After Juniper was born, I stopped caring about how close Gavin and Skylar were. I stopped playing the jealous wife, trying to manage his life and control their friendship. I only focused on one thing: locking down the money and the power. That’s why, at Junie’s first birthday party, when my daughter wrapped her arms around his best friend’s neck and called him ‘Daddy,’ the initial shock I felt was quickly replaced by something colder. Gavin’s face froze. He forcefully pulled our daughter away. “Daddy is right here, Junie-bug.” 1 The second Juniper was in Gavin’s arms, she started to cry. Tears fell in fat drops down her cheeks, as if she’d been given the world’s worst punishment. I stepped forward. “Give her to me.” Gavin hesitated, a flicker of wounded pride in his eyes. But he handed her over anyway. Skylar, his notorious childhood best friend, stood nearby and laughed, a loud, provocative sound. “Oh, man, look at that! She’s calling Adam Daddy?” “Anyone who didn’t know better would think they were the actual family unit.” Gavin’s face went dark immediately. I shifted Juniper to my hip, giving her a gentle bounce. I smiled—a brittle, challenging smile. “Didn’t you used to make Gavin call you ‘Daddy,’ Skylar?” “What, does that make you part of our family unit too?” Skylar’s laughter died in her throat. She shot me a look of feigned hurt, then intentionally pressed her body closer to Gavin’s side. “Vivian, what are you talking about? I was just kidding around.” “God, lighten up. You’re a mom now. Why are you still so petty?” Gavin frowned, his tone suddenly serious. “Stop making those jokes, Skylar.” “I’ve told you a hundred times, Vivian, Skylar and I are just friends. We’re like brothers.” He softened his expression instantly, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and kissing my temple. “Still so much fire, even as a mother.” “Come on, don’t be mad. How about I take you to pick out that diamond tennis bracelet you wanted?” I didn’t pull away. But Gavin had forgotten one thing. I hadn’t been angry, or jealous, for a very long time. Leaning into Gavin’s embrace, I threw a final, barbed glance at Skylar. “Fine. Sorry, Skylar. Mommy was just kidding, too.” “Don’t be so sensitive.” Her face, watching us, was contorted with suppressed rage. 2 The next day, Gavin did take me to the jeweler. I made sure to pick out the most expensive diamond bracelet they had. On the drive back, I sat in the passenger seat, admiring the way the stones sparkled in the afternoon sun. Gavin broke the silence abruptly. “Hey, let’s stop inviting Adam over, okay?” I instinctively pushed back. “Why?” He frowned and coughed awkwardly. “Why? There’s no why.” “Just tell him not to come around anymore.” I raised an eyebrow. I knew this was his male ego acting up—the sting of his daughter preferring another man. A year ago, I’d just had a C-section. I was weak and in constant pain. My mother and mother-in-law had been taking turns caring for me and Junie, but that day, my mom had an emergency and my mother-in-law had gone to a funeral out of town. Before she left, she’d repeatedly told Gavin to take good care of me. Gavin promised he would. But that night, the moment he thought I was asleep, he snuck out. I was woken up by the baby’s frantic screaming. I gritted my teeth against the searing pain of my incision just to pick up and soothe the baby. Then I called Gavin. Three calls, back-to-back. No answer. Two minutes later, I saw Skylar’s story pop up on Instagram. A picture of her in a crowded bar, clinking beer bottles on a sticky table. The caption was aggressive: “Come on, you loser!” “Let’s see if Daddy can’t drink you under the table tonight.” Peeking out from under a bottle of cheap beer, I could see the corner of Gavin’s phone. I knew immediately. He wasn’t coming home.

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The expensive engine of the Bentley had just cooled when a woman—dressed in something cheap and red that screamed “look at me”—smashed her manicured fist against my window. I was startled, still settling in after the family dinner, and utterly confused as she angrily demanded I get out of the car. Before I could process the sudden terror, my husband, William, had opened his door. I watched, my heart sinking like a stone, as he wrapped his arms around her, instantly placating. “Baby, stop. Don’t make a scene. I know, I know. I wasn’t trying to ignore you, the Everett family dinner was just a thing tonight.” My throat tightened. I reached for my door handle, but William’s free hand shot out, slamming the door shut and shoving me back into the passenger seat. “Stay put, Eliza! Don’t you dare come out and upset her!” The woman—Savannah—saw red. She shrieked, pointing a sharp, venomous finger at my face. “You entitled bitch! William isn’t some prize you get to hog! If you ever stop him from taking my calls again, I swear I’ll tear your face off!” I, the legal wife, the one he promised forever to, was trapped in the luxury SUV, treated like the dirty secret, the one who didn’t belong. The world went white. Three years. Three years I’d spent in Europe, recovering from the complications of childbirth that had left me partially paralyzed, undergoing grueling physical therapy to walk again. I had just returned, healed, only to find his mistress behaving like the wronged wife. William didn’t spare me a glance. He tossed the keys onto the dash, scooped Savannah up in his arms like a precious artifact, and walked away, abandoning me and the car on the main road. I was still sitting there, frozen, when the phone rang. It was her. “Don’t even think about threatening William with divorce to get him to leave me, you pathetic fool. I don’t care if you two are married! A legal title is just baggage to me. My sons have inheritance rights, and his love and his money are all mine.” His money? How quaint. That challenge felt less like a threat and more like an invitation to a much higher-stakes game. 1 “Only a shallow woman like you cares about a title!” Savannah continued, her voice grating on the speaker. “I’ll ‘allow’ you to keep the name, Eliza. Now be a good little wife and stay out of the way of my relationship with William.” She was acting less like the other woman and more like a victorious queen giving a final, haughty warning. This arrogance, I knew, was a direct reflection of William’s coddling. A slow, cold fire began to burn in my chest. I tightened my grip on the phone. “If you were really so capable, Savannah, you wouldn’t be making a spectacle of yourself on a street corner, acting like a common street performer.” I spat the last words. “And sweetheart, my title wasn’t something you gave me, it’s something you could only dream of kneeling for. The things you don’t value? I don’t even see them.” The insult landed. “You’ll regret those words. I’ll make sure you see exactly how much your husband loves me!” Click. She hung up. I sat there, numb, clutching my phone for what felt like an eternity. If she hadn’t forced this confrontation, I would never have believed that William, the man who had vowed to spend every penny on my recovery, who had shown me such devotion during my darkest hours, had betrayed me. The thought of his sacrifice and his infidelity existing in the same space made me dizzy. I typed out a message to Gabriel Reyes, my late father’s most trusted attorney. “I need to freeze the assets. Run a full audit on William’s accounts. He’s having an affair.” Making that decision was a cold, sharp wrench, a visceral, suffocating pain, as if I was choosing to split myself in two. It was hours later when William finally came home. He looked miserable, but not in a way that suggested repentance, only weary frustration. He sat opposite me, quiet, looking like a little boy who had been caught cheating on a test. I stared at his face for a long time. Suddenly, I was eighteen again, watching him present me with a handful of freshly picked wildflowers. “I’ll keep bringing you flowers, Eliza. It’s my way of promising I’ll always love you passionately.” A drilling, soul-deep pain made my eyes burn. I was going to lose it. Perhaps seeing the tears welling up, his veneer of moody stoicism broke. He looked instantly nervous, his guilt finally showing. “I’m sorry, Eliza. I have wronged you.” It was a heavy, dull statement. He met my eyes for only a second before dropping his gaze, unable to sustain the look of shame. “Is that your full accounting for what you’ve done?” My voice cracked, betraying the false calm I was trying to project. “Savannah doesn’t care about a title. I’m going to try to balance things between you both.” 2 I felt my breath hitch. He wants two wives? I bit down on my lip hard. Unloved, raw rage was useless. I fought for calm. “Let’s divorce, William. I’ll clear the field for you.” He looked up instantly, his eyes holding a stubborn, non-negotiable rejection of the idea. “I married you, Eliza. I made an oath to you and your family. I will be responsible for you until the day I die.” He paused, leaning into the guilt. “Especially since you suffered so much, becoming paralyzed for three years after giving birth to our child. I’ll spend my whole life making it up to you. Just… don’t make things harder for Savannah.” I laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. “You’ll make it up to me? By sleeping with another woman?” He was silenced. He looked at me, completely overwhelmed, as if I were the one making an impossible demand. “I’m sorry. The truth is, I love you both, Eliza. I can’t give either of you up.” The crushing atmosphere was broken by his phone. He instantly snatched it up. Seeing the caller ID, his face tightened with a panicked urgency. “I will not divorce you,” he muttered, rushing out of the room before the call could even connect. I didn’t need to guess who it was. Savannah. In her presence, he was a loyal dog, ready to appear at her command. All the gestures of love he’d once reserved for me were now hers. I went to my in-laws, the senior Prestons, and told them everything. They waved their hands dismissively, their expressions utterly unconcerned. “Every wealthy man has his diversions, Eliza. Don’t worry. The Everett and Preston families are bound by an old alliance. Your position as the official wife is untouchable.” They assumed I was there begging them to intervene. I was there to tell them that when honor and love failed, all that remained was the fight for assets. I never wanted to be William’s opponent, but as the old saying goes, if you don’t fight for what’s yours, you’ll be left with nothing. I would not allow that woman to take my life, my marriage, and my dignity. I didn’t rest. I immediately threw myself back into the operations of Preston Industries. I needed to buy a gift for a major client whose birthday was coming up—a new, limited-edition emerald and diamond necklace. The attendant packaged it beautifully. “That will be two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, ma’am.” I handed her the black card William had given me five years ago—the one with the purported unlimited limit that I rarely used. The attendant slid it back to me, her expression apologetic. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The card is showing insufficient balance.” I froze. Insufficient? Just as I was about to call William, the sharp click-click-click of expensive heels echoed from behind me. “Honey, pack up all the latest releases for me, Chen.” It was Savannah. She sauntered past, glancing at me with a condescending sneer. From her newest Hermès Birkin, she pulled out a matte black card. The primary card. Mine, I suddenly realized, was a secondary card, its limit controlled by this one. “Miss Savannah, your total is fifty-six million, eight hundred thousand dollars.” She waved her hand dismissively, the transaction going through instantly. She then casually pulled a slender cigarette from her bag, lighting it with a snap. The staff instantly fawned over her, scrambling to light her smoke. She blew a plume of smoke directly into my face, her eyes mocking. “A man’s heart is where his money goes, Eliza. You don’t have any funds, and yet you dare to shop at high-end stores?” I stood utterly still, the toxic smoke stinging my eyes. I lifted my phone. “Hello, 911? I’m at the Cartier boutique in the Galleria. My husband’s credit card has been stolen and used fraudulently. Please send officers immediately.” 3 Savannah’s composure broke for just a moment, but she quickly recovered, her gaze becoming predatory. “William will be here. He’ll tear your face apart!” She instantly dialed him, her voice a furious, demanding screech. “William Preston, your wife is bothering me again! I’m giving you twenty minutes to get over here and deal with her, or we are through!” She was so brazen, so lacking in shame. She wasn’t the quiet, demure type of mistress; she was proud of her status, believing herself untouchable. The police arrived just as William burst through the doors, breathless. He immediately stepped in front of Savannah, shielding her, his eyes glaring at me. “What in God’s name is this drama, Eliza?” Savannah, emboldened by his protection, lunged past him and slapped me hard across the face. “You rotten bitch! How dare you call the cops on me! I spend my man’s money, it’s my absolute right!” Her sharp acrylic nail left a small bloody scratch near my eye. She was already winding up for a second blow when William grabbed her from behind. “Baby, don’t! Calm down. Let me handle this, okay?” She was the enraged lioness; he was the soothing, emotional zookeeper. He hadn’t raised his voice to her once. I finally snapped. I raised my arm to hit her back, but William’s grip on my wrist was instantly and brutally tight. I couldn’t move. He pleaded with me, his eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “Just leave, Eliza! Please!” He was standing against me, protecting her, making me the public spectacle. The husband who had promised to protect me from the world was now ganging up with his mistress to humiliate me. A blinding pain shot through me, overriding the physical sting of the slap. I pulled my arm free and, with all my might, struck him across the face. “You’re protecting your whore while she abuses your wife!” He took the blow without flinching, his face a mess of regret and helplessness. But even in his misery, the scale in his heart tilted only towards Savannah. She was instantly hysterical, crying and trying to fight him to get to me. “You bastard! How dare you hit my man! I’ll end you, you hag!” William held her tight, his voice still low and placating. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Don’t get upset. Listen, only I can hit you. Nobody else in the world, okay?” The officers separated us, asking me about the theft accusation. My eyes were still red from the smoke and the tears. I pulled up our marriage certificate on my phone. “We are married. My husband’s credit card is in the possession of this woman, who has used it to swipe over fifty million dollars. He and I did not authorize this spending. What would you call that but theft?” Savannah was completely unfazed. “I didn’t steal anything! My boyfriend gave me the card to use! I have every right to use my boyfriend’s money!” She looked at William, a demanding challenge in her eyes. “Husband, tell them! Did you give me the card, or did I steal it?” William hesitated, looking at me for a split second, which immediately earned him a slap on the arm from Savannah. “William, what does that look mean?! Do you still care about her?” “No, no, baby, stop. Don’t be so temperamental.” He soothed her, his arm automatically settling around her waist. He turned to the police. “It’s a complete misunderstanding. I gave her the card. It was authorized.” With those words, I became the absolute joke. The police, recognizing a domestic dispute, gave us a final warning. “Settle your emotional issues, please don’t waste our resources.” But Savannah stopped them. “Wait! This bitch filed a false police report and defamed me! I demand she be charged and prosecuted!” 4 William pleaded with her, keeping his voice low. “Savannah, please. Don’t blow this up. Give me some dignity.” “No! You’re protecting her too much! Does that mean you love her more than me? Fine! You two have a happy life, I’ll just go throw myself in front of a bus!” She was yelling, sobbing, and utterly unhinged—a full-blown harpy. I still couldn’t believe the sophisticated, gentle man I’d married had chosen this low-class, volatile woman. William was terrified she would leave. He turned to me, his jaw tight. “This is your fault, Eliza. You need a few days to think things over.” My heart turned to ash. I no longer recognized the man standing before me. At Savannah’s insistence that I face legal repercussions for filing a false report, the police took me into custody. As I was getting into the squad car, William rushed over to the window, his eyes full of pathetic regret. “Savannah is all bark and no bite, Eliza. Just rough around the edges. Next time, just try to stay out of her way.” I stared at him, my expression cold and dead. He wasn’t worth another word. From the detention center, I contacted Gabriel Reyes, instructing him to slip the finalized divorce agreement in with a stack of business documents, using a distraction to get William to sign it. Seven days later, I was released. It was the anniversary of the day our son, stillborn due to my complications, had died. Every year, William had been with me at the cemetery. I wanted my son to see that, despite everything, his parents hadn’t forgotten him. The housekeeper told me William hadn’t been home for a week. He was, predictably, with Savannah. I called his phone. Savannah answered. “The hag is out of jail? What do you want with my man?” I was about to unleash a verbal barrage when Gabriel arrived. He handed me the divorce papers, which bore William’s hurried, familiar signature. We were divorced. I didn’t need to waste any more words on her. “Today is his son’s anniversary,” I said flatly. “You can tell him, or not. I don’t care either way.” Savannah was instantly enraged. She opened a video chat. “Watch this, you deadbeat! William’s son is fine! If you curse our child again, I’ll kill you!” The video showed William at a dining room table, flanked by two children—a little girl who looked about two, and a small boy, maybe one. A birthday cake sat between them. William, beaming, held both of them in a tender embrace. “Daddy’s got you,” he cooed. When he saw me on the screen, his smile instantly vanished, replaced by a flash of panic and guilt. He didn’t even chastise Savannah for revealing the children. I was paralyzed. While I was in Europe, clinging to life, he had been building a second family with two children. Savannah, seeing my expression, leaned in and whispered a crushing, deliberate cruelty. “Oh, I remember now. You meant the one who died? How morbid. Today is our living son’s birthday. He’s too busy to visit a corpse, Eliza. Go by yourself.” Click. She hung up. I stood motionless, the phone heavy in my hand. Less than a minute later, a text from William flashed on the screen. “Wife, you are the most understanding. I promise I’ll go with you tomorrow. Please believe me, I still love you.” I stared at the text, and a strange, cold amusement spread across my face. The plank doesn’t hurt until it hits you, William. I would now treat him exactly the way he treated me. I turned to Gabriel, my eyes clear. “Let’s keep the divorce a secret for now. I have another plan.” That night, I quietly booked a flight and vanished, completely dropping off the face of the Earth. Savannah was ecstatic, even posting a taunt on my social media account: “Hahaha, the defeated woman runs away! What a loser!” Meanwhile, William was frantic. He hired private investigators globally. He even posted a public reward: thirty percent of Preston Industries stock for my safe return, later escalating it to fifty percent. But I was gone. A year later, at a Disney World resort, he was with his son and daughter when he spotted me, holding a baby in my arms. His face drained of color. His eyes went wide, turning red with relief and excitement as he rushed towards me. “Eliza! I finally found you, my wife!”

