. It was Haley. My sister. I fumbled in my chest pocket, pulled out my Polaroid camera, and aimed it at her face. Click. The film whirred out. I stared at the familiar face developing in the square frame, pulled out my pen, and wrote on the back: Haley Taft. My sister. Jocelyn looked at Haley, her lip curling in absolute disdain. “Ah. I wondered who you were clinging to these days. Found yourself a new sugar mama, Hudson?” “Your taste really does deteriorate by the year. From me, to some street trash, and now you’re sleeping with a gas station attendant?” Haley’s face flushed a violent, mottled red. “Watch your damn mouth!” “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to my brother like that?” Tim stepped forward instantly, pulling Jocelyn securely against his side, his chin tilted in arrogance. “I suggest you watch your tone.” “You are looking at the CEO of St. James Global. This is Jocelyn St. James.” “She is someone you could never afford to cross in a million lifetimes.” 2 Haley pushed me further behind her back. “I don’t care if she’s the Queen of England! She doesn’t get to bully my brother!” Jocelyn stared at us, her eyes dead and cold. “Cute.” “Playing the fierce protector, are we?” She lifted her foot—the one wearing the thousand-dollar shoe—and stomped it down hard onto the thick rubber gas hose. “I’m not going anywhere.” “Let’s see how long you can keep him safe.” All the blood drained from Haley’s face. I knew why. She was terrified of losing this job. It was the only thing keeping a roof over our heads. I stepped out from behind her and walked up to Jocelyn. I dropped to my knees on the oily concrete and picked up the black card. Then, I lifted the hem of my shirt and began to carefully, meticulously polish the spotless silver rims of her hypercar. Whispers broke out from the onlookers. I heard the word “pathetic.” I heard someone say “deserves it.” Jocelyn stood above me, a goddess executing judgment, her eyes entirely devoid of warmth. “Remember this feeling, Hudson.” “We are just getting started.” I finished the last tire, stood up, and held the black card out to her. “Ma’am. It’s done.” She didn’t take it. Tim laughed softly. “Jo, look how obedient he is. See? He can be trained.” Without warning, Jocelyn slapped my hand. The card clattered to the ground. “Who told you to use your shirt?” “I told you to use your sleeve.” She pointed a manicured finger right at my left cuff, the one covered in my jagged handwriting. “Now. Do it. Use your sleeve.” “Wipe it until the fabric is shredded to pieces.” My body locked up. The words on that cuff had taken me all night to memorize and write down. Step 1: Ask the customer what grade of gas. Step 2: Select the correct nozzle. Step 3: Punch in the amount. …Twenty-seven steps in total. Without them, tomorrow, I wouldn’t know how to exist here. “What? Refusing me again?” There was a dangerous, thrilling edge to Jocelyn’s voice. “Or is that gibberish on your arm a love letter from your little mechanic friend?” She reached out, grabbing for my arm. Haley lunged forward again, placing herself squarely in front of me. “Enough!” “What do you want from us?!” Jocelyn glanced at her, thoroughly bored. “I am catching up with my ex-fiancé. Did anyone invite you to speak?” “Ex-fiancé?” Haley let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. “Is this how rich people catch up? This is abuse!” Tim chimed in, his voice dripping with faux-sympathy. “Miss, Jocelyn is simply helping Mr. Taft jog his memory.” “After all, he knows exactly what he did to her for a payout five years ago.” “Jocelyn is being incredibly gracious by giving him a chance to make amends. He should be on his knees thanking her.” “Amends?” Haley looked at them like they were psychopaths. “You’re torturing him, and you call it making amends?” Jocelyn was done playing. She looked past us, locking eyes with the gas station manager who had just scurried out of the office. “Does your corporate office want to keep its fuel supply contract with my logistics firm?” The manager’s knees practically buckled. “Ms. St. James! Ms. St. James, please, I am so sorry!” He bowed and scraped his way over, shooting a lethal glare at Haley. “You! Apologize to Ms. St. James right now!” Haley’s fists were trembling, her knuckles bone-white. The manager turned his wrath on me. “And you, Taft! She asked you to wipe a damn tire! What is wrong with you?” “Stop wasting her time and do your damn job!” I looked at the manager’s sweaty, subservient face. I looked at the tears of rage gathering in my sister’s eyes. I lowered my head. Slowly, I unrolled my left sleeve. And then, I sank to my knees. I took the fabric—the very blueprint of my survival—and pressed it against the cold metal rim of the tire. Once. Twice. Thick, black grime instantly soaked through the blue cotton, blurring the Sharpie ink into meaningless gray smears. 3 As the ink faded, my memory faded with it. I forgot what Step Three was. Then Step Four vanished. Jocelyn just stood there, watching me with cold satisfaction. Like she was sitting in the front row of a tragedy she had written herself. Only when the fabric of my cuff was frayed and torn, the words completely obliterated by grease, did she finally speak. “That’s enough.” I stopped my hand and looked up at her. Her face was an unreadable mask. “Hudson. Do you remember what today is? Five years ago today?” I stared at her blankly and shook my head. She wasn’t surprised. She just smiled. A terrible, broken smile. “It’s the day you agreed to marry me.” “You were crying. You looked at me and said, ‘Jocelyn, I will never love another woman as long as I live.’” “You promised to build a home with me.” With every word she spoke, a spike of pain drove itself deeper into my skull. Flickers of static-laced memories flashed behind my eyes. Stained glass. White silk. A diamond catching the light. “Can’t remember?” Jocelyn leaned down, her fingers gripping my chin, forcing my gaze up to meet hers. “It’s fine. I remember enough for both of us.” “Everything you owe me, Hudson… I’m going to extract it from you. Piece by piece.” She released me, straightening up and smoothing the lapels of her coat. “Tim. Let’s go.” Tim shot me a triumphant smirk, tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and helped her into the passenger seat. The black McLaren roared to life, leaving nothing but the smell of exhaust and burnt rubber. Haley rushed over, pulling me up from the dirty concrete. “Hudson! Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” I looked at her, my vision swimming, my mind entirely hollowed out. “Haley… who am I?” Her eyes instantly filled with tears. She threw her arms around me, holding me tight against her chest. “You’re Hudson. You’re my little brother. You’re my favorite person in the whole world.” I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out the Polaroid I had just taken. The one I hadn’t had time to put away safely. I didn’t recognize the face on the film anymore. The writing on the back had been smeared by the oil on my hands. I pointed at the picture and asked in a whisper. “Then… who is she?” Haley looked at the photo, then at my blank face. The tears spilled over, tracking through the dirt on her cheeks. “That’s me, Hudson.” “We’re family.” I nodded slowly, trying to process the concept. Before I could, the manager marched over and slapped two white envelopes against my chest. “You’re both fired.” “Clean out your lockers and get the hell off my property.” Haley stepped up, furious. “On what grounds?!” “On the grounds that you pissed off Jocelyn St. James!” The manager waved his hand dismissively. “You’re blacklisted. No station in Seattle is going to hire you now.” “Good luck starving on the street.” Haley swayed on her feet. I reached out to steady her, picking the envelopes up from the ground. I didn’t really understand the politics of what had just happened. I just knew we didn’t have a place to go to tomorrow. I pulled out my battered journal, flipped to a fresh, crinkled page. With my clicking pen, I carefully wrote: Today, a woman named Jocelyn St. James made me lose my job. I closed the book and looked up at my sister. “Haley. What does ‘starving’ mean?” We moved into a smaller, darker basement apartment on the outskirts of the city. There were no windows. The air constantly tasted of damp concrete and mildew. Haley walked miles every day, hitting every garage and gas station in the county, but the manager had been right. No one would touch her. She ended up taking day labor—hauling bricks at construction sites or sorting heavy crates at the docks. Every night, she came home practically paralyzed with exhaustion. And me? I couldn’t even get hired to sweep floors. Without the guide on my sleeve, I couldn’t even do basic subtraction to hand back change. So, I stayed in the dark room. I spent hours staring at my journal and the polaroids, chanting the facts over and over, trying to anchor myself and my sister to my fading brain. One afternoon, Haley came home before the sun went down. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and she was carrying a small white bakery box. “Hudson! Look what I got!” She popped the lid. Inside was a tiny, perfect vanilla cupcake. Written in red icing on top were the words: Happy Birthday. “Birthday?” 4 I stared at her, genuinely confused. “It’s your birthday today, you idiot,” Haley said, affectionately ruffling my hair. “You’re twenty-five.” She reached into her worn jacket pocket and pulled out a small object wrapped in newspaper. “I didn’t have much cash, but I got you this.” I peeled back the paper. It was a sleek, silver digital voice recorder. “What does it do?” I asked, turning it over in my hands. “Let me show you.” She guided my thumb over the buttons. “This is record. This is stop. This is play.” “From now on, when something happens that you really need to remember, just speak into it.” “It’s faster than writing. When you forget, you just hit play.” I lifted it to my mouth, pressed the red button, and spoke. “Haley Taft is my sister.” I hit play. My own voice, clear and steady, echoed in the damp room. A massive smile broke across my face. “Thank you, Haley.” Watching me smile, her eyes watered again. “Don’t thank me, kid. You’re my brother.” That night, we split the cupcake down the middle. I swear, the cheap vanilla frosting was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted in my life. The next morning, I was sitting on my cot, practicing with the recorder. Suddenly, the flimsy door to our basement was kicked off its hinges. Three men in tailored black suits stormed into the room. The one in front was Jocelyn’s executive assistant. “Mr. Taft. My boss would like a word.” It wasn’t a request. Instinctively, I shoved the voice recorder behind my back. “I don’t want to go.” “That really wasn’t an option.” The assistant smirked, flicking his wrist. The two muscle-bound suits grabbed my arms and hauled me out. I was thrown into the back of a black SUV and driven to a place that felt like another planet. It was a sprawling, glass-and-steel mansion overlooking Lake Washington. Jocelyn sat on a white leather sofa in the center of the cavernous living room. Tim was curled into her side, a glass of champagne in his hand. When she saw me dragged in, a cruel, razor-thin smile touched her lips. “Hudson. It’s been a while.” I stared at her, every muscle in my body tight. “What do you want?” “To give you an opportunity to make some real money.” She pointed elegantly toward the far wall. There was a massive, floor-to-ceiling decorative water tank, meant for exotic fish, but currently empty save for the deep, crystal-clear water. “Do you see the bottom of the tank?” “There’s a ring down there. The engagement ring I was going to give you five years ago.” “You jump in, you swim down, and you bring it to me. I’ll write you a check for one hundred thousand dollars right now.” I stared at the deep, shimmering water. A cold sweat broke out over my entire body. I couldn’t swim. My journal clearly stated: You are terrified of deep water. “What’s wrong? Scared?” Tim practically purred the words. “Mr. Taft, you were bold enough to try and murder Jocelyn for her money. Surely a little swim isn’t too frightening?” “Or is a hundred grand just pocket change to a high roller like you?” Jocelyn swirled the red wine in her glass, her eyes locked on my trembling hands. “A million, then.” “You jump in, you get the ring, and a million dollars is yours.” “With a million dollars, you and your sister will never have to rot in that moldy basement ever again.” My breath caught. She knew where we lived. She was watching us. My grip tightened on the voice recorder hidden in my pocket. “I won’t do it.” Jocelyn’s amusement vanished. The air in the room went freezing cold. “Hudson. Don’t push your luck.” “I’m giving you a choice. You go in the water, or I have my men drag your sister here, and I make her go in the water.” My heart slammed against my ribs. “Don’t touch her!” “Then be a good boy.” Jocelyn set her wine glass down with a sharp clink. She stood up and walked slowly toward me. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Are you going in, or is she?” I looked into her dead, beautiful eyes. I looked back at the towering tank of water. I didn’t have a choice. My legs felt like lead as I walked toward the glass. I nudged off my worn sneakers. Ice-cold panic had already gripped my lungs. Just as I braced my hands on the edge to pull myself up— “Ah!” Tim let out a high-pitched gasp. “My watch!” He pointed frantically at the surface of the water, his face twisted in horror. “Jo, my watch just slipped off! It fell in!” “That was my grandfather’s! It’s the only thing I have left of him!” Jocelyn immediately pulled him into her arms, stroking his hair. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ll have the staff drain the tank.” “No!” Tim shook his head, actual tears in his eyes. “The mechanism is too delicate! The pressure from the drain pull will destroy it! It has to be retrieved by hand!” 5 He turned to look at me, his eyes wide and pleading. “Mr. Taft, please! You’re such a strong swimmer. Could you please bring it up for me?” “If you do… I’ll… I’ll beg you on my knees!” He actually made a show of bending his knees to drop to the floor. Jocelyn caught him by the shoulders, pulling him back up. “Tim, stop it! Have some dignity!” She looked at him with profound tenderness, and then turned her gaze to me. It was like a switch flipping from summer to absolute winter. “Hudson. There’s been a change of plans.” “Now, you are going to dive down and retrieve Tristan’s watch, too.” “If you come up missing either the ring or the watch, I will have my security break one of your sister’s legs.” I stood on the edge of the massive glass tank, my hands entirely numb. Two items. A ring. A watch. I could only hold my breath long enough to grab one at a time. “Why are you just standing there?” Jocelyn’s voice sounded like it was echoing up from hell. “Are you trying to calculate which one is worth more so you can negotiate a better payout?” Tim leaned heavily against her, his voice a tragic whisper. “Jo, don’t force him.” “My watch doesn’t matter. Let it rot at the bottom.” “Mr. Taft obviously cares more about the diamond. He’s always been about the money.” His words acted like gasoline on an open flame. “Hudson. I changed my mind again.” “You will bring up Tristan’s watch first.” “The ring… you don’t get the ring anymore.” She was doing this on purpose. She wanted to watch me sacrifice the last physical tether between us just to appease her current lover. I took a jagged, desperate breath. I closed my eyes. And I let myself fall into the freezing water. The shock of the cold was an instant physical assault. I couldn’t swim. I was sinking like a stone. The pressure crushed against my eardrums. My lungs screamed. I thrashed wildly, my arms and legs kicking at the empty water, but I was only sinking deeper. Through the distorted, bubbling glass, I saw the two of them standing in the living room. Jocelyn stood perfectly still, a statue of ice. Tim had a small, triumphant smirk playing on his lips. They were just watching me. Like scientists observing an insect drowning in a jar. Black spots danced in the corners of my vision. My consciousness was fraying. Just as my body surrendered, convinced I was going to die on the tiled bottom of this tank… A tiny red light blinked in my pocket. With the absolute last ounce of my strength, my thumb jammed against the fabric of my pants, hitting the play button. Through the muffled, rushing sound of the water, Haley’s voice crackled out. You’re Hudson. You’re my little brother. You’re my favorite person in the whole world. Haley. I have a sister. I can’t leave her alone. Pure, primal survival instinct injected a surge of adrenaline into my dying muscles. I kicked off the bottom with everything I had. My hand swept across the tiles. My fingers brushed against cold metal. It was the ring. I didn’t even look for the watch. I closed my fist around the band and kicked upward, thrashing blindly toward the light. Splash—! I broke the surface. I dragged myself over the edge of the tank and collapsed onto the marble floor, coughing up pool water, gasping so hard my chest tore with pain. “What did you pull up?” Jocelyn’s voice was devoid of humanity. My hand was trembling violently. Slowly, I uncurled my fingers. The diamond ring sat in my palm, catching the harsh track lighting above. Tristan’s face contorted in fury. “Hudson! What the hell is wrong with you?” “I begged you to get my grandfather’s watch, and you went for the diamond?!” “You really are a greedy, heartless bastard!” Jocelyn’s eyes looked like they wanted to strip the flesh from my bones. She took slow, deliberate steps toward me, leaned down, and snatched the ring from my palm. She held it up, stared at it for a second, and then hurled it onto the marble floor. “You make me sick.” She lifted the heel of her shoe, aiming directly for the diamond, ready to stomp down and shatter the setting. “No!” I lunged forward, throwing my upper body over the ring, burying it under my stomach. Jocelyn’s heel came down—landing hard between my shoulder blades. She didn’t stomp with her full weight, but the heavy, crushing pressure of her shoe pinning me to the floor made it impossible to breathe. “You care about it this much?” She laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “You’d literally take a beating for the payout?” I lay pressed against the cold marble, soaking wet, shivering violently. I didn’t care about the money. I just felt, deep in my broken brain, that this ring was incredibly important. I couldn’t let her destroy it. “Jo, let it go.” 6 Tim walked over, placing a gentle hand on her arm, playing the merciful saint. “If he’s that desperate for cash, let him keep the scraps.” “Besides, you love me now.” “That ring means absolutely nothing. It’s garbage.” Slowly, Jocelyn lifted her foot off my back. “You’re right.” “There’s no point in fighting with trash over trash.” She turned, sliding her arm around Tristan’s waist. “Let’s go upstairs. He’s ruining the aesthetic.” They walked away like two untouchable gods who had just handed down a sentence, leaving me completely alone in the massive room. I pushed myself up onto my knees. My fingers traced the marble until I found the ring. I held it up to the light. There was an engraving on the inside of the band. I squinted, trying to focus my blurry vision. V.C & H.E? No. J.S & H.T. Jocelyn St. James and Hudson Taft. Suddenly, my brain felt like it was being pierced by a thousand white-hot needles. A violent, agonizing pressure built behind my eyes. Shattered glass fragments of memory violently forced their way into my consciousness. “Hudson, marry me.” “I love you, Jocelyn.” “Pull it… it hurts so much…” “Hudson! Don’t you dare!” “Help me…” “No…” “AGH—!” I grabbed my head, a raw, animalistic scream ripping from my throat. My body seized. I collapsed onto the floor, my limbs thrashing uncontrollably as a grand mal seizure took hold. My vision narrowed into a dark tunnel. My lungs paralyzed. I forgot how to breathe. Just as the darkness was about to pull me under completely… The heavy oak doors of the mansion burst open. Haley rushed into the room like a bat out of hell, dragging a man in a white doctor’s coat behind her. “Hudson!” When she saw me seizing on the wet marble, her eyes went wide with pure terror. The doctor sprinted over, dropping his bag and instantly beginning emergency protocol, forcing my airway open. Jocelyn and Tim, having heard the scream from the stairs, had rushed back down. When Jocelyn saw the chaos on the floor, she froze for a split second, before her face hardened into a sneer. “A new performance, Hudson?” “Faking a seizure now?” “The lengths you’ll go to keep my attention are honestly pathetic.” Haley launched herself across the room. Her fist connected with Jocelyn’s cheekbone with a sickening crack. “Shut your fucking mouth!” Haley’s eyes were bloodshot. She looked like a cornered wolf, her voice completely shredded by grief and rage. “He isn’t acting!” “He is sick!” Jocelyn stumbled back, touching her bruising cheek. Her eyes narrowed into slits of pure hatred. “Of course he’s sick. Greed is a disease!” “No!” Haley screamed, her voice breaking into a gut-wrenching sob. “He has a neurological disease! The doctor is right here!” She pointed a shaking finger at the man currently trying to keep me from swallowing my tongue. “He has Rapid Progressive Neurocognitive Decline! His brain is literally dying, you stupid, arrogant bitch!” “What the hell did you just do to him?!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452028”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I finally chose to let go. After the ink dried on the divorce papers, I packed up my life and my daughter, scrubbed our digital footprints, and moved across the Atlantic to start over in London. The decision didn’t come from a single blow, but from a viral video I stumbled upon. In it, someone asked Damian what his happiest memory was from the last few years. He leaned back, a casual, almost nostalgic smile playing on his lips, and replied that it was probably last week—after he’d finally tucked Zoey into bed and managed to steal a private moment with Talia in the bathroom. The roar of laughter from the crowd in the video felt like an ice pick driven straight through my chest. For the three years he had been working “abroad,” he hadn’t been alone. He had been living with his first love, Talia, in a domestic bliss I could only dream of. Zoey was Talia’s daughter, and every whispered rumor I’d ignored turned out to be the sickening truth. To be honest, my heart had started to turn to ash the very day he returned to the States. I had canceled a high-stakes board meeting and driven Mandy to the airport to surprise him. When Mandy reached out her tiny hands, begging for a hug from the father she’d only seen on a screen, he didn’t even bend down. He just spared me a cold, sideways glance and muttered, “Sorry, I’ve developed a bit of a germaphobia. I need a shower first.” Because of that one sentence, Mandy and I spent the next few months washing our hands until they were raw. I kept the house like a sterile museum, scrubbing the floors until they shone, yet he still rarely came home. He never held her. Not once. Mandy was born while he was away. I went through labor alone and raised her alone for three long years, waiting for a man who was playing house with someone else. Our marriage had never been a fairytale. It started in the shadows of a scandal—my father, desperate to see his daughter married to the man she’d loved since she was eighteen, took advantage of Damian’s intoxication at a gala and maneuvered him into my bed. When Damian woke up the next morning, he didn’t scream or rage. He simply agreed to marry me with a face as cold as marble. 1 The nanny brought Mandy home from preschool, and her eyes were so swollen she could barely see. “Mommy… do I not have a daddy?” she sobbed, her little chest heaving with hiccups. “Daddy promised to come to the parent-teacher mixer… but when he got there, he told everyone he was Zoey’s dad.” “Mommy, they all said I’m a liar. They said I don’t have a father.” A sharp, throbbing pain bloomed in my chest. I pulled her into my arms, my own eyes stinging. I wanted to tell her something—anything—to comfort her, but the image of Damian’s indifferent face stayed stuck in my throat. I was drowning in regret. I thought that after three years, he had finally moved past his resentment and was coming home to be a family. I didn’t realize he only returned because Talia wanted to move back to the city. He’d booked the flights, arranged the penthouse, and even secured a spot for her daughter at the most prestigious preschool in the district—all while I was waiting at the airport in a dress he didn’t notice. That day at the terminal, Mandy had been so nervous. “Will Daddy like me, Mommy?” “You’re his only daughter, honey,” I’d told her, smoothing her hair. “Of course he will.” But when we arrived, we saw Damian walking through the terminal holding Talia’s hand, his other arm cradling a three-year-old girl. He looked at me as if I were a stranger blocking his path. “Sorry,” he said, his voice flat. “I need to get Talia and Zoey settled first. You two go on home.” He didn’t even look at Mandy. But the way he looked at Zoey—it was a tenderness I had never seen. Closing my eyes, I felt the weight of my mistakes. “I’m so sorry, Mandy. It’s my fault. Next time, Mommy will be there for everything. I promise.” I washed her face and tucked her in, but even in her sleep, her brow was furrowed. “Daddy, hold me…” she whispered. Every word felt like a needle. My father had thought he was doing me a favor ten years ago. “Gwen, I can see it,” he’d said back then. “You love him, and the boy has feelings for you too, he’s just too stubborn to admit it. I heard him call your name when he was drunk once. Let’s just skip the formalities and give him a reason to stay.” I had protested, but then he’d locked the door, and the room had grown warm. That night, Damian had looked at me with such icy clarity when it was over. “I’ll do the right thing, Gwen. I’ll marry you.” I thought I could win him over. Then, at a party months later, I overheard him talking to his friends. “Come on, Damian,” one of them said. “Gwen is gorgeous, she’s brilliant, and she’s obsessed with you. Just enjoy it.” Damian took a long drag of his cigarette, his lip curling. “I actually liked her once. But I never realized she was that desperate. Thinking about how she threw herself at me that night… it’s honestly pathetic. It’s repulsive.” I never got the chance to explain. Two weeks later, he filed for a long-term overseas assignment. He left me with a ring and a secret—I was pregnant. I raised Mandy in a quiet, empty mansion, counting the days until he’d return. And he did. But not to us. The house was silent when the front door finally clicked open at midnight. Damian walked in, his eyes skipping over the sleeping form of his daughter on the couch. “Zoey wants to come over to play tomorrow,” he said casually, as if he were discussing the weather. “You and Mandy should head out for the day. Take her to the zoo or something.” I looked at him, stunned. He actually smiled—a small, cruel twist of the lips. “Zoey’s very territorial. She’s not comfortable seeing other little girls call me ‘Dad’.” 2 The anger that had been simmering in my gut finally boiled over. I let out a sharp, dry laugh. “Damian, do you even remember which child is actually yours?” “Do you have any idea what happened to Mandy at school today because you—” He cut me off with a frown. “Gwen, I don’t need a lecture.” “I know the mixer was today. I’m sorry, but Talia is a single mother now, and she’s overwhelmed. Zoey needed me there.” “Besides, I made a promise to Talia long before I ever married you. I swore I’d never let her down again. I’ve given you the marriage you wanted. You don’t get to tell me who I can care for. I owe them.” He threw his blazer on the chair and headed for the master bath. The sound of the shower drowned out the sob I couldn’t hold back. If I had known that being his wife meant being a ghost in my own home, I would have fought my father tooth and nail that night. I looked at the divorce decree I’d been drafting on my laptop. If it weren’t for Mandy, I would have left years ago. But I had been selfish—I wanted her to have a father. I didn’t realize that a father who was physically present but emotionally absent was a far worse poison. The next morning, Mandy woke up and forgot her heartbreak the moment she heard her dad was home. She jumped on her bed, clutching a drawing she’d spent a week on. “I have to show Daddy!” Kids are resilient, or maybe just tragically hopeful. She ran downstairs, only to find Talia and Zoey already in the kitchen. Damian was sitting at the island, peeling an orange for Zoey with a look of pure patience. “Daddy? Who are they?” Mandy asked, stopping short. Damian’s face darkened. “Why are you still here? I thought I told your mother to take you out.” Mandy shrank back, but she still held out her drawing—a colorful depiction of the three of us. “It’s a family portrait… I made it for when you came home.” Before Damian could reach for it, a small hand snatched it away. “This is ugly!” Zoey shouted, tearing the paper in half. She shoved Mandy hard, sending her tumbling to the hardwood floor. “He’s my daddy! Everyone at school says you’re a nobody, Mandy. You’re not allowed to call him that!” Mandy burst into tears. I rushed over, pulling her up and staring down at Zoey. “Apologize. Now.” Damian stood up, his jaw set. “Gwen, don’t scream at a child.” He picked Zoey up and tucked her against his chest. “I told you last night, she’s sensitive about this. She’s just upset. She didn’t mean to push her.” I didn’t budge. “Did you not hear what she just called Mandy? She called her a bastard, Damian. Are you going to tell her the truth, or are you just going to let her bully your own daughter in her own house?” Damian hesitated, but then he just rubbed Zoey’s back. He wouldn’t look at me. Talia stepped forward, wearing a soft, practiced smile. “Gwen, I am so sorry. Zoey spent her formative years in Europe; she’s very blunt. She doesn’t mean anything by it. Please don’t take it to heart.” The little girl in Damian’s arms looked at us with a smug, triumphant grin. “I’m not lying! The kids at school said it! Mandy is a mistake! She stole my daddy!” I looked at Damian. I had tolerated his “germaphobia.” I had tolerated his long absences and the obvious lies about working late. But I would not tolerate this. “Damian, I’m going to ask you one last time. Is Mandy your daughter, or isn’t she?” He let out a cold, sharp laugh. “You really want to talk about how she became my daughter? Do you really want to revisit that ‘miracle’ of a night?” “Enough. Today is about Zoey. Let’s not ruin it with your drama.” Talia and her daughter exchanged a look of pure satisfaction. Damian kissed Zoey’s cheek. “How about we go get that Elsa dress you wanted? And some new toys?” “Yes! And the castle!” “Anything you want,” he murmured. As they walked toward the door, something inside me finally snapped. The love I’d carried for ten years didn’t just break; it evaporated. “Damian,” I called out, my voice strangely calm. “I want a divorce.” 3 Damian paused at the door, turning back with an arrogant sneer. “Gwen, haven’t we played this game enough? If you think threatening me is going to work, then fine. Have it your way. Get the papers ready.” He didn’t wait for a response. He walked out, the heavy oak door thudding shut behind him. Talia lingered for a second, a flicker of a smile crossing her face before she masked it with “concern.” She walked back to me, holding out her phone. “I’m so sorry, Gwen. Damian and I… we’re just friends. He’s just such a loyal man. He knows how hard it is for me after my divorce, and he just wants to help. Please don’t let this ruin your marriage.” She insisted on adding my contact info, claiming she wanted to “reimburse” Mandy for the ruined drawing. “Talia, come on!” Damian’s voice called from the driveway, soft and melodic. “Coming!” she chirped, running out to join them. Through the open window, I heard her voice drifting back. “Damian, you shouldn’t have said that. Gwen was just upset. You know she didn’t mean it.” Damian’s reply was loud enough for the neighbors to hear. “She worked too hard to trap me into this marriage to ever actually leave. She’s just throwing a tantrum because I’m giving Zoey attention. Trust me, she’ll be begging me to come home by dinner.” I leaned against the kitchen counter and laughed. It was a hollow, jagged sound. The Gwen who loved you is dead, Damian. And the mother who is left has work to do. Mandy cried herself to sleep in her room. “Mommy, the kids said he’s Zoey’s daddy… but I wasn’t trying to take him away…” I stayed awake. My phone buzzed. Talia had posted a photo on Instagram: the three of them at a toy store, looking like a perfect, sun-drenched family. The caption read: Zoey finally has the father figure she deserves. Some things are just meant to be. I “liked” the post. Seconds later, a DM arrived from Talia. It was a video file. I opened it. It was from a few months ago, back when Damian was still “working” overseas. In the video, a friend asked him, “Damian, what’s the best part of being back with Talia?” He was nursing a glass of scotch, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. “Probably the quiet moments,” he said, his eyes dark with something like lust. “Last week, after we finally got the kid to sleep, I pulled Talia into the bathroom for an hour. Best hour of the trip.” The room spun. Talia’s caption on an old post flashed in my mind: Since having a kid, private time is hard to find. We have to sneak around when she’s asleep… My phone buzzed again. Another message from Talia: Oh my god, I am SO sorry! I meant to send that to someone else. I can’t believe I sent that to you. Please ignore it! But honestly, Gwen… you know where his heart is. You forced this marriage with a cheap trick, but he spent three years choosing us every single day. He might not be Zoey’s biological father, but he loves her more than he could ever love a child he was ‘forced’ to have. You have money, you have status—don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Just walk away. She followed it with a photo of Damian kissing Zoey on one cheek and Talia on the other. A perfect portrait of a family that didn’t include me. I typed back two words: You’re right. Then, I called my father. “Dad, I’ve made a decision. I’m taking Mandy and moving to London. We leave in three days.” My father sounded shocked. “Three days? But I heard Damian just got back. You finally have your family together. Does he know?” I looked at the torn drawing on the floor. “He’ll be thrilled.” 4 For the first time in our marriage, I didn’t stay up waiting for him. When he stumbled in at 2:00 AM, the house was pitch black. No porch light, no warm meal in the oven. For the next three days, I was a ghost. I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t ask where he was going. I just packed. Sensing something was off, Damian came home on the third evening with a Tiffany box. “Gwen,” he said, sounding almost sheepish. “I know things have been tense. Zoey was out of line the other day. I’m sorry.” He opened the box to reveal a necklace—a heart pendant that was clearly from an older collection. I recognized it immediately. Talia had posted it on her “sell” story months ago, calling it “outdated junk.” He tried to step closer to put it on me. I stepped back. “Don’t bother.” I walked past him, wearing a sharp, tailored blazer. I was heading out to finalize the sale of my car. He stared at me, his eyes lingering on my outfit. “You… you look different today. Where are you going? I’ll drive you.” He was being uncharacteristically attentive. It was pathetic. For three years, I’d worn the soft, feminine dresses he liked. I’d played the part of the doting, waiting wife. But in his absence, I’d built a multi-million dollar tech firm. I’d handled lawsuits, boardrooms, and plumbing emergencies. I didn’t need a driver. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m a better driver than you anyway.” I was actually going to the consulate to finalize the paperwork for our relocation. Three hours later, as I walked out of the government building with Mandy, I saw Damian’s car idling at the curb. He looked frantic. “Gwen, what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, jumping out of the car. He’d followed me. “You’ve been in there for three hours.” I smiled, a cold, empty thing. “Just updating some records. Our IDs were expiring.” “Don’t you have a job? I heard Talia was looking for a personal assistant. Maybe you should go help her.” Damian flinched, his expression darkening. “Fine. You want to push me away? Go ahead. I was trying to be nice, but you’re making it impossible.” He slammed his car door so hard the frame rattled and sped off. Later that afternoon, his assistant, Marcus, called me. “Ma’am, Mr. Sterling actually cleared his entire schedule today to spend time with you and Mandy. Why did you upset him? He’s at a bar right now, drinking himself into a stupor before heading over to Talia’s place…” Marcus had always tried to play peacemaker. I almost felt sorry for him. “Thanks for the update, Marcus,” I said. “But let him go. He’s exactly where he wants to be.” I had two days left. But I didn’t make it to the flight without one last nightmare. On the day I went to pick up Mandy’s final school records, Zoey pushed her into the decorative fountain at the school plaza. Mandy hit her head and went into a localized seizure—a complication from an undiagnosed condition. I was screaming, cradling my daughter’s limp, wet body as the ambulance arrived. At the hospital, the ER was in chaos. I was told that a “VIP” had redirected the city’s top pediatric neurologists to another wing for an emergency allergy consult. Damian had moved heaven and earth for Zoey’s hives while his own daughter was fighting for air. I called Damian, my hands shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. “Damian, please. Mandy is in the ER. She needs a specialist. You have the connections—please, help her!” On the other end, I could hear Talia sobbing about “rashes.” Damian’s voice came through, cold and mocking. “Gwen, enough with the pathetic stunts. Mandy is fine. She was fine this morning.” “I tried to spend the day with you and you kicked me out. Now Zoey is having a real medical crisis, and you’re trying to fake an emergency to get attention? You’re sick.” “Damian, I’m not lying! She’s—” Click. The dial tone was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. I felt the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I looked at Mandy. She was awake now, hooked up to an oxygen mask, her eyes too old for her face. She didn’t cry. She just reached out and wiped a tear from my cheek with a weak, pale hand. “Mommy… Daddy really doesn’t want me, does he?” She smiled, a heartbreakingly sad expression. “It’s okay, Mommy. I don’t want him either.” I called my father. Within thirty minutes, a specialist was flown in from a neighboring state. Damian never showed up. That night, the local news ran a segment on “The Heroic Father,” praising Damian Sterling for mobilizing the city’s medical resources to save a child from a “life-threatening” allergic reaction. They showed a clip of him looking “devastated” in the waiting room. I stared at the screen, at the man I had loved for a decade. You win, Damian. You can have them. The day Mandy was discharged, we went straight to the airport. I shredded my SIM card, left the keys to the mansion in a locker, and boarded a one-way flight to London.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452027”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Coming back to this exact moment—this familiar, jagged edge of my life—the first thing I decided was that I would not spend another second drowning in debt to pay for my mother’s cancer treatment. In my previous life, that choice cost me everything. I had mentioned, perhaps too loudly, that I’d managed to scrape together nearly half a million dollars in savings. That was all it took for the new intern to mark me. She’d used a predatory digital “tethering” exploit—a glitch in the banking app she’d bragged about—to link our accounts. In a heartbeat, my life savings evaporated. My balance hit zero, while her account bloated with my blood, sweat, and tears. But the theft wasn’t the worst part. It was the betrayal. I had swallowed my pride and begged friends and family for loans to keep my mother alive. That money, too, vanished the moment it touched my account. While my mother gasped for air in an ICU bed, that girl was throwing lavish catered parties at the office, playing the role of the generous socialite with my mother’s life insurance. She didn’t stop at the money. She whispered in the breakroom, painting me as a delusional sociopath. She told everyone I was trying to embezzle company funds, and worse, that I was a cold-hearted daughter who refused to pay for her own mother’s surgery. At my lowest point, she posted a “takedown” thread on a viral gossip site. The headline still burned in my mind: Local Monster Exposed! This Woman is Letting Her Mother Die While Hoarding Millions. The internet did what it does best. They doxxed me. They hunted me. I was cornered in a dark alley behind my apartment and beaten to death by a “vigilante” mob. My mother died alone in a hospital hallway three days later because her bed was needed for a paying patient. This time, I’m choosing to walk away. If there’s no medical fund for her to steal, she loses her leverage. I want to see what she does when there’s nothing left to take. 1 “Ms. Kennedy, your mother’s vitals are crashing! She won’t last forty-eight hours without the surgery!” The doctor’s voice crackled through the phone, sharp with a desperation I knew all too well. It hit me then, like a physical blow to the chest: I was really back. I was standing in the middle of the office, holding the phone that was supposed to be my death warrant. This was the day. The day I’d discover my bank account was a hollow shell. And standing right across from me, “helping” herself to a cup of premium roast, was Kaylee. It was her first day as an intern. She heard the doctor’s frantic words and dropped her spoon with a theatrical clatter. “Oh my god, June! Is your mom okay?” Kaylee cried out, her voice loud enough to make every head in the open-plan office turn. “That sounds expensive. Like, life-altering expensive!” She clutched her heart, her eyes wide and shimmering with fake tears. “Look, I’m just an intern and totally broke, but I’m skipping my Starbucks today. Here—take twenty bucks. For your mom.” Last time, that “generous” twenty-dollar gesture made her the office saint. It built the shield of innocence that made it impossible for anyone to believe me when I eventually accused her of theft. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I was tracing the lines of her face, looking for the monster beneath the Botox. “June?” Kaylee prodded, her voice turning into a sharp, lethal sweetness. “The doctor said it’s urgent. Why are you just standing there? Pay the bill!” She was vibrating with anticipation. She was waiting for the moment I opened the app. She wanted to watch the light go out of my eyes when I saw the number 0.00. I stayed frozen, calculating. Kaylee didn’t like the silence. She lunged forward, snatching my phone right out of my hand. “You’re clearly in shock! Let me help you,” she chirped, her fingers flying over my screen. “We can’t let your mom suffer because you’ve got ‘tech-panic’!” She bypassed my face ID—I realized now she must have been recording my passcode for days—and opened the banking app. Then, she gasped, turning the screen outward so the entire marketing team could see. “Wait… June? It says your balance is zero. How is that possible? You’ve been a Senior Lead for five years!” She looked at me, her head tilted like a confused puppy. “Did you… did you move the money because you didn’t want to pay for the ICU? Or is it something else? Do you have a… a gambling problem? I’ve heard about people hiding secret lives…” I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a breakdown. I just watched her. Behind her, the murmurs started. “No way. June Kennedy? I thought she was a rockstar,” whispered Bill from accounting. “My god, her own mother is dying and she’s hiding the cash? That’s cold. That’s psychopathic.” “And look at Kaylee. First day here and she’s trying to donate her lunch money. The contrast is insane.” “We shouldn’t even have people like this in the building. I’m calling HR. This is a PR nightmare waiting to happen.” Suddenly, Bill—who I’d shared a thousand coffee breaks with—marched over and shoved me back against my desk. “If my daughter grew up to be a parasite like you, I’d have walked into traffic years ago,” he spat, his face a mask of disgusted fury. He raised his hand and delivered a stinging slap across my cheek. “That’s for your mother. You’re a disgrace to this company. Being in the same room as you makes me sick.” Kaylee stepped in then, playing the peacemaker. She gently pulled Bill back, her hand resting on his arm in a way that felt sickeningly possessive. “Don’t, Bill. It’s fine. Some girls just… they like expensive things more than their family. I get it.” She turned back to me, her voice a soft, venomous coo. “June, if you’re short on cash, why don’t you call some of your old friends? Take out a few personal loans? Money comes and goes, but you only have one mom.” In my first life, I had fallen for it. I had spent the next three hours on the phone, crying, begging my aunts and cousins for every cent they had. I’d raised over a hundred thousand dollars in an afternoon. And the second those wire transfers hit my account, they vanished into the void of Kaylee’s digital tether. My family saw the “success” notifications on their end. They thought I’d taken the money and run. They never spoke to me again. This time, I looked at Kaylee’s porcelain-doll face and let the corner of my