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“Swapping her keynote for a draft of a Dr. Seuss book? That is absolutely savage, oh my God, I love it, LOL.” “Look at her up there, completely flustered, can’t even string a sentence together. How did she ever land an Executive VP role?” “Her husband, Owen, at the main table? His face is black. He’s probably going to file for divorce tonight.” “What do you call that? It’s a precision strike. If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the corporate kitchen.” I stood on the stage, the rising chorus of snickers and whispers washing over me, holding the thin sheaf of papers that had been swapped for my actual presentation. I silenced my phone and tossed the worthless script onto the side of the lectern. Did they really think ten years of industry experience was something I read off a teleprompter? I leaned into the microphone and smiled at the sea of murmuring faces. Since the script is gone, why don’t we talk about the company’s dirty laundry for the past year—specifically, those few questionable “business expenses” some people have quietly run through the general ledger. 1 The buzzing chorus of laughter hammered at my ears. My fingers tightened around the few sheets of A4 paper. They didn’t hold the annual financial review; they held a transcript from a children’s show—A Coloring Book Rhapsody, if I recall correctly. It was a perfectly executed maneuver. At the front, at the main VIP table, Sienna Cole was clutching her mouth, shaking with unrestrained glee. Next to her, my husband, Owen Price, the Vice President of Sales, had his head bowed so low he looked ready to dive under the mahogany. He was humiliated. Not because someone had targeted his wife, but because he believed I, his wife, was making a spectacle of myself, embarrassing him, the high-flying VP. The projector screen, meant to display our revenue growth charts, was a mess of scrambled code. Clearly, my USB drive had been compromised too. Three hundred people in the ballroom. Six hundred eyes. All waiting for me to crack. A few ambitious junior staff had already raised their phones, ready to capture this spectacular corporate failure for the company group chat or a viral clip. “Ms. Nash, what’s the holdup?” Dave Miller, the Administrative Manager and a known lapdog of Sienna’s clique, called out with a venomous sweetness. “Are the words too big? Do you need me to come up and sound them out for you?” Another wave of roaring laughter. Owen finally lifted his head, his features tight with open disgust. He waved a frantic hand signal—Get down, now. You’re making a scene. In the past, I might have panicked. I would have felt my eyes sting, fumbled off the stage, and hidden in the ladies’ room to cry. I came from Finance. I was a numbers person. I was articulate with spreadsheets, not people. Not like Sienna, who was a master manipulator, charming clients and confusing the executives in equal measure. But today was different. I had endured this for three months, precisely for this moment. I crumpled the children’s script into a tight sphere. With a flick of my wrist, I lobbed the paper ball. It sailed over the first row and landed with a distinct plop right in the center of Owen’s bowl of lobster bisque. Silence hit the room. Owen shot up, wiping a smear of creamy pink soup from his cheek, his eyes wide and ready to detonate. I didn’t give him the chance. I tapped the microphone twice with my index finger. “Sshhh—” The sharp feedback whine made everyone wince and cover their ears. The chaos evaporated. “Since none of us want to listen to platitudes, let’s talk about something a little more stimulating.” I braced both hands on the lectern, my gaze a deliberate, slow-motion scanner sweeping across the faces at the main table. “Ms. Cole, I heard you closed a three-hundred-million-dollar deal in Europe last month?” Sienna froze, then puffed up her chest, a smug grin replacing her shock. “You’re well informed, Ms. Nash. But that’s Sales territory. An internal audit specialist shouldn’t worry so much about other departments; it causes wrinkles.” Her little cheer squad snickered again. I joined them, my smile icy. “You’re right. I’m in Audit. That’s why I’m curious: what kind of client requires a two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-dollar ‘public relations’ expenditure on your corporate card at a high-end designer boutique—an expenditure, mind you, for which we have no invoice?” The smile solidified on Sienna’s face. “And how is it, Ms. Cole, that the merchant code for the same expense—though labeled ‘gift purchasing’ in our system—shows up in our transfer records as a five-star couples-only resort in Paris?” The audience erupted in a collective gasp. The people who had been filming my meltdown now swiveled their phones toward Sienna. The look of naked guilt on her face was far more entertaining than any children’s script could ever be. “You… you’re lying!” She stumbled to her feet, her finger trembling as it pointed at me. “Vivian Nash, this is slander! I will sue you!” “Sue me?” I took a voice-activated recorder from my pocket, spinning it once between my thumb and forefinger. “On the 14th of last month, at nine in the evening, you submitted a car service receipt to the reimbursement system for a trip from the office to the Peninsula Hotel, total fare: a hundred and eighty dollars.” “But I have a recording from Owen’s vehicle dashcam that suggests you didn’t go to the hotel at all. You went to the suburban villa that belongs to Vice President Price.” This time, it was Owen’s turn to lose his composure. He was still wiping the bisque from his face, and his napkin fell to the floor, forgotten. Owen and I have been married for seven years. In those seven years, I was the rock. I helped him climb from junior accountant to Vice President. To avoid any appearance of conflict, I volunteered to run the most thankless, grueling internal audit unit. He told me the company was preparing for an IPO and that he needed me, his most trusted person, to protect the perimeter. I believed him. I spent my nights digging through the accounts, plugging the financial leaks. And what was he doing? I was protecting our territory; he was helping another woman buy designer bags. That suburban villa? We bought it as our retirement home. Only he and I had the keys. Last week, when I went to clean it, I found an earring wedged deep in the sofa cushion. I recognized it immediately. Sienna had flaunted it on social media: a limited-edition piece from a major brand. The only pair in the city. Owen was terrified. He rushed over to Sienna, shoving her back into her seat. Then he spun around, yelling at me. “Vivian! Are you drunk? This is the Annual Gala! The Chairman is here! What the hell are you doing? Stop this insanity!” “I’m not drunk.” I stared straight into his frantic eyes. “Owen, I haven’t even had a toast yet. How could I be?” “Security! Where is Security!” Owen roared toward the doors. “Drag this crazy woman out of here! She’s mentally unstable!” No one moved. Because Mr. Robert Harrington, the Chairman, was seated at the head table, a glass of Cabernet in his hand, watching the entire spectacle with an unreadable expression. Mr. Harrington hates dishonesty more than incompetence. Until he gave the word, the head of security wouldn’t dare lift a finger. Seeing no help coming, Owen rolled up his sleeves and charged the stage himself. “Get down here, now!” His face, contorted with rage and fear, looked nothing like the polished, charming VP he usually portrayed. I watched the man I had loved for seven years charge at me like a cornered, rabid dog. “Owen Price, if you touch me, I will upload the evidence of your five-million-dollar corporate fund embezzlement via futures trading to the All-Hands company email list.” Owen’s feet jammed hard on the carpet. He stopped barely six feet away, his entire body rigid, his face bloodless. “You… what did you say?” “Five million.” I held up five fingers, waving them slightly in front of him. “And that was just last quarter’s deficit. This month, to cover that hole, you privately approved contracts with three unqualified vendors put forward by Sienna. How much in kickbacks did you clear on that? A million? Two?” Owen’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently. “Vivian, let’s go home and talk about this…” His voice softened, pleading. “There are hundreds of people here. Show me some respect.” “Respect?” I laughed, a sharp, cold sound. “You talk about respect? Did you respect me when you swapped my keynote for a child’s script?” “That… that was a misunderstanding!” “Misunderstanding my ass!” I slammed the voice recorder hard onto the stage floor. “This recorder holds more than just Sienna’s overtime confession. It holds the complete audio of you two plotting in the break room—how to squeeze me out and how to pin that five-million-dollar fraud on me.” “Owen, I’m done playing your wife.” “Today, at this celebration, you two are my sacrificial lambs.” A dead silence descended upon the room. Even the servers pouring wine froze, their carafes suspended in mid-air. This is the corporate world. The same people who were just laughing at me were now shrinking in their seats, terrified the fire would spread. They weren’t afraid of me; they were afraid of the ledger book in my head. I ran Internal Audit for three years. I knew where every single penny in this company went. I kept quiet before for the sake of the Chairman, for the company’s reputation. But today, reputation was a luxury I was willing to sacrifice. “Who else?” My eyes drifted to Dave Miller, the Administrative Manager who had been the loudest voice of ridicule. Dave was trying to subtly edge himself under the table. “Dave Miller, why are you hiding?” I called his name. Dave jerked, scrambling back to his feet, his face sickly pale. “V-Vivian… Ms. Nash, I’m sorry, I’ve had too much to drink. I misspoke…” “Too much to drink?” I nodded slowly. “Good. Alcohol loosens the tongue. Why don’t you tell everyone here why the office chairs your department purchased were billed at twenty-eight hundred dollars a piece when the market value is eight hundred?” Dave’s forehead was instantly slick with cold sweat. “That… that’s a brand premium…” “Which brand?” I pressed the attack. “Was it a counterfeit brand with a sticker slapped on it, or was it your brother-in-law’s shell factory?” People near Dave quickly shifted their chairs away. “You purchased two hundred chairs. That’s a difference of four hundred thousand dollars. Did you keep that money all to yourself, or did you split it with anyone else?” My gaze flickered, seemingly by accident, toward the VP of HR. The VP of HR, who had been clinking glasses with Dave moments before, was now sitting rigid, staring straight ahead. “Vivian Nash! That’s enough!” A booming voice came from the main table. It was Victor Shaw, the VP of Operations. He was Owen’s closest ally and Sienna’s unofficial mentor. They were a company ‘Iron Triangle’ that had been running roughshod for years. “This is the company’s biggest night! Are you trying to start a witch hunt? Do you have any sense of the bigger picture?” He pointed his finger at me. “Even if Owen and Sienna have made minor mistakes, it was for the sake of the business! You can’t sanitize every corner! If you do this, who will risk their necks for the company in the future?” “Risk their necks?” I smiled at Victor Shaw. “You, Fatty Shaw, don’t get to talk about risk and loyalty.” “If Owen is greedy, you are rotten. Rotten to the core.” I turned my back on him and faced the dark projector screen. The image was in my mind. “Last year, during our holiday sale, we processed a million orders. You, as VP of Operations, single-handedly switched our shipping carrier to a logistics firm owned by your family back home.” “The result? Backlog, lost packages, massive delays. Our customer complaint rate soared by three hundred percent.” “The company spent twenty million dollars on goodwill refunds to quell the customer outrage.” “And that family logistics company? It was conveniently dissolved afterward. And you, Victor, upgraded your sedan to a Range Rover. Am I wrong?” “You’re spewing lies! That was an act of God!” “An act of God?” I scoffed. “Was there a flood at your family’s farm, or did your brains flood out? That logistics company had three thousand dollars in registered capital and no proper warehouse. Were you blind, or was your heart black when you signed that contract?” “Where is the proof? I’ll sue you for defamation!” Victor was still defiant. “The proof is with your wife.” I tossed the quiet bomb into the room. “What?” Victor looked utterly bewildered. “You bought the new car, and you took a mistress. Did you think your wife was ignorant? Last month, she came to me in Audit. I gave her a copy of that logistics contract.” “Based on the timing, the legal separation papers should have reached your doorstep right about now.” Victor Shaw’s knees buckled. He collapsed back into his chair, the heavy wooden frame protesting loudly. The whole room was silent again. In less than ten minutes, I had taken down two Vice Presidents, one Department Manager, and a sales star. It was a performance that would be legendary in corporate circles. My gaze finally settled on the Chairman, Mr. Harrington. The silent captain, who finally set down his glass. Harrington, in his early fifties, with silver hair, had eyes as sharp as an eagle. He didn’t look angry. In fact, there was a trace of grim amusement. “Vivian,” he said, his voice deep and measured. “How much more do you have?” He asked the direct question. I gave the direct answer. “If you mean what’s on the USB drive, about two gigabytes. If you mean what’s in my head, I could go for three days.” Harrington nodded, tapping his finger lightly on the table. “Since everyone is here, let’s get everything on the table at once.” With that statement, Owen and Sienna’s final shred of hope evaporated. They had been counting on Harrington to prioritize the company’s reputation, stop the public spectacle, and handle it quietly. But Harrington was a ruthless pragmatist. This wasn’t just a purge; it was a scorched-earth cleansing. “All right.” I took a deep breath. “Since the Chairman has asked, we’ll continue.” I shifted my attention to Mr. Ken Lee, the Director of R&D. Lee was generally considered a harmless, amiable man, smiling at everyone, well-liked. But now, he refused to meet my eyes. “Mr. Lee, don’t look down; your crown might fall off.” I offered a dry jest. “Your R&D department burned through forty million dollars this year, supposedly developing a proprietary AI intelligent algorithm.” “But I heard that the core code was simply an open-source project you found on GitHub and slightly modified?” “Forty million, Mr. Lee. You could have hired a world-class team for two million. Did you pocket the remaining thirty-eight million to trade Bitcoin?” Lee’s sweat was streaming down his temples. “Ms. Nash, you don’t understand technology. That was secondary development…” “Secondary development—meaning you swapped their logo for ours?” I cut him off without mercy. “And that Bitcoin account? You used the company’s servers to mine for it, didn’t you? Our electric bill went up by six figures a month. Did you think I was blind?” Lee sagged completely. Wherever my gaze landed, silence followed. But the true heavy hitters were the ones behind Owen and Sienna. Their actions weren’t just about embezzlement; they were about asset stripping and preparation for a major secession. “Owen.” I looked back at my still-reeling husband. “Did you think that just paying back the five million would make this all go away?” Owen’s head snapped up, his eyes filled with sheer terror. “You… what are you talking about?” “Last Friday, you and Sienna met with Mr. Richard Zhang of our competitor, Vertex Solutions. You weren’t discussing a partnership. You were selling our company’s core client list to them for twenty million dollars. Correct?” Even Mr. Harrington’s expression hardened at that. Embezzlement is an internal conflict; selling trade secrets is treason. That was the line. “You’re spewing lies!” Owen jumped up, genuinely desperate now. This wasn’t just about losing his job; it was about prison time and being blacklisted forever. “I have proof!” He pointed at me, his finger shaking. “Vivian, this is revenge! You’re doing this because I cheated on you! You want to ruin me because of your wounded pride!” He was attempting to drag the narrative into private melodrama, hoping to undermine my credibility. “Don’t believe her, anyone! She’s a crazy woman! She’s always been paranoid, installing GPS trackers on my car!” Sienna piped up, desperate to help. “She is! Ms. Nash, I know you don’t like me, but you can’t play with the company’s interests! Vertex is our biggest rival! We would never do something like that!” The man and woman, working together in desperate harmony, had a chilling effect. Whispers started circulating in the ballroom. “She does sound unhinged.” “Selling the client list is a federal crime. Price isn’t that stupid, is he?” “Is Vivian having a breakdown?” The tide of opinion began to waver. This is the fragility of human nature: people are often more willing to believe the simple, dramatic explanation—a scorned wife’s revenge—than a complex, high-level conspiracy. Owen seized on the momentum, his eyes turning malicious. He lunged for the stage. This time, he was fast, and he grabbed a half-empty red wine bottle from a nearby table. “Shut up, you bitch!” He was snarling, his stance suggesting he truly intended to smash the bottle across my head. 4 The red wine bottle loomed large in front of me. A large hand shot out from the side, gripping Owen’s wrist like a steel vice. It was Mr. Harrington’s driver and security detail, a silent, imposing man who was always nearby. “Mr. Price, you’ve had too much.” The guard’s voice was flat, but the force in his grip made Owen’s face twist in pain. The bottle clanged onto the carpet, rolling a few times before stopping near Harrington’s feet. Harrington didn’t even glance at the bottle. His eyes were fixed on me. “Vivian, continue.” Owen, still restrained by the guard, struggled and cursed, sounding like a common thug. “Crazy bitch! You have no evidence! You’re just jealous of me and Sienna! You just want to destroy us!” “Evidence?” I reached under the lectern and pulled out a USB drive. “Everyone is wondering what’s actually on this drive.” I plugged it into the laptop on the stage. “They thought by deleting my presentation and replacing it with code errors, the job was done.” “Unfortunately, those of us who manage the money have a habit: we back things up. And we hide the most important files in the most inconspicuous places.” I opened a hidden folder and typed in a complex, lengthy password. The scrambled code on the big screen vanished. It was replaced by a grainy surveillance video feed. The camera was shaky, the angle oddly low, as if it were hidden inside a decorative potted plant. The location: a corporate meeting room. The time: 3:00 PM last Friday. Three people were visible: Owen, Sienna Cole, and a man in his fifties. It was Richard Zhang, the CEO of Vertex Solutions. Sienna took a USB drive from her purse and handed it to Zhang. Zhang took it, plugged it into his laptop, and the screen’s reflection illuminated his satisfied face. He then pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen. Almost immediately, Owen’s phone vibrated. He looked down, and a wave of uncontrollable elation spread from his lips to his eyes. He even showed his screen to Sienna, who laughed and leaned her body against his. The room fell into a suffocating silence. The people who had been defending Owen seconds earlier instantly shut their mouths. The video was incontrovertible proof. “Owen,” I spoke, my voice razor-sharp in the stillness of the banquet hall. “How does it feel to receive a twenty-million-dollar down payment?” Owen’s strength gave out; he would have collapsed if the security guard hadn’t been holding him. He stared at the screen, then at me, his expression a mix of raw terror and absolute despair. “That… that’s fabricated! Vivian! You have a sick mind! You forged a video to frame me!” Sienna shrieked. “Yes! It’s a fake! Mr. Harrington, you have to believe us! We have shed blood and built this company for you!” She began to cry, leaning on theatrics. “Mr. Harrington, she is just jealous that Owen and I are close! She wants to destroy me, destroy Owen, and destroy the company!” “Is that so?” I manipulated the laptop and opened another file. It was an audio recording. “Let’s all listen to this, then.” “Owen, will the old woman figure it out? I’m worried.” That was Sienna’s voice. “Don’t worry about it. She’s just Internal Audit; she won’t find her way to Vertex Solutions. Once we get the full payment, we quit, start a new company overseas, take all our best clients, and the old man will be too late to cry about it!” That was Owen’s voice. “Oh, Owen, you’re so smart! That old woman is pathetic; she actually thinks you’re out there fighting for your family!” “Family? I’m sick of her. She walks around with that perpetually serious face, like a walking corpse. She has none of your spark. When this is done, I’m filing for divorce. Then you’ll be Mrs. Price, officially.” “Really, Owen? I love you!” The clip ended with a few seconds of intimate, unseemly noises. I hit pause. Sienna’s hysterical sobs cut off. She was ash-faced, slumped in her chair. Owen ceased struggling, his eyes vacant. The only sound in the banquet hall was the rapid, shallow breathing of hundreds of people. The audio not only confirmed the commercial betrayal but brutally stripped bare their ugly private life, exposing it to everyone. Victor Shaw and the few other executives close to Owen were pale as ghosts. They realized this was no longer just about Owen and Sienna. It was a vast, corporate earthquake. Harrington’s face was dark. He looked at the wreckage that was Owen, then at me, his gaze complex. “Vivian, where did that recording come from?” “Sienna’s necklace,” I answered cleanly. “The Cartier pendant Owen bought her. She proudly showed it off to me last month. I complimented it, touched it—and secured a micro-recorder to the back of the clasp.” A collective intake of breath swept through the hall. A woman who could endure her husband’s infidelity, subtly attach a wire to his mistress, and meticulously orchestrate a public execution of this scale—she was a new kind of terror. Owen finally reacted. He lifted his head abruptly, and the eyes that once made my heart race were now filled with pure, unadulterated hatred. “Vivian!” he shrieked. “Do you think you’ve won? Do you think you’re clean?” He suddenly laughed, a manic, broken sound. “She’s fooling all of you! She is the most malicious person here!” “She’s not the victim at all! She is the mastermind behind the whole damn thing!” Owen broke free of the guard, pointing his finger right at me. “Mr. Harrington! Do you know why she has all this proof? Because she was planning this from the start!” “That five-million-dollar hole? I didn’t take it! She did! She created those dummy accounts! She wired the money to an offshore account and tried to pin the whole thing on me! She wants to send me to prison so she can take all our marital assets!” “And the client list? That was her, too! She was the one who contacted Richard Zhang at Vertex! She made Sienna and me the fall guys! That USB drive? She gave it to me!” “She hates me, and she hates the company! She wants us all to go down together!” The room erupted again. “What? She did it herself?” “This is an insane twist.” “If that’s true, she’s utterly terrifying.” My stomach dropped. I had anticipated Owen would lash out, but I hadn’t expected him to construct such a grotesque, intricate lie to turn the tables. Harrington narrowed his eyes, refocusing entirely on me. “Vivian, how do you explain what he just said?” My palms began to sweat. All my evidence pointed to Owen and Sienna; I had no clean proof of my own innocence. I hadn’t prepared for a counter-accusation when the evidence against them was so overwhelming. Owen, seeing Harrington’s reaction and the wavering crowd, became more frantic. “Explain? How can she explain? Mr. Harrington, check her accounts! Check her parents’ accounts! The money is still out there! She thought she was flawless, but she missed one thing!” He raised his voice, emphasizing every word. “I have the phone recording of her discussion with Richard Zhang of Vertex Solutions!”

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I was bleeding out, a casualty of a demanding job and a marriage that ran me ragged, yet I couldn’t get my husband, Alex Harding, on the phone. His text finally dropped as I was wheeled into recovery, post-procedure: Swamped. Will get there later. I tried to swallow the familiar wave of disappointment, convincing myself that he must be dealing with a crisis—a merger, a regulatory filing, something truly urgent. Then I saw the update. Sierra Miller, his intern, had posted a story. “Accidentally sliced my finger while filing, was just going to slap on a Band-Aid, but the Boss insisted on driving me straight to Urgent Care. How do I ever thank him?” The accompanying selfie was a perfect soft-focus shot of her looking fragile and fetching, with Alex’s chiseled jaw and expensive suit just visible in the background. The comments section was already a bonfire, full of giddy emojis from Alex’s long-term employees: “I’m screaming,” “Ship it, 99%.” The old me—the girl I had been for the last three years—would have started screaming and crying, demanding a full accounting and an immediate explanation. The new me, however, just tapped out a single, calm reply. Suggest you take the opportunity. A classic “thank you” dinner is so passé. Less than ten seconds later, Alex, the man I couldn’t reach for an emergency, launched a full-scale assault of frantic calls. 1 In the past, if Alex Harding called, no matter how important the meeting or how delicate the conversation, I dropped everything. But this time, I set my phone to silent. I just watched the screen light up repeatedly, then fade to black, a mesmerizing pattern of digital desperation. Finally, he switched to voicemails—a barrage of sixty-second clips, full of his signature corporate fury. “Amelia, did you honestly think before posting that comment? Do you realize the damage you’re causing?” “You’ve twisted a completely professional colleague helping an intern into something filthy! Your mind is diseased!” “Sia is hysterically crying, threatening to quit out of shame. You have one minute to delete that comment and post a public apology. Tell them you were overcome by jealousy and made a baseless accusation. You need to fix this and make it up to her.” Listening to his voice, I could picture the rigid set of his jaw, the hard glint in his eyes. For years, a mere furrow in his brow was enough to make me apologize unconditionally, tearfully begging for his forgiveness. We were college sweethearts. I fell for him first—the reserved, brilliant “iceberg” of the campus—and it took three years of relentless effort to finally thaw him, to claim my spot next to him. Before and after the wedding, I lived by the creed of ceaseless, selfless devotion. Even when his affection remained distant and cool, I convinced myself that dedication would eventually lead to the golden dawn of his true love. When the pregnancy test was positive, I was euphoric. I foolishly believed this child would be the catalyst, the moment his shallow affection would deepen into real connection. But then Sierra Miller arrived, and all my wishful thinking shattered. She’d been at the company for less than three months—still just an intern—yet she’d already become his inseparable shadow. He offered her genuine smiles. He checked if she was cold or tired. He remembered details about her life. When she twisted an ankle, he canceled a five-thousand-person video conference, scooping her up and carrying her himself to get ice and a massage. I had never seen this version of Alex Harding. Yet, even when riddled with pain from his neglect, I clung to the hope that the baby’s birth might salvage just a fraction of his attention and love. Now, even that last, desperate hope was gone, destroyed entirely by his carelessness. Listening to his rage now, all I felt was a dull, aching numbness, a complete absence of the frantic need to please him. I picked up the phone. My fingers didn’t tremble. “Alex Harding, we’re getting divorced.” I didn’t wait for his inevitable explosion. I just powered the phone off. 2 Back at the penthouse, I didn’t fall into my old routine, waiting on the sofa like a lost soul staring out to sea. I took the prescribed painkillers, followed the doctor’s orders, and climbed into bed early. The heavy, prescribed sleep quickly claimed me. I’d expected Alex to do what he always did when we fought: vanish for days, refusing to answer my calls—a corporate-level ghosting. But that night, he came home early. Through the fog of my sleep, I felt his presence—a cautious, hesitant weight standing at the foot of the bed. Perhaps he saw the pharmacy haul—the stack of medication on my nightstand. In the end, he didn’t wake me. The next morning, when I finally woke up, Alex was surprisingly attentive, almost solicitous. He walked over, holding a mug of warm milk, his voice laced with an unfamiliar guilt. “I thought your emergency was just some trivial work issue—I got back to the office and only then learned you’d been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because of stress. You shouldn’t push yourself so hard. The baby… is it okay?” I didn’t reach for the mug. I just looked at him. “I’m lactose intolerant, Alex. I can’t drink milk.” He froze, his hand suspended in mid-air, a look of genuine surprise on his face. He genuinely didn’t remember. I was hospitalized the second year of our marriage after drinking dairy, and since then, I hadn’t seen a carton of whole milk in the house. Yet here it was, in my hands, a silent testament to his blindness. “Oh. Right.” He lowered the mug, turning awkwardly toward the refrigerator. “Well… I brought back some mango mousse from the office yesterday. Want to try that?” When he held the delicate pastry box out, I could smell the sickly sweet, tropical scent of mango even through the packaging. My stomach immediately twisted with a deep, physiological revulsion. I turned my head away. “I’m allergic to mangoes. Did you forget that too?” The forced pleasantness vanished from Alex’s face. The guilt was replaced by an irritated impatience. He angrily tossed the mousse into the stainless-steel trash can. “Everyone else can manage. Why do you have to be so difficult about absolutely everything?” I stared at the discarded mango mousse. It looked painfully familiar. I remembered Sia Miller’s post from two days ago. She was holding an identical box, the caption reading: “Boss got me this mango mousse. Sweeter than my first crush. My absolute favorite.” Alex hadn’t spontaneously remembered to prepare me breakfast. He’d simply grabbed the leftovers of what he bought for Sia and offered it to me as a thoughtless pacifier. For years, I’d chased him, meticulously memorizing his every preference. Yet, he’d erased every detail about me, while engraving a complete stranger’s tastes into his memory. I was profoundly, utterly tired. I skipped the polite dance. “Alex, what’s your decision? About the divorce I asked for last night?” His face went instantly dark. “Amelia Rose. You know my Grandmother’s eightieth birthday is tomorrow. You’re doing this now to spite me?” He looked at me with smug certainty. “Besides, everyone knows you’re obsessed with me. You were pregnant with my child. You’d never leave.” Watching his unshakeable confidence, I felt a detached, cold amusement. Before I could reply, a gentle knock came at the door. “Mr. Harding? It’s me. I came to apologize to Mrs. Harding.” Sia Miller’s voice, a delicate, practiced coo. Alex, without asking, immediately opened the door. “Mrs. Harding, I am so sorry about my post yesterday. I truly only meant to show how supportive Mr. Harding is of his staff. I never intended for you to misunderstand.” She placed a gift box near me, smiling with the calculated innocence of a choir girl. “These gifts are a small token of my regret. Please accept them, Mrs. Harding.” I looked into the box: Unpasteurized Soft Cheeses, a bottle of high-end Merlot, a health supplement that promised to “boost circulation,” and a container of raw oysters. Every single item was a flashing red warning for a pregnant woman. 3 I stared at the lavish gift box, the nausea in my gut intensifying—not from the morning, but from sheer disgust. Alex stood next to Sia, his brow slightly furrowed, clearly sensing the tension, but I spoke before he could. “Ms. Miller,” I said, my voice cutting through the manufactured sweetness. “Are these a gift, or are they meant to be my final send-off?” Sia’s innocent smile instantly crumbled. She instinctively retreated, tucking herself close to Alex’s side. “Mrs. Harding, I—what are you saying? I spent my entire three months of savings on these rare, expensive health supplements. How can you misinterpret my good intentions like this?” “Misinterpret?” I gave a dry, humorless laugh, pushing the box back toward her. “Unpasteurized cheeses carry a high risk of Listeria. Merlot is an absolute no-go. Those oysters are an immediate food poisoning risk. And that ‘circulation booster’ supplement? Saffron, Red Ginseng—all are blood thinners, designed to stimulate the uterus. Every single item here is either dangerous or potentially abortifacient.” I leaned in, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You graduated from a top-tier university. Are you really telling me you don’t know basic prenatal common sense? Or were you operating with full intent, coming here under the guise of an apology to ensure I never carry a child to term again?” Sia’s eyes welled up instantly, and fat tears rolled down her cheeks. She grabbed Alex’s sleeve and began to sob, a perfect performance.