mouth twitch into a smile. “Who said I was saving her?” 2 The office went dead silent. Then, the explosion. “You absolute bitch!” someone screamed. “I hope you rot!” another yelled. The people I’d worked with for years—people I’d helped with their mortgages, people whose kids’ birthdays I never missed—were suddenly a lynch mob. I let the insults wash over me. They were weather. They were irrelevant. Kaylee’s eyes flickered. This wasn’t the reaction she wanted. She needed me desperate, not indifferent. She stepped closer, dropping the “sweet girl” act for a moment to take a tone of moral authority. “June, think about what you’re saying. Everyone is watching. If you just stand by and let her die, the internet is going to find out. Your reputation will be charred. You’ll never work in this industry again.” I arched an eyebrow. “And what exactly do you suggest I do, Kaylee?” Her eyes danced. She had the hook ready. “There are plenty of those fast-approval payday sites! High-limit personal lines! You can get the money in minutes and figure out the interest later. I actually know a few lenders who specialize in ’emergency’ cases. I’ll text you the links.” I knew those links. They weren’t just high-interest; they were the digital equivalent of a blood-pact. Anything borrowed through those portals would be automatically routed through her “transfer system.” But I needed her to think she’d won. “Fine,” I said, my voice tight and feigned with “desperation.” “Send them. I’ll do it.” Kaylee’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She practically vibrated as she watched me “apply” on my phone. Because my credit was impeccable, the approvals came in waves. Within twenty minutes, I had “borrowed” nearly six hundred thousand dollars across five different predatory platforms. The “Approved” notifications chimed one after another. Kaylee clapped her hands, turning to the office. “See! I knew June had a heart. She just needed a little push. She just took out six hundred thousand dollars to save her mom!” The mood shifted slightly. People were still disgusted that I’d waited so long, but they looked at Kaylee with awe. “You’re an angel, Kaylee,” Bill said, shaking his head. “To care this much about a stranger’s family… you’re one in a million.” Kaylee beamed. “I’m just so happy! Everyone, listen—tonight, dinner is on me! We’re going to that new steakhouse on the waterfront. Seafood towers for everyone!” “Actually,” she added, her voice ringing with performative joy, “Let’s make it a three-day celebration. My treat!” The office cheered. They were celebrating with my blood money, and they loved her for it. I leaned against my desk, watching her play the room. She was so drunk on her own power she didn’t notice the coldness in my eyes. Finally, she turned back to me, her voice loud enough for the back row to hear. “So, June… the money’s in. Why haven’t you paid the hospital yet?” “Maybe I’m having trouble with the app,” I suggested. “Oh, here! Let me!” She snatched the phone again. She tapped the screen, then held it up high, her face a mask of “shock.” “Account Balance: $0.00.” The room gasped. “Wait, we just saw the approvals!” Kaylee cried, her voice reaching a frantic pitch. “June, what did you do? Did you have secret debts? Did the banks freeze it? Or… oh my god, are you a ‘blacklisted’ borrower?” The vultures circled again. “She’s a fraud,” Bill spat. “She took the loans and the money just… disappeared into her past debts. She’s a bottomless pit of lies.” Kaylee didn’t even pretend to be nice anymore. She pulled out her own phone, her thumbs flying. “I can’t stay silent. I’m posting the truth. People need to know who you really are.” Within minutes, her post was trending locally. SCAMMER DAUGHTER LETS MOTHER DIE: A THREAD. The comments poured in like a flood of sewage. Fire her! Boycott the company if she stays! I hope she loses everything. My phone began to vibrate non-stop—death threats, vitriol, people telling me they’d found my address. And then, a familiar shadow fell across the office floor. “What is going on here?” 3 I looked up. It was Tyler. My boyfriend. My college sweetheart. The man I’d helped get a management position at this very company so we could be together. Before I could speak, Kaylee was all over him. “Tyler! Thank god you’re here. June… she’s done something horrible. She’s letting her mom die, and now the whole internet is attacking the company because of her. We’re being boycotted!” She shoved her phone in his face, showing him the viral thread. Tyler looked at the screen, then at me. His face was a mask of cold disappointment. “This is a nightmare, June. These comments… they’re saying things I can’t even defend.” He sighed, stepping toward me with a look of feigned agony. “Look, for the sake of the company’s survival… I have to let you go. Effective immediately.” When he saw the spark of anger in my eyes, he leaned in, his voice dropping to a “gentle” whisper. “I’m doing this for you, babe. Once the heat dies down, I’ll bring you back. I promise. But right now, you’re radioactive.” I looked at the man I had once planned to marry and felt nothing but the chill of a grave. I didn’t fight. I walked to HR, signed the papers, and watched Tyler “generously” authorize my final payout. “Your accrued PTO and salary come to four thousand,” he said loudly, for the benefit of the HR rep. “And the company is adding a ten-thousand-dollar ‘compassion bonus’ to help with your mother’s expenses. We’re not monsters, June.” The notification hit my phone. Deposit received. Kaylee was lurking by the door. “Wow, ten thousand! That’s so much! Surely you’ll pay the hospital now, June? Unless… oh, don’t tell me… is that gone too?” I looked at my screen. Balance: $0.00. “I guess I’m just unlucky,” I said softly. “Unlucky? You’re a curse,” Kaylee sneered. “Anyway, I have to go. My mom just venmo’ed me ten grand for a ‘new job’ gift. I’m thinking the new Chanel seasonal bag. Bye, June!” I left the building with a single box of belongings. I didn’t go home. I knew the mobs would be waiting there. Instead, I drove three hours out of the city to a dilapidated roadside motel in the mountains. “I can’t pay much,” I told the owner, an old man who looked like he hadn’t seen a guest in years. “But I’ll work. Cleaning, laundry, maintenance. Just give me a room and three meals a day.” He took one look at my tired eyes and nodded. He gave me a cramped storage room with a cot and put me to work fifteen hours a day. I followed the news from a flickering black-and-white TV in the lobby. The “June Kennedy” story had become a national obsession. A GoFundMe had been started—not for me, but for my mother. The internet had raised half a million dollars for her “rescue.” A week later, I saw my mother on the morning news. She was sitting up in a hospital bed, looking frail but alive. The surgery had been a success. A reporter was leaning in, microphone extended like a weapon. “Mrs. Kennedy, your daughter abandoned you. She stole your medical funds and disappeared. How does it feel to know you were saved by the kindness of strangers instead of your own flesh and blood?” My mother looked confused, her eyes searching the camera. “That’s not right… my June… she’s a good girl. She must have had a reason…” The reporter cut her off. “She told her entire office she wasn’t going to save you. She took out loans and let the money vanish. She’s hiding in the dark while you suffer.” My mother’s face crumbled. The monitors hooked up to her began to beep frantically. The doctors rushed in, pushing the reporters out. The reporter turned back to the camera, her face tight with righteous fury. “June Kennedy, if you’re watching this: look at what you’ve done. Your mother is heartbroken because of your cowardice. Come out and face the world.” I turned off the TV, my heart feeling like it was being squeezed by a vice. I hated that she was hurting, but I had to stay the course. The internet’s rage reached a fever pitch. People were posting “bounties” for my location. They wanted to find the alleyway I died in last time. Then, the silence of the mountains was shattered. A fleet of SUVs and news vans roared into the motel parking lot. At the front of the pack was Kaylee, dressed in head-to-toe designer gear, a limited-edition Chanel bag swinging from her arm. She pointed a manicured finger at me as I stood on the porch in my work clothes. “There she is!” she screamed to the cameras. “The monster of the year! Found her hiding in the dirt like the rat she is!” The mob surged forward. I stood my ground, a small smile playing on my lips. They’d finally found me.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452026”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Today was the thirtieth time Silas dragged me to that sterile, white-walled nightmare to act as a human guinea pig for his so-called stepsister. I didn’t scream or fight like I used to. I simply reached out, took the bowl of experimental sludge, and swallowed it in one long, bitter gulp. Elaine was curled into Silas’s side, her head resting on his shoulder. When she saw me finish, a triumphant smirk flickered across her flushed face. She made a show of trying to drop to her knees in front of me—a pathetic, fake gesture of gratitude—but Silas caught her instantly. He glared at me, his eyes like chips of blue ice. His voice was laced with a chilling frost as he reminded me that this was my “debt” to Elaine. He claimed that if I hadn’t spent years “bullying” her, her constitution wouldn’t be this fragile. Yet, as he looked at my bloodless face and trembling hands, a flicker of something—guilt, perhaps—ghosted through his expression. His tone softened, repeating the same hollow promise he’d been feeding me for six years: Once Elaine is healthy, I’ll marry you. I’ve heard that sentence thirty times. I have twenty-nine fake marriage certificates tucked away in a drawer at home to prove it. But today, the last spark of hope inside me finally went dark. 1 The acrid taste of the medicine coated my tongue, followed by a wave of violent nausea and a searing headache. I collapsed, dignity forgotten, retching on the cold tile floor. I curled into a ball, my body writhing in pain. Silas just stood there, watching me with the detached clinical gaze of a scientist observing a lab rat. He signaled his assistants to strap me onto the gurney to draw blood and log the vitals. When the pain became a living thing, tearing a jagged scream from my throat, Silas didn’t reach for me. Instead, he reached for Elaine, gently covering her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear my agony. This humiliation has been my life for thirty cycles. Six years ago, Elaine was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder. The specialized treatments were experimental and scarce. Because we were close in age and half-sisters, I was the perfect “buffer.” Silas poured millions into this private lab, turning me into Elaine’s living shield. At first, I fought him with everything I had. I smashed every vase, every mirror, and every piece of furniture in the house he’d bought for our future. In the middle of the wreckage, I sobbed, asking him why. We were the ones who grew up together. We were the ones who had a “forever” pact. Back then, Silas had treated Elaine’s obsessive pursuit of him with nothing but contempt. When she had once stripped naked and crawled into his bed, he had blocked her number and thrown every gift she’d ever given him into the trash. I remember the way he used to hold me, whispering that Elaine was the child of the woman who destroyed my family—a shadow he would never acknowledge. But her persistence was a slow poison. Eventually, the way he spoke her name changed. A softness crept in, a tenderness he didn’t even seem to notice. At our engagement party, when Elaine fainted in the middle of the ballroom, Silas didn’t hesitate. He scooped her up and sprinted for the hospital, leaving me standing in the center of a hundred pitying stares, my engagement ring feeling like a lead weight. Now, his voice was nothing but cold steel. “You owe her this, Olivia.” “If Elaine hadn’t told me about the past, I never would have known how cruel you were. You tormented her for years.” “You know how much I loathe a bully.” I looked at the “evidence” Elaine had fed him—photoshopped images of bruises, fabricated diary entries. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a vice. The truth was simpler: He just didn’t love me anymore. If he did, Elaine’s clumsy lies would have crumbled under the slightest bit of scrutiny. In the end, Silas used the only thing I had left to lose: my mother’s life. “Olivia, I’m the only one who can fund your mother’s specialized care. You wouldn’t want her to die because of your selfishness, would you?” That was the day I broke. That was the day I surrendered. Later, I found out I was pregnant. I begged him to delay the trials for just a few months. I told him I’d do anything—be his slave, disappear forever—if he just let our baby be born safely. For a moment, he seemed moved. Maybe he felt a shred of connection to the life growing inside me. He agreed. But in my fifth month, Elaine “collapsed” again. I remember that day with terrifying clarity. Silas burst into the house, his eyes bloodshot, looking like a man possessed. He dragged me toward the lab, ignoring my screams, my pleas, and my desperate hands clawing at his sleeves. “Elaine’s condition has spiked!” he roared. “You used that child to manipulate me, to delay her cure!” I was strapped to the table. The leather restraints tore at my skin until I was raw and bleeding, but that was nothing compared to the agony of what came next. I felt the life—the tiny, vivid spark of my child—drain out of me in a hot, dark rush. Seeing the hollow, dead look in my eyes afterward, Silas actually showed a moment of pity. He handed me a marriage certificate, his voice a gentle caress. “You’re healthy, Olivia. We can have other children. But Elaine… if she doesn’t get this treatment, she’ll die.” “Be good. Once she’s well, we’ll have a real wedding. Think of it as penance for your sins.” I used every ounce of strength I had to slap him. I tore that certificate into confetti, but it didn’t make me feel better. I just felt empty. Like an ocean that could never be filled again. 