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The year I landed the offer from the top firm in my industry—a job that would place me two thousand miles away—was the year Pierce and I were most fiercely in love. I wrestled with the decision for three days before choosing my career trajectory. Pierce understood. He comforted me, his voice a steady anchor on the phone. “It’s only two thousand miles, a three-hour flight. I’ll fly to see you every month. I’ll talk to my parents. You just go. I’ll wait for you.” By the sixth year of our long-distance relationship, our calls had grown infrequent, and a simple text might go unanswered for days. I made the call: I was quitting my job, coming home, and marrying him. He had waited long enough. I never imagined our first reunion would be at the police station. He’d been arrested for a DUI. “You never drink. And drunk driving? You’re always so… careful,” I said, the words feeling brittle on my tongue. A girl in a Minnie Mouse pajama set burst into the lobby. Her eyes were red and swollen. She rushed Pierce, grabbed his arm, and sank her teeth into his skin. “Who told you to drive over here! You idiot! I told you I just had bad cramps!” It hit me: Pierce owned a matching Mickey Mouse set. He’d claimed it was a prize he won at a company raffle. Staring at the two of them, I suddenly felt like a punchline. I was the fool in the spotlight. 1 The wind howled outside. I couldn’t tell if the stinging in my eyes was from the sleet being whipped into my face, or the sharp pain of that moment. Tears fell, straight and cold, refusing to be blinked away. “Elara!” Pierce didn’t catch up to me. I took a cab and went to the waterfront, standing by the freezing river for a long time. I cried and laughed at the same time. That man—my stoic, utterly predictable Pierce—was wearing couple’s pajamas. I don’t know how he found me. I looked up, and he was there. Just like always. Wherever I was, he always showed up. “You’re running a fever. Let’s go home.” Pierce swept me up into his arms. “Elara, stop being so stubborn. It doesn’t help anyone.” He carried me into the house I’d only ever seen in video calls. The kitchen island held a vase of fresh flowers, the sofa was piled with plush toys, and the girl’s blanket and pillow were folded neatly into the corner. “She was an intern I was mentoring,” Pierce said, pressing an ice pack to my forehead. “She’s young, working alone for the first time. I took extra care of her.” “You’re imagining things…” His phone buzzed. It was a custom ringtone. The name “Dummy” flashed on the screen, next to a cartoon girl’s grinning emoji. He was the kind of person who hated hassle. He never saved names with anything other than a simple first or last name. I was just a string of numbers in his phone. Pierce clumsily shielded the screen with his hand. “Hold on a second.” He walked out, and never came back in. My head was pounding. The medicine I’d swallowed came back up, a searing, sour mess. “Pierce…” Silence. I pushed myself off the bed and walked out, leaning against the wall. The living room was dark. He was gone. A faint glow came from the screen of his laptop on the balcony. His social media account was logged in. He and the girl had maintained a continuous chat streak for nearly a thousand days. I scrolled through the history. It began with her single-sidedly sharing funny clips. Then Pierce started to give serious comments and reactions. Finally, they were trading messages back and forth—every little thing, every big event, always a response. Meanwhile, when work had crushed me into insomnia, and I wanted to call Pierce, I had to take a gamble. He was busy. He wouldn’t always answer. I sank onto the chair, my vision blurred by tears. Ding— A new message popped up. [Vivi: I took the meds, and I finished all the soup you made me. Now I’m cuddling the sleepy bear you bought me, getting ready for bed.] [Pierce: Good. Don’t let your new boyfriend wander into your apartment whenever he likes. It’s unsafe.] [Vivi: Okay~ Only my mentor is allowed into my boudoir~] [Vivi: Why don’t I just break up with him and you can be my boyfriend? Everyone already assumes we’re together anyway. I know you got drunk over me. My boyfriend said you even got into a fight with him and yelled at him for forgetting my cycle and not buying me pain meds.] [Vivi: You and your girlfriend have been long distance for five years. You must have no feelings left. You should just dump her…] Tears streamed down my face. I sat there, numb, feeling a huge, empty hole carved out of my chest. I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my breath. I learned that sadness, at its absolute extreme, is just numbness. It’s like being dead. Only my stomach was alive, forcing me to empty its contents—first sour bile, then blood—as if I were trying to vomit out ten years of loving Pierce. Slam— The lights in the entryway suddenly flickered on. Pierce stood there, one hand holding a clay pot of freshly made porridge, the other clutching the girl’s uneaten pain medication. Around his neck was a pink cartoon scarf. The end of it was embroidered with a tiny V. I swayed, then fell toward the floor. When Pierce caught me, I didn’t feel warmth. A strange, unfamiliar perfume assaulted my nostrils. It was sickening. “Elara! Wake up! Elara…” I passed out completely. 2 I woke up in a hospital. The room was empty. I pulled out my phone and made a call. “Hello? Can you please reverse my resignation? I accept the international assignment.” Overseas. I needed to go somewhere I would never have to see Pierce again. A nurse walked in. “Dr. Sterling is in surgery. He’ll be here when he’s finished.” I didn’t reply. I just stared out the window. I remembered the first year I was away. Pierce used to video call me every day. He was a man of few words. He wasn’t expressive. But every time I looked up from my documents, I saw his eyes on the screen—filled with a focused concentration and a deep, aching missing of me. The second year, he often flew to see me. He would show up at my apartment door, under my office building, or on a random street corner selling roasted sweet potatoes. No matter where I was, Pierce always found me. By the third year, Pierce had an intern under his wing. He was busy mentoring her, cleaning up her messes, and our communication began to fade. From a mandatory daily video call. To weekly. Then monthly. Finally, I was the one calling him. And he didn’t always pick up. By the fourth and fifth years, our relationship felt different. When I called, the feeling of fear was stronger than anticipation. I was afraid of disturbing him. Afraid of seeing his familiar, tight frown. “Text me if it’s important. Don’t call,” he said. I felt like a child who had done something wrong. I apologized, then tried to win him back with a nervous smile and a gift I’d picked out. “It’s our ninth anniversary today…” “Mentor, can you check this patient chart for me?” I heard the girl’s voice in the background. The video call ended abruptly. I thought about texting Pierce, then realized there was no point. I had no important reason to contact him. I just missed him. Terribly. So much that every time I walked to a street corner, I instinctively searched for his figure, then wiped away tears when he wasn’t there. But this longing had become a burden to him. For two months, he actually blocked my number. I was up to my neck in a huge project, unable to fly home and demand an explanation. All I could do was cry myself to sleep every night. My eyes were permanently swollen, and I was losing handfuls of hair. Two months later, Pierce claimed it was just a prank by Vivi. He hadn’t noticed. “My bad, I’ve been so busy I didn’t look.” “The kid didn’t mean any harm, she was just messing around. Don’t sweat it. I apologize for her.” He wired a huge sum of money to my account. “Don’t put yourself through anything. Ask for more if you need it.” He didn’t know that the biggest slight to my soul was the one he delivered. In the sixth year, I gave up my career and decided to come back for him. Only to hear from a mutual friend that Pierce had been strung along by this young woman for years. They were openly affectionate. They had even met each other’s families. I didn’t believe it. I was naive enough to think Pierce was still the same quiet, sincere, loving boy I’d left. But he had changed. I should have realized it the first time he hung up on me for Vivi, the first time he missed my birthday, the first time he forgot our anniversary. But I was blinded by love. I compromised again and again, and I forgave. Now, finally, I saw clearly. 3 I discharged myself from the hospital. Back at the apartment, I found the social media direct messages had updated on the laptop. Vivi had shared a lot of videos. Pierce had only read them, not replied. [Vivi: Your fiancée is back, so you’re moving me to a different group? Seriously? You hid from me at the hospital, and now you won’t even reply to my texts.] [Vivi: Just tell me one thing: her or me?] [Pierce: I’m getting married.] Five words. The other side went silent. My heart was a complicated knot of emotions. I stared at the screen, so absorbed that I didn’t notice Pierce had come back. “You saw it all?” He stood next to me. “We’ve been together for ten years. It’s time to get married.” “Let’s go pick out the dress this week. You handle the guest list, I’ll handle the venue. We’ll get it done before the fifteenth. I have a conference next month.” His tone was so flat, as if he were discussing a tedious chore. “We need to start trying to conceive right after the wedding. You’ll be considered a high-risk pregnancy in a few years. It’s not good for you or the baby.” I clenched my fists without realizing it. “You haven’t even proposed to me.” “I don’t have time,” he said. “That kind of ceremony isn’t necessary.” I managed a self-deprecating laugh. He had time to spend with Vivi, naming a pile of stuffed animals and throwing them birthday parties. But for us, for me, suddenly time was a luxury he couldn’t afford. “But you’ll get what you deserve,” Pierce said, handing me a bank card. “My salary is all in here. All of it.” “The jewelry, the dowry, the car, the property. Tell me if anything is missing.” I was silent for a long moment. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. When did he stop being patient with me, speaking only in bullet points? He used to love hearing me ramble. He said he loved my vibrant energy, my little tantrums. Maybe I was worn down by work and too mature now, or maybe the long distance had made us strangers. And that’s how a vibrant, young girl found a place in his heart. And pushed me out. “Do you still love me?” I asked. Pierce hesitated. “Yes, I do.” I kept shaking my head. “No, you don’t.” Voicing the truth was harder than I’d anticipated. It took several shaky breaths. Just to keep the tears from falling in defeat. “Why are you crying?” Pierce frowned slightly. “I’m just being practical. You’re not a little girl anymore. There’s no need to be so petty.” I shoved him away fiercely. My voice rose, sharp and loud. “I’m not marrying you!” 4 Pierce was silent for a few seconds. Then, he snatched the laptop and smashed it onto the floor. A shard of plastic grazed my calf, leaving a bloody streak. “I won’t contact her again. Is that enough?” He pulled out his phone. He blocked “Dummy.” He opened his photo album and deleted the pictures of Vivi that took up most of the storage. “Is that enough, Elara? Tell me.” I was stunned. I watched him walk into the living room, violently tearing apart the stuffed animals and ripping up the small blanket. “Elara! Goddammit, I’m asking you, is this enough now?!” He grabbed my arm and dragged me, and I stumbled, falling into the mess of destruction. I had never seen Pierce angry. He had never even used a harsh word against me. Now his eyes were filled with an icy fury. “What is this drama? What are you trying to prove?” “We’ve been dating for ten years. It’s time to get married, isn’t it?” “My mom keeps hounding me. I held off because you were busy with work, okay, I didn’t pressure you. But what now? How many more years do you want to stall? How many years do you have left at your age?” “You’ve been giving me this attitude and questioning my feelings ever since you got back… I waited for you for ten years! Do you think I don’t love you?” “You are being completely unreasonable!” I was too heartbroken to speak. I hung my head, watching my tears shatter on the floor. All I felt was exhaustion, a weariness deeper than the pain. The gap between Pierce and me had become too wide to cross. No matter how hard I ran. No matter how hard I fell. I couldn’t reach even the edge of his sleeve anymore. “What I mean is…” We’re breaking up. I didn’t finish. His phone rang. “Dr. Sterling, Vivi has gotten into huge trouble!” the voice on the other end yelled. Pierce immediately made a move to leave. I grabbed his car keys, my voice desperate and loud. “Think carefully, Pierce!” “If you walk out that door today, our relationship is officially over!” He didn’t hear me. His mind and heart were completely consumed by Vivi’s distress. Pierce snatched the keys away violently. The sharp edge sliced my palm, and a splash of blood stained the white carpet an alarming red. “The first aid kit is in the cabinet. Bandage yourself up. We can talk about this when I get back.” I had never seen him so frantic. His jacket was on backwards, his shoes were on the wrong feet. He practically stumbled out the door. The door slammed shut. Leaving behind chaos and an endless silence. I gently blew on the cut on my palm. It hurt. Tears fell onto it, making it sting even more. I didn’t have the energy to bandage it. I lay back on the floor, letting the hot tears flow freely. I was so tired. Tired enough to wish I could just fall asleep and never wake up. I wouldn’t have to deal with the ten wasted years, the best years of my youth, and I wouldn’t have to feel this agonizing pain. It felt like all my organs were being shredded. In my daze, a call came through. It was our mutual friend, Jamie. “Get to the hospital immediately! Pierce is about to take the fall for Vivi! His career is going to be ruined!” 5 I rushed to the scene. The hospital director’s face was beyond furious. “Vivian Cole!” He slammed his hand on the desk, his face red and swollen with rage. “I’d like to see who is going to cover for you with this malpractice case! This means jail time!” “You’ve always made mistakes! If Pierce hadn’t protected you every single time—if he hadn’t cleaned up every mess—I would have fired you a long time ago!” Vivian burst into loud sobs. “Please stop! I’m scared, wah, wah, wah… I don’t know anything…” “Mentor, save me… I didn’t mean to. I don’t want to go to jail…” Tears poured down her face. Pierce, who had been silent, finally spoke: “I’ll take the blame for her.” My mind exploded. My body moved faster than my thoughts. I flew in front of him and slapped him hard across the face. “Are you out of your mind?!” I knew medicine was Pierce’s life. From the day we met, I had studied with him, worked with him in the lab, and pulled all-nighters with him. When he needed to work on a research topic, I took time off work to support him. When a patient’s family gave him trouble, I was the first to step up. I cared more about his career than my own. “Elara, once I’ve made a name for myself, I’ll give you a wedding the city will talk about,” his promise echoed in my memory, chillingly clear. Now, Pierce pushed me aside, his voice cold. “Don’t interfere.” “We endured so much hardship, we spent so many nights awake, building this career step by step…” My tears finally broke free, and every word was ground out from between my teeth. “And you’re going to throw away everything you worked for—including our future—for a woman you barely know? Just like that, without a second thought?!” His promise to marry me now sounded utterly hollow and insulting. How could he marry me if he was in prison? This wasn’t just an insult to our love. It was an insult to our effort, to our memories. Smack!— I slapped him again, even harder. “Enough!” Pierce finally grabbed my hand. “I’m Vivian’s mentor. It’s my fault for not guiding her properly. I have to take responsibility for her mistakes.” My voice shot up: “How are you going to take responsibility?!” “With your clean record, your career, your life?” He pursed his lips. After a long pause, he spoke. “I believe her. It wasn’t intentional.” “Vivi is still young. And she’s a girl. She can’t go to jail. It’ll ruin her future…” I cut him off. “What about me?” “So you’re just going to abandon me, is that it?” Pierce looked at me, a flicker of struggle in his eyes. But overriding it was a cold resolution I couldn’t comprehend. “I’ll get out as fast as I can…” “And then what?” I laughed, the tears flowing harder. “I wait for you? Wait for another few years? How many ten-year periods do we have left?” “I don’t actually care anymore if you marry me.” “Pierce, I just realized you never took our relationship seriously. That was ten years… Ten years, the best of my youth! I was blind to waste so much time on you!” It was enough. Truly enough. I used all my strength to wrench my hand free from his grasp. My heart was completely dead, my tears all gone. My voice was so calm it frightened me. “Pierce, the wedding is off. We’re breaking up.” “We’re done. Don’t ever contact me again.” Pierce suddenly panicked. He tried to grab me, but I stepped back to avoid him. “No…” “Pierce!” Vivian screamed suddenly. “Let her go!” “It’s better if she leaves! Then no one can steal my man! No one can steal the father of my baby!” The words were a thunderclap. The entire department fell into stunned silence.