2 The details of the months that followed are a blur of pain. I remember the physical ache of the miscarriage hadn’t even subsided before Silas sent me back for the next round of trials. But the physical pain was secondary to the recurring emptiness of losing child after child. Twice more, I fell pregnant. Twice more, Elaine had a “crisis” during my second trimester. Three times in total. Three babies lost. Each time, just as they were becoming real, Silas would look at me with those cold eyes and say, “Elaine can’t wait that long.” Then, he’d slide a new marriage certificate across the table like a consolation prize. The bitter pills burned my throat today, my stomach feeling like it was on fire. But my heart? My heart was an iceberg. The side effects of the trials were ravaging me. My hair came out in clumps. My skin turned a sallow, sickly yellow, and my weight plummeted until I was a ghost of myself. My mind was constantly foggy, a thick veil of exhaustion making it hard to tell where my love for Silas ended and my hatred began. I spent my first New Year’s Eve in the lab, hooked up to an IV. Outside, the fireworks over the harbor exploded in a riot of color for hours. A young nurse sighed in envy. “I heard Dr. Thomas set those off to celebrate his childhood sweetheart being discharged,” she whispered. Another nurse corrected her. “The girl in this bed is his childhood sweetheart.” The first nurse scoffed. “Yeah, right. The other girl is in the VIP wing. Dr. Thomas is there every day, holding her hand, acting like the world is ending if she sneezes. This one? He just told us to make sure she doesn’t die. That’s it.” My phone buzzed. It was a message from Elaine. The photo showed her and Silas locked in a passionate kiss under the exploding fireworks. [Olivia, while you’ve been stuck in that lab for me, I’ve had Silas in every place you two used to go. I even asked him who’s better in bed.] [He said it’s me, obviously. He said just thinking about how you looked bleeding out after those abortions makes him sick.] The words were jagged glass in my soul. I broke. I began screaming, smashing everything in the hospital room until they tackled me and jammed a sedative into my arm. When I woke up, looking at the bloody crescent marks in my palms where I’d bitten down on my own skin, I realized I couldn’t just wait to die. I had to expose them. I took the latest marriage certificate and went to the city’s biggest news outlet. I told them everything—the infidelity, the forced medical trials. The story of the “Medical Genius and His Secret Sin” exploded. But just as the public outrage reached its peak, Silas held a press conference. Under the blinding camera flashes, he held Elaine against him as if she were a precious gem. “I have no legal marital ties to Olivia Raymond,” he said calmly. “As for the certificate she’s brandishing, I can only assume it’s a forgery she created out of a delusional obsession with me.” Then, he released “evidence.” “Furthermore, she has spent years systematically bullying her sister, Elaine. She is a deeply troubled woman who has twisted the truth to hide her own malice.” The tide turned instantly. I became the villain—the obsessed, vengeful ex. That was when I learned the truth: every single certificate he had given me was a fake. The online vitriol was suffocating. Silas didn’t stop it; he encouraged it. He let people send me death threats and boxes containing dead rats. I became a prisoner in my own home, a creature of the dark who spent my nights weeping until my eyes were raw. But Silas wasn’t done punishing me. He would come home late at night, find me shaking with a panic attack, and pull me into a “tender” embrace. And just when I would finally let my guard down, he would deliver the killing blow. 3 The twenty-ninth trial ended on Elaine’s birthday. Silas threw her a gala that was the talk of the town. Under a literal tower of champagne, they stood together, the picture of a power couple. The crowd started chanting, “Propose! Propose!” Silas’s eyes instinctively drifted to the corner where I was shrinking into the shadows. He gripped Elaine’s shoulders and spoke clearly. “I’m sorry, Elaine. I can give you everything, but I cannot give you a wedding.” Elaine laughed it off gracefully, but the flash of pure venom in her eyes told a different story. Toward the end of the night, she leaned into the microphone. “Silas, I’ve decided on my birthday wish. Since I can’t have my own wedding yet, I want to host a vow renewal for my mother and Silas’s father. Let’s give them the grand celebration they never had.” The world tilted. My mother was still legally married to my father, though they lived apart. Elaine’s mother was the mistress who had shattered our home. I lunged forward and slapped Elaine across the face with everything I had. “Your mother is a home-wrecker who hid in the shadows! How dare you suggest a wedding!” Before I could even finish the sentence, Silas’s hand caught me. The force of the blow sent me spinning to the floor. My lip split, and my ears rang with a deafening roar. I was the evening’s entertainment—the madwoman at the party. Silas shielded Elaine, his voice like liquid nitrogen. “Olivia! You think because you were born a Raymond you can treat Elaine like dirt? You hit her in front of all these people?” “You care so much about your status? Fine. I’m giving it to Elaine. Let’s see how much power you have when you’re a nobody.” He pulled out his phone right there and called my father. He gave him an ultimatum: divorce my mother and marry Elaine’s mother, or Silas would pull every cent of investment from the Raymond family business. I thought of my mother’s fragile health, her pale face. The shock would kill her. A roar of humiliated rage burned in my chest, but I suppressed it. I dropped to my knees at Silas’s feet, stripping away the last of my pride. “You know what that woman did,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “She harassed my mother for years. She’s the reason my mom is sick. If you do this, you aren’t just insulting her. You’re killing her.” Silas didn’t look moved. He pulled Elaine over so she could watch me grovel. His eyes were cruel, relishing the sight of my ruin. “Olivia, if your father loved your mother, he wouldn’t have cheated. In love, the one who isn’t loved is the real intruder.” “Be a good girl. Give Elaine the family name, and I’ll give you the title of Mrs. Thomas.” He tossed a marriage certificate at me like a scrap of meat to a dog. The cheap paper and the crooked ink of the “official” seal crushed the last remnants of my heart into dust. The guests whispered and laughed. “Another fake, probably.” “How can she be so shameless?” Elaine strutted past me like a peacock, her designer heel stepping directly onto the fake certificate. “Come on, Silas. I bought that schoolgirl outfit you like for tonight.” “Careful,” Silas murmured, his hand on her waist. “You’re pregnant. Don’t make me lose my self-control.” Pregnant. The word was a physical blow. I remembered the third time I’d lost a baby, when the doctor had looked at me with deep sorrow. “Olivia, your uterine lining is too thin from the repeated trauma. It’s unlikely you’ll ever carry a child to term again.” I had tried to run from the clinic that day. Silas had caught me in the parking lot. “Elaine isn’t cured yet. How dare you try to escape your responsibility?” He had forced me back onto the table. That day, I lost my ability to be a mother forever. And to ensure I “learned my lesson,” Silas had “accidentally” botched a minor corrective surgery for my mother, landing her in the ICU. The memory fueled a hatred so intense it threatened to swallow my sanity. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A message from an unknown number. [Olivia, you shouldn’t have to wither away in the hands of a monster. I can help you leave. I can help you start over.] Like a person drowning who finally sees a light on the shore, my heart hammered. Without a second thought, I typed back one word: Yes. 4 After the thirtieth trial, Elaine’s labs finally came back clear. Silas came to me, looking triumphant. “Olivia, you’ve finally paid for your sins. Now, we can be together with a clean slate. I’m going to give you the most lavish wedding this city has ever seen.” At the ceremony, I looked at the massive diamond ring. I didn’t smile. I didn’t cry. I just let him slide it onto my finger. For years, I had dreamed of him coming back to me, of him saying, I believe you. Now? I felt nothing. Just the calm of a countdown reaching zero. But the “accident” happened right on schedule. Halfway through the reception, Silas’s phone rang. Elaine’s voice, shrill and terrified, bled through the speaker. “Silas! Help me! Olivia sent men to take me! She wants me gone so she can have you all to herself… I’m so scared…” Then came the video. Elaine, tied up, dangling over a jagged cliffside with the Atlantic Ocean churning below. Silas’s face contorted. The veins in his neck popped as he grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me violently. “Olivia! I was marrying you! Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?” His eyes were murderous. “I see you haven’t changed. Fine. I guess I have to teach you one last lesson.” I knew exactly what he meant. My mother. Since he’d forced the divorce, she was a shell of a person. She couldn’t survive any more of his “lessons.” “Silas, think!” I screamed, tears finally breaking through. “I’ve been standing here in front of a hundred people! How could I have kidnapped her?” But Silas was beyond logic. He called the hospital, his voice cold and final. “Turn off all the life support equipment in Martha Raymond’s room.” “NO!” I lunged for him, but his security team pinned me down. “Get the car,” Silas barked. “We’re going to save Elaine.” I watched his back as he sprinted away. The panic was a tidal wave, but I forced myself up. I ran. I ran until my feet were shredded by my wedding shoes, until I was barefoot on the asphalt, pushing toward the hospital. But I was too late. I burst into the room and saw the flat line on the monitor. The silence was deafening. I stood there, frozen, my soul being ripped from my body by the sheer weight of the grief. Suddenly, someone appeared at the door and locked it from the inside. A bitter smell of gasoline hit me. “Elaine’s orders,” the man whispered before slipping out the window. The flames began to lick at the curtains. I had nowhere to go. In the thick, black smoke, I sank to the floor next to my mother’s bed and closed my eyes. On the other side of town, Silas reached the docks and “rescued” Elaine. She was perfectly fine, clinging to him and sobbing about her trauma. But as he held her, a sickening dread began to settle in Silas’s gut. He kept seeing Olivia’s face at the wedding—not angry, just… hollow. He needed to go back. He needed to finish the wedding. He’d loved her for so long; he just needed her to be “good.” But when he returned to the venue, Olivia was gone. Then, his assistant called, his voice shaking. “Mr. Thomas… there’s been a fire at the hospital. It was Mrs. Raymond’s wing. I think Olivia was inside.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452025”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The spring breeze in the Berkshires was supposed to be a gift. I stood in the open field, watching my kite catch a thermal, soaring effortlessly into the blue. I smiled, capturing the moment on my phone—a rare second of peace. But Macy’s kite was a different story. It thrashed against the grass, a broken-winged bird. Her eyes welled with practiced tears, and the moment Judy saw them, his protective instincts curdled into a dark, irrational rage. He screamed that I would pay for it. He claimed I was “flaunting” my skill, intentionally making Macy look small and incompetent in front of our friends. To him, my grace was a weapon I’d used to wound her ego. And to even the score, he decided he would fly me like a kite instead. I shook, my knees hitting the dirt as I begged for mercy. He didn’t blink. He just watched with a cold, detached amusement as his men followed his orders, tethering heavy-duty paracord to the roll bar of his custom Jeep. As the engine roared and the Jeep surged forward, I was yanked off my feet. I was dragged through the brush at high speed, the thorns and low-hanging branches shredding my skin until I was a map of jagged red lines. After that initial orbit of agony, he switched tactics. He launched the heavy-lift drone—a piece of industrial tech he’d brought for “fun”—and hoisted me into the sky. “You’ve always been so arrogant, Talia,” his voice crackled through the radio, chilled with disdain. “You love being up high? Fine. Stay there until you learn how to treat Macy with some respect.” The atmospheric pressure at that height began to wreck me. Capillaries beneath my skin burst, and a slow, steady stream of blood began to coat my limbs. Down below, inside the heated luxury tent, Judy was holding Macy’s hand. He was meticulously helping her pick out a new designer kite to fly. It wasn’t until they’d finished their intimate little celebration that they remembered I was still suspended in the clouds. That was when the driver’s frantic call came through. “Mr. Osborn… the line snapped. Mrs. Osborn… she fell. She’s… God, there’s nothing left of her.” 1 The moment they strapped me into the harness, my body wouldn’t stop betraying me. I was shaking so violently I couldn’t stand. I crawled toward Judy, clutching at the hem of his jeans, my voice a ragged whisper of desperation. “Judy, please. I’ll leave. I won’t ever interrupt your time with her again. Just let me go.” The tears were hot, blurring my vision. “Judy, we’re married. For the sake of everything we used to be, I’m begging you.” Macy stood beside him, twisting her fingers, the corners of her eyes pink. “Judy, I’m so sorry… this is all my fault. I’m just so clumsy. I shouldn’t have even tried to fly a kite; I just embarrassed you. Please don’t be mad at Talia. I’m sure she didn’t mean to make fun of me. It’s just because I’m… you know, I didn’t grow up with things like this.” Judy looked down at me, his expression devoid of anything resembling the man I’d married. “I’ve spoiled you, Talia. You knew Macy had a hard life. You knew she never got to do these things as a kid, and yet you chose today to humiliate her in front of everyone. Apologize. Now.” “No… I didn’t… that’s not what happened…” My lips trembled, but before I could finish, Judy kicked my hand away. “Still lying. After everything Macy has done to try and bridge the gap with you, you’re still a spiteful bitch.” I coughed, the metallic taste of blood blooming in my mouth. I watched as he reached out, gently taking Macy’s hand in his, his voice dropping to a tender murmur. “It’s not your fault, Macy. You’re too good, too kind to see how she really is. You wanted to fly a kite today? I’m going to give you a show you’ll never forget.” “Murphy,” he barked at his head of security. “Tie her down.” I felt the light leave my world. I watched them secure my harness to the drone’s winch, which was anchored to the Jeep. How had the man who once promised to be my sanctuary turned into my executioner? All for a woman’s bruised ego. All for a lie I didn’t tell. “You like the view from the cockpit, don’t you, Talia? Why don’t you go see it for yourself?” Judy climbed into the Jeep with Macy, never looking back. As the vehicle lurched forward, he hit the remote trigger. I was yanked into the air, dangling behind the speeding Jeep. My body slammed into branches and skipped over jagged rocks as we tore through the trail. The cord bit deep into my waist, slicing through my clothes and into my flesh. The pain was a living thing, screaming through my nerves. “Judy! Stop! You’re killing me!” “Judy, maybe we should let her down,” Macy whispered, leaning her head against his chest, her voice loud enough for the radio to pick up. “The way she’s screaming… it’s making me nervous.” Judy leaned out the window, shouting over the wind. “You never learn, do you? Since you aren’t sorry yet, you can stay up there until you are.” He pressed the button again. I saw the look on Macy’s face as she turned her head to look at me through the rear window. There was no fear there. Only a slow, triumphant smile. A second later, the world dropped away. I was winched upward, higher and higher, into the thinning, freezing air. 2 The pressure drop hit like a physical blow. My eardrums popped with a sickening crack, and blood began to leak from my nose and eyes. I choked on the copper fluid, screaming into the radio. “Judy! I apologize! I’m sorry! Put me down, please, just put me down!” The driver’s voice, hesitant and shaky, broke through. “Sir, at this altitude… her body won’t hold up. This is dangerous.” “Just drive the damn car,” Judy’s voice cut through the wind, crystal clear and cold. “Whatever she’s feeling doesn’t compare to a fraction of the pain she caused Macy today.” The driver tried to protest, but Macy’s voice chimed in, sweet as saccharine. “Oh, don’t worry about her. Talia used to be a pilot, remember? She’s used to high altitudes. This is probably nothing to her.” “You hear that, Talia?” Judy yelled. “You stay up there and say you’re sorry. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times. If you miss a single one, you aren’t coming down!” I let out a broken, hollow laugh that turned into a sob of blood. Judy, I never knew you could be this cruel. Hypoxia and hypothermia began to settle in. My consciousness flickered like a dying candle. I began to mutter the apologies, over and over, a mindless mantra, until the world finally went black. In the darkness, I went back. Back to the university where we met. I was the star of the aviation program, the girl with the perfect grades and the natural instinct for the sky. I was supposed to be a legend. Everyone wanted a piece of me, but I only wanted Judy. He was so gentle then. He took care of everything. When I started flying solo missions, he was the one waiting on the tarmac with coffee and a blanket. When he took over his family’s empire, Osborn Corp, he asked me to marry him in front of the whole world. We were the “It” couple. I was fierce then. I was confident. But I gave it all up—my wings, my career—to carry his child. The roar of the wind snapped me back for a second. I wasn’t Captain Talia Osborn anymore. I was a broken doll in the sky. Everything had ended the moment Macy appeared. I had just finished my twelve-week ultrasound. Judy was walking me home, his hand on the small of my back, both of us glowing with the secret of our new life. Then, we saw her standing at our gates. She threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “Judy, I didn’t want to leave you back then… they forced me. I have nowhere else to go. Please don’t turn me away.” Judy’s heart didn’t just soften; it completely dissolved. Macy moved into our guest room the next day. Soon, they didn’t even pretend. Macy liked spicy food, so Judy stopped caring about my pregnancy diet. He spent hours in the kitchen making elaborate Szechuan dishes just for her. When I had a fever that wouldn’t break, Judy left me at the hospital alone because Macy called him saying she had a “craving” for a specific cake from a bakery fifty miles away. I sat in that sterile hallway, rubbing my belly and crying. I told myself it would change once the baby came. I stayed quiet, hoping his own flesh and blood would bring him back to me. But my baby never had a chance. Macy handed me a glass of milk one night. Two hours later, the cramping started. I didn’t even make it to the ER before I lost her. I remember holding that tiny, perfectly formed girl in the hospital bed, shaking so hard I thought my bones would shatter. And then, I saw Macy in the doorway. 3 “Macy, what did you do? You put something in that milk! Give me back my daughter!” I lunged for her, but I didn’t even touch a hair on her head before Judy threw me to the floor. “Macy was trying to be nice to you! If you couldn’t keep the baby, it’s because your body is useless,” he hissed. He signaled the staff to drag me out. “Get her out of here. I won’t have her ruining Macy’s rest with this insanity.” It was ten degrees below zero. I stood outside in nothing but a thin hospital gown all night. That night ruined my health forever. I could never pass a flight physical again. I could never fly. The memory of the cold brought me back to the present. The wind was howling. Below me, they were back in the tent. “Judy, she’s been up there a long time. Do you think she’s okay? It’s so high…” “Macy, I bought that rig for myself. I trust the equipment. Why are you so worried about her?” Judy sounded hesitant for a moment. “But since the miscarriage, she hasn’t been the same. If something happens…” “She’s fine. Those pills you got for her—the ones the doctor said were the ‘best’ for ‘cleaning out’ her system after the loss? They were top of the line. She’s stronger than she looks.” Macy giggled. “Besides, you told her she could come down when she finished the apologies. She’s probably just being stubborn, giving us the silent treatment.” “Spiteful bitch,” Judy muttered, his voice warming up again. “At least you and the baby are well-behaved.” “Of course,” Macy whispered. “You said only I could give you your real firstborn. We’re going to be so good for you.” I heard her pull his hand toward her. “She scared me so much today, Judy. Can you feel how fast my heart is beating?” The sounds that followed over the radio were intimate and revolting. And in that moment, the last of my heart turned to ash. Judy had killed my baby. He’d given me those “supplements.” He’d orchestrated the “miscarriage” so Macy could have the first child. I had been grieving a tragedy while living with my murderers. I didn’t want to survive anymore. As if the universe heard me, a massive gust of wind slammed into the drone. The paracord, frayed from the dragging and the tension, finally gave up. I felt the snap. I was no longer tied to the earth. I was falling. I felt my bones shatter in my mind before I even hit the ground. I closed my eyes and smiled. Finally. On the other side of the mountain, a black Maybach was cutting through the mountain pass. “Sir, I think something just fell from the sky…” The window rolled down, revealing the sharp, icy profile of a man. The air in the car filled with the scent of cold cedar and rain. “Go check it out.” The weightlessness ended. The impact was a symphony of agony, a white-hot explosion that tore through my chest. Am I dead? Good. “Talia? Talia, is that you?” A voice was calling me. My eyes were filled with blood, my vision a red haze. I realized I was caught in the thick branches of an old oak tree. A pair of strong arms reached up, pulling me down with terrifying gentleness. “Talia, what did he do to you?” His voice broke. I recognized him. Gideon Blackwood. The heir to the Blackwood empire. The man Judy hated more than anyone in the world. I wondered if he was going to finish me off. But my body, despite my soul’s exhaustion, wanted to live. “Help… please…” “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” He held me close, his stride fast and steady as he carried me toward his car. The last thing I thought before I slipped away was how strange it was that my husband’s greatest enemy was the only one who treated me like I was precious. 4 When I woke up, I was in the back of the Maybach. Every breath tasted like iron. “Talia, stay with me. Who did this? Where is Judy?” I tried to smile, but I only coughed up more blood. “Faster!” Gideon roared at his driver. “Sir, I’m doing eighty on a mountain road, we’ve already cleared eight red lights—” “I don’t care! Call the hospital. I want the best surgeons waiting at the door. Now!” Gideon’s hand was on my face, his thumb trembling as he wiped blood from my cheek. “Don’t you dare close your eyes, Talia.” His phone rang—a sharp, intrusive sound. “Sir, the local hospital says they can’t take her. Apparently, some ‘high-profile’ donor has bought out the surgical wing for the day for his wife…” “Call the chopper,” Gideon hissed, his voice vibrating with a power I’d never heard. “Get my private medical team to the city center. I want a landing pad cleared in twenty minutes. If anyone stands in the way, buy the building and fire them.” I was stunned. The Blackwoods and the Osborns were supposed to be equals, but this—this kind of shadow power was something Judy never mentioned. “Gideon… why?” I whispered, my voice barely a thread. “We’re supposed to be enemies.” “We aren’t anything of the sort, Talia,” he said, and for a second, I saw a flash of something ancient and agonizing in his eyes. We made it to the private facility. Gideon carried me inside like I was made of glass. He didn’t let go until the nurses forced him to. “Dr. Murphy, save her,” Gideon said, and then, to my shock, he actually bowed his head to the surgeon. I survived. It took ten hours of surgery and a dozen units of blood, but I stayed. When the anesthesia wore off, Gideon was there, looking like he’d aged a decade. “Talia,” he whispered. “The doctor says you’re stable. I have to step out to handle some… business. I expect Judy will be looking for you soon. If you need anything, use this phone. My number is the only one in it.” I nodded, drifting back into a heavy sleep. But peace didn’t last. I was jolted awake by the sound of boots in the hallway. My door was kicked open. “Here! We found a match! Move!” Nurses and doctors I didn’t recognize swarmed me. They didn’t ask. They pinned me down and drove a needle into my arm, drawing vial after vial of blood. “Wait… stop…” I tried to reach for the phone Gideon left, but a nurse snatched it away. “We found her! The CEO’s wife is going to make it! We have the match!” My heart went cold. The CEO’s wife. The lead doctor stripped off my oxygen mask and started unhooking my IVs. “Move her to the prep room! If we don’t save Mrs. Osborn, this whole hospital is going to burn! Move!” I fought, but I was a ghost of a person. They dragged me through the halls, my arms already bruised and weeping blood from the rapid draws. “Who are you?” I croaked. “Count your blessings, girl. You’re saving a very important woman. Mrs. Osborn had a post-miscarriage hemorrhage. We’ve exhausted the city’s supply of Type A. You’re the only match we found in the database. You’re a hero.” I closed my eyes. Judy. He was here. And even now, he was draining the literal life out of me to save the woman who had helped him kill my child. They didn’t stop. They kept drawing. My breathing became shallow, my lips turning a bruised purple. My heart, already weakened by the fall, began to falter. “Damn, she’s crashing,” the doctor muttered, looking at the full blood bags with zero remorse. “Whatever. We got what we needed. Get these to Mrs. Osborn. We’ll deal with the body later. What a mess.” In the operating room next door, Judy was pacing like a caged animal. A doctor ran up to him, holding the bags of blood. “Mr. Osborn, we found a donor! She’s going to be fine!” Judy stared at the blood. For a split second, a wave of inexplicable nausea hit him. An instinct he couldn’t name told him something was horribly wrong. But then he thought of Macy, and he nodded. “Go. Save her.” As the doctor vanished, Judy pulled out his phone. “Murphy,” he said into the receiver. “Get that bitch down from the drone. I’m tired of her games. Her screaming probably stressed Macy out and caused this relapse. Bring her to the hospital. I want her on her knees apologizing the moment Macy wakes up.” There was a long silence on the other end. Then, the driver’s voice came through, thick with horror. “Sir… the line snapped hours ago. We’ve searched the base of the mountain. We haven’t found her body yet, but… from that height? She’s probably just… gone. The coyotes might have…”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452024”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Before my best friend, April, threw herself into the pages of that trashy billionaire romance novel, she made me a promise. She swore, with the kind of confidence only a woman with a plan can have, that conquering the corporate ladder would be child’s play. She bragged that she’d secure a three-hundred-million-dollar payout within a year and come back to take me on a world tour. I actually believed her. I thought she’d breeze through the plot, collect her check, and be home for Christmas. I didn’t expect the story to go completely off the rails. Instead of being the powerful fiancée to the CEO, she was being systematically dismantled by a manipulative, “pick-me” secretary who seemed to make it her life’s mission to see April destroyed. The girl had nearly lost her job half a dozen times. But the breaking point? The secretary had forced April—who was shivering with a 102-degree fever—out into a torrential downpour to inspect a stalled, skeletal construction site just to torment her. I was beyond livid. I forced the System to bridge me in. I didn’t care about the cost; I was going to drag my friend out of that hellscape myself. The System gave me two choices. I could inhabit the body of the CEO’s “Inaccessible High School Sweetheart”—the classic trope—or the company’s CFO. I rejected both. I played my highest-tier authority card. The second I materialized in that world, the air shifted. A chorus of disciplined voices rang out around me, synchronized and heavy with respect. “Good morning, Madam Beaumont!” … The elevator doors slid open to a sea of tailored suits. The elite of the corporate world froze in their tracks, bowing their heads in unison. “Madam Beaumont.” “Welcome back, Madam Beaumont.” I gave a curt nod, my eyes fixed straight ahead as I strode through the lobby. I didn’t have time for pleasantries. As I approached the CEO’s corner office, a voice—sugary-sweet and utterly fake—drifted toward me. “Oh, Madam Beaumont! What a wonderful surprise! If I’d known you were coming, I would have arranged a proper reception.” It was Linda, my “son” Xander’s executive assistant. She rushed forward, her hands reaching for my designer tote with an eager, practiced smile. I pivoted slightly, letting her hands grasp thin air. “Where is April?” That was the only thing that mattered. Linda’s hands stiffened for a fraction of a second before she pulled them back, her smile never wavering. “Miss Dalton? Oh, she’s currently on-site at the Riverside Project, conducting a safety inspection.” “An inspection? Today?” I glanced at the floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, the sky was a bruised charcoal. Rain hammered against the glass, blurring the skyline of the city into a gray smudge. Even the construction crews would have been called off in this weather. What the hell was she “inspecting”? “Go get her,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. Linda hesitated, her expression turning into a mask of faux-concern. “Madam, I’m afraid that’s not possible. Mr. Beaumont personally assigned this task. He was quite clear: Miss Dalton is to remain on-site for five hours to oversee the perimeter.” She checked her watch. “It’s only been two and a half hours. If we bring her back early, Xander… well, he won’t be pleased.” “I will deal with Xander myself,” I snapped. I ignored her and looked past her at the senior management team hovering in the hallway. “Go to the Riverside site. Bring April Dalton back. Now.” The executives scrambled. “Right away, Madam. We’ll send a car immediately.” I nodded, satisfied. It seemed that even though I had stepped down from the Chairmanship three years ago, no one had forgotten whose name was on the building’s foundation. “Don’t bother with a company car. Use mine.” I wasn’t waiting another minute. I signaled my head of security with a look and turned on my heel. The suit-clad entourage followed me like a wake behind a ship. The Beaumont Matriarch heading to a muddy, unfinished construction site in a storm? If I so much as tripped, half the board of directors would lose their jobs. Ten