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It started with a utility bill for a house I hadn’t stepped foot in for months. The notification on my phone was absurd—an overdue electricity notice for the lake house in upstate New York. I found it strange, unsettling enough that I changed my flight to Europe, deciding to drive up and check on the property before leaving the country. I pulled into the long, winding driveway, the gravel crunching under my tires, only to find the place blazing with lights. And it wasn’t just lights. My driveway was packed with cars, and the house was filled with faces I recognized. My old college crowd. I walked through the open front door, unnoticed in the chaos. And there, in the center of the living room, under the custom chandelier I’d picked out, my fiancée was locked in a passionate embrace with my high school nemesis. Before I could even process the air leaving my lungs, he saw me. He pulled away from her, keeping a possessive arm around her waist, and sneered. The look on his face was pure, distilled contempt. “This is a private party, Liam. Not a place for a loser like you. Get the hell out.” My fiancée, Serena, didn’t even look embarrassed. She just looked annoyed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Stop stalking me, Liam. We were just having fun, okay? You’re broke. A guy like you could never handle a woman like me.” I felt a dry, humorless laugh bubble up in my chest. I didn’t say a word. I just turned my back on them, pulled out my phone, and dialed 911. “Yes, hello. I’d like to report a break-in. There are intruders in my home.” 1 The moment I stepped out of the car, I heard the bass thumping. I actually checked the deed on my phone just to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind. But no, this was my address. These people were partying in my house without my permission. I pushed open the heavy oak doors. It was exactly as I feared. A full-blown rager. Under the shifting colored lights, I realized I knew almost everyone here. What the hell was going on? Why were people I hadn’t seen since graduation drinking expensive scotch in my living room? Just as I was about to shout, to demand an explanation, the crowd erupted into a chant, drowning out my voice. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” I followed their gaze. In the center of the room, on a small raised platform, a man and a woman were blushing, laughing, and then, spurred on by the cheers, they kissed. deeply. The sight turned my blood to ice. I couldn’t breathe. The man was Brody Vance, the guy who had made my life a living hell in college. And the woman… that was Serena. My girlfriend of two years. The woman I had just proposed to. I stood there, trembling with a rage so cold it burned. The guests, oblivious to my presence, were gossiping loud enough for me to hear. “See? A goddess like Serena belongs with a rich guy like Brody.” “I heard Liam was still chasing after her. Sad, really. He never stood a chance against Brody.” “Why even mention him? Liam’s a nobody. He’s dirt poor. He doesn’t deserve her.” “I thought Serena and Liam were dating, though? Weird that she’s suddenly all over Brody.” 2 The gossip died down as a few people finally noticed me standing in the foyer. They pointed, stammering. “Liam? What… what are you doing here?” Internally, I scoffed. That’s the question I should be asking you. Their faces soured, likely remembering the insults they’d just hurled at me a few seconds ago. But I’m not one to hold a grudge over petty gossip. Not when there was something far more shattering happening right in front of me. Technically, I shouldn’t have been here. If everything had gone to plan, I would be settling into a first-class seat right now, heading to the Swiss Alps to spend the holidays with my family. But right before I left for the airport, I got that text. Electricity overdue. My first thought was that the contractor had left the heated floors running. I don’t care about the money—the bill was negligible—but my parents raised me to respect resources. Waste nothing. Since the estate was somewhat on the way to the airport, I changed my ticket to a later flight and drove up. I bought this place years ago but had never lived in it. The renovations were only finished two months ago. I had planned to air it out, maybe bring Serena here for her birthday after the holidays. I was going to give her the keys as an engagement gift. It was going to be the moment I finally told her the truth: I wasn’t just a mid-level employee. I was the heir to a multi-billion dollar legacy. I never imagined she would break in before I could give her the keys. Or that she’d be playing “Lady of the Manor” with Brody Vance’s help. I was lost in the betrayal, my face grim, when Brody grabbed a microphone. He signaled for the spotlight to swing toward me. “Well, look who the cat dragged in! Our old buddy Liam. What are you doing crashing my party? I don’t recall sending you an invite.” 3 I frowned, the irritation rising in my throat like bile. “You didn’t invite me, but this is my—” “Home.” The word never made it past my lips. Brody cut me off, his voice booming over the speakers. He grinned, that same arrogant, punchable grin from ten years ago. “Since I didn’t invite you, you must have some nerve showing up here. My house smells like money, Liam. It doesn’t mix well with your desperate, poverty-stricken scent.” He stepped closer to the edge of the platform. “Or maybe… maybe after all these years, you finally grew up. You realized money is the only thing that matters. Are you here to beg? Did you finally regret snitching on me back in school? Are you here to be my lackey?” Brody and I were from different worlds. Sophomore year, he tried to buy me off. Five hundred bucks to help him cheat on finals so he wouldn’t flunk out. I took the cash as evidence, went straight to the Dean, and reported him. He got suspended. I became his target. His harassment got so bad I eventually transferred to a university in Europe. I’d only been back in the States for a few years when I reconnected with Serena. I shook my head, my voice steady. “If I had to do it a hundred times over, I’d still report you. I don’t help cheaters.” Brody rolled his eyes. “So stubborn. I know your type, Liam.” “You’re just a small-town striver. You think reading books and following rules can beat three generations of wealth. Then you hit the real world and realize… all that studying just makes you a qualified servant for people like me.” He laughed, a cruel, barking sound. “But hey, I’m a generous guy. I don’t hold grudges against the help. Tell you what—get on your knees, call me ‘Daddy,’ and lick the mud off my shoes. Do a good job, and I might just give you a chance.” 4 The room erupted in laughter. These were the same people who used to follow Brody around campus like lost puppies. Adulthood hadn’t matured them; it just made them crueler. They were baying for blood. “Take the offer, Liam! One ‘Daddy’ could set you up for life!” “Kneel down! Don’t be an idiot. Swallow your pride.” “Opportunity knocks once, man. Don’t let your ego ruin it.” “Brody doesn’t hire just anyone. You should be grateful.” I knew better than to argue with a mob. I ignored them, locking eyes with Serena. “I asked you to come meet my parents,” I said, my voice cutting through the noise. “You told me you were going home to visit your folks for the holidays. So why are you here? Is Brody your father now?” Brody feigned shock, slapping his forehead. “Oh! I get it. You’re not here for the party. You’re here stalking Serena!” He pulled Serena tighter against him, staking his claim. “Babe, didn’t you say you were single? That you only loved me? Why is this loser talking like that?” Serena’s face had been pale since I walked in, but now it twisted into a scowl. She looked at me and practically spat. “You are so disgusting, Liam. Can’t you take a hint? I rejected you nicely, but you had to go and stalk me? How many times do I have to say it? I will never be with a broke loser like you!” She continued, her voice rising in pitch. “I didn’t call the cops because I felt sorry for you. I didn’t want to embarrass you. But where do you get this confidence? Why would I ever turn down Brody to go meet your parents? What do they do, work construction?” “Let me spell it out: Brody is a thousand times the man you are. You aren’t even worth the dirt on his shoes. We are done. If you keep following me like a creep, I swear I’ll have you arrested!” 5 Brody was beaming. He planted a wet kiss on Serena’s cheek. “That’s what I like to hear. A woman who knows her worth.” Serena looked relieved, like she had successfully dodged a bullet, terrified Brody might misunderstand her relationship with me. It was laughable. Truly. I thought confronting her might make her feel a shred of guilt. Instead, she dehumanized me, painting me as some obsessed stalker to save her own skin. The image of the elegant, kind woman I thought I loved crumbled into dust. I felt a flash of deep shame for ever loving her. I wanted to slap myself awake. Seeing my anger, Brody decided to twist the knife. He signaled to a few of the guys—former linebackers, mostly—who grabbed me and shoved me toward the platform. Brody leaned down, whispering so only I could hear. “You know what they say about revenge, Liam? Cold. Best served cold. When you snitched on me and ran away, you should have known this day would come.” “I did this on purpose. I knew you loved her. I knew you were her little puppy. So I seduced her. And guess what? She’s smarter than you. The second she realized I had money, she took her clothes off and jumped into my bed.” He smirked, his eyes gleaming with malice. “I heard you two were taking it slow? ‘Platonic’? ‘Waiting for marriage’? Man, you have no idea what she’s like in the sack. She’s a wild animal.” He wanted me to swing at him. He wanted a reason to have his goons beat me to a pulp. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I smiled, calm and cool. “Actually, I should be thanking you. You saved me. You showed me she’s just a gold digger.” “Because I wasn’t her puppy, Brody. And I wasn’t stalking her. She pursued me. And the funny thing is… she just said yes to my proposal.”

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Sloane’s influencer friend, Dean, needed a massive, controversial spike for the regional competition on his streaming platform. So, without telling me, she tracked down the two people I had severed ties with a decade ago: my parents. He held the camera right up to my face, his tone playfully condescending. “Asher, you’ve always told everyone you were an orphan, that you had no family. But they’ve been searching for you for ten long years.” “On a happy day like this, you can’t keep holding a grudge against your mom and dad.” Everyone present was waiting for the perfect, tearful reunion, for me to dissolve a decade of pain in a hug. Instead, I stood there, watching them, shaking uncontrollably. Then, I shattered the entire venue. The wedding reception became a forced reunion, and quickly devolved into a public execution where I was condemned by everyone. They called me an ungrateful deadbeat, a disgrace, and said it was karma that a person like me deserved to be deaf and blind. A month after the online explosion. Sloane stood outside my apartment building all night, drenched by a heavy, miserable rain. The downpour plastered her to the ground. Scattered at her feet were the decade-old case files, the papers turning to pulp. “Asher Vance, I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t know it would be like this.” “Asher, are you really never going to forgive me?” 1 I had been waiting for the day I married Sloane for three solid years. That reception, every detail from the grand floral installations to the specific variety of lily of the valley in her bouquet, was meticulously chosen by me. But now, it was carnage. Rose petals lay strewn across the red carpet, crushed and smeared. The sheer chiffon draping the rafters—the atmosphere I had tried to create—was ripped down and lay on the floor in tattered scraps. “Asher! What the hell is wrong with you?” “Do you know what you’re doing right now? Do you still even want to get married?!” I must have looked like a maniac. If I hadn’t, Sloane wouldn’t have been staring at me like she’d seen a ghost, deliberately shifting her body to block her ecstatic friend, Dean, who was still streaming with his camera held high. I forced a grin, wrenching the boutonniere from my jacket and crushing it in my palm. “Sloane, what about you?” “Do you want to get married?” Her face was ashen. She stood there, staring back at me, saying nothing. I held her gaze, and as I did, my eyes burned, stinging with unshed tears. “Sloane, why?” Why choose today to destroy me? Why, when you knew I ran from my past like it was a monster, did you summon those two devils and bring them here? And why were you standing there, so calmly, defending another man? Sloane didn’t answer. Her eyes flickered once, then she spoke with a terrifying calm. “Asher, they are your parents, after all. This is our wedding day; they had every right to be here.” “Look at you now. You’re making a spectacle, making everyone miserable. What is the point?” I looked at her face, really looked at it, and burst out laughing. “Sloane, did you bring my long-lost parents to our wedding for Dean?” Her expression changed instantly. She bit down on her cheek, shot a warning glance at Dean, and then turned back to me. “Asher, this has nothing to do with Dean!” The second the words left her mouth, Dean, still filming right behind her, yelled out in a burst of fake excitement. “Hit that donation button, guys! Family, friends, let’s go! Getting to the finals in the Creator Clash depends on you!” The confirmation was an ice-cold wave of clarity. So that was it. A month ago, I had overheard Sloane on the phone with him, laughing. “Don’t worry, Dean. I’ll figure out the buzz. I promise I’ll get you the promotion you need to make the finals.” I hadn’t thought anything of it then. I was sitting at the table, painstakingly writing out our wedding invitations, one by one. I was inscribing our names, detailing our future. All the while, she was planning how to use me—how to leverage our wedding—to lay a path for Dean. The intensity of my stare made Sloane’s face burn even hotter. She looked away, shamefaced and clumsy. “Asher, stop making a scene. Dean only wants you to reconcile with your parents because it’s good for you.” She reached out to take my hand. I instinctively recoiled, pulling away before her fingers could touch mine. Her hand froze awkwardly in mid-air, the wedding ring I’d slipped on her finger a few weeks ago glinting on her pale skin. After a long pause, her hand clenched into a tight fist and slowly dropped back to her side. Her voice, cold and distant, filtered into my ear through my hearing aid. “Asher, if you want to salvage this wedding, go over there right now and greet your parents. The reception will continue. Otherwise…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but the meaning was brutally clear. I scanned her face and then slowly took in the entire room. Dean standing a few feet away, filming my parents; the guests whispering, watching the show; the wedding site, seven-tenths destroyed. Did this absurd farce of a wedding really need to go on? I looked back at Sloane, and with a shocking calm, I slipped the ring off my own finger. “Sloane, you and Dean really are a perfect match.” “I’m giving you to him. And my parents, too.” When the ring clattered onto the polished floor, Sloane’s eyes went utterly cold. I ignored it, tossed the wilted red flower I was holding, and stepped past her off the platform. As I brushed by, I thought I heard her whisper, “Asher, you will regret this.” I didn’t make it two steps toward the door before Dean, with his selfie stick, cut me off. “Asher, dude, wait up! Your folks have been saying some crazy stuff about you.” “Seriously, how can you treat them like that? Look, my viewers are going ballistic.” He shoved his phone screen in my face. The livestream count was past 100,000. The comments were an avalanche of hate. “Ungrateful scum, go die!” “Sixteen and a runaway? Stole your brother’s life savings? You’re not human.” “Streamer, slap him, and I’ll send you a massive gift!” I stared at the comments, frozen. Dean’s little show was having a far bigger impact than I’d imagined. People were already dropping my name, parts of my ID, and even my rough address in the chat. Dean gave a smug, triumphant chuckle near my ear. “Asher, see? Everyone is so mad. Just apologize to your parents. You can’t disown your family, even if you’re marrying into money.” He paused, then his voice pitched dramatically high. “And, Asher, your parents love you so much—they didn’t even mention you’ve been married before, behind Sloane’s back!” A gasp rippled through the gathered guests. Dean clapped a hand to his mouth, feigning shock and guilt. Watching his deliberately innocent, self-accusing face, my nails dug into my palms. My voice was dry, wooden, and raw. “You knew everything. Then tell me, why did I run away before I was even an adult?” Dean frowned, his eyes darting toward the livestream screen, clearly calculating the PR value of my answer. I started to speak, but a sudden, violent shove from behind sent me staggering forward. I barely managed to catch myself before falling. “Whatever the reason, it is NOT an excuse to abandon your parents!” It was Dean’s mother. She pointed a disgusted finger at me, her voice booming so the entire venue could hear. “You’re a fraud! You married under false pretenses and played the victim! You are not worthy of my son’s friend, or any decent woman!” The guests erupted in a furious buzz. The whispers slithered into my ears like venomous snakes. “Oh my God, married before and he hid it? That’s disgusting!” “No wonder his parents are so upset. He’s a total snake.” “Did he scam Sloane? These gold-digging losers are an embarrassment to all men.” Dean stood to the side, a tiny, satisfied smile tugging at his lips, his eyes shining with triumph. He played the part of the concerned friend, saying falsely, “Don’t say that, Mom. Asher must have had a reason…” Yet, his phone was still held high. The stream count had broken 200,000. The comments were a riot. “Hit him! Slap him! That piece of trash needs a lesson!” “This guy is terrifying!” The buzzing in my hearing aid was a frantic, piercing shriek. My vision blurred and blackened. Still, I tried to push out the truth. “They are not my parents! I ran away because they tried to sell me! And the marriage? I was forced! I had no other way to survive…” Before I could finish, a middle-aged man lunged at me and landed a vicious punch. “My daughter was ruined by men like you! You cheat them with a sob story, then take their money and disappear!” Caught off guard, I stumbled back, crashing into the champagne tower. Glass shattered everywhere, the sparkling wine splattering onto my pristine wedding suit, staining it like blood as it pooled on the floor. A chorus of shocked gasps rose from the crowd, but not a single person moved to help me. “Serves him right!” “Karma!” “Where’s Sloane? Get this lowlife out of here!” I pushed myself up, trembling. I looked up and saw that someone in Dean’s chat had sent a massive donation. The comments were demanding: “Slap him! Give him a slap! Thirty rocket emojis if you hit him!” A flash of greed crossed Dean’s eyes. He sighed, looked at me with mock hesitation, and then— “SMACK!” A ringing slap landed hard across my face. My cheek instantly felt like it was on fire. The hearing aid was ripped out and fell to the ground. A chaotic, deafening scream of feedback exploded in my ear. A warm liquid trickled out of my ear canal. I curled up on the floor, clutching my head in agony. In Dean’s livestream, the gift animations erupted in a frenzy. The comments scrolled wildly, celebrating. “Well done! Streamer is a legend!” “That trash deserved it!” “One more! I’ll send another gift!” Clutching my injured ear, I slowly lifted my head. Through blurry vision, I saw Dean give the camera a triumphant ‘V’ sign. The victory lasted a second. A guest holding a phone and filming close-up suddenly cried out in shock. “Wait, what’s up with his eye? Is that a glass eye?” “Holy crap, that’s terrifying!” “Why is there so much blood on his face? He looks like a monster!” “Who cares! Keep filming! This clip is going viral!” I couldn’t hear their words anymore. The world had descended into complete silence. I watched, dazed, as they treated me like a novelty, holding their phones right in my face. After a long moment, I propped myself up, trying to grope on the floor for my fallen prosthetic eye and hearing aid. But dozens of legs surrounded me, the cold lenses of their phone cameras like black, gaping muzzles, almost touching my skin. Beyond the circle of bodies, Dean was still live-streaming, his face alight with excitement. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. But the fireworks of gift-animations told the whole story. My brokenness, my humiliation, my wounds—it all fueled his fame. Sloane’s calculation had lifted Dean to a new level. But as she ripped my scars open to create his trending topic, she likely never considered what my downfall would cost. Or perhaps she did, and simply didn’t care. Because right now, as I lay on the ground in ruins, my eyes locked on hers in the corner of the room. She calmly looked away. It had nothing to do with her.

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The customer I was picking up for this late-night ride was my brother, the one who’d cut ties with me nearly five years ago. I watched the two of them—him, my brother, and the crying girl in his arms—through the small rectangle of the rearview mirror. He was whispering gentle reassurances to her, swaying slightly with the alcohol. “Driver, take us to The Haven at Southwood, number one.” He looked up, and our eyes met. The command choked in his throat. “Iris? Is that… you?” He stared, unable to speak, the tremor in his pupils the only sign of his shock. I said nothing. I put the car in gear and pulled away, driving toward the mansion where I’d spent the first two decades of my life. When we arrived, he sat in stunned silence, a tell-tale redness creeping into the corners of his eyes. “Five years, Iris. Why didn’t you call me? I thought… I thought you were gone.” “Let the past stay the past,” I said, my voice flat. “Come home tomorrow. You’re still the family’s little princess, Anya. Nothing has changed.” I avoided the hand he slowly extended, pulling the surgical mask higher on my face to hide the still-ghastly scars from the accident. “No need,” I said, my tone a chill I hadn’t known I possessed. “We’re strangers now.” 1 Rhys’s hand, the one that used to ruffle my hair, froze mid-air. He pressed his lips into a thin line, his eyes wide with surprise. “Iris, are you still angry with me?” He paused, then forged ahead with the justification I knew by heart. “Look, with the accident, it was simply easier to get Lila out first. And after I got her safe, I immediately called the fire department for you.” I lowered my gaze, masking the desolate void and the corrosive mockery I felt. So, my dearest, most beloved older brother. After saving the girl who joined our family halfway through. You left me locked in the car to face the flames, losing half my face. “Understood. Please complete the payment on the app now. And if you’re satisfied with the service, please leave a five-star rating.” I glanced over, the professionalism in my voice absolute, devoid of any fluctuation. Rhys didn’t move. Instead, he gripped my hand. “Iris, no matter what, you are my sister. After Mom and Dad died, it was just us. We raised each other.” “And that crash… you were also at fault, don’t forget that.” “Lila has been beside herself with guilt since you left. Just come home, okay? Everything is water under the bridge. We can be a family again.” I pulled my thin jacket tighter around my shoulders. The weather wasn’t cold, but a profound chill was running through me. “I see. You want me to apologize to your…” I swallowed, my throat dry. “…to your sister? Fine.” I wrenched my door open, then yanked the back door ajar. As Rhys watched, his eyes wide and trembling, I bent down in a deep bow toward the back seat. “I apologize, Miss. It was all my fault. I was wicked and malicious, and I…” “Stop!” I was bent double, my gaze blurred and fixed on the asphalt. My eyes were burning, but no tears came. Rhys’s roar cut me off. I heard the rapid footfalls, then I was pulled up, stumbling into a familiar, warm embrace. “Iris, don’t do this.” His voice sounded shaky, and the arms holding me were desperately tight. For a brief, dizzying moment, I almost wavered. “You’re my little princess. Iris, how could you let yourself become like this? Where is the proud Anya Reed I knew?” I pushed him away, offering a wry, mocking smile. That pride? He’d shattered it himself. “Proud? Little Princess?” I gave a short, hard laugh. “As of five years ago, we ceased to have any connection whatsoever.” His pupils contracted. He was about to speak again when the drunken woman in the back seat finally stirred. She didn’t recognize me, only whined clingily for Rhys to hold her. “Rhys, my head hurts. I feel sick.” His expression instantly softened, becoming achingly gentle. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her, soothing her back. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’re home in a minute. You’re a good girl.” “Will you ever drink this much again?” Lila shook her head, rubbing her pale cheek against his chest. “Never.” I looked away. The old me would have flown across the seat and dragged Lila out. The me now? I felt absolutely nothing. Except… I looked through the window at my reflection—the part of my face the mask failed to conceal—and then at Lila’s face, which had transformed from its original raw, chapped state into something flawlessly translucent. A sense of dislocation washed over me. Everything had changed, and yet, here we were. Rhys looked back at me. “Iris, wait for me.” With that, he lifted Lila into his arms and carried her through the front door of that achingly familiar house. I let out a cynical chuckle, opened the trunk, and pulled out my compact electric scooter. I drove away into the cold night air. The streets were empty in the pre-dawn hours. The icy wind forced me to think. When I got home, my roommate, Sienna, immediately rushed me. “Iris! Thank you for styling me! I totally slayed that company gala tonight!” I managed a slight curve of my lips. “It’s fine.” She paused, then her face clouded with concern. “Iris, you look upset. What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” I let out a shaky breath, then forced a burst of laughter. It was a hollow sound, masking the sudden clarity. For the first time in five years, I felt an overpowering need to speak. I pulled her down to the couch. “Let me tell you a story.” Rhys was eight years older than me. Our parents died in an accident when I was seven. In the aftermath, a fifteen-year-old Rhys shielded me from the vultures: the bloodsucking relatives, the rebellious shareholders, the media scrutiny. At that funeral, it seemed no one was truly grieving except for him and me. He chased everyone away like a wounded, roaring lion. Then, he held me, my small body convulsing with sobs, and made a vow. “Don’t be afraid, Iris. I’m here. Your brother will always protect you.” I cried myself unconscious in his arms. A girl of eight, suddenly orphaned, I couldn’t sleep. Rhys, exhausted from school and meetings, insisted on holding me every night, singing the lullaby Mom used to sing. We relied solely on each other for nine years. I thought we were each other’s most important person, a bond no one could break. But the year I started high school, everything changed. It began with the first call from Rhys after he’d been gone on a business trip for a full month. “Rhys! Why weren’t you answering my calls?” He paused. “Anya, I’m almost home. And I need to talk to you about something.” I immediately agreed. I knew how hard he worked to take care of me. “Okay, just come home. I was just worried.” But right before he hung up, I frowned. I thought I heard a girl’s voice. Less than half an hour later, I was standing at the front door as the Maybach pulled into the drive. “Rhys!” I ran toward him as I always did. “You’re finally back! I missed you, you—” I stopped dead when I saw the unfamiliar girl sitting in the passenger seat. My smile withered. “Who is this?” Rhys didn’t notice the change in my expression. He reached in, and with infinite tenderness, helped the girl out. “Iris, this is Lila. From now on, she’s Lila Reed. Our sister.” I stood frozen. A buzzing sound filled my ears. “Lila… Reed? Sister? Rhys, what are you talking about?” The girl was timid, her skin rough and darkened, and she looked painfully thin, radiating malnutrition. Rhys patiently explained. “During this trip, I was in a terrible car accident. If it hadn’t been for Lila, I would have died.” “What! You were hurt!” I completely forgot the strange girl, rushing to check him. But his eyes remained fixed on Lila. “She’s an orphan, Iris. From now on, this is her home.” I opened my mouth, but my throat was too dry to form a single word. “Fine,” I forced out. “I’ll take care of her.” Rhys smiled, casually ruffling my hair. Then, he turned and led Lila into the house, leaving me alone in the cold wind. I didn’t know then. That the arrival of this girl would utterly overturn my life. Sienna huddled on the couch, hugging a cushion, her eyes red. “So, that girl… she’s the one who started all of it?” I was silent for a moment. “No. It was both of them.” Under Rhys’s attentive care, Lila quickly shed her timidity. At the same time, her jealousy and subtle antagonism toward me grew more obvious. The next year, after Rhys and I visited our parents’ graves, I returned to school. Everyone looked at me differently. The whispers and stares made me profoundly uncomfortable. The moment I sat down, my desk-mate yelled. “Don’t touch me! Who knows what kind of dirt you’ve caught!” The room erupted in laughter. I froze, confused and uneasy. A girl who was usually nice to me secretly slid her phone over. “Anya, the girl in these pictures… is that you?” I looked down, focusing on the screen, and instantly snatched the phone away, my heart hammering with terror. “That is not me!” On the private school gossip app, a post titled, “High School Queen Exposed as Sugar Baby” was making my mind go blank. The photos were graphic. Some were obvious fakes, but some… had the background of my bedroom. A boy nearby started heckling. “Why wouldn’t it be you? Take a look at this one,” he pointed to a photo in my bedroom. “Someone said this is your house. Anya Reed, who knew? Bringing guys home to play, huh?” “I said, IT’S NOT ME!” I threw the phone back at him, my eyes blazing, silencing him instantly. Then, Lila, who had been silent, suddenly stood up and walked to my side. “Anya! If you did something wrong, just admit it! Everyone will forgive you!” I glared at her. “Did you do this?” Who else could have taken pictures of my bedroom? Who else could have accessed so many photos to Photoshop into that filth? Lila feigned confusion. “Do what? What are you saying, Sis? Don’t worry, no one is going to judge you.” I laughed coldly. And slapped her across the face, hard. “Anya Reed! Stop it right now!” The familiar voice was here, but all the tenderness was gone, replaced by fury and icy detachment. I watched Rhys rush to shield Lila, tenderly stroking her cheek, his face etched with pain. “Are you okay, Lila?” Then he looked at me, his eyes cold and accusing. “Look what you’ve done! Come home with me now!” “Rhys?” My feet felt like lead. Tears immediately flooded my eyes. “You don’t believe me? You think that’s me?” He didn’t hesitate. “Lila told me everything that happened. Anya, have I ever starved you or denied you anything? How could you pull a stunt like this!” “You’ve disgraced Mom and Dad!” That look of utter contempt and coldness shut me down. I opened my mouth to explain, but not a single word emerged. Sienna’s face was scarlet with fury as I spoke. “That bitch!” She looked at me anxiously. “So, Iris, did you ever clear your name?” I offered a cynical, empty smile. “Clear my name? No. He forced me to make a public confession in front of the entire school.” “He made sure everyone knew that I, Anya Reed, was nothing but a tramp.” I remembered kneeling in the main hall, my back rigid and straight. “I told you it wasn’t me! Rhys, everyone can doubt me, but you can’t!” Lila stood next to my brother, offering me a small, victorious smirk. Rage blinded me. I lunged at her. “My family took you in! How dare you!” But before I could touch her, Rhys stepped up, yanked Lila out of the way, and slapped me. The force of the blow snapped my head back. In that moment, all sound vanished. All I could hear was the memory of being eight years old, huddled in my parents’ funeral home, while a drunken, hateful relative harassed and struck us. Rhys had sheltered me, taking the beating. He’d smiled through his bruising face and told me: “Don’t be scared, Iris. With your brother here, no one can lay a finger on you.” That memory shattered, overwritten by the reality before me. I covered my stinging cheek. “Rhys…” I whispered. His hand froze mid-air. He pursed his lips. “Stay there! You will confess in front of the school tomorrow morning!” “I won’t!” I screamed, my voice raw and trembling through my tears. “Lila did this! She set me up!” Rhys’s face darkened completely. He walked to the shelf and retrieved a heavy, polished mahogany paddle, a family heirloom used for extreme discipline. “Still lying!” “Lila is our sister! She’s so kind, why would she hurt you?” “This paddle was passed down from Dad to maintain the honor of the family name. Today, I will educate you in Mom and Dad’s place!” Crack! The paddle sliced through the air and slammed into my back. I screamed, a searing fire spreading across my skin. The pain was so intense I collapsed. “Rhys,” Lila interjected softly. “Stop it. Maybe Anya didn’t mean it.” I dug my hands into the carpet, fighting for consciousness, glaring up at Lila. “Bitch!” Smack! Rhys didn’t stop. The next strike was heavier. “Still no remorse!” I writhed on the floor, the sound of leather hitting flesh ringing in my ears, Lila’s triumphant eyes mocking me from above. I don’t know how long it lasted. After the air filled with the scent of blood, my eyes rolled back, and I finally lost consciousness.

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Donovan was in the center of the ballroom, locked in a slow, intimate dance with his secretary, Sierra Vaughn, when my asthma attack started. Even as I began to gasp, drooling, struggling to breathe, the man I was supposed to marry kept his arms around her, their heads close, sharing a private joke. On the ride home, I found a diamond ring box tucked into the glove compartment. Before I could say a word, Donovan frowned, snatched it up, and said, his voice cold as ice: “It’s not for you.” I simply nodded. Then, I pointed toward the bridal boutique coming up on the next block. “Pull over, please.” The bespoke gown I’d ordered felt like a relic from a different lifetime. It was time to cancel the fitting. 1 I’d barely made it through the door of the boutique before Donovan followed me, slamming a woman’s coat into my face. “Amelia,” he clipped, “for God’s sake, get rid of this awful habit of leaving your trash everywhere.” Donovan had a phobia of clutter. He never allowed a single one of my personal items to remain in his luxury sedan. I glanced at the coat on the floor. “It’s not mine.” At that, his expression softened. He picked up the discarded garment without a hint of disgust and carefully folded it. I knew the coat belonged to Sierra. Every other time Sierra “accidentally” left an item behind, it led to a spectacular, screaming fight between Donovan and me. This time, however, I had nothing to say. No fight left in me. I turned back to the attendant and quietly gave her my phone number. The young woman smiled brightly. “You’ve come at the perfect time! Your custom gown and his tuxedo are both finished. You can try them on now.” Before I could refuse the fitting, the man who had just snapped at me walked into the men’s changing room with a sigh of irritation. Ten minutes later, I stood before Donovan in the white gown. He pulled his mouth into a sneer. “Tacky.” I didn’t argue. Instead, I asked the attendant to take a photo of me. Donovan’s expression was impatient. He was about to put an arm around me for a forced couple’s photo when his phone rang. It was Sierra’s personalized ringtone. The girl on the other end was sobbing, complaining that her favorite jacket was missing. She declared that whoever was kind enough to return it would be rewarded with her undying, eternal devotion. Donovan hung up, didn’t bother to change out of his suit, and strode out of the store. Listening to the sound of his car speeding away, I picked up the shears used for alterations and, without a single moment of hesitation, shredded my wedding dress. It was half past one in the morning. I was cleaning out my personal items when a message popped up. It was from Donovan: [Out drinking] In eight years together, the man had rarely bothered to check in. I glanced at the cleaning gloves on my hands and didn’t reply. After taking out the trash, I had a hot shower and slept a deep, dreamless sleep. Donovan came home the next day just as I was heading out to the trash chute. His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Is your phone broken?” I shook my head. His brow immediately furrowed in that familiar sign of annoyance. I knew why he was asking. In the past, whenever he stayed out late, I would barrage him with texts and calls. But last night, his phone had been eerily silent. As I reached the door, he called out, “Amelia, where are the photos from the living room wall?” I looked down at the garbage bag in my hands. I was about to tell him the truth when his phone buzzed. He bumped my shoulder, walked past me, and pressed the voice-recording button as he headed further inside. “Hold tight, kiddo. I’ll bring it over the minute it’s ready.” Hearing the water running in the bathroom, I continued downstairs to dump the trash. Climbing back up, I felt the familiar dizzying chill of low blood sugar. Sweating and shaky, I stumbled back into the kitchen, grabbed the half-eaten plate of fried eggs and toast from the counter, and took a bite. That’s when I heard Donovan’s voice, thick with resentment: “Amelia, are you a starved stray?” I watched him pick up the plate with my half-bitten toast and drop the entire thing into the kitchen trash. I stared at him, my vision blurring. “I made your food for eight years. When my blood sugar crashes, do I not even deserve to eat a piece of the breakfast you made?” Donovan’s eyes were hard and cold. “Stealing is stealing, regardless of your emergency. Have some manners.” He put on his suit jacket and slammed the door shut behind him. Facing this fresh wave of silent treatment, I automatically grabbed my phone and opened his messaging app. He’d changed his background photo. It was a selfie of Sierra with a goofy cat-ear filter. I tapped the ‘like’ button—a final act of irony—and then unpinned his conversation from the top of my list. 2 Around lunchtime at the office, I was heading into the elevator to meet with my realtor when I ran right into Donovan and Sierra. Sierra’s long hair was a mess, and Donovan was gently pulling it into a ponytail for her. Seeing me, Sierra immediately put her hands on her hips, pouted, and complained: “Amie, you’re just in time. Look at Donovan. He keeps tugging my hair like a little boy. He’s so annoying.” Before I could speak, Donovan affectionately pinched the tip of her nose. “Little one, your nose will grow long if you tell fibs.” After teasing her until she blushed, he finally, reluctantly, looked at me. “Amelia, what a coincidence. Join us for lunch.” We had worked in the same corporate high-rise for five years. Donovan had never once asked me to lunch during a workday. Meanwhile, Sierra posted daily photos of every meal he shared with her on social media. The memory made me smile sadly. “You two go on. I have an appointment.” My refusal caught him off guard. His face darkened just as the elevator jerked violently, plunging us into darkness. I turned on my phone’s flashlight. Donovan was immediately wrapping his arms around Sierra, whispering reassurances. A moment later, the elevator lights flickered back on, and we reached the lobby. Donovan offered to drop me off wherever I was going. Before I could reply, Sierra suddenly collapsed. Donovan shoved me aside without a second thought, hoisted Sierra onto his back, and rushed toward the nearest hospital. I silently picked up my cracked-screen phone, hailed a ride, and went to look at apartments. That evening, Donovan personally delivered a box of pastries to my desk. I had seen Sierra’s new social media post half an hour earlier: [Loving him is like feeding a flower. My baby bought me too many treats, I can’t possibly finish them all!] The photo showed an entire table laden with expensive French desserts. I thanked him but didn’t open the box. A flicker of confusion crossed Donovan’s eyes. “Amelia, why are you being so formal with me?” I didn’t answer directly. “If there’s nothing else, I need to go print some documents.” When I returned from the printer, holding my resignation letter, Donovan was gone. He’d left a sticky note telling me to come to his office upstairs when I was finished. I tore the note off, crumpled it up with the box of pastries, and tossed them both into the recycling bin. I walked into my boss’s office and handed in my notice. He tried to talk me out of it for a long time, but seeing my resolve, he finally accepted it. I just had to finish out the week. At ten that night, Donovan called me while I was having dinner with some colleagues. A male co-worker accidentally picked up the phone. When I finally took the call, Donovan’s voice was terrifyingly cold. “Amelia, where are you this late?” “Out,” I replied. “Send me your location. I’m coming to get you now.” He hung up without waiting for my response. I sent the location and stayed until the restaurant closed. Donovan never showed. I opened Sierra’s social media feed and, sure enough, found a post about her being sick and getting an IV drip at the hospital. I took a cab home, showered, and went to bed. At half-past three in the morning, a travel-worn Donovan violently shook me awake. He said, his voice flat and demanding: “Amelia, I’m starving. Make me a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup.” He hated chicken noodle soup. He never ate it. I knew who was asking for it: Sierra. I tried to pull my arm away, but my fingers brushed against the scar on his hand. Years ago, the school auditorium had caught fire. Without Donovan, I would have been one of the casualties. A bowl of soup for a life saved—I was still coming out ahead. Seeing me quietly put on a robe to head to the kitchen, Donovan grabbed my arm again. For once, his voice held a trace of uncertainty. “Maybe wait until morning, it doesn’t matter right now…” I cut him off, asking softly, “Besides the soup, is there anything else she wants to eat?” After a moment of silence, Donovan slowly released my arm. “No,” he said. “That’s all.” 3 Before sunrise, Donovan stood at the door with a thermal food carrier in his hand. “Amelia,” he said, “I have to go abroad next week. I’ll make time this Saturday to meet your parents for dinner so we can discuss the wedding details…” I cut him off before he could finish. “There’s no need.” Donovan visibly froze. “What are you talking about?” I smiled, making up a smooth lie. “They’re traveling out of state. They won’t be back for a while.” He stared at me, as if he had more to say, but his phone rang—a priority call, I assumed, as he quickly turned and shut the door behind him. Friday, my last day at work. As soon as I walked out of the building, Donovan grabbed me and pulled me into his car. In the exclusive restaurant, Donovan cut my steak for me while asking, “What wine do you want to drink?” I distractedly scrolled on my phone. “You choose.” My inattention made his handsome face tighten. “Who are you texting?” “No one.” Despite my answer, he snatched the phone out of my hand. After scrolling for a minute, his eyes, dark and unreadable, landed on the screen. “When did you change your wallpaper?” For all the years we had been together, my wallpaper had always been a photo of us. Now, it was a picture of my parents’ ridiculously fluffy poodle. Too weary to answer, I simply stood up to go to the restroom. When I returned, Donovan was gone. Suddenly, the restaurant lights dimmed. A server wheeled a cart piled with flowers and a cake slowly toward me. The cart stopped at the table next to mine. At that moment, my phone lit up. It was an automated text: Happy Birthday, Amie. I walked out of the restaurant, passing a familiar, sickeningly sweet female voice: “Whoa! Donovan, you’re so strong! Push me higher, higher!” It was Sierra, shrieking with delight on a swing set outside, begging Donovan to push her higher. Her eagerness was her undoing; she lost her balance and tumbled right into his arms. They stared at each other, eyes locked, smiling, holding each other for a long moment before they noticed me. A flash of unmistakable disappointment crossed Donovan’s face. He looked at me blankly. “Oh, Amie!” Sierra chirped. “This swing is so fun! You should try it…” Halfway through the sentence, she blushed crimson and intentionally dropped her arms from around Donovan’s neck. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Amie. Donovan only hugged me to save me from falling…” Donovan gently ruffled her dark hair, his gaze utterly tender. “Silly girl. You don’t owe her an explanation. All that matters is that you’re not hurt.” After soothing Sierra, he withdrew all the tenderness and looked at me, detached. “All finished eating?” I didn’t answer him. I started walking toward the Ferris wheel nearby. I’d heard a silly rumor that if you made a wish on a Ferris wheel on your birthday, it would come true. Seeing my back, a flash of mockery crossed Sierra’s eyes. She quickly grabbed Donovan and dragged him along. “Ooh, a Ferris wheel! Donovan, I want to ride it, too…” The attendant announced only two seats were left. Donovan didn’t spare me a glance. He took Sierra’s hand and they rushed into the cabin. Twenty minutes later, the ride over, Donovan searched the entire plaza but couldn’t find me anywhere. Eight o’clock that evening. I walked out of the bedroom, carrying a suitcase. I placed a slip of paper with the single word [BREAKUP] written on it under the house keys. And I walked out, not looking back. 4 At eleven o’clock that night, my phone rang. It was Donovan. I was in the living room talking to my parents and didn’t see it. An hour later, he called again. I dimmed the screen, powered off the phone, and went to bed. I slept until noon the next day. When I rebooted my phone, I was surprised to see a dozen missed calls. Feeling a strange pull, I opened my messages. Donovan, who was usually so emotionally closed off, had uncharacteristically sent a string of texts: [What is the key and that note supposed to mean?] [So I missed your birthday? Not answering, not returning texts—are you playing games? Is this fun for you?] [Amelia, I’m giving you one hour to get your ass back here, or don’t bother coming back at all.] The last message was sent three hours ago. A deep sigh of relief left my lungs. I slowly moved my fingers, highlighted his name, and selected Delete & Block. A knock came at my door. After I called out, my mother brought in a mug of warm milk. “Amie, your stomach is delicate. Drink this while it’s hot.” I had shown up on their doorstep last night with a suitcase, and they hadn’t asked a single question, just showered me with their usual care. I hugged my mother’s arm, my nose stinging. “Mom, I found an apartment I like. It’s small, but it’s enough to keep me safe and sound.” My mother smiled. “Then buy it. How much do you need? Your father and I will cover it.” Even though I shook my head, insisting I had the funds, my mother immediately wired me twenty thousand dollars. She said a woman with her own home and savings has real backbone. I immediately called the landlord and scheduled the signing for Monday. That night, my father cooked a feast and bought a buttercream cake to celebrate my belated birthday. Facing the lit candles, I clasped my hands together, making a simple, earnest wish. I wished for my parents’ continued health and happiness. However, moments after I blew out the candles, my phone buzzed with unexpected news. Dozens of messages, all from different people, yet expressing the same thing: [OMG, Amie, congrats on the long-haul win! I’m flying back for the wedding and bringing a giant gift!] [Amelia, wishing you and Donovan a lifetime of happiness!] … As I stared at the flurry of congratulations, a notification popped up: Donovan Reed requests to be your friend. [Amelia, I announced our engagement on social media. You’ve achieved what you wanted. You’ve had your little tantrum.] The word “tantrum” made me laugh, a sharp, bitter sound. Who, exactly, was throwing a tantrum now? I recalled that my mother had once asked me to introduce her to Donovan online, but he had always ignored the request. Now, I was grateful for his disregard. If this farce reached her, she’d be up all night worrying. Calmly, I replied to all the well-wishers, informing them I had broken up with Donovan. Then, I posted a new public update on my long-neglected social media feed: [Single and ready to mingle. Rumors are false. I have no boyfriend.] Donovan called less than two minutes after the post went up. I ignored it. He called relentlessly. I finally pulled up his contact and hit Block Number. The world went quiet. I lay on the soft, comfortable bedding, put on my headphones, and closed my eyes to listen to music. Monday arrived. After eating my mother’s loving brunch, I was on time at the property management center. Just as the landlord and I were about to sign the contract, the older man’s phone rang unexpectedly. A few seconds into the call, the landlord looked at me with confusion and hesitantly handed me his phone. “Ms. Stone, this person is asking for you.” I knew Donovan was well-connected, but I never imagined the usually detached, rational man would extend his reach this far just to force me to take his call. I found a quiet corner and spoke, irritation finally breaking through my calm. “Donovan, don’t you ever stop?” My cold, impatient tone startled him into silence. After a pause, he asked in a low voice: “Amelia, why are you telling people you’re single?” “Because it’s true.” Donovan scoffed. “Leaving a key and a ridiculous note makes you single? Amelia, I’m begging you. You’re almost thirty. Can you act like an adult? We’re engaged. We’ll be married soon, just like you always wanted. If you keep acting like this, how are people supposed to show up for our wedding?” I pressed my fingers to my forehead to suppress a laugh. “There won’t be a wedding.” “What does that even mean?” Donovan let out a cold snort. “You’re not seriously going through with the breakup, are you?” I looked down and replied with absolute finality: “Yes. We are breaking up.” He fell silent. I could hear the background noise on his end—I knew he was at the airport, about to board a flight. 5 I glanced at the landlord nearby, who was anxiously watching, afraid the deal might fall through. I was about to hang up when Donovan’s tone suddenly softened. “Amelia, I know you’re furious because I forgot your birthday. I admit it was my fault. When I get back from taking Sierra abroad for her treatment, I promise I’ll make it up to you.” I listened to him finish, then replied blandly: “You’ve misunderstood. I’m not angry, and I don’t need compensation. You just need to know this: you and I are already over.” I hung up, returned the phone to the landlord, and told him to block the number if it called again. After signing the purchase agreement and completing the paperwork, I soon received the deed to my new home. I took a photo for posterity, then immediately left to meet a friend. I had a pleasant evening and arrived home around ten. I volunteered to take the dog out for his last walk of the night. As I pushed open the glass door to the lobby, a tall, familiar figure blocked my path. It was a travel-worn Donovan. “Amelia…” I tightened the dog’s leash and took a small step back, my face rigid. “Don’t come any closer.” Pained by my coldness, Donovan ignored my request and frowned, closing the distance. He started to speak, but our little dog went into full attack mode, snarling and snapping at him. Donovan didn’t seem to notice. He kept pressing forward, backing me into a corner. Standing against the lobby light, he stared at me, his gaze cold and unwavering. He said, “We need to talk this through. I don’t want any misunderstandings between us.” I frowned. “There’s nothing to talk about.” He put his fist on the wall, trapping me completely. “Amelia, have you forgotten we’re getting married? You think you can dismiss eight years with a flimsy breakup note? What do you take me for?” His furious, grinding tone left me utterly speechless. I tried twice to push him away, but he didn’t budge. The dog’s frantic barking was now loud enough to turn on the lights on several floors of the stairwell. Unwilling to alarm my parents, I finally conceded. Half an hour later. At a nearby twenty-four-hour coffee shop, Donovan ordered two black Americanos. He slid one, unsweetened and extra ice, toward me. “See, Amelia? I remember what you like.” I blinked, suppressing a bitter smile. Everyone who knew me, from my parents to my friends, knew I couldn’t stand bitterness. We only kept black coffee in the house because he liked it. The extra ice was simply my way of watering it down to make it palatable. In less than two days, the man had become surprisingly talkative. Before I could reply, he continued to ramble. “I apologize again for your birthday. I was swamped with work and mixed up the dates. I thought it was next month. But I already bought you the perfect gift.” He pulled a small, velvet box from his suit pocket. Seeing I made no move to open it, he pursed his lips and opened the box himself, revealing a pair of dazzling, expensive crystal drop earrings.

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Five years into my marriage with Grant Holloway, heir to the Holloway Group, we were still just a signature on a document. I knew the truth: his heart belonged to someone else—a woman who was less a person and more a sacred, untouchable shrine. That shrine was Sierra Cole, the younger sister of his deceased platoon brother, Patrick Cole. The rule was: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, he was home. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, he was with Sierra. He never once kept his side of the bargain. Five years, and I had never truly had him alone. The world called me ‘The Saint of Highbury.’ Mrs. Holloway Sr., Grant’s mother, called me a disgrace for failing to keep my own husband home, dragging the Holloway name through the mud. Until that evening. I passed his study and heard him speaking to his assistant, his tone utterly casual: “If Izzy comes looking for me, tell her something came up. A last-minute board meeting. Something easy.” A slight chuckle. “Sierra’s been having a rough couple of days. If I don’t go, she won’t sleep.” No tears. No confrontation. Just a terrifying calm. I found the old burner phone I’d kept hidden for five years and sent a single text: “Five years ago you said if I was ever truly unhappy, you’d come for me. Do you still mean it?” 1 The phone, unused for so long, died the second the message was delivered. I sank onto the bedroom carpet, the image from the study flashing behind my eyes. Grant leaning back against his mahogany desk, speaking to his assistant with easy indifference: “Just give her an excuse. Izzy never pushes. Patrick died saving my life. Sierra is all alone in the world, a fragile woman. I owe them that debt.” In that instant, every lonely night, every dinner that went from warm to cold, became a sliver of glass piercing my lungs. Staring at the empty bedroom, my chest constricted, making it nearly impossible to breathe. He had never spent a single night here. Whenever he returned from her place, he’d bring a gift, a peace offering. Everything from a rare vintage perfume to the custom-made jade bracelet he’d bid for at an exclusive auction. I used to think they were his quiet, awkward attempts at tenderness. Now I knew. They weren’t acts of affection. They were receipts for his guilt. Proof of his absence. I swept my arm across the dresser, sending the expensive bottles and boxes crashing to the marble floor. The door flew open. Grant strode in, stopping dead at the sight of the glittering wreckage. “What the hell are you doing?” I didn’t turn around. I just held onto my shaking voice, forcing out the calmest question I could find: “It’s Monday, Grant. Are you staying?” The air froze. Grant’s eyes darted away before settling on my hand. He knelt, taking it in his own. “Something really urgent came up tonight, Izzy. Next time. I promise, next time I’ll stay.” Looking at the perfect features of his face, so close to mine, a fresh wave of pain hit me. “Grant, I’m your wife. But for five years, Sierra Cole has been living like your bride.” The dam of five years’ worth of hurt finally broke, rushing out. He knelt there, gently wiping away the tears streaming down my face. “Patrick died saving my life, Izzy. You know Sierra’s depression is severe. If I don’t go, she really could do something drastic.” He looked utterly sincere. I only felt a glacial coldness spread through me. I was about to push him away when his phone pinged. A voice note from Mrs. Holloway Sr.: “Dinner tonight at the estate. We need to discuss you and Isabelle finally providing the family with an heir.” My heart plummeted. My inability to conceive had been a consistent point of contention for his mother. She had publicly called me an infertile hen and had once gone on a hunger strike to force Grant to divorce me. He’d only stopped her by kneeling outside her bedroom door for three days. Grant squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll go with you.” The words were barely out before Sierra’s call came through: “Grant? My stomach hurts so badly. Can you come over?” He dropped my hand instantly. His face was a mask of strained apology. “Izzy, Sierra’s situation is delicate. Go have dinner with my mother, and I’ll come collect you later.” He turned and practically ran out the door. My vision blurred with tears. Grant never showed up that night. I endured Mrs. Holloway Sr.’s barbed insults alone, catching the whispers of the staff in the hallway: “Young people are just different, aren’t they? The cleaning lady said she saw at least half a dozen used wrappers in the trash at the other house yesterday…” “Five years and not a flicker in the Rhodes-Holloway line. That poor saintly wife is going to be replaced before Christmas, I bet.” I bit down hard on my lower lip, letting the words pierce me like needles. He had sworn, on bended knee before both our families, that he would always cherish me. Everyone envied me, saying I had married my soulmate. But on our wedding night, his unit showed up, their faces grim. “She tried to overdose, Grant. You have to go.” He had knelt there in the hallway of our bridal suite, his eyes red. “Izzy, I know I owe you everything, but this is a debt to Patrick. I can’t leave her.” “Trust me. Just let her get stable, and then we can start our life. Just wait for her, Izzy. Please.” Seeing his pain, I had relented. For five years, I had kept an empty house, managed his family’s affairs, and played the dutiful wife. Tonight, I finally understood that every night he’d claimed to be working late, he had been in the arms of another woman. I dried my tears and signed the divorce papers I’d prepared. The ink was barely dry when the doorbell chimed. I opened the door, and Sierra shoved past me, waltzing straight in. She looked around the room with exaggerated pity. “Oh, wow. It’s so… quaint. Not exactly the master suite I pictured for the Holloway heir.” I capped my pen. “Do you need something?” She let out a soft, mocking laugh, dropping the neck of her top just enough to reveal a purple shadow near her collarbone. “Look what your husband did to me, Izzy. Begged him to stop last night, but he just wouldn’t. Oh, right. I forgot. You wouldn’t know what that feels like, would you, sister-in-law? Poor thing.” I clenched my fists so tight my nails cut into my palms. When I didn’t answer, the false pity vanished. Her voice turned hard. “Isabelle Rhodes. For five years, Grant would rather handle things himself than come home to you, even when I’m on my period. Don’t you get it? Be smart. File for divorce and walk away empty-handed.” I slowly stood up and pulled the front door wide open. “Are you finished? Get out.” Her eyes flashed with pure malice. She grabbed my wrist and, before I could react, slammed it hard into her own stomach. She let out a piercing scream, collapsing to the floor. “My baby! It hurts!” The bedroom door burst open. Grant was there, charging in. He didn’t ask. He didn’t hesitate. He kicked my legs out from under me, sending me sprawling. He rushed to Sierra, who was sobbing uncontrollably. “Sierra, are you okay? What happened?” She clung to him, tears streaming. “Grant, the baby… will our baby be okay?” When Grant looked up at me, his eyes were blazing with savage fury. Before I could regain my footing, he backhanded me across the face, the force of the blow snapping my neck back. “Izzy! How could you be this vicious! Patrick died for me. I put up with you giving her cold shoulders, but now you attack her? She’s carrying the only heir Patrick’s family will ever have! Why can’t you just be the bigger person for once!” My cheek stung, but the pain was distant. I looked at him, my voice a broken whisper. “She… she’s carrying your child?” Watching him gently cup Sierra’s trembling stomach, a lance of pain shot through my heart, stealing my breath. Grant’s gaze was icy. “If anything happens to her or the baby, I will never forgive you.” Perhaps sensing the severity of his words, he paused, his eyes falling on the red thread talisman around my neck. “Take that off,” he commanded. “It’ll be an apology, a sign of respect, to ease Sierra’s shock.” The thread. I recoiled violently, instinctively clutching the silk cord around my throat. “No! This is my mother’s relic! She used her dying wish to get this for me!” I screamed. “Grant! What about the promises you made her on her deathbed?” He faltered for a moment, his brow furrowed, but his impatience only grew. “You’re my wife now. Everything you own is mine. It’s a ridiculous piece of string. Is it more important than human life?” He reached out, his grip bruising as he clamped onto my neck and violently ripped the thread off. I stumbled and fell, scrambling to snatch it back, but he shoved me away again. “Give it back!” My mother had been violently opposed to the marriage. Grant had spent three months by her bedside, tending to her, until he finally knelt before her, swearing: “Madam, I will cherish Izzy more than my own life. As long as I live, she will never know a day of sorrow.” My mother, finally yielding, had used her last strength to tie the talisman around my neck, watching him with her failing eyes. He knew better than anyone what that thread represented. Sierra, watching the scene, casually took the thread from Grant, examining it with disdain. Then, with a bored flick of her wrist, she tossed it out the open window. “No!” I lunged for the window, my body half-out the frame, desperately searching for the fluttering red silk. Grant stood still, then his face hardened. “Izzy, it’s a piece of trash. Let it go. Stop this hysteria. You’ll upset Sierra and the baby.” He ignored my look of complete devastation, wrapping his arm around Sierra. “Don’t be scared. I’ll take you to the clinic now. We can’t risk any trauma to the baby.” The red thread was gone, carried away by the wind. The wind burned my tear-swollen eyes, but no more tears would come. I simply whispered: “Divorce me, Grant.” The air solidified. Grant spun around, his expression incredulous. “You want to divorce me over a piece of worthless string?” I slowly pulled myself upright, smoothed my wind-tousled clothes, and picked up the signed divorce papers from the desk. I met his gaze, my voice steady now. “Yes.” His shock turned instantly to volcanic rage. “Izzy Rhodes, you’ve lost your mind! Don’t forget, if you leave the Holloway family, you have nowhere to go! You’re infertile, you haven’t worked in five years. Who would ever want you now? You’re the woman Grant Holloway was bored with!” He snatched the agreement and tore it into confetti. “Divorce? Dream on!” He shoved past me, delicately supporting Sierra as they walked out. I stumbled against the sharp edge of the coffee table, a searing pain shooting through my ribs. Grant didn’t look back. I heard his voice, tender and low, directed at Sierra: “Sierra, once the baby is here, we’ll give him the Cole name. I’ll make sure he’s well provided for. I won’t fail Patrick in this. And if Izzy ever gives you trouble again, you call me. I won’t go easy on her.” Listening to that, I turned to the window, seeing my own battered, defeated reflection in the glass. I let out a low, shaky laugh. Three days. That was the window. With or without his signature, I was leaving. But late that night, I was woken by a searing jolt of heat. Grant was standing over me, his hand clamped around my throat, his eyes filled with murderous intent. “Izzy! Didn’t I warn you to stay in line!” I thrashed beneath him, struggling to breathe. “Poison? I don’t know what you’re talking about…” He released my neck and violently dragged me out to the car, speeding to the hospital. He threw me to my knees on the cold marble of the hospital hallway, outside Sierra’s room. “Kneel there! Wait until Sierra wakes up and apologize to her face!” A sharp, dizzying pain shot through me, and my vision tunneled. The door to the room suddenly burst open. Sierra, holding a small paring knife, lunged at me. “You murderer! Give me back my baby!” I scrambled to evade her, but the blade still sank deep into my side. A gasp of agony tore from me. Clutching my bleeding wound, I looked to Grant. There was a time when he would have rushed me to the ER for a simple papercut. Now, though I was bleeding freely, he was merely adjusting his cufflink. “You owe her this, Izzy. It’s not fatal. Just get it over with.” I was too weak to speak, my eyes locked on his cold face. Sierra’s eyes were wild. She pulled the knife out and stabbed again. Once. Twice. Warm blood pooled beneath me. I retched, spitting up a mouthful of blood, collapsing onto the marble. Only then did Grant step in, seizing the deranged Sierra. “Sierra, that’s enough. She’s been punished. We can’t have a scene like this—it’s bad luck for the baby.” She burrowed into his chest, sobbing hysterically. “But she almost killed our child! Grant, if you keep protecting her, I’m taking this baby and going to join Patrick!” With that, she turned the knife, pointing it at her pregnant belly. “Sierra! Stop!” Grant’s old unit, having rushed in, tore the knife from her hand. The hulking man in the lead backhanded me with brutal force. “You absolute monster! Can’t have your own kid, so you try to murder the last heir of Patrick Cole’s line!” “Let’s teach this bitch a lesson! Make her slap herself! Don’t stop until she’s bleeding!” My ears were ringing. I saw a flicker of hesitation in Grant’s eyes, but it was immediately replaced by a chilling calm. “Izzy. You need to accept the punishment. Sierra is a fallen hero’s kin. You’ve gone too far.” He nodded to his men. “Get the knuckle dusters. She needs a wake-up call.” The steel was quickly produced. Grant roughly grabbed my hand, forcing my fingers into the tight metal rings. I grabbed his pants leg, my voice shaking. “I swear, it wasn’t me… Please, believe me…” “Still lying?!” He kicked my hand away. Two men pinned me against the wall, one grabbing my hair to hold my head steady as they forced my hand to strike my own face. Sierra, nestled safely in Grant’s arms, shrieked. “Harder! One thousand slaps! Don’t stop until she breaks!” My cheek swelled instantly, splitting open. Blood and tears blurred my vision. I bit my tongue to keep from losing consciousness. The pain on my face was nothing compared to the agony in my heart. When the one-thousandth slap landed, I was kicked to the wall, left like garbage. The cold radiating from the floor seemed to draw the life out of me. I woke up later to find myself back at the villa. Grant was sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully dabbing the gash on my forehead. He set the cotton swab down, his voice betraying nothing. “Sierra’s baby is fine, and she’s calmer now. Once the child is born, I won’t need to see her as much. I can come straight home from work.” My heart plummeted, the familiar constriction returning. I weakly pushed his hand away, a hollow, cynical smile twisting my lips. “Five years, Grant, five entire years. She called, and you abandoned everything, every time. You keep claiming this debt to Patrick. Does that debt require you to give her your whole life? Your whole life, Grant? And now, a child?” Grant’s eyes flickered, avoiding my gaze. He placed the ointment on the nightstand, his voice flat, but with an unshakeable certainty. “Izzy, I know you’re hurt. But Patrick squeezed my hand just before he died and only said, ‘The Coles and my sister are your responsibility now.’ I have to provide his family with an heir.” “Starting tomorrow, you’ll rest at home. I’ve already contacted your office—you’ve resigned. Sierra will take over your duties at the charity. You need to relax.” Fighting back a surging wave of nausea, I finally asked the question that had poisoned my marriage for half a decade. “Grant. All those odd-numbered days, those Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays you never came home… you weren’t busy, were you? You just didn’t want to be here. You never loved me.” Grant was silent. The concrete air thickened. Then, I heard the word I had spent five years dreading. The word that finally broke me completely. “Yes.” Even though I had been preparing for it, hearing Grant say it shattered the last pieces of me. “Why? Five years. You watched me be humiliated, slandered, pointed at, and you never said a word to defend me.” Grant reached out to touch my face, his voice sickeningly gentle. “Izzy, you know you’re the only one I want. My duty to Sierra was only because her brother saved my life. Once the baby is here, it’s all over. We can start our own family, just us. Okay?” I jerked my head away from his touch, bile rising in my throat. “You disgust me.” “Grant Holloway, I want a divorce.” His face instantly turned cold. His eyes became venomous, his mouth twisted into a cruel smirk. “Fine. You’re a piece of work, Izzy. The whole city knows you as my woman. You think I’ll let you divorce me and let the Holloway name become a joke?” “You want to play this game? You stay here. No phone, no communication with anyone. Let’s see how long your little rebellion lasts.” He slammed the door behind him. I collapsed onto the bed, silent tears tracing the lacerations on my face. In the days that followed, Grant took my phone and cut off all communication. I could only track the rising and setting of the sun to count the time until the day I had planned to leave. Only one day left. The Cole family hosted a grand celebration for Sierra’s pregnancy, where Grant was formally accepted as an honorary son. In the villa, I quickly packed my few belongings. The zipper on my suitcase was barely closed when the door was kicked open. “Grant, what are you doing?” My heart seized. “Sierra’s vintage sapphire bracelet—Patrick’s heirloom—is missing. The maid said you were in her room this morning. You’re trying to stress her out to cause a miscarriage, aren’t you!” His accusation sent a chill deep into my bones. “What are you talking about? I haven’t left this house.” But Grant roughly seized my arm and dragged me straight to the Cole estate. Mr. Cole was seated at the head of the table, and Sierra was weeping into a handkerchief beside him. The maid instantly pointed an accusing finger at me. “It was her! I saw her leaving Miss Cole’s room this morning! She’s jealous of Miss Cole’s pregnancy because she can’t have children herself!” Mr. Cole was furious. “Grant, is this true?” My breath caught. “I haven’t left the house in days! I haven’t spoken to anyone!” Sierra immediately wailed, burying her face in her hands. “Sister Izzy, if you want me to lose this baby, just say so! But please, don’t steal my brother’s last memory!” Mrs. Cole’s face darkened. “Patrick died to save you, Grant, leaving us without an heir. Now that Sierra is finally pregnant, you’re letting this woman try to destroy us again?” Mr. Cole slammed his fist on the table. “Grant Holloway! You will give us an answer now!” Grant’s eyes showed a brief flicker of internal struggle. Then, his face hardened. “Izzy, show them the jewelry.” When I remained silent, he picked up the antique riding crop from the nearby mantle and dipped it into a bowl of salt water. My face went white. I grabbed his sleeve, screaming. “You believe them? Just based on their accusations?” Grant’s body stiffened, a brief look of doubt crossing his face. Sierra instantly let out a choked sob. “Grant… I feel so dizzy…” In an instant, Grant ripped his arm away from me. The riding crop came down with a vicious crack. “Confess!” My heart plunged to a depth from which it could never return. Pushed to the floor, the brine-soaked leather cut through the air. Crack! The blinding pain was overwhelming. Grant had no pity. He only ordered Sierra to turn away. “Don’t look, you’ll scare the baby.” Through the agonizing blur, I saw the fireworks on the Fourth of July, the year he held my hand and promised: “If I can spend my life with you, I will never let you go.” Crack! The second strike. I remembered the year a hurricane trapped me on a business trip, and he drove a thousand miles through the storm to bring me home. Crack! The third. The time I had a high fever, and he sat by my bed all night, his eyes red with worry, saying: “When you hurt, I hurt more.” Strike after strike, blood seeped into the polished wood floor. The heart that had burned so fiercely for him shattered, piece by excruciating piece. The stares of the wealthy guests felt like a thousand pins. Pity, scorn, schadenfreude. The once-glorious Rhodes heiress was being stripped of her final dignity in front of the entire city. Just before my consciousness completely dissolved, a voice, impossibly weak but crystal clear, echoed in the silent hall. “Grant Holloway… we are done.” He gave no answer. He simply gestured to a bodyguard to drag me out. As I felt the darkness closing in, a clean scent of cedar and sea salt suddenly cut through the brine and the blood. A pair of strong arms carefully lifted my broken body.

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