minutes later, the car pulled up to the skeletal remains of the Riverside Project. The site was a graveyard of steel and concrete. In the middle of the mud stood a lone figure: April. She was huddled under a concrete pillar, holding her leather handbag over her head as a pathetic shield against the rain. She was soaked to the bone, her frame trembling so violently I could see it from the car. Her lips were a terrifying shade of blue, her eyes glazed over. I threw the door open before the car had even fully stopped. I draped my cashmere coat over her, pulling her against me. “April! Stay with me!” “I’m taking her to the hospital,” I barked. My security detail moved like a well-oiled machine—one holding a massive umbrella, another handing me a warm towel, a third already on the phone with the nearest ER. I gripped her ice-cold hand, guiding her toward the car, but Linda had followed us. She stood nearby under her own umbrella, letting out a heavy, performative sigh. “Madam Beaumont, I really must say, Miss Dalton is being a bit… fragile, isn’t she? If she can’t handle a little rain, how can she expect to carry the Beaumont name as Xander’s wife?” I stopped. I turned to her, my gaze cold enough to freeze the raindrops mid-air. “Linda, who told you that the price of admission into this family was physical torture?” Linda blinked, momentarily stunned. “Miss Dalton has always been pampered, I only meant—” “I was married into this family for thirty years,” I cut her off. “And in three decades, no one ever told me I had to stand in a thunderstorm at a dead construction site to prove my worth. You, however, are an assistant. Since when do you set the rules for the Beaumonts? Who gave you that authority?” Linda’s face went bone-white. “Madam, I didn’t mean—” Just then, a black Maybach roared into the site entrance. A man stepped out—tall, sharp-featured, and radiating a cold, arrogant energy. Xander Beaumont. He didn’t look at April first. He looked at Linda to make sure she wasn’t wet, then turned his frown toward me. “Mother? What are you doing here? What’s going on?” I looked at him. This was the hero of the book—the “cold CEO” who had been putting my best friend through a meat grinder. My supposed son. Before I could speak, Linda threw herself toward him, her eyes instantly welling with tears. “Xander! Madam Beaumont is trying to take Miss Dalton away. I tried to explain your orders, but she… she told me I had no right to speak.” Xander patted her hand absently, his irritation shifting toward me. “Mother, Linda is my personal staff. Please show her some professional courtesy. The inspection was my idea, not hers.” “I wanted April to build some character,” he continued, his voice devoid of empathy. “She needs to understand the grit it takes to run a company like this. It’s for her own good.” I looked down at April in my arms. Her face was flushed with fever, her head lolling against my shoulder. She was barely conscious. “Character building?” I asked, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. “Checking a stalled site in a fever, in a storm—is that grit, or is that abuse, Xander?” Xander’s expression remained stony. “Mother, when you and Dad started this company from a garage, you dealt with worse. If she wants to be my wife, she needs to handle it. If a little rain gives her a fever, it just proves she’s too soft.” He cast a fond look at Linda. “Linda grew up in the foster system. She knows what real hardship is. She wouldn’t be complaining.” Linda looked down modestly. “I’m just used to it, Mr. Beaumont. It’s no big deal.” I felt a sharp, bitter laugh bubble up in my throat. “Xander, your father and I worked hard because we were poor and had no choice. But the Beaumonts aren’t poor anymore. We don’t need to ‘harden’ our family members by inducing pneumonia. This isn’t character building. It’s cruelty.” Xander’s jaw tightened. “Mother!” I smiled, though there was no warmth in it. I turned my focus to Linda. “Actually, Linda, you’re right. You are much more accustomed to hardship, aren’t you? Since April is clearly too ‘fragile’ and is heading to the hospital, you can take over her shift.” Linda’s eyes went wide. “The Riverside site needs an eight-hour daily inspection. Thirty days a month. Rain or shine,” I said. “I’d love to see what ‘real grit’ looks like on you.” Linda’s face drained of all color. Xander stepped forward, scowling. “Mother, Linda is a woman. She can’t be expected to stand on a muddy site all day. It’s too much.” I scoffed. “Oh? So you do realize it’s hard for a woman? Is April not a woman, Xander?” He opened his mouth, then closed it, finding no retort. Linda bit her lip, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Xander, I think Madam Beaumont just doesn’t like me…” Xander waved a hand dismissively, his tone becoming clipped and frustrated. “Fine. Whatever. Just take April to the hospital. It’ll be bad for PR if she actually gets sick on company grounds.” “I have a contract to negotiate,” he added, turning back to his car. “Linda, you’re with me.” He didn’t look back as they climbed into the Maybach and sped away. I immediately got April into my car. As we pulled away, I looked at her sleeping, pale face. Hang in there, April, I thought. I’m taking over from here. The ER light stayed on for twenty minutes before the doctor came out. He told me that if we’d been thirty minutes later, she would have been headed straight for the ICU. I stationed two of my personal guards at her door and called in Mrs. Gable, my most trusted housekeeper. “Mrs. Gable, pay attention,” I said. “April hates cilantro. She won’t touch radishes or green peppers. Her stomach is sensitive, so she needs small, frequent meals. Treat her like she’s my own daughter. Because she’s going to be the next Mrs. Beaumont, whether my son likes it or not.” Mrs. Gable nodded solemnly. I stepped into the hallway to make a call, but my guard approached me quickly. “Madam, Linda is here. She says she’s here to visit Miss Dalton. She brought ‘healing soup’.” I paused. A visit? This quickly? I turned back toward the room. As I pushed the door open, I saw Linda sitting by the bed. She was holding a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, pressing it against April’s weak lips. April turned her head away, her voice a thready whisper. “I don’t want it…” “Miss Dalton, please,” Linda said, her voice a soft, melodic coo. “I made this broth myself. It’s for your stomach. You’re sick; you have to eat.” She shoved the spoon forward again. April pushed it away, and some of the hot liquid splashed onto April’s hand. Her skin instantly turned a bright, angry red. Linda didn’t even flinch. She just smiled and scooped another spoonful. “It’s okay. Let’s try again. Open up—” “Put it down.” Linda looked up, her expression a mask of innocence. “Madam Beaumont! I just wanted to bring some soup for Miss Dalton. I felt so bad about earlier.” I ignored her and looked at Mrs. Gable. “Smell it.” Mrs. Gable leaned in, her brow furrowing deep. “Madam… this has Asarum and Pinellia in it.” My heart skipped a beat. For someone with a high fever, those herbs could cause a dangerous spike in heart rate or even respiratory distress. Linda’s face shifted slightly. “Mrs. Gable, don’t be dramatic. I just found a recipe online for wellness. I’m trying to help.” I looked at her with pure disdain. “We both know what you’re trying to do.” Linda bit her lip, her tone suddenly hardening. “Madam, you’re only targeting me because Xander values my work. But Xander is a man with his own mind. He’ll choose who he wants to marry. You don’t get the final say.” I let out a soft laugh. “Watch me.” A few minutes later, the door swung open and Xander stormed in. He saw Linda’s red eyes and his face darkened. “Mother, what now? Linda texted me saying you were berating her again.” I pointed to the bowl of soup. “She brought a ‘wellness broth’ laced with herbs that are toxic to someone in April’s condition.” Linda shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “Xander, I didn’t know! I just searched for something healthy online. I was only trying to be nice!” Xander turned to me, his voice dismissive. “Mother, Linda isn’t a doctor. She probably just made a mistake. There’s no need to make a federal case out of a bowl of soup.” “If it’s so harmless,” I said, pointing to the bowl, “have her drink the rest of it.” Xander didn’t move. After a tense silence, he turned to Linda. “Don’t bother trying so hard next time. Some people don’t deserve your kindness.” Linda nodded, looking small and victimized. “I’m sorry, Xander. I just wanted to help. Maybe… maybe I should stay and look after her? To make up for it?” “No,” Xander said, sounding bored. “Let’s go. We have the merger meeting in the morning.” Linda followed him out. As she passed me, she tilted her head just enough for me to see the smirk playing on her lips. Her eyes said it all: See? He’ll always choose me. The door clicked shut. I walked to the bedside. April was half-awake, her eyes unfocused, her cheeks burning with fever. This wasn’t the April I knew. My April was a firecracker. She had a laugh that could fill a room and enough ambition to move mountains. Now, she was drowning in an oversized hospital gown, her wrists so thin they looked like they might snap. I tucked the blanket around her. In her delirium, she murmured, “…I’m sorry. I was useless.” I clenched my fists. Xander. Linda. If you want to play this game, I’m going to flip the table. Two weeks later, April was discharged. Her parents came to see me, their faces etched with worry. “Madam Beaumont, we appreciate everything you’ve done, but… maybe we should just call off the engagement. We don’t want our daughter to suffer anymore.” I looked them in the eye. “I understand. But I give you my word: as long as I am breathing, April will be the one standing at the head of the Beaumont family.” The wedding remained set for May 18th. The day of the ceremony, the hotel was a fortress of white roses and champagne. The elite were out in full force. April sat in the dressing room, a vision in custom lace, holding her bouquet with a quiet, steady hand. I stood by the window and checked my watch. 9:15 AM. The groom’s motorcade should have arrived at the Dalton estate by now. My phone buzzed. It was my head of security. “Madam, Mr. Beaumont hasn’t left. The motorcade is still parked at the hotel entrance.” “Where is he?” “At his private villa in Emerald Bay.” I didn’t hesitate. I drove straight there. Inside the villa, Linda was sobbing as if her heart were breaking. Xander was holding her, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. “Linda, stop crying. Please.” Linda choked out a sob. “Xander, if you marry her today, I’ll have nothing. I grew up with no one, and then I found you… If I lose you, I don’t want to live.” Xander pulled her closer. “I won’t marry her. You’re the only one I love.” I walked into the room without knocking. They both bolted upright. Xander’s face went stiff. “Mother? What are you doing here?” “The wedding starts at noon,” I said calmly. “I’m not going.” Xander tightened his grip on Linda. “The wedding is off.” Linda’s sobbing slowed, a flash of triumph in her eyes. “Xander,” I said, staring him down. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Are you coming?” He leaned back, his tone arrogant. “Maybe. If you agree to give Linda a ten-percent stake in the company. She’s the one I truly want to be with. April is just a business arrangement you forced on me. I’ll give her the title of Mrs. Beaumont, but the real power stays with Linda.” I let out a cold snort. “Ten percent? Beaumont Group is valued at eighty billion dollars. You want me to hand over eight billion to an assistant?” “She deserves it,” he insisted. “April is the one who deserves it.” My smile vanished. “Linda will never see a dime of Beaumont money.” Xander laughed, a jagged, ugly sound. “Then we have nothing to talk about. We both know why the Daltons want this marriage. If I don’t show up today, April becomes the laughingstock of the city. So does our family. She can’t afford that humiliation. Neither can you.” He actually thought he was the prize. He thought without him, the world stopped turning. I didn’t argue. I turned and walked toward the door. At the threshold, I looked back at him. “Xander. Don’t regret this.” He reclined on the sofa, pulling Linda into his lap. “I won’t.” Thirty minutes later, Xander’s phone rang. It was his best friend, Marcus. “Xander! Man, your mom is a legend! Thirty percent of the voting shares and the official heirship? All tied to the marriage? If you marry April, you’re officially the King of Beaumont Group. Congrats, man!” Xander’s hand froze on the phone. “What?” “Wait, are you playing dumb? The whole city knows. Oh, and I heard your younger brother just landed from London. I see him there now…” The voice on the other end faded into static as Xander bolted upright. “Get the car! We’re going to the hotel! Now!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452023”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was in such a rush this morning that I grabbed his phone instead of mine. I didn’t even realize the mistake until I was standing outside my best friend’s apartment, clutching the gold-embossed engagement invitations I’d just picked up from the printers. I wanted to surprise her. The moment I stepped into her foyer, the phone in my hand buzzed. A notification popped up: WiFi Connected. My heart did a slow, sickening roll in my chest. Garrett had told me he’d never been here. He’d barely even met her, or so he said. My best friend, Melody, looked up from the sofa. She didn’t look surprised to see me, or the phone. She just offered a thin, mocking smile. “Stop lying to yourself, Donna,” she said, her voice airy and casual. “For the last three years, every time he told you he was on a business trip? He was right here, in my bed.” I looked down at the invitations. Ten years of friendship with her. Three years of a life built with him. It all felt like a punchline to a joke I wasn’t in on. She reached into a side drawer and pulled out a slip of paper, waving it like a trophy. It was a lab report. Two months pregnant. “The baby needs a legal father,” she said, her eyes narrowing with a predatory glint. “If you still want to marry him, fine. You can be our live-in nanny. Free childcare, right?” The front door clicked open. Garrett walked in, carrying a basket of organic fruit, looking every bit the doting partner. When he saw me, the smile on his face didn’t just fade—it calcified into a mask of stone. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply folded the invitation, tucked it into my pocket, and walked toward the door. From this moment on, the script of my life was being rewritten. And these two were no longer in the cast. 1 “What the hell are you doing running around with my phone?” Garrett kicked off his loafers and tossed the fruit onto the entryway table. He glanced at the ultrasound photo in Melody’s hand, then back at me. After a momentary flicker of panic, he straightened his cuffs and sat down beside her. “Since you’ve seen it, there’s no point in lying,” he said. He looked up at me, his expression remarkably calm. “The report is real. Melody is pregnant. It’s mine. Almost eight weeks.” In my pocket, I felt the sharp edges of the invitation crumple against my palm. “And?” I whispered. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Garrett frowned, clearly annoyed by my lack of hysterics. “What’s with the attitude? I haven’t even brought up the fact that you went through my private messages.” He took a sip of water from a glass on the table, his tone shifting into something terrifyingly reasonable. “Look, after those two injuries you had, the doctors said your body couldn’t handle the strain of a pregnancy. You can barely handle a long week at the office without collapsing. I want a family, Donna. Can you give me that? No. But Melody can. She’s doing this for us.” He leaned forward, entirely sincere. “When the baby is born, it’ll call you Mom. You get a child without the physical toll. Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?” Ten years. I had gone hungry so he could finish his degree. I had signed my name to his debts when his first startup failed. I had nearly died twice—once in a hit-and-run meant for him. And now, he was telling me that cheating on me with my best friend was an act of charity. Melody leaned back, crossing her legs. “Donna, we grew up together. You’re the only sister I’ve ever had.” She lowered her eyes, her voice turning soft and fragile. “You know about my struggles… my clinical depression. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it through these years. We can all live together. My baby will be your baby.” She tilted her chin up, a flash of victory in her eyes. “You’ve always wanted a family. Well, now it’s complete.” Garrett patted her hand. “See how mature she’s being? Not like you, always so grim and moody lately.” He reached into his leather briefcase and tossed a document onto the coffee table. “It’s a supplemental agreement. I had my lawyer draft it.” “The wedding goes ahead as planned. You’ll still be my wife. But officially, Melody moves in as my ‘cousin.’ She needs the support during the pregnancy.” I stared at the paper. “A cousin? You want her to live in our house as your cousin?” “Yes,” Garrett nodded. “Her mental state is fragile. I can’t leave her alone. What if she has another episode?” “And after the baby is born?” I asked, my lips twisting into a ghost of a smile. “We’ll register it under your name. Melody is young; she shouldn’t be tied down by a child’s paperwork yet.” Garrett clicked a fountain pen and held it out to me. “I’ll increase your monthly allowance by ten thousand. That’s your budget for the nursery and the help. Donna, don’t be greedy. I’m providing you with the best life possible. What more could you want?” He looked into my eyes, and I realized with a shudder that he truly believed he was the hero of this story. To him, I was a spent asset—a loyal dog that had grown too old to hunt but was still useful for guarding the house. Melody took the pen and forced it into my hand. “Sign it, Donna. If you don’t, you’re throwing away ten years for nothing. You don’t even have a career anymore. Without Garrett, how will you even survive?” The pen dug into my skin. I looked at the two of them, and for the first time, the tragedy of it all felt like a farce. Ten years of my life, traded for a contract that made me a pro-bono nanny in my own home. I set the pen down. “I’m not signing this.” Garrett’s face darkened instantly. “Don’t be ungrateful. I’ve lived with the guilt of what happened to you for years. This child is a gift to you. What is there to fight about?” He stood up, looming over me. “You know how delicate Melody is. If you stress her out and something happens to the baby, that’s on you. I’m giving you one last chance. Sign it.” I looked at her. Melody had been my shadow since the orphanage. When she was diagnosed with depression, I stayed up every night for a year just to make sure she was still breathing. I thought I was saving her life. It turns out she was just using her life to hijack mine. I stood up and pulled the invitation from my pocket, dropping it into the trash can. “I’ll think about it.” I turned and walked out. Behind me, I heard Garrett sit back down. “I knew you’d come around,” he called out. “Make sure you pick out the rings tomorrow. Melody said she liked that limited edition watch—get one for her while you’re at the jeweler.” 2 That night, I went back to the penthouse we shared. I punched the code into the smart lock. Error. I froze. I tried again. Incorrect Code. The mechanical female voice echoed in the silent hallway. I stared at the door I had walked through for five years, suddenly feeling like a trespasser. Two hours later, the elevator dinked open. Garrett walked out, Melody’s arm looped through his. “What are you doing? Standing here like a gargoyle?” Garrett asked, spotting me. “The code is wrong,” I said. Garrett tapped his forehead. “Right. Melody said the old numbers were bad luck. Bad juju for the baby. I changed it.” He stepped forward and punched in Melody’s birthday. The lock clicked open. I followed them inside, but when I reached for my slippers in the foyer, they were gone. In their place was a pair of plush, brand-new slippers in Melody’s size. “Your old ones were falling apart, so I tossed them,” Garrett said over his shoulder. “Melody is moving in; she needed space for her things.” He led her straight toward the primary suite. I followed, stopping dead at the threshold. My desk had been cleared. My books and files—the remnants of the career I’d put on hold to support his—were shoved into cardboard boxes. The walk-in closet was hanging wide open; half of my clothes were gone, replaced by silk dresses and designer bags I recognized as hers. “Garrett, what the hell is this?” I pointed at the decimated closet. Garrett was pouring a glass of lukewarm water, not even bothering to look at me. “She’s moving in. She needs room.” “I had the housekeeper move your things to the guest room. You’ll be sleeping there for the next few months.” Melody was already reclining on the bed, scrolling through her phone. She looked up, her eyes brimming with faux-concern. “Donna, you aren’t mad, are you? My nerves have been so shot lately… I can’t sleep in new places. This room is so much quieter. It’s better for the baby. You’ve always been so good to me; I knew you wouldn’t mind.” I looked at her face—the same face that had wept on my shoulder a thousand times—and felt a sudden, cold lack of desire to argue. The next morning, I sat at the breakfast bar with a bowl of oatmeal. Garrett walked out of the bedroom, phone to his ear. He hit the speakerphone button right in front of me. “Yeah, is this the wedding planner? This is Garrett. I need to change the name on the welcome signage. The bride’s name is Melody.” My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. There was a pause on the other end. “Mr. Morgan… what about Ms. Thorne?” Garrett glanced at me. “Ms. Thorne? Oh, she’s the maid of honor now.” He hung up and took a sip of his coffee. “Melody’s dream has always been a big wedding. With her condition being so unstable, I need you to play along. We’ve been together forever anyway; the ceremony is just a formality for us. Let her have the ‘bride’ title. It’s just a role.” He said it so casually, as if he were asking me to pass the salt. Melody emerged from the bedroom wearing one of my silk robes, wrapping her arms around Garrett’s neck. “You’re the best, Garrett.” She turned to me, smiling like an angel. “Donna, you’ll be my maid of honor, won’t you? I want you to see my happiness from the best seat in the house.” Garrett tapped the counter. “Well? Don’t be petty, Donna. It’s just a label.” I looked down at my oatmeal. Ten years of sacrifice, erased by a single sentence. “Fine,” I said. Garrett beamed. “That’s my girl. I knew we could be a team.” 3 “The gala is tonight. Wear something understated. Don’t upstage Melody.” Garrett tossed an old, grey cocktail dress onto the sofa. Behind him stood Melody, draped in custom couture, wearing a diamond-encrusted watch that probably cost more than my first car. “Garrett, how do I look?” Melody spun in front of the mirror. Garrett stepped toward her, adjusting her necklace with a tender touch I hadn’t seen in years. “Beautiful. You’re going to be the only thing anyone looks at tonight.” He turned to me, his brow furrowing. “Why are you still sitting there? Go get changed. We’re on a schedule.” I picked up the grey dress and went to the guest room. By the time I came out, they were gone. They hadn’t even waited for me. I took an Uber to the hotel. When I pushed open the doors to the ballroom, I saw Garrett holding a champagne flute, laughing with a group of investors. Melody was at his side, looking every bit the high-society wife. I walked over, intending to stand behind Garrett as I always did. “Garrett, who is this lovely lady?” one of the investors asked, nodding toward Melody. Garrett raised his glass, his smile radiant. “Let me introduce you. This is my fiancée, Melody.” A chorus of compliments followed. “A perfect match,” they said. “The power couple of the year.” Another guest, someone who had known us since the early days, recognized me. “Wait, then who is Donna?” The air in the circle went still. People looked at me with a mixture of pity and confusion. Garrett didn’t even turn his head to look at me. “Her? That’s just my sister.” Ten years of being his partner, his backbone, his everything—and I had been relegated to a sister. He didn’t even have the decency to give me a dignified exit. He just erased me. I retreated to a corner, watching Melody soak up the adoration. Mid-way through the night, she walked toward me, a glass of red wine in her hand. “Oops!” She feigned a stumble, and half a glass of Cabernet splashed across the front of my grey dress. The cold liquid soaked through the fabric, dripping onto the floor. I looked like a disaster. “Oh, Donna! I am so, so sorry! I’m such a klutz lately,” Melody cried out, but her eyes were dancing with malice. Garrett rushed over, but he didn’t check on me. He shoved me aside to grab Melody’s hand. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” Then he turned to me, his voice a sharp hiss. “What is wrong with you? Why were you standing so close? You almost ruined her dress! Go to the restroom and clean yourself up. Stop making a scene.” I didn’t say a word. I turned and walked toward the exit. After the gala ended, we stood in the parking garage waiting for the valet. Melody let out a small whimper. “Garrett, I think I twisted my ankle. It hurts.” Garrett looked at me. “Donna, come here and help her walk.” Melody leaned her weight on my shoulder. As Garrett turned his back to look for the car, she leaned in, her voice a poisonous whisper in my ear. “So, ‘sister,’ how does it feel to be the help?” I stopped walking. I looked at the smug curve of her lips. Garrett looked back, his patience gone. “Donna, move it! The keys are in your clutch, stop stalling!” I stood perfectly still. “Give them to me!” Garrett barked. I reached into my bag, pulled out the keys, and let them drop. They hit the concrete with a sharp, metallic ring. Garrett stared at the keys on the floor, stunned. I didn’t look at him. I walked to the curb and hailed a taxi. When I got back to the “guest room,” I opened my phone. There were over three thousand photos in my gallery—the history of us. I hit Select All and Delete. One by one, our memories vanished into a digital void. I cleared our chat history. I blocked his number. A final notification popped up before I finished—a text from him. Don’t forget the bridesmaid fitting tomorrow. Melody wants you in pale pink. I didn’t reply. In the corner of the room, three packed suitcases sat silently against the wall. 4 “This pink really brings out your skin tone, Donna. Try it on.” Melody was standing in her custom lace wedding gown, looking like a dream. She shoved a generic, polyester bridesmaid dress into my arms. Garrett was sitting on the boutique’s velvet sofa, scrolling through his emails. “Just put it on. Don’t keep her waiting.” I went into the dressing room. When I came out, Melody was holding Garrett’s hand, giggling. “Garrett, am I the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen?” He looked up, and for a second, his eyes actually softened. “The most beautiful. You look perfect in everything.” Melody turned to me, patting my shoulder with a saccharine sweetness. “Donna, you’re happy for us, right? We’ve been sisters for ten years. I don’t want to lose our friendship.” She adjusted her veil in the mirror. “We’re going to be a family. My baby will call you Mom. You’ll stay home, help with the house, and Garrett will pay you a salary. You’ll never have to worry about money again.” Garrett nodded in agreement. “She’s being sincere, Donna. She’s looking out for you. Just stay in your lane, keep the house running, and stop the drama.” I looked at their faces—so smug, so certain of their own righteousness. She had stolen my life, and she expected me to thank her for the privilege of being her servant. I took the bridesmaid dress and tossed it onto the sofa. “I’m done.” Garrett stood up. “Donna, what is your problem now?” I didn’t answer. I walked out of the shop. That afternoon was the rehearsal at the chapel. I watched from the pews as Melody walked down the aisle toward him. I felt like a ghost watching a play. When it was over and the crowd dispersed, I sat alone in the empty chapel, staring at the altar. Garrett came back in to grab a forgotten clutch bag. He saw me and hesitated, then sat down in the pew next to me. “Donna, I know this is hard,” he sighed. “I haven’t forgotten everything you did for me. Once the baby is here, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll buy you whatever you want. Anything—except the title of my wife.” I turned my head to look at his profile. “Garrett.” My voice was hollow. “In ten years… was there ever a single moment where you felt sorry for what you were doing to me?” His hand froze on his cufflink. He turned to look at me, and after a long silence, he straightened his suit. “Donna, I gave you ten great years. I took you from a basement apartment to a penthouse. You wore the best clothes, ate at the best tables. My conscience is clear.” Clear. That word snapped the final thread. He knew exactly what he was doing. He just didn’t think I mattered enough for it to be a crime. “Okay,” I said, standing up and brushing the dust off my skirt. “I understand.” At 4:00 AM the next morning, Garrett woke up thirsty. He walked out of the master suite and noticed a strange silence in the house. The guest room door was wide open. The bed was made, perfectly flat, as if no one had ever touched it. The closet was empty. In the bathroom, my toothbrush was gone. He frowned and dialed my number. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” The color drained from his face. He ran to the garage. My car was still there, but on the passenger seat lay a white envelope. He ripped it open. A ring fell out. It was the cheap, gold-plated ring he’d bought me at a street fair ten years ago with his very first paycheck. The plating had worn off long ago, revealing the dull brass underneath. There was no letter. No note. Just a boarding pass stub tucked under the ring. Departure: 4:00 AM. The destination had been blacked out with a heavy marker. Garrett gripped the stub, his fingers shaking. He hit redial over and over, but the mechanical voice was his only companion. He slumped against the car door, the silence of the garage suddenly feeling like a tomb.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “452022”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel